#which is part of my frustration I think

[vstheworld]

we hired just an absolute idle bouncing DVD menu of a guy. a real orange cat vibe. if you don’t give him specific instructions on what he should be doing he just. stands there like a sim.

yet we make the same exact pay! I love capitalism.

[starry-bi-sky]

yall ever think Shen Yuan went through like, internet withdrawal after being transmigrated into Shen Qingqiu? Like, he's canonically a NEET shut-in who did nothing but spend his time online, you can't tell me that for the first week or first few weeks of being SQQ he wasn't twitchy.

Like, reaching instinctively to his pockets for a phone that wasn't there, having an obsessive itch in the back of his mind that he should check and see if X or Y novel or webcomic has updated -- only to realize he can't anymore and being irritated by it. Wanting to go and see if there's new posts about this or that, but again realizing that he can't.

When he's bored or uncomfortable or just feels like wanting to escape he tries to go for his phone to distract himself, but oops! Not there anymore, and now he has to find a new and different way to distract himself from his feelings. And going through system notifications, quests, etc only does so much.

And there's that Tetris Effect too. SQQ makes a mistake while writing and instinctively goes to backspace on it except hey-ho that's not a keyboard and now he just dipped his pinkie into a bottle of ink or on a still-drying letter.

With him scrambling to fix his reputation and learn how to be a peak lord, I think his abrupt cold-turkey from all things internet would just be another straw on the camel's back that he promptly Ignores until it goes away on its own after he acclimates to his new surroundings.

[lunaryhues]

Me: "Can I please use all this energy to draw on an actual project"

My brain: "You will draw the same character over and over and you will like it."

Me: "Okay."

[rainbowresurrection]

Kinda got a love/hate relationship with the history of K/S because it's like. Can I please have a queer discussion about this 1960s television show without it being reduced to "shipper discourse". I thought Spock and Kirk were homo long before I knew that their characters spawned a fanfiction counterculture. The bisexual dude who wrote the episode that really kick-started the movement didn't know it was going to coalesce into the fan phenomenon that it did, he was just writing what he knew how to write best: the repression of burning male desire, and two dudes doing homoerotic shit. Can I just talk about the repressed burning male desire please, and the implications of a gay angle to Kirk and Spock's story, without it being referred to as shipper discourse. Can I do that. Does this make sense

[accursedvoid]

[hephaestuscrew]

I'm not the first person to say this, but there really is something groundbreaking about the lack of romantic plotlines in Wolf 359.

Wolf 359 is a story aimed at and about adults. It's partly about what it means to be human. It's partly about how we exist in relation to other people. It's partly about interpersonal connection and understanding. It has character relationships at its heart. It features so many moments of love and care between characters. It takes place across just over two years of the characters' lives, with 61 episodes and a main cast that grows to a decent size.

And despite all this, the show doesn't feature a single canonical 'on-screen' romantic (or sexual) relationship. Perhaps that shouldn't be as rare as it is, but it's one of the many things that makes Wolf 359 special to me.

[wonder-worker]

"[Elizabeth Woodville] was the only member of [Crown Prince Edward of Westminster's] original 1471 council not already on the king’s council and her name headed the list of those appointed as administrators in Wales during Edward’s minority. [She remained on the council after it was expanded in 1473 and granted significant new governing and judicial powers]."

"In 1478 Prince Richard [of Shrewsbury] married the Mowbray heiress. Like his elder brother he had a chancellor, seal, household and council to manage his estates. His council, like that of Prince Edward, comprised the queen [Elizabeth Woodville] and a group of magnates and bishops, few of whom were Woodville supporters [...] It was Elizabeth who mattered, for Richard resided with her and Rivers treated his affairs as their own."

-J.L. Laynesmith, The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445-1503 / Michael Hicks, Richard III and his Rivals: Magnates and their Motives in the Wars of the Roses

[chatdae]

love how the older skaters in the senior division give Yurio encouragement and that each time it pisses Yurio off. JJ is intentionally condescending so that makes sense, but with Viktor and Yuuri they're not even being condescending. Yurio's just dialed in on being a hater... and i love that for him <3

[cosettegf]

i love the penumbra podcast and i love second citadel and i really enjoyed listening to the finale but i feel. weird about the way this show treats its female characters???

[batfossil-fr]

I’ve been really thinking of reopening my art shop soon… I’ve been taking some practice doodles (hence all the posting lately) while I shake off my rust and I’m finding things I enjoy working on again. I miss trying my hand at more dragons/OCs and colors. my shop’s so broken rn lmao but that’s a problem for a later date it’s just nice getting back into art

[uncanny-tranny]

Sometimes, it's really frustrating when people say that trans men (and transmasculine or otherwise) don't know what it's like to be treated as predatory because we're "treated like women who need to be saved."

I don't think I have ever been treated like anything other than a potential predator because I am a trans man, you know? I see it in the way I am treated like a contagion, like something that must be eradicated in order to protect the interests of others. You see it in the way that "masculinizing" transition is demonized - the idea that testosterone makes you a roid monster, that we're ruining any chances of being an incubator.

I just think it's insensitive that people assume what trans experience entails, you know? I think it's insensitive when people talk over other people's experiences with transphobia... are some trans men or otherwise transmasculine people sometimes treated like damsels to be rescued? Yes, and I've seen it firsthand. But that isn't the only way we can face transphobia, and to act like that is the only "real experience" we have of transphobia is missing the point.

[lucabyte]

I am literally obsessed with everything you do that involves sifloop you are THE sifloop artist to me

thank you!!! it means a lot to hear that haha

I've been like... near exclusively an OC artist for like 8 years at this point so every time i post fanart and ESPECIALLY ship art i feel like i have to fight every screaming cell in my body to post it because i feel like... RUDE? for projecting my own thoughts onto another creator's characters LMAO... so it's reassuring to know people actually like what i'm contributing!!

as for sifloop as a ship. i really should draw more isiloops because . rotates all three of them in my mind. but yeah. I think the thing I like most about the dynamic really is the like... way Siffrin and Loop canonically aggress each other despite an extremely persistent undercurrent of caring about the other not suffering.

Like. the back and forth between Loop constantly talking past/through Siffrin to really painfully insult the pair of them, and things like the [Forgetting Mirabelle's Name] event being so astoundingly gentle. just as a general example. (RNG event that only triggers after certain actions so you may need to look it up)

THEN adding the element of throwing them in postcanon with neither of them wanting to upset the party and thus having to keep a lid on it... I like the potential dynamics of such a painful and conflicted relationship having to be almost hidden and downplayed so as to try and not worry anyone, and thus becoming softer and introspective while still keeping a bunch of the more insidiously toxic behaviour.

Both of them acting with genuine best intentions in mind but still understanding each other to have way *way* more sadness and anger and guilt than they let on, and thus being able to clock it. Both for good and ill. Neither of them enjoy confrontation, but it's almost unavoidable when they KNOW the other knows what they're probably thinking.

. but yeah i just think they're neat! also a bunch of stuff related to asexuality but . shh

[mellotronmkll]

Does anyone else get the thing of like you're already so obsessed with something that you're like it would probably be good if I was less obsessed with this / I need to shut up about this but at the same time you constantly find yourself thinking I have Got to get more obsessed with this. I have Got to get more obsessed

[radio-4-is-static]

毎日 | Kenshi Yonezu

あなただけ側にいてレイディー 焦げるまで組み合ってグルービー 日々共に生き尽くすには また永遠も半ばを過ぎるのに 駆けるだけ駆け出してブリージング 少しだけ祈ろうぜベイビー 転がるほどに願うなら 七色の魔法も使えるのに

///

Lady, just stay by my side Combine until we burn, groovy To live through each day together Even halfway through eternity Just keep running and breezing, baby Let's pray a little, baby If we wish enough as we roll We can even use a seven-colored magic

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[supercantaloupe]

okay don giovanni review from last night. under the cut bc it's me. tldr the vocal performances were great, leporello carried the show, one of the most insane productions i've seen thus far but somehow in a new bizarre direction from normal. good snacks.

first of all i don't care how much wine you offer i think it's kind of ridiculous to charge $165 for a base ticket price for a performance that 1. isn't even in a concert hall or theater 2. is a concert performance rather than a staged performance (which was not advertised ahead of time) and 3. was not even a full production because they made the absolutely mind boggling decision to cut 100% of the recitative and replace it with Some Guy sitting on the stage narrating the plot between every 1-3 numbers

i did not pay that much gd bless. the student ticket was way cheaper.

the narration wasn't even good it was weirdly ungenerous to the women (like how do you even make elvira out be a "women, amirite" thing and also vaguely imply anna was into it in a production with zero acting? well they figured something out) and i don't think it even explained well enough what happens between each number to truly give a first time watcher a good idea of what's actually going on. not to mention that it absolutely kills any sense of momentum in the plot and makes the entire show drag like hell, because you have to wait between every single aria for either Some Guy to talk at you for three minutes straight, or wait awkwardly while people onstage walk off and people offstage walk on. it was so painfully clunky

they had a piano up there but since there was no recit it's not like she was accompanying much of anything. in practice what it ended up being used for was 1. the mandolin part for deh vieni (acceptable in the absence of a mandolin player; they were working with a limited chamber ensemble of musicians so i get it) 2. the party music at the end of act i (egregious fault imo because it absolutely kills the vibe of the scene and completely obfuscates the way the music is supposed to be adding to the tension and chaos with its different instrumental groups playing in different meters)

and 3. used to give singers their notes when the vocal line of their arias start on beat 1 measure 1, which they otherwise would have been able to get from the preceding recits (which is imo painfully amateurish for an ostensibly professional production)

all the numbers in act i were there although the narration was so bad i got jumpscared by fin ch'han dal vino because i forgot it was supposed to be there and thought we had skipped over that point in the plot. act ii had some really bizarre additional cuts made, notably they just entirely skipped over meta di voi and vedrai carino. it was like masetto and zerlina fuck off for the entirety of act ii save for, like, mille torbidi (they VERY briefly mentioned masetto getting beat up in the narration and i don't think they mentioned vedrai carino at all, they just skipped straight from deh vieni to sola sola. and also there was a painful awkward pause before deh vieni because i think the pianist forgot she was supposed to play there and the narrator jumped ahead to the next chunk of plot explanation too early). kept both dalla and tesoro (i'm fine with this ottavio was quite good though could've used a bit of ornamentation imo), kept mi tradi, kept non mi dir (more on that in a bit). no per queste which is probably a good thing not only for the show itself but also my head would have absolutely and irreversibly exploded if they had, probably

the whole thing kind of felt underrehearsed. like a quarter of the time it seemed like people didn't know what they were doing or had to be reminded where to be at that point in the show. and there were a few moments throughout where the orchestra struggled to keep up with the singers, but i really don't think they had much time to rehearse together, honestly.

and then, to my utter shock, the finale was actually really good?? like. insane compared to the rest of the show thus far. though it helps that 1. i absolutely love the harmonieband arrangements of cosa rara/i litiganti/non piu andrai, after possibly the draggiest non mi dir i've yet experienced it was like a breath of fresh air to hear that (and non mi dir was actually well performed i liked this anna but considering how much the Entire Show was dragging, the fact that they cut meta di voi and vedrai carino, AND the fact that they promised this act would be short, it felt crazy to me to keep it at that point.)

2. leporello and the don were by far the best performers of the night. so much so that i sought them out during the post show reception to tell them how great they were and enjoyed their performance. which i usually do not do, but in this like, high school recital ass production value. unbelievable relief that the final scene is dominated by the two actors in the show who most remembered that they can, and in fact Should, be acting. so much more movement and physicality and expression from those two compared to most everyone else. leporello especially, his actor apparently specializes in comedic bass roles and it shows, he was the standout all night

and 3. for the first time in the entire production they made an interesting decision regarding the physical space and staging! they had the commendatore sing from up on a balcony overlooking the audience in the foyer. the bar admittedly was set very low in the previous act and a half but the finale reminded me that i actually like this show again which is appreciated

though they then threw another curveball at me by Cutting the sextet at the end. which like didn't even piss me off at that point i was just baffled. like the don sinks down in agony and leporello sinks down whimpering in fear and the orchestra cuts off. and i'm expecting an awkward pause while they quietly get up and shuffle off so the rest of the cast can come back but nope. big orange title slate appears on the big screen behind them and the audience breaks into a roaring applause and the announcement of the wine and dessert reception. felt like i was in a fever dream

i will say the desserts were very nearly almost worth the bullshit that was the preceding show. they were so good. thank you austria for your dedication to pastry. and because i don't drink and couldn't appreciate the free wine offered i had to indulge in my own manner. spread contained chocolate oat bites (tasted as much like espresso powder as chocolate and coated in coconut, 4/10), almond sponge cake (classic, 7/10), cardamom apple bread pudding with caramel cream (not enough cardamom but otherwise very tasty and autumnal, 8.5/10) and honey cake (11/10. i don't know how they made this so good. i want more right now so much). i take both my mozart opera and my desserts very seriously.

anyway overall the production was. i would say frustrating. the singing quality was Really Good (leporello was the clear standout, probably followed by the don though i prefer my dons with a lighter voice but technically he was very good, then probably ottavio, then maybe masetto or anna. the commendatore was great but he's in it so little it's hard to compare)

i just wish they could have, like, actually done a full production. it would have been so great if they had gotten to tell the actual story and had been fully allowed to act. when there Was acting were the best moments of the show, and it's really unsurprising that most of that came from leporello, the absolute legend.