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menhera-info-archieve · 9 months

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in case you haven't seen it yet, here's the menhera 101 article by HoshiCandy from Kei Club Issue 3. not sure if i'll post the other menhera related articles from this issue or not, so consider checking the link in source if you're interested.

i'm also leaving a text transcription under the cut for anyone that may benefit from that

Menhera 101

Menhera fashion has quickly been gaining popularity worldwide! This fast growth has come with its fair share of misunderstandings about the community and style. Menhera artist and designer HoshiCandy is here with a lesson on menhera’s origins, history, and basics. Find more of her work on the pages before and after this article!

What is Menhera?

“Menhera” can be thought of as “a person who seeks mental wellbeing”.

The word “Menhera” was born in Japan in 2001, on the “Mental Health” board of anonymous forum 2ch, where users discussed their wellbeing. The users of this board were named “Mental Healthers” which was shortened to “Menhera”.

The Menhera community covers anything that might cause one mental suffering, such as: physical illness or disability, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, bullying, hyper-sexuality, sexism, homophobia, etc. Importantly, there is no need for a formal diagnosis, as the focus is on how you feel, and that you want to feel better.

It is difficult to talk about these topics in Japanese society without being heavily stigmatized. Menhera is a community to speak safely without that stigma. Of course, this stigma and need for community when it comes to one’s mental wellbeing is not limited to Japan, and that is why menhera has grown in the west as well.

Since the creation of the word in 2001, there have been several manga published with “Menhera” in the title, many Visual Kei songs about it, Menhera idol groups, and several menhera fashion brands.

However, an unfortunate addition to all this has been the discovery of the word in mainstream media...

Just as the topic of illness is heavily stigmatized in Japanese society, the word “Menhera” itself became quickly stigmatized and stereotyped as “an attention seeking, troublesome person” or “an overly attached girlfriend” (aka “yandere”). If you were to speak to a Japanese person about “Menhera”, this would most likely be what they would think you meant. This stereotype tends to be referred to as “Menhera Kei” in Japanese which is why we avoid the use of “kei” for Menhera in particular.

Despite all this, the true menhera community has continued to grow.

Menhera Motifs

Artists in the Menhera community created many works of “Vent Art” art that expresses their feelings and suffering. When this art was printed onto clothing, Menhera fashion was born.

These are some themes you will commonly see in Menhera:

Medication

Suicide

Self-harm

Hospitals

Sex and BDSM

Social Media Addiction

Heartbreak

Wearing Menhera art printed on clothing serves as a way of literally wearing one’s feelings on one’s sleeves. It turns invisible suffering visible, and fights against the stigma driven silence. This means that Menhera fashion is highly confrontational, with graphic depictions of illness symptoms. Although the onlooker may feel discomfort, the Menhera style says “this is my true reality, don’t pretend it doesn’t exist!”

Depending on the feelings of the wearer, Menhera fashion also says “although I am sick, I can still be ‘kawaii’” or “although I appear ‘kawaii’, on the inside I am suffering”.

Turning the invisible visible, forcing the silence to be broken, and challenging kawaii culture, these are the goals of Menhera fashion.

The Menhera Silhouette

Carefully avoiding a highly theatrical or OTT (over-the-top) look is important for maintaining the integrity of the goals of menhera. Menhera is a very casual style, with few accessories and light makeup. The key is for a coord to centre on Menhera imagery, whether vent art or text-focused designs, printed onto clothing.

Be careful not to dress up as the characters depicted in vent art, who are often costumey, gory, and OTT.

Menhera Coord checklist:

Printed Menhera art

Byojaku/Minimal makeup

Not OTT/Few accessories

Flat Shoes

[optional] Oversized top

[optional] Hime bangs

[optional] twintails

Colors can vary: a pastel yume look, or a gothic yami look, both are fine!

The makeup style is called “Byojaku” meaning “sickly/weak”. Reddish colors are applied to areas around the eyes to give the impression of crying or illness. The rest of the face is kept plain without much color.

A Note of Caution

The Menhera community is about healing, and seeking recovery and wellbeing. It advocates getting help, medication, therapy, and receiving support through your recovery journey.

True Menhera never encourages or enables harmful behaviors, and never glorifies them. Menhera fashion is an alternative way of expressing your suffering without self-harm. Menhera fashion empowers the individual through their recovery, but does not empower harmful behaviors.

There are some, sometimes labeled by the community as “Wannabe Menhera”, who mistook the meaning of “menhera” after seeing its rise in popularity, as it being trendy to fake mental illness. They engage in behaviors such as posting self-harm photos (real or faked) to social media with the tag #menhera, and other attention-seeking behaviors.

While this is the opposite of what the Menhera community stands for, is harmful to the unfortunate viewers of these photos, and creates further stigma against the community...it cannot be ignored that these “Wannabe Menhera”, too, need help and healing.

The Menhera fashion movement is to help you feel comfortable, unashamed, and kawaii in your skin, scars and all. It is NOT for encouraging people to create new scars “for the aesthetic”.

If you are struggling with mental or physical suffering, thoughts, or behaviors that cause harm to yourself or others, please seek help. If you do not believe you deserve help, you do, please seek help. If you believe you are faking it, you likely are not, your feelings are valid, please seek help.

Don’t have access to therapy?

We found a comprehensive list of suicide prevention hotlines at https://ibpf.org/resource/list-international-suicide-hotlines [link no longer working]

There are also free and affordable counseling services online like Better Help and Pride Counseling! Look online to find what option could work for you!

Alternatives to Menhera

After reading all this you may be thinking “the Menhera community sounds good but all the fashion is too restrictive for me” and if so, you’re not alone! But the good news is that you don’t have to wear Menhera fashion to be in the Menhera community.

Look up any of these alternative styles online for examples and more information:

Yamikawaii (“Sickly-cute”) is essentially the aesthetic of Menhera without the activism, a corrupted dark kawaii. Unfortunately the word was trademarked and now suffers from copyright takedowns.

Yumekawaii (“Dreamy-cute”) an aesthetic evolved from Fairy kei to describe everything pastel and kawaii, but with a slight edge, described as “fairytales with poison”.

Marekawaii (“Nightmare-cute”) created as an alternative to Yamikawaii to avoid the copyright issues, and as a counterpart to Yumekawaii. Marekawaii is specifically defined as being open to your own interpretation and style.

Medikawaii (“Medical-cute”) a pastel kawaii aesthetic focusing only on medical motifs, such as medicine and hospitals.

Gurokawaii (“Grotesque-cute”) mixes frightening and disturbing imagery with kawaii. Kyary Pamyu Pamyu helped popularize it.

Iryouu Kei (“Medical Kei”) a Visual Kei substyle with lots of gore and hospital theming, very OTT and theatrical, such as dressing like a nightmare nurse.

Living Doll artists see themselves and their bodies as a canvas to create art and express themselves, often with intricate makeup and body painting. This is a good one to look at if you’re into heavy artistic makeup.

#menhera #info #op #menhera.txt

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jokeroutsubs · 5 months

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ENG translation: "We are advocates of the fact that it is possible to create in our language"

An interview with Bojan Cvjetićanin and Kris Guštin in Slovenian magazine Reporter Magazin, originally published December 2023

Original article written by Katarina Keček for Reporter Magazin; photos by Primož Lavre and Urša Premik; English translation by @kurooscoffee and another Joker Out Subs member, proofread by IG GBoleyn123.

Also available in audio version on Spotify, read by IG GBoleyn123:

If you repost quotes from the interview, please link back to this post!

After a fantastic recent concert season with the currently most popular Slovenian music group Joker Out, who have already broken all boundaries at home, the boys are now ready to conquer the world's music stages. European first, said the band's two members, guitarist Kris Guštin and singer Bojan Cvjetićanin, modestly, when we met in their rehearsal room, "Then we'll think ahead." A few days after our conversation, Joker Out embarked on a new tour, which will include 13 European countries, including France, Belgium and Italy. Among others, they will be playing at some of the world's most iconic venues, such as the O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire in London and the Academy 2 in Manchester. A musical success that has no comparison here.

I'm sure you have given hundreds of interviews over the years? How do you cope with them?

Kris: If the questions are good, the interview is also good.

Bojan: During Eurovision we had about 40 interviews a day. Let's say two of them were a little different in terms of questions.

What kind of questions don't you like?

Both: Where did our name come from? When was the band formed? The kind of thing that everybody can find on Google.

Eurovision was a big breakthrough for you abroad, but you also said that you would not do a competition like that again.

Kris: We didn't say that.

Bojan: We have another one in January. We're playing at a festival in the Netherlands, it's a kind of show where you present yourself. It's a competition in a sense, but it's not very specific like Eurovision.

But these music competitions can't be real competitions. They are about the taste of the listener, just as art is about the taste of the observer. How are you going to evaluate a quality, a song?

Bojan: Eurovision is a really interesting experience and has a very specific concept. It's a three-minute spectacle contest, there are tangible standards, but on the other hand there are not. This spectacle may be different from what any of us would think of as "spectacle", let's say a lot of fire, explosions, and fireworks, but if the story is properly told in the flood of all these fires and explosions, just one deep silence can make the performance spectacular. For us, the competition was more about whether or not we would make that breakthrough. A contest against ourselves.

When you were at Eurovision, did you have in mind the country you were representing, or did you, first and foremost, see yourself in this contest? As an opportunity for the group to present itself?

Bojan: It was absolutely important for us to sing in Slovenian at this festival because we are advocates and representatives of the fact that it is possible to create in our language and that it is right to create in our language. It's right to speak it and it's right for the language to develop. The younger generations of Slovenians are also gaining an appreciation for the Slovenian language and an understanding of what it can be used for. The aim was to show ourselves. In the end, it is true that a country wins, let's say Sweden won, or Finland won, but the most important thing for us was that when someone says, "Do you remember Slovenia in 2023?" that it will be a positive image and a positive memory. We managed to do that, which is a big enough victory as far as we are concerned. At the same time, we did everything we could to represent ourselves and Slovenia in the best possible way.

Despite all this, we welcomed you home with great joy, we did not blame you for your result in the competition, because we saw that you gave your all.

Bojan: I was honestly happy to see the positive reaction, even though objectively speaking we had a pretty poor placement.

Kris: After a long time, us Eurovision performers also had the same kind of support of the nation at home that our athletes have.

It's interesting that you hold on to the Slovenian language so lovingly and don't give in to the prejudices that claim that Slovenian is not a poetic and melodic language. You write songs in various languages, but mostly in Slovenian.

Bojan: For me, it is most natural to write songs in Slovenian. My thought process, during my subconscious existence, is in the Slovenian language.

Your parents are not of Slovenian nationality, they both came from Bosnia during the war in 1991, with the last Unprofor convoy. Kris's mother is also Dutch, and you both love the Slovenian language.

Kris: My mother moved to Slovenia before Slovenia joined the EU and, as she explained to me, it was very difficult for her at that time too. All the bureaucratic stuff dragged on, just like it would for someone who came from Bosnia.

Bojan: I never had any problems with my parents being from Bosnia. I was at a school where there were quite a lot of children who had parents from the former Yugoslavia and we had no problems with that. I coped with the Slovenian language quite well from a very young age. However, this does not change the fact that the living conditions of many children at our school were of a lower standard. I don't know what was going on in their homes, because I know that for many it was not so rosy at home, but we children did not feel any revolt or hatred from our classmates at that time.

Your parents are both doctors, and they have made a new home in Slovenia. Do you still go to Bosnia?

Bojan: Yes, more and more often. I feel very Slovenian, I think and speak in this language, but on the other hand I am immensely proud of my roots and I also feel Bosnian, Serbian, at my core, and it seems to me that the fans from the former Yugoslav countries have now taken us very much as their own because of that.

You had very successful concerts in Zagreb and Belgrade. Interestingly, the visitors knew all your songs by heart, and what's more, they sang them with you in Slovenian. We haven't been used to that since the days of Lačni Franz* and Videoseks.*

*(The only two groups prior to Joker Out who succeeded in ex-Yugoslavia region enough to have the audience sing their songs in Slovenian)

Kris: Isn't it interesting that we find it bizarre that Serbs are singing in Slovenian, because before it was always the other way around?

Bojan: I also never understood before that Croatians or Serbs didn't understand us. As in, is the difference in languages really so big that you don't understand us? We can understand you. The fact is that Slovenians have been in contact with the Serbo-Croatian language in one way or another since we were very young, we all go to the seaside in Croatia, and we also listen to music from those parts en masse.

But the young people of your generation speak to the locals on the Croatian coast in English because they no longer understand their language.

Both: Yes, that's also true.

How come these Balkan languages don't cause you any problems?

Bojan: It's my mother tongue anyway, so I don't have any problems.

Kris: It seems very stupid to me that Slavs should communicate in Germanic languages. Even with the Czechs at Eurovision we communicated in both languages and it worked. It seems to me very inauthentic to speak English, but on the other hand I understand, because young people in Slovenia today are surrounded by English, maybe even more than Slovenian, and it is much more natural to them than to struggle in their own language or in a language that is supposed to be related to their own. It would be interesting if "interslavic" was introduced in all countries with Slavic languages as a second or third language. This is a mixture of all the Slavic languages, which is supposedly understood by all the members of the Slavic peoples. A language that is similar in its own way to all of us.

Esperanto, invented in the late 1980s as a counterbalance to the overuse of English, was a similar project. I do not know how many people still use it today.

Kris: Introducing a new language is not the easiest cultural process.

You have a big tour coming up, actually the first tour of European capitals.

Kris: Yes, first we're going to Skopje, then Munich, The Hague, Amsterdam, Madrid and Barcelona. On the 11th of December we're going back to Slovenia for a week, when we're planning to record some more in the studio, and then we're going to do concerts until the end of the year in Slovenia, in Celje, Maribor, Novo mesto and Ljubljana.

These tours must be exhausting. Every day travelling, buses, different cities, masses of people wanting something from you.

Kris: We have six concerts coming up now.

Bojan: We've just played nine concerts in fourteen days, we were in Lithuania, Poland, Czechia and Croatia.

Do fans in other countries remember you only from Eurovision or do they know your other songs as well?

Bojan: The most fascinating thing is that they have learned all the songs from the past too. We actually managed to break that barrier with just one song, but people learned two hours of material in another language. I don't know how many hours they had to devote to it, but they did.

Are you surprised by such enthusiasm? None of you could have planned this.

Kris: We went to Eurovision with this intention, so we can't say that we were completely surprised by the success. The ultimate goal all along was to make a breakthrough abroad. But we were absolutely surprised by the scope of the response. It could have been that Carpe Diem would have been very successful abroad, but the other songs would not have caught on. But we get to the concert and there is no feeling of waiting for this greatest hit, from the first minute people are "in it" and singing.

Bojan: If we sometimes dropped a song from our repertoire that we didn't want to play in Slovenia anymore, one of them being "Proti toku" because it was totally getting on our nerves, there were revolts on the internet and people were carrying banners at concerts saying "Play Proti toku!"

Kris: When we released New Wave with Elvis Costello, we thought that foreigners would prefer to listen to the song in English, but somehow everyone demanded it in Slovenian.

Bojan: They learned the Slovenian version and that's what they want.

I could say that you are kind of the pioneers of a new wave of Slovenian music, one for which Slovenia is obviously too small. None of the previous Slovenian Eurovision representatives have impressed Europe so much.

Bojan: I really don't remember us having any artist like that before. When Sestre went to Eurovision, they rode the wave at the time too, they were doing a lot of international shows too. I mean, it was a different concept, it was a project, but it still worked. Mostly because they actually had a vision, a plan and also a background behind them, there has to be some kind of support mechanism in the process. We didn't have performers in the sense of, okay, you showed up at Eurovision, now do a one-hour concert for me. Most of the performers couldn't do that because they didn't even have enough songs.

Kris: It's not only a problem in Slovenia, you find it everywhere, even among foreign artists. The Norwegian representative was fifth in Eurovision this year, she's very popular, but she only had one song on the market after the contest was over. Now she is going to release an album, but she hasn't had enough material so far.

Have you been preparing on your own to go abroad or do you maybe have some very professional agencies behind you to promote you and push you forward?

Bojan: With the people who are with us, we are our own management. We've never had someone above us who was our boss. We have always been our own bosses. We have our own people around us, but we have reached a level of performing in Slovenia that requires you to have a big team around you. We have about 30 people accompanying us on a regular basis, including the driver. When this success story happened, this breakthrough abroad, we were able to channel our system in a new direction, to at least somehow "patch up" the line up abroad for this year.

Do you cultivate a system of democracy in the band? How do you agree on certain things? By raising your hands?

Bojan: There hasn't been a need for that so far.

Kris: Usually the majority wins, within reasonable limits, of course.

Where do you find yourself more, live performances, making music, travelling, mingling with fans?

Kris: It really depends on the time period. It has to alternate. Solely playing infinite concerts is really fun for a while, but then it becomes tiring. The number of concerts we have played now is just about on the borderline for us to go back to the studio again for some time. On the other hand, spending infinite time in the studio isn't good either. During Covid, we were locked in for two years and we were just making music the entire time, and somewhere in there we kind of lost motivation. In the studio you also realise why you love the stage.

Are you tired after concerts, after a few hours of jumping around the stage?

Kris: The concert itself tires you out much less than the travelling. If you're lucky enough to be able to afford a private bus that takes you from concert to concert, then it's a lot easier. You get into it after the concert, fall asleep, and wake up in another city. The tour that is ahead of us, however, is made up entirely of flying, and that is the worst. Hotels, rushing, packing, taxis, airports, the atmosphere in airports is really unpleasant, no one is happy there, the hours drag on... that is the harder part. The concert itself doesn't tire me out that much. Most of all, we could play two concerts in a row if the atmosphere is right.

All that requires psychological and physical fitness as well. Do you practice any sports?

Kris: I used to be a more sporty person, I regularly played tennis, but ever since Eurovision, I can't find the right time to go back to something regular. I also used to play football recreationally every week, that's gone too. When on tour, I can only afford to run or to go to the hotel gym. But I haven't gotten to the point where I could make peace with that yet.

Bojan: I currently don't exercise at all. I used to train judo for a long time, but now, unfortunately, I haven't yet forced myself to go to the gym or go running when I have a free day. I'd like to start doing that, but I'm the type of person who needs a companion to pull me along and motivate me every day. I'm most drawn to football, martial arts, or extreme sports, but now I don't dare to do anything anymore because of injuries. Lately I've been going horse riding when I'm home. I find that horses calm me down.

Do you follow politics, are you interested in what's going on in Slovenian society?

Kris: Even a year ago, I was a lot more interested than I am now. Not just because we had a different government, but because I had time to think about it. I studied international relations for a while, I'm currently doing my master's. Otherwise I'm a chemical engineering graduate who switched to another university. I used to follow Slovenian politics a lot, but now I don't know if I feel like a fully qualified citizen of Slovenia anymore, since we've spent more than half a year outside of it. When I walk through our city now, I see it with different eyes. I see it almost as if it was any other city in the world, I pay attention to things like architecture or the atmosphere people create. Before, I used to walk through Ljubljana, it was my city, but I didn't pay attention to what was around me. Now I feel like half a stranger, which is weird in a way.

Bojan: For me, Ljubljana has now become a kind of base, a safe haven. I also see it differently than before. I agree with Kris that there are plenty of things that I didn't notice at all and I only see them now. I always perceived Ljubljana in a kind of romantic way, pretty much only the centre, even though I didn't live there from a young age. Only now that we've travelled around countries like Poland, Lithuania, or Finland, I see a lot of architectural similarities, but it has started to bother me that Ljubljana is so diverse in this aspect.

Is this diversity not a good thing?

Bojan: I don't know. Ljubljana smells nice to me, when I was walking around yesterday, I felt like Ljubljana was the last stage of a place. It's hard to say that this is a city, let alone a capital city of a country. Last night I was walking around the capital city of Slovenia at half past nine, and it was literally like I was in a "zombie land". There was no one anywhere. Incredibly weird, but on the other hand, nice.

Kris: That's pretty weird.

Bojan: Everything is getting more rigid, people are locking themselves up in their homes more and more.

Where can young people of your age go out in Ljubljana?

Kris: I'm facing this problem too.

Bojan: I think that in Ljubljana, we have quite a lot of choice when it comes to the number of places meant for parties. When they are open is another problem. We have a number of high quality clubs: K4, Cirkus, Orto, Shooter... for such a small place, we have a lot of clubs. The problem for me is that Ljubljana is a completely dead city in the summer. You can't go anywhere in the summer because everything closes down except Metelkova. For a tourist who's 20 or 25 years old and comes to Ljubljana in the summer, when it's wonderful, it's the most beautiful in the summer, it's a city where they have nothing to do.

Kris: There are plenty of places to hang out, but none of them appeal to me. I used to like going to K4, not anymore now, the last club I visited was Gala hala. It was awesome there.

When you come home nowadays, do you want to go to parties, go around the town?

Bojan: No, not at all. We're not really enthused about going out. When we come back home, we find other ways to relax. When I'm home, it suits me to be able to rest. Otherwise, what I like best is going to a concert.

Kris: That's what I like best too.

The band members constantly stick together, you even go on holidays together?

Kris: We already went together, it was awesome, we function great. The only concern is that we're constantly together. It's not good to be together all the time, each of us has his own life and things to do.

But, Bojan, you even went on holiday with your parents this year? How come?

Bojan: Yes, after eight years, we went on holiday together again. I was supposed to go to Thailand with the band, after the concert in Stožice. I got tonsillitis on the day of departure, so I avoided the long journey. When I felt a little better, I went to my grandma in Banja Luka, and after that, I went on holiday with my parents for five days.

Do they look at you differently in Banja Luka than in Slovenia?

Bojan: They don't recognise me on the street there nearly as much as it happens in Slovenia, it has only happened to me a few times.

Kris: The level at which I get recognised on the street is still okay for me. Bojan is more exposed and definitely has a different perspective. Maybe the most annoying thing is that you are expected to constantly be smiling and ready to take photos. We really are like that most of the time, but there are days when you're not in the mood to socialise, but you still have a concert. Afterwards, a lot of listeners are waiting and would like to hang out with you. I'd like to tell them that I am very grateful that they're there, but that I really don't have a never-ending social battery to be able to talk to all of them.

Bojan: It is ungrateful to talk about recognisability as something negative, because it's simply a consequence of everything we have and it's an expected side product. If I'm in a public place, I know that everyone around me is listening to what I'm talking to someone about. It has become uncomfortable to talk about anything personal with anyone, because you always feel like someone is eavesdropping.

What's your favourite thing to do when you finish a gig?

Kris: The first thing I do is to take a shower. I hang out a little with the team, with the band members, sometimes we go out to take photos, but otherwise, as soon as possible I drink a glass of water and go directly to bed.

Bojan: I'm such a good boy. I always take at least one hour for taking photos with fans.

I haven't yet come across you getting caught drunk or high on various substances, which isn't rare in the music world, it's more like a rule.

Bojan: I view all these extreme excesses as filling a void. For 99 percent of these performers who are said to do this, the roots of those voids are very clear. They come from personal trauma, mostly from childhood. Thankfully all five of us in the band come from very stable and happy families, none of us lacked for anything, quite the opposite, we all had everything endlessly. We have maximum support from all the people around us. We don't feel the need to rebel against anything, because we actually have nothing to rebel against. All these bands that did a lot of drugs and alcohol actually mostly broke up very quickly.

Bojan, you appear to be very energetic on stage, you're spontaneous and charismatic, you have the public eating our of your hand. Do you unleash your alter ego on the stage? Is that a different Bojan?

Bojan: You'd have to ask the guys from the band who spend the most time with me. As far as I know from the stories from people who have known me since I was little, I have always been loud and very talkative. I always liked performing and I wouldn't say that I put on an act on stage. On stage, I let myself go to the max, I think that I really mould myself into what I think belongs on stage. It's not a different Bojan on the stage, he just does some things that belong on stage.

Kris: Bojan on stage is in a higher gear. It's the same for the whole band.

Bojan: People can feel other people. Everything that happened to us is also in large part a consequence of people actually feeling that we are the same people on stage as we are when we come off the stage. We're real here, there's no acting, we also don't think that we're any better than them. We're all friends, they're below the stage, we're on the stage, and we have fun together.

Kris: It's also true that I feel more free on stage. We're allowed more. I enjoy the fact that our concert is a sort of a valve, even though I hate that word.

Like every ordinary woman, I can't skip past your fantastic stage clothes. All my female friends want to wear them.

Bojan: I would also like to wear them in my private life, but I already have a closet full of clothes that have piled up throughout my life, and they aren't like the ones we wear at gigs. But I would like to walk out of my room every day dressed in a way that made me look like I'm in Miami in the 80s, or like a mix between a "drug dealer" and a "drug cop".

Kris: My sister has already looted my closet. I looted my dad's.

Bojan: I have looted the closets of my parents and my sister.

Kris, your dad is a famous musician. Did he help you at the start, what kind of advice does he give you?

Kris: My dad only helped me in the sense that I sometimes showed him what I had written or what we had recorded in the studio, and he gave his opinion. But that hasn't happened in a year now, ever since I moved out. Before that, he could hear me through the walls when I was playing.

Bojan: I've also become independent. Although now when we come back from a tour, I still like going back home the best.

What does independence look like?

Kris: I like it. I can't imagine going back home anymore, even though I love my family immensely. But us not living together anymore has only made our relationships better. I like having my own peace, but I also like coming back home for lunch.

BIOGRAPHY In 2017, five friends started a band called Joker Out. They had all been musically active before, but they achieved the first big success as a band as the winning group of Špil liga in Kino Šiška in Ljubljana. After this victory, the boys became sought-after on all Slovenian musical stages. They released two albums, Umazane misli in 2021 and Demoni a year later. In those two years, they also received two 'Zlata piščal' ('Golden Flute') awards, in 2020 for newcomers of the year, and again next year for artists of the year. This spring, RTV Slovenia sent Joker Out and their song Carpe Diem to Eurovision where, despite a lot of attention from fans, they ended in a modest 21st place. Despite that, European music enthusiasts have welcomed them as their own, their popularity is growing quickly. Joker Out are currently filling the biggest European concert stages, which no Slovenian musician has managed before.

If you repost quotes from the interview, please link back to this post!

#joker out #bojan cvjeticanin #bojan cvjetićanin #kris gustin #kris guštin #Spotify

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pleaseeeimjustagirl · 2 months

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It Girls Ramadan Guide

Hey babesss I am soooo excited Ramadan officially starts this week and I wanted to post a Ramadan guide for my fellow Muslim girliesss if you aren’t Muslim but are participating in Ramadan this is a good guide for you as well.

Setting Intentions

♡ Before Ramadan starts set your intentions. What do you want to improve on this Ramadan? What charities do you want to donate to? Even if you aren’t able to reach all the goals you set Allah rewards us based on our genuine intentions.

♡ Journaling. I highly recommend journaling your intentions and your experience this Ramadan. Keep track of your mood, as well as your Quran readings, and prayers. I will link a Quran Journal as well as a 30-Day Ramadan Journal Ramadan Legacy Planner.

♡ Vision Board. I’ve seen some girls online recommend creating a Ramadan vision board and I agree! Create a vision board using Canva and Pinterest, or you can use a poster board and magazine. This will help you see your goals not just read them. Place your vision board where you can see it so you're reminded of your goals daily.

Nutrition

Suhoor

♡ Eat a balanced suhoor meal. Eat a meal high in protein, protein takes a while to be broken down so it’ll help you at the beginning of the day. Eat carbs and fats you will need as much energy as the average hours we fast during Ramadan are 12 to 18 hours depending on where you are.

♡ Drink water. One of the things I struggle with every Ramadan is my water intake. Try to drink at least two 16oz bottles of water during Suhoor. Hydration is super important you don't want to pass out due to severe dehydration.

♡ Drink electrolytes. Drinking electrolytes is very beneficial before fasting they help your body retain water while you are fasting. Do not overdo your electrolyte intake because too much sodium is bad.

Iftar

♡ Do not overdo it. I know going a long period without food can make you want to eat everything in sight but it is important to eat a well-balanced nutritious meal after fasting. When you overeat this may cause indigestion and other stomach issues.

♡ Avoid eating too much fried, salty, and high-sugar foods. Moderation is key I know during Ramadan my mom makes all of our favorite Ghanaian dishes and they aren't the most healthy options. That doesn't mean you shouldn't eat them or avoid them you can eat them but in moderation. Eating too much of these foods in the moment may feel good because they cause us to release feel-good hormones like dopamine and serotonin but they can make fasting the next day very difficult.

♡ Eat whole foods. The best food to break your fast with is fruit! Specifically, a date to begin with and then other fruits like pineapple, watermelon, oranges, strawberries, mango, and other fruits you like. I would recommend you eat more water-based fruits to hydrate your body.

♡ Drink water. I mention this twice because it is very important that after you break your fast you drink water make it a goal of yours to have six to eight glasses of water daily.

Movement

♡ Create a Ramadan workout plan. I know a lot of us girliesss are on weight loss journeys and we want to be snatched before the summer but we also don't want to stress out our bodies while fasting and exerting needed energy. Create a workout plan that starts low and goes slow. Limit intense cardio, and train at a lower intensity, if you lift try to lift heavy before suhoor which means you’ll need to wake up earlier. If you prefer to workout after Iftar break your fast with something light so that your stomach won’t feel so heavy when you workout.

♡ Walking. I recommend getting in sedentary movement throughout the day, so instead of taking the bus walk if where you're going isn't that far. Walking is beneficial for so many reasons I’ll link this article.

♡ Yoga and Pilates. I love both of these exercises they are perfect for my girlies who are fasting. Pilates especially is perfect it is very low and slow in movements but still gives you amazing results. Yoga is perfect for relaxing especially if you deal with anxiety, sore muscles, back problems, and trouble sleeping I recommend trying yoga.

Increase Your Iman

♡ Prioritize Prayer. Make sure to pray all five of your daily prayers and do them on time try your best to not delay your prayers unless you have to.

♡ Read Quran. Some of you might be hafiz of the Quran and I know it is common for hafiz to try and finish the Quran from start to finish during Ramadan so maybe you can make that a goal if you are a hafiz. For my girlies who are like me and haven’t finished the Quran but Insha Allah we will! I recommend trying to read at least 10 verses of the Quran daily that's better than not reading it at all.

♡ Watch Islamic Lectures. I recommend spending your time online watching Islamic lectures like Omar Suleiman, Mohammed Hoblos, Mufti Menk, Dr. Sh. Haifa Younis, Akhi Ayman (he is perfect for younger men), and many other amazing lecturers. My favorites are Omar Suleiman and Mufti Menk they explain Islam in such a beautiful way and spread the message perfectly.

♡ Charity. This month is the best month to give to those in need. You can donate to many organizations, and help send aid to Gaza/Congo/Sudan, create a fundraiser for your local masjid in need, feed another fasting person, help prepare Iftar at home, and so much more. Charity not only blesses us with good deeds but there have been studies proving random acts of kindness are good for our mental health we produce dopamine when we donate or help others.

♡ Pray Tahajjud. I swearrrr if you have anything you desire in this life this is the best prayer you need to pray! Allah is closest to the earth during the last third of the night and he is there to listen to our dua’s and repentance. You can only pray Tahajjuud after you sleep. Tahajjud is hard to catch because it involves having to leave our sleep for the sake of Allah. One Mallam explained Tahajjud so beautifully he said “Tahajjud is like a personal invitation from Allah Not everyone can get in most people are asleep during that time.” If you have anything you want badly pray Tahajjud for it, especially during this holy month. So try your best to wake up an hour or two before the fajr prayer and pray Tahajjuud I will link a video on the benefits and how to pray Tahajjud for those who don’t know how.

These are a few tips for my girliesss I hope Ramadan is a blessed month for all of us! Thank you for all the support babes! we are getting close to 500 followers!!!

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eastgaysian · 4 months

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curious if u have more thoughts on the 'durge as a metanarrative' thing

i have a vague sense that i saw someone mention this idea in a post or article, thought the idea was super interesting, and have been rolling it around my head ever since. however i don't remember who wrote that or if i just imagined it so if anyone else has seen this pls link me...

so broadly speaking, when it comes to giving players freedom of choice in an rpg, i think the most difficult player behavior for a developer to work with is npc killing. if you let the player kill every npc they run across, that's probably going to fuck up your design in some way, if not create a full softlock. those npcs provide information, serve mechanical purposes as merchants/healers/gatekeepers or openers, give out quests and then powerful or story-significant rewards for those quests, etc, etc. allowing players to kill everyone they meet while making sure that doesn't break the game requires a lot of work put into contingencies that most players won't see. but if you don't let players kill npcs/make certain important npcs unkillable, you limit player freedom and break immersion. todd howard what do you mean i can't kill the guy who introduced me to windhelm by being racist in the middle of the city. what greater narrative purpose does he serve

on the player's side, though, someone who's going around killing the story-essential npcs probably isn't playing the game 'as intended,' which is to say having fun by immersing themselves in the world of the game and making choices based on the character they're roleplaying. someone who's going around killing every npc possible is almost definitely playing against the game, just doing it to see what happens and find out if the game has a breaking point - and they're probably not even really having fun with it, because they're not only cutting themself off from the game's content, but going through the time and labor-intensive slog of killing hundreds of npcs spread across the entirety of the game world.

i think the dark urge as a concept offers some fun potential to play with both the developer and player side of npc killing. it's a fully intended, deliberately designed way of experiencing bg3 that hinges upon you as player and as character being encouraged to murder people, and it gets kicked off by an npc getting killed without your input - an npc that can have a presence throughout the entire game as well as offer you an extremely powerful quest reward. after that, though, every kill is up to the player. sceleritas fel urges you along and promises rewards, but there's one (1) dc 14 check between you and a murderless durge playthrough.

so the dark urge provides a story template where it becomes immersive and in-character for you to kill everyone possible, unlocking new story beats and rewards by killing npcs and losing out on their content, but it's also completely possible to interpret you, the player, as the irresistible dark urge making your in-game character kill as many people as possible for the hell of it. the moment in dak-wai's playthrough that got stuck in my brain forever was when i killed isobel, just to see what would happen (i saved before with the full intent of loading it back up and doing a Good Run), and realized that this hadn't broken their paladin oath. i'm still uncertain if this is an intended aspect of a dark urge playthrough or just a quirk of the flags surrounding isobel's death/kidnapping, but combined with the dialogue options that allow durge to insist that they kill as a result of compulsions against their will, the implications fascinate me.

in a durge playthrough, the game allows you to fully separate the decision you the player made from the decision the character you're playing would have made, and it makes sense in the story. that's cool as hell! i would've loved if larian leaned into this a little more. not necessarily in a way that fully breaks the fourth wall, but more 'evil run' content that is exclusive to a game where you've killed the good guys would add a lot of depth to this idea, as well as more exploration of the extent to which The Urge can be separated from your character, and just straight up more scenes where the player gets to fully choose whether to lean into or resist the urge. in-universe, it's bhaal's fault, but out of universe, that's all You babey. you, the player doing a kill all npcs run for your youtube channel, are the murder god who spawned a child designed to cause as many deaths as possible. don't you think that's neat? i think that's neat

#mingbox #balls your gay 3 #metadurge

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ryin-silverfish · 4 months

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if you are answering fsyy questions. I wanted to ask, I was reading an article, and it is said that Yuanshi Tianzun pushed Shen Gongbao to complete his destiny (because Shen's actions were necessary), so would that be a betrayal or manipulation of an immortal master to his student?

I know that most immortal teachers look out for their students, and at least try to get them out of trouble (master Puti seems like the exception to me but that's jttw). I think you also said that the immortals had committed crimes and broken the rule of not killing long before the events of fsyy, does that mean that Yuding Zhenren and Taiyi Zhenren committed crimes but they are never specified?

Interesting. I'd like a link to the article, but from a brief skim, the source that claim is based on probably came from Chapter 72:

看官：元始天尊岂不知道要此人收聚“封神榜”上三百六十五位正神，故假此难他，恐他又起波澜耳。

Context: after sending all those troubles in Jiang Ziya's way, he ambushed Jiang Ziya and tried to kill him, but was stopped and captured by Ju Liusun, who brought him to Yuanshi Tianzun for judgement.

He scolded Shen Gongbao for his petty grudge against Jiang Ziya, then commanded his subordinate warrior to trap him under the Qilin Cliff, to be kept there until the War of Investiture is over.

It was at this moment that the narrator suddenly informed us that yes, Yuanshi Tianzun knew this guy was vital in filling the 365 empty job positions in the Celestial bureaucracy, and was just...throwing that threat out as a test or something.

Shen Gongbao, of course, protested and was spared on account of his promise to never bother Jiang Ziya again, else his body would be stuffed into the "Eye of the North Sea".

He didn't intend to keep his promise, but the very act of making one set his fate in stone and meant the consequences of breaking it could not be avoided.

This sort of "fatefully binding statements/vows" is a trope that can also be found in other God-Demon novels, like JTTN. In fact, previously on Chapter 37, Jiang Ziya had broken one such promise to never stop and talk to anyone on his way to deliver the Investiture, and was almost talked into burning the Investiture by Shen Gongbao, thus Xi Qi was fated to fight 36 invading armies.

Now, to most modern readers, all these Fate and Destiny stuff probably sounds like bullshit, and characters using that as a rationale or motive, sketchy as hell/manipulative.

But it is important to remember that people in the past usually believe their own religion, and unlike JTTW where you can make a reasonable argument of satire, FSYY, in general, took Daoism and Confucian ideals more seriously.

So yes, from a modern reader's perspective, it would seem like Yuanshi Tianzun just let Shen Gongbao be a petty plotting asshole in order to complete ancient China's bloodiest pantheon recruitment program.

However, from the author's perspective, they were all agents of the Will of Heaven, willingly or unwillingly, thus Shen Gongbao was deified at the end, too, despite his punishment.

As for your second question: "failure to sever the Three Corpses" doesn't mean crimes, though killing probably is. In the former case, they could have just failed to rid themselves of worldly desires and entanglements represented/caused by the three supernatural parasites, believed to reside in the human body and lead to one's eventual death by Daoists.

#investiture of the gods #fengshen yanyi #Shen gongbao #wrote this answer in the airport #so sorry about the lack of citations

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gavisuntiedboot · 7 months

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Hey I was just wondering if you could link some articles about everything israel has been doing to Palestine in the last 16 years (so basically the time Gaza’s been an open air prison) bc tho I’m pretty invested in politics the media in my country hasn’t been covering this whole situation in Palestine apart from this past week (and the bigger attacks from a few years back) and even then the articles are pretty clearly pro israel so I do know to a certain extent what the situation is and has been like between Palestine and israel (the basics of these two countries’ history since WW2) but not the details and I’d like to inform myself

Unfortunately the media in Canada the UK the United States (obviously) and France (again this isn’t really surprising) isn’t really good at covering what’s happening in the Middle East so informing myself objectively and via reliable sources on the history of these places (when it doesn’t affect the western world) can be a bit hard I genuinely spent a lot of fucking time researching the subject but I just haven’t been satisfied with what I found (it’s all really repetitive and it doesn’t really cover the details tho I did find some really interesting articles written by Palestinian journalists) I did try watching documentaries but they all cut out the more awful parts of history which kind of really sucks (the one thing that was easier to find and that conveyed good and objective info is the statistics of the conditions Palestinians in Gaza have been living in)

If you don’t want to that’s totally fine feel no pressure about doing it but if you don’t wanna link articles could you maybe pls talk about what you know and again no pressure

Hello lovely,

So this has been sitting in my inbox for a while because I've been busy (school, protests, funerals and vigils, etc). I decided to respond to this one because I think the ask is framed very well.

It is common knowledge that Israel puts forward a large media and PR effort to hide the atrocities being committed. There is a huge monetary fund dedicated to this - what other country pays fully for college students to come for week-long trips and see how wonderful the country is? The entire regime is built on propaganda, and I think it's important that everyone try and dismantle our reliance on one or two sources of media. In school, we are constantly told who are the "reliable" sources of information, but in times like this, when the media and press are so controlled, look at the best and most reliable source: primary sources. I encourage you all to follow people who are on the ground in Gaza like Motaz Azaiza, who is on the ground in Gaza and has been for several years. I also encourage you to follow Mohammed El Kurd, who is from Sheikh Jarrah in occupied Jerusalem. He is brilliant and articulate and doesn't mince words, and he has done dozens of interviews and talks about the plight of Palestinians, both at home under occupation and in the diaspora. For news, I think one of the best sources has been Al Jazeera, which is a Middle Eastern news reporter. It is banned in some countries, but they release the most accurate information about what is currently happening. Many of their journalists have just had their families wiped out for the work they are doing.

In regards to what you can watch, there is a plethora of Palestinian film that you can consume. The ones off the top of my head are '5 broken cameras' and 'Omar', which are both critically acclaimed, brilliant films on Palestine. Here is a link to more documentary than film style pieces on Palestine: https://remix.aljazeera.com/aje/PalestineRemix/films_main.html

There are many YouTube videos on the subject as well. A very good article is the one published in n+1 by Saree Makdisi.

I personally don't have many articles to share, because everything I know about my home and my people was told to me by my family. So, allow me to share with you a little bit of my life story:

My grandfather was born in a small village in Palestine just outside of Nablus. He would have been about 8-10 years old when the Nakbah happened. Nakbah is the Arabic word for 'catastrophe', and it describes the displacement of 750,000 Palestinians in 1948. My grandfather was not one of them because of how far in the West Bank he was. He remained in Palestine, trying his hardest to flee despite the immense debt that his own father had passed onto him. He worked in shops. He picked olives from the hundreds, if not thousands, of trees in the village. He was trying to save himself and his 12 siblings, all on no income and a 4th grade education. There was no more school when the occupation started.

My grandmother was born in the neighboring village. She was looked after by two brothers and a father that would have torn the world to shreds for her. She met my grandfather when he came to help repair their home. They were married young, around 19, and they had their first son, my uncle, in their home in Palestine. The occupation got worse and worse, with people having their homes invaded, guns to their faces, being told to leave. My grandmother fought one such settler, and they took one of her beautiful green eyes for it. My grandparents tried everything they could to keep their house in Palestine, but it was no use. They had to flee to Kuwait (twice actually), a journey that takes 72 hours nonstop on foot, in order to not be killed by Israel. My grandmother took her house key with her, thinking she would need it to open the door when they were able to return. And that key still sits in her house, staring at her and her 8 children and 30 grandchildren who have never seen our home in Palestine.

I fortunately don't have direct family in Gaza, but I have living family that fled Palestine. I have so many family members who will never be able to see our land in our lifetime. Our house is gone. The olive trees are gone. Everything that my grandparents knew of the world for a quarter of their lives is gone. How long until we are gone? How long until the plan is successful, and our young are murdered and our old left to die so that Israel can say that Palestinians never existed in the first place?

Between three of my friends, they have lost 100 family members. Between Palestinians, we have lost over 7000 people. Civilians. Children. Mothers. Fathers. Neighbors. People. I want to educate, I want to be a voice and rally, but I can't do it every day. I'm struggling with the guilt of being alive as a Palestinian right now. My entire bloodline, my history, is being wiped off the face of the earth before my eyes. And I'm sorry I can't be more help.

#free palestine 🇵🇸#free palestine #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #save gaza

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mwebber · 9 months

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“On the bound” fluff maybe? Everyone needs a bit of fluff ❤️

debated linking something older or copying and pasting something from the doc, and in rereading this i thought it was kinda cute. takes place in 2011, but before "wrestling in dirt pits."

. ⋅ ˚̣- :

Thurgau, Switzerland - August 2, 2011

On Tuesday morning, Mark texts her that he’s going around Europe for a week and a half, and asks if it’s okay for him to crash at her old flat in Walchwil.

She has no fucking idea why he wants to put himself through more travel than necessary, nor why he wants to come all the way to Switzerland when he could enjoy the sun in Spain with Fernando, or hell, go home to Australia, if he wants the torture.

“You have the keys,” she says when he picks up the phone, incredulous. “You don’t need to ask.”

It might have been her place on paper, but it was theirs in practice—a quiet escape from their lives that the UK couldn’t afford them, a spot to go between races or during the breaks.

“Well, you might have sold it, I don’t know,” Mark responds tetchily. “But thanks.”

“What.” Offended, she stands up, already beginning to pace the length of her porch. “You’ve still got your stuff there, I wouldn’t sell it without telling you, obviously.”

He sighs, staticky over the line. “I don’t know, okay? Sorry for asking.”

His tone says it all, and she flushes, suddenly embarrassed. Of course he wouldn’t just—use the space. They’ve broken up.

“Whatever,” she mutters. “Have fun.”

. ⋅ ˚̣- :

The day Mark arrives at the flat is the day Seb decides to make the hour-long drive there. Her usual parking space is taken up by Mark’s motorcycle.

He doesn’t even seem surprised to see her when she unlocks the door, the knowing bastard.

“Hope you brought food,” he greets her. Casually, he takes her bags.

She flicks her hair out of her face. “Honestly. It’s like you’ve never met me.”

Their evening is routine, and quietly domestic for how they slide into each other’s spaces again. It’s dinner, and washing up, and laundry, and cleaning, and sitting next to each other on her squeaky couch in their sleepwear, nursing their late night tea. Mark has his reading glasses on as he flips through a car magazine he got back in England. Seb leans against his side, silently skimming through the articles, her teacup warm in her hands.

She doesn’t ask, but he answers anyway, after the last page has been flipped, and their silence drags on for longer than it should.

“I came to pack my things, the important stuff,” he explains. “Or at least see if I needed to rent a truck, or something.”

Of course he wouldn’t come out here without a reason. She allows herself to process the idea: Mark, picking his way out of her past, and not just her present or future. Nobody uses this flat anymore, but it’s frozen in a moment of time when they were together, and changing it would mean changing them.

“Why?” She clears her throat, sets the teacup down. “Now, I mean.”

To her surprise, he chuckles. “You haven’t seen?”

She sits up properly. That tone—he’s doing that thing where he knows she’s the butt of the joke and won’t tell her, and it used to be exasperating, but now it’s terrifying. “What?”

“Relax.” Smiling, he pats her knee. “It’s pretty funny, actually. I’m now one of F1’s ‘most eligible bachelors.’”

“It’s been a year.” She levels him with a flat look that he waves off dismissively.

“Fans are going crazy over you and Jenson now,” he says, and glances down at the back of the magazine, an ad for Cadillac. “It’s all looking very official.”

If Seb didn’t know him inside-out, she wouldn’t catch the way his expression falls minutely. She’d feel sympathy for him, in any other life.

Carefully, she puts her hand on his shoulder and leans against him again. “It’s not official yet.”

He quirks an eyebrow, turning to face her. “Could’ve fooled me.”

And his expression—

Turkey, 2010, was when she thought he’d never look at her like he loved her again. In the wash of the golden light around them, his hazel eyes are bright and warm, and the amused twitch of his mouth is begging to be kissed, and he still gives her butterflies in her stomach, after all this time.

“You’re staring,” he whispers, like he hasn’t been staring right back at her.

Lightly, she pinches the frame of his glasses, and slides them off to fold and set them on the coffee table. He scrunches his face with it, blinks hazily at her when she’s done.

“Stay with me,” she requests. Her voice comes out soft, barely more than an exhale.

He leans closer, or maybe she does, or maybe they both can’t help it. When they kiss, it’s like every atom in her body settles before coming back to life again, renewed and jubilant. She brings her hand up to cup his jaw, ends up knocking into his own hand instead, and they stay there, fingers linked, lips sliding naturally together.

Seb keeps her eyes closed when he tilts his forehead against hers and breaks their kiss. If she opens them, she doesn’t know what she’ll see.

“'Forever, baby.'” His small huff of laughter is a burst of warmth against her skin. “Or however long. If only we knew.”

“Two nights,” she kisses his cupid’s bow, the tip of his nose, squeezes his hand. “Stay?”

Risking it, she peers at him through one eye, and then relaxes. He doesn’t look angry or sad, just—eyes half-lidded, cheeks flushed pink, like he wants to kiss her again.

He tugs her back in to do just that. There’s a sudden, desperate edge to his movements that she reciprocates. Inevitably, she ends up on his lap, and then hitched on his hips, and then on her back, in her old bed.

They make love where they’ve done so countless times before, rolling in sheets that smell like laundry detergent and warmth and home.

. ⋅ ˚̣- :

“I think I might love him,” Seb confesses, later. She’s tucked in Mark’s arms, curled around his body, tangled with him. Distractedly, she draws random patterns over his chest, sliding on the soft fuzz. “I don’t know. It’s not the same.”

He has his fingers in her hair, smoothing over and playing with her curls. They haven’t stayed in the afterglow for a while. It’s both healing and damaging, to indulge in it now.

“How does it feel?” The question is punctuated by soft kisses to the side of her head. She hums into it, then returns the gesture on his throat, his pulse point steady and warm beneath her lips.

How does it feel? It feels like—

“The beam of a flashlight in the darkness,” she tries. “Or a campfire on a cold night, like when we went to that beach in Australia.”

“I remember.” He smiles against her scalp. “You were so scared.”

“It’s like everything in the wilderness is designed to kill people,” she grumbles half-heartedly. It’s an old conversation, ill-fitting on them now. Ghosts of who they were shout gleefully in the distance, the memory of their words too vague to make out.

Mark is quiet for a moment, and his fingers still where they’re wrapped in her curls. “Am I the darkness to you, then?”

It’s laughable, how insecure he can be sometimes. But she doesn’t laugh—she squirms until she’s in his line of vision, gazing down at him, holding him close.

“My love,” she kisses him once, twice. “You’re the sun itself.”

With practiced ease, he tucks her hair behind her ear.

“My sunshine,” he says, like he used to, and the nickname splits her open, a knife through the stitches that hold her together.

Wordlessly, she kisses him again.

. ⋅ ˚̣- :

On Saturday, she’s on a flight to Greece with Jenson, and Mark is en route back to England, and their little studio apartment remains as intact as it can be—a memento of heaven, when it was just the two of them, and the love they nurtured.

#inbox #che angelo sei

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peachycanton · 1 year

Text

Writing “Chinese” in Chinese

Here is a little bit of information that I thought would be great to share!

So whenever I’m writing my tags or trying to introduce myself, I think about how I would actually write the name of my target language. So for example, to say “I am learning Spanish” I would write “ Estoy aprendiendo español”. The translation is simple. But for Chinese, that’s not the case.

There are differences in Chinese as it’s written versus when it’s spoken. There’s also differences between Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese Chinese. It was interesting trying to make sense of which ones to use and when, so I looked it up! I used several resources, which will be linked at the end.

Below, I have the noted words, with both Mandarin and Cantonese pinyin and jyutping to showcase how it’s pronounced. There are also detailed explanations as well. Anyway, here it goes!

Chinese (person): 中国人。 Zhōng guó rén / zung1 gwok3 jan4

The main reason why I placed this here is due to how English as a language works. When you look up how to say Chinese in Chinese, this will pop up. It’s only due to the fact that English uses words such Chinese, Spanish, etc to describe the language, people, and objects pertaining to that country. So we use “Chinese” for both “I am Chinese” and “I speak Chinese”. This not the case for other languages though. They have separate words for the language and the people. So in Chinese, to that say a Chinese person you use “中国人”.

This breaks down in multiple ways. 中 means middle and it’s commonly used to as an indication for China. 国 means country so when used with 中， it means middle country, or China. When having 人 , which means person, it becomes the meaning given above. All of this is important to know as 中 and the other characters will be used with this context in mind.

Chinese (written): 中文 zhōng wén / zung1 man4

This is mainly for Chinese as the written language. It can apply to all the languages under it (so mandarin, cantonese, etc). It can also be used for the spoken Chinese as well. This would be the simplest form to use when wanting to say “I’m learning Chinese.” This would not help with specifics though.

This is written like this due to 文 meaning writing, character, script, and language. With 中 meaning China, the two form together to create the meaning of “the written language of China”, “the Chinese written language,” or even a simple “Chinese writing”. It also can be seen as “Chinese Language” as well. This is why even though you can use this as a simple “Chinese”, it carries the idea of writing in Chinese.

In general, if you don’t mind the vagueness of 中文, then you can use it. But if you want to be specific in whether your learning Mandarin, Cantonese, etc, then use the ones below.

Mandarin Chinese (Han People): 汉语 hàn yǔ / hon3 jyu5

This is used to say the language of the Han people, which make up most of the Chinese population. This is understood to mean Mandarin and is commonly used for it. It is also used by teachers as well so while 中文 is used by everyday people to say Chinese, 汉语 might be used in schools to specify Mandarin.

This is broken down by 汉 meaning the Han people, an ethnic group that makes up most of the population in China, and 语 meaning language, tongue, or expression. This means that with the two combined, it brings the idea of “Han language” or “language of the Han people”. It is used more often to refer to the spoken language of Chinese, such as Mandarin.

Small note: I went back through to double check this post and it seems that for some speakers, this actually does refer to other dialects/languages. Some have noted that people can use this to also mean Cantonese as well, although several articles go against this.

Mandarin Chinese (Common Language): 普通话 pútōng huà / pou2 tung1 waa2

This is used to also say Mandarin Chinese, but through the idea of a “common language” or “common dialect”. It’s from the idea of speaking in the common dialect, which in China and learning settings, would be Mandarin. This is how the Chinese government puts their official language.

This can be broken down by 普 meaning universal, general, widespread, 通 meaning pass through, common, communicate, and 话 meaning speak, talk, communicate, dialect. This all comes together to form the idea of a common dialect.

I am curious if this meaning for Mandarin Chinese changes depending on environment. If one is in an environment where most speakers speak Cantonese, would 普通话 mean Cantonese instead? Would love to know!

Mandarin Chinese (Taiwan): 国语 guóyǔ / gwok3 jyu5

This version is used primarily in Taiwan. It means “language of the country” or “country language”. This doesn’t explain much about the exact language is it, but since Mandarin is spoken in Taiwan, using this word to describe Mandarin makes sense. It’s the idea of speaking the country or national language, aka Mandarin.

This word can be broken down by 国 and 语。Both of which have been explained above.

Mandarin Chinese (Overseas): 华语 huáyǔ / waa4 jyu5

Now in in the articles I looked at, they note that even in overseas communities there are different words for Mandarin. This version is used mainly in South East Asian countries, such as Singapore and Malaysia. This time though, the ideas behind the characters are a bit more complex in nature.

The characters can be broken down by 华 and 语. While 语 has been explained before, 华 carries a much more complicated history. Just as 中 can mean “Middle” while also being used to mean China, 华 does the same. 华 means splendid, magnificent, and flowery, but it’s not this meaning that 华语 is using. That is due to 华 being used in the word 华夏， which is a concept of the Chinese civilization and nation. It’s an awareness of the Han people and their ancestors.

夏 is the name of the very fist Chinese Dynasty, the one that formed the country. Having 华夏 together brings this idea of a great dynasty and the importance it holds for Chinese communities and their shared history. So for Chinese people in places such as Singapore and Malaysia, it’s way for them to connect to their ancestry. They can also connect with their language through this, hence 华语。

This all comes together to bring the idea of Chinese people in Singapore speaking the language of their people or ancestors, which in most cases is understood to be Mandarin. The language of their Han ancestors, 华语，is Mandarin.

Mandarin (Officialese): 官话 guān huà / gun1 waa2

This one is very straight forward, but is also used in many different contexts. 官 means official, bureaucratic, or government. When this is combined with 话, it takes on the meaning of official language, which in China is Mandarin. This isn’t it’s only meaning though. It can also be used to say bureaucratic language or even used to mock or joke about “official language” or “officialese”. So be mindful that this isn’t used to only mean Mandarin.

Mandarin (Northern Dialect): 北方方言 běi fāng fāng yán / baak1 fong1 fong1 jin4

This one is actually quite simple! The first part of this is 北方, which means north or northern. The second part, 方言, means topolect, which is sorta like a dialect. This very easily translates into northern topolect/dialect. This encompasses all the dialects of northern, north eastern, and south westward China into one thing of “Mandarin”. This is only really used in linguistic circles. It wasn’t in the main articles and only brought up in terms of linguistics so using this is not very important. It’s only for technicalities.

So far this is all that I have found for Mandarin but, there are also several ways to say Cantonese as well.

Cantonese (Hong Kong): 粤语 yuèyǔ / jyut6 jyu5

This word is mainly used in Hong Kong. This variation is also complex in it’s meaning as it brings older ideas of the southern provinces in China. 语 has already been explained previously but 粤 carries much more history. When looking up 粤, it doesn’t show much detail other than just “Cantonese” or “Guangdong or Gaungxi province”. But if you look at the radical used in the character, this brings more information.

In the character 粤, there is the radical 米. This radical has the meaning of husked rice or grains of rice. This brings about the ideas of 粤 relating to rice, and in turn the language of things associated with rice. This is amazing because rice was traditionally cultivated in southern china. Rice was made in the south due to the warm and wet climate. Now, the south is associated with Rice. There is even an on going stereotype that southern Chinese people love rice and rice related things.

So Cantonese, which tends to be spoken in southern China, is referred to as 粤语, a word that is related to rice. It all comes together in this cool way that otherwise would not have been known without going into the radical.

Cantonese (Mainland China): 广东话 guǎngdōnghuà / jim2 dung1 waa2 or 6

This version is used by those in mainland china. The word gains its meaning from the region of 广东, which is a province in southern China where most of the population speaks Cantonese. (Where my Chinese ancestors are from :D ) Because of this, Cantonese is referred to as 广东话, or “Guangdong Language” or “Guangdong Dialect”.

This is very simple to break down as 话 was explained previously. 广东 is simply the name of the region in southern China. The character 广 means wide, extensive, and broad. The character 东 means east, host, or owner. I’m not sure on the history of why the southern provinces are named this way, but it is interesting to know. I will probably make a post explaining this history when or if I find I out.

Cantonese 白话 báihuà / baak6 waa2

This version of saying “Cantonese” is very very informal. It’s a term that’s very colloquial. It’s reportedly not used in Hong Kong, but can still be used in Mainland China. It’s a term that has many other uses and meanings so it’s not wise to use it only to say “Cantonese”. It can mean gossip, chit-chat, or even baseless claims. This is all derived from it’s characters.

白 means white, but just like many other languages, white isn’t only to say the color. 白 is also used to mean blank, clear, or plain. With this, when combined with 话, it gives off the idea of speaking very plainly and/or having nothing of value to your talk in either gossip or no evidence to back up claims.

It’s versatile in it’s use due to this, but those who use it to mean Cantonese are probably using it to make Cantonese seem like the “common” or “plain” language used. It’s the same idea of 普通话, where it’s the common tongue or dialect. Or at least that’s how I’m interpreting it.

This is all I have in terms of how to say “Chinese” in Chinese. I realize only after making this post that I did not use traditional characters at all. This would only change the appearance of the characters, not the pronunciation or use of the characters. Anyway, besides this I hope this post proved to be helpful and allowed many of you to learn something new! My sources are now listed below!

Sources:

https://goeastmandarin.com/how-say-chinese-language-mandarin-chinese/

https://www.duchinese.net/blog/91-how-to-say-chinese-in-chinese/

https://www.tutormandarin.net/en/5-ways-how-to-say-chinese-in-chinese/

https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-write-Cantonese-in-Cantonese

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-Mandarin-word-for-Mandarin

https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary

https://www.pleco.com/

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jessicalprice · 1 year

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you got your known Minoans and your unknown Minoans (part two)

(reposted, with edits, from Twitter)

(part one on Tumblr)

So, in Part One of this, I talked about the “Minoan” Boston Goddess statue and how she’s probably a forgery, and a little bit about how explicit Victorian archaeologists were that they wanted Minoan civilization to be a European civilization that was just as old and sophisticated as civilizations from Asia and the Near East.

Anyway, the Boston Goddess, Greek Gibson girl, delicate but dapper pre-Danaan dame...

She has no provenience. (I learned a thing: provenance is art, provenience is archaeology.) That is, she is without archaeological context. We don't know where she was found.

All those ecstatic articles about her are pretty cagey about where she actually came from. Caskey carefully says, allowing passive voice to do a lot of work, "according to information believed to be reliable, it came from Crete," and everyone else seems to have just run with that.

His successor as curator, Cornelius C. Vermuele III, who sounds like a walking Stiff Upper Lip, claims that the statue arrived via "a Greek-speaking Boston lady returning from the American School of Classical Studies in Athens," (natch, because she wouldn't have been the sort of lady to just vacation there).

Anyway, this Greek-speaking but safely Bostonian lady happened to befriend some Cretan immigrants in steerage--so enlightened--and they showed her the Boston Goddess--in fragments at the time--in a tin and she was like, HUP HUP MY DEAR SWARTHY FOLK YOU MUST TAKE THIS TO THE MFA.

And of course that was how it found its way into its proper home in a Boston museum--which of course purchased it for a "fair price"--and not with Greeks traveling in steerage.

No one at the museum could name this beneficient Boston lady who guided the figurine there, of course.

So then, another museum employee, Cyrus Aston Rollins Sanborn, who sounds like a walking handlebar moustache, tells the same story except now it's a male archaeologist befriending a lone Greek man in steerage. Everyone agrees on the "steerage" part, though, so that's something. Her fragments were maybe in a cigar box, maybe in a cigarette tin (the museum still has some fragments too small to be used in the restoration in a comely soap box), but I digress.

There weren't any ships sailing from Piraeus to Boston during the specified period, but it would be low-brow of us to concern ourself with things like facts about where one of the most important archaeological discoveries about the CRADLE OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION came from.

Anyway, I promised you I'd bag on Arthur Evans so let's do that:

Arthur Evans went to Crete looking or evidence of prehistoric European writing systems because he couldn't stand the fact that Middle Easterners invented our alphabet. (No, I mean, Mysteries of the Snake Goddess literally says: “he was hoping to prove early Europeans were no less literate than ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians.”)

Speaking of Crete, it was having a bit of a day back around the turn of the last century.

Until 1898, the Ottoman Empire ruled it

Until 1913, it was a protectorate of the Great Powers

After 1913, it was part of the Hellenic Republic of Greece

But they all agreed on one thing: STOP LOOTING THE PLACE AND CARTING OFF ALL ITS STUFF.

So unless something was a "duplicate" or insignificant, you had to turn it over to the authorities. But Arthur Evans was a Britisher, by golly, and wasn't going to be told what he could and couldn't do while hunting proof that Europe had always been just as sophisticated as Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

He'd already robbed tombs at Trier, skulls from Dubrovnik, and antiquities from Psychro, Trapeza, and Karphi. He knew that the archaeological importance of objects is deeply linked to their context, but considered rules about unauthorized digging "frivolous.” And he felt bad for collectors, rich people being stymied by all those rules--so, well, those rules would just have to be broken, even if that resulted in a "permanent injury to science."

In 1908, a Cretan customs agent caught him smuggling stuff he'd looted out of Crete. Rather than give it back, he tossed the package into the harbor.

He also got the customs agent fired.

In Part Three: this fine upstanding gentleman excavates the palace at Knossos, misplaced cats, fantasy worldbuilding, and Isadora Duncan being insufferable.

#archaeology #minoans #arthur evans #crete #white supremacist archaeology #snake goddess #art forgery #sketchy museum curators #mysterious greeks bearing gifts #mysterious bostonians bearing grifts #minoan

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coseodesignsseo · 2 months

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The Ultimate Guide to Generating Backlinks for Enhanced Website Rankings

Backlinks remain a crucial factor influencing website rankings. Simply put, backlinks are links from one website to another, and they serve as a vote of confidence in the eyes of search engines. However, not all backlinks are created equal. To achieve better website rankings, it's imperative to understand the best practices for generating high-quality backlinks. In this comprehensive guide, we'll delve into the most effective strategies to acquire backlinks that boost your website's authority and visibility.

Understanding the Importance of Backlinks

Before delving into strategies for generating backlinks, let's underscore why they matter. Search engines like Google consider backlinks as indicators of a website's credibility, relevance, and authority within its niche. Websites with a robust backlink profile tend to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs), leading to increased organic traffic and visibility. Additionally, backlinks facilitate crawling and indexing of web pages, allowing search engines to discover and understand your content more efficiently.

1. Create High-Quality, Shareable Content

Content is King: Crafting Compelling Assets

Creating high-quality, shareable content lies at the heart of any successful backlink strategy. Content that educates, entertains, or solves a problem for your target audience is more likely to attract backlinks naturally. Invest in producing comprehensive guides, informative articles, captivating infographics, or engaging videos that resonate with your audience's interests and needs.

Leverage Content Promotion

Merely creating stellar content isn't enough; you must also promote it effectively. Share your content across social media platforms, engage with relevant online communities and influencers, and reach out to industry websites or blogs for potential collaborations or guest posting opportunities. The more exposure your content receives, the higher the likelihood of attracting backlinks from authoritative sources.

2. Harness the Power of Guest Blogging

Strategic Outreach: Building Relationships

Guest blogging remains a potent tactic for acquiring high-quality backlinks while establishing thought leadership and expanding your online presence. Identify reputable websites or blogs within your niche that accept guest contributions. Craft well-researched, insightful articles that add value to their audience while subtly incorporating links back to your own website. Building genuine relationships with editors or website owners can lead to recurring guest blogging opportunities, further enhancing your backlink profile.

3. Explore Broken Link Building

Turning Setbacks into Opportunities

Broken link building involves identifying broken or outdated links on external websites and offering your own content as a replacement. Start by prospecting for websites relevant to your niche that contain broken links. Reach out to the website owner or webmaster, politely informing them of the broken link, and suggest your content as a suitable replacement. This mutually beneficial approach not only helps the website owner fix broken links but also earns you valuable backlinks in return.

4. Engage in Resource Link Building

Positioning Your Content as a Valuable Resource

Resource link building involves creating comprehensive, informative resources such as industry reports, whitepapers, or curated lists that serve as valuable references for your target audience. Reach out to relevant websites, blogs, or online directories in your niche, offering your resource for inclusion. Websites are more likely to link to resources that provide genuine value to their audience, thereby enhancing your backlink profile.

5. Foster Relationships with Influencers and Industry Experts

Collaborative Partnerships: Amplifying Your Reach

Building relationships with influencers and industry experts can open doors to valuable backlink opportunities. Engage with influencers through social media, attend industry events or webinars, and offer to contribute expert insights or interviews for their content. By aligning your brand with reputable figures in your niche, you not only gain exposure to their audience but also increase the likelihood of earning backlinks from their websites or social media profiles.

Generating backlinks remains a cornerstone strategy for enhancing website rankings and driving organic traffic. By prioritizing the creation of high-quality content, leveraging guest blogging opportunities, exploring innovative tactics such as broken link building and resource link building, and nurturing relationships with influencers and industry experts, you can build a robust backlink profile that propels your website to greater visibility and authority within your niche.

FAQs

Q1: How many backlinks do I need to improve my website's rankings? A: There's no definitive answer as the quantity of backlinks is less important than their quality. Focus on acquiring high-quality backlinks from authoritative websites relevant to your niche.

Q2: Are paid backlinks a viable option for improving rankings? A: While it may be tempting to purchase backlinks, it's not recommended as search engines like Google penalize websites engaged in manipulative link schemes. Opt for organic methods to acquire backlinks and prioritize quality over quantity.

Q3: How long does it take to see the impact of backlinks on my website's rankings? A: The impact of backlinks on rankings can vary depending on various factors such as the authority of the linking site, the relevance of the content, and the competitiveness of your niche. Generally, you may start noticing improvements within a few weeks to months, but consistent efforts are key to long-term success.

#advertising #design #marketing

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15pantheons · 1 year

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hello! i’m very interested in learning about finnish deities. do you have any recommendations on where to begin?

Encyclopedia Britannica is an amazing resource!! It’s quite reliable and has good information on mythology as well as links to other articles!

I’d recommend starting with the most major deities!

Ukko:

Tapio:

Finnish Mythology:

Fun Quiz:

#thanks for the ask!#this post is not sponsored by encyclopedia britannica

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lordspectrus · 1 year

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Tears for Fears - The Hurting (Steven Wilson 5.1/Atmos/Instrumental) Blu-Ray Audio

Slightly over a year after the first Blu-Ray audio disc in the "SDE Surround Series", said series circles back to the band that began it all.

Steven Wilson (renowned musician and engineer) wasn't involved yet when Universal (helped by Paul Sinclair and Steve Hammonds) compiled the 30th anniversary box set of The Hurting in 2013. Looking back, it almost appears modest. None of the tracks were previously unreleased, although many were on CD for the first time, and the concert video In My Mind's Eye made its first official DVD appearance.

The High Fidelity Pure Audio initiative started in 2012, and in early 2014, The Hurting was released in this format, but only in stereo. This disc is one of many good examples why the BD-A format never really took off: It was seen as pointless by most music buyers.

As Songs from the Big Chair was a bigger album, Universal then brought Steven Wilson on board to create a new stereo and 5.1 mix. Both were included on a DVD-A within the box set, but also on a standalone Blu-ray Audio - a much more attractive release than the Hurting BD-A. Nevertheless, the format fell out of favor. Blu-ray Audio continued to exist (both standalone and in box sets like Steven Wilson's 5.1 of The Seeds of Love), but the series was over after 2016. Until Paul Sinclair brought it back from the dead with the exclusive The Tipping Point Blu-ray.

That release, it turned out, was just the beginning of a series. Follow-up Blu-ray discs have been made of albums by xPropaganda, Gilbert O'Sullivan, Shakespear's Sister, Brian Eno, Orbital, Ten Years After and most recently none other than Bob Dylan!

Now for the 40th anniversary of The Hurting, Steven Wilson created not just a 5.1 mix but also a Dolby Atmos one (which will also be listenable on streaming sites, but the other mixes are exclusive to this disc), as well as an instrumental mix of the whole album!

Another find is two bonus tracks - versions of "Mad World" and "Watch Me Bleed" from the aborted Mike Howlett sessions (the original b-side mixes of "Ideas as Opiates" and "We are Broken", which were erroneously missing from the 2013 box set, are absent, though).

So we're getting four different versions of the album:

Dolby Atmos

DTS-HD 5.1

Original stereo mix (apparently/hopefully a new remaster)

Instrumental mix (hi-res stereo)

Plus two bonus tracks (stereo):

Mad World (Mike Howlett Version)

Watch Me Bleed (Mike Howlett Version)

The exclusivity and various tax/customs shenanigans haven't gotten any better since last year for me, but at least the offering appears quite a bit more generous than The Tipping Point. Still, I'm definitely glad none of the other SDE Blu-ray discs were anything I needed to have. (If I lived in the UK, I probably would've gotten more of them.)

As with the second pressing of the Tipping Point blu-ray, the number of copies of this disc is going to be pressed based on how many are preordered until March 17.

There's also a new half-speed mastered vinyl reissue of the album.

Store link:

Article:

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massivelimestonecube · 2 years

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i'd like to tell you about this hole in the ground.

[discussion of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse of children ahead. this is a long post, but a very important one; please bear with me for a few minutes of your time.]

before there was a hole in the ground, there were buildings here. the buildings looked like houses but they were not. they were unregulated psychiatric facilities where dozens of teenagers were held against their wills - against our wills - for months or years at a time. it's difficult to explain what it was like. in place of treatment, we spent 2 hours in "group therapy" a day, where a few people would be singled out and the rest of us had to attack them. we'd all be forced to, for instance, tell a child rape survivor why it was their fault, surround them physically, call them a slut in unison, led by adults who all participated enthusiastically. if we didn't we wouldn't earn enough "points" - all activities were graded - to be allowed to talk, or even be acknowledged by others, for at least a week. everyone was punished for everything, all the time, even for things that were not in any way bad, like wearing a ponytail without permission. almost everyone was completely broken by the brainwashing within months. there's no way to tell this story concisely. it's been a decade and the effects of complex PTSD have never left me.

at a different time than i was there, a teen girl was raped by a staff member. she reported what happened. instead of firing the staff member, they punished the victim instead. they confiscated her journals, containing evidence, and burned them. she was not the only one who experienced this kind of abuse, but when she got out she decided she would be the last. she got in contact with a lawyer, and by word of mouth, got dozens of us together to testify. only a few of us (myself, unfortunately, not included) were within the statute of limitations, but everyone's testimony is still on the record to corroborate what happened there.

the case has not yet gone to trial, but the story was released to the public in march. (you can read an article about it here; the full text of the lawsuit is linked at the bottom. please note that the lawsuit describes the abuse very graphically.)

four days later, i found out that one of their three facilities had closed. over the following months, they were all gone.

this hole in the ground is the facility i was at. it was once the Vista Adolescent Treatment Center in Magna, Utah. it is now just dirt, because a lot of people got together and decided there would be no more abuse.

vista got away with it for over 20 years. they abused thousands of children. they made a lot of money. finally survivors said no more, and presented a case so strong they were forced to cease their own operations - they didn't even wait to be shut down by the state. when i heard about the lawsuit, i was certain the only real outcome would be compensation for a very small set of victims, and a financial inconvenience for vista. i can't believe how much better it turned out.

i want to tell you this story for two reasons. one, if you weren't already aware of the troubled teen industry, you should spend a little time researching it. understand that vista is not in any way unique in the nature & scope of its abuse; in fact, a lot of us consider ourselves lucky that we were (for the most part) not beaten, like children are at so many other facilities that operate with impunity.

two, i want people who hear this to know that it is possible to stop these abusive systems. it's not easy, it's not always a success, and litigation & legislature are not the only means. learn where abuse, on any scale, is taking place in your communities. choose not to tolerate it. i was institutionalized for 18 months and i wondered every day why no one ever came to help me or did anything to stop it. i finally got my chance to help stop it from happening to others. i am not stopping with vista.

there is, thankfully, a lot more public understanding of what happens at these places now than there was when i was sent there. even my mom has apologized for what happened to me, now that she's read the lawsuit and had enough years to come to terms with making a mistake (of course, she was preyed upon and manipulated emotionally for financial gain, too). podcasts like Trapped in Treatment tell the stories of survivors directly. the local news here in Utah, the epicenter of the industry, is starting to pick up on what's happening. legislation offering some protection to children in these facilities is slowly being passed. still, very little has changed. facilities are almost never shut down, and regulation only touches the most egregious of human rights violations, never the little things that add up to massive trauma.

i am not asking you to march or donate to a nonprofit or call your senator or even read anything else on the subject beyond this post. i ask only that you refuse to allow abuse (in this form or any other) to take place. if you want it to stop you have to be the kind of person who is willing to stop it. it didn't sink in for me how immediately possible it was until i saw this photo.

thank you for reading. a better world is possible.

#vista treatment center #vista rtc #vista adolescent treatment center

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hillerska-official · 2 years

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Wille’s LED Lights

So I think a lot of us will recall the colour theory post of yore. I reference this post all the time, but as I am wont to do I put too much thought into a joke and now I’ve read the entire Wikipedia article on colour psychology and am here to psychoanalyze my baby boy.

I think the most important thing to take away about colour psychology is just how shaky it is - eg. the article cites one study which showed men perceiving a RED screen as lasting longer than an equivalent BLUE screen, but notes that another study found the exact opposite result.

A lot of the reason for this probably comes down to the second and sixth of 6 principles listed in the article: reaction to colour can be either learned OR innate, and the meaning of a colour is affected by context. This means there is a differing effect based on factors like age, gender, culture, and personal experiences, which I think is important in considering how colour will effect a young, queer*, cultural figurehead like Wille - he exists very much outside of the studied ‘norm’.

*unlabeled, but I say queer here to note that he is specifically not straight, and as such does not conform to some gendered rules of society (specifically regarding his attraction to other genders within canon, but also his own identity for the he/they Wille fans out there).

So what do Wille’s red LED lights mean?

There are a few basic observations to be made: red has been linked to positive performances in sports, which is interesting given Wille’s position on the rowing team (as well as his referenced past in riding). It is also linked with skin pallor, denoting things like health or higher levels of testosterone. Extroverts have shown a preference for warmer colours such as red, and seeing how he parties even when he isn’t mid-life-shattering-tragedy, the boy does like to get out despite his sometimes shy demeanor.

Moving on to the real colour theory though, the person in the meme was technically correct in saying red tends to have more positive associations than negative: lust, power, excitement, and love are all things the article lists as being commonly associated with the colour red. We really see all of these crop up at one point or another in Willes storyline, as well as the major negative connotation red has: anger.

(as a side note, the study which connects red to arousal/attractiveness was specifically conducted on straight people which I think is simultaneously unsurprising, hilarious, and totally unhelpful to me!)

Anyways I think that it’s very interesting that red is associated with both good and bad emotions, and is one of the most cited examples throughout the whole article - if nothing else, humans NOTICE the colour red. I think the wide range of emotion connected to the colour is very reflective of Willes complex and turbulent emotions throughout s1 of Young Royals, and the fact that they are most prominently displayed (i.e. they’re on) when he is torn between things, tells us that in a way they can mean all of these various emotions, even all at once. Red is Wille’s crossroads.

1. When Simon invites Wille to the soccer game (a choice between Simon and rowing practice)

2. When Wille asks Simon to delete his story from Instagram (he’s looking at the school handbook, obviously contemplating what he wants)

3. After he and Simon have broken up and he’s hiding in his room (Changes in their relationship status)

4. When Alex comes by to bring Wille to the Society meeting/party (This is the opposite end of their breakup, just before the football field scene).

(You can see each of these moments, plus the times they appear off, here.)

A fun colour theory bonus to congratulate you on reading this whole thing:

YELLOW, which appears prominently in the lighting of some of our favourite Wilmon scenes (morning after, fish tank, Lucia) is the colour generally preferred by babies before they become cognizant of cultural expectations surrounding colour, which means the golden-yellow light these scenes are bathed in is innately good/pleasing to humans before our and societies expectations weigh us down, as they do Wille and Simon throughout the show.

#it IS colour theory #anyways lmao #young royals #young royals analysis #wille young royals #wilhelm young royals #wilmon #the post is finally here lmao its only been in my drafts almost done for two weeks #enjoy #prince queuehelm

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arkenforge · 1 year

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How to build a touchscreen TTRPG table, and use Arkenforge with it.

Hey folks! Recently we put out this video (also shown below) showing off our new touch screen features, and it’s safe to say it was quite popular! In this article we’ll be giving you instructions on how you can build your own version of this setup at home. Product links in this article are affiliate links.

TLDR Links:

Touch overlays for TV-s or Monitors:

32-inch IR Overlay

42-inch IR Overlay

55-inch IR Overlay

Touch software:

MT Touch Client: https://arkenforge.com/mt-touch-client/

VTT:

The Master’s Toolkit

youtube

Map Display

The first thing we’ll need to organise is a way for your players to see the map. There’s three main ways to go about this, depending on your budget and available space. We’ll start with the cheapest/least space required and go up from there.

Horizontal-Mounted TV

The easiest way to get a digital setup up and running is to take an existing TV and lay it flat on your table. If your TV doesn’t have a flat back or you want something a little sturdier, you can design a mount that screws into the back of it to keep it flat. The image above shows one that we’ve designed for use at conventions and our home games.

Projector

Image source: http://projection-mapping.org/dungeons-dragons-projection-mapping/ If you’ve got a sturdy roof and don’t mind doing some wiring, a roof-mounted projector may be for you. This allows for any surface to be used for your play area. Minis with overhanging elements may cause shadows on the map, but arguably that just adds to the immersion.

Integrated Digital Table

This is the big one; a TV built directly into a table! These can range from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands depending on the features and craftsmanship. The sky is the limit with this setup, as you can add speakers, lighting, or even cup holders! Depending on your touch screen solution, the TV will either be flush with the table, or slightly recessed. If you aren’t confident to chop up a table yourself, contact your local carpenter, or one of the many companies creating ready-made digital tables.

Now that our players are able to see the map, our next step is to make it interactive!

Touch Screen Options

The most important part of this build is the thing that will actually be detecting your minis. There’s two main types of touch screens you’ll want to consider: capacitive and infrared. The touch technology you use will determine if there’s anything else you’ll need to get your setup up and running.

Infrared Overlays

Image source: https://crystal-display.com/products/ir-touch/

IR Overlays work by firing out infrared light in a grid pattern and registering a touch point where the grid is broken. They’re cheap, relatively accurate, and they can detect any object that you put in the middle of them. We personally like these because it can detect any mini right out of the box. There are a solid list of cons though, depending on how you like to run your sessions.

Because the detection is done from the frame inwards, objects that the IR beam can’t hit won’t be detected. This can be noticed when clumping minis together, or if some unfortunate positioning leaves a mini in a dead zone. As the frame detects everything that enters it, dice rolls or accidental droppage can cause unintended reveals. This is something we will address with future versions of the Master’s Toolkit. An IR Overlay also doesn’t play nice with 3D terrain, so you may want to opt for a different solution if you enjoy busting out the Dwarven Forge dungeons. Finally, if you play somewhere with large amounts of IR light, your touch screen may have detection issues.

You can purchase IR overlays in various sizes to fit your screen. We’ve selected a few below for common screen sizes: 32-inch IR Overlay 42-inch IR Overlay 55-inch IR Overlay

Capacitive Touch Screen

Image source: https://www.iop.org/explore-physics/technology-our-lives/touchscreen

These screens are the ones we find in nearly every device today. They detect touch input by sensing when an electrically conductive material is applied to them. This is usually your finger or a stylus. There is no risk of blocking your minis, as the source of detection is the screen itself. There’s also no risk of interference from other light sources, meaning they can be used in all conditions.

While capacitive screens solve a lot of the issues that IR touch screens can face, there is extra cost and work involved in preparing your minis for detection. The main downside of these devices is that standard mini bases are made of plastic, and therefore are not conductive. You’ll need to find custom bases with a capacitive material, usually involving copper or aluminium. Aluminium foil can often work in a pinch, but results can be iffy. As a general rule of thumb, if it works on your smartphone, it’ll work on your screen. As capacitive touch screens put you in charge of what does and doesn’t get detected, you can safely use 3D terrain on these screens.

Capacitive screens can be purchased both as a full unit, or as a film that you can place on your existing TV. You can find one such film below:

Capacitive touch screen film

If you aren’t too big on the DIY side of things, you can increase your budget a bit and go for an already integrated capacitive touch screen:

40-inch capacitive touch screen

Once your screen has been organised, the next thing you’ll need is the software to run it!

Software

At this moment in time, there’s two pieces of software you’ll need to get your touch screen up and running. Our first version of this feature requires two devices, one of which must be running Windows. There’s no spec requirements for this second device. It just needs to be able to connect to WiFi. As time goes on, we’ll be working to get the second device to a much cheaper price point and more convenient size.

The Master’s Toolkit

This is the most important part of your setup! Right now the Toolkit interprets all touch points as vision to reveal. In the future we’ll be performing some software wizardry to allow selective touch reveal, touch dead-zones, and a bunch of other fun features.

In the first release of this feature, we’ve got some simple options available. For a full overview, check out our sister article that explains how to use and configure the MT Touch Client: https://arkenforge.com/mt-touch-client/

MT Touch Client software

Those of you on Windows may have noticed a new option in your Launcher – MT Touch Client. This software runs on a Windows device connected to your touch screen. Some of you may be wondering: “Why do I need a second device + software to use the touch screen? Can’t I just plug it into my main computer” That’s a pretty valid question. The primary reason is that touch input steals control of the mouse. This stops the Toolkit from being useable once minis are in play, and can lead to a lot of unintended UI selection. Another fun fact is that Windows clears ALL touch points if it detects a point for more than 60 seconds. This is counterproductive when dealing with minis that are often on the board for hours at a time.

For this reason, we created the MT Touch Client software to send touch information to the Toolkit over the local network. The only thing you need to do is run the software. It’ll automatically connect to the Toolkit and handle everything from there. One other benefit of having an external app is that the Toolkit can remain platform independent, so whether you’re running on PC, Mac, or Wine, you don’t need to worry about drivers or compatibility issues. For a full overview of the MT Touch Client, view our sister article here: https://arkenforge.com/mt-touch-client/

Integrating other devices with the Toolkit fog of war

For those who want to perform your own fun fog of war integration, the Toolkit receives fog data via OSC. Port 7001, Address “/FogOfWarPosition”. Data will need to be in the string format “[touch point]|[x position]|[y position]”, where [touch point] is an integer from 0 – 99, [x/y position] is a decimal value from 0 – 1 representing the screen position, and ‘|’ is the separator character.

Enjoy your new setup!

You’ve now got everything you need to get a touch screen setup up and running! If this feels like a bit too much work, we’ll be looking to release a kit that contains everything you need in the future. Be sure to stay on the lookout for that!

If you don’t have the Master’s Toolkit yet, try it free for 28 days at https://arkenforge.com/trial

See you in the next one!

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