#excellent use of my time

[summerblueringo]

Kimi Räikkönen in the 2010 Rally Japan (x)

[mylittleredgirl]

queen of wasting hours writing long essays in response to tumblr posts that have nothing to do with me and then sending them into drafts like a soviet-era russian author writing controversial novels for the drawer

[staticymaticyyourlifeisatravesty]

@loadinghellsing I HAVE DECIDED TO JOIN FURTHER INTO THE CHAOS

Alucard to everyone else

And Alucard with Integra

[inkydinks]

I HAVE ACTIVATED THE BOOP-O-METER

[mlobsters]

reading a fic today and this line

Light from the hall filters in through the decorative grate above Dean’s door.

spn s11e11 enter the mystic

which made me laugh because when I was watching 11x11 I had some brilliant ideas as to where that light was coming from

course then I'm trying to find views of a bedroom or hallway with the door to see if it's an actual thing because hello privacy?? lol

there are also these grates that I assume are vents. but the pattern also kinda matches the grate on the bottom of this electrical door from the set (bts pictures from tvaddict in 2015, dean and sam bedrooms are the same set just redressed)

they do enjoy their griddy lighting

I don't know if we ever see up that high on the set for the bedrooms

(obligatory bedroom sink)

anyway. zero conclusions reached other than it was pretty

[merrigel]

I want it back = I drag its dead weight forward

[hellenhighwater]

wait, you're a lawyer? for real?

I got an associates in stage tech, a double BFA in Graphic Design and 3D Design, and then went to law school on full academic scholarship, booked twelve classes, fell asleep during the Bar Exam three times (but passed with flying colors before the curve), and the motion for my admission to practice (put forward by my brother, also a lawyer), started, "My sister has many issues, but the one before the Court today is that of her admission to the State Bar of Michigan."

And somehow yes, they do let me practice law.

[raaorqtpbpdy]

Alright, @lavose asked, so allow me to elaborate, here goes.

First a little context: At my school what they call a “focus” in Rainbow High, we called a “specialty”, so I’ll probably use the two more or less interchangeably. I personally started out as a video arts specialty and then switched to theater arts from junior year on. There was no such thing as a double-focus at my high school.

For my privacy, I’m not gonna give any details like name or location of the school I went to.

Also, I’m ignoring the stuff in the show that obviously wasn’t meant to be realistic, like the multiple elaborate scavenger hunts, and artistic feats that defy the laws of physics.

With that out of the way, I’m gonna start first with what they got right.

(Continued below the cut ‘cause I have a lot to say)

1) The student aesthetics.

I know the reason is because it’s based on a series of fashion dolls, but actually the wide variety of unique and specific fashions the students of all focuses wear is definitely accurate to arts high school. Not only with their clothes, either. At my school, more students had dyed hair than didn’t (mine was, and still is, bright red), so the wild hair colors and makeup designs are very accurate to a real arts high school.

Usually you’d notice it most the first couple of weeks to months before the burnout started to set in and people didn’t have the energy to put more effort into their appearance than jeans and a hoodie, but there were always a handful of kids that were really dedicated to upholding their aesthetic throughout the year. You also start to notice a lot less makeup and a lot more roots showing by the end of first quarter. However Rainbow High is a boarding school, so the students there packed only their best and favorite clothes when they went to live at the dorms and were probably regretting the amount of effort they inadvertently forced themselves to put in by the end of first quarter lmao.

2) The waitlist

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the waitlist was huge at my school. There was usually only about three or four students across all the specialties that were able to transfer in after the school year started because someone moved unexpectedly or had to drop out, or just decided they didn’t want to go anymore. I don’t think it was ever because of an expulsion though, not while I was attending, at least.

I was never on the wait list (mostly because video didn’t get as many applicants as other specialties), but my older sister went to the same school as me, as a digital arts specialty, and she was initially waitlisted, although she got off the waitlist before the school year started and was thrilled. She ran all around the house, absolutely giddy, when she got the letter saying her enrollment went through. She was normal about it by the time the school year started, but the handful of waitlisted students who got in after the school years started were always just super happy to be there.

However, I still don’t really get how a set-design student being expelled resulted in a fashion design student being bumped up from the waitlist, since the vacancy would have been in the set-design class and not just in that particular fashion show project group, but whatever.

3) Student art displayed all over the place

My school had murals, painted picnic benches, all the pillars were painted, chalk drawing on the sidewalks when the visual fine arts students did their chalk art unit, student-made posters hung all over the place. It was a very colorful place.

Whenever a students art was featured in a magazine, showcase, newspaper, community performance, &c., there was something about it up on the billboards. The school love to take credit for our success by showing it off, even if it had nothing to do with the school lol, but it was cool to see how many students were doing cool stuff.

4) Students working in the halls during class

I don’t think any of the arts classes even used hall passes, certainly neither of the ones I was in did. In video, if you wanted to leave the classroom, whether it was for a project or not, all you had to do was check out a camera and go. In theater, as long as you had a script in hand and were muttering to yourself you wouldn’t get in trouble. None of the teachers would stop you if they saw that you were carrying art supplies—camera, sketchbook, script, drawing tablet, what-have-you.

We took advantage of this regularly. Oftentimes we were actually out of the classroom to work on projects, but just as often we were ditching, and having a camera and tripod made us immune to consequences.

5) The pressure

A lot of the time, arts high school was fun and chill, but when crunch time came, the pressure was ON. For visual arts students, it was approaching deadlines. For performing arts students, it was tech week. But no matter your specialty, you were not exempt from the pressure of having to complete and polish a massive artistic project.

6) The football team hasn’t been good in 20 years

I don’t think I have to explain this one. Art students suck as sports. When they were talking about the school’s team not winning a game in 20 years I genuinely laughed so hard I teared up, that’s so accurate and so fucking funny. I don’t know why we even had sports teams.

Section 2–things that weren’t at my school, but that I can totally accept as differing school managerial styles and the fact that Rainbow High is a private school that obviously has a vastly higher budget than the arts high school I went to.

1) Integration between focuses

There wasn’t a lot of mixing specialties at my school. It wasn’t unheard of; for example, when I was in video, we did a joint project with the dance specialty where we filmed dance music videos to teach us to properly edit video with complex motion and rhythm. And in theater, we had the digital arts students design all our posters (although it was an optional extra-credit assignment for the digital arts kids).

At Rainbow High, the students have projects that integrate all of the focuses, having them contribute their specialties toward that project which is actually really cool, and doing that by dividing the students into dedicated groups with which they will do all their integrated projects throughout the year is a good way to do it.

2) Fashion design, accessory design, set-design, and cosmetology focuses.

If there had been a fashion design specialty at my sister would not have applied for digital art lmao. Because of the aforementioned “not as much funding as Rainbow High” thing, the school I went to didn’t have as many different specialties as RH has focuses. And none of them were explicitly fashion related. Set-design was enfolded within the theater specialty as was costume design, which is kind a like fashion design.

Personally, I don’t see why fashion and accessory design are separate focuses in RH (like I said, theater arts was also costume design and set design, and it was stage-lighting and sound design. Also, video arts was script-writing, set lighting, and sound-mixing, in addition to video editing and special effects. Photography also taught staging, and digital arts was also photo-editing and animation. I don’t really know about the other specialties, but I’m sure they taught beyond their individual scope). I’m willing to suspend my disbelief, however, considering it’s a show based on a line of fashion dolls.

3) Students actually caring about school publications

I don’t think there has ever been a high school where the students have two shits about what was printed in the school paper. I’m willing to ignore that because the RH school magazine is apparently circulated outside of just the school, and notably to RH alumni, many of whom are purportedly wildly successful in their respective artistic fields, so I guess I can understand how a student might be excited to get a feature. With the “no photographing student work” rule, being featured in the school magazine may be the only way for them to be considered for third-party opportunities. (But I’ll get to that later)

4) Double-focusing

I mentioned this earlier on, but my school didn’t do double-focusing. If a student wanted to take on another specialty, they would have to quit the one they were currently in. RH is much better funded and managed, though, so it makes sense that they would give their students the option to do that if they felt up to the challenge.

Now for section three—Things they got wrong

This is where it gets sort of critical, so if you only want to read me singing RH’s praises, read no further.

1) They apparently don’t know the distinction between categories of art.

In the very beginning they say that it’s specifically a “visual arts” high school, but there’s a music focus and a theater focus even though those are performing arts??? And Fashion design, which seems to be their main draw, is a textile art???

It hasn’t been mentioned to the point where I’ve watched in the show, but the doll I have is apparently a creative writing focus, even though that’s also not a visual art, it’s a literary art. But she’s technically Shadow High so maybe it’s different. (Side note, my school also didn’t offer a creative writing specialty, but if it had, that’s the one I would have applied for from the get-go, that’s part of why I wanted that particular doll so much—that, and she has safety-pin hair clips, which is just too cute)

2) Their use of the term “mixed media”

The thing about that is… mixed media is not a type of art. It is a method by which you can do any kind of art.

For example, a live-action video that incorporates still images, animated VFX, and background music is mixed media. A painting that uses a mix of watercolors and acrylic paints is mixed media. Literally every musical is mixed media because it combines both acting, dancing, and music/song.

In fact, students learning how to use various mixed-media techniques within their own specialty was like, one of the biggest parts of what we did in arts school. So I was very confused when RH referred to having a mixed media specialty because??? Almost everything these students do is mixed media?????

Close as I can tell, what RH absurdly calls the “mixed media” focus is what we called the “visual fine arts” specialty, or VFA for short. VFA refers to painting, drawing, sculpture—basically visual fine arts refers to everything people traditionally think of when someone says “art” and doesn’t specify what kind. It’s also commonly referred to as “traditional art”.

3) General education classes

An arts-oriented high school is still a high school, and it’s still required to teach gen ed classes. RH probably left them out because they didn’t think math and history were interesting or relevant to the story, which I get, but they still gotta do PE.

The thing about gen Ed classes at an arts high school, though, is that they have arts integration. In my school it was only the humanities classes that did this, and math and science was boring and dumb. But history, English, and foreign languages all had arts integration. They would use visual aids, mixed media presentations and lectures, and many of the assignments including all the major projects and finals had an artistic element.

For example, we read Hamlet in my English class senior year and one of the music kids created an 8-minute score to represent Hamlet’s slow decent into madness for his final project in that unit. I did a dramatic reading of one of Hamlet’s monologues. One of the VFA kids did a series of story-board style illustrations of a scene. Another one did a single, movie-poster style drawing featuring all the major characters.

So yeah, I see why the omitted the gen ed classes from the RH show, but I need you to know that they are still a thing in arts high schools, they’re just better than what you had :P

4) “a bad rehearsal means a bad show”

The worse the last rehearsal goes, the better the first show goes??? Everyone knows that. I don’t know what they were on about when the teacher said this line. It was disproven immediately because their show went amazing.

5) “Everything I make at Rainbow High is student work, and photographing student work is against the rules” —character who later gets expelled for breaking that rule.

This just straight up doesn’t make any sense, logically or logistically. It’s completely ridiculous. And I am going to explain why in great detail. Starting with:

A) You’re telling me a “visual arts high school” doesn’t have a photography focus??? Because unlike fashion design, photography actually is a visual art, and if there is a photography focus then you absolutely cannot enforce a “no photographing student work” rule without completely stymieing that whole department. But maybe that’s why there’s no photography focus, which brings me to:

B) There is a video focus! You’re telling me Violet going around live-streaming 24/7 doesn’t count for some reason??? Even if she doesn’t film during class there’s no way in hell she’s not catching student work in the background of her shots in the hallways. I can think of like six occasions when she should have been expelled for “photographing student work” and I’ve only seen like six episodes so far.

C) The school magazine not only took a bunch of photos of student work, but also published them in a more-or-less publicly available format. What, that doesn’t count??? Bella got expelled over this, but it’s just fine for the school magazine to do??

D) The whole purpose of high school is to encourage students to succeed in the future and preventing them from sharing their work with third parties to get things like internships completely defeats the purpose of that. Like, I mentioned before about the billboards that always bragged about students getting featured in showcases, and landing rolls in community theater productions, right? That’s the kind of good press a school like Rainbow High would not only want, but need if it wants to maintain its prestige.

You don’t keep your enrollment up based solely on what your alumni do, you want to show that your students are achieving things even before they graduate. I knew a music student who, at seventeen, composed professional scores for an indie film studio. One of my friends in VFA was recently featured in a corporate sponsored showcase and made a good chunk of prize money from it. One of my video classmates had a successful YouTube channel with something like 100k followers by sophomore year, and he was featured in the school paper for it (not that anyone reads the school paper).

Basically like 10-20% of assignments (depending on the specialty), were specifically to create entries for art contests, or submissions for relevant internship opportunities. (My theater class won gold for a one-act we performed at a competitive theater festival).

It doesn’t make any sense for a high school to forbid photographing student work and in doing so prevent students from getting opportunities like that.

E) The rule is transparently based on the doll designers experiences working with exploitative capitalist toy companies, and the rocky origin of MGA (the company that makes Rainbow High dolls), and not based on any realistic high school experience.

If you didn’t know, MGA’s first doll line was Bratz, and the original creator of Bratz worked for Mattel before quitting to start his own company. When Bratz got popular, however, Mattel tried to sue him for the rights, claiming that he’d started designing Bratz while he was working for Mattel, and according to his contract, all ideas that he worked on as an employee of their company, even in his off hours, belonged to them.

There was a huge, messy court case. His original argument was that he worked on Bratz off the clock, but Mattel was having none of that and insisted that his work was theirs and him marketing and selling it without their say-so was illegal. Mattel initially won, if I recall correctly, and completely shut down the Bratz doll line out of spite.

But there was an appeal after he found proof that he had pitched the idea to Mattel before quitting to start his own company, and they had completely refused it, saying it didn’t match their brand or something and told him to stop working on it, after which he quit. Bratz dolls are now back on shelves, and MGA has also started to produce new doll lines, like Rainbow High, Shadow High, and LOL OMG dolls. (I’m recounting this all from memory so take it with a grain of salt, because I probably got some details wrong, and I can’t remember the guy’s name, either)

Finally, section four—nitpicky complaints.

This section is, arguably, overly critical, so if you don’t want to read your favorite show getting bashed, read no further.

1) Jade’s dress in the fashion show

I know I said I would disregard the artistic feats that defy the laws of physics but Jade’s skirt in that fashion show was NOT made of lightning, fuck you. Not only is that impossible but she would be so electrocuted.

No. Just. No.

2) They’re not graded on laundry

It was just one line, but one girl said they’re not graded on laundry and like… why not???

Especially fashion students. They could absolutely be graded on their ability to properly launder a variety of fabrics and garments without damaging them?? That’s like a major element of the job??

3) Violet is not an artist.

This one sounds really harsh, and I fully acknowledge that, but I stand by it. As a former video arts student, fuck RH, Violet is not an artist.

Filming everything you do and altering almost nothing in editing is NOT video art.

She’s never shown doing significant editing, adding music or special effects, or even doing anything remotely creative with her filmmaking at all. She doesn’t do stage lighting except for the single ring light on her selfie stick, she only uses one type of framing, which I shouldn’t have to tell you is absolutely pitiful from a filmmaking perspective, and she doesn’t even really use any cinematic techniques like camera movement, shot distances, or focus.

She just films. She doesn’t even demonstrate the slightest comprehension of how to film in landscape instead of portrait. Especially compared to the impressive feats her friends did to get into RH, she’s nothing.

If anything what she does is performance art, but tbh I don’t personally think what Violet does qualifies as a creative focus at all. She’s not doing anything creative, original, or even noteworthy and, in my opinion, she’s not an artist.

She’s an insufferable tiktokker taking advantage of her friends’ good will and kind natures. Shes obviously manipulative toward Sunny in particular, and she has no respect at all for her friends’ boundaries.

Recently got into Rainbow High for some reason and let me tell you, watching the show as someone who actually went to an arts-oriented high school in real life is fucking Wild.

[markantonys]

THE WHEEL OF TIME Season 2 Behind the Scenes: "The Tower of Falme"

[saturdaysky]

hunger is whatever shape the moonlight pulls your shadow into.

The cover and first two pages of a comic about Essek and touch, set just after episode 97 and the reveal of his treachery.

There are nine pages. I will post them in batches as I finish them, and each post will be updated with the links to the other pages. 💜

I've had this idea sketched out for several years (check out my user icon, which hasn't changed since I made this account 😉 ), and I am excited to finally sit down and finish it! Here's a close-up of the Rosohna and Xhorhaus panel on page 2.

An absence is also a presence, no?

Poetry source is ONE SIDE OF AN INTERVIEW WITH THE GHOST OF MARVIN GAYE by Hanif Abdurraqib.

[scificrows]

Okay, my brain refuses to think about anything other than Murderbot, so I looked at every use of the word "friend[s]" in TMBD and... created some pie charts. Normal human activities.

Some Thoughts™ I had while putting this together (under the cut):

In All Systems Red, Murderbot notes that the PresAux crew are all close friends (twice! and goes on to explain their internal relationships which I think is very cute). This is pretty much the only use of 'friends' in ASR, except for when Murderbot says that SecUnits can't be friends with each other.

It seems that this may be one of the first times Murderbot has ever really been around a group of friends before? Murderbot notes that this is not the norm for its contracts and admits that the fact that they are all friends and the way they interact with each other make it actually enjoy that contract (before!!!! the hostile attack, so it already enjoys this contract before they start seeing it as a person etc ghghhhh). [Inference: Friendship seems enjoyable.]

The first character that calls Murderbot its friend is ART in Artificial Condition. Murderbot immediately refutes this (and then goes on to call ART its friend to its clients for the rest of the book). [Inference: Maybe ART is Murderbot's friend. And maybe that is... agreeable]

Rogue Protocol has more than twice as many instances of the word 'friend' as any of the other novellas. Why? Miki. Friendship and its implications for non-humans are a central theme because Miki is friends with everyone. Murderbot initially scoffs at the notion that Miki and Miki's humans are friends. At the end of the book, after witnessing how desperately Don Abene tried to stop Miki from trying to save them, and her grief after its death, Murderbot has to admit that she had in fact been Miki's friend. [Inference: Humans can be friends with bots and can sincerely care about them]

In Exit Strategy, Murderbot tentatively uses the word "friends" for its humans for the first time (several times actually). It questions whether it can actually call them its friends or not and later realizes that it had been afraid what admitting that the humans are its friends would do to it. At the end of the book, Mensah tells Murderbot the PresAux crew are its friends, which is the first time a human has directly said that to it (at least on-page). [Inference: Humans can and want to be Murderbot's friends]

In Network Effect, Murderbot seems to be more habituated to the word 'friend', confidently calling ART and Ratthi its friends, like it is no longer just trying the concept on unsure if it fits. There are many instances in which other characters refer to MB as ART's friend or the other way around and Murderbot's humans refer to Murderbot as their friend several times. Generally, there seems to be less hesitancy, because yes, all of them are Murderbot's friends, why wouldn't they be. [Inference: SecUnits can have friends. This SecUnit has friends. They care about it a lot.]

Conclusion: The Murderbot Diaries tell the story of a construct that does not seem to consider the possibility of friendship for itself and is fine with that - until it accidentally starts caring a little too much and suddenly more and more people annex it as a friend (ew) to the point where it can no longer deny that this is happening and has to begrudgingly admit that yes, it has friends now and maybe that is actually not a bad thing.

[summerblueringo]

IT IS SIMI DAY TOMORROW CAN I GET A YEEHAWW??

YEEHAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I have greatly enjoyed your comics ever since i saw them and have been quietly Iurking as ya do- thought youd want to know that i played hollow knight based on how enthusiastic u were and how fuckin cool youre art of hk/mdzs is. OH and watched dungeon meshi. Your influence is vast and i have been enriched. Keep on keepin on 🫡

You have bestowed the highest honour upon me.

[bottombaron]

you know, i can handle a little bit of fun "Nandor is dumb" talk, but i have a net-zero tolerance for any implication that Nandor is not educated.

Nandor would have been incredibly educated in his lifetime.

even (or especially) as a soldier in the Islamic World. being a soldier was more like getting sent to boarding school that's also a military camp. they weren't just concerned with creating loyal fodder for war. they were building the next government officials, generals, accountants, advisors, etc. it was important that young men knew how to read, write, speak multiple languages, learn philosophy...sometimes even studying art and music was mandatory.

if he was nobility (and its most likely he was), take all that shit and multiply it exponentially. Nandor would have been reading Plato at the same age most people are still potty training. he would have been specifically groomed in such a way to not be just a brilliant strategist and warrior, but also diplomate and ambassador of literally the center of scientific and cultural excellence of the age.

so like yeah, he can be a big dummy sometimes, sure. but that bitch is probably more educated than any of us will ever be.

[pushing500]

Brace yourselves for what will surely be a big and impressive fight...

Or not, I guess. I assume that's bugged, but we won't question a godsend when we get it.

I imagine that the "press unit to the back of the throat to inject and clamp inside the base of skull and thread ultrafine wires through your brain" part of the mechlink installation process is... uncomfortable, to say the least.

At long last, Kwahu feels properly like himself for the first time since he's existed. The Jones boys are one step closer to being properly identical! <3 <3

Kwahu's first mechanoid!!!

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[guardian-angle22]

Brian Michael Smith (with Ronen Rubinstein & Rafael Silva) receiving the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Drama Series in 2023 for 911: Lone Star