#source audio that 70s show

[incorrectgallifreyquotes]

Leela: Act tough, Narvin. Narvin: But I’m not tough. Leela: That’s why I said act.

[daughterofheartshaven]

Doctor Who - an explanation and resolution of the UNIT Dating Controversy

This is in a series of Doctor Who expanded universe reconciliations. If you see a contradiction in the Doctor Who expanded universe, you can drop me an ask and I will come up with an explanation for it.

Ask by @silvermaple6

First, some context. The 1968 story The Web of Fear introduced the character of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, and he would be a prominent recurring character in the show from that point on until 1975's Terror of the Zygons. The Brigadier was the leader of the British Division of UNIT, a military & scientific organization that was designed to protect Earth from unconventional threats. The UNIT Dating Controversy is Doctor Who's most notorious continuity error: there are two conflicting accounts as to when the stories that featured Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart leading UNIT UK took place. Either they took place roughly at the same time as the episodes came out (so the late 60s and early 70s) or during the 80s.

So with that explained, I have two separate explanations as to how to resolve this problem. One of these explanations is designed to work only within the confines of the tv show and does not necessarily line up with the expanded universe, if you're inclined for a tv-purist answer, and the second one is more aligned with my usual "everything is canon at once" stance towards Doctor Who.

With that all out of the way, let's dive into it!

The usual ground rules apply here. Anything seen on tv, happened. I can recontextualize as much as I want but it still has to fit with everything we see onscreen. I also have to use all of an EU source if I use it. No picking and choosing bits.

A quick list of stories I will be referencing:

Tv:

The Abominable Snowmen: A second Doctor tv story that sets up The Web of Fear

The Web of Fear: A second Doctor tv story that introduces the Brigadier (but before he gained that rank)

The Invasion: A second Doctor tv story that features the Brigadier

The Time Warrior: The Third Doctor tv story that introduced Sarah Jane Smith and also features the Brigadier

The Pyramids of Mars: A Fourth Doctor tv story with Sarah Jane Smith as the companion

Mawdryn Undead: A Fifth Doctor tv story that features the Brigadier

The Day of the Doctor: An Eleventh Doctor tv story that makes an in-universe reference to the dating controversy

Flux: A Thirteenth Doctor tv story that briefly features the Brigadier (again, before he gained that rank)

Expanded Universe:

Interference: A BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures book featuring the Eighth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith (and a few others, but those tow are the only important ones for the narrative today

The Enfolded Time: A short story in the Lethbridge-Stewart series (a prose series published by Candy Jar Books that stars Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and other creations and IPs from the writing pair of Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln)

The Split Infinitive: A Seventh Doctor audio drama published by Big Finish as a part of The Legacy of Time - an audio box set celebrating 20 years of Big Finish making Doctor Who audio stories.

An in-depth explanation of the discrepancy

The Brigadier and UNIT were primarily onscreen in the Third Doctor era, which ran from 1970-1974. The behind-the-scenes intentions from that era were that these stories took place "like ten years in the future" (which includes some really hilarious 70s guesses as to what the 80s would be like) but there also were never any direct references to this - with script editor Terrace Dicks deliberately avoiding giving dates in an attempt to avoid this exact sort of continuity error. Because of this, the only stories to make this intention of being set in the 80s explicit were in a couple Second Doctor stories and a Fourth Doctor story.

To elaborate, the 1968 story The Web of Fear features a character named Edward Travers. Travers had previously appeared in the story The Abominable Snowmen, which was definitively stated as taking place in 1935. In The Web of Fear, Travers references the events of The Abominable Snowmen being "over 40 years ago", putting The Web of Fear in 1975 or later. As mentioned above, this was the first appearance of Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, then a Colonel in the regular army. The character would next appear, having been promoted to the rank of Brigadier, in The Invasion. In The Invasion, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart tells the Second Doctor it has been four years since he has seen the Doctor last, putting The Invasion at 1979 at the earliest. The Invasion is also notable for being the first story to feature UNIT, with it is implied that UNIT was founded in response to the events of The Web of Fear. Lethbridge-Stewart's involvement in UNIT explicitly as a result of his actions during The Web of Fear, which will become vaguely important in a bit

The Fourth Doctor story I mentioned above is the 1975 story The Pyramids of Mars. While it does not feature the Brigadier or other UNIT staff, it does feature Sarah Jane Smith, who had been established in her introductory story, The Time Warrior, as being from the same time as the Brigadier and UNIT. In The Pyramids of Mars, Sarah Jane references being from 1980, a claim which is corroborated by the Doctor briefly taking her to the version of 1980 where the villain of the episode, Sutekh was not stopped by them, leading to a desolate wasteland.

So by current evidence, all five years of Unit stories released between The Invasion and The Pyramids of Mars took place between 1979 and 1980. This strains credulity a little bit but is still vaguely plausible. It's the next story that breaks this completely.

After his departure from the show in 1975, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart returns in the Fifth Doctor 1983 story Mawydrn Undead. Here it is a major plot point that the Brigadier retired from UNIT and the military in 1976, and we see him adopting a new career of a maths teacher by 1977.

So this is where it all breaks. Going by the established dates, the Brigadier retired from UNIT before he ever joined it.

The only other tv story to add to this at all is, weirdly, 2021's Flux. This story's fifth episode has a scene that shows UNIT UK being operational by 1967, with its current leader, General Farquhar, mentioning a Corporal Lethbridge-Stewart being a on staff. In theory, this should take place between The Web of Fear and The Invasion, since Lethbridge Stewart is not a Brigadier yet but has joined UNIT. This would place both The Web of Fear and The Invasion as taking place in the 60s.

This does leave out the problem that Lethbridge-Stewart was a Colonel in The Web of Fear and not a Corporal (if you don't know military ranks, a Colonel is much higher up the chain of command then a Corporal), but given that General Farquhar is repeatedly shown to be somewhat unintelligent (his main role in Flux is to get manipulated then killed by one of Flux's minor villains), I'm comfortable saying that General Farquhar misspoke when he called his new Colonel a Corporal.

NuWho stories such as The Day of the Doctor have begun playing with this concept a little bit. For example, in The Day of the Doctor, Kate Stewart, the current leader of UNIT UK mentions the events of Terror of the Zygons happening in the 70s or 80s, "depending on the dating protocol."

The Tv-only explanation

So if you just want to make the tv show to be self-consistent without bringing the EU into it...

Then I can say that Travers made the very reasonable mistake of saying "forty years" when he actually meant "thirty years." I dunno about you, but I do stuff like that all the time when I'm talking and the plot moved on fast enough that the characters didn't come back to it.

As for Sarah Jane and 1980, that's a bit weirder. But you could say that Sarah Jane was at that point from 1985 or 1986 and rounded up because she liked having a nice round number to say where she was from. This does not feel like a normal thing to do, but Sarah Jane Smith is not a normal person. And the Doctor took her to an alternate 1980 because why not it was as good a date as any for him to make his point.

So there! Now all the UNIT stories can take place in the late 60s and 70s making the dates given in Mawydrn Undead and Flux work. But if you want to have a little more fun and see the explanation that is what I consider "canon," then I invite you to keep reading.

The Expanded Universe explanation

If you thought the tv version of this was a mess, the EU is so much worse. I really do not want to go through each and every book, comic, and audio that gives a date for the time the Brigadier was in charge of UNIT - if you want to explore the full list of contradictory dates, Tardis wiki has an excellent overview here. For the record, most of the EU tends to agree with Mawdryn Undead over anything else, but even those stories that put the Brigadier leading UNIT UK era in the early 70s often disagree with each other.

Luckily for me, I can just bypass all of that altogether.

So I mentioned above that the UNIT Dating Controversy is the most notorious continuity error in all of Doctor Who, and so uh my job here is actually a lot easier because of that. My Whoniverse essays are usually trying to reconcile the EU, but the Unit Dating Controversy is a problem that exists completely in the tv show. The different parts of the EU are somewhat disinclined to pay attention to each other, and the tv show doesn't care about contradicting the EU (which, for the record, is 100% a good thing. I think trying to stay in-line with established lore would be super limiting to the series and also deprive me of getting to write these essays!), a lot more people care about the tv show being consistent with itself.

Which is why the EU has not one but two ready-made solutions handed to me on a platter.

So the first one gets seeded in the book Interference. In it, Sarah Jane Smith says she can't remember if she worked with UNIT in the 70s or 80s, and the Doctor responds by saying that, "Temporal slippage… My fault, I'm afraid. I think it's currently the 1970s, but —", at which point he is interrupted.

This is followed up with the short story The Enfolded Time, which claims that the 70s and 80s were basically scrunched into a single decade by the Doctor visiting them so much. The story states that the disturbances were settled by 1990, and has the Brigadier working with UNIT to establish a new dating protocols - the same ones Kate would later be using.

Meanwhile, the audio story The Split Infinitive (set in both the 60s and 70s) features, at the end of the story, a "temporal shockwave" that the Seventh Doctor notes would affect nearby time travelers. The Brigadier's situation of retiring in the 70s after working in the 80s is explicitly mentioned as one side effect of the temporal shockwave.

I think both explanations are true. The temporal shockwave damaged the timezone around the 70s enough to weaken spacetime, so the Doctor entering and exiting the time vortex from UNIT UK's headquarters as frequently as he did caused the temporal slippage around the Brigadier and UNIT UK.

That's it for this one! If you have any comments or replies, I would love to hear them! And if you have any questions about discontinuity in the Doctor Who Expanded Universe that you would like me to tackle, send me a note or an ask!

[maximilliansblog]

Welcome Home Hyacinth Theory 🏠🪻🐛

Hello Tumblr! Most Welcome Home theories are just little bits and pieces or “Wally is evil, guys look!”/”Wally is not evil! He is a goober!” etc.

This theory is fully fledged and provides a plot and evidence. I call it the Welcome Home “Hyacinth” theory, after the myth that it is based on. This will be a very long post so here is a TLDR: Julie kills Eddie while they are playing croquette-bowling out of jealousy because he is getting too close to Frank, who is supposed to be her boyfriend/best friend within the show. Either just Eddie or everyone involved gets replaced, except for Wally, who witnessed everything. This is why we have all of those videos of Wally dissociating.

I have been sitting around in my toom rambling to myself about this theory like a madman for over a week so I decided to share it.

Please reference this post from @/partycoffin (the creator of Welcome Home) when discussing Welcome Home and be respectful in the comments and reblogs.

Extra information from @theneighborhoodwatch:

Welcome Home Observation Document

Welcome Home Livestream Trivia

Welcome Home Archive Links + Backup Screenshots

Fanmade Welcome Home Wiki (I don't recommend the Fandom wiki)

Extra information on exploring the website from @angel-lyah:

Welcome Home Website Secrets

Alright, let’s get into it! I have evidence to back up every single one of those claims, and I will include it in this post.

I want to be very thorough with explaining this. I’ll start by establishing that there are three main plots within Welcome Home (that I have noticed, anyways):

The plot of the late 60’s - early 70’s TV show, Welcome Home - only related to published episodes, books, audios, etc. that would have been shown to the public at the time of airing Welcome Home

“Behind the show” - feelings and actions of the puppets outside of the show (such as Frank and Eddie being a couple, or Frank being nonbinary)

The Welcome Home Restoration Project - people working to restore the TV show, Welcome Home, and find any and all information related to it and who made it

Okay so for the rest of this essay, when I mention BtS, it is related to the “behind the show” plot. I will color these things blue. When I write WtS, it is related to the “within the show” plot. I will color these things green. When I write WHRP, it is related to the Welcome Home Restoration Project. I will color these things pink. I will also mention things that have been said either on Clown’s Tumblr blog, Clown’s Twitter, or old streams. I will say CS, meaning “Clown source” to denote these things and color them orange. Clown source and behind the show areas often overlap, so Clown source information is dominant over behind the show information (if it is both I will just color it orange). Good? Good.

Now let’s establish our characters (only the ones related to this theory) and their relationships to one another. We’ll go alphabetically, starting with Eddie, then moving onto Frank, Julie, and Wally. 

I’m going to assume that if you are reading this, you have already visited the website (clownillustration.com) and have a basic understanding of who Eddie is. So I will only focus on the elements of his character that will be relevant in this theory.

Eddie (WtS) is clumsy and overworks himself. He is often dragged into Julie’s games. His house (post office) looks like this:

Note the hyacinth flowers and the butterfly. Eddie (BtS) loves Frank. (CS) He is married to Frank in one art on Clown’s Tumblr. BY THE WAY IT TOOK FOREVER TO FIND THIS IMAGE!!!! THEY ARE IN THE BOTTOM LEFT CORNER!!

Frank (WtS) is Julie’s boyfriend as it is implied that they are a couple within the show (I know a lot of us don’t like hearing this, but remember the three plots) (also for everyone that is going to argue with me on this, go look on their little profiles in the neighborhood section of the website and come back to me) and best friend. His house looks like this:

Note the sunflowers. Frank (BtS) loves Eddie.

(CS) As I said before, in one art on Clown’s Tumblr, Eddie and Frank are married (you can tell by the rings on their fingers in that image) . Frank is nonbinary but uses he/him pronouns (Clown refers to Frank on his blog with only he/him pronouns, so that is what I will use. Nonbinary people do not have to use they/them pronouns! Pronouns are not equal to gender!)

(WtS) Julie is a rainbow monster. Her thing is that she likes to make up and play games. She seems to be very strong (perhaps related to her being a rainbow monster), as she can easily lift Wally and is indirectly referenced to [throw a baseball very well] by Barnaby in the Live Interview audio. She also incorporates bowling into a lot of games where it is unnecessary. She seems to be immature, which is usually used to make her a playful character. Her and Frank are a couple. In several arts, her horns are different shapes or even nonexistent, implying that she has some ability to change her form. Her house looks like this:

Note the heart motif throughout the design. (BtS) Julie is best friends with Frank. (CS) She is genderfluid (she is only referred to using she/her pronouns on Clown’s blog, so that is what I will use). 

(WtS) Wally is the main character in Welcome Home. His house is alive and is named Home. Home is often considered to be a ninth neighbor. Wally often communicates for Home. (WHRP) Wally signs Home’s name in the guestbook (as Home does not have hands) (please stop with the tentacles I have seen the art please stop for the love of god where did that even come from). (WtS) The other neighbors frequently ignore and talk over Wally, but he doesn’t seem to mind, saying that he loves all of his friends in the live interview audio.

Okay so now that that is established, let’s look at some promotional art. Promotional art is not necessarily canon and may contain outdated designs, but may hint at the plot of Welcome Home. 

There is one more artwork that I would like to add, but it is on Clown’s KoFi. Here is a link to it that you can look at if you are subscribed to Clown’s KoFi:

[link to Clown’s KoFi here]

I won’t describe the image because some of you may not be subscribed to Clown’s KoFi. But if you are, you will see that the image supports my theory.

While we are discussing that image, I would also like to say that I believe that the puppets are some kind of biological organisms. I don’t have much evidence for this right now, but I may make a theory in the future. 

We will come back to those promotional arts soon. Right now, let’s look at Frank and Eddie’s houses and discuss some symbolism and mythology.

Frank’s house has sunflowers outside of it. Sunflowers are a symbol of Apollo. Eddie has hyacinths outside of his post office, obviously a symbol of Hyacinthus. Hyacinthus and Apollo were lovers, but Hyacinthus tragically died. Let me tell the story so we have context. (I am really into Greek mythology by the way, it’s always been a special interest since middle school but I am also a Hellenic pagan, you should follow my witchcraft and paganism blog, creatively named @maxiswitchcraftandpaganblog)

So Apollo, god of the sun, art, archery, and LOTS of various other things, loved Hyacinthus, who was a mortal Spartan man. And Hyacinthus loved him too, by the way. The god of the (west? don’t feel like googling it) wind, Zephyrus, was jealous of Hyacinthus, because he also loved Apollo. 

One day, Apollo and Hyacinthus were playing discus (like frisbee but the frisbee is giant and made of metal, kind of like a shield). Apollo threw the discus to Hyacinthus, but Zephyrus blew the discus off course with the wind, causing it to hit Hyacinthus in the head and kill him. Apollo created the hyacinth flower from Hyacinthus’ blood as he died, but in some myths made him a god. (read more on Apollo and Hyacinthus here)

I’m going to draw some parallels here. Frank = Apollo, Eddie = Hyacinthus, Julie = Zephyrus. Now Frank’s and Eddie’s parallels make sense because of the flowers, but where did I get Julie=Zephyrus from? Recall that (WtS) Julie and Frank are supposed to be a couple. Now, (BtS) Julie may or may not like Frank in that way, but she certainly enjoys being close to him as his best friend. Since she is already established as an immature character, it would make sense that she would be jealous seeing Frank get closer to Eddie.

Pause. So WtS, Frank and Julie are together. BtS, Frank and Eddie are together. If these are separate, then what is Julie jealous about? (WtS) Frank has been seen getting closer to Eddie even in the official material of the show. An example of this is him telling Eddie that he works too hard at the end of the “Eddie’s Big Lift” storybook record. So his BtS love for Eddie is leaking into the WtS canon. That is a problem for Julie, who is supposed to be Frank’s girlfriend WtS. So she comes up with an idea to fix this, much like the jealous god, Zephyrus. 

So what does she do? Let’s turn our attention to the “Just So” song demo. This song was never finished with instrumentals, and for a reason. The puppets function as actors in the show, as it is obvious that they have their own free will, and Julie does something that the writers do not expect later in this episode. So the song was never finished because the episode was ruined. 

In the “Just So” song demo, Frank and Julie are about to play croquette bowling. It was supposed to be just croquette, as Frank put on his croquette bow tie, but last minute, Julie added bowling to the mix. 

Wally knocks on the door and interrupts their song, saying that Home wants to play croquette bowling too. This implies that Julie told someone else that they would be playing croquette bowling after she added bowling. I feel like Wally and Home overheard Julie telling Eddie that they would be playing croquette bowling. This would make sense, as Wally often stands by and listens while the other neighbors talk. It is not unusual for Eddie to participate in Julie’s games, either, as we see from Julie playing “business woman in the big city” with him. [add a photo]

The song recording ends before we see them playing croquette bowling together. But I have a piece of evidence to tell us how it ends. Look at this promotional art again.

You probably assumed that the figure in the back was holding a hammer, but that could actually be a croquette mallet!

It’s covered in some gory-looking stuff, probably from Eddie. Now look at the flower. Whose eyes look like that? Almond-shaped, round pupils. Only one character: Wally. Wally was a witness, which would make sense for him, since he often watches on as the other neighbors do things. 

Julie is holding the flower in front of her, looking innocent. This is a stretch, but I think that this might be symbolism for her saying that she didn’t do it on purpose, Wally saw the whole thing, ask him! And Wally doesn’t know what to do. I don’t know what he does from there.

Maybe this image is a clue? I genuinely don’t know. Once again, promotional art is not necessarily canon, but we can use the concepts from it in theories.

This next part is also a bit of a stretch. The neighbors having a memory of something like that happening would ruin their “acting” (I think they are just being recorded as they do what they would naturally do). The show can’t have that. The solution? Replace everyone involved. 

Now go back and look in the promotional art section and look at that art of Frank. It looks like Frank is laying among extra puppet parts. They have extras!

And this is why Wally is dissociating in the videos we see when we click on the bugs. They did not replace him, because like the neighbors, they didn’t even notice he was there.

Okay yeah that’s the theory. It was really hard to get this into a coherent Google Doc and gather all the links. I was just rambling to myself about this in my room over and over pacing around for like a week. But yeah here you go, hope it's a good theory, sorry if it's not lol please be nice to me

[beatlesbookblog]

Man on the Run: Paul McCartney in the 1970s by Tom Doyle

So when I first got back into my Beatles hyperfixation, the first thing I did was learn all about Paul and the history of Wings. Which is strange because when I was a fan of the Beatles the first time around, I didn't like anything of Paul's but I guess that's what growing up does to a person lol. While, I became more aware of the band's history through the documentary that Paul did with his daughter Mary, Wingspan, I wanted to know more. So I did what any person would do - I went to the public library. There, I found this book.

Tom Doyle is a music journalist and explains in his intro that this book was spurred from multiple interviews he did with Paul himself. Mixing quotes, anecdotes, and the history of Wings chronicled through their albums, Doyle makes a narrative that is similar to what Paul did with Wingspan. Yet, Doyle's story has a little bit more of the nitty gritty stuff. The stuff that Paul would have left on the cutting room floor.

Though I wouldn't call this a definitive history of Wings, I would definitely say this a good source to anyone who is interested with the band. Doyle goes right to the source, using quotes from many of the people involved as sources for this book. I think because of this, it gives this book some credibility! Using the perspectives of other band mates plus even using Paul's relationship with John during the 70s as a storytelling device helps to create a bigger picture of Paul's career with Wings.

I also found the actual prose and writing style of the book to be fairly entertaining, but I believe that could be Doyle's background as a journalist. He does weave an interesting story that shows not only Paul's vision for the band throughout the 70s as well as Paul budding as an artist after the Beatles, but Doyle uses snippets from the other members who were around when the book was published which adds different perspectives. Wingspan does not offer the complete other perspectives. There are some audio snippets here and there, but it solely focuses on Paul's reflections and memories. Not to say Paul would intentionally leave things out, but there were stories in this book that probably would have been left aside when giving the full narrative of the band.

Again, while the book is good, do not consider this a final source of everything Wings. I relate this book to Wingspan as it gives a similar vibe in its way of telling the version of events. I do think using interviews and quotes from other people involved does give it slightly more credibility than Wingspan, as that was just Paul conversing with Mary while telling the story of Wings. The different perspectives does make a difference when documenting the history of the band, and it makes a good pair to Wingspan (though, I know there's a Wingspan book, I haven't read that yet). Consider this your stepping stone into Wings and maybe by reading this book you'd come to appreciate the band just a little bit more!

------

Rating ⭐: 8.5/10. It's a good book if you want to know the contextualized history of Wings and want a launch pad to research more about the band as well as Paul's career in the 70s.

Further Reading (and watching + listening) 📖🎧: This podcast episode with Tom Doyle talking about the book, watch Wingspan (I think there's a free version on YouTube), and probably read the book as well! Also keep an eye out for this documentary in the future, though I'm not sure if Doyle is working with the documentary or not.

[we-are-houseguest]

"did you grow up lonesome and one of a kind? were your records all you had to pass the time?" ~ the queen of lower chelsea, the gaslight anthem

welcome back, y'all.

first off, i'm stoked to tell you (if you haven't already heard) that you can actually hear what we recorded with all of this instead of just reading about it when our debut ep,

cry about it

is released on january 31st!

(and if you're in/near vancouver, you can come see us at our release show the night before! rumor has it there'll be merch and new songs 👀 (there'll be merch and new songs, it's not a rumor))

now. let's talk about mj's guitars, shall we? he used a LOT more guitars than i did this time around, so let's dive in.

this is mj's fender noventa stratocaster, one of his two main guitars, and hot damn. this thing is unbelievable. i'm not usually a strat girl but changing the standard design is a good way to pull me in and this thing sounds incredible. the p90s are a fender custom design and they really are fantastic - i'd love to see fender making more guitars with these pickups. the thing weighs nothing and has such tonal variety that mj plays it on big aggressive tunes and the quietest, softest parts (this is the only rhythm guitar on pink power ranger, for example). if you find one of these, i really cannot recommend it enough. mj keeps this guitar in his half open c tuning, CGDGBe; something you may notice is that mj, rach and i often play in wildly different tunings. does my baritone sit more neatly with this weird tuning because of a natural eq curve? is this completely psychosomatic and it just sounds good and i'm overthinking it massively?

... moving on! he uses .10-.52 ernie ball skinny top/heavy bottom strings on it!

this is mj's other main guitar, the fender vintera 70's telecaster deluxe. what is there to say about a telecaster in 2025? hopefully lots. this thing is surprisingly light, given that it's just a big beefy slab of wood, and the wide range pickups sound fantastic. still very versatile, but when he goes absolutely nuts on taurus, for example, that's where these humbuckers shine. this thing is fantastic and comfy as hell (tummy cut forever!). he's got one of those d'addario auto locking straps on this thing and WOW is it ever comfortable. hell of a guitar, truly. he keeps this in e standard (for now; i see d standard in the future, though) and uses the same string set.

(fun fact I - this was my DREAM guitar when i was like 14-18 years old. I always wanted to like sg's but they never seemed like they suited me but then i saw THIS and that was that. it was my absolute dream to own one of these because justin pierre from motion city soundtrack played one and i was (and still am) just such a huge fan. maybe one day i'll use one, too.)

mj lives in the land of actual pedals as opposed to my digital utopia, but i digress. his pedal board includes:

source audio soundblox 2 dimension reverb

southampton pedals fifth gear (nasty, NASTY little motherfucker, so good)

boss cs-3 compression sustainer

source audio nemesis delay (an incredible delay, this thing is so versatile and powerful. it's like a time machine)

boss ph-3 phase shifter (i actually don't think he's ever used this but i'll check)

mxr analog chorus

ehx linear power booster

dunlop crybaby wah (there's definitely something funky with the switch on this one, hence the AM I ON? reminder tape)

boss tu-2 chromatic tuner (tu-2 forever!!!!)

and the fulltone ocd autism pedal (for the record fuck this guy and fuck his company; as of the time of writing, we've got it (tentatively) replaced with a boss ms-3 multi effects switcher (this thing is very cool. surprised there aren't more multi fx/switcher combos out there))

mj is one of the most creative guitar players i've ever heard and he can coax ANYTHING out of this board (which you'll see when our next songs come around). Big weird spacey things, heavy, nasty distorted things, beautiful math-y things... he gets it. he's got The Pedal Touch.

mj plays all of this through a fender tone master deluxe reverb. you might be wondering, why the tone master model? well.

a) you would never know that this is not a tube amp listening to it. never never never.

b) it weighs HALF and that's honestly a big swing right there

c) digitally recording it is not a compromise the way it was way back when with digital amps

d) built in attenuator??? hell yeah. it's not 1985 anymore, baby. the days of diming an amp to get "the best tube breakup" are dead!

as expected, given that it's emulating one of the most legendary amps of all time, it sounds fantastic, takes pedals incredibly well and can do... essentially anything.

now for the studio only guitars! (all three of which belong to rachael, incidentally - out of all of us, she's the guitar collector for SURE.)

mj played this epiphone sheraton ii on a couple tracks just for some tonal variety - different scale length, different strings, different pickups, semi-hollow... really brought a lot to the table for some tracks. these things are ENORMOUS - mj was less than pleased haha.

(fun fact II - i used to own one of these in black with gold hardware and i LOVED it and i miss it all the time)

we currently have this fender strat in half step down to facilitate some of our new stuff, but mj used this on the ep for some really chime-y cleans on re-run. we used it hyper specifically, but it really did the trick.

i used this prs se soapbar II for some kind of like. extra guitarwork, weird noise stuff, guitar pad-style sounds. not super frequent, but a good jack of all trades instrument that served us well! (plus it's a prs without those fuck-ugly bird inlays so that's a big point in its favour haha)

THERE YOU HAVE IT. all instruments have been revealed. in the next week or two i'll do a quick breakdown of what we used mic wise and in the box to record, as we did this whole thing ourselves, but 'til next time:

au revior/arrivederci/auf wiedersehen/adiós/etc

~ elizabeth

[thesunflowerdyke]

9: What is the fastest way to make you horny: 

32: Fill in the blank: “If they ____________, we are fucking.

54: How do you feel about tattoos on someone you are interested in?

70: Booty or Boobs?

✨Thank you, Anon, for my first official ask on this blog!✨

I’m still getting used to answering these sorts of question and thinking of myself in a sexual light so these little exercises help tremendously on my self discovery journey! 🥰

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9: What is the fastest way to make you horny: 

So, I’m very much an auditory person. When I’m…”entertaining myself” I always gravitate towards written word or audio porn. So I’d say the fastest way to get me going is to get close to me and whisper something suggestive in my ear. It doesn’t even have to be anything particularly filthy.

(Though I am quite the fan of dirty talk.😉)

Just the tone of voice, dropping an octave or the voicing of your desire would be enough to get me on board immediately. Honestly, even just a playful whisper in the ear would do the trick!

OR

If we’re already kissing and touching, hearing my partner enjoying themself is a massive source of pleasure for me and it would make me want more. I would always prefer my partner to be vocal with their wants and needs. Not necessarily loud. Nothing that doesn’t come natural to them. But I love knowing what works (and what doesn’t!) so that I can learn better what pleases them. Please let me hear all of your little pleasure sounds!

*This all probably goes along with the fact that voices are a big factor in attraction for me. I’m a sucker for a nice speaking voice or unique accent. It’s one of the few things I can pin-point as a source of attraction for me because I don’t really have a physical type that I go for.

32: Fill in the blank: “If they ____________, we are fucking.

When it comes to being intimate my first concern is always my partners pleasure. I get off on getting my partner off. And while I am certainly intrigued about being on the receiving end of things (especially if that’s what does it for my partner) there’s nothing that gets me off more then knowing my partner is feeling good. If you tell me or show me how much you want/need me, then all bets are off. There wouldn’t be anything that would stop me from making you feel good.

So I’d say either ;

1. Tell me out right that they need/desire me. (Ex. Begging for it/demanding it)

Or

2. Showing me they need me. (Ex. Guiding my hand down to show me how wet they are for me.)

54: How do you feel about tattoos on someone you are interested in?

My initial thoughts are : 😍❤️🥰💕😘❤️‍🔥

My slightly more thoughtful answer is I love them! I think they’re a beautiful and unique form of self expression, they look sexy as hell, and they’re a lot of fun to trace over with your fingertips while you’re cuddling.

70: Booty or Boobs?

This is like asking me to choose between a beautiful midnight star-lit sky and the fiery hues of a morning sunrise. *sigh* Why must I be taxed with choosing between beautiful things?

(Okay I’m done being dramatic…for now.)

With that being said, if I had to choose. I’d have to say I’m a boob lady. Along with this statement, I want to make a PSA right here and now that I’m a lover of all boobs. Any and all shapes and sizes. I love my hands on them gently squeezing and massaging the soft skin. I love my mouth on them licking and sucking and driving my partner crazy. In conclusion, boobies. But there’s truly no part of a woman’s body I don’t love. If I’m into you I’m obsessed with every. single. inch. of. you.

[arsonsara]

[The phone rings twice, but in the middle of its third ring the phone is answered] Howdy dowdy, you've reached the home of one Arsons Ara!~ With whom am I speaking to on this loverly day?

[Silence] ...Hullo? Anyone there? You weren't spooked by my name, were you? Oh well, don't worry, it's just my internet handle! I don't actually set stuff on fire if that's what your worried about. I made it up a long time ago when I was a teenager, it even has this whole meaning I ascribed to it with the constellation Ara and...Hehe, gosh it's silly to think about now but the naming scheme was based off this old web-comic I used to read. But, that's a long story, and I don't wanna ramble for too long! Still, is there anything I can help you with? [Silence] Hulloooo?...You theeeere? I didn't make you nervous, did I?...

[Silence] Hmmm...Well, someones got to be on the other end of the line. And it'd be such a shame to just hang up now, I don't get calls like this as often as I'd like...Oh! Did you just need someone to listen to, stranger? Is that why you called? It's okay if it was, I understand that feeling. Sometimes it's just nice to just listen to someone chat about what's on their noggin.~ ...Actually, now that I think about it, you called at the perfect time! Something happened not too long ago, and it's been rattling around in my head for such a long time! Iffin' you don't mind, I think it'd be really fun to talk about it with someone else! It's about this cute little puppet show that some folks found! It's all really cute and charming, but there isn't a lot of information about it, seems like it's become lost media. I'unno why, but I just can't seem to stop thinking about it lately! And I think it'd be a lot of fun to talk about it! But let me know if you need anything else or if you also wanna talk, okay stranger? [Silence] ...Well, I...suppose you're still there! Might as well get started.

[Arson clears her throat, and there's the sound of her straightening her dress for a few moments as she hums and has to herself.]

Welcome Home is an Anti-Fiction, Alternate Reality Game based on a fictional lost media puppet show of the same name. Created by the artist Clown, also known as PartyCoffin, alongside a small team of artists and voice actors, the bulk of Welcome Home's story is delivered through a website that was released to the public on February 16th (according to research I did on Clown's tumblr anyhow, but i'm no historian or Tom Scott, so take my sources with a grain of salt and trust that I try my best. =w='') and details the Welcome Home television show that aired in the early 70s.

The Website is in an old-web style, reminiscent of the Geocities era. In the fiction of the story, it is run by a team of anonymous lost media preservationists called the Welcome Home Restoration Project, and the WHRP hosts information regarding the show itself, including a Biography page for all of the characters, Secondary media for the show like books, audio from vinyl and tape recordings, promotional art, speculative recreations for certain aspects of the show, and News sections for the WHRP to keep readers posted on their most recent findings and updates. On the surface, Welcome Home is a colorful, cheery & cartoony childrens puppet show, heavily inspired by shows created by The Jim Henson Company, such as The Muppets, Sesame Street & Fraggle Rock. The show took place in a small cul-de-sac neighborhood called Home, (Not to be confused with the character of the same name, Home, who is a literal house) and focused on the residents within it. Each episode would start with the main character of the show, Wally Darling, introducing the audience to the happenings in Home and the general theme of the episode. As the episode continued, the audience would follow along as they got to see the rest of the cast interact with one another in delightfully quaint & cutesy hi-jinks, alongside animated breaks and story book segments. However, deeper within the website itself, there's a darker story being told. Astute visitors will find doodles seemingly being drawn out of thin air, leading to macabre recordings of Wally Darling speaking to the audience. Bugs lead to video recordings that aren't listed on the Lost Media sections of the website, of characters from the show interacting with each other, only to cut out just as Wally is mentioned. Eye symbols continue to crop up, Deeper secrets of the WHRP become revealed where the line between reality and fiction start to blur, and among it all, is You. Wallys best friend.

That's all pretty much a surface level introduction to Welcome Home. If you're curious and want to experience everything Welcome Home has to offer yourself, I suggest you visit the Welcome Home website and just start exploring! Anything I could summarize, abridge or describe wouldn't even be half as substantive as what's actually on the website itself, and I feel like doing so would be a disservice to Welcome Homes narrative. Do be warned ahead of time that it IS a horror story dealing in themes of unreality and scopophobia when you dig deeper, so it's good to bare that in mind going in. That being said, Welcome Home's horror aspects are very subtle and understated. I wouldn't call Welcome Home R-Rated, if anything i'd say it's a wonderful introduction to the Horror genre for those who are easily scared, but i'll get more into that later. For everyone else: Harken and listen! For a nerdy trans girl is about to gush at length about topics of niche interest, literary devices of the genre and dissection galore! First things first, I might as well start with how I was introduced to Welcome Home. Which is to say, I don't remember! All I can remember is that I found it, and as soon as I did it sunk its little felt claws into the synapses of my brain and didn't let go. Which, considering the subject matter, is pretty fitting! But as soon as I did, I was enraptured. I found Welcome Home prior to the July 22nd Update, which was the largest thus far since I started writing this, so there was a lot less content to be found than there is now.

Best way I can describe what it felt like, is that it was like watching the Pilot Episode to Welcome Home. And I mean that in the best way possible. All that existed was various bits of art of all the characters, their biographies, a few secrets, and a final page that pulled back the curtain on Welcome Home being an ARG and more of its sinister secrets. At the time, I was entertained and intrigued, but there wasn't enough content for me to properly sink my teeth into. Which was understandable, when Welcome Home started, it seemed as though it was just Clown who was at the helm as the sole captain of the ship! However despite their being a lack of content at the start, what was there made me fall in love. One of the aspects about Welcome Home that I want to sing the praises of to the high heavens is how genuine it is. Lemme break it down like this: Mascot Horror is very popular nowadays, ever since the boom that Five Nights At Freddy's created. Take a nostalgic element from a lot of people's childhoods, twist it on it's head and turn it into a horror story, and go from there.

Now going into the deeper aspects of Mascot Horror, it's origins and effect on popular culture and the Horror Genre at large isn't even a can of worms, it'd be more like digging my hands straight into the Earth to gather every Worm to put on a Worm Boat, Noahs Ark style. BUT I'll summarize a bit, alongside my own personal opinions, in hopes to give some perspective. Now, I can't speak for everyone, but from what i've seen Mascot Horror doesn't have a good reputation at large. Five Nights at Freddy's jumped the shark and sold-out and that's JUST the games themselves, Bendy and The Ink Machine fell flat on its face and the scandals behind the scenes were numerous, Hello Neighbor was a desperate attempt to follow a fad and failed its way into success...somehow??? And to top it all off, Baldis Basics, a game that was intended to be a parody of Mascot Horror, started selling figurines in toy shops to kids because it stopped becoming a parody once children who thought it wasn't a parody actually took interest. Whilst one could argue the early era of FNAF held weight and still hold up to this day (and I wouldn't even argue against that myself), there are a lot of examples of Mascot Horror that are disingenuous, desperate attempts for some level of fame or fortune. If the media you create consists of something targeted towards kids, but also has horror elements for adults, you cast a wider net for your audience, and sometimes that's all people see. Welcome Home is different in one major way, and is one if the most fascinating aspects of it, and i'll describe it in a single sentence: Welcome Home didn't need to be a horror story. Now this isn't a criticism of Welcome Home, or me saying that it's Horror elements are superfluous! Far from it! But so many of Welcome Homes surface elements, in regards to the show being a piece of lost media, are created with such gentle, intentional, home-made style care and genuine love for the story of Welcome Home that I believe if you wiped away all the horror elements of Welcome Home and kept everything else as is, it would still have an audience. I mean, a fictional lost media puppets show with colorful characters, wonderfully crafted art, voice actors putting in their absolute best to portray such a saccharinely sweet cast of characters, with the melancholy of a majority of it being lost to time, juxtaposed by the love, the TRUE kind of love, that it takes for a group of people to recover and find the most they can about a show they might've grown up with? A show YOU might've grown up with? I mean come on, that's so fun and adorable! There ABSOLUTELY would've been an audience for that! Would it be as big as Welcome Home's audience is in reality, horror elements and all? Whilst I can't say for certain, my opinion is that it probably wouldn't. Not for a lack of effort, but as I said before: Mascot Horror casts a wider net. The demographic is far larger if it can cater to a younger audience and an older audience. That's just how advertising works sometimes, as dour and dull as that is to say.

But in spite of that, I believe wholeheartedly that there would've been an audience for that and that the sheer uniqueness of the concept would've sold a lot of people on it. Think about it: When was the last time you heard of an ARG that wasn't horror adjacent? What if you wanted an ARG that WASN'T a horror story? It absolutely would've worked, because the amount of commitment, effort, time, talent and love, pure unadulterated love that's poured into by the Welcome Home Team shines as bright as Sally Starlet herself!

However, as I said previously, I don't believe the horror elements are to Welcome Home's detriment. If anything, the fact that Welcome Home could've existed perfectly fine without a secret horror angle hidden deeper within, makes the horror feel far more tangible and real. As I said previously, one of Mascot Horrors tools of the trade is taking something familiar and nostalgic and corrupting it from within. FNAF worked so well because a lot of kids in the 80's and 90's went to places like ShowBiz Pizza or Chuck E. Cheese, and people who grew up with them tended to be in two camps:

They either looked back on their childhood memories fondly and yearn for the day they were 7, having their birthday party with Chucky & Friends, playing in the arcades and taking home a prize with their hard-earned tickets.

or

They were absolutely and utterly goddamn terrified by the animatronics and it gave them a fun new phobia. Like me!

That was extremely fertile ground for a horror story, and part of the reason it worked so well is because it played at audiences nostalgia and twisted it into something darker. It showed a world where being afraid of the animatronics up on stage wasn't irrational. It could potentially save your life. It took the memories the audience had of places like that and said in a low, gravelly tone of voice, rife with malicious intent, "What if?"

That sticks with people, and it works best when the nostalgic analogue the story is trying to replicate feels real! That there are people in the story who don't know they're in a horror story. Parents that don't know celebrating their childs birthday party at Freddys could harm them. People who don't know that Freddys wasn't going out of business due to lack of funds or a gas leak, but for a reason even darker than that. People who don't know why the animatronics smelled like rotting meat and never will.

Because the more that line is blurred, the more the audience can suspend their disbelief, and the more it drives them to want to know more. To dig deeper into that abyss, to truly hear the wails that come from within, even if they shouldn't. However, the issue that most Mascot Horror falls into is that the false-media that it creates feels flat and lacking of substance. To give an example, we'll use Bendy and The Ink Machine. As opposed to Five Nights at Freddy's using 90's Animatronics and Arcades, Bendy used 1920's Rubberhose animation. And one of Bendys greatest flaws is that it never used that inspiration for anything more than set dressing. You could take the cartoon aesthetic away from Bendy, and all it would be is your standard "Someone summoned Demons for their own gain and it went tits up" story. Aesthetically, Bendy didn't have any legs to stand on because the subject matter of Bendy the Dancing Demon and his silent cartoons didn't feel real or substantive! Bendy didn't feel like they were a cartoon character that had been corrupted from within by demons. Bendy felt like a cartoon character that was purposefully made to harbor demons because the writers couldn't think of a way to make Bendy stand out in a vacuum outside the horror elements.

Early Era FNAF worked because it was carried by a strong aesthetic, clever arcade game-play that created tension and anxiety, and a simple-but-effective horror mystery underlying it all that engaged its audience and made it far easier for them to suspend their disbelief and play in the space. Welcome Home does this as well, but it employs a different tactic: By making the show a piece of lost media, it evokes a curiosity that any other piece of lost media invokes. Starting off with cookie crumbs before building up to finding the cookie itself, but it's broken into pieces with large chunks bitten out, and the trail only gets more fascinating and crummier as it goes.

However, some folks will look at those cookie chunks and think to themselves "How does it taste?" They hold up a chunk to their mouth, take a bite, and are met with the comfort of a home-made chocolate chip cookie, the sweetness inciting them and giving them a sense of comfort and warmth. And just as it started, its gone. All that's left is a void where once there was joy, and a trail of crumbs, and the question of why someone would destroy such a wonderful cookie in the first place? Was it out of malice? Or was it for our own good? But there's no other way to know but to follow the trail.

THAT'S what Welcome Home is. Welcome Home is the metaphor cookie! It's Horror Elements supplement the Lost Media content, and also does something that i've not seen any other Lost Media ARG or Mascot Horror do, much less do successfully: Employ empathy. The cast of Welcome Home are all sweethearts, every last one of them. They're caring, they're funny, they all have different quirks that bounce off of each-other in ways that make them feel like a community just bursting with love! Which makes the darker elements feel less scary and more...sad.

All of Welcome Home's horror elements are draped in melancholy, information getting lost, memories forgotten, friends disappearing, loosing part of yourself to a hungry maw whilst the parts of you that are left wonder "Where did they go? Am I all alone now?" And that feeling couldn't be portrayed more perfectly than everyone's host whose the most, Wally Darling. Wally is special, not just because he's a curios little goober who is fascinated by everything around him, but because there's something that separates him from the rest of the cast. He's the only one who exists in the present tense. Lemme explain:

We only learn about the rest of the cast of Welcome Home in past-tense. In old audio recordings, lost story books, discarded animation cels, they don't exist within the present anymore. They only exist in the past. But Wally, darling Wally Darling, is different. Throughout the website you can find crayon drawings that materialize from nothing, almost as if they're drawing themselves or...being drawn by someone else. Clicking on them leads to small audio recordings of Wally talking to the listener, about how "He can see you", how "He has more eyes than he used to", and wanting to be "Let inside."

All of these audio recordings contain a level of dread, yes, but beneath that, a level of desperation as well. If you go through the website, you'll learn that one of Wally's core character traits is curiosity. He blythley asks questions that most people wouldn't, always fascinated by the world around him in a multitude of ways.

Now, Welcome Home isn't finished. Far from it, I get the feeling that it's only just starting! But with that in mind, there are a lot of things we don't know about the story and whats going on, but one of the core themes is lost memories and trying to find them again. A lot of the WHRP Staff is shown to be desperate for answers, that Welcome Home is absorbing a part of their mind and that they can't let go until they find out whats going on.

And this is only a theory, but I think the exact same can be said for Wally. Wally, as I said before, is the only character who exists in the present tense. He left drawings on the Guest Book for people who left their mark, and the image files of his drawings are him responding to the Guest in question. He's talking to them. He's talking to us. He sees us. He hears us. But only faintly. Only briefly. And he doesn't know why.

But chief among that? He's alone. None of his friends are here anymore, all that remains are the spaces they used to occupy. All that remain are their ghosts...and us. He's reaching out just as much as we are reaching towards him, and neither of us know what we're going to find on the other side. Or if it'll be worth it. Because in truth, Wally is probably just as scared as we are.

"But Arson!" I pretend to hear you cry because you're still not talking, and that's okay I don't want to pressure you but I need a hypothetical straw-man to bounce off of so i'm just going to pretend that you or someone else is refuting my statements so that I can further make a point down the road, but again I want to reiterate it's okay if you don't want to talk I don't want to pressure you and also thank you for listening to me this far in it's very sweet of you!

[Arson takes a large, exaggerated exhale after saying that entire run-on-sentence without taking a breath]

"But Arson!" You cry! "How do we know Wally can be trusted? How do we know he wont do something bad?!" Well i'm glad I am pretending you asked and also glad you're playing in the space! In truth, we don't know if Wally has ulterior motives, or if we're even talking to Wally or we're talking to """Wally""". There isn't enough conclusive evidence for us to figure out his motives, and there are hints that they could potentially have darker machinations. Some of the art that existed prior to the July 22nd Update, on the page that pulled back the curtain, showed art of Wally puppeting around an empty Barnaby walk-around-puppet without it's head on, cheering about how he "Made a dog", and one in particular where he can be seen in the Baphomet pose. However, considering Welcome Home has solidified its concepts more as the series has gone on, it's uncertain whether or not these pieces of art can be considered canon.

But at the same time: We don't know why Wally can see us! How Wally is able to hear our faint whispers, answer us back when we call his name, find the secrets that he himself is potentially leaving behind, or why video files suddenly cut out as soon as another character starts to mention Wally by name. Wally could be under the effects of some sort of curse that he's trying to use as a blessing, or he could be a wolf in sheeps clothing! We don't know!

But the aspect that makes him sympathetic, that makes me believe he's not just a villain, are his friends and how he interacts with them. To the audience, Wally may be some mysterious machevellian entity pushing past the barriers of the fourth wall, but to Barnaby? Frank, Julie, Poppy, Sally, Eddie, Howdy & Home? He's their neighbor! He's their friend! And he acts like it, too! He may be socially awkward and a bit dry, but you can truly tell that he cares for and loves his neighbors! His friends! Us!

Whether or not that love has been twisted, whether the road to heaven paves the way to hell, is yet to be seen, but the clues we do have don't really point at Wally being a traditional horror villain! An antagonist? Maybe, but he's yet to show any outward malice. Thus far...he's just shown hes scared. And all he can hear is us. And he wants to be let in...so...so badly. One last thing i'll go over before I wrap this up is the medium in which Welcome Home tells its story: The Website! Welcome Home's website is chock full of interactive pages full of audio, video, written stories, and secrets to uncover and find. Whether you're interacting with the lost media aspect of the story, or digging deeper into the ARG, there is always a sense of active participation on the audiences part. Like when a character in a childrens show asks a question and leaves a beat for the kids at home to answer, Welcome Home encourages and expects audience participation! You're just as much of a neighbor as the characters in the show! It's engaging, it feeds curiosity and it's a fantastic way to ensure audience engagement! It reminded me a lot of how HypnoSpace Outlaw gameified the process of exploring the early internet and turned it into a puzzle game! Honestly, If the budget is there, I could easily see Welcome Home's website being turned into a stand-alone video game removed from a deprecated browser in the same way Hypnospace works! But funnily enough, whilst the comparison to Hypnospace was what came to my mind first, the more I thought about it, the more Welcome Home reminded me a lot of Homestar Runner! Now, I already spent a large part of this essay/review/ramble/i-want-to-talk-about-something-so-i'm-going-to-write-seven-pages-or-more-about-it-thingy and expected my readers to at least have passing knowledge about FNAF & Bendy through cultural osmosis.

And considering how niche Homestar Runner is in the year 2023, i'm not going to go in-depth about it here, but to put it in very, very, VERY small perspective: Homestar Runner was a flash-cartoon series that began in 2000 and ran through most of 2010 (and still does update from time to time) that hosted all of its content on a single website made by its creators, The Brothers Chaps. One of Homestar Runners defining features were its Easter Eggs, that you could wander around the website and find secret pages and games filled with even more gags and jokes! Now, Homestar Runner wasn't an ARG, and it didn't really have "Lore Drops" in the same way that Welcome Home does except for that one time.

But a lot of its interactive elements and Easter eggs functioned very similarly to how Welcome Home tells it story! Which is a really creative way to iterate on how Homestar Runner worked! Now, I don't know if Welcome Homes interactive website was inspired by Homestar Runner, and my comparisons aren't meant to debase either Welcome Home or Homestar, I just find it fascinating how two different types of stories can use the same interactive elements to completely different effect. That being said, no piece of media is without its flaws, and Welcome Home can sometimes be a bit...obtuse when it comes to its secrets. Specifically in finding them, there are a few secrets that feel too hidden and their solutions too cryptic. The Safe Puzzle comes to mind, for those that know. I wouldn't have ever found that if I wasn't given a hint, because I essentially had to pixel-hunt for the one clickable link in a completely featureless white void. And maybe it's just me, but the answer to the Safe Puzzle felt a little unsatisfying. I essentially had the answer, but without spoiling the puzzle itself, I had to abbreviate the answer instead of writing it all out, and there's no way I would've figured that out on my own.

As for anything else I could criticize, I feel like they aren't substantial enough criticisms to warrant mentioning, especially considering how Welcome Home is still in the process of being told. It wouldn't be fair for me to correct a storyteller when they're still in the middle of telling the story.

To get more personal, i'll end it off with this: During the early stages of the Welcome Home website being up, it had a Guest Book, like how old websites would have one, where people who visited the website could leave their name and a little message for people to find. Since the July 22nd update, the Guest Book had been closed. Whether this was for a Lore reason, or simply to prevent excess traffic to the website slowing things down (Welcome Home is an independent project, after-all) people can't sign the Guest Book anymore, but they left the remaining signatures up for history's sake and...

I was able to sign it before it was closed. On Page 3, you can find me, playing in the space and pretending I grew up with Welcome Home as a kid. Wally if you're reading this, I'm very very sorry, I lied. I didn't grow up with your show, but I wish I did! I just thought it was a game of pretend. I was telling the truth when I said Julie was my favorite though, so I hope that makes up for it a little. Gomen nasai.

And something about that...it feels special. I was able to make my tiny little mark on Welcome Home and how much I loved it. And there's something magic about that, but sad all at the same time. For whatever reason the Guest Book closed is understandable, and I feel it would be indignant of me to tell them to open it back up, but i'm sad that there are some folk who won't get to have the chance I did.

I didn't even know it would be a "chance". In my mind, the Guest Book was going to stay open forever. It was always going to be there, and anyone could get their chance to leave their personal mark on Welcome Home. But now that's gone, and all that remains is what me and everyone else left behind. And I can't help but get this small, lingering feeling that maybe I could've left something else behind. But we can't go back, we can only go forwards and we can only live with what little remains...

Funny, how that works, isn't it?

---------

[Arson lets out a fluterry exhale, almost as if they're reminiscing on something.]

...Good golly, Miss Molly, I sure did go on for a long while, didn't I? I suppose I can't help myself, give me enough time and i'll start gushing about my favorite types of stationary or the stitches on my favorite skirt for another hour!

[Arson giggles] Oh jeez-louise, I should probably go get some tea, sometimes I just talk so long I almost loose my voice! I'm sure my arm isn't feeling very happy having me hold up the phone to my face for so long...

[Another bout of silence, broken up for a moment by the sound of Arson letting out a melancholy sigh]

Thank you for listening, though...I-if you're still there...

I hope you're still there. I guess I...don't really know if you were ever there to begin with but...I guess it's...fun to pretend sometimes. ...Goodbye, stranger...and...thanks for listening.

[Arson hangs up the phone]

--------- 

If you want to visit the neighborhood, go to: https://www.clownillustration.com/welcome-home

If you want to learn more about your neighbors, and learn about the people who made it, go to: https://www.clownillustration.com/from-me-to-you

If you want to help out your neighbors, and have a dime to spare, please support them at: https://ko-fi.com/partycoffin

If you want to know who drew the art of the cute trans girl, please visit: https://twitter.com/butlerkitty_

[thecrenellations]

Is the lymond chronicles something I can get into if I know little of history and do not speak many romance languages?

Yes! I mean, it depends on your reading preferences and how you feel about being confused, but I certainly did!

That's my short answer! If you give them a try, I hope you find the series worth it, and I believe that what you like in a story will matter more than what you do or don't know going in.

My much longer answer, about my reading experience, is ....

In my case, I knew the names of monarchs and had a vague familiarity with the setting of the first book (Tudor/1540s Scotland and England). I speak a useful amount of French and a tiny bit of Spanish. Comparing experiences with friends, French was an especially helpful language to have, but I feel confident saying that I would have loved these books without it.

The thing about The Game of Kings (book 1) is that it’s just confusing. Dorothy Dunnett wastes no time in throwing political intrigue, multilingual references, and many characters at you. But even if you’re an expert in the history and in (modern and archaic) English, French, Latin, Spanish, Scots, and a little bit of Italian and German, you are faced with a protagonist who’s running back and forth across the border and interfering with that history … while guarding his goals and motives, explaining nothing about his past, and constantly quoting poetry from the personal library of a mind he doesn’t want to let anyone inside. Most of the people he meets don’t understand him, either.

For me, it was so rewarding when I finally started to learn what was happening and who he is, and after that the ride truly began…

I did not look up many references or translations and just kinda went with it. I was enjoying myself enough that I didn’t mind that so much was going over my head (especially if it was coming out of Lymond’s mouth), and within a few chapters I’d gotten invested in one of the characters (Christian!) and was entranced by a recurring joke/element. By the second section (let’s say … 175 pages in …), I was hooked, obsessed with a second character (Will!), interested in most of the rest, and having a great time.

There’s a character list in non-audio editions (the David Monteath audiobooks are very good, though), and companion books exist with translations/sources for many of the references. There are also various online recaps and chapter-by-chapter discussions. Looking things up yourself as you go along can reduce confusion, but be warned that many of the characters are versions of real people, so you may learn more than you want to know, such as when they die. 470-year-old spoilers, but still.

For me, the characters (complexity, parallels, relationships) and writing (playfulness, beauty, INCREDIBLE use of perspective and unreliable narration) are what make the books so good. They reward rereading, so, when/if you return, you’ll have another chance to go down some reference rabbit holes, and even if you don’t, you will understand much more.

The second book is generally agreed to be easier to understand! Also, there are elephants.

Perhaps more important than knowledge of history and languages is the reader's tolerance for …

angst. pain. agony. devastating reminders of prior angst and pain and agony

on the flipside, truly ridiculous antics, hijinks, and capers

many, many kinds of traumatic/potentially triggering content

bias/bigotry that shows up in characters’ perspectives and in general (not that newer media is free of this, but these books are from the 1960s and 70s, for context)

occasional elements that stretch the definition of historical fiction

revelations about your favorite authors’ influences (this was fun)

excessive reference to and description of Lymond’s beauty

half? a third? a large amount of the cast being in love with Lymond. This made for way more queer text than I knew to expect, which was great, but also … oh my god everyone is in love with him

the most bantering banter to ever banter, mostly, but certainly not entirely, courtesy of Lymond

Thanks for asking! If any of this raises more questions, ask again!

related: my lymond recs tag. There are mild and out-of-context spoilers, but these posts all sum up something about the series. :)

[jcmarchi]

The Sequence Radar #554 : The New DeepSeek R1-0528 is Very Impressive

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/the-sequence-radar-554-the-new-deepseek-r1-0528-is-very-impressive/

The Sequence Radar #554 : The New DeepSeek R1-0528 is Very Impressive

The new model excels at math and reasoning.

Created Using GPT-4o

Next Week in The Sequence:

In our series about evals, we discuss multiturn benchmarks. The engineering section dives into the amazing Anthropic Circuits for ML interpretability. In research, we discuss some of UC Berkeley’s recent work in LLM reasoning. Our opinion section dives into the state of AI interpretablity.

You can subscribe to The Sequence below:

TheSequence is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

📝 Editorial: The New DeepSeek R1-0528 is Very Impressive

This week, DeepSeek AI pushed the boundaries of open-source language modeling with the release of DeepSeek R1-0528. Building on the foundation of the original R1 release, this update delivers notable gains in mathematical reasoning, code generation, and long-context understanding. With improvements derived from enhanced optimization and post-training fine-tuning, R1-0528 marks a critical step toward closing the performance gap between open models and their proprietary counterparts like GPT-4 and Gemini 1.5.

At its core, DeepSeek R1-0528 preserves the powerful 672B Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) architecture, activating 37B parameters per forward pass. This architecture delivers high-capacity performance while optimizing for efficiency, especially in inference settings. One standout feature is its support for 64K-token context windows, enabling the model to engage with substantially larger inputs—ideal for technical documents, structured reasoning chains, and multi-step planning.

In terms of capability uplift, the model shows remarkable progress in competitive benchmarks. On AIME 2025, DeepSeek R1-0528 jumped from 70% to an impressive 87.5%, showcasing an increasingly sophisticated ability to tackle complex mathematical problems. This leap highlights not just better fine-tuning, but a fundamental improvement in reasoning depth—an essential metric for models serving scientific, technical, and educational use cases.

For software engineering and development workflows, R1-0528 brings meaningful updates. Accuracy on LiveCodeBench rose from 63.5% to 73.3%, confirming improvements in structured code synthesis. The inclusion of JSON-formatted outputs and native function calling support positions the model as a strong candidate for integration into automated pipelines, copilots, and tool-augmented environments where structured outputs are non-negotiable.

To ensure broad accessibility, DeepSeek also launched a distilled variant: R1-0528-Qwen3-8B. Despite its smaller footprint, this model surpasses Qwen3-8B on AIME 2024 by over 10%, while rivaling much larger competitors like Qwen3-235B-thinking. This reflects DeepSeek’s commitment to democratizing frontier performance, enabling developers and researchers with constrained compute resources to access state-of-the-art capabilities.

DeepSeek R1-0528 is more than just a model upgrade—it’s a statement. In an ecosystem increasingly dominated by closed systems, DeepSeek continues to advance the case for open, high-performance AI. By combining transparent research practices, scalable deployment options, and world-class performance, R1-0528 signals a future where cutting-edge AI remains accessible to the entire community—not just a privileged few.

Join Me for a Chat About AI Evals and Benchmarks:

🔎 AI Research

FLEX-Judge: THINK ONCE, JUDGE ANYWHERE

Lab: KAIST AI Summary: FLEX-Judge is a reasoning-first multimodal evaluator trained on just 1K text-only explanations, achieving zero-shot generalization across images, audio, video, and molecular tasks while outperforming larger commercial models. Leverages textual reasoning alone to train a judge model that generalizes across modalities without modality-specific supervision.

Learning to Reason without External Rewards

Lab: UC Berkeley & Yale University Summary: INTUITOR introduces a novel self-supervised reinforcement learning framework using self-certainty as intrinsic reward, matching supervised methods on math and outperforming them on code generation without any external feedback. The technique proposes self-certainty as an effective intrinsic reward signal for reinforcement learning, replacing gold labels.

Beyond Markovian: Reflective Exploration via Bayes-Adaptive RL for LLM Reasoning

AI Lab: Google DeepMind & Northwestern University Summary: This paper introduces BARL, a novel Bayes-Adaptive RL algorithm that enables large language models to perform test-time reflective reasoning by switching strategies based on posterior beliefs over MDPs. The authors show that BARL significantly outperforms Markovian RL approaches in math reasoning tasks by improving token efficiency and adaptive exploration.

rStar-Coder: Scaling Competitive Code Reasoning with a Large-Scale Verified Dataset

AI Lab: Microsoft Research Asia Summary: The authors present rStar-Coder, a dataset of 418K competitive programming problems and 580K verified long-reasoning code solutions, which drastically boosts the performance of Qwen models on code reasoning benchmarks. Their pipeline introduces a robust input-output test case synthesis method and mutual-verification mechanism, achieving state-of-the-art performance even with smaller models.

MME-Reasoning: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Logical Reasoning in MLLMs

AI Lab: Fudan University, CUHK MMLab, Shanghai AI Lab Summary: MME-Reasoning offers a benchmark of 1,188 multimodal reasoning tasks spanning inductive, deductive, and abductive logic, revealing significant limitations in current MLLMs’ logical reasoning. The benchmark includes multiple question types and rigorous metadata annotations, exposing reasoning gaps especially in abductive tasks.

DeepResearchGym: A Free, Transparent, and Reproducible Evaluation Sandbox for Deep Research

AI Lab: Carnegie Mellon University, NOVA LINCS, INESC-ID Summary: DeepResearchGym is an open-source sandbox providing reproducible search APIs and evaluation protocols over ClueWeb22 and FineWeb for benchmarking deep research agents. It supports scalable dense retrieval and long-form response evaluation using LLM-as-a-judge assessments across dimensions like relevance and factual grounding.

Fine-Tuning Large Language Models with User-Level Differential Privacy

AI Lab: Google Research Summary: This study compares two scalable user-level differential privacy methods (ELS and ULS) for LLM fine-tuning, with a novel privacy accountant that tightens DP guarantees for ELS. Experiments show that ULS generally offers better utility under large compute budgets or strong privacy settings, while maintaining scalability to hundreds of millions of parameters and users.

🤖 AI Tech Releases

DeepSeek-R1-0528

DeeSeek released a new version of its marquee R1 model.

Anthropic Circuits

Anthropic open sourced its circuit interpretability technology.

Perplexity Labs

Perplexity released a new tool that can generate charts, spreadsheets and dashboards.

Codestral Embed

Mistral released Codestral Embed, an embedding model specialized in coding.

🛠 AI in Production

Multi-Task Learning at Netflix

Netflix shared some details about its multi-task prediction strategy for user intent.

📡AI Radar

Salesforce agreed to buy Informatica for $8 billion.

xAI and Telegram partnered to enable Grok for its users.

Netflix’s Reed Hastings joined Anthropic’s board of directors.

Grammarly raised $1 billion to accelerate sales and acquisitions.

Spott raises $3.2 million for an AI-native recruiting firm.

Buildots $45 million for its AI for construction platform.

Context raised $11 million to power an AI-native office suite.

Rillet raised $25 million to enable AI for mid market accounting.

HuggingFace unveiled two new open source robots.

[teachingenglishtokids]

DIY Sound-Scape: Recording Forest Ambience With Kids

Turn simple nature sounds into a one-of-a-kind lullaby track

Why This Activity Matters

Hands-on science: Children hear how wind, water, and animals make sound waves.

Music skills: They learn rhythm, layering, and volume.

Creativity: Kids feel proud when their own sounds become part of a song.

Calm focus: Listening for quiet details trains careful attention.

Watch the “Magical Forest Lullaby”

Start the activity by watching or listening to the Forest Whisper Lullaby together.

Ask your child:

What do you see in your mind when the forest whispers?

What sound would the moonlight or owl make?

How can we turn the song’s words into real soft sounds?

This step helps them connect imagination with sound.

Lyrics of the Forest Whisper Lullaby

“Forest Whisper Lullaby”

Verse 1 Whisper, forest, softly sing, Fireflies paint a silver ring. Moonlight drips on sleepy trees, Stars fall slow like quiet seas.

Chorus Hush-a-bye, hush-a-bye, Dreams will gently fly. Wrapped in leaves of velvet green, Sleep in forest shine and sheen.

Verse 2 Petal pillows, moss so mild, Cradle every drifting child. Wind hums low, a tender spell, Safe you are and all is well.

Chorus Hush-a-bye, hush-a-bye, Dreams will gently fly. Wrapped in leaves of velvet green, Sleep in forest shine and sheen.

Bridge Owls keep watch with golden eyes, River sings where silence lies. Heartbeats blend with rustling air, Night will guard you everywhere.

Final Chorus (soft) Hush-a-bye, hush-a-bye, Dreams now fill the sky. Held by trees and silver light, Rest, sweet child—good-night, good-night.

What You Need

• Smartphone or tablet--Built-in voice recorder works fine.

• Optional small mic--Makes cleaner sound but not required.

• Headphones--Help kids hear details when editing.

• Easy, free sound-editing app--See options below.

• Notebook & pencil--For a “sound list.”

Kid-Friendly, Mostly Free Editing Apps

Step-by-Step Guide

1. Plan Your Sound Hunt

Talk about forest sounds: rustling leaves, bird calls, dripping water, footsteps on grass, a gentle stream, petal pillows, wind humming, star falling

Make a checklist: Let children draw small icons—leaf, bird, drop—next to each sound.

2. Set Recording Rules

Quiet feet: Walk slowly to avoid extra noise.

One sound at a time: Point the mic at the source.

Countdown: “3-2-1-record” teaches timing.

10-second clips: Easy to handle later.

3. Go Outside (or Improvise Indoors)

Backyard trees for leaf rustle.

Water tap half-open for a trickle if no stream is near.

Paper towel tube blown gently can mimic an owl “hoo.”

Encourage kids to invent: crumpling paper = cracking twigs.

Or make sounds:

Petal pillows = fabric rubbing

Wind hums = blowing gently in a straw

Stars falling = bell or soft chime

4. Review the Takes

Use the simple chart below to rate each clip. Kids practice critical listening and decide if a retake is needed.

5. Import Clips into the App

Create new project → “Audio.”

Label tracks: LEAVES, WATER, BIRD. Color-code if possible.

Drag clips onto separate tracks.

6. Trim and Loop

Show children how to:

Cut silence at start/end.

Loop short sounds—leaf rustle repeats smoothly.

Fade in/out so no sudden jumps.

7. Build the Sound-Scape

Base layer: Soft water trickle sets calm mood.

Middle layer: Leaf rustle panned left, bird tweets panned right (introduce “left/right” sound).

Top layer: Child whispers a line from the lullaby, e.g., “Hush-a-bye.”

8. Adjust Volume

Explain “mixing desk”:

Water low (20–30 %),

Leaves medium (50 %),

Voice higher (70 %). Let kids slide faders and judge what feels soothing.

9. Export the Track

Tap Share/Export → “Audio file (MP3 or WAV).” Rename it “My Forest Lullaby – [Child’s Name].”

10. Bedtime Premiere

Play the track during the bedtime routine. Ask your child how the sounds make them feel. Celebrate their work!

Extension Ideas

Science journal: Draw each sound source and describe how it was made.

Math link: Count loops—how many times does the bird call repeat in one minute?

Art project: Paint a picture of the forest scene while listening.

Language: Write a short story using the recorded sounds as plot points.

Safety & Courtesy Tips

Record in safe, familiar areas.

Respect wildlife; keep distance.

Avoid private property without permission.

Final Thought

Creating a DIY forest sound-scape turns the world into a gentle classroom. Kids discover that music is not only instruments—it is wind, water, and their own quiet voices. With a phone and a little patience, you and your child can craft a lullaby that’s truly your song of the woods. Sweet dreams!

[postdemocratico]

< TRASMISSIONE #4774 - ARCHIVIO "CRIPTA/MURPHY" - SITO BUNKER-Ω >

*(File di testo recuperato da un terminale abbandonato nel Livello -3. Il monitor tremolava ancora quando è stato trovato. Il messaggio è cifrato in un mix di Base64, esadecimale e frammenti di linguaggio macchina. Traduzione approssimativa seguita da annotazioni.)*

[INIZIO FILE]

4D 75 72 70 68 79 27 73 20 4C 61 77 3A 20 22 54 68 65 20 73 79 73 74 65 6D 20 69 73 20 6E 6F 74 20 62 72 6F 6B 65 6E 2E 20 49 74 20 69 73 20 77 6F 72 6B 69 6E 67 20 61 73 20 69 6E 74 65 6E 64 65 64 2E 22

→ Traduzione: "Murphy's Law: 'The system is not broken. It is working as intended.'"

(Nota a margine, scritta a mano su un pezzo di nastro adesivo attaccato allo schermo: "Non è un bug. È una feature. È PEGGIO.")

[SEZIONE 2: CODICE CORROTTO]

7F 45 4C 46 01 01 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 03 00 01 00 00 00 ERROR: INVALID INSTRUCTION AT 0x7f4e4c3a > RUN DIAGNOSTIC? [Y/N] > N > EXECUTING DEFAULT PROTOCOL...

(Il resto della sezione sembra essere un dump di memoria, ma se isoli i caratteri stampabili, ottieni:) ...THEY TOOK THE ELEVATOR DOWN. BUT THERE IS NO FLOOR -1. WHY DID THEY KEEP GOING?..."

[SEZIONE 3: MESSAGGIO NASCOSTO IN SPETTRO AUDIO]

(Analisi spettrale del file BUNKER_OMEGA.wav rivela testo modulato a 18.5kHz:) YOU ARE NOT THE FIRST. YOU ARE NOT THE LAST. YOU ARE THE ONE WHO FINDS THE BODIES.

[SEZIONE 4: BLOCCO DI NOTE DEL TECNICO] (decifrato con chiave "MURPHY")

DAY 742: I found the source of the humming. It's not the servers. It's the walls. They're singing. DAY 743: The cameras show empty halls. But the motion sensors... they disagree. DAY 744: I tried to leave. The elevator opened. Inside, a man with my face smiled and pressed "Door Close". DAY 745: (scritto sopra una macchia di caffè) I hear them compiling in the walls.

[SEZIONE 5: ULTIMO LOG DEL SISTEMA PRIMA DEL COLLASSO]

[00:47:11] SYSTEM: Launching final protocol... [00:47:12] SYSTEM: Searching for admin... NOT FOUND. [00:47:13] SYSTEM: Defaulting to VOICE RECOGNITION. [00:47:14] SYSTEM: Last command received: "LET ME OUT". [00:47:15] SYSTEM: Executing. [00:47:16] WARNING: ALL DOORS LOCKED. ALL DOORS LOCKED. ALL DOORS LOCKED. [00:47:17] SYSTEM: Goodbye.

[ANNOTAZIONI A MANO SUL TERMINALE]

(Scritte con un pennarello nero, alcune cancellate con forza:)

"La porta è bloccata dall'esterno."

"Non rispondere alle voci nelle condotte dell'aria."

"Il sistema mente. Il sistema sa. Il sistema TI STA ASPETTANDO." (questa riga è ripetuta 12 volte)

"Se leggi questo, NON GUARDARE LE TELECAMERE. Non vogliono che tu veda cosa fanno quando non le guardi."

[FINE FILE]

CORRUPTION: 78.3% > TRY TO RECOVER MORE? [Y/N] > _ (il cursore lampeggia ancora, ma la tastiera non risponde)

[robertsmith37]

7 Critical Steps to Start a YouTube Channel : A Roadmap

Introduction: Why Starting a YouTube Channel in 2025 Feels Impossible (But Isn’t)

With over 500 hours of video uploaded every minute 1, launching a YouTube channel today feels like shouting into a hurricane. Yet, 15,000+ creators still hit 1,000 subscribers in their first month 2. The secret? A strategic approach to Steps To Start A YouTube Channel that bypasses guesswork.

This guide reveals 7 critical steps to launch a channel that grows sustainably, even in 2025’s competitive landscape. Backed by real data (like a fitness channel that gained 5,000 subscribers in 30 days using YouTube SEO ), you’ll learn how to avoid pitfalls and fast-track success.

Step #1: Validate Your Niche Before Uploading

Problem : 60% of creators quit after 3 videos because they pick oversaturated niches. Agitate : Tools like Google Keyword Planner show “gaming” has 1M+ monthly searches—but also 10M+ competing videos. Solution :

Use YouTube Analytics to find “micro-niches” (e.g., “vegan meal prep for truckers” vs. generic “meal prep”).

Validate demand with YouTube Trends and keyword tools like TubeBuddy.

Case Study : A gardening channel targeting “apartment hydroponics” saw 10x faster growth than general gardening creators 3.

Step #2: Optimize Your Channel Setup for Discovery

A sloppy YouTube Channel Setup costs you 30% of potential traffic. Critical fixes:

Channel Art : Include your niche and CTA (e.g., “Subscribe for Daily Tech Hacks”).

Trailer : Hook viewers in 10 seconds with your unique angle (e.g., “I teach coding to artists—no experience needed”).

Playlist Structure : Organize content into themed playlists to boost watch time.

Fact : Channels with optimized setups see 22% higher CTR 4.

Step #3: Master YouTube’s 2025 Algorithm Rules

YouTube prioritizes YouTube Watch Time and engagement over views. To win:

Hook Early : 70% of viewers drop off if the first 10 seconds are boring.

Use Cards & End Screens : Link to playlists via YouTube Cards to keep viewers on your channel.

Post Consistently : Use Best Time To Post YouTube Video data to maximize reach.

Example : A tech reviewer saw a 40% increase in watch time by shifting from 10-minute tutorials to 7-minute “quick tip” videos.

Step #4: Create Content That Converts (Without Fancy Equipment)

Problem : New creators waste $1,000+ on cameras but ignore scripting. Agitate : Poor audio or rambling content kills retention, even with high production value. Solution :

Script for SEO : Include keywords like “how to [X] faster” naturally in your dialogue.

Repurpose Trends : Use YouTube Shorts to funnel traffic to long-form videos.

Data : Channels using YouTube Video Promotion Services grow 3x faster 5.

Step #5: Promote Strategically (Beyond YouTube)

Problem : Creators rely on YouTube’s algorithm alone, missing 40% of traffic opportunities. Agitate : Competitors use promote YouTube video tactics like:

Social Media : Share clips on TikTok/Instagram Reels.

Collaborations : Guest on podcasts or collaborate with other YouTubers .

Communities : Post in Reddit/Quora groups related to your niche.

Case Study : A finance channel grew 10k subs in 6 weeks by sharing tips in Facebook groups.

Step #6: Monetize Early (Without Waiting for 1k Subs)

Problem : Creators think monetization starts at 1k subs. Agitate : You can earn via:

Affiliate links (e.g., YouTube Affiliate Marketing ).

Selling digital products (e.g., eBooks, presets).

Music Video Marketing for brands.

Fact : 30% of creators earn income before hitting the YouTube Partner Program 6.

Step #7: Analyze & Adapt Weekly

Problem : Creators “set and forget” content, missing growth signals. Agitate : Use YouTube Analytics to track:

Top-performing keywords .

Audience demographics (e.g., 18–24-year-olds watch 2x more Shorts).

Traffic sources (e.g., 30% of views from TikTok).

Pro Tip : The YouTube 4000 Hours Watch Time Hack helps hit monetization thresholds faster.

Conclusion: Your 30-Day Launch Plan

Starting a YouTube channel in 2025 isn’t about luck—it’s about strategy. Follow these Steps To Start A YouTube Channel and:

Validate your niche with keyword tools.

Optimize your channel for discovery.

Create content that hooks viewers instantly.

For advanced tactics, explore How To Add YouTube Thumbnail hacks or YouTube for Business guides.

[jbblackwell]

KISS - 1976 Paul Lynde Halloween Special (live vocal franKENstein Redux) from KENN NARDI on Vimeo.

This show was the first time I ever saw KISS. I was only eight at the time and didn't really understand if they were a real group or something for the "Halloween" show. It was only the following year when my older brother brought home KISS Alive! that I remembered this show. Not long after that I was hooked for life.

VIDEO: For this video, I upscaled it to 1080p and used a bit of AI to clean it up. The source was the S'MORE Entertainment DVD version. I did a shot-by shot adjustment for DRC since some shots were pretty dark compared to others (Peter, especially). I do cut away from Paul to Ace briefly in the first line of DRC because Paul appears to say "I feel uptight on a, on a Saturday night" in the video. Yes, his timing was bad, but if you try and line up the words, there are definitely a couple extra syllables in there. I also broke up the shot when they start playing DRC, adding the logo shot in order to include the whole guitar intro.

AUDIO: In the '60s and '70s, it was not uncommon for bands doing TV appearances to have pre-recorded music (either the original studio mix, a remix or even pre-recorded live music) which they would mime to while singing live on the show. Since the original show has Paul doing an especially bad job at lip-syncing and since Peter changes a few words here and there in Beth, I decided to create a remix of the songs by taking the music from the original version of Destroyer and then adding live vocals synced to what they were actually performing. Both DRC and KOTNTW were aired as heavily edited versions which I mimicked here to match the show. The vocals for DRC and KOTNTW were edited to match the show using the Jersey City '76 show mostly with a sprinkling of Alive II for a word here or there due to how Paul sang it at that show. I also blending a bit for some of the sections where Gene's voice was a bit too prominent. The vocals for "Beth" come mostly from Alive II with a few bits of the studio version to match the performance. You'll have to suspend reality a bit and ignore Paul barely playing his guitar in some sections. I didn't want to turn it into a full "KISS Shreds" video by editing his guitar to perfectly match his (not) playing, haha.

I also decided to do "Beth" as a piano/vocal ballad which is actually pretty "1970s" and makes more sense to me since only Peter and a piano are shown. He actually does a good job at pretending to play the piano and he could just as easily have sung live to a piano-only backing track for the show. For this mix, I used the isolated piano track from the Destroyer version and edited the parts a bit to fill in the music since without the orchestration the piano is minimal on some sections. For those parts I borrowed pieces from the middle interlude and later verses to blend with the original arrangement.

I re-created most of the sound FX like the explosions and some of the audience using cleaner sources. The intro credits also have the music removed and were shortened to include only the people appearing in this clip. I did add hand claps to the musical break in DRC, though the original has them throughout most of the song (they are audible during KOTNTW as well). I also used a bit of the siren from Alive! for the fire-breathing segment.

As I always say, these franKENstein versions are NOT for the purists. These are creatively re-imagined versions done by a life-long KISS fan for other fans. The original videos are easily available, and my versions are not intended to replace those or "re-write" history. My only goal is to create something a little different that other fans might enjoy.

[pureresonanceaudio]

Level Up Your Commercial Space With The Enchanting Power Of Sound

Imagine this: you step into a café, greeted by the enticing aroma of freshly brewed coffee. As you settle down to order, you notice the perfect music playing in the background, transforming the atmosphere into something special. Or maybe you walk into a retail store, where carefully selected background music enhances your shopping experience, making it more enjoyable and engaging. The power of sound to elevate an ordinary setting is often underestimated. In lively commercial spaces, where first impressions are crucial, having the right speaker system is essential. Here’s how you can find it.

Craft Your Audio Goals

Close your eyes for a minute to visualize the sound element of your space and how you want it to be. Do you want to create a warm, inviting café or retail shop? Or do you want an office space with robust audio for impactful presentations? Having an in-depth understanding of your audio needs will help you find the perfect speaker system for your space.

Understand Your Commercial Space

Every commercial space has its own flair and vibe, so choosing speakers that complement your business is paramount. Consider the size, layout, and acoustics of your commercial space to find the perfect speaker system. For instance, open ceilings and modern architectural designs benefit from pendant speakers, while the seamless integration of commercial 70V ceiling speakers would be better for a standard ceiling.

Chase Perfect Sound Quality

Forget bland audio—aim for something more vibrant. Look for speakers that produce crisp highs, booming lows, and everything in between. This ensures that your music, announcements, and presentations are clear and impactful, creating a lasting impression on your audience.

Reliability You Can Count On

Nobody wants a speaker that keeps breaking down. A dependable speaker with stellar performance can be a game-changing addition to your commercial space. When buying a speaker, consider factors such as weather resistance and durable design, ensuring that the show goes on, no matter the conditions.

Team Up With The Best

Achieving the best audio experience requires working with reputable audio brands known for their expertise. Partner with companies with years of experience and stellar reviews to ensure your commercial space has an outstanding ambiance.

The right speaker system can elevate your commercial space to greater heights, ushering your business into a new era of success. By having a clear vision of the sonic ambiance you want and working alongside top companies, you can create the perfect auditory experience for your customers, leaving them enchanted.

Related Products:

Office Speaker System Featuring (8) Low-Profile Ceiling Tile Speakers & Bluetooth Mixer Amplifier

Restaurant Speaker System Featuring (4) Premium 70V Indoor/Outdoor Surface Mount Speakers & Rack Mount Bluetooth Mixer Amplifier

Retail Store Speaker System Featuring (8) 70 Volt Pendant Speakers & Rack Mount Bluetooth Mixer Amplifier

Business Speaker System Featuring (8) 70 Volt Ceiling Speakers, Rack Mount Mixer Amplifier & BTR1 Bluetooth Wireless Receiver

Background Music Speaker System Featuring (6) 70 Volt Indoor/Outdoor Surface Mount Speakers & Rack Mount Bluetooth Mixer Amplifier

If you've been searching for a trusted audio brand to bring your vision to life, consider Pure Resonance Audio. As a trailblazer in audio engineering, their innovative and versatile products are designed to impress and meet the high standards of any commercial space.

Blog Source: https://www.pureresonanceaudio.com/blogs/articles/level-up-your-commercial-space-with-the-power-of-sound

[govindhtech]

Discover NVIDIA cuOpt: Power of Accelerated Data Analytics

NVIDIA cuOpt

AI is driving innovation across industries via machine-powered computation. Bankers are using AI to detect fraud faster and keep accounts safe, telecommunications providers are improving networks to deliver better service, scientists are developing new treatments for rare diseases,Utility companies are developing more dependable and clean energy infrastructures, while automakers are improving the safety and accessibility of self-driving vehicles.

The foundation of top AI use cases is data. Training AI models on large datasets is necessary for accuracy. AI-powered enterprises must create a data pipeline to extract data from many sources, standardise it, and store it efficiently.

Data scientists use several tests to optimise AI models for real-world use. To work in real time, voice assistants and personalised recommendation systems must analyse massive data quantities quickly.

Complex AI models that handle text, audio, pictures, and video require speedy data processing. Data bottlenecks, rising data centre expenses, and limited processing capabilities hinder innovation and performance in legacy CPU-based organisations.

Accelerated computers is helping many companies implement AI. This technology uses GPUs, specialised hardware and software, and parallel processing to raise computing performance by 150x and energy efficiency by 42x.

Accelerated data processing is powering groundbreaking AI developments at top companies.

Financial institutions detect fraud in milliseconds

Financial institutions struggle to detect fraud due to the large amount of transactional data that needs speedy processing. Training AI models is also problematic due to the lack of labelled fraud data. Fraud detection data volumes are too huge for traditional data science pipelines to accelerate. This slows processing, preventing real-time data analysis and fraud detection.

American Express, which processes over 8 billion transactions annually, trains and deploys LSTM models using accelerated computing to tackle these issues. These models are useful for fraud detection because they can adapt and learn from fresh data and sequentially analyse abnormalities.

American Express trains its LSTM models faster using GPU parallel computing. GPUs allow live models to process massive transactional data for real-time fraud detection.

To secure customers and merchants, the system functions within two milliseconds, 50x faster than a CPU-based design. American Express increased fraud detection accuracy by 6% in certain segments by merging the accelerated LSTM deep neural network with its existing approaches.

Accelerated computing can lower data processing expenses for financial companies. PayPal showed that NVIDIA GPUs may save cloud expenses by 70% for big data processing and AI applications by running Spark3 workloads.

Financial organisations can detect fraud in real time by processing data more effectively, allowing speedier decision-making without disturbing transaction flow and reducing financial loss.

The telcos simplify complex routing operations by NVIDIA cuOpt

Telecommunications companies create massive amounts of data from network devices, client contacts, invoicing systems, and network performance and maintenance.

Managing national networks that handle hundreds of petabytes of data daily involves intricate technician routing for service delivery. Advanced routing engines compute millions of times, including weather, technician skills, client requests, and fleet dispersal, to optimise technician dispatch. These operations require careful data preparation and enough computational power. It introduced the NVIDIA cuOpt

NVIDIA cuOpt

AT&T, which has one of the nation’s largest field dispatch teams, is improving data-heavy routing operations with NVIDIA cuOpt, which calculates difficult vehicle routing problems using heuristics, metaheuristics, and optimisations.

In early experiments,NVIDIA cuOpt delivered routing solutions in 10 seconds, reducing cloud expenses by 90% and allowing personnel to perform more service calls everydayby using NVIDIA cuOpt . NVIDIA RAPIDS, a package of software libraries that accelerates data science and analytics pipelines, speeds NVIDIA cuOpt, allowing organisations to use local search methods and metaheuristics like Tabu search for continuous route optimisation.

NVIDIA RAPIDS

AT&T is using NVIDIA RAPIDS Accelerator for Apache Spark to improve Spark-based AI and data pipelines. The organisation can now train AI models, maintain network quality, reduce customer churn, and detect fraud more efficiently. AT&T is decreasing cloud computing spend for target applications, improving performance, and lowering its carbon footprint with RAPIDS Accelerator.

Telcos need faster data pipelines and processing to boost operational efficiency and service quality.

Medical researchers condense drug discovery timelines

Medical data and peer-reviewed research publications have exploded as academics use technology to explore the 25,000 genes in the human genome and their effects on diseases. Medical researchers use these publications to restrict their hunt for new medicines. Such a huge and growing body of relevant research makes literature reviews impractical.

Pharma giant AstraZeneca created a Biological Insights Knowledge Graph (BIKG) to help scientists with literature reviews, screen hit rate, target identification, and more. This graph models 10 million to 1 billion complex biological interactions using public and internal datasets and scholarly publications.

Gene ranking using BIKG has helped scientists identify high-potential targets for novel disease treatments. AstraZeneca presented a lung cancer treatment resistance gene discovery initiative at NVIDIA GTC.

Data scientists and biological researchers defined criteria and gene features for therapy development gene targeting to narrow down potential genes. A machine learning algorithm searched the BIKG databases for genes with treatable properties listed in literature. NVIDIA RAPIDS was used to decrease the gene pool from 3,000 to 40 target genes in seconds, a task that previously took months.

By using accelerated computers and AI, pharmaceutical companies and researchers may finally leverage the massive medical data sets to produce breakthrough treatments faster and safer, saving lives.

Utility Companies Create Clean Energy’s Future

Energy sector shifts to carbon-neutral sources are widely promoted.The cost of harvesting renewable resources, such as solar energy, has decreased over the last ten years, making the transition to clean energy more straightforward than before.

Integrating clean energy from wind farms, solar farms, and household batteries has complicated grid management. Grid management is more data-intensive as energy infrastructure diversifies and two-way power flows are required. New smart grids must handle high-voltage vehicle charging locations. Distribution of stored energy sources and network usage changes must also be managed.

Utilidata, a leading grid-edge software business, and NVIDIA developed Karman, a distributed AI platform for the grid edge, employing a bespoke Jetson Orin edge AI module. This special chip and platform in electricity metres turns them into data gathering and control points that can handle thousands of data points per second.

Karman handles real-time, high-resolution metre data from the network edge. This lets utility firms analyse system conditions, estimate usage, and integrate distributed energy resources in seconds. Inference models on edge devices allow network operators to quickly identify line defects to predict outages and do preventative maintenance to improve grid reliability.

Karman helps utilities create smart grids using AI and fast data analytics. This permits tailored, localised electricity distribution to satisfy variable demand patterns without substantial infrastructure modifications, making grid modernization more cost-effective.

Automakers Improve Safety and Accessibility of Self-Driving Vehicles

Automakers want self-driving vehicles with real-time navigation and object recognition. This involves high-speed data processing, including feeding live camera, lidar, radar, and GPS data into AI models that make road safety navigation decisions.

Multiple AI models, preprocessing, and postprocessing make the autonomous driving inference pipeline difficult. These processes were traditionally done by CPUs on the client side. This might cause severe processing speed bottlenecks, which is unacceptable for a safety-critical application.

Electric vehicle manufacturer NIO added NVIDIA Triton Inference Server to its inference pipeline to improve autonomous driving workflows. Inference-serving, open-source NVIDIA Triton uses multiple frameworks. NIO centralised data processing operations to reduce latency by 6x in some essential areas and enhance data throughput by 5x.

NIO’s GPU-centric strategy enabled updating and deploying new AI models easier without vehicle changes. The corporation may also employ numerous AI models on the same photographs without sending data over a network, saving money and improving efficiency.

Autonomous vehicle software engineers employ rapid data processing to achieve high performance to reduce traffic accidents, transportation costs, and user mobility.

Retailers Forecast Demand Better

Data processing and analysis are essential for real-time inventory adjustments, customer personalisation, and price strategy optimisation in retail. Larger retailers with more products have more sophisticated and compute-intensive data processes.

Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, used accelerated computing to increase forecasting accuracy for 500 million item-by-store combinations across 4,500 shops.

Walmart’s data science team constructed stronger machine learning algorithms to tackle this massive forecasting task, but the computing environment started to fail and produce erroneous findings. Data scientists had to delete characteristics from algorithms to finish them, the company found.

Walmart used NVIDIA GPUs and RAPIDs to improve forecasting. A forecasting algorithm with 350 data variables predicts sales across all product categories for the company. These include sales statistics, promotional activities, and external factors like weather and the Super Bowl that affect demand.

Walmart improved prediction accuracy from 94% to 97%, eliminated $100 million in fresh produce waste, and reduced stockout and markdown scenarios with advanced algorithms. GPUs ran models 100x faster, finishing projects in four hours that would have taken weeks on a CPU.

Retailers can reduce costs and carbon emissions while offering shoppers the finest options and lower prices by moving data-intensive operations to GPUs and accelerated computing.

Public Sector Prepares for Disasters

Public and corporate organisations use immense aerial image data from drones and satellites to predict weather, follow animal movements, and monitor environmental changes. This data helps researchers and planners make better decisions in agriculture, disaster management, and climate change. If it lacks location metadata, this imagery is less useful.

A federal agency collaborating with NVIDIA sought a solution to automatically locate photos without geolocation metadata for search and rescue, natural disaster response, and environmental monitoring. Like finding a needle in a haystack, pinpointing a small location in a bigger aerial photograph without information is difficult. Geolocation algorithms must account for image lighting and time, date, and angle variances.

NVIDIA, Booz Allen, and the government agency used computer vision algorithms to scale the picture similarity search challenge to find non-geotagged aerial photographs.

A Python-based programme was utilised by an NVIDIA solutions architect to overcome this challenge. CPU processing took over 24 hours initially. GPUs parallelized hundreds of data processes in minutes, compared to a CPU’s few. The application was 1.8-million-x faster after switching to CuPy, an open-source GPU-accelerated library, producing results in 67 microseconds.

A technology that can process photographs and data of enormous land masses in minutes can help organisations respond faster to emergencies and plan ahead, saving lives and protecting the environment.

Accelerate AI and Business Results

Accelerated computing for data processing promotes AI initiatives and positions companies to innovate and outperform.

Accelerated processing speeds up model training and algorithm selection, improves live AI solution accuracy, and handles larger datasets.

It can achieve better price-performance ratios than CPU-based systems and help companies deliver better results and experiences to consumers, employees, and partners.

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