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doyelikehaggis · 3 years ago

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for the wip game: 2, 17, & 35?

Ahh, good choices!! So, “Sex Education Goes Camping” is... kind of exactly what it sounds like. The students of Moordale High are going on one last school trip before their school is closed down for good. Organized and supervised by Colin and Emily, of course. But there’s more than just the tension of the inevitable goodbye they’ll all have to say at the end of it; Adam and Eric haven’t talked since they broke up. Ruby is completely avoiding Otis, who feels terrible about hurting her. Maeve is leaving for America the moment they get back, and doesn’t want to make the goodbye any harder by letting Otis try and convince her to stay. Aimee and Steve have just broken up, but they’re working on being friends.

Jackson's eyebrows furrow. Maeve frowns. Otis and Eric share another confused look, as do a lot of others.

Spreading his arms, Mr Hendricks loudly says, "You are all utterly fucked! As am I, and so is Miss Sands! Well, I mean we can obviously find other teaching jobs, but it's not exactly easy, so, technically speaking, we are all very much fucked, you're right, Jackson."

Jackson just raises an eyebrow, then looks away. Miss Sands quickly joins Mr Hendricks on the stage as the students chattering gets louder around the room.

"What Mr Hendricks means to say--" Miss Sands shoots him a quick glare as she leans into the microphone, making him take a few steps back from it (and her) "--is that it doesn't have to be all bad!"

"No offence, Miss," Ruby interrupts, "but you're not the one about to have your entire future turned to shit without your consent."

Miss Sands nods, and says, "No, you're right. I'm only losing a job, but you are all losing the chance to finish your education comfortably -- or maybe at all. And I am... so incredibly sorry about that. I truly wish this wasn't happening to any of us. But it is. And we have to deal with that."

"We have to make the most of the time we have left together," Mr Hendricks chimes back in, taking a cautious step towards the podium. "Which is why us teachers and some of your parents/guardians have banded together to give you lot one last Moordale High experience!"

More murmuring. Eric and Maeve are already groaning, while Otis looks cautiously hopeful. Many more of them are apprehensive, including the likes of Adam and Ola, but they're sitting up a bit straighter in their seats, waiting to find out the rest.

They've all experienced many things at Moordale High, not all of them good, but not all of them awful, either. Some of them have been the best time of their lives, like the performance they put on just a few weeks ago to rid themselves of Hope. And some have an utter disaster like their trip to France.

Most of them are assuming it's going to be leaning more towards the latter. And it feels as though their fears are confirmed when Mr Hendricks excitedly, and dramatically, yells, "We're going camping!"

I completely forgot I hastily named it “Uncle Shawn the Icon” for this asjkdhajksh okay so. Auggie starts experimenting with feminine clothes, something that Cory, Topanga, and Riley are more than supportive of. But, unfortunately, people at his school aren’t as supportive. When he starts acting different (like Riley in that one episode where she was being bullied), they know something is up, and Cory happens to mention it to Shawn. Uncle Shawn who, after spending that week as “Veronica” realized he actually liked presenting as a girl sometimes, and came out as genderfluid. He comes over to have a proper talk with Auggie, and let him see that it doesn’t matter what other people say about them. Bonus: Riley mentions it to her friends because she’s worried about Auggie, and most of them jump to Auggie’s defence.

"Auggie's being bullied."

Maya blinks. Farkle sits back in his seat. Stunned into silence. Lucas is shaking his head, and Zay and Smackle share a confused glance at each other.

Then comes the eruption.

"Give me names and addresses," Maya demands, voice like sharp ice and scalding lava at the same time, retracting her hand from Riley's arm. Ready to storm out right now to track them down.

That's exactly why Riley doesn't answer her, but she does look at her like she's crazy, and she says, "Maya! They're kids!"

"I'm going to kill them, what do I care if they're twelve?"

Riley's about to tell her she should very much care, because when they were twelve, they benefited much more from being talked to rather than killed. At the same time, they never did anything even remotely like the kids bullying Auggie.

"Did he tell you why they're bullying him?" Lucas asks, sounding like he can't think of a reason why anyone would want to.

"We already had an idea, and Ava told us this morning. He wants to wear skirts. Not just that, but more feminine clothing in general." She drops her head back onto her arms. "He was so excited to wear one of my old skirts on the first day of school yesterday, and now he won't even come out of his room. I don't know how to help him because he won't talk to any of us."

"Those little b--"

"Language," Riley says flatly, not even having the heart to really care if she finishes her sentence or not. Honestly, she feels like doing it for her. "I know, Maya, I'm mad too. I just don't know what to do about it."

"Say something," Farkle says.

Riley lifts her head and turns in her seat to look at him curiously.

"Your parents could say something to the school," he suggests. "I can't guarantee it would stop them, but if we were vocal enough about it--"

"We?" Riley asks, eyebrows raising.

Farkle looks at her seriously, and says, "My dad could make the loudest noise, and I know he would do it if I asked him to. It's Auggie, Riley. Of course I'm not just going to stand by."

"Yeah, and besides, no one should be bullied for what they wear," Maya adds, throwing Farkle a small smile that he gratefully returns. Then she turns back to Riley. "Seriously, Riles, your parents should say something to the school."

Riley agrees with them. It had crossed her mind this morning, and she's sure her parents are already thinking the same thing. She looks to Lucas, Zay, and Smackle.

Without a question asked, Smackle is nodding immediately, and firmly, a look similar to Farkle's on her face.

"They're right," she says matter-of-factly. Then, with a softer note, adds, "It's unfair for them to get away with trying to stop him from expressing himself. People don't like different and it's..."

"It's wrong," Zay finishes for her. "Auggie doesn't deserve that. Going to the school about it might not help but at least it'll make some noise, right? That would do something good, make people aware that it's unfair the way he's getting treated."

Riley's heart is ready to burst from how apparant their support for Auggie is, and just how serious they are about wanting to help. She smiles at Zay, and he smiles back, reaching forward to pat her hand on the top of her chair.

Her eyes slide to Lucas. He hasn't said anything yet.

I really need to hurry up and finish “Clash of the European Boyfriends”, I feel like I’ve been writing it for years. I feel like I’ve summarised it before, but I’ll give another quick one just in case -- There’s a dinner party being hosted at the Salvatore household, set up by Stefan, Elijah, and Lexi. It was more a way of forcing Damon, Enzo, Klaus, and Stefan to get along, but also a good way to get Hope more familiar with the house for the longterm future. Some awkwardness and tension ensures because you just can’t have those four in a house together and not expect something to go wrong. I would love to be able to give a snippet for this but I’ve been rewriting it so much that I can’t decide on anything that might actually make it into the finished fic, so I’m going to skip this one if that’s okay. Hopefully I’ll actually decide where it’s going and what I’m doing with it soon.

Thank you for sending these, I’m really having so much fun with it!!

#donnas-troia #ask away earthlings!#fanfiction stuff #WIP nudge game #sex education #girl meets world

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kitkatixx · 4 years ago

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v3 Pokemon Team Headcanons

Partially for my own use so I don’t forget what I come up with before I draw them, but figured it would be nice to share them. Most of the ones do not include SW/SH ones since I don’t know too much about the game, unless I thought they really fit the character well.

-Rantaro has a lot of Pokemon from different regions and has acquired a few fossil Pokemon while traveling:

Lapras (who he rides on)

Aerodactyl (can Mega Evolve, but he doesn’t do it often)

Alolan Vulpix

Oddly enough, a Kangaskhan (his sisters are a big fan of her and have tried to ride in her pouch)

Gallade

Dhelmise (who resides by his ship when it’s not in use)

He also has an Oddish that was given as a gag gift from Kokichi due to it vaguely resembling his hair.

-Kaede has a lot of musically inclined and sweet-natured Pokemon, such as:

Chatot

Primarina

Altaria (can Mega Evolve)

Plusle (who is best friends with Shuichi’s Minun)

Jigglypuff (who has definitely caused some problems at a concert)

Blissey

She has also managed to befriend Meloetta, to everyone’s astonishment.

-Kaito has a lot of Rock-type Pokemon, and has made it his personal mission to go into space to see and catch Deoxys. No one knows how he’s going to accomplish that, but they humor him when he’s poring over meteors in a museum.

Lunatone

Solrock

Minior (purple)

One (1) very fiery-tempered female Mankey he named after Maki. Kaito was promptly whooped by both of them for making the comment about their names. (Mankey...Maki...if you say it fast enough they sound similar!!)

Starmie

Maki has also given Kaito a male Litleo that has evolved into a Pyroar.

-Himiko has a few Psychic or Ghost type Pokemon that help her in her maaagic shows:

Mismagius

Hattena

Klefki

Komala (often found dozing off together)

Braixen

Alakazam (can Mega Evolve) (who she’ll use sometimes to get Kokichi to stop whatever he’s doing with its psychic powers)

Tenko has given her a Stufful from her Bewear’s egg! She finds it very cute but doesn’t use it in shows since it doesn’t like being on stage.

-Gonta is ALL ABOUT THE BUGS. B U G S G A L O R E. He’d definitely be a bug-type breeder in the Pokemon universe:

Heracross (can Mega Evolve)

Beautifly

Dustox

Pinsir and Scyther (which look a lot scarier than they actually are, like their trainer. Unlike Gonta at times, they can smell Kokichi’s BS a mile away and try to scare him away when he’s up to no good.)

Wimpod (who Gonta is patiently working on confidence with)

Lurantis (baited..,,He was pretty disappointed initially when it wasn’t a bug type, but he couldn’t say no to how pretty it was!)

-Tsumugi has Pokemon that like mimicking things and can help her in competitions, so that includes:

Ditto (ability is Imposter!)

Zoroark

Mr. Mime

The sassiest, most vain female Meowstic the world has seen with an unusual liking for Shuichi’s Meowstic

Cosplay Pikachu (a fan favorite)

Also, I can see her have a Malamar or some other Dark type?

-Like Miu, Kiibo also has mostly Electric and Steel-types that can help him if he ever shorts out. He’s tried to get some non-Electric or Steel types, but they really seem to be attracted to him wherever he goes...

Klink

Electivire

Aron (who promptly tried chewing on him when they first met)

Magnezone

Ampharos (can Mega Evolve)

Tynamo (Miu gave him an egg from her Eelektross)

-Tenko’s team is 1 0 0% f e m a l e. Nothing more, nothing less:

Mienshao (her pride and joy)

Riolu

Medicham (a gift from Himiko as a Meditite, can Mega Evolve)

Tsareena (who CAN and WILL kick your teeth out)

Nidoqueen (gets into fights with Kokichi’s Nidoking over who is The Superior Nido)

Bewear (often used to hug Himiko, to the latter’s chagrin at times)

-Ryoma straight up only has cat Pokemon that he doesn’t really use to battle:

Glameow

Espurr

Purrloin (who has a bad habit of pickpocketing)

Skitty

Both Alolan and Kantonian Persians. (Yes, they have the smuggest smirks on their faces. They know they’ve got the best trainer.)

Torracat

But he also has Voltorb that strangely enough, enjoys being smacked by a tennis racquet.

-Miu has a few Steel and Electric-types for helping her inventions, but also has ones that she personally finds cute:

Klinklang

Eelektross

Smoochum

Rotom (with all the motors! Kirumi’s Cinccino does not get along with it because it often masks as some of the household appliances)

Salazzle (has definitely used the pheromones for her inventions)

Octillery

-Kokichi, as expected, has a lot of purple prankster Pokemon, so mostly Ghost and Dark:

LIEpard

Shiny Zorua (matches Shuichi’s Shiny Umbreon and wreaks havoc when it turns into Umbreon, since they’re both Shiny)

Gengar (can Mega Evolve)

Sableye (ability is of course, Prankster)

Crobat (Even though he’s a Supreme Leader, the high friendship stat is proof that he is a kind person at heart..!)

NidoKING

For Ryoma’s birthday, he gave an egg from his Liepard. Rantaro has also given him a Stunfisk after Kokichi kept commenting on how it was the funniest Pokemon he’s seen (a most grievous mistake, as Kokichi has started putting it in inconvenient places that most people step on)

-Korekiyo has more spiritual/folklore-esque Ghost Pokemon on his team, but also has some old fossil or archaeological ones he keeps in and out of rotation on his trips. Ghost type Pokemon seem to follow him wherever he goes...

Sigilyph, Baltoy, Spiritomb, and Relicanth are in rotation

Yanmask

Litwick

Banette (can Mega Evolve)

Doublade

Froslass (based off the yuki-onna)

Roserade

Kirumi has given him a Dratini egg from her Dragonair, since it’s a fairly rare Pokemon that he was interested in studying at the time.

-Kirumi does not have a specific type preference, but rather ones that fit the practicality of her talent and aesthetic:

Shiny Gardevoir (can Mega Evolve)

Dragonair

Milotic

Cinccino (loves to clean and 100% helps her out when she’s sweeping the dorms. Has beef with Kokichi and Miu’s Pokemon at all times)

Ariados (which Kokichi hates, but Gonta loves and dotes on)

Serperior (infamous for its Resting Mom Face that shuts everyone up with its Glare move)

She also has a Glalie from a Snorunt that Korekiyo has given her (sorry gotta plug the subtle ship.) It has a mischievous streak of hanging out in the refrigerator and freezer box.

-Maki favors Dark types that can help her like:

Bisharp (has threatened to use Guillotine on Kokichi and Kaito numerous times)

Houndoom (can Mega Evolve)

Sneasel

Mightyena (has also threatened to bite Kokichi and Kaito)

Sharpedo

Alolan Marowak (who Kaito and Kokichi has been a victim of clubbing a few times)

Indeedee (Female, exclusively used when she babysits)

(They look scary, but they’re all actually big softies. Kaito’s also given her a female Litleo so they can match, and a Togepi--)

-Angie has whimsical and art-inspired ones to fit her talent and personality such as:

Spinda (she draws inspiration from its movements)

Ludicolo

Oricorio (Sensu)

Xatu (they 100% share visions together)

Smeargle

Golurk (statue!)

Angie also has a Whimsicott with the ability Prankster that she rotates out every now and then.

-Shuichi probably has mostly dark types, but overall has Pokemon that can help him on his investigations:

Shiny Umbreon

Espeon (came from the same parent as his Umbreon, they are inseparable)

Midnight Lycanroc

Minun (best friends with Kaede’s Plusle)

Absol (can Mega Evolve)

A rather timid Meowstic (M) that enjoys stealing his hat so much he had Tsumugi make a mini one for his Pokemon. Tsumugi’s Meowstic is unhealthily obsessed with his Meowstic.

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radramblog · 4 years ago

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Linkin Park Retrospective Pt. 2

Aight let’s get into it.

Minutes to Midnight

The third album, and what many would call Linkin Park’s turning point. When this came out in 2007, nu-metal was mostly dead, and the band was growing up, so like most other people they left a lot of it behind in favour of a more diverse set of tracks.

This was a controversial move.

Minutes to Midnight was probably my least favourite of the studio albums (until No More Light, but we’ll get there), but I guess I’m far from alone in that. The album suffers greatly from not using the signature call-and-response vocals between Chester and Mike that got the band famous- the only song on the list that has both sharing the lead is Bleed it Out, which is probably the best track on the album. Ironically, despite the name and lyrics, it’s probably the least edgy of the harder songs there- it’s literally about struggling with writing lyrics- but its not like it isn’t emotional, as Chester as usual has a screamy bridge to work with. I think adding the claps and backing vocals, like it’s being played at a bar, was a ballsy move.

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Surprisingly, there are a lot fewer tracks on this album that come even remotely close to metal than I remember. Like, it’s pretty much just Given Up and No More Sorrow, if you don’t count What I’ve Done. And I don’t count What I’ve Done, it sucks. What I’ve Done was literally written to be a single for the album, even they didn’t like making that shit, and it’s just so utterly overrated. While I can’t comment as such on the movies that they’re attached to, New Divide (which isn’t on an album) is basically just What I’ve Done but actually good. Back to MtM though- Given Up introduces us to something somewhat surprising- Minutes was actually the first album to have a parental advisory sticker, and Given Up is probably half of why what with the multiple F-bombs (Bleed it Out is the other half). No More Sorrow is probably the better of the pair, with a more interesting chorus in my opinion, and while the bridges of the two songs are similar enough that I confused them while writing this, I think NMS’s sludgier tones gives it the edge, though Given Up does have that 17-odd second scream which is pretty hella.

The rest of the album, on the other hand, is a mix of softer tracks, which vary wildly in quality. In my opinion, Leave Out All The Rest, Shadow of the Day, and Valentine’s Day haven’t really aged well, and honestly listening to Chester being a sadboi isn’t really something I’m down for considering semi-recent events. (Valentine’s Day is actually edgier than it seems, it’s about a funeral not a breakup. This does not make it a better song.) On the other hand, Hands Held High is really unique among the band’s discography, being a protest march/hymn with pretty sparse instrumentation under Mike’s frustrated rhyming that shouldn’t ring as true today as it did in ’07. It took me way too long to realize the backing vocals were going Amen in those little bits.

On a less somber note, I do think the album’s last 3 tracks do work fairly well. In Between gets carried pretty hard by that little riff, but the bridge really gets to me. In Pieces is a nice little bit where disconnected elements of percussion and vocals (and later get some guits) slowly build and come together before a fun little solo and the last minute actually sounding like a Linkin Park song. Some would argue I’m being unfair separating this from Shadow of the Day etc, but that last bit does save it for me. And The Little Things Give You Away is just a really chill, very gradual build which is just a great style for songs to be in.

Minutes to Midnight is still far far from my favourite LP album, and the contemporary complaint that it didn’t sound like a Linkin Park album is valid, but the band was moving away from its roots regardless. MtM is like a stepping point, a stumble maybe, for the more experimental work to come.

A Thousand Suns

(psyche)

Reanimation

Yeahhhh I wanna give more time to A Thousand Suns. It’s my favourite album, which is a controversial pick, so I think it deserves space to breathe. So instead, we’re gonna talk about Reanimation now.

(oh fuck I have to talk about people rapping? shiet)

Released in 2002, between Hybrid Theory and Meteora, Reanimation is an album of remixes of all the tracks from Hybrid Theory, as well as some of the B-sides from that era, done by a bunch of DJs I’ve never heard of and featuring rappers I also have never heard of. I’d argue its almost painfully early 2000s, and I mean that in the most loving way possible.

The quality of the tracks on Reanimation varies pretty wildly, which makes sense considering they’re all done by different people. On the one hand, you’ve got stuff like Frgt/10 (that’s Forgotten by the way, yes they’re all like that) where the instrumentation is kind of utterly awful but the guest verse (and Mike’s new one) are pretty decent, but on the other hand you have stuff like P5hng Me A*wy, one of the few where the remix was done my Mike himself, which I actually like a fair bit more than the original. I think H! Vltg3 is easily the best of the 3 or so versions of High Voltage, and I’ve definitely tried to memorise its bars before.

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I suppose not mentioning Enth E Nd would be criminal of me. I think it’s a lot like Frgt/10, though rather than having awful instrumentation its just…different. It fits the tone of this version of the song better, for sure, but it does feel weird to have the original chorus just sitting on it feels really weird, and the random stuttering on it doesn’t help at all. Unlike with the original In the End, the effects on the vocals don’t feel as deliberate, or as meaningful (if that makes sense). Again, though, I really like the added verse from Mike, even if Motion Man’s doesn’t do a lot for me.

Mike and the guest DJs aren’t the only ones with remixes in the game, as both Wth>You and Kyur4 Th Ich (unsurprisingly) are by mister haaaaaaaaaaaahn himself. The former is actually pretty similar to the original, outside of the different instrumentation in the verses, guest bars, and that little piano line running through its latter half which I do admittedly like. Kyur4 Th Ich is just so incredibly extra compared to the original, mixing in some of the vocals from the (pointedly absent from this album) Step Up. Where Cure for the Itch is Mr. Hahn showing off, Kyur4 Th Ich is him just kinda fucking around, and I can appreciate that.

Reanimation tries to save the best for last, in the form of Krwlng. Krwlng has been built up to, with both the Opening and Ntr/mssion being samples of its strings line (hey looks strings in a rock song my favourite), and itself being a slow build of strings with lyrics faded into the background until a minute and a half in when the rhythm from the original kicks in, but it’s still loose and low-energy, guest vocalist Aaron Lewis giving a much more restrained performance (not that that’s hard on a Crawling remix),. It isn’t until the 4 and a half minute mark when the song has a similar energy to the original, but it feels earned, and the result is arguably a much more satisfying one.

Unfortunately, I’ll probably never be able to take Krwlng seriously, because of a particular stage magician show I went to, the performer’s name redacted for spoilers I guess but mostly I don’t remember it. One of the big ones, as far as you can have those in that industry, I guess. Either way he was using Krwling to build up to the climax of the show, with the Opening and Ntr/mssion bits being hype for the big bit where he flies or some shit, but the second I recognized those strings I practically cracked up then and there in the audience. It was hard to take this bloke’s aura of mystique seriously anymore because I knew that he was probably just as much of a Linkin Park nerd as I am, and he’s getting away with it on the big stage. Kudos to him to be honest.

Next time: A Thousand Suns.

#ramble #music #linkin park #nostalgia

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sagaciousfchuzzle · 6 years ago

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Do ALL of the Space asks!!!!

dOhhh noooooooooo, whoever could this beeeeeeeeeComet- What are you currently frustrated about?

Hahaha oh boy. Mostly how fucking stupid I was not doing internships when I had more of the chance and instead chose to go back home every summer. I really, really appreciated it at the time, but whenever I look for wildlife jobs now I just feel so underqualified and completely unprepared. I was stupid and some friends who will see this will never let me forget it.

Black Hole- What are you most afraid of?

At this moment what I’m most afraid of is not being able to get a job in my field and not being able to make some kind of meaningful contribution to conservation and stuff.

Galaxy- Do you have any nicknames? What are they?

Uhhhhhh, Plum/PlumPlum, Mr. Sneeze, Coah; I think that’s about it?

Star- What song(s) do you feel describes you?

Fffffffuuuuuuuuck, um. Okay so I wasted like 3 hours trying to find good ones so let’s just go with these:

Natalia Lafourcade’s Mi Tierra Veracruzana (specifically this live version)

Nujabes’ Spiritual State.

Wind of Departure/~Setting Off Wind~ from Monster Hunter 4.

Baths’ Yeoman, a wonderfully queer musician.

Pogo’s J’Adore Juin, though it breaks my heart that Pogo is an MRA idiot.

Moon- Are you currently reading any books? If so, what book(s)?

Oh god, sadly not. I still have some Discworld books to read but I don’t want to be done-done with the series as a whole. ;_;

Planets- If you could go anywhere, where would you go?

New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, probably.

Mercury- Describe your aesthetic.

Earth tones, rustic looks, organized messes, wildflowers and pine trees, hearty food and warm blankets on a cold and cozy day.

Venus- What’s your favorite tv show?

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm honestly maybe Parks & Rec? Or Steven Universe.

Earth- If you could be anyone else for a day, who would you want to be?

On one hand I could be Chris Evans for a day but on the other hand I’d also want to be someone STUPIDLY RICH so I could give tons of money to me and my loved ones, and I wouldn’t want to do that to Chris Evans. Probably the latter, just someone super rich whom I don’t care about.

Mars- If you could change one thing about yourself, what would you change?

Haha um. Maybe my penchant for sweet things. Or, y’know,my metabolism/weight.

Jupiter- If you had to pick one color to use for an entire week, what color would you choose?

This is a joke right? ‘Cause anyone who knows anything about me will know the answer is Green.

Saturn- How far would you go for those you care about?

Very far.

Uranus- What would you say is your greatest achievement?

Fuck me man, I don’t know. I think being considered someone my friends can trust to talk about shit with.

Neptune- Describe yourself in one sentence.

Hi I fiercely believe in there being a right and wrong and tend to not suffer those who choose the latter; that being said, I am a goof who loves puns and even though I can be snarky as hell I secretly prefer it when people are even more snarky back to me and put me in my place, because it’s fun to laugh, even at yourself.

Pluto- If you could meet anyone, alive or dead, who would you meet?

Terry Pratchett, author of the Discworld series (and many more books besides!).

Constellations- If you could have one talent, what would you want it to be? (can be magical or not)

>Magical or notOh man. Okay so if I want to be broken I’d say absolute control over time, so absolute that even fi I create paradoxes it isn’t an issue. Alternatively, something I’ve always thought would eb cool was to either:Be able to teleport as far as your eye can seeorAny time you’re going down a street or sitting in a place or whatever, and for some vague reason it reminds you of some other place you’ve been to (so you drive past a street called Railroad Avenue, but you know of another Railroad Avenue in another town, or you’re sitting in a park and smells like your grandparents’ backyard), those two places become ‘linked�� and you can freely teleport between the two vaguely similar locations. You can’t like… consciously force the linking though.

Asteroid- When you die, what do you want to be done with your body?

Cremated, spread over some nice wilderness, maybe with a tree.

Aquarius- What’s a topic you enjoy learning about?

B I O L O G Y & E C O L O G Y

Aquila- Do you prefer to read books or watch movies?

I feel like these are apples & oranges? Like books are more of a solitude thing to enjoy by yourself, but movies are great to share with people.

Aries- What is something you enjoy doing?

Telling myself I’m going to get back into drawing, and then not. c:Alternatively, coming up with tabletop rpg plots and never using them.

Auriga- If you had to pick one villain from any media, who would you rather have to face and why?

The Nightmare Knight from Cucumber’s Quest, because spoiler reasons.

Bootes- If you could have any animal, wild or not, fake or not, which would you want?

G R I Z Z L Y B E A R .Or maybe a feathered serpent like Quetzalcoatl.

Cancer- How do you want to be remembered?

Someone who, despite his extraordinarily sharp wit, was kind and cozy.

Canis Major- How many friends do you have?

Lots man.

Capricornus- What’s a song lyric that you relate to?

Honestly I’m having a hard time with this one. I guess from Hey Rosetta! we’ve got two:From their song Kintsukuroi:Oh see inside of me lay the heels of your hands upon me and let your fingers fall bless these broken bonesmake it whole, make it better than it was before make it better than it was before!

and their song Dream:couldn’t we make, couldn’t we make, couldn’t we make itjust like we wanted, just like we need itwhy can’t we, just like a dream?

who says we can’t. who says we can’t, who says we shouldn’twho says we couldn’t, make it just like we love itwhy can’t we, just like a dream?

Cassiopeia- What’s your favorite quote?

I guess, “The blood of the covenant of friendship is thicker than the water shared by the womb” ‘cause that’s the first one that came to mind.

Cygnus- If you could go back to any time period for a couple days, when/where would you want to go?

I think to November a couple years back, or to some time last winter. There’s some stuff I could at least try to fix.

Gemini- Do you have any siblings? How many?

Just one older brother.

Leo- If you could change the way any movie was made, which movie would you change?

Honestly probably Kubo & the Two Strings because it had so much potential but the second half of the film seems so…………………. so boring compared to what they could have done with it.

Libra- If you could talk to your past self, what would you tell yourself?

Bitch stay in Alaska and do an internship.

Lyra- Would you rather be feared or loved?

Feared by strangers, loved by friends & family.

Orion- What’s your favorite type of weather?

Brightly sunny with some scattered clouds, but none-the-less it’s cold & crisp. Or it’s night time with moderate rain and wet streets.

Pegasus- What’s your favorite music genre?

Fuck man there can’t be just one. Jazz, Classical, pseudo….electronic-ish stuff???, soundtracks, etc.

Perseus- What’s your favorite movie genre?

Action/Adventure or Comedy.

Pisces- Describe someone you love without saying their name.

She’s Saint Francis incarnate, and not just for the animals. Even when people hurt her she will always take the higher path, and I know she has a better moral compass than I do. She’s wise and snarky and loves working the earth with her own hands (Hint: it’s an aunt of mine).

Sagittarius- What do you do when you don’t feel well? What do you eat/drink?

If you’re talking about a cold or something what I tend to do is fill a kettle to the brim and heat up a ton of water, then basically chug tea all day. Specifically chamomile or maybe a lemon tea, but both with some honey. That tends to help me recuperate faster.

Scorpius- If you had to pick someone to betray you, who would you pick?

Probs my friend Owen, ‘cause he’d be the easiest to ignore. 😂

Taurus- What makes you feel comfortable?

Eating food with friends, telling stories and jokes, good music on drives long & short, telling truths and sharing feelings, going to sleep exhausted because I actually did stuff during the day.

Ursa Major- If you had to pick any job to have, what job would you want?

Savior of all Ursus-kind. Or like raising abandoned bear cubs which would be super sad but also super heartwarming.

Virgo- What do you value the most- artistic ability/creativity, musical ability, athletic ability, intellect, or work ethic?

I think I respect work ethic the most - you may not be the most capable, but you’re being honest & earnest, and like a teacher of mine said in the past, “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.”

Neutron- Are you more of a leader or a follower?

Honestly I’m happy to be a follower unless there’s no leader or the leader is incompetent.

Supernova- How do you feel about yourself?

Kind of unhappy, for the reasons mentioned in Comet. Kind of annoyed at how it feels like I’m procrastinating on starting my own life, whether that’s intentional or not.

Supergiant- What’s something you like about yourself?

People have told me they feel comfortable talking to me about issues and stuff and I really, really like that I can be that kind of person for my friends.

Red Giant- Would you get into a debate/argument with someone if you heard them saying something you disagree with or know to be wrong, or would you stay silent?

It depends. If they’re just talking with their own group and I’m not going to be stuck near them for hours, then I can just put headphones in, but if they’re making someone uncomfortable or something, I’d step in. I’d also step in if it was an honest mistake.

Red Dwarf- What’s your favorite smell? What smell makes you feel most comfortable?

Pine trees I think. I loooooooooooooooove the smell of pine.

Protostar- Give a random fact about yourself.

I finally beat Dragon’s Dogma the other day and I was scared I was going to be disappointed because I already kind of knew about the existential take it…. takes, but it was a blast and wonderful and amazing and I think everyone who likes rpg’s should play this game and Grigori is a huge…. sweetheart, of sorts.

#ask prompt #Anonymous #admiration-determination

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wineanddinosaur · 4 years ago

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Blanton’s Single Barrel Bourbon Was Born in Japan

“An aroma that is a full rounded bouquet of caramel, vanillin, and alcohol that is pleasant and not raw or medicinal. Taste is slight caramel and vanillin semisweet alcohol that is smooth and pleasant, without bite or bitter taste. There is no lingering after-taste or burning sensation.”

This is how Master Distiller Emeritus Elmer T. Lee described the desired, if general flavor profile for Blanton’s Single Barrel bourbon, which debuted in 1984. But it wasn’t meant for you — or any American drinker, for that matter. Instead, it was a product of savvy American marketing efforts to save a sinking bourbon business, and Japanese receptive good taste.

In “Bourbon: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of American Whiskey,” author Fred Minnick describes Blanton’s Single Barrel’s 1984 release: “[It] entered the U.S. market for $24, targeting baby-boomer pockets.” But, he continues, “the new bourbon was a domestic flop. In fact, the only thing positive about Blanton’s was its popularity in Japan.”

Yes, hearing that a dram this special, with its caramel, vanilla, semisweet notes, was not intended for the country that invented it is a bit like tearfully thanking coworkers through a mouthful of your “birthday cake,” only to learn it was meant for Jan’s going-away party.

Blanton’s Single Barrel, the idiosyncratic seductress-in-whiskey we’ve finally grown to appreciate here in the U.S., was created by two enterprising liquor executives, Ferdie Falk and Bob Baranaskas. Both perceived 1980s-era America’s lack of taste in good whiskey, and Japan’s seemingly insatiable thirst for the stuff.

Bourbon’s popularity in Japan was no accident. It was created specifically for Japan by aforementioned Ferdie Falk and Bob Baranaskas (with a little help from Elmer T. Lee — but more on that later). The duo had previously worked for Fleischmann’s Distilling, a subsidiary of Nabisco. After some very big companies did some reshuffling amidst the shoulder-padded power lunch that was 1980s corporate America (Fleischmann’s was sold to a company called Grand Metropolitan, which would years later merge with Guinness to form Diageo), Falk and Baranaskas had a decision to make: try their luck in corporate restructuring, or move on. They very wisely, and pivotally for bourbon lovers, chose the latter.

Sticking to spirits, Falk and Baranaskas looked for an outfit to buy. Falk had worked for the famed Lewis Rosenstiel of Schenley Industries and worked out a purchase of one of its distilling operations, putting Falk and Barnaskas at the helm of their very own distillery: Albert B. Blanton’s, or what we know today as Buffalo Trace. Believing “bourbon’s future was outside the U.S.,” Minnick writes, “one of their first moves was the creation of Blanton’s Single Barrel Bourbon. Done at the behest of their Japanese customers, they released it in the U.S. as well.”

As Tom Acitelli writes in “Whiskey Business,” they created the bourbon with the help of legendary Elmer T. Lee, who explained the lore surrounding Col. Albert B. Blanton, the metal-clad Warehouse H (at the time, an exigency of material and cost, it turned out to encourage interaction between barrel and bourbon, resulting in a richer product). And while the U.S. largely ignored it, Japan “represented 51 percent of bourbon’s exports,” Minnick writes, which “grew 349 percent in the 1980s.”

To be fair, it wasn’t that Americans had bad taste, exactly (although it was questionable in the 1970s). It was that bourbon was, arguably intentionally, losing its quality. For example, in 1973, Four Roses put out an ad celebrating “Whiskey without the Whelm” — as in, “underwhelming” whiskey that was “never overpowering.” This inevitably led to what some might consider two-dimensional, easy-drinking swill.

Part of the reason for that drop in quality was overproduction. Lots of bourbon was being made, quickly and cheaply. This owed at least in part to fears of the Korean War diverting distillery resources (somewhat similar to the way we all buy a lot of booze in advance of a snowstorm — or a pandemic).

Additionally, younger Americans wanted to drink differently than their parents had. That meant more vodka, less bourbon, and, at least for a couple decades, bourbon having to find its footing elsewhere.

As whiskey guru and author Chuck Cowdery tells VinePair: “The sudden Japanese enthusiasm for bourbon is usually explained as a generational thing. The youth of that period were rebelling against their elders, the WWII generation, in multiple, cultural ways, much as had occurred in the U.S. in the 1960s.” Cowdery adds, “Since the older generation drank Scotch or Scotch-like Japanese whiskies, younger drinkers started to seek out bourbon.”

Writing into The New York Times in 1992, the former president of massive liquor group Schenley Industries, William Yuracko, nonetheless called marketing bourbon to the Japanese market “a daunting task,” noting, “we still had to wean the consumer away from his traditional preference for a Scotch-type beverage.” Their strategy: appeal to young people, encourage a generational division of tastes, and build bourbon bars where young drinkers could gather and share, and thus reinforce, their new preferences. (It worked.)

There is some speculation as to why American bourbon took off in Japan. Acitelli writes: “Theories abounded as to why the Japanese loved bourbon. … Some said it was the macho image it conveyed. Others said it was par for the course, given that the nation had long embraced American products.”

And Cowdery believes the Elmer T. Lee aspect of the Blanton’s story to be a bit fanciful: “[T]he crediting of Blanton’s to Lee is, in some ways, mostly marketing,” he says. “Falk and his marketing people told Lee what they wanted and he went into his inventory to find something suitable.” In other words, the lore of the old distiller reaching into bourbon history to revive the brand is nice, but we might owe more to Falk and Baranaskas for asking him to go looking. “Lee probably contributed the idea of making it a single barrel and tying it to the legacy of Albert Blanton, but otherwise it was Falk and his marketing folks, and the marketing folks at [Japanese company Takara Shuzo], who created the brand,” says Cowdery.

Another bit of late-‘80s pomade-induced E.S.P.: In his book, Minnick describes a 1989 interview with Heaven Hill Distillery president Max Shapira. In the interview, Shapira tells Cox News Service, “Bourbon whiskey has become the ‘in’ drink abroad — really throughout the world. The ironic thing is that here in the U.S., it’s just the opposite. Wouldn’t it be great if the foreign demand set a domestic trend?”

Why, yes, Mr. Shapira. Yes it would.

The article Blanton’s Single Barrel Bourbon Was Born in Japan appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/blantons-single-barrel-bourbon-japan/

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johnboothus · 4 years ago

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Blantons Single Barrel Bourbon Was Born in Japan

Why, yes, Mr. Shapira. Yes it would.

The article Blanton’s Single Barrel Bourbon Was Born in Japan appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/blantons-single-barrel-bourbon-japan/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/blantons-single-barrel-bourbon-was-born-in-japan

0 notes

isaiahrippinus · 4 years ago

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Blanton’s Single Barrel Bourbon Was Born in Japan

Why, yes, Mr. Shapira. Yes it would.

The article Blanton’s Single Barrel Bourbon Was Born in Japan appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/blantons-single-barrel-bourbon-japan/ source https://vinology1.tumblr.com/post/621997295650668544

0 notes

utopianparadoxist · 7 years ago

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[3. Earthbound - The two Yaldabaoths, Dramatic Tension & The Diegetic Reader (That’s You!)]

[Spoilers for Earthbound:Beginnings, Earthbound, & Mother 3]

Most know by now that Earthbound is referenced every time we say the word “Homestuck”. It’s built into the name: To be Stuck at Home. To be Bound to Earth.

And fittingly for a reference which such pervasive impact on our understanding of the comic, Homestuck styles itself as a spiritual successor to Earthbound in a number of ways.

Both Earthbound and Homestuck begin with a set of four kids who go on an adventure together. Both feature kids with psychic powers, friendship, and the meaning of growing up.

But there are three particular similarities to Homestuck that I want to present you with here. In these three areas, Homestuck and Earthbound/Mother are notably alike:

The Characters:

1) Both feature a unique execution of dramatic tension and narrative stakes for the characters. The Player:

2) Engage in heavily metatextual, diegetic relationships between the World/Story and The Player/Reader.

The Antagonists:

3) Are God-Like, Authoritarian powers that cannot engage with ideas. In other words, they operate as Yaldabaoths.

These antagonists are who I want to talk about first. We will proceed from number 3 up to number 1, talking about the context of the games and tying it into the comic further as we go. I’ll ask you to be patient with me if you don’t see much about Homestuck at first--there’s a lot of setup work to do.

Without further ado, let’s begin.

3) The Antagonists.

Side A) Earthbound - The War on Giygas.

Earthbound is the story of a boy named Ness, and his neighbor, Pokey Minch. One day, a meteor lands in their town, a time-traveler called Buzz Buzz appears from within. Buzz Buzz tells Ness he has come from a bad future, where an alien overlord named Giygas has cast the world into eternal darkness. Only Ness and his prophecized friends can stop Giygas.

From then on Earthbound is mostly a fun, sweet adventure romp for our Protagonists. Pokey goes on an adventure of his own, acting like a cruel child whilst striking deals with agents of Giygas and steadily gaining more and more power, both in business and through the dark forces Giygas employs.

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Then we skip ahead to the very end of Earthbound. Where we get one of the most horrific and memorable boss sequences in gaming.

Giygas is explicitly unfathomable, indescribable: Giygas is Eldritch in the true “Man was never meant to see this” sort of way. Giygas isn’t explicitly A God, but rather an alien. But he certainly acts like a God. His influence makes inanimate objects animate, makes animals aggressive, lures people into cults and evil deeds.

He’s tapped into the centers of power and wealth in society. Giygas is nowhere, and yet everywhere. He is, in short, the God of the material world Earthbound’s kids wander through. Their Yaldabaoth.

And interestingly, as with Yaldabaoth, Pokey describes Giygas as being “an all-mighty Idiot”--unaware of himself or what’s happening around him.

Giygas shares similarities with Bastian and Caliborn, too--in Earthbound: Beginnings, he’s driven insane by a song that reminds him of his mother. Like Bastian, Giygas has connotations of warped, eternal childhood. But unlike Bastian, Giygas does not escape his damnation until he dies.

And there are fates even worse than death. Such as the fate reserved for Pokey Minch, who against all odds, is the more interesting of the two--and the more relevant for Homestuck.

Let’s talk about Mother 3.

Side B) Mother 3 - No crying until the end.

Mother 3 is not as happy a game as Earthbound. Where Earthbound concentrated it’s gloom and despair into intense climaxes while being generally upbeat, Mother 3 is bittersweet and tragic throughout--though still plenty beautiful and joyful when it wants to be.

Like Homestuck, it has an unusual structure of Acts--8 instead of 7, but also of variable lengths, including a chapter that takes up almost half the game. Playable characters vary with each section, but the bulk of the game features Lucas, his dog Boney, and their friends Duster and Kumatora. So again: Four protagonists.

Set in the post-apocalyptic Nowhere Islands, Mother 3 tells the story of the fascist, totalitarian Pig Mask Army’s encroachment onto the idyllic, peaceful lives of the Nowhere Island natives.

As it turns out, the Pig Mask Army is led by the megalomaniacal dictator Pokey (Japanese name “Porky”) Minch, who discovers the ability to travel spacetime and escapes the final battle against Giygas.

Since then, he’s traveled countless worlds and lived through millennia, conquering and exploiting all unfortunate enough to be caught in his way.

All the while, never truly growing up.

Sound familiar?

Now, one interesting parallel about Pokey is what he does to the world he rules over. Just Lord English does to the Troll’s universe--and more indirectly, to both Human universes--Pokey manipulates and exploits The Nowhere Islands through a number of tools.

He’s got the authoritarian power regime also in place on Alternia, of course. But Pokey dabbles in genetic modification and playing with the nature of life as well, just as both trolls and humans were genetically exploited by Lord English’s agents. Most of the enemies in Mother 3 are chimeras: amalgams of animals and machines, cruelly spliced together.

And Pokey also attempts to shape culture on the Islands to his liking, distributing “Happy Boxes” that look like televisions and seem to encourage a sort of shift towards crass materialism and an acceptance of the Pig Masks’ fascist dominance.

I note these similarities mostly because through Pokey we get a direct linking between the idea of a God-Like Yaldabaoth figure and the idea of a tyrannical, authoritarian dictator.

This is an area of Lord English’s insidious evil mostly delivered to the audience through implication and background information, so I think it’s worth the time to draw it into focus.

And the similarities between their atrocities might give us some context between the similarities at the end of their stories. Because, again like Lord English...

Master Pokey can’t die.

But he is defeated, as his machine runs out of power. And so, lacking other options, Pokey plays his trump card.

One that proves to be the end of his influence in the story.

"Oh, my! As evil as old Porky here is, I feel bad for him now. It's true that the "Absolutely Safe Capsule" that the Mr. Saturns and I developed together can protect one from every manner of danger. It IS an absolutely safe capsule, but once you enter it, you can never exit it... Even what's outside of the Absolutely Safe Capsule is absolutely safe. I did tell Porky in a hushed voice that he shouldn't use it yet... But all he can do now is live for eternity inside the capsule, in absolute safety. Who knows, in a way, he may've gotten exactly what he wanted. What do you think? Is it wrong of me to think this way?" — Dr. Andonuts

Once Pokey seals his life into the capsule, there’s no longer an out for him. Not ever again. In a way, Pokey’s fate may indeed be one worse than death. And it’s one that seems to be echoed by Lord English, since after all...

Lord English cannot die, but he is defeated.

Specifically, Act 7′s visual language suggests he’s pocketed in the Black Hole that Alt!Calliope created. As a Black Hole is a gravitational singularity, once there, Lord English would be trapped--no amount of Time powers would let him come out, and First Guardian powers would no longer work either, since they rely on the Green Sun’s power.

An immortal, tyrannical kid--denied his playground for eternity. Pretty fitting, I think.

But Lord English is only one part of the story, and I think the relationship between the protagonists and the Player/Reader is the more interesting area of Earthbound to explore. Because...didn’t I mention?

In the Mother series, there is another God.

It’s you.

2) The Player

Both Earthbound and Mother 3 explicitly address your existence in the context of their worlds. Both games, in fact, pause entirely just to ask you your name. In Earthbound, this role is taken by Tony, Jeff’s canonically gay friend. He calls Jeff, and in the process brings up a prompt for the Player to input their name. This can seem like a bit of cheeky fourth-wall breaking, but consider:

You are the unseen hand behind the characters’ every action. You lead them through their world just as Giygas does for Pokey. You’re never viewed, but always present, witness and privy to all things.

And in the final boss battle (you did watch that, didn’t you?), when all else fails, Paula’s prayers reach the people of Earthbound who care about the four chosen children...including you. Your name is the final name given, praying for the protection of Ness and his friend. Your prayers are the power that end Giygas.

Mother 3 makes it even more explicit. In this game, you’re asked your name by an unseen voice, while Flint prays at an altar in the only Church in the game. Depicted on the front of it are the Light and Dark Dragons of Nowhere Island, the latter of which is the subject of an apocalyptic prophecy we’ll talk about soon.

A good question to ask at this point is: Why does this matter? And the answer is that because we’re given the God’s-eye view of these games, the context of our engagement with them is diegetic: explained by the narrative itself.

Like Bastian reading The Neverending Story, we’re not just observers consuming the content of these games. At least as far as the stories within are concerned, we are active participants. We are part of the story.

And this is true of Homestuck, too. Doc Scratch is a smarmy asshole, but he directly acknowledges the reader. He even credits us with more of an impact on the story than our protagonists. And on some level, this is true.

We HAVE had a direct impact on the story, through command prompts and fandom memes and all sorts of other engagements that ended up shaping the way Homestuck has been told. We’ve always been part of the narrative.

Hell, we’ve always been depicted in it. The MSPA Reader is a template, a schematic stand-in for all of us, just as the Human characters we love are blank templates for a multitude of more specific body headcanons.

And this has important implications for how we, the readers, might best engage with Homestuck.

Because the fact that our window into its world is diegetic means that it is presented through us through an explicit frame, a frame that is narratively constructed.

And frames have limits.

1) The Characters

Whenever I hear people say Homestuck is a tragedy, or that it’s headed for a sadstuck ending with the Beta kids stuck in the Juju in the Masterpiece, I honestly can’t help but laugh. You don’t need alternate timelines and sacrificial lamb versions of our protagonists to secure a happy ending in Homestuck.

Homestuck itself is practically a loop of impossible-seemingly, absolute-dooming circumstances...

met by perseverance and good cheer.

And when all’s said and done, the story pretty much always breaks in favor of the latter. Remember that one of the fundamental rules of Homestuck’s universe is the “Do As You Will” principle--everyone always gets what they want.

Caliborn gets to be LE, as does Gamzee. Arquis gets to fulfill the out-of-nowhere heroic destiny he wanted, and finally proves himself to the Alphas in an act of atonement. Lord English gets his eternity of destruction, and Vriska gets to be the great Hero she always wanted to be.

But our protagonists? The Alphas and Betas? They just want to live in peace. Their desires are compatible with the wills of all the other characters.

Lord English’s will is not, and he’s trampled the agency of every other character a million times over to get where he is. That’s what makes him a tyrant, and that’s what dooms him to his Absolutely Safe Capsule. Karma is an established force in Homestuck, and LE will pay his due.

And in this extremely-dire-until-the-very-last-second approach, too, Homestuck seems to be standing on the shoulders of giants.

Because this big buildup to a Big Dramatic Tragedy of an ending is pretty much exactly Earthbound’s M.O.

Earthbound’s final boss isn’t just one of the most horrifically well-executed eldritch monsters in gaming history. It’s also set-up as what amounts to a suicide mission.

Earthbound’s protagonists time travel to a monochrome greyscape (in robot bodies) fully knowing there’s no way back from their battle with Giygas. And the battle with Giygas does indeed kill them--here you see the wreck of their robot selves. It’s pretty much deus ex machina when their souls wander back into their bodies shortly afterwards.

Even more interesting to me, however, are the parallels we find to Mother 3′s ending.

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I’m going to take a time out from Homestuck for a second and talk about Mother 3 for a second, because this moment is too important to me to waste frivolously, or subject to my overwrought explanatory dialogue with without giving you the option to watch a scene that’s Undertale-level good.

Unless I’ve already succeeded in getting you to stop reading, drop everything, and go find a translated version of Mother 3 now (you can’t play it in english without emulating, since it was never released in the US), I would really appreciate it if you took the time and sucked up the spoilers and watched this ending cutscene.

It’s a work of art. A heartrending, heartfelt symphony to the pain of loss and the fear of something changing forever. Mother 3 is a game about the Apocalypse. A game about CAUSING the apocalypse, to be precise.

Your final moments with the game are spent watching Lucas pull the final needle that binds a dragon bigger than the world, and the only hope is that Lucas’ good heart will pass on to the Dragon and make a good new world to come. Nothing else is certain.

And the shots we see aren’t encouraging: Immediately after pulling the needle, the world begins to fall apart. Earthquakes rise and wreak havoc. Twisters of water dominate the sky and ocean. Meteors fall from the sky, and as if rising from an enormous egg, a vast, black back archs out from under the world we came to love.

And then we cut to black, and the End screen pops up. We never see these characters again. Only...

Only we do get to talk to them. Once this question mark pops up, you can move around in this black screen-with ‘You’ represented by the END? depicted- and occasionally, you’ll bump into...words. Words that say things like:

And

You get glimpses of things you can’t talk to, like...

And best of all, this is where the game brings out its ace.

Because this is where the name you gave in the church comes into play. At the end of it all, all of the characters in the cast not only tell you they’re ok, but recognize you. Thank you. Love you. Treat you like a friend, say goodbye, invite you back over, and wish you well in life.

In Mother 3, you play as the God of the old world, the world bound by the rules the cast had to play by. By playing through to the end, you set them free.

And by treating you as a real part of its world, Mother 3 invites you to consider its characters a real part of yours. Invites you to think of them not as characters, but as friends. As people. If that sounds familiar, it’s because Undertale built a whole damn game out of the concept.

But the same approach has always been in Homestuck’s DNA. These characters were always people first and characters second, and we were always privy to a limited frame.

That frame is Homestuck, which until The Masterpiece and Lord English’s defeat, has belonged to Caliborn. This has always been the story of his circle--the Alpha Timeline--and the context it crafts out is his childish empire.

Next time, we’ll talk more about Homestuck’s Gnostic themes, and just what it is *exactly* that our protagonists are escaping from.

For now, I’ll leave you with this song.

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If this piece interested you in Mother 3, I suggest checking out Tom Ato’s legendary fan translation for the game. Mother 3 is a masterpiece, and I owe both it and Tom Ato my life in some ways. It’d make me really happy to know even one more person has been touched by their work because of me.

[Master Post]

[Patreon] [Hiveswap Discord]

Keep rising.

#Homestuck #Earthbound #Mother 3 #Gnosticism #My MSPA Analysis #Lord English

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mansaeentertainment-blog · 7 years ago

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Top 10 Songs of 2017...so far

Hello, Mansaebebes! 2017 has been an amazing year so far musically, with many new and diverse releases from both rookie and veteran artists. To celebrate what is shaping out to be an amazing year, Mansae Entertainment is proud to share a list of the top K-Pop 10 songs of 2017 so far. Before getting to the list, I would like to stress that this list is only for songs that were released between January and June of 2017. This is also a personal review and, in no way, reflects the opinions of Mansae Entertainment as a whole, but the sole opinions of a single author and his musical tastes.

10. “Laputa (feat. Crush)” - DPR Live

If you do not listen to DPR Live while you read this, I need you to expose yourself to this talented musician. DPR Live has a type of flow and delivery that, while powerful and impactful, has a form of melancholic calm to it, especially in the work on his debut album “Coming To You Live.” I will admit that I am always reluctant to start listening to Korean hip-hop artists because they often try too hard and appropriate culture to no end, but DPR Live’s music and lyricism drew me in almost instantly. Namely his two tracks, “Laputa” and “Right Here Right Now,” both featuring some of Korean hip-hop's biggest names. “Laputa” appears to get its name from the mythical flying island in “Gulliver’s Travels.” The track’s main hook includes DPR Live comparing his lover's body to a perfectly circular island to explain how perfect her body is, but he continues to explain how here beauty is astronomical, as astronomy is a key point of interest for the island's inhabitants. When Crush delivers his part in the latter half of the songs, his voice truly gives the song an ethereal sense of mystery and dynamics.

9. “Complex” - Zion.T

I feel like no one really knew what would happen after Zion.T signed with The Black Label, and I feel like everyone approached the “OO” album with an equal sense of hope and apprehension. However, Zion.T showed us that there was definitely nothing to worry about. Not only did he infuse his signature Zion.T “flavor” into all the songs, but he also managed to collaborate with one of K-Pop’s biggest stars, seen when G-Dragon featured on “Complex.” Easily the most anticipated song on the album, "Complex” brought together two of the best lyricists in K-Pop and allowed them to have a back and forth over what it means to have fame and be a musician. Zion.T’s voice drips with melancholy as he croons about his own shortcomings and throws shade at what he views as idol fame before G-Dragon brags back with a rap about the success he has enjoyed while being an idol. Twinkling piano keys, solid snaps, and light drum beats give this amazing piece of lyrical genius its own distinct sound, and the two “Complex” artists delivery give it its life.

8. I’ll Be Yours-Girl’s Day

I have never been a fan of Girl’s Day. I’d just never taken the time to listen to their music even though I had ample time during their year-long absence. I am admittedly still not a huge fan, but that doesn’t stop “I’ll be Yours” from being a bop. If I could use one word to describe this song it would “VOCALS.” From start to finish they hit us with powerful vocals that, backed by the amazing brassy production, allows them to reach amazing heights. The sassy delivery, the amazing big band feel, and the incredibly grown woman vibes that need to continue as a trend for the rest of 2017, all joined to make this track one of the best bangers of the first half of the year. I know that many felt let down by this comeback, especially after waiting for such a long time, but for me, the track was just what Girl’s Day needed to further solidify themselves as a force in the K-pop industry.

7. Archangels of the Sephiroth(세피로트의 나무)-Stellar

So, are y’all really still sleeping on Stellar? Are y’all serious? Let me get off my soapbox and talk about this song. “Sting” was one of the best songs of 2016, in my opinion, and “Cry” was also exceptionally good, so I was extremely excited for Stellar to make a comeback, especially after hearing that they raised over 1000% of their Makestar goal. This comeback introduced the new member, Soyoung, in the best way possible. Not only was she given her own spotlight in the MV, but she also was given significant lines, in what was sonically a departure from all of Stellar’s previous works, and K-pop songs in general for that matter. With a name like “Archangels Of The Sephiroth,” I was expecting something different, and Stellar delivered the difference in the best way possible. With an instrumental, that sounds distinctly Middle Eastern, and a jarring almost shouted chorus, the song is a definite earworm. There was no vocal acrobatics, in the song and that was probably for the best, the song gets its distinction from it’s instrumental, and again, I applaud Stellar for taking a different route than most K-pop artists and doing it to great effect. Now, if you guys would stop viewing Stellar as only a “sex” group, and acknowledge their quality music and the countless comebacks that are less suggestive, then we could be cool.

6. Akmu-Reality (리얼리티)

I loves me some AKMU, I really do, and when I found out that they were getting released from the YG dungeon again after less than a year's time since “Spring,” I was extremely excited. AKMU is one of the groups where, no matter how long they have between releases, they will always be fantastic. Their 2nd full-album “Winter” introduced a plethora of great tracks, but none more so than “Reality.” As a self-proclaimed Veteran K-pop stan, the idea of growing older scares me, especially because I turned 20 fairly recently, but leave it to AKMU to write an upbeat and almost childish song on the subject. With witty lyrics and a signature AKMU delivery, this song was a great way to start the year.

5. Don’t Wanna Cry(울고 싶지 않아)-Seventeen

Seventeen is my ultimate bias boy group and being so I have come to expect a certain level of off-kilter energy and funk from their title tracks. With “Don’t Wanna Cry” they showed a different side of themselves not yet seen on a lead single. They showed vulnerability. While I am honestly getting tired of EDM songs in K-pop, Seventeen used the sound well and did not let the production overpower their emotions and the song's meaning. This title track is unique because it features the entire rap-line singing and two of the most underrated rappers in the group (Mingyu and Wonwoo) carry the song to its climax. This song is a great addition to Seventeen’s discography and the year in music as a whole, but please……no more EDM, Y'all.

4. 1+1=0(Feat. Dean)-Suran

Another song about the difficulties of life, especially as a youth. “1+1=0” is the title track off of Suran’s debut solo mini-album and she proved herself a solo musical force. She easily has one of the most unique voices in K-pop, and when paired with Dean, a veteran of collaborating with female artists (see last years “Shut up and Groove” and “And July” by Heize), it was no surprise to me when this song turned out to be an amazing track. A play on words “일” or “il” represents the number one but also means work. The pun being that work and work doesn’t equal anything, and as a rising college junior with a lot on my plate, this song truly spoke to me. Backed by playful guitar strums, this song urges you to not be afraid of relaxing when burdened by work and “just chill.”il” represents the number one but also means work. The pun being that work and work doesn’t equal anything, and as a rising college junior with a lot on my plate, this song truly spoke to me. Backed by playful guitar strums, this song urges you to not be afraid of relaxing when burdened by work and “just chill.”

3. Baby Don’t Like It-NCT 127

I was not a fan of NCT 127’s debut. "Firetruck" was a HUGE disappointment to me, and the subsequent mini-album was met with similar sentiments. With all that in mind, I was not expecting their sophomore mini-album to be full of certified hits. I have no shame when saying that, in my opinion, every song on this album could be singles. “Baby Don’t Like It” deserved so much more play than it was given. Y’all, Mark and Taeyong did that, and they didn’t just do it, they did it dirty. When Mark delivered the line “I like it when we get closer, when it gets risky,” it was a wrap for me. Taeyong and Mark are honestly some of the best young idol rappers in the industry, and no one was expecting SM to be able to pull off Hip-Hop concepts to the effect that NCT has done. This smooth piece of hip-hop and R&B gold proves that SM can tackle any genre and it is still a staple in my playlists to this day.

2. Signal-Twice

Twice has truly earned the title of “Nation’s Girl Group.” They constantly deliver bop after bop after bop and “Signal” is no different. I’m not gonna lie, I was a little worried when I found out that Twice was not working with Black Eyed Pilseung for this title track but instead with Mr JYP himself. Granted Park Jinyoung is an amazing producer, but Twice has always seemed to work well without his help, and the JYP Entertainment releases that were not produced by him so far have been consistently good. He shut me up real quick with this Grade A smash. Twice is a girl group that benefits of the quirky factor, and that factor combined with the bounce clap-driven composition and the easy sing-along chorus was enough to launch this song up to the same level of unexpected greatness of Twice’s previous title tracks.

1. Night Rather Than Day(낮보다는 밤)-EXID

EXID has always been a group with quality music. I’d been a listener of their music even before Hani’s viral fancam, but I didn’t consider myself a fan until LI.E. After that song, I was excited about the group's next release, and even after Solji’s unfortunate hiatus, they managed to cement my status as a Leggo. I am a huge fan of chill pop songs and I’m a huge fan of retro-esque pop songs and “Night Rather Than Day” delivers on both of these aspects. After EXID's skyrocket to popularity with “Up and Down,” I’d come to expect a certain bombastic sound from them, but they seemed to do a complete 180 with this release. The only word I can use to describe my feelings after hearing the song is ‘warm.’ This jam puts me in a good mood every time I hear it and I want to dance through life when the chorus hits. This song truly deserves the number one spot on my list for being a departure from not only earlier EXID songs, but from modern K-pop trends as a whole. Shinsadong Tiger, EXID’s long-time collaborator, really did his thing when he helped to compose this amazing title track. I cannot wait until Solji fully recovers so I can watch the girls do, what has become my favorite EXID song as a whole group.

As I said before, the first half of 2017 has been an amazing year so far with quality content dropping left and right. The rest of my associates at Mansae and I, cannot wait to see what the rest of the year has in store.

-Twonder

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bharatiyamedia-blog · 5 years ago

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Day by day Information Roundup: TrueCaller’s Privateness Implications

http://tinyurl.com/y32hkfe2 TrueCaller is an app for Android and iPhone that’s helpful for figuring out spam cammers. When somebody calls you and it seems to be spam, you mark it that means, and anybody else utilizing TrueCaller sees a warning. Alternatively, you may present the true title connected to a quantity in the event you occur to know the one who known as, which makes the service a bit like a crowd-sourced phonebook you share with everybody. But it surely’s the shared perform that has some disturbing implications. A broadcast journalist named Chloe detailed how the app outed her and will have probably put her at risk. As a result of sensitivity of her work, and the truth that she usually travels to locations hostile in opposition to journalists, she retains a low profile. She doesn’t seem on display screen, restricts her use of her social media, and so forth. When she arrives in a brand new nation, she buys a brand new sim card and cellphone quantity to talk with sources. Think about her shock when she used her cellphone to name for a cab, and the cab driver requested about her job as a journalist. He confirmed his TrueCaller app, which recognized by her title and the place she labored. When she known as a supply, the app pinged them to tag her quantity with an identification. They put in her title and media outlet. That motion unfold her identification to anybody utilizing TrueCaller. If the nation had been hostile to journalists, she may have been in deep trouble. The issue right here is that TrueCaller doesn’t ask permission so as to add an individual to its database. When offered data, it doesn’t attain out to the proprietor of the quantity with an invitation, affirmation, or perhaps a technique to test the accuracy of the knowledge. Think about for a second if each time you despatched a letter to a pal, they might test a field that handed out your title and return deal with to everybody else who receives mail from the publish workplace. It’s the same idea. TrueCaller has a technique to unlist your cellphone quantity, but when any person marked you quantity as spam (a definite risk with RoboCalls), you may’t use it. For most individuals, the best way TrueCaller handles different’s individuals knowledge with out consent is probably not an enormous concern. However for anybody who wants anonymity—or simply likes their privateness—it may probably be an enormous downside. This isn’t the primary time this subject has come up. Years in the past, an app known as Mr. Quantity shut down its similar crowd-sourcing feature when Google modified its phrases of service. That change particularly states “we don’t permit unauthorized publishing or disclosure of individuals’s personal contacts,” and stays in impact to today. Which suggests TrueCaller’s performance appears to violate these phrases of service as nicely. [ifex] In Different Information: Google had a weekend outage: Google Cloud companies went down over the weekend, taking Youtube, Gmail, Snapchat, Discord, and extra with it for many individuals. We’re nonetheless ready to listen to what occurred, however at the very least we will get again to watching our cat movies and sending selfies. [Android Authority] Apple’s WWDC is right now: Apple’s Worldwide Builders Convention begins right now, with a keynote that ought to include attention-grabbing bulletins. Rumors embody a brand new darkish mode for tablets and telephones, redesigned apps, and the power to make use of an iPad as a second show for Mac units. [MacRumors] Cuphead is coming to Tesla: Cuphead, the extremely difficult hand-drawn sport that originated on Xbox is making the leap to a different console. Or relatively, a automobile. Tesla is engaged on bringing the sport to its pill dashboard, full with controller assist. Neat? [Digital Trends] Oppo and Xiaomi tease under-screen cameras: Transfer over gap punch, goodbye notch—two cellphone makers are displaying off a digicam that lives beneath the display screen. Not like the outlet punch idea, when not in use the realm the digicam lives in works as a show. The concept appears much less susceptible to failure than pop-out {hardware} at the very least. [TechCrunch] Pokémon Go drops Apple Watch Help: Pokémon Go developer Niantic introduced it’s dropping Apple Watch assist after July 1st. You’ll discover all of the options the Watch app delivered to the sport elsewhere, so the developer determined to cease splitting its consideration. It’s a tragic day in your two buddies nonetheless enjoying the sport. [Nintendo Life] Sim swap assaults result in stolen cryptocurrency: Sim swap assaults are extra frequent lately. Unhealthy actors use social engineering to persuade a cellular provider to maneuver your cellphone quantity to their sim. As soon as they’ve entry to your account, they will reset any account that makes use of it for affirmation. On this case, to steal cryptocurrency. [ZDNet] NorthFace apologies for gaming Wikipedia: NorthFace not too long ago swapped photographs in Wikipedia entries of well-known areas for images prominently that includes the corporate brand. All to get to the highest of Google Picture search outcomes. The corporate known as it a collaboration, however Wikipedia didn’t know and took every little thing down. Now the corporate is sorry for its actions (or at the very least for getting caught). Perhaps the brand can go in an entry for “gross.” [BBC] Microsoft could also be engaged on a dual-display system: In keeping with “sources,” Microsoft gave an early preview of an upcoming system to some workers. We’ve seen persisting rumors of a dual-screen system for years now, so maybe that is lastly a runup to the true factor. Or there’s all the time the likelihood it can by no means see the sunshine of day. Till now we have one thing greater than unnamed sources, the latter appears simply as possible as the previous. [The Verge] In an sudden flip of occasions, medical doctors needed to put out a hearth in a person’s chest throughout surgical procedure not too long ago. The astounding half is, as soon as they extinguished the chest fireplace, the remainder of the operation went nicely, and the person was unhurt. The fireplace took place from a sequence of unlucky occasions. Throughout coronary heart surgical procedure, the medical doctors cracked opened the person’s sternum, a standard a part of the process, and found elements of his lung caught to the bone. To proceed with the surgical procedure, the medical doctors wanted to maneuver these bits of the lung which had air-filled blisters. Whereas they had been detaching the lung from the sternum, they managed to pierce one of many blisters, which in fact precipitated an air leak. When this occurs, surgeons flip up your anesthesia and add oxygen to the combo (as a lot as 100% oxygen), so that you don’t drown. After which, with an oxygen-rich space, the instruments they use to chop via tissue precipitated a spark close to a dry surgical pack. The one end result might be fireplace. After the surgeons calmly put out a hearth in a person’s chest, completed the surgical procedure, saved his life, and left him none the worst for the ordeal (what have you ever completed this week?), they determined to analyze if this had occurred earlier than and found a number of matching circumstances. Amazingly, in each case, the affected person got here out of the ordeal unhurt. It does depart one questioning if maybe one thing needs to be modified to forestall future chest fires. Within the meantime, in relation to multitasking beneath intense strain, I’ll bow to the better abilities of surgeons in every single place. [Gizmodo] !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s) {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)}; if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0'; n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script', 'https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); fbq('init', '335401813750447'); fbq('track', 'PageView'); Source link

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dhwkatrina16-blog · 7 years ago

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It's Time For Yummy Dinner With Besan Shimla Mirch Ki Subzi.

This is actually the only time of year in which you can easily express your vacation joy along with bells, tinsel, and also garland around your residence. A purple flower agreement offers this table an unique show from elegance for the Holidays. The flowers featured to the left can look similar to genuine reddish roses with their dynamic tone. To the right from the plate, starting from the exterior will certainly be the cocktail fork, the soup spoon, the fish blade, the dinner knife and afterwards the tossed salad blade nearest home plate. Chiang Mai at night is actually a lively spot however our experts had dinner in a bistro that is recognized for its north Thai food and after that possessed a draft beer making for a relaxing night, knowing that our team possessed a really early begin the following time to get to our following location, Doi Inthanon.

Thanksgiving Supper was a huge package when I was growing up. I'm mosting likely to discuss recipes for loved ones Thanksgiving preferences, including potato salad, cooked macintosh & cheese, wonderful potato cake, & fruit pudding. You can easily discover more primarily concerning red or white wine aerators and magnums in this particular short article, however the simple ground is that cabernet smell is actually better experienced when that has had opportunity to bond with air prior to consumption. Although the food items plays a vital job in the success of the dinner gathering, that is also down to you to deliver the enjoyment. Supper contained either skinless hen, fish, or pork, veggies (cabbage, cauliflower, asparagus, eco-friendly as well as red peppers, and also carrots were frequent options), and also rice or even a little salad. President Ulysses S. Grant, dreading disruption from the switch of power to Rutherford B. Hayes (as a result of the latter's contested election) had the brand new president-elect secretly sworn in to workplace in the Red Space the eve the inauguration. Today, the Ripe Tomato remains happily on a strip from Course 9 comfortably found about half way between Saratoga Springs and Clifton Park, NY. Its welcoming red glow and also huge country hacienda really feel remains to invite site visitors inside (also without Beulah pacing the parking lot). The collection includes four bowls, 4 mugs, 4 mixed greens plates and also 4 supper plates. You could even lay out the ingredients at a gathering and also welcome individuals to design their very own blue mocktail. You could likewise inquire the member of the family, who you know won't mind food preparation, to share your responsibility for the Thanksgiving holiday supper and also take above the dishes that are traditional in their loved ones. Appreciate a sundown supper from a deck where you may view the Mesa Pedernal, 80 miles to the south. Supper is the Sky is open weekend break in Las Vegas and also may be a perfect area to propose! Nonetheless, their schedule raised its awful scalp, so they went forward and also created it racial. I will presently like to transform the call over to Mr. Steve Carley, President from Reddish Robin. please click the up coming article best fundamental part concerning hosting a wedding event Rehearsal supper gathering is actually opting for the ideal theme. They knew that using simple resources like every week dinner food selections functions to their perk as well as helps all of them can easily stay in advance of the dinnertime game. In the course of the meeting, he refers to his affection or practical jokes and his dinner celebration where all the meals was actually colored blue. Incorporating a handful of pieces of cobalt blue recipes definitely carries some spirit to the style. All I needed to do to ready this dinner was vacant the bag in to the skillet, add water and cook.

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soyoureviewhiphoptoo · 7 years ago

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Soundtrack of the Week 21/07/2017

It might be a day late but it is that time. It is time for the Soundtrack of the Week, the SYRHHT blog segment where I discuss latest music releases and other projects that I listen to over the space of 7 days. So, here is the Soundtrack!

French Montana- Jungle Rules Released July 14, 2017 Label: Bad Boy Records, Maybach Music Group and Epic Records

I am going to start off with a confession. I can count the amount of French Montana songs I have heard on one hand; I have never gone out of my way to listen to him before. I never had a major problem with him per say and I did like what I have heard but nothing really pushed me to listen to him more. Then, French released Unforgettable featuring Swae Lee (one-half of Rae Sremmurd). The song itself is wonderful, an interesting mixture of dancehall and afro-beats with Swae Lee laying down vocals that were certainly unexpected. However, what intrigued me most about this lead single was the music video and short documentary attached to it where French would go to Uganda, to embrace the culture and witness the musical and artistic talent within the African nation. It gave me a new view on the South Bronx M.C. and built an intrigue towards his upcoming project.

I walked into this project with relatively low expectations; Unforgettable was the only song I had heard and I have never heard a previous project from French Montana. To be honest, I was pleasantly surprised by what I heard. Jungle Rules includes an impressive mixture of hip-hop, trap, dancehall and afro-beats. The rap songs are very well produced and have catchy lyrics and melodies that stick with you while the songs that feature afro-beats and dancehall themes feel genuine and it does not feel like French just appropriating these genres amidst their rising popularity in pop culture.

I will definitely say that this album was a pleasant surprise with multiple songs that could become anthems. I see Jungle Rules taking French Montana to new heights and it is certainly a top project for this year.

RATINGS

Concept: 2/5 Production: 4/5 Lyrical Content: 3.5/5 Flow and Delivery: 3.5/5 Repeatability: 4/5 Did I enjoy this project? A lot more than I thought I would Songs to Recommend? Unforgettable, A Lie, Whiskey Eyes, Hotel Bathroom, No Pressure and White Dress

Final Rating: 3.4/5

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French Montana featuring The Weeknd and Max B- A Lie I bet you were expecting Unforgettable to be on here. As a huge Weeknd fan, I had to place A Lie here. With a bumping bassline and lyrics that are difficult to not sing along to, this is a great song to follow up the uber success of Unforgettable

Tyler, The Creator- Who Dat Boy/911 Released June 30, 2017 Label: Odd Future Records, Columbia Records

I have two more confessions I would like to say.

I have known of Tyler, The Creator for 6 years (which is a large portion of my life unironically) but I had never been a fan.

I first learned of Tyler from a diss toward him.

Hip-hop's dead, and I'm the lucky savior I'm kinda mad and I don't wanna pile up the anger All these no-flow, gimmicky-ass, fired-up behaviors With wack beats and gap teeth like Tyler the Creator Motherfucker, you not dope So you tryna get some attention by cussin' And eatin' a fuckin' cockroach? In "Goblin"? You get no props on it It sucks so much I get blowjobs from it

Taken from Hopsin- Ill Mind of Hopsin 4

This diss placed a certain perception of Tyler which was further supported when I would go on to listen to Yonkers for the first time. The beat was strange, I was fixated on Tyler’s weird mannerisms and how he would go on to eat a cockroach, vomit and then hang himself. It was a lot to take in as a 14-year-old. Two years later, a friend of mine would recommend Tyler to me so I said “f*ck it, let me listen to him”, I would go on to listen to his albums Goblin and Wolf and once again I found it hard to get into him so after a few listens of both, I left them. What finally brought me back to Tyler, The Creator was a combination of a few things: Tyler is one of the funniest rap personalities ever and recent verses on songs that I really like. This leads to my second confession

I spent this past week listening to a majority of his discography.

Jungle Rules and the next album on this week’s Soundtrack were listened to in between listens of Tyler’s discography. In the space of this week, I have re-listened to Goblin, Wolf and listened to Bastard for the first time. This listening experience has opened my eyes to many things and I do not know how to react.

The reason I have placed Who Dat Boy/911 here is that, aside from being the first single for his latest album, Scum F*ck Flower Boy, I did not want to break down every single project in Tyler’s discography....on the Soundtrack of the Week...

Who Dat Boy/911 consists of two tracks: Who Dat Boy and 911/Mr Lonely, the latter of which follows the trend of having a song on the project consisting of two or more songs. Who Dat Boy is an awesome back and forth between Tyler, The Creator and A$AP Rocky while 911/Mr Lonely is a dark self-reflection of a person’s loneliness and solitude. Two very strong songs that set the tone for Tyler, The Creator’s most controversial project to date (because he came out as gay?)

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Tyler, The Creator featuring A$AP Rocky- Who Dat Boy

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Tyler, The Creator- 911/Mr Lonely

Dr Dre- 2001 Released November 16, 1999 Label: Aftermath Entertainment, Interscope Records

What brought around this listen of 2001 was the release of The Defiant Ones. The Defiant Ones is the HBO documentary series displaying the rise of Dr Dre and Jimmy Iovine (record producer and co-founder of Interscope Records), the build of their friendship, the impact the two men had on the music industry, all the artist they have worked with and their $3 billion selling of Beats Audio. This documentary is split into four parts and includes interviews with numerous artists as well as Dre and Iovine. Part three included a montage compiled of the parallel rises of two of Interscope’s most controversial figures, Tupac Shakur of Deathrow Records and Marilyn Manson of Nothing Records. These were two men I never saw as similar but just a few minutes of vivid imagery blew my mind. I absolutely recommend everyone to watch The Defiant Ones.

Coming back to the album., 2001 is my favourite Dr Dre project...I daresay it is his very best work. To me, this was the height of Dre’s production prime, compiling a strong showing of iconic G-Funk beats and bringing together some of the best artists to not only be on Aftermath but in the entirety of hip-hop. Snoop Dogg, Kurupt, Xzibit, Nate Dogg, Eminem, just to name a few of the iconic names that help shape this timeless album. While the lyrical content was controversial (I think that is the word of the day), it was a reflection of the gangsta rap that helped Dre and many of his associates make names for themselves and it has some of the most memorable lyrics ever.

There is only one problem I have with this album and I will show you with a handy diagram.

This pie chart is a visual representation of the artists and performers who offered vocals to 2001. I would like to direct your attention to the unattached segment of this pie chart. That is the second largest segment and it belongs to an artist some people may not have ever heard of...Hiitman.

Aside from sharing a stage name with one of the most famous wrestlers ever, Los Angeles M.C. Hiitman is the most featured artist on 2001, one of the most famous hip-hop albums. Despite making NINE vocal appearances on this album and being signed to Aftermath in the 90s, he had not released a project until 2005, six years after the release of 2001 and long after he had already left Aftermath. Hiitman’s most famous single Last Dayz, is a song that was on the B-Side of the far more famous Forgot About Dre. What makes this worse is that Hiitman is a spectacular rapper; his flow is smooth yet methodical and he reels off strong gangsta lyrics with ease...it is a damn shame.

Still, 2001 is one of the most iconic albums in history. It would be difficult to find some who have never heard songs like Still D.R.E, Next Episode, Forgot About Dre or Xxpolsive. If you’ve never heard this album as a rap fan, you need to really question yourself.

RATINGS

Concept: 2.5/5 Production: 5/5 Lyrical Content: 4.5/5 Flow and Delivery: 5/5 Repeatability: 5/5 Did I enjoy this project? Yes...of course, I did Songs to Recommend? Still D.R.E, Next Episode, Forgot About Dre, Xxpolsive, Some L.A. Niggaz and The Message

Final Rating: 4.4/5

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Dr Dre featuring Eminem- Forgot About Dre I had to put this song. It is my favourite collab between Dre and Em, it has my all-time favourite Em verse and even though the music video version cuts the verse short, it literally acts out the words Shady was saying...it’s just amazing And the music video version even has an extract of Hiitman- Last Dayz...which is also a very good song

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behindsocialpassport-blog1 · 8 years ago

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5 myths of sports betting legalization

Legalized sports betting would elevate these now somewhat esoteric notions into the mainstream conversation about sports. Yes, trademark images and logos would be a different story, so I could see the leagues getting marketing deals, but I don't see that as a huge windfall for the leagues. At any rate, I really don't see legalized sports betting in other states having a big impact on the sports betting business in Vegas. Since bookies will not have to pay taxes or licensing fees, they will be able to offer better margins or incentives to their customers. Second, operators will need to run a cost-effective business, which may prove difficult if there are a lot of other hands to feed besides the government. There is simply no way the leagues could ask for a percentage piece of gambling revenue, as this would result in a huge conflict of interest. If something shady were to occur in a game around a betting proposition, raised awareness by the public about gambling in general would help highlight any improprieties before, during and after the match. Those who believe this simply don't understand how sports betting with a bookie works. 3: It will put local illegal bookies out of business While it seems that the question of legalizing sports betting presently is more of an if than a when, there remains a great deal of uncertainty regarding what it would look like. I will likely have to put money on deposit to do so. The two biggest reasons people bet with bookies (beyond the lack of alternatives) are the convenience and the line of credit. There are no credit checks or margin calls until it is time for me to pay. It's a pretty reasonable assumption that it's easier to fix a game in an environment where most of the money wagered is impossible to discover or track by the government. operation for the U.K. The National Council on Problem Gamblers has found that problem gamblers are most often involved in illegal gambling, so moving toward a model where more gamblers are doing it legally can only help. The real value for them will be potential marketing dollars and increased fan engagement, not licensing fees for data or direct revenue from wagering. Myth No. In addition, asking for a percentage based on the overall handle (total amount wagered) will cut into the margin of the sports books too significantly. I see the same trend happening if sports betting gets legalized in the U.S. Many bookies will allow me to get more credit and continue to gamble. These days, most bookies provide both a phone number and website where bets can be made. bookmaking powerhouse William Hill has already set up an operation in New Jersey, and MGM CEO Jim Murren has said his company is interested in expansion. In addition, game fixing would be easier in a world where fewer people track or are even aware of things like point spreads and over/under bets. Purdum, an expert on the subject, has been vocal in his belief that online sports gambling will need to be a big part of the new legalization plan, and I share his belief, as betting on a phone and computer is simply much more convenient than driving to a brick-and-mortar sports book and making a wager. "The Donaghy controversy also made me aware how important it is that we have a way of monitoring irregular activity on our games," Silver said. Those who believe that legalized sports betting will lead to more risk of game fixing simply don't understand why games are fixed. In fact, there's an argument that exposing more people to sports gambling in their native states will make the general concept of sports gambling more approachable, ultimately leading to a larger overall percentage of sports fans-turned-gamblers. Las Vegas sports book operators are already looking to expand to other states. District Court Judge Mary Ann Medler ruled in favor of CBC, stating that "statistics are part of the public domain and can be used at no cost by fantasy companies." One would infer that the same would apply to legal bookmaking operations. In that time span, we all know that Vegas has flourished. In the latter case, I set up a credit arrangement with Illegal Book B and we agree that I will pay every time I go over $1,000. This credit relationship will be hard for many gamblers to give up. In the most relevant case, CBC, the parent company of CDM Sports, a fantasy provider, sued MLBAM after being denied a new fantasy sports license. Say I set up an account with Legal Sportsbook A. (It's common for bookies to offer rebates to their big customers.) This will be difficult for legal bookmakers to compete with. Mr. This year, it is on pace to welcome a record 40 million visitors. U.S. In order to grow the pie large enough, these conveniences must be provided to gamblers. Concerts, shows, high-end fun88 login nightclubs and restaurants draw people to Vegas as much as the gambling does. 1: It will result in large revenue for the leagues Myth No. In the past two decades, although total revenue has risen, percentage of revenue from gambling has decreased from close to 60 percent to last year's 38 percent. This mirrors a similar concern that some had 25 years ago when Indian and commercial casinos began sprouting up all over the U.S. Silver echoed this sentiment when discussing his personal revelation in an exclusive interview with ESPN. 4: It will damage the sports betting business in Las Vegas Once games happen, the stats are public domain. Illegal gambling is one of the factors that's associated with gambling addiction," Keith S. This is the type of financial recklessness associated with problem gambling. Here are the top five myths about legalizing sports betting and why they're wrong: The thought process here is that with legalized sports betting available locally, there will be less interest in making the trek to Sin City to wager on sports. 5: It will create greater risk for game fixing And I have heard some mention licensing fees for data, but haven't we already covered that in lawsuits against both the NBA and Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM)? In both cases, statistics and data were ruled to be public, not a private asset for which the leagues could charge a license fee. The topic of federal legalization of sports betting has been brought up before, but it has gained steam since Adam Silver's November New York Times op-ed and after Silver's cover story in ESPN The Magazine's Gambling Issue. Sen. However, there are certainly some myths that I believe can be dispelled.

There are a lot of unanswered questions regarding legalization of sports gambling in the U.S., and it will be fascinating to watch how it unfolds in the next few years. The U.S. John McCain (R-Ariz.) also recently said that Congress needs to hold hearings to discuss legalizing sports betting. My answer is a solid maybe. I am concerned that the overall pie, even with online gambling, may not be large enough for the leagues to make the money they are hoping for. I understand the argument that legalized sports betting could expose more people to gambling and the increased ease and access will create more problem gamblers, but I simply don't buy it. The experience of going to Vegas is becoming less and less about putting down a sports bet and more and more about the experience of everything else. "But for the FBI knocking on our door and notifying us about Donaghy's betting, none of the systems that we then had in place had captured any betting by Tim Donaghy.". If it's legalized, there will be huge changes, but some assumptions are simply off. When I think about the best way to legalize sports gambling from a logistical standpoint, I get a headache. How will it be regulated? How involved will the government be? Will it be federal enforcement or on a state level? Myth No. Since sports gambling is currently something that happens in the shadows, problem gamblers are likely to hide in that shadow until it is too late. "One of the things that makes sports betting so interesting is that it is probably by far the most widely participated in form of illegal gambling. First off, the government will only legalize if it is going to get significant revenue.

Myth No. Illegal sports betting has some characteristics that can lead to problem gambling more than legal betting would. Those betting with bookies have predetermined settlement terms. Are fewer people gambling because they can do it in their home state? Myth No. Vegas has had to reinvent itself as a place that is about more than just gambling. When I lose this money, it's gone, and I can't bet until I put more money on deposit. Maybe more so. Furthermore, once sports betting becomes legal the negative stigma behind it will eventually disappear, which will make it a bit easier for problem gamblers to ask for help. Whyte, executive director of the NCPG, told my ESPN colleague David Purdum. Until many of these questions are answered, it will be difficult to draw any hard conclusions about the ramifications of legalized sports gambling in the U.S. But let's say I have a bad losing streak and end up down more than $1,000. There are going to be a lot of hands in the cookie jar. In addition, customers are far more inclined to place a wager when they don't have to put any money down. This is the easiest myth to dispel. Some are based on a time frame, while others are based on going over agreed-upon limits. 2: It will create more "problem gamblers" Here's an example. This is not how most bookies work

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