#via alternate timelines and swaps and stuff

[chiisana-lion]

the stuff you’re reblogging about mlb??!? what’s happening with this show

its. so insane. theyve been running around in circles since season 1 with little development up til recently and for the first good chunk the initial love square got swapped (theyre literally like two people with like four or so different dynamics) and then adrien and marinette do end up getting together but not until adrien's dad gabriel mr supervillain hawk moth/monarch himself after having for ages been trying to get the miraculous of the ladybug/black cat to revive his kind of dead wife who he keeps in the basement without his son knowing also decides to have beef with marinette specifically and then a 15yo threw a coup on the mayor and has a breakdown on the same day and then it turns out adrien isnt even a real person and an artificial monster his parents created and this fact was presented to marinette via dramatic theatre play by adrien's ex/marinette's friend who is now dating his cousin and also adrien starts getting nightmares about how he in an alternate timeline kind of got turned into a supervillain and killed the girl he loved his dad and everyone else and destroyed the moon and the whole of planet earth along with it leaving him all alone mourning by himself oh and while that happens he's kind of detained in a solitary confinement room by his dad in london or something so his dad could frame ladybug and chat noir for kidnapping him (note: he literally is chat noir) more things happen marinette/ladybug finds out that gabriel is monarch and tries to fight him about it with both the ladybug and black cat miraculous (their combined form is pretty sick ngl) and did manage to beat him and gabriel realizes last minute in the most halfassed redemption arc (not even an arc that was like not even 5 minutes probably) ever that the perfect world he wanted would just ruin things for adrien so he goes and paralyzes marinette take the miraculouses back for his wish and does end up reviving his dead wife at the cost of his own life and asks for marinette not to tell adrien about ??? him being the supervillain that tormented paris for a solid year????????? abusive dad dictating every single aspect of his son's life???????? hello????????????????? and so that happens and boom happy ending marinette and adrien can peacefully be together you'd think!!! but this isnt even the end of it. ohhh no the butterfly miraculous this time is in the hands of this little bitch lila rossi/cerise/iris verdi whatever the feck she goes by now and good fecking god i cant ever be free from this show you are doing some cocomelon shit to me since 2015 miraculous

[little-shiny-sharpies]

With all this timey wimey stuff in the new update, I’ve been throwing around an alternate timeline I’ve come up with a bit of my own since I wanted to play with the idea of Frozal as a child and getting to do stuff in MoP too, and since I’m just playing though it for the first time.

So Lord Prestor and/or Onyxia saved a few dracthyr as souvenirs or smth, one of them is Frozal, mindwiped of their soldier lives and all prior knowledge to be feeble and serve as peons and servant to the black dragons during their undercover activities. Now named Vera, her visage is a young girl who’s hair seems to have been dyed black she appears to be only slightly older than Anduin, but only by a few years. Her Dracthyr form remains the same but she doesn’t know how to fly.

After the events of Cataclysm, Vera hides away in Stormwind keep, abandoned to die at the hands of the Alliance, she was too terrified to leave into the world without her dead master’s guidance. So she scavenged in the stormwind and the castle for food. In MOP after Anduin goes missing, she sneaks into a ship to Pandaria and takes his place, changing her visage to appear as him to at first get food, but is taken to Varian, who believes she is truly his son. She goes along at first for fear of her life, but soon relishes the role, as being loved was something she never knew she needed.

Anduin catches wind of this “Prince found” news and talks to his doppelganger in secret, wanting to meet who tf this is and make sure they don’t have any bad intentions, and once they properly meet, Anduin asks her to stay in his place since his father doesn’t know he’s gone still and he still wants to explore and help Pandaria. He makes a deal that afterwards he’ll help her find a home.

So stay Vera does and they communicate via some pandaren magic stuff I know exists and stay updated on events so they can swap out when the time comes and not bring attention to it. Vera lives as Anduin and explains that (s)he was really struggling to survive in the wilds and got attacked and fell down a cliff, to put off suspicion of why he’s acting strange. So “Anduin” uses that as a reason to why he’s following Varian so closely after his return and actually takes a new interest in learning combat and Varian is so damn thrilled about it, he tries to spar with him nearly every day and it’s so much fun.

While the alliance players are still looking for Anduin right after he runs away from them, they receive news that Anduin has returned and is alright (and the players go “No the fuck he ain’t! The little bastard ran away from us that’s a damn changeling or something!”) And soon realize the king is with a fake, so they have to track down the real prince and bring him back to prove it.

But Anduin and Vera’s plan plays out well until the Garrosh incident. During their conversation Anduin tells Vera what he’s planning to do, and Vera tries to talk him out of it, the guilt of living in a dead boy’s place is too much for her little heart to handle. So when Anduin get crumpled under that bell, out of nowhere, comes this weird dragonkin that absolutely fucks Garrosh UP and mauls half his face before it gets chucked off him and they both escape. To hide from their consequences that pissed both of the factions off since now the prince is missing again and Garrosh is missing half his face they gotta hang out with this SUS black dragon in some random inn.

[darkspace7]

Been frantically trying to shift around stuff because I wanted to play games on my phone but it unfortunately has the memory capacity of a potato so I've been looking through my notes app in search of things that could be deleted. Here's some ideas that have cursed my ever waking hours so now I foist the burden onto you!

A restaurant called "Subversion" that aims to do just that to your expectations. Food that looks all leafy and green so you'd expect a savory vegetable type deal? Nope you blue raspberry flavor. Or how about a large dessert covered in some sort of icing and now the waiter is bringing out a torch? So is it something like Baked Alaska mayhaps? No, the "icing" melts away to reveal it’s a steak. And the deal isn't limited to the food, oh no. You go in thinking it’s gotta be some fancy high end place but it looks like just a mom and pop cluttered shop. Then you get led through a door and suddenly faced with the most ostentatious place you’ve ever seen. Then the bartender gestures for you to follow them behind the counter and suddenly you're led through a trapdoor in floor. You now think you’re outside but suddenly a a door opens from behind a pile of trash bags against the back wall and then suddenly you’re in another version of the mom & pop store. The price is reasonable but you're the server now. This is your home now, you can never leave.

Bleach/Promare AU (Not gonna lie, I didn't know where I was going with this other than the potential for seeing Ichigo/Uryuu and the Zangetsu Duo in the colour pallet/artstyle. Also, shirtless fire fighters and weird fire aliens?

Candy Barrel Fairy Floss (Cotton Candy made from Various Candies? What types would work best? What would be the worst? Would they taste good???)

The Aizen from my one story idea (the one where he is genuinely the personality he presents himself as and maybe role-swaps Ichigo?) gets isekaied into an alternate past where Juhabach is his Dad. (Based on a dream I had, apperantly?)

• There's a group chat for the zanpakuto that Zangetsu was a part of before the timeline fuckery (reference to my one Ichigo/Uryuu story.) He gets pulled in again via Sode no Shirayuki and eventually gets Zanpakugo (Zanpakuto!Ichigo) in. Many cryptic memes x2 because they're both time traveling millennials. Of course they meme in various worrysome and increasingly unhinged ways. Yachiru also hops in sometimes much to many's confusion. (One of the others: "Yeah. You learn not to question it.") (This is obviously non-canon.)

•(In regards to Bleach) What happens if two people go inside a gigai at the same time???

•(Also in regards to Bleach?) What if Keigo is related to Reigen Arataka? (Reigen's his uncle)

•Pre!Canon Izuku gets isekaied into Fantasy AU decides to essentially say fuck it to his old world and stay with found friend family adventuring and doing hero shit in the new world.

•Crack Vestige AU where Izuku and then Bakugo get to haunt people with their found ghost family when Melissa finally gets passed the quirk due to shenanigans. Scenes & further shenanigans occur but not sad shit because fuck that noise.

•(In relation to last point) Fucming Vestige Bakugou & Izuku going whole ham on Shiggy, just decimating his shit. AFO steps in and then there's Yoichi coming in from behind with the steel chair-

•Also, En's coat is colour changing.

•"The Ruler" A non-binary royalty themed superhero who goes around carrying a wooden handheld rulestick. •Racecar Driver reverse isekai disaster lesbians? One day someone literally tries to invoke the whole 'bury your gays trope' on a recently disgraced Racer with their shitty lemon but apparently Truck-kun was having none of this bullshit and t-bones the fucker so instead of death we got this hot muscular dragon lady from the fantasy equivalent of the 1500's or whatever rolling out the back and proceeding to break a semi in half. Cut to her and the protag together as they proceed wreck the local illegal street racing circuit all the while trying to get back the protag's honour or something like that and maybe somehow catch up with the mysterious cryptid racer 'Truck-kun' so they get dragon lady home. There's mutual idiots in love, someone tries to murder protag by ramming them off road in every race, cars routinely defy the laws of physics in increasingly riduculou ways, dragon lady has an epic duel with a giant robot. It's an utter mess call it something equally stupid like "Speed Demon" or smth. •Jirou Kyoka x Daredevil (???)

•Doctor Stone Time Slip Theory AU but make it crack (or crack taken seriously) with mecha senku behind everything •Blackberry Syrup Orange Mango Mocktail with small crushed ice ("looks like a sunset." True but why?)

[postsforposting]

Time doesn't stop during the lightning scene. You can see people's bags and stuff still swinging around. If Crowley stopped time, his watch would still being going, and so would his phone, but when he drops back into real time, the phone would right itself and the watch would not. My theory of someone else editing time/memory in the past/present would not result in this discrepancy, and would jump everything equally forward in time. This is one of the few times we can see the watch clearly, and also one of the few times the hour hand is actually correctly placed--nearly every other time, at say "930" the hour hand should be between the 9 and 10, but the clock will always have it directly on the 9, which is wrong. I think they changed Crowley's watch this season because the previous one was pseudodigital, and we couldn't see the difference with where the hands ought to be. Given that Crowley checks his watch repeatedly this season, and I know he sees the hour hand doing this weird behavior yet does not react to it, I think he knows something is happening. We know he knows his own memory was erased; perhaps he knows how that works, and his reaction to the threat of the book of life isn't "haha that doesn't exist" but like he did in the West End Theater, a fake relaxed "no we shan't". What is Crowley doing that requires him stopping time? And not telling Az about it at all? He's not doing anything up in heaven, unless he's taking Az with him, which I don't think they did.

Adam messing with things last season would explain Nina and Maggie, and now that I see that it explains why they can't be miracled because maybe Adam did something, or maybe having been miracled via Adam renders protection? At the end of S1, we know that the humans still remember all the kraken and etc weird stuff that happened; the memories of the alternate Antichrist timeline exist, and Adam still has his powers, so reality changed but memories of the original stayed. It all still happened.

Maggie/former nun/specifically the one who got killed by Hastur, Shax/Madame Tracey, Furfur/Shakespeare, Nina/also nun. Why these people? Tracey, possessed by Az, tried to kill Adam, so her being made a demon instead of being born makes sense--but this implies that now Shadwell is also living a different life. Shadwell was supposed to be back this season too, but covid ruined that. Shakespeare, no kid likes him, so perhaps this new world never had a Shakespeare, or he was promoted to being a demon after death. I would guess, since Furfur says he was there during the war in heaven, there never was a Shakespeare in this world. Maggie and Nina may just be consequences of Adam being a "normal" kid, because their order would not have existed to swap the babies; they get to live because they didn't actually do anything wrong to him, and they ended up helping him because they gave him his "real" parents.

HOLY SHIT. Furfur didn't exist originally, so that's why the 1941 memory was so bloody shaky. That "memory" is changed reality. That's why there was so many lights on during a blackout in WWII, and why nobody could say FUCK, because a child would not have been taught about that particular bit of history yet and wouldn't be allowed to say FUCK. THIS IS WHY CROWLEY DOES NOT REMEMBER FURFUR. JESUS RESURRECTED CHRIST. BECAUSE HE ACTUALLY WASN'T THERE. HE'S NEW. He's an inserted creation. Adam can rewrite reality, but he can't change people's memories of what truly happened. This is why nobody in that minisode reacts to the zombies; they're inserts, they don't register, except where they have to interact with the magic shop clerk, who still doesn't react to them as zombies but as "sir", like he would any standard robber. Did Adam actually mean this to happen, or is this a consequences of changing past events due to creating characters in the past--from the beginning of time, literally Adam created a new angel in Furfur who never previously existed. Furfur was not created by God. Does present day Az and Crowley remember this encounter with Furfur in 1941? It's not clear if this is a memory or if this is a "narrator POV" scene, like the stuff we see in present day heaven when the miracle alarm goes off.

Az really did perform at the West End. But what didn't happen until Adam got involved was the zombies. They weren't threatened at the theater, the bullet catch went fine. Shax was never involved. But if this is true, then what actually happened isn't a test of trust and pulling them closer together through peril. They just had a show and went back to dinner. Does that photograph from the show exist? Yes. But do they remember it? I don't think they will, because Furfur took it in an altered timeline that wasn't the original reality. Crowley and Az remember the real one, not the altered new one: Those books that appeared in the shop at the end of s1 are "new", according to Az, because he doesn't have the altered reality memories. Adam can't change memories.

Why does Nina's shop not have hours posted but everyone seems to know when it opens anyway? Because it's inserted into reality. Why does Maggie's shop not seem to exist and her story of being part of the bookshop not make sense and it's out of character? It's inserted into reality. Why does none of their backstories make sense? Because they're all made up de facto by a child creating a story, they didn't actually live their lives. They've only had lives for four years, since the notapocalypse. Maggie can't spell because she was murdered by Furfur, sent to hell, and then dragged up from hell to be alive by Adam and given a "life". She used to be in hell. Maybe getting resurrected or in hell at all gives you bad spelling. Maybe it's that her memory of her past life was changed, she doesn't remember it at all, and that's why she spells badly. That would be consistent with the demons spelling badly but not the angels, and why nobody else has problems. I haven't checked if Nina can spell, we can't see anything well enough to look.

edit: Nina does spell macchiato wrong in the first episode at 1321, and "flavoured" seems to have the r either not present or jammed in there after the fact. Nina wasn't dead in the original timeline, but she was exposed to demons and would have been destined for hell. Her memory of her previous life would have had to be erased, so that does still track.

Now, what does the shaking in particular spots in the Job minisode have to do with all this? The shaking in the Beginning scenes? What does the Resurrectionists jiggling have to do with it? Do all of those scenes have something to do with the deleting parts of the apocalypse? Did they talk about the impending destruction of everything, and so now that's deleted? Can't be, because Job is directly Az's memory, and his memory would not be affected by what Adam did--we know that's true. So someone else is messing with reality too. The Beginning isn't a memory either, it's another of the "narrator POV" type things. Who is messing with reality, in a way that's affecting the past?

Nobody seems to use money anymore either, not even background characters. Is this Adam's doing too? Because a kid doesn't worry about money, so now poof it's gone? Except it does exist at the very beginning, where Maggie is trying to pay rent, so it can't be Adam's doing--I propose it's a result of the Big Miracle Energy when they hide Jim.

This also only explains stuff in the past, not the missing time in the present. I don't think it makes sense for Adam to still be changing reality in the present, even to avoid another apocalypse, because the missing time in the last episode would have been stuff where the opposing sides would have discussed things like love, which would avoid said apocalypse by uniting the sides. My previous idea of Metatron doing a miracle to affect our heroes during their own Jim hiding miracle still applies, I was just wrong about some of the details, namely where the shaking is coming from. Some of it is definitely from Adam's edits, it's not all Metatron.

The ineffable discontinuity of time in ALL of Good Omens season 2?

There's Something Strange About Time, and it's not ONLY the end of the last episode, where the clocks are mysteriously jumping ahead faster than what's playing out onscreen... Look at this scene from season 2, episode 1:

The time is visible on Crowley's phone AND watch, as he stands in a very similar way as he did at the end of the season. We've seen parallel blocking like this used in other scenes to highlight common themes, Clues, etc.

Let's look closer at the times, and enjoy the way Shax's contact icon blinks at Crowley:

My technology could be fancier, but I adjusted the exposure and sharpened the pic of his watch to make it easier to read. If someone can get a better shot, that would be great! I'm pretty sure, though, that the watch says 11:35; the phone says 10:35. Why are they out of sync??! Are there time discrepancies woven throughout the entire season? WHAT DOES IT MEAN??!

The season 2 bookshop clock - which is not the same as the season 1 clock - is frowning for a reason...

And here's what I mean about the parallel blocking, or the way Crowley is positioned and filmed in a very similar way in both scenes. It seems meaningful that the season started and ended like this, with the time on his watch (barely) visible in each scene and offering evidence of Something Strange About Time:

Is Crowley manipulating time somehow? Something is definitely UP.

Want more Clues and metas? I have a huge collection!

[weirderscience]

im gonna word barf about aus and why i use them. when i make aus i tend to focus primarily on exploring characters and themes under a specific situation- eg the roleswap au is about exploring what parallels and contrasts to dhmis.

dhmis to me is about conformity to norms and how the world is constantly telling you how and what to think about certain topics even though theres so much more to explore on any subject than the surface level. it’s about how episodic formats can stifle storytelling. its about how nobody really knows what theyre doing and theyre just trying to feel normal when everything is going to shit around them. its about inaction and passivity being beaten into you as a child. its about grief, and about mourning a past that distorts and warps itself to envelop your entire way of thinking, and the more you look back the stranger and more upsetting it gets.

so like, how can we explore that with the character archetypes we have? what themes and archetypes can we boil down to the very basics, what can be expanded upon? can we divorce the concepts from each other, or is it really the same media after being transformed so much? that’s what the fun of aus is to me. if that makes sense

[nerdstrings]

Tumblr’s new censorship – what does it affect?

In simplified terms, Tumblr as a company maintains three separate codebases:

iOS Tumblr: The code that runs the Tumblr app on Apple mobile devices (iPhone or iPad).

Android Tumblr: The code that runs the Tumblr app on Android mobile devices (Samsung Galaxy, Google Pixel, etc.).

Web Tumblr: The code that runs tumblr.com, which is what you get whenever you access it via a browser like Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari, etc., regardless of the device you use.

The new censorship of certain tagged content only applies to iOS Tumblr. @wip’s post about this, which is driven by Apple’s policies: https://wip.tumblr.com/post/671184848292118528/an-update-on-the-tumblr-ios-app

Android Tumblr and web Tumblr are NOT censored this way. For example, you can search for and browse the “#mine” tag on both Android Tumblr and web Tumblr. You cannot do the same on iOS Tumblr as of Dec. 21, 2021.

(The inanity of which tags have been censored is beyond the scope of this post.)

If you have an Apple mobile device and want an uncensored Tumblr experience (well, still not uncensored, but at least at parity with other device users’ experiences), you’ll have to disregard the official Tumblr app, and instead access tumblr.com on your device’s browser. Safari is the default browser that comes preinstalled, but you can get other browsers, like Chrome and Firefox, on the App Store. (Browser privacy is beyond the scope of this post.)

(Also beyond the scope of this post is alternative iOS apps you can use to access Tumblr, instead of the official app. But I will tout one that’s been my favorite for years: @fastfeed’s “MultiTab for Tumblr,” which, being in the iOS ecosystem, isn’t immune to the exact same Apple policy bullshit, but for now I can still browse the #mine tag in it, at least.)

Tumblr staff makes it sound like this disparity will be temporary. Given their track record, I do in fact believe that they’re actively working on it, but I don’t have high hopes that this will be resolved in both a swift and satisfactory manner. As someone in corporate marketing who works closely with an IT department that also has issues accurately estimating project timelines, for things much less complicated than a worldwide social media experience, I understand why Tumblr can’t tell us anything more concrete right now. That doesn’t mean it’s not frustrating – particularly given that they won’t tell us what’s been censored. @bannedtags (who I cannot actually tag - coincidence? I think not) is attempting to compile a manually-vetted list, for reference. See this post for a link to the list: https://bannedtags.tumblr.com/post/671586251017797632/a-growing-list-of-banned-tags

If you are someone who regularly posts original content, I recommend looking over that list. I’m usually not an advocate for doing weird shit in order to fit the bounds of arbitrary platform-specific limitations, but in this case, if your engagement experience on Tumblr is heavily driven by follower interactions on your original posts, it’s probably worth rethinking how you tag your stuff so that iOS users will actually see it. Check out @tagreplacer (link is in their description) for an easy way to swap out censored tags on your blog. Godspeed.

[wygolvillage]

hey! do you have any reccomendations for castlevania games to play after sotn?

oh definitely!!

aria of sorrow for the game boy advance is probably the most "sotn-like" in tone and castle design i think. the story takes place in the near future, 2035, after dracula was permanently destroyed. a japanese teenager, soma cruz, finds himself in dracula's old castle during an eclipse, and discovers that he has power over the souls of monsters.

this means that the players can gain a magical attack randomly dropped from any monster in the game. it's a ton of fun and the characters are really charming. there's a really neat twist regarding soma, and irs a perfect conclusion to the series timeline. it's regarded as one of the best games in the series, and it should be easy to get into for beginners. it also has a sequel, dawn of sorrow for the ds.

order of ecclesia for the ds is my all time favorite video game and it takes place some time after sotn, in the 1800s. richter's possession has resulted in the belmont clan relinquishing the whip and disappearing into obscurity. humanity has thus lost their line of defense against dracula, and so many organizations were formed to find alternative methods of combatting the ever-resurrecting dark lord, and one of them is the order of ecclesia. ecclesia, led by a man named barlowe, have created a system of magic called "glyphs", as well as an ultimate glyph called dominus. a woman named shanoa was raised by ecclesia to use dominus to put an end to dracula. however, dominus was stolen by a man named albus. she is left without her memories and emotions, and must pursue albus and regain dominus... however, not all is as it seems.

the combat in ooe is really fun. it's more challenging, but that's what makes it so enjoyable. it's more combat focused than exploration focused, the map is split into 19 smaller, seperate areas. interestingly, many of the game's areas are set outside the castle.

the glyph system is neat because shanoa gets a TON of different attacks and fighting styles, and the glyph sleeve lets her swap between three different setups with ease. the player constantly is rewarded for experimenting with different attacks and stuff its Neat

i feel like if i say anything more about ooe i will write an entire essay its just that good

portrait of ruin for the nintendo ds is just a total blast. it's built around the gimmick of controlling two different characters, the whip weilding jonathan morris and the magic user charlotte aulin. the concept works surprisingly well ingame, you can swap between them, fight alongside each other, and more. there are a few boss fights and puzzles that are specifically built around using this mechanic to its fullest. it Just Works.

the story is set after castlevania bloodlines, in 1944. jonathan is the son of john morris, and eric lecarde is a Very relevant character, so i'd recommend reading up on the bloodlines lore a little bit first. one of the main antagonists is brauner, a vampire artist who creates alternate dimensions via his paintings (the titular portraits), and he intends on taking over dracula's castle with them. the games just really fun and worth playing!!! its my 4th fav

harmony of dissonance for the gameboy advance is a game that you will either really really enjoy or you will end up hating. i think its cool and atmospheric and i finished it in about 2 days, i couldn't put it down, but a lot of people consider this to be one of the weakest metroidvanias in the series. its very easy to get lost but thats part of the charm i think...

it takes place in 1748, and you play as juste belmont. his friend maxim kischine returns from a long period of training injured and distressed, having lost some of his memory. he tells juste that their mutual friend lydie erlanger is being held captive in a castle, so it's up to juste to go on a rescue mission and find her in the labyrinthine castle.

juste uses the vampire killer and no other weapons, but he can combine his subweapons with spellbooks for unique spells and attacks, and he has a few equippable items to enhance his whip. he's also extremely fast, which makes backtracking a less of a headache, because oh god does this game have backtracking.

[hypexion]

Still behind on all this “Arrowverse“ stuff (I hear they did Crisis) but I’m crawling closer to the present with the wild ride that is Legends of Tomorrow Season Four.

So season four continues to ramp up the wackiness, but I think it ultimately manages to not go overboard with it. What helps is that it’s also turning up the background darkness, with the general Legends fun balancing out the dose of grimness John Constantine brings to the show. It’s a tricky balancing act, which probably comes out in favour of the wackiness simply because the wackiness is more overt. The Fairy Godmother is memorable, less so her attempts to get her charge to commit mass-murder. The idea of Heyworld is absurd, yet it’s a man’s attempt to connect with his estranged son. And Nate is saved via The Power of Song, because he let a demon possessing his best friend murder him to save the world. Ultimately, the darkness is... darkened by its proximity to the less serious stuff.

Season four’s primary problem for the Legends is the Fugitives, magical creatures let out when the world was saved last time, because the Legends can’t not screw up. There’s a nice blend of just doing the monster, and subverting the more popular ones into something darker. Plus, there’s actually a pretty decent range of creatures, pulling from various sources across the world. It’s a fun premise, and is ultimately wired into Neron’s evil plan in the final episodes (unlike a certain other time travel themed show I could mention). Season five will be going back to historical figures, but it’s nice to have a change of pace.

On topic of Neron, he’s probably the most menacing of Legend of Tomorrow’s villains. Unlike his predecessors, Neron is not funny. Oh, there are certainly darkly comedic situations involving or caused by Neron, but he’s never the main focus of it. Other magical creatures bring inherent absurdity to their episodes, but Neron simply Does Not. Additionally, Ray’s possession by Neron, to me, feels like a better version of Supergirl’s Reign plotline. The key difference to this is awareness. Ray knows that Neron is trying to take over his body, and has to experience the attempts by the demon to kill his friends. Sure, it’s used for comedy in some places, but it could have easily been a lot darker. Plus, the plotline is pretty concise, with the main Ray versus Neron bit taking place over just one episode. Being possessed thus seems like a bit deal, rather than a slightly pressing medical condition.

Other new characters are varying levels of good, although things look to be getting a little crowded by the end. Various perspectives on monsters are provided by Constantine, Charlie and Mona, and also Hank, I suppose. Honestly Mona is a lot less annoying that I was lead to believe, and that’s even factoring in the fact she used ship names in-show. But it’s also hard to deny that you can see exactly where the special effects budget didn’t go whenever she transforms.

There’s also more of the classic Legends relationship hijinks, featuring actual progression. Maybe the temporary Sara/Ava breakup is a little sudden, but it leads to a pretty good deep dive into their relationship and issues, set on the backdrop of the Ikea from Hell, which somehow just works. There’s also the not quite new but close enough Ray/Nora relationship, which I guess makes sense. Nora has positive feelings towards the one person who said she didn’t have to be evil, and Ray is just a big ball of love. I’d ship it! Then there’s the bonus relationship that sort of appeared from nowhere: Nate/Zari. Really I’d have less of an issue with this if it wasn’t dragged out for basically the whole second half of the season, especially since the whole will they/won’t they dynamic quickly starts to moving towards “they will“, and at a faster rate than the actual relationship. And then Zari gets time-whammied and replaced by Behrad, which is an interesting development but kind of a weird choice in context.

On the topic of the Zari/Behrad swap, I’m kind of interested in what the new timeline looks like. You can’t just do a find-and-replace on Zari, since a lot of her arc stuff and scenes only work because of her tragic backstory. And a few are going to be affected by replacing a woman with a man, because wow this show is into weird love magic sometimes.

One last thing to mention is the crossover, or rather the lack of one. From my perspective of watching Legends of Tomorrow as mostly its own thing, that’s great. No confusion occurs, unlike last time where an episode begins with Martin Stein dying, which is terrible. Plus, it led to Puppets of Tomorrow, which was clearly worth skipping to characters swapping costumes. And all the other wacky alternate timelines. Honestly this show is so Dumb but it’s in a really endearing way. And it’s a spinoff of Arrow, a show that tries to be serious.

I guess this is the part where the conclusion goes, and the conclusion is that you should watch Legends of Tomorrow. Some people say you should skip Season One, but then you’ll miss out on like a few good episodes. And context for better episodes down the line. Plus honestly it’s probably better put together than Supergirl’s third season so what have you really got to lose? Ultimately, something being the worst season of a best show is still pretty good. And that’s the Legends way.

[noobsomeexagerjunk]

makes sense @atty-goldstein​ (and @i-see-7-cats​ because i want any input)

currently thinking about that theory i wrote in another reblog wherein “the process of infection from the apotheosis is a kind of soul transferrence”

and now suddenly i’ve come to this sudden brigade of thoughts of whether you can transfer your soul to another version of yourself from another timeline/dimension

cause like, the alternate universes and timelines are a thing too, and assuming the rules in one world can apply to another, i’m just saying

like, mcnamara of black friday’s soul is in the black and white--who says he can’t manifest again into another dimension/timeline in some way? we know hannah is a witch with the power to deal with this stuff, and black friday’s reference to “wear a watch” was said by hannah; she’s met john in one of these timelines/dimensions definitely and there’s evidence that may suggest this! hell, maybe that tweet of Nick’s about McNamara being in the body of an eagle is a post-black friday instance, or a variation of one, wherein he successfully tries to go back to a salvageable timeline/dimension

let’s not forget that his material gun that came with him got sent back to the canon black friday timeline so lex can kill sherman--maybe he got lex’s help in one/some alternate instances since she has witch magic too

anyways, multiple versions of a person canonically can come from:

alternate dimension/timeline

clone

android

whatever it is ted did to himself in time bastard

and given soul transferrence as a viable practice which we know can occur between two living things (albeit by removing the present soul in the other living being to be transferred to) and one living thing + one soulless object (less of a hassle unless soulless object is some sort of inanimate object which restricts a soul), can these rules apply given the variety of ways in which multiple versions of a person exist?

imagine a paulkins in one dimension attempting to survive via soul transferrence to a version of themselves in another dimension but fucking it up and causing a body swap situation i mean the possibilities

considering nightmare time has made canon both clones and soul transferrence, what would happen if a person dies but their soul got transferred to a clone? would this be even possible at all? the possibilities y’all

[jessicakmatt]

How To Successfully Release Your Music On a Tight Budget

How To Successfully Release Your Music On a Tight Budget: via LANDR Blog

Figuring out how to release an album without going completely broke is getting more difficult by the day.

Putting out an album doesn’t guarantee you’ll see a return or even break even on your investment. Music sales in the United States show that while music streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music continue to gain in popularity, it’s increasingly difficult to see significant returns on an album release without a rock solid release plan.

But don’t give into despair just yet.

The truth is, recording and releasing music has actually become MORE accessible and cost effective for independent musicians. DIY tools like inexpensive digital music distribution and online mastering are just a few of the options available for releasing a high-quality album without spending a ton of money.

But it’s the return on your initial investment that’s changed…

Streaming has altered how artists get paid, and there’s not a lot of music distribution services out there that let artists keep 100% of royalties after the platforms take their cut.

So how can you make your album release a success without burning down your accounts? And more importantly, how do you ensure your investments are wise?

In this article, I’ll give you 5 useful tips on how to save money—and your sanity—when releasing an album.

Solid, impactful albums don’t just happen by accident or overnight.

I’ve actually used these tips with the release of two of my own self-released albums and an EP. They’ve helped my bands save thousands of dollars while still being able to enjoy the benefits of radio play and significant press coverage.

1. Determine what skills and resources you have and prioritize

Self-releasing means taking care of recording, releasing and promoting your album on your own.

Think of all the things a big label (ideally) does for its artists: Everything from funding and recording an album to getting blogs and media outlets to care about it.

If you’re releasing without a label then you are your own label. So you’ll have to think like a label and do what a label does during your release. That means taking care of steps like funding and budgeting your recording process, reaching out to blogs and media outlets and calendaring your promotion strategy.

If you intend to do any of these things well, it’ll take tons of skill, effort and non-monetary resources to make it happen. It may seem like a huge task, but it’s actually fairly simple with the right plan.

This includes the obvious stuff like recording and producing, but it also applies to skills that go beyond musicianship, including:

Writing (press releases, artist bios)

Research (finding blogs and media outlets to contact)

Social media management (engaging with your fans)

Graphic design (album art, social profiles, press kits)

Have an honest discussion with your band or yourself about how much you can realistically afford to invest in an album long before you begin recording. Knowing your limitations as far as resources go, and prioritizing certain tasks around your release will show you what’s important and how to stay within your budget.

Separate tasks among band members according to each person’s strengths. Spread the workload in a fair way so you actually get around to everything and no one burns out.

For example: If your band has a lo-fi sound, the bulk of your budget might be better off being directed towards PR and marketing than recording and producing.

Or maybe you have tons of contacts and hustle, but no tools to record, mix and produce your record. So your budget should go towards studio time or professional help with your actual sound.

Musicians aren’t typically known for their planning and prioritizing skills, but setting a realistic budget and timeline for the release of your album in advance is the most important tip in this entire article.

Musicians aren’t typically known for their planning and prioritizing skills, but setting a realistic budget and timeline for the release of your album in advance is the most important tip in this entire article.

Lay out all your skills and resources and decide what areas need focus and what you’re already good at. To build a puzzle you have to see all the pieces first.

2. Use free ways to build excitement around your release

The business side of your music might seem boring, but if you can find a way to approach promotion and fan engagement with the same energy, enthusiasm and creativity you put toward your music, you’ll have a much higher chance of getting the world to notice your album.

Solid, impactful albums don’t just happen by accident or overnight.

Find a way to approach promotion and fan engagement with the same energy, enthusiasm and creativity you put toward your music, you’ll have a much higher chance of getting the world to notice your album.

At minimum, give yourself two to four months between when your album is done to when it’s slated to for release to get the most out of your music promotion. Choose a digital release platform that lets you select a date for your album’s release well in advance so you have a solid date to plan around.

A long window for promotion will give you plenty of time to build up anticipation around your record. We go deep into how to promote your music in our free music promotion e-book. But simply put: When it comes to free promotion, social media is your best weapon:

Use your social media channels to share a couple of your singles (collect royalties early), share some video of a live gig or your recording process, or do a journal style posting strategy that tells the story of your album as it progresses.

No matter what you post, try to  keep your fan base in the loop about your creative story and promote your music at the same time. Online music promotion is a free, effective way to generate excitement around your album and build anticipation for the release date. So it makes sense to give your promotion strategy the time and resources it needs to work.

Social media and other channels for promoting your own release have made it possible—with the right amount of work—to see success from DIY efforts more than ever before. And the best part? No one’s taking a cut between you and your sales when you manage it yourself.

3. Decide between DIY or the studio for recording

Investing in mics, a mixing board, recording software and other sound equipment is one way you can save money during the recording process by doing it yourself. But remember, it will still take some money, skill and most of all, time to record, produce and mix an album well.

Remember, it doesn’t have to be all-or-nothing when it comes to DIY recording, mixing and producing. Outsourcing certain tasks like getting vocals professionally tracked can save you hundreds or even thousands.

The same idea applies when it comes to mixing songs on an album. Mixing is something you can learn yourself with online mixing tutorials and lots of practice, but it’s something you should only do if you’re passionate about the sound engineering side of music.

The DIY approach to recording will work well for some musicians, but others will be better off recording in a studio with professional help. It all depends on what skills you bring to the table to begin with.

Hot tip: Don’t want to cough up thousands to buy recording gear? Rent it instead.

Hot tip: Don’t want to cough up thousands to buy recording gear? Rent it instead. Grab some gear for a few days for a fraction of the cost it would take to own it. Plus, rentals have to be returned at some point, so it’s a great option if you work better under some healthy time limitations.

Most major cities have a local music store that rents out more common types of gear, but working in your community or through local online communities to find loaners can work too. Temporary swaps help everyone!

The other option is paying for studio time. If your budget allows it and you’re covered in other important areas of releasing, studio time can be feasible.

If you do end up opting for studio time, have your songs perfectly practiced and planned for recording long before you book studio time. If not, you risk spending hundreds or thousands outside your budget for studio time that could have been avoided.

4. Don’t break the bank without testing all the options

Professional mastering services can cost your band thousands and balloon your budget real quick. Fortunately there are alternatives to the traditional methods for finishing a record. LANDR gives your project high quality mastering that’s “‘as good as’ what a Mastering Engineer can produce” at a fraction of the cost.

If you decide to go with professional studio mastering, use LANDR mastering to get a rough idea of what your mixes will sound like mastered. It’s a great reference tool to preview what your project will sound like finished before you lay down all that cash for mastering.

It will also give you insight into your mixing as well. If your mixes aren’t ready for mastering, you simply won’t get a good master back. So either way, LANDR is a great tool for making sure your investment is a good one.

5. Be your own PR

Love it or hate it, PR and radio campaigns are an integral part of spreading the word about your band’s release. You can save anywhere from $2,000-$15,000 by creating your own PR and radio campaigns, but you’ll have your work cut out for you.

The work here is tedious and usually pretty thankless—that’s why it’s so expensive to go pro—but with enough time, effort and planning, your band can do it alone and see some positive results.

Promotion and press is one of the most accessible parts of releasing an album—especially with the tools and platforms available to artists today.

Necessary skills here include tasks like:

Creating spreadsheets of blog and press contacts

Crafting persuasive pitches over email

Sending out press kits to radio stations or online media outlets

Promotion and press outreach is one of the most accessible parts of releasing an album—especially with the tools and platforms available to artists today.

But it’s also the part of a release that takes the most amount of time and energy. Budget the right amount of time for promoting your release strategy and commit to it early for best results.

If you’re looking for more in-depth information on how to reach out for press and promote your album, take some time to read our music promotion guide. It covers how to boost posts on Facebook, crafting reach-out emails, and smart strategies for finding the right press outlets for your music.

Record, release, repeat

Releasing your music is a happy moment. Take the stress out with the right plan, and rest easy with the knowledge that you’ve done everything the smart way leading up to your release day.

Saving some dough to invest in your next album is always a safe bet.

Successfully promoting a record comes down to time and commitment to making it work. The truth is, the more time and dedication you’re willing to put towards your release, the less you’ll end up having to spend. The free tools are there, you just have to use them.

When your records start generating some revenue, don’t forget that your next record needs funding too. Saving some dough to invest in your next album is always a safe bet.

With a solid release strategy and strong understanding of where to focus your resources, every release will be smooth and successful.

The post How To Successfully Release Your Music On a Tight Budget appeared first on LANDR Blog.

from LANDR Blog https://blog.landr.com/release-music-budget/ via https://www.youtube.com/user/corporatethief/playlists from Steve Hart https://stevehartcom.tumblr.com/post/167021759229

[lorrainecparker]

Adobe Video at IBC 2017

Adobe has revealed enhancements to their Creative Cloud video tools and services at IBC 2017. From September 15-19, Adobe is showing their latest updates in virtual reality (VR)/360, animation, motion graphics, editing, collaboration, and Adobe Stock, to be available later this year. Many of these features are powered by somewhat nebulous Adobe Sensei, an artificial intelligence and machine-learning framework.

Here’s the quick-look intro video, in a list with other videos explaining the main feature updates in this release:

Adobe Creative Cloud and Premiere Pro has become serious platform for professional editors, with new features in collaboration strengthening their offering. Around the world “from Hollywood to Bollywood” there are high-profile new productions like Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power from co-directors Bonni Cohen and John Shenk, Mindhunter from executive producer and director David Fincher, Only the Brave from director Joseph Kosinski, and 6 Below from director Scott Waugh. Also, media companies are bringing characters to life with Character Animator, on The Late Show and with Mr. Bean on Facebook Live, and through the work of online content creators like Valentina Vee, Jouelzy, Rooster Teeth and Rachel Nguyen.

The updates coming later this year to Adobe Creative Cloud for video include:

Adobe Premiere Pro CC (more info at team blog)

You’ll be able to work on multiple projects simultaneously via a tab-based structure and freely edit and copy portions of one project into another. With Project Locking, lock shared projects to alert others when a project is being edited and assign read-only access to project viewers. See Premiere Pro Collaboration and LumaForge by Patrick Southern here on PVC on the new collaboration and sharing options.

See Adobe announces updates to the Creative Cloud video apps ahead of IBC, Premiere Pro included by Scott Simmons here on PVC.

The Essential Graphics panel includes time-and-position-based controls for building in Responsive Design to your motion graphics so that they respond intelligently to changes in duration, aspect ratio, and frame size. The graphics workflow also allows you to select and manipulate multiple graphic layers simultaneously in the Program Monitor and Essential Graphics panel. A new font preview menu allows you to select favorites with filtering and search options. Editors wanting to work with dynamic graphics or graphics packages created in After Effects can access Motion Graphics templates created by talented professionals in Adobe Stock.

In April 2017 motion graphics templates were introduced, bringing the power of After Effects to Premiere Pro through easy-to-use templates. Editors wanting to work with dynamic, professional graphics or graphics packages created in After Effects (titles, lower thirds, bumpers, and closing credits) will be able to access motion graphics templates right in Adobe Stock and through Creative Cloud Libraries inside the apps. In addition, Adobe has made usability improvements to the Essential Graphics panel in Premiere Pro, including ��responsive design” options for preserving spatial and temporal properties.

  Immersion: new kinds of storytelling in Premiere Pro and After Effects

Adobe Creative Cloud will update its tools to craft and refine immersive video, following the integration of technology from the Mettle Skybox aquisition. You’ll be able to edit the way you’re used to with VR video mode in Premiere Pro and with the new VR Comp Editor in After Effects, which transforms equirectangular 360 footage into flat rectilinear images. The Adobe Immersive Environment in Premiere Pro allows you to view, review and scrub through your timeline in a headmount display and still maintain the ability to use keyboard driven editing for things like dynamic trimming and adding markers. New effects will deliver clean results across stitched content, including stereoscopic media, without artifacts or seamlines in both After Effects and Premiere Pro. In Premiere Pro, you’ll edit VR content using orientation-based audio and get VR transitions that extend your editing toolkit. In After Effects, the new Extract Cubemap will simplify motion tracking and object removal in 360 video.

VR effects and transitions are now native and accelerated via the Mercury playback engine. You’ll be able to design immersive motion graphics experiences using the new Create VR Environment feature include camera positions — with or without live-action footage. The VR Converter lets you switch on-the-fly between different immersive formats so you can ensure your final content will play well on any platform.

  After Effects CC (more info at team blog)

New data-driven animation features will allow user to more easily build show promos, integrate changes, present motion capture data, or generate the same graphics in multiple languages. Years ago, before expressions were a thing, you could easily do this stuff with Profound Effects “Useful Things,” but that easy-to-use Python-based plug-in was discontinued when acquired by Sony (the team later helped developed Silhouette Roto, AE scripting & expressions, and so forth).

Users will also be able to animate with path points using new expression access to Bezier path points on masks, shape layers, and paint brush strokes! 3D elements will be faster with Cinema 4D Lite R19. Performance & navigation enhancements include the ability to render layer transforms, motion blur and more effects on the GPU. Keyboard Shortcut Mapping will allow you to quickly find, adjust, and customize keyboard shortcuts using a visual map like the one used in Premiere Pro and Audition. A new start screen will help users navigate After Effects quickly by knowing where to start just after opening the application, while a new font menu will allow you to set fonts as favorites or filter to see which are available via TypeKit.

  Character Animator CC  (more info at team blog)

Character Animator 1.0 is unveiled, with changes to core and custom animation functions, such as pose-to-pose blending, new physics behaviors, and visual puppet controls. Adobe Sensei will help improve lip-sync capability by accurately matching mouth shape with spoken sounds.

You’ll be able to show, hide, swap or cycle through different puppet parts with your keyboard or MIDI device. A new Triggers panel will give you one place for all your triggers and an intuitive way to rig your characters. The Controls panel will make performing visually easier by displaying triggers and puppet properties as buttons and sliders. Improvements to eyes and eye brows will make character faces more natural-looking. The pose-to-pose option will smooth out transitions between poses for a hand-animated look. New behaviors such as Fader and Collide will open up new animation possibilities, while audio improvements will provide a visual representation of audio amplitude with a new audio waveform display. And mouth shapes will more accurately match to sounds using a new lip-sync algorithm.

  Adobe Audition CC (more info at team blog)

Powered by Adobe Sensei AI, Auto-Ducking (added to the Essential Sound panel) will automatically lower the volume of music when dialogue and other sounds are audible. As Scott Simmons noted, this feature should be in Premiere Pro too.

Adobe Audition will also add flexible session organization to multi-take workflows and continuous playback while editing. You’ll get up to 400% faster mixdowns, enhancements to surround panning for better positioning and accuracy, and new time selection commands support quickly marking time ranges around selected clips. Smart Input Monitoring will allow talent to hear the most relevant audio source at the most appropriate moments. Full-screen video preview between sessions or when switching between applications, will be maintained, and you’ll see precisely where you are in a project with a new Timecode Overlay display. Support for the Mackie HUI protocol will gives Audition users access to modern control surfaces and consoles, including support for HUI-enabled timecode display and control devices.

  Team Projects

Creative Cloud for Teams and Enterprise users will work more effectively with Team Projects (formerly in beta). Hosted in the cloud and integrated into Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Prelude, source files are stored locally or shared with lightweight proxies to make it easy for remote editors to collaborate. Users will be able to lock bins and provide read-only access to others. You’ll also get the ability to view the personal auto-save history, bring an asset from a previous auto-save into your current version, and create a new Team Project from an auto-save.

  Final Cut Pro 7 Note

Note also that Apple has recently announced that Mac OS X High Sierra will no longer support Final Cut Studio, including Final Cut Pro 7. The updates coming to the Creative Cloud video tools at IBC offer a great alternative to this group of FCP7 users. Specific features most relevant for them include:

Multiple Open Projects

Shared projects with project locking

Ability to port over FCP keyboard shortcuts

Added power of Premiere Pro’s native format workflows

Ability to work with multiple formats in a single timeline

Powerful, integrated workflows for color, graphics and audio

Jason Levine will demonstrate these features and more on Thursday, September 14, 2017 in a live, interactive presentation on Facebook.

  Adobe Stock

Integration with Adobe Stock continues, offering the a comprehensive creative marketplace with over 90 million assets including photos, illustrations and vectors. Customers now have access to over 4 million HD and 4K Adobe Stock video footage directly within their Creative Cloud video workflows, and can now search and scrub assets in Premiere Pro.

Coming to this release are hundreds of professionally-created motion graphics templates for Adobe Stock (available later this year) that will allow editors to leverage some of the best designed motion graphics. Additionally, motion graphic artists will be able to monetize their work and sell Motion Graphic templates for Premiere Pro through Adobe Stock. Earlier this year, Adobe added editorial and premium collections from Reuters, USA TODAY Sports, Stocksy and 500px. Pond5 collections introduced in April 2017 further expand the premium and video offering.

The post Adobe Video at IBC 2017 appeared first on ProVideo Coalition.

First Found At: Adobe Video at IBC 2017