#the bar is a gamechanger too

[kezibun]

SIMS PLAYERS!!!!!!

If you haven't heard yet log on to your sims 4 games now!!! There's free gifts for logging on to your sims game! Make sure your game has updated and claim your free rewards now!!!

You can get a mini fridge!!!! A mini counter sized Bar, PILLOWS!!! A new trait and more!!! It's a real game changer especially for ppl who only have the base game. Go now!!!! Hurry! Claim them now!!!!

I found this out from this video I would have never know otherwise.

[pixelplayground]

A Tale of Two Peninsulas ❤ Sims 4 - For Rent Edition

Disclosure: This early access opportunity was provided to me via EA's Partner Network.

I had a chance to jump in game for a brief moment this afternoon to check out the new world and some of the new packs features. I have to say Tomerang is unexpectedly beautiful with a lot of attention to atmospheric detail. (Listen to the clip below of the gorgeous bird songs).

Functionality wise, it is easy to convert existing builds into rentals, and the system quite self-explanatory. You can own and simultaneously rent the same property, which opens the door to creating AirBnB type gameplay. Personally, this world is going to be more of a vacation destination for my sims, where I will build a large hotel (rental units) and convert the existing other lots into restaurants, bars, and retail space. Most of the gameplay functionality regarding the rentals will work seamlessly in other neighborhoods, and if you're like me and struggle with not having enough lots per world to both house your sims, but also place enough community lots to make your world feel alive, this pack is a gamechanger.

The Lore

There's quite a bit more to discover about this world than I anticipated. I haven't watched many of the developer streams or any play throughs, personally I prefer to discover the pack myself. That being said, I don't want to post too many spoilers, but let's just say, the Tiger Sanctuary stole my heart ❤

[lucifer-is-a-bag-of-dicks]

Not that you have to, but do you think you could ever maybe post some helpful tips from your therapist sometime? You know, for those of us too poor for an diagnosis or a therapist. Love your posts 💜

I sure can try! I mean my therapy is tailored to my issues and my strengths, so I'll have to try and Broad Strokes it, but I'm sure many of us suffer similarly so someone might get some use from it

an analogy my psychologist is fond of using that's helped me understand emotional overload is a water tank, it's like the spoons thing

everyone has a water tank, and it drains when you do something physically or emotionally taxing, if you have autism (or another neurodivergence or mental illness or chronic condition I guess) your tank tends to drain faster or far more easily over minor things

like for example, I just moved house, it's a big change, change is overwhelming and scary, if a neurotypical person moves house, their tank drains when they're moving stuff, putting things away, getting the hang of the new set up, but once everything is settled their tank stops draining

for me, because change is very difficult, even though my new kitchen is organised how I like it, and I know where everything is, it is still mentally taxing to use it because it's different and that takes more getting used to for an autism brain, my tank is still draining just using this kitchen and it will for a while

and that applies to the whole house, everything is different, everything takes getting used to, so my tank right now is being drained every moment I'm up and doing something, which is why I've been struggling a lot more to get out of bed or off the lounge, because the lounge and bed came from my old house and they're familiar

things that used to drain my tank a little (cooking, showering, brushing my teeth) now drain my tank twice as fast because everything is in a different place

you cannot function on an empty tank, that's how you get meltdowns and shutdowns, you need to give yourself time to refill, stimming can refill it a little, leisure activities and hobbies can refill it a lot, familiar things, calming things help, but SLEEP is the big one

she told me that SLEEP is what an overstimulated brain needs the most, get enough sleep and you can completely refill your tank

honestly it's a lot like the energy bar in Stardew Valley, if you go to bed late your energy takes penalties for every hour after midnight, that's accurate to life, your brain won't finish regulating without proper rest, you won't fill your tank

absolute gamechanger learning that, like you always know that you feel crappy if you don't get enough rest, but knowing that it's majorly cutting down your ability to handle all the other draining things in your life? it really helped me prioritise good sleeping habits

like I always sacrificed sleep for leisure activities thinking that they were what I needed most to refill my tank, but in reality it was way less effective

she also taught me that blue light filters on phone screens aren't 100% effective and phones can still impact your ability to fall asleep quickly, she told me just taking an extra fifteen to twenty minutes of doing something without a screen before bedtime will help a lot, for me that's been reading a book, I really wanted to start getting through more books so she told me to combine strategies, use the book to help get better sleep

I used to read voraciously as a kid, but burnt myself out and now struggle to just pick one up, but I was worried that if I DID get invested once I started, that I would accidentally lose track of time and stay up late reading, losing sleep like when I was a kid and would end up staying up until 3am

so my therapist says 'didn't you tell me you do that all the time with your phone and get frustrated with yourself because you find social media and app games unfulfilling? Well if you accidentally stay up late reading a book instead, you might be annoyed that you stayed up late, but at least you have the positive aspect of having done a task you find fulfilling, instead of the double negative of staying up and being frustrated that it was because of using your phone, and also you're more likely to get tired and start falling asleep while reading than you are staring at a screen'

and this isn't 'all screens are bad phones are the devil' rhetoric, she doesn't demonise my phone or how much time I spend on it (I was the one who asked for help with my phone use) but she DOES recognise that a lot of social media and app games are designed to suck you in, and they're extremely effective on adhd brains, I'm not just struggling because I have poor self control, I'm struggling because corporate greed is taking advantage of my adhd by using every psychological trick in the book to keep me online

and that is something I was already aware of and recognised, so I was actively asking her for advice on how to get around it because it was making me feel like crap, and her advice is working! I DO have a much easier time putting my book away than my phone because I DO feel more tired after reading

and now I've introduced this new rule of 'no phones after reading we just go straight to sleep' my autism brain is latching onto the new habit, I check all my social medias before picking up the book, so I'm less tempted to check them AFTER the book, the only thing I do after reading is load up one of the podcasts or spotify playlists I listen to when I go to sleep

even if I do accidentally stay up late on my phone, I will still try to fit at least ten minutes of reading before I try to sleep, even if it's 2am, and it really does help settle my adhd brain

I know this probably won't help everyone, but it's worth at least trying, another thing she told me is 'don't be afraid of trying new habits because you're the one in control, you can stop at any time if you think it isn't working, but you won't know if it'll work if you don't at least try it out, you can set a goal, try it for a week and see how you feel, there's no real consequence to just giving it a go'

I was doing really well with some of my new habits, and then I got sick for a week and they all went out the window, my next appointment with her I shared how frustrated I was about having to start them from scratch, she told me 'but you aren't starting from scratch, you tried it out, you know it's effective, and you know you can do it, you've had practice now, it's not a mystery any more, it's something that you know works for you, that isn't starting from scratch, it's picking it up again with experience'

THAT was something I really needed to hear

I hope you can find some of this helpful anon, if I get any more groundbreaking advice I'll try to share it ~

[reminiscingtonight]

Thoughts so far (and hang on, it's a long one):

The way the midfield was torn apart after the last game and Vlatko decides not to change anything? Yes, I think Rose, Lindsey, and Andi are good midfielders but things aren't working and he needs to acknowledge that.

I will say however Rose has been everywhere on the field. She's doing an amazing job getting her foot on the ball.

Speaking of the midfield, where the hell is Kristie? Vlatko wants to see which players play well with who, so just a thought, but maybe put in other players?? Especially those who have proven their gamechanging effects, such as Kristie.

Got a good chuckle out of the commentators rightfully tearing Vlatko's optimism apart.

German dominance in possession? Not surprising.

Naomi Girma is such a great player. I love the way she brings the defense to life. Honestly every single time she touched the ball you could tell something amazing was gonna happen.

Knowing Vlatko, he's gonna use the goal scored against Naeher as reason to keep Murphy in goal. As if Murphy hasn't done worse 🙄

Okay we kinda tore into Mal for not being selfish enough last game and passing when she should've been shooting, but girl is being a little too selfish this time around. She needs to do a better job of reading the field and knowing when it's a good idea to take or not take shots herself. I do appreciate her being more aggressive tho. The lack of shots the team has had the past couple games has been pretty disappointing.

Vlatko better have put in subs when the second half starts. I don’t have high hopes, but who knows, maybe he’ll finally take his head out from his ass and surprise us all. The bar is so low on the ground, it won’t take much.

[6of575]

so im currently trying very hard to contain my excitement

coz every other time ive gotten started on this shit something inevitably comes up and all my plans for self improvement go onto the backburner for several more years

b u t

maybe not this time (various positive health and trans-related things under cut)

i have an appointment at last (november oh my god simultaneously so far away and so soon) with a surgeon to discuss potential CRS options

im on the waitlist for getting a neurology appointment, with referrals waiting in the wings for several other health related issues ive been dealing with for way too many years

even talked briefly with my new gp about potentially sorting out the whole undiagnosed adhd thing which boy that already feels like a gamechanger on its own

also got all my blood stolen today with the usual complications of being a super hard stick so im all sorts of bruised and burst veins to show for it lmao

which, barring unforseen weird blood test results,

also means i will finally get to start homones and slather myself in boyjuice

its been 84 yrs

i honestly never thought as a kid, as a teen, as a young adult--that i would ever be here now, much less with a future sprawled out ahead of me

much less one that included escaping pain and dysphoria thats haunted me for almost 40 yrs

instead of just existing day to day, i feel like maybe i can finally start thinking about actually living (oh thats kind of scary, i dont even know how to DO that)

im really hoping this could mean good things for my productivity and spoon lvls again, too; i miss creating things regularly, and enjoying the process of it, which is already so hard when fighting your own brain on top of fighting everybody else outside it

anyway uhhhh words cannot adequately express how overwhelmed i am right now in the best way possible

[aptnahas]

Cymatics ableton tips

#CYMATICS ABLETON TIPS HOW TO#

#CYMATICS ABLETON TIPS MAC#

You’ll see the following box come up, allowing you to resurrect it whenever you need by pressing the same shortcut. To avoid this, deactivate instead by pressing 0 with the audio clip, MIDI clip or MIDI note in question. Sometimes you aren’t sure if a certain element or sound is going to work, but you don’t want to delete it. There are three types in Ableton, and each is self-explanatory: These devices group together with other devices and plugins into one ‘chain’ so that you can drag and drop on demand, loading everything up as is. Tip 12: Effect and Instrument Racksįast workflow is what makes Ableton Live so great, and racks are a gamechanger in this department. This handy shortcut allows you to combine multiple MIDI or audio clips into one, and/or ‘bounce’ the fades so that they become part of the audio clip. Tip 11: ConsolidateĬmd + J (Mac) or Ctrl + J (Windows) is your friend. In essence, you can save samples, racks, files and presets into different collections, even if they are all over the place on your hard drive.īonus tip: Spend some good time going through your samples, presets and files, organizing them into collections so that when it comes to making music, your favourite sounds are at hand whenever you need them. When Ableton Live 10 was announced, I was over the moon about this feature-to-be – Collections. Tip 10: Collections – Save Your Favourite Resources Select part of a clip and press the same as above – the selection will become separate from the rest of the clip.Move the insert marker to a defined point in the middle of a clip, and press Cmd + E (Mac) or Ctrl + E (Windows) – the clip will become two.Tip 9: Split ClipĪn underrated tool for chopping, mangling and arranging audio and MIDI in new and exciting ways. This alone will shave off lots of time in your production sessions. It will then automatically copy and paste the selection directly after the selected clip. Simply press Cmd + D (Mac) or Ctrl + D (Windows) with at least one clip selected. This is another one of those shortcuts which will make you think that Ableton is the best DAW. Recommended: Ableton Tutorials: The Best 21 YouTube Channels Tip 8: Duplicate Great for adding new sections into your tracks, or changing up the arrangement. This trick blew my mind, and admittedly I learned of it way too late in my music production journey, but pressing Cmd + I or Ctrl + I will allow you to insert a specified amount of bars, beats and 1/4 notes at the insert marker’s position. You’ll see two handles on the left and right you can drag, as well as two curve adjustors: Before After Tip 5: MIDI Editor Note Preview Simply make sure Automation Mode isn’t enabled by pressing A and hover over the clip. You can see the layout of the keyboard, and how it mimics a real keyboard.įades have always been one of Live’s strong points, allowing an easy way to clean up the start and end of audio clips. Press M on your computer keyboard and suddenly, A to L on your keyboard become playable, with the same layout of keys. If you don’t use an external MIDI keyboard controller, then you still have an option if you’re wanting to play notes in.

#CYMATICS ABLETON TIPS HOW TO#

Recommended: How To Use Ableton Live (for Beginners) Tip 3: Computer MIDI Keyboard On top of that, you can hold Option + Spacebar (Mac) or Alt + Spacebar (Windows) with a portion of the arrangement selected, allowing it to play only the highlighted area, stopping at the end. If you want to continue playback from the last stopped point, simply hold Shift + Spacebar instead. But you may also have noticed that it begins from the same spot every time you toggle between Play and Stop. You might have guessed that pressing Spacebar is the shortcut for Play and Stop. Here you can set the quantization size, the amount of quantization (having less than 100% can maintain a ‘human feel’) and whether you want the start and end of notes to snap or not. If you need to get specific, press Shift + Cmd + U or Shift + Ctrl + U to bring up the settings, pictured above.

#CYMATICS ABLETON TIPS MAC#

Simply press Cmd + U on Mac or Ctrl + U on Windows to quantize your notes. Whether you’re drawing or playing in notes, sometimes you need to tidy up the timing of certain notes, so that they play ‘on the grid.

[tennessoui]

Perspective Flip: pbatmb + Cody? 👼

hell yeah!! you know i love my cody in pbatmb verse!!

(linking to the specific chapter of the first fic in the series, 3/4 of the way down)

(722 words)

Cody cocks his head to stare down at the mess of the man before him. His hair is lank and greasy, his arm thoroughly stitched up, and his clothes bearing sweat stain marks. Apparently, Obi-Wan has objections to anyone else touching his pretty bird, even just to wash it.

He’s, he supposes, looking at Anakin Skywalker. In the flesh.

The thing is, he must have seen him before. He was out late, the night that Obi-Wan and Anakin met. But he wasn’t out that late. If Obi-Wan is to be trusted—and Cody is one of the few—one of the two—people who can spot his lies from miles away—then Anakin snuck out of Obi-Wan’s bedroom in the early morning. Cody must have seen him at some point. He nurses filter coffee in the early hours of the morning at that same bartop as he tries to remember why he loves his brother—both brothers—so as to allow them to make such a mockery of his time.

So Skywalker must have passed by him. And Cody must have noticed the movement—there is no world where Cody does not notice the movement of someone in his vicinity, not with his scars—but he must have written him off as some wasted bar bird who got taken in and fucked or passed out in one of the toilet stalls. The club isn’t known for that, but it—and Obi-Wan—don’t exactly have the classiest of reputations.

How disconcerting to realize that this bandaged and sickly man is also Vader? Given the correct motivation or mindset, this…pretty bird could be a viable threat?

Is a viable threat, given how absolutely useless Obi-Wan has been these past couple of weeks. An absolute danger to Cody’s family, Cody’s job. Cody’s mob.

Obi-Wan’s mob. Whatever.

As if summoned by his thoughts, the man in the bed blinks awake. Watching him wake is an interesting procedure. He tenses first and then goes ramrod straight, as if he doesn’t immediately recognize the feeling of the sheets and mattress beneath him and is primed to take any new stimulus as a threat.

Cody understands. Bless Obi-Wan’s heart and spirit for trying. But Cody still understands.

And the threat he’s looking at is the man in front of him. The gamechanger of a boy who has had his brother so in fits and sorts all day that Cody has hardly any idea what to say to him.

Once, when they’d been young, there was a girl. Obi-Wan had been eleven, maybe twelve. She’d shared the same playground as them, though they’d all agreed that she was much too pretty for the dirtiness of the decades old rusted playground set. Obi-Wan had been sad for weeks when his duchess left.

Even that experience is barely a candle to the bonfire that has been Obi-Wan’s pining in the last week and a half, since losing Skywalker and then finding him again only to be rejected from his bed.

Cody’s never seen him like this, duchess aside. Duchess shadows on a cave wall in comparison to the sun.

The sun—the pretty bird—Anakin Skywalker sits up on his elbows and stares consideringly at Cody.

And—and every single warning—both to Skywalker to stay away and about Obi-Wan to make him stay away dies on his throat.

His brother….

His brother wants this man.

How can Cody, after everything they’ve been through and done for each other and promised each other, do anything but try his hardest to deliver this man to him?

“He’s a good man,” he hears himself tell Skywalker.

The worst part is that really, despite it all, he means it. Obi-Wan is a good man. To those he loves. To those he covets. To those who are his.

And somehow, between cleaning up a murder scene and sipping filter coffee from a shot glass, Anakin Skywalker seems to have made it into every single one of those categories.

And he’ll be damned if Obi-Wan loses him because of Cody.

If only because the whining alone will be absolutely insufferable.

He can only hope that the flame between his brother and his pretty bird burns out quickly. Or, failing that: Skywalker proves to have a level head on his shoulders and be quite tolerable and reasonable in all things.

After all, opposites attract. Cody remembers that from high school chemistry lessons.

[hella1975]

wait cause what are your fav mitski songs

omg it's crytime hours besties let's go

(ranked in order of how much they obliterate me from least to most) (and by obliterate i just mean how much they mean to me, it doesn't necessarily have to be sad) (even though this is mitski we're talking about)

me and my husband - i tend to listen to this when i'm doing my make up???? and idk why??? and it's pretty ironic bc the song is literally about being a housewife and im just there doing my silley little highlighter??? but yeah mitski isn't really 'getting ready for the day' vibes but this one's quite upbeat i really like the backing instrumentals

drunk walk home - fucking hell i've never listened to something that so accurately describes that dejection at the end of a night out. like not all nights out obviously, but lately bc i'm leaving my hometown (derogatory) in a matter of weeks and it's all suddenly so plausible that im finally getting out of here, i've found every time i go out with my friends to the bars, i'll have a big moment where i'm just so tired of this place and so angry at it and it's such a strange mix of exhaustion and rage and this song Gets That

townie - opposite of drunk walk home in that i think this captures the 'on your way into a night out/out on a night out' vibes. it's just such a good song for youth i think? like gives me green light by lorde vibes, because it's got that longing and got that need for more and excitement

why didn't you stop me - is an objectively good song but then i completely projected satosugu onto it until i can't think of anything else and now it just one punch annihilates me whenever it comes on

pink in the night - wow i can't believe mitski invented romance

two slow dancers - wow i can't believe mitski invented heartbreak

washing machine heart - i lose my absolute MIND to this song i go completely feral. i made my friend play it in the car once and everyone was like 'what the fuck this is... not the vibe' they were right of course but it still hurt

a pearl - a song that i used to love just because it's a brilliant song and then thought of azula one day when 'i fell in love with a war and no one told me it ended' hit and now i feel actual heart palpitations if i think too hard on that

nobody - the classic!!!! the gamechanger!!! the cultural reset!!! she went so fucking hard with this. from the very first line she popped off and she didn't stop from that moment on

last words of a shooting star - something about striving for perfection and even in your last moments thinking only of how you were viewed. something about 'i always wanted to die clean and pretty'. if you play this around me i WILL suckerpunch you in the throat

i bet on losing dogs - literally what fucking A-class crack did she put in this. i just want to know. i have a video in my snapchat memories of me during exam season with no make-up and a massive fuck off hoodie and the transcript of it is: 'i've made the executive decision that if anyone tries to call me baby it'll make me SAD. thank you mitski thank you for that one' and it's just super passive aggressive and i think that summarises what this song does to me

class of 2013 - so much to unpack here. every lyric is its own individual personally engraved bullet and i just get shredded to pieces every time. audible equivalent of me jumping into a blender or like, floating in a pool. no inbetween. the mummy issues. the fear of getting older. the desire to give up. 'leave what im chasing for the other girls to pursue' 'mom, am i still young?' literally why the fuck did she write this 😐😐😐

[crystalelemental]

It is with a heavy heart I must announce...I’ve started playing like three runs of Hades a day again.

I got it in my head that I wanted to try unlocking the additional story stuff for the gods and the various NPCs, and...I can’t say I’ve made a ton of progress.  Some, sure, but not as much as I was hoping.  It’s kinda drawn out.  The only people I can give Ambrosia to so far are Dusa, Ares (why?), and Poseidon.  This despite my constant efforts to get Artemis to be friends with me.  One day...

So most of this has focused on the runs themselves, and oh god, am I...really not very good at this game.  Like, I’m okay enough to get through it consistently on normal parameters, but adding Heat is a nightmare.

The easiest ones to take were the reduction in healing effects, and the extra hit you have to deal to enemies before their main HP bar appears.  These were pretty simple conditions...until I started having to pile on up to 5-6 Heat.  Then too much is being asked, because you have a bunch of other dangerous conditions in addition to limited healing, and if I don’t find my bro Dionysus, I can’t fix the healing issue.  Eventually, I came to a realization.  I can either keep bringing in a ton of detrimental effects that are a nuisance to get through, or I can put on the +20 move and attack speed of enemies condition and try to acclimate to the game playing faster, securing an easy +3 heat condition.

I cannot acclimate to this game playing faster.

I just attempted a run with the fists, with nothing but this condition.  I didn’t get fantastic damage dealing skills, but I got some okay ones, combined with HP stacking skills that let me hit over 400.  I lost all four lives on Hades’ fight.  Because he’s just too fast for me to deal with, when using these shitty fist weapons at close range, with limited boons.  To a degree, boons supplement and are what gets me through or not, but realistically my skill level just can’t handle that movement speed.  I need range.  I need range so bad.

On the plus side of things, I’ve gotten used to the bow.  Aspect of Chiron, I think, is the one with the homing shots on Special?  I adore that.  I put a lot into that particular skill, and it’s been fantastic.  If I can get a boon that stacks effects with Special, like stacks of Hangover or Chill with Burst, it’s ridiculous.  I love it.

On the negative side, apparently my best is still the gun.  This in spite of how much I fucking hate using the gun.  My big issue is that, unless you get one of a handful of weapon upgrades for it, the Gun winds up being complete trash.  The big one is Rocket Launcher.  If I can just make my special less stupid, I feel better.  But the other is the spread bomb.  That one isn’t like...as useful, but it is really funny.  The only other one that I’ve liked is one that gives +6 bullets and some extra attack damage.  But really, the problem with the gun is just that it’s annoying, fairly RNG dependent, and also the only one I’ve beaten 6 Heat with.  I think the next best is 4, and I have failed to do +3 with the fists.  I don’t really know how to feel about this.

I’ve also realized a sort of priority order for things.  Top of the list is weapon upgrades.  I feel like those are actually gamechangers in how good they can be.  Especially for the Gun and Bow.  Artemis’ Aid remains my #1 boon pick, while I’ve grown pretty fond of aiming for Dionysus, Ares, and in some cases, Zeus.  Though Zeus is very specific to piling on Jolted damage as well.  I’ve also taken to Chaos Gates early in the run.  Late in the run, the HP cost is a bit high, and I do not want to have detrimental effects in Elysium, but in early zones?  The benefits can be really nice.

Still plugging away at it.  I imagine one day I’ll even finish a sidequest!  But for now, I’m still just grinding away, trying to get everyone capped out on Nectar, at least.

[ravnicaforgoblins]

Ravnica for Goblins

Exciting Planeswalker Visitors

(Caution: Before we begin, this post is going to be much more opinion-based than previous ones. These are my own homebrew ideas, use them as/if you wish, discard/dismiss them if you prefer.)

Planeswalkers are an integral part of MTG Lore, as well as several of its most iconic characters. Put simply, a Planeswalker is an individual with an inherent gift for traveling between planes, or worlds. The gift does not appear at birth, but is usually triggered by some manner of incredibly emotional (usually traumatizing) event. In addition, each Planeswalker displays a unique aptitude for a particular style of magic; be it plant growth, transformation, becoming transparent, illusions, invulnerability, summoning beasts, structural analysis, setting things on fire, etc. Whatever their specific brand of magic is, it’s usually on a higher level than an ordinary person can hope to achieve.

Planeswalkers, as a general rule, are wanderers by nature. They may have a home plane, or even an adopted home plane, but being able to traverse the multiverse leads many towards lives of constant adventuring/shenanigans. Add in the fact that Planeswalkers cannot bring anyone else with them on these travels (except in very rare cases), and you end up with a special breed of super-powerful magical loner. They show up, make a name for themselves with their big magic, and depart when they feel like it. Did you say, “Instant Adventure”?

Ravnica has a few native Planeswalkers among its citizens; Ral Zarek, Vraska, and Domri Rade. In addition, it has several Planeswalkers who have at some point or another (depending on your timeline) devoted enough time & energy to be effectively considered citizens; Azor, Tezzeret, Kaya, Dack Fayden, Dovin Baan, Gideon Jura, and Jace Beleren. Some of these are currently dead, missing, or magically barred from ever returning. At one point, Ravnica had more Planeswalkers on it at one time than any plane in the multiverse has ever or will ever see. If you are going the War of the Spark direction, good luck. You'll need it and so will your players. For everyone else, which Planeswalkers you choose to include in your campaign (if any), should be based on who will work the best for the story you’re trying to tell. A recommendation; if you find their lore too distracting and complicated, stick to the main beats. A lot of these figures can be boiled down to simple ideas, and you don’t want to bore your party with the entire novel of these usually dramatic/tragic lives. Trust me, the base concepts are enough.

With that in mind, here are four Planeswalkers that I, a random person on the internet, believe would work great for a Ravnica campaign. My choices are not based on who has canonically already spent time in Ravnica, or who would be the most powerful/dangerous to suddenly appear in the city. Several Planeswalkers have their own prior commitments on other planes that are pretty central to their character, and BAMFing them to Ravnica for a quick Bad Guy to take down wouldn’t do them justice. These four characters would slide into various aspects of Ravnica beautifully. These four would be the most exciting visitors to Ravnica.

Ashiok, Dream Render

I don’t think any MTG character could be as good a fit for a Ravnican Guild as Ashiok is for House Dimir. Ashiok is almost literally a walking shadow of secrets and intrigue. Their origins, their age, their motives, their face; hell, their gender is a secret yet unrevealed. Ashiok’s power is creating living beings born of the greatest fears stolen from people’s nightmares. Literally.

It’s like if the Dimir stopped half-assing the art of stealing thoughts and turned it into a weapon of mass destruction. Because even the mightiest of Ravnicans are afraid of things. Ask Niv-Mizzet about the Nephilim sometime, see how quickly he changes the subject. What’s better, for a Guild that prides itself on always having the up & up on everyone, Ashiok is inscrutable. They have no past that can be divined, no secrets that can be stolen, no previous encounters to prepare any for their arrival. Neither Lazav nor Etrata can claim such anonymity, despite their best efforts. Ashiok is a true enigma and a dangerous new weapon for House Dimir.

Ashiok also comes with the ability to create minions and NPCs from out of any PC’s worst nightmares, making encounters a great combination of roleplaying & combat. Fighting them is specifically facing one’s deepest & darkest fears made real. Can you say, “character development”?

Ashiok’s arrival could spread this new magical art to other Dimir Agents for a longer campaign, but it might be best to confine it to Ashiok in order to allow for a cleaner victory. Ashiok is not a fighter, cornering them into a direct confrontation should be enough to make the Nightmare Sculptor run for the hills. The mind is powerful, but also very squishy.

Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded

You know how the Cult of Rakdos are technically Chaotic Evil but generally just a bunch of artsy hedonistic nuisances? Tibalt is to them what a gallon of gasoline would be to a lit stove. Good for fire, bad for everything else. Tibalt is an empath specializing in Pain Magic. Quite literally, he loves hurting people for fun. Drawn to pain like a magnet; physical, emotional, spiritual, psychological, etc, he is sadism personified.

His brief time on Ravnica during War of the Spark was enough to make a strong impression on the Rakdos.

“I like this one’s energy.”

This is because they do not realize how bad Tibalt would be for the Cult. There is a fundamental difference between the Chaotic Evil the Cult practices and the Chaotic Evil Tibalt delights in. The Rakdos have survived 10,000 years by taking in the freaks, the rejects, and the crazies, and giving them a place where they can live out their most depraved hedonistic fantasies. They are the voice of the outsiders bringing all figures of power & authority down a peg. They always punch up, never down. Tibalt is a young man with no home, no friends, no job, and no interests or hobbies beyond inflicting pain in as many people as possible. Tibalt punches everyone. The most important distinction between the two is that the Cult of Rakdos is a culture, a way of life for people to embrace; it might be crazy, but it welcomes & accepts people no matter how insane the world says they are. Tibalt does not care about anyone but himself. Following his example would see the city turned into the largest, bloodiest, and most destructive riot in its history; with Tibalt inciting and sicking every monstrosity he can find onto the city at once. He will burn the Rakdos candle at both ends and leave them to suffer the consequences of his fun. The aftermath being the city in ruins, the Cult wiped from the face of existence, and him moving on to his next project. In short, Tibalt will hurt the Cult of Rakdos as much, if not more, than the rest of Ravnica. Because that’s how he gets his kicks.

The one thing standing in his way will be Rakdos himself. As the single largest diva on the entire plane, Rakdos does not tolerate anyone who tries to steal his spotlight. As a 10,000+ year-old Demon Lord, Rakdos is in a league of his own, and Tibalt is just a hotshit little pain mage with a few tricks. It’s not a fight, it’s either an exit or a curtain call for the Planeswalker. If Rakdos is around, Tibalt’s spree will be very short-lived. If, however, Rakdos is doing his usual thing of hibernating for weeks, months, or years at a time, that’s a different story. Tibalt is good for if your campaign wants to bypass politics & intrigue and go straight to killing Cultists & Demons. He’s bad for anyone he comes in contact with.

Garruk Wildspeaker

In case I haven’t made my contempt for Domri Rade clear, I hold Domri Rade in utter contempt. As a character, as a Planeswalker, and most of all as a Gruul, he’s a failure. Scrawny, weak, gullible, and stupid. My chief grievance with Domri is that he fell short in all the areas the Gruul Clans idolize. He couldn’t survive in the wilderness on his own without his Planeswalker abilities, he couldn’t fight for himself except against weaker opponents or with herds of animals as backup, and he acted on orders from someone else who wasn’t Gruul. For a Guild built on independence and survival of the fittest, he failed both completely.

Garruk is the real deal. Gigantic, strong, savage, and cunning. Here is a man who, on a fundamental level, has embraced animal savagery as a way of life. He lives like a predator on the hunt, an alpha of any pack, and a fierce threat to all who intrude upon his territory. On a plane like Ravnica, where civilization has encroached on the untamed wilds almost completely, Garruk would be a gamechanger. Not only could he feasibly fight Borborygmos for leadership of the Gruul, he could win, and he could unite the Gruul under his howl of reclaiming the wilds from so-called “civilization”. Garruk would bring animal strength to the Gruul in ways they’ve only begun to tap into, and he’d do it in their language. Because Garruk understands the Gruul, and they understand him. They have so much in common with each other that it’s hard to think of any Planeswalker who could be welcomed so readily into a Guild. They would become so much more than rock-smashers and anarchists, they would become Ravnica’s reminder that nature will survive when all traces of society have crumbled away.

As if taking on the city itself wasn’t big enough already, Garruk has also taken to hunting other Planeswalkers, and can actually track them across the Multiverse. Meaning a few high-ranking members of Guilds and even the Living Guildpact have to take his threat seriously. He’s got a particular grudge against necromancers, dislikes talking, and has a special gift with animals of all varieties. All of which provides plenty of ideas to build from. He’s an 8ft tall Human Druid/Barbarian who willingly chooses animal savagery over intellectual reasoning, can there be anyone more perfect for the Gruul?

Did I say Ashiok was the most perfect fit for an MTG character in a Ravnican Guild? Yeah, scratch that. Garruk is.

Sarkhan Vol

Most Planeswalkers have a theme to their abilities. For some, that theme extends to their personalities as well. And then there are Planeswalkers who can be adequately summed up in a single word. For Sarkhan, that word would be “dragons”. Sarkhan sees dragons as nature’s purest & most destructive form, and carries a fascination with them that is perfectly healthy for anything with wings and scales that breathes fire, but generally less healthy for everything & everyone else.

One of the things that makes Ravnica unique is the distinct lack of dragons (emphasis on the plural). Ravnica has a dragon, Niv-Mizzet the Firemind, who made the executive decision thousands of years ago that he alone was sufficient to represent his entire species. Ravnican dragons are considered more intelligent than dragons on other planes, Niv himself being a prime example of this. Around the original signing of the Guildpact, Ravnica’s Godlike dragons were hunted to extinction, with Niv leading the hunt against his own kind. They were not entirely successful in this endeavor, but what few dragons do remain in the present day survive by staying as far off Niv’s radar as possible. Some dragons live by carrying out Niv’s will under constant supervision, or by hunting in the untamed wilds outside the city, or as sideshow attractions for the Rakdos (usually with their wings cut off to prevent escape). They are effectively stripped of anything that would identify them as “dragons” for the sake of their own existence. Since dragons are such a notoriously touchy subject for the Firemind, few have the nerve or fire immunity necessary to speak out against it.

Sarkhan would be horrified. If he thought the extinction of dragons on his home plane of Tarkir was bad, seeing them living like this would infuriate him beyond words. What would Sarkhan do once the initial shock of seeing his spirit animal (in more ways than one) reduced to pitiful scraps of life as lab rats, scared prey, and freak shows wears off? Let’s make it a game! Do you think Sarkhan will:

A. Cry.

B. Throw up.

C. Embrace this as a plane’s reality that he has no right to get involved with.

D. Scream.

E. Set something on fire.

F. Set everything on fire.

G. Bring back the dragons.

H. Burn the city to the ground with dragons.

I. Kill Niv-Mizzet.

J. All the above except “C”.

If you selected Answer “J”, then congratulations! You’ve just won a free trip to a BURNING METROPOLIS! Sarkhan will absolutely make it his life’s goal to bring dragons back to Ravnica and destroy the whole wretched city down to the last brick. How he would do it is up to you, but it’s a solid bet that even if every other Guild treats him like an apocalyptic madman, the Gruul might side with him over some shared beliefs in smashing the city apart with ferocious animal savagery. They tend to lean towards such ideas with uncharacteristic willful compliance. Ravnican dragons are primarily red, with the most prominent breed still remaining being the Utvara Hellkites beyond the city limits.

Oh, and Sarkhan can turn into a dragon, too. Have fun with that.

[fancykraken]

Reddie Hitman AU where Richie and Eddie had a fling years ago and moved on with their lives despite never being able to quite get each other out of their heads. Both believed they had found the one only to be too dumb to realize it at the time when they were together.

Years later they are both highly respected hitmen who are contracted by rival organizations to take care of the darker side of business affairs. Richie is the P.W. Group’s top man like Eddie is for Derry Enterprises. They’re a bit too good at their jobs, getting in and taking out their target(s) as quickly and silently as possible. Never once crossing paths face to face, they only know of each other through the criminal underground word of mouth. The stories of Trashmouth taking out a whole stash house singlehandedly or Eds putting a bullet in the head of a notorious drug cartel boss are whispered about often. Now they’re really starting to put an annoying dent into their rival contractors business affairs. It’s no surprise that they soon receive a contract to take the other out of the game permanently.

The inevitable happens where they finally meet face to face, guns pointed at each other’s head, adrenaline pumping, but can’t pull the trigger because this is the one they haven’t been able to get out of their head for so long. And now here they are hired to kill each other because they’re both too damn good at what they do. 

Neither can pull the trigger. Some force of the universe or god or just the sheer power looking into each other’s hardened eyes again for the first time in so long keeps them from taking the first shot. So they fake it. They convince their employers that they succeeded in killing the other. They know the ruse won’t last forever, but it would have lasted longer if they had actually stayed apart. The sheer need they now have for each other after all this time is a gamechanger and makes them sloppy even if they don’t think it does. They meet up in secret, each time telling each other it’s the last time, but it never is. 

They’re found out and shit really hit the fan. Now they have two serious contenders from the hitmen biz after them, Stan the Man and Stuttering Bill. They plan to run, get the fuck outta Dodge and leave their bloody pasts behind. Fuck these guys, they’re done doing their dirty work. So they run and they plan. The only way for them to truly be free of this shitstorm is if they end it at the source, but how?

Stan the Man and Stuttering Bill eventually catch up with them, shots are fired, insults are thrown (mostly from Richie), blood is spilt, but all make it out with their lives. Eddie and Richie offer a sweeter deal to Stan and Bill and after a lot of convincing and counter deals, they accept.

Richie and Eddie slip up and are both brought in to their respective former contractors. More blood is spilt, but nothing fatal, at least for Richie and Eddie. However, it did get pretty dicey before the FBI and Interpol came in to break up each party. The P.W. Group and Derry Enterprises are now brought down to their knees in exchange for Richie and Eddie’s immunity for blowing the whistle on all the dirty operations. 

They slip away during the whole takedown. They may have immunity but shit is still too hot, the feds still too interested, and they still have big targets on their backs regardless if the heads of the companies are now behind bars. They head to an undisclosed location where they meet up with Stan and Bill and work out the details on how to split the nearly $50 million that they were able to divert into offshore bank accounts right before the takedown happened. Richie and Eddie meet the tech wizard, who goes by Hanlon, that helped Stan and Bill set up the untraceable money transfer (in exchange for a few million of course).

Now Eddie and Richie have the money to truly disappear, but first, a stop to a husband and wife duo referred to as Hanscom and Marsh who are particularly gifted at helping those who need to disappear and for good.

Finally free to lead new lives, Richie and Eddie make a break for it and never look back.

[garina]

Expanded my gaming horizons a tiny amount

So I won a copy of The Sinking City in a Twitter giveaway. (thank you Gamechangers Giveaway!) Not really being a fan of Lovecraftian stuff, I was a little apprehensive, but I really like detective games (and FREE GAME) so I gave it a shot. I was pleasantly surprised. Potential spoilers under the cut...

When I say I’m not a fan of Lovecraftian stuff, it’s mostly because I’ve never really engaged with it. Horror isn’t my thing, and while I’ll happily read/watch/play stuff with horror elements, I don’t like it as the focus. As far as reading the original stories goes, I’m also aware that Lovecraft himself was racist and bigoted, which has also put me off.

That being said, The Sinking City manages to portray a lot of themes about racism, insular communities, distrust of change etc. while making it perfectly clear that most of what you find in the game is abhorrent, and it can’t be entirely (or even mostly in my opinion) attributed to external eldritch influence. As far as the eldritch abominations go, I found some a little unsettling, but I was more concerned with not getting killed. The little one that screamed a lot and made the screen distort was probably the most unnerving.

Gameplay wise, I enjoyed the detective aspects a lot. Investigating crime scenes and using various archives to locate further information is handled well, and the Mind’s Eye and Retrocognition mechanics give an interesting twist. It’s perhaps a good thing you never have to witness in court - I’m not sure how admissible ‘I stared into the past and saw what happened’ and ‘I followed weird shadows to the next clue I needed’ would be. Once I got the hang of it (and had access to better weapons!) the combat became relatively enjoyable - bearing in mind that I’m not good at shooters at all. I never ran out of ammo, although I had a few close shaves. Not being able to buy anything and relying on scavenging helps keep the tension high, and my rpg habit of taking anything that isn’t nailed down stood me in good stead. Having to keep an eye on my sanity as well as health was interesting, although it’s pretty obvious when creepy shadow things start attacking that you need the antipsychotics!

I guess the one thing I was disappointed about was the ending. There are three possible endings, and none felt satisfying to me. Spoiler time! You can either give in and unlock the gates and unleash evil tentacly doom, kill yourself to stop it happening (but the cycle will start again in a century and the town is still isolated and stuck), or try and break the cycle by using the seal to free the town and running (but the main antagonist shows up in a Boston bar and implies that he’s flooding Boston, which I guess means you freed him as well as Oakmount?). I’m guessing that no good ending is probably to do with the Lovecrafty stuff, but I would have preferred something with more resolution - something where the actions I’d taken previously seemed to matter and contribute to the final decision. I like endings with a bit of hope (this goes for any media).

TLDR: I enjoyed The Sinking City, but was disappointed with the ending. As I think this was as much to do with the genre as the writing, I’m not too upset about it. Will definitely check out their Sherlock Holmes games at some point.

[bloodybells1]

Leeches, Part 1

“Just the other day, I sat at a bus stop, over on, I don’t know, somewhere in the eighties on the east side. I sat back and the sun shined on my face, and I think I just sat there for going on half an hour. I let about five buses pass me by, I reckon. The drivers kept asking through the doors, but I just shook my head and waved them on.”

Joe laughed at himself, very much the wizened old timer, laughing at his time-honored follies, a cough feigning to latch on to the tail end of one of his chuckles. He sat on a folding chair and never crossed his legs during his speech. He looked back at us once in a while, a wide grin framing the face of a man who’d found God in his dotage.

Behind him stood three sturdy chairs on a low, small landing, the middle one much larger, obviously for a deacon, or some other minister. To his left was a banner affixed to the chapel’s wall, to his right the darkened interior of Rutgers Presbyterian Church’s main hall, only the closest pew mingling with our reflections on the glass, while the rest of the chamber disappeared into the unlit black, pews, apse, arches, all fading away like undulating cephalopods motioning into the bottomless expanse of the deep ocean.

We were thirty men of various ages and, in various angles, situated on recently unfolded chairs, our ears plastered to Joe’s syllables. A semicircle of a row flanked Joe on each side, while rows of five staggered farther away in front of him. We waited for him to finish his speech.

My friend Kenyon, a man given to reflexive smiles, body art and jangling silver jewelry, raised his hand on the tail end of the applause. Kenyon was, like myself but in a completely different way, the aesthetic anomaly in this male lineup of denim, half-zip fleece pullovers, and unbuttoned checks. As for me, I was undergoing an awkward transition from the bespoke slim-fitting hipster fare of my East Village salad days to the generic knits I ended up cottoning to, staid, American gear with a fashion forward edge, the kind of corporate mimicry of downtown New York style evident in late aughts Express storefronts, the cheap grey cardigan with thin, plastic buttons and a gaudy, shiny placket to name one example, the sort of trickled-down haute couture which American Apparel had turned into a belated, and thankfully short-lived, empire of disposable cotton.

Kenyon, on the other hand, was a world onto himself. He was irreducible, and managed to turn all of that corporatizing on its head. Steeped in glam rock, a downtown tradition dating back to Max’s Kansas City, he merged the ripped tank tops and the second skin of leather trousers with punk, post-90s hip hop, and even industrial. By the time Kenyon was done, he was fully dressed, even though he’d barely put anything on: five necklaces formed an extra shirt over that tank top, while seven sterling-coated rings formed makeshift cuffs past the “sleeves” of tattoos on his arms. Sometimes he wore a black grosgrain cap with a chrome plate sewed onto the front that read “BITCH”. No one dressed like Kenyon, and if the reader regards my valuation as improbable, I can but insist that no one pulled off his sartorial derring-do with even half of his aplomb.

In all honesty, I didn’t want to like Kenyon, and I chalk that up to sibling rivalry. Though he did pull it off, his style was nonetheless loud. At the time, I needed quiet. That’s why I was there listening to Joe with my conveyer belt cardigan. Of course I had no idea I was dragging my old style like a cadaver in search of some missing morgue. But I was trying to fit in, trying to make a break with the past. I needed those dudes with their conservative shtick, sitting cross-legged checking blackberries once in a while, probably texting loved ones about soccer practice and babysitter hours. Joe was the granddaddy and these guys were my dads.

Once Joe was done everybody else started chiming in. People talked one at a time, and each person picked the next person to talk. Kenyon’s arm was erect, and he was picked early. Joe was sheepish about feedback, more out of feeling gratified to have shared his story with us than with insecurity about revealing himself, so he darted his eyes from the floor to anyone who wasn’t talking. Kenyon, like all who were picked, was speaking to the room, even though he directly addressed Joe, who indulged the time it took to place a couple bucks into the donation hat making the rounds. Silver tinkled on silver as Kenyon lowered his arm.

He did his best: “Joe, that story about the bus stop, man, wow, that’s amazing. I wish that was me. I’m just not there yet. I’m always busy, running around chasing my fantasies, maybe a woman, projects, getting angry about my job. It’s like I’m addicted and I can’t find peace. So I envy you, and all that serenity you shared with us. Thank you.”

Unlike their hardier, more “masculine” AA counterparts, Al-Anon meetings have no liquidation agenda. They’re not out to eradicate your issue. Nobody will say, as they do in AA, “Hey buddy, you’ve been fucking up, so it’s time to get your ass in gear and do some service for a change”. It’s more like “Sit back and relax, you’ve been working too hard” and “Don’t just do something, sit there.”

AA-ers criticize the warm embrace as too accommodating, but for my money’s worth, I always got more out of the Kumbaya fireside chat in Al-Anon meetings, than the fluorescently-lit, “bad cop” demeanor of your typical AA church basement. Booze was a problem, of course, but only during a relatively short span of debauching as an erstwhile rockstar. It was a symptom of “extreme lifestyling”, so, once I left the music industry and started frequenting libraries instead of dive bars, I had little difficulty moderating my intake. Thankfully, there were no winged bottles of Smirnoff in my dreams, and to this day, I say a prayer of gratitude with every crisp draught of New World red during mealtime.

What I lacked was not self-control, but self-esteem. Al-Anon, with its boundaries, its “healing centers”, its gingerbread cookies, its amateur yogis meditating, palms up, while people like Joe regaled you with yarns about how they lived “one day at a time”, boosted the lagging go-getter within and checked the autocratic superego’s overreach. Unlike our bulldog AA counterparts, choking and chafing on the leash, we were more like tiny, caged Papillons needing assertiveness training. Al-Anon’s ethos of boundary-setting was the gamechanger for the steamrolled contingent.

I needed a jolt in the arm to help me take charge of the new me. Once the keg dried on my club kid/rocker past, so did all of its faulty affirmations – “I’m a killer” – “I’m the man” – “I’m the life of the party”. What had seemed like incontrovertible evidence of greatness and longevity soured into empty pomp and arrogance, showing its age faster than a fine Brie sitting out too long. If you cut the tap, you see things for what they are, hollow, teenage rhetoric, a lacquered gloss of puerile angst disguising the real pain within, the miserable cartography drawn in Crayola. I had a hard time transitioning to “adulting”.

Al-Anon was the perfect solution for a spiritual drifter like myself, someone who’d managed to duck the hypnotic allure of substance, but was tethered to the overhead luggage of an overwrought past, a hypertrophied lore inflated by the helium-empty of media success and unrestrained carousing. The skill of setting boundaries, the primary focus of the work in that fellowship, was my first time making a conscious, adult demarcation of self. It was a kind of handwritten accounting, using a brand-spanking new calligraphy pen when in the past I only had a crayon.

Not only had I been bluffing my way through every opportunity and relationship all my life, but I’d shirked male bonding as well. The old man had left enough scar tissue to lead me to believe, wrongly, that nothing presented a greater threat to my safety than another swinging dick in the room. Al-Anon, being majority female in its constituency, attracted me for this very reason. But this uptown meeting offered me a new twist: the gentle lilt of Al-Anon sloganeering with the familiar heft of masculine energy. When I found that meeting, I discovered the verdant hidden pastures of otherwise craggy masculine caverns, undergoing the Robert Bly encounter with male, yet enlightened, initiation.

“I get so much wisdom from those guys,” I told Kenyon on the downtown 1, our trip back to the Village from the Upper West Side enlivened by the meeting. Post-meeting positive spin comes like hand delivered mail, the delay forgiven and forgotten at the instant the hand touches the parcel, a sudden flash of serum in the bloodstream, a mild chemo.

“They’re like old New York,” Kenyon replied. A silver bracelet ticked on one of his eight rings as he switched arms straphanging. He rearranged his fedora and there was a moment when, with the sterling on his fingers blinking in the light as it contrasted with the soft crushed velvet of the brim, he looked like Jared Leto (Twenty Seconds to Mars Leto, not the actor). Kenyon was impossibly handsome and, after two decades of casual sex in New York, had to have known it. On top of that, his mind was so sharp, dropping an op-ed’s worth of observation in a single response, you always forgot how attractive he was. I didn’t want to like him, for survival reasons, but I couldn’t help myself.

We both got off at Sheridan Square and parted at the newsstand on Christopher and Varick. The hugs were the best part of the night, warm, not bro-y. Cool jocks first clasp hands and keep them in between, the embrace more of a back pat, with the forearms warding off fears of errant torsos touching. Not so with Kenyon. It was a full upper body affair.

He went East and I West, to a dinner date with someone I met at school. But I couldn’t get his wall-to-wall smile out of my head.

All throughout the evening, through the dinner and the subway ride back to my Upper East Side apartment, even as my head hit the pillow and I let the day’s events drift through my head like a shuffling deck, I thought of Joe’s bus stop and wondered if it was one of the ones I used, any of the M79 ones, running from where I lived on East End Avenue to Lexington where the 6 train offers the nearest underground service. That crosstown corridor gives access to one of the most pacific locations in the city. The highlight was coming out of Agata & Valentina, hauling four thick polypropylene shopping bags spilling over with istara cheese, seasonal fruits, swordfish, prime cuts, homemade pasta, and imported Brazilian nuts, and, braving the murder on my delts, walking across the street to the east bound stop on 1st and 79th,hauling two leaden weights like overfull scales pressing down on a balance. Joe probably had his atman moment directly across the street, at the westbound stop, where the sun hits more directly for longer in the day.

As I turned my head on the pillow, I thought of tomorrow, Wednesday, of waking up, walking the dog, hitting the computer to play around with electronic music, and stretching the limbs. At acting school they were really emphasizing the importance of movement (“If I see one more stiff actor in my scene study class, I’m going to be angry” was one teacher’s version).

I was reminded how, in my early twenties, I was terrified of anyone looking at my body. I didn’t know anything about anatomy, but I could feel how broad and lanky were my shoulders. I was like a wide clothes hanger. Playing the bass guitar, though I hadn’t gone out of my way to pick it up, made perfect sense, the heaviest rock instrument to offer ballast against flaying limbs. Night after night the strap creased my left shoulder, pulling me closer to the floor, the weight pressing my boots on the ground, plantar ligaments stretching out the arches. Once it was removed, I was like a hot air balloon.

So was my acting, hence the need for movement exercises, which made interesting cases concerning anatomy. At Stella Adler, I had the good fortune of having Joanne Edelmann, an experienced dancer from the Alvin Ailey school, impress upon me the importance of the pelvis. Everything was about the pelvis, acting, moving, blocking, memorizing lines, it all had to come from the pelvis, apparently. We’d lay down supine, after one of us had swiffed the last class’s sweat, grime and dead skin cells off the creaky, wooden floor, and start gyrating our pelvises, all twenty-five of us. Having suspended my pause at the bursar’s office (at some point the acting conservatory, like therapy and Al-Anon, acquired healing potential in my mind), I jumped into all this with gusto. These movement exercises, so I thought, were my ticket to getting my feet on the ground, literally. So I worked them every day for an hour.

It was early spring in 2009 and I’d been living in the Upper East Side for close to a year, moving here to escape the East Village’s countercultural orthodoxy.

The East Village is great when you’re an upstart, when your friend owns a vintage boutique and sitting there for hours talking about nothing could feel like a quiet revolution. There was something conspiratorial about scrounging for change, wearing the same pair of trousers, and bumping into the same vagrant hipsters every night. Bar hopping became a kind of Where’s Waldo stretched over the span of a week, like each party was a pop-up shop taking over that bar or club. It would have been unthinkable to go on another night, after the pop-up shop had moved. Each one of us could feel like an unshowered Che looking at Fidel clipping a Cohiba across the fold-out table, an overhanging burning bulb backlighting the floating dust and cumulus clouds of tobacco smoke.

But by this time, I’d already “made it”. My cover was blown. Interpol’s success had fattened my wallet even as it’d thwarted my agitprop designs. Trips to the grocer could involve catcalls and held stares. Benjamin’s wisdom seemed apt: “Behind every fascist regime, lies a failed revolution”. In my case, the project of seeing how far flipping the bird could get me (very far, apparently) had yielded such pithy spiritual results it was time to call it a day and find a place to do my laundry where I wouldn’t have to sign autographs.

Growing up in Queens, I had no idea what the hell was the East Village. But I knew the Upper East Side, mostly through The Jeffersons (my mother did have a wealthy friend and, once, while we visited when I was eleven, I feigned adult sass by declaiming “This place is rich!” during the elevator trip up the Central Park adjoining high rise). The sight of rows of stacked iron-grated balconies on grey-brick facades, all set to each other like a long ship container yard disappearing into the horizon of 2nd Avenue, where every taxi cab, street light and butcher shop becomes a tiny dot twenty blocks north of 79th Street, was always set to a soulful “We finally have a piece of the pie”.

Later, after initiation with the caramelized crust of 80s pop-culture, the Upper East Side came to mean Woody Allen and Andy Warhol. The high rises, in my estimation, offered sanctuary to the city’s cultural superintendents, a haven in which to pen or paint their New York City-centric odes in peace and quiet. I thought of Leonard Bernstein laboring over scores, the doorman interrupting with a call about a dry cleaning delivery.

Here, as well, were stock brokers, attorneys, traders, and other sundry bourgeois interests, the better to authenticate the wealthy artist’s pains with commerce’s badge of (dis)honor. (“There. You are one of us. Now, to quote a 90s prophet, entertain us.”) Eyes Wide Shut, with its luxury apartments and endless chambers, its New York Jewish-y professional class embodied in Sydney Pollack’s Rolex, its de riguer charcoal Brooks Brothers three quarter overcoat worn by Tom Cruise in almost every frame, laid out the terms of this fantasy of old school New York wealth for me, if also tickling my artistry with a Kafka-esque slant. Perhaps, I could revivify the failed revolution, I thought, not against the fascist regime, but from within.

It was a straight shot up 1st Avenue from Houston Street to 79th and on a random late morning Tuesday you could drive through light after light in less than fifteen minutes. I’d always hated the West Village’s European style of urban planning, the streets and lanes that curve and follow every slope of the ground, (pre-Google Maps, this meant that sometimes you ended up, Blair Witch Project-style, back to where you started). I loved the East Village’s Soviet, numerical grid, so artificial you could easily imagine the planners taking their time to map everything out. What this did was help me focus on the shops, ateliers, and salons within the fifteen block radius, without the distraction of curves and cobblestone. And the Upper East Side, at least from an urban planning perspective, was the East Village without the personality, simply adding a z axis of verticality to the latter’s x and y. With three dimensions now at my disposal, I felt I could take my Bernstein myth into Olympus itself, away from the caustic rabble of DIY punk down below.

I made enough money to afford a $4000 rent in what is called a “splinter building”; apparently only three in the city exist, a building slim enough it can only have two apartments per floor, but giving each one a three sided-view of all Manhattan, in my case, from the 23rd floor. When I first walked into it the sun was setting, casting an amber glow onto the East River. Wall to wall windows proffered a vision of Manhattan only the wealthy know – “This is Your City” (daily exposure did end up diminishing the returns of the view).

For some reason, taxis were out of the question (never mind I was splurging on rent, dinners, tuition, and music equipment expenses). After five dizzy years of flights and car services, I was only too happy to take to the MTA, the buses still lacquered in the future-glossy palette of navy and white, which I recognized from my morning commutes to St. Francis Prep High in Floral Park from my Elmhurst home. Getting on the M79 right by the river, I basically had the bus to myself, my own crosstown Lear jet, a meager, yet delightful, taste of the jet-setting I’d left behind.

[stellarbisexual]

update

having a good stretch (evenings are usually good), so i’m taking advantage of it: 

(read on for potentially triggering mental health stuff--but if you’re not triggered, please read and reply because i can use all the support i can take)

Wacky, all over the place week overall, just in terms of what my body and my brain are dishing out.  Like... ugh.  I remember the week or two after my last panic attack being bad but I’m not sure I remember it being this bad.  Then again, this one happened with me alone and in public, so more intense circumstances, for sure.  

I’ve started tracking everything: my meds (I’m on a benzo to be used “as needed” up to 2x a day), my food intake, and my feels (I literally have a column titled Feels).  I just want to get a better sense of what’s helping, when I feel the most like myself, and what I can do or not do meds-wise to help myself feel better.

When I feel potentially big anxiety coming on (I’m trying to catch panic before it starts), I’ve been taking a mini-dose of my benzo, like a quarter of a full pill, which is already a pretty low dosage. I’m super fucking sensitive to meds, anyway, so it’s all I need.  (For reference, I only needed half a pill for my full blown attack last week.)  This means, however, that my med intake hasn’t been consistent.  I’ve noticed that mornings have been consistently fucking hard, so I thought I would try taking a mini dose this morning first thing upon waking, which definitely helped--but I still had really fucking intense nausea until around 11am.  Got temporarily paranoid that it might be due to the medication, but I don’t usually experience that when I take it, so I don’t think so.  In general, I have been able to feel most myself after taking the medication, which is a sign that it’s working for me.  

I’ve gone down the not at all helpful rabbit hole of freaking myself out over forums of former benzo users warning over dependency and addiction and withdrawals and shit.  This is not fucking helpful for me and I need to stop doing it--because I really do need them this week and I can’t be second guessing that shit or feeling additionally anxious or guilty about it.  One of my best friends who has a lot of experience with the same benzo said, “Don’t question it: if you need it, take it.”  I’m still way, way under the maximum dosage for which it was prescribed to me, and I’m certainly not feeling high like some people seem to with it.  I don’t like the experience of feeling drugged, but I do like the relief it’s giving me when nothing else is. 

I’ve tried laying off of the med for smaller anxiety and doing things like my usual breathing exercises or meditation (which is surprisingly helpful), and small doses of CBD when that doesn’t help.  Ideally, I’d like to use heavier doses of CBD in place of my benzo because I know it’s milder on my system.  (But I’ve been staying at my brother’s all weekend and I’m very low on the CBD I brought with me here.)  Heading back home tomorrow.

Been cycling through mini-depressive episodes, which, for someone who doesn’t have a history of depression, is totally fucking scary.  This I remember very clearly from after my last attack, but it of course doesn’t prevent me from being paranoid that the medication is prompting it--which again, I don’t think is true based on my experience.  It’s a vicious cycle: I have panic, feel like a failure, and then get depressed, and then get anxious because I’m depressed and I don’t have a history of depression.  I've had a couple of these low episodes every day for the last three days maybe. 

One of the other scary things is that my appetite is totally fucking shot.  I have brief moments where I am suddenly actually hungry and want to eat--and I’ve been taking advantage of them, but I’ve also been forcing some food down at semi-regular meal times, even when I really don’t fucking want to.  Normally, I am someone who eats fast and a lot; I have the appetite of a much larger person, so again, this is challenging to process and deal with.  To preempt more days like this, I bought some meal replacement protein smoothies and Clif bars, just so I can get some easy fucking nutrition into my system when I really don’t feel like it.  Drinking is way, way easier than eating, so that’s the best course of action.  

I’m trying out two other new therapists - one through teletherapy who I already met with once and who specializes in trauma, anxiety, and depression, and another who is local and more hippie dippie - and I made the very sad, hard decision to stop seeing my regular therapist of many years because she’s way too expensive for me right now and I need to be talking to someone a couple of times a week right now. 

The bright side to all of this is that I had been contemplating whether or not to tell my parents about this relapse because, well, they are who they are, and I didn’t think it would be helpful for them to know because it would just freak them out and I wouldn’t reap any emotional support benefits because they’re incapable--or so I thought.  I ended up calling my dad today to tell him.  He’s in FL away from my mom right now.  And it was really fucking hard, but it ended up being a gamechanger, breakthrough conversation.  He basically offered a kind, patient ear, and said that he would do whatever I asked.  It was the kind of parental support I’ve never received--ever--and never expected to but have always wanted more than anything deep down.  He’s not without his shortcomings, but what he said meant the entire fucking world to me.  I cried a lot during and after our conversation and effectively wore myself the fuck out this afternoon.  But: really big fucking deal.  And considering what I’m going through, I’m definitely going to take him up on that.  I’m thinking of having him do stuff for me that I just find too overwhelming right now, stuff he can do from afar.  Though he did offer to come up and be with me, which was overwhelming, in a good way.  He also said that if there’s ever anything I want to share with him that I don’t want him to tell my mom, that he would honor that... which was fascinating and comforting and also a huge fucking deal.  Just... a lot to fucking process.  

Speaking of crying, I’ve been crying A SHIT TON, friends.  I actually love crying and find it super therapeutic, so this actually isn’t alarming for me the way it might be for someone else.  I’m just letting myself feel and process the sadness of this year and what’s happening and stay curious about what’s coming up for me.  For me, it’s a good sign that I’m crying.  I’d be more worried if I weren’t. 

My askbox and inbox are open for any support, words of wisdom, advice--literally anything.  Right now, I could use more tools for getting through my fucking day, especially since tomorrow is Monday and I got shit to do.  I’ve already told my one client that I’m adjusting medication and that I haven’t been feeling great, so at least she has a head’s up on that.  Running errands and being a person is going to be more challenging for a little while--but again, nothing I haven’t been through already (hello, this past winter), and now at least I have the benefit of medication to support me--and CBD if I have to avoid it.  I have experience on my side.  

This shit is brutal.  But I’m so grateful to have support and medication and to have at least felt fully like myself for solid stretches every day since the attack happened.  I cling to those moments and see them as hope that I’ll pull through soon. 

[isaacboloten-blog]

How Love For a Sport Can Build a Brand

I began my social media journey early. Probably too early. It was 2009 when I first opened my Twitter account, at the tender age of 10. The content I produced for the first few years was ugly. It was essentially incoherent rambling aimed at no one in particular. There was one constant, however: baseball. It’s the sport I’ve lived and breathed for as long as I can remember. Even at such a young age I had a strong desire to connect with and get as close to the sport as I possibly could. And that’s what drew me in to Twitter. On Twitter, I found something I had been searching for which I could not possibly discover in my “offline” life: people who wanted to talk about baseball, all day, every day. This got me hooked. I began following hundreds of baseball accounts; some players, some writers, some fans. I spent (and still spend, who am I kidding?) my days scrolling through my timeline, injecting myself with all the information the site had to offer. I eventually began getting the hang of how to create solid content myself. I immersed myself in a subsection of the baseball Twitter community that focused more on the Toronto Blue Jays (affectionately dubbed “#JaysTwitterFam”), which was right up my alley. I began writing for a local Blue Jays blog, and used Twitter as the main promotional tool for my posts. My following was certainly growing, however I felt that the more popular accounts had one “thing” that people knew them for, which I seemed to lack. Enter Jose Bautista.

For those unfamiliar, Jose Bautista is a player who used to play right field for the Blue Jays. He is, bar-none, my favourite baseball player to ever play the game. He was the best player on my favourite team during my true coming-of-age as a fan. My passion for Jose allows me to speak about him in a way I feel not many others could. Jose is my brand. I began writing many of my blog posts about him. He became the subject of many of my most popular tweets. Upon his departure from the Blue Jays, I penned an open letter to Jose on the website I was writing for at the time. Jose’s agent reached out to me to let me know that Jose had read the letter. To this day, any time my tweets have a Jose-slant to them, they tend to do the most “numbers”.

I can confidently credit Twitter as the the most influential platform I’ve found for keeping me informed on the world. I believe the site can be useful for anyone, even those who use it without a specific interest they can pinpoint to use it for. However, if you do have that one thing you love and want to connect with it in a way you never have before, I can guarantee that Twitter would be a gamechanger in your life. You won’t look back.  

[erhiem]

Feather muthaland, Bibimutha’s songs play as if she is rebuilding her confidence in real time.

Photo Illustration by Renee Klahr, Aamna Ijaz/NPR; Courtesy of Muthaboard

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Photo Illustration by Renee Klahr, Aamna Ijaz/NPR; Courtesy of Muthaboard

Feather muthaland, Bibimutha’s songs play as if she is rebuilding her confidence in real time.

Photo Illustration by Renee Klahr, Aamna Ijaz/NPR; Courtesy of Muthaboard

NPR Music Turning the Tables A project envisioned to challenge sexist and exclusionary conversations about musical greatness. So far we’ve focused on reversing traditional, patriarchal best-of-lists and popular music history. But this time, it’s personal. For 2021, we’re digging into our own relationships to record the records we love, asking: How do we know as listeners when a piece of music is important to us? How can we break free from institutional pressures on our tastes in keeping with the lessons of history? What exactly does it mean to create a personal canon? Essays in this series will explore our unique relationship with our favorite albums, from unmatched classics by major stars to sub-cultural gamechangers and personal revelations. Because the way some music holds a central place in our lives is not just a reflection of how we develop our tastes, but of how we approach the world.

In April, two days after my partner got his second COVID-19 vaccination dose, a friend sent us an invitation to celebrate his birthday at a bar. “I’m not sure,” I said, citing CDC guidelines to wait at least two weeks before socializing. But I had another idea. While some dreamed of nail salon appointments as a return to normalcy, and others fled to Airbnbs on the outskirts, I suggested making a noise on the phone once again with the crew, three Geminis and Taurus.

Our first time together was in 2019, which we regarded as a rite of passage, playing Kendrick Lamar good kid, maed city (an epic, if not prestige update for the specific soundtrack) as our visions began to blur. More than anything, I noticed how the psychedelic influences calmed the ticking urgency I felt on a daily basis in order to make productive use of my time. That kind of urgency became too much to bear last year: With the world still in a pandemic holding pattern, I was also eyeing my 35th birthday in June, and I needed to answer questions from family incessantly. Didn’t feel closer – to where my career was headed, or whether I would have children, and if so – than it was ten years ago. Naturally, I didn’t tell this to my friend.

While I certainly yearned for pre-pandemic normalcy, or perhaps a time where my age was not nearly as consequential, I was also inspired by muthaland, Chattanooga, Tenn., the first album of 2020 by rapper Bibimutha. muthaland Helping me take myself out of this pressure to live up to everyone’s expectations. The album begins by promising a good time; In the opening skit, a game show contestant swallows an acid tab to enter Bibimutha’s world. This realm of her imagination ends up as a tangle of feelings and thoughts, where not a single factor – not her career or single motherhood – completely defines who she is.

I first heard about Bibimutha in 2016. Not long before artists like art rocker Björk embraced her. Even in this crowded music landscape, it’s hard to forget an artist who names their debut EP after an iconic makeup palette, or whose moniker dates back to their mid-20s as having two sets of twins. The latter is considered a badge of honor. Early singles like “Rules” and “Rose” were the talk of a smoky-eyed relationship that could make women completely in agreement (“I’m not going to waste my waist, my thighs, my time, and all my energy/effort. Can *** * which just not for me”). The ambitious concepts he had in mind for his debut album also looked promising. his first thought, prosperity gospel, as a result of her love-hate relationship with televangelist pastor Joel Osteen (“He can sell any f****** thing and you’ll just spend your money,” she once said). Later, she stated that she planned to call the album Christine; It would be inspired by a relative who killed men who either betrayed her or abused her.

Yet I didn’t really connect with Bibimutha until we were both at the peak of our frustrations with our careers. In July 2020, Atlanta’s NPR affiliate WABE dropped under the map, a Southern hip-hop podcast that I co-host, just as overall podcast listenership began to return to pre-pandemic levels. and until muthaland Arriving last August, BbyMutha was completely disillusioned with the music industry. “After this album I’m never doing it again,” she said. This rap retirement announcement ended prematurely, although at the time, listeners mourned the lost potential. In muthalandLong after that tab swallowed one of the most indulgent rap fantasies of all time, BbyMutha is a next-gen LA chat with wordplay inspired by Gucci Mane, a rare woman who navigates traps and orders sex from across the gender spectrum. But Bibimutha also emphasizes in “Holographic” that the journey is a “rave with roaches” swirling around her house. At the height of her musical talent, she could still find a place where she falls short.

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As the oldest of my cousins, I spent most of my life in Maryland oriented around achievement and success, setting a good example. After graduating during the 2008 recession, the older I’ve gotten, the harder it felt to be, shortly thereafter separated from my first and only 9-to-5 to pursue a culture journalism career. moved to Atlanta for what seemed frivolous or self-indulgent before this “Essential workers” became part of our lexicon. (“My mom actually ran away from the Vietnam War when she was 16, so I could see” My Block: Atlanta For work, I’m not a s***,” i once joked.) I attributed my lack of hustle to this fear of failure which only intensified over the years. and before muthaland, I looked for music that helped me wrestle with or push through those feelings. open mike eagle dark comedy Soundtracked my uncomfortable entry into the gig economy after college. I still turn to trap jeezy songs Let’s get on this: Thug Inspiration 101 Or DouBoys Cashout’s “started out as an activist” for a momentary boost.

In the spring of 2019, I learned that this persistently worrying and ensuing fatigue had a name: generalized anxiety disorder. (I’ve kept it a secret from my family; my uncle once said that Asians “take too much pride in going to therapy,” as statistics following the Atlanta-area spa shooting would show.) As I tracked my sleep and panic attacks in one notebook after another, I learned that perfectionism—my once default answer to job interviews—is, “What’s your biggest weakness?” – not really to be seen in a positive light at all. Still, my mother’s way of asking “How are you?” Keeps “Are you busy?” and “Are you making money?” And I still answer “yes” every time. It has taken me almost all the time in the past two years to accept that self-awareness is still a work in progress.

Last December, my therapist gave me an exercise regimen that I still use today. In a moment of crisis, I write down the first negative thought that comes to mind (“I always make the wrong decisions,” “My career is coming back,” “Christmas is ruined”). Then I write through a reality check, as if interviewing myself: Are all these ideas true? Or is there evidence that this situation is not as dire as I had feared?

I recognize this train of thought muthaland. Songs like “Roaches Don’t Die” become anthemic because when Bibimutha brags and boasts, it’s like “You don’t f*** with who’s who with who’s government stamp and wic, huh?” Like what happens between songs. When she looks in the mirror and longs for the confident woman she once was (“I miss that b**** sometimes”) she descends on a personal statement in the face of “heavy metal”. “They see the truth when they see me / They see they aunt and they mom and grandma, gee,” she raps. “They look in a mirror, it ain’t clear / I’m afraid of everything being b*****.” At the end of “Scam Likely”, Bibimutha mocks the pseudo-awakening, drag race-savvy listeners who insist on having her as a role model (“And she makes me feel so empowered that ****** is empowered – and i up“). I get her reasoning: Role models seem impenetrable. Bibimutha’s songs sound like she’s rebuilding her confidence in real time.

During my last visit, my therapist told me to work on my definition and measures of success. I still don’t have concrete answers that translate into neat life goals, though maybe that’s an answer in itself. muthaland Teaching me to lower expectations that may read as plausible but ultimately prove untenable. Its themes confirm how I felt after my first 2019 visit, which is that scientists should revisit the psychological properties of hallucinations, even after decades of government-imposed stigma. Bibimutha’s lyrics demonstrate that motherhood, as it would be, cannot replace a sense of self. Neither would career ambitions, for that matter: muthalandThe most obvious nod to any kind of rap pantheon is “outro (skit 5).” Game show hosts thanks “sponsors” Boosie, Webby, and Diamond and Princess from Crime Mob — and then in 19 seconds, it’s over. muthaland otherwise completely untouched by discussion about Rap’s Mount RushmoreHow sales and clout factor into greatness. In how its soul-searching slowly unfolds during its hour-long runtime, the album is teaching me that position is not everything, but timing is.

In the flurry of excessive social activity between getting vaccinated and preparing myself for the Delta version, here’s what I’ll remember most:

The post-vaccination journey that finally took place on a Sunday in May. By 6 p.m. the effect was gone, though my partner reading the tarot gave to our friend, the second Gemini, didn’t wrap up until close to midnight.

The first time I heard BbyMutha’s “GoGo Yubari,” a harsh indictment against her baby daddy and the nature of how she became a baby mama: “Another violent story, another self-esteem destroyed.” BbyMutha released it in June, one of several loose and unreleased EPs from this year. muthaland. (Thank god she didn’t actually retire.)

Finally, a passing comment from a friend ahead of her 35th birthday this month. The keyword was “milestone”, with this weighted expectation we had already achieved, suggesting that all this was not enough. “I’m always here to talk about it,” I said, and I meant it. After the past year of working as a stand-in confidant of BbyMutha, I feel ashamed personally, or a shame at all.

christina lee is a music and culture writer living in Atlanta. She co-hosts the podcast under the map.

The post BbyMutha’s ‘Muthaland’ Is Teaching Me That Status Isn’t Everything : NPR appeared first on Spicy Celebrity News.