#one day i'll stop adding so much grain to my edits .. one day !

[champagns]

♪   103.5   DAWN   FM   ♪   welcome   back   listeners   .   on   today’s   segment   of   ANTHOLOGY   OF   HORROR   we’re   traveling   all   the   way   back   to   1997   in   crescent   shore   ,   california   where   the   case   of   three   missing   girls   triggered   numerous   UNFORTUNATE   EVENTS   in   the   small   town   .   to    this   day   ,   the   events   that   unfolded   that   year   are   still   the   most   TRAGIC   to   ever   occur   in   crescent   shore’s   history   .   this   story   was   sent   in   by   an   anonymous   user   who   claims   to   have   been   a   resident   of   crescent   shore   .   so   sit   back   and   relax   as   we   begin   the   telling   of   SMALL   TOWN   HORRORS   .

[blazehedgehog]

ICYMI: My Sonic Frontiers Criticism/Essay Is Out Now

So here's the last four months of my life come to fruition: the longest piece of edited criticism I've ever put on my Youtube channel, clocking in at just over an hour. For those of you that may be new around here, I am pretty against making long videos. I don't know if I overthink things too much or what, but it's rare for me to have much tolerance for feature-length reviews of things. They can wear me out just watching them, and it definitely wears me out to make them.

But sometimes you just have a lot to say. And I didn't even necessarily say everything I could have said here; there were things I would have added if not for the looming deadline proposed by the video sponsor. That's not a complaint -- sometimes you need someone else to tell you "be done by this date or else." Limitations foster creativity and toiling away at perfection can sometimes be just as toxic as crunch.

What I was trying to say is it's a big video, and it was hard keeping everything straight in my head because there was so much. One of those times where I was glad how I planned things out in advance, because sometimes the thoughts you had four months ago are not the same thoughts you have today, and the thoughts from four months ago were better.

It's already proving to be a bit of a divisive video, given I am going against the grain here. But I'm a big boy. I've spent time on the front lines of these sorts of things before. I know how to handle myself. I mean, half the reason I started my tumblr back in the day was pointing out some of the truly deranged takes I'd get in the replies to my Sonic 06 video.

Though I do worry. I'm getting a lot of people who are... politely declining to tell me what they think. More than a few "I don't agree with you, but I'm glad you released this video" that then never elaborate further. And that makes me feel bad? But why? Do I want to argue with my friends? Not particularly.

But more to the point, are people afraid to argue with me? Do I get too aggressive? I've picked up on a vibe, not just from friends, where people seem to go out of their way to avoid arguments with and/or around me. I mean I literally just said I started my Tumblr blog as a "get a load of this guy in my comments" spotlight (which, for the record, I don't do anymore). I don't want to be scary. But is it scary, or is it a strength? Or am I just imagining the whole thing? History says it's probably that last one, but it doesn't stop me from wondering. It's a lot to chew on.

At the end of the day, I do think parts of this script could have been better. I do kind of get a little mean at a couple points in ways I could have written around. A lot of people are bristling at the opening spiel, where I get more than a little "you people" about the Game Awards voting situation. There's another part later in the video where I also feature actual comments from a previous video and as I was editing it together I thought, "this sounds mean." But given I was less than 24 hours away from that deadline, I just had to roll with it (so I at least blurred the names and cropped the avatars out).

I'll end this post by quoting what I wrote on Patreon day before yesterday for the early access version of this video:

What a march this has been. I've worked on some videos that felt like they took forever, but nothing like this. This felt like the project that would never end. Some of that's because, after pushing myself so hard on the Sonic Adventure 2 video, I tried to be a little more casual with this one. I think I started the script around the end of April, a couple weeks after finishing the game on-stream. The idea was to avoid burnout.  And then the script grew, and grew, and grew, to be the longest script I've ever written. After doing voice over, I had three hours of material I had to cut down. I captured more than 60 hours of gameplay from more than 50 games. Thank goodness I took the time to stop and "storyboard" out this review like I did with the SA2 video. It actually proved to be extremely valuable here -- with a video this long, that takes so long to put together, it's hard to keep all of your ideas hot and ready in your head. Often I'd fall back to the storyboard and realize I planned something months ago that was way better than what I was doing in the moment.  And then in July, a sponsor came calling again. Suddenly I had a real deadline. The last four weeks have been a race to move this mountain of material into something resembling the shape of a video. The last couple days in particular have felt something like a miracle. A work ethic I hadn't tapped into in years suddenly roared to life as I locked down 20+ minutes of video in a matter of hours. It may have involved several actual panic attacks and me running on about four hours of sleep, but here we are. I was revising the script all the way up until a week ago. In retrospect, the sponsor segment probably leans a little too much on SAGE content, but by the time I realized that the train was barreling down the tracks too fast to stop. Thoughts for next time, I guess.

Patrons get a PDF of the script I used, including an unfinished earlier draft I abandoned where I think I was actually even meaner about it, if you can believe it. They also get a PDF of what my "storyboarding" process looks like (which is all just text).

I'll probably toss up a post for all the art I made for this video, too.

[taephilia]

lost (myself) & found (you)

pairing: jeon jungkook x gn!reader

genre: fluff, soulmate au, based off of kimi no na wa

warnings: one (1) swear word

word count: 2,120

a/n: i saw this quote from the movie and inspiration just struck and i haven't been able to get it out of my head since. ofc i wrote this for jungkook since he's a weeb and said he would also want to hear bells ring when he meets his soulmate <3 also this is not edited lol i'll come back to it later, i just wanted to get this out

"Once in a while when I wake up, I find myself crying. The dream I must’ve had I can never recall. But… the sensation that I’ve lost something, lingers for a long time after I wake up." - Tachibana Taki, Kimi No Na Wa (2016)

Jungkook isn’t sure how long he’s felt like this—felt like something is missing, something important, something that his heart just can’t seem to let go of even if his brain has already forgotten. He knows that he dreams of whatever it is. He recalls scenes as he goes about his day; a loud laugh here, a brush of a hand against his there. People that he’s never seen before walking by him in a city he’s never been to, music playing on the radio that he’s never heard, a family that he comes home to that he doesn’t recognize at all. It’s all very strange and Jungkook is starting to wonder if maybe the late night ramen he’s built up a habit of eating has gone bad or maybe the unhealthy amounts of salt in it are the cause behind this. Because it was all fun and games until Jungkook’s heart starts to ache, like it’s calling out to someone that his brain can’t even conjure up an image for. Someone that he would search the ends of the cosmos for, someone that, whenever he feels like he gets close to them, slips right through his fingers like grains of sand. But he shakes it off whenever the feeling comes and ignores the heavy feeling in his chest in favor of paying attention to that day’s classes. If he had somehow found his soulmate, it definitely wouldn’t be someone in his hometown in the countryside.

Soulmate. That’s who his grandfather had told him he’s been dreaming about ever since Jungkook confessed almost two months ago about the reason behind his ever-present furrowed brows and faraway look in his eyes. He says that it had happened to him when he was around Jungkook’s age but, like most dreams, he’s forgotten who it was. He then went on to talk about the red thread of fate and that’s when Jungkook started tuning out. It’s a nice concept to think about when you’re a child—a red string tied around your pinky that connects you to the person that you’re destined to be with—but it’s just a myth and Jungkook doesn’t have time to think about things that aren’t real. Not when he barely has the time to think about the things that are real, like college entrance exams and graduating from high school.

So he buries his head in his books and pours every last drop of blood, sweat, and tears into his studies to get into his dream college in Seoul. The yearning in his heart doesn’t go away but it’s eclipsed by the pure exhaustion that he feels at the end of every day. And, like most dreams, he forgets.

Jungkook is 23 when he seriously begins to wonder whether or not he’s going crazy. He had thought he was going over the deep end while in college but hearing bells go off? Now that takes the cake. It happens at random; he never knows when the bells in his head will ring (and Jungkook knows that only he can hear them because nobody around him ever gives any sort of indication that they’ve heard them) no matter how much he tries to prepare for it. He checks his surroundings every day, eyes scanning over the crowds of people weaving around him in Seoul, but it’s no use. The only consistent location that they seem to chime in is when he’s on the metro and even then, it’s on random days, at random times, and not always at the same stop.

He’s not the type to go chasing after fairy tales, or at least, he isn’t anymore. He doesn’t have time to think hard and long about what these imaginary bells could mean, not when he has a job to do and people to impress and money to be made. And his grandfather died during his second year of college so the only conversation of “soulmates” that occurs now are the ones he has with himself in his head and the memories of their conversations years ago. But as fate would have it, Jungkook took a couple of days off to get an early start to the weekend and he is just itching for an adventure. So when he hears the bells go off while he’s making his way to his connecting train, he closes his eyes for a brief moment and puts himself into the hands of fate.

Jungkook allows his feet to carry him where they want, observing his surroundings and keeping an eye out for any person who gives any sort of indication to hearing something that they shouldn’t be hearing. He climbs up the stairs and out of the station, not giving any attention to the people who side-eye him for standing still on a bustling sidewalk, but looks down at his hand instead. In particular, at his pinky, which feels like there’s something squeezing at it. Like… like a thread that’s been tied snugly around it.

The red thread of fate, a voice in his head whispers to him and Jungkook almost chuckles out loud at the thought. And then almost laughs out loud again because, although he doesn’t believe in soulmates, his actions say otherwise. Because as much as Jungkook doesn’t believe in soulmates… Well, the thought of them and the red thread of fate being real is nice, isn’t it? Someone that you’re destined to be with, connected to by a string that can tangle and stretch but will never fray, keeping you tied to them for all eternity. It’s a comforting thought, especially when he thinks of his extremely lacking love life that comes with his high standards and fear of rejection.

Jungkook passes by a bakery during his fate-led walk and just as he’s considering stopping in to buy something, he hears the bells again. A light sound, one that could be mistaken for a phone notification, but one that he knows very well. But Jungkook’s soulmate must be as used to the sound as he is because no one around him gives any sort of indication that they’re also in search of him. And after an hour and a half of walking around a part of the city that he isn’t too familiar with, he’s ready to call it quits for the night. So Jungkook makes his way to the nearest metro station and gets on a train home.

Of course, that’s when he hears the bells again.

He looks up from his phone and around the crowded train but nobody has been able to move since the doors closed. And if it were someone near him, he would have heard them before. There’s a flash out of the corner of his eye and when Jungkook looks up and out the window of the sliding doors, he sees a pair of eyes staring back. A pair of eyes that are not his but in fact belong to someone in a train traveling right next to his. They stare right at him and mirror his own when they widen at the exact same time as his. But just as soon as Jungkook finds you, he loses you just as quickly when your train goes in a different direction.

Jungkook spends the entire day the next day looking for you. He manages to cross off everything on his “things to do when I’m in Seoul” bucket list that he’s been adding on to for the past 10 years. His feet hurt, his wallet feels significantly lighter than when he first left his apartment, and he’s wondering how much weight he lost from walking what feels like the entire expanse of Seoul three times over. And even after all that, he hasn’t heard the bells. Not once.

And it’s at this point, when Jungkook decides to eat dinner at his favorite ramen shop before calling it a night, that he begins to wonder if he had missed his chance last night. Not like it was much of a chance considering the fact that you were on a different train and he had no way of getting to you. But fate is cruel, isn’t that what some people say? Maybe his thread is just so tangled, so frayed, that it’ll take a lifetime before he’s able to get another glimpse at you. And Jungkook just isn’t that patient.

He can barely even remember what you look like anymore. Maybe it’s the hunger eating away at his stomach and the aching of his feet but as he eats his ramen, he can only recall vague details about you. Like how he wants to drown in your eyes, how soft your skin looks even through two dirty train door windows, and how he thinks your shiny hair probably smells nice - like vanilla or peaches or something. But your face? Absolutely nothing. It’s like he blacked out the second he looked up at you last night.

Jungkook leans back in his seat as he sips at his water, staring out the window of the shop as if you would walk past right that second. But you don’t. So Jungkook throws a couple of bills down onto the table for a tip and heads out, a sigh leaving his lips when he looks around but doesn’t hear any bells. Now that he’s had a chance to sit down and eat, he feels a bit more rational and more determined to find you—but that can wait until tomorrow after he’s had a good night’s sleep. It’s a bit later in the evening so there’s barely anyone around him as he makes his way to the nearest metro station that will take him home. Jungkook is just about to descend the stairs when something makes him stop. He’s not really sure what it is that he stops for; the bus honking on the street beside him or the group of friends laughing as they walk by him? Or perhaps it’s the person at the bottom of the stairs, their eyes looking down as they climb up, but Jungkook just knows that it’s you.

Well, he doesn’t actually know. He’s pretty sure it’s you. It feels like it’s you. But is that fate talking or just his hopeful heart? Jungkook decides not to say anything and slowly walks down the stairs. The bells will tell him if he’s right. Your eyes glance up and meet his and Jungkook sees them widen, but like him, you don’t say anything. Are you waiting to hear your own bells?

He shoves his hands deep into the pocket of his hoodie, eyes quickly darting away from yours to stare holes into the ground as he keeps walking. His heart beats faster with every step and he has to resist the urge to just stare at you point blank because he needs to know and-

He hears the bells. And it’s like a weight is taken off of his shoulders.

But he keeps walking. And you keep walking. And now Jungkook is panicking because why the fuck is he still walking? You’re his soulmate, he found you, so why isn’t he stopping? Jungkook tries to get his feet to stop moving, to just turn around and call out to you but he can’t. What would he even say? ‘Hey, you’? He doesn’t even know your name. ‘I think you’re my soulmate’? How disgustingly cliche. What if you don’t even care that he’s your soulmate? What if you’re already seeing someone? What if he’s the only one that can hear the bells for you and you hear them for someone else? What if-

“Um, excuse me?”

Jungkook almost trips on the last step from how fast he turns around at the sound of your voice. His hands feel clammy but he keeps them in his pocket otherwise you’d be able to see how they’re shaking ever so slightly. He drags his eyes up to yours and suddenly, every bit of anxiety he felt is suddenly gone. Is this what it’s supposed to feel like?

“Have we met before? You seem really familiar.”

You’re at the top of the stairs now but you step down a few steps, as if you want to get closer. Jungkook climbs back up a few steps because he does want to get closer. There’s an easy smile on his face as he says, “Found you.”

He isn’t sure where it came from. He isn’t even exactly sure what he means. But it feels like the right thing to say, like something that he’s vaguely remembering from a dream he had a long time ago. And judging from the matching smile on your own face, you know what Jungkook means.

“Took you long enough.”

[junkcereals]

Junk Cereals: Most vital ranking of 19 Cheerios flavors

Cheerios is the biggest, most popular cereal brand. General Mills has marketed four varieties for multiple generations. More recently, more than 15 flavors have been released to give fans almost anything they want. Many are still on shelves, although Peach Cheerios recently left and Cheerios Protein Almond departed last year because General Mills faced a lawsuit because it had less protein than it claimed. Following is a ranking of Cheerios flavors. The large majority are good, which forced some tough choices.

19. Apple Cinnamon Cheerios

I may have eaten Apple Cinnamon Cheerios once as a child and wanting to believe it was good enough to eat again. But my mom knew better. Evidently, this has 12 grams of sugar, which explains that and is a total waste because you wouldn't recognize all that added sugar from a bite of it. All you taste is some apple, a hard it of cinnamon, maybe some more apple. Or maybe not if you've been a smoker for any extended stretch of you're life. I never was and never will be because I satisfy my need for instant gratification with healthy stuff like cereal that has at least three grams of fiber like this stuff. By the way, this cereal has lower vitamin enrichment than some Captain Crunch varieties. Did the captain steal vitamins?

Maybe Apple Cinnamon Cheerios only resembles something I should like because its hearty, woody look and feel appeals to basic masculinity.

18. Regular Cheerios

Cheerios have been around since 1941 when they were called Cheeri Oats, but didn’t become Cheerios until General Mills decided this cereal had earned a better sounding name.

SInce then, Cheerios have been the morning staple of people who just want to get on with their day, as well as those who just want to focus on reading the newspaper rather than whatever ripples or odd spots may appear in their cereal.

Some say vanilla is their favorite ice cream flavor because anything can go in it. Cheerios is the vanilla of cereals. Consumers slice various fruits into Cheerios, such as bananas, strawberries, peaches, blueberries and mango. Avocado? Sure. Other things can go in Cheerios, like chocolate chips, yogurt, peanut butter and M&Ms. No one has yet been bold enough to make an M&M cereal, so put them in Cheerios. Before the explosion of different Cheerios flavors, Danny, who was supposed to be the main character in “Caddyshack,” poured sugar in his Cheerios. He looked like he knew what he was doing, although the plot of the movie suggested otherwise.

17. Multigrain Cheerios

A couple of things stand out about Multigrain Cheerios: its variety of colors, the sound it makes when the O's collide against each other and how it's been around this long. I guess when it came out, it competed with Total because Total was touted as the most healthy cereal ever. But General Mills pointed out that you want 100 percent DV of nine vitamins and minerals in circular form because if you want to be a Lion King, your nutrition is a circle of life.

The name certainly doesn't compel anyone, especially since no one could name the grains in it until recently when it put them on the back of the box (corn, oats, millet, sorghum and rice). Cheerios is too mature to make a game of it. By the way, all those colors in the cereal are real, none artificial. The entire Cheerios brand is consistent about that. Only lower-tier General Mills cereals get food dyes.

16. Toasted Coconut Cheerios 

This is the most Whitey McWhite Person cereal to be done. They toasted coconut to put in this. The flavor is totally coconut. Can other fruits be toasted and put into cereal form? What about mango? That would have a more pronounced taste than Toasted Coconut Cheerios. But we don't want our fruit toasted if we really want to eat it. The back of the box features vacation destinations where you may be able to eat real coconuts. But no getaway contest in which to enter. Thanks, General Mills. Please bring on Mango Cheerios and I'll forgive you.

15. Fruity Cheerios

What does Fruity Cheerios give? A general fruity flavor, real nutrition, consistent appearance and taste throughout the bowl. What does Fruity Cheerios not give? An abundance of color, tons of added sugar, a cheerful cartoon character swooping in to slap the well-being out of you. I can’t hold it against Fruity Cheerios that it displays earth tones instead of primary and secondary colors. Product developers obviously deemed Cheerios undeserving of large amounts of food dye and artificial flavors. Besides, there are fruits with earthtones like avocados. People like avocados, so they must be willing to give this a chance.

Fruity Cheerios aims to be a healthy alternative to Froot Loops, and achieves that to a moderate degree.

14. Peach Cheerios

Within this cereal, one finds a fair amount of flavor and peach puree. Like peach crayons, it doesn’t give enough color or anything else you want from peaches.

13. Chocolate Strawberry Cheerios

This limited edition of the great Cheerios franchise, which was released weeks before Valentine's Day 2021, tested how well love could be manufactured in cereal form.

The aroma upon opening the box is so romantic and lovely that a person may want to kiss the nearest person 1,000 times. Hopefully, that person is worthy of the hypnotizing scent.

This cereal possesses a wonderful chocolate flavor. However, since the strawberry aspect is an artificial flavor, it falls short of other Cheerios fruit flavors. Not that you and your partner can't swing your arm around other's in a love bite fashion as if you're eating chocolate strawberries together.

12. Cheerios Oat Crunch Oats 'n' Honey

Did you know there are oats in this cereal? You may also taste honey. The taste is quite juicy and deep, but not as beautiful as the alternative COC flavor.

11. Frosted Cheerios 

Cheerios marketers walked into the upper management suite, located the right executive office, pounded the desk (ever so politely) and said they wanted to frost their cereal. So they did with sugar oat bran and corn starch. In order to stay "simply made," as they say, they stuck to that and kept it to nine grams of sugar. The color is solid and frosting complete. Someone ran into the room and said not to let the color fade in milk, so they didn't. See how that works.

No color is lost in milk. A bit of powdered sugar taste hangs in the milk at the end.

10. Pumpkin Spice Cheerios

This is the type when you ask, it says, "I throw straight fastballs."

What else?

"I throw straight curveballs."

This pumpkin spice cereal gives you the pumpkin and the pumpkin spice, coming right at your face with what you want and need. Pumpkin puree coats the stuff while the cinnamon and nutmeg round out the flavor.

As far as pumpkin spice cereals go, it does better than some by working harder.

9. Very Berry Cheerios

This cereal looks and tastes like freckled lemonade. The bar for fruit flavor has been lowered for this in a way it wasn't for most Cheerios products. Instead of various purees, it has powders of blueberry, strawberry, cranberry and raspberry, as well as vegetable and fruit juice. I hope you get all those flavors on your buds. I got two or three. The vitamin content is reasonable because they had to get it in before all the fruit walked away from being powdered. 

But they couldn't get acai berry or pomegranate involved, which is too bad. 

8. Honey Nut Cheerios Medley Crunch

Let's say I want to have Honey Nut Cheerios and Honey Bunches of Oats in the same bowl, but don't want to put the effort into buying both. Hey, this stuff takes half the shelf space. And it has giant oat blocks. So much variety here. And no lack of honey.

7. Banana Nut Cheerios 

At first, when I found this, I thought, Oh, this like if banana Nut bread were cereal, but without the nuts, which I guess is good for some people because having nut in a cereal name is usually a lie, except for people with allergies who have to take everything very seriously because you never can say it wasn't made on the same machinery as something just because of the smell."

Actually, the ingredient list plainly says it has pecan ingredients (not just pecans).

The Cheerios brand is just walking out here informing the world it can beat all the banana-flavored cereals by laying down a bunt. Remember Nilla Banana Pudding Cereal? This stuff doesn't make you gag. Isn't that fun?

Also, it doesn't treat its fruit flavor like a serial killer. There's a reasonable proportion of banana flavor to cinnamon. Meanwhile, Apple Cinnamon Cheerios is not so even.

Apparently, Banana Nut Cheerios appeared before, but it must be better now because of technology, improved weightlifting regimens and other stuff that have generally boosted its athleticism over previous generations. 

6. Cheerios Oat Crunch Cinnamon

This cereal is gruff, but not rough. The cinnamon hits you for real, but is balanced with honey, sugar and various grain flavor so that you don't feel overwhelmed. It's also not as hard or thick as other cereals. This justifies having 40 grams of carbohydrates and 14 grams of sugar by boasting four grams of fiber. Oh, and actual flavor, unlike Multigrain Cheerios. 

This combines hardiness, taste and adventure in a way matched by few.

5. Maple Cheerios 

This was introduced at the peak of fall, just when maple harvesters started thinking about what they probably should be accomplishing  (maple season is not when you might expect, as tapping season occurs from February to April). Maple Cheerios slaps your tastebuds hard. No one has ever tasted a fuller, more saturated syrup-flavored cereal. At no point in the bowl does the flavor stop. This is complete, tasty and … healthy.

4. Honey Nut Cheerios

I have probably eaten more than 10,000 bowls of Honey Nut Cheerios in my life. Every single one was honey-smacking and vaguely nutty, leaving behind a respectable honey milk at the end (which the Bible promises in various verses to those who trust in the Lord, ostensibly meaning Honey Nut Cheerios is the cereal sent down from heaven). Honey Nut Cheerios is every bit as healthy and heart-happy as regular Cheerios, but no one ever felt beset by blandness after polishing off a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios.

3. Blueberry Cheerios

Like other real fruit flavors of the Cheerios brand, nothing flavors this but real blueberries (and a couple other natural flavors; believe me they're so natural they'll tell you). This comes at your tongue with thick blueberry taste. Blueberry Pancake Crunch was soft on blueberry aura, while this goes hard. Blueberry Cheerios don’t give up until you give up. Also, it’s truly odiferous. If I weren’t so high on the smell, I’d use a softer adjective.

2. Peanut Butter Chocolate Cheerios

Smoothness and fullness of flavor are values to be demonstrated in a peanut butter chocolate cereal. This stuff has that, unlike Peanut Butter Chocolate Corn Pops (which is a lie, as far as any cereal can be). The chocolate flavor in Peanut Butter Chocolate Cheerios is resonant and blends well with the peanut butter flavor. The cereal goes down easy and can be enjoyed endlessly. No question, you will eat it in the bowl in the morning (but don’t detract from the flavor by pouring chocolate milk on it) and scooping handfuls in the afternoon. Both ways are equally pleasant.

1. Chocolate Cheerios

When General Mills introduced chocolate into Cheerios, it brought love into the world. Chocolate brings character to everything it touches, and it blesses this form of Cheerios in the utmost. No shortcoming in taste can be found. Afterwards, the cereal leaves a milk that is almost as fervent as actual chocolate milk. This cereal was so satisfying that I ate three-quarters of a box on a long drive.