#we’ve basically been at the same point since September

[candycandy00]

Waiting for Gege to just bring in Toji’s corpse and let it take a crack at Sukuna. Why not at this point?

[cyclogenesis]

life update, sry for absence, you will literally not believe the breadth and depth of fuckery I have been facing down these last few weeks including the last insane 24 hours

Cannot overstate how obscenely ridiculous things have gotten for me. I thought I felt Seasonal Affective Disorder looming at the turn of September to October but I think now it was just a sense of general foreboding. 

So I’m trying to truck along these last few weeks, sad as hell about my beloved cat, and then for the third time this year I have to find a new psychiatrist. I take Adderall for my ADHD, I have for six+ years, I see telehealth providers for monthly five minute appointments to be like yes I still need Adderall please send the prescription thanks. Walgreens causes a problem too fucking stupid to get into with psych #1 this year, I go out of my way to explicitly confirm this same problem won’t crop up with psych #2. No it’ll be fine he says. He was wrong, because he apparently didn’t know what he was talking about, and instead of looking into it for clarification he just said meaningless words to shut me up. 

The problem crops up again. We try three different pharmacies to try and get around it. Doesn’t work. I have to find a new psychiatrist. Again. Takes weeks. I finally find a place where god willing this dumb issue will not crop up again. I get an appointment for last Friday morning. Yay!!!! I decide to start seeing a new therapist too since one was on offer and I was feeling rough. (Last Thursday I said yes to the appointment. This is when I was already having a hard time.)

I see this new psych. He tells me that he’s going to hold the Adderall prescription hostage until I get an EKG and also a bunch of lab tests done. He watches me visibly wilt like a flower trapped in a bell jar. Fine. I go to Quest Diagnostics like he told me to. I get there at 10:30am and I’m #10 on the standby list. At 12:30pm I’m still #10 on the standby list and the nurse comes out and tells us all basically there’s no chance. I pay $6 for parking and leave having wasted two hours and six dollars. 

Fine. I make an appointment for Tuesday, the soonest I could get. (Great, that won’t already be a stressful day!) I find an urgent care place as suggested for the EKG. It’s a mile and a half away. I walk there. I wait an hour and forty minutes before a nurse comes to take my vitals. Because I didn’t expect to be waiting in the exam room for so long I’d taken my jacket off and then got too lazy to get back up and get it even though the AC had inexplicably kicked on. Because of this, and because anxiety makes my extremities go numb, my hands were so cold she had to take multiple pulse oximeter readings. “I’m a vampire,” I joked. “I’m actually dating a vampire,” the nurse said. She explained her boyfriend is Bela Lugosi’s grandson. Los Angeles: lmao. From outside as my eventual results are shared with the doctor I hear, “How is she awake??” 

I put my jacket back on as I wait for the doctor. I lie down. I stick my hands in my pockets. I try to think relaxing thoughts, going to my happy place: earlier this year, the beach at Cannes, walking ankle deep in the Mediterranean. I run through entire Sarah McLachlan songs in my head. By the time the doctor comes in for the EKG I’m feeling very chill. 

Too chill. The doctor has a ridiculously hard time getting a good reading. I’m lying there in an open front paper gown, topless, hooked up to this machine with wires coming off me like a desktop computer running Windows 96. She keeps having to move the little sticker things. We’ve been having a good time since she had to pull out the footrests and keep pulling. “I’m 5’11,” I told her. “I was always mad I didn’t hit six feet.”

“You should just lie,” she said, “How would they know?” I love her. Going forward I will lie. Doctor’s orders! 

I joke that given my previous case of corpse fingers with the pulse oximeter that I’m just a ghost and that’s the issue. She points out that it’s the Day of the Dead. I tell her I tried to haunt my family but their shrines sucked and nobody did the cool skull makeup so I decided to come fuck with some doctors. She laughs. I laugh. We continue to joke around. I love it. All I ever want to do is make people laugh. 

On the third try she finally gets a decent EKG reading though she’s iffy that she may need to do a fourth. Nope, this one is fine. I get to leave. I arrange to have the results faxed to my new psych. “Wait, is my heart okay? Haha,” I say to the receptionist. She passes me a copy of the results and tells me to talk to my doctor. 

It’s all fun and games until I’m walking out at 7:10pm on a Friday night into the cold dark evening with a 1.5 mile walk in front of me and abnormal EKG results that say “possible left atrial enlargement” and “abnormal right axis deviation” and “incomplete right bundle branch block” and “consistent with pulmonary disease”.

Oh. Um. Well. Okay. 

Googling all this leads to results that are scary and not in the “I googled my hangnail and WebMD says I have fingernail cancer” way, more in the there’s actually only so many things all of this together can mean and also the words “consistent with pulmonary disease” are in fact right there in black ink sort of way. Lots of stuff about the very increased likelihood of heart attacks. You hate to see that!!!!

In retrospect maybe it has been weird that I’ve been so aware of my heartbeat all the time lately. Maybe it hasn’t just been caffeine and stress. Well, I’ll call my GP first thing Monday and beg for an appointment ASAP, obviously. In the meantime I’ll try not to freak out. I’ll try to avoid additional stress. 

But, you know, I’ve been meaning to call my grandmother anyway. I still haven’t told her about Klaus. Our relationship has been shaky these last few years since I became estranged from my parents in 2021 after they went QAnon and decided that believing Facebook memes was more important than their relationship with their only child (me!!) and she got mad at me for standing up to them ever. Also she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in July so that’s been rough. But I figure she should be in the loop. 

I get ahold of her last night. I tell her there’s stuff going on with me, but she should tell me what’s up with her first. I await news of who triumphed in this week’s game of Yahtzee with her cousin and whether or not the Warriors or whatever sports team she’s keeping up with right now are winning. 

“Well, I wasn’t going to tell you because I know you don’t really care what’s going on with them, but your mom’s moved in with me because your parents are getting a divorce,” she says. 

First I explain, again, as she knows, because she was there, that they are the ones that rejected me. I remind her that my mom got in touch last Thanksgiving saying she missed me and wanted to see me and that I said I felt the same, we just needed to have a serious talk first. I remind her that my mom completely fucking ghosted me after that and has not tried to get in touch since. Even unfriended me on Facebook. Been almost a year now. My parents’ entire relationship with me is less important than their unwillingness to have even one single solitary fucking grown-up conversation. This is a fact. 

And then I’m like, also what???????????????

So apparently my dad (stepdad actually, but he married my mom when I was seven and he’s the only person I’ve ever called Dad) told my mom they should move back to the Central Valley. He said they should sell their house in Sacramento and she should quit her job up there and try to find a new one in Fresno. They sell their house and use the extra to pay off debts, because they are morons who have always lived paycheck to paycheck no matter how big or small those paychecks are. 

Mom asks Grammy if she can move in with her in Fresno while she looks for a new job. Grammy says no. Mom moves in her friend Diane, who was widowed after her idiot MAGA antivaxxer husband got Covid (which he didn’t believe in) and ended up getting an entire lung transplant and then dying anyway. Mom gets a job in Fresno but she doesn’t like it so she quits. 

My stepdad meanwhile has a one bedroom apartment in Sacramento and is still working at his job up there. He puts a bunch of their stuff in storage in Fresno in anticipation of the move. My mom goes up to visit and they celebrate their 34th wedding anniversary. Everything’s fine. 

A week later he calls and says he’s divorcing her. She can keep all the stuff that’s in storage in Fresno. This apparently comes out of nowhere, though not for him I guess (lol?). 

Diane’s landlord finds out my mom’s living there and threatens to evict them due to the unauthorized tenant. Mom has to move in with Grammy. 

And that’s what you missed on Glee!!!!!!!!!

With that out of the way, I tell Grammy my cat died and also I likely have some kind of lung disease and my heart’s maybe fucked. I tell her luckily lol I’m starting therapy again and she says she doesn’t understand that and that she gets depressed sometimes and then she gets over it. She tells me I should get a job because she knows I don’t make enough from my shop. I explain that I’m trying to avoid stress right now because it could very literally give me an actual genuine fucking heart attack. She continues to be a dick because instead of using any of her 85 years of life on this planet to try to become emotionally healthy she has chosen again and again to just lash out when she’s upset and never grow as a person in any capacity whatsoever. I am grateful again that I’m able to take her and my parents as examples of what I don’t want to be. I am far more patient with her than she deserves and we part on decent terms. 

I immediately proceed to storytime this bitch out with the besties. Everyone’s like “What?????” and I’m like “I know!!!!!”

The funniest part is that the parental estrangement was due largely to my mom just fully choosing my stepdad over me, her only child. Which like wasn’t even a surprise really, as she had told me once in a childish and unexpected outburst of anger that she didn’t have a choice but to have me. (Sure she did. She just buried her head in the sand until it was too late.) So it made sense that it would be my stepdad. He was the one she felt she got to choose. Also, she is an asshole.

Hope she feels great now about making that call, lmao!!! How’d that one work out queen?? No husband, no daughter, 62 years old moved back in with your mom who didn’t even want you there, huh? Yikes!!

So anyway, my GP’s office opens in twenty minutes, please cross your fingers for me that I’ll be able to schedule an appointment sometime before my heart bursts out of my chest like the alien in Alien and then dons a tophat and tapdances away from this clusterfuck, an action for which I would not blame it tbh. (Edit: They don't have any appointments until April [what?!] but they have walk-in hours thrice a week. I will get there at 10am Wednesday morning and hopefully they will see me.) New therapist appointment is at 12:30pm, best of luck to her with this goddamned Pandora’s box of bullshit that I’m about to unleash on her. 

Gonna try to relax in the meantime as I am at this moment very aware of the consistent thumping of the tell-tale thing inside my chest. Wish me luck!

[jackie-shitposts]

do u think theres actually gonna be a sequel for carmen sandiego or r they just teasing due to the popularity of summer of sandiego

also i wish there was a miniseries with like 3 episodes of like the main ships (carulia/red crackle/carmivy) like idk i feel like that way all fans wud be happy LMAO but broo them not showing carmens mommy reuniting w her made me want to hit my head on the wall

like did her mom accept her and recognize her at first? did her mom slowly accept her and treated her like a stranger for the first weeks before warming up to here?? did her mom not accept her as her daughter due to the trauma of what happened that night?? like i need answers before i go boom.

The only thing said about a potential spinoff or sequel is that it was in the “earliest stages” back in september 2021. We’ve had basically zero update since then, and in addition they said the same about a live action carmen sandiego in 2017, and reiterated that again in 2021.

Summer of Sandiego and similar events being popular does have the ability to affect whether or not a TV show gets more content or not, although it doesnt have as much power as ratings/watch time do.

I think something that might point in favor of CS getting more content is the fact that the CS social media accounts have not gone dormant. Most social media accounts for movies and TV stop posting entirely after some amount of time, but its been years and CS socials are still active. Plus, some time ago they launched a merch store, which signifies that executives still think CS could be worth investing in (although it would be more profitable if they sold actually good looking merch).

All this to say, I have no idea what the fate of future carmen content is, but it doesnt mean we cant hope.

as for your shipping miniseries, I wouldnt want that for many reasons, the a big one being that i think rather than satisfy shippers, it would just make most of them fight with each other more than they already do. because nobody realizes that polyamory solves all your problems. sobs. and besides, theres always fanfic

I actually dont really feel the need to know who carmen’s mom is. While I have issues with how the show ended in regards to NOT elaborating on Carmen’s found family life after she was saved from VILE, I do agree that getting to know her mother is a story Carmen should undergo alone, at least to start. And from an audience’s perspective, why do we need to see her mother? She isnt going to have a face we recognize. And the show didn’t have the time to allow us to get to know her or care about her. All it wouldve been is a few seconds longer to see the hug we already know happened, and then jump cut 2 years ahead anyway. I think in regards to Carmen’s mother, they left it in a good spot that allows for further exploration in fanfic or the mystery spinoff.

[jcmarchi]

CSS Chronicles XLII

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/css-chronicles-xlii/

CSS Chronicles XLII

Remember these? Chris would write a post now and then to chronicle things happening around the ol’ CSS-Tricks site. It’s only been 969 days since the last one, give or take. Just think: back then we were poking at writing CSS in JavaScript and juuuuuuust starting to get excited about a set of proposed new color features that are mostly implemented today. We’re nesting CSS rules now. Container queries became an actual thing.

CSS was going gosh-darned hog wild. Probably not the “best” time for a site about CSS to take a break, eh?

That’s why I thought I’d dust off the chronicles. It’s been a hot minute and a lot is happening around CSS-Tricks today.

I’m (sorta) back

We may as well begin here! Yeah, I was “let go” last year. There was no #HotDrama. A bunch of really good folks — all in the DigitalOcean community team — were let go at the same time. It was a business decision, love it or not.

Things changed at DigitalOcean after that. A new leadership team is on board and, with it, a re-dedicated focus on re-establishing the community side of things. That, and Chris published a meaty post about the CSS-Tricks situation from his perspective. Coincidentally or not, a new job opened that looked a lot like my old gig. I had feelings about that, of course.

This little flurry of activity led to a phone call. And a few more. And now I’m back to help get the ol’ CSS-Tricks engine purring, hopefully making it the rich resource we’ve loved for so long. I’m on contract at the moment and feeling things out.

So far? Man, it feels great to be back.

What I did during the “lull”

I jumped over to Smashing Magazine. Gosh, that team is incredible. It tickles me that we still have Smashing Magazine. And here’s a piece of trivia for your next front-end cocktail party: Smashing Magazine was launched in September 2006, a mere 11 months before Chris published the very first article here on CSS-Tricks.

I also spent my time teaching front-end development at a couple of colleges that are local to me where I live in Colorado. I had already been teaching but bumped up the load. But not too much because I decided this was as good a time as any to work on a master’s degree. So, I enrolled and split my days as a part-time editor, part-time educator, and part-time student.

The degree went quicker than expected, so I used the rest of my time finishing up an online course I had started a couple years earlier and finally got around to publishing it! It’s probably not the sort of course for someone reading this post, but for complete beginners who are likely writing their very first line of HTML or CSS. You ever get asked how to build a website but don’t have the energy (or time) to explain everything? Yeah, me too. That’s who this course is for. And my mom.

I call it The Basics — and I’d love it if you shared it with anyone you think might use it as a starting point into web development.

What I want for CSS-Tricks, going forward

This site’s always been great, even long before I was brought on board. Historically, it’s been more of a personal blog turned multi-author blog with a steady stream of content. Nothing wrong with that at all.

What’s lacking, though, is structure. Most everything we publish is treated like a blog post: write it, smash the Publish button, and let it sit on top of the stream until the next blog post comes out. We’re talking about a time-based approach in which posts become a timeline of activity in reverse chronological order. Where do you find that one post you came across last month? It’s probably buried by this point and you’ve gotta either hit the post archives or try your hand searching for it by keyword. That might work for a blog with a few hundred posts, but there are more than 7,000 here and searching has become more like finding the metaphorical needle in the equally metaphorical haystack.

So, you may have noticed that I’m shuffling things around. Everything is still a “post” but we’re now using a Category taxonomy more effectively than we had been in the past. Each category is a “type” of post. And the type of post is determined by what exactly we’re trying to get out of it. Let’s actually break this out into its own section because it’s a sizeable change with some explanation around it.

The “types” of things we’re publishing

OK, so everything used to be an article or an Almanac entry. We still have “articles” and “entries” but there are better ways to classify and distinguish them, most notably with articles.

This is how it shakes out:

Articles: The tutorials that have been the CSS-Tricks bread and butter forever

Guides: Comprehensive deep dives into a specific CSS topic (like the Flexbox guide)

Almanac: Reference pieces for understanding CSS selectors and properties that can be cited in articles and guides.

Notes: A post for taking notes on things we’re learning. They’re meant to be loose and a little rough around the edges, just like taking notes you’d take from a class lecture — only we’re taking notes on the things that others in the community (like you!) are writing about.

Links: Things we’re reading that we find interesting and want to share with you. A link might evolve into a Note down the road, but they’re also useful resources that can be cited in the Almanac, a guide, or an article.

Quick Hits: I hate this name but the idea is to have a place to post little one-liners, like a thought, an idea, or perhaps some timely news. I’m openly accepting ideas for a better name for these. 😇

This is what we’re looking at right now, but there are obviously other ways we can slice-n-dice content. For example, we have an archive of “snippets” that we’ve buried for many years but could be useful. Same with videos. And more, if you can believe it. So, there’s plenty of housekeeping to do to keep us busy! This is still very much early days. You’ll likely experience some turbulence during your flight. And I’m okay with that because this is a learning place, and the people working it are learning, too.

Yes, I did just say, “people” as in more than one person because I’d to…

Welcome a couple of new faces!

The thing that excites me most — even more than the ice cream truck excites my daughters — is bringing new people along for the ride. Running CSS-Tricks is a huge job (no matter how easy I make it look 😝). So, I’ve brought on a couple of folks to help share the load!

Juan Diego Rodriguez

Ryan Trimble

I got to know Juan Diego while editing for Smashing Magazine. He had written a couple of articles for Smashing before I joined and his latest work, the first part of a series of articles discussing the “headaches” of working with Gatsby, landed on my desk. It’s really, really good — you should check it out. What you should know about Juan Diego that I’ve come know is that the dude cares a lot about the web platform. Not only that, but pays close attention to it. I’m pretty sure he reads CSSWG specifications for pleasure over tea. His love and curiosity for all-things-front-end is infectious and I’ve already learned a bunch from him. I know you will, too.

Ryan, on the other hand, is a total nerd for design systems that advocates for accessible interfaces. He actually reached out to me on Mastodon when he caught wind that I needed help. It was perfect timing and I couldn’t be more grateful that he poked me when he did. As I’ve gotten to know him, I’m realizing how versatile his skillset is. Working with “design systems” can mean lots of different things. For Ryan, it means consistent, predictable user interfaces based on modular and reusable web components — specifically web components that are native to the platform. In fact, he’s currently working on a design system called Platform UI. I’ve also become a fan of his personal blog, especially his weekly roundups of articles he finds interesting.

You’ll be seeing a lot of Juan Diego and Ryan around here! They’re both hard at work on bringing the trusty Almanac up-to-date but will be posting articles as well. No one’s full time here, me included, so it’s truly a team effort.

Please give ’em both a hearty welcome!

This is all an ongoing work in progress

…and probably always will be! I love that CSS-Tricks is a place where everyone learns together. It might be directly about CSS. Maybe it’s not. Perhaps it’s only tangentially related to web development. It may even be a rough idea that isn’t fully baked, but we put it out there and learn new things together with an open mind to the fact that the web is a massive place where everyone has something to contribute and a unique perspective we all benefit from — whether it’s from a specialization in CSS, semantics, performance, accessibility, design, typography, marketing, or what have you.

Do you wanna write for CSS-Tricks?

You can and you should! You get paid, readers learn something, and that gets people coming to the site. Everybody wins!

I know writing isn’t everyone’s top skill. But that’s exactly what the team is here for. You don’t have to be a superior writer, but only be willing to write something. We’ll help polish it off and make it something you’re super proud of.

More than 200 web developers, designers, and specialists just like you have written for this site. You should apply to write an article and join the club!

So, yes: CSS-Tricks is back!

In its own weird way! In my perfect world, there would be no doubt whether CSS-Tricks is publishing content on any given day. But that’s not entirely up to me. It not only has to be of at least some value to people like you who depend on sites like CSS-Tricks but also to DigitalOcean. It’s a delicate dance but I think everyone’s on the same page with a shared interest of keeping this site around and healthy.

I’m stoked I get to be a part of it. And that Juan Diego and Ryan do, too. And you, as well.

We’re all in it together. 🧡

[tiny-talks-big-tales]

What's even going on? (Original post date: 15.05.24)

If you interact with me on a semi-regular basis you have probably caught some mentions of my current real life situation, some more than others. I know a lot of people worry. I’m sorry about that. It’s hard to find the balance between hiding everything and oversharing.

Seems like I tend to share just enough to explain why I’m a mess, and then also unintentionally make people worried. For friends I’m closer with I’m bad at keeping track of who’s been updated on what, because it’s hard to talk about the same stressful things over and over and over again when I kinda just want to distract myself.

So! In my wisdom (or impulsivity, you choose).

I made a blog, wowie~

I’ve made this, a page where I can write an update once and then throw that same bit of text at the good eggs around me who want to listen.

Within the disability communities I’m in I’ve also been asked to collect longer rambles I write on disability theory things on a citable blog, which is a whole other topic, but still pretty neat.

I know I can’t promise updates on any kind of schedule, but I’ll do my best to throw up summaries of changes to the status quo. Writing is good for me, too. Win-win?

Current situation, bullet-point-style

Like some kind of cursed summary of what’s wrong with my life! Wohoo, isn’t this just cozy? … (:

I’m multiply disabled

My needs require support and care from other human beings more or less around the clock

The welfare system does not provide this care

My lovely partner has cared for me for years and is way too burnt out to continue like this

I’ve been tossed around the system like a beloathed pingpongball all my life, with the 7 years since I aged out of the foster system being a whole new level of disastrous systemic neglect

There’s approximately a zillionty things needed for my needs to be met, main ones being:

enough daily life support

miscellaneous overdue medical care

a wheelchair that I can actually use

a home with an accessible shower and enough space for all my mobility aids and medical supplies

sorting out the whole ‘I breathe so poorly I get sick’ problem that knocks me out multiple times a day

hearing aids and new glasses

enough arson to be therapeutic after this hell I’ve been living through for excruciatingly long /legally-a-joke

???

a month long nap

Every single one of the things above get roadblocked by some other thing not being in order, a bit like this image I made from the frustration

My health suffers from neglect and I keep getting worse

My partner’s health suffers from being unreasonably overworked, and he also keeps getting worse

We’re desperately begging the system for help

From September 2023 we’ve been warning them that he will be forced to abandon me if things don’t change quickly

It is now May 2024 and things still have not changed

Without care, I can’t do the basics like…

acquire or prepare food

get myself drinks

use the toilet

keep hygiene at sanitary standards

turn and position myself for pressure relief

prevent avoidable wounds & infections

treat the wounds & infections I still get

acquire and take my meds

Things like being comfortable, having fun, thriving and improving, staying active, going outside, and having good quality of life? Those are luxuries on a whole other level than all of the above. I’m not asking the system for luxury. I’m asking them for the privilege to not pee myself while gagging on my stomach acids from hunger. But the system says no, and me and my partner are scared of what will happen if we lose this fight against the system.

We both just wanted to share our life together, and then this fucking bullshit happens. I’ll forever hate the system for what it does to me, and especially for what it does to him. I love this man so much and despise having to watch how the system failing me also destroys his wellbeing.

I hope we manage to win, and we finally have more people trying to help us fight the government. I’m just really out of it and mentally unstable while everything is chaos, I don’t know where I’m going to live a month from now, and it’s all just stressful and scary.

[mylyricpages]

INTERVIEW WITH JEFF SCOTT # 8 ( 2023 )

“After twenty years I keep thinking what else is there left to write about, but to my constant surprise life keeps providing inspiration.”

Barely a year after ‘On The Outside Looking In’ James Ellis is releasing not just one but two new lyric collections. “I had my doubts if I’d even do a collection this year,” he tells Jeff Scott, “but I ended up with more stuff than I knew what to do with.”

IT’S AN UNUSUALLY hot morning in early September, the nation basking in an unexpected heat wave after weeks of unsettled weather. Mercifully though, there’s a cool breeze bringing some slight relief. Caswell Bay, Swansea is brimming with activity, families filling up the beach, dipping in the sea, and across the way car after car arrives in a constant stream. We got here early. We’re sat outside the Surfside Café, queues are building at the nearby ice cream parlour and there’s already bustling going on at the local surf school hut.

I’m sat with here James Ellis, who’s picked this splendid piece of the Gower coast to talk about his two new lyric collections. Yes, that’s two, the first time he’s written more than one in the same year since 2013. “It caught me by surprise,“ he says. As you probably know by this point we’ve done this a fair few times before. You know the story, he finishes a new project, I interview him. It’s worked pretty well since 2012. We’ve talked life, music, his books, his comics, we’ve even collaborated on two volumes of his memoirs, but today, it’s the lyrics again.

It’s been a busy time for both of us lately and unlike our usual meet ups our time today is short. So quickly we get down to business, him with his coke zero, me with a fresh brew. We’ve agreed to dive pretty much straight into the songs albeit this time around we’re doing things a little differently and discussing them in the order they were written.

We begin with the 15 ‘songs’ on the first collection ’We Are Ascending.’

Dear Life

This was the first thing I wrote at the tail end of spring, pretty much in the last days of May. It was written alongside a very early version of ‘Twilight’s Last Stand,’ which was far longer and called ‘Shadowlands’ then.

For this collection I originally had a bunch of lyrical themes I wanted to explore but once ’Dear Life’ was done that idea didn’t work for me anymore. I guess I felt like I’d explored that way of doing things well enough with ‘On The Outside Looking In’ and going forward I decided I’d let whatever was going to come out just come out and get the hell out of its way.

It’s basically about me writing a letter to life and asking a few questions.

Broken Teeth

If anything represents the themes of ‘We Are Ascending’ I think it’s this. What I realised in writing ���Dear Life’ is that this collection was going to be more about how I see the world, about what’s going on around me, rather than what’s going on inside me. ‘On The Outside …’ was very much an introspective thing and I realised while writing ‘Dear Life’ that I wanted to get away from that way of doing it for a bit. From that point it became very much about the times we’re living in. Once I figured that out I knew I had something I could explore.

I’ve had the first verse since the early part of the ‘Electric Hymns’ sessions, I’ve just struggled to find a good place for it until I realised it was actually an opening verse. Once I figured that out the rest just flowed. It’s pretty much about our current digital age and social media.

We Breathe/ We Breathe ( Reprise )

It started out as one song as these things often do, but when I got around to typing it up proper it seemed too long. I liked everything in it though. It had a significant middle section which was what I basically pulled out for the reprise but there were still a few verses that didn’t make it. As it turned out I liked the way having a reprise gave a little more cohesion to the collection, with things echoing a bit.

Both parts are about our relationship with the world around us, how we relate to it in both good and bad ways. They’re about the current not so good path we seem to be on but I made sure it had some hope too.

Ghost Of A Town

Written about my hometown. Much I love it, there’s no getting around the fact that it’s become a ruin of its former self. Empty shops, half empty streets, buildings falling apart, it just has a general sense of neglect. It’s not a shit hole by any means, not yet, but it feels like it’s at a point where it could certainly go that way. It’s been one bad local authority decision after another for decades since I was young.

It’s a place with a rich history. It was a brilliant, thriving market town when I was growing up but for reasons I’ll never fathom anything that made it unique or historically interesting has been taken away and its soul has been eroded. I just wanted to capture the feeling I get when I go there now. It’s not a ghost town but there’s a sense of it you can’t deny. People are fighting to keep it alive and I admire that too.

The title popped into my head one day when I was walking through the streets and it kind of perfectly summed up how I felt in that moment.

Intermission # 1 & #2

I wanted two really short pieces, something I hadn’t done for a while. I think the words have a kind of music hall feel to them but I’m no expert on that so I could be wrong. Early on I considered splitting the collection into three parts. When that idea later solidified I thought it might be nice to have these little intermissions, maybe just a verse, to end acts 1 and 2. I basically used the template for Intermission # 1 to write # 2 as I wanted them to be companion pieces.

Ministry Of Light

This came out of Intermission # 1 as I was figuring out how that was going to go. There was a bunch of lyrics that didn’t sit right in it but I quite liked and I was pretty sure I could still do something with them.

I have to be honest here and say I’m still not sure what this song is about. I know I wanted to write something that was a kind of hopeful thing, a mantra of sorts, about shining a light on things instead of throwing shadow over them, about veering more to the positive side of things. I wanted a kind of communal feeling to it. I’m not sure I captured what I was after but it‘s still got stuff in it I really like.

King Without A Crown

King Without A crown started out very differently. It sprang from a random few lines I wrote down which went something like ‘You lived your life/ you lived your life so well/ you were a king without a crown.’ It was originally about someone I knew, someone who died suddenly and died far too young, but it wasn’t working, not like I’d hoped it would anyway, and as I rewrote, it became much more of a universal thing. Who knows, I may still get to use those lines one day.

A Sympathetic Sound

Some of the verses are from the original version of ‘We Are Ascending,’ which I wrote around the same time as ‘Dear Life’ and the original version of ‘Twilight’s Last Stand,’ and quite frankly that version didn’t work. I liked the verses so I kept them until I found a suitable place.

It’s about the daily struggle we all go through in our lives but also about that sense we always feel that things will somehow get better, that sense of hope that we’ll always turn a corner toward something better.

We Are Ascending

This updated version came directly out of writing ‘A Sympathetic Sound.’ On revisiting the original version of this I realised, in a real light bulb moment, how I could get to the version I’d been trying to write in the first place. Once I’d figured that out the rest of just flowed.

The theme of it came out of ‘A Sympathetic Sound’ too. In a way it feels they’re two halves of the same thing. They’re about the same thing.

A National Address

A bit of a tricky one this. I had no idea how I felt about organised religion or the Church itself until the words hit the page. I have to admit I debated with myself about putting this out into world as I don’t want to offend anyone. Faith is one thing, everyone has faith in something, friends, family, God, we’re spiritual beings at heart, but when a group starts dictating to people how they should live their lives, embrace something they don’t believe in, that’s where I draw a line.

I’m not attacking anyone’s belief system, just how it’s corrupted by certain elements of certain institutions to further their own agenda. It was surprising how fast and how easily it all came together to be honest.

Alchemy

Now this came easily and nearly fully formed, unexpectedly so and it’s always nice when that happens as mostly it can be like pulling teeth.

The chorus came first, then a few days later the verses. I already had the ‘beauty in the tragic’ part and that just slotted in really nicely as if it belonged. It’s about how we remember those who’ve gone, about how we deal with that and how we keep their memory alive, for them and us.

Swimming Not To Drown

Written in bits and pieces over about a week. It didn’t exactly come in order either, nothing was where I felt it should be and it took a few more days once I had those bits and pieces to figure out how it all fitted.

It was only on putting the finishing touches to it that I realised what it was about. As with a fair few songs in the sessions for ‘We Are Ascending’ it’s about having hope in things, that whatever’s getting us down we’ll get through it by helping ourselves and helping each other.

The Class OF 23

There was going to be a completely different song in the position this takes up in the collection but my nephew was just finishing up in secondary school for good, which of course, is a big moment in his life.

I wanted to mark that somehow and the words just came tumbling out in a few hours. It’s certainly the song that took the least time on this collection, but it felt fully formed as soon as I put the words down.

*

[oncominggstorm]

My sisters are on the way to the hospital right now with my mom, we’re worried she’s had ANOTHER stroke, and I’m just really freaking out.

Vent under the read more

So a little bit of backstory: I have a twin sister & a younger half sister (same mom, different dads, her dad has never been in her life). All three of us are late-diagnosed autistic & adhd, and all 3 of us are in varying states of autistic burnout (I in particular am like, basically unable to function at all rn, like to the point where I’m not sure it’s worth continuing to try to live cuz what kind of life is this). I HIGHLY suspect my mom & grandma are also autistic & adhd, but were never diagnosed (& my mom is not willing to even entertain the idea that she might be autistic).

My grandma has moderate to advanced dementia. My mom & younger sister live with her, and my mom is grandma’s primary caretaker (grandma can’t speak in full sentences, can’t tell us what she needs, and needs help bathing, remembering to eat, cooking, etc.). We do not have any other support. There’s no family who are willing/able to help, and we’ve contacted every help agency we can to try to get help with my grandma, and have basically been told that there is no way to get help for my grandma unless we enroll in a program that will take her house when she dies to pay for the care they give her, which would effectively make my mom & younger sister homeless.

My mom had multiple strokes at the end of September 2021, and then had more strokes AGAIN at the end of October 2021. And while she did recover somewhat, she’s still been struggling with both physical & cognitive symptoms ever since.

After her 2nd round of strokes she was diagnosed with anti-phospholipid syndrome, which is a somewhat rare blood clotting disorder that makes blood clot easier & puts her at higher risk for strokes (and she was already at a higher risk due to her smoking, and also family history - my grandma also had multiple strokes when she was around my mom’s age). She has to go to the anti-coagulation clinic & get warfarin shots weekly. Today when she went they said her blood was much thicker than it should be, and gave her more warfarin than usual.

Today my twin sister was driving my younger sister back to grandma’s (in my car, my sister doesnt have one) when they noticed my mom in her car, driving EXTREMELY slowly, and going through stop signs without stopping, etc. They tried to flag her down but she didn’t stop. My sister ended up pulling in front of my mom to try to get her to stop, & my mom rear-ended my car (thankfully since she was going so slow there was no injury and minimal damage). My mom said she couldn’t remember how to stop the car, and she was very loopy & out of it, and not making a lot of sense.

So yeah. We’re very worried she’s had another stroke, ESPECIALLY since the coagulation clinic said her blood had been unusually thick (aka prime for forming clots that cause strokes for her).

My sisters are with my mom at the ER now trying to find out what’s happening. I’m at grandma’s house watching her cuz her dementia is at the point where she needs 24/7 supervision.

I’m just really worried. Idk what we are going to do. We barely survived last time mom had strokes, and we’re all doing even worse now than we were then.

My sisters & I are all unable to work. My mom was recently fired from her job (due to not being able to keep up after her strokes). My twin sister & I live with our dad for free, and him (plus SNAP & medicaid) are the only reasons my sister & I are getting ANY of our needs met. My mom, little sister, and grandma are all barely getting by with grandma’s social security as their only source of income. No one has any savings.

We’re all like, struggling just to take care of ourselves. Like, I havent showered or brushed my teeth in almost 2 weeks. I havent done laundry in 3. I have verbal shutdowns literally daily. I can’t make even the most basic of decisions. How am I supposed to help take care of my mom (and grandma, since mom was her caretaker and obviously won’t be able to if she’s had another stroke. And caring for grandma is a BIG job).

But there’s just NO help out there, we have tried everything. And even if there WAS help (which again, there’s not), there are SO many barriers to getting help. You have to jump through so many hoops, make so many phone calls, fill out so much paperwork, talk to so many people, etc. It’s like a catch-22; in order to start getting out of burnout & doing better, I need support. But in order to get the support, I need to be doing better so that I can handle doing all the stuff that needs to be done to access help. It really fucking sucks.

Like. I CANNOT handle the higher level executive functioning tasks. I can’t navigate phone calls & paperwork & bureaucracy without help. I can’t do any of it. But I’m going to somehow HAVE to. And I just don’t know what to do. We need help.

[atlanticcanada]

N.S. housing advocate calls for increased funding after swamped legal aid service cuts walk-ins

A community worker with the Dalhousie Legal Aid Service says the office is dealing with more tenancy cases than it can handle.

Joanne Hussey says the number of renters seeking out free legal help to deal with evictions has reached the point where the office has been forced to eliminate its walk-in service for the month of May.

“We’ve decided to pause our drop-in intakes, which usually happens twice a week,” says Hussey.

Hussey says the office normally sees about 10 drop-ins each time.

Part of the challenge, she says, is the sheer volume of cases she and the other community legal worker are handling.

“But also, we are a teaching clinic, so we have new students who are joining us at this point and so we’ll be spending some time training them,” Hussey adds. “We’ve generally been able to make it work during those student transitions, but this time we just felt we needed to take that break.”

Hussey says since September, Dalhousie Legal Aid has worked with 102 households facing eviction, compared with the 30 households the clinic assisted during the same period the previous year. She says where the clinic’s work was once equally divided between tenancy issues and income assistance cases, that has since shifted almost entirely to tenancies.

Hussey says that often takes a lot of time, as the complaints process with Nova Scotia Residential Tenancies can take months.

“I think it’s a whole lot of things that came together at the same time,” she says. “When (the federal pandemic emergency benefits) went away, that caused problems.”

“We saw rents increasing in Halifax at levels that we’ve never seen before, and we also have the rent cap, which has kept rents from increasing drastically while tenants had a lease, but it also meant if people have to move, they face a huge increase,” Hussey explains.

The chair of the Dartmouth chapter of ACORN, a grassroots advocacy group which works on affordable housing issues, says the loss of the drop-in service is a blow to the community.

“For low-income people,” says Lisa Hayhurst, “nobody can really afford legal services, (Dal Legal Aid) is basically who they turn to.”

She herself used the office’s walk-in service just a few weeks ago to ask a question about a letter she received from her landlord.

“With the housing crisis and renovictions going on,” she says, “tenants don’t really know where to go, so they have to turn to Dal to help them through the hearing.”

Dalhousie Legal Aid is a non-profit charity funded through donations and grants from the Law Foundation of Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia Legal Aid, and Dalhousie’s Schulich School of Law.

Hayhurst says she would like to see more provincial funding for organizations like Dal Legal Aid.

“What we (at ACORN) want to do is call on the province of Nova Scotia to put more funding into tenant advocacy and legal resources so some of the stress will be taken off Dalhousie Legal Aid,” she says.

“There’s definitely a need for funding for all the services for people experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness,” Hussey says, “I think really we need the government and the public to recognize there are a lot of people working really hard to make sure this situation that is already bad doesn’t get so much worse.”

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/fKHleSQ

[kittemfang]

whats this?? its time for THE 2022 YEARLY ART SUMMARY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we’ve got a lot to cover here folks!! this year was interesting, as i basically had a large amount of artblock for around half the year. it wasnt until the late months of the year that i really feel like i started picking up! lets go!

JANUARY:  this drawing is a bit sloppy, but i honestly love it just for how fun it is to draw characters based on littlest pet shop molds. it was tough choosing this one, especially as if you know me you may recall i was deep into hyperfixating on The Hex and drew it a lot, but overall i feel like this drawing was the start of Something... i drew in a ‘painter’ style way more often this year, and this may have been the starting point.

FEBRUARY: febby was a rough month in terms of drawing, almost all of my drawings this month were doodles rather than finished drawings, a trend that is going to be popping up a lot during these early months. this drawing was mainly an experiment, especially with more goopy and meaty drawings, its alright.

MARCH:  i actually made this in the brawling depths of both artblock and psychonauts hyperfixation. for how much i struggled to draw it, it turned out really good, i still enjoy it. i dont draw backgrounds/elaborate setpieces in drawings very often, so it was fun to plan out the composition and stuff.

APRIL: this month of extreme artblock also paved the way for a new drawing style that i adore doing and still do. that is, using my favorite lineart brush to just do somewhat of their own shading. of course, since this was the first time i did that, its not as much as other pieces doing the same style would do. this month had ONLY this drawing as something i would consider more finished, as my artblock was strong and i mostly drew loosely and without care to be perfect, something very good to do for the soul

MAY:  theres not much to say about this drawing, its simply something that i did. ive become more and more comfortable with a painting style. however, it is funny that i just couldnt get her face right, so i doodled it on. there isnt much to say about this month either, i doodled a lot, and drew ocs mostly.

JUNE: this drawing was actually in honor of me getting a dress, its actually the first dress i wore. its an ant dress :) one time i was on the bus wearing it and this lady was like man your dress is totally punk its so cool. i like the way i color tv sheeps wool as usual

JULY: ah yes, artfight season. but i drew this because i was also playing cuphead a bunch, and moonshine mob is one of my favorite bosses. i love the way the colors turned out on this, in general i love the look of it, i like how i did the colors of the fur into eachother.

AUGUST: nothign special to it, i just like this drawing :) i think its funny how the main subject is flat colors, i NEVER do flat colors. and its still good. its just well...its pleasant its a nice drawing.

SEPTEMBER: i was wondering what drawing to put for this, after all this month i started going in an upwards direction with drawing. it was still doodle-like, but the way i colored characters was starting to become more focused and enjoyable, and i still do it this way. however i choose this one because its just..its nice. and i still love knock knock. and i love dark shading with light.

OCTOBER: things are starting to get real this month. doodled a lot, drew nice finished pieces, got more ambitious with things like my full dhmis piece. drew and was thinking about a lot of my ocs this month. i choose this drawing because I ADORE IT??hello??? honestly went off with this drawing. the dark and desaturated dreary colors with the bright, kind of offputting highlights, got damn !

NOVEMBER:  i became real this month. i was taken out for a few days after surgery, but i was on an IV drip named touhou project and she gave me STRENGTH. i have to draw people now. PEOPLE. and i became stronger. STRONGER. i started drawing with full rendered shading a lot more often. i choose this drawing though because while it isnt highly detailed shading, i think the simplicity, the colors, and the lining make it ‘pop’ and its just real good.

DECEMBER:  BECOMING STRONGER, BECOMING MORE REAL. i am drawing a lot now. i love my drawings. im finding different ways to draw and am going between them. a lot is happening. her name is touhou and this is her project. i choose this drawing of eika, because she is my baby, i also think its a really cute drawing. i love how i did the shading, mes was like “teehee you used posterization” nope i just shaded it like this myself... its too much!!

also, for my eika design: the two red bits tailing off of her are not part of her dress, if it was obvious by the different way i shades them. they are umbilical cords that sorta act like tails..kind of nasty, put those things away! also i draw her hands and feet more simple because its sorta like, the idea of her being half formed and boneless

OVERALL: A LOT OF GOOD THINGS HAPPEN AT THE END OF THE YEAR FOR DRAWING. the beginning of this eyar was troubled by a lot of fits of artblock and unwillingness to draw, but now im strong. i fully blame my new interest in touhou project for my good mood and happiness with my art, however it also helps that during november i got on medication and now i really am just a happier person.

here are summaries from the previous years. take a looky at what i have become!

if you want to see my commentary for 2021, here it is

[losingitinjersey]

Ever spend the last 12 days intending to blog every day and then never finding the time to do so?  Yup, that’s where I’ve been at.  Straight up in survival mode over here.  

My MIL left on Monday and while my days since have been spent constantly putting out fires managing two crying children (often at the same time), I’m oh so flipping happy to be on my own again :) I understand that it’s important for family to come and visit and get to know their grandchildren. While I’m happy we all had that time together I’m glad to now have the time to figure out life as a family of four without an extra person in the house.  

Kevin started a new rotation that has him gone six days a week from 4 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. (or later) so all he has time to do is come home and sleep.  Poor guy :( I went from having both him and either my mom or MIL home all the time to now doing everything alone.  It’s a lot but I’m surviving!  

Here’s a rundown of some of the highlights from the last 12 days. 

Aug passed her hearing test!  Woooo!

Thanks to the MIL here, Kevin and I were able to go (BY OURSELVES) out to dinner, out to brunch, on several walks, and two grocery shopping dates!  Such a dreeaaammm!

My MIL strongly dislikes/is scared of my cat, Saki.  As such, on one of the days I was gone at appointments with Aug for six hours she didn’t let him downstairs.  Due to this he pooped in my bedroom on the carpet :(  To my MIL’s credit, she thought he had a litterbox upstairs, but no.  That’s why I’m always letting him down and opening up the bathroom with the litterbox in it for him all the time.  Pay attention, woman. 

While we’re on the MIL rant, I’ll keep going with two more stories. 

I’ve put Erp to sleep every night of her life except for when I was at the hospital delivering Aug.  We have a bedtime routine that I look forward to every day and one that I find to be an intimate experience that only we share.  One night that I’m putting her down, I come out to find the kitchen and dining room still a mess with Kevin and his mom sitting on the couch (she has Aug in her arms so she gets a pass).  But I’m frustrated and start to clean.  At one point I look up to ask if MIL can turn on the monitor (that I know was turned off before I went in to start bedtime) and I see she’s looking at it watching Erp.  I ask her if that means she watched us while we were in there.  She replied that she had.  I reply, “Great.” Drop what I’m washing in the sink and run upstairs slamming the door shut behind me.  I go to pump and cool off.  I come downstairs 40 minutes later to tell her I overreacted but also that I felt she had invaded our privacy.  She tells me, through tears, that it reminded her of her time with Kevin when he was a baby.  I get it, but still.  Kevin said had he known she was watching he would have told her to stop since I made it VERY clear to him early on in Erp’s life that I don’t like being watched on the monitor when I’m in there with her.  I guess I should have told her about my preference in advance but I never thought I’d need to spell it out like that.  

For the last week she was here, she had Chicago Med on the TV constantly, at relatively loud volume.  Please note that we never ever ever have the TV on at our house unless we’re actively watching something, and if that happens it’s 99% of the time just me watching and I do it for an hour at night when everyone is asleep.  If we need background noise, music is playing.  She would just sit on the couch and watch her show talking about gunshots, premature birth, and whatever kind of medical drama while my kids are running around.  I’m sorry, but I thought you were here to connect with your grandkids?  So while she sat on the couch, I would engage and play with Erp for hours.  Cool cool cool.  

Please note that despite all this she’s a lovely woman and a great grandmother and mother and MIL.  I came into her visit already dreading more company, and I’m sure I’m still surging with hormones from the pregnancy (right? or am I just this way always now?).  All this to say that I was not begging her to stay and getting used to taking care of both kids on my own wasn’t that hard since I’d basically been doing it during her entire visit. 

Okay, let’s take a breather and talk about other things. 

Do you remember the 21st night of September? I DO because my 6 week old slept 12 straight hours! GLORIOUS. 

After finishing listening to Billy Summers (loved it!) I decided to undertake Stephen King’s hefty novel, The Stand.  I’d been scared to attempt it ever since I read 100 pages of it in 9th grade before deciding to pick it up again later.  I guess 23 years later did the trick because I’m thoroughly enjoying it!  I’ve learned that audiobooks are the only way I can get through any material lately.  It makes me want to go out on walks and take drives so I can listen to MoAr!  I’m already 10 hours into the 48 hour novel.  Although, I gotta say, it certainly feels strange to read about a deadly pandemic (written in 1978) during this current pandemic.  

After two months since I initially contacted the nearby school/daycare, I finally followed up to get Erp on a waitlist.  There are six kids ahead of her.   We took a tour on Friday and I want her to get in so so badly, hopefully before we move in June!  It would be such a great place for her to socialize and learn!

If any of the above isn’t telling, my hormones are all over the place. I know this because my face has decided to rage in all the redness and acne. So fun! 

Thanks to getting my house back, I’ve been able to establish a routine for us which includes going on stroller walks every day with the girls!  We’ve already made it over 37 miles this month!  Loving the outside time and knowing I’m working hard at my weight loss efforts.  

Despite being on maternity leave, this past Friday I was invited to participate in an EA (virtual) offsite with my team at work!  It was great to be able to see everyone again!  At the end we participated in a cooking class where they mailed me a box of all the ingredients to cook a NY Strip Steak and Corn Succotash! Deeeelicious! 

Given Erp’s increasing interest and ability at walking, I attempted a walk with her the other day, sans stroller!  I wore Aug in a wrap on my chest and held Erp’s hand as we walked around the neighborhood. We walked a good 1/4 of a mile!  Everything was fine until we made it back to our walkway and she refused to climb up the step to head back inside.  Like, laid flat on the ground refusal.  Since Aug was on me I couldn’t really just grab Erp and muscle her back inside.  She wouldn’t listen to any request of mine to go inside so we had a power struggle of what felt like 15 minutes but I’m sure was closer to 5.  She would try to crawl around my feet (into the bushes even to get around me), and any time I tried to lift her up she’d pull herself to the ground crying.  Eventually I tucked Aug’s flopping head into the fabric of the wrap so I could lean down and grab my tantruming child and carry her inside.  I want to be able to keep up with these excursions but not sure how to do so if she continues to rebel like this.  Like, if she did this farther from home we’d be up a creek.  Hopefully she’ll improve in time? 

OKAY! Hopefully we can now get back to our regularly scheduled blogging so a massive update like this won’t be necessary again :)  Thanks for taking time out of your day to catch up with me!

[fa-by]

Hello babies and dear Anons 👋🏼🤗 I'm back with a new ‘Q&A’ post. Sorry, it took me longer than usual. I'll explain to you at the end of the post. For now, enjoy 🙃

I've already talked about it here, dear Anon, https://fa-by.tumblr.com/post/648194553804881920/%C9%9F (first question) and then here https://fa-by.tumblr.com/post/648194746313031680/%C9%9F (fifth question).

And who said I think Camila is a lesbian, dear? 😏 Maybe you mistaken me for some other blog? Because, I've never said that, dear. I've never been asked about it 🤷🏻‍♀️

You must be new to my blog if you're asking me this question, dear Anon. Welcome 🤗 and my answer is no, dear. Neither of them has ever cheated on the other. They're both way too loyal for that shit.

No, dear Anon. And always keep in mind that this is just my opinion and that therefore I could be wrong.

Hello to you too, dear Anon 👋🏼😄 First of all, thank you 🥺🥰 Thank you very much for your words, dear, you're super nice and I really appreciated it very much 🤗

As for stuck, we didn't fight or anything like that. I guess we just drifted apart 🤷🏻‍♀‍ even before she entered the Marvel world, but I can't tell you why she never liked and re-blogged my posts, dear 🤷🏻‍♀️

Let's call it my flaw if you want, but I don't like any posts myself (not even my girlfriend's), but that doesn't mean I don't like many posts I see. It's just the way I am 😅 I leave comments every now and then though 😅 And neither does it mean I wouldn't like to interact with you guys if you ever want to contact me or tag me or get me involved in something. It may not seem like it maybe because I don't re-blog and put likes around, but trust me, it's not like that.

Going back to stuck, I really can't tell you why. I mean, I'm not her so I can't answer you. Maybe you should ask her directly, dear. @stuckinapatriarchalbullshitland​

I hope you have a very nice day too, dear Anon. Thank you so much again, and please, be sure to take care of yourself too 😘

Hello to you, dear Anon 👋🏼😄 and don't thank me, dear 🙈 It's really a pleasure for me to interact with you guys and help you in any way I can 😊

So. Yeah, I think what you think, dear. Mila was definitely the one to make the first move, but as far as putting aside pride and the decision to give it another try, it was something they both did because they each had their own reasons. Remember, dear, there are two people in a couple.

Hey dear sneaky little one 👋🏼😄 I'm good. How are you? It's a pleasure, dear, you don't have to thank me for that 😊

I'm not sharing them with you guys yet just because they're personal observations that not everyone can agree on and, as you may have noticed, I like to tell you guys what I think with real facts that I can prove. In this case, it would be like in this picture:

I hope that with this example you understand better what I mean, dear sneaky little one. Come back any time you want and take care of yourself too 🤗😘

Hey dear Anon, why are you so down? 😟 Don't be 🤗 I know it's hard to think positively about them, but think about everything we've endured so far. Think about how strong we are. Whatever's thrown at us, it won't change our minds because we know the truth. Now, come on, dear, smile 😁 Enjoy the small wins instead of having them ruined for you by the possible eventuality of them doing something. And remember, we're in this together 💪🏼

I swear to you that when I saw it, I was like ����🔊 Your loving takes me higher 🎵 You set my heart on fire🎵 When you touch my body got me singing like Mariah!!!! 🎵🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Hello to you, dear Anon 👋🏼😄

1) No, dear, you can't force something on someone who agreed to do things like this in the first place. I'll explain better. PRs are accepted by those directly involved, who then sign a contract. It's a commitment they're bound to respect from the moment they have accepted and signed the contract. If they don't respect it, they then have to pay the consequences (if you’re interested, I wrote a post about how PR relationships work here: https://fa-by.tumblr.com/post/648193061847023616/pr-stunt-relationships-%C9%9F). I'll give you a silly example. Think of it as when one day you didn't want to go to school but you had to go anyway. It's pretty much the same dynamic because even if you didn't want to go that day, or several days, you knew you had to and you did. I hope it went well as an example 😆

2) Yes, but which of the two teams, well, that depends, dear. It depends on who's reaching whom and where. It depends on whether they're traveling together or not. And it depends on the purpose of that particular stunt, like if is some particular event or not.

3) No, dear, absolutely not, don't worry 🤣 Everyone has their own room. The rooms are very likely to be close together though, or at least on the same floor, that's for sure.

4) Yes, when possible, of course. The more people see the couple doing everything together, the more believable they seem.

Don't thank me, dear, it's really a pleasure 😊 Have a good day too ❤️

Not necessarily, dear Anon. Mila started work on her third album during the pandemic in her studio, so no one had to pay for her. Besides, when a contract expires and there's a re-sign, it doesn’t necessarily mean that an announcement will be made about it since the record label is still the same. Announcements are made if there's some kind of important addition, such as for example happened with 5H when they had to re-sign as a quartet for legal reasons with Syco/Epic, and it was only announced because of the addition of a contract with Sony Music as the sponsor for their last album.

Having said that: 1) Since her movie has been postponed again, I would say in 2022. 2) I really hope not because they would be really stupid to do it again. Plus, I don't think the PR will last until the released of her album. 3) I have to admit you made me giggle here, but no, dear 😂 don't worry. Producers, composers, songwriters, etc., work with a lot of different artists who have different styles. Mila’s nothing like Chimp, and she can’t do anything boring. It isn't in her blood. No pun intended at all there 😏🤣

Hi to you, dear Anon 👋🏼😄 and you got it right, buddy! We think the same way!

They had gotten to a really bad point in their relationship. A point where they were no longer themselves, either in the couple or individually. For me, what happens in the Havana music video is what happened in reality as well. It was obviously told in an artistic and funny way there. Like the scene of Juan literally ‘coming out of the closet for her’ because he thought it was the best thing for their relationship. In that scene, he gets down on his knees to ask her to marry him, but in reality, at least for me, it represents December. It represents the ‘begging’ in a disguised and artistic soap opera way. It represents Lauren's last attempt to make things work between them. Which is related to the “You love me”, “I do love you. But I love me more” scene in which Camila leaves everything behind. And if you think about it, we can also find this connection somewhere else: 🎶 “Nobody talks about walking away when there's still love” 🎶. Always Love by Laur. Luckily, at the end of the video, she really is ‘took back to her Havana’ as it also happened in reality.

It's all connected, dear. There's a connection and an explanation for everything they do artistically. Just pay attention and you'll be able to connect the dots like you did in this case too. Give me a virtual high-five! 🖐🏼 And have a good day too, dear Anon ❤️

Hello to you, dear Anon 👋🏼😄 Thank you very much, dear, and don't worry, I've been never asked that. So. Before answering your questions, let's take a look at the facts, okay? Especially for the baby Camren shippers.

Leilani is Dinah's aunt by marriage. She has always interacted with fans and we saw her in several videos even with Dinah herself, but the first time she showed herself to us as problematic was on July 18, 2016. Leilani tweeted an attack on Taylor Swift and apologized the next day by saying of having been hacked:

Yeah, suuure, because hackers around the world were waiting for nothing but hacking her 🙄 But let's move on. September 8, 2016, was the day Laur cried several times during the concert in Phoenix, Arizona. The next day, on the 9th, before the concert in Irvine, California, Laur tweeted to thank the concerned fans, and Leilani replied to the tweet by exposing L because of the ‘her’:

On December 21st, 2016, she did a live where she talked about Camren after fans asked her about it: https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_qvandqF63c1ykfr3q.mp4  (I also put the sub in the video myself)

On January 8, 2017, she posted two Snapchat stories in which she spoke again about Camren with one of her nieces: https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_qval74yFz61ykfr3q.mp4 

On January 29, 2017, both Camila and Lauren blocked her on social media:

She continued to strike by attacking Camila months later. On July 13, 2017, the same day the 5H interview with Billboard came out, Leilani attacked her by basically calling her a whore. Tweet to which C replied with suspense dots and a Rihanna GIF:

On December 5, 2017, Camila posted the album cover and title by saying that the pre-order would've been possible from the 7th. Because of the album cover picture, Leilani attacked with the first tweet on December 5th, and continued on the 6th:

Then nothing else problematic.

Yes, of course she knew about Camren. All the people close to them know about Camren. Leilani has always been a person who likes attention. She has always liked to show off and be noisy and messy in doing so. It didn't matter how ridiculous she was or that her actions fell upon her niece. The fact that she seemed to be joking and that she was always so evasive and confusing on the subject, is because she herself knew she was going to pay the consequences. She could never have said “yes, they're real” and stick to it. Also because the one who would've paid the most consequences would've been Dinah. You know, being her aunt, it was like her responsibility. And I think D really paid the consequences for something she didn't do. At least, before the sharks took the reins and told her what to do (Leilani through Dinah). It’s happened to a lot of people close to them to get involved over the years. It has been noticed a lot more from 2015 onwards, but especially in 2017 to increase the story of the fake feud between the girls.

So basically, yeah, she was problematic and loud and messy and all of that, but for the most part, she was just following the script.

Hi to you, dear Anon 👋🏼😄 welcome and thank you very much 🙃 My answer to your question is yes, they've been for a long time by then. You'll find more details on all of that dynamic below in the next ask, dear.

Kinda? 🤣 Okay, let me explain, dear Anon. There was no cheating if this is what you thought with my first answer. But let's go in order. I'll shed some light on the story with Luis once and for all.

Luis Santos' first appearance for us was on January 13, 2013 when Laur posted this picture on IG:

One year later exactly, on January 13, 2014, L posted this picture:

Then we have the one on February 24th (when the girls arrived in Miami because they had three dates in Florida for The Neon Lights Tour) and those of February 25th, 2014 after the concert (posted the day after):

We have the one of April 13, 2014:

The prom ones of May 17, 2014, which were the last pictures with Luis that Laur posted:

And lastly, we have Laur’s birthday one posted by Luis:

The latter lets us understand that their story officially began on January 27, 2014. We don't know when it ended exactly (let's suppose at the beginning of July) because we only had confirmation of it in August thanks to the explanation that Clara gave for that fake scandal:

Now. This is the official story. The one we should’ve bought. But let me show you the behind the scenes. This is Melanie Mueller, Luis's ex:

Luis was in a relationship with Melanie from early August (unfortunately, Luis and Melanie's profiles are all private, but not Melanie's old Twitter) until, according to the narrative, late November 2013:

And this is where the juicy stuff begins. Luis stated that he and Mel were no longer together:

The date coincidentally matches the beginning of his relationship with Lauren on January 27, 2014, right? Right. So how do you explain the fact that Luis and Mel were on a romantic date exactly 13 days after he said they weren't together anymore?

As you can see from the date, it was February, and weren't Lauren and Luis already together since January 27th? 😏 The funny thing is that they kept interacting and taking pictures together:

And then there's the best part. The Camren shippers went wild that year in replacing Luis's face with Camila's twice. The first one with the prom picture 🤣:

And the second one with April picture. Sorry, I really tried but I couldn't find the original manip. But don't worry, I have two better things 😏:

Ohh, I think we know, Mel 😎

And how can we forget one of the many things that remained in the fandom's history and which coincidentally happened just in February a week before the picture of Luis and Melanie's romantic date:

Now that I've given you proofs, it's theory time. We know about the friendship with benefits, the Like Friends Do situation that Camren had, and we know that Lauren was in denial. Luis was a shield. Her shield, especially for the public. It wasn't a PR created by the labels, but by Lauren herself. Laur and Luis were friends, and I mean, they still have been for years. Laur simply asked him for a favor and he accepted. Laur stayed in Miami throughout the Christmas period until the first week of January 2014 before flying to L.A. with the girls. It was then, in that time spent at home that she asked him, and despite knowing the risks, despite knowing he would face fans' hatred, and despite having a girlfriend, Luis agreed to be the fake boyfriend just to help his friend in need. I don't think she told him the real reason behind it right away, but she definitely told him once she and Mila finally got together. Laur came out to her family in early 2015, but it doen't mean she didn't to her friends before. Especially once she and Mila became official in April 2014.

So, dear Anon, yes, in a way, Lauren was with Camila and Luis, but in reality, she was never with Luis.

Hi to you, dear Anon 👋🏼😄 Thank you very much, dear, and that's okay. I don't mind helping when and if I can. It's not a problem at all for me 😊

So, as far as Lolo's situation is concerned, I honestly think Columbia has very little to do with her situation. I mean, Columbia is the biggest record label under Sony Music and has always had a lot of successful artists. From the great names that have made history to the most recent but still famous ones: Michael Jackson, Freddie Mercury, Aretha Franklin, Frank Sinatra, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Celine Dion, Paul McCartney, Mariah Carey, Beyoncé, Jay Z, Adele, Alicia Keys, Ricky Martin, Pharrell Williams, Robbie Williams, Katy Perry, Shakira, Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent, Diplo, OneRepublic (Ryan Tedder), Miley Cyrus, Harry Styles, Zain Malik, Little Mix, Calvin Harris, BTS, Lil Nas X, Meghan Trainor, etc., etc., etc. Believe me, there are really, but really many names that I haven't put in this list.

The purpose of a record label is to make money. To do that, the label finds an artist. The label decides if it's worthwhile for them to sign the artist by investing and advancing the money on them, and if the label believes they can make money with their music, then they don't think twice before signing them. So they invest in the artist, develop them, promote them through the artist's team, and distributes their music in exchange for a percentage of the revenues. If things go smoothly and well, there's a gain, but if things go wrong, the label loses money. [If you want to know more about how the music world works and what the girls had to go through, I wrote a post about it here: https://fa-by.tumblr.com/post/648192055443619840/how-the-music-world-works]

Now, what did I mean by that? As I said before, Columbia is the number one, the biggest and most important umbrella music label under Sony Music Entertainment. So why on earth would a label as big as Columbia Records have signed Lauren and invested in her, but then thwart her and lose a lot of the money they invested themselves? It wouldn't make any sense because it would be like self sabotaging themselves! And what did I say is the purpose of a record label? To make money. Don't be fooled by anyone about it, dear.

I could have understood if this had been an isolated case; if Laur had been the only one among the girls (LAND) who hadn't released an album. But it's not like that. Something, and I'm 100% convinced it's something from their old contracts, has held all four of them up until now. We'll see, dear Anon. Sooner or later, the truth will come out because it always does. Even if it takes years.

Don't apologize, dear, really 😊 Hope things are great with you too and please, take care of yourself too 🤗

Hey to you, dear Anon 👋🏼😄

Nada is a song that is part of Tainy's EP called Neon16 Tape: The Kids That Grew Up on Reggaeton, and it's about how two people in an unofficial relationship want completely different things. The guy doesn't want anything serious unlike the girl.

Now. I understand why you're confused, dear. After reading the lyrics and thinking about Camren, you've surely wondered “Where the fuck is Camila in all of this? But does it have something to do with her, or not?”. Well the answer is no. You see, dear, we're used to hearing a lot more Mila's songs than Laur's. When Mila writes, she writes for herself. She writes from her point of view and according to her experiences. Same thing Laur does. But Mila, unlike Laur, can't write a song for other people. She can't detach herself from them when she's writing them. Take as examples all those songs she gave away after finishing them, like Anyone or Ain't Easy. When you listen to them, you can clearly hear Camila all over it even if the song is being sung by someone else, like in these two examples, Justin Bieber and Elijah Woods. But with Laur? Nah, because Lauren can completely detach herself from them.

Take More Than That as an example. Laur didn't write More Than That for herself; she just ‘decided’ to keep it (because it was okay for the narrative she had going on at the time). If she had really given it to someone else and then you had listened to it and knew she was the one who had written it, you would've thought “Really?” with a wtf expression as the first thing. Right? Because you recognize Laur in the song only because you know she's behind it. Am I wrong? And don't get me wrong, dear, this is not by all means a bad thing at all. I'm not saying this as an insult or anything. Quite the opposite actually. I think it's absolutely amazing. Think about it. It's basically the work of songwriters and ghostwriters who only work behind the scenes for other artists. Gosh, they're both so fucking talented 😍

Anyway. What was I getting at with this? To the fact that the same thing happened here with Nada. Nada was written by four songwriters and we have two different points of view to represent the couple in the story. The one of the girls, Laur and Cris Chil (she also worked and wrote with her for Lento), and the one of the boys, C. Tangana and Tainy (like Cris, he wrote with her and produced Lento). Now. I can't tell you who the real protagonist behind the story of the song is because none of them said it, but it's definitely not Lauren. Laur just went with the flow.

Before starting, I would like to also publicly thank my girl @romanticentropy​ for helping me with the translation (her first language is Spanish), so thank you again, my love 🥰 And I'm not talking about the literal translation. I'm talking about the real meaning behind it since the meaning of many sentences or words can change even based on a simple comma. Therefore, here below you'll find the real translation along with notes placed in parentheses with various explanations. I don't know if you speak Spanish, dear Anon, but we did this for all those people here who don't speak it so that everyone can understand the true meaning of the song.

That said, let's get started.

Verse 1:

“Como te arrimes sí te voy a dar

If you dare come close, I’ll give you [implied: my dick]

Me he puesto guapo pa' verte pasar (Yeah)

I got myself all dressed up to watch you go by (Yeah)

No me pregunte', no quiero pensar

Don't ask me, I don't want to think

No tengo tiempo, no me pue'o casar

I don't have time, I can't get married

Pero, puedo quererte de nuevo

But, I can love you again

Dejar todo el resto pa' luego

[implied because the two sentences go together: And] leave everything else for later

Quedarme pa' ti, que más quieres de mí

To stay for you, what else do you want from me

No odies al jugador odia al juego

Don't hate the player, hate the game

Yo no me he inventado na' (Qué va)

I didn't make anything up (Not at all / Of course not) [‘Qué va’ is an expression, particularly from Spain, that means something like ‘How could you have thought that? Of course not’ said in a casual tone. So, ‘not at all’ is a possible interpretation because he's reassuring he really didn't make anything up]

Sobrevivo en la ciudad (¿Qué?)

I survive in the city (What?)

Me la busco pa' ganar, cien monedas pa' gastar

I'm looking to earn, a hundred dollars to spend [In this sentence, the comma is very important because in ‘me la busco pa' ganar’ read alone, it means that he's finding his ways to earn a living or a better life. When you add ‘cien monedas pa' gastar’, it extends to ‘he's finding his way to earn $100 to spend’, but the comma is important because it keeps alive the idea that he's not only working for the 100 dollars, but also for a better life (possibly a rich kind of life, but that's not necessarily implied)]

Una cama pa' dormir, y un yate pa' vacilar

A bed to sleep in, and a yacht to show off on”

What do we understand from this? That he's actually the one who doesn't want to have a serious relationship because his goal for the moment is to earn and live a good life, not to settle down and get married.

Pre-Chorus:

“Tú ya sabías to' lo que había

You already knew what to expect / You already knew what the situation was

No me hagas cambiar, vida mía

Don't make me change, my darling [He sings ‘vida mía’, which means ‘my life’. Calling someone ‘my life’ is not used in English because it makes no sense in the definition of the language itself. So, in this case, it's translated and used as a loving nickname. As you could call someone ‘my love’, ‘my heart’, ‘my baby’, or ‘my darling’]

Yo te doy hasta que se haga de día

I'll give you until it's daylight

Yo te doy hasta que se haga de día

I'll give you until it's daylight [‘Darle a alguien’, ‘to give to someone’ in Spanish has a sexual connotation. It means you're going to have sex with that person. It’s especially used from a male point of view; particularly this last line, he means he'd have sex with her all night until it's day again]”

He basically tells her: “You knew I'm an asshole. Don't try to change me because it's useless. The only thing I can give you is whole nights of sex”.

Chorus:

Sigue' dándome na', dándome nada

You keep giving me nothing, giving me nothing

Can't keep up with your vibe

'Cause you're up and you're down, 'round and you're 'round, babe

I can not read your mind

Conté lo' día' pa' volverte a ver

I counted the days to see you again

Y tú ni sabe' qué quiere' hacer

And you don't even know what you want to do

Cuando me vaya no voy a volver

When I leave I won’t come back

Sigue' dándome na', dándome nada

You keep giving me nothing, giving me nothing”

This is an ultimatum. “If you keep giving me nothing for much longer, I'll leave you without looking back”.

Verse 2:

“Yo no estoy para regalarte

I'm not here to please you [The literal translation of that is ‘I'm not here to give you’. The incomplete sentence opens an ambiguity where you don't know if she’s saying ‘I'm not here to give you anything’, or ‘I'm not here to give you things’, or ‘I'm not here to fulfill your wishes’, or ‘I'm not here to please you’, or things like that that make you understand that if he's not ready to pay attention to her right now and give her the love she needs, and he's clearly not because he's ‘giving her nothing’, she's not just going to wait there by begging for some love or collecting the crumbs that he leaves behind. She's saying “give me the love and the attention I need or I'll go away on my own”. So overall, ‘I'm not here to please you’ is a decent interpretation]

Ni tampoco para esperarte

Nor to wait for you

Ese dinero no te va a cuidar

That money won’t take care of you

No te pido matrimonio, yo sólo tu arte

I'm not asking you to marry me, just your love [That's the real meaning behind the sentence despite the literal translation being this: I'm not asking you to marry me, just your art]

Cuando no estoy ahí

When I'm not there

Sé que preguntas por mí

I know you ask about me

Sé por qué eres así

I know why you're like this

I know you're afraid of falling in too deep

We can pretend like we’ve only done this for the fun of it

Pero no te sorprendas si te enteras que así como tú hay mil

But don't be surprised to find out there are a thousand just like you around”

Basically: “I'm not asking you to marry me, just to have a real relationship. An exclusive relationship. We can continue to pretend that we just had fun, but I know there's something deeper. I know you're afraid of falling in love with me, but if you keep wanting this kind of relationship, then I'm gonna go find someone who wants the same things as me; also because there are a lot of guys out there and I'm starting to get tired of waiting”.

And that's all, dear Anon. Now that you know the real translation *thanks once again, mi amor 💖* , can you see anything that has to do with Mila? Because I don't. In fact, if I really have to find an association with Camren, the only thing that comes to my mind is that Lauren could have written some parts of her verse from Camila's point of view when they were still just fuckbuddies. You know? Since it was Laur who was initially in denial and was afraid, and not Camila. She was the one who was afraid of the idea of even liking Mila, let alone falling in too deep. But it's not like that. There's nothing of Camila here. There's no Camren here. For me, this song is the story of one of the three (Cris Chil, or C. Tangana, or Tainy) and Laur only contributed to it with her talent.

Of course I can, dear Anon 😉

So. Camila created In the Dark the day after going to the Grammys' after-party (February 12, 2017) with which she went with Ashlee as her date of hers. Mila said she got the idea for the song because of the encounter she had at that party with this unnamed famous guy. Yeah, sure, Jan. We know very well that this is not the case. Just as we know very well that that was the same night in which Tyren had their first public appearance as a fake couple. If you're interested, I've already explained all this also with proofs in my previous post: https://fa-by.tumblr.com/post/653296412485894144/romanticentropy-fa-by-hiiii-babies-and-dear (last question in my All These Years' interpretation).

If you don't mind, dear Anon, I'll start with the verses because they're the only parts of the song where Mila isn't addressing Lauren directly. In the verses, Camila just observes her by describing their surroundings.

Verse 1:

“Blank stares, faithless

Vampires at the same places

Shadows, traces”

Okay, let's talk about those types of parties for a moment. I bet that when you think about it, you picture a lot of celebrities having fun and dancing, glam, alcohol, drugs, music, and all those kinds of things, right? Well, that's just as true as it isn't. You see, there aren't just celebrities at those parties. There are one or more of they team members, there are A&R representatives of various labels, CEOs, publicists, producers, marketing representatives, radio and television presenters, reporters, designers, advertisers, etc., etc., etc. Those parties are the epicenter of business-talk. Very often, this is where ideas for collaborations, for PRs, for endorsements and sponsorships, for movie and TV appearances, etc., etc., happen. For those celebrities who have to be there for business reasons and not for actually having fun, those parties are pretty boring.

With those sentences, Mila describes all the people around her during that party. Those people who aren't having fun because they're surrounded by what she calls vampires. Before they marketed them by making them sparkle in the sun because of the crystals on their skin, or before they made them wear a gemstone in daylight rings, bracelets, and amulets to make them walk in the sun, you know? Before they become basically trendy, vampires were always the villains. But don't get me wrong with that. I saw the Twilight saga and I love love love The Vampire Diaries, but the fact remains that before all of that franchise, vampires have always been used in horror and scary genres because they're evil. Also because if you think about it, what do vampires do? They suck blood by basically feeding on the life force of creatures by draining them to survive and not decompose since they're undead. They need to take a life to keep living theirs, so yeah, they are the bad guys.

So Mila here describes both the bored people, the ones with blank stares who in those cases are the shadows of their true selves because they're pretending to be who they aren't, and those people of power as bloodsuckers, life-suckers: vampires. And I don't blame her at all because that's what they do. Vampires, or puppet masters, or parasites, or as you guys know I like to call them: sharks.

“I know that you feel me”

Now. Now, now, now, now, now, now. What does this sentence make us understand? Picture you're in a place full of people. Picture pretending that you're having fun because you can't show how much you actually want to be somewhere else. Picture smiling and forcibly laughing at the bullshit someone's saying. It's all about image. Now picture seeing someone you know amidst that sea of people. You and this person are far from each other, and at the moment, you both are busy talking to other people. Even though you turned around to keep having this oh so great conversation with those people, you can feel the person you know. You can feel their presence despite being on opposite sides. You can totally feel that they're still looking at you, and you have confirmation of that the moment you turn towards them again.

Apply all of this on Camren now. We know how they've always attracted each other. We know how they've always searched and checked each other when they were on opposite sides of a room. We know how they've always felt each other. So it's not that hard for me to picture how it went in this case. I understand what Mila means when she says she knows Laur could feel her despite the place and all the people around them. Because it's always been that way between them, and we've actually seen them do it many times.

Verse 2:

“Plus one, guest list

But you don't even know what her name is

Secrets, endless

I know that you feel me”

This is a repetition similar to the first verse. Mila here continues to describe the people around her and those around Laur. People who are there because they're on a list thanks to someone they don't even really know. People who in those events become totally fake because they all have secrets to hide, including the two of them. People who pretend to be friends with each other just for a matter of image without even knowing their real names, their real selves. People who are so used to wearing a mask that they've by now become that mask. And among all the sea of these people, Mila knows that Laur can feel her. Evidently as much as she can feel Laur.

Refrain:

“You’re runnin', runnin', runnin', runnin' (oh)

Making the rounds with all your fake friends”

As I said before, many celebrities wear a mask, this facade for protection. They do it to show themselves as unproblematic and to show themselves almost as perfect in the eyes of others. If you think about it, it's the same thing we see in many celebrities and even in Camren when they have to promote something. Neither of the two of them has problems showing themselves to us in a vulnerable, authentic way, without make-up ‘al natural’. But as soon as they have to promote something, bam! Dresses, nails done, make-up, and hair. It's quite normal on the one hand. I understand that. But the problem, as Mila herself said, is when this fake persona takes over your authentic self.

In this part, Mila explains how she was observing Lauren's behavior. This facade that she was wearing because they were in that kind of environment with those kinds of people and those fake friends (yes, including Tabloid). This mirage that allowed her to run and hide her true self from everyone, even from Camila herself.

“Runnin', runnin' away from it (away)”

Especially in this part, and despite having seen her fake act many times before, Mila lets us understand how Lauren was 'running' and suppressing/hiding her authentic self in front of everyone. [I remember that period. Lauren didn't act like Lauren for a while]

You can strip down without showing skin, now”

Okay, this? This sentence right here, it's magic. It's pure art. “It's okay to show the realistic side of yourself without exposing yourself and also having to show your secrets or what you want to keep to yourself. There's no need to act like a completely different person from who you are”. Camila leaves me more and more speechless with her way of writing and expressing such true and profound concepts.

Pre-Chorus:

“I can see you're scared of your emotions

I can see you're hoping, you're not hopeless

So why can't you show me?

Why can't you show me?

I can see you're looking for distractions

I can see you're tired of the acting

So why can't you show me?”

The pre-chorus explains itself quite well. Mila's saying “I know you. I see what you're doing. I see your fear. I see the way you want a way out. I see how tired you are of this farce. So why are you faking it? Why are you faking it in front of me? Why are you faking it with me? Show me the real Lauren. Not this industry puppet. Show me the Lauren I know”.

Chorus:

“Who are you in the dark? (I, I)

Show me the scary parts (I, I)

Who are you when it's 3AM and you're all alone

And L.A. doesn't feel like home? (I, I, I)

Who are you in the dark?”

Who are you in the dark? = Who are you when no one's watching. Who are you when no one can judge you. Who are you when you're alone and you can really lower that protective barrier you create around you. Show me that. Show me all of you.

Camila mentions 3AM because, as we well know thanks to their other songs, it was the nighttime hours when they were able to spend more time together freely. She also mentions L.A. to make a comparison with Miami since Los Angeles is the second city they spend the most time in due to their careers.

If in the pre-chorus Mila really asks her to show her her true self, here in the chorus she instead asks her a rhetorical question accompanied by the explanations themselves like the specific examples 3AM and L.A. to make/show her point even more. Basically the same explanation as the pre-chorus: “Who are you, because I know, I know you, so why don't you show me?”. And I really love this connection between pre-chorus and chorus.

Bridge:

“Darling, come on and let me in

Darling, all of the strangers are gone, they're gone

I said, darling, come on and let me see”

The difference between the pre-chorus & chorus and this, is the more affectionate way she addresses her. She's asking her in a cute way also thanks to the use of that classic old-school pet name, to open up and show herself. She's telling her that it's okay now that they're alone. And most importantly, she's reassuring her with this:

“Darling, I promise that I won't run”

After hurting each other, after the omissions and the secrets, after the fights, after the non-communication, after that toxicity, in short, after everything they'd been through in those years and the way things had ended between them almost two months prior, this is really serious. She's promising her that she'll stay. That's the first step, or at least what we know was the first step thanks to this song, towards a healthy relationship and towards a real positive change in their relationship.

And by the way, wooohh, this whole transition is amazing!

Outro:

“Ah-ah, ah-ah, ah-ah

Who are you in the dark?

Ah-ah, ah-ah, ah-ah

Who are you in the dark?

Ah-ah, ah-ah, ah-ah

Who are you in the dark?

Ah-ah, ah-ah, ah-ah

Who are you in the dark?”

And that's all, dear Anon. I hope you liked my interpretation 🙃

P.S. When Sinu said “Number nine is my shit!” during that live, I felt that. Mama Sinu was right. Even after all this time, this song is still the shit 😎

🤸🏻‍♀‍🤸🏻‍♀‍🤸🏻‍♀‍

Aaand I'm done 👩🏻‍💻 I hope I was helpful in this case too 😄 Thank you all for your asks and as usual, know that I'm available for those who have questions, so feel free to ask 😊

Before I go, I wanted to apologize for this huge delay. In addition to my job, it was due to the fact that I'm in the middle of a relocation. For about two months for 21 years, I always go to a place by the sea for the summer. I'll be there from today and I'll be back in September. Unfortunately there isn't much connection there, but there's a single wi-fi. I don't know if I'll continue to answer the asks all together with a post or individually. I'll see how to organize myself once I'm there. I apologize in advance if I'll take longer than usual to reply, but at least you know that it's because there's not much connection there (and you have to keep in mind that I’ll continue working normally because I’m not on holiday yet). Everything will be back to normal in September.

That being said, always remember to be kind, to others and to yourselves. Be a good example. Be patient. Be safe and take care of yourselves. Don't let our ship sink. Keep shipping them, but please respectfully 🙏🏼 Sending you virtual love and hugs 🤗🤗🤗 I love you, babies. Always with love, F ❤️

[fallynleaf]

one of the most interesting media experiences i’ve had lately has been reading Emma in real time. it started back in september, and we’re about 100-ish pages into the book by this point. i’ve seen at least four Emma adaptions (including Clueless), but had never actually read the book before. it’s not my favorite Jane Austen story. i’ve actually really been enjoying reading it like this, though. i’m getting way more out of the book than i got out of any of the adaptions, though i can’t tell if that’s because the book is conveying the story better, or if i’m just appreciating it more because i’m taking so much time with it (the blog organizing this guided reading posts in-depth analysis accompanying every single update. it’s pretty fascinating).

one thing i think the book does better than the adaptions, though, is that we get to see more into Emma’s own head instead of viewing the characters more externally. i don’t know if she’s more “likeable” this way, but it is easier to understand her, i think. she’s more compelling this way for sure.

something i said at the beginning is that this is essentially experiencing Emma as wrestling, and i completely stand by that observation. one of the most unique things about wrestling is that the medium operates in real time. when a wrestler is sick or injured, you have to wait out every minute of that time with them. holidays like Christmas and Halloween happen in wrestling the same time they happen in real life. twitter fights play out over real hours. no fictional world is as richly fleshed out as the kayfabe world of wrestling because it has exactly as many hours of content as our own reality.

of course, reading a book in real time doesn’t quite replicate this experience. but it can come close. basically since the beginning, we’ve been waiting for Frank Churchill to arrive, and he’s still not here lol. Jane Fairfax just arrived today-ish, though she won’t visit Hartfield for another few days. just like the characters have to wait for these things, so do we as the readers. it’s an effective way of building anticipation to these events, because you can’t just skip ahead and fast-forward in time.

the beginning chunk of Emma spends a lot of time on the Mr. Elton sideplot. if you know anything about the plot of Emma, watching this play out is like watching a slow-motion train wreck, lol. reading it in real time was especially agonizing. i feel like you notice all of the details so much more. it draws out the ultimate humiliation at the end for all of the characters.

it was also interesting reading about Emma’s sister visiting for Christmas when my own brother was in town for the holidays. i had that moment of “wow, what a coincidence that i’m reading about this now,” and then i remembered that the timeline of the book was deliberately lined up with our real calendar, haha. i read about the characters worrying about the snow as our own weather was cold and snowy, and my brother was worrying about driving back over the mountain passes.

the guided analysis posts mention the themes of health and sickness in the book. this is something that is also impossible not to think about now. Emma’s father and sister have a lot of health anxiety and they spent a long time arguing about it, and those conversations hit way too close to home in the year 2021. their distress feels real and believable in a year where severe health anxiety has become commonplace out of necessity. when Harriet is sick and has to miss Christmas, i experienced extra worry for her before i reminded myself that it couldn’t be covid, because covid didn’t exist yet. not that there weren’t plenty of other common illnesses back then that could also kill you!

in any case, reading this has been a cool experience, and i’m really glad i tried it out. it’s very little time out of my day to follow along, and it’s a supremely cool way to experience the story. this probably won’t be the last time i post about it, but i wanted to get some of my thoughts so far written down before i forget them.

[en-theheights]

I’m a little late, but Andi Mack literally ended two years ago, and that is like the craziest thing ever.

i’m still super appreciative of this fandom and everything that as a collective whole we’ve been through. we’ve had plenty of ups and down, but i feel like we all came together to try and save this incredible story, and although we didn’t, it still just showed how much of an impact this show had on us that we reached the head of Disney Channel and Hulu (I know Hulu was SICK of us lol)

but with that being said..

I have more news that might shock everybody, but as a person that has just graduated high school and having a very present understanding of the way in which it kind of works, I would like to put out a shocking statement…

I believe that TJ and Cyrus are no longer together (and most likely Buffy and Marty as well).

Now, in a perfect fictional world, yes they probably would still be together, but what are the chances that a relationship started in middle school would continue to go on strong in high school?

By now, the Mack gang are all going to be Juniors in high school, so they’re bound to have found new friends, new clubs, new organizations, and new opportunities, which sometimes sadly comes with a growing distance between people.

Now let’s look closely at this. Granted, they actually started dating the summer before freshman year, but still, I stand by my statement that they’re not together. It’s kind of like Connor and Jude’s situation in The Fosters, they were the only two gay people they knew, and because of that, they were bound to end up together. but now, having expanded their horizon to new people, I think they would’ve started to grow apart little by little until they realized that they didn’t have very much in common, as well as the relationship starting to drift apart.

With TJ playing basketball, and Cyrus possibly joining a film club of some sort, they just start to not have as much time together. TJ’s friends are total opposites of Cyrus’ so trying to hang as a group was basically out of the question. while they had Buffy and Jonah, that was kind of it (I didn’t include Andi cause technically she’s at that art school and i’m talking about hanging at school).

let’s also look at this in a hypothetical way. If Andi Mack was to have been picked up for another season on Hulu, they probably would’ve started filming in September of 2019 (let’s also pretend that none of the actors were busy with other work) and they take a few moths to film, so it would’ve ended production possibly in January or February of 2020 (before the pandemic) and maybe had a few setback in post production cause of Covid, but still, season 4 comes out in like May or June of 2020. Hulu usually releases all episodes at once, so we would’ve gotten to watch all however-many-episodes in a day or two. hooray, it did really good and we’re getting another season. Now, because we are face-plant in the middle of a pandemic, the show would probably be delayed for a good few month and not start production until let’s say October or November of 2020. they finish in March or April due to some more difficulties, but the new season would probably be airing soon, about August or September of this year. Knowing Andi Mack, they’re going to have to have some type of plot that’s going to come in between Tyrus, whether that be another person, or what I was talking about. There’s no way that Tyrus is just this rainbow-sunshine-happy couple that haven’t had any hardships and a possible break up at this point.

I’m betting that the breakup either happened somewhere in the midst of Sophmore year or the summer before junior year, but i’m going with the first option. I don’t think the breakup would’ve been bad, in fact, I think they would’ve both agreed that them breaking up was for the best. Now, usually exes don’t stay friends, but i’ll leave them as that since this is a children’s show we’re talking about. I think both of them would’ve moved on eventually, Cyrus probably dating some nerdy techie guy and TJ might be dating some closeted athlete (sorry but this is high school we’re talking about, and lowkey TJ might be closeted too seeing as he’s playing a very toxic masculine sport. Only the ones super close to him knew about his relationship with Cyrus)

same goes for Buffy and Marty. They already had their many ups and downs before they even started dating, and they would’ve a hundred percent broken up.

I also thing that the Mack gang wouldn’t be close anymore like they use to and they most definitely don’t hang out like the use to, but i’ll save that for another post haha.

That’s just sadly the real world, and for somebody who started with a whole ass group of friends at the beginning of high school to now really only having one close friend, I can for sure say that nothing stays the same from middle school. (i’m sure there are some friend groups from MS out there that are still friends, but it’s probably REALLY rare).

lol, hope y’all liked my TED talk.

[mylyricpages]

INTERVIEW WITH JEFF SCOTT # 8 ( 2023 )

“After twenty years I keep thinking what else is there left to write about, but to my constant surprise life keeps providing inspiration.”

Barely a year after ‘On The Outside Looking In’ James Ellis is releasing not just one but two new lyric collections. “I had my doubts if I’d even do a collection this year,” he tells Jeff Scott, “but I ended up with more stuff than I knew what to do with.”

IT’S AN UNUSUALLY hot morning in early September, the nation basking in an unexpected heat wave after weeks of unsettled weather. Mercifully though, there’s a cool breeze bringing some slight relief. Caswell Bay, Swansea is brimming with activity, families filling up the beach, dipping in the sea, and across the way car after car arrives in a constant stream. We got here early. We’re sat outside the Surfside Café, queues are building at the nearby ice cream parlour and there’s already bustling going on at the local surf school hut.

I’m sat with here James Ellis, who’s picked this splendid piece of the Gower coast to talk about his two new lyric collections. Yes, that’s two, the first time he’s written more than one in the same year since 2013. “It caught me by surprise,“ he says. As you probably know by this point we’ve done this a fair few times before. You know the story, he finishes a new project, I interview him. It’s worked pretty well since 2012. We’ve talked life, music, his books, his comics, we’ve even collaborated on two volumes of his memoirs, but today, it’s the lyrics again.

It’s been a busy time for both of us lately and unlike our usual meet ups our time today is short. So quickly we get down to business, him with his coke zero, me with a fresh brew. We’ve agreed to dive pretty much straight into the songs albeit this time around we’re doing things a little differently and discussing them in the order they were written.

We begin with the 15 ‘songs’ on the first collection ’We Are Ascending.’

‘DEAR LIFE’

This was the first thing I wrote at the tail end of spring, pretty much in the last days of May. It was written alongside a very early version of ‘Twilight’s Last Stand,’ which was far longer and called ‘Shadowlands’ then.

For this collection I originally had a bunch of lyrical themes I wanted to explore but once ’Dear Life’ was done that idea didn’t work for me anymore.

I guess I felt like I’d explored that way of doing things well enough with ‘On The Outside Looking In’ and going forward I decided I’d let whatever was going to come out just come out and get the hell out of its way.

It’s basically about me writing a letter to life and asking a few questions.

‘BROKEN TEETH’

If anything represents the themes of ‘We Are Ascending’ I think it’s this. What I realised in writing ‘Dear Life’ is that this collection was going to be more about how I see the world, about what’s going on around me, rather than what’s going on inside me. ‘On The Outside …’ was very much an introspective thing and I realised while writing ‘Dear Life’ that I wanted to get away from that way of doing it for a bit. From that point it became very much about the times we’re living in. Once I figured that out I knew I had something I could explore.

I’ve had the first verse since the early part of the ‘Electric Hymns’ sessions, I’ve just struggled to find a good place for it until I realised it was actually an opening verse. Once I figured that out the rest just flowed. It’s pretty much about our current digital age and social media.

‘WE BREATHE/ WE BREATHE ( REPRISE )’

It started out as one song as these things often do, but when I got around to typing it up proper it seemed too long. I liked everything in it though. It had a significant middle section which was what I basically pulled out for the reprise but there were still a few verses that didn’t make it. As it turned out I liked the way having a reprise gave a little more cohesion to the collection, with things echoing a bit.

Both parts are about our relationship with the world around us, how we relate to it in both good and bad ways. They’re about the current not so good path we seem to be on but I made sure it had some hope too.

‘GHOST OF A TOWN’

Written about my hometown. Much I love it, there’s no getting around the fact that it’s become a ruin of its former self. Empty shops, half empty streets, buildings falling apart, it just has a general sense of neglect. It’s not a shit hole by any means, not yet, but it feels like it’s at a point where it could certainly go that way. It’s been one bad local authority decision after another for decades since I was young.

It’s a place with a rich history. It was a brilliant, thriving market town when I was growing up but for reasons I’ll never fathom anything that made it unique or historically interesting has been taken away and its soul has been eroded. I just wanted to capture the feeling I get when I go there now. It’s not a ghost town but there’s a sense of it you can’t deny. People are fighting to keep it alive and I admire that too.

The title popped into my head one day when I was walking through the streets and it kind of perfectly summed up how I felt in that moment.

‘INTERMISSION # 1 & #2’

I wanted two really short pieces, something I hadn’t done for a while. I think the words have a kind of music hall feel to them but I’m no expert on that so I could be wrong. Early on I considered splitting the collection into three parts. When that idea later solidified I thought it might be nice to have these little intermissions, maybe just a verse, to end acts 1 and 2. I basically used the template for Intermission # 1 to write # 2 as I wanted them to be companion pieces.

‘MINISTRY OF LIGHT’

This came out of Intermission # 1 as I was figuring out how that was going to go. There was a bunch of lyrics that didn’t sit right in it but I quite liked and I was pretty sure I could still do something with them.

I have to be honest here and say I’m still not sure what this song is about. I know I wanted to write something that was a kind of hopeful thing, a mantra of sorts, about shining a light on things instead of throwing shadow over them, about veering more to the positive side of things. I wanted a kind of communal feeling to it. I’m not sure I captured what I was after but it‘s still got stuff in it I really like.

‘KING WITHOUT A CROWN’

King Without A crown started out very differently. It sprang from a random few lines I wrote down which went something like ‘You lived your life/ you lived your life so well/ you were a king without a crown.’ It was originally about someone I knew, someone who died suddenly and died far too young, but it wasn’t working, not like I’d hoped it would anyway, and as I rewrote, it became much more of a universal thing. Who knows, I may still get to use those lines one day.

‘A SYMPATHETIC SOUND’

Some of the verses are from the original version of ‘We Are Ascending,’ which I wrote around the same time as ‘Dear Life’ and the original version of ‘Twilight’s Last Stand,’ and quite frankly that version didn’t work. I liked the verses so I kept them until I found a suitable place.

It’s about the daily struggle we all go through in our lives but also about that sense we always feel that things will somehow get better, that sense of hope that we’ll always turn a corner toward something better.

‘WE ARE ASCENDING’

This updated version came directly out of writing ‘A Sympathetic Sound.’ On revisiting the original version of this I realised, in a real light bulb moment, how I could get to the version I’d been trying to write in the first place. Once I’d figured that out the rest of just flowed.

The theme of it came out of ‘A Sympathetic Sound’ too. In a way it feels they’re two halves of the same thing. They’re about the same thing.

‘A NATIONAL ADDRESS’

A bit of a tricky one this. I had no idea how I felt about organised religion or the Church itself until the words hit the page. I have to admit I debated with myself about putting this out into world as I don’t want to offend anyone. Faith is one thing, everyone has faith in something, friends, family, God, we’re spiritual beings at heart, but when a group starts dictating to people how they should live their lives, embrace something they don’t believe in, that’s where I draw a line.

I’m not attacking anyone’s belief system, just how it’s corrupted by certain elements of certain institutions to further their own agenda. It was surprising how fast and how easily it all came together to be honest.

‘ALCHEMY’

Now this came easily and nearly fully formed, unexpectedly so and it’s always nice when that happens as mostly it can be like pulling teeth.

The chorus came first, then a few days later the verses. I already had the ‘beauty in the tragic’ part and that just slotted in really nicely as if it belonged. It’s about how we remember those who’ve gone, about how we deal with that and how we keep their memory alive, for them and us.

‘SWIMMING NOT TO DROWN’

Written in bits and pieces over about a week. It didn’t exactly come in order either, nothing was where I felt it should be and it took a few more days once I had those bits and pieces to figure out how it all fitted.

It was only on putting the finishing touches to it that I realised what it was about. As with a fair few songs in the sessions for ‘We Are Ascending’ it’s about having hope in things, that whatever’s getting us down we’ll get through it by helping ourselves and helping each other.

‘THE CLASS OF 23’

There was going to be a completely different song in the position this takes up in the collection but my nephew was just finishing up in secondary school for good, which of course, is a big moment in his life.

I wanted to mark that somehow and the words just came tumbling out in a few hours. It’s certainly the song that took the least time on this collection, but it felt fully formed as soon as I put the words down.

*

[mcyt-transcribed]

transcript of “where I've been”

TW for discussion of cancer and Covid-19

 Here’s the Google Doc link or you can click on the read more.

Techno: Yo, Technoblade here with another upload, oh my God I can’t believe it. We’re back, we’re playing Bedwars, uh, I don’t know why I said that in the present tense because I actually recorded these Bedwars games a few days ago. I have- I’ve played like, almost no Bedwars since the win streak, which was like, I dunno, years ago - so, you know, forgive me if I’m a little rusty. These are literally just the first three games of Bedwars I played, recorded them, and then just threw them in this background footage because, you know, I like live commentaries a lot, but I feel like sometimes, when you have a topic to talk about, having to play a video game simultaneously can sorta- it can sorta detract from the commentary, you know?

But before that: a plushie commercial filmed on my iPhone.

We got the first one - it’s Technoblade. He’s in a flying pose. He’s flying to save some civilians or he’s falling flat on his face. Depends on who you ask. Alright. We got the- We got Technoblade. He’s sitting down. He’s- He’s seated. He’s seated. It’s incredibly exciting. Uh, we got- we got Technoblade but he’s- he’s a giant- he’s a gigantic pillow. It���s Technopillow. This is actually- This is actually really- This is really soft. You’re gonna have to take my word for it.

These plushies go on sale on September 3rd at 3 PM EST at youtooz.com. The last ones sold out in around eight hours, so be prepared. I mean, one of them was like, two minutes but ehhh, it’s not happening again.

So where has Technoblade been? I know I’ve been gone since like, June. I was actually being really productive in July, which I know you guys are gonna- You’re not gonna believe me when I say that because I made no content. But I was! I was, you gotta believe me, okay? I was getting so much work done IRL; I was like, filling out paperwork, making business moves, working on merchandise, buying new equipment to make new videos. ‘Cause I really wanted- I really wanted to increase the rate at which I was making videos, ‘cause I kinda spent- You know, I kinda spent like, all this time becoming a famous YouTube and then instantly like, stopped uploading. Which, I mean, to be fair, I guess that started more in like 2018. So, that’s more just a pattern now.

 But I figured, you know, this whole thing where I go two- you know, one or two months without uploading- I don’t want that to be me, man. I wanna be uploading at least once per week. So I spent a lot of time preparing to do that. And the plan was that I would start doing that in August, but I took a- It didn’t- It’s, uh- It’s not going great, I’m not going to lie to you.

So in the last two days of July I noticed that my right arm was starting to hurt a decent amount and I thought- My best guess was that it was some kind of repetitive stress injury, ‘cause you know I’ve been playing video games since the age of like, five. It’s pretty much nonstop. I was gonna get carpal tunnel at some point but, uh, I took a few days to rest my arm and it really didn’t… really didn’t feel any better after that. And so after a few days of that, I looked at myself in the mirror and I noticed that my right shoulder was starting to swell like crazy and I was like, “Oh my God! I must’ve broken a bone, this is-” I mean, this- It looked- it looked crazy.

So, you know, the next day - August 2nd - I, uh, headed over to the doctor to see what was wrong and uh, they ran a couple of scans and then they came back and they told me that, uh, the reason my arm hurts is because I have cancer.

That really couldn’t have gone worse, I don’t think. I feel a bit silly talking about this with, uh, Minecraft in the background; it feels a bit out of place. But I’m a Minecraft YouTuber - I don’t- I don’t do a face cam. Which is I guess how most people would talk about serious things, with a face cam. I also probably, uh- *chuckles* Also probably a bit weird to plug my merchandise in the- in the same video, like, “Hey, guys, I have a- I have a terrible disease, also buy my plushies, bro.” But uh- *laughs* Listen: I’ve been waiting so many months to sell those plushies, bro. And it keeps getting delayed and now cancer thinks it can stop me. No no no no no. I’m trying to make some bank, bro. I wanna get paid, also they look fantastic, I mean just look at them, they look incredible. Alright?

I mean, I guess it would be ideal to like, split up the announcements, but I’m going back into chemotherapy next week; I don’t got time for this, man. We gotta go!

To be fair, I could make this a lot weirder; I could have like, the thumbnail be a giant red arrow pointing to my tumor with the caption “Might die! Not clickbait!” *laughs* Yeah, just the ultimate- the ultimate YouTuber, bro. We’re clickbaiting the whole process.

So after the scans come in, I get transferred to another hospital which has an oncology award, so it’s a lot more specialized towards what I need. And I’m sorta like sitting there in the bed for a couple of days like, “Hello. Could I please get some healthcare? Could I- Could I just get a- Could I just get a crumb of healthcare? Please! Like, I *stutters* I wanna see people sprinting, you know? I feel like I want to see some urgency, you know? If you guys gotta- *stammers* You know, there’s like, this tumor on my arm - if you guys could just- if you guys could just get rid of it. Just get rid of it right now! Could we just go? If you gotta cut off my arm, cut off my arm, bro - do what you gotta do. I won’t complain, man, I’ve won enough Minecraft tournaments. I’ll just play Minecraft with my feet from here on out, bro. I’ll still be B tier at least, okay? It’s fine. Do what you gotta do.”

But then the doctors are telling me, “Oh, well, we can’t- we can’t do it immediately. We gotta- We gotta find out what it is, we gotta run some tests, do a biopsy.” I’m like, “Okay, do the biopsy.” Like, “Oh, well first we gotta do some scans.” I’m like, “Alright, dude, the scans.” And so it took a couple of days and then they did a biopsy, uh, three days later. And then I was like, “Alright. Let’s go!” And they were like, “Oh, well, the biopsy is gonna take like, a week or more to get back.” And I’m just sitting here like, “Bruh, please. Please, just treat me.”

I mean, it makes sense. It makes a lot of sense and I’m sure they know what they’re doing, but I’m just sitting there in the hospital like, “Please. Please, healthcare.” So they get the biopsy and they send me home and they’re saying like, I’ll come back in like a week or so when they have a treatment plan prepared, and so I- It was a very fun week at home ‘cause I was sitting there still not getting treated and I was just like, looking at my tumor like, “Alright, Mr. Tumor. You know, you need me to survive so it’s in your best interest to just- to just chill out for a little bit, you know? We don’t wanna go too crazy.”

And faintly- Faintly if you strain your ears, underneath my skin you can hear:

[Dream’s speedrun music plays for a few seconds]

Techno: Yeah, it was a really fun week. But I did finally get started on chemotherapy, which is a wonderful process. Let me explain chemotherapy. So basically uh, you know how society has progressed for thousands of years of technological and medical innovation? So basically, one of the top three ways we have to fight cancer is uh, for you to go to the hospital and then they uh, plug you into a machine and then they inject poison directly into your veins for several days. That’s uh, that’s one of the best ways we’ve got of going about this and the poison- it’s supposed to kill the cancer - it uh, also kills things like, you know, blood. But ehhh, does anybody really need blood? I feel like it’s pretty optional, you know? Uh- *small laugh* Blood for the Blood God as it were, alright? Uh, I’ll take what I can get.

I, uh, you know, I used to have a channel meme- ‘cause back in the day- you know how my motivation always goes up and down in, like, cycles? I used to have a meme where whenever I’d get super motivated I’d, ya know, I’d start uploading, like crazy. I’d also do things like get a haircut. And, so, I joked that, uh, the less hair I had, the more I’d upload. ‘Cause that’s- the hair was holding me back. And so, if that’s still true, I gotta say, chemotherapy, that’s gotta be daily uploads or something, bro. *laughs* It’s gonna be- Chemotherapy Arc is gonna be fantastic for content.

Well, ya know, after I got diagnosed, I, uh, I’ve been making a lot of phone calls- ya know, informing all of my distant family members about the situation- and, I gotta say, of all the phone calls I’ve made, nobody took the news worse than my health insurance provider. They’ve been inconsolable for weeks. They were like, “You got what!? No!” 

I mean, I had no idea they cared so much. They’ve just- oh my God. I- I think they’re the real victims of this. I mean, could you imagine? Could you imagine? Like, look at me! I was a healthy twenty-two year old, I, like, barely went to the doctor, even for, like, regular appointments. I- I guess I went to the dentist, that’s the one thing I did. I was the freest paycheck they’ve ever seen in their lives. They could’ve been milking money off of me for decades. And then, bam, cancer, bro. *laughs* Oh, those poor guys. 

Uh, the one- the one favor I- I do wanna ask- If you guys could all do one small favor for Technoblade- uh, you know that coronavirus thing you been hearing in the news for the last couple of years? Uh, I want you guys to get rid of it. Just, uh, I want it gone. Just a couple days should be sufficient for you guys to do that.

No, but, seriously. I’m kind of, uh, immunocompromised right now, which means, uh, if a bacteria touches me or, like, a virus touches me, I will explode. So, yeah, uh, I wanna- get the vaccine, is what I’m saying.

I’m gonna get cancelled by the anti-vaxxers for saying it, but it’s such a good vaccine, bro. Pfizer got full FDA approval, this week, for people aged sixteen and up. I think you- you can also get it if you’re eleven to fifteen if you’ve got emergency approval or whatever. Uh, I mean, if you have any concerns, don’t listen to a Minecraft YouTuber, but, please, at least talk to a doctor. Because it’s- it’s so good bro. It’s so good.

The hospitals are currently getting flooded by unvaccinated people. I’m gonna go ahead and speak on behalf of all cancer patients when I say that it is incredibly annoying when the- when the hospitals are getting overworked by people dying of preventable diseases. I’m just saying- we got dibs on those hospital beds. So, ya know, you- you probably don’t- you don’t even want them really. You don’t even want to need them. So, I think the vaccine… what is it? It, like, reduces the chances of you needing hospitalization from Covid by, like, ninety-six percent? I mean, it’s so effective, bro! Come on! I mean, you might still get, like… I mean, you could still catch coronavirus, but, like, the symptoms are gonna be so much milder, bro, I’m just saying. Think about it. Think about it. Talk to a doctor.

I remember when I first went in for chemotherapy, A: I was thrilled, ‘cause, like, yo! Healthcare! Inject it into my veins, bro! Let’s go! But, also, like, the first couple of days were actually pretty chill. I was like, ‘Dang! This is easy, bro!’. And then it kicked in. And then it kicked in. My energy levels were zero; they were absolutely nothing. It’s hard to describe how tired I was, but I think my one example is- so they let me go back home. And after several days of resting, I had a virtual appointment with a doctor. And, so, they were, like, ‘Alright’. And I was just sitting there, like, ‘Wait a second. You guys want me to sit upright in a chair for an hour? What is this, the Olympics, bro? I’m going back to bed! What? What?’ *laughs* ‘Wha? Let’s calm down here. Sitting in a chair? Am I Superman? Like, come one, bro.’

As you can probably tell, I’m feeling a lot better right now. Which is, uh, I think that’s part of the process, is, uh, you get a little bit of recovery time to, uh, ya know, eat a lot of really good food- get the weight back- and get ready for the next round.

And, uh, before we go back for the next round, I’m gonna be playing a lot of video games, uh, making some content, seeing if I can get some more videos prepared, because, uh- I know people are gonna be like, ‘No! Technoblade! You don’t need to make videos for us! Please rest!’

Nah, this isn’t about you, bro. This is about me. I enjoy this, man. This is, like, one of the safest and most fun things I could be doing right now, bro, I’m gonna do it. I don’t know how much content I could make, ‘cause I’m kinda slow, but we’ll see. We’ll see.

I already have a video prepared for next week, uh, September third. You guys are gonna love it. It’s, uh, it was actually- it’s kind of, kind of an old video. It was, uh, from a few months ago, but it’s very good. So, yeah! You guys have that to look forward to. 

And, for the record, I know I’ve been complaining a lot in this video, but I just wanna clarify that the doctors I have are, like, insanely good, bro. I’m gonna be getting some of the finest healthcare in the world, so don’t worry about me too much.

I think the treatment has already started to show some results. I- I mean, it’s been so short of a time, so the results aren’t gonna be insane or anything, but, at the very least, the speedrun music has stopped playing. 

So, yeah, that’s where I’ve been and that’s what I’m gonna be doing for the foreseeable future. Wish me luck, and, uh, wear a mask, I guess. Ya know, standard coronavirus procedures. All that coronavirus stuff and like, getting vaccinated - that goes double for Californians, okay? But it helps everywhere.

Uh, that’s all I’ve got for today. See you guys next time!

[ayuuria]

Yashahime Translation: NewType Magazine October 2020 Issue

Please do not repost this translation without my consent! This includes screenshots of any type and amount. If you wish to share this translation, simply link to this post.

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This is an old article that was published back in September of 2020, before Yashahime began airing so please keep that in mind as you read this.

REBOOOOOT!! The Challenge for the Next Generation

The Half-Demon Girls Who Fight in the Modern and Feudal Eras

“Inuyasha” is an original story by Takahashi Rumiko that was adapted into an anime in 2000 and became a worldwide hit. The story of the fierce battle with the demon, Naraku, centering around the “Shikon Jewel” said to grant any wish, was put to an end by Inuyasha and Sesshōmaru with the assistance of Kagome and others. After the battle ended, Inuyasha and Kagome married and with the conclusion that they were starting a new life, the curtains on the story drew to a close.

10 years have passed since then. Now entering the Reiwa era, production on a new story about the daughters of Inuyasha and Sesshōmaru entitled “Hanyō no Yashahime” has begun. Production of the anime is being done by Sunrise, who also produced the Inuyasha series. Satō Teruo, who was the assistant director in “Inuyasha The Final Act”, will be taking on the role of director. With series composition being done by Sumisawa Katsuyuki, animation character design by Hishinuma Yoshihito, and Wada Kaoru overseeing the music, the “Inuyasha” staff have gathered once again. The perfect production set-up as been put together with Takahashi Rumiko herself drawing the main character design.

“Hanyō no Yashahime” is an original story by Sumisawa. The protagonists are three girls. Towa and Setsuna are twin sisters and Sesshōmaru is their father. Moroha is the daughter of Inuyasha and Kagome, but she has lived alone since childhood, so she does not have any memories of her parents for the most part. Looked down upon by demons and shunned by humans, what will the girls, who are “half-demons”, battle and what sort of future will they strive for? We had producer Naka Toshikazu and animation character designer Hishinuma Yoshihito, talk about the composition of the plan and their feelings on the production.

The New Charms Coming from the Girls

Higurashi Towa A half-demon girl who has Sesshōmaru’s blood and is extremely skilled in martial arts (possibly inherited from her father). In order to take back her younger twin sister, Setsuna’s, “sleep”, she decides to return to the feudal era.

Towa wears a uniform with slacks, but one can tell she is a girl by her body line and facial expressions. The white hair she inherited from her father, Sesshōmaru, and the red streak in her hair are characteristic.

Setsuna Sesshōmaru’s daughter. She makes a living as a demon slayer. Having had her sleep stolen by the Dream Butterfly, she does not have any memories of her childhood and has forgotten her elder twin sister, Towa.

Setsuna is calm and collected. One can sense that personality from her cool expression as well. She wears a white fur just like her father, Sesshōmaru.

Moroha Wielder of the demon sword, Kurikaramaru, and known as “the monster killing Moroha”. A bounty hunter who specializes in slaying demons. Inuyasha and Kagome’s quarter-demon daughter.

Moroha, who’s characteristic black hair is similar to Kagome’s, wears a big ribbon on her head that is like Inuyasha’s ears. Her mischievous facial expression vaguely feels like her father’s.

[There are bios on their weapons as well, but it’s information that’s already known so I’m skipping it]

It Started with Wanting to do “Inuyasha” Again

— Where did the plan for “Hanyō no Yashahime” stem from?

Naka: Even after production for “Inuyasha The Final Act” ended, the staff and cast headed by producer Suwa (Michihiko) (associated with Yomiuri TV at the time) gathered and continued to go on once a year trips with Rumiko-sensei. There, Suwa-san said, “I want to do an “Inuyasha” TV anime again.” and it seems that was the start. Then the conversation went to if it’s a story about the second generation, we can make it an original story. Sumisawa-san came up with a number of different story concepts and proposed them to Rumiko-sensei. After much back and forth, it was ultimately decided that the daughters of Sesshōmaru would be the protagonists of the story. The anime adaption basically began to proceed immediately after that.

— What do you think is the secret to “Inuyasha”’s popularity?

Naka: It boasted top class popularity not only in Japan but also on major American streaming service, Hulu, and its popularity overseas was very high. This means that the content (of the story) is strong. During a time when Sumisawa-san wasn’t making a concrete move, a fan at an overseas event that he attended said, “I would love for you to make another “Inuyasha” anime.” and he said that that has been one of his driving forces. Currently, it has been streamed and broadcasted in over 30 countries, so in a broad sense, it’s a title that can be dispatched worldwide.

Hishinuma: The setting is the feudal era, but it doesn’t follow true history. In the end, slaying demons is the main (focus), so you can enjoy without having any knowledge. There, it has Rumiko-sensei’s serious drama with the periodic love story and comedy mixed in. That gap is what I think makes it fun. Most likely, the number one reason why there were so many young (children) fans was because the story was easy to watch and understand.

— Regarding the production of “Hanyō no Yashahime”, what points of the previous work were you conscious of?

Naka: Putting together components that were different from the “Inuyasha” charm in every sense. In the previous work, it was a story about a son surpassing his greater demon father. If Inuyasha’s son was the main character and the parents made appearances, the parents would take all the juicy parts. No matter how hard the son tries, he could never surpass his parents. Hence, when we were told that the protagonist would be Sesshōmaru’s daughter, I myself was able to accept it without issue. Moreover, I felt that that would be more fun. It’s easy to imagine what Inuyasha and Kagome’s child would be like, but you could say Sesshōmaru’s children, twins no less, stir up the imagination. Rather than following the structure and story of “Inuyasha” as it was, we thought we could create a work that those who watched the original story could easily accept.

— What sort of meaning is behind the strong impacting catch phrase “Sesshōmaru has a daughter” shown in the teaser?

Naka: I think the appeal of “Inuyasha” is the love triangle between Inuyasha, Kikyō, and Kagome, as well as Sesshōmaru being very cool. That being said, it’s no use tracing the same love triangle structure. Thus, by hitting the spot of sisters Towa and Setsuna being separated, there’s a prominent difference between the previous work, and above all, it would grab the interest of fans who wanted a new work. We’ve remodeled the setting and story, but from a picture and production perspective, it has inherited the comedic feel and screen tempo of a Rumic work.

— Hishinuma-san, what did you think when you saw the drafts that Rumiko-sensei drew?

Hishinuma: I instinctively thought if the lineup was these three, then something fun could be created. Rumiko-sensei advised me not to be too conscious of the “parent” when designing the character’s facial expressions and movements. If these kids were around 20 years old, they would’ve had aspects similar to their parents, but they are simply 14-year-old girls. As I drew, I thought about what these 14-year-old girls, who are a little than what Kagome was back then, would think about as they lived their lives.

— In what way did you make revisions using the draft as a base?

Hishinuma: Setsuna and Moroha, who live in the feudal era, were just like the draft I received, but for Towa, who lives in the modern era, I had to redo her hairstyle a little bit. She has short hair so thinking about how she moves, I did things like adjust the placement of the highlight (in her hair) and add a few details to her uniform. Also, she wears male clothing so in a sense, I tend to draw her roughly, but I consciously make sure that the look in her eyes and her actions are that of a girl.

— What did you enjoy during the character designing process?

Hishinuma: Coming up with the grown-up versions of characters that appeared in the previous work like Kohaku, Kagome’s younger brother Sōta, and Miroku and Sango’s son Hisui, was a lot of fun. Kohaku is set as the head of the demon slayers, so I imagined he built up a lot of experience and matured into an adult. However, he may have let his guard down which could be the reason behind the scar (on his face). I imagined those kinds of things as I drew.

Naka: We’ve put in many different components that both new and old fans can enjoy, so it would make us happy if you could look forward to the broadcasting.

To Fans! Two Points!

It is OK If You Don’t Know the History

The story itself is created in a way that one can enjoy it without having any knowledge of “Inuyasha”. In addition, Naka stated “You don’t need to have any knowledge on the feudal era, so please enjoy it leisurely.” Towa and the others who run around between 2 eras; the expectation of the three girls’ activities heightens!

Pay Attention to the Characters Aside from the Main Ones As Well

Other characters like Miroku and Sango’s son, Hisui, as well as others connected to “Inuyasha” will make an appearance. In addition, there will be designs aside from the main characters that will make one go “They look similar to someone from that work” …? Enjoy Rumiko’s work in every nook and cranny of the screen!