#bold and passionate

[inkskinned]

this is just my opinion but i think any good media needs obsession behind it. it needs passion, the kind of passion that's no longer "gentle scented candle" and is now "oh shit the house caught on fire". it needs a creator that's biting the floorboards and gnawing the story off their skin. creators are supposed to be wild animals. they are supposed to want to tell a story with the ferocity of eating a good stone fruit while standing over the sink. the same protective, strange instinct as being 7 and making mud potions in pink teacups: you gotta get weird with it.

good media needs unhinged, googling-at-midnight kind of energy. it needs "what kind of seams are invented on this planet" energy and "im just gonna trust the audience to roll with me about this" energy. it needs one person (at least) screaming into the void with so much drive and energy that it forces the story to be real.

sometimes people are baffled when fanfic has some stunning jaw-dropping tattoo-it-on-you lines. and i'm like - well, i don't go here, but that makes sense to me. of fucking course people who have this amount of passion are going to create something good. they moved from a place of genuine love and enjoyment.

so yeah, duh! saturday cartoons have banger lines. random street art is sometimes the most precious heart-wrenching shit you've ever seen. someone singing on tiktok ends up creating your next favorite song. youtubers are giving us 5 hours of carefully researched content. all of this is the impossible equation to latestage capitalism. like, you can't force something to be good. AI cannot make it good. no amount of focus-group testing or market research. what makes a story worth listening to is that someone cares so much about telling it - through dance, art, music, whatever it takes - that they are just a little unhinged about it.

one time my friend told me he stayed up all night researching how many ways there are to peel an orange. he wrote me a poem that made me cry on public transportation. the love came through it like pith, you know? the words all came apart in my hands. it tasted like breakfast.

[power-and-glory]

[marauderswolf22]

sirius: if i were an actor, i would like to play in amazing films that plot and ships and characters interests me right?

james: sure

sirius: but at the same time, i wouldn't want to play in those bc they're so good and i want to watch them later without watching myself act

james: YES I WOULD NEVER

[coldshrugs]

io character sheet!

[secriden]

Everyone in the tags calling Style swagless and rizzless, but can I just raise the counterpoint that the second he actually tried to be seductive, Fadel folded like the wet tissue paper he had to use to clean himself up afterwards.

[wanderingmind867]

The Aphrodite cabin lacks individuality. Everyone's bed looks the same. The whole house is painted in pinks and pastels and nothing is out of place. It's suffocatingly sterile, which isn't what Aphrodite is about. Even though I might be aromantic (I'm not sure, but I've definitely never felt romantic love for anyone in real life before that i've noticed. But that's a topic for another note, not just a random tangent on this one) I can tell you that.

Love is passion! Passion isn't a boring dreamhouse! Passion would be each camper's bed reflecting them and their sense of beauty. Because beauty is subjective, and it's that subjectivity that makes it beauty. I bet Drew contributed to the Aphrodite cabin being so bland. Because that's not what Aphrodite stands for at all. It's sort of loosely like the ares cabin, honestly. That's what I'm picturing. Love and War go together shockingly well. Because love is like a war. It's that passionate dance of flames, yet it's also that tenderness that awaits within. I mean...look at all the love songs. Some are ballads and some are downright hard rock war crys. Because love is many, many things.

[theywontletmebeprincipal]

compiled all (I hope) of fydolla ho (shawnee smith’s rock band)’s music into one (1) google drive file so that nobody has to listen to ads in between songs/worry about the yt reuploads getting taken down. have fun (`･ω･´)ゞ

[arctic-hands]

Thirty minutes and 9 paragraphs into an excited list of alternatives to Spotify's monopoly re: music, videos, podcasts, audiobooks, for weenies like me who are nervous about pirating, and my app crashes.

Well now I'm on a laptop and I swear to god if this crashes too I'm calling it a conspiracy.

LEGAL ALTERNATIVES TO SPOTIFY:

Music: There are virtually limitless options here. Buy music directly from the musicians/band! If they don't sell mp3s directly from their site, they almost certainly have CDs for sale, so buy those and rip the mp3s to your computer (if your computer doesn't have a CD slot, you can buy an external one for fairly cheap). Go to a new/used music store, they still exist!, and buy albums there. Buy old albums from ebay! Go to goodwill or other thrift stores and browse there collection of cast-off music for cheap, you never know what you'll find. Hell, browse their cheap vinyl if you prefer their sound and get a vinyl-to-MP3 conversion device if you like. They even have conversion devices for cassette tapes, if you find a treasure that was only ever released on tape. Once upon a time I would have said Bandcamp for MP3 or even physical albums (I once upon a time got an AUTOGRAPHED TO MY NAME CD of Lauren Ruth Ward's Well Hell album), but they recently union busted and a lot of artists pulled their stuff from them. I don't really know anything about 7Digital's business practices, but they are another seller of MP3 music, as well as MP4, FLAC, and WAV.

Music DEVICES: If you just want to manage everything on one device, your phone, get the free VLC app! It's open source and is absolutely wonderful. I only ever used it for music, but it's capable of much more than I realized, and it's open source and ad-free! And the audio files are tiny, even when I was running out of room on my sixteen gig old phone, I still had a substantial music library on it before before I got a dedicated music player.

Which brings me to my next point: MP3 PLAYERS STILL EXIST! I own two! My first one is a twenty-dollar SanDisk Clip Jam (an established and sturdy brand), my current is a thirty-dollar Phinistec Z6 (that just came out of nowhere it seems). Each have their pros and cons, and there are so so so many options out there. Some are smart, some don't even have wifi (neither of mine do). Some have expandable card slots for even more music. Some are extremely basic, some have a plethora of features. Some are cheap but still decent in sound, some are high-end for that true audiophile experience. Some have touch screens, some have buttons, some have no screens at all. Some only use wired earphones, some only use bluetooth, some (like the Z6) can use both! There are so many brands out there even in Twenty Twenty-four. Even the random brands cropping up online are some really good shit, and I bought both of mine used bc I have concerns about the lithium industry. Oh, and some are regular battery powered. And you don't need iTunes or anything, I just use the basic Windows Media Player to rip my CDs or put mp3s music on my player. In fact I've been avoiding Apple players because I'm worried they'd brick older devices, especially ones with wifi. But there are so many options out there, it's impossible to name them all.

Audiobooks: YOU DON'T HAVE TO USE AUDIBLE! Libro.fm has a similar business model (an optional subscription fee with a free credit every month, or the option to buy book without a subscription for a little bit extra price), and you can direct the profits to the indie bookseller of your choice! I have mine set to go to Baltimore's anarcho-feminist bookstore, Red Emma's. How to listen to the audiobooks you buy? Libro has an app you can listen to directly from! AND they have the option to directly download from the site (meaning no program you have to install) the book in non-proprietary mp3/mp4 files so you can listen to it on any device that can use those files! THAT INCLUDES MP3 PLAYERS! Almost every music player on the market now not only plays audiobooks, but has sections on the device specifically for them! Some, like the Clip Jam, are even proprietary audible-compatible if you still use or already have books there (check audible's site, and you'll have to go thru a registration process). I was listening to audiobooks on both my CJ and the Z6 (the Z6 doesn't have a section for them, but still played them), but I recently bought an e-ink/e-paper (meaning no backlit LED screen causing eye strain or insomnia) ereader, a Pocketbook Touch HD 3, and that is mp3/mp4 capable for audiobooks, and is easier to maneuver books with since it's meant for books. ALSO: the library apps Hoopla and Libby also have audiobooks you can listen to via phone or computer/browser, depending on your library's catalog. Some ereaders can even have the apps for them, and if they have audiocapabilities you can use the ereader for that too.

Podcasts: There are so many apps for this. I have Podcast Addict (I don't remember off the top of my head if it's on apple, I use android, but there are still so many apps). Literally I only had to sacrifice one podcast when I stopped using spotify, PodcastAddict has everything else I've ever listened to or want to listen to in the future. You can download them for offline use on your phone, and, you guessed it, MOST MP3 PLAYERS HAVE PODCAST SECTIONS TOO. MINE DO! There are still ads at the beginning and end, but I usually skip over them without care.

Video: This one is a bit trickier as YouTube is also a monopoly, but what I do is just watch yt on my phone's Firefox browser with UBlock Origins adblocker installed. Sometimes yt gets into a hissy fit with adblocker, but UBlock usually gets ahead pretty quickly thus far. And if in the periods Origins is losing, I just find something else to do. I'm sure someone else has recommendations for videos, they're just not a big part of my life right now.

Anyway, don't let the horrid beast that is spotify monopoloize the audio industry OR your time! There are options, and even if you're not a luddite like me that hates having everything on my smartphone bc I'm worried about privacy or companies yoinking their stuff off my devices via wifi (like Amazon did once with their copies of, of all things, Nineteen Eighty-four about a decade ago) at the whim of corporations. You HAVE OPTIONS! YOU HAVE THE POWER TO CONTROL YOUR MEDIA AND REJECT MONOPOLIES!

[mermaidsirennikita]

the Interview team knows what I myself have known for quite some time (and it's so validating):

within the core of basically every great tangled emotional drama series of the 21st century is the beating heart, the DNA, of daytime soap operas

[power-and-glory]

[softgothbabe]

Am I insufferable yet?

No?

Don't worry, I will be!

[blueeyesfilledwithpassion]

Audentes Fortuna Luvat

May Your Coffee Be More Bold Than Your Day Is.

Godspeed.

[attackoneyebrows]

“So we carved it out and I almost lost the job trying to do that.” (x)

[mo-ok]

yo bioman what the fuck

[glittergroovy]

champagne - k.flay

[agonizedembrace]

“the blood moon calls.” there’s a clear tone of unease in her words. “more and more of them come at us each day.” us, not me. gaze slides to her side, where evelynn tends to be more often that not. “you’ve gotten more than you’ve bargained for, i’m sure, choosing to stay.”

and they do not answer.

evelynn knows the stares and comments she receives from others ; it is hardly impossible to ignore. fellow demons and humans alike, granting a side eye at the fact she hasn't merged with anyone. for she could have just about anyone -- but what's the point if the one she wants is right there beside her? and she needs not to worry about merging, least not yet, but she knows their days are numbered.

evelynn does not hide the flicker of hope in her gaze at the word 'us'.

"why darling, there's no other place i'd rather be." the demon coos, and damn does she mean it. though sly are her words, they still hold meaning to them. batting her eyes, she slides closer, daring to prod the human's personal space and rest both hands along her shoulders. with a purr, she presses against akali's back with her stomach and chest, slowly wrapping her arms around her neck for a hug. "and who's a girl to deny such free meals on the daily?"