#mandatory shill

[tricitymonsters]

It’s time for another mandatory shill! TCM is getting close to 50 reviews on steam (its like a magic number in their algorithm that opens the game up to be shown to more of their userbase). I know MANY of you have left very kind and thoughtful reviews but if you haven yet and want to help give the game a great marketing boost, this is an easy way to do so! Leaving an honest review in just a sentence or two is totally fine, though I also invite longer comments if you have more thoughts to share! As always, you can see TCM’s other reviews and fan interactions on the game’s store page.

[inkyknight]

Me: To avoid the combat becoming stale, the next Zelda game should focus more on combat, with multiple skills that you unlock through exploration instead of giving it in the beginning and enemies with good ai that are able to deflect and dodge basic attack to force a strategic approach using said skills-

Also me: OH! you mean

Twilight Princess??

[taleweaver-ramblings]

There's a new Schlock Mercenary Kickstarter, which means I should probably get busy figuring out what to do with my merch from the last Kickstarter. Besides the book, I got two pins and three Challenge Coins. I've seen people display pins using what is basically an embroidery hoop, and most of them use just fabric (plain or patterned), but, look . . . I'm am embroidery person now. If I'm going to do a hoop, I'm going to make it cool.

I think this dark blue fabric will be a good choice as far as color — it looks appropriately spacey, and both of my pins show up reasonably well against it. Still trying to decide what embroidery to do, though. I could keep it simple and do constellation patterns, though I'm also possibly doing that with my Cosmere pins, so . . . not sure if I want to repeat that. I could also maybe throw in a planet or two if I went this route? Or Eine-Aifa lineart, though I don't remember if we ever see that in full view.

I could do line art of some of the ships from the comic (probably with the ships on the challenge coins also in the picture). I really enjoy the ship designs in this strip, and this seems like a reasonably straightforward option. Downside: I know one of these characters wasn't on either ship, and I can't remember which ship the other one was on, and I know it'll bug me if I mess it up . . . I could probably resolve this by rereading part of the comic, but then I'll end up rereading the whole comic, and I cannot afford that time right now.

A small, absolutely mad part of me wants to try to do an actual scene of some kind, but the larger part of me that recognizes the limits of my artistic skills is trying to lock the crazy bit in a closet.

I'm also poking at the idea of painting the embroidery hoop, probably in spacey silver and blue. I have paint left over in appropriate colors from when I made a sword and dragon eggs . . .

If anyone has made these before — do you normally use multiple layers of fabric? Fabric and batting? Fabric and felt? I feel like a single layer of fabric isn't enough. (I'm going to look up some DIYs, but I like hearing people's actual experiences.) I have another hoop to finish before I do this one, so I have time to figure out what I'm doing.

Side note — as I said, there's another Kickstarter going on now! They've already met a bunch of the stretch goals, which is exciting. I'm really hoping we can get to 2,000 backers, which would probably blow the minds of the people running the campaign, and I want to see what they come up with as a reward for that. I'll drop a link here if you want to check it out. (You should also go check out the original comics, if you haven't read them. They get so good.)

[corviiids]

this is my mandatory ask the death note fan if they’ve seen the 2015 tv drama ask. i love the tv drama. have you seen it. it’s good. near is nonbinary in it (the subtitles do misgender them though)

I HAVE. I LOVE THE DRAMA. ILL SHILL FOR IT FOREVER. what a batshit and refreshing take on the series i will eternally defend it from the haters i fucking love the drama

[interlockingpatches]

I know a lot of people are intimidated by the prospect of working with thread, but IMO that's where interlocking crochet really shines, and it's not as hard as one might imagine—everyone has limits, but if (relatively) simple embroidery like cross-stitch is or would be achievable and fun for you, so would thread crochet. For reference, that image shows a 1.30mm hook and #10 (beige) and #20 (green) crochet thread. The patch is about 4in/10cm wide, and that represents, I don't know, 4, 5 hours of work? [Pattern here. End mandatory shill.]

In any case there are 2 things sighted people can buy relatively cheaply that will make any kind of detailed handiwork much easier: (tl;dr it's reading glasses and a lamp)

Drug-store/dollar-store reading glasses (or clip-ons like these if you already wear glasses, or whatever form of magnification works best for you), and the cheapest positionable LED ring light you can find. The reflection in my glasses is a powerful steel thing with a clamp mount and built-in magnification, but we have a few $15 plastic, rechargeable jobs from Online with big clips for bases that are if anything more versatile.

Anyway. It doesn't matter how old you are or how good you think your eyesight is, magnification and more light will make things vastly easier for you, and if you elect not to use them I will assume you are being lazy, vain, silly, or some combination of those things.

See, I too was once young and beautiful just like you(sarcastic). Now put on some damn glasses before you go cross-eyed, and while you're at it, a sweater. You'll catch your death and the whole neighbourhood can see your business. Have you eaten today? You know, it would be nice to see some grandchildren before I die

[foxholemonster]

FUCK covid. Fuck everyone who broke quarantine. Fuck the CDC for shilling for the shareholders fuck every job pushing for employees to return in-person as soon as possible. Fuck the removal of the 7-day mandatory leave if you have a positive diagnosis.

Fuck the removal of the mask mandate.

Fuck every single person who made this a prolonged enough issue that we got several new strains and now we just have to live with it. And so many friends are even without quarantine missing key moments of their lives because they either can't risk it or they've fucking caught a strain of the virus yet again. Others are still fucking dying.

This is fucking bullshit. It's shameful. Not enough people in power care to have an effect and the rest of us are getting left in the trenches having to accept that this is the new normal. This isn't fucking normal, it's awful! Fuck! We all still have to worry about a plague that should've ended years ago! Involving a disease that's caused mass increased disability and lasting health concerns FOREVER.

Fuck every single person who pushed back against masks and quarantine. Fuck the cdc. You should be ashamed.

[scope-dogg]

Nothing is more quintessentially YouTube on mobile than trying to skip through the video author’s mandatory vpn shilling segment only to run face first into a Stormshot ad

[princesilverlining]

The first TWEWY game was the best

I always tell people that I recommend this series to to play the original on the DS. Of course, they hardly listen to me, but I stand my ground on this.

The gameplay of the original TWEWY was built for the DS, unlike many DS titles that simply allowed for use of the touch screen. It has left-handed friendly controls, and multiple different play styles on several levels for players to play however they wish.

The story aside (it's amazing, but I don't want to spoil it), The gameplay is what draws me in every time I replay it. It's not easy, it provides a challenge no matter how you play, but it's so satisfying.

On the bottom screen, you control Neku and attack with pins you acquire throughout the game. Each pin has a different command associated with it (press and hold, swipe, tap empty space, this is even how you dodge attacks) and is mandatory to master to complete the game.

On the top screen, you control your partner, Shiki, using the ABXY or direction buttons next to the touch screen. This is optional, as you can set your partner to automatically attack on their own, but giving yourself the extra challenge pays off with better combos and higher defensive tactics.

I could go on and on about different mechanics, and I will admit, the first TWEWY had it's flaws. You could only eat so much food a day. You can unlock unlimited eating in the post-game. This is a problem my friends playing on the phone port have faced, but on the Switch or DS you can easily change the date and grind out your stats. Don't worry, the game doesn't even notice!

NEO: TWEWY is good. I enjoyed playing through it, but the gameplay just didn't have the same spark. I felt like I was just mashing buttons the whole time. The atmosphere felt more like I was running through the scramble crossing, eating across Dogonzaka, but the battle mechanics just didn't feel quite as satisfying.

The series as a whole? I love it with my whole being, but nothing can beat the Experience of the original on the DS.

It's easy to pirate the DS version, hell, I only got to play it because I received a pirated copy. I'd recommend getting an R4 if you intend on mass piracy, but used copies go for less if your not ready to sail the high seas. I shilled out for the squeakual after I fell in love with the first.

I played them back to back today, and I can say with certainty that the second made be feel worse after remembering my love for the first.

But yeah PLAY TWEWY IT"S SO GOOOOOD.

[elkian]

So somewhat unsurprisingly (disappointing, but not surprising) the wretched wizard game ended up in my Discovery Queue because it’s “popular”.

I took the opportunity to ignore it because fuck that shit, but you know what else I took the opportunity to do?

Report it for hate speech.

Steam store pages have a little flag you can click, which brings up why you would want to report something. The wizard game has high reviews - very likely because the only people who want to play it are shills in the first place - and I’m not advocating picking it up just to return it and add a negative review unless you’re okay with that, but you don’t have to buy it to report it.

Just remember to keep things professional if you decide to add a comment (not mandatory) when reporting it! Otherwise Steam might think it’s just an attack by trolls and dismiss it, which is the last thing we want.

[heavensbeehall]

"The Hunger Games", Chapter 27

Buy the book here.

Part 3: The Victor

Chapter 27. Caesar Flickerman hosts a program where they rewatch the Games. President Snow doesn't like Katniss. Katniss realizes she's being watched. Another interview. Haymitch is relieved. Then they leave. ... and Peeta finds out the truth as they return to District 12.

End of book one!

Thoughts:

-- Katniss thinks, "I hear Caesar Flickerman greeting the audience. Does he know how crucial it is to get every word right from now on? He must. He will want to help us." Do we think Caesar Flickerman wants to help them or is he a Capitol shill? The movies definitely make him out to be on Snow's side but Katniss usually has good instincts about people she likes (she is overly suspicious actually so it's odd she isn't of him).

-- Ugh three hours of mandatory viewing one night and then another interview the next. And I thought reality shows in our world dragged things out. If you have ever watched Squid Game: the Challenge and you shouldn't because it's one step closer to the Hunger Games in real life, they put in so much dramatic music and long pauses just to roll dice or something.

Quotes:

Haymitch’s appearance brings a round of stomping that goes on at least five minutes. Well, he’s accomplished a first. Keeping not only one but two tributes alive.

Haymitch has to be on the greatest mentors right? I'm sure the Capitol bookies have stats and stuff like we do for sports, and on paper he probably looks bad because he lost so many before. But getting two out?

Now I see what the audience saw, how he misled the Careers about me, stayed awake the entire night under the tracker jacker tree, fought Cato to let me escape and even while he lay in that mud bank, whispered my name in his sleep.

I just wish we got to see some of this in the movie because it does cut from outside Katniss' point of view at times (mostly for Seneca Crance and Snow). Maybe I am just being overly sensitive to people who are down on Peeta's abilities. He fought Cato and lived though! That's not nothing even they were high on TJ venom.

I don't love the phrase "tracker jacker" as much as I love "nightlock." It sounds kind of juvenile to me. [Here you should yell at me that they are kids' books.]

That’s when I know that even though both of us would have eaten the berries, I am to blame for having the idea. I’m the instigator. I’m the one to be punished.

Snow hates Katniss but seems to like Peeta. ... Or tolerate Peeta. I don't know if he likes anyone. Do we think he sees himself in Peeta? A sweet blonde boy being manipulated by this treacherous girl?

Peeta's actions don't remind me of Snow though. He reminds me of Jessup, protecting his fellow tribute, getting sick because of it, needing her in his agony. Except Jessup dies and Katniss finds a way to save Peeta. (Do I ship Lucy Gray and Jessup? Damnit, self.)

[angstmonsterwrites]

While the internet has perhaps allowed for far greater accessibility to psychology and mental health literature, studies, and communities than there once was, something that really depresses the living shit out of me has been watching models and theories that were meant to have plenty of nuanced "YMMV" wiggle room be watered down via social media into vapid, harmful narratives and stereotypes.

Oh, what's that? You were raised in a narcissistic/alcoholic family and you weren't the Scapegoat? You were the Golden Child/Hero?! Well then, be prepared to be told there's no way you could turn out to be anything but a narcissistic shill for your toxic parents, and how you must be 100% too myopic and perversely spoiled to see the dysfunction. Also, you probably participated in the blame and abuse of your Scapegoat sibling.

Except...maybe none of that is true. Maybe due to good education and other helpful influences outside of the immediate family structure, you began to wake up and smell the bullshit pretty quick. Maybe you realized well before adulthood that you were being used and dehumanized into little more than a, "Look What I Created " human trophy for the narcissistic parent. You realized they didn't care about you so much as what you could do for them--especially put on that mandatory false front of functionality; to perform so much wellness you didn't truly feel. Maybe when shit got really bad, you began to defend that Scapegoat sibling quite passionately, regardless of the consequences. Maybe as an adult you were actually the first to determine the narcissistic parent to be a fucking intolerable, irredeemable monster and cut contact.

And now, maybe you have your own set of traumas and troubles from all that bullshit, but when you go looking for literature or studies, you find that so, so, so much of it--even the best quality and most up to date stuff-- just... isn't about someone like you. It's ALL about the Scapegoats; all about people who desperately need help internalizing the reality that they're not "bad" and that they deserve an ounce of fucking decency from others. You have to do your best to try to glean from the anemic edges of those resources. And it's not that they have so many resources that's the problem--it's that you have scant few. It's that even some dyed-in-the-wool experts struggle to say you could have possibly been abused or traumatized because what should have been a loose model of dysfunction is now treated by too many as a set of hard and fast rules.

You desperately wish someone could help you untangle how not to feel completely grossed out, dismissed, or like a helpless kid again when someone tells you, "I'm proud of you," because of how often that expression was used as a manipulative veiled threat or statement of ownership over your self and all you might accomplish. You need help regaining and feeling truly secure in your autonomy. You need to be seen, in a subtle yet privacy-respecting way that takes great care not to put you through the ringer of feeling like a display piece again. You wish that you didn't so often feel compelled to set yourself aside, self isolate, or constantly offer ways you might be wrong about this or that as proof that you weren't that atrocious Golden Child stereotype of a 'narcissist in training'.

Meanwhile, the prevailing narrative around that particular dysfunctional family role continues to pile your parents' sins at your feet as if you yourself were just a 3rd bad parent, rather than the abused, used, parentified, and often terrified child you were.

And it makes attempting to recover from it trying and so very lonely.

But hey. Who am I to say? Maybe I and others like me are just "the wrong kind" of survivor.

[tricitymonsters]

Now on STEAM!

Listen to them in Steam's audio player or slap those MP3/FLAC files on any Audio Interface or Device you prefer! No DRMs and free updates as more tracks get added to the game! Check out the OST here and the Supplemental here!

[allthemusic]

Week ending: 15 January 1953

A bit more competition, this week. Three songs worth of competition, in fact, all from new names. Exciting stuff!

Outside of Heaven - Eddie Fisher (peaked at No. 1)

This one was a big enough hit that it did get to Number 1, and it does, to be fair, have a bit more substance to it than last week's Cowpuncher's Cantata.

It's also by none other than Eddie Fisher, father of the late great Carrie Fisher, by way of Debbie Reynolds. Quite the star-studded family. I know he was known as a bit of a ladykiller, so I expected some roguishness here, but no. This is straight up soft and romantic.

It has the same big string start that is apparently mandatory at this point in history, and it stays orchestral and sweeping throughout, barring one very exciting moment that I will get to in a bit - promise!

Before that, though, Eddie starts to sing. He's got exactly the voice I am beginning to expect, when we get a big string intro: trained, slightly operatic, pausing carefully where it will be most dramatic. And, of course, quite smooth - he's distraught, but you can't really hear it in his delivery, except in the impassioned loudness of some key lines.

The story, once it gets going, is melodramatic as heck. Eddie's love is apparently not giving him the time of day any more, and so he walks along past her house "with misty eyes", comparing it to "the gate to paradise", missing her. She doesn't miss him, since she has a new man, and Eddie is terribly stoic and brave about it all: "Good luck to him, good luck to you."

But then he's at her wedding, and "could hardly keep from crying out loud", thinking about how he used to have her as his own, and things get very angsty and overblown as he wonders, "Why was I meant to walk alone / Outside of heaven?" Which, again, very melodramatic. Very soap opera.

And then, a beautiful, unlikely thing: our first electric guitar! Or at least something that sounds electric guitar-adjacent. This feels like it should be a big deal, but also it is very much an electric guitar solo à la 1952, which means it's pretty gentle, and has a string accompaniment. Eh. You win some, you lose some.

And then the wedding section repeats, and we are on the home stretch, just in time for a classic Slow Down Into Big Note Ending. It fakes you out by getting quiet just before. But it's 1952, and so we have to go big before we go home - and Eddie and his chorus certainly deliver here!

The whole song weirdly makes me think of "Bella Notte" from Lady and the Tramp. The tune feels similar. Huh.

Britannia Rag - Winifred Atwell (5)

Winifred Atwell is an interesting individual. She was a boogie-woogie piano player from Trinidad, and as such, the first black woman to top the UK charts. She originally trained as a pharmacist, but also played the piano at an air force base, which is where she picked up her boogie-woogie style. She come to the UK to train at the Royal Academy of Music while also playing various London clubs to support herself, and basically became a household name playing this beat-up sounding pub piano that cost her husband 50 shillings.

This wasn't her first big UK hit, but it was the first to reach the Top 10, and it's an odd one. It's a rag, played deliberately a bit out of tune and jangly, bringing together various patriotic tunes, as you would expect from a song called Britannia Rag.

You could probably make some kind of post-colonial point about Winifred Atwell representing a particular 1950s vision of Britannia, and who got to belong. West Indians, apparently - if they made nice and smiled and played jolly tunes at Royal Variety performances. Certainly, there's nothing obviously West Indian about this. Instead, there's a heft dose of American jazz and ragtime, forced through a British pub/music hall filter.

That said, that's a lot of interpretation for what is essentially a piece of lightweight fluff that shows off some admittedly very impressive piano playing. Winifred Atwell sounds like she's having fun, and perhaps that is all there is to this.

A few listenings in, this rag is getting very grating. I would not care to own or re-play this. Apparently the record-buying public had no such compunctions.

The Glow-Worm - The Mills Brothers (10)

And so we wrap up with a jazzy, silly song by our first group to chart - if you don't count Johnnie Ray's backing band, which I don't.

The Mills Brothers, it turns out, were this African-American group of singers who were, it seems, actual brothers. Their harmonies are impeccable, and this tune rattles along nicely enough.

The lyrics are both quite specific and quite meaningless, as the singers implores a glow worm to shine down and lead the way to his love, before comparing the glow worm to various torches and electric lamps.

Most confusingly, it namechecks a "cute vest pocket Mazda", which apparently has nothing to do with Mazda, the Japanese car company. No, apparently a Mazda was a General Electric brand of lightbulb. Who knew?

It makes for some cute imagery, but also weirdly wordy and poetic at points, almost hymn-like in its diction: "Lead us lest too far we wander / Love's sweet voice is calling yonder". Or even worse: "Thou aeronautical boll weevil / Illuminate yon woods primeval".

It doesn't surprise me, given this, that this was taken from a 1902 German operetta, Lysistrata, by Paul Lincke, and translated for use in a 1907 Broadway musical. Which all possibly explains why it feels a bit mangled.

Like the last song, it quickly has begun to annoy me. Something about the fast pace and weird lyrics. I did enjoy the Mills Brothers' voices and style, though, so I do hope we hear more from them. Perhaps a more serious song?

It's the last of three quite different songs, and while I didn't love any of them, one of them at least did not annoy me, despite all its melodrama. So, for today, Eddie Fisher's electric guitar and epic, self-pitying sob story takes it, leaving Winifred Atwell's out of tune piano and the Mills Brothers' outdated electrical metaphors in the dust.

Favourite song of the bunch: Outside of Heaven

[sethshead]

Shandas far di goyim! There is nothing glorious or courageous about Hamas’s “resistance”, seeing as it is inherently bent on targeting civilians. This week’s operation is exactly what its charters and leaders have promised since the 1980s. You cannot praise them without praising their butchery of Jews, the hatred ensconced in their founding documents, the genocide promised. Hamas has never accepted peace or coexistence; its stated goals are the conquest of all the former Mandatory Palestine and the murder or expulsion of nearly all Jews therein.

This was no secret, yet INN, JVP, Not In Our Name, Judaism On Our Own Terms, and the Norman Finkelsteins of the world still sympathized with them and their “resistance”, a resistance first and formost to peace. These Jews knew what barbarism was on the other side of the border fence yet they shilled for it. They cannot claim to object to or feel conflicted about the bodies left behind by Hamas’s death squads. These Jews will sell the blood of their brothers cheaply, won’t they?

They represent an insignificant fraction of Jews, yet tokenize themselves into every conversation. It is time to let those who platform them know just what the mainstream consensus thinks about these traitors and media whores. They should lose all their coverage and be remembered only for their ignominy.

[crowcryptid]

mandatory youtube self promo shill

[mayakern]

thank u for playing this little guessing game with me!! i had fun lol

maybe we should do this more??

anyway, mandatory shilling: if u read any of the ideas posted about roxanna and like them better than what i’m doing with her, or if you just like her in general, you can mosey on over to my patreon where for $3/mo you can use any of my dnd designs in your home games!

roxanna