#also miss me with 'well maybe they have to paywall it this year because the economys bad'

[armoricaroyalty]

what is with all the paid/early access advent calendars this year? I've seen several creators posting stuff that is 100% paywalled until christmas or later and it's honestly confusing? I thought the community expectation was that advent gifts are free and/or free day of, but you have to wait to DL if you miss that day

like it just feels counter to the spirit of the community and the spirit of the holiday to be like "here's my exciting new gift for today! except it's not a gift, and you'd better pay up if you want to use this seasonal content before the end of the season"

[yourlocalrandombisexual]

alright so i’ve been seeing the watcher posts and gathering my thoughts so i’m gonna put all my watcher stuff in one big post under the cut cause it’s gonna get long and i need to get this out of my head.

i will say 99% of the fandom was expecting a fun, exciting, omg can’t wait for it type of announcement and seeing the title and thumb nail for the first time made me really nervous.

also, side note, why on earth would they choose a thumbnail of the three of them sitting on a couch like that with the title “goodbye youtube”?? just the imagery alone makes you think of the try guys and their now infamous video like why would you want that comparison right out the gate before you even say anything?? super weird choice.

then the video is all nostalgic and wistful, clips of steven’s, ryan’s, and shane’s, pre-buzzfeed youtube videos and i’m thinking “did someone die cause this feels like a video obit” none of this calmed my nerves and made me more anxious about what could be coming. and then we all know what happened next, they announce that they’re paywalling everything yada yada yada

and after seeing everyone else’s takes and the general vibe of the fandom being “fuck watcher” it continues to baffle me why they thought this was gonna go over well. because to me it feels like they went from “yay we have our own youtube channel” to “give us your cash we’re a media empire” and missed A LOT of steps in between.

and i dunno maybe watcher did try to change things and tweak their business model and things weren’t getting better but as a fan and someone who watches a lot of different youtubers you kinda see this one coming. like creators drop little crumbs beforehand to gauge how people will take it or they try weird series/shows that have like 3 episodes to see what their audience is more interested in. there are a signs as a fan you can see but i think one of the reasons this went so badly for watcher is because it was so far out of left field. there was never a hint that the youtube model wasn’t working for them.

but again maybe they did try x, y, and z without it working or being transparent about it and if they were trying things why not lean into that to garner compassion from fans? we all know the youtube algorithm sucks and if they had started the video talking about the things they tried and how nothing was working and how much it sucked to leave youtube i think people would’ve understood. then they could’ve had shane talk about how subscriptions suck and there are too many of them and they tried to find another solution but couldn’t. now not only do i have sympathy for what there going through i had my feelings validated. then they could’ve gone into why this is better and what i’m going to get out of it as a consumer.

like it’s not that hard. but instead the vibe i got from them was a real palpable relief that they were leaving youtube which felt like a slap in the face.

and while i don’t agree with the steven bashing at all i do think it’s a little bit funny that they kinda dug themselves into that hole with their end of the year behind the scenes video they put out last fall. they really painted steven as a genius ceo while ryan and shane are just on screen talent. so while i feel for what steven is going through they kinda put themselves in that position.

all of this to say that it doesn’t feel like they hired anyone to field this idea by or do any kind of market research at all and the vibe that i’ve always kinda gotten from watcher is one where they want to jump over the messiness and growing pains of being a new small business and be established. be this huge force a la dropout/college humor without putting in the time to get there. and i do think watcher showed it’s true colors here where they only think of fans as cash cows they can deposit whenever.

and just the arrogance of thinking their fans will follow them to a subscription and trying to spin it as it being the same thing as leaving buzzfeed drives me up the wall. it’s not the same.

anyway i think that’s it. if i think of anything else ill edit this post ✌️

[peri-peri-sauce]

"They do raffles, giveaways and post exclusive content only for people who can afford to pay. And what about the rest of us? Are those of us who don't want to pay just going to keep getting vacation photos and the occasional selfie?"

I want to bring another point of view: I haven't paid for any content so far, and I haven't been to gigs (because I live in a country where he hasn't toured yet). But, I have been perfectly happy with his funny and eccentric little clips in ig and tiktok, and I listen to his music every day. I really really LOVED Ruoska, Kot Kot and Trafik, which we got this year. For two of those, we even got music videos, and great promos. Those are not "just" vacation photos or occasional selfies. He then had a summer tour, then a well deserved holiday (with THE BOJAN! which was not "just " vacation photos either, at least for me), and now we've received glimpses of a new song and an album coming soon. To me, that's A LOT, without paying anything. Mind you, I didn't subscribe to OF, because it's not my cup of tea, and that's fine.

Creating content is not free - it takes time and effort. We also know, that last year's euro tour was not very financially advantageous for him. It's expensive to tour, it takes a big crew, whose salaries need to be paid, all the logistics etc taken care of. I truly 100% understand that they try to monetise some of it. And I think a 14 euro one-off payment for exclusive tour content is NOT a lot - given that it will be good quality (that is left to be seen). It's actually much cheaper than a concert ticket or most of the merch. So, I decided to pay, although of course the platform they chose is not ideal. But, I wanted to show them support, because so far I got everything for free. And, it seems like he is still active in ig as well so not everything will be behind a paywall.

Last year he said he was burnt out and did way too much - it was a crazy year! He's doing a lot of gigs this year as well. Plus, on top of all that, he's moved (?) or is moving to a new home, and who knows what else is going on in his personal life that we have no clue about. I love him, the way he is. For me, personally, he doesn't even need to do or offer something "new" ALL the time. Give the guy a break. He's only a human. He's not perfect, but I love him.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this. Maybe it's just me, but I feel like he's been on vacation a lot this year. First the trip to Thailand, then he went skiing and played hockey, then he went to Spain right after Böle, then Spain again after the Fuengirola gig, and finally Cyprus. He deserved the holidays, especially after last year, but I have to admit I got a bit bored. And to be honest, I couldn't care less that Bojan was there too.

I understand it takes a lot of work to create all the songs for the album, and maybe I was just being impatient about it. I also get that, of course, he wants to make money and monetize everything, but at some point it feels like you're missing out on important things if you don't pay (and I don't want to get into this again, but some people don't like the fact that the website uses NFTs, which prevents them from buying it and, as a result, they miss out on the content).

That said, I've been reading other people's opinions and I’m starting to see things from a different perspective, but I still stand by some of the things I said.

You're right, he's not perfect, and I still love him too, but that won't stop me from sharing my opinion about the things I don't like or disagree with.

And this is the last ask I'm going to answer about this topic.

[whatever-you-can-give-me]

since youre still accepting then 8,9,10 (and maybe 11,12 if you want to) for vash ,wolfwood and millie ,meryl please ! either as ships or individual standalones!!

alright, under the cut for length (+manga spoilers!) i didn't do every single one of these, but i did several!

vash the stampede + 8. a post-canon headcanon

going to cheat a little and combine this with 10. I recognize canon has made a decision, but given that it's a stupid-ass decision, I've elected to ignore it (+ what should have happened)

as i alluded to here i think the ending of the manga is Completely Fucking Bonkers and i refuse to consider it canon. what actually happened... well, i wrote 25k about it so i don't Need to elaborate, but tl;dr vash and LR settle down in a little house and live peacefully and quietly as they slowly start to recover from the horrendous amount of shit they've collectively been through. vash sleeps a lot.

9. a missing scene that definitely happened

vash and wolfwood slept together after wolfwood got vash off the ark, right before wolfwood left for the orphanage, and wolfwood vanished out of vash's bed without saying goodbye. if circumstances hadn't been. what they were. vash would've given him an absolute earful about it.

11. something [other character] believes about them that isn't true

in the aforementioned post-canon au, razlo spends a lot of time thinking that vash blames him for wolfwood's death. he doesn't. he did, but he knows now that it was wolfwood's own fault.

12. something they believe about [other character] that isn't true

vash thinks knives must hate him. he's wrong (though given the way knives treats him, it's an understandable conclusion to jump to) and also projecting.

nicholas d. wolfwood + 8. a post-canon headcanon

:')

in aus where he survives, he eventually works up the guts to go back to the orphanage, and still can't quite believe he's going to be welcomed with open arms until he's already been tackled into the sand by a dozen children. (he tries very hard not to cry and Does Not Succeed)

9. a missing scene that definitely happened

[i trip over my feet and 67985749 unwritten fics about vash and wolfwood and the various intense intimacies of staying in hotel rooms together falls out.]

10. I recognize canon has made a decision, but given that it's a stupid-ass decision, I've elected to ignore it (+ what should have happened)

i find it bewildering that wolfwood didn't know razlo existed given that he was with LR at assassin boarding school for several years. it's much more interesting to me if they did know each other, especially if they met several times, but razlo never introduced himself and wolfwood never saw him in action. he just knew that occasionally livio wasn't livio.

11. something [other character] believes about them that isn't true

vash never believed wolfwood meant him any harm. that was true eventually, but not always.

12. something they believe about [other character] that isn't true

here!

meryl stryfe + 8. a post-canon headcanon + 9. a missing scene that definitely happened + 10. I recognize canon has made a decision, but given that it's a stupid-ass decision, I've elected to ignore it (+ what should have happened)

cheating again, because my brain is starting to turn into soup. i promise i have more milly and meryl thoughts, they're just behind a paywall (a decent night's sleep) right now.

meryl (and millie), rather than chasing vash down with a camera, help him get away quietly from the people after him, and spend the next several months deliberately leading the various people hunting vash away from him, so he has some time to visit his friends and get some much-needed rest.

millie thompson + 8. a post-canon headcanon + 9. a missing scene that definitely happened

about ten months into working as reporters, meryl loses her voice for about a week, so she takes over the cameras, and millie does the talking.

she's really, exquisitely good at it. she's funny, very straightforward, and has the kind of insights that just don't occur to most people. she and meryl take turns after that, and it takes some of the stress off of both of them.

[fizzingwizard]

Well, I bought ad-free Tumblr.

I did it because I realized what I would prefer, if I could have my way (aside from just no one needing to pay for anything at all ever hahahahaha), then we'd all pay to subscribe to tumblr and it just wouldn't be free. It'd be like $1.99 per month and all of us would pay it and have no ads and be happy and whee.

Now that's not my serious opinion. I know, for one, what happens when you stick things behind a paywall. Tumblr might not be a scientific journal or reputable news source (lol) but a paywall still divides, still excludes, and that's antithetical to the entire experience of the Internet. And then, there would still be all the other social media sites that have ads and don't make you pay out of pocket, which would sail on with everyone who can't afford or doesn't want to afford tumblr.

Everyone paying a nice, neat, cheap monthly fee or discount annual fee and getting along together is what would work best for me, but it's not realistic for everyone. But, since I'm willing to do it, I thought, why haven't I? And I'll tell you why: Because idk about the rest of you, but much of tumblr really doesn't work that well for me. I have issues with posting, especially with paragraph breaks and trying to move bits of text around. I don't like that posts I reblogged in the past are hidden forever behind "Flagged for mature content" warnings and it's like. A picture of a cat. Not to mention broken music links and videos (which I guess aren't tumblr's fault, just makes me sad). I don't like how pictures seem to always end up sized differently and you have to open it just the right way to see it how you want. Not to mention a bunch of features tumblr used to have that I loved have gone away or been massively de-emphasized: support for music players on blogs, for example. (Yes I still have one but it's a pain the neck.) Polls are nice but I miss that. I also miss convenient free themes - they're still there of course! But finding one that has everything I want (no endless scrolling, clear navigation, visible icon and description, music player, etc) is also a pain and I just end up reusing the same old one I've been using since I joined and recoloring it lol.

So I'd be happier about paying for tumblr if the experience were just a touch cleaner, faster. Oh, and not forgetting about PC users xP I know lots of people use their phone, I do too, it's convenient - but PC is just easier. Well, maybe for teens who can type on their phones at 50 mph it's no big deal. But I love love love my keyboard.

But anyway I paid it so I get a year without ads. Honestly I thought about it and $40 a year is what, ten cents a day? I really don't mind that. I wasn't really bothered by ads anymore since they've been scaled back, but now I can be bothered by them even less, so yay. OTOH, it looks like the subscription auto-renews, which I HATE. If so, I hope they send a warning email a few days before.

Oh and you know what else helped. I did a few youtube searches recently, and wanted to tear out my own hair over how frustrating it was. I just want a list of videos that relate to the subject of my search, not interspersed between "things I've seen before," "random shorts," "things that are similar," "things totally different that Youtube wants to show me anyway." And same thing on Google, Amazon, anywhere. I'm just so sick of it. So I'll fucking pay for fucking tumblr x'D Just work and not be annoying alright!!

I find it amusing that the moment I paid, I got a pop-up asking me to pay more to give ad-free to someone else. I might be more amenable when my pocketbook isn't smarting anymore 9_9

But this was funniest of all:

OK, I can't imagine ever doing it, but I suppose there's someone out there who thinks highly enough of the stuff that gets blazed to decide they want to continue seeing it even after spending $40 x'D But who is paying the fee and choosing show all ads? Please, is there anyone? I want to see a cryptid for myself.

[livixo]

I love how your content has always been free. Is that a reason? Because I can see effort you put into it so I don't understand why not early access? Not complaining! Of course.

Well – to be honest – I want to do early-access and I’m considering it with this skirt I’m working on. The only reason I'm not is because I'm so inconsistent with releasing cc. Obviously I can't, well I won't atleast, bill people for like… nothing. Air basically. That’s crazy. I 100% support early-access creators since I know first hand how much time – hours, days, months – it takes to create this stuff, and do believe the work should be financially rewarded if possible (not paywalling, f- those people). And I also think that if I did release my stuff on early access, I'd create more stuff and have more motivation to make cc in general. Maybe one cc piece a month and adjust the price to pledge accordingly?

Also, the main reason for me doing so would be because I suffer from an illness that means I've missed 5 years of schooling and am currently living off of welfare trying to catch up, which isn't much money.

[catonator]

Lol, internet

The largest imageboard in Finland, Ylilauta and its offshoot Northpole (rip in peace) had a major faux pas this week. Threads older than 2 weeks are now placed behind a paywall. Imagine if Discord set message history behind a Nitro subscription, and you have the gist of it. The latter board was just flatout killed off due to legal issues.

This majorly pissed off the users, and as a result my fringe alt-imageboard (won’t name the one, rules of the internet 1 & 2) got a surge of new users. However, the results weren’t as I feared! While Ylilauta isn’t really representative of smaller corners of the internet like it once used to be and nowadays is closer to a modern social media platform, the users who showed up were still willing to play along the rules of the smaller board, even if they ended up mostly asking stupid questions. Watching the entire thing unfold was quite fun, actually, and really reminded me of the kind of stupid shit I used to do online about 15 years ago.

The noob raid ended up reminding me of how you actually learn to be a fun part of the communities you happen to stumble upon. Observation. Lurking. You learn new things by reading the old users and seeing what this place is just about. It’s an image board, you don’t even have accounts! You can just stick around and watch!

Search engines and the internet didn’t die because of corporate greed and SEO. Well, just because of corporate greed and SEO. The internet died, because we, the users, collectively all jumped to places like Twitter, Tumblr and Discord. Especially Discord. The internet has always been a haven of user-generated stuff (for better or worse…), but sometime in the past 10 or so years we all decided to stop making it available. Twitter is a collection of barely coherent thoughts in posts that can barely encompass a full sentence. Many good posts are spread across dozens of tweets, usually out of which one at most is indexable, but often the entire thread is missing. Tumblr is a blogging site where the users stopped blogging, and the blogs aren’t visible to outsiders because fuck you. Discord is an instant messaging application meant to compete with fucking TeamSpeak that through sheer user laziness and insane overreach managed to overtake forums, and the message history is completely inaccessible unless you have an account and an invitation to the server.

The result is that all of human knowledge is now contained on like 5 sites, most of which are never going to be accessible to outsiders. For the past decade, we have unknowingly waged a war on lurkers, and in the process driven them all into extinction.

The issue is, lurkers are mostly those who aren’t newcomers. They’re the ones who have learned to keep their mouth shut and try finding a solution first and foremost. The questions they do eventually ask are also the ones that are going to be the most specialised, and also useful to other lurkers. They share personal experience and anecdotes, ideas they tried out but didn’t work for their purposes. They share abstract, multilayered concepts that simply aren’t something that can be demonstrated or proven algorithmically.

The sites that exist and rule the landscape today are practically fraud. What they sell is not funded by them, nor is it created by them. They sell the writings, media, humour, anecdotes and other forms of bizarre interactions that we, the consumers create. Without any user activity, these media megastructures would simply shrivel up and die, as there’d be nobody driving eyes onto the site. They don’t really deserve anything besides maybe being paid for the server costs, which still constitute a fraction of a fraction of the total revenue generated.

But nothing prevents you from just leaving. The internet doesn’t suddenly end when you walk out of YouTube or Instagram. Sure, you can’t just upload your data onto The Internet itself, but the way the web was constructed means that you haven’t lost your rights to obtain a small webhost and an address and setting up your own ramshackle site. You’ll just pay in discoverability.

Internet users need to be reminded that the concept of the internet isn’t just a technology that transmits data to a small number of applications, it’s an interconnected series of servers, clients, more servers and more clients. A server can be any computer you can find with a little tweaking, and as long as you have a router and an internet connection, that’s all you need. You can forward the computer’s IP address and make it behave like a website. The internet was created by users, for users, and so far there’s nothing that can take that away from you.

The change isn’t going to manifest itself overnight, and I also wouldn’t recommend jumping out headfirst into the abyss, leaving everything else behind. It’s just good to know the possibilities anyone can have at their fingertips, as I’ve seen more and more people wallow in misery over the state of current and future internet. Maybe if enough people create wacko self-hosted sites as side projects, we may one day not need sites like the one I’m publishing this text on right now. And if you’re you’re interested and are willing to dive through some tech jargon, this talk by Mr. Cory Doctorow was an incredibly fascinating listen, and provides some solutions to fixing the issues from the perspective of a higher-level operation. It still contains some tidbits of info for you, if you’re concerned about how you’ll move your userbase from one platform to another with as little compromise as possible.

Now, I’ve had enough of this wistful nostalgic hopes bullshit. Next time I’ll just write a story.

[acnlmorioh]

some new horizons thoughts

i don’t think it’s controversial to say that new horizons ended up being a little underwhelming. i was so so excited in 2019 when a new animal crossing game was announced. i even bought my switch specifically to play it! when it released, i played it every single day. i worked hard on my island to make it look pretty and to get my dream villagers. yet not even a year later, i fell out of love with the game and stopped playing. in fact, now i only ever log in on my birthday and the day i started my island. what’s the issue with new horizons? why is it that i can still come back to new leaf 10 years after release with no problem, but not new horizons?

i think the biggest issue for me is that at a certain point, you run out of things to do. whenever i occasionally log onto new horizons, i just walk around my island for a bit. i talk to the villagers. maybe even catch a fish or two. then i inevitably get bored and log off. there is simply nothing to do. obviously there are the standard dailies of check the shops, shake trees, find fossils, etc. but at some point you just think what’s the point? i finished my fossil collection, so why would i keep digging them up? i could sell them for money, but i never buy anything so what’s the point? and sure, i could restart my island and have lots of early game stuff to redo, but after working so hard on my island since release i don’t want to lose all of that.

maybe i could just get a different game card to have a new island? well not only does a new game card cost £30-40, your island isn’t even saved by game card, its saved by console. i get that this is an issue with the switch rather than with the game, but it is just so annoying to me. i have 2 new leaf game cards which i can swap between whenever i want. why do i have to buy an entirely new switch just to have a different island?

well, maybe new horizons would be more fun with friends! now you can even have up to 8 people in multiplayer at once. once you’ve got past the paywall of NSO (which is quite cheap to be fair), you can have your friends on your island! and you can do… so much stuff! i really think so much is missing from new horizons, with a big thing being tortimer island. me and my friend used to spend hours on tortimer island together, whether it be catching bugs or playing the island tours. what are you supposed to do when you play with your friends on new horizons? it usually ends up just being a tour of your island and then maybe you run around and hit each other with nets for a bit.

speaking of missing things, i think so many important things have just been cut out of the game. for example, the shops. you can have two shops on your island: nook’s cranny and the able sisters. this is a significant downgrade from new leaf, in which you had nookling junction, the gardening store, able sisters, kick’s, shampoodle, club LOL, the dream suite, and the fortune house. instead, many of these have been downgraded into small shops on harv’s island that can easily be unlocked simply by paying 100,000 bells per shop. if these shops weren’t brought into new horizons, they were simply cut out - where’s gracie? where are pelly, phyllis, and pete? where’s wendell? where’s katrina? it’s sad to see such memorable characters be removed and often replaced by inanimate objects (the card stand, the custom design kiosk).

this isn’t to say i dislike new horizons, however. i think certain features such as being able to place furniture outside which is an insanely huge change (for the better!). i love a lot of the new additions, like the new emotes, furniture, clothes, even the ‘replacement’ characters like cj, flick, and daisy mae. i also appreciate nintendo adding things such as the northern/southern hemisphere options as well as more skin tones (!!!). i just think that for what it was, the game was underwhelming. and maybe i’m biased because of nostalgia but i will always prefer new leaf.

[readingthearticle]

So, I can't really blame people for not actually reading this article as it's paywalled, but...the headline is misleading here. Protip: you can often get past an article paywall by putting "cache:[article URL here" in your google search bar

And I know we're just goofing here. We're just clowning. And, yeah, making fun of journalists for looking like they stepped out of the 1920s is pretty funny, I say as someone who wears a tan trenchcoat to work half the time. However...maybe it's just me being oversensitive, but after the demonization of journalists in recent years, I kind of get my hackles up every time I see people online see an article they haven't actually read but think they don't like and immediately jump to going after the writer.

The headline was no doubt written to be deliberately contrarian to drive clicks by capitalizing on a hot topic. But what does the article ACTUALLY say?

In short, it's a caution against anthropomorphizing killer whales. The writer argues that there's no actual evidence that the orca who began this trend did so after trauma. Instead, he cites an expert who thinks this phenomenon is more likely a result of curiosity and an instinct to play. A juvenile may have started this behavior, and spread it to other orcas, like that time when they were all putting fish on their heads.

Now, I'm no biologist. But this makes a lot more sense to me than the vengeance narrative — from what I know about apex predators, they don't pick fights they don't know they can win.

As the article writer points out, humans have a very long history of killing and abusing orcas, and yet there has never been a recorded instance of an orca killing a human in the wild. Why would they start their vengeance now?

There's a quote that gets taken out of context from this article a lot where he calls orcas "sadistic jerks" — what people seem to miss is the context, where what he's specifically saying is this is how we WOULD have to see orcas if we judged them by human standards. And he's right! Orcas exhibit behaviors that would be morally repugnant in humans. But it's not intellectually or morally coherent to apply human ethical standards to animals. And that includes their good behaviors as well as their bad ones.

I particularly like the last part:

"In our present era of environmental catastrophe, Shields told me, it’s appealing to think that nature might fight back, that the villains get their just deserts.

But projection and anthropomorphization are only shortcuts to a shallow sympathy. Orcas really are capable of intense grief; they are also capable of tormenting seal pups as a hobby. They are intelligent, emotionally complex creatures. But they are not us."

So, in conclusion, this is an inflammatory headline, not a bad article. I would recommend reading it.

And, to editorialize a little...

It is a nice thought, isn't it? That the orcas are fighting back. That nature will rise up just like in a movie, that there's only so far that humanity can push before we get pushback from the "rightful" inhabitants of the ocean.

I think it's an attractive narrative because it absolves humanity of some responsibility. There is an entity other than us that will recognize wrongdoing, that will push back against it in a manner and intensity commensurate with what our own moral standards might approve of. It's not a fight we have to start if the orcas attack first.

But that's not true. Animals don't know what climate change is. They cannot recognize and contextualize the broader causes of their suffering. Animals are intelligent, they have emotions, they have complex inner lives...but they will never be able to meaningfully conceptualize and enact revolutionary praxis, and I think that any narrative that frames them as doing so, even jokingly, runs the risk of irresponsibly projecting our own moral frameworks onto entities that simply cannot operate under them. And that just sets us up for disappointment and science denial when we're reminded that these apex predators are also capable of great cruelty.

In conclusion: if you see an inflammatory headline, consider reading the article before posting about it. It might give you more insight into how headline writers seek attention and engagement, and how legitimately good points are often used to capitalize off of hot topics.

[ladyazulina]

Azu is Talking — Emotional Rollercoaster

It was a stellar week, if randomly dropping emotions here and there is what you would call ✨ stellar ✨.

Weekly Quests Overview Monday: Celebrate partner's New Year ✨ Tuesday: Catch up with Iron Valley's posts. Wednesday: Get my passport. Thursday: Start new backstage section. Friday: Brainstorm friend's birthday gift. Saturday: Read new solo TTRPG.

I'm not even going to try to cover it, there did was something stellar. I was a stellar mess.

Rolling down in the pre hormones state, this is the lowest I have fallen since I met my partner. Which was a huge and nice streak. The last one was in November, and it was so hard I was trying to convince myself to reach out to any helpline. I did not, as I was gonna have my therapy session the next day, but I was going through hell that night.

Maybe not the whole week, but the ball started rolling in advance, and this past weekend was dreadful. I did the best I could to distract myself, but my mind doesn't turn off.

Let's go back to the week, though:

Monday

Quest of the Day: Celebrate partner's New Year ✨.

It was my partner's birthday and I was so excited to celebrate the first one I could with him. It was stressful, though, ‘cause I had to fight to reserve the day just for us. From his side. (I mean, I know, if he had wanted to do something else or with someone else, I would have been quiet.)

Even though he had to go to work, I'm certain I did a great job. We started it the day prior to make up for the hours we would miss while he was working, but I showered him with lovely gifts.

I've been working on them for MONTHS. It was nice to finally get them out.

The rest and details are just for us though, but it's been so long since I've been waiting for a day that wasn't mine. Starting to plan to beat myself next year already ✨

Tuesday

Quest of the Day: Catch up with Iron Valley's posts.

Did I do that?… Oh, yeah, I did!

Linney's campaign's over, sadly. At least for now. All I had from their first day is already out. You can find the whole of it on Patreon, but a part and excerpts from the rest are as well on Tumblr, Medium, Substack, and Inkspired. Delight yourself to your heart's content 💙

I adore Linney, but I'm sure I'll continue the story mainly because of Chase. Have you met him yet? He's delicious 😋 While rereading (you do that a lot when you're posting stuff, or is that just me?), I figured out demonic lore I doubt I thought about while I was playing, and as I never brought it up explicitly (’cause I doubt it ever came to mind), I can still play with it in the future. If When I get back to it. And I just can tell you… it satisfies a lot of my imagination 🤭

My Personal Campaign starred this week as well and I thought of the best way of describing it:

Celeste is an amnesiac human who has to find out why she's running away from the city.

The only free post is this first one, the rest will be locked behind a paywall on Patreon because, even though this is just another story of mine, I poured a lot of me into the main character. It felt private. It was private, that's what ‘personal’ stands for. And I know someday I will feel a lot better about broadly sharing it, but for now, it will be like that.

Iron Valley, Personal Campaign, is being live every Tuesday.

I also was happy I got to get back with the reviews. I still have a lot of them to share and I want to keep the reading schedule, so there won't be anything new on Patreon for a while. Sadly, whatever has kept me away from posting them on the rest of my accounts has kept me from posting the most recent ones in spaces like Tumblr, GoodReads, The StoryGraph, and Instagram (which are the easiest ones to share on immediately). I have three new titles in the belt, so I should schedule it… It just feels so weird, it just never needed to be in the schedule for me to sit and post them, but I guess I'm more messy now. I need to write down everything or it fell through.

Read this week’s review, The Last Ever After.

Wednesday

Quest of the Day: Get my passport.

My Wednesdays have been taken away from me lately but I hope that was the last one. Because now that I have the workshops up and running, I want to at least make one post talking about them. On Instagram, I mean. It was going to be a thematic Wednesday task, but it just was dragged under with all this passport madness.

I'm sure I'll write a whole particular post about this process, so I'm not gonna rant more than the minimum indispensable.

After my photo finally being approved, my biometric data painstakingly taken, and the delivery date scheduled, I just had to go get my passport.

This little book has given me so much stress and many headaches… But just after a little hell of a time, enough to take out the rest of my day, I got it.

I did it.

It took a little more than a month, but I finally have my passport.

Now onto the visa 🫠

My dad wants to take me to the US, so I need to have a visa for that. But, more importantly, I need a visa to go to my partner.

As I missed the visit window time for the embassy, I settled with an email I didn't thought I was going to get an answer from. It didn't even took long. I scheduled it to go the next morning and I had an answer before noon.

My intention to have a winter (more like summer? He's on the opposite side of the world from me) vacation was destroyed before I even got time to think about what I wanted for lunch. It was a lot to digest but that only meant our plans changed, not that they disappeared.

We will still be hit by it every now and then as the days pass by, but we will also be solidifying the next attempt, so nothing was really lost (more than expectations, I mean). (I know very well that expectations are A Big Thing™️ and play a great deal in long-distance relationships, I shouldn't have said that—in that way at least, but I forgot how the original sentence or intent went. I'm sorry.)

Thursday

Quest of the Day: Start new backstage section.

I certainly didn’t start it. I was down. That was the day in which my partner and I talked about our plans crumbling, so we weren’t feeling exactly great. He was busy and I certainly busied myself with editions (finally, I started them! But, uh oh, did I managed to keep it constant?), so in some way, we kept ourselves together anyway.

I had my first level 5 English quiz and I got a 19/20. Neat. I didn’t find where the mistake was, though, so I will have to carry my curiosity to the grave. And after that, I went on doing English homework until I was fed up with it. I have to start this week’s one already, but I still have a few days to do so.

The Supernatural episodes weren’t nice to us. My partner got to enjoy them somehow, but the wound was fresh and they were pushing their fingers on it. It also could have been because of my hormones, but welp. We survived? Yay?

Friday

Quest of the Day: Brainstorm friend's birthday gift.

I have a certain idea of what I want to write about, but I didn’t dwell on that.

My partner received the hit of the news that morning, so we spent a little time licking our wounds.

I did nothing else apart from the editions, which is good anyway. I mean, I’m trying to balance my body’s needs and all that, so if I needed to take a step away to breathe, I was going to do so.

And I did so, more and less, all weekend.

Saturday

Quest of the Day: Read new solo TTRPG.

I wanted to start the last TTRPG I received, but emotional baggage is never taken into account. I mean, I never do, it’s impossible to prevent.

So I spent the whole weekend watching a Dorama. The hormones brought a destructive wave of feelings and thoughts I rather didn’t pay attention to, and distracting my mind is the best way to ignore them. It wasn’t easy. It didn’t made them go. But the days passed faster and I stayed less in those moments and emotions.

I started to feel a little better last night, when I drafted half of this update. And though today has been another hardship, aren’t I here? I say it counts as something.

This new ‘template’ just occurred to me and I’m not sure if I should share what I think would be next (this) week’s main quests, but I will pass right now. I don’t want to see what the week has in store for me—not in the mood just yet.

The most important one at the moment is getting back into place. Why does it always seem like I’m always fighting to get back in place?

[hollow-prey]

some thoughts that are probably petty and silly (and not exactly self ship related, but more about the source material(s) for one of my f/os) but that have been on my mind a while:

I really miss the old ego stuff. I know time moves on and things are different, we've all grown up more and gotten older and circumstances have changed. The pandemic fucked up a lot of things. Creative projects evolve over time to expand and experiment and improve, or they get scrapped and reworked or rewritten. I get it. but I still miss stuff like the cryptic clues and teases and small glitches and glimpses of what was to come. that period between 2016-2018 when the ego stuff was most prominent was such a fun, cozy time for me and I wish the ego stuff could still be like that. I understand why it can't be like that anymore, why it has had to change and evolve, why S.ean is pulling away from YT in general to move towards bigger and better projects and opportunities. I understand that we've all grown older and changed between 2018 and now, especially after the pandemic. but it makes me sad that things aren't the same anymore.

At many points during the hiatus (if that's the right word for the gap in this case), between 2019 and early 2022, I genuinely thought all the ego stuff had been scrapped and abandoned. Especially in the midst of a quarantine when we were all struggling mentally, I thought maybe the spark had died and S.ean just didn't feel like making ego stuff anymore, so he would just...stop, and that would be it. Or I figured he was probably looking towards bigger and better things, and I held my breath waiting for him to say that he wasn't coming back to YouTube because he found better stuff to work on elsewhere. Not that I could blame him if that was the case (and I mean. I already know things are shifting in that direction), but at the time, I would have been crushed to see him go. The mere thought of never seeing A.nti again in official stuff was devastating to me.

I love the concept of the IR.IS project and the way the lore and characters are slowly getting fleshed out. "An.omaly Found" and all the community hype and chatter about it made it feel like old times. Just knowing that the egos weren't abandoned helped quell some of my anxiety, and I was once again content to wait for more updates. But I admittedly feel a bit conflicted about future ego stuff being split into different formats across different platforms/media. Like right now, they've just started releasing comics that tie into the over-arching lore and focus on different characters. Admittedly, I haven't looked into it much or ordered any of the current issues because...I'm kinda not interested? I don't know if they would really hit the same as the videos. It also makes me a tiny bit worried that if canon, plot-relevant ego stuff gets split up across a bunch of different formats and platforms, in order to get the full story and understand what's going on, we would have to keep up with all the different releases and the timeline and pay to buy or to access each thing. we'd basically get paywalled out of the full story/experience, or at the very least, it might get confusing to try and keep up with.

and that's probably not fair to say because I know YouTube is fucking abysmal for creators trying to make money off their work. Ad restrictions, copyright claims, demonetization, all of which are absurdly easy to get hit with no matter how hard you try to avoid it etc. etc. And I know S.ean puts a lot of heart and effort into what he does. He wants to do it and do it well, and stuff like IR.IS and An.omaly Found ain't cheap to make. Dude's gotta make money somehow. He's gotta pay for production and pay the crew/actors/editors/artists/etc. he hires and he has to pay his own bills. We've been spoiled for a long time, getting a bunch of ego stuff on YouTube for free over the years. And I don't think he'll completely stop posting ego stuff to YT once it's ready to be shared (at least not in the immediate future...I hope), but I know logically it makes sense to want to branch out into different creative avenues and try new things and ultimately, the price of a comic book is a small one to pay for cool new content from a project you like and helping to support the creator and the writers/artists at the same time.

idk, my little gremlin brain always dislikes change anyway, especially with stuff I like. I guess I just worry that this will be like. A New Thing and it will lose the heart and core of what made it special. Which is honestly pretty unlikely, since (to my knowledge) S.ean is definitely still very involved in everything and working on writing a lot of it...idk. many thoughts head full

[absolutebl]

Hi again—When you answered my previous question, I felt faint <3 I want to ask about revenue and distribution. I’m assuming heavier product placement in Thai and Vietnamese BL (I haven't watched much Pinoy BL yet) is correlated to more open distribution (no paywall), whereas Japanese and Korean BLs get $$$ from distribution (paywall platforms), and so rely less on diegetic advertising as a source of revenue? Trying to follow the babies and the money.

Hi hi!! 

Thai BL & Product Placement (weirdly, a defense) 

I think you are right, although KBL will occasionally have product placement. Maybe I caught Taiwan out a time or two, but... 

Weirdly, I’ve totally stopped noticing it now, unless it’s done really well or really funny. (Then I’m pleased for both the product and the actors. “Oh, they did it well! Go them!”) Also I’m probubly being influenced by it. I’m certainly more intersted in trying Mama noodles than I ever once was. 

At the beginning, it bothered me a lot because it was so clumsy. Then Ingredients happened and I was like... OKAY, if this is what we get, I’ll take the product placement and LIKE IT. 

A few of the more arthouse Thai BLs over the years have had little to no product (Grey Rainbow, Present Perfect, ITSAY) but they are certainly the exception rather than the rule. Which makes me wonder whether this symbiotic relationship in Thailand between product and BL has influenced their BLs into being more happy and light hearted. Hard to sell something if the boys die. If that’s the case, for that reason alone, I’d support this model. I like happy camp fluff. 

Recently Bite Me (a prime candidate) had little product placement, probubly (to prove your point) because it had a distribution deal with Viki. But I don’t think it was particularly successful for VIki so I don’t see a seed change happening because of it. 

The Thai BL system is now established and, from teaser (fund raising) trailer on in, the their ideal is to raise sponsors to get a series made and that means product.  

Also think the MewGulf Effect should be taken into account. 

Thailand realized early on that BL couple sponsors sell product. We’ve seen a number of instances where the product was placed into a Thai BL and then, once the BL became successful, that couple became brand ambassadors for that product. I suspect it works rather well. A bit like the Thai version of Kpop idol brand ambassadors, only targeting a micro (in-country) scale. 

I talk about this in one of my demographics post, but the same age and gender that watches BL also tends to be household product buyers and brand allies (women ages 25-55). It’s one of the few instances I’ve encountered where the demo that consumes an entertainment also possess prime purchasing power. (Another reason Ingredients was such a  smart show.) 

Which is a long way of saying you are right. 

And there’s a small part of me that wonders why Strongberry hasn’t tried this for the Korean market, or if there are legal restrictions in that market against placement. (Because Light On Me, for example, missed a couple of prime opportunities.) 

Which is an even longer way of saying I think Thailand may be developing a weird new art form around this. Like the Gold Blend couple, it may not change the course of film, but it might alter the course of advertising. And least in/to some country sectors and demographics. (From the brand’s standpoint it’s super difficult to track the immediacy of the effect, through.) If you want a USA version of this, it is Subaru and the lesbian market, specifically in shows like The L Word. 

Thanks for the ask, turns out I had more thoughts than I thought I would on this subject. 

MORE PRODUCT PLACEMENT!

I got another ask about which product placement I liked best. So here’s that as well, so I have this all in one pace: 

Ooo, yes. Well my absolute FAVORITE is this one in Gen Y.

They danced. They took squeezy bottles as tribute to the campus queen bee. There was no singing! It made me SO HAPPY. It was absolutely ridiculous.

They didn’t try to fight the awkward they just took the awkward and pushed it into this crazy chaos arena - but that's Star Hunter for you. I thought it was a stroke of absolutely genius.

RUNNERS UP

I thought Bad Buddy knocked it out of the park in the opposite direction. Especially with infamous “seaweed finger.” Would we call it subtle? Maybe just cheeky. Certainly sexy. But that was fun and not awkward at all. Nanon, that man can act anything.

I have a bit of affection for SOTUS S's seaweed execution too, in the scene where the girl has Kong open the bag and then says to the other girl with the crush, "Eat, this was opened by A MAN." I just thought it was very funny.

And then my final pick would be Ingredients, because it was one long form advert that still managed to be charming and comforting and fun.

All that said, of the many things advertised very few have I actually wanted to try (and I will EAT ANYTHING). Mostly just the weird purple drink with the chewable bits in it. And that’s out of morbid curiosity.

Some GMMTV pairs did a full on ramen advert for Mama OK Noodles where they dressed like the packaging (I like this kind of camp), and I did want to try the spicy one (hilariously I think that was OffGun’s) but that’s just me wondering if Thailand would actually make an instant ramen spicy enough for me, because no one else has.

Also I kinda love it when Tay and/or Gunsmile advertise anything on any of the reality TV stuff GMMTV does, hilarity almost always ensures.

(source)

[rotting-in-your-arms]

Twitter is Not Copying Tumblr

Nearly every site before Twitter had practically unlimited post length. Twitter finally ditching 140/280 characters (exclusively for Blue subscribers) means they got with the times, if the times were 15 years ago. This isn't "copying Tumblr", it's copying every site built around posting text.

Once again, this is something basically every social media platform and website that accepts user-generated content would end up doing. Twitter didn't copy Tumblr, they were trying to stay functionally relevant with every other site.

See above.

Neither of you should even have one in the first place; I only excuse Tumblr Ad-Free because the site needs that money to run, and I like having a site I enjoy stay afloat (and perfectly good features aren't locked behind it as a paywall, unlike Twitter.)

And Tumblr copied its tabs from TikTok; therefore, one could argue that Twitter was also copying from TikTok, not Tumblr.

Wordpress is not Tumblr, Tumblr is not Wordpress- even if Wordpress owns Tumblr. Twitter had polls before Tumblr did.

Once again, neither of you should have this to begin with. I've quite literally never seen a single example of someone using Post+ in my life. I've never even seen someone say they've used Post+, or seen someone else use it.

And Twitter effectively doesn't have tags because they take up valuable 140/280 character space instead of having their own dedicated section like Tumblr's. As someone who uses Twitter, I rarely see people actually using tags, unlike Tumblr.

You're right, because Twitter wasn't designed with those things in mind and never will be.

Once again. Not copying Tumblr directly. Every other website in the space has an edit feature, Twitter just paywalled theirs.

Things Twitter has Not Executed Better

Targeted ads on the internet are inherently a bad thing and they've always been that way. Don't talk about them like they're good.

Metrics, or: something no user really needs to care about. If anything, having fewer post metrics would be better for people in general.

I've literally never seen a soul use Twitter's List feature, and Twitter's ability to handle communities is strictly worse than Tumblr's (in my opinion, as someone who uses both sites).

I would give you this one if Twitter didn't lock DMs to 500 sent/day for free and unlimited with Blue. Once again, they did not need a subscription plan.

Twitter's search feature sucks and will simply not find posts that match the search criteria 1-for-1, I've had this happen to me remarkably consistently. Tumblr's search feature is still broken, by the way.

They didn't need to and you didn't either. Literally remove Tumblr Live, or at the very least allow an option to permanently hide it instead of having a weekly snooze option.

Twitter will go down for an hour because a fly landed on a server rack, especially post-Musk. The mobile app is an unusable minefield of ads and terrible UI/UX decisions. Same applies to Tumblr's mobile app, too. They don't crash much, but they're not enjoyable to use.

Reblogs are more well-designed and engaging and I think most of the Tumblr userbase would agree with that sentiment. They might be harder to navigate or interact with- but they're more fun and interesting.

"What did I miss?"

You missed the fucking point, Matt. People are clamoring about Tumblr copying Twitter because of the horrendous UI changes. The ones that look literally identical to Twitter's awful UI. Remember when Twitter's layout got updated to what it is today, just a few years ago, and everyone hated it? It's just like that, but with Tumblr.

"literally every site with the number of features we have has side nav" Have you considered that maybe that's a bad thing. Taking cues from every other site and stripping your own of its uniqueness doesn't do anything good for anyone; it just makes people upset. Will people end up getting used to the new layout? Yeah, that's what they did with Twitter's UI years ago. That didn't make it a good change. Same principle applies to Tumblr's new UI; it's objectively a bad change, but people will ultimately just live with it if it never gets fixed.*

(*permanently reverted)

have a nice day!! ^_^

- Eva

Twitter is Copying Us, not vice versa

I keep getting asks saying "stop copying Twitter." We're not! If anything it's going the other way with them copying us.

Long posts, which were on Tumblr first.

Mixing text and rich media, which Tumblr did first.

If we go way back, supporting images and embedding media in the first place, which Twitter didn't used to do. (Remember twimg and Photobucket?)

A premium upgrade, which we did on Tumblr first.

They copied our tabs.

Polls, which were on WP.com/Jetpack first.

Subscriptions to individual creators, which we did first with Post+.

Tags existed on Tumblr first.

We have Asks! And custom domains! And custom themes!

We supported editing first, you couldn't do that on Twitter until relatively recently.

Now obviously they have 20x the monthly users we do, so have executed better in a number of ways:

Their native ads provide much more targeting.

Per-post metrics.

Lists and communities.

Direct Messaging. (Though theirs is still not great.)

Much more robust and real-time search.

They did livestreaming first.

Their apps and web QA seem more stable. I've never experienced an app crash there.

It's easier to navigate RTs and comment/reply to them than reblogs.

What did I miss?

[thompsonstessa-moved]

Måneskin interview for TVN24 - english translation

Few days ago an interview (on video) with Måneskin came out in Poland on TVN24 channel, sadly its paywalled on their site (and the tv only showed a bit).

However, I got a transcript of it and decided to translate it for you guys :D

Also, while the interview took place in Poland (day before the Sopot festival), the interviewer knew italian, so they talked in italian and the TV translated it to polish (and dubbed them!!! :( ). So I hope theres nothing that like, got lost in translation twice.

Also its 2am now so the translation might not be the most perfect, but you'll definitely get the gist of what they were saying!!

The whole thing is under the 'keep reading' :)

First of all – congratulations on the San Remo and Eurovision wins! I just want you to know how happy you made my mom – she listens to your music for 3 years now. How are you feeling today?

D: We feel good, tho we’re tired as well. We travel a lot, but we’re happy. We meet new fans, new opportunities are coming up. It’s really nice.

How did you guys meet? When looking at you, you have this sense of unity and just good vibes. How did it all start?

D: We know each other for a long time.

V: Yeah, Since middle school. Me, Thomas and Damiano were playing in different bands, but they weren’t the best. Thet all disbanded. Then we posted in a facebook group ’looking for a musician in rome’ and found Ethan. Since then we started doing music for real. We devoted ourselves to the music, and… the rest just came naturally.

E: Yes. We knew it’s gonna be our life since day one.

What did you say In the post, when looking for the fourth member of the band?

V: I wrote ”looking for a drummer for an indie rock/new wave band”.

E: That’s true, there was new wave in it too.

I’m sure a lot of people replied.

V: No, actually only Ethan replied. But we found that post lately and now it’s full of comments like „why didn’t i reply back then!”

T: Ethan was really lucky.

What did your parents thought about your choice (to pursue music)? A rockstar lifestyle isn’t exactly what every parent wants for their child.

D: No, our parents are really content with it. They know what we do makes us happy, and of course we visit them whenever we can. And they are proud of us as well, because they see we’re happy and independent, travelling all over the Europe, and hopefully all over the world. I think every parent wants their kid to be satisfied and happy.

And friends? Are you still friends with the same people, or did the friendships fell apart?

D: We still have the same friends. And we’re sure that way that they are our real friends.

Do they understand your current lifestyle, that you can dissapear for a year?

V: Yeah, they all understand that this is our job, that our life is a bit irregular, but, like everything, it has its ups and downs.

E: Exactly, they understand, but they also miss us. Sometimes my mom calls and says ���I miss you, you’ve been gone for so long”. It’s normal. But what’s important is that we feel the support from our families and friends. They understand that you need to sacrifice a lot, to achieve a lot.

Can you still easily go ands grab a beer in the Rome neighbourhoods (districts?) of Pigneto or Trastevere? Or is it impossible now?

V: The only truly safe place for us is Trastevere, because we always lived there. Everyone there knows us and they don’t care we’re famous.

D: But I have to admit that since they whole Eurovision thing we still didn’t come back, so it’s hard to say for sure.

T: But let’s say that its a safe space.

Don’t you worry that now that whole world knows you, you’ll be followed by tourists?

V: Oh my god, you’re right, we didn’t think about it!

D: When we came back to Rome for one day I got excited when one tourist stopped me. ”Cool, I got stopped by a tourist” – now it’s normal.

T: It gives us joy.

V: It’s beautiful.

E: Wonderful.

V: We’re not complaining.

D: Long live the tourists!! (that one was kinda weird to translate)

You started by playing on Via Del Corso, now you’re international stars. I’m wondering, do you still feel the same when playing together as before? Do you have fun making music together? Or do you miss the simpler times and would love to go back to Via del Corso and play something spontaneously?

V: No, we’re still spontaneus. It’s really important for us, and we make sure people who work with us understand that. We’re really adamant about it. Music needs to remain beautiful, spontaneus and natural thing for us. We never worked with someone who would write lyrics for us. No one ever told us what we can and cannot do. We still feel the exact same feelings in studio and on stage that we felt when we were just getting started. It’s the purest thing for us. We want to have fun and feel free to express ourselves.

T: Exactly, especially that music is our driving force. Without music, we wouldn't have all the beautiful things we do. We focus only on music, and the rest comes to us.

Let’s imagine a situation where you just started ma king a song, and everyone has a different idea for it. How do you work that out? And who’s idea wins most of the time?

V: There are two options in this situation: we try every idea, and if none works, we throw the song away.

E: It doesn’t work. (that one is kinda untranslateable?)

V: Or we really work on it and fight till the end.

D: Exactly. Sometimes, but that pretty rare, one of us has a particular idea on how to do the song, and manages to convince us (to the idea). but it’s not an order, it’s a dialogue. An attempt to make everyone think the same way. I need to say that it was much harder in the past, because we were still searching for our sound, and each tried to push the rest into their way of thinking. But now we’re more aware of what we want to create, so it’s coming out in much more natural way.

E: Faster.

D: Not really faster, because it takes a lot of time to create new songs, but it’s easier, we don’t argue that much anymore.

T: It’s really cool, because everyone gives something from themselves to the song. (my brain kinda blanked here, sorry xD) Just like Damiano said, there are days when Vic has one idea for a song, I have another idea, Damiano has his own idea, Ethan as well… But it’s a whole creative process where we all contribute, and it’s pretty stimulating.

D: Everyone feels appreciated. It’s really important when it’s four of us.

What are the biggest signs that you became huge international stars?

V: We really realize that when we’re having concerts. Where we can see our audience and we can see that people really care about us. That they took time and money to listen to us. Now that we’re travelling across Europe, the amount of people stopping us on the streets really shows how many people know about us. People are waiting for us in front of our hotels. We didn’t think it would be like that. But we feel nothing but affection and warmth from them.

How was Eurovision for you from the backstage? Anything atypical?

D: No, it was all great. We played ping-pong.

V: Did rehearsals.

E: Interviews.

D: Yes, interviews. And ping-pong.

When you we’re in Paris, did anyone mention the drug allegations that came from French people during the finale, that kinda became a diplomatic incident?

D: Yeah, you could say that it was mentioned.

They don’t resent you? Or maybe you resent France?

D: No. To feel that about the whole country would be too much of a generalization. Of course there were people who were really vocal about it, but we don’t feel any sort of resentment. It’s in the past for us. We knew they were just primitive accusations. We did what it deserved – talked a bit about it, I volunteered to do the test, and they (the accusators) were sure it had to be false. It got ridiculous, so we just stopped talking about it. We want to talk about out music, our art. The rest is just meaningless.

Right now, LGBTQ rights are a hot topic both in Italy and in Poland. You mentioned freedom of being different and being yourself on several occasions. Do you think you can change the world on this matter as musicians?

D: Maybe not change the world, but we can definitely contribute. Speak the voice of those who can’t. We have a huge following on social media, on stage, on TV, so we feel responsibility to talk about what’s important to us. We hope that something will change because of us, but we don’t consider ourselves as the ones to set the standards of justice and change. We do what we can do, and if we know enough about it, we talk about it. We don’t want to put someone elses words into ours mouths.

[bettsfic]

an update while i procrastinate all my responsibilities

so i really intended to write a newsletter this month but substack won't let me sign into my account, and when i went through customer service, they thought i only wanted to look at my newsletter, not that i was the owner of said newsletter and wanted to log into it. and then i lost the energy to push further than that. you know how it is.

the thing is, i really do have a lot i want to say, i just don't have a lot of time to write it down coherently. i've been thinking about moving to twitch and doing writing chat streams but i'm going to have to wait until things settle a little bit. i really miss meaningfully engaging on the internet. i'm on twitter a lot but it's not the same. i don't really know how twitch works monetarily yet but it wouldn't be for money as much as for funsies. the idea would be to talk about craft stuff and maybe answer questions.

(EDIT: i wouldn't put anything behind a paywall. you could just join to watch and chat.)

my roommate (she's in her 80s) is still in the hospital with covid but she's apparently doing better (?) and she's moving into a physical rehab center on monday. i've decided i need to move out because there have been some missteps by this woman's family that have made me realize i really need to live alone because "not feeling welcome" is apparently a huge trigger for me. the only person with a head on their shoulders in this whole business is my roommate's boyfriend but apparently he's not actually her boyfriend? she refers to him as her "lost love" but he's been taking care of her this whole time so clearly he does love her?? octogenarians, man.

trying to find a new place to live while teaching a 2/2 and taking 2 lit seminars and workshop is basically impossible. at least, impossible to do well. it's only week 3 and i already feel like i'm about to burn out. doing the phd from home for a year was mentally exhausting but now that i'm here in person it's also physically exhausting, because 1) the south is HOT, 2) i have to park like a mile away from campus every day, and 3) teaching dev english means i have to be way higher energy than i would for, say, a great books class or even a regular comp class.

but there are good things. i'm learning a lot. like, brain obliterating amounts of stuff. which i guess is the point of grad school, when it comes down to it. i've also made a lot of friends and there are always social events to go to (even though i'm too tired for most of them). and i'm getting a lot of writing and reading done.

okay, back to work. if you're interested in the twitch stream idea let me know?

[dramaphan]

Dan and Phil Stereo Show, A Live Reaction by Me, Dramaphan

•Their avatars staring blank faced at me through my tv is so scary holy shit

•We are one failed attempt in, doing great guys

•Their mouths moving at the same time because they’re literally sat next to each other is killing me jesus

•”Content warning for Dan, his mouth is filled with soil” Phil it’s an 18+ app you can say fuck

•Various verbs being used in the penis talk. Quack. Squeeze. Considering turning this off

•Dan is really emphasizing the term “Phans” he’s said it three times and I’m not comfortable

•God y’all weren’t lying about the echo

•I feel like I’m having a stroke holy shit what are they saying

•I literally could not tell you what they’re talking about right now I think Dan said something about dunking his balls in the bath

•Dan blatantly brushing off all the “I missed you” messages shut up you dickhead

•Dan what the fuck is that gremlin impersonation STOP

•”We’re having a little bit of echo” THANKS FOR NOTICING KING MY EARS ARE BLEEDING

•”hopefully that’s better” it’s worse

•Every time someone asks Dan’s opinion on a Phil look he literally just says “if you had a different personality it would work” Jesus Christ he’s like a talking doll

•Now they’re both speaking through Phil’s giant head. Fellas, you could have sat in different rooms

•Dan is really pushing this foamy bath imagery I’m going to steal his teeth

•”we’re both coming out of Phil’s mouth now” he can’t help himself he just can’t

•I talk a lot of shit about Dan but if it weren’t for him, I would never know that Phil has seen a porno with the tesco delivery man in it. Thanks Dan. Cheers for that.

•Dan thinks a 20/20 vision joke is “disgusting humour” Dan you just made several jokes in a row about getting your balls out in the bath with Phil shut up

•”lick me! Caress me!!” I’m gonna kill him I’m going to do it

•Phil literally choking up about his parents and then being like “oh well people have it worse” sir please you’re gonna make me weep

•Okay I just watched through the whole house part and I’m 🥺 no articulate thoughts just 🥺

•House features include one green wall and one desk wow the insight

•”Do you think pigeons are smart enough to have emotional bonds” has the same energy as that one video of the guys on the bunk beds that are like “do you think pigeons have feelings” “I’m gonna give you one last chance to shut the fuck up”

•Phil dove headfirst into the dog talk and then took it nowhere uh

•”I have sexy Irish Siri on my phone but you’ve chosen Australian for the house” huh??? Are they in the house rn or do they just have a fuckin Alexa or something what did that mean

•Oh we’re talking about the dog again

•”the fish” SAY HIS NAME TELL ME HOW HE IS

•OH WE TALKING GAMING CHANNEL NOW??? YOU FINALLY WANT TO TALK ABOUT THAT NOW THAT I’M OVER IT YOU FUCKERS????

•Phil really said “hey Dan communicate with your fucking audience” and Dan said “instead, I will throw a tantrum”

•So he stepped away from YouTube to do some soul searching great great cool would have been so cool to know that two years ago but hey thanks for telling us now

•The new topic is “what has Dan been doing” wow he really said alright thanks for the communication now we’re going to bully you good love that

•They spent two hours on that fucking Instagram photo and at no point did they think, hey, what if you put on anything except these tighty whities

•OH the two bathrooms thing is already currently happening I thought that was part of the new house thing but no that’s been going on and you know what that makes it even funnier

•oh we’re talking about the gaming channel past tense now alright cool thanks

•Oh so we’re still in the “we haven’t decided what we’re doing” limbo? Maybe we’ll return to it? No you won’t.

•So Phil thought Dan was gonna put his buttcheeks in a magazine and Dan was also fully willing to do that Jesus fucking Christ I’m gonna get that prediction right aren’t I

•What kind of YouTube content are you not allowed to talk about, Dan??? 🤔 Surely if it was just regular videos on your channel you could give some hints??? I’m so right about his channel plans being exclusively behind a paywall I just know it

•So Phil is working on some kind of interactive show, which I think we knew already so I’m not updating the fucking list oh my god I’m not doing it. Can’t figure out if he’s been pitching it to like, tv networks or to YouTube

•Something about them cutting each other’s hair is really making me 🥺

•”it’s not suitable for YouTube” hey Phil??? What the fuck is that supposed to mean???

•book talk time

•”you have no idea how annoying I’m gonna be in April right before this comes out” no don’t worry I’m aware

•So it’s not a memoir, and it’s not a self help book, it’s both? Maybe? Whatever I’m still not buying it

•Phil has read the book. So I assume the book is? Done? Didn’t he just the fuck start writing it how is it done

•”it’s full of juicy tea about me” oh god one fear

•So you plan to trick us into becoming happier and healthier people what the fuck is this book about

•”it can help every single person watching this” actually I’m going to become more unstable on purpose

•”our Siri stopped listening to Dan” bitch I don’t blame her

•Phil hates mushrooms and that’s valid

•whoever asked them for a tiktok knows I’m trying to predict tiktok Phil

•Dan’s absolute panic at the bdsm story is never not going to kill me

•”what, you don’t like poppers?” Oh my fucking god end my life

•”Phil is tapping my leg” why is that so funny Dan is trying to start beef and Phil is just fuckin taptaptaptaptaptaptap

•Also who’s the band I bet it’s fob

•”they’ve made water taste like farts” okay Dan really tickled my inner 12 year old with that joke he gets one funny point

Okay final thoughts: they sure can make me have Feelings when they talk about their general life plans but boy no amount of feelings can overpower the way Dan makes my fucking teeth itch. Very happy for them, very soft and mushy about this house concept, starting to learn that maybe I just don’t enjoy consuming Dan content anymore