#(I might remake/edit this between when I get home)

[awakefor48hours]

[gabithefanwriter]

The Little Mermaid

Ariel (2023) x Female! Mermaid Reader

You are my World.

This is based off of the 2023 version. I’ll be making more Ariel one shots in the future (more of Halle’s, more of Ariel 1989 and genderbend Ariel?👀). Not my best work.

I haven't seen the 2023 version but Halle as Ariel has me in a chokehold. I'm not sure how many changes from the animation were made in the live action remake, so forgive any inaccuracies. Also, it's kinda rushed. I'm sorry I had an idea and I have no idea where it went. Not my best work. And it isn't edited.

Readers of any background can read this. Skin colour is not specified. Also I'm sorry for the awful changed lyrics.

"Ariel! Wait up!" I cried out after her, swimming until we were at the same speed. "What's going on?"

"I saved the prince! I brought him to the shore! His legs are so fascinating, Y/n! He is also really handsome! There were so many things that he had that I was so confused about! Oh, how I wish I could learn more about it, about him!"

I listened to every word, my own heart breaking even as I had a massive crush on her. It wasn't even a crush - I had fallen in love with her since the start of our journeys. She sang to me, how she wanted to see the world above, how she dreamed of nothing more or less.

I listened to her words, and smiled, even as we both swam out a fair distance from the grotto. She waved goodbye and swam back home and I stayed there, waving like the lunatic I am.

I swam in the grotto even after she left. I understood her, that she wanted to be part of his world, but I wanted her to stay here with me.

I looked up through the small hole at the top between the rocks and slowly twirled.

"Up there they walk,

Up there they run,

Up there they stay all day in the sun.

I wish she could see

That I want to be

Part of Her World."

I turned and looked down, only to gasp when I saw Sebastian gaping at me with wide eyes, and I couldn't help but immediately swim over. "Sebastian, don't-"

"You love Ariel?" He shrieked. I bit my lip and looked down at my f/c tail. "Well...yeah, Sebastian. What's not to love about her? Her desire to learn about others, the way her eyes twinkle when she discovers something, the way she's so easy to talk with? And let's not even get started on her beauty! Her voice - oh, how I wish I had a voice like hers. I could listen to her all day!"

"The king would support it, I'm sure! He loves having you around. He's say he views you as another daughter and already an addition to the family," Sebastian reassured. I frowned and glanced down at the red crab, a sigh slipped past my lips. "I mean - it's not just whether or not King Triton accepts me. It also depends on whether Ariel accepts me, but if I were to be honest, I think she has a type for humans, and I think she might not be into girls."

Sebastian crawled over to climb onto my arm to reach my shoulder, my h/l hair gently brushing over him as I swam to the coral reefs where I remember first meeting Ariel.

"What would she give

If she could live

Out of these waters?

But what would I pay

To hear her say

She loves me back?"

I looked up to see the sun glowing brightly above the surface. Sebastian still clung to my shoulder as I swam until I was certain that if I outstretched my hand, it would break through the surface.

"Betcha on land

They understand

The struggles with unrequited love.

Where women love women,

Although it's not uncommon,

It's improbable!"

I turned to Sebastian as we 'fell' down to the sand slowly, stretching out on the sandy bottom.

"I'm ready to hear what she's learned today,

Hold in my words as I hear her say

How fascinated she is with the upper world!

The way her tail twirled,

Eyes with passion,

Up there she might have more fun!"

I looked back up at the surface, hugging myself and flapping my tail.

"I wish she could see

I just want to be

Part of her world."

I felt Sebastian's heartbroken stare on my back, a sigh escaping past my lips. "I would do anything to have her be with me, Sebastian. I just love her so much."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

I spun around and saw the very mermaid we were talking about. I bit my tongue to suppress a gasp when she stood there, staring at me. "You love me?"

"I-uh..."

"I love you too."

She swam closer, her hand going from her

I stared at her, from her eyes to her lips, slowly swimming up and kissing her gently. Her arms wrapped around my neck as my hands went to the back of her neck and the other tangling in her hair. "I love you, Ariel."

"I love you too, Y/n." She smiled as we kissed again, pulling me until she was flushed against me.

[cosmic-pheonix]

So I was browsing on Twitter and saw this on my timeline (Link):

The way my jaw dropped when I saw this! Now obviously, this is a leak and may not be true, this is just alleged speculation (so take this with a grain of salt), but if this is confirmed, then here's to hoping a remake of the series (and get Takahiro Kagami to direct the project because he's ✨🌟THE YUGIOH ARTIST/KEY ANIMATOR✨🌟 - best art style too fr fr!)

There's just so many possibilities and avenues the anime project could take, some say it's Yu-Gi-Oh R, others say Yugioh Season 0 remake, I'm not sure what it will be if it's confirmed, all I will say I'm glad we could be getting more content related to the OG series (I miss the gang/OG cast and Yami Yugi/Atem so much, can you tell? 😩😫😭😭😭😭)

There's a few possibilities and theories/ideas to what I think the project could be:

Anime series (either an OVA or a limited series???) post DSOD movie, a look into Yugi, Kaiba and the rest of the character's lives after the events of the movie. (Could be in correlation to that Solid Vision Experiment VR game that was teased months ago by Konami and that one art Kazuki Takahashi did of Yugi + Kaiba in space playing Yugi's game.)

Yugioh Anthology Series??

Mentioned before, Yugioh DM Remake.

Again mentioned before, Yugioh Season 0 Remake

Mentioned again before, Yugioh R Adaptation

Okay, now this one, hear me out! - Anime project surrounding Yami Yugi/Atem life in egypt as a Pharoah (before and after he was sealed in the puzzle), how he deals with being a young prince/king as he bears the responsibilities of one and bearing the weight of saving the world/his home. Including numerous lore about Atem's court(?); Ishizu, Seto, Mahad, Mana etc, ancient egyptian dark games, egyptian culture, the millennium items, the rivalry/relationship between Atem and Seto (their families), Seto and Kisara's relationship, more backstory on Thief King Bakura and Zorc etc. and probably a whole lot more (correct me if I'm wrong - haven't read the yugioh manga in a hot minute - but I remember seeing somewhere that Kazuki Takahashi had to cut a lot or some of the stuff out to allocate more leeway to the story. I'd imagine there's probably a lot of unused and uncut material he wrote/drew that wasn't gonna be used in the main story...)

These are just a few of my theories to what the project could be. Again, like I said before, if it does get confirmed you best believe I will be there!

Also in relation to yugioh news, Yugioh GX is getting a remaster (happy for the GX fans/girlies! Also unrelated note: but does anyone have like a download link to all the HD remaster episodes of Yugioh DM? Did they release a blu-ray edition of it, if not, they should ☹️) and there's gonna be anime episodes of that one video Konami released for the qaurter century anniversary/konami animation studio, the one showcasing animated shorts of the yugioh card monsters, so that's cool!

EDIT: so uh didn’t see the date of this tweet when I screenshot it whoops, (god I’m such a dumbass) so the tweet might be indeed in relation to the yugioh card monsters anime shorts/PV Konami produced months back, so my bad 😅. Please disregard it….Still it’s something interesting to think about in the near future if they do go back to the OG series with Yugi and the gang!

[yernemm]

Starfield Gameplay Tips

AKA Stuff that the game doesn't do a great job at telling you about but it's good to know (no spoilers)

(I play with mouse and keyboard so I'm not sure about controller bindings for these)

Object manipulation and decoration

Grab objects without picking them up by holding E

When you picked up an object, use left and right click to rotate it

Tap shift to change the rotation axis (there's no visual indicator for this for some reason)

You can also throw a picked up object by pressing R

You can also move dropped objects around inside an outpost by entering edit mode in the build menu

When positioned in edit mode, placed objects are "stuck" down, they no longer seem to be affected by physics. This is a great way to decorate your outpost

Other cool stuff

In the inventory on the space suits screen, there's an option to automatically hide the suit in cities

Similarly, there's an option to automatically hide the helmet in breathable areas on the helmets screen

In space, hold E (with no target selected) to get up from your pilot seat and walk around your ship.

In the ship builder, double click any module to select all connected modules. This is great for moving around large chunks of the ship, but also extremely useful when you run into the problem where the game is telling you that *something* isn't connected but you have no idea what it is. Just double click the cockpit and any loose parts won't be selected.

Several cities have an "Enhance" store. This place lets you completely remake your character, including renaming, changing body type, face, etc. This only costs 500 credits so don't worry if you're not happy with how your character looks initially. You can't change your background or traits though.

Stuff the game tells you but some players missed

When in scanner mode (both on foot and in the ship) look at any objective or marker and you get the option to travel there without opening the map. This is especially nice in your ship, as you can easily fly between different planets and star systems without ever opening the star map.

In the ship, tap E to cycle your target and ESC to deselect your target. Especially useful in combat or when you wanna talk to a ship (you can hail and talk to any ship you see)

When modifying a ship, any loose items are placed in the ship's inventory so make sure to check that if you lost something (I wouldn't recommend decorating the ship's interior for this reason)

If you have multiple ships, they don't really have individual storage. All ship cargo is moved to your home ship whenever you switch ships. This can even result in ships carrying more than their max capacity when moving to a smaller ship.

There's a quick melee button

You can favorite weapons and items to assign them to your number keys

Opening your scanner shows a path to the objective on the floor

B-b-bonus tip

Your photo mode pics are in Documents/My Games/Starfield/Data/Textures/Photos

If you have other stuff that you didn't know for a while, let me know, and I might add it to the list. Hope this helps :^)

[proximasc0rner]

(So. I'm going to preface this by saying I'm a Gen Z queer kid who doesn't know what it was like to be LGBTQ in the earlier days of our fight for equality, and I don't know what it was like to have the ONLY queer representation onscreen be queer-coded villains. This post is not to be taken too seriously. It was just a silly thought that popped into my head, so I wanted to share a lighthearted rant about it. Please don't murder me okay thanks)

Sometimes life gives you lemons, and sometimes it hits you with the Disney Villains hyperfixation. Again.

This post isn't going to be about how much I am a fUCKING SIMP because I do NOT have the balls to talk about the shit that runs through my head when I'm just casually in love with fictional Bad People™️

Instead, it's just about me diving through various rabbit holes and learning about the queer community's complicated relationship with Disney Villains. I learned what the Hays Code was, and how it was the origin of the queer-coded villain trope. Good guys weren't allowed to be gay. And even though the Hays Code eventually just kinda died for the most part, the trope stuck around.

But even though the trope was designed to frame queer people as untrustworthy, perverse, and strange, a lot of LGBTQ folks really, REALLY love these diabolical characters, myself included-- although I wasn't around when the queer community first "claimed" the villains as our own, so to speak. I actually watched a really interesting video essay on the subject that I'll link to below! A lot of it boiled down to a sense of relatability to these characters-- these villains want to take charge of their lives, and are more often than not outcasts in some respects. So, really, it becomes easy to see the appeal of these extremely self-confident and unapologetically different characters.

But again. Queer-coded villains come with a lot of historical baggage. Thus, when the live-action remakes started coming out, the villains lost most of the queer-coding they had.

But that gave them the new problem. They are FUCKING BORING. LOOK I HAD TO SAY IT. These bitches do NOT have much personality to them. I'd give an example of a Disney live-action remake villain to prove this point, but uh I'm. Kinda boycotting Disney right now, and these movies. I cannot remember these movies enough to tell you anything about them.

BUT ANYWAY. I realized that kind of leaves queer audiences between a rock and a hard place: either have a queer-coded villain whose trope was literally made to villainize queer people, orrrr have a villain whose personality is so bland that you might as well replace them with a sapient cup of tap water and still have the same impact.

And thus, I propose a solution to this dilemma!

Yes, queer-code the villains (DONT LEAVE YET IM GETTING SOMEWHERE). Make them just as delightfully overdramatic as villains like Maleficent or Jafar. Give them that limp wrist. GIVE THOSE MALE VILLAINS PERFECT EYELINER.

But if you're going to queer-code the villain? Then queer-code the hero, too. Show that queerness is not intrinsically tied to morality of any kind, it's just a part of who some people are. Make those heroes flamboyant. Give them that drag queen gait. If you're feeling froggy, lesbian-code the hero's mom or something! Make her be older and unmarried and give her that deeper voice and then show how fucking awesome of a mother she is to the hero. Walt Disney would be rolling in his grave (or cryogenic pod depending on who you ask /j), and I think that would be truly beautiful.

So. Yeah. That about covers it. Okay everyone go home and drink water. :)

EDIT: HAHAHAHA I DEFINITELY DIDNT FORGET ABOUT THE LINK TO THE VIDEO OR ANYTHING

[allinmycorner]

Dancing With the Stars celebrated Disney's 100th anniversary with a night dedicated to the music from the company's first century. We opened with a performance of "Bare Necessities" that accompanied the pros all riding in Hyundai IONIQ 5 SUVs which come with a Disney100 edition. We even got a glimpse of Val and Jenna's son Roman and he is adorable. Of course Mickey and Minnie dropped by to help our stars celebrate and the audience was even given special light up Mickey ears to wear in the ballroom as well.

On a somber note, the show paid tribute to former contestant Suzanne Somers who died over the weekend. They showed a picture of her before the show and Alfonso gave a little speech toward the end that was accompanied by a picture of her and partner Tony. It was a sweet moment.

Alfonso also had another sweet moment at the very end of the show when he wished former partner Witney Carson a happy birthday.

So who had a happy ending and who had their Disney Dreams crushed? Let's check it out!

Adrian and Britt: I'm not very surprised that Adrian got eliminated this week. His Viennese waltz to Dumbo's "Baby Mine" was nice but it didn't really standout. I always make it a point to really watch every dance and not let myself get distracted but even when this one ended, I knew I wasn't going to remember it. And I didn't. The most memorable thing was that he was accompanied by pianist Chloe Flowers on a special edition piano made by Steinway to commemorate Disney's 100th anniversary. So that didn't bode well for him and his elimination proved it.

Xochitl and Val: Xochitl landed at the top of leaderboard by herself this week with her paso doble to "Un Poco Loco" from the movie Coco. It was an unusual choice for a paso doble, which was acknowledged by the judges. The song is faster than the traditional paso and is more of a silly song while the paso is a rather serious dance. But Xochitl handled it like a pro and showed why she is a serious contender for the Len Goodman mirrorball trophy. I think this will be a routine that goes down in DWTS history.

Ariana and Pasha: Fun fact - Ariana used to work at Disney World after graduating college. It sounds like she may have been a princess based on Julianne's comments during Ariana's skybox interview. I can see it. Anyway, Ariana channeled Elsa for a contemporary routine to "Into the Unknown" from Frozen 2. And while it was a beautiful routine, it felt a little too safe for me. I wish Pasha had given Ariana some more complex moves and really let her act out some of the angst of this song, stuck between wanting nothing to change but knowing that there is more out there. Hopefully we get to see Ariana do another contemporary so she can really wow us.

Charity and Artem: Charity closed out the show with a waltz to "Part of Your World," paying tribute to this summer's remake of The Little Mermaid. She talked about how it felt to see a Disney princess who looked like herself and how she hopes to inspire girls who look like her too. And she continues to be technically proficient but she's still not topping the leaderboard. I still think her lack of emotional connection to the songs is what is holding her back. "Part of Your World" is an "I Want" song but Charity danced it with the biggest smile on her face the entire time. I think if she had played it more wistfully, it would've really elevated her routine and she could've placed higher.

Jason and Daniella: I loved Jason's foxtrot to "A Whole New World" from Aladdin. I'm not sure why it didn't get scored higher. I guess the judges might now expect more from him. Or I wonder if they saw something through the fog on the dance floor that we couldn't at home. But I think if he continues the way he's going, he's a lock for the finals - barring any surprise eliminations.

Lele and Brandon: I'm not sure why I didn't like this routine as much as I've liked Lele's other routines. She seemed to handle the rumba to "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" from The Lion King well enough. But it lacked something. Maybe it was a spark? Maybe Brandon played it too sweet that it lost the sultry? I don't know but it was something.

Harry and Rylee: There was some buzz that Rylee had stolen big sister Lindsay's choreography because Lindsay danced the quickstep to Toy Story's "You Got a Friend in Me" with partner Sean Spicer. So I watched Harry's and Sean's routines back-to-back and while there is one sequence that looks lifted from Lindsay's routine, they are still different enough to consider it an homage than outright copying. Though maybe the producers should've given them a different song and/or dance style. Either way, Harry did handle the quickstep well enough and I would say he was better than Sean - Rylee added some more complicated moves that he pulled off well. Harry may end up being this season's dark horse - we're just going to have to see.

Mira and Gleb: Mira danced a waltz to "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes" from Cinderella and it was gorgeous. She finally let herself be lost in the dance and the music, which I think really helped her. Again, like most creatives, she is likely her own worst enemy. Once she stops standing in her own way, she'll really start to soar.

Mauricio and Emma: Mauricio opened Disney night with a paso doble to the "Sorcerer's Apprentice" sequence from Fantasia. With Emma dressed as a broom, they danced across the floor with ease. The paso doble isn't an easy dance but he did well with it. Was it at the same level as Xochitl's? Of course not. But it held a charm all its own. And it's clear that Mauricio has fan support so I think he'll have a few more chances to continue to improve.

Alyson and Sasha: Alyson danced a jazz routine to "Be Our Guest" from Beauty and the Beast, though she was honoring the Broadway version and the start of Disney on Broadway. It was a nice routine but I feel it could've popped more. The judges gave her props for dancing with her hair done up to mimic Lumiere's top candle but I wonder if her performance would've been better if she didn't have to worry about it.

Barry and Peta: Barry talked about working with Bob Freakin' Fosse in the Broadway production of Pippin, so Peta hoped it would give him a leg up in their jazz routine to "He's a Tramp" from Lady and the Tramp. And it seemed to be going well until a trick went wrong. At first, I couldn't tell who messed up - Barry or Peta - in their lift but it seems it was Barry. That through them off but he seemed to catch up, though a little too late. But he's still fun to watch and hopefully the audience keeps him around a little longer despite sending him to the bottom three this time.

So that was Disney Night! Break out the tissues because the next show is Most Memorable Year night, which always promises to be a tearjerker. The show will also have a special tribute to Len Goodman as the current pros will be joined by past pros to perform a Viennese waltz to "Moon River" in his honor. For a moment, I worried that by "past pross" they just meant Julianne and Derek but no, they mean several past pros! Kym, Tony, Anna, Edyta, Karina, Maks, Louis and Mark will be joining in this tribute. So it will be nice to see them again and it see their tribute to Len.

See you all then!

[racingtoaredlight]

I just don’t like this guy...

I’ve watched this entire video a few times...it’s fantastic even if the host is blatantly lying to you.

Jacob Collier, if you’re not familiar, is a very talented multi-instrumentalist that has gotten a good amount of buzz from doing a lot of online shit and lectures.  He’s really known for doing remakes of well-known songs where he plays all the instruments and does all the vocal harmonies.

I should revere him as a walking god.  At the very least, a living Mozart.  But I don’t.

The biggest reason I hate the Beatles isn’t their music or lack of musicianship.  They’d be perfectly forgettable if that’s all there was to it.  But you can’t mention the Beatles in any public forum outside of the most radiant positive light without inciting a near riot.  And Jacob Collier fans have quickly become just as zealous and violent.

What makes the video at the top great is that it’s one of the few criticisms of Collier that exist outside comment sections or forums.  The host does his absolute very best to stay politically correct and not justifiably rip into him...but his face tells the whole story.

Simply put...this guy is a highly educated, professional vocal coach who knows all the how’s and why’s.  His face tells the entire story.  He might go and say “oh he’s really talented and makes it work,” but down deep?  He’s disgusted at what he’s hearing.

***

The video at the top is peppered with these moments where his inner disgust comes to the surface.  And you gotta give this guy props if you listen to the whole thing...he does his damndest to stay objective and say nice things about Collier, but...

When you really devote yourself to the study of a particular area...where you painfully break yourself down and face truths that fundamentally fuck your head up...and some guy comes prancing in pretending to be a deity, there’s going to be some cognitive dissonance there.  You can only tell pretty lies for so long until the truth feels like it’s going to erupt sideways and cause a mile of mountain to displace itself at the sound of speed while Dave Crockett films darkness from beside his Seattle KOMO news car on a miraculously undamaged logging road.

Was that callback too hamfisted?

Maybe it was, but I like it.

***

The big difference between the Beatles hype and Collier’s is that Collier is actually trying to be proficient at the thing he’s supposed to be doing.  And I’m not going to shit all over this, because I think...for the most part...it’s really nice.  There are parts in there that are really, really nice...which is one of my biggest issues with Collier.

Those home runs should be the meat of the song.  The spoke of the metaphorical wheel.  They shouldn’t be quickly abandoned because of ADHD.

Check out 3:50-4:10.  My goodness that is good stuff.  He goes from a nice little counterpoint-style riff in the higher registers and gradually moves down, octave by octave, filling up the space...which is fucking awesome when he abruptly changes key at the bottom.  Just insanely good, high-level shit tucked into a simple presentation.  Men have made careers out of much less.

The problem is...this is a single moment.

If you pay attention to the majority of the rest of this...whenever he’s singing, the piano disappears.  Now, singing and playing at the same time is difficult, and something I can’t do.  But he can’t really do it either...and for that 20 seconds of greatness, we have 7 minutes of him trying to find the keys on the keyboard.

***

Collier’s big thing is that he plays a ton of instruments.  Singing, keys, guitar, bass, uke, banjo, drums, whatever...

Which is cool...I guess?...frankly the most impressive part of this is how it gets put together and edited.  Because when you talk to musicians specializing on a certain instrument that Collier plays, that’s when the real criticisms come out.  Almost immediately this gets dismissed as sour grapes or jealousy, but it’s not...

The vocal coach at the top...there are times watching Collier where he’s legitimately confused as to what he’s hearing.  It’s not because Collier’s not pulling it off, or because the coach is trying to be mean to an amateur...it’s because Collier’s billed as literally Mozart.

And for any musician who knows that instrument he’s playing really well, it’s readily apparent that he’s pretty mediocre on all of them.  Technique and musicianship matter to people like us, and when...say...a pianist sees Collier playing like this?

Are we back in 1st grade piano lessons again?  Because that’s 1st grade shit.  What about bass?

Lol tiny gif of Tiny Desk concert.

I wrote a post awhile back about how you can tell a musician’s proficiency by looking at their hands and wrists.  Specifically mentioning how bent wrists like that are an easy way to identify musicians that haven’t put time in on their instrument.

This is important.

When you go through the gauntlet of getting proficient, you quickly realize that everything technical boils down to efficiency.  Getting the most out of every movement.  Why is this important for bassists?  Because the number one responsibility a bassist has is THE GROOVE.  Keeping time.  Efficiency means better time being able to be sustained longer because you’re expending less energy.

Start the video below at 2:50

What we have here are three of the greatest slap bassists of all time, masturbating in public to their heart’s delight.  They are playing way, WAY more stuff than Collier is...and yet, do any of them have that jerky movement?  That bent wrist?  No.  Because he hasn’t put in the hours.

Yet, Collier has been a featured guest on the biggest bass podcast/YouTube channel in the world multiple times for insight into playing bass.  He’s presented as an expert.  But he’s not.

Does he have some profiency?  Yes he does.  He gets a good sound on his bass, it fits the role and the song, and I’m not complaining about him being able to lay down a 4th grade bassline...I’m complaining about him being hailed as some musical genius.

Lets look at guitar.

Lets move on incredibly quickly, otherwise I’ll spend another 3,000 words on everything wrong with this.  Goddamnit, I found another one.  This is some of the legitimately worst guitar playing I’ve seen from a professional.  And here’s a total no-show.  If you’re supposedly Mozart, how you gonna be completely invisible on a stage with 3 people?  Seriously, he might as well not even be there.

If he was behind a piano, it’d likely be a different story.  But he chose to bring a guitar up there, and you’d think a guy with his knowledge of theory wouldn’t be so shoved in the background by the astoundingly mediocre John Mayer...or his voice wouldn’t be able to cut through the cacophony of...a garden variety chick singer?

That’s exactly what the voice coach at the top was talking about!  His vocal technique works in his vacuum...but when you play with other people, technique matters.

***

There was a guy a two years above me at North Texas that is what people say Collier is.  He was the lead alto sax in the One O’ Clock Band (despite it being collegiate, it’s one of the best big bands in the world)...was as good of a guitarist as I was, played bass, led church bands on keyboards, played drums and did all sorts of computer programming for music composition and recording.

His proficiency on keys was as comprehensive as it was on sax.  He led bands because, not only did he know all the parts, but he could play all the parts on whatever instrument.  It was incredible to get the few chances to play with him...and after that, it’s pretty easy to see Collier’s not a musician in the same class in terms of performance.  Theoretically is a different story, but in terms of what his hands are doing, he’s pretty amateur on most of the instruments he plays.

Collier’s greatness is his mind.  His knowledge of harmony and theory is bulletproof from criticism as far as I’m concerned.  I don’t care for his voice, but I certainly respect his ability to match pitches and organize harmony.  His arrangements are excellent, period.

And while there’s novelty to being a multi-instrumentalist recording every part of a song, and that is certainly something that was very marketable during the COVID lockdowns, a lot that falls flat when the underlying foundation isn’t solid.

I don’t think you can make the argument that his abilities on guitar or bass are solid.  Criticisms there are completely legitimate, because it’s obvious he hasn’t put in the hours.  I mean, how could he?

I studied classical and jazz guitar at the same time.  While it’s “the same instrument” the disciplines are completely foreign to each other.  It was difficult to the point where I couldn’t imagine getting proficient on multiple instruments like that, for no other reason than there are only so many hours in the day.

When you look at his skillset, it’s obvious that his talent lies on the keys and with his voice.  But all the time he spends on these other instruments...merely for novelty and showmanship, not for musical reasons...and it neuters the overall production.  Delegation is not a new phenomenon here...a pro bassist can fill that slot so you can fix your sketchy piano technique, and make better music moving forward.

Just because you “can” doesn’t mean you should.

[stardustprompts]

the king of crows (  book 4 of the diviners series  )   -  libby bray  sentence starters change tenses/pronouns as needed !!  some lines have been edited for clarity / length / ease of roleplaying   tw ;  death , suicide idealization 

‘did anyone ever tell you that you sleep with your mouth open?’

‘you two. I don’t know whether to hope you get married or hope you never do.��

‘if this goes badly, don’t you dare come back and haunt me.’

‘doesn’t matter what’s true. it matters what people think is true.’

‘well, if there’s going to be drama, i’m all in.’

‘for the first time in my life, I got something to lose.’ 

‘I know from experience that saying no to you is a full time job.’ 

‘he only cares about power. he only cares about winning, no matter the cost.’

‘let’s fight fire with fire.’

‘you want to remake the world in your image, like a malevolent god?’

‘stop joking around. this is serious.’

‘you think your institutions will save you? they’re part of this.’

‘who died and made you boss?’

‘you’re still playing by their rules. you’ll never get anywhere that way.’

‘if trouble’s gonna come calling it won’t find me at home. it’ll have to chase me down first.’

‘i just don’t know how we make things work between us.’

‘please, please don’t hate me. I couldn’t bear it.’

‘you’re always you. always honest.’

‘i’ll kill you. I swear I will.’

‘greatness requires some sacrifices.’

‘i’m just saying, some doors are very good closed.’

‘well, I’m sorry I’m not as clever as you are.’

‘nobody’s who they say they are.’

‘if we survive this, you are dead to me.’

‘I can’t tell if that was a compliment or an insult.’

‘there’s things out there. and they’re coming for us.’

‘I will kiss you as much as you like.’

‘i’m afraid this isn’t real. i’m afraid in a minute i’ll wake up and i’ll be here but you won’t be.’

‘i’m here, (name), and I promise I will never leave you again.’

‘are you sure you should be doing that? after all you’ve been through?’

‘I like the way you apologize.’

‘don’t get used to it. i’m very rarely wrong.’

‘how are you gonna fight if you don’t believe there’s any goodness in this world worth saving?’

‘why are we trying to save this country? what’s it ever done for us? maybe we should just let it burn.’

‘you got me, didn’t you? your life couldn’t have gone too wrong.’

‘our last words to each other were angry. it haunts me. I wish I could undo it.’

‘it haunts me. I wish I could undo it.’

‘you know what heroes do? they pay attention.’

‘you really could make a joke of anything, couldn’t you?’

‘you aren’t invited to comment on everything in my life.’

‘I want better for you. you deserve happiness.’

‘whatever you do, will you come back to me?’

‘what were you thinking? were you trying to be dumb?’

‘am i the only one here with a lick of common sense?’

‘we might be spending too much time together.’

‘when you put it that way, sounds like we don’t have a chance in hell.’

‘i’m not cocky. can I help it if I’m just that good?’

‘I hate maps. and directions. and rules.’

‘they don’t want to hear what you have to say. this is what they want: blood.’

‘who wants to etch their name into this story?’

‘I was having the most beautiful dream. I was … happy.’

‘I told you. but you never did listen to me, did you?’

‘I was afraid I’d never see you again.’

‘I told you that you’d be sorry.’

‘what happens if such power goes unchecked?’

‘i’m not telling anyone about this. and you’re not gonna, either.’

‘fine, no hurry. it’s only the end of the world we’re worried about here.’

‘I can face just about anything. but I can’t do it without you.’

‘the world is a terrible place. it never learns.’

‘I used to think I wouldn’t care if I died. I just kept throwing myself at life, hoping I’d hit the bullseye eventually. I thought death would be a relief from all that feeling.’

‘I used to think I wouldn’t care if I died. I thought death would be a relief from all that feeling. a relief not to have to feel all that pain. not to care so much.’

‘you think you’re the only one who ever feels that way?’

‘how do you go on… with all that loneliness inside you?’

‘you know, I really thought this was going to be a much more romantic conversation.’

‘I invented trouble. I know how it works.’

‘(name), would you marry me?’

‘I always believed you and I would be special together, but now I know it’s true.’

‘I don’t suppose you could be happy for me, could you?’

‘you and I weren’t meant to be.’

‘that’s what he wants, to get you good and scared. so you won’t fight back.’

‘I don’t think one joke will be the end of us.’

‘something is wrong. don’t you feel it?’

‘i’m not yelling. I’m just … nudging.’

‘it was everything I was afraid of.’

‘maybe we need to lose control sometimes.’

‘I used to feel numb a lot.’

‘i’m so angry all the time.’

‘I don’t know what to do with all these feelings coming up inside me. I don’t know where to put them.’

‘life isn’t always fair, and the choices we make sometimes aren’t always clean.’

‘we can’t do anything about other people do. we can only do right by what we believe.’

‘it’s a hard path to be who you are and try to put your best self into a world that doesn’t always show thanks for it.’

‘you ever wonder if maybe we’re on the wrong side of history?’

‘you’re lying. you’re a liar. nobody likes liars.’

‘you take and you take and you take! well, you can’t have him—- I won’t let you!’

‘nothing about this is natural. it’s an unnatural world.’

‘we’ll always have (name) that way, and we’ll carry him around with us forever.’

‘you and me. if they come for one of us, they come for all of us.’

‘in addition to being a lousy fellow, you’re also a goddamned idiot.’

‘I will make you a swell little medal if we survive.’

‘sometimes you just gotta burn something down so you can build something else in its place.’

‘you were selfish. you are selfish.’

‘that’s all we are in the end. stories.’

‘will you remember me fondly?’

‘i’ve taken nothing that people weren’t willing to give me. out of greed. out of anger. out of fear.’

‘you did have a choice. you made it.’

don’t waste it. make a good life.’

‘I was afraid I’d lose you.’

[desultory-novice]

nintendo described rtdld as a remake not remaster, so it may end up going the super star ultra route. do you think maybe magolor land will have some type of game mode?

Magolor Land as its own game mode is interesting.

It looks a bit like a theme park, and we know Magolor does that as a hobby. So it's not weird to think "maybe it hosts all the mini games and challenge stages/races!"

But all the mini games were previously held inside the Lor. We've got new mini games on the way (and more classic ones yet to be revealed, perhaps, as the JP site makes special mention of including favorite mini games from past entries!)

We've also got a new copy ability, which requires a new copy ability challenge room. They could move all of these over to Magolor Land, but there is a problem with that...

Part of the charm of RtDL (and part of Magolor's character) is that he interrupts your journey to announce what new things he's built every dozen energy spheres you collect. If they remove that, the energy spheres become simply "collectibles" and we lose some hilarious insight into Magolor. (That he talks about being so busy fixing the ship when he's really goofing off, making mini games.) We also lose something that keeps Magolor in contact with the group. His little pop up dialogs help build a bond between him and the player that's necessary for his betrayal to really sting.

So it would impact the game rather dramatically to move everything over to Magolor Land just like that. Another problem is that... Magolor has no reason to build Magolor Land during the main game. The story he gives is that he needs his ship fixed so he can go home.

All this amounts to is the simple fact that Magolor Land HAS to be post-game content. It has to be. As to what that is, new mode or otherwise...

Something I've been thinking about lately is that it’s positioned on the box art the way the other stages of the game would be.

...

My wild guess is that the castle is a set of new stages.

RtDL always took a light touch with its story telling. Only one cutscene even has dialogue. If I’m right, I think after the standard end of the game (or whenever you meet the proper criteria for unlocking it) there will be a cutscene in which Kirby and the others awaken to find Magolor Land has appeared suddenly in Popstar!! Confused at this giant castle resembling the strange lying wizard they last saw disappear into Another Dimension, they go to check it out! 

At the end of these levels, you are greeted with a second cutscene, setting up whatever post post-game final boss awaits!

After this, you get a second happy ending. One that includes Magolor.

Much like the novel doesn't explain all the secrets, I don't think there'll be a ton of new dialogue to accompany these levels. I don't think Magolor will explain (or at least, go into detail) how he escaped his fate at the end of RtDL. I think his sudden, miraculous reappearance will be played mostly for laughs.

Or maybe we could combine the “new mode” and “new stages” theory and say that after the game, you unlock the ability to play as Magolor, and the quest is to build Magolor Land. Or maybe...

...Hmmmmm....

So, you know how all modern Kirby stages all spell words?

"Magolor Land" (Well, it would be something like "Magolor's Manor" in order to fit the alliterative names of RtDL) begins with an M.

It feels like almost impossible that we would get enough new stages to spell out "MAGOLOR." That's as many as the original game! But FOUR new stages might not be too much to ask for...

M

A

R

X

Just a guess, based on the fact that the towers in Magolor Land are patterned after Marx's wings. Maybe it'll be a hint at who the extra boss of this post-game is! Or maybe, you play as Magolor and have to take your castle back from Marx!

(EDIT: You know what? Never mind this theory. Fun as it would be, I don’t think its possible to come up with a stage that contains TWO words both beginning with the letter X.)

-

That got a little rambly (everyone should know this about me by now) but TLDR, I don't think Magolor Land's going to hold all the mini-games. It'd mess up the original game's pacing.

I think it's either going to a new set of stages (with a twist) for Kirby and the gang (one that ends with a possible dual boss fight between Magolor and Marx) or a set of stages designed to let you play as Magolor.

The last option is that “Magolor Land” is merely a place to cram "Kirby's Dream Collection" in. It pops up after you beat the game, and as soon as you go in, you're greeted with Magolor's opening speech from Dream Collection!

It would be a little un-exciting, but welcome, as that game is just as hard to play as RtDL. It would also be the easiest route, as it doesn’t involve a whole lot of extra design work from HAL. (Doesn't explain the castle spires. But not everything that LOOKS like Marx has to INVOLVE Marx!)

[eldritch-bf]

Writing A Character With Borderline Personality Disorder

First of, thank you for wanting to include a Borderline character into your work. We have very little representation in media and when it is there, it’s negative. The antagonist in Single White Female and it’s remake is said to either be Borderline or Bipolar, for example. A few Borderline-coded characters also exist but their symptoms are probably closer to bipolar depression.

Trigger Warning for discussions of suicide, abuse, and hospitalization

What is Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)?

It is called “Borderline” because it is “on the border of psychosis and neurosis. It used to be believed that Borderlines had a tendency to regress into “borderline schizophrenia,” but this really isn’t the case anymore. The term was coined in 1938 and there have been attempts to rename it but this is what it’s called for now.

Here is the raw list from the DSMV. My notes are below and italicized. Important take-always are in orange text.

Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment; this does not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in criterion 5.

A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation

Markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self

Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (eg, spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating) [5] ; this does not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in criterion 5

Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior

Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (eg, intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days)

Chronic feelings of emptiness

Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (eg, frequent displays of temper, constant anger, or recurrent physical fights)

Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms

Generally, a diagnosis is only given if a person has at least 5 of these symptoms.

My comments:

Re: #1 There doesn’t have to be a literal abandonment in childhood. For me, I was emotionally abandoned by both my mother and father during my formative years. My mother also hated physical contact so now I have an impulse to seek it constantly. Touch-starvation is an easy trait to add to your Borderline character.

The stipulation in #1 that the frantic efforts cannot be the behaviors listed in #5 means that a Borderline person might: drive 3 hours in the middle of the night to the person who they feel might abandon them; do some extreme begging or bartering to keep the relationship. Also important: these do not have to be romantic relationships.

Re: #3 If Dissociative Identity Disorder means a person has multiple distinct personalities, for BPD we generally feel like an incomplete person, like we only have fragments of a whole personality.

A common joke in the BPD community is “Oh, you have a great personality.” And the Borderline person’s response is, “thanks, I made it specially for you!” You may also hear Borderlines called “chameleons” because we take pieces of other people’s personalities and incorporate it into ourselves. It can be a fictional character, too. I incorporated a lot of NBC Hannibal’s Will Graham into my personality at a point. Another aspect of this is that Borderlines are very good at code-switching. For me, when I’m in a new group of people, I have to “feel out” the vibe and everything and then alter my behavior to fit this social circle. Most people do this to some extent but Borderlines do it constantly and unconsciously and often extremely well. It’s not meant to be manipulative. It’s unconscious, we can’t control it.

Re: #8 The anger is a big one for me and it often leads to homicidal ideation. But Borderlines are incredibly unlikely to act on it.

Other Borderline Behaviors

Favorite Person/FP: Probably the most important aspect of BPD. An FP is specific to BPD. It can be a romantic partner, a crush, a parent, an authority figure, a sibling, or a child (specifically the child of the person with BPD of they have kids). This is the single most important thing in a Borderline’s life. An FP is an idealized person who can never do any wrong in our minds. Even abusive behaviors will be overlooked or reframed.

We don’t always have an FP and I’ve also never heard of someone having 2 FPs simultaneously. I had 2 at the same time once but I would split on one and then idealize them other one. I would never idealize both at the exact same moment. A real or imagined negative interaction with an FP can make or break a Borderline’s day and if it is negative, they can “split” on them.

Splitting/Black-And-White Thinking/All-Or-Nothing Thinking: Borderlines “split” on people, usually an FP. This is how an interaction with an FP can “make or break” your day. If an FP doesn’t text us back right away we might think they don’t like us anymore or are mad or will leave us. So we, unconsciously without our control, “split” on them. When “splitting negative” on a person it is impossible to recall good memories of the person, or they are framed negatively. A once loved birthday gift from an FP might now be seen as insincere or irrelevant. This is the “devaluation” mention in criteria #2.

However, once the person texts back, say 2 hours later, we usually split back, and now the person’s real or imagined negative behaviors are gone and they are once again idealized, as mentioned in criteria #2. You can see how taxing such a sudden shift in emotions can be for a person.

It is also taxing on the FP if they are present during the split or received panicked or angry messages with the above scenario. It causes fights and the FP might view the Borderline person as “Bipolar” “irrational” or “unstable”.

We can split on people that are not FPs.

Tips For Your Character

Your Borderline character could easily be in out-patient therapy. I won’t go into the details but they could be in DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy). The structure is 2 sessions a week, one with a small group, and then another one-on-one with their psychiatrist who is probably also running the group. Psychiatrists need special training to treat people with BPD.

Your character would also do “diary cards” each day and record their mood and any notes about their day. These are easy to add in as throw-away comments like “I’m going to therapy, I’ll be back in an hour or so” or “damn it, I forgot to do my diary card”.

Fun fact: Therapists have been known to drop clients upon finding out they have BPD or giving them the diagnosis because apparently some therapists can’t handle us.

Your character might also be on some medication and an easy scene for angst could be them refusing to take their medication, forgetting to take it, or the meds being of of balance and them needing to go to an ER to be stabilized (usually they become suicidal or paranoid) and have their meds adjusted. This happened to me once. Lithium can be used in extreme cases as a medication but usually a combination of anti-depressants and mood-stabilizers is used.

BPD is often comorbid with depression so your character will probably exhibit depression symptoms as well.

Final Thoughts:

As long as you don’t make your Borderline character the antagonist or a manipulative partner who kills pets like in Single White Female, you should be fine.

Edit: tumblr glitched and I didn’t mean to post this now. I’ll try to get on my laptop when I get home and add a read more.

If you need clarification on anything or additional resources feel free to DM me or come into my inbox!

[bizarropurugly]

Remaking the post since there’ve been some updates since I first posted

I am in need of financial assistance. Any amount or reblog will help. I have an $8,000 medical debt and lost my job in August.

On top of that, up until yesterday (oct 19th) I had foster kittens, which are a huge financial responsibility to take on.

edit: I got them back. I was worried sick about them. She charged me 120 dollars to have them back. She threw away some of their stuff too...

I didn’t really have the money but I had to get them out of there. I’m switching up my strategy on getting them adopted but until then I am back to paying for them. They both had some health problems coming back too...

My p*ypal is damegreywulf at gmail

Or, if you’d like to get something out of it in exchange, I do have a Redbubble.

Getting something important from my general wishlist and my cat supplies wishlist would also be appreciated.

Additionally, a good friend of mine who has amazing art is doing commissions and selling designs/adopts on my behalf.

If nothing else, check her out and give her a follow because she’s a cool kid whose art is just awesome.

Read more with details under the commission price sheet

The debt is from two stays at a psych ward around 10 years ago. I’m not sure it was an active debt but I fell for the pressure and made a payment, a payment I couldn’t really afford as I had just the day before lost my job. So I may have made a massive mistake that will fuck me over for the rest of my life, because at no point IN my life have I had 8,000 dollars, and the balance keeps accruing thanks to fucking interest. And they charged me TAXES when I sent the payment!

My unemployment is less than 200 a week and idfk where people are getting that it’s so high it competes with / is better than employment because no the fuck it’s not. And all these people saying “get a job, EVERYONE is hiring!” don’t get the difference between SAYING you’re hiring, and actually hiring a person. Because so far, I’ve been rejected every time.

Of course, that doesn’t account for how long I was struggling because they took OVER A MONTH to sort my unemployment out, because Illinois is a fucking mess right now, between scam artists and COVID restrictions for government employees only. You have to call to get in line, and they call you back anywhere from a few days later to nearly 2 weeks. There was a woman I saw who STILL hadn’t gotten an answer after 4 months!

Through the struggle, I was approved, then denied, then approved, then denied, with the final issue being that I had a indefinite ban on receiving unemployment from when I applied back in 2016. For one, why does such a thing fucking exist? And two, according to their own rules it should have AUTOMATICALLY fallen off once I had a steady job. So yeah, Illinois is fucking people over big time and doing jack shit all about it except going like “hey guys, another job fair, for Chicago area mostly!”

The kittens were damned expensive, would probably have been less if Gimli wasn’t so sick when I caught him and Pippin and Merry weren’t so young. Gimli and Pippin have been placed in a shelter, Merry’s already been adopted out, they’re all good and healthy boys. But they were as expensive as you might think a human baby. Between the checkups, vaccinations, cleaning supplies, food, etc...

Well to give you an idea, each vet checkup is 40 bucks, and typically tilted towards 200 if anything more was needed. Flea meds, 30-40 per month. Food 30-40 each time. Cleaning supplies 20-30 depending on what I needed. That’s not including the baby food, toys, blankets, warmers, and etc.

I’ve been struggling to afford gas, thanks to the fact I still have doc appointments pretty much every week, not including the gas for interviews when I actually score them. My car’s headlights also stopped working entirely so now I can’t stay out long lest I have to drive home in complete darkness and risk being ticketed. My parents are still disinterested in doing anything to fix my car because they think it’s not worth it, and when I do convince them I don’t get anywhere because nobody tells me who’s who to call about it, and I certainly can’t pay for it anyway.

Just, in general, I’m struggling and not managing well.

So... anything is appreciated.

[sunsethillshq]

welcome  home  celine  & kamile !  we’re  so  excited  to  have  you  here  at  sunset  hills !  before  we  give  you  the  keys  to  your  new  place  ,  make  sure  you  go  over  this  checklist  to  make  sure  everything’s  all  squared  away  —  we’ll  give  you  24  hours to  come  by  the  leasing  office  ,  please  let  us  know  if  you you  need  anything  at  all  !

✿ * · (  moon gayoung  ,  cis woman  ,  she/her   )   a  little  birdy  told  me  CELINE BAEK  just  moved  to  sunset  hills  .  have  you  met  them  yet  ? they  look  somewhere  around  26  ,   if  i  had  to  guess  !  pretty  sure  i  heard  them  driving  down  the  street  playing  CONTROL  by  HALSEY  ,  they  sounded  a  little  pitchy  but  they  had  the  spirit  !  must  be  their  favorite  or  something  .  hey  …  it  looks  like  they  just  moved  into  AURORA LANE  .  have  you  heard  about  what  they  do  for  a  living  ?  someone  told  me  they’re  a  CLOTHING BOUTIQUE OWNER  ,  but  who  knows  if  that’s  even  true  .  guess  we’re  just  gonna  have  to  wait  and  see  .  nervous  ? maybe  you  should  be  .  sunset  speaks  just  posted  about  them  …  apparently  they're  RESIDENT  ID  04  ?  between  you  and  me  ,  i  think  that  might  spark  some  things  in  the  community  …  but  what  do  i  know  !  you  guys  might  get  along  just  fine  !  (  cherry  ,  she/her  ,  29  ,  est  .  )

please answer at least TWO of the following in character :

what was the LAST song you listened to on spotify ?

“what do you gain from asking these questions? they seem to be a bit invasive... but i’ll humor you by answering. first of all, i use apple music not spotify. don’t give me that look, i’ve had it since high school and really don’t feel like remaking playlists with thousands of songs. but i believe the last song i listened to was monster by kanye west and a few other artists. but lets be honest, we all listen to that for nicki’s verse anyways.”

who’s a celebrity you HATE ?

“just one? i can’t list just one. lets start with the most obvious. kim kardashian. well, all the kardashian / jenners really. for some reason these women think that they’re not perpetuating a horrible image for young girls and other women their own age. the photoshop, unhealthy habits and diets, all of it is toxic. plus kim’s crying face is not cute. also, gwenyth fucking paltrow. i don’t know, her face just bugs me. and she thinks sunscreen is toxic. it’s ridiculous. please wear sunscreen.”

what is something you LOVE about yourself and something you wish you could CHANGE about yourself ?

this is kind of a loaded question for celine, because while she likes to pretend she’s the best, most of the time she feels like she’s the worst. things she likes about herself have nothing to do with her personality, and more about her physical appearance which she puts a lot of time and effort into. her hair, her style and her clear skin are probably the only things she really likes about herself. when it comes to something she could change, she would say something like her family. it’s the one thing she will never be able to change, so of course its what she would like to most change.

tell us TWO TRUTHS and a LIE !

“i haven’t played this game since high school, but why not. it could be interesting. here we go. when i was a teenager i won a talent search and modeled for h&m for a hot minute but never pursued modeling after that, i’ve never been to a live concert because i have very sensitive ears, and my dog only understands korean.”

extras :

add  an  alternative  faceclaim  here  ,  this  is  mandatory  !  (  in  case  we  get  apps  with  the  same  fc  at  the  same  time  ) lee jieun / IU (  age  would  be  changed  to  28  )

please  add  any  edits  /  pinterest  boards  /  playlists  for  your  muse  here  if  you  have  any  to  share ! PINTEREST BOARD.

✿ * · (  cemre baysel  ,  cis woman  ,  she/her   )   a  little  birdy  told  me  KAMILE “KAM” AKSAKAL  just  moved  to  sunset  hills  .  have  you  met  them  yet  ? they  look  somewhere  around  24 ,   if  i  had  to  guess  !  pretty  sure  i  heard  them  driving  down  the  street  playing  I LIKE YOU (A HAPPIER SONG) by  POST MALONE ( ft. DOJA CAT )  ,  they  sounded  a  little  pitchy  but  they  had  the  spirit  !  must  be  their  favorite  or  something  .  hey  …  it  looks  like  they  just  moved  into  MIDNIGHT PARK  .  have  you  heard  about  what  they  do  for  a  living  ?  someone  told  me  they’re  a  VET TECH  ,  but  who  knows  if  that’s  even  true  .  guess  we’re  just  gonna  have  to  wait  and  see  .  nervous  ? maybe  you  should  be  .  sunset  speaks  just  posted  about  them  …  apparently  they're  RESIDENT  ID  018  ?  between  you  and  me  ,  i  think  that  might  spark  some  things  in  the  community  …  but  what  do  i  know  !  you  guys  might  get  along  just  fine  !  (   cherry  ,  she/her  ,  29  ,  est  .  )

please answer at least TWO of the following in character :

what was the LAST song you listened to on spotify ?

“that’s a hard question. don’t give me that look! i can’t remember what i had for breakfast let alone what i last listened to. i had a late shift last night. let me check...oh! that new one by doja and post malone! that new one on the radio! ‘i like yooou  i dooo!’ love it. post malone is so endearing and he’s kinda cute. and doja hasn’t released anything but hits in a minute.”

who’s a celebrity you HATE ?

“hate? i don’t know, i really don’t hate anybody.  i try not to read about celebrities, ya know? i don’t have the time or energy. but if i had to say someone...  i guess the guy who tried to buy twitter is kind of a douche bag most of the time, but it’s not like i know him personally, so who knows? what's his name? elon something.”

what is something you LOVE about yourself and something you wish you could CHANGE about yourself ?

kam would probably say that she loves how compassionate and generous she is, if you ever caught her on a good day where she felt like bragging. any other day she would have a hardtime coming up with an answer due to her lack of confidence. which is exactly what she would most like to change about herself. the only place she’s really confidant in herself is at work. she didn’t graduate at the top of her class for nothing, being a vet tech is what she was born to do.

tell us TWO TRUTHS and a LIE !

“i freakin’ love this game! you really put me on the spot! okay, okay... okay i got ‘em! i moved here from london when i was three years old, i still work at my first job once a month purely for the discount, and i got bullied in elementary school so badly that i was taken out and was home schooled until middle school.”

extras :

add  an  alternative  faceclaim  here  ,  this  is  mandatory  !  (  in  case  we  get  apps  with  the  same  fc  at  the  same  time  )  N / A.

please  add  any  edits  /  pinterest  boards  /  playlists  for  your  muse  here  if  you  have  any  to  share  ! PINTEREST BOARD

[sparklestardesigns]

rewatching watership down netflix adaptation and i just need to comment on the second episode so if u dont wanna read skip past then!!

edit: im also gonna be commenting about captain campion because hes my second favorite aside from holly he makes me so happy so aha- plus this is more of just how they could've made it a little different not better maybe just... different idk if its good thats why lol

just saying like. firstly in the first episode where they tryna yknow make a warren. strawberry is like nowhere to be seen and thlayli is so upset about not having women around for digging... this is.... like... okay whatever

but he says we dont have does but then mentions we have does in another line, THEN when blackberry, holly, and bluebell are finding the other warren dandelion and hawkbit clearly make a very decent hole?? AND STRAWBERRY JUST MAKES THE ENTIRE WARREN???? its so weird i love criticizing this netflix this adaptation dude its so goofy

there is no absolute reason to have more does after this aside from getting love interests for holly and hazel... which okay... only cus im biased for hyzenthlay... but i think its just a little ridiculous how they did the whole discovering of these rabbits

a great way they couldve actually discovered the other warren was through blackavar! they were SO CLOSE with this idea but threw it out the window instead, where holly was exploring to find the others.

with blackavar attempting to escape and both warrens being fairly close just some distance away, they def could've had holly and thlayli explore the surroundings to gain some understanding of their new home and report to hazel then bump into blackavar.

plus this couldve gave a lot of bonding between holly and thlayli, as they were former houlser members and left off on a bad foot but never mentioned it again which is so upsetting on how they missed that opportunity, especially at the final episodes where they're being surrounded and hyzentlhay/holly are together fighting thlayli could've attempted to help to ensure that hyzenthlay stays alive for holly's sake and get some final words with like idk overtime if they DID get to have a better bond along with hyzenthlay but alas.... no....

netflix did it so dirty and i desperately would love to remake a whole au for it but sparkly but i really doubt id stick to character personalities cus i just go out of the window with them a lot but yeah.... some fun ideas <3

EDIT: PLUS CAPTAIN CAMPIONS DEVELOPMENT. SO MINIMAL YET MY FAVORITE.

captain campion, on the antagonist warren, the beginning scene with him is great! holly as a captain himself getting to comment about that was AWESOME but... nothing else was mentioned after?? it was a little sad to see such a backstory character get a good realization in his heart when sending to kill holly and knowing its wrong! i wouldve LOVED to see campion and holly maybe interact more when holly was imprisoned, even though it wasnt long that they were there but even then we could've seen campion apprentice thlayli and even mention holly and how his morals may have been altered!

this wouldve been really fun to see, especially if he was ordered to hit thlayli by the other captain he def could've had hesitance and even help him when thlayli almost executed but then again it wouldn't make it to have holly being killed, but if thlayli had the opportunity to lead him TO holly when they escape then campion and holly could've bonded over being captains as well! even then... but i might be bc i just want holly to live cause i like heem a lot..... regardless he was a great character, i wouldnt change much but just some of the dialogue is a little bland once in a while lol

[smokeybrandreviews]

Smokey brand Movie Reviews: Super Green

The Green Knight s finally out and i can see it without having to wait a month and a half! I thank A24 for this rather quick turnaround because this thing has been on my radar fr what seems like forever! I’ve written about this before but A24 is my favorite studio releasing content. Neon is a close second and Netflix is making a real charge, but A24 releases classics. Some of my all-time favorite films are A24 products. Ex Machina, Hereditary, Under the Skin, The VVitch, Uncut Gems, Zola, Midsommar, Lady Bird, Eighth Grade, The Lighthouse, High Life, The Monster, Enemy, Climax, Room, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Disaster Artist, and Under the Silver Lake have all impressed in one for or another, all of them A24 offerings. This studio is f*cking amazing and i cannot sing it’s praises enough. They’ve been around for less than a decade, A24 was founded in August of 2012, and they’re brought this level of quality consistently. The Green Knight has all of the workings to slide right into my all-time list, just like Ex Machina and Hereditary did before it. Let’s see if i really love it as much as i think i will.

The Exceptional

The first thing that hits you is how f*cking gorgeous this film is. Seriously, i was immediately captivated by that opening scene with Gawain rushing for Mass. It definitely opens up as the film progresses and you are treated to one of the most visually striking films of the year. This movie could give Denis Villeneuve, Ari Aster, or Robert Eggers a run for their money. Seriously, you can frame several shots in a museum and no one would know the difference between that and the Van Gophs on display.

I r0aely mention this but it’s absolutely necessary that i do in this particular review because it was just that memorable. The sound design made this film. I’m not talking about music choice or score, but the actual sound effects for specific scenes. That sh*t was some of the tightest I've ever hear on a film and it really added to the overall experience. Just the way the Green Knight creaked and popped as he moved was more than enough to get this mention but there is so much  ore than just that. I hate that i had to see this at home because, f*ck, this thing would have sounded like god in a proper theater.

I mentioned that you can frame these shots in a museum before and a lot of that shine belongs to the cinematography. The shots chosen for this film are breathtaking. I imagine a lot of that has to do with location but even the scenes filmed in dank castles and murky bogs popped with that same, meticulous, shot composition and it really gave those scenes life. The were ties when my jaw dropped at the majesty of a scene. The one with the giants immediately comes to mind. Like, f*ck, was that beautiful to witness.

In that same breath, you have to know when to pull back. Editing is just as important to a film as anything else and The Green Knight is cut with a precision I've rarely seen. This thing has no fat whatsoever. It presents to you exactly what you need and little else. I love that. I love that this film has a story to tell and it tells it with extreme prejudice. These cuts were made with intent. That’s rare nowadays.

I also have to give a nod to the use of color and lighting. Again, it’s not something i ever really focus on but goddamn is it necessary for this review. Light plays a very important role in how this story was told. Certain scenes absolutely need it and others are perfectly accentuated by it. It takes a deft hand to juggle such a nuanced aspect of film and The Green Knight has done that the best this year. So far.

This film has a very real, very potent, atmosphere. It’s not tension, not like Uncut Gems of Good Times, but there is this unrelenting sense of dread that runs through this entire film. It’s measured and restrained but it’s always there. I appreciate that. For a film to illicit such emotion out of me is testament to the mastery of it’s visionary.

All of the praise I've given to the technical aspects of this film would be for naught if i didn’t recognize the director, David Lowery. This dude is fast climbing the list of my favorite directors. I actually listed  bunch above but, after seeing what he’s gone with this film, dude is really making a case for himself. He did the Pete’s Dragon remake which i hear as pretty good, and A Ghost Story but i haven’t seen either. Not really my cup of tea. But if they’re as good as The Green Knight, i might have to revisit that thought because, holy sh*t, this dude can direct the f*ck out of a film.

The writing is on point. I legit hesitated to put this on here because it is the weakest aspect of  everything else in this film but that is misleading. The writing is exceptional. There is no way this film could be as good as it is, if the script was dog sh*t. The material given to these performers had to the top tier in order for them to give the performances they did and and they definitely f*cking did that!

This whole cast really f*cking delivered. Sarita Choudhury as Mother and Sean Harris as the King were easily the best of the supporting cast but everyone else brought that same energy. Joel Edgerton, Kate Dickie, and  Barry Keoghan, all deliver powerful performances. Hell, this is the best I've ever seen Erin Kellyman act and i have to give a lot of credit to the overall quality of this cast delivered. That said, there are three individuals who put everyone else to shame and i say that knowing exactly how much praise i just heaped upon them all.

Alicia Vikander comes in and delivers on two roles, Essel and the Lady. This isn’t surprising at all because she always delivers. I’m never disappointed by her performances. Admittedly, i haven’t seen many but that’s because she is very particular about the characters she signs on to portray. That said, it’s weird the two performances she’s done that immediately jump out to me, are both with A24 films. Her Eva in Ex Machina, and that film in general, is what made me even take notice of both her and A24 as a studio. Here we are, seven years later, and she’s still blowing my mind. F*cking exceptional.

Ralph Ineson is almost unrecognizable in the Green Knight make-up but the second he opens his mouth, you immediately recognize that gravitas. There is a weight to this character and you f*cking feel it with every move Ineson makes. Dude isn’t in it much but the scenes he does appear in are absolutely stolen by this big, green, maestro of his craft.

More than anyone, this is Dev Patel’s film. This dude is a great actor but it’s rare someone gets a part where they can really bite into the content but that is not the case with this role. No, sir, this sh*t was tailor made for Patel and he definitely digs right the f*ck in. His Sir Gawain is just as good as his Jamal Malik from Slumdog, if not better. Seriously, this film would be nothing without Patel. As outstanding as every other aspect that i gushed about in this brilliant goddamn film, the very best is Dev Patel’s performance. Seriously, that sh*t, alone, is worth the watch.

The Verdict

The Green Knight is f*cking exceptional and exceeded all of my expectations. This year long wait was more than worth. It's the best film of the year so far, leap-frogging into my top twenty all-time and I've seen thousands of films. This thing is a masterpiece on all levels. Narrative, plot, lighting, performances, sound design, composition, editing, score; It's the closest thing to a technically perfect film I've seen in quite some time. If Dev Patel doesn't get an Oscar nod for this, there is no justice in the world because he f*cking carries this movie. Patel is easily the strongest force driving this incredibly compelling watch, but Alicia Vikander, Erin Kellyman, Sarita Choudhury, Ralph Ineson, Sean Harris, Kate Dickie, and Barry Keoghan all match that energy with f*cking gusto. I was absolutely mesmerized by the way these absolute masters in their craft, embodied and gave their respective characters life, particularly Vikander. She never disappoints.

The only issue I see that would hinder someone actually getting into this film is the fact that it's a little long in the tooth. You never really feel it, as long as you buy into the fact it's a character study and not a high concept fantasy film filled with dragons and sh*t. If you think Michael Bay and Zack Snyder are the pinnacle of cinematic excellence, pass on this. You won't make past the first tn minutes. Also, make better life choices. No, this is about Gawain and it never deviates from that core drive. Weird sh*t happens, sure, but it's nothing as fantastical as Smaug or a Balrog. Even so, this f*cking movie kept me glued to the edge of my seat. I loved every second of it and cannot sing it's praises enough. My only regret is that I didn't get to see it in a proper theater. This f*cker would have been a real experience to see on a proper cinema screen, especially that shot with the giants. The Green Knight is outstanding and deserves all of the praise it's gotten and so much more.

[daxieoclock]

Okay let’s do this. TW for scientific dehumanization

This is Vee, my Final Fantasy 7 OC (primarily with the remake in mind, though the meta aspects of that story don’t play a part here). Formerly from a small village whose inhabitants were captured and experimented on by Shinra, she possesses minor draconic abilities and an affinity with fire Materia as a result of those experiments. She only escaped the labs at all by accidentally faking her death – going into cardiac shock during an experiment and then surviving their attempt to dispose of her body through incineration, due to her newfound immunity to flame. Vee was then nursed back to health in a small religious collective centered around worship of the Ancients, and spent a few years there until she had recovered enough to leave. While she isn’t quite an amnesiac, the trauma from those labs has fucked significantly with her memories and self of self.

Personality-wise, Vee is brash and self-assured, displaying both an abundance of confidence and a general sense of polite ease. She’s a hopeless flirt, but drops that behavior immediately around her elders and anyone who shows discomfort in being flirted with. While she jumps at the chance to make a show, she also shies away from attention outside of her control, hiding her fiend eyes behind sunglasses and keeping her wings dismissed. That overly casual persona also helps hide a deep insatiable fury towards Shinra, SOLDIERs and especially that snickering scientist bastard, whose throat she would personally like to tear out for everything he’s done to her and her family.

In combat, she keeps at least one hand in her pocket at all times, and fights with close-range fire magic and a flame sword she can summon and dismiss at will.

AU summary (including Gay Details) under cut.

EDIT: I’ve made a few minor edits and added events up until a little ways past the departure from Midgar.

EDIT 2: I made this into a fic.

Initial

A large aspect of the “Vee AU,” so to speak, is the change of timescale: stretching out the events of the plot over the span of a couple months rather than a couple weeks, with multiple periods of reprieve between urgent setpieces. Other than that, the first big change comes after Cloud’s meeting with Aerith, in that he makes it back to Seventh Heaven without being pulled into the Wall Market nonsense – Aerith tagging along the whole time. Aerith meets Tifa and decides to stick around for a bit, Cloud slips back into his friendly neighborhood merc gig, and Avalanche stresses in the background about their next move.

It’s during this point that Cloud investigates a commotion nearby Sector 7 only to find the cause to be a bloodied Vee standing amidst a bunch of ko’d Shinra soldiers. When she notices Cloud’s mako eyes, she attacks him – SOLDIERS were the people who took her to the labs – before half-collapsing from her injuries. Cloud heals her, and makes the ‘ex’ part of ex-SOLDIER very clear, as well as his open contempt for Shinra. Vee apologizes for losing control, thanks them, and decides to stick around to help out – since they have a common enemy, and she wants to pay back Cloud for saving her life after she almost murdered him. Vee Joins The Party.

A few days later, we enter the leadup to Wall Market. Desperate for details and noticing a surge of Shinra activity in and around Sector 7, the gang decides to try and get info from the one man who might know anything: Don Corneo. Unfortunately, he’s an asshole, so they’re going to have to threaten him for it. While Barret and the rest of Avalanche stay behind to keep Shinra from trying anything, Aerith, Tifa, Cloud and Vee head to Wall Market. On the way there, Tifa and Vee get separated from the others when part of the collapsed highway collapses further, and they spend some time getting to know each other while Aerith takes Cloud on a more direct route.

Tifa and Vee smooch after roughly a day of romantic tension. No further relationship is established at this time.

In Wall Market, the gang splits up into two teams to try and pincer Corneo’s security. Vee and Aerith hit up the tournament under Madame M’s supervision, passing themselves off as a Shinra rep and her Turk bodyguard to get an invite through the front door, while Cloud and Tifa go through Andrea Rhodea to try and weasel their way into Corneo’s audition for his next wife.

Aerith and Vee smooch after kicking ass in the tourney. No further relationship is established at this time.

Corneo’s security is dispatched from two angles, and the gang rushes back towards Sector 7 after hearing the info about Shinra’s now ongoing plan to collapse the plate. They get there, and fight their way up to Barret and the other Avalanche crew, managing to minimize the damage from the plate’s fall by locking the center supports in place, but they cannot fully prevent the collapse. While the majority of Sector 7 remains livable, the outskirts are devastated. (Aerith is not approached by Tseng at this point. Jessie, Biggs and Wedge survive.)

There’s a terse, tense celebration in Seventh Heaven. A lot of lives were saved, but not all of them, and there’s still the financial cost to the already destitute slums – not to mention that Shinra will likely try to take credit for the collapse’s partial prevention, and pin the collapse itself on Avalanche. This isn’t even close to the end of hardship. Regardless, it is a victory.

Over the next few days, the gang recovers and focuses on helping Sector 7 rebuild. Tifa tries to push Aerith and Vee together, seeing herself as an obstacle between them. Aerith confronts Tifa about this, they discuss their feelings and reservations.

Aerith and Tifa smooch. At this time, we establish a relationship between Aerith, Tifa and Vee. Many more smoochings occur.

Saving Aerith

One morning, the gang wake up to find Aerith missing. Tifa, Vee, Cloud and Barret go to her house to look for her, and Elmyra tells them she visited late last night to say she wouldn’t be coming back home for a while. Elmyra realizes something is wrong, and tells the gang that Aerith is a descendant of the Ancients, and her birth mother was captured by Shinra. Vee and Cloud are especially tense when she says she suspects Shinra’s head scientist of being involved in Aerith’s disappearance. When the party returns to Sector 7, Wedge shares a message from Avalanche HQ: the Turks brought someone matching Aerith’s description into Shinra headquarters last night.

After tangoing with Corneo and Leslie in the sewers, the gang fights their way to the Shinra Building. On the elevator up, Vee and Barret have a bit of an ideological clash. Vee makes it clear she doesn’t care about the suffering of Shinra Employees, their paychecks are soaked through with the blood of Shinra’s victims, and their complicity is guilt enough. Barret fires back that while they’re taking the easy road out, there are fewer and fewer non-Shinra jobs out there every day, and some employees have more than their own mouth to feed. Not everyone can afford to make the sacrifices he did, and while they don’t have to be buddy-buddy with Shinra’s suckers, the company would fall apart without them. Draw them over to Avalanche’s side, and Shinra wouldn’t last a day.

Mayor Domino helps the gang get into Shinra R&D, and they’re forced to fight a whole floor full of mutant experiments to get to where Aerith is kept. When they reach her, she’s contained in a glass cylinder, overlooked by Hojo in an isolated observation room. Vee immediately lunges at the reinforced glass between her and the scientist. She asks if Hojo recognizes her, and he expresses delight that she managed to survive. Vee tries to break the glass but hesitates when more experiments attack Tifa, Barret and Cloud. She does issue one last threat to Hojo: she’s going to walk out of here with Aerith, and then she’s going to track him down, so he’d better start running. Next time they meet, she’ll make him hurt in every way he hurt her, and she’ll enjoy it. Vee punches the glass hard enough to crack it, and she gets one good look at Hojo’s surprised – maybe frightened – face before metal shutters close off the observation room completely.

After being freed and embracing both of her girlfriends, Aerith explains that she was captured voluntarily – half to keep Avalanche from being targeted by Shinra, and half to find out the truth. She takes them down a floor to a place she identifies as her mother’s room, and her own. Aerith spent most of her childhood here, and her mother managed to escape with her just long enough to hide her with Elmyra before being captured again. Aerith returned because she thought her mother might still be alive, but apparently the woman didn’t survive more than a year after being recaptured. Vee reminds Aerith that she’s still alive, and she has a life outside these walls now, with people who love her. Tifa simply asks her to promise not to leave like that again, and Aerith gladly does so. She doesn’t plan on chasing ghosts, not anymore. She knows where her home is.

The reforged quintet meets with Red XIII, who Vee immediately takes a one-sided liking to, trying to befriend the more tempermental catdog. They head farther into the labs to both chase Hojo and make it to the roof for extraction, and find Jenova. Sephiroth appears, sending Tifa into shock and Cloud into blind fury, and the latter charges at the specter – who severs the bridge and sends them plummenting into the depths of the labs. Cloud is seperated from the others for a time, and fights alone and half-berserk through a small horde of experiments, nearly attacking Barret when he runs into him. Barret and Red manage to calm him down, and they fight up the Drum to Tifa, Vee and Aerith, then back up to the elevator.

The gang follows Jenova-infected footsteps to President Shinra’s office to find the bigwig himself danging off the side of his big fancy tower. Vee immediately hops over the railing and extends a hand to pull him up, but digs her nails into his arm and keeps on holding him over the edge. It’s his fault. Everything that happened to Aerith, to Vee herself. Guilt travels upwards, and there’s no one higher than Shinra. Killing him won’t bring back Aerith’s mother, or the people killed by the plate, or Vee’s family. It won’t take away what happened to her. But it’ll make her feel a whole lot better. Vee is ready to drop him, but Barret talks her down, convinces her that Shinra is more use clearing their names and owning up to dropping the plate. With him as a hostage, they can bring the company to its knees. Vee relents, and pulls Shinra to safety, only for Sephiroth to stab him through the chest.

Cloud barely holds it together, and Sephiroth taunts him, trying to egg him on. Doesn’t Cloud want to hurt him? Doesn’t he want to take revenge, for his family, for his home? For his companion? Cloud is a breath away from trying to take his head off, but it’s Tifa who strikes first, forcing Sephiroth back with a roundhouse kick. She tells him to leave her friend alone, and the rest of the gang backs her up. That manages to shake Cloud out of his fury, and he stands by his friends as they take on the legendary SOLDIER hero.

And lose. They’re barely a match for him, their attacks don’t phase him in the slightest, and he seems impossibly fast. With one final mockery, Sephiroth takes Jenova’s body and dives off the side of the Shinra building, leaving Cloud almost numb, hollow. Tifa manages to pull him out of it, and he doesn’t understand how she’s still herself aftering seeing him. She shows that her hands are still shaking, and admits she’s not letting it catch up with her. Right now, she’s focused on trying to stay alive, and keep the people she cares about alive. Our six rebels fight their way back through Shinra security and, with one look back at the home they’re leaving behind, they steal a ride out of Midgar.

Once they make it to the inn in Kalm, Cloud finally fills everyone in on what he hasn’t told them. He’d only meant to tell Tifa, originally, but the others deserve the truth as well. With her permission, he recalls the Nibelheim Incident. After Sephiroth killed his hometown and injured Tifa, Cloud attacked the man, overpowering him and throwing him to his death – or he assumed, at least. Another Nibelhiem resident, Zangan, took Tifa to safety, promising to come back for Cloud. He didn’t make it, and Cloud was captured and experimented on by Hojo; toughing through thanks to the mako infusions he got as a SOLDIER. After five years, he managed to escape, and make it to Midgar. The others are horrified, but Cloud almost no-sells it. It’s in the past. It’s fine. He’s fine. And with that, and without taking any questions, he goes to his room and sleeps.

Tifa admits once he’s gone that there’s something odd about the story, about the way he told it. She can’t quite pick out what, but it feels as if he’s leaving out something big from the parts that she can’t corraberate. Barret and Red agree, they felt similarly, but Vee reminds them that traumatic events like that can fuck with a person’s head, muddle their memories. And she knows firsthand how traumatic Shinra’s labs can get. The five agree not to push him on it, and follow suit to get some sleep.

When she’s finally alone with Aerith and Vee, Tifa breaks down completely as the events of the day wash over her. The man who scarred her, who slaughtered her family, who burnt down her home, is alive. Her best friend has years of trauma he’s never told her about. And she almost lost her girlfriend. Vee and Aerith hold her, and the three fall asleep together. For now, they’re safe.

[arcticdementor]

Martin Gurri's The Revolt Of The Public is from 2014, which means you might as well read the Epic of Gilgamesh. It has a second-edition-update-chapter from 2017, which might as well be Beowulf. The book is about how social-media-connected masses are revolting against elites, but the revolt has moved forward so quickly that a lot of what Gurri considers wild speculation is now obvious fact. I picked up the book on its "accurately predicted the present moment" cred, but it predicted the present moment so accurately that it's barely worth reading anymore. It might as well just say "open your eyes and look around".

…

In conclusion, 2011 was a weird year.

Gurri argues all of this was connected, and all of it was a sharp break from what came before. These movements were essentially leaderless. Some had charismatic spokespeople, like Daphni Leef in Israel or Tahrir-Square-Facebook-page-admin Wael Ghonim in Egypt, but these people were at best the trigger that caused a viral movement to coalesce out of nothing. When Martin Luther King marched on Washington, he built an alliance of various civil rights groups, unions, churches, and other large organizations who could turn out their members. He planned the agenda, got funding, ran through an official program of speakers, met with politicians, told them the legislation they wanted, then went home. The protests of 2011 were nothing like that. They were just a bunch of people who read about protests on Twitter and decided to show up.

Also, they were mostly well-off. Gurri hammers this in again and again. Daphni Leef had just graduated from film school, hardly the sort of thing that puts her among the wretched of the earth. All of these movements were mostly their respective countries' upper-middle classes; well-connected, web-savvy during an age when that meant something. Mostly young, mostly university-educated, mostly part of their countries' most privileged ethnic groups. Not the kind of people you usually see taking to the streets or building tent cities.

Some of the protests were more socialist and anarchist than others, but none were successfully captured by establishment strains of Marxism or existing movements. Many successfully combined conservative and liberal elements. Gurri calls them nihilists. They believed that the existing order was entirely rotten, that everyone involved was corrupt and irredeemable, and that some sort of apocalyptic transformation was needed. All existing institutions were illegitimate, everyone needed to be kicked out, that kind of thing. But so few specifics that socialists and reactionaries could march under the same banner, with no need to agree on anything besides "not this".

…

Gurri isn't shy about his contempt for this. Not only were these some of the most privileged people in their respective countries, but (despite the legitimately-sucky 2008 recession), they were living during a time of unprecedented plenty. In Spain, the previous forty years had seen the fall of a military dictatorship, its replacement with a liberal democracy, and a quintupling of GDP per capita from $6000 to $32000 a year - "in 2012, four years into the crisis there were more cell phones and cars per person in Spain than in the US". The indignado protesters in Spain had lived through the most peaceful period in Europe's history, an almost unprecedented economic boom, and had technologies and luxuries that previous generations could barely dream of. They had cradle-to-grave free health care, university educations, and they were near the top of their society's class pyramids. Yet they were convinced, utterly convinced, that this was the most fraudulent and oppressive government in the history of history, and constantly quoting from a manifesto called Time For Outrage!

So what's going on?

Our story begins (says Gurri) in the early 20th century, when governments, drunk on the power of industrialization, sought to remake Society in their own image. This was the age of High Modernism, with all of its planned cities and collective farms and so on. Philosopher-bureaucrat-scientist-dictator-manager-kings would lead the way to a new era of gleaming steel towers, where society was managed with the same ease as a gardener pruning a hedgerow.

…

Realistically this was all a sham. Alan Greenspan had no idea how to prevent recessions, scientific progress was slowing down, poverty remained as troubling as ever, and 50% of public school students stubbornly stayed below average. But the media trusted the government, the people trusted the media, and failures got swept under the rug by genteel agreement among friendly elites, while the occasional successes were trumpeted from the rooftops.

There was a very interesting section on JFK’s failure at the Bay of Pigs. Kennedy tried to invade Cuba, but the invasion failed very badly, further cementing Castro’s power and pushing him further into the Soviet camp. Representatives of the media met with Kennedy, Kennedy was very nice to them, and they all agreed to push a line of “look, it’s his first time invading a foreign country, he tried his hardest, give him a break.” This seems to have successfully influenced the American public, so much so that Kennedy’s approval rating increased five points, to 83%, after the debacle!

…

In Gurri's telling, High Modernism had always been a failure, but the government-media-academia elite axis had been strong enough to conceal it from the public. Starting in the early 2000s, that axis broke down. People could have lowered their expectations, but in the real world that wasn't how things went. Instead of losing faith in the power of government to work miracles, people believed that government could and should be working miracles, but that the specific people in power at the time were too corrupt and stupid to press the "CAUSE MIRACLE" button which they definitely had and which definitely would have worked. And so the outrage, the protests - kick these losers out of power, and replace them with anybody who had the common decency to press the miracle button!

…

Any system that hasn't solved every problem is illegitimate. Solving problems is easy and just requires pressing the "CAUSE MIRACLE" button. Thus the protests. In 2011, enough dry tinder of anger had built up that everywhere in the world erupted into protest simultaneously, all claiming their respective governments were illegitimate. These protests were necessarily vague and leaderless, because any protest-leader would fall victim to the same crisis of authority and legitimacy that national leaders were suffering from. Any attempt to make specific demands would be pilloried because those specific demands wouldn't unilaterally end homelessness or racism or inequality or whatever else. The only stable state was a sort of omni-nihilism that refused to endorse anything.

(I’m reminded of Tanner Greer’s claim that the great question of modernity is not “what can I accomplish?” or “how do I succeed?” but rather “how do I get management to take my side?”)

Gurri calls our current government a kind of "zombie democracy". The institutions of the 20th century - legislatures, universities, newspapers - continue to exist. But they are hollow shells, stripped of all legitimacy. Nobody likes or trusts them. They lurch forward, mimicking the motions they took in life, but no longer able to change or make plans or accomplish new things.

…

How do we escape this equilibrium? Gurri isn't sure. His 2017 afterword says he thinks we're even more in it now than we were in 2014. But he has two suggestions.

First, cultivate your garden. We got into this mess by believing the government could solve every problem. We're learning it can''t. We're not going to get legitimate institutions again until we unwind the overly high expectations produced by High Modernism, and the best way to do that is to stop expecting government to solve all your problems. So cultivate your garden. If you're concerned about obesity, go on a diet, or volunteer at a local urban vegetable garden, or organize a Fun Run in your community, do anything other than start a protest telling the government to end obesity. This is an interesting contrast to eg Just Giving, which I interpret as having the opposite model - if you want to fight obesity, you should work through the democratic system by petitioning the government to do something; trying to figure out a way to fight it on your own would be an undemocratic exercise of raw power. Gurri is recommending that we tear that way of thinking up at the root.

Second, start looking for a new set of elites who can achieve legitimacy. These will have to be genuinely decent and humble people - Gurri gives the example of George Washington. They won't claim to be able to solve everything. They won't claim the scientific-administrative mantle of High Modernism. They'll just be good honorable people who will try to govern wisely for the common good. Haha, yeah right.

…

Gurri divides the world between the Center and the Border. He thinks the Center - politicians, experts, journalists, officials - will be in a constant retreat, and the Border - bloggers, protesters, and randos - on a constant advance. His thesis got a boost when Brexit and Trump - both Border positions - crushed and embarrassed their respective Centers. But since then I'm not sure things have been so clear. The blogosphere is in retreat (maybe Substack is reversing this?), but the biggest and most mainstream of mainstream news organizations, like the New York Times are becoming more trusted and certainly more profitable. The new President of the US is a boring moderate career politician. The public cheers on elite censorship of social media. There haven't been many big viral protests lately except Black Lives Matter and the 1/6 insurrection, and both seemed to have a perfectly serviceable set of specific demands (defunding the police, decertifying the elections). Maybe I've just grown used to it, but it doesn't really feel like a world where a tiny remnant of elites are being attacked on all sides by a giant mob of entitled nihilists.

…

At the risk of being premature or missing Gurri's point, I want to try telling a story of how the revolt of the public and the crisis of legitimacy at least partially stalled.

Gurri talks a lot about Center and Border, but barely even mentions Left and Right. Once you reintroduce these, you have a solution to nihilism. The Left can come up with a laundry list of High Modernist plans that they think would solve all their problems, and the Right can do the same. Then one or the other takes control of government, gets thwarted by checks/balances/Mitch McConnell, and nothing happens. No American Democrat was forced to conclude that just because Obama couldn't solve all their problems, the promise of High Modernism was a lie. They just concluded that Obama could have solved all their problems, but the damn Republicans filibustered the bill. Likewise, the Republicans can imagine that Donald Trump would have made America great again if the media and elites and Deep State hadn't been blocking him at every turn. Donald Trump himself tells them this is true!

With this solution in place, you can rebuild trust in institutions. If you're a Republican, Fox News is trustworthy because it tells you the ways Democrats are bad. Some people say it's biased or inaccurate, but those people are Democrats or soft-on-Democrat RINO traitors. And if you're a Democrat, academic experts are completely trustworthy, and if someone challenges them you already know those challenges must be vile Republican lies. Lack of access to opposing views has been replaced with lack of tolerance for opposing views. And so instead of the public having to hate all elites, any given member of the public only needs to hate half of the elites.

You could think of this as a mere refinement of Gurri. But it points at a deeper critique. Suppose that US left institutions are able to maintain legitimacy, because US leftists trust them as fellow warriors in the battle against rightism (and vice versa). Why couldn't one make the same argument about the old American institutions? People liked and trusted the President and Walter Cronkite and all the other bipartisan elites because they were American, and fellow warriors in the battle against Communism or terrorism or poverty or Saddam or whatever. If this is true, the change stops looking like the masses suddenly losing faith in the elites and revolting, and more like a stable system of the unified American masses trusting the unified American elites, fissioning into two stable systems of the unified (right/left) masses trusting the unified (right/left) elites. Why did the optimal stable ingroup size change from nation-sized to political-tribe-sized?

…

The one exception to my disrecommendation is that you might enjoy the book as a physical object. The cover, text, and photographs are exceptionally beautiful; the cover image - of some sort of classical-goddess-looking person (possibly Democracy? I expect if I were more cultured I would know this) holding a cell phone - is spectacularly well done. I understand that Gurri self-published the first edition, and that this second edition is from not-quite-traditional publisher Stripe Press. I appreciate the kabbalistic implications of a book on the effects of democratization of information flow making it big after getting self-published, and I appreciate the irony of a book about the increasing instability of history getting left behind by events within a few years. So buy this beautiful book to put on your coffee table, but don't worry about the content - you are already living in it.