#see previous post i spent years immersed in these issues

[wild-at-mind]

Btw you might see me using the term ‘MRA-lite’ and wonder what it means. It’s a term I use for people who are kind of MRA adjacent, and may end up there at some point, due to the ideas they are escousing; however I don’t call them MRAs because that term has become associated with being hateful, and often violent or dangerous towards women. People who are more MRA-lite I do not think are hateful, let alone violent or dangerous. They are just encountering some (very old, tedious and missing a lot of background context) ideas and saying ‘why is no one talking about this???’ very earnestly.

[utterdisaster1]

The Teenage Foolishness

Pairing: Sirius Black x male!reader angst at certain point, kinda smut at another. If you haven't read the previous post/chapter whatever, Y/N is muggle-born

Hope you like it! TW: use of Y/N, internalised homophobia, pining, erotic thoughts, erotic things in general, AMAB! reader, swearing, mentions of war, mentions of toxic family

After the first year, the following two were not particularly remarkable. That is not to say that the days were mundane, or that nothing interesting ever happened; rather, you were immersed in a routine devoid of anything exceptional to distinguish it.

You and the rest of the Marauders—a nickname coined by Lily of all people - "Unbelievable! You cost us 50 points, and for what?! Marauding around the castle like vagabonds… I cannot comprehend what is so special or enjoyable about being as much of a nuisance as Peeves!" - continued to pursue your intention of making the most of your years at the school, pranking those who deserved it (mainly the Slytherins) and not taking life too seriously

At times, you felt that James and Sirius, in particular, went a little overboard in targeting a specific individual, but simultaneously, he gave as good as he got, so you did not see much issue with the clear rivalry between your group and Severus Snape.

You continued to learn, to excel, and to immerse yourself in magical education, relentless in your persuit of knowing everything.

In your third year, you began tutoring some first-years in Transfiguration and Charms. You also encountered your first struggle - Arithmancy.

You chose it alongside Ancient Runes and Care of Magical Creatures as your electives, thinking it wouldn’t be too challenging.

You did enjoy the Creatures class the most and found Ancient Runes, which included lessons on enchanting objects, warding, and curse-breaking, truly fascinating. You were always eager for those classes.

But Arithmancy… You thought it would simply be wizarding maths, but it was far from that. You barely scraped by in it and fully intended to drop it before fifth year. Spell-crafting be damned; if you had to read one more paragraph on the properties of numbers and shapes, you felt like you might spontaneously combust. And preparing for an OWL in it… that would be unbearable.

Another struggle that began in third year was dealing with feelings. Suddenly, you started experiencing peculiar emotions. Of course, there had been boys who caught your eye before, but it had never been significant. However, the affections you might have had, or not, seemed to grow in intensity.

Suddenly, instead of a mere sense of admiration, a deep longing emerged. You would catch yourself imagining how delightful it would be to walk hand in hand with them, to embrace them, to kiss them, to…

Even with the knowledge that your proclivities were not frowned upon in the wizarding world, the years you spent before joining it had conditioned you to feel guilt and denial. It felt as though you were being pushed by shame from one side and encouragement from the other, leaving no space for action.

So you suppressed those feelings, turning to those shameful late-night moments in which you inflicted some self-pleasure upon yourself.

You felt guilty thinking about schoolmates that way. The only comfort was that it usually wasn’t someone you were particularly close with, so objectifying them wasn’t thrown in your face the next morning.

Then the fifth year arrived, and with it, a very changed, taller, better-built Sirius.

He said he had spent most of his summer at his uncle Alphard's house, which had a Quidditch pitch nearby, allowing him to fly and work out every day. Training for his Beater position on the Quidditch team involved a lot of work from his arm and chest muscles.

And what a sight those muscles were, when he took his outer robe off, leaving only a thin dress shirt on. They were enthralling to watch, and it took you greater effort than fighting any duel, facing any Slytherin, or preparing for any exam to avert your gaze elsewhere.

It didn't help that he paid particular attention to you. There was something in his gaze that made you want to squirm.

It's worth mentioning you changed over the summer too. You barely had to lift your head now to look your dad straight in the eyes (which came with your mum droning on about needing to buy an entirely new wardrobe for you since all your clothes were too short). Your face became thinner, and your jawline more pronounced. You would often run, not from schoolmates, but for the simple release of pent-up energy from being deprived of magic (you would curse whoever it was that created the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery, if they were still alive) and worrying about a possible raid from Death Eaters all summer.

You did try to act casual. But you were also 16. And suddenly, when the night came, the only thoughts you had, were of him.

His nature didn't help either. He was always affectionate with touch - an arm around your shoulder when walking together, his head always resting on someone's lap while relaxing on the couches in the Gryffindor common room. He did that with all of his friends.

So it meant he did it with you as well. In those moments, you begged to be back in the Arithmancy classroom, listening to lectures about numerological transcendence or whatever else you couldn't grasp, because it would still be easier than withstanding the force of Sirius Black's friendly affection. Friendly.

You always made sure to keep the outer robes on, so you could cover your crotch and the erection that occured whenever he tugged you closer to him or rested his head on your arm.

After one very close call, when he laid his head on your lap, you realised it had become essential never to sit next to him again. Not as long as you felt the way you did. It didn't help that the thoughts of his mouth so close to that particular area contributed to your unseemly activities later that evening and were followed by a sense of shame when you saw him the next morning while preparing to go down for breakfast.

And even if you told yourself that you were dealing with this insufferable infatuation, you couldn't help but feel jealous of the people who sparked Sirius' interest. You weren't the only person who had noticed how he had changed over the summer, after all.

It seemed every other week there would be a new girl clutching onto him like a lifeline. And considering the affection he showed his friends, you shouldn't have been surprised by how flagrant he was with them.

The shameless make-out sessions, blatant touching, and disgusting displays like feeding each other were hard to ignore. But over time, you got used to it. You didn't accept it, but it was just something that happened, yet another flaw in the world. It still was better than the fact that there was an actual war happening outside the school halls, a war against people like you, or rather, about ridding the world of people like you.

But then, one day, Sirius showed up for lunch with a boy. A Ravenclaw, one year above you. All of you were confused. And confusion turned into many different emotions when the ministrations that Sirius' girlfriends received were extended to him.

If you felt uneasy before, now you were actually physically sick. You wanted to vomit, to break something, or rather someone.

Ironically, one of the few comforts you had in the entire situation was knowing that if you never stood a chance with him, it wasn't because of your appearance or any other personal attribute, but simply because he was exclusively into girls. This made it easier to avoid letting yourself fantasise about being with him. At that point, however, the reality stung more sharply—knowing that he chooses not to have an interest in you, despite being open to it. It just made it all more painful.

So you quickly excused yourself and exited the Hall. You didn't run and cry, thinking about jumping off the astronomy tower like some heartsick, stupid people would do. You weren't sad. You were angry. Furious. Livid. Violent.

You hadn't noticed Remus going after you, all the way to the Forbidden Forest. You hadn't noticed him as you were throwing all known curses and hexes at a large pile of rocks, annihilating it in the process.

But after you were done, and decided to go back, there he stood. With this look of pity. Maybe you weren't as subtle as you thought, or maybe it was him being his usual, too perceptive self.

"I would say that it gets better, but I'm not going to start lying to you," he said.

"Are you- Do you- You too? With Sirius, I mean," you replied.

"Merlin no!" and after a short pause, "Well, maybe a little last year. But it went out the window after he insulted Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, massive turn-off," he said, the last part with a scoff, "And I'm more partial to the fair sex, being honest with you."

"How long have you known?" you asked.

"You know how my senses are heightened? Due to- you know. Well, some stronger emotions have the slightest scents that I can detect. They don't really compare to any normal ones… well, the technicalities don't really matter. Arousal is one of those scents, and I smelled it off of you while you were looking at him in the distance once or twice."

"Well, thank you for not calling me out on it," you said with the slightest of smiles. At that point, you also had to ask, because you knew it would nag you forever, "So if you can actually smell emotions, that means that things like…" You didn't exactly know how to ask whether he could smell you wank in the night, so you just made a gesture. He didn't seem unsettled by your question, to his credit.

"Oh, yeah, at first it was quite uncomfortable, but you weren't the first one to do it... Sirius was always hyper and he is the oldest, I suppose," he said, then continued, "I learned a spell to shield my bed from all smells in Second Year, but I forget to cast it sometimes," he said while rubbing the nape of his neck.

"Well, I've never felt more sorry for you, especially with Peter's dirty socks..." you said.

“Yes, well, it comes with living with four other teenage boys. But I’m the one who’s supposed to comfort you right now, not the other way around,” he said with a small laugh.

“You did say it wouldn’t just get better, as if from experience… Who were you that angry about? You, the calmest, most reasonable and even-tempered Gryffindor in history.”

“There was one particular girl that Sirius had dated about a month ago, and now even if I did try to ask her out, I’d be asking Sirius’ ex out. It did irk me, knowing he would drop her after a week or so anyway.”

“A shame you hadn’t told me; then we could wallow in self-pity together,” you chuckled a little. Maybe Freud was onto something with his “just talk about it and it will get better.” Although, you were also quite tired, so maybe there was simply no energy for anger at the moment.

“Do you want to smash some things too? I could conjure more rocks if you’d like,” you asked.

He smiled. “No, but I will tell you if I do. Let’s head back; I think we’re already late for Potions.”

You groaned. “Fuck Potions, we’re both rubbish at it anyway. Besides, I don’t know if I have it in me not to throw some beetle eyes or something equally disgusting at him right now.” You said this as you started walking back towards the castle.

“I am a prefect, you know,” Remus replied.

“Oh? So I suppose it wasn’t you who turned Mulciber’s hair into snakes yesterday?” you responded with a small chuckle.

He just huffed but didn’t rebut.

______________________________________________________________

What you and Remus failed to talk about and consider were appearances. There was nothing out of the ordinary with Remus’, but you, however, looked as if you’d just emerged from a fighting ring - messy hair, ruffled clothes, and scratches from the rock shards that you hadn’t even registered.

After worried questions stemming from a calm, “What happened?” from Peter, to James’ intense, “Did someone do this to you?! Tell. Me. Who!” you just said you’d fallen down the stairs, and Remus had taken you to the infirmary, which explained your absence during Potions class. And since it was just a theory lesson, you doubted Slughorn noticed or cared much.

The rest of the day, after fixing yourself up in the bathroom, you tried to act as usual. And it mostly worked. But, as seemed to be the pattern of the day, Sirius disrupted your attempts at casualness. It wasn’t his fault per se, since you always sat together in Defence Against the Dark Arts. Normally, you would chat and joke, having already mastered the subject. But today, you didn’t even want to see him, let alone talk to him.

Sirius wasn’t stupid, nor as self-conceited as some believed. He noticed the lack of banter and witty responses from you and asked, “Are you okay? You seem a little off today.”

Clearly he didn’t connect the dots that your being "a little off" might be related to your supposed fall down the stairs. His mind was probably preoccupied with that Ravenclaw arsewipe he had shown up with, making it clear he was bi.

So you simply responded, “I’m fine,” and started taking notes. This really set Sirius off, because you never did that in Defence class. By Fourth Year, you had enough knowledge and skill to score an Outstanding in NEWT for the subject. You had even ventured into Knockturn Alley to buy books on martial magic, most containing curses only found in the restricted section of the school library. He knew why you were so determined to master this area of magic. With raids, disappearances, and murders reported every other day, who wouldn’t be?

Sirius thought that maybe something else had happened other than the fall, but what could it be? No one dared to challenge you to a duel or sneak up on you after you sent the youngest Yaxley brother to the infirmary with so many afflictions and injuries he didn’t get out until a week later (you only got three nights of detention since it was technically self-defence after he tried to use the body-bind curse on you from behind first. The Gryffindor privilege probably played a part in that as well). You didn’t seem to be under a side-effect of pain medicine either.

He only realized the lesson was over because of your abrupt departure the moment the bell rang.

But there was someone with you when whatever happened had occurred - Remus. He had the answers, and Sirius was adamant about finding out the truth. But when he turned towards the desk Remus sat at, it was empty as well.

Suspicious.

Both of you disappearing halfway through the day and then coming back disheveled with a very convenient story... Could you...? Together?

Now, with his mind racing, Sirius reached the only plausible conclusion: it became clear he was into guys too, and one of you must have gotten jealous, so you sorted it out. The idea that Remus could have been the one to be with you like that, while Sirius was left out, sparked something he never wanted to feel about any of his friends - jealousy.

He loved Moony, don't get him wrong. But it was you and him that always had a little stack of letters after the holidays for each other, since neither could send them during the summer. "Merlin! I didn't know we had some summer essays set to write. What will we do, Pete?" James would always laugh. It was you and him that hated going away from Hogwarts because the castle was where you truly felt at home. It was you and him that sat together by the Black Lake in you spot, sharing those quiet moments that seemed to stretch into forever.

Why wouldn't you consider him for something more, then? He wasn't a saint, he knew that. But he also had access to mirrors, and he was a friend as long as Moony was.

And he had to admit, when he saw you on the train in September, desire surged through him. But you never seemed to look at him too long, let alone show any sign of actual interest. So he tried what he had seen work on those desperate girls and used all the tricks he had. But those attempts only seemed to turn you off, making you retreat from him. He recalled that evening when he laid his head on your lap, asking you to braid or play with his hair, and instead of blushing and giggling like those girls did, you immediately needed to get back to the dorm, claiming there was "a book you forgot to return to the library, and you better run before Madam Pince closes it" or some other excuse. After that, you avoided sitting next to him, except for during class.

When he saw you could defend yourself from the baby death eaters - commonly known as Slytherins - he stopped pretending not to associate with you. He was openly best friends with a "blood traitor," which, in his parents' eyes, was as bad as being a "filthy little Mudblood." So, he would get punished anyway.

He cherished the surprise on your face when he sat next to you at the Sorting Ceremony, the delight in your eyes when you realised he wasn’t playing the charade he had in First Year.

He was always honest with you. He never felt it important to discuss his sexuality, especially since you never mentioned yours. He assumed you shared his sentiment. But now it was clear that you had discussed it with someone - just not him. Maybe you and Remus had a special spot as well? Or maybe, the spot by the lake was only special to Sirius, and you came there only when dear Remus was too busy, or worse, out of pity, because Sirius would sit there sometimes, hoping you would appear.

He hated that feeling. You were his friends. He shouldn't be mad at you two being close, being together. But he was. He was angry with you, and he was even more furious with himself.

Maybe if he just mellowed down his advances, you would start to show similiar affection towards him as well? Or maybe you did feel it, but was just awkward about it and he hadn't noticed?

And then there were the flings.

So on one hand, you might be plainly uninterested, wanting nothing more than friendship. On the other, you might have been interested, but he had ruined it.

He had ruined it all, just as he always seemed to. His mother had often said so. His father, his br- Regulus, never disagreed.

He didn't ever realise he was now alone, with tears glistening in his eyes, heading towards nowhere in particular

______________________________________________________________

The rest of the week was tense for the Marauders. Sirius retreated as he had after his first Howler back in First Year. Fortunately, this time he already had James. Pete stuck by him too, offering snacks in the evenings and welcome distractions. Both of them knew Peter didn’t need help with Herbology, yet he asked Sirius for it, for example.

Not that you and Remus were there to witness most of these moments. You were cooped up in the library, sometimes together with Lily, Marlene, and Mary.

You didn’t know if it was just instinct or if you were that easy to read, but the three girls took to comforting you as well. Your study sessions continued with the addition of Lily’s dormmates, which made things much more fun, but also much riskier, since Madam Pince didn’t take kindly to any disturbances of silence, and snickering was very much a disturbance.

One evening, Marlene said that when she was sad she did her first piercing by herself. She mentioned it off-handedly, while being scolded by Lily and Mary for getting her nose infected - that attempt was not as successful as the first one “or numerous following ones!” Marlene didn’t fail to add.

So, when you were returning to the common room, you asked her which piercing wasn’t too painful and if she would be willing to do it for you. She eagerly agreed, recommending helix piercings since earlobes were “too obvious.”

And as much as it wasn’t the most pleasant experience, it wasn’t too bad either. You settled for piercings in each ear. Marlene said it was fate, since the Hogsmeade trip would be happening in two days. You would be able to buy your own jewellery, wearing hers for now.

You were barely the first person to have some alterations to their appearance done, so it didn’t gain much attention from most, only your friends, who you didn’t have many of, especially since three of your dormmates seemed engrossed with something they were sharing with neither you nor Remus. Even Mary said you looked "dashing", and with her being one of the icons (Marlene had called her a guru) of style by that point, you knew it really meant something.

You saw the dark circles under Sirius’ eyes, as well as how puffy they were. You wanted to comfort him, truly you did. He was your friend, first and foremost. But now, it seemed he was avoiding you. You thought of cornering him somehow but thought better of it. One can’t make Sirius Black do or say anything he doesn’t want to do. And he did not take kindly to attempts at trying.

So, you left him be and didn’t address any of the occasional looks you got from him with anything else but, what you hoped was, a comforting smile.

The trip to Hogsmeade was as eventful as any other, but with you not only buying earrings but some rings as well. You made sure none were made of silver, mindful of Moony.

The Sunday, however, proved to be something entirely else. You were planning on writing the Potions essay and reading the latest issue of Transfiguration Today. You hoped there would be at least something more than a mere mention of the Animagus process, having found only some sparse remarks on it in the books you’d read in the library so far.

There was always the Restricted Section, but you needed the Cloak for that, and James was always with Sirius.

And as much of a pain as it was to write about the Draught of Peace, it was one of the possible potions to brew for your OWL exam, and you needed one in Potions, no matter how much you loathed the idea of studying the subject at NEWT level. But you needed the NEWT to be allowed into the Auror Training, and complaining would get you nowhere.

But when you were finally done and reached for the magazine on your nightstand, the dorm room burst open, and in came James, Peter, and Sirius. And they came with purpose.

“Right, we’re going to settle this. You,” James pointed at you and Sirius, “will stay in this room until you’re okay again. I will let you starve to death if I have to.” And with that, he came out, locking the door.

You looked at Sirius and didn’t know what else to say but, “Always with dramatics, that one.”

Sirius didn’t respond at first, just looked at you for some time. You avoided his stare, which clearly was the wrong thing to do, seeing what he asked you next.

“Why can’t you even look at me?” he said in a tone much more broken than Sirius should sound like. You had only witnessed a few times over the five years you’d known each other. So you did look at him, straight in the eyes, and responded.

“Of course I can look at you.” You really didn’t know how to handle this. You didn’t even know what exactly it was about.

“Since we returned in September, you don’t want to, though,” after a short pause, he asked, “We’re friends, right? Friends tell each other things.”

“Of course we’re friends. Why would you question that?” you said immediately.

He looked at you, intensely, expectantly. But you really didn’t know what he could want you to say. There was no way he knew about your crush, right?

Seeing that he wasn’t going to receive what he had hoped for, he said with a clipped tone, “Then why didn’t you tell me about you and Remus? Or James and Pete, for that matter?”

Now you were really bewildered. You wanted to ask what he meant, but he clearly wasn’t finished.

“I bet you told Marls and the other two, though, always hanging around with each other now. I mean, I could understand if you’d just started and were figuring things out, but once you’re having sex, I think it’s serious enough to mention it to people you claim are your family!” he finished, shouting.

“What do you- Are- Sex!? With who!?”

“Well, Moony of course, unless you were doing it with Marlene in the third-floor bathroom on Thursday too!”

"For fuck's sake, have you taken something!? Or is this some very elaborate prank!?" You didn’t allow him to respond just yet. "I’m not having sex with anyone, I’m not in a relationship with anyone, Marlene only pierced my ears," you said, pointing at your ears. "And I really don’t think that Remus fetching me from the Forbidden Forest is that significant to mention!"

Sirius seemed surprised. You rarely screamed or shouted, preferring to just hex someone if they were going too far. Of all the questions now flooding his mind, he asked,

"What were you doing in the Forbidden Forest?"

"I was smashing up some rocks, if it’s that important to you. And I left the centaurs one of the phoenix feathers I found last year in the Astronomy Tower, along with a very sincere apology letter the next day, so I doubt they’ll want to hunt me down. It was only a pile of rocks anyway; I made sure not to harm any trees or animals."

"Why?"

"You know centaurs are the ones that planted and protect the forest. They demand respect. I doubt me coming in all unreasonable and entitled to destroy parts of it, even as irrelevant as a pile of-" At that, he interrupted you.

"I don’t care about the centaurs! Why were you wrecking rocks, and if that’s what happened on Monday, why are you cross with me?"

"I— I’m not cross with you, and it doesn’t matter why. It’s stupid, and I’m dealing with it."

"Maybe I could help, you know. Or at least you could have told me."

You were getting sick of his apparent entitlement to all your issues and that, mixed with still not fully gone anger at him over the Ravenclaw, prompted you to say with a clipped tone, "Well, you seem pretty preoccupied these days. I wouldn’t want to get groped by accident."

His eyes widened, cheeks reddened, and his mouth opened and closed in a repeated cycle. He was visibly thinking about what to say next.

"Is that why you’ve been avoiding me? Seeing me with those girls?"

You barely even registered saying, "You forgot the Ravenclaw already?"

At that you saw a hint of a smirk on his face, but what was more noticeable was the step he took towards you. "Did it bother you? Seeing me like that?"

Oh, you definitely didn’t like the direction this conversation was going. So you quickly tried to escape the looming vision of actually confessing your feelings to him.

"Who wouldn’t be bothered? People do go to that Hall to eat their food. You and whoever else was your conquest of the week were trying to eat each other."

He only inched closer. "No one else was demolishing the forest because of that, though, were they?"

You faltered. You were losing this argument, and you’d have to go past Sirius to reach your wand, which you had inconveniently left on the bed.

"You know, a lot of things just started to make sense to me..." He was almost within touching distance.

"Well, enlighten me then," you said, hoping your tone was more confident than you felt.

"The way you distanced yourself, wouldn’t look at me too long... I thought I might have done something bad or wrong, but now I’m realising," and after a pause, in a much huskier tone, "I actually might have done the opposite."

He did touch you now, caressing your arm. "I’m going to ask you something, Y/N, and I need you to be honest." The hand went from your arm to your chin, directing your head to look him in the face. You hadn’t realised you had been looking just past his shoulder for most of that monologue.

The only thing you did realise, was that Sirius was tall.

"If I kissed you right now, would you return it?"

You were overwhelmed. And, more importantly, starting to get hard. No.

But apparently, your subconscious decided to answer for you, and you nodded.

Sirius didn’t wait a second. He leaned in, practically attacking your mouth.

The kiss was rough, with teeth clashing at first. You supposed it was probably clumsy, but you didn’t have anything to compare it with.

You tried to mimic what Sirius was doing, and in a moment of daring (you were still a Gryffindor, after all), you bit his lower lip, eliciting a low groan from Sirius.

You usually learned best through practice, and kissing apparently wasn’t an exception. You became more confident with each second his lips moved with yours, and when you felt his tongue brush against your lower lip, you instinctively opened your mouth.

The tongue slipped in immediately, accompanied by a satisfied hum from Sirius. It was strange, the sensation of it in your mouth at first, against your own. But you quickly found yourself enjoying it, and the fact that his hands were now firmly on your waist, running up and down, certainly didn’t discourage you.

For someone who detested the very thought of being overpowered, you surprisingly enjoyed Sirius’ dominant position right now.

You rested your arms on his shoulders and started running your right hand through the hair on the back of his head, eliciting another groan, of satisfaction, you hoped.

You began to move your tongue along with his, and sooner than you realised, it became a battle. You were growing more and more eager to explore his mouth as well.

The fact that you were currently making out with your long-term crush was not lost on you, nor did it fail to make you even more aroused with each passing second. You had imagined a moment like this many times. In fact, you had imagined many other moments, and seeing how physical Sirius was, there was a big chance of them turning into memories or maybe, if you dared to think, regular occurrences.

In fact, you wouldn’t settle for anything less. You were not interested in becoming one of many in the long line of Sirius Black’s dalliances, as Remus liked to say sometimes.

And so, with great effort - both in actually willing yourself to do it, as well as managing against Sirius’ strength - you pulled away.

His eyes were half-lidded, pupils dilated, but a brow started to rise in question.

"I’m not ruining our friendship for a week of fun with you, Sirius," you said, still breathless, but it was clear you were being frank right now.

"I’m not either," he responded. "I want it to be more," he said.

"What are you saying?" you asked with a smirk, knowing very well what, but still wanting to hear it.

He rolled his eyes playfully. "And you complained about James’ flair for dramatics," he said, and immediately dropped to one knee and took your hand. "Y/N L/N, will you, the breathtaking vision of enchanting beauty, the enthralling light of brilliance, do me the honour of allowing me to become your partner in love and life?" he asked in an over-dramatic tone.

You laughed and said in the same manner, "Sirius Black, your words have melted my heart completely. I’d be thrilled to become your boyfriend."

He pretended to cry, followed by a quite amusing spectacle of pretending to die out of sheer joy, and then stood up, held you to him, and kissed you again, this time more tenderly. This kiss didn’t seem desperate but wasn’t chaste in any way either. You pulled him closer by his shirt, having your chests press together. He seemed very satisfied with it.

He was starting to pull your sweater off when the doors burst open with James in the front yet again, this time shrieking. Remus, who apparently joined him and Peter in the common room during your time alone with Sirius, said, "Turns out you were right, they were suffocating each other... Not in the way you predicted though," he added with a low chuckle.

Peter’s face was as red as a beet, and James just stared. After a while, he said, "I call you both my brothers, so it’s incest, you know. I’ll tell my mum."

"You’re just worried I’ll cut into your cuddle time with him," you said to James, receiving a laugh from Remus and a smirk from Sirius that contradicted his severe tone.

"He could never cut into that, Jamie, you don’t have to worry."

James decided to just shove him with a laugh as a response.

[sproutysprout]

"Grief" [fanmade OST] [Ragbros angst]

" The night when the Cavalry Captain bid farewell to his brother, the Lone Sojourner, who shall finally rest from the burdens thrust upon him by fate. "

This piece was inspired by this lovely artwork by Fain that I saw way back when:

I immediately sat and binge-wrote this tune, which I have since polished up a bit and posted! I hope you enjoy. (any and all feedback is appreciated, as usual)

more on my twitter (@glazelilybloom) demo version on my soundcloud (@i-get-misty)

Under the cut you can find the scene how I was roughly imagining it, for greater immersion:

It was a rainy night when his brother found him, and Diluc's strength had been almost completely spent. He was sitting upright, leaning against a tree looking out onto Dawn Winery, unable to move. Kaeya knelt in front of him. The gashes and blood he saw elicited a pound in his chest. They both knew this was it. Kaeya embraced his brother, hesitating at first as if he was made of thin glass, about to break. To Kaeya's surprise, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Then there was a voice. Thanking him for the childhood they had, and for never abandoning him even after all these years. Kaeya forcefully chuckled, fighting back a sob. "Heh, you didn't think I'd just let you go without reminding you of that time you broke dad's vase?" Diluc let out a strained laugh. "Or how about that time when we were playing pirates and you spilled juice all over dad's correspondence with the Grand Master?". Diluc closed his eyes, still smiling. A sharp exhale replaced his previous chuckle. "Or that time when you-". Silence. "Diluc?" No response. "Hey- hey, Diluc!" No response. "Captain-". Kaeya broke down and kept calling for his brother, but to no avail. Upon seeing the state of him, Varka stepped in and tried to separate the two. Right now, there were other issues to deal with. Other battles to fight. Loss is the prerequisite to grief, and grief takes time, he knew this, but in situations such as this one, it will have to wait. The Grand Master urged his subordinates to keep moving, and the Cavalry Captain stood up. As the battalion followed their commander, Kaeya lingered behind ever so slightly, reluctant to leave his brother. Even though the Grand Master was right, the grief did not wait. It lingered.

[a-kaash-me-outside]

dear author im gonna be real with u right now.. I couldn’t bring myself to fully read the rest of the chapter when it was clear there wasn’t going to be any clean up of the angst like you’d said. there was barely an acknowledgement of the angst from y/n herself. I physically cringed when I realized she was literally about to put his dick in her mouth before it had time to dry off from the previous girl ahhhh at this point it isn’t even about seeing atsumu grovel or whatever like we had all joked and bantered about after the last chapter, it was the shitty way he spoke to her that needed addressing, which he himself barely addressed, and y/n straight up didn’t even think she deserved an apology in the first place which absolutely blew my mind. and the straight nosedive into the smut when immediately prior to that both characters had been super shaken up mentally and emotionally, it felt rushed and forced and like I was trying to be convinced that it would be plausible for people to have sex right after something like that.

just last chapter these two dingle berries couldn’t communicate for shit and could barely make it through an argument without waking up the entire floor, and we all spent the past week talking about how we should try and understand where the characters are coming from because being 100% at communicating just isn’t realistic and then.. a couple hours later in story time atsumu jarringly has the ability to be calm and apologize and confess his feelings and y/n suddenly decides she no longer is an avoidant person and has the courage to knock on his door and hash things out face to face. both these characters were able to do a 180 immediately after the climax of the story with minimal effort and address what they had been unable and unwilling to for the past few weeks/months. which conveniently was the last remaining plot device that was preventing them from having sex haha. I dunno. the deus ex machina-ness of it all and their sudden good communication skills made it really hard to keep myself immersed in the story 

at one point I thought, alright wait maybe its one of those times where the character’s passionate emotions get in the way initially, and afterwards the characters will get serious and there’ll be a genuine acknowledgement of hurt feelings and a thought out conclusion to the entire angst plotline.. and then the story just ended? in the most cop out-ey way? the single conversation where the audience would be able to actually see the most character development between the leads happens off screen..idk. maybe i’m being emotional and I should pick it up again in a few hours. i’m genuinely invested in the story but the chain of events in the last chapter threw me for a loop.

yoooooo. okay. let's dive into this my dude. i was contemplating even replying to this just because!!! this is just my silly little fic that i wrote. okay. let's dive in. <3 explanations and thoughts under the cut babes!

i guess first of all i want to say that this is something i wrote for fun for my fiance. i just posted it on tumblr because fuck it! why not! i wrote 75k words, i can share em. and i did! i didn't do it for pinpoint accuracy or a completely fleshed out, super perfect relationship.

i do also want to point out that i'm in a very secure, super cool relationship with someone whom i trust very much. i'm a pretty decent communicator and a very confident person (who still gets insecure sometimes). i guess my point in saying all of that is like, yea! i get that this story isn't the pinnacle of perfect communication, but i think it is at least somewhat realistic.

some of it is weird and whatever, sure, i'm not denying that, but to say these characters did a 180 is definitely not true. these are two people that really did completely care for one another despite not being able to properly communicate it or skating around issues or reading things in certain ways that the other did not.

setting it in their senior year of college was really important to me because like, they're not fully formed, really great communicators necessarily, they still have flaws but they also understand, to some degree, how to communicate? idk man, communication is weird and awkward and doesn't make sense sometimes.

i speak also kinda of experience too. i don't think yn was ever an avoidant person? i mean, yea, there was an element of just doing what she wanted to do without fully communicating her fears, but i mean.. that's life my guy. i don't think it's ever about courage when it comes to her. it's more about like this line of before and after? the moment of too far? a realization turned anxiety to fix something.

another thing is that this was never supposed to be a chaptered fic, but it was always going to have this conflict as the main point of conflict. which meant more developing feelings than originally planned to be honest which is great but also meant that like the conflict is a bit more jarring. BUT

i guess! i'm just happy with how the story turned out and i'm sorry that it wasn't completely realistic for you and you couldn't get into it completely! i'm proud of my story and the way that it all plays out. after all, it is just a story!

i'm never mad at people for coming into my inbox and letting me know their thoughts and stuff and this isn't an exception. though, i just will say, like, i'm not exactly sure what you wanted to completely convey with the message, perhaps? i guess intention and goal is a bit confusing to me! but!! regardless!!

my tldr of this whole thing is: i'm happy with how it turned out, it's just a silly little story, and i'm sorry that it didn't develop as you wanted/expected! /gen

[dashawfrostart]

This Week In "Time & Again" #12: It's Alive... Alive! Honest! And A Little Sour, And A Bit Sweet!

Guten Fhtagn! It's been... a while again.

(this is just a colourful teaser for you now, because it feels silly to make a post that starts with a wall of text - even though I personally love walls of text. Keep reading and you'll find out why those weird empty rectangles are here! And as I often do: there's an animated GIF in the end of the post!) Lately, life has sucked me into a giant cycle of great and lush eventfulness. Kinda as if I hopped into a funnel and then swirled around a bit. I might even say it was fun (haha, fun funnel 😁 What, not funny?.. Lame?.. Aah, well then). So, below goes a straightforward chronological report on what happened to "Time & Again" during this long looooong period of my blogging hiatus.

2 weeks ago I've actually spent only a few days working on "Time & Again" - much less than anticipated. As I always say, life usually takes away so much time from art!.. 🤣 However, it's always a choice. Because I'm not drawing 24/7; never did, and perhaps never will - because otherwise I'll never go birding, among other things. And birding is love. Birding makes Frosty happy. I wanna see more nuthatches and northern flickers around me, preferably every day, when possible. Too much to ask? Yes! But life is always about setting priorities straight and meticulously balancing the things you love and want to do. Because something always goes first, and something other goes second (third, fourth, etc.). So that is what I'm trying my best to do here.

But that was only half of the problem. The other half of the problem was about my futile endeavour to relight the creative spark that was seemingly extinguished over the course of the previous 2 weeks - perhaps due to the reasons mentioned above in this post. I'm always very hesitant to take breaks as I work on my projects, because it breaks immersion - and getting back into the mood again might pose a serious challenge. That is exactly how some of my novels/stories failed to see the light of day in the past. Now, since the work on Chapter 5 is nearing to its end - yes, it's almost done!!! - it's just very disappointing to slow down and having to look for the spilt marbles on the floor (however, Lothar, personally, will definitely benefit from at least TRYING to find his own marbles 🤦‍♀️ dear goodness, that man is indomitable). The work still went well, but without excitement I previously had. And I perpetually have serious problems trying to figure out a personal cure for the "lack of spark" issue: not even once in my entire life have I found a resolution that works wonders like a panacea for me in situations like that.

That said, with all of the distractions and not-exactly-creative events with myself in the epicentre, I managed to keep my word and created a Krita forum thread featuring majority of WIP screenshots from Chapter 5, which you can view following that link. Now, my only objective in this regard is to keep updating it 😁 (what I'm kinda failing at recently)

While not being exactly productive with "Time & Again" - that is only up until this week (read ahead) - in the meantime I have reconsidered a couple things that are related to the artistic part of my existence. One of the decisions was to take down the links to my DeviantArt account sometime after this post goes life. The reasoning behind that decision is as simple as an egg: because I don't post anything on DeviantArt anymore. And I keep forgetting to do it anyway. And I keep forgetting simply because it doesn't really matter. In the recent years I perceived DeviantArt to be nothing but a sort of a personal sketch/art dump simply for the sake of gaining more exposure [not really - read an UPD note ahead]. Let's be honest here: DeviantArt is not a good place anymore. It used to be awesome in 2008-2010 or around - for me anyway. But nowadays... Not so much. I don't think I want to delete it yet, for I still want to pop up, perhaps, once or twice a year and dump all the new artworks in there for the future archival purposes - and in case if somebody might be still interested. But for now, I view my DA account as an almost completely dormant collection of trash masterpieces of yore. So I will stop promoting it for the reason of it being obsolete like the morning dew beneath your feet in its current state. (holy effing smokies, that song was very difficult to find to provide a link to! 😱) [UPD 2024/03/12]: my aim with this was originally a bit off - which I realized only now. Aside from it being a random artworks dump, my decision to keep my DeviantArt account alive was precisely for linking back to it: meaning, I was thinking about uploading artworks on there in order to specifically use them in my posts and on the websites. So, yes, it is a relatively dormant collection, but also a convenient stash of art things to utilize elsewhere (thank you, id Software, for teaching me this word! 🤣). I'll see if that really works out in the future tho.

There's also something else that I don't to reveal just yet, and I'll keep it a secret for now 😉 I must try something before I jump to conclusions.

HOWEVER!.. This last week has changed the tides considerably, in my favour. Again, having only a very hypothetical and a rather unclear clue on why that happened - what, I must admit, mesmerizes and puzzles me to a great extent - that long-longed-for spark I thought I had lost along the way somehow magically returned back to me after I spent a few hours (and 2 days in total) of writing an arch-important "Notes & Commentary" section for the reissue of all the previous "Time & Again" chapters that is nigh (here, I teased ya. Now live with it 😎🤣). I really like "Time & Again". Even while it's still incomplete. Even if Lothar is just a stubborn a**. Even if a certain other character has quite funky fetishes. Even if Jeanny is perhaps dealing with her own little pinky demons. I really like "Time & Again", and I really enjoy its style, so revisiting the whole thing for the sake of writing additional materials for it quite possibly worked in a positive way on my spark. I love you, my spark. Let's keep it this way for as long as we can from now on. So now the work goes quite well, and I feel very good about it. There's still something troublesome that needs to be dealt with... but that'd be a painful tale for yet another post.

And, of course, I experimented with some Krita stuff again - for it seems, Chapter 5 really marks a period of great technical discoveries for me.

For example, finally, after all these years 😅🤣, I learnt and made a very good use of the toggle "All Layers" and "Current Layer" settings of Contiguous Selection Tool (that'd be your Magic Wand tool, ya Photoshoppers around - including my past self). That helped me to speed up flood fill of the certain areas. Speaking of flood fill and all, I experimented more with the "smart fill" as well. In the previous post, I was dreaming about an advanced AI algorithm to automatically recognize and colour the characters according to a user-prepared colour pallete. I might be exaggerating a bit, but flood-filling flat colours on every page felt almost stupefying - and, in short, not fun. I've read a little about the potentials to automate the process in Krita and have discovered a few neat tricks that I might use to speed up the process of colouring of the next Chapter. But right now - that's a story for another day in the future. And at last, let's talk about the backgrounds. I find it that the backgrounds that are just, let's say, "placeholders" and don't contain the surroundings of the characters are sometimes challenging. And in Chapter 5, there's gonna be plenty of those - because oh boy do I love long conversations! (strong self-awareness and self-mockery go here) And most of these conversations don't even require detailed environments for the backgrounds! Because people are just friggin' talking! And their surroundings don't matter on those particular panels. I've looked through quite a few graphic novels and comics at the local book store to get extra inspirations - but very often I see that the artists simply fill the panel with a solid colour. Completely flat. I must admit, I'm deeply hesitant to do the same, because I like at least a little texture on storywise-insignificant solid colours. It gives... depth.

So this is what I've been doing so far (and yes, you guessed it now! the picture in the very beginning of this post is very relevant here!):

While the "flat solid colour" on the background just seems... too flat, I decided to utilize a gentle gradient as a base, and then to apply additional brush strokes on a separate layer with special blending mode in order to create the effect of imperfection and ever so slightly visible texture to it. After a few sessions of trial and error, and thinking about how it feels and if it matches the mood of the chapter, I ended up using a couple of watercolour and splatter brushes together, in black, and the layer blending mode that I figured worked best for me was Soft Light (SVG). As illustrated by the following GIF:

And LAST (but as usual: not the least, but I won't cover "the least" in this current post for now, for the post is already a fatso - typical, innit?!), I've learnt how to use Filter Layers for the quick colour correction on the go. And this might be extremely useful in a long run for the future chapters of "Time & Again". I might cover this in one of my next posts.

That should be enough for now. So let's summarize: I most certainly did NOT disappear because "Time & Again" ceased to exist, or because I've been abducted by aliens, or because I got carried away giving belly rubs to pinky demons, or anything alike. I disappeared BECAUSE I was working hard on my story, even though at times it didn't go as smooth as I wanted to 😉.

Well, folks, let's wrap it up for today, and see you next time in another blog post! Take care! You will see Lothar in action again soon enuff! 👋

[batslime]

wait what happened to ghost? i'm not a fan i'm just curious

Sorry this is probably more than you were wanting to hear but it requires a little background bc w the theatrical nature of the band and changing lineup it can be a little hard to get the picture at first

The musicians who have been known since the start of the band only as the Nameless Ghouls officially, who were contractually obligated to not discuss their place in Ghost publicly, were granted the go-ahead by Tobias, the frontman and founder, to post unmasked photos and confirm their involvement with Ghost earlier this week!

Historically Tobias has had issues arise with previous ghouls including some that culminated in the rewriting of contracts and a lawsuit. It’s kinda complicated but Tobias’s stance on it as stated in an interview from some years ago was that HE wasn’t even supposed to be publicly known (but was revealed due to the legal battle), and most of any given crowd probably didn’t even know who HE was, not to mention he basically coordinates everything, writes most of the music, makes the financial decisions, takes the big risks etc so he didn’t like the idea of, essentially anybody he chooses to employ as a musician, getting to make themselves the faces of the band and get to represent them as a whole without contributing much and without being part for that long when Tobias has spent so long staking so much into it. From what I’ve heard some previous ghouls were downright difficult to work with too but I don’t know much detail on that.

He’s had the same gaggle of ghouls now since I think about 2016?? With some coming and going. Ghost is obviously not the only project they’ve worked on so over time their identities were found out but most fans in the know have been very respectful of the rules they’re held to as well as the immersion of other fans who don’t know who they are and don’t want to.

Tobias is pretty good friends with some of them including Per Eriksson (known as Fire/ Dewdrop Ghoul by fans) and recently during shows called him by a nickname he has out of the band, Sodomizer, so a lot of fans were thinking that pointed to them unmasking. Him relaxing the contract and obscuring of their identities is a huge deal not only as it kinda solidifies placement in the band but shows a huge amount of trust on Tobias’s part. Most of the ghouls are still pretty small artists, at least one of which even having a Patreon for support, so it feels great to know that they can now claim their place in the band to the world which will undoubtedly lead to many more opportunities for them- this is a wonderful thing for their careers. Maybe we could even start to see them in Ghost content like the chapters (webisodes on their Youtube that contain some of the lore)!

Some people still don’t want to know their identities/ faces as they like the fictional element and while I won’t hold that against people who are respectful about it I honestly do find it a bit selfish. On stage you’re still seeing their personas just like you’re seeing Papa and not Tobias. Suspension of disbelief is still possible- when I know an actor in a movie it doesn’t destroy the character for me. I also already knew their faces and identities when I drew my ghoul face headcanon. This is 100% a good thing and could lead to not only better things for the ghouls and from the band itself, so I just find it a little dumb to try so hard to deny them as individuals lol. They deserve their recognition.

[evilwickedme]

ok so to sum up my feelings for leverage: redemption, season 1(a): (long post warning, there’s a tl;dr at the end)

I knew that Hardison wouldn’t be in most of the season due to Aldis Hodge being a busy bee nowadays, but I didn’t realize that meant he’d only be around for the first two episodes. He was sorely missed, not only because of my attachment to him, but also because he’s usually the grounding factor in the group dynamic, and his role as info guy and tech guy was split evenly between two characters who had their own issues.

That said, Hardison is absolutely a highlight of the two episodes he’s in. his speech about redemption was everything I could’ve hoped for (plus, more evidence for the Jewish!Hardison pile...). I wish we’d gotten to see more of his dynamic with Breanna because what we saw was funny and sweet and we don’t generally get to see Hardison taking care of somebody who so desperately needs taking care of. I hope that Aldis Hodge is around for more episodes in 1(b), because what we’re left with feels a little hollow.

Sticking to original leverage characters for now, for the most part the leverage crew still felt true to the original series as characters, even if the show itself was a little bit confused at times. The actors understand their characters and embody them so well that I think one could give them the trashiest script ever and they’d still sell it. Sophie is a particular focus in 1(a) because of Nate’s death, and she’s particularly well written as a result.

That said, I’m super bitter that we saw little to no mastermind!Parker. Parker’s character being given the mastermind role was a big deal and it feels like they’re walking it back because they feel uncomfortable with it. It is eventually given an in-text excuse, but literally in the last episode, and it was not a particularly convincing reason, and in fact contradicted moments from previous episodes (Sophie leaving for a client meeting and ignoring Parker in ep3 comes to mind). It’s frustrating, it makes the end of the original leverage feel pointless, and letting Parker make a decision once in a while is not the same thing at all. The original series repeatedly showed us that while everyone in the team had their strengths, Parker works problems and solves them in unique, interesting ways, and other characters’ days in the limelight tended to be comedic or even failures. It’s a broken promise, and a pretty major broken promise at that.

On a more positive note, Parker’s dynamic with literally everyone was fantastic. She’s possibly the best written character this season. They’ve taken the autism out of the subtext and into the text (although obviously still undiagnosed), and given her coping mechanisms that were taken seriously in the text even when they were played for laughs, which I appreciated. Her attempts to mentor Breanna were sweet, her friendship with Sophie was electric and at times (CRIMES) hilarious, and as usual, she has a fantastic dynamic with Eliot that makes my heart burst. If you don’t think they’re romantically involved, at least acknowledge there’s a life partnership here. They’ve spent the last decade together.

(We’ll get to Harry.)

Eliot isn’t given much arc-wise, which is frustrating since he’s my favorite. He’s being presented as the goal at the end of a redemption arc, ie to keep working at it every day until your soul heals or whatever, and it doesn’t reflect the message they’re trying to convey via Hardison’s speech and our two new characters. He’s got his moments, but I think they under utilized his potential.

Breanna!!! Breanna’s my new favorite, except for Eliot. She’s hilarious, she’s insecure, she’s nerdy and excited in a way that’s similar to Hardison but still distinct in its inherent teenage-girl-ness and I LOVE IT. Unlike the previous series, where Hardison’s “age of the geek” was often a joke played on Hardison, we’re at the point where Eliot and Parker are both right there with him, and so they accept and even appreciate Breanna’s nerdiness. Also, canon gay character? In YOUR Leverage? It’s more likely than you think.

(No, I never thought they’d make ot3 canon on screen. I hoped, but I didn’t think it would actually happen.)

I think Breanna’s the character that will be the most interesting to see grow. She’s got a lot of potential and a list of crimes a mile long (or more). I adore her with all my heart. I want to see her tiktok account.

Harry. Oh, Harry.

It took me a while, but I do like Harry. It took a while, because the narrative positioned him at the same level as Nate back in episode 1 of original Leverage. But in episode 1 we didn’t know the other characters. We had Nate as the POV character, and so we cared about him because we were seeing the world through his eyes. (This is TV Studies 101. I know this, because I took TV Studies 101 in 2019.) In Leverage: Redemption, we no longer have a POV character, for several reasons:

Nate, previously the POV character, is dead.

As it is, by mid-season 3 of leverage Nate was no longer a POV character. This is, coincidentally, the point where the leverage writers realized they had four other characters in the main cast they could do something with, and in-universe, Nate accepted that he was a thief, not a special Good Man.

Sophie is sort of a POV character for the first episode of the revival, but only for the first few minutes. Afterwards, the series settles into the groove of seasons 3-5, i.e., the entire crew is our POV. We know our crew, and we love them as is.

Narratively, however, Redemption insists on positing Harry as the POV character, because it is his redemption we are pursuing most vehemently. And I think they really relied on us already knowing the actor - I’ve never seen him in anything before, so to me he was a completely fresh face and they put almost no effort into selling him to me. Beyond being competent and consistently mildly baffled by the antics of the leverage crew, I honestly don’t know who this man is by the end of EIGHT episodes with him. I have a much better handle on Breanna by the end of 1(a), and I can tell you I knew all five of the original leverage crew better by the end of the first episode of the original series than I do Harry. What’s the name of his daughter, John Rogers. Is he still married. How old is the daughter. Why is none of this worth mentioning. Give him a sense of humor that isn’t reacting to other people’s shenanigans. I’m so frustrated. It’s bad writing.

I did manage to grow to like Harry by the end, but I’m pretty sure this is down to Noah Wyle’s charismatic portrayal of an under-developed character, at least partially. And I never stopped being frustrated at not knowing who this man is at all.

The two highlights of the season are undoubtedly episodes five and six. Episode five was the first time I felt like the episode was more than a collection of good moments between the main cast and mediocre moments between the main cast and also the main plot. The issues with pacing and tone that I suffered through for most of the season were mostly non-existent in ep5 and 6, and at least in episode 5 I attribute that to the pared down cast. They had time to focus not only on our actual characters - Sophie, Parker, Breanna - but also on the case. This is the only client from 1(a) I am going to remember next week without googling it first, mark my words.

Episode six worked for the exact opposite reason - it completely disregarded the client and plot and immersed itself in the characters. Breanna gets a moment to shine, but everybody else gets their bits and I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the script that was most fun to write. The characters felt natural, real, and captured the found-family dynamic that’s been missing all season for the first time.

While episode 2 is the weakest episode, I don’t actually have much to say about it. I am disappointed in episode 8. For a mid-season finale, I really expected them to do something. Instead, it was an episode about Nate Ford that copped out of being about Nate Ford (both with fake-Nate and with the new version of him being relayed to us). I would have told the writers to give that energy back to episode 1 and write an episode that’s about anybody who isn’t Harry, oh my God. I know I said I grew to like him but so many episodes were about Harry. He’s the newbie! Why didn’t Hardison get an episode that was actually about him, considering he was only around for two episodes? Why does Eliot have to be the butt of the joke when the theme of the series should directly tie back to him in a much more meaningful way? The last episode parodies their own tagline by saying Eliot isn’t just a hitter, but it deftly avoids noticing that they’ve turned him into nothing more than very muscly comic relief, including in that very episode!

Also, I hated the Marshal. Eliot actively looked uncomfortable around her.

tl;dr

The season took a while, that’s definitely true. But it did find its footing eventually, and by the halfway mark of 1(a) it finally felt cohesive again. The characters were played fantastically even when they weren’t well-written, and if nothing else, the humor landed every time. It still has its kinks and problems to work out, but if you look at it as a brand new show rather than a continuation of one that went off the air over eight years ago, it’s actually doing rather well. I’m choosing to judge it in both lights - according to its own standards, it establishes its identity in episode five; according to Leverage standards, it establishes its connection to its roots in episode six. Either way, I thoroughly enjoyed 1(a), and continue to have high hopes for 1(b).

fic writing will commence in three, two, one...

[rainbowsky]

Final round-up of fan fic asks

I've gotten a few more interesting responses to the fan fic discussion so I'm going to round them all up here. This will be my final post on the topic until/unless there's a dramatic new development, or a particularly notable response I want to highlight. Thanks to everyone who brought their thoughts and experiences to the topic. I hope everyone at least feels heard.

The biggest piece of advice that I would like to offer is for everyone to focus on what they love rather than what they hate. If we all did that, the world would be a better place. Alongside that, I'd like to remind everyone to please support authors whose work you like. It's so important. Give them a kudos, give them a nice comment, recommend their work to others. You never know what kind of grief and harassment they are dealing with to bring you these great stories, and our support means a lot.

This is in reference to previous posts here and here.

Anonymous asked:

With regard to fandom and fan fic issue, my years of experience being part of very large fandoms has led me to believe that big accounts are v important in facilitating and enforcing the general consensus of the whole fandom. Unless there will be big accs who'll remind everyone of being respectful & just not being a dick over other's preferences, nothing will change.

This is also the reason why I think certain solo fandoms have adapted weird and twisted narratives as their general fandom story because no big acc has tried to police them & and say hey pls be rational. Whether we like it or not, in a place where how far voices, ideas, tweets, posts get heard is based on the number of followers you have, big accs will have the power and influence in creating/curating/shifting the narratives.

So, if you want to know why your/our fandom thinks like this in general, look at what big accs are tweeting/posting, look at what ideas & values they follow, look at their preferences or how strongly they react to certain situations. it's taxing and toxic for big accs given the nature of social media these days, but it's also the reality of system, the more followers/audience you have, the more influence you will have.

So to anyone reading this I hope we all practice more restraint and reflection before we post anything. Remember that words, no matter what medium you write it in, will always carry weight.

So true. It is easy - even for myself who spends a fair chunk of time answering people's asks - to forget that people can sometimes be impressionable and what we say can influence people whether that's our intent or not. I get used to thinking of myself as a regular guy just doing my own thing when sometimes my thoughts and words go well beyond where I initially posted them.

I think it's important for us to be careful what we say, and it's equally important to be careful what we take from what other people say. Especially when it comes to big claims. Always get a second, third, fourth opinion and don't be afraid to ask for clarification if something doesn't sit right or sounds confusing.

It's also important to reflect on how our words and actions might affect other people's experience of fandom, and err on the side of 'live and let live' wherever possible. It's great to have our own preferences and to champion them, but we should try to do so in a way that leaves space for other people and perspectives.

The more unique perspectives and the more friendly, open dialog there is, the healthier the community will be as a whole.

There's nothing wrong with encouraging and guiding growth in the particular areas we are interested in, as long as it doesn't step on, oppress or attack those who are peacefully enjoying something different.

Anonymous 2 asked: bjyx fans attacking gdgdbaby for including zsww/lsfy dynamics in an event named bjyx then turning right around and attacking the zsww/lsfy event organizer for excluding bjyx? god, can you hear my facepalm and sigh of resignation and incredulity from over there? im genuinely not surprised that they're trying to drive an entire part of the fandom out by disgusting them (and me) with these immature tactics. i believe what im about to say next will sound quite bait-y and i respect your decision 1/?

should you choose not to post this. but i do know that it is not only me, in fact there are many out there, that is of this opinion. we just dont talk about it on twitter to avoid the potential mess it will bring lol. okay, here goes nothing. (do note that im talking about the majority here, not every single person is like this) so bjyx fans tend to be cishet females whereas zsww/lsfy fans are more diverse in terms of age and gender, and most of them are part of the queer community too 2/?

i would like to clarify that most of these zsww/lsfy fans are not dynamic exclusive (in the sense that they are friendly and interact with all ggdd fans) they just prefer to "identify" themselves as zsww/lsfy fans (on twitter specifically) just to form a distinction from bjyx fans who mostly are dynamic exclusive (as in; they do not consume non-bjyx content, and straightup refuse to interact with non-bjyx fans, often blocking them). as a result, id say that the zsww/lsfy communiy is way more 3/?

mature and respectful (after all, they're mostly queer people talking about a queer ship) whereas many problems in this fandom, such as the homophobia, adamantly insisting on "drawing lines" between dynamics, stem from the bjyx exclusive fans, comprised of cishet females who "may not know better". so, it is of no surprise to me that they're resorting to these immature tactics of calling gg unsavory names, and organizing retaliatory events with controversial topics in an attempt to "purify". 4/4

I trust that you have arrived at that theory through your own experience and observation. I haven't personally spent much time immersed in this stuff so I can't claim to have any real insight or expertise. If you say that's your experience of it, then at the very least that's how you've seen things up to this point.

I just want to say that I think we should always be careful about making assumptions about people's age, gender/gender identity, etc.

There are plenty of good reasons to avoid doing that; because those assumptions could be very wrong, because those assumptions are often laced with ageism, sexism, etc., because those assumptions - even when correct - might not be an accurate basis for the conclusions we draw.

But the primary reason I recommend avoiding those type of assumptions is because anything that enables us to clump a group of people together in our minds like that will tend to make them easier to demonize and dehumanize. They are no longer individuals who are each responsible for their own unique perspectives, they are now 'the X group' who is known for 'A B C series of easily attackable ideas or behaviors'.

If we attribute undesirable traits and behaviors to a group of people we feel opposed to in some way, that makes us feel more righteous and justified in behaving unfairly toward them, dismissing their humanity and warring with them. It's just risky behavior to engage in, even when it's well-intentioned.

There might actually be some truth to what you're saying. It could very well be that most of these people are young, inexperienced, heteronormative, etc. but if that's the case then we should try to use those traits to better understand and empathize rather than to better dismiss and discredit.

Just my two cents on that.

It can be really frustrating dealing with what feels like other people attacking us, trying to oppress us, etc. - especially when there are more of them than there are of us. In my experience the best solutions to that sort of problem are generally the ones that focus on what we are doing and want to do rather than what they are doing that we don't want them to do.

As I am always preaching, we can't control what other people say, do or think. The only thing we have any control over is what we say, do and think (and how we respond to what they say, do and think).

I have found in my experience that the moment I step out of a conflict mindset and instead step into a problem-solving mindset, everything starts to come together. I feel better, my outlook is more positive, I can begin to see solutions and allies rather than problems and enemies, and most of all, I become more focused on what I am doing than what others are doing.

So I would recommend everyone who is invested in resolving these conflicts focus on that. "How can we best showcase and encourage the types of stories we enjoy?" instead of "How can we stop these other people from doing things we dislike?"

Anonymous 3 asked:

Hello again! It’s anon #3 from the fanfic post. I really do appreciate reading your thoughts on various issues like this, so thank you for always taking time to write in depth. As for supporting without going to war, the simplest way has always been to just show appreciation for the creators, hype them up. Kudos are the easiest way on ao3 but comments in addition are great. This goes for all content—art, fics, vids..etc. Creators love to see and read how people react to their content. Sharing is also great, fic recs are very helpful, just be cautious with art and reposting though. Hope this helps a bit!

Thanks so much, Anon. I think this is excellent advice. And it's true that appreciation is great, but helping to expand the audience is also great. Recommending stories, pointing people to the pages/websites of artists we like (as opposed to reposting), sharing our own ideas and approaches, encouraging people to try new things... all of this helps build healthier communities.

And here's another one: WRITE! DRAW! CREATE!

I urge anyone with creative interests or talents to bring their voices to the community because we all can benefit from hearing from you.

Thanks again everyone for sharing your thoughts on this issue. I hope that over time we can all work in positive ways to improve the situation.

I think this subject has been well-covered now so I'm going to retire it for the time being. If anyone still feels they want to discuss it further please feel free to message me privately. Thanks.

[defiantdreemurrs]

Pokemon: Gold and Silver - Review

In 2000, Nintendo released the long anticipated sequels to its smash hits, Pokemon Red and Blue. Boasting an entirely new region to explore, a whole new set of over a hundred Pokemon to catch alongside the previous 151, and almost an entire second game unlocked after beating the main game, Pokemon Gold and Silver were an almost immediate success. These games are often mentioned as being “the best in the series” by fans across the globe and represented Game Freak’s most ambitious project to date. After years of only having vague memories of the games from childhood, we decided to finally make an attempt at completing Silver version, after which we plan to play through as much of the main series as possible. We’ve always felt the Game Boy and Game Boy Color era of Pokemon games paled in comparison to some of the later games like Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire and we figured after a disappointing playthrough of Blue a couple years ago, Silver would just be more of the same, but this time in color. We were shortly proven very wrong.

Pokemon Gold and Silver take us into the world of Johto. Johto is a neighbor region to Kanto from the Gen 1 games, a place we’ve heard described as “Kanto’s Backyard”. The region is based on a real region of Japan just like how Kanto was, this time the Kansai region. Where Kanto is centered around a metropolitan area in the form of Tokyo, Kansai is a much more ancient and rural area home to smaller cities such as Osaka and Kyoto. As a result, Johto feels much older than Kanto. Kanto felt like a collection of small yet relatively modern (as of the mid 90s) towns and cities surrounding Saffron and Celadon cities, whereas Johto’s even smaller towns feel much older and rich with history.

Take Ecruteak for example. Ecruteak is home to an ancient pair of towers said to be home to Legendary Pokemon. From these towers designs in the game, to the general atmosphere of Ecruteak, to the fact that a total of four Legendary Pokemon can actually be initially found within these two towers (though three of them roam around after your first meeting), even the limited display of the Game Boy Color gets across that this city has thousands of years of history surrounding it. Playing the game we felt like we were traversing around this rural, ancient region in the heart of Japan soaking in all of its beauty rather than just wandering around a world like our own. For a game series that aimed to transplant the mechanics of Dragon Quest into a more modern world, Johto brings a nice sense of that less modern, almost fantastical element back to the setting.

Not only does it feel like a beautiful region to traverse, it’s also a very relaxing region to traverse. Sure, there’s a lot of deep grass, and later on there are a lot of trainers around that can slow you down, but for the most part those slowdowns just result in having more time to appreciate the world of Gold and Silver. It wasn’t difficult to imagine wandering through the woods in place of the player character, a team of Pokemon at our side, exploring and battling, stumbling across ancient landmarks and historical buildings. All of this on a Game Boy Color game, mind you. Such a simple display and limited hardware and Game Freak still managed to hit it out of the park with such an immersive game. We easily spent hours just wandering around from town to town, not wanting to put the game down because of how sucked into it we were.

There’s a lot more than just Johto to progress through, though. Victory Road and the Indigo Plateau are back, because the game needed somewhere to put the Elite Four and the Pokemon League Champion, and since Johto and Kanto are practically next door to each other it made the most sense to just have the player travel back to Kanto after completing all eight gyms rather than design an entirely new area that’s just next door. The more eagle-eyed of players who attempt to fly away from the Indigo Plateau for training or other reasons might notice that they can’t do so, because when they pull up the Fly map, it shows they’re in Kanto as opposed to Johto. This is kind of an excellent teaser for the game’s post-game content: the entire region of Kanto.

Shortly after his passing, an anecdote about Satoru Iwata’s work on Gold and Silver went around in Nintendo fan circles. He was credited with developing a method of compression that allowed the developers at Game Freak to get both Johto and Kanto’s assets small enough to fit on a single cartridge, allowing the player the opportunity to, after completing the Pokemon League challenge, revisit the home of the previous games’ player character and see what’s changed since the player was last in Kanto. Given that Gold and Silver take place three years after Red and Blue, you can imagine a lot has changed. Cinnabar Island’s volcano has erupted, forcing the inhabitants to flee elsewhere and destroying Blaine’s gym, leaving him with nothing but a cave in the Seafoam Islands, that has become the new Cinnabar Gym. Lavender Town’s giant Tower has been turned into a new Radio Tower for Kanto, with the Pokemon graves within being moved to a new mausoleum building just south of it. A speedy bullet train has been built in Saffron City, allowing quick passage back to Johto. The player’s old rival Blue has become the new Gym Leader of Viridian City.

But while all of this provides an interesting and content-rich post-game for the player to explore and sink even more time into, we feel it comes at the cost of making the game’s main region suffer somewhat. In order to fit an entire second game into the back of the main game, the main game had to be smaller as a result. It’s nice to traverse two entire regions in one game but it’s not quite as nice when the game’s main region ends up being much faster to progress through as a result. While we did spend our time wandering around and didn’t focus too much on speed (though we were playing a little quickly since we do have a lot of games to get through), the end of the game hit us a lot sooner than we expected. In just a few short hours of playing we made it all the way up to the third gym, and the very next day blazed through four more. 

What makes this relatively fast pace even more annoying is that the levels themselves are paced really weirdly. We didn’t fight every single trainer we came across, but we did fight a good amount of them and made sure to fight every trainer in every gym, and we still had to grind somewhat when we came across the Elite Four. The game’s gyms are balanced to where you end up roughly in the mid 30s after completing all eight of them, with Clair’s team in the Blackthorn Gym having a single level 40 leading a team of mid 30s. The pacing then jumps wildly out of control as the Elite Four range from low 40s to low 50s, and then again even more so at the end of the post-game, where after facing mostly 30s, 40s, and even some 50s, you face a challenging team composed of mid 70s and even a level 80. I’m assuming the game intends you to grind out your team in the Victory Road in order to reach a more appropriate level for the Elite Four, but this was somewhat difficult since it’s full of rock- and ground-types, one of which we had on our team.. In the end we just repeatedly challenged the Elite Four and didn’t bother to heal as a way to grind some more levels out more easily as well as to form strategies against them, which I would argue is actually a great way to go about it if your team is well equipped for the fights otherwise.

This is, of course, assuming you even have the team you want in the first place. After picking our starter and catching a few other Pokemon to get us through the first gym, we started thinking about the Elite Four and the eventual challenge at the end of Kanto, and decided to plan out a team instead of our usual method of just using what we catch. We had a solid team put together of Pokemon that we liked first and foremost but would also be able to tackle these challenges more easily thanks to type matchups. Getting a few hours into the game though and doing more research on where to find them, we realized a lot of the team we were building would take far too long to put together, with half of them not even being available until arriving in Kanto (despite being brand new Johto Pokemon!). Almost none of the new Dark-types are available in Johto, the only one being Umbreon, and the only Fire-types available that aren’t your starter are Magmar and Entei (and Ho-oh for those playing Gold). Since we had no interest in waiting that long for the Pokemon we actually wanted and because we wanted our full, final team embedded forever in the Hall of Fame after beating the Elite Four, we ended up having to use two Legendary Pokemon, in the form of Lugia and Entei.

Personally, we don’t feel like including Legendaries on your team makes a whole lot of sense anyways, and we usually try to restrict to no more than one because realistically who expects an 11 year old child to have even just one? But the game restricting so many of the newly introduced Johto Pokemon to the post-game and even keeping the ones it does allow you to catch in Johto itself restricted to a smaller handful of types meant we had to break our own rule if we wanted to take advantage of certain type matchups. Considering how many Pokemon throughout the game are weak to Fire-types, we had to pick Entei just to capitalize on that because otherwise we were pretty heavily limiting ourself and making the game harder.

Personal issues with the availability of certain Pokemon aside, these games present a rich experience through an immersive world, an experience that is a bit marred by its own ambition. Ambition is something we can respect though. It took a lot of effort to fit Kanto into the game and we imagine a lot of players were thrilled to go back to the land they spent so many hours exploring and playing through in Red and Blue (though, being born too late to play those games, we didn’t have that experience). Even if we didn’t have that experience in Kanto already, it’s still really impressive and almost as fun to sink time into. It’s like a whole entire second game that you unlock after beating the main game, with an even more difficult final challenge. We respect the developers at Game Freak a lot for attempting this, and in the end we’re really looking forward to returning to Johto later on in Pokemon Crystal as well as the remakes, HeartGold and SoulSilver.

[scrumptiousalpacadeer]

Paul Thomas Anderson’s THE MASTER and what it may teach us about  mind-control vs freedom Post-Covid

So last night I watched The Master. It was a most pleasing way to spend a Saturday evening; alone, with two cats draped on the sofa and windowsill respectively, and it rounded off a pretty pedestrian Saturday mostly spent mowing and raking the lawn and scattering grass seed whilst *Boo finished reading Jacqueline Wilson’s Rose Rivers whilst occasionally appearing at the back door to yell; ‘mama, you’re driving me nuts with your gardening!’ Somehow I’d been looking forward to scattering my grass seed all week - the promise of moist new green growth on our dusty brown patches. Thing is - and there is a lesson in here somewhere - the grass seed box said it covered 10m square - I guess I got a bit carried away and basically I ran out after one corner. So one corner of my lawn will look like Eden, and the rest will continue to look like some deserted Sicilian scrubland... That’s life, baby, I guess. 

So anyway, The Master....dear God. There are many ways I could go with this...Firstly undiluted, scope, wonder, singular sensitivity, impossible mastery, extreme importance and sheer exalting, agonising beauty of Paul Thomas Anderson’s films is the subject of another post. (I’m still on a high from the explosive visceral experience of watching Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood and that was, what, 5 years ago? 10 years ago?) Then The Master came out in 2012 and P.T.A. raised his game even more. 

I could, and will another time, talk about the astonishing gift Joaquin Phoenix afforded the world with his embodiment of his character, Freddie Quell. (I say ‘embodiment’; ‘performance’ always strikes me as an incorrect way of describing an actors full immersion in an imagined character’s inner life.) To my mind, Freddie is one of the most affecting, heart-breaking, occasionally funny and downright truthful portrayals of a ‘broken’ man; an exiled, psychologically damaged, wild and lonely spirit who roams the world, desperate for love and acceptance, clearly one of the great ‘un-belonging’ of the post-war world in America. In one the open scenes he simulates fucking an over-sized figure of woman carved in sand on a hot beach, for the amusement of his army pals. In the final scene of the film, after his long long incredible journey , we see him caressing this sand woman again, resting his next to a large sandy breast. Oh poor dear Freddy Quell; my tears ran with him last night; knowing myself in this second viewing of the film, to be so like him. Perhaps one day I will be able to shake Joaquin Phoenix’s hand and say ‘thankyou so much for Freddie.....’ I often feel like that with actors work that resonates through the bones. 

I could also talk about how Philip Seymour Hoffman was possibly the greatest screen actor of his time, and how crazy it was that the world didn’t seem to mourn his tragic early death. Was it perhaps because he died of an accidental heroine overdose? - and this, well, didn’t sit very well with Hollywood. His embodiment here of Lancaster Dodd, charismatic leader of philosophical cult movement The Cause, is breath-taking. But then all his performances were breath-taking. I had a dream about him once (whole other post entitled CELEBRITY DREAMS coming your way); we were kind of friends even though I knew he was dead and his face kept appearing on billboards all over London. If, when; I meet him in the spirit world, I’d like to shake his hand and thank him for Lancaster Dodd and Brandt in The Big Lebowski, and Truman Capote, and also for providing me with one of the most pivotal theatre experiences of my life. August 2001, Edinburgh Festival, I witnessed his production of Jesus Hopped The A Train at The Gilded Balloon; this was running gold theatre. Within half a second of the play ending the entire full house erupted to it’s feet like we’d all been tasered from the floor. Thank you Philip...you gave me faith then that theatre is important; that art comes from dark places and revives...

I could talk about the astonishing crashing score composed by Radiohead’s guitarist Jonny Greenwood.

I could also talk about Amy Adam’s terrifying portrayal of Lancaster’s icy wife Peggy and her utterly brilliant final put-down to Freddie: “you either do this for a billion years, or not at all...” (she’s referencing Freddie’s abandonment of the cult she’s set up with her husband, but this line, I feel, could apply to motherhood...….)

                                                  * * * * * * * * * *

 It usually takes me two viewings for a films deeper meaning to seep in, and last night I was struck by what I see as the heart of the film. The core of the film is relationship between Freddie Quell and Lancaster Dodd; it’s an uncompromising study of male vulnerability and the cosmic search for ‘a father figure’...  On a bigger scale, its about how those in positions of assumed power and influence ( Dodd) rely on the adoration and worship of those whom society deem ‘worthless’ (Quell). It’s about the fragility and corruption of a society whereby a man promises freedom and empowerment to his followers (Dodd devises a system of ‘processing’ whereby he takes initiates back to past traumas through a curious mixture of interrogation and hypnosis and ‘cures’ them; he posits that his vision can cure leukaemia and will bring about world peace) and how those ‘disadvantaged’, the great ‘unloved’ can be absorbed into such an attractive lifestyle. In one painful scene, Freddie is taken to a party at a mansion, filled with monied people and luxurious things. Freddie is dressed smartly for the occasion; but is sweating with nerves and orders a scotch at the earliest opportunity, before hiding away in a side room and stealing an ornament. It took me back to my own exile, when, at the age of 17 I landed at Brentwood Boys School in Essex, and cut off from my parents, shattered from my sister’s suicide and a lifetime of confusion, I nonetheless attended many a glorious party; a perfect size 10 and top of the class, I knew how to say all the right things. But, like Freddie, I knew I didn’t and wouldn’t ever fit it. Like him, I would often sneak off to the side rooms, get off my head drunk to hide my shame and hopeless, and cause some fight..

In the end, despite himself, Freddie starts to see through Lancaster’s bullshit and returns to his life on the road. Though The Cause had given him a home, suits and ties, friendship, respect and a certain ‘standing’ that he could only have dreamed of, as he confesses to Peggy at the end, before returning to his own brand of personal lonely freedom; ‘it’s just not how I look’.  

                                                        * * * * * * * 

“Don’t you know, They’re talking about a revolution it sounds like a whisper Don’t you know you’d better run run run run run run run run.....” Tracey Chapman 

Talkin’ About A Revolution

What I find heartening and deeply exciting about these early post-Covid times, as the first chinks of sunlight pour in through windows that have separated us from friends, lovers, fellow man for so long, is that people are choosing freedom. In small ways, perhaps, but I get the overall sense that for many people, fear has had its day. As my dear friend said over tea the other day; ‘people are thinking fuck this, fuck it, we wanna fuck’....well, exactly. 

It was this dear friend I met up with in her wood a few weeks ago; we hugged each other day, and it was such a joyous relief to see her I told her that if I got the virus and killed me, oh fuck it, it would be worth it, just to sit next to her by a river on a sunny day...

I’ve had two other conversations lately to support my little theory; a particularly cheerful friend of mine turned up with her daughter unannounced on my doorstep couple of weeks back  - they had a bag of clothes; would Boo like them? Initially we did the ‘2 m’ thing, paying homage to THE RULES as dictated by the blessed government of this land; I hovered on the threshold of my kitchen - she stood outside by the flower-pots. Then I broke the rules; ‘look, do you wanna come in?’ - That was it. The ice was broken - and she stood, blond, beaming and glorious with her big sunglasses on, in my little kitchen - along with her daughter and mine, and I could literally have feasted forever on the sheer joyous fleshiness of having three other living homo sapiens near me. That sunny day in early June, two women in a small village in Sussex chose freedom. ‘I’ve just had enough of all this virus stuff’ she said ‘I’m even dreaming about it! I’ve just had enough’. 

Then last week a friend came over with her three glorious girl children and told me how her youngest, a endlessly sweet six yr old, had ‘hidden behind a tree with her friend so that they could have a hug’. Lets think about that for a moment; six years olds hiding behind trees to have a hug. Its pretty damn sad. And weird. This friend had been on full on paranoid lockdown due to one of the children’s potential serious health issues - but she’d reached breaking point. ‘I’ve had enough’ she said. And that day her girls and my daughter raced up and down the stairs and around the garden in glorious flagrance of any state prescribed social distancing rules. 

                                                * * * * * * * * * * * 

In the end, Freddie breaks free from his master’s and The Cause’s control and continues - we assume -  his lonely drift around the world. In their final agonising meeting, Lancaster reveals the smashed ungenerous ego of a despot thwarted by his adoring lover: ‘if I meet you in a future life I will show you no mercy, you will be my sworn enemy’. Freddie, emaciated, tearful and ever desperate to belong, asks Lancaster to reveal to him how and where they’d met in a previous life... He knows it’s bullshit, in the way I knew my father was incapable of loving me, but when you’ve got a Krakatoa sized hole in your heart, you just can’t stop hoping somehow...pledging allegiance to a resplendent asshole is somehow better than our greatest fear; the abyss of loneliness and isolation. Lets face it; freedom is pretty terrifying after such a long stretch of captivity. 

That’s the thing in these Covid times; we always have a choice. We have a choice now, whether to be continue to be afraid or whether to choose freedom. Whether to cut loose and go racing into the desert on a motorbike back to his first love, like Freddie does, following his own destiny, not succumbing to control forces that on the surface entice him into a richer more glamorous life. 

And I’m not talking about being an complete idiot and denying there’s a serious virus still on the loose, or hugging scared people in the street to prove a point, and I’m not denying  that many people are extremely vulnerable - I’m talking about something entirely different; that deep inner decision that calls in all of us - whether to choose the uncharted waters of freedom, or rest in an all-too familiar fear zone. 

To conclude, my dear friend Matilda sent me this book ‘Big Magic - Creative Living By Fear’ by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love (I’ve just watched the film its rather good I think...) Anyway, there’s this great chapter called Fear Is Boring which rang through me, growing up as I did drenched in the anxiety of a Munchausen Syndrome-by-proxy mother (WHOLE other post...) - but here’s what she says about the time, age fifteen, she ‘wised up’ to fear and chose another way: 

“I noticed that my fear never changed, never delighted, never offered a surprise twist or an unexpected ending. My fear was a song with only one note - only one word, actually - and that word was “STOP!” 

Dear reader, I’m shitting myself with the best of them, but I’ve had enough of fear. I’m not stopping. I’m going. What do you say?..... xxxx 

Big love from Christine 

[snibnoom]

I’ve been struggling all day with how to put my thoughts into words. I have so many thoughts and feelings when I think about ASTRO. There’s warmth and pride and happiness. There’s a cold spot of bitter anger still residing from the events of the previous year. I think about Bin, less than 2 days younger than me, 11 years old when he started on this path, and I think, wow, what a life he’s had. But because of him, because of ASTRO, I’ve had a few good years, too, and I’ve come to accept that it’s okay if not every day is a good one.

Sometimes I see AROHA’s responses to ASTRO, and I feel strange. Perhaps it’s a show put on for the sake of keeping with the internet culture that’s come to be, but the all-caps posts and the reaction images and the masses of emojis make me smile. Sometimes seeing AROHA’s responses to ASTRO make me smile physically more than whatever ASTRO just posted. And that feels weird. I feel like I should be like that, too; I feel like I should be crying or laughing or rushing to respond.

And then I realized that I feel comfortable. ASTRO are my comfort. They’re my safe place, and my love for them has become so much a part of who I am that it affects literally everything I do. Those wild feelings of happiness that I used to feel when I first was a fan are now my normal.

I found ASTRO in November 2015 by mistake. I was browsing dance cover videos on YouTube and saw a title in Korean. I was just beginning to teach myself Korean and I thought it’d be good practice to try and immerse myself more in Korean media, but I couldn’t have guessed just how far that single video would take me. That video of a couple of guys dancing in their practice room, laughing and chasing each other and falling all while looking like they’re having the times of their lives. That video is the reason why I’m here, and that video has led to my life completely changing.

I graduated high school about four months after ASTRO’s debut. Through high school, I’d developed terrible anxiety and bad habits and I was constantly stressed. My friends were no longer around; they never included me in weekend plans or made an effort to hang out after school. And after graduation I was miserable. I was, quite frankly, alone. I was bitter and angry and, honestly, a pretty shitty person. (In retrospect, a lot of the issues I went through were self made, but that realization alone isn’t one I could’ve had without having ASTRO be a part of it.)

And then ASTRO had a comeback.

I was away for a concert for another group on the day of the comeback. I didn’t get to watch the showcase as I had for debut; I was busy greeting other idols at the airport. I didn’t listen to the album until late at night; I’d been busy singing until my throat was raw along with other fans.

But as I sat in the chair in the hotel room at a time far past midnight, I listened to Summer Vibes, and something clicked. My Style began to play and I began to cry (not unlike a child, trying to hide my tears because this was stupid, why was I crying over a song?). I’d had a similar reaction months before, but it was different. Where I’d nearly cried tears of joy at hearing Puss in Boots in the highlight medley of Spring Up, I was now crying of relief. Everything that I’d held back, bottled up, and thrown chains around was released by this one song sung by 6 boys on the other side of the world. I read through the rough translations of lyrics with wildly wrong grammar and nowhere near as poetic as the actual lyrics, but I cried. I still get near tears listening to My Style if I think about the lyrics too much.

I spent a lot of time reflecting on My Style and the lyrics of ASTRO’s other songs. What had been a relatively tame interest until then grew into a monster I had no wish to tame. My love for every member grew ten fold. My love for the fans and friends I’d met multiplied. And for the first time, the thought of self love didn’t seem that far fetched.

If someone had told me right out of high school that one day I would come to love myself, I would’ve laughed. If someone had told me that one day I would be okay with having bad days, I would’ve said that’s impossible. If someone told me that one day I wouldn’t be miserable, that I wouldn’t be so anxious, that I’d live life for love and happiness, I would’ve called them crazy. But I am. I’m still growing and learning and trying to be a better person. I’m still training myself out of years of bad habits and self-deprecating thoughts, but there’s a light. There’s a spot of brightness that’s growing with ASTRO and my love for them, and now myself, at the center.

And this is still just the beginning.

To ASTRO, who may have literally saved me from myself, thank you.

[hillbillyhippiemusicreview]

Post #55–The Lowdown Drifters, 2020 releases

Reviewed by Lyssa Culbertson

By now, readers of Hillbilly Hippie Music Review should know that my tastes in music are as eclectic as they come, and I thrive on introducing Applachia to sounds the region is potentially unfamiliar with. As much as I love the talent coming out of Kentucky and the area today, there is so much goodness out there beyond its borders to immerse ourselves in. One such band that you must know is The Lowdown Drifters, hailing from Washington State. I have to admit, I was quite late in hopping aboard the lyrical train with these fellas, but from the moment I discovered them, I’ve devoured every iota of music they have produced—because they’re just THAT good. Formed in 2015 as a country folk-rock band, writer and vocalist Big John Cannon, guitarist and co-writer Ryan Klein, and other band members joined together over a shared love of all things country music and the desire to further its tradition through their songwriting and unique musicality. Prior to his evolution as a country singer, Big John’s early days were rooted in the Nor Cal punk scene. While it may seem like quite the stretch from the trajectory of punk to the art he creates now, slight notes of his past can be heard woven into the sounds of his present and it works so well. Following the release of their 2019 album, Last Call for Dreamers, the Lowdown Drifters have released three sonically diverse, yet fantastic singles in 2020 with no signs of slowing down despite the current state of the world. Last Call for Dreamers is a fabulous album, with highlights such as “Fire in Her Eyes” and “Won’t Find Me Anymore” being my top picks off the record. Big John possesses a deep, gritty voice that will command your attention and make you believe in the words he is singing. So, be sure to explore this record as well when diving into the newest singles so you will be familiar with their signature sound.

Now…onto the new tunes. “Alright” was the Drifters first single released in 2020, and it is such a deep tune that you cannot take it at face value—you have to dig a little deeper. With a song titled “Alright,” you might expect an upbeat, positive tune. However, it’s merely a play on words. It’s a stark, introspective look at the life and struggles of a musician on the road. In the first verse, Big John revisits times where he “walk[s] into the water just to see if [he] can float; sometimes [he wants to] die, and sometimes [he] don’t—and that’s alright.” That’s quite the heavy thought, but despite the seemingly impermeable darkness, there is an underlying linger of hopefulness that things will be okay at the end, whether it’s the end of tour or the end of days. Big John brings a unique perspective to his writing due to a life spent with wheels constantly rolling being both a musician and long haul trucker, and the notion of reintegration to both life on the road and everyday society as the two worlds collide is one heavily written about, yet the Drifters deliver the topic in a fresh way. I love songs like this that paint a realistic picture of what life in the industry is: it’s not all glitz and glamour, and there’s a cost as the loneliness and pain often run deep, despite the highs to be found on stage in a different town every night. The coming down is oft a bleak picture, further feeding the hunger for the high in the cyclical nature of this career, sometimes leaving you feeling less than “Alright.”

“Hammer Down,” the Drifters’ second single release this year, is based off the idea of life as a trucker manifesting into one of a road dog musician as well; however, it has a totally different vibe. This tune is funky and fun, exhibiting the myriad of musical influences the band possesses, and I just cannot get enough. The positively electric guitar riff featured towards the end of the song packs some heat and makes the song a worthwhile listen merely on its merit, though, I implore you to pay attention to the words Big John is singing. “Keep your eyes off the rearview and your lead foot on the throttle, hammer down!” For me, it is an anthem devoted to never looking back and staying constant, steadily moving forward. In this tune, they weave several interesting, and not at all illegal, stories into one important concept of refusing to the past hold you back in “Hammer Down,” which developed into a seemingly lighthearted jam on the notion of never giving up.

The Drifter’s latest single, “If I Had a Dollar” does a total 180 from the sound of “Hammer Down,” and is more akin to the pensive, melancholy vibe of “Alright,” as if he is in deep though ruminating on the choices of a life hard lived. Big John begins the song by singing “If I had a dollar for everything that I’ve done wrong, I’d have so much money, I’d never write one more sad song, And I could stop wandering like a gypsy with no name, Just tryin’ to find somewhere, mmm, that I can place the blame,” and it was an instant, swift punch to the gut for me. Oh, how I can relate to the path of running from my demons avoiding self-awareness, when I really needed to sit still and unpack my emotional baggage. Big John and Ryan Klein err on the side of the human experience in such an honest way in their writing that it speaks volumes in only four minutes time here. As with the previous two singles, life on the road is featured when Big John muses over being able to quit if he had a dollar for every mile he has ever driven. The concept of realizing that blame cannot be laid elsewhere for our shortcomings and mistakes, because it makes no difference in the end, is an important one humanity needs to internalize. Work hard, love even harder, humble yourself, and process what you cannot leave behind—I promise you it makes a world of difference. If I had a dollar for every time I lied to myself and others by saying I was alright, instead of laying the hammer down and working on issues, I’d be a rich woman. Wouldn’t we all?

After listening to the Lowdown Drifters’ latest singles, there appears to be a latent, albeit recurrent, thematic presence amongst the three songs: a life hard lived on the road, or anywhere in general, can still lead to the beauty in the reconciliation of wrongdoings through grace and second chances—and that’s a message I can get behind. In the words of country artist Gary Allan, “life ain’t always beautiful, but it’s a beautiful ride,” and I hope readers will take a figurative journey through song and investigate the magnetic allure of The Lowdown Drifters that instantaneously drew me in. Perhaps you will find something you needed, much like I did.

As always, peace, love, & music.

---Lyssa

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*This is an independent review. The Hillbilly Hippie Music Review was not compensated for this review.

*The opinions expressed are solely that of the author(s).

*These images are not ours, nor do we claim them in any way. They are copyrighted The Lowdown Drifters.

[gamelyplanet-blog]

“World of Warcraft”, Blizzard and trading off “fun”

UPDATE (12/2/2017): It was brought to my attention that, ironically, right after I posted this, Blizzard actually restructured their leveling experience for WoW. It’s currently on the PTR, it hasn’t been implemented in the Live servers, but based on player feedback, their new patch addresses a great deal of my problems with WoW. Watch THIS VIDEO by BellularGaming for more information and keep that in mind as you read the following piece.

I need someone to explain to me what the hell Blizzard has been doing lately.

I’m a simple man; I play games to have fun, enjoy myself and experience what they have to offer. I decided, very recently, to restart my World of Warcraft (WoW) subscription. I don’t do this often with any MMORPG; I get bored easily, but in games like City of Heroes or Final Fantasy XIV, I typically have a good amount of fun for about half a month before I cancel again. With World of Warcraft, not so much .

Quick history for context; I bought WoW around 2007; it was full price then, which means I paid 60 Euros for it, including a two-month game time card at 27 Euros. I installed the game and played for literally two hours before forgetting it ever existed and returning to City of Heroes. That’s right; 87 Euros for two hours of play. 

I didn’t bother with the game much afterwards; I mostly forgot I even had it, with the exception of a couple of cases that Blizzard gifted me a week of free play to promote the game after they released Cataclysm. I eagerly used that free time, but the game failed to convince me it was worth the sub.

Two summers ago, after Legion came out, I bought another card; I was hoping for a different result and I did my best to stick with the game for as long as I could tolerate it; I got my character, a Human Paladin, to Level 53 and gave up again, before the first month even ended.

A few weeks back, I got a WoW itch I wanted to scratch; the game always enticed me with its visual style and seemingly expansive lore, as well as its theoretically traditional and simplistic gameplay. Not one to learn from past mistakes in arguably any area of my life, I bought another month less than a week before writing this. 

As I logged in to my Paladin avatar, I found myself stranded in a volcanic area, with about 10 quests on the tracker, a bunch of dwarves with exclamation marks over their heads around me and two hotbars of skills I had to re-familiarize myself with. I was overwhelmed.

It’s not uncommon to be a little lost when returning to a RPG after a long time (let alone over a year). Most of the problem, however, usually comes in the form of not remember what the story is about and WoW isn’t big on “story”. No; the problem was that I felt no connection to my character. I couldn’t remember a single damned minute I’d spent with him, outside of a few hours of frustration during some earlier forced stealth bits. In contrast, I can still recount in excruciating detail hours of experiences I had in City of Heroes over a decade ago. I can still sing the praises of all the super-heroes I had created and I still miss every single one of them.

                   Look at this quest tracker. LOOK AT IT.

So, off I went, deleted the character in frustration and made a new one; a Night Elf Hunter this time, my WoW standard archetype from way back in 2007, as well as the free post-Cataclysm time. 

I’m recounting all of this, because I decided to use my frustration with my Paladin as a cautionary tale; I wouldn’t let it happen again. I wouldn’t let myself get absorbed in so much repetition that I don’t remember anything about the game once the subscription expires. I would pace myself and drink in the wonderful world and lore and missions of World of Warcraft.

It didn’t work.

I tried, really; instead of picking up every quest in a hub, I picked them up one-by-one. I wanted to focus on each quest separately, to remember why I was doing them, what the story of each of them was, why I was in that area I was in. I wanted to remember the path from and to the quest, to feel like I was actually an adventurer, immersed in the world around me, with an important task at hand. I didn’t even buy my mount until Level 26; I was going back and forth, on foot, me and my pet saving the world.

It wasn’t too bad at first; the starting area has just the right amount of quests and none send you too far, making the game accessible and the areas memorable. The longest stretch of road is between Dolanaar and Darnassus and not many quests force you to go back and forth on foot. 

The combat was the first thing that ruined it; it was too easy. I play some “vanilla”, WoW 1.12, on the side (thank you Elysium) and I can draw the comparisons. Vanilla combat is absolutely shit; too slow, too difficult, the game is unnecessarily punishing, considering the combat system is kind of simplistic shit that requires little skill or tactics. Current, official WoW has jumped entirely on the other side of the spectrum. I started realizing why I didn’t remember anything about my Paladin; there were no encounters worth remembering. From cannon fodder in the forests to the quest-significant enemies, they all dropped in two, maybe three hits. That bloody pet didn’t help; from some point on, all I had to do was aggro an enemy and my pet did the work for me. I was tearing through entire enemy camps in under a minute. I didn’t even have the chance to see what it was I was fighting, all the enemy NPCs just started blending in together.

This populated camp would’ve been a nightmare of careful planning and pulling in any other MMO.

Again, I tried. I was playing the Survivalist specialization and I tried to make things difficult for me. I refused to use a mishmash of armor with parts that didn’t fit; I purposefully downgraded my gear to look good. I even downgraded my weapon, from a two-handed axe to a quarterstaff that capped its DPS output to the base output of my previous weapon. 

No changes. Enemies still dropped like flies.

Eventually, I just got rid of the pet and switched to Marksman. It didn’t get much better; the combat was still easy, but at least each encounter lasted 3-5 seconds, which was 3-5 seconds more than before. So... progress?

I was very annoyed the game forced me to do this. Whenever I play a RPG, I don’t just do so for the mechanics and I certainly don’t do MMORPGs for the social aspect; I play these games for the lore and the world, to go about doing quests and to role-play. I really enjoyed my hunter, the Night Elf Don’thalar, roaming the woods with his pet bear Bols’htaran. I liked the story in my head, that I had rescued the bear when he was a cub and he was corrupted (I tamed it on Darkshore) and then took him to the druids to cure him through one of the quests I did for them. Afterwards we started hunting in the woods; I, my trusty axe and lil’ Bolsh, my only friend in the whole of Azeroth.

So, I sacrificed my RPing for some gameplay value. It still wasn’t enough.

At the time of writing this, my hunter is Level 31. I’ve left him next to a giant treant near a Burning Legion killing ground. I feel disappointed and exhausted. 

Mind you, I started playing this character four days ago.

Four. Days. Ago.

I didn’t even play that much each day, the progression system is just on steroids. For all my efforts, right now I still can’t tell you what game I’ve been playing, what I have experienced and what I have accomplished. I couldn’t tell you which areas I’ve visited and why. Four days. One character. Pacing myself. Acting out all the quest descriptions. Trying to role-play. And I still can’t recall a damned thing about the game.

This is bad. This is really bad. This is a fundamental issue with the game right now and, even though I’m far from an expert on WoW, I’m not the newbie I was in 2007. I’ve since become extremely familiar with the MMORPG genre, especially when it comes to the leveling experiences (which is what interests me in these games the most). WoW is currently work for me. It’s a thing I’m having no fun with and I’m literally paying Blizzard money for something I don’t enjoy.

Make a character. Walk to a hub. Pick up a quest. Finish quest. Turn it in. Five more quests pop up. Go to a different area for one of the five, another seven pop up.

This isn’t a game, this is what being at the back-end of the world’s biggest chili aficionado feels like. This is an avalanche of menial, insignificant bullshit that weigh on the player like insane. 

Outside of capping the character for raids and dungeons, the game gives literally no encouragement to go through its dull, grueling leveling process. Once upon a time you’d do quests at least for gear, if not for the XP. They can’t even pace that properly, however; I literally had (in more than one occasions) two NPCs side-by-side give me the same exact piece of armor, with only minor stat differences. I was spending hours doing insignificant quests for gear that has practically no impact in the game.

What kind of design is this?!

Most modern MMORPGs offer a basic storyline to hook the player in. WoW is older than it wants to look and doesn’t offer that. That’s not a problem in itself; even the very first single-player RPGs didn’t feature storylines. What they did feature was exploration-oriented gameplay. You can explore in WoW; sooner or later, the onslaught of meaningless quests will run out, you’ll open your map, see what the next area close to your character level is, jump on your mount and go there to find the next collection of exclamation marks. But that’s not exploring; that’s just moving elsewhere. There is nothing interesting to see in the world, it’s all enemy mobs roaming massive, but otherwise desolate plains dressed in slightly different trousers.  

The world feels dead. This is always going to be a problem with fantasy MMORPGs; one of the reasons I always loved City of Heroes was that you could see friendly NPCs, citizens, doing their thing. They weren’t exactly complicated, but they helped make the world feel alive. Fantasy MMORPGs have to rely on other players to inject the sense of life into their worlds. WoW is clearly still very populated, but it feels like all the players exist in their own bubble. Yes, we see each other; we pass each other on the road to objectives, in the big cities and near missions. But we don’t interact. We have no reason to. Because of the current design, instead of making the world feel alive, the player population makes the world feel manufactured. These aren’t other adventurers of Azeroth; they’re players, like you, detached from the framework of the adventurer in a fantasy world.

When I took a day off to try out vanilla WoW, we were all interacting. I’m not saying it was a better game; I’m the first to recognize the value of being able to solo without the game forcing team-ups for certain quests. I hate that shit. But I got more of a sense of community in the unofficial vanilla server than I ever do in official WoW. 

WoW is still installed in my computer because I need to do some screen captures for this bit. Once that’s done, it’s out for good. I renewed my sub less than a week ago and haven’t touched it in two days. From where I stand, the World of Warcraft experience is a vacuous one for anyone not interested in endgame content.

That’s what the crux of the argument really is and where I have to wonder what exactly it is that Blizzard is trying to do with their games. The leveling process has clearly been boosted to reach cap as fast as possible, so players can access endgame content. They’re not the only ones doing this; Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) recently streamlined the leveling experience as well for the same reason. SWTOR, however, comes with a lot less trekking and a lot more story to string you along. WoW remains a gelatinous mass of exhausting, forgettable leveling content that now you don’t even get to enjoy. 

I understand; arguably the majority of players want to cap their characters and enjoy the endgame content. Most expansions add almost exclusively endgame content, which is why they usually come with character boost tokens. Cataclysm was the only one that changed leveling dramatically. But when you want to focus exclusively on endgame, you lower that cap; DC Universe Online is very endgame-oriented and its cap is at a mere 30 and you can burn through leveling in two days, at most. WoW, on the other hand, keeps raising the cap with each new expansion. It was 60. Then it was 80. Then 90. With Legion, it’s 110. This is done to lock away people who don’t own the expansions out of the new areas, but at the same time, all it does is add to that gelatinous mass and make the leveling experience a lot more exhausting.

The core of WoW is no longer “fun”. It’s not the combat, it’s not the lore, there is no story; it’s all about more endgame content, more raids, more dungeons, more shit to do after you’ve spent two months of gaining nothing from the experience outside of finally hitting the cap. Then hitting it again. And again. The core mechanics are garbage and always have been, any sense of socialization comes into play after capping and anything story or lore-heavy is during endgame as well. Blizzard most certainly doesn’t force you to, but from some point on, that character booster token seems like the only viable option to enjoy the game; because the leveling just isn’t enjoyable. Even then, unless you grind for better gear or own the latest expansion, you’ll still find it hard to join a dungeon group or a raid if you’re not part of a Guild. 

WoW isn’t the only Blizzard game with misguided intentions; Overwatch, as popular as it is, doesn’t seem to focus on “fun” anymore either. Blizzard made a very attractive, well-marketed casual hero shooter. When all is said and done, it’s an average shooter with a lot of irrelevant hooks. Its reliance on team balance can make it infuriating more often than not. If, originally, Overwatch was designed to be an accessible shooter with interesting heroes to choose from, now there are only two things at the core of its design: loot-boxes and competitive play. 

The loot boxes are already annoying. They’re only cosmetics and one can ignore them, but they are a hook that plays to the game’s detriment in the long term. My experience was that I enjoyed the game at first and didn’t pay much attention to the loot boxes. Come the first Year of the Rooster event, I finally found a D.Va (my main) skin I liked. I never cared for the other alternatives to the base skin. So, I decided I’d grind for it. 

During the time that event ran for, I leveled my account for about 100 levels; that is a lot of playtime invested. I tolerated the broken arcade mode games (particularly Mystery Heroes), for the three extra loot boxes. No drop; I got a million other stuff, some even good, but nothing I really cared for. I eventually did the unthinkable and bought 10 extra loot boxes.

Still no drop! The only thing I managed to do with the boxes I paid for was finally scrounge up the 3000 credits needed to buy the damned thing on my own.

The legs may or may not had something to do with wanting this skin.

Needless to say, I was exhausted by the end. I’d grown to resent the game. I’d seen through the cracks in its design, how broken it is and how worse it gets with each update. The paint had started chipping away and I could compare it to other online shooters, like Red Orchestra 2, Natural Selection 2 and Insurgency; different types of shooter, but all of them infinitely more complex, tense and mechanically engaging.

It’s my fault I allowed myself to be hooked like a gambling addict, but the point is that the game stopped being about having fun. The core mechanics were shaky to begin with and at its core the game is made to provide more bad experiences than good, unless you have your own team of people you know and can communicate with on the fly. 

Then, there is the Competitive angle. Blizzard made, by design, a very casual shooter to appeal to lowest common denominator, with its simplistic mechanics and waifus. Then, they suddenly decided they wanted in on that Competitive scene, because Starcraft had proven them there’s a lot of a money there. In doing so, they started re-balancing and changing and overall slaughtering their own game design with one questionable decision after the other. Re-balancing wasn’t done on the basis of fun gameplay, but instead on the basis of pick-rate. The whole thing was (and is) a sordid affair.

It doesn’t stop there, though. Both in terms of WoW and Overwatch, one could argue that the problem is that these games aren’t for me. I’d disagree, I think the design problems of these games are fairly easy to recognize, but one could debate I’m reading them wrong. The best example of how completely off they are with their modern design is Heroes of the Storm (HOTS).

I don’t like MOBAs and I don’t really play MOBAs. I’m slightly familiar with the genre and even I can attest to the fact that HOTS is a bad MOBA compared to DOTA, League of Legends, Paragon etc. I wouldn’t ever go back to that game and I don’t think anybody, not already into it, would.

Blizzard aren’t idiots; they know HOTS isn’t very popular. So, they did this promotion event, where they forced you to play HOTS to unlock Genji’s Oni skin and D.Va’s police outfit in Overwatch.

I played HOTS, during that event, for four hours. Consecutive. I did all the matches to get everything on offer. I was exhausted. I wasn’t the only one, either. At some point, some six games in, all of us, unrelated people, strangers to one-another, started complaining in chat about how tired we were and that we really didn’t want to move our characters and play. Couldn’t we just sit there, shit-posting and let the other guys pretend they’re playing, so the round can be done as fast as possible?

We weren’t trying to be assholes and ruin the game. We were legitimately just exhausted. Our brains had started melting from the repetition. We couldn’t even pretend we were having fun. 

This entire event was Blizzard’s brilliant idea to promote HOTS to people who played Overwatch, but not HOTS. I don’t know the retention numbers after that event ended; what I do know is that the moment all the D.Va shit unlocked, that game was out of my hard drive immediately. Again, I wasn’t the only one to do this.

In the process, not only did Blizzard fail to promote HOTS; not only did they turn off newcomers to HOTS, because grind-based gaming is a necessarily evil and not a good motivator; they also alienated their established player-base, who just wanted to play the fucking game and ended up matched with us assholes who just wanted the goodies; goodies for a different fucking game, no less.

Between these three games, it’s pretty obvious to me that whatever Blizzard’s current focus is, it’s not to provide an entertaining experience for the player. Making money is good; I’m not going to be the person to say that Blizzard shouldn’t care for profit, but it infuriates me that their system works. I don’t even mean it works on others; the Blizzard spell mind-controls me just as well. I’m still itching to go back to WoW, after writing this long diatribe on why I hate it. Part of it is the repetition; I can waste entire hours, doing the exact same thing for no reward. It’s like pulling the level in a slot machine, only in this case I know for a fact there will be no reward. If not for that, I feel like going back simply to justify the money I paid for the subscription. It’s almost Machiavellian; I gain absolutely nothing from the experience, but if I don’t sink my time into this dull and dreary experience, I’ll feel like I’m not getting my investment back. 

So yes, their system currently works. They’re doing well. The problem is, I’m not sure how long this will last. A really good way to not only sell copies, but also retain a player base is to offer a game that’s actually enjoyable. Though I’m certain there are newcomers to WoW, I’m pretty confident in assuming the majority of players are veterans. They got into the game when it was still fun, when the market was much more bare and there was far less competition. They stick around still, because leveling your character to the cap is an investment you don’t want to sacrifice. Familiarity is a powerful motivator, but it only goes so far; especially when the audience is constantly growing. 

As someone who has never capped a character in a MMORPG, all I feel I’ve been offered by Blizzard is extra chores to do. Leveling in WoW feels like an obligation, like work. Grinding for loot boxes in Overwatch feels like work. That shit I put myself through in HOTS was absolutely work. Their games started out well enough, but they evolved into these unpaid internships that ultimately offer nothing outside of killing time. Worse yet, this is the scummiest kind of unpaid work, the kind you have to pay to be granted the honor to partake in. 

When you reach the point that have to schedule your game sessions as a thing you “must do” each day to make sure you get that gear, or that level, or that loot box, instead of going “I can’t wait to play this game again”, there’s something wrong. I have a soft spot for Blizzard; I think all of us do. I want to like a lot of their stuff and they have put out good games in the past; some of them being the very games I now find so infuriating. But considering I just paid 15 bucks for an experience that’s so depressing I had to switch to Cryptic’s shitty Neverwinter game to sate my MMORPG hunger (UPDATE: It didn’t work), I’m not really very willing to give them any more chances. They need to restructure their focus. Money’s good, popularity is good too; but you’re making games, something intended to make people feel good and enjoy themselves. Do try to remember this, once in a while. 

[hms3649271]

Working towards the three projects I chose this semester has been an experiment in both time management and creative consistency. One of the main components of the experience that I have found to be most productive has been the process of creating works with both an intention and a deadline. I have struggled with this element of creative work within my own practice for several years, and university has been an opportunity for me to get out of some bad habits and work towards creating finished products. The change of my mindset regarding my creative products from something that I make completely selfishly and without intention to share has been a positive outcome and is something I hope to build on. I want to continue making things, and I feel that the opportunities I have been granted both this semester and last have been formative in my personal journey to develop a conscious understanding of the type of works that I want to make. These kinds of broader experiences are what make me feel justified in the decisions I have made to continue studying as I have. It’s unlikely in any way that I would get the chance to work on these types of projects in the way that I have had I not put myself in this environment. I have had moments of uncertainty, but in retrospect, there have been many lessons that I have learnt which I value significantly and doubt I would otherwise come across.

On a more specific level, working within the structure of the HMSeX studio, I feel that each project has presented me with several valuable experiences. When I look back at the decision I made at the beginning of the semester to work under the term ‘mesmerising’, I feel that it was made with the intention of finding a way to facilitate myself working with a pre-existing idea of my own ‘aesthetic’. This decision was not necessarily a bad thing, although it feels like my initial interpretation of it has evolved significantly since the first few weeks. The research that I did drew parallels between the threshold of immersive media and helped me establish a conceptual guideline to work under. This was a productive choice, as I had struggled to find academic implementations of the term ‘mesmerising’ specifically, especially relating to media art and experience. I attempted to demonstrate that the state of mesmerisation was one that is ‘contingent upon the viewer responding to the artwork’ (Eastwood, 2012), a parallel with the development of immersive experiences. I found that the ‘multifaceted relations between critical distance and immersion’ (Grau, 2003) were the same relations that the works I wanted to create were reliant upon in their success. It was this creative structure that I was consistently referring to throughout the semester to make sure that my works retained the academic backbone that I initially tried to establish. In hindsight, this seems to have helped me maintain a thread of complex relationships throughout my work, however, it feels as if the inherently subjective manipulation of the physical experience leaves their success up to the viewer and their response.

Town Hall I felt that my work in the town hall was generally successful, despite facing several challenges. I feel that I was able to accomplish the process and results-based goals that I set out for myself regarding the production of mesmerising content, especially with my implementation of quadraphonic audio. Employing high-frequency detail in the rear speakers that relates to and differs from the content being played through the main left and right loudspeakers is one way that I attempted to implement my definition of the adjective and the process of its induction. The (unintentional) choice to locate the loudspeakers that were used for the two rear channels underneath the circle was potentially to my benefit, as it helped contain some of the more difficult acoustic properties of the space. The two biggest challenges were the time constraints and limited access to the hall itself. As we didn’t have any chance to work on the project on the organ itself and with the loudspeaker system employed for the concert, it was quite a surprise to hear it the first time. This in and of itself definitely made things more interesting however I believe that there would have been decisions that I made differently had I been able to access the space beforehand. I don’t however, think that this affected my implementation of my adjective. As part of this project Cameron and I have still ended up with a file that contains his video and my audio, and when viewing this despite it not containing the sound of the organ I still feel that it is representative of the types of works I wanted to create this semester and a successful application of my creative structure. I think as unlikely as it is if the opportunity were ever to arise again to write music for a MIDI controllable grand organ I would still take it.

Capitol Theatre Collaborating with Cameron on a second project was an easily realised extension of the work we had already done in the town hall. Each of us was able to work independently on our respective components, while also bouncing ideas back and forth. In this way, I think our collaborative workflow was quite effective, as we each had a good sense of what we wanted to achieve and had both chosen the same adjective. This meant that aesthetic decisions were able to be made in conjunction with each other in an attempt to meet similar research-based goals.

From my perspective, I had a lot of issues getting the audio somewhere I was happy with. This was partially related to the fact that we had settled on a structure early on in the semester that we would work towards as a result of a few sketches I put together. I wouldn’t usually want to write in this way, and I put myself in a box by doing so. I also had some trouble with getting the track right in the room, a lot of which ended up being issues that I was having within Ableton that I was, fortunately, able to resolve by the date of the exhibition.

I think our time management could have been improved, most specifically in relation to our lighting design. It was really this element of the work that set it apart and related it to our adjective. We had intended to link the video and the lighting by utilising the LED matrix as an extension of the screen space, subtly creating peripheral relationships between what was visible on the screen and what could be seen in the corner of the eye along the walls and the ceiling. Unfortunately, this got left to the last minute and I didn’t get to quite spend as much time on it as I had wanted. That being said, I was fortunate to already have the software-based skills required to create the work, and once I sat down with Cameron we were able to efficiently create something that we were both aesthetically happy with and felt functioned as we had planned.

Black Box As I have mentioned in some of my previous blog posts, I felt that the work I completed in the Black Box was the one that I got the most out of and was most pleased within the end. The various lessons I learnt regarding the implementation of spatial composition techniques have been invaluable, and the experience itself has been very positive and enriching. These techniques have been informed by the work of Marije Baalman, a dutch academic whose work has focused on quantifying the ‘tension between compositional techniques to create ‘spatial music’, and audio technologies for spatialisation’. I found that this resonated with me throughout my process significantly, and I probably spent more time focusing on the HOW rather than the WHAT. It was this dialogue between technique and product that I spent most of my sessions in the room experimenting with. I wanted to explore how the level of control I granted myself within the software impacted the product that I ended up with. In my discussions with other students who have worked in the room, I am quite glad for the amount of time I spent focusing on this. Some of the techniques that I found were highly efficient methods of producing the type of spatial ‘music’ that I had set out to create. When I look back at my initial experiments, I feel I have come a long way. The development of production techniques within Ableton that maintained program accuracy but allowed for the creation of complex polyrhythmic sequences across multiple speaker outputs was an outcome I was quite happy with. I would like to expand on this with some experimentation in max for live, to see how far I can push this idea.

Baalman uses the term ‘accuracy’ multiple times, in reference to the compositional systems ability to translate the spatial parameters of the loudspeaker array into the program. This was something I felt Ableton lacked, and through my experimentation found a solution for. In some ways, this is not actually a necessity for a successful composition. The variance in what this adds to the experience for both composer and viewer is quite significant.

I will briefly touch on the visual component I had attempted to add. I’m quite glad that after the conversation I had with Darrin this morning I made the decision to strike it. The thoughts I was having earlier in the semester about the impact it had on the experience by orienting the room throughout were still just as valid, and I suspect my misgivings about introducing that as a variable were what made that decision so easy. The experience of the work on its own is much stronger and opens up the viewer's experience of both the space and the array. I noticed today while watching the audience the variety of perspectives throughout the room. Everyone had gathered around in the centre of the room and were each facing in different directions. This made the experience much more insular, and the focus became the sound and its field. Introducing visual content not only orients the audience within the space but also changes the way that we listen, and focuses their attention on the sounds and their field. I feel that this decision meant that despite the visual content introducing further possible audiovisual relationships, it actually detracted from the accomplishment of my chosen adjective. The level of resolution within the loudspeaker array already allowed significant opportunity for the types of interrelated devices that I wanted to employ to meet my criteria. I’m glad for the opportunity to use this system. It has truly been a very enriching experience and I feel that I have learnt a lot. I hope to focus on these kinds of systems more in the future within my creative practice.

[gamerszone2019-blog]

No Man's Sky Beyond Review

New Post has been published on https://gamerszone.tn/no-mans-sky-beyond-review/

No Man's Sky Beyond Review

In 2019, No Man’s Sky

is the water fight of games. When your water balloons are stacked high and your water gun is full it’s an absolute blast. But inevitably, you run out of liquid ammunition and have to pause for several minutes, soaking wet and shivering, while you operate a hose and refill your stores for the next round of fun. While the recent Beyond represents another significant step in the right direction for No Man’s Sky that improves itself in almost every area, the uninteresting harvesting and survival mechanics that underlie it all remain incredibly grindy and frequently mind-numbingly tedious. It often feels like it’s been made by two teams with opposing views on game design, who are each tugging at either side of it until eventually agreeing to meet in the middle or tear it in half.At its best, No Man’s Sky plays like an increasingly elaborate interstellar Animal Crossing. You travel the stars and visit strange, procedurally generated planets in a never-ending quest for loot and money to spend on upgrades for your survival suit and weapon, ships to pilot, rovers to drive, and bases to build. Every time you think you’ll log off for the night, another notification pops up that reminds you about that one last thing you really wanted to do, and before you can say “I need an intervention,” it’s 5 AM and you’re redecorating your fifth base on some remote world or taming a bizarre creature that looks like the lovechild of Big Bird and an octopus.

Here’s how you tame and ride creatures in No Man’s Sky Beyond

It’s easy to appreciate the improvements and additions included in the Beyond update because they’re apparent as soon as you boot it up. Improved graphics highlight things like detail on your ships and a revamped tutorial and mission guidance system makes it much more clear what you should be working toward at any given time. Unlocking new technologies has been reimagined as skill trees that are easy to understand. And these are just a few of the highlights on the massive laundry list of things in the Beyond update that make No Man’s Sky vastly more interesting than it’s ever been.

With Beyond, No Man’s Sky is vastly more interesting than it’s ever been.

“

But the same things that make playing No Man’s Sky a wonderful, habit-forming odyssey that would make Tom Nook proud often work against you — like when you find yourself repeatedly grinding the same materials and crafting the same parts over and over again in an ongoing effort to fuel the numerous engines of interstellar life. You’ll spend tedious hours mining rocks to craft metal plates that you need to make starship engine fuel just so you can take off in your ship and see the still-impressive, completely seamless transition from ground to outer space and back again. And even though No Man’s Sky’s carrying limitations have been even further loosened with the Beyond update your inventory still fills up almost constantly, ensuring that the grind will never be defeated. With few ways to automate resource gathering, exploring the cosmos often takes a back seat to waiting for your mining laser to melt a tree into resources for minutes at a time.

And, considering how central exploration is to No Man’s Sky’s appeal, it’s staggering just how many mechanics still seem dead set on preventing you from doing just that. Why are your sprint and jetpack capabilities meters so limited, and why does using them draw from your life support meter? Why does every language have to be learned one word at a time, meaning that even after dozens of hours of playing you still can’t really understand any of the alien races you encounter? Why, for the love of God, does every planet in the universe have violent weather events every couple of minutes that require you to shut yourself indoors or hide in a cave and wait out to survive? Time and time again, No Man Sky begs you to explore it but then (quite literally) forces you walk, not run.

Hello Games’ Sean Murray walks us through Beyond’s many improvements in the video below.

It’s odd that No Man’s Sky still has so many irritating elements, because it’s also very clearly aware that they exist and tries to smooth over the issues rather than simply fixing them. For example, combat remains as dull and repetitive as ever, so the appearance of hostile lifeforms and robotic sentinel space police has been reduced instead of trying to make fighting them more entertaining. Space dogfights also remain monotonous and overly simplistic in Beyond, and while controls seem to have improved and encounters don’t drag on as long, fighting off pirates is never more than an annoying interruption to your travels.

Beyond brings NMS dangerously close to what we all thought it was when it was first revealed.

“

And yet, there’s something truly special about No Man’s Sky after the Beyond update that brings it dangerously close to being what we all thought it was when it was first revealed years ago. Getting lost among the stars, seeing strange and unique creatures, and claiming a piece of the nigh-limitless galaxy for yourself by building a home are all rewarding and all but completely unique to No Man’s Sky. It’s hard not to fall in love with it in the brief pockets of time where it isn’t forcing you to beat your head against a wall for an hour while you search for a deposit of copper but the stupid Dr. Seuss planet you’re on has is uranium.

In the course of my travels, I found myself stranded on a massive water planet filled with aggressive jellyfish, stared in awe at some bizarre life forms that were made up of levitating crystals, and explored the murky caves on an atmosphere-free moon. Of course, regardless of how they look every planet still has an identical loop of gathering materials, hiding from inevitable and frustrating storms of heat or ice or toxins, and maybe building a base or riding an animal or two along the way. But still there’s an undeniable rush of excitement in discovering and exploring a planet for the first time that doesn’t go away even after hours of play.

Beyond also alters and consolidates No Man’s Sky’s three main storylines into a more cohesive set of quests that intertwine, and they are much more accessible for it. One of the best-kept secrets of No Man’s Sky is that the story is actually fairly complex, with twists and turns that even go so far as to explain the reason behind the universe’s existence. But frankly, the vehicle by which the story is told – an endless chain of fetch quests and vague conversations with generic NPCs – makes the whole thing not at all worth the effort. Your time is better spent doing the things that are entertaining to you, finding your way to the end of the main quest lines only if you manage to find joy in doing so. (Or, y’know, YouTube exists.)

No Man’s Sky Beyond Screenshots

Multiplayer features have been drastically improved with Beyond, though it still falls far short of today’s standards in many ways – especially where organization is concerned. The Anomaly space station is now a social hub that allows you to encounter other players organically rather than by invite or chance (though doing so is still quite rare), and together you can undertake short group missions via The Nexus or even visit one another’s bases by stepping through a massive teleporter. The number of players in a single instance has been bumped up from four to eight on consoles and up to 32 on PC, but actually organizing activities together can be a bit of a nightmare. For starters, you’re given very few tools to find one another in the expansive galaxy, and unless everyone is communicating and staying together it’s easy to get lost or left behind with no easy way to rejoin your friends. If you find yourself without the required materials to launch or pilot your ship when everybody else takes off, for example, you’ll either get left behind by your friends or will hold up the group while you go shoot a laser at some plants for a few minutes. Sharing resources with one another is still, sadly and inexplicably, not an option.

Sharing resources with one another is still, sadly and inexplicably, not an option.

“

Most of the major and strange multiplayer glitches from last year’s NEXT update (in hindsight, a very funny name now that it’s the previous one) have been ironed out, though you’ll probably still encounter the odd bug now and again. I had incidents where my partner couldn’t see the enemies attacking me, or animation issues making it unclear when one of us was firing our mining laser. Playing with others makes the grind of No Man’s Sky much more bearable, but oftentimes because having someone to share in your pain can be really cathartic.

VR makes its debut in No Man’s Sky with the Beyond update (on PlayStation VR and PC, at least), and wandering around an undiscovered planet and hearing unknown critters walk up behind you is an exciting and sometimes unnerving experience. Using hand tracking with Move wands or Oculus/Vive/Index/etc controllers to aim your weapons and tools feels natural, even if you’re still just engaging in the usual monotony of harvesting. Using VR in space flight, on the other hand, is an overwhelmingly positive experience which benefits from your character being stationary and blurriness not mattering quite as much in the darkness of the void. And while it doesn’t fix the monotony of dogfighting, it absolutely makes it more immersive because you can look up through your ship’s canopy.

Watch 10 minutes of No Man’s Sky in VR below.

Movement options offer a static mode with teleportation and click-turning that can be a bit hard to learn but is easy on those of us with weaker stomachs, or a smooth-movement mode that acts the same way the non-VR mode does. However, on the PlayStation VR it was so low-res and blurry that it might make you lose your lunch like it did mine… twice. Still, seeing the galaxy of No Man’s Sky from a true first-person perspective can be a breathtaking experience, even if technical limitations mean there’s still a long way to go before it makes us feel like we’re really there.

Source : IGN

[icon-devcodapage]

Meet the Tutorial Maker: Curtis Holt

Who I am

Hello everybody! My identify is Curtis and I’m a mixed-media content material creator from London, England. I spend most of my time operating a YouTube channel the place I create a mixture of content material together with tutorials, add-ons and inventive shorts. I’m recognized for distributing giant amounts of free content alongside my movies, starting from simple 3D belongings to finish add-ons.

How I received Began with Blender

The first time I opened Blender was roughly again in 2006-2007 (versions 2.4x). Again then, the user-interface was nothing in need of alien know-how to me. I had no concept how you can navigate the options, not to mention use the software to make anything aside from a cube. Most days I might open the software, mess around with the buttons after which shut it again with out making anything. Typically I might go months with out touching it, however curiosity all the time introduced me back. Again then, studying how you can use software program with the help of the internet was far more troublesome. Google had acquired YouTube, but the platform hadn’t actually ‘taken off’ yet and there was a restricted number of learning assets out there.

As the years went on, I turned extra curious about constructing 3D worlds inside the context of recreation improvement. Educators making higher-quality video content turned extra widespread and I started to take a position extra time into learning Blender.

How I Learnt to Make Issues

Blender was not truly my first foray into the world of 3D. Back in 2004 once I was about eight years previous, my dad had managed to get hold of ‘3ds Max 7’, and I spent many hours after faculty making random shapes and buildings. I feel my proudest mannequin at that time was a spaceship made utterly out of cubes and cylinders that had been reworked until they vaguely resembled one thing sci-fi. Sadly that mannequin not exists.

I might love to be able to show my younger self my newer attempts of modeling a spaceship:

Throughout most of my time at secondary (excessive) faculty, I used to be more all in favour of programming than paintings. I spent my free time learning methods to make web sites with associates, after which moved on to making text-based journey video games with C++.

Over time I turned more involved in 3D recreation improvement and began experimenting with all types of recreation engines. That’s once I tried out the Unity3D engine, which I in a short time turned hooked up to. It’s a simple engine to put in writing scripts for using C#, which is such a strong language. So much of the software program is uncovered for modification / extension and that has all the time excited me. It’s one in every of the reasons I really like Blender a lot—I can break it aside and construct new options to go well with my ideas.

Understanding easy methods to write games was one factor, however I needed to convey my inventive expertise up to scratch to let me deliver my imagination to life. Blender was free and I enjoyed its flexibility, so I went all-out with studying easy methods to use it.

Zacharias Reinhardt, Andrew Worth, Gleb Alexandrov and Aidy Burrows all produced high-quality content (free and paid) that was extraordinarily useful to my studying throughout this time.

How I Began Making Tutorials

I really like YouTube and was all the time inquisitive about operating a channel however a lack of confidence prevented me from putting my work on the market at an earlier time.

There are key people who ought to be thanked for the existence of the channel—associates, household and different nice artists, content material creators and members of the Blender group.

I want to offer a huge because of Bart Veldhuizen who was the first individual to ever write an article about my work. It made me realise that there are actually individuals on the market who will probably be eager about what I could make.

In addition to that is Nicholas, a remarkably gifted writer and supportive good friend, who managed to keep my creativity flowing by continually challenging me with random tasks and concepts.

The first tutorial I made for the channel was about modular setting design with a give attention to constructing science-fiction corridors. I selected this as a topic as a result of I had been asked for recommendation on the subject a number of occasions by a set of associates, and making a video that they might refer again to seemed like a useful concept.

After the video received accepted for BlenderNation, I acquired a flood of viewership and supportive comments. Half 1 shortly surpassed one thousand views, which utterly blew my thoughts. So as to add to that, only three days after the collection was posted, Grant Abbitt featured it in his video: ‘Immerse Yourself in Creativity’. I used to be elated to see individuals enjoying the content material.

The channel has far exceeded my expectations up to now and it’s all because of a vibrant, fantastic and beneficiant group. I’m continuously stunned and motivated by individuals sharing their work using methods from my movies.

My Strategy to Educating

My strategy is to maintain it very deliberate and scripted. That is for a number of causes—individuals on the web usually have brief attention spans and I don’t need to waste their time. In addition to this, scripted dialogue is simpler to translate into other languages because it removes mumbling and pauses for thought. This can be a totally different strategy from another tutorial makers preferring to do stay recordings for tutorials.

There’s definitely no right or flawed strategy to do it. Doing stay and unscripted tutorials can convey far more character in case you can keep rapport with the viewer. All that basically matters is you could get the info across with out boring or annoying the viewer.

Once I’m conveying instructional info to members of my group (particularly on our Discord server), I all the time keep the perception that encouragement is important for learning. I additionally inform individuals to not comply with conventional ‘rules’ for artwork and design too intently. Respect and study from them to information your work, but in addition study to break them where you are feeling it’s applicable. Artwork is art, don’t let it’s restricted by conventions.

How Subjects are Chosen

Usually, I simply make what I really feel like making. For this reason I really like YouTube—I’m allowed to get up and select what to work on for that day. Artistic freedom is all the time thrilling for me. If I put out a video and don’t know what to make subsequent, then I have a growing 7-page document of ideas that I can refer back to.

This definitely doesn’t imply I’m closed off from new ideas. I actively search social media on the lookout for new and fascinating developments, and my group are fast to send me fascinating subjects that seem in the CG group. Anybody could make requests and if I find the topic fascinating and assume it’s substantial enough for a video, then I’ll deliver it to life.

How Tutorials are Made

If I know what I need to make, I’ll start by experimenting in Blender, retaining all the things in a separate folder right from the beginning. My goal will probably be to create fascinating assets that I can distribute alongside the upcoming video for individuals to mess around with.

Demonstration file for ‘Smoke Simulation in EEVEE (Blender 2.8)’

As soon as the assets are created, I’ll begin writing a script detailing the process and method, often explaining the way to replicate or use the assets. Following that, I will report the vocal audio for the script with Adobe Audition.

The audio will then be put into an Adobe Premiere challenge where I’ve a pre-made template with my common intro and outro already set up.

Premiere challenge file for ‘Displaying Characters in EEVEE (Blender 2.8)’

Now all that’s left is to get clips to match the scripted audio. I’ll put Premiere and OBS Studio on my left monitor and hold the entrance monitor clear for recording. Listening back to the audio, I comply with together with the script and perform the essential actions on the display. Once all of the clips have been put into the venture, I’ll proof-watch the complete video, make crucial modifications, render it to file and then upload it to YouTube, the place it can stay personal till all of the assets have been uploaded to Gumroad and other obtain websites.

Examples of Work

Method Focus

Add-on Demonstrations

Lighting and Type Design

Surroundings Design

Timelapses

Instruments I Use

Blender

Adobe Premiere, for video modifying.

Adobe Audition, for audio recording.

OBS Studio, for display recording.

Unity3D, for degree design, shorts and interactive tasks.

Visual Studio Code, for scripting (corresponding to with add-on improvement).

The Office

My workplace can get very messy since I’m understanding of a small room. What you possibly can see under is my desk in a tidy state. Each piece of word paper I write on is stored in a stack on my bookshelf since I never throw something away. It’s because I wish to archive unfastened ideas in-case they may be helpful to me in the future.

Where the magic occurs.

Where I Find Inspiration

Artwork books, Pinterest, Twitter, films, video games, music and YouTube. I like to eat all types of inventive media, though I especially love video video games, films and music movies. This could be partially as a result of my father being a Particular Effects Supervisor—I’ve been fortunate sufficient to spend many days growing up on film units in several elements of the world. I’ve been raised in a family that celebrates artistic achievement and entrepreneurship. Due to this, I’ve all the time been inspired to study as many expertise as attainable, surrounding myself with as a lot information and inspiration as I can. I feel creatives ought to take the time to show their consolation zones into locations that provide them with emotional stimulation. Pinterest especially has really enlightened me to the sheer quantity of paintings out there online and I can extremely advocate it to individuals trying to build up a library of inspiration.

Thanks for taking the time to examine my work!

About the Writer

Curtis Holt, 3D artist, software developer and content material creator on YouTube.

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