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priorireverte · 3 years

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Congratulations Ash!

Your application for Theodore Nott has been accepted. As much as my inner government official is groaning and reaching for the headache potions already, I can’t wait to see what trouble this Unspeakable gets into.

Please look to the checklist for the next steps and reach out if you have any questions!

OUT OF CHARACTER

NAME & PRONOUNS: ash & they/them

AGE: twenty six

TIMEZONE: est

ACTIVITY LEVEL: I’m a front end dev for a virtual event platform who works between 5-7 days a week but I’m usually active after 6pm and on weekends. I have slow weeks when on lighter projects and busier weeks when we have a lot of shows.

ANYTHING ELSE: N/A on triggers. I’ve been roleplaying on tumblr for i think 14 years? Too long.

CHARACTER DETAILS

NAME: Theodore Cantankerus Nott

BIRTHDATE: July 7th, 1980

DEATHDATE: N/A

GENDER, PRONOUNS, and SEXUALITY: Cismale, he/him. Theodore hasn’t given much thought to his sexuality, not even as far as labeling it. In the past, he’s found his attraction hasn’t been limited to one side of the gender spectrum. Currently, he’s entirely too busy to even sit for a moment and identify his years-long attraction to his current roommate. In the same manner, gender is never something he’s felt the need to question.

BLOOD STATUS: Pureblood

HOUSE ALUMNI: Slytherin

OCCUPATION: Unspeakable in the Death Department.

FACECLAIM: Woo Do-hwan

CHARACTER BACKGROUND

TW. Child Abuse, Neglect, Parental Death

POSTBELLUM

Theodore finds himself deeply in the middle of moving on. His own experiences with the second wizarding war left a sour taste in the wixen’s mouth and not just due to his father’s involvement. He watched various classmates suffer at the hands of the Dark Lord, familial pressure, and expectations. He noted no members of the high and mighty heroes seemed to think of the lowly slytherins. No hands were outstretched. No children saved from their situations. That was the heart of the issue. They were children then and aren’t now. How is he to trust that his generation will act any differently? Theodore has always preferred to be on the sidelines, to watch before acting, and to have his actions be as discreet and unnoticed as possible. Growing up, the lesson of fading into the background had been indoctrinated into him and that was a terrible thing to try to shake. Theodore’s never been a fighter. He’s always preferred to have knowledge on a situation before speaking.

Becoming an Unspeakable gave him a chance he never thought he would have to dedicate his life strictly to learning. With the dead coming back, Theodore hopes for his mother even though hope is something he has given up on a long time ago. Hope always leads to disappointment. Planning for the worst, however, leads to being pleasantly surprised by the results you receive. He doesn’t have many nightmares anymore. Any last trauma comes to him more in the form of a too quick touch or a raised voice sending his senses haywire. Lately, however, he swears he’s hearing his father’s voice in the midst of the Return’s camp. Seeing his face out of the corner of his eye. He knows the possibility of his father is high based on who has turned up so far. He does not wish for that day to ever come.

PERSONALITY

(+) Aware. Everyone had an opinion, a snap judgement they made based on your actions upon first interaction and rumors and gossip they had heard about you. Theodore is too aware of his own actions, his nature, and how he could be perceived due to his bloodline. He listens and watches while in the bowels of the Ministry.. He keeps an eye on the paper, aware of their sensationalized stories of the past. He stays aware when he locks himself in his and Draco’s two bedroom flat for the night, his house elf and cold ancestral home merely a thing of the past.

(+) Humble. It would be rare to hear Theodore speaking on his own accomplishments. When others bragged over NEWT results, family estates, or care packages while at school, Theodore stayed silent. In a post schooling life, he found he had nothing to brag over. His work is undiscussed, both by a willingness to keep to his own code of ethics and true inability to speak on it. Perhaps it is his conscience telling him karma was a tricky thing, the winds of fate often changed and were never certain. He is always aware that if he begins to celebrate his achievements, they could slip through his fingers before he had a chance to fully appreciate them.

(+) Skillful. When you spend most of the early years of your life hiding, there is no better place than a library and there is nowhere best to escape to than a book. At a young age, Theo’s mother Perdita exposed her son to learning. It became a joyous activity for the two of them. The dwindling vaults of the once great Nott family had no spare coin for a tutor for their only heir. Once it was just himself and his father in the house, Theo entertained himself with the curious collection of family heirlooms that littered the corridors of Nott Hall. He enjoys puzzles and figuring out just how magic is intertwined with a physical object. Nowadays, Theo spends his time pouring over books from Obscurus’ impressive collection while on his lunch break. He has enough puzzles to keep himself occupied for his lifetime.

(-) Cautious. It would be irresponsible to think the world was capable of change so quickly after the defeat of the Dark Lord. People didn’t change. Not unless they wanted to. Monetary repercussions, war reparations, were only likely to affect outward interest, not ideologies. Though perhaps that cautiousness had negatively affected Theo. He turned inward, the social progress he had made from fourteen to sixteen taking a turn when the Carrows took over the castle and his own father was broken out of Azkaban. He limited his social interactions severely, preferring to stick his nose in a book or have a quick intimate meeting over big social events and friendly gatherings and he still hasn’t grown out of that inclination. His social circle has been kept even as years passed and he enjoys a separation of the different areas of his life.

(-)Distractible. Wix alike were an issue. A pretty face, handsome smile, and a nice word easily swayed Theo’s attention. Always conscious, the tall boy doesn’t reveal or give much of himself. He does find he tolerates speaking to someone at length if they are intriguing when he would have otherwise ended a conversation. The same can be said for those with strong personalities. He finds himself getting caught up, steam rolled, instead of speaking up.

(-) Resentful. Theo often wondered how his life could have been different. What if his father had been captured after Voldemort’s first fall? What if some member of upper society took a moment to investigate the reservedness of Perdita or young Theodore? What if a professor questioned why young Theodore always stayed at the castle and never went home for the Yuletide holidays? So many things in his life could have been different if someone had looked closely, but they weren’t. The Malfoys, Narcissa specifically, were his only saving grace throughout childhood but they still didn’t overstep and remove him from his home. His resentment is something Theodore tries to tamper down when he can, choosing to look at life positively. No one demanded his quiet in his flat. The heat works with no need for an illegal heating charm here or there. He knows where everything is in his small space, even with Draco living alongside him. He doesn’t need to hide his things for fear of retribution. There are no nights worrying over going hungry.

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF FAMILY

Theodore Cantankerus Nott was born the only child and heir to Cantankerus Nott and Perdita Nott (nee Travers) on a warm summer night in early July. Theo spent little time under the careful (and stern) thumb of his father before his mother’s death. His mother was a much gentler figure, helping Theo grow sweet and strong. Perdita taught her son all the names of the flowers, their uses, and any star he asked the name of. She introduced him to music, showing him the piano and allowing him to pick up the violin. Theo was content to forget his father’s presence when he could, though he never dared voice that state of mind to Perdita. As Theo approached his eighth birthday, he began to see his childhood might not be as normal as his peers. He and his mother rarely left the grounds of Nott Hall. The once great stately home had slowly fallen to a near-ruinous state over the years. There was no shopping done by Perdita, all taken care of by their two remaining house elves. No tea time or meetings for the boards of any councils. The one time his mother seemed to be able to leave was when she was on the arm of his father at a required event. Theo wasn’t permitted to have friends over though visits to other sons of great houses were heavily encouraged the closer Hogwarts grew. He noticed the blatant way his peers’ parents showed affection. The boys his age never shied away from their father, some even spoke back with no fear of punishment.

Theo had stayed the sweet boy his mother had encouraged. Though his own father grew concerned about what was keeping the young boy soft. It didn’t help that Perdita’s health had begun to deteriorate ever since her birthday. Her walks around the garden with her son proving to be a bit too much for her. That duty had been given to the house elf, Dandy. Though she still wore the bracelet his father had gifted her every day. On the eve of his eighth birthday, his mother was trapped on the third floor of their home in her bedroom. There were no healers in and out of the grounds. Eight year old Theo took to hiding in the library, reading every book he could. He knew there must be something his parents were overlooking. They just weren’t trying hard enough. If healers could fix this, but weren’t allowed on the ground, he would. But his research proved naught and Perdita passed just before Christmas day, leaving Theo in his father’s sole care.

There were no kind words for the severe kind of man his father was. Piano lessons stopped as there was no one to teach him. Theo found himself with more alone time than he had ever had before as his father wasn’t a man you would like to find yourself around for any period of time. The exception was meals, when the youngest Nott and the eldest were forced to interact. His father often deemed these mealtimes lecture times as well, spouting off ideals Theodore never would have heard from his mother’s mouth.

HISTORY

When his first year arrived, Theodore understood the extent of what his mother had shielded him from. In the few years of them being the sole occupants of their home, his father’s once rare cases of corporal punishment had become a near daily occurrence. He had learned many times since gaining a wand that healing was an unacceptable action to take but his father had no issue with glamours. A word of what occurred at home wasn’t appropriate conversation. Familial business stayed such, without outside input or scorn.

It took Theo many years to come out of his proverbial shell. He thinks without Malfoy Manor as a place to escape to on school breaks and summer weekends, he may have not turned out the same. As his father’s attention turned away from his son and to the Dark Lord’s return, Theo felt almost free. That freedom didn’t occur until the Battle at the Department of Mysteries. The ministry had no issue arresting his father and not looking into whether young Theodore Nott would have any sort of adult supervision the summer before his sixth year. Why would they need to? Families like his never suffered.

Theodore didn’t participate in the Battle of Hogwarts, too fearful someone would take one look at him and make the sort of assumptions that ended with him being written about as another young death eater killed in the skirmish. He hoped to whatever ruled the skies and stars that his father didn’t survive, feeling guilty immediately that he had even had that sort of thought. It was safer than assuming his father was imprisoned. His father had escaped once before with no issue and there was no doubt in the youngest Nott’s mind that his old man could do it again. Fortunately, his wish came true.

Four years post Battle, Theodore has created a separate life for himself than the one originally laid out and it’s all thanks to the Department of Mysteries. The week after his father’s death, Theo returned home. He allowed himself only a week to mourn a man he knew in his heart he absolutely despised. Before the week was out, the long quiet house was filled with voices. Strangers were sitting in the abandoned sitting room. They had a proposition, a job offer, and no answers for how they had gotten through the wards of his home. Today, he has just about moved up to a fully-fledged unspeakable in the death division. The challenge of the Returned lays ahead.

His ancestral home of Nott Hall lays virtually abandoned. Only the blood wards stopped the acquisition of the property from anyone who strolled upon it. He still has some duties, as the remaining and only Nott, to attend to. Meager reparations paid to the Ministry dried up the last of the Nott vaults, leading Theo to have to acquire a small flat that he shares with Draco. It’s not fancy by any means, nothing like the tall ceiling rooms they both grew up in and without any house elves, but it’s theirs. His first purchases for himself, the sofa and his bed, are by far his favorite things in the whole flat.

OOC EXPLORATION

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO?

Please you know. I hate it here.

ANYTHING ELSE?

https://www.pinterest.com/securemal/priori-reverte-theodore-theo-nott/

EXTRA FOR NON-BIO CHARACTERS

CHARACTER CONTRIBUTION

I truly love the idea of bringing in an Unspeakable to this world. It’s curious how they are the ones who made, and possibly caused, the discovery of the Returned but know so very little. Their, and Theo’s, entire worth is built on knowledge but they’re diving into the utter unknown and there are so many factors to consider about how this could end up. We don’t even know if the Returned can sustain themselves indefinitely. You’ve built a lovely playground for us, Emmy, and I’m too excited to play in it. But also I love Theodore Nott. Cursed Child did him dirty okay.

PRESENT

It was another night of waiting. The wooden small chair the Unspeakables were given wasn’t comfortable despite the many cushioning charms Theo’s co-workers had applied to it. He supposed that was the point. Most of the death division were working double or triple shifts. They had allocated reserve Unspeakables from both the time and love divisions and, still, they were understaffed. Their stock of pepper up potions should have run dry some time ago but the healers had been called in as well. No amount of pepper ups made this task any easier.

The coffee in his hand was lukewarm and Theo’s eyes were drooping. Slowly closing as his head fell forward until he caught himself. The curtain was moving. He could see it and he could have sworn he heard the now familiar sounds of confusion and anger at how the next unfortunate soul had ended up in the windowless chamber but he was wrong. The curtain always moved and Theodore always heard the whispers. It had taken quite a lot of restraint the first time he had been granted access to this room years ago but he kept his distance as the object called out to him. It was no different than the cursed books and painting and vases in his own home and Theo learned long ago that anything calling out for you was not a good sign. It only led to death. All things did in the world but especially here. Purposefully here. He wasn’t going to end up like his mother, touching something that didn’t belong to him and paying the price for it.

#prioriacceptance #theodore nott

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whattodowithkpop · 3 years

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Writer Ask Game

Made and tagged by the wonderful @star-lemonade

Thank you for not only the tag, but also for making a fun ask game! 🥺

Rules: Answer the questions and tag 3 or more writers

Tagging: (I'm so sorry if you've already been tagged) @januarystars, @yuchoice, @tearsofsyrup

1. What fandoms have you written for (but do not currently)?

I wrote for different animes. AOT and OHSHC being the main ones. I also wrote for Maze Runner and some other movie franchises. Some other embarrassing ones that I won't talk about 😅 😅.

2. What fandoms are you currently writing for?

A.C.E and Seventeen are the mains ones, but I write for about 6 or 7 boy groups in total.

3. How long have you been writing?

I've been writing for 4 or 5 years now? Somewhere around that.

4. On which platforms do you post your stories?

Tumblr. We also have an instagram account but we don't post there anymore just because it's really hard to post there.

5. What is your favorite genre to write?

Romance? I guess is the genre XD. I love elaborate stories so some fantasy or Sci-Fi added in there is perfect!

6. Are you a Pantser or a Planner?

I have never heard pantser until this moment but I love it XD. I think I do tend to be more of a planner tho. I have a book I write all my ideas and large plots for when I get to the correct scenes. But I like to be a bit spontaneous as well, because sometimes a plan doesn't come together and you have to think on your toes.

7. One shot or multi-chapter?

I like long one shots the best. I know how busy people are so I like short one shots as well for a quick read, but for my own personal writing preference I love long one shots!

8. What is the perfect chapter length in your opinion?

When I first started writing for A.C.E it was short, less than 1,000 words. Now I like to go a bit bigger. 2,000-5,000 is my favorite length, leaning more to the 5,000 side.

9. What is your longest published story? Is it complete?

My longest published story is Circuits and Wires. It was left unfinished, but I have some ideas to revive the story so it's up in the air if I will finish it or not...

10. Which story did you enjoy working on the most?

There is a story that hasn't been published yet titled 'Wise Men Say' and it so far is my absolute favorite story I've ever worked on as of current.

11. Favorite request you have written and why(if any)?

My favorite request so far has been our first one, Promise? We were so excited to receive a request and Silent5tar gave a lot of detail for the request and we loved her for it!

12. Are there reoccurring themes in your stories?

There probably is? I don't know if I could classify them myself XD, but I bet they're there.

13. Current number of wips(works in progress)?

uhhhhh.... I think 6? It doesn't seem like a lot but most of them are chapter fics so they're bigger WIPS...

14. Three things you have noticed about your own writing.

1. I tend to give the reader's office jobs. I have never worked in an office so I'm not qualified to write about it and yet I continue to.

2. I tend to use the same words to describe things and hope to change that and create a more vast vocabulary.

3. When I write a fanfic for myself I hate it more than ones I have different people in mind for.

15. A quote you like from a published story.

“By the way.” He turns to look at me again, his smile becoming more and more like a smirk. “I think you should be careful what you wear when you greet your neighbors.”

- What Neighbors Are For

It makes me laugh now reading it, but at the time I thought I was so clever XD.

16. A quote from an unpublished story.

"You don't have permission to call me Sweetheart." Her voice was calm, her eyes staring into his giving him a false sense of serenity. Jun took a second to compose himself and his raging heart.

"Why not, sweetheart?" He teases, a wink following his question, a wink that his biker buddy, Donghun, would have given him grief about.

She skates around to his other side, resting her elbow on the counter as she leans closer to him.

"Because only men that have permission to hold me at night get the permission to call me Sweetheart."

- Wise Men Say

Again, I thought I was so smart at the time writing this XD.

17. Space for you to say something to your readers.

We have been a little inactive and I (Lio) personally have been slacking at posting stories. Things get busy and things get hard so we struggle sometimes to get out content. Please continue to be patient with us because we want to release the best version of a story that we can. And thank you for all the support you've shown us so far. We really do appreciate those who take the time to read our work and like it! 💜💙 - Lio and Ju

#ask games!#Star🌟#lio admin #I hope it doesn't flop

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themerriweathermage · 3 years

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Author Interview

I was tagged by @sleepswithvillains . I’ve never been tagged much before so this is kind of new for me, but I love it! Tag me all the time! Also you did it again, where I got the Tumblr notification like right as I went to bed, but my sleep schedule is so wack right now.

Tagging: @guardianofrivendell @moriamithril @sunflower1000 and really whoever wants to do it. Drop me a tag if you decide to do it because I definitely want to see what you have to say!

I have a lot of unfinished fics and not a lot of published works in comparison.

1. Name: The Merriweather Mage (Tumblr)/ RinzlersGhost (AO3)

2. Fandoms: LOTR/The Hobbit, The Witcher (TV), SWTOR/Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, Twilight, Underworld (though I’m not active in most of them unless I’m hyper-fixating)

3. Where you post: AO3, Tumblr, and I have an inactive FF.NET account

4. Most popular oneshot: People seem to have a real affinity for Meleth-nin/My Love. I actually hated writing it, because I was in such a bad place after receiving news that my childhood dog had died, but I don’t hate the fic itself.

5. Most popular multichapter: Every Kitten Has Claws which is a Geralt X Druid Fem!Reader. 25 Kudos, 3 bookmarks, 517 hits. Followed by Turuhalme in the Greenwood which is Thranduil X Fem!Reader. 9 Kudos, 1 bookmark, 270 hits. Both contain 18+ Content.

6. Actual worst part of writing: I legitimately hate writing fight scenes. I’m horrible at them and most of my fics contain some sort of fight scene obnoxiously enough. Although the best advice I ever saw on here was to keep your fight scenes short because not very many people are interested in a long drawn out detailed fight scene.

7. Favorite story you wrote: Bards & Beans Coffee Co. Elrond X Fem!Reader. Was the first time I’d ever written anything in the second person. I based it off of a dream I had about meeting Elrond in a coffee shop. I planned it, wrote it, and posted it in the span of four days. It’s basically as if Middle Earth exists on the other side of meridian locks, and it’s set during the War of the Ring but with some of the characters from the Hobbit so the timelines are pretty pushed together. Your side of the meridian locks has a Earth that is basically a continuous strip of land that varies from high-tech futuristic ports all the way down to medieval ports. Basically the farther North you go, the more high tech and futuristic the land becomes. Quite a shock for those who would have never been to the other side of the locks. 18+ Content.

8. Story you were nervous to post: Most likely all of them. Any of my Twilight work though, I always hesitate about publishing. Sometimes it’s because the stories are close to my heart, but I also know that the fandom can be rabid. Most of the interactions I’ve ever had with Twilight blogs are fine, but there’s a lot of discourse about Twilight right now, and while I appreciate that most people are in the right (the issue with the Quileute tribe, the Cullen’s as villains, Jasper and the Confederacy, the actual legitimacy of the Volturi as a ruling body, etc), this is actually one of the reasons I left the fandom from a writing/following POV. (There are many, many things that are wrong with Twilight and not from a literature point of view. For example, Meyers took a real life Native American tribe and treated them highly unfairly in the books, to the point of calling them dogs which isn’t very fair at all, and they have received no compensation for being used and they are risk in the place they live in now. If you have some time and money, I would recommend checking out the Quileute Move to Higher Ground project.)

9. How you choose your titles: For story titles, I like to choose the main theme or a main phrase that is used. For chapter titles, I either don’t title or I will chose something that is a main part of the chapter.

10. Complete works: Out of the 21 works I have on AO3, 18 of them are completed, although one is an open ended and may be reopened after I get some of the larger works out of my way. As for fics in general that I haven’t published or have published on other platforms, there is 2 of 5 complete works on FF.NET. Some of those stories I will be pulling and deleting. The two complete works will be migrating to AO3.

11. Incomplete works: Actively: Sadril-nin/My Loyal One, A Hunter’s Circlet, and Beauty in Brokenness (unpublished for now). I have a few other inactive LOTR/The Hobbit based fics that I might try to finish after the main two are finished. Inactive: Literally too many to count. I mean, when I wrote my goodbye to the Twilight fandom, I said that I had been writing for the fandom for nearly nine years. I have so many unfinished Twilight fics, well over 100.

12. Do you outline: Not usually. I’m at the point with Sadril-nin right now where I’m literally following a map of Middle Earth and cataloguing the journey across the map, so I guess that could be considered an outline. Mostly if I’m writing for LOTR/The Hobbit, I want to follow the timeline of progression for the story that’s already been written. I do have a little bit of leeway in that gap between The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings though.

13. Coming soon ideas, maybe? I’ve been giving you a taste of Beauty in Brokenness. I do intend to publish it, but it’s a constant struggle to rework it. I have ideas that I want to cement in the story that don’t always come out the way I want them to, so I am consistently reworking parts of it all the time. I will also be rewriting (eventually) Crown of Thorns, which is Pirates of the Caribbean fanfic, Lord Beckett X Siren!OFC. I also appreciate the idea of Nestadion X Centaur Fem!Reader, but instead of being a centaur all the time, you’re actually a shifter who can turn into a centaur. Really confuses a warrior elf to see what amounts to a small human carrying this massive two handed sword around and calling him “princess” all the time.

14. Ask me anything: Is there anything you miss in fanfic? In comparison to the actual book/movie? Not really. I appreciate the original works, but I recognize that they can be flawed and so can their authors/writers. Which is why fanfic is so appealing-- everyone has a different spin on the original; everyone has a different take on the characters, everyone writes differently, and that’s the fascinating part to me. The only downside, of course with any fanfic, is the fandom and it can be hit or miss with people. It is what it is, and the liberty of fanfic is that not everyone is going to like or enjoy your works, and the same goes for your tastes. Are there right or wrong opinions? I don’t know; I’ve both read and written some morally ambiguous fics, and some I would like to forget that I very much haven’t.

15. Best writing traits: Same as the worst writing traits. I’m a sucker for detail. I love it. I want my readers to see it like I do. When I read books or play D&D or play video games, I see it like I’m in a movie. When I write, I want you to see it like you’re on set and the cameras are rolling and you are perfectly prepared. I want you to feel like you are in the story, which is why my oneshots turn into series, and my multi-chapter fics turn into novel length stories. I find it obnoxious at times, because I feel like I can’t ever turn it off, but by the feedback I get, some of y’all really enjoy it, so let’s get this show on the road.

16. Upcoming Story You Are Most Excited to Write: Uhhhh, let me go browse my WIP folder. I’ve put quite a bit of research into rewriting Crown of Thorns and making it slightly more historically accurate. I know that there will be a Part 2 to Sadril-nin, because I’m not going to time skip a seventy/eighty year gap between the timelines of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. And I really don’t want to submit y’all to this absolutely massive story all jam-packed into one fic. Other than that, I’m also sitting on Through Hellfire and High Waters, which is another Elrond X Reader fic that follows the premise of a modern/medieval world all smashed into one. The Queen of Eryn Galen also needs a proper ending and to be published, a Thranduil X OFC fic; this one will also have a Part 2.

17. Spicy Tangential Opinion: I don’t care if my writing makes the characters out of character. I try to tag that if I can, but let’s be real here. Either I’m writing a character that originally has a limited backstory and a very real chance at an open-ended future, or I didn’t like the canon character and I’m rejecting that reality and replacing it with my own. Does it mean that I don’t or am refusing to recognize character flaws? No, and that’s the beauty of fanfic. You can do whatever you want. You might get hate for it or you might not. For example, I am a fan of Severus Snape (RIP Alan Rickman). Does his character have flaws? Yes. Do I like the way he was canonically written? No. Are his actions justifiable? Hell no. Is that going to stop me from being a fan? Again, no. He is arguably one of the most disagreed upon character of that series. I don’t see a need to defend why I write him the way I do. I don’t see a need to defend him in discourse, and I’m certainly not going to be hateful about it. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion about it. Yes, there was probably some underlying intent when the character was written. I’m not here (unless you’re specifically asking my opinion on it) I’m not here to read in between the lines with characters like Snape. I do not care enough to lose friends over opinions like that.

#long post #i am so sorry #get to know the author

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zombiesun · 3 years

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how to have healthy relationship w/social media?? like should i just open it on sats and sun to reduce slacking off/mindlessly scrolling waiting to be stimulized?

for context: i don't use social media to follow friends/dare i say infloowenslurs, just using it to look at art, reblog poems or follow writing/creative accounts but i still feel like i spent a majority of my time looking at my phone rather than actually reading and yeah... any advice??

I feel like this is the question of the century and one I both feel qualified and unqualified to answer. First off, I think you need to congratulate yourself and acknowledge the boundary you’ve set. I think it’s admirable to be able to limit your social media consumption to the weekends so that your own, present life takes precedence. I don’t have that level of self discipline and I wish that was something I could implement in my own life. I’ve found the first step to having a “healthy relationship” with something is acknowledging the progress and effort you’ve already put in before planning further ahead. If we can’t appreciate the small steps then it’s always going to be hard to move forward without the reward of our own approval and appreciation.

I think the next step after that is to figure out what about your social media habits feel unhealthy. For me personally, while I don’t enjoy the majority of social media platforms like pinterst and tumblr are very addictive to me because I love the simple pleasure of sorting visual images in a way that is both appealing and explanatory. It’s also an excuse for me to appreciate art rather then create. The thing I don’t like about social media is it makes me complacent in my own power of creation so the way I combat that is making time to create things and share them which lessens my desire to compensate for not doing that with other people’s work. It’s not that social media is the problem, it’s the way that it limits me from my own life that is the issue.

Since you already have such a rigid schedule of when you do/do not allow it in your life it seems like your problem isn’t that its a “time waster” but that you feel like your time could be better spent reading traditionally. However, consider this: you are reading! one of the best things about this platform is it exposes you to bit size, easily consumable content. You can read seventy poems, fourteen essays, countless dissections of popular media, and impactful quotes without having to make any effort in curation. What about that is “lesser” than traditional reading? I would encourage you to honor what you read, write down the poems that made an impact on you, do your own dissection on things you observed and make it just as meaningful as time spent with a “real” book. Something I like to do is if I read something that really settled with me I’ll find the author on zlibrary (free database for millions of books/essays) and read that book as I scroll through social media. That way I feel like I’m actually doing something with my time and whenever I need a “mental” break from scrolling I can do something that feels more fulfilling.

Social media doesn’t have to be something negative or wasteful. You can make anything useful and growth oriented depending on how you engage with it. Since you don’t use it for the social aspect of it (again, admirable!) you should appreciate the academic usefulness of it. You are leaving every weekend with new ideas, new perceptions, new people that have entered your mind. Instead of feeling like they aren’t as useful as other activities, view them as essential new parts of your life. If you find value in everything you do then nothing lacks value.

Also, airplane mode. I didn’t have access to a phone for a few months last year and I went on a lot of walks and errands and learned to enjoy time without it. Go on a walk without a phone, spend time with a friend without a phone. Humans lived without them for most of our time on this earth, maybe you’re just feeling too unnecessarily attached to it. Now that the weather is warming up maybe you can set aside time each week to read outside at a park or some other place where you can both social distance and appreciate nature. The part of your brain that is asking to be present and fully possessed probably just wants the easy, natural existence that is living only having to think about yourself and your direction. I hope that helped. Best of luck!

#mailbox #anoncore #great question really made me think about how I actually deal with the issue of social media #you really do seem like you have a better handle on it then your giving yourself credit for though!#I feel like I should have a tag for advice #Anonymous

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simtrospective · 4 years

Note

congratulations on your follower mile stone! I only recently started following your blog but I love that you share your thought process behind your sims and your posts. I really enjoy reading them! can I hear more about your inspiration to do a historical-vintage blog? what are your favorite time periods to recreate with the sims and why?

Thank you so much @wirefiish!

First, a little tangent: I started playing this series 20 years ago. There have been some gap years since then: my computer couldn’t handle TS3 when it came out so I only notched a few hours of total play time before sticking with TS2; I’d heard bad things about TS4 and myself wasn’t wowed by the base game so I put it aside for a long while. I’ve never had a simblr before this year (I started one in March, almost immediately deleted it, and then resurrected this account in May after someone on reddit asked me for a download + CC list of a sim I’d shared there; I needed somewhere to put all that info and so…). I never had any account for simming no matter which platform was popular: no Livejournal account, nor a Dreamwidth account, nor a GoS account, nor an MTS account, on and on and on. I only ever lurked the community though I felt like I knew everyone in it! But this year, I wanted to keep track of other simmers on tumblr who I liked, and I needed a quarantine distraction from work + panic, and so here I am. Operating this account has been an exercise, too, in managing myself and self-esteem: not letting myself fall into some of my kneejerk behaviors like trying to please others, apologizing (for nothing; for “me”), putting myself down, comparing myself to other people who I imagine are all perfect and talented and objectively better. My inclination, when I write wordy posts or give “too much information” about my sims is to delete and keep it simple, and that certainly gets me more notes, but… this is who I am. Not that it’s that deep! But it’s good to have perspective and behave accordingly: it’s just a blog with pictures of sims. It’s just a game. I felt like writing, it’s my little blog, who cares? I’m not doing it for notes or likes or whatever. What do I have to apologize for? What do I have to fix?

All this to say thank you that you are enjoying reading about my process. I enjoy writing about my process, whether mundane or not. I enjoy treating this blog like a blog when I feel called to do so.

Now, to your questions!

Can I hear more about your inspiration to do a historical-vintage blog?

Sure!

If you’d like to read more about my save and my plans for it, I have a link to that featured in my navigation menu. It is HERE for any and all who are interested and includes references and pictures I’m hoping to use as inspiration for world-building and character creation.

Basically, why I’m doing this is very simple: I like old stuff. I like vintage stuff. I like retro stuff. I love old photographs, old furniture, old music, old clothes, old movies. I love references and inspirations and art. I hate the internet. I hate my sims taking out their phones every two seconds and stuntin’ for the ‘gram and whatever else. I am forced to use too much internet and social media at work but in real life I have this blog and a neglected Pinterest account and a neglected reddit account and that is it and that has always been it, with the tumblr and reddit accounts only begun this calendar year. I’m not a luddite; I mindlessly scroll more than I should and I have favorite Vines (RIP) just like the other girls and how else can I stuff my game with CC if not over WiFi, but really, there’s so much of the *NOW* in TS4 that takes me out of and away from what I love about this series because it’s so invasive. This is where I could go on another tangent about how--through what EA, et al purports is endless gameplay possibilities--TS4 actually gives us less choice when it comes to overall gameplay but that is not the question I’m answering.

Beyond wanting to return my sims to a simpler time in terms of technology and their personal interactions, I’m totally doing it for the aesthetic. If I had my way, if I could choose the world’s aesthetic, the world’s advances in terms of, again, the technology in our pockets, it would span between 1920 and, like, 1995 and how exciting that I actually can build a little world that does just that. I can dress my little dolls exactly how I want and make some of them use the washboard! I can’t curate planet earth but I can make damn sure that all the teenage girls in Brindleton Bay wear circle skirts to the diner.

Also, related to doing whatever I want, I get to have the things I love, the world and gameplay I love but apply more progressive values to it. Yes, all the teenage girls in Brindleton Bay wear circle skirts to the diner but the teenage girl who prefers to wear a mechanic’s jumpsuit isn’t going to be looked at askance or be isolated or teased or made to conform or beat up or, best case scenario, need to shoulder the burden of trailblazer or need to shoulder the burden of being The Girl Who Wears A Mechanic’s Jumpsuit even if everyone thinks it’s cool, she’s just… herself. And yes, the world looks like 1955 but it isn’t 1955, or, it’s a parallel 1955. This girl wears a jumpsuit but her girlfriend wears a circle skirt and none of my sims bat an eye.

I also love, love, love looking at other simmers’ historical stories and gameplay. They’re consistently so clever with both CC and in-game content that it’s impossible not to be inspired, and that got my wheels turning.

And, lastly, I’m a CC addict. Limiting my aesthetic and applying rules to my save goes a long way to cull my collection and to keep me from going on a tear that might make my computer explode. It’s much easier for me to delete a bunch of dresses that aren’t appropriate for the parameters of my game than to delete a bunch of dresses because I “should,” because I have “too much stuff.”

What are your favorite time periods to recreate with the sims and why?

I’m partial to the 1950s because it is the easiest. It seems that so many creators make a lot of content that--even if it’s only described as “vintage”--is from the 50s. I mentioned circle skirts above. How many times have I done a broad search for vintage or retro and got circle skirts back? The 1950s isn’t my favorite time period, though; again, it’s just so easy to recreate. Lately I’ve enjoyed making a range of 70s sims and hope I can find a home for them all. I like, too, trying to fit content that I don’t usually use or which I think I don’t like into my version of a particular decade’s or era’s look because it often changes my opinion of the content (especially non-CC) so that I see it with new eyes/better appreciate it, and this practice helps me to hone my abilities and increase my comfort and familiarity with whatever time period I’m working with.

In real life, although I had a long art deco phase, my absolute favorite design aesthetic is mid-century modern. I’ve always loved it, and that love intensified and deepened a few years ago when I started writing my novel--not to sound like a jerk, but it’s true!--which is set in the mid-to-late 1960s. I started doing research and putting together inspiration boards which included, in part, house plans and interior design and for my tastes, I’m sorry, mcm just cannot be beat. I cannot get enough! TS4’s art style is so complementary to the mcm aesthetic that it’s impossible not to fall in love with how it looks in the game, whether it’s CC or not, so that’s my favorite in-game decorative period.

When it comes to clothing and fashion, I have a little bit that I like from every era, really, but if we’re speaking generally and I’m being forced to choose, I (think I) like best male/masculine looks and styling from the 1950s to about… 1963? 1965?, although I prefer a slimmer cut to the suits and pants; and feminine/female looks and styling from the 1930s and 1970s. I perceive a similar combined sensuality, ease, and sportiness in the 30s and 70s silhouettes as well as the prevailing attitudes and approach to fashion that speaks to me. I just love it--but I need more of it for my sims, so I can’t say it’s necessarily my favorite to try and recreate. Yet, anyway.

Thank you again for this question and thank you to all who read this entire answer!

#sims 4 #ts4 #200+ followers #ask #user: wirefiish

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imaginariumpod · 4 years

Text

For the defense of slowing down: a study of slowness in cinema.

Leisure - Poem by William Henry Davies

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this is if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

For the defense of slowing down: a study of slowness in cinema.

This article is one that I have been meaning to write for a while and that is very important to me in a lot of ways, but also I feel like with the amount of people staying at home and who have had to slow down their pace of life one way or another in the past months, it just feels oddly relevant. A lot of people have been forced to ease the pace of their lives, and have had the time, maybe for the first time in years, to spend on things they couldn’t before. People who have been trying to take care of themselves in any way they can, by maybe learning how to cook or bake bread, maybe finally having the time to just take a nap and not feel any guilt because they aren’t productive.

This might be more personal than usual because I feel like I really do need to put this subject in perspective to myself first, and then in perspective to the general context and climate that is shaping our world. We live in a culture where productivity is valued more than anything, where you are expected to go above and beyond, and to run yourself to the ground in the pursuit of success, of money, of efficiency. If you don't have a side project or four, it might feel like you are a bit of a failure because don’t you know you have to take advantage of every opportunities out there to make a name for yourself ? This hustle culture that is becoming predominant everywhere, but especially in western culture, is definitely a byproduct of capitalism in a way it never have been seen before. You only have to take a look in the self-help section of a bookshop or a library to feel exhausted : The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, or Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Getting Things Done.

While I think being a hardworking person and trying to be productive in order to achieve your goals, there’s definitely a point where it’s too much for one person to handle, and when this constant stress of needing to be successful all the time and to always go above and beyond what is needed becomes a societal expectation placed on all of us, that’s when it becomes dangerous. There’s a certain climate that is saying that we need to be constantly productive to be valuable to the system, or else, what is the point of you existing.

And my friends. the only point is you being alive. And being content. and that’s what matters in the end.

The point isn’t to further a corporation’s agenda, the point isn't to exhaust yourself trying to play the game of a system that is designed to fail you. The point is that, maybe, someday, you wake up a bit earlier than usual, and you drink your tea in a world that is still quiet and peaceful. The point is, maybe that you feel safe, that you feel content, that you feel loved, and you have the time to just breathe.

And to just be.

Take a breath.

So most of my friends know this, but I feel like I need to share this to give my proper perspective on this subject. Before finishing my Bachelor’s degree in Art History, I had previously done two years in architectural design. It seemed like a good idea at the time, it was a creative endeavor that seemed fulfilling and yet also a smart move practically speaking. I wanted to be able to find a job after finishing university, and maybe continuing on to grad school to eventually become an architect. That was the initial plan when I was 20 and started university. Fresh-eyed, full of hope and determination.

Those two years were a nightmare.

To sum up really quickly, I was so stressed and anxious, I ended up having constant panic attacks and breakdowns for a whole month, every single day of that month, which made me take the difficult decision to give up on that degree. I had an actual burnout before my 22nd birthday and had to take a full year off to recover from this.

I think it’s then, that I truly was hit by how dangerous fatigue and exhaustion could end up being, both mentally and physically. How, when pushed by the constant pressure to perform and to catch up to a standard that keeps rising, and to a speed that keeps getting faster and faster, one is bound to crack at some point. The stress and anxiety that this puts on people can easily get to be too much to handle. That year off, being forced to slow down, to reconnect with myself and with who I am and with what I wanted from life really was one of the most beneficial things to me and I just wanted to give a bit of my story to make you understand where I am personally coming from, when it comes to slowing down, and to slowing the pace of life. Unfortunately, most of us have a story that resembles this in some way shape or form. I know I was incredibly lucky to be able to take that year off, and it's a privilege many of us might not be able to have.

So this is why I think i can say, that for a lot of us, we are just tired. We are so tired. I know I am exhausted. Life can just be so tiring, there’s this really fine line between being productive and having an active life and being run to the ground. It’s a fine line that a lot of us thread, and it can get overwhelming very easily. Indeed, «life has become fast-paced, as people try to live up to these expectations. Yet, while many people might be materially affluent, their quality of life and work-life balance are often unsatisfactory, and potentially lead to stress and burnout (Schor, 1998).» I feel that especially for the current modern life experience, a lot of us can relate to that, in ways it may not have been felt before in previous generations. Time has always been precious, but it just feels like there’s never enough hours in the day to be able to finish all the things you want to do.

The luxury of time. Time to do nothing.

It might seem that we have more time, but «that free time is used to cram more activities into the day and to travel further to work». Which means that we are all trying to manage to do everything at once, whether it’s working, and trying to continue learning, and needing to keep yourself in shape, and to keep your space clean, and also needing to keep a social life, and sleeping well, and etc and etc. It feels like you always have to do this and that and the list of expectations and goals to meet is never ending and constantly adding up. Indeed, «it is not just free time that people desire, but more time for meaningful things». You are just one person, and there’s only so much one can do before it gets to be too overwhelming. And in those moments, I think it’s important to just. Take a deep breath and Slow down.

We need rest. we need fulfillment. I think there’s a lot of disenchantment toward modern life, by the dream that have been sold to us since we were young. Just work harder and you’ll make it. Work more hours, do more things, put yourself out there, run yourself ragged to the ground and then you will finally get what you deserve (money ! fame ! success ! love ! Family ! Friends! ) and yet all we have is exhaustion and stress and anxiety and pain. I think this whole context has made it so that there’s a resurgence lately of an appreciation for slower media, whether we are talking about movies, books or something else.

I think it can be really interesting to mention the newest Animal Crossing game (Animal Crossing : New Horizons) that has been played by a lot of people since its release, which has been considered like «the video game equivalent of a relaxing getaway — and we could all use that kind of respite right now.» Those kind of slower paced games where you have to build your own life and take care of a city, village or, in this case, island (slow-life simulation games) let players exerce control in their island in a way they feel they might not be able to in their own live. This is a very wholesome game that players can get really engrossed into, and that can provide them with much needed relief and escapism from the troubles of real life, when things get really hard. Those type of games also need you to take things slowly, one step at a time, which I think is very interesting when we think about low-stress sources of entertainment.

«In this, the game forces you to take it one day at a time. You can bypass this by "time traveling," or setting your Switch system clock ahead of time to advance quicker than the game intends for you to, but this isn't how it's meant to be played. You're supposed to feel a sense of slow, but meaningful progression throughout the course of your island adventure, and artificial time changes take away from that»

I could also mention the growing popularity of the cottagecore aesthetic on various social platforms such as tumblr, Instagram and twitter. While being predominantly a visual and aesthetic trend, cottagecore does reflect a growing desire by younger people in their teens and early 20s to have simpler and slower life. Dreams of just living in a tiny house, with maybe a vegetable patch, and all of the time in the world to just bask in the sun. As «[a]n obvious backlash to the hustle culture embodied by Fiverr ads, cottagecore attempts to assuage burnout with a languid enjoyment of life’s mundane tasks.» This aesthetic trend then seems an answer to the growing consumerism and rapid pace of life.

This seems like an unattainable fantasy to most of us, which is why I think a lot of people have been gravitating toward those aesthetics and ways of thinking and living. «It’s a romanticised idea that we could leave behind all the stress and craziness in our lives to go live off-the-grid, where emails can’t reach us and our only task is baking bread or making jam. » I know this isn’t something that everyone longs for, but to me, this sounds like a dream and something that seems like a distant hope. I do wish I could take some time off in a small cottage or mediterranean house, maybe not forever, but maybe spend a few months with the freedom of having the time to myself and using that time the way I desire. Just so one can breathe, reconnect with oneself and have enough energy to keep moving on. «Cottagecore is the perfect escape, it’s soothing and calming but it’s also relatively attainable. Maybe we can’t all go live in a cabin in the woods, wearing nothing but flowy dresses while tending to our garden of wildflowers. But we can learn to cross stitch, we can bake bread, we can buy some watercolours, we can have a picnic in our backyard.»

I am always so anxious about so many things and the only thing I want at any given moment is to have a small house and no responsibilities greater than doing the groceries and watering the plants in my garden. I think that life has gotten very hard and difficult to handle, what with the climate crisis, the political unstableness, the economical unstableness, the rise of the alt-right, and now the whole global pandemic going on, it’s easy to understand why people would feel drawn toward comforting things : « Rebecca Jennings ties a push for coziness in branding (and trends like cottagecore) to the feeling that "things are bad, and people are anxious about whatever ongoing horrors are metabolizing in geopolitics, the environment, and capitalism." »

I want to be safe financially and fulfilled. I want to have the time and space to do the things I really want to achieve instead of giving my time away to a system that does not care about me.

I want to have the calm of heart that I have lost years ago and that I yearn to regain.

nostalgia & aesthetic

There's an aesthetic of nostalgia that is really present in a lot of slow living content and slow media. I don't think ANY of us want to go back in time where things weren’t better for any of us unless you maybe are a white straight cis man, and even then.... In my opinion, slow living and wanting to slow down is not a rejection of technology or modernity in itself, but inherently a rejection of capitalism. You do not have to be productive to be valuable, and to be deserving of happiness, of peace, of love and of dignity. You deserve all of that no matter how useful or not you are to the capitalist system. It’s not about going back to oppressive social norms, but moving forward from them.

I also feel like slow living brings a self care as deeper than the shallow superficial and capitalist self care that's being sold to us. I’m not going to deny that it feels nice to do an extensive skincare routine before sleeping, but there’s a lot to be said about a nightly ritual that makes you feel more grounded in yourself and taking care of yourself and the body you inhabit versus the gigantic capitalistic machine that is the Beauty Industry™. The same way the simple acts of taking of yourself and taking the time to slow down can be a revolutionary act of self-love, they can also be taken advantage of and capitalized on by the huge capitalist industries that use wellness, self-care and self-love as marketing tactics. In our era, it feels simply impossible now to get away from the “treat yourself” campaign. Industries have tapped into the real desire of people to live a more meaningful and happier life by making it mostly into a trend, and not an intentional change to someone’s lifestyle to make it better.

I am of the opinion that slowing down shouldn’t be a trend, but a very deliberate act taken in order to take care of ourselves, of our mental health and our physical health. I think it’s a very essential need that we have to not feel burnt-out and to not feel trapped and stifled by our own lives, and having the space and energy to pursue our dreams and desires.

(Not to say the culprit is capitalism … but the culprit is capitalism) (also not to advocate for revolution on a public platform but revolution)

What I mean by slow media, and slowness in media is that content that tends to be more of the slice of life genre. They are peaceful, quiet. Maybe nothing much happens at all, but it rings very true and very real. Those moments of calm are soothing when maybe the rest of my life really is not. The way someone relates to art and media is very personal and can vary a lot, but the escapism that this sort of stories provides and I feel that with the faster pace of life that has become the norm, it might become something that we seek more often than not.

To me, this sort of media feels like relief.

slow cinema

Cinema has long been a medium that is very efficient at communicating epic and grandiose stories. Movies that are jam packed with action and drama and heightened emotions and tension. And while those movies can be very good and entertaining, I think there’s also a place in the world of cinema for movies that are slower. In fact, there’s a distinct genre of movies where the focus is not on a very fast paced plot or extravagant action scenes and dramatic events, but where the importance is placed on the mundane. Where the slow moments of everyday life and the quiet emotions that we all feel take precedence. It’s possible to name filmmakers such as Yasujiro Ozu or Agnes Varda.

We could also talk about movies such as the Before Trilogy by Richard Linklater (Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004), Before Midnight (2013)), where each movie spans a very short period of time and consists entirely of conversations between two people. Those movies are slow, ordinary and yet extraordinary in the sense that it’s two people who have found each other and are speaking and connecting. There’s nothing much that’s happening in those films, and yet it’s impactful.

The movies made by those directors who tend to favor slower cinema often showcases a simpler plotline, but a more complex emotional arc. They are full of slow and quiet scenes, which makes those movies soothing, calming and nostalgic.

What is slow cinema though ? in the academic sense, slow cinema is often defined as «a modern cinematic production trend that emphasizes slowness and duration of time» Even though there’s a lot of more contemporary cinematic examples of slow cinema in more experimental movies such as directors Abbas Kiarostami or Tsai Ming Liang whose movies are very much in line with what is slow cinema. When it comes to slow movies, «Flanagan writes that the stylistic features of ‘slow films’ are “the employment of (often extremely) long takes, de-centred and understated modes of storytelling, and a pronounced emphasis on quietude and the everyday,”» The techniques used in slow-paced movies will often communicate a romanticization of everyday life, of routine, of moments that are quiet and peaceful.

There’s a lot of emphasis put on the passage of time, whether it’s a slow drag of time, with nothing much to do, the quiet moments that punctuates our daily lives or the years passing by and the plotlines in those movies spanning years, generations and even lifetimes. I think this is one of the reason why this kind of cinema can be really relevant in our times, where we feel that time is a precious commodity that isn’t ours anymore, and where time is filled with the pressure of being constantly productive, slow cinema poses itself as the antithesis of that.

«Slow Cinema situates itself solidly within art cinema both in aesthetic and methodology: it is defined by authorship that hinges on the representation of reality. It carries with it a disposition towards the consumption of time that forces the audience to labour through and critically engage with the film itself.»

It’s possible to see that this type of cinema is something that’s very sought after lately, as proven by this letterboxd list The Absolute Beauty in Everyday’s Mundanity, which has been liked by a total of 6,092 people at the moment of writing this article (including me). Containing 209 movies that fit into what the list maker considers as being slow movies that showcase the beauty of everyday life, this list demonstrates that there’s a very definite space for movies that have a more deliberate pace and who, instead of trying to heighten the stakes and action constantly, do take the opportunity to just. Slow down.

An enchanted month.

Elizabeth Von Arnim (1866-1941) was a english author active during the early 20th century. She wrote both fictional and non-fictional books, and the ones I have read from her are very in this vein of slow living, taking the time to just sit in a garden, and let time heal you. It's from her book Enchanted April (1922), which is one of my favorite books and that I wholeheartedly recommend, that the consequent 1992 movie, released by the BBC, was adapted from.

Von Arnim made a point to give a prevalent place in her books to the spaces where one could feel at ease and free from the constraints dictated by social norms and what people might expect from you : «In the garden, Elizabeth von Arnim could think, reflect, and distance herself from the oppressions and duties of the highly rigid and strict German culture that she had adopted through her marriage to Count Henning von Arnim. In observing the varying seasons of nature in conjunction with an active pleasure in literature, she perceived the garden as a metaphor of her life in terms of the development of her soul, and in this context, she believed herself to be in "the process of becoming".» I think it’s possible to draw a parallel between the demands of life that are growing increasingly harder to handle. While Von Arnim puts is mostly in relation to the social norms that were in place during the 1920s, it’s possible to see that the desire for slowing down during the 2020s stem mostly from a tiredness of the ultra-capitalistic world we live in.

The story of Enchanted April starts during a dreary month of march. Grey. Tiring. We have all went through months like these where the responsibilities and list of things to do, and slow drag of the days gets to be unbearable. Mrs Lotty Wilkins sees an a journal advert to rent a castle in Italy for a month, and under the grey drizzling London skies. And she yearns for that moment of respite. Far from her obligations, from her nagging husband and being able to take time for herself for the first time in years.

Eventually, four immensely different women will end up in this castle in San Salvatore, Italy, for a whole month. Each of those women have a distinctive purpose in this book, but they all seem to be looking for something similar: an escape from their frantic and boring daily life, a relief from routine, from the lack of connection and intimacy that they feel. In the midst of those charmed italian gardens, you feel like they can finally take a breath, loosen up and rest.

«She moved about with quick, purposeful steps, her long thin body held up straight, her small face, so much puckered at home with effort and fear, smoothed out»

And just reading that, or watching the movie, gives me a similar respite. The sun lits all the shots, the wind blows gently in the tree leaves, and the clothes that are worn are looser, more comfortable. This movie is charming, humorous and delightful. But most of all, it’s slow paced and soothing. You have drawn out scenes where nothing much happens but the moments are peaceful and reassuring. I rewatch it every april, because while I cannot take a month off to spend it in an isolated italian castle, oh god I Yearn So Much For It.

Even though, this story is set during the 1920s, thus being a contemporary story written by Von Arnim, I cannot help but feel that this story is one that is still deeply relevant today, in the 2020s. The thoughts of the characters seems very familiar and relatable : «For Lady Caroline Dester, the process of change is longer, more involved, and more isolated. She approaches San Salvatore with a “dream of thirty restful, silent days, lying unmolested in the sun, getting her feathers smooth again, not being spoken to, not waited on, not grabbed at and monopolized, but just recovering from the fatigue, the deep and melancholy fatigue, of the too much”»

In Enchanted April, this month in Italy is a moment of quiet rest for these four women, bt also a time dedicated to oneself and to introspection. «Initially, each woman desires to be alone for long stretches of time: Mrs Fisher in her room, Lady Caroline in a chair in the top garden, and Mrs Wilkins and Mrs Arbuthnot in the gardens and hills. Each is free to reflect on her life and begin to have a clearer understanding of herself in relation to others. »

A late afternoon:

Yasujiro Ozu (1903-1963) is one of the prominent filmmakers in Japan during the first half of the XXth century. His movies had a very distinct style and technique to them that made his work really unique to himself. A lot of filmmakers tried to replicate or imitate the stylisation of his work, but there was something in Ozu’s work that was very particular to the period of cinema he lived in. He was active from the later half 1920s until his untimely passing on his birthday in 1963. This means he lived through the Second World War as well as through a time of great change and evolution in the world.

It’s possible to write a hundred pages on Yasujiro Ozu alone because there’s a lot to say about him and his movies, whether it’s about the narrative and the story he chose to portray or the techniques and stylisation that characterize what is an Ozu movie. I thought it was relevant to mention him when talking about slower movies and slower paced media, because of the impact that he had on film, especially when it comes to using the medium to tell stories of lost and quiet moments.

With the increased modernity and a rapidly changing world, Ozu’s films, such as Tokyo Story ( 1953), Late Spring (1949) and Floating Weeds (1959) tried to capture the very modern life he and his contemporary were experiencing and the way they dealt with these changes. Even though Ozu’s movies were particularly specific to a certain period and country, it’s indeed impossible to disassociate Ozu’s movies from the fact that they were made in Japan, and that Ozu went through the pre-war, war and post-war era and continuously made movies during these times.

Which means that his films do reflect a certain time in Japanese history which makes them incredibly specific and contemporary to the society he lived in. «However, I believe that the film is less about articulating the value of modernity against the challenge of tradition than observing the subtle state whereby the former unknowingly pervades the latter. In this sense, rather than the overt manifestation of free movement outside of the home, the trivial motion inside the confined domesticity are a more essential element in Ozu’s films. In other words, in Ozu, modernity exists within the everyday, a stable flow that undulates but hardly overflows.» Nonetheless, the issues and subjects tackled in those movies, such as intergenerational conflict, the difficulty that people have to catch up with a world with values that are rapidly changing, and modernity. Those problems are a universal experience, but were communicated in a unique lense through Yasujiro Ozu’s movies.

The focus of most of Ozu’s films is centered around the familial unit, and the conflicts and moments that arise between them as life moves forward. The everyday moments in a world that gets harder to navigate each day. The story of a daughter who is pressured to married, and the dilemma and conflicts between the societal expectations that people have of her, her own wants and needs and also the desire to be able to strike a balance between those two elements. I think that this, while not being necessarily being a universal experience, can still be an incredibly relatable one.

Once she gets married, she needs to move forward with her life and leaves her widowed father to live alone, which really showcases the simple and universal realities of real life. The plotlines of Ozu’s movies focus on simple and universal conflicts and problems, the stories he tells through those movies are nonetheless things that are universal and. the way he presents them are beautiful, quiet and, most importantly, real. «More broadly, Ozu’s omission of important events also speaks to his interest in the mundane, his desire to uncover the emotional nuances within small talk, daily routines, and other “boring” details of everyday life.»

There are quiet moments of silence, of rain falling while someone is folding clothes or eating. Laughter and companionships. Tears and pain and love and hurt and all of the very important emotions that compose the human experience. «the great filmmaker used to evoke a sense of melancholy and poetry in everyday existence.» which is something that truly is a balm to the soul in my own humble opinion. There’s a lot of vulnerability in this slowness, a very real sadness and emotionality that is very raw and yet mundane in its encompassing universality of the human experience.

The stylistic choices that Ozu decides to take all tend toward this one goal of showcasing the quiet movement of life, while hinting at the tumultuous feelings that people might feel, and the world around them. His movies were simple and slow but very meaningful as well. «Ozu’s films often violate the stylistic conventions of mainstream filmmaking. For example, one “rule” in classical Hollywood cinema is that every shot should clearly and obviously advance the narrative. Yet Ozu’s films frequently feature what commentators call “pillow shots” – namely, shots of landscapes, objects, or interiors that have no apparent connection to the protagonists and what they’re doing plotwise.»

His movies focus on the relationships between people and the world they inhabit, and the growing modernity, and also capitalism, of it. «As you’ll quickly come to see, Ozu is hardly a fan of modernity. In films like The Only Son, Late Spring, Late Autumn, and An Autumn Afternoon, he suggests, among other things, that economic modernization has engendered inequality, feelings of alienation, empty consumerism, and the Americanization of Japanese life.» Those feelings of alienation that we currently feel toward our own lives, our own time and our own time are very relevant for us in 2020. While I do think that those movies represent a certain time and a certain context, and you cannot talk about Yasujiro Ozu without really contextualizing both him and his work, I think it can be really relevant to today. Ozu made movies for himself and for the society he lived in but that doesn't mean that those movies can’t still be important today.

Ozu did impact international cinema, as can be seen for exemple with the movies of Wes Anderson, as seen in this visual essay that compares their body of work. both narratively and stylistically. I won’t go into more details about Anderson here, because he is one of my favorite directors and i hope to write an entire article on him soon, but i thought it was relevant to mention this. Most importantly, Yasujiro Ozu left an imprint on japanese cinema that can still be seen to this day in contemporary movies. I could mention filmmakers such as Naoko Ogigami, with movies such as Rent-a-cat (2012), Close-Knit (2017) and Kamome Diner (2006), all movies that have a decidedly slower pace and kinder vibe to them. Hayao Miyazaki and the movies Studio Ghibli produced also are an example of that slower cinema, but we’ll touch upon this a bit further down the line.

(rent-a-cat [2012] d. Naoko Ogigami)

a little world of our own

With this in mind, it’s easy to see that there’s a sub-genre of japanese cinema that really make a concerted effort at incorporating the concepts of slowness in their stories, whether it's the slower pace of the story or actual slow living principles. Those movies often address the fantasy of leaving everything behind (your work, your problems, your issues, your sadness) to go live in a small town or quitting your job to follow your dreams, or simply to feel like your time is yours again. This list on letterboxd which showcases many movies of that genre in japanese cinema (currently 157 movies on date of writing this article)

A good example of this type of stories would be the duology of the Little Forest movies, as well as the subsequent korean adaptation in 2018. These movies were both adapted originally from a manga by Daisuke Igarashi. Little Forest : Summer/Autumn (2014) and Little Forest : Winter/Spring (2015) follow the story of a young woman who leaves her busy city life to go back to her hometown and decides to live in a slower way, taking care of her vegetables and living according to the seasons. The two movies are infinitely slow, focusing on the main character cooking, resting, eating, and eventually resolving the conflict that she has with her mother. The life she lives in these secluded parts seems uneventful but happy and calm which seems all that she desires. She doesn’t need to contribute to the capitalist system of society to be deserving of being able to live in peace, and this makes her feel less alienated from the world she lives in.

Spirited away

I also don’t think it’s really possible to mention slower moments of everyday life in cinema without talking about the movies that probably were the first introduction to this for many of us. The movies of Studio Ghibli, with Hayao Miyazaki at the helm of it, are little masterpieces of animation. The movies are intended for a younger audience but can be appreciated by everyone. Studio Ghibli movies are another example of filmmaking that manages to capture this slower pace in media. Between all of the adventures and events that are happening in those movies, there are moments of slowness. Of calm. Of quietness.

As Robert Ebert told to Miyazaki, during an interview with him « I told Miyazaki I love the "gratuitous motion" in his films; instead of every movement being dictated by the story, sometimes people will just sit for a moment, or they will sigh, or look in a running stream, or do something extra, not to advance the story but only to give the sense of time and place and who they are.» Miyazaki proceeded to explain what this concept was for him «"We have a word for that in Japanese," he said. "It's called ma. Emptiness. It's there intentionally."» Those slow moments between the action are very deliberate, to slow down the story and to slow down the pace. Contrary to the generally accepted school of thought in modern Hollywood cinema, which is that every single scene needs to move the story forward, Miyazaki lets his story and movies breathe. This way of building the story gives it an added sense of calm and soothingness, but also it gives it another sense of realism. Instead of following a strict narrative outline, this fluidity makes the story feel more real and relatable.

Despite being an animated movie set in a very obviously fantastical universe, Studio Ghibli movies tend to be very realistic in the way they portray the characters, their complexity, and also what are the real underlying conflicts. For example, in Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989) «The primary conflict isn’t about magic—it’s internal and invisible and wholly human: Kiki’s brief period of lost motivation and artist’s block. She gets it back when she wants to help Tombo, whom she loves. Simple as that. She doesn’t have to wage an epic battle to prove her worth» The stakes might seem lower in this movie, very mundane and ordinary but I think this is what makes it so special.

The quiet moments and details that might seem innocuous and useless at first and slower the pace of the movie in itself, are ultimately what gives it this feeling of genuineness. It lets the characters and the plot have the space to evolve and to grow.

« Although these scenes may seem slow or unimportant, they give space to develop the characters and to heighten dreams or feelings the characters are having such as feelings of isolation, wonder, or anxiety. It is in these moments of stillness that the audience can contemplate with the characters and feel what the characters are feeling. These moments remind the audience the importance of stillness in such a fast paced world and highlights the beauty of a slower paced life»

Studio Ghibli movies insert those slower moments in between more faster paced and action packed scenes but also in the midst of world-changing events such as wars, as shown in Howl’s Moving Castle (2004). This demonstrate how people still live on during those crises, even with the danger looming over their heads. Which is something that I think can be very relevant in today’s time where the past twenty years have been increasingly more unstable and the … few months of 2020 were a Shit Show in itself, if you want my opinion. So this kind of media gives me hope that we can live through this, that moments of happiness and peace are still to be found.

A charmed life

Slower cinema is something that has existed for as long as cinema existed, but I do think that it’s a very current feeling to want to be able to slow down the pace of our lives, and be able to enjoy time in a more meaningful way. Personally, I know life has gotten ridiculously hectic for me in the past two years, and while there’s a lot I always want to be doing and I’m very happy about how my life is coming together, this doesn’t mean that sometimes, it doesn’t feel Very Overwhelming and alienating to constantly feel the need to be productive. What we can bring to the capitalist system isn’t what determine the worth and value of who we are as people. «"As speed is seemingly equated with efficiency and professionalism, however, slowness can become a way of signaling an alternative set of values or a refusal to privilege the workplace over other domains of life.”» I hope to be able to live my life on my own term and to be able to spend time on things that are important to me and feel like my time is my own.

Slow media is everywhere lately, whether it’s in cinema, books, games, but also in a more broader sense with the slow life movements, the minimalist trends, but also a general awareness of sustainability, the amount of mass production and mass consumerism in our modern world.

In order to sustain that fast pace of constant production of things, you inevitably have to sacrifice on either the quality of the product, the work conditions or on the materials in order to be able to keep up with the extremely high rhythm sustained by capitalism. It can also be compared to the fast work pace imposed on people who work on the sets of movies or video games for example. I think we all heard of the debacle with the Sonic (2020) movie as well as Cats (2019) and the pressure that was put upon the vfx artists to re-do the movie and complete it extremely fast, which brought poor working conditions on them.

Slowing down is, in my opinion, of the utmost importance for us to be able to live better, but also to be able to do better things. To have better working conditions, to be able to have a better craftsmanship, people having more time to do things and do them better instead of scrambling to constantly catch up to a production rhythm that is just simply way too fast. This ties in with the environmental aspect of slowing down, because if you take more time to make things that are of a better quality and that will last for a long time, there won’t be such a need for a constant production of those things but unfortunately that’s capitalism Babey.

a quiet respite

Ultimately, the act of slowing down and taking a stand against the fast pace imposed on us by the constraints of capitalism is a very personal one, but I think it's worth considering. And when it’s not possible to actually slow down, I hope those movies and these slower medias can give you a respite even if life isn’t giving you much of one. I do think that having the opportunity to meaningfully slow down the pace of your life, and taking the time to think, breathe, and reconnect with the more mundane parts of your life can be beneficial, especially when there’s a constant pressure to perform and to excel in this fast-paced modern life.

I just hope we can try to take care of ourselves deeply, connect with ourselves but also with each other. We need time to feel, breathe and actually live and not just beat to the drum of a corporation and of this sadistic capitalist system who will never care for you. Corporations do not want you to slow down and they want to get your money by any means necessary, which we have obviously witnessed a lot during this Global Pandemic. Which is why I think there's a real pushback against this fast pace of life and the mass consumerism, by slowing down,

On this note, i hope you appreciated the article, i hope you are taking care of yourself during those hard times and i hope the media you are consuming is something that makes you feel better, and i hope you don't put too much pressure on yourself.

please just breathe. hopefully it will be okay.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Slow Life & Slow Cinema :

Matthew Flanagan. 'Slow Cinema': Temporality and Style in Contemporary Art and Experimental Film. University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English in October 2012.

ZEESTRATEN, J. Strolling to the beat of another drum: Living the ‘Slow Life’, Master’s Thesis, Lincoln University, 2008. <https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e0c6/f533e7d8f9254eddbadc0fe6dbb7d4a5ea8c.pdf >

SCREENING BOREDOM THE HISTORY AND AESTHETICS OF SLOW CINEMA Orhan Emre Çağlayan. A Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Film Studies University of Kent February 2014

ELSON, Logan. Slow Cinema Modality: Applying Bordwell to Tsai Ming-Liang, Trent University, JUST, Vol. V, No. 1, 2017

LAVIN, Mathias. Prolonger Ozu, avec Kiarostami, Akerman, Hong Sang-Soo.

FLANAGAN, Matthew. Towards an Aesthetic of Slow in Contemporary Cinema, 16:9, 2020 <http://www.16-9.dk/2008-11/side11_inenglish.htm>

RASSOS, Effie. Everyday Narratives Reconsidering Filmic Temporality and Spectatorial Affect through the Quotidian, A Thesis Submitted in Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Media, Film and Theatre University of New South Wales August 2005

LETTERBOXD. The Absolute Beauty in Everyday’s Mundanity. Hungkat, 2020. <https://letterboxd.com/kun/list/the-absolute-beauty-in-everydays-mundanity/>

LETTERBOXD. A Slice of Japanese Life. Seraphimjc, 2020. <https://letterboxd.com/seraphimjc/list/a-slice-of-japanese-life>/

Enchanted April:

BOLLARD, Jennifer Jane. The Felicitous Space of Elizabeth von Arnim, Master’s Thesis, University of Canterbury Christchurch, New Zealand, 1995 , <https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10092/11887/Bollard_thesis.pdf;sequence=>

VON ARNIM, Elizabeth. Enchanted April, Waking Lion Press, 2008 (first published 1922)

YOUNG, Katie Elizabeth. More than "Wisteria and Sunshine": The Garden as a Space of Female Introspection and Identity in Elizabeth von Arnim' s The Enchanted April and Vera, Master’s Thesis. Brigham Young University, 2011. < https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4032&context=etd>

Yasujiro Ozu:

The Cinema Cartography, Yasujirō Ozu - The Depth of Simplicity, Youtube video, 2015 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G7oeyOsfSg>

JOO, Woojeong, The flavour of tofu : Ozu, history and the representation of the everyday. PhD thesis, University of Warwick, 2011.

BETH, Suzanne. Destruction, puissance et limites du cinéma dans les films d'Ozu Yasujirô, Doctorate Thesis, Université de Montréal, 2015. <https://papyrus.bib.umontreal.ca/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1866/13600/Beth_Suzanne_2015_these.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y>

EMERSON, Andrew. The Beginner’s Guide: Yasujiro Ozu, Director, The Film Inquiry, 2019

<https://www.filminquiry.com/beginners-guide-yasujiro-ozu/>

Criterion. The Signature Style of Yasujiro Ozu. On film. 2015 <https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/3836-the-signature-style-of-yasujiro-ozu>

Thompson, pp. 19-20, 327-331; David Bordwell, Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), pp. 73-74.

CATLEY, Anna. Wes Anderson & Yasujiro Ozu: A Visual Essay, Youtube, 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbXRpiVO1po >

Little Forest:

SREEKANDAN, Nikhil , Little Forest: Film Review , The Inkline, 2018. <https://the-inkline.com/2018/06/17/little-forest-film-review/>

https://snackfever.com/blogs/magazine/a-refreshing-cool-breeze-found-in-the-little-forest

Studio Ghibli:

EBERT, Robert. Hayao Miyazaki interview. 2002. <https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/hayao-miyazaki-interview>

The Magic and Artistry of Studio Ghibli’s Films, The Artifice, 2017 <https://the-artifice.com/magic-artistry-studio-ghibli-films/>

JAREMKO-GREENWOLD, Anya. The Low-Stakes Pleasure of Kiki’s Delivery’s Service. on Birth, Movies, Death, 2017. <birthmoviesdeath.com/2017/07/18/the-low-stakes-pleasure-of-kikis-delivery-service>

STEY, George Andrew.. Elements of Realism in Japanese Animation, Master’s Thesis, University of Ohio, 2009. <https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=osu1250700496&disposition=inline>

Cottagecore:

SKELLEY, Jemima. Cottagecore Is the Soothing Online Aesthetic We All Need Right Now, The Latch, 2020. <https://thelatch.com.au/cottagecore-aesthetic/>

HAASCH, Palmer. People online are flocking to 'cottagecore,' an online aesthetic that idealizes agricultural life, to calm their hyper-stimulated nerves, The Insider, 2020. <https://www.insider.com/cottagecore-isolation-aesthetic-tumblr-explained-social-distancing-2020-4>

SLONE, Isabel. Escape Into Cottagecore, Calming Ethos for Our Febrile Moment, New York Times, 2020. < https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/style/cottagecore.html>

animal crossing:

VINCENT, Britanny. Find fulfillment in Animal Crossing New Horizons' slice-of-life gameplay, CNN underscored., 2020https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/30/cnn-underscored/animal-crossing-new-horizons-review/index.html

WEBSTER, Andrew. ANIMAL CROSSING: NEW HORIZONS IS A CHILL, CHARMING LIFE SIM THAT PUTS YOU IN CONTROL, The Verge, 2020. <https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/16/21179238/animal-crossing-new-horizons-review-nintendo-switch-features>

#slow living #cottagecore #slowness in cinema #cinema #film

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kaistrashbin · 4 years

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Big News.

So...

It’s been quite a while since i’ve done anything here...and honestly my interest in tumblr has flatlined. So from now on, I don’t think i’ll be posting any more art on here. If anything, I might make an occasional reblog(or reblooge as I tag it haha), but it’ll probably be as rare as it is right now. Plus my online ‘name’/’label’/’tag’/whatever you wanna call it, has changed. NO this does NOT mean that art I have already created and posted isn’t mine anymore or just because the name on my watermark will now change that it is no longer mine. It still belongs to me and I would appreciate if no one stole or traced it. If you find anyone doing this, please contact me!!!

Don’t worry though.....because i’m not leaving forever!!! I’ve decided to move on to other platforms like Facebook and Twitter! With that being said...

Here are the links!! ^-^

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/Kai-Draws-Thingies-109519797417873/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/Kaimakesthings

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The reason i’ve decided to jump to different platforms instead of staying on this one and trying to revive my tumblr is that I haven’t had much growth on here!!! And several or many of my friends/people that I liked or admired have either decreased their activity here, or simply left(yes, this was after the whole ‘no nsfw on tumblr’ thing.). This basically drained the fun out of tumblr for me, and I found myself much more active on discord where I could find them + where I made many more friends.

Aside from doing several studies on certain things like body shapes, the way they move, the shapes of certain things and how the light interacts with them/etc. I found that to also improve as an artist, I needed a ‘social growth too’. I need to interact with other artists/art enthusiasts. I need to know what I did right and what I need to work on. That simply isn’t happening here. I want to create content that not only I can enjoy, but that you can enjoy too. Part of that enjoyment, is seeing my own progress and how I can get better. To be honest, I feel like if I were to stay here that i’d never really get back to how I was in my first year of being on here. So a move just seemed more reasonable to me! Anyways, back to my Facebook and Twitter haha-

I’ve already begun posting older pieces on my Facebook page, so be sure to check it out if you’re curious about what i’ve already made and what I may post in the future ;) My Twitter is unfortunately only 2 tweets right now but I will be filling it up over time!! To those of you who have stuck around and shown me support, and even became my friends, THANK YOU. It really means a lot to me, even if I was always a small blog. My time on tumblr has been filled with both good and bad times and i’m just glad we got to be on this ride together ^-^ I look forward to seeing you all on the other platforms!!

Keep growing, keep striving for the best, keep being passionate, and kind, and creative! Keep being yourself, because you will never stop growing. And that’s a wonderful thing.

Many hugs to all of you, and i’ll see you around <3 <3 <3

- 1poptarts1 (Kai)

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glamrockqueen · 4 years

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incoherently written music history #1: billie eilish is the gen z taylor swift and here’s why

don’t laugh at me for making my first history rambling start from 2006 okay i promise i’ll be taking these further back eventually

this particular claim was made in a conversation i had with a friend a few weeks ago and i figured what better way to start off my new tumblr experience right

these pictures of almost identical scenes were taken almost exactly ten years apart. how did both of these ladies become mega-stars and redefine their respective genres as teenagers and what do they have in common? let’s discuss.

for starters, female singer-songwriters are not a new phenomenon. alanis morissette, tori amos, annie lennox, kate bush, the list goes on. so why were taylor and billie good representatives of the late 00s and late 10s respectively?

taylor swift released her self-titled debut album in 2006 as a country singer/songwriter at the age of 16 which is pretty impressive! and billie eilish released her debut album WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? last year in 2019 at the age of 17.

although there are plenty of young singers/songwriters, not many of them can reach this level of success. and at first glance (just look at the covers of taylor’s lover and billie’s album, for example) they seem like opposites. but they actually have quite a bit in common!

both started their careers with an audience that is primarily composed of young girls

both wrote or cowrote the songs on their albums

both perfectly capture the mood of the time periods in which they became popular

while taylor debuted in 2006, in my opinion, she didn’t become a superstar until the release of fearless in 2008. considering this was now 12-14 years ago, the process of becoming a superstar was different than it was just last year. taylor was originally signed as a songwriter with sony/atv (the youngest EVER to do so at age 14) and literally built the big machine label with her success when she signed with them. with the rise of streaming and widespread usage of the internet for listening to music (which didn’t exist in 2006-2008 when all music was individually purchased), billie entered the public eye when she released ocean eyes on soundcloud and rose to megastardom within a few years, with a pretty astonishing speed. the picture of taylor swift with her grammys was taken in 2010, a full four years after her debut album was released while billie won all those awards for her debut album in the same year it was released. the rise of such platforms can certainly accelerate the path to superstardom, and it certainly did in this case.

the important note here is that for both, the audience heavily relates to the emotions in the music and the authenticity of the songwriting. taylor’s music suits the early 00s and the young millennials/zillennials well. in the mid to late 2000s, music was upbeat. pop punk and emo pop/rock like fall out boy, panic! at the disco, and my chemical romance were at their peak (just remember early tumblr), and a lot of pop and pop adjacent music was generally happy and fast paced. taylor brought country music to the previously untapped market of teenage girls (and eventually other young female country singers like kacey musgraves, kelsea ballerini, maren morris, etc became popular, almost certainly because taylor proved young women could be successful in the genre) even as she transitioned into a pop artist. she succeeded as a teenage girl in an extremely male dominated genre (in fact, to this day, many country stations are not allowed to play two songs by female artists in a row).

taylor’s greatest strength is still considered to be her songwriting, and many of her lyrics are second to none in terms of modern mainstream artists. her fans appreciate the vulnerability and pure emotion of songs like all too well and dear john, even though they’re generally less well known than many of her hits. even through multiple genre shifts, her storytelling still shines through and feels authentic even if occasionally interspersed with more lighthearted moments like me! or we are never ever getting back together. in fact, the recent folklore album appears to be a return to the very thing that brought her to prominence in the first place, with its focus on lyrics and real instrumentation rather than her recent more synth-heavy pop sound.

people related to her music because it felt like they were getting a glimpse into her diary, and that authenticity wasn’t necessarily present in pop music at the time. she appealed to the hopeless romantics (especially during the fearless and speak now eras) and was definitely relatable to the teenage girls of the 00s. taylor captured the hope and heartbreak of teenagers in such an elegant way, and many of her fans still feel closely connected to her and have a sense of “growing up with her”, even if they’ve never met her in person because of the evolution of her persona and storytelling (and also her former use of tumblr). her songwriting talents are what initially drew fans to her and why she has a such a loyal base of fans even fourteen years after the release of her first music.

however, things are different now than they were even ten years ago. young people are sad and angry and billie captures these emotions in her music. today’s teenagers are not interested in sparkles and ball gowns or sundresses and cowboy boots, but would rather wear oversized tshirts/hoodies and march in protests. they were looking for someone who dresses uniquely and who takes pride in being different. it’s clear to see even through gen z humour that happiness is generally a thing of the past. pop music has gotten slower, more melancholy, more indie-oriented, and hip hop/rap and edm-inspired music is currently topping the charts rather than bubbly pop or rock. billie represents and possibly started the trend of “bedroom pop” (as her album was quite literally recorded in a bedroom) and its more relaxed, lofi sound. with this in mind, taylor has been and continues to be a master of trends and versatility, including releasing the 1989 album before retro nostalgia became popular, as well as including elements of every conceivable genre, including hip hop (throughout all of reputation), pop punk (paper rings is essentially a pop punk song, and i will defend this claim), rock, indie, and even folk and funk in her music.

this shift almost resembles the way punk and grunge were rejections of mainstream rock at the time; people are looking for something new and “fresh”, and for many young gen z girls, that took the form of billie eilish, since she captures the emotions they’re feeling just like taylor did for millennials. in fact, billie can almost be seen as the punk to taylor’s classic rock. the way billie can speak to this audience is remarkably similar to the way taylor spoke to the underserved market of teenage girls who like country music and fairytale romances (and reminiscent of early rock’s roots in genres that were neglected by mainstream pop radio at the time until being succeeded by activist punk music that rejected the theatrics and fancy production of 70s rock in favour of a DIY ethos). both were appropriate for their target audience.

in short, taylor’s brand wouldn’t have worked in 2019 and billie’s brand likely wouldn’t have worked in 2006, but they suit the atmosphere of their actual time periods. we can no more expect a star of the 00s to represent the teenagers of the current era any more than we can expect a star of the 80s to do the same. however, their popularity comes from the same sort of energy - young people wanting something outside of the contemporary mainstream that feels new and expresses the emotions they may not have been able to express themselves. while taylor represents teenage dreams, billie represents teenage rebellion and loneliness.

in addition, both have been politically active, as well as advocating for change in the music industry. taylor has a long history of fighting for artists’ rights, including not releasing her music to apple music until they agreed to pay artists during the three month trial period, the feud with spotify, and now her struggle to gain control of the masters for her first six albums. she has also expressed support for democratic politicians and social movements like black lives matter, despite people close to her expressing concerns that it would cause damage to her image or career. billie has also been vocal in supporting progressive causes, which again shows that she is a perfect representative of gen z stardom as young fans expect the celebrities they support to use their platform to speak about important issues.

the most important thing that links these two artists together is the impression of being genuine and relatable, especially for an audience of young women who feel as if their voices have not been heard or are not valued by the mainstream. another interesting note is that fans of both artists are/were mocked for being fans, which is almost certainly rooted in misogyny and the dismissal/trivialization of things that are enjoyed by teenage girls. neither of them are taken as seriously as they deserve to be.

for years, taylor’s music was generalized as only being about her ex boyfriends, and that opinion is still widespread, despite the fact she has incredible songs that weren’t written about romantic relationships. since the beginning, taylor and her fans have been relentlessly mocked and dismissed. taylor was bullied online to such an extent in 2016 that she disappeared from the public eye and released the reputation album in order to take back the narrative after being accused of lying and being a “snake” even though it was later shown that she had, in fact, been truthful about the situation. billie’s fans have also been mocked in the past, even though both artists have been revolutionizing pop music and will likely continue doing so. they have also expressed their strong support for each other in the past!

it’s truly past time that people recognize the power of young women to change the music industry and society as a whole. taylor and billie are good examples of a constantly changing music scene, and how the “faces” of music can be drastically different depending on generations and the demands of society and the industry. taylor and billie are both trailblazing trendsetters who have successfully tapped into the unique energy of youth in their own ways, and the way they seem almost like night and day shows just how different millennials and gen z are as teenagers.

#taylor swift #billie eilish #shut up arty #incoherently written music history

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olderthannetfic · 4 years

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Vidding absolutely counts as a fandom, and Escapade is key to the history of vidding.

Notice how the terminology shifts over the course of Escapade: The first year, it’s ‘songtapes’ being shown, then ‘songvid’ or ‘song video’ predominates for much of the 90s, and then we move on to ‘vidding’ and ‘vids’.

The vidshow moves from being more of a curated presentation of old favorites to having a lot of premieres. It goes from just one night to two, then back to one. Vidshow panels where you just watch vids for a whole panel slot come and go. In 1998, vid review starts up: This is a Sunday morning panel for in-depth critique of the vids shown the previous night and is a famously contentious part of the con. And then there was this:

2002, Friday, 6pm - VividCon Discussion (Come discuss the proposed VividCon, tentative time/location, August/Chicago.)

Yep. Escapade was where Vividcon was born!

By 2008, people were talking about how vidding had moved on from Escapade. In 2011 a vidshow retrospective was added to try to counter the lack of vidding-centric programming. There was a big resurgence for a few years, including such hard-hitting topics as:

2016 - Vidding Aesthetics (”Why is there so much show audio in this vid?", "Why didn't that cut hit on the beat?", "What do you mean 'Cheesy?' She's Celine Dion!" and other immortal questions of vidding aesthetics. If you've ever watched a vid, we want your opinions.)

Why yes, it was my panel. Why do you ask?

There were rounds of warnings wank, caused by Oz vids and by that time Absolute Destiny sent a vid of a violent coming of age film.

Check out this 1994 panel description from Fanlore:

"[The technology in fandom panel] included several things that people can now do in-home that they couldn't do five years ago: cutting and splicing songs on Macintosh computers (to remove inappropriate choruses, verses, or the word "girl"); the soon-to-be-easier ability to select different people from different clips and combine them onto a new background (also for songtapes); printing vhs video frames directly to computer screens, printers and/or color copiers (for fun); and zines and/or libraries on disk. Most of the new technology possibilities were followed by comments that the actual work we can do is illegal [...]. Which comments were followed by the statements that seventeen years ago, writing and publishing a slash fanzine was illegal.... [...] a few people [...], talked to me at different times throughout the con about getting accounts or modems [...]”

This is interesting not just technologically but aesthetically. Is the word ‘girl’ bad in a slashvid? Different communities have disagreed.

Conversations about digital vidding and digital vs. VCR really heated up around 2001, much later than you might expect if you’re coming out of an AMV background. While most of Youtube vids on Sony Vegas--a Windows-only program--at Escapade, Mac has been the norm.

The topics that have remained big are vidding aesthetics, including things like how to make an effective pimp vid, discussions of hosting options and where the community is hanging out now, and how-tos for people who want to get into vidding.

(And before anyone asks, the answer is that you should download DaVinci Resolve because it’s free and cross-platform. And you should encode with h.264 because it’s widely compatible.)

The 2020 vidding panels are:

Vidding 101: The Vid Bunny Farm So you’ve had an idea, and it’s gnawing on your leg? Or maybe you have too many vid ideas and can’t choose? Or you want to make a vid but don’t know where to even start? Aspiring fan vidders, unsure-vidders-to-be, and experienced vidders welcome alike to share vid bunnies, brainstorm together, and talk about the processes of conceptualizing a vid.

Vidding Genres Then & Now We’ve come a long way from “living room vids” vs ‚”con vids‚” or have we? Let’s talk about evolving fanvid genres, from ship vids to AU vids to multivids, from character vids to fake trailers, from genre-bending vids to long form vids to cosplay music videos, and more. Let’s talk about all the genres of fan videos floating around YouTube, Billibilli, AO3 and beyond, and also consider if the old school genre terms still apply.

Escapade has had many, many vidding panels. So many that even I feel the need for a readmore. I’ve pulled out the meta ones and left off some single-fandom vidshows and whatnot. Sorry for the wonky formatting, but Tumblr, in its infinite wisdom, seems to have removed the horizontal rule feature.

1991 - "Classic" songtapes were shown at 9:00 on Friday.

1994 - Song Video Roundtable (Bring works in progress or finished works you're having difficulty with for a quick jump-start. Open to anyone who enjoys videos as well as the people who make them.)

1994 - Songvid Editing (Authors get edited and usually have to do at least one rewrite of a story. Artists have erasers. What stops songvid makers from doing drafts and re-edits of their work? Let's talk about editing style (what cuts to use for best emphasis) and technique (how to physically do the inserts.)) [Notice how much of an issue editing is. These are VCR vids, edited in order, so insert edits are a gigantic pain.]

1995 - Techno Vids—Media Cannibals, (What's available with the new computer hardware and software? Can have Bodie & Doyle screwing on screen if we apply the right touches. Should we? How and when?) [Yes. Sweatily. Always.]

1995 - Video Workshop (video makers & watchers discuss the art.)

1996 - Music Video Critique and Workshop (Roundtable critique of videos, how to tell/recognize story, POV, rhythm. Also, tricks of the trade.)

1997 - Music Choice for Song Vidding (Finding the right song for the fandom is almost as great a challenge as finding the right clips for the song. Discussing what to look for in music choice.)

1997 - Songvid Critique (An exploration of different elements of media vids, with an emphasis on aesthetics. We'll look at segments of different songs to see how the images were used in conjunction with the varied rhythms of the music, and to enhance the mood.)

1998 - Media Cannibals Self-Indulgence Hour (Stunned to look back on vidding effort, MC plans to show -- and talk about -- some of their best and worst vids, pointing out some happy accidents and some annoying f*ckups. This is a great panel for people who want to learn about vid-making, the work that goes into them, and what to look for when watching them.)

1998 - Con Vids vs Living Room Vids (What are the elements that make a music vid accessible to a large crown, or more appropriate to an intimate setting?)

1998 - Music Video Show Review (Selected vids from Saturday's show will be replayed and discussed for their aesthetic, technical and musical choices. Open to all, for feedback and fun.) [Perhaps the start of the Sunday vidshow critique, which was also such a feature of Vividcon?]

1999 - Songvid Aesthetics (An exploration of theme, color, mood, and rhythm. Choosing clips to relate to the music and convey your message to the viewer.)

1999 - Sunday Morning Vid Review (Selected vids from Saturday's show will be replayed and discussed for the aesthetic, technical and musical choices. Open to all, for feedback and fun.)

2000 - Vidding Basics (Or "you want to learn how to make a music vid, huh?"—Carol and Stacy will take a group of novice vidders from the basics of what you need on your VCR, to all your hardware set ups, thru the selection of music, to actually doing some hands-on putting a dip (or two) into a music vid. So if you're interested in music videos and you want to try your hand at making one... you know what panel you need to go to.)

2000 - Songvid Appreciation 101 (Remember Art Appreciation? "Why is this painting good?" Well, we're doing the same for vids, using examples from the ESCAPADE Video Show. Let's take advantage of the fact that we've all just seen these vids, and use them to illustrate how to do cool things in a vid. We'll look at clever POV changes, appropriate choice of music to theme, skillful uses of musical changes within a vid, storytelling techniques, changes of mood, cutting on the beat vs. cutting on the lyric line, the different approaches to serious and humorous vids, or single fandom vs. multiple fandom vids, and more.)

2001 - Vidding Workshop (2 hours) (This workshop will cover: a comparison between digital and analog vidding; a how-to for analog vidding; a how-to for digital vidding; and a discussion of the artistic side of vidding, including song and clip choices, and techniques to avoid.)

2001 - Impact of Computer Tools on Vidding (Vidding used to be push-and-pause between 2 vers, and a LOT of patience. Now with I-movie and Final Cut and Macintosh G4's, the technological leap is here and it isn't going anywhere. Are vids better for the technology available to them?)

2001 - Songvid Appreciation (2 hours) (Comments and feedback on vids you saw last night, Escapade style.)

2002 - Art Manipulation Using Photoshop (A how-to overview, with demonstrations in Photoshop, and more detailed techniques for creating photo manipulations, web graphics, and zine graphics. Depending on interest, creation of vid titles and overlay vid graphics may be included.)

2002 - Digital Vidding (An overview of the digital vidding process, including some advice on the hardware and software you need to get started. Learn the basics of editing with Premiere and similar programs, and get an overview of some of the fun options you have when using a computer to vid.)

2002 - Vidding Workshop: Art After Craft (What is the Art of Vidding?)

2002 - Vid Revision (The art and craft of revising vids—how you get from a song in your heart and a bunch of clips on your hard drive to the final product. We'll show multiple versions of a few vids, critique them, and talk about what improves a vid. No technical knowledge needed; come whether you make vids or just like watching them.)

2002 - Vids: Pro vs Fan Editing (A long time fan vidder and a professional editor discuss techniques.)

2002 - Sunday Morning Vid Review

2002 - VividCon Discussion (Come discuss the proposed VividCon, tentative time/location, August/Chicago.) [VVC started 6 months later, in August 2002, and ran until 2018]

2003 - How to Vid on the Computer (A brief intra vidding on computers. It will touch on hardware requirements, software options, and basic concepts of non-linear editing and what makes for a good vid, and, time and tech permitting, it may also include a demonstration of some of the editing basics. There will be handouts.)

2003 - Vid Show Review (A discussion (and literal re-viewing in some cases) of some of the vids from the Saturday night show.)

2003 - Also Premiering Vid Show (The "Also Premiering..." vid show is for vids premiered in the last year that aren't going to be shown in the Friday or Saturday shows. This will be an informal setting and we'll go by participant preference — if folks want to see a vid a second time, or want some time to chat about it, or if a vidder wants some feedback on it, we can decide to do that on-the-fly. If you'd like to show any vids in this show, just bring them to the show itself. There are no hard-and-fast limits on number of vids; we'll just go with what shows up and take turns until we run out of time. Afterwards, consider going out to lunch with other participants to talk about the vids!)

2004 - I want to vid! (But I don't know how) (Introduction to vidding hardware, software and maybe some concepts if we have the time.)

2004 - Made On a Mac: The MacFen Symposium (So you're a slasher and a Mac user. Come and share your tips and tricks for HTML coding, photo editing, website management and vidding on a Mac, Share the programs that have and haven't worked for you and hear some helpful tips from the front lines.)

2004 - Vidding: Creating Mood (Why do rapid cuts of short clips create tension? What does a wipe *feel* iike? A vidder's toolbox Includes more and more options, but how do we know what emotional effect each technical effect will produce? Leave the music at the door; this one's about the visuals.)

2004 - Editing Techniques and Vidding (How can you edit together clips from widely different episodes and movies into a seamless whole? A familiarity with concepts in filmmaking can help you achieve the results you're aiming for. A look at some of the common rules of continuity editing and how they relate to vids.)

2004 - The changing face of vids (How has increasingly cheap technology, wider highspeed access and the new flood of vidders changed vidding? What should we rejoice about and what should we worry about? How do we help make it a winning situation for all?)

2004 - Vid Review (A retrospective on the Saturday night show.)

2005 - Vidding: Let the Lyrics Help You (How to look at lyrics to add depth and structure to your vid. or why top 40 songs usually make you do all the work.)

2005 - Vid Review (A Sunday morning tradition at Escapade, and a chance to discuss those great vids.) [See how it’s a “tradition” by this time.]

2006 - The Changing Vid Audience (The move to digital vidding, the availability of vid source and software, and the expectation of online distribution have all radically affected audience desires and expectations. What do audiences want from vids now? Vidders, share your historical perspectives. Vid fans, this is your chance to tell vidders what you want.)

2006 - Defining the Character Study Vid (We love character study vids, so how do you go about making a good one? What's the difference between a vid about a character, a vid about a universe, and a vid about seeing the universe through the eyes of a character?)

2006 - Marketing Your Vid (How can you stand out among the swelling ranks of vidders? What's the best way to present yourself, and to draw attention to your work? We'll focus on knowing your audience, timing your release, pimp communities, etc.)

2006 - Vid Review (Like Ebert and Roper, but much better looking.)

2007 - Ulead Media Studio Pro 8 and Why It's Better Than the Rest (A compare and contrast of the semi-professional video editing software programs with a strong emphasis on Ulead Media Studio Pro 8. If you are new to vidding, or interested in upgrading your video editing software, this panel should help you make an informed choice.)

2007 - Mac Workshop (The ins and outs of vidding on a Mac.)

2007 - Vid Show Review (Take apart what worked and what was missing from selected vids in the Saturday show. Audience participation at its finest.)

2008 - Ulead Video Editing Introduction (Intro to Ulead Video Studio/Media Studio Pro for those who are interested in vidding but don't have a clue as to where to start. or wouldn't mind a refresher course.)

2008 - Vid Review (Last night was for watching, today is for analyzing. What worked, what didn't, and why?)

2009 - Fannish Aesthetics: Extrapolation v. Subversion (How do we as writers (and especially as vidders) interact with the source material? Is that relationship evolving? What can we say about where we've been and where we're headed?)

2009 - Vid Review (Last night was for watching, today is for analyzing. What worked, what didn't, and why?)

2010 - 2010: A Vidding Odyssey (Current trends in vidding, including what's changed and what's remaind the same when it comes to slash, vidding in particular. We will show some examples of "classic" slash as well as some of the newer develpoments in constructed reality.)

2010 - Vid Review

2011 - Escapade Songvid Retrospective (A trip back to the days of yesteryear, when vids were made on VCRs and Escapade was the place for vids and vid programming. Compiled by Kandy Fong, this show will survey vids from a variety of vidders and shows, covering Escapade 1992-2001 in a fun, informal environment.)

2011 - Decoding Vid Meaning (How do you read a vid? Clip choice, lyrics, structure, symbols or the tone of the music— vids offer plenty of clues, and we decipher them as we see fit. Come watch a vid (or two!) and discuss how we get meaning from what we see and hear to develop a deeper understand of what's going on in the vid. Multiple viewings are required!)

2011 - Vid Review (Flash all the way back to Saturday night to dissect our favorite (or not) vids from the show.)

2011 - The Vidding Explosion (1985-1990) (Who taught whom. The growth of storytelling, technique, and sophistication. Includes vid show and presentation.)

2012 - Vidwatching 101 (Vids have their own language and their own framework for discussion. It can be tough to translate vids into words, but if we have the same language, vid discussion can be wonderfully rewarding for both vidder and viewer. This panel is a primer to get us all on the same page.)

2012 - The State of Vidding Fandom (Ten years of VividCon and roughly the same years vids have been distributed online, let's talk about the state of vidding and the community of vidders. Is there one? Where is it? How do vidders fit in with fandom at large? What are the different options for watching/releasing vids, and how do they stack up for vidders and viewers? If you love vids, join us—whether you vid or not.)

2012 - Festivids Review (Festivids is a fannish vid exchange inspired by the Yuletide fic exchange. This will be a vid review-style panel where we show clips from some of this year's highlight vids and talk about the challenge.)

2012 - MVD Vid Retrospective Show (Sometimes the oldies really are the goodies. Mary Van Duesen has made songvids since the 1980s, working in a range of fandoms. She has also remastered many old vids, and they look better now than they ever did. Come see some old favorites, or find some new ones.)

2012 - Vid Show Review

2012 - Nearly New Vids (So many wonderful vids were submitted for the Escapade show that we couldn’t fit them all in the early show. Here’s your chance to see the rest in the daylight hours (replay of the late-show vids).

2013 - Mac Vidders Roundtable (What’s the best way to vid on a Mac? Our vidding options have changed a lot in the last few years, and it’s been a while since we had a roundtable to discuss and compare our tips, tricks, and processes. This panel is for all of the above.)

2013 - The Art of the Pimp Vid (What makes a pimp vid so addictive one hit will get you hooked? Let’s talk vids for people outside of your fandom. Plot arc vids, character vids, pairing vids: How do you grab a new audience hard and never let them go? Hey there, little fangirl, the first taste is free!)

2013 - The Bestivids of Festivids (This year’s Festivids featured everything from incest testtube babies to care bear Avengers to a surprisingly large amount of kickass femslash. Let’s watch and discuss some favorites from Festivids 2012.)

2013 - So You Want To Be A Vidder (Nobody vidding your OTP anymore? Sad that vidders haven’t discovered your new favorite show? Why not vid it yourself? Come learn the very basics, from choosing programs in your price range to dos and don’ts if you’re planning to submit to cons.)

2013 - How Do Vids Work? (Let's talk about the techniques (not just the feelings!) that make a slash vid work. What makes for a vid that we watch over and over and that sticks with us long- term? We'll talk about these things with reference to a couple of specific vids, see what strategies, commonalities, and differences we can identify, and then open up discussion to additional favorites from the audience.)

2013 - Vidding Aesthetics (Vidders and vid watchers: let’s talk vidding aesthetics. How have styles changed over time? What makes a good vid and what’s just a matter of personal taste? What do you want to BURN WITH FIRE? Let’s get this cage match... err... discussion going.)

2013 - Vid Review (Flash all the way back to Saturday night to dissect our favorite vids (or not) vids from the show.)

2014 - Vidding 101 (Never edited before? Haven't made a vid since the VCR went the way of the dodo? Come learn how to turn those vidbunnies into reality!)

2014 - Vids for the Viewer (We often discuss writing from the perspective of a reader, but vidding from the perspective of vid-watchers not so much. Let's talk about how to read a vid, different vidding aesthetics and how accessible or popular they are with viewers vs. vidders, and impostor syndrome in vid review.)

2014 - Vid Review (Flash all the way back to Saturday night to dissect our favorite (or not) vids from the show.)

2015 - Best of Festivids. From the slashy to the merely sublime, what tickled our fancy in this year’s Festivids?

2015 - The Perfect Slash Vid. What makes the perfect slash vid? Is it the song choice? The point of view? The abs? (Okay, you got me: it’s the abs.)

2015 - So You Wanna Be A Vidder. Bring your laptop or at least a pen and paper and find out how to get started in vidding.

2015 - Vid Review: Flash all the way back to Saturday night to dissect our favorite (or not) vids from the show.

2016 - The State of *Vidding Fandom. Sunday, Noon, San Diego 2. What's going on in vidding fandom today? Where are people hosting and posting? What's next?

2016 - Vid Review. Flash all the way back to Saturday night to dissect our favorite (or not) vids from the show.

2017 - Vidding 101 - Have you dreamed of making a vid but just aren’t sure where to start? We’ll go step by step, talk finding your source(s), choosing music, finding your way with non overwhelming tech-tools, brainstorming ideas, finding collaborators, and learning by doing. Already a vidder? Come and help new vidders find their way, find new collaborators, and make new ideas happen.

2017 - Let’s Collab! New Forms of Collective Fan Creativity , Newport Changing technologies mean that we collaborate with each other in ever-evolving ways when we create fic and vids. What are the possibilities for collaborating beyond geographic boundaries with digital technologies? How are you collaborating with fellow writers and vidders these days? Are you interested in finding new collaborators and new ways to connect? And are these new forms of collaboration creating new forms of creative fan work?

2017 - Vid Review, Marina del Rey On Saturday night, we watched the vid show. On Sunday morning, we talk about it. Join Rache to discuss the good, the better, and the great of the show, including techniques and all of the reasons Charlotte doesn’t vid anymore and never will again.

2018 - Noon (Vids from the Vault, Part One Kandy Fong Newport A curated retrospective of vids from early Escapades.

2018 - Fanvid Feels (What vids do you return to again and again because they just make you *feel* things, thrill you, or fill you with joy, or even sadness? Maybe a vid introduced you to a pairing, or a fandom, or perhaps you love it even though you’re not really that into the source? Let’s look at some of our/your favorite vids and think about what makes them tick. Come with vids you want to talk about in mind, or just come to watch and talk about vids that make us feel stuff.)

2018 - Vid Review (Flash all the way back to Saturday night to dissect our favorite (or not) vids from the show.)

2019 - 3-Minute Pimp Vid (Forget telling: Show us your canon with a vid or clip! (3-5 minutes each.))

2019 - Lend Me Your Ears: Vids and Music (Have you ever discovered a song or musician because of a fanvid? Do you have thoughts on what music works and doesn't with fan vids? Let's talk about all the ways in which different types of music can work in vids, and look at some vids that work with music in awesome or surprising ways. Plus maybe there will be a little singing along...)

2019 - AO3 But For Fanart and Fanvids (AO3 has been great for fic, we need safe harbors for art and vids too. Let's talk about it!)

2019 - Pitch a Vid Bunny, Find a Vid Beta (Have an idea for a fanvid you'd love to see happen? Come with concept, song, source ideas, characters--share your bunnies, find some cheerleaders, brainstorm together. For newbie & experienced vidders alike, all welcome!)

2019 - Vid Review (Rehash the Saturday night vid show with a room full of fans.)

#escapade 2020 #escapade con #fandom history #vidding #vividcon

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thestudyfeels · 5 years

Text

100 Days of Sweat

Welcome to the official admission post for the 100 days of sweat challenge! *plays the conquer theme song and does a booty pop* This is a pretty long post, but has everything you need to start, so read on!

READING TIME: 6 minutes.

OoOh? What's that?

Thanks for coming out of the cave! In short, it's a consistency challenge to turn working out into a habit.

You've basically got to move your body for a 100 days straight. No slacking, no backing out!

Most take on this challenge personally, but I felt accountability would be great for those beginning with exercising & those who can't seem to keep their streak (cough, me).

Sounds fun! How do I join? Do I need to do a booty pop too?

Booty pops are appreciated. But here's how!

1. First things first, decide whether you'll be joining via IG, Discord or staying on Tumblr.

2. If using IG, reply to this post with your handle or (alternative) if you'd like, join Discord instead! For that, click here to join the server!

(NOTE: Those who joined via the first post I created regarding this needn't reply again! I've already added you to the list.)

3. Lastly, boost this! Reblog, get your followers to join! Drag your friend or sibling in! (already dragged my bestie into this in case no one joined in lmao)

Important PSA: yO, ANYONE can join! All my beginners and winners, young teens and old pals, drarry fans and johnlock shippers, team cold water AND hot water (sparing y'all because I stan working out more), EVERYONE!

Here's what I'll do:

I'm creating an IG group for those interested in staying fully committed. (Pros include making friends! Or enemies, for a hundred whole days! Some of you might even get married together, I have high hopes because wedding cake is everything)

Sayani from @studign-stars will be the admin for Discord! You can hit her up for queries, if any.

In short, there'll be 3 separate groups. One for those joining via Discord, one for those on the IG group, and a third for those staying on Tumblr.

If you wish to use any other platforms like Snapchat and Twitter, feel free! Also plug your progress on Tumblr too so we can hype each other on! (tag stuff with #100dos)

+ That said, I highly suggest joining either one of the groups, for accountability does wonders. It's now up to you, fellow warrior.

How to prep for this challenge:

OhO! There's a whole lot prepping to be slayed. To finish this challenge as smoothly as possible, here's a few steps. Make this easier for yo’ lazy bum.

1+ Firstly, grab a marker and scrap paper (when you on a student budget, cuz same) and write down numbers from 1 to 100. I did 1 to 30 to prevent myself from being overwhelmed, but do right them numbers to gain momentum.

2+ Take couple before photos. From the front, and the side. If you don't want to, take them anyway and store it in a folder you never open. Also measure your weight, and if you have a measuring tape, take other basic measurements of the chest, waist, arm etc.

3+ Coming to the main part! Pick your 'base’ routine. This is the primary workout you wanna do 2-3 times a week. It's the main course!

For beginners, I suggest choosing a 15 min full body workout. Do try it out before you start 100 days— make sure it's challenging enough.

For those who already move their bodies, pick a workout that aligns with your long-term goals. If you want toned legs, pick a leg day routine. If you want abs, focus on abs.

My base routine is the Beginner's Bodyweight Workout (BBW) from the NerdFitness website. I do 3 sets of the entire routine (takes around 25-30 mins) thrice a week.

So, do some research and pick a workout! Doesn't have to be an hour long at all, just make sure it's time-effective and challenges you.

4+ Find your cheat day workout.

Yikes, the wording is kinda incorrect, but anything for the clickbait.

This is the workout you do 2 days a week, and is the second most important workout. (This means: 3 + 2 = 5, you’ve now got five days planned!)

I do Alexis Ren’s ab routine (I hate it) twice a week because abs are my target zone. For you, it could be arms, thighs, butt, anything!

5+ Leave your last two days for simple moving.

It's up to you to decide what's going to be cooking in the remaining two days. For suggestions, you can pick a fun activity, say yoga, handstands, cartwheels, splits, any form of dancing like hip-hop, Zumba etc.

I'm trying to do a handstand this year and get my middle splits already (I fell off track so I still have quite a way to go) so I'll be stretching and doing hand flexibility exercises in the last 2 days.

Or you can just go for a jog or a power walk. Just keep the momentum going!

A quick recap:

To summarize, you're doing a major workout 3 times a week, a toning workout (mine is abs) twice a week and a fun activity in the last two days.

Also, mix this up. Your muscles need time to heal, and I strongly emphasize leaving the next day free for lighter activities after doing a major workout. Here's my routine, as an eg:

Do remember that this is just a STARTING POINT, because we don't want you to wake up everyday and be like “wut I do today.” It's now your mission to plan your workout routine. Consider taking more workload or reduce it as per your level (this is definitely a lot, try reducing if you're just beginning).

Also important: DETERMINE your workout routine NOW. I spent 2 years (only stopped like 3 months ago) doing YouTube videos haphazardly. This works, because you are working out after all, but it's a pretty lousy method if you want consistent results. Also makes you depend on motivation to workout (which has probability results equal to me marrying Tom Felton), whereas if you had a routine, you'll have to workout because it's in your schedule and you'd be a loser to lie to your schedule.

Is this a lot? It's a lot. I know.

If this is overwhelming you, don't back away darling. Face your fears. Here are some reasons to not back out—

The entire challenge is flexible: You don't have to follow that routine ^ if you don't want to. Starting out, you can do a major workout 2 times a week and fill the other 5 days with fun stuff. You can always change the routine later, 100 days is a long ass time.

The challenge fucks with your mindset and strengthens it: 100 days of continuous movement is CRAZY. Can you imagine how strong (mentally too!) we'll all be at the end? You'll have grown so much!

Working out will become a habit: I've been working out for 2 years now, and it has positively affected every single sphere of my life. Exercising is the #1 habit I suggest everyone build. Since science says it takes 66 days to build a habit, we're ON it.

You'll be really proud of yourself: I know I'll be. I'm literally going to hug y'all at the end of it, and sing jingles about how far you've come. 2019 will have been slayed.

I could go on and on, but this is it. Now's the moment. This is about doing something you're afraid of. Taking risks. Learning, falling, getting back up.

Thence, ladies, gents and non-binary pals, THIS is the 100 days of sweat challenge. You're cordially invited to it.

(We're dramatic, yes.)

🌻 !!! MAJOR PSA & DEADLINES:

The challenge itself begins on 10th April, 2019.

You'll be added to the IG group latest by 7th April.

Because I'm your mom, I'll add everyone in, tell you the details and everything. If you’ve got any questions, jump into my inbox now and get them answered.

That said, please remember that I won't take anyone in midway (no, not even if you buy me free tacos for a year). So join in now & spread the message! The more, the merrier! Bring beer too!

Thanks for joining in! This will be promising and hugely interesting (accountability can do wonders, but we'll see). I'll be waiting for you on the other side with my stuffed animals, cIaO fReNdOs!

— Nandini (´｡• ᵕ •｡`) ♡ 💌

letting my taglist folks know (which you can join here!)

@doctorearlgray, @mintschlar, @procrastilate, @scienceandsarcasticdroids, @sxudying, @hannistudies, @vocative, @studign-stars, @ash-trological, @sweet-bean-study-queen, @chaoticstormthings, @lunetudes, @beingstudent, @beautiful-magicalbrain, @akydemics, @literery, @redvelvetstu-dies, @vivinotes, @jynsdesk, @moonshinestudies, @studying-in-chaos, @thelazyunistudent, @einstetic, @ram-the-blonde-bitch, @a-students-lifebuoy, @studahliless, @inspostudying, @the-diary-of-a-failure, @would-iwasshookethspeared, @coffeeandpies, @artsytourism, @gloomstudy, @scrolls-of-jupiter, @studytrivia, @ristudy, @isatriestostudy, @historicalbeez, @luvjoys, @indiaisstudying, @studyingunderwater, @dianeemay, @kemi-k, @londonotes, @froststudies, @pennyfynotes, @studiently, @midnightstudying, @unicorndoesstudies, @studyingundersun, @wingedprunepsychiclawyer, @tonystarkstudies, @delphinaaugery, @morganastudy, @studiies-psych, @sumastudies, @emrys-studies, @parleonstudies, @acataemic, @studylustre, @adelinestudiess, @sorcierstudies, @coffeeinfusedstudying, @pizza-and-studying, @the-third-me, @scrunchiestudies, @jemsjournals, @jas-study, @jabuticabablr, @khelmatic, @avastvdies + you, if you’re reading this!

#100dos #unicorn studying #studign-stars #inspostudying #looklibraerie #heypfyn #jacistudies #lunetudes #ash-trological #studylustre #gloomstudy #dahliless #moonshinestudies #athenastudying #heypat #heylondonotes #adelinestudiess #hanniscup #heyindia

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