eff_ess_oe

Tagged by meningioma . Thanks sistarrrrrrrrr~

last song: Rolling Girl - wowaka ft. Hatsune Miku
currently watching/playing: Currently watching KVN AUST's "Zero View YouTube" series. It's pretty fascinating what kind of stuff comes up. Currently playing Ch5 of Deltarune. I started out viscerally hating that fuckass flower, but now I'm less "visceral hater" and more "Pour milk on him, suck it out, and slap him against the wall with a loud thud" about him. Also Aqua is my sweet knife daughter and I love her so much.
current obsession: Android Kikaider. Specifically, the original 1972 tokusatsu and Kikaider Code 02 (the darker-and-edgier reboot manga published in the mid 2000s). Even more specifically, Professor Gill. There is next to no fan material of him and I HUNGER for more. (He fuckin serves, OK?)
currently reading: Nothing at the moment
currently working on: My entry for Epidem Fic. Also reorganizing the prints in my bedroom and temporarily taking down the less-than-safe-for-work ones now that my relatives are due to visit soon. Sadge... They'll be back up after everyone leaves tho dw
currently wearing: Ghost "Rats!" tee, sweatshorts
last search: "flower man toby fox"
favorite flower: Crab apple blossoms. Still salty i missed my chance to go out on walks while they were blooming bc i was nursing a knee injury...

Tagging: alchemicink , jovianstorm , ragnafinity , rynling , and whoever else sees this. Idk. no pressure

So last week, the sis and I were in Montreal for the Amon Amarth + Dethklok + Castle Rat show. Biggest venue I've ever been to, and we weren't in standing room. Our seats were still quite good, though. Great view of the stage even from an angle. (unfortunately my phone cam shoots like I'm capturing Bigfoot footage so... maybe it doesn't reflect it?)



Special shout-out to The Giant Rat Who Makes All Of The Rules making an appearance, as well as some yuri-tastic stage fighting at the end.





Can't name any of the songs off the top of my head bc I'm still kinda new to Castle Rat, but I did recognize a few of them because I'd watched their KEXP live a few days in advance. If I rewatch and recognize shit, I'll link it here, but unforch I have no standout songs yet. Not saying they suck tho. Far from it. Very far from it.

Amon Amarth's set was next, and I'm pretty sure they had the best set of the night. They had enough old stuff that I recognized, but also mixed it with more of the new stuff that I wasn't as caught up on yet. Best moments of their set had to be:
- Cry of the Black Birds. Just... all of it.
- The stage fight immediately followed by a "We're still friends, don't worry" hug during Death in Fire
- One Thousand Burning Arrows. Again, just... all of it.
- We Rule the Waves, which I'd heard for the first time and enjoyed (even though at the same time it kinda sounds like a diet version of Embrace of the Endless Ocean... which is in my top 5 Amon Amarth songs, so this isn't as much of a complaint as it sounds like)
- The seated boat-pit during Put Your Back Into the Oar (which me and the other seat people participated in, but weren't as able to get the full experience as the gen-admission ppl... Still fun tho.)





Finally, Dethklok took the stage and... I was a little less impressed since for most of it, the band was barely visible and they were relying more on MVs than the actual musicians to carry the show. But as my sis explained when we were coming back to the hotel, Brendon was not only doing more "character" type vocals by death-metal standards (as multiple charas at some points), but also guitar, so maybe there was a little more reason to focus moreso on performance than stage presence. Plus the MVs were also pretty decent, so there's that redeeming factor. Also they brought out BATMETAL when they were doing Face Fisted, so that was a fun throwback. Bit sad that they didn't really do many of my faves, but they did do The Duel. And that's awesome. 

Standout moments:
- The opening sketch with Charles
- Dethsupport + the associated MV. Really hits post-Mangione.
- The "drugs" sketch in the middle with Facebones 
- The aforementioned Duel. Bonus points for my sister poshly air-guitaring at me during the pseudo-Baroque section and me making conducting gestures at her. That was fun. 
- The Cyborg Slayers with Brendon voicing both Nathan and Pickles
- The live voicing near the end with Brendon alternating between all the charas he voices, plus the slap-bass solo that was implied to have been done with Murderface's dick like in the show (no actual dicks were shown tho. Sadge)





Didn't have much time to mess around in Montreal the next day because my train was due to leave at like 2 pm, but we did end up going to this cute lil cafe that had cookie decorating stations (even though we didn't know about it at the time and were only coming in for iced coffees), as well as this Y2K-tastic thrift store that I got some jewellery at. And a goth shop where I got more clothes, but unforch neglected to take pics of. 

 


Bonus pic from the train where we were stopped in the middle of nowhere at one point for some reason.



So yeah, that was what I was up to last weekend... Now i have to do a bunch of room-cleaning to make up for it. Oh well. It happens.

So today while scrolling in the break room I came across this post on how part of the process of becoming a good writer is learning how to appreciate the mechanisms of writing, which OP separates from the actual content of the story. This not only encompasses shit like making decisions about sentence structure and word choice, but even the very act of sitting down to touch one's pen and paper/keyboard/writing app/etc.

And as I read it, I thought about all the fics that I've written that I personally find subpar even after rereading them numerous times. And what do these fics tend to have in common? I found that they were kind of a slog to actually write, like I didn't have enough motivation to sit and write them even though I was digging the plot/charas/tropes/etc. Which goes back to what OP was saying about how people who don't appreciate the mechanics of writing tend to be poorer writers. Since I was less invested in the mechanics of writing, I put out work I found to be lower-tier, or something along those lines.

But then OP said that if one doesn't enjoy writing something, they don't have to actually *write* it. Rather, they can draw it, animate it, speak it out loud, or use some other creative means. (OK, the speaking out loud example was the only one they actually put, but you get the idea.) Which got me thinking in two directions at once.

For the first direction, I kept mentally coming back to a comment I received a few years back, saying I wrote the piece in question like "a web animation". Now, I've talked about this before, but that initial comment combined with the Tumblr post I'm talking about here made me think about once again how a reason (not *the* reason, but one of them) why I write is that I can't really draw. Or at least, I can't draw as polished enough as a lot of fanartists I follow. So I tend to translate a lot of my ideas into writing, even though on some level they'd be more suitable as a drawing or some other visual media. And it's that mismatch that makes me less keen on the mechanics of writing for some of my works.

But in terms of the second direction, I also started thinking about my more recent stuff that I enjoyed the process of creation for, and a big part of that is probably because they relied on less traditional "writing" structures. Rift of the Neighbor-Posting was the one that came to mind the most, but Still, My [[Bait]] Draws You Near was also up there. 

So I guess my takeaways are either: start buckling down and appreciating the actual writing process, or branch out and do more creative work that doesn't involve traditional "writing".  Both of which might be easier said than done, but if I nail them, then im gonna be a better and happier creator than what I used to be. hell yeah. Or something

Everybody does these. I have done them ever since being on Dreamwidth in 2022. I'm doing one again. Here goes.

( year end review/future plans )

So YouTube announced they're gonna be pulling some bullshit. Basically, they're gonna comb through people's watch history and use an AI to guess if they're underage, and hit people they deem "underage" with a bunch of restrictions. And the only way to correct the algorithm is to either upload ID, credit card info, or a picture of your face. All of which have MASSIVE privacy issues associated with them.

I cannot imagine this going well at all. I figure a decent amount of people are going to get falsely hit with the underage restrictions just because they have interests in adulthood that aren't taxes and war history or whatever the hell normie adults watch. And I don't know if the backlash will be enough to set YouTube on the right path again. (Although then again, they haven't been on the "right path" for a hot fuckin minute. Not since Google bought them out in '13 or whatever.)

So as a result of all this bullshit, I'm once again considering YT alternatives for when I upload fannish video material. However, all of them have some sort of barrier keeping me from joining:

- Vimeo/Dailymotion/etc.: nobody seems to upload the type of stuff i actually watch on YouTube; it's mostly independent film material that I don't really watch

- Odysee/Bitchute/etc.: full of alt-right whackjobs

- NicoNico/Bilibili/etc.: language barrier, feeling like I'm "invading" spaces intended for people whose native language isn't English

- Glomble: the most "tolerable" option I've seen so far, but I just don't like the vibe. Feels too much like most of the people on there would skin me alive for looking at certain pairings the "wrong" way.

- PeerTube: another "tolerable" option, but I don't know if there's any fandom-specific instances, and I don't really wanna go off-brand for pre-existing instances

IDK, man. I figure if I get minor-coded (pun semi-intended) by the YouTube age verification AI, I'm gonna upload my jinrikis to NicoNico and everything else to Vimeo, Glomble, or PeerTube. But if not, then I might stay there? Idk. If I do stay, I'm probably just gonna put all my shit on unlisted so only you guys can have access to it. We'll just have to see how shit goes.

This is where I'd put my recount of CitrusCon... IF I REMEMBERED TO PREREG BEFORE CLOSING!! Yeah. Stupid me thought they'd preregistered months in advance, only to be told otherwise by both Eventbrite and the event mods when I emailed them. So yeah, I didn't make it. I fully understand why the no-same-day-prereg thing is in effect, but it kinda stings. Blehh.

But whatevs. I had a ton of time on my hands, so I decided to do a lot of shit around the house. I did a decent amount of outdoor work, weeding in the cracks in our firepit/patio area and helping my mom put up curtains for the gazebo on our deck. Also did a lot of cleaning/reorganizing of my desk drawers, makeup supplies, and jewellery. Alsoalso did a ton of laundry. And finally, I painted over a box that I'd been keeping my charger cords in, so I could sticker it up easier and not have it aesthetically clash with the original design that was on the box.

(and I also filled out orders for merch from two of the artists doing CitrusCon despite not actually going. I love copium~~~)