#i slept and changed it slightly from the version i posted on twitter because something felt off

[orinthered]

yeahg

[press-x-tojason]

Giant Bomb is dead, and I care way less than I thought I would. Probably because 83% of the people who I ever cared about had already left or died, or were already relegated to reduced content roles. 

Honestly, though, the writing’s been on the wall for a bit. They haven’t had anything worthy of paying for premium in several years, and, even though they’ve had well over a year to figure out a plan for the COVID era, they maybe made it a month with their plans to have a series of streams daily. I actually managed to forget I followed them on Twitch at all, for about 4 months, because they only streamed the podcasts and the occasional former Harmonix employee (who was literally paid to make content with their games while employed at Giant Bomb, which was funny because he blocked me on Twitter for making a post, addressing no one, back in 2014, which was asking about the legitimacy of the leaked list of “games “””””journalists”””””” who had taken money from publishers for positive reviews, a list which included him and multiple then-coworkers. I didn’t follow him, he didn’t follow me. He was manually searching the keywords, because he was, and is, a prick.) solo Rock Band stream in the last 8 months or so. Even when Jeff would manage to do one of his 20 streams from home a year, it would be on his own channel. There was just no content. And they’re surprised their “pay for our unique premium content!” model failed. They always “feigned” anger at Dan for “making” them do the Mario Party Parties, and literally never promoted his and Drew’s Metal Gear series after the first game... but I bet that, when only those, UPF, and the ad-free versions of the podcasts were premium features, those two series were keeping them afloat. Well, that and the remaining goodwill they miraculously managed to hold onto for a few years after Ryan died.  Shit, I follow several people who are GB staff-adjacent, and... I can’t think of the last time they mentioned anything that happened on-site. Even the people who’ve been directly supporting them for over 10 years were out. 

But yeah, the site is super dead. They pretended in the announcements like they’re going to make a go of it still, but... you’ve got like 4 content people left, and the only one people give a shit about is Jeff. You just saw 3/4 of the side of the site that was still trying these past several months jump ship in a 3 month span. One of those was, by nearly any definition, a founding member. Of which you had already lost one, and are losing another from the main side. Jeff’s been way less active until the last week or two, probably because he heard they were leaving and was like “oops, should probably check on the ship that’s been sinking for years!” Then you have Jason “The Human Mumble” Oestricher, the charisma vacuum, whose legitimate public-facing reaction to first hearing that all but one of his GB predecessors were going to be gone. was, and I quote, “Hoo Boy.” Ben and Jan are the definition of “fine”. They would have been great, as they are today, as secondary members 8-10 years ago. But carry the site, they cannot. They’re down to, what, 5 named members now? It hasn’t been that dire since the beginning of 2009, before they hired Drew, when they hadn’t even started the P4 endurance run. You know, that surprise massive, internet-changing thing that essentially popularized the Let’s Play concept, loosening its definition and making it something that could be as personality-driven as game-driven, made simply to give them something to put on the website, beyond the rare review and, slightly later, quick look. This kinda illustrates the problem with modern Giant Bomb. When they were figuring shit out, flying by the seats of their pants, they came up with great shit, and they gave enough of a shit to make it happen. 0.000% chance they do a 10 hour Thanksgiving Kinect stream if the Kinect was new today. 0.000% chance the core members would have done an endurance run in the last 10 years if CT and Shenmue (which I haven’t watched) weren’t driven by the younger members. And you could see it in the fact that they never made a real, true mobile app. The number one thing that would have made them indispensable this past decade, an app to integrate premium features, the podcast, their video player, etc. all in one place in a mobile-friendly package, that could sync with the website... and they never even raised the idea publicly. I wonder how much of the innovation was the group think-tank of the first 5 years. Beyond Dan’s couple major contributions, I don’t think they added a single new type of content after 2012, which... still means the last 6.5 years lacked any semblance of innovation. I guess that’s a big part of why I fell off tremendously quickly after late 2014. There was just nothing new, and believe me, I was looking. I wanted reasons to stay watching. I supported them with my dollar. I believed in those brave early days. And I went back yesterday to watch the DP endurance run from VJ again. I still miss that rapport. And really, that hurt, too. Vinny moving back east, less than a year after Ryan passed... short term, it was fine. You had more people than ever to cover the gaps. But the spark was gone. The chemistry made the site. When I think of Giant Bomb, I still think of Jeff, Vinny, and Ryan, first and foremost. Those early podcasts, the NintenDownloads, the crazy tangents that everyone could seamlessly follow up on(well, except Brad, because he essentially slept through most of the podcasts, unless he was talking about the thing he did that week), the weird high-concept GOTY stuff... it wasn’t perfect, but you were entertained. You laughed. You were engaged. It never felt like you were watching them working, even though you could see the work they put in. It felt like, when they released something, you were experiencing a group of legitimate friends doing what they wanted to do anyways.(And boy have I seen enough groups do everything they can to NOT be enjoying doing that, and break up as a result due to hating the jobs that they chose to do). 

Part of me would love to make it as simple as “Ryan died, and so did the original spirit”, and... to a degree, it’s true. If you go back to any retrospective they’ve done about the founding of the site, or the podcast they recorded after Ryan passed, you can’t help but recognize that Giant Bomb never happens if these core members don’t all quit their jobs, led by Ryan,  because they respect their boss/manager, Jeff, and know he’s doing the right things(for them, for the reader/viewer, etc.) ahead of what GameSpot management wants him to do. Jeff could have been left in the wilderness, trying find a spot elsewhere, with the rumor going around between executives that Jeff wasn’t going to help them promote anything, essentially killing their revenue. He would have been done in terms of getting employed by a major site. But Ryan first, and soon after, Vinny and Brad, gave up their jobs to make this fledgling little project go. As much as the ERs brought me in and gave the impression that Jeff and Vinny were the long-standing duo, no, it was Ryan who was Jeff’s partner in crime. And, 8 years later, I can comfortably say... Giant Bomb never recovered from losing him. 

But it was so much more. Everything that set them apart slowly went away,  in time. I don’t think they’ve posted reviews for games in consecutive MONTHS since 2017; 2018 at the latest. They have done one Endurance Run in 9 years. They have not had a meaningful live event in 6 years. Unprofessional Fridays were more formulaic and lesser in volume and frequency after the major players started moving east. The lack of coordination between coasts killed the camaraderie, to the point that I think one of the last 5 true gameplay crossovers was their series of 2016-2017 PUBG shitfests. I remember when Vinny starting GBEast was supposed to be the start of a new era of content, and... it was, but not in a positive way, like it sounded. When half of each side seemed to constantly have no interest in making anything, nothing got made. But I guess that’s what happens when your second in command in one of your headquarters is just a former marketing grunt with an attitude problem, and the guy with the biggest ego on the team is the one who refuses to move to join either side, and just pushes out the most self-important drivel as a header to what were literally just copy-pasted articles from other sites every week while sitting at his desk, dreaming of the days Gawker would pay him to plagiarize political drivel instead, because that’s what really gets the soulless clicks. One of your founding members becomes depressed due to losing his two closest work friends, one for real, one to a 3000 mile separation, within a year, while the other one who is left virtually stopped playing anything but DOTA 2 for 2 years. Suddenly your most prominent personalities are the 2 new guys(one the aforementioned charisma vacuum, the other a walking mark) and your previously-mostly-off-camera producer who is best known to the wider Internet for... blinking. So, yeah, lifeless. And NOW, all you’ve got is old melancholy dad, charisma vacuum dad, and the two ADHD kids whose defining trait is that they choose to exclusively refer to their partners as “my partner” in voices that make it sound like they are embarrassed to have partners, while also talking more about what their partners are doing than what they do.  It’s confounding.

But yeah, TL:DR: RIP zombie Giant Bomb. Glad you’re finally getting taken behind the shed. It took 3 years too long, minimum.

[wildlyminiaturesandwich]

How did you become an EA Game Changer? What are your responsibilities?

I put in an application the last time they were opened to Tumblr creators. I think back in the day people used to be asked individually, like actually sought out by the CM (Community Manager) but these days you wait for applications to open in your preferred platform and then apply. Then the CM (SimGuruFrost) goes through them all and picks somewhere between 20-40 people to invite all in one big group.

We don’t really have “responsibilities” per se, more like… obligations? No that sounds like we’re forced to do stuff, which isn’t the case. I can’t think of the word at the moment, it’s almost 7am and I haven’t slept yet so my brain is a lil fuzzy. It’ll probably come to me in about an hour when i’m juuuust about to fall asleep lol

I think there are a lot of assumptions about the Game Changer program that are so far off base but that keep being spread around so people assume they’re truth, so I’ll see if I can clear thing up a little. I’m gonna put it under a cut because it might get a little long lol

Basically, to put it as simply as I possibly can, we get early access to upcoming packs in exchange for honest reviews. 

Kind of like what publishing companies do when they send out ARCS (Advanced Reader Copies) of their upcoming novels to be published. A lot of companies use this method to not only get feedback on their product but also to create “buzz” about it.

So, to go a little more in depth (or as much as I can without breaking NDA lol), we get early access to upcoming packs a couple days before the pack is released and depending on the pack and how dates line up we get anywhere between 24-48 hours to check out the pack and produce content for our respective medias (YouTube, Tumblr, Twitter, Twitch, the gallery etc) before embargo lifts 24 hours before the game releases and we’re able to share said content.

24-48 hours isn’t a lot of time, especially when you have rl stuff going on like jobs, kids, family etc and we often get quite short notice before early access starts which can make it a bit difficult to schedule everything around that time, so no one is ever under any obligation to produce content if they don’t have the time. If you hear a Game Changer say something like “I have to get this done before embargo” chances are they’re like me and the pressure to produce content is purely coming from themselves lol This time around with Realm of Magic the dates and the patch worked out to where we got four whole days of early access and it was SO nice not to rush to get stuff done!

We’re strictly under NDA (non disclosure agreement) during early access meaning we can’t talk about any of the new content with anyone outside of the network until embargo lifts. If we do, we’ll be removed from the program. Same goes for anything that’s ever said to us by any of the Gurus about new and future content (which doesn’t happen as often as people assume); it’s all strictly under NDA and we’re not allowed to tell anyone about it.

The only thing we’re actually 100% required to do with early access content is mention that the early access opportunity was provided by/made possibly by the program and include the Game Changer logo. For anyone who makes videos, it has to be said and the logo shown within the first 5 seconds of the video, and for us Tumblr people it just has to be said on the first post and the logo shown somewhere on each post thereafter. Pretty easy to remember and not hard to do.

Other than that… the most common misconceptions about the program are:

We’re paid by EA

Nope. The only “payment” we get is game codes in exchange for reviews. 

We HAVE to give positive reviews to make EA look good

Nope. Clearly whoever thinks this hasn’t been paying attention ‘cause I don’t know a single one of us that gave Moschino a positive review lol  I can only speak for myself here but my reviews are all 100% honest and my own opinions. If I say I liked a pack, it’s because I genuinely liked it, I gain nothing by lying so why bother?

We know about future content well before it’s release (eg, we know all of what’s coming this year)

I WISH! No, listen, this is so not the case. We get told about new packs literally like 24 hours before the official announcement, sometimes not even that, sometimes we find out at exactly the same time as everyone else.

We are actual Game Changers

Nope. The name of the program is actually super misleading because we don’t change the game at all. We have no say whatsoever about what goes into the game (or what gets left out “accidentally”). We can make suggestions directly to the Gurus, we report any bugs we find during early access, but they’re purely just suggestions and the bugs are never fixed before release because there isn’t time. We don’t test the game for EA (lets be honest, if we did, there’d be far less bugs going out in the live version LOL)… we really don’t change the game in any way, shape or form.

That’s about it! Once the new pack is out in the world for everyone to experience, you just got back to your normal activities until the next pack comes out. Some of the Youtube and Twitch Game Changers are lucky enough to be invited to things like SimsCamp, EA Play or launch parties, but Simblr Game Changers never get invited to events so nothing really changes too much for us lol

So yeh! There’s no real “responsibilities” to speak of, it’s pretty much just reviewing packs slightly early, keeping your mouth shut if you’re told about new/future stuff and create what content you can for said stuff when/if you can! So hopefully that cleared some things up 😊

[safflowerseason]

(Part 3) 4) also, re: season 7 so far, and keep in mind I’m two episodes in, I don’t even recognise Dan, and to a lesser extent Amy, anymore. I don’t even feel I’m watching Veep anymore, not as it was set out for the first four seasons. Is Mandel known to be the devil or something? What in the frack was this vision of the characters meant to be - ‘evolved’? Or does he just hate them? 5) I hated what he did to the Selina and Amy relationship too. Does Mandel hate women? Is this a known thing?

These are all questions that we’ve been batting around on here since the finale aired in May (which is when I got on Tumblr, incidentally, because I had to take my Veep feelings somewhere.) To a certain degree, there’s never going to be a solid, black-and-white answer to any of them, really. You can read everything David Mandel ever said in public about his vision for Veep, you can close-read what the actors say on press tours…but it’s just not the same as being in the room. And certainly, it’s worth pointing out that all shows evolve, and they gain and lose fans through those changes. No show ends the exactly the same as when it started (although…some shows manage this evolution better than others.) 

So, now that I’ve gotten my neutral disclaimer out of the way, I can get on with the fun ranting. 

4) Dan is absolutely unrecognizable in S7 from how he appears even at the end of S6, barring little flashes here and there. While Amy’s general arc holds together slightly better than Dan’s, she still suffers from some major out of character moments in 7.02, as we all were just discussing recently. (Dan’s arc just makes no sense.) 7.02 is just rough on all counts. Unless you’re an avid Selina/Tom shipper in which case you probably got something out of it. 

Also—and this is a general pet peeve of mine, as a California native—the episode is supposd to take place in Colorado and yet was so clearly filmed in Southern California (they posted a ton of pictures from the ranch where they filmed). Like, there are parts of California that resemble Colorado, but you have to go a little further than Malibu to get there. (I have the same beef with Parks and Rec. It’s so obviously not Indiana.) 

Mostly, what it all boils down to is bad writing. I don’t care if Mandel thought Dan and Amy would never work as a couple. That’s fine. That’s a legitimate opinion. Run your show the way you want, dude. What I do care about is bad writing. It is bad writing when in 7.01, Amy seems intent on having the baby without Dan, and then in 7.02, suddenly Amy wants to pitch Dan a white-picket fences vision of domestic stability that neither of them have ever been particularly interested in. Sex-Psychopath Dan is bad writing because it completely contradicts everything we know about the character even taking S6 into consideration. The Dan we see in S7 would have slept with Leigh Patterson in S4 just because she was young and there and he is apparently a sex-addict, hahahaha, when of course S4 Dan would never be caught dead in the sexual proximity of a nineteen year old he theoretically works with. And yes, of course, characters can change. But you have to show that change, which they do not. 

As for whether Mandel is the devil, (lol)…I think he was just very intent on doing the version of the show he saw in his head, and did not feel very obligated to try and replicate the show that Armando Iannucci had built. He had a completely different sensibility as an artist. I wrote a longer post somewhere on my blog about the differences in their approaches, if you’re interested, but ultimately I think what happened is that two very different universes got mashed together. Mandel didn’t hate the characters…he just thought they were all monsters and that was the point.

Also, two things happened the show couldn’t get away from, for obvious reasons: Trump was elected and the show was on an extended hiatus for 2017 and most of 2018 due to JLD’s cancer diagnosis. In the interim, all of America watched the government begin to melt in real time on Twitter. As a result, David Mandel rebooted the original ending for the show, in order to better capture this new moment in American politics (how effectively he did so is obviously up for debate.) The creative team and the cast were all fairly open about how dramatically Trumpian politics shaped their approach to the final season. So basically Trump is the short-answer reason to why a ton of plot threads get dropped between S6 and S7. I am 99% percent sure that the original plan was for Amy to have the baby before the hiatus and the resulting reboot. (Although at the same time, I do not think Dan and Amy would have gotten a very satisfying ending under Mandel. He also posted some pre-reboot snippets of the original outline for the finale, which have hinted that quite a few things did not change…for example, it seems that BKD was always doomed to be a one-episode plot device designed to get everyone back on Selina’s team, which is stupid.)

5) As for Mandel’s writing of female characters, I feel more comfortable speaking definitively here because in this case, it doesn’t matter what they were thinking in the room, but how it came across on the page and on the screen. Mandel obviously would say he doesn’t hate women, but he’s seems like one of those “liberal” white guys who has a lot of sh*t to work through regarding his own assumptions about women and femininity. He turned Selina into this misogynistic sociopath who abuses every woman in her sight with extremely gendered language, and he consistently punished Amy the character explicitly for not being hot enough or quiet enough or acquiescent enough for a woman. Like, the show always made fun of Mike for being dumb. It did not always make fun of Amy for being ugly and old. Moreover, Mandel/the show basically implies that Amy is a failure as a woman because she’s not maternal and also old and ugly, so she never got to be a mother and she never got to be with the man she truly loved. (sorry, Bill.) (Um, also, the audience has eyes? Anna Chlumsky is neither old nor ugly.)

I find it plausible that Amy and Selina’s relationship deteriorates over time…there is a subtle professional Dan/Amy/Selina triangle at work in S1-S4, and as Amy gets older and starts to figure out what she really wants from her life (and if Dan were the one she was trying to figure it out with), I don’t think Iannucci-Selina would react very well to it. (She would never be as openly abusive as S7 Selina, but I can’t imagine she’d be thrilled if Amy got pregnant just in time for her reelection campaign.) The show also makes it clear that Selina has an extremely complicated relationship with women and feminism, not to mention the fact that Amy herself is not particularly confident in her own body. 

However…there were lots of ways to explore those complex character fault-lines without Selina abusing Amy constantly. She tries to sell her to Leon! Part of it is a complete lack of nuance and part of it is just plain old sexism. 

Veep and the sexism of its later years has also been a pretty big discussion topic within the Veep Tumblr community, and you’ll definitely find posts on it if you poke around more closely (my blog, and also @thebookofmaev has written a lot about it as well.) 

[galaxystony]

fortune’s fool: peter parker II

peter parker x reader

A/N: multi-part fic based off of a twitter post which I won’t link until the end so as not to spoil anything :-) Each part can be read individually or as a series!

requested: nope

Words: 2000+

Warnings: cursing, mentions of sex, mentions of drinking, mentions of death

summary: Two Empire State University students fated to meet

let me know if you’d like to be added to my tag list!

requests are open!

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | masterlist

2. Understanding-

21 year old Peter, 19 year old reader

She woke with her head buried in stark white sheets, a rhythmic thrumming pounding against the base of her skull as she tried to gather her thoughts. She was definitely not in her own room, but the scent that surrounded her cocooned body was a familiar one, and the easy, measured breaths that she could hear from beyond her wall of pillows was a symphony she’d learned by heart.

With a groan, she turned on her side and pushed away the pile of blankets that separated herself from her best friend’s body. His bare chest rose and fell, faint puffs of air escaping his slightly-opened mouth every so often. Soft curls fell across his peaceful face that lay smooth and unwrinkled as he slept.

This wasn’t the first time that she’d woken up in the same bed as Peter Parker. It was, however, the first time she’d found herself naked and twisted in his sheets. She couldn’t say that she was surprised. They’d been the closest of friends for over a year now, and they both knew that some sort of consummation of their friendship was inevitable.

It didn’t worry her. She knew that what had happened wasn’t serious, and therefore, that nothing about their relationship would change. She knew that Peter knew that, too.

That’s why it happened, she supposed. Because they both knew it wouldn’t ruin anything. It was bound to happen some day, anyway. Instead of worrying, she was content to lay in the peaceful silence until Peter woke up and they’d have to talk.

She breathed in the cool morning air that blew through the slightly opened window and caused the sheer white curtains to flutter. The rest of Manhattan was surely awake by now, evidenced by the honking of horns and shouting from street corners. This was what she loved most about Peter’s apartment. The building was squished between another apartment complex and a multi-level shopping center, which was all smack in the middle of the bustling city, one that she’d come to love, perhaps even more than her own home of Long Island.

His own space, however, was a simplistic haven that was just so him that she found herself spending more time at his place than her own home.

“Just move in already,” is what he’d said once on a warm morning after she’d slept over for the fourth night in a row.

“No, you’d get sick of me!” she’d laughed. He disagreed, but they never spoke about it again. Still, she continued to spend days on end flitting between his kitchen and his sofa and his bedroom, working on her own things, simply coexisting with Peter and not depending too much on his presence to get her own stuff done.

Most often, she could be found sitting on his bed with her textbooks and notes spread around her, all marked in her own code of colored highlighters as she studied or worked on homework while Peter sat at his desk, focused intently on his own work and typing away madly on his laptop, stopping only to remind her to stretch or drink some water or grab a snack. That was just Peter, though; the caring guy she’d met over a year ago who had saved her from days of hauling boxes and who still cared more than anybody else and always thought of her needs before his own.

She loved him, she guessed, but in the purest of ways. She couldn’t stand to lose him, and he felt the same way, because they both knew that the ease of their relationship was not a common thing. They never actively sought anything more from one another, believing that if something was meant to happen, it would happen. For now, they both coveted the freedom they had to see other people, and the knowledge that they still had the other to come back to and laugh about awkward dates and terrible hookups with.

“It’s easier this way,” she’d said. “I don’t want to start anything if I can’t commit my whole being to you.” “I agree,” was his reply. ‘We both love this whole ‘young college student’ phase too much for us to really be able to give everything to one another like we deserve. Besides, as long as I’ve got you as my best friend, I couldn’t really ask for more.”

Then they’d smiled, Peter with that bright, dazzling thing that you could see from miles away, and her with something soft and shared with him, like a secret she seemed to reserve only for Peter, and then they turned back to their work which had been abandoned only minutes ago.

Sighing softly, she let her eyes trace over Peter’s still-sleeping figure. She wished, sometimes, that they’d met ten years later, when she knew who she was and what she wanted, and she’d be able to love him fully like he deserved. She still wasn’t expecting more from him, but she think it might have been better, knowing their intentions from the beginning.

She didn’t know, though, if he’d be her same Peter. His “after school hobby”, as he’d called it, wasn’t easy on him. She’d seen how much it changed him, even within the short year that they’d known each other. He was more quiet, more self aware. He’d seen horrors and faced death, and there was no one who really understood it, that he was still a kid that had to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders.

She did her best to listen when he needed her to, when days were dark and he just needed to get things off his chest. He’d told her about Liz and the Vulture and the homecoming night that happened so long ago that changed him forever. He told her about the innocent people that he could’ve, would’ve, should’ve saved, but let their lives slip through his fingers, and how each one weighed heavily on him, every one of them a cold, unbeating heart that couldn’t speak the words of condemnation that he knew they should. He told her about his visits to the graveyards around his city where he stood before their graves and cried tears that he didn’t deserve to cry and apologized profusely, knowing that his words would do nothing to bring them back.

And she would listen. She would let him cry onto her shoulder while she ran soothing fingers through tangled, sweat soaked curls, easing that beautiful mind in its state of turmoil. And then he would push his face deep into her chest while she cradled his head and pressed soft kisses to his hairline while his body racked with sobs.

Who would he be without her? He couldn’t be like this with Ned, couldn’t confide in him like he did with her. MJ would tell him to take his feelings out on the punching bag that hung in the back room of his apartment. He couldn’t even begin to talk to May about it in fear of worrying her half to death. She knew that. She knew everything. And so she became his rock, his unmovable force that he knew would always, always be there for him.

If she wasn’t though? Who would he confide in? Who would ease his pain and help him carry his burden? If it had been ten years later, who knew that he’d even be alive? That there was even a possibility of them meeting at all?

He’d certainly be different. Not the same shining light that she’d come to know so well. Knowing him, he’d let him get lost in his selflessness, his need to be a hero, and push himself further and further into this other version of himself. She didn’t ever want to meet this version of Peter, and so she fought to keep him Peter and not just Spider-Man.

So far, she thinks she’s doing alright. He’s still paranoid at times, always checking over his shoulder, wrapping a protective arm around her waist when they’re out late, but he’s also trying, she knows. He visits Aunt May every weekend, takes a trip to Uncle Ben’s grave once a month, hangs out with his friends regularly. She thinks he’s doing great, all things considered.

Peter began to stir on his side of the bed, a soft groan emitting from beneath the protection of the covers. He rolled over to face her, opening one eye slowly and allowing himself to adjust to the bright light that was now streaming through the window.

“Whatimezit?” he mumbled, pushing his head up to eye her unclothed body. “Wha’d we do last night?”

“We had sex,” she spoke bluntly, giving him a small shrug. “We can talk about it, if you want.”

“Rather not, actually,” he groaned, pushing his head back into his pillow. “How much did I drink?”

“Well, you took three tequila shots straight out of the gate then shotgunned a beer and I kind of lost count after your fifth mixed drink, so I’d say you were sufficiently smashed by the end of the night. Not that I was any better, mind you,” she recalled, stomach churning at the thought of that last beer.

“I feel like absolute shit,” Peter grumbled, face muffled by the fabric of the pillowcase.

“You look it,” she joked, scooting over so they were shoulder to shoulder, pressed together like sardines.

“Hey, not nice,” he pouted, turning his neck so their faces were mere inches away from each other. He smiled at her, breathing in as he spoke again. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

“Of course,” she responded. “We’ve talked about this before. As long as none of our feelings have changed, I think that we can both move past this.”

“Good. Now who’s making breakfast? Because I really don’t wanna get up right now, but if I don’t have something drenched in grease and hopefully some sort of cheese, my stomach will start eating itself,” Peter remarked, kicking her leg lightly under the sheets.

“Not me! I made you dinner before we left last night,” she answered, returning his kick.

“Let’s just order something in and that way we can stay in bed until it arrives,” he suggested.

“Fine, but you’re paying,” she insisted, and he agreed, allowing the peaceful silence to fall upon them again.

“I’m glad you’re my best friend,” he remarked after the silence settled, pulling her body closer to his with one hand.

“Don’t let Ned hear you say that,” she cautioned teasingly. She knew that Peter’s relationship with Ned was different than the one they had, but was still just as strong, and probably even stronger considering their history. She didn’t mind sharing his attention. She loved Ned just as much as Peter, and she was glad that he still had a close friend from home that always had his back no matter what.

“Ned knows it’s true. He doesn’t mind, I think. Ever since he and MJ picked up those jobs at the Rec Center, they’ve been closer than ever. Now they both gang up on me rather than just MJ,” Peter whined.

“To be fair, though, you deserve it more often than not,” she joked, nudging his shoulder.

“That’s probably true,” he sighed. “Anyway, I meant it. You’re the best person I know. Thank you,” he stated, reaching down to squeeze her hand.

“Thank you,” she responded. “You’ve done so much for me Peter. I’m so lucky to have you.” She smiled and squeezed his hand back, her grin only growing when he leaned over to press a kiss against her forehead.

They were interrupted by a knock on the door.

“One of us should really put some clothes on before we freak out this delivery guy,” Peter mused quietly, not moving at all.

“Yes, one of us should definitely put clothes on and get the food right now,” she looked at him pointedly.

“Fine,” he grumbled, sliding out of bed and pulling a pair of flannel pants on while she watched him in amusement, following his movements until he was out the door. Yes, she certainly was lucky to have Peter in her life.

Tagged: @multi-parker @cutie1365 @cersei-lannister @oswald-1998 @kawaiianime03 @lionfart @mrsdoradominguez-barnes @nonewmessage @co0kies08 @dec-snowy @sunshine-little-miss @cubedtriangle @triggerfingerfunction @dailygubler

[jessgartner]

Leaving Facebook Part III: Goodbye to All That

Remember what it was to be me: that is always the point. 

I'm in the final countdown to deleting Facebook, and not a moment too soon.

TL;DR:

Primary posts will be here

I'll be sending out a monthly Life Olympics newsletter

If you want email, mail, and/or newsletters, let me know where to find you

I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not.

The Wind-Down

I've backed up my data, I've collected contact info, and I've explored a variety of new platforms with varying degrees of success.

I've reached a tentative consensus on my plan for moving forward. It's a little more complex than I would have liked, but I'm settling into some new habits and I'll continue to iterate and refine over time. Here's where I've landed:

Nothing was irrevocable; everything was within reach. Just around every corner lay something curious and interesting, something I had never before seen or done or known about. 

Consuming

I chose: Apple News. I slept on this for a while, for reasons I can't totally remember. I revisited it and spent some time customizing it and decided it's the best newsfeed for me for now.

Pros:

Free

UX is good and it's easy to follow publications/topics

iCloud syncing across devices + desktop app is hard to beat. The next best product I looked at (Thread News) only had a mobile app, which was a dealbreaker for me.

I follow mostly mainstream-is publications and there's a full database of sources that are easy to follow.

I haven't tried News+ yet but I like the option of it - a while ago I had a similar magazine aggregator from Conde Nast that I loved and this seems similar or better.

Cons:

Initially, I didn't like the Top Stories on the home page. I don't really love the CNN/ABC/CBS-type focus on 24-hour headline news and wish this was better curated from my interests and favorite publications. I finally figured out that you can limit the Home Page to publications that you follow, but it's not an obvious setting.

I hate that share/copy link produces an apple.news url instead of the native url; this is obnoxious.

Runner Up: Thread News had a really nice Daily Digest feature that curated from your favorite publications.

I chose: Pocket for random articles that I come across on Twitter, in Slack, or recommended through text messages, I save them to Pocket to read later.

Pros:

Free (with premium paid option)

Syncs across desktop, mobile, iPad app; app UX is nicely optimized across devices

Tagging (good for saving favorites)

"Article view" that clears out web junk for a streamlined reading experience

Chrome extension for easy clipping/adding

Cons:

None yet; it's simple and works the way I want it to

Runner up: Instapaper. It has very similar functionality to Pocket, I just slightly prefer the design of Pocket. If you like a really minimalist reading experience, Instapaper is for you.

Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss.

Creating

This one was a beast. I struggled for weeks to parse out exactly what I wanted on this front and which criteria were most important to me, because it became clear quickly that I wasn't going to get everything I wanted in one place.

I chose: Tumblr I initially wrote this off because the homepage/discovery can be nauseating without the right default settings. A tour of the mobile version convinced me to give this a second look: the mobile app is great and the posting experience is (pardon the cliche) delightful. I decided to give it a deeper dive behind the scenes and found that I was able to customize a lot of what I initially disliked. The auto formatting for photo, quote, link, and chat posts is charming and simple.

Pros:

Customizing themes is simple and there are a lot of choices.

I can use my personal domain

The posting experience is easy and relatively error-free

The tagging! I love my tags and they work so nicely. I was also able to find a theme that features tags so you will always have easy access to the latest photos of Darwin.

Great for multimedia posting

Built-in share buttons

Cons:

Not very good at importing content from other platforms; I manually recreated a few favorite posts, but otherwise pretty much had to start from scratch on content

No built-in analytics, aside from follower counts, which is not something I expect to care about or track. I set up tracking on Google Analytics, but I'll miss the built-in analytics that WordPress had. Since WP bought Tumblr, I'm hoping that they may eventually add these features to Tumblr

I just don't care about the social/discovery components here and I wish I could turn them off

Ads. I wish I could pay to make them go away.

Runner up: micro.blog For the first couple of weeks, I thought this was going to be my choice. I had a solid experience importing and archiving a lot of my content from WordPress, Instagram, and Medium. Unfortunately, once I started trying to use the platform on a daily basis, I ran into a lot of issues and challenges that gave me pause on using and recommending the platform. To be clear, a good number of these issues were either user-error or bespoke preferences due to my personal quirks on how I want to organize and share content on the Internet. Some of this is a result of it being a new-ish platform that still has some blind spots for non-developers; it's not a mainstream product yet and I'm not sure it's trying to be. Based on my personal preferences, I felt Tumblr was slightly better equipped for my use case. I'm still going to keep using micro.blog for a while in tandem with Tumblr to see if my preferences change and/or if the platform adopts some of the feedback I shared with regard to cross-posting and UX.

I chose: Drafts. One big challenge for me in this process was the desire to cross-post some content in multiple places while limiting where I post other content. I didn't want to fill my Twitter feed with cat pictures, but I wanted some little corner of the Internet for Darwin's biggest fans (my mother). Drafts is basically a universal text editor that pushes drafts of text to a variety of services, including micro.blog, Twitter, Day One, Google Drive, Evernote, WordPress, Gmail, and even text messages. It's highly configurable and I'm only just scratching the surface of its power. Creating text drafts here allows me to easily push drafts to a variety of different places with just a few keystrokes. It syncs with iCloud, has really robust tagging and filtering, and has mobile, iPad, and Mac apps. It's very cool.

He laughed literally until he choked, and I had to roll down the taxi window and hit him on the back. "New faces," he said finally, "don't tell me about new faces.” 

Engagement

I chose: Twitter I've increasingly found Twitter to be a place where my friends/followers care about what I care about. The messages I care most about sharing are amplified. I can choose to unfollow, mute, or block people who are harassing or distressing me. I can follow people whose expertise I value. It can still be a cesspool at times but Twitter leadership seems to be taking steps to improve the platform - identifying misinformation, a conversation feature that limits replies, etc. For now, it stays.

Coming Soon: Substack I haven't officially started this yet, but I'm going to start a monthly newsletter that (allegedly) goes out the first Sunday of every month. I'm going to use roughly my annual Life Olympics format except there will be fun and exciting recommendations. Teaser: new Life Olympics categories will make their debut in the first installment on July 5! If you want it, make sure you give me your email address and you'll receive the first edition.

It’s easy to see the beginnings of things, and harder to see the ends.

All quotes by Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Many, many thanks to Jason Becker for his recommendations, patience, and tech support on this project.

[jhathaway71]

Robert Sugden’s State of Mind (Part 2)

This may not be a popular post and may not be what was intended by the production staff, but I wanted to share my “alternative” thoughts on the events of 16-March-2017 & 17-March-2017.

I previously posted the excerpt below about Robert’s frame of mind after his visit with Aaron. I agree with many others who have commented about the inconsistent dialog with some statements by characters throughout this story feeling out of place or not making sense with what was taking place.

Robert had been sitting in the bedroom he was to share with Aaron after lashing out and damaging their home. He had been drinking & all around feeling sorry for himself. Aaron didn’t end things with Robert when he walked away from the prison visit. In Robert’s head, maybe he is the one who is ending things.

As much as I have been snarky about the entire “context” statement, that is exactly what I will be doing…reviewing the events/dialog and putting it into a different context from what I’ve seen on Twitter/Tumblr.

I promise I have not drank the Iain MacLeod “Koolaid” and will continue to be a sarcastic little shite towards him if only to keep him on his toes (I’m that damned important in my own head). That being stated, I can agree with him that both lads meant their vows. I’m including Robert in this because of his frame of mind at the time as outlined below.

Generalizing and simplifying Twitter/Tumblr conversations and interpretations of the events from the episode of 16-March-2017, Robert believed Aaron had broken up with him when he pushed him away as he left the prison visiting room. Robert self-destruction began when he destroyed their future bedroom while drunk, slept with Rebecca knowing this action alone would hurt Aaron the most. The next day/morning, Robert feels guilty for what he has done and begins the process to make amends/cover up what has happened with Rebecca and Chas.

Here is a different view on the scenes and how they unfolded including my thought on what was going on in Robert’s mind throughout. My apologies if anyone else has already posted anything similar. I do not remember reading similar ideas and am not attempting to plagiarize anybody else’s posts.

Robert tried many different arguments to get Aaron to see sense, finally asking Aaron to think about their future together with Liv. Aaron threw this back in his face and walked away telling him to leave him alone.

Robert was upset after Aaron had pushed him away and as he saw it given up on their future. In his angry and inebriated state, he decides to give up on him just like Aaron has and the future he had been building while Aaron was incarcerated. He destroys the symbol (the Mill bedroom) of that future and contacts the only friend (Rebeccca) he has in Emmerdale that is not directly connected or related to Aaron.

While he is offloading his disappointment in Aaron and explaining their relationship is over to Rebecca, she plants the idea in his head that Robert knows exactly why he contacted her. He takes the bait knowing Rebecca is there for him when things aren’t going his way and in his desire to “show Aaron” he offers to have a relationship with her. In his mind, he wanted to prove and hurt Aaron that he can move on and have an easier life with Rebecca, the one person Aaron was insecure about.

Again, we do not see what happens after the fact due to the watershed rules. We also do not know how the next morning was but can only assume based on Rebecca’s different outfit and voicemail that she did not spend the night at the Mill with Robert.

The next morning, Robert being sober and having time to think about the previous days’ event, knows he has made a mistake. Now that his emotions are in check and he can reflect on what he said to Rebecca and how he acted I would think the following would be going through his head:

Aaron pushes people away when he needs them the most, including him

Aaron bottles up his problems, hiding them from his loved ones

He regrets and is embarrassed for using his friend just to hurt Aaron

He is ashamed he broke his vows to Aaron. Not just the promise to be faithful, but pledging to put Aaron first, to make him happy, and to keep trying to be a better person (the one he deserves).

After Rebecca tracks him down, he owns up to his mistake explaining he really doesn’t want a relationship with her. He begins non-committed about the status of his and Aaron’s relationship when asked, only acknowledging and apologizing to her when she accuses him of lying to her.

17-March-2017 Robert/Rebecca Outside Mill Scene Dialog (Excerpt):

Robert: ‘Last night was a mistake. I was so angry. I needed to, I don’t know…I wanted to show Aaron. Maybe, in my head, I thought that this is what I wanted, but it’s not.’

Rebecca: ‘You used me.’

Robert: ‘I didn’t mean to.’

Rebecca: ‘All that stuff you said about you and Aaron being over. Is that even true?’

Robert: ‘Yes, Yeah. At the time. Maybe.’

Rebecca: ‘You lied to me.’

Robert: ‘I’m sorry.’

Rebecca: ‘Seriously, do you have any idea how cheap I feel right now.’

Robert: ‘I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking straight.’

Later, after being prompted by Chas he confesses that he slept with Rebecca reiterating that he “lied” to her about him and Aaron being over, but he confirms that they were over. After Robert has reflected first thing in the morning and then after his conversation with Rebecca accepts that he was the one to end it only after being confused and angry with Aaron’s behaviour during their visit.

It may be a semantic argument, but he never says Aaron ended it, only repeatedly stating “I thought we were over”. In this way, he is vocally deflecting that he was responsible for ending it, but also not blaming Aaron for his own actions and confusion.

17-March-2017 Robert/Chas Woolpack Pre-Rebecca Slap Backroom Scene Dialog:

Robert: ‘Last night, after seeing him. I was all over the place. I got really really drunk. And, I slept with Rebecca.

******

Robert: ‘He said I was no use to him anymore. He pushed me away. I thought we were over. He hurt me, and I wanted to hurt him back. And once the idea took hold, I couldn’t stop it. I got drunk, smashed the place up, and then Rebecca showed up. She was just there.

Chas: ‘I always knew you were wrong for Aaron. I told him so many times. After what you did to Katie, then Chrissie. The countless lives you have ruined. But I convinced myself that you’d changed, because Aaron loved you. But I was wrong, because you are still the same pathetic twisted little boy that you always were. Only you got very good at hiding it.’

Robert: ‘I know I don’t deserve him.’

Chas: ‘No you don’t. And Rebecca. I could kill her and all.’

Robert: ‘It wasn’t her fault. I lied to her and told her we were over. We were. And then I woke up this morning, knowing I still love him. I don’t want to lose him.’

Chas: ‘It’s a bit late now.’

Robert: ‘Please.’

Chas: ‘You made a commitment to each other a few weeks ago, doesn’t that mean anything to ya?’

Robert: ‘It means everything to me. But you don’t know what it’s been like. I’ve been worried out of my mind. And I finally got to see him and he didn’t care. All he wanted was the drugs.’

At the visit where Robert is prepared to confess, Aaron repeatedly tries to apologize for his behaviour during the previous visit. The desperation in Aaron’s demeanor and apologies to Robert, I would be unsure if Aaron really registered that Robert had said “I thought we were over.” He wasn’t apologizing for “ending it” with Robert, but apologizing for taking drugs, pushing him away, and telling Robert that their future (with Liv) was of no use to him inside.

20-March-2017 Robert/Chas/Aaron Prison Visiting Room Scene Dialog:

Robert: ‘I was so worried about ya. And the last time, you were- ‘

Aaron: ‘I haven’t taken anything since last time I saw ya. I swear. Robert…I know I’ve messed everything up big time, but I didn’t mean what I said.’

Chas: ‘None of that matters. Okay? All you have to do is...is focus on the next few weeks. And then- ‘

Aaron: ‘Robert, I’m sorry.’

Robert: ‘Not as sorry as I am.’

Aaron: ‘What for? Has something happened?’

Robert: ‘You can say that. I thought you hated me. I thought we were over.’

Aaron: ‘I know Robert and I’m so sorry. It’s this place…it got to me. You don’t understand what it’s like. It’s always at ya, you’re constantly watching your back.’

 Did Robert Sugden cheat on Aaron with Rebecca White?

I think most everyone agrees that the answer is yes. Even Robert has accepted his actions constitute cheating on Aaron based on his conversations with both Rebecca and Chas.

The events of the days before and the situation with Aaron inside overwhelming Robert make him fall back into old habits reverting to a worse version of himself. His actions are deplorable, but it is his willingness to accept responsibility for the previous night as he speaks with Rebecca and Chas and the offer to admit his mistake to Aaron that starts him on his path to redemption.

Again, this was just an alternative view of the situation and while it doesn’t take away from the problems with the storyline, it does allow me some peace of mind to see Robert in a slightly less negative light with the events and give me hope that he will come good in the future.

The events after Chas stops Robert from confessing to Aaron are a subject for a later post.