#because it's a career you're not just looking at the output at the end (the show) you are looking at the entire process from start to finish

[laesas]

Seeing someone's awful, self-righteous, bad faith, rage bait take and realising that you already have them blocked for their other dogshit opinions 👌👌👌

[catboybiologist]

Unprompted fucking rant time!

I'm getting my PhD after getting my BS and my Master's. I've gone through three separate rounds of university applications. And while I'm openly a bisexual trasfemme now, I've done every round of those applications as a cishet white boy. I've been rejected by a shitton of universities, and accepted by a fraction of that. My current institution is an R1 for my field- basically meaning it's in the highest tier of research funding and therefore research prestige/output- but it's very far from a household name the way Harvard or Stanford is. My undergrad institution was the cheapest local four year college that I was guaranteed admission to because my high school grades were piss poor due to an array of mental health problems.

So from that perspective.... Race and ethnicity demographics should 100% be used as a factor in determining admissions to help increase diversity. There's many reasons to think this, but there's two that underline a lot of my thinking on the matter.

Number one is kind of obvious, but what isn't obvious is how blatant it is. The top tier of universities has blatantly favored white people for generations, oftentimes explicitly. And oftentimes, they still do! Having relatives working at a particular university, or being alumni from a university, is literally part of the application materials for many of these universities. During my Harvard grad school apps, they literally had a pop-up window that asked me to check off any wealthy families I was a part of from a list of donor and alumni last names. It was so fucking blatant that I bust out laughing. Spoiler alert, I didn't get in. You cannot look at me with a straight face and tell me that these universities should be allowed to openly and blatantly give admission priority to rich, white, dynastic American families, while not affording any concession for overcoming the shittiness of being born into a persecuted group.

Number two is the thing that most people realize, but I don't think has really sunk in on a societal level. A massive factor in admissions is blind, dumb luck, and I'm not joking. When admissions tells you they received more qualified applicants than they could admit, it's 100% true. Many applications end up in a stage where they just have to randomly reject people to keep numbers down- or even if it's not completely random, they have to grasp for straws into an enormous amount of intangible factors that have nothing to do with someone's actual qualifications. So if you're down to that level of grasping at straws.... Why not use it as an opportunity to increase diversity? Because as it stands, you're not getting rejected because you're white- you're getting rejected because your high school didn't have a fucking sailing team. Remember that Stanford admissions scandal a while back?

There's a number two and a half that is an observation I've had about life in general here: one of my deepest held beliefs after going through a good portion of my early career is that everyone is overqualified for the opportunities they've been given. If your education system is genuinely functional, you'll be able to take people from an amazing diversity of backgrounds, and y'know... Educate them. If these universities lowered their admissions standards a shitton, and randomly pulled from the new pool of "less qualified" people, and they put them in an environment with access to the same resources as before... They would succeed.

There's a whole other rant embedded here about how elite-tier university education actually sucks, and all they do is filter for people who already have massive educational resources of their own. University prestige is mostly a lie, except in terms of how much grant funding you can get. But if you gave that level of funding to a state college tomorrow? They'd still do great things with it. But that's a side thought.

There's ALSO the side rant about why marginalized groups are important in science overall for perspectives on how science interacts with society, but that's also a whole other rant.

There's one thing I will say against this: sometimes, it's too late. For grad school and a little bit for undergrad admissions, an enormous amount of unpaid labor and study is required to even be eligible for the application itself. Required undergrad research hours are often unpaid. My undergrad research advisor paid her student labor when she wasn't required to, and surprise surprise, she has one if the most diverse and successful labs on that campus. Beyond just undergrad research, this goes waaayyyy back to the schooling and tutoring opportunities that people from higher socioeconomic backgrounds have access to from day one... But that's also a larger side rant. Point is, race based admissions are valid and necessary now, but they're a temporary bandage on the bleeding wound that is education discrepancy.

This was kinda random, but this got kick-started by an IRL discussion with a couple of friends and I just needed to vent my whole perspective here. Idk if the community of voyeuristic transfemmes I've mostly accumulated here will care, but it's nice to just type these things sometimes lol

[iraprince]

hi idk if this is a weird question but like. how do u Make Art with adhd? you mentioned in your comic that you struggled w various other creative hobbies, but like drawing feels to me always like the Big Bad Thing I Cannot Ever do. even tho i want to make it my career LOL

how'd you get past that?

not a weird question at all! this is actually a question i ask myself pretty much every day, bc generally my answer to "how do i make art with adhd" has always been: With Great Difficulty, lmfao.

it's hard! i am not always good at it! i made art my job bc i realistically couldn't imagine being truly happy with anything else; if that wasn't the case, i'm not sure i would be doing this. like, that ends up being a big divide between the hobbies mentioned in that comic vs art, which is something that it seems (according to viewing my online activity) i do "Consistently;" it is my career, so there's a level of like, urgency and necessity there that my hobbies don't have. which, like, obviously my advice is not "make it your job so that you HAVE to OR ELSE :)" because it doesn't work like that. i am spending an amount of time OR-ELSE-ing that i think might surprise ppl, and i am frankly very lucky that my wife is the primary provider for our family, because it gives me a safety net for when my brain makes a loud grinding noise and then belches a big cloud of smoke and i have to spend a week hitting it with a wrench.

ANYWAY. this is going to get long bc i have a lot of thoughts abt it. there's really no one answer to getting past it, and i am not "past it," i don't know if i think anyone ever can be! we can just try really hard to keep going in ways that won't burn us out. if i had to pull out the absolute #1 most important thing i've learned over the past few years, it is -- and i know this sounds like dumb corny bullshit but you really have to stay with me here -- being kind and patient with yourself.

i'm being so dead serious. if beating yourself up and freaking out and constantly agonizing over how much more you Could be drawing worked, you would be drawing right now. if beating ourselves up over our output worked, EVERYONE would be drawing ALL the time. it doesn't fucking work! it does not! do literally anything other than yelling at yourself. it's bullshit. it's fuckery. it does not work.

on the other hand, cultivating as much kindness and patience and compassion as i can muster -- saying, "well, it looks like i just don't have it today. that's okay, let's try again tomorrow," even if i'm saying it through clenched teeth and i don't really believe it -- THAT works, because it chips away at the idea of drawing being life or death. it's probably a very similar feeling to you describing art as The Big Bad Thing. of course if you hang all your self worth on it and let it become immense and dominating, it's going to be hard to interact with it! it's scary! it becomes easier to avoid it than to try to tackle it and then feel disappointed in yourself in a more active way (vs. just disappointed in yet another day where u didn't try). but every time i sigh and say "okay" when my brain is screaming and crying bc art just is not working, and i decide to rest and try again tomorrow, 1. it is easier to do a little bit of work the next day when i'm rested than it is to do ANY work when i chain myself to my desk for 9 hours and demand results, and 2. i learn that it is not the end of the world. it just isn't. and so art gets smaller, and less frightening, and it can just be my job (something i have to wrangle my adhd around just like anything else, like grocery shopping and keeping the house clean and keeping up with my friends) instead of some huge destructive boss battle with my identity hanging in the balance.

sometimes you have to talk to yourself like a little kid. if a little kid came to you upset and was like "i wanna draw but i just can't. i don't know why." you would (hopefully) not be like, "whatever, i guess you're just not cut out for it then!" or whatever other mean shit we say to ourselves when we can't draw. you would be like, "well, okay. do you want me to sit with you? how do we start? where's some stuff we can draw with? hm, i can't really think of what to draw either. did you see anything pretty or cool today? let's just draw some shapes." etc etc. and if the kid got frustrated and it still wasn't working you'd be like, you know what, that was a good try. let's have some lunch and try again later. and you deserve that same level of patience, and that level of CURIOUS problem-solving ("what can we try? what might be easier?") instead of, like, adversarial/blame-assigning problem solving ("what the fuck is the matter with you? why can't you just do it?")

also, shaking things up!! one of the most frustrating things abt adhd for me is i'll find a new strategy that Works, but it only works for like, two weeks or whatever, and then it stops working and i have to do something else. i have had a way better time just accepting that that's how things work vs thinking of these cycles as "failures."

if i start dreading working at my desk, i throw a block of printer paper onto a clip board and work on the couch for a few weeks. when that stops working, i get back on drawpile and do all my warmup sketches on an interactive canvas, with strangers around me (virtual coffeeshop lol?). when i get tired of that, then maybe i'm ready to be alone with clip studio again. nope, still not working? okay, let's stream while i'm working for a while then. let's start drawing differently. let's change the background color i draw on. just, like, i keep shaking things up to see if maybe i can trick my brain into feeling like we're doing something totally new for a while, and a lot of the times it works, and when it does not work i am not an asshole to myself, which is, as i keep reiterating, super vital.

when i make the most art is when i get super excited about something and i let myself go apeshit. (there's a reason my guild wars 2 stuff is corralled on a sideblog lmao.) when commissions start grinding to a halt for me, a lot of times it's bc i've let them become Tasks on a to-do list instead of remembering that each piece is a DRAWING; it can help for me to sit down and go through each piece in my queue and really look at it, and remind myself that these are DRAWINGS and i LOVE drawing, and to point out to myself stuff in the wip that i like, and stuff i'm excited to draw the next time i work on it. it's very easy to flatten stuff into just An Obligation if you stress too much about it, but it's very helpful to slow down and step back and remind yourself WHY you care that much. it's not just bc you have to.

i don't really want this to get much longer than it already is, especially when i don't really have concrete tips so much as rambling opinions and examples of stuff that Kind Of works for me Sometimes. i think the tldr is: relax, be nice, keep it fresh. i hope at least some of this is helpful!

[jor-elthatendswell]

I wonder if AI is being so embraced by certain quarters (I mean amongst ordinary people - the corporations embrace it because they think there's money in it) is because there has been a general narrowing of opinion of what "good" art looks like.

Social media creates a feedback loop. People want the likes, so they create art similar to the art that's already getting the likes. And you've got to compete for attention against the entire world, so you're art (be it visual art, music, whatever) can't be anything less than perfect when you offer it up for the judgement of strangers.

The internet can open career paths for artists but it can ruin the idea of art for its own sake or of being done just for the enjoyment of doing it. Plus increased economic inequality makes turning a hobby into a side hustle an attractive proposition. And if you're trying to sell your art, then you're going to prioritise art that sells, rather than the art you might prefer to make. Can kids just muck about with guitars nowadays, or do they need to give a polished, filmed performance to post online. One that'll match what they can see others their age posting.

This narrowing has been going on in mass media for a long time The need to recoup bloated budgets, pressure to support/ initiate a larger franchise, or to please the online consensus, makes film and tv more risk averse. They follow the template to success set by other productions and therefore become same-y and formulaic. . Any big movies whose visuals or dialogue deviate from strict "realism" , are instantly roasted online.

Music acts that occupy the same cultural dominance that the Beatles enjoyed in the 60s, rarely release tracks that are as weird, experimental and just plain silly as so much of the Beatles output was. Not would they have accompanying movies as oddball as A Hard Days Night or Yellow Submarine.

Batman (with Adam West and Burt Ward) and The Avengers (with Patrick Macnee et al) were phenomenal successes with adults in their day, but to a modern audience, they seem like children's shows. They were sophisticated in their way but today whimsy, pop art, word play, even a bright colour pallet don't cut the mustard with the discerning "mature" viewer.

The result of all this is a foreshortening of people's cultural horizons and a standardisation of what art is "supposed" to be.

So in this climate, people are afraid to create art, least it end up looking amateurish (even if they are an amateur), weird, idiosyncratic (if one's idiosyncrasies deviate too far from the norm). Easier to have an AI generate something that looks "professional" , "acceptable". And if it comes out looking weird, then it's the AI's fault and you can laugh at it alongside others which is much better than risking being the one laughed at, isn't it?

And I'm speaking for myself here. I got really into playing around with dall-e mini (an image generator) last year, but I found I was just using it to make lame visual puns (like I'd ask for a train made of jelly and call it "the great train wobbly" and such) . I could have doodled them by hand and the resultant image would be no less crappy than the AI's. I got me thinking as to why I was willing to share a bad AI image but not a bad drawing I had done.

[nickersoninsuranceagency]

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[sixthwater]

Our Curious Little Beautiful Communities

Intro:

As someone who has been on tumblr since about the early 2010s, I've seen quite a few cycles and 'episodes' within our...community, if I can call it that at this point. I, myself, am usually an observer and end up being a mediator. So you will end up seeing me looking at things from both sides because this world is grey. There is no right or wrong, and each side has a point unless they're just uuuhhh ignorant. Objectively. I'm going to be discussing some issues that have been bubbling up a lot more consistently than they used to within the astrology and tarot community as of late. Warning: I talk a lot, but I'm organized. If you don't have the time or patience to read it, then dont, no big deal, or skip to what you want. For those that like to look at people through their charts: Cancer mercury, Virgo Mars, 6th House Stellium. If you like degrees, I have heavy air degrees, some of them being Libra. Like I said, I end up being a mediator a lot. Anyway, let's get into it.

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Astrology

I'm going to split each section into people who consume content, and those that make it!

Consumers

Appreciation / Spreading Content

So, as you know, every website works differently in how they spread content around. Twitter & TikTok work by likes, Youtube by bias also by likes I'm sure? Insta too. Tumblr doesn't work that way. The only way you're most likely going to see something is if you head into the tag yourself, or people put something onto your feed. Which is why the reblog button is important. I'm now going to go through some popular creators and show the like to reblog ratio!

See the pattern here. Hilariously enough, despite the notes on these posts, if I don't make the usual trip into the tag, I would've never seen these posts myself. Now, on one hand if you only kinda like a post, then by all means just like it. However, what this feedback is sending us is that either this post is not good enough, or this isn't the content you guys want, etcetc. This isn't a call to 'reblog every single post you see to make us feel better!', but the responses to our posts will sort of drive our motivation in either direction. Do we want to make a long in depth post for it to barely go anywhere or just do a quick one because it's going to match the reception. Unless we really like the content we're making, the output is going to match the feedback about 6/10 of the time.

Formalities

So you found a creator that is really accurate with descriptions of placements or aspects or is willing to put in a lot of time and detail to answering asks and what-not. So you head into their inbox and hit them with a 'Moon in 5th' request. However that's the entire ask it's just the placement, a statement that's posed as a request. Please understand that on the outside/surface this may seem very easy and it's just 'you are happy when you play video game', there's more stuff that goes into than that. The creator themselves have a life outside of this website (god knows what responsibilities they have; a job, school, family, just not being tied to this place as if its a career). They will Probably want to actually give you a good response, which is more than just two sentences so not treating them as if they're a machine shooting out information would be a good start to the interaction. There's some things that could contribute to this like language barriers, but just saying 'please', or 'could you do this'--anything that. Humanizes. the person on the receiving end would be super duper great. Also, as mentioned before, spreading their work or showing appreciation afterwards Really helps the creator as well and shows that you are at least thankful or appreciative of what they did and not that you just want your goodies and you're leaving now.

Creators

Rejecting Foundation

This one is a bit. Tricky. The one thing I love about the newer generation is that they are very explorative and they dig and dig and dig until they uncover something and they do extensive research on it. They're open to new ideas and possibilities and looking at things from different angles. However, at the same time, they will completely snuff out the foundations said research is based on which is--on one hand it needs to be done because considering the way this research has been passed down and who has touched it, it's been passed through some pretty cis-heteronormative white old male hands. However at the same time, it's been documented for a reason and just needs to be viewed in a different light, and isn't that what this generation is good at doing. Let's take Venus & Mars, and LGBT+ astrology for example. We Should dismantle the very close-minded idea that Venus is how a Woman loves or pursues someone, and Mars is how a Man loves or pursues someone. I should not have to explain why this is an old-aged idea and we're already halfway through dismantling it anyway. As for LGBT+ astrology, a lot of people are hesitant when it comes to it, in terms of 'these placements could show that you are lgbt' or whatever. Besides there being some personal proof of people resonating with this theory (including me myself, but of course at the same time, not everyone will resonate either so--), you can Also just morph it and look at it from another point of view. If we are so stuck on the idea that Capricorn's influence will mean that someone is traditional, why not Aquarius' influence will make people try anything at least once. They don't necessarily have to be LGBT, but having open relationships, being polyamorous, not marrying but having a committed relationship, being married but living separately, etc. Old research is always founded in Something, but considering it's old, the viewpoint is probably just Fucked up sometimes.

Theft/Sourcing This one I am Neutral one, because it's more of something to just be aware of. Obviously, straight up theft is shitty. If a person doesn't want their content taken, don't take it. If they request credit, credit them. Very basic, simple rules to follow. At the same time though, I have noticed some people, of various status, post content along the lines of:

'I'm not sure where I got this from but-' So it gets a little blurry.

While this isn't like a detrimental issue, it's sort of like glossing over one issue and calling out another while they're both in the same pool. However, at the same time, we live in the age of the internet. Information is being shared at the speed of light and sometimes gets deleted Just as fast, so in the same sense it's understandable if that source is hard to find for you to credit them for it. The best bet for this is to just bookmark whatever you find interesting and hope for the best, or just note that if anyone remembers or knows the source of this reference, to comment on the post then? Like I said, this point is a liiitttllee blurry because it's not necessarily theft but then again it's sort of like.....awkward considering. But eh.

Now to piggyback off of the previous point, I've also noticed some people making really good observations or points, and then sliding in a '___ are manipulative, never trust them' basically. Giving off really strong uuhh:

We should be over this whole generalization thing, and letting a few bad interactions with a person blind the astrologer in you. There's a difference between making roasts about signs and just. Disrespecting people or blowing negative traits of a sign into a billboard. Remember that at the end of all this, we are all just people? So get to know someone as such before even bothering to know their chart. It helps you get better at astrology anyway. If you're surprised about how they're a certain sign or have a certain placement, look closer at their chart and see how it's playing out and figure out why. Astrology is just glamourized math.

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Tarot

I'm going to split each section into people who consume content, and those that make it!

Consumers

Entitlement

Besides the many other issues that have been running rampant (don't worry, I'll talk about 'em!), I've noticed that a looot of people have been feeling mighty cocky lately, but not cocky enough to put a name to their statements. Now I'm going to be, a little bit more harsh than the other sections in this post but: if you want this service then learn the craft and do it yourself. Just like Astrology, this service takes a lot hard work and energy, and considering what type of work it is, it's exhausting. Depending on the question, the type of reading they have to do, or how deep it ends up being--the reader you're asking might need a good hour or more to get to your request. If it's free, you definitely should be thankful for their service as well. Now there's a limit, which I will get to for the creator portion, but by no means should you stomp into their ask box, make sure they know you're ashamed of them, and then leave. Either just leave or put a name to it so you guys can talk it out. You have no idea what's happening on the other side of the screen after you send in your request. You may have asked a simple question, but like I said, depending on how convoluted your mind or emotions are, the reader is picking up on that or might have to pull more cards to figure out what's going on--your energy and the situation affects them at the end of the day so be understanding, not entitled.

Dependence

Not as bad as a problem, just the normal general concern or warning. Tarot it meant to be guidance to help you Live in your current world. It's not a substitute for Anything. Your guides will absolutely stop telling you information or they will just tell you that you're obsessing over the subject if you keep looking for information (and no, this is not just about future spouses because this applies to Everything, even healing, because to do so you actually have to take steps to, you know, heal). I've mentioned this before in a response to someone, but you should try and think outside of the box when getting guidance sometimes, because guides aren't always the most direct for a reason. If you just continuously ask readers about a topic of concern or pull cards, you're still going to be stuck and you're not making any movements towards your goal so those answers, in retrospect, aren't really helping. They might help you with a different perspective the first few times, but after a while it's either going to get aggressive or you're not going to get anything. You have to live your life because as much as your guides love you, they cannot live your life for you and I Promise you, they want nothing but the best for you and they want to see you thoroughly enjoying your life. So do not use tarot as a crutch please (a video from a reader I admire on her old channel). That's why I always explicitly state that yes I am delivering the message but You Know Yourself Best.

Creators

Free Games

Yes, I want you all to take care of yourself and put yourselves first. However, that does not mean 'finish it whenever I want because it's free and you should be happy that I'm even doing this :\', that's not how that works. There will be things that get in the way obviously, and just give a heads up that you're busy, it's whatever things happen. It's Not reasonable though to just tell someone that since it's a free game, that yeah you'll get to it within a month and just relax whatever you'll be okay. Think of it like this: you're in a store like Costco or Sam's Club. A store where they give out free samples. You come up and ask if you can get one and the clerk goes sure. Then they just get on their phone while prepping the food. It's taking a bit so you walk around in the area for a moment and you come back, and they're still just. Working on it. So you're waiting a bit more and it's still not done. So you ask them what's up and they tell you that hey, it'll be done when it's done. It's a Sample Size though, right? Yeah. Now yeah, the tone of the inquiry can affect your response, and depending on the game can affect it too. There's a lot of things that can go into it, but straight up, if you don't think you can do a game or you know yourself and you're going to get bored, just don't do the game. The querents shouldn't be giving you hard trouble over it, but at the same time...? It's a lose-lose here. I'm not saying don't take time to yourself or stay offline while the game is going on, but be mindful of stuff like this and where the querent is coming from (if they aren't an ass <3).

General

Celebrity Readings (Which let's be honest I'm talking about K-pop because which massive group is out here trying to read for Ricky Martin)

Let's get CoNtRoVeRsIaL even though it's really not. This is very simple I don't understand why it's an issue. So the thing about Celebrity Readings is, the first layer is that you have your own stance and opinion on it, that's that. There was a statement by a reader (who I will list later) that said something along the lines of 'readings on celebrities can be seen as tests or training because they are public icons. They are already out there, there's not much privacy to them' something like that, which is...yeah pretty true. A general energy check or reading on them isn't necessarily harmful because it's General, and if their guides don't want you to know certain things, trust me, they won't let you know lmao. Guides are powerful, they're protective, and I'm starting to believe that some people really underestimate them. If you know your guides have your back, what makes you think that those for celebrities won't Check You. If not just straight up lie to get you off their back, because you cannot begin to imagine the amount of people trying to get ahold of their energy, manifest them, curse them, etc. Yes they're going to be insanely protective or tell you to fuck off. Especially those doing anything beyond a general check (which, most definitely isn't reliable by the way because now you're being invasive or way too specific). Speaking of which, wouldn't trust long term readings on them either. You have to remember that Celebrities have more money, connections, and resources than us. Besides their guides muddling information, they can change that reading at the drop of a hat, easier than we can. These readings are for entertainment just like the celebrities themselves, and should be left at that. Readers who deliver their readings as fact or scolding tea, know what they're doing. Consumers should Also be wary of what readers they are following. Are they saying this person is a piece of shit? Bad reader. They're saying they're perfect? Bad reader. Celebrities are just people who have a talent they can profit off of lmao. If a reader can't put some logic behind their reading, especially those associated with corporations who love to abuse parasocial relationships which are the real enemy here, then they're a bad reader. Of course I'm not perfect--I get bored and put some on in the background when I need noise, but I can pick up on who's embellishing or just wants views. There are two readers I came across that I don't always agree with, but they're the most tolerable and usually accurately predict things and those are the ever so popular Antphrodite & Trinity Oracles (it's ok to disagree with the people you like or admire always remember that!). I could go on for hours about this but honestly the bottom line is just...use your brain lmao. Also, as a note, it's more reliable to go off of their birth charts anyway, especially for long term things. However, I Don't Blame these people for being hesitant or Never dropping their birth times because think about how easily you can read someone off of a birth chart. Especially a Good reader. Would you want to drop yours in a climate like this.

'Future Spouse' Readings

So. Hm. So the thing is I can understand the frustration with the overwhelming amount of spouse readings considering I'm grey-spec, because I also used to feel that way, but here's the thing: constantly doing shadow work is fucking tiring lmao. For people who are able to read, I know part of it is this weird idea that people after 21 just die on social media and we don't exist but fun fact hi we do! Not everyone asking or reading about these are 17, as your go-to complaint is. You can also just make other readings if you have the time, which is what I did because I want other readings LMAO. but like i was saying ABOUT that though: if you are someone who is constantly going through transformations, looking at your flaws and seeing how you can overcome them, going within and all of that--doing it for other people, 4-5 piles at a time is fucking tiring. Sitting there, deciphering the issue, walking through it, and then becoming a therapist multiple times through the year for free, sometimes I want to have my head empty and just talk about an imaginary little person and about their energy and write a little wattpad fiction for someone and have good energy for a moment because at the end of the day we are all dust...having light-hearted energy after all of that...murkiness, is Very nice its Very good. Now, also at the same time, there's an inherent issue with the heteronormativity of spouse readings where sometimes the reader assumes its a female reading and the spouse is always male, or the central idea of 'spouse' may turn away people who aren't that attached to marriage but still want to read about their forever lover, etcetcetc. Now besides the whole obsession thing, my only legitimate worry is that people should remember that Divorce exists, and what we are reading is an Energy, and multiple people are picking the same pile as you. There are no exact copies of pile #3s just running around waiting for you. Also, in another sense, shouldn't you also be worried about next partner readings too. If we have to do the work to reach our spouse, that work would also include lessons in love so technically really we shouldn't be doing Any prediction readings (like in general) because that takes a lot of the learning away from us and I had a Very long conversation with an ex-cw of mine about this so, again, I could go on for hours but Anyway--Once again, just...think rationally lmao. There are readings that I wouldn't put Too much emphasis on (like 'how would my fs react to me sneezing' or something), but also like, you want to read something cute you want to read something cute. For readers, you can only warn people so much. If the cards stop you from reading or you Clearly get the message that someone is obsessed, relay it. However if it doesn't come up sometimes people just want to know because there's Nothing Else they're worried about or need a reading on lmao, it's not that deep. If you give the warning and they ignore it, then well. I guess their guides will teach them well enough. Can't really hold everyone by the hand can we.

»»—————————-　✼　—————————-««

Overall

That's about all on my mind, it wouldn't leave my head for 6-7 days and that's usually when I figure I need to say Something because my attention span is Shit. I did want to bring up the uh.

Mass Ignorance

That has been popping up lately, but it feels out of place in a pretty light-hearted post like this so if something pops up again I'll maybe make a separate post like that but my efficient way to deal with that is to look at how people respond to it, and just block them lmao I do not like being stressed out or bothered on my phone So. Love you, feel free to discuss talk complain yell at me whatever, just felt the need to Discuss what's been up lately. I don't have a clean way to end this because I just talk a lot without grammar or anything formal this is literally what it looks like when I'm not trying to be formal my thoughts are just rapid fire like this i have a third house moon the inside of my head is Hell have fun trying to figure out what tone this is in love u

[thepointoftheneedle]

Riverdale, art and commerce.

(I'm sure this is well understood by most people but I didn't know it and I figured it might be interesting for others.)

Do you feel puzzled about why Riverdale got so… bad? I’m not talking about ships here, YDY in that regard but it seems to me that it has dropped the ball with regard to continuity (2021- again!) and consistent characterisation. That’s confusing given that it is made by talented performers, set designers, directors and cinematographers. I know we love to rag on the writers but, while some of them certainly seem to be hapless with regard to their use of social media, these are people who are making lucrative careers writing for TV. They have skills.

I was confused, and a confused Marxist like me looks to economics to explain culture, “Follow the money” in other words. I thought I understood basically how tv revenue works. The producers make content for a network that will draw in an attractive target demographic. The network sells that audience to advertisers. The show is not the product, we are not the consumers. The product is us, our eyeballs, our disposable income, the network is selling us to advertisers, they are the consumers. So it seemed to me that the show runners and the network would be concerned about falling ratings since that generates less product (us) to sell to their consumers (the advertisers.)

But I didn’t understand syndication which meant my grasp of the economics was all wrong.

“While the other nets are in the business of making money off their live viewership, The CW was created as a vessel for first-run domestic broadcast, for the purposes of creating programming ripe for syndication and, thus, a much more profitable second-run deal. It takes 88 episodes of a show to achieve that number, and The CW was created with the singular purpose of getting the shows of its parent companies to the qualifying numbers. There is also an ongoing output deal the network has with Netflix, which means that eight days after any CW show ends its season, even if it’s only the first season, all episodes of that show will become available on the streaming service. Which means that those CW shows are an immediate source of income for their owners, regardless of original viewership.” (Turitz 2017)

The product here is the show’s ability to fill a slot for 20 weeks of weekday reruns ie 100 episodes. (These days 88 episodes is the minimum but obviously 100+ is better.) In addition, the product is the square on the Netflix (or other streamer’s) matrix that gets folks clicking “Next episode” in a hypnotic trance.

Because the CW is targeting the syndication market then live viewership is much less important, it isn’t how they turn a profit. What they want is a show with significant brand awareness in the prime demographic, a show with a mountain of episodes that can be shown ubiquitously, a show with cliffhangers from ep to ep to get streamers transfixed, and from ad break to ad break for conventional viewership.

Crucially cohesive narrative arcs are not really important. Shows in syndication are often shown out of order, holiday episodes do better if they can be shown at the right season, narrative through line be damned. If a show runner begins with a vision and an aesthetic you can be pretty sure it will have run its course after a couple of seasons, then it's a case of holding on, switching things up enough, often enough, in order to get to the magic 88 or 100 if you're really lucky.

See now it begins to make sense doesn’t it? They aren’t making a bad show. It streams on Netflix, mission accomplished. It’s at 100 episodes, mission accomplished. It will continue in syndication until the ice caps melt and we all grow fins. Mission accomplished. The problem is us, we’re watching it all wrong. We should be thinking of it like one of those William Burroughs cut ups, seeing how narrative is accidentally created by putting random scenes together, or just watching to see the pretty people wear the clothes and sing the songs. Sometimes people make out with each other, doesn’t matter who or why. It's all about spectacle not catharsis-- but spectacle with minimal overheads and easily reusable sets.

Of course we wish the show were better, but it isn’t, because it has to have episodes that will appeal not to a devoted fan base but to the casual streamer, the channel surfer, who just want to see if this is the episode where the red headed dude fucks the bear or whatever happened. And I'm sorry, but now they are at 100 there is simply no incentive to give loyal fans what they want, they won't make a lot more out of us anyway, they want fresh meat in the syndication market. Understanding it makes me feel better about the whole thing, I mean, I still hate it but at least I know why I hate it now.

References

Neil Turitz The CW Redefines What It Means to Be a Success (Network Series) 2017

https://www.tracking-board.com/the-cw-redefines-what-it-means-to-be-a-success-network-series/

Amelia Rankine “What went wrong with ‘Riverdale” https://www.queensjournal.ca/story/2019-03-29/pop-culture/what-went-wrong-with-riverdale/

[awesome-power-cat]

Doki Doki Literature Club: Character files Decoded.

(Possible Spoilers) CLICK AT YOUR OWN RISK.

     My sister Lilly and I, decoded everthing below after I noticed that the text within Yuri's ".chr" file resembled (that of) Base64. We then searched and decoded the other character files.

DISCLAIMER: I have yet to fully complete the game, therefore I haven’t fully read the following data (text) to it’s fullest. (That’s why I’m unsure if it contains spoilers)

Monika’s “.chr” file Decoded:

After opening Monika's ".chr" file, I noticed it looked like an image file. So I renamed the file extension to ".png" and got the image below.

     The image resembles a ring of fire with some form of QR code in the middle, however this was not a QR code. I cropped out the ring of fire so I was left with the code in the middle. After examining the code I tried a few ideas we had, and they all failed. I then thought what if this is binary, the white pixels represent ones, while the black pixels represent zeros instead of typing each zero and one out by myself, I programmed a simple java program that would scan the pixels left to right, and output the corresponding value (Zero or One ), based on the pixel color (Black or White). The end result is a binary code. We used an online tool to decode the binary and the result was a bunch of letters and numbers. These "letters and numbers" looked like Base64 so, we used another online tool to converter those "letters and numbers" to text. That's how we got the message below.

"Can you hear me? ...Who are you? I can't...I can't see you. But I know you're there. Yeah...you can definitely hear me. You've been watching for a while now, right? I guess I should...introduce myself, or something. Um...my name is...actually, that's stupid. You obviously already know my name. Sorry. Anyway...I'm guessing if you were able to put a stop to this, you would have done it by now. I mean, I know you're not, like...evil, or anything...because you've already helped me so much. I should really thank you for that. For everything you've done. You're really like a friend to me. So...thank you. So much. I think...more than anything else...I really don't want it to all be for nothing. ... Everyone else is dead. Maybe you already know that. I'm sure you do, actually. But...it doesn't have to be that way, right? Well...there's a lot of stuff I don't understand. I don't know if it's even possible for me to understand it. But I know that this isn't my only story. I can see that now. Really clearly. And I think everyone else has had the same kind of experience. Some kind of deja vu. It's the Third Eye, right? Anyway...I could be totally wrong about this. But I really think you might be able to do something. I think you might be able to go back...or however you want to put it... ...To go back and tell them what's going to happen. If they know ahead of time, then they should be able to avoid it. They should...if they remember their time with me in the other worlds...they should remember what I tell them. Yeah. I really think this might be possible. But it's up to you. I'm sorry for always being...you know... ... Never mind. I know that's wrong. This is my story. It's time to be a fucking hero. Both of us. 2018"

Yuri’s “.chr” file Decoded:

Upon opening Yuri's ".chr" file. I instantly noticed text that looked like Base64. I used an online tool to convert the Base64 text to the message below.

Warning: The following text is... uh.. intense. You've been warned!

"If you found this note in a small wooden box with a heart on it, then *congratulations!* You are probably the first person to read this. I didn’t really plan on sharing this with anybody, but for some reason I think it’s exciting that somebody out there, a complete stranger, will come across this note and read my story. Someone I will never meet, sharing such a personal bond with me. I’m fascinated that either one of us could die - even as soon as tomorrow - with the other being completely clueless to the fact. To you, my entire life is within this note, and so I will live for as long as your memory can carry me. Writing this, I’m wondering if that makes you feel fascinated or violated. It’s so exciting. I’m sorry if my story is a bit disorganized, but I’d like to get it down while it’s still fresh on my mind. First, I’ll tell you a little bit about myself. I’m a first-year college girl and have led, by most standards, a pretty unspectacular life up to this point. I grew up in an upper-middle class school district with decent teachers. I did track in middle school and some of high school, and I’ve had two boyfriends. Now, I’m studying for a career in occupational therapy, because I feel the field is undervalued and provides tremendous help to people. I’m giving you this background because there’s this strange misconception that if you want to kill someone then you’re either sick in the head or you have anger management issues. But, it’s very apparent that I don’t fall into either of those categories. It’s true that most murder cases are in a domestic setting where someone loses control of their anger or something. But the thing is that those people kill under provocation, whether by a singular outburst or by a slow-burning series of misfortunes. Those people kill because in that brief moment, they want a specific someone, for a specific reason, to be hurt or killed. What I’m talking about is wanting to kill someone for no specific reason, maybe just to see what it’s like. Do you ever get that? I wouldn’t know how others feel, because it’s not something I ever talked about. But I’ve been curious about what it’s like to kill someone ever since I was a child. Not killing anyone in particular, just a random person. It’s always just fascinated me that if I put my mind to it, I can approach anyone, and in five minutes they would be completely gone from this Earth. But I’ve never done so for a couple of reasons. First of all, for most of my life it was logistically impossible for me to do it without getting caught. I only got my driver’s license a couple years ago, and even then, the preparations would take too much time, definitely stirring suspicion. It was only once I started college that I realized this was no longer an obstacle. Another reason is that I was afraid of causing harm to too many people. You might laugh reading that, at how hypocritical it sounds. But, let me explain: Why should I feel bad about killing someone if they’re too dead to care? Who would I be feeling bad for? Contrarily, it’s the grief of the living that I’d rather not be responsible for. Because of this, I knew it would take a good deal of research before finding a suitable person to kill, and I’ve never had the means to do so - again, until I started college. And now, having just experienced it, I’d say it was pretty satisfying in the end. Something I would try again? Probably not, since my curiosity has already been satisfied. It really wouldn’t be the same a second time. But anyway, if by any chance you’re also curious to kill someone, then you’re welcome to take notes. :) *** I started a hobby of people-watching soon after I entered college. People-watching is interesting to me because it’s taking one of the infinite extras in your life and turning them into a main character - without them knowing, of course. It’s so easy to forget that every single one of the hundreds of strangers you pass every day has a life story as deep and complex as your own. One thing I noticed about people-watching, and wanting to kill someone, is that you are in more constant awareness of this. When I find a person to observe, their story slowly becomes more clear to me over time, gaps being filled - it really is amazing. I usually went to grocery stores on weekends and looked around in people’s shopping carts. If I saw something that interested me, I decided to observe the person for a little bit. Of course, since my goal was to find someone to kill, I ruled out anyone who had children or a partner with them. Wedding rings were another tell-tale sign. So maybe once a weekend, I would find someone who fit my criteria, at which point I would follow them home and note their address. From there, it became incredibly easy to investigate a little bit more; most people have normal work hours, meaning I could spend afternoons going through their mail or looking around in their house. I repeated this with several people (and had one close call), but for varying reasons I didn’t really feel satisfied enough with them to kill any of them. I started getting a bit impatient and thought that I might just settle for killing the man named Devon, even though I didn’t really want to kill someone wealthy. But then, I came across someone new - someone who just, felt perfect. The feeling only strengthened as I investigated her further, and I knew that she would be the one for me to kill. A young-looking woman I met at the grocery store, as per usual. She was doing some light shopping with a basket. Her hair was wavy and dark brown, sitting inelegantly on her slumped shoulders and surrounding her tired-looking face. Her bare fingers told me she might be single, but beyond that, my gut was almost certain of it. This woman just seemed so…plain, really. I guess I felt a greater acuity for the personal lives of strangers ever since I started my people-watching. But the way she carried herself, I just got the feeling that if she suddenly died, nobody would be around to miss her. Of course, I still wanted to investigate her a bit. I followed my usual routine of checking out her place during her work hours. I learned immediately from her mail that her name is Linda Watson. Linda lived in a quiet apartment complex, her mailbox easily accessible right outside her door. Instead of quickly shuffling through it, I decided I could take her mail back to my dorm and return it before she was finished with work (she only lived about 15 minutes from me). I did some research and learned how to open and reseal the envelopes without damaging them, which took some technique along with a hair dryer, rubbing alcohol, and Q-tips. This made it easy for me to learn a little more about her. Linda was a 33-year-old woman who worked for a small accounting firm - I’d rather not name the place outright. Her birthday was December 11th which, coincidentally, was approaching in a couple weeks. I also managed to find a bank statement that gave me a nice look into how she’s been spending her past month. It was at this point I realized that my assessment of Linda Watson as an extremely plain woman was pretty spot-on, because there was absolutely nothing interesting on the list. A trip to Old Navy, a bunch of Starbucks, something about $40 from Amazon - no restaurants, no movies, nothing that would really imply she was spending any time socializing. That aside, I also found a cooking magazine, so I guess she was into cooking. Apartments are harder to break into than suburban homes, because there are fewer doors and windows. Every time I got Linda’s mail, I would check the front door and the windows in the back, but they were always locked. This was a bit frustrating because I was really interested in getting into her house. So, I came up with a sort of plan that I thought would be fun, even if it didn’t work. Last Saturday, I visited Linda Watson’s apartment complex as I would on weekdays. The difference is that this time, I wanted her to be home. I thought it would be interesting to have a conversation with her. If I got lucky, I could take advantage of the situation to discreetly unlock a window from the inside. So, I walked up to her door wearing nothing warmer than a light sweatshirt, and knocked. The adrenaline rush was crazy. I was afraid I might screw something up. The door opened, and in front of me stood Linda Watson, exactly as I remembered her from the grocery store. It was at that moment, making eye contact for the first time, that I realized I was running the risk of beginning to care about this person. As selfish as it is, I couldn’t kill a person I cared about, even if it’s a 33-year-old woman standing in a doorway with a slightly perplexed look on her face, giving me a reserved “Hello.” Arms crossed from the cold, I shyly returned Linda’s greeting. I explained that I was walking my dog near the woodsy area behind the back of her apartment, and that he had gotten away. I had been looking for my dog for an hour and was wondering if Linda may have seen him roaming about. Of course, Linda sympathetically apologized for the situation and that she couldn’t be of use to me, but that she would keep an eye out. I wore a defeated expression in response, apologizing in return for troubling her. It somehow went exactly as I had hoped - Linda invited me inside to warm up a bit with some coffee. I outwardly hesitated before accepting her offer, although on the inside I wanted to jump through the door and hug her for cooperating so well. And that’s how Linda Watson ended up with a 19-year-old girl next to her on the couch - who knows if it was just a nice gesture or if she really has no better way to spend her Saturdays than talking to some kid she just met (who happens to be interested in killing her). Linda soon learned that my name is Maria (it’s not) and that I attend the nearby community college (I don’t). I was a little bit nervous that she would ask me too many questions because I didn’t have many answers prepared. I was able to steer the conversation toward her, and she was pretty happy to talk. I asked what she does, and she told me that she works for the accounting firm I already knew about, communicating with outside clients and keeping records. I told her I was pretty nervous about growing up. She told me to enjoy college and to make lots of friends because there’s less opportunity once you start working. When I asked if she was married or anything, she laughed. Of course I knew she wasn’t married, but I wanted to hear more about her love life. She said that she doesn’t currently have a boyfriend (I guess she’s at least had boyfriends, but who knows how long ago). When I asked her about kids, she said she doesn’t want them until she gets a better job. On top of that, she told me that her family has a history of some genetic diseases such as arthritis and depression, which she is afraid to give to her kids. It’s funny that she mentioned that because when I asked to use her bathroom, I noticed a tube of prescription pills on the sink. It was labelled duloxetine, which I looked up later and discovered that it is in fact an antidepressant. I had a joking thought that maybe by killing her I’d be doing her a favor, but quickly decided I was a terrible person for coming up with that. The rest of the visit was pretty dull. We talked about food and some other mundane stuff before I eventually made an excuse to leave. I didn’t get the chance to unlock a window or anything like that, but I didn’t really feel the need to go through her apartment anymore. As early as the drive back to my dorm, I was already thinking about how I would best like to kill Linda Watson. The choice was between effectiveness and fun. I decided to go with fun, because it would be way more satisfying to kind of dissect her as I killed her, rather than just getting it done and calling it a day. Fast-forward one week to December 13th - today, actually. Linda Watson turned 34 two days ago. I made a fun little wager with myself where if Linda was spending her birthday weekend alone, I would pay her a visit and kill her. If she was out or had company, I would stop by next week or something instead. So this morning, I drove over to Lowe’s and bought an axe. Again, I expect you’re laughing, but that’s also kind of the point. An axe is so kind of cliche and a “movies” thing that I actually thought it would be the most fun. Swinging it at someone and everything, it’s a really entertaining image. They actually had a bunch of different axes, so I picked one that had a good weight but was still light enough for me to swing quickly. The drive after getting the axe was when the adrenaline really picked up. All that kept going through my mind on the way over was “Wow, I’m really doing this.” Not in a bad way, just like a surprised this is real life sort of thing. I also got this strange rush of recollections of the time I spent with Linda. It was like my life was flashing before my eyes, except it was just the rather mundane hour I spent with Linda - like snippets of our conversations, the sound of her laugh, her facial expressions and stuff. I also wondered to myself what the crazy serial killers would be feeling at a time like this - schizophrenic delusions? Sexual buildup? I have no idea, but what I felt was kind of like ridiculously alert and numb in the senses at the same time, however that’s possible. Before getting out of the car, I had the sense to stuff the axe into my backpack to look a little less ridiculous walking across the parking lot. The handle was sticking out, but that didn’t really matter. At that point my heart was pounding so hard I could feel my throat throbbing. I tried controlling my breath, but it’s really hard to not breathe fast when your heart is pounding like that. I reached Linda Watson’s door and quietly put my ear to it after setting down my backpack. I heard a voice that wasn’t hers - company? No, it was just the TV, mixed with her occasional tapping footsteps behind the door. I actually kept my ear there for a really freaking long time, because I wanted to make absolutely sure nobody was over. Probably 10 minutes of that and a lot of reassuring myself convinced me. I quietly opened my backpack zipper and held the axe in my hands. My fiercely shaking hands. What the hell was this kind of reaction that my body was making? I told my body to shut up, that it’s no big deal, but of course it wouldn’t listen. It was actually bizarre how much my hands were shaking. It must be the adrenaline buildup. I rolled my eyes at myself and got my hand to rest on the doorknob. If it’s locked, I’ll knock, it’ll be basically the same. I took a deep breath and forced my muscles into action. I swiftly turned the doorknob. Not locked. In one movement, I opened up the door and slipped inside. Linda Watson, just a few steps away into the kitchen. I see - she was in the middle of cooking. She immediately jumped and turned around, startled. I expected that. Quickly, I let go of the doorknob and adjusted the axe into both hands. In the following split second, I realized that she would probably start to make a lot of noise. Looking back, I’m an idiot for not considering that. Just as Linda’s mouth opened to speak - maybe even started speaking - I forcefully swung my axe into the side of her head. But, my axe was facing backwards. I hit her with the blunt end of the blade. I actually did this on purpose, because in that split second I somehow decided that it would be the way to keep her noise to a minimum. It actually worked. I felt barely any resistance in the swing as I collided with her head, knocking it clean aside. Linda’s half-formed syllable came out as a kind of weird grunt - a noisy exhalation is probably the best I could describe it. That happened at the same time as her head smacked into the cabinet from the force, and she fell backwards without any ability to keep her balance. I didn’t hesitate at all to keep swinging at her while she was half lying down on the ground, this time my axe facing the right way. I didn’t really know where to swing, so I kind of just started hacking at her collarbone area and chest. It didn’t feel like the axe was going too deep, but there was a nice “thunk” sort of sound every time the axe embedded into her. I even felt the soft sinking sensation ripple into my hands, like the axe was a kind of physical extension of my sense of touch. On a whim, I swung once at her throat, but most of the swing actually missed and I hit the floor by accident, causing a loud, dull whack to resonate through the apartment. I didn’t have time to think about it. I swung again with better aim and got a more centered hit, feeling the bone or cartilage or whatever is in there, so I must have split it open. Right after that, I decided to swing at her face, and I got this diagonal cut along her nose and mouth, which felt pretty good so I did it once more. I finally briefly stopped to survey the damage. Linda was bleeding ridiculously. The blood was kind of coming out in waves, in sync with her beating heart, probably. It was pooling all around her and riding along the cracks between the tiles. Her light blue shirt was all torn up and stained dark, kind of mixed with a fleshy mess around her chest. It was all just glistening red. Her face wasn’t much better, covered in dripping red at this point, and her lip was kind of hanging off, revealing red-stained teeth in a really weird way, like a zombie or something. Linda wasn’t dead, though. Her limbs were kind of weakly, aimlessly trying to move while she was stuck on her back. More than anything, she reminded me of a bug that you crush but it still pitifully moves its legs around before it dies completely. That’s basically what she was doing. But I didn’t know how long it would take for her to die, or what kind of condition she was in. I ended up grabbing a big knife that was on the counter that she was using to cut up meat. Trying to step around the blood, I reached down and carved into the upper half of her neck, trying to sort of saw it from the left side to the right. It was a little awkward because the area was so soft and squished around the knife as I was cutting. But the sensation was completely different from the axe. It actually felt like I was cutting a tough piece of raw meat (which I guess technically, I was). The blood started pouring out, and I hoped that I severed the most major arteries in there. It must have worked, because after a moment Linda’s limb movements kind of just had the strength drained from them, soon resting still on the floor. I took a few seconds to catch my breath. No time to stick around and think about the experience. I shook the knife blade through a dirty pan in the sink to clean off the blood, then threw the knife into my backpack. I did the same with the axe. I also took her laptop that was sitting on the counter. It had some recipe open for veal and mushrooms. I didn’t really take the laptop to use it, since I have a perfectly good one myself that I got for college. I just wanted to look through it for fun. I finally went outside and closed the door behind me. I got some blood on my sweater and jeans. But funnily enough, I actually anticipated that so I wore dark colors. The drive back to my dorm was just a constant replaying of the experience in my head. I guess that’s still kind of happening even now, actually. But it felt pretty nice. Linda Watson is dead. I kind of let the weight of that sink in. The sensation of having completely removed a human life from existence. It’s crazy. I don’t know how else to describe it. Anyway, I threw the axe and knife into a dumpster on campus, which I think is picked up every Monday, so they’ll be gone by then. My roommate goes home on the weekends, so I have the dorm to myself today. It gave me the chance to go through Linda’s website history. I was right in thinking that’s where her deepest secrets would lie. There was actually a lot of dirty stuff, like the names of websites for porn videos and stories and things like that. Same with her searches. A lot of the websites were boring, like cooking websites and recipes, and game websites like Bejeweled and stuff. I eventually got to the “one week ago” section of her history, and it gave me a chill. There were a whole bunch of searches like “methods of suicide”, “how to tie a noose”, “dangerous household chemicals”, “carbon monoxide poisoning” - like a lot of them. She was probably ready to write a book on suicide after all the research she did. So I guess Linda was contemplating suicide. I wonder if it was influenced by her depression. The irony is actually striking. Maybe Linda was going to die anyway. Or maybe she couldn’t find the courage to do it. If that were the case, I almost literally gave her a birthday present by killing her. That’s actually really comical in a messed-up way, and it leaves a weird taste in my mouth. The part I don’t get is that I didn’t see any of those searches up until the “one week ago” section, nothing more recent than that. I ended up throwing the laptop in the dumpster with the other stuff. It’s been a few hours since then, so I’ve had some time to calmly think about everything. Like I said, it was pretty satisfying and I’m glad I finally got around to it. I feel like I can finally cross it off my bucket list, or like I’m tying loose ends with myself. This is probably the first and last time I’ll write the name Linda Watson - it’s back to living a normal college life, except I might do some people-watching every now and then because it’s definitely fun and interesting. But I’ll always wonder how many people there are like me. I’m sure there has to be a lot, because there is just nothing strange about it to me, being curious about killing someone. Sadly, it’s something that people can’t exactly just talk about, so I guess I’ll never know. I’m sure that anyone would just lie about it even if you asked them. But you can’t help but wonder if that person in the grocery store, who stares at you as you pass by, might be considering what it would be like to kill you. If I could, I would tell them all about it, so they could decide for themselves. But who knows, maybe I got lucky, and that person is you. I actually really, really hope so. ~♥"

Natsuki's ".chr" file Decoded:

We haven't figured this one out yet, but we have a few ideas. Note the image is seamless horizontally.

When we opened Natsuki's ".chr" file we again noticed it looked like an image file. We simply renamed the file extension to ".png" or ".jfif" to get the image below.

     The above may have already been documented/decoded. I would like to note that not all of the character files were encoded with Base64.

Thank you for reading, even though it may have already been done.

[pallabbose-blog]

WORK FROM HOME EFFECTIVELY

Even before the onset of the current global pandemic, more and more companies started offering its employees the option to work from home. The growth of remote work is nothing new, but the urgency brought on by the COVID-19 coronavirus means many of us suddenly needed to work from home, for the first time, with a lack of formal policies or training. If you're suddenly navigating this new work from home normal, this session will cover some tips and resources to help with the transition.

More people are foregoing a lengthy commute and working from home. However, working outside an office can be a challenge. What are the best ways to set yourself up for success? How do you stay focused and productive? And how do you keep your work life separate from your home life?

What the Experts Say

The days when working from home conjured an image of a slacker in pajamas are rapidly disappearing. Technological advances and employers looking to lower costs have resulted in more people working outside an office than ever before. By one estimate, telecommuting increased in the U.S. by 80% between 2005 and 2012. “The obvious benefits for workers include flexibility, autonomy, and the comfort of working in your own space,” says Ned Hallowell, author of the forthcoming Driven to Distraction at Work. And done well, working from home can mean a marked increase in output. A Stanford University study last year found that the productivity of employees who worked from home was 13% higher than their office-bound colleagues. People often feel they make more progress when working from home, says Steven Kramer, a psychologist and author of The Progress Principle, and “of all the things that can boost people’s work life, the single most important is simply making progress on meaningful work.”

Here’s how to work from home effectively.

Maintain a regular schedule - “Without supervision, even the most conscientious of us can slack off,” says Hallowell. Setting a schedule not only provides structure to the day, it also helps you stay motivated. Start the day as you would if you worked in an office: Get up early, get dressed, and try to avoid online distractions once you sit down to work. Whether you just started working at home or you’ve been doing it for months or years, take a few weeks to determine the best rhythm for your day. Then set realistic expectations for what you can accomplish on a daily basis. “Make a schedule and stick to it,” says Kramer. Make sure you give yourself permission to have downtime. If you have to work extra hours on a project, give yourself some extra free time later on to compensate.

Set clear boundaries - When you work at home, it’s easy to let your work life blur into your home life. “Unless you are careful to maintain boundaries, you may start to feel you’re always at work and lose a place to come home to,” Hallowell says. That’s why it’s important to keep the two distinct. One way to do that is to set aside a separate space in your home for work. You also want to make sure your friends and loved ones understand that even though you are at home, you are off limits during your scheduled work hours. “If the doorbell rings, unless I’m really expecting something, I’ll ignore it,” says Kramer. That not only helps you stay focused, but makes it easier to get out of work mode at the end of the day. “Schedule your time with your family, and with yourself,” says Kramer. “Put those on your daily calendar as seriously as you would your work.” And don’t worry about stopping for the day if you’re on a roll with a project. Pausing in the middle of something will make it easier to jump into the task the next day — a tip that is valid for everyone, but especially those working from home.

Take regular breaks - It may be tempting to work flat out, especially if you’re trying to prove that you’re productive at home. But it’s vital to “take regular ‘brain breaks,’” says Hallowell. How often is best? Researchers at a social media company recently tracked the habits of their most productive employees. They discovered that the best workers typically worked intently for around 52 minutes and then took a 17-minute break. And these restorative breaks needn’t take any particular form. “It can be as simple as staring out the window or reading the newspaper,” says Hallowell, anything to give your brain an opportunity to briefly recuperate. “The brain is like any other muscle. It needs to rest,” says Kramer. “Go for a walk, get some exercise, stretch. Then get back to work.

Stay connected - Prolonged isolation can lead to weakened productivity and motivation. So if you don’t have a job that requires face-time with others on a daily basis, you need to put in the extra effort to stay connected. Make a point of scheduling regular coffees and meetings with colleagues, clients, and work peers. Get involved with professional organizations. And use online networking sites like LinkedIn to maintain connections with far-flung contacts. Since visibility can be an important factor in who gets promoted (or scapegoated) back at the office, check in as often as you can with colleagues and superiors. “Tell people what you’re doing,” says Kramer. Share some of the tasks you’ve accomplished that day. “It’s critically important not just for your career, but for your psychological well-being,” he says.

Celebrate your wins - When you’re working on your own at home, staying motivated can be difficult, especially when distractions — Facebook, that pile of laundry, the closet that needs organizing — abound. One smart way to maintain momentum is to spend a moment or two acknowledging what you have been able to accomplish that day, rather than fixating on what you still need to do. “Take some time at the end of the day to attend to the things that you got done instead of the things you didn’t get done,” says Kramer. You might also keep a journal in which you reflect on that day’s events and note what you were able to check off your to-do list. The daily reminder of what you were able to finish will help create a virtuous cycle going forward.

Principles to Remember:

Do:

Make a schedule and stick to it

Focus on what you’ve accomplished at the end of each day to keep yourself motivated

Create a dedicated workspace and let your family know that you are unavailable during those particular work hours, at least five days a week.

Don’t:

Try to work all day without regular breaks — your productivity and motivation will suffer

Isolate yourself — go the extra mile to meet up with colleagues and peers to talk shop

Neglect to check in regularly with colleagues and bosses — it’s important to make yourself ‘visible’ even if you aren’t in the office

Case study #1: Stay organized and adjust

Freelancing from home for Heather Spohr, a writer and copywriter based in Los Angeles, wasn’t her choice. After 10 years in the corporate world, she was laid off from a six-figure sales job in 2008, but “I had a baby at home, so I just sort of shifted my focus,” Heather says. Today, she writes articles for everyone from parenting and banking sites to “car companies, drug companies, beauty companies, you name it,” she says.

Despite wanting to keep regular working hours, Heather often finds that the pressures of finding new writing jobs in addition to executing the ones she’s already landed often push her into overtime. “It can be very hard maintaining a schedule because freelancing is so feast or famine,” she says.

To give more structure to her working life, she sits down each Sunday evening after her kids have gone to bed and maps out of the following week. “I’m huge on lists,” she says. “I make daily schedules and prioritize tasks. Then everyday I revise that schedule because things come up.” She also makes it a habit to include an hour of flex time into her daily schedule. That way, “if my sitter’s going to be an hour late, it’s not going to wreck my day,” she says. “Once I started doing that, my stress level dropped considerably.”

She insists on taking regular breaks, setting a timer that goes off every 45 minutes. “Then I give myself 5 to 10 minutes to get up, get a snack, look at Twitter, play Candy Crush, whatever,” she says. “At first I felt guilty for doing it, but I would remind myself that when I worked in an office, I’d get interrupted so much more than that. Even with these breaks, I’m still getting more done.”

What Heather finds most challenging is the isolation. “I’m very social and extroverted, and I love being surrounded by people,” she says. To combat loneliness, she schedules time with fellow writers and friends for face time. She has also found a thriving network of other work-at-home writers in various online discussion groups. “There are lots of people I’ve clicked with through Citigroup’s Women & Co. group and LinkedIn, and there will be chat rooms I’ll pop into to say hello and connect,” she says.

Case study #2: Maintain work-life boundaries

When Catherine Campbell launched her own branding and strategy business in Asheville, North Carolina, earlier this year, she already had some experience working from home. Her last job, as marketing director for a copywriting agency, was a virtual one, but she knew that launching her own company would require more discipline. “Managing my time and not overworking was going to be the biggest challenge,” she says.

From the start, Catherine set strict rules for keeping her work life distinct from her home life. “It’s all about boundaries and mindset,” she says. She never uploaded work emails to her phone, so that she wouldn’t be tempted to check messages at all hours of the day. She is only available on Skype by appointment and explicitly states in her email signature that her working hours are 9am to 5pm EST. “When you leave a traditional office, you’re often done for the day,” she says. “You have to approach it the same way when maintaining a home office.”

She also tries to block out the first hour of each day to check email, do her own promotion and marketing, and make a list of daily goals. “Allowing what I call a quiet hour for myself just to get focused and to knock out some of the smaller tasks allows me to really jump into the larger client work for the rest of the day,” she says. She also makes it a point to leave the house every day, rain or shine, at 5pm. “I go for a walk, pick up my son, go to a networking group, grab that last item for dinner, or meet with a friend or colleague to talk shop,” she says.

She also doesn’t sweat the times when she has to work late on a project because she gives that time back to herself later on. “It’s what I would call ‘smart scheduling,’” Catherine says. “You say to yourself, OK, I have this extra client this week or this project emergency so I’m going to work these two nights. But then I’m going to cut back on Friday and get out of the office at 2 pm.”

“Working from home is always a fine line,” she says. “You have to learn how to give and take with yourself so that your business doesn’t take over who you are.”

Visit www.ifdainternational.com Now!!

[recentanimenews]

STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING, There's Godzilla on VRV!

I stopped being obsessed with Star Wars when they shut down the Expanded Universe, forcing me to look at my collection of paperback novels and weep. My obsession with Lord of the Rings tends to fade in and out, peaking around the holidays when I go through my yearly tradition of watching all four-hundred hours of the Extended Editions. And my obsession with Batman and Spider-Man are firmly locked in certain incarnations of those characters, namely in the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon and in Tim Burton's two beautiful films about clown murder.

  But my obsession with Godzilla? That's always held strong. I love that radioactive dinosaur and everything it stands for. Whether it's a maasive CGI creation or a stuntman plowing, crotch first, into miniature buildings, I don't think there's a type of Godzilla that I dislike. And that's why I'm so delighted to say that WE GOT GODZILLA ON VRV, Y'ALL.

    I know. I know. This should technically be a holiday. The Big G is a friend to you and mankind and everyone except robots that are built to look like it, and now you can inject four of its city-smashing adventures directly into your eyeballs: 

  Ebirah, Horror of the Deep

  Godzilla vs. Hedorah

  Godzilla vs. Gigan

  The Return of Godzilla

  Not only are these four rad movies to binge in preparation for 2019's Godzilla: King of the Monsters, but they each provide a solid viewing experience on their own. And that's because they offer different things. For example...

  EBIRAH, HORROR OF THE DEEP

    Most Godzilla films that were produced in the 60s were directed by a thoughtful, brilliant man named Ishiro Honda. Despite the fact that he spent much of his career directing dramas before he became attached to giant monsters, he showed a real respect for the beauty and the fantasy of them. They were laser-shooting spectacles, but they were also beasts to be admired. 

  Ebirah, Horror of the Deep is not an Ishiro Honda film.

  Instead, it was directed by Jun Fukuda, who, from his Godzilla output in the 60s and 70s, seemed to be most interested in the adventure aspects. He wanted rocks to fall, fists to fly, and blood to flow. Not a bad director by any means, but there aren't many Ishiro Honda films that end with Godzilla winning his fight by graphically ripping off his opponent's claws. Did I mention that Ebirah is a giant lobster? That's fun.

    GODZILLA VS. HEDORAH

  Godzilla vs. Hedorah is a delightfully weird movie. People dissolve into skeletons due to the antagonist monster's poison gas, the visuals can be quite trippy, the theme song is a banger about "movin' the moon, now," and Godzilla ends the film by flying away. The producer, Tomoyuki Tanaka, disliked it so much that he never let the director, Yoshimitsu Banno, make another Godzilla film. 

  But I dig it, because the monster fights are dirty and awesome, and because Hedorah is more of a horror villain than a science fiction one. Also, this film features a famous Godzilla actor fighting another famous Godzilla actor: Haruo Nakajima, playing Godzilla, gets to tussle with Kenpachiro Satsuma, who plays Hedorah here, and would eventually play Godzilla from 1984 to 1994. If you're watching this film with a loved one, tell them that piece of trivia, and use their interest level to guage whether or not you want to stay married to them.

  GODZILLA VS. GIGAN

  This is another one from Jun Fukuda, and it's a tag team match where Godzilla and Anguirus take on Team Nate Ming (Gigan and King Ghidorah.) King Ghidorah is a returning challenger, but Gigan is an inspired newcomer, silvery and with a belly that has a giant buzzsaw on it. You can tell that this is a Jun Fukuda film because, at one point, Anguirus walks right into that buzzsaw and gets his face cut open, and because Gigan eventually pounds all the blood out of Godzilla's skull.

  Along with a giant tower that's shaped exactly like Godzilla and alien invaders that turn into cockroaches when they die, this is a pretty fun flick. Also, it's Haruo Nakajima's last hurrah as Godzilla, and he gets to do so much running and wrestling and fighting during it. Lastly, it's the final time they used the Soshingeki-Goji style Godzilla suit, and that's probably for the best, as, after four movies, it's literally falling apart of screen.

THE RETURN OF GODZILLA

About a decade after Terror of MechaGodzilla, Godzilla returned to the screen with this film, one that ignored every film other than the 1954 original. Now, if you're looking for multiple monster action, try Tinder or any of the other films on this list, because Return of Godzilla is a solo outing. And Godzilla does spend a decent chunk of it lying passed out on his side after a little jet called the Super X fires some missiles into his mouth. But don't blame Godzilla, as it hasn't worked out in ten years and probably gets winded pretty easily.

I really like how Godzilla looks in this film. The suit is awesome and the looming buildings create an even stronger vibe of a creature trapped in a time where it doesn't belong. Also, after surviving an all out assault from the Super X and knocking a building onto it, Godzilla's wounded, victorious roar while surrounded by the flames of the city is one of my favorite moments in the entire franchise. 

Overall, whether you're a die-hard fan of the franchise or just someone that wants to see what this Godzilla business is all about, you should check out these four films. They're all available on the HIDIVE channel of VRV, along with plenty more awesome content. 

  ------------------------------

Daniel Dockery is a writer and editor for Crunchyroll that wishes he could wear a Godzilla costume, just once. You can check out his Twitter by clicking here.

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com