#tumblr has crashed twice in my trying to post this video

[piratewithvigor]

My Parents Are Disappointed In Me For No Reason So I Spent Four Hours On This Video To Give Them A Reason

Slap Chop - Lego Pizza Delivery 3 - Rollin Down The Sandhills - The French Chef - mr jarkle on the floor - Gaylord The Dog - monacco 2022, fairmont monte carlo, hairpin bend - Warm Cookies Are Served By The Bucket - 10,000 Glow Sticks VS World's Largest Blender - Southwest Boeing 737-800 taking off - Funniest Farm Animals - Robin Hood Daffy (1958) - Yikes and Away - Cabot Links - Shawn Michaels Dancing On The Announce Table - Snoopy the flying ace - Meet the Vancouver2010 Mascots - Rolling Stones - Harlem Shuffle - Sesame Street: Respect Is Coming - motion tracking - DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER | Bond escapes in a moon buggy - Frog - Animools - 13 Minutes of James Acaster Being Peak James Acaster

[scuderiafemboy]

f1 lestappen database nini edition

notes: number 1) this can get outdated super easily… number 2) i also dont know how to link content as i dont use tumblr alot but upon request im remaking my twitter thread here number 3) im not putting the races in chronological order as im quite lazy

at the 2019 japanese gp, max and charles hit eachother into turn two.

max after the race on the crash:

“i just dont get it. there was no need to risk so much in turn two. cause at the end of the day, both of us had to pit.”

2019 austrian gp, 3 laps left into the race max overtook charles and won the grandprix.

charles at the postrace pressconference:

“as i said, ive done exactly the same thing from the first and the second lap so i didnt expect any contact on the second lap. as max said, i think he braked a little bit deeper. i dont know if he lost it or not but then there was the contact. i felt like i was quite strong in traction. on the first attempt i managed to have better traction and have my position. on the second one i couldnt do that cause i was off track.”

2019 silverstone gp, the race right after austria. max and charles closely battled for 10 laps straight

charles during the postrace press conference:

“the best move was probably the one on max, on the outside in copse, i think he just passed me and i passed him back around the outside of copse. i think that was definitely was one of the most exciting (moves) of the race… of my race!”

2020 sakhir gp, charles crashed into checo, forcing max to go wide and then also crash

max post race:

“i respect charles alot, hes a great driver but i think today was a bit too much. he asked me “what happened?” and i say “what do you mean “what happened” you crashed into sergio and i have to go around”. i think he will look back at the footage and i hope he will understand that that was maybe a bit too aggressive. which is a shame.”

charles on the beyond the grid podcast 2021, talking about his rivalry with max:

“its the same (their rivalry) at the moment its obviously a little bit deminished because i can not fight against him, unfortunately. but if you look at the fight in silverstone 2019, i think you can understand theres quite a bit of competition and its always been the case. i mean its nice; we have grown up together in karting weve been always fighting eachother and now we find ourselves again in formula 1. so its great and i cant wait to put the team back were it deserves to be and fight against max for the title.”

monaco gp 2021, during Q3 charles crashes which means max cant set a laptime

max postrace interview:

“he just clipped the wall initially and ended up where ive ended up twice [laughs] so its just unfortunate. ofcourse i am disappointed not to have a shot at pole but thats life, you know. sometimes you cant do it. i mean its fine, i dont think his lap should be deleted in the future if they want to make rule changes. i dont that would be fair.”

charles instagram post after the 2021 silverstone gp yes i am counting it too:

max saying he prefers his rivalry with charles over the one he has with lewis, 2022

max to sky italy:

"i prefer what we have now because, first of all, charles i know very well, hes a nice guy, we are a similar age… on saturday night, we even had a laugh in paul ricard... we are hard competitors on the track and we will always try to beat each other, which i think is very normal, but outside of it you can have a good time as well, and thats what i really enjoy about this year."

max debunking that charles never forgave him for austria 2019 and racing together with him, 2022

max in a video interview:

"i never speak about these things with other drivers, i mean, it happens. ive lost wins as well, and its not the end of the world, you move on. i think charles is one of the most talented drivers in formula 1, and he will win many more races… i would say back in the day it was a little bit more difficult, but also we were very young and growing up and you are fighting for the same goal, right? now that youre in formula 1, i think it is really different. you are representing really big brands. so we get on very well now. we can have a good chat and enjoy our battles, and i think thats very nice. knowing each other for such a long time helps. weve spent so much time together, in a way."

2022 hungarian gp, max told the hungarian press he understands charles his frustration after the 2022 french gp

max to the hungarian press:

“everyone handles that (their disappointment) in a different way. some people need to reflect on it like that. at the time youre still a bit emotional from what just happened and maybe become a bit too emotional, but thats fine, people should be emotional, they should show their emotions."

charles on fighting with italian site corriere della sera, 2022 this is not an official translation sorry but i can link the source

charles:

“i like to deal with max, we have a similar level of aggression. we have fun, with respect. im not saying that last year there was no respect between max and lewis, but it seemed like a different duel than ours. but if we were to get to the end of the championship very close in points, the situation would be much more tense than it is now.”

max, also for corriere della sera in 2022

max:

“i have known charles since we were five years old, we are of the same generation and we grew up challenging ourselves on the track.”

max to viaplay, 2023 after charles crashed during Q3 of the miami gp, meaning he couldnt set a time and had to start from P8 (this is a livetranslation of mine post qualifying, so the quote isnt 100% spot on but you get the gist)

max:

“the red flag was annoying, but it happens on streetcircuits. it just sucks, i will have to cope and move on.”

monaco gp, charles had an interview with canal+ for its 10 year anniversary with formula 1. he got asked to name 10 drivers hes the closest with

charles:

“pierre without a doubt, carlos, lando, george, alex albon, yuki, lewis, max aswell eventhough most people dont think its the case but it is! esteban, and lance.”

this is it for now, i am a bit tired but thank the tumblr lords you can change posts later on so i can update it with ease later on. enjoys besties 🫡

[josiebelladonna]

especially when you’re extra-artistic like me.

this is my icon:

look how round and gorgeous he is. so handsome in pink and green. so very cute, i just want to hold him. the man of my dreams.

now look at him with this trash update:

he’s a bullseye now. his hand is gone. is he holding a guitar or a turkey leg that’s the same color as the background? is his face a face or a fish? he’s so blurry, too!! went from voluptuous boy to incomprehensible blob.

i guess the mobile app is even worse with it—i got rid of the mobile app ages ago because i couldn’t take how B R I G H T everything was on it. plus, the app is now doing this thing where you’ll open it up and it’ll post your previous post about 5 times.

it’s bad enough that tumblr’s last update makes it so it’ll forget tags that i used yesterday, like those with any of my fics, or things like “important” and “reference” which i used for a reason and now i can’t find them, but it’ll recall rambly tags that i have no memory of writing from late 2018 after i came back from my hiatus. and the ads. i literally cannot scroll down my dash anymore because of the ads and the way they jump around make it hard to look at really anything; combine that with the prevalence of gifs and the fact all everyone gives a flying fuck about anymore is videos, and a perfectly healthy device like my ipad crashes twice in five minutes or has a field day trying to load on here.

oh, and the layout on here just gets more and more annoying by the day. it’s like “tell us you want to be twitter without telling us you want to be twitter, tumblr.”

so… reiterating what i said earlier this year when they rolled out tumblr live and tumblr mart and i said they were two bad updates from being unusable: tumblr is officially unusable.

what is the point in editing my dash icons so they're nice and legible on the dash but still pretty as graphics if tumblr is going to keep shrinking them,,,and what is the point in a dash icon if it's too small to see anyway I AM TIRED OF THIS !! (my current dash icon is p simple but it looks weird at this size HOWEVER i've seen ppl with much more elaborate icons and i'm like...Why Would Tumblr Do This)

[cattimeswithjellie]

Hi! I was wondering if you have any suggestions on the best way to get a hermitcraft crash course? I’d like to watch some of their POVs this MCC too so I can round out my participant knowledge some more, but I would like to get to know the hermits as much as I can before then if possible! Are there good compilations, big events with a lot of them in it, classic videos that everyone should see, etc, or is it best to just watch a recent video or two from season 9 for everyone? I’ve been meaning to get into hermitcraft for a while now because I know I’ll really enjoy it, but I unfortunately just haven’t had enough free time recently to properly get into it. Thank you for your help!(I’m sending this same ask to the top blogs that Tumblr suggests under the “hermitcraft” tag to see what people suggest 😊)

What a fun question! I'm pretty new to the fandom myself, but I've been chugging it like a firehose because sometimes the real world is just Too Much, you know? There's so much content out there, a lot of what you get into is going to depend on exactly what you like. There's a little something for everybody!

You mentioned you want to watch MCC POVs this weekend, so the absolute first thing I'm going to suggest is not technically Hermitcraft at all, lol. In order to understand why everybody is so hyped for Lime Llamas this weekend you need to watch Third Life, which is a Hermitcraft-adjacent eight-episode miniseries. Watch Grian or GoodTimesWithScar's playlist first and you'll get the general story, plus a lot of entertainment, in a neat package that's only a few hours long for the whole thing. Grian and Scar with Third Life partners and were allied with Jimmy (SolidarityGaming) who is their MCC teammate. Grian and Scar's pet in Third Life was Pizza the llama, which leads a lot of people in the fandom to assume that the entire team (Pizzadahut as fourth member, Lime Llamas) is one big Third Life joke on the part of Smajor, who was also a player in that series. It's fun, you'll like it!

If you really just want to stick tight to Hermitcraft, it'll depend on what sort of experience you want. For an experience that gives you lots and lots of content that you can binge through without being entirely overwhelming, I'd start with Season 7. (Season 6 is also very good, but INCREDIBLY long.) Season 7 was full of lots of fun and had the beginning of proximity chat, which is honestly my favorite part of newer-season Hermitcraft. I recommend starting with Grian, Mumbo Jumbo, GoodTimesWithScar, or DocM77 because they all interact a lot with other Hermits. Watching one or two Hermits' perspectives to start and then branching off when you see somebody you want to see more of is a great way to find your lane in the series.

(I would NOT advise trying to go the completionist route and watch everyone's perspectives all in order. There are two dozen Hermits and some post twice a week while others post twice a month and it's way too confusing plus the pace gets very slow. You can always double back later for more perspectives!)

If you're more interested in just jumping right in and getting caught up to fandom ASAP, you can absolutely just jump into Season 9, which is still in its very early stages. Same advice as above, though I'd throw in PearlescentMoon, who also streams live on Twitch, as a fun starting perspective. Early Season 9 has been full of lots of fun shenanigans with lots of interaction between Hermits, so it's going to be a good way to start getting to know the various players and what they are like. The Secret Fools videos are especially good!

Finally, I would also recommend Pixlriff's YouTube channel for the HermitCraft Recap, a weekly show that goes through every video posted that week and gives the highlights and funny bits so you can stay up to date on storylines from perspectives you haven't watched. Like I said, there's a ton of content and really no wrong way to watch, so don't be afraid to dive in. Have fun!

[bigfrozenfan]

It's really no wonder so many in fandom are leaving Tumblr for good, with all the problems this platform has. One of my favourite recent misfires is this one:

Today I tried to edit a post of mine fifteen times (!!) until it happened to work. I guess maybe that was because there were ads loading in the background, and that's much more important to Tumblr than having a working platform. It's also why image posts take almost forever to load .... even in the app by now! I don't even need to wait for gif's anymore and I'd rather scroll on to the next entry (sorry Giffer, but Tumblr doesn't want me to see your work anymore!). The browser version hasn't been usable for me for years because of this:

Despite my DSL internet connection! Why is it that I don't have such problems on any other platform? Can someone explain this to me?

Recently, the dashboard has started "jumping" back to the previous post while you are trying to read the current entry! In addition, the app crashes more and more often when scrolling or resets back to the beginning, to the post from half an hour ago. I now cancel trying again and prefer to close Tumblr until the next day.

The only posts I can always see almost immediately are the endlessly repeating ads after every third or fourth post.

When I create a new text message, like this one, I have to save it without pictures and re-edit it before I can add pictures like I used to, or I create a few more lines of space until it works and then delete it again. Seriously now? Very convenient and sooo time saving, Tumblr crew!

Some other funny error messages:

A few other oh so "convenient" features: If you want to embed a video at a certain position in the post, it principally ends up at the end and simultaneously overwrites the last line of text entered.

Have you ever tried to create a long message in HTML format and edited it once or twice? You're lucky if Tumblr doesn't mess things up, delete lines, or throw the format completely out of whack.

Tumblr has still not managed to display the date and/or time of messages, after all these years. Twitter has no problem with this.

Difference between app and browser version: the app takes over the tags when reblogging or makes suggestions, on the computer: non-existent.

Previously, Tumblr on the computer would display a post edited from the blog in this blog again, in the same place. Now you automatically jump to the dashboard, because Tumblr knows so well that you wanted to go there anyway. Haha! So you can search the blog from the beginning again and scroll for so long that you get bored of it.

Tags...hahahaha! Why should Tumblr even be able to show all the tags you've ever entered for searching on your blog. No, only the ones with the most entries are shown, the rest are completely uninteresting. I haven't been able to find my own entries this way for years, even though I still know exactly which tag I entered for some posts! Functioning search functions on Tumblr? Not a chance!

I'm sure I've forgotten a lot, but isn't that enough to make you stay?

[thebestsandiever]

Regarding the chaos and aftermath of the Verstappen crash at the 2021 British GP

Before I begin, this is solely my own thoughts on the crash and aftermath of it, resources and intel being from various news reports, articles, interviews, social media reactions/on track fans reactions, commentators, careers etc. Also important, this post was made around 11 PM CEST, so other news after that or in the midst of this, I haven’t considered.

  Comments and discussions are welcome, though remember to keep the tone guys. I rarely comment on anything on Tumblr, but looking at this chaos, I felt like sharing a bit.

  Starting on the incident that happened, I don’t believe that I can clearly decide what happened and who caused, and the only comments I have is that I believe it was a racing incident that has no bad intention. We hear in conclusion from sources (there was an after analysis) (e.g. also Lewis’ Sky Sports interview) that both could have given each other space. Lewis trying to get in, and Max defending his position. People who think Lewis did it intentionally clearly have no common sense, no one wants Max to end up going to the hospital (but he is fine so no worries). Of course, nothing excuses that a crash happened, and it’s a big shame.

  All the hate Lewis is getting should tone down, I think it’s fair to be critical in perspective of racing which consists of the crash and his comments regarding it, but anything that comments on something other than that with negativity, shouldn’t be.

  Something that many F1 fans have brought up and Horner I believe (slightly) is Lewis 15+ years of experience in Formula one and numerous of championships. Which I think in any sport or topic isn’t a fair argument, because mistakes happen to anyone, no one is immune to that, though this is not me calling the crash a mistake, because I don’t believe that is the right word. It’s more Lewis knowing the danger of closing in and Max of course defending himself on track, and this is the end result. And if anyone was a viewer of the Euro 2020 Football Cup Finals, it’s a bit like the Southgate criticism on the penalties.

  This also applies to all the fans who bring up Max’ aggressive and old nickname “crashstappen” from his early F1 career. Whether you have your impression from Netflix’ Drive to Survive or the fact that you’re new, anyone will agree that Max has matured greatly both on and off track, in my opinion one of the calmest drivers on the grid considering the amount of criticism, hate and burden that he gets/has. The fact is that there have been some people on Twitter (when I now and later comment on fans and reactions, it’s usually the very chaotic Twitter), that mentions Verstappen’s past, the infamous Baku and this season’s races where Lewis is the one who, in their words, “has backed up and gave space” (the reason I say their words is because I can’t quite remember so I won’t say that I know for sure). But again, as I mentioned, this is not valid, because it doesn’t excuse what happened today. Every track is a title fight, and previous races and tactics doesn’t apply to this. What I mean is that because Lewis gave space previous races, does it mean that Verstappen should crash? Or worded differently, because Max didn’t give space like he has previous times, that “it was coming” or that he should crash? Biggest takeaway from this is that past and future shouldn’t mean more than what happened in the present. This leading me on to a bit of the hate Max got which I think was quite undeserving, especially under his circumstances, which is f1 fans (mostly Twitter) calling it “karma” and using his young past to somehow ��justify” the crash.

Also I really disliked the videos of “British fans” (we can’t actually determine that all were British, but it was home track) cheering when the crash happened, but in general I think cheering on a crash will always be awful even if you’re favourite driver gains position. Gladly though, it quickly died down on the stands as they realized it was hard impact. Very Euro 2020 vibes, though a much better English crowd- Just kidding, maybe you can see I’m not happy when any kind of fans act out of order (also I don’t hate English football fans, but sadly, the ones who make stupid actions overshadow the rest).

  Now I also want to comment a bit on the drivers and teams’ comments and the PR.

  So regarding Max’ social media post about the race. I honestly think it’s fair for him to be upset, no one wants to be taken out on the first lap considering that he is leading while a VERY good and competitive Lewis is trailing behind. My first reaction was that it was quite an aggressive post and the part about him unfollowing Lewis (if that is correct, I haven’t seen it myself yet) was obviously implying that he isn’t happy. Though, emotions run high as well does Lewis’ celebration reaction. I know his mind is to win on track and he has always been outspoken about that fact. Also I don’t quite believe that Max’ comments were full heartedly himself, but the PR team considering he’s just been at the hospital. I’m not happy with his post at all, but I understand both from a PR perspective and a driver’s. I believe almost any driver on the track would have said something like that in an interview if it happened to them. This just happened to be online because of health circumstances.

  Regarding Marko and Horner, I must disagree with their aggressiveness or at least the way they decide to comment on it. I do understand the anger, considering the championship but also concern for Max (anyone who knows their relationship knows that they care about him.) Again, I have to say emotions run high and if anything, managers are good at, and this is not specifically only attacking Horner, but it’s stirring up tension. I would say it’s fair for him to say, and quite expected, not saying I think it’s fair for Lewis to receive though (hopefully you get what I mean).

  Commenting a bit on Lewis’ Sky Sports F1 interview, we can confirm he didn’t know about Max going to the hospital before celebrating. Anyone who wins has the right to celebrate, especially at home, so props for his win, though unfortunately through a crash (this meaning Verstappen was his biggest threat on track). Though I wasn’t pleased about the commenting on Max. This leads further into the interview.

  We get Lewis’ insight on the incident and where he sees Max as the aggressive one, both not giving each other space and having the crash as end result. So in conclusion, Max trying to defend his position and Lewis trying to get in, fair. Please watch the interview, because it clears up a lot of what is spoken about in the media.  

My thoughts on Lewis’ response both before and after hearing about Max going to the hospital in the Sky Sports interview, is that he probably could’ve/should’ve toned down on Max being the aggressor, as they were both considering what the crash led to, and him saying that it was just about who was going to give space until it was too late. It kind of goes against what he just said. But I do agree that Lewis has the right to celebrate because he simply won. I also liked that he had championship spirit saying that considering what happened, it didn’t take the shine away from his win. It may sound disrespectful, and I do still kind of think it is, but on the other side, it’s him being competitive, and both drivers have each other’s respect on being able to fight on track. So he’s got the spirit, just maybe not the right interview to show the most competitive spirit (I think the most competitive spirit/response he’s shown this 2021 season)

  A bit more on his spirit and fighting on track is seen from Lawrence Barreto who tells us that Lewis has the “game on” spirit and is ready for attacks on track but there needs to be respect on track “and if not this will happen more often I guess.” - Lewis. Just a bit more closure from another source, I like that he is more responsive, but this does make it sound like he blames Max for it. I think any driver who are up against each other have the right or it makes sense to give the majority of the blame to the other, they have their own rear mirrors (see it from their own perspective when they drive, quite literally), but it isn’t the best comment to be honest. Since he says himself, both could’ve given space.

  My biggest disagreement that I must mention is the penalty Lewis got, which was the 10 second penalty. Assessing the severity of the crash with high speed, 51G impact, first lap etc. I think the penalty didn’t really serve much of a penalty, but this is also me being critical of the penalty system. These 10 second penalties don’t really make you lose that much of position (depends on car), also this is not a blow at Lewis but just the system. Afterwards, he was also given 2 penalty points. I think compared to someone like Yuki who also got 2 penalty points for crossing the white line twice while entering the pits and George yesterday at the Sprint Race (1 penalty point + 3 place grid penalty) are quite different but looking at the number, there isn’t a big difference in what’s given. But all of this penalty talk is on the stewards and system, so nothing against Lewis and he did take his penalty that was given.

  I did not comment much on the actual incident as I have a hard time really deciding (I can admit I see Lewis unintentionally drift a bit in + this being a very fast turn, I believe just a misjudgment but so many fans think it was intentional), so therefore do read and watch the current and coming interviews and articles to get some racing perspective. It keeps updating and even drivers like Riccardo, Leclerc, Alonso etc. have given their comments, and who better to listen to than professionals themselves. So I encourage you to get perspective there, because I know not all of us are the most technical fans, and we tend to comment by being led through a bias and crowd.

  But if we’re feeling a bit tired from today, so far the drivers are leaning towards a racing incident. They speak of it as quite unclear to determine, basically saying that both drivers could’ve done and were doing something --> could’ve given space.

  We all have to remember this situation is a big deal since it’s the only two to be fair at the moment, who are competing for the championship. Both mad talented and on each other every track. Media blows it out more than them and before we know it, they’re back to what they do best, which is drive.

  Heart goes out to Max, it was quite an impact and if not his worst crash so far in his career. His team radio was quite scary to listen to, I’ve never heard him so shook, but he is doing quite fine at the moment, and he will hopefully recover well enough for the next race.

  As well for Lewis, emotions are running high and people are quick to assume and accuse without using common sense that Lewis wouldn’t endanger Max or himself. He has every right to celebrate a win and props for him winning.

  In conclusion to those who has taken the time to read, don’t let my thoughts be any decider, but more so a way to understand and be a bit more open minded. We are all subjective in the end and I try to see from both perspectives and to be critical as well, not being led by others’ opinions. I’ve stated my sources, and this is only my overall thoughts at the very moment, so remember, as drivers evolve and move on, we do too.

  I again encourage you to watch and research with an open mind so not being led on bias, especially if you’re willing to spread anything on the topic. It serves a greater outcome than sprouting from emotions and lack of information, as we have well seen from this sport. Because media does influence and we as an audience is a part of it. So I must remind again, that this is simply my thoughts.

[elitegymnastics]

Q: What is this?

A: It’s a flyer for a virtual fundraiser on June 4th that Elite Gymnastics is playing. You can access the show at quietyear.com

Q: Hasn’t Elite Gymnastics been inactive for like, ten years?

A: Yes. This is the first Elite Gymnastics performance of any kind since November 30th 2012, at the Horn Gallery at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. 

Q: Why did Elite Gymnastics stop playing shows?

A: Elite Gymnastics started out as me (Jaime) and a bunch of my friends agreeing to help me play my songs live back in 2009. I made a lot of weird demos in GarageBand and my friend Dominique Davis from the band Dearling Physique got tired of watching me sit on them. So, he booked me to play at a show he was curating as part of a small local music and arts festival called Clapperclaw. For several months that’s mainly what EG was. At some point the focus shifted to making recordings rather than playing shows, to participate in the emergent culture of new music distributed via MP3 file-sharing. The lineup winnowed to just me and Josh Clancy, who began creating digital EPs that we posted on this Tumblr page as ZIP files full of MP3s accompanied by a PDF of artwork. This is the incarnation of the group that most people are familiar with.

This was before Patreon existed. If Bandcamp was around, we’d never heard of it. Though MP3 file-sharing culture and file transfer sites like MediaFire and MegaUpload allowed anyone to distribute music freely across the world via the internet, it was still pretty difficult to get people to pay you for it. I think it was for this reason that a lot of internet music back then featured a lot of sampling. A lot of artists’ first forays into the world of DAWs and production took the form of mash-ups, bootleg remixes, and DJ mixes. Artists like Animal Collective, MIA, Kanye West, and Daft Punk for whom sampling was a pillar of their creative process were extremely influential. Elite Gymnastics was no exception - the first song of ours to gain traction online was “Is This On Me?” which made no attempt to hide the fact that it heavily sampled Faye Wong’s “Eyes On Me.” The fact that it was so difficult to make money off MP3s pushed people to make different creative decisions than they would have otherwise. It was sort of a free-for-all.

Eventually, all of this started to change. The major labels started getting a lot more aggressive about trying to destroy MP3 file-sharing culture. Platforms like MegaUpload were raided and taken offline. The replacements that sprung up to replace them were increasingly infested with ads and malware. Corporate platforms like YouTube and SoundCloud adopted Content ID filters to prevent the proliferation of copyrighted music there. Blogs and private torrent trackers being taken down meant thousands of hours of labor were wiped out in an instant. Some of the best archives of the history of recorded music ever created were destroyed without hesitation. Even the most devoted participants lost the will to keep repairing and re-making the stuff that cops and record companies kept obliterating.

Josh and I both dreamed of being able to make a living as musicians. We still do. Back then, we were willing to accept a lot of changes in order to make that possible, which seemed necessary. A lot of the stuff that we were great at just didn’t make any money. Once, we were asked to do a remix of a song called “Sa Sa Samoa” by the band Korallreven. I did the remix by myself, which was normal for us, and Josh was so inspired by it that he spent a week working non-stop to create a video for it. People loved it - the day the video dropped, Pitchfork designated the song as a “Best New Track” and New York Magazine wrote about it in their “Approval Matrix.” The video led to a ton of exposure, but from a financial perspective, it just did not make sense to put that much effort into promoting a remix of someone else’s song. The stuff we were personally excited by just seemed to have less and less to do with what actually makes money.

A lot of internet bands during this era began to palpably shapeshift in an effort to succeed in music as a career. Artists who’d first attracted notice for sample-based bangers they made on a laptop started posing with vintage hardware in their press photos and trading in their laptops for live bands and recording studios. It became harder to distribute DJ mixes or mash-ups that contained copyrighted music in them. Influential bloggers either closed up shop or were absorbed into the traditional music industry in some way. Feeds that once touted bizarre songs by laptop-toting weirdos with no industry connections started to become populated mostly by artists with labels and publicists. The bottom rungs of festival lineups started to consist mostly of new major label signings who have lots of money to spend on stage production but not much in the way of grassroots fan enthusiasm or media buzz. 

Internet music and what people tend to refer to as “indie music” split off into two separate streams. Today, there’s a pretty intense firewall between internet culture and whatever you want to call the culture of vinyl records, mid-sized indie labels with publicists, and positive reviews from the few remaining websites that still pay people to write about music. I call it “publicist indie,” “lifestyle techno,” or “prestige electronica” depending on whether or not the music features guitars and/or vocals. The recent online kerfuffle about NFTs really emphasized this split. The worlds of digital illustration and game development campaigned aggressively against mass adoption of cryptocurrency - if you saw any Medium posts explaining crypto’s environmental issues, chances are they were written by someone from those fields. Every new announcement by an artist that they had minted an NFT was met with a swift and vocal backlash from fans. Though I’ve never really been much of an Aphex Twin fan, it was still pretty startling to look at the replies under his NFT announcement tweet and see hundreds of furious people announcing that he was now dead to them. That’s an artist who has seemed more or less unimpeachable for most of my life up until this point! All of that seemed to change in an instant.

There is a massive disconnect between the insular world of the industry establishment and the cutting edge of online counterculture. We saw this again a couple of weeks ago with the online response to the crisis in Gaza. We saw passionate advocacy for Palestinians from games journalists and developers much more often than we saw it from musicians. This is a very serious problem for music! I do not believe it is possible to please both sides - that is to say, I do not believe it is possible to be part of internet counterculture and the industry establishment simultaneously. The music industry is too conservative, too compromised, too corrupt. If it weren’t for the ocean of valuable copyrights that labels are sitting on, most of them would be bankrupt within a year. If the industry was forced to live or die based on how they handle what’s happening right now in the present, it would most assuredly die. The only people who don’t realize this are those who are being paid to stay ignorant. 

Josh and I did not know this back then. From where we were standing, it looked like internet culture and established media industries were on track to converge. A career in the arts seemed genuinely, tantalizingly possible, right up until the moment that it no longer did. 

In my case, I had really been struggling up until that point. My life had been this ongoing sequence of evictions and hospitalizations, and it seemed to be getting worse, not better. I donated plasma twice a week to pay for groceries and while I was sitting there with a giant needle stuck in my left arm for an hour I would see my picture in The Fader or my songs being recommended by one of the Kings of Leon on Twitter or whatever. Music seemed like the only thing the world thought I was any good at. It felt like my only chance at a peaceful, happy life was somewhere out there in a world I could only perceive through a laptop screen. 

Gender, for me, was a big factor in all of this. The more invested in the craft of songwriting I became, the harder it was to repress or ignore my gender stuff. At that time I’m not sure I even knew what the word “transgender” meant - I just knew that when I showed up at a venue wearing a skirt, no one would talk to me or look me in the eye, and that reading about people like Anohni or Terre Thaemlitz or on the internet made me feel like if I could get out of Minneapolis maybe I could find a place where people would accept me. The internet was like, a pretty toxic place for someone in my position. When I tried to find people to talk to about what I was feeling, nobody tried to tell me to read Judith Butler or ask me what pronouns I preferred. The internet was just like, overrun with predators who just wanted to fetishize me and exploit me. Music seemed like the only way I’d ever have an actual life as myself. I was desperate for that. I was well and truly desperate.

Between all the big changes that were happening to us individually and the music industry moving farther and farther away of the anarchic free-for-all of MP3 file-sharing culture, the strain on us just got to be too much. We stopped trusting each other. We became the unstoppable force and the immovable object, crashing haphazardly against one another’s resolve in a dazzling display of youthful futility. Our partnership ended, and after finishing out the remaining live shows on the calendar by myself, I retired the name “Elite Gymnastics” and started making music on my own under other names. That was that.

Q: Why is Elite Gymnastics coming back now, then?

A: Over the years, Josh and I eventually started talking again. Though there was a lot we did agree on, and potential future projects were discussed, nothing truly felt right. We haven’t been in the same room since Summer 2012, and we’ve both changed a lot since then. We both have other projects and we’ve both developed other ways of working since we stopped working together. It’s a pretty big commitment to put all of that aside in order to join your fortunes together with someone you haven’t seen in a decade.

Recently, Josh decided to leave Elite Gymnastics. His reasons are his own, and I was very surprised by his decision, but after having had time to adjust, I’m really grateful to him. I had kept these songs at a distance for many years, because it seemed foolish to allow myself to get too attached to songs I didn’t feel like I was allowed to think of as mine, if that makes any sense. The songs felt like casualties of a conflict that I had to bury in the ground and try to forget about. Being able to embrace them again felt like re-growing a severed limb or having a loved one come back to life, almost. Feeling like it was safe to love these songs again made me feel whole in a way I didn’t expect to. I became really excited by the prospect of revisiting them, so that’s what I decided to do.

Q: Does this mean you’re going to put RUIN back on Spotify?

A: No. Taking the record off Spotify was the right thing to do. That record was only ever intended to exist during the era of MP3 piracy. I never envisioned a world where the music industry would be so aggressive about policing the way that copyrighted music is allowed to exist online. If we hadn’t opted to take the record down when we did, someone would inevitably have forced us to. If you want to hear those specific recordings again, you’re going to have to do it the way we originally intended: by downloading MP3 files from the internet. Try SoulSeek.

Q: What’s next for Elite Gymnastics, then?

A: Here’s the situation currently. There is no Elite Gymnastics music available to stream or purchase in an official capacity anywhere on the internet. It wouldn’t really be possible for me to put the old stuff on Spotify or Bandcamp now because of all the samples. Like I said before, it was a different time. Those records were created to thrive on a past version of the internet that no longer exists. They weren’t designed to be compatible with the 2021 internet.

Technically, Elite Gymnastics didn’t ever release a debut album. We had EPs, a compilation, and a remix collection. We didn’t make an album, a record that existed as the distillation of all that experimentation that contained all of the songs that fans of the EPs would want to hear, all in one place. It’s like we did Good Fridays but stopped before we made My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

So, I am currently working on the first Elite Gymnastics album. If you were following my stuff as Default Genders, you may have noticed me posting demos on my SoundCloud page from 2015-2018 that were all eventually reworked into the album Main Pop Girl 2019. The album I am making is taking that approach to all the old EG songs, including some unreleased stuff. I’m collaborating with others on some songs and I honestly feel like it has resulted in some of the best and most exciting music I have ever been involved with. It is a drastic reinvention, but iteration and reinvention have always been a big part of what I do. I want to make something that feels like the culmination of everything that came before, and so far, I think I’m succeeding.

Q: When will I be able to hear this new music?

At a virtual fundraiser on June 4th, 2021, where there is a suggested donation of $10. You can access it at quietyear.com

[maudfs]

Journal for August 2022

From now on, I’ll be posting my DeviantArt journals here as well. I only write these like once or twice a year, lately...I’ll also write on the Summary of Art at the end of each year, of course. Let’s see if Tumblr’s formatting is better for it! (probably!) It’s long so here’s a readmore. By the way...

The last time I was on my computer, a tree fell on our house! :O  Well, that's what it sounded like anyway! I was on my computer watching videos when I heard a crack, a rustling, and then a very loud crash. Me and my mom looked outside to find a pine tree in the corner of the yard had snapped in half and and fallen in between our house and the next house. There was also a large branch sticking in between the fence and our house! It appears the tree had fallen more or less parallel to the fence in our yard, except for that one branch which I think hit the roof above my room and broke on impact.  Surprisingly, no one was hurt and there doesn't appear to be any damage to the house, although the fence was knocked open. We're very lucky considering all the ways the tree could have fallen, including onto an AC unit (expensive, important!), into my window (where I was sitting!) or into the neighbors window (where they were probably sleeping!). But it fell almost perfectly next to the fence instead... Gosh!  We're very lucky it didn't hit that AC unit, because it was just replaced last month, as it had stopped working! At that point the heat was already in the 80's and 90's and somewhat humid...but now? Wouldn't THAT have been terrible... but, yes, we are okay.  In other news... I have ideas to work on my website, but doing HTML is sometimes very complicated so I don't have much to show for it yet. For example, my old Windows XP acted like it didn't want to start up, so I finally copied all the files off of it, and looking through them made me nostalgic for those old fan sites on the late 90's and 2000's (example, example)... so my site might get yet another style change to show. I'm at the very same time thinking about making/adding a Pokémon section with my Fakedex... but should I really be trying to do all that at the same time? Sigh. Oh well, we'll see if I update my website anytime soon. XD  My mom has had several procedures regarding her back, so I don't do a lot of drawing or other things around these times because I am helping her with a lot. Of course, I still haven't made a Commission sheet and it sure won't get done during any of these times, lol...   If you are really interested getting a commission from me, I WILL consider, just send me a message and I'll take a look... one day I might remember to make a sheet, It just makes me nervous for some reason? It's difficult to get started... hmm.   Oh right, I meant to do Smaugust and forgot about it. Whoops! I'll probably still draw some dragons but they will be late. Is it still considered part of the challenge if I don't do it in order or all of the days? Well, I'm always glad to draw Dragons, so I suppose it doesn't matter as long as I have fun.   Hmm... what else is there to say? I'm still wearing a mask. I'm still forgetting to socialize. Oh yeah, the branch that fell in our yard? It was very big, but I moved it myself. I'm very strong >:3... I just had to clip some of the branches off first... at least we will have firewood this winter? ...It must be the end of the journal, because I've run of out things to say.

  Thank you for reading! I hope you have a wonderful day.

[taryntothistaylor]

FROM ‘Why she disappeared’ (WHY TAYLOR DISAPPEARED From Big Machine Records)

When she fell, she fell apart (when she found out Scott wouldn’t give Taylor her masters unless she made one album for each one)

Cracked her bones on the pavement she once decorated as a child with side walk chalk (her innocence and happiness of agreeing to the recording deal with Scott when she was a “child”)

When she crashed, her clothes disintegrated and blew away with the winds that took all of her fair weathered friends (She knew that once the news came out that once again her reputation would be smeared by the media. “Clothes disintegrated” i.e. naked symbolizing “uncovered, stripped bare, vulnerable” by the news that Scott did this to her, Scott also being the “fair weathered friend”.

When she looked around, her skin was spattered with ink forming the words of a thousand voices

Echoes she heard even in her sleep:

"Whatever you say, it is not right." (Scott released a statement on Instagram saying what the “truth was” even though Taylor had already stated on her tumblr post what really happened. Also other examples such as Taylor wanted to name Speak Now Enchanted but was told not to by Scott.)

"Whatever you do, it is not enough." (Taylor made Scott famous and is the biggest artist under Big Machine Records but he never gave her the opportunity of buying her masters back, he was manipulative in making her make one album to get one album back. Over TEN YEARS) Demi Lovato seems to think Taylor can’t do enough either even though she was the first one to send flowers to her when she was in rehab, spoke up about the election, went to trial for sexual assault and gave money to sexual assault non profits, the list goes on. Not going to get started on Beiber or Kimye

"Your kindness is fake." (His kindness to Taylor was fake over all these years, all the smiles in the photos. Fake. And her smiles throughout the years with him, were they fake? And well, obvs the media again)

"Your pain is manipulative." (The media, AGAIN)

When she lay there on the ground, She dreamed of time machines and revenge (Taylor dreamed of going back in time and changing her contract with BMR, dreamed of revenge from Scooters clients who have bullied her over the years but would never do it because it’s Taylor. I think the fact “machine” is in here really signifies it. Also from Taylor: “Any time Scott Borchetta has heard the words ‘Scooter Braun’ escape my lips, it was when I was either crying or trying not to," Swift writes. "He knew what he was doing; they both did. Controlling a woman who didn’t want to be associated with them. In perpetuity. That means forever.”)

and a love that was really something, Not just the idea of something (“I’m ecstatic to announce that my musical home will be Republic Records and Universal Music Group.... be my FAMILY moving forward. It’s also also incredibly exciting to know that I’ll own all of my master recordings that I make from now on. Not just the fake “family”’ with Big Machine)

When she finally rose, she rose slowly, Avoiding old haunts and sidestepping shiny pennies, Wary of phone calls and promises, Charmers, dandies and get-love-quick-schemes (When making her decision to leave BMR, it wasn’t made hastily, it was made over a long time. "I walked away because I knew once I signed that contract, Scott Borchetta would sell the label, thereby selling me and my future. I had to make the excruciating choice to leave behind my past.” Wary of phone calls - well we all know why.)

When she stood, she stood with a desolate knowingness, Waded out into the dark, wild ocean up to her neck, Bathed in her brokenness, Said a prayer of gratitude for each chink in the armor, she never knew she needed, Standing broad-shouldered next to her, was a love that was really something,not just the idea of something. (After the decision to move to Republic Records and Universal Music Group, she knew she would be vunerable to whatever Scott Borchetta would do but was blessed with her family and her unforeseeable factor - her fans who would defend her against everything. Waded out into to the wild dark ocean is like walking through rainstorms as Taylor says, it gets you clean. Clean from what I imagine was the awfulness of having to try bargain over your own work from someone you thought you trusted since you were 14. From Taylor “music I wrote on my bedroom floor and videos I dreamed up and paid for from the money I earned playing in bars, then clubs, then arenas, then stadiums.”

When she turned to go home, She heard the echoes of new words, "May your heart remain breakable but never by the same hand twice" (when deciding on a new label, Taylor knew her new home would be one that believed in artists and would let her own the art she created. She would never make the same mistake again)

And even louder: "without your past, you could never have arrived-so wondrously and brutally, by design or some violent, exquisite happenstance ...here." (Taylor is incredibly proud of her old work and this whole ordeal has shaped her into the strong woman she is)

And in the death of her reputation. (After reputation, Taylor knew she would be changing labels and thus losing her masters, so in the “death of old Taylor, New Taylor would own everything going forward)

She felt truly alive.

Taylor you’re my superhero and I love you ❤️

[nd-bumble-bee]

Some Thoughts About Antisepticeye:

I really like puzzles, mystery solving, & storytelling. I have no idea if anyone else has made these connections or publicly stated them. But I also might have an overactive imagination, which got me to start going down this rabbit hole. 

So when I think back to Seán saying that nobody has really figured out who or what Anti is, I got curious. Eventually (today-ish), my brain decided to take that as a challenge.

This may be a bit lengthy, so if you plan to read all of this: Buckle up, buttercups!

Now, I'm not usually one to try & actively theorize about this kind of stuff. But I love learning about lore & psychology! One thing I know is that there are a bunch of people in Seán's community who love to come up with theories about the egos, especially Anti (& I totally understand why, since Seán & Robin are pretty damn good at storytelling). One common thing that pops up is the idea that Anti is a glitch (bitch) or a demon. Or both. But because of what Seán said, either those ideas are incorrect or they’re not specific enough & we need to dig deeper. Like, much deeper.

One thing that caught my attention was a post on Tumblr (I included the link to it so it can be properly credited) that talked about the 1st time we actually see Anti's full body (the HTC Cubicle video) & how he 1st took over Jack's body VS. how he is able to do that now. But that's not the 1st time we see Anti or any hints of him at all! I looked into this by watching an edit someone made with (almost?) all of his appearances from the beginning of the channel up until the Bio Inc. Redemption video in 2017 (you can find this collection here). Obviously, Anti has made more appearances afterward, but I focused more on the early days for this as well as some of the more recent things Seán talked about regarding PMA & his mental health.

While I have met Seán in person (& can confirm that he gives amazing hugs!), I'm in no way involved in his personal life. So I could be wrong about some of the thoughts I have moving forward. I'm basically going by what I've seen & heard from videos, live shows, pannels, etc. & taking guesses based on that information & what I know about building/creating a character (I've done interactive theatre in different settings where I had almost total creative freedom in that with some guidance & training). I also can’t speak for Seán because...I’m not him.

I wouldn't doubt if any of Seán's egos came from very personal places, maybe some of them were made because of some silly idea that he decided to run with & build on. But Anti was possibly from a very personal place in Seán's mind (especially if this was one of the 1st egos he created).

And this lead to a thought that crossed my mind & started this whole dive into the rabbit hole:

What if Anti is a "glitch" in Seán's mental system?

Okay, hear me out on this:

We know there was a period of time where a bunch of YouTubers (including Seán) were creating evil versions/counterparts of themselves. I can't say how much thought was put into all of them (because again, I’m not them), but I don't doubt Seán thought this through A LOT because he's pretty damn methodical about what he chooses to show us (the audience). Meanwhile, Anti is chaotic, much harder to predict (especially because he's been much more careful about showing himself lately), & loves to fuck with everyone. But what about the character creation aspect of this? Where did Seán pull this character from?

My guess is that Anti is an embodiment of some of Jack's darker thoughts & feelings if they were more exaggerated or taken into a much darker, more sinister direction. Seán has talked somewhat openly about being depressed, sad, & lonely (particularly when he started making YouTube content). He has also talked about his fear of letting us down/failing us as a content creator, feeling that what he puts out there needs to be perfect, & the anxiety that causes him to feel sometimes. Just because the Seán/Jack we all know & love is kind, caring, & wouldn't want to harm anyone, doesn't mean he has never experienced some dark, scary thoughts. Especially if he's not kidding about having ADD or experiencing OCD-like symptoms (I'm only grabbing this from anytime he has says his "OCD kicks in" or talks about his "ADD" brain, I'm giving the benefit of the doubt that there's at least some truth to this). One thing I can say from personal experience is that when your brain is a hot mess & you have been through some shit (even if it’s just emotionally), it's hard to not have some dark & scary thoughts, which is why we try not to be alone with them.

And then there's Seán's interest in video games & computers. When you find a glitch in a game or software, it may or may not cause problems down the road (some of them are actually pretty funny & harmless!) depending on what happens next. You know what else runs on tiny pulses of electricity & some form of "wiring"?

Your brain!

In Jack's case: Those times when he was having negative feelings & thoughts could have opened a gateway for his "glitch/virus" (Anti) to work his way into Seán's brain wiring. You could go as far as to say that Anti is trying to crash the whole damn system! Trying to delete the "Seán/Jack" software & claim it for himself.

At 1st, Anti thought the easiest way to do that was to kill Jack (which he has tried at least twice now). But what if Anti realized at some point that if he was actually successful in killing him, there would be no "system" to take over because it would permanently shut down? And Anti may not have much interest in claiming a damaged body if there's a possibility he can keep it in the best condition possible.

So like anyone creating a computer virus or hacking into a system would do: Anti had to adapt & try a different approach. This could explain why when he last spoke to us (& anytime we see him afterwards), there was no throat slit or any injury to Jack’s body. Because Anti doesn't need to physically kill Seán. He needs to kill him mentally/emotionally! Which is slower, harder to pick up on, & potentially more effective in the long run because it builds up over time.

And being the glitch (bitch) that he is, Anti is slowly feeding off of Seán's doubts, fears, insecurities, etc. to become stronger than ever. Anti is slowly integrating his "code" in small fragments that are harder to find as deep & scattered as possible so then when they finally are able to fully connect & Seán is manipulated into the right mindset, Anti can hit the kill switch. And once he does that...it's hard to say what happens next.

We already know that Anti is able to physically project himself into our world. He actually may be doing exactly that or "hacking" into the other egos, manipulating his "puppets" (JJ; working on Chase; maybe Marvin?) in order to eventually get Jack to where he needs him to be mentally & emotionally in order to go for the "kill."

This could be where the events of the “Mayhem” videos come into play. Since Anti probably has JJ under his control already, Chase would obviously be the next best place to start. Chase’s state of mind is exactly what Anti is looking for & he knows exactly what buttons to push to use Chase however he wants to.

I’m not exactly sure how the “time is broken” concept plays into this yet (I honestly haven’t thought about that until later on as I finish writing this). Seán did mention that he’s really into sci-fi, space, things like that. I wouldn’t be surprised if Anti’s appearances in the Observance videos are adding on to what has already been building. Maybe the egos are all fragments of how Seán might exist in alternate universes? Or how he imagines he would?

But I mostly focused on the early stuff because if we want to know (or continue guessing) who or what Anti truly is...it’s probably better to start from the very beginning.

As awesome as it would be to hit the nail on the head with this: I also understand that I might be completely wrong or going in the way off into the wrong direction with this. Hell, I probably dug WAAAYYY too deep for this one. But I didn’t want to let this fester (especially if I end up being right!) in my brain & I’m curious what others might think about this. And hey, it’s JUST a theory. A GAME Theory! An Ego Theory!

If you actually read through this all of this: Thank you! I really appreciate it!

And now, my brain is off to go hyperfocus on something else...

[saleintothe90s]

400. My favorite highlights from the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade (1980s, 1990s)

In 1982, Olive Oyl became the first human female balloon at the Macy’s parade.  However, by 1985, she was left out of the parade due to her height + the bad weather that day: 

Olive Oyl was redesigned for her final parade in 1986, but it was too late, she was just too tall: 

(also note that her elbow is missing) 

However, I found a clip of her at a parade in Philadelphia in 1989! Being her dangerous self. (blog entry about this parade here) 

In 1983, Mickey Mouse died, and I am loving the drama associated with it. I looked up what the Mickey balloon looked like back then, and he looked like a knockoff of Mickey. Bobo Mickey. 

I watched parts of the 1983 parade on YouTube, and you know who is in it? 

Cats. 

(at 36:59) Oh my god. The original broadway cast with Betty Buckley playing Grizabella, and Marlene Danielle is there, playing Demeter! 

There was also a cat hanging out of the window at Macys!  I can’t tell which one this is. 

Bryant Gumbel from Today hosted this year, and you can totally tell that he is miserable. That’s something I’ve learned to like about him since starting this blog several years ago. He never hides how miserable he is. (I mean ... the memo) Rewind the cats performance, listen to him read the lyrics to Grizabella the Glamour Cat. He is gone. 

Alvin & the Chipmunks sang “tomorrow’ from Annie? There’s a part where these voices off screen ask the kids when they’re gonna do their chores, and the answer is “🎵tomorrow🎶”. Well, one of the chores is “are you gonna start your diet, Theodore?”Then the camera cuts to Bryant and he is giggling:

(baby) Joey Lawrence is also there through at least the first part of the parade interrupting stuff, like dancing with the Flintstones while they sing “jingle bell rocks”. He was also in the Cissy Houston broadway bit too. 

(Robin looked like he was about to barf on his float)

1989 (partial video of parade) , it snowed about four inches that day. Deborah Norville hosted for the first time that year along with Willard Scott. She suuuuckkkked as a Today show host. I know its not polite to use the word “sucked” when I’m trying to be a professional pretend historian, but she wasn’t good. 

Melba was at this parade! We remember Melba...

OH. 1989 was the year that Alf kept interrupting! He nearly dies of excitement when he sees the Garfield balloon. He looks kinda depressing here, hanging out a window in a dark room at Macys, snow falling down. 

Scott Bakula striked up a band in the snow. The crowd behind him judging his every move. Dixie Carter was on a Native American float wearing a giant grey fur coat, looking like Old 'Doot from Cats. 

This happened too.

Bart is my all time favorite balloon. He misbehaved a few years later too: 

1995 was Bart’s last year, after having problems every single year he was in the parade. 

I love this description on yet another year where Kermit broke (this time in 1991): 

1991 (video) was the first year that Katie Couric hosted with Willard Scott. A magician makes them appear! 

Sharon, Lois, and Braham was there too ... three people who I completely forgot about until this very second. 

A circus came and a wind up elephant dog was there. 

Lea Salonga sang from Miss Saigon!  

OUR BOY FRASIER SHOWED UP. 

Part 2 has Kermit’s demise. Aw, Willard said “it’s not so easy being green” as he was introducing the Kermit balloon. 

They had clips of Kermit in better days ready to go! I guess this was the usual back then for when a balloon popped mid-parade, show its archive roll. 

“You test me every (thanksgiving) day boy!”

(deflated Kermit was the inspiration for this piece of art in 2018)

You know one balloon I didn’t like growing up? Beethoven. He was in the parade from 1992-1995, and then brought back in 2008 for some reason. I guess he had another direct to DVD movie. 

He looked extra droopy in 2008. I guess that’s what happens when you’re a 16 year old balloon. 

1994 was the first year for the Cat in the Hat balloon, which became infamous in 1997 when he flew into a lamppost and critically injured a woman, Kathleen Caronna, who was in a coma for a month after her injury. 1 You may also remember Kathleen because in 2006, a plane carrying baseball player Cory Lidle crashed into her apartment. When my dad told me this, I thought he was reading an internet hoax. No, it was her apartment, for reals! 2

1999 was the peak of the dot-com boom, and its apparent. One of the sponsors was (in Don Pardo voice) GAAAATTEEWAYYYYY COMMPUUUUTTERRS. 

and the pets.com dog had a float. 

The Rockettes also dressed like marshmallow ladies who are manequins come to life? Matt Lauer’s words, not mine. It poured rain that day, and the painted street decoration was ruined immediately. I feel like I remember green pant being on some broadway performers costumes.

Millennium Snoopy in the rain bids the reader au revoir. 

Related links: 

X-Entertainment (dinosaur dracula) reviews the 1984 parade -- archive from 2003. 

Dinosaur Dracula’s Purple Stuff podcast on the 1990 parade

Dinosaur Dracula’s Purple Stuff Podcast on the 1994 parade. 

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1. Collins, Glenn, “ Woman Hurt During Parade Is Out of Monthlong Coma,”  New York Times, December 23, 1997.  https://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/23/nyregion/woman-hurt-during-parade-is-out-of-monthlong-coma.html

2. “Bad luck hits twice for one N.Y. woman,” Star News Online, October 14, 2006. https://www.starnewsonline.com/news/20061014/bad-luck-hits-twice-for-one-ny-woman

[nennechus]

gif tutorial !! (feat. anamo)

for everyone asking how i get my gifs so crispy

note: this tutorial is made using photoshop cs5! and while it should still work for newer versions, not everything may be the same. sorry :(

programs

photoshop cs5 (this is the only version i’ve really ever used so sorry cs6 and cc users)

topaz clean & denoise (optional)

kmplayer

media downloaders

4k video downloader

twitch leecher (for clips longer than what twitch allows) 

how to download twitch clips (I use the “slow” method)  twitch update made this useless ! so now i just use this site to download clips :)

1. extracting your frames when you can’t do video frames to layers

I think you need QuickTime (i don’t, which is why i can’t use this method) for this, but if your version of photoshop allows you to do File > Import > Video Frames to Layers, here’s another tutorial to help with that! 

Remember that the best, clearest gifs come from the highest quality sources! However, I don’t normally recommend downloading actual 4k videos because while your gifs may be super HD, the frame rate is almost always really weird and slow.

After downloading your video/clip using one those nifty programs listed above, we need to extract your frames! Personally, I’ve only ever used KMPlayer to do this, but I’m sure that other equivalents will work pretty much the same.

Anyways, after opening your video in KMPlayer, pause right before the scene you want to gif and right click. There should be a tall menu that pops up, and from there you click Capture > Frame: Extract. This brings up yet another menu, and here are the best settings (at least I think so) for extracting your frames! 

Now, you need to click start and let your video play. Once you’ve captured all the frames that you want, they should all be in your Capture folder that KMPlayer made for you (mine is located under This PC > Windows (C:) > KMPlayer > Capture). Just organize the frames as you want  - I usually separate the frames for each gif into separate folders, but do whatever you want.

To actually get these frames into PS, start up the program and go to File > Scripts > Load Multiple DICOM Files and locate your Capture folder. Look, we have frames now. Cool.

2. actually making gifs

Make sure that your Animation window is open (it’s under Windows on PS if it’s not) so you can see what is likely only one frame, which is probably way less than the amount of frames that you captured (this will be different if you used Video Frames to Layers). To fix this, click on the symbol (a little upside-down triangle next to four lines) on the far right of the animation window and choose Make Frames From Layers.

Since we now have a lot more frames in our timeline, you can click the play button and watch them scroll through. Decide how you want to crop your gif and then resize the cropped frames to fit Tumblr (sizes here). Once you’ve done this, click on the upside-down triangle again and select Convert to Timeline, then select all the frames in the Layers tab that’s probably on the right of your screen and right click > Convert to Smart Filters. This will make sharpening easier because you can sharpen every layer all at once like this.

3, sharpening

At the top of your PS window, there should be a Filter tab. From there, click Sharpen > Smart Sharpen. Using my fairly limited experience with PS versions other than CS5, I do know that not every version of PS sharpens the same, so if you’re using something other than CS5, settings may vary somewhat. But anyways, here’s what my Smart Sharpen settings look like:

I then have my own personal sharpening action that I apply to the gif to somewhat smooth out the sharpness, but this tutorial has something towards the end that’ll give you a similar effect. And don’t forget to play your gif again to make sure that it works before you start coloring!

4. coloring

As a lot of players are POC, please be conscious of how you color the gif! Obviously, Obivously, it’s one thing to lighten up a dark scene because it’s hard to see what’s going on. However, when you purposefully and consciously make the decision to lighten (or darken) solely a player’s skin color, that’s gross! Stop!

This being said, there are 5.6 million gif coloring tutorials out there and 5.6 million ways to color a gif. Personally, I tend towards more “””natural””” and true-to-life colorings for my OWL gifs, but I’ve made vibrant and pastel and colorful gifs as well. Here’s what the base PSD for all my OWWC gifs looks like, and this is pretty representative of all my other OWL PSDs as well.

But as I said, there are so many different ways to color gifs - some of my gifs only have a total of three adjustment layers - and everyone has their own preferences for how they like their gifs to look. However, I will say that my first step in coloring is a gif is always use Levels and click the Auto option for a little color correction.

When you’re all done coloring your gif, select everything in your Layers tab (PSD + actual gif), then right click > Convert to Smart Filters again so that you only have one (1) layer in the tab.

5. using topaz to be extra (this is optional)

Is using Topaz necessary to make gifs? No, absolutely not. It also makes the giffing process take longer. It’s literally just to be extra yet I still use it on every single one of my gifs. Why? Because it makes them s m o o t h and I hate seeing pixels. Even if most OWL stages are pretty noiseless and nice overall.

To use Topaz, click on your single Smart Object gif layer and  go to Filter > Topaz Labs.

While I do have both Topaz Clean and DeNoise, I typically prefer DeNoise over Clean, and that’s mostly because it’s a bit more difficult to mess it up. Topaz DeNoise does exactly what it sounds like it does - it removes noise from images. However, it also smoothes skin and hair and everything else, which is why you still need to be careful using it unless you’re going for an unrealistic, completely airbrushed look. Topaz Clean does the same, but with more emphasis on the smoothing (I guess), so it’s easier to accidentally go overboard with it.

I almost never use the two in conjunction, but a good thing about Topaz is that it also reduces your gif file size by reducing noise! Which is nice! Also here are some nice Topaz settings. I use these (for the most part)!

update as of jan. 6, 2019: I am a Big Liar and I use both Clean and Denoise together all the time now and have been doing so since pretty much immediately after writing this tutorial. Just be careful when using both otherwise your gif might start looking too smooth - as with anything else, Topaz should be used in moderation :)

6. saving your gif

This part is actually super important if you used Topaz on your gifs. After you’ve made everything into a Smart Object, click on the upside-down triangle on your Animation window and select Flatten Frames Into Layers. If you used Topaz and don’t do this before trying to save your gif for posting, you will crash PS.

This process might take a while for Topaz users, but at the end, once your Smart Object has been made into many layers, go back to the upside-down triangle, click Convert to Frame Animation, and then select Make Frames from Layers from that same menu.

Now all your frames are visible on the timeline! Delete the very first one (otherwise the same frame will be repeated twice), select all of the frames on your timeline, then click on the little “0 sec” thing beneath the frames to set the gif timing. For this, I generally recommend using 0.03 or 0.04 seconds, but this depends on personal preference as well as the frame rate of the original video.

It’s time to finally save our gif. You just go to File > Save for Web & Devices and a big window will pop up. Honestly, the only save setting that really matters is that you have your gif set to loop for forever. Some people prefer using Diffusion over Pattern when saving, but this is what mine looks like right now:

If you go to save your gif and find that it’s above Tumblr’s 3MB gif limit, you are probably just going to want to delete frames if you don’t want to lose the overall gif quality. Otherwise, you can click on that Colors: 256 box and try to cut down the number of different colors in your gif - though I will warn you that this generally makes gifs look more pixelated. And once your good and settled, click save and your gif is ready to post!

[waltzshouldbewriting]

Nemesis (Ghostmind Story 4)

By JD Jackson

First thing first, yes we are all fine.

That being said, you are all probably wondering the reason behind my recent online activities. Well, it all started about two AM when Dan was out helping investigate some weird gas thing.

It started for me when he barged into my room at 2:45 looking like a truck ran him over, minus the injury part.

“What’s wrong?” Was the first thing out of my mouth before my instincts finally kicked in. “Don’t answer that.” I ran from my computer (yes I was still up, sue me) to my bed, where I brushed off the papers I had all over it. I grabbed my weighted blanket, ordered Dan to lie down, and told him to relax.

“You need music - no you don’t,” I said, running through what Dan usually needs while in shutdown mode. I turned off my writing playlist, dimmed the lights, and fetched him a bottle of water.

Aaliyah called me just as I was about to call her.

“Is Dan at your place?” Aaliyah asked. She sounded half-asleep.

“Yes,” I replied, balancing the phone with my computer as I walked out to the living room. “He’s completely zoned. Do you know what happened?”

“Someone attacked him.”

“What?”

My parents were already in the living room, both on the phone. I plopped on the floor and opened up a window on my laptop.

“Let me find a picture,” I said. “See what I can find out.”

I put the phone down, already switching to research mode.

I found a video of the attack in half a minute. My mom handed me a notebook as I wrote and sketched what I saw.

Young. Our age? Design on shirt. One-way fight. Obvious training. Wasn’t seeking to kill, only hurt.

Questions began to form, and that’s when I started with the weird posting on social media.

Does anyone recognize his style of fighting?

Any idea on his symbol?

Anyone recognize him?

Another video came up, this one with a clear picture of the other person’s face. I snapped a screenshot and did a reverse image search just as a few responses came back in.

His fighting is very mixed. Can’t identify any one style.

If I had to guess, he had some jujutsu training mixed in with it.

I found his Facebook page, but it only listed what was definitely a false age and location, and a friends list. So I started searching for his friends.

That logo reminds me of Divinity White’s logo when she was Savage Serpent.

More googling, and I started connecting the dots. A photo on a friend’s timeline here, a jujutsu studio website from his hometown here.

After about thirty minutes, two police officers came to check on Dan. After some convincing from my parents, Dan came out to meet them.

“Any idea who attacked me?” Dan asked. His voice sounded flat, uninterested, but to me that just meant he was still in shutdown.

Police officers don’t know how to deal with him. And they haven’t had to yet, I realized. Not with his device. Which was still on his arm, shattered.

“Not yet,” one of the police officers responded.

“I know,” I offered. “His name is Jason White. He is sixteen years old, trained at an old rundown jujutsu studio in his hometown. He’s the son of Divinity White AKA Savage Serpent. Ms White was a member of the FOCOPI, back twenty years ago. She quit after a bad injury, and eventually married and became a lawyer. Her old secret identity was found at two years ago, shortly after which she and her husband were murdered by someone orphaned by the FOCOPI, which then left Jason orphaned. He moved in with his aunt, who still lives near the FOCOPI headquarters. And there’s an ongoing investigation to see if his aunt is the person behind the new FOCOPI member Avidizer.”

“FOCOPI may be evil, but they don’t involve kids,” one of the police officers said.

“Unless,” I replied. “The kid takes it upon himself to be involved. Jason has had two amber alerts since moving in with his aunt, but resolved quickly. One of the kids in his school with a less secure account seems to think he ran away.”

The other police officer raised an eyebrow. “So what you’re saying is the kid has a role model whose in FOCOPI, which is motive. And he likely tried more dangerous initiation tactics by himself.”

“Until FOCOPI gave in and gave him a safer mission,” I concluded. “Taking on Ghostmind, a superhero with no physical skill.”

“I’ll admit, it makes sense,” the first police officer said. She looked at my parents. “Your child is a good researcher.”

My dad chuckled. “It’s probably all that time they spend researching for that novel.”

“We’ll look deeper into what you’ve found, but we’ll still stay open to other explanations- though this one sounds solid.” The police officer looked at me. “Ever think of getting a job in criminal investigations?”

I made a face and shook my head. “Not creative enough for me.”

The next hour or so, police came and went from my house. I showed them how I did my research and the photos I’d found. Those who had time to react were impressed.

Dan’s parents came over, and the whole Davis Family stayed the night. Then, just a little after sunrise, it was time to start the next day.

Dan was already excused from school, and his mom called in with a family emergency, but the rest of us had to trot on to work and school. Not that I didn’t try to stay with him, but I was close to failing in two classes (like that mattered in the moment) and neither Dan nor my dad wanted me to stay.

So I went to school, despite having no sleep. And slept through most of my classes. When I got home, Dan and his mother were passed out in my room, so I took a nap on the couch.

The rest of the day was spent recovering from that morning. My mom forced us all to eat, even with no appetite. I spent the evening scrolling Tumblr while Dan played video games on his phone and his mother conversed with my parents.

She wanted to head home, but Dan was feeling sick from anxiety and was wary of riding in a car. Neither of them like the house (we are a messy family), and Dan complained once or twice that he should’ve walked the extra ten minutes back to his place initially. I did the best to keep the area clean, but it felt hopeless. Claudia and Aaliyah both showed up after dinner, and Aaliyah brought a tool kit to work on Dan’s device.

That night I didn’t stay up until 2 AM, but I still found myself woken up with a crash around the same time. I was sleeping on the couch, Claudia in one of the recliners, and Aaliyah had moved downstairs to work.

“What was that?” Claudia asked, sitting up.

“I don’t know,” I replied.

My parents creeped out of their room, my mom with a flashlight and my dad with a bat.

“Did you hear that?” My mom asked.

Claudia and I both nodded.

“Get Dan and go downstairs,” my dad barked.

“Why?” Claudia asked. “There’s police officers-“

“Do it.”

Dan was already awake, and he barely complained about the woody smell as we descended the stairs. I led them to a corner, and Aaliyah and Claudia moved a table to cover us.

Dan sighed and leaned his head against the cold wall, his breath speeding up. I could feel my heart hammering in my chest.

“It’s just a precaution,” Claudia whispered. “There’s no reason to panic.”

“I know,” I answered. “Doesn’t mean I can stop.”

“Shhh,” Dan hissed. “Stop talking so loud.”

Something thumped, startling me and Claudia.

“Aaliyah, how long is the repair going to take?” I asked, keeping my voice low.

“Too long,” Aaliyah said.

“That’s not an answer!”

“I don’t know what you’re thinking, but it’s not a good idea.”

I sighed. “It would make me feel better if we had a plan.”

“It’s four to one,” Claudia stated. “We could take him.”

“This is a horrible idea!” Aaliyah said.

Dan shook his head. “He’s too good of a fighter.”

“It’s four to one,” I repeated.

“I’m sure he’s trained for that,” Dan replied. “And none of us has.”

“I know a thing or two about strategy.” I looked around the room. “Now if I could only think clearly...” Closing my eyes, I did my best to concentrate. Just pretend it’s a scene in a novel.

“We have only one entrance,” I reasoned. “Umm, let’s see - we could take him by surprise - maybe, uh, nevermind, that wouldn’t work.” I continued to ramble, but slowly an idea began forming. “I think I have a plan. We need a net.”

It wasn’t hard. Claudia and I were able to sew a few stronger pieces of cloth together, and then I found small bolts in my dad’s work box that we tied to the end. Claudia took the net as we moved into position.

Claudia and I pressed our bodies against the wall next to the stairs just as the door creaked open. My heart was pounding even harder, but I forced myself to breathe slowly and softly. I listened as an unfamiliar gate walked down the stairs, ignoring the shaky feeling through my limbs.

Then Jason White stepped into the room, and me and Claudia tackled him with the net.

The good news is that we caught him by surprise. But, as Aaliyah expected, it didn’t take long for him to react. He landed an elbow into my stomach, and I stumbled backwards as pain flared. I hit the wall and collapsed, muttering a few of my favorite curse words under my breath.

Claudia recovered. Apparently, cheerleaders have high pain tolerance (which I do not, hence me lying on the floor in pain at this moment in time). She threw herself onto White and managed to wrap the net around his face in a smooth motion. It wasn’t enough to bring him down, but Claudia grabbed the edges and yanked, bringing White’s head down and making him stumble. Claudia elbowed him in the side of the head, knocking him into the wall, while he still struggled to get the net off. She kneed him in the stomach, and he punched her in the face in defense, making her stumble backwards.

White managed to toss the net off. Aaliyah had yet to finish her repairs.

I took a deep breath in, going through a quick grounding exercise. It made the pain worse, but I found I could focus. Now, all I needed was a stroke of genius.

And, impossibly, I had one.

I pushed myself up and forced myself to move to the other side of the room. White, who was still focusing on Claudia, turned my way just as I reached my target - a basket of spray paint. I grabbed a bottle, popped the lid, and sprayed it right into White’s eyes. It didn’t blind him as I’d hoped, but he did stumble backwards with a nasty wince.

Sometime during that sequence of events, Aaliyah managed to fix Dan’s device. Which was good, because a second later White punched me in the face and I went down.

“He has some type of device on his waist!” Dan called.

“What?” White asked, spinning around. He nervously patted his belt. “No I don’t!”

“A little protective of your doodad?” I asked, forcing myself up onto my knees despite the massive face ache (is that a thing?) spreading from my jaw.

Claudia, who, despite a bloody nose and a black eye, was sneaking around the side of White, took the hint. She launched forward, grabbing the device with amazing reflexes, and tossed it at Aaliyah. Aaliyah caught it, and held her wrench up to it like a knife to a throat.

White halted.

“You like this, don’t you?” Aaliyah asked. “It would be a shame if something... happened to it. But I figure if I’m smart enough to invent, I’m probably smart enough to destroy. After all, it’s supposed to be easier, right?”

White scowled. “What do you want?”

“For one, stop punching my friends. In fact, if you leave now, in the morning I’ll leave this somewhere for you to find.”

“Why would I trust you?”

“You don’t have much choice, do you?”

White huffed. “If you don’t return it, you’ll pay.” Then he turned on his heels and left.

Later that day, someone informed us that White used that device frequently to sneak pass police officers and guards. None of us know what happened to the device, since Aaliyah turned it over to the SGU.

And honestly, none of us care.

All I know is that two days later and Dan is still in panic mode and my cheek still hurts.

[ramskulls-archive]

Whaaa you're art is amazing! Like what!? Okay, okay, I got a couple questions afyer looking through your blog: ▪When did you start using Krita? ▪what brushes do you use for sketch, line, and shading? ▪what advice can you give to me as a noob and somewhat newer artist, in usimg Krita? Love you're art whether it's finished or unfinished! 🐢💕

1.) Sometime around 2014! Krita was on version 2.8 iirc. Used to crash often so my hand was kind of permanently in a claw-like position over ctrl-s lol. These days autosave has made me a bit lazier saving files. 

2.) I have a bunch of brushes I made myself! But I usually stick to just one over the course of a drawing. Most of them are simple and just have tweaked pressure curves and a different brush tip. 

3.) Prepare to spend a good amount of time getting familiar with the program! It’s designed to let you do your work and just provides you the tools with which to do it. More often than not people give up on Krita because it seems heavy and daunting! That and lag, but we’ll address that later. 

Suggestions: 

- Learn to love pressure curves. Here is a link to a tutorial by David Revoy, which shows some common pressure curves. (Also try an S-shaped curve!) 

You can also set pressure curves for individual brushes if you want different feels for different brushes. It can affect size, opacity, color, etc. So many possibilities. These curves can take away a lot of stress from your hand! If you find yourself hurting because you need to put too much pressure on your lines to make them thicker, change the pressure curve! If you wanna make thin lines easier, pressure curves! 

- On that note, play with the brush settings! There are so so many options it seems daunting, but the pixel brush alone can give you many great effects! Play with brush tips and spacing and rotation and the aforementioned curves! They don’t have to be super weird to be useful! My favorite brush is probably just the default brush with different pressure curves for size and opacity. Moat of my brushes are variations of that, to be fair.

- Shortcuts are your friend. Open Krita and have a look at the keyboard shortcuts settings. You can probably bind nearly everything to a keyboard shortcut! I have my most used ones mapped where my left hand can reach them, my fingers barely even have to move. Learn what tools and shortcuts you use the most! 

- Navigate like a boss. Learn these by heart:

PAN (space + drag)

ZOOM (ctrl + space + drag) (reset with ctrl+0)

ROTATE (shift + space + drag) (reset with 5)

MIRROR (M) (mine is set to shift-v though because I use it a lot)

- Blending modes are awesome. There’s two. Layer blending modes and brush blending modes. Each can be used to make fun effects! For example, creating glowing stars is easy with a scatter brush and addition brush blending mode. I also love to do bright lighting with a new layer set to hard overlay. Behind is also great if you are lazy like me and just want to paint on the same layer but gosh dang the lineart is in the way. 

Read more about blending modes here, if you wanna get all geeky and excited about it like me. Here’s a video on blending modes by GDquest, so you can see their effects visually.

- Read the wiki! It’s there to answer all your questions and more. If not, you can always post a question on the IRC or forums, or you can also throw a question my way or to krita’s tumblr.

Other fun features:

- wraparound mode (W)  - good for tiles images such as wallpapers

- multibrush - make perfectly symmetrical images or things like snowflakes

- animation - enough said!!

- different layer types such as clone layers and file layers! which can be combined with transformation masks as seen in this tutorial here by Wolthera.

- document information - found in the file menu, it tells you who is the author (you can set up in settings) as well as how much time you spend on a file! Very helpful, especially with commissions!

Krita and lag

If you have a not so powerful computer (like me) lag can be a deterrent. Some tips:

- Try not to work on super large canvases. (lately though, with instant preview, it seems to be a little better)

- Turn instant preview on or off. Sometimes it works better without it, sometimes it doesn’t. 

- Brushes tend to be a source of lag, such as large textures, small spacing. Try to use smaller textures and increase the spacing of the brush.

- If your brush doesn’t need to be super accurate (like a heavily textured rough brush), set precision to 0. 

Aaaand that’s pretty much it! I’ll add more when I come up with more, feel free to send an ask if you have any more questions! Krita is like, one of my favorite topics and it gets me too excited. I’ve typed this out like 3 times and had to retype it twice now lol but yeah. Have fun!

[sharkiegorath]

On Elias

[this is the third (3rd) time I’ve tried posting this since Tumblr’s mobile search/tag search keeps eating the post. because it’s perfectly fine with showing untagged personal posts and spam whenever you search for something, but randomly decides when to show Actual Content]

ok look I know people don’t always read the OP’s tags but I keep getting “I’M SURE HE’S EVIL” comments on a pair of gifsets with fairly obviously positive parallels and reblogging something just to definitively say “that mysterious character is eviiiiiiil” is Not Cool, even if it’s in the tags.

Yes, recent commentator, Elias definitely broke into the house. It's probably why he suggested that the Johnsons go out in the first place! But the common assumption is A) that he planted the books and B) that he did so for a malicious reason. It seems as obvious as it could possibly be while remaining unconfirmed. It seems so obvious in such a twisty show that I think it isn’t that straightforward.

Gosh, where to begin? Firstly, names and etymology are pretty good theory fodder and Easter eggs, e.g., ‘Hap’=haphephobia and all its ‘hap’-prefixed variants; ‘Khatun’ is both an old title of nobility and a modern word referring to any woman. 'Rahim' means ‘merciful’ or 'servant of the merciful'. 'Elias' is a cognate of 'Elijah'. Elijah was the Abrahamic prophet who sort of had a special connection with women and children; who was cared for by an angel; who resurrected the dead; who entered Heaven without dying at the end of his earthly life; who is sometimes believed to have become an angel. All of this information is available on Wikipedia! So even if Elias did plant the books, I don’t automatically assume he’s malicious.

There’s this interesting bit in an interview with The Atlantic:

Marling: [...] I think one of the original stories that was influential actually comes from Jewish mysticism. Do you know it?

Kornhaber: Is this leaving the door open for Elijah at Passover?

Marling: Yeah. It’s so beautiful. I think it’s amazing to try and use that as a reminder of trying to stay open. I struggle with that all the time. You get scared and you close the door. But I think The OA, she’s inviting them to let a new thing in.

(Principal Gilchrist's first name is another cognate of Elijah - 'Ellis' - and his surname means 'servant of Christ'. People have made the connection between Ellis and his "water under the bridge" comment to Ellis Island and the nearby Statue of Liberty, plus he has a snow globe of the latter.)

Elias’ potential connection with an ‘evil’ Rachel was probably debunked early by Zal Batmanglij on Twitter: the plants in her cell died because she refuses to water them as an act of rebellion. I'm too lazy to go through the whole thing about why her name being on the office wall in large Braille doesn't automatically mean she works there in the first place. I think she and Elias are connected (because of his car crash analogy and the “[My brother] never got to hear it”/”I’m a listener” lines), but I doubt it’s as evil agents.

Elias is shocked and defensive when he bumps into French in the house - but the scene follows French, so of course we aren't shocked and suspicious about French’s presence. Basically, the audience has had the same reaction to Elias breaking in as Elias initially has to French breaking in. Part of what makes Elias seem suspicious is his reaction. IMO Elias doesn't even imply or confirm that the OA was lying  - he just doesn't correct French. The other 'suspicious' thing he does is...move his eyes while hugging French, which isn’t incriminating on its own since the emotion is ambiguous.

There's confusing reasoning behind why Elias would place the books in the first place. The books seem tailored to match major aspects of the OA's story. The immediate assumption is that if someone planted the books, they meant for the Crestwood Five to find them and conclude that she based lies upon them. But if that's the case, Elias likely had no way of knowing that French would break in, go to her room, thoroughly search her room, and look where he did. There was no guarantee that any of the Five would find the books, jump to the conclusion that OA was lying, then share the discovery with the others.

Alternatively, you could argue that Elias planted the books intending for someone else to find them during an investigation and use it as proof that OA was making up stories, and the Five would fall for it in the process. But in that case, why did he let French leave with all of the books? And remember, Buck kept one and the rest let him. It’s possible that they submitted the other books to the FBI offscreen, or that Elias replaced the books. But I’ve never seen the theory cover what happened to the books after the reveal, so I won’t play with that hypothetical situation here.

Maybe Elias planted the books for someone else to find and didn’t know French took them. After all, we don't know what happened after the hug. But that introduces a new set of logical problems. How would French sneak a big, heavy box out of the house? He could take it if Elias had already left or wasn’t watching him...but why would Elias leave French unsupervised? Does anyone think that Elias ensured French left, then French broke in again not long afterwards and took the books, all offscreen? And couldn’t his presumably nearby car be a potential giveaway?

So, the books don't make much sense as an attempt to disillusion the Five. Some people think French's reaction stretches audience suspension of disbelief, right - I think it's an even bigger stretch that the FBI would predict a break-in and his reaction. To a lesser extent, the books also don't make sense as an attempt to frame OA, because they end up with the boys and don’t seem to play a role beyond breaking their faith. As for how French took the books while Elias was there, Elias advocates strategic passivity and avoids direct persuasion; I don't find it outlandish that French would say something like "I need to show proof to the others" then take the box, and Elias wouldn’t protest because it's not part of his agenda either way.

The next most obvious explanation for the books is if they really are OA’s. They weren’t necessarily used to construct a lie.  

In the previous episode, OA had a conversation with BBA about how cultures that suffer more loss tend to have more totems. OA knew this because of an exhibit that she loved so much as a child that she made her parents take her back twice. It made a lasting impact on her, as evidenced by the wolf hoodie that reminds her of Homer’s. BBA is not with the boys when French reveals the books, so she doesn't even have the chance to recall that conversation. We don’t know if BBA learned about the books after the boys did. And the books were specifically stored beneath the wolf hoodie. The Five may not be aware of the hoodie’s significance; Elias wouldn’t know the hoodie’s significance unless OA wore it to a session and he asked why she has a hoodie with a wolf on it, or she spontaneously told him, both of which seem a bit far-fetched. (Onscreen, at least, she never wore it to a therapy session.)

Ehh, miscellaneous notes:

It’s uncertain that OA can read English text. But the conversation with BBA says that the Thing Itself isn't as important as what it symbolises. (“Objects carry meaning in difficult times.”) She doesn't need to be able to read the books in order for them to mean something. Anyway, she might’ve been bilingual from a young age; she was 7 or 8 when she went blind and she seems fluent in English by the time we see her in the American boarding school. (There might be proof that she can write in English, since she signed the bottom of the note she left for her parents? It’s been interpreted both ways so idk.)

The Five getting discovered in the abandoned house probably wasn’t set up by Elias. BBA had previously slipped and told Principal Gilchrist about it while driving to save Steve.

I don’t strongly rule it out, but I don’t think Elias spied on the Five, because he only realises who French is when he tells him his name. Unless he’s pretending.

Why were the books under OA’s bed, under the hoodie? Maybe she hid her totems in case her parents found them, since Nancy already thought she had delusions that could easily be linked to The Oligarchs and The Iliad. It’s unclear to me, but there might be a moment in the first episode where OA shoves the video camera under her bed (starts at 29:15-ish), foreshadowing that she might’ve done the same thing with the books later.

The issues I have with my own theory are:

According to the label on the Amazon box, the books were delivered in September. That's at odds with how OA's video was posted in February 2016. But the FBI (or another organisation) ordering the books also doesn't make sense: they would’ve been planning to discredit her months before she returned or assembled the Five or told her story. Even if they knew about the experiments, Hap dumping OA on the road in February seemed entirely spontaneous; that itself was the result of a seemingly random event (getting caught by the sheriff). More importantly, I’d question why the boys didn't notice the discrepancy in dates, and why the FBI didn't realise it themselves. (Like, all they had to do was remove the label or use a different box.) How can they predict a very specific chain of events yet not be smart enough to remove a label? It’s not impossible in the broader scope of the story - maybe they have reality-warping powers, maybe there’s time travel involved - but right now it’s a big stretch just to support the basic theory that Elias planted the books. So I suspect the label is a minor production oversight. Considering exactly how briefly the date is onscreen and difficult to read even when the scene is paused, I think it wasn’t meant to be read by the audience. (Compare the length of the date’s visibility and its readability to earlier in the scene, when French looks at the newspaper clippings, or whenever a phone/computer screen takes up the frame.)

How did OA order the books? The hardest part is how she went online, but she could’ve placed the order sometime in the first episode before the router was taken away. It’s possible to order things from Amazon without a credit card and have them sent to a pickup point or post office, so that’s not a big issue if she had money somewhere (or stole it from her parents, which is 100% in-character for her). Sneaking the package into the house is another problem - but, then again, she’s cunning and her room is conveniently located so things can fairly easily go in/out of her window.

Elias suggested that the Johnsons go out for a family dinner. That somewhat complicates the timeframe he would’ve had for breaking in; if the outing had gone 'normally' they would've returned home before it was very late, yet still at an unpredictable time. (Again, he probably had no way of knowing they’d choose French's workplace, that it’d go badly, etc.) He was unable to break into the Johnsons' home on the night the OA finished her story, which is why he broke in later on, when French did. I guess Nancy and Abel went home after the incident at the Olive Garden and Elias saw the house was occupied, so he waited, and luckily for him they left the next day?

I’m not sure whether Elias lies when French asks if OA told him about Homer, the mine, and Hap’s studies. She told Elias specifics about the first and third premonitions, but it’s unclear how much she explained the second, Homer wasn’t mentioned by name onscreen, and we don’t know if she talked about the movements and angels. It’s worth noting that right after their last session, Elias does lie. OA explained her dreams, including the previous night’s. Afterwards, Nancy assumes Elias knows what happened last night...but he says no, seemingly to see how Nancy explains it. He’s capable of minor lies to Learn Things for ambiguous reasons. (Does he lie to Nancy for OA’s benefit? Or is it because he doesn’t trust OA, or is it simply an effort to hear different sides? I think the tone of the scene suggests he’s trying to help OA, but you might think it’s deliberately misleading. Anyway, they’re not all mutually exclusive motives.)

If the books really were OA’s, what was her reaction when she returned home and they were missing? She probably wouldn't tell her parents. But what would she think happened? Possibly she might be able to put two and two together since she’d previously helped Steve sneak into her room. Maybe she doesn’t seem sad right before the shooting because she deduced that the Five wanted to help her, and she didn’t know that the boys concluded she was lying.

We might be able to get general sense of where The OA is headed by examining Brit and Zal's previous work. Sound of My Voice is the most similar. One of the most common (and plausible) theories for SOMV is that Maggie was telling the truth and the 'FBI agent' wasn't actually an FBI agent. But there are other reused elements that were subverted: OA is much less intimidating and more personable than Maggie; the Five are inclined to believe her without being cult-like; the agent was trying to catch Maggie without her knowledge instead of possibly pretending to help her. I kinda hope it's a meta Red Herring planted for people who've watched both.

Elias was in the house for a reason. I think the video camera and all of the tapes might be a Chekhov's Gun. Brit Marling said something along the lines of "it’s worthy to question Elias’ motives"; he doesn’t necessarily have Good intentions. However, him planting the books isn’t a sure thing and we know nothing about whatever he did in the time gap before the shooting; there’s no indication that he helped or hindered OA in any way, if they’re still in contact, etc. So I think it’s a Bit Much to leap to "ELIAS IS EVIL" Not everyone who thinks he planted the books assumes he’s evil, which is nice. But it's Tiring seeing the evil accusation treated as if it's rare or a new theory, especially considering the depth of analysis that the rest of the show receives.

[olmopress]

Lessig Come Home

week 6: Lawrence Lessig, “How Creativity is Being Strangled by the Law”

OK. OK. OK.

You may not be aware of this, but this it the third time, yes the

THIRD

THIRD


THIRD

time I try to make this post. This stupidly idiotic platform called Tumblr made my browser crash TWICE. I had written – especially the first time – amazing beautiful blogposts that would have made the history of the net, but what can you do? Well, I kinda know.

I’d like to have a little talk with the CEO of Tumblr about this. I have a couple of things to tell him

But let us not get carried away by transitory matters. We are here to discuss Lawrence Lessig, dad of Creative Commons and almost homophone to a very famous dog. Let’s get started.

OK kids I gotta say I like the guy. I watched the talk he gave at JCU a few months ago, where he stormed a magnificent papillon… I mean you gotta love this guy right? Right. So maybe you think that since I liked him I’m not gonna make fun of him?

Try again.

So. Remix. My man Lawrence starts by distinguishing two modes of culture: READ/WRITE (RW) and READ ONLY (RO). Yes, I’ll explain it to you heathens. RW is when common people get not only to consume but also to contribute to culture. Like when your friend Kevin lets out a massive burp and you decide to up the ante and respond with an equally massive burp which also conveys the blessing of spoken words. That’s RW fellas. Also like folk songs are RW. OK? RO instead is passive: it’s when normal people just shut up and experience products of culture. Like when you go to the movies (kids mi raccomando go to the movies, like in proper theatres – I promise it is so cool) and you just shut up and watch. Or when you go to a classical music concert and you shut up and listen. Or when you have reading to do and so you shut up and read. In RO you mostly shut up. It’s a tough life. But hey Johnny Cash said life is rough so you gotta be tough. So shut up and be tough.

Now read only this amazing piece of culture in homo sapiens sapiens form.

OK then Lessig talks a little about quoting and the fact that when you write your stupid papers you can do whatever the hell you want with copyrighted materials “so long as you cite.” And he basically says: “hey! why the hell can’t I do that with video stuff too?” Yeah because all this writing and theory was to advocate for his liberty to make stupid videos on Youtube while high from California weed. Weird guy this Lawrence huh.

But anyways, he says that regulation should adapt to technology and allow us to distinguish between amateurs and professionals and so and so, bla bla bla...

REMIX

Yes! That’s what my man Lessig loves. Remixes on YouTube! Because he thinks are a way to go back to RW culture after a century of RO! And so he lists them!

There are mashups…

I used to love this stuff when I was 14

And then there are anime music videos…

And then call-and-response virality…

Everything looks very interesting…

But…

It is all an excuse to say…

That this has nothing to do with technique and that today normal alphanumeric writing is like Latin in 21st century. You sure? I mean yes, academic writing is as incomprehensible as Latin to me but I mean… I don’t…

Oh right. He says “the words, images, sounds, and videos of the twenty-first century speak to the vulgar; they are the forms of expression that are understood by most people” (160). So like he’s talking about memes

EXCEPT

L you’re probably right in terms of form because yeah memes are like that, but in terms of content… I mean not really Lassie. Because memes are all about that idiotic post-ironic, nonsensical, dank stuff. Like the moth. ‘member the moth Lawrence?

Whatever. Lawrence doesn’t care ‘cause he’s got 99 problems and a bitch ain’t none. Like he’s got the problem of this F***ING copyright laws that are just out of date and useless and stupid and frankly are essentially theft so okay? Now off to the next step, comrade.

The funny one. The one in which he describes various kinds of economies (if this sounds like an episode of Friends, you are probably right my friend). So. There are three kinds of economies, Lawrence says.

Economy No. 1: commercial. Essentially pagare moneta, vedere cammello. Quid pro quo. Monetary exchange.

Economy No. 2: sharing. Like love. No money involved. What do you mean you don’t what that it’s like? Go ask my friend Melania, she can explain.

Economy No. 3: hybrid. OK so this is weird. Lassieg please define:

“An economy where a commercial entity leverages a sharing economy, or viceversa”

Mmh. And he says hybrids are eVeRyWhErE… like Flickr is an example…

Sooooo let me get this straight. No, Lawrence you can’t stop me from saying it:

THEY’RE NOT HYBRIDS

Because – like – when you have a commercial entity inside which there’s a sharing economy, you have… simply a commercial economy :)

IT’S AN ILLUSION

Yeah. I’m sorry. And you know what, my dear kulaki friend? You spotted yourself. because a few lines later you drop the magical combination of words that makes a certain iron female and very masculine Hollywood star get very excited – you write…

FREE MARKETS

Caught you bro. What a shame.

At this point, the reading is essentially over. L goes on for a while talking AGAIN about how much we should correct our obsession with copies, and how much we should end the war on piracy. But it’s not really relevant in 2019 anymore, right?

But one last thing. I wanted to thank Mr. Fancy bow tie. Because in his talk he was able to demonstrate the bottom line is that all these things relate to human behavior. That the essence of the internet’s problems is corruption. and corruption has to do with what is it that there is in our hearts. It’s about our spirit. Our driving force. Our mission. And it also means that there is no structure or technology that oppresses us. It always us oppressing us. Which is sad. But it also means that it is in our powers to change it. And we should do it. And we shall do it.

So thank you. That was encouraging and inspiring. You’ll receive a new bow tie from me around Christmas.

but

NOW

it is time for

CULTURE

OK why don’t we diversify a little the kind of music I post here, and use this opportunity to celebrate a genre which is essentially based on remix? Enjoy.

And also, why don’t I do that with art, too? Hell yeah I’m doing it. Get this Mimmo Rotella’s “Cinemascope” from 1962!

Au revoir ♥

Image Sources: Instagram, GIPHY.com, Amazon.com, bustle.com, wikiart.org, facebook.com