#shitpost with way too much effort put into it part one million | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

theinternetinterviewed · 5 years ago

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Ben Harvey, An Architect Who Puts His Life On The Line

The most popular video game to come from Slovenia is Line Rider. The object of Line Rider is to design a track for a boy on a sled to ride. In doing this, players becomes architects. Released in 2006, there are thousands of Line Rider tracks and the longest ever is titled This Will Destroy You, 50 minutes long with 2.7 million views. Ben Harvey, its maker, is a man whose sense of sight is influenced by what he hears and he therefore is able to translate musical tracks into Line Rider tracks. To watch two minutes of the video is to see a series of satisfying, sight-to-sound synchronizations. To watch twenty minutes is to narrow your attention in such a way that the boy’s experience become your own and to watch the full thing it to live the definition of the word ‘journey.’

A: Is this Ben?

B: This is Ben. You’re two hours early. A: Am I really?

B: That’s okay though.

A: Are you sure?

B: Its 1. But that’s okay though.

A: You’re cool to jump into this early?

B: We can jump into it now.

A: Cool. My name is Austin. Nice to meet you.

B: Nice to meet you. My name is Ben.

A: Hi, Ben. I have a blog called The Internet, Interviewed. It’s where I interview people who do cool things and you are one of them.

B: That sounds very broad.

A: Oh, it’s the most broad thing. Have you been interviewed before?

B: I have been interviewed a couple of times. I don’t think any of them are going to take the format that you’re doing here.

A: As in, on the phone?

B: On the phone and *pause* most of the people who have interviewed me before were in the scene of Line Rider. You’re more on the outside, if that makes sense.

A: I just like the videos.

B: *laughs*

A: I’ve seen your essays and very little of them makes sense to me.

B: *laughs*

A: This will take about 60 minutes. I have a bunch of questions. Some are funny, some nostalgic, some serious. Answer however you like. I know you’re a thoughtful, articulate guy so if you digress or tell a story, that’s fine with me. This is an interview and you’re the subject.

B: Great.

A: My first question: how did you find Line Rider and how old are you?

B: I would have been, let me do the math, I would have been 14 and I was making computer games with Game Maker [software] and trying to find where I can put them on the Internet. I found Line Flyer which was a rip off and made something in it and sent it to one of my friends and he was, like, “That’s not the real Line Rider.” He sent me a link to LineRider.com. Then I was off to the races.

A: When did you become more serious?

B: It depends on what you mean by serious. I started working seriously on a large project a year after I discovered it. A year to two years. I don’t remember. It’s been a long time since like 2008. I was 15 at the time. The Line Rider Community was something I found early and got heavily involved in. I wrote a bunch of reviews for Line Rider tracks. I didn’t start treating it as an art medium until about 2015. I went to a liberal arts college and ended up creating my own major call Electronic Artistic Design. For my last year of college, I had not been thinking about Line Rider because I was focusing on my school work. When I came back, I had a slow, rolling epiphany about how Line Rider could be treated like an art medium and how a lot of the things that I studied, I could apply to Line Rider. I’m not sure I answered your question. What was it again?

A: That was on the nose. I wanted to know when you started to look at it seriously.

B: I started putting a lot of time and effort into Line Rider in 2008 and I started looking at it as a medium for art creation in 2015–2016.

A: It amazes me that at 14 you were interested in writing reviews.

B: *laughs*

A: The game must have struck you.

B: I’m trying to think …back 12 years ago now. Getting closer to 13. I just found myself wanting to watch all of the tracks and then I realized that a lot of people were spending a lot of time on these tracks and then they would get comments like, “Cool,” “8 out of 10,” [boring voice] and I wanted to give some real feedback.

A: That’s a noble response for a young person to have.

B: Another part of it was…I was also a little bit of an outsider in school and I found a community of peers in other people who were interested in Line Rider. A big part of it was that, finding a community of people who were interested in the things that I was. Also if you’re hearing purrs it’s because my cat has decided to sit on my chest.

A: If the cat says anything, I’ll make sure to include it.

B: *laughs* Excellent.

A: Can you remember the first track that wowed you?

B: There were lots that I really liked. The first that really impressed me was a track called Discarded by TechDawg. I saw it when it came out and it was sort of the first example of a Line Rider track that someone had made where they were using scenery lines to add texture and detail to the ground so it looked like this cool, rocky landscape. It was like he was painting a picture. Instead of, “Here is a rock shape,” it was, “Here is a rock-shaped drawing and a whole bunch of cracks and crags.” He would shade the rock. That was the first one that really impressed me.

A: Did you write a review about it?

B: I did. It’s not worth much but, yeah, I did. *laughs*

A: When someone sees your work for the first time, what do you hope they think?

B: My hope is that they’re not thinking about how I made it. My hope is that they’re letting the visuals wash over them and having an emotional response — whether that’s reflective or joyful or harrowing or trippy or whatever.

A: How big is your body of work?

B: It depends on what you include. Do you include the things that I've produced or directed? Within the things I’ve made, there are shitposts I made in an hour.

A: *laughs*

B: Those take as much time to watch as something that I worked two hundred hours on. There’s maybe 10 to 20 projects that I’ve poured a lot of time into and there are 10 to 20 projects that I remain proud of today and those overlap and there are tracks that fall into one or the other only. There are a couple dozen projects that I've directed or produced or facilitated in some way, even if I only made a small fraction or even none of the actual track. There is the writing I’ve done about Line Rider which ranges from crappy reviews I wrote when I was 14 to video essays about the nature Line Rider that I’ve done more recently. There is the Line Rider Archival Project which I can’t forget. It started ad hoc a long time ago but in the last few years I’ve formalized my attempt to archive as much of Line Rider on the internet that I can so it doesn’t get lost. On top of that, there are dozens of projects that were experimental or low effort or just memes or shitposts. I’ve had a lot of conversations with all sorts of people who are making Line Rider tracks and while that’s not really part of a body of work, it’s had a lot of impact on my work.

A: If you took the courses you made and the ones you produced and directed and played one after the next, how long would that be?

B: It would take a few hours depending on what you include.

A: More than six?

B: Six would be on the high end. Oh gosh. *laughs* There was an 18 hour marathon in which I watched a lot of Line Rider track and gave live commentary on them, so if you exclude all of that and focus on the raw footage of Line Rider then it would probably be like three hours?

A: Like an unabridged order of Lord of the Rings with all the extra scenes.

B: Something like that. If you add all the video, it would be a few days.

A: When having a conversation with someone, do you sometimes drift off and create Line Rider tracks in your head? Or when putting away dishes? Sometimes does Line Rider just happen?

B: It usually happens when I’m listening to music. Music is the spark. That wasn’t always the case. The first few years…excuse me if my voice sounds weird. I’m getting over a cold…. I was imagining these two dimensional spaces with three dimensional objects in them that the sledder was moving through. I thought about the projects I was making and how I wanted to make them look. Nowadays, I find myself daydreaming about Line Rider when I’m listening to music. I think, “Oh. I know how I would visualize this piece.” Most of them will never come to fruition because I lack the tools to create them without immense amounts of work.

A: Music predates the course? You have music that attracts you and then you create a course according to it?

B: As of the last, ten years that’s true. The first maybe three years it was not about the music but in the last decade it’s been about the music. Music creates the course. I hear a piece of music and I go, “Oh. I know what I can do with this.”

A: Are you a big music fan?

B: I am a big music fan. I’m super into post-rock. Which is how This Will Destroy You got created but lots of other types of music too.

A: When you have a Line Rider session and you’re going and everything is clicking, you’re inventing things spontaneously and they’re working out, what does that feel like?

B: I have two answers for that. One is, if you have heard of the concept of flow — it’s an artistic creation mode where you’re totally focused on what you’re making and everything else fades away. And another thing relates to my autism. I am autistic and so I have this thing where I hyper-focus. That means basically the same thing. But it’s something that I can control and sometimes I can’t. Sometimes I wind up hyper-focusing on things before I know it’s happening. Other times I want to hyper-focus when I want to make something but it’s difficult. But it’s a great feeling. Sometimes I make Line Rider tracks for eight hours in one sitting and other times it’s a struggle to work on it for an hour. It varies. What was that the question? I’m not sure if I answered it.

A: You absolutely illuminated it. I’ve never made a Line Rider so it’s interesting to know what it feels like to do so.

B: I can speak to that. Making a Line Rider track is a lot more like making pointillism then it is making a watercolor. *laughs*

A: How so?

B: It’s tedious and slow going. Generally, the lines are drawn one at a time and erased one at a time. They’ll get drawn and may be adjusted and erased if they’re not working. That’s been changing recently. There are new tools with copy and paste features. There are fill tools. There are all sorts of things that are new and changing that workflow. But, historically, lines are drawn one at a time, very slowly, one after the other.

A: Jeez.

B: Another thing is, you’re making a track and especially if it’s the track that’s focused less on the visuals and more on the the movement, you can’t go back and change part of the movement early on in the track because that would affect everything after it so you have to make every second of track in order one, after the other, and that can be a challenge.

A: You can’t skip around if you’re stuck on something. You have to go straight through.

B: *water drinking noises* Exactly.

A: Do you use a mouse or a drawing pad?

B: Sorry. I need to have a little more water. This cold as persistent. *water noises* I use the mouse for the entirety of the time I’ve made Line Rider tracks, so far. It’s a standard mouse. More recently sometimes I use a trackpad on my MacBook Pro. Going forward though, something I’ve been debating getting for a year now is a one of those touchscreen displays that hooks up to your computer.

A: Can you write your signature really well with a mouse?

B: *laugh* No. Not at all. You know those things where you have to sign your name on an iPad? I’m horrible.

A: Then how are you able to make courses that looks so great?

B: By drawing them one line at a time. I use the straight line tool. With the tool, you click and draw and release and that makes one line. I do that thousands of times.

A: When you plan to work on a project for the day, do you have a schedule? Do you work a certain amount of hours? Or do you throw yourself at it and get done whatever?

B: It can be a struggle to find time to work on Line Rider tracks because historically they’ve been more of a hobby than a profession. In the last year that I’ve been getting commissions, if I have a deadline that’s coming up, it’s easy for me to sit down and start working. I’m in the state of, “Ahh. I have to get this done.” If I don’t have a deadline, sometimes it’s just a matter of getting everything else in my life cleared off my plate so I’m like, “Alright. What’s left to do is the track.” Then I can sit down and not think about if there’s anything else I should be doing instead. That helps me focus.

A: What is there to be said about flying at high speeds to the sound of music? Do you have any insight into what that feeling is?

B: Yes. I’ve known for most of my life that I have synesthesia from music into visuals. Sometimes those are colors, sometimes shapes, and sometimes a movement and that can be more of an auditory-to-kinesthetic synesthesia. I get an actual sense of movement often times when I’m listening to music. It’s like the music is moving or I’m moving because of the music. Often times the most intense feelings are feelings of flying. I translate that into Line Rider. Maybe that’s what people are picking up on. I take for a lot of people it’s something that they don’t necessarily feel vividly but if you’re watching something where there is a figure flying through the air and it lines up with the music really perfectly it’s sort of this thing where people don’t get it at first and then they realize it’s lining up with the music and I feel, “Oh. I see it’s lining up with the music.” Some people react with “Oh. That’s it? That’s boring.” Other people start feeling it. It’s like they can feel the music physically. Which is really fun. It’s a thing I’ve noticed only some people experience. I thought all people experienced it until This Will Destroy You went viral and I got comments from some people who are like, “All it is is movement music synced up to music.”

A: *laughs*

B: And I’m like, “So fascinating!” There are people who don’t feel anything from that inherently.

A: Another thing I noticed was that I was watching one of your tracks and I started to do my grocery list in my head but I didn’t realize I had done it until afterwards. I realized I was thinking clearly. It put me in a zone where my mind was flexible.

B: That is interesting. Sometimes when I watch Line Rider synced to music it feels like a cleanse. It might be a vicarious experience of, like, the feeling of going on a rollercoaster, a little bit. I feel more free afterward. I’ve also noticed people experiencing that themselves. It’s good to know the feeling is widespread.

A: If Line Rider had not existed, would you have invented it?

B: I don’t think I would have invented Line Rider. I don’t know what I would have spent my free time on in 2007, 2008, and 2009 but I know I would still be doing some kind of auditory, music, or sound visualization. I was drawn to that in college and one of the big final projects I did was, I visualized a piece of music with these lights and colors in After Effects. I’d still be doing stuff like that, it just wouldn’t be with Line Rider.

A: For those of us who are not a part of the Line Rider community, can you summarize it?

B: Oh, boy.

A: What is it?

B: The simplest definition would be: a bunch of people, maybe a few dozen people, that hangout with each other on the internet and get really into discussing and creating extremely intricate Line Rider tracks. If you went into the Line Rider community, the average person would be totally confused about what people are talking about because, at least nowadays, which means in the last few years, they’ve been very very focused on the intricacies of the original physics engine and how it can be manipulated to get the sledder to do bizarre erratic movement. Sometimes these things are used to create things that can be impactful to the average person. But if you just walked into the Line Rider community and poked around you would think, “What are they talking about?” *laugh*

A: Can you rattle off a bunch of terms that I have no idea the definition of?

B: Some early ones are gravity wells. Then there ares flings of gravity wells. Then there are variation on flings. So flings can pull different parts of Bosh. Do you want me to come up with the most complex stuff I can?

A: Spit ‘em out.

B: You can make an inverted hand and tail ASDF which stands for an Alternating Single Direction Fling. We could do a Dual Alt Flanual. That would be fun.

A: *laugh*

B: You can have an all blue ten point cannon. Those are interesting.

A: *laugh*

B: Let’s see. Then you have an inverted cranual lock. How’s that?

A: I love those.

B: These are actual terms.

A: When did you make your Patreon? When did you wonder, “How can I make a living, if any?”

B: The shift turned when I was thinking about it as an art medium. Where I was like, “Oh. What if instead of playing this like an open-ended game, why don’t we try to make things that are going to appeal to people who might not even know what Line Rider is?” So, thinking about it as art that’s going to resonate with a general audience and then thinking about how I was going to do that corresponded with thinking about, well, maybe I could make this into a little hobby or a side hustle. It took off very suddenly, much faster than I expected.

A: Yes. How do you feel about your success so far?

B: I have a lot of feelings about success so far. It’s weird to have — sorry, kitty.

A: The cat jumped?

B: I got up to get water and then I was pacing around the room and I tripped over the cat.

A: Son of a gun.

B: Let’s see. How do I feel about my success so far? It’s complicated. I’m a bit estranged from the Line Rider community as of the last couple years. Three years or so. Prior, I was the administrator of the main Line Rider community and I had been running everything in the community so it’s complicated because when I retired from my administrative duties was when I went back to making more Line Rider tracks myself. When This Will Destroy You went viral, it created buzz around Line Rider and funneled people into the community that I had become estranged from. It was this awkward situation where I was reviving this community that I was no longer really as in as I used to be. I have mixed feelings around that. Those feelings standard in contrast to the feelings I have about the comments I’ve gotten on This Will Destroy You. It’s far and away the most wholesome Line Rider YouTube comment section I’ve ever seen. I’ve had people talk about all sorts of mental health issues and how the video has helped them. I’ve had people write basically a story of someone’s entire life to go along with the Line Rider track. I’ve had people being open about how it made them cry. It’s been wonderful to see how much of an impact that has had on people. It’s been great to be able to have an actual audience outside of the Line Rider community, a general audience of people who are interested in the stuff I’m making. So a lot of mixed feelings, but very positive. Is that the question that you are asking?

A: Yeah.

B: Cool.

A: You might have caught on by now that I’m asking broad questions that have no right answers. Feel comfortable as you are. These are some things you might be thinking about and putting into words for the first time ever so you’re doing great.

B: Yes, great.

A: How do you feel about your success on Patreon?

B: The Patreon started out small. And then it grew. It grew suddenly after This Will Destroy You went viral and it slowly but steadily has been growing since. I was surprised by the ratio of how many people were leaving glowing comments and how many people were sending me a dollar on Patreon. It seems like .01% percent of views and then .1% of positive comments got transferred to giving me money even though it’s just a small amount of money every time I release something. I was surprised that that didn’t translate. I think the thing is that on YouTube, people who make a lot of money on Patreon are talking to the camera a lot and so they’ll be talking and talking and talking and at the end they’ll be like, “You should pledge to my patreon.” And that brings people’s attention to it. People aren’t used to having to go look for it. They’re used to be told about it. I think it would be weird if my head popped up at the end of the Line Rider track and I was like, “Hey. Thanks for watching. Check out my patreon.” And they’re like, “Who are you?” I think that’s a big reason why it hasn’t been as successful as I would have hoped it would be with having a track going viral. It is at a point where it is starting to feel like real money and that is exciting. [$144 has been pledged to Ben by patrons per release.] Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons I haven’t been able to make something that I can release on Patreon. I took a break from Line Rider and then I had commissions and then I flew to Slovenia…anyways...

A: That’s a good segue.

B: Oh?

A: You gave a lecture in Slovenia about the history of Line Rider.

B: I did! I’m good friends with the current developer of the build of Line Rider that is on LineRider.com right now, David Lu. The original creator of Line Rider, Boštjan Čadež, (pronounced like Bastian Cah-dez) lives in Slovenia and was looking for people to curate Line Rider videos that would be included in an exhibit. He reached out to the community, got in touch with David, David sent him over to me, and I pulled together a list like, “Here’s a smattering of Line Rider tracks from across various styles and years, and a wide variety in content.” That’s how I got involved in the art exhibition. Then the curator of the art gallery reached out to me and invited me to come to the exhibit in Slovenia and said, if I can get myself there, they would provide me with lodging and give me a tour of the gallery. I managed to find a cheap plane ticket that fit with my schedule. After that was nailed down, he asked me, “Since you’re coming here, do you want to give a lecture?” He said I could choose the topic. I decided to use the opportunity to put together a lecture about the history. It got thrown together quickly though. I had about two weeks notice to know I was flying to Slovenia and giving a lecture. Given that small amount of time, it turned out well. It was good to get something about the 12 year history of Line Rider out into the world. A lot happened in 12 years and most of it was underground, obscure.

A: How did it feel to put it together? Was it easy to recall?

B: I had already done a fair amount of writing on all of the different aspects. I had already done the Line Rider archival project. I had lived a lot of the history. But I'd also done research into the various development builds. These were on the old internet forum that I used to administrate. I compiled lists of prominent Line Rider track releases, lists of different Line Rider builds and the features that they added and the people that developed them. It wasn't so much that I had to sit down and find out all this stuff. I had generally knew it. I just had to put together, “Did this happen first? Or did this happen after that?” And then package the important things to a general audience.

A: What was this exhibit for? What was the nature of it?

B: The exhibit was about Line Rider. The exhibit was titled Line Rider. The original creator of Line Rider put it together, an exhibit where there were different builds of Line Rider that people could play. There was a room with tracks projected on the walls playing on loop. There was a documentary that was created about the creator of Line Rider and and the history of how it was bought by the company InXile Entertainment. There was there was also a new virtual reality Line Rider that the original creator developed for the exhibit. There are some other things like the Game Developer Conference trophy and fun Line-Rider-themed sleds.

A: What was the cause of this exhibit?

B: The curator of the art gallery, Jani Pirnat, and Boštjan were on an artist retreat. Jani found out that Boštjan was the creator of Line Rider. Jani was like, “Oh, that's so cool.” Bosh was like, “I have a lot of negative memories about Line Rider because it got bought out by this company that was going to make a game and I was going to get a share and the game didn't do well financially so I never got any money. I don't have the rights anymore. They basically abandoned it. There are a lot of bad memories.” Jani was persistent and said, "No, no, we should look into getting the rights back. You should do this exhibit."

A: How did the creator feel about the exhibit when it finally happened?

B: He was really happy. He was also happy with the VR Line Rider that he developed, the videos on the documentary. I think he's really excited about continuing development of the VR Line Rider. I also think it's helped him work through the negative stuff that he had surrounding Line Rider. He's been active in the community since the exhibit. That's good to see.

A: What is the documentary called?

B: The documentary is called Line Rider: A Documentary. It's unreleased. In the exhibit, there was an excerpt of it shown. I might be involved in the full documentary release, which should be.... I don't know. I don't know what's going on with it right now.

A: That would be amazing.

B: I'm excited for it.

A: *pause* Who is the little boy on the sled?

B: *laughs* In the earliest builds, the sledder is referred to only as the sledder. He was given a name and personality and story in Line Rider 2 Unbound though if you watch The History of Line Rider lecture you know that Line Rider 2 Unbound has a question of… is it canon? It is officially Line Rider material but the community uses the old physics engine from before Line Rider 2 and up until recently used a modified version of the last version Boštjan developed. In Line Rider 2 Unbound, this sledder is named Bosh, after the creator. I like to think of the sledder as a universal stand-in for the viewer. I try not to focus on who is the sledder. There are people who do that in the community and it can be really fun. My favorite example is... Dangerous Cargo has a thing where, a story-focused Space Operetta, of the sledder on this little journey. But I like to think of him just as a stand-in. I want you to empathize with this sledder.

A: How many times have you dressed up as the sledder for Halloween?

B: Oh. I have never dressed up as the sledder. The most dressed up I've ever got is wearing my Line Rider t-shirt which is now signed. I actually have, through a series of events, ended up with a whole bunch of Line Rider t-shirts that I've been sending off to people who want them over the last few years. At one point, I had 16 t-shirts. But, no I've never dressed up as this letter. I don't have Bosh cosplay materials. I know the creator has dressed up as Bosh for the art gallery and some publicity material. It has him in the Line Rider hat and scarf. He also dressed up to get the Game Developers Conference award in California in 2007.

A: What are some of the funny or strange or memorable comments you’ve received on YouTube?

B: There are so many. When I scroll through my web portfolio there's a whole bunch of comments that I've just saved on there. Probably because then people can see all the nice things people have said about the track but mostly because I like to save them so I can look through them later. One that stands out to me most because it got me to reflect a lot on the impact This Will Destroy You has on the demographic that's most likely to be watching a Line Rider video is, “Is it okay to cry?” That was the whole comment. *laughs*

A: Did you not expect anyone to cry?

B: I did not. It had been years since I'd had a video that had gotten more than a few hundred views so I thought maybe a thousand people would see the video. Within a week from posting it, it went viral on Reddit, got a hundred thousand and that was more than almost any other Line Rider track I had ever made. I was over the moon at that. A couple months later, Mountain King was released by Doodle Chaos and that generated a ridiculous amount of traffic for Line Rider. My video was the one that was often recommended next by YouTube. That put it up to a million views in a very short amount of time. 100,000 was wild to begin with. *laughs*

A: How did that feel? That must have been amazing.

B: It was amazing. It was also unexpected. I found myself being overwhelmed with the comment section. It wasn't just people saying, “This is great. Nice job.” It was people reflecting on their lives. *laughs* That was really impactful. I was not expecting it to resonate that hard. I think part of the reason might have been that when making it I was in a reflective and somewhat depressed state of mind for the year and a half. I think it ended up coming through and people resonated with that.

A: It took you a year and a half to make?

B: It did. It sounds more impressive than it is. It took me about 250 hours, a little more. If you are working full time on a project, that's about two months. For me, it took 18 months. If I do the math, it averages to half an hour a day. There were days where I worked eight hours and there were months that went by when I didn't touch it at all. It varied a lot. The reason I got it done is because I kept coming back to it and being like, “Do I want to finish this? Yes I want to finish this."

A: Were people in the community expecting it or was it a secret?

B: Before This Will Destroy You was released, anything over 3 minutes was considered very long for a Line Rider track. Part of the reason I was able to make This Will Destroy You as long as it was was because of the newer builds that allowed you to scrub ahead in the timeline. They didn't used to be any timeline scrubbing so it was obnoxious to watch two minutes of track just so you can pause it and work work on the next bit. The new tools made it possible but also... I just forgot what the question was.

A: Whether it was a secret or if people knew it was coming.

B: Right. People knew I was working on a track and it was really really long. In the community, I updated people like, “I've made 5 minutes,” “I've made 10 minutes,” “I've made 15,” “I've made 20, 30.” I released a little trailer once I reached 35 minutes. But the Line Rider Community was very small. They were maybe 20 people who knew it was coming and were excited or at least curious. Most people were probably just like, “Why is this Line Rider track so long?”

A: Would you ever make another feature-length course?

B: Yes. But not soon. I have some ideas four things I would like to make eventually that are similarly long but I want to focus on some more experimental things that are shorter. I want to work on ideas I have before I tackle another long project. I could keep making projects like This Will Destroy You that are similar in structure and style but I feel like it wouldn't be as good if I tried to copy the formula.

A: Going back a bit, you said that you went to school and created your own major. For anyone else who is artistic, how would you say school has helped you?

B: The big thing was resources. I had access to software. And also physical things like lighting. I had the space where I could go to, a building and go to a room in that building and sit down and be like, “Okay. This is my space where I’m art making.” It's a little more difficult to get into that when it's my apartment. I sit at the same place to do my taxes as I do my art. It's a little more difficult to do that so it's nice to have studio spaces. Another big part of it was having deadlines. Like, “You have to make this project and it needs to be done by this day or else bad things will happen.” *laughs* That was helpful. It was also helpful to be around lots of other people that we're doing things that were somewhat similar. Someone to bounce off ideas. I could show people what I was making. All of those things are big parts of it. I also appreciated being able to take classes on the philosophy of art. I appreciated being able to work in collaboration with people. There are a lot of things. Amusingly, the classes we're probably one of the things lower down on the list.*laughs*

A: What will you be doing in five years?

B: Oh boy. Well, my day job is in technical theater. I imagine I'll still be doing that in five years. Even if Line Rider became a full-blown career and I didn't need to do it anymore, there are still things I would want to do in that.

A: What did you say the job was?

B: Technical theater. Lighting and sound and video for theatrical productions. I will still be doing Line Rider. I don't know what it'll look like in 5 years. There are things in flux right now in terms of the features being developed. I have no idea. That's all I can say. I don't want to plan too far into the future. I don't want to plan too much of my life. I want to see how things go.

A: Ben that was my last question for you.

B: Oh. That's not a question. *laughs* Alright, wonderful.

A: Thank you very much. That was awesome.

B: You are a wonderful interviewer.

A: Thank you. I'll type this up, transcribe it, make it look nice, and I'll send you a link shortly. Hopefully, within two weeks.

B: Sounds wonderful. Thank you so much.

A: Thank you.

B: Great talking to you.

A: Same. Talk soon.

There was Ben Harvey, in the midst of his life, the line he is riding. Lines tend to be everywhere. Lines are in plays, lines are in supermarkets. You have a line of work where you line your pockets. Some things are divided by a fine line, others by a dotted line. Occasionally, we draw lines in the sand. It’s difficult to keep track of them if someone’s blurred the lines. It can be fun to get out of line, feel the sensation of crossing the line, and of beating someone to the punchline. By the end of our life, we have lines on our face. And when we are online, it’s good if we can fill our empathy meter to the top line. This allows us to join the timeline of art history where many millions of people have stood in line in order to see further down the lines. When we see the end of the line, we have arrived at a point. That’s the whole point. To be pointed in a direction, ride the storyline to that point, and feel something poignant. Line Rider epitomizes this and shows us that even if you forget your lines, you’ll never forget how those lines made you feel. That’s the bottom line.

Interview conducted on 5/26/19

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adventhero-blog1 · 8 years ago

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OBLIGATORY 666 FOLLOW FOREVER // BIAS LIST.

when i made my first blog last year, i never ( in a million years ) would’ve guessed i’d ever accumulate this number of followers. ever. with my on and off activity, n’ mass shitposting, i’m surprised i ever even surpassed 100. way more important than numbers, though, are the people who i’ve met & interacted with here, and who have inspired me -- or encouraged me to stick around, when i wasn’t feeling it. ™

i’ve said it countless times -- & i’ll say it when i’m on my deathbed : i love cloud strife. he was the first muse i wanted to pick up, but i decided against it because he was already such a popular character and muse. finally making this blog back in october of 2016 wasn’t a mistake. despite being painfully awkward, i’ve met a ton of people ; some i speak to regularly, and others ( -- my bad ) not so much.

all the same ( gross ) i appreciate everyone sticking around. ffvii has been a part of my life quite literally since the year i was born, and having some means of conveying how much it ( -- & cloud ) means to me is pretty therapeutic, n’ relaxing. i won’t ramble much more, anyhow. i’m not gonna tag most everyone in the list below, obviously, but i’ll make some mentions. the usual stuff, right ? cloud voice: let’s mosey.

PEOPLE I’D LET PUNCH ME.

@adventson ; realises the irony of putting your url first under that title. c a s. you’re an evil nerd, but you’re pretty great. it’s obvious by now that i’m not great at talking to people, but you’re one of few i talk to pretty much every day & things never feel awkward. we can just fling songs, images, videos, quotes, headcanons, etc, back and forth and it’s chill. you’re chill. not to mention we share a lot of similar opinions about things. cool. your headcanons and responses are always really great,, p.s. stop pushing me down stairs.

@jjillekkot ; you’ll probably be mentioned in anything like this i post ever. nina is one of the best beans i’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. 10/10 yuffie, and genuinely great human ( bean ) being. you're always sorta ... there, when i don’t feel great. even if we don’t talk consistently, it’s a lot more than we used to. i appreciate you for checking in on me, and just appreciate you in general. yuffie & cloud are wholesome and so are u. we’ll find rufus’ weakness, eventually.

@akamure ; jake ... another evil one. you’re pretty great, though. even if you do dig away at my ( already tarnished ) reputation with pretty much every ask you send. your serious ic stuff is goals, too. i’ll probably follow you across every blog you make, even if it does end with cloud or noct getting harassed via asks. it’d feel weird not seeing you on the dash or having you send cracky posts & asks my way at least every week or so. sorry, i don’t make the rules. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@reinfouru // @cetrafleuris ; i can’t believe i didn’t know you were the blog that’d been following me for a long time, prior to you following me on your aqua. i’ve always appreciated that you liked a lot of stuff i put effort into, and ever since i started actually talking to you, i’ve appreciated you more-so. you’re a great friend and person ( -- if it’s ok to say that ) and it’s nice being able to talk at our own pace, i think. it’s really appreciated that you put up with my rambling. your writing is also a+.

@aheroesdeath ; i'm pretty sure you’re gone now, but i wanted to include you here because over the period of time between my last follow forever & now i’ve still probably talked to you ooc, n’ maybe even interacted with ic more than most people. i really did enjoy our interactions together, and it was always fun discussing the boys ™ with you. i hope you at least feel more chill off of tumblr.

@atlasbcrn || @makoblue ; yet another person who is gone, but i wanted to say i really appreciate just ... seeing you’re still about on the dash, even if it’s in a fandom i know ( -- literally ) nothing about. for what it’s worth, whenever i see you i hope you’re doing alright. the thing you sent on valentines day made my heart ache a lil, but it’s appreciated to know you still think of us.

REUNION.

@tacticalgunner // @heroicardour || @elyrean || @inartibus || @suntek || @lockethart || @infiniitas || @kaosureign || @thecxmmissioner || @argent-noir || @ivory-paragon || @tsengofshinra || @flowerprayer || @masterofellipsis || @lusterheart || @gallowsgrove || @cetrasguard || @fadxngmemcry || @soulcrux || @daisanokensha || @togovernwithdecorum || @wildcrcw || @gaiawing || @rapusodosu || @gun-arm || @bushidoxunsent || @dreamzanarkands || @regalrequiem || @unsentlaughter || @spiras-sunshine || @duciit || @insarys || @tiiamate || @daemonizing || @ofhammerhead || @armigeruser || @featherdicks || @andhonour || @ablackwing || @duskisms || @drexm-eater || @lockedfighter || @eternefiamme || @eternalfaction || @eruditorem || @rexcrystallis || @misplacedxheroics || @warofthebeasts || @ofrhapsodos || @blackmage-lulu || @blasteredged || @villiers || @scphiroth || @holybound || @akweh || @spectavisse || @skyvar || @deusuprema

ANXIOUS HEART.

@xkuja || @ibisangelus || @theancientflower || @redpupxiii || @invidiia || @flovverisms || @magitekelite || @leofatali || @aerneth || @cetraheir || @atcned || @sonofprodigy || @shiroganc || @respxrk || @ruckgrat || @grxvidus || @pxine || @finaltia || @raikogan || @achrvmatic || @boargored || @umbrxm || @loquistador || @phylxrchus || @oflucis || @skyblade || @ncbodymove || @sparkstryke || @townterror || @false-lucifer || @aeristheancient || @ofsilverguns || @jen-ova || @silvaer || @marleneiisms || @mammaterasu || @dcntgiveup || @rosegeneral || @isstarlight || @vainstruck || @voidnoh || @tailedthief || @feralstriike || @ffamran || @prcmising || @thalxssas || @diabolgod || @flava-proelium || @deityspoken || @fleurdange || @sxphiroth || @insomniis || @reminiscentiae || @hcllion || @buttonstrayed || @miragessplit || @churchflower || @grandspark

& THANK YOU.

not just to everybody listed, but to the billion people i inevitably missed out. i’m tired, forgive me hgjkl;

#|| ᵒᵘᵗ ᵒᶠ ᵐᵃᵏᵒ ; ᵒᵒᶜ #|| ˢᵃᵛᵉ ᵖʳᵒᵍʳᵉˢˢ ; ˢᵃᵛᵉᵈ #whe e zes.....#never again #i get the feeling i'm gonna have to go back #& re-tag everyone after posting this #since i've edited it #but sets this down regardless.....#the synopsis is thanks for putting up with my shitposting #& rambling about cloud #now to go get food

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ylla · 8 years ago

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This Must Be The Place - Chapter 3

Series: JJBA Characters: Okuyasu Nijimura, Josuke Higashikata Pairing: josuyasu Tags: modern au, underage drinking, vomiting mentions, background ocs, tomoko and okuyasu have a mother/son moment and i am here for it Rating: M AO3 link

***WARNING*** THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS VOMITING MENTIONS FROM OVERZEALOUS UNDERAGE DRINKING AND HANGOVERS ***WARNING***

i’m suffering through some kind of hell virus and i cant sleep, so i revved my engine and plucked this chapter right out of my ass. there are meme references throughout this entire thing, because i am tired and live to shitpost, and you get a kissaroo from me to you if you can find them all. hopefully this makes sense to everyone, and not just to my fever-addled mind.

knowing my dumb ass, the next chapter will be up soonish because i’m too ill to do anything else other than write ε-(≖д≖﹆)

Death was something Okuyasu never purposefully sought, despite living life like he had single-minded determination to see what all the fuss was about the afterlife. There had always been a strong, primal urge to survive, to live, to spite the overwhelming odds that had been stacked against him since he was so very young. Like hell he was going to just die. He had responsibilities: a dad to look after, friends to back up, a boyfriend to care for. He had shit to do; he couldn’t just die young and leave a hole in the heart of so many people.

Okuyasu wasn’t smart, but he knew how to keep himself safe. Never mix ammonia with bleach, always wear a helmet, gloves, jacket, and proper shoes when riding a motorcycle, never grab the muffler of an overheated lawn mower in the middle of a heatwave in July after it had been running for two hours.

And never, ever, lie to Tomoko “Taker of No Shit” Higashikata.

When he woke up the Sunday after the party, Okuyasu was sure he had somehow died and was now in the 8th circle of hell. He had never drank so much in all his life. He had never been so fucked up in all his life. He had no recollection of what happened after they got to the party. Everything was an assault to his senses; the tiniest amount of light and sound made his head throb, his eyes shriek, and his guts roil like snakes had manifested inside his body. He attempted to sit up, but it made his head spin so badly, he immediately started vomiting. Thank god a previously unnoticed bucket was thrust in front of him, catching what was a small amount of bile and water. “He lives,” said whatever was holding the bucket.

Okuyasu looked up to find Josuke standing in front of him, looking exactly like how he felt. You look terrible is what he wanted to say. “Grugh” is what came out instead.

“You remember last night?”

“No,” Oku moaned, settling back down, “Th’ fuck happened?”

“A lot of bullshit.”

“Oh god…what happened?”

Josuke put the puke bucket down and sat on the edge of the bed, “You won’t like it.”

Here was the evening from Josuke’s perspective, though he was a little fuzzy on all of the details.

After bidding goodnight to Tomoko, they waited until it was dark before sneaking out of Oku’s house and hoofing it to the party. Josuke was dressed to the nines as usual, while Okuyasu was wearing something more understated, but it worked for him.

The house (which looked massive) was located in a more secluded part of Morioh, clearly chosen to enable underage tomfoolery. There were still a few neighbors around who probably heard the music and saw kids going in. This looked like it was a mistake, but hey, why not enjoy it while you can?

Surprisingly, the front door was manned by no one other than Tamami, who was holding a coffee can that was half-full with deposited yen; there was a door charge they hadn’t been aware of. Apparently, this was Tamami’s parent’s house, and he decided that throwing a party while they were away on a trip would be a great way to make some extra cash. Josuke remarked that he respected the hustle, before he elbowed Tamami in the ribs hard while reminding him that they were Koichi’s Best Fuckin’ Bros, so why not cut them a little slack?? You know, for Koichi?

Both boys got a free pass; they stepped into the living room where the party was obviously already underway. Red solo cups filled with some unidentified liquid was thrust into their hands, which they immediately tried. It tasted like window cleaner mixed with Gatorade, and it was disgusting, but they kept drinking to keep up appearances. They watched a pack of drunk teenagers grind on the makeshift dance floor, music blaring loudly, while a lively game of beer pong took place in the kitchen.

They found Oku’s Home Economics buddies in a corner; Yukie looked like she was having the time of her life, while Hitomi was passively sipping a beer, and Ritsu was flushed, looking like she was waiting for the earth to swallow her up. With a nudge, Hitomi pointed to the far corner, where Yuuya was standing with his fangirls, arm around a guy who looked just like him minus the stupid chin tattoo. Hachiro was his name; apparently, he was a junior, Yuuya’s younger half-brother, acted nothing like him, and Ritsu had it bad for him. The four of them tried to needle Ritsu into approaching him, but she had steadfastly refused, clutching her cup like it was a lifeline.

Josuke, a man of action, took it upon himself to walk right up to Yuuya and suggested he get a game of truth or dare going. Yuuya flickered eyes between Josuke and the corner from whence he came, before managing to shout over the noise that if anyone was interested in playing truth or dare, to follow him to the basement. Some people left the dance floor and followed, while Hitomi and Yukie hoisted up Ritsu, who had become rooted to the floor, and carried her downstairs.

Okuyasu and Josuke high-fived; Josuke then tried dragging Oku to the dance floor, but he resisted, saying he was too damn sober to make a fool of himself. So beer pong it was. After watching a few games (and guffawing when Hazamada tried to kiss some girl, but got a face full of vodka instead), they got to play. To the shock of everyone, Okuyasu was amazing while Josuke sucked absolute ass, almost tanking their chances at winning with sheer ineptitude. The pressure was too much! The alcohol was fucking up his reaction time! He kept getting teased, which made him pout, but Okuyasu kissed him on the mouth, then proceeded to shoot his way to victory repeatedly.

After what was probably 3 or 4 rounds, they were both three sheets to the wind. Are you feeling it now, Mr. Nijimura? Josuke purred in his ear, before dragging him to the dance floor. If either of them had been remotely sober, they would have never in a million years waltzed into the middle of a dance floor and dirty dance in front of most of their peers. But there they were, drunk as shit, with Josuke grinding his ass into Okuyasu. It was a good thing that everyone around them was just as inebriated, and too interested in dancing up on their partners to notice.

They managed to get through a few songs before they stumbled to the bathroom to have a drunk makeout session. In the few months they had been dating, they hadn’t gotten much farther than sloppy kisses with lots of tongue, but with the ferocity they had attacked each other’s lips and neck, things might have gone way further if they hadn’t been interrupted by someone barging into the bathroom and slurring, “GOTTA SHIT” before they pulled down their pants and lit that tiny bathroom up.

Boners effectively killed, they wandered downstairs to see how the truth or dare game was going. The first thing they saw was Ritsu sitting in the lap of Yuuya’s brother, making out with him. Hitomi helpfully informed Josuke and Okuyasu that Hachiro had just been dared by his older brother to kiss the prettiest girl in the room, and well. Hitomi had just gestured at the two.

Since everyone had already gone once, Yuuya picked Okuyasu next, taking his brother’s turn since he was busy. He tossed the teenager a half-pint of something called Everclear and told him to chug as much has he could. Never one to back down from a challenge, Okuyasu started guzzling it down like he had been stranded in the desert and this was the first drink he’d seen in months. He got to name on the label before he replaced the cap to the sound of resounding cheers, swayed for a few seconds, and then promptly stumbled over to a laundry basket to retch.

As Oku cleared the contents of his stomach, his face the color of a sickeningly combo of grey and green, someone pounded down the stairs to holler “IT’S THE COPS, SCATTER.”

This is where Josuke’s memory gets a little fuzzy. The next thing he remembers is him and Yuuya booked it across the backyard, half-dragging, half-carrying Okuyasu, with Hachiro carrying Ritsu. Yuuya told his girls to go ahead without him, and they took off on their bikes, carting off Yukie, Hitomi, and someone who was probably Hazamada. Then he remembers jumping into what appeared to be an ancient, black SUV and Yuuya peeling out of Tamami’s house at an excessive speed. Okuyasu started puking again, and it took the combined effort of Hachiro and Josuke to keep it from spilling out a plastic bag Hachiro grabbed from the trunk.

Yuuya dropped Josuke and Okuyasu off first; Hachiro helped get Oku out of the car and up onto the porch of—

“Wait wait wait, hold on.” Okuyasu rubbed his face, trying to process everything Josuke was telling him. “You mean to tell me that I got a debt I gotta repay to Yuuya??”

Josuke grimaced, “We both do, because he saved our asses. Kinda.”

“What do you mean ‘kinda’?” Okuyasu was already squinting because he was trying to avoid looking into any light source, but he squinted so much that his eyes were basically closed.

“I, uh—“

“Dude,” he loved Josuke with every part of him, but he was nauseous, felt like absolute garbage, and wanted to just curl up and stop existing, so he was a little bit testy, “You gotta just fuckin’ tell me. You know I ain’t that smart to begin with, but right now my brain feels like someone rubbed a bunch of spicy shit on it, so I ain’t thinking that clearly. Tell me.”

Typically, Josuke would bark something snotty, but instead, he didn’t speak, just swallowed instead and turned around so Oku couldn’t see his face.

“What?? Fuckin’ tell me dude! Did Yuuya’s bro see my dad when he helped you carry me in?? Did dad get hurt???” He tried to sit up, but Josuke put a hand on his chest to keep him down, still not looking at him.

“We…we didn’t go back to your house…”

Okuyasu was thunderstruck for a few minutes. He looked around, bewildered, “Where the fuck are we—“ It was in that exact moment that Oku realized what room he was in. It wasn’t his bedroom. The soft yellow walls and band posters were not his. He slowly realized the implications. They were in Josuke’s room. In his house. Where Tomoko “Not My Mom But Kinda Is” Higashikata lived.

“Oh shit,” he whispered, “oh, holy shit.”

Josuke rubbed his face, then rested his head in his hands, “You were—You scared the shit out of me. You kept puking, and you weren’t like—you weren’t responsive, so I had Yuuya take us to my house. And I got mom up—“

“Oh my god oh my god oh my god,” Okuyasu was on the verge of panicking, “Josuke, what the fuck??”

“I was drunk! And scared something was really wrong! I had to wake her up!!” Josuke turned towards him, his temper flaring, “What the fuck was I supposed to do??? Let you possibly d—“ He stopped short, trying to swallow down whatever he was about to say. Taking a minute, Josuke sighed, “It doesn’t matter. Mom’s pissed and our asses are grass, dude.”

“That’s an understatement.”

Okuyasu didn’t need to look in the doorway to know Tomoko was standing there with her hands on her hips, looking fierce and ready to string them both up. He could feel anger radiating off of her in waves.

Josuke, who had always been mouthy, had always bucked under Tomoko’s rules, went completely silent and still, staring at his hands. The fact that Josuke couldn’t contradict her, that he could only hang his head in shame, made Okuyasu realize just exactly how in trouble they were. They fucked up. Big time.

“You know, I figured something was wrong when Josuke buttered me up all evening. Never in my life would I guess that you two would go out to some stranger’s house—“

Josuke couldn’t help himself, “Actually, we know Tam—“

“GO TO SOME STRANGER’S HOUSE. AND GET SO SHITFACED THAT ONE OF YOU DAMN NEAR HAS ALCOHOL POISONING??”

Okuyasu visibly flinched at her shouting, feeling tears prick the back of his eyes.

“Mom—“

“I’m not stupid, Josuke, which apparently you seem to assume. I don’t care that you two go over to Okuyasu’s house and drink beers or smoke cigarettes, because I know you’re at least safer there than out in some strange place. You LIED to me, and damn near got ARRESTED—“

“Listen—“

“And Okuyasu here REEKS of grain alcohol and probably should be in the hospital right now for alcohol poisoning! What the hell is wrong with you two???”

Josuke sighed, waiting for it to be over. Oku was barely holding back sobs, while tears rolled down his face.

“How dumb can you boys be?? You’ve taken years off of my life, I think I sprouted more wrinkles and grey hairs in one night than I have in the past 37 years.”

“I’m sorry, mom” Josuke mumbled.

“I’m sorry, Ms. H” Okuyasu choked out. Josuke reached behind him and laced their fingers together, giving a reassuring squeeze.

Tomoko sighed, “You know, honestly? I’m not even mad at you, Okuyasu, I’m just disappointed. I expect this kind of stupidity from Josuke, but not from you.”

It was like a knife in the gut. He would’ve taken a punch to the face from her better.

“After you’re well enough, we’re gonna go over to your house and I’m going to speak to your father—“

The wail he had been suppressing ripped out of him, “No no no no no, please no, Ms. H, I’m beggin’ ya—“ He started to get up, to sit on his knees in front of her and beg her to do literally anything else, when his stomach churned again and he vomits

All over Josuke’s legs.

Josuke, a saint with a pompadour (though right now it’s just a stringy mess), bit his lip to prevent himself from shrieking and just stiffly strong-armed the puke bucket in front of Okuyasu, as he sobbed and threw up more. It was a complete disaster.

“Oku, I have to,” Tomoko sounded significantly less angry, but just as firm, “I know he’s sick, but—“

“You don’t understand,” Okuyasu managed to say, “He won’t understand a thing you tell ‘em.” Oku flopped back down, exhausted and crying, “He doesn’t even know who I am.” Feeling ashamed, he flung an arm over his face, wishing The Hand could just scrap him away until nothing was left.

He had never told Tomoko anything about his dad. She never pushed the matter, not wanting to upset Okuyasu by making him talk about it, which he had been grateful for. Oku had sworn Josuke to secrecy that he would never tell her, but it’s not like he had to. Josuke couldn’t exactly explain that Oku’s father became an invincible booger man because an immortal vampire that had been plaguing the Joestar family for 100 years had implanted some kind of mind control thing that went crazy after said immortal vampire was killed.

The only things Tomoko was told was that his mom had died when he was young, his father fell very ill shortly aftewards, his brother was murdered in front of him, and that this boy’s life had been nothing but an uphill battle from day 1. He had no one, save for the few people he had met in Morioh.

“Josuke, go get cleaned up.”

When Josuke didn’t move or speak, Oku figured they were making faces at each other, silently communicating on how to approach what the hell this mess was. “Aight,” was Josuke’s response. He leaned back and planted a small kiss on the part of Oku’s face that wasn’t covered up; squeezing his hand one more time before gingerly getting up off the bed, stripping away his pajama pants, and heading to the bathroom.

Tomoko took his spot on the bed, gently moving the arm covering his face, and wiped his tears away. All this did was cause them to fall harder, but she kept at it. Oku couldn’t bear to look her in the face. Some part of him wondered if this is what having a mom was like. It took Oku a bit to calm down, “Sorry,” was all he could manage to say.

“Don’t apologize. I didn’t mean to get so worked up. I just…I worry. That’s all.”

He closed his eyes when the hand went from his face to his hair. He didn’t deserve any of this sweetness, after had just scared her half to death. There was a silence hanging in the air, and Oku knew she was gonna ask—

“Is your father that sick? What’s wrong with him, exactly?”

And there it is. He was terrible at lying to her, but maybe he could get away with a lie by omission.

“Me and Keicho never found out what’s exactly wrong with ‘em. Whatever it is, it ruined his brain, like his memories are kinda there, but,” Oku swallowed, “He can’t speak or really do for himself. I dunno if he recognizes me as his son, or as the guy who feeds and talks to ‘em” Tears were threatening again, but he muscled through it. She deserved to at least know some things. “It uh, changed his appearance too. A lot. It can be weird to see…”

He fell silent after that, not sure what else to say. “I’m sorry, honey,” Tomoko said thickly, after a few minutes. It made Okuyasu’s chest twinge painfully. “You’ve shouldered all of this by yourself this whole time?”

“I—I mean I had Keicho, but…” there was a lump in his throat, “But it’s jus’ me now, I guess.”

She sniffed, sounding so heartbroken, “You know you’re not alone, right? You’ve got me, and Josuke, and a lot of other people who love and care about you.”

“I know.”

“And I love you very much, even if I’m shouty sometimes.”

“I know. And I love you too, Ms. H,” he wiped his eyes. Finally, Okuyasu got the courage to look her in the face. Thankfully, she hadn’t been crying, but her eyes were shiny with tears. “Um…can I have a hug?”

She chuckled, “You know you don’t have to ask,” and helped him sit up a little so she could give her Mom-Hugs-Make-It-Better hug, rubbing his back before giving him a Mom Smooch on the cheek.

“Thanks.”

“Feeling better?”

“Yeah, a little.”

“Good,” she got up and looked him. Hands were firmly placed on her hips, but she didn’t look pissed or upset anymore, “You’re grounded until further notice.”

“Uh—“

“Since your dad is too sick, I will hand out your punishment. You can still come over and see Josuke, if only because I want to make sure you’re following the rules. No videogames, internet unless it’s for homework, or tv. Both you and that son of mine will be doing nothing but chores, homework, and studying. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Alright,” she ruffled his hair affectionately, “Now go get Josuke out of the bathroom, and take a shower. I’ll change your sheets, they smell like rubbing alcohol and regret.”

It took a lot of effort, but Oku managed to shamble out of Josuke’s room and toward the bathroom. The bathroom door was comfortable as he leaned against it, “Jooosuke, open up.”

The door unlocked, Okuyasu pushed it open and stumbled in. Josuke was wearing only his underwear, hair wet and still unstyled. He leaned against the mirror over the sink, face smooshed, making some kind of walrus groan, “I think I’m dying.”

A glance in the mirror told Oku that he looked like the dead reanimated, “I already look like a damn zombie.” He shuffled to Josuke and put his head on his shoulder, “I’m sorry about being a fuckin’ mess, and making you worry, and puking on you—“

Josuke turned around and pulled Okuyasu close, giving him a kiss on his greasy noggin, “S’fine, don’t worry about it. Looks like we’re gonna be grounded forever though.”

“You heard all that?”

“Nah, jus’ figured she’d do that.”

They held each other for a little bit, the silence comfortable before Josuke pulled away, face scrunched up for effect, “I love you, sunshine, but you need to shower. You smell funky.”

“Thanks asshole, way to ruin the moment,” he jabbed Josuke in the side, “Love you—“ That’s when he noticed the dark purple hickies covering Josuke’s neck. “WHAT THE FUCK??” he hissed, turning Josuke’s head to the side to get a good look at them. Oh god, Tomoko has seen what he has done to her son.

“Chill out, dude, it’s not a big deal—“

“Not a big deal?? Look at you!!”

Josuke turned his head back towards Okuyasu, a big toothy grin on his face, “I see ‘em, babe.”

A hint of pink colored Okuyasu’s cheeks, “So can everyone else!”

“Let ‘em,” he leaned over and gave Oku a sweet kiss on the cheek before leaning over in to whisper in his ear, “’Sides, I love ‘em.” Josuke straightened up with a wink, and a not-so-subtle lip lick. Which would have been incredibly sexy if he didn’t turn and immediately smack his face into the bathroom door when trying to leave. After a beat, he muttered “You take this to the grave,” before grabbing his reddening face while skedaddling out of the room.

Okuyasu wouldn’t tell a soul anyways. He wanted to be the only one who got to see Josuke in his true form: a complete and utter dork.

Later on, after Josuke gets his hair French braided, and Oku no longer smelled like the world’s grossest bar and checked on his dad, they laid in Josuke’s bed and watched movies together on his laptop. Tomoko, in her infinite graciousness, gave them a reprieve from being grounded until they felt better.

Okuyasu dozed on and off with his face buried into Josuke’s shoulder, still feeling like shit and flinching in the light of day. At one point, he woke up to Josuke very gently shaking him, “Hey, I gotta question.”

“Mm.”

“You’re staying the night, right?”

“Mhm.”

Josuke kissed the side of his head, “Good shit.” Oku was drifting back off to sleep when he was shaken again, “Do you feel bad about leaving those hickies?”

He cracked open an eye, wishing that his boyfriend would just wait to ask him later, when he didn’t feel like death. However, Josuke was looking at him with those big blue eyes that were full of concern, and he couldn’t help but answer. “Kinda…? I mean,” his voice was slightly slurred from sleep, “I liked leavin’ ‘em, a-and seein’ ‘em, but they’re just kinda, uh, big. So I’m just worried they hurt, ‘cause I don’t wanna hurt ya.”

Josuke’s face just melted into this sappy smile, and Oku’s heart did that stuttering thing again, “Aww, you big softie.” Oku grumbled a little at being called a softie, but couldn’t keep himself from giggling as his face got peppered with kisses. “They’re small compared to the giant ones I left on you—“

“You gave me some?? What the hell, did you heal them??”

“Well yeah, they turned the entire left side of your neck this gross shade of yellow and purple.”

“Damn, babe. Musta been those big lips—“

"Fuck you, dickhead—“

“Did they look like that bruise ya got on your forehead from hittin’ ya face on the door earlier?”

His boyfriend went from adorable pouting at the lip comment to horrified, “DID IT LEAVE A BRUISE?” He made to get up, but Oku just held him down.

“It’s small and you can barely see it unless someone is right up on ya, calm your ass down!” Josuke whined, but Oku placed a kiss on his forehead, “That better?”

“No…”

Oku gave him a sweet kiss on his lips, ears pink, speaking quietly, "I-I love your lips, they’re really soft…” He kissed Josuke again, “Better now?”

“…Yes.”

Josuke whipped out his phone and opened up the camera to check his face out. There was some slight discoloration on his forehead, and he grunted irritably. Then he switched to snapchat, “Oku, smile.”

“Hell no, don’t take a picture of me. I look like hot vomit,”

“No you don’t, you’re adorable.” Josuke made a kissy face and took his free hand to smoosh Oku’s lips to make a kissy face. After an agonizing few seconds of being subjected to selfies, Josuke finally got one he deemed good enough. “See! You’re so cute, sunshine.”

The picture was cute. Oku hated how it made his heart feel like it was gonna explode, but didn’t try to wrestle the phone out of Josuke’s iron-like grip to delete it and keep taking more. “…Send that to me.”

“New wallpaper?” Josuke saved it to his phone before adding a caption that said ‘He lives! So handsome ♡ ♡ ♡’

“Maybe. Wanna tussle over it?”

“Rather not have you puke on me again.” Josuke posted it to his Story and sent it to a few people on his snapchat friends list, “Also, you need to shave.”

“Ain’t diggin’ how rugged my face feels?”

Josuke snorted, “It’s like touching a cactus.”

Okuyasu rolled on top of Josuke and started rubbing his face against Josuke’s like a cat.

“AGH—YOU BASTARD, STOP!!!”

He was cackling, but all the motion was making his stomach feel queasy again. After his laughter calmed down, Okuyasu rested his forehead against Josuke’s, “Hi.”

“Hey.”

Oku swallowed, “Uhm, about the hickie stuff earlier…”

Josuke arched an eyebrow, “What about it?”

“If—if you wanted to, you could…gimme some little ones. If you wanna, that is—“

It took him a few seconds to realize that Josuke had flipped him and straddled him before he even finished his thought.

“Don’t mind if I do.”

“So, you show up to your boyfriend’s house, drunk as a skunk,” Hitomi asked carefully, “and his mom…grounded you?”

“Y-yeah. Ms. H can be a really scary lady.”

Okuyasu was still dehydrated on Monday, so he didn’t go to school until the next day (with some little love bites on his neck). Talk about the party had mostly died down, but he did learn that Tamami only ended up with a hefty ticket, everyone who was picked up by the cops were let go of, and Hachiro had been avoiding Ritsu like she had tuberculosis.

“I’m such a fool!!!” she wailed, flinging herself dramatically over the counter. Yukie, with a good sense of timing, managed to catch her ponytail before it went flying into her bowl of batter. “Why won’t he talk to me???”

“Maybe he’s shy…?” Okuyasu supplied.

“He wasn’t shy when he had his tongue down my throat and his hand on my butt!!” Other students in the class swiveled around to stare at them.

“Ritsu, don’t holler that!” Yukie hissed.

“Oh my god,” Hitomi muttered under her breath, trying to avoid everyone’s eyes.

“Okuyasu,” Ritsu clung to him, “You got a man. How did you catch him??”

“I uh…what?”

“How did you confess your ~undying~ love to Josuke??”

He was living in a living nightmare, “Uhm, Josuke…confessed to me…actually…”

A beat passed before Ritsu dramatically threw herself onto the counter again, baying like a wounded dog.

“Ritsu, for—“ Yukie picked her up by her shoulders and started shaking her, “Calm down!! You’re making a scene!!”

Hitomi had sunk down to the floor, clearly wishing that she could just keep sinking until she hit the core of the earth. Oku was tempted to follow her, but Ritsu shrugged off Yukie to grab him again, “Then, how did Josuke confess to you??”

Oku managed to escape her grip, “We were sittin’ on my back porch lookin’ at the stars after a big storm knocked out the power,” Okuyasu realized his face was turning scarlet, so he started working on his cookie dough, “We were like drinkin’ and holdin’ hands, and he’s like ‘Dude I’m in love with someone’. I thought it had to be literally anyone other than me, and I was really upset, but then he kissed me. A-and then told me I looked like the sun when I smiled, which was really smooth, so I gotta give him that. So I told him I loved him too, and then, uh, he asked me out and here we are” he finished lamely.

The girls were awfully silent. When he raised his head to see what they were doing, he was alarmed to find all three of them (Hitomi had emerged from her spot on the floor) looking at him with tears in their eyes.

“THAT’S SO SWEET—“

“That was pretty smooth on Josuke’s part—“

“IS THAT WHY HE CALLS YOU SUNSHINE??”

“I—I think so?” Oku stammered, “Josuke’s good at all this romance stuff, you should ask him for advice. All I’m good for is cooking.”

Hitomi looked at her runny cookie dough, compared it to Oku’s nice, chunky mix, and sniffed, “If we’re gonna start asking for food advice, what kind of wizardry bullshit do you pull to get this consistency?”

Lunch was a fairly quiet affair, Ritsu opting to just grill Josuke over snapchat instead of hounding him in person. Which was good, since Josuke still hadn’t shown up at the usual spot, so it was just Okuyasu and Koichi.

“Man, since you got Class Rep, you’ve been too busy, dude.” Okuyasu remarked.

Koichi shrugged, “Looks good on college applications, and it’s not so bad. I could think of worse things to be doing.” He took a bite out of a little custard tart his mother packed in his lunch, “Heard about the party from Tamami. Sounds like it been a lot of fun.”

Oku winced, feeling bad that they didn’t invite Koichi, “It was until I got sick… sorry we didn’t extend an invite to you, dude.”

With a smile, Koichi waved him down, “I wouldn’t have gone anyways, I had that meeting. Also, Tamami had already invited me, but I told him I couldn’t. It’s fine! I promise. Anyways, how’s you and Josuke doing?”

So Okuyasu started babbling about how great Josuke was, which somehow lead into the story about the guy who started uncontrollably shitting with them in the room (Koichi looked sickened), when the devil himself waltzed up to them, looking pensive.

“Hey Josuke—“ Koichi greeted, his smile falling slightly when he saw the look on Josuke’s face, “What’s up?”

“Mom called me, and told me that she had been talking to Holly.” Two blank stares met him. “You know, Jotaro’s mom? My sister?”

“Oh shit, yeah!”

“That’s right! Mr. Jotaro said that…”

Oku’s brows furrowed, “Somethin’ the matter with that, though?”

Josuke kinda shrugged, “It’s just, weird I guess. Considering everything…” he stared at the ground for a minute before clearing his throat, “But, they’re apparently getting along and got most of the awkward stuff out of the way. Mom told me that Holly said everyone is coming in about two weeks. You guys wanna go with us when we meet them at the airport?”

“Of course!”

“Fuck yeah dude, count me in.”

A smile returned to Josuke’s face, and he nodded before plopping down beside Okuyasu to steal a kiss and some of his food.

With any luck, when they meet up with everyone again, it will be without hickie decorated necks. Okuyasu would never hear the end of it from Polnareff.

#okuyasu nijimura #josuke higashikata #josuyasu #josuke x okuyasu #jjba

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oldmanjankins · 5 years ago

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Realizations: I think a part of this incessant need to talk constantly and post on social media constantly isn’t some validation thing that stems from low self esteem. I just think I have something to offer the world w/ my expirences. Though, i think it’s just one of those things I have to channel in a better way. I always cry about being misunderstood and it’s about time I start doing the things that make me ME, but in the way it SHOULD be delivered. ie shitposting on tumblr where I have 3 ppl I know irl one of them is zainub, who knows my soul. I think I spend a lot of time and effort trying to be understood by ppl who don’t deserve to understand me. When I just really need to get my thoughts out. Not validated by anyone other than myself. I honestly don’t give a fuck about what ppl think anymore. I post hot pictures that are overly posed and filtered bc I feel like it’s artsy and hot and cool, not Bc I need the validation of someone else telling me that it is. I know how many ppl call me a force or whatever the fuck, and if I really cared what ppl thought, I would give more effort into making them “effortless” “casual” “natural” but I’m an artist and my photos & my words reflect that side of me. Obviously I have a million things that are flawed about me that I wish I could change. Obviously I’m physically insecure, but I don’t think I am with who I am as a person anymore, I accept my flaws and I think I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m like...... not ugly most of the time when I put in some effort, I will never be the prettiest girl in the world. But I am unique and I am me and I am the prettiest, the funniest, the kindest to at least one person and his love and my OWN love is enough, Bc both ME and him love me for the REAL Eram; flaws, quirks and all. I’m never gonna be completely flawless and that’s okay. I hate feeling like I’m not worth something useless everything about me is physically perfect. I’m tired of my “best friend” coming from a superficial, idealistic, nationalistic household making me feel like my worth is tied to how pretty I look. I am who I am and I know both my strengths and weakenesses and w/e other level of self awareness I need to reach, I’ll reach it myself and better myself inshallah. I really am tired of these ppl who I considered so close to me exploit me bc they misunderstood me too. It didn’t bother me all these years Bc I didn’t mind being just a hot dumb Houston girl to ppl Bc when they met me they would always be pleasantly suprised- like wow ur normal and have a personality that’s different from other ppl I know etc, and that surprise of being “not just an Instagram girl” like..... isn’t a good thing anymore. I accept that I will always have some kinds pre conceived notion about me Bc I live in a society where ppl talk about things that have no idea about and are eager as fuck to spread anything they can get their hands on, which honestly are 99% false anyways, but with that being said—— it’s not all societies fault either. Some things are human nature. I judge ppl based on how much they post and what they post too and I’m someone I consider “aware” of things and the type of person who wants to give others the benefit of the doubt. So with all that said the point of this is, this is me using this as a place not for validation, not for anyone to gas me, but to simply get out my thoughts bc even if it’s no one in particular, the universe deserves my thoughts to be out in the world. Because it makes ME feel good. Because what I have to say is important and I want to read it back one day and realize that my expirences and what I draw from what life threw at me is beautiful, and after all the depression, anxiety and seizures I’m not all bad, and part of my “good” is that I am expressive, I am a fucking “Pisces” and I do feel everything and I do LEARN something from everything that’s ever happened to me. And I want to learn to love me- even if that means I have to forcefully say nice things about myself on the internet. One day I will love ME fully. Here is the painful process.

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news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog · 7 years ago

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How steamed hams from 'The Simpsons' became the world's greatest meme

The lifespan of an internet meme is a precarious thing.

Some go viral within a tiny community and become an in-joke. Others flare up, burn brightly, then quickly fade away again. Some get revived months later.

And some, like the very excellent steamed hams meme from The Simpsons, simply go from strength to strength.

SEE ALSO: The most memorable memes for Best Picture Oscar nominees

If for some awful reason you've never seen the steamed hams scene which is the meme's ultimate origin, here's an important reminder before we progress any further:

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That scene is from Season 7, Episode 21 of The Simpsons, titled "22 Short Films About Springfield". It first aired in 1996. The scene involves Superintendent Chalmers visiting Principal Skinner for a "luncheon" at his home, only for Skinner to burn the food by accident and resort to an increasingly ridiculous web of lies to try and cover his tracks.

It's a classic Simpsons scene in a lot of ways, but it's also got something a lot of other classic scenes don't: massive viral fame.

Here's what happens if you type "steamed hams" into YouTube, for instance:

So much steamed ham.

Image: youtube

That's just a small snapshot of the many, many edits, parodies and variations of the scene that have been published over the past year or so.

If you filter the "steamed hams" videos by views, the top hit isn't even the original clip — it's a Guitar Hero-inspired parody with over 1.2 million views and 38,000 likes.

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The top comment on that video sums the whole trend up pretty well: "Oh good, another thing I never would have imagined, yet needed so badly."

The birth of the "steamed hams" meme.

As with many widespread and super popular memes, the exact origin can sometimes be tricky to pinpoint. In terms of YouTube videos, Know Your Meme cites this short animation — which was uploaded in 2010 and made using a now-defunct text-to-movie maker called Xtranormal — as one of the earliest examples:

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In terms of the meme's massive popularity, though, it seems to have started an in-joke among the Simpsons fanbase that simply snowballed over time.

"It's been in the consciousness of Simpsons fans since the joke aired," 22-year-old graduate Chris Kanski, one of the original admins of the very popular Simpsons Shitposting Facebook group, told Mashable.

"It's an almost perfect Simpsons sketch, I'd say it's one of the best sketches The Simpsons have made."

Simpsons Shitposting started back in early 2015. At the time of writing, it has well over 200,000 members and hundreds of new posts every day. In the early days, Kanski says the group was mainly flooded with out-of-context quotes and frames from the show. Simple posts with minimal thought put into them, the more absurd the better.

Needless to say, steamed hams was a big feature.

Here's an image Kanski shared in the group back in July 2015, which sparked over a thousand comments and resulted in an annual group event being made to honour the thread.

The steamed hams meme seems to have thrived in the group's culture of "shitposting".

"Shitposting now is not at all what it used to be," Kanski explained. "And that is not in a bad sense, because now shitposting involves a lot of talent and creativity, and actually making good jokes. But back in the day, and this was in like early 2015, whenever the group was first created, all that shitposting meant was just posting whatever the fuck you wanted from The Simpsons. There wasn't any desire to make a joke or to be funny, and that was kind of the whole point: just kind of like, not trying. If you imagine humour as requiring a thought process, the whole point of shitposting was not having a thought process behind it. And that really was taken to its extreme."

Over time, though, as the group got more and more members, the type of humour changed. Spontaneous, out-of-context posts were no longer the norm.

"What replaced it was genuinely good, thought out humour," said Kanski. "And genuinely good, thought-out humour in this day and age of the internet means absurdism, right? And just taking something way too far. Not in the sense of edginess, but just in the sense of pushing a joke to its limits — and that's what steamed hams is."

In a sense, the steamed hams meme has evolved with the internet. It's still a part of the "shitposting" culture, but now — with video editing software getting more and more sophisticated and widely available — that culture has changed. The meme has moved from simple, out-of-context jokes to impressively-edited video parodies.

"That's why it's so good," said Kanski. "It's so versatile. If you're going to take a joke to its limits, you take the fucking steamed hams conversation — it's just so hilarious.

"That's the first step, right, you've got steamed hams as an iconic phrase — it's memorable, everyone knows exactly what it's a reference to. The whole sketch, it's just chockfull of opportunities to just completely stretch it out to breaking point. And even go further than breaking point.

"Honestly, I just go on YouTube sometimes and look through steamed hams videos, and it's just amazing what people have done with it."

The rise of "steamed hams" edits on YouTube.

Steamed hams is arguably bigger now than it's ever been. A quick search on YouTube is enough to show just how popular, and impressively imaginative, the meme has become.

Here's just a small selection of the many, many hundreds of variations of the scene (most of which have several hundred thousand views)...

"Steamed hams but it's a piano dub."

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"Steamed hams but Skinner is honest about everything".

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"Steamed hams but it's from Chalmers' perspective."

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"Steamed hams but every time Skinner lies he descends 7% more into the netherworld".

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"Steamed hams translated into Chinese and then back in to English on Google Translate".

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"Steamed hams but every word is replaced with its first occurrence".

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"Steamed hams 10 times, sync point when Chalmers says 'Aurora Borealis'".

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"Steamed hams but it's All Star".

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Now, in 2018, the meme shows absolutely no sign of slowing down.

On Jan. 5, Joe Blevins shared a draft version of the scene's script on Twitter.

We were nearly denied "an unforgettable luncheon." pic.twitter.com/yBo5FErlF9

— Joe Blevins (@Joe_A_Blevins) January 4, 2018

Most recently, on 7 March a mashup between the steamed hams scene and the Gorillaz track "Feel Good Inc." made it to the top of Reddit's r/videos subreddit. It has almost 30,000 upvotes, and the video hit the top 10 on YouTube's Trending feed.

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You've got to hand it to the YouTubers behind these clips — that's an impressive amount of effort to spend on something so beautifully, beautifully ridiculous.

Hopefully this meme will continue for many years to come.

WATCH: 9 things you don't know about America’s unofficial first family, ‘The Simpsons’

#_uuid:79185533-5f29-3918-a959-ae26550ee9b9 #_author:Sam Haysom #_lmsid:a0Vd000000DTrEpEAL #_revsp:news.mashable

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theworstbob · 8 years ago

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the thing journal, 2.26-3.4

as a) part of an effort to get me to be a more consistent writer, but also b) to get me to stop watching so much fucking mario maker-related content b.1) and also maybe stop listening to the same fucking playlist on shuffle when i ride the bus home, i have a new goal where i try to watch/hear/play seven new things a week and write at least a little bit about what i’ve done. try to get into a routine where i spend x amount of time with a thing, x amount of time writing, and maybe not looking on youtube for new dudes playing mario maker, y’know? it’s like, i love movies. before last week, i had seen three films that had been released since the start of 2016. so i guess c) be a better fucking citizen of the world. i might move this to medium or facebook, i might move all the non-shitpost stuff to medium at some point honestly, why do i have three different blogs, but we’re doin’ this here for now.

1) Sausage Party: this film is insultingly stupid. i already yelled at it, but ye gods. there is a moment in the film where, when the antagonist makes an unexpected arrival, one of the characters said, “Oh, fuck!” and if in any other movie, this might have been a nice moment, a character reacting to something unexpected by blurting out what one would blurt out on such an occasion, but in this movie, it felt like they just didn’t bother coming up with an actual joke.

2) Zootopia: i did a double-feature with sausage party and this, which is a very weird thing to have done that also might have impacted my opinion, but man, after slogging through Sausage Party, it was such a breath of fresh air to watch a film people put effort into making. even after divorcing it from that context, though, it is still handily the best buddy-cop movie about a bunny rabbit and a fox taking on racism that i’ve ever seen. it’s adorable. i’m not gonna put it in the pantheon of animated classics, not when there’s an extended monologue about how bad racism is from... shakira? for some reason?, but i do have to own up to the fact that, hey, maybe this movie wasn’t meant for my pantheon! i think this film set its ceiling at “the emperor’s new groove for budding social justice warriors,” but there are films with less noble aims, and this is totally a budding social justice warrior’s favorite film right now! and that’s really dope, that they have a movie! that sounds backhanded. i honestly loved this film. like, i saw emperor’s new groove when i was 11, and if there’s kids out there who’re gonna spend the next 16 years thinking about and loving this movie, the world’s gonna be in good hands. (also: the nudist colony scene. gold.)

3) Sing Street: this is for all the people that wished Freaks & Geeks had done a musical episode. this movie has so many things that i like. soaring musical numbers! lovable side characters! almost no plot! unbearable sadness! realistic teen drama! accurate depiction of a lower-class family! this isn’t a perfect movie. i think the central love story is brilliantly done, and they really nail the family stuff, but they stop giving everyone else in the band things to do after the characters’ introductions, and they didn’t set up the bully or the priest well enough as antagonists for their respective comeuppances to have any payoff. (everything at the school feels just a tad undercooked. like they had this epic love tale they wanted to tell, but then were like, “Ah, shite, can’t have 15-year-olds bugger off from school all the time, can we?” like at least let us know how the rest of the band feels about their lead singer and lyricist taking off for london all a sudden!) but man, when this film gets in its groove, it /waits a million millennia for it/ sings

4) Mad Love, JoJo: so the opening track, “Music,” is maybe one of my favorite opening tracks of the music year 2016. I don’t think I like this album half as much without it. On its face, it’s kinda cheeseball, just a girl ‘n a piano singin’ ‘bout how much she loves music. It’s a risky move, but she sells the hell out of the song, and because that track is so successful, each subsequent track is imbued with an undeniable joy, because you know, at the core of each song, there’s just a young woman doing the thing she loves the most. It lends each song a certain authenticity, like there’s no ‘tude being copped (or whatever kids these days say), this is JoJo’s music. I had a real good bus ride with this one. (And not for nothing, after miring myself in the Yellin’ at Songs project, I’m grateful for a pop singer who acknowledges that sex is a fun thing to have, and is direct about her desire to enjoy a sexual encounter. "Edibles” would be amazing even if I hadn’t endured multiple selections from the 50 Shades of Grey soundtrack, but as this is the case, got DAMN do I appreciate “Edibles.”)

5) The Big Short: the narration in this movie is so phenomenal. like, they establish from the jump that the narrator is a jerk (“i didn’t hang out with those nerds. i was cool.” or whatever he actually says), so when he starts saying, “Look, some of these terms are gonna go right over your heads, so here’s a hottie in a bubble bath to help you dum dums out for a second,” it’s in character. i absolutely loved that. (also, i, um, i did need to hear the explanation of the terms used in this film. “don’t you work with mortgages?” i don’t know what they do, i only know how to look at them.) i also really loved the scene where the narrator is trying to get steve carell to make the bet, and he has this jenga set up to explain what’s happening with the bonds, and he takes a jenga piece out, but before he throws it away, he asks his assistant to point out where the garbage can was so he didn’t miss. that’s a nice touch. (adam mckay’s good at comedy! weird, right!) also i loved that the hedge fund dudes from boulder moved to new york and had a table which tilted. that’s such a good prop, like these dudes have $30m but they’re still living with a table that tilts, which establishes both that they’re small fish and that they’re also not quite sure what they’re doing. such a solid film.

6) Telefone, Noname: so real talk i didn’t give this the closest listen in the world. my phone lost connection in the middle of track four, and a drunk man had to give me life advice during track nine. maybe it’s not the best idea to try to listen to album with a semi-open critical mind while bussing, but i still really dug this album and would not mind giving it a second, deeper listen, because it deserves multiple spins. i’m really stoked to see what this woman can do on a full-length album, there was a lot to love in what i was able to pay full attention to.

7) It Follows: Y’all. Y’all. This film. THIS GODDAMN FILM, Y’ALL. After the first scene, which ends with a girl disconnected from the main plot dismembered on a beach, I was ready to tout the charms of YA Hannibal, but the deeper I got, the more I understood the disservice such a comparison would do to this film. This is its own gorgeous, brilliant thing. The way it steeps itself in silence is so, ugh, I wish that the central concept didn’t require dialogue to explain, because this would’ve been such a cool silent film. Like. When I think about movies, I try not to think about the acting too much because I know I’m not gonna have any interesting observations about it, but the performances here are just off-the-charts. Just the way the nebbish nerdy boy looks every time he thinks about offering help and what that would mean for his future and his friendships, or the sheer desperation in the main girl’s eyes every time the It gets kind of close, it’s just, I don’t know how to describe it, it’s a film executed superbly, almost masterfully. I keep thinking about the scene where the main girl looks out over the lake at the bro-party boat, and she’s taking off her clothes to go swimming, but her face is somehow blank and terrified at the same time, and her motions are so tentative and rigid, it’s, THIS FILM. IT’S. The thematic content alone! Gosh, I just, I need to find all the pieces people wrote about this film in 2014 when they were excited about it and just dig in, there’s so much to analyze and discuss about the things this film is saying about sex, about gender, about rape culture, about victim-blaming, about abuse, about SO MUCH. This might be my second-favorite horror movie of all time. (No Country for Old Men is a horror movie, don’t @ me.) It’s just so unbelievably good.

8) The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: This might count toward the Seven Things list next week, seeing as I’m only like six hours deep into this game, but simply moving from Point A to Point B is more fun and creative than half the games I’ve ever played. Honestly, if all I ever do with this game is treat it as Parkour Simulator 2017, I’ma be happy with my purchase. The Wind Waker was heretofore my favorite Zelda, but with every single step I take in this world, I get angrier that The Wind Waker put you on a boat and then... you sailed? You had a jump button on the boat, but that was basically all you did, was point your boat at where the game told you to go, put down the controller, and made a sandwich while you reached your destination. But I shouldn’t come to this space to bury other games, I should rejoice in what we have, and Breath of the Wild is my favorite game since Undertale. I love this game, and I can’t wait to find the first dungeon!

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