#even though it’s expensive af now many people have been there for decades when it used to be cheap

[rowanhoney]

i actually think London might be hell for me 🫶

[tl-notes]

Kobayashi’s Maid Dragon S2 Episode 5 Notes

Better late than never! Hopefully I’ll catch up with these before next week’s episode hits.

私は、種族全体の目的よりも自分がやりたいことをやっているエ��マに、興味がありました。

当時の私、そんな感じでしたし。

What Tohru is saying in these shots is a little different in the Japanese:

“I had an interest in Elma, who was doing what she wanted to do instead of advancing the goals of the species [her faction]. Since that’s how I was at the time, too.”

That is, for the first sentence, Tohru is saying Elma wasn’t interested in the broader dragon goals, not Tohru herself.

Then in the second sentence, instead of a wishy washy “I think that’s how it was?” Tohru says that she was like that too, hence her interest.

So it goes from like:

 “I was interested more in Elma than in faction goals, because she was acting freely. I think, anyway.” 

to more of a:

“I was interested in Elma because she was acting freely, not bound by faction goals. That’s what I was like too, after all.”

Not sure if it really counts as a translation note, but since I had some questions about it, here’s a few words on the Tohru/Elma disagreement scene.

Tohru thought Elma was like herself: acting not according to what dragon (or human) society asked of them, but according to their own personal set of values. Elma, by allowing herself to be placed in the position of “god” by the humans, had changed that; she locked herself into permanently being a (large, important) cog in the human society. From Tohru’s perspective, she’d lost the one person she felt kindred with, her fellow “free actor.” She doesn’t particularly care what happens to the humans, hence the 私が言いたいことはそういう話ではない (“That’s not what I’m trying to talk about”) when Elma says she’ll just stop the wars from happening: that’s all well and good, but it doesn’t solve Tohru’s issue.

Hence Kobayashi’s response: both grand (involved the fate of nations), and petty (Elma got “trapped” by food, and Tohru’s initiation of the fight was for personal reasons).

喧嘩するほど仲がいい kenka suru hodo, naka ga ii

This is one of those sayings that is often a giant pain in the butt to translate, because it’s not an odd concept in English, but for whatever reason* there is no common pithy saying for it like there is in Japanese, so it’ll almost come off less smoothly. 

The idea is that, in order to “have a fight” with someone, you have to already have an established relationship that’s at a certain level of closeness.

Two strangers? Why would you even have a reason to fight, who cares. Two acquaintances? Why deal with it, just smile and nod and go on with your day. Two close friends though? You probably care enough to want to convince them of whatever it is, and/or you don’t want to have to hide your real thoughts/feelings around them like you might around, say, just random coworkers or something—meaning more chances for friction.

*My theory on this is that it comes from the same place as the “wow Japanese people are so polite” stereotype and stuff like honne/tatemae as discussed in a previous episode’s notes: in a situation where two strangers/acquaintances might get into a shouting match in the US, in Japan there’s a comparatively higher chance they just tatemae it up to prevent direct conflict and end the situation early—hence less likely to “have a fight” per se. As always this stuff is just on a continuum though.

What do you call these “clouds” left by planes as they fly? In Japanese, they’re called 飛行機雲 hikoukigumo, lit. “airplane clouds.” And they’re not a season word! 

Officially, anyway. 

However, they are heavily associated with summer, to the point where you if you google around to find out if they are a haiku season word, there are a whole bunch of sites to tell you no, they’re not, stop asking. That doesn’t mean they’re not a great way to tell the audience it’s summer anyway, though! 

If you’re curious as to why the summer association: how long vapor trails like this remain visible depends heavily on how humid the air is. More humidity, longer trails. And Japan has very humid summers (and very dry winters!).

If you’ve heard the song Tori no Uta, the OP to Air (also animated by Kyoani), hikoukigumo is the very second word in the lyrics—no coincidence given the heavy summer theming! If you haven’t heard it, I suggest giving it a try.

“Candy shop” here is 駄菓子屋 dagashi-ya, which is a kind of store that specializes in very cheap varieties of “candy” (maybe more accurately snack foods?): dagashi. If you’re seen/read any of the series Dagashi Kashi, you’re familiar with this variety of snack. 

Dagashi is so called because, back in the Edo period, quality white sugar was super expensive and not something commoners could typically eat. Cheaper brown sugar was, though, so you ended up with different terms for stuff made from each: the expensive 上菓子 jougashi and the cheap 駄菓子 dagashi. 

Later, in the Showa period after WW2 when the average person was able to afford a bit more, the term stuck around but more generalized, referring to a wide variety of cheap snacks. These snacks are not necessarily always sugary, and they often have some sort of gimmick so it wasn’t “just” a piece of candy—toys attached, or games/puzzles, or requiring some interesting way to eat/drink them. If you grew up with Dunkaroos: that kinda thing.

Similar to “penny candy,” dagashi was/is cheap enough for children to afford several different varieties of with just a bit of change from their parents, and small stores specializing in them—dagashi-ya—sprung up all over the country, quickly becoming a popular spot for kids… and, not too long after, a symbol of childhood nostalgia. 

They’ve been on a big downtrend in the last few decades however. The spread of convenience stores as a competitor for snack buying is often cited as one reason, while a greater variety of ways for kids to spend their playtime now (video games etc.) is another.

You’re probably aware, but of the many reasons to bow in Japan, to show humility when making a request is a big one. 

Of note here is that Tohru doesn’t push Ilulu’s head down, which other characters in other shows might have done here, but just lightly reminds her: yeah okay you’re a dragon talking to a human, but you’re the one asking—act like it. She does, and her sincerity is rewarded.

The word here is ぱねぇ panee, which is a heavily abbreviated form of 半端(では/じゃ)ない hanpa nai, ~lit. “not halfway/half-done/half-assed.” 

hanpa ja nai→hanpa nai→hanpa nee→panee

It’s used probably how you’d expect: describing something intense af.

(I’m mostly just bringing it up because I love super-shortened slang like this!)

The phrase for “like” here is 気に入った ki ni itta, which is basically to have an interest in something/someone, to take a liking to, to say something is a favorite, etc. When said of another person, there’s typically an air of the speaker considering themselves in a higher position. It generally isn’t “like” in a romantic sense.

Take’s “hey that’s my line,” comes from the fact he’s (in his mind) in the position of power and was judging her on whether he’d try to kick her out of the job. You can tell he was thinking of it as “I like the cut of your jib. I guess you can stay.” kind of thing.

Normally a new employee would not say this about their new boss/job, even if they did like it, though a boss/senpai could of a new employee, hence the “what?”

Notably, Ilulu used “like” earlier in the episode to refer to Tohru as well. In that case it was 好き suki, which is a more literal “like,” with the various implications that may or may not have. Personally, it strikes me as a little odd to translate them both as “like” in the same episode.

And that’s it for episode five! I’m

[itsthenovelteafactor]

Superhero Gothic

Thanks to everyone who responded to my previous post (special shoutout to @jeyfeather1234 💛 ) about superheroes and gothic media! I know it’s been, like, a month, but here we go.

Here’s a bit of a look into some common gothic themes, and how they apply to Doom Patrol, The Boys, Watchmen (2019), and The Umbrella Academy. This one’s a bit long, not gonna lie, but I hope you enjoy! 

Part I: Let’s Talk About Gothic Media

There is not actually an all-encompassing definition for gothic media, or even a universally agreed-upon one. You’re probably familiar with some well-known gothic works (think Dracula, Frankenstein, Edgar Allen Poe, Stephen King) but there is a lot of debate on what exactly makes them gothic. 

There are some common themes in gothic works, though: families/characters under the control of a tyrannical paterfamilias, the crumbling of the established order/estate, long-buried secrets that have consequences in the present, and supernatural events that are stand-ins for/reflective of the emotional state/past actions of the characters. 

(Note: these aren’t all the themes of gothic works or even most of them, but for purposes here, I’d like to limit this analysis to them. I’d love to talk about other themes/ideas, though, if anyone has them. 😊)

So… superheroes (quick overview in case you haven’t watched any of them… spoiler warnings for the rest of this discussion)

Doom Patrol:

Five misfit superhumans attempt to rescue their mentor figure when he is kidnapped by an old enemy.

They are very, very bad at it.

Also features a singing horse head, a sentient nonbinary teleporting street (who is by far the best character) and the narrator is the fourth-wall breaking series villain. 

Beautifully weird but will also emotionally devastate you. Criminally underrated, tbh.

Watchmen (2019):

Story takes place after the canon of the graphic novel which is too much to summarize.

Alternate history (that should really feel more fictitious than it does) where white supremacist organization the Seventh Cavalry, masked police officers, and former superheroes in hiding all collide in Tulsa Oklahoma

Swept the Emmys this year and ABSOLUTELY DESERVED TO

The Umbrella Academy:

Washed up former child superheroes are forced to reunite when their father dies under mysterious circumstances 

Time travel, dysfunctional siblings, and a killer soundtrack

Basically a family drama with the superhero story as secondary (complimentary)

Probably the most obviously gothic of all of these it is aesthetic AF 

The Boys: 

Superheroes exist but they are corporate sellouts under the control of evil company Not-Amazon (AKA Vought)

Regular human protagonists try to hold them accountable for their actions with varying (read: usually minimal) success

Yes, it’s the one from those weird ads earlier this year

Billy Joel!! 

Part II: Niles Caulder, Ozymandias, and Other Terrible Father Figures

The Tyrannical Paterfamilias: 

Does not always mean a father figure explicitly, often relating to the notion of a patriarchal tradition, or family inheritance that plays a role in controlling the main characters. 

Sometimes, it is a father figure. 

Sometimes, it is a representative of patriarchal tradition/male head of pseudo-family unit.

So, uh, role call: 

Reginald Hargreeves (even in death) holds power over his children, and has shaped all of them into the adults they have become, and that drives the majority of the conflict. Each of the major character individually grapples with the after-effects of his abuse. Luther feels the need to be the leader and protect everyone and alienates his allies as a consequence. Diego constantly asserts himself as a hero (often to dangerous extremes) because it is the only way he was ever valued. Allison has to teach herself boundaries and responsible use of her powers after he encouraged her to abuse them for years. Klaus turns to drugs to cope with his childhood trauma. Five disobeyed his father with disastrous consequences and is constantly fighting to not become him. Vanya spent her entire childhood in the background, and never learned to assert herself in a healthy way. Thanks, Reggie.

Homelander says that The Seven are like a family. While whether or not this is accurate (it isn’t) is up for debate, he does occupy the tyrannical paterfamilias roles incredibly well. Homelander controls every member of the Seven, threatening them and their loved ones whenever they step out of line (read: do not do exactly what he wants in the exact way he wants them to do it.) He is also very closely tied with conservative/patriarchal rhetoric in-universe and at one point dates a literal Nazi. 

William Butcher less evil than most of the other characters on this list but the bar is also like, on the ground. Butcher tries to control the Boys in a similar way (Butcher and Homelander are character foils, okay? it’s actually pretty neat). He’s perfectly willing to sacrifice them in pursuit of his own goals, disregards their points of view and the well-being of their loved ones, and tries to cut loose anyone who disagrees with his methods (recall when Hughie tried to rescue his friends at the end of s1 and Butcher… punched him in the face? Yeah, that.) The difference is that the Boys can push back against his without being, you know, brutally murdered. (And also the Butcher isn’t a literal monster; I’m not anti-Butcher, okay? He’s an interesting character and the fact that he seems constantly on the verge of becoming that which he hates most is part of what makes him interesting.)

Guess what, folks? It’s hating Niles Caulder hours. He engineered accidents to turn the main characters into his test subjects, and then kept them conveniently hidden away in his large manor. Stole their autonomy and independence but paints himself as a benevolent father figure. And that’s not even including what he does to his actual daughter, Dorothy. He’s terrified of her growing up (read: becoming a young woman) and so he locks her away for almost 100 years and, when she is freed, yells at her constantly and makes her terrified of showing any signs of maturation (even though she’s 111 and clearly tired of being written off as a child).

The relationship between Ozymandias and his daughter, Lady Trieu, is integral to the final act of Watchmen. Heralded as the “smartest man in the world,” Ozymandias refused to acknowledge his daughter as his until he needed something from her. While Lady Trieu is more self-sufficient and independent than some of the applications of this trope, she goes to great lengths to prove herself, first to him, and then to herself when he rejects her.

Part III: Been a Long Time Gone (Constantinople) 

Gothic fiction is often associated with change, and particularly, the collapse of established systems of power. For example, many works like The House of the Seven Gables and The Fall of the House of Usher take place in old, crumbling manor houses. There is a reason for this! These kinds of estates are remnants of a past that is irreversibly gone, and their continued presence in decrypt forms serves as a reminder. 

Each of the four series takes place at a moment, either on a wide scale or on a personal scale (or both!), in which an established order is being questioned, and the constant reminders of that failed order are used to gothic effect.

The Umbrella Academy plays this most directly (In fact, there are TONS of parallels between the end of s1 of TUA and House of Usher that I don’t have the time to get into right now... lmk if you want that meta). We can see the Hargreeves mansion as a very literal example of this. While not worn down, the house is notably both very large and very empty. Shelves are filled with merchandise for a superhero team that disbanded over a decade prior, and portraits of a family that no longer speaks to each other. None of the family members ever seem truly comfortable or at ease in the house, and for good reason - every back corner is a reminder of their incredibly traumatic childhood. 

In The Boys, the story begins with the fridging death of the main character’s girlfriend, Robin, at the hands of a member of the Seven, a group of heroes so ingrained in the public consciousness that when they later hide out in a costume shop, literally every single costume is for one of Vought’s heroes. The Seven represent the system in power, which, at the disposal of Not-Amazon means corporate greed, shallow altruism, and the cultivation of public personas at the expense of actual humanity. 

From that moment on, the sheer presence of The Seven on everything from public billboards to breakfast cereal is a remainder for Hughie (and the audience) that this established system doesn’t work and is based on lies, which serves this effect on a personal level. In the broader scale, however, we also see that the Seven themselves are fracturing under an unsustainable business model. Even their name, “The Seven” starts to seem a bit dated when halfway through season one through the end of season two there are notably... less than seven of them. 

The main characters in Doom Patrol are all in recovery after the accidents that irreversibly changed their lives. We see through flashbacks the people that they used to be, and the difference is striking. They were each established in their own elements: Cliff a famous race-car driver, Rita a world renowned actress, Larry a hero pilot, Jane was involved in counter-cultural movements, Vic was a student and athlete. The foundations upon which their worlds were established are completely decimated by the accidents, and now they (save Vic and sometimes Jane) live mostly in isolation in Niles’ manor house, an estate that is far larger than would be necessary to comfortably house a group of their size.

And you feel the emptiness, both in the manor, and in the lives of the characters. They have barely created a shadow version of their own existence when the series starts, so fragile that a simple trip into town devolves into utter chaos. 

Angela Abar of Watchmen has also constructed a life following the terrifying act of terrorism on the White Night. It’s a bit of a double life, and we see that the balancing act is challenging for her, even before the story truly begins. The death of Judd Crawford, and the revelation about him that follows is not only traumatizing on a personal level (but it definitely is that), but also upsets her understanding of the world. People she’s come to trust are not just dishonest but truly monstrous. And the more Angela learns about what has been happening, the more her understanding of the world begins to unravel. Her memories, and the memories of those around her are cast in a much more sinister light, and the effect is genuinely chilling. 

Part IV: “I’m the Little Girl Who Threw the Brick in the Air”

In episode 3 of Watchmen, Laurie contacts Dr. Manhattan on the cosmic phone booth to tell him a joke. It’s a version of what TVTropes calls the “brick joke,” and it relies on set up taking place early on, other stuff happening, and then the response coming at an unexpected moment. 

So, yeah. Events of the past/buried secrets resurfacing with consequences in the present.

Continuing with the theme from Watchmen, the entire series is punctuated with the way the past and the present intertwine, with elements from both the original Watchmen graphic novel, and actual American history. One of the things we talked a lot about in my gothic lit class was the manner in which the overhanging specter of past atrocities casts a shadow over the present, and how many works cannot help but have gothic themes because there are so many horrifying things in the past that cannot be ignored, and provide both context and nuance for the discussions we have in the present. No series tackles these topics quite so directly (and with as much care) as Watchmen. (note: it does not always make for easy viewing, but if you’re in a place where you feel like you can engage with that kind of material, I highly recommend the show.)

In Doom Patrol, the past actions of the characters very much control the storyline (see: previous discussion of Niles Caulder), but the character whose storyline I want to talk about here is Rita (partially for plot reasons and partially because I just love Rita, okay?). We learn when we first meet Rita that in the past she was... not a great person. We know that the trauma of the accident that gave her her powers has changed her, we also know that she still holds on to the guilt and that her guilt has limited the scope of her world for years, but we don’t know what exactly it is that she’s done. 

Enter Mr. Nobody, all-powerful narrator who is not just aware of Rita’s greatest sins, but perfectly capable of manifesting reminders of them into the story. She is confronted with empty cradles, and the sound of crying children in the background of many scenes and we see how much it effects her, without a full understanding of why it does (see: The Tell-Tale Heart). Her past begins to haunt her physically, and she begins to crumble in response to it, until finally she is forced to confide in a stranger (and thus the audience). The past actions do not just inform the audience of Rita’s character - they show up to influence her behavior in the present. 

The ending of The Umbrella Academy season 1 is super evocative of the gothic genre with Vanya breaking open the soundproof chamber (wherein she was silenced for years) and rising from the basement to destroy the last remnants of the Hargreeves legacy (which would be awesome if the last remnants of the Hargreeves legacy didn’t include the rest of her family). Pretty much every mistake the siblings make over the course of the season feeds together to create the finale, but the primary cause isn’t something any of them actually did. It all ties back to Reginald Hargreeves’ complete inability to be nice to children. Any children. His own and random strangers that need help. 

In The Boys, while the extent to which people are making f-ed up choices in the present cannot be expressed enough, we see through the characters of Homelander that many of the present difficulties are a result of past mistakes. Particularly, the profit-seeking corruption within Vought. We learn in s1 through Vogelbaum that Homelander was raised in a lab by Vought as an experiment, only to be unceremoniously thrust into the spotlight and told he was a superhero (which... does not justify a single one of his actions but is still a major yikes). As the head scientist of the project, Vogelbaum is very aware that ignoring his conscious if the name of research has essentially created the biggest threat their world has ever seen. 

(Seriously y’all just stop raising your super kids in isolation) 

Part V: Put Them Together, and They’re the MF-ing Spice Girls 

Having the environment respond to characters’ emotions/mental states is pretty common in gothic works (it was a dark and stormy night = someone is probably not doing super well). One of the advantages of the genre’s tendency towards the supernatural is that, often, those elements of the stories, as well, are reflections of the main ideas of a work of fiction (see: Stephen King’s really unsubtle period metaphors).

Because all of these shows have a ton of supernatural/scifi elements by virtue of being, well, superhero shows, I thought it would be easier (and more fun!) to come up with a short list of elements, what they mean, and what cases they might apply to.

1. A Nonlinear Experience of Time

The Umbrella Academy: legitimately about time travel. Characters are attempting to fix the timeline but are unable to because they are both mentally and sometimes literally stuck in the past. 

Watchmen: In the episode This Extraordinary Being, Angela experiences firsthand the experiences of her grandfather, under the influence of a drug called Nostalgia. The episode touches on many themes, one of which being the impact of generational trauma in marginalized communities. Throughout the series, Dr. Manhatten is cursed with experiencing all time at once, and the episode A God Walks into Abar illustrates that, because of this, he is constantly facing the consequences of particular actions before, after, and while he is preforming him.

Doom Patrol: Mr. Nobody is able to physically travel to one of Jane’s flashbacks via his fourth-wall breaking powers, and gives Dr. Harrison an ultimatum for the future. 

What it implies: Events, particularly events that evoke guilt or conflict, are not as rooted in the past as one would like to think.

2. Powers/Abilities that reflect personal trauma/failings

Doom Patrol: Larry’s abilities/bond with the Negative Spirit have made it so that he is constantly covering himself with bandages/avoiding other people, which reflects his experiences having to hide his identity as a gay man in the 50/60s. Rita forced herself to walk a thin line, betraying everything in pursuit of her image; her abilities require constant effort to keep her entire body from becoming misshapen and out of control. Vic’s father with boundary issues can literally control his perception of the world through his cybernetic enhancements. Dorothy’s abilities manifest as imaginary friends because she was kept isolated for years at a time. 

The Umbrella Academy: pretty much all of the kids’ powers are representative of the interpersonal skills they were never able to develop. Luther is super-durable but also the most emotionally vulnerable of the group. Five can teleport and time travel but always seems to be too late to stop things. Diego can manipulate the trajectory of projectiles but cannot escape the path his father set out for him, not matter how much he resents it. Vanya always forced herself to stay quiet until the sound literally explodes out of her.

The Boys: Annie’s abilities allow her to control light, but she struggles (in the beginning) to bring to light the horrible things done to her behind closed doors. 

Watchmen: Not technically a power, but Looking Glass’ mirror-mask is a constant reminder of the hall of mirrors that both saved his life and traumatized him forever. 

What it implies: from a story perspective, these allow for an exploration of trauma/guilt to occur on a scale much larger than people simply talking about their problems (as if anyone on any of these shows knows how to talk about their problems...) It also means that the trauma/guilt of the characters takes on a physical form that is able to haunt them, and constantly remind them/hold them accountable for their past actions.

3. Diluted Sense of Reality:

Doom Patrol: The first season is narrated by its main villain, and throughout the season we see that the act of narration itself has an impact on the story.

Watchmen: The event that kicks off the plot of the story is hinged upon a paradox introduced by Angela near the end of the series when trying to speak to her Grandfather in the past through Dr. Manhattan.

The Umbrella Academy: The pair of episodes in season 1, The Day that Wasn’t and The Day That Was take the same point in time and explore two possible avenue for the future from there, with The Day that Wasn’t ending with the events of the entire episode being completely erased from the timeline.

What it implies: you can’t necessarily trust everything you see, even from the audience perspective, giving them a position not unlike that of the characters. The character’s uncertainty and confusion is magnified and reflected in the world that surrounds them.

Other examples: an apocalypse (The Umbrella Academy, Doom Patrol, Watchmen (of a sort)), ghosts (The Umbrella Academy - hi, Ben!), immortality/invulnerability (Watchmen, Doom Patrol, The Boys), and characters that look significantly younger than they actually are (The Boys, The Umbrella Academy, Doom Patrol). 

Part VI: Why Did You Write a Literal Essay Don’t You Have Real Schoolwork (yes... shhhhh...)

And... there you have it. I don’t really have some grand conclusion here. This is (clearly) far from a complete analysis but it is the most my finals-week brain can concoct at the moment. 

If you have other ideas, let me know! You can always add to the notes or message me – my inbox is always open!  If you got this far, thank you so much for taking the time to read this! Much love! ❤️

[soobadnoonecanstopher]

Things i bought with the stimmy: (aka this is how boring i am irl)

Tiny forks and spoons (they have clovers on the handle idk either) ((omg they’re out for delivery today yay tiny forks and spoons! So Tiny!!!)

Some blue pans

Electric toothbrushes for everybody yay!! I love toothbrushes 😂

A shitload of new underwear because you cant have too many good underwear

MORE coffee, but like a bigger than normal order with some new tea to try too. (I like Angelino’s because its like a no pressure subscription/membership but like there’s no downside to it at all, you just buy it when you want and they send it to you and its good ass shit, its so good guys my favorite is Sumatra dark but I’ll get down with all of it except for Kona i dont like the Kona)

(Warning very long rant about cars)

Also i think we are paying off my car there isnt much left on it and my husband wants to buy an Acura because we are Honda hoes. We are also very practical people and that’s about as much as we are willing to spend on a car. He looked at Audi and quickly noped right the fuck out of that and it reminded me of Baekhyun and his stupid expensive car. He also liked this one car from Genesis but I’m like ‘that’s a polished up Hyundai do you reallly want to betray honda for a Hyundai?’ And he closed the site but he keeps going back to look at it. I wont let him buy that. No way. It’s pretty on the outside but i dont feel confident in Hyundai. Sorry Koreans. Oh Subaru is like....quality shit? But they’re boring. They’re boring. The Acura is boring too. Why are cars so boring?

Honestly i havent been excited about a car since i bought my Honda Fit in 2011, which i still have by the way, its the panda, it had all these stickers on it, a bunch of kpop stickers and then my husband bought an HRV in 2017 and gave it to me even though there was nothing wrong with my fit i didnt want a new car, but anyway he took the fit and has been driving it every day and he talks bad about the fit like “it has this smell inside” and I’m like ‘duh its a decade old leave it alone” and hes like “and you cant even take your fooot off the brake at all cause it’s like “OH SHIT WE GOING?!?!” Because DUH THE FIT IS GO, thats what it likes to do, its easy to go but kinda hard to stop.

Anyway the shocks are sounding kinda crunchy lately so i guess we should decide if we are keeping it or what. It’s paid off and runs like a champ and still wants to go go go, its a very good car. Meanwhile the HRV is like “HI! I AM A MOM. MY NAME IS MOM. That’s it. That’s my whole identity.” But guess what? It’s mine. It’s black and gets dirty easily and has NO kpop stickers at all even tho when i was bitching about my kpop stickers being gone hes all “put some on the HRV” and like...for what?!?!?!?!? I do not feel attached to that thing. Yes I’m just bitter give me back my fit goddammit i dont care if it has this smell inside, why does it have this smell? Is it just old? Ive had it detailed inside before a few times and the smell just comes back i think its just like a grandma smell. It’s in the air vents. I wonder if something weird happened inside there once.

Oh so back to new cars. So then he was like ‘should i just wait for the new bronco?’ And i saw it, its cute af. It’s cute like a Jeep Wrangler is cute but its new so there arent any yet even though there should be by now what the fuck, chop chop. The other thing is...its a ford. 😂 like in all honesty I’d rather get a Hyundai than a ford. Domestic? Are you serious? In this economy? Those are disposable cars. Ford hahahahhahahahahahahaha sorry to any ford enthusiasts but we arent’ our own mechanics we cant keep that thing going. I’m going to gently steer him toward the boring old Acura. He also mentioned a truck but 🤢 please, we live in the suburbs.

[prorevenge]

Stingy, narcissistic boss negs and skimps on employees, so I damage his ego with some a-hole tax.

Let's call my asshole boss Eugene, since his stinginess reminds me of Eugene Krabs from SpongeBob Squarepants, except Krabs is nowhere near malicious. In order to display the full satisfaction of this revenge, I will have to describe a few (but not limited) things Eugene did that entitles him to being a complete jackass.

For the context, Eugene owns a small company that provides artistic services of some sort and never hired full-timers (which I later learnt that it was due to his stinginess). Initially, when I saw the open part-time position, I thought it was ideal for me as I had external commitments, and needed some sort of income. The job offers about 550USD per month (I don’t live in the US, this is a rough conversion), but only required me to clock in about 90 hours a month. It wasn’t a very good offer, but good enough for me as I considered myself to be inexperienced in field. Note that Eugene had seen my portfolio and knew my ability level before hiring me.

The first couple of months was fine, I worked the hours I was supposed to and got paid accordingly, occasionally extending my shift at my own time due to the nature of the work, but I didn’t mind. I guess Eugene saw this as an advantage he could exploit later on during my employment. It is also important to note that Eugene would often ask about my well-being, how did I spent my weekends etc. At this point in time, it all seemed like courtesy talk so I didn’t pay much attention to it. He would ask about my previous employment and my reason for leaving, which I answered honestly that their work system was unsuitable for me. This will be important later.

Eugene gradually began to grow more impatient towards me, often blaming me for not being able to match up to his ability. Remember when I was inexperienced thus the payrate? Eugene had over a decade of experience in this expertise and he expected me to be at his level when I was only 3 months in. The stress was intense and I began working longer hours just to keep up and produce work at the best quality I could. I was under the belief that if I worked hard enough, my effort will speak. Even though this was only a part-time position, I overcommitted my time there and took pride in my work. My external commitments were barely scraping by. I was exhausted, but thought I was doing a good job until Eugene “spoke” to me one day.

Eugene pulled me into his office and lectured me on my work etiquette, saying that I wasn’t putting enough effort he was considering letting me go. At this point, I was beyond confused. Did he really not see the effort I put in? Was I delusional in thinking that I was actually doing well and my work had been improving? I tried speaking up but he quickly diverted the topic, telling me he knew the reason why my previous employer hated me. It was because I was lazy and fussy with my job. To say I was in disbelief was an understatement. Not only did I believe I did my best with every task handled to me, Eugene had registered my flaws during casual conversations and twisted my words to his advantage. I had no idea how to react and simply ask him what expected of me. He instantly replied that he would like me to double my hours working for him, at the same monthly payrate. His reasons? It’s my fault that I am not experienced enough to produce quality work, thus it should be under my own responsibility and time to make up for it. My external commitments didn’t matter, he said, as this job was my only source of income and should be kept as priority. It finally dawned to me that Eugene was a narcissistic sociopath who was only held conversations so that he could learn a person’s weaknesses for his manipulation.

Now, if you read my title, you will see that Eugene was not only a narc but also stingy af. Eugene is obsessed with maximising his profits. Any business owner would love that, I agree, but Eugene is down to every cent in immoral and even possibly, illegal ways. He would sell a service to a client, and upon receiving the deposit, deliver something else. He was smart enough to keep his contracts vague (for both clients AND employees) so that nobody could not take legal actions against him. More than often, his clients would be left to wits’ end as it would be too late and expensive to engage another vendor by the time they realised they had been scammed. Eugene would then demanded another set of payment to deliver what he had originally promised, overcharging the client an average of 100% to 200% more that what was agreed. Eventually realising that they’d been played, most people would be too exhausted to pursue further action and prayed for the project to be over so they didn’t have to deal with his antics anymore. This inaction probably fed Eugene’s ego that he could get away playing dirty every time. There are many more things I would like to rant about Eugene, but this is prorevenge sub, not recruitinghell so most of you would like to get to the good stuff soon.

So in my country, employers are required to pay a certain amount of tax for every local employee they hire. While it is not exactly tax, it is obligated by law and negligence will result in a hefty fine and possibly jail time. These “taxes” are technically contributions for the employee’s retirement funds, which is payable by every employer. Employer can deduct a certain percentage of the contributions from the employee’s wages. This law has its own complications since there are a certain group of people exempted from it, such as students or interns. Now, Eugene is the classic example of narc who thinks that he is smarter than everyone else. He felt that he was smart enough to evade the law by drafting a contract with vague details to protect himself, and was deluded enough to believe that everyone would believe him as long as he sounded convincing. In other words, he thought of people as sacks of potatoes with no opinion of their own. If anyone was to have a perspective, it had to be his way or the wrong way.

I stayed in Eugene’s company for about 4 months, before I felt too mentally overwhelmed. On the day that I left, I called in to check on my Contribution account and just as I had expected, Eugene hadn’t paid a single cent over the past 4 months. The officer on the other end of the line asked if I would like to report this as a case, guess my answer.

A week later, I received an update from the Contribution Board, saying that Eugene had disputed my case, claiming that I was only an intern and thus, exempted from the law. This jerk was playing dirty as a last attempt to steal from me. As I had mentioned, Eugene thought of himself as a smart man, and probably felt that the officer would rule the case in his favor since he had world-class convincing skills and his vague “contract” would have protected him either way. Fine, Eugene. So you think you can get away just like any other time. You must have gotten pretty confident by now. Well, not this time, Eugene. I wrote a 2 pages long email to the Contribution Board Officer, with every reason and evidence I can find on how am I not an intern, like Eugene claimed. Knowing his antics, I went the extra mile to research all the exempted group and wrote every possible reason on how am I NOT in the category. Excessive? Yes. Worth it? HELL YES.

I didn’t hear from the Officer for 2 weeks and when I finally did, he informed me that Eugene had agreed to pay my contributions. Remember when I said employers are permitted to deduct a certain percentage from employee’s wages? Due to his negligence, Eugene could no longer do that and had to pay the full amount, on top of the fines that incurred along with it. If he had dutifully abide by the law, it would had only costed him a third of what he had to pay. So that’s a bit of asshole tax for you, Eugene. Now that I’ve gotten back what I was owed, I have decided to move on, but the story did not end there.

A ex-colleague of mine, NJ, who is still working for Eugene told me that during the 2 weeks I didn’t hear from the Officer, Eugene was busy fighting for his stand by giving every reason that I an exempted individual. The officer, having seen my email, soon got tired of his nonsense and gave him a deadline to pay up or he’ll be brought to court. NJ said he had never seen Eugene so defeated before. To top it off, it seemed like karma had finally caught up to him as he started losing more and more clients due to his unethical practices. The fine came to him when he had no clients that month so it was a very obvious dent in his bank account. Ultimately, it was not a huge amount, but knowing Eugene’s stinginess and ego, I think the damage was enough to qualify for this sub.

(source) story by (/u/anonymous_bun)

[murfeelee]

I just want to speak my piece and voice my hopes & concerns about the ideas for a new Sims Networking site.

Disclaimer: Despite the length of this long effing post, I know absolutely nothing about creating a website, or hosting, servers, or anything like that.

In light of Tumblr’s clear and present determination to kill its own website, many ideas are being proposed about The Sims community starting its own website. This would be a safe haven for simmers, where we can all share our content without fear of overzealous censorship and nefarious politico-economic stunts and power-plays.

Having different simmers presenting different platforms and ideas about how to get a simming network started is great, and I support anyone who pitches an idea. I don’t care who figures it out, just as long as someone does, and it’s good. But at this critical point and time what the community really needs is to not be splintered -- that’s what the problem is: that when Tumblr internally combusts we’ll all mass exodus and go our separate ways (to LJ/DW, Twitter, Blogspot, WP, etc), and we won’t all be in one place anymore. :(

There’s nothing wrong with having multiple simming networks, and having a selection of simmers-only social media outlets, not at all. We do that already, with sites like TSR & MTS, etc, that embrace content from ALL the sims games (1-4, etc), but where different preferences/standards/visions naturally lead to different websites doing their own thing separately.

But I think it’s time we as a community had one main home.

IMO, ideally, it would be one that functions like Tumblr did -- just Better and More Positive. ;) It would not be moderated by admins like the other sims sites, and instead the site runners would be there strictly for site support and maintenance. We’ve been moderating the simblr side of Tumblr all these years pretty okay -- aside from the abuse/neglect of the Tags (which I hope we could come to a more unified system with on a new site).

The new site could have all the image uploading/storage and other features we enjoy (Follows, Reblogs, Likes, Comments, IM, etc) but possibly even with an additional forum aspect, with rich text text threads & private messaging, etc. Is that at all possible?

The forum half of the site could have moderators, if only to keep the threads organized, but there would be none of that censoring crap that gets users warned/banned over stupidness like language, adult content, or my personal favorite: filesharing (especially when cc users rely on WCIFs and reuploaders to share content from dead sites and creators who delete their content for one reason or another).

I’d also love to see a return of more community events:

more Simblreen-like photo prompts & challenges for other holidays & seasons

more creative contests (like the one recreating real movie posters as sims images to get featured as new cc)

more visibility for machinimas (those mofos work HARD)

the return of sims magazines for fashion & builders & whatnot

Age and Adult Content Restrictions

The Sims is a borderline Teen/Everyone/Mature-rated game. It’s got sex and violence and crude humor and weirdness that isn’t really suitable for little kids. It's at each parent’s discretion what their kids are exposed to, but most simmers are either in their teens or older (I haven’t come across any 7 year olds playing this crazy game, at least.) As such, I don’t feel this new site should be censoring/blocking adult content and nsfw. Let the tags do their jobs -- even implement a Safe Mode & parental controls if you have to.

When it comes to what the age restrictions are, can’t y’all just have a captcha or one of those buttons you click that says you’re 13+ or whatever the age needs to be? And there are pretty cool captchas out there, too -- we don’t need something as crazy as what Thaithesims had (for those of y’all who don’t know, it was freaking nuts, trust), but there are others that ask a simple math question, or makes you to click the picture of the vegetable, or some Where’s Waldo looking thing to find all the bicycles or whatever the heck. Y’all’ve seen them, I don’t know.

Again, I don’t even know what goes into making a website, and determining what it can & cant support -- or AFFORD.

And that brings me to Money:

While it’s so exciting and heartening to see different ideas coming out now, honestly, it’s not gonna work when all y’all are all asking for money and donations. That’ll have us scrambling to fund & invest in a million different people’s ideas, until someone gets a site working that we’ll actually use.

Of course we know money is THE issue, and of course websites are Expensive AF™. But it would be more realistic for all y'all to get a site up and running, have us use it and test it out, and once the community gives it our seal of approval, then start doing donation drives to keep the site/servers funded. That’s the way fan-made ad-free sites with adult content like Archive Of Our Own do it; I’ve been subscribed there for years, and they make $100k+ every drive, it’s amazing. Sites like Wikipedia & the Wayback Machine no doubt make more. (Didn’t SimFileShare fund itself to get started? They use ads, though, which might force adult content restrictions like what’s happening with Tumblr.)

I wish I had the disposable income to give to ANY of these fantastic websites that I know and love, just to show my appreciation, but I’m dirt poor, so.... But I just feel that it really shouldn’t be up to users to fund free websites, because that’s hardly better than having to pay for subscriptions to join paid sites. I don’t even like pay for CC, or DLC, or even video games at full price. So any bid for money makes me suck my teeth a bit, frankly speaking.

In Closing:

The Sims community deserves its own space, to freely express ourselves.

The Sims is unique from any other game ever made, because simmers create the stories, simmers create the content, and simmers create the gameplay -- it’s not a linear pre-determined storyline, but a more or less open-ended open-world mechanism by which the gamer decides (and can create) everything from the characters to the plots to the locations.

We’re not just posting pictures on the official forums of our customized Lara, Shepard, Geralt, Arthur Morgan or whoever beating a level or discovering a hidden location. No. We’re creating our own characters and worlds and directives, and sharing art through images, storytelling, and custom content. And we’re sharing a bit of ourselves in the process.

Tumblr used to be the one place we could rely on to embrace our individuality, freedom of speech, agency, expression, and be part of a community that supported us and our content. I don’t want the Sims community to be fractured, and certainly not die out. Y’all have been like family to me, for the 5 years I’ve been on Tumblr, and for almost a whole decade now in the online Sims community -- 2019 will make it 10 years (which is a lot, for an antisocial psychopath like me). If Tumblr fails us, I won’t know where else to go, and it really saddens me. The Sims is a Lifestyle.

So I really hope y’all movers and shakers out there who know about web development can come together, figure things out together, and create a Better, More Positive space for us to enjoy playing and sharing our love of The Sims games.

[june2734]

So I've been seeing a lot of the “Blazing Saddles could never be made today because of the PC police” Discourse today. Okay, fine. Let’s go ahead and dignify this with a ~ * ~ thread ~ * ~ Could BLAZING SADDLES or something similar be made today? NO. Here's why. Rather, it’s not that BLAZING SADDLES could not be made today - you could make it, it would just land with a deafening thud. Because the observations are tired and the execution is gratuitous and crass - but importantly, it is gratuitous and crass in a way it was not in 1974. As we have discussed before, comedy is a tricky genre because it is the quickest to age and the most likely to age poorly. A comedy’s success depends just as much on when it hits as the quality of the writing. The same applies to genre - Westerns were in their Twilight in 1974, and one of the most pervasive genres in all of film. So the film is just as much a sendup of the dying Western as it is commentary about race. Also, people seem to forget that BLAZING SADDLES was released LESS THAN A DECADE after the Voting Rights Act was passed. The United States had just gone through a very rapid shift with its relationship to race. Moreover, Hollywood did not really know how to approach portrayals of racial hostility in film, even though it was topical af. This very rapid shift in social mores lead to a broad sort of discomfort in Hollywood, which happened to coincide with the collapse of the studio system.   That collapse and the failure of multiple big budget projects (looking at you, DOCTOR DOOLITTLE) was a major reason why you didn't see movies like SADDLES before the mid-1960's - experimentation in film transgression was only allowed after the "mainstream" began to fail. The highest profile example of a high profile "let's talk about race" film before BLAZING SADDLES that actually FEATURED a Black protagonist (we’re ignoring TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD for several reasons) was IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT. IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT… it’s like, you know, it’s fine. But it’s a very, straightforward, borderline “racists and Blacks learn to get along” narrative in the vein of GREEN BOOK. It is a Drama that has Serious Things to Say About Race. (also BONNIE AND CLYDE was robbed). So reason #1 BLAZING SADDLES would fail today: comedy about race was only just hitting the mainstream. As we observed in the video about Mel Brooks and THE PRODUCERS, farceur is sometimes necessary to really cut to the bone of difficult issues-that is BLAZING SADDLES’ innovation. And it is never portrayed as a harmless kind of absurd, but just fundamentally illogical, stratified, and shameless in its exploitative nature. Like the goofy Nazis in “Springtime for Hitler”, racism in SADDLES is neither cool nor aspirational. (And because I have to tediously acknowledge this every time I talk about BLAZING SADDLES, yes I KNOW it is extremely tone deaf with regard to women and gay people. Stop "educating" me that every time I talk about this movie. I'm talking about its portrayal of race chrissake) The joke in this scene is that the “simple” white folks of Rock Ridge are willing to accept Sheriff Bart, but only after he eliminates a major threat, and only if no one else sees them doing it. (CW: this clip has racial slurs). This is just one example of the sort of “Truth to power” humor in SADDLES - the joke is at the expense of the white audience, not only pointing out the woman's hypocrisy but making a joke out of it. 

That was a fresh take in 1974 - not so fresh today. So Brooks is correct in that good comedy speaks truth to power, but the power in this case is white hegemony. This film DOES state an uncomfortable truth, very explicitly, in a way that drama cannot - and that transgression made the film more honest.  In this scene, Taggart’s explicit statement of genocide against all non-whites is the JOKE, but not one at the expense of the people being killed. That it is comedy allows it to be blunt in a way that dramas couldn't be. (CW: this clip has several racial slurs). The observation that “Blazing Saddles couldn’t be made today” is the most tired, unoriginal thing and I’ve been hearing it ad nauseam since the 90’s. It is the sort of thing espoused by people who believe the real problem is the PC police, not the structure of white supremacy. It ignores the many complex contexts and trends the film came in the midst of that made it feel fresh at the time. Yes, I am aware that Brooks himself has oft repeated this line. And I do think he doesn’t realize he’s contradicting himself. In the most recent regurgitation of this line in 2017, he calls the culture “stupidly politically correct,” but then immediately contradicts himself by making a list of topics that he thinks are not funny and never will be and he will never joke about. Even in the example of BLAZING SADDLES, he's made it clear in multiple interviews that the image of a black man being lynched was a line he would never cross. Even something as subtle as the “Bart almost gets lynched” scene - note that every man in line behind him is white. So the idea that “oh, no, now there are tribes we will no longer offend!” while immediately going on to list lines he would never cross is contradictory and, yes, hypocritical. @PFTompkins outlines why on a thread embedded in the Variety article.  

 So the mindless regurgitation of the line about how “The PC Police say we can’t do movies like BLAZING SADDLES anymore” is so disheartening because it shows that the only lesson these people took from the film is “white people yelling the N-word is funny.” Spike Lee has criticized the film for that - less the intent or even the execution, but what audiences (especially white audiences) take from it. That audiences take it not as a critique of white hegemony but as a free pass to say the N-word and laugh about it. Because, let's be real, when people like Rob Lowe bemoan that we would NEVER see a movie like Blazing Saddles today, what they mean is "boy I do miss the days when you could cram your movie full of the N-word with reckless abandon for literally any reason".  But that era of film never existed. The vast majority of the history of race in film before BLAZING SADDLES centers white characters, and betrays extreme discomfort with white culpability. Noteworthy also that BLAZING SADDLES did not start a trend, because it couldn't.  And I never wanted to admit it before but honestly? Spike Lee was right. Clearly, way too many people didn't "get" the object of ridicule in SADDLES, and just use it as yet another cudgel of oppression. But don't worry, it's just a joke. Anyway, BLAZING SADDLES has always been and will always be one of my favorite movies, but it does get really tedious that it's been twenty years of people boo-hooing that we can't make the film today like it's some kind of fresh take. Good lord, it is not.

— Lindsay Ellis Twitter Thread on why people misunderstand why Mel Brooks couldn’t be made today in essay form. Link 

— Mel Brooks, The Producers and the Ethics of Satire about N@zis:

[thepuckishrogue]

One of them tag game posts type deals

Rules: Answer 21 questions and then tag 21 people who you want to get to know better. [ignoring that bit b/c I always feel like I’m bothering people lmao]

Tagged by: @aspiratinganxiety A pretty awesome lady all the way around far as I can tell. Plus she write that Batfam good-good so if that’s your jam click here and treat yo’self! Thanks for the tag darlin’, you’re far too kind!

Name: Imogene [so named for my grandmother]

Nickname: Immy and a whole slew of things best not repeated [my friends/family members are terrible people who come up with terrible names >.>]

Gender: Female

Zodiac: Taurus

Height: 5'6″

Time: 1:37 PM

Favourite Musicians: Too many, but what’s been on repeat as of late is NSP, TWRP, Planet Booty, Artic Monkeys, PUP, The Correspondents, Nujabes, and Zion.T. Then of course there’s my trusty-dustys: Lady Day, Aretha, Parov Stelar, Billy Joel... [links lead to YT vids of my current favorites by the artist]

Song Stuck in My Head: Zion.T’s “The Song”. Well really the entire OO album is fire and it p. much plays on loop in my head tbh; no lie I end up listening to it at least twice a day. PUP’s “Factories” also always seems to pop into my head at least once a day and honestly I’m not too sure what that says about me as a person...

Last Movie I Saw: Miller’s Crossing. One of my favorite Coen brothers movies second only to Raising Arizona. So many good one-liners:

“I open my mouth and the whole world turns smart.”

“...cause ethically he’s kinda shaky.”

“I think they’re gonna kill me, Tom! Oh God, are you apart of this?!”

“And I’m tired of you givin’ me the high-hat!”

Last Thing I Googled: Zodiac signs lol.

Other Blogs: Nah son. I can barely keep up with this one most days lmao...

Do I Get Asks: Not too often, no. As of late most ask are usually coming from someone asking if I’m still working on the fic that shall remain nameless lol. Honestly I don’t really interact with too many people on this site because like I mentioned earlier I always feel like I’m bothering people. Ain’t anxiety grand? Though if you do get me to talking--dude...

Why I Chose this Username: Eh, aside from a love for Saint’s Row there really isn’t a reason. I was one of those people that used to change their username a lot back in the day, but since evolving I now feel the need to stay “on brand” as the kids say do the kids even say that?

Following: 517 I think? I’m too lazy to check but I think that’s what it was last time I looked. I’ve been on this site for the better part of a decade, I lived through the ask-blog era and I can guaran-damn-tee you that at least 100 of the blogs came from that alone lol. A lot of defunct blogs too, but I feel bad about unfollowing them because what if they come back and all their followers are gone? That’s just sad, right? Plus I also kinda get attached to blogs, you know in a sentimental way. I like going back to those pages, reminds me of what I was into back then; warm’n’fuzzies and all that jazz...

Amount of Sleep: Sleep is for the weak making me strong af b/c I usually average about 4 hours a night.

Lucky Number: I don’t really have one, but 24 is my favorite number so... Close enough?

What I’m Wearing: Some black skinnies, a plain black sweater, and some neon pink socks.

Dream Job: Either a caker or a bread maker--weird, I know, but I love to bake and making bread is like one of the most relaxing things in the world to me.

Dream Trip: I honestly don’t even know. Right now I’m so focused on moving out of this town that I can’t really see beyond that goal...

Instruments: I used to play the clarinet long ago when the world was young and I was pretty darn good at it too. I’ve actually been thinking of getting back into it, but those little shits are expensive and honey got bills so that hobby’ll have to wait for now...

Favourite Foods: Too damn many so let’s just go with my current craving: a full Thanksgiving spread. I’m gonna need these days to hurry the fuck up we got all these ingredients in the house and I’m one whiff of a Yankee Candle away from going in there and throwing down, I fucking swear...

Favourite Songs: Again, let’s just go with a current: “Vienna” by Billy Joel.

Tagging: Like I said, I don’t want to bother anyone so if you made it to the end of this post and you want to take a go at it feel free! And tag me if you’d like, I’m always down to learn more about you lovely folk.

[thisnerdsadventures]

a summer to remember

hello friends, i definitely just abandoned this whole blog, now didn't i

well i am happy to report that i am still alive, and am thriving!

Here's a rundown of everything that has been going on:

[inserting a readmore because this is long af]

May

So in May, I was definitely just all over the place because I was 1) trying to finish a paper published in a conference!! it literally drove me insane. anyways, then i had to go and finish a 78 page thesis, which involved a really convoluted timeline because i had to finish it ~ a week before the actual deadline so my PI could read it over, but then i had to finish it a few days before THAT so my PhD supervisors could read it over, which meant that i had like one (1) week to write like. all of it.

Luckily I had most of the first half already written, during whatever shitshow April was (April was a lot of coding for the paper, and then not having time to write my thesis). But THEN i had to organize all the data from my own personal experiments, make figures, and draft the entire results section. AND i had like two final reports to do for my class, so my last weeks of academia looked like....

Of course, the day before my thesis was due, I pulled an all nighter, because, of course. What other way would I ever end my academic career. Submitted it though, and I graduated! [LINK TO MY THESIS]

Also! I got vaccinated and felt like death for a whole day, but then my friend came over and we ate fried chicken and watched this show called Miraculous, which is a kids show from France, but for some reason is actually hilarious and really entertaining. Then I felt better, so I proceeded to work on my thesis.

Also, I guess I should talk a little bit about the class I took this semester, which was an industrial organization economics class. We looked at things like how different markets are organized, why they are that way, what market concentration means, how mergers affect competition, and what kind of effect that may impose on consumers. For the final case study (which, I will say, I wrote like 2000 words in a single day, so . applause for me), I looked at the Nvidia-ARM merger and how that may or may not affect competition in the GPU market, the CPU market, and the mobile chip market. I think my analysis was a little bit more surface level, which was fine for me, since I'm by no means an economics expert or even remotely should have any expectations at all, but I read a lot and learned a lot and that's the goal!

So yes, my brief excursion into the field of economics was overall positive, I feel like I learned a lot and now I can read financial articles about the tech industry and not be completely lost, which, again, was the goal.

But yes, May was a lot of work, and once it wrapped up, I got to spend a lot of time with friends post-vaccination! After the 1 or 2 week mark after my second dose, I started going back to the gym, especially to play basketball with folks, which I had missed a lot. I spent a lot of time at my old dorm just hanging out, and got to have a cute salmon dinner over at my other friend's place. And we made cheesecake too.

June (MA->NY->MA->CA)

I finally went to visit my best friend in New York. I hadn't seen her in > 400 days, so it was really a very anticipated event, except we saw each other across the crosswalk, but then the light took like five minutes to turn green, so it was really anticlimactic. Anyways, we ended up bumming around New York and Long Island for a week, and it was nice to spend some time with her after such a long gap.

We spent a day at a vineyard and I fell asleep so

After getting back to Boston, my mom came back from Taiwan to help me move out of my apartment. It was a lot of finding people to sell things to, sweating because it was very hot that week, and praying everything would work out (it did). I also got to have a few final meals with various friends and my mom and I got to take one last lark down the Infinite, which I was really grateful for because it was the first time visitors got to go inside campus in over a year.

Also got into my school's MBA program! Yes i applied to a deferred program (which is like you get into a program, but you don't have to go for 2-5 years, as a way of getting in right after undergrad/grad school, but then accumulating some work experience first). It was hilarious, I was literally shopping in my campus store for a new sweatshirt and I got a phone call from the admissions office saying I got in. My mom had been pushing me to apply to grad programs, and I didn't tell her about it because I didn't know if I would actually follow through. But I got to surprise her with the news, and she was so happy she did the whole "calling all the relatives" thing again.

After flying home, I told myself I'd read more and exercise more, which I have been doing. I got a membership at Planet Fitness, which has been really good for me (going 3x a week), and I've made my way through at least 5 books this summer so far. My holds list at my local library is literally insane. (For recs, I recently read Normal People, which I absolutely devoured, and In the Dream House, which hit really hard for me.)

This summer was also really about reconnecting with high school friends. All three of us were unemployed, with plans to come in the fall, so we were all free to hang out all the time. We started out at the local library planning out a road trip, and we worked out a few times together, and a few coffee dates too. We took a fun day trip down to LA one day, and we visited Malibu, went to the Getty, hit up some local food places in the city. Driving down the PCH with Taylor Swift blaring and the windows down on a hot June day, just hits so different. There is nothing like it.

My friend's birthday was in June, so we put together a little video for her and bought some jewelry, and had a Zoom call to celebrate. Then I got BBQ with some friends and sat in the parking lot eating ice cream until 11 at night just trading stories from our pasts. It felt like the perfect summer life, just staying out until whenever, grabbing food wherever we wanted, with friends I had had for literally a whole decade.

It was already a really good summer, but then July. July was crazy.

July (CA -> MI -> CA -> NV -> CA -> WA -> OR -> CA)

So one Sunday morning, I woke up to a text

Actually, I'm going to do a separate post on the whole Michigan trip because that sh** was on another level of spontaneous, impulsive, crazy life stuff. But anyways, so July started off with a trip to Michigan to visit my friends, and then I came back for the 4th, had 36 hours of rest before my high school friends and I went on a road trip.

This road trip was a little ambitious. We hit spots all up California, from hiking in Sequoia Nat'l Park to Kings Canyon, driving up to Sacramento and visiting art museums, and then going up to Tahoe but staying in Nevada, going kayaking and hiking and sitting on the beach for hours. It was reallllllly hot, but luckily I don't think it ever broke 90 degrees. The views were beautiful, especially at Kings Canyon. The drive in, you're surrounded by huge rock walls, with a thin river rushing by next to you. The hike itself literally feels like you're in nature, like the trail is somewhat defined but not paved, there are no sounds of traffic, the path isn't heavily trafficked so we were the only ones there for the most part. We even saw a deer and washed our faces in the river. Throughout the whole thing, we climbed into so many waterfalls, trying not to slip on rocks.

I hadn't been to Sacramento in over a decade, but it was a cute day trip. There isn't a ton to do there, but it was a nice reprieve from the constant driving and nature. We visited the Leland Stanford Mansion, the Crocker Art Museum, and Old Town Sacramento. A good chance to get a nice coffee, a sit-down meal, and some air conditioning. At Tahoe, we went kayaking on Pope Beach, with the clearest water I have ever seen, followed up by a hike up to a beautiful view of the Lake.

On our way back, we stopped at a lot of interesting places, like small towns like Lee Vining, where we found an Upside Down House; Manzanar, the site of an old Japanese internment camp during the WWII era (which also hit hard); and Randsburg, a literal living ghost town. Overall, getting to travel with my friends finally was so fun, they were so much fun to be around for five days, and getting to explore so much of California was so fun - even though I'd been here for so long, I never knew these places existed.

So I came back and had around 48 hours to recover before my mom and I took a trip up to the Pacific Northwest!

I've always wanted to visit Seattle, and figured I'd hit Portland on the way too. We originally wanted to go to Hawaii but it got so expensive by the middle of the summer, so we decided to stay a little closer to home (probs the better decision bc I was already so tired by this point).

Seattle! Got to visit Pike Place Market many times, grab some coffee at the original Starbucks, see Mt. Rainier, and grab food with three friends! Also went to Bainbridge Island for a day which was SO cute - got to do an olive oil/balsamic vinegar tasting, which sounds so extra, but is actually really unexpectedly fun. At Starbs, I did a cold brew flight, which resulted in a rough night of tossing and turning for me, but I think it was worth it. Other things included the Pinball Museum, Space Needle, and Chihuly Glass Museum!

So I lowkey really wanted to visit Portland because I wanted to achieve a long-lasting dream of seeing an NWSL game in person. So I went to the Thorns Pride game!!

The Thorns fanbase is actually insane, I cannot express to you, like there's this whole fan section that actually did synchronized cheers and routines and was actually ROARING when they scored the entire game. I swear the audience was actually watching them at points instead of the match. Overall, the stadium was going crazy, like I thought I was at a tied Celtics-Bucks game with how loud it was in there. Also I swear, Ali Krieger made eye contact with me and waved.

In addition to that, Portland also has a huge rose garden, a nice Japanese tea garden, a lot of good donut stores and a huge bookstore, so all very up my alley. We also took a day trip to see Mt. Hood and more waterfalls!!

That's a summary of the SEA - PDX trip. Once I got home, my high school friends and I did not waste any time on reuniting to hang out - we went and played ball, grabbed lunch, and then coffee, and then did the same exact thing like two days later and watched a bunch of TikToks, and then spent a whole day at the beach to send my good friend off to medical school in Arizona. They somehow convinced me to go in the water and I got body checked by a wave.

Saw this sculpture on the beach and teared up a little

So proud of my friends for making it to med school, I am so excited to see them at their white coat ceremonies and beyond, I swear I will cry at every step of the way I'm so happy for them. Now that July is pretty much over, most of my fun summer plans are too, and I finally get a chance to catch my breath from that busy busy month. Spending a lot of time watching the Olympics and trying to muster up the motivation to start a fulltime job in < 1 month!!

Overall, I feel like I've been having a really solid summer given the year that was the covid year. I had a Lot of fun, literally probably two summers worth of fun consolidated into one. I think in the beginning of the year, I really wanted this summer to be good, and I didn't have a lot of set plans for the summer, even by the end of May. But somehow, things came together, like Really together, and I had the best summer of my life in this summer 2021. On top of that, I'm reading more than I have since probably middle school, I feel the most in shape that I ever have, I can DRIVE NOW. Only thing that would've made it better was if I got to go back to Taiwan to visit the fam, but unfortunately I can't go back because of strict travel restrictions there and they had a COVID outbreak too :/ I still got around 3.5 weeks of summer to go, so we'll see how the rest goes :)

[kaoarika]

As I was tweeting a few of days ago, I wish I was liveblogging my reactions to a webtoon that I’m reading (I mostly read from the LINE Webtoons site, and sometimes, SOMETIMES I check the Discover part of the website ...where I swear needs a better searching system? THERE’S A LOT THERE), because I’m mostly amused at it.

Long story short is that I freaking LOVE "Anne”, even though it gives me some overwhelming and uneasiness feelings around. 

IT's a VERY slow burn (?) romance story (I read material from 2015 up until now) and there are TON of things that haven't been resolved YET (and the in-universe time pace is "a couple of weeks" what).

I know it’s not a perfect story (and the characters are a mixed bag due to how they act), the art in general is fine,  but I’m a dork for romance shit with a fairly interesting plot (and the bonus is that the MCs are around my age... lol).

And, tbh, there are also two reasons why I stayed: one is that it was tagged as mature (and there are smut scenes, even though the free version has them censored -”free”, meaning the author has them uncensored through Patreon tiers... and DAMN... I’m tempted... but I’m not very stable either right now OTL - ), and the other one is that the male MC (Charlie) has an uncanny resemblance to Mage(*) and I couldn’t... let’s say... take my sight away from it >3> (It was... no, it IS weird, lol)

So, I started reading... and I was hooked. Link here (to read from the beginning). 

Due to possible spoilers, let me handle the read cut and start rambling:

Anne is 26 years old, works as a freelance illustrator and is mostly a shy and introverted woman who doesn’t trust too much in other people besides her friends and people inside her comfort zone (such as her sister). She gets invited to an Elementary School reunion, a time of her life that she isn’t very fond of (relatable af). The last person she finds there is the boy, now a grown up and very successful man, who used to bully her, Charlie. And things turn upside down from there on.

There’s things here and there that mostly gives clues to why she became the person she is in the present, or why she doesn’t trust that much to Charlie, who seems to have changed his life around as well... “Seems” is a very keyword here (due to how events have been going on). And I cannot really blame Anne.

Her friends are mostly shitty, tbh?. Mónica even more so than Sofía. Mónica has been her friend since Elementary School, but she is so self-centered and very manipulative to play things in her favor. It looks like it’s very intentional (or more likely, automatic... because she sends LOTS of mixing messages, even if she claims she cares for Anne... all due to missunderstandings), as it look like there was a tension building up right after she developed a crush on Charlie during High School and that ONE NIGHT incident that COULD have made her go into a more antagonistic route towards Anne. She does mention that their friendship reached a rift thanks to Edward... because, he is another piece of work thanks to the hints given around.

Sofía was someone Anne started to be friends with more towards her adult life, and at the same time, I don’t think she is the best influence in her adult life, either. I think she is giving her best support, and often acts like a mom towards her, but she is also very pushy in some situations (for example, she is the one who forced Anne to go to the reunion... helped Charlie to go to see her, even when she told her she didn’t want to see him again) that may not help that much.

Martha, Anne’s sister, looks like it’s the only one of her family that is around (their parents got divorced somewhere along the line, and looks like Anne doesn’t really get along them), even if she is overseas. She looked her up when younger (as she often defended her from Charlie) but she also has some issues around (mostly, she looks like a very impulsive person... I kinda understand why asking money and help to her sister is the only way (even though there’s little consideration about Anne’s own economical struggles, too?).. but gdi, I think most of her problems overseas could have been avoided if she wasn’t too impulsive... and I REALLY suspect there is smth more shady to her story in Japan than it has been shown (truth to be told, for one, I do know that living there is expensive... hence why I think that there’s smth shady around).

Edward... at the moment hasn’t shown up in front of the reader. But there are hints to make us think that he may be manipulative (if I trust Mónica’s words about that) and that his relationship with Anne was not exactly the best one (up until recent time, as he has been gone for months, and suddenly he appears in Japan saying that he is “coming back” soon). Like... maybe he is manipulative... (”best” case scenario is that he and Anne had a very toxic relationship, and their “break up” involved cheating... in other words... reason why she doesn’t trust men either)... but details are still in the dark. They apparently started dating since high school...

And then there’s Charlie. 

I’m not going to defend why he bullied Anne when they were younger, as there are always other things to reccur when starting getting along with someone you like. Personally, for every little bad thing he did, I think he should have apologized for that at the time (there was one time he accidentally closed her inside a janitor’s room when they were kids... it was a prank gone wrong), and eventually (more than a decade or so later) he does (she isn’t nowhere happy with that apology, though). 

He has a loooong story with Anne besides the bullying part, as they have been classmates all the way up until High School. It’s clear that he always liked her (to an unhealthy(?) degree of obsession afawk)  and has always been in a “we are not friends, but mostly acaquaintances” friendship (not sure if frenemies) relationship with her ever since... probably more in high school, where he was part of the popular crowd clique (he claims he didn’t like being part of it, though). 

That ONE night incident is part of this, too... but maybe it is problematic no matter how you look at it (not going too much into details about this, but WOW). The aftermaths are clear in many things, though (Anne feels embarrassed enough about this, even to claim nothing happened; this is just my theory, but Mónica probably is the one who started the gossip due to jealousy, and it doesn’t help that Charlie was popular, antagonizing Anne in a whole instead of “helping” her...)

Let me be clear, Charlie is not a saint, although he is noticeable embarrassed about a loooot of stuff he did in the past (and it comes out that the guy ended up being a dorky geek, too), many of which he ended making more enemies than friends. There’s still stuff that the reader doesn’t know that much about him (like his real profession... he is in a department of some kind of business and that forces him to take trips), however, and he claims he didn’t really had a steady romantic relationship with someone (he didn’t want to because “there was always a girl on his mind”, so past flings may be a thing... and he has a female stalker) until recent times -and they aren’t longer together, either-. His way of acting in the present is also not the best, I swear (oh, it is an improvement from his childhood and possibly teenage years, but he needs to improve much more).

Anne herself isn’t that much of a saint either, although I think I relate a lot of stuff she goes through (mostly relating to work and comfort zones)... I do wonder if I had friends like hers... but then again, that would be probably more toxic than positive in my own life.

And SO, things start to heat when Anne and Charlie  share a kiss and mixing feelings start to bloom in Anne’s mind and heart. That much (and amusing) that it allows to see some of her alter-egos (?), each representing a part of her (her kid self, her teenage self, her “professional persona”, her “heart”/romantic self -who still misses Edward, so it rises some questions about who he is, though...- and her sexual needs, ejem, literally her vag**a), lol. Similarly, Charlie has its own (although a bit different, at the moment?) - his professional persona, his teenage self (who I suspect may be his teenage wrath from the aftermaths of the night incident), and his sexual needs (? or so I think he represents it, lol).

There’s too much I want to talk about, and this post is getting too long already ;;.

But these all things also raise questions?! And I am so into it that? AHHHH!!! 

No wonder why I feel overwhelmed about it. Even with the usual that I’m reading in the main page of Webtoons (that have an established storyline going like Gourmet Hound, Assassin Roommate, or Kind of Confidential), right now.

Bless you if you read this rambling.. I swear it could have gotten longer. The series is ongoing... apparently there’s still too much to happen and like I mentioned in the first few paragrpahs, I’m even more amused this has happened in-universe in a couple of weeks (or at least a month?) during the past 3 years IRL.

(*) And I really want to think this was unintentional... hence why I mention “uncanny resemblance” (it’s mostly the form of their faces, and how they look with their hair tied up, most of the time Charlie doesn’t do this... you cannot imagine how hard was not thinking in this when I have one of my Mage keychains on my desk...

[eggzy]

I’m honestly just dying to write somethingggg -- I’d really love a mumu?? maybe just two of us or throw in another person?? it could be anything from apartment wing, college roommates... riot club, a secret history, the raven boys..... rich kids???? or something supernatural maybe??? here’s some plot/connection ideas we could go for too!!

under the cut are the characters/faces in the mumu I’d be interested in playing.

IVAN BISHOP | janis ancens | 22-26 years old

his family has had money for decades bc they’ve always managed to deal with corrupt government officials and whatnot. the bishop family make profit off war/violence bc they sell weapons!! they tend to sell to both sides of wars, even if in secret!! 

um he’s a perfectionist. has to be the best at everything. everything. he was head boy in the private boarding school he attended, president of whatever fraternity that rich young men like him get into the kind with bad hazing and shit, was president of his university’s SGA, has perfect grades and a perfect record!!! he strives to be the best and ambition has taken him far. he doesn’t just rely on his family but the name does open A LOT of doors for him

he’s very stoic but can charm the pants off people!! but he’s very manipulative in this, can often get people to do what he wants. he once had his whole fraternity turn against this kid on campus who was running against him for SGA… he’s got a real cruel streak. hope you never see it. ://

he’s like ALLLLMOST greysexual but he still likes the act of sex from time to time. its hard to catch him with his guard down. doesn’t have a good relationship with either of his parents. mother cheats while away at one of their many beach condos. father is absent, busy with work && hunting. he’s good at gaslighting ivan so, as you can imagine, the boy has some real daddy issues.

he has younger brother and sister who are twins!! they’re about middle school aged and super smart and talented, as is the Bishop way lol

MALLORY LEWIS | nicola peltz | 21-23 years old

so mal is an only child and her young parents were very excited to have a girl, especially her mother. she was pretty much a tiny doll in her mother’s eyes. she was an only child and the woman saw her daughter as something to dress up and parade around rather than really take care of. so, unsurprisingly, she’s been to a decent amount of pageants, a few Ws under her belt, in fact.

her parents got divorced when she was three! the highschool sweethearts didn’t last but five years! and so she was never really close with her father because her mother monopolized her time. she grew pretty resentful towards him as she got older because of their lack of time together and because he never really tried to see her or get her away from her mother. after a while, her father didn’t even try  to stay in touch. he helped a bit with expenses for a time but once he was remarried, there was no hearing from him.

mal was primarily raised by her mother who jumped from boyfriend to boyfriend and husband to husband!! when she was especially young, there were a lot of boundary lines that were blurred between her and her mother. she slept in bed with her until she was nine, she wouldn’t ever be far from her. her mother would get them matching outfits and she’d always do mal’s hair, make sure she was perfect, and she had to be exactly the way that her mother wanted her to be. no questions.

so being left alone with her mother and being groomed by her mother alone, she kind of became a mini version of her!! she didn’t care about anything other than getting what she wanted. men were tools. they were just bank accounts and pretty things to surround herself with. if she wanted it, she could get it – she knew what her appearance did to others, men especially. ever so manipulative, she has her own harem of men, ages all varying from twenties to sixties, that she spends her time with. she’s easily a homewrecker to a handful of relationships out there.

she relies on some of her daddies forreal though because between them and hustling, she can only resort to criminal acts to support herself!

“GK” STARR | madison mclaughlin | 19-23 years old

my baby is like the human form of peach tea. is that weird to say? gk is a super sweetheart and most people genuinely like her when they meet her. she makes it easy, bc she’s bit of a pushover and people-pleaser so she gets walked on a lot. still learning how to stand up for herself!!

she’s an art freak. loves oil painting the most as that’s the one she’s more experienced with. learning how to use water colors and gouache just as well. wants to be graphic designer one day!!

with a short and small stature, most underestimate her, if not all who cencounter her. she is no impressive figure, by any means, so her goal of becoming a superhero seems farfetched to many. with the appearance of such fragility, gk attracts those who wish to protect without meaning to, often due to her size. her skin is very tanned with a decently clear complexion as she still struggles with acne and such occasionally. freckles are scattered across the bridge of her nose and over the tips of her shoulders. A dark mole is one of her most striking features, location just under her right eye.

gk is very friendly and very loud. so basically, one of those people who just makes themselves known, no matter the room they enter into. very much a people-person, loves to be in the company of anyone, even strangers. she’s extremely naive, so constantly people are using her for her powers, abusing her kindness and willingness to help. questions are constantly on her tongue, because she doesn’t know about anything and is so very curious! she’s not everyone’s cup of tea, that’s for sure – but she’ll never know unless you tell her upfront, she’s very oblivious at times.

gk stands for georgia katherine, so as you can imagine she’s pretty southern. her accent is thick like molasses!! her family moved here from louisiana about five years ago. it had been a tough move and she struggled for a bit, bc people aren’t always kind and the starrs aren’t necessarily well off. they’re barely pushing by, one might say.

TRENTON LEROY | chris wood | 20-25 years old

CHILD ABUSE TW, VIOLENCE TW, MENTAL ILLNESS TW

so like!! trenton is from lyon, france! he has a SLIGHT accent but its not strong anymore because he hasn’t been back to france in like ten years.

his mother and father are not married. he was born out of wedlock because his mother was his father’s mistress. the man left after the idea of trenton was even mentioned. he was a married man with hands in politics, he couldn’t afford to have this out.

so labeaux family paid off the leroy family, sending money every month to keep them quiet.

the leroy family is kind of a TRASHY family living in the countryside near lyon. it was just trenton, his mother, grandmother and uncle. a small family that lived on the checks sent by a man worlds away.

he adored his mother more than any person!! like almost an obsession!! but thats because out of that house, she was the only one to ever show him kindness. his grandmother and uncle both were quite unkind to him, blaming him for their misfortunes and taking out their stress. unfortunately, his mother left the family and ran off with a boyfriend. trenton was only seven at the time but the sense of loneliness and abandonment following her departure REALLY affected him in ways that weren’t good. and the abuse he took from other family members only pushed him further.

his father took an interest back into his life at age twelve, realizing that the boy was his only current heir. he quickly took the boy from that house and placed him into a boarding school in england to learn everything from ENGLISH itself to business and other ways of the world.

the setting wasn’t much better tbh!! he was mistreated by older kids for a while, bullied for a variety of things until he finally shot up between age 15 & 16. he really grew into his awkward limbs, a charming face to match!! it was a surprise to everyone that the awkward boy had transformed into that. trenton started to get attention he had never received before. and it delighted him. but he didn’t know how to handle it.

he began abusing his friends, girlfriends… anyone who was close to him. violence was the ONLY language he would ever be fluent in – his family made sure of that.

when he graduated, he was a shadow of the boy he once was. dark and twisted with desires that no good person should have. but still he passed it off like a charm, being the perfect son that his father had never wanted.

trenton was moved to be with his father for a few years, learning the ways of the family business and politics. the drastic change didn’t go well for him...

but eventually everything got to him and he SNAPPED. the incident had him sent away once more but this time to a mental institution on the west coast. he was heavily guarded secret so no one really knew where he disappeared to. his father only claimed traveling the world.

FOX KINSLEY | matt hitt | 19-22 years old

ALCOHOLISM TW, DRUGS TW

okay so this is atticus fawkes kinsley!! he goes by fox because he hates those names and he’s bitter af towards his family right now.

his dad lost his dream job when fox was about ten or so and he took to the bottle and stayed with it. he wasn’t abusive or anything, just yelled sometimes. Mostly laid around the house, sulking. he’s attempted other jobs, but it always ends up with him fired because of a DUI or something. so that’s where fox got most of his lazy traits from

his mom is this SUPER ambitious woman who’s really great honestly but she really cares about how people view her. so witnessing her husband in the state he was in really embarrassed her?? that destroyed their relationship. she thinks pretty lowly of the man. they fought A LOT. after the man’s fourth DUI in two years, she left.

she tried to convince fox to come with her, but he refused. he didn’t like the idea of abandoning his father. they used to be really close once. :’) so she left seventeen year old fox as well and took his sister to live with her parents for a while.

fox and his father did okay for a year or so. it was a bit rough because he had to get a shitty job with shitty hours to handle the bills and stuff. because good ole dad was still just doing his thing, drinking himself silly and sleeping at the oddest hours. fox had to leave on his last year of high school, which at the time didn’t bother him. but now, he’s starting to regret that more and more.

he’s a stoner through and through. mostly just sticks to weed. he’s really sloping down that path towards harder drugs though so he wears long sleeves occasionally to cover track marks.

things started to get really shitty one late saturday night when he returned after a double at work to find the house empty. only a note from his father, detailing that he needed to find himself and work out his problems on his own, was left. it fucked him up.

the loneliness and desperation he’ll never forget. it’s been carved into his bones and burned into his skin. he’ll never forget that pain. and because of that, he’s very very bitter. he’s been going out and partying doing every drug you can imagine. trying to destroy himself for the past year. sick, unhealthy living.

he’s still working at the gas station, still manning the slushie machines even if he has no one to go home to. no one to teach him how to be an adult in the real world.

WHAT I’M LOOKING FOR:

maybe like more family members? mother/father... sister/brother??? rival family??  platonic to romantic relationships! any and all connections!!

ANGST. DRAMA. PAIN. 

all faceclaims, for the most part, can be changed if my partner has a problem with any of them!!

a partner that can put up with me and my work/lazy schedule! I’ve been dying to write and rps are just dwindling around here so they’re just not gonna cut it... but I’m determined to have this plot because I NEEEED the creative outlet.

[fipindustries]

Elevation-U2

ok, lets try this again...

i miss music videos from the late 90′s early 2000′s, they didnt only have better budget, effects and cinematography, they had a story. videos like “everybody” by the backstreet boys, or the call, also by the backstreet boys, or even 19-2000 by gorillaz, where musicians werent just singing to the camera but going on surrealist, barely coherent adventures!

Elevation by U2 is my favorite music video ever, and indeed the only song by U2 that i like, mostly because of the music video itself, and i decided im going to share the thoughts that i have been accumulating about this  for over a decade.

first thing we have to understand about elevation before we begin is that it is ACTION MOVIE™: THE MUSIC VIDEO. but the thing is that it makes no earthly sense. When looked closely the images are in no way telling a cohesive plot...and yet, and yet there is sense, not logical, no, but emotional. in a way this video manages to condense all the emotional beats of watching an action movie in barely four minutes. keep in mind that we are shown what at best could be considered a bunch of scenes that have no connection to each other at a frantic pace but our mind actually pieces it all together into a narrative, tony zhou talked about this in his video about bayhem. so without further ado, let's begin.

1) INTRODUCTION AND SETTING.

first thing we see: a plane taking off, we know its taking off because is going up the screen, we are embarking into a journey. another nice thing this does is provide a nice auditory cleanser, is a loud noise, going from low to high in pitch, much like a harp when a flashback begins, that not only wakes us up but primes our ears for whats coming, AND on top of that it quickly establishes the time and place this is all happening, present day, in CITY™, the place where all action movies happen.

we look down and we are introduced to our hero, BONO, notice how he's carryng a bag of groceries. he is just a normal man, living his normal life, going on about his normal day when a phone call interrupts him to call him for adventure. "hello, im evil bono" listen to the low, growly voice, this surely must be a scoundrel! (the fact that he had to clarify he's evil can be considered redundant, but we had to be explained that he is bono's doppelganger). "we have the edge, give us the key, you are surrounded" a threat, stakes are presented, a brother is in danger but in exchange for the artifact we might be saved from a terrible fate. and just to emphasize how dire is our situation the bad guy finishes with "and not even lara croft can save you" so that's it, the story has been introduced and all in barely 15 seconds. who the hell is evil bono? where did he come from? what are his powers and how did he acquire them? why does he want the key? and why in all heavens is he making demands to some irish rockstar? truth is we dont need to know any of this, here is the good guy, here is the bad guy, this is the conflict. our minds got that and dont need anything else to get invested. as a bonus we see some guys in military gear (we are not going to see them again until the very end of the video, they dont do anything during the whole thing) we see the tomb raider because that is where the money is coming from and we see the edge (bono's brother) dealing with his own shit, he seems to be trapped in some alternate universe composed of dismal greenscreens. the adventure begins

2) MUSIC KICKS IN

we are now introduced to the BAD GUYS, who on top of having supernatural powers, and ON TOP of the weather being awful (because we all know evilness has a direct effect in barometric pressures and levels of humidity in the atmosphere, just ask Mordor) they are also dressed in shades and leather jackets, you know who else used shades and leather jackets? bad guys in the 50's that's who, and so mightysome was their cultural impact that even all the way forwards into the 2000's we are still using their style to codify villainy. so, sure, we can see they are evil, but what are their evil deeds? how are they disrupting our nice peaceful world? simple, by screwing the the most fundamental force of reality: time.

and this is a metaphor, make no mistake.  when a terrible event happens completely unexpected it is normal to feel like "time has stopped" as the horror of what we witnessed sinks in. in here there is no need for any specific horror to happen, time just literally stops to show how normal life has been thrown out of whack, and that's whack. BUT LOOK, bono hasn't been completely stopped, he can actually stand up to the evil guy's powers, and as you can see in the shot he is decidedly standing front and center with the normal people in the background, why, he's standing in front of them, he is protecting them. because he truly is our hero. we can also see our allies, the edge is still in greenscreenland with lara, larry mullen jr is about to ride a sweet bike and looking like he means business af and adam clayton is higjacking a taxi, just to show how to the limit he is pushed that he has to engage in acts of petty crime just so he can save the goddam day. finally when elevation is said for the first time we can see the camera alternating between the good guy and the bad guy, they are competing, fighting, over the very name of the song. they are fighting for the fate of the world.

3)THE CHORUS

time starts again, our heroes are fighting back. evil bono can now control cars with his mind, we never see the car chase anyone but we know evil bono could do it if he wanted and that is as good it actually happening for us. we do see larry being chased by a bike without a rider though, and its fucking sweet.

bono is running down the streets because important things are happening but he just has to stop to check out a giraffe plushie. next time we see him he is walking along side a real giraffe. maybe he turned the plushie into a real giraffe by screaming really loud at it or maybe the giraffe is just there to show how into disarray the world is that now animals are walking down the streets.

also there is a firetruck floating and bono cant resist his impulse to bop it.

more chase scenes, the bad guy floating above the good guy to show who is in control right now. and larry performs the most confusing series of actions in the whole video.

so i just explained he was being chased by a bike without a driver, which means the bike was following him from behind but then he switches to another bike (also without a driver) that was coming towards him. then he stops the bike and from within a building another bike explodes out of a window. this makes no sense right?

WRONG, the switching of bikes shows how the tides are turning for the heroes it was a cool decisive action that larry performed flawlessly, and the exploding bike is clearly the bike that was chasing him being defeated. still makes no sense you say? but in your heart of hearts, in the dumb, stupid part of your brain that told you that watching die hard for the ninth timein a row was a good idea, it makes all the sense in the world and you cant lie to yourself.

and now the chorus starts back again because it's that time brothers and sisters, the time we all been waiting for, it's the time...

for explosions. the "OOOHS" are more frantic now, and bono just can take it any more.

it's time to unleash his full powerlevel. a sudden silence, a calm, bono has transcended mortal limitations, a taxi crashes into him and he comes unscathed just to show how powerful he is, he is basically musical super sayin. but this is merely the cal before the storm, it's time for the final confrontation.

4) THE FINAL FIGHT

our heroes are reunited at last.

yes, the fate of the world and indeed the universe is going to be decided by a battle of the bands and, full disclosure here, i love it. this is what made me fall in love with the video when i first saw it. to see the bad guys blasting soundwave after soundwave at our poor heroes while they stood defiant brought many a tear to my eyes. the bad guys are looking just plain cool, they have better clothes, better beats and those cool new floating speakers, whilst U2 only has nomal, crummy, gravity abiding speakers and expensive clothes designed to look urban and down to earth. they are still unmistakably the underdogs. we occasionally cut back to a distressed crowd just so we dont forget what we're fighting for. the battle is epic, all kinds of shit are flying around, debris, cars and why not? also elephants, the giraffes already established that wild animals are roaming the city so this is perfectly normal to us.

"the edge has fallen, this is truly our darkest hour!" both bonos are engaged in a screaming contests and for some reason they are trying to reach each other, maybe so they can start punching each other, i dont know. at one point bono throws his leg in the air as he attempts to charge a kame hame ha or some shit. but then, hark! the edge has risen again! and alongside his brother they release the biggest, baddest guitar riff ever. we see the guys in military gear flailing around, they are defeated. evil bono stumbles againts the battery, bono considers taking his jacket off but its too cold so he puts it back on again, lara croft and the edge both wink at the camera so i am to surmise that they are having sex. the day has been saved.

finally we see our heroes as they walk into the sunset whilst cars and animals are still floating around, implying that things have changed after this adventure, and the world might never be the same. the video ends with a nice bookend: the same plane, this time coming down, we are landing, our journey is over, we can go back to the real world. the end

[componentplanet]

How to Boost Your Wi-Fi Speed by Choosing the Right Channel

Wireless networks have come a long way in the past couple of decades. And yet, sustained Wi-Fi speeds are still a vexing problem in a lot of situations. A number of things can come into play, such as the way your router is set up, whether there’s nearby interference, whether you live in an apartment building or a separate house, where your microwave sits in relation to the rest of your network (yes, really), and how far apart your devices are from the router. Fortunately, there’s always a way to fix slow transfer speeds.

If you’ve ever messed around with your Wi-Fi router’s settings, you’ve probably seen the word “channel.” Most routers have the channel set to Auto. But many of us have looked through that list of a dozen or so channels and wondered what they are, and more importantly, which of the channels are faster than the others. Well, some channels are indeed much faster — but that doesn’t mean you should go ahead and change them just yet. Read on to find out more about 802.11 channels, interference, and the difference between 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi.

The fastest version of Wi-Fi currently available is branded as “Wi-Fi 6,” aka 802.11ax. If you’re wondering why we moved to branded naming as opposed to the standard number + a signifying letter combination, it’s because there are a lot more low-level updates and specification changes to 802.11 than their used to be. After 802.11ac in 2013, we’ve had .ad, .af, 802.11-2016, .ah, .ai, .aj, and .aq. Rather than asking people to continue playing “Guess the relevant Wi-Fi standard,” somebody decided it would be easier to just call the current major consumer version “Wi-Fi 6.” There’s an even newer standard, Wi-Fi 6E, which supports signals in the 5-6GHz band, but there’s no Wi-Fi 6E hardware to speak of in-market yet.

Channels 1, 6, and 11

First of all, let’s talk about 2.4GHz, because even in 2020, the majority of Wi-Fi installations still use the 2.4GHz band in some way. 802.11ac, which debuted in 2013, is driving adoption of 5GHz, helped along by adoption of 2020’s 802.11ax / Wi-Fi 6 — but thanks to backwards compatibility, dual-radio routers and devices, and lower-cost peripherals with less expensive chipsets, 2.4GHz will continue to reign for a while.

All versions of Wi-Fi up to and including 802.11n (a, b, g, n) operate between the frequencies of 2400 and 2500MHz. These 100MHz are separated into 14 channels of 20MHz each. As you’ve probably worked out, 14 lots of 20MHz is a lot more than 100MHz — and as a result, every 2.4GHz channel overlaps with at least two, if not four, other channels (see diagram above). And as you can probably imagine, using overlapping channels is bad — in fact, it’s the primary reason for poor throughput on your wireless network.

Fortunately, channels 1, 6, and 11 are spaced far enough apart that they don’t overlap. On a non-MIMO setup (i.e. 802.11 a, b, or g) you should always try to use channel 1, 6, or 11. If you use 802.11n with 20MHz channels, stick to channels 1, 6, and 11 — if you want to use 40MHz channels, be aware that the airwaves might be congested, unless you live in a detached house in the middle of nowhere.

What channel should you use in a crowded area?

If you want maximum throughput and minimal interference, channels 1, 6, and 11 are your best choices. But depending on other wireless networks in your vicinity, one of those channels might be a better option than the others.

For example, if you’re using channel 1, but someone next door is annoyingly using channel 2, then your throughput will plummet. In that situation, you would have to change to channel 11 to completely avoid the interference (though 6 would be pretty good as well). It might be tempting to use a channel other than 1, 6, or 11 — but remember that you will then be the cause of interference (and everyone on 1, 6, and 11 will stomp on your throughput, anyway).

In an ideal world, you would talk to your neighbors and get every router to use channels 1, 6, or 11. Bear in mind that interior walls do a pretty good job of attenuating (weakening) a signal. If there’s a brick wall between you and a neighbor, you could probably both use channel 1 without interfering with each other. But if it’s a thin wall (or there’s lots of windows), you should use different channels.

There are tools that can help you find the clearest channel, such as Vistumbler. But it’s probably faster to just switch between channels 1, 6, and 11 until you find one that works well. (If you have two laptops, you can copy a file between them to test the throughput of each channel.)

But what about 5GHz?

Get ready for lots of antennas.

The great thing about 5GHz (802.11n, 802.11ac, and Wi-Fi 6) is that because there’s much more free space at the higher frequencies, it offers 23 non-overlapping 20MHz channels. 6GHz should continue this trend, with even more frequency space (although with slightly worse propagation characteristics).

Starting with 802.11n and continuing with 802.11ac, wireless technology in general became much more advanced than the prehistoric days of 802.11b and g. If you own at least a decent 802.11n or 802.11ac router (i.e. if you bought a router in the last several years), it likely has some hardware inside that chooses the right channel automatically and modifies the output power to maximize throughput and minimize interference.

If you’re using the 5GHz band, and your walls aren’t paper-thin, then attenuation and the general lack of 5GHz devices should mean there’s little interference in your apartment — possibly even allowing you to use the fatter 40, 80, and 160MHz channels if you feel like it.

Eventually, as everyone upgrades to newer hardware and moves towards 5GHz, picking the right channel will mostly become a thing of the past. There may still be some cases where it makes sense to fine-tune your router’s channel selection. But when you’re dealing with MIMO setups (up to eight in 802.11ac), it’s generally a better idea to let your router do its own thing. Eventually, of course, 5GHz will fill up as well — but hopefully by then, we’ll have worked out how to use even higher frequencies (60GHz WiGig) or entirely new antenna designs (pCells, infinite capacity vortex beams) to cope with our wireless networking demands.

Now Read:

How to Set Up a Mesh Network

Killer Move: Intel Acquires Rivet Networks

Huawei Subsidiary Distributes 0-Day Backdoor in DVRs, NVRs, IoT Cameras

Sebastian Anthony wrote the original version of this article. It has since been updated with new information.

from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/computing/179344-how-to-boost-your-wifi-speed-by-choosing-the-right-channel from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2020/08/how-to-boost-your-wi-fi-speed-by.html

[flightandsurvival]

To pass the time.

Let’s start with you: How are you?: I am feeling very under the weather. Yesterday afternoon I started to notice some post-nasal drip and by bedtime I had to chug nyquil to get to sleep because swallowing hurt me. Woke up to a tender throat, stuffy and runny nose, and a sinus headache... so things could be better, but they could also be worse. 

What motivates you to get up every day?: Sunlight. If there is no sun, there is no motivation and it’s the biggest struggle to roll myself out of bed. 

Do you have a true best friend?: I don’t have a “best friend” because I have a handful of best friends... whom I trust wholeheartedly. I think limiting my love to just one “best friend” would be a waste of my affections. 

Do you see yourself as a sensitive person?: Yes, absolutely. 

Have you been upset recently?: Nope. I’ve been really good lately. 

Do you still leave/receive voicemails?: Yes... I want to make sure that people know that I have called and that its not a huge emergency but I want to touch base. I don’t call others often though... 

Do you live in your hometown?: No. 

Are you a festive person? Do you enjoy holidays?: I’m not super festive, I both love and loathe holidays. I’ve got complicated relationships with all of my immediate family, with the exception of my dad. 

Did you/Will you attend college?: I attended Queens College and am enrolled in the University of New England presently for my masters. 

How many alarm clocks do you use?: My phone. 

Do you consider yourself to be an open-minded person?: Absolutely. 

Do you eat fruit?: All the time. 

What is your favorite subject to learn about?: Psychology, psychopathology, trauma. 

How many meals a day do you typically eat?: It depends... I often forget breakfast. 

Music, eh?

Have you seen any live shows?: Yes. 

Name three of your favorite bands/artists…: Lizzo, Demi Lovato, The Avett Brothers. 

How big of a role does music play in your life?: I am always listening to music. 

Can you play any instruments?: Nope. 

You’re feeling down - do you listen to sad music or happy? Both, either. 

If you’ve ever been to a concert, how old were you and who did you see?: I’ve seen NoName, All Time Low (more than once), We The Kings, Hey Monday, Underoath, LIGHTS, Lake Street Dive, Xavier Rudd, Trevor Hall, Highly Suspect, Ashlee Simpson, and a handful of others.  Do you prefer music to be meaningful and deep, or purely for dancing/fun?: Either. Depends on my mood.  Is there a song or artist that you secretly enjoy, but don’t want to enjoy?: Taylor Swift. The bish makes catchy music. 

If you could only listen to music from one decade, which would you choose?: 90′s. Has your parents taste in music in any way affected what you like?: Definitely. My dad has always been a downloader of music and movies, he would have a very eclectic selection and I had full access.  You’re looking for some new music - what’s your preferred way to discover?: Through the “other artists you may like” section of apple music or listening to different playlists.  Do you still own any CD’s/records/tapes?: Not on purpose.  Do you ever hear a new song on tv that you like and find it?: Yes.  Speaking of television… (look at that smooth transition!) Do you watch a lot of television? Whether that be shows, news, movies etc.: I watch a lot of netflix and hulu.  Do you watch the news?: No.  What about the weather channel?: No.  What’s your favorite holiday movie?: I’m not sure. Elf maybe.  What hooks you to a television show? Light and funny or really dark and intense.  How do you feel about adult cartoons?: They’re alright. Not my preferred genre.  Talk shows - boring or entertaining?: Can be entertaining when I’m bored out of my mind... but overall boring.  Do you prefer cable, satellite or streaming?: Streaming.  Have you come across any new shows you like this year?: The Act. Super fucked up, super intense, and super thought-provoking.  Do you still watch shows that you grew up watching?: No.  What about movies that you grew up with?: No.  Are you subscribed to any streaming services?: Hulu.  Reality shows - entertaining or horrifying?: Entertainingly horrifying. Vanderpump Rules is a must watch.  What is the first movie you ever saw in a cinema?: I don’t recall.  Let’s talk about what you don’t discuss at Sunday brunch Do you identify with any organized religion?: I would say I lean heavily toward Buddhism.  If so - is it how you were raised, or have you found your own?: I was raised without an ounce of religion discussed. I had friends who went to church but if they asked me what religion my family was I wouldn’t have known the answer. My mom grew up Jehovah's Witness and subsequently did not want to push religion on to her children in any way. My dad is super atheist and never directly discussed religion with me.  Do you think that marijuana should be legalized?: Absolutely. It’s less destructive than alcohol. It can be used for SO MANY things. Marijuana is good.  If so, would that be for medical use only, or recreational?: Both. Medical cards are expensive af and they have to be renewed every year. Pay 200+ every year for medical access (plus the cost of the weed) or just buy recreational without that 200+ yearly fee...  Pro-life or pro-choice?: Incredibly pro-choice. I do not know if I would get an abortion myself, I’ve never been in that spot, but I do know its not a single bit of my goddamn business if someone has an abortion. I am truly a supporter though, my sister had had two abortions and if she hadn’t those children would have been all sorts of fucked up because she was on all sort of drugs.  Have you ever protested or been on strike?: I have done Women’s marches and I also stood outside a planned parenthood to escort women into the clinic and shield them from the insane and really mean pro-life protesters.  Is gun control necessary or no?: That shouldn’t even be a question... do people get shot needlessly or no? Are you happy with the political state where you reside?: I am perfectly happy with Massachusetts and their political state (well, everything can improve in one way or another...). I am not, however, proud of the political state of my country. Our president is a huge baby and the people, in general, are so extremely divided and on really chaotic ends of the political spectrum right now.  Have you read the book 13 Reasons Why or watched the show?: Yes and yes.  Should shows like this be available to everyone or could it be a trigger?: I think that this isn’t an easy answer. I believe that the making it available for public consumption did a really good thing for society- shed light on suicide and all of the contributing factors as well as emphasizing how confusing and messy the lives of young people can get, regardless if we see it or not. However, it was also something that was triggering for some people and it did borderline romanticize suicide without really hitting home that if you kill yourself you don’t get to see how much others care and you don’t get to see how hard others will fight for you.  Okay, let’s simmer down. Back to happy things. Do you like animals?: Yes.  If so, do you have any pets?: Dog and cat.  What is your favorite day of the week and why?: I don’t have one really because I have a revolving schedule and classwork due regularly.  Do you have a favorite season?: Fall.  How do you enjoy nice scents? Uhh... breathing?  Do you live in a large city or small town?: Medium town.  Are you happy with that or would you like to change it?: I think it’s fine.  Do you have any children?: No human children.  Are there any colors that you think compliment you?: Orange, yellow, blue.  Do you enjoy cleaning or find it to be a chore?: I enjoy it for the most part.  What is your absolute favorite food?: Sushi. 

If you were any color, what would you be?: Lavender.  Do you spend a lot of time on social networks?: No, I have cut down immensely. I deleted FB and I limit myself to 2 hours per day. 

[desireesroadtrip]

Episode III: Return of the Jetta

It is now July 2018. I have gone on two major road trips in my life thus far. I am about to embark on the third. But before I tell you about that, let’s reflect on those first two I’ve taken…

Hello, all.

My name is Desiree Echevarria and I have wanderlust.

I’m 27 years old and have lived in Southern California my whole life. I’d like to get out immediately please, if only for a little while. And here’s why.

Every day, I go to a job that, admittedly, I like a whole lot. I have family and friends that I like a whole lot. I have a life that I sure do like a whole lot.

And yet…

I gotta get the fuck out of here.

At the end of every day, in order to get home, I drive east on one the many freeways in Southern California that are in a perpetual state of apocalyptic clusterfuckery. I sit in traffic. I dodge assholes who are seemingly using their BMWs to try to commit vehicular manslaughter on everyone else on the freeway. Sometimes, I’ll admit it, I’ll add to my own anxiety by being the asshole who’s trying get ahead in traffic using my clearly superior weaving skills. OUT OF THE WAY, JERKS, I HAVE TO GET TO MY HOUSE BEFORE YOU GET TO YOURS. I NEED THAT EXTRA 2 MINUTES TO SIT AROUND AND BE TOO LAZY TO SHOWER.

I look out the car window and see the same scenery every day. If it’s not the crumbling concrete of the rough, grey L.A. freeways, it’s the boring, well-manicured, strategically landscaped, but grotesquely artificial, ambiance of Orange County. And every day, while sitting there in traffic, I think to myself: “What if I just kept driving? What if I didn’t stop at my exit and I just kept going east? Who would stop me? No one, that’s who.”

That’s what I wrote five years ago in my mission statement (you can re-visit that lengthy manifesto here) prior to embarking on a three-week road trip across the country and back. It was a trip that, when I returned, a friend of mine referred to as a “walkabout.” I liked that. So that’s what I call it now.

I drove my Volkswagen GTI (R.I.P.) from Los Angeles through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada.

Pictured: Black Magic the GTI, the most beloved of all my Volkswagens.

I didn’t have any deadlines or any real destinations. I went just to see what I could see. I stopped and pulled off the road to take photos whenever I felt like it. I talked to strangers. I blogged a lot. And it was fucking awesome.

(I won’t rehash the happenings of that first trip because literally every post on this Tumblr prior to this one chronicles them in detail. I created this Tumblr specifically for that trip and am reviving it for this next one. Scroll back to read about my exploits if you’d like.)

That first trip was a major turning point in my life. It got me out of my lifelong comfort zone and made me a little more fearless in general – and that alone has had far-reaching effects. That trip shook all my shit up, in a good way.

Today, I’m 32 years old and a lot has changed since then.

For starters, I don’t like the word “wanderlust" anymore. Makes me cringe. Please forget I ever used it.

But also, I don’t live in Southern California anymore. I live in Austin, Texas – a place I encountered on that very first megatrip.

This might seem surprising because in my post-roadtrip recap back in 2013, you may recall I returned from that trip with grand plans to “kick down Hollywood’s door and take the motherfucker over.”

Narrator voice: She did not take the motherfucker over.

So how did I end up in Austin? (I get this question a lot. So, finally, here’s your answer. *Clears throat.*)

Throughout my twenties, I worked in Hollywood. When you work in Hollywood, your friends and family love to hear stories about the most glamorous parts of your job. Everyone loves hearing a story with a famous person in it, even if the story is simply, “I got an email from Jennifer Lawrence today. She seems nice.” See, there’s a famous person in that riveting story about a work email. That makes it a good story. It’s very cool to come home from work and tell people that you spent the day with Clint Eastwood or that Jay Leno showed you around his fancy car garage or that Bradley Cooper asked you for a bottle of water and you handed it to him and you will both cherish that moment forever.

It’s very cool to tell people those parts of your job. But those aren’t even the everyday moments. Those are the sometimes moments. They’re awfully cool, but what happens when the day-to-day of your job is in no way fulfilling and, in fact, sucks so much ass? That’s much less cool.

It’s a tough trade-off. Because you like being able to tell your family and friends your Hollywood anecdotes. It makes you seem interesting. You like being able to watch a movie and see your name in the credits. It makes you feel important.

And it’s a hell of a thing to have to admit to yourself that it’s not actually what you want at all.

But that’s exactly what I did at the end of 2015.

Hi, I’m Desiree Echevarria. I’m sure you remember me from The Hunger Games. I played Katniss.

Here’s where I was: American Sniper was finally finished. I worked through TWO releases of those DVDs, one per year. So I had SOMEHOW been working on American Sniper for a damn year and a half (looooong after the film had left the theaters and lost all the Oscars). So I was bored and ready for something new.

My boss came to work one day and very excitedly told me that the next movie we would be working on was Clint Eastwood’s new film, Sully, starring Tom Hanks. It was our job to produce the bonus features for it, as per usual. The film would likely be a hit, like anything else Clint Eastwood or Tom Hanks does.

And yet I felt nothing. I did not feel excited. I did not feel awe. I did not feel that Hollywood magic that I know I felt at some point in my life before.

A Clint Eastwood/Tom Hanks joint walks through the door and I feel nothing.

I was burnt. out.

Sorry, Clint. 

It was time for a change, and not just on a three-week walkabout to recharge my mental batteries this time. For one thing, I was broke af (because the thing everyone loves to downplay about working in Hollywood is that the pay is shit and if you don’t like it well, fuck you, there’s a line of about a thousand suckers right behind you just BEGGING for a shot at your gig). But also, I didn’t want to have to come back to this place — not just this production company, but this Hollywood. It was time for a REAL-ASS CHANGE.

Austin, Texas was about as much of a 180-degree shift from my status quo as was possible. So that’s where I set my sights.

I moved out of my expensive-but-still-somehow-in-a-bad-part-of-town Los Angeles apartment and into my parents’ house 50 miles away in Orange County for a few months to save what little money I could (and braving the 4-hour round trip commuting to the production office in Glendale daily as a trade-off).

I remember the day I put in my two weeks’ notice at that production company. My boss, a producer who had done pretty well for himself, had gone on vacation (he went to his vacation house at least once a month, otherwise he would “go stir crazy!” he often said). I remember I was alone at the office on a Friday. And I mean ALONE alone. I had no co-workers. It was just me and my boss. Though, most days it was just me. All alone. In a small room. My boss liked to work from home mostly, and he had the freedom to do so.

On this particular Friday, I asked if I could work from home. Doing so would save me four painful hours of driving in L.A. traffic. We weren’t a busy office. People didn’t stop by. People didn’t call. We seldom got packages and if they were important (a delivery of assets from a studio or something) I sure as shit knew if they were coming. But my only project on that day was writing research reports for Sully. So, yes, I could have done my job from home. My boss could have done me a HUGE solid by just saying yes to my simple request.

Still, my boss said no. He didn’t feel “comfortable” with me working from home even though it was 2016 and the internet had been invented decades earlier. Besides, what if an office emergency came up?!

Narrator voice: An office emergency had never come up.

I said, “Okay.” And I spent that day in the office. By myself. Pouting. Lamenting my lack of freedom and control over my own life. All while my boss was sitting in a hammock, strumming one of his many vintage guitars at his vacation cabin in the mountains. This seems like a relevant time to add that this job did not come with health insurance.

I put in my two weeks’ notice that day.

I was 30 years old. And this shit was no longer worth it.

Two weeks later, I packed up my Volkswagen Rabbit (R.I.P.) with everything I owned. I didn’t own much. A friend would later call the fact that I was able to fit my entire life into a car “romantic.” I call it “poor.” I then embarked on the second major road trip of my life: the move from my home in California to my fresh start in Austin, Texas.

I didn’t know what the fuck was going to happen, but at least I was free.

Pictured: Tibor the Volkswagen Rabbit, named after the German man who sold him to me (and who replaced the Rabbit decal with a Golf decal for some reason).

Road Trip 2: The Great Escape

I drove from California to Texas in two days in a car that I wasn’t sure would even survive the trip.

The trip HAD to be two days because I didn’t want to blow what little money I had staying in hotels over the course of several nights. I didn’t have a job waiting for me in Austin – in fact, all that was waiting for me there was just one friend from California and a cheap two-month sublet to share with a stranger from Craigslist.

On Day One, I drove from Orange County, CA to Flagstaff, AZ because my friend Camille lived in Flagstaff and I stayed at her house. However, Flagstaff was nowhere CLOSE to being the halfway point between California and Austin. So my first day’s drive was just 7 hours. Meaning my second day… well, my second day was 15 hours and 1,026 miles of pure hell.

For one thing, the aux input in my car was broken and the only CDs I had with me were five Taylor Swift CDs. I know on the surface, that doesn’t seem THAT bad (after all, it’s better than silence, right?), but I listened to those five Taylor Swift CDs over and over and over again throughout the course of 22 driving hours, pushing myself to the brink of madness and back again several times over.

I tried listening to the radio, but when you’re driving through endless zero-population towns in West Texas, you can’t put a lot of faith in radio stations that play music even EXISTING. (Though, there are plenty of radio stations with loud preachers yelling about how most things are The Devil™.) So even though I was on a tight schedule, I made the time to pull over at a Wal-Mart and buy a CD – ANY CD – that wasn’t Taylor Swift. I purchased a Luke Bryan CD.

By the end of this ordeal, I would come to hate Luke Bryan as well.

(Note: I have since forgiven both Taylor Swift and Luke Bryan for what they did to me that day.)

But deeper than that, my Road Trip 2 lacked all of what made that first road trip great. I didn’t enjoy it the way I had before. This time, I didn’t take the trip slow and stop along the way to smell the roses and take pictures of interesting rocks I saw. This time, the trip wasn’t a walkabout. It was a mission, and a scary one at that.

What if I failed? What if I got to Texas and hated it, or couldn’t find a job, or ran out of money, or became a Republican? There was a lot for me to worry about on that drive.

After 15 hours, I was physically and emotionally exhausted. I thought the drive would never end – especially in the late hours driving down endless empty two-lane roads in the pitch-black darkness of West Texas, with what I still maintain to this day were UFOs in the distance. I showed up at my Craigslist sublet at midnight, immediately rolled my sleeping bag out on the floor, cried for the 90 seconds I remained awake, and then passed out.

Pictured: my first Austin apartment. I slept on a mattress on the floor for longer than I care to admit.

The first thing that made me feel better after that sad-ass moving night was waking up the next day and being able to see some familiar faces. My friend Krista, who had moved to Austin not long before I did, swung by my empty apartment, picked me up and gave me a tour of the city. That helped make the transition remarkably easier. 

Pictured: my first meal on my first day in Austin at the now-defunct restaurant Bacon (R.I.P.) courtesy of tour guide, @kristadoyle​.

Also, as luck would have it, my friends from back home, Kyle and Iris, happened to be on vacation in Austin during that very weekend and we were able to meet up and do some touristy shit together. And again, that familiarity in a strange new place calmed my nerves immensely. I value my friendships above pretty much everything in the entire world and things like this are why. I like to think I’m pretty resilient on my own, but I’m far more resilient with help from my pals. I highly recommend friendship A+++ 11/10, 4 stars.

Pictured: Kyle, me, and Iris during my first weekend in Austin in the quintessential tourist destination -- Dirty 6th.

But once that introductory weekend was over, I had a lot of hustling to do. I didn’t have a job AND I only had enough saved to live comfortably for two months — which meant I had two months to make it work in Austin or I would have to crawl back to my parents’ house in California with my tail between my legs. The clock was ticking.

That Monday was the first day of SXSW, Austin’s major annual music, film, and tech festival. I had decided to move to Austin in time for SXSW because people on Reddit told me that if I wanted to network in Austin and find a job, I needed to be at SXSW. But badges to get into SXSW run upwards of thousands of dollars (which I did NOT have). So I got in the only way I could – by working for free. I volunteered for a week at SXSW and got a badge in return.

And for once, Reddit was right. I got two job offers that first week.

I knew then that everything was gonna be okay.

Still, the offers I was able to get weren’t ideal. I took a job doing customer support at a website in Austin while patiently biding my time for the job I REALLY wanted to open up: a content writer position at the startup where my friend Krista worked (also as a writer). She raved about how awesome it was and how, someday soon, they would probably hire more writers. So I waited all spring and summer for that probably. For six months, I looked something like this:

Then, finally, a writer position opened up and I pounced on it. I got the job and can honestly say, it’s one of the best things to ever happen to me.

This sounds pretty anticlimactic, I’m sure. There was this thing I wanted and I was patient and then I got it. But to me, it’s been pretty life-changing.

Working as a writer at a great company (Aceable – we’re hiring) is what I wanted all those years in Hollywood. And I just never quite found it. Sometimes I worked on projects that didn’t inspire me, sometimes I was doing work I was capable of, but not passionate about (hello, post-production), and more often than not, I worked for companies that didn’t challenge me or offer an actual career path. It wasn’t their fault necessarily, but a symptom of the small-production-company-grind that plagues much of Hollywood.

But by sticking around that kind of environment, I would always be doomed to this cycle of burning out and getting out, burning out and getting out, repeat times infinity. I’d always be looking for a temporary escape and it would never be enough – because I would never truly feel like I have control over my life.

Getting my job at Aceable was the validation I needed to finally stop feeling as though I was moving backwards rather than forwards.  

I never would have imagined as a kid who was OBSESSED with making a name for herself in Hollywood that I would find everything I was looking for in a career in the middle of Texas.

Oh yeah, and now I get to work from home WHENEVER I WANT.

There’s a saying that goes: Don’t cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

I won’t say that my time in Hollywood was a “mistake” because, in reality, I HAD to do it – all of it. If I hadn’t, I never would have learned that it wasn’t what I wanted. Some alternate universe Desiree is out there, writing a blog where she laments never having taken the chance to pursue her film and TV dreams and then leaves behind her job as an astronaut to make it happen (what an idiot).

Besides, I had my fun. I did work on cool stuff. Working on the first film I co-produced, The Hopeful, gave me some of my all-time favorite memories and left me with some awesome friends that I still have today. I got the chance to work on my favorite show of all time, The Simpsons, and for that I’ll always be grateful. But all those pursuits had significant drawbacks and, ultimately, weren’t sustainable, like a lot of film/TV career paths (but that’s a whole OTHER conversation for another day). It turns out my heart just wasn’t in it.

I also want to say, as I’ve said many times before (and y’all are probably sick of it but this is my blog, get your own) Austin is a really fucking great place. I like it here. I feel a sense of community and pride in my city for the first time in my life. My list of restaurants to try in Austin is NEVER-ENDING.  It’s gotten to the point where I feel guilty going to the same restaurant twice now because I’m always thinking, “Shit, I could be trying a new place instead.” Put simply: it rules.

So I’m in a uncharted territory going into the third major road trip of my life…

Road Trip 3: The Everything’s Actually Pretty Okay

For the first time, I’m not using a road trip as a motif for some kind of escape. Progress!

I’m packing up my Volkswagen Jetta for a trip across the southwest that will be part walkabout, but also part of it will include some much needed quality time meeting up with some good friends from California. It’s a regular, good ol’ fashioned vacation. And I’m super pumped.

As always, I’ll take the time to be alone with my thoughts because while I’m at a place in my life where I feel pretty settled in a lot of ways, let’s never lose sight of the fact that I am an always-buzzing ball of anxiety and need these little jaunts as a way to reset my brain. It’s for this same reason that I like to go camping a lot (though camping in Texas seems abysmal DON’T @ ME.)

I’ve always appreciated road trips for the head-clearing they allow me to do.

I’ll take little weekend trips here and there for a breather.

There was the time when, on a whim, I drove from L.A. to the Grand Canyon because I had spent months pouring my blood, sweat, and tears into writing an awards show that turned out ABSOLUTELY AWFUL (read aaaallllllll about it here). 

There was the time I drove from Austin to Scott, Louisiana (the boudin capital of the world!) to clear my head after a summer on the dating apps broke my brain – damn you, Bumble!

And then there was the time I spent an entire day driving aimlessly through the rural areas outside of Austin the weekend after the 2016 election (ugh) to calm my nerves with the sight of pastoral landscapes and the taste of out-of-town BBQ before the impending unraveling of American democracy began.  

Road trips clear your head, man. They’re underrated. Whenever I tell people I’m going on a road trip, they tend to say things like “Oh no, all that driving! Hope you have plenty of audiobooks all lined up!”

And I’m like… no.

I don’t want to distract myself. The whole point is the solitude. I like the solitude.

I like that there is NOTHING to see sometimes.

I LIKE THE NOTHING.

I really believe that being in new places forces you to think differently than you normally do, and from those departures away from your normal thought patterns come your best ideas and your inspirations for growth.

My life is definitely FAR from perfect and I still have about a MILLION flaws that I have to constantly work on, but with freedom comes the time, energy, and ability to do just that.

So I guess that’s what makes Road Trip 3 different – I’ve got some freedom in my life and with it, I just want to see some cool shit and spend time with people I love, relax out on the open road, take some pictures of some interesting rocks I see, and know that when I get back to Austin, I’ll be happy to be back in Austin.

I can’t say that things will always be like this (who can?), but this is how things are right now.

Also I wish to purchase one (1) marijuana when I arrive in Colorado. IT’S LEGAL, MOM.

[carocat]

1/ In Defense of Rachel and Joey: A Thread 2/ I'm loving this "let's yell about TV plots point we hate" thing that's happening EXCEPT that it started about Rachel and Joey on Friends 3/ I am on record as being absolutely ride-or-die anti-Ross Geller, who is for my money one of television's all-time worst human men. 4/ And her brief thing with Joey was obviously intended by the writers to artificially draw out Rachel's will they/won't they with Ross. 5/ A lot of people think it was weird or that it came out of nowhere, BUT I AM HERE TO TELL YOU WHY IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ENDGAME 6/ ARGUMENT #1: Ross Never Saw Rachel As a Friend, But Joey Did. 7/ From the moment the Friends first meet Rachel, Ross immediately sees her as a romantic prospect. He's never gotten over his crush on her 8/ Joey, of course, greets her with "how YOU doin'" and Monica appropriately smacks him down for hitting on a woman on her wedding day 9/ But this is presented as Joey's standard greeting to every hot woman ever, not specific to Rachel. 10/ (We can talk about the overall attitude of men on this show to women as sexual objects another time. ) 11/ But Joey's relationship with Rachel is platonic almost right away. They have a genuine friendship. 12/ He frequently gives her dating advice. (Sometimes questionable af, but, you know. Well-intentioned.) 13/ He sets her up on dates with men he thinks she'll like. He lets her crash the set when he's filming and flirt with soap actors. 14/ Joey has a lot of problems but his supportive, protective relationship with the women friends is one of his best qualities. 15/ He genuinely loves them and wants them all to be happy and there's no jealousy in it at all. 16/ HE MAKES HER LAUGH. 17/ Okay, now contrast this with Ross, who from minute one has labeled Rachel as "his." 18/ We're always told that Ross/Rachel was a "friends to lovers" ship but WHAT IS THAT BASED ON??? WHAT FUCKING FRIENDSHIP?? 19/ He had a crush on her in high school, so he "claimed" her first, and long after they've broken up he resents every man in her life. 20/ He hides messages from men who call her when they're living together. He's endlessly threatened by the men she dates. 21/ He outright sabotages her career WE'LL BE COMING BACK TO THIS POINT because he can't get over his Mark thing. 22/ Ross literally cannot accept that Mark (or any man) could be just friends with Rachel because HE couldn't be "just friends" with Rachel. 23/ And you'll note that throughout the series it's often Joey telling Ross he doesn't OWN Rachel, while Chandler and Monica enable him. 24/ Joey is the person who most often tells Ross "dude she's not interested" when she's clearly not. The one who notices what RACHEL wants. 25/ He doesn't have all this "but he's loved her FOREVER" false nostalgia that makes them all feel like Ross has EARNED Rachel by waiting. 26/ This is why "nice guys" are often so much shadier than openly, unapologetically promiscuous guys like Joey. 27/ Joey's feelings for Rachel were born out of genuine friendship. They were roommates. SHE WAS PREGNANT. 28/ We honestly don't talk enough about how big a deal it is that Joey, the "shallow" one, falls in love with Rachel while she's pregnant. 29/ It happens the way realistically healthy relationships do: they just start spending a lot more time together. 30/ He has to LEARN to see Rachel as a romantic prospect because she's always been a friend first. Which was NEVER true for Ross. 31/ It's not until he takes her on a fake date (because she's pregnant and misses going on fancy dates) when it actually clicks. 32/ And when he tells Rachel how he feels and she turns him down, contrast that with "WE WERE ON A BREAK" 33/ He never blames her and he doesn't let it impact the rest of the group. The friendship stays intact. ROSS GELLER WHAT'S GOOD 34/ The forced cop-out ending where they get together & suddenly all the chemistry evaporates was NONSENSE. They could have made this work. 35/ If the writers had cared enough to try, there was potential there for a fantastic and genre-defying surprise twist to the show. 36/ ARGUMENT #2: Rachel Deserved Someone Who Understood Why Her Career Was Important to Her. 37/ Y'all. Y'all. It was 13 fucking years ago and I am still furious AT LEAST WEEKLY that Rachel got off that goddamn plane. 38/ Ross sabotaged her career at every turn. He was "tired of having a relationship with her answering machine." 39/ He was jealous of all her male colleagues. He FELL ASLEEP at a work event he demanded she take him to. 40/ Over and over Ross trivialized her passions, even though I would argue that Rachel's career was always her most interesting arc. 41/ Somewhere there's a way more feminist version of "Friends" about a spoiled privileged girl who's never had to work a day in her life - 42/ - going on to become a brilliant and competent executive at the top of an insanely competitive creative field, as a single mom. 43/ There are MANY things about "Friends" that don't hold up, but one surprising thing they often get right is career/money storylines. 44/ (I know. The apartments. I KNOW. Ignore the set design for a second and stick with me.) 45/ Some of the most interesting conflicts in the show are when lines are drawn among the friends about who makes more money than who. 46/ WHICH AS WE ALL KNOW IS A REALISTIC THING THAT HAPPENS IN YOUR 20's AND 30's, SOME OF THOSE PLOTS ARE SO ACCURATE IT HURTS 47/ Rachel/Joey/Phoebe are initially the broke ones, while Chandler/Monica/Ross have salaried full-time jobs (though this shifts over time) 48/ Hey does anyone remember who gives Rachel her first big break to get out of Central Perk and into the fashion industry? JOEY DID 49/ Joey knows what it feels like to be grasping for your big break. But name ONE THING Ross ever did to unselfishly help Rachel's career. 50/ It's kind of remarkable that, for the token shallow/appearance-driven character, Joey actually seems to care very little about money. 51/ So he doesn't see Rachel the big-shot fashion exec as qualitatively different from Rachel the scrappy waitress. But Ross CLEARLY does. 52/ Every step up the ladder towards career success that Rachel takes is interpreted as a step AWAY from him. It's SO. FUCKED. UP. 53/ No one in the FUCKING WORLD loves Rachel Green more than Monica Geller and yet Monica still wanted her to get on that plane for Paris. 54/ They ALL did. They GOT it. Rachel was maxed out at her old job. She'd gone as high as she could. She said so REPEATEDLY. She needed more 55/ There was nothing left for her professionally in New York, and the Paris job was her literal dream. Her friends wanted her to take it. 56/ GUESS WHO DIDN'T. FUCKING ROSS. BECAUSE IT'S ALWAYS ABOUT HIM. 57/ I have never wanted any finale retcon more than for Rachel to be allowed to go to Paris & make a brand-new life. IT PHYSICALLY PAINS ME 58/ AM I SUPPOSED TO THINK IT'S ROMANTIC THAT ROSS WENT BEHIND RACHEL'S BACK TO HER BOSS TO MAKE HIM TAKE HER BACK BECAUSE I FUCKING DON'T 59/ AM I SUPPOSED TO THINK IT'S A SIGN OF LOVE THAT HE ONLY WANTS A RACHEL WHO IS ECONOMICALLY AND PROFESSIONALLY SUBORDINATE TO HIM 60/ HARD FUCKING PASS, TYVM, SHE SHOULD HAVE GONE TO PARIS AND TAKEN SEVERAL LOVERS AND REALIZED THAT SHE OUTGREW ROSS DECADES AGO 61/ "That's all well and good, Claire," you're probably saying, after sixty tweets, "but those are just reasons why Ross is shitty ... 62/ " ...why is Joey specifically a better romantic prospect?" I'M SO GLAD YOU ASKED 63/ ARGUMENT #3: Joey and Rachel Make Each Other Better, Ross and Rachel Make Each Other Worse 64/ So I already mentioned this, but it bears repeating: Joey develops feelings for Rachel while she's VISIBLY pregnant. 65/ The s1 New Year's episode (best known for Phoebe and Hank Azaria's sad goodbye) features Joey on a date with a single mom. 66/ The whole time, the kids are treated like a buzzkill. Being a mom is an obstacle to desirability. 67/ The show also makes repeated and deeply wearying jokes at the expense of fat women on the regular. SIGH. 68/ So like let's talk about what it says about how Joey has grown tf up that he realizes he's in love with his friend while she's pregnant. 69/ He happily lets Rachel and Emma move back in with him, despite how much having a baby around disrupts his lifestyle. 70/ The insanely terrible women Joey brings home, and their brief tenure in his life, is of course a 10-season running joke. 71/ But it ends after Rachel. 72/ Joey's first GF after the Rachel crush is Charlie (@aishatyler), hands-down the single greatest love interest on the show. I LOVED her. 73/ Charlie is nothing like any other woman Joey has ever dated. Falling for Rachel literally teaches Joey that he wants something more. 74/ Joey learns to love having a baby around, stops being a bad-date punchline and tries to be worthy of a way higher-class lady. 75/ And he's good for Rachel, too. Circa-Joey's-roommate Rachel is my favorite iteration of all the Rachels. 76/ SERIOUSLY THINK ABOUT HOW GREAT SHE IS. Short hair, playing the drums, eating spaghetti off the floor, watching "Cujo." What an angel. 77/ Rachel has been uptight all her life and Joey teaches her how to chill the fuck out. He brings out a sillier side of her. 78/ Meanwhile, let's discuss how few moments exist in the "Friends" canon where Ross and Rachel are EVER that chill and cute together. 79/ Everything is ALWAYS fraught. Fighting, jealousy, possessiveness, drama. Their relationship looks EXHAUSTING. 80/ And it's not just Ross, tbh (although like ... it's mostly Ross). But he makes HER worse too. She's harsher and more tightly-wound. 81/ I cannot imagine a life where forever having to live with the shadow of "we were on a break" hanging over your head is considered a win. 82/ But think about how kind and gentle they were with each other when Joey said he had feelings for Rachel and she couldn't say it back. 83/ Think about an entire lifetime of one or the other of those two conflict-resolution styles, my dudes. SERIOUSLY THINK ABOUT IT 84/ Joey: respecting Rachel's feelings. Ross: needing to win every fucking time. 85/ One of my favorite Joey/Rachel moments is when they're in Barbados for Ross' conference and he's giving his boring keynote speech. 86/ [BRIEF ASIDE TO NOTE THAT THE SINGLE SERIES-LONG PLOT POINT WHICH HAS AGED THE WORST IS THE FALSE NOTION THAT DINOSAURS ARE BORING] 87/ Joey and Rachel are giggling at "homo erectus" together (RELATABLE!), for which Ross and Charlie treat them both like massive idiots. 88/ Which is yet another sign that Ross thinks Rachel is intellectually beneath him. But Joey just thinks she's hilarious. 89/ Ross has ALWAYS treated her like she's intellectually beneath him, which is why "just a waitress" cuts so deep on that S2 list. 90/ Being Mrs. Geller is a ticket to a lifetime of being treated like a dummy at his faculty events with him never sticking up for her. 91/ And, crucially, this is NOT because Rachel isn't smart. It's because ROSS doesn't think she's smart. No matter how high she advances.92/ That's not to say there is no potential downside to Joey, but she'd be treated like a queen instead of patronized forever tbh. 93/ The bottom line is, the Rachel Ross fell in love with was a teenage fantasy he never outgrew that may have been an illusion all along. 94/ Ross fell in love with A PICTURE OF HIMSELF AS THE KIND OF MAN WHO COULD DATE A RACHEL and on some level that was always what he wanted. 95/ Whereas Joey fell in love with a bright, funny, competent single mother he'd been friends with for 7 years and knew inside-out already. 96/ Yes there's something sweet in the idea of Rachel being Monica's sister, but they basically were already. They don't need Ross for that. 97/ The only factor in favor of Ross/Rachel endgame is conventional sitcom storytelling structure. Not because they're RIGHT for each other 98/ Ross and Rachel were endgame because they were considered INEVITABLE, and I don't dispute that that's where the show was always heading. 99/ But a S10 surprise twist where Rachel and Joey end up realizing THEY were each other's lobster all along WOULD HAVE CHANGED SITCOM TV 100/ Anyway, thank you for your time. I'm going to go watch the Barbados 2-parter again now and cry over what could have been. END RANT.