#I just re-used this template that I used in 2016

[lilium-dragomir]

“We are all prisoners of circumstance at one point or another.” ― Andrea Cremer

Kanojo ga Koushaku-tei ni Itta Riyuu | Raeliana McMillan @animangacreators  - Challenge: 'Spring 2023'

#Anime #Kanojo ga Koushaku-tei ni Itta Riyuu #Geunyeoga Gongjagjeolo Gaya Haessdeon Sajeong #The Reason Why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke's Mansion #Raeliana McMillan #My gifs #My graphics #My work #▶ #animangacreator challenge #Manga #animanga #dailyanime #anisource #animangaladies #Manhwa #That moment when there's no manga to color and for the longest time you are lost what to do for the challenge #I just re-used this template that I used in 2016 #The edit isn't the best... but it works for the challenge I guess #❖

[art]

I posted 446 times in 2022

That's 163 more posts than 2021!

155 posts created (35%)

291 posts reblogged (65%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@artistalley

@vanessagillings

@artistpicks

@emilylorange

@enthusiastic-nimrod

I tagged 445 of my posts in 2022

#artists on tumblr - 298 posts

#art - 121 posts

#halloween - 74 posts

#illustration - 64 posts

#build a beast - 64 posts

#submission - 53 posts

#meet the artist - 48 posts

#meet the artist on tumblr - 48 posts

#painting - 44 posts

#digital - 41 posts

Longest Tag: 39 characters

#[redacted] is just homestuck circa 2016

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Meet the Artist: Kiki

Hi, I’m Kiki! I’m 24, live in the US, and have been using a tablet for about 7 years now. Since I’m self-taught, I’m always trying to learn new things to continue developing my style. My biggest inspirations are nature and animals. They’re all shaped so differently, and I love exaggerating their forms! I also am into video game design and character concept art. If you’re interested in commissioning me for anything, please feel free to message me!

So lovely to meet you, Kiki! We asked her to pick out a couple of artworks to share with you all here.

See the full post

5,420 notes - Posted April 12, 2022

#4

Week 1: Build Your Beast

Salutations, stooges. It is time to build your beast. Will it be feathered? Furry? Flame-scaled? Will you be re-purposing an OC you already have or creating a completely new character? Will your beast be big and brash or soft-spoken and nimble-footed? Here’s your template. Download it, draw or describe (or crochet or paint or mold or embroider or immortalize in shanty form) your character. In short, unleash your wildest whims upon it. We look forward to meeting your horrid creation.

Upload your completed template using the tag #build a beast to share your grizzly creation with the world (a reminder to use your reblog controls if you’d like your beast to remain hidden in the wilds).

Loathsomely yours, us.

5,544 notes - Posted October 3, 2022

#3

Meet the Artist: @velinxi

Hello! I’m Xiao Tong Kong, better known as “Velinxi.” I’m the creator of the webcomic Countdown to Countdown and have been doing freelance artwork since I was a teenager. I love telling stories with my illustrations! Tumblr was where I first got my start as an artist, specifically a small fandom artist as a hobby… and now I’m somehow here! When I’m not trying my best to stay awake in front of my tablets, I’m usually cooking, gaming, or sleeping. Sometimes all three, in my dreams.

Pleased to meet you, Velinxi! We’ve asked her to share some of her artwork for you to appreciate below.

See the full post

5,787 notes - Posted October 11, 2022

#2

Meet the Artist: @simzart​

Hello, I’m SimzArt, an artist from Italy. I like to work on personal projects and currently I’m developing a new comic based on modern witches (hopefully it’s going to be readable soon). I also stream and make videos about art and art products. I’m really happy with my job. My dream is to keep growing and learning new things and get in touch with as many people as possible and hopefully inspire them with my creations. I love art, and I’m happy to meet you all!

Very nice to meet you, SimzArt! We’ve asked him to share some of his work for us to highlight here.

See the full post

7,743 notes - Posted March 29, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Meet the Artist: @peevishpants​

Hallo! Weiwei here. I’m currently a full-time illustrator in tech by day and a part-time drawer for publishing and animation by night. You may remember me from such posts as my Zelda university AU, outfitober designs, the occasional comic about fish or Chinese diaspora identity, and [redacted]. Thank you for the love, and thank you Tumblr for giving my blog back and asking me to do a meet the #artist! Consider my socks rocked!

Great to meet you, Weiwei! Here are some illustrations that she has handpicked for us to feature here.

See the full post

9,110 notes - Posted May 17, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #artists on tumblr #long post

[osprey-witches]

Let's try this *again*

Hey y'all. Name's Osprey. I made a post a while back about how I was gonna come back to this account and well... that clearly didn't happen lol. So let's do this again. I want to re-introduce myself in this post and also explain some stuff about where I want to go with my spirituality and this page. I'll use the same kind of template as my re-introduction from a couple years back.

IN GENERAL

I am Osprey. My username here used to be apollo-and-aphrodite. I'm now 20, almost 21. I use they/them pronouns. I have multiple physical and mental disabilities. I have always been hesitant to share this on this page, and this will be the first time I'm mentioning this here, but the primary disability that has been affecting my life recently has been Dissociative Identity Disorder. I am a system. I doubt this will come up too much in my content, but it has informed my spirituality so it will probably come up a bit.

MY PRACTICE

This will be written from the perspective of the host alter, though others with different practices and backgrounds may also end up posting to this tumblr. To be quite honest I definitely stepped away from my practice for a while. However, before I did, my practice mainly consisted of prayer / devotion, representational magick, tarot, sigils, and herbalism. I am a devotee of Aphrodite and Apollo (they are my matron and patron respectively), and also work under Artemis, Hekate, Hestia, and Hermes most closely. I was raised Jewish, and definitely still also incorporate aspects of Judaism into my faith and practice. Edit: I'd also like to add I would love to start looking into German folk practices as my family is largely from Germany! As I do more research into my family tree, I will possibly add more folk practices to look into if I feel it's appropriate.

MY BACKGROUND

This hasn't changed so I'll kinda just copy paste. I’ve been practicing in one way or another since I was 9 years old, doing really simple things that never ended up working. When I was around 12, I discovered Paganism, specifically Wicca. I dove far into Wicca before realizing at around age 15-16 that my beliefs fit more closely with Hellenic Polytheism. I don’t do much “big” magick, but have been successful in things like bindings and protection workings. My first patron was Artemis, and then Apollo took over that role. Aphrodite took over as my matron in around 2016 or so.

THIS TUMBLR

I'm gonna be 100% honest I don't expect to be the most active page. I absolutely never plan on deleting it because it means far too much to me with how much it helped me over the years, but I can also recognize that my relationship with my faith is definitely hard to keep steady for many reasons. I'll post when I'm up to it and when I have something to share, and that's all I can really promise.

Thanks for reading <3

-Osprey

#dissociative system #dissociative identity disorder #gay witch #transgender witch #witch #witchcraft #hellenismos #hellenism #witchy #pagan #hellenic pagan #hellenic polytheism #introductory post

[moinsbienquekaworu]

(re: your tags) I feel the same way about graduating hs. I graduated back in 2016, and have had to drop out of college on two separate occasions because of my disabilities. Now my siblings are all either graduating from prestigious colleges or halfway through their programs with top marks, and its very much a. Idk. An "I feel like I didn't do enough" kinda deal. Just about everyone graduates hs from the school I went to. Nobody sees it as an achievement even though that's the furthest some of us ever could go.

Anyway, hi. You're not alone. I'm proud of you for graduating hs, that's a feat in and of itself 💛 it's really impressive that you're trying for a uni degree too, even though you're not sure you want it anymore. I'm proud of you for all the trying stuff, you're doing great, you deserve to have a good time. And, no matter what you decide to do, whether that be continuing despite maybe not being sure about it or dropping it later or whatever you decide to do, im still going to be proud of you for getting this far.

You're doing great, keep up the good work 💛💛

(And if you ever need someone to just listen, my askbox and dms are open at all times, even if it takes me a bit to respond)

(about this post and my tags on it)

That's !! Feeling like you're not even getting started when it should be enough to get you a nice job and allow you to live a simple life is terrible. Because romanticising the past isn't ideal and all, but I can't help but wish I lived in a time where a high school diploma was actually a good education and could land you a nice job, instead of feeling like the beginning.

One of our teachers used to say that, we were a small group and she'd always go "oh graduating hs is just the beginning, all the serious stuff is afterwards if you want a good life, but you're all smart and capable here, I know you'll go far" and this made me feel atrocious, I think you'll see why. I love that woman but that was not the thing to say haha. Tying how far you go into your studies to your intelligence and your worth as a person did not help me at all.

I'm trying to remember I do it because I want to, because literature and english are interesting topics, and that this doesn't determine what I'm worth or even my future. I'm there to have a good time and learn some stuff, Cs get degrees and I'll get somewhere eventually, it's all fine. It's just a bit hard to remember sometimes :')

And obviously, uno reverse card, at least on what's applicable to you haha. I imagine it must suck wanting to go but not being able to, and seeing everyone else succeed where you couldn't. I still kind of wish they gave a medal or just, something tangible at graduation, because the paper doesn't even feel that nice, nobody even signed it it's just a pre-filled template.

#anyway love you so much thank you for that ask #if that brings you comfort one of my friend groups is like half people in uni half people working #and the ones working are having as much of a Time as us #(this is derogatory but hey we're ALL suffering in different ways) #i don't know if this is private and you want me to answer it like privately? #i prefer chucking everything on my blog but i'll private it if you'd rather #wow i have an asks tag now

[bananastreaming]

Why is my word document locked

#Why is my word document locked how to

#Why is my word document locked full

And all the standard keyboard shortcuts for formatting are active again too. Go back to the Home tab - your Font and Paragraph group icons are now active, as are the functions to insert a section break, insert a table of contents, apply a template, insert a decimal tab, align paragraph text, modify a style, etc.Click the Save icon on the toolbar and close the Microsoft Visual Basic window.(If you can’t see the Properties panel, select View > Properties Window from the menu.) Go to the Properties panel and find EnforceStyle.The top left panel should show This Document for the document you have open.Click the Visual Basic icon (far left on the Developer tab).Select the Show Developer tab in the Ribbon check box. Probably the easeeet method to deal siwi this issie would be simply importing the document with locked table into a new, blank document. (If you don’t have the Developer tab on your ribbon, click the large Microsoft Office button in the top left. Type your 25-character product key to activate Office Word 2016. To get back most of these locked down functions:

#Why is my word document locked how to

I can understand why some organizations want to lock down the styles, but to lock down all this other stuff as well? That just baffles and frustrates me. how to unlock Microsoft word 2019 that is lockedfix - you can't make this change because the selection is locked unlicensed product office 2019TechmanduTo r. Ctrl+E to center a figure), you cannot apply highlighting to a particular section, you cannot change a table’s borders, etc. That severely limits what you can do! You cannot manually change the text alignment of a paragraph with either the icon or keyboard shortcut (e.g. The only active tools are Paste, Sort, and Show/Hide. Here’s what the locked down template’s Home tab looks like: However, I did figure out how to get most of them back by making a single change! Also locked down was the ability to use many standard Word formatting keyboard shortcuts (like Ctrl+B for bold). Most tool icons on the Clipboard, Font and Paragraph groups on the Home tab in Word 2007 were locked down, as were the ability to re-insert a Table of Contents, insert a section break, reapply a template, modify a style, apply a decimal tab, etc. But I won’t go into all the details otherwise I’d be here all day. All you need to do is click “Find Next Region I Can Edit.I was testing a draft template for an entire business unit today and to say it’s locked down would be an understatement. In the right-hand pane, you’ll also notice a new option that lets you hop from editable section to editable section. This is an identifier for users that those are the editable sections. > corner is telling me the section is locked when i try type. 'rosie' wrote: > my document wont let me type, or indeed do anything. that hasn't been activated (activate it).

#Why is my word document locked full

Word now highlights, as well as brackets, the selected text. expired trial version (buy a full version) or an installation of Word/Office. Go ahead and do so, then select “OK.” If you selected specific people for whom to allow editing, you’d select the “User authentication” option instead. The “Start Enforcing Protection” window will appear, warning you that the document isn’t encrypted and therefore susceptible to malicious users. If you’re on a company network and would like only to allow specific people to be able to edit the content, select “More users” and enter the users’ names (note that this requires access to a central, network user directory).įinally, under the “Start enforcement” section, click “Yes, Start Enforcing Protection.” This allows everyone that receives the document to edit the content you selected. Once the text is selected, head back over to the “Restrict Editing” pane and tick the “Everyone” checkbox under the “Exceptions” section. If you have specific content in two separate sections that you’d like to keep open for editing, hold the Ctrl key while you click and drag to add them to your selection. Go ahead and select the text by clicking and dragging your mouse across the text. For such scenarios MS Word itself provides a brilliant opportunity for users to lock and unlock the word files so that data cannot be altered or misused by any unauthorized users. Sometimes few of those files carry sensitive information and thus require to be protected. Whatever parts you don’t select will end up as read-only. MS Word documents are widely used to store vital information of users. Now, you’ll need to select the parts of the document for which you do want editing allowed.

#Why is my word document locked

[trustarrow]

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And I found that InDesign ended up being much nicer (and more stable) to work with. I spent a lot of time checking each page, but not nearly as much time as I would have spent recreating the documents from scratch. The positioning of all text boxes and images were the same, and with only the odd spacing glitch where I'd embedded images within text boxes, all was fine. Quarkxpress 9 freeload Trial Version For Hp Qc But using the procedure below I managed to convert both books without any problems. Both books had been created using Quark XPress 7. Their in-house team had switched to InDesign entirely and they no longer accepted Quark files.Potentially a complete nightmare. During one of my conversations with the client it was revealed to me that the files had to be created in InDesign. There were two 300+ page documents of fairly complex text and diagramatic content, both of which were nearing completion. What do you do?Recently I was working on an enormous book project for a publishing client in Greece.

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Use our (Converts Quark 2016 or earlier to InDesign CS3 - CC).Converting Quark to InDesignSo you've got archives full of Quark files and you've long since made the transition to InDesign. Purchase the Q2ID plugin: Apple OSX or Microsoft Windows: or. If you don't have legacy versions of Quark, either. If you do have legacy versions of Quark, see below for instructions on converting files yourself. First though, find out if you have what you need for a free Quark to InDesign conversion:Page summary. If you're converting Quark to InDesign and you only have the latest (or a recent) version of Quark, you'll need to purchase a plugin like. The bad news is you can only import Quark version 4 files. iDraw for iPad.Is There a Free Quark to InDesign Conversion Method?The good news is if you want a free Quark to InDesign conversion tool, you'll find it built right into InDesign. Professional desktop vector drawing and design. Īrtisteer Web Designer - Product Download Customize professional templates or design from scratch with the Adobe FormsCentral.

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The unequaled performance and accuracy of this award-winning conversion technology saves countless hours of scanning or re-keying and formatting legacy documents.?Q2ID can convert QuarkXPress documents created on either the Microsoft Windows or Apple Macintosh OS, into Macintosh Adobe InDesign. Conversion is enabled with a single click using InDesign's File->Open menu. Important items such as Tables, Layers, Blends, Runarounds, Linked Text boxes and Anchored boxes, Pantone colors and other color models are instantly re-created within InDesign. This includes the intricate details of all objects of the document such as exact page positioning, color models, fonts and styles, images, as well as precise text attributes. Q2ID (QuarkXPress to Adobe InDesign) offers users a quick and easy way to convert QuarkXPress content into a new Adobe InDesign document.

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[swjust]

Point set reconstruction rhino for mac

#POINT SET RECONSTRUCTION RHINO FOR MAC HOW TO#

Filters -> Remeshing, Simplification and Reconstruction -> Simplification: Quadric Edge Collapse Decimation. To reduce the total number of polygons to make it a little easier to work with, you can then go to. Apply When you are satisfied with your mesh, go to File ->Export Method 2: Voxel Stacksĩ *Optional - Your mesh may have turned out to have millions of faces and vertices. Filters -> Smoothing, Fairing, and Deformation -> HP Laplacian Smooth. Apply If your mesh looks a bit jagged or rough, you can smooth it out, but you may lose some of the fine details. Filters -> Cleaning and Repairing -> Remove faces from non manifold edges. Apply When doing this, you will lose some of the detail of your fractal because you are changing the overall geometry. Check the boxes Preserve Normal, Optimal Position of Simplified Vertices, Planar Simplification, Post-simplification cleaning, and Uncheck all of the rest. Enter your desired target number of faces. *Optional - Your mesh may have turned out to have millions of faces and vertices. Experiment until you find what works best. Apply Filters -> Normals, Curvature and Orientation -> Re-Orient All faces Coherently Some of these cleaning steps may seem redundant or unnecessary for your fractal. Apply Filters -> Remeshing, Simplification and Reconstruction -> Close Holes. Apply Filters -> Cleaning and Repairing -> Remove faces from non manifold edges. Apply Filters -> Cleaning and Repairing -> Remove unreferenced vertices. ApplyĤ Filters -> Cleaning and Repairing -> Remove zero area faces. Apply Filters -> Cleaning and Repairing -> Remove duplicated vertex. Apply Filters -> Cleaning and Repairing -> Remove duplicate faces. Filters -> Cleaning and Repairing -> Merge Close Vertices. Step 3: Meshlab Open your.obj file in Meshlab and follow the cleaning steps. When its finished, it will save to your Mandelbulb 3d Meshes folder by default. uncheck taubin smooth, save type: Mesh as OBJ 3) Click Generate Mesh. Find a size that works best for your fractal. 2) Mesh properties settings: Mesh type : Mesh Volumetric Resolution could be anywhere from about 400x400x400 to 1000x1000x1000, but the higher the number, the more faces and vertices it will produce. Set preview size to 256³ for the highest resolution preview. If necessary, decrease overall scale until you see your whole fractal in the preview window. Step 2: Mesh Propertiesģ 1) Import your parameters from the main window. Method 1: Bulbtracer to.obj Method 1: Bulbtracer to.obj Method 2: Voxel Stacks Method 3: Point CloudsĢ Step 1: Create your fractal. This is just intended to be a template you can start with. It can then be turned into a mesh using Meshlab 2016 All of these methods have their own pros and cons so it is up to you to find the method that works for you and your fractals. Method 1: Use the Bulbtracer option to turn the fractal directly into an.obj file Method 2: Use the Voxelstack option and compile the image stack in Fiji, then export as an.obj file Method 3: Use the Bulbtracer option to turn the fractal into a point cloud. I will give a quick overview of the 3 main methods I have used.

#POINT SET RECONSTRUCTION RHINO FOR MAC HOW TO#

1 How To Export A Fractal From Mandelbulb 3D Programs you need : Mandelbulb 3d v1.99 or latest version for best results Meshlab Fiji (Method 2) Blender 3D (or the 3d software of your choice) I should start by mentioning that before you export your fractal, there are 3 main methods I will go over to get your object ready for use in another 3d program, like Blender.

#Point set reconstruction rhino for mac

[joensendyer7]

Top 5 Landscaping Design Concepts To Get Down

Whenever a developer gets a design project, he or she will require to take a measure back and think about the research process to be able to complete the work. The research process is a tedious process, it determines how well, and successful will the result of your web design. Ideas for web design will share with you how to go through that research process smoothly and obtain results. The design industry doesn't tolerate anyone who can't deliver what people say they is going to. If you're lucky enough to land a position, from day one you'll be asked to to influence your employer that they made the right decision. Purchase either perform work a person can't there's no middle land. And in an industry that puts great trust in reputations, you have protect yours at all costs. It's like someone giving you the components a few super fast car search engine. If you are clueless anything about mechanics, the chances of you producing a locomotive that really works and delivers what robust and muscular it to are very slim. Specifically the same is true to designing your backyard. Unless to produce how it works, all the templates previously world cannot help you achieve the results you will need. Nobody's designs are perfect. That's why seeking out other people to come across your mistakes is a smart way to develop your skill set. It may be tough receiving feedback initially because it can feel prefer your work will be personally assaulted. Remember to differentiate yourself by your work to use it to improve. Beginning your logo design process in barely black and white, that you can focus totally on shape, is one means to ensure your logo in order to be properly useful. Avoid looking at colors until consist of and white version is approved - after all, color will influence how we react to something. Logos should not be chosen a good emotional time frame. B: I thought i was at "Vaal University of Technology", I enjoyed it there a good and they took us to every exhibition along with indaba as we wanted search. This place has a high standard of work, in line with the evaluators we. Avoid Animation - Animated GIFs shut off of style a long time ago. So did a marquee sign. Avoid using them. Before. microsoft office 2016 crack product key goes back to the recommendation that web page operating design be modern. Encourage partner to design their own car through out brochures. Invite them to join you to find a cup of coffee within your garden area to explain the details and pay day loan advantage utilizing the car software build. You can ask them to create their own design, the same as playing might car inside your software. microsoft office 2016 crack free download , boat different electronic device can thought to be useful as well ,. microsoft office 2016 crack for windows 10 can even be re design just like your expensive vehicle. No need to visit on various car companies to choose the latest approach. Your old car can be as new car by means of car software design.

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[theramseyloft]

Cognitive and social information to make selecting, bonding with, and training your pigeon easier:

There are lots of things I can go into more detail on, but here are the hows and whys of pigeon cognition and sociology that form the basis of our research into communication and Therapy work, laid out as a guide to building your relationship with your bird, starting with generalities universal to the species, and ending with an in depth look at the mechanics behind the typical behaviors and temperaments of cocks vs hens and what to expect.

Though they are extremely social outside nest space, Pigeons, whether cock or hen, are life-or-death viciously territorial of their specific nest space.

For reference: 

A free flying bird with no cage considers nest space to consist of the actual nest and about their own body length around it. 

Because they are crevice nesters, a pigeon with an enclosure considers the entire enclosure to be nest space.

Only a pigeon's mate is allowed to enter their nest, and that's exclusively by invitation.

Peeps are hatched into it, and once they wean, they are not allowed to re-enter.

Anything entering their nest space that is not that bird's mate is instinctively considered to be either a predator, or a rival.

 A rival won't eat them, but is coming explicitly to attack them to drive them out of a good nest, which will involve killing their nestlings if they have any.

So, to avoid triggering the predator/rival defensive response, it's important to open your bird's enclosure to invite them to come out on their own terms when you want to spend social time with them. 

This rewards their natural curiosity and  makes you feel more like a cohabitant/potential flock mate than a potential predator or attacker.

While your bird is out exploring, you can strengthen your bond with them by treat priming; Address them by name, ask "Want a treat?" and toss a safflower seed in front of them, but not straight at them. Praise them when they eat it with something along the lines of "Yes, that is for you! Good bird!" in a pleased tone of voice. (even birds who hate handling and refuse treats respond positively to a pleased tone of voice.)

Calling their name every time primes them to look at you when you address them.

Little by little, as they get comfortable with the distance, you should be able to toss treats less and less far from yourself.

The end goal is for your bird to come into willing physical contact with you.

From there, you can start offering a treat on the tip of one or two fingers.

Once the bird is reliably accepting that, offer the treat held by the narrow end between your thumb and index finger. 

This makes your hand more similarly shaped to the head of a bird than the scary giant talon with extra toes or giant snake it usually looks like to a bird.

In every flock of pigeons, there are at least one or two teen or older birds that will feed any weaned baby that cries. 

I call these "Flock Aunties/Unkles", and this is the mantle you take up for your bird once they get they hang of hand feeding.

It's best to start having out times in the evenings, so that bed time is after dark. Lights Out training makes returning them to the enclosure less stressful for both you and your bird.

When you want to put the bird away, address them to get their attention, and say "Lights Out or Bed Time soon!", wait about 10 seconds, Then walk over to the light switch, make a note of where your bird is, repeat "Lights Out/Bed Time now", and flick off the lights.

Pigeons are diurnal and non-migratory. They can't see in the dark, and just sort of turn off. 

This differs from the learned helplessness shut down in being instinctively  associated with sleep, rather than inescapable distress.

In the dark, you can pick up your bird and gently return them to the enclosure without the stress of having to chase and catch them.

After a few repetitions, birds that don't enjoy being carried to bed will use the ten or so seconds between "soon" and "now" to fly back to their enclosure on their own. Birds that do like being carried will assume the position and wait for you to turn off the light and carry them.

There is no getting around the fact that feeding, watering, and cleaning require you to reach into your pigeon's enclosure, and if you can't do that while they are out (for example, if you feed in the morning before leaving for work) you can help them overcome their defensive response by talking them through what you are doing without reaching for the bird themself.

"It's food time. I need your dish." while reaching in only as far as needed to remove the dish, and withdrawing with it as quickly and unobtrusively as possible. Same for the water dish, and talking them through cleaning.

For example, the floor of my hospital cages slide out, so I tell the birds "I need your floor." and then repeat "Back up, back up, back up" in a soft, encouraging tone until they are off, then praising with "Thank you!" to signify they have done what I asked and I will not bother them now until time to put the floor back in.

When the floor is cleaned and repapered, I tell them "Here's your floor back." and repeat "Step up." as I slide it in until they have both feet on the floor. 

When I have finished cleaning, watering, and feeding (All three get done at once for the hospital cages) I signify to the bird that it's over by "Ok! We're done now!" and then praising "Good bird! Thank you."

It's important to talk them through EVERYTHING because they are literally five-year-old-child intelligent.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090212141143.htm

Pigeons and baboons have similarly high cognition.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171204144805.htm

Pigeons have an innate understanding of the concepts of space and time.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140402095107.htm

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070220131646.htm

They categorize like we do.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130717095336.htm

Their brains are wired similarly to ours.

https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/s13295-014-0057-5/html

So much so that they are considered an excellent model in the study of cognitive neuroscience

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0197458019304270

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0166432814007554

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0166432820306471

With TONS of alzheimer-specific research

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110411171847.htm

Their facial recognition is similar to ours.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110703132527.htm

They recognize humans as individuals.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120622163056.htm

By both face, and voice.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080613145535.htm

They surpass the ability of human children up to three years old to recognize that their reflection in a mirror is their own reflection, and not another bird.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150204184447.htm

They can learn the equivalent of words by the same mechanic as human children.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160919111535.htm

They can learn to differentiate a written word from an acronym with the same number of letters.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170418094512.htm

And flocks build what can legitimately be called a culture by building knowledge across generations.

The take away from this is that pigeons are intelligent enough to learn what your communication means, and can be taught by the same mechanic as a human toddler.

Language is a pattern of matching words to objects, actions, individuals, places, and concepts. Pigeons are pattern mappers, hard wired to latch onto stable patterns.

It is vitally important that you talk a pigeon that you are training through absolutely everything, the way you would a toddler who hasn't quite gotten that word down yet.

They can eventually learn to answer yes and no questions, if you give them a template. (this is already going to be enough of a novella, I can go into detail about that later.

A pigeon flock is basically one gigantic extended family living together in their equivalent of an ancestral apartment complex.

Pigeons only join a flock by hatching or marrying into it.

Pigeons are one of extremely few species that remain year round in the same breeding colony AND cooperatively forage; not just all going the same place, but actively voting on what to look for, how to best get there, and how to best get back.

Babies only rarely leave the flock. 

When they leave the nest, they are taught by their fathers to be pigeons for the first month or so. Where safe food and water are, how to find nest materials, how to defer to a higher ranking flock member. 

The rest of the flock line up to each teach the peep that they are higher ranking than the peep. (Peeps instinctively expect this hazing and are very skittish from five to eight weeks of age)

At about eight weeks, the peep is as big as it will get, and starts to earn their place in the hierarchy by experimentally pushing back against the older birds to see who gives and who won't.

 By four or five months, the young bird has a solid place in the hierarchy, has found out what it's good at, and has usually won a mate.

At this point, a cock earns the right to claim a nest space among his parents, grand kin, aunts, unkles, cousins, and so-on.

Young pigeons only leave their flock to form a new one if there aren't enough nest spaces or isn't enough food to support every one.

So stability and finding a place in the social dynamic are EXTREMELY important to them.

Pigeon Flocks are democratic meritocracies.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100416214045.htm

They vote on everything they do as a group

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061106145043.htm

Parties with differing opinions compromise.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/06/150609213053.htm

Because they need to be able to depend on the support of their flock mates to cooperatively find resources, watch out for predators, and navigate home.

https://www.audubon.org/news/in-homing-pigeon-flocks-bad-bosses-quickly-get-demoted

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160914143044.htm

Pigeons will not follow a leader they can't depend on, be that due to a loss of capability, or an unwillingness to heed cast votes or attempt to compromise.

This adds up to a bird that is hard wired to expect a say in everything they are involved in and be keenly, my-life-depends-on-this aware when their say is being ignored.

Pigeons do not have a concept of “Reasons I could not discern”.

If they can’t discern a reason you ignored their vote or any attempt to compromise with them, they just think there wasn’t one, and you're either incompetent or being an ass hole. 

And Pigeons consider themselves to be well within their rights to refuse to cooperate with an incompetent ass hole.

This is a BIG part of why talking them through everything is so vitally important.

Pigeons are EXTREMELY communicative.

Once they trust you as a flock mate, The more they understand about what you are doing, what you want them to do, and how that affects them, the more willing they are to cooperate with you.

Those are the cognitive universals.

When selecting a companion or therapy animal, it’s important to know what temperament to expect, and the typical temperaments of Cocks and Hens differ pretty drastically!

We touched briefly on mate behaviors earlier, and now we need to go into that to explain sex-typical behaviors, by which I mean the instinctive behavioral and base line personality differences between typical cocks and hens.

To explain sex-typical behaviors, I have to walk you through the pigeon courtship ritual called Driving, which has three phases.

It starts with the Chase phase.

The cock struts up to a hen he'd interested in and alternately chest-bumps and bites her until she runs away.

He continues to strut after her, occasionally charging with a sweeping tail to push or bite her until she bursts into flight.

Hens will initiate for a cock they are EXTREMELY interested in, but in pigeon society, the hen having to initiate means the cock just is not remotely interested in her. 

This is less than ideal for the hen, and she will divorce him for the first cock that shows enough interest to initiate the chase.

Once they are in the air, the hen is trying to break away and flee, and the cock is trying to herd her towards the nest area he's picked out.

Ideally, she crashes into it, too exhausted to keep flying.

To a human, this looks really violently aggressive.

But the Rock Dove, from which our domestic pigeons descend, evolved in a Thompson's Gazelle vs. Cheetah style arms race with the Peregrine goddamn Falcon.

If the cock cannot out pace and out maneuver the hen, and his stamina is lower than hers, then her children by him will be slower and less maneuverable than she is, with lower stamina.

This all adds up, to her, as her peeps by this cock being easier than she is for a falcon to catch.

If she can get away from him, he is an inferior potential sire, and she will reject him.

The Wrestling phase begins after the hen has recovered her breath.

As soon as she can, she will try to blow past the cock and vanish into the sky.

He has to body block her to prevent her from leaving, grab her by the scruff if she tries to push past, and fight her until she stops trying to get up.

Again, this looks REALLY violently abusive to a human!

But nest location is a status symbol in pigeon society.

A good nest is high up, wide enough for two adult birds side by side, with an entrance ideally narrow enough for only one at a time to get in.

This also makes it really hard for a hawk, rodent, or snake to get in after the eggs, peeps, or parent defending them.

Other cocks will want a good, safe, defensible nest for their wife, and absolutely will kill nestlings to drive out a less fit pair, hoping to impress a (usually specific and very picky) potential mate.

If the cock cannot fight the generally smaller, weaker hen who just recovered from the Chase phase to prevent her getting out, he hasn't got a snowball's chance in hell of defending her from a healthy rival who wants that nest for his wife and peeps.

It's only after he's completed the Chase and Wrestling phases that she allows him to prove that he's an excellent forager by offering to feed her from his crop. (the kissing behavior that immediately precedes the act of treading.)

This translates VERY poorly to a human partner, and is what makes bottle raised baby boys such a monumental pain in the ass.

Pigeons are INTENSELY social.

The drive to bond is stronger than the drive to actually reproduce, so your bonded pigeon will treat you like a mate.

Which means that a cock will be compelled to attempt the initiation, chase, and wrestling phases of Driving.

Imprinting does not just make a specific person a baby bird's mommy.

It tells the bird what species it is and sets Mommy as the ideal mate.

A pigeon that thinks they are human expects their human to understand these instinctive pigeon behaviors.

Their human's failure to respond as expected comes across as ignoring them.

Which leads to human-imprinted pigeons going from trying to court their caretaker, to feeling intentionally ignored for no reason and attacking out of furious frustration.

This is why I don't hand raise nestlings unless the peep will die if I don't step in.

Pigeons who are parent-raised, but socialized by humans the way you would nursing puppies or kittens, understand that a human is not a pigeon.

Instead of expecting their caretaker to understand them by default and getting overwhelmed with frustration when they can't, a parent-raised, human-social pigeon tries to work out how to bridge the communication gap.

If your human-social cock approaches you and tries to start a fight out of the blue, he doesn't hate you.

He loves you, and is pulling out all stops to prove to a freaking KAIJU, via hand to hand combat, that he's strong enough to protect them and their nest.

I tell people that "Cock love is pinchy."

This is what I'm talking about.

Physical contact is a mate/baby-exclusive privilege for cocks.  Only his mate allopreens him, and he only allopreens his mate and their peeps.

Flock mates other than his mate only attempt to make physical contact with a cock to start a fight or ask for sex. 

So all associations for a cock, aside from mate and peeps, are rivalries and side-chicks.

Pigeon bites can't break the skin (all they can do is pinch), unless it's just a massive monster of a pigeon, but the tenacity sexually selected for by hens makes cocks relentless until they are satisfied that they have suitably impressed you.

Hens, in contrast, are approached by flock mates to proposition for sex, to engage in allopreening, or to invite to feed, bathe, or loaf together.

They are generally more cuddly, more forgiving of restraint (Joke's on you, she's into that shit!), and more accepting of other family members making contact with her.

Cocks who are satisfied with their relationship can be a lot of fun, but their nippiness can be an anxiety trigger if you don't know to expect it.

In order to consider himself bonded to his person, a cock has to feel he has impressed you, like he would be expected to impress a hen. 

It is much easier to convince a parent raised cock that you really are impressed and don't just see him as beneath your notice than it is to convince an Imprint.

Parent raised cocks will be more gentle when they initiate driving, as the drive is more like a compulsive need to complete a symbolic gesture for them than the actual hand to hand combat to manually overpower a titan that these matches are to an imprinted cock.

To convince a cock that he really has won your admiration fair and square, Start by putting up some resistance when he initiates. 

Push him back, shake your hand, ruffle and wrestle with him like you would a very small kitten.

You will need to do this WAY longer for an imprint than a parent raised bird, but when you want to wind down the match, pay attention to what he's doing.

He is never just biting.

He is trying to maneuver your hand either by tugging or shoving. 

Follow where he directs until he stops either pulling or pushing, and just pushes down. That is where he wants your hand to be. 

Relax it there until he turns away, then go about your business.

It will take a few sessions, but once he's satisfied he's impressed you, he'll have no need to go all out like that anymore.

Ankhou (an imprint who is extremely satisfied with a now five year long extremely stable relationship) doesn't engage in driving fights with me anymore, but we do have lots of brief, very gentle wrestling sessions.

Hens don't need human mates to impress them in hand to hand combat like they require a cock to.

They are intelligent enough to assume that nothing her size is going to stand a chance against something your size.

The peaceful simplicity of bonding with a hen tends to make them more desired as therapy and companion animals.

Bonded cocks are just as cuddly and sweet, but you have to go through his Driving impulse to get to that point with him.

This doesn't make cocks bad pets or therapy prospects, but they are definitely not the ideal match for everyone.

@tinysaurus-rex ‘s Battar is an excellent example of a bonded hen.

If you would like to see how his owner applies the constant biting of a feral Imprint towards physical therapy for nerve pain flair ups, check out the blog @homeofhousechickens and search for Loki.

They also have a parent raised, human social emotional support cock named Fluffernutter and have made a lot of great posts illustrating the contrast between imprinted pigeons and pigeons who were raised by their parents, but socialized with lots of gentle handling.

I hope this helps the people who have their bird’s physical needs planned out to pick the bird whose emotional needs they can best meet, and whose personality will best match their emotional needs. <3

[mostlysignssomeportents]

20 years a blogger

It's been twenty years, to the day, since I published my first blog-post.

I'm a blogger.

Blogging - publicly breaking down the things that seem significant, then synthesizing them in longer pieces - is the defining activity of my days.

https://boingboing.net/2001/01/13/hey-mark-made-me-a.html

Over the years, I've been lauded, threatened, sued (more than once). I've met many people who read my work and have made connections with many more whose work  I wrote about. Combing through my old posts every morning is a journey through my intellectual development.

It's been almost exactly a year I left Boing Boing, after 19 years. It wasn't planned, and it wasn't fun, but it was definitely time. I still own a chunk of the business and wish them well. But after 19 years, it was time for a change.

A few weeks after I quit Boing Boing, I started a solo project. It's called Pluralistic: it's a blog that is published simultaneously on Twitter, Mastodon, Tumblr, a newsletter and the web. It's got no tracking or ads. Here's the very first edition:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/02/19/pluralist-19-feb-2020/

I don't often do "process posts" but this merits it. Here's how I built Pluralistic and here's how it works today, after nearly a year.

I get up at 5AM and make coffee. Then I sit down on the sofa and open a huge tab-group, and scroll through my RSS feeds using Newsblur.

I spend the next 1-2 hours winnowing through all the stuff that seems important. I have a chronic pain problem and I really shouldn't sit on the sofa for more than 10 minutes, so I use a timer and get up every 10 minutes and do one minute of physio.

After a couple hours, I'm left with 3-4 tabs that I want to write articles about that day. When I started writing Pluralistic, I had a text file on my desktop with some blank HTML I'd tinkered with to generate a layout; now I have an XML file (more on that later).

First I go through these tabs and think up metadata tags I want to use for each; I type these into the template using my text-editor (gedit), like this:

   <xtags>

process, blogging, pluralistic, recursion, navel-gazing

   </xtags>

Each post has its own little template. It needs an anchor tag (for this post, that's "hfbd"), a title ("20 years a blogger") and a slug ("Reflections on a lifetime of reflecting"). I fill these in for each post.

Then I come up with a graphic for each post: I've got a giant folder of public domain clip-art, and I'm good at using all the search tools for open-licensed art: the Library of Congress, Wikimedia, Creative Commons, Flickr Commons, and, ofc, Google Image Search.

I am neither an artist nor a shooper, but I've been editing clip art since I created pixel-art versions of the Frankie Goes to Hollywood glyphs using Bannermaker for the Apple //c in 1985 and printed them out on enough fan-fold paper to form a border around my bedroom.

As I create the graphics, I pre-compose Creative Commons attribution strings to go in the post; there's two versions, one for the blog/newsletter and one for Mastodon/Twitter/Tumblr. I compose these manually.

Here's a recent one:

Blog/Newsletter:

(<i>Image: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:QAnon_in_red_shirt_(48555421111).jpg">Marc Nozell</a>, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en">CC BY</a>, modified</i>)

Twitter/Masto/Tumblr:

Image: Marc Nozell (modified)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:QAnon_in_red_shirt_(48555421111).jpg

CC BY

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

This is purely manual work, but I've been composing these CC attribution strings since CC launched in 2003, and they're just muscle-memory now. Reflex.

These attribution strings, as well as anything else I'll need to go from Twitter to the web (for example, the names of people whose Twitter handles I use in posts, or images I drop in, go into the text file). Here's how the post looks at this point in the composition.

<hr>

<a name="hfbd"></a>

<img src="https://craphound.com/images/20yrs.jpg">

<h1>20 years a blogger</h1><xtagline>Reflections on a lifetime of reflecting.</xtagline>

<img src="https://craphound.com/images/frnklogo.jpg">

See that <img> tag in there for frnklogo.jpg? I snuck that in while I was composing this in Twitter. When I locate an image on the web I want to use in a post, I save it to a dir on my desktop that syncs every 60 seconds to the /images/ dir on my webserver.

As I save it, I copy the filename to my clipboard, flip over to gedit, and type in the <img> tag, pasting the filename. I've typed <img src="https://craphound.com/images/ CTRL-V"> tens of thousands of times - muscle memory.

Once the thread is complete, I copy each tweet back into gedit, tabbing back and forth, replacing Twitter handles and hashtags with non-Twitter versions, changing the ALL CAPS EMPHASIS to the extra-character-consuming *asterisk-bracketed emphasis*.

My composition is greatly aided both 20 years' worth of mnemonic slurry of semi-remembered posts and the ability to search memex.craphound.com (the site where I've mirrored all my Boing Boing posts) easily.

A huge, searchable database of decades of thoughts really simplifies the process of synthesis.

Next I port the posts to other media. I copy the headline and paste it into a new Tumblr compose tab, then import the image and tag the post "pluralistic."

Then I paste the text of the post into Tumblr and manually select, cut, and re-paste every URL in the post (because Tumblr's automatic URL-to-clickable-link tool's been broken for 10+ months).

Next I past the whole post into a Mastodon compose field. Working by trial and error, I cut it down to <500 characters, breaking at a para-break and putting the rest on my clipboard. I post, reply, and add the next item in the thread until it's all done.

*Then* I hit publish on my Twitter thread. Composing in Twitter is the most unforgiving medium I've ever worked in. You have to keep each stanza below 280 chars. You can't save a thread as a draft, so as you edit it, you have to pray your browser doesn't crash.

And once you hit publish, you can't edit it. Forever. So you want to publish Twitter threads LAST, because the process of mirroring them to Tumblr and Mastodon reveals typos and mistakes (but there's no way to save the thread while you work!).

Now I create a draft Wordpress post on pluralistic.net, and create a custom slug for the page (today's is "two-decades"). Saving the draft generates the URL for the page, which I add to the XML file.

Once all the day's posts are done, I make sure to credit all my sources in another part of that master XML file, and then I flip to the command line and run a bunch of python scripts that do MAGIC: formatting the master file as a newsletter, a blog post, and a master thread.

Those python scripts saved my ASS. For the first two months of Pluralistic, i did all the reformatting by hand. It was a lot of search-replace (I used a checklist) and I ALWAYS screwed it up and had to debug, sometimes taking hours.

Then, out of the blue, a reader - Loren Kohnfelder - wrote to me to point out bugs in the site's RSS. He offered to help with text automation and we embarked on a month of intensive back-and-forth as he wrote a custom suite for me.

Those programs take my XML file and spit out all the files I need to publish my site, newsletter and master thread (which I pin to my profile). They've saved me more time than I can say. I probably couldn't kept this up without Loren's generous help (thank you, Loren!).

I open up the output from the scripts in gedit. I paste the blog post into the Wordpress draft and copy-paste the metadata tags into WP's "tags" field. I preview the post, tweak as necessary, and publish.

(And now I write this, I realize I forgot to mention that while I'm doing the graphics, I also create a square header image that makes a grid-collage out of the day's post images, using the Gimp's "alignment" tool)

(because I'm composing this in Twitter, it would be a LOT of work to insert that information further up in the post, where it would make sense to have it - see what I mean about an unforgiving medium?)

(While I'm on the subject: putting the "add tweet to thread" and "publish the whole thread" buttons next to each other is a cruel joke that has caused me to repeatedly publish before I was done, and deleting a thread after you publish it is a nightmare)

Now I paste the newsletter file into a new mail message, address it to my Mailman server, and create a custom subject for the day, send it, open the Mailman admin interface in a browser, and approve the message.

Now it's time to create that anthology post you can see pinned to my Mastodon and Twitter accounts. Loren's script uses a template to produce all the tweets for the day, but it's not easy to get that pre-written thread into Twitter and Mastodon.

Part of the problem is that each day's Twitter master thread has a tweet with a link to the day's Mastodon master thread ("Are you trying to wean yourself off Big Tech? Follow these threads on the #fediverse at @[email protected]. Here's today's edition: LINK").

So the first order of business is to create the Mastodon thread, pin it, copy the link to it, and paste it into the template for the Twitter thread, then create and pin the Twitter thread.

Now it's time to get ready for tomorrow. I open up the master XML template file and overwrite my daily working file with its contents. I edit the file's header with tomorrow's date, trim away any "Upcoming appearances" that have gone by, etc.

Then I compose tomorrow's retrospective links. I open tabs for this day a year ago, 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, and (now) 20 years ago:

http://memex.craphound.com/2020/01/14

http://memex.craphound.com/2016/01/14

http://memex.craphound.com/2011/01/14

http://memex.craphound.com/2006/01/14

http://memex.craphound.com/2001/01/14

I go through each day, and open anything I want to republish in its own tab, then open the OP link in the next tab (finding it in the @internetarchive if necessary). Then I copy my original headline and the link to the article into tomorrow's XML file, like so:

#10yrsago Disney World’s awful Tiki Room catches fire <a href="https://thedisneyblog.com/2011/01/12/fire-reported-at-magic-kingdom-tiki-room/">https://thedisneyblog.com/2011/01/12/fire-reported-at-magic-kingdom-tiki-room/</a>

And NOW my day is done.

So, why do I do all this?

First and foremost, I do it for ME. The memex I've created by thinking about and then describing every interesting thing I've encountered is hugely important for how I understand the world. It's the raw material of every novel, article, story and speech I write.

And I do it for the causes I believe in. There's stuff in this world I want to change for the better. Explaining what I think is wrong, and how it can be improved, is the best way I know for nudging it in a direction I want to see it move.

The more people I reach, the more it moves.

When I left Boing Boing, I lost access to a freestanding way of communicating. Though I had popular Twitter and Tumblr accounts, they are at the mercy of giant companies with itchy banhammers and arbitrary moderation policies.

I'd long been a fan of the POSSE - Post Own Site, Share Everywhere - ethic, the idea that your work lives on platforms you control, but that it travels to meet your readers wherever they are.

Pluralistic posts start out as Twitter threads because that's the most constrained medium I work in, but their permalinks (each with multiple hidden messages in their slugs) are anchored to a server I control.

When my threads get popular, I make a point of appending the pluralistic.net permalink to them.

When I started blogging, 20 years ago, blogger.com had few amenities. None of the familiar utilities of today's media came with the package.

Back then, I'd manually create my headlines with <h2> tags. I'd manually create discussion links for each post on Quicktopic. I'd manually paste each post into a Yahoo Groups email. All the guff I do today to publish Pluralistic is, in some way, nothing new.

20 years in, blogging is still a curious mix of both technical, literary and graphic bodgery, with each day's work demanding the kind of technical minutuae we were told would disappear with WYSIWYG desktop publishing.

I grew up in the back-rooms of print shops where my dad and his friends published radical newspapers, laying out editions with a razor-blade and rubber cement on a light table. Today, I spend hours slicing up ASCII with a cursor.

I go through my old posts every day. I know that much - most? - of them are not for the ages. But some of them are good. Some, I think, are great. They define who I am. They're my outboard brain.

#pluralistic

[alias-levi]

check in tag

thanks go out to Dru (@dru-reblogs-stuff)! I know it's been forever since this tag but it looked fun so here you go 😌

1. Why did you choose your url?

well, this used to be a writeblr and i chose the name Levi to go by online a while ago and that's pretty much where it all came together. since writers sometimes use an alias, you know 👀

2. Any sideblogs?

yes! since this is my main, i have just recently decided to post my writing on a side blog that can be found here - @i-go-by-levi (i'm very creative when it comes to naming blogs as you can see haha)

3. How long have you’ve been on tumblr?

with my current active blogs since April 2019, and before that on and off since like 2016 or 2017 but those accounts have been deleted by me since.

4. Do you have a queue tag?

i used to! it was #ps i love queue but i am too lazy to add it anymore

5. Why did you start your blog in the first place?

back in the day before i joined the writeblr community i had a song lyrics quote blog that actually posted up to three times a day (all queued of course) but i got tired of that so i abandoned Tumblr for a while and then came back with a changed url, template and idea

6. Why did you choose your icon?

i change my icon every few months actually and it used to be some stock photo of a typewriter but in the past months since i moved out from home and been changing personally, i decided i can go with a picrew as well. i'm ususally changing my icons between some fantasy type of way to portray myself and rather realistic ways, often adding aspects to my appearance that i do not have in real life

7. Why did you choose your header?

up until my last blog updates and re-designs like a week back i used to put great thought to the choice of my header and making it the source of my color palette for the blog - i gave that up because i didn't really feel like doing that anymore and i am also trying to work on my perfectionism so... no header for me anymore haha

8. What’s your post with the most notes?

one time i decided to share my thoughts about needing someone to listen while i ramble about a plot i am planning but i don't need them to contribute anything "hm" and "yes" and "okay" - and then i got 284 notes for that

9. How many mutuals do you have?

hard question, i haven't been active in the past six months but counting who i interacted with rather often back then i can say about four 🤷‍♀️

10. How many followers do you have?

honestly, looking at the notes my posts got, more than i thought i would have

11. How many people do you follow?

96, i recently sorted that out.

12. Have you ever made a shitpost?

i don't think so. reblogged, yes. written myself, probably not.

13. How often do you use tumblr each day?

not as much as i would want to. i am currently at like two times a week, maybe three.

14. Did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? Who won?

none i would know of haha

15. How do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts?

they do catch my attention but ultimately i decide situation and topic dependent if i really "need to reblog this".

16. Do you like tag games?

i really really love them with all my being! though sometimes, with uni and life and stuff, it's a bit hard to everything asap but i really enjoy being tagged!

17. Do you like ask games?

same as the tag games. i love them! though it might take me a bit to come back to all the asks and properly answer them.

18. Which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

that's a tough question for someone who hasn't been properly on here in six months. i think i'll pass on this one, sorry.

19. Do I have a crush on a mutual?

no i don't.

20. Tags?

i am tagging @liz-pooh (to let her know that i am waiting for her return to Tumblr), and everyone who sees this and feels like doing it. i am not confident enough yet to tag other people again 😬

#tag game

[thomcantsleep]

My Relationship with Twitter

C/W: R/W Conspiracy Theories

I recently left Twitter for what is probably the tenth time I would’ve said. I also would’ve said that my reasons for leaving each time were the near enough the same.

Simply being on it, through one way or another, drives me up the wall.

This time though, I feel like I’ve properly re-evaluated my relationship with Twitter and come to real conclusions about the reality of the kind of place that it is.

It’s been fairly recent that Twitter has properly blown up into the monster that it is and it coincides with Facebook becoming uncool which I would’ve said to be around 2015 or 2016 at a guesstimate. i’ve been in an on-again/off-again relationship with the blue bird since 2012 when I was thirteen which is not a great age to be on it now. It wasn’t really a problem back then though because no-one used it. If you look at tweets from 2012 from major brands, you’d struggle to find a post that reached 300 likes. Celebrities might not get to 300 retweets whereas now, the likes of BTS easily clock 100k RTs and gobble half a million likes for breakfast.

I’m not one for crowded places for a start. I’m susceptible to a sudden wave of extreme and overwhelming self-consciousness which is otherwise known as a panic attack and only a couple of things activate it. Heterosexual nightclubs or vulnerability in an online space although I’ve been far better in recent years. Essentially, I get too emotionally invested in something publically and I walk in on myself and see all these eyes staring at me so I clam up. That’s one thing about Twitter that frightens me.

Something that I used to thrive on but have since rejected was pointing at conspiracy subscribers and laughing but, living in this current world, it isn’t really something that you can laugh about anymore. It’s just a downer never mind it being a broken record. There’s only so much material you can wring out of them before you find yourself alone in your house being angry at an invisible person with a bunch of numbers in their handle and an egg for a face. Whilst scrolling through Twitter, anything could be delivered to you and often, you don’t have any control over it.

Sometimes, you do have complete control. I have no idea why I have an impulse to open a reply section when I know exactly what will be inside it and that’ll definitely set me off for the rest of the day. If you don’t use Twitter or that you don’t use it that often, you might say “Well, it’s easy to just block or mute words or phrases”

Here’s the funny thing.

Twitter will do it’s best to make sure you see it anyway. It not being the specific post or person but the same sort of thing whether you like it or not because Twitter is supposed to be for everybody. You can not escape.

For context, I muted over 200 words or phrases and blocked over 600 accounts. Twitter encourages you to have arguments with people or come out with controversial hot takes so you can rack up the twat points and that can’t be healthy can it?

I don’t like having arguments and I never have. They almost never go anywhere or lead to any conclusion and just leave me feeling cold. Whenever I get into any slight disagreement on Twitter, I just feel frustrated because it’s no place to be having a nuanced discussion about anything. You start treating debate like firing missiles in a battlefield because you have to pick what bases you want to cover, how you want to make sense of it all and how it is explained clearly for the recipient so you can achieve a victory. The moment you click send, you have to start preparing your rebuttal because the other person is already preparing their counter-strike.

Why? Who gives a fuck? Who are these people? Why do we insist on combative conversation?

It’s the same reason why I don’t bother responding to people on this website messaging me calling me a cunt because I didn’t like Life Is Strange. What’s the best that they are hoping for? It’s the same on Twitter, same anywhere.

The reason why I like Instagram and that I’ve never fallen out with it is that it doesn’t really suggest conversation of any kind. It’s not the primary focus of the app (outside of the gathering of data), the primary focus is for looking at whatever images you like. It definitely does have it’s harmful side if you follow a great gambit of influencers but, unlike Twitter, if you don’t follow them, you won’t know they exist. I just follow my friends to see the serene scenes of their jogs up to Loch Lomond or walking their dogs in the Argyll country. Folk are generally happier on Instagram and they aren’t likely to post paragraphs of their thoughts and opinions on the new Zack Snyder movie. It’s comforting to be on it.

Because Twitter can make you laugh now and again, you want to stick around for the craic so you forget about all the times you’ve seen the same joke repeated. This does have a bit to do with how I’ve became sick of Twitter as well. I find that good jokes on Twitter get ruined immediately with either folk stealing it, rehashing it or repackaging it because, as per discussed, everyone is looking for the high score that’ll get them a pocket pussy sponsorship or whatever. So no meme is safe from being butchered and bastardized by someone who has “Turn Notifications On” in their bio. Not to sound like your grandad but it does feel like you’re living in an echo chamber - an echo chamber of crap patter.

The best part is that you can’t “mute” an image so you can’t see that fucking annoying lord of the rings meme template often enough.

Long story short; that’s why I’ve stopped using Twitter.

I still have a Twitter account though that has been privated for the moment but it’s just so I can post the new Tumblr posts to let folk know what I’m up to. If I have any updates about the books that I’ve got in the cannon then I’ll tweet a wee thing saying what I’m doing. But then I get the fuck out of there because scrolling down is practically an addiction and I need to get to sleep at night.

#twitter #mental health #social media #social media anxiety #social anxiety #anxiety #depression #anger #self-esteem #wellness #mindfulness

[bonaintan]

A Journey to KGSP/GKS: Application Forms

I decided to write A Journey to KGSP/GKS series based on my experience as KGSP awardee in 2016. Just like other awardees, I also received a lot of chats and DMs from people asking about KGSP/GKS applications. It’s not that I’m tired and annoyed by answering the same questions over and over again, that I decided to post it online, really. That is practically what I’ve been doing in the past four years which, at some points during my student life in Korea, turned out to help me cope with the situation and keep me on track as I was reminded how far I had come.

Just recently I changed my mind to write and post it online so anyone can read it and I myself can re-read it (for whatever reasons), after joining in a mentorship program (supported by the Indonesian Student Association in South Korea aka Perpika) as a mentor for the Indonesian students and graduates who are interested in studying in Korea and preparing for the scholarship application. I mentored a similar program from MITI Klaster Mahasiswa back in 2017 called Youth Connection but I guess at the time I wasn’t feeling okay enough to share it. Now that I graduated safe and sound, I guess posting it online won’t hurt. So, this is the second post of my ‘A Journey to KGSP/GKS’ series, and I’ll try to post the next ones as soon as possible.

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As I’ve mentioned in my previous post about my journey to KGSP/GKS, I decided to go for this scholarship application the second I learned about this program. One of my thoughts at the time is how simple the application looks. And it is indeed simple, at least for me who had never applied for such a program and dealing with forms in English. The guideline also states everything clearly. Of course, I got a lot of help from KGSP/GKS awardees I met online who were very kind to share their experience. But, I tried to do my share as much as possible by doing my research on the Internet in advance, making sure I didn’t irritate them by asking trivial questions I can easily access on the Internet or even the application guideline, and avoiding the questions which are more on self-preference, such as “Is it okay if my recommendation letter is folded?”

KGSP/GKS-G (for graduate) and KGSP/GKS-U (for undergraduate) Application Forms are all over the Internet. It can be downloaded from various sites, such as Study in Korea, Korean Embassy sites, some Korean university sites, and Topik Guide. Along with the application guideline is a separate file of the application forms (although the complete guideline includes the forms as well), University Information, and FAQs files. These are the first reference and ammunition that no single applicant should ever miss. You might have your sister as a KGSP/GKS awardee and you can easily ask every single detail, but really, that kind of mentality will get in your way someday. So, go get the guideline and read it! (Sorry, I’m being too enthusiast here.)

Thankfully, the application forms stay pretty the same over the years. Minor changes might have been done as well as the regulation changes. But, it does not affect that much to the application procedures, thus making it easy for the applicants to prepare the applications way way way earlier even before the opening period. And that’s what I did back then. I downloaded the application guidelines from the previous years and noticed that the forms stayed the same, so I started to practice filling in the forms and prepare for the required documents.

The first part of the application forms includes the application checklist. Depending on the program you apply to, either Undergraduate or Graduate Degrees, the required documents are slightly different. The application checklist for the Graduate Degree Programs consists of all required documents for three different degree programs (i.e., Master’s, Doctoral, and Research Programs) so the list is a little bit longer. As for the Undergraduate application, three types of documents are required for certain documents (graduation certificate, transcripts, certificate of citizenship, and awards). I might be wrong on this since I had no experience in preparing for the undergraduate application, but here is what I understand about the difference between the original, official notarized translation, and copied documents.

2021 GKS Application checklist (above: Undergraduate; below: Graduate)

The original document, like its name, is the original version of a document that can be written in many different languages depending on the country where it is issued. For Indonesian applicants, the original document of the graduation certificate is the one written in Bahasa Indonesia. In case an applicant only has one copy of the original document, they can submit the certified copy version which is the copy of the original document certified/stamped by the issuing institution (e.g., school). In Bahasa Indonesia, it’s called dokumen legalisir.

Since all documents have to be written in either Korean or English, here comes the second type of the documents to accompany the original document, official notarized translation. As for the graduation/degree certificate and transcripts, some schools might provide the English translation. Otherwise, an applicant needs to have it translated into Korean or English by a sworn translator. From here, the document has to be legalized again by the notary. In the end, the official notarized translation should be a document written in Korean or English and should have 2-3 different stamps: issuing institution, (translating institution), and notary stamps. The last is the copied document which is the photocopied version (black-and-white document).

The number of copies submitted depends on the application track. For those applying via University Track, they should send only the original/certified copy of the documents to the university of their choice. As the screening process is taken place in Korea, the documents should be the very best  legalized version. For countries that require apostille version of the document such as Indonesia, some documents (degree certificate, transcripts, proof of citizenship) have to be apostilled or receive the consular confirmation from the Korean Embassy in the country where the document is issued.

Notes for my Indonesian fellows, here is the procedure to get the documents apostilled: legalized by the notary >> Ministry of Law and Human Rights (Kemenkumham) >> Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Kemenlu) >> (Korean) Embassy.

If applying via the Korean Embassy, one original/certified copy document, one official notarized translation, and three photocopied documents have to be prepared. Apparently, some Korean Embassies, including the Korean Embassy in Indonesia, may apply different regulations. Korean Embassy in Indonesia requires the applicants to send only one copy of the original document and the copies will be made by the Embassy.

The next part of the application forms is the applicant’s personal information, which is considerably easy to be filled in. As for the applicant’s name, some who do not have a separate family name may find it confusing at first, like in most cases of Indonesians. In such cases, simply write the same as your passport name: first name and middle name (if any) as the given name and last name as surname. For the university and major choices for graduate degrees, some confusions come from the differences between Division, Department, and Major. The best way to solve this is by referring to the University Information file, on the list of majors offered. As for the grades/GPA, use the CGPA conversion table on the guideline to convert various grading systems. If the CGPA conversion table does not apply for the grading system of the applicant’s school, the information on how to do the conversion should be attached.

Applicant’s Personal Information (above: Undergraduate; below: Graduate)

For awards and published papers, I believe there is no limit number but I personally mentioned the best two. You may want to mention the rest, if they are quite significant for you, in the Personal Statement. For published papers written in language other than Korean or English, the original title and other details (e.g., journal name) can be mentioned first, followed by the English title in parentheses.

The next forms to be filled are Personal Statement and Statement of Purpose/Study Plan. Instructions have been provided clearly on each part, so I believe it comes back to the applicant’s writing ability to come up with the best way of storytelling which hopefully will impress the reviewers. I have made a post for some tips to write Personal Statement and Statement of Purpose/Study Plan based on my experience.

Recommendation letters are another important required document for KGSP/GKS applications. An applicant should receive two recommendation letters from two recommenders. The letter template has been prepared in the application, but the recommenders may attach their own template. Just make sure that they understand what points should be included and that everything should be written in either Korean or English. This letter is confidential, so you may want to clarify beforehand as to who will translate the document if your recommender writes it in other languages.

The last is self-medical assessment/personal medical assessment which is a brief medical history of the applicant. It can be filled in independently by the applicant without going to the hospital or any healthcare center and should be filled in all honesty because you shouldn’t let any wrong information stated in the application forms get in your way in the later selection process of the medical check-up where pretty much everything will be revealed.

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That is the end of the KGSP/GKS application forms. This is crazily long I know, but I hope you will somehow find this post helpful. 

This post has been updated following the 2021 Application Guidelines. Please do let me know if you find incorrect information that I stated here. And I strongly encourage all applicants to read the guidelines by heart as it has much more detailed information.

#korean government scholarship program #KGSP #global korea scholarship #gks #studyinkorea #korean scholarship #scholarship for graduate programs #scholarship for undergraduate programs #student life #university life in korea #SouthKorea

[letterstothemidnightsociety]

THAT’S RIGHT BITCH! It’s October and I am still watching and inexplicably blogging about Supernatural - a dinosaur of a television show that’s been on the air longer than most children I know have been alive. 

I know I’m An Old because I don’t think kids these days understand the struggle it was watching television before streaming. We had to wait for episodes. Hell, I don’t think kids these days even really have to wait for seasons. I mean, Voltron premiered on Netflix in 2016, capped off their seasons at 13 episodes a piece and, oh yeah - aired seasons 5 - 8  all in 2018. Was I mad about that? No of course not. Do I also say phrases like “kids these days? Yes, so who even knows if what I think is relevant anymore. 

Alright, so speaking of seasons, last time I looked at pilots and pilot seasons and how the streaming era is changing everything we know about starting a TV show. But once you’ve got your pilot down, now what? 

Not this kind of pilot. Also, based on the prerequisites for demon possession, we’re all agreed this co-pilot’s like, an alcoholic, right?

There’s a rule in TV (sort of) that the first six episodes (some might argue the first season entirely) should be a kind of rehash of the pilot. The pilot sets up your premise and once you’ve got your pilot down, your job as a TV writer is to re-establish that premise over and over again. You’re building your world, you’re writing it’s rules. You’re setting up a template, a formula for how your episodes are gonna play out. This helps your audience get to know the characters, get familiar with your world, get comfortable spending time with them. Essentially, you’re getting your audience to trust the show that they’re going to be tuning in to for at least the next 20-some-odd episodes. 

I’d also argue that this is important so that later, you can break that format later. I’m not saying you should break the trust your audience puts in you, and that’s probably a real fine line of distinction. But if you break your rules right, it can hit the audience with a big emotional sucker punch. Or, it can stand out as a real breakout, tentpole of an episode - I’m thinking specifically about Ghostfacers! In season 3, or Once More, With Feeling, from Buffy. Those episodes work, really work, because they deviate from the formula, but they only work because we know the formula so well.  And these aren’t big changes to the way episodes are done, they’re just shifted ever so slightly that they felt new again.. 

So what is the premise of the first four episodes Supernatural? What’s the formula they set up for the rest of the series? 

Brothers. I said it in my last post, I’ll say it again, Sam and Dean/Jensen Ackles and Jared Jared Padalecki are what makes this show. Full stop. I think we could have gotten 5 seasons out of a show starring two other dudes. I do not think this show could have gotten 15 seasons with two other dudes. So from the pilot through Phantom Traveler, we learn that Sam and Dean have a sh*tty home life - their mother was killed by some mysterious evil thing and their father raised them to be little demon-hunting child soldiers while they look for the killer. Oh yeah, and Sam’s girlfriend died the exact same way which we will never forget because Sam’s gonna have a dream about it almost every episode from here on out. We set up the tension between the brothers - that Sam got to go to college while Dean stayed with their dad like a good boi. We learn that everybody hates each other probably because they are deeply and unhealthily codependent love each other so damn much. 

Next we get the basic rundown of the season arc: 

Dad’s on a hunting trip and he hasn’t been home in a few days. The Winchester brothers are looking for him and by extension, looking for answers as to what killed their mom/Sam’s girlfriend. We also get the basic rundown of every episode: dad is a mysterious and elusive sonuvuabitch, so every episode they go about, say it with me now:

“The family business.” I would also accept “Killing as many evil sons of bitches as I possibly can,” but why can’t I find a gif for it?!? 

Backtracking on this but you know what else gets hecking established with the Winchesters? Sam is the cute one with the people skills and the puppy dog face, so you’d naturally assume that he’s the soft one. No. Not the case. Dean is the Sofffft Boi. The SOFTest boi. Dean wants Sam to talk about his feelings, Dean wants Sam to not keep things bottled up, Dean is the one who desperately wants to keep a hold of his family and also is just deeply broken and traumatized on the inside and oh no, I told myself I wouldn’t do this but I did it anyway. Sorry not sorry. This watch, I’m really picking up on the fact that Dean is, weirdly, the Mom Friend in this first season. Like, he’s basically a Trailer-Trash-Teen-Pregnancy Mom who’ll give you spaghettios five nights a week and a shot of whiskey so you’ll quit yer bitchin’ and go to sleep faster, but he’s the Mom nonetheless. Later in this season and in other seasons, I think you even see him do his dumb-baby-best filling in as the Mom when John went off the deep end. Anyway, I have a lot of feelings and we don’t have time to unpack all of that so I’ll just move on.

RUDE.

Next we set up our Supernatural Bag of Holding - what’s in it? What are the mystical artifacts they use to kill those evil sons of bitches? First up is The Car. Damn, I am not a cars girl, but that 67 Chevy, it does things to me. 

This car has some weird pavlovian trigger for me, it’s not NATURAL. 

The journal. 

John Winchester, you journal the way I imagine a psycho killer journals and I would just really appreciate it if you could be ANY MORE ORGANIZED THAN THIS.

The Trunk Full of Weapons - I love that in these first few episodes (and possibly the rest of the series???) they give this HELLA conspicuous look every time they open the trunk full of weapons. It’s hilarious EVERY TIME.

No, you’re not being obvious at ALL, guys.

The Fake ID’s - from credit cards to impersonating feds, these boys are not afraid to break the law to save some lives and I feel like that’s...that’s the theme of the show maybe? They’re here to save people and they’ll do what they have to to do that? In a world that clearly establishes a dark vs. light/good vs. evil dichotomy, the Winchester make it their job to live in a world of grey? Basically? 

Next on the checklist for this first season of Supernatural - it’s spoopy. *Spoop mileage may vary.* I said it last time, but I’ll say it again: this first season aired at 9:00pm at night. That means it’s primetime stuff for the 18 - 25 year old crowd, but they don’t want to risk some 13 year old watching it and getting too scared before bed. 9:00pm is X Files time slots, Fringe time slots. 9:00pm says you’re gonna get something a little more gruesome and gory and shocking than at 8pm. 8pm is for Friends. Vampire Diaries aired at 8pm its first season. 9pm is for the real adult content (but not too adult because the audience is still mostly children). 

SPOOP!

But yeah, let’s look at the real horror vibe that you get off of these first four episodes. We talked about La Llorona from the first episode - this is a legit ghost that they fight. The kids at the end that literally drag their mom to hell? Pretty spooky stuff. The Wendigo in episode 2 is a literal monster of the week and so for me personally, it’s not that scary, but it is a cannibal monster that eats human flesh. Dead in the Water has vibes from both Jaws and Friday the 13th. Everything from the lighting to the sound design let’s you know this is a horror show, or as horror as you can get on network television. Listen to the scenes just before somebody dies and you get a nice creepy “Come play with me” whisper coming out of the water. I’m a little spooked just thinking about it now. Yes I know I’m a chicken, and I’m OK WITH THAT. And if we go past my season 1 disc 1 into episode 5, Bloody Mary is STILL terrifying and I STILL watched that episode with half my face covered. That’s where I am these days. It’s 2020 and the world is a nightmare but imagining Bloody Mary creepin’ out in my mirror does not need to be a part of it. 

SHE F*CKIN CLIMBS OUT OF THE MIRROR GUYS! I DIDN’T KNOW SHE COULD DO THAT!!!

Then we get Phantom Traveler and our very first case of black-eyed-demonic possession. Watching this episode now, it’s like watching someone’s home movie of their first steps as a baby. They’ve never even done an exorcism before guys! They have to read the exorcism rite out of the journal! It’s so cute!!! Let’s not think too hard about how they got that full sized bottle of holy water past TSA in a post-9/11 world. And try to ignore how poorly these special effects have aged - the smoke from the demon possession?? OMG! THIS EFFECT! I’m pretty sure I could make that effect with my first ever graphic design software on my, like, 2009 mac book pro. So cute and soooo good! I’m gonna leave that CG plane alone, they’re doing their best. 

SO cute and SOOO good!

You want to know what my favorite established staple of Supernatural season 1 is? The extras. LOOKIT these guys - 

Wendigo you have Cory Monteith who later goes on to star in Glee. 

You have Alden Ehrenreich, Debatable Han Solo, doing a lot of face work with very little dialogue. 

You have Gina Holden who is in SO. MANY. Spooky-type things! My personal favs are Blood Ties and Harper’s Island, but she’s in Fringe, she’s in the SAW franchise, she’s in the Final Destination franchise, she was in some deleted scenes on an episode of Teen Wolf! I LOVE seeing Gina Holden, anywhere she pops up. 

And speaking of Harper’s Island, you’ve also got Callum Keith Rennie who played John Wakefield in Harper’s Island, a show that was A+ Great and I highly recommend if you like Agatha Christie and/or murder mysteries. 

Honestly, Rennie looks like he’s about to murder a bitch in this episode of Supernatural, it is not a stretch to believe he’s a psycho killer.

Dead in the Water you’ve got Amy Acker, a regular in Joss Whedon and Whedon-adjacent type shows.

Good LORD, this wardrobe was SO 2000′s WB and it PAINED me.

And finally in Phantom Traveler, you have Jaime Ray Newman who also shows up in a lot of the shows that I like to watch. She was in Eureka, she was in Midnight Texas, both kind of terrible shows that I love because they are terrible, but she was ALSO in Bates Motel and Veronica Mars, which are generally considered to be more quality, so there’s that. 

This still implies that they actually LIT scenes, which is a SURPRISE TO ME. 

Point is, seeing these actors in Supernatural back in the early 2000’s felt like I was seeing the start of their careers. That may or may not have been the case, but as a viewer it was exciting to see them pop up again in other things.

So what about TV now? Do we still use those first 6 (sometimes more) episodes to re-establish the premise? Well, it certainly hasn’t gone away. Look at any network show that still produces 22 - 24 episodes a season and you’ll still see that the pilot season just keeps re-iterating the premise established in the pilot episode, specifically in anything that’s procedural - that’s you’re monster/problem-of-the-week shows. Think sitcoms like Brooklyn 99 or Superstore or dramedies like Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist. The reason being that these shows play in the traditional model of television - on a network, once a week. They are not releasing episodes all at one time or relying on their audiences to stream a whole season in one sitting. These are shows that still assume that someone out there is going to tune in or stumble across their show one night while they’re surfing channels (lol) and need to be told, no matter what episode they’ve just turned on, what the premise of the show is. They need to be formulaic so that people can pick it up anywhere at any time.

But what about shows that don’t follow this traditional model? I mentioned in my last post that seasons are getting shorter and shorter, so when you’re writing a show that only has (8) episodes instead of 22, how much time do you really want to spend establishing the premise? Because of these short seasons, you’re also dealing with shows that are more serialized and less procedural than their predecessors - meaning, you’re dealing with a show that focuses on a season long story (think Game of Thrones or Stranger Things where each episode is an important chapter that you can’t skip) vs. a procedural (think the shows I mentioned above or any cop drama really) where each episode is it’s own contained story, neatly wrapped up at the end. These are shows where you can skip an episode and still know where you are in the show no matter where you start or stop watching. Supernatural is a little bit of both - procedural with their monsters of the week AND serialized with a season long arc. We’ll talk more on that in a later post. 

Not only are we getting shorter seasons, but we’re also dealing with shows that are not released over long periods of time. A few streaming channels, like Disney+ and HBO Max, make a deliberate point to slow-drip their seasons, but most streaming channels will release entire seasons in one shot. You don’t need to worry about your audience missing an episode because they have 24/7 access to all the episodes all at once. And for the most part, they’re designed to be binged. They start at full speed and they don’t slow down to keep driving you to the finale. 

Do I think the procedural is ever going to go away? No. As much talk as there is about dropping the cop drama from TV all together, I think audiences still love a good mystery series. And you can’t just think of procedurals as cop dramas either - a procedural also covers most if not all sitcoms. New Girl, Letterkenny, Parks and Rec, Superstore - these all have a premise that doesn't change from week to week. They may make tiny shifts away from what they set up in the pilot, but by and large, you know what you’re getting into any time you turn on an episode. I think we as an audience still like that kind of familiarity. We may be seeing a bigger swing towards more serialized content, but that doesn't mean that the procedural is dead and gone. 

So that’s what we’ve got for Supernatural - two dudes, driving around in a car full of spears and hand guns, killing bad guys. Some day, they may even find that father that’s missing. What could possibly go wrong? A lot. Stay tuned. 

#Supernatural #Supernatural Season 1 #Supernatural Rewatch #Sam #Dean #Winchester #Pilot #Wendigo #Phantom Traveler #Television #History of television #Dead in the Water #Jensen Ackles #jared padalecki

[dailytomlinson]

Louis Tomlinson's re-arrival as a solo star came with a killer chorus. And then another one.

The harmony-laden, Britpop refrain of "Kill My Mind" set a template later singles followed, with Louis leading pub sing-alongs, yeah-yeah chants, and booming drums that resound to the rafters. It should surprise no one that Walls, his electric debut solo album out today (January 31) after years of introspection and recalibration, is positively brimming with lofty hooks in the same tradition.

"I always want a big, melodic, catchy pop chorus," Tomlinson told MTV News. "But it's about what you put around that, musically and melodically, in the verses and stuff, to keep things interesting. The kind of music that I love listening to is music that's got big guitars in it, but also a big chorus that you can sing along to."

He went all in on both for title track, which Tomlinson calls both his favorite song on the album and its best. It's a ballad, adorned with sweeping violinists and cellists amid "25, 30 people in the room, all there just to put strings on the track for me, for my songs," he marveled. They lend the chorus an air of triumph; meanwhile, the symbolic obstruction in the title recall Tomlinson's growing pains after his former band One Direction went on hiatus in 2016. He's been candid about his struggle to launch a solo career that made sense to him and felt representative of himself, not of contemporary pop trends.

But "Walls" finds him breaking through, howling, "Now I stand taller than them all" on a towering chorus reminiscent of Oasis ("Acquiesce" and "Stop Crying Your Heart Out," in particular). In fact, the Gallagher brothers grandeur is so pronounced that Noel even gets a writing credit on the track. Tomlinson's not sure the famously cantankerous rock icon has actually heard it, though he's excited to have forged the connection. "It's just amazing to have a credit with him on it and him be OK with that," he said. "I'm sure he'll chat shit at some point, but he's there, so it's cool."

Fans who have long rooted for Tomlinson — the last 1D member to release a full album in the wake of the band's hiatus — have already found plenty to celebrate. They've incorporated the album title into their Twitter display names. They've mobilized in the comments on their hero's recent appearance on The Tonight Show, labeling him "the king of the graphic sweater." Above all, they've expressed their pride.

They remember "Always You," a more electronic and pop-leaning cut, from way back when Tomlinson teased it in 2017, and they had to hear the full version. Despite being grounded in a glossy sound Tomlinson has since taken a few steps away from — produced and written with the same team behind "Just Like You" — and despite some initial reservations from Tomlinson himself, it eventually found its way onto the final Walls tracklist, albeit with updated production. "Every single time I go online, I see the demand surge for this song, so I was like, for [the fans], I've got to put it on," he said. "It's a good song. It's for the fans."

Plus, its roaring chorus evokes the arena-lifting swell of his former band. So does that of "Don't Let It Break Your Heart," "Defenceless," and a few others, proving Walls finds Tomlinson following his instincts. He's even worked 1D fan favorite "Little Black Dress," which he co-wrote, into his current live show. The album also finds him singing the most personal and heartfelt lyrics of his career — ones he penned himself, often examining loss. He addresses his mother's death on "Two of Us." He admits to not being over someone on "Habit." He laments vanishing youth, when he and friends were "strong enough to get it wrong in front of all these people," on "Fearless." The man was feeling reflective.

"It's kind of all I've ever known as a writer, to be honest," he said. "I realized early on that to be a male solo artist and speak with honesty, people like that, and with vulnerability as well. So it's kind of all I've known, really, just to be autobiographical."

That includes musing on how childhood pals have grown too old seemingly before their time. "Cashed in your weekend treasures for a suit and tie, a second wife," Tomlinson sings late in the album, making an observation that echoes his former collaborator Ed Sheeran's hometown catch-up "Castle on the Hill." "It's like you're seeing your best mate at school, and he was a proper good laugh, and then you see him 15 years later, and he's got really serious and really uptight and he's forgot how to have fun," he said.

Tomlinson remembers. At the pub, he orders a Stella or a vodka Red Bull, depending on the vibe. He's still growing, too: He's noodling on an Eric Clapton signature Martin acoustic ("plays fucking beautiful"), and he plans to master it on tour. "I pick up the guitar every day, but I'm slow," he said. "When you can only play six, seven, eight chords, there's only so far you can go with it."

As that tour rolls across the globe from March to July, Tomlinson will have plenty of time to crumble the walls barricading him from his guitar-hero potential. His initial appearances fronting a live band, like at Jingle Ball L.A., have found him gripping the microphone stand before fully branching out.

"I noticed the space. All of a sudden, I've got to cover loads of the fucking stage, so that took me a sec," he said, but he's quick to shout out the musicians with him. They support him, and not just musically, even if a killer chorus does take a village. "It just makes the process easier — the group of us, as opposed to just me on my own."

#mtv #wpress #030220 #louis tomlinson

[hlupdate]

Louis Tomlinson's re-arrival as a solo star came with a killer chorus. And then another one.

The harmony-laden, Britpop refrain of "Kill My Mind" set a template later singles followed, with Louis leading pub sing-alongs, yeah-yeah chants, and booming drums that resound to the rafters. It should surprise no one that Walls, his electric debut solo album out today (January 31) after years of introspection and recalibration, is positively brimming with lofty hooks in the same tradition.

"I always want a big, melodic, catchy pop chorus," Tomlinson told MTV News. "But it's about what you put around that, musically and melodically, in the verses and stuff, to keep things interesting. The kind of music that I love listening to is music that's got big guitars in it, but also a big chorus that you can sing along to."

He went all in on both for title track, which Tomlinson calls both his favorite song on the album and its best. It's a ballad, adorned with sweeping violinists and cellists amid "25, 30 people in the room, all there just to put strings on the track for me, for my songs," he marveled. They lend the chorus an air of triumph; meanwhile, the symbolic obstruction in the title recall Tomlinson's growing pains after his former band One Direction went on hiatus in 2016. He's been candid about his struggle to launch a solo career that made sense to him and felt representative of himself, not of contemporary pop trends.

But "Walls" finds him breaking through, howling, "Now I stand taller than them all" on a towering chorus reminiscent of Oasis ("Acquiesce" and "Stop Crying Your Heart Out," in particular). In fact, the Gallagher brothers grandeur is so pronounced that Noel even gets a writing credit on the track. Tomlinson's not sure the famously cantankerous rock icon has actually heard it, though he's excited to have forged the connection. "It's just amazing to have a credit with him on it and him be OK with that," he said. "I'm sure he'll chat shit at some point, but he's there, so it's cool."

Fans who have long rooted for Tomlinson — the last 1D member to release a full album in the wake of the band's hiatus — have already found plenty to celebrate. They've incorporated the album title into their Twitter display names. They've mobilized in the comments on their hero's recent appearance on The Tonight Show, labeling him "the king of the graphic sweater." Above all, they've expressed their pride.

They remember "Always You," a more electronic and pop-leaning cut, from way back when Tomlinson teased it in 2017, and they had to hear the full version. Despite being grounded in a glossy sound Tomlinson has since taken a few steps away from — produced and written with the same team behind "Just Like You" — and despite some initial reservations from Tomlinson himself, it eventually found its way onto the final Walls tracklist, albeit with updated production. "Every single time I go online, I see the demand surge for this song, so I was like, for [the fans], I've got to put it on," he said. "It's a good song. It's for the fans."

Plus, its roaring chorus evokes the arena-lifting swell of his former band. So does that of "Don't Let It Break Your Heart," "Defenceless," and a few others, proving Walls finds Tomlinson following his instincts. He's even worked 1D fan favorite "Little Black Dress," which he co-wrote, into his current live show. The album also finds him singing the most personal and heartfelt lyrics of his career — ones he penned himself, often examining loss. He addresses his mother's death on "Two of Us." He admits to not being over someone on "Habit." He laments vanishing youth, when he and friends were "strong enough to get it wrong in front of all these people," on "Fearless." The man was feeling reflective.

"It's kind of all I've ever known as a writer, to be honest," he said. "I realized early on that to be a male solo artist and speak with honesty, people like that, and with vulnerability as well. So it's kind of all I've known, really, just to be autobiographical."

That includes musing on how childhood pals have grown too old seemingly before their time. "Cashed in your weekend treasures for a suit and tie, a second wife," Tomlinson sings late in the album, making an observation that echoes his former collaborator Ed Sheeran's hometown catch-up "Castle on the Hill." "It's like you're seeing your best mate at school, and he was a proper good laugh, and then you see him 15 years later, and he's got really serious and really uptight and he's forgot how to have fun," he said.

Tomlinson remembers. At the pub, he orders a Stella or a vodka Red Bull, depending on the vibe. He's still growing, too: He's noodling on an Eric Clapton signature Martin acoustic ("plays fucking beautiful"), and he plans to master it on tour. "I pick up the guitar every day, but I'm slow," he said. "When you can only play six, seven, eight chords, there's only so far you can go with it."

As that tour rolls across the globe from March to July, Tomlinson will have plenty of time to crumble the walls barricading him from his guitar-hero potential. His initial appearances fronting a live band, like at Jingle Ball L.A., have found him gripping the microphone stand before fully branching out.

"I noticed the space. All of a sudden, I've got to cover loads of the fucking stage, so that took me a sec," he said, but he's quick to shout out the musicians with him. They support him, and not just musically, even if a killer chorus does take a village. "It just makes the process easier — the group of us, as opposed to just me on my own."

#louis tomlinson #310120 #walls #walls promo