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gardenflowerswriting · 5 years ago

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Fucking Jelly (Syverson x Reader)

Summary: Reader is a Doctor who cannot stand the captain, yet when he asks for help, they can’t say no.

Type: playfullbanter/fluff Gif: andsowewalkalone Word Count: 4k

You were threading a small stitch in a mans arm as you heard talking behind you, "this here is Y/L/N." You rolled your eyes, stopping to turn and see Syverson giving his tours to the new people, "go to her if you get a boo boo, she's good with those." You lowered your mask, "Fuck off Syverson, I'm busy." "She won't bite," his thick accent annoyed you to no end. You gave a joking silent laugh and flipped him off, your blue gloves too big for your hands. "Alright boys, this way."

You tied off the ending of the string and gave the soldier some ibuprofen, lowering your mask and taking off your gloves, "read the label, and take what's prescribed," you picked up your clipboard and began writing, "if the pain does not subside, or you believe the injury to be infect, you must go to the base compound and be evaluated there. I do not have the supplies nor medication to deal with infections." You watched the blonde haired boy nod his head. You were just saying all the basic things they told you-you had to. You had that shit memorized verbatim. You wrote his info as you kept going, "I can provide you with alcohol pads that you can rub on them to clean them." You turned around to open the cabinet and hand them to him, "and for god fucking sake don't try to eat them or get drunk off them." He took them, and smirked "people do that?" You focused back on the form, "you would be surprised.” Returning to write down the soldiers name, “But, I'm done with you so can you get the next person if there is anyone?" "Yeah, thanks doc." You nodded your head and turned back to the small filing cabinet, you had to put his paper away and grab a fresh sheet. You washed your hands in the small sink and heard steps behind you as someone sat down, "alright," you got new gloves and you reached for your pen, turning, "what can I do for you toda-" you were stopped by a smiling Syverson dangling his feet off the one tall chair in the room. You dropped your shoulders, "What are you doing here?" "I came to see you doc." "Oh my god," you leaned against the tan cabinets, "For fucks sake? You know I have actual people to see and help, not you?" His brows moved together, "what? With the little needle you carry around?" You locked your jaw, "I could do a lot with that needle, and that's what they supply me with. Maybe if they gave me more I could do more." He smiled, lifting his hand to shoo away the conversation, "no ones out there anyway. Thought I'd ask you a question." You rolled your eyes, "Syverson, if you're gonna ask me to go on a date you know the answer already." He smirked, "now doc, is that all you think about? A captain asking you on a date," you crossed your arms and glared at him. You could see him try and hold in his laugh, "no, I do have a question, a real one." You raised your brow watching, waiting, "you know a lot about human biology?" "I'm here aren't I?" "Oo, doc no need to get sour on me, I just need you to take a look at one of the dogs that we found outside." You moved your brows together, "a dog? . . I don't know anything about dogs." "Yeah, well you know about humans, they're pretty close are they not?" You stared at him in disbelief, "what? No." "Come on, a quick look, you liked Aika, this dog is no different." You sighed, Aika was cute, and when you could, you made sure to play with her outside. "You never asked me to examine Aika." "I did not say 'examine'" You narrowed your eyes, "then what do you want." He smiled, "we might have some pups coming soon." Your face went flat, "the dog is pregnant?!" "Come on doc, ain't nobody in the hall for you, take a 10 minute break?" You stared at him, trying to decide if you should trust him or not. Finally, rolling your eyes you lifted yourself off the cabinets, "where's the dog?" He smiled, "follow me." You kept your gloves on as he led you through three hallways to his room. He got a room to himself, bastard, so he was somewhat far off from everyone else, "she's been here for a while and only moved to get eat or drink." He pushed the door open and you were greeted with Aika, "hi babes." You spoke softly at her as you began to scratch behind her ear. She jumped up on you, "Aika down!" His tone was sharp and stern, like he was talking to soldiers who were under him. You gave him a side eye, "she's fine, you know that." "I'm trying to teach her not to do that," he sighed, "this way." He guided you to a bigger dog, fatter in her belly and her nipples were prominent, "you needed me to tell you she's pregnant?" Now this just seemed like a set up to get you in his room. You bent down to kneel by her side, "No," you scratched her stomach lightly, she looked like Aika, but with the obvious belly. Her fur was also almost all black, "I need you to tell me when she'll give birth. She whines a lot at night and like I said she don't move." You looked up at him, and almost laughed, "Syverson," his stern features didn't shift, "I'm a doctor, not a vet? I have no idea when she'll give birth." He crossed his arms and you rose back to your feet, "all I can say is to wait it out. She will when those pups are ready." He put his hand to his mouth before scratching his chin through his thick beard, thinking, "I can't raise puppies." You smiled at him, "I'll help," he gave you a coy look. Which in turn, made you side eye him, "oh sweetie not for you," looking back down at the soon to be mom, who was panting in the heat, "for the puppies." He grunted and you looked back at him, "what'll you name her?" He squinted down at the dog, "I don't know yet. . . what's your middle name?" "Syverson-" You drew out his name, annoyed. "No seriously, what is it?" You rolled your eyes, "Y/M/N." (Your/middle/name) "Settles it," he knelt down to the dog and rubbed behind her ears, "Y/M/N," he looked up to you and smiled. After then, you didn't think of the momma anymore, while Syverson constantly made sure to bring her up on your radar. But, today you had seen twenty-two guys which was far from normal, and being you were the only one on base who knew how to give proper stitches and offer medical care in your make shift clinic, you wanted to sleep. Your room was with some of the other female soldiers, but they were nice to you so you didn't care too much. As you were getting ready for bed, you brushed your teeth, let your hair down from it's bun and got it a little wet, so it would return to its normal form. You looked in the mirror and felt dead, wearing a tan t-shirt with no bra and shorts that were too short, but wouldn’t be uncomfortable under your cargo pants (in the instance you needed to get dressed quick). You shuffled to your bed and closed your eyes. "Y/N," you felt your body shake furiously and in an instant, your eyes opened and you reached for the gun you kept at the side of your bed. "No," the dark figure grabbed at your arm and when you went to scream a strong hand covered your mouth, "aye! It's me! It's Syverson." You squinted at the figure and could make out the beard, "Shumveson?" It was muffled because of his hand. He put his finger to his mouth, "shh, you gotta come with me." "Hmm?" Again, the idiot had his hand over your mouth. They really let the dumbest people be captains. "Y/M/N." It took you a minute but then you remembered and nodded your head. "Come on." He let go of your mouth and backed up. When you stood to walk, you whimpered from the pain in your feet, but you followed him to his room, the walk was silent except for your cries of pain. "I think she's having them, I gave her my shirt to lay on." You looked over to his body, "is that why you are suddenly without clothes?" He didn't wear a shirt and only his cargo shorts, which were loosely hanging around his waist. He rolled his eyes at you, "says the girl who's boobs and ass are hanging out." You moved your brows together and felt slightly self conscious, but turned your attention to the dog. "I need you to go to my office and grab two sets of gloves, and probably some Benadryl. Get me some food too." You lowered to be level with the dog. "You're hungry right now?" "Are you dumb? It's to put the pills in and feed to her. Go!" He did as you said and all you could do was scratch as the girls face, "shh, baby," she let out whimpers and you were afraid she would wake people up. He came back and dropped the materials next to you, "get the gloves on when the puppies start to come." He nodded his head and sat down on your free side, "okay baby, we're gonna help you." You looked to Syverson, "she should know how to do this herself, so it's just waiting. But when the puppies are all out, we will figure out the genders then lay them next to her so she can clean them, keep them warm, and let them eat," he nodded his head, receiving all your orders, "get the food you brought and lather them up in Benadryl." "Can dogs have that?" "yes, and it's all we have," she whimpered again and you both looked down to her. He shifted to grab something from the side of his bed, and when you looked, it was a jar of jelly. You almost gasped, "what the hell? You have jelly?!" He cracked the lid open and used his finger to scoop out a chunk, looking to you, "what? My mom mailed it over." You were still jealous. "I hate you," you muttered. He gave her two pills and you both sat watching on the cold tile floor, it was like watching water boil. After about half and hour, he jumped, exclaiming: "I see a head!" You put your hand over his mouth, "she needs to be at peace right now! Don't disrupt her." You felt his tongue against your palm, which made you with draw quickly, "ew!" He smiled, "you liked it." You could only roll your eyes, but you felt his arm wrap around your back pulling you to sit in between his legs, "look," his voice was deep in your ear, which almost put you in a sleepy trans. But you followed to where his finger was pointing, which was to the small head of puppy coming out. You smiled, sitting criss-cross in between his thick body, "you're gonna be a dad." You spoke softly. You could see his hands rest on his knees, "damn, that makes you the step mama." You couldn't help but laugh, while shaking your head, knowing he smiled at you from behind You didn't notice it, but as the longer you both watched the puppies arrive, the deeper you were in his lap. You laid your head against his fury chest while he rested one hand behind him to support you both and the other laid gently against your body. You had gotten so tired, you jumped when his deep voice rose again, vibrating against your head, "you think she's done." You rose quick and looked around, darting to her and the puppies surrounding her nipples to drink. "Um," you rubbed your eyes, "yeah. We can count them and know the genders I guess." "Alright," he shifted from his position, "we could've moved to the bed instead of making me sit on the hard ass floor." You shook your head, "I didn't mean to fall asleep," you yawned a little, looking over at him, "what time is it?" He checked his watch, "4:08" you nodded and moved closer to Y/M/N, he was close behind you, settling at your side as you both looked at her in awe. "Good job babe," you rubbed her head, she welcomed it and kept her mouth open panting. You could hear him getting his gloves on, "Let's see," he picked up one and checked the underside, "girl." You looked to the puppy, her little eyes were still closed and she was so tiny in his hands, "what's gonna be her name?" He took a long look at her, "Doc . . . for doctor." You rolled your eyes and met his gaze, "i want to keep this one and for her name to be doc." He looked so serious about it that you felt your heart pick up. You shuffled closer to him and watched as he set the puppy down, "fine, but the next ones name is gonna be cap for captain." You knew he was smiling, and by the end of you guys going back in forth with names, you had seven puppies, four girls (Doc, Ivy, Ace, and Lyn) with three boys (Cap, Sage and Hendrix). By the time you were done arguing on the names, it was 4:42 AM. You both got up at six hundred hours normally, and you knew if you fell asleep you'd be out. "What some coffee?" He asked after you two were done admiring the cute little puppies and their whimpers. You nodded your head, "you can sit on the bed, it's softer," he got up and disappeared from the room. You scooted to the mattress and first thing you noticed was how much nicer it was than your own. You leaned your head against the wall and when he came back with two mugs you gave him a glare, "your own room, a jar of jelly, and a soft ass bed." He smiled, handing you the cup, "it pays to have a momma that loves ya, and I guess a good position." You rolled your eyes and blew on the coffees surface, watching the steam rise from it. He picked up the container in one hand and tossed it on your crossed legs, "take it." You looked up at him and he walked towards you, laying down next to you, putting his weight on his elbow so he could look at you. You felt yourself frown, "I can't take it." He shook his head, "that's what I'll pay you in, Berry jelly." "Pay me?" He smiled, taking a sip of the black coffee, "for helping." That almost made you snort, "I fell asleep? Really Sy, you should have it, it's from your family. I'm good with the beans and noodles." "Let me see it," he rested his coffee on the bed, letting it sit against his chest as you handed him the jar and he unscrewed the top, showing you the delicious looking substance. You felt your mouth water, "take some." When he could tell you were resilient, he nudged it closer to you again. You pulled one hand from your coffee mug and let two fingers dig into the jar, coming out with a beautiful scoop of the substance. He watched closely as you put your fingers in your mouth and moaned, which made him all the more tentative. His eyes scanned over your body, and took a long glance at your chest knowing you weren't wearing a bra. Your eyes were closed as you threw you head back against the wall, "that good?" It was so sweet and tart at the same time, it almost made you feel like you were in his hometown. You could imagine him picking berries for the mixture and helping to smash them with his mom, it was so cute. When you finally opened your eyes, your smile was giddy, "like an orgasm." "Well doc if I would've know it was that easy I would've given it to you the first day I saw you." You looked straight at the paint chipped wall, still feeling in a daze of jelly happiness, as you shook your head, "no, you could never get me like that." He watched your every move, licking his lips, "wanna make that a bet." Your head shifted down to him, and you looked at him with the most loving eyes he had ever seen, "this was fun." Before lowering to kiss his cheek, you stopped at his ear, "I'll come by tonight and look at how the kids are doing?" He nodded his head and you pressed a kiss to his cheek. It was quick, but it left a warm print on his skin, and made your chin rub against his beard. "Bye Sy." He hummed, and watched you lift yourself from his bed. He watched your ass as you tiptoed and opened his door lightly, giving him one last glance before you disappeared into the hall. "Fuck." He muttered looking to the jar he laughed, "fucking jelly."

#captain syverson #syverson #syverson fluff #syverson smut #cpt syverson #syverson x oc #sand castle #henry cavill #cavill #syverson x you #syverson x reader #sandcastle #sand castle fanfic #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill fic

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ravenpie52 · 3 years ago

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I say in my video descriptions that Domicile is half scripted. Now that we’re reaching a wrap-up point: 2 episodes after the fifth plus 1 potential epilogue much later, I think I’ll pull back the curtain a teensy bit. Not enough for future spoilers, just a general guideline.

First of all, the major “plot points” related to Raven’s character arc were planned beforehand. Though, I can say that I have been coming up with a good chunk of it during my work on this, not all before. I needed to come up with certain things so that it is a satisfying series and so that I can set up needed parts beforehand: location info, buildings, special items, etc. A couple of things I knew about already because they were in the seed description and they were what led me to picking it.

The mineshafts right under my area were a TOTAL surprise. The issue was that I discovered them while in spectator mode flying around trying to take a picture for a thumbnail, so I had to place my stairs and tunnel just right to “hit” the mineshaft caves and discover them that way. It ended up working out.

The in-character explanation for Raven making specifically gold shoes is that it fits their color scheme best and matches their eyes. The real reason is that the Pacifist Mobs mod still includes the regular rules for Pigmen hating you if you don’t wear gold, and I couldn’t have that, so I had to slip in a reasoning for armor at some point and the fall damage from tower building was perfect.

Yes, I do sometimes go into creative mode while working, but it is only to make certain cheap things faster like traveling to a location to shoot, or giving myself a little extra bonemeal to make growing things a teensy bit faster so that I don’t have to wait. Creative mode is only for small time saves and fixing of mistakes. (As well as for swiftly killing mobs that my character should not be encountering. There are certain mobs Raven should NOT be seeing at certain times.)

You may notice some odd discrepancies with the exp levels between shots. Sometimes I end up killing things that shouldn’t be there, boosting villager trades early to pretend they always were that skill level, spending exp on enchanting that might go wrong, etc. I try my best to make it seem not that odd in the time between cuts but keeping track of that is painful.

For game rules, I have FireTick off because I don’t want my enchanting room to catch fire or a forest. I’m pretty sure I have MobGrief off because of creepers (I don’t want Hometown to get wrecked) and mobs trampling crops, but it might actually not be. I have KeepInventory on because I shouldn’t be canonically dying at any time anyways (for reasons) and it just causes unnecessary fuss with getting my items back and regaining exp. My difficulty is set to Easy.

I plan to have the map file public after I build on it for a while and develop it for an epilogue episode, doubling it as a build tour. There’s things I might want to build on the map in the future, but that I don’t have time in the story to film the process of, hence, an epilogue a few months after the story ends.

Now, there is a “list” of specific rules I follow while playing and recording for this series.

1. Raven does not have an inclination toward violence thanks to their formative time being spent with passive mobs and villagers. They do not witness it much and as such don’t fully get the point of it. (They kind of get what’s going on with zombies and skeletons burning [dying] in the day, but choose not to think about it.) Because of this, I am not allowed to hit any mob on purpose. All drops must be ones that I find on the ground alone. I cannot farm animals for meat, either.

2. Raven absolutely sucks at naming things. They are usually really basic noun names: Frosting, Wheat, Spruce, Corner Building, etc.

3. Raven has considerable gaps in knowledge. They do not know the names of certain things or how they work. Sometimes they may know the name of something, but not have it really memorized. Usually I can just decide whenever I choose whether Raven read about it or if it’s just something that never came up. FOR CERTAIN, the things that are a big mystery to most everyone is anything Nether or End related. (The alchemist villager Jean has Glowstone, but ignore that for my sake. Pretend that he doesn’t know where it comes from or something.)

4. I try to remember to slip in references to the piece I wrote. Raven does vocal stimming sometimes because of their association with sound (never reven never reven never reven) and they repeat their sentences sometimes. Lava is really important to them and the color orange because that represents warmth in the cold tundra.

5. Egg.

As a thanks for reading this, here, have an almost done edited timeline of episode 5 that I will probably post Friday afternoon/evening. I need to watch through it in full and make adjustments to the audio envelope to adjust volume levels. I also need to prepare a thumbnail image. But here! Proof that it’s almost done! It’s a whopping 45 minutes long!

Edit: nvm I’m having trouble with the rendering process so it’s gonna be a while longer.

#Domicile

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artificialqueens · 4 years ago

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Don't Strauss Too Much (Crygi) - Mumu

A/N: Back on my Crygi clownery! A big thank you to the lovely @sportcox who helped me brainstorm this title <3

Summary: Gigi needs a tutor, and Crystal is happy to help her out.

Gigi Goode is going to throw herself off a cliff.

She’s been staring at her flashcards from yesterday’s music theory lecture for what feels like forever now, and she’s still no closer to memorizing the information she needs to know for her quiz on Friday than when she got here.

She and Nicky are sitting in the corner of their favourite cafe, notebooks and highlighters sprawled out on the table among cups of coffee and various sweet treats. Normally, the cozy atmosphere always puts Gigi into a good mood, but today she’s far too stressed to enjoy the experience. She has a week to memorize a whole chapter’s worth of material. So far she’s wasted most of her time just staring blankly at her notes.

“What kind of demon professor gives a quiz on a Friday, anyway?” She complains.

Besides her, Nicky laughs. “Take a break if you’re so upset about it.”

“That’s not how it works,” Gigi mumbles, even as she closes her folder and takes a sip of her iced coffee. She slumps back into her seat. “Music theory is gonna be the death of me, I swear.”

“I don’t even understand why you’re taking it,” Nicky says, tapping her pen against her teeth distractedly.

“I needed the credit,” Gigi explains in a monotone. “I thought it would be easy, but Professor Visage doesn’t even give us completion credit for homework.”

“Oh, the horror,” Nicky smirks at her. “Imagine, Stanford professors not giving you full credit just because you turned your work in.”

“Shut up,” Gigi pouts. “What am I supposed to do now?”

“Can’t you just drop?” Nicky steals a bite of Gigi’s tiramisu, giggling when the other girl swats her away. “Hey, I’m helping, I deserve some of your cake.”

“I can’t,” Gigi says, rolling her eyes at Nicky’s antics. “Missed the deadline.”

“Just get a tutor then,” Nicky suggests. “Isn’t that Crystal girl you like also taking it? You said she was doing well last time.”

Gigi very nearly chokes on a macaroon.

“How… do you even remember that?” She gets out, coughing.

“As if I could forget. That’s all you talked about the entire two hours we hung out. You were all, ‘Crystal’s so good at theory’ and ‘Visage likes her so much’ and ‘if she weren’t so pretty I could be able to hate her.’” Nicky teases. “Besides, you know I love to play matchmaker.”

“Yeah, well, I hate to break it to you, but that’s not happening. I can’t even talk to her, let alone survive a tutoring session with that girl.” Gigi says.

“Okay, well, it’s not like you have any other options.” Nicky is unimpressed.

“Then I’d better just accept that I’ll bomb this quiz.” Gigi pops another macaroon into her mouth in self-pity.

“No, not on my watch.” Nicky insists. “Just message her, it’s not that hard!”

“Absolutely not,” Gigi says. She reopens her folder, looking glumly down at the index cards tucked into the pocket. “Like I said, I’d rather fail.”

She’s too busy staring down at the material in front of her to notice when Nicky grabs her phone until it’s too late. “Hey!”

Nicky just cackles, angling her body so that Gigi can’t interrupt her typing. “If you don’t have the guts, I’ll do it for you.”

“Nicolette Doll, I’ll kill you,” Gigi says, trying to grab at her phone.

Gigi glares at her friend, calculating about a hundred ways to dispose of her body. She has half a mind to drive her dessert fork into the blonde’s neck in an attempt to stop her from going through with this. Gigi bats at Nicky’s arms, attempting to wrestle the device away from her.

It’s no use. Nicky’s grip is strong, and Gigi watches with growing horror as the blonde types Crystal’s Instagram handle into the explore page. Nicky doesn’t even need to type the full name; Crystal pops up into her recent searches as soon as she inputs the first few letters.

In usual circumstances, Gigi would at least be embarrassed, but right now she’s more horrified at the prospect of messaging Crystal Methyd.

Crystal, the girl who she’s been crushing on since the very first music theory lecture. Crystal, who’s probably the reason she’s barely pulling a big fat D in the class in the first place, since, as it turns out, staring at the pretty Latina sitting in the front row isn’t a very effective learning strategy.

“Nicky,” Gigi says, trying a different approach. “I’ll do the dishes for a week.”

“Too late!” Nicky grins at her, far too proud of herself. She hands the phone back to Gigi. “Your welcome.”

Gigi stares down at her phone screen, blinking dumbly at it.

Hey! This is Gigi from music theory. I needed a tutor and was wondering if you might wanna help?

Gigi’s gaze darts from Nicky to the screen, and then back again.

“I hate you,” She decides, puffing out a breath at the end of the sentence. “Why am I friends with you?”

“You’ll be thanking me soon enough.” Nicky shrugs. “Oh! Look, she’s typing!”

Gigi feels a rush of dizzying panic at Nicky’s narration. She snatches her phone closer to her chest, doing her best impression of a chipmunk with a peanut. A glance down confirms, yes, Crystal really is typing out a response. Now that Crystal’s already seen it, it’s too late to unsend the message. God, she’s probably weirded out by the random request. Why did Gigi think bringing this up with Nicky was a good idea?

“Uh-uh, I don’t trust you anymore,” She scolds, voice only shaking a bit, as Nicky tries to peek over her shoulder. “You can sit there and if you’re lucky I’ll fill you in.”

Nicky huffs, pouting. “Putain.”

Gigi’s about to retort when Crystal’s typing icon disappears, and a message replaces it.

hi gigi :) of course!

Gigi fights the dumb smile that’s threatening to burst across her cheeks, hyper-aware of the fact that Nicky’s watching her intently. She can feel the french girl’s gaze on her, practically burning a hole through her ponytail and skull.

Crystal typed the message in lowercase— Gigi’s not sure why she finds that so endearing, but the detail lodges itself in her brain and Gigi files it under the mental list she’s begun to keep this semester. Little things about Crystal: she likes big earrings, her laugh sounds like liquid sunshine, her hair is a different colour every other week. And now, the newest addition, she types in lowercase.

The smiley face Crystal sent peers up at her.

Her phone pings again. how does tuesday sound? maybe at 3pm?

“Bitch, what’s happening?” Nicky asks, craning her neck in an attempt to catch a glimpse of their exchange.

A flash of annoyance shoots through Gigi. For some reason, she feels very protective of this little exchange. Nicky’s well-meaning, she knows, but she’s not quite ready to share Crystal yet. It feels kind of exciting to know that this… well, whatever this is, is just between the two of them.

“Nothing so far,” She says. Nicky seems to accept the answer, going back to reading a section in her textbook.

Sounds good. We can work in the Lane reading room if that works for you?

The response comes almost immediately. totally, yeah! see you then

Gigi tries not to feel disappointed at the lack of a smiley face this time around. Keyword: she tries to. But it’s hard to read the signs over a couple of text messages, and she re-reads the last text she sent. Did she do something wrong? Was it too formal? What does Gigi respond, now that she isn’t sure if Crystal just texts everyone smiley faces, or if the girl is flirting with her?

Gigi grabs a chocolate chip cookie and takes a bite, stalling. There are two chunks of chocolate in the mouthful. Gigi takes that as a good sign and decides to go for it.

Looking forward to it! See you then <3

She regrets adding on the heart as soon as she presses send, but there’s no way to take the message back now. Gigi settles on stuffing her face with the rest of the cookie in regret.

She waits a few excruciating seconds, but no response comes. Fuck, she shouldn’t have added that heart. Crystal must think she’s totally creepy. Gigi flips her phone facedown on the table and picks up those flashcards again.

Nicky sees her make like she’s going to continue studying and lets out a snort. “Good luck, girl.”

“Nice to know you have faith in me,” Gigi shoots back, chewing at her bottom lip.

Nicky’s right, though. She doesn’t get anything done for the rest of the half-hour they’re there, her mind too full of thoughts about study dates and smiley faces to focus on anything else.

***

“Ugh!” Gigi tosses another dress aside, falling back onto her bed dramatically. “Why is this so hard?”

Nicky looks up from her phone. “You’re the one that’s making it complicated.”

Gigi throws a pillow in her general direction and the blonde shrieks as it hits her. The impact makes her fall out the beanbag she’s currently sitting on with a loud thump.

“Merde, okay, I’ll help!”

“Thanks.” Gigi flashes a cheeky smile at her.

Nicky puts her phone down and contemplates murdering her friend. “What do you have so far?”

“Uh,” Gigi holds up a tweed dress. “This?”

Nicky can’t help it: a snort escapes her. “What are you, Blair Waldorf? That’s way too fancy.”

“Alright then, uh,” Gigi fishes around for a bit, before showing Nicky a floral two-piece. “What about this one?”

“Hell no, a set looks way too put together.” Nicky shakes her head. “You wanna creep her out?”

Ten minutes and half of Gigi’s closet later, they’ve finally settled on a winning combination: a leather jacket and Gigi’s favourite pair of jeans.

Nicky insists that she doesn’t need a bra under her mini cardigan, so Gigi rolls with it.

A little part of her is glad that Nicky’s so passionate about Gigi flashing Crystal her nipples: at least she will have someone to blame when this all ends in a train wreck because she’s coming on way too strong.

Also, the mental image of Crystal getting flustered— well, Gigi would be lying if she said it wasn’t convincing.

Gigi’s alarm goes off and she grabs her phone, groaning at the time. “Shit, I’m gonna have to power-walk there.”

“I’ll see you after then,” Nicky says, winking at her. “Have fun with your little crush!”

As it turns out, Gigi didn’t have anything to worry about, because Crystal is late. Gigi takes a seat by the windows, spreading out her stuff. She tries not to think too much about the girl she’s currently waiting for, occupying herself instead with watching the people outside.

“Hey, sorry I’m late!” A voice says. Gigi turns and comes face to face with Crystal. The girl slides into the seat next to Gigi, her smile a little sheepish. “Art History is on the other side of campus. I guess I didn’t give myself enough time to get here.”

“Oh, uh,” Gigi flounders, not sure where to look. Is it weird to look into Crystal’s eyes? That feels a bit too intimate. She settles for focusing on moving her pencil case from her left to her right. Crystal’s looking expectantly at her, and she swallows hard, trying to clear her mind of Crystal’s tanned skin and cute freckles.

“No worries!” Her voice comes out weirdly high-pitched and she cringes inwardly.

Crystal doesn’t seem to notice her strange behaviour, flashing her another sunny grin. “Okay! Is there a specific section you want help with?”

Right. Tutoring. That’s why Crystal is here. Not so Gigi can stare at her, and certainly not to get to know Gigi or anything like that. Gigi can’t help the pang of disappointment that she gets at the reminder. Part of her forgot this is strictly a school-related thing. Gigi suddenly feels stupid for overthinking her outfit and draws her jacket closer to herself. Hopefully Crystal doesn’t notice how dressed-up she is today, because Gigi doesn’t know if she’ll be able to survive that embarrassment.

“I’ve been having trouble with secondary dominants,” Gigi says, pulling out her workbook.

“Okay, yeah, I can help you with those!” Crystal grabs a pen. She leans over, tracing the chords with it. “Can I write on this?”

“Huh?” Gigi asks stupidly, cheeks warming. Crystal’s shoulder is pressed against hers, and although it’s perfectly innocent, Gigi’s still hyper-aware of the way her skin feels too warm from the contact. She tries to stay perfectly still, not wanting to spook the other girl into moving away from her position. “Oh, uh, go ahead, totally. That’s fine.”

“Right, great, so let’s use this question,” Crystal says, marking something down on the book.

She’s close enough to Gigi now that her perfume envelopes the space around them. She smells like honey and coconut, a warm mixture that Gigi finds comforting. A curl slips over Crystal’s shoulder, and the girl bats it away. Gigi almost melts at how cute the action is.

This week Crystal’s hair is a muted matcha colour, and Gigi thinks that it suits her. It’s the prettiest she’s ever seen Crystal. Then again, she thinks that every time Crystal walks into class with a new colour, so maybe it’s less of a testament to the colour itself and more to how utterly head-over-heels Gigi is.

“The key signature is A Major, and this chord starts on a C. So you can count down a fifth from C, and you get F, which means that the chord is an F Dominant Seventh,” Crystal explains. “Do you know what the next step is?”

“Um,” Gigi says eloquently, brought back from her daydream by the question. How long did she zone out for?

“Sorry,” Crystal says, tapping her pen on the workbook rapidly. “I lost you, didn’t I?”

“No, it’s okay, just,” Gigi chews at her lip nervously, then immediately regrets it because she definitely has lipstick on her teeth now. “Can you go over it again?”

Crystal nods. She takes a sharp inhale like she’s going to say something, but seems to change her mind, instead offering Gigi a reassuring smile. “Of course, yeah.”

Gigi shifts awkwardly in her seat at the action, unsure what Crystal’s thinking. She’s about to ask, or say something when Crystal jumps into the explanation again. Gigi tries her very hardest to pay attention this time, but she still finds herself staring at Crystal’s lips. They’re coated with a glittery red gloss, and they look so shiny and plump that Gigi really, really wants to kiss them.

“Wanna try one on your own now?” Crystal asks.

Gigi blinks. “What?”

Crystal sets her pen down, eyebrows raised. “Did you get any of that?”

“I, uh,” Gigi stammers, trying to find some way to save the situation. Her cheeks warm, and the realization that she’s blushing makes her even more flustered. “Sorry, I’m just really out of it.”

Crystal offers her a sympathetic smile, patting Gigi on the arm comfortingly. “Hey, you’ll be fine, okay?”

“Yeah. Sorry, I’m just worried, I guess.” That’s not it at all, but Crystal doesn’t need to know that.

“I won’t let you fail, promise,” Crystal says with a wink. Gigi can’t help but giggle at the action, and Crystal pokes her playfully. “You got this!”

“Thanks,” Gigi mutters, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth through a soft smile.

There’s a slight pause, both girls regarding each other with a hint of shyness. Gigi swallows thickly, eyes flicking around Crystal’s face. Her breath is coming quicker now, and she feels a bit lightheaded.

Crystal has picked up her pen again, nervously clicking it under the table. The sound is threatening to overpower Gigi’s already scattered thoughts. Gigi’s hand goes to cover hers out of instinct, to stop the rhythmic clicks. The back of Crystal’s hand is soft, and Gigi’s fingers loop lightly around her wrist, feeling the fuzz brush against her fingertips. Crystal stops clicking the pen, but Gigi doesn’t remove her hand.

Crystal takes another sharp inhale in, and Gigi thinks the girl is going to shake her hand loose. Nothing happens, though, and for the second time, Crystal seems to swallow her words.

Gigi’s mouth feels sticky, and she runs her tongue along her teeth in an attempt to get rid of the feeling. Crystal presses her lips together at the sight, and Gigi feels a wave of adrenaline so strong it almost knocks her flat. Every fibre in Gigi’s body wants to crash herself against Crystal. She wants to feel the lip gloss slathered on the other girl’s lips on her own, and to drape her arms over Crystal’s shoulders. Her clammy hands twitch as if they might truly act on the desire without Gigi’s approval, and she balls them into fists to suppress the urge.

“You look pretty today,” Crystal says, more air than sound to her words.

Gigi hums. “So do you. You always do.”

Another few moments of stillness. Gigi finds it surprisingly comfortable, existing in Crystal’s space. She focuses on the rise and fall of Crystal’s chest, subconsciously mirroring the pattern with her own breathing.

Crystal’s the braver of the two.

She makes the first move, flipping over their hands so that hers is on top and using that to tug the redhead closer to her. Gigi slides obediently forward in her seat, her legs slotting around Crystal’s. Crystal walks her fingers up Gigi’s arm, raising goosebumps as she gets higher and higher. A chill runs through Gigi’s body, and she regrets not wearing a bra for the second time today. She shifts, straightening her spine, and immediately has to bite back a whimper when she feels her nipples brushing against the knit of her cardigan. By the smirk on Crystal’s face, the moment hasn’t gone unnoticed. There’s a challenge in her eyes, and Gigi feels her throat close when Crystal’s hand brushes her cheek.

Fucking tease, Gigi wants to say, or maybe scream. Hurry up and kiss me.

But Gigi doesn’t, she just sits there and tracks Crystal’s movements with her eyes, and shivers when Crystal tucks a fallen strand of hair behind her ear, agonizingly slow.

“Do you want me to kiss you?” Crystal asks, tilting her head in faux innocence.

Gigi bristles and feels her hands jerk impatiently in her lap. “Yes, fuck.”

But Crystal doesn’t let her get it that easily. She shakes her head, curls bouncing gently around her face. “No, say it.”

Gigi splutters something in between a curse and a laugh. The absolute nerve of this bitch. She doesn’t bother saying it again, just rolls her eyes lightly and leans in. Her patience has worn thin, and Crystal’s lips are too inviting to not feel them on hers right this moment.

Crystal ducks away and Gigi is left hanging there for a second, confused, before she opens her eyes with an annoyed huff. “You-”

“Say it,” Crystal repeats. The corners of her lips turn up slightly like she’s fighting a smile. Her hand goes to cup Gigi’s chin. “Wanna hear you say it, Geeg.”

Gigi literally feels her vision cloud over for a split second at the nickname.

Okay, maybe that’s a little dramatic, but her blood is buzzing in her body and she swears everything has gone a bit fuzzy around the edges. In any normal circumstance, Gigi would probably be over this little game of cat and mouse. She could just kiss someone else. But this is Crystal Methyd in front of her, and that’s enough to make her decide to shelve her pride for now.

She wets her lips and whispers what Crystal wants to hear. “I want you to kiss me.”

Crystal narrows her eyes at Gigi, and for one terrible moment, Gigi thinks Crystal is going to find another excuse to deny her, that she’s going to pull away and tell her that this has all been some kind of cruel power play. But then Crystal’s closing the remaining distance between them, and Gigi takes a sharp shock of air in and has to blow the breath out in one great big rush because Crystal is finally, finally kissing her. It’s tender and soft, a bit more elementary school than anything, and it’s perfect.

Crystal pulls away before Gigi can slide even closer, and she whines unashamedly, shuddering out a shaky breath. Crystal’s hand brushes against Gigi’s chest as she lets it fall, and Gigi’s breath catches. This girl is going to be the death of her.

“Been waiting to do that for a while,” Gigi admits, still a bit breathless.

“I know,” Crystal says. There’s a pretty blush adorning the highs of her cheeks, still visible when she continues. “I was wondering when you’d work up the nerve to talk to me. You stare at me every class.”

“Bitch! I wasn’t that obvious,” Gigi defends.

Crystal just blinks at her. “No, you were obvious as fuck.”

“Oh.” Gigi feels heat blooming on her cheeks.

“Aren’t you gonna ask me how I know that?” Crystal prompts. Gigi still looks a little confused, so she continues. “I only noticed because I was watching you, too.”

“You liked me and didn’t make a move?” Gigi exclaims, hitting Crystal on the arm playfully.

“It was more fun to watch you struggle,” Crystal says, waggling her eyebrows.

“You suck.”

“If I kiss you again will you forgive me?” Crystal pulls an exaggerated sad face, clasping her hands together.

Gigi just snorts and closes the distance. Their lips mesh together softly, just as dizzying as the first kiss, and when she pulls away Gigi can still feel Crystal’s gloss on her lips. She smacks them together, trying to blend her own lipstick with the bright red goop.

“So. Do you think you can try a problem now, Miss Goode?” Crystal grins mischievously at Gigi.

“I don’t know, you’re quite distracting,” Gigi counters, a smile pulling at her lips.

Crystal just hums, pointing at a row of questions. “If you get three of those right in a row, I’ll kiss you some more.”

“On my own?” Gigi really would rather go on kissing Crystal.

“C’mon, it’ll be fun, we can make it a game!” Crystal sounds hopeful enough that Gigi finds herself wanting to keep her happy. “Please?”

“What, now you’re the one begging?” Gigi teases.

She picks up her pencil, getting to work. Something about this new studying strategy is more effective than anything she’s tried before, and before long, thanks to Crystal’s teaching (and the kisses peppered between each problem set,) Secondary Dominants make perfect sense.

Come test day, Gigi sits right next to Crystal, in the front row, and makes a respectable 82.

If Professor Visage notices the hand-holding and stolen glances they exchange in the following lectures, she doesn’t mention it. The professor just seems grateful that Gigi’s finally absorbing the content for once. And as for the extent of her knowledge of why Gigi is suddenly so motivated to come into her class every day, well, Visage’s knowing smile says it all.

#rpdr fanfiction #gigi goode #crystal methyd #crygi #nicky doll #lesbian au #college au #fluff #mumu #concrit welcome #s12

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yellowsugarwords · 5 years ago

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Walking Dead Game FanFiction - “Missing More”

Title: Missing More Characters: Ericson Kids Summary: When Clementine and the Ericson crew drive to Clementine’s childhood home, they get to relive her last few moments with Lee again from a found video recording. Takes place after episode 1. Author's Note: Okay so the premise of this is going to be a little wonky to give this plot an opportunity to happen so let’s pretend that the Stranger wasn’t killed and continued to stalk Clementine after she left with Lee okay bye enjoy. Sequel to this fic Requested By: Anonymous support me with ko-fi ♡ ---------♥️♥️♥️----------

For years, every time her birthday rolled around, Clementine asked for the same thing: “Just once, I want to go back to my childhood home and get some closure.”

Little did she know that, since she first started making that wish, the crew had been working on exactly that.

In one of the back garages, Marlon had found a busted old van. It only had a sliver of gas in it, and was in rough shape, and the following years were spent scavenging for gas, and attempting to get the van working again.

As Clementine’s 19th birthday lingered on the horizon, they’d done it: Mitch had replaced the final busted part of the van, and the crew had managed to fill and find a total of 8 gasoline tanks.

“How many do you think we’d need for a road trip?” Violet had asked.

Marlon had only shrugged. “We might as well be safe and take all 8.” They had no idea how cars worked — hell, only a few of them even knew how to drive — but they were going to try their best regardless. For Clementine.

The first half of the drive was filled with excited chatter and blissful conversation. To keep watch over the school, Omar, Aasim, Brody, and Ruby decided to stay back at the school. Marlon, Louis, Violet, Clementine, AJ, Mitch, Willy, and Tenn were the group that hit up the van.

“We’ll be back in a few days.” Marlon said, already having worked out himself how long the drive would be. “Keep hold of the fort until then.”

Everyone nodded, hugging and wishing each other well, before venturing off.

Then, the fun began.

“Pass me the crackers.”

“You’ve already eaten like half the bag.”

Willy scoffed, snagging the bag out of Mitch’s hands and shoving another scoop into his mouth. “How long until we get there?”

Marlon adjusted the rear-view window, casting a harsh glare the child’s way. “Still a few more hours.”

“Ugh. We’ve been driving all day.”

“That’s why it’s called a roadtrip, Willy.” Louis said, smirking into the back. “We need to travel a distance to get there.”

“What Louis means,” Violet said through a sigh, “is shut up, Willy.” Her head leaned against the back of her seat, eyes closed, body tense.

Clementine, sitting in the passenger seat, smirked into the open, empty highway. It was familiar to her in the strangest way. She’s never driven the highway before today, but it felt warm somehow. Familiar. As though it was a shadow of the life that used to dwell there; along the sides of the road and off into the distance.

By the time they actually hit the city, the feeling of warm nostalgia took a dark, quick turn. The abandoned homes, eerie streets, and haunting a sense of life made Clementine’s skin crawl.

“Left here,” she whispered, voice haunted and scared. Still, despite the heartache she felt seeing her old hometown in ruin, she still knew her way home. Her parents had taught her to memorize the ‘important streets’ so she always knew how to get home if she ever became lost. If there was ever an emergency.

She gave direction the entire drive home, her code wavering and her hands forced into her lap, wound tightly together. She had braced herself for the worst — for her home being unrecognizable — but this somehow she hadn’t prepared for.

She hadn’t been prepared for the extent of how different everything would look.

By the time the car rolled to a stop, everyone bouncing with the weight of the breaks, Clementine was hesitant to lift her gaze from her lap.

“Clem? Is this the place?” Marlon asked. Realizing she didn’t have a choice, she gulped and looked up.

Her eyes immediately grew teary, studying the cracked windows and worn wooden panels. “Yep.” Was all she could muster, cracking her door open and stepping outside. The grass was dead, the building tattered and beaten by the elements, and the door was cracked and splintered. Apparently, someone had once jimmies a knife into the lock to get inside the house, clearly unaware that the back door had been left unlocked.

But, what brought Clementine the biggest moment of pause was the full mailbox.

She frowned, drawing closer to the door, running her fingers over the tattered and tarnished wood. Inside, she found a package, wrapped and labelled, her name scrawled on the front in messy black ink. Her heart leapt into her throat, freezing there.

“Clementine?” Louis asked. Clementine said nothing, only tore open the end of the package and slipped out a flash drive with a slip of paper taped to it. Louis, peeking in over the girl’s shoulder, held his breath. “Oh my God.”

Suddenly, all the Ericson kids turned, brows raised, drawing closer to the duo. The note was short, and simple, but haunting.

‘Something I think you’d like to see. - your friend’

Clementine closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then pushed open her front door. She slipped through her house, ignoring the overturned and tattered furniture, the haunting, dried pool of blood in the kitchen, and the dead body of her babysitter, abandoned by the back door.

She ignored it all and made her way toward the computer tucked into the back corner. All she could do was pray, that somehow, it still worked. She opened the laptop, her fingers crossed and strained, then hit the power button. Luckily for her, it came to life, thanks to being plugged in until the last moment electricity was active in the world.

By the time that nostalgic glow smacked her in the face, she realized the battery was at a dwindling 10%. Urgently, she slapped in her father’s password and jammed in the flash drive.

“What are you doing?” Marlon asked, arms crossed in horror. “You can’t just check to see what’s on it.”

“Why not?” Violet challenged. “Are you not curious about what’s on it?”

Clementine huffed, as though frustrated at how long it was taking the old laptop to register the flash drive. “I haven’t lived in this house in years, and yet, somehow, someone sent a package here addressed to me.” She turned, flashing Marlon a harsh glare. “I’m watching it.”

When she turned back to the screen, after silencing the room with her statement, she noticed there was only one file on the drive. It was fairly small, a single video file titled ‘the end’. With a deep breath, and with a shaking hand on the track pad, she moved towards it and clicked.

A security camera video popped to life, hauntingly similar. Clementine squinted, adjusting the brightness on the computer, aware it was going to drain the battery even further. Then, as two figures fumbled into the frame, Clementine’s breath caught in her throat. “No.” Was all she could muster.

It was her and Lee, entering the jewellery store, Lee’s lower arm missing, Clementine shaking and sobbing from spotting her dead parents roaming the streets.

“What’s going on?”

“Clem?”

Clementine stumbled away, ignoring Louis and Marlon’s panicked questions. She turned away, studying the corpse of her babysitter on the floor, decayed and unrecognizable.

It had been the Stranger. She knew it. She could feel her gut twisting at the mere thought.

After Lee had rushed her out of there after beating the man senseless, he’d come to and hadn’t stopped. He’d followed them to the jewellery store, watching as Clem was forced to kill Lee, and then stole a copy of the security tape, hoping and praying to prove to Clementine that... what? She had someone ‘watching out for her’?

“Clementine, what is this?” Violet asked, refusing to take her gaze off of the haunting image before her. AJ, creeping forward to get a better glimpse, felt his heart race at the sight of the child and older man.

“That’s me and Lee.” The room went dead-silent, as much also that everyone could hear a pin drop. “And I’m about to kill him.”

The group grew silent. Mitch, Louis, and AJ were the only ones who could look away, glancing nervously at the girl rather than studying the clip. Inevitably, all except Louis turned back to watch. Louis couldn’t stomach the sight.

There was muffled speaking — so quiet that the mics couldn’t quite pick it up — and shuffling around the room. The group watched as Clementine secured Lee to the radiator, as she lifted the gun to his head, as they made their teary goodbyes.

Then, the gun shot.

The room was silent and still, watching as the battery continued to drain from the small device before them. Clementine said nothing. She didn’t react, she didn’t flinch, she just stared dead-ahead at the bloody puddle in the kitchen, longing to be anywhere else but there.

Her eyes glossed over, feeling closer to Lee than she had felt in a long time in her home, before flicking away a single ear and starting for the door. “I think I’m ready to go home now.” She whispered.

“Home?” Willy hushed. Mitch set a hand on the child's shoulder, hoping to pause him from asking further questions.

“Real home.” Clementine clarified, refusing to look their way. She didn’t want to sneak an accidental glance at the computer scene. “Not here.”

Louis stepped forward, his heart heavy and weary, throwing his arm over her shoulders and guiding her toward the exit. “We can do that.” He cast a glance back at everyone else — daring and challenging — before exiting the room and starting for the van.

The group stood silent, heart weary and heavy, stomachs fragile and depressed. Without a word, all of them retreated to the van, silently getting in, remaining silent for the first chunk of the drive home.

Then, when Clementine grew teary-eyed in the passenger seat, Louis began loudly screaming ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’.

Then, Clementine knew she was home.

Then, Clementine knew what home actually felt like. It wasn’t a place. It was a group of people, a tiny, busted van, and throwback songs from a better life. ---------♥️♥️♥️----------

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purplesurveys · 5 years ago

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813

When was the last time you baked something for someone? It was like 2011 or something. My parents had bought a new oven and my sister and I wanted to ~baptize it by baking cookies. Our cookies honestly didn’t taste like anything but our relatives were really nice to praise us about them anyway.

Do you ever spend the night at random people’s houses? I would never do that, that sounds so dangerous lol. I only ever spend the night at my best friends’.

What did you eat for dinner tonight? Was it any good at all? It was pork in some sort of coconut sauce. It was insanely good but when I asked my dad what it was, he just smiled at me which leads me to think he just experimented and invented the dish lol.

What is the most annoying thing that your parents do? I don’t like it when my mom barges into rooms without knocking and when she’s being fat-phobic and racist. My dad occasionally has brief spurts of being agitated with everyone and he’ll proceed to have comments about every single thing going on around him, and that can get pretty damn annoying.

Would you be mad if your mom showed your boyfriend your baby pictures? If my mom showed my *girlfriend my baby pictures, I wouldn’t be annoyed. I don’t see why I would be, they’re just photos.

Would you say you’re someone who has good manners? Yes. I honestly pride myself on that fact because I’ve seen so many people my age who lack basic manners. I may not be close with my mom but she raised me very well when it comes to this.

When was the last time you went to an amusement park? Which one? I went to a school fair last January if that counts. If we’re talking about legit amusement parks, it was in 2013 when we went to Universal Studios in Singapore and Legoland in Malaysia.

Would you rather be kissed on the neck or on the lips? I’d normally prefer neck, but I haven’t been kissed on the lips for so long that I’d pick that for now.

Do you completely trust the person you’re dating? Very much.

Has someone ever called you heartless before? Why is that? My mom. Idk, she was being her.

What color was the shirt you wore yesterday? Gray, but it had a rainbow heart on the top left side.

Have you ever completely given up on someone any time in life? Kind of, yeah. Very early on I had given up on the possibility of my mom changing her ways and tendencies. Ever since coming to terms with that fact, it’s been easier to tolerate the verbal abuse. I’ve also given up on the possibility of one of my uncles turning his life around for the better, permanently.

What is one thing you’re not looking forward to in the next week? More days of being stuck at home.

Would you consider Christmas your favorite holiday? It is not and it hasn’t been for a very long time.

Would you rather give someone presents or receive them? Receive. I’m perpetually anxious about whether someone likes my gifts or not so giving is always stressful for me; whereas when I receive presents I always, always love them whatever they may be.

How many chances do you normally give someone before giving up on them? One, usually. I’m not very patient with people who mess up lol.

Did you parents know what gender you were before you were born? Yes, but they didn’t decide on a name until the very moment that they had to write down a name while filing for my birth certificate. Ever since they revealed that to me, I’ve always been conditioned to think that my name was a super clutch decision lmao. It’s fine though because I’m happy with my name.

Are any of your really close friends pregnant right now? No, I’m very sure none of them are. Then again, the people I went to high school with who have kids now kept their pregnancies a secret, so I honestly never know who’s currently pregnant.

Are you for or against inter-racial relationships? Anyone who is against it is a traditional asshole.

Would you say you’re more of a pessimist or optimist? Depends on the situation. I can always be either.

Do you know what your true typing speed is? What is it? I mean I’ve taken some tests before and if I bring my A-game I can do 85-95 words per minute. I never have to type that fast in real life though so my average typing speed is probably slightly slower than that.

What would you say is the longest survey you’ve ever taken? I did so many attempts to do the 5000-question survey but I never finished it lol. My longest survey was probably 500 questions back when I had just discovered surveys and wanted to take the longest ones available.

Do you get bored by things really easily, or not so much? I’d say I get bored fast. I think it’s because I’ve never really had good things stick with me for a long time and they’re always taken away from me so soon, so now, whenever I enjoy stuff I think my brain just kinda self-sabotages the whole situation and makes me bored with them so that I can move past them with no problem.

Do you hate it when people pronounce ‘potatoes’ as ‘taters?’ No. I didn’t even know they mean the same thing until right now lol, I just thought taters was some sort of American term.

Have you ever been addicted to something unhealthy? I’ve never been legitimately addicted to anything, no.

Do you wear a lot of make-up on a daily basis? I wear no makeup on a daily basis. < Same.

Who makes the best desserts in your entire family? My uncle Afay. He posts his masterpieces on his Facebook and they allllllways look so good whether it’s cheesecake, dream cakes, cream puffs, crinkles, etc. Sometimes when I heart-react his food posts, he’ll even tell me to drop by his place after school so he can give me some :)

When was the last time your received a hug? Who was this hug from? March 7th. Gabie. This lack of hugs is so not good for me lmao.

Do you have good dreams or nightmares more? I have weird dreams most often. They’re neither good nor bad, it’s just random people showing up doing things I’ll never expect them to do in real life haha.

Would you rather color pictures with markers or crayons? Crayons. Markers use up a lot of ink and I’d feel weird using all that up just to color a picture; I’d rather use markers to simply write stuff.

Do people come to you for advice a lot of the time? Not all the time but I do get a fair amount of that kind of message.

When the holidays come around, do you watch holiday movies? Not always. I watch them year-round. Would you say you’re a friendly person or not so much? I’m friendly with everybody but I hold back to a certain extent. At the end of the day I still choose which people I wanna be my true self, or show my true personality, with.

Have you ever / do you ever recycle? Sometimes, though out of the 3R’s I do reduce the most.

When was the last time you ate something from Burger King? Sometime shortly before the quarantine. I think it was in February.

When someone mentions a song, does it make you wanna listen to it? Only if it’s a song I already know and like.

Do you usually talk more than you should about things? Yep, have a pretty big mouth. I’ve been scolded for it more than once.

Who is the nosiest person you know? Do you like them anyways? Mils can be such a social climber and always wants to be in the know about everything so that she can understand references and look cool. Idk, it’s hard to like her because she tries so hard. I’m always nice to her though because she hasn’t done anything bad to me.

When did you last talk to one of your teachers? Like...from high school? Man, I have no clue. The day of my graduation, probably. I noped the fuck out of that place and out of that culture the second I got my diploma.

How many class periods does your school have? What are the classes? We have hundreds of classes in my university so it’ll be impossible and incredibly time- and space-consuming to list them all down. During the time I was in high school we had English, Filipino, Math (a different specialization for every year), Social Studies/History (same as math), Science (same thing), Christian Living Education (because Catholic school lol), Philosophy in senior year, Health, Home Economics/Accounting, Homeroom, and some local class where we were basically taught how to be charitable to the less fortunate (because again, Catholic school). I don’t know if I was able to recall all the classes but that’s a good chunk of them. We typically had 7-8 classes in a day that would last 45 minutes each.

Would you say you’re a faster or slow learner? Depends on what I’m learning. For instance, I’m quick at learning stuff that can be memorized or read from a book like history, law, biology, etc. but you’ll have to be incredibly patient with me when it comes to teaching me something like sewing or origami.

Are you one of those people who like The Nightmare Before Christmas? I’ve never seen it.

Do you fully understand the concept of ‘love?’ Probably not yet. I have an idea of it now, but that can always change. After all, I’m still incredibly young and have lots of unknown lessons yet to pick up.

#survey #surveys

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goodra-king · 5 years ago

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Transcript of Creating a Brand Name That Sticks

Transcript of Creating a Brand Name That Sticks written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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Transcript

John Jantsch: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch, and my guest today is Jeremy Miller. He is a brand strategist speaker, founder of Sticky Branding and the author of Brand New Name: A Proven, Step-by-Step Process to Create an Unforgettable Brand Name. So Jeremy, welcome to the show.

Jeremy Miller: Thanks John. It’s a pleasure to be here.

John Jantsch: So I have to tell you, I’m going to have a confession. You know my brand name is Duct Tape Marketing.

Jeremy Miller: Yes.

John Jantsch: But my original company name was Jantsch Communications.

Jeremy Miller: I love that you changed your name then. It’s one of my favorite marketing names that has been unforgettable, and following you for eight years, it’s in that range that it just sticks.

John Jantsch: Well, Jantsch Communications was terrible as a name, because it was-

Jeremy Miller: Well, it’s your name. You can’t knock your family name, your parents worked hard on it.

John Jantsch: It was my name, but people thought I sold long distance or something, I don’t know. I’m dating myself, right? What’s long distance? But anyway, yeah, we’re going to talk about that. Let me ask you the first question. What’s the job of a brand name? What does a brand name need to do to be successful?

Jeremy Miller: Well, I think of a brand name as a label in a file folder in your customer’s mind. It’s that thing that people refer to when they have a need. When you go to a grocery store, when you are talking to someone, we think in words, we think in names. It’s the way we identify something. There’s this classic scene in the Simpsons, I don’t remember if you recall, but Mr. Burns loses his power plant and he becomes a normal person, he has to do his own grocery shopping. He’s sitting in the grocery aisle and he’s looking at catsup and ketchup, and just back and forth, “Ketchup, catsup,” and everyone down the aisle are looking at him, “What’s this crazy person doing?” He doesn’t have the words to know how to buy something. And that’s the purpose of a name. It’s that thing that gives you meaning.

John Jantsch: Well, and full disclosure, I lucked on to Duct Tape Marketing. I mean, I just thought that that sounded like a good name, but I didn’t do all kinds of extensive research. But what everybody kept telling me every time I would say it is like, “I get it. It tells a story.” And so without really knowing, I think I kind of lucked onto really one of the key attributes of a great brand name, isn’t it?

Jeremy Miller: I think so. And I think a great name absolutely does tell a story, and that’s what makes it memorable, that we understand it. Now, not all names have to tell a story. A name could be an empty vessel. When you look at Kodak, George Eastman’s vision was to create a name that meant nothing, that he could breathe life into so that it became a story of the Kodak moment. So you took a descriptive metaphor and were able to apply it to marketing. We understand what duct tape is, we understand what marketing is, but by putting them together, it creates this aha moment. But it all depends on the entrepreneur’s strategy. What do you want your business to be? And then you choose the name that fits it.

John Jantsch: Let’s go to that Kodak example, because yes, in hindsight, huge brand name, everybody knows what it meant or what it stood for at one point, but when you come up with a name like that, does it require then that you’re going to invest so much energy in having to explain to people and describe it and maybe even spend years getting it to become a household name?

Jeremy Miller: Yes, absolutely. So when you choose an empty vessel such as a Kodak or a Verizon or Hulu or any of those types of names, then you have to breathe life into it and make it your own, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s your opportunity that when people interact with your business and your products and your service and your people, that’s how you’re inserting meaning and value into that name, but you’re going to have to work harder to promote yourself. So you have that balancing act, but that’s actually part of the strategy too. The biggest reason why we are going towards empty vessels is that there’s a trademark issue.

Jeremy Miller: There’s actually a naming drought. In the United States alone, we are registering 564,000 new small businesses every single month. That’s 2% of the United States population starting a company at any given time, and that’s just a mind boggling number for me. Now, not all these businesses are going to survive, but they all need names and they all need websites and then a chunk of them are going to do trademarks. And so we’re, today, experiencing an issue where all the available .coms, if you’re going to go buy a website, chances are you’re going to have to buy it from someone else. It’s like real estate. But if you throw the trademark element to the mix, now we’ve got really complicated things.

Jeremy Miller: So being able to register something like Duct Tape anything today, it’s going to be really hard. You got in at a moment in time that allowed you to create this powerful brand story.

John Jantsch: Well, and I love the Hulus and the names that you threw out there when they really evoke emotion for me. Even if I don’t know what it means, I like the sound of it or something, or even then when it’s explained to me what it means, sometimes. But can we also get too clever? I mean, I see a lot of people doing stuff where I’m kind of like, I can’t even say that, let alone spell that.

Jeremy Miller: Well, I think there’s absolutely that. So my advice if you’re inventing a word is focus on something that is a phonetic spelling versus a Latin or Greek spelling. It’s a lot easier to say Hulu than Verizon, and it’s a lot easier to remember that, same thing with Uber and other things, even though they’re short. Acura is an example of a phonetically spelled word that was invented or Swiffer is another one. We speak and think in sounds, whereas something that has more of, say, a pharmaceutical type of nature is a lot harder to remember. So there’s that element of our programming as people.

Jeremy Miller: But I would also just say this, that name is strategic. What you choose to name something should represent your brand, your positioning, what you’re trying to create. So if you called, say, a chain of retirement living centers, purple taco, you probably have got the wrong strategy, even if it sounds kind of cool. So the name has got to fit what you want to create. So your strategy is where everything starts.

John Jantsch: The name thing is hard, because you can come up with and test some names … I’ve found over the years, you’ll get feedback, people, “Oh, that’s terrible. That’s awful.” But then you go with it and 10 years in it’s like Frisbee. Probably a stupid sounding name the first time somebody heard it, but then became … And again, not everybody’s looking for naming a whole category of a device, but isn’t that a good example of sometimes you got to throw stuff out there at first maybe doesn’t just sound right?

Jeremy Miller: I’m going to come back to the Frisbee story in a second, but yes, a quirk, something that is odd or doesn’t quite fit, like Slack. How could a product focused on team collaboration have all these negative connotations? But the name is just great. Same thing with Banana Republic. If you look at the history of what banana republics are, calling a clothing brand that, is a pretty risky, bold move. But those quirks are what makes something so memorable. You mentioned Frisbee, that’s actually a story I tell in the book. Fred Morrison, who was the inventor of the Frisbee, hated that name. He thought it was the dumbest thing. The original name was called Pluto platters.

Jeremy Miller: So Frisbee was bought by Wham-O. They were the guys who created Hula Hoop and Silly String. And so [Fred Knerr 00:00:22:52], who was one of the founders, went out and he visited Fred Morrison in Connecticut near Yale, and he saw all the kids were calling this thing Frisbee. And it turns out Frisbie was a pie company in Connecticut, and what the kids did before Netflix and internet and iPhones, they would take empty pie tins and throw them around the quad. So they took the name of the pie tins and applied it to these flying saucers. And Fred Knerr was just a brilliant marketer and he saw what the customers were already calling it and took that.

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John Jantsch: So tell me this. Does everything need a name? In other words, should we be naming our processes and our products and our divisions and our job titles? Brand it?

Jeremy Miller: Yes, 100%. I think you can go probably a little too crazy on it, but I would say for something to exist, it needs a name especially in the professional services world, if we’re selling thought leadership. You look at just how you name your systems, how you name your services, not only does it give it gravitas from a customer marketing perspective, it gives it gravitas from an internal perspective. So that if you are talking about your efficiency and the way you deliver customer service, simply by giving that thing a name creates value. And so naming is probably the most important construct of language, because once something has a name, it gains meaning. And if you are deliberate on this, you are making choices of how you are going to grow your business.

John Jantsch: Yeah. And I think sometimes, you said gives it meaning, but it also makes it tangible. It’s almost like, “Oh, here’s proof that we have a 37 step process to make sure that your product or your service gets done right.” Where everybody else is just saying trust us.

Jeremy Miller: Exactly. And in the world of differentiation, especially if we’re looking at small businesses, often we are selling something that somebody else is already selling. So how you describe your services, how you describe what makes you unique and why you do what you do, those simple things of giving them names are what affects meaning and give you credibility when you describe your 37 step process for delighting your customer, then people go, “Oh, that’s why you do that.”

John Jantsch: And I know the answer to this is yes, is there a process for coming up with a name?

Jeremy Miller: 100%.

John Jantsch: You want to share that with us?

Jeremy Miller: Sure. Let me tell you a bit of where it came from. I’m a serial entrepreneur and you are too, and we work with lots entrepreneurs, and naming is one of those vexing things that consumes so much time and every time you find a great name you find someone else has taken it. And so the reason why I wrote this book was I tried to answer the question of, what do I wish I had when I went through that naming process? And so Brand New Name draws on the ideas of the GV sprint and agile project management. And the idea is over the course of two to four weeks, it gives you three stages to build your strategy, generate lots of ideas and test and select the right name for your brand.

Jeremy Miller: And so in stage one we need to build a strategy, what does it mean to have a great name? And how are you going to know it when you see it? And step two, I believe in employee co-creation, which is how do we get everybody on our team to participate and generate as many ideas as we can over the course of five days? And then the hardest part of naming isn’t coming up with ideas, it’s that vetting process. How do we find one that resonates, fits the brand and most importantly, we can own it? And so that’s what the book does. In the span of that book, everything you need to name something, whether it’s a company, a product or service is all there in those pages.

John Jantsch: Go back to number one for me, because I think that’s actually the hardest part for a lot of companies, because they don’t have a strategy anyway. And so a naming strategy is like a subdivision of strategy. What are the actual steps in that?

Jeremy Miller: So what we start off with is defining, what is it you’re naming. And so it’s the simple question of, what are you naming? Is it a company? Is it a product? Is it a service? And then describing it. My first book, Sticky Branding, I talked about this idea called simple clarity, which is the ability to describe who you are, what you do and who you serve in 10 words or less, and so we build on this a little bit. Part of what we look at in developing your strategy is to be able to answer those basic questions. What are we naming? What are the criterias? Who are our customers? How do they buy? Who are our competitors? What are the naming trends in that space? And what is it going to take to stand out?

Jeremy Miller: And so we go through those questions so that you could set some naming principles. But what you said was very interesting, it’s a subset of strategy. Oftentimes though, when we are doing a naming strategy or when I introduce this to somebody, this is the first time they’ve actually ever considered some of these questions as brand, because we’re not necessarily thinking about brand all the time. So naming is the first step for many people to actually ask the deliberate questions of, who are we? Where do we play? How do we win? How do we want to be known? And by simply getting that down on paper, starts to set the guidelines for what it’s going to take to find a brilliant name.

John Jantsch: I’ve worked with a lot of small business owners and we go through the whole strategy thing, and just like Jantsch Communications, I talked about, was a lousy name, I have to deliver the really bad news that we need to change the name of your business. Is that something that … I mean, you’ve probably faced it before, and if the name’s wrong, I mean, I suppose we can live, but we’re not going to get the message across, we’re not going to get the differentiation across. How do you address or approach that idea of maybe the name now is going to be sort of the leading edge of our strategy, because it’s going to be something that we’re going to have to change everything about? I mean, how do you address that?

Jeremy Miller: Face forward and deal with it head on. So we deal with name changes all the time in our practice. And so for example, a large part of my work is with multi generational family businesses, and we did a naming project a couple of years ago where it was called A-1 Shipping Supplies. It was made for the yellow pages basically, but 35 years later, there is no yellow pages and A-1 looks cheesy as hell. Oh, by the way, they’re doing food packaging, primarily not shipping supplies. And you deal with it. When your name is causing dissonance or hurting your credibility or preventing growth, you change it. Now, in their case, they changed their name to Rocketline, and they created a quirky, whimsical name that didn’t have a lot of meaning, but it allowed them to shape what they want to be.

Jeremy Miller: But the key in changing a name is that all that meaning and all those experiences people have had with you are associated with the one name, you have to deliberately pour those contents into the other vessel. And so you have to have a marketing strategy and a communication strategy of how you’re going to convey what your new name is and why you’re changing it to customers, prospects and whoever it is. The nice thing is as a small business, you could probably call up all of your customers and tell them face to face or over the phone why you did it, whereas if you’re talking about a large global or multinational company, it’s a lot more complicated. But generally speaking, it’s not that hard, and so if your name hurts you, change it.

John Jantsch: Is there a place for a transition? In other words, go through two name changes or something? You’ve seen people do that, where they blend the logos or something like that. Does that make sense or does that just make it harder?

Jeremy Miller: I guess you would have to tell me what the strategy is. I think within mergers, that sometimes makes sense, but those are probably larger entities with a larger communication strategy. What I would suggest is go with the name for the brand you want to be. So whatever you look at three, five, 10 years, don’t worry about what’s happening in the next 18 months, think about where you’re going and choose the name for that. What you need, though, in your communication strategy is … Where most people underestimate is how long they should be communicating the change. So they do say a 90 day or a six month campaign to communicate the change, but-

John Jantsch: “We did a press release.”

Jeremy Miller: Yeah. It’s 18 months minimum. 18 months.

John Jantsch: Yeah. You already mentioned this idea of domain names. I mean, have you ever come up with a name, and then first thing you did was look for the domain and just said, “No, it’s a nonstarter, because we can’t get a good name.” I mean, are we at a point where that is dictating branding?

Jeremy Miller: If you asked me this question five years ago, I would have said yes, 100%. Today, no. I think domain names are losing a little bit of relevance. So now, we add a descriptor. So for example, say you wanted to call your company Grant, and you want a grant.com, well I know that’s available right now, but it’s $10,000 a month on lease. I don’t know about you, but I got better ways to spend that kind of money on an annual basis. So what you look at is … So Tesla was Tesla Motors until very recently, or Buffer ran as Buffer app until their second round of funding and they could afford to buy the .com. Focus on creating a great name, and then put a descriptor on it or get creative.

Jeremy Miller: One of my favorites is Zoom, they have zoom.us or Zoom us, so they made their name a verb. The only place people are seeing domain names primarily today is in your marketing collateral and your business cards. When you go to a browser, you type in the word not in the URL, and when you see it on a website or somewhere else, you click the link, or more likely you’re going to be talking to Siri or Alexa and not even saying the URL.

John Jantsch: Yeah. Well, and there’s, as you just mentioned, .us and .ios and all those I think have become pretty … People are very accepting of those. And I think you’re right. I’m sure there’s a zoom.com, I haven’t Googled it, but I’m sure there’s a zoom.com, and so then if somebody has the exact name and a .com, that probably could lead to some confusion.

Jeremy Miller: It could, but it’s like trademarks, are they in the same space and the same category? Like you have Pandora, which is jewelry and Pandora, which is a streaming music service. So you can have multiple companies using the same names, but because they operate in different places, they can get away with it, and especially small businesses. Chances are we are local, and so the fact that there’s someone else named what you’re named in another state, it may not be all that relevant.

John Jantsch: You’re right, the behavior has changed. It used to be .com or nothing else, and I think that now, as you said, it’s not so important that people are typing it, as long as you do the fundamental SEO stuff with it.

Jeremy Miller: Here’s my most fundamental comment to branding, and this is a bit of a flippant, but build a great business. The classic example is you see a restaurant, comes out with brilliant marketing, brilliant ad campaign, beautiful restaurant, great everything, and then you get food poisoning. So the brand is, “Don’t go back to that place, I got food poisoning.” None of the marketing mattered. And I think you could actually start a small business with a terrible name, but do such great work that people love you and they come back and they refer you, and that’s your brand actually. It’s two parts. A brand is based on what you’ve done, so the results that you have delivered to your clients, and branding is what you’re going to do.

Jeremy Miller: Now, if the name starts to hurt you or you grow beyond it, now you need marketing that needs reach and that crappy name doesn’t work for you anymore, absolutely change it, but never lose sight that the quality of your business is the number one predictor of the quality of your brand.

John Jantsch: Yeah. I’ve often said, and listeners of my show will recognize this, that every business has a brand, I think it’s just whether or not they are directing it intentionally, so that goes so much to that. Jeremy, where can people find out more about you and your work and of course, pick up a copy of Brand New Name.

Jeremy Miller: Well, Brand New Name will be sold wherever books are sold. It comes out on October 8th, so Amazon for sure. And the best way to find me is just to Google Sticky Branding. Stickybranding.com is my website, and I’m on all the social networks @stickybranding, and I’d love to connect with everyone.

John Jantsch: Awesome. Thanks for taking the time, Jeremy, and hopefully we’ll see you out there on the road soon.

Jeremy Miller: Awesome. Thanks John.

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di-sss-learning-engineering · 5 years ago

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TOP TECHNIQUES TO REMEMBER EFFECTIVELY WELL.

How to Remember Things: 21 Techniques for Memory Improvement So … you want to know how to remember things. Excellent. You’re in the right place. I read every book on the topic I can find. And I am always looking to improve my own memory skills. Here’s a simple fact about improving your memory: People with excellent memories and memory championship winners are not too different from you. They just use a combination of techniques to enable their minds to memorize things. You might find it hard to remember names, facts, equations, lists, tasks you need to take care of, a new language and so on. But if you follow the right techniques, you can remember almost anything you want. Th techniques you’ll discover on this page will work for you, no matter how bad you think your memory is. In this article, I will show you a number of techniques that will help you understand: How to remember things you read How to remember names How to remember lists and things you need to do How to memorize things faster How to remember things you have forgotten … and so on. There are dozens of techniques for memory improvement, but they can be classified into three approaches: Mnemonics for Memory Improvement Lifestyle Changes For Memory Improvement Other Memory Methods for Improvement Let’s take a look at each. You can read or enjoy this video version of the text by clicking “play” and eliminating all distractions: How To Remember Things With Mnemonics Mnemonics are memory techniques that help you to remember things better. They are also the most effective for forming strong long term memories. Here are a few of the most common mnemonic devices: 1. Memory Palaces The Memory Palace is the most powerful mnemonic device ever formulated. If you are a fan of ‘Sherlock’ – the BBC series, you have seen Sherlock Holmes use his ‘mind palace’ to remember practically everything. This memorization method isn’t just used by fictional detectives. Memory champions swear by the memory palace. The mnemonic device, also referred to as the ‘Method of Loci’ or ‘Cicero Method’ was developed in Ancient Greece. How does it work? The fundamental concept of the Memory Palace Technique is to associate pieces of information that you wish to remember with parts of a location that you are very familiar with. This location can be your home. This memorization method begins by visualizing yourself walking through your home and remembering every single detail that you can. It’s also a great mental exercise. However, you necessarily do not need to visualize, and can physically walk through your home too. In fact, the idea of the memory palace is to make use of all your senses – auditory, kinesthetic (touch) and so on. Associate each item that you with to remember with a specific object or space in your home. For example, if you are trying to remember a new language, you might want to store all the words related to weather in your wardrobe. Associating items within your mind with a real physical space helps your brain ‘file’ important things to remember more easily. Memory Palaces can be used to remember names, faces, languages, lists, academic material and pretty much anything under the sun. I talk about the Memory Palace in more detail in this article. 2. Spaced Repetition It’s easier to remember something that you read yesterday than a paragraph you have read a year back. Hermann Ebbinghaus referred to this as the forgetting curve. His research into the psychology of memory observed that we forget most newly acquired information within a few hours or at the most days. However, if you reinforce what you learn at regular intervals, it’s easier to retain that piece of information from the long-term storage areas of your brain. The spaced repetition method is all about practicing remembering at the right time. You do that by reinforcing a bit of information in your mind just when you are about to forget it. A simple way of applying this technique is to use flashcards. You can organize your flashcards into three batches depending on how easy it is for you to remember. If you remember something clearly, test yourself with the same flashcard within ten minutes, but if you do remember, test yourself at a longer interval. There are several tools out there which claim to be spaced repetition software, but which are actually not. If you wish to try out spaced repetition, the best approach is to make your own flashcards. 3. Use Chunking to Remember Chunking is the process of clubbing things together into groups. For instance, you could try remembering your grocery list according to each shelf in the store. Or when you are learning a new language, learn words that are related by a strong context, such as breakfast food items, winter clothing and so on. The human brain naturally tends to look for patterns, and chunking allows the brain to store information in easy-to-remember packets. Here are 21 more study tips related to chunking, some of which are a bit unconventional. 4. Expression Mnemonics or Acronyms You have probably come across this method in school. You create an acronym of the different things that you wish to remember. If you have taken music lessons, you would remember EGBDF (the treble clef) with the acronym, “Every Good Boy Does Fine.” Another common expression mnemonic you might remember from your school days is HOMES – for the Great Lakes (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior). Acronyms are difficult to forget! There are similar Expression Mnemonics which involve rhymes, songs and so on. 5. Remembering Numbers with The Major System The Major System is also called the Major Method or is sometimes referred to as Harry Lorayne’s Number Mnemonics. It works by associating a number with a sound. Like this: 0 = soft c, s or z 1 = d, t 2 = n 3 = m 4 = r … and so on (see diagram for the full list.) You use this simple formula by forming words with these numbers. For instance 22 could be nun (formed by combining n and n). You combine these words to visualize an animated sequence of activities, which makes it difficult for you to forget! The method can be used to memorize long digits, multiplication tables, phone numbers, number-based passwords and so on. 6. Using the NAME Acronym to Remember Things The NAME acronym is a process used to remember names. However, you can use it to remember other things too. This is based on an interesting book I read recently – Boost Your Memory by Darren Bridger. For those of you who are seriously into memorization and mastering how to remember things you forgot, it’s a worthy read. Even if you’re already well establish, I suggest reading it for a quick review of the major principles that support how to remember things. Notice Notice is the first word in the name acronym. In this case, the author is talking about not only about how to remember things like names by noticing the person’s hair, eye color and other distinct features of the face. He’s also talking about noticing the sound the sound of the name as part of learning how to remembering things better. Seriously. Notice how the names you want to remember sound. Even a seemingly pedestrian name like “Bill” becomes quite interesting if you think about it. You can even go so far as to pretend in your mind that you’ve never heard the word before. Just as we want to pay close attention to the sound of the words we are memorizing using the Magnetic Memory Method, when we learn a person’s name, we want to swirl it around a bit. It’s almost like testing wine. That’s kind of a weird way to think about learning someone’s name, but I’ve tried it out many times, and it actually does bring an interesting quality to the memorization process. Ask And You Shall Remember Ask is the second word in this powerful acronym that teaches you how to remember names or even how to remember things for a test. In the case of names, Bridger is suggesting that we ask for the name to be repeated if we haven’t heard it the first time. I’m sure you’ve had this experience: You hear someone’s name, but don’t quite catch it. Instead of asking for it to be repeated, you let the name issue drop and hope it will come up again … But It Never Does! And so, as Bridger suggests, there’s no shame in asking for a name to be repeated. But I would like to add to the act of asking a quick tip: If you want to know how to remembering things better, start asking people about their names. Like this: “That’s an interesting name. Where does it come from?” These are perfect questions to ask a person. Questions like these will not only increase your rapport with the person, but also cause you to pay more attention to the name in the first place. Remember: a great deal of what knowing how to remembering things boils down to is noticing and paying attention to the target material. Mention to Help Remember Things The author uses the word “mention” for the purposes of his acronym, but usually tips on memorizing names tell us to repeat the name we’ve just heard. Memory experts are actually divided on this point. Yes, it helps the name you want to remember sink into your memory. And yes, it tells the person that you’ve heard their name and that you care about knowing them. But it can still come off as rather corny. Still, I spend a lot of time in places where the language is not my native tongue, and have found repeating the names of people I meet to be an essential habit. Pronunciations of names vary widely, and there are often subtle sounds that people will gladly correct for you once they’ve heard you mispronounce their name. It’s only polite to make sure you can pronounce a person’s name right. Plus, pronunciation is one of the weakest points for me. I’m always working on improving it in my own memory improvement journey – largely due to being 80% deaf in my left ear. Even though it can be a bit corny to repeat the names of people you’ve just met, just do it. Taking that simple step when it comes to how to remember things like names is worth it in the end. Envision Here Bridger finally shows us how to bring it all together. Envisioning is simple. It’s the part of the mnemonic process where we take the visual characteristics of a face and associate the name of the person with some distinct feature. To use Bridger’s teaching, which seems pulled straight out of Harry Lorayne, let’s say I meet someone named Jacob and he has rather bird-like features. All I would need to do is imagine him having the face of a Blue Jay and then imagine him puffing on a corn cob pipe. (Jay + Cob = Jacob). Simple stuff. The only problem is … I don’t like doing it this way. I find that it makes me look at the person strangely later as I’m going through the recall process. I prefer seeing the images I create either behind the person, on their shoulder or above their head. That way, when recalling their name, I’m not looking all screwy eyed at them. The Missing Memory Step Plus, there’s a missing step when it comes to truly knowing how to remember things. “Envisioning” is one thing. Having a place to find what you envisioned quite another. That’s why I’ve had at times dedicated Memory Palaces just for names. If I meet a person named Jacob and see him as a Blue Jay smoking a corn cob pipe. But I don’t want to let the association just float around in the void. I want to Magnetize it somewhere. To do that, I put the Magnetic Imagery in a Memory Palace. Later, when I want to recall his name, the association will come much faster than it would have otherwise. Why? Because memory no longer needs to hunt for the association or “envisioned” information. When we associate without placing our associations somewhere, we often have an “uhhhhhhm” moment where we’re searching for the association we know that we’ve created. Plus, without a Memory Palace, we have no means of performing Recall Rehearsal. We will find the imagery in our Memory Palace later, but still have to reverse-engineer it in order to get the target material. If you want to know how to remember things, that’s the key: always locate your material somewhere and then use that Memory Palace to rehearse the information into long term memory. How To Remember Things Through Lifestyle Changes Your lifestyle and habits have a significant impact on your memory. These are not memory techniques. However, implementing these lifestyle changes will boost your overall ability to remember things. 7. Getting Adequate Sleep will Help you Remember Things One of the biggest mistakes that students make is trying to study longer hours by skipping on sleep. What they forget is that sleep deprivation affects several cognitive abilities, including memory. This should hardly be a surprise. In addition to affecting the mind, lack of sleep is also considered to be a risk factor for heart disease, cancer, diminished immunity, obesity and several other complications. Numerous studies have established that sleep helps in the second stage of memory – consolidation. And there’s no doubt about it: Sleep helps in recalling facts and information as well as in procedural memory formation – the aspect of memory involved in learning new skills faster (Diekelmann and Born, 2010) And there’s more to it. Sleep also contributes to reorganizing memories, by forming stronger connections between different memories. Sleep helps the brain to link newly absorbed information with previously acquired information, which spurs creativity (Diekelmann and Born, 2010) Other studies have indicated that lack of sleep also makes us remember things incorrectly (Diekelmann 2008). Therefore, for several reasons, getting a good night’s sleep can significantly contribute to memory improvement. 8. Taking Naps will Improve Your Memory What if you are unable to get adequate sleep? Try taking naps. David Dinges (University of Pennsylvania) concluded from sleep experiments supported by NASA that naps help in boosting working memory. Dinges also says that working memory “involves focusing attention on one task while holding other tasks in memory … and is a fundamental ability critical to performing complex work.” Another study concluded that a nap as short as six minutes can help boost memory (Lahl et al 2008) 9. Foods that Boost Your Memory When we talk about diet, the conversation is usually about weight loss, improving immunity or preventing diseases. However, what we eat also has an effect on memory improvement. There are several foods that are great for memory such as walnuts, green tea, blueberries, fish, whole grains, olive oil, etc. – often referred to as the Mediterranean diet. Studies have demonstrated that consumption of green tea leads to enhanced activity in the brain’s prefrontal cortex (Schimdt et al 3888). This optimization leads to improved memory and better cognition overall (Feng et al 438). Fish, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, oysters are all excellent sources of Omega-3s, which lowers risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s by as much as 47% (Schaefer et al 1545). Incidentally, the Mediterranean diet is also recommended for preventing cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, etc. Therefore, there are plenty of reasons besides memory improvement to include these foods in your diet! You should also avoid foods that contain too much saturated fats and trans-fats such as red meat, butter, etc. Foods that cause cholesterol leading to heart attack or stroke also lead to memory impairment. 10. Exercising Leads to Memory Improvement Exercising is another great way of improving your memory. It’s well known that exercise leads to increased blood flow to the brain, which has several cognitive benefits, such as alertness, better concentration, more positive mood and so on. Exercising also improves memory by releasing cathepsin B. It’s a protein which triggers the growth of neurons and forms new connections in the hippocampus, a section of the brain playing a vital role in memory. Memory improvement necessarily doesn’t require rigorous exercise. Just 150 minutes of walking every week has been known to improve memory. 11. Socializing for Stronger Memories Australian researchers conducted a study involving 700 participants over 15 years. The researchers concluded that maintaining close relationships helps in improving memory. Other studies have also indicated that socializing helps prevent memory loss through dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Since better relationships are also linked to happiness and improvement in a number of heath parameters, it’s a great reason to invest more in your current relationships as well as get back in touch with people you haven’t spoken to for years. 12. New Stimulating Hobbies Will Improve Your Memory Columbia University researchers have found that people having more than six hobbies have a 38% lower chance of developing dementia. Researchers at Berkeley, California also found that people who regularly engage in activities that stimulate their brains avoid the formation of a protein that causes Alzheimer’s. They key is to pick up new hobbies that force you to expand the capabilities of your mind. For example, you could: Read a book in a topic that you are completely unfamiliar with Learning a new musical instrument or a new dance form Pick up a new form of exercise, Regularly meet new people The key here is to engage in activities that lead to the formation of new neurons in the brain as well as new connections between existing neurons. This helps maintain the brain’s cognitive reserve – it’s ability to avoid memory loss. 13. Learning a New Language Boosts Memory There are several reasons why learning a new language is great for memory. The process of remembering vocabulary, phrases and grammar rules all exercise your brain cells. Mental exercise like this leads to overall memory improvement. Studies have indicated that bilingual people are at less risk of Alzheimer’s. You also develop renewed curiosity about everything around you, which helps you to focus more on everyday activities and objects. As I have pointed out earlier, focus is another factor that helps us to remember things better. Learning how to remember things is an essential skill that you have to pick up while learning any new language. When you are actively looking for ways to remember, you pick up lots of memory improvement techniques – which in turn improve your memory. It’s a cycle that helps you to keep improving continuously. So why not spend a few minutes every day in brushing up your French or Spanish or pick up a completely new language like Mandarin! 14. Do More Challenging Work Studies have found that people who do more mentally challenging work are less likely to develop Alzheimer’s. Working on things that are mentally taxing keeps your neurons on their toes and prevent them from deteriorating over time. If you are in a job you find boring, if changing careers is not an option, developing better memory and a healthier brain is its own reward. You could also ask your boss to give you additional responsibilities every day that place you out of your comfort zone – so that your cognitive abilities stay in peak shape. 15. Positivity Promotes Memory Improvement A 2012 study indicated that feelings of positivity have a beneficial effect on remembering things in case of older adults. Positive thinking and happiness are believed to trigger the release of dopamine in the memory-related regions of the brain, which stimulates memory formation and retention. Try to engage in activities that make you happy. It can be as simple as setting aside 10 minutes a day to revive a hobby that you used to enjoy, such as reading or singing. You can also practice positive visualization or meditation. Both of these activities reduce stress and release dopamine in the brain. Practicing gratitude also makes us happier and helps improve our memories. 16. Meditation for Memory Meditation is the most effective way of improving the ability of our mind to pay attention to tasks – which is important for improving retention and converting a short term memory into a long term memory. Studies have demonstrated that practicing meditation improves our ability to focus on smaller details. (Maclean et al. 2010). Other studies have shown that mindfulness meditation works better as a memory improvement technique than yoga. (Quach et al 2015). Building a habit of meditating every day isn’t too hard. My article on meditation and memory will give you the basics that you need to know. What if the thought of sitting still for even a couple of minutes is too painful? Try walking meditation. Lots of people find this approach far easier than the regular sitting meditation approach, and as effective as calming the mind. Other Techniques To Remember Things Improving your memory is also possible by approaching the process of learning something new a bit differently. Making these small additional changes can go a long way in helping you remember things. 17. Learn in the Afternoon Research indicates that the afternoon is the best time to study to maximize recall, not necessarily when you are feeling the most alert. If your work involves any sort of learning, try to schedule it during the afternoon hours. 18. Recall Before Writing Everyone remembers how school teachers asked us to write things down to help us remember. Adding a step to this age-old practice helps us remember things even better. If you just mechanically write something down, you are likely to forget it soon. Actively recall each item you wish to remember and then write it, as opposed to just copying something without thinking about it. Repeating this process multiple times is great for adding things to your long-term memory. A useful hack to remember things that you read is to summarize a page or a paragraph in the margin of the book as you read along. This reinforces absorption into your memory, as well as help you quickly remember the contents of the page when you look it up in future. Finally, remember that writing something down is far more effective than typing it out, because it helps you pay more attention to the moment. The reticular activating system is a section of your brain that gets stimulated when you do something with higher levels of alertness, and lowers your chance of forgetting things. 19. Be More Interested It’s always easier to remember things that we are interested in. For instance, you might find it far easy to remember personal details of your favorite celebrity, but you tend to forget historical facts or the names of your in-laws friends! But how do you apply this memory improvement technique to areas that you are not so interested in? By actively trying to find reasons to be interested. Remind yourself regularly about why it’s important to remember – how will it contribute to your personal or professional life? That will signal to your brain the importance of the topic and it will dedicate more resources to strengthening neurons that reinforce those memories. 20. Pay More Attention Out of all the techniques on how to remember things, this might be the most effective. Researchers from MIT have identified a neural circuit in the human brain that helps in forming long-term memories. This circuit works best when your mind pays close attention to the task at hand. Essentially, higher concentration automatically leads to better absorption in the brain and helps in converting short term memories into long term memories. Unfortunately, concentration is becoming an increasingly rare trait in a world where people are bombarded with an infinite number of distractions from multiple digital devices, and multitasking is the norm. However, there are two simple steps that will help improve your concentration – and hence boost your memory. First, gradually reducing the use of digital devices will improve your attention span and free you from Digital Amnesia. Next, try doing one thing at a time and avoid switching between tasks every few minutes. Simply building these two habits will help you to remember things more easily. 21. Visualizing Helps You Remember A simple way of remembering tasks that you need to do is by visualizing yourself doing that action. This is especially useful when you don’t have a notepad or a to-do list app with you right away, or if the process of noting down a task is too cumbersome. This is useful in several situations, but here are the two most common ones. The first is in the middle of a conversation. Paying complete attention to someone speaking, is also a positive step in building rapport and whipping out your phone to note down a task can be a distraction. The second is remembering where you have kept something, like your glasses. Quickly visualizing it will help you recall where it is. Visualizing to remember things doesn’t eliminate the need for a to-do list, but it serves as a useful complement. Remembering Things Isn’t Hard! We have covered a wide range of methods that will help you to remember. You don’t need to practice all of them. Just picking up a few of these techniques will make a substantial difference to your memory. And what if you wanted to learn just one method that will make a huge difference to your memory? I recommend the Memory Palace. Click here to learn more about how to effectively create and use one – fast. Then create and use more Memory Palaces. It’s good for the health and longevity of your brain!

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eurolinguiste · 6 years ago

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German and I had fallen out of love.

At least, that’s what I told myself after graduating university. It helped me feel better about the fact I was giving it up. Doing so gave me more time with the languages that I loved–namely, Chinese and Croatian.

I was sure that German and I were never, ever, ever getting back together. But then, something came up with my music work, and suddenly I needed to reconnect with the language I had lost.

I turned to my good friend, Kerstin Cable, for help. And as it turns out, the timing couldn’t have been any better. She had just finished putting together German Uncovered with Olly Richards of I Will Teach You a Language, and that meant that I had the perfect course to help me get started.

What is German Uncovered?

German Uncovered is a course that uses stories to help you learn the German language. There are 20 modules that each include a story, and audio recording, a cognates video lesson, a vocabulary video lesson, a grammar video lesson, a pronunciation lesson, a speaking exercise, and a quiz to test your knowledge.

Each of the video lessons is about 20 minutes in length, so there is a lot of material to work through. It’s presented in a way that is easy to work through, and you pick up German grammar more naturally than you would by memorizing a bunch of grammar rules.

When you first start German Uncovered, you’re given a set of instructions on how to best use the material in the course:

“1. Start by listening to the audiobook recording of the chapter: It’s a good idea to do this before you read the text or the translation. Focus on listening and see how much you can pick up. (You can also download this audio file at the bottom of the lesson in case you want to listen again offline).

2. Read the text in German: After listening to the chapter, read through the text in German. It’s a good idea to do this a couple of times and listen along to the audio as you do so. Try and see how much you can figure out from the German before looking at the English translation.

3. Watch the Cognates video lesson: Watch the cognates lesson to uncover the German of the story and understand large chunks of it easily.

4. Check Your Comprehension: Once you’ve completed the steps above, complete the short comprehension quiz. This is a quiz which will check how much you’ve understood. Don’t worry if this is difficult. This is the very first lesson. In time, you’ll find that you can work out more and more of the story.

5. Download the English translation: Finally, download and read through the English translation. See how much you understood and notice any words or phrases that are similar in German and English.6. Complete the other lessons and worksheets for this chapter: Work through the video lessons and worksheets for this chapter.”

If you complete the course as instructed, it promises that you’ll attain “(B1 on the CEFR), and be a confident German speaker.”

My Experience Using German Uncovered

It’s been more than ten years since I last touched the German language, and I was worried about just how much I may have lost. I quit because the grammar got me down and I couldn’t push past it or find a better way to approach the language. What I had been taught to do in school was too ingrained and I couldn’t break free from grammar drills. Then I enrolled in German Uncovered.

I just finished the introduction videos and felt so motivated to dive in and get started. The course wasn’t anything like my experience at university where I was drowning in German grammar.

After completing just one module in the course, I was able to revive much of my lost German (and perhaps more!). I booked my first lesson with a tutor and flew through all the material, keeping the lesson almost entirely in German!

I made mistakes, yes, but I was already making huge strides with the language.

To demonstrate, here’s where I was at with German before I completed the first module in German Uncovered:

And here’s where I was at shortly after the fourth module:

Each of the lessons is taught by Kerstin, a native German speaker. This means that you get lots of insight into the language, it’s culture, and you learn the language it’s really used day-to-day.

German Uncovered: The Good

Kerstin is an excellent and outgoing course instructor. She keeps your attention through the lessons. Her love of the German language really shows, and it’s contagious. She does a great job keeping you motivated to continue through the modules.

And as you continue through the modules, completing the work as suggested, you see real progress with your German. Because the course focuses on teaching you cognates and shows you how to make the most of the similarities between German and English, you progress quickly.

German Uncovered is very logically organized and as you work through each lesson, you’re taught just the right amount of new material, building on what you learned in the previous lessons.

German Uncovered: What Could Be Better

There were some issues with the audio on some of the videos, but nothing that was too distracting. For example, the volume of the pronunciation videos was lower than the other video lessons and on a couple of the videos, the audio had delay.

Seeing an example of the speaking lessons would also be extremely helpful. The instructions for these sections are written so that you can hand your tutor or practice partner the worksheet, but seeing how this would work in practice would definitely help students feel more confident taking this step.

In Conclusion

Would I recommend German Uncovered? Absolutely. It helped me rebuild a foundation in German and gain confidence using the language. It offers students a way to build their listening skills, reading skills, and vocabulary and gives them everything they need to take things further with an instructor.

If you’re still not sure if German Uncovered is right for you, you can try out the course and get a feel for Kerstin’s teaching style through German Stories, a free mini course. If you’re ready to dive in and start learning with German Uncovered, you can sign up here.

The post German Uncovered Review: Take Your German to the Next Level appeared first on Eurolinguiste.

#IFTTT #WordPress #language learning #travel #eurolinguiste

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winstonhcomedy · 6 years ago

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“Dope A-F” - 2/25-2/27 - “Thar She Bombs!”

Time to cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time sweet sweet laydees! So let’s hop right into it my sweet little pumpkins!

2/25

I got to Charlottesville a little early for this show. I met up with Colby Knight to grab a burger at Citizen Burger Bar and relax. We talked about his future career in being a pilot, what it’s like to be a comedian going to a super religious school, and all the insanity that comes from going there.

The food was good and then we headed to The Southern. I got there and everything was already set up. Which was dope because I didn’t feel like doing it that night. I go to the bar and get the open mic list started.

Comics start to file in. We end up getting about 26+ comics on the list. I can’t believe how this show has grown. When it started it used to be like 8 to 12 comics a show, and the more experienced comics would be like 10+ minutes to work on their stuff. It’s a give and take. A lot of the time I wish I was getting that amount of time again, and other times I am just loving getting to hang out with 20+ of my friends every week.

A lot of these comics have definitely grown a lot since I met them a year or so ago. They’ve started to go to more open mics since the scene is growing, and also a few of them have started going to Richmond to get on stage more. They’ve also been doing more booked shows, and it is starting to show. They all have a super long way to go, but honestly seeing any type of development in a scene is awesome.

We don't have any drama at this show, but during Chris hosting set this female comic named KB is heckling him. She is trying to have fun, and Chris isn’t being mean to her. He is riffing with he, but he is keeping his cool. This is mainly because he vowed to quit bullying people and not bust balls as much. Which is hilarious because it is what we do. So no more BC (bully Chris) we live in the era of PC (polite Chris). So the running gag all night is I was doing a tally of how many mean things and polite things he was doing. He handles the situation and gets the piggy back show started (this is when the comedian on stage brings up the next comedian and all the host does is work the light).

Everybody is doing ok. Nothing too noticeable or memorable about the first few sets. No one is really bombing, or killing. I am seventh on the show and I have some new that I wanted to work out. The KB lady goes up a couple before me and doesn’t do well at all. It was kind of nice to see someone who was heckling not do well. It was very cathartic to me.

I went up shortly after her and she just spent the first minute sitting in the front row talking loudly. So I used the first minute of my set just addressing it and getting her to pay attention. She eventually does and I go into my new material. Some of it did ok. Like I needed to really work out the wording, which I was able to do with some of it. The big win was I did a joke about a rapist, and that worked the best. I think it’s a good take on it, and doesn’t punch down or mock the victims. So hoping I can work it out and build it into a bigger chunk. I’d give my set a solid C. The response wasn’t what I wanted, but it was definitely one of the more productive sets I’ve had in a while.

I then spent the rest of the night just hanging out and busting balls with my friends. Some people had some good sets though. Paige did well, so did Alex, and Sam Padgett had one of the better sets I’ve heard him have. He has come a long ways, and his work is paying off.

Fun show and a good hang. I grab my stuff, helped clean up, and headed home.

2/26

This was going to be a fun day. The night before I had seen Beau Troxclair and asked if he wanted to get sushi with Alex and I and he said yes. So we show up at Sushi King in Richmond (all you can eat sushi/hibachi place. Great food, reasonable price.)

We get there and we just start gorging ourselves on sushi, fried rice, steak, chicken, shrimp, etc. This is when Beau tells us that he can’t eat sushi, and he is allergic to all fish. Which seems like a thing you should mention before you go to the sushi restaurant. Either way he isn’t worried about it, he wanted to hang, and there is enough non fish on the menu that he will be fine.

As the meal goes on we are having a great conversation about food, comedy, women, improv, and anything in between. We are trying to figure out the order we are trying to do the three open mics that night and Beau starts to get red and swell up. He is like, “yea I think there was cross contamination. I’m going to go get Benadryl.”

So he runs out and Alex and I keep eating. Like 10 minutes goes by and I am starting to worry that Beau died on his way to his car. Right when I mention walking outside to look for him he comes in. He had to walk to a gas station to get Benadryl. The waiter comes over and is like are you ok, and Beau calmly tells him, “I'm just allergic to fish, I probably should have told you that.” The waiters face was great. This was a dope meal.

We go our separate ways for a few hours and then I go pick up Alex and we head to City Dogs. Which will be the first mic we hit of the night. It is usually poorly attended by comics so you can get a longer set. This was not the case tonight. There was a nice little list. There was actually a table of four cville comics who came out (Colby, Abdulla, Keaton Ray, John Marg) I was super stoked and proud to see them.

Ben Braman runs this room and let me know he had me second. I am stoked and ready to get this thing on the road. There is a nice little audience there, but they aren’t there for comedy. They’re standing right next to where we are going to perform and could care less about comedy. Beswick goes up first and goes super high energy while working out new stuff. He basically ends up screaming his closer at the stunned audience members. It was a super fun set to watch.

I go up next and just work on new stuff. I get some laughs from a couple in the front and the comics a little. It is weird to remember that open mics aren’t even about killing at this point. This is work, and that’s what I try to do. I try to work it out. I’d give this a D+ or C-. No real audience response, but I got to try some new stuff. Alex goes next and has a pretty good set as well. His new is good and he is really putting some bows on some great material rn.

We say our goodbyes and head over to Fallout to try and go early over there as well.

We get there and Jesse Jarvis was hosting. He had Alex and I up pretty early. We get a good hang in and the show starts. Beswick has a pretty strong set, and I went up a few after him. I did pretty well here. I’d give it a C. I kept doing new stuff and I dug up an oldie that was on the back burner about the optometrist office. It felt good to bring it back, and try some new things. The people that were there were into it and it felt good. Beau did pretty well and so did Alex. It was definitely a productive mic.

This was the home stretch. It was time to head to Mojos for the last spot. We get there and mic was legit about to end, but he added us just in time. There was almost no one here. Going late at mojos is tough. it is basically just working on wording. I’d give my set a D. I got maybe 2 or 3 laughs and they were in weird spots. It was just me reciting them to a couple of my friends. It was a fun bomb and didn’t even feel bad because I was getting this new done.

I then said goodbye and drove Alex back to his place before heading home. A super fun and productive night full of bombs. Nights like this is what makes you a much better comic. I got 22 minutes of stage time in front of 3 tough crowds. This was invaluable. I don’t think many people other than Alex and I managed to do all 3! Sometimes the grind just feels good.

2/28

I got the call right after work that they needed a host for The Richmond Funny Bone. Even though it was an off night and I was going to do dinner with my family I cancelled because quite frankly I need the money. So I dropped my plans (which I felt like shit about) and headed to meet Dylan Vattelana who let me know about the show in the first place.

I first had to go renew my membership to Costco and order some contacts. I’m glad I have vision insurance, but even with that the cost of contacts is so damn much. Like it is ridiculous what I have to pay to just be able to see. Afterwards I do my fav thing at Costco and buy myself a delicious Churro.

I meet Dylan at Rock Bottom, which is the bar directly above the Funnybone. We talk some business stuff about comedy. Tell a few street jokes, and generally have a super fun time. We talk about some of the very real anxieties I have about the Funny Bone and comedy clubs in general. He gives some good advice, and it means a lot because Dylan is one of the comics I respect the most. When I started about 4 years ago he was already established as one of the best guys in the scene and he has just built on that. He is an excellent writer, and has a drive and determination that I try to match. I love the dude and it is so cool to be able to call him a friend and a peer.

We go downstairs and head to the club. Dylan leaves his notebook and the bartender runs after him. I riff about how ridiculous it would be if he just started acting like she did it to get his number (I have a girlfriend, what are you doing right now?” and then we head inside.

We are greeted by the door guy Wayne and the “voice of the Richmond Funnybone” Buz “with one z”. We shoot the shit and head to the green room until James Lawson gets there. James is a dope local headliner who also gets to go on the road. He always destroys and he has material for everybody. He has always been good to me since I started and I will always appreciate that.

We have a pretty good turnout for a Wednesday. I’d say it was a little over half full so we had about 130+. Which is solid for the middle of the week. They only have 3 servers so people are a little on edge, but overall it looks like it’s going to be a fun night.

I go up first and do some crowd work up top. Which is something I am always scared to do here, because I doubt they want their host to do crowd work. I need to do it more often. It is my greatest asset as a host and I”m dumb when I don’t utilize it. I get some super strong pops up top for my first 5 minutes. Then the mic cuts out during the next couple of minutes and I start to lose them. I then have a lady say my fly is down (which it wasn’t) and that was an awkward situation because I was dumb and didn’t go into her (I didn’t want to set an even weirder tone for the show). I need to follow my instincts. I then closed on my Angel/Devil race joke. It gets an ok reaction and I’d give this set a C-. I did my job and warmed up the crowd, but I had stuck to crowd work I think it would have been even better.

Dylan goes up next and does well, and then after him James absolutely murders for 50+ minutes. He was in his element. He was completely at home and won those people over to a degree I can’t even imagine doing. When someone does that well in a room that makes me so anxious it is inspiring and disheartening at the same time. I can’t picture doing that well. Like legit can not fathom it. After the show I find out I get to host Thursday and Sunday for Cash Levy for sure. This is huge. I need the money and he’s a good comic. I head out and head home to get some other work done. Solid night. I got a check, got to work a club, and got a sweet hang out of it.

That’s it for this installment. I’ll be back tomorrow my sweet apple pies. I’ve got three sets tomorrow and will be zooming all over town. I hope the shows are good, and that I can work out some of this new shit. We shall see. xoxoxo thanks again.

#comedy #standup #race #jokes #improv #funnybone #comedy club #bomb #travel #open mic #booked show

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iyarpage · 6 years ago

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Video Streaming Tutorial for iOS: Getting Started

You’ve been working on iOS apps for a while now and you think you’re pretty slick. Think you’ve done it all, eh?

Yeah I get it, you can probably do some basic networking? Maybe pull in some JSON and put together a decent table view with cells that have text and images.

That’s an impressive list of accomplishments to be sure, but tell me…

Can you do this??

That’s right, it’s time to take your app to the next level, and learn how to add video streaming!

This time around, you’ll be building a new app for all those travel vloggers out there. Some people want to make artsy films about their travels and some people want to enjoy these experiences from the comfort of their own bed.

You’re here to make both of these dreams come true.

In the process, you’ll learn the basics of the AVKit and AVFoundation frameworks.

Getting Started

Note: If you’re following along and building for a simulator, get ready to either turn breakpoints off or hit the skip button a lot. If you see errors or warnings starting with AudioHAL_Client or CUICatalog, feel free to ignore them and move on.

To get started, make sure you’ve downloaded the resources available at the top of the tutorial. Then, open TravelVlogs.xcodeproj and head to VideoFeedViewController.swift.

Introduction to AVKit

A useful bit of development wisdom: Always favor the highest level of abstraction available to you. Then, you can drop down to lower levels when what you’ve been using no longer suits your needs. In line with this advice, you’ll start your journey at the highest level video framework.

AVKit sits on top of AVFoundation and provides all necessary UI for interacting with a video.

If you build and run, you’ll see an app that has already been set up with a table full of potential videos to watch.

Your goal is to show a video player whenever a user taps on one of the cells.

Adding Local Playback

There are actually two types of videos you can play. The first one you’ll look at is the type that’s currently sitting on the phone’s hard drive. Later, you’ll learn how to play videos streaming from a server.

To get started, navigate to VideoFeedViewController.swift. Add the following import right below the UIKit import.

import AVKit

Look below this, and you’ll see that you already have a tableView and an array of Videos defined. This is how the existing tableView is being filled with data. The videos themselves are coming from a video manager class. You can look in AppDelegate.swift to see how they’re fetched.

Next, scroll down until you find tableView(_ tableView:didSelectRowAt:). Add the following code to the existing method:

//1 let video = videos[indexPath.row] //2 let videoURL = video.url let player = AVPlayer(url: videoURL)

First, you grab the video model object.

All Video objects have a url property representing the path to the video file. Here, you take the url and create an AVPlayer object.

AVPlayer is the heart of playing videos on iOS.

A player object can start and stop your videos, change their playback rate and even turn the volume up and down. You can think of a player as a controller object that’s able to manage playback of one media asset at a time.

At the end of the method, add the following lines to get the view controller set up.

let playerViewController = AVPlayerViewController() playerViewController.player = player present(playerViewController, animated: true) { player.play() }

AVPlayerViewController is a handy view controller that needs a player object to be useful. Once it has one, present it as a fullscreen video player.

Once the presentation animation has finished, you call play() to get the video started.

And that’s all there is to it! Build and run to see how it looks.

The view controller shows a set of basic controls. This includes a player button, a mute button and 15 second skip buttons to go forward and backward.

Adding Remote Playback

That was pretty easy. How about adding video playback from a remote URL? That must be a lot harder, for sure.

Go to AppDelegate.swift. Find the line where the feed.videos is set. Instead of loading local videos, load all the videos by replacing that line with the following.

feed.videos = Video.allVideos()

And…that’s it! Go to Video.swift. Here you can see that allVideos() is simply loading one extra video. The only difference is that its url property represents an address on the web instead of a filepath.

Build and run and then scroll to the bottom of the feed to find the キツネ村　(kitsune-mura) or Fox Village video.

This is the beauty of AVPlayerViewController; all you need is a URL and you’re good to go!

In fact, go to allVideos() and swap out this line:

let videoURLString = "https://wolverine.raywenderlich.com/content/ios/tutorials/video_streaming/foxVillage.mp4"

…with this one:

let videoURLString = "https://wolverine.raywenderlich.com/content/ios/tutorials/video_streaming/foxVillage.m3u8"

Build and run and you’ll see that the fox village video still works.

The only difference is that the second URL represents an HLS Livestream. HLS live streaming works by splitting a video up into 10-second chunks. These are then served to the client a chunk at a time. As you can see in the example GIF, the video started playing a lot more quickly than when you used the MP4 version.

Adding a Looping Video Preview

You may have noticed that black box in the bottom right hand corner. You are going to turn that black box into a floating custom video player. Its purpose is to play a revolving set of clips to get users excited about all these videos.

Then you need to add a few custom gestures like tapping to turn on sound and double tapping to change it to 2x speed. When you want to have very specific control over how things work, it’s better to write your own video view.

Go back to VideoFeedViewController.swift and check out the property definitions. You’ll see that the shell of this class already exists and is being created with a set of video clips.

It’s your job to get things going.

Introduction to AVFoundation

While AVFoundation can feel a bit intimidating, most of the objects you deal with are still pretty high-level, all things considered.

The main classes you’ll need to get familiar with are:

AVPlayerLayer: This special CALayer subclass can display the playback of a given AVPlayer object.

AVAsset: These are static representations of a media asset. An asset object contains information such as duration and creation date.

AVPlayerItem: The dynamic counterpart to an AVAsset. This object represents the current state of a playable video. This is what you need to provide to an AVPlayer to get things going.

AVFoundation is a huge framework that goes well beyond these few classes. Luckily, this is all you’ll need to create your looping video player.

You’ll come back to each of these in turn, so don’t worry about memorizing them or anything.

Writing a Custom Video View with AVPlayerLayer

The first class you need to think about is AVPlayerLayer. This CALayer subclass is like any other layer: It displays whatever is in its contents property onscreen.

This layer just happens to fill its contents with frames from a video you’ve given it via its player property.

Head over to VideoPlayerView.swift where you’ll find an empty view you’ll use to show videos.

The first thing you need to do is add the proper import statement, this time for AVFoundation.

import AVFoundation

Good start; now you can get AVPlayerLayer into the mix.

A UIView is really just a wrapper around a CALayer. It provides touch handling and accessibility features, but isn’t a subclass. Instead, it owns and manages an underlying layer property. One nifty trick is that you can actually specify what type of layer you would like your view subclass to own.

Add the following property override to inform this class that it should use an AVPlayerLayer instead of a plain CALayer.

override class var layerClass: AnyClass { return AVPlayerLayer.self }

Since you’re wrapping the player layer in a view, you’ll need to expose a player property.

To do so, first add the following computed property so you don’t need to cast your layer subclass all the time.

var playerLayer: AVPlayerLayer { return layer as! AVPlayerLayer }

Next, add the actual player definition with both a getter and a setter.

var player: AVPlayer? { get { return playerLayer.player } set { playerLayer.player = newValue } }

Here, you’re just setting and getting your playerLayer‘s player object. The UIView is really just the middle man.

Once again, the real magic comes when you start interacting with the player itself.

Build and run to see…

You’re halfway there, even though you can’t see anything new yet!

Writing the Looping Video View

Next, go over to VideoLooperView.swift and get ready to put your VideoPlayerView to good use. This class already has a set of VideoClips and is initializing a VideoPlayerView property.

All you need to do is take these clips and figure out how to play them in a continuous loop.

To get started, add the following player property.

private let player = AVQueuePlayer()

The discerning eye will see that this is no plain AVPlayer instance. That’s right, this is a special subclass called AVQueuePlayer. As you can probably guess by the name, this class allows you to provide a queue of items to play.

Add the following method to get started setting up your player.

private func initializePlayer() { videoPlayerView.player = player }

Here, you pass the player to the videoPlayerView to connect it to the underlying AVPlayerLayer.

Now it’s time to add your list of video clips to the player so it can start playing them.

Add the following method to do so.

private func addAllVideosToPlayer() { for video in clips { //1 let asset = AVURLAsset(url: video.url) let item = AVPlayerItem(asset: asset) //2 player.insert(item, after: player.items().last) } }

Here, you’re looping through all the clips. For each one, you:

Create an AVURLAsset from the URL of each video clip object.

Then, you create an AVPlayerItem with the asset that the player can use to control playback.

Finally, you use the insert(_after:) method to add each item to the queue.

Now, go back to initializePlayer() and call the method.

addAllVideosToPlayer()

Now that you have your player set, it’s time to do some configuration.

To do this, add the following two lines:

player.volume = 0.0 player.play()

This sets your looping clip show to autoplay and audio off by default.

Finally, you need to call the method you’ve been working on. Go to the init(clips:) method and add this line at the bottom.

initializePlayer()

Build and run to see your fully working clip show!

Unfortunately, when the last clip has finished playing, the video player fades to black.

Doing the Actual Looping

Apple wrote a nifty new class called AVPlayerLooper. This class will take a single player item and take care of all the logic it takes to play that item on a loop. Unfortunately, that doesn’t help you here!

What you want is to be able to play all of these videos on a loop. Looks like you’ll have to do things the manual way. All you need to do is keep track of your player and the currently playing item. When it gets to the last video, you’ll add all the clips to the queue again.

When it comes to “keeping track” of a player’s information, the only route you have is to use Key-Value Observing.

Yeah, it’s one of the wonkier APIs Apple has come up with. Even so, if you’re careful, it’s a powerful way to observe and respond to state changes in real time. If you’re completely unfamiliar with KVO, here’s the quick answer. The basic idea is that you register for notification any time the value of a particular property changes. In this case, you you want to know whenever the player‘s currentItem changes. Each time you’re notified, you’ll know the player has advanced to the next video.

The first thing you need to do is change the player property you defined earlier. Go to the top of the file and replace the old definition with:

@objc private let player = AVQueuePlayer()

The only difference is that you’ve added the @objc directive. This tells Swift that you would like to expose property to Objective-C things like KVO. To use KVO in Swift — much nicer than in Objective-C — you need to retain a reference to the observer. Add the following property just after player:

private var token: NSKeyValueObservation?

To start observing the property, go back to initializePlayer() and add the following at the end:

token = player.observe(\.currentItem) { [weak self] player, _ in if player.items().count == 1 { self?.addAllVideosToPlayer() } }

Here, you’re registering a block to run each time the player’s currentItem property changes. When the current video changes, you want to check to see if the player has moved to the final video. If it has, then it’s time to add all the video clips back to the queue.

That’s all there is to it! Build and run to see your clips looping indefinitely.

Playing Video Efficiently

One thing to note before moving on is that playing video is a resource intensive task. As things are, your app will continue to play these clips, even when you start watching a fullscreen video.

To fix it, first add the following two methods to the bottom of the VideoLooperView.swift.

func pause() { player.pause() } func play() { player.play() }

As you can see, you’re exposing play() and pause() methods and passing the message along to this view’s player.

Now, go to VideoFeedViewController.swift and find viewWillDisappear(_:). There, add the following call to pause the video looper.

videoPreviewLooper.pause()

Then, go to viewWillAppear(_:) and add the matching call to resume playback when the user returns.

videoPreviewLooper.play()

Build and run, and go to a fullscreen video. The preview will resume where it left off when you return to the feed.

Playing with Player Controls

Next, it’s time to add some controls. Your tasks are to:

Unmute the video when a single tap occurs.

Toggle between 1x and 2x speed when a double tap occurs.

You’ll start with the actual methods you need to accomplish these things. First, go back to VideoLooperView.swift and find where you added your play and pause methods.

Add the following single tap handler that will toggle the volume between 0.0 and 1.0.

@objc func wasTapped() { player.volume = player.volume == 1.0 ? 0.0 : 1.0 }

Next, add a double tap handler.

@objc func wasDoubleTapped() { player.rate = player.rate == 1.0 ? 2.0 : 1.0 }

This one is similar in that it toggles the play rate between 1.0 and 2.0.

Next, add the following method definition that creates both gesture recognizers.

func addGestureRecognizers() { // 1 let tap = UITapGestureRecognizer(target: self, action: #selector(VideoLooperView.wasTapped)) let doubleTap = UITapGestureRecognizer(target: self, action: #selector(VideoLooperView.wasDoubleTapped)) doubleTap.numberOfTapsRequired = 2 // 2 tap.require(toFail: doubleTap) // 3 addGestureRecognizer(tap) addGestureRecognizer(doubleTap) }

Taking it comment-by-comment:

First, you create both gesture recognizers and tell them which methods to call. You also tell the double tap that it needs two taps.

Next, you make the single tap wait to make sure a double tap isn’t going to happen. If you didn’t do this, the single tap method would always be called immediately.

Then, you add the gesture recognizers to the video view.

To finish things off, go up to init(clips:) and add the following method call at the bottom.

addGestureRecognizers()

Build and run again and you’ll be able to tap and double tap to play around with the speed and volume of the clips. This shows how easy it is to add custom controls for interfacing with a custom video view.

Now, you can pump up the volume and throw things into overdrive at the tap of a finger. Pretty neat!

Trying Not to Steal the Show

As a final note, if you’re going to make an app that has videos, it’s important to think about how your app will affect your users.

Yeah I know, that sounds blindingly obvious. But how many times have you been using an app that starts a silent video but turns off your music?

If you’ve never experienced this first world travesty, then go ahead and plug in your headphones… Oh, sorry. 2018 version: Bluetooth-connect your headphones. Turn on some music and then run the app. When you do, you’ll notice that your music is off even though the video looper isn’t making any noise!

It’s my contention that you should allow your user to turn off their own music instead of making such a bold assumption. Lucky for you, this isn’t very hard to fix by tweaking AVAudioSession‘s settings.

Head over to AppDelegate.swift and add the following import to the top of the file.

import AVFoundation

Next, at the top of application(_:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:), add the following line.

try? AVAudioSession.sharedInstance().setCategory(AVAudioSessionCategoryAmbient, mode: AVAudioSessionModeMoviePlayback, options: [.mixWithOthers])

Here, you’re telling the shared AVAudioSession that you would like your audio to be in the AVAudioSessionCategoryAmbient category. The default is AVAudioSessionCategorySoloAmbient, which explains shutting off the audio from other apps.

You’re also specifying that your app is using audio for “movie playback” and that you’re fine with the sound mixing with sound from other sources.

For your final build and run, start your music back up and launch the app one more time.

You now have a baller video app that gives you the freedom to be the captain of your own ship.

Where to Go From Here?

You can download the final project using the link at the top or bottom of this tutorial.

You’ve successfully put together an application that can play both local and remote videos. It also efficiently spams your users with a highlights reel of all the coolest videos on the platform.

If you’re looking to learn more about video playback, this is the tip of the iceberg. AVFoundation is a vast framework that can handle things such as:

Capturing video with the built-in camera.

Transcoding between video formats.

Applying filters to a video stream in real-time.

As always, I recommend looking at the WWDC video archive when trying to learn more about a particular subject.

One thing in particular not covered in this tutorial is reacting to AVPlayerItem‘s status property. Observing the status of remote videos will tell you about network conditions and playback quality of streaming video.

To learn more about how to react to changes in this status, I recommend Advances in AVFoundation Playback.

Also, we mentioned HLS Live Streaming but there’s a lot more to learn about this topic. If it’s something that interests you, I recommend Apple’s documentation. This page contains a nice list of links to other resources you can use to learn more.

As always, thanks for reading, and let me know if you have any questions in the comments!

The post Video Streaming Tutorial for iOS: Getting Started appeared first on Ray Wenderlich.

Video Streaming Tutorial for iOS: Getting Started published first on https://medium.com/@koresol

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ashovertroubledwater · 7 years ago

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Song analysis: Strobe by deadmau5

"Strobe" is the behemoth progressive-house track by Canadian electronic music producer Joel Zimmerman, better known by his moniker deadmau5. The track saw it's release as a single in 2010, quickly becoming a cult-classic for both producers and listeners alike. The artist is said to have created it in parts, with different sections of the song having been completed at separate times and locations. While Joel can be known to employ the abused tropes of house music like the progressive repetition of looped percussion lines and monotonously repetitive synth melodies, Strobe does the opposite of lull it's audience with any of these things. Remarkably, the over-ten-minute length of this piece doesn't work against itself or feel forced. Most EDM consumers or mau5heads (as Zimmerman's most faithful fans lovingly call themselves) consider this to be his magnum opus. You'd be hard-pressed to find someone in Joel's audience who didn't ravenously obsess over this track at it's release, and even more hard-pressed to find someone today without oddly strong nostalgic ties to this track. But, upon asking listeners and scouring various forums for why it is that Strobe evokes such strong emotions and opinions on it, most answers come tied with only vague language at best; adjectives like evolving, atmospheric, or just simply magical can be among the commonly found the descriptors. Most responses are quite dodgy when it comes to what exactly makes Strobe so impressive and gives it an almost-endless replay value. People would much rather reminisce over how the record turned them on to electronica as a genre, or how it sound-tracked a momentously memorable time in their lives. I'd like to look past these dwellings and dig into the why of Strobe, it's begged me to be dissected in essay format for years. There is a small part of me that's hesitant to make such an attempt too, for in the name of full disclosure I am one of those aforementioned listeners who is obsessively fascinated with Strobe and my feelings for it. I don't want to lose the sense of wonder and other nebulous emotions it elicits. But, in the name of a sound and critical analysis, I'll be diving headlong into every aspect of what makes this tune such a stand-out, and the seemingly mysterious ways it does so. I've observed MIDI and Ableton project files, listened to covers using only singular instruments, and even taken chunks of the lead melody to my own keyboard. I'll make a consorted effort to keep the musical jargon light, which is a statement I find myself laughing at considering this is an electronic dance record. I also feel intrinsically qualified to take apart this song purely because of how much I've listened to it since its release. Oh by the way, I've seen deadmau5 play it live in concert. For the sake of respecting the holistic undertaking that is Strobe, I will be looking at the full length version of this song only. To listen to the radio or club edit would be selling the track short of it's grandness. So let's get right into it. Strobe starts out unlike most dance tracks that managed to achieve it's level of popularity. Although it's most known for the 128-BPM tempo it eventually reaches, the track starts out considerably slower. No kick-and-snare loop builds it's way into a lead synth melody for the first thirty seconds. Instead, for the first minute, a small combination of eerie mallet and bells, plus a smooth synth all oscillate in a slow and limited melody. The stress isn't on the progression of notes themselves as much as it is on the reverb effect added to these sounds. This reverb manages to highlight of the dichotomy of the way these instruments are used in this song versus how they're more traditionally used. When I think of how mallet-and-bell instruments (real or synthesized) and smooth synths usually sound, words like eerie or atmospheric aren't the first to come to mind. But the space this reverb creates gives Strobe an immediate and distinct ambiance to it. Couple that with the on-edge feeling given by the slightly evolving variance in the melody itself, and Strobe has done a lot to already gently place the listener into it's world. This is the first of many times in which I will gush over how well this song establishes itself with that ambiance. Here I am, just like all the other forum-dwellers using vague and all-encompassing language like atmosphere and ambiance. Let me be as specific as I can with my own interpretation of what kind of atmosphere Strobe establishes. There is a loneliness to this melody and the reverberation of it. It's seemingly somber, but I wouldn't go as far to say it's sad. It feels much too stuck in revelation, making it more exciting and eerie than sad. Also worth mentioning are the visuals displayed during the live performance of this song. The LCD screens on the gigantic rig known as The Cube on which deadmau5 stands display images of space and stars from what seems to be another planet. The background lighting and spotlights consisted of deep and cold colors, purple being the most prominent in the beginning. This is all important to me, as Joel is heavily involved in the production of his live shows. He goes as far as creating many of his own animations and visuals displayed on those panels, so the feelings of space and loneliness that are personally provoked feel validated - at least to an extent. It's very evident that Zimmerman makes a clear-cut effort to tell you that this won't be a beat you can just mindlessly dance to. It'll require a patient presence to hear this song out and experience it. About a minute and thirty seconds in, a lower-frequency synth and a piano fade in to accompany the initial melody. The synth melody specifically is much more elongated and simple, only further affirming the dire implications of solidarity and loneliness. Shortly after two and a half minutes is when the sense of scale begins to reveal itself when a small section of synthesized strings are welcomed in, and now this thing is waxing cinematic. A white noise hiss paves the way for what appears to be the rattling of some kind of shakers which mimic/actually the patterns of a rattlesnake. A rattlesnake? Even typing this, the use of such a sound seems so shallow and cheesy, the kind of attempt on a unique sound effect that would fail in most other dance tracks. But this isn't the "dance" part of the track yet, and somehow at this point you're inclined to just roll with it. Now the introductory part has been fully fleshed out. All that's left is to cycle through the melody's progression before it starts to fade out, giving way for what would eventually evolve into the lead synth. Another rattle, and on comes the four-on-the-floor kick drum. Exit the cinematic, enter the electronic. All your curiosities and questions are validated; there is so much more rhythmic, sonic, and melodic evolution that's about to take place. Strobe has just drastically sped up in tempo, and it was hard to even be aware of it. I'd first like to cover the sonic qualities of the lead synth, bass, and percussion, as these can be summarized much more distinctly than the melodic qualities. The lead saw-line synth is as warm as any other analogue synth. The synced bass line clearly has that distinct trance sound to it. The timbre and envelope of these sounds are progressively expanded, like the synths are opening their mouths to speak more rigidly with time. The kick is present and punchy in the mix, and the hats and claps are a subtle compliment to it all. The first iteration of the kick and snare portion of this song last up until just after the five minute mark. This is where Joel begins to allow the melodic prowess of this lead melody to rear it's head, but only in a constrained fashion for the time being. The sixteenth-note mannerism of this lead synth is the closest I can come to guessing at why the track is titled simply as "Strobe"; the melody flashes these chords at you in the on/off fashion of a strobe light, though this lead progression is already far from binary. The song flows on, bending upwards and downwards as it breathes with the kick. At this point in time everything is already complex enough to believe that this is the melodic peak of the song. From here on, you could probably expect a few new synths to glide along the higher-frequency areas of the mix. Maybe pepper in some quirky bass stabs (after all, this was released at the height of the dubstep craze) and you've got yourself a second half of the song that has established itself as good house tune with some trance influence. I could have also seen some airy female vocals taking this track further into that trance direction, but this song doesn't do that and retains it's atmospheric loneliness. The harmony itself is in B major, which has a fair amount of sharped notes in it's scale. What those sharp notes lead to is a pulling feeling, it keeps the mind busy if you just try to focus on the lead synth. Some call this all to be melancholic, but I refuse to do so and will leave the melancholic determination up to each individual listener. The word melancholic gets too close to the word nostalgic, and as I said I will refuse to let my nostalgia take over this dissection. At the what seems to be the height of the buildup to this beat, the drum line is pulled out from under the lead. The synths hold their form, but retract in timbre and how long the sustain lasts on each note. Once again, something's about to happen. But Joel doesn't add any new sounds like I thought he would. He instead makes a statement about the confidence he has in how he's about let the melodic progression shine. The rattles and hisses wear off, and the synth lead is left to it's own devices. This is where the melody receives it's final form, and it is quite possibly the most beautifully complex thing I've heard in any dance song. As the sustain of the notes is elongated, the focus is solely on the lead once again, and then melodic bliss just seems to appear. This melody is so quick to ascend and descend. It feels like it has a mind of its own, darting from one chord to the next in such a fluid fashion. No kick drum. Attempts to describe the feeling that this all gives me will forever fall short. Mr. Zimmerman is unabashedly telling you to hear the melody for all it is, live in it's world for a moment. The organ in the background accompanies the last few notes of each bar of the progression, which is another purposeful touch. Organs often carry a sanctimonious and solitary connotation with them, as they're often found in places of worship and large cathedrals. This adds to the not-just-fun-but-seriously-alone aura. At this point the listener is so far removed from a mindless dance beat that it's almost personally violating. The melody seemingly freezes by momentarily repeating itself at the six minute and forty second mark to usher in the big payoff. The drop hits and the kick-and-snare pattern returns in full force. All of the evolution Strobe goes through seemingly is released and this lonely melody finds a friend and a proper place for itself alongside the beat. Eventually the organ will reappear again here and there. There is now a harmony present to the world that Strobe was seemingly longing for during those first six minutes. This transcends all tropes of EDM and club music in such a confident fashion. I am eternally grateful that Joel didn't walk this track down a more typical dance path I initially thought it was heading down. His confidence his the pacing and the stunning synth progression is inspiring. Eventually, Strobe slowly takes itself apart and for a moment all that's left is the atmosphere that initially greeted you. Right, I got so wrapped in the moment that I forgot how this piece of art started out. It leaves you back where you started - alone. But not without the journey you just went on. One of the most fascinating things I take from this song is how repayable it is. Overtime, I've come up with the following theory to pinpoint why that is for me: there are no vocals over this beat to tell a distinct story. And why should there be? The length and evolution provide enough time to tell any story Joel could have wanted to. But Strobe wonderfully toes this line between being able to illicit feelings of solidarity/introspection, and leaving just enough up to the listener's interpenetration. In a way it feels like this song never ended. It builds a world in which I would go home and immerse myself in every night while I fed my newfound dance music obsession in middle school. This song does what every actor in Hollywood tries to perfect the art of, which is to say so much without using words. All this, in the end, leaves an impression that this song is much more of an experience than a dance beat. In my preparation for writing this, I came across a reddit user who managed to find one word to describe the feeling of that same experience best: cathartic. Strobe by deadmau5 takes the listener from a soft atmosphere to a vibrant and fascinating conclusion. It pulses like a dance track, but there's a (lonely) world's more to it than that.

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drscotcheggmann · 8 years ago

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What is a Classic? And Does Classic Always Mean Keeper? Part 2 of 2

So, it's a classic - by way of the game meeting your own standards, thanks to the game's huge commercial success, its mass appeal or dedicated but relatively small scale fan following. Some or all of the above. But does this mean that it's a keeper? A game that they will have to pry from your cold dead fingers for you to ever to consider letting go? I have always been a bit of a hoarder, keeping everything from cinema ticket stubs to beer mats. I've started collections in earnest but have then lost interest and been left with something no one could truly call a collection. I've been swept along by the latest fad, only to jump ship and onto the crest of the next big craze which has ultimately petered into nothing. Video games have been no different, except they are not a fad or craze; they have been and continue to be a huge part of my life. In the same way developers don't set out to make classics, I never set out to collect video games. In the early years my collection was much more a product of my pride at having beaten a game, conquered its world and then have the game sit proudly on my shelf as a trophy to my achievements. I may very well never have played that game again but I was ok with that. I also wasn't as discerning then as I am now about which games I do or don't keep - I didn't just covet classics. For years I refused to part with a PS2 copy of Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers, simply because it was my first PS2 game that came bundled with the console which I received as a Christmas gift. Hardly a classic. But as time has gone on, such feelings of sentimentality towards my gaming library have slowly begun to evaporate. Not because I've fallen out of love with video games but because something huge has happened: life. Having quite recently become a father for the first time I have been faced with a significant and inevitable shift in where my priorities lie. I now spend more time pressing coloured panels on interactive books and toddler toys than I do bashing buttons on a controller or working an analog stick. Not only do I have less time to play games but also less disposable income. You can't wipe a baby's bum with a copy of Battlefield 1 but £44.99 could buy you a hell of a lot of baby wipes! As a consequence, when I do buy a game these days, it really has to be worth my time and money which often means that it has to tick all of the right boxes that confer masterpiece or near masterpiece status. I wouldn't say I have become a gaming snob. A gaming snob is someone who consciously chooses not to play games which fall below a certain standard, even though that person may have unlimited (or at least less limited) resources to do so. That's not me. I just need to be more careful in order to maximise the enjoyment I get from the limited gaming time I do have, as well as make sure I have money to spend on my family. And I'm ok with this, I really am. But it has also backed me into a few corners that I am less comfortable with. As I like to know if a game is worth my time and money before handing over my hard earned pennies, I've become more and more reliant on the opinion of others, namely in the form of reviews. I do like reading critical opinion but I'm also sad that I don't feel brave enough to give a game a chance and form my own opinions first. Although I don’t necessarily always agree with pigeonholing that results from the use of numerical review scores, my cut off these days is usually an 8/10 - that's not necessarily classic or masterpiece territory you may say but anything lower and the likelihood is that there'll be something else coming out in the next few months which is better and in which I would rather invest my limited money and time. And I know that's not the way it should be and I wish it wasn't. I do wish I could jump into a game for the simple reason that I just really want to play it, regardless of review scores and certainly not because it absolutely must be a near masterpiece. But time and money are precious in a young family, the latter especially so, since the day one RRP of games is not insubstantial and new games generally don't hold their value for long. I know that a £44.99 day one purchase could come down as low as £20 within a few months. Which begs a bigger question which I'm not going to attempt to answer here: should we buy games on day one? My head says no, my heart says Nioh. A big fat day one purchase which I had been looking forward to since playing the demo, despite my New Year's Resolution not to give into day one pressure. I lasted until February. But to be completely honest with you and myself, I'm resigned to the fact that Nioh, coming in at around 70 hours to complete supposedly, will likely join the vast pile of games already in my backlog of unfinished and, I'm ashamed to admit, unplayed games (Until Dawn has never even been in the machine!). I'll get to them one day, I tell myself. One day this year, next year, in 10 years. Until Dawn will be 2 years old in August..... So my backlog grows larger as my gaming time grows shorter and the new releases keep on coming. This cycle of events and the changes in my lifestyle have forced my hand a bit in the last while to the extent where I've changed how I view the games I absolutely must and must not keep. Games which I would've once kept for the sake of keeping, now make it onto the top of the trade in pile, some of them widely regarded as classics or masterpieces, even if it means I only get a few quid back. This trading in for pittance may seem callous, opportunistic, a product of relentless consumerism and the need to always have money in your pocket for something else to come along but I have to admit, I don't miss these games. Not a bit. This begs yet another question: does every game we every play need to be kept, masterpiece or not? Are memories of our escapades in these virtual worlds not enough? I have fond memories of cruising around the streets of Rockstar’s version of Miami, pumping REO Speedwagon from the speakers in my top down convertible station wagon with hydraulic suspension, but I don't feel the need to own Grand Theft Auto Vice City anymore to back that up. I remember staying up way past my bedtime, watching my Dad beat Misrabelle, the final boss of Mickey's Castle of Illusion on the Megadrive, in the days before memory cards and save files. If you died and were out of lives, it was right back to the start! This is perhaps my earliest gaming memory but I don't need to own a copy of Castle of Illusion to keep that memory alive. And now that my own son is tottering about the place I've sometimes thought to myself, I should keep these games because maybe he'll want to play them when he's older. He might. But an equal part of me thinks, who am I kidding? It'll be next gen times two by the time that rolls around. But then the other part of me is also happy knowing that I'll be content just to tell him about them, about what I remember and relive what they were like through memory alone. The feeling of hitting a spike at high speed and losing 100+ rings in Sonic 2. The jangling sound that denotes failure. Or finding out that the trick to beating Psycho Mantis in Metal Gear Solid was to switch controller ports mid fight so that he couldn't read your mind. This was mind blowing back then and I'm hoping, if my son is remotely interested in games, he'll find it just as mind blowing without needing to get the PlayStation out of the attic. Memories aside, I'm also at a stage in life now where I don't need to keep everything I've ever played, completed or not touched, as the case may be. And I admit, not only do I not miss these game I've let go of, I feel better for having done it. I know that if I ever want to play them again, they're not gone forever. Thanks to how interconnected the world is these days, I know I could likely pick these titles up again either in a 2nd hand video games store or on e bay. And in some ways this is more exciting than having a game gather dust on a shelf for years and potentially never be played again; knowing that it's not out of arms reach, even though it would involve buying the game again, a game that I probably paid top dollar for when it was first released. For the ones I've traded in but never begun or completed, having to part with cash for them again may actually be the kick I need to get the job done the second time around. Maybe one day. This year, next year, in 10 years.... But while I've been keen to let go of a good chunk of my gaming library, there are some games that I will never get rid of. These are for me my true classics, games I would be upset about if I ever had to part with them. There aren't many and I'm not going to gush and spout odes of devotion to them all here but my all time favourite game cannot go without mention: Dark Souls. This game is my masterpiece but I know for others it's a disasterpiece, a game which provokes feelings of love and hatred in equal measure. I’m aware that some feel the game is desperately overrated and I know that not everyone reading this will be a Dark Souls fan so I will spare the details; suffice to say that the world building, combat, stat and weapon upgrade systems, vaguely hinted at lore and steep but rewarding difficulty are all things that make Dark Souls a game that has created many memorable moments for me. I’ve completed the game once and so the memories should be enough, right? Well, I'm not quite done making memories with Dark Souls. Despite my lament about limited time and an ever expanding backlog, I've just recently begun my 2nd playthrough of Dark Souls. And I'm loving it. Yes, I've seen it all before and the sheen that coated my first time isn't glistening nearly so brightly this time around but I still feel the adrenaline when facing a boss I know I've beaten before, I still care enough to explore everything I can see on the horizon. I know I will never part with it. So worried was I recently that I had permanently lost my copy during our last house move that I went out and bought another copy second hand, despite also having a digital copy on my Xbox360. You never know when the thing might go kaputt, you see, so a back up physical copy was a no brainer. This might seem a bit daft and it probably is to be honest, but I felt strangely good about buying that 2nd copy, as if I was liberating it from the shop because it didn’t deserve to be among the second hand trade-in titles. I mean, who in their right mind would trade in Dark Souls? Maybe someone who has their own little cabinet of classics at home but Dark Souls isn't one of them. Or maybe someone who has reached a stage in their life like me where they don't need to keep absolutely everything. And that's fine. The fact that it was traded in meant I bought it and I'm glad to say that since it hasn't been wasting away on a shelf like so many others before it. I've since found my original copy and have leant my 2nd copy to a friend, a Dark Souls noob. You never know, in time Dark Souls might just become my friend's very own masterpiece. If there is one message to come from all of this it's this: a classic is only as classic as the connection you, the player forge with that particular game. Although we hear the words classic and masterpiece thrown around a lot these days, forget review scores, fan following and commercial success. These are only indicators. Fundamentally a game that you consider to be a classic has to mean something to you, whether that's thematically, mechanically or just because you walked its world and reveled in its brilliance at a particular moment in time. It's a deeply personal thing. And that alone makes any classic worth keeping.

#backlog #video games #gaming #classicgames #classic #ps4 #xbox one #pcgaming #nintendo #sega mega drive

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