#I should only use the app to track my episodes and that's it

[kirk-goes-to-gallifrey]

tumblr has really spoiled me

guess I'm lucky to have a nice lil bubble here and to never have had a post break containment so whenever I post something I never get any reaction that bothers me, it's usually just a nice safe place to be

and I don't have any other socials really (Facebook is for work so whatever and mastodon is composed of a handful of people lol) but sometimes I try and make a comment on a show on the TV time app and... let's say there isn't a single time when I don't receive the most insane unbelievable replies

like what the hell - is this what the rest of the internet is like? People have no filter? And there seems to be no-one worried about the same things you are???

Like my last comment was on a show called Shrinking that I used to like very much but that I feel got derailed a bit. I commented that I think I'm gonna drop the show now that they decided to force the character who explicitly didn't want kids to have a kid (wow suddenly he only didn't want kids because he had trauma and now he figured out he really wants to be a parent! How touching) and on top of that they introduced some narrative that the military is a good place for ex-addicts to start over and get their shit together LIKE WHAT THE FUCK

And I expected at least SOMEONE would agree with me that these things are fucked up but nope. All replies are telling me how much I'm exaggerating and that these things are not so important to the story and I'm oversensitive and whatever excuse me if I care about the underlying political implications of a plot :)

[brehaaorgana]

ADHD money/budgeting system I'm currently using for my benefit is going well (I've been using it for like half a year now?), and I wanna recommend it.

You Need a Budget is EXCELLENT. 10/10 do recommend. Uhhh rambling about it and my generic disclaimers + gushing extensively under the cut but TL;DR I think it's great for ADHD ppl, I've used it for 6+ months now and I find it super SUPER helpful. also weirdly fun.

DISCLAIMERS:

Budgeting helps you understand/know your money, it can't make money appear where there is none.

Everyone should learn to budget even if you don't have much money (especially then)

This is NOT a magic trick solution. Just like everything else, it is an assistive tool. This is one of those adult things we can't simply opt out of without negative consequences, though.

My advice is based on something I am currently able to do. That is, I can spend an amount of money on this specific thing that works well for me. If you have no extra money to spend then previously I was tracking things in a notebook. So you can still do this.

I believe Dave Ramsey is a fundie fraud/hack and no one should listen to him about money.

DID YOU KNOW THEY CANCELLED MINT???

Okay? OKAY.

Ahem.

You Need a Budget is EXCELLENT.

It is called YNAB for short. The first 34 days are your free trial, and that is my referral link. If anyone uses it and then signs up for a subscription, we both get a month free. Also you can share a subscription with up to six people (account owner can see everything but individuals can pick and choose what they share amongst each other) so like...idk your whole polycule can be on one account. Or your kids. Whatever.

If you are a student, it's free for a year. If you aren't, a subscription is $99 for a year (paid all at once) or $14.99 monthly, which is equivalent to paying Amazon prime. Go cancel Prime and get this instead tbh.

They got a whole article just on ynab and ADHD. They also have like...a big variety of ways to access their info? They have a book, podcast episodes, YouTube videos, blog posts, q&A's, free live workshops you can join (you can request live captioning), emails they can send (if you want) a wiki, and so on. They got workshops on all kinds of topics!!

So whatever ends up working for your brain. It also has a matching app.

If you lost Mint this year they have a gajillion things for moving from Mint.

Also they have a "got five minutes?" Page which has a slider so you can decide how much attention/time you have before going on lol:

They only have 4 rules of the budget, they're simple and practical, and it doesn't get judgey or like...mean about your spending.

1. Give every dollar a job 2. Embrace your true expenses 3. Roll with the punches 4. Age your money.

THEN THEY BREAK THESE DOWN INTO SMALL STEPS FOR YOU! They even have a printable! Also these rules are great because there's built in expectations that things WILL HAPPEN and it's NOT all or nothing with a fear of total collapse into failure. Reality and The Plan don't always align, especially if you have ADHD. So it's directing our energy towards the true expenses and not clinging to The Plan!! over reality.

You can automate a lot of shit (you can sync with your bank accounts just like mint, but also automate tagging the categories of regular expenses/transactions). And if for whatever reason you accidentally do something that makes the budget look weird or wrong:

A) you can usually fix it somehow OR b) they have like, a button you can press that gives you a clean slate and archives the previous version of the budget for you.

So if you forget for a few weeks or months, or accidentally input something wildly wrong, or just don't want to look at a really terrible month anymore and feel like you need a fresh start you can usually either fix it or start fresh which is really nice.

The app also (for whatever reason) scratches my itch to have things like...have incentives or little game-like goals in a way mint never did? I don't know why. Filling up the bars or putting money into the categories to cover my expenses is satisfying lmao. You can also make a big wish expense category for all the fun shit you want, and fund it whenever you can and then you can see the little bar go up and that's fun.

Anyways I've been using it for like 6+ months now and I think it's really helped me when I use it.

[birdwholikesbirding]

How to get into birding with $0 budget

While birdwatching, also known as birding, can be a hobby that can get pretty expensive (equipment and traveling), you need nothing to start with. Some of my favorite things for it are actually free!

eBird

eBird is a website and mobile app that many people use to track what birds they've seen. You can even share lists to other birders you were with on a trip! The data, if you allow it, helps with science, which is really neat. They also have identification quizzes to help you learn your birds! Using photos and audio that people submit, it will present you with different birds (photo, audio, or both) with some options of what it is

Merlin

Merlin is an app made by the same people as eBird! What it does is help you identify birds. It can do this 3 ways. It can guide you through a step-by-step ID where you put in info about the bird and it helps you narrow it down, photo ID where you take a photo and it can tell you from there, and my personal favorite, audio ID! It records audio and tells you what birds there are just from that! With all of them, they aren't 100% accurate, but it sure helped me learn my birds! But the best part has to be that it links with eBird to add to your lists of what birds you've seen, but you don't need to link them, the app works fine on its own

Audubon Bird Guide

Yay, another free app! However I'm pretty sure this one only works in the United States, but there are likely others for other places. Like eBird, you can track what birds you've seen, but I use it because I prefer the step-by-step ID to Merlin's. That's it really

American Birding Podcast

Hosted by the American Birding Association (ABA) is the American Birding Podcast, basically just a podcast where they talk about birding. It can be a bit confusing to beginners though. Also, I haven't been able to find newer episodes on YouTube, but it should all be available wherever you listen to podcasts

Articles and Documentaries

This is a lot more vague, but there are a lot of nice free articles and documentaries out there! Audubon has some nice articles, including not just birds, but also controversies within the community like the racist background behind the most known figure in birding

Now all you need to do is just go outside! You don't even need binoculars, just your eyes and/or ears (there are blind birders who just use audio to ID birds). Even in urban environments, you can find some really neat birds! And if you want to get into photography, most phones have good cameras now

[fake-married-my-dead-fiance]

So I read webtoons sometimes using the Webtoon app by Naver and someone asked why you have to pay for the next episode and I said something like, "to pay the creators" to which I was swarmed and told that Naver is notorious for barely paying their creators and I should go to their personal pages/Patreons (or whatevers) because that's the only way to really support the creators and everyone knows that and I have some sort of moral responsibility to do so.

To which, no I didn't know that because I'm a casual user, and more importantly, no, I'm not tracking down every webtoon creator I like and paying them personally. Do you not see how that is insane? I'm legally paying for content on a content app, that is enough. How much freaking responsibility do you think a customer is supposed to have? Most of the webtoons I read are translated too, so the sheer amount of effort it would take to find the original author and pay them in their own currency is laughable. Am I supposed to pay the translators too?

And where does it end? Do I need to hunt down every artist I've listened to on Spotify and pay them directly? Because I have a vague idea that Spotify pays horribly too. How about published authors? They only make pennies to the dollar on books, should I go through my bookshelf and send them all personal cheques? Should I make sure that Walmart is paying for it's products properly?

It's not on me. It is not my personal job to fix capitalism or the webtoon app or Spotify. I don't know whose job it is, but it's not mine. We cannot push this much responsibility on consumers who just don't have time.

[folkwhorerain]

Just like clockwork.

Sam Carpenter x afab!Reader

gif not mine.

summary: Sam proves you that you don't have to face everything alone.

warnings: description of PMDD symptoms, depression, mood swings, insecure reader, hurt/comfort, angst, fluff, bad writing (english is not my first language). Feel free to tell me if I should add more!

(Maybe a little out of character for Sam, but I needed to write this for my own benefit.)

author's note: I got diagnosed with premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) two weeks ago and I did not take it well at all. I just had another PMDD episode and it was really bad, so I wanted to write something to get it out my chest and since Sam is my current comfort character I wanted to write a ff about her comforting reader.

Please remember that this is based on my experience with this disorder and I do not intend to make anyone feel uncomfortable.

Enjoy!

It hit you suddenly.

You were fine days ago until you weren't.

It intoxicated your brain without you noticing. You just thought you were being overdramatic as always but, like it happened almost every month just like clockwork, your mind proved you wrong.

It started with a numb sensation on your legs and an inexplicable fatigue, after a few days you started sleeping excessively and leaving the bed was more and more difficult everytime the blanket rocked you in its embrace.

Next you began feeling that heaviness inside your chest that haunted you just six or five days before your menstruation started. Again, just like clockwork. It doesn't happen every, single month but when it does, it's tough dealing with all the symptoms that accompany it.

"Shit." You whispered at the realisation that your PMDD was at its peak again. You will never get used to it. Everytime your period passed you mentally mocked at how much you overreacted, gaslighting yourself into believing that you were just being dramatic and that your disorder wasn't real, which it was actually. It was very real. You just needed to get into the next wave of depression to realise it, just to curse yourself for being so dramatic when your period passed again. It was a cycle you couldn't break.

As it always happened during these excruciating days, you were lying in bed with a urge to cry and a fatigue that came out of nowhere. You knew your symptoms would disappear as soon as your period started, but right now you just let yourself go at the inevitable sensations your disorder provoked you.

Your friends noticed you were detached from them and everytime they would offer you to spend time together or watch a movie, you would always refuse, taking a snack from the kitchen and heading immediately to your room, leaving your friends with a confused look.

You weren't ready for people to know about your disorder, so you only told your favorite sisters and Quinn since she's so nosy that she eventually figured out something was wrong.

"Is Y/N okay?" Chad asked with a hint of concerne in his voice and Tara attached to his sleeve. "She hasn't come out of her room for the past two days."

"I hope it has nothing to do with us," Mindy joked with her mouth full of food. Anika was at her side, stealing some chips from her girlfriend, who was too busy looking at Sam for some sort of explanation to notice. "We're good company, so that would offend me."

Tara looked at Sam with a knowing look. Her face held the same concern as the rest of the group and it only worsened when Sam stayed quiet, too lost looking at the calendar app.

Like the good girlfriend she is, she tracked your period just in case you needed extra help with your PMDD, so when the phone in her hands gave her the confirmation you were about to get your period, she immediately knew what was wrong and it almost annoyed her you didn't tell her like you promised to.

You were never one to ask for help or even talk about your feelings. You would rather walk on lava than saying something was bothering you, and Sam understood that. She was never open about her feelings herself and just suck them up until they didn't bother her anymore or she learnt to live with them. But when it comes to you and your health, it's different so she stood up from the couch of the apartment you, Quinn, Tara and Sam shared and walked towards her room which was now yours as well since Quinn moved in with you and took your old room. Not that you spent a lot of time in it anyway. You were always with Sam and most of your stuff was already in her room anyways.

"Y/N?" You heard Sam crack open the door and slowly walk towards the bed. You had your back to her, body fully covered by your weighted blanket. You stayed still. Hopefully she wouldn't hear you cry and just leave you be.

When you didn't answer the brunette thought you were asleep and contemplated if leaving was the best decision, but when she heard a sob escape your mouth (much to your dismay), she climbed into the bed and placed a hand on your shoulder.

"Hey, it's that bad again, isn't it?" She asked sympathetically as she stroked your back slowly. Her heart sank knowing you were feeling like this again and you decided to deal with it all alone.

You turned to look at her with red, puffy eyes. It took you a while to nod your head yes, not wanting to bother her with something that was only your problem and would probably just drag her into your spiral of sadness. But hiding was no use, it was clear as the sun that you were feeling shitty. "I wanna be alone, though."

Sam sighed quitely and squeezed your shoulder. "Don't push me away, Y/N, please. I'm not leaving you. I just wanna help."

You usually loved how she knew you like the palm of her hand, but as of right now it just annoyed you and it took all the strength you had in your already aching body to not snap at her. Therefore you took a deep breath and gave yourself some time before saying something you would regret. You weren't even angry at Sam. You didn't know what you were so angry about. You just were. You always felt like you were on the verge of exploding.

"I just–" you couldn't finish your sentence as you covered your eyes with both your hands and let out an annoyed groan.

Sam frowned sympathetically, both of her hands gripping gently your wrists in an attempt to not let you hide your feelings from her, no matter how bad they were. But you were persistent and there was no way you would've let her see you this way, so your hands didn't move. Not even a inch.

Sam took a deep, shaky breath as she thought about what could make you feel better. Keeping her composure was hard in a situation like this, but she knew it wasn't easy for you first. After all, it was you who had to deal with it in the first place.

You uncovered your eyes when you felt the weight on the bed was gone and your girlfriend had disappeared.

You pouted and tears started streaming down your face again, both from sadness and anger towards yourself. You couldn't believe you felt sad she left when you were the one who told her to leave you alone in the first place.

"Why do I have to be like this?" You whispered as you pulled yourself up and sit on the bed, throwing your phone on the bedside with too much force.

You hated it. You couldn't believe you had to feel like this because of something so… natural. Periods should be associated with life and birth. Hell, in some historic culture a menstruating person was considered sacred, you couldn't believe you had to deal with it in such a painful way.

You can't even say you couldn't wait for your period to start, because once you start bleeding, your ovaries feels like they're being stabbed over and over again.

Mentally excruciating PMS and painful menstruation. Great combo.

After a few minutes you heard the door open again and your girlfriend was standing there with a tiny smile and a glass of water accompanied by some snacks in her hands.

Your gaze softened at the sight and you wondered how could someone like you ever deserve someone as caring as Sam Carpenter.

"I know you forgot to take your meds, so here…" She cooed as she gave you the glass and your pills, which you gladly took but not before smiling appreciatively at the brunette. "I understand you want to be left alone and I accept it, but I just want to be with you throughout all of this. Please, let me take care of you."

"Sam–"

"We don't have to talk. We can just stay here and exist together." She was standing in front of you with a hopeful expression, waiting for you to give her permission to stay.

You took a few moments to think about it and meanwhile you got lost in the sight before you.

She had bags under eyes due to the tiredness two shitty jobs can give you and her usual jeans and sweater were replaced with pajama shorts and a blue tank top you were sure she stole from you. You loved how her black locks were styled perfectly even after a six hour shift and her dark eyes glistened with hope.

You must look like shit compared to her, not having the strength to comb your hair or eat a proper meal. You were even surprised you menaged to take a shower and brush your teeth. You'd probably look at yourself with disgust if you had a mirror in front of you. No way someone else would look at you differently.

Yet there she was, still looking at you like you were her whole world and when she looked at you like that it was almost impossible to say no to her, so you smiled weakly and patted the place beside you on the bed.

She smiled widely before she sank into the bed, covering her body with your favorite blanket. "Do you want me to hug you or you don't feel comfortable being touched?"

You suddenly felt a urge to be comforted and held, so you took this opportunity before you felt the need to be alone again and welcomed her in your arms. She wrapped her arms around your body, legs now entangled with yours. Her left hand wiped away your tears and the other stroked your arm slowly.

Guilt made its way through your body and that painful weight in your chest became heavier.

You hated yourself for being such a burden.

You didn't want people to deal with you when you were at you lowest. If you could, you wouldn't even deal with it yourself. But it was your mind and body, so ignoring its needs was not an option. But your friends and family had the opportunity to leave, to tell you to fuck yourself when you'd yell at them without an apparent reason, yet they didn't. Even when you pushed them away just like you did an hour ago and they decided to spend time together anyway. Of course that made you silently sob as you saw they could live without you.

It wasn't fair to think like that, you knew. But it wasn't you who had control of your mind when your depression was at its peak, it was your disorder and you could not disobey its will. No matter how much it hurt you.

"I'm so pathetic." You whispered with eyes full of tears again. Your thoughts were the worst part of these episodes. The voices telling you that you're not enough were persevering and it was hard to not listen to them. "I'm sorry you have to endure all of my shit. I would leave if I was you."

"That's not true, Y/N. You know you don't really think that." She whispered softly, placing sweet kisses on the crown of your head. "You're not pathetic for feeling this way. You didn't choose it."

You stayed silent, feeling paralyzed. The only thing you did was hug her tightly and stroke her hip affectionately.

Sometimes it scares you how much she knows you and how you think.

"I'm here no matter what. You are not your disorder. I knew there were gonna be ups and downs when I chose you, but just like you knew it when you chose me." She stopped talking just to give a few kisses on your neck, easing a little bit of the tension you felt. "If we gotta be honest, I'm the daughter of a serial killer who almost got herself and her friends killed just because of that. If there's someone who should leave, that's you."

A weak chuckle escaped your mouth at that last phrase. You weren't gonna leave her for that. Hell, you would rather be attacked by Ghostface than leave your girlfriend.

It didn't matter what Sam did or who she was. You knew the real her and you thanked the universe everyday for being able to see parts of her she hardly showed to anyone else.

You knew how hard it was for her after Richie turned out to be Ghostface and she decided to move to a city where people saw him like the victim and her like the villain.

Trusting new people wasn't an option for her and you were no exception when you responded to the anonymous ad of when her and Tara were looking for a roommate.

The first time you met her it almost looked like you were being interrogated, but when you left aside the thought of how pretty she was and you recognised her as one of the survivors of the Woodsboro attack, you understood why.

Your thoughts were interrupted when you felt her lips on your shoulder, and when you turned your head slightly to look at her, you saw she was already staring at you with a glint in her eyes she reserved just for you. "Take a picture, it'll last longer."

She bit your shoulder playfully at your comment making you crack a smile. "I love you."

"I love you, too Sam." And with that she gave the palm of your hand a kiss, next she shifted to your neck, your jaw and finally your lips.

You couldn't help but smile as you tried to ignore the heaviness you still felt in your chest.

It was hard dealing with you when you felt like this but, everytime you needed, Sam was there.

Just like clockwork.

That's all, people!

As usual, I hope you liked it.🫶🏻

If your PMS is so bad that it effects your daily activities, please talk to your doctor about it. It may be sign of PMDD or other premenstrual disorders.

Remember you are not alone and I'm always here if you need to talk.

I love you all. <3

[kaythefloppa]

Wild Kratts - Fish Out of Water Review [Spoilers]

April is finally here, and with it, three new episodes have been released on the PBS Kids Video App ahead of their release. At the time I'm posting this, it is midnight and the one hour special "Our Blue and Green World" is yet to air on televison and streaming, so I will get to that when I get to that. Given that I have already reviewed No Name Dream and Backpack the Camel, I'll give a review to this episode as well. Spoiler warning and opinions ahead under the cut

First New York, then Hawaii, and now a goddamn University on the list of areas I would never expect these guys to film. Bros are everywhere.

As someone who is about to graduate high school, I feel IMMENSELY jealous of the college students who saw the motherfucking Kratt Brothers filming an episode on campus. I can already begin to see the floods of social media posts bragging about this on Tumblr and Twitter threads.

Ok I feel bad for being a bit salty earlier, I actually think it's really sweet how these people outside of the show can share their interests and expertise in biology and physics to help children educate. The entire live-action opening where they study the locomotion of mudskippers is honestly really sweet, and we haven't even gotten to our main animal yet!

God these are such cute animals. But beyond that, the term "fish out of water" could not be a more fitting title. They have joints like we do, can adapt to different environments, and can swim and climb like we can. This is probably my favorite live action segment because of how well structured the clips and movements are and just how fun it is seeing these little blorbs move around the place.

I should talk about how it took us half a decade to see a mudskipper on the show, and 13 years overall to get a focus episode, but so far, up to a great start and definitely worth waiting (for the most part).

Oh so is it like the Hermit Crab episode where in all of the official releases they leave out the determiner but in the actual episode it's there? This has no overall bearing on the episode but I just felt the need to point it out.

I should check off on my S7 bingo card about seeing the old inventions again because holy shit it's been almost a decade since we saw the Butterflier XT

Also can anyone identify those butterflies? I know for a FACT that those motherfuckers aren't monarchs because of their patterns (the only pattern variation in butterflies is sex-linked, and while I'm aware they live in Asia, this again, does not look like a match) but they also aren't viceroys because they lack the line around their wings. I only ask this to bring up my next point.

I thought the Butterfly Disc we saw in Season 1 was specifically programmed based off of Monarch Butterflies. But as established (until proven wrong), these are not monarch butterflies. So unless Aviva retrofitted or reprogrammed the disc to be multi-familial, as in they can touch any butterfly regardless of classification and activate accordingly (like with the Crocodile, Dragonfly, and Gecko Discs), the activation should not work. I only ask this because while it seems miniscule, Chris' decision to bring out the disc is what sets off the plot - It's what causes him to loose the discs in the butterfly swarm, so I feel like, while not a critique, it's a legitimate question as to the direct programming of the discs vs. the animals used to activate.

Man, Zach wasn't even in this episode and somehow they STILL lose their discs? (Actually, I am pleasantly surprised that they didn't take the opportunity to have this be a Zach-related episode).

You think they'd put a tracker on the collection or encode a chip the actual discs so that they wouldn't get lost this easily. This again, sounds like a nitpick, but earlier seasons set up a firewall for the Creature Power Discs and a tracking device/rocket-device on the Creature Power Suits and gloves because of how frequent these types of contingiences are, so there's really no excuse for this.

(Suck my ass PBS Kids Video App, I'm still able to get high quality snips even with your bullshit formatting!!!)

They really went all out with the "other-wordly" vibe that the mudskippers' territory gave off. Once again, we waited two years for this to be put to animation and to see come air.

I've made enough jokes around these situations in the show, so I think we'd all benefit if I just changed the subject: That front-facing mudskipper is fucking hilarious.

*Martin's voice* - Slimy Skin-breathers!

Okay, but I actually did not know that. At all. Even 10 years later, this show is still teaching me new things about animals in the most beautfully unexpected ways. This is one of the many reasons I will never give up on the show.

[Unexpected angst in bagging area - Also, with the inclusion of No Name Dream, which will air two days before this episode, that brings our Krangstt quota to #2]

Okay so I really like the set-up here, and it genuinely was a surprise seeing Jimmy angst in this episode as a subplot in a series that rarely operates on A-plots and B-plots (unless you count the villains' schemes which are usually just A^2 plots) like most shows. And as someone who legitimately was going through rough times (S7 was actually one of my few reasons to keep going), I heavily related to Jimmy. So yeah, a Jimmy angst episode? Can totally buy. What I'm not gonna buy is how they execute it with the ending, because that and the implications.... yikes...

C'mon! "Mudspitter" was right there! Right there!

Ok, here is where my main problem with this episode's subplot is. If I could boil it down to one word, it would be: Incomplete. Jimmy feeling inadequate based on an observation he made is one thing. Him immediately leaving afterwards on a whim moments after said observation is completely another and doesn't align that well.

Like, this would only work if Jimmy had attempted to be a fish "IN" water. If he tried to help Aviva and Koki with the data-research and inventing, but he failed, and they politely turned him down. Or if there was any basis as to why he suddenly disregards his piloting skills or teleporting, whether he doesn't care or doesn't think them to be enough for him to fit in. Like, he wants to be in on the action because some part of him doesn't feel like sitting around by the teleporter is enough. What I'm saying is, there is no pathos. I personally find it to be relatable, but on a narrative level, it doesn't work. I know the "character feeling left out so they leave" thing is cliche'd, but there's a reason it's a cliche, and that's because it follows a lot of writing beats that this particular episode doesn't, so on top of being cliche'd as fuck to begin with, it feels very awkward. And this is going to be apparent both here and in this episode's climax (which I also do not have many kind words for,) so I had to use my allotted time to talk about why this doesn't work.

Could... could they not call him on his Creaturepod? Could the brothers not call him on his Pod? Did he even have his Creaturepod?? Again, there are so many plot-holes in this B-story that could've easily been written around with a change of dialogue or scenery. Have Jimmy's Creaturepod be shown left lying around which makes them realize they have no way of getting him back to the teleporter in time. Jimmy would have no reason to even bring his Creaturepod on his adventure, so that just raises even more questions. Like, this isn't an active diss on the writers, but I think there should've been more proof-reading of the script since this is a massive oversight.

I think now is the time for me to bring up this question I've had for years now; How exactly does the teleporter work? In several episodes, we've seen that there is a coordinate code in the teleporter that allows it to be sent to the target. Koki's "the communication queen" as Aviva puts it, so she'd likely be able to triangulate the brothers' location. So I'm not sure why the show presents this as a struggle for Koki. This isn't the only example, so I won't hold it against the episode, (they have this be the case specifically to emphasize the point that they need Jimmy, which I can forgive) but it's another piece of lore that I should probably theorize about lmao.

Also

YOU HAVE LITERALLY TELPORTED THE CREATURE POWER DISCS FOUR TIMES.

TWO OF THOSE TIMES BEING IN A ROW.

AND ONE OF THEM WAS FOUR EPISODES AGO IN THIS EXACT SAME SEASON.

This whole episode spent the past five minutes making its main characters look incredibly idiotic for the sake of its B plot.

Once again, this episode's spitting facts that I didn't even know.

This is actually a neat seguay, having the brothers figure out the abilities of the mudskippers while exercising their own cool abilities. It feels really natural, and again, is an inventive way to show off the locomotive abilities of the mudskipper.

I feel like this falls very well between "accurate enough to be admirable" and "uncanny." I can (maybe on my deathbed) get used to this suit's design (though I'm partly glad Chris doesn't activate it because spoilers, he doesn't).

I've given this subplot a lot of flack, but credit where it's due, even with its misses, it does hit with the emotional beats.

Very conflicted on this:

On one hand, Jimmy actually taking the initiative to miniaturize is pretty ballsy. The show, despite not being serialized, does develop its characters in a way that you can sense a clear difference of them when you compare the modern seasons to the earlier ones. And this can be seen as a positive development for Jimmy, since it's his "Creature Adventure."

On the other hand.... back to what I was saying about consistency. Why did Jimmy bring the miniaturizer?? What was his prompting?? Was he planning on shrinking himself down the whole time? Like, he left his friends for god knows how much time and is now out of nowhere shrinking himself down to fish size because he feels inadequate? Uhm, Jimmy, ever heard the idea of therapy?

Also, again, very weird presentation of the episode. They don't at all put any attention to Jimmy's coms and whether or not he has them, (which would easily solve a bigger issue of why he's not contacted), yet they have him carry the Miniaturizer with him. Now, the latter is plot-relevant, but so could've been something about the Creaturepod.

This [from what I interpret] gets Jimmy out of his slump, making his "scientific discovery." Not realizing that his job of piloting and teleporting are equally important. Again, this is structured poorly. I like what they were going for, but it shouldn't have been the only thing that altered the trajectory of this subplot. Again, he can teleport discs to the brothers and pilot and while those are mentioned later on, it's not something he comes to himself in an "oh shit" moment. So this just feels unearned and weird. I really hate how harsh I am, since it's a Jimmy centric episode and it was the #1 requested thing on all the chat-boards during the hiatus, but this is one of those things where it has to be done right if at all. This isn't done right, and the fact that it takes up 50% of the episode just... ugh.

You can't tell it through screenshots but with the way Aviva says it and the scene cutting to her and Koki laughing at it, I'm 98% inclined that this was a specific innuendo, and ngl, I kinda laughed too.

Oh look, it's Kenge's cousin! [For you Lion Guard fans that also recognize Wild Kratts] - [I was inclined to make a reference to Jessie, but that felt in bad taste considering y'know]

Ok, but that has to be an Asian water monitor. Correct me if I'm wrong. What I'm definitely not wrong about is that their bites contain venom; To a human it's not lethal, however to small prey, including mudskippers, or anything around that size, it's lights out. So yeah, Chris and Martin are fucked.

Ok this line is absolutely badass.

Also, grey?? Grey?? I thought Jimmy's signature color was orange/yellow? Or red with the implication of the tail episode? Great, now there's another color that'll be in the debates for his future Creature Power Suit.

Once again, this arc feels weirdly put together. This notion comes up specifically at the climax when it should come up beforehand as Jimmy realizes his worth. Because otherwise, it gives the implication that he knew this all along and yet still felt like a fish out of water, which doesn't mesh together properly (it could, if the episode actually tried to do so which it didn't).

The episode, Sea Otter Swim, does this plot so much better. We see Jimmy's doubts, and we see how he overcomes said doubts in a way that is presented clear to the audience, and the climax where he actually realizes what he's capable of feels earned. This is not earned. So even though I am rooting for him to win, this whole thing just feels messy.

So is nobody gonna ask why Jimmy left his post? Is Jimmy not gonna tell everyone why he left, or at the very least ask why nobody bothered to call for him? Is nobody going to at least let Jimmy know that he can't just... abandon his post without warning because of the fact that they need him? Is Jimmy not going to come to that conclusion himself? Is anything in this episode gonna be earned??

This entire ending feels like an ass-pull: First off, Jimmy and the brothers had enough time to head back to the miniaturizer and then the Tortuga, and in none of that time, did Jimmy ever give them the Power Discs? Why? Yes, it was for the sake of the fake-out defeat/joke, but was there any reason why Jimmy just kept the thing hidden waiting to give it to the brothers?

The entire emotional climax to this episode is basically everyone putting Jimmy on a pedestal. It's unsatisfying because there wasn't any acknowledgement or follow up to Jimmy's conflict at the beginning, nor is the lesson learned in the right way, and the conclusion just overreacts by hyping up Jimmy instead of just having a reasonable "We're a team!" thing, or through any self-actualization of his good qualities that Koki pointed out. None of it, friggin' none of this is earned! Now it comes across as Jimmy being uncharacterstically boastful and cocky and the others just kissing his arse. That's probably not the intent but it was the result.

That is actually like, so fucking cool. I have massive respect for all of these people, like legitimately (also, considerning that's the exact opposite of what Zach does on an ethics scale, I find that really interesting). But beyond that, I think this episode has the best live action segments ever, they are so ingenuitive. I could easily see someone at my high school showing a clip of this episode in robotics' or biology class.

CONCLUSION:

PROS:

The live action segments.

The info dumps about the mudskippers.

The Kratt Brother's adventure with the mudskippers.

The animation

The background music (a lot of which is recycled from earlier seasons)

CONS:

Everything else (specifically the B plot). I feel like the writers wanted to give Jimmy his own storyline, either out of interest or seeing how popular the character was in chat-boards, but they didn't know how to do it so they just went through the motions without really connecting anything at all, so it's a lot harder relating to the exact conflicts in some cases, and you feel disatisfied by the cimax. It reminds me of what they did with Vitani in the Lion Guard finale, a case of giving this one character the spotlight, but hitting all of the wrong marks that does the character and the audience a disservice and leaves a bitter taste in the viewer's mouth by the end credits.

This is the first episode this season that has made me cringe, primarily off of its premise, not just a particular scene, a dated pop culture reference, or a weird-looking Power Suit. It is the first to make me cringe because of its story, which again, the B-plot takes up 50% of the episode, so it's constantly in your face. It's definitely not bad, not hateable bad, and it's far too early in the season to call it the worst, and there are definitely worse episodes out there, ones that have aired and ones that probably will inevitably air, but I can safely say, thus far, it's the one Wild Kratts episode that I enjoy, but only to an extent. The live action segments were by far the only thing that I got extremely engaged in, but other than that, and the other pros, it's not that good.

Final Ranking: 6/10: Above Average, but Needed Improvement.

[thepodcasthoard]

How to Start a Podcast

Part 1

The second article Sydney kindly gave me is How to Start a Podcast by buzzsprout. Buzzsprout is also a hosting site, which you need when you start a podcast, so they have to know their stuff (according to the article, since 2009 they've helped three hundred thousand podcasts launch, which is impressive).

Buzzsprout breaks the process into ten actionable steps.

Develop a concept.

Define goals

Pick a theme/topic (they provide a whopping seventy-five in this article linked)

Find a niche

Name it (they have provided this article for further reading)

2. Choose a format

I didn't think about this before I read this article, but there are different ways to present podcasts- the article mentions interview, cohosted, scripted non-fiction, news, educational, and scripted fiction (and I will provide audio drama help as I conduct my own research and get information from podcasters about it).

The article goes over the 'optimal' podcast episode length, with some statistics, but the only thing that seems to be important they put in the first sentence: "Make your episodes as long as they need to be and no longer."

They also talk about an episode release schedule, with more stats.

3. Set up recording equipment

Of course they talk about microphones, including another article all about that aspect of podcasting, but apparently there are different types of microphones. I never knew that. They go somewhat in-depth about the different kinds, so I'll leave the technical reading to you.

4. Choose software

The article also talks about different software, from recording to editing. They give a few different options in the article, with links to each. I'm not sure if they get commissions based on how many people click through, so I'll leave you to go there to give them some love.

5. Record your first episode.

The article further breaks the process into smaller steps.

A) Write an outline (with further reading that includes templates)

B) Pick your recording room wisely

Before Sydney's post, I didn't know that sound travels different off of hard and soft surfaces, though I guess in retrospect I should have figured (echos in canyons, for example). I didn't realize it would make a big difference, but I guess it does.

C) Connect your equipment and set up your software

This is important- make sure you hit 'record' and everything's plugged in, folks.

D) Microphone technique

If you're going to speak into a microphone, learn to do it right.

E) Test different recording styles

Test for quality.

6. Edit

They provide an article for further reading. In the main article, they break it into broad steps.

A) Make sure the intro and outro are engaging

Hook the listener right away.

B) Edit for content, then everything else.

Start with big cuts, then move smaller.

C) Fade between tracks

Apparently, cutting audio can sometimes make clicks and pops in the recording. Who knew?

D) Create a punch list

I guess this is a to-do list.

Then when all that's done, you export it! They throw a bit of technical jargon at you (what the heck is an ID3 tag?) but thankfully, it seems to be fairly simple with this podcasting host site. I'm not sponsored by them, it just seems easy enough for beginners.

7. Create podcast artwork.

They also include five tips for that.

A) Visually communicate the subject

B) Design for a variety of sizes

C) Don't use too many words or fonts

D) Avoid 'podcast imagery' (microphones, for example)

E) Keep your brand consistent

They provide a few sites for people to create artwork, so that's cool.

8. Set up podcast hosting

To be honest, this confused the Hell out of me. But there are a few videos about it they linked at the end of the step, so feel free to read the full article and watch them.

9. Get listed in podcast directories

More technical stuff, but I guess that you need the last step- hosting- to actually get onto Spotify or Apple podcasts or any other site/app.

10. Launch and grow

The article goes over two ways to launch- grand and soft- and a few other things like imposter syndrome. It talks about seven marketing tips.

A) Tell friends and family

B) Create a buzzsprout ad

C) Post episodes on social media

D) Join groups and forums

E) Cross-promote with other podcasters

F) Overcast ads

G) Create a call to action

The article also recommends celebrating, and I'm always down for a celebration. Don't be embarrassed it's about your own achievements, or feel like it's needlessly self-congratulatory or self-centered. It seems like a ton of work, so give yourself some credit!

[stormyoceans]

what's the song that plays during glasshouse also is it possible to share a list of songs/music that's not known much in the series

NOBODY MOVE THIS IS MY TIME I HAVE AN EXCUSE TO MAKE A MASTERPOST OF THE VICE VERSA SOUNDTRACK AKA THEE BEST SOUNDTRACK IN TELEVISION HISTORY SO WITHOUT FURTHER ADO HERE WE GO!!!!!!!!!!

OFFICIAL OST

have i found – sea tawinan

the key – jimmy jitaraphol, sea tawinan

complicated – indy thanathat

by my side – jimmy jitaraphol

madly in love – jimmy jitaraphol, sea tawinan

INSERT SONGS

miracle – sofa [it’s the one that puen sings at the bar in episode 2 and that talay sings back to him at the beach in our skyy episode 2]

love – paradox [talay sings an acoustic version of it to puen in episode 6]

city – three man down [hourglass hug in episode 12] (SORRY BUT THIS WILL ALWAYS BE A PUENTALAY SONG TO ME)

INSTRUMENTALS

actually let me just say something real quick before moving on: this is by no means a comprehensive list as 1) i’ve decided to leave out the upbeat tracks to focus on the more emotional and meaningful ones, 2) i’ve put only the ones that were recognized by two different music identifier apps, and 3) there are genuinely SO MANY instrumental songs in this show and they can change SO QUICKLY (only in the glasshouse scene at the end of episode 4 they used 5 different tracks ;;;;;; [AND YOU CAN BET I PUT THEM ALL IN THIS LIST]) so it’s hard to recognize every single one of them. i definitely missed a lot and i also didn't specify all the scenes you can find a specific song in, but hopefully this still can be a good starting point.

speak without words – we dream of eden, christopher galovan [puen wearing the bucket hat in episode 1]

the echo of you – at the end of time, nothing [‘what if i have a problem one day? who should i go to?’ ‘me.’ in episode 2 // 'don't tell me after spending time together, we turn out to be each other's portkeys.' 'if it's you, i'm okay.' in episode 3]

beautiful days, faraway – itay kashti [drunken kiss in episode 2]

i love clouds - rymdklang soundtracks ['to be my wife, you must endure.' in episode 2]

once every 20 years – at the end of times, nothing [talay and puen meeting at the park in episode 2 // nivea bathtub scene (my beloved) in episode 3 // greyllery kiss in episode 8 // beach kiss in our skyy episode 2]

shooting star – rachel meyer [puen repeating a line from the movie to talay in episode 3 // talay under the rain in episode 4 // ‘do we get along well?’ in episode 7]

elusive dream – at the end of time, nothing [shy puen in episode 4 // snow falling in episode 5]

distant echo - jakob ahlbom [puen and talay drawing on each other's back in episode 4 // talay saying what he missed about puen in episode 6 // 'where there's you, there's me.' in episode 8 // puen giving talay the friend credits folder and shirt in episode 12]

wind land – TURPAK [‘so? will they fall in love?’ ‘i guess they will.’ in episode 4 // puen directing talay in episode 8]

holding on to hope – christopher galovan [‘are you hitting on anyone right at the moment?’ in episode 4 // puen and talay recreating a scene from their movie in episode 9]

flight of the inner bird – yehezkel raz, sivan talmor [‘how about we fall in love with each other?’ in episode 4]

pulchra – at the end of times, nothing [‘been waiting for you’ in episode 4]

and they call me daddy - christian andersen [puen apologizing to talay at the glasshouse in episode 4 // talay learning puen's past from pang in episode 9 // talay remembering puen singing to him in episode 11] (DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I HATE THAT PUEN SAYS 'sleep on daddy's lap here' WHILE THIS SONGS PLAYS IN THE BACKGROUND AND BY HATE I MEAN I WANT TO KISS PìX ON THE MOUTH)

love - ben winwood ['there's one more thing about the characters that i don't understand.' in episode 4] (GOES INSANE)

the ground after a summer rain - at the end of times, nothing [glasshouse kiss in episode 4] (GETS DRAGGED INTO A PADDED ROOM)

materialising – of water [puen asking talay to move in with him in episode 5 // puen hugging talay to sleep in episode 6]

glimmer light – amaranth cove [‘i freaking missed you’ in episode 6]

distant shores – amaranth cove [puen massaging talay's ear to sleep in episode 6 // talay reaching the secret island in episode 11]

you are the reason – francis wells [almost kiss in episode 7]

everything comes to an end – of water [talay leaving friend credits in episode 7 // 'where is the person who promised to go back with me?' in episode 9]

heavy clouds drawn back – be still the earth [talay meeting puen on the way to the secret island in episode 9]

the sky is no limit – at the end of times, nothing [bucket hat reveal in episode 9 // talay reading puen's 'wish' in episode 11 // 'without work, i can survive. without him, i can't.' in episode 12] (NEEDS TO BE HEAVILY SEDATED)

telekinesis – tellsonic [bathtub kiss in episode 10]

any given place – of water [talay at the glasshouse in episode 11]

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 2/21/2023

despite two sections clocking in at one sentence each, i had a lot of thoughts about a video game so this one is the normal creeping-up-on-2k-words length

listening

brian david gilbert's rgss must be presented without comment.

-

reading

earlier last year a regional gas station chain offered a whopping twenty five cents off per gallon. many terms and conditions applied. the one that made me scoff and delete the app right there at the pump was that location data had to be on at all times. not just when you were using the app or in a geofenced area around the gas stations, all the time. i hate people knowing where i am. i despise my data being sold. do not advertise to me. fuck off.

last year this made me briefly wonder about the loyalty programs i have with the regional supermarket chains, big y and stop & shop. i don't even want to think about whatever instacart was collecting on me much earlier in the pandemic. unfortunately i can choose not to drive as much but i really should not eat less and i do love a loss leader sale. and then i had to move again and forgot about it. earlier this week my favorite data scientists at The Markup dropped a...upsetting article on kroger's data practices, which can include in-store tracking, biometrics, facial recognition, and when shopping on kroger.com: "Third-party trackers send your product page views, search terms, and items that you have added to your shopping cart to Meta, Google, Bing, Pinterest, and Snapchat." did you know they have their own spinoff data company? for why, you might ask?

Experts told The Markup that companies that sell products in grocery stores don’t have much visibility into what happens after their items are placed on shelves. These brands want granular shopping data that only supermarkets have in order to gauge the success of the brands’ products. In recent years, this data has become harder to come by and therefore more valuable. 

i try very hard not to be be doom and gloom about tech bc reporting already tends toward the hysteric, and usually there is stuff i can do or a different option i can take to avoid a package of my data being sold and linked to other packages of my data. however, it is unrealistic to leave my phone at home and pay with cash, and financially i can't afford to opt out of these loyalty programs. sucks! sucks real bad! The Markup articles are pretty good at making the american senate take notice, but they are very slow and do not always fully understand tech abuses, bc their average age is sixty fuckin three.

-

watching

im ticking along in adventure time, in the middle of season six, the last real long season before we get down to twenty and fourteen episode seasons. there has been an amusing string of episodes where finn and jake aren't present or are only present briefly. this show will wander off to tell the most heartrending story about a character you will never see again, and this episode will stick with you for ten years.

ive also been looking at the fandom (i know) wiki page for each episode, bc why not, and it is a very funny fan wiki. a great deal of emphasis on animation errors with the caveats that maybe the miscolored arm of a princess in episode whatever actually means there's two princesses of that kingdom and we're only seeing the second one for the first time now. whenever the show references a classic work, the note in the wiki has the tone of "ugh this weird old thing why is my show making a joke about it". if an episode won an emmy (this show won fifteen emmys btw) it is usually the very last thing on the page bc that's not lore or errors or connections to other episodes why should you care??? either a very specific type of guy or a bunch of young teens wrote this. probably a bunch of young teens that grew up to be a very specific type of guy.

-

playing

thank u for all ur open world rpg recs, i think horizon zero dawn is the closest thing to what i want but i will probably end up playing Prey first (which has exactly one of the many qualities i want and is not open world even a little bit) bc it is a game i actually own. but im here to say i know im having a depressive episode when im listening to a lot of mother mother and playing f/allout 4. anyway we're back at it again in far harbor, which at least contains the most interesting storytelling in the game. can we all say hello to andre, bethesda's eleventh first gay character?

coming up on this drive-in theater with an incongruous neon heart looming out of the mist and spooky music plus screams from the horror movie trailer that's been playing on loop since the bombs dropped is SO fun. nothing on the mainland is quite this atmospheric. the fog really does heighten the fun of exploration. i know dead money did it first and better but this is less dire than dead money. usually.

also i forgot they're showing a western staring Legally Not Lee van Cleef if u switch the reels. this is not even getting into the delightful enemy encounter at this location bc i have a different location i want to talk about

GOD the MS Azalea (the one screenshot that isn't mine and is from the wiki) is so fun to run around. a rusted out, ripped in half cargo ship with five different sections (guardpost, top of ship, shipping container apartments on top of ship, inner sheltered harbor within ship and floating kitchen/pool table parlor, floating bar and clinic lashed to ship entered by swimming or elevator down from the top of the ship, sheltered harbor between two halves of the broken ship. each of these sections uses vertical space in interesting ways bc the ship is so fucking big. there is a straight up House underneath that boat. and everything feels very lived in, there's clutter and signs of life everywhere. these guys are just vibing with their little stores and their little apartments. a smarter game or a game with more time would have leaned into "you were sent to kill these guys by the townsfolk bc they felt threatened by an unaffiliated settlement" but alas. the trappers on the boat are just xp.

it is very funny that the lighthouse on the south end of the island refuses to load in properly, no matter where i am

this dlc, more than anything else in the game, actually does feel like my choices matter. i do the missions for the mariner and the barricade physically changes. i do enough fairly complex quest chains for enough of the town and they decide they like me enough to go build settlements. seeing the settlement fog condensers off in the distance from across the island feels very different from the mainland, where generally your settlement's buildings don't pop in until you're pretty fucking close.

i really don't care about how big the map is, i want the main game to be this dense and this bold in telling a stories, start to finish, that feel very interconnected and grounded to its location. i am feeling a little conflicted with my playtime, bc i gotta lotta fucking bones to pick with this game, but i am having fun with this dlc. part of it is "what if fallout/the rest of the game was good" and part of it is the depression making any scrap of delight feel weird. so it goes. february will end eventually.

-

making

did my taxes.

[richardsphere]

Leverage Redemption Log: The Muddy Waters Job

Penultimate episode, with a name that implies ambiguity and shady-ness (also potentially actual mud, EG: a company that's been deforesting a mountain and as a result destabilised it/removed the soils ability to absorb rain into treeroots and caused mudslides that killed people.)

Yeah this is definitly gonna be a 2-part finale in disguise, ending on some kind of cliffhanger. (knowing the show, and how they've kept teasing "harry is still keeping secrets" and "Harry's old firm still kind of wants him back cause he's good at being evil" im gonna say, probably ends with Harry "defecting" to team Evil again, only for the finale to do a Trojan Horse reveal). --- Little Modern-day Romeo and Juliet scene? Unfortunately as Juliet descends of the balcony she is shocked to find a kidnapper? Well that is awkward.

Romeo runs in front of the Would-be-kidnappers car and makes him crash it (he's dead now). --- Ok so I dont watch Who, but my family does and I get the references. (do wonder if they ever get in trouble cause people assume its an obviously fake name, or if they just "Parents agreed mom gets to name the odd-number children and dad the evens."-splain it away)

Also why is Hardison using the presumably female River Song ID?

Teddy Bear, Sophies Personal Irregulars are making a return (or at least one of them is). So this is gonna be one of those "is she re-retiring" plotlines.

Wait... Julliet is Harry's daughter? (Alsoi thought his daughter was a "Nick?"-name, not saying he cant have multiple kids or anything, but its weird to have a second kid dropped on us?) Any way "Becky" is confiding in her dad (apparently a child-tracking app works both ways. Normally i'd complain about parents violating childrens privacy, but the dad in question used to be a billionaire's personal lawyer, the kind of person who makes enemies that may have a desire to put pressure on him to "fail" in his job. So with her being a particularly high-risk kidnapping target. Im gonna say he's justified in putting it there, but not necessarily in trying to be sneaky about it)

Ethan and Ex-wife (Maybe she is Nick? Was he on the phone with his wife talking about his daughter in the christmas special instead of talking to his daughter?)

--- Ethan is the CEO of an oil company. Im sorry Harry you have some splaining to do if you want us to trust this guy. (Presumeably Harry is right and its the "not so good" members of the company trying to coup him)

Harry thinks its a competitor trying to get GulfOil to go back to being Black after it started a pivot to Green. (absolutely not, its an inside job)

Harry, I get that you are presenting this stuff the way you'd present a case (Story first, disclosure second) but this is definitly a "disclosure first" case. Also Breanna is on Strike, (minor note to the writers: Parker should know that striking is an option. IE: Hardison in the Gold Job)

Ok admittedly not a good look for Harry to be trying and get Sophie to Scab on Breanna as a hacker. --- Parker and Elliot arrive to the interogation mid-assasination. (my guess: the man isnt an assasin or kidnapper, he's an attempted whistleblower trying to reach Ethan)

Ok guy in a suit showed up with his grandkid, says that would-be-assasinee works for him against his (the employer's) will. --- Suit is a lawyer working pro-bono to deal with the oil spill. Vantons kid has leukemia from Benzene (oil) poisoning the groundwater after a hurricane caused a mudslide (muddy water).

Ethan isnt the good man Harry thinks he is, he's just a PR Guy.

"every bit of data is in the hands of the legal team", and there we have our motive for Harry to turn Trojan Horse. Be part of Legal Team=Get the Data. Harry's gonna double-check Ethan, (he still has faith in his ex-wife's husband) Wife's name is grace (Seriously am I misremembering a Nick? I swear that was the name he used on the phone). Parker is waitstaff, (classic Bard and Rogue)

Ethan insists that though he'd love to pay her a check legal refused (also insists they do have the wrong company. I think this might be the number 6 job again. Good Corpo being forced by Bad Corpo.

Better encryption then expected, little stall here. ("gonna have to card you" is a great compliment if you're old enough) Sophie is gonna go after the evidence,

Legal doesnt actually have real data. All they have is doctored stuff. (real data is on probably the oil rig, the less people know your crime, the less potential for whistleblowers) The question is still if Ethan knows.

And there it is, "he lied to my face", fucking damnit. Im gonna be honest, im a bit dissapointed there, Like i get we need a bad guy and we're too far into the episode to make it anyone but Ethan without having to do a really late character introduction but man... I really hoped we'd get a non-evil stepparent. We need more good stepparent representation in media. Its a hard position, with strange powerdynamics as you try to fill an already semi-taken chair at the dinnertable and figure out the role of parent to a child. (remember, most parents have 2-3 years of learning opportunity before the kid forms their first permanent memory, stepparents have to figure it out from scratch while the kid is already old enough to know what it's like to be alive. Now imagine having that struggle in a world where the only cultural referenceframe a kid has for "stepparent" is Lady Tremaine and you can see why we need more examples of good stepparents in media)

--- So... Breanna can just see into Elliots flash-forward imagination sequence? Also the fact that our formula-mandated once-an-episode Elliot fightscene is taking place in a hypothetical flash-forward tells me the mission is gonna go way South. Like "hey look how flamable this chemical accelerant pumping station is" type of "goes south". --- Harry is watching his daughters house. Talk about morality being seperate from legality, honour amongst thieves. --- Back on the Rig, Parker is shocked to find that Breanna's never been on a helicopter before.

Maria calls Elliot (i thought phones werent allowed on the rig?) and they talk relationship status. (another thing that is gonna go South before the end of this two-part finale)

Harry is talking with Grace. Elliot is asking Parker for relationship advice (she's shocked to be considered an authority)

Sophie discovers that the time limit is 1 hour, not multiple days, and unfortunately the rest of the team is out of celular reach.

Ok so personal phones arent allowed but Satelite Phone is. Good to know. Nice improv conversation. --- Elliot suprised to find he doesnt have a dozen mooks to punch, mysterious stranger aproaches from behind: his cover is blown. Harry and Sophie are trying to figure out a way to stall for time. Elliot ready to knock heads, finds a "you're a dad"-party held for him. (most heartwarming heist-complication in the history of the show)

The look on Parker's face when she realises how Sophie just accidentally solved ALL of their problems by clearing every worker from every station except the cameras.

"rewire this whole place so we can send it back", you mean open up all the electrical wiring, posibly causing a bunch of sparks and setting the entire rig ablaze? Bad Plan. --- The Raw Data doesnt exist because the machine mucks the math at the source. (Thats... suspicious? Are we sure Ethan is evil? Cause at this point all evidence we have of him being evil is "Harry thinks that Ethan has a tell)

Why in the hell do they have a CAMERA POINTED AT THE LEAK. So im fairly certain that this might technically count as a discovery violation. But also this is now clearly publicly available information.

The judge agrees that this evidence is unproven, and insists that though it cannot prove guilt it defintly means that the defenses assertions ("they havent been able to prove a causal link" is not correct. This opens us up to further discovery.)

No Sophie, that is not what this means. This means that they're about to destroy the evidence before the Department of Whatever Governing Body Is Responsible can find it by destroying the oilrig. (its a single old rig tapping into a drying well. It would be more profitable to write it off as a loss and blow it sky high then risk hundreds of multi-million dollar suits)

Ok so was Harry doing this to get back with his wife? I dont think so, i think he's trying to redeem himself to be worthy of his daughter, wife doesnt count into it. He's just legitimately shocked at his wife's apathy to her new husbands evil. (but then, she married you so... maybe she's just got a taste for bad people.)

Breanna with the video, goddamn man. Props to the writers for using the fight-scene subversion to make us personally like the people who just died. These might be the first post-leverage victims in the shows entire run. --- Harry is at RIZ playing presenting himself as a Trojan Horse.

[causewhywouldnti]

My thoughts as I’m watching 24 seasons of law & order svu: (and oc)

Season 24

OC 3x01, Turf war. Always good to see Benson and Stabler together, even if only for a short scene.

24x01, I’m enjoying this crossover! Stabler doesn't use this soft voice enough. Benson handling Stabler well. Did Benson and Stabler need to clear the floor together? No, but I don't mind. I was a bit disappointed with the ending of the third part.

24x02, why does everyone gotta dump on Stabler?!?

24x05, I really like Carisi and Rollins together.

Shallow observation: Benson’s hair is really pretty this season.

OC 3x07, don’t know how Eli is in College already…

OC 3x08, Stabler, actually admitted to someone that he is in love. Jet’s disappointment at getting her thunder stolen is real.

24x09, Rollisi wedding! (Kinda surprised the kids weren't at the actual wedding) I get that Noah is really excited to have met his brother, but I do feel a bit bad about Benson. Rollins asking Benson the real questions. I think that’s the first time the show made me actually emotional about a character leaving!

OC 3x09, Stabler is definitely the one taking charge here!

24x10, don’t really get why Benson doesn't go inside with Noah… I’m sorry, but I like that dude shutting Benson down, when she tries to get the DNA fast-tracked.

OC 3x10, I don’t know why, but I think Stabler is funny. Stabler is talking about Benson, right?

24x11, Benson screaming at the rape tree had me laughing. It's just such a weird thing to do…

24x12, brutal end for Duarte. The kitchen scene between Benson and Stabler!!

OC 3x12, he should have just called Benson… he didn't want to go along with that cop at all, until she name-dropped Benson.

24x13, Fin and Benson's conversation about stray puppies was fun.

24x15, Benson apologizing to Pence because he wasn't the one who killed his wife… the end with her reading "king of the moon" was really sweet.

OC 3x15, I always like it, when we get a bit of background on Stabler.

24x16, Go Carisi!!! Finally, a good court scene, I feel like we didn't see a lot of court scenes this season.

24x17, Benson playing babysitter at work. I think this episode actually really showed Benson as Captain rather than Detective.

OC 3x17, the ending with Stabler and Eli was cute.

OC 3x18, the description for Stablers fake dating app is awesome. Especially everyone's reaction to it.

24x19, Benson saying "the only thing worse than a partner with no loyalty, is a partner with blind loyalty." is ironic, like do you remember your partnership with Stabler and the absolute blind loyalty you had to each other? (Not that I mind their blind loyalty)

OC 3x19, Bernie is back!

OC 3x20, well hello there Kathy.

24x21, I still really like Carisi, don’t feel like he got enough screen time. Finally, Benson and Stabler back together! Those two just know how to act, especially together.

OC 3x21, Protelliot! As if Stabler would protect the case over Benson. Just want to point out, that that particular Umlaut is not a German one… OC has a lot of small, funny, random moments that I really enjoy. Last episode it was Stabler and Bell having to lean over the counter, this episode it's Reyes enjoying his free sandwich. Rollins! What’s with the clips of real life criminals?

24x22, so here’s the thing, I watched this episode before I started to watch the actual show. But it is kinds nice to actually know who these people are and what’s going on. McGrath really hasn't gotten any better… the Churlish Muncy friendship has been a highlight for me this season. I just love that whole take out scene (doesn't matter that I’ve already watched it a ton). I think Benson had a higher bounty on her head before.

OC 3x22, have watched this episode before as well. The Diner scene!! Stabler didn't necessarily need to carry Benson outside, but I’m really happy he did. The hospital scene!!! Sad to lose Whelan. Also, that poor Medic, was there really just one Medic?!? Like, the poor girl had to run like a mad woman. The ornament and the compass!!! That ending was just really sweet!

I kinda missed the villains whose storylines would play out over a (half) season on OC. SVU had a lot of cast changes and I didn't really care for any one of them. But I did enjoy Churlish and Muncy teaming up.

I’m a little disappointed on how little Benson/Stabler interactions there were this season compared to the two before. At least, there were three crossovers.

Mostly, I can’t believe I actually managed to binge both shows before they come back. Because it was not looking good for that goal the week before Christmas. And I even have a week to spare!

Favorite Episodes: OC 3x09, OC 3x21, 24x22, OC 3x22

Favorite Lines:

"I did feel like Stabler was my home." Benson 24x09

"There's nobody that I trust more to bring my son home in one piece than Stabler." Benson 24x12

"I wish I could bottle this." Stabler 24x22 (don’t we all)

*Lead you to happiness, Liv." Stabler OC 3x22

[iantimony]

tuesday!

hello tuesday :) i'm going to start crossposting these onto my dreamwidth also just so i have a non-tumblr log of my weekly updates. please friend me on dreamwidth i would love an excuse to move platforms more

listening: OH i listened to SO much this week. i tuned in to my spotify release radar thing and it was a great idea to get exposed to some new music from artists i already know i like! i also peeped the discover weekly one a bit

i haven't listened to the newest paramore album in full but 'running out of time' was on the release radar playlist and i really really like the sounds! it feels very st vincent-y to me in a way that i wasn't expecting from paramore so i wonder if that was a conscious influence at all? or if they were both separately influenced by the same sources? it's really good though. i dont remember following shakey graves but they also rule i've been jamming to the whole album 'deadstock' which i think is just a collection of some of their more popular tracks? plus some live recordings. and tom rosenthal makes me cry still

from discover:

and then i found memi through...instagram reels i think? instagram has unfortunately nailed the type of music they should serve me to get clicks so i do. keep clicking them. anyways i love her

reading: quantum :V

oh wait actually i do have reading this week! i re-opened the slowly app (i downloaded it years ago but stopped using it at some point), which is a real-time penpal app - you can send letters to random people in the world, and it will send in "real time" as if you were actually mailing a letter! so i opened it and the app went oh? you're active? cool! and i started getting letters! so i got one from a guy in morocco, which i replied to right away, and also one in mandarin which i have NOT replied to right away because i had to spend like an hour translating it rip. out of five i put my mandarin proficiency at a 2 on my profile but honestly that may be too high oops. ah well. it'll be cool to try and get my mandarin back up to snuff! it'll also be a great way to learn things like idioms and other stuff that doesn't show up as often in traditional learning materials.

for example, phrase that i learned is 畅所欲言, chang4 suo3 yu4 yan4, which is a standard four-character idiom that means to speak without inhibitions or to just frankly speak your mind. i have like a full two pages of new words and phrases that i had to look up to read the letter which is awesome!

the letter from morocco was very cool and like...poetry adjacent? which im not sure if it's just because of a translation quirk - he said his english isn't the best - but i dunno. "I am writing to you because writing is a companion of the tired". anyways.

watching: i started watching evangelion with my partner!! we did ... i think about five episodes last week? it owns. this is the first time in a really long time that i've, like...gone blind into a media? my only exposure to eva has been through out-of-context memes (shinji get in the robot) and i feel like a lot of the time with TV shows i tend to read the wikipedia page before watching to see if it's really worth it :") i've never really cared about spoilers or whatever because honestly if it's a good enough show it won't really matter if i know what's going to happen or not, it's more about How it happens and how it's shot/framed/acted/etc. but i have zero context for eva and im very much enjoying it! i wasn't expecting the body horror at all it rules

making: making good progress on my embroidery project! this photo is from about two weeks ago but it's the most recent one i have and honestly haven't done THAT much more. i just finished filling that vertical headphone cord in with red, started some other headphone cord...after that all i have left is the letters (rip) and then doing maybe some sort of sashiko stitch/cross hatching as fill for the hair? like some spaced out x patterns in a grid or something like that. because i'm sure as shit not doing a satin or brick stitch to fill all that in and i think it'll still look good that way.

im also finishing up valentines gifts to mail to people :3

misc: hgg. quantum midterm on march 2. it is Rapidly approaching and im very nervous about it but in a VERY different way - this semester he's having the exams be open note and open book, which could be really good or really really bad. on the plus side i dont have to drive myself insane memorizing equations on flash cards again, most of my studying will probably be uber-familiarizing myself with the layout of the notes so i know where to reference things and also copying out things from online that might be relevant. on the minus side it means i have really no clue on how hard this exam will be. pain.

research is going. i feel like im sooo close to getting shit to work. however i am also experiencing research fomo because a prof that i didnt even know existed gave a presentation on her group for potential new students and i went wait wow that fucks. sigh. i think that's all for this week gang, gonna crosspost to dreamwidth after lunch!

[ashesandhackles]

are any there themes, motifs, phrases, symbols, narrative devices or anything else that come up multiple times in different stories you've written? what are they, and why do you think they recur in your work?

dreams have cropped up in Toys in the Attic, never really gave up on you, not really, and Innocence. It is also there in another Remus WIP I am doing with @thecat-isblogging-blog and @shes-a-gryffindor where we hope to track Remus' journey through dreams and what he doesn't say. It's a very effective and surreal device when your characters have turned inward (Ginny, Tonks) or have very rich interior lives.

It should be of no surprise that I also have very vivid dreams, and sometimes I note them down in my note app (which is full of some weird pointers xD) or I share the funnier ones with my friends:

Or:

I think using dreams/sleeping as a device is an influence from Cowboy Bebop, an anime with extremely understated writing that I love. Dreams are a way to coalesce images from past and present to process emotions for characters. It is also connected to death (and for me personally, my depressive episodes), another strong theme in my work. As a quote from Cowboy Bebop goes, "I'm not afraid of death. It just means dreaming in silence. A dream that lasts for eternity. "

Moments leading up to death (Regulus-centric Inferius or Peter centric Black Death) , and grief over death where a character hangs in absence between two people is something that comes up very strongly in Beyond the Veil, Toys in the Attic and Death, A Thief, An Old Friend. (an exploration of Harry and Hermione's narrative positions in the series with regard to Death) and my dsyfunctional George and Angelina : La Petit Mort

I think all of this is morbid obsession with death, and grief is something we have all experienced that we need outlet to pour ourselves into.

Then there is narrative mirrors and confrontation of shadow selves, but I think this would only be obvious to people who read my longer work, but it's something @thecat-isblogging-blog pointed out to me because she articulated this better: "It's character exploration through relationships. Your fics discover who someone is not by their own inner monologue but about how they push someone's buttons. You try to dig into how far they can push another character until they've both reached their limit.

I get a sense that the characters you choose would get bored with someone who didn't react the way they needed. Your writing pairs are of course characters that are hurting but also characters that are on the border of finding ways to heal (not always in the right way). But in the way they know how.So Ashes your writing vibes are two types: capturing characters that are passing anger and reaching the solitary self-discovery. Or, character pairings that bounce off of each other until they break."

Anger (with self loathing) is something I enjoy writing through characters. Whether it's Snape, Sirius or even Remus.

Sirius + Snape is very obviously a vehicle for a lot of anger I carry. I channel a lot through them, and I write Sirius most from a place of rage. He is the easiest for me to write. There are times he just shows up in stories when I don't mean for him to. XD

Remus is a new fun addition - I love to explore discrimination through him, and how much he has to hide his anger. He has been a joy to discover this way, and I like giving him that edge!

[animeraider]

New music this week from J. Robbins, who dropped the best album so far this year, The Warning, Big Big Train, Grandaddy, Sean Ono Lennon, English Teacher, The Dandy Warhols (with Slash), lovelytheband, some older dudes from Seattle and much more. Enjoy!

Let's see if I can get through this week without getting a ban for language, shall we?

ROTATING OUT: SONGS LEAVING RADIO FREE CALIFORNIA

This means the music that is aging out is from Radio Free California Episode 2308. This includes music from Screaming Females, PONY, Nickel Creek, P!nk, AJ & Aly, Shounen Knife, @, Joe Louis Walker, and so much more, plus even I show up.

We celebrate these songs with a new show that will play on Saturdays at 11am and again at 5pm PST. We will say goodbye to the songs that are now a year on the playlist with one last broadcast, which will be repeated a couple of times during the day.

You can of course still listen to this music - my playlists are still on spotify and you can find them here. They're all searchable as well.

ALBUM SHOW NOTES

This week on The Album Ahow was a no brainer for me. I have been a fan of J. Robbins going all the way back to when he was the lead guitarist for Jawbox, which is shockingly now 30 years ago. He has a new album out called "Basilisk" and to my mind it's the best album out so far this year. I added 5 tracks from it to the radio station rotation, and feel that everyone should give the album a listen. So we will feature the entire 11 song album this week on the Album Show.

The Album Show will run this Thursday February 22nd at 9am and 9pm Pacific Standard Time.

RFC 2407

For those of you who stay away from Spotify this playlist will be played this Wednesday February 21st at 2am, 6am, 10am, 2pm and 6pm PST. All of the songs I feature on Radio Free California are played as part of the regular rotation. .If you want to hear the songs we've added to the station this week you can use the Spotify playlist above or you can listen to this show.

10 at 10

One last programming note: Every Sunday at 10am and again at 10pm we will feature our show "10 at 10", where we play 10 (and sometimes 11 or even 12!) songs from a year we pick at random. Again, all times are PST. Last week we featured a selection of songs from 1996 and for next Sunday's show we're going to feature a small selection of songs from.. well you'll have to tune in to find out!

As always, you can go to https://global.citrus3.com:2020/public/radiofreecalifornia to listen to the station, and there is an imbed below. And did you know the station is available as an app? It's only for Google Play (sorry iphone users - Apples terms and conditions were too restrictive for me) but you can listen on your phone at your convenience too.

[multiple-authors]

31 August 2023

Last day of summer. Yesterday felt like the first day of Autumn. I started new job with artist yesterday. Working more than full-time between that job and restaurant job over next month. Leaning into what I'm grateful for despite chaos.

Notes from trip last Friday evening on my own: - Delete Instagram app from phone, download and log in when I am posting something or online intentionally. Reply to messages intentionally. Don't always be looking at the work of others. Can still post regularly. -Simplify as much as possible when learning anatomy, when using quick hand for imagination. -Lean into character writing (camera/writing/nose-eyes motif). Show own subjectivity int he work. Narrative scenes, we are playing characters, mirroring each other, small scenes/episodes à la Ida Lissner. Action man/something similar. -Reduce outside media consumption, if the self today equates to what we consume -Stop reducing myself and do the work -Superiority complex -> my suffering is greater than yours -Create soundscapes, thunderstorms -Choreograph in the mind's eye like a child imaging dance routines -I can simulate whatever I want in my mind's eye -I seem to be explaining myself to others at all times only so they feel more at ease; more focussed on reducing my own negative emotions than my own, if I don't reply for example. -Everything happened in a second -Everything is a retelling of the same thing -Enter the non-seeing world, seeing world is only one lens of everything, go to other realities and bring back the answers I find - theme park and animal crossing -silly little scene then raindrop drips off -tampered memory

Summarised -Reduce over consumption: delete Instagram from phone, download and log in when posting or intentionally replying to messages. Don't always need to be looking at the work of others, can still post regularly. The self today equates to what we consume -Stop reducing myself and do the work. The blame game doesn't work. Superiority complex -> my suffering is greater than yours (death drive; e-flux) ----- This doesn't work. -Visual work categorised into three projects: small soaking wet scenes/episodes painted in oils (like Ida Lissner in episode/scene quality), small narrative scenes in ink/coloured pencil (playing characters, like ST, Goya caprichos/small wet paintings, JBB), larger oil paintings incorporating both elements. Work should have dramatic lighting, multiple light sources, theatre sets, game simulation. -Write one essay about soaking wet before end of 2023. Read artist manifestos, artist memoir, blogs and diaries, read critical theory. Pop cultural excerpts -Write stream of consciousness about characters for fictional piece. Diary entry, letters, from the perspective of multiple characters (can be more-than-human). Motive: Empathy; breakdown of singular, concrete power structure; chaos; mutability of character; manifestation, reality creation, visualisation; mirroring, doppelgänger, reflections, horizons, portals; time, history, memory. -Soundscapes project. Start making small tracks easy. -I can simulate anything. I can simulate anything I want in my mind's eye. Enter the non-seeing world, seeing world is only one lens of everything, go to other realities and bring back the answers I find

Is this excessive note-taking, documentation, summarisation... an exercise with the intention to control?

[bella-studyblr]

Task Management:

Creating + Maintaining a Schoolwork Schedule

Key elements

Your schedule suits your individual time/task management preferences.

It is flexible enough to accommodate sudden changes, plus fluctuating energy levels, states of concentration, symptoms and moods.

Daily tasks are not over-whelming; they are small enough that they are achievable.

You do not get “burned out.”

It allows you to be consistent.

Steps to create your schedule

Decide if you want your planner to be paper or digital

Find an “order” that’s logical and achievable for you (more on this later)

Refer to your addendum/syllabus and write down all the assignments, tests and other events taking place that week/month (and their due-dates).

Then break these down, assigning tasks to each day of the week (more on this later).

Break down your tasks even further (more on this later).

Decide if you want to follow a simple daily to-do list or a timed schedule (more on this later).

Find your “order(s)”

Mandatory: Schedule assignments around other commitments (work, social, hobbies, etc.).

Do the hardest task first to get it out of the way (so that the rest of your tasks are less daunting, and because your smaller tasks require less energy therefore can be done even after completing the hard task).

Do the easiest task first to build momentum (give yourself a feeling of accomplishment which will motivate you to continue, and boost your self-confidence early in the day to establish a positive mindset for the rest of the day).

Do the task that’s due first to minimize deadline stress, and so your assignments don’t fall through the cracks (causing you to get discouraged and lose momentum).

Plan according to your energy level throughout the day and week: Do you have Pilates once a week? Maybe you can reserve that day for easier assignments. If you know you’re going to be tired for whatever reason, account for that in your planning.

Consider your state of concentration: If you know you’re too groggy or spaced out for the first hour of your day, you can either schedule easy tasks in that time, or none at all. If you take a medication in the afternoon/evening that makes you tired, schedule easier tasks or none, and get harder tasks done earlier/later in the day. If you have ADHD and crowded places mess with your concentration, but you like studying at a café, go when it’s not busy.

Be mindful of your emotions and symptoms: If you have depression, or are prone to depressive episodes, you’ll need to consider that when scheduling. You might have to rework your entire schedule when you get into a depressive episode (like adding lots of breaks). If suddenly you’re going through a big life event (like a breakup), you need to account for that when scheduling. For instance, if you can’t stand to be alone, maybe you can go out instead of staying in, and if your motivation is low, you may need to up your reward-system or break down your tasks even more.

Break down this week/month’s tasks

Refer to your addendum/syllabus and write down all your due dates for the time period you’re scheduling for.

Based on due dates, outside commitments, predictions of energy/mood/symptoms, assign assignments to the days of the week/month that make most sense for you.

Break down daily tasks into sub-tasks

You can do this (in advance) for your full week/month’s assignments, or do it every morning/evening.

Generally, your assignments will follow a variation of this formula: brainstorm, create an outline, research, write rough draft, edit and revise. Test/exam prep will look something like: check to see what the test is based on, pinpoint important sections, review to see how well you know the material, create a list of items to study, rewrite select notes, make flash cards, study topic 1, study topic 2, etc.

What are the individual components of these steps? Here are some examples. Brainstorm: what should my topic be, what should my thesis be, what points can support my thesis, what do I need to research, what questions do I need to ask my prof? Outline: topic, thesis, points, conclusion. Research: write down all the important parts from each source (separately), then sift through to sort into Supporting Point 1, Supporting Point 2, etc. Rough draft: opening statement(s), intro, point 1, point 2, etc., conclusion, closing statement(s). Edit/revise: read and check for grammar only, then read again and check for spelling only, read again and check for cohesiveness only, etc. Topic 1: Part A, Part B, etc.

Each of these small components can be individual items on your to-do list. Big tasks like, “write essay” are too big for most people. Even “write rough draft” is daunting. If you start with something specific and small like brainstorming, and work your way up, it’s a lot easier to approach. Plus, being able to check off tasks more often and more easily will boost your confidence and your sense of competence, thus building momentum.

Here is a sample to-do list: Research X for Point 1 of Literary Essay, create outline for History Essay, Edit/Revise Assignment 1, study Topic 1 and Topic 2 for Test 1.

To-do list or time-based schedule?

To do list: Write down all your assignments for the day. Put them in the order you want to do them, or go through them intuitively (based on what you feel like doing, or what’s most practical at the time/place you’re at).

Timed-based: Write down all your assignments, then write down the time you’re going to do each of them. You could set reminders or alarms if you want, or simply refer to the list. There’s an awesome app I recommend if this is your thing. It’s called Structured (iOS only).

Curate your study environment for maximum focus

Eliminate distractions such as uncomfortable clothing, sounds (or silence), phone and computer notifications, clutter in the room and on your desk, people who may try to talk to you (shut your door and/or inform them that you’re busy).

Designate a space to doing homework only and avoid spaces that you associate with other things (do not study in bed, as you will want to relax or sleep, and/or you will mess with your sleep by weakening the bed’s association with sleep).

Build associations: Incorporate other events and items into your study/homework routine that you only use while doing that, so that you associate those things with studying/homework (examples: specific playlists, pencils/pens, cups/bottles, scents, rituals, decor, etc.).

Ensure good lighting (preferably including daylight).

Get dressed in clothes that make you feel good about yourself. They don’t have to be “professional” and they should definitely be comfortable. Do not stay in your pyjamas. Believe me, I know this can be hard, and I love PJ’s. But they are not good for productivity.

Don’t “multi-task.” It may feel like you’re getting more done this way, but by splitting your focus, not only do tasks take longer, they also diminish in quality. Commit to the task you’re doing.

Meditate: You can even meditate for just 1-5 mins right before studying, homework and/or classes.

Practice self care (daily!)

Sleep (enough, well, and regularly).

Daylight: Get outside, work by windows, use a light therapy box. These can help regulate your sleep, improve and maintain mental health, and boost energy.

Fresh air: Getting outside even for a couple minutes can help you refresh and reset, and feel good about yourself and your life. Fresh oxygen can help you wake up and is great for your health. Even just opening your window can do a lot for your mood, energy and motivation.

Movement: Try to move at least once per day. The benefits of exercise are numerous and immense.

Healthy and consistent eating: Avoid spikes in insulin levels by eating regularly so you don’t have extreme dips in your energy level. Also, brain power uses calories too, so make sure you’re eating consistently, and try to eat healthy. There are so many other reasons eating consistently is good for your health (and by extension, your productivity).

Relaxation and leisure: Make time for fun and socializing, as well as intentional relaxation. Hobbies, movies/tv, time with friends/family, meditation, baths, progressive muscle relaxation, etc.

Therapy: Your therapy sessions are not daily, but you can do 5 minutes of inner-work per day based on what you and your therapist are currently working on. Working with a therapist is a great way to stay on track with your goals, and develop the skills and positive mindset required for success in school.

Reward yourself

Track progress: Reflect on all the assignments you’ve completed and your grades to remind yourself that you’re capable!

Completing to-do lists daily maintains a sense of accomplishment which keeps your momentum going. Check those items off! Or give yourself gold stars! ⭐️

Treat yourself with non-food rewards: Tie completed school work with fun tasks like video games, or take yourself out for coffee, or some other small (non-food) outing. What I’m trying to do right now is not do my leisure activities until my daily tasks are done.

Develop a positive mindset

Take promises you make to yourself seriously. The more you break promises to yourself, the easier it will get to continue breaking promises. You will lose respect for yourself which lowers motivation, and you will lose trust in yourself which can become debilitating as well. The more you keep promises, the easier it will get, the more motivated you’ll become, and the more you’ll trust and respect yourself. Your confidence will improve, and you’ll feel better about yourself. Productivity is choosing yourself. Discipline is choosing what’s best for you instead of what you feel like doing in the moment. Discipline is a muscle, and like any muscle, it can be strengthened, and it can atrophy.

Remember your “why.” What is the end goal of being in school? What’s your career path, and why did you choose it? What will your life be like when you have that career? What would your life be like if you gave up and didn’t make it to your goal? Aiming for your dream while running from your nightmare is a great strategy for maintaining motivation. Lighting a fire under your *** can be a huge motivator.

Remember how good you feel when you get schoolwork done, and let this motivate you to stay consistent. You can also remember how you feel when you don’t get work done, but definitely focus more on the positive!

Go to therapy and/or hire a coach. There are SO many benefits to therapy and I’d honestly need a whole other post to get into it. You don’t need to be depressed or mentally ill at all in order to benefit from talking to a therapist. They can even help you with time management, procrastination, motivation and more! If you can afford it, please do it. It’s such a worthwhile investment.

Be consistent

No “zero days.” Do at least a bit of homework or studying every day so you don’t slip into vacation mode. Make schoolwork a daily part of your life, so it just becomes the norm.

Build productivity momentum (track progress, check items off your to-do list daily, treat yourself, keep promises to yourself, remember your “why,” remember how success feels).

Stay on top of projects. Your assignments are made up of smaller tasks you assign yourself across time. “Success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in and day out.” - Robert Collier

Avoid burnout (more on this later).

Keep it interesting (more on this later).

Avoid burnout

Self-care: shower and/or bathe regularly, maintain proper sleep habits, stay hydrated, take care of your skin, do relaxation activities like meditation and reading, do fun activities, pamper yourself every now and then with face masks or foot baths, take your meds as prescribed, eat well and regularly, get outside often, move daily, etc.

Break up study/homework sessions into small, manageable chunks of time, with constructive (refreshing) breaks in between.

Break assignments down into even smaller tasks so that you aren’t over-working yourself during the course of a day, and so that you don’t overwhelm yourself (the stress can lead to burnout).

School-life balance: Keep up with your social life as best as you can, make time for your hobbies, maintain self-care, say no to things that don’t serve you, etc. Try to follow through with scheduled schoolwork 100% of the time, but know that you won’t. Sometimes you’ll need to prioritize mental health over schoolwork (be careful though, this is a very fine line, and a slippery slope). Sometimes things will come up and it’ll be out of your control. But more than anything else, there will be times when you just decide to prioritize something else like fun and socializing over schoolwork. This is why your schedule needs to be flexible: to accommodate sudden invites to hang out and random decisions to skip a homework/study session, but more importantly, flexibility will reduce the odds that you’ll skip in the first place. If your schedule includes hobbies and socializing, and anything else that’s important to you, then you won’t feel deprived. If you have school-life balance, you’ll have more of yourself to devote to schoolwork when it’s time to.

Keep it interesting

Romanticize your life by putting effort into making all of your daily tasks a special occasion.

Make meals and drinks special by using your favourite dinnerware and cutlery. Perhaps even incorporate extra elements such as: a beautiful tablecloth, napkins, candles and/or dim lighting, music, wearing your favourite clothing, etc.

Pretend you’re the main character in a movie about a successful, productive student (because you are the main character in your life).

Make games out of studying if this is something that interests you (the Forest app comes to mind).

Use lots of colours in your notes and buy colourful stationary! 🌈

Vary your approach/methods if needed to avoid boredom.

Study with friends (online or in person).

Reward yourself often.

Remember your “why.”