#audio and television online | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

plush-rabbit · 1 year ago

Text

Dating Vox Headcanons

I have opinions again!! It's been forever!!

A/N: its kinda on brand for me to fall for a tv headed demon

It comes to no surprise that Vox is obsessive when it comes to things that interest him. Taking note of you, is both a blessing and a curse. It’s cute- He’s cute. When he attempts to speak to you in the beginning, he’s mauve, not skipping a beat in his attempt to make himself bigger and better than anyone you’ve ever known. However, the moment that you take interest in him- that you actually encourage him to talk more about himself- he might actually short circuit a bit. His screen freezes and he might even flash SMPTE colors on his screen.

As cute as he can be in the beginning, his obsessiveness also leaves you with no privacy whatsoever. He needs to know what you’re doing. It’s almost more than a need. It’s a want. It’s a desire to check in on you no matter what he’s doing in the meantime. He checks on you constantly, and sometimes it's for the worst. Hearing you laugh with someone that isn’t him, knowing that you’re having a good time when he isn’t around, is enough to have him claw at the table. He won’t confront you about it- at least not in the beginning of the relationship. At some point, you just become aware that he’s there. That as long as there’s some sort of screen- a camera, a television, a watch, anything- he can be there in no time flat.

He needs you close to him. He doesn’t want to wait a second more without you, so he’ll hire you as his personal assistant. It’s great pay and hours, and the benefits are reserved to you and only you. At first, you’re grateful- you’re in Hell and your partner is someone who holds power, honestly, it could be worse. He gets the benefit of seeing you everyday, practically 24/7, with you at his beck and call. You scurry beside him, take your lunches beside him, he takes up your entire time. The few times that you are allowed to go eat with others in the building, he’s keeping an eye on you. He needs to make sure that he can trust the others around you- that they won’t set you up for failure.

That being said, any relationships that you have outside of him and the other Vees, is monitored. Thanks to technology and addictive personalities, everyone has some sort of device on them at all times. He needs to make sure you aren’t with people who will whisper misguidance into your ear. He needs to make sure that you’re okay. However, the minute someone gets a bit too cozy with you, he’ll make sure to take care of the problem. Whether it's stitching an audio together to make it sound like they’re badmouthing you, or anything of the sort, he’ll do it. He just needs you with him. He can’t risk someone else starting to tell you how suffocating the relationship sounds.

It’s gifts here and there for you! Whatever you want- whatever you’ve even browsed online, he’s sending it your way via express shipping. It’s wonderful at first- you get what you want and all you have to do is tell the television demon how wonderful he is and how much you appreciate him and how you’ll never leave him. It’s sweet at first, you get nice things, but then you have an argument with him, and you realize that his gifts aren’t just that. What he gave you was expensive- would it kill you to just be a little kinder to him? You can’t just smile and admit you’re wrong at least once? Especially after everything he’s done for you?

Whether you’re tolerated by Velvette or Valentino or not, you’re stuck in every meeting that Vox has with them. Lunches, dinners, conferences, attempting to calm Valentino down after a tantrum, overseeing Velvette and her fashion shows- you’re right there, next to Vox. His hand claws over the top of your head, patting you, or raking his claws down your back or over your arm in an attempt to soothe him. The way he sees it, he soothes everyone else, and there’s no one to settle his nerves except for you. You’re an accessory at times- dolled up, perched at his side, and only speaking when you’re given permission to. You’re paraded around the office, following him close at his heels, making sure that where he goes, you follow. You can’t be left alone- what if something were to happen to you? He needs to be close by to make sure that you stay safe.

He hates getting upset at you. It breaks his heart- or whatever he has inside of him- to see you snap at him. You curl your lips, bare your fangs and with tears in your eyes, you tell him how you’re exhausted and how you don’t want to be some accessory to him, how you’re tired of being stuck inside the damn tower. You never listen to his warnings of it being so dangerous outside, and when you do make an attempt to walk away from him, you remember that he’s an Overlord, and you are not. He’s horrific, mean, and much stronger than you are, and he has no trouble putting you in your place if you even make an attempt to leave him. He really does hate yelling at you. You’re terrified of him days after, flinching and tensing when he reaches for you. But you’re just a bit dense and while you’re pretty, there’s not much going on in that head of yours, so you have to understand that he just has to be assertive sometimes.

After an argument, he doesn’t necessarily say he’s sorry, but he is softer around you for quite some time. His hands caress yours, and he adorns your wrist in jewelry, letting the tips of claws bump over every bridge of charms and rings. His claw traces over your fingertips, and he mumbles sweet things to you. He tells you how pretty you are, and how sweet you are to him. He takes a day off to just spend with you, to make up for everything that happened before. An apology will never be spoken out loud, he could never admit that he went too far, but he would tell you that maybe you two can leave the tower, go someplace nice and see all that he doesn’t let you see alone.

Considering who he is surrounded with consistently, he needs attention that isn’t cruel. He craves your attention. He likes how kind you are to him. In those moments where everything is still, and the lights aren’t so bright, but coloring you both in a golden hue, he likes the quiet when it's with you. It’s interesting to watch him be so apprehensive with his movements. He slowly rests himself on his stomach, the back of his screen facing upwards, as your hand starts to scratch up and down his back. You can feel him shiver, you can feel his breath, the tapping of his claws against you- the stillness that he tries to hold just so you won’t stop. If your phone buzzes, or your attention is taken away, he buries himself further into you, a low hum emitting from him. It’s the few times you see him so mellow.

There are times when Vox can be sweet. When he has the time- usually during a lunch, or one of your breaks- he’s right beside you, listening to you rattle on about this or that, showing him a video on your phone. He’ll nod and laugh, be attentive and ask follow up questions so you know he’s actually paying attention. You’re pressed close to him, his arm over your shoulders, your legs over his, bodies pressed so close together, it’s a wonder you two haven’t melded into one. Even if his screen makes certain things difficult, it doesn’t stop you from seeking him out. Despite how malicious he can be, you return to him, you adore how he talks sweetly to you, how he calls you his one and only, his dear, his sweetheart.

386 notes · View notes

vague-humanoid · 7 months ago

Text

MADISON — Civic Media, a Wisconsin-based progressive talk-radio network, said Thursday it had agreed to make two edits to an interview with President Joe Biden at the request of his campaign before the broadcast aired, a decision the station said fell short of "journalistic interview standards."

Still, the station said, it stands by its popular host Earl Ingram, who conducted the interview with Biden following the June 27 televised debate with rival Republican Donald Trump during which the president lost his train of thought and at times made nonsensical statements. Ingram's interview was recorded on July 3 and aired on July 4.

"On Monday, July 8th, it was reported to Civic Media management that immediately after the phone interview was recorded, the Biden campaign called and asked for two edits to the recording before it aired. Civic Media management immediately undertook an investigation and determined that the production team at the time viewed the edits as non-substantive and broadcast and published the interview with two short segments removed," the station said in a statement released on Thursday.

The station said it would make the full, unedited interview available online.

The two edits, according to the station, were:

At time 5:20, the removal of “...and in addition to that, I have more Blacks in my administration than any other president, all other presidents combined, and in major positions, cabinet positions.”

At time 14:15, in reference to Donald Trump’s call for the death penalty for the Central Park Five, the removal of “I don’t know if they even call for their hanging or not, but he–but they said [...] convicted of murder.”

"With a high-profile interview comes a listener expectation that journalistic interview standards will be applied, even for non-news programming. We did not meet those expectations. Civic Media disagrees with the team’s judgments in the moment, both with respect to the handling of the interview questions and the decision to edit the interview audio," the statement read.

@bmoreisapunkrocktown @ubernegro @meanmisscharles @thecolorsfucked

#if you don't support him #you aint Black #lmao #we are fucked

118 notes · View notes

weddingchicken · 5 months ago

Text

reviewing the ranma 1/2 fanzine i made when i was 12 years old.

i just found ranma 1/2 fanzines which I made in 1999 when I was 12 years old. here's a review of the zines - and an attempt at analysing what was going through the head of my younger self.

as professional looking as the 'ranma 1/2 herald' looks, i made these fanzines by curating a combination of pictures I found on the internet, my own art, and my own writing, organised into magazine format - all of which I cut up and pasted by hand onto master sheets and then photocopied to yield the finished product.

what's odd (or one of the many things odd here) is that I had only managed to obtain and read the first few volumes of the ranma 1/2 manga at this point in my life (perhaps only the first three volumes). i had never watched an episode of the anime, and as far as i know it wasn't available in the uk at that time - certainly not on public television (we didn't have cable). furthermore, i didn't have any friends who were interested in ranma 1/2 or even knew what it was or who shared any of my other interests. nevertheless, i wrote the zines in a style as if they would one day be read by other people.

my enthusiasm for ranma, and subsequently the contents of these zines, was driven by my imagination, and what i could find through my relatively new access to the internet, which in turn encouraged my imagination. youtube didn't exist back then, but i remember reading summaries of anime episodes and consuming related media in whatever way i could, e.g. listening to audio files with snippets of the anime dialogue uploaded to ranma fan sites.

the information in my fanzines - the ranma 1/2 herald #1 and #2 - are heavily supplemented with my own creative additions to the ranma 1/2 universe, including what i now realise to be fanfiction - or attempts at roleplay - my own creative original characters and stories, and something of an obscured view of our own world.

parts of the zines are written in what I considered to be the voice and from the perspective of ranma 1/2 characters.

really not sure what was going on with the alignment of the page numbers on the contents page...

the zines contained fact files on characters and various other elements of the story. again, as much as i was fascinated by the franchise, i was working with very little information here. so i didn't let a little thing like not knowing many facts prevent me from writing these fact files.

much of the zines were taken up with displays of images i'd found online which i thought were just rad.

some good old school microsoft word clipart included

let's take a moment to appreciate this image of shampoo and mousse which i made on microsoft paint (i could create better art with physical media, but doing it digitally seemed exciting). i had not even read any manga where mousse was introduced by this stage, but i had read about him online.

other content included a ranma 1/2 alphabet: i matched a to z with characters, themes, and concepts from the franchise. highlights include:

Q is for questionable conduct, as many characters in Ranma are known to prance around shamelessly naked - most noticeable of these people is Ranma. (tsk, tsk) V is for VIOLENCE! Z is for zeal, a common problem with those characters who would like to win the girl, but Ranma just can'tbe [sic] bothered

my exploration of what windows 95 had to offer was not restricted to microsoft word clipart - i found the esoteric fonts of "windings" and "animals" fascinating. i felt like i was translating my writing into Egyptian hieroglyphics and back.

i also seemed to want to use the fanzine to promote my own original manga series. this is despite the fact that my original manga did not exist outside of my imagination. this didn't stop me including a summary article of the background story of my manga, which i called Kung Fu City. i also wrote about something called the Ultra Tokyo Files which, as far as i can surmise, was a planned sub-series of Kung Fu City. i do remember being very determined that i would create my own manga series called Kung Fu City when i was a child, and must have had fairly developed ideas about this, given what i wrote in the zines about my original universe, original characters, and original storylines. as you can see below, the principles of the Kung Fu City manga are 1) very little actual conversation; 2) non-stop sound effects and violence; 3) a debatable amount of humour (i don't know what I was getting at with point 3).

as you can see, i imagined Kung Fu City into history. i described it as having started in 1989, when i was two years old. what's more, i claimed that it was an influential factor in nunchaku being banned in the united kingdom! what a feat! so, through my zines, i seemed to be creating an alternative reality - not just an alternative ranma 1/2 universe, as many makers of fanfiction and fan comics do, but an alternative version of the "real world".

furthermore, i included a promotional segment from Kung Fu City in the zines - presented as if it was a preview of material from the part-way through the manga run. except, i created these panels specifically for the zines. there was no Kung Fu City before this or after this. just this.

i could really go on and on about the idiosyncrasies of my fanzines, but I will finish by bringing up the conversations i "had" with the characters. this includes the interview i "held" with ranma. as in, i wrote an article about me interviewing ranma saotome, the fictional character.

unfortunately, 12-year old me made the unusual editorial decision to print out my article on dark blue paper before photocopying it as black and white. as such, the interview article is difficult to read. if this post gets any interest and people want to read my conversation with Ranma (it was um...something) then i will make a post with the contents of this interview.

i also had a letters page where I encouraged my hoped-for readers to write in. but not to me. i asked them to address their letters to the characters of the kuno siblings - kodachi and tatewaki kuno. i went on to write letters from imaginary fans to the kunos, and wrote responses to the letters in the voice of kodachi or tatewaki.

a one sentence response from the imaginary character kodachi kuno (aka. the black rose) to a letter from a fan (also imaginary). i'm sure this was normal behaviour from a 12-year old.

i recognise this now as ranma 1/2 fanfiction. what's more, I think this was roleplay. i didn't have anyone else to roleplay ranma with, so i roleplayed with myself. no one else read my articles or any other aspects of my zines. i think i would have wanted to share my passion with someone else, i just didn't have anyone to do it with. so, if nothing else, i made these zines for my own enjoyment. z really was for zeal!

i was a lonely 12-year old wannabe weeaboo who supplemented my lack of money to spend on the ranma 1/2 franchise and lack of access to the fandom with my imagination and creativity. some of the world i conveyed in these zines was bizarre, but it was creative. and maybe now - 25 years later - someone else will finally read my zines.

68 notes · View notes

stevebattle · 1 month ago

Text

youtube

Teddy Ruxpin (1984) by Ken Forsse, Alchemy, distributed by Worlds of Wonder (WoW). Teddy Ruxpin was launched in 1985 by toy manufacturer Worlds of Wonder, becoming one of the best-selling toys of 1985/86. Ken Forsse was an Imagineer who helped design many of Disneyland's animatronic attractions. Forsse and his team at Alchemy managed to adapt theme-park technology to create the world's first animated talking toy. Alchemy was founded in 1980 by Ken Forsse, and Teddy Ruxpin became the launch product for Worlds of Wonder (WoW), founded in 1985 by former Atari sales president Don Kingsborough, and former Atari employee Mark Robert Goldberg.

Teddy's mouth and eyes move while it tells stories from a built-in audio tape cassette deck. Conventional cassette tapes carry two audio tracks for stereo sound reproduction. Teddy Ruxpin's cassettes use the left track for audio, while the right data-track controls the three servo motors: 1 for the eyes, 1 for the upper mouth and one for the lower jaw. The original Teddy Ruxpin uses Pulse Position Modulation (PPM), where the pulse position in time is proportional to the amplitude of the control signal.

"Seeing something that I had created become as successful as Teddy Ruxpin was incredible. There is a long list of wonderful memories: watching so many talented people at Alchemy working on and adding to my creation; realizing that companies in Silicon Valley, Canada and many Asian countries were building a toy I had designed; witnessing the birth of a new toy category, (Electronic Plush); watching television commercials and segments on news broadcasts describing Teddy Ruxpin. The most humbling experience was reading the many letters describing the reaction of children in all parts of the country to Teddy Ruxpin. There was a letter about a child who lapsed in and out of a coma and could only be awakened when Teddy Ruxpin sang to her." – Interview with Teddy Ruxpin Creator Ken Forsse, Teddy Ruxpin Online.

#cybernetics #robot #toy #Alchemy II #animatronic #Youtube #1984 #Worlds of Wonder

46 notes · View notes

honeyhotteoks · 3 months ago

Note

do you have any advice on like getting better with writing?

hey! i definitely do!! i’ve talked about this before but i have a lot of new readers, so ill start off by saying i’ve been writing for my entire life, and im 30 so thats a lot of years. if you’re a new writer, trust me i used to be there and good god if you guys could see the stuff i published in old fandoms 💀 really, really bad haha

i only say that because i by no means consider myself a great writer, there are fic writers in this space alone that i’m always so floored by and look up to…. but people have been very kind about my writing style and it’s something that took time to develop it’s not something i just “had”. outside of fic, i was a literature and creative writing major, and got very used to writing and workshopping pieces.

now! onto some actual advice —

1. read a lot and read more, but read stuff you actually like and not stuff you feel pressured to read. i love high brow litfic as much as the next pretentious english major, but i started writing a ton after reading a bunch of kindle unlimited romance because it was fun and it got me inspired

2. watch well written television for dialogue and pacing. people do not talk in proper english, they don’t say things eloquently, and there’s a lot of filler and fluff. that’s good! that’s real, so i love well written tv to show me how it’s done

3. get comfortable writing in weird ways. for years i used to sit down and be like “ah okay so chapter one” and then i was stuck, stalled out, and just felt bad about the process. when i started writing both aurora and tnt, i started in the middle. i had an image of a scene in my mind (for tnt it was actually the claim attempt) and i just wrote it out and then bounced around later

4. outlines are your friend! sometimes i’ll get a random line of dialogue in my head or an image but that doesn’t mean i’m ready to write it. i throw it in one big outline so i don’t lose it.

5. if you’re wanting to write really good smut i have two suggestions but please only do this to your personal comfort level. this is what works for me but do not make yourself uncomfortable— for good smut, i watch porn for reference and for good dirty talk, i listen to nsfw audio. i like to really write the visuals for smut and make it immersive but lol i haven’t experienced everything ive written about and logistics of the body are hard!! i usually find a video or an audio and let that help guide the imagery im writing.

6. be comfortable with the editing process. i know the temptation to post something the minute you finish it is there, but sleep on it. come back and edit it, read the dialogue out loud if you have to. i swear you’ll make the piece better just by leaving it and coming back.

7. don’t be afraid to post. most people are kind, and the worst thing that will happen is you don’t get a lot of notes. that’s okay, it’s a process.

8. research! as i’m writing anything, even a silly little oneshot, im doing research on something. i am hyper aware that im not korean and have never spoken korean or lived in korea, so for my fic i try my hardest to ground elements of that in reality. i truly cannot tell you how many hours ive spent reading like korean case law on revenge porn just for like 3 lines of dialogue. and you don’t have to go that crazy, i’m arguably too intense, but i do think some of that helps the story and the dialogue feel real.

9. describe something real- every place in my writing is based on something real. every apartment, hotel, cafe, venue, etc., they’re all either something i’ve found online or drawn from my life and use that to my advantage. i use apartment listings and save photographs, i do google map walks to see what neighborhoods look like, anything to get the feel of a place or an experience. for the christmas chapters of aurora, i watched hours of gwangju walking tour videos on youtube while i was writing just to understand how to describe their walk in the snow. it really helps me to have a visual that i can put words to.

10. find your weak points and see what other writers do differently. if you want to improve, you should find a small place to start. is it dialogue? overall plot? smut? etc. - i’ll never forget being on a creative writing retreat, and a very important writing professor said to me “everything you write is very pretty but you haven’t said anything. you have to decide to say something.” that feedback hurt, but sent me down a much better writing path when i realized where i was falling short and not challenging myself.

okay i hope some of this was helpful and if it’s a mess im sorry im on mobile. i really just love writing so deeply and will always talk about it, so i hope this was helpful 💗

#answered anon #honeyhotteoks thoughts

33 notes · View notes

dizzymoods · 6 months ago

Text

Lots of VC questions recently. Someone emailed about what they should be engaging with to develop their artistic voice. Here's my answer:

In terms of guidance, Werner Herzog, who is admittedly a weirdo, said that the best thing a film student can do is go backpacking cross country, which I would never do. But the point he was ultimately making is that life experience is more important than anything a film school can teach you. Your artistic voice develops more sharply the more intune you are with the world; all the film stuff is superfluous really. So that would be my major advice. Live life! Be open to all sorts of experiences.

Outside of that I would say to read and watch anything and everything you can get your hands on. Especially stuff that has nothing to do with film. Be curious, which is to say non-judgemental. Sitting through stuff that you have no interest in or actively hate is good! It develops your taste in ways that seeking out only what you like can never do. It also expands your horizons and teaches you how much you actually don't know about anything. Keeps you humble. You'll be surprised 5 years on how something that you had no interest in is super relevant to what you're trying to do.

I'll drop some recommendations later but something you are going to run into is paywalls and exorbitant costs. Scihub, Libgen, and PaywallReader can be your friends in this regard. The more niche something is, the less mirrors there are. Investing in an internet audio/video ripper is essential. Rip often and indiscriminately. Nothing is safe unless you triplicate it. And if you can't afford hard drives, dummy alphabet accounts are the next best thing. Also, footnotes and reference lists are treasure troves of breadcrumbs.

The standard VC reading list includes: Reel to Real, The Devil Finds Work, Playing in the Dark, Young British & Black, Ways of Seeing (also a documentary), Orientalism, Film Manifestos and Global Cinema Culture, Questions of Third Cinema, Hollywood & Counter Cinema, Figures Traced in Light, Parallel Tracks, and Basho: The Complete Haiku

Hundreds of films can be found on Solidarity Cinema. Cinema of the World has a deep archive but you need to have space and a nitrofile account to download most films, but you can snipe a few films here and there (or look for them elsewhere). Rarefilmm updates semi-regularly and you can stream the films; they are now more active on twitter and are even taking requests. Some state-sponsored film industries have robust presences on youtube with english subs: Russia's Mosfilm/FUSE Mosfilm, Canada's NFB, the Korean Film Archive, Native People's Media. There's UbuWeb for all your avant-garde needs. There's FIlmmaker's Co-Op (pay-per-view), Paper Tiger Television, and Deep Dish Television for NYC indie stuff. AfroMarxist has a fair amount of political documentaries. NMAHC has an archive that houses the work of Chamba Productions and some of Pearl Bowser's stuff. And of course there's the legendary MikeD of ReelBlack. It's a crap shoot but some filmmakers and/or their estates make work available free online (Leo Hurwitz and Julie Dash come to mind). I'd recommend a Kweli TV subscription for black film, and never be surprised by what you can find on youtube or tubi!

This is probably super overwhelming but the joy of being an autodidact is the thrill of discovery so peruse at your leisurely interest. The internet is your oyster if you know how to use it! Back in my day hardly any of these sites existed and the ones that did weren't as robust as they are now. I've had to frankenstein whole movies from various clips posted in 144p on youtube 😩

I used to do a couple of themed months a year where I'd read and watch as much as possible about a filmmaker, genre, or movement that interested me. I'd spin a globe to learn a little about a random country's cinema. Best of lists/canons don't really mean much but they are good sources of stuff to at least be aware of.

#vibration cinema

43 notes · View notes

rentzeasy · 1 month ago

Text

Audio Visual Rental Services In Mumbai For ₹0 Cost Delivery

Audio Visual Rental Services In Mumbai. ✓Projectors And Screen On Rent ✓Projector Screen For Rental ✓LED Video Wall For Rent ✓TV On Rent ✓Television On Rental.

#audiovisualrentalservicesinmumbai #ledwallforrentinmumbaiprice #8x12ledscreenrental #ledscreenrentalpricelist #ledscreenformarriagerent #projectorscreenforrentinmumbaiprice #projectorscreenonrentmumbaiprice #projectorforrentinmumbainearme #projectoronrentnearme #projectoronrentmumbaiprice #smarttelevisionforrentinmumbainearme #ledtvonrentinmumbai #tvonrentforaday #mumbai #rentzeasy

12 notes · View notes

daughterofheartshaven · 6 days ago

Text

I was typing all of this up as a reblog to someone and then was reading it over and realized I wasn't really addressing their post correctly. Their post was something along the lines of "noting how Doctor Who fans are excited for the show to get cancelled and believe that suddenly all of the EU stuff will become good like it was in the 90s" and I proceeded to write up "why I'm excited to see what the happens in the EU when the show gets cancelled even though I don't think it will suddenly become like it was in the 90s" which is a similar topic that isn't actually the same topic.

So, uh, here's why I am excited to see what happens in the EU when the show gets cancelled even though I don't think it will suddenly become like it was in the 90s.

First of all, I've seen some posts disparaging the quality of the EU stuff (especially Big Finish) has done recently compared to the Wilderness Years. I... can't really agree, with Big Finish especially. I like modern Big Finish a lot more than I like Wilderness Big Finish. (For example, the recent Second Doctor Adventures and the Sixth Doctor Purity trilogy are both among my favorite Who stories of all time. Don't spoil me on The Conspiracy of Raven tho I have yet to listen to it.) If you like the old Big Finish stuff better, then that's a totally valid opinion to have; I'm just trying to show my perspective. One thing I try to say a lot during these sorts of discussions is that it's so cool how many different valid opinions there are about Doctor Who. I'll totally agree that the Doctor Who books done during the EU level tended to be more interesting than ones done in the NuWho era, but that's really only one part of the EU.

It's also probably worth noting that I tend to like the EU better than the show itself for the very simple reason that I don't like tv as a medium as much as I like comics or books or audio dramas as a medium. I don't think the EU is better than the tv stories! I firmly disagree with that! It's just that the EU tends to be in mediums that don't give me anxiety to engage with.

But yeah. I haven't talked about this online, but I've totally talked to people outside tumblr about the fact that I'm very interested and exited to see what happens after the show gets cancelled. For me this is very heavily pushed for by two factors.

One, curiosity. As has been said elsewhere, the circumstances now are very different to that of the 90s, but the Doctor Who franchise is big enough that I have full confidence it would continue to do something. I'm confident there is enough of a market for books and stuff to be viable, given how many books Obverse and Arcbeatle are pushing out that are spiritual successors of 90s book lines and have nothing to do with the show today. I'm not expecting the 90s again, but the concept that there won't be anything (or anything worth something) after a cancellation is one I fully disagree with. I hope we'll get Doctor Who books that are more divorced from what the tv show is currently doing. Maybe we won't though, and I'm okay with that. But there will be something. And I'm very interested to know what that is.

And two, inevitability. To be perfectly honest, I will be surprised if Doctor Who the tv show survives until 2030. I see waaaaaaay too many parallels with how Classic Who went out to what we've been seeing right now, and the current climate of tv shows is very unfriendly to a long-runner like Doctor Who. The show, as far as I am aware, got pretty dang close to cancelled back when Chibnall and Whittaker left, and I kinda expect Gatwa to be the last televised Doctor for some time. Even if he's not, Doctor Who has pretty much always had diminishing returns, and I don't think shoving Disney into the mix has really offset that too much. No matter what, NuWho will end at some point. And I'd much rather be exited for the next stage of something then any of the other alternatives.

Am I being optimistic? Yes. I do that. But I don't think I'm being unrealistic. I certainly don't think the content is going to get better after the show gets cancelled, but I think it will be different and continue to evolve, and I'm exited to see where that goes.

#doctor who #doctor who eu #doctor who expanded universe #dweu #dw eu #yes watching tv gives me anxiety #its overstimulating #thats one of the reasons i'm so fond of 60s who #beacuse it's not overstimulating #i should make a seperate post about this sometime

10 notes · View notes

jokeroutsubs · 1 year ago

Text

[ENG translation] "Joker Out: We won't make dolls out of ourselves"

This is an interview with Joker Out that was published the day after the Misija Liverpool programme, where they presented Carpe Diem for the first time. We're posting it to commemorate its one year anniversary!

Original article published in Delo newspaper on 5.2.2023, available online here for Delo subscribers. Article written by Gašper Završnik and Agata Rakovec Kurent; photos by Voranc Vogel and Katja Kodba; English translation by a member of Joker Out Subs, native proof reading by IG GBoleyn123. Also available in audio version on our podcast, read by IG GBoleyn123.

After conquering Slovenia, Joker Out, currently the hottest Slovenian band, is now also conquering the world. They talked about recognisability, Eurovision, and days that should be seized.

Singer Bojan Cvjetićanin, guitarists Kris Guštin and Jan Peteh, drummer Jure Maček and bassist Nace Jordan are Joker Out, currently our most in-demand musical fivesome. They've almost sold out the concert in Stožice in October already, and it seems like the boys have already reached the sky as the limit in Slovenia. Now, it's time for the world. Yesterday evening, in the Misija Liverpool ('Mission Liverpool') programme on Televizija Slovenija ('Television Slovenia', Slovenian national TV), they presented Carpe Diem, the song with which they will represent us at the Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool in May, for the first time.

Select members of the media already heard it a week before, at Saturday's recording of the programme, and we had the chance to talk to the band members afterwards. We talked about looking for the Eurovision formula, about what one has left after Stožice, about the burden of fame, as well as about how we should love, dance, enjoy, and care for one another while we can.

When did you warm up to Eurovision, which is often kind of stigmatised among rockers? Did the success of Måneskin perhaps have something to do with it?

Kris: We've been warming up our whole lives, because we're all pretty fervent Eurovision fans. I make time every May to watch the semi-finals and the final. We didn't go to Eurovision because Måneskin made it. They did prove that Eurovision is not as limited in genre anymore and that rock bands can participate too, but we're going to Liverpool because it's now the right time for us to start expanding our horizons outside of Slovenian borders, and Eurovision is the most optimal thing we can do at the moment.

Today (a.n.: we talked on Saturday, the 31st of Janurary) you presented the song to the audience in the national television's studio, in one week, all of Slovenia will hear it for the first time. How are you feeling?

Nace: The best part was standing on the stage when we played the song for the first time.

Jure: That's true, so much effort suddenly paid off.

When did you make Carpe Diem?

Bojan: The song was recorded in December in Hamburg, and the final mixings or masterings were happening all the way to the finish line just before the show, but it's always like that. We've listened to the song a million times, and when we played it for the first time, I was still proud of this song and I still liked it. People visibly reacted to it very well, and then audibly too. What more could we ask for?

What is the main message of the song that you wish to impart on expanded Europe and Australia?

Jan: Let's love, dance, enjoy, and care for one another while we can.

Kris: Despite the hostility that surrounds us.

With that, do you mean the Russian aggression in Ukraine?

Kris: Not necessarily.

Jan: Not explicitly. Anything that gives rise to thoughts that do no good.

This time, when you were creating, did you have a different audience in mind, were you searching for the Eurovision formula?

Jan: While making the song Carpe Diem, we were mainly thinking about how we must not focus on the fact that it's a Eurovision song. We wanted to make a song that is ours and represents us. Our purpose isn't just to go to Liverpool, rather, we want to present ourselves to the wider European audience, and I hope that they will accept us the way we are as much as possible.

In Slovenia, you're the hottest name on the scene right now. Isn't Eurovision, where, after all, you could also come 27th, a risky move? Why not just rest on your laurels?

Bojan: I think that resting on our laurels, especially at our age, would be the worst possible decision. It would make us a band that isn't in this business because they want to create, but a band that wants to rest on laurels.

Even if we happen to come 27th, it absolutely won't devalue everything we have managed to do so far and are planning to do in the future. This is just another competition and in fact, someone has to be 27th, that's a totally normal part of life. If it happens, we will definitely be sad, broken-hearted, and stricken, but it won't crush us.

A promotional tour awaits you as well; you're supposed to perform in Madrid, Barcelona, Warsaw, and Amsterdam. What else are you preparing to make Europe and the bookmakers pay attention to you before May?

Kris: If anything, we will convince the media when they get to know us and get an idea of who we are and what this thing even is, that we call shagadelic rock'n'roll. Madrid, Barcelona, Warsaw, and Amsterdam offer an excellent chance for us to showcase ourselves to international media, which is a very important aspect of getting votes for Eurovision, as well as establishing an image and a backing before you step onto the big stage.

Jan: Anything we say, release, or present will be genuine and honest. We won't make dolls out of ourselves. We want Europe to get to know us as we are.

One of the important aspects of Eurovision, in which Slovenia almost never stood out, is staging. How will you approach that, what will the core idea be? The Eurovision stage offers pretty much anything a musician can think of.

Kris: You can do anything if the budget lets you. The performance is for sure one of the most important things, but up until this moment, when we finished filming the show [Misija Liverpool] and the music video, we haven't focused on it yet. On the 4th of February, we will start intense rehearsals, we have some basic ideas. We want to build on the chemistry of our performance, more so than on glamour, confetti, and lights.

Jan: Being able to invest millions into the staging and public relations certainly doesn't hurt. We, however, definitely don't have them, so we will try to convince the audience with a good idea, a bit. We haven't been able to focus on that yet due to other obligations, though.

There's been some controversy over the fact that RTV (Slovenian national television) invited you to participate without you having won EMA first, as there is no Slovenian national selection for Eurovision this year. What can you say about this controversy, were you planning to sign up for EMA this year if it had happened, and is a direct invitation the optimal way to choose the Slovenian Eurovision representative?

Kris: Depends on who you ask. It might not have been optimal for us either. If we won EMA, going to Eurovision would be easier for us, because the song would've received more tangible support from the Slovenian public. As it is, we feel much more pressure to prove ourselves.

Jan: On the other hand, I don't remember a single EMA winner who was accepted by the majority of the public. Whoever won in the past 15 years that I've been following EMA got dragged through the mud. Unfortunately, this is something that's hard to avoid.

Kris: EMA and Eurovision are divisive things. Any way you slice it, someone will always be against it and someone will be for it.

Bojan: Our plan was to sign up for EMA this year, and then we got the call that we could go to Eurovision if we wanted. We wanted to go and that is why we're going. I have also said a few times already that EMA, back when we started watching it, used to be a prestigious event that the most successful and promising musicians signed up for, but in the recent years, that has absolutely changed.

My personal opinion is that just because you have a song and can sign up for EMA, that doesn't mean you've been robbed because there's no EMA. Something that has kind of spread around is that we have a lot of musicians who aren't actually active, but rather wait for EMA every year. They don't have concerts or other events in Slovenia and they practically only appear in tabloids.

I'm very sorry if we offended anyone, but I did get a lot of messages from the musicians that we, and I think most of the Slovenian audience as well, value the most, and they very much support RTV's decision.

Why will you sing in Slovenian and not in English? Is that smart?

Jure: I think that is the best decision we've made. We're representing Slovenia and we want to stand behind that. More people would probably understand us if the song were in English.

Bojan: Probably. (laughter)

Jure: I think that our song and our energy on the stage will show enough to make a good impression.

Bojan: If we got this opportunity and honour of Slovenia sending us to Eurovision directly, we think it's right to represent it in the local language.

It often seemed like Slovenian representatives were happy just to perform at Eurovision, and often used the smallness of the country as an excuse for their result. This year, it seems like you're approaching things in a more ambitious way, it feels like you're not interested in having a supporting role. Is that a wrong impression?

Jan: If Slovenian basketball players, who won the European Championship, didn't use the smallness as an excuse, then we have no reason to do it either. It might even be an advantage that we are "boutique".

What would be a satisfying result for you in Liverpool?

Jan: We definitely want to get into the final.

Kris: Top five.

Jure: I would consider the final a success. If we get into the final, we'll be more than happy.

Bojan: I'm thinking about a victory, and you can only go downhill from there. (laughter) I think that there's no placement for which you'd say "this is it" at the end, but the fact is that we won't place any better than we deserve.

It's probably not a coincidence that while you were recording the Eurovision song in Hamburg, you also prepared an English version of the album. Is that, as well as the Eurovision performance itself, a sign that Slovenia has become too small for you and you're interested in going abroad?

Jan: Good job connecting the dots.

Kris: Definitely. Our ambition lies in any market that is ready to have us. That's why we also recorded an English album in Hamburg, which will be a compilation of our favourite songs from the first and second album.¹ We will release it right after Eurovision, and until then, we will also present a song that we're preparing in collaboration with a very famous English performer.²

We're not hiding what we want from Eurovision, but it's not the only thing. We also want a good experience and to represent Slovenia with dignity and place high with a song in Slovenian again.

Bojan: The idea of recording in Hamburg has nothing to do with Slovenia being too small, but rather with us wanting to get out of our comfort zone, out of the environment we're in all the time, so to go there and have as much of an open mind as possible.

In terms of going abroad and concerts after Eurovision, we're already making very concrete plans for concerts around the Balkan region, and we've also already started booking club performances during the time we'll be in Liverpool. We're looking forward to going abroad.

Can you perhaps hint which British performer you will join forces with?

Jan: Unfortunately no, but we can tell you that it's not John Lennon.

Bojan, I watched your Portrait with coffee for Barcaffe³ where you also talked about the burden of recognisability. I imagine that you receive a lot of attention from women in particular. How do you deal with constantly being under the microsope from the public?

Bojan: After that interview, a fellow musician came up to me and told me that he completely understood what I wanted to say, but that I should never again in my life dare to complain about it, because it's simply the side product of the thing we're working towards. Ever since then, all I say is: thank you very much to everyone who bothers me. (laughter)

Are the other members also as impacted as the frontman?

Jure: Probably a little less than Bojan, but you can recognise the looks people give you. I can feel that I've started acting differently. I'm more mindful of what I do. I used to go for coffee at a café in my slippers, now I wouldn't do that anymore, though maybe it would be a good joke too. (laughter)

You're in high demand in Slovenia. Are you taking advantage of this opportunity and having concerts everywhere you can, or are you careful not to appear on the scene too much, given the smallness of our market?

Jure: We had a lot of concerts last year, I think we all agree that it was too many, so we won't perform for half a year now. We'll be getting ready for Eurovision, and when we come back, we will have a month-long tour, some good concerts that we like and that a lot of people will come to. After that, we'll have a break again until Stožice, after which we'll have another well-deserved break.

Are you satisfied with the ticket sales for the big concert, which will happen on the 6th of October [2023]?

Bojan: Eight months before the concert, we've sold 7,000 out of 10,500 tickets, from this week on, only the red ring (the highest seats) and a few VIP boxes are available, which means that after a few concerts in Slovenia that have already happened, we have already almost sold out Stožice.

Is there perhaps even a possibility of an additional concert?

Bojan: No, we talked about it, but we made the decision to not do two days. We decided that in particular because of our experience with Cvetličarna⁴, where we didn't have a feeling of absolute catharsis after the first concert, because we were still waiting for the second evening. Instead, we decided that the night after the Stožice concert, we'll travel somewhere warm.

Is having the Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool this year the right decision?

Bojan: I think that, despite some previous appeals by Zelensky, it would be hard to have it in Kyiv.

Jure: We really like that it's in Liverpool.

You started out as a band very early, when you were twelve years old. What is the secret behind you not breaking up due to all the upheaval puberty brings?

Bojan: It's true that we started at twelve, but from that group, which was called Apokalipsa, I'm the only one left. (laughter) Another member of Apokalipsa was Martin, who left the band last year, after the concert in Križanke, and was replaced by Nace.

The reason for Martin's departure was the biggest show of maturity I've ever seen in a young person. He understood and recognised that his wishes and aspirations in life lay somewhere else than with this band. He called us, told us that, and even picked Nace.

When, at eleven, I told my guitar teacher Pavle Kavec that we were forming a band, and he said that things will definitely start changing at some point, I confidently replied that it will definitely never happen to us. Now I see that Pavle was more than right, which is obvious, since he's an experienced rocker.

Nace, you joined an already established band. Were you worried at all that fans wouldn't accept you, that you will be like something foreign, because you haven't been with them from the start?

Nace: I didn't have that fear. I know that I contributed to the band musically, that they also went a different way with me, which can also be heard in the song Carpe Diem. Maybe I was a little worried about the image, because I didn't know how aligned we'd be in that regard, but I was the most worried about how we'd get along.

I wasn't bothered at all by what other people would think. I was thinking more about how they're having a good time and whether they will also have a good time once I join them. I have to say that the guys immediately accepted me so wonderfully that I feel like I've been with them since I was twelve.

Bojan: We truly feel the same.

The title of your song translates as "Seize the day". How do you do that, and what do you consider a truly good day?

Bojan: A perfect day is different for everyone, and also different every day, and the beauty of it is that with each new day, we can experience our perfect day, but the best day never happens. As we never know what tomorrow will bring, we have to live as if there were no tomorrow.

Jure: But the best thing is when we're together.

Bojan: That is the best thing and the reason this band is what it is. When we had a big concert or a shoot and we were together day in and day out, there wasn't even a day after the project ended when we didn't either meet up at our rehearsal place and hang out together all day again, or pack our suitcases and go on holiday together.

Since Kris's father is our well-known musician Gušti, I'd like to know whether you've received any useful advice from the older music generation?

Jure: I think we blazed our own trail. There hasn't been any advice from Gušti in a long time.

Bojan: Gušti has already told us everything he had to tell us. Soon after we started, he recognised us as independent creators and performers and took on more of a spectator role.

He's always ready to offer us a well-meaning comment when we need it, as well as any kind of help. This band is a group of people that works by its own principles, but we have our circle of people we believe and trust, and that's normal for a team.

We also got a lot of useful advice, which we didn't even know was advice back then, from our older musician friends, but at the same time, they never made us feel like they were being patronising.

How did your musician friends react when they learned that you were going to Eurovision?

Kris: No one will say to your face that it was a bad decision. Most people I talked to, however, find it good that we're finally sending something tried-and-true to Eurovision. I mostly agree with this sentiment as well; but we have read comments on social media and various web portals that...

Jan: ... that Bojan is short of stature with a big ass.

Kris: We even read somewhere that we're going to Eurovision because one of us is the son of Alenka Bratušek.⁵ My dad was getting badmouthed too, as in, "Gušti arranged it all for them." There are various conspiracy theories.

Jan: If Gušti could arrange that, he also would've gone to Eurovision.

¹This interview is from last year; Joker Out later ended up abandoning the idea of an album with English versions of their songs.

²Kris is referring to New Wave, their collaboration with Elvis Costello.

³You can watch this interview with English subs on our YouTube channel here.

⁴Cvetličarna is the venue where Joker Out did two gigs to present their first album Umazane misli. You can watch one of them with English subs on our YouTube channel here.

⁵Alenka Bratušek is a Slovenian politican. She was the Prime Minister of Slovenia from 2013 to 2014 and is the Minister of Infrastructure in the current government.

If you repost quotes from the interview, please link back to this post! And if you repost the photos, do not crop out the photographer credit.

#joker out #bojan cvjetićanin #bojan cvjeticanin #jan peteh #nace jordan #kris guštin #kris gustin #jure maček #jure macek #Spotify

53 notes · View notes