#i think it's also telling that so so many creative programs are YEARS behind current methods of like. everything

[shinesurge]

i'm having a slow start this morning and still ruminating about what a racket it is that college is considered like. this huge Thing art people need to go through to have a career. we made fun of frat boys for defending paying dues because it gave them access to ephemeral Important Network Connections and this doesn't seem much different. it's one of those things like, if you're on the level where you are here considering how to GET the very exclusive networking connections the ship for anything major has sailed, and anything smaller than that you can game yourself without paying 15k per semester

also how many horrifyingly successful creators do you know of who Accidentally fell into the thing that got them there, every single monolithic webcomic success story got there by just fucking around in some capacity lol. meanwhile i've known SO many people who did everything Right and got some secret webtoon anime deal, or an Image deal, or got A Deal but spent literal years in development hell because they DID find a publisher but indie comics are at the BOTTOM of the priority list no matter what your contract looks like, and you haven't heard of any of them because the work either never got finished or it's just gathering dust on the indie trade shelf in the back of the comic shop.

there are definitely choices you can make on purpose to put yourself in a better position to take advantage of opportunities if they arise, but anyone who thinks there is exactly one single path to success and it also happens to cost a lot of money is. selling something lmfao. just having a real, tangible body of work that you're passionate about is better clout than anything you could pay for

[ronin-deactivated19851026]

i feel like my brainworms are legit nerfing me

oversharing ahead but i honestly don't care nor see this as a big deal. what's the point of living if i can't talk about my life

i'm not sure what to do about it... one thing they don't warn about when it comes to recovery, you kind of go "backwards" in your timeline, unfolding deeper and deeper traumas. this leads to addressing needs that for most healthy individuals have been satisfied during appropriate stages of development. and it's kind of hard to navigate through, and the deeper into childhood, the harder. and the dumber some issues are.

like...

i identified one of major sources of my art block through noticing the same pattern while learning japanese. i have an exam next month, and i'm sitting here just clowning around, avoiding touching my workbooks. i don't have any struggles learning it. in fact, i'm catching things quickly and if i practiced, i would have been better. but i just can't make myself study, and the block is so strong, it's paralyzing me the same way my art does.

why learn or do anything, if 1. there are people who are better at it, from those who studied better to native speakers, or in case with art, are more creative and have been going to art school since they fell out of the womb 2. i get nothing from it, no praise, no attention, nothing. no change in attitude towards me (this phrasing suits better, considering what i'm about to say next)

and one can think of bajillion things to debunk these points. like, who the fuck cares, do what you like, engage in things that make you happy, also learning skills or expressing oneself through art doesn't render "nothing" as a result, like, it's obvious how both can be monetized, if we're going for "practical" needs, and how many other opportunities await me that can broaden horizons and enrich my existence.

but... but.

the entity we're trying to tell these things isn't the current, conscious mind of 30 year old me.

it's an ostracized, bullied, weird tween that seems to be doing good at school, where the kid finds escapism from issues at home. the kid is called a goddamn little genius at first, but eventually it all becomes boring or doesn't go in line with school program, it's annoying, the kid is fucking annoying too, can't come up with anything useful or worthy everyone's time. so the kid scribbles random shit to escape or vent about both school and home life. or just embraces art. and hey, looks like these skills are cool and complex enough to catch everyone's attention once again and be the cool artist daughter/cousin/friend/whatever i was called to have, i'm considered talented and useful again. for a while. didn't last long because it's all still essentially useless. aaaaaaaaaaaaaa help

(ok random cringy note but i have been thinking recently how fandom often draws spamton the way i used to dress in my mid teens; the time when every bit of hope or resemblance of peace in my life crashed beyond retrieve. he's my spirit animal now)

like. words and lack of full background (which i won't go into in public obviously sjxjskxsxj) can't really explain why something that doesn't sound like a big deal as i type it left such a huge impact on me. my life at home was like a pure nightmare at some point, and came with serious baggage i still yet to unpack. my life at school sucked a lot, except for two years where i switched schools and it brought some relief, albeit temporarily. there were days where i would spend a whole night up, being on full alert for any random reason, including physically fighting or eavesdropping every noise i can hear behind my door, hoping i won't get stabbed or raped in my sleep. that's why i have issues sleeping these days and wake up from every tiny fucking noise. and after that, i would go to school and say i literally couldn't do my homework and none of these fuckheads cared, they called me useless, lazy, and threatened with consequences. yeah, "being useful" became tied close to "having a right to live" because of all the fucking mess that went on, the puzzle is coming together.

~

as i was reading pete walker's book "complex ptsd: from surviving to thriving", bits about describing traumatized children growing into completely dysfunctional adults, to the point where they're on disability and literally can't function at all, i thought about how i essentially sabotaged myself through thing i described above.

if i didn't deliberately ruin everything, i may have had a network of artists at this point, probably opportunities that i can't even think of, stable income, probably also a stable community, but i just dipped right when i was getting more and more interesting commission requests, getting more known, merch being done with my art, people being interested in my stuff, getting some cool opportunities, some of which were even about to spread outside fandom circles...

that hole of void inside, that feeling of uselessness and not being enough, has been growing (along with other issues i had, but still) until it burst and i was avoiding it all like plague, saying "no" to everyone who came to me until they stopped coming, obsessing over being the lamest artist featured everywhere, being afraid to create because it felt like i'm ruining paper/canvas/digital spaces/etc with my essence, that i'm not allowed to make myself present in anyone's life, unless i earned that right through being "useful", and even then i still experienced paranoia and severe anger issues and so, so, so many other things that led me to be diagnosed with a mood disorder, a personality disorder, and then put on antipsychotics and antidepressants.

...

you know, now that i'm typing this all out, i'm thinking that this made it all even worse. i'm even more scared of approaching these issues, because now they have a "take a pill and shut up" layer to it. "you're born useless and don't have a place among us, sedate yourself so you stop being a nuisance to everyone". "no, the world is completely fine, you're the broken one". "normal people live fine with X and Y, you're just crazy, delusional, sick, yOuR BraIn ChEmIcAlS ArE OfF meNtAL iLLness Is WHen Ur BraIn Is BrokeN1!1 MentAl DisorDers ExisT In VacUuM U jUsT WeRe BorN MenThollY EEL TAKE THIS COCKTAIL OF DANGEROUS DRUGS WITH A BUNCH OF SIDE EFFECTS THAT WILL KILL THE REST OF YOUR MIND!!111"

i have no idea in the fucking slightest what to do. i'm doing much, much better than ever. i could even say, i'm very close to being normal, at least in the way i define it. but everything that has to do with vague definition of occupation, hobby, and collective/community? i'm kinda just brute forcing things as of now, idk.

but i don't think i can push it this way for long, cuz... progress in my skills doesn't heal. using a new language doesn't heal. finishing projects, no matter how fun or cool, doesn't heal. getting praised for these doesn't heal. getting paid for my art (or anything at all in theory) doesn't heal. socializing doesn't heal, i just do it in spite of lil demon behind my shoulder constantly whispering me that i'm everyone's laughing stock/annoyance/whatever and everyone i'm interested in wants me away. having some people prove these delusions to me in the past few years didn't help either.

maybe i'll come to solution later, as i always do, but as of now... i'm stuck and i don't know where to start

[nylle-writes]

ChatGPT - A Friend or a Foe?

There is no doubt that AI can change the lives of people because of its efficiency. It displays the brilliancy of the intelligence and creativity of humankind, how we have unique skills and crafts that can help thousands, if not millions of people around the world. This is a great advancement to our technology, but workers cannot help their uneasiness as a new generation of technology emerges.

The official student publication of Manila Science High School, The Nucleus, is currently working on a twelve page news paper about relevant topics for a school competition. Just recently, our adviser, Sir. Peter John Rinchon, has reached out to us via google meet to discuss a possible topic that may be included in our editorial. He talked about AI, about ChatGPT and how it can possibly change teacher’s lives. Both my parents are history teachers. My mother in a public school and my father in a private school. I understood what Sir Rinchon was saying, because although this AI is a great advancement in terms of technology, there will be a possibility that they will replace real human beings in jobs in the future. My aunt, who interviews people who are looking for jobs, often reminds us that our future jobs should be something a robot cannot do, as our technology advances every day and maybe one day take over the world. I could not help asking this AI about this topic.

Even before the pandemic, there already exists a wide variety of websites that can solve math problems by just taking a picture of the question. Some of my classmates when I was in 7th grade used this app/website, and I’d be lying if it didn’t make my life easier as well. But it doesn’t erase the fact that there were quizzes and summative tests, ‘assignments’ where we couldn’t rely on our phones or google to solve our problems for us, so we ultimately gave up on using it because it was proven useless in some aspects and can sometimes generate wrong answers. Plus, our teacher requires us to show our solutions, something these websites cannot do because it requires you to subscribe to ‘premium’ in order to access the solutions. Not all of us had that much money, or were willing to actually spend that much money, so we tucked it back in the back of our minds and never touched it ever again. But as technology continues to evolve, I can’t help but wonder how much these problem solving apps and websites have evolved, and how many students were using them to get themselves through math classes. Now, we have this enormous evolution that allows some robot to generate an essay if you just give it a little backround information. Although it helps student improve their writing by giving them a deeper explanation or understanding of the topic, some students may just use it to speedily create essays without putting in much work. This AI can help you formulate ideas in which you can apply to your essays or reaction papers, but it can also be a form of cheating, as there is no way of telling whether this essay came from an AI or not because it removes the risk of plagiarism despite their whole assignment coming from a robot. It is beneficial, as it helps us broaden our horizons and understanding, developing our language and literacy skills, but it can also take the form of an ’easy way out’ of assignments that promote critical thinking.

The depth of the answer surprised me, and I found it a little creepy. It was able to generate answers with valid points so quickly that it felt as though I was talking to a real human being behind the screen. It shows us the efficiency of this machine, and the reason it’s called ‘Artificial Intelligence’ because of its, well, intelligence. It led me to imagine how this program can affect future generations, how maybe in the next thirty or so years, we’d have robots who are programmed to speak as skillfully as ChatGPT and take orders from customers. So I couldn’t help asking about the issue once again.

The AI was right when it said that there will be no sufficient solution when the time comes where AI completely replaces human being in jobs because number one, it is not that easy to ‘re – skill’. How long will the training take? How much money will it cost just to learn a new skill to continue providing? How will already poor workers learn something new while simultaneously providing for their families? We know that the government cannot provide for everyone, and there are already many flaws in the distribution of financial aid, so how? IF the government does invest in education and training to ensure that workers can compete in job markets, how are so sure that technology will not just evolve more in the time we are studying? There are so many what if’s and how’s to consider if we let AI work for companies, and I consider it as a double – edged sword. On one edge, it has many benefits, making our jobs and lives easier by not having to work at all! But not having to work at all will be a big problem because where will you get the money for necessities? To provide for your family? It has its pros and cons, but I believe it has more cons than pros because a decisions as hard as this can affect the entirety of the human race.

By: Nylle Venice L. Tan

[robin-josephette-biden]

A Statement Through Horror: BDG and YouTube

In his video announcing his departure from Polygon Bryan David Gilbert [BDG] stated, “I want to make things that one day people will make a show like unraveled about.” [Paraphrasing here]. Since that announcement he has made some of the most interesting and engaging comedy videos on the platform. On Bryan’s channel, there is a section called “bdg’s scaries” that contains three videos. The first how to make jorts was released April 27, 2019 and will not be part of this analysis, as we are focused on the other two videos. These two videos are Earn $20K EVERY MONTH by being your own boss which was released on October 25, 2020 (two months before his final Unraveled video and departure from Polygon) and Teaching Jake about the Camcorder, Jan '97 which was posted March 3, 2021. If you have not seen these videos yet you should stop reading immediately and go watch them both (honestly everything on his channel is amazing, especially the surprisingly compelling and personal Dances Moving! series) before continuing to read this as I will be spoiling both of them. The position of YouTube celebrity has been the source of a good bit of commentary as short form online media has become more and more central in our culture. Bryan has created two videos that I feel do an excellent job of exploring the relationship between youtuber and audience. I should also point out that this is merely my interpretation of these videos and is in no way BDG’s intended message. I’ll start by going over the first video. Earn $20K EVERY MONTH by being your own boss opens with BDG outside an apartment building, standing in front of a black car. BDG points up at one of the windows and says, “Three years ago I was living in that apartment right there. Third floor, leaky windows, cockroaches, the worst.” I do not know if the real life BDG actually lived in that building, but the 3 years timeframe does line up neatly with his beginning to work at Polygon. BDG continues to bad mouth his old apartment and mentions how he has turned it all around stating, “But just last week I paid off my very first Subaru Impreza. And I own my own house in Nebraska.” This radical change in life-style he credits to, “. . . [working] from home, [making] my own hours, and [being] my own boss. And you can do it too.” I think that it is interesting that BDG’s career up to that point mirrors that of his character, going from newly graduated content creator making small videos in his apartment to one of the most popular creators on Polygon. And all that being accomplished through work that many (rightly or wrongly) would not see as fitting into the mold of the traditional 9 to 5. The idea of making millions working from home, at your own pace, and with no boss is intrinsically tied to the mystique of the YouTube celebrity. Moving into BDG’s office he explains that he makes $20k a month working on spreadsheets. A massive spreadsheet appears behind him that is dated, 01.12.88 (nothing of note happened on January 12, 1988 and the only thing that happened on December 1, 1988 is a large cyclone that struck Bangladesh, January 12, 1888 is the day of the Schoolhouse Blizzard which struck the midwestern US and killed 235 people (remember this for later)) and is filled, seemingly randomly, with garbled nonsense symbols. Many of the cells are the same as other cells and there are empty cells scattered haphazardly throughout the spreadsheet. BDG explains that he got this strategy from Dorian Smiles. In exchange for working on these spreadsheets BDG receives $10k - $20k a month (an amount that lines up pretty damn well with the amount he should be getting through his Patreon page currently, I don’t know if this was true when the video was made though) from Dorian. Wanting to know where the money is coming from BDG asks his bank and they explain that he is wiring the money to himself from another account he has. He grows confused as to the nature of this work and the disproportionately large amount of money it brings in, explicitly mentioning his confusion as to how the money is coming from someone with, “. . . my name and my voice.” and sets about to find and confront Dorian Smiles. BDG sets off for Center Nebraska, which is close to where Dorian lives (a small town in the northeast corner of Nebraska). He states that Dorian’s address hasn’t existed since 1888 (that’s a familiar year isn’t it?) when it was supposedly condemned during an enormous blizzard and is, “. . . just woods now.” The video then transitions to BDG walking through dark woods while his narration talking up the Dorian Smiles program continues becoming increasingly broken. He comes across a figure sitting in the woods that is convulsing strangely, when he calls out to it the figure turns and is him (heretofore named Dorian). Dorian slowly puts his hands over his nose and mouth while staring at BDG at which point the narration cuts out. BDG copies Dorian and when Dorian removes his hands in a flourish, BDG does the same to reveal that he no longer has a mouth. The video quickly cuts back to BDG in his office talking about the program, he asks the viewer, “Why don’t you join me?” and then sits back and smiles while that line repeats without him moving his mouth. The most pressing mystery is who Dorian Smiles is. I think the most likely answer (and one I know I am not the progenitor of) is that Dorian is a reference to The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde, the story of a young man that has a portrait that ages and takes on the ravages of the debauched life its subject lives while Dorian himself does not. BDG would therefore be the unwitting recipient of that blessing, reaping massive rewards while his double, Dorian, lives in poverty and solitude. I like this explanation for Dorian, but I find it to be far more mechanical than thematic. On a metatextual level you could read that Dorian represents the character of BDG. The person that is in all of BDG’s videos, and the one with whom so much of the audience forms a parasocial relationship. In this lens the parallels with BDG’s own life make more sense. By this point in BDG’s career it is not difficult to imagine him feeling stifled creatively at work (I feel comfortable saying this given how soon after this video came out that he departed Polygon). His character had grown too large, potentially becoming alien to him, no longer reflecting the art he wanted to make and so he made a video about a distorted version of himself stealing his voice. In this way the video becomes a statement on his artistic integrity and his desire to test new boundaries and go in different directions. In hindsight, with the knowledge of his departure and then success after leaving Polygon, the video becomes almost heartwarming (if it weren’t terrifying) in the same way that a before and after picture of someone improving themselves can be. We will return to the Dorian Smiles system, but now we must move to the second video, Teaching Jake about the Camcorder, Jan '97. I’ll save you the blow by blow breakdown and aim for a quick summary instead. This video is a simple stationary shot of an old CRT tv. A VHS tape is inserted and a video of a man teaching his, evidently young, son how to use a camcorder plays. It is relatively wholesome and corny in that way that all home movies are and when it ends the tape rewinds and the segment plays again, this time with a few deviations. Over replays the father becomes aware of what is happening and begins trying to reason with Jake through the camcorder begging him to stop watching the tape and move on. The father is menaced by a large shadowy figure that does not speak or move when confronted. Eventually the father resorts to simply taking the camera and recording his own screams of pain. On the final rewind the father simply says, “Attaboy.” before calmly walking out the room and into the dark hallway, a doorway opens at the other end, filled with orange light, and the father walks through and down stairs. The final shot of the video is of the television, showing the hallway, as orange light begins to flicker in the background of the left side of the TV. The sound of the father descending the stairs transitions from the TV to diegetic and a shadow appears briefly in the light. On one level the video is clearly a statement about loss and about trauma. Jake is losing himself by watching these videos on repeat, trying in vain to relive a happier time. In that desperate desire to regain what was lost he is distorting it, making it into something it isn’t, hurting it. At the beginning the father says, “Never ever press the rewind button, otherwise you might record over a precious memory. We always keep the recording going forward . . .“ I think there is an additional, and more personal for BDG, reading however. The father is the modern character of BDG, and we, the audience, are Jake. He is pleading with us to leave the past behind and move on. This was only his 3rd video that he posted after leaving Polygon. It is a plea from him to leave the old character behind and stop trying to make one into the other. To stop obsessively comparing the new videos to the old. To let the future be the future and let the past be the past. He is telling us that his new work will not be like the old, that he has progressed past that and that now his viewers need to as well. The detachment and confusion of Earn $20K EVERY MONTH by being your own boss has transformed into a desire to move forward. But he needed to ensure that his audience was ready to come with him, and so he made a video about loss and the dangers of sinking too far into it. I know that there are some of you that feel I am reading too much of what I assume to be BDG’s thoughts and emotions into these interpretations, and I am the first to admit that I might be. In no way am I trying to say these are the only interpretations of these videos or even that they are correct. I think there is so much more of an artist that they put into their work than they realise. I do not know the mind of BDG, only he does, but these videos made me feel that I had a glimpse into the feelings of a man whose work I admire. These videos are either longer or a drastically different tone to the material he has put on his own channel and as such they stood out to me. They felt different, and they seemed to ask for a different level of scrutiny. On some level maybe BDGs videos can not be divorced from the story of BDG as a content creator, the same as any modern internet semi-celebrity, or indeed any artist. I guess there was also a part of me that wanted to answer the call to action I heard when BDG left Polygon, to unravel his work. I hope in some small way I’ve been able to do that.

[justlookingvm]

Tessa Virtue’s leap from Figure Skating Olympic Champion to Executive MBA | Kneading Dough Canada

https://youtu.be/JAAkEDRFJ1A

Host: Vinay Virmani

T: If you’re going to build something, you need options in your life. I’ll say this especially as females, it’s important to be independent. To feel like you can be self-reliant and to take care of yourself.

[Intro presented by Tangerine]

V: Tessa, welcome to Kneading Dough Canada.

T: Thank you so much for having me.

V: It’s a pleasure. Kneading Dough Canada is a financial empowerment platform as you know, where we talk money, we talk mindset, we talk about financial lessons that you’ve learned along the way to hopefully inspire the next generation.

T: Well I’m so grateful to be on, I really appreciate it. I think it’s always refreshing to hopefully lend that female lens but also maybe that perspective from the amateur sport world too.

V: Yeah, you know Tessa you’ve accomplished so much, both in your personal and in your professional life. As an athlete you have achieved so many incredible honours, you’ve represented us, this country of Canada at the highest of international levels, but what I’m really excited about is you’re about to add another accomplishment in the form of three very special letters, MBA behind your name. Talk to me about that decision.

T: It’s been you know lingering in my mind for a long time. Education was always a priority in my household growing up in my family, and I thought about law school for quite some time and then I retired at 28 or 29 and thought maybe that’s too long (giggle) and realized also I wanted to flex a bit of a creative muscle. So this MBA program has been a dream of mine for quite some time. I want to be a student again in every sense of the word and I’m eager to learn the ins and outs of the business realm and that corporate sphere that I’ve had a unique perspective of, you know for 10 15 years, but if I’m going to take on a new role whatever that may be then I really want to feel like I’ve adopted that rookie mindset once again, and earned my stripes, I’ve gotten the credibility to to deserve a place there.

V: I want to take it to the world of figure skating though, because the world of figure skating is so glamorous as a sport. You know

T: I wasn’t sure where that sentence was going to land. It could have gone so many directions.

V: I I’m so like fascinated by the world of figure skating because the glamour, the imagination, the costumes, the drama, the whole production value. It looks so beautiful and elegant, but behind it there’s also rigorous routine, training and it’s not cheap.

T: Uh huh

V: So growing up, dd you have those conversations with your family and did you understand the investment that it was taking to sort of put you through the highest levels of figure skating.

T: The 2 things that my parents were always wiling to invest in or prioritize were education and sport. And it was important to them that we were exposed to as much as we could be. I’m the youngest of four. You know I’m of two minds because on one hand I do believe they tried to shield me from the burden of that sacrifice, that they made for all kids and for you know all of these adventures. But I was also keenly aware of it. I knew the the toll and I knew the cost and um you know I felt that responsibility…

V: Was there anything that you remember early on where there was an incident or a moment where you were like, I recognize like you talked about the toll.

T: My parents were so conscious to ensure that I wasn’t carrying that weight, and yet I moved away from home  when I was 13 and I was kind of budgeting at that age for groceries and 7-eleven runs (laughs), whatever it is that a 13 year old needs. Taking taxis everywhere and I made a decision when I was 15 um to be able to do it on my own. My mom was always quick to say you know you have to look after yourself and you always have to make your own way and she was all about sort of creating that sense of security and freedom, so that I had options.

To be honest I had a tumultuous relationship with my father when I was a teen and I think it was just a decision, at that point. I didn’t feel right.

V: Yeah

T: I didn’t feel right accepting that kind of support anymore um and maybe it was a bit of pride you know, not wanting to

V: You don’t want to be dependent on anybody.

T: Totally. Yeah, and that’s not to say that I’m not aware of the privilege that I had growing up to have those opportunities. It was just a real marker of OK, if this is the path I’m choosing, um and I really need to make sure that I can I can do it on my own or in a way that really isn’t such a burden.

V: You know talking to you today has reinforced independence. You know being independent, not being dependent and and just being self-sufficient. And how gratifying that is, you know I think a lot of people, especially as you said, I hope a lot of young women watch this show and and really listen to your advice. And the fact that you took that decision at such an early age.

T: You know it’s interesting I found old journals not too long ago, and there was a page in one and I don’t know, judging by my handwriting I might have been 12? 11 or 12? And I had written my goals and that were, you know the to win the Olympics, be on Oprah, which I’ll settle for uninterrupted and Kneading Dough, uh buy a cottage, like buy a family cottage

V: Right

T: And at 12 that was on my mind and the feeling of walking into this cottage that my mom and I were able to dream of and then buy together, is so visceral and it’s it’s so much about, like I think back to being young and maybe not having, especially for her like that sense of security and and just really feeling like that can be a safe place now. Um so again it’s more of the representation of that.

V: I’ve heard you say something that has really resonated with me always because it’s something that I believe in. That the highs are so much better when you’ve experienced the lows. And obviously Scott Moir and yourself accomplished so many great things together. Something that I always try to tell the younger generation is, sometimes you have to just sit back celebrate your failures.

T: Well we learned to embrace it by making it part of our process, in that, not only did we anticipate failure and expect it and embrace it, well, we practiced it. So we learned to fall on demand, get back up, refocus, and

V: OK

T: be back into our program still trying to amalgamate as many points as possible.

V: You know I remember once um I must have been in grade school and I and I failed a few subjects. I was never a good student.

T: OK

V: And you know we didn’t have a lot of money at the time and I remember my my dad, I was really afraid to tell him that you know I’ve failed these courses and blah blah blah, but he said to the family, he said, alright everybody get ready we’re going for dinner. And we went to this restaurant that was only saved for like birthdays or anniversaries. And so we get there and he’s ordering all these great things on the menu and I’m like “dad, I don’t think you heard me like I failed, like I failed and here you are taking it t the restaurant.” And I remember he looked at me and he said “You know I want you to celebrate this failure. I want you to take it in because if you’re winning all the time, you’re not going to learn anything.”

T: Wow, and obviously that stayed with you

V: Oh yeah, you’re always going to learn so much more from the losses.

This next set of questions is called the two cents round, so you can’t overthink these things.

Tessa, we all know about your discipline but what do you splurge on?

T: Clothes

V: Clothes, OK, all right. What part of your budget are you working on lowering?

T: Clothes (big laugh). Actually not really because I will say, it’s more what it represents like part of that is like my I love it and it’s become also intertwined with my career and my brand if you will. Um

V: Its an investment in yourself.

T: I think so, that’s how I twist it

V: So, what is us the best financial decision you’ve made so far?

T: Hire the right people

V: Building the right team around you.

T: Yeah absolutely.

V: Describe your financial persona in just one word.

T: I want to say careful?

V: Careful.

T: Careful in that I’m strategic

V: I like that, OK

T: But I’m willing to have some fun.

V: OK, all right. Tessa if you could run any business, what would it be?

T:  My own.

V: Your own. OK. All right I’m not going to push you more. [Tessa laughs]. They say patience is a virtue, how long did your first paycheck last?

T: I mean I spent my whole career basically operating at a deficit, so everything went back into training. I worked towards certain things and the you know I was really fortunate to get some funding and bursary grants, and then eventually sponsors and um was able to build this little nest egg, but mostly  it went right back into training.

V: Tessa, this year we’ve been having such important and meaningful conversations about women in sport. And you know of course there’s such a long way to go for those conversations really to achieve equality, but as somebody who’s such a big advocate for women’s empowerment in sport, how do you feel that you want to lend your voice to those conversations?

T: I think, currently the biggest impact I feel I can have is really connecting with those young female athletes at that precipice of maybe dropping out um for all the heart breaking reasons that we’re learning about through research. Whether that is you know body image, or lack of self-confidence, lack of self-worth, it’s just not good enough. Like the access to resources, there are opportunities, um I think those conversations are really important and that’s where I’ve been feeling most fulfilled, when I’m able to connect with those athletes and you know I’ve been able to benefit from all of the lessons and the opportunities that sport has lended it uh to my life. And I just so want that for other female athletes. And you know we’re seeing that there are more mentors, more representation, more access to viewing these formidable female athletes, and I hope that resonates.

V: Tessa, we’ve uh had the opportunity to work on a few branded campaigns together. There’s this Tessa grace, and there’s this element of everything being held to a certain standard. In everything that you do, especially things that are public facing. Talk to me a bit about that.

T: I hate the word brand but I’m going to say it, my brand has been

V: I mean you definitely have a very strong brand

T: Well it’s been built on the very foundation of me and my personality and if those values aren’t upheld in every sense of you know the word, then I’m I’m not useful to anyone. Then I’m then no brand would want to hire me, um because it if it gets diluted, then I then I just think um it’s losing the very essence of what resonates with people. And I’m really careful about that like I only partner and pair with brands that I would authentically stand behind and feel really good about promoting.  

V: I love that

T: And I’m conscious of where I lend my voice and my likeness, a very clear mission statement, and you know I love to be hands on but that’s where like the creative fulfilment comes in

V: Right

T: And honestly that’s where the most successful engagement also comes. If I’m involved and it’s a collaborative process, um it’s much more successful for the brand too.

V: You know, over this past year, there’s been such a strong connection to mental health and financial wellness. Many Canadians have a very high debt to income ratio, which can be very stressful. For you, how do you protect not only your mental health, but when it comes to financial wellness. How do you really protect your sanity?

T: As an amateur athlete I grappled with that um day after day. I think it’s important to find purpose in saving and planning. So, you know my mom started those conversations with me when I was young but that was all to sort of plant the seed of like you need to plan for this. And if you’re going to build something you need options in your life. For me you know it’s helped having a corporation for example, because a lot of my money is tied up there and it it’s great um but, it’s also made me very careful and strategic in how I spend it.

V: What is your one big piece of financial advice to all young women out there?

T: Surround yourself with the right people and set yourself up for independence.

V: I love that. Financial freedom.

T: Financial freedom.

[path-of-my-childhood]

Aaron Dessner on the 'Weird Avalanche' That Resulted in Taylor Swift's “Evermore”

By: Lyndsey Havens for Billboard Date: December 18th 2020

One day this fall, Taylor Swift walked into Aaron Dessner’s home to wish his daughter a happy 9th birthday - but that wasn't the only reason Swift was there.

She was mostly there to film the Disney+ special, Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, in which she was meeting up with her primary Folklore collaborators - The National’s Dessner and Jack Antonoff. They had all gathered for the first time at Dessner’s upstate New York studio to play her record-breaking album live.

On the last night of filming the special (a process that was done while following CDC guidelines, with a limited crew and COVID-19 testing), Dessner recalls how he, Antonoff and Swift stayed up until 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. - drinking and celebrating the more-than-warm embrace Folklore had received. But in the days that followed, Swift ended up staying, and she and Dessner unexpectedly continued working. Eventually, they had 17 more songs, all of which became the sister album, Evermore, released on Dec. 11.

“Folklore almost immediately was treated as a classic or a masterpiece,” says Dessner. “It was elevated fairly quickly and had been commercially really successful, so obviously it’s hard to follow something like that up. But one of the things I love about Evermore is the ways in which Taylor was jumping off different cliffs. The ability she has to tell these stories, but also push what she’s doing musically, is really kind of astonishing. It’s like I went to some crash course, some masters program, for six months.”

Below, Dessner tells Billboard all about the work that went into his second album in five months with one of the world's biggest pop stars.

With Folklore a lot of the production and arrangements came from a folder you had sent Taylor. Did you continue to pull from there, or was Evermore made from scratch?

A lot more of it was made from scratch. After Folklore came out, I think Taylor had written two songs early on that we both thought were for Big Red Machine, “Closure” and “Dorothea.” But the more I listened to them, not that they couldn’t be Big Red Machine songs, but they felt like interesting, exciting Taylor songs. “Closure” is very experimental and in this weird time signature, but still lyrically felt like some evolution of Folklore, and “Dorothea” definitely felt like it was reflecting on some character.

And I, sort of in celebration of Folklore, had written a piece of music that I titled “Westerly,” that’s where she has the house that she wrote “Last Great American Dynasty” about. I’ll do that sometimes, just make things for friends or write music just to write it, but I didn’t at all think it would become a song. And she, like an hour later, sent back “Willow” written to that song, and that sort of set [things in motion] and we just started filling this Dropbox again. It was kind of like, “What’s happening?”

And then it just kept going. She wrote "Gold Rush” with Jack [Antonoff] and by the end there were 17 songs, and it was only a couple months after Folklore came out, so it’s pretty wild. Each time we would just be in disbelief and kind of like, “How is this possible?” Especially because we didn’t need to talk much about structure or ideas or anything - it was just this weird avalanche.

Considering how industry-shaking Folklore was, what pressure did that introduce this time around?

I think because of how we made it, it really wasn’t like producing some giant record or something, it still had this very homespun feeling to it. There may have been a moment or two when I think Taylor was wondering when and how to put out Evermore, but I think the stronger it became, and as each song came together, it just started to feel like, "This is a sister record - it’s part of the same current of creativity and collaboration and the stories feel inter-related."

And aesthetically, to me, Evermore is wilder and has more of a band dynamic at times. You can feel her songwriting sharpen even more on it, in terms of storytelling, and also just this freedom to make the kinds of songs that were coming. When she started to write in a less diaristic way and tell these stories, I think she found she had this incredible wealth of experience and depth to her storytelling that was quite natural. She could easily make these songs more reflective or blur the lines of what’s autobiographical and what's not in interesting ways. It felt like the most natural thing in the world.

Folklore was made entirely remotely, how did that process change for Evermore?

This was both. Some of it was remote, but then after the Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, Taylor stayed for quite a while and we recorded a lot. She actually wrote “‘Tis the Damn Season” when she arrived for the first day of rehearsal. We played all night and drank a lot of wine after the fireside chat - and we were all pretty drunk, to be honest - and then I thought she went to bed. But the next morning, at 9:00 a.m. or something, she showed up and was like, “I have to sing you this song,” and she had written it in the middle of the night. That was definitely another moment [where] my brain exploded, because she sang it to me in my kitchen, and it was just surreal.

That music is actually older - it’s something I wrote many years ago, and hid away because I loved it so much. It meant something to me, and it felt like the perfect song finally found it. There was a feeling in it, and she identified that feeling: That feeling of... “The ache in you, put there by the ache in me.” I think everyone can relate to that. It’s one of my favorites.

Did you watch the Disney+ special?

I’m not a big fan of watching myself - but I did watch it, and I thought it was beautiful. It’s funny, because it was very DIY in a sense; a tight little small crew was there to do it, nobody was styling us or fixing our hair or anything like that, it’s very authentic. I rehearsed a little bit before, but both of us - Jack and I - were pretty much figuring it out as we went.

And I think the nice thing is that all of the songs could work like that, and that’s partly a testament to the strength of the album. Without big production tricks or backing vocals or anything like that, the songs stand up, and Taylor just sang the crap out of them. And hanging out with them was so much fun. They’re kind of like siblings almost; they’ve known each other a long time, there’s this quick humor between them.

Would you like to do something like that again with Evermore?

I don’t know if you can recreate exactly what we did with Folklore. I haven’t actually talked to anyone about that. But to me, the songs of Evermore would be even more fun to play, because more of them feel like band songs. But, that being said, I won’t be disappointed if we don’t - there is no plan afoot right now to do that.

During an interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Jimmy asked Taylor about the rumors behind Woodvale and if there’s a third album coming, to which she said she’s exhausted. How are you feeling energy wise?

I think we both feel like it was Mission: Impossible - and we pulled it off. I imagine that we’ll make music together in some ways forever, because it was that sort of chemistry, and I’m so thankful and grateful for what happened, but I think there’s a lot there. It’s not just the two albums, there’s also bonus tracks, and two of my favorite songs aren’t even on this record. We’re not pouring into another one now.

I’m going to finish the Big Red Machine album - I was really very close to finishing it when all of a sudden the Folklore and Evermore vortex opened up, and actually Taylor has been really helpful and involved with that as well - and The National is starting to talk about making music, and I think she’ll probably take a break. But I’m so excited for any future things we might do -- it’s definitely a lifelong relationship. And I’d say the same for all the people who worked on these records, including my brother and everybody who contributed. It’s a really special legacy.

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Dark”

Welcome back, everyone! Can you believe it's been six weeks already? I can't. Something something the uncomfortable passage of time during a pandemic as emphasized by a web-series.

But we're here to talk about RWBY the fictional story, not RWBY the cultural icon. At least, we will in a moment. First, I'd like to acknowledge that shaky line between the two, growing blurrier with every volume. A sort of good news, bad news situation.

The bad news — to get that out of the way — is that we cannot easily separate RWBY from its authors and those authors have, sadly, been drawing a lot of negative attention as of late. This isn't anything new, not at all, but I think the unexpectedly long hiatus gave a lot of fans (myself included) the chance to think about Rooster Teeth's failings without getting distracted by their biggest and brightest production. There's a laundry list of problems here — everything from the behavior of voice actors to the quality of their merch — but as a sort of summary issue, I'd like to highlight the reviews that continue to pop up on websites like Glassdoor, detailing the toxic, sexist, crunch-obsessed environment that RT employees are forced to work in. A lot of these websites requires a login to read more than a page of reviews, but you can check out a Twitter thread about it here. 

Now, I want to be clear: I'm not bringing this up as a way to shame anyone enjoying RWBY. This isn't a simplistic claim of, "The authors are Problematic™ and therefore you can't like the stuff they produce." Nor is this meant to be a catch-all excuse for RWBY's problems. If it were, I'd have dropped these recaps years ago. I'm of the belief that audiences maintain the right to both praise and criticize the work they're given, regardless of the context in which that work was produced. At the end of the day, RT has presented RWBY as a finished product and, more than that, presents it as an excellent product, one worth both our emotional investment and our money (whether in the form of paying for a First account, or encouraging us to buy merch, attend cons, etc.) I'll continue to critique RWBY as needed, but I a) wanted fans to be at least peripherally aware of these issues and b) clarify that my use of "RT" in statements like, "I can't believe RT is screwing up this badly" is meant to be a broad, nebulas acknowledgement that someone in the company is screwing up, either creatively (doesn't have the skill to write a good scene) or morally (hasn't created an environment in which other creators are capable of crafting a good scene). The real, inner workings of such companies are mostly a secret to their audiences and thus it's near impossible for someone like me — random fan writing these for fun as a casual side hobby — to accurately point fingers. Hence, broad "RT." I just wanted to clarify that when I use this it's as a necessary placeholder for whoever is actually responsible, not a damnation of the overworked animator breaking down in a bathroom. Heavy stuff, but I thought it was necessary (or at least worthwhile) to acknowledge this issue as we head into the second half of the volume.

Now for the good news: RWBY has reached 100 episodes! For any who may not know, 100 is a pretty significant number in the TV world because, when talking about prime time programming, it guarantees syndicated reruns. Basically, networks don't want audiences to get burned out with a show — changing the channel when it comes on because ugh, I've seen this already, recently too — and 100 episodes allows for a roughly five month run without any repeats, making it very profitable. RWBY is obviously not a television show and doesn't benefit from any of this (hell, modern television doesn't benefit from this as much as it used to, not in the age of streaming), but the 100 episode threshold is still ingrained in American culture. Beyond just being a nice, rounded number, it is historically a measure of huge success and I can't imagine that RT isn't aware of that. Regardless of what we think of RWBY's current quality, this is one hell of a milestone and should be applauded.

All that being said... RWBY's quality is definitely still lacking lol.

Our 100th episode is titled "Dark" — keeping with the one word titles, then — and I'd like to emphasize that, as a 100th episode, it definitely delivers in terms of plot. There's plenty of action, important character beats, and at least one major reveal, everything we'd expect from a milestone and a Part II premiere. The animation also continues to be noteworthy for its beauty, as I found myself admiring many of the screenshots I took for this recap. There are certainly things to praise. The only problem (one we're all familiar with by now) is that these small successes are situated within a narrative that's otherwise falling apart. It's all good stuff... provided you ignore literally everything else surrounding it.

But let's dive into some examples. We open on Qrow starting, awoken by the thunder outside. Robyn has been watching him and makes a peppy comment about how none of them will be sleeping tonight, followed by a more serious, "Sounds bad out there." Yeah, it does sound bad, especially when they all know — thanks to Ruby's message back in Volume 7 — that this is due to Salem's arrival. I think a lot of the fandom has forgotten that little detail because people often discuss Qrow as if he is entirely ignorant of what is going on outside his cell. Even if we were to assume that he's forgotten all about the pesky Salem issue (the horror of Clover's death overriding everything else, perhaps) he still knows that Tyrian is running loose in a heat-less city with a creepy storm going on and, from his perspective, the Very Evil Ironwood is still running the show. So it's bad, which begs the question of why Qrow (and Robyn, for that matter) hasn't displayed an ounce of legitimate worry for everyone he knows out there. Thus far, their interactions have centered entirely around Qrow's misplaced blame and Robyn's terrible attempts to lighten the mood, despite the fact that a war is raging right beyond that wall. It's another example of RWBY's inability to manage tone properly, to say nothing of balancing the multiple concerns any one character should be trying to juggle. Just as it rankles that Ruby and Yang don't seem to care about what has happened to their uncle, Qrow likewise doesn't seem to care about what might be happening to his nieces. When did we reach a point where these relationships are so broken that someone can be arrested/chucked into a deadly battle and the others just... ignore that?

So Robyn's otherwise innocuous comment immediately reminds me of how badly the narrative has treated these conflicts and, sadly, things don't improve much from here. We are thankfully spared more of Robyn's jokes when Qrow realizes that what he's hearing can't be thunder. A second later, Cinder blasts through the wall — called it! — and Qrow instinctively transforms. 

The only downside to this moment is that the whole ceiling falls down on Qrow and the others because APPARENTLY these cells don't have tops on them. Seriously. As far as I can recall we don't see the stone breaking through the forcefield somehow and this looks pretty open to me.

If it is... you're telling me these crazy powerful fighters who practice landing strategies and leap tall buildings in a single bound —

— can't just hop over this mildly high electric fence to get out? Qrow can't just fly away?

We're, like, two minutes in, folks.

We transfer to Nora's perspective as she wakes up, seeing Klein giving her the IV. He tells her not to worry, that "you and your friend are going to be just fine." What friend? Penny? Klein went upstairs prior to Weiss hugging Whitley or Penny crash landing outside. I had thought them bursting through the door with another unconscious friend was the first time he learned what the big bang outside was, but apparently not.

Penny is, obviously, a mess. While I now understand the choice to make her blood such an eye-catching color when that's crucial to the Hound's hunt, I still think it looks strange visually. Like someone has taken a copy of RWBY and painted over it. It doesn't look like it fits the art style. More than that, it implies some rather complicated things about Penny's humanity, especially in a volume focused around her being a "real girl." Real enough for Maiden powers, but with obviously inhuman blood that isn't even referred to as "bleeding." Penny "leaks" instead.

Toss in the fact that she's literally an android who is made up of tech — recall the running gags about her being heavy, or it hurts to fist-bump her, to say nothing of keeping things like multiple blades inside her body — yet Klein says that her "basic anatomy" is the same and he can "stitch up that wound."

I'm sorry, what? Whatever Penny looks like on the inside, it's not going to resemble a human woman's anatomy, and Klein might be able to stitch the outer layer of skin she's got, but that won't do anything to fix whatever metal bits have been broken underneath. Penny isn't a human-robot hybrid, she's a robot with an aura. Penny has knives in her back, rockets in her feet, and a super computer behind her eyes. When our clip introduced that Klein would be the one to help Penny, my initial reaction was, "Seriously? He's a butler and a doctor and an engineer?" But RWBY didn't even try to get away with a Super Klein explanation, they just waved away Penny's very obvious, inhuman anatomy. Yeah, I'm sure "stitching up" an android wound is just like giving Nora her IV. I hope the surgical sutures he used are extra strong!

In an effort to not entirely drag this episode, I do appreciate that Whitley is allowed an "ugh" moment about the non-blood covering his shirt without anyone calling him out on it. That felt like the sort of thing the show would usually try to make a character feel guilty about and I'm glad that, for once, he was just allowed to be frustrated without comment.

Then the power goes out and May calls, which raises questions about what state the CCTS is in and when scrolls are available to our protagonists vs. when they're not. But whatever. She's checking in because she just "saw another bombing run light up the Kingdom" and —

Wait. Bombing? Salem is bombing the city? I know we've seen explosions in the sky, but I'd always just attributed that to evil aesthetic. Why does this dialogue sound like it's from a World War II film and not a fantasy sci-fi show about literal monsters launching a ground attack?

May looks pretty against the sky though. I like her hair color against that purple.

I'm admittedly grasping at positives here because we finally return to her "You have to choose" ultimatum and — surprise! — May has pulled back completely. Ruby says that once they've helped Penny, "We'll...we'll do something!" which is once again her avoiding making a decision. Ruby still refuses to choose, instead falling back on generic, optimistic pep talks. They'll figure out how to stop Salem later. They'll think about the impact of telling the world later. They'll choose who to help later. Ruby keeps pushing these problems into the future where, she hopes, a perfect, magical solution will have appeared for her to latch onto. When that continues to not happen, others pressuring her to actually do something and stop waiting for perfection — Ironwood, Yang, May — she panics and continues stalling for time. Wait an episode and the narrative supports her in this.

Because initially May was forcing Ruby to decide. Now, May enables her desire to keep putting things off. "Don't beat yourself up, kid. At this point, I don't know how much is left to be done." That's the exact opposite of what May believed last episode, that there was still so much work and good to do for the people of Mantle. This is precisely what the show did with Yang and Ren's scenes too, having people call Ruby out... but then return to a message of, 'Don't worry, you're actually doing just fine' before Ruby is forced to actually change.

None of which even touches on May calling her "kid" in this moment. That continues to be a convenient way of absolving Ruby of any responsibility. When she wants to steal airships or Amity Tower, she's an adult everyone should listen to, the leader of this war. When the story wants to absolve her of previously mentioned flaws, she becomes a kid who shouldn't "beat herself up." I said years ago that RWBY couldn't continue to let the group be both children and adults simultaneously, yet here we are.

So that was a thoroughly disappointing scene. Ruby gets her moment to look sad and defeated, listing "the grimm, the crater, Nora, Penny" as problems she doesn't know how to solve. Note that 'Immortal witch attacking the city I've helped trap here' isn't included in that list. Ruby is still ignoring Salem herself and no one in the group is picking up where May left off, challenging her to do more than wring her hands over things others are already trying to take care of: Ironwood is fighting the grimm, May has gone off to help the crater, Klein is patching up Nora and Penny. Ruby, as one flawed individual, should not be expected to come up with a solution to everything, but she does need to stop acting like she can come up with a solution to everything when it matters most (office scene) and rejecting others' solutions when they ask for her help (Ironwood, May).

If it feels like I'm dragging the flawed, traumatized teenager too much, it's not in an effort to ignore those aspects of her identity. Rather, it's because she's also the licensed huntress who wrested control from a world leader and violently demanded she be put in charge of this battle. Ruby, by her own actions, is now responsible for dealing with these problems, or admitting she was wrong and letting others take the lead, without purposefully derailing their plans. She doesn't get to suddenly go, "I don't know," cry a little, and get sympathetic pats.

But of course that's precisely what happens, courtesy of Weiss.

During this whole scene I kept wondering why no one was celebrating Nora waking up, especially when Ruby outright mentions her. Have they just not noticed given all the Penny drama? Because Nora absolutely woke up.

Aaaand went back to sleep, I guess. What was the point of that POV shot? No worries though, she'll wake up again in a minute.

Willow arrives and announces that they can fix the power (and Penny) using the generator at the edge of the property. I'm convinced RT doesn't actually know what a generator is because the characters are acting like it's some super special device that only richy-rich could possibly have. Whitley says that it's the SDC executives who have their "own power supply" and that it's "extremely unfair." Now, don't get me wrong, a good generator powering large portions of your house can run you 30k+, but you can also get one that plugs into your extension cord and powers your fridge for a couple hundred. There's absolutely a class issue here, just not the one Whitley and Weiss seem to be commenting on. They make a generator sound like the sort of device that only a politician-CEO could possible have and it's weird.

Likely, it sounds weird because it's a choppy way of getting Whitley to bring up the wealth disparity so he can then go, 'That's right! We're crazy rich with a company housing tons of ships! We can use those to evacuate Mantle.' Awkwardness aside, I do like that the Schnee wealth is being used for good purposes, but... evacuate where? To the city currently under attack by a giant whale? In a RWBY that wasn't determined to demonize Ironwood, this would have been a great plot point during the office scene instead, with Weiss offering her services to Ironwood, even if the group decides that a continued evacuation still isn't possible.

Instead, we get it here from Whitley. Do I need to point out the obvious? That Whitley is the MVP of this episode? He's done more good in an HOUR than the group has managed in a year. Give this kid some training and make him a huntsmen instead.

We're given a (very pretty!) shot of the shattered moon because it wouldn't be RWBY if we weren't continually reminded that gods once wiped out humanity before destroying part of a celestial body... and absolutely no one talks about that lol.

Blake's coat might not make any sense for her color scheme, but it does make her easy to spot as she and Ruby run across the grounds. Oh my god, they're actually doing something together! It only took eight years. They even get a lovely talk where Blake admits how much she looks up to Ruby, despite her being younger, and once again I'm struck at how much more I would have loved this scene if it had appeared elsewhere in the series. It is, indeed, as sweet and emotional as all the RWBY GIF-ers are claiming... provided you overlook that this is the exact opposite of what Ruby needs to hear right now. She doesn't need to hear that she's more mature and reliable than her elders when she's functioning under a "We don't need adults" mentality. She doesn't need to hear that not knowing what to do is totally fine, not when that led to her turning on Ironwood, despite not knowing how to stop Salem. She doesn't need to hear that "doing something" — doing anything — is a strength, because Ruby keeps avoiding the big problems for smaller ones she's comfortable with, like standing by Penny's bedside instead of deciding between Mantle and Atlas. Blake's speech is heartfelt, but it's a speech that suits a Beacon days Ruby who is having some doubts about her leadership skills, not the girl whose impulsive — and now lack of — actions is having world-wide repercussions. Everyone is babying Ruby to a staggering degree. It's like if we had a med show where the doctor is standing by the bedside of a coding patient, fretting between two treatments. 'Don't worry,' their colleague says, patting their shoulder. 'I've always looked up to you. You'll do something when you're ready' and then they continue to watch the patient, you know, die.

Also: who does Ruby look up to? Everyone talks about how much they depend on and trust Ruby, but who does Ruby look to for guidance? A number of her problems stem from the fact that she has rejected the advice of everyone who has tried to help her improve: Qrow, Ozpin, Ironwood, even Yang. Ruby is presented as the pinnacle of what to strive for in a leader, rather than a leader who has only been doing this for two years and still has a great deal to learn.

Anyway, they get the generator on and the Hound shows up.

I am begging RT to just make RWBY a horror story. All their best scenes the last three years have been horror I am bEGGING —

Anyway, while Ruby waits to be eaten we cut to Willow and Klein, the former of which is reaching for her bottle, pulling back, reaching again, all while her hand shakes. This is good. This is what we should have gotten with Qrow. Which isn't to say that their (or anyone's) addiction should be identical, but rather that this is a far more engaging and complex look at addiction than what our birb got. Willow tells us that she doesn't drink in the dark despite bringing the bottle with her; tries to resist drinking when she's scared and ultimately fails. Qrow just decided to stop drinking after decades of addiction, seemingly for no reason, and that was that. Why is a side character we only met this volume written better than one of the main cast?

Blake manages to call Weiss about the Hound and she asks if Whitley can handle the airships without her. I mean, I assume so given that Weiss is looking at the bookshelves while Whitley does all the work lol. He makes a teasing comment about how he can if she can handle that grimm and she comments that they still need to work on his "attitude."

No they don't. Weiss stuck a weapon in her kid brother's face. Whitley made a joke. Even if Weiss' comment is likewise meant to be read as teasing, it's clear that we've bypassed any meaningful conversation between them. That hug was supposed to be a Fix Everything moment even though, as I've laid out elsewhere, it didn't even come close.

We cut back to Ruby getting thrown through a wall into the backyard and the Hound creepily coming after her. She's freaked out by this clearly abnormal grimm and Blake is weirdly... not? "It's just a grimm. Just focus!" Uh, it's obviously not. Have we reached the traumatized, sleep-deprived point where the group is sinking into full-blown denial? I wouldn't be surprised. They've been awake for like... 40+ hours.

Because the Hound knocks Ruby out with a single hit. Just, bam, she's down. "Focusing" is not the solution here.

Weiss calls to warn the others about the grimm, telling them to stick together. Willow (understandably) starts freaking out and flees the room (classic horror trope!). Klein is left alone when Penny wakes up with red eyes. Oh no!

Don't worry. You know nothing meaningful happens.

She shoves Klein before (somehow?) resisting the hack, her Maiden powers going wild in the process. Just when it looks as if Penny might cause some serious damage, Nora wakes up, takes her hand, and says, I kid you not:

"Hey... no one is going to make you do anything you don't want to do... It's just a part of you. Don't forget about the rest."

Okay. I want to re-emphasize that I love hopeful, uplifting, victory-won-through-the-power-of-love stories. Istg I'm not dead inside, it's just that RWBY does this so badly. I mean, what is this? It has similarities to the character shouting, 'No! Resist!' to their mind-controlled ally, but this is not presented as a desperate, last-ditch effort by Nora. She just speaks like this is the most obvious truth in the world. If you don't want to have your mind taken over... just don't! It's that simple. The problem definitely isn't that Watts has changed her coding and has implemented a command she can't override, it's that Penny has forgotten about the "rest" of her personhood.

And this works. Granted, not for long, but we leave Nora having successfully calmed Penny down and until her eyes unexpectedly go red again scenes later, we're left assuming that this is a permanent solution. That, imo anyway, is taking the Power of Love too far, overriding the basic reality of Penny being hacked. It’s not a personal failing she must overcome, it’s an external attack. I would have rather had Nora react to the scars she saw on her arm, or have a moment with Klein, or get some love from the group. Not a wakes up, falls asleep, wakes up again to save Penny with a Ruby level 'Just ignore reality' pep-talk, then back to sleep again.

So Penny isn't attacking her allies, or mistakenly hurting her allies with wild Maiden powers. Not that the group doesn't have enough to deal with, but still. Weiss arrives to help with the Hound and attempts a new summon, only to fail when two minor grimm burrow up into her glyphs. I really enjoyed that moment, both for the wing visual and the knowledge that Weiss' glyphs can fail if you break them somehow (which makes sense). Also, I just like that she failed in general? Weiss is, as per usual now, about to demonstrate just how OP she is compared to the rest of the team, so it was nice to see her faltering here.

The Hound tries to make off with Ruby and Blake does an excellent job of keeping it tethered. Ruby finally wakes, only to realize that the grimm is actually after Penny since it's staring at her power up through the window, no longer trying to escape. Moments like this remind me that there's someone on RT's writing team that knows what they're doing, at least some of the time. The assumption that the Hound is after Ruby as a SEW, the surprise that it's actually Penny, realizing it holds up because Ruby is covered in Penny's blood and Blake is not... that's all nice, tight plotting. More of that please!

The Hound drops her and Ruby's aura shatters when she hits the ground. I want everyone to remember this moment as an example of how strong the Hound is. The group may be tired, but unlike YJR they've been sitting around in the Schnee manor for a number of hours, regaining strength. We saw the Hound hit Ruby twice — once through the wall and once to knock her out — and then she falls from a not very high distance for a huntress, yet her aura is toast. That's the level of power and skill the Hound possesses. Decimating YJR, knocking Oscar out, same for Ruby, avoiding Blake and Weiss' hits, soon to treat Penny like a ragdoll. Just remember all this for the episode's end.

Blake tells Weiss she'll take care of Ruby, you go help the others. Yay breaking up the duos more! Bad timing though as the new acid-spitting grimm pops out of the ground and Blake is now left alone to face it.

Weiss re-enters the mansion, knowing the Hound is somewhere nearby, but not where. Suddenly, Willow's voice sounds through her scroll with an, "Above you!" which... doesn't keep Weiss from getting hit lol. But it's the thought that counts! Willow has accessed the cameras she's set up throughout the manor, watching the Hound's movements, and I have to say, that is a WAY better use of her separation from Klein than I thought we were getting. I legit thought they'd have Willow run away in a panic, meet the Hound, die, and then Weiss could be sad about losing her mom.

It does say something about RWBY's writing that this was my knee-jerk theory, as well as my surprise when we got something way better.

The Hound runs off, uninterested in Weiss, and she asks Willow to keep tabs on it. It heads for Whitley next (also covered in Penny's blood) and very creepily stalks him in the office with a, "I know you're here." Whitley is seconds away from being Hound chow before one of Weiss' boars pin it against the wall. He runs, then runs BACK to finish deploying the airships, before finally escaping assumed death. Goddamn this boy is pulling his weight.

I assume all these ships are automated then? I hope someone takes a moment to call May. Otherwise it's going to be super weird for the Mantle citizens if a fleet of SDC ships just show up and hover there...

I don't entirely understand how Weiss saved him though. She's nowhere to be seen when Whitley leaves and he runs a fair distance before he and Willow encounter Weiss again. We know her summons don't have to keep right next to her, but are they capable of rudimentary thought, attacking an enemy — and an enemy only — despite Weiss being a couple corridors down and unable to see the current battlefield? I don't know. In another series I'd theorize that this was a deliberate hint, a way to clue us into the fact that Willow, someone who we currently know almost nothing about, had training in the past and summoned the boar herself. Weiss and Winter certainly didn't get that hereditary skill from Jacques. Hell, we might still get that, Weiss reacting with confusion next episode when Whitley thanks her for the boar, but I doubt it. That scene with Ruby and the Hound aside, the show isn't this good at laying groundwork and then following up on it.

Case in point: Weiss says, "I didn't forget you" to Whitley after he gets away from the Hound, the moment trying to harken back to her promise to Willow. Key word is "trying." Because she absolutely forgot him! Weiss threatened and ignored Whitley until he proved his usefulness. I also shouldn't need to point out that, "Don't forget your brother" does not mean, "Don't let your brother die a horrible death by abnormal grimm." Weiss acts like her saving him is a fulfillment of her promise, rather than just the most basic of human decency. And also, you know, her job.

So that part is frustrating. The entire Schnee dynamic is a mess, from Weiss making a joke of her father's arrest, to Willow (presumably) fixing their relationship by putting a hand on her daughter's shoulder. Okay.

Then Weiss cuts off the Hound by summoning a giant wall of ice. My brain, every time this happens:

YOU COULD HAVE FIXED THE HOLE IN MANTLE'S WALL.

Moving on, Blake's fight against the acid... thing has some great choreography, including Blake using her semblance which we haven't seen in AGES. 

I really like the fight itself, just not what Blake is shouting the whole time. "I need you, Ruby! We all need you!" This has really gotten ridiculous. Ruby is presented as everyone's sole savior despite failing time and time again. It's not that I don't think Blake as a character should have faith in her leader, it's that I don't think the writers should be crafting a story where everyone puts their unshakable hopes in an untrained, disloyal, impulsive 17 year old. I mean, Ruby is currently unconscious, yet Blake is acting like if she doesn't wake up — she, as an individual, if Ruby Rose does not re-join this fight — then all is lost. If Ruby doesn't save them, no one can. Which is, of course, absurd on numerous levels. Blake doesn't need the passed out, aura-less Ruby right now, she needs the still very healthy Weiss pulling out multiple summons and an ice wall! Use your scroll and call for backup again.

But of course, Ruby wakes up and kills the new, terrifying grimm with a single hit. It's a preview of what's to come with the Hound and it's just as ridiculous here as it will be there.

Speaking of the Hound, am I the only one who thought this was... cute?

I can't possibly be the only one. That head-tilt is exactly what my dogs do and my brain instinctively went, "Aww, puppy!"

Murderous puppy.

The Hound realizes none of the Schnees are who it's looking for and runs off. Penny, meanwhile, has been fully taken over because, well, that's just what's convenient now. She resists long enough keep Amity up, then succumbs, then resists to apologize to Ruby, then succumbs, then resists because Nora asked her to, then succumbs once it's time to knock her out. If RWBY was willing to commit to consequences, Penny would have been taken over and that was that. The characters would need to deal with whatever outcome happens as a result. Instead, the show very carefully avoids any of those pesky consequences by having Penny successfully resisting at key moments, despite no explanation of how she's managing that.

She shoves Klein again (Klein is having a Bad Time) and starts walking down the main steps. When Whitley wants to know where the hell she's going, Penny mechanically responds that she must "Open the vault, then self-destruct." I suppose the change Watts made was the self-destruct order? Ironwood obviously wants the vault open, though not necessarily Penny's death. Think what you will of his moral compass, she's a damn powerful ally — a research project, perhaps — and a Maiden to boot. At the very least, her death may give the powers to someone even worse.

God, please don't let them have brought Penny back and made her a Maiden just to kill her again.

The Hound arrives though and, as said, knocks Penny out. We're back to square one with her, then. Note though that this attack is near instantaneous. She grabs its hands one second, is hanging limply the next. Wow, the Hound sure is a terrifying antagonist!

Not for long.

"That's enough," Ruby says and one-shots it with her eyes.

Now, I want to talk for a moment about the implications of that line. "That's enough." Obviously Ruby is #done with this situation and emotionally unwilling to let the Hound kidnap Penny (congratulations, Nuts and Dolts shippers), but there's a meta reading here as well. Not intentional, but glaring to me nonetheless. Basically, the idea that the Hound has, from a plot perspective, done enough. It has served its singular purpose. It kidnapped Oscar and now it dies. Never-mind how insanely powerful we've established the Hound to be, never-mind how Ruby's eyes also work or don't work according to whether anything of actual import is on the line. From a plot perspective "that's enough" and the Hound can be disposed of instantly. It got Oscar and gave us an episode of filler creepiness. Move along now.

The idea behind Ruby's eyes isn't bad, but the execution absolutely is. RT has undermined a huge portion of the stakes by giving their protagonist an instant kill-shot that always works precisely when she needs it to. Starting with the Apathy, we have yet to get a moment where Ruby's eyes fail to save the day when she really needs them to, no matter how incredible the challenge. The Hound was very intentionally written to be a grimm outside of the group's current power level. It thinks, it talks, they literally can't touch it. This creates the expectation that the group will need to grow stronger — or at least become smarter — in order to surmount this new obstacle, yet Ruby's eyes undermine all of that. The group hasn't grown in years, the show just makes enemies weaker as needed (Ace Ops), or has Ruby pull out her eyes as a trump card. It wouldn't be that bad if we'd at least gotten a good battle out of it, one where the group gets close to defeating the Hound on their own, but needs Ruby's eyes to finish it off. Instead, she literally walks up without any aura, announces to the audience that this antagonist's time is up, and blasts it out a window.

Granted, Ruby's eyes don't completely finish it. The Hound pulls itself to its feet and we see this.

Yup, that's a guy and yup, those are silver eyes.

I would like to issue a formal apology to the "It's secretly Summer!" theorists in the fandom. I mean, I still think it would be ridiculous (and at this point highly improbable) that Ruby's dead mother has actually been a grimm mutant this whole time, just hanging out in Salem's realm while she waits for the plot to start before attacking the world, and then sends some no-name faunus dude after the group instead of their leader's mother for extra, emotional torture... but you all were definitely right about the “It's a person” part! I... don't know how I feel about this. Admittedly, it seems to be a logical continuation of the other grimm-human hybrids we've seen — namely Cinder and Salem herself — and it finally explains why Salem wants Ruby alive (even though it actually doesn't because WHY did she want more SEWs for Hound grimm when she wasn't even attacking back then? And already has all these other insanely powerful tools??), but at the same time, it feels like it's complicating a story that doesn't need further complications. The group fights monsters and has an immortal enemy. You don't need to add 'Some of those monsters are secretly human' to the mix.

It doesn't hurt that this twist is giving me Attack on Titan vibes, which, ew. A dark time in my fandom life, folks.

The Hound staggers a few steps before Whitley and Willow dump a suit of armor on it. That's all it takes to kill the most dangerous grimm we've ever seen: a single flash of silver eyes and some heavy metal. This also wreaks havoc with the implication that Salem wants SEWs alive because they create such powerful grimm. Obviously not. I mean yeah, normal huntsmen are going to have serious  problems, we’ve seen that this volume, but any other SEWs nearby will take a Hound out instantaneously. For a villain with so many other powerful abilities — immortality, magic, endless normal grimm, her nifty soup — Salem would be much better served just killing SEWs straight out. Clearly, creating Hounds isn't worth the effort.

The Hound leaves some bones behind and Ruby collapses to her knees, overcome with the knowledge that this was once a person. Again, uncomfortable Attack on Titan parallels.

We finish our premiere with Cinder clearing away rubble to reveal Watts. Honestly, I like that we ended on this because her rescue is hilarious. She just slings him over her shoulders like a sack of potatoes and blasts off with her magic fire feet. Fantastic.

Note though that with this scene we've seen almost everything from the clip and the trailer. What's to come in the rest of Volume 8? No idea. Outside of Winter leading the charge with the bomb, we got it all here.

Time to update the bingo board!

I'm crossing off "Introducing new grimm that are quickly abandoned." Between the Hound and acid-dude both falling to a single blast/cut from Ruby, we've more than earned this square.

It doesn't look as if we'll get another Watts-Jacques team-up now that he's left, but you never know.

Maria's got me worried. I feel like her Yoda fight against Neo is the one thing she'll be allowed to do this volume, but given that we didn't see anyone except Ruby's group this episode, we don't yet know whether the story is now ignoring her and Pietro, or if they'll re-appear in another episode like YJR.  

Qrow is free. Will he get a drink before trying to murder Ironwood? Perhaps.

Still no bingo :(

All in all, the episode was by no means horrible. I think there were lots of horrible parts, but also some legitimately well executed moments, fun action, and scenes that I can easily imagine as squee worthy if you lean back and squint. Everything is comparative and in the growing collection of bad RWBY episodes, this one isn't securing a top slot. Which doesn't mean I think it's good, just... not as bad as it could have been and primarily only bad due to long-running problems, not things this specific episode has done. That's my bar then, so low it has officially entered the underworld.

Still, RWBY is back and a part of me is eager to see where this volume takes us, for better or for worse.

Until next week! 💜

[Ko-Fi]

[loominggaia]

Fan Creation: Nekos

Anonymous asked:

Okay I have put way, way to much thought into the cat girl monsters recently so here’s the results overthinking my joke post. The Neko is lv.3 humanoid monster created by the late zareenite ceo, Nelon Husk. While not a divine himself he is credited for having forged them, commissioning their creation by business partner/ co-owner of their company and a dworf divine, Mr. Hosfeild. The Neko where created out of Husk lust, him being a big hentia fan with a huge cat girl fetish.

Dissatisfied with normal women he sought to bring his porno fantasies to life. Husk was aware of the creation of demons and scoffed at ermos’s story, believing him to be a fool who didn’t create his monsters right. Believing himself smarter then a pathetic satyr, Husk found commissioned a divine, Mr. Hosfeild into creating his wanted cat girls. If they met his high standards Husk would make him a co-owner and business partner, he obviously accepted the challenge.

Mr. Hosfeild was no stranger to business and saw the young, mortal human as a lustful fool, but went along with it his scheme if he was that generous. What Mr.Hosfeild was unfamiliar with however was monster forging, given a lab and whatever resources he asked for by Husk he set to work creating the perfect cat girl by his clients strict list of criteria. On that list was that while they where to be lustful their satisfaction was not to be based entirely on sex.

In that stead he made their satisfaction more material based. After afew trial runs and failures eventually Mr.Hosfeild created a cat women who met all Husk standards and actually exceeded them. Thirty more “Neko’s” as they where named where created to fill out Husk harem and Mr.Hosfeild enjoyed his newfound position as co-owner. At first things seemed to going very well for husk and his feline harem, him enjoying fulfilling all his perverted and spoiling his Neko harem rotten.

He lavished his cat girl harem with gifts, positions in the company and whatever they wanted, whenever they asked. Knowing their loyalty was based off material satisfaction Husk thought that would be no problem seeing his great fortune. Things however would not stay this great for very long as many problems would soon arise. The more he spoiled his cat wives the more greedy they got, their demands got more frequent and more expensive.

They had also rapidly increased in number, going from the 31 originals to now well over 330 in less then five years. This was fixable according to him, as with how successful they where he and Hosfeild where taking about a new business idea to start selling these feminine feline monsters to consumers. He would never get to see this however as the company which had been in Husk family for generations was starting to tank due to his harem and neglect.

As his harem grew more demanding he started having to spend more time attempted to their desires then to his responsibilities as CEO. More and more money was being funneled to feed their ever expanding desires then to other more vital aspects, which alongside some of the Nekos taking to harassing employees caused many to quit. Firing and replacing a lot of chief personal with his Neko wives was not a smart idea either. At this point the Hosfeild became the only thing keeping the company alive.

Not only was his business life suffering but his personal life to. His neko wives where growing restless as his ability to satisfy them began to wane. Their loyalty and affection towards him began to decay, them growing violent when he couldn’t get them what they wanted fast enough. Clawing and biting him, tearing up his belongings and mansion and even stealing money directly from his personal and company accounts.

Eventually husk snapped, realizing his dream had become a nightmare. He blamed Hosfeild for his current predicament and fired him on the spot, believing he somehow programmed the Nekos to turn into these greedy monsters behind his back. Hosfeild denying such accusations and told him it’s entirely his fault he’s in this predicament, he’s the one that wanted and army cat women after all. After removing Hosfeild Husk sought to get rid of the cat girls so they would no longer plauge him.

Telling his harem to leave was of the table as they laughed him out of the room when he tried. Being more creative Husk used his rapidly dwindling funds to hire a small militia group to completely exterminate the Nekos. His plan was to lure his harem into a inescapable trap where the militia will ambush open fire on them, hopefully killing them all. All seemed to be going as planned but before it could be enacted someone in the militia group snitched to his harem about the death trap.

Enraged the whole hoard of Nekos turned on Husk, everyone descending onto him to rip him apart before fleeing. Weeks later authorities found him, or Atleast what was left of him. All they found was the mansion completely torn apart, claw marks everywhere with furniture, art, lighting everything in the house completely destroyed. They found the pieces of Nelon Husk body scattered all around the trashed mansion, looking as if he’s been torn apart and eaten by wild cats.

By that point the killer cat girls had long since fled, taking to the streets of zareen in search of new masters to spoil them. After his death Mr.Hosfeild bought and quickly restored the company back to a working state. In truth he had known something like this might happen and though it served that fool right. Mr.Hosfeild kept remembered the designer monster idea he and the late husk had and decided to run with it, the Neko thing being only a minor setback.

Biding his time and gathering reassures, infrastructure and patents to create designer monsters for consumer production and pleasure. Hopefully of a less perverted kind. That conclude the origin story of the Nekos, and what was originally just a joke post. BYW expect Chptr 11 of New York to be coming really soon.

As for Neko biology they look like a cross between a human women and a house cat in a similar orientation to faunae. Neko may actually be mistaken for faunae but lack horns and look more like house cats then wild cats. They range greatly in skin and fur colors and body shapes but all are beautiful in appearance. They keep their youthful appearance all throughout their short life. Their lifespan is similar to a cats, becoming adults by three years old and live about 16-20yrs.

Despite their beauty and grace they are rather dangerous having the strength, agility, senses and razor sharp claws and fangs of big cats. They also have a lot of feline behaviors such as scent marking, licking themselves to clean, pooping in dirt, climbing into high places and so on. Their general attitude is described as aloof, selfish and finicky, switching moods at seemingly the drop of a hat. One minute their affectionate and the next their claws and hissing for no reason.

Nekos are very similar to demons and are often compared to them. Both have a similar origin story and are rather lustful, being lusty and affectionate of a chosen master and turn violent of said master is unable to satisfy them. While a demons loyalty is bought by sexual satisfaction, a Nekos loyalty is bought by material satisfaction. Nekos are an all female species and where made to require human men to reproduce. Unlike demons who go after lonely, pathetic people Nekos target the wealthy.

While male humans are preferred, they will target anyone of suitable wealth. Once they find a prime mate or “master” they will proposition them into a sugerbaby type arrangement where they provide sex in return for being pampered. If they say no then the Neko will leave but if they say yes then they become their master. Despite the known risk many rich folk accept becoming a Nekos master, finding their exotic beauty irresistible (the mating pheromones Neko’s secrete defintionly helps in this).

Once a person has chosen to become a Nekos master they will be lavished in affection and sex by the Neko in return for pampering her. For as long as the master can continue to meet his feline mistress’s demands she will stay loyal to him. If they fail to meet her demands that’s when the problems start, Nekos are much like the humans and house cats that make them, their never satisfied with what they have and get greedier the more their pampered.

The longer a Neko is pampered the more demanding they become. Their request become more extreme and become violent when their demands are not met or are below their standards. Their known to claw at and bite their masters, leaving them with nasty wounds. Their rage is not limited to their master but also towards their family and belongings as well, stealing valuables and destroying furniture to make their point known or even attacking the masters family.

If the Nekos demands continue to not be met their tantrums get more frequent and violent. Until eventually they either leave on their own or outright attack their master, their being many cases of Nekos mauling their masters to death in their greed fueled tantrums. Like Demons are their are Nekos who don’t mean harm but struggle to control their desires.

Their range is mostly limited to Evik, with high concentrations found in Zareen. These monsters are generally considered pest with many public psa’s warning people to not get involved with them.

Anon, I love this. I know it’s supposed to be a bit of a shitpost, but it’s honestly great. It has so many elements of classic folklore but with a silly urban twist. As soon as I saw the name Nelon Husk I thought “Oh, this is gonna be good” lmao

The sad thing is, I could totally see some wackjob Zareenite CEO doing something like this...I think realistically, the Zareenite military would have exterminated these things before they got out of control, but who knows. Anything can happen, especially when rich people are involved and bribing everyone in sight.

[hopetofantasy]

'wtFOCKDOWN: the first Flemish quarantine fiction has arrived'

Translated interview about the behind-the-scenes of wtFOCKDOWN

- Source: Knack Focus (16/04)

Scenes in FaceTime, dialogues in WhatsApp and a director who gives directions in Google Hangouts: the youth series wtFOCKDOWN is the first Flemish fiction series in lockdown mode.

The candidates of 'Blokken' play from home, soaps 'Familie' and 'Thuis' get an early season ending, 'Dagelijkse Kost' has a director at distance, 'Topdokters' sends out corona diaries, 'De Ideale Wereld' does telework. Just about the entire TV world has had to adapt to the new reality in recent weeks and find creative solutions. Usually with the help of FaceTime. Or Skype. Or Google Hangouts.

There is a striking amount of video out there.

However, no Flemish series had to go as far as wtFOCK. The youth phenomenon - in good weeks 450,000 unique visitors go to wtfock.be - always strongly focused on real time and the current living environment of young people. If a character experiences something during the lunch break at school, the video goes online in the afternoon on a school day. For example, if the elections are coming or GOT has its last episode, the characters will refer to it.

Which also means that when the schools suddenly closed indefinitely, all plans for the upcoming fourth season couldn't go through. If all your viewers are home, it makes no sense that the characters still go to school. wtFOCK's solution: the first 'social-distancing drama' in the world, as production house Sputnik, which makes the tv series for SBS and Telenet, calls it. Fiction that not only takes place in quarantine, but is also turned into quarantine. On April 1st, the first video went online, a video conversation between characters Senne and Zoë. Since then, the experiment seems to get more interesting every day.

wtFOCKDOWN is the most far-reaching TV answer to the lockdown yet. How did you come up with a 'social-distancing drama'?

Rutger Beckers (producer at Sputnik TV): As soon as the government closed schools, we knew we had to throw all our plans overboard. It was clear that this wasn't just for two weeks: the lockdown would take much longer. Quickly, we started thinking about a plan B within the team, a very young team, and there were some very long video calls. The term 'social-distancing drama' had fallen quite often. Everyone is in the same situation, everyone runs up the walls. Especially young people. In one weekend, their reality has completely changed and their lives take place between four walls. It seemed interesting to adapt the fiction to that new reality. Plus, we hope it can also be a support or refuge. Everyone is in the same boat: that kind of feeling.

We then put together a small team to see what was possible. A few practice scenes have been written. We tested things with the actors. What works? What not? After a few tries, everyone was very enthusiastic. They were also immediately involved with Telenet and SBS. This was much more than a little plaything or filling a gap in the schedule. It soon became clear that, with the right storylines, this was something fundamentally new. Something no one had ever done before us.

The lockdown was announced on March 16th, on April 1st the first video of wtFockdown went online: that is impressive.

Beckers: Especially in the world of fiction. It helps that we were already very tight regarding film schedules of wtFOCK. The recordings are made four or five weeks before the broadcast, which is short for fiction. Even on set, we continued to adapt storylines to current events.

With wtFOCKDOWN, we can plan everything even closer. The circumstances compel us to do so. Nobody can get together - we are very strict about that. So no locations have to be sought, no extras have to be collected or soundcrew have to be booked. We also have to make it with a very small team. wtFOCKDOWN is shot with the actors, a director and someone who does social media. Everyone is also at home and is available. What makes that you can switch very easily. Simply put: tonight we will decide what things we have written today, will be played out tomorrow.

The videos all start from the home screen of the characters' laptops and cell phones. The story is told in WhatsApp conversations, video calls and video messages. A kind of found footage, but in real time. That is cleverly done.

Beckers: Because it also makes sense: for most young people, the screen of their laptop or smartphone is their only view of the outside world these days. Then it makes sense that you tell the story like that.

Moreover, it is the technology that we really use to create the series. The actors act in their own room with their own laptops and mobile phones. First, we rehearse in a video call, while the director watches. When a scene is right, the actors video call each other and record the scene. It also doesn't matter if the quality of image or sound is a little less: that just increases the authenticity.

wtFOCKDOWN has been running for two weeks now, but as an experiment in mobile television it is interesting to say the least. Real-time WhatsApp conversations set to music, where you see the letters typed, for example, turn out to provide good scenes.

Beckers: That is also something that we ourselves are happy with: that these storytelling techniques work. wtFOCKDOWN was a leap of faith. There were no examples, no anchor points. When we put the first videos online, we had no idea what the response would be. But you feel that our enthusiasm after those first tests, is now also the same as the viewer.

That is also exciting as series makers. It started with a few tests. Then a few videos that came online. Then we started building bigger storylines. And it just keeps getting bigger. Every day we are faced with new surprises and new problems to solve. But that feeling that we are creating something new, something that can be valuable in the situation that young people are living in today, only increases enthusiasm. Especially with the people of eighteen or nineteen years old in our team: you feel that they now want to go for it. Maybe this could be the start of a new kind of genre. Real-time fiction, played decentralized. Who knows.

You're sure no one has ever done this before you?

Beckers: I certainly haven't come across anything. We also noticed that countries abroad have been interested in the concept. In the meantime, we're in contact with the Norwegian public broadcaster NRK, who made Skam (wtFOCK is one of the many remakes of Skam internationally). They were very intrigued by our plans and went to show it to Spain, Germany, Italy and France, where local versions of Skam are also running.

While wtFOCKDOWN explores new horizons, a large part of the Flemish television world seems to be on hold. 'Familie' and 'Thuis' must finish their season early. It is unclear what will happen for programs such as 'Mijn keuken, mijn restaurant' and 'The Voice Kids'.

Beckers: Today the situation is very strange for the TV world, especially with the commercial channels. The ratings are going up. Much more TV is watched than in recent years. Only: there are far fewer advertisers.

It is indeed striking that programs such as 'De Mol' hardly have any commercial breaks.

Beckers: Many brands do not want to advertise now and have postponed their budgets until after the summer. Which will soon cause another strange situation. Autumn normally gets very busy, but hardly any production houses are making programs right now. Almost all productions have been shut down. Running a normal fiction series is simply impossible today.

Will we get a lockdown version of the soap 'Familie' soon?

Beckers: I think that chance is slim. (laughs). With wtFOCK, the new technology is just a bit more in the DNA of the program.

The main thing is that no one currently knows. Everyone is waiting for the situation to normalize and to get up again. It only starts again, when there is insight into the matter.

You are in a precarious situation with wtFOCK, I just realized.

Beckers: Why?

When the government announces that schools remain closed, doesn't it mean that all the plans and footage from the fourth season will be thrown away?

Beckers: That's also the disadvantage of the time limited fiction: the time. All of the references to the end of the school year, or festivals, will be tossed. These caught up with the reality. But we'll see how we are going to get around that. We don't have anything meaningful to say about the future. If I have learned one more thing about the past few weeks, it's that you constantly need to adapt to the new realities and to find new solutions. So it's not just about the wtFOCK.

[yegarts]

“I Am YEG Arts” Series: Darka Tarnawsky, Executive Director of Shumka

Photo credit: Aaron Pedersen

Shumka. Chances are just seeing the word makes you think of someone or some occasion that’s special to you. Maybe you took lessons as a child. Maybe you saw a performance during the holidays. Maybe you even danced on stage. If you’re Darka Tarnawsky, you did all three—and then built a life around it. Today, she’s not only Shumka’s Executive Director but also the founding president of Bottom Line Productions, an Alberta-based arts marketing firm. As you’re about to discover, no one cheers louder for Edmonton’s art scene.

 Topping that list of December events to cheer about? Shumka’s Nutcracker, which promises to be more breathtakingly spectacular than ever. Having skipped a live performance last year, it’s a reunion of culture and family that Tarnawsky is beyond grateful to be part of. Former Shumka dancer, current Executive Director, and lifetime honorary member—this week’s “I Am YEG Arts” story belongs to Darka Tarnawsky.

Tell us about your connection to Edmonton and how it’s influenced your path.

Through my young life, I lived in Sherwood Park and spent most of my time in Edmonton. That’s still the case. I love Edmonton’s arts scene for how “real” it is. I see it as a supportive community that embraces innovation and creativity in a cross-collaborative way. It’s a place where red boots are as common as pointe shoes on stages; where multiculturalism has remained a thing to be lauded; where we take a prairie landscape and make it dynamic, colourful, and beautiful with festivals and art and community participation. In our arts scene, it’s not about status. It’s about bravery. It’s about being genuine. I’ve always wanted to be a part of that, so I built my life around it.

Tell us about your history with Shumka and what makes it special to you and the arts community.

When I was a young girl, it was always my dream to be a Shumka dancer. I went to every concert at the Jube and was inspired by my dance instructors who were all Shumka dancers. I started Ukrainian dance lessons at five years of age and finally auditioned and made it into the company when I was 19. In the 80’s when I danced with the company, we were not only dancers but also tour organizers, marketers, fundraisers… we did it all as volunteers. I loved the behind-the-scenes work so much that after I got my BSc at UofA, I decided to go completely the other route and take the Arts Administration Program at MacEwan (now the Arts & Cultural Management Program). I put away my lab coat and started using the right side of my brain. My career path followed.

Photo credit: Oleh Cherkawsky

What advice do you have for dancers balancing more than one career or transitioning out of dance? What’s something you wish you had known?

I think all dancers—except those in large professional ballet companies—have more than one career out of necessity. That’s the reality of it. I feel dancers are hard-working, determined, and tend to be over-achievers by nature. They never cease to amaze me with their accomplishments on and off the stage. The most important career advice I can give is to pursue dance if you are inspired to do so; keep your creative energy and eye on other skills you can cultivate; then develop another avenue to continue your career once your knees are shot. Arts managers, publicists, film/video producers, artistic directors, and choreographers—even trainers and physiotherapists. There are many natural transitions that work for dancers.

In what ways has Shumka grown as an organization in its culture and storytelling, and in what ways has it held true to traditions?

Shumka recently hit the 60-year mark, so I’ve given this some thought and reflection. All that Shumka does is based on some element of tradition—whether it is dance lexicon, folk tales and music, costume themes, heroes in history, or celebrations. What it does outside of that is how it grows and develops the art form. We may use unique scenography, themes, movement styles, and collaborations to portray those traditional anchors, but we aren’t a movement-based museum piece. We aim to remain contemporary and relevant as a Ukrainian Canadian dance company that is accepted, enjoyed, and supported by audiences beyond our diaspora.

What’s one of your favourite memories of seeing The Nutcracker?

I have only seen our Nutcracker and that of Alberta Ballet in a live setting. This past year, I watched a few different versions online. There are some very interesting productions out there! (Check this out if you’re a Nutz fan.)

One of my favourite things is how magical Nutcracker productions are to the young audiences who are seeing live dance for the first time. It’s a great “starter piece” for emerging dance-lovers. When Shumka’s Nutcracker was part of the Dance Victoria Virtual Season in 2020, we heard from so many parents and grandparents who were amazed at how attentive and mesmerized their children and grandchildren were when watching it. Even three-year-olds stopped and watched quietly… and many naturally got up and started to dance in certain sections. I love those stories.

What in particular are you excited for audiences to experience at this season’s Nutcracker performance?

Because of the pandemic, seeing big-scale live dance again will be exciting. And this year, in addition to our leads from the Kyiv Ballet, we are bringing in four dancers from Virsky—the best Ukrainian dance company on the planet—to join us on stage. They are nothing short of breathtakingly spectacular! And that is by no means an exaggeration.

Photo credit: Marc J Chalifoux 

What has being part of Shumka taught you about yourself?

That I can accomplish many amazing things as part of the family that is Shumka. (Me? Performing on the stage of the Kyiv Opera House? Ludicrous. But it happened.) Surrounding yourself with creative, determined, and hard-working people who believe in achieving their goals is a recipe to creating magic.

When you think YEG arts, what are the first three things, people, or places that come to mind?

Jubilee Auditorium—I’ve performed there as young as five years old, saw a million shows over my lifetime, from Jesus Christ Superstar to La La La Human Steps, Gladys Knight & the Pip, to Virsky Ukrainian Dance Company, Ray Charles to Leonard Cohen… And I absolutely love working with the wonderful people there, with Shumka as a resident company..

Tommy Banks—Mr. Banks was a brilliant musician, an ardent supporter of young artists and ensembles, and a consummate entertainer who could have easily had a successful showbiz career in New York City or Los Angeles—but chose to stay in Edmonton because he wanted to. A class act through and through. Very genuine. Very “Edmonton.”

Churchill Square on a hot summer afternoon in July—International street performers, green-onion cakes, musicians on piano bikes, brilliant roving characters with accordions, artistic face painters, and the best balloon twisters ever. Lotsa things that make you go, hmmmm? As it should be.

Describe your perfect day in Edmonton. How do you spend it?

Saturday morning cartoons and Cocoa Puffs at Metro Cinema; a walk down Whyte Ave with a stop at the farmer’s market for fresh peas, pita bread, and labneh; people-watching with a locally crafted IPA on a crowded patio; strolling through a local Art Walk, followed by a stop at the Italian Centre and Zocalo for fresh pasta and a stunning bouquet of flowers to take home and enjoy.

What makes you hopeful these days?

Edmonton art. Oh, and Mayor Sohi!

Photo credit: Marc J Chalifoux

Want more YEG Arts Stories? We’ll be sharing them here all year and on social media using the hashtag #IamYegArts. Follow along! Click here to learn more about Darka Tarnawsky, and visit Shumka’s website for info about programs, performances, and much more.

About Darka Tarnawsky

Darka Tarnawsky is founding president of Bottom Line Productions, an Alberta-based arts marketing firm, and has been involved in the industry as a performer, volunteer, supporter, and professional manager for over 30 years. Her client roster has included Edmonton Opera, Edmonton International Jazz Festival; Royal Winnipeg Ballet, CKUA Radio Network, Catalyst Theatre, Cirque du Soleil, Cavalia, and Broadway Across Canada with their musical touring productions of Lion King and Wicked, to name a few.

Darka holds a BSc with a specialization in Psychology from the University of Alberta (1987), and an Arts & Cultural Management Certificate from Grant MacEwan College (1989). She was the recipient of the 1998 MacEwan Distinguished Alumni Award, won the Mayor’s Award for Promotion of the Arts in Edmonton in 2005, and was a part-time instructor and curriculum developer in the Faculty of Fine Arts & Communications: Arts & Cultural Management Program at MacEwan University from 2003 to 2016.

Darka is a former Ukrainian Shumka Dancer, a Lifetime Honorary Member, and the current Executive Director of the organization. As ED, she has overseen the development of several new artistic works and community engagement projects for the 60-year-old Canadian arts institution.

[jackdawyt]

Your bird is back with another Dragon Age 4 News Update!  🐦

For the first time this year, I’m doing a massive monthly news recap of everything we learned about Dragon Age 4 going forward (JUST) in the month of March, because slap my arse and call me Andraste, this month was huge for Dragon Age 4 updates, we’ve got a lot of exciting info to get into!

(Romance Tweets)

Calling all romance fans, you can bank on Dragon Age 4 to fulfil all of your intimate desires, perhaps even more so than the previous games. Jon Renish, Foundation Programming Area Director working on the next Dragon Age had a few things to say whilst watching a romance scene script read through:  

“Don't want to alarm anyone, but I'm starting to think 'Dragon Age' games might be a bit randy.” (March 3rd)

‘Randy’, according to the Oxford Dictionary, means ‘sexually arousing’ and ‘exciting.’ So, we can prepare for that, whatever that is! Jon continues his tweet thread with:

“Well now it's all sad and sweet and emotional. I was not prepared for this rollercoaster.”

In true BioWare fashion, we’re going to have a lot of sexy times, however, brought together with moving and character developing moments – y’know, the ups and downs of the romance as the relationship builds and grows throughout the entire game experience.  

“Oh, nothing like that.  Just watching a script read through.”

Jon confirms that this was indeed a script read through, as we can tell reviewing a potential romance scene. As a romance advocate myself, I am very interested in the direction romances will be going in for Dragon Age 4. That is something that I will especially be keeping my eyes on. 

(E3/EA Play 2020 Update)

EA Play and E3 2020 are generally the most expected places to see a new Dragon Age 4 reveal trailer.

E3 2020 has been cancelled due to the current outbreak, however, we’ve yet to be updated on the status of EA Play 2020. Of course, it is most certainly cancelled since the tickets for the show were supposed to drop this March. But, we still don’t know what will replace the show.  

The teams behind E3 2020 are supposedly working on a digital showcase to display new announcements that would’ve been revealed on stage. We can only assume that EA will follow suite and do the same for EA Play, making it a digital show, like Nintendo’s Direct conferences.  

Regardless, this is something that we’re going to have to wait and see until EA speak out, and when they do, I’ll be sure to cover that in a news update. I feel we could have a Dragon Age 4 reveal, with an expected release of 2022/2023, but with everyone hectic right now, I’m unsure.  

(C Virus Update)

Speaking of hectic... with the current outbreak, EA have spoken and shared a statement about health and safety during these times:  

(March 13th) “These are challenging times for everyone.  We’re working to look after our employees and their families, and make sure we’re doing the right and responsible things to fight this pandemic illness.”

Thankfully, everyone working at BioWare have been asked to work from home. Justin Masse, Experience Designer working on the next Dragon Age tweeted he’s “working from home until April 1st", confirming the length of this situation.

According to Crystal McCord, Associate Producer of Performance Capture and VO, working at home has been very productive for the team at BioWare as they have “exceeded all expectations.” 

So, it’s great knowing that despite the crazy situation in the world right now, BioWare developers are staying safe, working from home and progressing hugely on the next Dragon Age title!  

(Slack Server)

(March 13th) While Mark Darrah was working from home, he tweeted a picture regarding his tiling progression, as he’s currently redesigning aspects of his home. However, in the very corner of Darrah’s picture lies a laptop screen with a Slack Server revealing many Dragon Age development secrets!  

The server shows plenty of channels for the BioWare developers regarding specific work notes on all aspects of progression. A large amount of the channels are abbreviated to “MOR_” - which is most certainly shortened from ‘Morrison’, Dragon Age 4’s current project title as we know.

This list of the channels are endless, and I could spend forever looking into what exactly they all refer to regarding the production of the next Dragon Age game. We have one channel called ‘mor_announcement’ - does this hint at a new trailer to soon be showed off, or is it an old channel since The Dread Wolf Rises teaser? Are they planning an upcoming announcement? Surely, they would be right? Is that anytime soon?  

Another channel is called ‘mor_da_week’ which from what I can assume stands for Dragon Age week? We have a Dragon Age Day created by the fans and made offical by BioWare, but a Dragon Age week, that’s something I’ve never heard of...  

And there’s just plenty of channels referring to Dragon Age 4’s current development, there’s even a bad design ideas thread, an ask Mark anything chat, approvals on key aspects of the game, marketing assets, and so on!  

It’s a gold mine of tidbits, orchestrated by none other than Mark Darrah, the Executive Producer on Dragon Age. He has once more tweeted a cheeky little tease that may appear mundane, passing a blind eye to it, however, when you take some time and actually look at what he’s posted, it reveals a nug-ton of info we can speculate on.

(New Associate Producer / Jobs)

Illustrator and Creative Professional “Mad Bee” has returned to work at BioWare, they previously worked on Anthem as an Art Quality Analyst. However, this time around, they are an Associate Producer, most likely working on Dragon Age 4. 

And, following that, BioWare are currently hiring! I’ve seen this news piece get quite the few news articles, but I figured I could break this one down better, rest in peace PC Gamer.

So, indeed BioWare are hiring for many roles at the company, the most prominent role is a ‘Technical Director’ for ‘the next major title in one of BioWare’s most prestigious franchises.’  

Considering Mike Gamble, the new project lead for the next Mass Effect game tweeted this hiring out, I’d assume this position is needed for the Mass Effect team who are also in Edmonton, opposite the Dragon Age team.  

What’s most concerning about this job listing relating to the future of Mass Effect is that, according to the job requirements, the applicant needs to have experience ‘developing, debugging and optimizing AAA multiplayer games on PC or console.’  

To throw away my suspicion that Mass Effect or Dragon Age are going to have a heavy multiplayer experience, I looked at the other job listings located at Edmonton’s studio and I discovered other job listings, like an Engine Programmer which require the same experience of developing and debugging games, however, without the multiplayer element.  

So, perhaps BioWare have two teams, one working on the main single player element and the other working on the much smaller multiplayer aspect? I’d be naive to not reiterate the fact that future BioWare games are going to be live service, however, we still don’t know to what extent that will look like.  

(Tevinter Nights)

Patrick Weekes teased that Dragon Age 4 is most certainly in Tevinter following there Tevinter Nights Book plug, however, Patrick still calls the next Dragon Age game an unannounced project? Which I don’t understand because The Dread Wolf Rises teaser trailer at The Game Awards 2018 most certainly confirmed that a new Dragon Age game is currently in production and has been announced.

Unless Patrick is calling it ‘still-unannounced' because they’re planning an announcement soon...

I feel like Patrick is just joking at the fact that the next game is most certainly set in Tevinter, considering PC Gamer made an article a while back stating that Dragon Age 4 is set in Tevinter based on the Tevinter Nights book reveal, it made plenty of the BioWare staff and community laugh at their credulous Journalism. So, it could just be that.  

Anyhow, March has actually been an amazing month to be a Dragon Age fan! We had the final issue of Blue Wraith and the release of the anthological Tevinter Nights!

Tevinter Nights dropped plenty of story hints for the future of Dragon Age. I was lucky enough to receive an early copy, as of which, I’ve created plenty of content regarding all of the story threads uncovered in the novel that you should check out once you’ve read the book for yourself, I’ve still got more to content to come from Tevinter Nights too!  

However, if you have not read it and very much care about the future of Dragon Age, which if you’re watching this video, you most likely do. So, you should go and read this book because we learn A LOT going forward for the future narrative of Dragon Age. The book is a huge spring board for the next game, so go and read it!  

(Blue Wraith)

The final issue of Blue Wraith launched and as much as I enjoyed it, the comic ended on a cliff-hanger!

The lead writers Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir are hopeful for another comic to come, stating:

The two also spoke in a comic-centred interview by Deconstructing Comics about the direction of their entire Dragon Age comics. That since Knight Errant, their comics are created to prepare for a hypothetical Dragon Age 4, but not as a prologue or a plot for the next game. Nunzio suggested that fans should instead look at Tevinter Nights.

Nunzio shared on BSN Forums that hopefully the wait for the next comic won’t be as long as last time. Dragon Age: Deception came out through October – December of 2018, whereas Blue Wraith came out through January – March of 2020. So, perhaps the next comic run could come mid-2021.

(Future Books/Comics)

Speaking of future books and comics, just after I finished Blue Wraith and Tevinter Nights, I was asking myself what’s next to look forward to regarding Dragon Age content. However, on March 23rd we got not one, but two book announcements coming later this year.

Dropping on the 13th of October, BioWare are revealing a new development book, charting the legendary game studio's first 25 years in a massive retrospective hardcover book at $39.99. Perhaps we’ll learn more about Dragon Age 4’s previous iteration, project Joplin?  

Following that, on October 27th, the five Dragon Age graphic novels are being put into a massive collection for $29.99.

This book collects Dragon Age: The Silent Grove #1-6, Dragon Age: Those Who Speak #1-3, Dragon Age: Until We Sleep #1-3, Dragon Age: Magekiller #1-5, and Dragon Age: Knight Errant #1-5.

But not Deception & Blue Wraith? Potentially they’ve left these two out because Dark Horse wish to progress with these comics, foreshadowing more comics in the future to come?  

(Reddit Leak)

Moving on to a slightly weird, and most certainly fake-but-take-it-as-you-will-update... we have a reddit leak showing many upcoming games release dates, with some actually being accurate. Dragon Age 4 is listed here, and according to this leak, it’s releasing the 15th of November, 2020. Again, most certainly fake, but take it as you will.  

Speaking of fake leaks, a 2018 leak for Dragon Age 4’s contents has resurfaced, and oh boy is this thing fake. I feel like dissecting this thing as a separate video just for a laugh, but tell me down below if that’s a good idea or not.  

With that, that’s all the updates we had in March! We’re three, almost four months into 2020, as crazy as this year has been so far. I’ve already created plenty previous news updates, so if you need to be caught up to date, or you’ve missed an update, or you’re just stuck inside and need something to put your mind at ease - I have a news playlist with every single major update regarding Dragon Age 4’s development, so be sure to check that out. 

I hope you all are holding up okay and staying safe, distract yourself by telling me some of your own hopes for the next Dragon Age game, it can be anything you'd like to see! Personally, I'd love to see Vaea make any appearance in DA4!

[drugs-and-deadlines]

lonely cubed

this is the only social media I have left (I suppose, in a weird way, LinkedIn counts). But I still feel the phantom limbs of Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. They pull at me, ask me to refresh. They ask me what I think is happening in those little worlds instead of living in my own, which is the main reason I left them behind. 

I am trying to make more room for my writing and creativity every day, something that isn’t an inbox obsession. I am trying to be like those writers older than me who focus on turning a phrase well, observing succinctly, and living their life with breath instead of observing themselves.

So far, it’s mostly just anxiety inducing. My loneliness is exacerbated by recent or imminent events: my abuelo passed away on Sunday, and I am nowhere near the family I can grieve him with, nor are we in the country in which I would prefer to grieve him and help settle his affairs. I closed a show on Sunday that took every last little bit out of me, and I still feel like I haven’t been able to sleep or rest because of the many things I have overdue.

And the last, pulsing, stupid thing on the horizon: soon I will graduate with an MFA, with no clear idea of what’s happening past mid-June. So that’s resulted in a lot of lame checking my inbox hoping x-opportunity will have reached me with some sort of news. Or perhaps that’s just what closing a show is or losing someone who you can no longer text is. You spend over a month rehearsing with humans, seeing them five times a week, and suddenly you’re alone and you’re like, what other validation is there? You spend years thinking, oh, I will eventually be able to gather more stories and memories than the ones I can gather from here, but you actually won’t get another chance to see him in person ever again. And so you linger on the stupid shit you have no control over: have I gotten one of the very few things I applied for? Will someone resolve my post-MFA future which is quickly spiralling towards me with complete uncertainty? Theaters are still contracting, and no one is giving me money, and I can already hear myself lecturing myself not to be silly: even if it weren’t a pandemic, the calvary wouldn’t be coming anyway. And even if it did come, I have so many ways I’d prefer to be the architect of my own salvation that I don’t think any calvary could satisfy me. This is the life of a writer I am running at. Not knowing, but practicing my craft as much as I can in the hopes that my story will be sharp, incisive, or joyful enough to move forward.

There’s also, in a bigger way, an identity confusion that happens when you finish a program, a show, or lose a human. You’re like -- who will I be when I’m not a student? When I am no longer the nieta surrounded by unconditional love  I received whenever I reached out? When I’m not defined by the current jobs I have? Will I be the dysfunctional self I was the last time I was shot out of an educational canon, risky and rageful and resilient? Will I have learned how to end things better this time? Will I have learned boundaries better? 

I will still be writing. This is the only thing I guess I can promise myself in a pandemic world that still is a careening, confused mess. I will always be writing. And for now, there are many things to write about. Neocolonialism, my abuelo who passed this week, tweaking and reframing and rewriting the many stories I began with a great big heave during this time. Perhaps my writing will not always be led by dialogue. Perhaps some of the time, I’ll just be telling a story. Perhaps I will make many more mistakes. But what else would I want? Definitely not a straightforward life, definitely not one of modest ambitions or stories. So here’s to a bit of a commitment, I guess. Something here, just to break the ice. Something here, especially because I don’t think people check it. 

[translationandbetrayals]

The unique talent found in music videos

Animation and artistic talent can not only be found in anime, but also in the ever growing platforms that the internet offers. One of the biggest ways the internet has offered for an artist to show their abilities is through a music video. 

  When you search japanese music you can easily find unique and interesting animated videos, and a reason I think they are so abundant is because of the Vocaloid. Considering that Vocaloid are just voice banks it’s pretty much impossible to make a convencional music video, the closest you could get to it would be using the 3D modeling program Miku Miku Dance (MMD), thus the composers are obliged to use an original illustration or video to go along with the song.

  As a very big fan of animated videos and music, I would like to share many my favorite talents with all of you:

  I’ll start with artist/animator Wooma. This extremely good animator works with very popular vocaloid producers, such as Niru Kajitsu in A Mistaken Belief of Love, Shama, Wozwald and Kilmer, and Hiiragi Kirai with Autophagy, Eva and recent massive hit Bocca della Verita, and the most notable thing about their style would be the way they draw the faces and their unique character design.

    While their works with Niru Kajitsu tend to follow a story to go along with the song, Hiiragi Kirai videos are often a still images that gradually changes during the song, but they compensate by making the lyrics on screen into a show of kinetic typography.

  Speaking of Niru Kajitsu, we can’t continue without mentioning 明石 (@a_ka_shi____), the artist behind the popular music video Traffic Jam, whose style is pretty recognisable for the lack of lineart, textured coloring and facial expressions.

    Next I’ll talk about is sakiyama, who has a very peculiar style, with dark thin lines, a lot of smaller lines for details, solid coloring and a contrast between a muted palette for backgrounds and bright colors for certain characters or objects. They have worked with vocaloid producer Hachiya Nanashi in Neurosis and Incision, and with singer Zuttomayo in songs like Humanoid, Mabushii DNA Dake and Such a Disturbance.

    I’ll follow with nekozemon, who worked with producer Surii as an animator for the song Junky Night Town Orchestra, which is clearly now a song series thanks to their recently updated prequel song Beaver. Both videos have very fluid animation and creative secuencies that go perfectly along with their songs, presenting a very interesting story.

    My next artist would be the mastermind behind the videos of popular producer syudou. ヤスタツ(@yasutatsu_) has worked in pretty much all of syudou’s biggest hits since Annoyance, the most notable being Call Boy, Bitter Choco Decoration and Religion of Loneliness. One remarkable thing about their style would be the interesting way they use colors for their videos.

    If you like to follow japanese artists chances are you have seen at least one illustration by the extremely popular artist Avogado6, easily recognized by their simple artstyle and numerous creative, unique and sometimes downright bizarre pieces. If you are familiarized with their work you’ll be happy to know that they already have a number of music videos under their belt, but their most known and unique work of this kind are the songs by producer Lanndo/nulut It’s Just Life and Empty Prayer. Both videos perfectly capture the feeling of what this artist’s work is, and you already know them you can immediately tell it’s theirs.

    To finish talking about current vocaloid producers I saved up Harumaki Gohan, as I think he’s a special case as he not only is the producer and composer of his songs, he is also the animator and has started singing his songs himself, you could say he does pretty much all the work! With his most famous songs Melty Land Nightmare and Reunion, he definitely is a creator worth checking out.

    The reason I mention Vocaloid as an important factor in the use of animation in music videos is that a lot of the most popular animated videos come from now professional musicians that started their musical career with vocaloid! It seems that artist that have been vocaloid producers are more likely to at some point use animated videos, there’s even artists whose ALL of their music videos are animated.

  A pretty famous case of this would be singer Kenshi Yonezu, former vocaloid producer known as Hachi in the community, responsible for some of the most popular and well known vocaloid songs of all time (Matryoshka anyone?). He has a number of animated songs in his channel but I’ll go with the one is without a doubt the most famous of all, Go Go Ghostship, of which you can find numerous parodies by different fandoms.

    Another notable case would be also former vocaloid producer Yoh Kamiyama, and while most of his non-vocaloid songs have pretty standard music videos, he is better known for the beautiful animated video for his song Yellow, made by Touyouigaku (seriously, watch yellow, it’s a beauty).

    If you want a more recent case of this we have last year’s massive hit that was Yoru ni Kakeru by the duo YOASOBI, comprised of former producer Ayase and singer Ikura; that by the time of writing this has already accumulated almost 50 million views! The simple but beautiful video was made by 藍にいな (@ai_niina_).

    To close off this post I’ll talk about who is probably the most famous and prolific animator in this list, Waboku. His immense recognition comes from his work for the already mentioned singer Zuttomayo and, most notably, the former Utaite Eve; both artists who only use animation for their music videos. 

    Waboku is mostly known for their chaotic and crazy videos, there’s a lot of things happening very fast on the screen! But their works are filled with creative sequences, fluid motions, and generally just ooze of personality. For his work with Eve we have As You Like It, Tokyo Ghetto and Baumkuchen End (just watch all of Eve’s videos, they’re beautiful, he’s a king); his most known video for Zuttomayo is Bite the Second Hand.

  There are some people that I didn’t mention in this post, but that I’m saving up for the big finale :)

 Antonia Aqueveque

[sesamestreep]

Did I hear you say, "Hey Zainab here's carte blanche to send me as many fake casts as possible!"? I thought so. Here's the first set: Luke Evans, John Cho, Sadie Sink

SONG: “Close to Me” by Ellie Goulding ft. Swae Lee & Diplo

“And I don't wanna be somebody without your body close to me/ And if it wasn't you, I wouldn't want anybody close to me”

The last time anyone saw or heard from Aleksander Goreki (Luke Evans), he was taking his final bow as a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theater, before suddenly and without explanation retiring at the height of his career. Since then, he’s virtually disappeared from public life and from public memory, aside from the occasional archival photo on the ABT Instagram.

In the thirteen years since Aleksander’s retirement, Eugene Kwok (John Cho) has risen through the ranks at ABT, going from a lowly education assistant to the choreographer-in-residence and, he hopes, Creative Director when the current one retires in the next few years. He’s a far cry from the smitten idiot who was desperately in love with Aleks all those years ago and whose heart was broken when he disappeared without an explanation. He’s put all that behind him.

Enter Mila Mason (Sadie Sink), 16-year-old ballet prodigy and the newest addition to the junior pre-professional program at ABT under Eugene’s supervision. She also just so happens to be Aleks’s daughter, the one he left ABT to raise on his own when her mother finally got around to telling him he had a kid and split to parts unknown. Now, if he cared (which he totally doesn’t), Eugene has the explanation for why Aleks disappeared all those years ago, but that doesn’t make things right between them, not by a long shot. Eugene is happy to work with Mila—more than happy, she’s a tremendous talent, just like her father, but with a drive all her own—but if Aleks thinks he can waltz (or grand jeté) back into his life with his hot suburban single dad look and his old charm and and win him over again, he’s got another think coming. Eugene has moved on. Or is that just what he’s been telling himself for the last ten years?

[lifesbecomings]

The email

Hi Drew— I just wanted to  clarify something and share some perspective. First off, I want to say that I understand and respect Denison’s admissions process. I reached out a few days ago to everyone just curious about the process and wanted to talk about options to continue my education, IF even possible, through Denison! With the positive feedback from everyone and your first email, and then mention, even as a slight possibility, of spring enrollment...one certainly can understand my excitement and push for more discussion and my initiative to get applied/enrolled. With that said I am still curious about steps in general. And maybe I applied as the wrong type of student.  I know there are openings still this spring, and especially in the EDUC classes (like EDUC 390), and thought "wow, maybe this is all aligning because it's meant to be."  If it is or isn't meant to be, I'm at peace with whatever the decision is or remains. But Denison will always be my first choice. I did leave in 2017 as a medical leave student, and technically I wasn't pursuing a degree through CCS, just taking classes, many students take summer classes or semesters (like if on academic suspension), and then come back and return to campus. I know usually students typically return 1-2 years, and I understand there are deadlines and I know their importance. In no way shape or form am I trying to surpass these. When I first reached out, I said I'd be happy to discuss ANY options in a return.  Others, throughout the thread, were mentioning a spring return and spring availability and how fantastic this could be. Both Karen Graves and Baker were on board in the Educ. department, where I am majoring, presumably for a spring enrollment.  Maybe it is the fact I only have art credits as transfers. Was it that they were hoping for more core class transfers? Either way, to be perfectly transparent, whatever the outcome is, I will be taking spring classes. As well as summer classes. I want to get my degree. My first choice is Denison. If there is anyway to make this a possibility still. You already know, It would be my pleasure to stay in touch, and I will happily move to Ohio and take classes back on campus in the fall. Denison holds a special place in my heart. I hope my time on campus impacted those I came into contact with, as much as they impacted me. The Briefing: Within the last 2 weeks. Literally, two weeks, a series of events occurred that made me see the potential I could have. It started with a ski lesson, we had philosophy lessons up the chairlift, and the technical skiing lessons going down the hill. It was eye opening. I realized I need to work on my patience, but It also made me realize that I don't have to do something I do not enjoy. Moreover, it made me recognize I need to stop running from what satisfies me the most, people, education, learning, and teaching. I shut myself off in 2017 to the idea of "traditional schooling". I thought, "It's not for me". " I'm not good at it".  It stuck.  That is, until January 6th 2021, when I had this ski lesson. The ski lesson in combination with my parents friend, a teacher from Brother Rice High School,  got me thinking. I was thinking and analyzing myself. My change in perspective was shocking. I needed to accept my talents and embrace them, instead of shutting them out and rejecting them. It is so funny how we sabotage ourselves.  This is the start of my story. About how I found my drive and fulfillment. Below are three personal stories I would like to share. 1.  Monkey Bars. 

There is a story my mother always would tell me growing up about my perseverance and determination. When I was very young, 4 years old, there was a set of monkey bars on the school playground. After school one day I told my mom I wanted to go across the monkey bars. The only problem...I did not know how to do them. But, I had watched other kids that day at recess. So I was determined to figure it out. We were there for 2-3 hours. I was bound and determined to do those monkey bars. I knew that was what I wanted. I had numerous failed attempts, failure after failure, my mother began to beg me to leave with her because my hands were all beaten up, blistered, and bloodied, I still kept going. I made it all the way across those monkey bars that day, and every day after. There is another story, too, a similar story about me riding a two wheeler. Same determination, different goal. Both accomplished. 

2. My Miracle.

A senior in college, to the modern western world, is still considered "young". If you're in school, attending high school or even attending university, to have a child anywhere, at any time in that mix, It is looked down upon, plain and simple.  I chose to not tell any of my peers, while I was at Denison, my fall semester, that senior year, in 2017. I kept this knowing to myself. I told my parents, and told the father/ fathers parents. Guess what was encouraged? An abortion. Whether verbally spoken (which it was) or unspoken, I knew this is what was wanted from me, wanted for me. I mean, it was, after all, the easiest thing to do. I could still finish my degree and the family could always come later in my life. So, I did just that. I went in for that appointment, at 5 weeks. 

Statistically speaking it is 99% effective. Did you know, 1:4 women will have had an abortion in their lifetime. It's neither here nor there, just an incredible statistic. I actually came back to Denison to finish out my degree after. Putting the past behind me. I enjoyed a fantastic fall break that year in Philadelphia with friends, because through Denison my Junior year, I did a "study abroad," in Philadelphia (the best experience ever. Cannot speak enough about that program! So grateful Denison is a part of the Study in Philly!) 

Anyway, after coming back from break I wasn't myself that week at school. I came home, went to a doctor's appointment. Pregnant. I was 11 weeks pregnant. 1-2 weeks away from being in my second trimester. I knew. In that instant, I was keeping him. No one else understood, at the time, my decision. I was blamed on one side, entirely, for this outcome, the father still lives in denial. This is important information in my story, as it describes where I have been, who I am and who I've become. The father isn't, and has never been involved. This is fine. It's been uncomplicated. I'm actually very lucky. Besides, I know that my son and I deserve someone 100% interested in me AND my son, not an either or situation. So once making my decision, to continue with the pregnancy, I took one day. One day to be broken hearted, to feel like it was me against the world. Later, to my surprise, I found I had a support network bigger than I could ever have imagined.

I am blessed. I am loved. "We" are so loved. But it took me that one day to realize, the easiest thing is not always the right thing. I knew honestly from the day I first found out, I wanted this baby. And my god, has it not only blessed me, but this child of mine blesses and brings joy to anyone and everyone he meets. As a biased mother would say, he truly is something special. My choosing to bring this new life into the world, is an amazing and miraculous testimony to my dedication and character. Being a mother (parent) is one of the toughest jobs in the world. 

3. My Bakery.

First, back story: I tried to take some classes at College for Creative studies in 2018. Knowing I was more than "just a mom". I've done a lot of "soul" searching and self love in my time away. I didn't reach back to Denison at this time because I was convinced traditionally schooling just must not be for me. The root of it, I later would find, was that I was somehow undeserving of it. (super messed up mental ideal). Disclaimer: I, like many, struggled with self worth. Therapy is necessary and beautiful.  Anyway, continuing---I had a hobby of sketching.  Homes and houses always intrigued me, so I picked up some classes at CCS, interior design classes. This is where I realized a hobby does not make for a career. More importantly, I remembered the promise I had made to myself, that I didn't want anyone else raising my baby boy.  I was spending 60hrs + a week on projects and classroom time, leaving him home with my parents and babysitters, a little bit at first, then, more and more. So, I pulled the plug. 

When I give of myself I want to give 100%. If I was giving my school work 100% there was none left for my son. I had to pick between the two, and clearly, without a doubt, my baby boy was the sure pick. Schooling this time round failed because It was in person, he was not in school yet, and it was not practical or logistical. I stopped in OCT of 2019. Between October and December of 2019 I went stir crazy. I was 24/7 with my son, living at my parents home still, and my mental health was on the decline. I felt trapped. I needed a way out. And thus "A Degree Above Bakery" was born. I have made over 5,000 dollars in profits from this business. I have a standing order, weekly, with Westborn Market. However, this flow, and work is at my grace.  I can shut it down, permanently, or temporarily. I can drive it forward more, or scale it back, starting tomorrow.  I was determined to find a way out and give myself some "me" time, as well as doing something I enjoyed that gave me flexible hours to work with my son present. I originally started in my own home. Operating under the cottage food law. That is, until I started to rent space in Plymouth MI from Westborn Market in April 2020.  I bake Sundays currently. 

I created and established then registered my name. I created and bought a web domain.  I have my own labels and packaging I created. Every aspect of my business I have built and created. The brand, the marketing, getting into a grocery store. My point here, being, when I think of something, I do everything in my power to try to reach my goal, whatever the road block. When I get an idea, I see it through. To the best of my ability. __________ My overarching theme is determination. You will have nothing without it. I will be respectful and understanding of any final decisions, acceptance, reinstatement, or lack thereof. If there is still a slimmer of possibility to qualify for spring semester at Denison or be considered again... It would be an honor and mean more to me than any words could begin to describe. I had to take one last shot with you all,  before seeking another institution.  Rules and regulations will be forever. I understand this, but If there is anything I can do to help enhance my application/reinstatement/case/enrollment/scenario please don't hesitate to ask. I would be honored to commit to in person class on the hill in the fall, after taking summer classes, and taking the spring classes online at Denison, I also will be able to pay, in full, for the spring tuition as well as on campus next fall/winter. I also paid in full while being on campus every year from 2013-2016. Please also hear me when I say, yes, obviously I would do whatever and help to see a successful spring enrollment, but I would be happy to transfer credits from this spring (elsewhere), and summer, to complete classes on campus in the fall.  I will stay open minded to all possibilities, as I know Denison does! 

With much respect and appreciation, and excitement,

Sarah McNaughton

[daggerzine]

R.E. Seraphin molds tiny shapes into big songs.

Though he’s been on the scene for a while now (with different bands) I hadn’t heard the music of Bay Area musician R.E. “Ray” Seraphin until this year via a cassette called Tiny Shapes via Paisley Shirt Records (more on the label below). His first real band was Talkies, which he discusses below (and I have enjoyed), but he seems to have really come into his own this year with that cassette and a new EP, A Room Forever, which came out just a month or so ago. In his music you’ll hear influences of 80’s jangle pop as well as some deeper post-punk stuff (and for more current stuff I hear whispers of Dean Wareham and his bands and Wild Nothing). Reading below he seems very well grounded and seems to have a great attitude about everything (even not being able to play shows during a pandemic or being in a writing slump). I think once this is all over this guy will go on 5-year tour and gain lots and lots of new fans. In the meantime do check out his stuff, you won’t be disappointed.

   Where did you grow up?

Berkeley, CA. The area I grew up in was filled with Victorian homes and dilapidated industrial warehouses. My family home was walking distance from a lagoon and an old, rusty set of train tracks. I felt I lived in an unremarkable college town. There wasn't much activity outside of the school. I discovered Berkeley’s storied political and musical history much later in life. Now, of course, there are many books written about Berkeley, but I thought it was a kinda nondescript city as a kid.

 Do you remember what band made you fall in love with music?

Dating myself hard here, but I remember being floored by The White Stripes’ “Fell in Love With a Girl” video when I was 11. The Top 40 music making the rounds on VH1 and MTV at the time was beyond dreck — a lot of Train, Staind, Matchbox 20. The White Stripes were the first band I was exposed to that made succinct, catchy, no-frills music. I was genuinely enthralled. Plus, the Lego animation in that video still holds up.

 Was guitar your first instrument?

I started on bass. My first instrument was an extremely cheap, pointy BC Rich knockoff monstrosity. I believe I was 13. I had no idea how to play and little interest in learning. For the first year, I putzed around with a Pro Co RAT, a wah pedal, and a tinny-sounding Crate practice amp. I just tried (and succeeded in) being as obnoxious as possible. When I started writing songs, I eventually graduated from playing bass poorly to playing guitar poorly.

 Tell us about your first band.

My first band that played shows was called The Phil Spector Shotgun Experience. That was primarily a cover band I put together with my high school buddies and my mom. We covered Radio Birdman, the Pink Fairies, and the MC5; we also had an unwittingly hilarious original called “Nitroglycerin Man” — the first song I ever wrote (maybe I was subconsciously inspired by Wages of Fear). At some point, we kicked my mom out of the band and started playing as the Impediments. That band kicked ass — we made pridefully dumb American punk music. That was also my only band to sign a record contract, so it’s quite possibly been downhill from there!

 Tell us about The Talkies (unless that was your first band mentioned above).

Talkies (no article!) was a group I started in 2014 as a vehicle for my songs. My previous bands had been more of a shared vision, so Talkies was my first foray into being the lone genius of a group. The sound was mostly drawn from what is disparagingly known as power pop. Basically, I was heavily into the band Shoes for a few years.

We released a few albums and EPs. Did a couple short tours. During that time, the project was dragged from the Bay Area to Austin and back before I finally, mercifully pulled the plug last year. It was time.

 When did you transition from Talkies to the solo stuff you’re doing now? Did it feel comfortable?

Talkies had run its course, but I had a smattering of songs leftover from that project that I wanted to record. Around that time, I learned my good friend Jasper Leach (Burner Herzog) was getting ready to skip town. I had always wanted to work with him and, seizing my final opportunity to do so, we banged out my début, Tiny Shapes, last summer. The whole experience was fairly serendipitous. The stars aligned for that one.

I wouldn't say the process was comfortable. Recording the album felt necessary, urgent — almost compulsory at times. My heart was ready for a new project and I truly wanted to center myself for the first time. I’m glad I did. This is the happiest I’ve been musically in some time.

 “I think therefore I am”

I love the songs on A Room Forever. How did they come together?

So glad to hear that! I got asked to contribute to a compilation back in April. With the deadline approaching and inspiration still eluding me, I took a glance at my bookshelf, noticed a particular Carson McCullers title, and whipped up “Clock Without Hands.” After my trusty collaborator Owen Adair Kelley added his parts, I felt we had stumbled upon a great sound. I tried to harness the creative spirit and pushed myself to finish a few ideas buried deep in the recesses of my Voice Memo app. I got friends Matt Bullimore (The Mantles) and Yea-Ming Chen (Yea-Ming & The Rumors) involved, and that was that. No great origin story — just pure American ingenuity and elbow grease.

 Tell us about Paisley Shirt Records. Who runs it and how did you hook up with them?

Paisley Shirt Records is simply the man, the myth, the legend — Kevin Linn. He is a San Francisco-based musician and artist who records as Sad-Eyed Beatniks.

I met him when I was looking for someone to release my album, Tiny Shapes. He had just put out a tape by Hits — a great local band featuring some friends of mine — and I felt a kinship with his roster. So, I reached out to him. Foolishly, he agreed to put out my album and we’ve been inseparable ever since. Solid dude. High marks.

 Have you done any solo tours? If so where and how did they go?

Ha! No. I had only notched two shows as R.E. Seraphin before the pandemic hit. Likely not doing anything beyond the odd live-stream show for a while. That said, if any tastemaking European touring agencies are reading this — give me a ring!

The latest EP

 What are your top 10 desert island discs?

Ah, jeez. This question. I’ll just say these are 10 (plus one) that I come back to quite often. In no order:

 Marquee Moon by Television

The Everly Brothers’ Best

Forever Changes by Love

Let it Be by The Replacements

Third/Sister Lovers by Big Star

The First Songs by Laura Nyro

16 Lovers Lane by The Go-Betweens

In a Silent Way by Miles Davis

A Different Kind of Tension by Buzzcocks

Something Else by The Kinks

Old No. 1 by Guy Clark

 What are a few Bay Area bands that we should know about.

This is a golden-era for weirdo pop music in the Bay. To name just a few: Galore, Cindy, The Umbrellas, Tony Jay, Flowertown, Healing Potpourri, Latitude, Cocktails, The Reds, Pinks, & Purples, Yea-Ming & The Rumors, Anna Hillburg, the 1981, Toner, Frank Ene, Neutrals, Owen Adair Kelley, April Magazine, Telephone Numbers, Hits, Sad-Eyed Beatniks. Essentially every act associated with Paisley Shirt Records and/or Mt.St.Mtn. My bias is strong.

 Do you feel that the pandemic has helped your songwriting or hindered it (if either)?

A li’l column A, a li’l column B. I’m a natural procrastinator, so I’ve definitely savored the lack of band practice and shows (things that often necessitate new material). That said, I doubt I would have finished A Room Forever had I not been quarantined at home. Without having many obligations and without being able to leave my house, music definitely became my raison d’être for the first time as an adult. I was fortunate to not be deemed an “essential” worker and to be able to focus energy on my passion momentarily. Silver lining.

 What’s next ? A new record by the end of the year possibly?

Hopefully continuing to promote my music and play shows on the ol’ webiverse. A Room Forever will be receiving a small vinyl and tape pressing at the end of September via Mt.St.Mtn. and Paisley Shirt Records. So, looking forward to that.

I was creatively tapped for a few months after A Room Forever. While a new album is possible, it’s not probable. I am plugging away at a few tunes, but I tend to conceptualize albums as a thematic whole and not as a collection of songs. Haven't stumbled onto my next Big Idea yet. Don't count me out, though. I could see myself dashing off a covers album for sure.

 What is one song you wish you’d written?

Too many to name! I’ll reframe that question to mean a great song I could see myself capable of writing in an alternate time, place, or dimension. Maybe one of Peter Holsapple’s songs from The dB’s — “Black & White” or “Neverland.” Also: anything by Wreckless Eric or Martin Newell.

 Final thoughts? Closing comments?

Just finished reading an interview with the great James Purdy, and thought this quote summed up iur current political climate well:

“You go out into the world and no one knows you, you can be ruled because you’re programmed. Everything is stamped, put on the shelf, described, thrown out into the garbage. It’s a political process, and behind that an economic process. But to be nothing, that is the worst of all possible things.”

   www.reseraphin.com

www.paisleyshirtrecords.bandcamp.com