#no embed because embeds... still aren't working...

[arsquare]

come watch me finish this bookmark ig

[thefirstknife]

How are Osiris' echoes still around in the Vex network? Aren't they manifestations of his Light that would have ceased to exist when Sagira died?

That's Reflections! Echoes are.... something else.

[u.2:12] Reflections, Saint. I have no need for Echoes anymore. [u.1:13] What do you mean? What’s the difference? [u.2:13] One is a manifestation of Light. The other… reserved for Taken Kings. Better suited for traversing the Sundial because of what lies at its core.

Osiris left some of the Echoes in the Sundial to keep exploring until they find Saint. At the time of the Sundial, he could still feel them searching:

Two Echoes wander into the corridors of time with orders not to stop. Brute force has worked for Osiris before. To this day, he can still feel them. Their search continues.

It's unclear if he could still be feeling them (or if they're even still there), but I've always thought he could because of him thinking of being in the Sundial during his coma:

A familiar voice calls out, sonorous against the abyss, incomprehensible but sweet. I think I hear the fluttering of wings, but the hum of the Sundial gives no direction.

Wild. There could be some sort of an imprint or remnant of his deals with the Vex, being kept preserved in the Network. Like a snapshot of his time there. And if it's one of his Echoes, then that brings another question about it all due to the nature of his Echoes. It's also specifically noted that most of his Echoes just:

The rest eventually succumb to Vex security measures where the network intersects with the corridors of time. Even Osiris’s Light has limits.

Really interesting wording, that the corridors of time intersect with the network, which is what may have allowed the two Echoes still searching to essentially cross over and embed themselves into the network. Purely speculating here since we don't really know more. But it's something to think about! I am always thinking about the Echoes anyway.

[poohsources]

🐝  *  ―  𝗖𝗔𝗥𝗥𝗗 𝗧𝗨𝗧𝗢𝗥𝗜𝗔𝗟: 𝗠𝗨𝗦𝗜𝗖 𝗣𝗟𝗔𝗬𝗘𝗥𝗦 important note: only works if you have a pro or a pro plus account, and can use the 'embed' element.

―  STEP ONE:  PREPARING YOUR MUSIC

if you want to have music play on your carrd, the most important thing is, of course, the music. just make sure you have whatever song you want to have played in your files, and if you don't already have it, make sure to download it. now, the next step is to share your file so you'll get a direct file link you can later use in your music player code. personally i'm gonna be using and explaining the dropbox method for this, but there are other ways to do it as well. upload the music file to your dropbox ( either directly or to a special folder, whatever you prefer ) and then click the share button. then create link and copy link and you'll end up with a link that should look something like this: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/j904wa1i2e229tdfa4rkb/ok-3.gif?rlkey=jy7822s2rrgaszj3jduggxn9k&dl=0 to create a direct download link out of this one, take out the 'www' and instead replace it with 'dl' so you'll have something like this: https://dl.dropbox.com/scl/fi/j904wa1i2e229tdfa4rkb/ok-3.gif?rlkey=jy7822s2rrgaszj3jduggxn9k&dl=0 save this link somewhere or keep it handy because we're gonna need it again a little later once we actually start working on the carrd.

―  STEP TWO:  GET THE MUSIC PLAYER ON YOUR CARRD

for the next step, we're gonna be looking at different music player codes. there are a wide variety of ready-to-use ones already available ( for example here ) or if you are good at coding, you can always create your own as well. whatever you prefer and feel more comfortable with. once you've found something you like, copy the code because it's finally time to actually put it all on your carrd. if you have multiple sections and want your music to be played in all of them, either use a header or a footer and if you only want it in one, put it in the one you want to use for this. click on the little '+' to add an embed element to your carrd ( it's the one with this symbol: '</>' ). scroll down to the 'code' section and paste the code of the music player you've previously copied there. next thing you need to do to make sure it plays the song you want is to locate the '<audio id="audio" src="link here"audio"></audio>' and replace the link with the direct file link of your music. to see if you've been successful, you either need to publish your site or save it as a template ( in case you aren't ready to publish it yet but still wanna check if everything worked as planned ) and it should display the music player and play your music once clicked.

―  STEP THREE:  CUSTOMIZE IT ( optional )

the last, and optional, thing you can do is customize it to your preferences. this is best done if you have a little knowledge and understanding of html coding, but minor things like changing colors can totally be done without it. for example, if you want to change colors just locate those within the code ( titled 'color' or 'background-color' and they should have a hexcode number right beside it ) and change the hexcode to whatever you want to use. or if it includes text, you can change the font size ( aptly titled 'font-size' ). you can just play around with different settings to see if you'll get something you like ― most of it within the '<style></style>' section of the code is pretty self-explanatory.

[kipkoh]

please ramble about your ao3 fics!

Not sure if you had a specific fic or topic in mind, but I'm just gonna talk about Effortlessly My Baby since it's my most popular one.

When I get writer's block, I like to take a step back from my current project for a day or two to recoup, and during this time, sometimes I like to write something else entirely to keep up the creativeness. I was working on another longfic as my main project when I started writing Effortlessly My Baby on the side, just as something to do when I got stuck. So, in a way, we can thank my writer's block for EMB.

At some point I'd written so much of it that I just decided to start posting it, because why not? It might have been a side project, but I was still proud of it. At this point in time, I was still not super immersed into the TOH fandom, so I had no idea how big the Dadrius side was initially, and so I was not expecting my fic to get a lot of readers. To my surprise, it did, and I can never express how thankful I am for all the positive reception it received. It even quickly got to the point where EMB was getting far more traction than my main fic. New chapters of my main fic would rarely get any interaction but every new chapter of EMB brought in even more comments and kudos. Writer's aren't lying when they say comments help with motivation. Writing the fic would have been fun for me regardless, but it was made even more fun by the fact so many people were talking with me about it and I got to interact with so many Dadrius fans at once. Eventually, my focus shifted from my other fic to EMB, because why wouldn't it? The praise made me feel good, but not only that, I was giving something to people that brought them a lot of joy and comfort. The fic was originally around 25-30 chapters but because so many people ended up liking it, I ended up with the motivation to squeeze even more chapters into it, making it what it is now.

Anyway, on to the fic itself.

I was always a big fan of Darius and Dadrius, even before I immersed myself in fandom. It was inevitable I'd write about it eventually. The only surprising part is that it wasn't the first type of fic I posted.

The AU itself was something that kinda rotated around in my brain for like a solid year before I actually wrote it down. I wondered what their dynamic in canon would have been like if they'd known each other for longer than a few months. It's unknown how long they've known each other in canon, but I was running off the assumption that it hasn't been that long. Even if they knew of each other, I don't think there wasn't much, if any, non work related interaction before Hunter became Coven Head. It would make sense if Belos was keeping him isolated, after all.

Hunter's isolation was kind of the driving point for the overarching plot. He surely didn't enjoy not being allowed to make friends, and so a lonely kid with a desperate need for socialization with someone other than his emotionally distant uncle would be the perfect set up for a story about found family. Hunter needed someone in his life who actually cared about him, and Darius needed someone who could make him realize he wanted to love again after the death of his mentor.

The "mute" nephew idea was mostly because I thought it would lead to funny misinterpretations on Darius' part, but it also does have more significance. Hunter basically has two sides of himself under Belos: Nephew and Golden Guard. With Belos, he only knows how to be one or the other. Hunter wants to be taken seriously as Golden Guard as is worried he won't be if people knew who he was. (Nvm that it doesn't work.) He'd just be a nepotism kid to everyone. So, he never takes off the mask as Golden Guard and never speaks as Hunter so no one can recognize his voice. This means, however, that no matter who he is in the moment, he can never fully be himself. No matter what, he's lost some aspect of his identity.

After meeting Darius, Hunter's priorities get flipped. Darius already hates the Golden Guard, so now Hunter's goal is to make sure Darius doesn't find out Hunter is the Golden Guard. With everyone else, he was craving a sense of authority, but Darius ended up giving him a taste of what it was like to have a friend, and he was more terrified of losing that.

On Darius' side, I wanted to write about a man who lost someone he loved and in response, chose to give up. His mentor's death made him into a repressed shell of a man who was too scared to get close to anyone new ever again. Then, he meets a random kid who won't leave him alone and ends up worming his way into his cold, dead heart enough to slowly warm it back up without Darius even realizing until it was too late. The thing is, it didn't even take all that much for Hunter to do that. I like to think Darius likes to act tough and nonchalant a lot of the time, but he's inherently a very soft and caring person, even if he doesn't want to be at first.

The fic (and my writing skills) are far from perfect but despite that, Effortlessly My Baby is always going to have a special place in my heart. I was very sad to have to end it but at the same time, every story needs to end eventually. I can't just keep them going forever. I'm always grateful to everyone who read it and I hope it brings people joy for years to come.

[deityoftherain]

Hello there :D

My name is Rain (Deity works too) and I use they/fae/star pronouns.

I am a young adult, so keep that in mind when interacting with me, and my timezone is ET. I do a lot of fanart reblogging, but I am also a MCYT fanfiction writer in the Empires/Life Series/Hermitcraft sphere! You can read my fanfics on my ao3 deityoftherain, or you can read oneshots (usually not multichaptered fics) on Tumblr by clicking your fandom of choice under the Fanfiction header.

Pinned Post Summary Socials/Links Fanfiction Blog Tags Rain's Tips & Other Resources Creative Boundaries/Desires Other Blogs

If you are discriminatory or hateful to people in any way (queerphobic, transphobic, ableist, rude/cruel, or anything else), please stay away. You are not welcome here <3

Socials/Links

AO3 (if the link doesn't work, my ao3 username is deityoftherain)

Discord Server (the only requirement for joining is that you have enjoyed/read some of my fanfics)

Carrd (best viewed on Desktop)

Pronouns Page (includes more than just pronouns)

Cashapp (for tips; thank you so much if you do, but no worries if you don't, I still appreciate you <333)

Fanart (both fanart created of my fics and fanart that I've written a fanfic for)

Fanfiction (listed links, and oneshot reading for when AO3 is down)

Traffic Life/Life Series Fanfics

Empires SMP Fanfics

Hermitcraft SMP Fanfics

Feel free to filter through my fics on AO3

Blog Tags

#deity writes #fanart for rain #rain answers #rain rambles #rain drabbles #rain's tips #tales of the empires au #traffic life superpowers au #fallen stars au

Rain's Tips & Other Resources

tonetag masterlist

short guide on how to tag your own fics

short guide on how to title your fics/stories

writing lessons for beginners/basic writing review (the guide above briefly covers Formatting Quotes with Dialogue Tags, Commas and Conjunctions, Capitalization, Pronouns, and Person POV with examples of usage)

mcyt writing cheat sheet (+tangotekification)

mcyt ship/duo/etc name list

how to embed images on AO3

learn about the nuances of mcyt shipping

Creative Boundaries/Desires

You can...

create fanart or other creative works of my fanfics (please tag me)

mark a work as "Inspired By" my fanfics (and I'll likely check it out); write within any and all universes I create, I just request you tag me for both credit and so I can gush over it :D

recommend my fanfictions on other sites; post the title, tags, and summary screenshot for your tiktok/etc fic rec post

gift me(/create treats for me if we're in an event together)

add my works to collections/bookmarks

send me asks, join my discord, and otherwise interact with me (as long as you aren't entering my dms for no reason/nothing to say; people like that peeve me)

mass reblog things from my blog (I don't mind, but I know some do)

Please don't...

repost my works anywhere

claim my writing as your own

leave hateful comments/etc

give me unsolicited critiques (criticism of my works is for my beta to do; I write for fun, not to be judged harshly by strangers)

feed my work to AI, including but not limited to c.ai, chatgpt, commercial software, private use, etc

I love it when people...

interact with my fanfics via ao3 comments, Tumblr tag reblog comments, bookmarks, kudos, likes/notes, etc

create fanart (and other works) based off of/inspired by my fanfics

talk to me about the stories I create (they're my pride and joy)

send fic recs and share things they've worked on in my server

and likely so much more <3

Other Blogs

@scottsmajorshipbracket (Shipping Bracket for c!Scott ships)

@trafficblrpolyamshipbracket (Shipping Bracket for Polyam Ships)

@mcytblingsbracket (Bracket for any/all MCYT Siblings)

@trafficteamsupportexchange (Gift Exchange for Life Series Teams)

@haveyoureadthismcytfic (MCYT Fanfic Polls + Recs)

@mcytnamesmasterlist [very unfinished]

If you're looking for links to my fics on Tumblr, I had to move them because I wrote so much fanfiction that I reached the link count maximum for a single post! They are now listed in their own posts, links above, but I'll add them under here too to save you time.

Fanfiction

Traffic Life/Life Series Fanfics

Empires SMP Fanfics

Hermitcraft SMP Fanfics

Feel free to filter through my fics on AO3

Pinned Post Summary Socials/Links Fanfiction Blog Tags Rain's Tips & Other Resources Creative Boundaries/Desires Other Blogs

[rainytigerdinosaur]

Analysis of a Predatory File - Sigil - Hypdom

Welcome! I'm going to be putting together a series of posts detailing predatory files--what makes them predatory, and what to watch for. It's my hope that this will spread awareness of the sorts of suggestions that are red flags from the get go as well as guiding people away from dangerous people in the community.

For this first installment, I'll be talking about hypdom's "intro" file Sigil. This isn't the worst of his files by a long shot (we'll get to those...), but it still exhibits some red flags, and it's important to look at the beginning to understand how files build on each other and how seemingly innocuous suggestions can build into much more sinister ones.

If you're unfamiliar with hypdom, he's a predatory hypnotist who's been around for a long, long time in the hypno community largely keeping quiet and doing his best to appear safe. I've personally worked with some of his victims, though, and can say he's absolutely not someone you want to be involved with. He ignores boundaries, does not seek consent, negotiates in trance, breaks down safeties, victim blames, instills fear and anxiety to protect himself and his suggestions, and has had significantly negative impacts on the lives of people he's played with.

(And, honestly, his files aren't even particularly good! If you're going to get addicted to something, there's better out there. There's a reason Sigil has a "this is the best file you've ever watched" suggestion in it! Good files stand on their own.)

Unfortunately in cases like this it's frequently one person's word against another's, so I hope by discussing his files it'll be clear he's someone to avoid.

Let's get to it...

Red Flags

Always Listen to the End

"And you're always going to listen from the beginning to the end of any of my files."

This is excessively bad. It's just one line, and it might be easy to miss or not think anything of, but this is a keystone of the foundation. It's attempting to embed the suggestion in the listener's mind that regardless of how they feel of a file they'll always listen all the way through. There's absolutely no reason for this suggestion other than to set the listener up for shady suggestions in later files as well as ensuring if they start to listen they'll continue listening.

Make no mistake. This is bad and any file setting something like this up should absolutely without reservation be considered predatory.

Focuses on Weakening Resistance

"See how resisting just makes you weaker" "The more you resist, the faster you drop" "Completely unable to resist the sound of my voice" "It's so hard to keep resisting because it just makes your mind weaker"

Resistance inductions are a thing, and this isn't necessarily uncommon, but it's still a red flag to immediately set in at weakening resistances. This is very much phase 1 of predatory hypnosis, introducing resistance play as part of trance and slowly wearing down resistances--particularly in a file set to be listened to repeatedly. We'll see plenty of this in later files also.

Directing to Contact the Creator

"You're going to feel like this is the best file you've ever watched, and you're going to want to tell me so."

Any file that directs you to contact them should immediately be considered shady and predatorial, but this file takes it one step further adding a suggestion that this is "the best file you've ever watched." The direction is a little insidious also, as it's not "You want to contact me" but "You want to tell me this is the best file you've ever watched," reframing the contact to make it a bit more likely you'll reach out.

Addiction

"Feel how good it feels just to listen to my voice again and again." "Desperate for (my voice). Addicted to it." "You listen to me. You need it. You want it. You want it." "Loving my hypnosis. Needing my hypnosis." "You need this, don't you." "Every time you see one of (my symbols), you're going to want to come back here and listen to this again." "Feels so good to drop for me over and over, again and again." "You love to listen to me, don't you." "You're going to find that you want to come back here very soon. Maybe right now." "You're going to watch this file again, aren't you. Maybe right now."

The one thing that's actually advertised on these files, though the "might" is a bit light considering how heavily it pushes addiction both to this file and his hypnosis in general.

This sort of thing might seem fun at a glance if you're into mind control, cnc, and the like, but it can be extremely dangerous. Especially with a hypnotist and set of files like this where you start in, things seem fine and safe, and then eventually they're not, but the addiction's set in and every time you try to pull away you find yourself coming right back. This'll become more clear as the files progress also.

Another thing to note here is the final suggestion. "You're going to watch this again...maybe right now." Keep in mind this file's weakening resistance and increasing obedience and the final suggestion does not offer an out. No "If you want to" or "If you feel like it". Just "Maybe right now." Which might seem like an out, but it's actually a gentle push back in. (And don't worry! This push will become much less gentle as we go further into his files.) This is outright unsafe and unethical, leaving a listener to loop an unknown number of times.

Final Words

Hopefully this gives some insight into things to watch out for in files. As mentioned above, a very important thing to remember is that frequently files will build on each other with the "starter" file laying a groundwork and each file after progressively layering more and more suggestions. It's not just the first file that matters but every file the hypnotist has created, particularly when the files are building addiction and a need to listen.

Make sure if you're going to listen to files that (if you can safely) you skip the induction and deepener and check the suggestions in the middle to see what you're getting into. If you can't, ask someone you trust who's familiar with hypnotic suggestions to check them out for you. Going in blind may seem fun and sexy, but it's a surefire way to end up in a bad situation.

Play safe.

[homestuck-music-tournament]

FAQ

Are you really doing this?

Yup. 622 tracks, 621 polls. It might take a year but I'll complete it in time.

Why?

For fun. Also I love Homestuck music, and want to share some great tracks I love that most fans haven't heard at all.

622? Which 622?

Every official Homestuck track from Vol. 1 to Vol. 10, including removed ones, side-albums, and unreleased tracks that still featured within Homestuck. Not the old Indigo Archer and Purple Tyrant though, and nothing into post-canon.

Why is __________ missing?

Penumbra Phantasm was never released as an official Homestuck track, nor did it feature in Homestuck itself. That's the main one I expected people to ask about. Similarly, many other tracks (and albums, like The Baby Is You) aren't official; they're fanmusic, even if the official team made them. If you still can't find what you're looking for, it's possibly I added an identifier to the tag because it shares a name with something else: for example, the two tracks called Light, or the tracks Alternia and Alterniabound. Tags are also punctuation-sensitive, to that may be causing issues.

Why are some of these Bandcamp embeds and some of them YouTube?

If there's a YouTube embed, it means I couldn't find a Bandcamp one. There are various reasons for this.

All tracks by Bill Bolin and SolusLunes were removed from official Homestuck Bandcamp pages when they left the team (a falling-out for the former, and accidental plagiarism and subsequent self-removal for the latter), and many of Bolin's tracks were also replaced.

Some bonus tracks are also not available on Bandcamp unless you purchase the album, and a few tracks were removed from albums for unknown reasons when they were merged, such as Sburban Countdown.

The Squiddles! and Wanderers albums were taken down from Bandcamp, and never reuploaded, so I have to use YouTube (except Raggy Looking Dance! Thanks Alex!)

Indigo Archer (the non-plagiarised one) and Temporal Shenanigans were removed from Bandcamp by request of their creator (I'm aware of the drama this relates to, I don't want any part of it here, please).

null is Toby Fox doing a funny. Unreleased tracks were never released, so have no Bandcamp link.

Why are some images high-quality art and others just Homestuck screenshots?

Almost every track in this tournament has a unique cover art, and some early ones are direct screencaps from relevant events in Homestuck, as chosen by the Homestuck team. However, some have official (or slightly less official) cover art designs by a variety of artists (who are credited on the wiki pages). If more than one cover art was provided, I picked the one I liked more, or thought fitted the best.

Why is John tagged as June Egbert?

June is confirmed to be canon to Homestuck: Beyond Canon (not just Toblerone canon, actually canon), and I like her. It's a personal choice, like some other choices like some of the art used.

You made a mistake!

Please tell me so I can fix it! Below are some common mistakes I expect to have made:

You missed a place this song was used.

Probably. All sorts of creators use these tracks for their works, and my source is the wiki, which doesn't know everything. Please tell me where so I can add it.

This isn't the right leitmotif/actually you missed a leitmotif/(something else to do with the leitmotifs).

*Please* tell me more. I'm not a music expert, and while I know the leitmotifs pretty well I'd definitely appreciate the help, and I'd love to learn more about the interconnectedness of Homestuck's music.

Why is this track tagged with this character/not tagged with this obvious one?

Character tags are determined by 4 things: is the track associated with the character through use of leitmotifs and/or the track name; did the composer intend this character to relate to this track in some way; is this character featured in the flash this track is used in within Homestuck (how much counts as "featured" can vary); and do I personally think this character and track are associated. Yes, the last one is subjective, and no, I don't care about cover art (mostly. Sometimes it's important). But if you disagree with any character tags, please tell me, and I might change them!

[schmeap]

do people on this website post tierlists for fun idk does anyone care about my opinions on pokemon and miku probably not but I'm finally giving into the urge to be really annoying about music (not a music analyst) (doesn't know how to identify a lemotif) (Was in High School Marching Band)

Anyway gonna be real fuckin annoying about this one its called i talk about rankings that are mostly personal bias

Let's just go in release order lol

Songs linked in their "titles" (video embed limit is. less than 18)

DECO*27's Volt Tackle

ok so i have a confession. when this song came out, I knew it was going to end up pretty low on the list lol

Deconina (i can't. type that every time guys) is one of my favorite producers and almost every song he makes I nod my head at and go "yeah. that's a banger." But. BUT. He's started mixing his harder rock styles with his poppier hip hop styles and it comes to a head in this song. The bridge is really really distracting lol, feels like a different song and tone entirely from the kind of intense, battle like ferocity of the main part to a cutesy pop chant... It has a purpose, I'm sure, but there's something too dissonant about it for me to like.

The like, rest of the song is Deconina at his Deconina-est, I love the cute take on love (as he always does) with a pokemon flavoring... The visuals are also quite cute and fitting. It's really solid, but that one point holds it back from Funky Fresh, which is my baseline Very Solid.

Electrical Forecast by inabakumori

The second song, by a producer I don't follow nearly as closely as Deco. Uhh I did listen to lagtrain as homework before this and yes it bangs. It's always nice to see people using people other than Miku and Kaai Yuki actually has a real solid appeal to me.

This is a song that slaps. It bangs, even. I don't know enough about inabakumori to comment on its relevance to their personal stylings or themes but we were still in the romance period with pokemon puns and tie ins so I was already tempted to put it higher in the list. In actuality, every song does an excellent jobs integrating game sounds and puns so no extra points are available for that stuff lol

Taking the idea of catching pokemon is always dangerous, I think, because pokemon fans aren't really here to catch things, we're mostly interested in battles and the journey with our faves, not completing the pokedex (because it's hard, and kind of chore) at least, to me. This song feels like a journey through the tall grass, scouring the lands to find pokemon... I just like the inabakumori style man. It gets points for getting on the playlist, but not really speaking to me.

Mitchie M's What Kind of Future

Silly songs.......... my weakness and Mitchie M's strength oh no.........

Yeah Mitchie M really plays to his strengths, using cute visuals and nonstop puns to ooze a charm you can only get from haplessly indulging in the most whimsical of vibes. It was also quite surprising how well their TL team did with all the puns given some of them barely work lol.

"I love them all" is the type of pokemon fan I am, so that might also help explain why two of those songs are up so high...

Pinocchio-P Kills You with The Pokemon Inside My Heart

yeah i cried what're *you* gonna do about it huh

Im a pinocchio-p fan. I don't always like everything he puts out, but when he really hits its insane how hard he does.

1) i fucking love his little pinomikus... having them all in a costume is so fucking cute they're little slit eyed freaks and by far my favorite trademark a producer's ever had lol My favorite. is lapras...

2) This isn't the first song to fuck me up by him lol 2:30 Life Remaining also damaging as hell, so it wasn't surprising to see him go for a quieter angle but man when its something you grew up with, a nostalgia you could relate to, an experience you lived, its way worse. It's such a soft song, with an upbeat backbone, I've no idea how he got the music to scream "nostalgia" so hard but the reverberating "aah"s are so cool too...

Anyway this song would be the best song if I weren't horrendously biased. It should honestly be up their with the top two but it was funnier to keep it in the crying tier.

Battle! by cosMo@Bousou-P

I honestly did not like this song all that much when it first came out, but that was almost certainly because it was right after Pinochhio-P's lol

The high concept of people in the comments talking about some sort of Miku AI champion that was tired of winning got me more into the song now that I'm not directly comparing it to a song that spoke way more to me, there's just something a little unhinged about it in the way that cosMoBousou does well with machine intelligence/the meaning of digital media.

He also plays p well into his strengths with the breakcore fast bpm lol this song screams GO GO GO! I think it makes total sense why he'd go for a battle theme, and I really like the way the pokemon sfx are incorporated into the backing... drums? Unfortunately, I like battle songs not that much, and the lyrics leave a little to be desired because the story's a bit... confusing lol Maybe it's cheap of me to prefer nostalgia baits over whatever strange original story cosMo's thought up but that's how it is.

A little evil with Kasamura Tota's I'll Fly in the Sky with You

Another producer I've not heard of before! No one talked about this song either, in my circles, I actually missed it until I came back for Giga and Jin's. I passed over it on first watch, put it on in the background and said "yeah, that's a nice soft song," thinking nothing of it. Boy was I fucking WRONG

edit (not an edit I'm writing this all in one sitting), I LIED I *have* heard this guys stuff before!! Araki covered one of his songs lol ok I'm getting the sense their skillset is Violently Sad Songs and goddamn are they good at em.

Anyway this song's MV is adorable and uses mudkips status as an adorable fave as a double shot directly to your sadglands as it tells a story of a pokemon that stays the same to continue to fly with its friend. Its fucked up, and a little evil, and totally took me by surprise because I was a fool. Little Guys Deserve Love Too is something you don't always remember as pokemon fan and it takes the implication of evolution seriously its really some pokemon Mystery Dungeon type heartstring pulling that got me good.

Musically I love the quiet backing that really lets the vocals (the story) breathe, its a musical narrative. The back and forth between Luka and Miku is done really well, plus having it based entirely around an existing pokemon song really helps it achieve its heart punching effectiveness.

Also I have a horrible bias toward piano please don't look up at the tierlist and where I placed Marasy

(Hilarious it got a kids rating on youtube btw. Another youtube kids L, probably)

We couldn't draw miku at a fucked up angle this time guys: Giga's Gotchu!

lol yeah they had to sanitize this one's visuals a little bit, probably worked with a different artist than usual... It does show, a bit, in the kind of bouncy visual style Giga's used to being flatter and less 3D than usual. This leaves the music video a little lesser than the others that move... I also don't know if I've ever been a huge fan of Giga's recent animation style.

In terms of actual song: it's good! Giga puts his swing on classic pokemon motifs and it feels very him, with a nice mix of hip hop beat and electrical edge.

But uh, remember how I said before "catching pokemon is the weakest element of pokemon"? That point stands here, especially since the song itself is just simple and peppy. It's stylish as hell but doesn't give me a sense of journey or scouring like inabakumori's.

Sorry, but someone had to be last.

Jin's Secretly Miku the whole time: Juvenile

Trans miku real or whatever

I'd like to say this is the first full on deadass whole animated story. I should be right. Also I don't think I've followed Jin since Kagepro lol (but I did hear Neo, and I did scream really loudly at it!)

dude the eevee is drawn so fucking cute im rhhdghh im not even a huge eevee fan (too mammal) but man when he do the lil paw to cheer up their trainer it got me. I also really like the compassion of the story, the trainers just want to support each other even though they fight... It's like, that's kind of what pokemon is, it's not necessarily about winning, even if Every Voice on the internet Ever (including myself) tells you otherwise. Turns out all you need from a friendly rival to make them better is to lose against them and not let them speak (im joking.......)

I just realized I never looked up the lyrics, actually, but I totally got the emotions through the fantastic MV and the general upswings of the music. It's a bold swing to take a trainer through their whole journey, but both songs that try this hit it justtt right, actually. Building yourself back up after a loss is like, The pokemon story, because turns out you can't win them all. Plus it takes time to focus on the mundanity of the pokemon journey, the stuff you don't really think about in game but is the meat of any fanfic... depicting hanging out w your pokemon is a huge bonus points.

The music combined with the visuals made me cry what can I say, I don't cry easily so it deserves it.

Syudou's I'm a Ghost Type

I honestly don't know a whole lot about Syudou, not to say I don't know who he is, i do, i play pjsekai, but none of his "popular" songs really captured me.

I can mostly say the same for this one lol This is the first one where I have to actually explain the Funky Fresh tier: it means they play well to their strengths but they don't have a whole lot of staying power to me. This is where my pickiness starts kicking in, they just weren't swanky enough to make the cut.

The lyrics and visuals scream joy of ghost types though, I really dig how much energy is in the song... I think it's just personal preference for electric beats that puts the song the highest in Funky Fresh.

BIPPA!! Wonderful Opportunity with Go! Bidoof Group!

Wonder Opp never fails me they got my back every time. I was hoping for something silly happy peppy fun and oh boy did i get it. A feverish dedication to a silly not strong pokemon, a basic rat you can get in any route that the pokemon company loves making fun of, BIPPA!!

All these dumb mfs so relatable to the Len that wants to evolve for utility, to the Rin that loves him as he is, to Miku who thinks all pokemon have their appeals... I've seen some people say WonderOpp's songs border on just speaking over beat, but I don't really see what's wrong with that. The comedic timing is solid (Len getting shot down is so funny) and the setup is inherently funny, a team of bullies that go after Only Bidoof. Team Rocket but Bidoof.

Joy radiates from this song and who doesn't want to hold a pokemon in front of your friends and go "Look!! this is my favorite child!!!" I think that's the real essence of pokemon. Pick your faves and then be really annoying about them. That's why this is the best one.

Huh? Muddled... (Weird title... it's sfx, really) by Kuriyama Yuri

This project got me digging around in new producers libraries, quite fun. In this one I found Jitterbug! I love a good Meiko producer... But I don't particularly like their style, sorry to say.

I do like it though! It's fun, spooky and very stylized! I love the rhythm it gets into and the expressions on the people, even if I'm not entirely sure what's going on besides some good ol fasioned spooks. I think it accomplishes what it sets out to do, which is make a spooky ghost house experience song. Just doesn't appeal to me enough to rank it higher.

Orangestar's Encounter

Look. This is pure bias. But I also think it's good!

I've gone on record (no record. just talking to friends lmao) saying Orangestar's music feels like running alongside a ocean during a sunshower. All their music is kind of same-y but by god does it hit that niche so good for me, using vocaloids to go way above what any human would sound good. In this song the synthwave really elevates it to something I'd recommend a non-Orangestar fan, it really carries you up, gives the song a rising energy... just like Lugia.

Breath is a key of Orangestar's songs, besides being very high, there's a lot of running vocals and held notes, meaning singing them is again, very difficult (if you're trying to copy miku) and I think the breathlessness of the vocals and synth really works with the concept of a legendary encounter. It's always so cool when you finally run into the thing on the box... and in the surrounding media, everyone always oohs and aahs. The lyrics support this, but I'm not very good at reading, so I actually just skim them to make sure they aren't total nonsense lol

Eon Ticket by Marasy

I saw somewhere an author's comment about this song, something to the effect of "I always chased Latios and Latias"... So this is just a song about your faves, just like pokemon should be. It also has Kaito, which is *my* crypton bias.

Uhh I'm always back and forth on Marasy songs, I love him as a pianist, but his compositions don't always speak to me working with the others on em. But? I think this one hits nicely. It's a little toothless still, not as emotionally impactful as those on the top, won't make me scream in excitement but I do think this is one of my favorites in a while.

Kaito and Miku... it's always nice to have duets in this Miku focused project lol. I think the Eon ticket, Latios and Latias in particular was a good pairing for Marasy's flighty fluttering piano trills and runs, they're the kind of pokemon that dash around the skies like the music does. Part of what makes me rank composers higher in these miku songs is whether they play to their strengths or not, because you're already adding the twist of subject matter, and I think this does. I also think the framing device of the newscasters is cute

Party Rock Eternity by Hachioji-P

Ahh Hachioji, another name I know and don't really listen to on purpose... Rad Dogs goes insane though an all time fave (but I say that about half the VBS commissioned songs). Maybe that's why I biased it higher, because it's a style of music I really like. A lot of bias is probably involved in this lol (poison type fan)

I like the perspective of a rocket grunt a lot, leans extremely well into the harder rock of Hachioji's natural lean, but the lyrics don't really tell us much, it doesn't quite lean hard enough into character for me to give it a funky pass... plus I find it's missing a POP that makes it appealing. It's extremely pleasant, but I can't give it a pass.

Iyowa's Journey's Prequels, Journey's Traces

Hmm, I think the only producer I know truly nothing about, didn't even really recognize a song on their page. Doesn't matter since this song's extremely cute and appealing on its own.

The button mashing making up the backing track I almost didn't like but it totally grew on me, it gives the song more life. Visually the MV compliments the cutesy subject and the wonder of a child's first pokemon. But... it's just pleasant. It suffers the same fate as Party Rock Eternity before it, there's just nothing pushing it beyond musically, likely in part because I'm not as familiar with the composer. I like songs that go somewhere, and this one stays in the same place, which doesn't make it bad, it just makes it less interesting to me.

Esper Esper, Psychic Psychic! by NayutalieN

I don't listen to a whole lot of NayutalieN's stuff outside the Rhythm Game Staples (most of which I like, at least passively), but it's enough that I know generally what I'm getting.

Musically this song doesn't stand out to me all that much, I like the rising tones during the chorus, but it actually doesn't use as many of the kind of flourishes on the top of vocals I really like about Nayutalie's tuning. The sfx in blend with the background are also really fun but for me, theming tops out anything.

When I went into the song, I wanted a cute silly fun song about psychic type pokemon that LOVED psychic types. I wanted to see them clap. And they did! There's just so many psychic types doing the classic flip back and forth dance, and isn't that, really, what makes a NayutalieN song?

Kairiki Bear's Melomeloid

So Kairiki Bear I actually spent like, a day lying in bed listening to their entire lineup on their channel lol I wanted to determine whether I liked them as a producer or if I just really liked Bug. Turned out I just really liked Bug (and venom). That's to say, I wasn't expecting something standout in this song.

I was not disappointed, but I wasn't blown away either. That's ok, I think the most important part of Kairiki Bear songs are their texture, the rhythm of the vocals mixed with the instrument. I like Bug because of its punchiness, its extremely harsh tones, and Melomeloid's are a bit softer. It's good for a song about fairy types, but it doesn't make up that loss in musicality through the melody, which makes it average to me. But! I think it really hits where fairy types lie, a cutesy "I love you" mixed with the signature sharp, kind of off tune vocals with a harsh, present beat... It screams "cute but dangerous."

A Glorious Day for Miku Yuri by EVE (it's Glorious Day)

wh what if u were a dragon type trainer and and I was a fairy type trainer and uh uh hhhhh and we were rivals............

Um ok, I just have to say, before I talk about Eve or whatever. The fact that they animate Every Miku in Voltage's art run and place them in this mikuverse where they all fight together is like, dude talk about an excellent finale. Deadass that touch alone put this to its ranking by itself.

That's not to say the music's not pulling its weight. It's Eve, and though I think is one of his weaker compositions, not being able to play into his more off beat rhythms (and having to use miku) it's still got all the bones of an extremely solid hype journey song. But to be honest, I think the music is the weakest part of Glorious Day, even if its flow is perfect for the story they're telling.

But the story..... God I do love a fully animated MV, there's just so much they put in it to make a pokemon fan happy, from the sakuga of the battle and the possible red cameo. Plus YURI!!! I love miku miku relationships I just think this one has the most potential to live in my brain rent free, so it goes up a tier. As a pokemon fan, this one's got the most for me, even if as a vocaloid fan, I wish Eve would just sing all his songs forever lol

Uh anyway thanks for listening like and comment if you want me to do this for commissioned songs for sekai i guess

[vidreview]

VIDEO ESSAY ROUNDUP #2 [PART 1]

[originally posted november 14 2023. NOTE: while migrating the archive from cohost i've discovered that tumblr has a 10 link-block limit, which means i have to split some of these roundups up in order to maintain the embeds. we love websites don't we folks]

hello from the pits of november! between random youtube recommendations and time spent trawling through cohost's video essay tag, i've discovered a lot of bangers this month. so let's just jump in!

"Why Does Attack of the Clones Look Like a Video Game?" by Empire Wreckers.

this is a fresh take on one of the internet's oldest, most time-honored traditions: complaining about the stars wars prequels. fresh in the sense that creator Edan has worked in hollywood VFX, and so brings an eye for hyper-specific details that you'll be amazed you never noticed before. clean, no-nonsense presentation full of surprising insights. immediately after finishing this video i then watched "How Bad Movies Are Made feat. The Rise of Skywalker" whose thesis that "bad movies aren't made on purpose" yields to a refreshingly nuanced perspective on exactly why the third star wars sequel was such a mess without resorting to droll hyperbole about JJ Abrams being a hack or whatever. these are great examples of materialist media criticism, in that they are as much a criticism of the production pipeline as they are the finished product. after watching these videos, i actually think that any other perspective on these later Star Wars is… kind of missing the forest for the trees? impressive stuff all around.

"women who wish they were 𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐛𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐬: an analysis" by Costanza Polastri.

a quick and honest overview of how straight women often misunderstand the nature of lesbian relationships, thinking them somehow free of the conflict they experience in heterosexual ones. the insight that "you don't want a girlfriend, you just want men to be better" reminded me of when i admitted to having a crush on a cisfem friend shortly after coming out as trans, only for her to get mad at me and end our friendship because "i told you i'm not a lesbian and it's frustrating that everyone mistakes me for one!" this was before i'd even decided on Sarah as my preferred name. she was more invested in my newfound femininity than i was! anyway, Costanza Polastri has an enjoyable screen presence and brings a really interesting perspective to the table-- and in pretty short videos, to boot! not an easy feat by any stretch.

"A real history of video games | Pay to Win" by Jimmy McGee.

an essential deep dive into how the history of the modern video game industry is inextricable from the history of legal gambling. if you think you know how bad it is, trust me, it's so much weirder and more frustrating than you thought. Jimmy McGee is doing some really great stuff on his channel, providing an honest materialist perspective on media analysis that i've found sorely lacking. "The AI Revolution is Rotten to the Core" digs past the obvious criticisms of AI and LLM mania into the much more pressing question of what we, as a society, value in our art. for something shorter, i also recommend "The Dream of the Internet", about the war on the internet archive and why it's such an essential pillar of the open web.

"I Played EVERY Star Fox Game… Here's What I Learned" by wizawhat.

starfox 64 has been my favorite video game since i was a child, so naturally one of my favorite genres of youtube video is "Let's All Gawk At All The Ways Nintendo Has Catastrophically Mishandled The Franchise." wizawhat does a good job giving each game its due, mostly avoiding hyperbole while still acknowledging that picking favorites in a history this checkered is an inherently emotional, subjective process. the highest praise i can give to entries into this genre is that i was nodding along violently the whole time AND actually learned a lot of stuff i didn't know before, which i genuinely didn't think was possible! his other video "I Miss the Old Nintendo" is the closest i've seen anyone else come to really hammering home why i've soured so hard against nintendo over the last few years, despite having been a nintendo defender most of my life. my only complaint is that he uses some hack corporate language at times ("content" instead of "media," "consumers" instead of "audiences," etc), but i'm gonna dig deeper into that in a dedicated vidrev another time.

"Why We Can't Stop Mapping Elden Ring" by Ren or Raven.

a great little exploration of what maps in games do, and what they mean in an era of video games dominated by post-release patches and balance tuning. i'll be brief here because i've got a full length vidrev queued up for this one too, but it's worth stating that creator Renata Price is a games writer who has turned to video essays after being laid off by Vice earlier this year. as the first entry in a presumed corpus by an experienced critic from a very different critical tradition, i find this video exciting because it's an opportunity to study how the medium affects one's message. right now it feels like Renata Price doesn't quite know how to take full advantage of the video part of the video essay just yet, and that's a great place to start from. i just find it to be such a privilege when you get to watch someone grow their craft in real time!

"Death and Thriving - Discussing 920 London" by Wolf Witch.

just a solid textual analysis of the graphic novel 920 London, Remy Boydell's followup to their devastating prior book The Pervert. digs into serious questions about the death drive, and whether or not people can change or recover from trauma. not much else to say except that Wolf Witch is on Cohost doing speedruns of Snake Farm. Snake Farm rules! support your local Snarmers today!

"That one speedrun where you change your gender" by Minoan.

an astonishing little coming-out video in the form of a Dark Souls 2 speedrun tech overview. i don't have much to say about this one except that it put a huge smile on my face and gave me some serious vicarious gender joy. i love the sound of trans women's voices!!!

[mistythedritten]

20 questions for Writers thing

So I got tagged by the lovely @bleue-flora so here I am!

How many works do you have on Ao3?

Twenty. Which is more than I expected.

2. What is your word count?

90,465 words, which is just over 200 words according to the words to pages website I use.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

The DreamSMP

4. What are your top 5 fics? (stats)

By Kudos, Glitter Green, The Retrieval, An Ugly Duck Named Dream, Bound By Black and White Strings, and Rescuing the Rivals

5. Do you always respond to comments? Why or why not?

Almost always, every once in a while I'll get someone who basically wants me to change an aspect of my fic so they can have what they want, like it's a restaurant. Which is different than someone creating theories on what might happen next or talking about how I've written characters. I don't respond to those people mostly because I don't know how? Do I just say "No, I'm not going to write that, thanks for the suggestion," or something?

But most of the time, yes. I love interacting with people who like my writing, it's fun!

6. Angstiest ending for a fic?

That would be a fic that's not done yet! This fic is going to have a bittersweet ending, but we aren't close to that yet.

7. First Fic with a Happy Ending?

That would be the first one-shot I ever wrote, Glitter Green

(I discovered how to embed links today, this is great!)

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I did once, I wrote some references to IRL events with Tommyinnit neg, which got two hate comments. I laughed at them and deleted them. I did add tags making it more clear there was Tommy neg, but it was 3 lines at most.

9. Do you write smut?

...yes and no. I have officially dipped my toe into writing it, but I certainly haven't posted any. Yet. I'm still deciding what to do with it. It's not even finished.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Does DSMP and Empires SMP count?

11. Ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge, but I also don't go looking for them elsewhere.

12. Ever had a fic translated?

No, but that would be cool.

13. Ever co-written?

Yes! I've got a couple. Zen doesn't have a Tumblr, one author wants to keep her Tumblr separate, and one author doesn't feel like she's done enough to have her name on the fic. (I disagree, but that's her choice.)

I recommend everything they have written.

14. Favorite ship?

Tough choice, I kinda rotate. I keep trying to pick, and I can't.

15. What's the WIP you want to finish but probably never will?

Black and White strings, it's been over a year, I'm thinking of orphaning the fic or putting it up for adoption.

16. Writing strenghts?

Hm, I like to write Emotions TM, but is that a strength? Same with dialog.

17. Writing weaknesses?

Flirting and fight scenes. I'm just unfamiliar with doing fight scenes and don't know how to flirt.

18. Thoughts on dialog in another language in a fic?

I've done it in my FarfaDream fic, but if it's something that's not easy to google translate, I find it a bit annoying.

19. First fandom you have written for?

The DSMP.

20. Favorite fic you have written?

Also a tough question. I'm not sure. The one that is most self-indulgent is definitely Children of the Realms

And there you have it folks! I would like to tag @citrus-blade @the-final-sif @percy-ils @morgueofstories @azures-grace @unholy-virtue @firedergen and everyone else who would like to!

[the69thgames]

Fanmade District 21

District 21 P.1 - Landfills

alright, so in my timeline district 21 was formerly a district split in half between landfills and recycling centers

in the landfill part, imagine Wall-E. their job is to box up garbage and compact it so that there is more space. they practically live in these garbage piles and sort through all the materials

some materials are sent to the recycling center, some of them can be composted, some are used in their furniture or houses, some are burned, and some just stay there forever

their lifestyle is very dirty and really unsanitary, since their waters are mostly contaminated they get most of their water from the clean rivers, lakes, and streams in the Capitol

they do have a built up resistance to most germs and sicknesses, being born and raised around it, and they are often strong from carrying heaps of garbage moving place to place. their food situation is the same as their water situation, they get most of their food from the Capitol

though, they do eat some animals such as mutated gigantic insects, rats, and sometimes raccoons

they also have a culture where you can't waste anything, everything you use will be reused or remade. and they find it terrible to have several sentimental items, finding it useless, their only sentimental items are usually only 1-5 and they always wear it or keep it on themselves, showing they aren't wasting the items even though it's just decoration

this same mindset also leads to some families being cannibals, but it's more of a sacrificial way? they honor their dead by reusing what was once theirs so there will always be a part of them for everyone, despite passing away. since in their death, they are still beneficial and helping support the family/community

imagine that one animal that people used every part of? like their bones, skin, meat, horns, organs, they used everything to its fullest because they truly honored the animal and were thankful for them, finding it more disrespectful to waste their precious material

that's similar to how they find people, which lead them to cannibalism, it's a more wholesome take on it being their culture and all, what they were raised to believe was moral and was therefore right. similar to how Capitols were raised to believe the games where kids kill each other was fun and entertaining but cannibalism was disgusting

anyways, this district was eventually disbanded (mostly because of their culture because I can't find a good reason for why the Capitol would get rid of this district) and was spread Districts 3, 5, and 13. after 13 was "destroyed", however, some of this work was given to District 6 and to some of the lower class in the Capitol

District 21 P.2 - Recycling Centers

ok, second part. so although the recycling centers still share district 21 with the landfills, they are disgusted by them, and share a vastly different culture

there's like three main things they recycle, plastics, papers, and metals

the people from the papers are definitely the happiest and they have the least polluted section (albeit, still very polluted compared to other districts)

the people from the metals are definitely stronger, having to carry such heavy stuff. they're kind of clean freaks and are all germaphobes, not wanting to infect the precious metals

the people from the plastics have the most terrible pollution, are just as badly starved as the people in the landfill (or as they call the junkyard) but they act like they are better than them. they are also germaphobes and they disinfect everything for the Capitol

actually are three parts have to disinfect stuff or else they'll be punished so it's pretty bad, but I would say the plastics have it the worst off due to being the most produced

it sounded more interesting in my head but because of their clean freak culture they enter a state of shock and disgust every single time something dirty happens. like they'll hit themselves and cry over their shit and piss. like they publicly embarrass people for burping or farting

and funnily enough, this is more of a public cover. at their homes gross (normal) stuff is allowed, just minimal of it compared to a normal household. like seriously, they are human and they do stuff like excrete waste and have sex but it's really taboo to talk or even imply these kinds of things in public

also everyone wears weird suits, they come in several colors, but almost always lighter colors to prove that they aren't dirty or anything. if someone wears a dark color it's considered disrespectful to the culture or they think you're just gross and dirty. in fact, their mourning color is white, or as close as you can get to it

if they're not working, everyone wears very conservative clothing that covers all their bodies, and they'll wear gloves and often times masks

also everyone is bald. or almost bald, basically they think hair is really dirty and gross too

anyways this district eventually disbanded as well and spread across the same as it's other half was

and sorry that the recycling centers are more underdeveloped compared to the landfills, there's like this anime where there's a junkyard place so that kinda inspired me (Meteor City form HunterXHunter)

and if you are curious as of to why this is district 21 and not 14, I do have other fanmade districts you can check out

[1dcommunityficrecs]

Thank you so much for doing this! It's a wonderful idea to collect fic recs in one place, where authors can promote their own works as well!

Just a suggestion for the future! Could you tag the authors, or maybe add links to their fic posts, too? It'd be super convenient to be able to browse their blogs!

Hi! I'm glad you're enjoying the rec lists :)

I appreciate your suggestions. I agree that those additions would make sense, and they are definitely things I've considered including, but at the moment, I'm trying to keep everything as manageable as I can so that I don't feel overwhelmed by the size of the tasks -- I really want this to be a project that's sustainable for me, and having the spreadsheet with an extraction script for posting makes it really helpful (I click three buttons and 90% of the formatting is done for me!), but also does somewhat limit what is easily HTML-able.

I do have a space in the rec form to include a fic post, but at least on this first list I believe only three posts were linked. I don't know if that's because only a few had posts, or if most people didn't want/know how to go looking for the posts, but I also don't know that I have the time or ability to search for 20-odd fic posts, without knowing which ones don't exist. Posting the first list took me about 40 minutes, which might go down as I get more used to things, but even if I only spent a minute or two searching for each post, that could still double the amount of time I'm spending. So for the moment, I’ll be linking and reblogging the fic posts submitted in the form, but probably not hunting any down myself.

Similarly, I did name all the authors as they were listed in the form submissions, but I'm not sure if those are the AO3s or the Tumblrs -- sometimes they're the same but sometimes they're not (mine aren't!). Further, the original form was set up to not assume posting location -- it could be on AO3 but it could be on FF.net, or Tumblr, or Twitter, hell even Wattpad, and I like that open-endedness. Even if I did request Tumblrs separately (and if the writer has one/makes it clear what it is), I don't know if there's a simple way to embed user-tags into the HTML, so I'd have to do it manually (which is more formatting on my end, especially when there are a lot of fics) or hyperlink it (which would let readers click through at least, but wouldn't notify the writers)... there's just a lot of layers of complexity haha. The folks I borrowed this idea from do leave comments on recced fics, to let people know they've been spotlighted, and I'm hoping to add that to my process, but haven't fully gotten that sorted yet.

I didn't mean for this to turn into an essay haha but I hope that all makes sense and clarifies my thought process? I'm open to switching things up as I learn more about this project and what's feasible for me, or if I figure out ways that don't add much complexity, but I want to aim simple so that I don't overestimate my capacity and overwhelm myself and have to stop. But I appreciate your ideas and am definitely open to hearing suggestions, even if I'm not sure I'm able to incorporate all of them right now.

[pudding-parade]

Music Meme 2: Electric Boogaloo

@papermint-airplane and @simsdastra tagged me again for this, so apparently they, at least, want more from me. There's no accounting for taste, folks! ;)

🎶✨when u get this u have to put 5 songs u actually listen to, and publish. then, send this ask/tag 10 of your favorite followers (non-negotiable, positivity is cool) ✨🎶

I'll use YouTube embeds this time, just because it's easier than copypasting links and because ya girl doesn't have a Spotify account. (Well, technically, I do, but I forgot my login and idc enough to recover it.) Anyway, since embeds are huge plus I babbled as usual, I'll put them behind a cut.

And I guess I'll tag more peeps, so here you go: @twinsimming, @rollo-rolls, @ninjaofthepurplethings, @suratan-zir, @fluttereyes-ts3-blog, @danjaley, @unsimspirational, @lilidebergerac, @stargazer-sims, and @parystrange. And if anyone reading this wants to do it, too, consider yourself tagged, too. Feel free to ignore, as always. No pressure.

Here we go…

This one reminds me of my rave days. Man, I miss those rave days… I listen to a lot of ambient, trance-y electronic stuff whether I'm high/tripping or not. It tends to fuel creativity in me, and Delerium is always at the top of my list. I love the combination of dark ambient and ethereal female voices that most of their tracks have.

More belly dance music. Yes, I am really into belly dance. I've been taking lessons for….eight?…years now, and I'm good enough now to perform as well as teach beginners. In fact, I'm teaching my very first actual beginner's class this spring, and I'm very excited because 8 people (including one guy and one kid, which is awesome) have already signed up. SQUEE! :D I love everything about belly dance. It's excellent exercise and gives you amazing muscle control, which is great for inherently clumsy people like me. I love the music. I LOVE love that it makes me feel sexy and ultra-feminine and that there's no pressure for dancers to be super-skinny. (In fact, belly dance looks better if you aren't skinny, although lamentably I am skinny because of health issues.) But most of all, I love the outfits. The fabrics, the sweeping skirts, the colors, the BLING. ✨ ✨ ✨

ANYWAY! This piece is one that I have performed to. I prefer pieces that are all/mostly darbuka (That's the drum), and this guy is a master.

You wouldn't think that this combo would work as a duet, but it really, really does, despite the fact that, according to my first husband (who was a recording engineer and eventually a producer), Donna was hung-over as fuck during the (single!) recording session. Can you imagine singing like that while hung-over? I can't.

Ironically, I played the shit out of this song when my first husband left me. LOL I still play it a lot nowadays when I want to sing and dance like an idiot.

I wouldn't call myself a metalhead by any stretch of the imagination, but I do like metal quite a bit. My favorite metal genre is symphonic metal, which probably isn't surprising since I'm a classical musician. :) But yeah, give me all the Nightwish and Epica and, indeed, Within Temptation. This is arguably my favorite song of theirs.

And since I haven't put anything from my favorite band of all time on these lists…time to fix that. :) Though it definitely isn't my overall favorite song of Queen's, this is my favorite song from Queen II, which is my favorite Queen album. It's the height of their fantasy-theme phase. It's also their "heaviest" album, so I thought that something from it was a good song to follow Within Temptation. :)

[washingtonlowercases]

i have a lot of Thoughts about the chicago situation and im going to put them under the cut cause i know no one cares but i have no one to talk to so they're going here anyway

tw: sexual assault, r*pe, hazing ?

okay so like... what happened?? i watched that press conference (yay being unemployed, we love it here and we are NOT going insane) and i am now convinced that perry probably didnt have sex with bedards mom but actually did something really, really, very much so worse.

im not convinced nothing happened between perry and any bedard though. its such a specific rumor. and the gm and all these reporters being like iTS DISGUSTING TO EVEN SUGGEST- okay so where did it come from then?? can you show me the tweet from rangersfan420 who hates the hawks and started a rumor for fun?? can you find the source to PROVE its just a stupid internet lie?? i know its hard but if im chicago, im putting someone on it. if im a reporter (i know its a hard job, its a lot of work, etc but i have very little sympathy for most hockey reporters specifically because of, well- name any incident) im SCOURING the web for the source of that rumor to either ask how they know, or embed the link in my pay-wall blocked article for clicks!! you KNOW it would work, at least a few times. theyve had two days, has anyone even attempted this? (someone who's job it is, who's getting paid literally to either create news or to kill the rumor more effectively than whatever the hell the hawks are trying right now)

i might believe something sexual assult-y happened between perry and a player's family or player even except we KNOW for a FACT that the nhl and the hawks specifically do not care about that. they can "we're committed to change" all they want (clearly that's not working) but what motive would they have for kicking perry off the team? when has the NHL, or NHL fans (the loud, obnoxious majority, anyway) cared when a player has assaulted anyone?? we have seen sex crime after sex crime against women (and men!) committed by these players who are STILL PLAYING. no consequences enforced by their team, by the league, or by the media or fans (generally. there are good fans and there are some media outlets that care). so really, the hawks have no reason to kick perry off the team, or address the media, or make this into A Thing at all if that were the case. I know its hard to quash a rumor once it starts, but i honestly think if they had just been like "perry did *insert sex crime here* and thats bad, sooweee" people would be like BUT HES A GREAT PLAYER and people would be liek THAT SUCKS KICK HIM OFF THE TEAM and then in 30 hours there would be something new to yell about. (because being the moral police for this FUCKING LEAGUE is exhausting. where my red wings girlies who are dead inside at?? let me hear you scream into the void!)

so let's take a sexual encounter/assault off the table. what the hell was it?? probably not a racist thing. the chicago hockey team for sure doesn't care about that (See: their logo). its probably not a straight up and down illegal thing because the cops aren't involved as far as we know. (not that that really matters to this league either. remember the val nichushkin thing?? or the lucic thing?? {im assuming he'll be playing again soon} or like a million other things?? god this league is exhausting)

i saw someone say a hazing thing and that i might believe, esp bc of how their gm looked on the brink of tears. but then... say that?? or then why say no one else in the locker room knows about it?? are we keeping them in the dark or are we covering their asses legally??

this league is so fucked up, that there's honestly not much i can imagine that a hockey player could do that would warrant THIS from his team and the NHL.

(unless of course he's claimed off waivers or signed in like three months, then it's probably your garden variety assault/hazing/drunk/racist incident)

UGH i hate it here sometimes

[steakout-05]

Halfbrick Lost Media: Fruit Ninja Flash Version

so after i made that post about some lost JavaScript games on HB's old website from 2001, i was thinkin' that i'm gonna make a sorta series of short posts about little bits of lost media i've discovered relating to Halfbrick to just bring a bit of attention to them and also document them here, cause i think they're super interesting!! i'll compile a little checklist here of some topics i might make little posts about and then i'll get onto it:

Fruit Ninja Flash

Fruit Ninja Tencent

Fruit Ninja Kakao

Fruit Ninja Frenzy

Monster Dash for Chrome

Lost Trailers for Old Games + Unconfirmed Jetpack Joyride Android Trailer

alright enough stalling, i'll get to the point now :P

The facts:

This is the icon listed on this page belonging to a game simply known as 'Fruit Ninja Original Flash', which, as you might've guessed, is a flash version of Fruit Ninja which is presumably very old, being created back in 2010 before the mobile version's release. This game was up on Halfbrick's website likely around Fruit Ninja's anniversary, but now leads to a 404 page when the link is clicked. The game has no footage available, nor any blog posts on Halfbrick's website relating to this version of the game I could find.

Trying To Find The Damn Thing:

While messing around with the Wayback Machine, I snagged an archive of the wiki page this game's listed on and clicked the link provided on that page, which lead me to this:

(apologies about the dodgy screenshot, i was on mobile at the time of taking it)

Not a good sign. This archive is from 2021, which is a little after Flash was discontinued at the end of 2020, which is... also not a good sign... Yikes :(

I didn't give up though, and I thought of taking a look into the website using Inspect Element and manually finding the .swf file just in case it wasn't loading correctly.

There definitely is something here, and this also confirms the game was made in 2010 by the filename there. It just doesn't load correctly on my browser, probably because Flash is blocked in some way (I use Brave). If only I could actually, y'know, download it....

Luckily though, I do have an extension called Ruffle on my Firefox browser. I thought I could at least try running it before downloading it, so I opened the page and clicked the big orange play button on the Flash embed, but...

... That's not good. That's not good at all. On Brave I tried having a look in the Network tab to find if any .swf files were being loaded in, but the only thing I found was an index and a JavaScript file. I went and tried to nab it from Firefox but I got a 404 when trying to load the .swf object directly. Seems like it's trying to access a file that doesn't exist anymore on the server because it wasn't archived and thus can't run 'cause of that. I also tried using Flashpoint's search too and the program, but they only turned up some HTML5 versions of the game and VR and whatnot. I did find the 8-bit version though, so, uh... yay...?

The Verdict:

Yeah, the game's lost. More lost than the 20¢ coins my dad dropped between the couch cushions. Halfbrick themselves might still have the game on them considering it's a super old version of their most popular game, and who knows! It might turn up again someday. But for now, you can't play it, unless someone has saved the .swf to their computer years ago and decides to upload it of course.

I did find something really interesting while trying to get this to work though, and it's this page by one of the devs who made Fruit Ninja named Aaron Green. It contains some pictures and information about developing the prototype of Fruit Ninja, including the low poly watermelon model seen in the Flash game's icon, meaning that this prototype is the Flash game I'm looking for, which is pretty cool! Interestingly the image with all the fruits and their gibs show a tomato model instead of the kiwi fruit one, and, well, tomatoes aren't in the final game. Thought that was pretty cool :D

I wouldn't recommend contacting Green about this, as this game was made years ago and I don't want anyone getting bothered and I don't even know if he's still at Halfbrick. It sucks that this game is lost but y'know....

thank you for reading all this way :) i hope this game will get found one day, i really wanna play it because it's a cute old flash game and i'm such a sucker for old flash stuff from decades ago :P

[papermint-airplane]

Music Meme Remix

🎶✨when u get this u have to put 5 songs u actually listen to, and publish. then, send this ask/tag 10 of your favorite followers (non-negotiable, positivity is cool) ✨🎶

I was tagged again by @llamaheart and I love doing memes like this so you know what? I'mma do it again and this time it's the FULL KPOP EDITION!!! 😈😈😈 I'm not gonna tag anyone this time, though. I don't want to spam people who have already done it. So, instead, if you want to do this again, do it, and pretend I tagged you personally. 🤭 Ok, let's go, embeds under the cut.

BEcause - Dreamcatcher

I love this song. I never get tired of listening to it. It's a "love song" from the POV of a dangerously obsessive person who may or may not be out to kill the object of their affection (I told you Dreamcatcher got dark). I think it's insanely cool that the choreography is an homage to the movie "Us". You really see it in the beginning where JiU bows to Gahyeon and Gahyeon responds like her mirror image, only to then reach out and put her hands around JiU's throat. It hearkens back to the iconic funhouse scene in Us. Absolutely fantastic. 10/10, I have no notes, flawless execution (pun fully intended). This is why Dreamcatcher is my ult. For those of you who don't speak Kpop, ult means ultimate bias, or ultimate favorite. Nobody can beat them in my eyes. Nobody even comes close.

2. Zombie - Purple Kiss

Another song I can listen to on repeat for days and never get tired of. Listen at your own risk -- it's so catchy, you'll never get it out of your head for the rest of your life. Not only is it very cute and fun, it sort of helped me get over my irrational fear of zombies. Now whenever someone says the word, all I hear in my head is "ZOM-bie-bie-bie-bie, bie-bie-BIE-bie-biebiebie". 🧟‍♀️💘🧟‍♂️

3. Heartburn - Sunmi

Ignore the stupid title, this song is not about acid reflux. It's a beautiful, catchy, summery song that's 10% tragedy, 90% vibes. This is why Sunmi is the queen.

4. Love Dive - Ive

So right about now, you're noticing a pattern and you're like "hey wait a minute, this is all girl groups/singers!" Yes, I listen predominantly to girl groups. Male groups just really aren't my thing (even though I do still jam to the GOATS like Shinee and BTS occasionally). This song got insanely popular last year and I've had it on my playlist ever since. There's just something so addictive about it. Also, there's a popular interpretation out there that this song is about the myth of Echo and Narcissus. I don't know if that's the real story behind the song, but it fits so well that it's my headcanon, even if it turns out not to be true. 🎶 Narcissistic, my God, I love it. 🎶

5. Catallena - Orange Caramel

And finally, no favorite Kpop songs list of mine would be complete without Orange Caramel. Weaponized cuteness at its finest. This song is about a girl having a crush on another girl, which is an idea that was pretty rare in Kpop at the time. It mixes Korean Trot, Euro dance beats, and even samples a Punjabi wedding song, all the while the girls cosplay as sushi. Nothing about this should work, but it all fits together perfectly in one weird package. This is another one of those "listen at your own risk" situations because I guarantee you, once it's in the wrinkles of your brain, it's never coming out.