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markantonys · 7 months

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My Mom Reacts To: wheel of time season 2 episodes 1-4 (season 1)

episode 1

"if i had to carry water all that way for a bath, i'd get a smaller bathtub" you know what? that is a very fair point. just get a smaller tub, moiraine!

mom, #1 Lan Stan: so, he doesn't have any powers, right? except cunning and strength and loyalty of course me: of course

mom: so liandrin wants nynaeve to become red because she........doesn't want her to have a warder? me doing a great aes sedai truth-telling: nynaeve is really powerful so liandrin wants to recruit her for her own team

my dad predicted moiraine was scamming bayle domon and loved it when it was revealed that she was. as always, not too much commentary from him because he remains silent and seems to not be paying attention for most of the time, only to randomly come out with a completely correct prediction or read on a scene.

"i don't think it's true that neat and tidy things can't be worthwhile 🙄" clearly my mom subscribes more to the Egwene School Of Thought than to the Alanna School Of Thought

lan to moiraine after she is Mean to him: make dinner yourself mom: GOOD FOR YOU

when lan brings her the plate later and puts it on top of the maps: "what if he gets greasy food all over her maps?"

"ugh i hate dark scenes where i can't see anything" [scary fade appears] "okay maybe it's good that i can't see"

episode 2

my mom got all confused about rand's dream of him killing his friends and wondered at first if it was real, please pray for her when tel'aran'rhiod is introduced later

"HE'S BALD??????" all of us when we first saw s2 rand's new look djkfgjh

"they must like him here if he gets free food" my boy, beloved wherever he goes :')

she wasn't particularly fond of mat last season, but he's gotten quite a few laughs so far this season! (notably the moment when we ALL fell in love with New Mat, when he was miming liandrin locking the door)

she gave an annoyed TUH! at elayne dissing egwene's room, but didn't comment further, possibly because i'd just told her 20 seconds earlier that elayne was my favorite character and she didn't want to offend me jdkfgh

she was like "wait, is she blue or green???" during a scene where alanna was wearing a slightly-darker-than-normal green outfit, so i think it was definitely a good call by the show to dress aes sedai in their ajah colors always. hard to keep track otherwise!

after moiraine had her hand on her knife when verin revealed she knew about the dragon: "what was she gonna do?? just stab her right in front of all the others??? that's ridiculous!" djkfjg points were made! poor moiraine just kinda panicked and lost all her braincells for a moment there.

my mom was a randgwene shipper last season so i thought she was gonna be pissed about rand hooking up with a strange new woman whilst egwene mourns his death, but she has not said a single word about that situation yet! i did once catch her reading lanfear's wiki article which she'd gotten onto after reading lan's because "i just want to know what happens to him and i'm not going to read all those books" so maybe she retained some info from lanfear's article that made her suspect something fishy with selene?

she recognized min from s1 right away and hastened to add her to her handwritten character list, when other characters needed a couple scenes to get that honor, and i remember she laughed a lot at min's lines last season and she did again today. guys, if my mom becomes a min stan, i may never recover lmao (i'm mostly kidding, show!min has done nothing wrong and is cool. MOSTLY kidding.)

re: the list, i told her she wasn't allowed to google and print out a list of characters because she would see spoilers, only to accidentally spoil her myself last season by instinctively writing liandrin's name down in the "bad guys" column and making her ask "wait, so she's ACTUALLY a villain, not just mean??", rip (but i played it off as "oh she's just unfriendly to moiraine so that's why i put her there" so we shall see whether or not she ends up being surprised by the black ajah reveal)

when min was saying how she sees glimpses of the pattern, my mom made a connection to perrin seeing the past earlier, which i thought was very interesting! (since we hadn't yet learned that what he saw was actually a sending from the wolves.) min's viewings and wolfbrothers are the two major magical powers that have nothing to do with the one power, and it always minorly bugged me that they don't Fit In to the rest of the magic system (despite my apparently-hypocritical mocking of people who get hung up on lore rules etc haha), so i just thought it was neat to think of them in conjunction with each other.

mom, shocked and dismayed: MAT'S GOING TO KILL RAND???????? me: [vibrating with glee over The Great Cauthor Stabbening]

when nynaeve is taken to the arches: "so is she getting a promotion?"

there was some line during the moiraine-lan divorce that got a big offended gasp from our #1 Lan Stan, but i forget which one it was (it wasn't "we were never equals" it was an earlier one)

my dad just laughed when they first showed suroth and her redonkulus getup jkjfg the correct reaction to the pomp and ceremony of seanchan high blood

episode 3

when the aes sedai were saying nynaeve was ready to take the test my mom was like "NO SHE ISN'T!!!!" and was pressed about them rushing her into it

during the bandit attack in the test: "boy, i wouldn't want to live in this world!"

when nynaeve left the tower my mom was like "is this what happens in the books?!" and i couldn't reveal yet that it was still part of the test so i just instinctively said "you'll see" which is my response to everything, and she was like "no i won't, i'm not reading all these books" lmao

my dad during the version of mashiara playing during the lanaeve reunion: why is "somewhere over the rainbow" playing

sheriam: she wasn't ready mom: THAT'S WHAT I SAID!!!!!!!!!!!

she was genuinely very upset for a moment because she thought nynaeve was dead, but i think she then guessed pretty quickly that It Ain't Over Yet

scene transition from nynaeve being left in the arches over to the seanchan: "we're going from bad to worse!"

i was dithering over uno's impending death because i didn't want to spoil them but i thought my mom might want a trigger warning, and thankfully my dad went "that horn looks like it's in a dangerous spot" when they first made uno kneel, so i was all clear to say "yeah this is about to get gory" lmao

my dad wondered if suroth was the dark one which fascinated me! i think everyday negroes had the same thought, iirc. i guess it IS the logical conclusion when you know that ishy is the dark one's right-hand man and in this scene we see him being suroth's right-hand man!

my mom thought elayne might be evil or a spy! how could she! i guess she isn't accustomed to wheel of time strangers just being friendly without an ulterior motive djkfg i didn't outright say her theory was wrong because i'm not about to be a booksplainer, but i'm sure i was so visibly baffled at the idea of elayne being evil that i shot down the theory nonetheless haha

when liandrin goes to visit mat again: "how does she have time for all this? she has her sick son, she has mat, and she has whatever else she does at the tower"

when liandrin blames mat for nynaeve's death: "this lady is CRAZY!!"

mat's "is that an 'i'm here to murder you' stare or a 'light i never realized how handsome you are' stare" line was a big hit! love to see my boy getting some appreciation in this house

...............which he promptly squandered when he a) initially left his cell without freeing min too, and b) did not go comfort egwene. but i pointed out that liandrin's been psychologically tormenting him for months into thinking his friends are better off without him, because i couldn't bear to see them judge my boy!

"it's like we're in 18th century france!" was the first thing out of my mom's mouth when they went to the cairhienin party, i'm sure the costume designers would be thrilled!

mom: how did this lady from the poor district get them into a fancy party? and how could she afford these clothes? 🤨 me: 🤷👀

when logain pours out the wine: "AFTER ALL RAND'S HARD WORK TO GET IT!!"

why did my dad laugh when the inn was on fire jdkfg maybe he just likes to see rand have a bad time

mom: jeez, maybe rand shouldn't stay in other people's houses anymore me: i'm sure rand's thinking the same thing

mom at the end of the test: it's so sad that they keep getting glimpses of the nice lives they could've had 😔

episode 4

mom 2 seconds before the camera reveals who the visitor is: is her little sister moiraine? [camera shows moiraine] mom: I GUESSED SOMETHING FOR ONCE

"it's pretty rude to show up to someone's house and then say 'i don't have time to hang out with you'!"

selene: the fire wasn't your fault rand mom: well it kinda was actually

there was some moment where my dad referred to "sneezing and burning down an inn, or whatever he did" and it killed me, i wish i could remember the context bc it was even funnier in context

"i speak with the amyrlin every time i open my mouth" was also a hit! as was perrin asking if he would turn into a wolf and elyas saying "don't be stupid"

mom when moiraine waltzes into the foregate dressed to the nines: i thought she wanted to keep a low profile

just earlier that day we'd been bemoaning the lack of pockets in women's clothing, as one does, so my mom was like "[delighted] now THAT'S a pocket!" when moiraine fit a whole-ass knife into the pocket of her fancy dress. WOT costumers understand the importance of giving girls pockets! lanfear's outfits have a lot too

my dad said "she seems like a bad guy" about selene during the mountaintop scene, he been knew! but he ended up falling asleep and missing the reveal that he was right

meanwhile, mom: "i'm just waiting for a monster to crawl up that cliff and get them"

when alanna & co go through lan's bags to get the poem: "aww, i thought they were his friends! 😔"

mom: too bad moiraine won't just ask her sister about rand, she talked to him at the party! anvaere: so if you want to know where that redheaded boy is, you'll have to ask me very nicely over tea mom: [just as smug as anvaere]

when ishy shows up at min's room: "how is he EVERYWHERE????"

she didn't seem TOO surprised when liandrin attacked the girls, and she clocked that liandrin was working for ishy after this scene with min (or rather, she asked me if that was the case and i said "you'll see")

she let out the fondest chuckle when rand was like "[choking back tears] i'm going to leave now, thank you" he is BABY YOUR HONOR!!!

as the Lanfear Reveal started my mom said "i just knew she was evil" so that must be why she was so silent on the relationship and so un-judgmental of rand, she must've clocked selene's Bad Vibes from the start! or else she retained something from reading lanfear's wiki article a while back lmao

even so, she went "OH MY GOSH!!!!" and clapped her hands over her mouth in shock when moiraine slit lanfear's throat, which i think is one of her biggest reactions to anything in either season so far! the initial stabbing, zero reaction, but the followup throat-slitting, freakout.

the "i'm a monster too" line + Undead Lanfear Moment has her CONVINCED that forsaken are some kind of creatures or zombies, i'm trying to explain they're just humans who are really powerful and evil haha

at the final shot of lanfear: "i'm going to have nightmares! i'll have to go read my murder mystery to calm down before bed." duality of woman

#wot #wot on prime #the wheel of time #wot show spoilers #i forgot how comparatively slow-paced and calm the first half of the season feels #so i can't WAIT to see the reactions to the second half when shit's hitting the fan 24/7

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clarenecessities · 8 days

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why toyguru's an idiot pt. 2

Okay, let's try this again. This is the second part of my little breakdown of the situation, and I'm actually going to lead with a video I reference midway through bc like... well, it's a good video. No sense burying it under a readmore. It's about 40 minutes, but it's got very concrete examples of just how much copyright infringement we've all been committing like, daily.

youtube

This is the part where I addressed some of the arguments I saw while picking fights in YouTube comment sections, like a well-adjusted adult does. Mostly the common ones, but a few special exceptions. Looking at this now I think I may have been a little too vague in some of my answers, but Part Three is shaping up to be a fucking doozy so I guess that'll be remedied eventually.

Alright, before I get into the YouTube Comments Arguments section I wanna go over a couple other things I found that I (still not a lawyer) think show precedent for Scott's use being infringement rather than fair use. Haven't looked into too many individual cases yet, but I've been flipping through Title 17 and I've found a few interesting caveats which may or may not be supported by the cases I haven't gotten around to reading yet (guess we'll see). Let's start with Brammer v. Violent Hues Productions, LLC No. 18-1763 (4th Cir. Apr. 26, 2019). A film festival, Violent Hues, used a photograph by Russell Brammer which showed the Adams Morgan neighborhood in DC. Brammer reached out to ask for compensation, and while Violent Hues removed the infringing content from their website, they refused to compensate the plaintiff.

The court found the first factor, the purpose and character of the use, weighed against fair use because the use was not transformative. Unlike technological or documentary uses that involve contextual change, Violent Hues used the photograph precisely for its content, that is, to depict Adams Morgan. Although Violent Hues claimed that its use provided film festival attendees with “information” regarding Adams Morgan, this use “would not be hindered if it had to comply with Brammer’s copyright.” Further, using the photograph to illustrate a website promoting a for-profit festival without paying for a license was commercial use. In addition, because the defendant, at best, acted negligently, the panel rejected the district court’s finding that Violent Hues’ use was in “good faith.” - Copyright Office Index's summary of the case

Scott's use of Ethan's (and, remember, others') images, as I outlined in my first post, is not transformative in any way. While he may be offering commentary, it is not on the photographs themselves, and the purpose of the pictures he uses is the same as the photographers' (at least in Ethan's case)—an artistic, clear, and aesthetically pleasing depiction of the figures. As Violent Hues claimed its use of the picture provided "information", Scott's representative claimed that the "images used are instrumental in illustrating these subjects more effectively", which would be a function even less hindered by complying with copyright. In a parallel to Brammer v. Violent Hues, the pictures were instead being used to illustrate a channel promoting a for-profit company. I concur with the court's finding that negligence is incompatible with good faith, because the only 'good faith' argument to be made is directly laid out in 17 U.S.C. § 504(2) (bear with me), and Scott did not have reasonable cause to believe that his usage was protected. He made assumptions, didn't question them, and then told his subscribers he was totally protected, like a ninny. Further,

[...] the court concluded that “the copying here fails the ‘ultimate test’ of fair use: Violent Hues’ online display of Brammer’s photo does not serve the interest of copyright law.” Indeed, while some content “sharing” online may be fair, “If the ordinary commercial use of stock photography constituted fair use, professional photographers would have little financial incentive to produce their work.” - still the Copyright Office IndexWhich is a heck of a mic drop, if you ask me, but I'd like to return briefly to Scott's unreasonable belief in his protected usage. See, 17 U.S.C. § 504(2) imposes limits on the penalties of such infringement, specifically that if an "infringer was not aware and had no reason to believe that his or her acts constituted an infringement of copyright" then they pay less per infringement. So should Scott be aware, or have reason to believe that his acts constituted copyright infringement?

I'd argue that any reasonable person, when accused of a crime—especially a malum prohibitum situation, where there may be statutes you're unfamiliar with—would and should look inwards and say, "wait, I'm innocent, right?" and then try to prove it. Scott's not a 'lay down and die' kind of dude, he's been fighting these accusations the whole time, often to his own detriment, but did he actually do any research? He clearly googled "Fair Use Doctrine", if his little "YOUTUBERS BEWARE!" video is any indication, but frankly I don't believe he made any effort to understand Fair Use beyond, at most, seeing 'education' in there and seizing upon it as his excuse retroactively. There are oodles and oodles of articles, videos, essays, so much out there breaking it down into easily digestible formats that Scott either didn't consume or didn't comprehend, and certainly didn't have anyone explain to him. Actually, a brief aside—I found a pretty solid YouTube video breaking Fair Use down that I recommend to anybody who prefers videos to text. Its information on YouTube's strike system and the CASE act are slightly out of date, as it was published about 4 years ago, but it's examples of Fair Use are spot on [[refer to beginning of post or click here]]

I mean heck, in his latest counterclaim he explicitly refers to 17 U.S. Code § 107. Or, sorry, to "applicable provisions of the DMCA, including the Fair Use Doctrine under Section 107 of the Copyright Act", never mind that the DMCA doesn't even amend § 107. But this, beyond his earlier references to the 'fair use doctrine', proves he has direct knowledge of § 107's text, and should therefore know his argument for its application is flimsier than a house of cards. He has, once again, shot his own argument in the foot, and 17 U.S.C. § 504(2) doesn't play around. But he wants to talk about provisions of the DMCA? Let's talk about provisions of the DMCA. Now, while flipping through 17 U.S.C. I stumbled upon (okay, sought out) 17 U.S. Code § 1202(b)(1), which covers the removal or alteration of "Copyright Management Information" (hereafter CMI) that can be used to identify the copyright holder. It's kinda poorly defined, but 17 U.S. Code § 1202(c)(7) includes under the definition of CMI "Identifying numbers or symbols referring to such information or links to such information." which I think applies pretty indisputably to watermarks, but as I've said (and will keep saying so that nobody gets complacent), I'm not a lawyer. I'm just a vindictive little nerd with internet access and a love of research. I don't actually know that this would be admissible before the CCB, despite being part of Title 17, but statutory damages for §1202 violations are $2,500-$250,000 per violation. So with 48 removed/obscured watermarks just as of Ethan's initial blog post, that's $120,000 minimum, more than 4 times the max damages allowed by the CCB (which is capped at 30k). 17 U.S.C. § 504(2), which I mentioned above, provides that any infringement is subject to $750-$30,000 per instance, and if willful infringement is found it bumps the max up to $150,000 per instance. So if we once again limit it to Ethan's initial findings (81 of his photos), that's an additional $60,750-$12,150,000. Twelve million dollars, dude. Now I don't think any judge in their right mind would award that, or frankly that Ethan would seek that much in the first place, but when I say Ethan could come down on Scott a lot harder I fuckin' mean it. Scott is out here complaining that he's being blackmailed and harassed? It could be so much worse for him. And you know what? I think that's a good point to segue into the arguments I saw out in the YouTube trenches, and why I think those arguments are weak and/or dumb. ARGUMENT:Ethan is being petty. How could you take someone's YouTube channel over some pictures of toys? COUNTERARGUMENT: I'm being petty. Ethan is protecting his copyright. Nobody seems to appreciate that a valid copyright claim is a courtesy, a notice to the infringing party that they're violating copyright law. It's more like a cease and desist than the death sentence people seem to believe it to be. Let's take a moment to define some terms. Per YouTube Help:

A copyright claim refers to either a copyright removal request or a Content ID claim, which are 2 different ways to assert copyright ownership on YouTube. [...] If any copyright owner finds their copyright-protected content on YouTube without their authorization, they can submit a copyright removal request, also known as a "takedown notice" or simply a "takedown". It is a legal request to remove content from YouTube due to alleged copyright infringement. [...] When your content is removed due to a copyright removal request, a copyright strike is applied to your channel.

This ties into another argument, "Submitting three strikes at a time is a dick move" or something to that effect. Ethan, as a copyright owner, cannot apply a strike. All he can do is submit a claim. If ContentID finds a match to its database, it's a strike. If the accused does not contest the claim, it's a strike. Strikes expire after 90 days, and after your first one you have to complete a little training course on copyright, which I assume Scott did after his first strike for using copyrighted music, but I guess that didn't stick. You get three strikes, and then, you're out. This comes with an important caveat:

If your channel is part of the YouTube Partner Program, you're eligible for a 7 day courtesy period. After 3 copyright strikes, you'll have 7 additional days to act before your channel is disabled. During this period, your copyright strikes won’t expire and you can't upload new videos. Your channel will remain live and you can access it to seek a resolution for your strikes. If you submit a counter notification, your channel won't be disabled while the counter notification is unresolved. If the counter notification is resolved in your favor, or the claim is retracted, your channel won't be impacted.

The reason Scott's channel was initially deleted is because he failed to log into his YouTube account for (at least) ten days to dispute the claims. After it was returned to him, he tried to wriggle out of changing anything & jumped on the defamation train, so Ethan filed more claims, we entered the purgatorial 'courtesy period', and we've stayed there to this day.

ARGUMENT: YouTube dismissed 101 claims as invalid, so there was no infringement. COUNTERARGUMENT: That is very obviously not how any of this works. YouTube is not a court of law, does not have lawyers reviewing each individual copyright claim, and has always been extremely up front about these facts. Here's another place Scott has shot his ability to plead ignorance in the foot. In one of his community posts, he said, "I and my attorney firmly believe all of my videos are protected by Section 512(g)". That is, and I can't stress this enough, the section which allows YouTube to take his content down without liability. He keeps saying YouTube has a "guilty until proven innocent" policy, but they're acting pursuant to the section which he cites. YouTube is subject to the provisions of the DMCA, right? So what does that mean? Essentially, so long as YouTube complies with the DMCA's rules, they're in a "safe harbor" where they cannot be held liable for the activity of their users. If some guy uploads the entire Disney catalog one day, YouTube can't be sued for copyright infringement, because they've provided a method for copyright holders to issue immediate takedowns, a sort of stopgap to allow holders time to bring court proceedings against infringing parties. Furthermore, there was a little case (well, a series of cases merged into one Big case) called Viacom International Inc. v. YouTube, Inc. which precipitated the development of ContentID. By adding their copyrighted material to the ContentID database, copyright holders can protect against the unauthorized upload of their material. The catch, of course, is that ContentID is primarily for catching infringing videos and songs, and does very little to protect against small-time infringements like lifting photos off the internet for your YouTube videos. YouTube found no copyright infringement because ContentID doesn't have all of Ethan's photos uploaded. Why would it? Literally why would it. But Scott seems to be under the impression that YouTube manually reviewed these claims, or would ever in a million years accept liability for declaring something infringement or not. Or at least, so he'd have us believe. All you have to do to defeat a copyright claim/avoid a strike is swear under penalty of perjury that there was a mistake or misidentification. That's it. That's all. And Scott, believing there was a mistake and that his work was totally fair use, so swore. So YouTube accepted the counterclaims, and told Ethan if he wanted the content taken down again, he'd need to take it to court. It's not a judgment by YouTube, and it in no way exonerates Scott. ARGUMENT: Ethan doesn't even own the copyright for these photos. They're protected IPs, they belong to (Company)! COUNTERARGUMENT: This is probably the most common argument I saw, which Scott didn't help by repeating ad nauseam. Someone called it "the same as NFTs" which… astounds me on multiple levels. Somebody else said "A copyright is a piece of paper giving someone ownership over an intangible through government offices." which is both really specific and really wrong. There isn't necessarily a piece of paper, and the copyrighted work doesn't have to be intangible. Like dude, what? If I do an oil painting, you're telling me I can't copyright it because it exists in the physical plane? Yeesh. But hey, enough kicking around. Let's take a trip to the third edition of the Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices, which is the "governing administrative manual for registration and recordations issued by the U.S. Copyright Office on or after" January 28th, 2021. (Please believe me when I say you want me to use the short form citation on the quotes from this).

As with all copyrighted works, a photograph must have a sufficient amount of creative expression to be eligible for registration. The creativity in a photograph may include the photographer’s artistic choices in creating the image, such as the selection of the subject matter, the lighting, any positioning of subjects, the selection of camera lens, the placement of the camera, the angle of the image, and the timing of the image. Example: The Office receives ten applications, one from each member of a local photography club. All of the photographs depict the Washington Monument and all of them were taken on the same afternoon. Although some of the photographs are remarkably similar in perspective, the registration specialist will register all of the claims, because each photographer selected the angle and positioning of his or her photograph, among other creative choices. - Compendium (Third) § 909.1

Compendium (Third) § 909.2 goes on to clarify that the subject matter of the photograph need not be copyrightable itself, although more in the sense of 'you can't copyright a mountain, but you can copyright your picture of it'. And it stands to reason, doesn't it? A photographer owns the photos they take and develop, not the subject matter, so only the usage has the potential to infringe copyright, barring extenuating circumstances.

The only area where this gets thorny is in the commercialization of photographs. Let's consider Gaylord v. United States, 595 F.3d 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2010), concerning the Post Office turning a photo of a copyrighted Korean War monument into a stamp. They altered the colors and added snow, but the court found it insufficiently transformative to outweigh the commercial gain (over $17 million dollars) and the fact that the sculpture and stamp served a common purpose: honoring Korean War veterans. On the other hand, there's Mattel Inc. v. Walking Mountain Prods., 353 F.3d 792 (9th Cir. 2003), which was about toy photography specifically (we know her!). The defendant, Thomas Forsythe, took a bunch of pictures of (generally nude) barbies in compromising positions with kitchen appliances and food, as a commentary on society's objectification of women. He sold prints, and publicly displayed the works in galleries and a few shows—ultimately he made $3,659 (though Mattel investigators comprised half of his total sales) off the series.

The "purpose and character of use" factor in the fair use inquiry asks "to what extent the new work is transformative" and does not simply "supplant" the original work and whether the work's purpose was for- or not-for-profit. Campbell, 510 U.S. at 579, 584, 114 S.Ct. 1164. A work must add "something new, with a further purpose or different character, altering the first with new expression, meaning, or message." Id. at 579, 114 S.Ct. 1164. [...] In assessing whether Forsythe's photographs parody Barbie, Mattel urges us to ignore context — both the social context of Forsythe's work and the actual context in which Mattel's copyrighted works are placed in Forsythe's photographs. However, "In parody, as in news reporting, context is everything." Id. at 588, 114 S.Ct. 1164 (citations omitted). We conclude that Forsythe's work may reasonably be perceived as a parody of Barbie.

Which is to say, so long as your use is Fair Use, you can take pictures of copyrighted and trademarked IP.

And, as you may recall, Ethan's pictures are part of his reviews. So even if we were to suppose that (Toy Company)'s copyright superseded Ethan's as the photographer, and his works were ruled insufficiently transformative (which would be very difficult to prove without contradicting decades of law and centuries of common-law), there's a precedent for findings of Fair Use in such cases, even against giants like Mattel. Trademark is a stronger disincentive for the sale of toy photographs, but so long as you aren't attempting to benefit financially from an association with the trademark holder or their product, you're probably fine. I don't have citations for this bit because I haven't done any research into trademark law beyond the Wikipedia page, 'cause it doesn't really feel applicable to any of this, and it's a stupid argument for other reasons. ARGUMENT: Retroblasting is behind this!/Ethan must be a fan of Retroblasting! COUNTERARGUMENT: So many people blamed this on Retroblasting, a guy I'd never heard of, that I actually looked him up and watched his video on Scott. Wasn't crazy about it, myself. Didn't do much to materially support his claims and (sorry) he's got a terrible reading voice. I have no idea why so many folks seem so convinced that he orchestrated this somehow, let alone how he would have done so. By messaging Ethan and telling him "Hey, Toyguru stole your pictures"? Ethan says it was a real life friend that tipped him off, and I believe it, but why does it even matter? The point is that Scott stole his pictures. I'm still considering hitting up some of the other folks he's stolen from, as a professional courtesy. Are they gonna claim I'm an agent of Retroblasting? Is the Copyright Office itself an agent of Retroblasting, for writing and managing copyright law in the first place? Nobody had to orchestrate anything, man. Scott used people's work without credit or permission, and while he got away with it for a long time, he could hardly do it forever. ARGUMENT (direct quote): just because it originated from his website doesn't mean it as his copyright violated. I informed Scott on multiple occasions he was in violation of The LEGO Group's Fair Use Policy by displaying his logo on a minifig. See below:

We can't allow the use of LEGO copyright materials such as brand names, logos and trademarks like the 2x4 brick or the LEGO minifigure for commercial purposes such as promotional campaigns, marketing and PR. This also applies to items such as building instructions and parts. For more details, see our Fair Play policy.

So, every single video that opened with the pirate ship, displaying the minifig not in the background, but displaying his brand logo prominently. This is a copyright infringement. COUNTERARGUMENT: Uh oh! This one's 100% true! 😬 Perhaps I was too hasty in suggesting he do stop motion with his LEGOsona to avoid further infringement. He couldn't have just used a spadille torso?? They must make those. He made like three toys of himself, why did he go with the LEGOsona? ARGUMENT (direct quote): I know squat about this takedown, but looking at The Figure in Question's site he has his logo on his pics and pretty clearly states that his pics aren't to be used without permission of attribution. Is it really that hard to ask for permission? It's probably less work that cropping the pics to remove Ethan's info. COUNTERARGUMENT: It's definitely less work than cropping the pics to remove Ethan's info. A one-time, "hey man, do you mind if I use your photos in my videos?" could not have gone astray, and including a credit that just links back to FiQ takes about 8 seconds. I timed myself doing it just now, it is precisely 8 seconds. Now. To wrap up I'd like to address a few things Scott himself said that weren't part of a specific argument but were materially incorrect enough that I think they merit correction.

"There is also a thing called the doctrine of fair use, which is why none of the claims made by it--by this particular person were found to be in violation by YouTube's standards. Fair use is what allows YouTube creators to do things like this [plays copyrighted clip from Austin powers without commentary] or like this [shows a screenshot of Fox News, including photos] I just took a snapshot from a news site this morning, like literally just whatever was on the top. You can do that! It's called fair use, you're allowed to show images from online and videos, as long as it is within the fair use doctrine." -Scott in his "YOUTUBERS BEWARE!" video

Those examples aren't even kind of within the fair use doctrine <3 hope this helps In one of his community posts:

Once again Ethan Wilson from figureinquestion.com has put false copyright strikes against my channel. All images I use are approved by the Fair Use Doctrine and the Digital Millennium Act and my videos are all educational in nature. I have had 101/104 of his false claims dismissed so far because it is all in legal fair use, but the final 3 are still "undecided/under review" which is what is keeping me from posting new videos.

As I've said, the fair use doctrine can't "approve" anything. The DMCA—wait, he forgot the 'Copyright'. The "DMA" cannot "approve" anything. His videos' educational quality is, at best, subjective, and as we addressed above YouTube's dismissal of claims was simply because he submitted a counterclaim in the first place, not because it was all "in legal fair use". Here's another community post:

To Ethan Wilson who has put 104 claims against my channel for copyright infringement, please know I never intentionally used any of your images. If your images were used inadvertently, it is only because they were nice images I liked with no idea they could potentially be yours.

You can't accidentally upload a picture to a video program. Like sure, maybe you grabbed it while dragging a bunch of pictures, but that means you failed in your duty as a videographer to ensure you had the rights to all images, and you applied effects/transitions. The images were absolutely used intentionally, and their quality—far from the compressed thumbnails displayed on Google Images—indicates that he downloaded them directly from the source: Ethan's blog. He could perhaps claim he downloaded them from someone else that had already appropriated Ethan's work, but A. you can track that kinda thing on someone's hardware, so it wouldn't hold up in court, and B. that would just demonstrate further negligence! What part of 'watermark' does he not understand?

All of this work will now be erased forever in a few hours because I may or may not have inadvertently used an image you believe is your copyright. [...] All you need to do is ask and I will gladly edit out the 5 seconds of my video you have a legal copyright to with documentation.

Scott does this thing where he like… okay, look at his language here. "May or may not", "inadvertently", "an image you believe is your copyright". It's like he read a blurb about the passive voice and only retained 30% of it. He writes like a marketing agent and it makes my skin crawl. "All you need to do is ask" and then shoehorning in "[that] you have a legal copyright to" and "with documentation" to make himself seem so reasonable and like he just needs one little thing. Bah. There's no legal argument associated with this part, it just irritates me. If you're gonna lie to my face, at least do it well.

Finally, please note that while this channel is for educational and humor purposes, 80% of my consultant clients have come from them finding one of my videos and then reaching out to my via SpectorCreative.com for my consulting business. Without my channel I will lose out on my main source of marketing for my company and my living. Losing this channel will be like losing 80% of my income all due to three videos with a still image nd my narration that lasts less than 10 seconds on screen.

Back to factual stuff. He's contradicted his later representation's message, that his channel is strictly educational ("humor" isn't covered under fair use) and further underlined his financial dependence on the use of others' work. In conclusion: Scott's really bad at pretending to be smart, and maybe people in YouTube comment sections aren't the ideal of the advocatus diaboli I had hoped for. It turns out mostly they're kinda dumb. Darn.

#fiq debacle #you know... it's possible i've spent too much time on this.#hmmmmmmmm #no. it's the children who are wrong #Youtube

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wahbegan · 1 year

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I'VE DONE IT!!!!

Using data gained from a completely random assortment of anonymous subjects in both the Biggest and Smallest Cock in Horror polls, i have come across what i believe to be THE objective, SCIENTIFIC tier rating system for HORROR ICONS' COCKS!!!! I also realized most of the numbers except for the statistical outliers fit very nicely into the range of possible human penis sizes so without further ado i present: HORROR COCKS

S Tier: Pyramid Head, coming in at uh (checks notes) roughly 50 inches, or just over four feet. Actually NOT the most ridiculous cock size for a human-sized monster i've ever heard posited, but moving on A Tier: Jason and Candyman hold a tie for the number two spot, both coming in at 7 and a half inches, give it up!! Michael comes in juuust behind them at 7 inches B Tier: Hannibal Lecter coming in at a very reasonable and respectable 5.75 inches, give it up for Hannibal! He's statistically average-ish!! C Tier: Leatherface at 4 inches!! Hey, it's not the size, it's how you use it! Good thing he has no idea how to use his!!! D Tier: A SHOCKINGLY popular dark horse candidate for most dickless energy, Pinhead comes in at a MEAGER 2.25 inches though, hey, who knows what the fuck's going on down there, maybe he (she??) did it on purpose!! Below even Pinhead is Ghostface, specifically Billy Loomis, who officially has a micropenis at only one half an inch!!!

F Tier: And finally....you all knew it was coming, ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for Freddy!!!! Most dickless motherfucker on planet Earth, so dickless he actually broke my rating system! I don't know what size his dick would be, since according to y'all it would be in the negatives! The man's dick so small it caused a spatial anomaly!

Please remember to like, share, and subscribe for more horror cock commentary

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forthegoodofamerica · 1 day

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superspunarticle · 2 years

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Mixing in Analog Marketing in a Digital World

Tutorials & tips about Video & Content Marketing.

I hate to state the obvious here—especially to this group of enlightened readers��but we all live in a busy, data-driven world.

I know you’re thinking: “duh.”

And doubtful many of us in the marketing world would argue that this has allowed for greater understanding and reach of not only our current customers, but also for potential leads through digital content and data.

But in a life that centers more and more around screen time and inboxes overflowing with nurture emails that feign a personal touch, sometimes an old-fashioned analog project—with a modern-day digital touch— can get you the results you’ve been looking for.

A Hybrid Approach Creates Authenticity

Go ahead and admit it: You can sniff out a nurture email a mile away. That subject line from someone you’ve never met, but makes it seem like you’re old, long lost friends? It’s BS and you know it.

Maybe a hybrid-style approach, combining digital ingenuity with analog staying power, might serve your interests better with true authenticity.

We had a recent customer who had engaged with us on a significant project in 2021. We kept in touch on follow up initiatives and opportunities that would benefit the firm, but resulted in no new business.

A few weeks ago, I received an eBook on some new research that happened to fall into the former customer’s vertical. I immediately thought of them, sent it over with the only intention of being helpful.

That article created a conversation, which turned into a business discussion and within a week had entered into a new agreement for additional business this year.

At The Intersection of Helping and Selling

We relish our relationship with customers and are always happy to pass along worthwhile information that will assist them, even if it means no new work.

Would a traditional marketing tactic like a nurture email sequence have worked here? Maybe, but unlikely. A constant barrage of nagging emails? Doubtful. But a personal touch, mixed with a helpful hand paved the way for the new engagement.

The point here is this: if you’re helpful for no other reason than to ACTUALLY be helpful, customers will remember and more than likely appreciate your effort. C&C Founder Jay Baer calls this being a “Youtility,” whereby you create marketing so useful, customers will pay for it.

What’s Old is New Again

I attended a recent webinar where they discussed customer follow-up after a purchase. Several panelists recalled memorable touches by brands, including hand-written thank you notes. One of the speakers commented on his view that “what’s old is new again.”

Another example of an analog approach to get more business is a B2C model from one of my new favorite online creators, Van Neistat. You may be more familiar with Van’s brother Casey Neistat, one of YouTube’s OG mega stars. But Van’s own YouTube channel, The Spirited Man, has been gaining steam over the past year since he founded it, with its mix of DIY creativity and philosophy.

To leverage his media even further, he recently started a Patreon channel, posting weekly livestream Q&A video segments, peer discussions and his directive commentary on some of his older film work – some of which included video pieces he made with artist Tom Sachs.

Van grew his Patreon viewer base quickly to 700+ paid subscribers, but essentially stalled there.

If you’re helpful for no other reason than to ACTUALLY be helpful, customers will remember and more than likely appreciate your effort.

A Hybrid Marketing Approach Example

So then he posted a YouTube video on how to make a “zine,” an old-fashioned do-it-yourself magazine, usually made at one’s kitchen table. At the same time, he made available to his subscribers a copy of the zine—in a hybrid model: delivered two ways: digitally as a standard PDF, but also as a PDF in paginated form, allowing the user to download, print and assemble the hard copy themselves.

He also promised subsequent zines each time his subscriber base reached another 1,000-member level.

With the release of the first zine, his subscriber base more than tripled in less than two weeks, triggering a second zine and making the first issue unavailable.

Today, he’s 150 members away from the 3,000 level and a third zine release.

Mix Analog and Digital for Marketing Bliss

The lesson? Digital marketing and creation is great and a clear connector to your audience and future customers, but don’t forget about other proven methods of marketing—especially those with a personal touch. Some of them may be analog and seemingly old fashioned, but can go a long way in raising awareness and reach.

The above post “Mixing in Analog Marketing in a Digital World” was 1st published on this site.

We hope you found the post above of help and interesting. Similar content can be found on our blog: superspunarticle.com/blog Please let me have your feedback below in the comments section. Let us know what subjects we should cover for you in future.

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foxstride · 2 years

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A bit of a year in review for how my fics performed on AO3 in 2021!

(On mobile so not doing ID but I will be repeating all the information in the post below)

2021 was when Into The Wilderness began but AO3 statistics has not included it, so these are all my one-shots really.

Main statistics

11 user subscriptions

137 kudos

13 comment threads (♥️)

21 bookmarks

2 subscriptions (to fics)

15426 words written

1024 hits

These are purely for fics/one-shots I posted in 2021, and thankfully they're also all relevant to Warrior Cats since I don't post fics in other fandoms now.

My top 5 fics by hits are:

every claw finds its way to a heart (Sandstorm & Longtail)

fire in my lungs, can't bite the devil on my tongue, oh no (Bluefur & Sunfall)

let us never look down on one another (Skyheart POV)

the stars could have mourned (Stonefur POV)

darkness tastes like honey (Redtail/Tigerclaw)

Not included are: drowning in choices (Yellowfang POV) & with stars in your paws and peace in your heart (Mosspaw POV)

Other statistics

My longest fic in 2021 was fire in my lungs at 4425 words

fire in my lungs and darkness tastes like honey both had 1 subscriber

every claw finds its way to a heart was bookmarked 7 times

4 comment threads were made on the stars could have mourned

42 kudos was given to every claw finds its way to a heart

Commentary

I think every claw finds its way to a heart is the fic that was rec'd the most (by @mallowstep lmao, thank you for that) which definitely lines up with those stats.

I'm curious what my most used tags were but typing this on mobile is infuriating me so I'll check that out later.

I'm the most proud of every claw finds its way to a heart; darkness tastes like honey; and fire in my lungs, can't bite the devil on my tongue, oh no. But I think let us never look down on one another is my most underrated fic? But I also feel strongly about it because it's my first real POV of a disabled character.

Also I can tell this without looking it up but Blackclaw made the most appearances in my fics. He's in at least 3, with two major roles and one cameo.

2022 goals

I have one major fic that's already written and is an Into The Wilderness tie-in so can't be posted yet which I'm REALLY excited to post and see what people think. It's a two-parter which I'll post as two chapters, because each part is the same scene from two different POVs.

I want to continue writing content for rarepairs. I have a few in mind but no solid ideas just yet.

Most of my writing is for Into The Wilderness so most one-shots are tie-ins in some manner, but I do tag when I do Canon-Compliant fics that are also tie-ins. There will probably be less Canon-Compliant scenes the further we get into posting @embersoftheforest content.

One character I really want to write the POV of this year is Bristleblink, who is a semi-OC in WindClan.

I want to write more polyamorous and disabled representation as well - I'm not sure if Skyheart will get another fic but I do plan on a Cinderfur fic eventually.

I haven't actually written any WindClan POVs so that's a must. Gotta add to the WindClan appreciation collection ;)

My other goal is to really try and push the disabled representation collection - whether it means getting more people writing for it or adding prompts. Which hopefully I can fulfill a bit too.

Recs

Finally! These are some of my recs from 2021 that I really, really recommend you read. These are ones I read in 2021, as opposed to were posted in 2021.

blood and water (Feathertail/Hawkfrost)

prayers to medea (Leopardfur/Tigerclaw)

the world might cut you down again (Fireheart & Longtail)

denouncement (Leopardfur/Tigerclaw)

Tigerstar's forfeit (Tigerclaw)

... and a lot more, but these ones I bookmarked specifically to rec them last year. I also recommend every work posted to the disabled warrior cats representation collection!

That's all for now - I'll try to remember to check what tags I used the most later, but it's not As fun as looking at these statistics.

#ao3 #wc fanfiction #what the fox says #warrior cats fanfiction #fic recs #ao3 stats

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dragonslaved · 3 years

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Raise Your Glass

fandom: the magnus archives chapters: 1/? word count: 2238 language: english

summary: tim is a streamer and jon is his moderator do not look at me

read on ao3

“Don’t forget to like and subscribe!”

There is a tasteful five seconds of music jingle before the video cuts. Jon sighs, rubbing at the bridge of his nose where his glasses sit. It’s one thing to moderate the streams, but there is a different kind of hell to editing them for a youtube VOD upload. Tim, thankfully, always makes sure to record a bit of additional off-stream footage to have at the beginning and end of each video for Jon to patch in, but it’s still a pain. Cutting out footage is easy enough, particularly for highlight cuts. But the four to five hours of raw recording is hard to edit, particularly when those watching the VODs can’t see the commentary made of the chat.

How he got talked into this is beyond himself. Something about Martin already working multiple jobs so he can only moderate a few nights a week. Tim, of course, has other things going on handling his own promotions and PR. Sasha took one look at what Tim was doing and decided she wanted nothing to do with it. It may have been smart on her part, if not for the fact he knows she’s doing some occasional tech work for Melanie’s crew.

Jon goes through these same mental conversations with himself every week when he’s collecting all the ‘Best Of’ clips together and splicing them into something resembling a coherent narrative.

But in Tim’s defense, the man is very good at reacting. Perhaps that was why his channel was doing well. Tim’s got the natural charisma and personality to draw in an audience, he’s interactive with the viewers, highly reactive to whatever’s happening in the game. It works. And Jon is, for better or worse, not a bad moderator for the chat.

No, the arrangement sadly, unfortunately, worked out very well for them both. A good following on the streams, and a moderate viewership on the video uploads later. And Jon did take some joy in adding a few personal editing touches to surprise even those who had been present for the stream watching playbacks. An occasional bit of text highlighting something, or an artful zoom in on something Tim missed that made the game harder for him for having looked it over.

Jon thinks fondly back to that half year Tim had considered being an influencer instead. It was a different kind of long-term work, but then again photos did not exactly get Tim’s personality through. No, video was best. And unscripted video was the purest, most distilled Tim an audience could want.

“-on?”

Tim pulled one earphone off, and Jon nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Jon. Been calling for a couple minutes now. You’re really in the zone, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” he stammers, pulling the headphones off completely and resting them around his neck. “S-sorry, what is it?”

“Just checking how it’s going. Brought some coffee if you need it. I know it was a longer one, but I appreciate the work.”

Jon looks from him, to the mug in his hand and takes it with a quiet, “Ah.” A test sip and it’s still much too hot. “Thank you, it, um. Just about finished. Should be ready to upload in the morning at the usual time.”

“Thanks, mate.” Tim’s smile down at him could brighten the world. Maybe just Jon’s; he has to avert his eyes back to the program before his face heats up as much as the coffee in his hands. “You aren’t putting in snarky commentary in the text again, are you?”

“Would you be mad if I was?” Maybe a little too-hot-coffee is worth hiding the sly grin on his own face.

“I’d say go for it. Just be a little kind this time?”

“Maybe you should play something that isn’t a horror game next time.”

“I can’t help it. People love it, it’s what they vote for.”

“Oh, they do. But imagine the shock they’d have seeing you play something competently. Like a strategy puzzle game.”

Tim leans over his shoulder to look at the editing so far, hand on his other shoulder. “It’s not as engaging for the viewers though. People like watching someone be bad at a game.”

“Perhaps.” Tim’s always been one for casual contact, but it still makes Jon a little nervous. Not in a bad way, but in that way he hopes Tim never feels how hot his face gets. “But sometimes watching someone be exceptional at a game is worth a lot too.”

“Maybe… Wait.” Jon watches Tim slide the preview cursor back over a section, then over it forward again. “Are you kidding me?! I missed that key?”

So maybe Jon does see some joy in watching Tim be bad at things. He doesn’t try to hide the smile this time.

“You did.”

“You could have at least SAID something at the time! I wandered for an hour before moving on!”

“I take a more hands off backstage approach to moderating. It’s why you like me doing it.”

“God- Of all the-” Tim cuts himself off, watching the twenty seconds of footage again a few more times. It’s clear to anyone that knows him that Tim is memorizing the spot. Likely to do it again on his own time and do it properly.

That was something to be admired about Tim. Sure, he’ll put on an act and goof a bit for streams. But when he really cared about doing something well, he always put in the effort. The man could be determinedly serious about anything he really put his mind to. He usually succeeded.

But for the sake of Tim’s pride… “Would you like me to cut this bit out?” It’s tentative, an offer if Tim would rather Jon not include some of his more egregious mistakes. Tim only sighs.

“No. No… Leave it in. It’s fair to point out, and it’ll be funny in a few days.”

“So you’re saying it’s not funny yet.” “No. Not yet,” but even Tim can’t hide the smile in his tone. At least the man’s always had a good humor about himself. “Hey, Jon.”

He’d been distracted watching Timothy’s eyes and the way the monitor light hits those dark warm brown hues just so. “Hm?”

“I think we just hit a milestone last stream. What, something like two years now? What do you say we go out tonight and celebrate?”

“Oh. Um. I mean, we can, sure. I can meet you. The usual place?”

“Yeah. Bring your group while you’re at it.”

Jon stops the instinctive jolt. “Sure. I can. Bring them when we’re finished.” He forgets Tim knows about that.

“Great!” Tim gives a firm clap on the shoulder of Jon’s he’d been leaning on. “Can’t wait.”

The next morning comes with a loud and unignorable hangover. The curtains have, by some blessing, been pulled closed around the flat. Tim no doubt having some sympathy. Jon doesn’t always drink quite that heavily, but it was celebration and after a show. His group had only encouraged it, that much he remembered.

Well. His friends were likely assholes to his waking mind right now. No, the only friend Jon has right now is a hot cup of coffee at this hour of the morning. The warm bed calls to him, but he had made promises.

“Oh, coffee,” he coos over a sip as he sits at the table. “If I hadn’t promised Tim I’d work, we would not be meeting at this time. Just you and me and the algorithm this morning.”

The number of emails is alarming. All new subscribers or followers to the channel itself. There shouldn’t be such a surge after an off day. Had someone promo’d him while they were out last night? Well. This was part of Jon’s half of the job, figuring out where all this came from and determining if it was worth it to pursue further or not. A sip of coffee down and he gets to work.

“What… Is this.”

He adjusts his glasses, squinting at the screen and through the migraine. “Tim didn’t stream last night, we were at the pub…”

Contrary to what Jon knew, there was a history showing Tim had streamed for at least an hour last night with a fair amount of viewers at the time. Right around the time they were at the pub…

“What did you do.”

A couple quick clicks into the video history and there is absolutely a video from last night. The preview image alone has Tim in the pub, the camera facing a small crowd and some lights. His finger hesitates. What happened last night. What did they do.

Play.

The camera is shaky and trying to focus on Tim’s face. He was always a little - no, a lot - excitable when he drinks out. It eventually finds his face and settles in a steady shot, a crowd behind him and the lights are stage lights. “Hey, guys! So a surprise stream while we’re out. See, me and Jon came out to celebrate two years of the channel! They’re about to start, hold on.”

He moves his face out of the frame to show a small indoor stage with the lights focusing down and Jon can feel a sense of dread creeping up from his gut.

“Tell me we didn’t….”

The video keeps going, the chat wondering what’s going on, Tim almost never streams outdoors or anything like this. Question mark emojis fill the chat as Jon watches his drunken self climb on stage, flannel shirt and hair loose, guitar being strapped around him.

“Oh god.”

His last-night-self greets the crowd and thanks them for the short notice allowance of his group to play. Oh god, he must have been so drunk to agree to this. His band mates clambering up behind him and setting up. It’s only a few minutes before they start playing. Jon thinks for just a moment that maybe the chat doesn’t realize. Maybe they think Tim is just sharing a local band or something. The question marks continue until someone figures it out.

“Holy shit is that jsmod???”

It fills up. The whole chat fills up with shock and confused emojis. It goes so fast Jon can’t quite catch all the comments. And then it’s genuine support and excitement. No one had any idea Jon, the strict, quiet moderator, was the lead in a band.

Oh god, it was one of their more boisterous songs.

“That’s Jon! That’s his band! Haha, god it’s good to hear him sing again. Think we can keep them going for a bit, I’ll keep the stream going for now!”

Tim sounds entirely too giddy with this turn of events. And true to his word, the crowd somehow kept them on stage performing for a little under an hour. The video ends with Tim brightly thanking chat for joining on the surprise stream, and Jon has his head in his arms, tugging at his hair.

He may not recover his dignity from this.

“Go~od morning, boss!” Tim’s voice carries through the haze of irritation and fogginess with the tone of someone who committed crimes the night before and absolutely does not care.

Jon’s own voice comes through his pile of arms and oversized hoodie and hair, “I’m not your boss.” He can just faintly hear the sound of another cup of coffee being poured behind him, and then the quiet steps of Tim coming to sit next to him.

“You may as well be my manager with all the work you do behind the scenes handling my things.”

“If I were your manager, I’d fire you.”

The beat of silence falls between them heavy and expectant.

“Why-”

“The stream, last night, Tim!” Jon nearly explodes with it, his head shooting up and arms out, nearly hitting Tim in the face. “Why did you do that!”

For his benefit, Tim almost looks sorry.

“I… You said I could.”

“... What.”

“I asked if you were going to go play, and you said yes since the gang was there. I asked if I could stream it and you said yes.”

“I never would have agreed to that.”

“You did, though.”

The worst part about it is Jon cannot remember it. Jon, drunk, is a bit unpredictable at best. He may very well have agreed and he would never remember. God damn him.

“Fine. Fine, then this is me, sober, telling you now. If I, any time in the future, try to say it’s all right to film me playing: do not listen to me then. I am saying now do not film me.”

Tim’s eyes are focused intently on him. Really taking that in before nodding and voice gentle, “All right, Jon. Whatever you like.”

“Thank you, Tim. This isn’t going in the compilation by the way.”

“Nope, of course not! Not if you don’t want it.”

Jon runs a hand through his hair, looking at the analytics. “...That said. It did get you quite a record viewers for a surprise stream.”

“Oh yeah?” Tim finally gets up to lean in and look. Gives a low whistle. “Didn’t realize we’d done that well.”

“Hit a new milestone of subs as well.”

Tim gives his shoulder a gentle nudge with a crooked grin. “Sure I can’t talk you into letting your sets become a regular spot?”

“Tim.”

“All right! It was just a question.”

#the magnus archives #tma #magnuspod #jonathan sims #timothy stoker #do not archive #donotarchive #you ever come home from a 12 hour shift and spit out the dumbest thing ever #because I did #How did your friday night go everyone

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namari-hime-moved · 8 months

Text

guys i remembered how to draw nate (THE CROWD GOES WILD)

#mels funny art #pokemon #pokemon bw2 #trainer nate #nate finley #GUYS I FIGURED OUT HIS HAIR AGAIN #if you can guess the one very specific anime boy i used as reference for his hair you win a bajillion dollars #sorry for the mass amount of doodle posting i just really like doing doodles #anyway. finley moment #top ten guys who feel like the weight of the world is on their shoulders #but he stays silly :3 #i like drawing his pupils dilating like a cat. lmao #i just like drawing him in general. hes fun #uhhh. no further commentary #REMEMBER TO LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE

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newty · 4 years

Photo

A collection of over 40 writers and their work from World War 1 and the years that followed.

11/11. Happy Armistice Day!

This is by no means a guide so much as it is recommendations and selections from my reading list, but I hope it can interest others in some extraordinary or important lives. Enjoy!

POETRY

Richard Aldington (1892-1962)

British. 2nd Lieutenant, Royal Sussex Regiment.

Themes: Callousness, Apathy, Sound, Myth & History, Art

War and Love 1915-1918 (1919)

"Trench Idyll"

"In The Trenches"

"Apathy"

"Soliloquy I" & "Soliloquy II"

Exile and Other Poems (1923)

“Eumenides”

“At a Gate by the Way”

Edmund Blunden (1896-1974)

British. 2nd Lieutenant, Royal Sussex Regiment.

Field: Ypres, Somme, Passchendaele

Themes: Survivor's Guilt, Isolation, Nature, Post-War Reflection

The Waggoner (1920)

"The Estrangement"

The Shepherd and Other Poems of Peace and War (1922)

"11th R.S.R."

"Reunion in War"

"The Troubled Spirit"

"War Autobiography: Written in Illness"

"Third Ypres: A Reminiscence"

Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)

British. Sub-lieutenant, British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, but died of sepsis before reaching Gallipoli.

Themes: Colonialism, Memory & Death

1914 and Other Poems (1915)

"1914"

Robert Graves (1895-1985)

British. Captain, Royal Welch Fusiliers.

Field: Somme, but also in a POW and Garrison camp iirc.

Themes: Camaraderie, Grief, Flippancy/Humor, Personal Change

Faeries and Fusiliers (1919)

The Pier-Glass (1921)

"Lost Love"

Collected Poems 1955 (1955)

"Recalling war"

Frederic Manning (1882-1935)

Australian & British. Private, King's Shropshire Light Infantry. Lance Corporal, 7th Battalion. 2nd Lieutenant, Royal Irish Regiment.

Field: The Somme, Ancre

Themes: Collective identity, Numbness, Individuality, Ritual as a coping method, Myth

Eidola (1917)

"αυτάρκεια"

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

British. 2nd Lieutenant, Manchester Regiment.Also see: The Hydra (1917-1918), the Craiglockhart War Hospital magazine.

Field: Northern France

Themes: Inhumanity, Protest, Disgust & Pity

Poems (1921)

“Apologia Pro Poemate Meo”

“Mental Cases”

“Dulce et Decorum Est”

"S.I.W" (Self-Inflicted Wound)

“Wild With All Regrets”

Poems of Wilfred Owen (1931)

“The Unreturning”

The Complete Poems and Fragments (1984)

Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918)

British (also Jewish!). Private, 12th Bantam Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment, then South Lancashire Regiment, then King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment, then King's Own Royal Regiment.

Also see: Joseph Cohen Collection of Rosenberg documents and artifacts

Field: Arras

Themes: Heroism, Loathing, Confusion

Poems (1922)

"Significance"

"The Immortals"

Delphi Complete Poetry, Plays, Letters and Prose of Isaac Rosenberg (2015)

Not free, but like the one for Wilfred Owen, I recommend these collections since they're super cheap (like $3) and mostly comprehensive even if there are some formatting errors.

Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)

British. 2nd Lieutenant, Royal Welch Fusiliers.

Also see: A Soldier's Declaration.

Field: The Somme, Arras

Themes: Activism, Self-Expression, Nature, Leadership, Camaraderie, Grief

The Old Huntsman and Other Poems (1918)

“The Kiss”

“The Last Meeting”

Counter-Attack and Other Poems (1918)

"Suicide in the Trenches" (sometimes typo'd, like in Collected Poems, as "Suicide in Trenches")

"Repression of War Experience"

"The Dream"

A Suppressed Poem (1918) (alternative/full text)

War Poems (1919)

"Everyone Sang"

Picture-Show (1920)

"Concert Party"

"Phantom" (removed from Collected Poems in 1961)

"Aftermath"

Vigils (1936)

"War Experience"

"Revisitation"

The Collected Poems 1908-1956 (1961)

Contains text edits and revisions of previous work.

MEMOIR

Will R. Bird (1891-1984)

Canadian. 42nd Battalion, Royal Highlanders of Canada.

Field: France and Belgium

Also see: his bibliography. His work seems to have been popular, but is now exceedingly rare other than in some recent reprints.

And We Go On (1930)

Reissued as Ghosts Have Warm Hands (1968) which removes several anecdotes--and in particular, removes many instances of the ghost of his brother (who often appears to guide him after dying before Bird enlisted).

Thirteen Years After: The Story of the Old Front Revisited (1931)

Funded by Maclean's Magazine, Bird returned to France and wrote a series of reflections.

The Communication Trench: Anecdotes & Statistics from the Great War, 1914-1918 (1933)

A Soldier's Place: the War stories of Will R. Bird (2018)

Fifteen anecdotes from various war-time and post-war publications.

Edmund Blunden (1896-1974)

Undertone of War (1928)

Philip Gibbs (1877-1962)

British. Extraordinarily popular war journalist and later war correspondent.

Heavily censored in publications like the Daily Telegraph and Daily Chronicle.

Field: Western Front

The Soul of the War (1915)

From Bapaume to Passchendaele, 1917 (1918)

Reissued as The Struggle in Flanders on the Western Front, 1917 (1919)

The Way to Victory: Vol 1: The Menace and Vol 2: The Repulse (1919)

Wounded Souls (1920)

Now It Can Be Told (1920)

US title: The Realities of War

More That Must Be Told (1921)

Robert Graves (1895-1985)

Goodbye to All That (1929)

Censored (1929), Revised (1957), and I think Uncensored (2014)

Also a personal memoir--the first few chapters detail his childhood and discuss homosexuality.

Arnold Gyde (1894-1959)

British. Captain, 2nd Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment.

Field: Le Havre, Mons, Aisne

Contemptable (1916) as Casualty

Part of the Soldiers’ Tales of the Great War series

T. E. Lawrence (1888-1935)

British. Archeologist but mostly a military informant.

Field: Arab Revolt, Palestine

Themes: Isolation, Brotherhood

Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1922)

Abridged "subscribers" edition subtitled with A Triumph (1926), Further abridged as Revolt in the Desert (1927), Unabridged as "The Oxford Text" (1997)

Also see: With Lawrence in Arabia (1924) by Lowell Thomas

Thomas was a war correspondent for the US, and who filmed and photographed Palestine and Lawrence and created the media boom surrounding the two.

Also see: Lawrence and the Arabs (1927) by Robert Graves

This book was initially panned for showing Lawrence as more of a flawed person than England's glorious war hero.

Edward C. Lukens

American. Lieutenant, 320th Infantry 80th Division.

Field: Meuse-Argonne

A Blue Ridge Memoir (1922)

Includes an afterword titled “The Last Drive and Death of Major G. H. H. Emory” by E. McClure Rouzer

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

Journey from Obscurity: Wilfred Owen, 1893-1918 (1963-1965) by Harold Owen

Published in three volumes: Childhood, Youth, and War

E. M. Roberts

American. Lieutenant, RAF.

A Flying Fighter: An American Above the Lines in France (1918)

I’m not finding much on this book atm, but I remember finding some articles after I had read the book that mentioned much of it was embellished.

Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)

Siegfried's Journey, 1916-1920 (1945)

Discusses the range of his life on leave or otherwise away from the battlefield, along with his post-war travels and struggles. For his more military memoirs, see the Sherston Trilogy below.

Also see: Lady Ottoline's Album (1976)

included entirely bc there's a cute pics of him (pg 66-67,90-93) but also bc there's a lot of cool ppl in it (also Robert Graves 68, Edmund Blunden 69)

Diaries:

Scans of 1915-1922, 1924-1927, 1931-1932: Sassoon Journals @ Cambridge

Siegfried Sassoon Diaries 1915-1918 (1983)

Highlights: 27 May 1916. 13 July 1916. 23 April 1917. 17 April 1918. 27 April 1918. 9 May 1918. 19 December 1917.

Siegfried Sassoon Diaries 1920-1922 (1981)

Siegfried Sassoon Diaries 1923-1925 (1985)

FICTIONAL MEMOIR

Giving a third person narrator one's trauma or life allows the writer to view those events in a new light–and also partially absolve themselves from ownership of their actions and feelings. Thus, it was super popular to deflect the shame of trauma.

Richard Aldington (1892-1962)

Death of a Hero (1929)

Uncensored in two volumes (1930), in one volume (1965) and (1984)

Roads to Glory (1930)

Short stories

Hervey Allen (1889-1949)

American. Lieutenant, 111th Infantry Regiment of the 28th Division

Field: Marne, Aisne, Château-Theirrey

Toward the Flame (1926) (limited preview)

Henri Barbusse (1873-1935)

French. Western Front. Anti-war.

Under Fire: The Story of a Squad (1916)

One of the first WWI novels published. Formative work for Sassoon, but also popular with Owen iirc.

Larry Barretto (1890-1972)

American. Ambulance driver in France and Belgium.

A Conqueror Passes (1925)

The soldier protagonist swiftly falls into depression upon returning to civilian life, so he abandons everything to return to France. Where he hopes to return to the mental occupation of service, he finds instead that the world has moved on without him.

James Norman Hall (1887-1951)

American. Posing as a Canadian: Royal Fusiliers. After being discovered, Lafayette Escadrille and Lafayette Flying Corps, then Captain of US Army Air Service. German POW for several months.

Kitchener's Mob: The Adventures of an American in the British Army(1916)

Describes the Battle of Loos during his time as a machine gunner with the Royal Fusiliers.

High Adventure: A Narrative of Air Fighting in France (1918)

Also see: The Lafayette Flying Corps Vol 1 and Vol 2 (1920), a history written with fellow pilot Charles Bernard Nordhoff.

Also see: Falcons of France (1929), another memoir written with Charles Bernard Nordhoff.

John Dos Passos (1896-1970)

American. Ambulance Driver in France (Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps) & Italy (American Red Cross)

One Man’s Initiation: 1917 (1920)

Reissued as First Encounter (1945)

Three Soldiers (1921)

Frederic Manning (1882-1935)

The Middle Parts of Fortune: Somme and Ancre, 1916 (1929) as Private 19022

Uncensored in two volumes

Censored edition is Her Privates We (1929), and Uncensored (2014)

Primarily depicts the mundane life of a private. A deserter crops up throughout the novel for commentary on the intersection of mental illness and perceived cowardice. The chapters on the trenches are extraordinary imo, and it's a great look at the unsensational life of billets and drill that most accounts leave out.

Charles Bernard Nordhoff (1887-1947)

American. Ambulance driver, then Lafayette Flying Corps, then Lieutenant of US Army Air Service

The Fledgling (1919)

Series of letters (and dairy entries?)

Also see: The Lafayette Flying Corps Vol 1 and Vol 2 (1920), a history written with fellow pilot James Norman Hall.

Also see: Falcons of France (1929), another memoir written with James Norman Hall.

Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970)

German. 2nd Guards Reserve Division, then 15th Reserve Infantry Regiment, 2nd Company, Engineer Platoon Bethe.

Field: Hem-Lenglet Torhout and Houthulst.

All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)

The Road Back (1931) (limited preview)

Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)

The Sherston trilogy follows his entire service, although purged of anything literary or concerning his family. He also changed the names of almost everyone in it. The third book does a great job confronting the trauma he swears he doesn't have up until the last couple pages.

Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man (1928) Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (1930) Sherston's Progress (1936)

FICTION

More on the Internet Archive

Hervey Allen (1889-1949)

It Was Like This: Two Stories of the Great War (1940)

Leonid Andreyev (1871-1919)

The Confessions of a Little Man During Great Days (1917

Russian. Account of a fictional banker in St. Petersburg struggling through war shortages and family strife. Anti-war.

E. F. Benson (1867-1940)

British. Archeologist, Greek Scholar, Worked in Cairo with T. E. Lawrence. also hes gay

Up and Down (1918)

An at-home drama which begins pre-war and descends into featuring the relationship of letters between home and the front.

Dodo Wonders-- (1921)

Sequel to Dodo: A Detail of the Day (1893) Dodo’s Daughter (1913) and Dodo the Second (1914) social dramas.

Will R. Bird (1891-1984)

Private Timothy Fergus Clancy (1930)

John Buchan (1875-1940)

Scottish. Popular novelist, Writer for the Propaganda Bureau, Director of Intelligence, and Lieutenant of Intelligence Corps

The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915)

First in the Richard Hannay series, suspense spy novels meant to sensationalize war intrigue and German barbarism.

Also see: Nelson's History of the War, a serial which began in 1915 to become a 24-volume account of censored and pro-Allies Great War history.

Wilfrid Heighington (1897-1945)

Canadian. Lieutenant, 4th Canadian Infantry Brigade

Field: The Somme, Vimy Ridge

The Cannon’s Mouth (1943)

Edward Edward Plunkett, Lord Dunsany (1878-1957)

Anglo-Irish. Captain, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. Also participated in the Easter Uprising. Traveled to Ploegsteert, St-Emilie, the Somme, and Bourlon Wood as work for the MI7 (b) creating propaganda.

Tales of War (1918) & Unhappy Far-Off Things (1919)

Short stories largely created as propaganda and published in various papers before being collected in book form.

Also see: Patches of Sunlight (1938), his autobiography.

Rebecca West (1892-1983)

The Return of the Soldier (1918)

A rather fanciful novel of a woman confronting her cousin soldier returning home with amnesia, having forgotten the past 15 years of his life from shell-shock.

LETTERS

T. E. Lawrence (1888-1935)

I'm more familiar with Lawrence's post-war relationship with mental illness, which seems to be rooted in his tendency for self-reproach. He consistently bemoans his difference from the others, and details his reliance on military companionship for connections.

Highlights: To Lionel Curtis, 19/3/23. To Robert Graves, 12/11/22. To Lionel Curtis, 14/4/23.

Also published in: Lawrence, T. E., and Garnet, David. The Letters of T. E. Lawrence. Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1939.

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

Owen defends himself at every opportunity to eliminate the possibility that his distress is from cowardice, so while his testimony is valuable for its real-time recording, it's more difficult to pick out such violent and clear instances of trauma compared to other writers.

Also see: Uncensoring Owen Project

Highlights: To Susan Owen, 16/1/17. To Susan Owen, 4/2/17. To Susan Owen, 18/3/17 (which describes The Sentry). To Susan Owen, 6 (or 8)/4/17. To Susan Owen, 1/5/17. To Mary Owen, 8/5/17. To Siegfried Sassoon, 5/11/17. To Susan Owen, 6/17. To Susan Owen, 31/12/17. To Susan Owen, 4 (or 5)/10/19. To Siegfried Sassoon, 10/10/18.

Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)

Siegfried Sassoon letters to Max Beerbohm : with a few answers (1986)

Vera Brittain (1893-1970)

& Roland Leighton, Edward Brittain, Geoffrey Thurlow, Victor Nicholson

Letters From A Lost Generation: First World War Letters of Vera Brittain and Four Friends (1998)

PLAYS

R. C. Sherriff (1896-1975)

British. East Surrey Regiment

Field: Vimy Ridge, Loose, Passchendaele

Journey's End (1929)

Also novelized (1930) with Vernon Bartlett

J. M. Barrie (1860-1937)

Scottish. Propagandist. Also see: famous author propagandists

Echoes of the War (1918)

Four humorously written yet hard-hitting plays concerning the war, particularly interpersonal relationships at home. More like satire than jingoism tbh.

MEDICAL ESSAYS

Shell-shock and Other Neuropsychiatric Problems Presented in 589 Case Histories (1919) by E. E. Southard (ableist af but these case studies are an extraordinary insight into the breadth of symptoms and their treatment. highly recommended.)

War Neuroses and Shell Shock (1919) by F.W. Mott

Hysterical Disorders of Warfare (1918) by Lewis Yealland

Army Report of The War Office Committee of Enquiry into Shell Shock (1922)

Shell Shock and Its Lessons (1918) by Sir Grafton Elliot Smith, Tom Hatherley Pear

Repression of War Experience (1917) by W.H.R. Rivers

Conflict and Dream (1924) by W.H.R Rivers

Instinct and the Unconscious (1924) by W.H.R Rivers

MEDICAL ACCOUNTS

Harold Barclay (1872-1922)

American. Captain, American Expeditionary Forces. Roosevelt Hospital Unit, then 42nd Division.

Field: Château-Thierry, St.-Mihiel

A Doctor in France, 1917-1919 (1923)

His diary--also published after his death.

Vera Brittain (1893-1970)

Testament of Youth (1933)

Also see: Vera Brittain and the First World War: The Story of Testament of Youth (2014) for its extra chapter on Edward Brittain and his oft-discussed death (spoiler: they confirmed he was gay).

Ellen La Motte (1873–1961)

The Backwash of War (1916)

American. A collection of fourteen stories from the hospitals of France.

Helen Zenna Smith/Evadne Price (1888-1985)

Not So Quiet: Stepdaughters of War (1930) (limited preview)

Written in the style of Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front using Winifred Constance Young, an actual ambulance driver as inspiration.

Sequels: Women of the Aftermath/One Woman’s Freedom (1931), Shadow Women (1932), Luxury Ladies (1933), They Lived With Me (1934)

May Sinclair/Mary Amelia St. Clair (1863-1946)

British. WSPU and WWSL member/Suffragette. Founding supporter of the Medico-Psychological Clinic in London, Munro Ambulance Corps in Flanders for a few weeks.

A Journal of Impressions in Belgium (1915)

OTHER ACCOUNTS

A. T. Fitzroy/Rose Allatini (1890-1980)

Despised and Rejected (1918)

Austrian-British. A novel following members of the CO and Pacifist movement. also v gay

Father Bernard Carey (1865-1932)

Leaves from the Diary of a Catholic Chaplain in the Great World War

(1920)

Irish. A chaplain's memoir of Egypt and East Africa, and the religious and racial intolerance in the military.

Philip Gibbs (1877-1962)

Germans on the Somme (1917)

John Masefield (1878-1967)

British. Poet Laureate. Briefly a Red Cross orderly, then propogandist with the Department of Information.

Gallipoli (1915)

Account of the campaign's failure to counteract anti-German propaganda in the US.

The Old Front Line (1918)

Eyewitness account of the Somme. Revisited and further completed in Battle of the Somme (1919)

The War and the Future (1918)

Also see: John Masefield's Letters from the Front, 1915-1917 (1985)

Also see: His poem “August 1914″

William Le Roy Stidger (1885-1949)

American. YMCA Pastor working with the AEF.

Soldier Silhouettes on our Front (1918) & Star Dust From The Dugouts (1919)

Stories of Christian faith through portraits of various soldiers.

Stanley Washburn (1878-1950)

American. Correspondent of the London Times in Russia.

Field Notes From the Russian Front (1915) The Russian Campaign: April to August 1915 (1916) Victory In Defeat - The Agony Of Warsaw And The Russian Retreat (1916) Field Notes From the Russian Front (1917)

BLOGS & PROJECTS

Siegfried Sassoon resources

Cambridge Sassoon Project Blog

T. E. Lawrence texts and resources

Life timelines for several poets, like Sassoon and Owen

War Poets Association

Oxford War Poetry Digital Archive

List of additional war poets

WWI fiction resource

WWI timeline and artifacts resource

Today in WWI with Literary and Historical contexts

List of WWI authors and dust jackets

Additional WWI writers

Great War Theatre

Essay on American pilots in other armies

#writing #siegfried sassoon #wwi literature #tbh making this thing #made me want to make a reading blog #like some of the project blogs linked #anyway this thing is p severely lacking in stuff from Not The Western Front #and lord knows i want to find more stuff on the eastern front #so ill likely update this when i find some good ones #i put in brooke bc his poetry is genuinely good #but i neglected other early poets #(i usually find women poets publishing early tbh)#bc their work just..isnt v enjoyable or written v well #or just blatant uninspired jingoism #like. i included buchan and some others bc its important and interesting stuff #but Defeating The Purposefully Vague Evil Beast For Christ And Goodness #gets real old real quick when it isnt well done #anyway theres my meta lmk if u have any questions #i hope all the links work #brianna babbles

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bathunterofdevon · 4 years

Text

Update

So I might as well give some commentary on my cryptic last post. Basically, I have had to fly back to the UK immediately due to the coronavirus - cutting my Canada trip short. I have had a wonderful time living and working in Collingwood, Ontario, and I made plenty of good friends. But after getting laid off, due to the place closing down, and being unable to pay the rent, I was actually pretty lucky to get back here when I did. I have heard stories of family friends being stranded in many far away places unable to get back, due to airport closures. I am a little upset that I had to leave Canada - there was so much I wanted to do there. But in all honesty, working the minimum wage job I had, much though I enjoyed it, I never would have been in any position to do anything else beyond that point. It sure is expensive being an immigrant. When I came over to Canada, I have over £3,000 in life savings that I had stashed away. But in the very first month, I lost all of it; just by looking for a place to live. (This was when I was in Toronto). Toronto is a pretty expensive place to live. It's so expensive - I swear there is a tax on the oxygen you breathe over there. I worked a shitty job over there for the first three months, as a server... except, not quite. What I did was basically like serving food, except I only did menial tasks that that were beneath the main service staff, like cleaning tables, and the floor. I didn't even get to collect tip money. And three months later, I was suddenly fired for some minor indiscretion. I won't talk about it here, because I'm a little worried that if I tell you, you might not take my side. But basically, if you have a job in Canada (and I found this out the hard way) for the first three months, you are on a kind of probationary period. You can be terminated immediately during that time with no notice whatsoever. That devastated me more than a little, because I had never been fired before. It ate into my psyche and made me wonder if I would ever really amount to anything, and whether I would have to give up and fly back early. Fortunately, after that, it turned out that I had a contact, who was a friend of a friend of my mother, who worked further up north, in this little resort by the Blue Mountain Ski Range, in Collingwood, Ontario, who managed to get me a referral for working at the front desk over there. I did a FaceTime interview, and accepted the position. Working at the resort was wonderful. Not only did I get given accommodation, but I had staff lunches, and basically all of my immediate needs were seen to. Best of all, my staff accommodation was ten times better than the last place, where I lived. I had a room all to myself, with a desk and everything. I had the resources and time schedule I needed to work on my Youtube videos all the while I was having off time from working at the front desk. After 11 whole months, I finally finished Dirty Danganronpa, while out there and breathed a sigh of relief. That sure took a lot of energy out of me. I had some troublesome flatmates though. I say troublesome, because they were difficult and unreasonable at times. They could be really unreasonable when it came to cleaning the dishes... and I later discovered that they were not equally unreasonable when it was THEIR turn to clean up after themselves. While I was initially friendly towards them, in the months gone by, I was avoid them as much as possible, because it was tricky talking to them. It was for the best that we became isolated from each other. They were nice to me at times, and I was grateful for their company at times - but their moods were often unpredictable and transient, which made me feel unsafe and unsure as to whether I could trust them. The whole time, I reflected on my status as a foreigner, and how much more useful it would be if I had a skill of some kind, and if only I had finished my driving test before I came there. Thinking about my real life situation was enough to drive me into a deep despair and self-pitying fest that would leave me feeling too exhausted and miserable to produce anything. But it wasn't all bad. I still have some positive memories of that place. I did leave a good lasting impression with my employer. And while I did eventually lose my job, unlike last time this one was not my own fault. Everybody was getting laid off, left, right and centre. And the resort itself, incidentally has closed down indefinitely. It is astonishing how far-reaching the effects of the virus have proved. I never would have predicted this level of hysteria before - I'm old enough to remember the Bird Flu, the Swine Flu, the Zika Virus, and Ebola... all I remember of those, was nothing more than there being a huge media craze; even some Youtube stars talking about them, besides a couple hundred thousands of deaths too far away for any of us to know or care. But... this was different. To be honest, though it may sound heartless of me to say this, part of me is actually excited at all the chaos that's happening. The world is in full-blown panic mode. And now government and health ministers are advising everyone to self-isolate. I just want to let these government officials and everybody else know, that I had been self-isolating long before it was fashionable. Else I would not have found the time to make these. Anyway, the day finally came when we all heard the announcement - the owner of the resort was laying off virtually everyone in the housekeeping/maintenance/front desk department, and we were being faced with a choice - either I would have to work in a different (less glamorous) department, like maintenance, or cleaning, or I would choose voluntary redundancy, and claim unemployment benefits. For me, it was a no brainer. I don't have the brain, nor the mentality to do menial, repetitive tasks like painting, and cleaning. In spite of the fact that I have worked for years in MacDonalds, and in restaurants doing tasks like that. But considering everything that was going on, I had a chat with my Mum and Dad, and they insisted that I fly back home as quickly as possible. I was reluctant to do so at first. I didn't want to throw away everything for which I'd worked so hard to achieve. It was meaningful that I was living entirely by my own means, and providing for myself. I basically wasn't a kid anymore. And I didn't want to put an abrupt end to that. But then, everything changed. Dominic Raab (The UK Government's Foreign Secretary) basically told all Brits abroad to return home as soon as possible. By then, I figured I ought to get back as soon as possible, so that I didn't end up stranded with nowhere to live. Officially, the UK is under lockdown due to the virus. But honestly, based on what I've seen, it does not feel like we are under a lockdown at all. Most of the local shops down my road are still open. Even some of the restaurants are still open - except they only do takeouts instead. I have not seen any police roadblocks, nor checkpoints of any kind. In fact, I've seen quite a few people out cycling, walking their dogs, basically just life as normal. I have to wonder how they are going to enforce this lockdown, seeing as so many people are ignoring it? Not like I care either way. If we are officially under lockdown, then I have a better reason to stay indoors, and work more on my computer. :D Now, it is estimated that we will remain under lockdown for approximately 3 months - although I don't know the actual figure. Everybody fails at predicting the future. What am I going to do in that three months time? Well, the only thing I can do at this point. If there are things that my Canada trip have taught me, it's that I have a Creative disease. I have to find ways to satisfy my urges and channel my creative instincts effectively. One of those channels is through this - my Youtube Channel. But there are three others. Another one for me is voice acting. I've mentioned earlier that I have another account where I take part in voice acting, except I'm not sure if I'm ready to introduce you to my real voice and real self yet. The third one is music. Not a lot of you may know this, but I actually have a background in music. My grandmother on my mother's side was a concert pianist (Just like another girl we all know, hmmm?) I am also an alumnus of the Academy of Contemporary Music, in Guildford, Surrey, UK. There are three videos dated about 5-7 years ago on this channel which I had to make private, because they all feature me, singing and playing guitar in them. One of them is me playing a guitar cover of the Hollyoaks Theme Tune (God - what a loser I was. So desperate for validation I would actually cover the Hollyoaks Theme tune) I don't even like Hollyoaks. I hate it with a burning passion - like every other Godawful soap opera on British Television. In fact, TV in general is just so depression and despair inducing that I refuse to watch it. Anime/Video games and Music is my escape from all that. I despise pretty much anything that depicts the real world in a realistic life setting. But to give you an idea of what else I sometimes do in my time, there is an old video - 6 years old - of a remix I did of the Allegro Cross Examination theme tune for Ace Attorney, which I made on Garageband. I make quite a lot of music using Garageband. Music is actually an even bigger part of me, than Danganronpa is - well in any case, it goes back way further than my interest in Danganronpa, that's for certain. At some point, maybe when I reach a certain point in terms of how many subscribers I have, I would love to introduce you all to my real self. It would be a rewarding experience to have all of you get to know me, and all of my facets. ...Oh, and before we all forget:

Happy Kayay-day, everybody! Let's all give a show of appreciation to Best Girl, and wish her love and happiness in Heaven. Happy Birthday, Kaede Akamatsu. - Bat Hunter

#Kaede Akamatsu #Update #Bat Hunter #Happy Birthday #Covid-19 #UK #Canada #So I'm Back Home Now

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deborahdeshoftim5779 · 4 years

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Return to Writing

Isn’t it strange that every time I fall off the tracks with writing, everything else falls out of bed as well? Not really. Whenever I maintain a regular writing habit, whether by hand, on mywriteclub, or on Tumblr, I am much calmer and much more determined to get tasks done.

When it comes to writing on the computer, I love the satisfaction of watching my daily word count grow in leaps and bounds. When it comes to writing by hand, I get the satisfaction of seeing neat pages of cursive, which are a pleasure to read.

At the moment, I use my Tumblr blogs more frequently for posting interesting videos I have seen. Over the last couple of months, I have brought back more writing posts, where I discuss a range of topics. This is necessary for a diversity of output, as well as helping me to meet a daily word count.

Given my aforementioned frustration with a lack of reading (which causes my knowledge to stagnate and dwindle), I intend on reading into several topics and writing on those. As I study French and German (and have other languages planned), I can further diversify my output with foreign language posts, too.

Subjects that I have currently covered, or will cover in the future:

1)- Art: I reblog so many brilliant paintings, particularly from Russian artists such as Ivan Aivazovski, and Giovanni Antonio Canal. But simply reblogging doesn’t help meet my goal of regular drawing practice, or even studying more about art in general. Rather, I should study these paintings in more detail, and use the method that countless artists used to learn: copy. I cannot reproduce the entire work, but I can definitely practice a technique here, an object there. As mentioned before, art is absolutely essential to my personal, academic, social, and business-related development.

2)- Foreign Languages: self-explanatory. My main languages are French and German, which I use in the personal, academic, and business-related sphere on a daily basis. I intend to post lengthier posts in French and German, in the hope that native speakers will help me improve my expression. I know that I still rely on anglicisms and need to expand my vocabulary. This means interacting with other foreign language posts on Tumblr, of which there are many! The nature of my foreign language study is such that I use French and German to study other topics, ensuring that I use the language regularly. This includes watching videos.

3)- Fanfiction: I had a moratorium on fanfiction, which yawned over months and months. Some of this was motivated by personal events during the latter half of 2019, but the decisions I made on the back of those events have done me no good whatsoever. Consequently, I am miles behind with any form of creative writing-- so much so, that I had to begin a new writing challenge in preparation for CampNaNo in April. Like many others, I have to kill this idea that fanfiction is “less important” or “just a hobby”. In fact, fanfiction has been the primary means by which I improved my own writing. Reading other people’s works has shaped my own thought and pushed me to produce my own works.

4)- Writing: My life’s work is writing, which makes my inconsistency on this account all the more baffling. Procrastination and anxiety can kill good habits, so be warned. I don’t refer to writing as a “past-time, hobby, interest”. I write every single day, because I have to. When I write, I grow calmer, more motivated, learn more, remember more, want to read more, develop as a person, get more jobs, and so on. The benefits are too numerous for this Tumblr post. All aspect of the writing craft fascinate me, so I will interact with and reblog any post connected to the writing craft. At the moment, nonfiction forms my main interest: journal entries and meta analysis appearing most often here. However, for my work, I need more practice with essay writing, analysis, and reviews. I still retain a love for fiction, particularly crime fiction.

5)- Management: Anything to do with time-management, organisation, scheduling, objectives, efficient work, conquering procrastination, and so on. I have to remind myself time and time again of what is necessary for succeeding with any goal. At the moment, single-tasking and focusing on tasks, rather than pushing them aside, is my main goal. I will be writing about my adventures with management more frequently to encourage myself and others. Once again, Tumblr is a treasure trove of advice and ideas on time-management and organisation, so I can minimise procrastination as well as enjoy trawling social media by researching useful topics and making notes by hand.

6)- Music: This one is a no-brainer. I have not done much reading into the composers, something I noticed when researching French Baroque composers. I think that topic in itself deserves more discussion. At the moment, I post a lot of videos of excellent music I have heard, with a little commentary. The reason my commentaries are so skinny are because it’s been years since I did any wide reading into music theory, the composers, and instruments. I have not been updating my practice journal either, with regards to the piano. The last entries date from February 2019, I think. Music is one of those areas which I miss when I have not approached for a while. When I return, I berate myself for not having kept this up on a regular basis. I have Christoph Wolff’s Bach essays on my bookshelf at the moment, unread. Time to change that!

7)- Healthy Eating: I am making baby steps in eating more vegetables, pulses, and whole grain foods. It would be better to draw inspiration from cookbooks and other posts from Tumblr users to ensure that I control my eating habits. For example, the bar of Galaxy Cookie Crumble chocolate I just ate instead of preparing meals in advance has not helped my waist or my long-term health. The number of healthy snacks available, as well as delicious healthy dishes completely cancel out the laziness of buying snacks (and the money burned buying total rubbish). I also love the aesthetic of good food, and the accompanying social benefits from eating proper meals. These will really liven up my dashboard.

8)- Ballet & Exercise: At 24, I’m too old to study ballet intensely, but I can certainly benefit from the exercise and discipline required for this discipline. Don’t expect any insightful posts into the art: I am a mere (unfit) spectator who admires these women for their grace and inhuman strength. I have already downloaded some pictures of ballet exercises that anyone can complete, and have also subscribed to a Youtube channel (German) which teaches ballet. At the moment, I try to get at least 6000 steps a day, but this has to be supplemented with muscle exercises. Walking isn’t going to shed the extra fat on my stomach or my butt (I really feel those extra pounds when running up the stairs!). So expect more writing on exercises that I have practiced and will be practicing on a regular basis. As someone with endometriosis, regular and strenuous exercise (as well as reducing processed foods and excess dairy) is crucial to managing the condition. My last spell was particularly painful again, after two relatively mild months.

If you have had a hiatus from writing-- or if you are better than me and write regularly-- feel free to interact with the upcoming posts (or poke me via my “Ask Me” question box if I slack off, as may well happen).

Keep writing!

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closetofanxiety · 6 years

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Beyond Wrestling: Americanrana 18

I got home after 1 a.m. today and woke up at 6 a.m. Then it was a full day of home improvement stuff. I’m tired. I’ve got ice on my bad foot. But I have some thoughts and impressions about the hottest US independent wrestling show of, uh, the month of July, at least.

Big crowd: This was Beyond’s biggest live gate of all time, and at the same time the most-watched live stream in the young life of Powerbomb TV, AND the single event responsible for more new subscribers than anything else they’ve shown so far. At the venue, a Polish-American club in Worcester with oil paintings of the Old Country on the walls, people were berserk for almost everything that happened during the night. I don’t know how it came across on TV (or whatever, screen, I’m talking about watching it on a screen), but people were loud and excitable. Dan Barry got the biggest reaction Dan Barry has possibly ever had. People reacted to the surprise appearance of Anthony Green like he was Mike Bailey, and they reacted to the surprise appearance of Mike Quackenbush like he was Steve Austin. It’s so much fun to be with a crowd of people who are just going nuts for professional wrestling.

Final appearance: Matt Riddle had what is almost certainly his last-ever Beyond Wrestling match, getting pinned by Nick Fuckin Gage during a tag match that pitted Gage and Matt Tremont (the New H8 Club) against Riddle and Filthy Tom Lawlor. It’s wild to think that a year ago he was putting his undefeated streak on the line in the main event at Americanrana 17, and this year he was in a mid-card tag match where he ate a pin. He’s headed for big things, though. Gage is great as the fan favorite, thanking people for willing him onto victory, and looking genuinely delighted when he got the pin. Awkward moment: the crowd, excited at the announcement that the winning team was now called “the New H8 Club,” started chanting “C-Z-Dub! C-Z-Dub!” despite Gage having gone over to bitter rivals GCW and Tremont wrestling his final CZW match on Saturday night. Just chant “Nick Fuckin Gage! Nick Fuckin Gage!” Speaking of which ...

Working blue: This was the sweariest Beyond Wrestling show I can remember for some time. They had pregame interviewers with Wrestling Social Media Personality Alicia Atout in front of a fancy Beyond/Powerbomb backdrop, and Janela and ring announcer Rich Palladino, of all people, kept using the word “fuck” like a comma. Kids in the room, gentlemen!

Unpopular Opinion #1: I like intergender wrestling a lot, but in order for it to become a normal part of pro wrestling, promotions and wrestlers have to stop loudly drawing attention to the fact that THEY AREN’T AFRAID TO HAVE INTERGENDER WRESTLING, DAMN IT. The opening match on the show was a terrifically fun four-on-four pitting Team Pazuzu against “Team WWR”: Kimber Lee, Jordynne Grace, Mia Yim, and Skylar. It was fun and crazy, as you’d expect from that cast of characters, and Skylar did a good job of keeping up with wrestlers who are much more experienced and established than she is. But then after the match, Chris Dickinson cut a promo about how HE RESPECTS THESE GIRLS SO GODDAMN MUCH AND INTERGENDER WRESTLING IS HERE TO STAY. Good! I like that! But the more you act like it’s some remarkable anomaly, the more people are going to treat it like that. It’s just another variety of match, like tag team wrestling.

Oh, also: There was a GREAT moment in the match where Dickinson was about to give Jordynne Grace a Pazuzu Bomb, but she was saved by Kimber Lee, who then stared Dickinson down. This was a callback to the spot in Beyond years ago where Dickinson waffled Lee with a chair and then hit her with a crazy Pazuzu Bomb in a clip that went viral and gave both of them some not-entirely-wanted exposure to the wider world. The crowd, happily, recognized this immediately and went APESHIT. I loved it!

Loco spotfests: There was an announced four-way tag match with Team Tremendous, the Gentlemen’s Club, the Beaver Boys, and the recently renamed Massage Force. There was also an unannounced Chikara showcase, with Solo Darling, Fire Ant, someone working a “Dasher Hatfield’s kid” gimmick, and Quack himself against a Dungeon of Doom-esque cast of characters. Also Travis Huckabee. I honestly groaned when I heard “Chikara showcase,” but they tore down the house. Quackenbush may be a guy who talks like Darril and wants to turn wrestling into TED Talk fodder, but he’s one of the most important US indie wrestlers of all time, and I had never seen him wrestle in person before. At one point, a sea creature or maybe the Gimp or someone picked Quackenbush up by his feet and heaved him backwards over the rope, and he sailed higher and farther than any person I’ve ever seen launched out of a wrestling ring. It was just a hugely fun match, and the four-way tag managed to top it. There was no “storytelling” or “psychology” in either match, and honestly, that’s fine for a big-spectacle show like Americanrana. Just have a bunch of talented people come out and do stuff they don’t normally do in a show, and go wild.

The plot thickens: The big news from the four-way tag is Dan Barry’s betrayal of beloved partner Bill Carr (there was a loud, enthusiastic chant of “Bill Carr fucks! Bill Carr fucks!” after the big man launched himself through the ropes. “Oh my God, I love it! I love it, you guys!” he yelled back. He is like a big happy golden retriever and it’s impossible to think negatively about him). Betrayals don’t always work on the indie level, and I’ve seen my share of partners turning on partners that are greeted with shrugs by the crowd, but people went NUTS after Barry screwed over Carr. A louder, more sustained negative reaction than I’ve ever heard in Beyond. Should be a hot feud! In further plot twists, MJF was injured and couldn’t wrestle Gresham in their blowoff, so Trent was drafted as a surprise Dream Team member. The match ended in a DQ and Gresham roughed up Stokely Hathaway while MFJ watched helplessly from the outside. THIS SETTLED NOTHING. Presumably.

Unpopular Opinion #2: I think PCO’s run as the TV veteran who has inexplicably become an indie darling is nearing its conclusion. I also think that run does not sit as well on PCO’s shoulders as it would Gangrel. It should be Gangrel out there, getting the big paydays and the crazy receptions from crowds. PCO does not have a lot in his toolbox, if I’m being honest. He had a sloppy, overlong match with Brian Cage that was full of blown spots and awkward pauses. Let’s all focus on Gangrel from now on.

A new favorite: I’ve done a total 180 on “Hot Sauce” Tracy Williams, who used to bore me to distraction. I really like him now. I think it’s because I’ve heard him on commentary a bunch, and he reminds me of friends who lived in squats and punk houses in the 1990s but who now live in Brooklyn and have respectable jobs in the low six figures, but who are still capable of smashing a bottle in the face of a Nazi skinhead.

Mayhem: What can I say about the main event, a no-ropes barbed wire death match between David Starr and Joey Janela, to settle a feud that’s been simmering on and off for years? It was extremely violent and bloody. It lasted 22 minutes but felt like 10. Starr won, and cut an absolutely searing promo afterward, calling Janela “a glorified stuntman” who only came to prominence because someone else made goofy Internet videos about him; seriously, it’s one of the best promos I’ve heard an indie wrestler give. Bile and bitterness from a man covered in his own blood; there would be no Triple H Handshake of Respect between these two gladiators.

Grace notes: This was the most efficiently run Americanrana I’ve ever attended. The doors were supposed to open at 6:30, and they opened EARLY. An indie show! This was good, but it trapped one of my friends outside, because he had gone to a bar, assuming it would take forever to get inside the building. I mean, he made it in eventually, he just had to wait at the back of the line ... There was a nice shoutout to Dominki Dijakovicokowiczogonov, gone but not forgotten from Beyond: during his match with AR Fox, Anthony Greene did the Feast Your Eyes and hit Dijakulakovich’s poses while the crowd chanted “Feast Your Eyes! Feast Your Eyes!” ... Chuck Taylor hit a Rainmaker during the four-way tag match and screamed “This one’s for you, Little Kazu!,” which is a reference to an ongoing Twitter joke that I’m almost ashamed to have recognized ... I bought a hat from David Starr and we talked about the need for national healthcare, which is a conversation topic that wouldn’t work with most wrestlers .... I don’t know why or how they do it, but Americanrana really feels special. Everyone seems to raise their game for the show, and the fans are really in a holiday mood. It’s not a show I ever want to miss ... The crowd went from skepticism over the Chikara wrestlers - one guy grunted, “Fuckin’ Vince Russo gimmicks” when the bad guys came out - to joyous acceptance, capped when the same guy yelled at the sea monster character, “Look at this big green bastard! How’s he able to breathe on land?” ... One of my favorite parts of the day was sitting in the bar downstairs while they broke down the ring and set up the barbed wire. Just seeing a bunch of the wrestlers relaxing and enjoying themselves, having a (non-alcoholic) drink with my friend Mike, enjoying the air conditioning on a summer night: this was a good night ... after the show, we stopped at a service plaza on the Masss Pike to get some unhealthy snacks and use the bathroom, and on our way in we passed Solo Darling. “Great match tonight,” we said. “Thank you!” she said. On our way out, we passed a much less happy Solo Darling as she walked over to the counter to give the McDonald’s people hell. “I distinctly said no cheese on ...” she began, as we hurried out.

Final thought: There was a 20 or 25 minute break before the main event, where they set up the barbed wire and all that. Mike and I went downstairs to the bar while Mark stayed up in the hall. The first person we saw in the bar, sitting by himself at one end, was David Starr. He was hunched over a glass of water and a shot glass and staring into the middle distance, at nothing in particular. In a few minutes, he was going to walk upstairs and wrestle the most violent match of his career in front of 500 people and you could see the concern on his face as he went over the possibilities: barbed wire, steel chairs, staple guns, cinder blocks, baseball bats. One spot that goes a little sideways and someone leaves the building in an ambulance. That glimpse of David Starr brooding put the whole night - put all of wrestling, really - into perspective. This wasn’t an angle, this wasn’t a promo, he wasn’t in character: this was a man working up the courage to do something reckless and potentially dangerous because he wanted to do it more than anything in the world. It was the look of a man who has willingly taken a great weight onto his shoulders, as many of us have, or will have to one day. It was a wordless rejoinder to all those snide comments about how wrestling is fake: looking at David Starr’s face, sitting alone and being left alone by his friends and peers, his staring eyes showing exactly what he was prepared to do, one thing was clear to anyone who was paying attention - nothing is more real than wrestling.

#Beyond Wrestling #Americanrana #Americanrana 18 #show reviews #David Starr

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dulcetgames · 6 years

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Recap & Thank You Letter - 2017

Hello Scholars,

As 2017 reaches its final hours, the staff and I would like to take a few moments to look back on this year and reflect on Sweet Elite’s future.

This has been a very important year for us. It might not seem that way because of the relatively low number of updates this year, but behind the scenes, the staff has been hard at work to push itself closer and closer to the demo release every day!

I think it’s fair to say that we started this year with a bang! The release of the Main 10′s sprites continues to be one of our most successful updates and has built itself a special place in my heart as I remember how thrilled I was to see your reactions (seeing them live from the fan Discord chat was especially exciting!)

The official introduction of Lady Arlington has also made waves...although I will still not forgive the part of the fandom that has begged me to make her a dateable character...

And let’s not even start to talk about Coach Davis. Yeah...Let’s try to put this fandom trend behind us for 2018.

On the bright side, we have gained three staff members during the year! Nadine, Koda and Danny! And with a video team now in full swing, our YouTube Channel has finally been launched! We are still working very hard to make it grow and bring you more video updates! Thank you to everybody for subscribing and attending/watching our summer Meet and Greet!

Along with a complete revamp of the Sweet Elite website, An has completed all of the Sweet Elite backgrounds needed for the demo, giving us the gorgeous completed set of backgrounds!

And of course, let’s not forget our all-time most popular update (and our most controversial in some ways)... The Scholar Sprites reveal! We were very excited to finish and present them to you and we were overall very happy with your feedback. The scholar generator remains very popular and used by the fandom to this day. It makes us very happy to see YOU happy :)

However, there is still some work to do and opportunity for growth. All of our fans have been so helpful and supportive, and we really cannot find the words to express our gratitude. Every like, reblog, fan art, fanfic and fan blog brings us one step closer to making Sweet Elite a success. You guys are absolutely vital to that.

When I first announced Sweet Elite, I marketed the game as “An Otome Game Made and Designed for You” . This was back in 2016, almost two years ago! Back then, I had absolutely NO idea how much impact this post would create. But even as the years went by, the core message of this post stays the same: It really is about you.

Sweet Elite’s development has taught me a lesson that I sort of already knew by instinct, but that carved itself further into my heart as I grew as a person: Nobody can make it all alone. The staff and I owe it to you guys. Sweet Elite has become a part of our lives and heart, and it’s really thanks to YOU.

We are so so grateful.

Our Request

As we head into 2018 and into the demo release (Yes! We are

that

close!), we would like to remind all of you that now, more than ever, is the time to help spread the word about Sweet Elite.

That means reblogging and talking to other fans is going to be extremely important. Participate in the fandom, write theories, encourage and support other fans, make scholars to your heart’s content, post screenshots and commentary of the game once the demo is out (hell, even record your own playthrough if you’re that is what you like! We 100% support that!), etc.

We are counting on you, and we appreciate it so much.

The Future

The priority has and will keep being the completion of the demo. However, since we are really really close to finishing, here is the list of things left in order to give you context:

Finishing the last illustrations & final sprites (45% completion)

Wrapping up the coding of the game and website (around 65% completion as of now)

Going into beta (Not yet started)

The moment the demo is released, I will release a massive marketing effort to get as many people to play as possible. This will obviously take a lot of time and effort.

If you follow me on my own personal SE blog, you have probably seen that I have started making plans for Sweet Elite merchandise! This is lower than the demo on my list of priorities, but know that we are working hard to put up our own official store where you can get some sweet SE merch!

Conclusion

In all, this year has been very fun for us. We have had the pleasure of talking to new fans (and in my case, meeting one of you in person!), releasing some pretty important stuff and overall getting extremely close to wrapping up the demo!

I feel like I am repeating myself, but this really is important. There is no words that can express our gratitude towards you Scholars. None.

So, thank you.

Have a happy new years! See you all in 2018 :)

Love,

Serena, Project Manager

Game Site | Development Blog | Staff Antics Blog | FAQ | Join the Team

#sweet elite #thank you #fandom

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vanessaberesfordwylie-blog · 6 years

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#2: Social media platforms and their affordances

The first social media platform that I joined was Facebook in 2009. I engaged with people known to me and shared brief text posts about myself.

Image supplied by me: This is the first post on my current Facebook feed (RIP Blackberry!)

Later, I received friend requests from people outside my inner circle, this concerned me and I cancelled my account. I rejoined a year later and immediately felt the changes within the Facebook community; I began to recognise the affordances of social media, both positive and negative. A definition of an affordance is “the value of a well designed object is when it has such a rich set of affordances, that the people who use it can do things with it that the designer never imagines (Norman, D 2011).” In this post I will provide an example of both a positive and negative affordance of social media platforms.

Image sourced: The New Yorker

A positive affordance of Facebook is the personal archival collection of photos and commentary; it affords the user a modern day photo album (who collates and prints out photos anymore?) I remember as a child, visiting a relative to view a slideshow of their overseas holiday; social media now allows us to share and view images in any location. Similarly, Instagram has further afforded the user a forum to create a visual archive. Social media theorist, Eugenia Saipera (2012) states “we can identify three main characteristics of social media: they allow users to create, download and share contents, to publish their profile and personal information, and to connect with others.”

This would indicate that the ability to share visual and textual content was initially social media’s most common positive affordance offered across multiple platforms. Tarleton Gillespie (2010) suggests “the promise of sites like YouTube, one that of course exceeds but nevertheless found purchase in a term like ‘platform,’ is primarily focused on ordinary users. The ‘You’ is the most obvious signal of this, and has itself found broader cultural purchase, but the direct appeal to the amateur user is visible elsewhere.” As platforms have evolved and multiplied a user must be aware of negative affordances that may impact them. Of course, a platform must operate as a commercial entity and while a user subscribes for free, membership does not come without a price.

youtube

Social media has afforded a user a platform to mix both their public and private elements; they are often unaware of the publicness of intimate information they have uploaded to their profile (Barnes, 2006). Further, a user is often unaware of how a platform monetises personal data. Cambridge Analytica’s purchase of data from Facebook is evidence of the monetisation of social media and unfortunately many users were surprised to find their privacy had been breached (click here). Personally, I try to avoid those silly quizzes and I.Q. tests, though I do feel that there should have been more transparency about how they were used to generate private data.

In light of such events I will continue to remain a user of social media across multiple platforms and I will continue to scrutinise my privacy settings. I appreciate the value and affordances that these platforms offer for free, and I would suggest that after being available to the public at no charge it is hard to imagine a user pay service being quite as popular (just ask the news media!)

References:

Barnes, S 2006, A privacy paradox: Social networking in the United States, First Monday, Vol.11(9), p.5.

Gillespie, T 2010, 'The politics of platforms', New Media & Society, vol. 12, no. 3, Sage.

Interaction-Design.org 2011, Affordances (Don Norman, 1994), 15 February, viewed 15 April 2018, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK1Zb_5VxuM>.

Jimmy Kimmel Live 2018, Senators ask Mark Zuckerberg for help, Apr 11, viewed 15 April 2018, < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fViHxVwA6hk>.

Siapera, E 2012, 'Socialities and Social Media', in Understanding New Media, Sage, London, pp. 191-208.

#mda20009 #facebook #cambridge analytica #social media

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tenacioussublimecreation · 3 years

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Introduction to Las Vegas Visit

In June of 2019, 3.6 million people visited Las Vegas. Perhaps you were one of them? Or maybe you’ve yet to have your first Las Vegas visit. Whether you’re a frequent traveler to Las Vegas or a newbie, you want to be better prepared at playing slots in Las Vegas.

Good for you! Preparation is key. A little can go a long way, especially when it comes to your hard-won cash. In this post, I’ll start with seven secrets to winning on slots during your Las Vegas visit.

This article has the following sections:

Introduction to Las Vegas Visit

Nevada Payout Return Limits

Know Your Nevada Gaming Stats

Check the Most Recent Payout Return Statistics

The Many Wonderful Las Vegas Gambling Podcasts

Downtown Versus the Strip

When to Visit and When Not to Visit

Candidate Winning Slot Machines in Las Vegas

Summary of Las Vegas Visit

Keep Reading … or Watch Instead!

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This audio contains commentary not found anywhere else!

1. Nevada Payout Return Limits

Nevada state gaming regulation #14 places a minimum legal limit on payout returns for slot machines. This minimum payout limit is 75%. Further, this lower limit applies per wager.

“All gaming devices must: Theoretically pay out a mathematically demonstrable percentage of all amounts wagered, which must not be less than 75 percent for each wager available for play on the device.”

Regulation 14.040: Minimum standards for gaming devices

What does this 75% minimum mean? Does it mean the player gets back 75 cents if they make a $1 bet on a slot machine? No, it doesn’t.

What it means is that the statistical average is at least a 75% return over many, many bets. The additional use of the words “per wager” in Regulation 14 means the slot machine must never be set less than an average 75% return.

For example, an unscrupulous casino operator might set a slot machine to have a 70% return for some time, then later set the payout return to 80% for an equal number of bets. Such a setup would also result in an average 75% return over both periods combined, but wouldn’t meet Nevada’s legal requirement.

Another close examination of the regulation shows something missing, which is well worth noting. What’s missing? There’s no mention of a maximum legal limit, which some states have put in place.

Without an upper legal limit on payout returns, casino operators in Nevada can offer the occasional slot machine which, on average, wins. Of course, casinos would lose money on slot machines set up this way. But, there are still good business reasons to do so.

I go over these reasons in How to Win at Slots in Older Casinos Built Before 2012. Suffice to say now, Nevada gaming regulations make doing so legal. Two questions naturally follow:

Do Las Vegas casinos set up the occasional slot machine to be winners?

How can a slots player find these winning slot machines?

The answer to the first question is yes. Casinos often decide to set up an occasional slot machine to win for promotional purposes. It’s a silent casino promotion because casinos choose to do this on slot machines situated to be easily visible to passersby.

It’s also worth noting that, like any business activity, it’s on a careful budget. Casinos can’t afford to do this often because, like everyone else, they are on a budget. But they do it. I know because I’ve found them before.

Later in this post, I’ll share some recent experiences from my fan base regarding candidate winning slot machines in Las Vegas for your consideration. But knowing they exist, and why they exist, is a necessary first step to finding them.

2. Know Your Nevada Gaming Stats

The Nevada Gaming Control Board and the Nevada Gaming Commission regulate the gaming industry in Las Vegas. This state gaming commission’s website is both thorough and comprehensive. The site offers several useful resources, but let’s consider the other side of payout returns: Actual payout statistics.

Legal limits and reported statistics are like the difference between a plan of attack and an actual battle. Remember the adage, “No plan survives contact with the enemy.” Or, in more normal circumstances, having a budget isn’t the same as paying bills.

In terms of slots gameplay, we know that Nevada gaming regulations have set a minimum payout return limit of 75% per wager on their gaming machines. That’s the law. But what happened? How did it work out in the real world?

Some states, including Nevada, do more than define a theoretical payout return limit. Nevada provides comprehensive payout return statistics. Each year, I review these actual statistics in Nevada Slot Machine Casino Gambling.

Rather than repeat myself fully, I’ll point you toward the Payout Returns in Nevada section of the Nevada post just mentioned. For now, I’ll say Nevada provides actual payout return statistics by:

State region, including Downtown Las Vegas versus the Strip

Slot machine denomination, including most common amounts but also multi-denomination, Megabucks, and other

Duration, including the current month, last 3 months, and last 12 months

Casino revenue range, including all casinos, over $1B, $1B to $12B, etc.

While past statistics never predict future behavior, a truism from the study of statistics, we can look at the available actuals to see if we can spot business trends.

Maybe, just perhaps, we can find a slot machine denomination with the best odds of winning last week. And perhaps they still have high odds this week.

Why? Because, in general, casinos are businesses as described and slots aren’t table card games. The odds of winning at table card games can’t change unless someone cheats or the game rules change.

Slot machines are electronic devices. Yes, they have random number generators – but RNGs are adjustable as a tool by the casino operator trying to control their financial performance metrics finely.

3. Check the Most Recent Payout Return Statistics

Before your next trip to Las Vegas to play slot machines, visit the Nevada Gaming Commission’s website. Under Statistics & Publications, you’ll find an entry for Gaming Revenue Report with PDF files available for download.

At the time of this writing, the most recently available monthly gaming revenue report from Nevada is for June 2019. These reports include the gaming statistics for slot machines, table games, and sports betting. Further, the left-most columns are for the most recent month with the remaining columns for a combined three months and twelve months.

Page 1 is a state-wide summary. Since we are discussing a Las Vegas visit, we need to find two specific state regions in the report: Downtown Las Vegas and Las Vegas Strip. Both are situated in Clark County.

The gaming revenue statistics for downtown Las Vegas begins on page 8:

Page 8: All downtown Las Vegas casinos combined

Page 9: Downtown Las Vegas casinos with over $1 million in gaming revenue

Page 10: Downtown Las Vegas casinos with $1 million to $12 million in gaming revenue (none currently exist)

Page 11: Downtown Las Vegas casinos with over $12 million in gaming revenue

The gaming revenue statistics for the Las Vegas Strip are on pages 12 through 17:

Page 12: All Las Vegas Strip Area casinos

Page 13: Las Vegas Strip casinos with over $1 million in gaming revenue

Page 14: Las Vegas Strip casinos with $1 million to $12 million in gaming revenue (none currently exist)

Page 15: Las Vegas Strip casinos with $12 million to $36 million in gaming revenue

Page 16: Las Vegas Strip casinos with $36 million to $72 million in gaming revenue

Page 17: Las Vegas Strip casinos with over $72 million in gaming revenue

Since the format is common on all these pages, let’s review how to read and understand one of them: Page 8 – All Downtown Las Vegas Area casinos combined. The current month columns are:

Number of Locations

Number of Units

Win Amount in 1000s of dollars

Percent Change from the last month

Win Percent

Note that Nevada reports the Win Percent for the casino, not the player. In most other states, this percentage is the casino hold percentage or Hold%. Subtracting it from 100% provides the percentage of winnings retained by the player. Further, negative numbers are in parenthesis.

The lowest casino Win Percent, i.e., highest player return, in June 2019 was the $25 denomination slot machine with a negative 7.57 Win%. There were nine of these slot machines at three locations with an overall monthly player return of 107.57%

Why so high? Quite likely, someone won big on one of these $25 denomination slot machines. That big jackpot pushed up the overall monthly average on all nine machines with this denomination in the downtown area.

Looking on the same line under the 3-month entry, it was 100% minus 4.77% equals 95.23%. The 12-month average was even smaller, at 92.44%. This abrupt change indicates playing $25 denomination in downtown Las Vegas is not the advantage it might otherwise appear.

Otherwise, slot machine denominations with the highest-to-lowest player returns for June 2019 in all casinos in the downtown Las Vegas area were:

Multi-denomination: 100% minus 5.44% equals 94.56% return to the player

25-cent quarter slots: 100% minus 5.49% equals 94.51% return to the player

1-dollar slots: 100% minus 5.59% equals 94.41% return to the player

5-cent nickel slots: 100% minus 5.75% equals 94.25% return to the player

5-dollar slots: 100% minus 7.49% equals 92.51% return to the player

1-cent penny slots: 100% minus 11.03% equals 88.97% return to the player

Megabucks: 100% minus 14.02% equals 85.98% return to the player

I understand that this is a lot of statistics. But consider what we learned even with this simple research of statistics from downtown Las Vegas casinos for June 2019:

The worst payout returns are on Megabucks

The second-lowest payout return is from penny slots

The third-lowest payout return is from $5 and $25 slot machines

The best returns, all very similar, are nickel slots, dollar slots, quarter slots, and multi-denominational slot machines

A further detailed analysis would be to perform the same straightforward payout return study on downtown Las Vegas casinos separated into three ranges of gaming revenue.

I’ll save this further analysis for another time. We’d need to run down the monthly gaming revenue for each casino, likely from their casino operator’s financial reports filed with the Security Exchange Commission.

4. The Many Wonderful Las Vegas Gambling Podcasts

So far, I’ve talked about gaming regulations and gaming revenue reports available from the state of Nevada. These topics were based on official information from the government. But, that’s not everything we have. There are also people like you.

More specifically, there are people like you that have enjoyed Las Vegas so much that they started a podcast about it. There are more than a few such Las Vegas gambling podcasts. In preparation for your next Las Vegas visit, start listening to them to learn a lot of tips and tricks from these Las Vegas experts.

Each show is more-or-less available anywhere you find podcasts. Some shows are former or current radio shows which distribute as a podcast so, again, look for them wherever you find podcasts.

If you’ve never listened to a podcast before, you might wonder how to start doing so. Here’s how. There are a selection of podcast apps and services on this webpage. It’s on the right side if you’re at a computer or at the end if you’re on a mobile device.

Those linked images go to my podcast show at those sites. After subscribing to my show, of course, use their search tool to find any of the following podcast show names:

Five Hundy by Midnight

Vegas Never Sleeps

360 Vegas

You Can Bet on That

Gambling with an Edge

Vegas Confessions Podcast

Vital Vegas

The longest-running Las Vegas gambling podcast is Five Hundy by Midnight: The Original Las Vegas Podcast. They’ve been at it since January of 2005 providing weekly episodes since then. At the time of this writing, they are up to episode #702. The hosts are relatively focused on Las Vegas news stories.

Vegas Never Sleeps by Steven Maggi is a former radio show now distributed as a podcast. He’s been broadcasting since 2008. His show is mostly thoughtful interviews with various Las Vegas entertainers and others. I was one of those other interviewees in March of 2018.

360 Vegas is a popular podcast about all things Las Vegas. They also host an annual meetup called 360 Vegas Vacation. The 2019 event, Twitter hashtag #360VV9, is on September 1-3, 2019. At the time of this writing, it’s still about a month away.

Gambling Podcast: You Can Bet on That, a podcast for the recreational gambler, is hosted by Mark and Dr. Mike. They have great chemistry and produce a fun and friendly show. While they are physically located in San Diego, they are so near Las Vegas and visit so often that they often talk about it.

Gambling with an Edge is a weekly live radio show in Las Vegas found afterward as podcast episodes. It’s hosted by Bob Dancer and Richard Munchkin of video poker fame. They interview professional gamblers, authors, and casinos insiders.

Vegas Confessions Podcast is all about the casino and gambling lifestyle. The three hosts are often in Las Vegas. They cover Las Vegas topics as well as gambling superstitions, casino games, food reviews, trip reports, and more.

Last but certainly not least is Vital Vegas by Scott Roeben. His blog, twitter feed, and podcast are incredible. He loves Las Vegas. Here you’ll find essential Las Vegas news, tips, deals, and (as he says) WTF. In my opinion, out of all the Las Vegas podcasts I mention here, pick Vital Vegas. You won’t regret it.

None of these podcasts have paid me to promote them in this blog. I like to listen to them and thought you might find them useful in preparing for your Las Vegas visit.

I should further note that this is not a comprehensive list of Las Vegas podcasts. For instance, I haven’t yet listened to the Faces and Aces Las Vegas podcast. Again, the podcasts listed are merely those I have discovered and enjoyed over time.

5. Downtown Versus the Strip

Las Vegas is famous for the Strip with its world-famous mega-resorts, shops, five-star dining options, and entertainment venues. But there is also the smaller and lesser-known historic downtown Las Vegas with its venerable casinos, museums, and zip line.

Comparing the Strip to Downtown is like comparing apples and oranges. Each location is a unique experience with different options. At a high level, I could perhaps best describe Downtown as where many locals go while the Strip is where out-of-towners tend to be.

How do I know this? Because of reported gaming revenue for the two areas. For 2018, the Las Vegas Strip had $6.6 billion in annual gaming revenue. Also for 2018, Downtown Las Vegas had less than 10% of that annual gaming revenue or $650 million.

The Strip has big casinos, big acts, and big everything else. Again, it’s world-famous and hardly a secret. Downtown Las Vegas is known as Old Vegas or merely Fremont Street. For many visitors, Old Vegas is the secret worth sharing.

Old Vegas is more than one secret. It is perhaps as many as 15 secrets, all by itself. In advance of your Las Vegas visit, consider reviewing this post from The Crazy Tourist, 15 Best Things to Do in Downtown Las Vegas.

If you are staying on or slightly off the Las Vegas Strip but want to visit downtown Las Vegas or vice versa, how do you get there? How far apart are they?

Downtown and the Strip are about two to five miles apart. With light traffic on Las Vegas Boulevard, it takes 15 to 20 minutes to drive from mid-Strip to the Fremont Street Experience. This time applies to driving your car, or taking a rental, including finding a spot to park.

Otherwise, there’s taking the bus, walking, rideshare services like Uber and Lyft, and taking a taxi. It’s a two-mile walk from the Stratosphere on the north end of the Strip.

6. When to Visit and When Not to Visit

Whether you visit the Las Vegas Strip, downtown Las Vegas, or both, winning at slots in Las Vegas means considering when to visit. This question has to do with the number of visitors in Las Vegas at any given time.

In 2018, over 42 million people visited Las Vegas. In June of 2019, 3.9 million people visited according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Bureau. Only 514,000 visitors, about 13% of the monthly visitors, were visiting in June to attend a conference.

Per month, most visitors are in March at less than 3.8 million while the least visitors were in February at 3.2 million individuals. Conference attendance is meager during December.

What I’m trying to do here by digging into these statistics isn’t to examine the number of visitors in a month or a year in the city of Las Vegas. What I’m trying to dig into relates to experiences my fanbase has been having when visiting Las Vegas.

What happens to them? Whether they are on the Strip or Downtown, they have been reporting that they win at slots on weekdays and lose playing slots on weekends.

Why? I can explain why, and touched on why above, but it hardly matters. This pattern exists, whatever its cause. And I want that you should know about it when planning your Las Vegas visit.

I touched on why this is above, about casinos being a business with fine control over their payout return statistics for slots. This control is now daily due to technological advances in casino operating systems. At most modern casinos, central computers control slot machine odds of winning.

As I have mentioned elsewhere, casino operators have been seeing an unprecedented number of casino visitors. To manage such large groups, casino operators needed to automate their casinos. Doing so allowed them to reduce their workforce while also providing them the ability to achieve their daily financial performance metrics.

Both changes resulted in significantly reduced operating costs. However, automation means casinos can quickly adjust the odds of winning on all their slot machines. When would they need to do this?

It’s a business decision. Casino operators universally decrease the odds of winning on slots machines during the weekends when hotels have higher occupancy. To keep some balance, they’ll also increase the odds of winning on slots during weekdays.

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Nevada gaming regulations require a monthly revenue report from each casino. That’s a monthly report. Even if it was a weekly report, this difference in weekday and weekend payout returns is unnoticeable.

Both a weekly and monthly report shows the payout return average over their respective periods. Only a daily report would show the casino’s behavior of changing slot machine odds within a week.

But the Nevada gaming regulations don’t show daily gaming revenue reports. No state does. So, casino operators can do this without breaking any laws.

Based on experiences shared by my audience, there are lower odds of winning on slot machines starting by 10 a.m. on Friday through around sunrise on Monday morning. Further, the same reduction occurs on significant holidays or whenever Las Vegas has more extensive than usual crowds of visitors.

Please plan your Las Vegas visit accordingly, especially when choosing which day or days you plan on playing slot machines while there. In general, if there’s a crowd then be very cautious about risking your bankroll.

7. Candidate Winning Slot Machines in Las Vegas

Scott Roeben first mentioned the best slot machine I know about in Las Vegas. He runs the Vital Vegas blog, Twitter feed, and podcast. This slot machine is in Four Queens in downtown Las Vegas over by the cashier’s cage.

Scott posted a photo of this “Old Faithful” slot machine on Twitter along with its general area within the casino. It’s a 2-credit, $5 denomination Progressive Wheel of Fortune machine.

Being a $5 denomination slot machine, it’s high-limit. I don’t recommend playing high-limit slots unless you can afford the relatively large bankroll required to make 100 to 120 bets of $10 each. Don’t ever bet with any amount of money you can’t afford to lose.

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Remember, winning by luck isn’t something with which I can help you or anyone else. Instead, winning because you have an excellent plan is something with which I can and do help.

Bonus Secret

Thanks for reading so far into this rather long post with so much statistics. You deserve a reward. And so here it is.

Less than two months ago, audience member James reported from the Four Queens Casino in downtown Las Vegas. Based on his experiences, they’ve set up their slot machines to provide a quick win or “taste” followed by no wins.

The advantage play to use in response to this casino setup is what I call my “Five Pull” approach. For slot machines there, make only five bets before moving to another slot machine. If you win anything at all, move on without making any remaining bets.

Optionally, if you can, try to play slot machines not played for at least a few minutes or longer. Of course, finding an idle slot machine isn’t possible on busy nights at the casino.

I explain this specific winning strategy in detail in my blog article Winning Strategy 1: Only Win Immediately.

Summary of Las Vegas Visit

In June of 2019, 3.6 million people visited Las Vegas. Next month, you might be one of them. Whether you’re a frequent traveler to Las Vegas or a newbie, this post helps you be better prepared for playing slots in Las Vegas.

When it comes to winning with slots at someplace you’re not as familiar with as your local casino, preparation with a little thought is the key to a successful trip.

Join our Nevada slots community, a private and closed Facebook Group, for more advice from fellow lovers of slots and Las Vegas.

Have a great Las Vegas visit and let us know how it goes!