#earliest one I did was a skype group I think

[lamortwrites]

what is pbp ?

Play by post! It's sort of like written rp but for tabletop games -- the point of it is that you don't all have to try and be online at the same time, you can just post when you are around and the game slowly ticks along in the background

[crptkng]

I feel like I need to post about this because I have nothing better to do and because I would genuinely like to share my experience with BPD (borderline personality disorder) 

Now this will get pretty ugly and show the worst parts of me but please don’t think I’m an inherently toxic person for my behaviors that I could not control and that I have better control of as now. 

One of the first things you’ll notice about BPD is a marked disturbance in interpersonal relationships I’ve always had a very hard time keeping friends. I would have a certain friend for about a year and then we’d drift apart for no reason. Nothing totally horrible has happened in most of my past relationships, we’ve just either drifted apart or lost contact. However, that’s not to say I haven’t had a few not so healthy relationships. With BPD comes this fun little side effect of you possibly developing an unhealthy attachment to a certain person or people. This has happened to me on multiple occasions, 3 to be exact. This coins the term FP or favorite person.

The earliest I can ever recall and that I recognize now as being such was a good friend of mine that I met back in 2010/2011. My relationship with them wasn’t directly stormy in the beginning. I would see them at least once a week and all, but whenever I heard them mention another friend of theirs or that they would be hanging out with someone that wasn’t me I would get very angry and passive aggressively take it out on them. At first it was just that but it did start to go downhill when we hit high school and we started seeing less of each other. I would still be passive aggressive about the people they hung out with and all but the cake was taken when they got a boyfriend. I didn’t like him for one reason or another, still not entirely sure why but I but I went as far as accusing him of possibly making my friend “do something they didn’t want to” and kept nagging them about it. They ultimately broke up and we slowly lost most communication. I was sent spiraling into hysteria about losing my “only friend”. My whole school day was compromised to the point I called them into the school counselors office to force them to talk to me. After this we talked it out and were friends again. 

Around this time they introduced me to this guy who was and, to this day, still is one of my absolute best friends. The three of us were all really good friends and even had a group chat on skype together. After a few months of being friends I started having feelings for him but he had feelings for the friend that introduced us. I took this pretty hard and started accusing them of going behind my back outside of group chats and talking about me and just in general having more fun without me.This is the part where it all blew up and I decided I would rather isolate myself from this guy so I deleted him from skype and my phone contacts. Stayed friends with the first FP for a while before that eventually fizzled out. About a year later the dude my ex FP introduced me to popped into my head and I readded him on Skype. Come to find the two of them dated over the summer but broke up and he’d already gotten a new boyfriend. Everything was fine and we almost immediately got back into our old routine of watching stupid videos and shows as well as listening to music, sometimes inviting his boyfriend to join us. the three of us were friends for about 2 years before his ex developed feelings for another friend of theirs. My friend unfortunately had to hear it from a third party and not directly from his ex himself. This sent me into a rage and I verbally attacked his ex a few times, going so far as to harass him for a year before we made amends this fall and we’re even friends now!!

After they broke up with my friend and I had verbally ripped his ex a new one, about 3 months later my friend/FP and I confessed our crushes for each other and started dating in the spring of 2017. Summer 2017 came and he and I got to meet up for the first time in our almost 5 years of knowing each other. Our romantic relationship was not at all healthy in the slightest. I would need constant assurances of his feelings for me and if there was the slightest change in tone i’d immediately shift into a sour mood. Along with this I had the repeat actions of getting passive aggressively angry when he’d mention anyone else but me or make plans with someone else. Summer comes and goes and we’re still together even though i’m out of line, we even make plans for me to fly fully paid for by his mother to come see him over the Christmas break. this is where things got worse. I was constantly clingy and wouldn’t leave him to do his own thing, and would get jealous and passive aggressive whenever he’d hop on voice chat to play games. I would have major anxiety whenever I wasn’t near him and so on. Eventually while I was there we broke up. Him needing to focus on schooling and not being able to keep me happy and under control. Although we broke up I stayed the duration of my trip and we remained good friends.In fact, I’m trying my best with my holiday job to earn enough to buy him a ticket up to Seattle to see him again <3

My unhealthy relationships don’t stop there but are more brief than the one beforehand 

After my FP and I broke up I started talking regularly to this guy I used to talk to on skype before the great migration to discord.  

He and I talked from around January to June 2018. We’d go back and forth teasing each other and had an amazing friendship overall. Around the February is when I developed a crush on the guy which was... Not too great. Not only was he my crush but he was another FP. I would fixate on him when I thought I made him upset and would have major anxiety about it until proven otherwise, as is usually the case with most people for me.

Cut to March which just happens to be my birth month and I plan a desert date with a couple of my friends, him included. We all go to the mall near by and have a good time. This would be the first, and last time I got to meet him in person as he lived over an hour away by bus. We part ways with a hasty hug because I had to catch my bus back home. After this we plan on meeting up again but it turns out that he’s being kicked out by his mother that recently remarried and has to move to California. He ends up moving but we still stay connected on Discord and are still friends. April is when we start flirting with each other and we eventually send nudes back and forth to which I get a less than pleased response about my body.

At first I brushed it off bc you know I was enchanted by him. But then he proceeds to ghost me twice after this, once because of the nude and twice bc I told him I liked him.

During this he also blocked me on Discord for a few days as a joke because I insulted a titty anime he liked but came back and told me excitedly he was moving back to Washington but because he didn’t feel like he could tell me he didn’t want to have sex like we talked about he ghosts me. I eventually have an encounter where I was sexually assaulted and he said nothing about it and ignored my distress, eventually blocking me for good because I started going off on him like I did with my friends ex.

The next FP has a short history as he’s my current FP.

This guy is still kinda my friend but we don’t hang out in person anymore and he hardly responds to my texts or calls. But!!

I noticed this one when I realized I was doing the same thing I do with all my FPs which is get jealous of the people he talks about. One person in particular, too.

I reconnected with him during the summer 2018, about a month after the incident with the last guy mentioned, we quickly started hanging out again and even had a couple make out sessions. I didn’t notice right away that I was reacting the way I was until one day I noticed myself using manipulative language because he declined my invitation to go get food. This happened a couple of times, most significant of which was when he texted me the morning after he went out and partied. I jokingly asked him “ without me?” “Yee”. I was able to restrain and reroute what I was saying to make it seem less manipulative. Going back to me being upset when he mentions someone else. He has a crush on this girl who’s a mutual friend of ours and one night he invited me over to hang but we ended up going to the mall she worked at so he could try and convince her to join us. She said no, and we left. But he proceeded to talk about her for a good half hour after. He also knew I had a crush on him at the time so that double set me off. Halloween rolls up. He and another best friend of mine come over for drinks and to just chill in general. He asks me who all is coming and asks abt her. I don’t invite her because she’s leaving for a trip the next morning. Previous to this I met up with her and her now boyfriend and she tells me they got back together. She hadn’t told my FP and was never going to in the first place. He mentioned her again and I consider telling him then and there but decided not to at the moment. After Halloween is when he starts ghosting me and I get angry bc he’s not giving me attention so that’s when I tell him. Not out of the kindness of my heart but out of spite for being ignored. He and I don’t talk as much but I assume we’re on ok terms!

These are my most relevant people attachment stories. But I’m far from over with this post which is already a LOT.

Another fun part of BPD that I experience is the lack of identity.

I can easily attach myself to fictional characters and identify with them so strongly that I feel like I become them. This has happened most significantly with Dean Winchester from Supernatural and Charlie Kelly from Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia.

With Dean it was probably the strongest. I started listening to the music he did and wearing leather and becoming aloof like he was. Just overall taking small traits and becoming like him.

Charlie was more of a comfort character who I also took small traits from and started dressing like him.

As well as taking on their traits I considered career paths similar to theirs. Bartender and janitor for Charlie and a cop for Dean.

It doesn’t stop at fictional characters either. I notice I take on bits of the people I’m with and mold myself into who they are. I laugh like them and want to do the same things that they do even if I’m bad at it. Another HUGE symptom of BPD and one of the most common criteria for it is uncontrollable bouts of anger  First and most recent example I have being when my last ex broke up with me. I spent two days in a rage threatening to do harm to him and, as he is an addict, told one of his friends that he could “Die in a ditch with a needle in his arm”. Every time I thought of him my body would go cold and I would shake with rage. Second example I can think of that I’ve had to do on many occasions is my plans and needs being shoved behind by my mother and me getting so enraged I had to go chop a dead tree in our back yard. Third and final example I have of some of my rages comes back to the person who ghosted me because I was fat.After he did that and found out he was lying to me about everything I sat for a good half hour staring at the group call he was in on a mutual discord server and planned on going in and yelling at him while everyone was there. I ended up not doing it but that was another example of me shaking with rage and my body going cold.  Mood swings are prevalent in people with BPD The most notable examples i have are, with the most severe being the time I took a book and smashed it on my desk, cried and then started laughing at the Mishapocolypse  all in the span of about 15 to 20 minutes and several times when I felt extremely inadequate to everyone or when I misinterpreted the tone of my FP and sent myself spiraling into a depression.  Some people with BPD may also have hallucinations I’ve had one that’s the most notable, being the time I hallucinated the smell of doritos when there were none near me at the time because I was outside away from home, Another when I was sitting in my therapists office. she noticed me looking away from her towards the floor at what I saw as a blue dot that looked like a very small light from a charging cord on a laptop battery pack. And last, but most recent is when I was outside on a walk and seeing several blue dots blinking in the bushes where no other lights would be.   Another marked trait of BPD is Impulsivity    I’ve dealt with impulsivity in a couple different area. Notably though are the several unsafe sexual encounters I've had with multiple partners, turning to drugs or alcohol to cope with stress or sadness and my spending money when I have very little. People with BPD can suffer from intrusive thoughts These are NOT fun or cute like tumblr likes to make them out to be. Here’s a list of mine that go from not so bad to holy shit go get help. 

Fp not talking to you this exact moment?: Pull your hair out 

Chugg the whole bottle of asprin

Punch that dog

Bite the cat

Feeling angry and wanna take it out on something?: Grab one of the hamsters and SQUISH!!!

I wanna peel the skin off a frog

Step on your grandpa’s ventilator tube

Take that baby by the legs and swing it’s head into the wall

These are just some of the symptoms I suffer from and my personal experiences with BPD and as I say in the tags, people experience these symptoms differently. If you can relate to these symptoms and are not diagnosed, I suggest taking it to a professional who can help you further research and help you recover.

[mizuki-rin-reblogs]

Happy Birthday Beka

---7 Days Until Otabeks Birthday (24th October)--- Yuri was at the ice rink sitting on the side watching Victor and Yuuri practice, it was just the three of them today Yuri was taking a short break from practice. He got lost in his thoughts of what to get Otabek for his birthday, he didn’t notice Victor and Yuuri leaving the ice and approach him. He jumped when he felt a small tap on his shoulder, he noticed that the other two were sitting on either side of him. “What's wrong Yurio?” Yuuri asked with a concerned smile. “It’s Bekas birthday in a week and I don’t know what to get for him” Yuri sighed. Yuuri and Victor looked at each other over Yuris head. “What do you want to get him?” Victor asked. “My first idea was to go and surprise him by showing up at his house. But I can’t because of training and I can’t afford it.” Yurio sighed Yuuri looked at Yuri with a look of sympathy and then glanced over at Victor who was pulling his phone out while standing up and walked over to his bag so no-one would hear what he was talking about. “Yurio don’t worry Victor and I will work something out and help you.” Yuuri said already guessing what Victor was doing. Yuuri got up and walked over to Victor as he got off the phone. “Have you dealt with Yakov?” Yuuri asked with a knowing smile. “How did you know what I’m doing?” Victor asked shocked. “It’s obvious to anyone who knows you well enough that it’s the kind of thing you’d do.” Yuuri smiled. “Oh...Well yes Yakov is dealt with. He has given me and Yurio from the 29th October to the 12th November off.” Victor smiled. Yuuri quickly went on his phone for a few minuets, Victor already knew what he was doing. “Great I have booked and paid for the plane tickets and hotel rooms. Let's go tell Yurio the good news.” Yuuri smiled taking Victor's hand and walking back to where Yuri was still sitting. “Yurio we have a surprise for you.” Yuuri said trying to contain his excitement. “What?” Yuri looked up at them with a raised eyebrow. “So I spoke to Yakov and he has agreed to give you from the 29th October to the 12th November off. As long as you practice with me and Yuuri while we are away.” Victor beamed. “And I have just booked us all plane tickets to Almaty as well as two hotel rooms. So make sure your ready on Sunday our flight leaves at 10:30pm it’s the earliest one I could get us at such short notice. Victor and I will come and get you at 7:30pm to go to the airport. Our plane will land at 3:30am on the 30th so that’ll be around 6:30am because of the time difference. And...” Victor covered Yuuris mouth. “You’re rambling darling.” Victor smiled at Yuuris blush. “What are you two saying?” Yuri couldn’t believe what he was being told. “We are saying that you can see Otabek on his birthday as long as you train with me and Yuuri on some days.” Victor smiled. Yuri couldn’t believe it he just stared at them for a minute and then leapt at them wrapping an arm around both of them in a group hug. “THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!!!” Yuri yelled he was overjoyed with the news then he realised something. “How will I trick Beka into thinking I’m still in Russia when we Skype nearly everyday?” “You could always tell him that you broke your laptop and it won’t be fixed until the 31st and make out that you're at the ice rink for some late night training with Yuuri and I and you haven’t got a wifi signal. Tell him tonight about the training and then text him Sunday afternoon about the laptop.” Victor suggested. “You may not look it but you can be smart when you want to.” Yuri joked.laughing at Victor's pout. “Come on you two we have to do some actual training and plan our trip.” Yuuri smiled fondly at the two of them walking back towards the ice. ---Later that day --- Yuri sat in his bed in some loose pajama bottoms (which he stole from Otabek when he last visited Russia) and a black t-shirt which is a few sizes too big and hung off one shoulder (He stole this off Otabek the last Yuri visited Kazakhstan). He signed into Skype and called Otabek, he answered after three rings he was dressed like he was going to go out.. “Hello Kitten” Otabek greeted. Yuri blushed at the nickname he wasn’t sure when he would get use to it. “Hi Bear. Are you going out?” Yuri asked with a smile. Otabek looked at what Yuri was wearing and smiled fondly. “Yeah I have to go DJ for this club so I’ll be going soon. Are those my bottoms and shirt?” Otabek asked already knowing the answer. “Oh okay and maybe” Yuri replied blushing. “How have you been Yura?” Otabek asked Yuri could see that he was still getting ready so he knew this call won’t be long. “I’ve been good, oh before I forget I’m going to be doing late night training with Victor and Yuuri on Sunday and Monday so I won’t be able to Skype you because I won’t have any internet but we can still text and call.” Yuri said hoping that Otabek would buy it. He looked up from tying his boots up and nodded. “Okay Yura just don’t overwork yourself. Why are you training at night anyway?” He questioned. Yuri panicked for a moment but remained calm before saying the first thing that came to mind. “Oh there will be less people around and katsudon concentrates better or something.” Yuri said with a dismissive wave of his hand. Otabek just nodded. “How have you been Beka?” Yuri asked before Otabek could question him further. “I’ve been good my family keep asking me what I want to do for my birthday but I don’t really want to do anything. Especially if you’re not with me.” Otabek had a sad smile. “ Come on bear you have to do something for your birthday and you know I’ll be the first one to wish you a happy birthday and I’ll definitely Skype you for hours.” Yuri tried to cheer him up. Otabek smiled. “I’ll think about it...I have to go now kitten but I’ll let you know when I’m home and I’ll call you tomorrow.” Otabek responded with a smile he then started looking around. “Okay bear I’ll speak to you tomorrow...If you’ve lost your keys have you looked in the fridge? Don’t forget that you sometimes place them in there when you get home and get something to eat and forget about it or don’t notice that you put them down to get food without looking where you're putting them” Yuri said while Otabek left the view of the camera to check the fridge. He came back with a blush on his face holding his keys. “Thank you, I don’t know what I would do without you. I love you” Otabek said and then put his jacket on. “I love you too, bear have fun at work and get home safe. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” Yuri smiled. “Bye kitten.” Otabek waved “Bye bear” Yuri responded. “I’ll see you soon.” Yuri said to the blank screen. ---2 Days Until Otabeks Birthday (29th October) --- Yuri was at Victor and Yuuris apartment he was already packed and ready to go he got bored of waiting at home so he decided to just go straight to their place. There was an hour left until they needed to leave and Victor was still deciding on what to take, Yuuri was trying to help him but Victor started being over dramatic. Makkachin was already at ridiculously expensive dog sitters and will be given five star treatment. Victor wouldn’t settle for anything less. Yuuri walked into the sitting room with his suitcase. “So I finally managed to persuade Victor that he doesn't need to pack his whole wardrobe for a two week trip. Have you told Otabek that you have broken your laptop yet?” Yuuri asked while putting the plane tickets passports in his backpack. “No not yet I'll do it now.” Yuri said pulling out his phone. “Yuuuuuuri!!” Victor called from the bedroom. “I'll go deal with him you can use your normal room.” Yuuri responded walking to his and Victor's room. Yuri just nodded and went to his room. He walked into his room, sat on the bed and called Otabek. It rang a few times and then Otabek picked up. “Hey Kitten, what's up?” Otabek greeted. “Hi, I'm not interrupting anything am I?” “No I was just a little surprised with the random call.” “Oh well I just wanted to let you know that I broke my laptop and it won’t be fixed until the 31st.” “Oh…” Otabek sounded disappointed. “But we can still text and call. And it’ll be fixed on your birthday so I can still see you.” Yuri tried to cheer him up. “Yeah I guess.” Otabek sighed “I’m really sorry bear if i could fix it I would.” Yuri tried. “I know kitten.” Otabek responded. They talked for a bit more until Yuuri came into the room to tell Yuri it was time to go. “I have to go now Beka I need to get ready for night training.” Yuri said. “Okay Kitten speak to you later. I love you.” Otabek responded. “I love you too Bear.” Yuri smiled and hung up. Yuri left the room and saw that Victor and Yuuri had already put everything in the car. The two of them were waiting for him by the front door Victor was putting Yuuris scarf on Yuuri while using it to pull him into a kiss. “Come on you idiots we have a plane to catch.” Yuri called walking past them heading to the car. “He does realise that it was him we was waiting for right?” Victor asked Yuuri. “Yeah but you have to realise it's probably hard seeing us always together and being lovey dovey. When he can’t because of the distance between them. Now come on Vitya before we’re are late.” Yuuri said giving Victor a kiss on the cheek before going to the car. “I’m coming dear.” Victor smiled locking up and following Yuuri. ---6:30am Almaty 1 Day Until Otabeks Birthday (30th October) --- The three of them was leaving the plane Victor practically dragging a half asleep Yuuri. Yuri was wide awake with excitement the flight had felt like days instead of hours to him and he couldn’t wait to see Beka. They got their bags and got a taxi to their hotel, Victor checked them in and they went to their rooms Yuri had his own while Victor and Yuuri shared. They all went to bed for a few hours and met up in the hotel lobby at 1pm Yuuri looked less exhausted and Victor looked well rested and full of energy. They went out for lunch and then did some shopping Victor and Yuuri was buying souvenirs for their friends in Russia and a gift for Otabek (a new biker jacket and boots). Yuri brought stuff for his friends in Russia and grandpa, he also brought Otabeks birthday presents. He even managed to find a giant cardboard box for his plan. By the time they had finished it was around 7pm so they had dinner and went back to the hotel for a few hours. It was 11:30pm when they all met in the lobby again Yuri bringing the folded box and his presents, they got a taxi to Otabeks street they got out a few houses away it was 11:49pm. They quietly walked to Otabeks house and unfolded the box outside his front door and Yuri climbed in (Victor picked him up and put him in it.) Yuri put the gifts he had brought him near his feet and then crouched down he put his thumb up to signal that it was okay to close the box and tape it shut it was 11:59pm. When the clock hit midnight Yuuri knocked on Otabeks door and he and Victor ran as to not get caught. A few seconds later Yuri heard Otabek open the front door, he heard him pick at the tape and start pulling it off. Just befor all the tape came off Yuri jumped up. “HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEAR!!” Yuri shouted. Otabek just stood there for a few moments until he wrapped Yuri in his arms and pulled him out of the box in a hug. Yuri hugged him back tightly and wrapped his legs around Otabeks waist, Otabek was about to walk into his house carrying Yuri until Yuri remembered the other gifts. “Wait a sec bear I have your presents in the box.” Yuri jumped down and quickly got the presents. As he turned around Otabek pulled hijme into another hug. “Aren’t you going to say something?” Yuri asked. “I can’t believe you're here kitten, I’ve missed you soo much.” Otabek said. “I missed you to come on let's go in it's getting cold.” Yuri said and started to walk into the house until Otabek pulled him back and into a kiss. The kissed lasted until Yuri needed air then Otabek pulled him into the house. “When did you get here?” Otabek asked they were both laying in his bed wrapped in each other's arms Yuri was wearing some of Otabeks pyjamas. “We arrived at 6:30am technically yesterday because it's your birthday now. I've had this planned for a week.” Yuri said trying to get closer to Otabek. “How did you afford it?” Otabek asked. “I had Victor and Yuuri help me. Do you mind if we see them later they want to take you to a birthday lunch and give you gifts?” Yuri asked. “I don't mind I have to thank them anyway for bringing me my kitten.” Otabek smiled. “Come on Yura let's go to sleep it's almost one in the morning and I'm guessing we have to meet those to at around 12ish.” Otabek said. Yuri nodded and the two of them soon fell asleep. --- Yuri woke up at 8 am and even though he didn't want to he climbed out of Otabeks arms and crept out of bed and into the kitchen. He started to cook so he put some sausages and bacon in a frying pan, when they were nearly cooked he put them in the preheated grill to finish cooking. He then put the kettle on, put toast in the toaster and eggs in a pan. A few minutes later he was buttering toast and putting the eggs, sausages and bacon on two plates. He Put the two plates of food on a tray with two hot cups of tea and two cups of juice. When he walked back into the bedroom Otabek was waking up with a frown moving his hand as if looking for something. “I'm here bear...Happy birthday.” Yuri said with a smile as he placed the tray on the nightstand to give Otabek a morning kiss. “Thank you. thought it was all a dream for a second there.” Otabek responded kissing Yuri back. Yuri pulled away and sat on the bed next to Otabek as Otabek sat up. He gave Otabek his food and tea. “Definitely not a dream. Not even I could dream up your delicious breakfasts” Otabek said after swallowing the first bite. Yuri blushed. “Just eat your food before it gets cold.” Yuri said before taking another bite. Otabek smirked and ate his food. They ate their food in mostly silence only talking to make plans for the day and saying how much they missed each other. Once they finished eating they got dressed and Yuri went to wash up while Otabek responded to the birthday messages he had received. Yuri found him sitting on the sofa ending a call with his coach. When he got off the phone Yuri sat in his lap holding the two gifts he had. “So I officially don't have training today but I do tomorrow unfortunately.” Otabek said. “It's okay I travel back late on the 10th but for the time off I had to join the other two in training so we could all train together if you don't mind.” Yuri said. “ That sounds great.” Otabek said kissing Yuri on the head. “Here open your presents before we have to go meet the other two.” Yuri handed Otabek the two gift bags. He opened the bigger bag first he smiled when he saw a stuffed cat with green eyes and light fur. “I couldn't find a blond one but that was the closest I could get. Because I'm your kitten.” Yuri blushed. “I love it Yura. I love you.” Otabek smiled kissing Yuri. When they stopped Yuri looked up. “I love you too. Come on open the other one.” Yuri smiled. Otabek nodded and started opening the smaller gift. He pulled out the jewellery box with a confused expression when he looks at the contents his expression changes to one in awe. Otabek pulls one of the necklaces out of the box and reads what the inside of the ring hanging off the chain says: ‘Yura's big bear x’ Otabek then reads the other ring: ‘Bekas cute kitten x’ He looked down at Yuri with tears in his eyes. “Yuri I love you soo much. They're perfect.” “I pre-ordered them when I was still in Russia and picked them up yesterday. Will you put mine on for me?” Yuri blushed. Otabek nodded and put Yuri's necklace on for him and then let Yuri put his on for him. They spent the rest of the morning snuggling on the sofa exchanging soft kisses and making plans for Yuri's stay. Until it was time to leave, Otabek handed Yuri his spare helmet and then left. They met up with Victor and Yuuri for lunch. They both wish Otabek a happy birthday and hand him is gifts which Otabek thank them for. “Also thank you for bringing Yura to me.” Otabek smiled. “No problem Otabek. We know what it can feel like when the person you love isn't with you. And we didn't want Yurio to feel that way especially on your birthday.” Yuuri said he glanced up at Victor who smiled down at him and gave him a kiss. “Right you two can spend the rest of the day together but Yurio stays in his hotel room tonight because we have training bright and early and we don't want him getting distracted. We have already arranged everything with your coach Otabek so we will all train together in the same rink.” Victor said with a smile. “But on your days off you can both either stay at Otabeks or in Yurios hotel room.” Yuuri added with a smile. They went their separate ways Yuuri and Victor did some sightseeing. Otabek and Yurio went and visited Otabeks family and friends for the birthday wishes and gifts then spent the evening in Yuri's hotel room until Otabek had to leave. They kissed goodnight and exchanged ‘I loves you’ with smiles knowing that they get to see each other first thing for training. When Otabek got in he messaged Yuri and went to bed. He fell asleep with one thought in his mind as he held the ring hanging from his neck, with a smile on his face. ‘ Best birthday ever.’

[shoot-of-corruption]

Munday question: How did you decide on that you wanted to rp your current muse? (also sorry if my question is worded weird)

Sorry this is late. This reached me, when I was heading to bed yesterday.Well firstly I knew a lot of people from abroad who liked Yu-Gi-Oh and also I had crippling anxiety in joining the English Harry Potter community *CHRM*

So I ot together with some people per fanfiction first and they were super supportive in personal RP. @the-vampires-are-out was one of my earliest contacts on this. After that I joined a group on deviantART to get into English RP more and I got to know others, who liked to RP as well, sadly I didn’t get to this character firstly. I got the spot of Ishizu and later Thief King, even though I have to say any Bakura Muse wasn’t really one of mine. I am not quite cut to RP them.

During that phase I also took on private RPing on Skype to get better in writing quick English replies (which is kind of required in an English RP CHAT...) so I tried out other characters but the ones I had in the group and stumbled over Mariku.And... I don’t know. We just hit it off. I loved his Battle City interpretation, especially due to the German voice actor (which I am basing him on and it’s just chill inducing evil goodness), really but it was super lacking in the development department... so I just went on pondering, well... if Malik never quite finished him and if he didn’t die in the Shadow Realm... I ask myself what would have become of him.So eventually due to some creativity boosts, I ended up on tumblr and started his RP page four years ago (I think 😅), which was quite nice, because people seemed to like what I thought about him and shared my headcanons and so I got very deep and feelsy with him and he will forever be my precious baby.

[ashisbaeee]

Gemma doesn't like you part 2

A/N: hi my loves! As requested, here is part 2 to ‘Gemma doesn’t like you’ . Thank you all so much for enjoying part 1 and for your feedback. I hope this is up to your standards and is okay. I apologize in advance for any grammatical errors. Please feel free to send in your feedback, love hearing from you all. Happy reading!

Part 1:http://ashisbaeee.tumblr.com/post/163704581446/gemma-doesnt-like-you

He immediately noticed you left the party without saying a word to him about your whereabouts. Even in his drunken state he noticed you were gone. At first he thought you had just gone to the bathroom, but after a while, he knew something was wrong. So of course, Harry being Harry, he stumbled away from the group with phone in hand, making it his mission to find where you went. To his disappointment he didn’t catch you in the bathroom. Maybe you went back to the group he thought. Upon arriving at the private section where the rest of the bunch were, he saw you weren’t there as well. Where the hell did you go? he thought to himself. He briefly stepped out and tried to call and text you to no avail. With a sigh, he reluctantly went back inside. Concern rang through his mind, just as he was about to get up and leave, a person went on the loudspeaker. With the final call for drinks before closing time, he brushed it off and resumed to chugging some more shots back, ending his birthday bash with a bang. Oh was he going to regret that the next day. That was going to be some hangover. He had asked Gemma about you and if she had seen you leave but of course she denied it. Out of sight out of mind right? She was glad that you were gone with such ease, although a part of her wished you put up a fight for the dramatics.

••••2 weeks later••••

14 days, 336 hours, that’s how long it’s been since you last saw/spoke to Harry.

He was hysterical. He didn’t know where you were, if you were safe, nothing. Like you had disappeared into thin air.

After you had left the club, you told your cab driver to drop you off at the nearest hotel by the airport. Once you got to your room, you jumped on your laptop in search of the earliest flight back home. The earliest one was at 1am the next day, so of course you booked it. You safely landed home, (without being seen) and quickly phoned your parents about where you currently were and to not worry about you. You stayed at a local motel that was about a 45 minute drive from your family home.

Throughout the 2 weeks, you were bombarded with a million and one texts, missed calls, voicemails and even emails. All coming from the one who you cared for the most. You thought that as days went on, he would get the hint and the calls and texts would decrease but to your dismay, it was the total opposite. The more you ignored him, the more he tried to reach out to you.

time skip

It has been about a couple of months now and that was when the calls and texts started to dwindle, at first calls, texts came in by the hour everyday but changed to every other day then to once a week then once a month to now almost non existent. Just because you never answered him didn’t mean you didn’t see it. You read every text, listened to every voicemail, read and reread every email. A part of you longed for him, to let him know the truth but you knew it was going to make the situation worse than it currently is.

You haven’t spoken to anyone since this all happened. Although you never once replied to Harry, you checked up on him regularly through social media and the news. Once word got out that you weren’t together, Harry went on a downward spiral. He missed important meetings, and cancelled interviews. He refused to leave his apartment only to be bombarded with questions about the relationship. To say he was a mess would be an understatement.

Two months later, you find yourself still being a complete and utter mess. One night, just as you were going to bed you heard a ‘ding’ meaning you received a text. You rolled your eyes as to who would be up in this ungodly hour at 4am.

unknown number: hi Y/N, I don’t really know what time it is your end but I apologize if it is at some ungodly hour. It’s me Gemma, I know you probably don’t want to hear from me because of Harry’s birthday, but please, talk to him. Let him know that you’re okay if you are and if you aren’t let him know. He’s been driving himself off the wall, he’s missed so many interviews and isn’t himself, he’s so worried about you. I actually want to talk about the night of his party. When you left, I was stoked. I had my brother all to myself after months of not seeing him. We could catch up and I didn’t have to worry about our time being cut short whenever someone came to greet him or if you were by his side the whole night. Anyways, to make a long story short, he eventually found out that I was the one who told you to leave. He was furious. It accidentally slipped the next day when we were home. He kicked me out of his house and told me to never speak to him again. We haven’t talked for a solid 2 months now. I truly hope you’re okay.

You read and reread the text again. Why is she texting you? And how did she even get your phone number? She made it clear as day that she absolutely despised you and here she was texting you hoping you were okay and whatnot. Like no! You are not okay! You decided that the next time Harry texted/called you, you were going to pick up to tell him you were in a safe place and that you were okay and how he needed to talk to his family.

Just then you received another text. unknown number: sorry Y/N, I was wondering if you’d like of course if we could meet up so I can properly apologize and tell you everything’s that happened. I completely understand if don’t want to. But I’d like to do this for Harry’s sake.

of course she’d use the Harry card

and to no surprise you didn’t sleep that night. I mean who could after receiving a text from their ex’s sister?! After she was the one who ruined the relationship?!!

Reluctantly, after weeks of pondering her offer over and over, you agreed to talk. Now you were back home and she was in London. This was to happen face to face and not on a phone/ Skype call. So after getting the details, she was going to fly to you and you were to meet up at a hole in the wall cafe. You scheduled to meet at 2.

You arrived there early and found a quiet little area for you both. As you waited for her, the more hesitant you became. Were you doing the right thing? Your palms started to become clammy and you felt like you were going to pass out. Shortly after, you saw her coming into the cafe. You stiffened and stood up so that she’d be able to see you. She went up to the counter and placed an order. After getting her tea and pastry, she walked up to your table.

“Hi Y/N. sorry I’m a bit late. ”

“Hi, no, you’re fine, I just got here as well.”

Talk about awkward. You could totally feel the tension in the air.

Gemma then proceeds to talk about that night, and the aftermath the next day while going through that hellish hangover. And how her brother had kicked her out of his house and told her to never speak to him again. She knows she’s the root of all of this but she still stands her ground.

Gemma: “look, I know I caused this but can you blame me? I’m so sick and tired of watching my brother fall head over heels for someone only to be hurt in the end. I was the one who picked him back up and told him that the right one was going to come. I was looking out for him. I knew the moment I saw you, you were going to do exactly what the rest did. And I sure as hell made it my mission to stop this train wreck before more time was wasted and to spare Harry from all the negativity. ”

Had she thought so little of you? You thought to yourself.

Y/N: “look, I know you are looking out for Harry, but you refuse to give me a chance. I knew how hesitant he was before we got into the relationship but we worked through it. We got to know each other. He knew I saw him as Harry and not as Harry Styles. He was so sure that we would get along well before he actually introduced me to your mom. I know he takes into consideration both of your opinions.“ by then, you were cut off.

G: “you can’t seriously be playing the ‘I got to know him for the real him instead of Harry Styles’ card. Everyone’s done it. Just stop the charades. I call bull when I see it. He should know by now a genuine person when meets them.” she roared.

you inhaled deeply. With tears welling in your eyes, you spoke.

“ look, I don’t think this is going anywhere. I understand that you’re looking out for him but that doesn’t give you the right to judge me. You don’t even know me. I see that you want to fix your relationship with your brother, so do that. I know nothing I say or do will change your mind about me and now I don’t really care. You can think what you want. But what I had with your brother was real. So you can go back to London, call your brother and tell him we spoke. Whatever. You do whatever to fix your relationship, you can’t do this to your mom. It’s killing her to know that her children aren’t on speaking terms. ”

G: “ don’t you bring my mum into this. You don’t even know her, you never had the chance to meet her so don’t go bloody talking about her like you know her” she seethed. She threw her mug unto the floor. The sound of glass breaking echoing in the little cafe; earning a few stares from the other patrons.

[purposeofmymind]

Okay. I don’t usually like to get into fandom and shipping drama completely unsolicited, but this has just been bothering me and I feel compelled to write my thoughts out.

What’s with the recent phenomena of anti-shippers who are against “problematic” ships?

And I wanna emphasize recent. I’ll get more into that later.

(Also no read more because I feel like my blog’s text is hard to read. D: This is going to be long.)

More specifically, what’s with these anti-shippers who are against ships where one character is 18 or older while the other is still a “minor” (”minor” is in quotes because the definition is different depending on what country you live in)?

These anti-shippers go so far as to call shippers of these ships “pedophile apologists”. Or even harass the crew (writers, directors, actors, etc.) of the show. Y’all are ridiculous.

Psychology Today defines pedophilia as “the fantasy or act of sexual activity with prepubescent children ” The National Center for Biotechnology Information backs up this definition, defining it “as an ongoing sexual attraction toward pre-pubertal children.“

What do these two definitions have in common? Prepubescent. If the “minor” of a ship is a 10-year-old, then yeah I can see why you’d have a problem with that. When the “minor” is a 16-year-old, a character who has gone through puberty, who has their adult body already, it is not the same. And y’all are hating on ships where the “minor” is a teenager who has obviously already gone through puberty.

So long as the “minor” in the ship is post-puberty, I really don’t understand the issue here. For people to call the 18-year-old in the ship a pedo and to call shippers apologists is just... really wrong. Like factually wrong.

“But it’s illegal because age of consent!” you say. Yeah but the age of consent varies from country to country. In the United States, it varies state to state. That’s not a good basis to use.

I could maybe understand the “it’s predatory” argument. But that will vary depending on the context of a show’s plot and the dynamic of its characters.

In real life, where the adult would be college or working age and the “minor” would still be in high school, yeah I can see why people would not be okay with that. If in reality, a 20+ adult who’s in college/working shows interest in a 16-year-old high school student, that would bother me a bit too. I would question the adult’s intentions. What do they have in common with a high schooler to want to date them or be romantic with them?

But reality is not fiction. Not every fictional ship with an 18+ year-old is predatory. In fictional shows, where the characters are professional world-class athletes or flying through outer space fighting aliens, can you really compare it to reality? No, you can’t. The dynamics of the characters involved are way different from real life people.

Now to get to the point that compelled me to even type this.

This is a recent thing too.

I got into anime back in 2013. I had watched a few old/classic anime, but the first new/currently-airing anime I watched that year was Free! One of the first ships I shipped in Free! (and a ship I still do to this day) is SeiGou. If you don’t watch the anime, Seijuro is a 3rd year and Gou is a 1st year when they meet. Seijuro very obviously has an adorable crush on her. They don’t end up together or anything, but I think they’d make a cute couple! And Free! being one of my first anime fandoms, I was happy to see so many people ship SeiGou too. There was a lot of lovely fan art of them, it was wonderful. If people disliked SeiGou, it was only because they shipped either character with someone else, no biggie.

Now why am I mentioning SeiGou? Because they have the exact same age difference as a more recent ship that has a lot of antis. People who think this new ship is wrong because one of the characters is 18 and the other is 15. That ship is Otayuri.

If you don’t watch Yuri on Ice, Otabek is 18 and Yurio is 15. The episode they meet takes place in December. Otabek’s birthday is on Halloween in October. He barely turned 18 less than 2 months prior. Yurio’s birthday is March 1st. He’ll be 16 in less than 3 months. If they went to regular high schools like in typical sports anime, Otabek would be a 3rd year and Yurio would be a 1st year.

Hmmm look at that. Exact same age difference/gap as SeiGou. But for some reason, there are anti-Otayuri shippers. There were never anti-SeiGou shippers.

While we don’t know Seijuro’s birthday, we can safely assume he turned 18 at some point in season 1 since he was a third year in high school. Either way, he is for sure 18 when he returns in season 2 as a college student, where he is still very obviously crushing on Gou. Season 2 aired in 2014. There was not a single word about the ship being inappropriate or problematic because Seijuro is an 18+ year-old legal adult and Gou is still a “minor”. I never saw any “anti”-SeiGou shippers because Sei was 18+.

So this is completely a recent thing. Why is that? Two things about this are baffling me. 

1) Where did this “anti” thing come from? I’m gonna quickly address this one. When did that become a thing? I think the earliest I remember seeing anything tagged as “anti-(ship)” was when the Legend of Korra was on, I could be wrong though. I’ve never seen it before then though. Before, if you disliked a ship, you ignored it. Simple. You maybe called it your “notp” at the most. You didn’t make posts against it tagging it with “anti-(ship)” as if that will prevent it from coming up in the search when people search for (ship). There are some ships I dislike, and I don’t make negative posts about them. I don’t waste my time on them at all. So first of all, screw this whole “anti” thing. If you don’t like a ship or a show, don’t blog about it at all. And let people who do enjoy the thing enjoy it, without having to see your negative posts when they search for the thing.   

2) Where did this sudden “the moment you turn 18 you cannot be shipped with anyone younger” shipping mindset this come from?

Newsflash: You do not automatically become some pedo or child predator the moment you turn 18. It doesn’t work that way.

If an 18-year-old was interested in a pre-pubescent child, yes that would be very concerning.

But an 18-year-old being interested in a 15-year-old who’s in the same school club as them? Not a big deal.

When I turned 18, I was still a senior in high school. I had more in common with my 15/16-year-old sophomore friends than I did with any of my friends who had been in college a year or two.

During my senior year, I probably found a sophomore boy or two in my church youth group to be cute. At midnight on my 18th birthday, those feelings did not change. I still thought those sophomore boys were cute. Why? Because we were in the same age group. Just because I could now legally get a tattoo without my parents’ permission and join the military, any attraction I had towards them did not change, and that did not make me a predator.

To relate this to Otayuri: they have a 2 and a half year age difference. They are still in the same age group. If they were to date, that would not make Otabek a predator. 

Also just because people ship something, that doesn’t mean they want the characters to bang right away. Why do antis assume that shipping something means shipping it sexually?

I ship Otayuri. I like the idea of them talking on Skype late into the night and having cute sightseeing dates when they have competitions in the same city . I don’t want them having wild sex. I want them to have a sweet long-distance relationship. I know a lot of people ship them in this same way.

And I’m sure most people who draw or write NSFW art and fics age-up the characters. I know a lot of people have a problem with this “aging up” but I don’t know why. These characters may be in suspended animation in the show, but time goes on. They’ll age eventually. Even if the official show doesn’t show them aging or show an epilogue, the characters are still going to age. Let people age them up. I can understand why it may make some uncomfortable or uneasy, but I don’t see how that hurts anyone.

Now another, more controversial topic that I might as well include while I’m at it because why the hell not

I’m gonna start off saying now: I haven’t really watched Voltron completely yet. I watched the first two episodes and I’m enjoying it so far. However at the moment I’ve only seen a couple episode, so I do not really know the dynamics of the characters completely yet, so I do not really ship anything. (I have reblogged lots of Voltron shipping posts though, but it’s mostly because I saw some fan art that was well-drawn and I wanted to give the artist a like and reblog.)

That said, I really don’t see the problem with Shiro being shipped with Keith or Lance (or Hunk, though I don’t see that ship much so I’ve never seen hate for it either). The age gap isn’t the big of a difference given the context/plot/setting of the show. Let’s say Shrio is 25. Okay. Keith and Lance have been said to be around 16 or 17, I believe?

I’m gonna repeat what I said above. In real life, a relationship between a 25-year-old and a 16-year-old would make me a little uncomfy. Why? Again, because they have little - if anything - in common. Why would a 25-year-old adult who is either in college or the work force want to date someone who is still in high school? I would question the older person’s intentions. And if that relationship did happen, I would probably be a little weary of it and find it inappropriate. It’s not so much the age gap as it is the timing, because in 2-3 years, these two people could date and most others wouldn’t care.

But guess what? FICTION AND REALITY ARE DIFFERENT. Voltron is fiction. It is not real life.

Again I haven’t watched much of the show yet, but I’m seeing that the basic gist of the plot is that they’re defending outer space and have to defeat the bad aliens, right? Shiro and Keith/or/Lance have a much different dynamic than a real-life 20-something/high schooler would. They’re IN SPACE FIGHTING ALIENS TOGETHER for crying out loud. It’s not real life. Shiro is not a college student. Keith and Lance are not high school students. They’re on equal grounds as defenders of space. It seems like their lives are at stake quite often and they’ve been through a lot. I think it’s safe to say that they have enough in common and have gone through important life-changing moments and character development together that a relationship between Shiro and Keith/or/Lance, despite the age gap, would be okay and healthy.

Even if Shrio is their “leader,” I don’t think it’s much of a power dynamic either. Nothing to be concerned about at least. Especially since there’s so few characters and they seem to go through a lot of things together. (Also Shiro seems like a nice guy who would have no ill-intentions in a relationship.)

One thing about anti-shippers that always bother me is they say that if you ship this “problematic” ship, you would support something similar in real life. Hence the apologists arguments. Um. No? No, that’s not at all the case.

Again I must emphasize that fiction is not reality. Most people have a healthy enough mindset to separate the two.

I love the Hunger Games. Does that mean I condone the murder of children in real life? Of course not. It’s just a book/movie for entertainment purposes. I would be horrified if it was a real-life occurrence (praying that it doesn’t actually become real since we’ve got the equivalent of President Snow now).

Most people who enjoy the Hunger Games or any kind of violent book or movie or show would never condone violence in real life. A good chunk of media is violent. So many graphic movies and video games out there nowadays where you kill people. Doesn’t mean it’s okay in reality. And most people know that it’s just fiction and would never condone it in real life. If they do, they’re gonna be put in jail for it. Violence isn’t “normalized” just because there are so many violent video games and movies that “glorify” it. Violence is still a crime (unless self-defense) and looked-down upon.

I’m gonna end this by saying...

If a ship makes you uncomfortable, that is 100% valid. Maybe when you were a young teen, you were in a relationship with an 18 year old who took advantage of you/the relationship was a bad experience/etc. Maybe you just think it’s icky. A few ships squick me out for various reasons, nothing wrong with that. For whatever reason, if a ship makes you uneasy, that is fine.

What is not fine is you harassing and sending hate to people who do ship those ships. 

What is not fine is you harassing the crew and cast of a show for mentioning/supporting/being okay with those ships. Here’s looking at those of you who harassed that one Voltron voice actor on Twitter a few days ago that I heard about. If you participated in that harassment or support those who did it, you should be ashamed of yourselves. 

What is not fine is you making negative posts and tagging it as “anti (thing).” Freedom of speech, yeah, you can do whatever the hell you want, make all the negative posts you want, I can’t stop you. But it’s childish. Especially the passive aggressive, condescending ones like “friendly reminder that (ship/show) is problematic because (reasons) (emoji).” Also tagging it as “anti (thing)” does nothing. That may prevent it from appearing in the “/tagged/(thing),” but I don’t look at tags, I just use the regular search which is /search(thing).” You putting “anti” in front of the thing doesn’t make it not appear in search. When I search (thing) I’m still going to see your negative “anti” post. Imagine someone trying to have a positive experience, wanting to find new art to reblog, and stumbling across your anti post. That instantly puts me in a bad mood. Stop that crap. If you dislike something, why waste your time and energy making posts against it? I don’t understand. I’m going to have to black list the word “anti” so I don’t see all the negativity when I’m just trying to find cute fan art or a translation of an official interview or something, jeez

You have tools to avoid any ships you dislike. Blacklist, unfollow, and block if you have to. It’s simple.

[ephemeralentertainment]

EUB Devlog - Introduction

Welcome! My name is Eric “ExPorygon” Oswald, and I am the director and lead programmer of 東方逆妙乱 ~ Ephemeral Unnatural Balance as well as the founder of Ephemeral Entertainment. I’d like to personally thank you for joining me on this exploration of the development of EUB.

So let’s not waste any time! Ephemeral Unnatural Balance began its life sometime during 2012 (it’s hard to remember exactly when). I had recently joined the Walfas Station Wagon skype group and had made a number of friends, including Sturmgeschuts, a fanfiction writer. I don’t really remember how it came up, but we were talking about overlooked characters in the Touhou Project series, especially the ones that only appeared as midbosses. We basically thought, “What if there was a game that starred all of those characters?” That’s how the idea of EUB came to be. Sturm would write the story and I would program the game.

While I was still developing another game, the Touhou-Mario crossover, Kingdom of Mushrooms, my will to continue it was on the the decline. The game was…weird to say the least. Honestly, the reason I started that project was partly due to my extreme enthusiasm for making danmaku patterns at the time, as I had recently learned how to program with Danmakufu. I longed to explore what sort of danmaku patterns that characters outside of Touhou would use. This is why I made the Doopliss halloween script and I kind of wish I had just stopped there. What I really mean is, I wish I had simply made standalone boss fights of the characters I wanted to do, instead of making a full game complete with a story. And the story is where the game kind of falls into the weirdness. As someone who usually finds crossover stories to be jarring, weird, and sometimes cringy, I don’t know why I decided to try and make one myself. The time-saving decision to make all of the players have the same dialogue wasn’t helping matters. I still think the story has a few redeeming qualities, like the Bowser dialogue and my plan for Doopliss, but it’s still pretty strange. By 2012-2013, I had begun to realize that the game would at best be seen as a weird meme game among the community, even if it was super well designed (and it wasn’t). I was longing to make a “real” fan game, one that could proudly stand alongside the likes of Concealed the Conclusion and the recently-released The Last Comer. The idea for EUB came along at the perfect time and even though I said that I would finish KoM eventually, I think I knew all along that that really wasn’t likely to happen.

So we hit the ground running with EUB. I started designing the players and Sturm began writing the story. To fit with the theme, we decided to make the incident about a power reversal spell that would be unleashed upon Gensokyo. Traditionally powerful characters would become weak and vice versa. The name, Ephemeral Unnatural Balance was chosen by Sturm to represent the game, as it’s about a short-lived, unusual balance of power brought about by the spell. Here is one of the earliest mock-covers for the game, made by Kappatalist (uploaded by Sturm).

Unfortunately, we couldn’t have known at the time that Double Dealing Character would ultimately beat us to the theme of flipping the status quo on its head. Luckily, there were enough key differences between the two games that it ultimately did not matter much (not to mention a difference of 5 years in release). For example, Seija was aiming to overthrow society but was stopped before she could. In EUB, the upheaval has already started, and the effects are evident by the power and demeanor of the encountered characters.

By late 2013, Sturm had already completed the entire script for the game. I was blown away by it! More than anything, the script signaled to me that this is really happening, that EUB was going to be the Touhou fan project that I had dreamed it of being! More motivated than ever, I set out to making music and starting the actual design of the stages and bosses!

That’s all I’ll cover for now, the next devlog will continue with the development of Stage 1. Thank you for reading and we’ll see you next time!

This was originally published on Ephemeral Entertainment

[theconservativebrief]

Steven Yeun appeared on most people’s radar thanks to his role as fan favorite Glenn Rhee on The Walking Dead, whom he played from the series’ earliest episodes until the character’s death in the season seven premiere. Since then, Yeun’s resumé has taken a turn toward the eclectic — featuring everything from animated series like Voltron and Stretch Armstrong & the Flex Fighters to prestige projects like Bong Joon-Ho’s Okja, which premiered at Cannes in 2017 before going to Netflix, and Boots Riley’s widely lauded Sundance breakout Sorry to Bother You.

Now he’s in Korean director Lee Chang-dong’s moving, mysterious noir film Burning, which premiered to acclaim at Cannes this spring and subsequently played at the Toronto International Film Festival and the New York Film Festival. Set in South Korea, it’s a story about Korean youth who are lonely and adrift, and Yeun plays Ben, a cosmopolitan aesthete who captures the heart of a young woman named Hae-mi (Jong-seo Jeon) — to the consternation of her more reserved schoolmate Jong-su (Ah-In Yoo) — right before she disappears. It doesn’t help when he casually tells Jong-su that he likes to burn down greenhouses.

Steven Yeun in Burning. Well Go USA Entertainment

Ben is described by another character in the film as a “Gatsby” type, and though he speaks Korean perfectly, there’s something slightly off about him — something that’s especially evident to audiences familiar with Korean culture.

Yeun was born in Seoul, but emigrated to Canada and then Michigan with his parents when he was a child, and identifies as Korean-American. Lee and Yeun perfected Yeun’s conversational Korean to play Ben, but decided to have him retain his more American mannerisms and movements, which lends an extra layer of mystery and even menace to the mysterious, seemingly unrooted, supremely confident character.

Yeun and I recently sat down in Manhattan, the day before Burning’s theatrical release, to talk about his career so far, how his religious upbringing intersects with both his career and his identity, and working in a post-Crazy Rich Asians Hollywood.

The following conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for style and clarity.

Alissa Wilkinson

Burning is such a different role and different film than some of the others you’ve done.

Steven Yeun

Yeah. I guess it kind of all comes together at a specific time for me. I got to do seven years of [The Walking Dead] and really build more confidence and get the reps in, and after I left I was very fortunate to have each project stretch me just a little bit more and more and more. I feel like I hope it’s not culminating with Burning, but Burning was one of those experiences where I don’t think I’ll ever forget how that went down.

Alissa Wilkinson

You chased the director, Lee Chang-dong, because you wanted to work with him, right?

Steven Yeun

“Chase” is a strong word. I mean, I would gladly chase director Lee, but I just never thought that that would ever happen. It was less of a chase — more like I just [said in an interview that I’d like to work with him], to answer a question. It turns out when you say things out loud sometimes they come back to you. Gotta be careful about what you say out loud.

Alissa Wilkinson

How did this particular one come back to you?

Steven Yeun

I was in London. I was tossing and turning at 3 in the morning, jet-lagged, and I get a phone call from director Bong [Joon-ho, with whom Yeun worked on Okja], being like, “You need to call me back right away.” So I was like, “What?”

I called him back and he was like, “Director Lee wants to meet with you.”

And I was like, “Why?” He’s like, “There’s a project that he thinks you might be right for.” Director Lee had me read “Barn Burning,” the Haruki Murakami story.

Alissa Wilkinson

The mysterious, minimalist short story that Burning is based on. It’s a very short story, like five pages, right?

Steven Yeun

Yeah. Very short. I remember reading it and being like, “Do I need to be in something with this mood?” That made me so excited, because in some ways that’s kind of what I’ve always been looking for — something a little bit more grounded. Something about it really attracted me to it.

Then [Lee] was like, “I’d love to meet.” It was very fortuitous that literally two days later, I was going to Korea anyway. So I went to Korea, and director Lee talks about it. He’s like, “You know, if you didn’t come to Korea, we’d probably still wouldn’t have cast you, because a Skype conversation about this thing — you really can’t have that.”

We spent three days of us poring over the character, He sent me the script, and we read it, and I came at him with my ideas.

The third day he hugged me. And I was like, “Cool. This is going down.”

Yeun on the Cannes red carpet at Burning’s premiere in May. Photo by John Phillips/Getty Images

Alissa Wilkinson

It’s got to be kind of interesting to be picked for a character like Ben, who is basically the villain of the story.

Steven Yeun

Yeah. You self-assess!

Alissa Wilkinson

He’s not really a character that you’ve played before.

Steven Yeun

Right.

Alissa Wilkinson

How do you think through that kind of character? He’s an enigma.

Steven Yeun

For me, it was kismet to have this role. Being 30-something, having a child, getting off of a long-standing show that consumed your identity — [all of those things can] leave you in a very strange place where you’re reassessing yourself. I found myself in that place. Then this thing came along. I felt like this inherent emptiness of this character as I read him off the page. I could tune into that in some respect.

Alissa Wilkinson

Obviously, you speak Korean. But this is a Korean film about Korean characters. You’re Korean-American, and that adds a different shading to your character and performance in the film. I’m a white American, and when I saw Burning at Cannes, I didn’t know that Ben’s mannerisms were noticeably different from what a Korean viewer might expect to see, and so I was interested to hear about it later, because I understand that your Americanness adds something to the character for people who can spot the difference.

Steven Yeun

I would love to ask you: Did you feel, when you saw me enter into that frame for the first time as Ben, that the character didn’t feel naturally Korean? Or natively Korean?

Alissa Wilkinson

What it felt like was I was watching a character who had been everywhere. He’s a man of the world.

Steven Yeun

That’s, I think, what it is.

Alissa Wilkinson

How so?

Yeun’s character, Ben, is suave, cool, and a little unsettling. Well Go USA Entertainment

Steven Yeun

I think it might have more stark dissonance to a Korean viewer, but I don’t think it’s too different from what a Western viewer has, which is like, this person doesn’t seem to be tied down to the social structures of Korea. He looks it, he speaks it, he lives it, but there’s this carefree-ness about him that doesn’t seem to have to bend to the collectivist ideas of how you have to treat others, or how you have to be in relation to others.

In Korean society and Asian society, there’s just a lot of hierarchical respect that you have to manage. I don’t think Ben operates from that place.

Alissa Wilkinson

Really it’s a movie that has a lot to say about young people in Korea. It mentions the low employment among young people in the country, for example. And its other two main characters are from a rural area so close to the North Korean border that they can hear the broadcasts happening on the other side of the border. How much of the culture of the country were you ready for when you arrived on set?

Steven Yeun

I went to Korea with a task: to not just be a visitor, going with the flow of things, but to really examine the place that I’m in. There’s a really interesting juxtaposition of collectivism to individualism that happens when you’re a Westerner who comes to Korea. The ability to not have to bend to the will of the collective helps you see that other people have other responsibilities that you don’t have.

Alissa Wilkinson

Like what?

Steven Yeun

You can always lean on your American-ness to just be like, “Oh. I didn’t know that because you’re older, I have to speak with you with this type of deference.” Or, “If you’re younger, I speak different to you.” The Western view of the world is very much that everyone’s on an equal playing field — which of course isn’t that true.

But that’s another thing that’s interesting: I feel like Korea’s understanding of the system is very upfront — people are aware of the system that they’re living in.

Alissa Wilkinson

Of where they fall in the hierarchy.

Steven Yeun

Of where they fall. They’re constantly assessing themselves on where they land, which breeds its own negatives and positives. The Western ideal starts from a place of individuality. You’re free to be yourself, but then the negative is that you don’t have any real “group.” You don’t have this collective power. And also, by virtue of the fact that you’re living life that way, you trick yourself into thinking there isn’t a system, when there really very much is.

My wife — who is so much smarter than me — always talks about the “in between-ness” of everything. All the special, meaningful things in the film are in between spaces and identities.

Yeun with his costars Ah-In Yoo and Jong-seo Jeon in Burning. Well Go USA Entertainment

Alissa Wilkinson

I know you have a background in improv comedy, having trained at Second City for years, which probably isn’t what people expect! But I want to talk about another part of your background, which is growing up in church. I grew up in a large evangelical church, and I feel like one thing those churches provide to young people is an opportunity to try out performing, by singing in the choir or playing in a band or doing skits or whatever.

Was church was part of your formation as a performer?

Steven Yeun

For sure. My upbringing was very safe. I’m sure as I age, and maybe do a little bit more work on my mental health over time, maybe I’ll unpack some things that I have repressed. But, for the moment, I look back and realize my parents, as immigrants, really did a wonderful job of really giving us a safe childhood. That a built a lot of confidence for my brother and me, and going to church was part of that. Our schooling, and the places that we lived in suburbs of Michigan, were very a safe place to grow up.

The negative of that is that you sometimes don’t get to question your reality. I think where religion has helped me tremendously with my craft has been this ability to let go. I think I had that from the beginning. I reverse-engineered my understanding of acting; it’s become more cerebral over time. Earlier on, it was just me just projecting and emoting and doing whatever I could. I didn’t have a grasp of the cerebral — I was chasing images, or ideas of what a person does in various situations.

Now that I’ve studied a little bit and understand a little bit more to balance out how I approach acting, I start roles by looking at them very cerebrally, at first. But then there’s this great moment where you just build that feeling of faith — to just let go. You’ve done all the homework, and you just let go and do the performance.

I feel like religion in that way has really helped me tap into that — just this idea of feeling small, a blip in the larger scheme of things.

Alissa Wilkinson

This is partly me projecting from my own experience, but while I was born and raised in the US, I was raised in a religious community that often seemed like it wanted to remain separate from the outside world. I can imagine there’s a double experience of that if you are an immigrant who is also part of a religious community, since you’re maybe not part of the majority culture around you as well. I know you’ve been talking a lot lately in interviews about your experience as an Asian-American — does being raised religious have anything to do with that?

Steven Yeun

For sure. As Korean immigrants who were Christian, we not only had the Christian collective, we also had the Korean collective. I remember meeting white American Christians, and there was also that same dissonance, where I couldn’t connect. They had an ability to take or leave the religion whenever they wanted to. They didn’t have this overwhelming sense of doom and fear that [many Koreans had].

For me, as a Korean Christian, my white friends that were also Christian would be like, “Yeah. I go to church. Sometimes I don’t.” And I’m like, “Oh. I have to go.”

That’s not to say that white Americans, Christians, don’t also feel that in some degree, they have different sects, but I was always feeling like, “Oh, you guys have a different approach to this all together.” Now I realize that a lot of my conservative upbringing in that way was also based in my Korean-ness.

Identity-wise, I think the problem with collectivism is that it helps you feel this oneness and this sense of togetherness, the sense that you’re just a cog, a piece of the whole. But the danger is that sometimes it doesn’t allow you to be your true self in order to add to the whole — rather, it makes you mold yourself into whatever the whole says you are. So then you’re not really serving anything.

I said this in another interview recently, but that’s why my favorite verse is Romans 12:2: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is — his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

You have your purpose on this planet, and in this universe, whatever it might be. It could be benign, it could be small, or it could be massive. But there’s no difference in importance. It’s just what you are placed here to do. That’s always been a favorite verse of mine.

Yeun at a screening of Burning in New York in October. Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images

Alissa Wilkinson

I often have this perception that people with religious backgrounds — even if they’re not practicing when they get to Hollywood — are met with a lot of resistance to their beliefs from other people in the entertainment industry. Or they struggle to know whether to take a particular role because of their moral beliefs, when they start out in “secular” Hollywood.

Was that you at all? Was there any dissonance for you between your past and your career when you started being an actor?

Steven Yeun

As a Christian?

Alissa Wilkinson

Yeah.

Steven Yeun

Yeah. You have to mentally get over a lot of things that you might have to emulate on the screen that you wouldn’t do in your normal life. You go, like, “Is this a sin? Is this bad?” I know that feeling.

But, that’s when you start to pick back and peel back layers. If God made all of us, then He made all of us, the good and bad parts. If in our art we’re trying to understand big ideas, then why would we try to wash away that complexity? The beauty of us is that we have complexity.

That allows you to have this interesting balance: searching for expression in a human way, as opposed to following some other moralistic mandate.

Alissa Wilkinson

It’s interesting to see how often people assume Hollywood is this super anti-religion place, where I often find it’s not.

Steven Yeun

Sometimes it’s the most religious. Sometimes I feel the most spiritual people are in our line of work.

Alissa Wilkinson

You’ve talked about the collective versus the individual a lot. Another film you were in this year was Sorry to Bother You, which is very much about collective action versus the individual. In the film, you even play a union organizer, named Squeeze. Did your thinking on these matters come into playing that role?

Steven Yeun

Yeah. What was great about playing Squeeze was the place that he operated from. He was seasoned. He had seen things before. He understood the world in that way, where he’s not too high, and he’s not too low — he is really truly trying to just be a part of a greater machine that can help overturn these terrible human atrocities.

And it was fun to play Squeeze because with the kind of cast in that film, you recognize how wonderful each actor is, and how beautiful and strong their personas are. I think if I was younger I might have thought to myself, Make sure you pop. Make sure you take some time for yourself. Make sure you show what you can do.

So I’m glad that that role came a little later for me, because I was able to just approach it and be like, the whole point of Squeeze is that you don’t know what he’s doing. He’s almost just in the back. A couple of times, I’d be talking to Boots [Riley, the director] and I’d be like, “Can I just slip out of the frame? I don’t think you wanna see me. Or can I just be in the back?”

That’s probably not the best way to approach your career, depending on what you want out of it, but it felt so honest to me in that moment.

But yeah, it’s that balance between recognizing that collective ideal, but also being strong in your individual nature and submitting yourself as an individual, comfortable enough to play into the larger idea that you have to serve. It was a really cool balance to find that.

Yeun with Jermaine Fowler and Lakeith Stanfield in Sorry to Bother You. Annapurna Pictures

Alissa Wilkinson

I interviewed Boots! He’s a character.

Steven Yeun

Boots is the shit.

Alissa Wilkinson

He’s great. And when I talked to Lakeith, he was like, “You wouldn’t believe [Boots] if someone described him to you.”

Steven Yeun

No way. I mean, his name is Boots! I love him.

I’ve been very fortunate in my career to work with really giving and wonderful people. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve just been able to work with a lot of egoless people. Well, not egoless. Nobody’s egoless. But they’re really there to just do the thing.

Alissa Wilkinson

So now we’re in a post-Crazy Rich Asians world. Has your approach to your career changed following some of the shifts in Hollywood over the last year or so, with some new focus on diversity in roles and characters?

Steven Yeun

To be quite honest with you, I don’t think how I view this career and how to approach it has actually changed. If anything, all of this stuff has made me realize that what I was doing actually makes more sense to me than I thought before. Before, it was kind of a gray area — “Do I do something for Asian-Americans, or do I do something that’s more me?” I was pulled and pushed and pulled,

But I always ended up realizing that my face will do the work, because I can’t change that I’m Asian. All I can do is just try to be as human as possible; my face will decide this other layer.

All of these big projects that have come out have changed the landscape of how Hollywood might react to an Asian face, but I don’t think that mission changes at all. I think, if anything, it just becomes more stark — let’s get to that human part of us. The inherent nature of my face will do a lot of the heavy lifting, because it’s not like I’m gonna approach a character and be not thinking what an Asian person would be going through in this scenario. Every part of me is Asian. For me to play truthfully is inherently just an Asian performance.

Alissa Wilkinson

Diversity initiatives and pushes are tricky — on my side of things, for instance, there’s been a lot of talk about increasing the number of women in film criticism. But some people are concerned that the motivation for that push isn’t to diversify criticism, but instead to make sure that there are more critics who feel obliged to support anything a woman makes. Is there a mirror to this concern from your side of the business?

Steven Yeun

Yeah, I would say definitely. You feel that pressure. I’m completely an Asian American, but it is also something that can take the central focus of who you are. That’s always been something that I’ve been wary of submitting to.

For me, as a human being, there’s so many layers to my identity that to only talk about one single aspect seems a little short-sighted. But I also recognize that there are a lot of people on this planet for whom their biggest hurdle is their ethnicity. I know a lot of Asian-Americans who really still feel shameful about being Asian-American. And I know that feeling, because when I was younger I felt that way too.

So I agree with you. There definitely is that fear of being like, “Do I have to support everything just because my face looks like this?” But there’s also things to be said — like when you’re talking about Crazy Rich Asians, that’s a whole anomaly in and of itself. It did a wonderful job of showing the marketplace that if you want to disparage us by questioning whether we can support a film like this monetarily, that excuse is now out the window. That’s done.

Yeun with Constance Wu at the premiere of Crazy Rich Asians in August. Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images

You also show this huge array of Asian-American actors who are ready to have their moment, or at least get their reps to build to their moments. You see wide-ranging talent. People can have different takes on whether they like the film or whether it’s a film for them or not; I think that’s a real place to address. If you’re not into mainstream rom-coms, you’re not into mainstream rom-coms.

What I hope is that this doesn’t then invert on itself and make us only have to make these particular movies again, but instead have the industry just go, “Hey, Asian people, they’re everybody. It’s fine. Let’s just make stuff without thinking so hard. Let’s just find humans. Let’s be humans.” It’s all part of the journey. All part of the process.

Burning opened in theaters on October 26.

Original Source -> Steven Yeun on his new film Burning and his hopes for post-Crazy Rich Asians Hollywood

via The Conservative Brief

[dawnajaynes32]

Designing the Perfect Podcast

Years ago, if you wanted to get on the air, all you needed was a little technical know-how to create your own radio station, and you can still do it. But podcasts are today’s radio. There are plenty of technical recommendations for recording your own podcast, but if you have an idea for a podcast and want to learn how some of the best of the best design podcasts got started—and how their hosts work—then you came to the right place.

Podcast Pioneer

When you hear the word podcast, you might think iPod, and rightly so. Ben Hammersley is often credited with originating the term podcast, a blending of iPod and broadcast. The early iPod allowed you to store downloaded audio files, and by 2005 iTunes fully supported the medium—available for free through the iTunes Store. Today, podcasts are not just limited to the iPod or iTunes. You can get them through Google Play, Spotify, Overcast, and other platforms. One of the earliest design podcasts was Debbie Millman’s Design Matters, but even before podcasting, Millman hosted it as a Voice America internet radio show, recorded live, and available to listen to later.

But everything changed when Millman’s friend Bryony Gomez-Palacio suggested Millman get on iTunes. But why podcasts, especially when the radio thing seemed to be working for Millman? Gomez-Palacio said, “It was a moment when Apple was transitioning from a nerd brand to a coveted consumer brand and the only one creating a platform that could reach more people—a key factor in my suggestion because I truly believed Debbie needed to be heard by a broader audience.” And she has reached a broader audience, now known as the Barbara Walters of the design world. While she is flattered by the comparison, if there’s anybody she has learned from and looked up to, it’s Terry Gross. Millman says Gross has “a lot of range” able to speak with anybody about anything, and it’s something that Millman also strives for.

From left, Matthew Carter and Design Matters host Debbie Millman, courtesy of Design Matters.

Research plays a big role in making that happen, and Millman calls it “one of the differentiating factors” that separates Design Matters from other podcasts. Listening to Design Matters herself, Gomez-Palacio always finds it amusing when Millman surprises guests because she knows something that they either forgot or haven’t spoken about in a while. She believes that Millman’s research and approach makes Design Matters stand out. “She does not go for the cookie-cutter question, or the expected question, she really focuses on finding something new that each particular guest can reveal that has not been covered before.”

Finding Your Voice

While Debbie Millman and Design Matters took off, another early design podcast was finding its footing: Be A Design Cast, launched in November 2005, concluding in February 2008. It grew out of the Be A Design Group blog and was sometimes shortened from Be A Design Cast to BADCast. Tom Nemitz and Nate Voss co-hosted BADCast, and Donovan Beery came on board—the three were also authors on the blog. Beery & Voss moved on to create 36 Point, a blog where The Reflex Blue Show podcast has lived since 2008. According to podcast veteran Beery, between BADCast and The Reflex Blue Show he has hosted “somewhere over 280 different guests.” Among those guests, regulars will come on, including Steve Gordon, Justin Ehrens, and Von Glitchka.

Donovan Beery recording episode #179 (Season 11, Episode 2) of The Reflex Blue Show, a Mountain Dew taste testing, photo by Ben Lueders.

Having done podcasting for so long, if there’s one thing that Beery is thankful for, it’s the learning opportunities. “Hosting a podcast has been the most educational thing I have done for my career—the opportunity to speak with guests and ask questions really is a learning experience.” Having been a guest on The Reflex Blue Show myself, I’ll admit, the experience is a lot of fun, especially because the recordings are done in person, sitting down and hanging out. Doing the recordings over Skype or Google Hangout—while it could open up his guest list—didn’t go the way Beery wanted. “I was doing about one Skype show a year, then I said that’s it, I want to do all of them in-person.” With a microphone in front of you and audio software capturing the moment, it can feel a bit intimidating, but the informal chat is the most rewarding part of the experience—especially in this all-digital, heads down & screens up world we live in.

Beery records his podcasts face-to-face but without an audience, whereas Millman is face-to-face with her guests in front of a studio audience. Millman says that having the audience there can provide input and energy, and it’s something that the host and/or guest can feed off of. But for Beery, who lacks the live audience, having the intimacy of just the host and guest—or guests—makes for what he calls “a water cooler show.” The recording sessions, casual conversation, all of it, it’s become Beery’s style. “When we started, we didn’t know of any other podcasts, so we just did what we thought would be fun. When I did finally listen to Design Matters, I realized what a full hour—a very smart show—sounded like. But that wasn’t really us, or me. I knew copying another format would always sound like a cheap knockoff. I’ve had a number of people ask for advice on starting a podcast over the years, and I always say you have to entertain yourself first, or you won’t get past a few episodes.” Millman shared a similar opinion, especially when it comes to longevity, “You need to be in it for the long haul to develop an audience.” For those starting out, she suggests doing 10 episodes to develop momentum. How much farther you take it is entirely up to you?

Strength in Numbers

Because they’ve been around for so long, Millman and Beery have proven that they’re in it for the long haul, and a new crop of podcasts are hoping they’ll have staying power too. Experts in the design and tech fields, Lea Alcantara & Emily Lewis fell into podcasting, in a way. As an ExpressionEngine expert, Alcantara was asked to be on the EE Podcast—part of 5by5, a “fledgling podcast network” according to Alcantara. When one of the EE Podcast hosts left, Alcantara came on board and because she was familiar with Lewis’ work and expertise, she asked Lewis to join her. Their CTRL+CLICK CAST grew out of that early experience, and has evolved over time, according to Alcantara. “We wanted to talk about the greater web and not have it so focused on one product, so we rebranded to CTRL+CLICK CAST over time. When you CTRL or Control+Click on your browser, you get a dropdown modal with features to allow you to inspect how the site is built. Hence our slogan, We inspect the web for you.” (Full disclosure: I was a CTRL+CLICK CAST guest myself.) But their show isn’t always about just design. CTRL+CLICK CAST seeks out guests “who represent the full spectrum” of the design and technology industries, and according to Lewis, “We are also trying to tackle topics that go beyond tech, into how tech and culture intersect—diversity and access challenges, pay inequality, ethics.”

CTRL+CLICK CAST co-hosts, from left, Emily Lewis and Lea Alcantara.

What advice would they give to somebody starting out, doing a podcast for the first time? Lewis says you need to care about it “because 99% of the time, it won’t make you money or make you famous. So if you want a sustainable podcast, your passion is likely what is going to sustain it.” Lewis also insists that you need to know the logistics and tech—hardware and software—to save yourself time and money. (Check out their PODCASTING 101 episode for tips.) Alcantara sums it up, “Pay someone to edit your show and offer transcripts (for SEO and accessibility!)”

Like CTRL+CLICK CAST, the Clever podcast is hosted by a dynamic duo, Jaime Derringer and Amy Devers. “We started the podcast with a passionate drive to celebrate designers, and offer a window into the humanity behind the design, celebrating humanity and while expanding cultural awareness,” said Devers, but they won’t host any guest. “In some ways, they have to be creative, and have a good story.” And after one look at their guest list, it’s clear that all of their guests are creative and awesome—including Terry Crews, who knows a lot about art and design.

Clever podcast co-hosts, from left Amy Devers and Jaime Derringer, courtesy of Clever.

Unlike Millman and Beery, who both record face-to-face with their guests present, both CTRL+CLICK CAST and Clever are recorded remotely. “Skype gives us the chance to reach big names,” said Devers, “and Skype opens up the world, in terms of who we can talk to.” But those calls can pose technical problems. “If a guest doesn’t wear headphones during the interview and listens to the conference call via speakers, then the guest’s mic picks up our voices and relays it back to us and we get feedback on the recording. We have gotten super good at preparing our guests in advance so that they absolutely have to have headphones or earbuds on for the call. Also, there is this weird cousin called Skype for Business which doesn’t seem to work with regular Skype. This has caused confusion particularly with international corporate guests. We’ve learned to steer around that one now too.” Derringer, who has more experience with editing in Audio Hijack, listens to the audio, offers feedback, and with Devers, will approve the final cut. “Sometimes I catch things that Amy doesn’t and vice versa, so it’s nice to have a second set of ears listening.” Once they complete what they call their own “light editing” they outsource it to an engineer who creates the final audio master.

Making It Sustainable

Having a podcast co-host goes a long way, especially when you need feedback on tricky matters like audio quality and interview pacing, or deciding on a guest or a number of guests. Jason Alejandro, who co-hosts the Dissection podcast with Christopher Holewski, finds working with Holewski to be rewarding, especially since they push each other. “We collaborate closely on it, and that kind of collaboration requires a lot of listening, getting excited about nerdy design things, and bouncing ideas off of each other. So whether I am sending him links, replying to emails, recording an interview, or editing an episode, we try to share responsibility of the overall direction and production of the show. I think I have also helped recommend some designers/artists that he might not have normally considered just because we’re both influenced by very different things.”

From left, Christopher Holewski and Jason Alejandro, Dissection co-hosts, courtesy of Dissection.

Hearing the two talk about their show, guests, and format, it might sound like Siskel & Ebert, a.k.a. Siskel & Ebert & the Movies. The two film critics Gene Siskel & Roger Ebert discussed movies, and would disagree. If there’s one thing Alejandro and Holewski agree on, it’s that they disagree—frequently. Which is why Alejandro probably compares their show, and their relationship as podcasters, to the two grumpy men in the Muppets, a.k.a. Statler & Waldorf.

Employed by JK Design, their podcast is actually done on the side, but since it’s part of JK Design, it’s more of an extracurricular according to Alejandro. “We get to do it on company time, as part of our responsibilities. Our day-to-day is doing work for clients.” Although some podcasts like Dissection function under the roof of an existing business, plenty of others stand alone, and thanks to crowdfunding, you can now raise money to get your own podcast off the ground, or if you’ve already proven you have an audience, crowdfunding can help sustain it. Debbie Millman has partnered with Drip, and listeners and fans can support Design Matters through contributions. Out of the Fridge, a podcast about comic books and pop culture, has also found crowdfunding helpful. Out of the Fridge’s Alison Poppy, who manages a comic book store in Washington state and co-hosts the podcast, values all of their Patreon supporters. “They have been paying for our private studio and insurance. It’s been awesome that they have given us the opportunity for that!” But there’s another bonus, and it goes beyond having consistent revenue. Poppy said those contributions also give them direct interaction with their listeners. And that is extremely important since each and every one of us now experience so many varied touchpoints from so many varied brands.

That One Thing

Sometimes sustainability has a lot to do with always being curious and exploring, no matter what the subjects are. Poppy, as well as her Out of the Fridge co-hosts Kelly Okler and Andrew Chard, have a range of interests, and in turn, have created other avenues to share their thoughts about pop culture. “With Pages for All Ages, we wanted to create a resource for parents, teachers, and librarians to find new books for kids, but also a show that kids can listen to as well. With Twice Bitten, Kelly and I are huge fans of horror and we wanted to create a place where we can openly talk about everything in the horror genre.” No matter what show they’re working on, when it comes to what they do and why they do it, there’s one constant, says Polly, “We want them to be different and special, and just take our time to make something we enjoy.” Good advice for any podcaster—veteran or newbie, or someplace in between.

The post Designing the Perfect Podcast appeared first on HOW Design.

Designing the Perfect Podcast syndicated post

[musiccosmosru]

If you’ve ever sent a text to a roommate because it felt more natural than walking to the next room and actually communicating with them in person, you’ve experienced a glimpse into the creative life of Superorganism.

Finding each other on the internet through music forums and YouTube suggestions, the whole band moved into a London house where they create eccentric collages of indie pop together. Before the move, though, their earliest songs were created over Skype calls, Facebook chats, and email file transfers—an internet-based method that continues even now that they live under the same roof.

“The thing is, we still work online,” 18-year-old lead singer Orono Noguchi says. “We’ve started to try collaborating in the same room, being physically there together. But for the most part, we just work on our own demos in our own rooms, then we send them to each other.”

Referring to themselves as a “DIY pop production house,” Superorganism’s eight members sought each other out from far-reaching places like Japan, South Korea, Australia, England, and New Zealand. “At school, I couldn’t really find anyone who was on a similar creative wavelength as I was,” Orono explains. But when she finally met people online who shared her same tastes and do-it-yourself spirit, she says, “It seemed natural to join powers and make something awesome.”

Our full interview with Orono Noguchi is below, in which she discusses her early years writing fan fiction, the inspiring nature of YouTubers, life on the road with an eight-member band, and more.

I was listening to Ezra Koenig’s Beats 1 show last year, and heard him talking about your old fan fiction on air. What inspired your Vampire Weekend fan fiction phase as a 12-year-old?

I was borderline stalking them, I’d say. [Laughs]. I fell in love with their music and their art and I kind of joined an online community of other kids my age that were equally obsessed with them. I don’t know, I just felt like I wanted to create something and that creation was writing fan fiction. I combined everything that I was obsessed with at the time into one piece of fan fiction. So that’s why Ezra was dating Katy Perry and there were YouTubers thrown into the mix. MGMT was in there as well. [Editor’s note: See some of Orono’s fan fiction brought to life here].

Was writing always a hobby for you when you were growing up?

I wouldn’t call it a hobby but English class was definitely one of my favorite classes. It’s always been one of my best subjects since I was a little kid. It felt natural to do that.

I don’t really take anything seriously, including myself. Nor do I really want to be taken seriously, either. I’m not trying to make a statement or anything.

The absurdity of those fan fictions carries over to the humor in your lyrics now. Lots of your songs are about how crazy and weird the world is. Why do you like writing like that?

I think it stems from the fact that I don’t really take anything seriously, including myself. Nor do I really want to be taken seriously, either. I’m not trying to make a statement or anything. So I guess that’s why I jump around from talking about one thing to another. It turns from seeming kind of serious for a second, to jumping back and being wacky and weird. That’s just a reflection of not only me, but the whole band’s personality.

What kind of things were you into back when you were writing those fan fictions?

I was into YouTube, big time. Katy Perry. There were fandoms that I was in, but I wasn’t in one specific fandom. I was just kind of all over the place. I followed random tags on Tumblr and saved every single photo that I found. I was actually obsessed with Grimes at that time as well. Just all sorts of stuff. All internet stuff I’d say.

Photo by Ingrid Pops

You originally found some of the other Superorganism members through YouTube, right?

Yeah, back in the day that song “Somebody That I Used to Know” was a big hit. Kimbra was a feature on that song so I started listening to a lot of Kimbra’s music and she’s from New Zealand. I thought she was cool and I think that got the YouTube algorithm into recommending me lots of New Zealand indie stuff. There’s a viral video for a song called “The Cigarette Duet” by Princess Chelsea from New Zealand. I thought that was cool, then YouTube started recommending me other New Zealand indie stuff, which included some of the Superorganism members and their band projects.

We’re eight different people from different countries and backgrounds. The primary way that we communicate with each other and work is through the internet, so it makes sense to make a collage-like piece of art.

So it sounds like the band had been slowly forming for years, but it finally took shape as Superorganism when you joined?

Yeah, pretty much. We didn’t see Superorganism happening. None of us saw it coming. We were just like, “Hey, cool, we’re talented fun people, let’s get together and make some cool music.” That just came about through random chats on Facebook. 

Bands used to form because all the members happened to live in the same town or they were classmates or something. But you guys were able to seek each other out and be more choosy on the internet. What attracted you to each other?

I’d say a good taste in music brought us together. But also the fact that some of us experienced being an outsider and being kind of isolated in a way. I had a weird situation where I was living in a small town in Japan, but I went to a school that was an hour away in an even smaller town. So I didn’t really have close friends in my neighborhood. Emily lived in Australia and moved to New Zealand. Harry lived in the UK, then moved to New Zealand. So having that experience as a kid warps your perspective in a way and I think that’s what we have in common.

I know you all come from very do-it-yourself backgrounds. Lots of DIY artists end up working in solitude and making music in their bedrooms. What made you guys want to do that in a group setting?

It just made sense, I guess. We kind of do things on the fly. We don’t get our own individual egos in the way of the creative process. So when it came to actually making art and trying to make the best kind of art that we can, it seemed natural to join powers and make something awesome.

Before joining Superorganism, did you plan on being a solo artist or did you always want to be in a group?

I was kind of open to anything. But at the time, at school, I couldn’t really find anyone who was on a similar creative wavelength as I was. That sounds fuckin’ stupid, I’m aware of that. But at the time, I was just working on stuff by myself. 

After you met online, you guys all moved in together in a big house in London. Was it weird going from making songs over email and Skype to living together and doing that in person?

The thing is, we still work online for the most part. Even living together wasn’t that weird because we’re all pretty chill and none of us are really crazy OCD drama queens or whatever. So that works in our favor. It wasn’t that awkward, to be honest.

When you say you’re still working online, does that mean you’re all in different rooms of the house working on your own pieces, then you send it to each other?

Pretty much. We’ve started to try collaborating in the same room, being physically there together. But for the most part, we just work on our own demos in our own rooms, then we send them to each other.

How do you guys split up songmaking duties?

It’s quite freestyle, I’d say. None of us have dedicated parts or anything, because we’re all multi-instrumentalists. We can just do whatever. Also, if you have Logic, you don’t really need to play instruments.

Image via Jordan Hughes

Why do you guys prefer making music at the house instead of a studio?

We’re comfortable in that situation. Also, it saves money. We can do it at home. We’ve always done it at home. So why go to a studio and pay fuckin’ thousands of dollars for nothing, pretty much? We have it at home.

Lots of your songs take shape like collages. There are a bunch of weird samples, sound effects, vocals, and instruments. Where does that style come from?

We’re eight different people from different countries and backgrounds. The primary way that we communicate with each other and work is through the internet, so it makes sense to make a collage-like piece of art.

Where do you guys find those samples and recordings?

It’s a good mix of everything. Sometimes we use field recordings. Sometimes we use royalty free sound effects websites. And sometimes we’re looking for specific audio clips, so we look for that on YouTube. It’s a little bit of everything.

We have a collaborative Spotify playlist and it has 500 songs or so at this point. It’s a mix of everything from Ariana Grande to weird experimental shit.

Your music has all these weird things going on, but it’s also really accessible and pop-friendly. What draws you to weird pop music like that?

It comes back to a lot of us having an outsider perspective. But then again, pop culture is so great because no matter how indie or hipster you are, you have a certain connection with pop culture. I think that’s the most fascinating and best part about it. Just the word “pop” binds us together, but we’re also outsiders. So I guess it makes sense for us to combine the best of both worlds and make that sort of music. 

What do you guys usually end up listening to?

We have a collaborative Spotify playlist and it has 500 songs or so at this point. It’s a mix of everything from Ariana Grande to weird experimental shit.

What are your non-musical influences?

I think most of my influences are non-musical. I do have an inspo playlist on Spotify, but lately I’ve been obsessing over RuPaul. It’s the most fascinating thing ever—the world of drag queens. Not to make a pun here, but it’s a different world. It’s like a different organism of its own. I’ve never dabbled in it, so it’s been very inspiring to me, watching the show. And RuPaul’s music is fucking amazing and his podcast is so great. I just have so much respect for that guy. 

Lots of young artists today make an effort to share everything about themselves on social media, but you seem to be more reserved. Why do you think that is?

Social media is weird and it’s fucked up. Especially for insecure teenagers, like myself. It definitely provides a good ego boost at times, but other times it’s just people shitting on your art for no reason, just because they’re also insecure about their lives. Sometimes I think, “Oh, that would be cool to post on the internet.” And then I’m like, “Oh wait, there’s no point in me doing that.”

But then again, there are so many YouTubers and quote “social media influencers” that all these 10-year-olds follow today. They inspire those kids and make them feel less shitty. They give the kids someone to relate to in a really intense way, because they provide so much of what’s going on in their lives, so publicly. I think there’s a certain beauty to that. I understand them because I’ve definitely felt that, watching lots of YouTubers’ videos about going through really shitty times and depression and all of that.

Hopefully there’s a healthy mix. I think it’s important to try and utilize social media in the most efficient way possible without hurting anyone’s feelings. I know that’s really hard but that’s why I try and stay away from it. I’m not too active on social media because it makes me feel like shit. But then again, it kind of makes me feel good. It’s confusing.

It doesn’t look like it’s turned you into divas or anything, but I’m sure the success has changed some things for you guys. What’s different now as opposed to before you put out “Something For Your M.I.N.D.”?

I think our whole lives have turned upside-down. I think I’ve become a diva in a way, actually. When we started off touring and doing all these interviews and stuff, I was so conscious of how I was being perceived by other people. I was like, “I’m so lucky to be in this position. I don’t want to seem like an ungrateful little bitch.” So I was trying too hard to be like, “This is so great and fun.” But the reality is, touring is the most stressful thing. It’s one of the craziest things that a human being can do, in my opinion. You get up at like three in the morning. Then you do all these interviews. Then you play a show at like midnight. Then you go back and do the same thing over and over again. For a whole summer you do that. Then you go on tour in the States and all these places. It’s so intense and hectic.

I feel like it’s unrealistic to be like, “I’m fine! We’re Superorganism—just a fun, quirky, internet band!” I think that’s bullshit. So here I am, being like, I’m stressed out right now! I’m tired. I barely got any sleep, so I’m telling you about it. I think that’s definitely changed. I think it’s also changed how we make music because we barely spend any time at home anymore. We’re on the road constantly. That makes it hard to make music, because we make music at home where we’re comfortable. Touring is definitely not that comfortable. So we’re trying to figure out a way to make that work. We’re not quite there yet, but we’re still working on stuff, which is good. It’s definitely changed our lives, though, in such a great way that it’s hard to explain. It’s a lot to handle. 

With all the touring, are you thinking about new music yet? You don’t have to give away too much, but what’s next?

Yeah. All the complaining I did just now started because we have a passion for making art and making music. That still applies, thankfully. We are working on stuff and we have been working on stuff this whole time. When we finished the record last August, we actually ended up with way too many songs. Domino was basically like, “Hey, you guys are a new band. Maybe let’s cut it down a bit so it’s more palatable for a wider audience.” That totally made sense and I think it made for a better record. So that was a good call. But we have a bunch of stuff laying around. Hopefully we can release it as soon as possible. Take a break from touring and work on more stuff. Collaborating with other people, too. That’s up in the air.

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The post Do It Yourself, Together: The Internet-Born Reality of Superorganism appeared first on MusicCosmoS.

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Find a Way to Laugh: Funny Mishaps and Misunderstandings in My Classroom

Day 36 of 80 Days of Excellence

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Part of loving life is learning to laugh. The harder life is for you right now, the more you need to laugh. And I’m not just talking about watching a comedy but finding funny moments.

So, today, think about the funny things of life. Here are a few that I’d like to share with you. And I hope you won’t judge. Something funny to me may not be funny to you.

I think part of being a teacher is not to take things too seriously. Here are a few you might find as amusing as I did:

A Robotic Interruption

A student borrowed a friend’s phone and Facetimed with it. Then she put it on the Wonderbot (a little robot you can drive around). Then, she drove it around the school visiting classrooms.

So, basically, you had a little blue robot with 3 wheels. IN the front, you had a tray with a phone and her face was on the robot talking to people. Back in my room, the students were driving and looking at the other phone which they had hooked to my Monster TV to see the people they were talking to throughout the school.

One teacher misunderstood what was happening. She came outside her room and the little blue robot turned to her and said, “hi, are you having a good day?”

The teacher grabbed the robot and started fussing at it. She closed her door as she fussed at the person on the robot. What she didn’t know is that her face was really large on my big screen in my room where the students were “driving” and facetiming. The students started calling me for help.

Even worse, when it lost connection, the Robot itself started saying “help help.” The further away it got, the louder and more frantically it yelled.

The teacher got very unhappy and I had to apologize on behalf of my robot. She put it in detention and wouldn’t give the robot back until the end of school. I still think it is funny but do tell this story (without naming names) to share with my students the importance of being responsible when driving robots around the school and how we are not to interrupt other people’s classes.

Building a Building on Someone

When my students built in Open Sim, a tool similar to Second Life, two students built a building around their friend and wouldn’t teleport him out. He didn’t find it funny and I had to get involved.

This shows kids will do not so nice things in any environment. It wasn’t an over the line case of bullying but there have been cases of bullying in virtual environments.

Throwing a BBC Reporter into Outer Space

In the early days of Open Sim, my students had helped build a virtual world to explain digital citizenship. It had all kinds of objects teaching about how to be responsible online. A BBC reporter wanted to come in the world and see what they had done. So, we set up Skype so we could talk and helped him set up his avatar.

My students had built an underground aquarium but I hadn’t toured it yet. The BBC reporter went through the world and the kids said they wanted to take him to the aquarium. They asked him to come sit down on a bench, but as he was sitting, my student got out the words,

“No, not that seat….”

Too late!

Well, the reporter had picked an ejection seat that a child had installed as a joke. He was thrown into outer space. We had to help him and teleport him back in so we could continue the tour.

There aren’t many who can say their kids launched a BBC reporter into outer space.

Google Chrome Hacks

Probably the worst things happen when students forget to log out. Every student has their own ID, so this slows down the next student who comes into class if the previous student hasn’t logged out. Plus it is a security risk and I want students to learn to log out.

So, they’ll often change each other’s screensavers, flip the screen sideways or do other hacks. A recent hack that made me smile was when an annual-staff student sat down and said,

“No matter what I search, everything turns into Nicholas Cage.”

The previous prankster had installed nCage, a Google Chrome extension. Then, they logged out. When the annual-staff student had logged on the next day, this extension took over and turned every image on every web page into a random picture of Nicolas Cage!

Autotext Pranks

Another popular prank if a student doesn’t log out is to go into the autotext in a person’s Microsoft Word and to set it to change words automatically.

Perhaps the worst I’ve seen is a person had the word “the” turn into the word “idiot” over and over. I believe they found the prank online.

So, every time the person typed the word “the” it would autocorrect into the word “idiot.” Another one changed the person’s name into “learn to log off.” That was perhaps the best reminder!

Either way, we had to learn how to fix autotext those days but I did have to smile.

Fighting Modern Procrastination

Another funny one is the “just do it” Shia Lebeouf motivational app extension that gives a little motivational speech from Shia Lebeouf. In this extension, someone cut out the greenscreen so Shia appears in front of whatever task they’re having to do at that moment.

I had some procrastinators install it. When they would procrastinate, they would play the speech before I could get to them and encourage them to “just do it.” We all thought it was funny but I only let them play it once and then they had to get started. (Otherwise it was just annoying.) Here’s the screen and you can see how funny it might be on a sleepy Monday morning.

Naming Things

So, when I got my Infocus Lightcast Board, I was setting it up. As I did, some students named it John Cena. I left it on the board. If they want to cast their iPhone or Computer screen to the board, they look for “John Cena” to send it.

The other named item in my room is Bob Marley. Many years ago, before my first 3D printer was working properly, it would smoke and jam. A student said,

“Let’s name him Bob Marley because he be jammin’ and he smokes.”

We still call our 3D printer Bob Marley to this day although he never jams or smokes anymore.

Encouraging Kids to Code With a Well-Placed Fight Song

One of the earliest things that happened was my own joke on a student. We had just started with Lego Mindstorms and the kids were programming.

One group refused to even try.

Well, in the group two of the three students who wanted to go to the University of Georgia. If you know anything about colleges in Georgia — Georgia Tech (my alma mater) and the University of Georgia do not like each other very much. (understatement)

So, after another day of them refusing to program in a meaningful way, I took the robot and programmed it to sing “I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech” after class.

When they came in the next day and started operating it, they were furious and wanted me to take it off. I told them the only way to remove it was to program it out of the robot and to program in what they wanted.

They became my best programmers!

Double mouse trick

Plugging in a second mouse can let you do many things as a prank. I’ve had students wait half a class period before randomly moving the mouse on the screen.

The person with the second mouse will move the mouse every so often and make the person think their computer has a hacker on it.

Find a Way to Laugh

Now, I can go on and on. Pretty much every single week there are several things that are “gutt busters” and me and my students laugh hilariously. We have to live life this way. We need the laughter and the levity!

Sometimes it is pranks but most often, the things we laugh at are just funny moments in time when something hilarious happens and it strikes us as funny.

As we talk about excellence, let’s remember not to take ourselves too seriously. The easiest and perhaps best person to laugh at is yourself.

Are you finding times to laugh? Are you looking for little moments when something is funny? If I asked you about something hilarious that happened recently, could you tell me at least one thing?

Some of the most awesome people tend to be very funny people, not necessarily because they can tell jokes but because they just look for funny things and find them.

Have a laugh this week. You’ll be glad you did and so will the people around you.

This post is day 36 of 80 days of excellence. I’ve created an email list below for those of you want to be emailed the full posts written as part of this series.

The post Find a Way to Laugh: Funny Mishaps and Misunderstandings in My Classroom appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

Find a Way to Laugh: Funny Mishaps and Misunderstandings in My Classroom published first on https://getnewdlbusiness.tumblr.com/

[strivesy]

Find a Way to Laugh: Funny Mishaps and Misunderstandings in My Classroom

Day 36 of 80 Days of Excellence

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Part of loving life is learning to laugh. The harder life is for you right now, the more you need to laugh. And I’m not just talking about watching a comedy but finding funny moments.

So, today, think about the funny things of life. Here are a few that I’d like to share with you. And I hope you won’t judge. Something funny to me may not be funny to you.

I think part of being a teacher is not to take things too seriously. Here are a few you might find as amusing as I did:

A Robotic Interruption

A student borrowed a friend’s phone and Facetimed with it. Then she put it on the Wonderbot (a little robot you can drive around). Then, she drove it around the school visiting classrooms.

So, basically, you had a little blue robot with 3 wheels. IN the front, you had a tray with a phone and her face was on the robot talking to people. Back in my room, the students were driving and looking at the other phone which they had hooked to my Monster TV to see the people they were talking to throughout the school.

One teacher misunderstood what was happening. She came outside her room and the little blue robot turned to her and said, “hi, are you having a good day?”

The teacher grabbed the robot and started fussing at it. She closed her door as she fussed at the person on the robot. What she didn’t know is that her face was really large on my big screen in my room where the students were “driving” and facetiming. The students started calling me for help.

Even worse, when it lost connection, the Robot itself started saying “help help.” The further away it got, the louder and more frantically it yelled.

The teacher got very unhappy and I had to apologize on behalf of my robot. She put it in detention and wouldn’t give the robot back until the end of school. I still think it is funny but do tell this story (without naming names) to share with my students the importance of being responsible when driving robots around the school and how we are not to interrupt other people’s classes.

Building a Building on Someone

When my students built in Open Sim, a tool similar to Second Life, two students built a building around their friend and wouldn’t teleport him out. He didn’t find it funny and I had to get involved.

This shows kids will do not so nice things in any environment. It wasn’t an over the line case of bullying but there have been cases of bullying in virtual environments.

Throwing a BBC Reporter into Outer Space

In the early days of Open Sim, my students had helped build a virtual world to explain digital citizenship. It had all kinds of objects teaching about how to be responsible online. A BBC reporter wanted to come in the world and see what they had done. So, we set up Skype so we could talk and helped him set up his avatar.

My students had built an underground aquarium but I hadn’t toured it yet. The BBC reporter went through the world and the kids said they wanted to take him to the aquarium. They asked him to come sit down on a bench, but as he was sitting, my student got out the words,

“No, not that seat….”

Too late!

Well, the reporter had picked an ejection seat that a child had installed as a joke. He was thrown into outer space. We had to help him and teleport him back in so we could continue the tour.

There aren’t many who can say their kids launched a BBC reporter into outer space.

Google Chrome Hacks

Probably the worst things happen when students forget to log out. Every student has their own ID, so this slows down the next student who comes into class if the previous student hasn’t logged out. Plus it is a security risk and I want students to learn to log out.

So, they’ll often change each other’s screensavers, flip the screen sideways or do other hacks. A recent hack that made me smile was when an annual-staff student sat down and said,

“No matter what I search, everything turns into Nicholas Cage.”

The previous prankster had installed nCage, a Google Chrome extension. Then, they logged out. When the annual-staff student had logged on the next day, this extension took over and turned every image on every web page into a random picture of Nicolas Cage!

Autotext Pranks

Another popular prank if a student doesn’t log out is to go into the autotext in a person’s Microsoft Word and to set it to change words automatically.

Perhaps the worst I’ve seen is a person had the word “the” turn into the word “idiot” over and over. I believe they found the prank online.

So, every time the person typed the word “the” it would autocorrect into the word “idiot.” Another one changed the person’s name into “learn to log off.” That was perhaps the best reminder!

Either way, we had to learn how to fix autotext those days but I did have to smile.

Fighting Modern Procrastination

Another funny one is the “just do it” Shia Lebeouf motivational app extension that gives a little motivational speech from Shia Lebeouf. In this extension, someone cut out the greenscreen so Shia appears in front of whatever task they’re having to do at that moment.

I had some procrastinators install it. When they would procrastinate, they would play the speech before I could get to them and encourage them to “just do it.” We all thought it was funny but I only let them play it once and then they had to get started. (Otherwise it was just annoying.) Here’s the screen and you can see how funny it might be on a sleepy Monday morning.

Naming Things

So, when I got my Infocus Lightcast Board, I was setting it up. As I did, some students named it John Cena. I left it on the board. If they want to cast their iPhone or Computer screen to the board, they look for “John Cena” to send it.

The other named item in my room is Bob Marley. Many years ago, before my first 3D printer was working properly, it would smoke and jam. A student said,

“Let’s name him Bob Marley because he be jammin’ and he smokes.”

We still call our 3D printer Bob Marley to this day although he never jams or smokes anymore.

Encouraging Kids to Code With a Well-Placed Fight Song

One of the earliest things that happened was my own joke on a student. We had just started with Lego Mindstorms and the kids were programming.

One group refused to even try.

Well, in the group two of the three students who wanted to go to the University of Georgia. If you know anything about colleges in Georgia — Georgia Tech (my alma mater) and the University of Georgia do not like each other very much. (understatement)

So, after another day of them refusing to program in a meaningful way, I took the robot and programmed it to sing “I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech” after class.

When they came in the next day and started operating it, they were furious and wanted me to take it off. I told them the only way to remove it was to program it out of the robot and to program in what they wanted.

They became my best programmers!

Double mouse trick

Plugging in a second mouse can let you do many things as a prank. I’ve had students wait half a class period before randomly moving the mouse on the screen.

The person with the second mouse will move the mouse every so often and make the person think their computer has a hacker on it.

Find a Way to Laugh

Now, I can go on and on. Pretty much every single week there are several things that are “gutt busters” and me and my students laugh hilariously. We have to live life this way. We need the laughter and the levity!

Sometimes it is pranks but most often, the things we laugh at are just funny moments in time when something hilarious happens and it strikes us as funny.

As we talk about excellence, let’s remember not to take ourselves too seriously. The easiest and perhaps best person to laugh at is yourself.

Are you finding times to laugh? Are you looking for little moments when something is funny? If I asked you about something hilarious that happened recently, could you tell me at least one thing?

Some of the most awesome people tend to be very funny people, not necessarily because they can tell jokes but because they just look for funny things and find them.

Have a laugh this week. You’ll be glad you did and so will the people around you.

This post is day 36 of 80 days of excellence. I’ve created an email list below for those of you want to be emailed the full posts written as part of this series.

The post Find a Way to Laugh: Funny Mishaps and Misunderstandings in My Classroom appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

Find a Way to Laugh: Funny Mishaps and Misunderstandings in My Classroom published first on https://medium.com/@seminarsacademy

[athena29stone]

Find a Way to Laugh: Funny Mishaps and Misunderstandings in My Classroom

Day 36 of 80 Days of Excellence

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Part of loving life is learning to laugh. The harder life is for you right now, the more you need to laugh. And I’m not just talking about watching a comedy but finding funny moments.

So, today, think about the funny things of life. Here are a few that I’d like to share with you. And I hope you won’t judge. Something funny to me may not be funny to you.

I think part of being a teacher is not to take things too seriously. Here are a few you might find as amusing as I did:

A Robotic Interruption

A student borrowed a friend’s phone and Facetimed with it. Then she put it on the Wonderbot (a little robot you can drive around). Then, she drove it around the school visiting classrooms.

So, basically, you had a little blue robot with 3 wheels. IN the front, you had a tray with a phone and her face was on the robot talking to people. Back in my room, the students were driving and looking at the other phone which they had hooked to my Monster TV to see the people they were talking to throughout the school.

One teacher misunderstood what was happening. She came outside her room and the little blue robot turned to her and said, “hi, are you having a good day?”

The teacher grabbed the robot and started fussing at it. She closed her door as she fussed at the person on the robot. What she didn’t know is that her face was really large on my big screen in my room where the students were “driving” and facetiming. The students started calling me for help.

Even worse, when it lost connection, the Robot itself started saying “help help.” The further away it got, the louder and more frantically it yelled.

The teacher got very unhappy and I had to apologize on behalf of my robot. She put it in detention and wouldn’t give the robot back until the end of school. I still think it is funny but do tell this story (without naming names) to share with my students the importance of being responsible when driving robots around the school and how we are not to interrupt other people’s classes.

Building a Building on Someone

When my students built in Open Sim, a tool similar to Second Life, two students built a building around their friend and wouldn’t teleport him out. He didn’t find it funny and I had to get involved.

This shows kids will do not so nice things in any environment. It wasn’t an over the line case of bullying but there have been cases of bullying in virtual environments.

Throwing a BBC Reporter into Outer Space

In the early days of Open Sim, my students had helped build a virtual world to explain digital citizenship. It had all kinds of objects teaching about how to be responsible online. A BBC reporter wanted to come in the world and see what they had done. So, we set up Skype so we could talk and helped him set up his avatar.

My students had built an underground aquarium but I hadn’t toured it yet. The BBC reporter went through the world and the kids said they wanted to take him to the aquarium. They asked him to come sit down on a bench, but as he was sitting, my student got out the words,

“No, not that seat….”

Too late!

Well, the reporter had picked an ejection seat that a child had installed as a joke. He was thrown into outer space. We had to help him and teleport him back in so we could continue the tour.

There aren’t many who can say their kids launched a BBC reporter into outer space.

Google Chrome Hacks

Probably the worst things happen when students forget to log out. Every student has their own ID, so this slows down the next student who comes into class if the previous student hasn’t logged out. Plus it is a security risk and I want students to learn to log out.

So, they’ll often change each other’s screensavers, flip the screen sideways or do other hacks. A recent hack that made me smile was when an annual-staff student sat down and said,

“No matter what I search, everything turns into Nicholas Cage.”

The previous prankster had installed nCage, a Google Chrome extension. Then, they logged out. When the annual-staff student had logged on the next day, this extension took over and turned every image on every web page into a random picture of Nicolas Cage!

Autotext Pranks

Another popular prank if a student doesn’t log out is to go into the autotext in a person’s Microsoft Word and to set it to change words automatically.

Perhaps the worst I’ve seen is a person had the word “the” turn into the word “idiot” over and over. I believe they found the prank online.

So, every time the person typed the word “the” it would autocorrect into the word “idiot.” Another one changed the person’s name into “learn to log off.” That was perhaps the best reminder!

Either way, we had to learn how to fix autotext those days but I did have to smile.

Fighting Modern Procrastination

Another funny one is the “just do it” Shia Lebeouf motivational app extension that gives a little motivational speech from Shia Lebeouf. In this extension, someone cut out the greenscreen so Shia appears in front of whatever task they’re having to do at that moment.

I had some procrastinators install it. When they would procrastinate, they would play the speech before I could get to them and encourage them to “just do it.” We all thought it was funny but I only let them play it once and then they had to get started. (Otherwise it was just annoying.) Here’s the screen and you can see how funny it might be on a sleepy Monday morning.

Naming Things

So, when I got my Infocus Lightcast Board, I was setting it up. As I did, some students named it John Cena. I left it on the board. If they want to cast their iPhone or Computer screen to the board, they look for “John Cena” to send it.

The other named item in my room is Bob Marley. Many years ago, before my first 3D printer was working properly, it would smoke and jam. A student said,

“Let’s name him Bob Marley because he be jammin’ and he smokes.”

We still call our 3D printer Bob Marley to this day although he never jams or smokes anymore.

Encouraging Kids to Code With a Well-Placed Fight Song

One of the earliest things that happened was my own joke on a student. We had just started with Lego Mindstorms and the kids were programming.

One group refused to even try.

Well, in the group two of the three students who wanted to go to the University of Georgia. If you know anything about colleges in Georgia — Georgia Tech (my alma mater) and the University of Georgia do not like each other very much. (understatement)

So, after another day of them refusing to program in a meaningful way, I took the robot and programmed it to sing “I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech” after class.

When they came in the next day and started operating it, they were furious and wanted me to take it off. I told them the only way to remove it was to program it out of the robot and to program in what they wanted.

They became my best programmers!

Double mouse trick

Plugging in a second mouse can let you do many things as a prank. I’ve had students wait half a class period before randomly moving the mouse on the screen.

The person with the second mouse will move the mouse every so often and make the person think their computer has a hacker on it.

Find a Way to Laugh

Now, I can go on and on. Pretty much every single week there are several things that are “gutt busters” and me and my students laugh hilariously. We have to live life this way. We need the laughter and the levity!

Sometimes it is pranks but most often, the things we laugh at are just funny moments in time when something hilarious happens and it strikes us as funny.

As we talk about excellence, let’s remember not to take ourselves too seriously. The easiest and perhaps best person to laugh at is yourself.

Are you finding times to laugh? Are you looking for little moments when something is funny? If I asked you about something hilarious that happened recently, could you tell me at least one thing?

Some of the most awesome people tend to be very funny people, not necessarily because they can tell jokes but because they just look for funny things and find them.

Have a laugh this week. You’ll be glad you did and so will the people around you.

This post is day 36 of 80 days of excellence. I’ve created an email list below for those of you want to be emailed the full posts written as part of this series.

The post Find a Way to Laugh: Funny Mishaps and Misunderstandings in My Classroom appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

from Cool Cat Teacher BlogCool Cat Teacher Blog http://www.coolcatteacher.com/find-way-laugh-funny-mishaps-misunderstandings-classroom/

[patriciaanderson357-blog]

Find a Way to Laugh: Funny Mishaps and Misunderstandings in My Classroom

Day 36 of 80 Days of Excellence

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Part of loving life is learning to laugh. The harder life is for you right now, the more you need to laugh. And I’m not just talking about watching a comedy but finding funny moments.

So, today, think about the funny things of life. Here are a few that I’d like to share with you. And I hope you won’t judge. Something funny to me may not be funny to you.

I think part of being a teacher is not to take things too seriously. Here are a few you might find as amusing as I did:

A Robotic Interruption

A student borrowed a friend’s phone and Facetimed with it. Then she put it on the Wonderbot (a little robot you can drive around). Then, she drove it around the school visiting classrooms.

So, basically, you had a little blue robot with 3 wheels. IN the front, you had a tray with a phone and her face was on the robot talking to people. Back in my room, the students were driving and looking at the other phone which they had hooked to my Monster TV to see the people they were talking to throughout the school.

One teacher misunderstood what was happening. She came outside her room and the little blue robot turned to her and said, “hi, are you having a good day?”

The teacher grabbed the robot and started fussing at it. She closed her door as she fussed at the person on the robot. What she didn’t know is that her face was really large on my big screen in my room where the students were “driving” and facetiming. The students started calling me for help.

Even worse, when it lost connection, the Robot itself started saying “help help.” The further away it got, the louder and more frantically it yelled.

The teacher got very unhappy and I had to apologize on behalf of my robot. She put it in detention and wouldn’t give the robot back until the end of school. I still think it is funny but do tell this story (without naming names) to share with my students the importance of being responsible when driving robots around the school and how we are not to interrupt other people’s classes.

Building a Building on Someone

When my students built in Open Sim, a tool similar to Second Life, two students built a building around their friend and wouldn’t teleport him out. He didn’t find it funny and I had to get involved.

This shows kids will do not so nice things in any environment. It wasn’t an over the line case of bullying but there have been cases of bullying in virtual environments.

Throwing a BBC Reporter into Outer Space

In the early days of Open Sim, my students had helped build a virtual world to explain digital citizenship. It had all kinds of objects teaching about how to be responsible online. A BBC reporter wanted to come in the world and see what they had done. So, we set up Skype so we could talk and helped him set up his avatar.

My students had built an underground aquarium but I hadn’t toured it yet. The BBC reporter went through the world and the kids said they wanted to take him to the aquarium. They asked him to come sit down on a bench, but as he was sitting, my student got out the words,

“No, not that seat….”

Too late!

Well, the reporter had picked an ejection seat that a child had installed as a joke. He was thrown into outer space. We had to help him and teleport him back in so we could continue the tour.

There aren’t many who can say their kids launched a BBC reporter into outer space.

Google Chrome Hacks

Probably the worst things happen when students forget to log out. Every student has their own ID, so this slows down the next student who comes into class if the previous student hasn’t logged out. Plus it is a security risk and I want students to learn to log out.

So, they’ll often change each other’s screensavers, flip the screen sideways or do other hacks. A recent hack that made me smile was when an annual-staff student sat down and said,

“No matter what I search, everything turns into Nicholas Cage.”

The previous prankster had installed nCage, a Google Chrome extension. Then, they logged out. When the annual-staff student had logged on the next day, this extension took over and turned every image on every web page into a random picture of Nicolas Cage!

Autotext Pranks

Another popular prank if a student doesn’t log out is to go into the autotext in a person’s Microsoft Word and to set it to change words automatically.

Perhaps the worst I’ve seen is a person had the word “the” turn into the word “idiot” over and over. I believe they found the prank online.

So, every time the person typed the word “the” it would autocorrect into the word “idiot.” Another one changed the person’s name into “learn to log off.” That was perhaps the best reminder!

Either way, we had to learn how to fix autotext those days but I did have to smile.

Fighting Modern Procrastination

Another funny one is the “just do it” Shia Lebeouf motivational app extension that gives a little motivational speech from Shia Lebeouf. In this extension, someone cut out the greenscreen so Shia appears in front of whatever task they’re having to do at that moment.

I had some procrastinators install it. When they would procrastinate, they would play the speech before I could get to them and encourage them to “just do it.” We all thought it was funny but I only let them play it once and then they had to get started. (Otherwise it was just annoying.) Here’s the screen and you can see how funny it might be on a sleepy Monday morning.

Naming Things

So, when I got my Infocus Lightcast Board, I was setting it up. As I did, some students named it John Cena. I left it on the board. If they want to cast their iPhone or Computer screen to the board, they look for “John Cena” to send it.

The other named item in my room is Bob Marley. Many years ago, before my first 3D printer was working properly, it would smoke and jam. A student said,

“Let’s name him Bob Marley because he be jammin’ and he smokes.”

We still call our 3D printer Bob Marley to this day although he never jams or smokes anymore.

Encouraging Kids to Code With a Well-Placed Fight Song

One of the earliest things that happened was my own joke on a student. We had just started with Lego Mindstorms and the kids were programming.

One group refused to even try.

Well, in the group two of the three students who wanted to go to the University of Georgia. If you know anything about colleges in Georgia — Georgia Tech (my alma mater) and the University of Georgia do not like each other very much. (understatement)

So, after another day of them refusing to program in a meaningful way, I took the robot and programmed it to sing “I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech” after class.

When they came in the next day and started operating it, they were furious and wanted me to take it off. I told them the only way to remove it was to program it out of the robot and to program in what they wanted.

They became my best programmers!

Double mouse trick

Plugging in a second mouse can let you do many things as a prank. I’ve had students wait half a class period before randomly moving the mouse on the screen.

The person with the second mouse will move the mouse every so often and make the person think their computer has a hacker on it.

Find a Way to Laugh

Now, I can go on and on. Pretty much every single week there are several things that are “gutt busters” and me and my students laugh hilariously. We have to live life this way. We need the laughter and the levity!

Sometimes it is pranks but most often, the things we laugh at are just funny moments in time when something hilarious happens and it strikes us as funny.

As we talk about excellence, let’s remember not to take ourselves too seriously. The easiest and perhaps best person to laugh at is yourself.

Are you finding times to laugh? Are you looking for little moments when something is funny? If I asked you about something hilarious that happened recently, could you tell me at least one thing?

Some of the most awesome people tend to be very funny people, not necessarily because they can tell jokes but because they just look for funny things and find them.

Have a laugh this week. You’ll be glad you did and so will the people around you.

This post is day 36 of 80 days of excellence. I’ve created an email list below for those of you want to be emailed the full posts written as part of this series.

The post Find a Way to Laugh: Funny Mishaps and Misunderstandings in My Classroom appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

[voguingtodanzig]

EXPLODED VIEW FEAST ON DISCOMFORT AND GROUND CHICK PEAS (10 months ago on Clyrvnt)

By Raymond Cummings

What a difference a half-decade makes. Working in concert with Bristol-based BEAK>, Annika “Anika” Henderson cut Anika, her 2010 debut album — a skeletal, singsong-y satchel of covers and originals — in a mere 12 days. The LP felt equally alien, familiar and out of time, a scuffed reinterpretation of numbers by Bob Dylan, Yoko Ono and Lynn Ripley. Stiff and stark and somewhat Nico-esque, Henderson’s vocals leaped out from the production’s knotted beats, guitars and synthesizers like a sigul in a black and white Magic Eye image.

Four years later, the U.K.-born, Berlin-based musician would spend weeks recording what would become a very different album in Mexico City with a new group of collaborators. A year later, they’d realize that they had something special on their hands, and a year after that, they’re ready to unveil it. “Gothic” might be the right watchword for Exploded View’s eponymous first album, though it’s home to a broad spectrum of darknesses: the muted, gorgeous “One Too Many”; mesmerizing drone-poem “Lark Descending”; the trundling, bleary bleep-sweep of “No More Parties in the Attic.” On “Disco Glove,” the quartet locks into an industrial, No Wave groove that suggests a badly wired, breakdancing robot; “Orlando” rides thermal, ascending / descending scales and shredded drums into a quasi-New Wave blaze of glory. And at the center of it all is Henderson, her vocals increasingly incisive, malleable and emotive — reminiscent, at moments, of Natalie Merchant in 10,000 Maniacs’ earliest days — and her sentiments insistently, painfully personal in almost political ways.

A few weeks prior to the release of Exploded View, we interviewed the band via Skype; early in the day they’d performed at the Green Man Festival in Wales, and we spoke just before they took the stage at the Exchange in Bristol, U.K.

How did Exploded View become a band? Martin Thulin (drums/guitar/production): We’re actually on our way to becoming a band, you know? Because this actually started as a job, with us rehearsing for Anika’s gig in Mexico City in 2014. It happened very naturally, with us trying to recreate what we played together. Annika “Anika” Henderson (vocals/synthesizer): Yeah! I like that; it’s true.

Exploded View has a monolithic sound that's multifaceted — sort of industrial, sort of organic, a melodic gloom but with a lot of colors. I’m aware that improvisation was key here, but this album was recorded straight to tape and has a very defined musical point of view. Was there a particular vibe that you were trying to capture? MT: No, not really; I think it just happened. We just started playing, and I think everyone was doing their part. [Exploded View] is what came out. AH: Yeah, there was definitely no aim. We were never intending on releasing anything; it was just jamming for the sake of jamming, playing for the sake of playing. Hugo Quezada (bass/synthesizer/production): The intention was to adjust to the technical limitations we had — like not using more than eight channels.

In the lyrics, there are a lot of elements at play — politics, sociology, personality, relationship dynamics — and an intimate darkness that suits the music. But overall there is an encouraging self-awareness, pushing listeners to take stock in themselves. There’s pessimism, but also encouragement. What inspired this album? AH: A lot of unresolved personal issues and anxieties. The band brought me to this place and helped me work through it — it was a very personal, intimate thing in that I wouldn’t have shared my deepest, darkest secrets with just anyone. Because it was the band, I was somehow able to do it. Some of the songs brought out certain things that I’d been struggling with for years. So, it definitely wasn’t a contrived album; it wasn’t trying to be political, but these were things that were on my mind and came out with the music. I didn’t want to edit things. Hugo and Martin, when they were editing this stuff, they weren’t editing [words], but just cutting out sections of what we recorded. Some of this stuff, I felt like it was a bit too personal, a bit too close to home — and they were like, “Come on, come on, just leave it in!” It’s very rare that I feel that comfortable, that I’m able to write that freely. I wrote everything on the spot. I’m never aware of what I’m writing when I’m writing it; if I ever am, then it’s wrong.

Annika, you were previously a political journalist. Do you view music as another form of reporting? AH: No, not really. I feel like it’s more of an artistic relationship with the world. It’s not just a reflection, but it’s a reflection through your eyes. Good, honest journalism should be impartial and it should be balanced, but as an artist you’re able to digest it and express it in a different way that’s more understandable for people. You’re not just directly putting across events that happened; you’re working through the emotions you feel when you see these events, and hopefully in doing that, you can help other people get some kind of release. Music can be for enjoyment, to help you get through a breakup, whatever. I think with this album, personally, I was working through a lot of stuff; hopefully it can help other people. It’s very different [from] journalism. I am politically engaged, though.

"Disco Glove" is my favorite song on the album: this mechanized, grinding, clanking beast. How did that one take shape? HQ: That song and “No More Parties In the Attic” were the first ones we actually recorded. We met at my place — I have a small, home studio in my house — and started fooling around with instruments. I just set up this really old sequencer, and we built things around that really fast, annoying click track. Amon Melgarejo (synthesizer/guitar): It was like this through the whole album; we were reacting to what was happening. This was one of the two most “bad vibes” songs on the album. AH: I found it quite painful to listen to! While we were recording, I hated it; that’s why I sound so stressed, kind of angry, passive-aggressive. MT: For me, on the drums, on that particular song, I had one reference; it’s a song by Second Wave called “Courts or War.” They used a drum machine; I tried to play on the live drums as if I were a drum machine.

For each of you, what is your favorite song on Exploded View, and why? HQ: I guess for me, my favorite one is “Stand Your Ground.” The day we recorded that song in particular, Annika was cooking some falafel. AH: [Laughs] Really? HQ: Yeah! I started playing some chords on the Mellotron, and then the bass for the whole song started coming. I remember very clearly that Annika came into the room with the falafel, and started singing this melody. It was a really beautiful moment, as friends and as musicians. AM: For me, it would be “Lost Illusions.” We were playing all day, and everything was shit, and we’d played and played, and nothing came. Hugo went to his guitar, his head against the wall and started playing that woooooo-woooo-wooomelody, and all of us joined in. And it was the first time I realized that we had something. I really love the whole structure of the song. MT: “No More Parties” is probably my favorite track, because that was not a track I was particularly keen on when we were mixing it. It was really frustrating to work with that song, because I thought the other songs were really easy to mix. We spent a long time on fixing the mix. When I listen back to it today, I can say that is my favorite track because it really worked out nicely; it’s nice when you have a song that you’re really frustrated with and you put in some effort to make it work. There are also a couple ballads, like “Lark Descending,” that I find extremely beautiful. The music works in a very pointed way with the lyrics; it’s like a painting. AH: I also quite like “Stand Your Ground” because it was really the core of my issues, in their most uncoded form. It was the unconscious completely laid out there, complete vulnerability in a way where I wasn’t hiding anything.

When and for how long a time was Exploded View recorded, and what was the process like? AH: It was at the end of 2014; I think I stayed a couple of weeks. MT: It’s set up in Hugo’s house, which is also his studio, and we were the producers — me and Hugo — so we had a lot of equipment there. Everything was centered around this tape recorder, an eight-track, which limited the whole thing because we were recorded everything live. You really had to think about what you were doing because you didn’t have 500 tracks to do whatever you wanted. When you work like that, you have to work with the limitations; I think that was really important. The fact that it was recorded in a house with a kitchen made it more like an everyday thing; it wasn’t like going to a studio.

So, in a way, there was more humanity to it. HQ: Yeah. AH: This was more of a friendship; it wasn’t just a recording session. That’s what made it so special. Personally, I’ve been working with people in Berlin for two years, and I never really got that environment of trust. There were these strange scenarios that were very forced, and [there was a lot of] talk about money and when everyone was getting paid for the session; it just became very uncomfortable. What was nice about this session is that no one wanted anything. MT: When we were recording, there was a lot of frustration going on within the session between the band; it’s really uncomfortable, not very nice sometimes, but it also makes it very special. I think that frustration is all over the record. Maybe now that we’re more comfortable with each other, that we’re friends, we don’t need to make another album the same way.

As a listener, I’ll say this is a strong, fantastic record. Even if it didn’t feel the best while recording it, everything came out great in the end. MT: To be honest, we left it to rot. [Laughter] For several months. AH: At least a year! MT: When we listened back, we thought, “Wow, this is interesting.” To be honest, I didn’t expect anything. When I started working with it, we had some really cool songs. I was amazed that it turned out more song-based than long jams; I thought we’d just had really boring jams. AH: It’s strange, because I really wasn’t comfortable with releasing it for a long time. It was only at the end of last year that we started talking about it again. I think sometimes when something is so close to home, it’s too personal; you don’t really like it. It’s only when you’re really through those traumas that you can see an album as something separate from yourself.

When you perform these songs now, are you taken back to what these sessions were like? Or is it completely different? HQ: We try to regain the structure of the songs, but not the feelings, because everything is totally different. I guess we’re reinterpreting the songs. AH: I don’t bring back that frustration because it’s not necessary. I’m through it, we’re over it, it’s not still there. We don’t need to relive that every time we play. MT: I’m now the drummer of the band; I’d never played drums ever in my life before this record. We’ve been switching roles. Maybe something that’s different, when we play live, is that for good or for bad — I don’t know — I’m actually becoming a better drummer. That could be good or it could be bad, because one thing about the record is that it’s extremely sloppy. Like amateurs. AH: But that’s cool — it’s post-punk. [Laughter]

Sacred Bones released Exploded View in early September.

[hillariekoenig15]

Christmas in Thailand!

I can’t believe how fast the past 3 weeks have gone. So, first let me tell you about all the cool things I did and saw in Thailand for Christmas!

On December 22nd, we flew out from Narita to Bangkok. The flight went well! No complications other than I had to check my carry-on because apparently it was too big for the plane… #notasainsize #america

Annie, Madi’s uncle’s friend, picked us up from the airport. She is SO nice and helpful! I couldn’t imagine coming here without her. The hotel was so nice! It was called Bann Kachitpan.

We freshened up and then went out to eat dinner and explore a little. I was very overwhelmed by all the various smells and was way too uncomfortable making a decision on the choice of restaurant as I was probably not going to like much of what Thailand had to offer. Lol We ran into a lady that helped us out by referring us to a restaurant which actually worked out quite nicely! The food wasn’t that bad.

We then went to Khao San Road and shopped at all these knick knack shops. Their money system is weird. I do not like bartering.. Tell me how much it is, don’t harass me, and let me decide if I want to purchase it or not. You being all up in my personal space is not making me any more likely to buy it! I did go a little crazy on the shopping partially because they made me feel like I wasn’t going to be able to leave without buying but also because...well… I enjoy souvenir shopping. :)

On December 23rd, we were all ready to go by 6am. Annie had arranged a driver to take us to our pick up point for our temple tours and river boat cruise. We were so early though.. Lol We got there at 6:30am and didn’t leave until 7:30am.

The 1st place we went to was Bang Pa-In Palace. Certain places require that you be dressed conservatively. So I was unable to show my bare shoulder or anything above my knees. Thankfully I had worn a maxi dress and just simply covered up my arms with a scarf.

After we toured the Palace grounds we left to go to the Attithuya ruins. They were very cool! It was incredibly hot though. When you looked around you saw all these Buddha statues with their heads missing and that was because during the Burmese invasion they destroyed them. There was one head that had a tree grow around it. That was pretty neat.

Side Story: While we were on the bus, we literally watched a woman wash her child with bottled water, as the child had gone to the restroom. The lady then just went about her business as if nothing had happened… she was selling food...and used her bare hands with washing the child… What….

After that we went on a river boat cruise bound for Bangkok. It was about 2 ½ hours. There was a buffet style lunch provided. It was alright. I was scared to try things so I opted for the bread and butter. Lol We soaked up some rays and enjoyed our afternoon back to Bangkok. 

When we got off we took a tuk tuk for the first time which was interesting. Not all of us could fit in the seats so I sat on the ‘floor’ of the tuk tuk. Lol Once back at the hotel we recharged and headed for dinner and Khao San Road again. However, once we were done eating we realized how exhausted we were and decided to just go back to our hotel to go to bed.

It’s Christmas Eve! Yay! We were on the road a lot but it was totally worth it. We first stopped at some markets of various kinds. We bought some fruit for our lunch. Then we went to a Thai farm where we road oxen and had a Thai lunch.

It was super spicy even though the guide kept saying it wasn’t. LIES. I didn’t eat it. Then we went to Khao Yia National Park where we did just a little hiking to this very beautiful waterfall. Our tour guide was full of information and I really enjoyed him. He told us how they had a problem with elephants dying from falling down the waterfall so they put up a fence to help keep them out of the area. 

Then, our final destination, riding elephants! It was so cool! I was partnered with a mom from our group. I got to sit on the neck! It felt weird. Madi’s guide took SO many pictures of them together and my guy took like 5… #bitter

Then we made it back to Bangkok and dressed up and went to dinner.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Another early morning though… lol we didn’t really think this through when we planned this trip. Lol

We went to a coconut farm and to the Floating Market. We stopped at the coconut farm first for just briefly and got to see how they make coconut milk and sugar and to also do a little souvenir shopping.

We then went to the Floating Market where we went on a canoe ride through the market and then was able to go shopping for a little over an hour. The first thing I saw when I got off the boat was this huge Python. The guy was asking for 200 Baht to hold it and to take pictures. It was so cool. There wasn’t a line and I honestly think that the guy would’ve let me keep holding it until the next person. Lol In America, you pay the person, you get one picture that they have to take, and you get to hold the animal/creature for like 5 seconds. This was cool because I got to hold the snake for like 5 minutes while Madi took tons of pictures on my phone. #comeonamerica Lol

I had to watch what I bought though because I didn’t realize the amount of shopping that would be provided for us and I didn’t restock money. The people would literally grab my arm and pull me aside to buy their stuff… I would just be looking and they would harass me asking, “How much you want? How much? How much you want?” and would not let me leave. I basically had to run away from them and learn how to look without appearing as looking even though that was a fail on multiple occasions. For example, I was looking at this butterfly dress and the lady came over, made me try it on, kept saying how good it looked on me, then proceeded to tell me that she wanted 1500 ($45) for it.. I told her no as it was way too much than I was wanting to spend. So I started to walk away then she grabbed my arm and lowered the price to 1000 Baht. I was like no and started walking away again. She then grabbed me again and kept lowering the price until I settled at 500 Baht ($15) and purchased the dress. Lol

We then went back to our hotel and freshened up for our night out with Annie. She first took us to a massage place where we got 2 hours worth of full body Thai massages for only $20. It was quite lovely. :) 

Then she took us to Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. I got ranch for the first time in months! The food portions were insanely huge! I could barely eat half! By the time dinner was done we were all so exhausted that we just went home instead of looking at the Christmas lights like Annie had planned for us.

On December 26th, we woke up the earliest at 4:45am for we had to be ready to leave by 5:30am. I got to skype Mom and everyone briefly but they were still at Aunt Cindy’s and trying to leave so it was quick.

We took a tuk tuk to a hole in the wall hotel where our guide met us and took us to the rainforest. We got these 2 sky rangers that were absolutely hilarious and amazing! Their names were Wilson and Beer. It was very exhilarating! Then we toured the zoo and had lunch

We made it back to Bangkok at 1:30pm which was very early. We didn’t realize we’d have so much day left and since we had been rising before the sun the past week none of us were opposed to napping. We also packed up our stuff as we had to check out in the morning.

We woke up and got ready to head out to Khao San Road one last time. We were at dinner and just casually drinking when these guys sat next to us. They started up a conversation with us and before I know it we were ordering more drinks… the restaurant was having a special of buy one get one free...buckets of alcohol… The night quickly came to an end from there and I think we were back at the hotel by 10:30pm. On the way home I had tripped, I kid you not, over the smallest of steps and stubbed my toe. It hurt pretty bad.  

The next day, December 27th, we got up and tried to have breakfast but we were all struggling. Lol I told Annie how I think I might’ve broken my toe when I stubbed it last night and she took one look at it and was like, “Oh, yep. We’re going to the hospital.” And so that’s what we did first. Lol I learned that I fractured my toe but that it should heal on it’s own. Lol I spoke with 3 different doctors and had an x-ray and got to keep a copy of that x-ray all for only $75...with no insurance!! What?! I say again #comeonamerica

Annie then took us to see the Grand Palace and Temple and then to the Reclining Buddha. We then went to this gym to shower and eat.

After dinner it was time to head to the airport. Our flight left at 11:45pm. Next stop: Japan… TO WELCOME MY MOM AND COUSIN!  :D