#theyve been together for years i think it makes perfect sense that they dont spend every second kissing lmao

[rafyki]

The best thing about Hope and Save is that they don't kiss even once in the whole series, and yet I hadn't even noticed until someone pointed it out. It's perfect because I don't feel like there's something missing, it's not like "they don't feel like boyfriends because they didn't kiss on-screen" - they're sweet and lovely with each other, they're each other's priority always and forever, they're each other's ride or die, and they're so obviously in love with each other that we didn't need a kiss to make it believable.

You can see clearly how dedicated they are to each other

This is what a committed and established long-term relationship feels like to me

[misterbitches]

Hello! @flootweed replying to the post from before. the long format was killing me. why does tumblr look like this...

I haven’t watched episode 8 yet...or have I? If it’s the most recent one. No.

Is the hornbill a bird? It probably is but I have a terrible memory and I’m dumb so. I skipped the last few weeks because I’m scawwed. How are you liking it? I did see someone say that the hornbill makes sense (without knowing what it is...at all) bc heart transplant patients only live like 5-15 years after but someone in those comments pointed out that he was so young when he got his and that’s pretty rare so he has a higher likelihood of survival. Frankly, this is the only way I will proceed. Since when did shows ever care about the heart transplant health? Never and it needs to stay that way!

What did we think of ep 6? LMAO. I need opinions! And omg it makes me feel special when I can point things out to people because I so...rarely get to LOL. Editing is like one of my favorite things ever so I can be super particular about it but I try to do the thing you do when you’re supposed to see if it works within its context. I’d like to go in with scissors and glue but alas. 

THe mic covering....the rustling....it’s like guys...please. Ironically the audio today wasn’t great. I don’t know why. IDK if you watch c-dramas but I am not even sure what’s worse between them because they dub their dramas. But actually no it’s best to have the dubbing because even tho it is painful they have to put a lot of effort into it. LOL. 

Right? @ Aey! It’s just weird if they would show us more about what he’s done instead of saying he’s done sth bad and not even explaining that....like you could even do some shitty exposition. I think if he is to be a true villain then we really need to be privvy. All the warnings make it seem like he’s a fuckin’ serial killer so when we get the scene of him at home it’s like....actually this is really serious? Maybe his pain is like...for a reason. Althought you won’t even TELL US WHAT HE’S DONE WRONG BESIDES BE JUST FUCKING WEIRD AND ANNOYING! So from what we have it’s just a realllllllll fucked up sad person lol. god i forgot about the dinner! and i totally agree. he really needs them to succeed. i like your theory because it would make the scene where he like blocks the twitter user make more sense. he also says they dont really know each other etc so it’s realllllyyyyy probable that he just sees it as a way out. if not then we shall pretend u wrote it :)

god yea i wouldnt say it is art but i also guess we technically have to since it is technically. in the way that technically performance artists are artists but mostly i uh technically ignore them. Also one of my fav BLs is called the best twins. If you do not know what it is I will not elaborate further.t 

i want to know more abt poli sci majors lmao but they sound DRAMATIC/ hopefully most ppl in ur cohort arent losers! 

hahahha i understand. there was just a thing on twitter about DSA and then the day before about reading discourse. the same thiings. over. and over. and over. and over. we are our own worst enemies but also our own best friends? but i hate tankies and that wont change. but hasan’s a decent guy. he said sth abt black ppl during biden’s primaries in GA or whatever and i was like chill. but he’s insecure and has adhd which means ur more open to being wrong and changing otherwise u will suffocate and die. 

and totally about hiding fuck ups. i’ve tried really hard bc of organizing IRL to like...be honest, question, etc but also like...approach it naturally? because if you’re trying to be perfect and so worried you’ll fuck up you don’t realize that puts  more stress on you, makes you seem like a robot, and could potentially not make you realize the mistkaes you made. also if we’re privileged in certain spaces there is just no possible way we won’t get something wrong. im light and i know that honestly any way to speak up on colorism is going to be difficult and that’s a space where i have power so i just have to figure it out. we should be uncomfortable because we have to sit with unpleasant feelings and sort through our own whatever. that just makes the next time even better and people can trust u more.  i think some people sweat it sooo much or maybe they think their personal life and what theyve been through is more the norm? on the other hand people can be sf reactionary in the worst way and idk what their issue is. there was also a user who said sth very inch arresting about tankies which i thoroughly enjoyed (how like violent lefitsts or tankies / ppl who are like ooh a gun whatever just want to be violent in another space so they have shit tendencies from jump and nothing of substance which i think i agree with tbh fo ra lottttt of ppl. like their anger is actually like “no im about to beat that ass” instead of what we actually want to get done) 

sort of in the same vein re: taking it easy...we coudl all be more understanding too. to slow it down like you mentioned about not being privvy to fucking eveyrthing and saying anything on our mind. i saw this person talk about y2k which was a huge deal while happening bc it was the turn of the millenium (bruh were u even alive?) but this twitter user grew up in a super super SUPER religious household and was like why do ppl make jokes about Y2K it was insanely traumatizing? though my first instinct was confused ive tried hard to like look more before i judge especially thanks to a friend of mine. turns out that with the further reading the more we found out he was just really traumatized; it was very common in religious households to be afraid of 2000. so we could have come at him with no understanding and he could have thought that everyone had the same experience with that year that he did. his feelings sit precedent though but i think it was just very hard for him to fathom. 

i didnt reply bc he didnt need that and what could i have said? he’ll see what the truth is with exposure and unfortunately this was something he really did go through. 

and that’s what makes most people think others could be over the top. because it sounded ridiculous but then it was this huge traumatic thing that we could have never known about. so maybe when someone sounds like actually crazy they have an explanation? of course some ppl are just batshit or annoying but that’s anywhere not just leftists it’ just means more i guess when a ~~librul is annoyed~ but it can be easy to want to make fun of ppl too. lmao.  basically what i am saying is the internet? especially twitter? for leftists? in this economy? bitch it’s the wild west out here.

i am 29! idk if i said it or not. i am OLD u probably werent even born in the year i was talking about wah. i know not old-old or old at all but compared to you i’m due for a colonoscopy.

omg i hope u can get vaxxed soon! are you wfh rn? i hope ur also not in a bad state as in state state not state as in ur being :| bleh what a fucking time. it sucks that you have to fucking do work. well unless u like school. which i hope u do. i just assume everyone hates it cos i did lmao

was it the lindsay ellis drama? that bitch is dumb. if there was other drama oh wait the drama i was referring to it all happened on the same day. idk book twitter that well but i saw something from someone who was abt that shit and wowie! the american people are not that.....intelligent to put it lightly.

i’ll get better. ppl tell me they miss me and im like aw. i have insanellllyyy bad insomnia and a lot of stuff happened this year HOWEVER I SLEPT FOR TWO DAYS FOR 8 HOURS AT A REASONABLE TIME. im a new woman.  anyways you too! i hope ur not too burnt out with school. we just dont know when the burnout is or we just dont know we are burnt out until we are. the panaramiciccici hit and all the things i was ignoring kind of just fell on me and sooo much happened at once. and frankly it’s hard to take care of ourselves. lord. 

Like if you aren’t interested in expanding on the issue in a way that hasn’t been done before all you gotta do it like… spread resources and donate if you can. I dont see the point in having to say something about every issue especially if you (not at you specifically just in general) aren’t immediately impacted by the issue. Like is the 14 yr old white marxist named sarah on twitter really gonna have meaningful insight on anti-asian violence ?

this is part of why i cannot telecommunicate. i dont want to do shit on the internet. i am able bodied so i know that this time has been of such ease for other people. but mentally i just can’t. i don’t have a comment on hand like that and i hvae no desire to engage with ppl that way. i am a super super super solitary person but thats bc it’s MY time so when it’s like all this effort with other people i dont ever want to be alone. it’s the same with the way i approach filmmaking. it isnt a sole thing so i hate it not together. that’s part of how u can get so sucked in and repeat doom scrolling. i was in this webinar last may after [redacted] and this black woman prof said “read with a community and talk” because otherwise she said we are torturing ourselves. you can’t carry that weight all on your own. unfortunately i hate zoom, discord, slack, signal, whatsapp, facetime. you name it this panera has made it evi.. L

you make a really excellent point. i think the young young gen zers are really really just interesting because it’s like this whole new world for them with leftist politics and they just can’t grasp the horrors of the world and the kind of freedom being a leftist can bring. and so many people don’t grow out of it. those people so happen to be the “least productive” in terms of how much time they spend IRL withe these issues. naturally, younger kids are gonna have a harder time. they are not as mobile as well so the internet becomes this place. but then it’s this echo chamber. and many times just things posted without sources. and social media NEEDS that to exist.

i think of the irony of leftist kids on tik tok and while i am happy it’s reaching them it’s just....different. very different. the growth of social media is so good but also so fucking sad, it’s too much! i think the point about not writing everything is major. even i have to do this which is part of the disappearing.y ou need to detach and make sure your head is on straight again. but when you think eveyrone has to be privvy to every thought and you can’t just sit back....which twitter and social media doesn’t encourage. you have to join in. that’s often why when i have something to say it is dense because i don’t feel like repeating it. ever. lmao ust ever. i cant pay attn. social media is a fucking minefield for my brain u can get so lost in it and absorb it but once u start talking you may not be able to stop. 

i think a big part of that is it not being a leisurely thing but sort of just in our lives always. this sounds like a grandpa rant but ykwim. We dont have to see the same thing over and over again. And eventually it gets sincerely diluted or its diluted bc of capitalism or whatever. Or if theyre very young or maybe they don’t have like the greatest way of sharing the knowledge? then it can be butchered. I hope this is making sense...i’m talking beyoond the boring surface-level milquetoast shit. i see really ahistorical stuff on there from leftists (like this thing about NK + africa and it being a beneficial rship as opposed to a um not beneficial one. and it isn’t.  beneficial but this young black girl was talking abt it and noname rtd and i was like it’s just too complex. there’s no good/bad here just bc it’s not america. dont get me started on this.)

but Lol that was kinda off topic but I think what I meant in my last reply about not turning off the voice in my head is about when I consume media, not necessarily when I’m online talking about. Even if I have criticism for something, I’m usually pretty chill when consuming fandom content bc I think being serious online all the time is kinda boring. Like sometimes I’m analyzing theme and shit but really most of the time im memeing.

exactly.........gotta laugh. thats why sometimes im like i cant think lmao. unfrotunately i have been ARGUING with ppl on the internet for rly no reason when  i could have replied to ur very nice fun wholesome message. i love torture. i miss memes.

“ i think the people who get the least enjoyment out of that are those so obsessed with getting upset with anyone thinking outside of their lines as if it equates to them “ EXACTLYYYYY

kekekekeke im glad u got it. it’s like with conservatives throwing around snowflake. now im beginning to question who the real complainers are. 

LMAO exactlyyyy. i posted a screenshot of this writer from twitter saying that exact thing. Like first of all, I’m...an adult? and if you are as well uh? i’m sorry for you but are we 12? But how is it affecting u this viscerally? And if it does why dont u...do...research? pihgofuaipoajghou but honestly everything u said. we’re trained to go into it with nothing. i was only around ur age when i started to get more serious about this stuff but you’re like lightyears ahead of where i was at 21. did i say this but i’m in iww and literally i can tell u in 2016 i did not think 2019 me would be in a union bc i told my friend in a train station that we don’t need unions. i was 23...but the thing is i didnt know what i was talking about. at all. and i knew i didnt know and she knew i didnt know and now i am the clown.

also yes at critical engagement. i had to learn so much through experience and this is tuff that i coudlnt be shielded from. there’s an empathy you kinda have to develop and this understanding that you move through the world as this person who is “nowhere and everywhere; nothing and everything” so i’ve always had to think about things differently just to survive. that’s also what can drag a lot of people towards it like theres so many black kpop fans bc i think a lot of the pain in SK can be mirrored (sort of) through our history. and theres currently a history now but it had to be forged. uh what was my point oh yea however i wouldnt have been able to move further if i didnt have my background to go off of  bc i knew something was off when i started getting into all these things (ill give u a hint) but if i had no prior knowledge and didnt have to think about it then the critical approach is either stale or stupid. 

i had to research but i dont understand how ppl are so bold with little to no research and understanding? thhey just inherently know with also like ZERO experience in what they need experience in. engaging critically means “how i see the world” with dashes of trying to be open adn understanding or whatever. actually that’s another thing like being afraid of criticizing things bc theyre foreign to you so u give it a pass (like we discussed) but it doesnt hAVE TO BEEEE JUST REAAAAAD and then take all the info ur teensy brain and apply it. be a normal human being and dont be fucking rude and racist. thats it! u can complain abt literally anything without being a dick.

as we start with LW and end with LW.....what do we think (i asked this already) omg please share wbl thoughts i THINK i know what ur talking about. well it could be two things; their rship when they came back and the physicality and then pei shou yi. i almost dont even want to use my brain to fucking look at that. i think wbl can get away with more bc of visual~*~*~* reasons (like literally, the look of the show. there’s more space to get lost in the frames. many thai dramas are a lot more literal? this isn’t the right word but it’s very heavily character focused particularly bc of $ i think) though good production also underscores flaws so i am also wrong. but like do u know what i mean? u have to kinda focus on it? or maybe it’s just cos like.....ur so used to it in thai bl idek. i’ve seen tw bl ofc. 

look i swear i will justify this forever bc there are some things we miss right but if u feel like someone’s a bad actor....theyre bad. it’s about tone movement etc etc etc and since most thai bl productions have 0 interest in that....well. they take these newbies and put them in these situations. we dont understand thai but if we see them and we’re like “wow this is really bad” then they’re bad lmao. IDC i will never be like cos idk what theyre saying NO WHY HE LOOK LIKE A ROBOT???????? DOES HE EMOTE? why is he CRYING WITH NO TEARS? and it’s not even a total requisite to cry with tears(i mean for me it is) but it’s just like what is happening on ur face right now young man????????

painful.

the inflection stuff is very valid ooh good point tho but that’s only a part of the piece. plus we get used to the way they communicate. like the ppl from sotus were prtty bad. i dont like that show but thats an ex of ppl liing the actors and the person i thought was better other ppl dont think that? well apparently hes a shitty guy but. um. so when theres decent acting its so glaring.

although i must say even tho i dont care for 2gether anymore and would never like to be reminded about its existence (only bc i just cringe lol) i honestly....didnt think bright was a bad actor? but people keep saying he is and i am much more inclined to believe them than myself. though i am not often dickmatized that could have been it. until he opened his mouth and ruined it and then i stopped paying attn.

although honestly i’m so much more critical than i could be positive. i have ben stumped for the last day about how i wasnt mad at his acting in the show. is it me? is it him? who’s......the wrong one.....(me) 

oh shit they have been denied? i haven’t been paying attn to whats been going on recently. i just got into it on MDL because of snowdrop. sometimes i literally cannot engage bc ill just be like alright well im black so this power button in my head is going off when ppl talk abt that shit. back in the day when kpop jawns were saying some real outta pocket anti black shit (now everyone is slick with it) it’d always be THEY DONT HAVE GOOGLE THEYVE NEVER SEEN A BLACK PERSON but really it’s like no...maybe they are just racist? that’s ok too.

also the past 2 weeks have been um atrocious bc how fucking easily people fell into the pit of white supremacy and started to turn their ire towards black people and making a competition between our groups just like they wanted. it’s not about the women who are dead anymore, who were sex workers, their womanhood, being asian, being poor anymore. it’s about how much black people get attention and why people only pay attn to us. i am not feeling very generous this week for ppl to excuse that hsit.

on a lighter note, ppl say that abt the whole husband and wife thing. i dont know how to explain how angry that shit makes me but maybe it’s because i do not want to think of my body in relation to a fucking penis at all hours of the day. if bls could kindly not do that it would be nice lmao 

yes there are a lot of those. who are only there to gawk lmao. and just idk worship bc of the cult of personality thing bc of how weird and open they have to be as actors. some of the others are people who /think/ theyre really smart (i think im asmart but i also think i am very dumb and i have adhd to prove that MEDICALLY!!!) but are actually not? or their observations arent great? or idk if they are they arent interesting? but i think well..........we have more refined palettes :P

jk also theres just different personalities. you and  i mesh more bc we have a lot of the same beliefs and are coming from the same place. that makes it easier to understand as well. i really try to remember that but some people are really weird so. again just...the perception of certain things even down to acting skills. but i also dont like.......believe this genre can really do anything at all. on one hand i want them to do it right bc it’s a piece of work so they should. be proud of it. cos most things arent advancing us bc representation and culturalism are a lie bla bla. it’s just that when the depictions are negative or not done well it adds to the problem as opposed to the things that are well done are fairly benign and can’t really pull us back (perf example is the black panther film. i woudl definitely not say it was transgressive as a literal work but visually it’s just stunning. and it’s sad that it’s stunning and surprising but still with basically an all black cast of mostly dark people abd like what it means in the zeitgeist yes. it’s also just a good movie. but it’s still imperialist prop and unfortunately and this is fucking pathetic to say it “opened eyes” in other countries where they hate black ppl and ignore their own racialized minorities HENNYWAYSSSS a better ex is moonlight except moonlight isnt mainstream and is indie tho...still thru a funnel of capital bc a24 but who cares bleed the fuckers dry is my motto. my point is moonlight is both a great work and doesnt bring any failures to the table and its existence helps in ways outside of art but they arent the defining things giving us material advancement sooooo i mean it’s complex (this is my conclusion to everything um guys it’s complex) 

er i had one more point in conjunction to above. oh yea so i like dont need all these extra things to make it progressive. like people really want more women in the show and i am honestly like i really dont. i dont want them to actively do this. if they cant do it naturally then let someone else do it. i am not asking for more bc i dont want it from them. when something comes along i embrace it but i do not see why women should be represented when the genre RELIES on patriarchy. there is no complete satisfying existence for the women in these series. i dont want it. i dont ask people to show us~*~* or respect~* like fuck no the people who make it make it and hopefully more will make it in the future but i will not beg bc THEY DONT WANT TO DO IT SO WOULD FORCING IT MAKE IT BETTER? just fucking leave them out entirely. that’s the answer if theyre gonna make nasty female characters then those bitches can geaux. we have other plcaes to be. booked. and. BUSY!

[spaceysp]

Saying random stuff to feed into the hyperfixations; pick one of these statements to rant about because I wanna read :)) if u want,

How skeppy must feel with everyone meeting up cause BaD JUST COME ON ,

Opinions on bad planning to take skeppy to dinner and all that jazz ,

Skeppys newest video on the skep channel where bad and skeppy are surprisingly sweet to eachother (and how lately in general bad has been less angee with him) ,

Literally the whole discount skeppy situation , bad being literally in love,

Ride with U,,,,,hetero,,,,explanation,,,, anywhere?

ANONNNNN I OWE YOU MY LIFE ILY 

im literally going to talk about all of these so im sorry but read more at your own risk

one: skeppy, i am so sorry a mf does this to you. but seriously, i can only think of a few reasons (that dont sound entirely made for fanfic) that bad keeps putting off meeting skeppy 

1. (the most unlikely) theyve already met and they keep the bit going so the fans dont find out. i can get that they wouldnt want to tell at first because its their own business, but i seriously doubt they would wait very long to confirm it, because ppl honestly can put a lot of pressure and hype on the meetup (esp with skeppy’s “surprise”) so i think theyd release something just so everyone knew that it finally happened! they didnt lie!

2. bad just doesnt want to meet skeppy (actually nvm this is the most unlikely) 

bad seems to be genuinely excited to meet skeppy, even claiming skeppys the one to keep putting it off, not him (which skeppy immediately disproved but) and saying over and over he wants to meet up with him, but always avoiding actually making plans (every single tweet about the meetup) so its clear he does want to meet skeppy eventually, which makes trying to figure out why he wont even harder

3. its not the right time/ waiting for a specific date

leading up to this, i was thinking that there was a pretty good chance theyd meet up on their anniversary, but that never happened rip. the issue is with this is that they guaranteed they would meet up before the end of the year, and at this point theres only one “event” left, but they still dont seem to have any plans to meet. if bad was waiting for the perfect time to do it, why not just tell skeppy to confirm a meetup date? it would get him (and maybe the fans, if they told them) off his back. another variant of this is that there is a set date, but they havent told the public, but again, skeppy seems to be just as much in the dark about this as everyone else

4. health issues 

bads apparently been feeling pretty under the weather lately, with his arm and kidney stones, its very plausible (and reccomended, imo) that bad doesnt want to travel when hes having these problems. of course, skeppy could visit, but he could either not want to spend their time together sick or the plans they have could also be too straining. i think this is probably one of the most likely atm, go see a doctor bbh im begging you

5. bads nervous

this is also one of the more plausible to me. for whatever reason, bads just anxious about it, whether it wont be the same as talking online, or be super awkward or whatever, he could just keep putting it off for that (its still weird and kinda doesnt make sense but in a more realistic way this time)

i know i totally went off track but this brings me to my point, skeppys kinda just waiting for bads confirmation at this point, so seeing his friends have fun meeting up is probably just lowkey depressing and i could see him using it as more the reason they should meet up. really the only thing he can do in this situation(at least, as far as i can tell) is what he has been doing, annoy bad about it or he take advantage of bads jealousy and meet up with someone else. the other option is to randomly come to his house, but it doesnt seem like skeppy is gonna do that, maybe to respect his boundaries? if he was planning on it i think he wouldve done it by now

OKAY NUMBER TWO LETS GO

this kinda ties into my point in the “reasons why bad wont meet skeppy” thing, that bad seems really excited to meet him yet still wont?? its clear he really values any time spent with skeppy, but he also make sure skeppys having a good time too! that why he never does any actual work with skeppy around (i.e. building statues or gathering materials for such), he knows its boring so instead theyll wander around the server telling stupid stories or punching each other off stairs for 20 minutes. im sure itll be the same irl, he mentioned wanting to meet somewhere like a nature reserve or amusement park, probably to make sure theres never a dull moment or time wasted. dinner seems much more low-key, and i wouldnt be surprised if bad just wanted to have an excuse to try and impress him with a nice totally-platonic date

NUMbeR tHree *airhorns* 

they really do be the best of friends! ive noticed that skeppys def been trying to halt arguments fairly quickly now, saying a lot to appease bad and move on, and while bad seems to like to start fights for fun, hes also been a lot more chill lately, im guessing because hes been oh-so desperately missing skeppy and big s was also in Baby mode (aka if bad disagreed with him hed probably just cry until he got his way((sand))) i think that vid just showed them being a lot more natural and happy to talk (plus bad usually is more argumentative when theyre competing, while in that vid they were either just hanging out or working towards a common goal) 

n u m b e r f o u r 

where to even BEGIN with discount skeppy. well, bad actually first came up this idea a few months ago, in either july or august on an idots smp stream when he crafted an ‘artificial skeppy’ in his snack shack that he could talk to whenever skeppy was gone. as we all know idots smp is now rip, but the idea of replacement skeppys remained, just this time they can talk and also ship skephalo. it actually seemed like more of puffys idea at first when she put on skeppys skin as a joke, which bad didnt like the first few times, but when she brought it up again he actually requested it (missing skeppy brainrot 🤔?) this could be either cuz bad wanted to bait some shippers so gave in or he thought it was a pretty funny bit so went along with it (or he actually missed skeppy that much.. surely not ??) either way i think we can agree puffy is not only a comedic genius but a top tier friend and slight wingman, and getting some good jealous skeppy content out of it is also top tier. in conclusion, love and appreciate discount skeppy, badboyhalo has only skeppy on his brain and his friends have to deal with that, hoes (skeppy) mad even though the whole bit is how much bbh is into him

NUMBER FIVE im really doing all of them

What, can be said, about ride with u. GODDAMN. im not tryna insinuate anything, but if someone told me that song reminded them of me i would have no choice but to marry them immediately. i really really want someone to ask bad what songs remind him of any of his other friends (dream, sapnap, george, ant, puffy, etc.) because there are three options

1. theyre just cool platonic friend songs and bad is just in love with skeppy

2. he cant think of any songs for them and bad is just In Love with skeppy

3. they have equal romantic undertones and bad is just Like That with his friends (even so i bet people would be picking out the most minute differences between the songs that make one more.. You Know than the other) 

i know FOR SURe that if i was in bads position (where even the person who made the lyric video assumed they were gay in love) i wouldve curled into a ball and never made another public appearance again, but he really owned that shit, singing it and making unprompted references to it (”i already have a bonnie” YOU AINT SLICK SIR WTF) 

i just wanna know if skeppys listened to it (i mean, hes surely at least heard of it, i know he wouldve seen it all over his timeline) and what he thonks about it. pls tell us big s do you also feel the love in this chilis tonight (ALSO when is someone gonna ask skeppy what song reminds him of bad. im waiting ((hed probably say something like a faster remix or something equally memey (((unless???)))

ANYWAY SORRY FOR MAKING YOU READ ALL OF THAT HOLY SHIT i dont wanna reread this to check for errors so it might be incoherent but again ty for letting me infodump about this it was super fun im in love with you anon

[fredenglish]

Hello, #FeatureFriday friends! It’s been a while, but we’re back for an interview with Iclal Vanwesenbeeck: English professor, translator, and world traveler! We talked to her about her time with the department, how her experiences around the world have affected her, and the study abroad program to Iceland that she’s gearing up for. (Admissions are still open!)

1) What do you think the most rewarding part of your time as a professor at SUNY Fredonia has been?

My students. I’ve gotten to know so many beautiful minds. I’ve had the privilege of mentoring students. That’s been the most rewarding part of my life teaching here or anywhere. And I think they have helped me as much as I’ve helped them! 

I have a sense of what I want to teach that semester but it just so happens that the minute you step foot in the classroom, and you see in front of you people with emotions and thoughts and hopes and ideas,  you have to be open-minded and compassionate. And I think in some ways I find my teaching rewarding because I never compromise that. I was always someone who took an interest in students’ wellbeing, who was curious about what they thought, and never tyrannical about “Oh, I’m going to teach you this!” And now, ten years, twelve years later, I still have students who contact me, drive up to have coffee with me, invite me to their weddings. I’m happy!

2) Which of the courses that you have taught do you think students connected the most with? Which do you think you connect the most with?

My favorite subjects to teach are war and love. And I have to say, even though I sometimes hesitate teaching it, love and war in the context of Middle Eastern literature has been an intriguing experience for me as much as it has been for the students. I’ve done some interesting work where, for example, I had US veterans, US veteran writers visit my class. And we read about the Iraq War from the perspective of Iraqis, refugees. And I have to say, in the classes I teach, I have students that have those eureka moments, but never so much as in Middle Eastern lit. Because it’s a generational thing, they’ve grown up with an image of the Middle East. They’ve heard about the Iraq War, they have family members who have fought or  deployed. And it’s been a part of their lives. But for some reason I think, for more than half of my students, that hadn’t been rendered visible. Just how much the Middle East has been a part of their lives, in the post-Cold War era.

So, to render that, to make that appear to students and to ask them to echo an ongoing discourse, and invite them to be a part of the dialogue? That has been intriguing for me. And I applied some of what I do in love, romance literature, and taught exclusively love stories from Middle Eastern lit in order to de-center this idea that Middle Eastern people don’t love, don’t laugh.

That’s a very wordy way of saying: war and love. War stories and love stories.

3) What advice do you have for prospective and/or current English students?

Let’s see… [Pause] I’m not good at giving advice! But I would say to be open minded. Everyone already has something they want to study and yet I see college as an opportunity to also reach out to distant shores. So maybe learn a new language, maybe they want to study literature at Oxford for a year. Aim high, and be idealistic.

4) A big potion of your work as an academic revolves around the translation of historical works. What do you think brought you to have such an interest in translation?

Oh, thank you for that question! Um, personal reasons. And curiosity. And also, my belief in peace, and peacemaking. The reason why I translate the works of some of the American veteran writers, for example, is because I want them to be read in other languages, I want their stories to be told in other languages. Because we need that polyphony to understand war. And it is, I believe, only possible through translation otherwise you have that barrier, since you can’t be face-to-face all the time with everybody who has experienced war. Those stories have to migrate. And I don’t think there’s any other way besides translation.

As I migrate between languages and I travel, sometimes I feel homesick for my native tongue. And that makes me want to sit down and translate, to use that vocabulary. Sometimes I just spend an hour looking through a dictionary, just to see if I will catch a word that I would like to remember. That is important in life, and… [Pause] it helps me. 

5) You’ve travelled quite a bit throughout your life. How do you think your experience of travel has affected you as both a person and as an academic?

I was born in Turkey, and I was raised in Turkey. And I came to the US for my graduate degree program. And I stayed here. And in the meantime, yes, I travel often. And it so happens that my life is an intersection of three cultures and three countries and three languages: Belgium, Turkey, and the United States.

So being in Belgium, or in Ghana, or in Russia or in Iceland… I don’t see those countries as entities with borders that then determine how I should act or interact with people. When I travel, I like connecting with people and landscapes. That’s what I’m interested in the most when I travel.

But I also want to refer back to a Renaissance philosopher that I adore, Montaigne. Something he wrote, has always stuck with me: “The very act of rubbing your head against the head of others.” That you become wise as you travel. I’ve seen in the past that that is not true for all people; in fact, a critical mass of people that I see when I travel are only interested in living somebody else’s Instagram page. They want the same pictures, the same selfies, the same food. 

But for me? It has almost become a lifestyle. And I don’t see how I could give it up.

6) You’re the faculty leader of the Iceland study program. What is it about Iceland that you think makes it such a good location to study abroad?

Iceland is a sub-arctic island. It is quite remote from many locations. It is a country of 350,000 people, most people live around the capital city, so the island is not homogeneously populated. To me, it is a country that brings together modernity and tradition. In terms of landscape, it brings together  extreme urban architecture and beautiful pastoral scenery. On one hand, it has these most progressive laws towards the LGBT+ community and pay equality. On the other hand, it has a committee for baby names. Certain names aren’t allowed for babies. It’s a country that doesn’t have, from what I can say from my own research, a single stolen item in their museums. Not a single item that’s been questionably curated or smuggled. And in terms of problem-solving, and democracy, and lifestyles, it is a country that can help students do comparative analyses. 

In terms of environmental issues, in terms of equality, we have, I think, a subset of global issues that we face. If you go to Bangladesh, you will see them dealing with water pollution. In Flint, Michigan, they deal with water pollution. So we have a subset of global issues anyway. But everybody seems to find different solutions to these problems. And it seems to me that Iceland, maybe because they are a small country, maybe because of the way that their democracy and politics work, maybe because of the culture, their decision making and their problem-solving may help students analyze their own. It’s for that reason that I think that Iceland is a near-perfect place for the students to go to tackle the issues that they have studied in the classroom, and heard about for all of their young adult lives.

One example: my generation did not read about glaciers in the newspaper every two days. Your generation, almost every week there is news about glaciers. They’ve become a part of our political and environmental issues. And we have a glacier hike on the Iceland trip for students — with very responsible behavior [towards environmental impact] — to see the glacier, and understand their life cycle, and what they mean for the planet, and understand that when glaciers melt in the Arctic, we feel it in the Mediterranean. Our world, as Jacques Cousteau said: “Everything is connected.” To get these insights, you have to travel. You have to develop perspective.

For aesthetic reasons, too, Iceland is a special place to study. It’s a breathtaking country. Arresting scenery. Captivating. If you have a poet or a painter in you, it comes out in Iceland. You cannot be indifferent to the Icelandic landscape. And every time we go, from the moment we get on the airport bus, to the second we depart, students are captivated.

7) Finally: what would you say is the most important lesson that literature can teach us?

[Long pause] It hasn’t taught me any lessons. Because, then we have to see literature as almost being didactic all the time. I had questions. And literature has helped me understand my own questions and listen to how others have asked similar questions. You may not feel like you need to read in your twenties, but I bet in your fifties you will feel that urge to read. For anybody who wants to understand existence, it’s there for you.  It takes away your loneliness. It hears your questions, and it gives you more questions. For anybody who wants to understand existence, it’s there for you.

[This interview has been edited and condensed for length, with input from the subject]

[create-ninety]

Wednesday 20th February, ’19. 10am.

There’s nothing quite like going to a gig at a small venue in a trendy part of town to make you feel like a geriatric.

While I was getting ready for the event, I was wondering if I was going too casual – I was wearing a plain t-shirt with black jeans and an oversized floral blazer. Turns out I should have gone in what I normally wear as pyjamas! There were kids (I say kids, because while there were definitely a few ‘older’ people in the crowd, the majority looked like they were born this side of the century) wearing what I can only describe as their dorky mum’s clothes from the seventies. It was bizarre. Lucie and I stood to the side in a somewhat demure fashion by comparison, me sipping on non-alcoholic beer, and Lucie overheating from a temperature brought on by a nasty cold.

We both agreed that, if we were born when they were, it’s this kind of crowd we probably would have found ourselves in. Perhaps it’s because they were wearing exactly what we were wearing, once upon a time. I can imagine this isn’t a unique experience for people who find themselves looking over their shoulder at the next generation and wonder what the hell is going on.

The show itself was great – the band were amazing. I’ve seen them three times now and each time they’ve got better. The audience loved the performance and it was actually quite inspiring to see people passionate about their art in action. And it was obviously the kind of crowd that didn’t bat an eyelid that I was draped over completely over Lucie, which is always a plus.

When we got home, we lay awake talking about it the performers. I wondered what the process is that gets a person to the point where they feel confident enough to get on stage and perform in front of others. Essentially saying, “I am confident enough that my work is good enough to not only subject you to, but I am compelling enough to perform it in front of others.”

That’s a pretty brave thing, for anyone to do. To be inviting open criticism and to stand up and project vulnerability. I do, genuinely, marvel at musicians and stage actors who have to suspend what can only be described as ‘normal reality’ to sing, move about, and create a large amount of sound – something that in any other situation would be wildly inappropriate and strange. And yet there we all were, gathered around a stage, making noise for individuals who were inhabiting that space of vulnerability. I’ve decided that, for me, it’s actually less about hearing the music of the artists when I see the live show, and more about watching and observing the emotions that they’re going through, as they do it. And you can see it on their faces. The nerves, the little shakes, the awkward chatter between songs when the polished performance of practiced routine is paused.

Lucie pointed out to me that writing a novel isn’t so different to that.

In some ways, perhaps not, but by and large I think there are some key differences.

I think that if you’re a creative person by nature, then creativity has the opportunity to express itself in several key ways: as an actor, a musician, a visual artist, or a writer. Each of those could be called spheres with smaller subsets breaking off (stage actors vs film actors, painters vs photographers, poets vs fiction writers, and so on). I suppose it just depends what vehicle you ultimately are drawn to and prefer as your mode of expression. Because ultimately, the point of anything creative is fundamentally the same: it’s just that, expression. You are expressing something emotive, experiential, a message, something others might relate to. And each of those spheres give you the option to do it, but with completely different methods of execution.

When I was growing up I played with all of the different spheres and I can see them all, now, as different sizes and at varying distances from me. At certain points in my life I’ve actually valued them and explored them in different orders. Some have increased in resolution and texture while others have stayed smaller and smoother.

The smallest of my creative spheres, the one most under-developed and child-like, is visual art. I’m not bad at basic sketching or copying something. And I can stare at a piece of art and try and pull out its meaning. But when I was young, the pleasure I’d get from mixing paint or translating an emotion onto a canvas or something else just wasn’t very high for me. So I didn’t spend time doing it. There were moments where I’d develop a surge in interest (this still happens) – I’d go and buy watercolours and start painting for fun, or I’d be obsessed with sketching raccoons or something. But it’s always fleeting, and ultimately, not really something that I have been able to use as the best means of my expression.

I found a lot of joy in stage acting and performing when I was young, right up to my teenage years. I would include public speaking in this. I found it exciting. I liked playing characters with interesting stories, and I liked to turn different emotions on and off to create scenes with others. I liked finding mirrors of myself in characters, and ‘becoming them’, for a short time, was a small reprieve from myself. But sometimes it was hard to occupy the emotions of a character when my own were trying to take centre stage, so to speak. In my last year of high school when I was arguably involved in the most theatre I’d ever done – I was the lead role in my drama class’ final show, I was in a speech finals competition, I was sitting a speech and drama exam that had multiple theatrical components, I was in our school production, and in an improv team – I was stressed as hell. I realised, ultimately, I didn’t like standing up in front of others to be scrutinised as a version of myself that wasn’t me. I didn’t like that there was a ‘right way’ to act, and a ‘wrong way’. Because, well, there’s a director telling you what to do and how to do it. And so when I left school, I stopped any form of acting. I thought about joining a theatre company but I didn’t. I almost studied Theatre at uni, but I didn’t. It just wasn’t the creative vehicle for expression for me and I dropped it all together. I think, as a result, that acting is now my least valued and explored sphere.

Music, on the other hand, was something I discovered in my late teens. I’d tried piano earlier but didn’t like it, because I was taught classical, which to me was basically mathematics with your fingers. I wasn’t good at translating the written music to something that requires you to be so profoundly dextrous. Years later I would discover tab, and learn the general principles of music accidentally. I realised that chords are the foundation of all music, and that chords translate across all string and wind instruments, including the piano. Once I understood that, and once I was able to master basic dexterity and rhythm, music became the most wonderful tool of expression. I was able to write lyrics, write melodies, and then later on, piece them all together to make a song on my computer. I must have made hundreds. I did struggle to ���finish’ one, though, and my desire to perform them never became overwhelming enough to take it to the next level. For me, it really was just means to express something. I liked the personal nature of it. I liked the different emotions that could be conveyed through the different sounds and instruments. Sharing the songs with anyone was always a profoundly terrifying experience: the music was an extension of myself, as if I had translated my own identity and ‘suffering’ into sound – and for others to hear it, and to judge it, would be for them to judge me.  And so the music sphere for me has grown large, but it has stayed at the same size for some years now. I pick up the guitar when I’m feeling emotional. Or when I want to put music to a poem. And when I see musicians perform, I see love for the vehicle. I often dream about writing an album to compliment a film. I suppose that now, there is actually the option to actually produce music without having to perform at all – you can do it all digitally. But I don’t think that I love it enough to put it out there. There is so much music available. I don’t think that what I create would be contributing to anything other than my own creative expression. And so, it’s for that reason, while it’s fun to dream, I think – unless I suddenly have unlimited free time and money – that it’s something I’ll never take further than just tinkering around when I fancy.

Writing, for me, is the perfect mode of expression. It’s a completely internal process. With music there is this external component, which I think is ultimately what turns me off about it, but with writing, it can be done completely behind a veil. When it is released into the world, it’s consumed by a reader internally. You are not the work. The work is as separate from you as possible (perhaps in many ways like visual art). This is what appeals to me so deeply. That I get to have a personal, raw, emotive and transformative experience writing something and exploring it in a depth that has so many layers of meaning. And when someone reads it, the work becomes a personal experience for them. You are just a a vehicle for the expression. My physical form, my personal likes and dislikes and expressions, are not relevant to the ideas being put out into the world. And I love this. Writing also carries with it the highest possibility for profound connection: books take a long time to be read, and upon each separate reading, new meaning can be found and uncovered. The same can be said for all the spheres, absolutely – I’ve certainly spent hours listening to the same song and attached various meanings to it, and felt connections to musicians I’ve never met  – but there is something unique about a narrative with a character who goes on a journey. I would argue that in a book you can still experience all five senses, but in an abstract way.

I don’t like the thought of who I am as a person getting in the way of the message. I want to place the art and the ideas at the centre of the experience. When you involve yourself – in a way that musicians and actors have to do – then you become consumable. And that is a scary concept for me. One could argue that the person performing is actually, themselves, part of the art - I would imagine this to be true - but I think this is what differentiates the spheres.

And, more than anything, writing is as automatic and as essential to me as breathing. Or eating. It’s just something that’s part of my day and necessary for normal functioning. For people who master the other spheres, you can see that they have this feeling about their own medium. I saw it on the faces of the performers last night. They live and breathe music. Their instruments are extensions of their identities that they have to exorcise. When I scroll through the Instagram profiles of visual artists, their dedication to the craft is demonstrated through the picture after picture after picture of their creations.

And, finally, I am now – perhaps like the musicians – confident enough to think that my work is good enough. I also think it’s now good enough for others. So yes, maybe I am more like the musicians than I think.

[vidoxi]

just finished mystic messenger and i just wanna write down my thoughts. major spoiler warning + i-might-talk-shit-about-your-fav warning. if you want to discuss with me any of the points i bring up here, go for it.

Jaehee “No Homo” Kang

so when i first heard that her route was just a friendship route i was hella disappointed and thought that sounded like a total bullshit cop out, but after playing it i feel a little differently. i think it makes sense for jaehee’s character and narrative that she would value a friend over a relationship at that point in her life, but also its pretty clearly said that she does have romantic feelings for you but she needs time to process them, which is especially understandable since you can infer that before she met you she thought she was straight and also she’s catholic. her after ending was the perfect time for her to confess or for there to be the implication that you two are in a relationship, but instead it’s the only after ending where we DONT get to see interaction between you and your partner, which is a bullshit cop out. i do like that in the christmas DLC things got a little more romantic but i’m still wanting more. jaehee and the fans deserve what the male characters get, a CG of a kiss on the lips and a confession of romantic love. i hope that if more DLC gets released, cheritz will push the envelope a little a lot more. but i have heard that korea is still really conservative and for all i know making it more explicit could be illegal so i might be being unnecessarily harsh there lol;;

about her actual route though... it was good. nothing really exciting happened. it was definitely the chillest route i thought, but it was really sweet and she’s absolutely adorable and it warmed me to her a lot. her bad ending 1 (the one where you end up with zen) is so depressing, fucking hell. it feels like you betray her. it’s so ugly. ;_; i never want to do that ending and i’m glad there isnt a unique CG to tempt me into it either. her bad ending 2 (where you push her to work so hard that she ends up in the hospital) is pretty terrible too. after ending was hella cute though, i love the thought of mc and jaehee having their little coffee shop together and jaehee getting to actually work on something she’s interested in and being with her “best friend” all the time. oh and yoosung becoming jumin’s new assistant was interesting and i need me some fics, u feel?

something i also feel a little robbed about is that jaehee never blew up at jumin. she drags yoosung like theres no tomorrow and you just know she could say some venomous shit about jumin so i was hoping there’d be a big confrontation between them where she gets a dramatic The Reason You Suck-type speech but there wasnt really a moment like that.

however, seeing jumin all bitter about it at the end was a little gratifying (sorry jumin)

i love their emojis and you cant stop me from using them

also on this route where 707 has yoosung hunting for the LOLOL expansion pack (how is this boy so naive? im worried) and he finds a buried picture of rika’s dog sally instead, i at first thought that he had dug up sally’s corpse and i was like “wtf the fuck seven”

also wtf @ v saying he has terminal cancer. this is presumably a lie, right? before reading the secret endings i thought he was going to commit suicide but now im thinking that (seriously if you havent played the whole game you need to stop reading this rn) maybe he knew that rika was going to dispose of him soon and he didnt want jumin to investigate his disappearance? iirc yoosung’s good ending is the only one that he’s present in, so is it meant to be assumed that he’s killed off camera in every route possibly?

everyone else under the cut

Zen

the worst tbh. i dont like saying it but there it is. possibly this depends on who you are as a person but to me it didnt really feel like MC and zen had much chemistry except during that scene where youre on his roof together. most of your interactions are just you praising him and fellating his already huge ego. and jaehee was exceptionally annoying with all her “muh zens reputation” shit and feeling like i was taking zen from her was really awkward and unpleasant because it does seem like she has repressed feelings for him. fuck and the whole story with echo girl was super predictable and generic and feels like something i’ve seen 100 times before and probably have. my overall feeling about this route can be summed up by this emoji.

i feel like it could have been improved by either removing the echo girl stuff or at least putting an interesting spin on it. i think they should have made zens’ childhood abuse and family problems and maybe his past as a gang member as well an actual conflict instead of it just being a thing of happenstance. it’s an interesting backstory that as far as i can recall didnt end up having an impact on the current day situation. it would have been interesting if he had some sort of emotional issue you had to help him through like jumin, like secret crippling insecurities due to his family telling him for years that he’s ugly and inadequate, and thats why he tries so hard to be perfect so that people will give him the love his parents didnt. also his elementary school teacher was implied to be a pedophile(??? i dont remember what was actually said in the conversation i just remember the pedo-vibes) so they could have made him a CSA survivor but maybe thats too dark even for mysme lol.

also his bad ending 1 confuses me. the first time i saw it it felt really rapey but rewatching it now, MC does seem to consent but its after being cold and refuting his advances so it seems really weird. MC seemed genuinely disinterested, but i guess she was just playing games, testing him to see what he’d do? since theyre in a relationship a year later. and his bad ending 3 (the one where youre both kidnapped by saeran) is pretty bizarre lol.

so yeah this is the weakest route imo. maybe its different for people who are zen fangirls but i personally felt like i was being super fake the whole route, which was especially jarring coming off of yoosung’s route where the dialogue choices felt very organic to me. also his responses to mean things arent even interesting lol so thats frustrating too. and this route felt weirdly short. all the others felt like 11 days but this one felt more like 5? and when i missed chats on this route i just let it go most of the time instead of spending hourglasses. i wasnt feeling it, mr krabs. by far the best part of his route for me was the relationship development between zen and jumin.

now that ive spent 4 paragraphs just complaining you probably think that i dont like zen but actually i think he’s is a fantastic supporting character and i do like him a lot. that picture of him sneezing was my phone wallpaper for quite a while lol.

Jumin

me at the beginning: i fucking hate jumin han. fuck him. fuck his cat. i hate this type of asshole love interest.

me after zens route: i guess he has some hidden depths... i’m curious...

me after jumins route: *loves jumin han so much i cant breathe*

this guy... this cat man...... where to start? i’ve had a while to think about this route and i’m still not totally sure how i feel. “i feel complicated” is a term i’m going to start using because its just too handy for situations like this.

i guess i dont like that to get the good end you had to be passive and compliant and act like you were walking on eggshells. your relationship with him is undeniably a little scary and abusive. i think jumin needs more in his life than just you. but mysme is an otome game so of course youre the one that “fixes” him but thinking about it more realistically its worrying and jumin should be in therapy cuz the dude undeniably has some issues.

winning his heart by being understanding and with gradual, slow-growing trust was pretty touching. something i really appreciate was him opening up and his true self actually being hard to accept sometimes, instead of whats expected which is “oh youre secretly a perfect, beautiful soul”.

i do really wish they would have opened him up further though. there isnt ever a point where he completely loses control of his emotions. not to be gross but i’d do anything to see him crying, honestly.

i hope people are joking when they say that his bad end (you know the one i mean) is a good end. just because its hot doesnt mean that its good lol. its actually really tragic and shows the deterioration of his mental state and how he’s just accepted that he’s a fucked up/defective person.

“I was worried that the loneliness inside me would pile up and explode some day.” FUCK. dont do this to me jumin. ;_; this line is heart breaking.

something thats kind of interesting and worth noting maybe is that even though the other rfa members arent privy to the VNMs and you can give them little indication that he’s acting so worryingly theyre all still alarmed and concerned and thinks that jumin is going to hold you hostage/abuse you, which makes me wonder if youre meant to infer from that that theyve noticed red flags in his personality that he’s potentially kinda crazy.

and man, zen is always complaining about how jumin seems to have no emotions, but jumin finally opens up about his feelings and zen calls you laughing hysterically about how pathetic he is for being emotional. i was kinda hurt on jumin’s behalf during that call lol. he is so supportive to zen on zen’s route. just... shut the fuck up you albino freak. dont make me whip out yoosung’s “hyung, what’s wrong with you?” emoji. i wont hesitate, bitch.

there. you asked for it. feel those judging purple oblongs pierce your soul.

man, just reading the dialogue options that treat him like a psycho make me cringe. usually i’m tempted by mean dialogue options but not this time. i want to protect jumin han. ;_; i want to untangle his threads. i dont want him to feel like a mutant ever again. i want to love and accept him. i am now the president of the jumin han protection squad. jumin han did nothing wrong. shameless jumin apologist. that’s me. no but seriously he did a lot wrong and is pretty morally grey but thats one of the reasons that i love him. if you love jumin for pure reasons (that arent just “daddy~”) then youre automatically my friend and i love and appreciate you.

just to love on him for a minute: he is so damn funny, for real. he’s such a sass master, its great. him being terrible with technology is funny. his social awkwardness is funny. his shitty jokes are funny because theyre not funny. he should be the poster child for gap moe cuz goddamn. he’s such a ham. an absolute goofball dressed as a billionaire CEO, and i dont think he even knows it.

also every time elizabeth meows i fucking lol. its literally just a woman saying “meow”. every time jumin says “elizabeth is just a cat, she’s not human” i’m like “ARE YOU SURE?”

Yoosung

this is the first route i got and i assumed that i had already peaked at the beginning and no one was ever going to top yoosung for me, and that assumption was correct. i love this boy. do you hear me? i love him. “perfect” has seven letters in it. “yoosung” has seven letters in it. coincidence? i dont think so. i have feeeeeeelings over this character. he is so darling. i just adore him. i’ve opened the app many times just to look at his album. his voice is like a choir of angels. i have so many screenshots of conversations with him on my phone. he is so selfless and caring and adorable and kinky and pure and i want him to be real so i can marry him irl.

i’m not even sure how to give a critique on his route because i feel so emotionally close to the situation lol. i was very, very invested. ah. gosh. this boy. his good ending is absolutely beautiful. you know youre playing a weird otome game when the good ending has your boyfriend tortured and disfigured. he really earned his happy ending, not quite as much as seven but its up there.

i really love how for better or worse, this boy is like putty in your hands to be molded and what you say to him effects him so deeply in a way that doesnt quite get as extreme as with the other characters. obviously your words majorly influence the other characters but i feel never to the extent where theyre hanging on to every little thing youre saying like yoosung does. which makes sense because he’s young and impressionable and doesnt know what to do with himself and he says he wants to be controlled lol.

MAN, speaking of that, i love his bad ending 3 so much. it’s so twisted that he’s technically getting what he wants in a lot of ways. he’s a masochist that loves the idea of being kept as a pet and controlled, and he gets all that and more with saeran. that ending is so fucking hot, slkdfljsf. i might write a fic. i have a couple ideas.

oh shit, using that seven gif just reminded me. there’s a chat thats on the first few days of common route that ive always participated in before, but when you dont participate in it and yoosung has time to ramble, it gets really kinky. he says “i wonder what it would feel like to be locked up? just a bit.... curious lolol” which i think is what he says when youre in the chat too BUT THEN HE STARTS GETTING OFF ON THE IDEA OF SEVEN BEING LOCKED UP TOO. “Imagine the super smart Seven all flustered. and not knowing what to do.” AND I’M JUST LIKE BOIIII;;; HOW YOU GONNA JUST TALK ABOUT THAT IN FRONT OF ZEN AND JAEHEE LIKE ITS NOTHING? if he would take the obvious hints that seven hits on him he’d probably be willing to roleplay that scenario. 707 strikes me as a fetish friendly person lolol.

ummm... well, to get back back on track, ahem.... him confusing you with rika was creepy and interesting and they didnt take it far enough. even on the yandere bad ending he’s still fully aware that you arent rika. it seemed like it was building towards him having some kind of psychosis where if you feed into his desire for you to be rika he’ll really think youre rika but that doesnt happen so theres no real pay off, and he doesnt have time to do anything yandere-y to you before the bomb goes off so i found that ending to be pretty disappointing and unsatisfying. it felt like someone waving a delicious cake in front of my face but only giving me a crumb of it in the end, do you know what i mean? aaa. maybe i can find a fic that runs with the ideas set up here. when youre desperate, turn to fanfiction lol.

speaking of disappointments, i’m not over the last line of his good ending being “youre not rika, are you?” like... at this point we’re past this arent we omg stoppp. this line is a blight on my happiness. fuck rika and fuck whoever thought that was a good last line.

i noticed that yoosung is the only rfa member including v and rika that doesnt have childhood trauma. his trauma all happened recently. i think that lends to him being the most fragile and child-like character. the other rfa members are so strong because their pasts molded them that way, but yoosung has no such constitution and rika’s death is undoubtedly the worst thing thats ever happened to him.

something thats been on my mind concerning bad ending 3: does rika know that saeran is torturing yoosung? saeran must know that yoosung is his savior’s cousin because he’s hacked the chat and presumably has read messages where yoosung mentions being her cousin, correct? therefor wouldnt that make him hesitant to harm him? i think rika must have consented to yoosung being tortured then. maybe his ultimate fate at the end of bad end 3 is that he’ll be brainwashed and become part of mint eye.

man he’s such a bad judge of character lol. he hero worships rika, loves echo girl, thinks that jumin isnt potentially dangerous, and even you can fall into this category if you choose to play it that way. the one person he really dislikes is v, and v has nothing but the rfa’s best interests at heart lol.

something i love about him is how quick he is to call everyone out on their shit. like, his finger is always on the “whats wrong with you? :>” emoji, just waiting for someone to say something he doesnt approve of lolol. he’s so empathetic and naive but he still has such a strong sense of right and wrong and isnt afraid of standing up to his older friends and i think thats great.

ahh. this boy. he might be ranked #2 on LOLOL but he’s ranked #1 in my heart.

707

before playing his route i thought seven was an obnoxious tryhard and that jumin was way funnier, and after playing his route i still think that he’s an obnoxious tryhard and that jumin is way funnier.

HOWEVER.

however. i can definitely see why he’s the most popular character. that hot and cold drama, i-cant-be-with-you-because-it’d-put-you-in-danger, dark childhood backstory, sad clown type shit is a recipe for a lot of fans to be in love with you. he personally doesnt make my kokoro go doki doki like i kind of expected because of the fan response but i do really like him as a character.

he’s similar to zen in the beginning in that you have to constantly stroke his ego and i was like uuuuggghhghghghghg nooooo. “god seven” kill me lol. at least that only lasts for the first few days though.

i liked his bad end 2 where youre really sexually forward with him and he keeps snubbing you until you just snap and push him down lol. (“why arent you pushing me away?” “...i dont know. the floor is comfy.”) seeing him finally just give in and be hedonistic and decide to run away with you was nice. god i want fanfics based on like every bad end, theyre just so interesting

the chat where he tells yoosung that their friendship doesnt matter was paaaainful. also that part on day 10 when youre leaving mint eye and he says horrible shit to v. what was it, “if this is what youre really like i can see why rika blinded you”? like... goddamn, dude. i would never want seven mad at me lol.

one of the moments on this route that got me the most was in the flashback when saeran is being brainwashed and is speaking of or thinking about seven and says something like “please come back. we dont even have to be happy. just as long as we’re together i can endure anything” and then he’s crying about how he misses him and.... augh... *clutches at chest like the heart attack guy meme* i want to give saeran 52 hugs and a box of cupcakes and a puppy. i want to adopt him even though he’s older than me and be his mom. saeran.... saeran...... ;_;

THE ZEN AND YOOSUNG DRUNK PHONE CALL AT THE END OF DAY 10 IS THE BEST FUCKING PHONE CALL IN THE GAME. i called yoosung again after they hang up and he answers and its so great too. i need fanfiction R I G H T N O W about that night. nsfw or sfw, i just need more drunk yoosung antics and zen trying to handle him. oh and if you also call seven at this time he picks up and its really sweet and i think it should have been an incoming call so more people would hear it. the fact that the first time he tells you he loves you is in an optional phone call kinda sucks.

oh fuck his fucking after ending. at first where mc and saeyoung are in bed and talking about going to rescue saeran i was like “GDI CHERTIZ” thinking they were going to leave it open ended, and then in the chat where saeran joins in i fucking s c re a med i was so happy and relieved omfg. seeing the rfa being so inclusive and nice to him warmed my fucking heart. and when they asked him if he has the same taste as saeyoung and he says “ive never been interested in women” and zen is like “oh? where is jumin lololol” i fucking died. i can see now why ive been seeing yoosung/saeran shipping stuff and its romantic and not the abusive stuff based off of yoosung’s bad end 3 like i was expecting. but of course it turns out to be a fucking dream and ruins everything. the second that creepy music box music started playing i was like “fuck you cheritz”.

707′s voice actor in the free talk part is great. saying all these cheesy romantic lines makes him want to “rub sandpaper all over my skin” lmao. and he hopes that it becomes a series with new titles like “Strange Messenger and Thankful Messenger”? fuck yes mate, fuck yes.

does seven not actually open a toy store? :c i kind of want this to be an actual thing. its a good fit for him. maybe the fact that he dreamt about it means that it’s something he’d been thinking about.

oh and BI THE WAY, SEVEN IS BISEXUAL. this makes me so happy. bi visibility is so important to me and the fact that he’s the face of the game, the fan favorite, the canon route, etc, is so delicious. thank you cheritz.

on the subject of the secret endings.... man. i knew it was going to be crazy but i still wasnt prepared. these were a trip and a half and genuinely had me feeling shook up emotionally. if there’s ever a time in my life when i’m too happy i’ll just think about v. definitely the most tragic character in the story. he’s not an angel and he’s pretty much culpable for his own suffering but he did not deserve that.

something of note is that jumin was in love with rika but after learning what she did to v, he has such a grudge against her that he wants her arrested even when she’s completely lost her mind and he even thinks about chasing her down to alaska. he loves v so, so much, augh. it hurts. i’m in pain.

it’s pretty fucked up that jumin (and yoosung and zen and the rest of the world) are still being lied to about v’s “suicide”. jumin spent a lot of money and went to a lot of trouble to get help for saeran, who is his best friend’s murderer and he just doesnt know it.

the fact that yoosung in particular never knows the truth about the cult and drugs and brainwashing and everything is a good thing though. just seeing his hero come back from the dead and be reduced to someone so mentally ill that she cant communicate and needs 24/7 care would be extremely distressing and i imagine would worsen his depression. knowing the truth would be too much i think.

i think this game fucked up v and rika’s VA’s too because both of their free talks quickly derail into too-serious territory. v is like “i once hurt my wife so badly and the guilt was unbearable” and rika is like “im going to die some day and i have no idea when...” and im sitting there like “i need a fucking hug, oh my god”

it’s amazing how quickly the secret endings shot saeran up to being one of my favorite characters. he’s so good. ;_;

okay but what was mint eye’s plan? i know they wanted to end the world’s suffering but like, how exactly? through brainwashing + drugs? rika could clearly see that saeran was miserable though, couldnt she? also some of the things saeran said made me feel like they were going to do some sort of ritual group suicide or something. maybe thats how everyone is going to be happy. and the doctor says that saeran was on peyote, shrooms, AND meth? god damn, what a cocktail lmao rika doesnt fuck around.

i love rika. she’s thoroughly disturbing and a sickening person and i can see why she’s so hated now in the fandom but even she is deserving of sympathy (abused adopted child with severe mental illness) and also has good qualities (high emotional and social intelligence, genuinely sweet, and extremely empathetic). one of my favorite villains from anything in recent memory. she’s terrifying and i absolutely love her.

we never learn her real name, which i thought was intriguing. i get the feeling that she’s meant to be mysterious and unknowable, even with all her power stripped from her as it is at the end.

im so happy that the game ended on a hopeful note, with saeran seeming like he's starting to recover and he's either grown out his hair or dyed it back. he still has literal mint eyes though, which makes me wonder if theyre not contacts like i was thinking and are actually some permanent body mod he had done. he got a tattoo of the mint eye logo, so i wouldnt be surprised if that was the case.

stray thoughts (this part is super disjointed and im just saying things as i think of them)

with the exception of 707 (if you count the secret endings as being part of his route), sometimes i get the feeling of these characters being like big fish in a small pond. mysme is already head and shoulders above what i thought a mobile game could ever be, but that doesnt change that i still feel hungry for something more. i want to see this cast in more situations, under different circumstances. they all feel like fleshed out characters full of potential that are just waiting for something more and bigger to do, like maybe something thats not restricted by being a mobile otome game. but maybe thats one for the fic writers, i dont know. maybe cheritz could work them into another project somehow since mysme got so popular.

i love that the characters have actual flaws. all of them have unattractive qualities that really make them seem human. and all of their relationships with each other are entertaining too. they are all multi-faceted and interesting and i really do adore this cast.

so 707 is the canon route but i hate the thought of any of them being canon because that means the others arent canon. all of them needed you. i want a harem route. give me all of them at the same time.

i feel a spiritual connection with vanderwood. he just constantly looks so done. his gender confused the hell out of me at first. i thought maybe he was a trans woman at first because of the hair and name but then he responds to seven referring to him as a woman with things like “i’m going to taze you”, so i was like “okay, he’s just a dude with a girls name and haircut for some reason” but then seven tripped me up again with the fact that even when the scene is really serious and seven isnt in a joking around mood, he still refers to him with female pronouns. but i guess this could be explained as this is just what seven’s used to. @aouba brought up a really good headcanon that i believe actually is canon because it makes too much sense which is that “mary vanderwood” is just the identity that he’s assuming at the moment, like saeyoung being “707″. its even noted by one of the other RFA members (yoosung?) that the name is weird and sounds fake.

i’m never more thankful to be a pale girl with long brown hair and bangs than when i’m playing this game lol

also i love this game because it feeds into my pathological need to help people without me actually having to do anything lolol

is it just me or do the full portraits of the characters look weird? like when you look at them on the wiki and you can see their legs. i cant tell if it looks bizarre because you just never see their legs in the game or if their legs are drawn weird or both lol.

i love the character designs. 707 in particular is very nicely put together and distinctive. and i love how angelic rika looks. that one taylor swift song thats like “darling i’m a nightmare dressed like a daydream” is totally her theme song.

... okay now that im listening to that song it really does fit rika a lot.

oh and Take Me To Church is def v’s song for rika.

the two guests i was unable to get throughout all the routes is @god and @star. star’s is just so counter-intuitive and god’s seemed like such a crapshoot that with two chances for both i made the same mistake on their first email both times lol.

it surprises me that religion is mentioned so frequently and openly. maybe its not as big of a deal in korea or something? i’m thinking thats the case since two of the VAs mention their religion in their free talk (i forget who but one said they were an atheist and another said they were christian). it just seems like an oddly serious and potentially alienating topic to bring up in a dating sim. also jumin and yoosung are so inconsistent with what they believe. jumin says that he’s christian on one route and then firmly says that there’s no god on another. yoosung says he doesnt believe in god multiple times and that he has no interest in having any religion but he also talks about praying and refers to rika as being “up there” and watching over the rfa. i think zen is actually the only character that doesnt ever say where he aligns.

was anyone else suspecting that rika was the one that blinded the dog, sally? i’m glad that turned out to not be the case.

i love the voice acting so much. i think quality of voice acting is sometimes harder to discern when its not a language you speak, but the quality of the voice acting here shines even to my english-only ears. yoosung’s voice is straight up one of my favorite sounds, 707 has an impressive range and is overall just always entertaining to listen to, i love the way zen’s VA delivers his lines when zen is surprised and his howls lol (which were apparently ad-libbed by his VA), jaehee’s voice sounds so sweet and lovely, and jumin is so very... jumin-y and nice and relaxing to listen to.

zen and the twins were so fucking cute in the flashbacks i want to scream. i know we get to see yoosung as a teenager but im not satisfied and i want to see jumin and jaehee as little children so bad too, augh.

rika and yoosung are the only two characters that get the creepy ass yandere eyes where their eyes get all dull and flat when theyre being crazy.

i never cried but i got pretty close on yoosung’s good end and during the secret endings. i still feel shook from the secret endings lol.

why are there still bad end relationship endings for 707 and zen and jumin that no one has found? its almost february of 2017. its surprising considering the games popularity and how long its been out. is datamining not a thing with mobile games? or does the fandom not have anyone who knows how to datamine, or what?

ships im particularly interested in: jumin/v, jumin/zen, jumin/yoosung, yoosung/seven, yoosung/jaehee, yoosung/zen, yoosung/saeran, seven/saeran because i have no shame, mc/everyone, like literally just every ship tbh because i love every character hnnng

i had no idea that buying the christmas DLC gets you another free talk with the VAs. yoosung’s VA is so cute. “please get your flu shots if you havent already”.

not sure what to do now. i definitely want to replay yoosung. and i want to hunt for all the CGs and phone calls too, but i dont want to spend $20 on the calling cards lol. would buying them even be a better deal than just spending the same money on hourglasses? $26 gets you 1000 hourglasses which is more than you’d ever need, right? it seems like the better deal, unless youre not using a phone call guide for some reason and want to try to just discover them all on your own.

i’m super excited for more DLC. i definitely think there will be more because when you open the DLC folder, the christmas DLC is shoved off to the left, making room for at least one more. also just the nature of it being a DLC folder and not a direct button to the christmas DLC.

... i guess thats all i have to say lol;;; bless cheritz. this game is fantastic and has consumed my life and ruined my sleep for the past almost three months and i had so much fun and i hope they get even more ambitious with their future projects.

[haeroniel-doliet]

i need more money to buy little art

honestly tho feeling like for that ideal goal existence i’ll try get to someday, i’ll needa be making proper money comfortable and good so i can spend all i like on society 6 and other to buy shirts and bags and just everything to a house all in different art prints (mostly florals) bc just those pictures are  like everything i want but just so expensive. i’m trying to sum down like 10 to stickers, bc i wanna do up my laptop, but dedicating to a single decal (thats like 25 ON SALE) is too much esp since i love so much. so ive kinda decided to get a hard cover for the laptop just in case i break it, and just in case i do break my laptop that i can keep the stickers on the hard case and dont lose them to replaced parts. idk seems smart. ill probs buy a kinda shady cover off of ebay for 5 or 6 pound and then spend 20 on stickers for it :] since theyre on sale till 8 am today and its 3 am im probs just gonna settle and order them. might order cover tomorrow w my dad bc i need trust assurance. hes not all on board on the stickers so im just gonna go for it. theyre gonna be like my post cards. i buy so many every place. and no. not trashy postcards. i want art. i have so many postcards of paintings in galleries and so many from comic con art valleys (guess who wants to get so much more and 100% will) i love original art the most when its pretty to me and like everyone who sees it. simples okay but i prefer soft and detailed. excited now i can go to con and also be looking for stickers bc maybe ill get a few cool ones that wont cost me as much as the society 6 ones do. and then my laptop can replicate my walls, displaying all the art ive loved that ive been able to take with me (bc theres so much i obviously dont have on my walls) anyway im looking at these and making some small bc i suddenly realise this laptops got realestate. and the saddest thing w stickers (literally why i had one of those waxy paged sticker books as a child) is that i cant dedicate stickers to a single spot. its so much dedication. what if i buy a bigger sticker and it wont fit? what if i get the perfect sticker for that spot and it wont fit? (over lap i guess) how can i be sure i put them in the right spots to start with? augh i dont really wanna cover just half of it and obviously leave space bc that puts pressure on finding stickers and i might get ones i dont love. i cant get sick of any one bc itll be there  (joy of having multiple mean theres less getting sick of anything). anyway i think im happy w the sizes of these 10 stickers and can work w them (also for now i think im just gonna be going around the edges and leaving the apple logo as it is, esp bc it glows and theres already this shitty old smiley face sticker from my old psych teacher and i kinda dont wanna get rid of it, i just wanna add things around it so it doesnt look so: clean (actually dirty) laptop that a child marked as their own) 

anyway society 6 has random discounts all the time which is p rad and maybe the day im ready to invest in my own living space and dont feel obliged to check w my parents about just about any purchase, i’ll then subscribe to something thatll tell me what discount is on. that in mind, i think i’ll only get the 9 now, that hopefully wont cost too much, and leave a bunch in my wishlist, bc there’ll be another discount (this is 20% off everything)  and maybe that’ll be like 50% off stickers and boy then when my collection is underway you bet ill go for it. and like maxx sticks on their sketch book, if i dedicate to a new book maybe ill get more for that and have a pretty thing to keep and reminisce over (tho knowing me, ill not use it much bc i have a need for pretty things to stay perfect and presentable, and i have a need for everything that i might show to others to be like near perfect otherwise its sucks and ill feel bad bc i dont wanna show it off to people. like my art book, sure i couldve made it all experimental and crap and then edited the real pages together on the computer. but no. i needed everypage to be presentable and pretty and handwritten and creative. and they must go page after page, its so awkward showing someone something and then going “oh wait now these few are empty sorry yeah heres the next page” so i baasically have  a book with mhmmm 20-26 pages of beautiful spreads that im quite proud of inside beautiful covers ( i knew id want to be presenting it for years to come) and the back pages are just...empty. and theyll probably stay that way bc i no longer have projects to be doing to fill them with. maybe one day ill grow into myself and grow out the fear of ruining what ive achieved and fill some with new projects to please myself and be an indepenednt artist not just a teacher pleaser. you know its like that with my work too, like it has to have a direction and a plan that will be achieved, and its terribly frustrating when that vision doesnt happen. but i think thats the same with everyone. 

anyway on a side note, dont you guys think its so fun and cool how ive not done my post labs that were due last friday? how every night ends up being 3-4 am until i go... mhmmmm yeah i guess nothing is happening. like i hope id bloom and do work at that 11pm-3am window and then i get here, suddenly having lost all track and sense of time and just sigh. its wasted, its basically tuesday already. have to keep telling myself dates bc it moves so weird. i planned on getting shit done two days ago. here we are regardless. and the most ill get done is get those stickers ordered bc that is i guess what ive been half focused on for mhmmm5 hrs. then ill save my 7 dollars or whatever, have stickers on the way, tomorrow order the case and thats one insignificant thing done. then the question will be have i looked at summer jobs? no of course not ive looked at ballet courses. shush. i havent showered for days bc theyve just slipped by too laying in bed, maybe tomorrow ill take a shower and pick up all the trash and tissues on the ground. maybe i will. i know i wont get real work done tonight, and already ill be sleepy till 1 pm and by then mom will be again on me abt sleeping to latesoo... yeah no point. and here i thought id make a quick totes relatable short post about how i need more money to buy stickers and maybe a brief my ideal life is to have enough money to spend on art being in every part of my life and all this  being unique so people love coming to my house and go wow its so original and cool. and that turned into a word vent thats so far taken me over half an hour. hi my batterys dying. 

lng story short, i’ll order the stickers currently in my basket after so much though, suck it up and do it and know that i have a bunch over in my wishlist for that next maybe even better sale when it happens. the only thing is im taking all the rest as transparent which for sure dulls them down (yeah white background looks sick but for some its just more classy w transparent, then theres this one bear i’m 100% naming wojtek thats in white bc i feel it’ll be best for him, and i guess having him in white will set that theres no clear rules to follow and worst case if it doesnt fit he can come chill on the keyboard side next to my mouse pad thing) honestly i cant tell if i should be getting them all in white and just hope that theyll look gorgeous no matter what. yikes 3 dollar shipping for stickers, ok itll actually be 19.62 pound and using euro card 22.50 in  euros.... am i dumb? maybe. and tho im supposed to be saving money up so i have some, i also did get birthday money sorta recently soo... birthday gift from them. first set of stickers. deep breaths ok. my parents told me when i bugged them that i just have to make a decision and not ask them all the time, and he said to get 3 stickers i told him id pick 12 so i think getting 9 is reasonable. also oh shit realising that the delivery time is 1-3 weeks and im staying here only 1 and a half more so i should really order it to scotland even tho it might get ther ebefore i do bc my parents might not rly want to send them up to me. idk ok order to scotland, thank f at least one of my flat mates is staying and tbh i should really bring her some chocolate... shes done me faavours. 

[apsbicepstraining]

The ‘cultural desert’ of Silicon Valley finally gets its first serious art gallery

For all its billionaires and enviable lifestyles, the west coasts tech elite have never embraced the art world, artists say until now

Silicon Valley got its first major contemporary art gallery this week because Laura Arrillaga Andreessen prolific art collector and heir to local real estate baron John Arrillaga decided it was a little weird to have art sales in her house.

I didnt come and say Im going to make Silicon Valley like art. It just happened, said Marc Glimcher, who runs the influential Pace Gallery and was in town to fete the opening of his new Menlo Park location.

In the beginning, Laura Arrillaga wouldnt travel, so I would bring art to her house, and then her friends started wanting me to bring them art too. And she said, you know, its a little tacky to be doing this in my house, why dont you use my dads old run down Tesla shop?

A Tesla building could only be considered old in Silicon Valley.

Theres long been a truism that the Silicon Valley elite dont buy art. Unlike Wall Street bankers who see art as investment or prestige enhancement or maybe even who truly love art, Silicon Valleys wealthy dont seem to desire the same trappings of wealth, despite art dealers circling their IPOs for years. Wealth shows in different ways here: eccentric dietary habits, peculiar transportation methods such as electric unicycles, extreme fitness behaviors.

With the opening of the Pace Art and Technology space, dedicated of course to showcasing digital art, Silicon Valley gets 20,000 square feet of contemporary art and its first real test as an art market. The current show, Living Digital Space and Future Parks, has been made by a collective of 400 digital artists who call themselves teamLab.

Kudo Takashi, one of the artists, said he liked that the show debuted here: Its so special to do it in a Tesla Motors building. Elon Musk makes dreams real. He believes in the future.

Theres a certain standoffishness to art here like, Is this a Wall Street scam because we dont do Wall Street scams, Glimcher said. Obviously digital art makes sense technology based, which is of interest, and subversive, which is of interest.

Here its been a lifestyle desert. As if We dont do anything, we just work. We dont have a life. As soon as they start having kids, though, theyre like, maybe we are people, maybe it would be good to have art, Glimcher said, then continued and got a little heated. Maybe it would be cool to have a Nobu. Its maybe its not cool to have no good restaurants.

I shouldnt say that, he said, winking.

In came Benedict Evans, a colleague of Arrillaga Andreessens venture capitalist husband. Evans recently berated the lack of culture in the Bay Area by tweet storming, a popular activity among the venture capitalist community that involves making a long argument in rapid-fire 140 character dispatches.

Benedict Evans (@BenedictEvans) December 21, 2015

You move to SF for tech and spend all your money on rent. Well, theres nothing else here. Maybe Ill crack and go run in circles

Living in San Francisco is like living in London with no Zone One, he said, referring to the UK capitals sprawling central business district. Any given week here is fine but then you realize you havent seen a good picture in months.

This gallery is kind of a perfect microcosm of the ecosystem. Were by a freeway opposite a gas station, he said. Its not exactly Soho.

Arrillaga Andreessen greeted guests. She said she didnt think Silicon Valley was slow to embrace art at all but rather that the collectors are just more private here.

At the epicenter of social, so much is public, and for true art collectors it is deeply personal, she said.

A gallery focused on digital art will inspire viewers, she said: Having art come through the wires will meet this community in a unique way that works on paper or sculpture may or may not.

Or as Evans said: Engineers like art that looks engineered.

Michael Ovitz, the former President of Walt Disney Company, came in with Jimmy Choo co-founder Tamara Mellon.

Whats important is theyve taken the time and put in the effort to attempt to bring things to this community, Ovitz said.

Glimcher took Ovitz and Mellon to tour the gallery together. They stood in a room called The Crustal Universe, which involved walking through 100,000 individually programmed lights dangling on strands and set against mirrors that gave the room a fantastic, dizzying effect. Taking out his gallery control app, Glimcher turned the room lights onto Black Hole Setting.

Ovitz said he was impressed Glimcher got this to happen.

This is some undertaking especially where people are just learning, Ovitz said.

This is called a crash course, Glimcher responded, laughing.

After the show, partygoers walked to a white tent for hors doeuvres. Daft Punks Get Lucky played on the speakers.

Some werent so optimistic. Norio Sugano, in a belted coat and eating mac and cheese, said hes been in the Bay Area art scene since 1975, and no ones ever successfully convinced Silicon Valley to be serious about art.

I dont know if this is art. I dont know whether somebody will buy this work for a real art collection. Somebody will buy this, certainly, but itll be, he paused. Itll be lighting.

Are people buying?

Its on reserve already. It wasnt for sale, gallery publicist Florie Hutchinson said, looking up at a floating 8×8 glittering LED sculpture.

What home can even fit this thing? What room do you put it in?

The artist says its best viewed from underneath, she said, giving a knowing look. Maybe an early Valentines present?

The post The ‘cultural desert’ of Silicon Valley finally gets its first serious art gallery appeared first on apsbicepstraining.com.

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[viralhottopics]

Why You Should Stop Reading Self-Help Books

In 2006 Rhonda Byrne published ‘, a book that sold the power of positive thinking as the cure to the woes of the modern world. That book went on to sell more than 19 million copies in 46 different translations and define an entire genre of books, DVD’s, and workshops that make up the world up of self-help.

Byrne wasnt the first person to publish a self-help book. She wasnt even the first in 2006. The self-help world had been alive for over a century and had been a billion dollar industry for over a decade. But that book became the figurehead for a genre of books and products that have become one of those most profitable and predatory industries in the world.

These books are always full of the same old buzzwords and worn out phrases like living in your authentic self” or “living your truth or any other combination of words that fill up pages but dont actually tell you anything. Nevertheless, the self-help world has grown up into a multi-billion dollar industry that lines its pockets thanks to the made up problems of millions of self-help addicts.

You probably know who Im talking about. You might even have a friend that counts as one. Theyre always reading books that talk about their truth and telling anyone that will listen about the power of positive thinking, all while talking about how much their life has changed thanks to [insert book name here].

But have you ever noticed that those same people tend to stay at the same points in their lives? Theres not much upward mobility. At least it doesnt really look that way once you start peeling back the layers.

Sure, if you look at their carefully curated social media profiles, at a first glance things may look like theyre perfect. They have it all together. Theyre constantly making moves, grinding, hustling, or any other mix of annoying internet slang for just staring at a laptop all day long.

But if you really pay attention, are they actually moving forward in life? Are there relationships improving? Are they making more money? Are they putting more into the world than theyre taking out of it? Probably not.

Theyre too busy caught in the vicious circle of problems the world of self-help has told them theyve got. Dont join those people. Quit reading so much self-help. What do I mean by self-help books? This is a surprisingly general question since quite a few books and types of books can fall under this wide umbrella.

To be clear, when Im talking about self-help, Im not talking about psychology or philosophy books. Though those could definitely be considered self-help. Those take a bit of a deeper approach and tend to leave you asking more questions by the end than you even knew existed.

Psychology and philosophy, while expanding your island of knowledge, also make you painfully aware of your ocean of ignorance. No, when I talk about self-help Im talking about the cannibalistic genre that promises to pull back the veil on your innermost problems and provide the fix overnight. The kind of book that tells you youve got a problem and the only way to solve this problem is by buying this very book. THAT is the kind of genre Im talking about here. And if youve read these books, you know it never stops at one.

Once youve read one, they probably name drop a few books that are the only cure for other problems within that you immediately add to your Amazon cart. And then you talk to a few friends who have other recommendations because they had their lives radically changed by a similar book, so you add that as well. Before you know it, youve got 12 books waiting for you to crack open. And youre only just getting started because more recommendations are flooding in. Especially because Amazon has figured out this is what youre buying, so they show you more of this kind of book.

Its like everywhere you turn youre realizing you have all these fucked up problems, and people are offering the book that holds the solution.

This process is cannibalistic. Im not saying people dont have problems. In fact, people are endlessly fucked up in a myriad of ways. We all have our trauma that we have to deal with and work through. We all have issues that impact our day to day lives, our relationships, and our careers. And this is why the self-help genre was born. Because some people did have real solutions, that if you acted on them, would actually help you.

But over the course of decades, the genre has grown into this cannibalistic entity that sustains itself on the same repeat customers buying books from the same authors, constantly searching for happiness like its this endpoint theyll magically reach. And thats fucked.

Happiness isnt an end point. Its not like your vacation where you drive for what feels like years to finally get to the beach where you can kick back and drink all day long.

Life doesnt work that way. But dont tell the world of self-help that. They sell books with the underlying message saying that once you read this book youll solve your problem and youll finally be happy. Except you wont. Because in that book youll hear about a couple of other books that address problems you didnt know you had.

So what should you do instead of reading self-help books? First things first, if youve actual problems then you need to see a professional. The world would be a better place if more of us were open and willing to see a psychiatrist or therapist. That should be the first move you make instead of self-diagnosing and trying to solve a problem with a backpack full of books.

Im not an advocate of book burning, so as much as I would like to tell you to go burn all of your self-help books, Im not going to do that. That would be folly of me. Go take them to some local library or place where you can donate them. That would be a good move on your part. Make that happen. Next, go to your local bookstore and seek out some great fiction. If you havent ever read it, read , , Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and especially read Vonnegut.

Take your time and work through some of the classics. Read things that you were told to read in high school, but your eyes glazed over. Youll have a much greater appreciation for the books now, I promise you.

All that matters is that you read fiction. Why? Because fiction offers a real road map to changing your life. A far more effective road map than any self-help or personal development book can. Which sounds crazy, right? But the truth is, we as humans have evolved to understand the world through stories. Stories are by far and away the most effective way we can understand the world, what is happening, and come to grips with reality.

Aside from the predatory nature of the self-help genre, they get this fundamental fact about humans wrong. The self-help world has done great in recognizing that one of the primary motivating factors for people is pain, and using that pain to peddle their wares.

But where theyve fucked up is they tend to hit people with loads of information and very little context. And thats the exact opposite of how we as humans have evolved to make sense of the world. We spend all day every day telling ourselves stories about our lives. Theres even a psychological phenomenon that speaks this very occurrence called the narrative bias. We unwittingly seek out stories in movies and TV. And when someone does a story well, it tends to blow up. Primarily because the story has touched on something deep inside us that can only be reached via story form.

Stories provide us with both an example of how to deal with reality and an escape from reality. They transport you into another world where the characters are dealing with problems you may not even be able to relate to, until you start to take a broad view of things and realize that each and every one of us has a dragon we have to slay, much like our favorite fictional character.

They stretch your imagination. They give you new ideas. They frame old problems in new ways, presenting solutions that may have never been available to you if your nose was buried in all this time. And that is real value. That is learning how humans were meant to learn.

Read more: http://tcat.tc/2oT70DZ

from Why You Should Stop Reading Self-Help Books

[apsbicepstraining]

The ‘cultural desert’ of Silicon Valley finally gets its first serious art gallery

For all its billionaires and enviable lifestyles, the west coasts tech elite have never embraced the art world, artists say until now

Silicon Valley got its first major contemporary art gallery this week because Laura Arrillaga Andreessen prolific art collector and heir to local real estate baron John Arrillaga decided it was a little weird to have art sales in her house.

I didnt come and say Im going to make Silicon Valley like art. It just happened, said Marc Glimcher, who runs the influential Pace Gallery and was in town to fete the opening of his new Menlo Park location.

In the beginning, Laura Arrillaga wouldnt travel, so I would bring art to her house, and then her friends started wanting me to bring them art too. And she said, you know, its a little tacky to be doing this in my house, why dont you use my dads old run down Tesla shop?

A Tesla building could only be considered old in Silicon Valley.

Theres long been a truism that the Silicon Valley elite dont buy art. Unlike Wall Street bankers who see art as investment or prestige enhancement or maybe even who truly love art, Silicon Valleys wealthy dont seem to desire the same trappings of wealth, despite art dealers circling their IPOs for years. Wealth shows in different ways here: eccentric dietary habits, peculiar transportation methods such as electric unicycles, extreme fitness behaviors.

With the opening of the Pace Art and Technology space, dedicated of course to showcasing digital art, Silicon Valley gets 20,000 square feet of contemporary art and its first real test as an art market. The current show, Living Digital Space and Future Parks, has been made by a collective of 400 digital artists who call themselves teamLab.

Kudo Takashi, one of the artists, said he liked that the show debuted here: Its so special to do it in a Tesla Motors building. Elon Musk makes dreams real. He believes in the future.

Theres a certain standoffishness to art here like, Is this a Wall Street scam because we dont do Wall Street scams, Glimcher said. Obviously digital art makes sense technology based, which is of interest, and subversive, which is of interest.

Here its been a lifestyle desert. As if We dont do anything, we just work. We dont have a life. As soon as they start having kids, though, theyre like, maybe we are people, maybe it would be good to have art, Glimcher said, then continued and got a little heated. Maybe it would be cool to have a Nobu. Its maybe its not cool to have no good restaurants.

I shouldnt say that, he said, winking.

In came Benedict Evans, a colleague of Arrillaga Andreessens venture capitalist husband. Evans recently berated the lack of culture in the Bay Area by tweet storming, a popular activity among the venture capitalist community that involves making a long argument in rapid-fire 140 character dispatches.

Benedict Evans (@BenedictEvans) December 21, 2015

You move to SF for tech and spend all your money on rent. Well, theres nothing else here. Maybe Ill crack and go run in circles

Living in San Francisco is like living in London with no Zone One, he said, referring to the UK capitals sprawling central business district. Any given week here is fine but then you realize you havent seen a good picture in months.

This gallery is kind of a perfect microcosm of the ecosystem. Were by a freeway opposite a gas station, he said. Its not exactly Soho.

Arrillaga Andreessen greeted guests. She said she didnt think Silicon Valley was slow to embrace art at all but rather that the collectors are just more private here.

At the epicenter of social, so much is public, and for true art collectors it is deeply personal, she said.

A gallery focused on digital art will inspire viewers, she said: Having art come through the wires will meet this community in a unique way that works on paper or sculpture may or may not.

Or as Evans said: Engineers like art that looks engineered.

Michael Ovitz, the former President of Walt Disney Company, came in with Jimmy Choo co-founder Tamara Mellon.

Whats important is theyve taken the time and put in the effort to attempt to bring things to this community, Ovitz said.

Glimcher took Ovitz and Mellon to tour the gallery together. They stood in a room called The Crustal Universe, which involved walking through 100,000 individually programmed lights dangling on strands and set against mirrors that gave the room a fantastic, dizzying effect. Taking out his gallery control app, Glimcher turned the room lights onto Black Hole Setting.

Ovitz said he was impressed Glimcher got this to happen.

This is some undertaking especially where people are just learning, Ovitz said.

This is called a crash course, Glimcher responded, laughing.

After the show, partygoers walked to a white tent for hors doeuvres. Daft Punks Get Lucky played on the speakers.

Some werent so optimistic. Norio Sugano, in a belted coat and eating mac and cheese, said hes been in the Bay Area art scene since 1975, and no ones ever successfully convinced Silicon Valley to be serious about art.

I dont know if this is art. I dont know whether somebody will buy this work for a real art collection. Somebody will buy this, certainly, but itll be, he paused. Itll be lighting.

Are people buying?

Its on reserve already. It wasnt for sale, gallery publicist Florie Hutchinson said, looking up at a floating 8×8 glittering LED sculpture.

What home can even fit this thing? What room do you put it in?

The artist says its best viewed from underneath, she said, giving a knowing look. Maybe an early Valentines present?

The post The ‘cultural desert’ of Silicon Valley finally gets its first serious art gallery appeared first on apsbicepstraining.com.

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[apsbicepstraining]

The ‘cultural desert’ of Silicon Valley finally gets its first serious art gallery

For all its billionaires and enviable lifestyles, the west coasts tech elite have never embraced the art world, artists say until now

Silicon Valley got its first major contemporary art gallery this week because Laura Arrillaga Andreessen prolific art collector and heir to local real estate baron John Arrillaga decided it was a little weird to have art sales in her house.

I didnt come and say Im going to make Silicon Valley like art. It just happened, said Marc Glimcher, who runs the influential Pace Gallery and was in town to fete the opening of his new Menlo Park location.

In the beginning, Laura Arrillaga wouldnt travel, so I would bring art to her house, and then her friends started wanting me to bring them art too. And she said, you know, its a little tacky to be doing this in my house, why dont you use my dads old run down Tesla shop?

A Tesla building could only be considered old in Silicon Valley.

Theres long been a truism that the Silicon Valley elite dont buy art. Unlike Wall Street bankers who see art as investment or prestige enhancement or maybe even who truly love art, Silicon Valleys wealthy dont seem to desire the same trappings of wealth, despite art dealers circling their IPOs for years. Wealth shows in different ways here: eccentric dietary habits, peculiar transportation methods such as electric unicycles, extreme fitness behaviors.

With the opening of the Pace Art and Technology space, dedicated of course to showcasing digital art, Silicon Valley gets 20,000 square feet of contemporary art and its first real test as an art market. The current show, Living Digital Space and Future Parks, has been made by a collective of 400 digital artists who call themselves teamLab.

Kudo Takashi, one of the artists, said he liked that the show debuted here: Its so special to do it in a Tesla Motors building. Elon Musk makes dreams real. He believes in the future.

Theres a certain standoffishness to art here like, Is this a Wall Street scam because we dont do Wall Street scams, Glimcher said. Obviously digital art makes sense technology based, which is of interest, and subversive, which is of interest.

Here its been a lifestyle desert. As if We dont do anything, we just work. We dont have a life. As soon as they start having kids, though, theyre like, maybe we are people, maybe it would be good to have art, Glimcher said, then continued and got a little heated. Maybe it would be cool to have a Nobu. Its maybe its not cool to have no good restaurants.

I shouldnt say that, he said, winking.

In came Benedict Evans, a colleague of Arrillaga Andreessens venture capitalist husband. Evans recently berated the lack of culture in the Bay Area by tweet storming, a popular activity among the venture capitalist community that involves making a long argument in rapid-fire 140 character dispatches.

Benedict Evans (@BenedictEvans) December 21, 2015

You move to SF for tech and spend all your money on rent. Well, theres nothing else here. Maybe Ill crack and go run in circles

Living in San Francisco is like living in London with no Zone One, he said, referring to the UK capitals sprawling central business district. Any given week here is fine but then you realize you havent seen a good picture in months.

This gallery is kind of a perfect microcosm of the ecosystem. Were by a freeway opposite a gas station, he said. Its not exactly Soho.

Arrillaga Andreessen greeted guests. She said she didnt think Silicon Valley was slow to embrace art at all but rather that the collectors are just more private here.

At the epicenter of social, so much is public, and for true art collectors it is deeply personal, she said.

A gallery focused on digital art will inspire viewers, she said: Having art come through the wires will meet this community in a unique way that works on paper or sculpture may or may not.

Or as Evans said: Engineers like art that looks engineered.

Michael Ovitz, the former President of Walt Disney Company, came in with Jimmy Choo co-founder Tamara Mellon.

Whats important is theyve taken the time and put in the effort to attempt to bring things to this community, Ovitz said.

Glimcher took Ovitz and Mellon to tour the gallery together. They stood in a room called The Crustal Universe, which involved walking through 100,000 individually programmed lights dangling on strands and set against mirrors that gave the room a fantastic, dizzying effect. Taking out his gallery control app, Glimcher turned the room lights onto Black Hole Setting.

Ovitz said he was impressed Glimcher got this to happen.

This is some undertaking especially where people are just learning, Ovitz said.

This is called a crash course, Glimcher responded, laughing.

After the show, partygoers walked to a white tent for hors doeuvres. Daft Punks Get Lucky played on the speakers.

Some werent so optimistic. Norio Sugano, in a belted coat and eating mac and cheese, said hes been in the Bay Area art scene since 1975, and no ones ever successfully convinced Silicon Valley to be serious about art.

I dont know if this is art. I dont know whether somebody will buy this work for a real art collection. Somebody will buy this, certainly, but itll be, he paused. Itll be lighting.

Are people buying?

Its on reserve already. It wasnt for sale, gallery publicist Florie Hutchinson said, looking up at a floating 8×8 glittering LED sculpture.

What home can even fit this thing? What room do you put it in?

The artist says its best viewed from underneath, she said, giving a knowing look. Maybe an early Valentines present?

The post The ‘cultural desert’ of Silicon Valley finally gets its first serious art gallery appeared first on apsbicepstraining.com.

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