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doctorguilty · 1 year ago

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Nightmares

I feel asleep when i got home because I was tired and also started having an awful headache, but I slept so weirdly having weird and bad dreams and waking up a lot and falling back asleep, at one point I woke myself up because I was sleep talking (rare for me but when it does happen I tend to wake up from my own noise) and I vaguely remember I was having a dream where I was talking to someone random, but irl I whispered "you don't have to tell me if you don't want to" and it's weird getting woken up by my own sleep talking cause it's like there's an overlap where I'm still asleep saying it but I'm also waking up and aware mid sentence. Anyway idk it's usually a bad sign when that happens like it means I'm having weird stress dreams

I fell back asleep shortly after and I proceeded to have an awful nightmare, I dreamed I got dropped off at a store and I waited to get picked up but nobody came because they all fell asleep. It was 10 pm when I finally called someone because the store closed and I was just standing outside in the dark. My grandma picked up, I'd woken her up and I felt bad but she came to get me. For whatever reason everyone was staying at my mom's house, so that's where she was driving me home to.

My mom's house is kinda in the sticks irl, not horribly so, but the roads do get scary at night because they're windy and dark which is what I was dreaming about. We had driven SO long we should have gotten there by now but somehow we got lost. After turning around multiple times and seeing nothing we recognized I took out my phone to use Google maps but every time I typed in the address, it would route me to a completely different address. Like it didn't recognize the address and just "autofilled" what it thought I meant but it was unhelpful because I didn't recognize any of its suggestions. In the meantime my grandma kept driving, somehow unfazed and just saying things like "hm. Must've taken a wrong turn. It's okay I'll find it". I tried zooming in on the map and just manually looking but my service was poor and it was difficult getting street names and such to load. Sometimes I just had no service whatsoever and I just had to wait until it came back

In the meantime the road was so dark I was scared of crashing, a few times there was stuff that quickly crossed the road like deer though sometimes it looked like a small child or something and would just disappear into the darkness. Sometimes there was most definitely like adult people jogging alongside the road even though it in the middle of the night and I was scared we'd hit someone.

Any time I could get any coherent glimpse of the map it seemed like we'd gone 40 mins in the wrong direction, I suggested maybe we stop driving and wait until I could finally route us to the address but my grandma just calmly said it's okay don't worry she's just gonna keep looking

We were driving through like, tunnels and shit that don't exist in that area, sometimes we wouldn't see the road and accidently drive off it and like slide down a hill to a lower road. And she'd just keep driving.

It felt like hours and there'd be times where the sun was rising and we could see the roads a little better, but then suddenly it would become pitch dark again. (I don't recall seeing any kind of clock in the dream or even thinking about checking one.) My grandma never seemed distressed by any of this, which made it worse. She just kept calmly driving. Eventually in the dream I began to think I? We? Were dead and this was purgatory. Driving in the dark forever looking for my mom's house and never getting there.

Irl, I'd woken up SEVERAL TIMES, thought "oh thank God that dream is over" like very coherently, rolled over or whatever, fall back asleep, and the dream just continued where it left off in the car. It must have been 4 or 5 times this repeated before, finally, here I am now being like, I don't want to go back to sleep I'm awake I'm not getting back in the car

My head still hurts anyway so I should take some of my prescription medicine. And eat. Fuck

#seth speaks

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carpediemsonysony · 14 days ago

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heaven and hell

how much suffering can people put themselves in willingly? is it slowly bit by bit missing the big picture after all this time has passed them and they are shocked their hair is turned grey and their bones hurt a lot more and their heart is heavier to the point where they can't get up from their bed? does this bed just become their casket and their body is just 6 ft above and still suffering? Would't it be nice to have some rest? yes, that would be nice. And some peace. I wonder which story will shock us futher and deeper this time? Is there anything new on TV? Not that I know of. Ive searched thousands of escapes in the last 2 mins to search for anything that feels like it will keep me afloat the waves of life that seem to grow bigger and darjer and the storm just keeps on hitting you. Is there any new tragic captivating netflix true crime documentary released yet? I think that's my new lifeboat for the next 2 hours. Doesnt seem like enough time to rest in peace though. I wonder what it would be like to go back to the eternal slumber of existance. I wonder if this is hell most days. I wonder if this is just purgatory. Imagine if it was. If you knew, would you take the risk and escape this life? of course you would. If heaven and eternal being was just a quick decision of pain for the reward of forever at peace. I would, Im afraid the suffering will choke me and its already this heard to breathe. I don't know how else to get air that I dont poison before inhaling. It really is as if my spirit is overtaken by another program and I am just at the mercy of my body being controlled without me having a say. It feels like Im a trapped soul in a body that is a prison cell. Please I beg from the prison cell starved and put in solitude weak and skeleton barely recognizable. That is what I imagine darkness to be. Your own personal hell hole. And mine is this.

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rrasado · 3 years ago

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No Spider Lilies : I

|| Act 2 of The Snapping ||

A/N: Ara? What’s this? I never thought I’d find myself wanting to actually re-end this accidental series dksjsn but...I wasn’t satisfied and frankly I’m craving an even more sorrowful route. Who knows? After all...this all deviates from the main story line in game. As usual I shall provide any necessary trigger warnings to ensure a safe reading for you all 💙🌒💙. Pleas tell if you want to be part of a tag list for the next parts. I’ll be using my past tag list as basis but if you don’t wanna be tagged next time don’t hesitate to tell me ^ ^.

Tagging: @starshiningsirius @dittoqueeno @thatweirdomidas @bnhastakenover

__________________________________________

And when death do them part…

...would it really fulfill that cruelty?

Storm clouds formed high above, raindrop cascading down on everything on the face of the earth indiscriminately. The residents of that lamenting house deep in the Devildom never really cared for such details lest it concerned them and their doings directly. At least...that was when they didn’t know how to care, so what happened?

__________________________________________

The records...the way the aged parchment felt in the exchange student’s hand just signified the reality of the parchment’s contents. No excuse can dismiss such news, especially one of this degree… They could barely speak in the moment, a few deafeningly silent minutes passed before they peered up at the Devildom prince’s own butler.

“I...thank you Barbatos…”

Their gratitude was much more meaningful than at face value, the scale of the revelation they had just received isn’t something to be taken lightly and since it especially concerns them, well…

“I trust that you’re taking all of it in?... I can only imagine how you feel right after...certain prior events.”

They both knew what the time bonded demon was referring to, after all it was him who escorted them to their new place of residence for the rest of their stay here at the Devildom. Hah..that was already two months ago. Now that they thought of it...Barbatos have always been there for them huh? The reveal...the dorm transfer requesting...and now this. Whether it was due to his time related prowess or sheer coincidence which- they honestly dismissed after everything that has come to play- the human was grateful.

“Yeah...I think...I’m actually thankful for this”

Barbatos blinked for a good few good seconds before arching a brow at their proclamation. Thankful? Does the human not know what the contents make of them? His confusion was brought to a close when MC casually waved the parchment, it’s sounds accompanied by the night wind that whizzed past the two in front of Purgatory Hall.

“I feared the worst, humans tend to...be easily toppled by the unexpected per se...Then again you are the great exception”

“Eheh I’m honored you hold me in high regard. Because it’ll make my next proposal a bit easier”

And yet again, the butler’s confusion returned, proposal? Well after everything that has spiraled leading up to where they stand it honestly wasn’t that far fetched to him, so with an affirmative nod he gestured for them to continue.

“Hearing of it won’t hurt, what is it you wish then?”

He didn’t miss the way MC’s lips tugged upward in subtle relief. The human’s gaze quickly flickered back to the contents of the parchment and without looking up they spoke.

“Can I count on you if I need to make a wretched departure?”

De...parture? He had a hunch but he needs more context…

“In what sense does this departure fall on for you to need my assistance?”

“Hm...a departure that looks grimmer to those you choose to be grim to.”

The two turned their heads to thewhite haired sorcerer. An ever knowing smirk on his expression as he stood there arms crossed. How long has he been eavesdropping? Not that MC minded...after all they’ve grown to actually trust the shady sorcerer along with the other two angelic residents of Purgatory Hall.

“Truth be told, I've been conducting research of my own… and to a pleasant surprise it seems my lead was not entirely off!”

Childish tone aside, his gaze showed no sign of jest nor kid. In one flick of his finger the old parchment apparated within Solomon’s grasp. And if possible the smug aura on his features grew twofold along with an amused chuckled escaping his parted lips. My oh my did he always manage to come so close yet far..

“Would you believe me if I said I was prepared to act on my pact in the making of this negotiation?”

“Fufufu I do believe that we’re still in the phase of hearing this proposal... I have yet to bestow a verdict so you shouldn’t speak so mightily Solomon.”

“And if I may continue..”

…

…..

“...I see…”

The sheer collateral damage at stake is something of its own degree when not tended to with precise caution. He's only delivered the news tonight and yet it was as if they’ve been concucting such a proposition for a considerable amount of time. Then again...the sorcerer did mention doing his own antics regarding the subject.

“With all that said...Barbatos, will you lend us a hand or a place at blade point?”

His shoulders rose and fell with the seconds that passed before he gave a slow curt nod at the two humans.

“Hm… if it means something, the young Lord did vow behind closed doors that he shall keep all the exchange students safe no matter what it may cost...and seeing as it will technically align with my duties..”

A chorus of amused laughter spilled from the magicless human, lips curled into a grin whilst the sorcerer could only let out a chuckle or two.

“Barbatos, I thank you. I know you won’t state it as is but, your help is very much appreciated”

“It really is, and it puts me at ease knowing I have you on our side in this whole issue…”

“If I may...I’d like to evaluate this more into much prefaced details. Would it be alright if we were to properly prepare this? After all...this especially concerns you, MC”

Said human gave an affirmative nod as their hands clasped behind their back, fiddling with their own exposed fingers as the late night breeze passed the three of them yet again.

“It’s best we all retire...who knows what’ll happen if we idle out here any longer, an interesting sight to see this particular roster of residents out of premises at this hour noh?”

“Point taken...well we’ll see you next time Barb”

“Yes...I bid you two a good evening and a hopefully peaceful night.”

A wish so innocent yet truthfully hard to attain...especially with the cruel revelation that brought the three of them together in the first place. They should learn to tread carefully from here on out. At least...that’s what Solomon thought. That same night breeze had passed the gardens, among which were multiple blossoms yet to bloom, all but one crimson lily...

__________________________________________

And from a starry night it all flickers to that unforgiving herd of rain clouds, their own right of sorrow spiraling along with those that received their cold moist. If followed...those raindrops fall onto someone crouched form, in front of a chipped tombstone amidst any ordinary cemetery that lays barren with the weather.

A lone umbrella covered the crouched form, rendering any other incoming rain from soaking the tuft of white hair any further. Mammon didn’t need to look up and see who it was offering cover. Levi didn’t care whether he himself got wet and frankly not even the rain water on his skin put him at any ease whatsoever. No one could be comforted at this point… And whatever it was to put the usually bickering brothers in such hushed silence…

“We gotta get going y’know…”

“...five more mins…”

“Lucifer is getting restless the more you push your luck-“

“Then let him dammit”

Levi didn’t even bother questioning his brother's lack of fear for the first born. Normally he would’ve made fun of it but… when his orange hued gaze fell on to what was even engraved on the chipped tombstone. It didn’t sit right with him, heck it didn’t sit right with any of them. And who could blame them...the guilt crawling on their backs never left when they saw them leave the House of Lamentation. At some point they thought of...eventually getting closure, some of them even had plans.

But now they won’t be able to attain such desirable closure, not when...they aren’t there to listen to their pathetic pleas.

A good few distance away from them was the Avatar of Wrath, observing all of his brothers from the side as he always had. His eyes flickered to each of their situations, emerald orbs not letting a single twitch of an eye nor brow going unnoticed. If allowed to be honest, he found them all utterly pathetic… and he’s already filtered out most dark thoughts that have plagued his mind. Besides, they deserved this, this torment didn’t compare to what those on the opposite end of their mistakes felt. He had every right to speak of so. Thankful for the cover the rain provided he took a sharp step to the side, turning his whole body to the other direction that had garnered a scoff of attention from the the laxer twin.

“..where are you going?”

Hearing Belphie’s question had Satan stop monetarily in his tracks, and without looking back at him he muttered a quick ‘somewhere’ before resuming his strides towards the direction of the cemetery gates.

Belphegor watched the blonde's figure go farther from where he stood, turning his attention back to his twin with a numb look on his features.

“It’s odd…”

A brow was raised at the sudden statement, but at the same time he completely understood what the glutton meant.

Their eyes setting sight on the tombstone mammon and Levi were idling in front of… ‘ A beloved friend and family’ written on the very same tombstone. MC’s full name carved elegantly on its face that used to seem so unreal when they first arrived but, the longer the twins looked the more it actually sank into them.

The human is dead.

Lilith’s descendant is dead.

Beel couldn’t even manage to stomach his food, he knew there was something off when he felt a sudden snuff of energy in the atmosphere that day. Not only him but all of them did...and to think it was actually this.

The guilt kept stacking.

But hidden in their walls of guilt the fourth brother allowed himself to be led towards the cemetery gates, left to his own grim thoughts he couldn’t help but to wonder if..all this will be for the better or for the worse… and in a fraction of a second he was snapped out of his thoughts. The flicker of a shadow barely registering in his peripheral vision..

.hah...

...He wished them all goodluck

__________________________________________

Me, a few months ago:

I’m a clown I know-

As always y’all know the drill, just say if any of you wanna be tagged in the next part ^ ^.

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me!#obey me swd #swd obey me #obey me fanfic #obey me fic #obey me barbatos #obey me angst #rras writes #TS! Act 2 #writings from the eclipse #obey me solomon #obey me belphegor #obey me beelzebub #obey me leviathan #obey me mammon #obey me satan

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autisticandroids · 4 years ago

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thinkin abt purgatory being a warped eden for more than 1 min makes me wanna set something on fire cuz the reason it wanted to spit dean out isn't cuz its monsterland its cuz it won't accept humans because they disobeyed god, since spn humanizes concepts i thought about eden itself having feelings like the whole of purgatory being alive, like a HUGE organism sorta thing which now accepts monsters as a "humans can't happily accept gifts FINE ill ruin and corrupt everything with abominations then"

okay now im thinking about how like...... purgatory is the only one of the afterlives that doesn’t seem to have a........... ruler? like, heaven has angels who are kind of an oligarchic government, hell has one monarch, though who that is shifts, the empty doesn’t really have a ruler but it’s like. it has a personification. and this isn’t really an afterlife but death rules like the concept of dying. but purgatory doesn’t seem to have one? there’s eve but it’s not like she got replaced when she died, and she didn’t seem to necessarily have that much power anyway, i doubt she would have done much against, say, a leviathan. there’s leviathans, but despite season seven being all about them, they’re still kind of opaque.

anyway, damn. we do need to talk about the metaphysics of purgatory. i mean it seems pretty clear that if you kill a soul that soul would go to the empty, since demons are just souls and they go there, so cas’ “curious curl in the metaphysics” seems to be case closed now, but like. what about. other shit. who rules over purgatory. what is the deal with purgatory. why does a biological change modify where your soul goes after death. what the fuck.

#spn #asks #Anonymous

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borisbubbles · 4 years ago

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17. CZECH REPUBLIC

Benny Christo - “Kemama”

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So first off, thank you for the nice commens. 😇The past few months haven’t been the happiest time for me, so thank you for your patience as I scraped my bearings together for another post! 😁

So I will now extend that same sympathy to Benny Christo, whom I think I damn fucking underrated. Let’s jump in~

ENTRY ANALYSIS

As one may expect i INSTANTLY liked “Kemama” because you know, it’s a fun, laid-back, tropical afro-breeze, completely different from anything else we would see in NFs and the year. EXACTLY the type of song I was hoping the Czech NF would deliver (and deliver they did, see NF Corner). This level of mild like swung into strong unironic like upon realizing that the title is a contraction of “Okay Mother” 😍 and the song deals with the subject of overcoming racially-tinged discrimination and rising above the hate. That just feels very poetic and apt? “Kemama” felt like the entry that had to overcome the highest odds in order to earn the respect it so fully deserves, and still hasn’t fully reached it.

.In our Western European bubble, comprised mostly of gays and left-liberal straights, we have a very grateful and universal acceptance of many different kinds of [lizard] people that make up Eurovision casts. Yet with “Kemama” we may have reached an unusually grimy undercurrent of coded racism.

Of course nothing I read was outrageously rancid, than Cod for that. The worst statement I read was a double-whammy of “EWW THIS ISN’T CARIBBEANVISION” and “WHY WOULD SOMEONE FROM *KENYA* WANT TO REP CZECHIA IN EUROVISION?”, and yes they first got the continent wrong and then *also* got the country wrong in the follow-up post and then they were torn limb from limb by a pack of aformentioned left-liberals. I’m sorry but i can’t not have any other response than laughter in the face of yet another fucking MORON faceplanting themselves with words like a... racist JK Rowling if you will?

Still, while I never read something outright vile about Benny doesn’t mean I found his deniers really annoying and they were! Think “Ew Solovey is ‘Too Aggressive’ it will NEVER DO WELL IN ESC”, a statement that isn’t coded nor racist (and yet extremely false and misguided), functioned as a similar idea by the same minds. A statement borne from the same breed of narrow-minded stubbornness which has caused elitist morons to be all “there is **SOMETHING** about “Kemama” i do *NOT* like and I cannot lay my finger on it... but I **DO NOT** like it at ALL. It won’t ever qualify because everyone will think the same way I do” -- Eurovision snobs, tiptoeing around racial coda in January 2020.

They would also insist that Benny was “arrogant” because he was seemingly impervious to their (de)constructive criticism. Like, if you were a biracial butterfly living in a slavic country who had to deal with statements such as the above on a regular basis, you WOULD block out the noise. And if you heard them often enough you will start to block them out pre-emptively. DO YOU NOT KNOW HOW COPING MECHANISMS WORK?? (oh wait you’re white-privileged. Nevermind 🙄)

So naturally, when Benny decided that he would revamp “Okay Mother” by adding in MORE African elements it only made me love him even more lol. 😍 Was it a bull-headed, contrarian and possibly really stupid decision? Yes, yes and absolutely yes. Was it worth it? Well he managed to incite even more meltdowns in a group of people I feel nothing but contempt for, so hell yeah? Eurovision was cancelled anyway so who cares how much ‘worse’ “Kemama” actually got.

Okay, so we’ve arrived at the revamp.

Granted, it wasn’t the best ‘vamp, I’d be a fool to deny it. The new elements threw a wrench in the melodic balance of the song. Out went tropical laid-back fun, IN went that fucking guitar oh my god this is some Hotel FM piano levels of overbearing I swear. (nb: this still didn’t stop me from ironically stanning Hotel FM’s lame asses anyway 😍). However, it made the personal backstory that I loved and savoured take a backseat to the now inferior composition. 😭

Regardless, New Kemama was fundamentally the same song, and I fundamentally liked Old Kemama, so whatevs, it made no different to me. In the eyes of many Eurovision diehards we were experiencing WORST PRESHOW SEASON EVER (after three songs... lol) and nothing clinches this brainworm more than a revamp announcement. “OH MY GOD HE WILL RUIN IT! I CAN GUARANTEE YOU I *WON’T* LIKE IT”. Self-fulfilling prophecies, ya know? It certainly didn’t help when the official channel accidentally uploaded a vid with broken soundmixing (‘OMG HORRIBLE LAST IN THE SEMI!!!!’ calm the ever-loving HELL down) and took another FULL WEEK to upload the correct vid. The damage had already been done. Typing "SEE I TOLD YOU THE REVAMP WOULD BE SHITE HA HA HA” in the Kemama comment box really just is the ESC equivalent of reponding with “Actually, *all* lives matter :smug:” to a BLM support pamphlet, isn’t it?

NF CORNER

While not my favourite NF of the bunch, I found the Czech NF to be lowkey epic. Not epic enough to remember its name but regardless Czechvision or whatever marked the end of an era because it was also the last selection spearheaded by Jan Bors :o

I think I’ve made it clear enough in the past that I’m somewhat mixed on Bors Era Czechia - Lake Malawi were a toetapping good, Ickolas was a pockmarked, skin-crawling evil and the other three inhibit a purgatory somewhere between “moderately nice” and “moderate timewaste.”

Still, I have great respect for the man who orchestrated Czech’s comeback after scoring NINE POINTS TOTAL across three years with the mindset of “So what? Why says we can’t win?” so ofc I was all into the idea of the “EIGHT INDIE ANGELS, HAND-PICKED BY BORS HIMSELF” NF that would serve as his swan song.

Naturally things went down the drain the second Bors left, with one of the eight peacing and his successor cancelling the live broadcast (does anyone remember what exactly happened? I vaguely recall one was the cause of the other but lol it’s July can’t be bothered to factscheck (Factsczeck?) anymore, bitches.

Anyway, ON TO THE GOOD STUFF, and yes, there was plenty.

We All Poop - “ All the Blood (Positive Song Actually)”

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Yes, as you can imagine I ofc IMMEDIATELY fell into like when I saw that chyron and invisioned the inevitability of the Czech Rep’s Rep immediately alienating every parent just based on their name alone <3 😍 w/e WAP quickly became that “Good but not great” song you find in every NF that everyone gushes over because it’s the whitest option available. Like, yes, “All the blood” is good, but musically it’s identical to Green Day and Twenty-One Pilots and god name ANY 90s-early00′s American Punk Rock band. For me the enjoyment came from the fact that WAP were openly crazy vegan fundamentalists and the VC clip actively condemns the use ANY animal protein by replacing the cattle and game with LITERAL HUMAN BEINGS. 😍 :fusedmarcintensifies: :kasiamosage:

Pam Rabbit - “Get up”

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Ohhhh YES a glorious experimental Synth-Trap song only I could love and ofc I did. God what is there even to say; the provocative darkness of the verses combined with the swirling amorphousness of the chorus gives me LIFE. LUFF THIS SHIT <3333 Ftr, this was also the fave of Slovene Juror duo / synth angels / Boris faves ZALAGASPER, further proving their pathetic naysayers that they own all things music and the haters can suck a series of-

Barbora Mochowa - “White and Black Holes“

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Lol, yes even with a “Get up” existing, there was a song I liked even more. Barbora proved a very competent Lana del Gay last year, but I was a YUGE fan of this year’s... Kate Bush-Björk blend of ethereal awesome. It is so soothingly beautiful and the rare example of a song that I find completely free of flaws. Were the competition not such a hard place, I’d be pissed she didnt win (at least she won the jury vote MASSIVE KUDOS to every alum on that) but w/e this selection had opions and I’m rather robbed of a “Kemama” than I am of a BRILLIANT IRREPLICABLE AETHERBALLAD. ~Danse balance sûr les white and black holes~

Elis Mraz & Cis T - “Wanna be like”

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I *VERY* strongly felt that if the Czech Republic wanted to win ESC, they should have picked Elis and even now I STILL believe she could have won. That isn’t to say I gushed over “Wanna be like” because I find it kind of annoying lol. Yes, I LOVE an annoying female voice (:Tones&Icackle:) but Elis’s reaches a Camilla Cabello sort of place for me (good lord get Senorita OFF the fucking radio) and the Scat + White Guy Rapping middle-eight. 😬. However, the second I opened up the video clip for this paragraph and was immediately BLASTED by Elis murdering a ukelele and wearing a “schoolgirl” outfit straight from a Japanese tentacle porn movie and OH MY GOD THE AGGRESSIVE TWERKING made me reconsider that hey, this min-sized Meghan Traynor actually kinda highkey owns, yo! Yet, I’m not at all bothered we lost her in the Czech NF because we got UNO DOS QUATRO CINCO SEIS :fatmansplit: fill up the megameme slot instead, so...

Eurovision 2020 vs Eurovision 2021

BENNY RUINED HIS SONG AND NEVER WOULD HAVE QUALIFIED. jk I’m not a moron. Sure, “Kemama” wasn’t an easy sell because you know AFROBEAT in a contest where half of the people watching are fash (ie: all of Eastern Europe, who watch out of ~Nationalistic Sentiment~ 😬), but there are Kemama live renditions out there and he owns them SO hard lol. A few soundmixing issues really would not have stopped Benny from qualifying in that RIDICULOUSLY WEAKSAUCE SEMIFINAL are you fucking kidding me. He probably would’ve bombed in the Grand Final, but I mean it’s Czech and it’s not Ickolas so ofc it would have.

And Czech renewed him for 2021 regardless of the sceptics, woohoo! I think part of it was due the Czech not wanting to re-organize an ENTIRE NF from scratch without Jan Bors, but probably also because Benny owns live when he isn’t engaged in psychological trench warfare with actual human detritus <3 and also because the Czech fucking CARE about their artists and don’t drop them like a sack of rotten potatoes wtfshitprus.

Can’t wait for the moment when he qualifies and Efendi does not, etc, etc.

FREAKY! FRIDAY! FACTOR!

I’d say that the core around which the Ben Drama spun was pretty standard fare: niche fave beats out the concensus fave, meltdowns ensue, people convince themselves it was the WRONG decision because it wasn the result they wanted, try to disown the song and make a fool of themselves because the song slaps, sorry. Even the revamp drama felt more of less generic for me, because yawn fantards melting down over a revamp of a song they don’t even like what else is new.

However, what I do take away that the revamp was ENTIRELY Benny’s idea which he told no one about (cue to JAN BORS having a social media meltdown like he’s Caesar at the Ides of March 💔) added MORE afrobeat just to troll his haters even more <3 God, I’d say it was bad from a musical perspective but this level of in-your-face defiance is fucking iconic and hilarious, sorry. This entire this year is so batshit bonkers that the concept of a someone potentially shooting themselves in the foot and “torpedo’ing” their qualification chances (not rly, he would’ve Q’d anyway lol) JUST to take the moral high ground in a racially coded argument only HE took seriously may not even be the craziest concept in the year! (lol it definitely isn’t. Look at the pics I haven’t greyed out yet)

This and more yield Benny some well-earned Senheads! Yay!!

Score: 3 Senhits out of 5.

#Eurovision #Eurovision 2020 #Eurovision Song Contest #Czech Republic #Czechia #Bohemia #Ben Christovão #Benny Christo

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sigmalied · 6 years ago

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Sig’s Anthem Review

Verdict

BioWare’s Anthem is a genuinely fun and engaging experience that sabotages itself with myriad design, balance, and technical oversights and issues. It is a delicious cake that has been prematurely removed from the developmental oven - full of potential but unfit for general consumption in this wobbly state. Anthem is not a messianic addition to the limited pantheon of looter shooters because it has somehow failed to learn from the well-publicized mistakes of its predecessors.

Am I having fun playing Anthem? Absolutely. Does it deserve the industry’s lukewarm scores? Absolutely. But this is something of a special case. The live service model giveth and taketh away; we receive flexibility in exchange for certainty. Is Anthem going to be the same game six months from now? Its core DNA will always be the same, but we’ve already begun to see swift improvements that bode well for the future.

Will my opinion matter to you? It depends. When I first got into looter shooters I was shocked at how much the genre clicked with me. They are a wonderful playground for theory crafters, min/maxers, and mathletes like myself who find incomparable joy in optimizing builds both conventional and experimental by pushing the limits of obtainable resources ad infinitum. The end game grind is long and at times challenging as you make the jump to Grandmaster 1+ difficulty in search of top-tier loot to perfect your build. This is what looter shooters are all about.

If you don’t like the sound of that, you’ll probably drop Anthem right after finishing its campaign. But if you do like the sound of that, you might find yourself playing this game for years.

TL;DR: This game is serious fun, but is also in need of some serious Game & UI Design 101.

I wrote a lot more about individual aspects of the game beneath the read more, if you’re interested. I’ve decided not to give the game a score, I’m just here to discuss it after playing through the campaign and spending a few days grinding elder game activities. There are no spoilers here.

Gameplay

The Javelins are delightful. I’ve played all four of them extensively and despite identifying as a Colossus main I cannot definitively attach myself to one class of Javelin because they’re all so uniquely fun to play and master. Best of all, they’re miraculously balanced. I’ve been able to hold my own with every Javelin in Grandmaster 1+. Of course, some Javelins are harder to get the hang of than others. Storms don’t face the steep learning curve Interceptors do, but placed in the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing, both are equally as destructive on the battlefield.

I love the combo system. It is viscerally satisfying to trigger a combo, hearing that sound effect ring, and seeing your enemy’s health bar melt. Gunplay finally gets fun and interesting when you start obtaining Masterworks, and from there, it’s like playing a whole new game.

Mission objectives are fairly bland and repetitive, but the gameplay is so fun I don’t even mind. Collect this, find that, go here, whatever. I get to fly around and blow up enemies while doing it, and that’s what matters. Objectives could be better, certainly. Interesting objectives are vital in game design because they disguise the core repetitive gameplay loop as something fresh, but the loop on its own stays fresh long enough to break even, I feel.

The best part is build flexibility. Want to be a sniper build cutting boss health bars in half with one shot? I’ve seen it. Want to be a near-immortal Colossus wrecking ball who heals every time you mow down an enemy? You can. There are so many possibilities here. Every day I come across a new crazy idea someone’s come up with. This is an excellent game for build crafters.

But... why in the world are there so few cosmetic choices? A single armor set for each Javelin outside the Vanity store? A core component of looter shooters has always been endgame fashion, and on this front, BioWare barely delivers and only evades the worst criticism by providing quality Javelin customization in the way of coloring, materials, and keeping power level and aesthetics divorced. We’re being drip-fed through the Vanity store, and while I like the Vanity store’s model, there should have been more things permanently available for purchase through the Forge. Everyone looks the same out there! Where’s the variety?

Story, Characters, World

Anyone expecting a looter shooter like Anthem to feature a Mass Effect or Dragon Age -sized epic is out of their mind, but that doesn’t mean we have to judge the storytelling in a vacuum. This is BioWare after all. Even a campaign that flows more like a short story - as is the case with Anthem - should aspire to the quality of previous games from the studio. Unfortunately, it does not, but it comes close by merit of narrative ambience: the characters, the world’s lore, and their execution.

(For a long time I’ve had a theory that world building is what made the original Mass Effect great, not its critical storyline, which was basically a Star Trek movie at best. Fans fell in love because there were interesting people to talk to, complicated politics to grasp, and moral decisions to make along the way.)

While the main storyline of Anthem is lackluster and makes one roll their eyes at certain moments or bad lines, the world is immediately intriguing. Within Fort Tarsis, sophisticated technology is readily available while society simultaneously feels antiquated, echoing a temporal purgatory consistent with the Anthem’s ability to alter space-time. Outside the fort, massive pieces of ancient machinery are embedded within dense jungles in a way that suggests the mechanical predates nature itself. The theme of sound is everywhere. Silencing relics, cyphers hearing the Anthem, delivering echoes to giant subwoofers… It’s a fun world, it really is.

As for the characters… they might be some of the best from BioWare. They feel like real people. Rarely are they caricatures of one defining trait, but people with complex motives and emotions. Some conversations were boring, but the vast majority of the time I found myself racing off to talk to NPCs as soon as I saw yellow speech bubbles on the map after a mission. And don’t even get me started on the performances. They are golden.

The biggest issue with the story is that it’s not well integrated with missions. At times it feels like you’re playing two separate games: Fort Tarsis Walking/Talking Simulator and Anthem Looter Shooter. And the sole threads keeping these halves stitched together during missions - radio chatter - takes a back seat if you’re playing with randoms who rush ahead and cause dialogue to skip, or with friends who won’t shut the hell up so you can listen or read subtitles without distraction. I found it ironic that I soloed most of the critical story missions in a game that heavily encourages team play.

Technical Aspects: UI & Design

This is where Anthem has some major problems. God, this category alone is probably what gained the ire of most reviewers. The UI is terrible and confusing. There are extra menu tabs where they aren’t needed. The placement of Settings is for some inane reason not located under the Options button (PS4). Excuse me? It’s so difficult to navigate and find what you’re looking for. It’s ridiculously unintuitive.

Weapon inscriptions (stat bonuses) are vague and I’ve even seen double negatives once or twice. They come off as though no one bothered to proofread or edit anything for clarity. Just a bad job here all around. And to make matters worse, there is no character stat sheet to help us demystify any of the bizarre stat descriptions. We are currently using goddamn spreadsheets like animals. Just awful.

The list goes on. No waypoints in Freeplay. Countless crashes, rubber banding, audio cutouts, player characters being invisible in vital cutscenes, tethering warnings completely obscuring the flight overheat meter… Fucking yikes. Wading through this swamp of bugs and poor design has been grueling to say the least.

And now for the loot issues. Dead inscriptions on gear; and by dead I mean dead, as in “this pistol does +25% shotgun damage” dead (this has been recently patched but I still cannot believe this sort of thing made it to release). The entire concept of the Luck stat (chance to drop higher quality loot) resulting in Luck builds who drop like flies in combat and become a burden for the rest of the team. Diminishing returns in Grandmaster 2 and 3; it takes so long to clear missions on these difficulties without significant loot improvement, making GM2 and GM3 pointless when you could be grinding GM1 missions twice as fast.

At level 30, any loot quality below Epic is literal trash. Delete Commons, Uncommons, and most Rares as soon as you get them because they’re virtually useless. I have hundreds of Common and Uncommon embers and nothing to do with them. Why can’t we convert 5 embers into 1 of the next higher tier? Other looters have already done things like this to make progression omnipresent. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel here, BioWare. It’s already been done for you.

When you get a good roll on loot, the satisfaction is immense. But when you don’t, and you won’t 95% of the time, you’ll feel like you’ve wasted hours with nothing to show for it. We shouldn’t be spending so much time hunting for useful things, we should be trying to perfect what’s already useful.

It’s just baffling to think that Anthem had the luxury of watching the messy release of several other looter shooters during Anthem’s development, yet proceed to make the same mistakes, and some even worse.

Nothing needs to be said about visuals. They are stunning, even from my perspective on a base PS4.

Sound design is the only other redeeming subcategory here. Sound design is amazing, like the OST. Traditional instrumentals meet alien synth seamlessly. Sarah Schachner is a seriously talented composer.

I’m just relieved to see the development team hauling ass to make adjustments. They’ve really been on top of it - the speed and transparency of fixes has been top-notch. They’re even working on free DLC already! A new region, more performances from the actors... I’m excited and hopeful for the future.

#siganthem

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ivysdigitalstory · 6 years ago

Text

You and Me and Mental Illness makes three

Depression, Anxiety, and Paranoia. In my mind, every single one of these mental illnesses has to do with trust. Mental Illness is the purgatory between what’s real and what’s not.

The first of these illnesses that I noticed was anxiety. I remember first feeling it in a middle school math class- all of a sudden being unable to breathe, my skin starting to feel numb and running out of the class, my heart beating faster than I’ve ever felt. I didn’t know what it was until a few years later when I finally started going to therapy. Anxiety makes you second guess yourself and you’re convinced you can’t breathe. It almost feels like you’re transported to a plane of existence where everything is coming at full speed towards you and it takes your breath away. Anxiety really crippled me for a while. It is like that relationship where every time you see the other person there’s a rush of energy, but you know that it’s not good. Every time he shows up I’m excited to see him again but then the wave of negative crashes over me, drowning me, stopping me in my tracks. I couldn’t figure out how to calm myself while having an anxiety attack regardless of how many methods and tricks people suggested. Once I was 18 I got Ativan.

I have the worst love/hate relationship with Ativan. I feel blessed to have found it because it has two perks.

It slows my heart rate when I’m having an anxiety attack and calms me down very quickly.

I so desperately don’t want to take Ativan that the threat of having to take it stops my anxiety attack, I hate the side effects so much that my anxiety is forced to go away because, I’m going to need to take that pill and suffer the consequences.

Ativan has really helped me. For the longest time people would tell me to take deep breaths, and count in my head, or remind myself where I am and name things around me. All of these are great tips for anxiety but they just didn’t work for me. Ativan is a blessing and a threat which is perfect for my anxiety because either I calm down or…. He takes me out on a ride, he asks me if I want to get coffee, if I want to just sit in silence with him while I calm down.

Time to talk about the side effects of Ativan. They SUCK. So Ativan is a drug that medically slows down your heart rate when you’re having an anxiety attack, stopping the anxiety attack in its tracks. HOWEVER- Ativan stays in your blood for almost 2 days. It slows down your heart rate but also the world around you. It almost makes it feel like you’re drunk. You start slurring your words and your eyelids are heavy. Your hands are half numb and really heavy all of the sudden. You can’t walk straight, you stumble around. Often after taking an Ativan, I fall asleep- which is almost worse because then you wake up slurring your words and stumbling around and DROOLING. Yes, drooling. It’s honestly like losing control of your body. However, when I’m having an anxiety attack it’s usually not on the weekend when I can just do nothing for two days. It’s like the middle of a workday. I’m in the middle of doing something, so drooling isn’t ideal. But Ativan also saved me and for that I’m grateful. I can’t stop thinking about our ride, our coffee our silence.

The second illness I finally picked up on was depression. I’m not going to talk extensively about it because it’s something that I really struggled with and I don’t want to dwell on it for too long. Right now I’m in a very positive place. But depression is so dark. In the commercials for antidepressants they never really explain it well. When I was in high school my pediatrician gave me a depression test and I was in the risk range but they didn’t take it seriously, and that sucks. The thing is I’m blessed, I am so blessed and lucky in my life. It’s full of love and blessings and I’m grateful, and I think that’s why everyone didn’t take my depression seriously because they were like “everything’s great what would you be depressed about”. The answer is that I’m not depressed about “anything” per se but that’s how depression is. It doesn’t need a source to motivate it, it works without motivation. Nothing is wrong in my life I’m so happy with my family, my friends, my life, but depression doesn’t care. Depression is like being so cloaked in darkest that the light that is in your life that you recognize normally and are grateful for- is covered. It’s blacked out it’s as if it wasn’t there, no matter how hard you try you can’t see it. It doesn’t matter how many blessings are in your life you can’t see them when you’re depressed and it’s disturbing. I miss you, do you hate me? Do you love me? Why did you run away? Why am I alone right now thinking about you? Was it all for nothing, because it didn’t look like nothing, remember when you and I jumped up and down together listening to our favorite songs, in front of everyone, why am I crying in bed right now instead?

How can you trust there’s light when you can’t see it? When I’m depressed I try my hardest not to trust the cloak of darkness, but I’ve definitely mistakenly trusted it before. Apollo will come in a year, but I can’t wait a year without you.

*in the tune of Melanoia by MGMT*

Paranoia! Paranoia is the most recent of my identified illnesses. Honestly, it’s been around for a while I just didn’t know how to name it until recently. Paranoia is honestly when your brain is jumbled. I find it goes hand in hand with anxiety. To me, paranoia is the silliest of my three mental illnesses/trust issues. Paranoia is absolutely NEVER funny while it’s happening, but after it happens it’s pretty fucking funny. Of course, paranoia is the loss of rational thinking, and it’s fucking terrifying when it’s happening but it produces quite odd/sometimes funny outcomes.

Remember that night when you didn’t talk to me? Oh my god, I bet you don’t remember you were so drunk, it was the first time I had seen you in 3 months. I didn’t know you were coming, you scared me when you first walked in. I was mad because you didn’t answer all my recent texts even though you started some of the conversations. I went out with you, and you know I don’t drink, you didn’t talk to me all night, I tried to bring back what we used to have, me pushing past you. I pushed you, on you, slowly wearing my favorite body oil, the one that smells so good men just fall in line. I did EVERYTHING to get your attention. You wouldn’t give me any, and that’s my only weakness with you: when you fucking ignore me. I went back to where I was sitting, and right across from him blocked him on Instagram. All of a sudden I felt better. So I was happy with my stupid self. Of course about 15 mins later after leaving everyone I realized that I made a MISTAKE. I felt SO stupid after I did it.

The thing is that I find that all these trust issues/mental illnesses somehow come together a lot. It’s so weird how when these things happen it’s almost like your brain just gives up, and you need to just deal with that happening to you. It’s a bit scary when you really think about it. Your own brain just does it’s own thing when it feels like it. It’s not something you can just turn off or stop.

As debilitating as these three can be. I still feel some sort of familial love for them. I wouldn’t be me without them. If you don’t love me at my worst, how can you love me at my best, that’s why I fell for you. You took care of me when I was in so much pain, you packed my things for me when I was shaking so much I couldn't do it myself. You told me to sit down and you packed for me in front of everyone. They suck a lot but they also shaped me as a person and I think it’s important to at least give them credit for being a part of me. Even when they SUCK. Just like you sometimes.

#digital life story

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vimnvinegar · 3 years ago

Text

Hand of Glory

Before them it stood, looming forward as if ready to fall. A tree painted in the dark colours of night, its branches reaching forward haphazardly like cracked fingers. It cast its shadow upon darkness for darkness was all that was left. The tree and the darkness of the void around them.

And the 「」 , a swirling intent, barely even visible as a heat wave within the shadow. Yet present in that space with a weight nothing else there had. The shadow shimmered around it, like the train of an ethereal gown, like half-remembered starlight.

The silence ticked down the spilling seconds of eternity, but they did not think to break it until the 「」 spoke in a voice like the shattering of space, as though remembering the formation of stars. It spoke, and they did not interrupt. And when exactly it stopped speaking, they did not know.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Day 1

The 「」 offered the three of us a deal is what we seem to remember. We talked it over afterward. What we remembered, I mean. Not the deal. I mean we talked a bit about the deal too, but not too uhhh. It’s not what we want to think about. I have a vague memory of getting lost in the Old City Ruins, but not much around that. And now we’re being told we’re in some Purgatory-like place. Like we just wandered into freakshow spirit town. I have the stuff that I remember having on me. It’s why I’m writing this after all.

Day 2

like a distant, alien trauma. I don’t know how the others feel about it, but I guess it just seemed like pure exhaustion afterward.

Day 3

I mean, if you really think about it. It’s kind of completely screwballed to expect us to choose someone to die. If you’d put three friends in a room, you couldn’t get a straight answer maybe? But I mean, I didn’t expect it to feel so wrong even with strangers. Not that I’ve thought about it before or that it’d be okay or better. Just. I’m tired, and I’m not putting this down right. Eugh.

Day 5

Everything does seem like it works normally round here except for everything being like a pitch black canvas. We get hungry and need to eat. We need to sleep. We don’t need to use the restroom either though.

Day 6

It’s finally hitting me how strange

I just hope we’re not gonna die here. I don’t know that I could stomach that.

Day 9

It’s hard telling time here. I’m just assuming off of when we sleep and this weird light cycle that the tree goes through. Min talked about it some more today. Said we should ration out food so we don't

Day 12

The 「」 paid us a visit. That’s the best way to describe it. There were no threats or anything like that… It was unnerving enough just for it to be here casually and maybe it knows that? Who can say? Even it’s light prodding though seems to have been enough to get us out talking about random gibberish. There’s a history between Min and Emi it seems... although it’s vague. I want to ask but I just don’t see the damn point.

Day 30?

I swear the tree gets closer with every passing day.

Day 86?

Finally getting a bit worried about using up this ink. So I’m probably gonna have to make these shorter. That or we get out.

Day 97?

e the deal free the body free the spirit take the deal free the body free the spirit take the deal free the body free the spirit free yourself for good free yourself forever

Day 100?

The count of days has faded into obscurity you know. There’s a cloud around my head whenever I wake up, and I see dizzying stars so constantly that it’s almost a relief to see the blood webbed out from the tree. My morning started with seeing Min standing over Emi, The heavy pan dropped next to Emi’s motionless body. She knows I will do nothing. I will simply accept the blessing of freedom. The tree reaches for us further. The 「」 is here. 「」 watches. 「」’s eyes - that’s not the right word I know - are fixed on Min’s body. Particularly her arms. I don’t know what we’re waiting for.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

“Unfortunately, that’s all we could find there.” said Kind, rustling the papers slightly in his gloved hand. "These torn pages and… well, you’ve already seen the hand." He and his companion both turned to look at the limb, a severed green arm. It seemed to glow softly in the morning light.

“Looks like some of the pages are lost to wind. Along with quite a few words to time. Wish we could’ve gotten more clarity about what happened here. Maybe it was a ritual in a locked room of some kind. Hallucinatory fasting or something? Anyway, we’re gonna clear out to the next location. Tell the Diver crew. And make sure that hand gets put into HCC containment. Careful touching it. It’s got a kick… I guess a punch would be a more appropriate metaphor.” Kind threw out those last words as he left the tent through the front flat. His companion turned back to the limb. A voice seemed to echo distantly on the wind.

“take the hand."

#spooktober #world anvil #shadow #claw #deal with the devil #hand of glory

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douglassmiith · 4 years ago

Text

Will There Be Internships This Summer?

May 21, 2020 11 min read

Cecelia Nancarrow had gotten all her ducks in a row for a sought-after internship this summer with manufacturing and retail giant Hormel Foods. The 21-year-old Kansas native and incoming senior at Kansas State University — where she studies sales and data analytics and is a member of the school’s National Strategic Selling Institute — had been chosen for a temporary relocation to Dallas, where she’d be learning some real-world wheeling and dealing at one of the Austin, Minnesota-based corporation’s numerous satellite offices. But as her junior year neared conclusion and travel plans were booked, a public health emergency came crashing down, instantaneously upending the very opportunity she’d been compiling credentials for. In Nancarrow’s telling, she didn’t waste any time feigning disbelief.

“Almost immediately, I didn’t even consider the fact that my internship would not be cancelled,” she recalls matter-of-factly in a phone interview from her home in Manhattan, Kansas. “Restaurants, hotels, hospitals — those would be my customers. So as soon as all of those shut down, I was thinking, if all these places are going to be closed for the remainder of the summer, I have no idea how I would be able to do my job.“

As it turned out, Nancarrow was one of the lucky ones. Hormel, a publicly traded company with dozens of globally recognized brands under its auspices ranging from SPAM to Skippy, was able to marshal its resources and repurpose the geographically sprawling internship program as more of a centralized virtual experience. Nancarrow and her cohort will ultimately be staying in place, but Hormel has equipped them all with computers and quickly strategized ways to remotely simulate everything from orientation to networking opportunities with executives and clients.

“Many of these interns had accepted jobs in October, so as you can imagine, they were quite anxious to understand what the future looks like,” says Amy Sheehan, Hormel’s director of talent acquisition, who oversees the internship program, in a phone interview. “So we worked with our leadership team and said, ‘What does this look like? Is it feasible? Could we still give these interns a virtual experience knowing that it’s so important to our pipeline and filling our needs each year?'”

Fortunately for Nancarrow, the answer turned out to be yes, albeit with a delayed start of June 15, “to give all the teams more time to figure out exactly how it’s gonna work,” she explains. The flip side is that for many of her friends and peers, similar programs, just like sleepaway camps and other summer extracurriculars, have been put on indefinite hiatus. And as a result, the future of student internships — historically both a rite of passage and real entree into building career prospects and contacts — rests in an uneasy purgatory.

Related: Where to Intern If You Really Want to Be an Entrepreneur

Pamela Nashel Leto can empathize. After more than 20 years working for New York-based music publicity house Girlie Action, where she repped diverse clientele such as My Morning Jacket and Wyclef Jean, Nashel Leto struck out on her own this spring with a new firm, Siren’s Call. Interns have always been an essential, if perhaps taken-for-granted, fixture of the music industry ecosystem, and Nashel Leto had intended to avail herself of one or two in the coming months. But right as she was set to open Siren’s Call’s Manhattan office for business, lockdown orders took hold. The artists she made a living promoting could no longer tour, appear on late-night shows or do in-store performances, and surging unemployment meant less disposable income for people to spend on music — period. Nashel Leto was forced to focus on the walls closing in and couldn’t afford to think about helping young hopefuls get a foot in the door.

Siren’s Call PR owner Pamela Nashel Leto has had to press pause on internships for her just-launched firm.

Image Credit: Siren’s Call PR

“I had planned on hiring interns,” she laments in a phone interview from her home in Bayonne, NJ, which has been doubling as Siren’s Call’s HQ for the past two-plus months. “For a music PR firm, a lot of my [intern] work would be based around maintaining my social media, but if I’ve never actual met my intern in person and can’t personally supervise him or her, I’d feel uncomfortable giving them such direct access to my business accounts. It’s sad, because I’d love to just be able to virtually hire people and have trust in them enough to have them work from their house or dorm, but it’s important for me to actually know somebody in real life.”

Consequently, Nashel Leto will likely shift responsibilities normally delegated to interns over to her small staff of employees. That redistribution of tasks has become duly necessary at Champaign, Illinois-based independent record label Polyvinyl, which works hand-in-hand with Nashel Leto promoting one of its cornerstone acts, eclectic indie troupe Of Montreal. Polyvinyl has decided to halt hiring interns for the summer and likely into the fall, despite the fact that some of its full-time staff already works remotely from different parts of the country.

“We’ve always felt one of the biggest benefits to our internships is sitting bird’s-eye view at not only a small record label, but just a small business,” explains Polyvinyl co-founder Matt Lunsford, speaking by phone from Champaign. “They’re absorbing everything that’s going on at our small company, even if they’re working on a typical intern-like task, like research. I feel like there’s not a very obvious way to replicate that without someone physically being present.”

Polyvinyl Records artist Jeff Rosenstock, in the days when bands were touring and interns were helping promote.

Image Credit: Amanda Fotes

While Lunsford has the ability to, as he puts it, “pick up the slack and spread the work out to the departments that would have the interns, or put some of that work on pause or do it later,” he also recognizes that, long-term, continuing to defer intern-recruitment is in no one’s best interests. Among him and fellow upper management, “The consensus is, if this is ongoing for more than this calendar year, then we would probably be inclined to take the time to figure out some sort of plan that would involve making the internships more virtual or maybe coming up with something completely unique so it could be envisioned as virtual from the very beginning.” (Nashel Leto, for her part, says that, “When a vaccine is out there and I work from an actual office again, I can hire some interns, but doubt that will be possible until 2021.”)

Related: Every Entrepreneur Should Be An Intern First

But what about an operation for which there is inherently no substitute for on-site support, like working the land on a multi-acre spread of field and forest? That’s the conundrum for Unadilla Community Farm in upstate Otsego, New York. This is the seventh year that the farm and educational center has taken applications from interns from all over the world for what its mission statement characterizes as “an immersion into a rural, off-grid sustainable way of life.”

Unadilla has been acknowledged as an essential business since lockdown orders took hold in New York in mid-March, and it is also seated in a county that has been permitted to gradually reopen for some non-essential business by Governor Andrew Cuomo. Still, with participants typically arriving from all over the country and various continents, and safety precautions like social distancing a standing prerequisite even in areas of lower infection, this year’s program — while moving forward — has had to make some concessions.

“The difference this year is we are only accepting interns from the U.S.,” clarifies Greta Zarro, Unadilla’s co-owner and internship coordinator, speaking by phone from the farm. She adds that accepted applicants have also been asked to quarantine at home for 14 days before arriving, and “then once everyone is here, we all quarantine here and don’t have to leave the property, so we’re lucky in that sense.” (One accepted participant delayed his arrival after feeling ill prior to his departure. He tested negative, and then quarantined for two weeks before leaving.) They’ve also “worked to improve our sanitation and hygenic practices,” Zarro says, and will be making their own soap and sanitizer on the premises.

Field trips to other farms and related networking events have been postponed, but there will be some virtual webinars and workshops in their stead. Zarro’s optimistic that even in its somewhat compromised state, the program will reap all its intended rewards. “It’s not going to be 100 percent the same,” she begins. “There’s typically an element where they get to essentially work on another farm for the afternoon and see another operation, but overall, the program is still relatively intact.”

Interns and staff enjoying the literal fruits of their labor on Unadilla Community Farm in upstate New York.

Image Credit: Unadilla Community Farm

If anything, as more traditional internship opportunities have ebbed, enthusiasm for what Unadilla offers has flowed. “What’s been interesting is we’ve actually seen an increase in applications,” Zarro remarks. “People are starting to plant gardens and trees and realize, ‘Wow, we need to be more self-sufficient,’ and that’s the primary thing we’re teaching.”

For companies like Hormel, the jury’s still out on whether its swiftly reconstituted arrangement will feel as close to, or even better than, the real thing. The one advantage across the board for both employers and interns is that this generation of students is wired for digital adaptation and distanced communication in a way none of its predecessors could fathom. That comfort level with all things virtual may help bridge the disconnect that leaves Hormel’s Sheehan in a precarious place of waiting for results and Polyvinyl’s Lunsford reluctant.

“When you think about what they’ve been thrown into with their classroom settings, they’re already used to this,” Sheehan reasons about student interns’ malleability. “It’s not so foreign to them.”

Nancarrow confirms that her age group is, by and large, apt to be less daunted by this sudden shift than perhaps even the higher-ups who recruited them. She’s even come around to see how this could be a unique crash course in the way business is going to be conducted down the road, and as a result of our current crisis, maybe much sooner than that.

“The world is moving to be so technology-focused,” she says. “I am definitely going to need to learn how to communicate in a virtual format. Having this opportunity this summer may not be ideal or what I had originally planned, but it’s going to be extremely beneficial for myself and everyone else in my generation.”

More pressingly, Nancarrow is hopeful that this unforeseen hurdle will be duly taken into account when she and her classmates — whether their internships have been modified or canceled outright — come out the other side: “I’m fairly confident a lot of business are going to be extremely understanding that my generation, as well as the ones around me, kind of lost out on that internship opportunity and be able to look past that and see our potential anyway.”

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Via http://www.scpie.org/will-there-be-internships-this-summer/

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laurelkrugerr · 4 years ago

Text

Will There Be Internships This Summer?

May 21, 2020 11 min read

Related: Where to Intern If You Really Want to Be an Entrepreneur

Siren’s Call PR owner Pamela Nashel Leto has had to press pause on internships for her just-launched firm.

Image Credit: Siren’s Call PR

Polyvinyl Records artist Jeff Rosenstock, in the days when bands were touring and interns were helping promote.

Image Credit: Amanda Fotes

Related: Every Entrepreneur Should Be An Intern First

Interns and staff enjoying the literal fruits of their labor on Unadilla Community Farm in upstate New York.

Image Credit: Unadilla Community Farm

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/will-there-be-internships-this-summer/ source https://scpie1.blogspot.com/2020/05/will-there-be-internships-this-summer.html

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riichardwilson · 4 years ago

Text

Will There Be Internships This Summer?

May 21, 2020 11 min read

Related: Where to Intern If You Really Want to Be an Entrepreneur

Siren’s Call PR owner Pamela Nashel Leto has had to press pause on internships for her just-launched firm.

Image Credit: Siren’s Call PR

Polyvinyl Records artist Jeff Rosenstock, in the days when bands were touring and interns were helping promote.

Image Credit: Amanda Fotes

Related: Every Entrepreneur Should Be An Intern First

Interns and staff enjoying the literal fruits of their labor on Unadilla Community Farm in upstate New York.

Image Credit: Unadilla Community Farm

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/will-there-be-internships-this-summer/ source https://scpie.tumblr.com/post/618952865749385216

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scpie · 4 years ago

Text

Will There Be Internships This Summer?

May 21, 2020 11 min read

Related: Where to Intern If You Really Want to Be an Entrepreneur

Siren’s Call PR owner Pamela Nashel Leto has had to press pause on internships for her just-launched firm.

Image Credit: Siren’s Call PR

Polyvinyl Records artist Jeff Rosenstock, in the days when bands were touring and interns were helping promote.

Image Credit: Amanda Fotes

Related: Every Entrepreneur Should Be An Intern First

Interns and staff enjoying the literal fruits of their labor on Unadilla Community Farm in upstate New York.

Image Credit: Unadilla Community Farm

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/will-there-be-internships-this-summer/

0 notes