#Small touches like asking about specific initiatives the organization is currently working on can go a long way | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lazyliars · 4 years ago

Text

/rp

Before I get into it, I want to state that is EXPLICITLY an analysis of the Characters, and is not intended to touch on how the cc’s played them in a meta sense unless specifically stated otherwise.

Also, this is technically a part two to my other post, which took a more in depth look at Techno and Phil’s reactions to Tommy’s death. It’s not necessary when reading this post, but I don’t address their reactions here.

So. The question must be asked.

Are we [the Syndicate] the baddies?

Yes.

The End.

Why are the Syndicate the baddies?

They got damn logo is a wither skull.

The End.

That's not how this works.

Yeah, yeah. You’re right.

The Syndicate's goals as an organization are not inherently bad. They seem to have good intentions behind them, and the focus on the freedom of it's individual group members is important to remember when talking about it; It is not a government. There is no hierarchical power system. No one is forced to do anything against their will, or surrender any of their rights or power to remain a member. It is not a government.

I also want to address Techno and Phil backing Ranboo into a corner – I see them getting a lot of flack for this, but I personally do not think it is relevant to the greater discussion, or necessarily representative of any contradictions within the organization. It was clearly played for laughs, and after they back off they clarify to Ranboo that they won't force him. Then later when Phil and Ranboo are alone, Ranboo feels safe enough to express that he felt like he was pressured into it, and Phil assures him he is allowed to leave whenever he wants; He is not being forced to do anything, and he is not being coerced or blackmailed.

None of the Syndicate members have done any wrongs against each other in the context of the Syndicate, OR gone against any of the Syndicate's core principles.

That, said, holy shit are they the baddies.

Listen, there's trying to telegraph a meaning or message to the audience and then there's having your logo be wither skulls on blackstone. That is straight out of the skit I keep referencing, seriously.

Okay, but, they laughed at it! It was played as a joke, just like the Ranboo thing!

The Ranboo thing was improv, the Syndicate's headquarters were planned – the artistic choices that they made reflect on what role they want the build and the organization inhabiting it to play in the future storylines.

Wither Skulls kind of have some CONNOTATIONS. Techno is an English major, I don't think he chose the most threatening imagery possible on accident, and then joked about the way people would interpret it just to stir the pot. This reads as hugely intentional.

And beyond that, the jokes they make during this part aren't “haha yeah, we look bad but we're actually good!” they're “you can tell by looking at these that we're the good guys wink wink, this is good guy stuff right here :)” It is a joke about how they are definitely not the good guys. This isn't even a case of unreliable narrators, this is one step down from flat out saying the meta intent.

But okay, I hear you, I'm talking about things that haven't happened yet. The Syndicate hasn't used any Withers, they could be an aesthetic choice. Lets look at what they do in practice.

So, they barge into private property, assess Snowchester's right to continue existing based entirely on their own ideals of what Freedom is, and then only once Tubbo assures them that they have no standing leader do they grant the place their approval to, and I gotta stress this part, continue existing.

In my Quackity meta, I already talked about how Government in the context of a M1necraft RP cannot be compared to IRL Governments on a one-to-one scale. They don't serve the same purposes or have the same type of power. What I didn't talk about was Agency in the context of m1necraft governments.

In an irl government, if you are born into one, you can't really leave without committing a massive overhaul on your life, which can be expensive and difficult, if not impossible for many people. Even in a “benevolent” government, the simple physicality of where you were born can prevent you from leaving it easily.

The same hurdles do not exist in the Dream SMP. People who join M1necraft governments choose to. They want to, either at the beginning when they form one, or later on when they join up. So far, no Government has just Sprung Up and forced the current residents of an area to become dependent on them, except maybe the Eggpire, who's status as a government is... shakey.

And even when people want to leave or separate from the government, they have been historically able to do so without any trouble or any effort from said governments to stop them. Jack Manifold emancipated from Manberg. Fundy and Quackity both left to start new nations. In all cases they were allowed to do so without any attempts on the part of the governments to stop them, either through force, or institutions preventing them from doing so.

The most anyone has lost when leaving a government is their house, which is still usually their property anyway, and is something that is easily rebuilt elsewhere and is inconvenient to move anyway.

The only exceptions to this might be Schlatt exiling Wilbur and Tommy - but even then, they weren’t trying to leave, they were trying to get back in, and of course the original L’manberg revolution, where Dream attempted to force L’manberg back into the Dream SMP, which wasn’t even a government at that point in time.

I don’t consider Phil’s house arrest an example of a government forcing someone to stay a citizen - that was treated less as a matter of a citizen wanting to leave the country and more as a threat to national security. Still pretty fucked up, but it’s a different issue.

What I'm saying is, If Tubbo wants to create a government out in the middle of nowhere, threatening no one, forcing no one to join either through force or desperation, and allowing people to join willingly because they want to, then he should be allowed to do that.

The Irony of the Syndicate, a group of people consisting of some of the richest, strongest people on the server, going around and enforcing 'Freedom' that entails no one person having more power than any other, is absurd.

It shows an extreme lack of self-awareness and/or self-righteousness, as they seem to think that they deserve to be the ones who decide what constitutes a government.

Snowchester is a small independent nation - they shouldn’t have to live in fear of being obliterated if they don’t walk on eggshells to meet an arbitrary standard decided by people who’s only authority on the matter COMES FROM THEIR PERSONAL POWER. No one elected them! No one chose them! They were not “approved” by the server at large to enact this kind of law.

The Syndicate are not a government, but they are an unsupervised power structure exerting their ideals on a land that did not ask for them. Like, These people have invented an actual Authoritarian-Anarchist faction. How the hell did they manage this?????

Back on topic.

Tubbo shows them the crater left by his nukes. The reaction is oddly positive – the nukes are fine by the morals of the Syndicate, apparently. I'd argue that they come across as more impressed than anything else; they seem to respect Tubbo for having gotten ahold of “real” power.

(There's a few good memes out there about “We can excuse nuclear weaponry, but we draw the line at Government!”)

So. By the Syndicate's standards: A single person or group of acceptably equal persons with weapons of mass-destruction are only worth “keeping an eye on” because they might provoke other people.

Like, I consider Project Dreamcatcher to be one of, if not the most morally ambiguous thing Tubbo has ever done, largely because it was all on his own initiative. He holds some culpability for The Butcher Army and Phil's house arrest, but they weren't his ideas and he was mostly following Quackity at that point.

And Phil tells Tubbo, IMMEDIATELY AFTER SEEING THE NUCLEAR CRATER:

“Looks like you've reformed a little bit Tubbo, I'm proud.”

And it's fine. Crimes against nature? Fine. A sign of healing in fact!! Tubbo is having a sweeeelll time and he definitely didn't make these nukes specifically in fear of being attacked by these exact people! Tubbo is doing great. Tubbo is doing fine. Tubbo. is. FINE.

Anyway.

I don't think this presentation of the Syndicate was an accident. Looking at the greater lore of SMP right now, after the Egg is done, their list of enemies is slim, and considering that they seem solely invested in taking down governments, that leaves maybe Snowchester, Kinoko Kingdom, and Eret and the greater Dream SMP.

Snowchester has not been shown to be corrupt, evil, or have any intent to go down that route. The most ambiguous thing they've done is, again, is the nukes. Other than that, it's pretty much your average cottagecore snow village.

Kinoko is presented in an even more morally 'good' light, Karl having founded it specifically for his Time-travel library purposes, which are currently being treated by the narrative as a selfless act, if not downright heroic.

Eret is also a fairly 'good' aligned character atm. He's been on that redemption grind since the og betrayal, and doesn't seem keen on backtracking. He's actively tried to leverage his position as king to make things better, and hasn't been quiet about that. He was also 'validated' by Tommy*, a character who has been described both by his allies and enemies as “the hero,” so take that as you will.

What I'm getting at is, all of the current potential enemies for the Syndicate aside from the Egg, are currently being cast as 'good,' and if they were to be attacked, they would undoubtedly have the moral high-ground, unless something drastically changed.

The only potential shakeups I can think of is are a Dream escape and/or a Wilbur revival, both of which could draw the Syndicate's attention and ire, depending on how things go. That said, it's just as likely that either or both of them would join the Syndicate – Dream still has that favor, and Phil and Techno both seemed to think Wilbur would've agreed with their blowing up L'manberg.

Both of those characters are currently **villains – the fact that they're both prime candidates for the Syndicate is a huge indication of the direction it's going to go as the plot moves forward.

((*I know some people are gonna come at me for painting Tommy as the “deciding factor” of what is morally good, so lemme just stop you there. I'm not talking about Tommy somehow having the 'right' to decide who is and isn't good, and definitely not the right to decide who should and shouldn't be king. I'm saying that Tommy, a character who the narrative treats as, if not a good person, then a person who is trying to be good, was in support of Eret, a character who has also been trying to be good.

Eret doesn't gain the moral highground because Tommy said so, he gets it because a character who the narrative treats as trying to do better, acknowledged Eret's earnest attempts at doing the same.

**I'm referring to Wilbur here as a villain because Tommy seemed convinced he would be if he were to be brought back. There is always the possibility that he's wrong.))

So, to summarize this: I read the Syndicate as being intentionally positioned as future antagonists, if not outright villains of a future arc. They are NOT a Government but their goals are contradictory with their means, and it is important to keep in mind that they plan to enforce their own brand of freedom on people who did not grant them either the authority or permission to do so.

So, uh. Can you tell I loved these streams? They were seriously so good. I kept switching between Ranboo and Techno's POV's trying to keep up with everything. I still have to watch Niki's!

All in all, I'm super, super excited for whats coming next, egg stuff, Syndicate stuff, Tommy stuff, all of it.

#dream smp #tubbo #the syndicate #c!techno critical #c!phil critical #dream smp analysis #lazytext

684 notes · View notes

nim-lock · 4 years ago

Text

Art Career Tips, 2021 Edition

Here’s an edited version of my 2019 answered ask, because... this feels relevant.

It is a problem of capitalism that folks equate their income as a judgement of their value as people; and let me preface. You are worth so much. You have inherent value in this world. Your income is not a judgement on who you are (plenty of billionaires are actively making the world worse). LARPing self-confidence will go a long way to helping you get paid more for your work, because clients will believe that you know what you are doing, and are a professional.

& real quick—my own background is that I’ve been living off my art since 2018. I went to art school (Pratt Institute). I work in a publishing/educational materials sphere, and a quarter of my income is my shop. Not all of this information may apply to you, so it is up to you to look through everything with a critical eye, and spot pick what is relevant.

So there are multiple ways of getting income as an artist;

Working freelance or full-time on projects

Selling your stuff on a shop

Licensing (charging other companies to use your designs)

This post primarily covers the freelance part; if you’re interested in the other bits there is absolutely info out there on the internet.

IF you are just starting (skip to next section if not applicable) dream big, draw often (practice helps you get better/more efficient), do your best to take "a bad piece” lightly. You’re gonna RNG this shit. At some point your rate of “good” works will get higher. Watch tutorial videos & read books. A base understanding of “the rules”; anatomy, perspective, composition, color helps you know what the rules are to break them. This adds sophistication to your work. One way you can learn this stuff is by doing “studies”—you’re picking apart things from life, or things other people have done, to see what works, and how it works.

Trying to turn your interests into a viable career means that you are now a SMALL BUSINESS; it really helps to learn some basic marketing, graphic design, figure out how to write polite customer service emails; etc. You can learn some of this by looking it up, or taking skillshare (not sponsored) classes by qualified folks. Eventually some people may get agents to take care of this for them—however, I do recommend y’all get a basic understanding of what it takes to do it on your own, just so you can know if your agent is doing a good job.

Making sure your portfolio fits the work you want to get

Here is a beginner portfolio post.

Research the field you’d like to get into. The amount people work, the time commitment, the process of making the thing, the companies & people who work for them.

Create work that could fit in to the industry you’re breaking into. For example, if you want to do book cover illustration, you draw a bunch of mockup book covers, that can either be stuff you make up, or redesigns of existing books. If you’re not 100% sure what sort of work is needed for the industry, loop back into the portfolios of artists in a similar line of work as whatever you’re interested in, and analyze the things they have in common. If something looks to be a common project (like a sequence of action images for storyboard artists), then it’s probably something useful for the job.

CLIENTS HIRE BASED ON HOW WELL THEY THINK YOUR WORK FITS WHAT THEY WANT. If they’re hiring for picture books, they’re gonna want to see picture book art in your portfolio, otherwise they may not want to risk hiring you. Doesn’t have to be 100% the project, but stuff similar enough. If you aren’t hired, it doesn’t mean your work is bad, it just wasn’t the right fit for that specific client.

If you have many interests, make a different section of your portfolio for each!

Making sure you’re relevant

Have a social media that’s a little more public-facing, and follow people in the career field you’re interested in. Fellow artists, art directors, editors, social media managers; whoever. Post on your own schedule.

Interact with their posts every so often, in a non-creepy way.

If you’ve made any contacts, great! Email these artists, art directors, editors, former professors, etc occasional updates on your work to stay in touch AND make sure that they think about you every so often.

Show up to general art events every once in a while! If you keep showing up to ones in your area (when... not dying from a sneeze is a thing), folks will eventually start to remember you.

Industry events & conferences can be pricey, so attend/save up for what makes sense for you. Industry meetups are important for networking in person! In addition to meeting people with hiring power, you also connect with your peers in the community. Always bring a portfolio & hand out business cards like candy.

Active job hunting

Apply to job postings online.

If interested in working with specific people at specific companies, you could send an email “I’d love to work with you, here’s my portfolio/relevant experience”, even if they aren’t actively looking for new hires. Be concise, and include a link to your work AND attached images so the person reading the email can get a quick preview before clicking for more.

Twitter job postings can be pretty underpaid! Get a copy of the Graphic Artists’ Guild Handbook Pricing & Ethical Guidelines to know your rate. I once had a twitter post job listing email me back saying that other illustrators were charging less, and I quote, “primarily because they’re less experienced and looking for their first commission”. This was not okay! For reference, this was a 64-illustration book. The industry rate of a children’s book (~36 pages) is $10k+, and this company’s budget was apparently $1k. For all of it.

Congrats you got a job! Now what?

Ask for like, 10% more than they initially offer and see if they say yes. If they do, great! If not, and the price is still OK, great! Often company budgets are slightly higher than they first tell you, and if you get this extra secret money, all the better for you.

Make sure you sign a contract and the terms aren’t terrible (re: GO GET THE Graphic Artists’ Guild Handbook Pricing & Ethical Guidelines)

Be pleasant and easy to work with (Think ‘do no harm but take no shit’)

Communicate with them as much as needed! If something’s going to be late, tell them as soon as you know so they aren’t left wondering or worse, reaching out to ask what’s up.

And if all goes well, they’ll contact you about more jobs down the line, or refer you to other folks who may need an artist, etc.

Quick note about online shops/licensing and why they’re so good

It’s work that you do once, that you continuously make money off of. Different products do well in different situations (conventions vs. online, and then further, based on how you market/the specific groups you are marketing to), so products that may not do well initially may get a surge later on.

Start with things that have low minimum order quantity and are relatively cheap to produce, like prints and stickers.

If you are not breaking even, go back to some of the earlier portions of this and think about how you could tweak things as a small business. Ease of access is also very important with this; for example, if you only take orders through direct messages, that immediately shuts off all customers who don’t like talking to strangers.

Quick resource that you could look through; it’s the spreadsheet of project organizing that I made a while back

Licensing is when people pay you for the right to use your work on stuff they need to make, like textbooks or greeting cards. This is generally work you’ve already made that they are paying the right to use for a specified time or limited run of products. This is great because you’ve already done the work. I am not the expert on this. Go find someone else’s info.

“I am not physically capable of working much”/ “I need to pay the bills”

Guess who got a hand injury Sept 2020 that messed me up that entire month! I had a couple jobs going at the time that I was terrified of losing, but they were quite understanding when I told them I needed to heal. So: Express your needs as early as you know you need them. Also do lots of stretches and rest your hands whenever you feel anything off; this will save your health later. Like, the potential of a couple months of no income was preferable over losing use of my hands for the rest of my life.

This continues to apply if you have any other life situation. Ask for extra time. Ask for clarification. If you tell people ahead of time, folks are often quite understanding. Know how much you are capable of working and do your best not to overdo it. (I am.. bad at this)

Do what MAKES SENSE for your situation. If doing art currently earns you less money than organizing spreadsheets, then do that for now, and whenever you have the energy, break down some of the tips above into actionable tiny chunks, and slowly work at em.

The original ask I got in 2019 mentioned ‘knowing you’re not good enough yet’. Most artists experience imposter syndrome & self-doubt—the important thing is to do your best, and if anything, attempt to channel the confidence of a mediocre white man. If he can apply to this job/charge hella money for Not Much, then so can you!

Check out this Art Director tumblr for more advice!

Danichuatico’s Literary Agent guide

Kikidoodle’s Shop Shipping Tutorial

Best of luck!

–

Once again disclaimer this post is just the ramblings of a man procrastinating on other things that need to be done. I’ve Long Posted my own post so that it turns into mush in my brain if I try to read it, but I wrote this so I should know this content. If you got down here, congrats. Here’s a shrimp drawing.

Yee Ha.

My reference post tag My tip jar

#reference #artist information #UHHHHH I don't know man

245 notes · View notes

feralphoenix · 4 years ago

Text

NO ONE IS HAPPY WITH THIS: Leitmotif & Sound Palette In “Sealed Vessel”

whats UP hk fandom i am back with—“more picante takes?” WOW YES HOW DID YOU KNOW!!!

CONTENT WARNING FOR TONIGHTS PROGRAM: today we are discussing the hollow knight boss fight, and all that entails for all the characters involved. relatedly this post does not have anything nice to say about the pale king, so if you’re very protective of his character, you may want to skip it.

FURTHERMORE, i would like to iterate that this essay is working from a place of compassion for ghost, hollow, radiance, AND hornet, because every single one of them is miserable at this point in the game and doesn’t want the events of this boss fight to be happening at all. this post is not an appropriate place to dunk on ANY of them. if you want to do that, please do it elsewhere.

thanks for your understanding.

ALSO, AS USUAL: if youre from a christian cultural upbringing (whether currently practicing, agnostic/secular, or atheist now), understand that some of what i’m discussing here may challenge you. if thinking thru the implications of radiance and the moth tribe’s backstory is distressing for you, PLEASE only approach this essay when youre in a safe mindset & open to listening, and ask the help of a therapist or anti-racism teacher/mentor to help you process your thoughts & feelings. just like keep in mind that youre listening to an ethnoreligiously marginalized person and please be respectful here or wherever else youre discussing this dang essay, ty

NO ONE IS HAPPY WITH THIS: Leitmotif & Sound Palette In “Sealed Vessel”

A while back @grimmradiance made a lovely essay about comparing and contrasting Hollow’s moveset in their Hollow Knight and Pure Vessel boss fights and using what can be gleaned from the differences to speculate about their psychology. (This essay is currently their pinned, but I’ll attach a link in a reblog.) It is extremely good, and it made me want to look at the Hollow Knight boss fight my own self through one of my own areas of expertise, meaning music!

As we are all well aware, Christopher Larkin's soundtrack to Hollow Knight rules ass. There are two specific ways in which it rules ass that are relevant to this essay: Leitmotif, and sound palette.

Quick rundown for folks who aren’t familiar with these terms: A leitmotif is a melody associated with a character or event or mood that's incorporated into songs in different ways based on what's happening in the story. Undertale is an example of a game with an incredibly strong use of leitmotif that’s really only possible because Toby Fox is both the composer and the game creator, so he can synchronize the subtleties of the writing with music and scene scripting too.

The phrase “sound palette” can have a lot of meanings, but in this case I’m using it to refer to specific instruments or groups of instruments that are associated with certain characters. If you’ve watched Steven Universe and seen interviews/production commentary by its composer team Aivi & Surasshu, you’ll hear them talking about part of their approach to scoring episodes being how each main character is represented by certain instruments: Steven with the triangle wave, Pearl with jazz piano, and so on.

Hollow Knight is a small team project rather than a one-person show, so Christopher Larkin can’t go quite AS over-the-top with leitmotif integration as Toby Fox can on simple virtue of Team Cherry having to communicate what they want to him. But Larkin is Hollow Knight's sound designer as well as its composer, so he folds leitmotif and character sound palette together with striking use of stems to create a very immersive and cinematic musical experience that enhances HK’s story and gameplay.

This brings us back to the track Sealed Vessel, which has EXTREMELY tight and cinematic sound design and uses leitmotif and sound palette to not just sock players in the feelings during a charged and dramatic boss fight, but also tell us a lot about what Hollow and Radiance are experiencing emotionally, especially with the gameplay in mind.

So, let’s play the soundtrack version of Sealed Vessel (and some other stuff) and talk about what’s going on in the game during it!

You may want to get out your copy of the OST or visit Christopher Larkin’s Bandcamp page so that you can listen along.

LEITMOTIF & SOUND PALETTE

Before we actually get into analyzing Sealed Vessel, let’s talk about the involved characters’ leitmotifs/sound palettes so we know what we’re listening for.

Both of these things are easiest to identify when characters have a distinct theme song. Ghost does not. However, the main theme of Hollow Knight (see: the title track, Hollow Knight) is used as a leitmotif for the vessels as a whole. Most pieces involved with a vessel character include this leitmotif somewhere. For instance, you can find this leitmotif and variations on it in Broken Vessel’s boss theme. The Vessel leitmotif is led by a cello solo here, so we can identify that the cello is the central part of Broken Vessel’s personal sound palette.

When the Vessel theme is associated with Ghost in specific, it tends to be performed by viola and/or piano, as it is on the title track and in other places like the opening cinematic.

Moving on to Hollow, their specific sound palette is established not in Sealed Vessel but in Pure Vessel, their pantheon boss theme. (Sealed Vessel was composed first, since the Godmaster DLC didn’t drop until over a year after HK’s initial release, meaning Pure Vessel was reverse-engineered/extrapolated from relevant parts of Sealed Vessel. But we’ll get into that later!)

The major instrumental fixtures in Pure Vessel are choir and tubular bells (i.e., those dramatic vertical fellas that sound like church bells or a carillon), with some soft background instrumentation: bass drum, woodwinds (appropriately led by flute in the main melody’s “falling motion” - flute is the centerpiece of TPK’s sound palette), strings, and high/mid brass. Hollow’s overall sound palette has a very Christian choir-esque sound (in the Pure Vessel theme this is very idealized and saintly: soft and slow and tragic) and the beginning of their leitmotif has a very distinctive climbing melody that mirrors their ascent from the Abyss. The Unbearable Vesselness Of Being leitmotif is absent from the Pure Vessel track.

Meanwhile, Radiance’s boss theme is a very fun expression of her character upon which Larkin evidently went ham. Her sound palette is expressed through full orchestra (plus choir and pipe organ) that has a special emphasis on the bass part of the brass section, which does not see much use in the HK soundtrack. Her leitmotif has also got cute and distinctive touches: It’s full of triplets to match her tiara-looking antennae, and also has a repeated “fluttery” pattern of background sixteenth notes as countermelody, often spiraling downwards.

The majority of the piece is loud and bombastic and in a minor key to play up the “resplendent and terrible” wrathful aspect of herself Radi is pushing during this section of gameplay, a very quintessentially moth intimidation tactic: Try to look as scary as possible to keep your enemies from messing with you, since you’re not built for fighting. These blasts of intensity from the brass section match Radiance’s strategy of Overwhelm You With Bullet Hell Spam To Make Up For Lack Of Battle Experience/Poor Aim. But in between said intensity spikes you can hear traces of softer instrumentation and major key, little glimpses of a gentle warmth we can otherwise only infer from her backstory and the implications of Moth Tribe lore.

0:00 - 0:41 - OPENING AMBIANCE

The Sealed Vessel track begins with the ambiance of the Black Egg Temple’s interior: The faint tones of the glowing seals we hear when we pass by them, the only light in a pitch-black world besides the floor lighting up under Ghost’s feet.

Then a slow string tremolo fades in, slowly growing louder. In the track new notes join the tremolo progressively, while in-game a violin joins the anticipatory chord every time you snap one of Hollow’s chains. Which, may I say: A+++++++ sound design!!!!!! Rules ass!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The tremolo reaches a peak in dynamics - all three characters present are extremely tense - and then cuts off to allow for Hollow’s boss battle opening, i.e. Radiance screaming. Team Cherry kindly demarcates each phase of the battle with a Radi yell.

0:43 - 1:39 - PHASE 1: HOLLOW ON AUTOPILOT

Phase 1 opens immediately with Hollow’s leitmotif in bells, but with brass, piano, and percussion backing them up; grand and tragic. In the background the bass section of the orchestra's strings flutter in a repetitive pattern of 16th notes, i.e. Panicky Radi Noises. The violins harmonize with Hollow's leitmotif as it climbs, but then join the rest of the string section in fluttering 16th notes, transmuting what in Pure Vessel is the flute leading Hollow back down (8th notes) to a slightly louder “a” from the backseat.

In actual gameplay, the only attacks Hollow uses are their basic nail skills. Building on grimmradiance’s analysis of the window their attacks provide to their psychology, and pairing that with the Pure Vessel leitmotif booming over the metaphorical loudspeakers, we can tell that this is Hollow reacting automatically to a threat the way that their father trained them to. Their conscious mind might still be making dialup noises at Ghost’s sudden reappearance jumpscaring them with murky childhood guilt and trauma, but that’s only let muscle memory take over. Slash, parry, charge and thrust. Their time spent at bee bootcamp (which we can assume because Hornet was trained at the Hive and Hollow’s form while nail fighting is identical to hers on their shared moves) has served them well.

Radiance, meanwhile, has frozen completely for this combat phase, and contributes nothing here except the anxiety of the string section.

As the strings continue to go “a” the piano (Ghost) and woodwinds harmonize on something between Hollow’s personal leitmotif and the Vessel leitmotif in the backdrop.

However at around 1:29ish, the key changes, building into an overall color change for the Sealed Vessel piece.

1:39 - 2:15 - PHASE 2: SHE’S AS SCARED OF YOU AS YOU ARE OF HER

In actual gameplay, the part of Sealed Vessel used for phases 1 and 2 of the Hollow Knight fight is the Entirety of 0:43 - 2:15, possibly because there’s no easy transition spot like there is between phase 2 and phase 3. But the changes to Hollow’s moveset are clearly tied to this specific part of the piece.

Phase 2 is where Radiance pushes herself past her freeze response and starts trying to hit Ghost. Hollow gains two attacks here, which we can tell are Radi because they’re often accompanied by her crying (a softer and more abbreviated sound than her full scream): These two attacks are the Infection blob blast and the Light/Void pillar attack that hits for a full 2 masks damage (which appear to be Radi’s take on Hollow’s Pure Vessel-exclusive moves, their grabby tentacles & silver knife pillars respectively).

In the Sealed Vessel track, this part of the piece is almost entirely Radiance’s fluttering. The strings start by following the descending motion of Hollow’s leitmotif but in 16th notes, then ratchet up to start spiraling down again while straying further from Hollow’s leitmotif. This section ends in a back and forth between hard blasts in a one-two-(rest)-one-two-three pattern and gasps of fluttering between, with piano and low brass building behind it. Eventually the nervous fluttering of the strings becomes less frequent between the blasts: Radiance is inexperienced with fighting and very very afraid, but she’s also FUCKING PISSED and prepared to defend herself.

The OST version of the piece punctuates the break between the first half of the piece and the second with Radiance’s scream.

2:16 - 4:04 - PHASE 3: “I’M HELPING! :)” SAID HOLLOW; “HOLY SHIT PLEASE DON’T,” SAID LITERALLY EVERYONE

Phase 3 opens with Hollow stabbing themself repeatedly, a movement pattern they repeat throughout the phase. It is shocking the first time you see it, and never stops being horrible and sad no matter how many times you do this part of the fight.

Here, Hollow’s mind has finally come back online after their own freeze response, and they choose to destroy themself and bequeath the duty of sealing Radiance to Ghost. Even if they can’t be the one to make their father proud, they can still make sure their directive gets carried out.

Radiance knows exactly what they’re up to and why, and she reacts to this by completely losing her head and mashing buttons in a panic. This is something we see out of her at the ends of her boss fights too, where she’s feeling too threatened and afraid to do anything but spam optic blasts. In the Hollow Knight boss fight this manifests in two horrifying-looking but easy-to-avoid new attacks: The Infection blob sprinkler and the ragdoll.

Ghost does not react visibly because we're in gameplay, but their horror and grief at their sibling’s choice is echoed in the BGM. The Sealed Vessel piece goes soft and sad, with Ghost’s associated viola leading the bass strings in the Unbearable Vesselness of Being leitmotif. At 2:51 the violin comes in with Hollow’s leitmotif, and gradually the choir appears in the backdrop. The ensemble’s overall dynamics build in a slow crescendo, and at the very end of this segment the other instruments begin to join in.

This segment of the piece is also used in phase 4, which occurs if you don't have Hornet’s help or miss your cue to Dream Nail Hollow. Phase 3 ends when Hollow reaches 0 HP; in phase 4 they are for all purposes already dead. But Radiance manifests an extra 250 HP out of terrified, unadulterated FUCK YOU FUCK THIS!!! even though all she can do is get Hollow to fall on their face trying to slash and ragdoll them around. The BGM continues to play as Ghost absorbs Radiance from Hollow and Hollow’s body loses its shape and dissolves into liquid Void.

And there’s one other place in gameplay Sealed Vessel (Unbearable Vesselness of Being) is used: The Path of Pain, the completely evil kaizo-level obstacle course which presumably featured in Hollow’s childhood training, and behind which the Pale King has hidden his last and most terrible secret—that he had realized on some level that Hollow was a kid with feelings who loved him and wanted to make him proud, and condemned them to death despite it all by using them to imprison and torture Radiance as he’d always planned.

The OST version of Sealed Vessel includes the music for both normal ending cinematics, so we’ll be looking at them too.

4:05 - 4:35: ENDINGS 1/2: NO ONE IS HAPPY WITH THIS

In the BGM for The Hollow Knight and Sealed Siblings endings, the Vessel leitmotif is played by violin, viola, and choir while the cellos and contrabasses—and then the brass bass section too—play a slower version of Radiance’s downward spiral. But once Ghost is pierced by the Black Egg’s chains and Radiance’s struggle to free herself ends in failure, the soprano and bass sections harmonize. The animation zooms out of the temple and the seal reforms. They are stuck together now until the end of Ghost’s life. Hooray.

The OST version of the track immediately segues into the BGM for Dream No More.

4:36 - 5:45: ENDING 3: THANKS, I HATE IT

Here, Hornet’s associated instrument, the violin, plays one long sustained note with a few notes of Ghost’s piano alongside as she wakes up.

TPK’s goddamn flute comes in at 5:00 with his leitmotif overpowering the backdrop Vessel leitmotif on piano while Hornet surveys the carnage: The temple has been destroyed, Radiance is dead, and what’s left of Ghost’s corpse is smeared across the floor. The Void may have taken umbrage with his horseshit and unceremoniously vored him, but the motherfucker still got what he wanted in the end; the Pale King has ended the Infection by completing his genocide of the moths, using the children he abused and abandoned as his proxies, and wasting two of their lives. Can I get a hearty THIS SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! in the chat.

Given that Hornet herself is canonically unsure if bringing the fight to Radiance is really a just course of action, one can only imagine how she must feel when she sees the cost of that decision.

Our only real moment of catharsis is in this shit situation comes in at 5:13, where the flute gives way to a solo from Ghost’s associated viola, playing the Vessel leitmotif as the Siblings curl up and sink back into the mountain of their corpses. Goodnight, kiddos. You deserved better, and so did literally everyone involved in this whole stupid boss fight.

This is where the OST version of Sealed Vessel ends. Even without the gameplay and story context it slaps, but now that we’ve taken a look at how this 5:45 piece is wall to wall misery and fear on the part of literally every involved character, hopefully it will have even more impact!

#hollow knight #sealed vessel #the hollow knight #the radiance #hk radiance #ghost hollow knight #hk ghost #hornet hollow knight #hk hornet #essay #hollow knight meta

135 notes · View notes

wtfockinternational · 5 years ago

Text

An article about wtFOCK translated from Dutch:

How wtFOCK conquers taboos through trial and error

wtFOCK: for one person a key player, for the other a rather strange combination of consonants. Young people can’t seem to stay away from the successful web series. The new season has started, so we can look back at the previous one. For three months many fans were glued to their screens for a sixteen-year-old’s coming-out. Did this pave a way for more and honest representation of LGBTQ+-problems, or did they occasionally stray from that path?

“‘Secret’ series wtFOCK became the most popular search term on Google in 2019”, various media reported in December. This news seemed to come as a surprise, because many people seemed to have never heard of the term, let alone the web series. And still the series could crown itself the proverbial king of last year’s Google. How did that happen?

The online series that arrived here from Norway mostly seems a hit with teenagers and young adults. In nine weeks’ time the third season got about 11.8 million online views, SBS Belgium said. In total around 400,000 young people between 15 and 34 would be watching the series.

The presumed reason for the success? Young people can follow the characters daily via their smartphones through short, real-time updates and real Instagram-accounts. So ideal in a world where watching linear television, especially for the younger generation, becomes more out of the question. Besides that the series is kept out of the media consciously, to preserve its authenticity and let young people discover it on their own. So far, so good, it seems.

Homosexual main character

Concretely wtFOCK follows the lives of young people in secondary school, where all kinds of teenage troubles don’t get avoided. Since the previous season more social problems are being discussed, too. The series tackled a topic that still hasn’t completely removed itself from the taboo atmosphere: homosexuality, a coming-out, and everything that comes with it. From absolute peaks to the sometimes painful lows we are witnesses to the bumpy road towards self-acceptance that sixteen-year-old Robbe experiences.

But is that a new thing, an LGBT-character in Flemish fiction? Florian Vanlee researches the LGBTQ+-representation in Flemish television series at Ghent University. He clarifies: “About 20 percent of productions is said to have a prominent LGBT-character. Regarding supporting characters, it’s about 33 percent. That’s a relatively large part.”

It does seem the first time that in a commercial youth television the full attention of the main character goes towards homosexuality. “It’s remarkable how instantaneously the focus explicitly goes towards homosexuality. wtFOCK is therefore a very valuable program”, Vanlee says. The question therefore arises how the new form of representation was received by the LGBTQ+-community.

About recognition and self-acceptance

Amver Maselis, a 20-year-old bisexual student from Hove, has been a fan of the original SKAM. When the series ended in Norway, she started to follow the other remakes. Therefore her interest also brought her to wtFOCK. Passionately she talks about a series which she clearly values a lot. “I’ve been following the project for several years, and despite the subtle differences between shows, the main topics are always portrayed nicely.”

Out of all the remakes she thinks wtFOCK is the best one. Then again, the Flemish version connects the most with her own environment. “Now that the series has arrived in Antwerp, in my own culture, it suddenly feels very close to home.”

It helps that she really recognizes herself in Robbe, the main character that comes out of the closet to his friends and family in his teenage years. “It touches me, because I notice that I’ve sometimes said or felt the same things. Back then it was a huge secret I kept to myself. Now I know that it’ll all be fine,” says Amber. ‘ For other young people the series could be encouraging, like SKAM was for me three years ago, when I had just come out of the closet and I has to learn to accept myself.”

22-year-old Fabio Olivieri from Antwerp seems to share that opinion. As a teenager he barely saw a gay character to which he could relate. It comforts him to know that that’s different for the youth today. Besides that he commends the portrayal of the fact that members of the LGBT-community often have to learn to accept themselves, too. “sometimes it’s hard to learn how to deal with it, to know how you feel and if you want to feel that way. That’s portrayed beautifully.”

“Do you have questions?”

So the storyline can be a comfort to youth who can relate to it. wtFOCK also consciously wants to focus on that aspect. Not only by pushing the subject forward, but also by working together with the online platform WAT WAT. This initiative of the Flemish Government is a bundling of forces of more than 70 organizations to inform the youth. Together, those organizations want to make sure that “all young people are confident and can develop their identity in a positive manner.” On the website, youth can find answers about exam stress, problems at home, but also about sex, sexuality, … you name it.

After every clip of wtFOCK the possibility to visit watwat.be is shown, “in case you have questions”. That initiative pleases Ferre Lamber, a 25-year-old man from Antwerp who remembers how he also went to the internet for questions about his homosexuality when he was younger. “Sometimes it’s just hard to tell someone directly that you’re doubting your sexual orientation. So I can definitely imagine that young people will look online for answers.”

This way, wtFOCK wants to do more than just entertain. “Even though it’s fiction, which automatically entails the aspect of entertainment, that is not the essence of our show”, screenwriter Bram Renders says, incidentally also the writer of youth series W817. “We mostly want to show the youth that they’re not alone. That element is strongly present, and it’s nice that we can convey that message like this.”

The harsh reality

Thus, the series carries an important reality, which can be harsh sometimes. Fabio isn’t sure if he can always appreciate that. “I thought that the homophobia in wtFOCK was pretty cruel sometimes. Somehow that’s a good thing, because real life is like that, too. I’ve already experienced that myself. But in series the focus is generally on all the problems gay characters come into contact with. It would have been nice to see that this wasn’t the case. It has two sides.”

One specific scene that, for the same reason, caused a bomb of critical reactions on Twitter to explode, was when gay bashing was shown shortly, but very explicitly. The choice to portray it, is understandable based on the fact that it’s still a real and current problem today. At the end of December, two LGBT-boys in Ghent became victims of gay bashing. In Het Nieuwsblad they called for other victims to not stay silent, but to report such senseless violence to the police. However, in wtFOCK it’s shown how the main character and his boyfriend decide not to go to the police.

Ferre can understand that decision. “As a victim you want to avoid even more trouble and je need the strength to do something about it. I understand that not everyone would have that. One single right way to deal with gay bashing doesn’t exist.”

Ferre is concerned by, is the way in which the show depicted the incident as a while. The scene depicts how Robbe and his boyfriend get verbally abused and attacked. It end abruptly with the two left injured. Only the next day do we as viewer get to know if everything is okay. “Two years ago, when I hadn’t been with my boyfriend for that long, we were followed, too. After, we cuddled, drank tea, and watched a series, … at moment like that you just want to be together lovingly. You want to know if everything will be okay. But in wtFOCK nothing happened on the night itself and the matter was resolved quickly afterwards.”

Criticism

So more clarity would have been appropriate. The possibilities that you have as a victim after such an incident weren’t emphasized enough according to Ferre. Especially not for a show that has the support of a platform like WAT WAT.

This is clearly not the first time that Bram Renders hears this criticism. He has already given up on reading reactions on Twitter, he jokes. Hesitantly he does admit that they could’ve handled the scene better.

‘How it was protrayed, is more intense than how I imagined it during my rose-colored writing process.’ He says. ‘ That’s no criticism towards the director, because you can never know something like that beforehand. But in hindsight it would have been appropriate to show a follow-up-clip, in which they come home for example. As writeryou always have moments of which you think that it would have been better if you handled them differently; this is one of them.’

Besides that it was a conscious decision to make wtFOCK more heavy than the original SKAM. That decision came after prior conversations with people from the LGBTQ+-community. ‘According to the most people I talked to, was the internal struggle of the main character in the original version too small en was the world around him to rose-colored. So we made that world more raw.’ said Renders.

Ignorance

Then again, benefit of such heavy scenes is the awareness it brings about in viewers outside the LGBTQ+-community. “If you don’t know anyone who’s gay, then you also don’t know how we feel and how we experience certain things,” Fabio emphasizes. “I think that because of wtFOCK people can become more aware. Especially with the amount of young people that watch the series, it can provide more understanding and tolerance.”

Ferre also thinks that larger audiences are show what LGBT-people have to deal with. “Nowadays we don’t know enough about each other’s lives. I noticed that when colleagues or friends asked surprised if certain scenes are really like that, and if I’m really scared to hold hands with my boyfriend in the streets. The different seasons of wtFOCK provide good insights into different problems and how people handle them”, he decides.

Of course, purely scientifically it’s hard to determine such an impact on the audience. But intuitively speaking, that impact is already very logical, researcher Florian Vanlee (UGent) clarifies. “On one side, it can be important for people who do not meet the social standard to see their own experiences portrayed. On the other side, it can make those experiences for those who have less knowledge about it more obvious.”

New insights get subtly imparted throughout the series, but sometimes also in a more explicit manner, like in the part about the Gay Pride. At one point Robbe sneering tells his homosexual roommate that he isn’t the kind of person to dance around at Prides with “plumes in his hole”. That roommate is a more extravagant character that is mostly portrayed as support, with wise advice. He offers Robbe (but mostly the viewer) rebuttal with a short, but emotional history lesson. “Do you know that those people had to fight to be who they are?”, it sounds.

The show is undoubtedly referring to the protests of Stonewall which later grew into the Gay Prides all over the world. Something that is often forgotten, gets emphasized here: that people in the LGBTQ+-community had to travel a long and difficult path to have equal rights today and to be able to completely be themselves.

Amber thinks it’s very important for that history to be highlighted. “That people would rather die than not be able to be who they are, is the basic principle of the Gay Pride. There’s more behind it than semi-naked, dancing people, as some still see it.”

Better representation

Referring to the Gay Pride, Ferre admits to be somewhat disappointed about the type of main character in this season of wtFOCK. According to him it also could’ve been a more pronounced type for once. According to him, LGBTQ+-representation is focused on the so-called ‘mainstream’ LGBT-people too often.

At the start of September the topic got a lot of attention, when radio-dj Wanne Synnave (MNM) made the following statement in the talkshow Vandaag: “The biggest problem is that all the role models you see conform to the cliché image. I’ve never been able to identify myself in that area. I think that there’s a need for more mainstream LGBT-role models, the normal man and woman in the street. So not those flamboyant role models, which are pretty cliché.”

That statement caused a lot of outrage in the LGBTQ+-community. Many people didn’t agree, and had the opinion that there were already plenty of LGBT-people portrayed according to ‘hetero standards’. Florian Vanlee (UGent) confirms that in Flanders very little stereotypical characters are portrayed. “You could almost go so far as to say that the majority of the LGBT-characters are a sort of reverse-stereotype. For example, you will very rarely find very flamboyant gay characters.”

So television program makers represent (admittedly with good intentions) in a very general manner. “But exactly because of that, a large part of the LGBT-community are kept out of the picture”, Vanlee says. So there is need for more varying representation.

Balance

In the specific case of wtFOCK we can argue that the show follows the original format from Norway, and takes satisfaction in the extravagant gay character Milan, the roommate. “It’s hard to find a good balance”, screenwriter Bram Renders says. “In this case I thought that that balance with the ‘out in the open, take it or leave it’-roommate was enough.

In addition, according to Florian Vanlee, it’s not fair to judge individual series on those choices. “That’s not the right way to deal with what we want to see in media and popular culture”, Vanlee thinks. “Nowadays, in Flanders, it’s normal to represent LGBT-characters, for example Kaat in the soap Thuis. That was already an important step. What could be better, isn’t the responsibility of the television-industry, but also the discourse it generates,” he decides.

Finally, representation in Flemish media doesn’t just concern LGBTQ+-characters. It’s also important to look at the portrayal of people with a migration background or with different religions, for example. But wtFOCK doesn’t shy away from that either. In the fourth season, the show takes a new taboo by the horns by making Yasmina, a Muslim character, the main. It remains to be seen how the young, but critical audience will find the new theme.

#wtfock #wtfam #skam

298 notes · View notes

jkflesh · 4 years ago

Photo

Interview with jesu January 2021 New Noise magazine #56

Read the interview by Antoine "Neredude" Duprez below:

The “Terminus” Bandcamp page states that the album was done between 2016 and 2020. That's a long period in your standards! Did you get some sort of writer's block with Jesu? Or was it because you were so busy with your numerous projects?

— I never get writers block, I just simply move on to the next thing if I’m not currently inspired to work on a specific project. Most my records, for many years, have been written and recorded over extended periods of time; I work when inspiration strikes, when it doesn’t I move onto the next thing; there’s never a block for me with creation generally, maybe just specific areas. i take large breaks for my music so as to afford some sort of distance, gone are the times when an album would be hammered out in a month!

''When I Was Small'' has kind of a Radiohead thing in the vocals, whereas ''Alone'' reminds me a lot of Sigur Rós. Are those bands part of your background?

— Ok, interesting observation, but no Radiohead is not an influence on this song, the biggest influences on the vocals were Liam Gallagher from Oasis, and subconsciously "White Flag" by Godflesh (which I only discovered after the album was complete). I do love some Radiohead though, as I do Sigur Rós, but neither band is a direct or conscious influence. Musically “When I was Small” was mostly influenced by trying to recreate a vibe of early Neil Young mixed with Oasis, in a jesu fashion, coupled with a demo production; intentionally underproduced. I’m not sure where a lot of the influence on “Alone” came from, electronic pop music for sure, short and sweet was the intention, driven entirely by the voice sample.

Regarding “Terminus,” did you set yourself a framework or musical approach beforehand like you did for “Every Day I Get Closer to the Light From Which I Came?“

— Not really no, generally when I work on a bunch of songs things will fall into place naturally, the songs become a whole and then collectively the songs will become conceptual as i write, they build their own logic, so to speak, I don’t force anything, I let things happen organically as I write and record.

I think around 2013, you said “Every Day I Get Closer to the Light From Which I Came” was going to set a precedent for the next album. Now that it's out, do you still think so? Personally, even though both records are different, I can definitely hear a connection.

— Yeah, shame it took 7 years to come to fruition! And many things changed over those 7 years, as ever. Jesu certainly documents my personal journey in life, it’s ultra personal, Godflesh is much more external comparatively. A lot to the solo jesu work took a backseat when I worked on the collaborations with Sun Kil Moon, but that was very refreshing and inspired me to take jesu further, I had notions of discontinuing the project at some point, but the collabs with Sun Kil Moon inspired me to keep pursuing jesu.

"Every Day I Get Closer to the Light From Which I Came” was inspired in great part by you becoming a father. Can you tell us a bit about what was on your mind when you wrote “Terminus?”

— That’s very true, especially the initial journey of bringing life into the/our world. everything is there in the lyrics and artwork for "Terminus" so of course, like a lot of my work, depends on the listeners perspectives, they can make it their own, make it personal. But it’s essentially about endings, and my obsession with finality, my sensitivity to it and my fear of it. There’s a line in the title song that says “my end, our end, the end, the end”, which pretty much sums it up.

The EP “Never” you released before “Terminus” is quite different and more focused on electronics. I remember you telling me that you liked going experimental on EPs, doing stuff you wouldn't do on a full length. So I figure that's still the case?

— Yeah, I like experimenting with everything, I like satisfying myself with different ideas, obviously that doesn’t suit my listeners too much, but I make this music for myself, and I’m always trying to do better. I still don’t know why I put myself through the trial and hell of releasing music, I often think about just recording for myself and not bothering with an audience, but I’m not really capable of earning money in other ways, so I have to finish music and release it, let it go. For me "Never" was just another way of interpreting the jesu mood, nothing deviates too much from the original intention of the project. It’s weird, critically, it was perceived as this big electronic departure, whereas jesu has sounded pretty much like this most of it’s lifetime! “Pale Sketches", "Lifeline" even "Silver” is all mostly electronic, save a real drum loop in the song "Silver", but this EP seemed to get this thing that its all electronic, whereas it;’s no more electronically oriented than any other jesu record I have made. jesu is a mood that can be explored and experimented with, I’m not making the first album over and over, some can’t get over that, but that was a different moment in my life which I captured, and as an artist who challenges oneself besides the audience you can never win, and one will generally never win hah. This is a new jesu, it comes with age, transitions. "Never" was intentionally idiosyncratic and deliberately fvcked up sounding, and I think by and large critically the subtleties were lost on people.

“Never” features two version of ''Never There for You'', one of them described as the ''original vision''. Can you explained how you ended up releasing two version of this song?

— The “original vision” existed like that since around 2010, I shelved it, it was to be a Pale Sketcher song, I had an album’s worth of similar songs, I still do, couldn’t decide if they should be jesu or Pale Sketcher. I sent them to Aphex Twin / Richard James because he was a huge fan of the Pale Sketcher EP “Seventh Heaven”, we were talking about a release on his label Rephlex, I had all these songs that were floating between jesu and Pale Sketcher. But then he folded Rephlex for good, a real shame, so I was left with all these songs in limbo, I still am, but at that period I shelved them all. I returned to them around 2018 and started adding guitars and vocals, thinking that they will now definitely be jesu songs. “Never There for You” was one of them, so I wanted the listener to hear what it was originally before I added more of organic me. I’m working on finalising all those songs for Rephlex into future jesu, probably an album that I hope to release late 2021, it’s not a "Terminus" though, and probably most ppl will hate it hah.

“Terminus” is the first album to feature Ted Parsons in a long while. Did you invite him because you felt these songs needed his touch?

— I wanted some live drums, 3 songs only. I was going to play them myself, like on "Opiate Sun". "Infinity" etc, but I really wanted Ted involved and see how he interpreted my drum parts, he always swings something and makes it interesting. he’s a very real drummer, and a very real human being.

When touring is possible again, would you like to tour with Jesu, with Ted on drums?

— I may tour solo, with electronics and projections. The band thing is tiresome and always just sounds like a band, bands bore me these days because of the constraints of the instruments, rock records also bore me these days; same productions, etc, very little actual aesthetic, but its popular and what do I know. But I’d rather jesu now sound hugely expansive live, not just like a rock band. But i’m still unsure. Live drums swallow my voice live, I can’t sing above them, and jesu is a tiny project, can’t play big venues with stage separation and screens around the drums, and 8 guys diving around onstage, it’s not affordable. I stopped performing as jesu for some time due to all those reasons.

You said “Silver” is probably your favourite Jesu record. Are there other Jesu albums that stand out in your mind?

— Did I say that?! Haha. I don’t recall, and that opinion changes every day I feel. I like how concise and all encompassing "Silver" is; it covers most of the ground that I feel the project should cover. But "Terminus" is my favourite jesu album, and it should be, otherwise I would not feel I was moving forward, and I feel I am, it is the best jesu album I have made.

Last year, you told Olivier ''Zoltar'' Badin that the next Zonal album would probably go in the direction of it's title track ''Wrecked''. Is it still true to this day and what can you tell us about that upcoming album?

— Well, a lot of time has passed since, but I think Kevin and I are still quite struck on that song as a template for future recordings, although everything changes all the time, of course, and time is passing fast once again, we haven’t discussed Zonal in some time.

I know you don't actually consider yourself as a guitarist. With you focusing on your electronic projects like JK Flesh and Zonal lately, do you ever get tired of guitar? I'm asking this because I recently discussed the subject with Steven Wilson. He basically told me that after 30 years writing and doing gigs with guitar, he's feeling more creative and excited when writing music on other instruments and I wondered if you ever felt something similar.

— All instruments are just a means to an end for me; a tool for the bigger job, I don’t really wish to be overly proficient at any instrument, I liked that about punk, and it’s what I’m not that fond of about overly progressive music, it’s like it’s for show, I don’t do anything for show, I’d rather be shit than great, it’s more interesting, it reflects the human condition, imperfection. I don’t wish for things to sound perfect, whatever that is, people should not come to my music for that, they probably don’t and it’s probably why my audience is so small haha.

I recently discovered that you worked with Josh Eustis with the mastering of the JK Flesh / Orphx live album and was a bit surprised. How did that happen?

— Josh is a very good friend of Dominick Fernow’s (Prurient / Vatican Shadow / Hospital Productions, etc), and Dominick is a very close friend of mine. I was aware that Josh does very good mastering besides being an extremely talented artist, so Dominick suggested josh master that collaboration, and it sounds excellent!

I interviewed Lee Dorrian some time ago and we were talking about the impact Napalm Death had, not just the band itself but all the bands who were formed after playing in that band: Godflesh, Carcass, Cathedral, Scorn... Lee thought this legacy had a lot to do with John Peel broadcasting a wide array of music on young aspiring musicians. How would you explain such creativity and versatility from musicians who all played in Napalm Death at one point?

— Lee is absolutely correct, a lot of very young kids listened to John Peel, most generations did, his taste exposed music to many of us who were already enquiring at a young age that we would not have heard anywhere else and of course back then this centralised things, not fragmented them like the internet does; a kid now can absorb an artist entire catalog in an hour, speed listen to it all, then have an opinion, but it’s informed, no context, no history, no experience. We heard music then on Peel and then hunted it down. It took work, valuable work that paid dividends. Peel’s broad appreciation of eternally subversive music and otherwise told us that music didnt need to exist in such strict compartments, that’s it’s all part of a greater whole, so when groups of musicians collaborated even at such young ages, our tastes were informed and wide, very rarely singular.

Can you tell us a bit about you latest remixing output? What were the tracks that you enjoyed the most remixing? Those are the names I could find: Full of Hell, Oathbreaker and a lot of projects I've never heard of.

— I always and love to remix, I love the fact that I didn’t create this music but can make something new from someone else’s work. Music is endless, for me, it’s just when you wish to end it, but ultimately it can never end. I have some remixes that I love moire than others, but only over time, I never let a remix go unless I am as happy as can be with it. Sometimes I would’ve loved to have done more, my Killing Joke remix is a good example of that, I wanted to go further, but Youth of Killing Joke told me they were happy with where I was at, I think I could’ve made it much better. The Oathbreaker remix you mentioned is a favourite of mine from the last years worth of my remixes. I’ll remix anyone, if they can afford my fee and I have the time!

I'm curious, since you released some of your music with your own label with Godflesh, Jesu and other projects, did it have an impact on the revenue you got from streaming platforms like Spotify, compared to albums released on Earache or Hydra Head? I'm asking this in the light of the neverending controversy regarding streaming revenue for musicians.

— On my own label more money can be earned from these services due to no split with another label, which usually would be 50/50, but streaming is very small as is common knowledge. I never see any royalties from Earache so can’t compare their rates etc since Godflesh is constantly recouping an advance from Columbia / Sony for the "Selfless" album that Earache, contractually, can recoup from, even though they didn’t give the advance, so they’re making money from the band and from an advance they never paid, which these days you would think that besides being unethical that it would be criminal, but such were the contracts in the 80’s / 90’s. So I’ve never seen a single penny from streaming with Earache!

I know it might be pointless to ask you, since someone's mind can change with time but do you still think “Post Self” may be your last album with Godflesh? Your told us last year that you weren't sure if you had enough in you creatively to do another album and also that the constant screaming was a bit harder to do.

— Hah, the shouting/screaming live now takes its toll, it does with age, I’m unsure due to not performing for so long thanks to the pandemic how my voice would be for Godflesh now in a live setting, I’d have very little problem in the studio. I’m still struck on the fact that there may not be another full length studio album from Godflesh, I haven’t been inspired to initiate one for numerous reasons, and I don’t wish for us to repeat ourselves in any way, I do have a lot of interesting old material though, some good rare stuff, demos, “Us and Them in Dub” which is also in the works, but I work on that sporadically, when I feel inspired to do so. So there’s a lot of good stuff coming.

Last time I interviewed you in 2014, Aphex Twin was making his grand return with “Syro”. I remember you telling me that the album was still shrinkwrapped on your desk. Knowing you're a big Aphex fan, I wanted to know if you liked that album, especially knowing that a lot of fans were disappointed by it.

— Ahh it was such a long time ago now that we spoke last! I love "Syro”, but I love Aphex, and since I first heard "Didgeridoo" when it was released and then "Quoth", he will always be a favourite, "Syro" may not be an Aphex favourite for me, but it’s still amazing, he is amazing; creative, subversive and doesn’t give a fvck ultimately, he’d also never release anything if he didnt really have to, he does this for himself, for me the best art is entirely selfish and should consider no one. People are always disappointed, a lot of people just can’t live with the fact that an artist strays from their own personal conception of what an artist should be, it’s some sort of misguided entitlement, I lost that when II was around 14, a lot of people don’t lose it and now these people have the internet. No artist owes me anything, if they gave me one thing in my life then i will always respect their art, regardless of whether it works for me or not, and if I don’t like it much, I won’t be peddling that opinion on the internet in an entitled egotistical manner, I’m glad I did not know that a lot of people were disappointed, haha.

Thank you very much! Best JKB, Jan 2021

#jesu #justin broadrick #interview

9 notes · View notes

ask-de-writer · 4 years ago

Text

CAPTURED BY THE CLANS : Part 9 of 10 : Science Fiction

Return to Science Fiction

Return to the Master Story Index

CAPTURED BY THE CLANS

Part 9 of 10

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

18231 words

//////////////

Users of Tumblr.com are specifically granted the following rights. They may reblog the story provided that all author and copyright information remains intact. They may use the characters or original characters in my settings for fan fiction, fan art works, cosplay, or fan musical compositions.

All sorts of fan art, cosplay, music or fiction is actively encouraged.

///////////////////////

New to the story? Read from the beginning. Part 1 is HERE.

///////////////////////

Lezon turned her attention from T’cass alone to include the others. She told them all, “I was given the task of finding possible ships for your consideration. This morning, I used your comm unit to conduct a rough search. I stored the results in the file, SHIPS. The results are tiered by price in Clan Credit. I am not sure of your resources or I could have done better.”

K’ress and M’rel both thanked Lezon for her work. They had already learned that T’cass expected Lezon to be treated like a member of the clan, not a slave. They were truly amused that Lezon had already found the kitchen and set out serving cages with snacks to start their day.

They spent the morning looking over Lezon’s research list. Even with the end of a war, it was depressingly small. Less than a hundred appeared to be usable choices. One was a true antique.

Lezon pointed to the antique. “It is cheap and the information claims that it is flyable. Even with the cost of a refit, it will come to less than any of the others. Also, I can get you a discount on the refit.”

Now all three of the others gazed at Lezon as if her fur were falling out in patches. T’cass pointed out, “No shipyard on the planet will even touch anything over a hundred years old. Do you have any idea just how old that thing is?”

Lezon nodded, “If I remember my class information from the war correctly, that ship was made about one hundred and seventy-five to one hundred and fifty-six years ago. If it really is flyable, that’s why we want it.”

M’rel looked at K’ress and remarked, “Perhaps you were right about that psychiatric evaluation.”

T’cass asked, “How can you get a refit if no yard on the planet will do it?”

Lezon pointed out with a smile, “I know the Feront. It has two ring fusion city ships here for Treaty Commission scrap work. It has already agreed to do a scrap based refit of this ship, the D’ancer. We pay for parts at scrap price and it will give me the labor.”

Skeptically, M’rel asked, “Why would it forgo the profit? Friendship?”

“Partly,” Lezon grinned, “and partly sense of humor.”

All three gazed at Lezon as if they were trying to see inside her skull and figure out what was there. It was an interesting effort. T’cass spoke up first, saying, “I know the Feront too, and I never realized that it had a sense of humor.”

Lezon grinned hugely. “It most definitely does. Remember when it presented itself to be made a member of the Treaty Commission? All those gaudy uniforms and titles? They mean nothing to the Feront. One of its organic units is the same as any other to it. It was laughing at our rank system, which it still thinks is hilarious.

“That sense of humor worked to our advantage this morning. While I was on the comm to the Feront, a bureaucrat from the Planetary Resources Committee interrupted our call with a priority override. The Feront took her call and we switched to one of the twelve empty channels. The Resources Committee changed their call frequency to kick me off again. She told the Feront that no slave had anything to say that should distract its attention from the needs of the Planetary Government.

“When we could talk again, the Feront told me that the ‘needs of the Planetary Government’ were now firmly placed on its priority list. Just below mine.”

T’cass suddenly grinned wide herself and exclaimed, “Well managed Conflict! That is beautiful! Now, explain to me why we want a ship that dates to the earliest days of Inertial Drives. The spec sheet says that it can generate less than one standard G of acceleration. That is why that old hulk needs a reaction drive with a huge tank of liquid mass just to get off the ground. The interstellar fusion ramjet igniter is disassembled and less than half the ship’s volume is habitable. The power capsule can barely hold enough energy to get us to a close star, let alone the long range trading that we are planning.”

Lezon heard T’cass out, nodding agreement at every point. When T’cass ran down, she added, “Actually it can’t get out of the system, yet. It only has liftoff and in-system flight certificates. What makes it valuable is that it was built to lift off routinely at six G’s of uncompensated acceleration. It has a nine G red line which includes lateral maneuvers in an atmosphere as well. Only a System Siege Cruiser or a Battleship can take as much.

“Besides, because it’s such an antique, it’s dirt cheap. You should get out of the refit to Clan Family Class B Freight with a total cost of Clan Cr 250,000.”

Three heads turned to each other, eyes narrow in calculation. K’ress started to ask, “Where is all that cargo space coming from?” She suddenly got it and answered her own question, “The reaction mass tank, of course! It’s huge!”

The others began to nod in understanding. “We could at least go and look at it,” they agreed.

On the scrap field, they stood and looked up. The D’ancer still stood solidly on her landing jacks. The personnel port near her tail was gaping open. Lezon left the group and began to critically examine the seals on the port. K’ress joined her followed by T’cass.

The salesperson began to show nervousness and smiled ingratiatingly saying, “Really, now that you’ve looked at this thing, I have several good ships that have current certificates. They will pay themselves off in only a few years!”

Dryly, M’rel responded, “We saw. Clan Family Class J Freight. Way overpriced in this market, too.” She then called over to them, “What do you think, Guys? Will it make a good amusement park ride?”

The salesperson nearly choked. “You mean to actually fly this thing? With customers?”

M’rel looked brightly at her and said innocently, “Why your advertisement, dated only two months back, says that it comes with liftoff and In-System Flight Certificates. With only a little refurbishing of the interior it should make an exciting ride for the kits! Lots of noise, clouds of steam and an uncompensated three G blastoff to two hundred thousand feet! I can’t imagine a more exciting ride! Can you?” She batted her eyelashes at the salesperson, who was suddenly looking sick.

K’ress poked her head out the port and gestured to the salesperson, “Come in here, please!” she demanded. Inside, they all climbed the ladder over a hundred feet up to the engine control bay.

The power capsule lay heavy in its cradle. The big superconducting cables were laying like snakes across the floor, out of their clips and racks. The case of the Inertial Drive Control Computer was open and cables with empty connectors hung out. Several boards were clearly missing. Lezon was busily sorting the boards and components of the ramjet fusion ignitor.

“Madams,” she said deferentially to T’cass and the others, “the advertisement claims that the fusion igniter is complete but disassembled. This is not true. The entire ignition injector and initiator are missing. There are at least three control boards missing as well.” Without waiting, she swung agilely up the ladder to the control room.

T’cass, M’rel, and K’ress saw Lezon’s tiny ‘thumbs up’ signal as she reported, “Madams, this vessel was misrepresented. They have claimed In-System and Liftoff certificates. The entire navigational computer, the detection system and the life support control panel have been removed.”

K’ress turned to the salesperson and addressed her almost compassionately. “Yanking that stuff proves that this bird was headed for scrap. At scrap she’s not worth Cr 45,000. We’ll do you a favor. We’ll take her for Cr 60,000 but you have to earn that fifteen.

“We supervise all the work. Run us some tests. Charge the power capsule to ninety gigawatts. Run chill and superconductivity testing on all the cables. Replace the nav computers and detection system with anything that works well enough for orbital hopping. Put in any Inertial Drive Controller and program it for a .75 G max push. Run the Inertial Drive at .75 G for one hour. Replace the lock seals and pressure test the hull.”

The salesperson saw profit fleeing out the exhaust and started to retort, “Cr 100,000! That’s saving you ten grand! Strictly an as is sale at that price. You want certificates, they’re extra. Cough up!” Her eye caught T’cass inputting a connection on her comm. She had selected for a vision and speaker connection.

Several reptilian heads appeared in the vision field. Two homed on Lezon and one on T’cass. The others were looking about at what they could see of the control room. They all spoke at once in the typically polyphonic voice of the Feront, “Friends! T’cass, I have not seen you since your battle input at M’onafar! Most clever. I have made many notes in the Treaty Commission Archive about that battle.

“I was informed by servant Lezon that you will be buying a ship soon. Is this it? Shall I send inspection for T.C. certificates?”

Pleased, T’cass responded, “It is good to see you again, friend Feront. Yes, this is the vessel. It is advertised with certificates. The advertisement was forwarded to you under a T.C. seal already.” The saleswoman made a choking noise.

The scanning heads of the various units of the Feront scrutinized the cabin through the comm field and it responded, “This vessel is presently in violation of its advertised certification. The fine will be Cr 250,000 if it is presented in this condition. I hope that the missing equipment is merely out for repair or replacement.”

Desperately, the salesperson said, “Of course! We are still negotiating on details. There may be a down grade of certification, for a reduced price, of course!”

Several of the Feront had wandered out of the transmission field and others had wandered in but it spoke seamlessly, “This is reasonable. How much time is needed for flight certificate issuance?”

Glaring at T’cass, the salesperson said, “About a month. The vessel is an old one and we need to sure that equipment interfaces are safe.”

The polyphonic voice said, “I will see you in a month’s time, then, unless you call sooner, friends T’cass and servant Lezon.” The field went snowy blank and faded.

T’cass folded her comm smiling. To the salesperson she said, “The way I see it, giving us this ship with the repairs I stated would save you about Cr 190,000. Still, you have an investment to recoup and some profit to make. Cr 65,000?”

The salesperson avoided T’cass’ hand as she stalked for the ladder muttering, “We have to go to the office for the paperwork.”

It is hard to sulk while climbing down over a hundred feet of ladder but the salesperson managed it. With ill grace she waited for them to board her flitter for the run to the office. She tried to shut out Lezon but T’cass simply blocked the flitter door open with her body until Lezon was securely aboard.

In only three weeks the D’ancer was ready for her first liftoff in over sixty years. The Feront sent four of itself down to conduct the Treaty Commission inspection. It scattered throughout the ship, testing equipment in skilled claws. After a short time, one of it closed the ports.

“Pressure test,” observed K’ress calmly. Turning to the salesperson, she said, “Your people did a first rate job. Second hand parts but all serviceable. Clean mating of new gear and old, too.”

Resigned to the situation, the sales person replied, “Thanks. It was a dirty trick, getting that thing volunteer to do the inspection right off the bat, that way. It takes us from two weeks to three months to get the T.C. off their butts and over here. How come it’s so prompt for you?”

K’ress jerked a thumb at T’cass and Lezon. “Them. They both know the Feront and call it just to make small talk. I gather that they are among the few friends that it has. It was no coincidence that the Feront sent two fusion ring city ships to this system. It wanted to talk. Godesses! How they talk! Hours at a time!”

The hatches opened and all four of the Feront hopped out and swarmed down the crew ladder. Some of it facing M’rel and K’ress, some the salesperson, the Feront pronounced polyphonically, “The vessel, D’ancer, now has certificates installed for assisted reaction drive launch and high orbit work near to inhabited spheres.”

All four of its units turning as one, it descended on T’cass and Lezon like a pile of happy kits. “May I play with your entities again? I have thought of a possible strategy that may put you to a disadvantage!”

The sales person unbelievingly saw the slave that she’d snubbed so meanly at first meeting, leap to the back of one of the Feront creatures. She was calling, “T’cass, can we? It will only delay launch by a few hours!” Wheedlingly she added, “It will help our goodwill with the Feront. That could pay us well.”

M’rel ran it down like an accountant. “We have pad space paid here for two more days. The house lease isn’t up for four more days. A few hours? Go play, you kits! Just be here in six hours to lift this clunker into orbit for the rest of its refit.”

TO BE CONTINUED

<==PREVIOUS ~ NEXT==>(link not yet active)

Return to Science Fiction

Return to the Master Story Index

#CAPTURED BY THE CLANS #Part 9 of 10 #Science Fiction #Written by De Writer

7 notes · View notes

gamblingfeeling793 · 4 years ago

Text

What percent of the us population owns a gaming console

Why You Ought to Begin Your Gaming Weblog On GameSkinny (Instead Of WordPress)

Enthusiast Gaming is a media and technologies organization developing the biggest neighborhood of genuine gamers. Travel into a virtual world with a VR headset , exactly where all of your senses will be treated to a barrage of stimulus from different sources. With the Oculus Rift + Touch Virtual Reality Program , you'd have to prepare your self for a lot more intense gameplays, much more immersive action, and a totally new https://www.dethmaker.site/ and exhilarating gaming present expertise as the package currently comes with 6 VR games that will retain your heart pumping through your chest. The Oculus Touch controllers are ingeniously made for optimum and unparalleled interaction with the a variety of components in the virtual world. You will will need to meet specific program needs on your pc, even though. This also tends to make a best gift for nerds in your life.

With sophisticated design and style such as cool blue lighting, the Lenovo IdeaPad L340 Gaming is an perfect mainstream laptop for the contemporary multi-tasker and undercover gamer. Readily available in 15-inch or 17-inch models, the Lenovo IdeaPad L340 Gaming has next-gen options such as up to the most up-to-date 9th Gen Intel Core i7 mobile processor, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 GPUs and jaw-dropping Dolby Audio hardwired into the laptop to take transportable gaming into an additional dimension.

There are indeed numerous PCs on the marketplace that, if you make clever options when it comes to the elements, can supply surprising gaming performance at low prices (even pairing almost everything with Avira Antivirus Game Mode ). In fact, if you raise the query additional, you can bring property some really outstanding machines, even capable of countering formidable gaming consoles such as the Xbox One X and PS4 Pro. The times we live in boast a clear advantage, in particular since industry leaders have launched really effective devices for purposes such as mining and acquiring cryptocurrencies.

These days is the day! I will be steadily releasing the names of the prime ten gaming blogs of 2014. Hunting more than this list, I am positively blown away. So quite a few great posts this year! If you were disappointed by the Ennies… if you assume that the actual deep thinkers in gaming commentary never get the focus they deserve… well, folks, we are going to fix that.

With Providing Assistant, you can now get cash back just about every time you get a new game. Check out the web page to locate coupon codes valid on Green Man Gaming. You can then adhere to the link offered to visit that web-site and begin buying. As extended as you use Providing Assistant and remain logged in to your account, you will get a double cash back with every obtain that you make. Giving Assistant pays out earnings every week on Monday, which helps you get your funds back faster than you believed feasible. You also get peace of thoughts because Providing Assistant will respond to any troubles quickly and assistance you get the cash that you earned automatically deposited in your account. Video game lovers can now earn revenue and save revenue at the very same time.

We're going to the International Festival for Organization this month and will be hosting a special event Inspiring Entrepreneurs '˜Going Global' where top rated small business persons will tell us the secrets of their achievement. One particular of these entrepreneurs is Paul Sulyok, CEO and Founder of Green Man Gaming Green Man Gaming is a pioneering, worldwide eCommerce technologies organization that has gone from strength to strength due to the fact its launch in 2010. We asked him how he did it.

And lastly, in order to hold your audience closer to you, do not forget to add a get in touch with kind and subscription form to your gaming site. Operating a gaming blog let your readers comment on your publications. In no way miss a chance to reply to the comments of your readers. This will show that you care about the time that people today spent to appear by way of your information.

A gaming site solely committed to Pc Gaming for over 20 years. The platform brings professional evaluations on most up-to-date gaming gears, introduce you to strange new mods & ground-breaking news around-the-clock. They also organize yearly events such as Computer Gaming Show & Computer Gamer Weekender which is rather popular all over the world. Apart from posting every day updates on video game news & previews, user can also obtain astounding hardware purchasing guides and greatest gaming deals here.

Powered by NVIDIA Tegra four, SHIELD portable is created for those who demand wonderful gaming experiences. It options precise, tactile controls and the most recent version of Android KitKat, providing you the finest way to play your preferred Android games. Play the games you already personal or select from the greatest titles on Google Play and the NVIDIA SHIELD Hub app. With SHIELD portable, Android games will finally have the console-grade controls and graphics overall performance they deserve.

PenNews is a modern day and clever responsive WordPress multiconcept news & magazine web page theme. It's a effective platform for webmasters across the spectrum. Regardless of market place or niche, PenNews has the demos and templates to make your life less complicated. You don't need to know any coding to work the WP Bakery like a pro. Great post types fit various stories, to generally provide the message right. Gaming magazines and news blogs are a ideal fit for PenNews.

5 Incredibly Useful GAMING Ideas For Small Businesses

A bustling neighborhood of good-minded individuals, the game web-site is greatest identified for producing original & fresh content material related to newly & popular gaming gears such as headsets, keyboards, laptops, mice, controllers, computer systems and much more. The game internet site is loaded with distinctive sections that consist of professional evaluations, previews, game trailers, cheat codes, discussion forums & video game news. A single of the most well known game sites ever, VideoGamer has an intuitive interface & they also run their personal podcast as well.

These historical cloud gaming services, whilst innovative, were constantly somewhat niche. But will cloud gaming go mainstream any time quickly? Each Microsoft and Google have lately announced forays into the sector, with trials of Project xCloud” and Project Stream” respectively. Even Nintendo, a far a lot more conventional gaming brand, has established some key cloud inroads on its platforms. Streamed versions of demanding games like Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Resident Evil 7 - initially developed for Xbox, PlayStation and Computer - are becoming accessible on the comparatively weak Nintendo Switch hardware. If the actions of the major players are something to go by, gaming on demand could obtain severe traction more than the next decade.

Tuned and created for gaming internet websites, Arcane supplies an exquisite gaming experience unmatched by quite a few themes out there. This dedicated gaming WordPress theme provides you with the appropriate tools to build gaming communities of huge proportions. From forms teams to managing tournaments, content sharing, custom user and team profiles, you can do it all with this plugin.

And this is exactly where cloud gaming has fallen down historically. In the previous, bandwidth just wasn't higher enough to provide responsive gameplay - but now, we're beginning to see internet speeds that make cloud gaming a viable option. 5G broadband is noticed as a key enabler, with a relatively high quantity of users now in a position to take complete advantage of remotely hosted gaming solutions. That stated, it really is essential to note that higher-speed internet is far from widespread even in created markets like the US, exactly where poor connectivity and bandwidth caps are still troubles for lots of customers.

Video games have been around since the 1950s when the earliest personal computer scientists began creating basic games as element of their analysis. Video games remained a hobby of scientists until the 1970s when the very first video game arcades opened. But video games did not go mainstream till the 1980s when technology was created to move arcade games into the household. This ushered in a new era of property console gaming led by corporations like Nintendo, Sega and Atari.

1 note · View note

punkgaming847 · 4 years ago

Text

How to block blue light when gaming

Gaming Grabs The High Score On Twitter

Twitter is where game publishers, the gaming media, popular game streamers and entertainers, esports leagues, teams, players and commentators interact with their most engaged fans and with one particular an additional. So what's with the lack of inclusion in the gaming world? In addition to the frequently hostile planet of desktop and console games (see the GamerGate controversy as just one particular example), there is nevertheless somewhat of an market perception that women simply do not play video games. But, that is far from correct - females are in fact gaming additional than ever before, specifically on mobile.

They offer you a wide range of digital games that their buyers can play on the favourite platforms such as Pc, Mac, Sony Playstation and Nintendo. Operating straight with more than 500 publishers, developers and distributors, they offer you gamers in 190 nations a massive catalogue of multi-platform games at competitive prices. Green Man Gaming is an official distributor of Sony PS4, Nintendo, Steam, Uplay, Rockstar Social Club and lots of a lot more Pc platform products.

Luca is working in the field of gaming for 6 years, initially as an indie a single-man-team junior developer and, the latter 5 years, as gameplay programmer and application architect in a business where he created video games for all key mobile platforms, Computer, Steam, PS4 and Xbox One particular, as effectively as minor gaming consoles, growing as a qualified. Not too long ago he founded Twin Wolves, an indie video games development studio, exactly where he's the CTO.

Paul: In 2009, the concept for Green Man Gaming came about when we were taking into consideration exactly where the games marketplace was going to go and what was going to occur next. There was a powerful small business model in trading in games in the market and there was the commence of the move to a completely digital marketplace. The coupling of these two industry mechanisms have been supported by research from London Business enterprise College showing that a customer's propensity to purchase is heightened when supplied the selection to trade-in a solution or recoup some of its value. So the massive idea” was to combine digital and trade-in into the same platform, successfully being a retailer and a marketplace on a single international digital platform.

Due to mobile game improvement outsourcing , the most up-to-date indie games produced by smaller studios or individual programmers get lots of attention and good feedback from each players and journalists. With the support of application outsourcing firms, each particular person, with suitable understanding, can produce and market gaming apps without the need of any obstacles.

1 of the most effective features of this WordPress theme is the fact that is ready to go. You can simply install the theme files then use the a single-click importer to get your WordPress-powered gaming web site on line. Nevertheless, if Pc gaming blog there is something about this theme and your web-site you'd like to modify, that's not a difficulty either. By employing the integrated Visual Composer plugin, you can open up any of the demo content for editing, all via a drag-and-drop user interface.

Just how To help Rotate Your ACTIVITY From Nothing To Hero

Paul: Our company model is growth focused and we cover 3 important areas in the gaming industry. Firstly, we're a international e-Commerce shop selling more than 7,500 games from 450 publishers in over 190 countries to millions of gamers. Secondly, Green Man Gaming has a thriving community who go over and track their game achievements on our community platform. This information combined with the industrial data of the retailer provides Green Man Gaming a considerable depth of information of our consumers. Lastly, we have a publishing arm that helps developers publish their personal games and bring them to marketplace, supporting them each and every step of the way. The fusion of Green Man Gaming's e-Commerce store, a powerful neighborhood generating billions of data points and publisher assistance sets us apart from our competitors.

It really is February! In 2017 that implies that we get six extra weeks of winter AND your yearly dose of video game statistics and trends. We're taking a look at major events and shifts in the gaming market and taking into consideration the current state of gaming. Take a peak, or stay for a week! All statistics are thoroughly researched. See sources at the bottom of the page for additional information.

Nintendo 64 and PlayStation ushered in a new era of gaming. Polygons replaced pixels, and 3D rendering entered into the gaming vocabulary. Retro gaming hits like Crash Bandicoot, Mario Kart 64, and 007: Goldeneye pushed the limits of technologies, and created the most realistic virtual environments noticed up to that point. We also have some retro games for systems that could possibly not feel as old as they are, like PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, and the original Xbox.

Design patterns: To retailer information in DynamoDB, gaming firms partition game state and other player information applying player ID, and use the crucial-value access pattern (1:1 modeling). In instances when much more fine-grained access is called for, these organizations use a sort essential (1:M modeling). This enables them to access and update diverse properties or subsets of a player's dataset separately. This way, they don't have to retrieve an entire dataset. In this strategy, a number of items that retailer diverse properties can be updated transactionally by applying the DynamoDB transactional API Some businesses compress user information to cut down price. PennyPop, for example, utilizes gzip to compress player data and shop it as a base64 string, lowering the player data to ten % of its original size.

So, to assistance you monitor and fix these troubles, we've selected some awesome WordPress Gaming themes we can personally recommend. They are extremely accommodating to a wide range of purposes for your sites. For your convenience, we've highlighted all their core features, regions of usages and important variables for these amazing gaming themes. In addition, the list also includes excellent no cost WordPress gaming themesÂ so you can start off your gaming web-site with minimal charges. So without having further ado, let's take a appear at our list of each premium WordPress Gaming Themes and totally free Gaming WordPress themes.

Ask oneself why you are considering starting a gaming weblog or youtube channel? If it really is due to the fact you think you have what it requires to be the subsequent PewDiePie or DanTDM (or TheTechieGuy ), then you happen to be not alone. Even so, your major purpose should really be that you have an overwhelming love for gaming. It doesn't hurt to have a fantastic voice and a thing to contribute to the gaming network. (Of course, the perks ain't bad when they start off rolling in, either).

The gaming business saw a number of exciting developments in 2016 touching on various aspects of the sector. Gaming technology is building in really exciting ways. The extended promised revolution of virtual and augmented reality moved closer to realization. The mania about Pokémon GO with its mass market place appeal and utilization of mobile phones introduced untold millions to the potential of augmented reality. With its launch in India and South Asia it has develop into the poster kid for the possible of mobile games given its sophisticated technology and the enormous international smartphone penetration.

However, there is no want to do an world wide web search or study the latest in anonymous game testimonials. Under, we have collected the major 30 mobile gamer blogs to enable put you in touch with the most current and greatest in gaming, along with recommendations for what to get subsequent, how to beat it, and what to keep away from. Regardless of whether for the most current iPhone or classic Gameboy, there are loads of mobile gaming blog entries for everyone.

We use our GeForce Knowledge servers to establish the greatest good quality settings based on the user's CPU and GPU, and target greater frame prices than 'normal' optimal settings to assure the lowest latency gaming experience. These settings are automatically applied when the game is launched so gamers never have to worry about configuring these settings themselves.

1 note · View note

trashwarden · 5 years ago

Text

I’ve commissioned my wonderful @jessicapendragon for some dorxus food and as always she made such a wonderful job! I love you, Jess! And

Go commish her!

---

Someone seems to be trying to woo him, although Dorian spends a great deal of time denying it all at first.

It is easy to pretend the vase of purple and blue flowers set out on his desk is just a bit of added flair put there by the cleaning staff. The new leather satchel found draped across his chair is simply a replacement from the requisitions officer for the one he lost in the Emerald Graves. He waves away the fact that his initials are engraved on it. Merely a coincidence. The bundle of rare books wrapped up with a blue bow a week later are of course useful to his work with the Inquisition, nevermind they have poems of love and beauty tucked between the pages. Surely they were left there by the previous owner and went unnoticed by Skyhold’s studious librarian.

Denial is much harder to cling to as the gifts keep coming. A box of chocolates and dates appear nestled on the shelves of his alcove, delicacies he has often lamented not being fed in the backs of carriages and dark places anymore. The next box he eyes warily, and then even more so when he sees the attached note - it is a box of delicate teas, something he stays away from with his dreaded stripweed allergy, but these are all safe, says someone in a handwriting he doesn’t recognize.

Someone has been listening to him very carefully, and everyone should hang on his every word, it’s true, but this is...this is something new.

As a man of academia, he decides to test this theory. For a day and a half he waxes lyrical all across Skyhold about a special liquor popular with the Orlesians. Carnal, 8:69 Blessed. There’s said to be something scandalous at the bottom, something in the potent ingredients that enhances sensation. He’s sure to say this to everyone with a waggle of his eyebrows for effect. Despite its supposedly secret nature, like most such whispered things, it is easy enough to find in Orlais, which is why he chose it amongst the hundreds of better brands.

Sure enough, it appears on the nightstand in Dorian’s room within a week. Now comes the real question: Who? Who is leaving him these gifts with no name, for a purpose he can hardly fathom? It is difficult to surmise when he refuses to bring it up in any circles. Admitting he has received them seems like it might end in a cruel joke, like this is some test that he could fail. That mentioning it all is akin to enjoying it, and like all things he enjoys, it will be taken from him.

Because he does enjoy it. The held, excited breath before climbing the last step, the leap of his heart when something awaits. Wondering in the quiet of night what might appear next, or who might be this unknown admirer, the wonder he feels in knowing someone has spent such time and effort on him. No one has ever tried to court him in such a manner, although his paramour seems to be just as unsure about it as he is, what with the hidden identity and all.

Part of him doesn’t want to find out, because deep down...he knows who he wishes it was. When he wonders about someone leaving these gifts in the dead of night, or looking around corners during the day to make sure he isn’t there, he pictures a certain earnest and utterly vexing man, with kind eyes and a smile that makes Dorian feel as if he’s taken an invigorating draught laced with lightning. Vaxus Trevelyan. The Inquisitor from the Free Marches, with his heavy shield and unguarded heart, has wanted something from Dorian he has never expected: nothing. Nothing, it seems, but the pleasure of his company and to be at his side. Well, perhaps a little more. Perhaps a great deal, in fact, and Dorian finds himself, for the first time in a long time, hoping for the chance to give something back.

But what if it isn’t Vaxus?

...What if it is?

He must find out. If his time in the South has done anything, it has made him braver, so he plans to catch this gifting fiend. The last few items have been placed in his room, which means someone is also sneaking into said room, a criticism on the lax security he is sure to bring up with Cullen one evening, but it also brings about opportunity. So he puts another plan into motion, and waits.

It takes much longer for his machinations to bear fruit for this second round of experiments, much too long for his tastes, even if it is partly his doing. The items he oh so very casually requested all across Skyhold a second time are rarer than the last, and he also needed to research specific spells for the rest of his plans, but it doesn’t mean he has to enjoy the circumstances. The longer he must wait, the more his thoughts turn to the realm of unassured. That there are no gifts in the interim only increases his unease. Perhaps he has asked for too much. Perhaps he is a game no longer worth pursuing, perhaps he should’ve shown more public interest, perhaps he shouldn’t have asked for things, for anything, perhaps-

Walking across the courtyard on the last day he swears he’ll care about this whole endeavor, ignoring he said this the day before, he finally feels the magic trap he laid snap. With an excited jolt he steps quickly over the short grass and up to the stone steps, across the ancient hall and growing gardens to the apartments of the Inner Circle.

When he reaches his door he comes to a halt, hand hovering over the handle, suddenly feeling the needles of nerves. Someone is behind this door. It would be an easier thing to simply turn around, let his spell die and release them, play this game for another day or another month. If he opens this door, it will be real.

Dorian takes a breath, and forges inside.

Inside is a man dangling upside down in the center of the room, held there by bands of purple static like strange lightning wrapped around his legs and feet. A symbol glows on the floor beneath him, pieces of bread from a nearby overturned basket he must have dropped punctuating the spell Dorian wove into the floor. A spell that works mighty well, apparently, as the man slowly spins around to reveal at long last who this courting culprit is.

Vaxus Trevelyan gives a sheepish smile and a small wave, the blush filling his face likely due to more than just the downward position he finds himself in currently. “Oh...hello Dorian. Seems I got caught on something.”

“Caught up to something, you mean. Literally. I suppose you’re the one that’s been leaving me these, how should I put it, offerings?” Dorian asks, gesturing to the table laden with food. Not his favorite, but the traditional Antivan meal of rice and beans and sausage has more flavor than any boiled stew of the south and Dorian has missed the concept of spices very much. “Care to explain yourself?”

Vaxus winces a little. “Yes, I can explain but...do you mind letting me down first?”

“Very well.” It all comes out harsher than he intends, the swirl of feelings and possibilities and possible disappointments inside him making him turn to the defense he knows best. Dorian touches the right symbols on the glyph and Vaxus swings right side up and lands gently on his feet.

He takes a moment to right his clothing and perhaps to organize his thoughts before explaining. “I know I haven’t been doing it right, the whole courting thing. But I didn’t want to force anything on you, especially after…”

“After what?”

“I’ve wanted to announce it like you’re supposed to, and take you on outings and-if you agreed! If you wanted to. But when I found your family amulet, you weren’t very happy with me. I thought, maybe, if there wasn’t any pressure, you might...come around to the idea.” There’s still of blush of Vaxus’ face as he ducks his head down. “I hope you’re not too disappointed it turned out to be me.”

Dorian stands there for a moment, considering. Or pretending to consider, for he mostly needs some time to settle the flurry of wings brushing against his ribcage, to steady the sudden weakness felt in his knees. And then he heads towards the table without a word at first and sits down, neatly unfolding the napkin and placing it across his lap.

“Oh good, you remembered to include the orange slices. If not I might have stormed out. Well, are you going to join me? I agree I’m something to behold, but if we’re to have a proper evening, I believe your participation is required.” It’s easier than allowing himself to speak the truth bubbling up gleefully in his throat, in his heart. I’d hoped it would be you.

Vaxus smiles again, sliding into his seat with an enthusiasm that makes Dorian believe even more in the possibility that this could be something more. “I’d love to.”

#dragon age #dorian pavus #vaxus trevelyan #dorian x inquisitor #dorian x trevelyan #pavelyan #dorxus #da fanfic #pre relationship #jessicapendragon #jess fic #dai #jess is watering my crops since 2016 #or maybe even 2015 #love u sm #let vax spoil you rotten dorian #pls

57 notes · View notes

parrishes-writes · 5 years ago

Text

soft oc asks: genevieve

taken from here!!! @ocelotsflatass here's more about the bae

🌹 Viv honestly feels most at home either out in nature, or in a library. She feels very small, out in nature, but also extremely alive and in a way that’s extremely comforting for her. Libraries... Viv loves libraries--they’re peaceful, and organized, and provide such good services... she can’t say enough good things about libraries. Dante makes her feel at home--he’s welcoming, and kind, and just so... soft and caring with her. For Viv, home is a place or a person you can always come back to, something or someone that you’ll always be happy to see.

🍄 Anything salty. She likes salt and carbohydrates, but tries to eat well because she doesn’t have a naturally active metabolism, and, you know, you should take care of yourself. Viv doesn’t really have a comfort food per se, but she eats oyster crackers a lot when she’s feeling sick, and loves hot soup, especially matzoh ball soup. She does like to cook, especially Middle Eastern and Mediterranean food, but she only really likes to do it for other people--it doesn’t seem worth all the cleanup if she’s just cooking for herself. She’s a big fan of Instant Pot meals. She’s usually pretty good in the kitchen, but can sometimes go overboard experimenting.

🍁 Viv usually likes to go outside if she needs space, but she can also go extremely stir-crazy, just in general, so setting aside some time and travelling somewhere new for her is usually a must. Her room is usually the place filled with all her treasured items, but she doesn’t really have a designated spot specifically for comfort. Viv likes to go deep, deep into nature, so deep that the outside world seems like a distant dream, to the point where she does have to worry about how to take care of herself. The problem is that there’s really no such thing as silence anymore, and there’s nowhere to go to get away from the noise, even in the wilderness. (this is an interesting read about this topic)

🍂 Viv does enjoy hugging, and she does enjoy hugs--within reason. She has no problem initiating hugs with other people, and doesn’t mind being hugged, but she doesn’t like bear hugs, or spooning--anything that makes her feel like she’s being smothered or crushed, she’s not a fan of. She tends to show affection pretty much the same way for friends and for family, just varying in intensity, but for a significant other... there’s an intimacy and delicacy, a deliberateness, that isn’t really there for anyone else. There’s so much devotion.

🌻 She loves light, and growth, and greenery... a good sunrise or sunset or a beautiful day can just fill her up with joy. Beautiful light, a beautiful sky, a beautiful sea... there’s so much beauty in nature, in the motions of living.

🌾 Incandescent. Kind. Gentle, but so much strength hiding underneath all of it. Patient. Compassionate. Feisty, after a fashion. Capable. Irreplaceable. Driven. Strong.

💐 Viv rarely gets sick, so when she does, she goes down hard. She really hates being bedridden or forced to stay home; in her mind, if she can move, she can work, which is not at all true. Zoe used to make sure all her physical needs were met, forcing fluids, making sure she was taking her medicine, keeping the room humid, hot showers, whatever. Dante will do his best to make her feel better, but will usually do so at her direction because he almost never gets sick either and doesn’t really know what to do when ill; mostly he just lends a sympathetic ear and hangs out with her, although Viv tends to be a loner while sick. On the other hand, Viv is a mother hen around sick family or loved ones. You name it, she’ll do it or get it. And then some.

🌿 Her primary love language is acts of service, and it’s in the little things for Viv--cleaning your shared living space, cooking meals, doing the laundry, making the bed, taking care of all the minutiae so you don’t have to think about it. She’s too restless to be a homebody or a homemaker, but she likes to care of her space. On the receiving end, she likes words of affirmation, physical touch, and quality time. Not always verbal affirmations, but just... reassurance. Someone comforting her. Feeling like a priority to someone.

🌳If she’s feeling real stressed, she’ll let off steam in a variety of ways. Her first method of de-stressing is turning her brain off, so Netflix, rereading a favorite book, anything that will make her stop over-analyzing and grab her attention. Sometimes it’s hanging out with other people, completing a task... anything that requires her full attention, and give her something else to think about. When that fails, drink and go to sleep. (Also, fucking. Full stop. Somebody just needs to pound the bad feelings out of her.)

🌲 Viv is highly empathetic and compassionate, which is simultaneously a great strength and a great flaw. It’s not that she’s particularly demonstrative, or weepy, but she has great insight into understanding how other people feel. She cares very deeply, and can take stuff very personally, so she has to actively remind herself that not everything is an indictment on her. When it comes to comforting others, she means well, but she doesn’t always say the right thing. She’ll ask the other person what they want her to do, which is not always particularly comforting, but she just doesn’t want to do the wrong thing. Her honesty can sometimes impede this as well.

🌺 She rarely has nightmares, but if she does have one she’ll usually turn a light on, and try to go back to sleep. If it’s especially bad, she’ll watch or read something comforting and familiar before trying to sleep again. She doesn’t really need comfort from other people because she’s used to dealing without it, but will accept it if it’s offered. And sometimes, if you just don’t sleep, you just don’t sleep.

🌸 She likes home, her family and friends, her significant other(s), nature, learning, animals, living, sunshine... there are more but it’s more like... she’ll know it when she sees it, you know???

🥀 Viv doesn’t really decorate most of her notebooks, although she drools over those aesthetic af bullet journals and study inspo. This is partly because her handwriting sucks and partly because she can’t draw for shit, and doesn’t really have the patience to try. Most of her notebooks are filled with just that--notes, lists, and other relevant stuff. She wants to journal, but just hasn’t fallen into a routine.

🌼 She loves her biological family, but doesn’t always feel super close to them, due to some of their political leanings and opinions.

Some of her found friends and family are:

Sonali and Eli: Viv’s friends from college and, for three years afterwards, both her partners and each other’s as well. They were in a polyamorous relationship which ended after Sonali’s unplanned pregnancy, although Viv is still on excellent terms with them both, and their son, Amit.

Zoe: Viv’s ex-girlfriend. Their differing attitudes about careers and the time + effort they put into them was a major factor in their breakup, as well as some clashes in their personalities. But despite all that, they did truly love each other and still have some residual feelings for each other. They’re still in touch and learning how to navigate being friends instead of lovers.

Dante: he and Viv are currently in a relationship, but it wasn’t initially smooth sailing. They’re very different people which can cause tension, but they want to make their differences work together, you know? They can make it work, and more than that, they want to, and that’s what’s important.

#oc: genevieve #text: genevieve

2 notes · View notes

shemakesmusic-uk · 5 years ago

Photo

Getting to Know...

Rosa Bordallo.

Rosa Bordallo fka Manett is a singer-songwriter and musician based in Brooklyn. She is a CHamoru from the island of Guam in the Marianas, an archipelago in Micronesia. She came to New York at the age of 19. She was a member of the band cholo.

Last month Bordallo released Reef Walker, a deeply personal indie rock record with poignant lyrics that investigate identity, loss, belonging, society, historical trauma, and hope.

We had a chat with Rosa all about Reef Walker, her background and influences, creative process and more. Read the Q&A below.

Hi Rosa. Please tell us a bit about yourself. What led you to make music and who/what are your biggest influences?

"Hi! Thank you for this opportunity to share my work! I’m a singer/songwriter based in New York City. I am also a Pacific Islander, specifically an indigenous person from Guam who identifies as CHamoru. I was born and raised there, and I started playing guitar and writing songs as a teenager. I came to NYC in the early 2000’s for film school, and I have been living and working here since then. The first year I was here, I joined a post-punk band called cholo that was formed by Felipe Flores. We played in small clubs and venues around town for almost ten years. We also released three full-length albums and one EP. Around 2010 I started making music by myself under the alias Manett, and I also released a few solo EPs under that alias.

"Making music was a natural progression for me since listening to music has always been an important coping mechanism. They say imitation is the best form of flattery, so I try to emulate my heroes and hopefully something new and interesting comes out of it. I’ve always been someone who needs to express myself, whether writing in a journal, writing poetry, doodling or dancing. I think making a record, as a creative endeavor, suits me in a lot of ways because I can draw on those other forms of expression. Also I get easily distracted and I’m not terribly disciplined so it’s nice to have a record - an artifact, a piece of evidence - to show that I didn’t just waste all my time surfing the internet!

"In terms of influence, there are too many to list, but I draw a lot from rock & roll and all its derivatives and revivals particularly psych rock, garage, punk, post-punk, new wave, and grunge. I’ve always been drawn to women with loud guitars and loud personalities -- PJ Harvey, Björk / The Sugarcubes, Dog Faced Hermans, Bikini Kill, Slant 6, Cyndi Lauper, The Breeders, Babes in Toyland. I love unapologetically weird women like Lene Lovich, Lydia Lunch, Nina Hagen, and Siouxsie Sioux. I can go on! Other major influences from my youth are the Pixies, David Bowie, Nirvana, and the Velvet Underground. I think what they all have in common is an irreverence, a willingness to break norms and do something unconventional while keeping a certain integrity. None of them were trying terribly hard to be different - they were just drawing inspiration from their personal frustration and observations of the world and creating something special from that.

You recently released your album Reef Walker. What is the record about, what does it mean to you and what do you hope listeners will take away from it?

"Reef Walker is my first full-length album as a solo artist. I picked that title because I see myself as being able to navigate a gulf that is psychological, cultural, and emotional in nature. As an indigenous person who has lived the first half of my life in my native community and in a remote part of the world, and then spent the second half in this metropolis on the other side of the world, I grapple with the guilt that my loyalties are divided and that I am not spending enough time with my family and native community. On the other hand, I wouldn’t be who I am today if I didn’t leave my place of origin and to live in this new and wildly different place. I think there are many people past and present who have my experience of alienation but it’s not represented in our culture - or if it is, it’s an inadequate representation. I often think about the Japanese castaway Otokichi, later known as John Mathew Ottoson, as well as the Inuk man Minik Wallace, when I need to remind myself why I’m doing what I’m doing.

"I also like the imagery that is evoked from that title. I spent a lot of time at the beach and on my dad’s boat as a kid. It’s actually treacherous to walk along the reef during low tide, because the high tide can come in unexpectedly and drown you, or a rip current can pull you out to sea. It’s also not good to touch or step on coral. Not only is it a living organism that should be protected, but some coral can sting you. But snorkeling and swimming along the reef is a transcendent experience. My ancestors were expert fishermen and seafarers. The album title is as much an homage to them and to all the CHamoru people and other Pacific Islanders who have ties to Oceania.

"All I ask of anyone who hears my album is to have an open mind. I think one reason music is powerful and interesting is because it can be appreciated across cultural divides. I try not to concern myself with how my music is received. I just try to make music that I personally enjoy so if someone else enjoys it, it’s a nice surprise. As for your readers, if you anything about my story sparks your curiosity, I would ask you to explore the histories of indigenous people because much of it has been suppressed and erased.

"There is much needed attention being given to climate change but we should remember that indigenous communities have always been putting their bodies on the line to protect the land, water, and other natural resources. In my own homeland of the Marianas, the U.S. military is about to expand their presence to build two live-fire training ranges that would drastically impact our main aquifer and our wildlife as well as desecrate important ancestral lands. In North America, there’s the oil and gas cartel, and there’s the missing and murdered indigenous women crisis (aka MMIW) which disproportionately affects trans and queer native folx. In South America, the Amazon is being burned down to benefit illegal loggers and farmers. It’s easy to get overwhelmed, but if you consider yourself a moral person, it’s your responsibility to educate yourself about these things. If you’re in North America, there’s a great online resource (native-land.ca) where you can learn about the tribes and nations that first settled the land where you currently live. The International Indigenous Youth Council (indigenousyouth.org) is another good online resource because it shares news from indigenous communities around the world."

What was your favourite part recording Reef Walker?

"It was really fun to record in three different spaces that were also living spaces. We started tracking in Duane Lauginiger’s old basement studio, which was right below his garden apartment in Brooklyn. He called that place Time Castle, hence the name of the cassette label that released the album. Then we went to a private house in Piermont, NY, for the second tracking session. And then finally did a day and night of recording in a converted church in Craryville, NY. Each space had its own quirks and novelties but Duane (the producer-engineer) was really nimble about setting up and adapting. I really like working in a place full of paintings and objets d’art and tchotchkes as opposed to a sterile recording studio that looks more like the set of a bad sci-fi movie."

Please talk us through your songwriting/creative process.

"I have a full-time day job so I just try to make regular time for myself to clear my head, and any ideas I get, I will record it on my phone or my computer. Then I spend a lot of time listening and thinking about these initial ideas. I try to give them enough space to breathe and present themselves to me. I don’t like to exhaust myself working on song ideas that are not particularly compelling to me. If I like hearing it over and over in my head, then chances are it will be interesting enough to sustain my attention long enough to develop it into a complete song and recording.

"I almost always come up with the music first before I think of any lyrics. Sometimes I will have an idea for a melody and lyric together, but I don’t get too attached to the first lyrics I come up with. I also take random notes all the time, about anything and everything, so sometimes I have a poem or a musing that I’ve written down which will get repurposed for song lyrics.

"It’s useful for me to have a theme or concept in mind, something that will spark my curiosity and help me be emotionally invested. With Reef Walker I initially had Woman in Suitcase as the working title. That was the force that brought it into being. I meditated on that a lot while writing the songs. I currently have a working title for my second album, so I’ve been meditating on that. I also did this for my first EP, The Sea Urchin, which was my first stab at making songs that were very personal, as opposed to hiding behind a group project which I did with cholo, my previous band. The sea urchin was a powerful image for me at that time, because I felt very vulnerable putting myself out there. Imagining a shy sea creature with crazy-looking spikes, just chilling in the water and paying attention to its surroundings - that kept me motivated to finish the recordings and put it out into the world.

"In general I just try to stay inspired and curious about things. The urge to create comes out of frustration but also out of appreciation for and communion with other people’s creations. And there are so many wonderful creations out there. I see this as a creative practice, rather than a creative process, because for me it’s more about being grounded and responsive to what’s put before me, rather than about checking off items on a to-do list or making sure that a particular set of actions is followed."

Finally, what are your plans for 2020?

"I plan on touring and writing my second album. Stay tuned!"

Reef Walker is out now.

#getting to know #rosa bordallo #reef walker

1 note · View note

af-answers · 6 years ago

Text

All Hallow’s Eve

(DISCLAIMER: We’re going way off the canon path here, kiddos.)

Orion hadn’t heard from Artemis in weeks. He wanted to be thrilled, but he knew better than to trust himself. He wondered if he’d ever be fully at ease in his own head, or how long it would be before the little worm of guilt allowed him to call the head his own. He sat on a window ledge outside the Great Hall at early morning, waiting for his friends and thinking. He found it less and less pleasant to have time to himself lately: the longer he was alone and the longer he thought, the more he found gaps in his memory, gaps only his Other Half had access to. The day before he’d needed the colors of the rainbow for a spell and found he couldn’t remember them. His classmates had a jolly laugh at his expense when Snape made him memorize a song of colors, then sing it aloud for the class.

“Oi, Orion!” Ron called, pulling the Slytherin from the sill and out of his thoughts. “We thought we’d get here before you for a change.”

“Have you been sleeping well?” Harry asked, clapping a hand on Orion’s shoulder as they strode toward the monumental double doors.

Orion pursed his lips. “I’ve been sleeping, but not resting, you know?”

“Yeah, I can relate,” Harry said with a sad smile.

Orion had learned a lot about Harry in the last weeks, specifically the three Gryffindors’ annual exploits and the possible return of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

He’s a regular King Arthur, Orion thought. A boy with a great destiny. He wished he could tell his friends about his own adventures, but even he knew raving about other dimensions and fairies with time-stop technology and demons living on the moon would result in a one-way ticket to the loony bin.

The four children walked towards the closed doors of the Hall without breaking stride and the doors swung open on their hinges without being touched: though today, they did so with an unearthly groan. Orion jumped, and his friends grinned.

“I love Halloween,” Hermione said, stretching her arms over her head.

Black candles floated in clusters above the tables in the Great Hall, their wax surprisingly not dripping on the bright orange tablecloths below. The rafters were swathed in giant, real cobwebs, and a giant jack-o-lantern loomed in the middle of the ceiling, leering at the students as they entered.

Orion grinned back, his initial skittishness forgotten. He’d never had a real Halloween. Artemis wasn’t one for the season.

The children were feasting on caramel apples, spiced oatmeal, and pumpkin milk when the ghosts came into the hall, descending through the ceiling and phasing through walls.

“Do they not have ghosts at Ilvermorny School?” Hermione asked, noticing Orion’s open fascination.

“Erm, no,” he recovered. “Haven’t been around long enough, I suppose. Do they have to die in the school to be ghosts here?”

“I sure hope not!” Ron said through a mouth full of pumpkin muffin. Hermione glared at him, and he shrugged. “If so, where do the ghosts get their mounts for the Headless Hunt? Did the horses all die with their masters?”

“Or do they have to wait around for the horses to die?” Harry cut in.

“How many headless men couldn’t be in the hunt for lack of steed?” Ron asked, pointing at Harry with a fork.

Harry laughed. “Maybe it started off as a Headless Jog.”

“The two of you, really,” Hermione chastised. “A lot of them do,” she told Orion. “Or at least, they all have a strong connection to Hogwarts.”

“And unfinished business,” Ron added, wiggling his fingers under his chin and baring his teeth.

“What’s the Headless Hunt?” Orion laughed.

“A gaggle of really old men on their high horses boasting about not having a good head on their shoulders.” Nearly Headless Nick sulked. He phased between Ron and Harry, and the chill he brought on prompted them to make room for him on the table bench. “Now me, I may not be completely headless, but at least I have a head!” He said the last part loudly, so a group of men a good deal shorter than they should be, heads tucked under their arms, could hear.

“He’s talking about Lord Valeron,” Ron whispered behind his hand. “He lost his head, literally. His head was misplaced before his burial. But he’s still able to take part in the Hunt. No one knows how.”

“I know how! It’s prejudice!” Nick bewailed. “He can’t use his head for Nogglin’ Rolling, or Cranium Volleyball! They only like him because he’s mysterious.”

“He is pretty mysterious,” Hermione said, resting her chin on her fist as she watched the only truly headless man on the outskirts of the group, fixing cufflinks he couldn’t have known had come askew.

Orion felt a stirring in his mind, a cold, familiar itch that made his stomach turn.

“It’s rumored that his head knows such terrible secrets it’s been buried separate from his body somewhere on the Hogwarts estate,” Ron said in hushed tones, “and that he searches for it still.”

“Ahh! He’s bewitched you as well!” Nick wailed. He swung an arm to bang the table, but his arm fell right through. “But I’ll have the last laugh,” he told them, leaning in conspiratorially. “Because I know where Lord Valeron’s head lies.”

Ron and Hermione made faces of awe, though it was evident they didn’t believe him, while Harry shook his head. But someone did believe the beleaguered specter.

‘Ask him if he wants his head completely removed.’

Orion started so violently that he dumped a goblet of pumpkin milk into his lap. He performed an anti-stain spell before Hermione could, but the wand shook in his hand and the spell transferred the stain to the tablecloth.

“Orion?” Hermione asked, her heavy brows furrowed.

He turned his attention to Nick on the other side of the table. “I can remove your head for you.”

“What?” Nick, Ron, and Harry said in unison.

“I can remove your head for you,” Orion said, the color returning to his cheeks, “and you can finally take part in the Headless Hunt. But in return, you tell me where Lord Valeron’s head is.”

The three Gryffindors and the ghost stared at the pale boy for a long moment.

The ghost finally spoke. “If you can get me into the Hunt,” he said slowly, “I will do whatever you want.”

“How in the seven layers of the underworld are we supposed to remove a dead man’s head?” Orion hissed, trying not to sound excited. He’d ducked into a dark gap between columns for privacy while he talked to himself.

‘Oh, you’re acknowledging me now?’ Artemis said snidely.

“You haven’t talked to me for weeks!” Orion sputtered. “But never mind that, you must have a plan if you’ve promised the poor soul his deepest wish.”

‘The simplest solution would be to exhume the body and finish the job.’ Artemis smiled at Orion’s squeamishness. ‘But as I’m doubting there’s any flesh left, that avenue is out. Thankfully, while you’ve been traipsing around wizard academy, I’ve been doing some theorizing with quantum and particle physics.’

“Yeah?” Orion asked, pretending to understand.

He could almost see Artemis’s vampiric grin, quite fitting for the holiday. ‘Yeah.’

That night, the four friends gathered under Harry’s Cloak of Invisibility and snuck into the Transfiguration classroom, chose because it was the only class with windows big enough to be lit by the full moon.

Orion had gathered supplies per Artemis’s instructions and hid them in the room before light’s out: a coil of copper wire, the interdimensional device that brought them there, the damaged tazer pen, some protection equipment, and a knife.

‘Or any sharp blade,’ Artemis had specified.

Orion had never distrusted himself more.

“What do we do now?” Hermione whispered. “We told Nick to meet us at midnight, that’s two hours away.”

“We— I need the time to set this up,” he explained. “It’s very precise, but I’ll let you know if I need help.”

The three friends gathered around a table a few meters away to play some game they’d invented with the Chocolate Frog cards. Orion wished he were playing with them.

‘Focus,’ Artemis reprimanded. ‘You have the steady hands for this job, but not the knowledge. Now listen to me very carefully—‘

It was about fifteen minutes till midnight, and the Gryffindors had long since become bored of their game and infatuated with Orion’s mysterious assignment. He’d set up a small workstation at McGonagall’s desk. Odd sparks flew in every direction as he used his wand as a welding torch to rewire something in the tech-watch he’d snuck in from home.

“Electronics don’t work here,” Hermione reminded him, her face flickering in the blue light of the flame. “That’s why your watch broke in the first place.”

“It’s a good thing I’m not trying to fix it then,” Orion said through the bandana covering his mouth.

“What are you trying to do?” Ron asked.

“Supe it up,” he replied, using tweezers to lift a tiny coil on the circuit board and bend it where he wanted it. “If my theory is correct, ghosts are a mix between the magical and the physical: real, organic beings who left an imprint on the world. I’m not the first to wonder if those who died didn’t really pass on to a higher plane, but are in fact dimension-adjacent, and the sad creatures we call ghosts are caught between our world and the beyond.” He wound two lengths of wire to the sides of the circuit board, twisted those wires together, and snipped it with the knife half a meter from the watch. “However, the human brain essentially runs on electricity, a current,” he activated the tazer pen, which he’d reworked to create a steadier charge. “It’s no coincidence that electronics go haywire when specters draw near. They’re an ectoplasmic container for the neurons that contain the brain, the spirit! So hence, my little experiment.”

He twisted the wire around the fountain pen’s split tip, then switched it on. The watch’s display screen flickered, then lit up and beeped a digital greeting.

“Voila,” he said, folding his arms over his chest.

“You just fixed a watch,” Harry said, raising an eyebrow.

“You sounded just like Arthur,” Hermione added, her eyes wide and admiring.

“I’ve done more than fix it,” Orion said, coughing once into his fist. He took up the knife, a switchblade he’d knicked from one of the other Slytherin boys. He wrapped the watch’s band around the knife and tapped a few buttons on its interface.

“Are you ready for me?” Nearly Headless Nick phased through a window, the moonlight refracting through his hair and ruffled collar.

“Are you ready to be headless?” Ron asked as the ghost descended to their level.

“I’ve been ready for one hundred seventeen years,” Nick said. He rubbed his hands together. “So what do I do?”

“Come closer,” Orion pressed a final button on the watch and leaned over it, his palms planted on the desktop. “And trust me.”

A red web emanated from the watch, causing the three other humans to jump back. The laser lattice scanned Nick, then whirred as the frankensteined contraption hummed and vibrated so hard the knife rattled on the table.

“Is it supposed to be doing that?” Hermione whispered, eyeing the door warily. The machine was making quite a racket now.

“Someone’s going to hear!” Agreed Harry.

As he said this, the Hogwarts clocktower began to ring, the bells’ resonance drowning out the droning of the machine.

“Look!” Hermione said, pointing at the experiment. The base of the hilt glowed blue. The blue virus spread up the knife, and when it encased the tip of the blade, Orion turned off the tazer and cut the power to the watch.

“Wizard,” Ron said.

Orion touched the hilt with a finger experimentally, and when it didn’t hurt him, he slipped it from the watch band and held it aloft. It was still opaque, but had the eery aura of the haunting dead.

“An entrancing display,” Nick said, “but how’s that—“

With a quick, practiced strike, Orion slid the knife through the preexisting cut bisecting his throat, exerting a bit more pressure when he felt the resistance of skin.

All four students and the ghost watched in awe as his head tipped comically to one side, then fell to the floor.

#orion fowl #halloween #hogwarts au #harry potter #Hermione Granger #ron weasley #nearly headless nick

118 notes · View notes

cirosuyu-blog · 5 years ago

Text

Secret Answers to US Tourist Visa Identified

https://pt.ivisa.com/us-tourist-visa

The most significant thing is for the info needed to be on it. You may offer evidence that shows the objective of your trip, your intent to depart the USA, and arrangements you have made to cover the expenses of your journey. You can't be classified as a visitor if you want to stay in the united states indefinitely or intend to find employment during the duration of your stay.

Life After US Tourist Visa If you require further info on the India visa application procedure, then you're welcome to get in touch with us at Rapid visas. The U.S. visa method is comparatively easy. It has become more complex over the recent years due to increased scrutiny of most applicants.

Like passport, it's a government-issued document that permits the holder to enter, leave, or stay for a predetermined period of time in a foreign business. Because of the extensive nature of the process, it can take several weeks to acquire a visa. There's a KODAK photo-boot you are able to see even before you put in the major building.

If you would like to enter the US, determine whether you desire a visa. The visa doesn't allow for at least a 30 day stay in China. Tourist Visa doesn't extend for the exact long duration, so it is simpler to obtain, but when it has to do with Student and Work Visa, it requires a great deal of legal formalities and paperwork.

You need to consider all the advantages and disadvantages of getting married on tourist visa. There are two major varieties of tourist visas that are a single and double entry visa. Based on the goal of the trip you've got to make an application for a particular visa.

The Basics of US Tourist Visa Applicants should also be ready to explain how they are going to finance their trip to the U.S. If it's necessary to apply in person, you might need to make an appointment. Before you submit an application for an expedited appointment, you have to first schedule an appointment during the normal appointment scheduling procedure and also guarantee you have documentary evidence to show the urgency.

US Tourist Visa at a Glance It is appropriate for immigrants who mean to live in the nation for small periods and for certain pursuits. People from different countries who wish to live permanently in another country must get an immigrant visa to turn into a lawful resident of a nation. Persons who need to stay in america indefinitely or intend to find employment may not be classified as visitors.

Only applicants are allowed inside, even when you're a US citizen so you'll need to wait elsewhere. Many embassies require that you list the countries you have visited within a particular number of years. Non registered agents are thought to be illegal.

There are many documents you will want to submit an application for a Brazilian visa. 1 Look for a great employer before you begin to make an application for an employment or employment visa in China. He may also be required to go to their local police department for a short interview to prove that the applicant qualifies for citizenship.

A Brazil vacation may be excellent experience. The Embassy is searching for indications your partner will go back to Thailand or her home country. A tourist visa plays an extremely important role for all types of worldwide trip.

| Additionally, keep in mind there might be limitations placed on the number of tourist visas the Royal Thai Consulate will offer you in a brief time period (if you continue traveling from Thailand to Penang for new visas, as an example). The Embassy is searching for indications your partner will go back to Thailand or her home country. There are various sorts of tourist visas are there which you are able to apply for based on the quantity of days you're staying in UAE.

The Debate Over US Tourist Visa There are many documents you will want to submit an application for a Brazilian visa. You also have to be conscious of several fees and distinctive documentation that are required for your residency visas and citizenship application. He may also be required to go to their local police department for a short interview to prove that the applicant qualifies for citizenship.

US Tourist Visa Ideas Say you're in the nation on a tourist visa. A visa is obligatory for any Mexican citizen visiting the usa. The B-2 tourist visa is utilized by foreign nationals who would like to stop by the usa for brief spans of time for tourism or health care.

You have to use your US passport to go to the USA. Certain nations, however, must make an application for a tourist visa before coming to Japan. You are able to submit an application for a USA visa even when you donat plan on traveling to the usa in the forseeable future.

US Tourist Visa and US Tourist Visa - The Perfect Combination The entry could be single or multiple based on the permission granted. Applicants will have to travel with the passport linked to the internet application. He will not have to pay the visa application fee again.

Like passport, it's a government-issued document that permits the holder to enter, leave, or stay for a predetermined period of time in a foreign business. The function of the visit has to be mentioned in the application form. There's a KODAK photo-boot you are able to see even before you put in the major building.

It is possible to check online which countries call for a visa prior to entry based on what country you're from. Otherwise, you need to contact the airline provider or the internet travel agent and ask them to achieve that. Well, it's a fact that the migration agents don't have any influence on the approval or rejection of your visa, but it doesn't mean they cannot assist you in any manner.

In the exact same way a valid visa doesn't guarantee admission to the usa, an approved ESTA isn't a guarantee of admission to the USA. Furthermore, choosing a 3rd party to submit an application for your visa will increase the complete cost, usually doubling the price tag. As soon as you demonstrate that you've got adequate funds to remain in the nation and you specify your period and location of your stay, any of the 2 visas will be stamped on your passport and you are totally free to explore any portion of the USA.

A comprehensive Dubai Visa guide can help you out in clearing all of the confusion related to it. You must be to queue before they open if you want to receive your passport back a day later. There is going to be an easy interview to find out if you're applying for the suitable sort of visa.

Do not contact us if you just want visa services. A visa gets invalid if there isn't any more valid number of entries left. Following that, all you have to do is to enroll the U.S. visa for your on-line bill payment.

It's important to get information about the sort of nonimmigrant visa you'll need for travel, and the actions necessary to make an application for the visa at a U.S. Embassy or Consulate abroad. To make an application for the it, you've got to stop by your closest Vietnam tourist visa agent to be able to complete all the formalities. In some instances, you may not have to make an application for a Visitor Visa to go to New Zealand.

| The Most Popular US Tourist Visa A comprehensive Dubai Visa guide can help you out in clearing all of the confusion related to it. While you don't require a visa to come to the U.S. for your organization meeting or for vacation, you must find an approved travel authorization ahead of your visit to the U.S.. Also say that the visa only lasts for more or less the specific length of the course so you are going to have to spend a little on tuition if your idea is to remain long-term.

What Is So Fascinating About US Tourist Visa? Along with tourist visas, there are a number of other kinds of visas that let you work or remain in the country longer. There are a few intriguing temples you can see while you're there. Persons who need to stay in america indefinitely or intend to find employment may not be classified as visitors.

See our Directory of Visa Categories to identify which visa category may be right for your purpose of travel to the usa. Visas will no longer be asked to go to the United States of america. Immigrant visas enable travelers to enter the US in order to reside and work permanently in the united states.

Dependents accompanying B-2 visa holders will need to qualify on their very own foundation for a B visa. The visa stamp fee may be different based on Vietnam Embassy in each nation. Also with the access to Dubai visa online, acquiring a visa is currently extremely effortless.

There is a good likelihood of booking cancellation before you know whether you will or will not find a visa. There are two major varieties of tourist visas that are a single and double entry visa. If you want to stay longer than that, you could qualify for a working holiday visa.

As soon as you get your visa then you may have to register in the nation and receive a volunteer identity card called a Censo. You could also check the internet site of the Bureau of Consular Affairs for more details. If you pass the background checks, you will be invited to submit an application for Global Entry.

If you've got a U.S. sponsor, you might bring the sponsor's yearly revenue tax return to demonstrate he can fulfill his financial obligation for your education. You will have to spend money on the transportation. The majority of the countries expect a visa to be aware of the background of somebody who is applying for entry into a nation.

The most significant thing is for the info needed to be on it. Briefly describe which type of work you do and give a brief company description. There are two major methods to extend the initial tourist visa to get to the 180-day limit.

If you want to find out when you meet the requirements, you might complete our US visa assessment form. The U.S. visa method is comparatively easy. It has become more complex over the recent years due to increased scrutiny of most applicants.

A Brazil vacation may be excellent experience. The Embassy is searching for indications your partner will go back to Thailand or her home country. There are various sorts of tourist visas are there which you are able to apply for based on the quantity of days you're staying in UAE.

1 note · View note