#the original context of this audio is WILD

[master-gatherer]

I just have YouTube auto playing Beatles songs going in the background and there was an animated thing, idk if it's from the time period or just an edit, of Octopus's Garden and it did not show Ringo singing even though it's his voice, it showed John and George singing but not Ringo singing even though that's his voice that's his song cartoon Ringo should be singing it's his song

[david-talks-sw]

"The Acolyte" wasn't 'woke' propaganda.

I had my issues with the show (you can check out my other posts to see what they were) but there's this notion that The Acolyte was created to spread The Message™ of "woke propaganda"... and I think there's a bit of a mix-up going on, there.

Because that's simplifying things a lot.

When you're a minority, you're not "being woke" when you're just being yourself! Conversely, you're not "writing to be woke" when you're a minority drawing inspiration from your personal experiences to tell a story.

I talked before about how George Lucas implemented elements of his personal life in his own films. In his own words:

"There's no way to write without writing from yourself. Y'know, the stuff gets made out of things that you care about… whether you've actually lived them or not. There are emotional issues that you deal with, and I think that's always a major factor with any writer. I don’t think— it's hard to write without having some kind of emotional connection to the material. I've never seen any reason not to. It’s easy to write that way. It's hard to write in the abstract. So when I write a scene, I write a scene that moves me or I care about, or is something that is personal to me." - George Lucas, Q&A with Lynne Hale, 1994 (StarWars.com)

Any piece of writing worth some salt needs to come from a personal place to some degree because that's where the heart of the story, the truth, lies. That's what an audience will relate to.

Example: The six original Star Wars films are purely George Lucas. As in, everything in those films, from the characters, to the cinematography, to the editing style, etc are all a reflection of who George is as a person and what he stands for:

anti-Vietnam / "fight the corporate & imperial machine"

60s-70s white kid from Modesto, California

single father of three

who defines himself as Methodist-Buddhist,

has an anthropology major and

a passion for Kurosawa,

cinema vérité,

cinema history in general

art and visuals and

car racing.

You see all that in those films.

Same thing with The Acolyte.

Leslye Headland drew from her personal experiences.

Among other things, Leslye is gay. So that's what she uses as inspiration to, for instance, craft Qimir's character motivation.

"I was on the treadmill being like, “What is [Qimir] gonna say?!” And my wife, who is a huge part of my creative process, finally she said, “What do you wanna say? Stop thinking of it like you have to somehow tap into a different guy.” [...] I was like, “I wanna say that people don't want me to exist as a gay woman, as a woman in this particular space, working in this wild sandbox.” There was a whole crew of people who believed in me, but deep down, I felt like, “I am unaccepted for who I am because of what I believe in and wanting to wield my power the way I'd like without having to answer to the legion of people that just exist out there.”" - Leslye Headland, Collider, 2024

She took this specific life experience of hers, and then made it more universal, so that a bigger audience could relate to it.

"By the way, I think everybody feels this way. I think that's why it resonates when you're honest about yourself, and you get personal about it. When [Qimir] says, “I want freedom,” that's what I want. I just want freedom. I want to be able to just be out there and be myself and be the type of artist I want to be without having to answer to anybody." - Leslye Headland, Collider, 2024

Same goes with Osha and Sol's relationship, or how she defines the Jedi Order. It derives from her own relationship with her father and how she felt being raised straight, in a Christian household.

If you have the time, listen to this audio clip where she describes that.

In the context of the whole interview, her voice goes down a few octaves and starts to crack a bit. This is a vulnerable moment, when she's talking about it... and it's this experience that she turned into fuel for her writing of Sol and Osha's father/daughter bond.

"There's this thing that's called benign sexism, and part of it is this paternal protectionism — it seems like this good thing, but like you said, there's this, “I have to protect you from everything. I have to make sure you're okay. I have to tell you what track to get on, and then once you're on that track, I need to support you.” Ultimately, what happens is — again, this is a father-daughter relationship — as women evolve in their lives and develop their own personalities separate from their fathers, at some point, they have to reject that protectionism. [...] She cannot stay a little girl or an adolescent or young adult. She has to, at some point, say, “I reject what you have told me I need to do to make you proud, to follow in your footsteps.” She has to do that." - Leslye Headland, Collider, 2024

Now... if we're talking consistency with the themes in Lucas' Star Wars, then yeah, The Acolyte misses the mark.

The Jedi Order isn't the patriarchy or the Catholic Church. They're more like Buddhist monks, George has stated so multiple times.

The Jedi teachings aren't narratively meant to be the same traits found in toxic masculinity or benign sexism.

When a Jedi tells you to be mindful of your emotions, it's not meant in the "boys don't cry" sense.

When they talk about letting go of attachments, it's not meant in a stoic "don't get emotionally involved" sense.

Anakin too, the whole point is that he's wrong, the narrative frames his fall to the Dark Side as his own fault, it's not meant to be perceived as a failure in upbringing.

But she's not the only one who does it. Filoni does it too, a majority of fans have this take on the Jedi.

And because of her experiences, I can see why her takeaway would be that. Same goes for Filoni, they're products of their generation, upbringing and experiences.

My point is:

Leslye Headland is writing from a personal place, when she's writing The Acolyte. It's partially informed by her politics because - like she quotes, "personal is political" - but when it comes to the writing of the show, it's personal first and foremost.

What this was, was a Star Wars fan (arguably the nerdiest one we've had so far, in terms of creators) putting all of herself in the creation of a show that perfectly reflects who she is and what she stands for, resulting in:

a story about growing past your father's paternal control and accepting that our guides aren't infallible,

where her wife holds a role and gets to wield a lightsaber,

a show about taking corrupt religious institutions to task

about the Sith and the Dark Side

and questioning the unquestionable

and exploring whether the good are really so good and if the bad are really so bad.

This was a project written from the heart, and regardless of whether the resulting art found its mark, I think it's important to note that it wasn't written to spread a propaganda message in some "pro-woke holy war" or whatever the hell the YouTubers are peddling.

[purpledemonlilyposting]

ngl I laughed at the part where Lily is nagging at her fans for telling her to eat her soup because it reminds of an indie horror game called eat your soup, where every morning, the player is woken up by an anonymous voice going, "Wake up... Wake up... It's time to... EAT! YOUR! SOUP!" And then the player would eat soup.

Post this to scare the Lorch away guys.

For context on yesterday's art stream I decided to listen to some audio Lily made for her Patrons and it turned out to be absolute gold.

She starts ranting that her fans horribly violate her boundaries by telling her to have some soup when she says she doesn't feel well, a completely normal thing people say, before launching into a story about how she totally knows what working a real job is like because 13 years ago she told a struggling single mother to shut the fuck up and get back in the kitchen on her second shift at Tim Hortons.

The entire thing is WILD.

[millenari]

while the 'Cats doesnt even make sense lol' crowd is my natural enemy, I do feel for people who go see Cats live once and go in completely blind; when you're at the mercy of far-away seating, no prior knowledge, potentially bad audio (I've seen reviews where people thought the phrase was 'Evangelical Cats' and couldn't figure out what Christianity had to do with all of this) even something as simple as telling the characters apart can be hard, much less figuring out what's going on.

Admittedly it's very easy to scoff at people not understanding something when you've watched multiple versions of the show with closeups and zooms, have read performer interviews, and have footage of the original creators talking about their intent and inspirations.

But still, the fact that people automatically jump to 'this show with a 40 year history and decades of success is clearly nonsense because I personally didn't understand it' instead of 'man clearly theres some context here Ive missed out on due to my experience' is like. wild to me.

[thumpypuppy]

oo! your last ask was really interesting! do you have anything to say on the relation between the various Loop related tracks?

it’s very cool that you’re talking about your music in such a way, thank you for engaging with this community!

So Loop's theme is just kinda silly weird mysterious. There's a chromatic walkup at the beginning of the melody because weird and silly.

Loop's hangout is one of the few tracks written by Alice Liston, who is no longer with the studio, but she's an incredibly talented composer who took a lot of the fundamental aspects of the original song and turned it into something dreamy, which I emphasized with some unique instrumentation.

Spoilers ahead:

The Loop fight is yet another one of my MEGA BATTLE compositions where I go ham because it's a fight song and I have to do way too much.

We start with that chromatic walk up in our classic title theme synth and immediately launch into Sandra's intense drums backed with Spitfire Audio's Albion ONE strings to fill out some space.

There are a couple of wild synth solos here written again by Alice Liston, and the drums move into a standard time with a staggered syncopation before jumping back into double time on the riff. Toward the end we build into a kind of combination prog rock EDM drop, and then…

Lo-fi! We take everything down here to a more sonically simplified version using some synth guitar designed in MASSIVE, a couple of simple wave forms, and some bit-crushed drums. We also introduce a new simple counter-melody here with a fairly straightforward motif we repeat while the exact notes change depending on the chord. We're still riffing on Loop's theme at this point, but we're adding some more context.

(Side-note: If you're interested in emulating vintage consoles of a particular era, one of the most important things to look up is the system's sample rate and bit depth! I'm 37 so "vintage" in this case is like… Commodore 64, NES, SNES, PS1, Sega Genesis, Neo-Geo, etc. It's also important to look up for something like the N64 where a lot of the sound design came from, like a lot of DX7 presets.)

Now with a powerful fill from the live kit we come back to our normal instrumentation, restating our previous section. Toward the end of this section we slowly build in our strings ramping up to a half-time breakdown that will lead into a totally new part.

The strings build intensity while also taking the responsibility of playing our main Loop melody, and we throw in a Dormont-style counter-melody to add to a sense of nostalgia as we ramp up our heart-string tugging.

Next, we bring in lead guitar-style synth to double our Loop melody that's playing in the strings to add an extra helping of epicness because come on, an electric guitar playing over the soprano part of a string section is like pique epic/dramatic.

Meanwhile the drums are still going in half-time to give it a breakdown feel (especially leaning on that china cymbal to give it a classic death metal breakdown feel), but at this point we're starting to get more embellishments and double kicks to make use of the space left to build further intensity until we hit that 80s metal crash mute and pause for emphasis, and then tom roll into our next section.

With the break into a new section we're saying NO MORE! We're getting serious now! We have a lovely riff written by Sadie Greyduck, which has a really uncomfortable and tense progression built into it that's emphasized by the strings that have moved to the very high soprano range to keep tension.

Then on our next repeat we jump into yet another solo! This one was partially written by Alice Liston, but ultimately I ended up fitting it into context and completing it. One thing you'll notice here is that there are a lot of passing tones and chromatic walk-ups to emphasize the Loop-ness of the situation.

Now we're jumping into yet another me(n)tal breakdown! This is more riffing on the Loop melody, but then we hear that brass section jump in! We're moving forward and doing a little more light riffing while the rest of the band takes us home in a slightly stronger and more triumphant fashion.

Finally we pick up the pace and we're back to our old classic, the title theme, but it's add odds with the context it exists in and starts to move in a spacier direction, eventually morphing back into Loop's theme.

For the album version we put a cap on it with a piano restatement of the beginning of the song!

(Also I finally looked it up and the other piano I used besides Spitfire Labs "Soft Piano" is Native Instruments "The Gentleman".)

Honestly I love fight/boss themes so much and they're always so fun to work on because I can go ham and the people I work with can do some of their more extreme work, plus it's always an excuse for Sandra to go nuts on the drums.

Thank you so much for sending in your ask! We're always so happy to get these and to hear how much our work has affected so many people! 🐶💙

[bekaterrier]

Happy Audio Drama Sunday! I hope everyone was checking out the #BIPOCtober tag this past week and adding shows to their to-listen list! Now we're on to #Ace Podcast Week!

Give Me Away Episode 9 - A Bug and a Feature: Hooooooboy, this season finale did not disappoint! So much stress with the gang stuck in the Ghost House. There was so much arguing, and I was just waiting for Graham to out his foot down - and he did! I want your second idea indeed. Then there's Jamie being the most dramatic a person could be, calling her mom right in the middle of all this, then playing the role she was born for! Iconic. It all ended with us wondering how Graham was feeling about that last revelation, and quite a few challenges set up for S2.

@hinaypod Episode 48.1 - Noche Buena: I originally heard this episode as a Patreon supporter (it was released in January) but obviously did not have the full context for it then. Now, knowing what we know about what happened on Christmas Eve, there is sooooo much more meaning to it. Especially that opening, "Good morning, babe,"... Hearing about Mari's Christmas traditions and how she dealt with her Tatay's passing was sad and lovely.

@desertskiespodcast Episode 19 - Friends Make Sacrifices: Oh Cash was so close to having everything dealt with nicely! Xochitlicue made such a huge sacrifice...I really hope that she's able to find her sister.

Residents of @proserpinapark Ep 38 - A Fox and Her Mouse: We finally have context for some of this season's official art and boy is it a terrifying thought! It was fun hearing from the Kitsune again, and things are definitely not finished between her and Mirai. And we finally have a bit more of an explanation for Junichi's total lack of curiosity about Proserpina Park and the recordings from Alina. That was driving me crazy!

@midnightburgr Chapter 39 - The Interrodrome!: When the episode starts with the Three Sisters, The Mucklewains and Ava all captured by the bad guys, you just know it's gonna be a wild one. Ava and Caspar are really THE couple of "flip the script on your captors". Also so many guest voices! Sean and Michael from Civilized pod, Third Person from Midst, and then surprise Karim Kronfli! Also slight jumpscare of my name said very emphatically by Ava...

@starfallpod Fennel's Food Cart Episode 2 - Ludenalis, Mercen: This is such a clever way for us to learn more about the different parts of Falsten. What better way to learn about the culture of an area than through its food? I'm having a lot of fun listening to Fennel's adventures.

@stormfireproductions Kalila Stormfire's Economical Magick Services Case One - Transformation — Case Twenty Two - Body Image and Possession Training: I started listening to this show ahead of BIPOCtober week, and I'm already more than halfway through season two! The worldbuilding is wonderful, and I love how we slowly learn more from each case. Lisette is incredibly thoughtful in the way that they portray and highlight the social issues arising from there being fae, covens, changelings, etc. in this version of the world. I can't wait to find out what happens next, and to hear Kalila continue to work on (and with) herself.

[kolbisneat]

MONTHLY MEDIA: September 2024

……….FILM……….

Army of Darkness (1992) Having now seen the original trilogy, it baffles me that all of the Evil Dead reboots exclusively lean into horror. Two thirds of the these movies are practically Saturday-morning cartoons! I love everything about this, from the humour to the puppetry to the insane haircuts.

Mad Monster Party? (1967) This is the first feature-length Rankin-Bass production that I've seen and you can tell the animators were invested in this one. 80% of the film is visual gag it's all so much fun. Zero complaints though I am a sucker for anything that lumps a bunch of public domain monsters together.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) While I wish they'd gone with the original sequel premise (Beetlejuice goes to Hawaii), this is still a solid comeback. Does it all work? No. But it is a great pitch for a Beetlejuice limited series.

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018) Loved the original, loved this even more.

……….TELEVISION……….

Neon Genesis Evangelion (Episode 1.21 to 1.22) Okay didn't watch much of this in September but it's taken a nosedive into a pool of existential dread. I mean it was always there but it feels like the end is going to be a battle with conflicting ideologies instead of the Angels. Wild stuff.

……….YOUTUBE……….

The Sustained Two-Shot by Every Frame a Painting It's been years since EFAP posted a video and I implore you to check out their back catalog of really insightful film analysis. If you like this video, you'll like the others. VIDEO

The Question No One Asks Shigeru Miyamoto by Good Blood Great insight into game philosophy and design, as well as a unique lens with which to explore the Zelda series of games. VIDEO

AB Dictionary by Allison Bornstein For those who may not know, I have a passion...for fashion! I keep going back to a few core resources for inspiration and guidance and Allison Bornstein's youtube channel is one of them. She leans towards women's wardrobes, but this introduction to her approach is fairly universal (leaning towards personal style vs "wear this not that".) VIDEO

……….READING……….

Murder at Hazelmoor by Agatha Christie (Complete) Really digging into Christie's work has given me some more perspective on which sorts of mysteries I connect. This one, which spends some time with the suspects, but not as much as in other books, made it much harder to keep track of everyone. But dang if the endings don't deliver so much satisfaction that I can't help but finishing it and thinking "Yeah! That was good."

The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett (Complete) The Discworld series of novels are always great but sometimes one just really clicks for me. Loved the monsterverse setting, loved the politics, loved it all. I'm not sure I'd recommend this as a good entrypoint but if you've read any of the Discworld books featuring the Watch and you haven't read The Fifth Elephant, definitely check it out.

Richard Stark's Parker: Slayground by Donald E Westlake and Darwyn Cooke (Complete) Darwyn Cooke's adaptation are always so stylish I always feel a little sad reading it, knowing it's his final rework of the Parker series. And such a gut punch at the end when it says Parker will return. Darwyn Cooke has been such an inspiration for me and his work is incredible; please check out this series or the DC: The New Frontier comics OR his run on Catwoman OR his contributions to Spider-Man's Tangled Web.

FF Volume 1: Fantastic Faux and FF: Volume 2: Family Freakout by Matt Fraction, Lee Allred, Michael Allred, Laura Allred, Joe Quinones, and many more (Complete) I loved Matt Fraction's work on Hawkeye and Michael and Laura Allred's work on Silver Surfer so I was excited for this pairing...but it didn't really click. The writing felt surprisingly dated and even across the two volumes I felt like I was missing a lot of context. I wish I could recommend it but there are better stories from these creatives and about these characters.

……….AUDIO……….

Flight b741 by King GIzzard & The LIzard Wizard (2024) The beauty of King Gizzard's prolific output is that they have the freedom to experiment. Sometimes I don't connect with what they're doing, and sometimes they put out an album like this. Into it.

Shingangumi by Ginger Root (2024) The vibes are right on the mark but the majority of the album just kinda washes over you. Some of Ginger Root's singles are really catchy and it's a shame I haven't connected with any individual tracks just yet.

……….GAMING……….

Wonderland: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting (Andrews McMeel Publishing) With the book's upcoming release, our Tuesday group decided to take a break from Oz and Neverland and do a few dungeon delves. It was a whirlwind that included a character death and exploring a secret secondary realm! If you want to read the campaign diary then it's over here!

And that's it. See you in October!

[goldentigerfestival]

so I finally found a subbed version of PS3 Vesperia recently (what the DE was ported from), and that means I am now properly enabled to further make my arguments LOL. basically since the DE text is still in English and there are no subs for what's actually being spoken in the JP audio, it's harder for me to make some points since sometimes people will just listen to audio in JP but not really understand what's going on and have to rely on the English text (which again is localized and not genuinely translated, and in a lot of major cases with Vesperia, it's pretty egregiously bad).

idk how many posts I'll end up making about the bigger changes but I do want to cover some of the things that rubbed me the wrong way with unnecessary and even harmful to Yuri's character changes.

for instance, Yuri has a skit with Estelle that was heavily altered in the dub, originally talking about how he can't find himself being grateful to someone like Raven for showing them how to sneak out of the castle. his reasoning is basically that Raven is shady and he's not sure he should be grateful to someone like that, and is confused as to why Estelle would be so grateful when she doesn't even know him (because in his mind, he knows the guy feels somewhat shady from meeting him and isn't sure he wants to trust a guy with those vibes).

in the dub they just kinda... make him sound like an ungrateful jerk and not so much because he's not sure he wants to trust Raven. the dub skit doesn't make it sound like it's an issue of his with Raven specifically and that he just generally doesn't feel grateful for the aid (and that in general one shouldn't feel grateful for aid like this), which gives off a really wrong impression of him that doesn't hold up throughout the game.

Yuri wasn't wholly ungrateful for the gesture itself, but because of who it came from - and let's face it, getting that info from a guy in jail who had to be taken out by the commandant himself wouldn't look good in the eyes of an average citizen.

the dub really hurt Yuri's character in a lot of ways, but ever since I'd first played the game on the 360 yeaaars ago, that dubbed skit rubbed me the wrong way even before I knew the JP audio and now that I can show others the full JP context (again, can't really do that with the western release because the dialogue is still written in English so some people can hear the audio but if they don't understand it, the message they take away from it is still whatever is written in the localization) I really want to talk about some of the more damaging changes (in particular about Yuri because he got the absolute worst brunt of it). the skit is one example of a lot of weird changes that make no sense and unfortunately one of many that changed the entire meaning behind something Yuri meant/was doing.

there are a lot of weird cases of them just adding in entire sentences for no reason that don't really make sense or fit, but I probably won't cover those or at least in much detail. it's some of the bigger things I want to talk about because I feel like there's a huge disconnect in a lot of cases between western fandom Yuri and actual Yuri, and western fandom Yuri is partially if not mostly a result of the dub just yeeting entire aspects of his character out the window at the speed of light because dear heavens we simply can't have a cool adult man show a range of emotion evidently.

...on that note it's very wild to me how often they remove all traces of people calling Yuri an idiot. Karol had multiple but only got like one in in the dub. yeah.

[dentenzerotwo]

Wow, Homestuck voice acting? On tumblr?? In 2023?? Madness!! So for some context, wayyy back when my friend @fivetail (who co-created, wrote, and directed Featherbent and still does now in its current upcoming incarnation in the works right now) wrote a really heartfelt post-game AU called Boyfriendleaders. This was, of course, YEARS before Homestuck came out with its’ own post-canon interpretation, and in my opinion, despite its’ age it still really holds up as a work and is majorly worth a read, whether you like the main pairing involved in the AU (Egbert and Karkat) or not. (Of course, i should note that this AU was written all the way back in 2012; so Davekat wasn’t canon yet, June wasn’t canonized or even conceptualized the way we think it today yet (so they still identified as John/a boy in this AU), and everything we would come to know of the comic itself were very far away. This was done over 10 years ago. So go easy on it. It was a very different time, and none of us knew what was ahead. Five themselves dropped out of the fandom a few years after the end of Boyfriendleaders and didn’t return. I’ve since come out as non-binary transfem in the 10 years since the original, so... there’s still some June in there at least? Albeit indirectly;;)

Some years ago, i did a reading of one of the entries of the AU pertaining to Egbert’s own diary entries at the time. I did it as a birthday gift for them, and i remember them being super touched at the time that i gave it a shot at all, since that was still fairly early into our friendship and they weren’t expecting me to do it. They loved it. The original read can be found here: Link Rediscovering this audio of course, got me hugely in my feelings, and decided to re-record it for old time’s sake, to see how far I’ve come as an actor (since i’ve been doing voice acting professionally for a long time now; i’m even in video games and anime and shit like that which is wild!) and reconnect with something from my past in a way i didn’t ever expect. Hope you guys like it!

[sarahthevampyrslayer]

The Obtainable 🌿 Simple Life 🌸

Simple life, soft life, minimalist, gentle life, soft girl/boy, etc. These are all terms we use to communicate that we are trying to live and cultivate a more meaningful, fulfilling, and intentional lifestyle.

First, you shouldn’t base your entire lifestyle or personality around any one aesthetic. It’s unrealistic and limits your potential and possibilities. It’s normal to want to express yourself differently and change your perspectives, feelings, and ideas as time passes.

Second, living a “simple life” isn’t about (or it shouldn’t be about) presenting yourself a certain way, aesthetically speaking. It’s about your mindset, your values, and your ability to make the life you already have more comfortable, fulfilling, and intentional.

With that being said, here are some simply habits and activities that you can do to help foster a more positive relationship with your environment and live a more intentional, fulfilling life.

🌱 Spend 15 minutes in the sun : Reading, going for a walk, listening to an audio book (or some relaxing music), gardening, talking with a friend, interacting with the local “wild life” (feeding the birds, talking to the squirrels lol). Science shows us that being in the sun isn’t just got for our physical health and wellbeing but also our mental health too.

Benefits of Sunlight

🌱 Prioritize your hobbies and interests : Make time for the activities that actually make you happy; and don’t worry about whether the activities itself fits into a specific aesthetic. Soft living isn’t about forcing yourself to spend time doing “soft” activities (what does that even mean ?? lol) or having “soft” interests. It’s about doing the things you already enjoy with intentions and for the sake of fulfillment, not productivity. Research shows that people with hobbies are less likely to suffer from stress, low mood, and depression.

🌱 Create a “morning routine” : I put it in quotes because, let’s me honest, we’re all on different schedules so my “morning” might be 7am and someone else’s “morning” might be 2pm. Maybe we should call this a “waking up routine” lol. Starting you day (whatever time that is for you) intentionally will really set yourself up for success (and by success I mean, set your mind and body up to have a good day— I’m not talking about being productive, just being present). Setting your alarm to wake you up 15 minutes earlier than normal, will give you 15 whole minutes to actually process that you about to begin a new day.

🌱 Prioritize your mental health : This sort of ties all the previous tips together because it really comes down to making sure you are living for you. You’re doing what is best for your peace. You are unabashedly putting you first.

Just being more intentional and purposeful with your life is a step in the “simple life” direction. Unless of course you are actually only interested in the aesthetic lol. In which case, go for it! Life’s too short not to try new ways of expressing yourself visually and authentically.

Here is some interesting information about the soft life trend specifically and its origins too — X X X X

Just for balance, here is an article written by a self proclaimed “proud older millennial” who, understandably (bc social trends can be confusing and sometimes mean different things depending on the context), conflated “soft life” for “lazy life of luxury.” Honestly, I don’t agree with the writer, obviously, but I think it’s important to discuss different perspectives and opinions on topics like these.

[novantinuum]

(Context: Original video was posted Jan 15th, 2020- before the second half of Steven Universe: Future even aired.)

Okay so I was going back through my "su leak" tag to find this exact leak audio while chatting with some folks about how Wild those times were, and found this instead- can we PLEASE talk about how this is like almost beat for beat the exact canon scene?

Like obviously certain details or angles are different, but damn- good job on predicting the broad vibes of how this encounter would go months in advance from only an out-of-context audio clip.

AAAAHHH!!! It took me so long but it’s finally done!!!

This is my first Steven Universe Animatic (Based on that audio that Leaked some days ago) soo :’’ Hope u like it!!! 💗💕✨ 

[chaosartisan]

Not to bash TikTok but it bothers me that none of you ever link the original source or look up the source of a trend. If fandoms were considered cultures, TikTok would be the peak of cultural appropriation. It is step by step cultural appropriation.

You find the best sounds for works we love, strip them of context and then make them a soulless meme template and then you don't even acknowledge anyone who says that they recognize that sound outside of TikTok. Often, you will use a sound and then turn around to mock anyone who cares about the work it's from.

The most egregious examples I have seen will be that the audio in question will be SAID BY SIBLINGS in the context of the work and you will repurpose the song as a IMAGINE YOUR OTP all because you couldn't be bothered to take ten seconds to look up any context on Google. I have no doubt that this happens to actual culturally important songs too.

And it's wild to me that Americans (because I don't know about anyone else) are so hyper sensitive to race to the point where they condemn cultural appreciation like wearing kimonos and supporting local businesses but they turn around and participate in repurposing sounds for tiktoks which is in the exact spirit of cultural appropriation. People would more readily recognize actual cultural appropriation if they acknowledged that a lot of marginalization happens to nerds, goths, and punks too, regardless of their race or ethnicity.

[eduardomarin90]

Beelight (work-in-progress) from Nicky Tavares on Vimeo.

(live 16mm projection/performance)

Apitherapy can be traced back to ancient Egypt, Greece, and China. The use of honey dates back 4,000 years; it is documented in cave paintings, ancient Egyptian pottery, and in numerous religious texts including the Vedas and the Bible. The Greek physician Hippocrates, known as “the father of medicine,” used bee venom to treat joint pain and arthritis. For most of my adult life I have struggled with chronic health issues that led me down a winding road of healing modalities from allopathic to holistic to straight up fringe. When these healing modalities failed, I began experimenting with live bee venom therapy (BVT), which was instrumental in restoring my health.

Out of both a deep gratitude and curiosity, I am devoted to learning everything I can about honeybees through research, beekeeping, and filmmaking. Beelight is a multi-channel 16mm film that explores the history of apitherapy and the contemporary crisis of bee colony collapse disorder. The film will be presented as a live film performance and will feature collage and traditional optical filmmaking techniques, along with a soundscape of field recordings of honeybees, audio testimonials of beekeepers, scholars, and BVT practitioners whose lives have been transformed by honeybees, and original music inspired by honeybee song and dance. The above video excerpt reflects the handmade collage portion of the film; it features the individual wings and stingers of BVT honeybees that have healed me. The honeybees used in my therapy were at the end of their natural 6-week life cycle. Paying homage to Stan Brakhage’s Mothlight, each wing and stinger is applied to film directly by hand, frame-by-frame. The optical film portion will embrace a poetic cinéma vérité style, documenting honeybees in research, beekeeping, BVT, farming, and wild contexts.

[reasoningdaily]

One of the most difficult aspects of covering generative AI is the sheer amount of very public change that's transpired so far in 2023. Instead of feeding into the hype around ChatGPT, the AI Unlocked newsletter helps readers understand real ways chatbots can benefit their life.

This collection brings together multiple perspectives on AI for a holistic look at the nascent technology, from reporters investigating the big ethical issues surrounding chatbots to service writers searching for ways it might be helpful in an everyday context.

Image by Dusan Stankovic / Getty Images

View Original

AI Unlocked

Reece RogersWIRED

“ChatGPT can be quite helpful, if you approach it with the right perspective. It’s crucial to take responses from AI with a skeptical mindset. In my five-day newsletter series, I try to approach the topic in a practical, level-headed way that acknowledges different issues with the technology.” -Reece Rogers

View Original

Chatbots Got Big—and Their Ethical Red Flags Got Bigger

Khari JohnsonWIRED

RR: “This article from Khari earlier 2023 is critical reading to understand the larger picture about chatbots like ChatGPT. When there’s a rush of money to be made in Silicon Valley, companies are quick to overlook ethical conundrums.”

View Original

6 Tips for Using ChatGPT to Brainstorm Better

Reece RogersWIRED

RR: “Here’s an article for anyone who hasn’t tried out ChatGPT, and there’s absolutely no shame in that! Experiment with it as a brainstorm partner to bounce ideas off.”

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Generative AI Is Making Companies Even More Thirsty for Your Data

Will KnightWIRED

RR: “To power a generative AI tool, tons and tons of data is necessary. But where exactly does all of it come from, and how much of it involves your personal information and interactions online? It’s hard to know right now, but more people are demanding answers.”

View Original

AI Is Coming for Your Web Browser. Here’s How to Use It

David NieldWIRED

RR: “It’s not just a writing tool, a chatbot can also act as your personal assistant. While there are plenty of kinks to work out, it’s fun to test out a new approach to browsing through online information.”

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The Fanfic Sex Trope That Caught a Plundering AI Red-Handed

Rose EvelethWIRED

RR: “In this wild article, Rose explores the weird (and quite NSFW) ways online subcultures are impacting the output of mainstream tech products.”

View Original

How to Use Google Bard to Find Images Faster

David NieldWIRED

RR: “Here’s another interesting example of using a chatbot in a way that focuses less on text creation and more on searching through reams of information.”

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The Magic and Minstrelsy of Generative AI

Jason ParhamWIRED

RR: “Best known for his culture-defining essay about digital blackface on TikTok, Jason investigates how AI chatbots and image generators continue to perpetuate racist stereotypes.”

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What OpenAI Really Wants

Steven LevyWIRED

RR: “Looking for a weekend, long-read? Steven spent months working on a rare, inside look into OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. It’s over an hour long, but the audio version is worth listening to.”

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Meet the Humans Trying to Keep Us Safe From AI

Will KnightKhari Johnson& Morgan MeakerWIRED

RR: “Yes, there are many different reasons to worry about AI, but I found this piece that features multiple people who want to make a positive impact to be heartening.”

[hunxi-after-hours]

okay so walkthrough of the entire process:

first:

the season 2 opening of 《时光代理人》 / Link Click is a cinematic masterpiece and I do mean that because Li Haoling decided he wanted to make a reversible donghua opening. how does that even work? if you're new here, take two minutes to avail yourself of the opening. it stands on its own, you don't really need context from the show at all to boggle at the video when it just. reverses

second:

in order to match the visuals, 白鲨JAWS was tasked with writing a song for the opening that could also be reversed. lead singer 鱼麦扣 Michael Yu then spent the next four months coming up with a melody that would sound as good forward as it does backwards. during this time, he went back to Li Haoling to say that this was too difficult, to which Li Haoling essentially responded "have you tried writing harder?"

the project was so technically complex that 白鲨JAWS ended up making a 25 minute behind-the-scenes discussion of the process, which they posted to their YouTube channel with English subs. some neat highlights:

it took Michael 4 months to come up with a reversible melody, and another 2 months for 白鲨JAWS to write the rest of the song (and then more months for mixing and mastering)

the song was mixed by Toki Ayaka, who also mixed Kenshi Yonezu's song "Loser"

the line "will howling tides give me something to hold" is a pun on the director's name, Li Haoling

the first reversed part (beginning ~1:01 in the song) is the 2:08 iteration of the chorus in reverse

the reversed sections of the songs reverse more than just the vocal track; they also reverse some of the instrumental tracks (e.g. piano; ~11:58 in the behind the scenes)

the melody in the "c section" of the song (beginning ~2:37 in the song; "I've held promises unbroken...") was actually the original melody Michael came up with, but wasn't satisfied with how it sounded in reverse

the big finale of the song is the melody of the "c section" overlaying the instrumental backing of the reversed chorus which somehow??? works??? really well????

at 9:59 in the behind-the-scenes discussion, Michael comments that he hasn't "memorized [the reversed part] but [he's] almost there." this was, in fact, foreshadowing for the stunt he pulled at BML 2023

third: exactly what kind of stunt did Michael Yu pull at BML 2023?

at BML2023 (think comic con but bilibili), 白鲨JAWS and 饭卡 (the rapper and artist behind the season 1 ED, "OverThink") joined forces to remix a medley of OverThink, VORTEX, and The TIDES into XETROVerthink, which they performed live onstage. in addition to 饭卡 rapping OverThink at double speed, resident mad lad Michael Yu then proceeded to perform the reversed portions of VORTEX live onstage

the exact magnitude of this insane accomplishment may be better appreciated by watching Michael sing the backwards part of VORTEX functionally a capella in the convention center, which this bilibili video helpfully also reverses for you. the takeaway here is that the reversed audio is intelligible as the original lyrics

look. the reversible songwriting was wild enough already. no one would've thought less of Michael if he just let the pre-recorded audio play over the reversed part in their live performance. but no the man really committed to the full send and learned how to sing intelligibly in reverse

tl;dr no one is going as hard as Michael Yu, not even Li Haoling hhhhh

(kicks down the door) so does everyone in the sgdlr/link click fandom know that resident mad lad Michael Yu, aka lead singer of 白鲨JAWS, not only wrote a reversible melody for the opening of season 2 but then proceeded to learn the backwards parts of VORTEX and sing it live, onstage

[kowabungadoodles]

DCWT Chronological Remix

Sooooo... I've been under some stress lately and part of my coping with it has been re-reading Designations Congruent with things multiple times because it makes my brain go brrrr in a very pleasant way. 

For my own ridiculous enjoyment, I'm planning a re-read of DCWT in approximate chronological order, skipping back and forth between all fics to get close to a complete timeline. I thought I'd put the timeline up here in case anyone else has ever wanted to try the same but was put off by how wildly tricky it is to do. 

For context, Designations Congruent with Things is a popular pacific rim fic with a long history, kind of wild history that I won't get into here but @ladyknightthebrave does a great recap of some details in her youtube vid about the franchise: https://youtu.be/Sud3KX_6zoM?t=2785

PDFS of all fics are available on CWR’s website: https://www.cleanwhiteroom.net/

Timelines and reading orders under the cut!

ORIGINAL Full DCWT Timeline covers 2013 - 2035

2013 (First Kaiju attack, Start of Pacific Rim movie) 

2013 - 2022 (Prequel: Out of Many Scattered Things)

2025 (Main events of Pacific Rim and Designations Congruent with Things (DCWT) and Codas)

2015 - 2035 - (Sequel: Aftermath, which skips back and forward through time) 

The usual recommended reading order is generally some variation of: 

Pacific Rim the actual film (Who reads fic for a movie they haven't seen?) 

DCWT - Designations Congruent with Things

Codas (optional)

Prequel - Out of Many Scattered Things

Sequel - Aftermath

Sadly listening to Supercos songs and considering a re-read. 

NOW WE REMIX!

Where events are concurrent or unspecified, I've gone with my best approximation. 

For simplicity I'll be referencing things as: ([Fic]: Year: Chapter title: Chapter numbers)

Prequel: 2013 - 2015: (Letters)  Epistolaric Empricism, Science Charm

Prequel: 2013 - 2014: Kingmaker, Lady Stardust

Sequel: 2015: Chimes at Midnight

Sequel: 2017: Until our City be Afire 

Prequel: 2016 - 2018: The Blue Guitar (Audio production, transcript in prequel)

Prequel: 2018: Crystal Lake 

Sequel: 2020: A Borrower of Night: 8, 12, 19, 24, 29

Prequel: 2020: Geneva 2020

Sequel: 2020: A Borrower of Night: 33, 43

Prequel: 2022: Failing the Solo Trial, Things Exactly as they Are

[Pacific Rim Movie]

DCWT: 2025, Chapters 1-9 

Sequel: The Omen Coming On 2, 15

DCWT: 2025: An Interlude In Two Parts & Chapters 11-19

CODA: 2025: Hermann & Herc Hanson Emails (optional)

DCWT: 2025 : Chapters 20 - 22

CODA: 2025: Under Pressure (optional)

CODA: 2025: Double Declutch (optional)

DCWT: 2025: Chapters: 22- 26 (End) 

CODA: 2025: Like The Twist of a Plot 

Aftermath: 2025: The Omen Coming on, 25, 48

Aftermath: 2027: The Garland of the War, (All)

Aftermath: 2028: Like and Ill Sheathed Knife, (All)

Aftermath: 2030: Untangle This, (All)

Aftermath: 2035: The End is Known (The End)