#this is what i do instead of being productive in quarantine

[comfortfoodcontent]

2024 X-Men #35 cover by Pepe Larraz

2019-2024 - RIP Krakoa Era X-Men

I love this cover. The art is amazing. It marks the end of the Krakoa era X-Men. It's been on my mind a lot lately and I had to get some thoughts out on it. If you know me, if you ever followed me or my comics site or whatever, you know I was a very loud, very big fan of the Krakoa era at the start, basically up until X of Swords and Hickman's decision to leave. It's finally ending.

2019-2024 - RIP Krakoa Era X-Men

But truthfully it may as well be 2019-2019 -RIP Krakoa Era X-Men. It pretty much failed from the start. I loved HoxPox when it dropped. It was, embarrassing to say now, life changing for me. I thought Hickman was a genius and had found a way to reinvigorate the line and render death as a cheap storytelling gimmick useless. A bunch of my faves were being used and ressurected. I was happier than a pig in shit. I joined Twitter and all the insane X-Fans on there. I started a website and a podcast dedicated to comics. Soon the Covid pandemic started. I was terminally online, my brain rot started and grew worse by the day. It was an insane wild ride that started high and died soon thereafter.

It's hard for me to separate my pretentious Comfort Food Comic media brand time with the pretentious Krakoan Era. Both started out so happily, so full of potential and optimism. To run a site or a podcast in these hellish times you must also play the social media game. Constantly be on there, constantly push your product. Being on Twitter during that time and being part of the X-Community, you start to see how much being on social media fucks you up. You constantly feel like you need to have an opinion on everything, and that it actually matters. You need to be a critic to every piece of media, every decision, every little thing someone says or posts. You lose your grasp on reality, the real world, how to function and interact like a normal human being not stuck hidden behind a screen with your dual public twitter profile and private locked one (something I'm glad to say I never stooped to). It brings you attention. It brings you friends. It pushes your product or brand. It gives you validation and the dopamine rush. It's an addicting, disgusting, fake as hell experience. I was fully caught up in it. It didn't help that I was quarantining and barely leaving my house for a few years. It got me through the pandemic but it also left me so much worse than when I started. Much like how the Krakoan Era treated the X-Men franchise.

Why am I talking about social media so much when I started with X-Men? Well, it felt like this era of publishing went hand in hand with what was being put into the comics. Every creator was constantly on Twitter interacting with fans, always seeing what they had to say. Even Hickman was on there. Dude just wanted to post photos from movies and talk about like what Gen X members he liked. He eventually left because insane X-Men fans wanted him to talk about George Floyd and compare real world race issues with some superhero comics and weigh in, OH GOD WHY ISNT HE WEIGHING IN PUBLICALLY??. It was really weird how fans dealt with that one. Vita Ayala, Tini Howard, Leah Williams - constantly interacting with fans, friends with many of them. A pretty cool thing really, but that shit started influencing their comics throwing in characters or scenes specifically to make some X-Men fan they know on Twitter squee real loud. Shatterstar is not your favorite AEW wrestler. We do not need a book of human X-Men fans who pretend to be mutants influenced by dorky X-Men fans online. We do not need longtime villain Apocalypse to become our "Blue Dad". Jordan White should be editing or at the very least reading any old X-Men comics instead of being on Twitter. We don't need to know what the X-Writers do on their Slack, or worse, what X-fans do on their own incestuous Slack. Gerry Duggan, a writer I loved and thought could do no wrong, joined this group and upped his Twitter usage and the brain rot commenced and his work was so influenced by it. I'll never forget when white people started using fuck around and find out on Twitter and then it was in like 3 of his books the next month. My point in this ramble is the books were being influenced by and written for the loudest X-Men fans on Twitter. The art was dead. The books were a product made in that echo chamber for that echo chamber. They got bad real fast because of our society's addiction to social media these days.

Now that the honeymoon phase is over and I've revisited a lot of these books I do still feel HoXPoX was a wonderful series, one of the best X-Men series, masterfully executed and a perfect jumping off point with so much to explore. I also see the usual Hickman faults. The my series starts some time later, not really addressing anything prior to it that all his books share, the insanely detailed long term plans that he nor the comics business machine will actually follow through on after a year or so, and the shadowy superior group of power that exists in all of his comics. The Moira retcon, while brilliant, quickly falls apart when they never develop her further, or deal with the fact Xavier and Magneto went on to have an entire publishing history knowing what amounts to their entire future until the Krakoa Age must be established. That never really worked and was ignored by the creators and fans alike, including me. So it never really worked from the jump.

Rather than keep the line condensed and maybe just let Hickman write his own story, they expand it out from there involving a bunch of different creators and new ongoings. Plenty of series to explore the ramifications of these retcons, the perceived ethnostate the mutants have established and their abandoning of the coexistent dream the X-Men always fought for, grappling with identity and what it means when death no longer matters, and the conflicts that would arise from having all these villains live with them now. Sadly we instead basically just got Utopia 2.0. Surface level shit where the mutants are on an island surviving that rarely ever went in on all the amazing story ideas we could have explored. But hey certain fans were happy because they could go "Hey Synch is here for a few panels!" or "this horrific out of character gladiator death ceremony is TOTALLY the same thing as my real life transitional phase". Nobody really wanted to question any of this in the comics or in real life. And hey sour grapes aside, we did get some cool stories and some fun character interactions and moments, mostly in the Hickman books. But even from the start, some of it is horrible, more of the same schlock - Fallen Angels a great example, or Hickman's more boring Giant Size issues or his Shi'ar issue, or half of every other title. What should have been being explored or dealt with in the text often went ignored and we got X-Men being superheroes or Otherworld nonsense, which at the time I ate up because I'm such a fan of the old Captain Britain material. Sadly that never really went anywhere either, just making nebulous dimensions that were out there somewhere, don't question it LOOK IT'S JIM JASPERS! ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED! Even things that should have been celebrated like Betsy and Rachel pushing through Gal Pals territory to being together felt largely flat and hollow and forced rather than natural or fun. And that was a common theme as it kept going. Everything felt forced, felt wrong, the writing felt amateurish and simple as it ignored more major issues or reasons to exist. Things just seemed to start happening for no real story reasons. No real further development or exploration. A ton of plots don't make sense as established history and characterization is thrown out the window. Nothing really matters. Rockslide is ruined forever just because. Arrako will never REALLY make sense, Loa and Mercury are psychopathic sex fiends, Pixie of all people is a callous death pervert, Banshee is a Ghost Rider, Warlock's doing something, Colossus joins the Quiet Council and just sits there, Children of the Atom is designated a "red" important book and does nothing of value or import, Moira gets pissy so she turns into a no shades of gray villain robot who skins her soul mate and wears his skin and joins Orchis, mutants are fucking so much and I guess just quickly going to term and they just abandon countless babies in the forest, Anole and a few others are brainless dolts who love the Shadow King, Onslaught is bouncing around, there's an old X-23, Synch is now the best and can recall any power ever magically but never talks to any member of his old team or deals with his death, Inferno as a whole essentially just didn't happen or matter, Sinister isn't Sinister at all he's a clone and there's 3 more of them, Casandra Nova is on a team, Doug knows secrets, Magneto buys a lighthouse, characters are randomly and indiscriminately put into The Pit, Shaw and Selene are maybe the only two villains ever that get examined in a way where maybe they shouldn't be buddy buddy with the X-Men - I need to stop now before I get more angry and depressed but I could go on and on and on. Point is things got bad. Like a ton of this was just bad writing and bad comics. I'm sorry. I get it. I was blinded too. I ignored things. I made my own head canons. I focused on the good stuff.

By the time Hickman actually announces he is leaving, things are already falling apart due to him and Marvel deciding to expand and stretch this shit out instead of just letting him do his shit and end it as a complete story or era. He does Inferno which as I said did nothing and didn't matter. It's good but it's a big ball of nothing. From there the books get worse and worse. Duggan's superhero X-Men book is fluff. Nearly every other series declines more and more. Hellions is a fun dark comedy, but sloppy and lacking that depth and exploration. Al Ewing's work tries hard to reach those Hickman highs and I found myself quite enjoying his work on SWORD and later on X-Men Red but mainly because it all ends up divorced from Krakoa as part of his larger Marvel Cosmic work, with great characterization. I really dig that work and it's common theme is really how off to the side not involved it is.

Later writers, including some real Literal Whos? and pretentious "novel authors" further dilute the line with their less talented work(I like Steve Orlando as a person but I desperately wish he'd try harder to write actual stories instead of being a human youtube video that summarizes obscure 90's comic characters for modern day zoomers). Kieron Gillen, bless him, tries to be the new Hickman and he does have some of the best Krakoa era material, but even he starts failing pretty badly. Sins of Sinister was a clusterfuck of boring nonsense for people who want to seem or sound smart, same goes for this current Dominion plot.

Looking at the art now I'm struck by how none of these characters are TRULY changed from this era, let alone had a lasting or defining story. It's crazy to me we went 5 whole years with this and really what has changed, ESPECIALLY with the current Orchis wrap-up story. X-Men fight some nasty humans who don't like them. We're back to that ALREADY. We aren't getting to the end of the Krakoan Era, we've been in it for quite some time. As I look at this art I see only 3 wholly new characters, which they'll be lucky if they are used after this. One of them is Pogg-Ur Pogg, a perfect example of this era. A big Aligator man, not much thought behind it, that fans LOVED. Sadly, he wasn't actually an alligator man. It was all a fakeout. That was some suit a little boring gremlin wore. A little boring gremlin. Nothing unique, nothing fun. Same old shit you've seen in thousands of comics. That's what the Krakoa Era was. Something that seemed SO DAMN COOL, SO DAMN THOUGHT OUT, but really it didn't have much thought behind it. It was a flashy suit of potential hiding the same old gremlin you've always seen. Even after the eternally online creators saw how popular he got, they didn't change any of this, they just thought we've got it. The suit/gremlin thing is good. It wasn't and they tried to bring it back for further stories but it was so lame at this point it was pathetic. Much like the repeated attempts to salvage and course correct after Hickman.

So here we are at the end. I can't believe I'm actually THANKFUL it is ending. That I actually want to regress and return to the X-Men as superheroes fighting their villains again. I've been rereading old X-books and I crave that big, bold excitement of what truly made the X-Men superhero team work. It's such a bummer and such a failure of execution with so many to blame. What DISGUSTS me so much is already seeing fans eulogize this era as perfection that was cut short by Marvel and not a fun experiment that was botched from the start. I'm with you, I was the biggest believer and supporter at the start. I joined Twitter, I examined every panel, made countless threads of discussion, debated and discussed every little thing with fellow fans. I wanted so much for this to be what it could be. Please, examine it honestly and critically. It's a failure. It's time to pull the plug.

It's ironic to me that I deleted my Twitter this year, the Krakoan age having the same amount of life my Twitter fandom life did. It went from such excitement and fun to soul sucking everyday nonsense. It seems fitting and emblematic of what this age was and turned into. This era, just like Twitter which influenced it so much, is/was a stupid, ugly, brain rotted mess dotted with sparing gold with the unrealized potential for so much more. I for one, welcome it.

Peace Out Krakoa Era, you won't be missed.

#krakoa #krakoa era #x-men #mutants #me #my writing #writing #comics #comic books #marvel #marvel comics #pepe larraz

[selfdestructivecat]

I’ve seen quite a few posts in response to Thomas’ recent video, specifically his year in review. In this video, he discusses the setbacks he’s faced the past few years — such as the quarantine, Joan’s departure, and his own personal doubts and insecurities — and how they impacted the production of Sanders Sides.

And I truly sympathize with him. No, seriously! It’s already difficult to create something this big almost entirely on your own, but I’m sure this year only made things even more difficult. I know I’ve definitely felt insecure to the point of feeling sick when it came to things I created, so I can empathize with the enormous amount pressure he must be feeling.

However, many posts I’ve seen following this video are saying things along the lines of “If people still criticize Thomas after this video, then I’m going to lose it” or “Not that people who criticize Thomas even care, but Thomas really struggled this year. I’m with him all the way!”, or even “I bet SaSi critics will still demand the finale even after this. I doubt they’ll even watch the video!”

I want to clarify that this is obviously not everyone who doesn’t like ts criticism. People who block criticism blogs and/or the tag, who ignore criticism in general, or who feel upset when they see criticism of something they love: this is not about you. You are absolutely valid and entitled to feeling the way you do, and I hope you have a lovely day. Feel free to block me if that would be good for your mental health. Please take care of yourself. /gen

But to those vocally condemning ts critics, I want to make several things clear.

First of all, you are lumping everyone who criticizes the show in with people who demand the finale with no regard for Thomas’ well-being, for the well-being of his crew, and for basic common sense. While many people are upset that the finale isn’t out yet, we aren’t specifically mad that we don’t have a completed video to watch; rather, we are frustrated with what this says about the SaSi crew, their work ethic, and how they treat fans of the show.

We aren’t upset that we can’t watch the finale right now. We are upset that we’ve gotten very few updates about the show during this period between canon episodes. This video provided wonderful insight into why the finale has been delayed, and we would have loved something like this years ago. Obviously it didn’t have to be a 20 minute video, but maybe a Twitter thread? Something small that made us feel heard?

Hell, even announcing an official hiatus would have satisfied the vast majority of critics (myself included), instead of throwing SaSi into this limbo of “Oh it’s going to be finished this year, we promise- oh whoops, never mind! Next year for sure!” It’s been a constant chain of broken promises, and we were more than happy to give the crew some grace the first few times, but after a while, a repeated mistake becomes a pattern. And this pattern is not pretty.

We are upset that the crew seems incredibly disorganized (going back to the lack of updates, and of course taking into account how we haven’t gotten even a single part of the finale in five years), which could affect the quality of this series we all love so dearly. beauty-and-passion has spoken about this a lot (and is a lot more eloquent than me lmao, please go check out their stuff!) The most recent Christmas video seems to demonstrate that the series may be on the right track, and I will admit I was wrong in regards to this video, but the Inside Out video is a mess in so many ways. Even if this doesn’t prove a decline in quality, it certainly indicates a lack of consistency, which can be just as damning for a series.

We are upset that, while SaSi is in this limbo, Thomas seems to have been focusing on his other projects without telling us about this change in priority. He is welcome to pursue other projects, obviously. I’m thrilled that he is having fun with Roleslaying with Roman and My Roommate is Hades. But these new projects have come at the cost of Sanders Sides content, which also points towards a lack of organization. Some clarity towards which projects Thomas chooses to focus on would have been wonderful and greatly appreciated, so that we know not to expect something we won’t receive. And hey, maybe if we knew not to expect SaSi content until much later, maybe we wouldn’t have been constantly asking why we weren’t receiving SaSi content?

(And this is not an excuse for aggressively demanding content, obviously. But I feel like people who are confused and frustrated at not receiving something promised to them are justified in these feelings.)

And maybe we’re jumping to conclusions in many regards. I won’t pretend that we are prophets who can peer into Thomas’ mind and know what he’s thinking and feeling at all times. But it’s pretty damn difficult to say that NONE of the above could suggest that Sanders Sides isn’t held in the same regard as it once was. Hell, Thomas even admits in the video that he doesn’t feel as connected with these characters as he once did.

Second, many people attacking critics are also quick to drag their character. We are impatient, greedy, selfish, and cruel. We don’t care about Thomas; we only care about the end product! More Sanders Sides at any cost! We don’t like critical thinking, since we obviously didn’t watch the video; we only want to find mean things to say about Thomas and the show! We don’t like engaging in civil debate with our fellow Fanders who may disagree with our opinions; we only want to make other people feel bad, and to make others hate the show, too!

Well, guess what? You’re doing to us exactly what you think we’re doing to Thomas: you’re assuming the absolute worst of us and looking for any reason to drag us down.

We are critics. We analyze media (media that we love, mind you) and we acknowledge that it isn’t perfect, that the creators aren’t perfect, and we point it out. But we still love it anyway, because to truly love something is to love it with its flaws, to know that it could be better, to brainstorm how it could reach its true potential, and to keep doing so because you believe in this potential.

We aren’t trying to take away the joy you feel from Sanders Sides. So please don’t try to take away ours.

#ts criticism #ts critical #sanders sides criticism #my ramblings

[freechaostyrant]

Okay, so, I'm trying to figure out how to phrase this so I don't get in trouble with creation or violate any of the rules. But I have to share what happened at my meet and greet with Misha on Sunday at VanCon and how that led to this insanity during the Jensen and guests panel...

So a little bit of background, I'm one of the administrators on the Twitter and Tumblr account for the Winchester daily updates (@thewinchestersupdates , @twdailyupdates on Twitter, give us a follow if you don't already!) Which means I've read all of the press that's come out related to the Winchester's. And it's very well documented that before Jensen and Danneel started chaos machine productions and came up with the Winchester's idea, that they had a little rewatch pilot with Misha to watch Lazarus Rising (Jensen first talks about filming it during the rosenbaum podcasts audio linked below)

https://twitter.com/acklesbitch/status/1483370216029622279?t=CMpzsuG6rYbbDk22r3q3hQ&s=19

So of course, being a fan of Misha and the Ackles, I knew this weekend I wanted to ask someone about this zoom call they filmed! So in my m&g with Misha I asked him basically (in a jumbled word salad cause I was nervous)

"In press about The Winchesters Jensen's talked about a lazarus rising rewatch you guys did during quarantine so (1) will y'all be sharing the video and (2) how was it rewatching your episode?"

And this man says "there's video? What?"

And then the m&g room all say it's a podcast and blah blah blah (I'm pretty sure it wasn't a podcast cause Jensen talked about filming a pilot and building a set but whatevers 🤷‍♀️) and Misha looks so confused and has no clue what I'm talking about. I chalk it up to the fact that no one can remember what happened at the beginning of quarantine. So I'm like "oh okay" facepalm and THEN this fucker (affectionately) says "oh you know Jensen and danneel, after they put the kids to bed, they just... Watch videos of me." 💀

So that was gonna be my private shame and since it's a m&g story I wasn't gonna share it.

Until.....

I'm sitting in Jensen's panel and here a high pitched squeal asking Jensen about watching Lazarus Rising and watching videos of Misha. And I. ABSOLUTELY. LOSE IT. No one in the audience but the other 19 m&g attendees have no context for Misha's question, but I KNOW WHAT HES DOING. So I'm basically shaking and freaking out and cannot explain to anyone why this is insanity. Jensen mocks misha's affect and asked if he was doing Ruthie's voice but I think he was mocking ME asking that question in my scared wobbly voice lmao 🤣

And of course Jensen asks Misha if he (Jensen) should answer the fans question or "mishas horrible question" and I wanted to sink into the floor 😂

And if you've seen the video, you know how Jensen answers the question and the clusterfuck the answer turned into.

So of course, I have Misha's auto later that night and I decide I have to say something to him. I was getting the poem Taxi signed by him, which means a lot for me and how I see my relationship with my mom, and I was gonna say something about how much it resonates with me, but instead I had to pivot. So I went up to his table and put down my items to get signed and said to him:

"Misha I have a bone to pick with you. You stole my m&g question to ask Jensen at his panel today!"

And this man says "What question?!"

💀

So of course I say "the Lazarus rising question. And I think I'm entitled to financial compensation for you stealing my question." And he turns to his handler and says something and turns back to me and says "I'm asking her if it's too late for you to get a refund."

So I laugh and then he said "it was a good question!" And I said "Thank you for asking it! I wasn't expecting the answer to go in that direction though" and he just gives me a look, cocking his head to the side, and I grab my items and run away 🤣

Anyway, I'm still waiting to find out what happened with that pilot episode and if it'll ever see the light of day 🙏

(Also, based on my own experience this weekend, I wouldnt be surprised if Misha genuinely cannot remember stuff in response to my questions because he's busy and frantic and short term memory kind of does in all the stress but if he was just jerking me around all weekend that was the best experience ever)

My auto items are in the images below. Special thanks to @wigglebox for giving me the cas & dean in the empty artwork so I could have Misha sign it. Can't wait to hang it up.

#spnvan #vancon 2022 #misha collins #jensen ackles #lazarus rising watch party #this affectiona f-er

[bonesandthebees]

I would love some makeup and skincare tips if you're willing :)

-🌼

of course!! (these answers are very general/assuming you're starting from the very beginning. if you want more specific advice lmk just give me more specific questions)

so I've talked about skincare on here before so I'll put that at the bottom of this ask, and I'll start with make up instead this time

makeup takes a learning curve to figure out how to use. there's no getting around that. it took years for me to figure out makeup stuff and I started playing around with it when I was only 12-13ish. don't feel embarrassed if your makeup doesn't turn out how you want. depending on what you're doing, you're basically learning how to paint but, like, really specifically and only on your face. it takes practice and that's ok! if you're embarrassed about people seeing you with makeup on, just do it alone in your room. the only reason I got good at winged eyeliner was because I made myself do makeup every day during the first quarantine era of covid so that I'd have a daily routine established and wouldn't just sit in pajamas in bed all day. I wasn't going out at all, so I made myself do winged eyeliner every time bc I knew no one was gonna see it, and it didn't take long for me to get good at it. so practice when you're alone and wipe it off when you're done. you'll figure it out eventually.

now as far as what kind of makeup to do on your face. well, that depends on what you're trying to achieve with makeup. do you want to cover up acne? do you want to do fun eyeshadow and eyeliner? do you want to enhance your natural features? if you're completely new to makeup I'd recommend starting with the basics of just trying to enhance your natural features. that's usually very simple and easy makeup that'll help you learn the foundations of it all so you can build up from there.

'natural' makeup routines that you read about online are probably going to consist of some kind of tinted moisturizer, maybe some concealer, maybe mascara, and probably a bit of blush. it depends on how much you want to do. if you're going for something with more coverage to cover up acne, look for foundation instead of tinted moisturizer.

if you're just starting out you're probably going to want to go for drugstore makeup instead of the expensive stuff. maybelline anti-age rewind multi-use concealer has been my go to concealer for years now. elf as a whole is a really low-priced and generally well recommended makeup brand with a lot of variety to what they sell. for whichever product you're trying to get, tbh just google 'best drugstore brand [insert product here]' and you'll find a ton of magazine articles pop up with recommendations.

last tips for now. here's what you don't need when you're just starting out: primer (you are probably not going to be doing heavy daily makeup right off the bat it's not worth it in that case). look, I know everyone talks about primer being amazing. but I basically never use foundation or tinted moisturizer, I just use concealer. so it's very unnecessary for me. later on you might find you need it, but at the start I promise you don't

hope that helps with some makeup stuff! skincare info below!

okay so for skincare, I've found that it's easiest to build a routine one step at a time. don't feel like you have to rush into everything all at once. first get into the habit of washing your face every morning and night if you don't already. make sure you have a good facial cleanser that's suited to your skin type (please don't use body soap for your face). cetaphil and cerave are both very highly rated drugstore skincare brands that have a lot of options for face cleansers for all skin types (oily, dry, sensitive, etc). then you need a moisturizer. again, I recommend either cetaphil or cerave to start off with bc of their low price point and how highly rated their products are. I use cetaphil daily face cleanser and cetaphil's daily oil free moisturizer with spf 35. definitely try to get one with spf in it because sun protection is the other essential part of a bare bones skincare routine. when looking for a face moisturizer, try to go for ones that say they're non-comedogenic which means they won't clog your pores. oil-free is probably preferable too especially if you have acne.

after you have the basics you can get into other stuff! this stuff is going to depend on what skin issues you have. there are a whole lot of serums out there you can look into (niacinamide I think is one of the best serums for most skin types and you can get a bottle of it from both good molecules or the ordinary for like $6). different serums are formulated to target different things, so again try to google stuff to see what might be most helpful for you. skincare brands besides cetaphil and cerave that I think are good to start out with is the ordinary (high quality at a very low price) and good molecules. neutrogena also has some pretty good products, and I really love elf's eye cream. but if you're really unsure where to start, the ordinary has an online quiz you can take on your site which will recommend products to you based off what you say your skin issues are, so even if you don't end up buying anything from them that can give you an idea of what products to start looking at.

#ask #daisy anon #skincare #makeup tips #skincare tips

[typically-untypical]

Echoes of the Past - Day 11

Prompt: “I tried not to let these things affect me. They affected me quickly and obviously.”

CW: Angst, Mild Horror, cursing? I don't remember honestly.

"Day 27 of isolation," Logan looked at the laptop he was recording on, a copy of himself staring back. His hair was a mess, and there were obvious bags under his eyes. He had been slowly getting worse, though a thought crossed his mind and he smiled weakly. He was beginning to look like Virgil. 

"I may have over estimated my ability to handle a quarantine from the others. I find without the noise that is normal when living with others, my own personal anxieties are louder inside my head. I am actually surprised by the fact that I have anxieties. I would have assumed all of that was pushed off on Virgil. I believed the silence would be a welcome change. The others were often distracting and it was difficult to process things with their consistent slamming and chatter. However, instead of silence improving my productivity, it has amplified every other sound, many being the sounds of my own body. It is terrifying and exhausting to have to question each and every breath. I am trying to not let it affect me."

There was another sound, a noise from the computer, and Logan jumped. It was a cascading effect, rather obvious when he realized what the noise was, and then the sudden drop in his face. "It is affecting me quite a lot," He muttered. There was a self-loathing that was reflected in the camera, as Logan ran his hand down his face. "I had hoped returning to the subconscious would mean reintegration, and when it didn't, I had hoped that maybe I could make a home here."

He paused, blood shot eyes looking into the camera. "I am finally beginning to understand the difference between a dwelling and a home." A few tears began to slide down his face. "I wonder if they miss me. Not that it matters either way... is it better to be missed, to know that you were wanted, or is it better to be forgotten and know that you didn't hurt others?" Logan was crying fully now, not even bothering to clean his tears. "I'm terrified of returning, but I am not certain I can continue like this." He reached forward. "Maybe I just need to get past the next few days." 

The video cut off and the silence echoed through the common room.

Patton, Virgil, and Roman had only recently realized that Logan was missing. They had assumed he was locked away in his room. They assumed he had just been avoiding all of them. None of them would have been surprised, they had all had a few issues over the past few months and it was obvious that Logan was being worn down. They wanted to give him room and space to relax, and then of course, things got busy. After a month Patton had decided he couldn't take it anymore, he had to make sure Logan was okay. He knocked and knocked, offered food, offered companionship, but he didn't hear anything on the other side. After a few hours, Patton forced the door open. He knew it was rude and an invasion of privacy but he didn't have time to feel guilty. The room was empty, completely barren, and Patton suddenly wished he had been rude sooner. They spent another week in panic mode. Logan's door sat open but they didn't know what to do. The three of them hoped he would just return and suddenly everything would be okay.

But it wasn't.

Logan didn't come back, and they all started to fall apart. Roman had suggested a few drastic things like going into the subconscious. Patton was beginning to think they should have, even if the subconscious was dangerous, that was apparently where Logan was, or at least where he had been. None of them were sure if he was still there now. They had been watching through all of Logan's logs, too sick to their stomachs to even stop to eat.

Virgil was the one to find the computer. It had shown up around 2am while Virgil roamed the hallways after a nightmare. The sound of Logan's voice echoed through the empty door, and Virgil had immediately woken the others up. They hadn't left the commons since then. They watched Logan's reasoning, Logan's slow decent into madness, and they all clung to each other, because it was all they could do.

"Day 28," Logan giggled on the screen, but it was wrong, there was something off. His movements were jerky. "Four weeks, four weeks and I am alone." He laughed, a deep shattering laugh that sent shivers down all of their spines. "The clock on the computer is the only thing that tells me the day, and I don't even know if that's right. Maybe it's only been a few hours. How pathetic would that be?" His eyes flashed orange, his appearance changing as if he was glitching out of one existence into another. "This isn't fair! I don't deserve to be treated like this? I should be cared about!" He stood up, throwing his chair against the wall, leaving a dent and breaking off one of the arms. He glitched back, shoulders slumping. "Sorry, that was unprofessional... I shouldn't behave in such a way. This isolation was my choice. No one else should be blamed for what is happening to me." He sighed, walking over to get the chair, setting it back up before he sat down on it slowly. "I'm sorry," He apologized again.

"I don't know if anyone will ever see these... but I hope they don't... only I should face the consequences of my actions. However... I can't stop recording. I think it's the only thing keeping me partially sane."

There was another long pause, a look in his eyes that couldn't be explained. He bit at his lip. It was like he knew something that the others knew. He let out a slow and deep sigh.

"I don't think I can keep doing this."

Virgil reached out to close the laptop, his hand shaking, but Patton held him back. "There's... there should be seven more days, maybe it can help us find him, maybe we can fix it." His voice was pleading, but Virgil also had a look in his eyes, something that Patton didn't understand but Virgil was trying to protect him from.

"Pat, we don't know what's going to happen next. I don't think we should watch it." Virgil hesitated, "I don't think you should watch it." Patton wanted to understand. He was missing something, but he didn't know what, and it terrified him.

"Day 29. Why do I keep trying?" Logan jumped and looked outside of the screen before his shoulders slumped in defeat. "The door is locked. I was going to try to leave, but the door is locked."

Patton and Virgil both turned back to the screen as Roman reached out, pulling his brother up.

"Ohhh, you're calling me, that's new and interesting." His voice over lapped with Logan's. The video couldn't be stopped. It was a cacophony of noise as Roman tried to explain what was going on. His own voice shaking as he heard Patton balling, Virgil attempting to calm him. 

"We need to find him," Roman shouted and Remus looked confused before he turned to look at the laptop. His brow furrowed a bit as he picked up the laptop, watching the screen.

All they could hear was Logan's voice.

"There's no way out. I can't escape. I would rather the darkness just swallow me rather than string me along. I... I can't do this anymore. I... I will see if there are anymore entries, but... I can't maintain a useless routine."

Remus frowned, "That's not the subconscious." Logan had said it was the subconscious and Logan wasn't normally wrong.

"What?!" Patton and Virgil both asked, Roman standing up to look at his brother.

"It doesn't feel right to be the subconscious, and this laptop smells like me... but I would have known." His brow furrowed and Remus dropped the computer. "Come on dorks. Time for a field trip. We have a nerd to find and save."

The video continued to play and there was a blood curdling scream. Remus frowned, tearing a hole into the fabric of their common room. "Sooner rather than later."

[Section Break]

Logan was laying in a web, wrapped up by something that felt like silk but sticky. He felt overwhelmed and out of it, his brain fuzzy and barely able to cling to conscious thought. He had been attacked, something had happened after that. 

"But he's so delicious to feed on, all of that negative energy."

"Down girl!" Someone was talking, there was shouting, and fighting and something was happening but Logan didn't understand what.

"I got you," Another voice whispered and Logan was almost certain it was Patton. He knew that soft gentle lilt and Logan couldn't help but laugh. It was a sad broken laugh. 

"You aren't here," there was a desperate edge to his voice, but he had stopped trying to hide that long ago. "You aren't here, no one is coming to help me." His breath came out stuttered, even as he felt himself being cut down. "I chased them all away, it's my fault."

And Logan genuinely believed that. He believed it was his fault for leaving, and his fault for not being enough. He fell boneless into the imposter's arms, eyes closed as he fought not to shake and fall apart. "If I hadn't been so sensitive I wouldn't be alone."

He didn't see the way Patton's heart broke, didn't see the way Remus teleported them back to the common rooms. He was too tired, mentally, physically, everything was too much.

"I implore you, just let me go," He whispered, drifting off to a painful sleep as someone stroked his hair gently.

"Never again," Patton whispered, "I'm not letting you feel alone ever again."

@simplestoryteller @fantasticfangirl21 @joylessnightsky @melaniidarling @tsshipmonth2020

#Untypical Creations #Sanders Sides #Sanders Side fic #Fanfic #logan sanders #Patton Sanders #Roman Sanders #Virgil Sanders #Remus Sanders #Logan Angst #eotp2022 #mild horror

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Isle of the Dead (Robson, 1945)

If Boris Karloff is in a movie, there's a good chance I'll enjoy it, and I think his performance here goes a long way in warming me up to this movie. He plays a Greek general during the Balkan Wars of 1912-13, and when we first meet him, we see him order an officer shot for abandoning his unit and forcing his troops to carry supplies instead of putting them on horses. I think in another movie, or with another actor, this character could have easily come across as a cruel authoritarian, and indeed, that's how the other characters see him. But here, you get the sense that this is not a cruel man deep down, but one who has been forced into cruelty by a cruel situation. I recently watched Barbarian, which I highly recommend going into as blind as possible, but there's a bit there about a character chewing over whether they're a bad person or a good person who did a bad thing, and I think that thought very much applies to Karloff's character here. Of course it helps that Karloff has spent his career imbuing monsters with a certain humanity, so that we understand why he's doing what he's doing even if we might not be inclined to agree with his actions.

Of course, his actions are probably easier to sympathize with if you're watching this movie now. His character finds himself stuck on a secluded island during a deadly plague, and the last thing he wants to do is to have the inhabitants or his soldiers get infected. So naturally he defers to the doctor and enforces a strict quarantine protocol. Nobody gets in or out. Of course the other characters plead with him about he inhumane he's being, but I dunno, most of what he says seems pretty reasonable to me. Of course, as this is a horror movie, it's possible that what's killing the inhabitants might not be a plague after all, and after their efforts prove futile, Karloff's mental state deteriorates, and he becomes convinced that the unexpectedly youthful and healthy Ellen Drew is a vorvolaka (or vampire, essentially) and reorients his efforts to protect the others from her. Again, the characters (this time more rightfully) plead with him to change his mind, but one, he probably goes easier on her than someone else might, and Karloff plays his character with enough sympathy that we do feel for him, even as he's going off the deep end.

So Karloff is great, and Drew is good, as is Helene Thimig as the old crone who keeps putting bad ideas and superstitions in Karloff's ear. The problem is that the bulk of this is a chamber piece, where Karloff goes room to room discussing the proceedings with a bunch of significantly less charismatic actors. Meaning that I was leaning very heavily on my affinity for Karloff to enjoy a good chunk of this, although I should disclose that this ploy succeeded. As this is a Val Lewton production, there is some nice shadowy, windy atmosphere at the bookends, particularly in the almost abstract depiction of the battlegrounds in which the opening is set.

#film #movie review #isle of the dead #mark robson

[pigeonfancier]

Allergies are so much funnn. I made bourbon creme cookie spoons, because my bffle sent me a bunch and I immediately became obsessed! Used as pudding pack instead of custard powder, because I didn’t feel like going to the store. It had the ever-ambiguous “spices”, but surely, I reasoned, no allergens, because it’s a fucking pudding pack?

The cookies are delicious! Delicious and allergenic - that, or else switching my dog over to a food that has soy in it was more of a dumb idea than I thought. I figured that she doesn’t really lick people, so it’d be fine.. but I did not fully consider the fact that she licks herself, and she also wants to be held and/or leaning against me and/or directly underfoot at least 60% of the time she’s awake, so she might just be spreading soy protein across her pelt and then me.

Either way: I was a fool, haha.

Week for it! Garden is finally going alright, now that we’re out of the hell heatwave, but flare-ups are being a pain in general, but this time with 3x the brain fog, which is.. a little concerning to realise I keep zoning the fuck out and going on autopilot, but it happens. I’m still getting shit done, so just kind of shrugging? We stan a productive lizardbrain. My heart rate has thankfully dropped from resting at 110-180, down to 85-140 on average, which is still infuriating and unpleasant to deal with, but it is a lot more manageable. Just have to keep an eye on it, take breaks, build plans around the fact my energy and focus is -30%, lol, and don’t fuck around with elevation. People have been sweethearts and keeping it in mind, so at least it’s not as frustrating as these spells have been in the past - I want to do more still, but that’s just a constant.

On the infinitely more positive side, though, the lemon and lime trees are thriving. I’m so pleased with them! I don’t know if they’ll ever quite settle enough to start producing fruits, but they’re readily producing flowers, the pollinators love them, and they smell great, so that’s all I need, tbhhh. I was a bit distraught that the heatwave has managed to murder all attempts at sunflowers or corn this year, but whereas those wilted, my peppers have gone completely batshit, and even the smallest plant has four peppers nearly as long as the main stalk growing. And all three varieties of colours have survived, so there’s purple, red and green. I’m hypeddd.

Still planting seeds, and seeing what I can prompt into popping up! Plan is still to maintain a nice garden inside of the greenhouse over the winter, because watching the slowly rising price of produce in the stores are making me feel a little feral. Main concern is making sure the humidity inside the greenhouse stays low enough not to foster disease or fungus between the plants, at this point? But the air’s dry enough in winter that I might be overthinking it! We’ll see.

Also on the positive side: the pool is getting to the point I am a little less suspicious of its existence! Quarantine run-arounds and other assorted bullshit means that we’re doing the usual BBQ closer to the end of the month, rather than at the start, so.. might actually have it up for people to swim in! I don’t like nor trust any bodies of water very much. I technically know how to swim and float, but I just don’t see the particular appeal.

However, reading on the sideline and kicking water in people’s faces when they forget I’m there does have a certain nostalgic thrill to it. That, and I’m very curious on seeing what the fuck Domino’s reaction is going to be to people jumping into the pool. She fucking loathes all water, to the point of refusing to go outside if it’s rained.. but she does love obsessively copying anything that she sees people doing as well. So which will win out? Excited to see!

#until she jumps in the pool and immediately rips up my vinyl with her dreadful little claws #I GUESS. #worth it #d. rambles

[juno-infernal]

okay seriously though. i know that material things will not solve my problems or change my identity (despite the forces of capitalism that whisper seductively to the contrary). but i feel like maybe there is more to the grounding effect of familiar articles of clothing & accessories, to the tangible part of “feeling like myself,” than i’ve given enough attention to.

for the last… since the start of quarantine, i haven’t really dressed in the ways that traditionally made me feel comfortable and confident, and my body has changed significantly in that time so what i have no longer fits/feels/looks the way it did. it’s multivalent— the physical-sensory (in the way something feels in contact with my body), the aesthetic (how i look, to myself and others), the social (how i am perceived and interacted with as a result of sartorial choices, what i am choosing to signify and what is being understood). the gender and body dysmorphia of it all makes this extra complicated, as does disability & its attendant limitations.

idk. i don’t know that i’d be more productive or confident or whatever if i was wearing something other than old t-shirts and joggers or slightly-too-small-blue-jeans on the daily. and i’d generally like to think that my sense of self is not wrapped up in what i put on my body or what other people think about it. still, as i feel more & more unmoored from the other things that i used to think made me “me,” i’m wishing for those old fashion staples: a leather jacket, broken-in combat boots, black skinny jeans, two hands worth of eclectic rings.

and still, the guilt of buying any of these things— am i trying to buy a better self? buy back my youth? how can i justify “investing” in something superficial when i could be paying off my debts or doing something for my future instead? idk. idk a lot of things.

this feels like the silliest most juvenile of things to ruminate on at this point, but it’s what i’m lying awake (in mismatched pajamas) thinking about tonight.

#m #this may be totally incomprehensible it’s 3am #and i’m in an add to cart/remove from cart/lay down and think about my life loop

[imthefailedartist]

The Bubble 2022

This movie is very long and the novelty of it wore off very, very quickly.

There are funny jokes and scenes, but few and far between. Showing the "Cliff Beasts" final cut wasn't funny after the first time. It's funnier if we just see them acting on green screen then for one scene we see the finished product (Spoiler: the genitals scene) to highlight just how terrible the movie is.

This feels like Judd Apatow wanted a way to force us to accept his other kid as a star. It did not work. Someone famous, who thinks they're normal, wrote it and it's why the movie just doesn't function. They are trying to make fun of the thing but realized the people they are satirizing are their friends.

It could work. It should work. It's got the parts that work and they do, but rarely. If the movie took its premise more seriously and had the ridiculousness happening around the seriousness you've got something. Think Tropic Thunder. It could've worked as a behind the scenes documentary, especially because they make a point to highlight the behind the scenes camera man.

This could've played with language in such an interesting way. "In these unprecedented times" became a meaningless mosh of words after hearing it so often. It could've been such a great joke. A bunch of clueless, spoiled, actors who think their crappy movie is going to be the thing that unites us or whatever saying that in earnest to camera. It would be so funny. Them lamenting about how hard this has been then cut to a crew member who can't go home and is making significantly less and is worried about where the next paycheck is coming from because Hollywood is essentially shut down.

Netflix did this and very well with Death to 2020.

Wishes and Musings

Karen Gillan's character being obsessed with her shitty boyfriend was never compelling. It felt like she never liked him.

The director trying to use this as his comeback or a new director trying to prove themself or a nepotism kid using daddy's money and connections.

The "love story" was pointless. It could've been funny if it was a tactic to get him to behave. He's an actor with a history of not showing up or walking off, so they use her to keep him in line but they actually start liking one another.

What the hell was that bullshit at the end with them fighting for their rights. See that's the problem with this movie being a vanity project. No regular human is going to give a shit about these rich asshole being mistreated. Which they were and that's bad, but it felt shoehorned.

The tik tok star could've felt more out of place, and isolated by the big name actors. But imagine moments of her phone endlessly buzzing with notifications and the stars panicking because they aren't getting the same social media interactions. Dichotomy of fame and internet fame.

Her trying to teach them how to use tik tok but then thinking it's beneath them. Also this would've been a great role for Diana Silvers. Instead we're stuck with Apatows daughter and she's not bringing it.

Keegan Michael Keys character trying to start a cult is funny and the realization moment is great but it's buried because we don't see his character to often.

Dustin trying to imbue more meaning into the movie while the writer a normal person is telling him no one cares about that. They just want to see flying t-rex's get shot in the genitals was great

They could've had a side plot of the crew trying to sabotage production to keep extending filming for more money.

Guz Khan was great. I wish he would've come back.

Needed more of the actors and director being sad about being separated from their families for so long, but also being happy because quarantining together in their big mansions was too much together time.

This movie is 2 fucking hours long. WHY!!! They could've cut this to a tight 70-80 minutes and it would've maybe been funny.

#the bubble #the bubble netflix #cliff beasts 6 #pedro pascal #keegan michael key #leslie mann #judd apatow #karen gillan #david duchovny #fred armisen #daisy ridley #guz khan #harry trevaldwyn #samson kayo #parody #satire #ensemble cast #death to 2020 #netflix

[hoursofreading]

I spent a lot of the last year vibing, and because we live in a capitalist hell, I am constantly made to feel guilty for it. When the world went virtual last March, there was an immediate anti-productivity wave across liberal and left-leaning social media. During the first weeks of lockdown, when we were told we’d be home for a few weeks at most, people began posting their stay-at-home goals online––some folks kept reiterating that Shakespeare wrote “King Lear” while in quarantine, and therefore we should use this time to produce something meaningful, too. In response, many pushed back against this mindset, insisting that we are in “unprecedented times,” that productivity doesn’t matter, and instead we should spend our time pursuing hobbies: the ever-ready antidote to capitalist whims. En masse people started knitting, and making sourdough from scratch. It was cute, but only for a minute. While baking is an unquestionably sweeter activity than any sort of grind, many quickly found this did nothing to curb burn out or exhaustion. Capitalism not only defines how we spend our time, but our relationship to the things we fill our time with. Are you knitting a scarf to learn a new skill, to indulge in a pleasure, to take breaks from labor? Or because it will look good on your Instagram feed? Under capitalism, anything can be work; even, and sometimes especially, a hobby. Writer and artist Jenny Odell addresses this in her 2019 book, “How To Do Nothing,” which I’ve found myself returning to often in recent months. “In a situation where every waking moment has become the time in which we make our living,” Odell notes, “and when we submit even our leisure for numerical evaluation via likes on Facebook and Instagram, constantly checking on its performance like one checks a stock, time becomes an economic resource that we can no longer justify spending on ‘nothing’.” This notion of time as an “economic resource” is exactly what vibing aims to break away from. It is not a coincidence that the last year has brought both the collapse of capitalism and an upending of time. This year of stillness and retreat has made it plain that time is not an empty thing we have to fill but a living thing that we must shape. Time changes. Because the world changes, and we change with it. To vibe is to shape time into pleasure, to mold it into something that feels soft and tastes sweet. It is to take a pause that bleeds into another. “Until finally,” writes Githere, “the space between the dream and the memory collapses into being your reality—now.”

on vibing - by mary retta - close but not quite

#quote

[scentedchildnacho]

More niche learning rice vinegar Folgers light pear syrup french vanilla creamer and shared sugar.....the terrorists were gassing with something dental....so it's mostly feeling like a warm light and comfort instead of ones proteins dropping so low one has a heart attack of flashing emergency pain shocks....uhm when a culture is so peaceful it's made to see these mistakes like it's a dentist a Jacko on water rights and people who don't arm themselves against people who do pornographic things like drill ones mouth are made to realize that it will stalk till you die

Fake blonds and Holocaust survivors worst ever....ya know a blond but a heavy witchy beute face...

This guy was riding by on this home made bike this loud motorized home made retro bike with a large front tire like an old fashioned push pedal and a banana seat lower back and he had his legs all up like a victim of a ho.....and I asked David if he would act that way if he would rape himself that deaf and he admitted being that type of gay that people were suppose to save from gayocide but it had penetrative confessions and

David asked me if I understood the recycling cycle so I said ya put your plastic bottles in that container with everyone else's body matter......and it goes and makes really durable and light swedish Ikea products like backpacks ya know your body matter and it makes really durable things and eventually you meet someone Irish who tells you they can give you a job because your blood platelet levels were so low and common addictions removed and they were seizureing you in good programs and they built up enough support for executions

Or ya know camp when people push ya down on a concrete slab and keep pushing till you black out and personality change and consent to rape even though you feel like your pelvis is Geffen cloud explosion and then ya just lay there dead because it's rape and it really really hurts and then these types of felons start teaching you to burn other people's camps at felons that stalk you for the taking care of ya know learn the wind and burn anything it could survive with and gas it to death that recycling cycle

Or the African good sympathy where they show you how to create a really nasty space for ants that could bite rapist addicts...

Or you let china say no to refurbishment landfills and you just throw it all in what says trash because there is really little to no home energy use and there are reserves to burn the trash disease at really high temperatures to make new materials or everything is one....

And your sacrificed income you can keep giving to riot quarantine gear state troopers to get rid of jap suicide bomber car tactics and even more energy to just burn in a facility that disease away

I've had to learn about tactical Ultima that it is good for the poor to stop having to do body synthetic shows ew....

Like I could ask for a poor white minority settlement and go buy a new Yorker southern house or I could realize if I don't give the settlement to more state troopers those jap tactic stalkers will never ever leave my life

Their stalkers and if I go buy a house the car sonic bombs will still just be right outside my door so I get design books and realize I will go to an indigenous fantasy

It's rock and roll get a mansion and let struggling poetics and artists stay at my house if the door is always open to non violence

Or the recycling cycle that's questionable to indigenous infection law and botulinum toxin....and mother's confess learning on their children then helping their children rise through the homeless concentration to win off it's horror

That space where you learn more taoism like mother's confess far right wing lobotomy practices to their own children so you just fuck off from gateway church and let eventual causes and effects play themselves out....

Ya know just go with the flow they so envied what Christians had and realize no matter where they go they are a fuckery on people

Ya know poor sympathy for wealth because the middle class does deteriorate to needing wealth tactics so it's not just some home Nazi culture tyranny on everybody or the pool barbie movie and you use your very very cruel story to get a mansion and force their people's away from it so their horrible rude dictatorial attitude to their artistic children is removed from a new politic starting ya know artistry

[sometayrecords]

folklore, evermore and Fearless era

One thing I really hate is when some people say that folklore and evermore didn’t have “real” eras. To me, these two albums clearly had their own era, both aesthetically and commercially wise. Taylor didn’t fail to do any of the things that happened to other eras, like performing in every chance she’d get, appearing in interviews, accepting awards, and supporting the album’s main aesthetic theme all the while. Yes, there were no tour, or other overcrowded events, but doing all of those things via video call or with a small attendance, doesn’t make them any less valid. In fact, to me, keeping things “isolated” wasn’t just a necessary solution to covid measurements, but also a very suitable thing to do, regarding the albums were also created in isolation.

More specifically, commercially speaking, Taylor released signed copies and digital playlists for both albums, to boost both the streams and the sales of the physical CDs, as well as plenty of original merch products. She performed in two award shows, received numerous awards for her work, gave several interviews, fully owning the cottagecore style that represented the albums in all of them, collaborated with other artists and released songs similar to folklore/evermore's style, and the list can go on.

Let’s not forget about folklore long pond sessions. Taylor couldn't perform the album’s songs in front of a huge crowd, but she performed them live in a cabin in the woods, which fitted perfectly not only to the album's aesthetic but also to the quarantine reality. And since she couldn't invite people to her house to talk to them privately about the songs, she instead released a documentary, where she talks about the songs’ meaning, for the whole world to see. folklore long pond sessions was the quarantine equivalent of what would be both previous eras’ secret sessions and also the tour’s movie. but it was better, because this time, we were all there, at the same time, and at the same place (inside a house).

I know one thing different from all the previous eras was the duration, since it only lasted for a few months before she announced Fearless (Taylor’s version), but I think we forget folklore and evermore were not planned. They happened as a surprise, and I don’t mean just to the fans, but also to Taylor herself. She didnt plan to create them, but she did because she had the urge to lean to music while she was isolated, like the rest of the world. For evermore, she had specifically said “this is for those of you who turn to music to cope, like me” because, as she also said, music has been the one thing that keeps her connected to us, and she wishes it continue to connect us, “evermore”. Taylor also said herself that, in contrast to the other albums, that were all the start of something new, evermore felt like the continuation of a chapter she was already in. It was a part of the folklore era/chapter, and both albums together complete the image of that era. People keep saying Taylor doesn’t care about evermore, but the truth is she simply cared more about giving music to the fans than promoting the music for the sales.

I also think a similar thing applies to Fearless TV. I could say that this album had even less of its own era, since the promotions lasted only for a couple of months. But the release of Fearless (Taylor’s version) had a much stronger significance to Taylor than the sales. It was all about her, her music and her fans - much like evermore had forwarded. It was the first official step into owning her music, and a remembrance of an era where she first felt as close to the fans as ever. The first time she was as known as to sell-out arena tickets, but as little known as to have the ability to personally interact with as many fans as possible.  

Therefore, despite being a different album, I consider Fearless TV a part of evermore era, and evermore a part of folklore era. I think a different era started with RED TV, but for a whole year, from late July of 2020 up to October of 2021, we were living into one, very real and valid era. An era about magic and teen romance stories, where lines between fairy tales and the real world were blurred at folklore, had just started to fade out in Fearless, and were in the in-between in evermore. And an era of music connecting Taylor and her fans in the most unique ways.  

#folklore #evermore #fearless tv #unpopular opinion

[mjae]

The theme of the year is "Restoration"

I had trouble sleeping last night. My brain was buzzing even well past midnight. Recently, I noticed that I get sleepy earlier in the evening. It didn't happen last night. I have no idea why it happened, but it was probably because of the things that were churning in my head.

Or just the energy drink I had to stay awake for New Year's!

I know it's been a few days, but still...

Well, whatever it was, I did eventually just fall asleep. I don't know what time it was, but it was probably from sheer exhaustion.

All that said, I really just wanted to get started on writing again...

So, here we are.

It's 2023!

Welcome to another start in my periodic quest to write every day!

Like I said in the title, the theme of the year is restoration.

The pandemic did all sorts of different things for all sorts of different people.

Taylor Swift was really productive and produced two albums in one year during this time. Made all of us look plenty lazy. Me, included.

Instead of being more productive, I got less productive. The pandemic restricted a lot of activity, most of them things that we took for granted and expected to simply be able to do every day without question or thought.

Now that I think about it, I couldn't adjust very well. It didn't help that I started a new job in 2021: a part-time instructor at a local uni.

That was when I got way less productive.

Well, technically, I was productive in the area of being an instructor, but not in the things I usually do.

Last year, 2022, the pandemic started waning for real. There's still cases today, of course, but it's not something we are not too alarmed about anymore. It's probably gonna stick with us forever now. Like regular coughs and colds. It's now another one of those diseases that we could possibly get just anytime.

So, hopefully, 2023 will be a good year for me to start try and get back to those old things.

This is where the restoration part comes in.

The first step was to find and use a tracking app. I found a habit tracker called Timecap. Seems decent, so I'm using that.

Here are a couple of things I am simply tracking:

Play I'm tracking this because, even without the recaps from my various apps and platforms, I know I played way less than I used to. Probably comes with the territory of having more work, but I want to change that.

Read Unfortunately, I also read way less last year. Goodreads says I only read 12 books last year. That's barely an average of one book a month. Definitely not a good look, especially with a record of 26 in 2021 and 43 in 2020. Yes, it's been a downhill ride. I hope to change that this year and finish well over 12 this time.

I'm tracking them so I can see how much time I'm spending on them. Or, how little.

A couple of things I am building:

Exercise Before the pandemic, I was cycling practically every day. The lockdowns and the quarantines did not do me a favor when it came to exercise. I ended up doing this way less until I couldn't anymore. I did have a period with the boxing app on my Switch, but I couldn't stick with it either. I want to try again. Although... I did not have a good start with this one today. I woke up to something terrible, so I couldn't get started. Probably just an excuse, but we'll see.

Learn Japanese Another one of those things that got disrupted. I had a really nice streak and it was going so well, until a period of disruption upset my progress. I've had to reset maybe twice now. I'm wondering now whether I should reset again, but that's another thing we'll see.

Write This one I seem to be having a good start on. I don't know how long it will last this time, but I hope longer. There's a routine change coming at the start of next week, though, so that's something that does not bode well for this. Still, gotta start somehow, right?

An aside... Like I always do when I want to start writing again, I got hung up for a good time on where to write. It's a good thing I already had something in mind: since we're talking about restoration I thought to use one of my old blogs. I had something in mind, but I was misremembering it. It didn't look like I thought it did. So, I spent some time looking at these old spaces. This old Tumblr blog is it this time. The last post is actually from January 2nd, 2022. It's not even an actual post, just a share from Instagram. The last real post is from August 23rd, 2019 - one of my sort of rants about Descendants 3. So, it's been over three years...

In another note, I also wanted to change the theme. I almost got stuck on that again, but I realized what I was doing, so I got to stop myself and just picked the top result: Tumblr Official.

No qualms, no thinking too hard. Any space will do, so just get on with it!

Now, I don't have a good record with these habit tracking things. I get tired of them after a while. The longest I've gone is probably just a couple of weeks. Hope it will be different this time.

Here's to 2023 🎉

#2023 #theme #habits

[thebestpartofwakingup]

So I know people have memes on “Pokémon’s but real big” being the gimmick of the last few Pokémon games in a row, and it begs the question — what if they went the other direction?

There’s been a lot of stuff in Pokémon imma say gen 7 and forward that are clearly responses to the wide spanning fan interpretation that Pokémon, like (mostly domestic) animals, should have variations across species (breed?). Different colors, sizes, etc.

Now obviously there is a Pokémon bug type, but the implications of Pokémon battles, Pokémon media, and limitation in graphics up until recently has firmly established most bug types as ranging in size from like. Small rabbit to horse. But in the actual world of animals, creatures can get so SO much smaller — and their size is important! It helps them to execute one of the most successful strategies for survival across ecosystems — one that Pokémon has already alluded to a few times already

Parasitism

Now I fully understand why a children’s franchise would be wary of any depictions or narratives around illness or common sources of illness these past few years (and this is not my implication that the coronavirus is “over” but that it’s widespread cultural impact has waned enough that I think production companies and for-profit artists are probably far less concerned about the stigma or fatigue of depictions of disease i.e. that doing so is no longer in poor taste or unappealing to audiences)

But a game around pokerus? Or a new class of “micro” Pokémon? Maybe a switch parallel to Pokémon ranger, but instead of a “ranger” you’re a “nurse” or a “vet” or “researcher”

Hell it doesn’t even need to be like worms or bacteria — what about fleas??? Pokémon buffs that require Pokémon quarantine, that can be *spread to the opponent*? I feel like kids movies that heavily feature animals or pets really love the trope of like, the evil villain who is hell bent on killing puppies because they’re allergic. What a funny schtick for a rival or enemy! A trainer who has to use hairless Pokémon because they’re allergic — hairless variant of pikachu!

Or a shrek the sheep of Pokémon — we’ve seen Pokémon lean into the messaging that the relationship between Pokémon and humanity is fully symbiotic, that Pokémon are intelligent enough to genuinely enjoy the sport of battle and variety of challenge they can experience as an owned/tame Pokémon vs a wild one. What about necessary upkeep of Pokémon? Pokémon that grow hair that’s too long if it’s not trimmed, that can get too hot or attract *too many* pokefleas?

I know in the past there’s been Pokémon items that have the side effect of making a Pokémon dislike their trainer more, but you know what the poster child for “this is for your own good” pet care is?

Cones.

Pokémon buffs that even with treatment take time to heal — Pokémon buffs with lasting (but not permanent) consequences. Do you let pikachu fight with a flea buff, lowering his Sp Attack or whatever, potentially spreading it among other Pokémon — or do you take a Sp Defense buff for a shorter amount of time by making him wear a cone? Do you risk having pikachu occasionally ignore your commands by making him wear a flea collar, but ensuring he never catches fleas?

#pokemon

[nebris]

Failure to Cope "Under Capitalism"

The inability to do basic tasks is not always a political problem

We have generational trauma. We are living through a global pandemic. We are literally neurodivergent and a minor. We are riddled with climate grief. We are, for one reason or another, unable to cope.

I can respect an inability to cope. A nervous breakdown once in a while does wonders for your overall perspective, and there are several arenas in which I function well below your average well-adjusted teenager: I’ve never been able to leave a party at a reasonable hour, get a driver’s license, keep a phone, or sit still long enough to climb the corporate ladder. The inability to cope in one domain or another is part of being human, and attempts to eliminate it are for people who enjoy living in San Francisco.

But there is a strain of discourse that insists an inability to cope in one’s day-to-day life is in almost all cases a political problem, or even the primary political problem. By volume, the most examples are on social media. Sometimes it’s an elaborate hypothetical in which asking a disabled person to make alternate arrangements and forgo ordering Instacart groceries for one day of a strike is tantamount to a genocidal program. Sometimes it’s a prompt tweet inviting you into a post-revolutionary fantasy world where, instead of collecting municipal garbage, you will be “doing art.” In the right-wing version, it’s a yearning for the bronze age civilization in which you would have been a feared warrior king rather than a software engineer answering to female product managers. Somehow, being born into a historical moment when moderate clerical abilities can lead to impressive status and resource acquisition is still to be crippled by fate, NPCs, or Soros agents.

What binds these pleas together is an application of “the personal is political” so expanded in scope that, for a certain kind of person, personal problems, anxieties, and dissatisfactions are illegible or illegitimate unless described as political problems. This can be a compromise with a guilty, self-punishing instinct of the self-consciously privileged, especially if the political problem in question is borne on behalf of another. For the would-be steppe warlord, it posits an artificially withheld world in which, naturally and without friction, you would be every bit the man you long to be. In either case, the complete identification of human foible with structural failure excuses you from identifying and dealing with personal problems as such. Especially when it turns out the real culprit is capitalism.

Capitalism is the reason we sometimes tie our identities to material status objects. Capitalism is the reason we want to be paid for writing. It is capitalism that makes you feel bad that you didn’t learn to bake sourdough during quarantine.

“‘Why aren’t I working more quickly, doing more?’ thinks the capitalist part of my brain,” writes Huffington Post author Monica Torres.

Capitalism, in this rhetorical strain, is not so much the object of analysis or a concrete historical phenomenon as an all-purpose gesture. “Capitalism” is useful everywhere: as the punchline of self-deprecating jokes about the way we live now, as a perennial-but-distant bogeyman that explains chronic frustrations without ever causing enough pain to force serious disruption. Most importantly, its invocation immediately establishes a phenomenon in the realm of the political, without any further work required.

Perhaps the foremost chronicler of failure to cope under capitalism is Anne Helen Petersen, who leveraged the massive success of her 2019 BuzzFeed essay on millennial burnout into a book on the same topic, and now writes a Substack exploring the various indignities of modern life. Over this period, Petersen has conjured up a somewhat frightening vision of the average millennial: paralyzed, exhausted, unbearably burdened by the stress of maintaining relationships and living life. A 2019 piece suggested that the benefit of a cooking startup is that its boomer coaches are available to guide you through the process of buying and cooking your own food. Petersen writes “It’s not unlike having a mom-like figure on call to text you tips, only without the baggage of actually texting your mom.” This assistance is required because of burnout, which, in Petersen’s view, is a cross-class generational phenomenon imposed by a variety of social conditions. We all have it. And more recently, Petersen has turned her attention to the various ways we are all exhausted. A recent newsletter entry describes the experience of hair loss, which Petersen attributes to pandemic stress.

“We compartmentalized the stress and ongoing trauma, flattening it into something survivable, but we nonetheless ate it for breakfast, and lunch, and dinner. We swam in that stress. We slept in it. We swallowed it in gulps. We lived through it, and we told ourselves stories of resilience, because what other choice did we have.

But the body is bad at pretending. It keeps the damn score.”

Most writing about burnout (and there has been plenty of it in the wake of Petersen’s original BuzzFeed essay) tends to lean heavily on “we”; it accords with the contention that burnout is a universal ailment. But who is the “we” of pandemic stress? The line cook who watched his co-workers die? The children forced to adjust to the misery of zoom school? The laid-off bartender? Or the information economy worker with a yard, no dependents, and disposable income to spend on delivery? Did all these people really experience “trauma?” in a recognizably similar way?

There are of course no incremental units of suffering doled out inversely by income, no guarantees that comfort will protect you from the profound ravages of life. But the failure to cope mode of culture writing avoids the personalization of pain. The claim is not “I am stricken because I had to bury my father or recover from a long illness or lose my job or confront my relationship with alcohol or bid farewell to a lover.” Despite formulaic acknowledgements that of course others have it worse, the basic claim remains the same: “The persistent low grade dysfunction I am experiencing is a social problem.”

This requires sleight of hand. To project an experience outward onto the collective, a writer must first draw the concrete sufferings of others inward, subsuming them into a continuum of what “we” experience.

A Vox article about election night self care warns:

“The cumulative stress and trauma most Americans have experienced this past year is still weighing heavy on pretty much everyone. It’s wishful thinking to believe that those anxiety levels will be collectively reduced once the election is over.”

One Boston-based writer of queer fiction describes how his pandemic cluster took between a day and a week of vacation to recover from the experience of watching the tallies mount up. “I remember last election, the day after was such an overwhelming emotional experience that I couldn’t imagine doing that all over again, so I took the day off.” Here, finding televised electoral politics a grueling ordeal that requires recovery time indicates, not an anxiety disorder, but a functioning civic conscience.

I believe there are people sporting gray hairs with worry solely over the fate of the republic. I can imagine a tortured citizen-statesman lifted from a Ciceronian oration crossed with A Tale of Two Cities. But I do not believe this is a particularly common problem.

Nor do I believe, as Petersen often posits, that personal underperformance is not only the result of oppressive social relations, but a potential form of resistance to them.

In an essay on “revenge bedtime procrastination,” she writes that the habit of routinely delaying needed sleep with unsatisfactory activities such as social media scrolling can be understood as a form of rebellion against the demands of employers. She even sees possible glimmers of a revolution. “Poke it a few more times, give it a bit more language to understand itself, and it might, might begin to understand itself as an early, bewildered, form of a movement.”

Petersen is not wrong that anti-human economies tend to make for bad living on the individual scale. The question is whether, if important causality occurs on the macro level, you have any capability or responsibility for dealing with it at the micro.

Failure to cope says no — if only political problems are legitimate, only political solutions are admissible. This has the odd effect of filtering all attempts at self-integration through a political lens. Hence the proliferation of articles explaining why brushing your teeth in the morning is a radical act. Even basic self-soothing behavior seems to count — hence Petersen’s otherwise inexplicably naïve belief that staying up too late scrolling on your phone might someday become a movement.

It may be the case that many personal infirmities can only be fully repaired in a repaired world, but this does not obviate the need to pull ourselves together as best we can in this broken one. Any serious attempt to topple capitalism would require more discipline, more courage, more endurance, more capability, not less.

When living “under capitalism” becomes a catch-all explanation for what you can’t manage — whether that’s getting on the metaphorical treadmill or stepping off it — it assumes the nature of a complaint to an adjudicating authority. Since capitalism has impressed such impossible conditions on us, we can’t reasonably be expected to deal with it until they improve. But in fact there is no one to adjudicate between you and capital, no one to say yes, that really is too much, let’s reassign this project. There is no political program that will release you from the necessity of doing more than you should have to or feel capable of doing, in politics as in every other part of life.

If you think seriously about the good life and pursue it, you will probably fail in ways large and small.

And of course, there are more sinister possibilities than learned helplessness. Since under capitalism no one is really responsible for their actions, since we’d all be making better choices if the referees would just level the playing field, you can’t be blamed if you build weapons for Raytheon or AI for Facebook or write vacuous propaganda for the Washington Post, or climb to the top by betraying others . You’re not cravenly protecting your own interests at the expense of principle, you’re just participating in society somewhat. The totalizing nature of capital’s domination simultaneously excuses us both from revolutionary action and from an attempt at a life with honor within it.

And yet in the end I am guilty of the same sins as everyone else. Having laid out at length the political problems with delegating the responsibility for coping with your own life to a political program, I must confess that my primary concern is personal, not political. I do not hate the knowledge workers at whom this type of essay is directed (I am one of them). I believe that large swathes of them are experiencing anxious alienation from their own lives. I agree that super-individual forces are significantly involved. But I also think there is something debilitating about hearing and internalizing the message that the paralysis and malaise that seems to afflict so many is wholly externally imposed, that constrained choices are not real choices, that sending emails 16 hours a day is something only collapse of capitalism can mend.

Petersen’s most acute insight is perhaps in identifying a link between relentlessly optimized childhoods designed to prevent downward mobility, and the professionally competent but profoundly enervated millennials overwhelmed by the prospect of canceling plans, of keeping plans, of cooking food, of texting their mothers. I think she is correct. I think it’s possible that for many, considering the shape of your life and then living it with vigor is so difficult because it cannot be externally validated. Unlike education and work, it offers no socially obvious meritocratic path. The moments where, like sourdough, it proves, are largely invisible — in cooking, in walking, corresponding with a friend, in chatting with a neighbor or registering to give blood. They cannot be tallied up and put on a resume. They are never “finished.” The progress you make is spiraling rather than linear; circling steadily, slowly, around your weak points, taking two steps forward and one step back, building habits so slowly that only in retrospect can you see your life become different than it was. And there is no one who can tell you that you did it right. But this is not the condition of life under capitalism, this is life itself. And it is a sad irony that though the fear of life may be produced by class imperatives within capitalism, the impulse to restrict it to a problem of capitalism is itself part of the same fearful rejection of the task of living.

There is good news. None of us are children anymore. You can and should organize for better working conditions, but you can also turn off your email notifications. You can choose to prioritize the good life over a promotion or pleasing your boss. You can live with the loss of status and resources that this probably will entail. You can leave your job and take on the risks of finding work that does not corrode your self-respect. You can bring new life into the world knowing they will face intolerable danger and suffering, and take a type of comfort in the fact that on an individual level, this has always been the case. You can raise children in a too-small space and with too much debt.

Or you can not. You can devote yourself single-mindedly to a career and enjoy the struggle to the top. You can decide that to ride the ebb and swell of New York’s changing moods is worth whatever price you pay. You can pledge your life to your craft or the cause of Monarch butterflies. You can turn down invitations to weddings and let friendships lapse, you can go to bars every night and smoke a pack of cigarettes a day. But whatever you do, don’t kid yourself that you’re doing it because you have no choices.

If you think seriously about the good life and pursue it, you will probably fail in ways large and small. But an imperfect struggle to live well and love a world badly in need of repair is better than staying still because things are terrible, because you might look like a loser in the meritocratic game, because it’s easier.

This is your life. You do not have time to wait for the revolution to begin living it. You will always be able to find someone to give you permission not to live it. But no one is coming along to live it for you.

Clare Coffey currently resides in Idaho.

https://www.gawker.com/culture/failure-to-cope-under-capitalism

#capitalism #our doomed future

[socialwicked]

Alexa has seen me naked, and that’s okay

Alexa has observed things.

 Alexa has seen  everything. 

 With Amazon’s pretty much-sure impending  acquisition of iRobot , customers have been in a bit of an  uproar around privacy . The notion that Amazon will have obtain to the structure of your household has been a large chatting place (for some motive), but actually, there is no require to be concerned about that form of factor. Your privateness is secure, just simply because you never actually have any. No one particular does.

   Privateness, like shag carpeting, is a issue of the earlier. The only difference is that shag carpeting is possible to return just one day.

  Smart technological know-how inherently calls for the reduction of privateness  Technological privateness depends on have confidence in.

 The use of motion sensors, presence detectors, and stability cameras depends on you positioning some amount of religion in your know-how. Ultimately, the issue boils down to: Do you trust Amazon to continue to keep your facts personal?

  The use of good property engineering involves you to place some amount of rely on in your technology.

  In a way, I do. Amazon is not going to sell any of the buyer facts they have on me to competitors. That would be an idiotic enterprise move. Instead, they’ll use it to market extra catered products straight to me. That is something I can stay with, specially considering the fact that I use so many advertisement blockers that I haven’t found an advert in about 4 decades.

 A further reason I’m not so apprehensive is since, very well, I’m actually tedious. I’m not worried if Amazon is aware issues about me, due to the fact there is not much to know. I do the job, and then I prepare dinner, study, and engage in video online games in my downtime. If Alexa has a sneaky constructed-in subroutine to snap naked photos of me, perfectly, it’s possible they can ship me a number of. I will need progress photos for shedding the Quarantine 15.

    No a person likes being advertised to, and no one likes the notion that a person may be listening to their personal discussions. In an suitable entire world, we would all have the assurance that our personal moments are just that.

 However, we don’t stay in an excellent entire world, and residences with wise know-how have a ton of relocating pieces. Different product or service makes each have their have privateness options, and your in general wise home has its privacy configurations. All you can do is make confident the microphones are disabled when not in use, invest in cameras that have  bodily lens handles , and allow two-factor authentication on all your devices.

 The past point you want is an individual else logging in and snooping. Or browsing.

  Does sensible household technological innovation pose a serious privateness possibility?  Just about anything that can be  accessed by means of the net  poses a privacy chance. That’s not constrained to wise residence tech. Your smartphone, pill, and even your Xbox Kinect that’s however established up for some explanation could all, theoretically, be hacked into.

 The issue is how probably it is that some thing like that will truly transpire.

  Stats are on your facet .  Hackers are not really fascinated  in your non-public conversations (until they involve banking details) or bare images of you. The sort of facts destructive features want is the sort that will give them income.

 “But what if an individual blackmails you for a nude photograph?”

 If they want to  test and extort revenue  from me for a grainy image of me wrapped in a towel, hunched in excess of my desk as I quickly answer to a information with a in close proximity to-vacant coffee cup in hand, they can try. It won’t perform.

 As for no matter whether Amazon owning entry to that details is a risk … yet again, the remedy is a resounding no. Unless the chance is far more adverts. At this point, I wouldn’t be stunned if my Roomba paused midway by a clear cycle in an vacant location in the floor and reported, “There’s a desk lamp 47% off on Amazon suitable now that would be a great in good shape for this house.” See, my Roomba has a mute button.

    As well as, I could just swap out my home furnishings arrangement to maintain Amazon guessing. It could be enjoyment.

 Seriously, although: Your intelligent dwelling engineering, supplied it comes from highly regarded businesses, is most likely harmless. Not all organizations have a good observe document with privacy, nevertheless.

 Not even Amazon does, really — but they  have taken actions  in latest many years to improve the  privacy of their wise property platforms . End users can now disable recordings, delete them from Amazon servers, and more. It is a step in the appropriate course.

 Google is also stepping up to improve privateness. As for other organizations, I’ll say this: There’s a rationale I really do not have a Facebook Portal in my dwelling, and I under no circumstances will.

 If the iRobot acquisition is stressing, it does not actually will need to be. I would consider larger offense to Amazon’s union-busting endeavours than I would to the acquire of a further intelligent dwelling corporation.

 Editors’ Tips

https://socialwicked.com/alexa-has-seen-me-naked-and-thats-okay/