#i just picked random episodes which i found suitable | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

milkybunbuns · 4 years ago

Text

iii. battles → previous → perfection masterlist → next

w/c: 1.4 K

warnings: spoilers for season 1 episode 8, swearing

a/n: this series is such a slow burn dang, i just can’t bring myself to make y/n be with todoroki 24/7 but then by the time i finished typing everything i realise i have like 5 times more text than todoroki time udiswjokaq

You found yourself heading to school on time, only to find a hoard of reporters standing outside the gates attempting to interview every student that passes by. Arms crossed across your chest, you were NOT going to budge until the damned reporters got out of the way. Like yeah, it’s your job, but aren’t you going too far? What a joke.

“L/n-san. Are you not going in?”, Todoroki appeared beside you magically, almost scaring you.

“Well what does it look like to you?”

Before even properly processing what he was saying, Todoroki blurted out, “Are you on your period L/n-san? Fuyumi told me this is what happens to females-”

“WHA AHSIJQKAOW”, you threw your hands towards his mouth trying to shut him up, “You don’t just say that to a female’s face!” Your outburst seemed to capture the attention of the press as they rushed towards the two of you, microphones sticking out and tripping over each other.

“Sorry L/n-san”, and with that he pushed through the crowd of reporters, entering the school and leaving you to face the hoard by yourself.

“TODOROKI YOU BITCH!” okay you didn’t have the guts to yell that out loud cause if that was caught on cameras you could pretty much say bye to your hero career smh. Maybe that was a bit exaggerated. Sighing, you took matters into your own hands, activating your quirk to cover most of your body in a bright light. “Okay guys!”, you smiled fakely, clapping your hands together, “This material around me is light energy and is super hot, I don’t really want anyone to get burnt today, so if you would all kindly back off and let me get through, that would be wonderful.”

The reporters surrounding you immediately backed off, a path clearing for you to walk through. Closest to the gates was Aizawa who looked quite tired, shooing away as many reporters as possible. “Thank you for the help L/n, but that does not mean you can use your quirk in public. You still don’t have your licence.”

“Alright Aizawa-sensei”, you nodded your head, walking through the gates with Aizawa following.

BANG

You flinched slightly, turning around to see what happened while Aizawa just kept walking forwards, not paying any mind to the sound. The gates had just shut, activating the defence system at the gates.

“Okay everyone. Today we will be picking class representatives. This will be an extra way to gain recognition. Now do whatever you want until homeroom ends, just don’t bother me”, Aizawa immediately fell to the ground in his sleeping bag. Poor guy must’ve been so exhausted from shooing those nasty reporters away :((

Yells filled the room, everyone fired up to be representative, honestly, you had no want to do it and you weren’t responsible enough for sure.

“Calm down! We will do this is an orderly fashion!”, Iida exclaimed, robotic arms gestures following his words and the room quieted down for a moment.

“Kero, but won’t everyone just vote for themselves.”

“Precisely! That means that those who get more than one vote will be deemed suitable for representative.”

Names were hastily thrown into a random box then counted up, you had voted for Tsuyu cause she was such a nice person! Even though Iida would’ve been ideal, let’s just say you were biased towards Tsuyu since she’s basically your second friend at UA.

“And the class representative will be Midoriya with 3 votes and deputy will be Yaoyorozu with 2 votes.”

“OKAY WHICH ONE OF YOU FUCKERS VOTED FOR SHITTY DEKU!”

Silently, you were agreeing with Bakugo, minus the shitty part. I mean, Izuku, really? He was a nervous mess and a bundle of uncontrolled nerves, there was no way someone such as himself could lead when he could barely keep himself under control. But then again, who are you to complain, you ended up with 0 votes anyways.

“Okay home room is dismissed.”

Everyone hastily rushed out of the room, eager to see what was on Lunch Rush’s menu this time. Holding onto your tray of (favourite food) tightly to make sure that it wouldn’t get knocked over, you scanned the full cafeteria, deeming it too full for their to be space for yourself anywhere. Sighing, you hauled yourself into the seating area outside where it was slightly drizzling. There was a picnic bench under a tree which would at least provide some shelter from the rain. You stabbed your fork into the food, repeatedly stabbing all around it.

“L/n-san, may I join you?”, a cool voice made you look up from your food, to be met face to face with none other than Todoroki.

“Yeah, sure, take a seat”, you said, trying to act nonchalantly. You still hadn’t really forgiven him for the morning’s events.

And it was like he read your mind, “Look, if it’s about this morning’s situation, I am deeply sorry”, Todoroki could only stand so much awkward silence.

‘Okay whatever I forgive you.”

You swore you saw a small smile on his face and a sigh of relief, but Todoroki was seriously a tough nut to crack. The awkward silence turned into a calming one, as the two of you had your respective meals in peace. Neither could be bothered to make small talk, too much work.

“DING DING! LEVEL 3 SECURITY BREACH! ALL STUDENTS PLEASE EVACUATE CALMLY! DING DING!”

You shot up from your seat, Todoroki doing the same not much after., “Let’s go, it’s probably not safe out here”, by now the rain had gotten heavier than before, “Take off your blazer and use it as an umbrella”, you facepalmed as Todoroki tried to follow you through the rain without any protection. He nodded, forming a temporary umbrella for himself.

“L/n-san, we should be going to check on the gates to see how they’ve broken in.”

“Are you out of your mind Todoroki!? If it’s a villain we’re doomed okay!?”

“To become a hero, you must face your fears.”

“I’m not scared of villains okay?”, you grabbed him by the wrist, dragging him into the building of UA.

“L/n. Why do you think this is called an evacuation, it means we have to get out not get back in”, he snatched his arm away from your grip, rushing his own way up the stairs.

You stood in shock for a moment before realising, “That’s just going deeper into the school Todoroki!”, but he had already walked off and could definitely not hear you. Without wasting a moment, you ran after him, stumbling over stairs and at the top there were 3 ways to go, left, right and straight. He’s probably gone back to class, the alarm’s stopped ringing, it means everything’s okay now. You took a turn to the left, passing by the staff room where you couldn’t help but notice a masked figure in the room with a black hoodie on. You slammed open the door, startling the figure.

“Who are you? I know for a fact that you aren’t one of the staff here”, a surge of confidence rushed through you, you were in UA, surrounded by heroes and high tech. If you yelled once, the man would be immediately apprehended.

“My name is none of your business and I wouldn’t be yelling for help if I were you, Takami Y/n~”, he dashed towards you, putting his fingers dangerously close to your throat, “Keep quiet about this, or I will find you and make you watch as I kill your brother. And then you will be next, or maybe I’ll let you live in pain and suffering”, he grinned under the hood, falling into a mist of darkness that spawned behind him.

You were left speechless, hands shaky and sweat uncontrollably forming on your palms.

“L/n-chan! What are you doing in there?”, you turned around, ready to start your quirk up, before heaving a sigh of relief. It was only Nejire fortunately. “Oh uhm Aizawa-sensei just sent me to grab some papers for him!”, you nervously replied, reaching behind you for a random handful of papers.

“Oh right! Are you okay? You seem a bit shaken up, though I mean I guess it makes sense since it’s still your first week here and there’s already been a level 3 security breach. I can take you back to class if you’d like?”

“Thank you for the offer but no thanks Nejire-senpai, I can walk there myself.”

“Okie dokes, see you later!”, she smiled brightly, walking off to her own class.

Sighing, you put the papers back onto the desk, trying to make them look how they did originally, before peeking your head out to make sure there was nobody near by, then walked towards 1-A looking as unbothered and calm as possible. Who was that man..should I still tell Aizawa-sensei...

previous - masterlist - next

tagged: @awkwardangelthings @dyna-m1ght @chibishae34 @vhskenma

#todoroki x you #todoroki x reader #mha todoroki #todoroki x y/n #bnha shoto todoroki #bnha #mha #my hero academia #boku no hero academia

9 notes · View notes

aethelflaedladyofmercia · 5 years ago

Text

(Today marks one month since I went into quarantine alone. I’m having feelings about that, so you all get the following story. TW: I’m not psychologist but I’m pretty sure this is about depression...)

It had been a month.

Aziraphale woke up on his sofa. Ever since breaking with their sides, he and Crowley had been a bit more human. The naps were the latest development. Every once in a while, his head became so clouded he couldn’t think anymore, and the angel had to lay down and rest for a few hours.

He wasn’t sure what time or even day it was when he opened his eyes. Well, it wasn’t dark through the window. Not night, at least.

Adjusting his tie, Aziraphale sat up and reached for the book he’d put aside. There were eight books on the table, all carefully marked with a piece of paper around the middle of chapter three.

He couldn’t remember which he’d been reading. He didn’t really remember any of them.

It had been a month.

Crowley lay in bed, watching the light shift across his ceiling. It was getting warm enough that he might switch to lighter sheets soon. He’d have to do it manually.

He wasn’t looking forward to that.

The rumbling in his stomach finally coaxed him up. He’d hoped to sleep through the whole quarantine, but no luck. Ever since the Apocalypse, he couldn��t really marathon sleep like he’d used to.

On the way to the fridge, he paused to look in on his plants. They trembled, bright green but clearly wilting.

“What’s going on in here?” He snapped, but his heart wasn’t in it. No suitable threats rose in his mind, his expression barely reached mild disgust.

Grabbing the plant mister, he walked around, spritzing all of them. A dangling tendril brushed his face, and he paused, leaning against it with his eyes shut.

Sometimes they called each other. Crowley had convinced Aziraphale to start using a smart telephone right before they locked themselves in. There was a video call option, like in the science fiction movies.

“Hello? Crowley? Hello?”

“Hi, Angel. How’s things over there?”

“Hello? You aren’t moving again. Can you hear me?”

“I can hear you fine. It’s just the picture.”

“Ah, it’s going now. Things are, well, much as they’ve always been here. Yourself?”

“What? Sorry, that time it was the sound. Didn’t catch that.”

“I said it’s the same...never mind. What are you having for lunch today?”

“Dunno. I don’t... ... ... chicken...”

“Crowley? Can you hear me? Crowley?”

“...pie.”

“What was that, dear?”

“PIE!”

“No, before that.”

“Chicken?”

“Oh...never mind.”

Crowley stood in the bathroom.

He was nearly out of that hair product he liked, and now his hair was long enough he didn’t know what to do with it. He tried ordering more gel, but it was sold out online every place he looked.

He stepped into the shower. Quick blast of hot water should help wake him up, ease that stiffness in his back muscles.

The warmth of it running across his skin felt better than he could have expected. He stood in the shower until the water turned cold.

Aziraphale had dropped a plate, broken it on the floor.

Yesterday? Last week? There weren’t days anymore, just one endless stretch of time, some of it awake, some of it asleep. Sometimes in one chair, sometimes in the other.

He stepped around the ceramic shards.

When the kettle was steaming, he opened the cupboard to get a tea bag. There were seven left of the regular black tea, the cheap ones; three Earl Grey, two Darjeeling. He’d thought there was more.

When he shook himself, he couldn’t remember how long he’d been standing in front of the cupboard. He picked a bag at random and walked back to the kettle.

It was already cold.

Crowley lounged in his chair in front of the television.

He tried that new documentary everyone was talking about, but gave up when it seemed no one was going to be eaten by a tiger.

Next he tried something exciting with zombies in it, but the plot was too complicated. His mind kept wandering, and when it came back, he couldn’t remember which character was supposed to be the love interest.

Golden Girls. He had practically every episode memorized, anyway. He switched on one of his favorites, but the jokes didn’t seem as funny this time.

Tried three different baking shows. Couldn’t tell them apart.

Watched an episode of that one about cleaning your home. It didn’t spark joy.

Finally switched off the set and threw the remote in disgust.

“I know we’ve been through this before, but I’m sure it was never this bad.” Aziraphale sat back in his armchair, telephone pressed to his ear.

“Probably because it’s the first time we had to be quarantined.”

“I suppose.” He shifted, trying to get comfortable. No, that wasn’t the word. All the cushions were as soft as you could imagine, perfectly molded to his body. But it still didn’t feel right. “Do you remember that time, back in the fourteenth century?”

“I try not to.”

Aziraphale sighed. “It’s the waiting, really. I just wish I knew when it would be over.”

“Nh.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing. Just. Me, too.”

With all this time, Aziraphale had thought he could at least get some cleaning done.

The dishes were piled up in the sink, overflowing. He didn’t think he’d ever used so many, not ever. The sponge was buried somewhere in that pile.

His eyes were very, very wet. He wasn’t sure why. Didn’t feel sad or tired or frustrated. Didn’t feel much of anything.

With a sigh he turned, foot crunching again on the broken plate.

He stared at it. He just needed to pick up the pieces. The rubbish bin was three steps away.

Shaking his head, he walked away.

Crowley still lounged in his chair. He was full of nervous energy, but didn’t know what to do with it.

He thought about changing the sheets again. Where were the summer ones? In the closet? Cotton or silk? Only he’d have to pull off the old ones first. Where would he put them? In a pile in the corner? He had a wash machine, he could throw them right in. No laundry detergent, though. He should buy some.

Picking up his phone, he clicked over to the app for one of the online shops. It gave some purchase suggestions, then more, then more. He spent an hour clicking around, filling and emptying his cart.

Didn’t buy anything in the end. Couldn’t remember what he’d been looking for.

He still lounged in his chair.

Aziraphale rested his pen against a piece of paper. He’d kept a journal since they’d realized they were becoming more human. Tracking changes. Analyzing new experiences. Recording everything in case his memory became more human, too.

But there was nothing to write, not today, not any day recently.

What did you say when nothing ever happened? When you didn’t really feel anything different today than you felt yesterday, or the day before?

He tried to draw. He’d never been much for sketching, but now all his imagination provided was an endless series of abstract rectangles.

Azirapahle put the pen aside and leaned down, resting his cheek against the book. The rough texture of the paper felt nice, for a moment at least.

It wasn’t really a nap. Crowley was staring up at the ceiling, mind drifting, when suddenly a knock at the door nearly made him shout in surprise.

Who would possibly be out right now? He wasn’t expecting any packages or food delivered. No one else was supposed to be on the streets.

He grabbed the plant mister, just in case, and opened the door a crack.

An angel stood in the corridor outside, looking very small and pale.

“Aziraphale!”

“I...I know we said we would wait until it was over. It’s only been a month, after all. But I just...I couldn’t...”

Crowley shoved the door open the rest of the way, pulled Aziraphale against him, sank into the warmth of those soft arms, held on tight, as tight as he could, even tighter.

One of them was trembling. Maybe both.

Some time later, they lay on the bed, arms around each other, Aziraphale’s head on Crowley’s shoulder. Not even talking, just listening to the sound of breathing, of heartbeats, soaking in the feel of another warm, living body so close.

“We’re both going to be stuck here now, you know.”

“I suppose we are.” Aziraphale wiggled a little closer, until there wasn’t room for even an atom between them.

“And we’re going to be fighting. Mark my words, this time tomorrow, we’re going to be in the worst sort of row.”

“Oh, yes. Probably over your taste in music.”

“Or something stupid you said.”

“Almost certainly.” His hand found Crowley’s, squeezed it, fingers twisting together. “I’m looking forward to it.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

#good omens #good omens fanfiction #good omens prime #ineffable husbands #aziraphale and crowley #quarantine #quarantine fics #cw: quarantine #cw: depression #aziraphale #crowley

124 notes · View notes

discjockeyetc · 4 years ago

Text

How I Got Here: One Year (and 85 pounds) Later

On October 14th, 2019, I began a journey that would change my life (and my health) for the better. I’ve told the whole story to a few people here and there, but never really put the whole thing down in to words. I figured the one year anniversary would be a good time to do that.

On October 14th, 2019, I weighed 250 pounds. As I’m writing this today, on October 14th, 2020, I weigh right at 165 pounds.

With that, here’s what happened, and how I got here... one year (and 85lbs) later.

It all began on Friday, October 11th at about 12:00pm. I was working from home, Jill was at work, and Turner was at school. Sydney had been dealing with a nasty body rash, so we had kept her home from school. We were dog sitting Jill’s parents’ dog Goldie, so Sydney and I were standing on the patio watching Goldie and Freddie play in the backyard. As we were standing there, I suddenly felt this rush of numbness take over the entire left side of my body. From the top of my head to my toes. Total numbness. My left hand felt like I had been sitting on it for a half hour. My mouth had that sensation (or lack of sensation, as it were) of just receiving a shot of novocaine from the dentist.

This was, as you can imagine, pretty strange, so I quickly gathered the dogs and Sydney and went back inside. I sat back down at my desk while the episode was happening. After about 60 seconds, it stopped. Just went away. I didn’t pass out or get dizzy or anything. I didn’t get droopy-faced or drop anything I was holding. Just numbness (with a little tingling).

It would happen a couple more times that afternoon and each time would last about the same amount of time; about 60 to 90 seconds or so. I had a wedding to do that Saturday (which I was NOT going to miss) and had multiple episodes of this random numbness throughout that day and night.

That Sunday, we made our annual pilgrimage to Burt’s Pumpkin Farm and Hillcrest Orchards, and it would pop up a couple times that day. All in all, from Friday around lunch time to Sunday night, I had probably 20 of these little episodes.

[Quick important side story: I made two BIG mistakes here, and I’m not afraid to admit them. Mistake number one: I didn’t want to make a big deal out of this, so I did the stereotypical “male” thing and swept it under the rug. I had a wedding to do, and we had our pumpkins and apples trip... and I didn’t want to miss ANY of that... and I absolutely would have. Mistake number two: I didn’t really tell Jill what was going on, and that’s one of my biggest regrets in ALL of this. I needed to tell her, but I didn’t really mention it until Sunday night. This is a mistake I will NEVER make again... and I only share this as a testimony for all married couples on what NOT to do in serious situations like this. We had just celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary... and even though we’ve been married a good long time, I still got this wrong... but never again. Okay... back to the main story]

I didn’t have a primary care doctor at the time, so I figured I’d go to the urgent care near my house first thing Monday morning. Now, I realized that an urgent care can’t “fix” this, but I had to start somewhere, right? After I described what I experiencing, the PA did all of normal cognitive tests (”squeeze my fingers”, “What year is it?”, “push against my arms”, and so on). The PA went to talk to the main doctor at the primary care, and while she was gone, I had another episode. I popped my head out of the exam room to let them know. No sooner than I did that, the PA was returning from her conversation with the doctor... and they were ready to point me in the direction I was seeking. That direction was the emergency room.

Jill and I were both working from home that day, so I reached out to her and let her know that I needed to go to the ER. The urgent care wouldn’t let me leave on my own, so I either had to take an ambulance, or have someone come pick me up. Jill ran right up to the urgent care, and off we went to the hospital.

I showed up at the emergency room VERY nervous and unsure about what would happen, but I explained what was going on, and they checked me in. Remember, this was pre-Covid, so I was able to get in with no issue and very little delay. I reached out to my work supervisor to let him know what was going on and that I’d be away from my desk for a while. All good there. I was taken back to the ER area and got the ball rolling.

After my vitals were taken, tests were immediately ordered. Luckily, the BIG tests (MRI, CT scan, heart ultrasound) appeared to be normal. *whew* Good news there. I also did the whole gauntlet of blood and urine tests. Now, I always knew that I was pretty overweight and that my eating habits were NOT good. I was also expecting my blood pressure to be less than spectacular (whih it was, of course). I hadn’t taken any medications for cholesterol or BP. This was mainly due to a condition that Jill and the ER nurses referred to as “manitis” (aka male stubbornness). %100 guilty of that FOR SURE.

While all this is going on, I would have a couple more episodes of that same numbness while sitting in an ER bed.

I wouldn’t end up talking to him until later in the day, but the Neurologist who ordered and reviewed my tests instructed the staff to inform me that I would be admitted to the hospital right away. That’s when the fear REALLY sunk in.

I was taken to a room on the fifth floor and got settled in. The IV was installed, and I got “dressed” in my gown. Private room, too. Not bad. They continued to monitor my vitals... especially my blood pressure which was still far too high. I was started on a drip and began taking medicine to help my BP.

The Neurologist came by to tell me what he believed was going on. In his estimation, the numbness was probably caused by blockages in microscopic veins/arteries (NOT a stroke or a series of mini-strokes), so, this was welcomed news. Blockages are treated with cholesterol medication (something I figured was coming at some point).

It was around this time that another person (a nurse, I believe) came in and said something to the effect of “Oh, and by the way... you have type 2 diabetes.”. Wait, what??

The results of the blood work I had done earlier showed my A1C level was WAY WAY WAY too high. If you’re not familiar with A1C, it’s a three month average of your blood sugar. A normal, healthy person’s A1C is probably 4.5 or so. Mine was 11.1. As my work supervisor said, I should have been in a diabetic coma! That’s an incredibly high and dangerous number. So, not only did I begin treatment for high cholesterol to help ease these numbness episodes, I immediately began treatment for type 2 diabetes. This included regular insulin injections throughout the day... in addition to the medication I had begun taking for the blockages.

The meds I was taking for the numbness seemed to have worked. I had one last episode around 5:00pm the day I checked in to the hospital. And now, exactly a year later, I haven’t had another one since then. I was told that I would stay the night in the hospital for further observation. If my BP could get under control, I would be able to go home... tomorrow. I was spending the night in the hospital.

I’m not going to lie. I was incredibly scared at this point. How would I explain to Turner and Sydney what was going on? How long would I have to stay here? Am I going to be okay? What’s actually going on? The questions were swirling. Jill brought the girls up to the hospital that evening and I explained to them, in plain english, exactly what was going on. They understood, which is good... because I didn’t want to hide anything from them (or Jill) anymore.

A new journey was already underway.

After Jill and the girls left for the night, I had a little bit of a meltdown. Okay, maybe two... but they were interrupted by the constant flow of nurses coming to poke me with needles. I’m a good patient, though, and complied with all of the instructions I was given. The way I figured, if I followed instructions and did what I was told, I would get to go home sooner.

It worked. I was ultimately discharged at about 5:30 on Tuesday... about 36 hours after arriving.

I met with a diabetic counselor to start the learning process (which is ongoing until this very day). I started on insulin while I was in the hospital and began checking my sugar (finger pricks) 4 times a day. I also made an appointment with a new primary care doctor for later that week. I was on my way!

After meeting with my doctor (which I’ve done regularly for the past year), I was able to get on a path to wellness. I used to eat absolute garbage... and HUGE portions of it, too. I also dropped the diet coke right away. To this day, I still don’t take in ANY caffeine. I immediately went low/no carb, low/no sugar, HIGH protein. I did have to drop beer, which is sad. I really enjoyed my nice, locally crafted IPA’s, but they have WAY too many carbs. I switched to bourbon, though. A suitable replacement, if you ask me. Ha ha! All throughout this process, I found that I have far more self control and will power than I ever imagined. At the risk of sounding cliche’, if *I* can make these changes, literally anyone can.

In more recent days, I’ve found that I can take in a bit more carbs (and even some sweets) and still keep my sugar under control. I still can only eat smaller portioned meals and get full much quicker than I used to. I’m good for usually one big meal a day (usually dinner). I still keep the carbs way down, though. I’ve been able to learn how my body reacts to certain kinds of carbs and adjust my meals based on that. For instance, pizza doesn’t really affect me too terribly bad. French fries, however, aren’t as good. It’s stuff like that I’ve had to train on. It’s been a lot of trial and error, but in the long run, it’s worth it.

It hasn’t always been easy. There were plenty of times where a delicious piece of cake was waved under my nose... or a big pile of french fries were put in front of me. It was that fear of poor health that kept me away from those things, though. It was the motivation of wanting to walk my daughters up the aisle at both of their weddings. It was the notion of growing old with Jill, holding our grandchildren, and living a FULL. Once I found that motivation, it got easier.

Early on in the journey, I would do things that weren’t so smart... like purposely withhold meals. I would say I wasn’t hungry, when in truth, I was afraid of food. I’m not proud of this and it’s definitely NOT the way to go. But you have to understand... I was making a complete 180 degree change in my lifestyle, and I didn’t really know what I was doing. There was also a medication had the main purpose of controlling my blood sugar levels. One of its side effects was that it would completely zap my appetite. That also caused me to skip a lot of meals. These days, my appetite is much better and healthier, and I rarely ever skip a meal. If I do, it’s because the previous meal was on the bigger side.

In the months that followed, I would make regular visits to my new doctor (which I still do to this day... about every three months). I have also been able to adjust my medication to almost nothing. Eventually, I was able to drop the insulin (and later, the metformin which is a popular drug for diabetics). I still take one pill to control my sugar as well as medication for cholesterol and blood pressure.

The main thing that’s helped me was diet... because I HAAAATE exercise. Definitely not a fan. I admit that I probably would have gotten much further much quicker had I done literally ANY kind of exercise, but it is what it is. These days, I could probably stand to do some kind of exercise just to tone up what I have... and what I have is still kind of a “dad bod”... it’s just 85 pounds lighter than it used to be. ha ha!

I’ve had to get a completely new wardrobe, too! I went from a 40 inch waist to a loose 34 (33 would be perfect). I was squeezing into XL sized shirts (2X in some cases)... now, I’m mostly wearing size MEDIUM. Depending on the brand, LG shirts are sometimes a bit too loose. I tell ya what... the clothing part ALONE absolutely blows my mind! I had taken MANY BIG BAGS of clothes to a local thrift store. Also, we took Turner and Sydney to Old Navy a couple weeks ago to get new pants for the fall. While we were there, I decided to try on a couple shirts. You see, Old Navy doesn’t make clothes for people like me (or like how I used to be). The occasional XL sized t-shirt, maybe. But generally speaking, Old Navy wasn’t my store. Well, not only was I able to fit into a shirt, it was MEDIUM sized... not even large! Not gonna lie...I teared up a bit. That was a moment for sure. I brought home about 6 or 7 new shirts for the fall that day. I mean, wow.

I’ve been writing this blog in my heads for several months, and I feel like I’ve gotten everything written out, so I’ll wrap this up. I never knew how miserable I was before until I actually got healthy. I feel better now than I ever remember feeling. I’m sleeping better (and not snoring anymore, according to Jill), I have SO much more energy, and life, in general, is just.... better.

As of today, I’m 85 pounds down, my blood pressure and cholesterol are at normal, healthy levels, and most importantly, my A1C is 5.0... well below the diabetic range. Even though my numbers are good, I’ll *always* be a diabetic, so I’ll always have to be careful about what I eat.

Thank you to everyone who has expressed their congratulations. It means a lot... and hearing “Wow, you look great!” never (NEVER) gets old.

1 note · View note

maxs-animoo · 5 years ago

Text

Psycho Pass Part 2

Within the second viewing of Psycho Pass we were exposed to even more betrayal and inaccuracies coming out of the Sibyl system. In episode 14 we see seemingly random passerby’s being randomly murdered by anonymous masked assailants. In the instance of the woman being brutally beaten on the street, the witnesses failed to do anything except talk amongst themselves and record the situation unfolding in front of them. This society that has become so dependent on technology and higher forces to take care of them and determine what is right and wrong they don’t even bother to help. Even the drone that is patrolling the area just tells her that her psycho pass is hued and that she can go to care facility to help rehabilitate her current health condition rather than actually informing the police or interfering in the situation.

Following this occurrence, we see a variety of riots break up all around town and all of the Inspectors within their specific wards are assigned to go mediate the situation but in the meantime Makishima and his crew go to the Nona Tower in order to infiltrate the Sibyl system and take it down for good. After it all goes down eventually we are taught that the Sibyl system isn’t exactly some all knowing AI or program but rather it is a network comprised of 247(200) human brains that are processed together in order to determine certain peoples Psycho Pass and Crime Coefficient. Also we are taught that these people are all people whose crime coefficient doesn’t change even when they commit crimes. They are essentially immune from the system at which they sacrificed their human bodies for. In this situation we are shown people that collectively designed a program and within this program their own bias is intertwined. In the real world we can see systems like these being produced all the time. Specifically, the article that we read about the risk assessment system(which is quite similar to the crime coefficient system) shows a large amount of bias. The AI that determines a persons likelihood of combatting a crime was shown to inaccurately label African American individuals as more likely to recommit a crime as compared to whites for committing essentially the same crime. Although this isn't exactly the same as the Sibyl system it still shows that even within a system that is designed to be unbiased and help things run smoother it really has quite the opposite effect and inadvertently causes more problems.

I’m not sure if this is the correct correlation but I think that the way the Sibyl system functions in its own biased manner somewhat reflects ‘algorithm bias’ within today’s society. Many of the wonderful technologies created today take on certain biases dependent on the demographic of the team developing the technology. For example it was found that the AI behind self driving cars were significantly more likely to hit darker skinned pedestrians as compared to lighter skinned ones. This bias was attributed to the fact that the developing team themselves might have lacked for diversity and therefore had biased results in their products’ outcomes. Similarly, Sibyl, which is run by the cherry picked few that it deems suitable, also has a significant amount bias and doesn’t judge certain people like Makishima who it deems similar to its creators. That is kind of a stretch but I think that there was some similarity there.

1 note · View note

lindsaydoeslanguages · 5 years ago

Text

Why I Love Reality TV for Language Learning (+ how to make the most of it)

Reality TV is my favourite type of TV for language learning. Read on to find out why + learn how to make the most of it.

Your Personal Netflix Language Study Pack

The thing I don’t like about Netflix is how stuff gets lost in my Watchlist and then I end up watching the same stuff.

And when it comes to using it for language learning, sometimes you want to sit down and really use it well to improve my languages. But it’s tricky to know where to begin.

I figured you might have the same problems from time to time. So, I made a printable and digital Netflix Language Study Pack to help you really use Netflix for language learning.

Click below to get your personal Netflix Language Study Pack now.

I grew up in the Big Brother age. I was around 12 when Big Brother first launched in the UK.

At that time, it was tame enough for a 12 year old to watch. They had chickens, they had to budget for their weekly food together, and with the exception of ‘Nasty Nick’, it was all very lovely and calm.

As I grew up, so did Big Brother.

Now it’s gone and here in the UK we have Love Island that seems to have replaced it. Not quite suitable for a 12 year old, I imagine. But I’ve never watched that. I guess I grew up too much. (That said, I do still watch Made In Chelsea…)

So reality TV, at least in its modern guise, has very much been a part of my life from my formative years.

However, when it comes to language learning, it was something I’d never really considered until the arrival of Netflix, and one show in particular: Terrace House.

Terrace House is a Japanese reality TV show that’s more like the Real World than Big Brother. But it’s also not like anything else at all. Here’s a trailer for the latest series at the time of writing: Tokyo 2019-2020.

youtube

Cameras film 6 young and aspirational Japanese people (and sometimes ‘half’ Japanese, but more on that later) both in the house and out and about living their daily lives. The daily life stuff often involves modelling shoots, and extreme sports training, or performing gigs. So, you know, typical everyday jobs.

Typical for reality TV it would seem, right? Not exactly.

You see, the beauty of reality TV in different languages is that by default, that involves different cultures.

I’ve learnt more about Japanese customs and etiquette from Terrace House than from any textbook.

Like how you say ‘tadaima’ when you come home and will always get a ‘okaeri’ in response.

And like how it’s totally normal to ask someone who looks a little less Japanese if they are ‘half’ mere minutes after meeting them.

And like how holding hands is a much bigger deal in Japanese dating culture than any Brit on Love Island would have you believe about British culture.

But, spoiler alert, my attitudes to dating were never like Love Island would have you believe to be totally normal for every single Brit. That’s where Terrace House becomes incredibly useful as a cultural resources.

The beauty of Terrace House is that it’s kind of like two shows in one. As well as the main show of the people in the house, there’s also regular cuts to a group of comedians and presenters watching together. This means that when something happens that does seem a little unusual, they’re there to not react or be like “Woah! That was weird!”

This video nicely sums up Terrace House if you’ve never seem the show.

youtube

Recently, whilst learning Korean and looking for something to watch that’s not K-drama (I’m sorry, other than Boys Over Flowers, I’ve just struggled multiple times to get into one) I found Hyori’s B&B.

Hyori’s B&B has become my Korean equivalent to Terrace House. It’s giving me the same cultural education that only reality TV can give, it seems.

There’s no second group of people watching to clarify when stuff is “normal in Korea” or not, but there is a slight divide between Hyori and her husband (and to some extent their celebrity staff helpers), and the guests. So sometimes, they discuss each other’s actions in that sense.

Also, differently to Terrace House, Hyori’s B&B has text pop up, obviously added by editors post-filming, which tries to assume how people felt in certain situations.

Here’s a quick intro to Hyori’s B&B if you’re new to that one. This is a random clip but it gives you an idea of how different it is to Terrace House with text and sound effects etc, yet alike in the mundane simplicity of the whole thing.

youtube

So with that in mind, how does this really work? Can reality TV really be used for language learning? Let’s dive in…

How to Use Reality TV for Language Learning

Most of the suggestions would work just as well with any type of TV, but I really just wanted to make the case for reality TV as I know, like me, not everyone loves drama shows!

Cultural Insights

Reality TV can be a great in context introduction to many aspects of a culture, giving you some base knowledge to research further and ask your tutors and language exchange partners about.

For example, I knew from the start of learning Korean that honourifics and respect for elders is a big deal in Korean culture. However, with Hyori’s B&B, I saw this in action when an elderly couple visited the house.

It’s also great to see attitudes to food and drink, for example.

Hyori and Sang-Soon make tea in an almost ritualistic way, with a full tea set on a tray that includes a cup for the initial bloom among other things. Of course, this could just be them or a small number of Koreans that do this, but it’s still an insight into something I don’t imagine many people doing at home in the UK.

Key Phrases in Context

The easiest way to use reality TV for language learning is to listen out for those key phrases that you hear again and again.

With Hyori’s B&B, they say ‘yeobuseyo’ when they answer the phone, which contradicts what I’d heard on a YouTube video!

I hear them say ‘kaja’ when they get ready to leave the house or walk the dogs.

With Terrace House, I noticed the words they say upon entering the house, and the response that everyone already there gives.

These things happen a lot in these types of shows. This means there’s plenty of chances for repetition without boring rote learning!

Read interviews or reviews of the show

A great way to expand beyond the show itself is to find interviews or reviews of the show online to read.

You might even find YouTube videos or podcasts here too, which would work well as extra listening practice. This is much more appealing because it’s on a topic you enjoy.

As I mentioned, I’ve noticed as well with Hyori’s B&B, there’s lots of text that comes up on the screen too.

Onomatopoeia type words and also these presumptuous statements about how the cast are feeling, such as “He’s sad because she’s sick.”

How they know for sure he’s sad and that her being sick is the reason why, I don’t know. But anyway, there’s extra text with that show as I watch, which is a nice bonus.

Stimulus for Free Writing

TV, whether it’s an entire series or an episode, or even a scene, can make for a great stimulus for a free writing piece.

Write a summary of what’s happened, what you think will happen next, or what you’d like to happen next. (See those chances for using different tenses there?)

Write an email, a review for a magazine, a script for a play. Get creative with the format and pick one to help give you some direction and structure.

Maybe even write a poem about the show! You’ve got complete creative control here.

If you’re looking for some inspiration for writing, here’s All The Writing Resources for Language Learning That You’ll Ever Need

Record Your Spoken Opinions

What do you think of the show? Record your opinions spoken aloud.

Of course, this works well as a follow-on activity from the free writing because you can simply record what you wrote.

Alternatively, if you’re feeling confident enough in the language to do it, go in with no plan and just start speaking as soon as you hit record!

Related: All The Speaking Resources You’ll Ever Need.

Change Tenses, People, Gender etc to Test Your Grammar

Pick a topic, any topic.

Just been reviewing how a certain tense works in that language? Watch a clip from the show. Pause it. Change the sentences you’ve just heard to that tense.

You can even expand to create further sentences related to the ones you’ve just switched.

Mindmap Vocab

With my current level in Korean, this one’s my favourite.

Simply watch a clip of the show until you catch a word/phrase you want to learn more throughly.

Start to mindmap that word and do some outside research to learn more related words.

Remember those onomatopoeia words I mentioned that always show on screen in Hyori’s B&B? I spotted one that led me to learning many more through this activity.

To show you how this works, I recorded myself doing it for this video too.

youtube

To catch more videos like this, be sure to subscribe to my channel on YouTube.

Free Netflix Study Pack

Ready to use TV for language learning? I’ve got a free Netflix Study Pack just for you to help you work through something. You’ll find this especially useful if you’ve never studied with TV. Click the image below to download it now.

How do you use TV for language learning? Do you like watching reality TV or is there another genre that works better for you? Share in the comments!

The post Why I Love Reality TV for Language Learning (+ how to make the most of it) appeared first on Lindsay Does Languages.

from WordPress https://ift.tt/2YYR5WS via IFTTT

#Language Learning

3 notes · View notes

hippychick006 · 6 years ago

Text

4.15 - Death takes a holiday

Another one under the cut. This is why Season 4 is taking me so long to get through, there’s a lot going on in each episode. Overall another good episode that starts out as a MOTW but turns out to be stopping one of the seals.

It’s been a long time since I learned first aid, but I don’t think CPR is the right approach for someone shot point blank range in the heart.

Oh, he came back to life. Well what do I know. Carry on.

Sam and Dean are pretending that the angst of the previous case hasn’t affected them so I guess I’ll go along with it too.

Bobby found the case this time. People are not dying - along with our buddy shot in the heart, a terminal cancer patient walked out of a cancer hospice so it sounds like their kind of case.

Oh, I was also wrong about Sam and Dean pretending that everything is okay. Dean’s holding a grudge. Siblings! In fairness to Dean, I’ve been holding a grudge with my sibling since I was 3 year old.

They are interviewing the guy shot in the heart, posing as bloggers “floored by the lord dot com”. Sam’s taken over from Dean in asking the weird questions department. “You wouldn't have happened to have swung by a crossroads in the past week or so?” and “Maybe you met someone? With black eyes? Or red?” They leave pretty quickly after that line of questioning.

They figure out that reapers aren’t taking souls for some reason so decide to talk to the last person who died to see if they can tell them what’s going on. This involves holding a seance at the grave.

While Sam’s setting up, Dean argues about whether they should be doing this, since what’s the problem if good people don’t die. Sam responds that it’s the natural order.

DEAN: You don't see the irony in that? I mean, you and me, we're like the poster boys of the unnatural order. All we do is ditch death.

SAM: Yeah, but the normal rules don't really apply to us, do they?

Dean laughs, then realises Sam is being serious: “We’re no different than anybody else!” Sam disagrees and says they are.

They get interrupted and awkwardly try to explain they are not devil worshippers, but luckily it’s just Alastair in a different meat suit. He TK’s Dean who goes flying into a grave and gets knocked out, and tries the same with Sam who doesn’t move. Sam TK’s Alastair and presumably goes to exorcise him but Alastair nopes right on out of there. Wuss.

Back at the motel, Dean’s got a headache from his head connecting with a gravestone. He asks why Alastair couldn’t fling Sam and Sam acts shifty. Dean says, “Sam, do me a favor. If you're gonna keep your little secrets, I can't really stop you, but just don't treat me like an idiot, okay?” Sam tries to deny it, but he’s a terrible liar where Dean is concerned.

Bobby keeps getting mentioned on the cases now and I might have to go back and look at when that started in earnest, because it’s actually annoying now. Anyway, they figure out they are dealing with one of the seals. Kill a reaper under the solstice moon which is the following night.

DEAN: How do you ice a reaper? You can't kill death. Oh Dean, in Season 10, it’ll be as easy as just grabbing his scythe.

Dean comes up with the plan to become ghosts so they can talk to the reapers (who can only see dead people or those near death). Sam says it’s crazy but goes along with it.

Cue Pamela Barnes for the third time this season. She seems a little grumpy this time around though. Can’t say I blame her, do they ever visit just for a beer?

They have an argument with Pamela about the crazy plan, and I’m surprised she didn’t already have this with Dean when he went to pick her up. After the “end of the world” speech though, she agrees to help and performs the required spell.

She whispers the incantation to bring them back in Sam’s ear. I’m not sure how legit it is since it’s “You have got a great ass.” Sam laughs and Dean wants in on the joke.

Poor boys, you can tell it’s freezing weather filming this one and Sam’s in just a hoody and t-shirt. They almost get run over by a jogger and that’s when Dean decides to see if he can get inside Sam (don’t @ me because that’s what he does, I’m only typing what I see). Sam however is not in the mood - presumably due to the whole mission thing - so tells Dean to get out of him (again Sam’s words, not mine). Oh show.

They stumble across the house of the last kid to die in the town who appears to be the only person that can see them so they decide to pay him a visit.

Sam tries to tell the kid, Cole, as nicely as possible that he’s dead, and Cole responds with “no shit Sherlock” - not his exact words since he’s 12, but near enough.

They find out the reaper did visit but was taken by black smoke. At that point another reaper appears and it’s Tessa from In My Time of Dying, but Dean can’t remember her. One random kiss later and he has his memories back. Sam seems a little cold to Tessa, but she did almost take his brother away so I think he can be forgiven.

Dean stays with Tessa while Sam goes to find Cole, who ran away when Tess appeared. Sam lies to the kid and tells him he can keep the reapers away if Cole will help them. It’s interesting that Sam can lie with absolute coldness to someone else but not Dean. The scene between them is heartbreaking, kudos on them both.

Meanwhile, Dean and Tessa have a talk. The important point of which is that Dean thinks the angels have given him a second chance. Tessa responds mmm hmmm.

Tessa’s grabbed by the black smoke. They enlist the help of Cole to help them learn how to physically move things and fight so they can go after the demons. Cole punches them and at first they aren’t going to fight a 12 year old, but after one punch too many, Sam soon forgets that shit and goes in for the hit. Luckily Cole knows how to doge by becoming invisible and appearing somewhere else, so they ask him to show them that too.

They turn up at the funeral home (where Cole says he first saw the black smoke). Somebody has went crazy with glow in the dark sigils, which they presume no one else can see. They tag team a demon and think they’ve got the upper hand, but other demons rush in and surround them with a chain of iron. And if that works, why don’t they use them instead of rings of salt which blow away in the wind? I’m confused.

Anyway, it was a trap and Alastair appears (in a different meat suit again) so he has to do the diva eye roll so we know it’s him. Why can’t he just say “It’s me!” Alastair.” He shoots Dean with rock salt. He disappears for a few seconds. When he reappears, Alastair is taunting Sam, about his mojo not working anymore since Sam’s not in his meat suit. This news receives a glare at Sam from Dean. Alastair then shoots Sam this time.

Dean says, “You can shoot us all you want, but you can’t kill us.”

Except Alastair didn’t move up the ranks to become a white eyed demon for nothing. Cue back to Pamela and she hears a noise. She gets up to lock the door and realises the window is open when she can feel a breeze.

While Alastair kills the reapers, Sam sees a light fitting above the trap the reapers are held in. He indicates to Dean and they both concentrate on moving it with their mind.

Cue back to Pamela again who gets attacked by a demon and tries to wake Sam up.

Back at the funeral home, the light finally falls and breaks the trap and Sam, Dean and Tessa disappear, though only Dean and Tessa reappear outside.

Sam has woken up in time to see Pamela get stabbed in the gut and he’s pissed. The demon is impressively TK’d against the motel door and swiftly exorcised. Again, I think we’re supposed to see this as a bad thing. All I see is a dead demon and you’re welcome world.

Sam tries to help Pamela but she can’t die right now due to the reaper situation.

Dean looks for Sam (as he has no idea he’s woken up) and comes across Alastair again who monologues for a minute and then is zapped by lightning. Dean’s suitably confused until Mr Cryptic in a trench coat appears and explains this was a win because they stopped a seal being broken and captured Alastair.

I was about to start calling Castiel out for being useless and not telling them what they were dealing with the moment they hit town, but Dean’s doing that for me right now. Turns out, it wasn’t Bobby that gave them the case, it was Castiel pretending to be Bobby. He didn’t ask directly because they usually do the opposite of what he asks. And he couldn’t help them in the funeral home because the place is warded against angels. Fine, I’ll give a free pass this time.

Dean asks that an exception be made to the people that had escaped death and Cass says “To everything there is a season.” Dean responds that they made an exception for him. Cass says, “You’re different.” This echoes what Sam said earlier in the episode, that they weren’t normal, they are different. Cass disappears in a flash of wings and Tessa appears again asking for Dean’s help.

They go back to Cole’s house where his mother is upset looking through his baby album. Cole realises they are there for him and that Sam lied about stopping the reapers. He tells Dean, “Tell your brother, thanks for nothing.” But between Dean and Tessa, they persuade Cole to move on.

After Cole disappears, Tessa tells Dean to stop lying to himself that the angels have something good in store for him. She says he should trust his instincts. She disappears and Pamela wakes him up.

Pamela’s rightly pissed that she’s dying and regrets ever being introduced to them. She beckons Sam over and whispers to him, “I know what you did to that demon, Sam. I can feel what’s inside of you. If you think you have good intentions, think again,” Sam’s poor face at this, because he wants to believe so much that he can use his tainted blood to do something good.

Pamela dies and Dean asks what she said to Sam. He looks away.

Well, that was traumatic, and On the Head of a Pin is up next. Torturer Dean and super powers Sam. Bring it.

#supernatural #season 4 #rewatch #4.15 #death takes a holiday #episode review

9 notes · View notes

valentineblaze · 6 years ago

Text

Endgame Spoilers

Listen up people I am here to rant.

Tony Stark is effing amazing and I love every second of his gilded trashbag life. But this was just a killer. Dad Tony was everything I wanted and more let me tell ya. I love you 3000 is freaking heartbreaking. I have no issue with his arc in the movie at all even if the end does cause me to break out into back breaking sobs because fuck you. If Tony is going to die by gauntlet then you had better be damn sure everyone he even peripherally gave a damn about is going to make it through this fight. Natasha, Gamora, Loki, and every single Asgardian Tony could remember would have been brought back because that man is the definition of all or nothing.

What I have issues with is the sheer lack of world building we get in this movie. Honestly its the Snap and the only glimpse of this Post apocalyptic world is group Therapy and Remembrance walls. As well as several miscellaneous flashbacks to Hawk-eyes surprise family? That not even comic fans are super attached too because they were literally made up probably for male man pain. Where was the atmosphere? Where was the drama? Where was the angst? Post snap was quite honestly not heart wrenchingly rendered into a suitable level of grief. It just wasn't. I expected break downs and rage. All I got was three seconds of Natasha tears as she has let someone else tracking down her soulbro. And a Tony Stark screaming at Captain America. This movie just told us what was happening didn't show us what was happening. It was piss poor story boarding.

Then there was the character development. Like wow. We get all these new and amazing side characters in which you could have fleshed out and made us root for and you just throw them to the sea like chum. -Captain marvel is just not there at all, she gets a gratuituous girl power scene which was random and then she gets slapped to the ground never to get up? Right after she take a head butt without a single flinch. You can small Thanos's fear right then. -Rocket gets to slap Thor? Thats it thats his most memorable moment other the holding Nebula's hand. -Rhodey has some of the best lines but no development or follow up. -Nebula there is so much happening off screen that it physically hurts me. She is amazing. I adore her. I want a series of her. Nebula is my bitch bea. I found a new hoe to die for and it is she. She is my new ride or die. Found family and redemption arcs come at me. -Sam and Bucky both get maybe two lines a piece and that just irks me.

Time travel... yes bitch I am always there for time travel hijinks and drama but honestly five minutes of a single episode of leverage had more heist feels then this three hour train wreck. It might have been the lack of a great soundtrack but it just wasn't that compelling to watch. I'm also really confused about the time travel thearory in this shit because they kept going back on thier own writing through out the movie (cough cough STEVE cough) I'm a fan of we rewrite the future by affecting the past. Butterfly effect is my Jam. This alternate reality thing is fun yes but it can't really be that because they may create alternate realities okay? then if there was the need for pym particals for time travel to occur how did Thanos's big ass army get enough to travel through time to the future? Because the avengers were out or at least low regardless of Steve's thievery and Nebula only had the one from my understanding. Also if changing the reality makes a new reality how the fuck was Steve in this reality.

Bruce , Bruce, Bruce. My beautiful green rage monster and yoga doctorate what have they done to you. What is going on. Why are you so cheerful. Why are you at peace. I hate to say it but go back. Why are we still doing this Nat/Bruce ship? It is so random. I just can't see it. Fandom can trick me into it for a few chapters but not forever. Ya'll should have taken a hint from Ragnorok give me that personality and it would have been a win. Shock and dismay was my only emotions when it came to this mess.

My constant rage with this series is pick up an effin comic book. Sit down watch a cartoon. If anyone is going to become a human disaster post Snap its going to be effin Hawkeye. Like yay Ronin cool but what the actual fuck. Why did you come at me like that? Hawkeye is not your edgy overlord. He probably would have died ages ago with out the female influences in his life. He has regular dates with dumpsters. I'm sure he even has a ranking system for prefered dumpsters to end up in after a beat down. Yes he is startlingly competent but even he doesn't know how he does it half the time. He eats food off the floor and thinks expiration dates are guidelines.

Thor was a new one. They threw me for a loop. One this man needs a hug. Two, why is no one hugging him? His rampant depression and weight gain shouldn't have been the butt of jokes. There should have been some honest concern and meaningful conversations with the living not the dead. Thor never doubted his mother's love. That was never up for debate. Thor is not to blame for the snap. Thor will give no fucks if he messes up the timeline if it means his family is alive and together. Especially post Ragnarok. Also I could have sworn Thanos killed every asguardian on his ship at the beginning of infinity war? How is Valkyrie alive? Why would Thor decide to go to space?

I’m not even gonna touch on the Black Widow for this one. I’m just not gonna go there. Blind rage doesn’t even cover it.

Howard Stark. Wow just wow I thought I was having some weird ass delusion. That man is scum. Comic canon scum. One of the smartest men on the planet yes, revolutionary war hero technically yes, great father and overall good human being? Hell to the no. Tony literally named his A.I. after Jarvis, cried over the death of J.A.R.V.I.S, I would have expected a quiet chat about fatherhood and marriage and how it can make the best out of any man (he hopes) before I got a conversation with dear old dad.

Why can’t Tony and Steve have one friendly conversation? A sense of camaraderie? Anything? Why is that so hard?

Steve "fight me" Rogers what has MCU done to you? I'm supposed to believe that you would have left Bucky Barnes to Hydra's hands for over 70 years. Im supposed to believe that you would have been in the past and had no interactions with Howard Stark. Im supposed to believe that the you married the Director of Shield and you didn't wax poetry about the amazing woman that diegned to marry you every damn day of your life? This woman on her deathbed told you she lived a long and fulfilled life and that you should move on to have the same happiness as she and you did what? That he wouldn't have dismantled every last bit of Hydra. That he would just let Natasha and Tony die because of that shitty delusional grape? The disrespect STEVEN the disRESPECT! I am a Stony stan for sure but hell if I don't respect Peggy Carter. So yay steve gets his happy cis gendered ending but what about the rest of em?

#i will spend the next week editing this #endgame #spoilers #i hate it #i really really hate it.#mcu #endgame spoilers #my rage doesn't hit civil war or ultron levels mostly because i'm just tired but #seething is accurate

2 notes · View notes

forte7 · 6 years ago

Photo

Forte’s Fan Character Flashback Friday - #6

Name: Wilde Series: Buzz Lightyear of Star Command Background: Whoopsie! Totally meant to post this earlier but I’ve had a lot going on lately that it slipped my mind until right now.

Anyway, this is definitely a character that had little development initially. If anything, she was more just a mere thought that I never did anything with except entertain once and a while. I don’t recall any kind of sketch for this character nor even an original name, so what we have here is probably the first and only kind of rendition I had for this character.

So, let’s start with some backstory, because I do feel this show is a little bit more obscure now. I remember being partially into it when I was younger after getting a VHS for Christmas of the Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins. This was the made-for-TV movie that was the starting point for the TV series and my cousin had gotten it for me cause it was related for Toy Story and like most kids at that time, I liked Toy Story and it was fine, cause it was a fun movie.

I remember instantly taking a liking to Warp, cause the sarcastic partner type character is always fun and remember being super fucking depressed when he died in the beginning of the movie. Of course, that meant nothing and I was a dumb 7/8 year old at the time and didn’t understand how story tropes work, cause it turns out Warp faked his own death so he could fully move to work for Evil Emperor Zurg, who he had done side jobs for while also being part of Star Command. I would say sorry for spoilers, but it’s been 18 years now (oh god I’m old) and again, I’m pretty sure this is an obscure series and considering he’s in the show, being told that he fakes his death in what is considered episode one isn’t... that... big... of deal? It’s a set up for later anyway to establish the relationship between Buzz and Warp anyway and... you know, unnecessary tangent, moving on.

So yeah, Warp became my favorite character, so much so that I even asked my cousin to occasionally record episodes that had Warp in them on VHS for me, cause either we didn’t have the channel at home or it aired right before I got home from school, so I always missed it. I remember playing an old game for the show on the Disney website, too, and even had a coloring book for the series, though I’m sure that is longggggggg gone by this point.

But like with most of my favorite characters at the time, Warp also got a pretty predictable, uninspired character created to tack onto him, because that’s just how my little mind worked. I actually kind of understand the psychological reasoning behind a lot of my older characters, but that is a rant for another day, I suppose.

Anywho, that character - or this character; just a mere thought or not, I guess they’re the same - would be his younger sister. Again, I didn’t actually have a name for her or at least not one I can remember and definitely no sketches that I recall or have ever rediscovered. I do remember she was just an innocent, moe like character back in the day, cause that was just the character trope I gravitated towards (again, we’ll have that talk on the psychological reasons why some other time).

She’s been pretty well “rewritten” at this point though, as mentioned before, so I guess that’s the version we’ll talk about, considering the original thought was merely that: a thought I occasionally entertained but really did nothing with.

The modern/current version of the character you’re looking at is named Wilde, which admittedly, I took from a trivia bit found on the Buzz Lightyear of Star Command wiki. Allegedly, one of the show runners/members wanted to make a sci-fi show called Warp Wilde that never got off the ground, however, another show member liked the sound of the name “Warp” so that was re-purposed for the character seen in BLoSC and the “Wilde” part lost to the cutting room floor of animated TV show production. Considering I could not come up with a suitable name myself for this character - and believe me, I tried; I combed through so many space and astronomical term lists and could not find anything I really liked - I decided that just slapping the dropped “Wilde” on to her would be a fun little throwback for a thing no one really cares about, hahah. The fact I couldn’t come up with a name now, when I like to think I’m a bit smarter and clever, might be why this character never had a name in the first place. Anyway, that’s how I got the name and while the reason itself is a bit of a cop out, I find it fits with the personality I’ve developed for her in this day and age.

As said before, she was just a quiet, innocent, moe character - like most of the others I’ve posted during this series - but I decided to dump that idea out the window and reinvent her, cause it made things more fun and I was pretty disappointed in what I had, or rather, didn’t have for this character as she was.

Current Wilde is very similar to Warp, in that she comes off cocky and confident. She may be young, but obviously is able to take care of herself. My background for her is that she’s left home to chase after her brother. This decision, of course, leads to her becoming more or less a street urchin of sorts, known for pick pocketing and sneaking into places she shouldn’t be.

She eventually reunites with him after a heated sibling argument about both of their probably questionable decisions and noting a similar penchant for trouble, he let’s her stick around so he has a better idea of what she may be up to. Of course, she’s Wilde and still tends to get into unseen situations despite her brother’s supervision, granted it’s not the most mindful of supervision anyway.

Again, even though she’s young, her ability to take care of herself, her quick wit and confidence, and useful ability to slip in and out of places gets her accepted onto Zurg’s “Will Consider For Random Jobs for Evil Even Though She’s a Kid” List, hence why she has a similar space suit design to Warp’s (that and it’s just kinda cool looking; I mean they incorporated a spoopy face into it and that’s just awesome).

Besides, Zurg hiring capable kids isn’t beyond him, especially in the show, considering there was that one time he cloned the main characters and because of a lack of time to let them mature, sent evil, child version of Buzz and Friends, so it works, right? Right.

Anyway, that’s how she gets roped into things, though most of it seems to be a conscious decision on her part. I like to think even in situations where she’s not wanted or invited to, she would stow away and end up there regardless, because that’s just what she does. She flies around, whacks people in the shins with her batons, and leaves.

She’s more or less a little brat and because she looks up to her older brother, who’s a double-crossing, death faking agent for an Evil Emperor who wants to take over the universe, she tends to come off as arrogant and mean-spirited. Of course this is probably just sibling parroting and I like to think she has a little bit better of a conscience than Warp and other older characters from the series, but she unfortunately has poor choices in role models.

I’m gonna stop ranting though, cause the time it took me to type all this out (I should’ve queued this a few days ago really) has pushed me posting this to technically Saturday and that makes me sad. Oh well, hope you enjoy my rambling anyway, hahaha.

#forte's art #forte's fan character flashback friday #fan character flashback friday #buzz lightyear #buzz lightyear of star command #blosc #oc #original character #fan character #warp #warp darkmatter

43 notes · View notes

angelholme · 3 years ago

Text

M4M&I — Day 7 : Betty & Veronica

So maybe the most entertaining part of MMI is the fact I get to play “Six Degrees of Me” when I start writing an entry. And it turns out that Betty & Veronica is really a subject that leads in all sorts of strange directions before I get to the topic that I originally wanted to write about (or at least the one that it prompted in my mind when I came to write about it).

First I should explain how I come up with the topics, because it sounds like I come up with a topic, then find a title for the entry to segue into the topic — and that isn’t true.

The first year, the redoubtable Miss Fletcher provided the words, and the second year I put the words from the first year in a list, then just randomly cut and pasted them into a new order with a note of what I had written about the year before (so I wouldn’t duplicate myself).

For the third year I asked my most beloved to provide some words from June through to the following April, which she very kindly did (she is very nice like that, and yeah I know how patronising that sounds — shut up) and this year I just picked random words through the year as I was watching TV, films or listening to music.

Now for those of you who have seen the film, it will not come as a surprise that Betty & Veronica came from “Heathers” — a truly amazing film staring Winona Ryder and Christian Slater that is one of my favourite films for reasons I am not entirely sure of (but that I can probably explain later).

However despite growing up in the UK and not being all that familiar with American comics, I am aware that the “original” characters of Betty and Veronica (at least the ones that most people know) did not originate at Westerburg High — at least not the Westerburg High that JD and Heather visit their righteous justice upon.

They are from a comic called Archie that is a great deal older than I am. I don’t know the exact ins and outs — never read them and have no plans to — but that’s where the original Betty and Veronica come from.

I do know that some of the characters from Archie possibly gave birth to the world of Sabrina (“The Chilling Adventures” makes reference to Greendale and sometimes to Riverdale I think) and to Riverdale) but again — I cannot give you the ins and outs of all that because, quite honestly, I don’t really care all that much. The Chilling Adventures was suitably entertaining without needing to know the backstory, and I’ve never watched Riverdale because…… well I don’t know why — I guess it never appealed to me.

However the first time I remember hearing the phrase “Betty & Veronica” was not in “Heathers”

I guess I should explain, because I already said that’s where it came from, and no doubt you are all wondering if I have lost my mind. (I haven’t).

Back when I was in university, a friend of mine lent me a book called “Microserfs” by a guy called Douglas Copeland. It was very good and very well written. So when I found a second book — jPod — I was suitably interested and it was equally entertaining, if a little confusing in places.

But then my most beloved found they’d made a series of it, and pointed me towards the first two episodes. (I told you she is very nice like that). And they were fantastic. Because within the first half hour, Ethan (the start) was helping his mother bury the body of a drug dealer she had killed.

After that, I watched the next eleven episodes, and it was in Episode 10 that Bree talks to Ethan about the two women he likes (Kaitlyn and Sarah) and she says you have the classic “Betty & Veronica” problem.

Which is where I first heard the two names paired together like that. (In Heathers Betty Finn and Veronica Sawyer are friends, but no one wants to date both of them or decide between them, so they are not “Betty & Veronica”)

I realise I have taken quite a while to get here, but like I said this is part of the fun of “May” — wandering around the inner depths of my brain, making the odd connections that link all sorts of things that you would not think possible to connect

Because despite all of this, I haven’t actually got started on where I was going — which is dark humour.

I remember watching one episode of jPod in the office at work (I was on my lunch, and this was back when I actually went into the office to work — just to give you an idea of how long ago it was) and laughing a lot to myself, then having to explain to someone who was walking past why I was laughing to myself and realising it was kind of hard.

Because basically Kaitlyn was trying to talk to Ethan about whether or not she should take a promotion that would a) make her his boss within the pod and b) by extension would prevent them from dating (because bosses aren’t permitted to date the people they are overseeing) and she is upset that he doesn’t seem to be paying attention to her.

However the reason he is not paying attention to her is that half an hour earlier he learned that his mother accidentally ran over their former boss, then found him dead in their driveway. And now the dead body of their former boss is behind the sofa that he and Kaitlyn are sat on, and he has to find a way to a) dispose of the body and b) try to make it look like their former boss died from a drug overdose instead of being run over by his mother.

So clearly Ethan has other things on his mind.

This, to me, was hilarious.

And was a very good example of very well written dark humour — and of all the examples of humour (farce, word play, slapstick, stand up and so on) I think that well executed dark humour has to be my favourite because it threads a very, very fine needle.

You have to make sure it is funny, and that it is very dark (trying to find a place to bury a dead body, discussing the problems of taking a promotion while hiding a dead body behind a sofa) but that it offsets it with day to day problems (while they are trying to find a place to bury the body they are discussing the fact that it is very hard to find a place to bury a body, but that’s probably a good thing because if it was easy the human race would have died out years ago).

If you make it too dark then it ceases to be funny, and if you don’t inject a bit of light into it, then it ceases to be funny. But if you try too hard to make it be funny then it ceases to be dark and just becomes sad.

jPod — the writers of the series, along with Douglas Copeland — did this very, very well.

There was also a series called Tales of The Unexpected that did this pretty well, back when I was a child. Some of them were not supposed to be humour (the episode with the old woman and the two children was not funny and just creepy) but the one on the boat with the woman and her husband was — whether it intended to be or not — incredibly funny.

Everyone needs some dark humour in their life. And I have definitely embraced it — along with sarcasm, satire and saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.

#may myself and i #m4m&i #day 7 #betty & veronica #betty and veronica

1 note · View note

gwydionae · 7 years ago

Text

You'd Be Surprised How Much Pain Can Help With That

A/N: Just had some thoughts on Paultin in 94. Because of course I did. No excuses - just thoughts.

Posted on fanfiction.net >here<. Posted on AO3 >here<.

Teaser: Paultin knew exactly what kind of drunk he was. These weren't the signs of a cheerful, pleasant drunk. No, he was definitely the loud, crass, disorderly sort. And this time he was going to use that to his advantage.

Disclaimer: I do not own Dice, Camera, Action or Dungeons and Dragons. Takes place during episode 94. Title and dialogue taken directly from the show.

You’d Be Surprised How Much Pain Can Help With That

When it came to pain - especially the sort that couldn't be healed with rest, bandages, or spells - alcohol, even copious amounts, could only do so much to dull the effects. Paultin knew this all too well. He might grow numb for a while, his mind blank while the ocean waves blurred past the small ship, but eventually that would wear off, usually upon waking from a nap or full night's rest to a pounding headache. And somehow, since the storm, with each passing day those moments of lucidity grew more and more painful, his conflicting desires each screaming at him to listen while the very fiber of his being felt torn between the dull comfort of apathy and the extreme highs and lows that came with having actual emotions. The wine would always help apathy win in the end, but every moment of sobriety piled more guilt onto him for ignoring the increasingly loud cries for action echoing within him.

That trope about the little shoulder angels and devils might have been one of the oldest in the book, but the idea wasn't too far off from the war waging in Paultin's mind. On one hand, there was a part of him that thought perhaps he should offer an apology for snapping at his travel companions, use it to calm them down so he could try to explain in simpler terms that not dying was the ideal outcome of any given situation. He really wasn't sure why something like that needed an explanation, but then, after the whole mess with the Storm Giants...

And that was where the other, louder, nastier side of him would chime in. He'd been no better. By putting a stop to the giants' magic, he had endangered everyone on the ship, condemning Captain Ortimay to a watery grave and nearly losing Strix and Evelyn. His fellow party members had never listened to him before, and proving himself deaf to his own words only made it less likely they'd listen to him now. Not that he blamed them. He wasn't a natural leader, he didn't have incredible strength, nor could he shoot fireballs from his open palms; he was just your average bagpipe playing drunk incapable of keeping those around him - his "new family" - safe.

That little devil inside of him sneered at the title, chastising him for admitting such a thing, especially out loud for anyone to hear. Evelyn, Diath, and Strix had become something he could only barely remember having in what felt like another life, something he'd been so careful to never have again. Because having something meant that it could be lost, and while the loss of friends was certainly undesirable, the loss of a second family wasn't a loss he was confident that he was capable of dealing with. But they were a part of him now, so it seemed his only option was to sit back and watch uselessly as they each burned out in one blaze of glory after another.

Unless...

Usually this was the part where Paultin forcibly shut both sides of his brain up by drowning them in alcohol, the possible solution to his dilemma one that he was sure to both hate and consider with far too much interest. But after his most recent little chat with Evelyn ended with her again cherry picking which words of his she wanted to hear, the desire to at last indulge his more selfish side, a side he'd been trying to suppress for the sake of everyone around him, finally won out. But while Evelyn may have gotten him to at last listen to this selfish plan of his, it was Captain Ruddell handing him a key to his private store of the finest wines that pushed him into action.

Paultin knew exactly what kind of drunk he was. Sure he didn't often remember what he'd done or said afterwards, but he'd found himself waking up in back alleys face down in vomit - as opposed to in a bed at the inn he could have sworn he'd been playing at - enough times to have a pretty clear idea. The occasional bruises and bloody lips helped to fully flesh out the picture. These weren't the signs of a cheerful, pleasant drunk. No, he was definitely the loud, crass, disorderly sort. And this time he was going to use that to his advantage.

If there was one thing he had come to learn about the colorful group around him, it was the lengths they each would go in order to protect each other. Whether that pain be physical, emotional, or otherwise, all three of them were ready to defend against it, no matter the cost. He was going to exploit those instincts, using a simple enough plan involving the two things he was best at: drinking and being a complete asshole.

After the first several days, things seemed to be going well, as far as he could tell, anyway. Paultin was far too drunk to actually remember a whole lot of what he'd done or said exactly, but both Evelyn and Diath were noticeably shooting him disapproving looks, and Strix, well, she couldn't even get within ten feet of him without jumping and scampering off in a random direction. No one confronted him about his destructive behavior, either, preferring to deal with the issue by keeping a wide berth, probably hoping they could ride it out until he regained his senses and composure.

But the reality of the situation wasn't what they were hoping for; all of this was the plan working as it was designed. He'd allowed himself to get too close, dooming himself to a life of helplessly watching a bunch of catastrophically selfless people die, and the only way to correct that oversight was to disconnect. Unfortunately, however, he had become too attached to simply leave, and even if he could have, they likely would have attempted to drag him back. Unless, of course, he gave them enough reasons not to.

A sober Paultin could never have carried out such a plan. Diath's disgust, Evelyn's disappointment, Strix's distance, all would have compounded painfully until regret settled in and his normal behavior did in fact return. But a thoroughly, utterly plastered Paultin? That fancy wine of Ruddell's made him numb to such pain, and even when it temporarily wore off, he generally found himself in the lone company of the ever stalwart Simon, free of the obvious signs of his forgotten cruelties.

He would force their hand, persuade them to finally give up on him and move on. After all, you can't lose what you no longer have, and he'd rather they cut him off then be pulled along behind while he watched their corpses pile up. Again.

After nearly three weeks of this, he'd lost a drinking buddy, found a hippo spaceman, and had rudely eavesdropped on more private conversations than the number of missions the four of them had managed to botch thus far, a fact that made it all the more shocking they hadn’t threatened to throw him overboard yet. They had also, however, gained one Zhentarim ship, too far to be an immediate threat, but close enough to know that it was indeed following them. The desire to help that he knew would probably never really go away made the absence of the mandolin with its Fly spell gnaw at him. Combo that with Invisibility and at the very least he could have found out exactly what they'd be up against upon finally reaching Waterdeep. But as usual he remained the helpless drunk who got to sit back and watch as -

"Paultin, you're the best to do this."

Having paid such little attention to the worried mutterings going on around him, it took him a moment to realize not only that his party was discussing a possible recon mission, same as he had been, but also that for the first time in weeks someone was directly addressing him. Strix, to be exact. Flinch-at-his-every-glance Strix. Strix, who had a flying broom, wanted him to go to the ship nearly a mile away. Even sober he would have had trouble keeping the irritation out of his response.

"No problem, I'll just fly over there on my mando- oh wait."

"I'll give you my broom!"

"I dunno know how'da use that thing!"

"You just point and go!"

Strix was now shoving her magical flying broom in his direction, glaring at him pointedly to take it. Blinking down at it with far more interest than he wanted to admit, Paultin glanced from the broom to her face and back before finally reaching out. As his hand curled around the handle, he could feel a familiar hum of magic against his fingertips and palm. It was wild and thrilling, and even as he slowly attuned to it he had a sense that it was something he'd never fully be able to tame. It took him a second to refocus on Strix as she spoke again, wringing her hands nervously. Her eyes, however, were clear and serious.

"I'm sorry that we all try to kill ourselves... all the time... And that's not smart, but it's because we all care very much about each other. And I'm sorry that I was a bad friend, and I care about all of you..."

Paultin was sure he had responded, probably in a suitably off-handed sort of way that wouldn't reveal his feelings on the whole exchange too much, but as his slightly-more-terrifying-than-he'd-expected mission concluded and everyone went back to busying themselves on the ship, he found that the bottle in his hand seemed to reach his lips less and less. The entire conversation with Strix nagged at him, but it wasn't until late that night, a time he'd normally be passed out on the floor too drunk to climb into his hammock, that he stumbled upon why. And as the rest of his companions slept, his eyes remained open and unclouded, that little angelic voice in his head finally gaining his attention for the first time since he'd put this whole plan into motion.

From the depths of his memory sprang a scene on another ship, one flying high in the sky rather than sailing the seas. He’d been drinking heavily then, too, doing his best to forget the fifty odd years he’d spent wandering the Mists. But a voice had interrupted his nonexistent thoughts, the sound of his name carrying through a nearby doorway as hushed voices discussed a different recon mission.

“ – have Paultin make one of us invisible. Not him – he’s too drunk. We can’t trust him to listen to anyone.”

Looking back, it was hard to blame Strix. He hadn’t truly appreciated his friendship with all of them until he was forced to go so long without it, and his decisions up to that point reflected as much. His self-serving actions really gave her no reason to believe he could be trusted with something so important. But now, months upon months later, that scene played out differently. They were still on a ship, there was still an intelligence gathering mission, and he was still drunk. The only real difference was that they had put their faith in him to handle it.

The dawning realization of the uncanny parallels between the two moments in time combined with Strix’s heartfelt apology to a man that had been nothing but antagonistic toward her for weeks caused an unfamiliar ache in Paultin’s chest to blossom. It wasn’t a new feeling, but it was certainly one he generally did everything in his power to prevent. Pain wasn’t something he was fond of, and caring about people other than himself had introduced him to some of the worst pains of all - guilt, fear, anxiety, grief, loneliness... Instinctually he took a sip of wine.

He knew, though, that this ache didn't only promise pain. Despite the countless horrors they had all lived - and sometimes died - through, still the first visions that sprang to his mind when he focused on it were of the calmer moments. Evelyn's bright-as-the-sun smile as she watched him play his mandolin, Simon on her lap. Strix excitedly baking everyone pies and cookies whenever she got the chance. Even the usually broody Diath standing at the ship's wheel with his shirt off, probably thinking no one was noticing his occasional glances over at Strix to see if she was watching. Peace, joy, affection - emotions he had faked his way through plenty of times, but somehow this ragtag group of misadventurers had caused him to experience all of them in very real ways.

The plan, however, had already been set in motion. Even if he wanted to put an end to it now, he wasn't sure if he could. Strix may have forgiven him and promised to take his words of caution to heart, but Evelyn and Diath's cold stares held a look of a trust broken, and he wouldn't blame them if such a thing was too utterly mangled to be fixed. But still that annoying little voice in his head told him that he should try, the ache in his chest begging him to fill it with more of those happy moments.

Paultin took one last drink from his half full wine bottle before setting it down, laying down next to Simon, and closing his eyes. He honestly wasn't sure which side he would listen to tomorrow as they continued their long trek or what he would do once they finally reached Waterdeep. Planning had never been his strong suit, a fact emphasized by how much one, small conversation had derailed his most recent agenda. He would wait and see, let the actions of others spur him forward as he usually did, remaining just tipsy enough to dull the guilt, but not enough to hold his tongue if need be.

The final thought that drifted through his mind before sleep at last overtook him was that, perhaps, he could maybe try to lighten up a little on Strix. Just a bit. Maybe.

A/N: The parallels - and differences - between the recon missions in 94 and 59 really struck me. Paultin's grown a lot since then, even if, looking at 94 on its own, it might not seem like it.

As always, critics and grammar police are appreciated!

#dice camera action #waffle crew #paultin seppa #strix #strix skizzicks #my fanfiction #i am never going to write anything happy for dca am i lol

24 notes · View notes

bloggerjoedoe · 4 years ago

Link

Soor’s iOS 14 widgets.

Editor’s Note

Every year, we publish around 60 issues of MacStories Weekly and the Monthly Log for Club MacStories members. MacStories Weekly is packed with our favorite apps, app collections, shortcuts, answers to Club members’ questions, a column called The Extension that covers topics beyond our usual day-to-day coverage at MacStories.net, MacStories Unplugged, our Club-exclusive podcast, interviews, Home Screens, tips, and more. You can read a free sample here.

The Monthly Log features long-form stories on whatever topics are currently on our minds. Because that’s a little hard to imagine in the abstract, we wanted to share the following story by Federico that was adapted from the September issue of the Monthly Log as an example of the type of stories it includes every month.

If you enjoy MacStories.net but want even broader and deeper coverage from the MacStories team, please consider joining Club MacStories. As a new member you’ll receive the newsletters, have access to our full archive of five years back issues, and enjoy other perks throughout the year. We work hard to make each issue special for Club members and would love for you to be a part of it.

You can find out more about Club MacStories and subscribe here.

As I detailed in a recent episode of AppStories, I’ve spent several weeks tweaking my iPhone’s Home Screen and playing around with different approaches to widgets and app icons. The layout I eventually settled on (which you can find in the AppStories show notes) takes advantage of dark mode to create the illusion of widgets “blending” into the wallpaper – specifically, the Soor widgets at the top of the page. Given how I believe Soor’s developer Tanmay Sonawane has taught Apple a lesson when it comes to building Apple Music widgets for iOS 14, and considering the app’s most recent update, I thought I’d write about these widgets in more detail.

The first thing you should know is this: Apple’s Music widget for iOS 14 is lazy and limited to showing you music you recently played in the Music app, and nothing more. By contrast, Soor offers a highly customizable mix of different widgets with support for inline configuration and multiple sizes: there’s a Now Playing widget with playback controls and your Up Next queue; a Magic Mix widget lets you instantly play a magic mix (Soor’s equivalent of smart playlists, which are still missing from Apple Music) with one tap; and with the Music Collection widget, you can add any section from the app to the Home Screen, including specific albums or playlists, top songs, and more. The flexibility offered by Soor is exactly what I was hoping Apple would do with their Music widgets, but they didn’t.

As you may have heard on AppStories, I’m using three Soor widgets in a stack at the top of my Home Screen: Now Playing, Magic Mix, and Favorites. By far my most used one is the Now Playing widget, which provides me with an instant overview of what’s playing and coming up next; because Soor uses the native system music player, anything playing in the Music app is also displayed in Soor, so if you prefer to manage your queue in Apple’s app but rely on Soor’s widgets for the Home Screen, you can do that.

What’s even more impressive, however, is the workaround Sonawane implemented in the app’s latest update: if you enable playback controls in the Now Playing widget’s configuration screen, tapping the play/pause and skip buttons in the widget will not launch the Soor app. In theory, this shouldn’t be possible since widgets in iOS 14 do not support inline interactions: any tap on a widget opens the associated app. I don’t know the exact details of Soor’s workaround, but my understanding is that when you tap the playback buttons, the Soor app launches for a fraction of a second and instantly “crashes” back to the Home Screen, tricking you into thinking the widget is interactive. You can tell this is what happens under the hood if you pay close attention to the animation of the widget when you tap buttons – you can see the widget tries to open Soor for a split second, then stops. This is a clever hack, and it’d be nice to see other developers implement it as well.

The ability to customize Soor’s Favorites widget is also new in the app’s latest update. I configured this widget to show me four specific playlists I find myself shuffling on a regular basis: Best of 2020, Family, Favorites Mix, and New Music Mix. To do this, I first configured the Music Collection widget to use ‘Favorites’ as a collection type and disabled the ‘Artwork Only’ and ‘Open In Apple Music’ options since I want to see playlist names and open them in Soor. Then, in Soor’s Settings under the Widgets section, I picked the four items I wanted to see in the medium-size widget. The beauty of this approach is in how Soor lets you pick anything from your library or Apple Music and turn them into quick launchers for the widget; you can even save a specific Apple Music search as a launcher for the widget or use a ‘For You’ section as source. I still can’t believe Apple didn’t create a similar widget for their own Music app in iOS 14.

Configuring the Favorites widget.

Lastly, I want to mention magic mixes. Those who have been reading my stories and listening to my shows over the past few years know how much I’d love to see smart playlists become available in the Music app for iPhone and iPad. The lack of smart playlists on iOS and iPadOS is one of the many reasons why I created MusicBot with support for smart mixes last year. With Soor, however, I’ve found a suitable alternative to smart playlists thanks to the ability to assemble dynamic mixes that fetch songs from specific sources in my library, apply filtering criteria, and shuffle them.

I’ve created four magic mixes in Soor, which are now pinned to the widget: Genius Mix, Death Cab for Cutie Shuffled, My Chemical Romance Shuffled, and Oasis Shuffled. The last three are pretty self-explanatory: they take any song from those artists, limit the results to 30 songs, and start playing them on shuffle. As you can see in the screenshot below, I used every album from those artists as the source instead of creating a filter such as “Source: Library – Artist: Oasis”. This is one of the limitations of Soor’s magic mixes: in my tests, picking your entire library as the source caused massive delays in the execution of the magic mix (which is generated on the fly every time you tap it); it’s much faster to pick a subset of sources (such as multiple albums or playlists) and filter those instead.

How to shuffle songs by my favorite artists with magic mixes in Soor.

I applied the same technique to the Genius Mix, where I tried to replicate the namesake functionality from my MusicBot shortcut. The goal of this mix is to give me something to listen to I’d probably like even if it isn’t necessarily a recent music release. Here’s how I set it up in Soor:

For sources, I picked a variety of playlists, including my annual ‘Best Of’ ones, Apple’s Replay playlists, and my saved Shazam tracks;

I set the Play Count filter to “more than three”;

I configured the Last Played filter to fetch tracks I’ve played at least once in the past three years;

I excluded songs shorter than 60 seconds, since I don’t want interludes to end up in the mix;

Lastly, I set the playback mode to shuffled and limited the mix to 50 songs.

Using the Genius Mix.

Now, every time I tap the Genius Mix button in the Soor widget, a random selection of songs I love starts playing within a couple seconds in the background. The currently playing item and queue is instantly reflected in the Now Playing widget, which is just one swipe away in the stack. And if I don’t like the songs fetched by the Genius Mix, I can just tap it again and let it create a new selection for me.

Over the years, I’ve always resisted the idea of using third-party Apple Music clients because I like the Music app and want to make sure I can access all of the service’s latest features. I’m making an exception for Soor’s iOS 14 update: its widgets pack incredible utility into a compact design, and the combination of magic mixes and widgets is the replacement for iTunes-inspired smart playlists I didn’t know I needed. Hopefully, an iPad version of Soor will be coming next.

Support MacStories Directly

Club MacStories offers exclusive access to extra MacStories content, delivered every week; it’s also a way to support us directly.

Club MacStories will help you discover the best apps for your devices and get the most out of your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Plus, it’s made in Italy.

Join Now Source: Mac Stories

#Gadget #Gizmo #technology #tech news

0 notes

frozenmiwa · 4 years ago

Text

Review: Rise of the turtles, part 2 (TMNT 2012)

Here we go again, I know it’s been a while. Originally, I meant to get this review out during the quarantine last March but I never got to it. I got the first season on DVD during March and I thought of just watching the episodes from DVD instead of finding them online. During June I got myself a problem however: My TV broke (or more precisely: speakers broke) so I couldn’t really watch anything with any kind of audio. Now that I have my new beautiful TV, I thought nothing would be more suitable for my first watch than some TMNT.

With that, I decided to take a notepad, sit on my sofa and watch the second episode.

Continuing the last episode, Turtles realize who ever took April and her father, may have some answers to what happened to them 15 years ago so they end up interrogating Snake, the man who was driving the van. While they find out the “people” doing these kidnappings are called “The Kraang” and that they have been kidnapping scientists from the city, they don’t find out why. Snake himself doesn’t know the answer, he tells the turtles where they can find the Kraang but manages to get away from them later on. While he is listening in Leo and Raph trick him into believing they are going to use his van to drive in as they are attempting to save April and her father – which is not actually way they plan to use his van. The turtles return to the lair to gear up for their mission. Raph has a tender moment with his pet turtle while Mikey pops up and ends up being chased by Raph with spoon. While Leo is having doubts whether their plan will be a success or not, Splinter then encourages Leo by telling about his past, of how Splinter – as a man lost everything due to a feud with a former friend, Oroku Saki. While Splinter may have lost his family and his name, but he eventually gained a lot of things, like his sons. Leo not completely sure about things, he is positive they will make it through the mission somehow

In the Kraang headquarters April makes a hilarious attempt on escaping and failing at it, while Snake and the Kraang guards outside are waiting for the turtles to arrive. Turtles are on their way alright, using the van as a distraction while they themselves use a different way of transport. When the turtles have found their way inside the building, it turns out it is not something you’d see every day as the place is filled with alien robots. After a while they manage to find April and her dad, however once the turtles are about to get them out, the Kraang appeared and took both humans away. Turtles chase after them but a newly mutated Snake (later named Snakeweed by Mikey) shows up and turtles find themselves yet another battle. This leaves Donnie to save April before she’s taken away by the Kraang. While Donnie manages to save April, her father isn’t quite as lucky as he is still at the clutches of the Kraang.

In the end rest of the turtles manage to take care of Snakeweed – even though not permanently. April moves in with her aunt and is determined to get her father back somehow, the turtles (or mainly Donnie) offer their help in the matter and thus gain their first human ally. So, all is well – or as well as it can be at the moment.

Or is it?

As turtles find out, one of their shuriken ends up in the news, while turtles think it’s cool, Splinter tells them to be more careful from now on as they are mainly meant to say hidden for their own good. And he is right about that as we find out someone very sinister is seeing this very same news broadcast in Japan and plans on visiting an old friend…

What I liked about the episode:

+ Over all this was a very good episode, it had a solid plot, good pacing and great action scenes. Even that one where April tries put up a fight. I found that scene very comical and entertaining. However, my favorite fight scene had to be the one where the turtles face off newly mutated Snakeweed.

+ Speaking off Snakeweed, I’m glad we saw what his mutation process looked like. As far as I can remember I don’t think we have seen mutation scenes in previous shows, so I haven’t really payed the process much attention until now. From what I could tell the whole process was painful and it had horror-esque feel to it, so that’s a plus.

+ I know I didn’t give April much of praise on my first review and it is no secret I hate her with burning passion, but in this episode, I found myself kind of liking her character. She wasn’t someone I would go nuts over, but her personality showed off nicely. Nothing of her personality came off as forced and I liked her interactions with Donnie even though I do not ship Apritello in this version.

+ I really liked the ending, it wrapped out the episode nicely but also brought up a new threat in Shredder while not giving away too much when it comes to his appearance. This helps to keep his character as sinister as he should be.

What I didn’t like:

Honestly, I don’t think there was a thing I didn’t enjoy about this episode, and that’s a first. My only complaint doesn’t have to do with the episode itself but the way the episode was put on DVD. I’m perfectly aware this episode was meant to be one parter, but it in some releases it was presented as a two parter. I remember seeing this one as parts 1 and 2 myself when it aired in my country. I would have liked if the DVD did the same, but oh well, at least I got to watch the whole thing as it was intended.

…I don’t have lot to say about the dub Finland eventually got, simply because I don’t remember much about it. What I do remember I did enjoy Shredder’s Finnish voice. He was voiced by Jarmo Mäkinen, who voiced Valtor from Winx Club as well as Savanti Romero and Zanramon for the third season of TMNT 2003. While he didn’t have deep voice like Kevin Michael Richardson but that didn’t stop him from sounding menacing. I think Mäkinen is similar Markus Bäckman who voices Splinter in a way they sound great as villains. What I like about Mäkinen is that he is able to portray his villains (and I’m mainly talking about his interpretation of Prime leader Zanramon in the season 3 of TMNT 2003) as chill one moment and threatening the next. So, I would say he was a good pick for Shredder. Now I only wish I could have a good memory of him voicing Shredder.

And now, some screen shots!

Turtles seeing the mutagen cannister. I really love their expressions here.

Raph about to do some interrogation....

...In a form of mutation roulette. One of my favorite scenes in the episode. I like the glowing effect they did with the ooze here.

Kraang base.

“What? I can be the only one who’s hungry.” - I can relate.

Everyone here: Mikey, weren’t you supposed to do something?

Leo and Raph looking for Snake.

Snake hiding.

Donnie at work.

Raph busted after having a sensitive talk with his pet turtle, Spike.

“Were you talking to your pet turtle? That is so adorable.”

Leo having some doubts. Luckily Splinter has a story to tell.

Last battle between Hamato Yoshi and Oroku Saki. I swear from this angle young Oroku Saki does remind me of Hamato Yoshi from 2003 series.

Tang-Shen with their baby daughter Miwa, during the battle.

Oroku Saki starting the fire...

...Which kills Tang-Shen (at least it seemed so before season two that is.)

April knows her rights alright..

But because the Kraang don’t care about their rights she comes up with a plan...

...Buuut it doesn’t look like it’s working.

“Well I guess we can just sit here..” - I must say I like coloring of their cell.

Snake and some Kraangdroids waiting for turtles’ arrival.

Snake mutation.

Turtles climbing the wall.

And they made it in. I really like they gave each turtle different eye color in this version but during action scenes they still have white eyes like in the comics.

Argument between Donnie and Raph.

Some alien robots.

...But now they are toast.

It’s a brain thing!

And now it’s biting Mikey!

This is what happens when you pause an episode at a random moment. Mikey looks cute though.

You heard him Raph, we are going that way.

Donnie manages to find April’s cell.

Action with Mikey.

Donnie picking the lock.

“Hey, do you think it’s easy to pick a lock with these hands?”

Not so fast...

...Because these guys are here.

And with them, more trouble arrives.

Like newly mutated Snakeweed for example.

April being taken away by the Kraang.

Leo figuring out the plan to get rid of Snakeweed.

...While Donnie is trying to save April.

And now it’s April’s turn to hang in there.

April saved by Donnie.

Leo in action.

Snakeweed electrocuted.

Turtles have gained themselves some new enemies.

It’s Kraangy! ...Wait, that doesn’t happen until season 2... or 3... can’t remember.

Turtles promise to help April find her father.

Maybe it’s just me but I find April’s pupils creepy looking. They make her eyes look souless... at least to me.

I swear Donnie has the cutest design ever.

Leo talking to Splinter inside the dojo.

Watching the news.

Okay, who dropped this?

Yay, they made it on the news!

So what’s the worst thing can happen?

Well there’s always this omnious person.

Ending still.

Okay I admit, I may have over do it with the screen shots but they are my favorite thing about these reviews, that and getting to watch some TMNT.

So, what’s next? For now, I’m going for the third episode of TMNT 2003. Hopefully it doesn’t take as long as this post. We can always hope, right?

#tmnt2012review

1 note · View note

podcake · 7 years ago

Text

Week Four: Smash/Cut Review

As a person who has considered their ability to create interesting content to be one of my defining personality traits and hopefully means to be financially secure with one of those “artistic careers” I’ve heard about, I can’t help but be interested in any media that wishes to tackle the creative process.

And as I continue this third installment of September in Review through the fading haze of a birthday celebration, looking back on my old artistic escapades I enraptured myself in during my budding youth, I only have to ask myself-Where do I go from here? Keep reviewing things, I suppose. Be someone officially in their twenties, make money and make a podcast, and live long enough to write five more of these with more booze in my system than birthday cake.

Thus I find myself with a rather delayed review on the podcast Smash/Cut, a show that was part of a spring 2016 pallet and I have yet to give any proper commentary on. But by the means of innovation, that is what the month is about after all, I found it appropriate to give Smash/Cut the kind of coverage I couldn’t provide when I was up to my neck in all the new content that came about over this past year. So, pardon my tardiness.

Smash/Cut, at least according to the description, earns it title from a play writing term that means to cut between different timelines and characters while keeping a certain idea in mind. It’s also normally bound to shift perspective and aesthetic, setting the show up for a variety of different projects within the course of the series. And Smash/Cut, the brain child of Alexander Charles Adams, certainly delivers on that promise by creating quite the grocery list of options to pick from.

Here we have an assortment of concepts such as the complexity of the first kiss, live comedy shows, Gaelic poetry, and an episode consisting mostly of real voice mails. And yes, among all that, we do get an actual fake radio show episode. Smash/Cut is much more reliant on providing a variety of concepts at one time, tackling every technique imaginable and the most mundane of topics for a spin to see what they can make out of it. And the results that come out of these random assortment of pitches makes for two seasons worth of episodes that never risk repetition.

A lot of the episodes feel very raw for this reason, as if cobbled together in such a way to evoke this feel of college art projects. Or at least that’s the vibe I constantly get from it and the only real aesthetic quality I can name when putting Smash/Cut into words. Trying to piece it together as one central theme is hard because it’s idea is literally built around having a lot of ideas.

The thing about Smash/Cut is that rather than being one whole audio drama with a central plot and characters, it instead focuses on a specific concept that are divided into at three to four short stores if it isn’t just one whole episode. Or perhaps there’s someone recording improvisation or someone else’s performance. This show certainly isn’t something you listen to as means to stick to one thing rather to dive through as many different things you can scavenge.

Smash/Cut is something you’ll enjoy if you’re especially enamored by the flexibility that audio storytelling provides and that very much seemed like the idea in mind when bringing it to fruition.

Upon closer inspection, Smash/Cut does feel like a show much too grounded in reality to be something I should be talking about, and yet it’s forced my hand simply by being a touch too relatable to the creative eye. It literally thrives off being as innovative as possible with each and every thing it sets out to do and to perform it with confidence.

A lot of these neat details come into play in a more technical aspect than a writing one, most obvious in its SoundBlot Test episodes built on a sound and response capture concept. It’s more something to listen to firsthand than to describe using text but the end effect is the kind of thing that makes you appreciate the trials of audio mixing.

Stepping away from the audio details, Smash/Cut is at its best when delving into a series of monologues. In my humble opinion, “The Writing Room” has yet to be topped for its assortment of creative yet grounded takes on a variety of writers while “Marksman” has the most interesting complete story and has a more natural flow and heart that I felt some of the other fictional episodes lacked. In a way, this podcast is something you may not enjoy as a whole picture but mostly for its little moments that may or may not pique your interest.

Most episodes aren’t that individually entertaining as stand alone products which shows when it can’t make up the bulk of their content with unscripted audio. Both the writing and acting, where there is any, is suitable but nothing too groundbreaking which makes the audio editing feel weighed down by at most average performances. I still have yet to find a monologue I enjoyed as much as the one about suicide notes found in “The Writing Room”, namely due to its undercut of cynicism and the impish vibes from the narrator. This specific monologue had a lot of character and a dark sense of humor that I couldn’t quite place anywhere else in the series progression.

It’s for this reason that Smash/Cut never takes the full swing into being anything along the lines of something like Theatre of Tomorrow or Uncanny County, both shows with a similar construct but are truly reveling in the array of genres it can pitch at one time with rampant enthusiasm. So despite Smash/Cut’s attempts to show how boundless audio can be, it still seems a touch too contained as far as its actual stories go.

It feels more like an organized platter of individually wrapped but attractively cut vegetables rather than a hearty melting pot of passion I tend to seek out in this branch of work. But granted, that’s not exactly a bad thing.

Smash/Cut certainly has an idea in mind that’s just experimental and ambitious enough to be captivating to an audience who enjoys cool and collected pieces of individual stories. It’s all about finding a very specific element you like and latching onto it, even if the next topic may not be all that intriguing to you. Here I am, still praising “The Writing Room” despite it being one of the earliest episodes, and that’s because I am in fact a writer.

It’s the same way “Hutton Dressed As Lamb” is for comedians and “AFTER ORLANDO” is for aspiring actors-it’s all about personal appeal and that’s certainly something Smash/Cut has got figured out. In that case, it does have to try harder in certain areas to keep its audience entertained as a whole given the fact we aren’t given any recurring characters or a main plot to get attached to as we would in most audio dramas. And the focus on creative exploration might alienate people who enjoy one thing but not the other or are looking for something with more stability.

Smash/Cut isn’t the only one of its kind and may not be entertaining enough to people who don’t have some type of personal leverage to certain episodes, though it might be worth getting into almost specifically for that purpose of finding one that speaks to you. In the end, I suppose it’s all a matter of smashing the bits you don’t like and cutting a path to the parts you do.

#smash cut #review #september in review #podcast #week four #uncanny county #theatre of tomorrow

3 notes · View notes

ladytudorrose · 7 years ago

Text

Some random last night GoT thoughts...

1. The biggest deal, imho, about the Rhaegar/Lyanna “marriage” is that finally there’s something in writing that might point to Jon’s heritage. If, further down where Gilly didn’t get to read before she was interrupted, it mentioned Lyanna’s pregnancy, that honestly is a bigger deal. At this point whoever sits on the Iron Throne will sit on it by right of conquest as much as anything else. Even as a bastard, Jon had a good enough claim to the throne provided he could prove his true ancestry which is a pretty big if. The show has, for the most part, been somewhat good about characters showing skepticism towards the claims of others, as they are with Jon (and Sam) and the White Walkers. Honestly, even as Jon Snow, son of Eddard Stark, he could’ve theoretically ended up on the throne by conquest, like Robert Baratheon did. And the legitimacy thing, if we want to assume they’re borrowing from medieval history at all here, could still very much be in dispute by all of the other characters. If this had been 100% above board and everyone who needed to consent to the annulment had consented, it wouldn’t have been such a secret. I wonder if it’s meant to be a parallel of Henry VIII/Anne Boleyn and in that case there were a lot of people calling Elizabeth a bastard, even as she sat on the throne. Historically plenty of bastards (or their descendants) have ended up on plenty of thrones anyway, and it doesn’t seem to be different in the GoT universe; why else would Robert’s bastards have been such a problem for the Lannisters?

2. The strongest claim to the Iron Throne, imho, is Jon and Daenerys as a married couple. This is true whether or not Jon’s true parentage (and possibly legitimacy) is known. One of the things that did House Targaryen in last time around was their treatment of the Stark family. Jon is now the head of House Stark, and Dany knows he’s an important ally, and traditionally alliances were sealed by marriage whenever possible. Jon Snow, as King of the North and head of House Stark, is honestly the most suitable possible husband for Daenerys. His illegitimacy is the only possibly hiccup (thought it didn’t keep him from becoming King of the North!) but if Dany was worried about that she could sign something legitimizing him, like the Lannisters did for Ramsey Bolton. The show seems to be going in this direction, with lots of gazes being exchanged by Jon and Daenerys, and imho the fact that they haven’t brought the idea up just to dismiss it (since it’s an obvious solution) suggests it’s going to happen. And once Jon’s parentage comes out, them being aunt/nephew is probably not a dealbreaker in the universe of the show (or, with the proper dispensation, in medieval Europe). They could rule as co-monarchs, like Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain or William and Mary in Britain.

3. Obviously, Cersei’s baby is not going to survive. But what she does in the mean time may do her in. Is she really going to tell everyone she fucked her brother, out-of-wedlock, and is having his baby? People were fed up with all the incest in House Targaryen, and at least they tried to make it look permissible by marrying their siblings. A female monarch openly having a child out-of-wedlock would be an epic scandal, even if her brother wasn’t the father. And it leads credence to the rumors about the paternity of her other children, which makes her guilty of adultery, a worse sin than fornication for a woman. What she needs is a husband. Someone from an aristocratic background, fiercely loyal to House Lannister, not inclined to ask a lot of questions, not jealous, and easily disposable if necessary. Dickon Tarly would’ve been a great choice if he hadn’t just gotten burnt to a crisp. NOT EURON GREYJOY. Of course he would get pissed if she married someone else, or if she had a baby with Jaime even without marrying anyone. He’s a complication with no easy solution. So instead of thinking of one, Cersei will possibly decide next week to marry him (she’s never as smart as she thinks she is!), which will be a bad idea for a variety of reasons, and may ultimately be the decision that does her in for good. Jaime won’t be happy, and when Euron figures out she’s pregnant and it’s not his (which he will figure out, I’d bet money on it) bad things are going to happen. She’ll probably kill him, but do it in a really sloppy way that comes back on her. Just the possibility of Cersei being able to have more children strengthens her claim to the throne; otherwise letting her stay is a guarantee of more instability down-the-line when she dies without an heir.

4. Cersei’s pregnancy puts the passage of time into perspective in a way that may hurt our suspension of disbelief. We assume Cersei told Jaime he was pregnant right after he met with Tyrion. Jon Snow left for The Wall after Tyrion and Davos got back from King’s Landing. Considering travel time, by the time he gets the White Walker in front of her, she should be ready to burst, if not breastfeeding a two-month-old. But my guess is they’re not going to think of that, or they may have her miscarry before he gets back.

5. I hope Arya understands what Littlefinger is doing. I didn’t pick up what the letter she found was while I was watching the episode, but I saw in various reviews it was the note Cersei forced Sansa to write back in Season 1 ordering Robb to bend the knee to Joffrey. I really think Arya’s smart and she should know exactly who Littlefinger is and what sort of things he does. Why else would he have a letter from years ago hiding in his mattress? I don’t like the way she’s treating Sansa and Littlefinger sees an opportunity to get her out of Winterfell by manipulating her distrust of her sister. And if she leaves Winterfell she may miss her good buddy Gendry’s return.

6. Speaking of Gendry, I know there must be a bigger reason they brought him back and I’m guessing it has more to do with his blacksmithing skills than his claim to the throne. If his claim to the throne had significance to the plot, they wouldn’t have let him disappear for so long. I’m hoping Melisandre won’t try to sacrifice him; I don’t see how Baratheon blood would be of use for a Targaryen? He could potentially have a good claim as head of House Baratheon which makes him somewhat important even if he’s not heir to the Iron Throne.

#game of thrones #spoilers #got spoilers

1 note · View note