#literally the last time was new years eve 2022

[knightsofrayx]

because @daisychainsandbowties loves blood so much... a little something from Luminous Beings Chapter 2

"She felt it strike the side of her head and whip her face down onto the toe of a trooper's boot. Her lips - both of them - split open, splashing blood up onto the greaves of the trooper all the way to his knees."

[rjzimmerman]

Interesting story about the challenges to the mining of lithium in the Ash Meadows region of Nevada. Interesting for the substance, plus interesting because I've known Patrick Donnelly, the guy who has been combatting the mining interests in Ash Meadows for a long time. The story focuses on Patrick and his fiancé in their long battle to protect Ash Meadows and the Amargosa Valley.

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

Few Americans follow the nation’s lithium-mining industry as closely as Patrick Donnelly. Since 2021, he has set up 30 or so Google Alerts for variations on the word “lithium,” and he uses the findings to populate an online map of projects across the West. It is so useful that one industry insider has referred to it as “an investor’s handbook.”

This is paradoxical: Donnelly, who works at an environmental nonprofit called the Center for Biological Diversity, is one of the industry’s most vigilant watchdogs. The true spirit of his monitoring and mapping efforts comes through in a Twitter exchange he had with one mining firm, Rover Critical Minerals, a few years ago. In November 2022, he noticed an alert for a Rover project in southern Nevada, but he couldn’t find any information about its location. He decided to message Rover on Twitter. “In all of your materials, you never actually state where your Let’s Go Lithium project is located,” he wrote. “I’d like to add it to my lithium tracker map.”

The proposed mine, the company replied, would be in Pahrump, Nev., a town where Donnelly did his grocery shopping. But a month passed before a different alert revealed the project’s precise location: the edge of Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, a beloved and biodiverse wetland not far from where Donnelly lived.

He messaged the company again. “Just saw your map,” the message began. “I would abandon that project right now, because you stand zero, and I mean zero, chance of getting it permitted.” He ended, “No chance that mine moves forward.”

The company wrote back. “We believe otherwise. We are well outside any area of environmental concern.”

On Christmas Eve, Donnelly wrote one last time, calling Rover clueless. “Your mine is sitting on a vast carbonate aquifer system which sustains literally dozens of aquatic, endemic species protected under the Endangered Species Act. You won’t even make it to permitting. The agencies will laugh in your face. And if they don’t, we will bury you with litigation. If you think Ioneer has had a hard time with us,” he continued — referring to the Australian company whose proposed lithium mine triggered litigation over its potential threat to a species of buckwheat — “you ain’t seen nothing yet. This is my home.”

The company never responded.

[archduchessofnowhere]

The tropification of Elisabeth of Austria and the perils of historical dramas without history: A review of Die Kaiserin season 1

Back in 2022 Netflix long awaited (by me at least) new historical drama about Empress Elisabeth of Austria premiered. And to my great disappointment, the series had little to nothing to do with history. Now, two years later, we are on the eve of the premiere of the series’ second season. Since I’d forgotten most of the story, I decided to do a rewatch of season 1, despite my deep dislike of it back in the day. I usually don’t do this, I truly believe that (unless you’re a paid reviewer and it’s your literal job) the only reason for watching a series should be that you like it. If it wasn’t because of my completionist drive to finish every piece of media relating to Elisabeth and analyze the hell out of it, I would’ve dropped it two episodes in. But I promised a review in 2022, and I still feel bad for not finishing writing it then. So at last, here is my review of Die Kaiserin.

Revisiting Die Kaiserin was an interesting experience, if just as frustrating as my first watch was. The character assassination of literally every real person depicted in this series is still infuriating, the costumes and hairstyles are dreadful, and the portrayal of the few historical events is so bad it makes any person with some knowledge of the time period roll their eyes and wish the series had gotten canceled in pre-production. And yet, looking at it from the outside, trying to watch it as if I were an spectator who doesn’t know nor cares about the time period and only wants to kill time with Netflix’s shine new period drama series, Die Kaiserin reveals itself exactly for what it is: a mediocre soap opera set in a half-assed court setting. Upon this rewatch I realized that the biggest crime of this series isn’t that it’s inaccurate, but how boringly predictable it truly is. It’s not that the characters are nothing like their historical counterparts, it’s that they are not characters at all. They are stereotypes, walking tropes crashed against each other like dolls in the hands of a child. And the entire plot of this series is built around serving these tropes.

Although we are not given a clear year at any point on-screen, the story begins in 1853 as it always does when it comes to Sisi media: with a young and rebellious Elisabeth learning that her elder sister Helene is going to be the emperor of Austria’s future bride. The first episode proceeds to re-imagine the fated encounter of the Duchesses in Bavaria with Franz Josef and his family, finishing with the climatic moment in which the emperor reveals that he will marry the younger Elisabeth instead of her sister, shocking everyone present (in fiction, for in real life the entire family realized right away that he had fallen in love with his cousin at first sight).

So far, the typical beginning of every piece of media about young Elisabeth under the sun. But then the series makes the bizarre choice of setting the entire season in an atemporal space in which nothing of note happens. The episodes usually take place during a brief period of time (from a couple of hours to a single day at most), yet it is uncertain how much time passes between them: days? months? Who even knows. The timeline is fuzzy, bending to the whims of the script.

You now may wonder: why does that matter? Plenty of good series don’t have clear timelines. And I agree, there are indeed good series which don’t need a clear timeline. I just don’t believe historical series about real people whose lives are well documented are one of them. Why am I tuning in the history based series and finding no history at all? Why can’t I even guess in which month are we supposed to be in?

In the later years there has been a boom of period dramas which are historical satires, historical fantasies and/or alternative history. These series take history and throw it out of the window for the sake of their plot (whether it’s romance or comedy or both). And I don’t hate them, in fact I thoroughly enjoyed plenty of them. But Die Kaiserin doesn’t belong to this genre. Die Kaiserin is supposed to be a serious historical drama. I still remember that before the series premiered the screenwriters talked about how they wanted to follow the steps of The Crown. Yet the quality of the script is far more reminiscent of the alternative history teen drama Reign. If Reign thought it was The Crown.

What is the point of taking these real people, ignoring the entire context in which they lived, and throwing them into completely fictional settings, while still claiming you’re adapting their lives? If Die Kaiserin had owned what it was, if it had not pretended to be a serious historical drama, I don’t think I would’ve been as upset as I was when the series was released. 

I realize this is a personal frustration since I know and care for the real history, and that someone who doesn’t probably didn’t notice the dozens of inaccuracies that plague this series. That’s okay. But I can’t help but feeling a deep disappointment in the fact that I’m not the target audience of a series about one of my favorite women from history. Which also makes me wonder: if not us, the people with a genuine interest in history, then who is the audience for this series?

I don’t have an answer. Not only “the general public” is as vague as it gets, time and time again “the general public” has shown they can and will love historical dramas more grounded in fact. I wholly disagree on this notion that you must “dumb down” history in order to make it more palatable. Again, audiences have shown they can enjoy complex writing - a memo I wish the screenwriters of Die Kaiserin had received. 

Because even putting the inaccuracies aside, I ultimately just don’t think the writing of this series is good. Going back to the beginning of the review, upon my rewatch I realized something: this series is almost entirely made up of well defined but poorly developed tropes. This series feels written as if it was one of those viral Tiktok books whose entire plot is just a list of popular tropes. “Love triangle with a villain”, “fierce FMC”, “betrayal”, “falls first/falls harder”; and I could go on. Any complexity is simplified in order to create an easy to watch story, every character is made into a one-dimensional caricature. It is also ironic that, despite the screenwriters’ clear attempts to distance their series from every previous portrayal of the empress - to the point of having Elisabeth disdain her nickname “Sisi”, which is never be used after the first episode - they fall into almost every already existing stereotype on Sisi media anyways. Elisabeth as a humble country girl deemed the “troublemaker” of the family? Check. Sophie as an evil mother-in-law who manipulates her son and daughter-in-law? Check. The empress reconciling the discontent masses of the empire with her kindness alone? Check check check. 

I highly doubt I’ll ever watch this season again. I simply do not like it, and I know it may not seem like it given how much I’ve been talking about this series lately, but I don’t enjoy being a hater. It’s just that I’ve been following this series since the project was first announced years ago, and I’m still mad about how much it missed the mark. Will there ever be an Elisabeth - or just 19th century Habsburg/Wittelsbach - historical series with actual history in it? As of now, sadly, it still feels like an impossible dream.

[scretladyspider]

please don’t scroll; I really need your help to reach my gofundme goal of $3500 and not become homeless.

Im Elle, a queer, ace, disabled person with ADHD, depression, and two cats. In November, I lost my job without warning. I have no savings as the job already had me living to the last dollar of every paycheck. I was denied unemployment and food stamps. I cannot work away from home, a physical job, or something with strict hours due to some yet-to-be-diagnosed illness.

this is my story — what’s going on & how I got here. (Smaller text used because it’s a lot of information/a long post.)

In early 2018, I was doing regular walk/runs. In 2019, I stopped being able to run, so I went on walks. Running took hours, then days, to recover from. My body couldn’t produce energy to do it consistently, so, walks. In 2020, I kept going on walks and tried to do aerobics. I was not able to keep doing aerobics. My body took hours upon hours to recover, where before it hadn’t, I was alone for almost all of 2020, and never developed COVID symptoms; it was what happened with running all over again. In 2021, it started to take more time to recover from walks. Then I started to need to take a nap immediately after I clocked out from work— and it was a work from home job. In 2022, I began to go from my sitting desk job straight to my bed most days, laying down exhausted right after work, even sleeping through lunch to get some rest.

On New Year's Eve 2023, I spent 30 minutes cleaning, including vacuuming my living room. I had to rest the rest of the day.

In the last five years, I've gone from running to being exhausted for hours by taking my garbage to the curb.

Imagine you were someone who enjoyed recreational exercise. Now imagine doing 1/100th of that and feeling sick for days. Thats me.

There are other symptoms also. More vulnerability to infection and more trouble fighting infection. Shooting, sharp muscle pains in large muscles such as the thigh or forearm, like a pinched nerve, that come and go at random. Pulse rate that skyrockets upon standing, to go back to normal soon after. Stomach inflammation. Inflammation without major swelling. Headaches. Complete inability to tolerate heat, leading to excruciating migraines that only go away with things like cold showers, electrolytes, and hours of rest in the dark with ice. Muscles that literally don't feel like they're getting oxygen. Random rashes. Face flushing. Being much more easily out of breath, yawning over and over, like I can't get air correctly. Weight gain, no matter what I eat or don't eat.

And just being so, so tired.

In summer of 2018, something… stopped working in my body. I felt sick all the time. I had a low, unexplainable fever nearly every day. Shooting nerve pain would wake me up at night. The doctor said I had a cold. But months went by and I didn’t get better. When my blood work and thyroid hormone level was normal, I was referred to a rheumatologist.

I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia after he made me wait 45 minutes, came in and asked “are you tired?", poked me hard, said I was tender, and left without running tests. This sort of “uhm the standard blood work came back normal, have you tried exercising more? I know you’re here because your body can’t recover from it but have you tried more of that? Also going to sleep at night?” has been the response over and over and over for five years. It got to the point where I even started to wonder if I was somehow making it up. I see a psych nurse. She thinks there's more than just depression, ADHD, and other things - though we both agree that managing those is vital too. She used to be a cardiologist, so this is reassuring. But when I have tried to see other doctors, it goes differently. Most of the time they see I have ADHD, a long history of depression, and hypermobile joints, and say that explains everything. I can't count how many times I've been told "well, you have depression” when the labs, if they even agreed to run them, came back normal. My standard blood work sometimes comes back with anemia, but I take an iron supplement. No improvement had come of it. I’ve had my thyroid hormone levels tested over and over, but never the antibodies. No imaging or referrals have happened, outside of one to a second rheumatologist. He ran no tests either; he just saw my joints are hypermobile and I was “sure taking a lot of mental health medications” (two at the time), and… that was that.

I had given up on actually even getting help until my SIL recommended a doctor she knew. For the first time in five years, when the standard blood work and TSH tests were normal, she told me we would keep looking. I actually cried with relief at that. It’s amazing to be believed after all this time.

Because of …. All of this, I'm trying to figure out how to either work for myself or find a work from home job that has flexible hours I can choose. I literally wouldn't be able to work a retail gig where I have to stand for eight hours, or even a 9-5 where I have to be there for those exact hours, because my body cannot do that right now. I want to get better but it's a long way off. First I need to know what's even wrong. I'm praying for a diagnosis soon. And treatment. At the least, management.

I have heard of EDS and I have been evaluated. I apparently don’t meet enough criteria, hence the diagnosis of JHS instead. It’s in the same family. I have also heard of POTS. I am pursuing testing. Same with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, MCAS, fibromyalgia… yeah. The thing is nothing outside of the standard blood count and thyroid hormone level test, no other lab tests have been done. There are so many things this could be that have never been checked. Lyme disease, for example, is extremely common where I live (it’s actually just extremely common worldwide) and matches much of my experience, but 1) in the USA the initial Lyme test relies on a strain of bacteria cultured in the 80s 2) there are over 100 strains of Lyme disease in the USA 3) in spite of decades of research there are doctors who don’t believe chronic Lyme exists 4) no doctor has ever checked and I only recently learned anything about it so I never asked. But… there are a lot of things to check that I’ve never had checked is my point. Fingers crossed someone can help me get there.

I do not have a partner who can try to support me through this, and my family already supports me however they can. My severance (which was low as I found out I was being paid much less than the rest of the team later) paid only my January rent.

Since my ability to work is severely limited right now, and I've been denied unemployment and food stamps, and I would need a diagnosis and to be awarded disability benefits in court (which can take YEARS that I don’t have), I have nothing in savings because of years of underpaying jobs the cost of living and being disabled and going through prior periods of unemployment due to this and other factors, I am left in a tough spot without help. Without this help, this gofundme... I have nothing.

So... here I am. A queer nonbinary disabled neurodivergent writer, trying my best, living with some undiagnosed illness that's severely impacted my ability to function, who got fired without real reasons (in America they can just do that to you without even telling you why), asking for your help to pay my February rent and January bills so I don’t repeat the trauma of being homeless. Or for you to reblog this.

Thank you for reading all of this.

It’s been on my chest for a long time. Even if it wasn’t for the gofundme, it feels good to talk about and be honest about my health. It reminds me you’re not supposed to feel like this all the time when I tell other people and they tell me I should get help and deserve answers. It’s reassuring to see competent doctors who finally believe me. I hope we figure it out.

no donation is too small— they add up. If just 100 people gave $35, the goal would be met. Sharing is also giving— it means someone who can help is more likely to see it.

You can also help via my venmo — secretladyspider

CashApp — secretladyspider

or find PayPal in my tip jar in my linktree

Goal is $3500 or over. Funds needed ASAP. If it goes over, that’ll help with February.

Thank you for anything and everything.

[x-populuxe]

my year in fic: 2023

Carrying on a format from the past two years! Here's 2022 & 2021.

I wrote a lot this year, but much of it remains unpublished 🥲. Not sure how I became a "way too many WIPs" person but it is what it is. I will finish and post some of them in 2024!! I swear!!!

I *did* publish three fics—one long, one medium, one short. All three of them are Cherik. Please note that I used "grudgingly" in two of these three summaries lol. You can certainly read some "grudging" undercurrents in Erik's quote in the last one, too. 🥰

1) "Repeat Offenses" ~36K words, exes to ??, written for the wonderful @ikeracity's bid during Fandom Trumps Hate!

Summary: “Prickly bits aside—hell, for the two of them, prickly bits included—it almost felt like a date. Which is stupid on multiple fronts. Grudgingly buying your ex a meal after he grudgingly bails you out of jail is obviously not a date.”

Five times Charles bailed Erik out of jail—and one time he didn’t.

2) "The Plus-One" ~15K words, fake-relationship fic (literally fake!)

Summary: When Erik grudgingly agrees to play Raven's boyfriend at her terrible family's holiday party, he'd thought the biggest challenge would be staying sober enough to make it convincing. But then he meets Raven's extremely hot—and extremely infuriating—stepbrother, and everything starts to get complicated.

3) "Resolutions" ~1K words, a vignette set on New Year's Eve

Summary: “Do you know how far I traveled tonight?” Erik snaps, making a sweeping gesture back towards the windows. “I’ve already greeted the New Year in two different time zones.”

[catbearexe]

BACK FROM LONG HIATUS! IF YOU ARE NOSY OR NEW, PLEASE READ!!!

WOW it has been such a long time since i've used this platform. I used to use this website to religiously to feed my anime and video game fan art addiction as well as share my artworks. Here's what I've been up to since!

My mental health took a massive nosedive into the void. I didn't think I was going to even make it through college at all. Though, I think that is pretty common during the COVID era, but my mental health as always been a problem wayyy before the pandemic.

I attempted to delete myself permanently on New Year's Eve of 2021, but I woke up to DIY surgery on arms, multiple bottles of empty liters of vodka, and unfortunately...still alive. When I came to around 5:00AM, I figured that I needed to leave my toxic environment and ended up staying at a friend's house for a few weeks before I started my first day at my first internship in the co-op program. I made a few drawings here and there and posted on my Instagram, but they never really made rounds and I had a long pause in drawing overall for a good couple of years due to being under an immense amount of stress, school, athletics, and working multiple jobs to stay afloat. I was eventually able to stay in a dorm. But, when the bill came around for the semester, all of my internship money went down the drain to pay for just staying on campus at my University despite not taking any classes. It was over $5000 dollars by the time the spring semester ended, and my university doesn't tell you the cost of dormitory until the last week of the semester.

I did get my first partner around 3-4 months of going no-contact with my family in 2022, and then ended it around New Years of 2023 due to their family having strong bigoted beliefs based on their faith in Christianity. It came to a great disdain to me that they never even knew what I looked like, or knew what my name was until 3 months after we separated despite being together for about 9 months prior. It also didn't help that I went cold-turkey on zoloft as it began to be too expensive (my psychiatrist was also very judgmental and made me feel ashamed and each 10-15 minute session was over $200 co-pay).

I decided (last second) to obtain my graduate degree in my university's accelerated program, allowing me to obtain my master's in engineering within a year instead of 2. During my final spring semester for my undergraduate program, I was taking classes for my bachelors, masters, and physics minor at the same time. Yet, I had a massive improvement in my performances athletic-wise despite the busy schedule and stress I amassed.

When I graduated with my bachelors degree, my mother decided to show up to my graduation unannounced and made a scene, screaming at the top of her lungs that she always supported me and tried kissing my face in front of my class and my beloved friends that I actually invited. For context, my family were my first and only bully. Before I was able to have my own bank account, any money that I made went straight to them and I would have to beg them to give me my money to buy anything. Additionally, they ripped through my mail and got very upset that I got into school at all. It was like I was expected to fail so hard to give them an excuse to get rid of me. It also happened to solidify that my parents now know that I am a transman as my university outted me unintentionally. The looks of disgust spread around me while I was trying to shove her off of me, and she never apologized due to her thought that "that is my DAUGHTER! I can do whatever I want!"

(I am a transman, and have been out for almost 8+ years at this point)

During my summer master classes, I was able to obtain another internship that was flexible to maintain during my time in the master's program and fit with my athletic schedule. That internship ended up becoming the most flexible and fun job I ever had and solidified the reason why I chose mechanical engineering as my career path.

However, during that summer I ended contact with a 10+ year group friendship. I knew that there had to be a time for work-life balance, but it felt impossible with the things I had on my plate. The immense guilt in having to prioritize my studies and survival over my long-term friends picked at me for years. I had to choose pulling irritated all-nighters with sleep problems or miss payments of over $550/MONTH for student loans as well as my schooling, rent, bills, etc. I had to sacrificed meals because of the cost and time to even eat.

A few weeks later, my grandfather on my mother's side passed away, and my mother broke down after the first mass how "I NEED you to forgive me" because she missed me and everybody kept asking her about me, making her look bad because of how I was just cut out of the entire family. She never calculated that people in real life actually cared about me, and it took everything inside of me to not blow up in her face. She is grieving, yet she only cared about how she was perceived by other people.

Regardless of the scholarship, which I was awarded in exchange for becoming a graduate assistant for the undergraduate courses, I ended up having to reach out to my father that I cut contact with to sign off on my loan as I had nobody. As much as I did not want to having not contacted them in almost 2.5 years, I didn't want to drop out of school and had no where else to turn to. So I did. My younger sister notified me that our beloved grandmother may not make it past 2024. It devastated me. I decided to break no-contact after years of estrangement and began to cautiously come back to visiting my grandmother's household where my parents resided. It was no surprise that their treatment wasn't any different than when I had left, and tried my best to keep it together for the sake of the only family member that treated me like a person.

On a random side note, I decided to try to put myself out in the dating field again about 8 months after my ex-partner and I separated. However, it has come to a disdain from my now ex-friendships that I went on dates with men instead of getting responses back from women (the street works both ways, I can't force women to go on dates with me). I eventually found myself in a confusing relationship with an infantry officer that lasted for about 3 months until he messaged if we were just friends and apologized if he is being confusing. A month later, a close friend of mine messaged me the Tiktok account of said-situationship obtaining a boyfriend shortly after he sent me that message. They also showed the demographic of their audience being creepy old men thirsting over an online thirst trap of someone who is in twink-death denial. When they texted me 9 months after we saw each other, I made sure I made them sweat by telling them that I knew about their secret account. As it turns out, their family is not only extremely Christian, but he and all of his siblings were homeschooled. His family does not even accept his current partner. Despite the whole fiasco he pulled, I couldn't help but still feel sorry for him as I was in the same position once.

The whole year of 2023 had me feeling like I was on top of the world. When Christmas came around, I was just stuck in another depressive episode for another 9 months. My athletic performance went on a massive decline, I was stuck in my room isolating myself, and I was struggling academically and was terrified that I would lose my scholarship. Despite all of this, I still passed, I got my degree, I got a full-time high paying job right out of graduate school, and moved into my apartment.

To put the nail in the coffin, my partner and I rekindled our relationship and now live together happily. I was terrified that I was going to lose him again after he moved in as I started testosterone the day after running in my last collegiate NCAA event of my life. The irritation, the mood swings, the h0rnY definitely put our relationship to the test. I even asked him if he even loved me at all. Even after me lashing out, being a terrible person, seeing me at my worst, he sat me down and talked to me. He communicated that if I have a problem with anything, I need to tell him directly. He assured me that we can be mad at things, but we will get through it and we will figure it out. In the first time of my life, I felt okay with accepting parts of me that are hard to deal with and never even knew about. The anger of everything eventually went away within about 3-4 months. We now happily live together, go on dates, and are now hoping to go on an out-of-country trip to Japan at some point.

While our relationships has solidified, my health had other plans. After 5 years of not seeing a doctor, I finally had the time and funds to seek help again. I found that the sarcoma, that I was diagnosed with all throughout high school, is in my right lung an grew 6 times the size in comparison to my last scan. My wisdom teeth in my right upper and lower jaw will need an evaluation from an oral surgeon because it seems to be fused to my skull and packed in, my lazy eye has gotten significantly worse and will need 10-12 days of no work from surgery. I used up most of my PTO to go to all of these appointments, only to find that I will need more than 2 sessions of surgeries because of neglecting my health for so long. Gotta thank the American healthcare system am I right?

When I got in touch with a therapist, they explained that my brain has been under excessive survival mode for too long that my window of tolerance is so miniscule. Wrong turn, spilling a cup of jawn, any minor mistakes could result in a massive meltdown as I am not used to being in an environment where there is little to no stress. Thankfully it has gotten A LOT better.

I also got in touch with a lot of schoolmates I have been meaning to hang out with. Turns out they had the same thought and were afraid that I didn't like them anymore because of their focus on schoolwork. This phenomenon of my friends in STEM losing friends due to academics was sadly a common theme, and I am so thankful that they understood that we both have stressful lives we are living. What a time to be in to laugh at each other having the same thought when it turned out we were in the same boat.

When my ex-friend reached out to me again about a year later, I felt the utter guilt of having to turn down their offer to reconvene as I had a LOT of oncology appointments and getting used to moving into a new apartment as well as my job while taking care of my sick grandmother. I had no furniture for 3-4 months, and was in great disdain when they guilt tripped me that I made them a low priority over my lung having another growing sarcoma along with spending my time with the only family member that treated me like a person.

Another downside I have found is that I may have girl-bossed too hard all of my life. I used to over-extend myself in social situations and use unfortunate coping mechanism to last over an hour. Now, it takes everything in me to go out in public, especially to my Muay Thai classes. I can't help but feel my arms tremble and heartbeat racing when I leave my little apartment space.

It is now 2025, my partner and I live happily together, I have reconnected with my hobbies, and can finally relax and enjoy myself without feeling the insane amount of dread of what is coming next. I am also currently figuring out where to get tested for autism and ADHD as my brother exhibited almost the same symptoms I did with the exception that my parents actually cared about him to get him therapy and medication (his meds barely hold him back).

Life is great, and I am so glad to be back!

[friendship-switchblades]

also: top 5 (non-mcr) shows you've been to

OHHHHH TOUGH!!!

2009: Patrick Wolf / Les Plasticines / Jaguar Love (a side project of Blood Brothers lol) - the first club-sized gig I ever went to, so it’s eminently special to me! The security guys at the venue called everyone on line “a bunch of Coney Island sideshow freaks”

2010: Iron Maiden at Madison Square Garden - my voice was hoarse and my diaphragm was sore for days

2014: Murder by Death at Mercury Lounge - tiny, intimate show, and one of my first ever times going to a show by myself. It was a huge personal milestone and an incredible show. And yet, what I remember most is a couple seeing me without a drink and offering their own. Didn’t know em, they didn’t try to pick me up as a third, just genuinely amazing vibes?

201X: The Bouncing Souls with World/Inferno Friendship Society - the Souls had announced that would be the last year they did the Home for the Holidays shows. People were literally swinging from the rafters of the Stone Pony! I don’t quite remember what year this was…

2017: Thursday holiday show at Starland - god, just. The catharsis. The rawness. The beauty. The connection.

Honorable mentions: Patrick Wolf in Brighton last summer, Gogol Bordello this past New Years Eve (with @greenlikethesea and @sparklyslug), Gerard Way (didn’t feel in the spirit of the ask to list him lol), seeing Blondie and the Damned in 2022 after two years of being locked in my house. I’m kind of a poseur and haven’t been to a lot of diy shows!

WAIT FUCK ALSO JANELLE MONAE AT RADIO CITY!!!! AHHHHH

[ilovejoyjessie]

the “Hidden Figures” series

+ Photographed by @skyclad.studio (ig) // website

Back in the before times, in 2019, I took a trip to Minneapolis for a concert on New Year’s Eve. With literally 30 hours in the city, I landed on the 31st at 9am, headed to the concert at around 9pm - had a transcendent time - then back to the hotel afterwards. The next day, I had about 5 hours to kill before having to head at the airport to return home. I asked the front desk for a late checkout - they obliged - and at noon I left my room with 3 hours still until I had to hit the road.

.

When I can squeeze it into a trip to a new place, I try to make a visit to an art museum or botanical attraction in the area. I looked to see what was nearby and fatefully, the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden - home of the Spoonbridge & Cherry and the notable Hahn/Cock - was a short drive from the hotel. I hailed a ride and hopped in, made lively banter with my driver, then soon enough stepped out of the car and down a set of steps onto the snowy park grounds.

.

As I walked among the pieces, several of them spoke to me: the fracturedness of Judith Shea’s “Without Words”, the pensive and mysterious “Walking Man” by George Segal, the playful “Empire” by Eva Rothschild, the eerie holiness of Theaster Gates’ “Black Vessel for a Saint”... Some of them spoke to different feelings I had inside me at the time; others depicted stories I felt I could relate to and wanted to watch unfold before my eyes. I found myself wanting to interact with so many of them - wanting to fit myself into their sculpted moments, entwine my stories and feelings between their crevices and curves. But with only a few hours left in the city, I couldn’t squeeze in the chance to link with a fellow artist to help me capture the visions I had. So I tucked the concept away in my mind and continued moseying through the winding pathways of the park.

.

Back to Seattle, the sculpture garden’s marks on me remained. As I embarked on other projects, processing other emotions through other pieces, I also started scouting places I could take my Midwest vision and execute it in the Pacific Northwest. Sure, there's plenty sculptures and statues in the city of Seattle - but getting to and interacting with them the way I wanted to (see my recent mini-post on nudity as vulnerability and power) would prove to be a little difficult...

.

A fellow artist mentioned the Olympic Sculpture Park and I thought back to what I remembered seeing there. It’d been a minute since I had last walked through so I visited it again and the pieces that I saw touched me differently from the last time I saw them. Then, I was new to the area - everything shined brightly, glowing with a promise of what was to come for me here: “Which pieces would be the ones that I would grow to understand - which ones would I grow to love seeing in the distance?” But walking through it in 2022, the sculptures spoke to me differently than they did the first time; and in turn, they also spoke to a different me...

.

I was seeing the sculptures with more worn eyes. And as I mentally noted which sculptures I could see myself fitting into like I had in Minneapolis, I started to realize that the pieces were reflecting a deeper feeling back at me: The pieces on the Olympic park grounds that spoke to me before were no longer the fascinating landmarks welcoming me to my new home - the pieces that spoke to me were the monuments that emphasized the outsider feelings I had that were settling in.

.

In a place I thought I’d fit into, that I thought I had....I was sticking out. The boxes I thought I’d fit into I was pouring out of. The doors I thought were wide open were really just windows ajar just wide enough for me to stick an arm’s length into. The language of the land I thought I knew and understood were now sounding strange. Though I’d been here for 4 years, I felt like a stranger who didn’t belong - an antigen the host was beginning to respond to and filter out, an intrusive thought in someone else’s dream.

.

I slowly realized that this concept was bigger for me than just speaking to my original thought of art begetting art as I combined my feelings and stories with the ones depicted on the park grounds. The feelings I had looking over the park pieces stirred the idea to speak to and represent the way I felt about being here now, with this iconic Seattle landscape as the backdrop. “Hidden Figures” then became my next cathartic art exercise - a visual representation of the struggle I felt trying to find my place in the city’s spaces I thought were made for me, the dichotomy of how standing out can be a strength and a hinderance here, and the lonesomeness that can come with being a transplant in the city - baring and presenting all those feelings in the heart of the city itself.

[havnblog]

I'm Getting a New Car, and I Don't Care About CarPlay

Am I insane?

Time and time again, I’m hearing people say that they wouldn’t buy a new care without Apple CarPlay/Android Auto. (The after-show on the latest episode of Mac Power Users was the last example.) I also hear how stupid some companies are for not including these systems in their cars. And I just don’t get it. Or, to be honest: I think I know some reasons why my opinion seems to differ from most people’s.

I'd love to get feedback on my takes here, though! Because I feel like I must be missing something…

I live in the land of EVs

Norway has been subsidising EVs heavily for many years. And I think this statistic shows the effect well:

Year EV market share 2020: 54.3% 2021: 64.5% 2022: 79.3% 2023: 82.4% 2024: 88.2%

The proportion of new cars that are pure EVs.

To put things into perspective: The EV market share in the US is currently at 8.9%, which is well below the 13% we had all the way back in 2014 – ten years ago.

A welcome effect of this, is that we also have a healthy used-market for EVs – so I literally can’t remember the last time I talked to someone who weren’t buying an EV.1 I’ll come back to why this is important!

My experience

The car I’ve had for the last 3 years, is a 2019 Tesla Model 3, which I bought used. My wife and I are expecting our first kid in May, and we have a large dog – so we need something larger in the next 6 months. That’s why I’ve been looking at new cars again.

I’m pleased with my Model 3! But even though the Model Y probably would be the best purchase for us, I simply don’t want to buy one, due to *gestures in the general direction of Elon Musk*. Luckily, we have tons of options over here. But when I started doing my research, I found myself not caring about whether the cars had CarPlay – even though I’m heavily entrenched in the Apple ecosystem.2

The reasons I haven’t missed CarPlay

A big caveat is that I haven’t owned a car with CarPlay – so maybe I’m missing something obvious! However, I’ve never really missed it either.

Another important factor is that the software in the Tesla is pretty great. I entirely understand that CarPlay can be a hotfix for crappy infotainment, though.

But anyway, I just don’t miss CarPlay when:

I already get my phone calls etc. in the car,

the map and navigation is great, and picks up events from my calendar automatically,

I have radio right there,

and I’m logged into my Tidal account (which changes to my wife’s if she’s driving).

The only things I don’t have access to, is things like podcasts and audiobooks. But when I’m alone, I just listen with my AirPods (on transparency of course!) as I go in and out of the car. And if I’m with someone else – that’s the only time we use the bluetooth connection to the phone. So, yeah – having access to those things would absolutely be a little bonus of having CarPlay. But it’s really minor!

What am I missing? What’s so essential about CarPlay?

Could a factor be that, since we’re not English natives (and these tools are much worse in Norwegian), there’s some voice stuff I’m missing? Genuinely confused!

Overlooked negatives about CarPlay

Again, I get that CarPlay can be better than a crappy built-in infotainment – or if you’re borrowing or renting a car. But there are some things that make me dislike the idea of carmakers resting on CarPlay bailing them out:

Disconnected look

One is that CarPlay is just a little, disconnected, window of your car’s software. No one is even close to supporting CarPlay 2.0 – and if a car has two screens, they usually only have CarPlay on one of them.

For instance, an integrated system, can show your navigation information in a head-up display. And every part of the software (also the non-infotainment ones) can be cohesive. I mean, Apple fans should be able to see the appeal in that!

Battery woes

Last year, my wife and I really put the EV lifestyle to the test, when we drove from Norway to Toulouse in southern France. That was a three-day drive – but navigation and charging was effortless:

We put in where we wanted to end up,

the car calculated when (and thus where) we needed to charge – which it also changed on the fly if things changed,

and, importantly, when charging was near, it started pre-heating the battery.

That last point is important for the charging speed – especially in colder climates. And it’s something I think many people are missing, if you’re not used to EVs.

Now, please correct me if I’m wrong here – and I know all of this could be fixed in the future, but:

The thing is, for the longest time, CarPlay didn’t know about your battery’s state of charge. And hopefully the example above shows why that’s a big nerf to the navigation! They did start to roll out support for this a year or two ago – but I don’t think many cars support it yet. And I don’t think there’s a way for the CarPlay navigation to tell the battery to start pre-heating.

Maybe I’ll eat my words!

As most cars I’m looking at does support CarPlay, and also might have worse built-in systems than Tesla, I’ll might become a convert in a year. But as of now, if you’re buying an EV,3 I absolutely don’t understand why CarPlay is essential when buying a car.

Like, I wouldn’t mind it, of course! But I also totally get car company CEOs chooses not to integrate it:

The ceiling is higher on integrated systems,

and if they don’t have CarPlay to lean on, they have to work harder on making their own software great.

Perhaps you could say that, people who are really serious about making hardware should make their own software?

You know, if they’re buying a car. 🤷🏻‍♂️ ↩︎

Most of them have it, though! ↩︎

I get it more if you’re buying an ICE car – as my biggest gripe with CarPlay is the lack of connection with the battery system. ↩︎

[alexanderking]

Another Top 20 Albums of 2023

“…And have I left anything out?” – albums of 2022:

E L U C I D – I Told Bessie: Elucid isn't a name I'd checked for since his 'Lessondary' days. To find out he's part of what I call the "Off-Kilter Hip-Hop Movement" was pretty welcome. 'Really enjoyed the flows and production but didn't come back to this enough...

EARTHGANG – GHETTO GODS: The Dungeon Family legacy lives on through this duo (not just them obviously). 'Some impressive flows, beats and messages. 'Another one I didn't come back to enough...

Ego Ella May – FIELDNOTES PT II: This chapter in the 'FIELDNOTES' series details the joy and excitement of a new relationship, only for it to end so soon. The slower, at times stripped down Neo-Soul vibe conveys this well...

Joe Armon-Jones & Fatima – Tinted Shades: A welcome collection of Jazz-influenced Soul from this partnership. An album would be welcome...

Joey Bada$$ – 2000: 'A (spiritual?) sequel to '1999'. I found the lyrics more relatable this time around (especially on a track like 'Survivor's Guilt'). The production isn't as strong, which makes it's predecessor more enjoyable for me...

Quelle Chris – DEATHFAME: 'Some great production on here. I didn't fully absorb the theme of the album though...

Lucky Daye – Candydrip: Lucky Daye continues his streak of quality modern R'n'B. The mood of this album does remain quite samey; I need to be in a certain mood to return to this project...

Phife Dawg – Forever: Darting effortlessly between more vulnerable, reflective topics and braggadocios verses, this project is truly bittersweet...

Sudan Archives – Natural Brown Prom Queen: This is slightly more pop-leaning R'n'B, which contains the bluntness of a SZA or a Summer Walker and some great violin playing woven throughout the 18-track run. I genuinely forgot to put this in my honourable mentions last year...

KingKlavé – KingKlavé: This is just awesome hip-hop influenced jazz fusion! This may have made #19 last year...

2023:

20) Terrace Martin & Alex Isley – I Left my Heart in Ladera:

Alex Isley takes a slight departure from the mellow, lo-fi sounds of ‘Marigold’ to deliver a deep R’n’B project with musician/super-producer Terrace Martin. At this point, you can generally depend on Terrace Martin to give us pleasing, west coast tinged melodies with a hint of 80s and 90s throwback. The centre-piece of this album brought a welcoming end of October for me. I’ve come back to this project a fair bit…

19) Alfa Mist – Variables:

Alfa Mist’s playing has only become more assured with each project. The explorative melodies are accompanied with confident solos, well-placed vocals and the occasional rap verse from Mist himself. I haven’t played this very often throughout the year, but each time I do I think: “Why didn’t I?!!!??!”…

18) Butcher Brown – Solar Music:

Elephant in the room (for me): The tracks getting shorter and shorter with each project is irksome. That being said, a lot of the music remains on the chipper, optimistic side, making this a particularly great listen when the sun is out. There are a couple of three to four track runs on here I often play through easily...

17) Gregory Hutchinson – Da Bang:

After hearing the 30 second sampler of 'Blow Your Mind / Take it Back', 'Da Bang' became one of my most anticipated albums of the year. Unfortunately this did fall a little' short of my expectations; a lot of the instrumentals are great on initial listen, but can overstay their welcome without a chord progression or a breakdown (despite some again, criminally short tracks on here!). Pieces like 'My Turn Now', 'Losing You' and the aforementioned escape this criticism. 'Still an enjoyable listen...

16) Mick Jenkins – The Patience:

This was a late entry to the list for me, literally hearing this on New Years Eve. The Chicago based emcee delivers a flurry of hungry, frustrated verses over his usual and more than welcome jazzy instrumentals. Despite my pedantry when it comes to this trend of short albums, 'The Patience' comes across as succinct, closing off nicely with the importance of remembering to take a breath and the value in learning patience...

15) Yasmin Lacey – Voice Notes:

If this isn't UK Neo-Soul at its finest, it's pretty damn near! 'Voice Notes' opens with the very relevant message of just creating and releasing the project, whatever it is! The subject matter from there covers relationships (family, friends and romantic), cultural legacy, uncertainty and the difficulty that can come with trying to let go...

14) Pedro Martins – Rádio Mistério:

This is my first venture into the music of guitarist Pedro Martins, outside of hearing his guest feature on Thundercat's 'It is What it is'. Needless to say I was not disappointed. A lot of the music harks back to the Jazz Rock Fusion era of the 70s, which works perfectly for me! Standouts for me include 'Liberdade', 'Estrela Do Rock n' Roll Do Planalto Central', 'Polos' and 'Kaya Noite'...

13) Kaidi Tatham – The Only Way:

I'll refrain from saying the thing I've said every time Kaidi Tatham has released an album (you'll know what I mean if you go back through these lists...). What I will say is that there are some awesome track progressions on here, something that has become synonymous with the 2000black sound. I found 'Alien @$^%' particularly inspired, reaching into the frenetic sound that the broken beat genre has provided over the years. Kaidi's output continues to be insane (this isn't the thing I'm referring to...)...

12) Cherise – Calling:

'Another anticipated album of 2023 for me! There are great soulful R'n'B pieces throughout this (solo) debut. While romantic love is a prominent topic on the album, the main theme for me is cultural impact and legacy, heard through the joyful thump of '2 Steppin'', the "barbecue during carnival" vibes on the title track and the various snippets of Cherise's grandmother telling her story...

11) Daniel Caesar – NEVER ENOUGH:

'NEVER ENOUGH' departs from the more syrupy sentiments of a 'Best Part' or 'Blessed' and comes across way more brash over this stripped down, folksy, guitar-laden collection of ballads and reflections. Much like Caesar's previous work, the melodies are on the slower side, a few of them quite subdued. However, the vocal arrangements make these pretty easy for me to sing along to. 'NEVER ENOUGH' has only gotten better and better with each listen...

P.S.: *mumble mumble* 2019 *mumble* apology *mumble mumble*...

10) Lil' Yachty – Let's Start Here.:

The first thing I noticed about the track listing was, the songs were actually over 2 bloody minutes!!!! The second thing I noticed when I clicked the sampler to the opening track 'the BLACK seminole.' was the psychedelic rock instrumental accompanying Yachty's vocals. The push over the edge was when Chris messaged me saying that this album was awesome. He wasn't wrong. Alternating between the more guitar and drum heavy moments of 'the BLACK seminole.' or 'IVE OFFICIALLY LOST ViSiON!!!!' and the poppy glide of tracks like 'running out of time' or 'drive ME crazy!', 'Let's Start Here.' marks a welcome turn for the once controversial emcee, although the question of why stepping away from the emceeing pillar of hip-hop is regarded as growth, is a valid discussion to have...

9) Kali Uchis – Red Moon In Venus:

If anyone asked me why it took me so long to get into Kali Uchis, it would be valid. With delicate (sometimes grandiose) melodies and gentle vocal stylings, 'Red Moon In Venus' offers a more tender side of R'n'B that has taken a break in recent times. This being the case, the subject matter hovers around romantic love by and large (although the title involving the word 'Venus' should be a dead giveaway)...

8) JPEGMafia & Danny Brown – SCARING THE HOES... Startling the Maidens:

JPEGMafia's off-kilter production style compliments Danny Brown's often frantic style of emceeing! Given the organised confusion (no pun intended...I think) of various sound bytes, harsh snares and the odd blast of synth, this album title is pretty apt...

7) Sampha – Lahai:

After a slew of high profile features, Sampha returns with his deeply personal sophomore body of work. Musically, 'Lahai' contains elements of Broken Beat and the more modal electronic sound you might associate with a Floating Points or a Kirk Degiorgio. My favourites include 'Suspended', 'Jonathan L. Seagull' and 'Can't Go Back'...

6) Black Milk – Everybody Good?:

Given the amount of projects that speak on the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic had on our mental health, I can't help but wonder if life has imitated art to an extent; I sometimes find myself referring to these kind of albums as 'Post-blip albums'. Black Milk reflects on how the pandemic has affected him and in doing so, gives us what I believe to be his magnum opus. The verses are succinct. The production is top notch, channeling the signature Detroit sound with higher chords conveying hope, a light in the tunnel and sometimes, surrealism. We also get a hell of a feature verse from Phonte at the back end of this project...

5) Gareth Donkin – Welcome Home:

After a slew of singles over the years, musical prodigy Gareth Donkin releases his debut project. 'Welcome Home' plays as a bit of the throwback record, the bouncy drum patterns and synths taking us to the 80s. I did find this a bit of a shame as earlier singles like 'Inside' or 'Catharsis' were less on the nose with it. Tracks like 'Til' the End of Time (Night Sky)', 'By Your Side' and 'Tell Me Something' is why this is so high on the list (although I think September bias played a part too...).

Side note: I'm glad Gareth Donkin dropped the 'Master Soul Boy' moniker...

4) Ta-ku – Songs to Come Home to:

Ta-ku wasn't a name I'd heard until I was looking for more music by ROMderful. That's when I came across the impressive opening single 'SMILE'. 'Songs to Come Home to' closes out a trilogy of 'Songs to *insert thing here* to' on a peaceful yet hopeful note. The subject matter remains mostly in the realm of romantic love, reflecting Ta-ku's own personal life. A lot of the music stays in the lo-fi vein, but the highs are just that. I found myself enjoying this the more I listened to it also...

3) Shafiq Husayn & The Dove Society – So Gold:

One of the reluctant musical heroes of the West Coast returns! 'So Gold' continues in the vein of 'The Loop', utilising patchy drum loops to compliment the pleasing melodies and occasional beat change. 'So Gold' also takes the time to critique the more stereotypical side of black culture with advertisement interludes that wouldn't sound out of place on a show like 'South Side'. There are also a couple of call backs to Miquel Atwood-Fergusons string arrangement from 'Shafiq En A' Free-Ka's 'Dust and Kisses', a definitive favourite of my mine from the Sa-Ra founder...

2) Incognito – Into You:

Despite Bluey's furious output with his other musical acts, the last few years have formed an Incognito shaped hole that I'd didn't realise was there until my excitement for 'Into You'. This album exceeded my expectations. 'Still fairly predictable, but recruiting Goldie collaborator Natalie Duncan and Soul/R'n'B act Cherri V keeps the sound fresh, while having vocal stalwart Tony Momrelle keeps it familiar. 'Into You' fits comfortably in the top half of an Incognito 'worst to best' list for me (I've been watching a lot of those recently)...

1)

Miguel Atwood-Ferguson – Les Jardins Mystiques Vol. 1:

The Brainfeeder label has Miguel Atwood-Ferguson pick up where Kamasi Washington left off, giving us a triple album of 52 tracks and three and a half hours of music. We are gifted with a wide range of compositions featuring an all encompassing roster of musicians, evoking many emotions ranging from reflective, subdued, hopeful, enchanted, intense, relaxed, going as far as nostalgic; seriously. The many synth-programmed solos have me thinking of Nobuo Uematsu's compositions for the 'Final Fantasy' series (specifically 'FFIX'). There's a lot to come back to on here as many of the pieces are revisited through the three-disc run. My favourites are...too many to count. I have played 'Kairos (Amor Fati)' a lot though...

Honourable Mentions:

Zeñel – 5ive: 'An unofficial favourite of the year! 'Boss Drum' and the 'Aliens' suite are fantastic...

Golden Mean – Oumuamua: 'More great contemporary UK Jazz from the Jazz Re:freshed family...

Ashley Henry – My Voice: I've got so much time for an Ashley Henry release. The vocal tracks on here are beautiful...

Terrace Martin – Fine Tune: This album unofficially continues the 'Sounds of Crenshaw' series for me. 'Some great compositions and instrumentals from the middle to end...

ROMderful – ICE CREAM CLONES 2: 'An enjoyable collection of tracks from the ever more self-assured producer/musician...

Armand Hammer – We Buy Diabetic Test Strips: I don't know if I'm quite there yet with the appeal of Billy Woods but I enjoyed this a lot...

Summer Walker – CLEAR 2: SOFT LIFE EP: This cemented my spring wonderfully...

Danny Brown – Quaranta: Danny Brown takes the time to share where he's been to get to this current stage of life...with much more rapping in his calmer persona...

Amber Navran – Knock on the Orange Door: Navran's talent shines behind the boards as well as on the horns, woodwinds and vocals...bloody hell!

Geneivah – Songs and Soliloquies: If self-care and self-affirmation were a soundtrack.

[tsunflowers]

Hey Flowers! Sorry about this

We've always had an annual election for the year's Cinderella Girl. There were some other side electuons as well, including ones with a much smaller pool specifically for choosing which girls get voiced next.

Last year they decided to do something entirely new, the Stage For Cinderella/SFC Election

I am not the best at explaining convoluted things. But it was basically a bracket. All 190 girls were rabdomly divided into four groups. Every player could vote for five girls from each group (Or however many you like, if you vote differently every time you get tickets). The top five from each group would advance to the finals, and each group would get their own song. If any unvoiced girls made it into one of the groups, they would find a voice actor for them. Everyone who won first place of their respective group would be awarded a new SSR.

All idols ranking between 6th and 15th place in the previous groups would then be given a second chance, in one large group, to advance to the finals– only one would make it.

The voiced girls who were included in the first few rounds of winners (Hijiri, Layla, Izumi) were largely popular, and ranked highly thanks to the amount of push from their producers. Everyone has very dedicated producers but they had a lot.

Most of the other winners were easily predictable, cute protagonist types, Riamu, girls from the anime, and past winners of the previous Cinderella Girls elections.

Eve is absurd. Silly airhead who believes she is Santa and is most likely some kind of Santa. Has a reindeer. Reindeer is one of the game's mascots and definitely their mascot for Christmas. It took her several years to get her first perm SSR when 98% of unvoiced girls only get two perms, and she had three lims before getting hers.

EveP have been waiting for her to get voiced for so long and there was so much push from the entire community. Since you could vote for several people, and thousands of times if you vought ticket packs/played a lot, a lot of players tossed her some votes in solidarity. A lot.

Eve did not just make it as the single person out of the 6th–15th second chance round, she won the entire thing

Silent silly Santa girl won against 189 other girls, 98 of them being voiced, several of them being the actual protagonists of the anime/manga adaptions, previous winners, Riamu the girl from Twitter

This was amazing and insane and I personally believe that bamco was like oh FUCK. What did we do guys.

Let's a few steps back to the earlier groups and look at the timline

SFC begins July 5th, 2022. The contest ran into the next year, effectively making this both 2022 anx 2023's election

Hijiri placed in August 2022, she was voiced as of Janauary 2023

Layla placed in November 2022, she was voiced as of June 2023

Izumi placed in April 2023, she JUST got got her voice last month in November

Eve placed first June 2023*

The schedule was really odd, but since Eve's event is for Christmas, we've gotten two reveals in two months. And, this effectively makes her the 2022 AND 2023 Cinderella Girl. Santa fucking magic mayhem

They accidentally gave themselves an insane deadline to compose these new songs, cards, hire four new voice actors who are already working now on recording card lines from ones released before they arrived, all of this because the girl who won the game is literally Santa and of course they have to give her The Christmas Geoup Song

There are like two other girls maybe who could have done this to them and made them rush for a very specific deadline to get the final group's song out but it wouldn't have even been that serious with them. This was her destiny she sat in the bamco basement just waiting to do this lmao

* Even though we have the song announcement, the event has not started yet, and we do not know who the voice actors are until it's announced and credited through the song/card and the artist is allowed to post about it. So Eve is not officially voiced for a couple more nights, still a mystery girl!

don't apologize this is valuable information. I didn't know the election event had been going on for so long or that eve placed first. this is truly what you call a christmas miracle

[hiveswap]

These tags reminded that on news years eve 2022 a friend and I took the last bus in to the city where i attend school because they had events unlike our hometown. The plan was to stay up and have fun around the city all night, however the partying fizzled out entirely by about 3am. Before that we weren't cold because we had "mulled" wine and we were moving around big crowds of people a lot.

But then everyone else went home and then it was so cold that i couldn't feel my feet in my boots and i really had to pee. So we sat down at the bus station and waited until 5am on a bench out in the open, watching cat videos and talking about @/nostalgebraist-autoresponder because i was obsessed with that bot at the time. There was a friend group waiting by the toilets looking even more miserable than we did. One of the girls was wearing a crop top, i think about her often. I hope they all got home safely. Eventually some people working there opened the warmer waiting room after saying they won't because people would throw up and fall asleep in there because we were directly after new years eve. Then our bus came and we nearly fell asleep on it.

Anyway to return to topic if you whine about seven minutes you would have quite literally withered away from the december-january night tempatures

Londoners are the most whiny basterds

[haveahappyhobbitholiday]

Hello Hobbit Friends!

How it is already the end of August??

The beginning of September is usually when we (the mods) start planning, discussing, updating rules, pre-writing posts, creating banners, etc. A lot goes on behind the scenes for this event, but we sincerely love being able to facilitate it. And we adore seeing all the creativity you guys demonstrate year after year. This is an older fandom, yet we actually see a steadily-increasing number of participants, which is incredible!

The truth is, though, with so many people taking part in this event, we’ve seen a corresponding upswing in the amount of effort it takes to bring it to fruition. We have three mods, which theoretically means we can split the burden evenly, but we all work full-time and have busy lives. Moderating a gift exchange during such a hectic time of year means that we, like the participants, have to work around other people’s wonky schedules and changing plans. And the longer the event has gone on, the more we find ourselves spending the entire month of December sending out frantic emails to check on progress, freaking out about last-minute dropouts, and—invariably—scrambling to fill requests ourselves in the wee hours to make sure that every single person receives something.

Back when we had fewer of these to do, it wasn’t as much of a problem! But last year we had 63 signups and ended up needing to create about 10 last-minute gifts. We were able to find a couple of absolute angels to pinch-hit for us, but two of our mods were still churning out 6 full-color illustrations on Christmas Eve. We've tried various methods throughout the years to mitigate it, but we've come to realize that it's simply part of moderating an event like this. And it's starting to become unsustainable.

As much as we love putting on the exchange, we haven’t been able to be fully present with our loved ones during the holiday season since 2017. It’s rewarding to bring it all together every year, but the stress has begun to overshadow the joy. We’d like to step away and not only take time for ourselves, but maybe give someone else the opportunity to breathe new life into the event. So regrettably, unless we find someone who is interested in taking the reins, there will not be a Happy Hobbit Holiday 2022.

To all the people who have participated in the exchange in years past, we’re so grateful to you for your hand work, your passion, your creativity, your feedback, and your continued interest in this event! We hope that you’ll continue to share your talents for years to come, and we’ll be awaiting your beautiful future work with Kudos and keysmashes!

To anyone who has ever done a pinch-hit for us, you have been the backbone of every single HHH exchange we’ve done for the last five years. We literally could not have accomplished it without you. You’ve saved our sanity and our wrists in equal measure, and there aren’t enough words to convey our gratitude. Thank you, thank you, thank you, from the bottom of our hearts.

And finally, if anyone is interested in taking over moderation of the HHH Gift Exchange, feel free to reach out to @rutobuka2, @mithrilbikini, or @mcmanatea here on Tumblr, or email us at ahappyhobbitholiday17@gmail.com. (Serious inquiries only.) We'd be more than happy to provide support during the transition.

All the best,

Your HHH Moderators

[dramioneasks]

Christmas Fics 2022 (Part 3):

'Tis the Season by LashFlashingLeda - T, one-shot - Hermione is trying to get into the holiday spirit and go out of her way to do something nice for someone, but the very first person she runs into is the last person she planned on helping.

Kaleidoscope by HeyJude19 - M, one-shot - Things Hermione tried to avoid at the mandatory holiday office party: irritating colleagues, an idiotic role-playing activity, and her true feelings for Draco Malfoy. Her success rate varied.

Serendipity by madyslibrary - E, one-shot - A Dramione Holiday short Based loosely on the Christmas movie 'Serendipity'Hermione Granger is in NYC for Christmas with two of her closest friends, Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley. Still reeling from her break with Ron, she goes off on her own for a bit Christmas Eve night and runs into (quite literally) her old classmate, Draco Malfoy. After a wonderful night together exploring the city and each other, she returns to London broken hearted. A year later, Ginny decides she wants a Christmas wedding back in the city. Hermione and the gang join the wedding party a yet again run into Malfoy. With tempers rising and emotions flying unchecked, how will the Chosen One's wedding affect all the other relationships?

A Very German (Muggle) Christmas by TheaKnightley - T, WIP - Frohe Weihnacten! Harry bails on his and Hermione's plans to spend Christmas in Germany to spend Christmas with his new beau Theo and insists that Draco accompany Hermione to the Muggle, German Christmas markets instead.

The Survey by hellomymelody - G, one-shot - Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy share a tiny office in the Department of Mysteries. At the end of each year, all employees are required to fill out an employee satisfaction survey. Last year, the survey ended with a destroyed office and budget cuts. At least it can't get any worse, right?

The Chalet by Silver_26 - E, WIP - Hermione reached for the proffered key, and Draco folded his arms as she took it from his open palm, the surface of the glove now wet from the snow since the warmth of the chalet was doing a good enough job of melting it all. He watched her turn it over, raising his eyebrows at her, waiting for her flush of embarrassment and profuse apology. His fingers closed into fists, the snow now icy cold water against his skin.“This says number ten,” she finally said, holding the key out for him to take back.“It does,” Draco confirmed as though she had suddenly become stupid.“Number ten, Malfoy. This is number forty. You’re in the wrong chalet.”

Snowdrifts by In_Dreams - T, one-shot - The under-utilised Centaur Liaison Office isn't big enough for the two of them—especially not when a holiday decor feud leads to both Draco and Hermione trapped inside with a snowstorm. Written for the 2022 DHr Advent.

My True Love Gave To Me by notebookandink - not rated, WIP - Every holiday season we check in with Draco's life post Eighth Year.

Candy Cane Wishes by itsgivingcamp - E, one-shot - “Oh, Malfoy, you’re still here?” She asked, feigning innocence. Her eyes glimmered at him, somehow managing to refract the little light in the room. “I would have brought you one, but I didn’t think you’d be working late tonight.”“I work late every night,” he bit out. “You’re still here.”“I am,” she observed, her cheeks rounding out as she smiled mischievously.“So I’m still here.”“Ah, that’s it then? You only work late because of me?”“Daft doesn’t look good on you, Granger, you know how this works. Both of us want to be the last one standing, both of us want to win – even though there’s no prize.”She swiveled her chair towards him and changed the crossing of her legs, quickly flashing him with the swatch of red between them.“Well if daft doesn’t look good on me…” she tapped the candy cane against her rosy lips before taking the sweet fully between them, pulling it back out with a pop. “Then what does look good on me, Draco?”Or: The time Draco fucks Hermione with a candy cane.

The Necklace by a_MioneNiffler2309 - M, one-shot - Hermione is given a necklace... one she knows to have been purchased from Borgin and Burke's... one she knows to be cursed as it is the twin to the wretched item that nearly killed Katie Bell... one she knows to have been given to her by none other than Draco Malfoy.

Universal Laws by Misdemeanor1331 - T, one-shot - The initial report arrives mid-afternoon, prefaced by a note scrawled in Harry’s untidy hand. Hermione reads it twice before tucking it into Draco’s file. The Auror Office’s version of events is too sanitised to be helpful. It provides the broad strokes, but Hermione is a Healer. Diagnosis depends on details. If she has to wait for the primary source to regain consciousness, then so be it.

Christmas Down Under by trunksadin - E, WIP - Hermione needs a date for Christmas. Draco needs to get the hell out of England. Through an array of unforeseen circumstances, they find themselves spending the holidays together in Australia.“Well… I kind of,” she cleared her throat, immediately regretting her question. What on earth was she thinking? “Never mind. It’s silly.” Malfoy took a step toward her and looked down with that same, unreadable gaze. “No, go on.” His tone wasn't harsh, but velvet and coaxing. She suddenly felt molten inside, like every bit of her blood had been placed under a flame. It was rare that Hermione felt anything akin to weakness, but for reasons unknown, the way he said the words compelled her to respond. “I sort of told my parents I was bringing someone home for the holiday, but the guy I was seeing… well, let’s just say things didn’t exactly go to plan. Since you seem to be free, I was thinking, maybe–” “Maybe?” “Maybe you'd be interested in coming with me? As a favour? I’d make it worth your while, of course," she said with feigned ease to avoid sounding desperate. It didn’t work. She was desperate. Desperate enough to rely on the help of a man who loathed her. What could go wrong?

[elizmanderson]

2022 wrap-up, part 2

click here for part 1 | click here for part 3

aaaaaaand we're back for more of a look at this year. today's topic is reading, which is considerably less sparkling than writing for the reasons below.

top reads in 2022

woof I did so little reading in 2022. I really thought I'd do more once grad school was done, but by then I was doing amm and working on book things for my debut, so it just kinda. didn't happen. I read 14 new books, and 4 of them didn't happen until I was at my parents' house for the holidays.

so maybe it doesn't mean a ton since I read so little, but here are my top reads this year, in no particular order:

Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh

as you know if you followed me when I actually read this book: obsessed. I wrote so many posts like OH MY GOD THIS BOOK until ofmd distracted me. I read this book twice in one month, in one sitting each time, and posted nonstop bullshit on twitter about it, too. super short, excellent forest vibes, folkloric, gay, what's not to love

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree

cozy fantasy, sapphic, not too long, exactly what I need from my fiction, and broke a reading slump that lasted most of my year thank god (no literally I read Silver in the Wood twice in march and then kinda cycled between books without finishing any of them until I read this in probably october)

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, Sangu Mandanna

new comfort read, ahoy! again a cozy fantasy, chock full of found family, so goddamn SOFT and again exactly what I need from my fiction, made me cry but mostly in a good way

The Mutantsitters Club by SJ Whitby

finally, a standalone in the Cute Mutants universe!! all the things you know & love about SJ's works, but softer, sweeter, and bite-sized, which is exactly what I need in my old age and also bc I'm a coward who hasn't even finished the original series yet bc I'm so scared of the many ways SJ might break my heart

the Brown Sisters trilogy by Talia Hibbert (reread)

obviously fantastic bc I reread at least one of them every year and this year went for all three. heartwarming & heartbreaking and digs into various mental health issues as well as neurodivergence (implicitly with Dani Brown, explicitly with Eve Brown) and chronic illness (Chloe Brown)

upcoming books I'm looking forward to

The Love Match by Priyanka Taslim

YA contemporary, debut author

Bianca Torre Is Afraid of Everything by Justine Pucella Winans

YA mystery, debut author

Flowerheart by Catherine Bakewell

cottagecore fantasy romance

The Ashfire King by Chelsea Abdullah

epic fantasy, sequel to The Stardust Thief

[pintsizemama]

City Sidewalks

Day 30

Daddy Dave ‘verse

Welcome to the 2022 Christmas Writing Challenge!

Summary: You and Dave sneak away to NYC for New Year’s.

Pairings: Dave York x Reader (female), Dave York x You

Fandom: The Equalizer 2

Rating: Mature 18+ ONLY

Word Count: 689

Warnings: infidelity, Daddy/baby girl relationship, age gap…let me know if I missed anything!

A/N: This takes place after Christmas Carols. And this is obviously subjective. I happen to find NYC gorgeous and charming in the winter and at Christmas time…I’m sure there are many who would disagree. 🤣

Day 29 Day 31 Christmas Masterlist Series Masterlist Main Masterlist AO3 Join my taglist

You shivered as an ice cold breeze swept through you. Dave noticed and pulled you into his side to help keep you warm.

“It’s so cold,” you murmured.

“Yeah,” Dave agreed. “It’s not usually this cold…it’s going to be a harsh winter.” You shivered again. Your parents had returned from their trip late on Christmas Eve. Christmas morning was spent opening presents you couldn’t care less about. Your parents still believed if they bought you things, you’d be happy. Parents who gave a shit about you would make you happy.

After presents you had all gotten dressed and headed over to the York’s house for Christmas dinner. It was something you did every year, though this year was a bit more awkward. Well, every year was awkward due to the inappropriate crush you had on Dave for so long, but this year was especially uncomfortable now that you were having an affair with him. Dave had pulled you into the guest bathroom while everyone was distracted to kiss you, then invite you to New York for New Year’s Eve. You had to contain your squeal of excitement, and immediately agreed. So, after Christmas, you told your parents you were going to New York with some friends from school to celebrate the New Year. They barely even reacted and told you to have fun.

“I’m so glad we did this,” you said happily.

“Me too, baby girl,” Dave replied. “After getting you all to myself last weekend, I got addicted. Needed to get my next fix.” You laughed and hugged him closer. He had booked a swanky hotel overlooking Times Square. Neither of you wanted to venture out tomorrow on New Year’s Eve since it would be insanely crowded, so Dave made sure your hotel room had a perfect view of the ball drop. You had decided today was a good day to explore the city and look at all the Christmas decorations still on display in all the store windows.

“The city is so beautiful at Christmas,” you mused. It had snowed a few days before, so it was a literal winter wonderland.

“Ive always loved New York,” Dave said, “but it’s even better this time of the year.” You walked a bit further and then stopped in your tracks outside the Tiffany’s store. The window display had you mesmerized. It was breathtaking. It was a miniature scene of decorating a Christmas tree. The iconic Tiffany chandeliers surrounded it. A gorgeous solitaire engagement ring sat on a small chair in front of the tree. You couldn’t take your eyes off it. Dave pressed himself up against your back and wrapped his arms around your waist. He snuggled his head next to yours to look at the display.

“One day,” he said softly, “when I can do it safely, I’m going to divorce Carol and put that ring on your finger, baby girl.” You sucked in your breath. Dave had never really discussed a future with you before.

“Really?” You whispered.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “I told you. love you. You’re mine, baby girl, and one day the whole world will know it.” You turned in his arms.

“I love you too,” you whispered. He kissed you sweetly.

“Let’s go in,” he decided.

“Now?” You asked, pulling back in surprise.

“Yeah,” he said with a nod. “I’m buying you that ring tonight.”

“Dave!” You gasped.

“I’m serious,” he said in a low voice. “You’re mine. Forever. I want that ring in my possession to prove to you I mean it.” You blinked away tears.

“I never thought you’d want that with me,” you said in a small voice.

“I want everything with you,” he said simply. “Marriage, a house, kids, a future. I just have to keep playing this part until it’s safe for me to make the changes I need to…you know my work is dangerous.” You nodded. “I won’t risk you. I have to make sure it’s safe before we start our future.”

“I understand,” you said immediately. “I can wait, Daddy.” He smiled.

“That’s my good girl,” he murmured. “Now let’s go buy you a ring.”

Day 31

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