#that ending always stuck me as one of the most memorable parts of the whole text

[oldtvandcomics]

13th century Roman de Silence (the modern French translation by Florence Bouchet because that is the one I have): I want to finish my story here. Blessed be he who told it to you; blessed be he who wrote it! May Jesus accord what they desire to those who will have heard it! (Je veux arrêter ici mon conte. Béni soit celui qui vous l'a conté ; béni soit celui qui l'a conçu ! Que Jésus accorde ce qu'ils désirent à ceux et celles qui l'auront entendu !)

ending a story in other languages

kurdish: “my story went to other homes, god bless the mothers and fathers of its listeners” (Çîroka min çû diyaran, rehmet li dê û bavê guhdaran.)

greek: “and they lived well, and we lived better” (και ζήσανε αυτοί καλά και εμείς καλύτερα)

afrikaans: “whistle whistle, the story is done” (fluit fluit, die storie is uit)

goemai: “my tale has finished, (it) has returned to go (and) come home.” (tamtis noe lat / dok ba muaan yi wa)

amharic: “return my story and feed me bread” (ተረቴን መልሱ አፌን በዳቦ አብሱ::)

bengali: “my story ends and the spinach is eaten by the goat” (aamaar kothati furolo; Notey gaachhti murolo) *means something is irreversibly ended because goats eats herbs from the root

norwegian: “snip snap snout, the tale is finished” (snipp snapp snute, så er eventyret ute”

polish: “and i was there [at the wedding] too, and drank mead and wine.” (a ja tam byłem, miód i wino piłem.)

georgian: “disaster there, feast here… bran there, flour here…” (ჭირი – იქა, ლხინი – აქა, ქატო – იქა, ფქვილი – აქა)

hungarian: “this is the end, run away with it” (itt a vége, fuss el véle)

turkish: “lastly, three apples fell from the sky; one for our story’s heroes, one for the person who told their tale, and one for those who listened and promise to share. And with that, they all achieved their hearts’ desires. Let us now step up and settle into their thrones.” (Gökten üç elma düşmüş; biri onların, biri anlatanın, diğeri de dinleyenlerin başına. Onlar ermiş muradına, biz çıkalım kerevetine.)

[teaboot]

hiiiiiii so i have concepts of a story that were halted months ago due to my inability to fathom writing From The Perspective Of A Toddler. & now i have learned that you apparently remember the experience VIVIDLY. & i would like to ask,, if you would be so kind,, if you would be amenable to. giving tips. answering questions. etc

for instance the extremely crucial Do You Remember When You Learned How To Spell Your Name. & What Was Thinking Like

. pretty please i had lost hope

Oh, sure! Yeah, no problem

Kay so I learned how to read at around 4 and was p much fluent around 5- I remember cause I LOVED Calvin and Hobbes and Calvin was one year older than me

When I was 3ish I remember my mom starting with the alphabet, and I remembered learning it in chunks- so I usually didn’t forget just a single letter, but the whole chunk. ABCD-EFG-HIJK, like how the song goes, but if I got stuck on D and couldn’t remember E I’d jump to H just grasping for the next thing I could remember. And she made me learn in German too, so I got the idea of certain letters being able to make different noises

*(English alphabet LMNOP was the hardest cause it sounded like a word- ELEMENOPEE- and since all letter names sound like words I thought it was just one letter, like DOUBLE-YOU and WHY.)

**(My favourite German letter was OOPSILON ‘cause my mom made it sound like something you’d say after falling down in a silly way- like “whoopsie-doodles” or smthn)

So by the time it came to reading and writing, I already had most of the sounds memorized- the hardest things to remember where letters that COULD sound the same but weren’t interchangeable- like G and J- and which letters were usually in pairs and when- like -CK and Qu- -and which directions they faced when I wrote them down.

The most common backwards-letters were J, L, N, b, d, S, Z, a, q, and r.

I’m not getting doxxed today but my name had letter/s that I consistently wrote backwards.

In early grades, our teacher wrote our names on big pieces of paper and taped them to the top of our desks so we could see them every day, and let us decorate around them with pencil crayons so they’d be personalized. So remembering the right letters in the right order was pretty easy pretty fast, but some would still be backwards.

After we had the alphabet song down, we all got workbooks with 26 double-sides pages or so where there was one line of a single letter spelled in dashes we could trace, like Aa Aa Aa, then a line of capitals we had to free-write, like AAAA, then a line in lowercase- aaaa. After there was a line of text using that letter we could trace- Anna ate an apple- and then like five lines where we’d repeat it.

We were only supposed to do one or two a day, and I frequently got in trouble for blowing past that.

We had other workbooks just like that for learning cursive, but IMO cursive was easier because we already knew the letters, we just had to learn how they looked then they were fancy and how to connect them fluidly.

The worst part of learning to write was keeping the pencil steady. Holding a pencil to write when you’ve never done it before is kind of uncomfortable till you find a position that works for you, and it takes a while to get a feel for how close your fingers should be to one end. On top of that, it’s super hard to get a tidy line of any shape until your motor skills catch up- and they only catch up if you DO it enough.

My least-favourite things about learning to write was guessing which words ended in a silent E, whether or not a Wr- word was just an R-, and remembering that Q was always followed by a U.

Th- Wh- Ch- -Ce and Sh- sounds had an entire class one day, and a separate poster on the board with trains and people shushing so we’d know which one was which. Like a cheat sheet! Our teacher would sometimes tape construction paper over them before class started or during recess and we wouldn’t notice until after she announced a surprise pop quiz.

I hope some of this was what you were looking for?

Good luck writing! :D

[fictionismyreality3]

Before You Go (18+)

Warnings: romance and everything that come with it, SMUT AT THE END

Notes: thank u lana del rey for giving me this title 🫡 he’s so lana coded. we love our emotionally stunted bbg simon

Kisses with Simon weren’t always as easy as they had become over the years of you being together.

There was a time when Simon wouldn’t even let you touch anything but his hands or his arms. It took coaxing him like a scared animal, gentle words you offered again and again for him to finally take his balaclava off. That was a good night. You can still remember his shakiness, hands that had been so steady taking a life now quivering at the act of being known.

“Just fuckin’ hurry up.” He snapped, but the anger tasted more like fear when it left his mouth.

“You aren’t gonna want-”

The words of self-loathing barely met the air before you’d leaned down, pressing your lips to the corner of his mouth. You held his hand as his breath heaved, not commenting on the way his whole body trembled when your lips finally connected with his.

Then there were kisses of maintenance.

At least, that’s what Ghost thought of them as. Keeping you as his slowly became the most important part of his life, the need to have you weaselled its way into his soul. He had no fucking clue how to how to make sure you stayed. He didn’t even really know why you showed up in the first place, but whatever gods that still thought he was worthy enough had given him you, and he wasn’t going to damage the opportunity.

You were his girl.

But Simon was oblivious to how to keep a woman happy. Yeah, he fucked you raw every chance he could, he beat the shit out of anyone you frowned at, but the gentleness you exuded existed nowhere in himself.

It was only when he’d been cleaning his guns, not on the kitchen table because you didn’t like that, that he got a little spark of understanding.

He had to take care of you.

Never letting you go without a reminder that he was always around. It started with morning and night kisses, making sure you were stuck with the taste of him even in your dreams. He’d find you when you were cooking, pressing his lips to your cheek or the top of your head without saying a word. It was nothing intense, just a subtle way that he made sure you were real.

“Si? You okay?” The weight of Ghost hugging you from behind made your heart warm, and you put down the wooden spoon you were holding.

“Yeah.” A kiss to your temple. “M’okay now.”

Marking you up with hickeys that even one of your oversized hoodies couldn’t cover was his way of maintaining your relationship, and knowing you had a visible memento of his claim on you every time you looked in the mirror helped him feel a little more secure.

And then there were the fervent kisses.

Lips colliding in the dim, warm light of your bedroom, Simon’s large hands holding your hips down as he kept you on his lap. He’d swallow every sound you made, knowing he had to leave in the morning. Not being able to see you for months, or even longer, spurred him with the urge to leave you with a lasting memory. He could have you forget him when he was gone.

It didn’t matter if you were tired, he’d force you down onto the bed, drawing mewls and gasps from your lips as he tried to memorize every detail of your body before he went off on his next mission. Latching his lips to the inside of your thighs, he’d suck hard enough to leave a hickey that would take weeks to fade.

“Not gonna leave ya.” He’d echo, kissing your clit like it would offer some form of protection for wherever he was being sent to.

“Gonna keep you all t’myself.” His soft lips would kiss at your even softer cunt, devouring every twitch and shudder that went through you. “Si. Si, I can’t-”

It didn’t matter if you’d been up all night, trapped under the weight of his hands while he ate you without faltering. “You can take it. C’mon, dovie, be a good girl an’ give me one more.” He wouldn’t stop until you were limp on the sheets and he was nose deep in your pussy, permanently engraving his name on your clit with his tongue.

And when he left in the morning, he left knowing your lips were sore.

[7grandmel]

Rip of the week: 04/11/2024

You Are Sus

Season 5 Featured on: SiIvaGunner's Highest Quality Rips: Volume D

Ripped by Retro Gaming

Requested by Corb! (Request Form)

I've written a fair amount already on here about my somewhat...muted feelings, regarding Season 5 of the SiIvaGunner channel. It was, retrospectively, a sort of transitional year for the team, as they had to officially move past the King for Another Day Tournament after over two years of fixating on it, not to mention how large parts of the team had left during those years due to creative and personal differences. It's a net good in the end that the channel team wound up finally being free of the edgy assholes that had festered since the dark days of 2016, yet this transition left 2021 in particular feeling a bit...lost, in terms of long-term goals for the channel. We were, of course, still getting stellar rips as always; be it the remaining old guard showing tremendous growth with rips like Hopes and Divinity+, or fresh faces like R.L.99 from Through the F-F-Fire and the F-F-Flame and Memmy from Welcome to 2021! They finally invented summers that hurt motherfuckers😂 only at sonicforces​.​com making immediately memorable first impressions to help pave the way for the future of the channel...yet taken on the whole, it can be hard for me to remember just what Season 5 of SiIvaGunner in particular was aiming to prove.

As fate would have it, however, a set of huge events in the online world wound up happening in the lead-up to 2021, the very year of this initial uncertainty for the channel. The channel was no stranger to responding to ongoing online trends – Plains of Des-passing-to was far from the only upload of its ilk – yet the events in question had such a magnitude to them, to where it was as if SiIvaGunner's responses to them wound up inadvertedly defining the entire year's Season, in part defining the channel's whole legacy. The most obvious example is in the year's April Fools event; The Disappearance of Super Mario, rather than playing with the expectation and goals of the SiIvaGunner channel itself the way that ...of 2023 did with Season 7, was instead entirely built on an existing online joke that had been bubbling in the gaming community for the course of multiple months, one I covered pretty succinctly back on Your Best Nightmario and Mario Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Princess.

The second of these events would be the initial release of Friday Night Funkin' and the immediate surge of popularity it came with; doubtlessly, the SiIvaGunner team's choice to provide matching visuals for every rip of the game as shown on Satinpanties Symphony and Satin PantE's wound up giving the channel tons of attention from new fans, and over three years later it feels as if the culture of SiIvaGunner is inextricably linked with the youthful punk spirit still keeping FNF alive. Yet most momentous of all, above the aforementioned two events, there was a third that would end up festering into 2021 of SiIvaGunner, not through thematic coherence or through the die-hard passion of any one ripper in particular, but through sheer force of overexposure and comedic value; 2021 was, indeed, the rise and inescapable plateau of all forms of imposters, crewmates, tasks and sussy bakas; At last, it is time to talk about AMONG US, and time to talk about You Are Sus.

I've had the request for this rip in particular stuck in my head for months on end, awaiting a proper time to cover it; I've scraped the very surface of Among Us' presence on SiIvaGunner on here beforehand through Among Drip Drop Galaxy, and it's been looming over this blog since near its very beginning all the way back on Big Sus Chocobo. Yet to try and comprehend all that Among Us is feels nigh impossible: more than a video game, more than a phenomena, Among Us took the entire shitposting world by inexplicable storm and mutated like a virus into what feels like several hundred different memes over the course of mere months. It was rapidly growing in absurdity and layers of irony, much the same as SiIvaGunner memes like Grand Dad did like I wrote about on Waluigi Pinball (Beta Mix), yet now done on a wholly mainstream level; no matter who you were, if you were frequent on the internet you were only a few posts away from seeing the Among Us Drip memes, from knowing someone who had permanently added "sussy" to their lexicon, from seeing the vague silhouette of a crewmate wherever your eye would wander. Among Us shitposting was omnipresent, and the worst part was; It was, through some bizarre construction of the collective human consciousness, pretty much ALWAYS funny. The SiIvaGunner team witnessed this meteoric rise in an entire new genre of shitposting, and it was as if it gave the channel a newfound passion; as if to say, "no matter where our vessel heading, we're gonna make the best damned Among Us shitposts possible for as long as its afloat.".

And so, the rips came in; Expensive Dispenser's Among Fresh Drip, a mixture of these latter two phenomena released near the very start of Season 5, may perhaps be worthy of coverage on here in its own right for just how foundational it is to the Season 5 SiIvaGunner experience as a whole. But the rips riffing on the game only continued to grow in number, and as the meme itself grew it had yet more sources to pull from; like Bottom G of Lagplane fame, Among Us' greatest strength as a meme was just how damn versatile it was, as there were a seemingly neverending amount of audiovisual cues that would immediately let the viewer make the connection to Among Us and the growing insanity of its derivative content. Now, imagine taking a distillation of that insanity, and mixing it with what may be one of the SiIvaGunner team's most insane rippers; Retro Gaming. Featured on here previously through Logan Paul's Shop, the guy is a ripper whose output I have been SORELY underestimating, someone who – as made evident in the aforementioned rip – has a sort of unhinged knack for adding onto his rips through additional sources and jokes that only barely feel cohesive with what the original concept for the rip was, like teetering on the brink of madness. With these two combined, you end up with a whole bunch of Among Us rips; and, indeed, with You Are Sus in particular.

It's remarkable to me that You Are Smart now has two clear all-time amazing rips under its belt for me with both You Are Sus and Season 7's You Are Book Smart, but it goes to show just how much inherent comedic value the song has. The off-kilter feel of Katamari Damacy as a whole, distilled into a weird beat, melody and voice samples, make it the perfect canvas for true lunacy to breed; and with You Are Sus, practically every part of the Among Us shitposting homunculus is leveraged to make something truly unbelievable. It's far from the only Among Us YTPMV on SiIvaGunner – I mentioned Big Sus Chocobo before – and yet it feels perhaps like the most cohesive rip of the game you could possibly make. All the hits are here; Arcade Craniacs-posting, Stop Posting About Among Us, Among Us In Real Life, A M O G U S, all woven together in such a chaotic, unpredictable way, like a barrage of Among Us noise more than aiming to be organic parts of the original You Are Smart. Yet they're paired with additions that ARE almost seamlessly integrated with You Are Smart, changing the titular chant into "You Are Sus", Among Us sound effects being added to the original song's beat to give it just that slight sussy texturing, even giving it a sort of "beat drop" around 0:40.

Retro Gaming doesn't get sidetracked off the original joke here the way you could argue (despite being to its benefit) Logan Paul's Shop did; EVERY joke present here, every layer of madness added is all to further You Are Sus's agenda. The usage of Arcade Craniacs clips in particular is immensely inspired; the channel was one of many content farms on YouTube that found increasingly absurd ways to play off of the Among Us branding to boost their own popularity, and through voice clips relating to said efforts are intersperced throughout You Are Sus, it all comes full circle at the two minute mark. "It literally says 'You Are Sus'", a clip rings out, thereby connecting the echoing edit of the You Are Smart voice heard throughout the rip to the title and concept of the rip as a whole, a madhouse of every possible angle of the word "sus" played all at once.

I can express as many gripes with the overall direction of SiIvaGunner's 5th Season as I wish, but none of that will take away from the sheer talent and quality found within its rips; and a rip like You Are Sus excels in ways only a Season 5 SiIvaGunner rip could. Channelling the peak of Among Us shitposting insanity through the veins of one of the SiIvaGunner team's most cracked-out rippers, executed with the detail and finesse on a level to where the Stop Posting About Among Us-guy's ramble is synced to the beat of the song used... it was bound to become an all-time fantastic rip, is what I'm saying. It was as if the loose direction the channel took during 2021 in particular gave the team free reign, a freedom to adapt all that the internet was yelling over throughout the year with a degree of effort it would otherwise direct to the channel's own internal ecosystem. If that effort was what gave us rips like You Are Sus, then I'm perfectly content in calling Season 5 of SiIvaGunner a truly successful experiment.

[blues-valentine]

this might be mean but i am glad nini was off the show and a lot of characters were taken off regular status because the show needed fresh story lines after season 2

This is going to be a long answer and probably a controversial one too but I feel now that the show is over I can finally say it. I really agree. And this is in no way shade to the actors but how things were constructed in the show. I feel like it helped the show to just focus on other dynamics and characters. If you take the S1 nostalgia aspect, Season 3 and Season 4 were such a massive improvements after Season 2, which is undeniably their weakest season of all.

I liked Nini, but as a character I feel like she wasn’t giving “main character energy”. It didn’t help either that most of her arcs were individual or about Ricky or Miss Jenn. So when you took her out, she wasn’t really missed in terms of the dynamics with other characters because those improved so much after she left. On Season 3 and Season 4 the group dynamics finally felt like a family and solid friendship instead of separated groups with separated plot lines.

Also, character arc wise, I feel like Nini’s arc ended on Season 2. Her arc has always been about spreading her wings outside of East High and finding what makes her happy. She got that at the end of Season 2 so it feels like it came to a natural conclusion. Nini’s send off on Season 3 was beautiful and a nice tribute to her character and her relationships. Even now, the small details that keep Nini’s character alive are sweet. I like Olivia but Nini as a character just wasn’t memorable enough for me to care. There's not "void" to me because the show has so many great actors and vocalists that were able to shine in Nini’s absence and I am glad. I would have hated if they Rachel Berry-ed her.

A character that benefited the most from Nini’s departure was Kourtney, who was perpetually stuck in the “black best friend” stereotype. Season 3 was such an improvement because Kourt was given an individual arc that wasn’t about Nini and her issues. Plus, Gina and Kourtney’s friendship felt so much more natural and reciprocated as well and her interactions with the whole group, especially with Carlos.

Gina always felt like the hidden female main character to me because her character had so many emotional layers. I’ve always said Sofia is the best actress the show has and is constantly rising the bar in scenes with her other co-stars. Anyone that's not giving her the flowers she deserves for this last season are just crazy.

Now, one of the biggest issues with Season 2 was adding new characters while also trying to handle plot lines for the established characters. It was messy. None of the plot lines were resolved and it was too crowded with most of the new characters staying as one dimensional and stereotypical. The season was dragged out and boring. The best choice this show made was to cut down on some of them for Season 3. I like Big Red but I don't think he was neccesary as a regular at camp. I am glad he wasn't there because it gave Ashlyn space to explore herself and get one of the best character arcs on this show. Same goes for Ricky. He needed new friendships and Jet was a great one to have. I liked Big Red's cameo and it was well placed. Same goes for Seb, I like him but I am glad Carlos was able to have a solo storyline about his own insecurities and also develop stronger dynamics with the group. His friendship with Ricky was great. Seb’s cameo was well placed.

Maddox and Jet were the best additions this show has ever made. And I don't take anyone seriously if they think otherwise. After season 2, the show needed changes. A new enviroment and characters that added value. Maddox and Jet gave us a new dynamic and instantly felt like a part of the group because they weren’t there to just exist temporarily, they pushed the story lines of the existing characters forward. The show needed a canon sapphic character and Maddox was perfect and relatable. Her arc with Ash goes down as one of the best on this show. Jet was great and Adrian's vocals are show stopping. Not only did the siblings added a much needed representation but were very easy to love. Even Val, in her minimal screen time, added actual value to the story lines.

And now goes to EJ, he was not going to be a regular part of Season 4 since he isn’t in East High anymore. It was the natural progression of his character. His appearance this season felt very well placed with where his character was. It would have been very weird to find an excuse to keep him at the school just for the sake of keeping him as a regular. Glad they didn’t do it.

So yes, I think a lot of the changes were necessary and made this show better.

[rainbowsandwhumperflies]

Do you do all your writing on one doc, or do you have a bunch of different ones?

I Suck at organizing, especially when trying to put a story together, so I am always trying to find (and stick to!) ways to organize my stuff

<3

you've caught me at kind of an awkward time, I'm in the middle of transferring stuff from one app to another with different formatting in each 😭 but I will do my best to explain my process of putting things together! warning this is a ridiculously long explanation

So the current main thing that I organize The Winged Servant into is a google doc, but it isn't the place that has the most of it. My current number of typed words for that story is about 83 thousand, but I actually have a deep hatred for typing and love for pencils and paper. If I were to guess the amount of ws that was written somewhere, I'd say probably about twice as much.

I do have notebooks specifically for writing in. I don't use most of them.

Where I mostly write is actually my yearly planner! I get planners that give me like two pages each week, and my handwriting is very small. So after I use the planner part, there's a lot of leftover space, and I put a lot of things in the empty past space. I also have the ADHD curse of never opening planners, so I put literally every single thing in the past space so I'm forced to open it. It's my writing and my school notes and song lyrics that get stuck in my head and so much other stuff. I don't think I can explain without a visual? So here's a wretched wretched visual.

[ID: I'm so sorry if you rely on image descriptions. This is an image of a piece of paper with like eight different topics scribbled all over it, with editing that is desperately trying to make it seem less chaotic than it is. This editing is doing it by labeling different areas with "this whole green bar is repetitive spanish vocab for memorization" "it''s stats notes the whole way down" "song lyrics that were stuck in my head" "when the math teacher was like 'use scrap paper'" "vampire fanfic if I remember correctly" "things that were written in the planner as plans" and "tiktok audios I wanted to animate to (so that I didn't have to keep listening to it every five seconds)" /end ID]

so yeah that's what my planners look like. I put pretty much everything in there. this is one of the tamer pages. the reason the right side handwriting is so much worse is because I wrote it with my left hand to practice to become ambidextrous!

That's where the majority of The Winged Servant is written. That is where the majority of everything I write is written. I've been getting the same planner for the past three years and doing this every year. I have no organization system within the notebook, I just write whatever sounds appealing that day. And once in a while if I want to write but have no energy, I start typing wherever I left off. Right now I'm a few pages into the second notebook!

Okay enough about the pencil paper writing. Once it gets typed, it does currently go into one google doc. I do love love love the new tab feature of google docs though! It's really convenient to be able to just have multiple google docs inside a google doc. This is what the tabs of ws look like.

[ID: tabs in a google doc, reading: Outline, Preplot Kieran, Arien era, Captivity era, Actual story ?!?! and Ask games etc etc. /end ID]

There used to be two more, which were pre-whump royalty and pre-whump angels. Those are currently inside of the outline tab, because I'm trying to condense all of them into one tab while keeping headings intact so that I can export the document eventually.

The reason I'm exporting is to move to ellipsus ! It doesn't have all the features of google docs that I wish it did but it doesn't scrape original work for ai. It is all around a much more ethical company so I'm moving over there. Also most of the features I want have been requested and the ellipsus team is really nice about listening to feedback so I'm not worried.

Anyway. This is what inside the tabs looks like.

[ID: Inside of the tab reading "Actual story ?!?!" there are subcategories, titles Chapter 1 (Posted), Chapter 2 (Posted), Chapter 3 (Posted), Chapter 4 (Posted), and Chapter 5 (Posted) /end ID]

Each chapter title also has a description (the same descriptions that I use in the masterlist lmao) and I can see them if I hover. Since they're chapters instead of concepts, they are all the same level of subcategory, but in the other tabs they're not chapters and not the same level.

[ID: Inside the tab "Ask games etc etc" there's a subcategory titled "In-character writing asks" . Inside of that, there are more subcategories titled Ryan's asks, Onyx's asks, and Asks for multiple characters /end ID]

so. yeah. that's about it. my organization system is Fuck Around And Find Out. it's a miracle I've ever posted anything coherent and I'm sorry if you were hoping for a genuinely helpful answer. but I hope this answered any questions of yours!

[books-covers-andanalysis]

Sunrise on the Reaping Review

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Yes, a perfect 5 stars. This is the best Hunger Games book

Characters

This has reminded me why Haymitch has always been my favorite character. He is so much more complex than some people gave him credit before this book. He was never just a “drunken asshole” who had a soft side, he is a deeply traumatized person who closed himself off due to all his loved ones being killed. Seeing Haymitch before his trauma was devastating, especially because he has such a big heart (which I’ve been saying but some people didn’t listen!). He loves his ma, brother, and girlfriend so much. He grows to love his fellow tributes so much. He even decides the bunnies are his allies! Then the last 40ish pages destroyed me because we saw him break in real time and turn to alcohol to deal with his grief. His PTSD is so bad, it’s genuinely some of the worst PTSD I’ve ever encountered in a book before. Haymitch is the best Hunger Games character

The side characters were also outstanding. The ones that stood out the most to me were Maysilee, Lou Lou, Wellie, and Ampert, and all of their deaths hit me. It was like Haymitch had multiple Rue’s. Maysilee had so much unexpected depth; helping the tributes with their tokens, despite being the most stuck up girl in town, wanting to make the Capitol pay for what they’ve done. She was an outstanding character. Lou Lou is a tragic character. We don’t even know her real name or personality, that’s how deeply horrible her story is. Wellie stuck with me because of how much and deeply she bonded to Haymitch. The scene of her and Haymitch in the tree with chocolates is one of the most memorable parts of the book for me. Ampert is another one whose story is just so tragic. He was punished for his dad’s defiance

Of the returning characters, I was most moved by Mags. Even though her role in the story was small, she left such a lasting impact on Haymitch. Even in the arena, he thought it’s okay to cry to her. Wiress was also a lovely surprise, as was Beetee. Plutarch finally became a character I care about and remember. The seeds of the rebellion being planted was fascinating, and I appreciated the acknowledgement the rebellion didn’t start and end with Katniss; people had been trying for years, she was just the spark

Plot

On the surface level, this book is about Haymitch’s games and how he doomed his family and girlfriend during it by trying to break the arena. Now, in Catching Fire it is shown that Haymitch finds a force field at the end of the arena, and then we he fights the other last tribute, he accidentally uses it to fling her weapon back at her. But it’s implied there’s more to the story. Why did this get his whole family killed? Katniss’ stunt with the berries didn’t get her whole family killed, and that was intentional! It’s been implied forever there was more to Haymitch’s games year, and now we finally get it. It wasn’t just the force field, Haymitch had defied the Capitol every step of the way as soon as he landed in there. And he suffers the worst consequences one can think of for it. While the whole book was great, the moments that stick out the most to me are:

Haymitch being threatened by Snow. Every part of this scene, from Haymitch drinking the milk to try and stop Snow from being saved, to Snow projecting onto Haymitch, to saying Haymitch should be thanking him for giving him the option to choose how he dies, to the horrifying Lou Lou reveal. Every part of this scene was written in a way that is so horrifying it sticks with you the rest of the book

The last 40ish pages, or as soon as Haymitch wakes up in the hovercraft to the end of the book. This sequence felt like it was out of a horror movie. Haymitch waking up chained and watching a snake eat a bunny, to being isolated with nothing but milk and rolls. He was shown disturbing footage of old Games, handcuffed and taken to his Victor Party where he sees the other Victors who helped with this plot have been tortured. Snow threatening him again, and him being locked in a cage at the party and treated like an animal. Haymitch had to ride home knowing Maysilee, Louella, and Wyatt’s bodied were right next to him. He got home to his family being burned. Then gave Lenore Dove the poisoned gumdrop. Haymitch’s PTSD during all of this is so genuinely devastating, he is having nightmares, and shutting down, and terrified. This is the best written part of the book, and the best written part of the whole series

Themes

On a deeper level, this book is about implicit submission, propaganda, why do we let the few control the many? It’s about abuse of power, corrupt governments, and all the usual Hunger Games themes like how American capitalism is evil, classism is evil, we are desensitized to violence. This book explores these themes in both subtle ways and big grand ways. These are obviously very worthwhile themes to explore, and this book does so with care. Haymitch wondering who is he, to take down the Capitol. But little does he know how much trouble he is causing it. Plutarch asking why didn’t you just have a rebellion in the training room? Why don’t the districts rebel?

My issues with the past Hunger Games books have always been that something was missing. For the first one, it was that all the careers felt like caricatures for the villains in the arenas. For the second, it was that it felt distant. For the series as a whole, it was that while it’s good, it seems afraid of the horror of its own setup, and most of the tributes are meaningless deaths, despite the books own themes. This book fixed all my issues with the other books. All the named tributes felt human and got moments where you empathized with them. Every character death was devastating and written with the emotion it deserved. It was in the scene with Haymitch the whole time. Suzanne Clark has improved her writing tremendously. This is the best book in the series and the only one I’ve given 5 stars too. Well done! One of the best books I’ve ever read

[mammondrivesamazdamiata]

Obey Me! Boys as Baristas in a coffee shop

I myself am a barista and so I feel qualified enough to make assumptions :P Enjoy

(includes foul language lol)

Lucifer

- The opening manager

- Clean freak

- Always has a rag tucked into the pocket of his apron

- Arrives fifteen minutes early every morning and complains about it

- Keeps everyone on task during rushes

- Will passive aggressively argue with customers

"I want a medium cappuccino. Don't make it a latte. I don't want milk to the top, I want about two inches of foam."

"Ma'am, please do not speak to me like I don't know what I'm doing. I'm aware of what a cappuccino is and how to make it. Unless you'd like to come behind the counter and make it yourself?"

- Will snap at his crew when he's stressed and apologize for it later

- Freaks out when nothing is stocked

Mammon

- Strictly an order taker on most days

- Can not remember recipes to save his life

- Constantly gets into these long, drawn out conversations with customers and has to be reeled back in

- Honestly great at customer service, but totally fake

"Bye, guys! Have a good one!" *Turns around* "Holy shit they were fucking annoying."

- Has a crush on every good-looking person that comes in

- Pretty good at memorizing regular customer orders and tries to have their order saved into the POS system before they arrive

- LOVES making pup cups. He considers it the best part of his job. Will argue with Satan over who gets to hand it out

- Always gets stuck mopping the floors because no one else wants to do it

- Will straight up eat espresso beans

Levi

- Actually a very good barista

- Memorizes recipes and measurements really fast

- Can be seen carrying multiple drinks in his arms during a rush

"I've got the entire first and second tickets, so don't worry about those."

- So bad at customer service. So awkward. Not allowed to take orders unless he knows the person

- Will start dancing on the line when he thinks he's alone. Runs to the back and hides when he realizes a customer was standing at the counter watching him

- Eats a single croissant on his break

- Puts 6 shots of espresso in his drink every day. Lucifer is deeply considering cutting him off

- Won't take a bathroom break until it's an emergency

Satan

- The baker

- Usually opens with Lucifer to catch up on baking. He hates this and ignores Lucifer the whole morning

- Loves to decorate cupcakes and sugar cookies for the holidays/seasons. Always gets compliments on them

- Him and Asmodeus always come up with the specialty drinks every month

- Fights with Diavolo every day about making the coffee shop a cat cafe instead

- Would rather make food orders than coffee orders

- Gets stuck prepping everything

- In charge of inventory orders. Won't even ask anyone to help him because he doesn't trust them to do it right

- Gets so frustrated during rushes

- Will slam things until he's forced to step outside to take a breather

- Will argue with customers if they catch him on a bad day

"Jeez, seven dollars for a latte? Are you kidding me?"

"Well, yeah, it's a dollar-fifty up-charger for oat milk."

"That seems ridiculous!"

"Listen, I don't make the prices, lady, now are you going to give me your money or not?"

Asmodeus

- Employee of the month

- Literally so good at customer service

- Everyone loves working with him because he's constantly getting tipped

- Addresses regulars by name and compliments them

"Liz, did you change your hair? It looks so good!"

*Gasps* "I love your nails! Where do you get them done?"

"Good morning, Ron, are we just doing your small French roast today?"

- Is also confident in his ability to take orders

"Wow, I really am just a delight to talk to."

- Always leaves milk on the counter or forgets to close the fridges after making something

- Keeps forgetting to empty the espresso pucks after pulling. Pisses off Levi to no end

- Likes making cold drinks over hot drinks

- Doesn't even like coffee. Drinks chai lattes almost exclusively

- Flirts with customers

- Refuses to count registers

"Nah, I'm too cute for math 😊"

Beel

- Closing shift manager

- Keeps getting in trouble for sneaking bites of food between orders

Lucifer: "Beel, you cannot keep eating pickles out of the container when you're not wearing gloves that's cross contamination."

"Try and stop me."

- Every customer's barista crush. He's completely clueless to all advances

- gets hangry and snaps at his coworkers

- eats some pasta salad and is perfectly fine afterwards

- Closing shift always calls on him for customer complaints because he's such a large individual and can be really intimidating

- Will procrastinate the closing list all day and haul ass for the entire last hour to get it done on time

- Holds a lot of grudges against his coworkers but doesn't say anything to avoid conflict

- Will be fine all day but blows up at the slightest inconvenience

- Likes to take the trash out so he can decompress in peace behind the dumpsters

Belphie

- Hates his job

- Only works there because Beel convinced him to apply

- So clumsy

- Always spills drinks

- Won't argue with customers but glares at them from across the counter

- Counts registers at the end of the night

- Complains about everything

- Wants to start the closing list five hours before the cafe even closes

- Will purposefully mess up drinks for customers he doesn't like

"One Soy latte. You're all set." *Under his breath* "Joke's on you, bitch, that was 2%."

- Talks about putting in his two weeks every month but never actually does it

- Always forgets to write dates on items he opens

Diavolo

- The owner, obviously

- Has no idea how to do anything, so he leaves the brunt of cafe work to Lucifer and Barb

- Tried to make coffee for a customer once and forgot to put espresso in it

- Hands things out to the wrong customers, so the boys have to remake orders constantly when Diavolo's working with them

- Has to be restrained from making terrible business decisions

Diavolo: "Hey, what if we did a Bloody Mary bar on the weekends?"

Lucifer: "Not happening."

Diavolo: "Well, it's a good thing I'm the owner and can do whatever I want 😝"

Lucifer: "WE DON'T HAVE A LIQUOR LICENSE."

Diavolo: "Oh... How do you get one of those?"

- Goes on a cruise every month and leaves the cafe to be run by his employees

Barbatos

- Exhausted

- Handles all finances

- Sees a mouse one time and loses his mind

- Clean, clean, cleanCLEANCLEANCLEAN

- Quietly cries while he signs paychecks

- Has a nervous breakdown every time the health inspector stops by

- Stops Diavolo from making OSHA violations

Undateables as customers! (bonus)

Solomon

- Kind of a dick

- Leaves 50 cent tips

- Always complains that his black coffee is too cold

- Will not drink it unless it's 200+ degrees

- Always asks for a sleeve even though he's been told multiple times that it's already built into the cup

Simeon

- Gets a really complicated drink but all the baristas love him so it's okay

- Large iced dirty chai with 2 shots of espresso and oat milk, light ice

- Usually leaves a tip that's more than his drink

- Gossips with everyone that works there

- Super patient no matter how long it takes them to get his order out

- Diavolo keeps trying to give him a job, but Simeon is smart enough to kindly refuse

- Brings his work and sits in the lobby for hours

Luke

- Orders a hot chocolate (frozen or hot depending on the time of year) with whip cream and rainbow sprinkles

- One time he burned his tongue so bad that Lucifer gave him free drinks for a week

- Luke would just put the amount the drink cost into the tip jar instead because he felt bad

"You could pour hot coffee in my lap and I'd probably apologize to you."

- Asked for a job once. Mammon convinced Barb not to hire him on grounds of "he's so annoying."

[tieria-erde]

i finished rewatching gwitch! here are some of my final thoughts, broadly and in no particular order

~7.5/10 show. i enjoyed it a lot and i would recommend it to others even if i feel that it fell flat thematically in a number of places

suletta is an unbelievably good protagonist. i do not have particularly charitable opinions on the portrayal of women in the gundam franchise, so when this show was first announced i deliberately kept my expectations very low. i'm glad i did, but i really didn't need to, because holy shit they knocked it out of the fucking park with suletta

similarly, i still can't believe that they made a yuri gundam and the yuri is FANTASTIC. they got lesbian married and everything. no notes. when the finale first aired i saw a baffling number of people complaining online that gwitch was queerbait, ostensibly for not having an outright confession or kiss scene. to those people i have to say: GOD YOU ARE STUPID

i started this rewatch because this show's stance on parents has bothered me since i first watched it, and it made it hard to properly recommend it to people. i will, eventually, make a very long post about this, but i think i've successfully made peace with my grievances about this specific topic, for the most part

...however i still find the trajectory of guel's character arc egregiously disappointing

this show did not spend enough time on earth

when gwitch was first airing i saw someone point out how norea expresses a really potent grief over the idea that "earthian lives are cheaper than spacians'", and that line hits really hard, but then... the show proves her right by having earthian characters be basically the only deaths in the cast by the end. that's always stuck with me. i mean, it's fucking true, jesus

i said something midway through season 2 along the lines of "the rest of this show is too heavy to have earned the ending it got" and i don't know if i still believe that. for one, i've said this before and i'll say it again: the lesbian gundam show ending with a literal rainbow light show is FUCKING FUNNYYY

for two, i do think it became kind of hard for this show to kill its characters off at a certain point because they REALLY wanted to drive the point home of "you can't run from your past mistakes, you have to move forward" and a character kind of has to be alive to move forward... oops!

i ALSO said something about "run and gain one, move forward and gain two" being a "flawed adage" or something, and that was kind of me misremembering certain aspects of the story... i thought they condemned prospera's little motto at some point, but it actually continued to in fact basically be the message of the whole show...

i found it kind of hard to connect whatever prospera was doing to the political goings-on of the plot... to be honest, throughout the whole quiet zero thing, i kept thinking to myself, "god, i wish we were looking at the political situation on earth instead right now"

I Should Read The Tempest BTW

this show's character writing is straight up fantastic. i feel like almost every single character was memorable and charming in some way

for some reason, though, ojelo's name is only said once in this entire show. i'm not kidding. they tell you his name when they introduce him and then never say it again. i know this because i heard his name in his first appearance, forgot it, and then spent the rest of the show waiting for them to say it again so i could remember it. it never happened. do you know who ojelo gabel is? no, you don't. because they ONLY SAY HIS NAME ONCE.

also, unpopular opinion, but i don't really care for prospera. i don't know if i'm insane for this, but after watching it multiple times i STILL don't understand that scene where all the ghosts from the prologue are talking to prospera and suletta's like "you chose eri's future over revenge, and i can't fault you for that!" like, holy shit, i genuinely don't get it. she didn't do that at all. she killed people? she actively declared that she wanted to get revenge on delling rembran and Kill Him? am i missing something. this scene doesn't make any sense. if this scene makes sense to you legit please explain it to me

i had fun yay ^_^ ok thanks for reading

[calkale]

Okay dead reckoning spoilers ahead ill put a cut just in case also if you like the movie maybe don’t read either 👀😬 but if you do please read the whole thing or at least the last paragraph because that in my opinion is the most important thing i have to say

Before i say anything i know im in the wrong here, i have a really personal issue with the movie that i dont feel comfortable sharing but its one of the names used A LOT in the movie, so that definitely plays a part in my opinion whether i like it or not. That being said, usually i can ignore stuff like that, ive done it with other movies but there was nothing else to grasp my attention so i got stuck on things like that.

Also wanna say this first because i feel like it explains why i hate a lot of the things i do. I could really be reaching here but i think they’re trying to set up hayley as the new face of these movies and dead reckoning part 2 is gonna be the end for tom. She was the main character, Ethan was not. She was a part of 2 stunts out of the 3 big ones in the movie and Toms solo stunt (the cliff jump) was maybe a minute of the movie and correct me if im wrong but thats never happened before, Toms always had a big stunt thats just him that takes up a good, MEMORABLE, chunk of the movie, and that just wasnt in this.

I didn’t like it at all. Up until the airport i loved the movie, i really liked the way it was shot, i liked the mi1 callbacks, i really liked ethan and ilsa and everything was good, i could ignore the AI plot (which i knew i wasnt gonna like going into it i hate AI villains) and just watch the movie but after the airport i started to not like the movie anymore. During the fiat car chase i realized i was gonna really not gonna like the movie. That was one of the three big stunts of the movie and i hated it, it just felt really rushed and there were so many characters who i didnt know and didnt know why they were there, WHICH IS OKAY i love not knowing things thats part of my brand im all about that but it just did not work here, sometimes not knowing anything about character works and other times it doesnt.

I dont remember a lot from the middle chunk of the movie, i wasnt enjoying it but trust me i was trying. Not even benji and luther made the movie enjoyable and to top it all off ilsa died and im getting mad again but that was one of the worst deaths i think ive seen. If shes not actually dead then thank god but also im sorry mcq but awful writing unless something got cut because she was free? She was dead? There was no bounty on her head anymore, that was why she “died” at the start of the movie and correct me if im wrong but she really didnt need to be in Venice with her face showing either. It really feels like she just died so hayley could be in the spotlight with ethan and there were too many characters so they had to get rid of her along with benji and luther who arent dead but may as well be with their 10 minutes of screen time.

But all of this i can look past, i dont like the plot? whatever, thats not why i, personally, watch mission impossible movies, i watch for the stunts, i wanna see tom cruise do some crazy shit but i didnt even get that. Im really mad about the lack of stunts in this movie i feel insane idk if anyone else is complaining about this but i didnt like a single one of them. Im so let down and i hate that im so upset over something like this but i am. Thats the promise thats being made when you go see these movies and in my opinion they didn’t deliver. All the fighting was really good i loved the fight in that tight alleyway with ethan and paris but i hated the car chase, the cliff jump could’ve been better? i dont even know what to say about that one tbh, and the train, ohhhhhh the train, i dont even wanna talk about the train, i was trying so hard to like it i wanted it to redeem the whole movie for me but it just didnt, i feel so bad but it didnt and im so disappointed.

[caltropspress]

RAPS + CRAFTS #24: NAHreally

1. Introduce yourself. Past projects? Current projects?

I’m NAHreally, an MC and beatmaker from Massachusetts currently living in Jersey City, NJ. I’ve been releasing music as NAHreally since 2016. My most recent album is called BLIP. It’s a collaborative album produced entirely by the Irish producer The Expert. Before that, I put out two self-produced projects called HACKINAWAY and Loose Around The Edges. Before those, I put out 5 tapes entitled TAPE through TAPE 5.

2. Where do you write? Do you have a routine time you write? Do you discipline yourself, or just let the words come when they will? Do you typically write on a daily basis?

I turn rhymes and lines over in my head everywhere I go all day long, but the central hub of my writing is my desk at home. Nothing is final until it reaches the desk. I don’t have a routine or consider myself all that disciplined—I just write when I find the time to. I work toward writing every day, but probably only sit down specifically to write two or three times a week (more when I’m lucky).

3. What’s your medium—pen and paper, laptop, on your phone? Or do you compose a verse in your head and keep it there until it’s time to record?

Lately I’ve been using the notes section of my DAW (Logic) in the project I’m going to record into. Sometimes I’ll write a whole song in there. Other times I’ll start in a notebook, continue on the phone, then compile everything in that DAW notes section. I typically have my verses memorized by the time I record, but when I don’t, it’s easy to pull up and read as I go. Plus, it helps keep me organized.

4. Do you write in bars, or is it more disorganized than that?

I write in bars and quatrains.

5. How long into writing a verse or a song do you know it’s not working out the way you had in mind? Do you trash the material forever, or do you keep the discarded material to be reworked later?

As early as right away and as late as album sequencing. I’ll sometimes salvage a handful of lines from an abandoned song, but generally the stench of abandonment keeps me away.

6. Have you engaged with any other type of writing, whether presently or in the past? Fiction? Poetry? Playwriting? If so, how has that mode influenced your songwriting?

My day job involves a lot of writing and editing—nonfiction educational video scripts and even rap lyrics. This type of writing has greatly influenced the clarity of my rhymes. I want my lyrics to be immediately digestible, and my day job has helped me with that a lot.

7. How much editing do you do after initially writing a verse/song? Do you labor over verses, working on them over a long period of time, or do you start and finish a piece in a quick burst?

I edit as I go. It’s rare for me to move on to a new line until the one I’m working on feels final in both content and delivery. This can leave me stuck on a single line for hours and sometimes months. When I do know what’s coming after a line, I’ll make a note but almost never start writing anything in earnest. In some cases, when I finally write the line, it can strike me as a better fit for one or two lines later. When that happens, I move it down and get back to work on the set up.

Because of this approach, the only editing that really happens after a verse is written is to achieve a different shade of meaning through certain words or because I realize the flow could be cleaner or more interesting.

In some cases, particularly with more conceptual songs, I’ll write out what I’m trying to say in prose then make it rhyme.

8. Do you write to a beat, or do you adjust and tweak lyrics to fit a beat?

A big part of my writing process is rapping aloud, so I almost always write to a beat (though it may not be the beat I end up recording over).

9. What dictates the direction of your lyrics? Are you led by an idea or topic you have in mind beforehand? Is it stream-of-consciousness? Is what you come up with determined by the constraint of the rhymes?

The first line tends to dictate the direction of my lyrics. In my mind, once you have a great first line, the song is basically written—it’s just a matter of trial and error until you find the rest. That first line often determines whether a song will have a topic or be a little more random. Occasionally I’ll pick a topic ahead of time, but usually it’ll stem from a more naturally occurring bit of writing.

My opinion on rhyming changes depending on what I’m trying to do. If I’m writing in a stream-of-consciousness mode, those rhymes better be unique and interesting. But when I’m looking to communicate information, I’ll take whatever rhyme I can in the name of clarity.

10. Do you like to experiment with different forms and rhyme schemes, or do you keep your bars free and flexible?

Free and flexible mostly, but I’ve been in a tinkering mood lately. We’ll see if anything sticks.

11. What’s a verse you’re particularly proud of, one where you met the vision for what you desire to do with your lyrics?

“That Many of ’Em” on BLIP. The experience of being inundated with information and opinions is practically universal and yet it’s hard to discuss without sounding like a whiny baby. I think I did OK here:

Where do people find these opinions On every last thing that’s outside of their dominion? I mean, the way they pull them out of thin air Makes me worry my opinion-having muscle is impaired. I’m confronted by opinions on a litany Of subjects daily, and it’s starting to get to me. It’s so hard to find out what’s taken place Without first working backwards through a bunch of hot takes. And I’m so damn inundated That it’s difficult to tell which opinions I’ve created In my own head and which ones were osmosis. Also, there’s this collective psychosis That makes pedestrians opine like a pundit On big picture things about which they know nothing. Fantasy GMs and political junkies Will write War and Peace on smooth vs. chunky. Too much cable news. Expertise brutally murdered by YouTube. I feel surrounded by a vocal minority Whose willingness to speak is their only authority. But squeaky wheels get grease And comments and likes and of course retweets. It appears we’ve made sane people retreat By handing the megaphone to these opinionated freaks.

But I don’t think there’s that many of ’em, And I don’t wanna know any of ’em. But it feels like there’s plenty of ’em, But I don’t think there’s that many of ’em.

12. Can you pick a favorite bar of yours and describe the genesis of it?

This section is from “Civic” on Loose Around The Edges:

In a Civic bumpin’ Misfits. Number one in your heart, two on your shit list. I’m an interesting fact not a statistic. One of my friends is related to Michael Chiklis.

Like I said, when I’m going stream-of-consciousness, the rhyme matters more. “Misfits,” “shit list,” and “statistic” were already there. When I try to think of rhymes—particularly multisyllabic ones—I form the sound(s) with my mouth over and over. Real words, gibberish, whatever comes out—just something that might make a light bulb go off that leads me to the right rhyme. I don’t actually remember it, but I’m sure that’s how I landed on “Michael Chiklis” (famous actor and my friend’s semi-distant relative). 

So there the line was: “One of my friends is related to Michael Chiklis.” It’s the type of mundane thing that might make you say “oh wow” in idle conversation but not really anything you’d find in a rap song. There’s just something so funny and exciting to me about transporting a throwaway tidbit like that into an unfamiliar and absurd context. On top of that, the preceding three lines are all a bit unexpected in their own right, so there’s a sort of build up leading to the oddest possible payoff—something I love to watch people react to in real time when I perform this song live.

13. Do you feel strongly one way or another about punch-ins? Will you whittle a bar down in order to account for breath control, or are you comfortable punching-in so you don’t have to sacrifice any words?

I can rap all of my verses straight through. I don’t do punch-ins, but I do often comp portions of multiple full-verse takes together to create a final Franken-take. I rap the entire time I write (out loud in private or just above silently in public), so lines I can’t rap get changed immediately. For what it’s worth, I have nothing against people who punch in.

14. What non-hiphop material do you turn to for inspiration? What non-music has influenced your work recently?

When I was writing BLIP, I read a lot of Kurt Vonnegut, slightly less George Saunders, and a little Joan Didion. The Expert also sent me a monster playlist of what he considers well-written non-rap songs. Some highlights: “Depreston” by Courtney Barnett, “Lah-Di-Dah” by Jake Thackray, “I’d Rather Dance With You” by Kings of Convenience, and “Cult Boyfriend” by Jeffrey Lewis. My favorite non-rap songwriter lately is Jonathan Richman.

15. Writers are often saddled with self-doubt. Do you struggle to like your own shit, or does it all sound dope to you?

I oscillate between not-quite-crippling self-doubt and utter certainty that I’m one of the best rappers ever (with several stops in between).

16. Who’s a rapper you listen to with such a distinguishable style that you need to resist the urge to imitate them?

Homeboy Sandman.

17. Do you have an agenda as an artist? Are there overarching concerns you want to communicate to the listener?

I don’t think so, but as the years have passed I’m less and less sure.

RAPS + CRAFTS is a series of questions posed to rappers about their craft and process. It is designed to give respect and credit to their engagement with the art of songwriting. The format is inspired, in part, by Rob McLennan’s 12 or 20 interview series.

Photo credit: Noah Anthony Mezzacappa

[zealoptics]

A Dream Come True: A Mother-Daughter Voyage to Antarctica

By Ellen Massey

The poles have always fascinated me: the harsh climate, the icy seascapes, the extremes of light and dark, the unique wildlife, and the human history of exploration and the struggle for survival. Antarctica was the first of the polar regions to captivate me. When I was about nine years old, a brochure landed in my family's mailbox advertising a trip to Antarctica. I don't know why we got this ad, but there it was, and I couldn't stop staring at the photographs of penguins and icebergs and stupendous mountains. I was only nine years old, and had never traveled outside North America, but I wanted more than anything to go to Antarctica.

Of course it was way outside my family's budget, but my fascination with the poles stuck with me. Twenty years later, I made a phenomenal sailing voyage to the Arctic, aboard a small and rather rudimentary sloop I had bought, but even that – with the midnight sun, the gray whales, and the sea ice – didn't quench my desire for more time in the polar regions.

Little did I know that my mother had been similarly captivated by that brochure. My mother is my kindred spirit in adventure: before I was born she cross-country skied across the Sierra Nevada range, and throughout my childhood she never let motherhood preclude adventure. So I can't say I was that surprised when she told me that she wanted to go to Antarctica for her 80th birthday. And so, off we went.

Part of me had always envisioned sailing to Antarctica myself, with maybe just one other person, aboard the same small sloop on which I had sailed to the Arctic. But not even that kind of epic adventure could be more memorable and special than going with my mother, on her 80th birthday, to the place both of us had dreamed of for decades.

And it was everything we dreamed of. Jagged, glaciated peaks soaring out of the cold, very blue ocean. Fantastically shaped icebergs reflected in the mirror calm of the dawn. A snow petrel gliding through the silence of softly falling snow. Penguins feeding their young in huge colonies along the shore. The raucous calls of the penguins and the haunting song of a leopard seal. The calving face of the largest glaciers I'd ever seen, and tabular icebergs miles long and many meters tall.

My mom and I boarded the National Geographic vessel in Ushuaia, the town on the southern edge of Tierra del Fuego. Our crossing of the Drake Passage southbound was perfect: sunshine on moderate seas and a light quartering tailwind. We spent the days at sea watching Wandering albatross and Giant Southern petrels wing across the swell, and listening to the superb National Geographic guides give lectures on the ecology, geology, wildlife, and human history of the Antarctic.

Our first stop once we reached Antarctic waters was in the South Shetland Islands where Gentoo penguins waddled along the shore and the more adventuresome Chinstrap penguins climbed steep slopes to reach their colonies on rocky outcrops high above the ocean. As we steamed south that evening, we were treated to a lingering sunset of subtle rose and yellow, glinting off the icy peaks and bathing the wispy cirrus clouds and gently rippled water. Despite the cold, Mom and I stood at the rail for hours, watching the setting sun illuminate this place we'd dreamt of for so long.

Our ship then ventured where few Antarctic itineraries go: to the Weddell Sea, famous for trapping, crushing, and sinking Sir Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance. Thanks to the great skill and experience of our Ukrainian captain and the Norwegian ice-pilot of the ship, we made a rare circumnavigation of James Ross Island, picking our way carefully among new and old sea-ice, glacial icebergs, and the giant tabular bergs that break off the great ice shelves. At the most southern end of our venture into the Weddell Sea, the head guide woke the whole ship over the intercom at 3:45AM, announcing that the bridge crew had spotted emperor penguins. Emperor penguins are extremely rare to see on a trip to Antarctica. In the summer they are feeding offshore, and in the winter they are well back from the ice edge, huddled together waiting for their eggs to hatch. The iconic penguin of the Antarctic is, therefore, almost guaranteed not to be seen by most visitors. So this was an incredibly exciting moment. My mom and I dressed fast and rushed up on deck, into the bitingly cold pre-dawn air. Almost everyone on the ship had roused themselves to see the emperors and yet the ship was almost entirely silent as we all looked out at a large ice floe on which the two emperors stood. The pearly light, the perfect stillness of the calm morning, and the ice floes and encircling mountains, and most of all this rare wildlife sighting had sent a reverent hush through guests and crew alike.

The calm persisted throughout the day, and so we were treated to a day of kayaking. My intrepid mother adores kayaking; she and a friend of hers would go sea-kayaking several times a week for all the years she lived in Maine. So the chance to kayak on Antarctic waters was a dream come true. The two of us shared a kayak and were able to get up close to the ice floes, examining the deep blue and green colors, the patterns like Venetian glass, and the occasional Weddell seal drawn up on the ice to sun himself.

Of course we took the opportunity of the calm and sunny day to do the polar plunge, jumping into the below-freezing seawater, icebergs all around us. And the ship raised anchor and steamed west for the west coast of the Antarctic peninsula. There we watched humpback and minke whales surface before enormous glaciers, traversed the fabled LeMaire Channel at dawn, and hiked through softly falling snow to a cairn atop an island where a French expedition overwintered in 1909. And then on our last evening among the bergs and peaks, we were treated to yet another subtle and exquisite sunset, beneath which a pod of orcas played, together with a pod of humpbacks, another rare and beautiful occurrence.

All too soon it was time to leave this spectacular, magical land behind. Our ship pointed her bow north into one of the fabled Southern Ocean gales, and for two days bucked aside the monstrous waves that can build in the Drake Passage, the body of water south of Cape Horn. As I stood on the bridge watching the waves sweep over the bow and even hit the windows of the bridge over 15 feet up, I imagined the terror of being in such a storm in my little sailboat. I knew it well, from having rounded the Cape of Good Hope in similar conditions, and I was grateful that I was not the one responsible for this ship this time. Instead I could retire to the dining room with my mother, and recap our favorite moments together watching penguins, kayaking, polar plunging after the kayaking, and gazing at the peaks and glaciers of this fragile, iconic, and forever captivating continent. How happy we both were to have been able to realize our common dream together.

[maymemoria]

Underlined by Ana May, a collection of memorable quotes & segments

Book Title: Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth

Author: Hermann Hesse

Quotes:

“From two opposite poles came the day and the night.”

“For him, betrayal was not a crime.”

“My sin was not this or that in particular, my sin was that I had reached out my hand to the devil.”

“In the end all men are brothers.”

“All I wanted to do was try to live the life that was inside me, trying to get out. Why was that so hard?”

“I cared only about myself, always myself. But I desperately yearned to someday, at long last, live a little too: to put something of myself out into the world; to struggle against, and connect with, that world.”

“There's no reason to be afraid of anyone. If someone is afraid of another person, it's because he has given this person some kind of power over him.”

“If you believe that Cain was in the right and Abel in the wrong, then it follows that God was in error, or in other words that the God of the Bible is not the one true God but a false god.”

“I too experienced my slowly awakening sexual feelings as an enemy and a destroyer, as something forbidden, as temptation and sin.”

“The idea of the two worlds, or half-worlds, one of light and one of darkness.”

“Anyone too comfortable to think for himself and be his own judge simply obeys the laws as they are.”

“There is no point in clever talk, none at all. It only leads you away from yourself. Going away from yourself is a sin. What a person needs to do is crawl entirely into himself, like a turtle.”

“I was well aware that it was impossible to love me as I was, and I did not love myself either.”

“The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Whoever wants to be born must destroy a world. The bird flies to god.”

“When we hate someone, what we hate is something in him, or in our image of him, that is part of ourselves. Nothing that isn’t in us ever bothers us.”

“We make gods and then wrestle with them.”

“It is a bitter and terrible moment when we suddenly recognize that the currents inside us are carrying us away from the one we loved.”

“No one dreams of anything that has nothing to do with them.”

“The world wants to be reborn. The smell of death is in the air. Nothing new comes without death.”

“The next time you call me, I won’t come so obviously on horseback or by train. You will have to listen inside yourself, and then you’ll realize I’m in you.”

Segments:

“Many people experience the death and rebirth that is the destiny of us all only this once, as childhood rots from within and slowly disintegrates, as everything we have grown to love abandons us, and we suddenly feel the solitude and deathly cold of the universe around us. And very many people remain stuck at this hurdle their whole life long, desperately hanging on to the irretrievable past and clinging to the dream of a paradise lost—the worst and most deadly of all dreams.”

“I had often liked observing bizarre natural forms —not to study and analyze them, but to abandon myself to their unique magic, their confused, deep language. (.....) giving ourselves over to irrational, confused, bizarre natural forms, creates in us a feeling of harmony between our inner selves and the force that willed these patterns into being—before long we even feel tempted to see these patterns as our own moods, our own creations—we see the border between ourselves and nature quiver and melt away and learn what it feels like not to know whether the images on our retina come from external or internal impressions.”

“You wouldn’t call every biped you see on the street human, would you, just because they walk upright and carry their babies in the womb for nine months? You can see how many of them are fish or sheep, worms or angels, how many are ants, how many are bees! Now every one of them contains the possibility of becoming human, but only when he intuits this possibility, or even learns to bring it at least partly into his consciousness, is it truly his.”

“When I compared myself to other people my age, as I would do every now and then, I sometimes felt proud and conceited but just as often demoralized and depressed. There were many times I saw myself as a genius, many times as half insane. I was never able to share and join in the others’ pleasures, and I was eaten up with worries and self-hatred about how hopelessly isolated I was from them, how cut off from life.”

“God knows where these things we say come from! I wasn’t trying to be nasty, and had no idea of the disaster my comment would cause. I had said something I didn’t understand at all when I said it; I had indulged in the impulse of a moment, a little bit clever and a little bit mean, and it had turned out to be fate. My careless minor act of cruelty was for him a judgment.”

“Whether the workers kill their capitalists or Russia and Germany blow each other to bits, the only thing that’ll change is who owns whom. But still it won’t have been in vain. These conflicts will clarify how worthless the current ideals have become; they will wipe out all our old stone age gods. The world as it is wants to die, it cries out to be destroyed— and it will be.”

“I had decided that losing the glittering colors of the world inevitably went along with the loss of childhood, and that to a certain extent you had to pay for the freedom and manhood of the soul by renouncing that beloved shimmer. Now, enchanted, I saw that it had all merely been overshadowed and covered up, and that it was possible, even as a free man who had renounced childhood happiness, to see the world aglow and feel the heartfelt quiver of childlike vision.”

“Earlier I had given much thought to why people were so rarely capable of living for an ideal; now I saw that many, indeed all people were capable of dying for one. Only it could not be a personal ideal, freely chosen; it had to be a common one, taken from someone else.”

———————

available on google docs:

[allinmycorner]

Dancing With the Stars celebrated Disney's 100th anniversary with a night dedicated to the music from the company's first century. We opened with a performance of "Bare Necessities" that accompanied the pros all riding in Hyundai IONIQ 5 SUVs which come with a Disney100 edition. We even got a glimpse of Val and Jenna's son Roman and he is adorable. Of course Mickey and Minnie dropped by to help our stars celebrate and the audience was even given special light up Mickey ears to wear in the ballroom as well.

On a somber note, the show paid tribute to former contestant Suzanne Somers who died over the weekend. They showed a picture of her before the show and Alfonso gave a little speech toward the end that was accompanied by a picture of her and partner Tony. It was a sweet moment.

Alfonso also had another sweet moment at the very end of the show when he wished former partner Witney Carson a happy birthday.

So who had a happy ending and who had their Disney Dreams crushed? Let's check it out!

Adrian and Britt: I'm not very surprised that Adrian got eliminated this week. His Viennese waltz to Dumbo's "Baby Mine" was nice but it didn't really standout. I always make it a point to really watch every dance and not let myself get distracted but even when this one ended, I knew I wasn't going to remember it. And I didn't. The most memorable thing was that he was accompanied by pianist Chloe Flowers on a special edition piano made by Steinway to commemorate Disney's 100th anniversary. So that didn't bode well for him and his elimination proved it.

Xochitl and Val: Xochitl landed at the top of leaderboard by herself this week with her paso doble to "Un Poco Loco" from the movie Coco. It was an unusual choice for a paso doble, which was acknowledged by the judges. The song is faster than the traditional paso and is more of a silly song while the paso is a rather serious dance. But Xochitl handled it like a pro and showed why she is a serious contender for the Len Goodman mirrorball trophy. I think this will be a routine that goes down in DWTS history.

Ariana and Pasha: Fun fact - Ariana used to work at Disney World after graduating college. It sounds like she may have been a princess based on Julianne's comments during Ariana's skybox interview. I can see it. Anyway, Ariana channeled Elsa for a contemporary routine to "Into the Unknown" from Frozen 2. And while it was a beautiful routine, it felt a little too safe for me. I wish Pasha had given Ariana some more complex moves and really let her act out some of the angst of this song, stuck between wanting nothing to change but knowing that there is more out there. Hopefully we get to see Ariana do another contemporary so she can really wow us.

Charity and Artem: Charity closed out the show with a waltz to "Part of Your World," paying tribute to this summer's remake of The Little Mermaid. She talked about how it felt to see a Disney princess who looked like herself and how she hopes to inspire girls who look like her too. And she continues to be technically proficient but she's still not topping the leaderboard. I still think her lack of emotional connection to the songs is what is holding her back. "Part of Your World" is an "I Want" song but Charity danced it with the biggest smile on her face the entire time. I think if she had played it more wistfully, it would've really elevated her routine and she could've placed higher.

Jason and Daniella: I loved Jason's foxtrot to "A Whole New World" from Aladdin. I'm not sure why it didn't get scored higher. I guess the judges might now expect more from him. Or I wonder if they saw something through the fog on the dance floor that we couldn't at home. But I think if he continues the way he's going, he's a lock for the finals - barring any surprise eliminations.

Lele and Brandon: I'm not sure why I didn't like this routine as much as I've liked Lele's other routines. She seemed to handle the rumba to "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" from The Lion King well enough. But it lacked something. Maybe it was a spark? Maybe Brandon played it too sweet that it lost the sultry? I don't know but it was something.

Harry and Rylee: There was some buzz that Rylee had stolen big sister Lindsay's choreography because Lindsay danced the quickstep to Toy Story's "You Got a Friend in Me" with partner Sean Spicer. So I watched Harry's and Sean's routines back-to-back and while there is one sequence that looks lifted from Lindsay's routine, they are still different enough to consider it an homage than outright copying. Though maybe the producers should've given them a different song and/or dance style. Either way, Harry did handle the quickstep well enough and I would say he was better than Sean - Rylee added some more complicated moves that he pulled off well. Harry may end up being this season's dark horse - we're just going to have to see.

Mira and Gleb: Mira danced a waltz to "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes" from Cinderella and it was gorgeous. She finally let herself be lost in the dance and the music, which I think really helped her. Again, like most creatives, she is likely her own worst enemy. Once she stops standing in her own way, she'll really start to soar.

Mauricio and Emma: Mauricio opened Disney night with a paso doble to the "Sorcerer's Apprentice" sequence from Fantasia. With Emma dressed as a broom, they danced across the floor with ease. The paso doble isn't an easy dance but he did well with it. Was it at the same level as Xochitl's? Of course not. But it held a charm all its own. And it's clear that Mauricio has fan support so I think he'll have a few more chances to continue to improve.

Alyson and Sasha: Alyson danced a jazz routine to "Be Our Guest" from Beauty and the Beast, though she was honoring the Broadway version and the start of Disney on Broadway. It was a nice routine but I feel it could've popped more. The judges gave her props for dancing with her hair done up to mimic Lumiere's top candle but I wonder if her performance would've been better if she didn't have to worry about it.

Barry and Peta: Barry talked about working with Bob Freakin' Fosse in the Broadway production of Pippin, so Peta hoped it would give him a leg up in their jazz routine to "He's a Tramp" from Lady and the Tramp. And it seemed to be going well until a trick went wrong. At first, I couldn't tell who messed up - Barry or Peta - in their lift but it seems it was Barry. That through them off but he seemed to catch up, though a little too late. But he's still fun to watch and hopefully the audience keeps him around a little longer despite sending him to the bottom three this time.

So that was Disney Night! Break out the tissues because the next show is Most Memorable Year night, which always promises to be a tearjerker. The show will also have a special tribute to Len Goodman as the current pros will be joined by past pros to perform a Viennese waltz to "Moon River" in his honor. For a moment, I worried that by "past pross" they just meant Julianne and Derek but no, they mean several past pros! Kym, Tony, Anna, Edyta, Karina, Maks, Louis and Mark will be joining in this tribute. So it will be nice to see them again and it see their tribute to Len.

See you all then!

[pftones3482]

I'm not sorry, actually, for being tired of Doof.

They add him to EVERYTHING. Season 4 basically took over as the Doof show - there are more Heinz centered episodes than I can count in Season 4, yet I can barely name more than a handful of Big Ideas, even AFTER more recently watching the show. The episode with the most balance was literally the Where's Perry special (and I'm biased, but Happy Birthday Isabella - it meshes the B plot with Stacy's C plot in a perfect way). They also added him in (infomercial style) to Hamster and Gretel more recently and I literally rolled my eyes and groaned out loud.

And don't even get me STARTED on MML and how adding Doof in to the second season flopped the show. MML aired over a full year after PnF ended, and season 2 didn't start until FOUR YEARS LATER. I feel like we forget that there was such a big gap between the end of PnF and the beginning of season 2 of MML.

Meaning that by the time MML season 2 aired, there was a whole new generation of watchers on Disney. And bc Season one didn't include PnF virtually at all, none of the new watchers would really CARE about the PnF characters. Adding Doof? Added a new, annoying character out of nowhere to a show that didn't need him with viewers that knew nothing about him. MML was doing wonderfully on its own, there was no need to add a (pardon my French) washed up has-been to it.

Also...without Perry there, Doof is obnoxious. He's loud, and grating, and doesn't have a plot purpose. They added him to MML purely because Dan can't let go of his successes and is stuck in the past.

Dan also, in his love of his own character, has forgotten I think what made Phineas and Ferb popular in the first place: the fucking kids.

You ask any non-fandom member what episodes of Phineas and Ferb they remember most, and their answers are ALWAYS: "the one where they become popstars" "the one where they built a rollercoaster" "where they built a beach" "when they met that alien/went to space" "where they got that band back together!"

I have never once in my life had a non-fandom member describe the show by the B plot. Sure, they remember the B-plot. But that wasn't what made the show memorable to the average viewer.

It was two boys, their sister, and their friends doing absolutely wild shit during summer vacation.

I have a love in my heart for Doof, I swear. But as we get closer to the new season and I get more and more nervous that they're going to just make it PnF Season 4/MML Season 2 (Part 2) again, I find myself really, really resenting and hating his character.

I'm not sorry for that.

And yeah. They SHOULD be exes for shits and giggles. It'd be better than whatever Doof plot I'm sure they've currently got cooking.

I made a post about this ages ago but I have to say it again:

If they give us Perryshm*rtz (literally a romantic relationship between a man and an ANIMAL) in the new season but not ACTUAL FUCKING GAY REP, I'm done with Dan and Swampy. I am at the point of this where I truly just don't want Doof in the new season at all. I'm sick of him being the star of PHINEAS AND FERB.

[kiigan]

«Yes. Kisame, of the Hoshigaki clan from Kiri.»

ㅤA name that brings a shadow of grief to darken Itachi's eyes all the more than what they already naturally are. A name that comes associated with feelings of loyalty, companionship, strangely compatible interests and opinions... and with a lot of tangled-up things that Itachi doesn't feel prepared to revisit just yet. And so he pushes it all back to a tiny corner of his mind, and moves on. What's another ghost to carry within him, after all.

ㅤ«I didn't see all that much - it wouldn't be wise to linger, as you can imagine. Mostly, I'd see you in passing when you were headed to class or to a mission, later on, and that was already good enough. My intention was only to make sure you were healthy and safe, and lacking for nothing.»

ㅤOther than, you know, an alive and present family. But that's probably another topic that neither brother is prepared to tackle for now, if ever, and so he moves on again. And then it's the use of this specific word, diverted, that has Itachi blinking in surprise, at first, and his eyebrows creasing in thought ever so slightly.

«Sasuke-»

ㅤCareful now. There is a lot to unpack from those brief sentences alone, and by the gods he does not want to sound like he's criticizing his brother. Alas, Itachi was never one to know when to shut up instead of being strongly opinionated, and not even the years in Akatsuki have changed that. Let's try to find a middle ground, then.

ㅤ«Forgive me, I am not sufficiently aware of the village's current state and conditions to be able to offer accurate feedback.»

ㅤSeems like a decent enough start and it's not a lie, either; being stuck in a hospital bed for months and months, first in an actual coma and then undergoing a myriad of tests and exams and treatments and recovery protocols, tends to leave a person out of the loop. Not to mention, it's none of his business to start with. He's not part of the Council, he's not Hokage, he's not ANBU captain anymore, he's not even a shinobi of Konoha as it is. For all intents and purposes, he's a pardoned criminal and even that pardon came from the extraordinary time-of-war circumstances and an ungodly amount of kindness and understanding on Kakashi's and Tsunade's end. It's not the kind of matters he has any right to comment on but, at the same time, there is one particular thing he really wants Sasuke to know.

ㅤ«Either way... please, don't fall into the same mistake that I did myself. Believing that you should do everything on your own, without knowing how to ask for help and let alone accept it.»

ㅤAt least, there's solace in knowing that Naruto is there as well - though, with Kushina's son, the odds are always 50/50 on whether he'll help for good or help to create more chaos. Which Itachi thinks very fondly of, and he wouldn't have chosen a better friend for his little brother. Taking a few further seconds to carefully collect his thoughts, he stands from the table, feeling around the edge of it to gain a better sense of orientation in relation to the counters, and from there walks over to stand by the window instead. And it's not like his eyes can see anything outside, but he's memorized the sight. The other houses nearby, the neighbors that are home at this time of the day and the ones who left to go about their work, the shops that are open. All part of the village that is his most treasured glory and, at the same time, cause of his/their cruelest tragedy.

ㅤ«There is much to consider, when taking action towards peace - no matter how inherently good the intention is. Even the smallest changes have repercussions, and nothing exists in a void. A village is like a living organism, it contains many different parts that come together as a whole and all of them are important in their own way. Which is why, in turn, it's important to have transparency in what is being done. Among the Council members, between the Council and organizations such as the ANBU, between all the people in leadership positions and the people that are being led and who trust them for such. Achieving peace should be a common goal for all, and even that will be only the first step. Then, ideally, should come cooperation with other villages, big and small alike. It truly is no easy feat, nor something that can survive based on localized patch-ups of something that is being done incorrectly.»

ㅤCryptic words, he supposes, and the kind of conversation he's only ever felt comfortable enough to hold with Shisui, back in the day. Maybe even abstract and utopian, and in a way he's curious what Sasuke will make of it all - as much as he hopes his brother will also forgive him the impromptu speech. Turning around again, he returns to the younger one's side and fumbles around for a couple seconds till finding one of Sasuke's hands, that he gently takes with both his own along with the same loving smile from before.

ㅤ«With all this said, I am very proud of you. For caring and for wanting to change things for the better.»

mhm. (he hums, fiddling around with the stuffed animals hes carrying. somehow talking about his pursuits he did in his brother's name, in front of his brother, feels rather embarrassing.) we've diverted the funds from the ANBU into building the orphanage and mental health clinic and funding it. we're...hoping that supporting children and other citizens will decrease the "need" for military operations. go back to having shinobi helping with productivity...and stuff.

(he knows his brother cant see him, but he cant help but feel intimidated by his eyes. he also cant bring himself to treat his brother any differently. so, his eyes are cast towards the floor as he contemplates his brother's words. would he have liked to see him at that point in time? probably not. yet, his heart still aches that there was a time his brother was close to him--but not close enough.)

youre talking about the swordsman? it seems my team member grew up with him.... but anyways, how much did you see? of me? (worrying his lip, he wonders if his brother observed him trying to hurt his teammates or being cowardly in battle.)