#a very long walkthrough of how I get through a panic attack
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GRWM as I ✨Wake Up with a Panic Attack✨
** None of this is medical advice, and is just a system I’ve worked on for myself. Everybody is different, everyone is in different circumstances.**
When it comes to the fight or flight instinct during panic attacks, I’m 100% a flight person.
I’ve dealt with panic attacks since high school and have been diagnosed with panic disorder. In high school I lived in constant fear of having an attack, which caused the attacks. It was all very cyclical. I have them less often now, but they still happen from time to time.
My go to method is to mix comforting and uncomfortable sensations and to overstimulate myself. I’ve tried deep breathing and relaxing music and the things that should logically help. But they always made me feel worse because I’m acknowledging the panic in such a head on fashion. I try to ground and overstimulate as many senses as I can, so I don’t have the energy or space to feel the panic anymore.
The initial terror, it’s going to happen. How fast you can pivot depends on the severity of the panic.
I tell myself I’m an expert in panic attack management. I have over 12 years of experience in the field and have worked tirelessly to perfect my methods. I have to convince myself I’m a pro at this, and have a 100% success rate of not imploding from anxiety. I narrate what I’m going to do and why it helps me specifically, basically what I’m doing here.
—-
My first stop is consistently my bathroom. I go through my bin of old lotions and pick a scent I have specially set aside for panic attacks. I use something that’s way too overpowering, but having something that smells bad to you is also an option. Sometimes I’ll use two different smells. The goal is to have a scent to ground you.
When I have a panic attack, my body fails at temperature regulation. Typically my feet are cold and clammy. So, I like to run some hot water in the tub and just stand in it for awhile. As I’m standing there, I apply whatever lotion or perfume I grabbed. Once my feet are warmed up, I get out of the tub and only sorta dry my feet. Then I put socks on my damp feet. Why? Because I hate the way it feels. And that harmless discomfort is going to distract me as I make my way to the next room.
I pick up a hoodie from the closet. Since I don’t know which way my temperature is going to flux, it’s nice to have on hand. I also have a big comfy shawl I use only during panic attacks.
I have to go down stairs to get to my kitchen. I take them really slow, especially with the damp sock situation. If I’m feeling too weak, I’ll just sit down and scoot down them. My instinct is flight, so staying in one room too long is no good. I usually feel safer being on the ground floor.
—-
Things might get messy in the kitchen, but that’s for future you to deal with. I used to keep a fresh lemon in the house at all times, but have moved away from that, opting for lemon juice. You can either bite into a lemon, or swish some lemon juice in your mouth and spit it out. A benefit of a fresh lemon is that it’s more messy. You’ll have lemon juice on your face and hands and that stickiness, at least for me, is an awful sensation.
You’re going to chase the lemon down with something else. I like to grab sour candy, like Warheads. But something like Pop Rocks also works. Picking an opposite flavor, like pudding or beef jerky is an option. You’re just trying to overload your tastebuds by making another harmless, but powerful distraction.
Alternatively, this step can be done when you’re in the bathroom. Swishing mouth wash and following it up with something sour is miserable. The face I make in the mirror is ridiculous and sometimes that’s enough to help soothe me.
—-
Like I said, I’m a flight person. So the next steps I either do pacing the house or on a treadmill. It just depends how steady my legs are feeling.
I grab my headphones, connected to my phone, and my tablet. I put the headphones on one ear and play music. The music is going to change every time. Sometimes you want something soothing, sometimes you want something loud. Sometimes you want music you love, sometimes you want music you hate. Having different playlists prepped helps you figure out what you’re in the mood for. I think one hit wonders are also a great option. There’s a familiarity and nostalgia that just hits the spot sometimes.
There are a few options for the tablet. You can put on a movie or tv show, and listen with your un-headphoned ear. I also like doing crossword puzzles or logic puzzles. It usually goes poorly, but I get so wrapped up in it. I’ve also found ‘Simon Says’ videos and follow those. Anything challenging and low stakes works here.
And this is where things usually begin to ease up. If my legs are too wobbly, I’ll just lie on the floor. Sometimes I go back to the lemon juice / sour candy. But eventually, my body is just exhausted and overstimulated. And there’s no more room for panic.
Once I feel myself winding down, I’ll get an electrolyte heavy drink. My go to is Pedialyte Zero Sugar packets but it doesn’t really matter what you use. I’ll have something light to eat if I feel up to it, usually just crackers.
When the panic has finally eases up and I feel safe again, I’m usually left exhausted. I fall asleep wherever I land, usually on the floor because it just feels nice and sturdy. When I wake up, I take care of any messes I left behind. And I drink more water.
—-
Important Notes and Additional Tactics:
Drink lots of water. Just have water dead drops everywhere.
Make it a point to keep yourself stocked up on supplies. Future you needs to restock supplies and put things back for next time.
Fidget toys are great and should also be in every room if possible. I like to use different ones depending on which room I’m in, just to keep up variety.
Ice cubes under the armpits or on the back of the neck are great. I guess anywhere works, I just find the cold distracting. As they melt, I’m left with water on my clothes. Similar to the damp socks, I hate this feeling.
My plant misting bottle stays in the kitchen and I’ll use it to spray my face or arms. Having glasses makes this more annoying, which is the goal.
I personally like to turn on as many lights as I can, but I understand this isn’t always possible.
Stepping outside can be helpful, just be mindful about it.
Reach out to people if that’s an option and you’re comfortable with it.
Walk through your routine when you aren’t in the middle of a panic attack. Developing this type of muscle memory helps you to be familiar and prepared. Remember, you’re the expert in panic attacks.
Take time to reflect on things. The day after a panic attack, I find a quiet place. I think back to everything I was feeling and who I was during the panic attack. And I talk to that past version of me and comfort her. Sometimes I find it easier to write it all out.
—-
I typed this while experiencing a panic attack. Usually I just narrate these things to myself. Recently, my older brother has started having attacks similar to mine. My hope is that sharing what I do to get myself through a panic attack will help at least one person. It is truly one of the most defeating and vulnerable experiences. I feel like I’ve lost so much time to my anxiety, I’d like to think I can help someone avoid the same struggles my younger self dealt with.
**None of this is medical advice, and is just a system I’ve worked on for myself. Everybody is different, everyone is in different circumstances.
#panic attack#mental health#coping mechanism#anxitey#panic disorder#advice#a very long walkthrough of how I get through a panic attack#self care
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A Weekend of Unexpected Happenings - Supanova Round Up
https://karenjcarlisle.com/2023/11/13/a-weekend-of-unexpected-happenings-supanova-round-up/
And Supanova is over. Here’s what happened.
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Pre-event:
Thursday night: Cracked tooth, and one quarter of my molar is gone!
Friday: emergency dentist appointment, bogged up tooth, and bump in for Adelaide Supanova event.
Day one Supanova:
Saturday was quiet, possibly due to the Christmas Pagent and a Viking Festival being scheduled on the same day. We muddled through. A few of my readers popped by to say hello; it was great to have chats.
Random Acts of Kindness:
When checking out the creators in Artist Alley, I found someone selling those fuzzy worms on a string as earings. It brought back some fun childhood memories. Then, unexpectedly, they handed me a purple one (sans earring) as a gift.
Later in the day (after a particularly slow patch) a complete stranger (now known as Rebecca) said hello, showed me a teal, baby octopus she had made as her very first crochet project. When I handed it back, she said it was also a gift. It’s so cute. And in my second fave colour! I safety-pinned it to my waistcoat. She later came back to say hi again (and saw I was wearing it).
Good vibes all round!
Day Two
Sunday started out well…
There was a lineup to get into the parking lot, promising a larger crowd today. I remembered to post my ‘walkthrough’ video – from the front door to my table in Artist Alley.
Then…
Dearheart wasn’t feeling well.
He went for a walk to clear his head. Fifteen minutes later, he still hadn’t returned. Fellow author, Chris, checked the male toilets to make sure he was okay. He wasn’t there. I phoned him; he was in the Showgrounds First Aid getting checked out by the Ambos (Ambulance paramedics for the non-Aussies) on duty.
Half an hour later, I phoned again. He wasn’t coming back. The Ambos had told him to go home. Not long after, one of them came to my table to confirm their recommendation Dearheart should go home, and make sure someone would be there (as I couldn’t drive til the evening as I’d had migraine medication).
Then came the flurry of phone calls and messages, and realising just how many of my friends don’t drive! Fortunately, our friend Cheryl could pick him up. (Many thanks)
I tried to avoid panic attacks for the rest of the day. I had to quickly master the Square payment tech (thank you to a local artist Christie for helping out there), try to work out how to do pull down and pack up everything at the end of the day. (Dearheart usually does the bulk of it at the end of events as I’m usually borderline-migraine, out of spoons, and in pain.)
Again, the indie community came to the rescue. Matthew (fellow author, from Stonetable) helped lug things to and from the car, Christie and Kylie (regular fellow con-creators) helped with removing signs and packing (and kept me from falling in a heap), Chris (fellow author) and Daniel (author on other side of me, whom I’d never met before) helped wrangle posters and packing. I’m blown away at their generousity. Just that morning (before all the drama) Chris and I had been talking about how friendly and supportive the indie author community was. This proved it. Again.
Thank you all.
Post-Con Update
I’m exhausted and in pain, but glad to be home and glad Dearheart is improving. I’m still feeling fine. It seems likely it was food poisoning (we think we know what caused it – a ‘cookie’ sample that was undercooked, and have been told there were other negative comments about them). It was also the only thing I didn’t eat as well.
Con-wise, this was the slowest event I’ve ever attended. Usually Supanova is one of my busiest. I have more books left than anticipated. Thankfully, I sold out of my crochet bees.
It appears most of the creators in the Artist Alley felt the same way. At least I have two mini events next month.
I’m crossing my fingers I’ll sell out by then.
Note: (This post will be posted – in part – on my website blog later)
#Adelaide Supanova#conventions#event round up#Events#friends#health#ideas#life#live event#memories#pondering#supanova#thinking#video
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Don’t Stop If I Fall (And Don’t Look Back)
Frank Iero x Gender Neutral!Reader (ending 2 of 4 for Here In This House of Wolves)
Word Count: 2013
A/N: This one’s kinda spooky! Hope you enjoy it!
Disclaimer: This is entirely a work of fiction. No part of this story is meant to be libel, slander, or in any way derogatory towards any character’s real life counterpart. I’m not delusional; I know that these characters are simply based off of a public persona and may not actually resemble the people behind those personas. Any additional characters that you do not recognize are entirely fictional, unless otherwise stated. And finally, if you got here by Googling yourself, whatever happens next is 100% on you.
You sighed, shifting restlessly from foot to foot, waiting as the guides explained the rules and prepared to unlock the door leading to the walkthrough. Though there was part of you that still doubted the legitimacy of the whole set-up, you were definitely excited to see if it would really measure up to the promises of both the brochure and the hosts. As a self-proclaimed and Way-brother-confirmed horror nerd, you had been through many a haunted house. And while some were bone-chillingly terrifying, others fell more on the Scooby Doo side of frightening. Either way, you knew you wouldn’t be short on entertainment with the way the others were carrying on.
Finally, the hosts led you to the door, with a final warning to keep your wits about you. They opened them to reveal a pitch black hallway, and without warning, shoved everyone forward. Before you could even spare a final glance back, they slammed the doors shut, leaving you in total darkness.
“Oh god,” Ray moaned miserably. “I knew this was a terrible idea.”
You could practically hear Mikey’s growing irritation in the all-consuming nothingness.
“Well, the only way out is through, so,” Gerard said, with the certainty of someone who had seen hundreds of fantasy and adventure movies. “On we go.”
“Yeah, whatever you say, Gerard. Let’s just try and get out of here with all our limbs still attached.” Brian sighed. There was a shuffle of forward-sounding movement, and you tried to keep.
Suspiciously absent from the conversation was Frank.
---
After what seemed like a mile, but you knew rationally couldn’t have been more than a dozen yards, the hallway became a bit narrower with faint, faint, cracks of light low to the ground on either side. Up in front, Ray and Gerard kept bumping into the walls and swearing, though they were sure they were heading straight on.
Suddenly, you were yanked back by your elbow. Instinctively, you tried to scream, both out of fear and hope that the others would hear and help you, but a warm, calloused hand clamped over your mouth. Whoever it was that had grabbed you began to drag you backwards, much to your horror, and a pit of icy dread began to form in your stomach. Though you kicked your feet in protest, it was no use. You could barely even hear the others anymore. You were on your own.
Desperately, and with the sudden realization that this might not be part of the haunted house any more, you began to bite down on the hand pressed over your mouth, doing anything to get away. Suddenly, you and your abductor stumbled backward through an unseen door into a brightly lit room, and the hands that had restrained you released.
“Holy fucking shit,” an insanely recognizable voice swore. “Are you insane, you could have fucked up my hand-”
Instantly, all the fear in your body evaporated and was replaced with red hot anger. Frank.
“No, are you fucking insane?!” You whirled around on him. “What the hell were you thinking, I thought someone was gonna kill me, or worse-”
Frank rolled his eyes. “You need to calm down, you’ve been hanging around Gee too much. We would’ve found your body eventually.”
You took a moment to relax, close your eyes, and let the remaining terror drain out of your body. When you opened them, you noticed just how small the room you were in was, as well as how close Frank was standing to you. You also noticed that your heart was beating way faster than normal, something you hoped that, if he noticed, he would attribute to the fight-or-flight response of almost being kidnapped, which, by the way, what the actual fuck?
“Where the hell are we, Frank? And also, why?”
“One of those rooms off that hallway.”
You remember the faint light you had seen just before Frank grabbed you. “Oh.”
“And… the reason we’re in here is because I thought it would be funny to fuck with them. And I thought you’d be down to help me.”
You sighed, rubbing your elbow where his hand had been only moments earlier. “And you couldn’t have told me about this before you gave me a heart attack?”
“Well,” You could tell he was trying to justify his reasoning on the spot. “If they thought you were actually being abducted, that would add to the prank.”
“Asshole,” you muttered, though you really weren’t mad anymore. “I don’t even think they noticed I was gone.”
“Then that makes them the assholes. Which is another reason you should help me. Please?”
You pretended to still be annoyed. It was best to not let Frank know when he had already won you over; otherwise, he would try to get away with everything underneath the sun. You were sure the others were far ahead of you now, and you weren’t too keen on the idea of wandering through the haunted house by yourself. There was also the small matter of being flattered and giddy that Frank chose you to pull this prank with, and deep down, you knew there was no chance you would turn down some time alone with him.
“Fine. I hope you have a really good plan.”
Frank grinned.
---
“So, I think I have it figured out,” he said a few minutes later as he was leading you down the hallway by your hand. You were glad that it was so dark that he couldn’t see how much your cheeks were heating up. “Somehow, they made this hallway sorta curved, but only a little bit, so it totally disorients you. And I think at some point, it opens into a maze?”
He stopped abruptly, and let go of your hand. You tried not to be too disappointed.
“Hey, do you feel that?” You heard some rustling, like he was waving his hands around and shuffling closer to the wall. “It feels like a breeze.”
Before you could respond, you heard his palms land on something solid and heavy, and then suddenly, the hallway was filled with the bright afternoon sunlight. You hurried through the previously hidden door after him, not wanting to be discovered. After your eyes had adjusted to the light, you saw that you were in an open area on the side of the building. The wind rustled through the old pine trees, but there wasn’t another soul around besides you and Frank. Towards the back end of the building, you saw some weathered marble slabs that you had the sinking feeling were tombstones.
“Oh shit, check it out!” Frank laughed, ducking down and running alongside the wall.
You followed him through the knee-high grass and peered through the old window with him. On the other side, though dimly lit, were your bandmates and manager. You could see Gerard closest to the window, trying his best to contain his panic. Ray and Brian were up front, in some sort of passionate discussion about… something. Mikey was in the back, expressionless as usual, but you could tell by the tilt of his shoulders that he was, at best, vaguely uncomfortable.
“Okay,” Frank whispered, turning to you. “On three, okay?”
You nodded, trying to keep from laughing.
“1… 2…3!”
You and Frank sprang up from the ground and slammed your palms on the windows, much to the surprise of everyone inside. You could hear Gerard’s scream through the glass.
“Oh my god,” Frank laughed loudly as he rolled in the grass. “Think they could see us?”
“I don’t think so.” You shook your head. “I don’t remember seeing any when I was in the hallway, though they must have been there. Maybe it’s a one-way mirror.”
“Well, that was funny, but not exactly what I had in mind. How do you feel about a little psychological torture?”
---
Frank’s plan was pretty impressive, you had to admit. For the next few minutes, you waited patiently until the group passed another window. Based on how long it took them, you had a feeling that Frank’s suspicion about the maze was correct. You waited until they were right in front of the glass, and then you sprang into action.
“GUYS! HELP!” You tried your best to sound as terrified as possible, but it was hard with Frank grinning up at you. It should be illegal for someone to look that good while cackling.
Apparently, your “distress” call stunned them into silence.
“Oh my god,” Mikey whispered, and though it was muffled through the glass, you could tell he was serious. Next to him, Gerard had gone as white as a sheet.
“Where are you? Tell us where you are, we’ll come find you!” Ray called back.
“HELP!” You screamed again.
You could hear Brian and Ray start mumbling and cursing again as the group pushed forward, this time with urgency.
“Oh, god,” you laughed, flopping back onto the grass next to Frank. “That was an excellent idea, oh my god.”
“Yeah, they-”
“I hate to interrupt,” a cold, cutting voice spoke from somewhere above your heads, “but I believe that we were very clear in our introduction that there was only one acceptable entrance and one acceptable exit. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
You and Frank glanced at each other with wide eyes before staring up into the unamused face of one of the hosts from the lobby.
---
“We regret that you couldn’t see more of the tour, and ask that you please refrain from returning. Thank you!” The man turned and walked away from the van. He had followed you and Frankie the entire way back, just to ensure you got the message.
“He did not sound regretful at all,” Frank frowned as he shook the door handle on the van. “Success!” he smiled as it popped open.
You followed him as he climbed into the second row of seats. “That’s the last time I go along with one of your ideas,” you moaned, leaning into his shoulder. “That was humiliating.”
“Hey, you get used to being escorted out after the 50th time,” he smiled, resting his head on top of yours. “I am glad you came with me, though. It’s fun having someone to do that kind of stuff with though.”
You smiled, just enjoying the closeness for a few more moments, before putting it all on the line. “It was fun and all, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have another reason for going.”
“Hm?”
You moved back and turned to face him. “I really like you, Frankie. I know that might be a lot to handle right now, especially with the album coming up, but-”
You were cut off by the sudden realization that Frank was kissing you. It took your mind a few seconds to catch up with your body, but once it did, you jad no intention of stopping.
When you both broke away for air, Frank leaned in to press his forehead to yours. “I like you a lot too, if it wasn’t already obvious. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.”
You laughed, and tilted your face up to continue what you had started. Unfortunately, before you were able to get too far, the doors of the van swung open. You and Frank scrambled to opposite sides of the seats as the rest of the band climbed in. They did not look happy.
“Where were you guys?” Ray was fuming, a rare sight to see. “We turned around and you were gone!”
“Yeah,” Gerard cut in. “You had no idea how scared we were; we kept hearing you screaming and we thought you were hurt!”
“I hope you guys are happy with yourselves because you’ll be the ones cleaning the van at the end of the tour,” Brain muttered, rolling his eyes, much to Frank’s protests.
“I gotta know, though,” Mikey said, leaning over the seat to talk to you. “What the hell were you guys actually doing?”
You caught Frank’s eye and smiled. “Let’s just say it’s a long story.”
A/N: Thanks for reading :) The other endings will be up soon!
#frank iero imagine#frank iero x reader#mcr imagine#mcr x reader#frank iero#my chemical romance#mcr#my chem#my chemical romance x reader#my chemical romance imagine#gerard way#ray toro#mikey way#bandom#bandom imagine#reader insert
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So how does Scrivener work cdelphiki? Any specifics? I think you talked about it a fair bit before, early in November, but I can't quite remember.
Scrivener is awesome!! Basically, it’s a word processor on steroids specifically for writers (and not student/business purposes, like Microsoft Word/Google Docs) Although you can use it for student or business purposes, if you wanted.
Basically, you use it by first creating your project. It has a lot of templates to choose from, and once you pick what you want to do, it has instructions of how to structure your project in your newly created file. There are a ton of template options, but I’m here for the novel format:
But you can write pretty much anything you can imagine in scrivener.
Pick what you want and click “choose” then save it somewhere. I have the app for ipads/iphones, so I save all my projects on dropbox so I can access them from my phone or computer. (This is how scrivener is set up for synced across platforms: over dropbox, not icloud for mac users. It took me a hot minute to figure out.) It has you name and save it up front so it can start backing up your work!!
Once it’s got the project created, it will give you the informational page for the template you selected. Read through it for a lot of good information on how to use all the organizational tools for your specific project.
Now you basically just start working. There is no real wrong way to go about putting together your story. I use scrivener for both one shots and multi-chaptered fics. I actually keep most my one shots in one project, titled “Tumblr Prompts,” just to make it easier than having a zillion project files for single stories.
If you want a pretty detailed walkthrough of how I use scrivener, I put it all below the cut. :D
Here’s one of my my well-used project files:
There’s a lot going on here. The left column is your navigation bar. This is basically your entire book. As you can see I have folders within folders. The main one, called “Manuscript” by default, is basically the book in its entirety. I then use more folders for each chapter. Right now, since I’m still drafting, I actually just have it broken into ‘events,’ rather than chapters. This is just a me thing and is what I figured out to help me keep better track of everything.
So I have the Prologue, and then event 1.1 (act 1, event 1), 1.2, 1.3, etc. In 1.3, as you can see, I have both chapter 3 and 4 as scene cards. 1.4 has five scene cards that will likely turn into 7 chapters, once I do a revision!
All the various colors of text are revisions. By default, the first draft is written in black.
When you’re ready to do a revision, you can turn on revision mode and select which version you’re on. I’m on my third revision. I really like this function because it lets me see my progress.
Now, inside all these folders you can see a couple different symbols there. You can actually change the symbols of these things yourself by right clicking on the object in the navigation pane and selecting “change icon.” I put the pencil on all my notes, so it’s very easy for me to know what to get rid of when I’m cleaning up and about to call something “done.” On Precedent, for example, whenever I publish a chapter, I go ahead and name the chapter folder in Scrivener and get rid of all the note cards so all that is left is what I actually published.
Probably one of the best things about Scrivener, is when you want to get rid of something, you don’t have to erase it entirely. On this project here, you can see I have a file a couple under the file selected for viewing called “trash pile.” Whenever I remove large chunks of text, I actually just copy it over to a blank scene card so it’s not ‘lost.’ I then “move to trash,” so it’s not in the way, but it’s always available to me. Scrivener does not delete anything you ‘move to trash’ unless you specifically move to that trash bin and make it delete it. This is great because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve ‘thrown something away’ just to realize, sometimes months later, that that exact scene would work perfectly now! And good thing I saved the draft, so I had something to start with!
Now, back to these ‘scene’ cards. Scene cards are just the files you actually write on. I don’t know if Scrivener calls them that or not, but they’re set up like notecards. I don’t know if you ever did the notecard method in school, where you wrote major points on note cards and then arranged them into a logical order on the table? That’s basically what this is.
To get to this screen, I selected the folder for section 1.4. You can pick any folder you want, even the over all manuscript to get here. Then you pick the view option, where the top arrow is pointing. The first view option shows it as a document, as my other pictures have already demonstrated.
What the notecards are going to show you is your synopsis, if you have one written. Each and every file, even the folder itself, has a spot for ‘synopsis’ and ‘notes,’ which do not count into your overall word count. It’s really nice for keeping stuff out of the way. I’ve found I prefer having my notes as actual scene cards, but the notes section is handy for throwing important things. I also save the link to where I’ve posted stuff on tumblr for easy saving or research so I don’t lose anything.
If you do not have anything written in the synopsis section, the card will just show as much as the text as it can in a dark grey, rather than the black ink of the synopsis. I rarely use the synopsis section, so you can see all my documents just have the first bits of text.
On this screen you can start dragging around cards and move them however you think things need to line up. This works remarkably well if you write in a lot of small scenes, and need to reorganize because you realized that Tim needs to have a panic attack before he faces Ra’s. Or whatever. You can also reorganize at any point in the navigation pane itself. I drag stuff between folders all the time. That’s another reason I love having my notes on actual scene cards, because a lot of times I end up punting scenes off into the future, and it makes it way easier to drag and drop it into the next chapter folder to deal with later.
Another feature I really like is ‘targets.’
To get here, I selected the overall manuscript, and then switched to the third view option, up there next to the note cards option. It shows me my whole book this way, as well as the status of each folder or document (which I have to set myself.) It also shows me if I had a target word count, and how close I am to reaching it. I like my chapters to be about 3k words, so I make that my target. (set your target by clicking on the target icon on the bottom right corner of a document while in document view.) The purple goes from a dark purple to a lighter one the closer you get. (This is because I am using the ‘theme’ “Purple Haze.” The color is based on your theme. I forget what the default is.)
You can also set daily word goals, and up at the top, below the project’s name, it’ll show you progress toward that goal. I’ve written two words today.... so I don’t have a progress bar yet. The bar above the project’s name is for the overall word goal set. I have this project set to 100k.
I think that’s pretty much it. The only other feature I use regularly I haven’t mentioned is the split screen.
Basically, click where the arrows are pointing. When you’re in just regular view, it’ll look like a split screen, rather than a single document view button. When you hit it, it opens your currently selected document twice, on both sides of the screen. Click on the bar for the document you want to change and then select whatever you want from your navigation pane. I use this mostly for putting my notes on one side and my actual working document on the other. Yesterday I was using while revising, throwing anything I didn’t want anymore into my ‘trash pile’ by just dragging it across.
Once you’re done with something, you can run spelling and grammar check (because it does not check as you go, unless you go into settings and make it do that. It’s turned off by default. I find the squiggly lines distracting, so I love this feature) and use the various text tidying tools, such as the one that turns all multiple spaces into single spaces!
So yeah! That’s Scrivener. I love it so much. It has made writing so much easier. I wrote most of Life Happens in a single Microsoft Word document, and that was a huge mess and horrible and really difficult. I’ve written two long fics in their entirety now on Scrivener and I won’t ever go back.
Oh, and if anyone was curious, this is how I use Scrivener for my one shots: I just label the folders with the main relationship or the collection they’re from, rather than treated the folders like chapters. I then name the scene cards either with their actual titles or a brief description (if I didn’t give them titles) to let me know what’s been published and what isn’t done.
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First, I love your Supreme Family Chaos series, a lot. Thank you for that. Second, I have a prompt: Pepper taking Peter with her for 'taking your child to work day' or school or smth because she's the only responsible adult and knows that Peter will inherent SI eventually. And it hits Peter halfway that HE may well do Pepper's job one day. And Tony combusts cause he realises he never told Peter because he thought it was obvious.
Stark Heir
Pepper walks off the elevator and over to the penthouse's kitchen to find Peter sitting at the island, half asleep and lazily spooning cereal into his mouth. Tony was nowhere to be seen, likely down in the lab already, but Stephen was standing at the counter across from the teen making himself some tea and occupying himself with something on a Starkpad. The woman frowns when she notices Peter still in his pajamas, and walks over to him to brush away a few strands of hair from the teens forehead. Peter looks up at her sleepily before returning his attention to his breakfast, and Stephen raises an eyebrow at their visitor.
"Tony's down in the lab." His low baritone reverberates through the kitchen and Pepper smiles.
"Actually, I'm here for Peter."
The teen drops his spoon into his empty bowl and looks back up at the CEO as Stephen takes his dishes. "What for?"
"I'm assuming Tony didn't tell you I'm taking you to work with me today?" She asks.
Both Peter and Stephen furrow their brows. "No."
Stephen sighs. "Victor, get all of Tony's appointments and reminders on his schedule from FRIDAY from now on."
"Yes doctor." The AI responds.
"I should have had you do that as soon as Tony put Victor in the tower." Pepper says with an exasperated sigh and looks at Peter. "Go get dressed sweetie. Your regular clothes will be fine."
Peter nods and slides off the stool to go up to his room and change, and Stephen calls out to him. "Collared shirt and slacks." He smirks into his tea when a loud groan reaches them. "Coffee?" He asks the woman across the way.
"No, thank you. I just had some." She places a manila envelope on the counter. "Can you have that scatterbrained husband of yours look over and sign these?"
The sorcerer chuckles. "I'll see what I can do."
Peter returns in the proper attire, with a scowl on his face, and Pepper leads him toward the elevator after they say goodbye to the doctor. The teen still had no idea why he was following Pepper today, but he assumed Tony made up some sort of 'Bring Your Kid To Work' day just to torture Peter. They went through the tower first, and the teen kind of zoned out for that time because he knew how things were done and he had done walkthroughs with Tony on multiple occasions (and by himself). Pepper either didn't notice or she did and didn't say anything because she knew that Peter was aware of how things worked in the tower.
When they left the tower and took a car to another building though, Peter snapped out of his daze. Only to want to slip back into it. Pepper had taken him to a meeting and he wanted to die. He had to fight against all urges to twitch or fiddle with a pen and it was torture. He couldn't really tell anyone what the meeting was about, and when it was finally over and he and Pepper were out of earshot, did he finally ask the question that had been plaguing him for the past couple of hours.
"Uh...Pepper?"
The woman looks up from her desk. "Yes?"
"Why exactly am I here with you?"
Pepper regards him for a few silent moments, making the teen squirm under her gaze, and then cowers when it turns hostile and angry. Maybe that wasn't a good thing to ask? He didn't think she'd get angry if he asked a question, but he was obviously wrong. Was there something said during the meeting that was important for him to know? He doubted it. For all he knew, the people that had attended the meeting just thought Pepper was babysitting for Tony.
"He didn't tell you?!" Pepper huffs with annoyance. "It figures. Peter...if something were to happen to Tony, Stark Industries goes to you. I'm just preparing--"
Peter didn't hear anything after that. His train of thought had skid to a halt and he had frozen in place. The company went to him? That seemed like a terrible idea. It should go to Stephen or Pepper. Not only did he feel undeserving of the responsibility, he was also afraid that he would destroy everything Tony had built up. He was just an orphan from Queens that Tony Stark wouldn't have even given a second glance if he hadn't been bitten by the spider.
That thought had the blood draining from his face and his train of thought starting back up, just to derail from the main subject.
What if he hadn't been bitten? Where would he be when Aunt May died? In the system? He would have never known how much Tony actually cared. About everything. Peter would have never known whay family vacations were like, how protective Stephen was...oh god. He would have never known what it was like to have a Mama Bear. No soothing scents from his parents that made him think of home, no semblance of what a mom should be like (foster homes would probably never live up to what he experienced now) after Peter had practically forced the role onto Stephen, no pure and unquestionable amount of love.
He was starting to feel light headed. He felt like he had ten trains on three tracks going full speed in his head and it was making him shake.
"Oh my god." Peter feels himself being directed to and sat in a chair. "Peter...you need to breathe."
Breathe? He couldn't. His chest was tight, and whenever he did try to breathe it just felt shallow. It didn't fill his lungs, it just made black spots dance across his vision. Then he heard Pepper trying to coach him through long deep breaths, and it helped once his brain focused on her words. He was able to breathe through the tightness in his chest and that as well as the black spots in his vision went away.
"There you go. Keep doing that." Peter obeys silently and vaguely notices her stand from her crouch in front of him, and she disappears from his sight briefly before coming back with a bottle of water. She unscrews the cap, hands it to the teen, and he takes a few gulps as he allows himself to adjust back into reality. "Are you okay now?" Pepper asks carefully.
"Y-Yeah...sorry Aunt Pepper." The teen stammers out.
"It's okay. That was all I wanted to drag you through today anyway. If I had known that Tony didn't say anything, I would have waited."
Peter drinks the rest of the water and Pepper returns to her desk to straighten it up. "How about we got out to lunch before I take you home?"
"Really? You're not too busy?" Peter asks.
"Nope! I'm also pumping you full of sugar as punishment to your father." Pepper says with a smirk but the teen just rolls his eyes.
"Dad would just pawn me off on Mom or something."
"I won't let that happen, and neither will Stephen." She turns back to Peter. "So where to?"
Peter smiles. His previous thoughts forgotten.
___________________________
Tony had just finished going through the paperwork that Pepper had left for him, no thanks to Stephen sitting with him in the living room to make sure he actually did it, when she and Peter came back. It took all of a millisecond for the engineer to realize the teen was on a sugar high and he immediately glared at Pepper, which she returned tenfold much to his surprise. He finished the paperwork so he had no idea what he did to garner her fury.
"Don't look at me like that Pep. I just finished--"
"You didn't tell Peter that he's your heir?!" The female interrupts, almost shouting.
Tony and Stephen look at each other, then back to the raging woman. "I thought that went without saying." The engineer defends. It was a very poor attempt.
"Obviously not or he wouldn't have had a panic attack when I told him!" Stephen frowns, worry evident on his face as he moves to stand, but Pepper points at him. "No. Sit down. Peter is fine now but I purposely fed him sugar so Tony can deal with him."
The moment Tony stood up to hand over the paperwork was all the motivation Peter needed to jump into his back and draw a startled grunt out of the man. The engineer knew better than to try and dump the hyperactive teen on Stephen at this point, because Pepper was one person the sorcerer almost always listened to. If she told Mama Bear to step back and relax and make Tony handle Peter alone, he would do it. Unless Peter was in immediate danger, then Stephen would ignore her and go to Peter's aid, but she would never tell him not to help if that was the case.
"This is cruel and unusual punishment." Tony grumps.
"Hey, Dad...Dad...Dad..."
A heavy sigh. "What Underoos?"
"I think I know a way to make my web fluid stronger! Can we go down to the lab?"
"I guess...even though it goes against my better judgement. Now thank Pepper for your sugar overload." Tony says as he hands over the paperwork while simultaneously trying not to fall over with Peter on his back.
The teen grins at the woman. "Thanks Pepper!" She smiles in response and Peter points toward the elevator. "To the secret lab!"
Tony makes his way to the elevator. "I'm cutting you off from Disney movies."
Peter gasps as the elevator doors close. "Don't you dare!"
Once the elevator doors open on the lab floor, Tony walks over to the teen's personal workbench and pries the boy off. Luckily, Tony didn't have to do much watching after that because Peter was hyper-focused on making stronger web fluid, and he only glanced over from his own workbench every once in a while to make sure Peter didn't blow anything up. This was something else he and Stephen would have to use in the future whether it would be for a sleep deprived teen or a sugar high one. Especially since the crash came an hour later. Tony looked up from rewiring his suit to find that the teen had passed out on top of his work table, completely sprawled across it and drooling on a page of formulas.
"You know, I'm pretty sure this is what it's like to have a toddler." Tony grabs the blanket off the couch on the other side of the lab and throws it over Peter. "Sleep tight kiddo."
"That looks extremely uncomfortable."
Tony looks toward the door to the lab and finds his husband standing with his arms crossed. "He's young. He'll be out patrolling the moment he wakes up."
"He probably takes naps on rooftops." Stephen walks over to the couch and stretches out on it.
The billionaire grins. "I have picture proof that he takes naps hanging upside down. As Spiderman."
The sorcerer closes his eyes with a smile as Tony returns his attention to his armor. "Tony?"
"Yeah babe?"
"We have a weird kid."
"Normal is overrated anyway." The engineer snorts.
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The Very Best Website To Play One In All The Latest Arcade Games
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Super important muse update.
Hello everyone! As you may or may not know, I came to the realisation a while ago that a lot of Matts behaviours and other things actually line up perfectly with several signs of being on the autism spectrum. Further investigation showed yep, Matt is your local undiagnosed autistic adult! So yeah, this massively huge fuckoff document is a detailed description and walkthrough of where he fits on the spectrum and other important details. Its fucking massive, but please please read it all! Everything on there is important and details important things that make him him.
I’ll whack it under a readmore so you don’t have to scroll for forever.
So, before we get too far let me just preface this with an important disclaimer: autism is a spectrum. If you meet or know someone who’s on the spectrum you know just that, A person on the spectrum. Everyone is different and that's what I strive to show with Matt. Keep in mind he’s also undiagnosed, and was raised in a very different world to ours, and thus has learned to “act normal” over the centuries as he’s grown up. I’m not saying this is how every person with autism is or acts, I’m just saying this is how Matt is, as someone who’s a demigod style immortal thing. Now that we’ve done the obligatory disclaimer so tumblr doesn’t throw a shit fit, let's get into how Matt fits on the spectrum.
I’ll apologise in advance, this kind of wanders a bit, and occasionally just slides from one topic to another, but this does cover everything. And its long as FUCK.
As previously stated, autism is a spectrum ranging from the more extreme to the more subtle. Matt fits somewhere in the middle- some traits are noticeable and others are not. For example, Matt stims a lot, and he has no idea he’s actually stimming. His main stims have changed in how he shows them over the centuries, but these ones have never changed, only adapted.
1. He fiddles. Constantly. He’ll play with the hem of his shirt, the opening on the sleeve where his hand comes out, with his buttons (regardless of where they are), he’ll tug on the belt loops of his pants.
2. When his hair is long enough, if he’s starting to escalate or he’s got a lot of emotionsTM he’ll play with his hair. He’ll plait it, twirl it around his fingers, tug on it when he’s starting to get near a meltdown. If he’s having a full on meltdown he’ll pull out his hair and eyelashes.
3. Tapping and twirling. He’ll tap on the table, twirl his pen around, roll a stone with a soothing texture around in his hands, tap his arms, feet, so long as its a texture he likes he’ll play with it. Kinda fits into the fiddling, but I like to classify this as a different thing as the connotations are different.
In the modern day, he uses fidget cubes and spinners, certain slimes, certain stress balls, and he’ll occasionally chew on a pen if he’s trying not to fiddle or tap/twirl. He’s INCREDIBLY picky about textures, and he’s very sensitive to these. He flat out refuses to wear certain fabrics and styles because they are Not Good and he’ll do whatever he needs to not wear them. The main styles he hates are things like suits and ties, turtlenecks, anything that covers/restricts his neck and fabrics that don’t breathe. He can tolerate military uniforms in general because they’re designed to move and breathe. However, if something is baggy he’s usually ok with it.
Fabrics he likes are things like wool and cotton, soft things that feel like the sorts of clothes he grew up wearing. In the modern day he wears jeans and a baggy flannel mostly, though when he needs he’ll trade the flannel out for plain cotton tees. He prefers not to wear synthetic clothing as an environmental thing, and some of those fabrics are BAAAAAAAAAAD. He’s not sure which ones though, and can’t be bothered to find out so he just avoids anything synthetic as a general rule. He does know he would rather die than wear any kind of velvet, fake or real. Don’t even try he WILL rip it to shreds. Loves cashmere though.
He also has a love/hate relationship with shoes. It really depends on what the ground underneath is like. In forests and such, he can happily go barefoot. Sand? Sand is the devil. He hates sand on a similar level to Anakin Skywalker. Sand can get fucked. He refuses to go to beaches simply because he cannot handle sand, so unless its rocky or you can effectively keep the sand off of him, he won’t go. Ice and cold stuff he’s fine with, he doesn’t feel the cold as a weird ass nation thing. So he will walk barefoot and buttass naked in the middle of a antartic winter blizzard and he’ll be fine. Heat, on the other hand, he’s got a mixed relationship with. Heat on its own he can tolerate, same with humidity, but when its hot and humid he suffers and is constantly on the edge of escalating into a meltdown unless he can get somewhere cool. Hot ground is shoes weather, and he really doesn't like how most sandels feel. It's incredibly rare to find him in sandals, 99.99% of the time he has some form of enclosed shoe on. He’s also picky af about what shoes he wears, because it’s gotta fit his foot right, be comfortable, and most importantly the laces have to be just right. It’s dealing with laces thats hardest for him, if something doesn’t lace just right he can’t wear something. He hates thick, hard laces and prefers the softer ones that fit fairly flat and smoothly against the top of his foot so he’ll hardly notice them.
On the subject of noticing him, it’s his social ability that’s most likely to make someone suspect Matts on the spectrum. He HATES crowds, and the noise associated with them. He gets overwhelmed very easily in them, which best case scenario leads to panic attacks, worse case scenario he has a meltdown. He hates feeling cramped in and trapped in people, he hates feeling people in his bubbles or touching him without permission. The noises and smells in the city also tend to be his biggest trigger. He hates the smell of diesel, smoke/smog (he’s ok with woodsmoke though. And marijuana smoke. That's about it. He will throw your cigarette into the sun and you with it if you don’t back off when he’s getting antsy, as cigarette smoke in particular will give him huge headaches. He really suffered a lot when casual tobacco consumption was the norm.) he also can’t deal with lots of auditory input, and the noises in cities is often too much at once and will make him freak. Unless it's mostly the same sort of thing, for example just the babble of the crowd talking at a normal volume, he will leave ASAP.
Adding to his social problems, Matt exhibits the following common signs of autism:
1. Struggles with eye contact (over the centuries he’s learned to look at people’s noses and eyebrows, but it’s very rare he makes the concentrated effort to look someone in the eyes. It stresses him out.)
2. He struggles with facial expressions- both his own and others. He can’t read facial expressions very well, and has a resting bitch face that rarely changes. Kinda similar to canon APH Sweden. The most common facial expression he has is smile, frown, and raising an eyebrow in confusion. He’s learned raising an eyebrow while frowning is usually a nonverbal question of “please explain” so he uses this a lot.
3. Leading on from facial expressions, he can’t read body language in general or the atmosphere. He’s gotten a bit better over the centuries, but since he’s taken to hiding in the middle of nowhere on his own, he’s not as good as he could be with, ya know, a diagnosis and proper help to learn.
4. He gets fixated on things and then it's hard to stop him from focusing. Currently his things he focuses on are various environmental issues, mostly focused on conservation and preservation. His other major special interest all stages of building, from designing to actually making it. If you don’t let him finish it he’ll get really upset.
5. He really struggles with playing pretend. Like… a lot. Either something is real, or it isn’t. He understands fiction, which is fine and he enjoys reading fiction and other works that are clearly fictional, but if you try and hypothetically ask him something or have him pretend to do something it’s a struggle. As a child and early teen it would distress him to no end, but as an adult he can work through it if you’re patient.
But in saying that, he does notice things when he likes you. He’ll remember if you mention your favourite colour or food, he’ll notice when you wear a lot of a certain kind of jewelry, if you wear a certain scent a lot, if you wear certain accessories or styles a lot. He’ll notice if you have a certain kind of flower you use as decoration or in your garden. He’ll notice when you change your hair, if you wear a different style, he’ll notice you’ve been talking a lot about something you enjoy. And he’ll do his damn best to engage in the things those he cares about like. And when you’re sad he’ll use this to try and make you feel better. Think like Sherlock Holmes’s super noticing and remembering ability, only unlike Sherlock he’s not a foot-in-mouth dick about it.
On the subject of noticing what people like, Matt highly enjoys repetitive or easily broken down tasks like sewing, cooking, baking and gardening. His garden is meticulously cared for, and if he really likes you, he’ll either start growing your favourite flowers or he’ll give you as many as you want when they’re blooming. If possible, he’ll either start growing any herbs you like or use a lot in his herb garden or he’ll give you some. Stuff like rosemary he’ll bottle and dry himself and give to you so you have good homegrown stuff to use.
When it comes to clothes, he makes his own a lot so they’re Just Right, so he’ll mend your clothes, make you a nice coat or shirt, he’ll tailor things for you. He’ll even use fabrics he loathes if he really loves you. Including velvet.
He’ll also randomly make food for you and causally fob it off. Going back to noticing, he’ll make your favourite dishes where possible, things traditional to your homeland, whatever will make you feel happy. He likes making those he cares about happy. It makes him happy to spread some joy.
Moving on from happy, people yelling or otherwise freaking out is horrible for him. Mostly because the loud noises and aggression makes him escalate like that in turn, so when people get mad at him and start yelling and getting up in his business, it’ll end in disaster. Just the loud noises people make when going through a strong emotion in general isn’t good, but he’s ok with laughter now. Another reason why he avoids people- people are hard and when emotions and tensions start rising, so do his chances of meltdown.
So, what does Matt’s meltdowns look like? Depends on how bad it is and what caused it. At worst they’re your stereotypical autistic meltdown, he’s screaming, maybe crying, if it’s brought on by someone else he’ll try and hit you, if it's not a person he’ll rock, he’ll hit himself in the head, bite his arms and lips, pull out his hair by the firstful. He’ll kick if he’s on the ground, and if you get too close he WILL hit you. At this point it’s best to leave him alone. At his most mild there’s crying, he’ll hit himself and scratch his arms and rock in place. No matter how bad the meltdown is, as much as possible he’ll try and get away or remove what's caused the meltdown. If it's too much stimulation he’ll run away and find somewhere peaceful no matter what, if its a person he will fucking yeet you across a room, don’t get close. Things like sand are harder, he’ll usually just stay at his peak until someone can get him away or he doesn't have to wear it/touch it/feel it/ go near it. No surprise that war in general is absolute hell for him. During wartime if he’s in the hospitals or on the frontlines he’ll be right on the edge of a breakdown. While serving the world wars he developed a temporary hatred of mud and everything associated with them, and temporarily developed selective mutism. In general, he refused to interact with all but a handful of people (mostly nations) and even then he was mostly nonverbal.
In saying that, Matt is surprisingly good with children and it was children that were key to his recovery after the wars. He adores kids, as kids tend to be very honest and easy for him to read, and even when they lie it's for reasons he can understand. And most kids are shitty liars so even he can tell when they’re lying. Matt loves playing with kids, with kids and animals being his magic combination to help him chill no matter how close to a meltdown he is. After the wars he worked a lot with kids because he was quiet and to most kids, he was scarier than anything else that they imagined could be after them. So he became the big scary friend who looks after everyone else. Once he adopts a kid as his, he will do whatever he needs to keep them happy and safe.
He does a similar thing with animals, as animals are like kids but easier again for him to understand. He loves the small cute animals, and has been known to opely sob in delight over impossibly tiny animals like kittens and puppies. In saying that, he also loves adopting the grumpy old bastard cats who no one can get near from shelters. If you give him an inch he’ll take a mile and end up running like a bajillion Old Friends Senior Dog Sanctuary style sanctuaries for animals in need. Don’t test him. Their fur is oddly calming to him, a throwback to his childhood when animal hides were commonly used, especially in winter.
And yeah, that's everything. Thanks for reading this stupidly fucking long talk about Matts autism! This is a living document, so it’ll evolve as Matt evolves, so it’ll be a good idea to check back in on this every now and again once I add it to his page. However it is about 11pm as I finish this edit before posting and I woke up at 6am this morning for work and must do so again tomorrow. So yeah.
Thanks again!
#that's a very vauge concept you know {about}#I'll schedule this so the Americans can see it#please read this this was a labour of#love and lots of hard work and editing#thanks
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Annotated edition, Week in Ethereum News, April 19 issue
Here’s the most clicked for the week:
As I always say, the most clicked is determined by what people hadn’t already seen during the week.
My thought is that the annotated edition tries to give people a more high-level overview. If I were only reading a few things this week, I would read
Quarterly update from each EF team
Prysmatic launches the Topaz testnet, ready for multi-client testnet
Compound’s decentralized governance launches
Why so many South Americans are into DeFi: “when you believe and know in your heart that nothing is riskier than your government or a bank, any alternative becomes much more enticing”
7 reasons Eth2 will change the blockchain game
The quarterly update from each EF team is pretty down in the weeds, but some of those teams don’t do much communicating. They don’t have the same need to communicate as EF pays salaries, plus some of teams are low-level stuff where the audience is already quite small. It’s at least worth skimming to get a general idea of what the EF teams are doing though.
Prysmatic launched their new testnet, which isn’t the multi-client testnet™ but is very close. We should see that in the next few weeks. The “7 reasons Eth2 changes the game” is certainly an Eth bullish post, but I suspect that the “eth2 skepticism trade” is going to start unwinding and it could have a big impact on the price of ETH. In fact, I think the price of ETH would likely be higher right now if Eth2 didn’t exist, because crypto fund managers have all turned eth2 into “just a meme” and sold on skepticism. Meanwhile literally zero Eth wannabes have yet to deliver anything scalable without trading off decentralization - and if you trade off decentralization, then you may as well just use SQL.
I suspect Compound’s governance will prove to be something that many projects copy. Of course they didn’t come up with it all on their own, they certainly incorporated many elements from others (eg, Maker) but it’s a solid model for web3 apps to follow.
Finally Mariano Conti’s essay on why DeFi. Contrary to Bitcoin’s “tHe DoLlAr iS aBoUt tO coLaPsE,” DeFi provides an alternative financial system to the folks whose fiat is actually on the verge of collapsing and who don’t want to hold volatile assets like ETH (or an unsustainable memecoin like BTC). Of course it’s not perfect, and it’s risky but any Argentine has a pretty good sense that DeFi is less risky than their banking system or Argentina’s Peronist Peso Printer.
That thing goes brrrrrrrrrrrrrr like no other.
Eth1
Geth v1.9.13, with dynamic state snapshots if you use the flag
Nethermind v.1.8.1 – receipts, bodies and state can be synced in parallel. WebSockets and HTTP run on same port
Latest core devs call. Beiko’s notes. Progress and discussion on EIPs for Berlin.
Quilt doc on account abstraction implementation plan
Most of this speaks for itself. The clients continue to improve while things are being worked on for the next hard fork. Meanwhile the longer-term stateless Ethereum continues to be worked on.
Eth2
Prysmatic launches the Topaz testnet, ready for multi-client testnet
Chainsafe’s Lodestar client in TypeScript releases initial audit report from Least Authority
Latest what’s new in Eth2
Latest eth2 call, lots of talk of API standardizations. Ben’s notes
Proto’s eth2fastspec, an optimization for transition speed to the spec
An update to add atomicity to cross-shard transfers at EE level
The Lodestar tooling has already proven to be really useful to devs and the code quality is quite high by all accounts.
Ben’s what’s new in eth2 is also a good high-level read, I just assume you already know that.
Layer2
When DeFi meets rollup, how rollup chains will work together
Arguably this could be in the “things you should read this week” above, as it’s a relatively high-level look at how rollups will work together, using Eth as the settlement layer.
Stuff for developers
Writing your first zk proof with circom and snarkjs from Iden3
Brownie v1.7 – (python-based dev/testing framework). easy CLI github/EthPM package install. And a quick walkthrough of using OpenZeppelin contracts with Brownie
Remix online and desktop IDE v0.10 – more e2e tests, dev node in browser, plugin improvements, publish to IPFS, async/await for script execution
OpenZeppelin test environment v0.1.4
dshackle – Eth API load balancer
Flash mintable asset backed tokens
Upload to IPFS directly from ENS manager with Temporal
How MeTokens personalizes with 3Box Profiles
Loopring launches an API for their dex rollup
Patterns for access control in Solidity
money-legos: tool to build DeFi apps
I’ve been trying to provide more context in the links of the devs section, which means I have less to say here.
That money-legos quickstarter for DeFi apps seems like it’s built for hackthons.
Security and ERC777 attacks
Sebastian Bürgel finds a bug cancelling the transaction in the Multis UI
Certora on a Synthetix reentrancy bug they found
Slither v0.6.11 – support for Solidity v0.6, auto-generate properties for unit tests and fuzzer
Curve found a vulnerability in the Curve sUSD code. Funds are safe.
Two ERC777 re-entrancy attacks this weekend. ERC777 is widely known to be vulnerable to reentrancy attacks, something ConsenSys Diligence highlighted in the Uniswap audit and on which OpenZepplin published an exploit on last summer
Thus a Uniswap market for imBTC (ERC777) got drained for ~1300 ETH with reentrancy and then lendFme also got drained for $25m USD by the attacker tricking the code into believing more had been deposited than actually had. Peckshield has a solid writeup. The losers are the liquidity providers, and dForce which had the entirety of its liquidity drained.
The dforce/lendfme attacker ended up giving back the money, apparently because he (i’ll use masculine probabalistically) used some front ends without covering his tracks, so he decided it was better to quit while still ahead.
ERC20 has some problems as a token standard, but auditors are generally quite skeptical of ERC777. Could we see a better standard someday? We certainly could, but it seems unlikely to be 777.
Ecosystem
Quarterly update from each EF team
What is still lacking to replace WeChat with web3?
Transaction fees > uncle rewards for miners in March 2020. Obviously Black Thursday’s transaction fee spike contributed to this
Replacing all the different components to make a web3 WeChat is hard. Even stuff like pictures is quite complicated.
Enterprise
EY releases OpsChain, v4, new SaaS model for public/private chains
Study of key management systems for enterprise
How the Baseline Protocol synchronizes between different systems of record
Using Baseline Protocol for medical tests
John Wolpert’s “mainnet as middleware” for a way of synchronizing different databases. It’s not quite “global settlement layer” but it basically is settlement but without the finance aspect.
Governance, DAOs, and standards
Compound’s decentralized governance launches
EIP2585: Minimal Native Meta Transaction Forwarder
Austin Williams mentions this 2002 Microsoft Research paper on Sybil resistance
Sybil resistance is quite hard, as we’ve found out with some Gitocin grants issues. I don’t think anyone is surprised by the issues, it’s obviously not a 100% onchain trustless system yet.
Application layer
A guide to the shutdown of Maker’s SAI
Play short-deck hold’em with Phil Ivey is the new VirtuePoker promo
Ox opens the waitlist for Matcha, a “better way to swap tokens”
First RocketDAO loan using an ENS name as collateral
DeFi Saver’s vault protection product Automation v2 with flash loans and Maker’s next price
How MetaCoin is thinking about Nikolai’s Reflex Bonds idea for a stablecoin without pegs
dYdX crosses 1billion USD in originated loans
AtStake, an Eth-based competitor to OpenBazaar. Also: help test OpenBazaar with Eth
A writeup of PieDAO’s managed Balancer pools
AtomicLoans lets you lock up BTC for a Dai/USDC loan. (Get ~9% by lending your Dai/USDC)
Gnosis launches a dex protocol with ring trades in batch auctions every 5 mins. First app on the protocol is dxDAO’s Mesa, available through mesa.eth
Do dexes count as DeFi? I’ll count them as a yes for my weekly metric, which - now that I’ve counted - is at 9/11.
I didn’t count VirtuePoker as DeFi but I’ve seen some persuasive arguments that gambling has often historically served as a (rather inefficient) method of capital formation.
It’s also interesting to see dexes evolve. Exchange is so fundamental to web3 that I think it’s quite possible that we see a segmented market in the long-term, despite the fact that liquidity is a great barrier to entry. There are simply niches that can be best served by certain tradeoffs, and Gnosis’s batched auction ring trades is an interesting look.
Tokens/Business/Regulation
Another flippening: value transfer on Ethereum exceeds Bitcoin
7 reasons Eth2 will change the blockchain game
Swiss Financial Stability Board recommends heavy stablecoin regulation in response to G20 call for stablecoin comments
Coindesk reports that China’s Blockchain Service Network will incorporate Ethereum
Canada’s regulatory guidance for crypto exchanges
Bullionix: mint gold coin NFTs using DGX
HashCash v2 – personal token spam protection with auto-decreasing bond
me tokens, synthetic labor personal tokens on a bonding curve integrated with Moloch/Aragon from Chris Robison. Unfortunately I can’t read the blog post because Medium censored it.
DeFi Market Cap, neat way to compare what pools are popular inside of DeFi
Virtual gold coins is a pretty interesting bundle.
Also cool to see some folks experimenting with personal tokens. Until 2017 got out of control, the hope was to see more experiments (and no scams, ahem!) at small scale, rather than “here’s $100m in ETH, now it’s 1 billion in ETH....now you’re panic selling the bottom.” Capital allocation in decentralized ecosystems has not been great.
General
MyCrypto and PhishFort get 49 malicious Chrome extensions removed
Etherscan’s ETHProtect, taint inference analysis
Shapeshift buys Portis, and will rebrand it as Shapeshift
Binance is planning a centralized (DPoS) EVM chain
SheFi, a DeFi education program aimed at women
Why so many South Americans are into DeFi: “when you believe and know in your heart that nothing is riskier than your government or a bank, any alternative becomes much more enticing”
The Eth logo made of Venezuelan bolivars
The Eth logo was made up of 3.71 million bolivars, so 0.16 ETH, or under $30 USD. A sad commentary for a country that briefly had the same standard of living as the United States just a couple decades before I was born.
Ultimately it is hard to retain the fruits of your labor if poor public policy choices are made by voters, and none was worse than electing an authoritarian dictator.
Finally, you might notice that below I added the sponsor and calendar section to the annotated edition for the first time.
This newsletter is made possible by ConsenSys
I own 100% Week In Ethereum News. Editorial control has always been me.
If you’re wondering “why didn’t my post make it into Week in Ethereum News,” then here’s a hint: don’t email me. Do put it on Reddit.
Dates of Note
Upcoming dates of note (new/changes in bold):
Apr 21-23 – EY Global Blockchain Virtual Summit
Apr 24 – EthGlobal’s HackMoney virtual hackathon starts
Apr 24-26 – EthTurin
Apr 29-30 – SoliditySummit (Berlin)
May 8-9 – Ethereal Summit (NYC)
May 22-31 – Ethereum Madrid public health virtual hackathon
June 17 – EthBarcelona R&D workshop
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Somewhere along the Lincoln Highway in Iowa with The Banana Splits
Hi there, neighbour,
Going my way,
East or west on the Lincoln Highway?
Hey there, Yankee,
Give out a great big "thankee";
You're in God's Country ...
--theme song from the radio drama Lincoln Highway (NBC, 1940-42), an anthology of stories set along the course thereof (a/k/a US Hwy. 30) between New York and San Francisco
Let's just say it's somewhere along the eastern part of Iowa's portion of the Lincoln Highway, roughly between Ames and its crossing the Mississippi River at Clinton. Just a typical Lincoln Highway small town having gone in decline for some years, but still managing to keep going thanks to a modest general store, cafe, gas station/convenience store and "opry house" known to host small-time dance bands on occasion.
And let's further say it's a dull, nearly leaden-looking winter's day when they say snow could fall pretty much any moment now. Especially an intense, heavy snow of the sort best associated with blizzard-like conditions, the sort which can disrupt travel for days on end.
Nonetheless, this particular stretch of the Lincoln Highway in Iowa seems deader than a doornail with pretty much local traffic handling things and the cafe dominated by area farmers seeking some sort of respite from the "home cooking" for want of much farm work to be done, yet known for their breaded pork tenderloin sandwiches on oversized buns (something of an Iowa gournet speciality) as have attracted traffic among Lincoln Highway fans in season.
But hark! is there some sort of tour bus approaching, and in garishly psychadelic colours to boot? 'Tis that of The Banana Splits--Bingo, Drooper, Fleagle and Snorky--driving westerly on said Lincoln Highway with no particular concert venue in mind. It was getting to be lunchtime anyway, and Fleagle, driving the tour bus this time around, announces that there will be a break for lunch at this particular cafe ("And I understand the pork tenderloin sandwiches are supposed to be rather good here!"--Fleagle), with (hopefully) much conversation as well. And to imagine such a colourful-looking and at once unconventional bunch in small-town Iowa along the Lincoln Highway was hardly on the minds of middle-aged farmers otherwise approaching retirement leaving the cafe, and just be thankful there weren't exercises in panic attack or shock as they left their bus and entered the cafe.
All in all, the quartet were seated at a decent little table in an otherwise modest-sized cafe for a small town such as this, with a somewhat smart-alecky-sounding waitress who looked as if she just left the nearest high school and was otherwise unable to find "honest work" per workfare serving them. And to a beast, all four ordered the legendary pork tenderloins the place was notorious for, even as she struck up conversation:
"OK, who's the leader of this rather eccentric bunch?"
"None other than Fleagle, myself and in the fur!"
"And I take it you're not the glasses-wearing sort," retorted the waitress.
"Correct. The rest of us are." And the remainder thus introduced themselves:
"I'm Bingo, the drummer and chief bottle-washer for the Banana Splits--not to mention resident joker."
"Drooper's my name. Pulling off electric guitar and backing vocals--"
(Snorky, whose speech is little more than honking and vocalisations chimed in. Drooper responding--)
"That elephant is Snorky. He plays the electronic organ, and I have to interpret for him by and large."
"Well," the waitress shot back, "don't that beat all for a band like The Banana Splits! In any event, I'll get your pork tenderloin sandwiches ready in a few, and--what would you like to drink?"
"You got iced tea?" asked Drooper. "I'll get a pitcher of it ready for you all," was how the waitress replied. "And what's more, we brew it ourselves from tea leaves; none of that concentrate crap for us Iowans!"
In any event, the conversation got rather hilarious and joke-laden as much when the sandwiches were being prepared as when the four went through such, and not even the passing of a couple of freight trains on the Union Pacific tracks close by could distract. But what nearly did was where the radio was cutting in on paleoconservative talkback prolefeed with bulletins announcing the imminence of a Major Winter Storm in these parts of the Lincoln Highway, with traffic likely to be disrupted; as well, announcements of early school closings was getting to be made.
"Uh, boys," the waitress chimed in, "seeing as where it's likely things could get chaotic with the storm they say is coming this way, and they're not advising much travel as well, I could put you up in the rooms upstairs for awhile. We're not exactly much of a hotel, but in its day it used to be a going thing in this regard." To which the wntire crew agreed to accept the offer of such Iowan hospitality under potentially distressing circumstances--even if all four had to get back into the bus to get their belongings and get their rooms assigned, not to mention the manager of the cafe getting out the space heaters and overstuffed quilts for the beds just to get things ready.
"Say, ma'am," Fleagle chimed in, "how much will this cost us in the end?"
"Call this an act of mercy and compassion," the waitress replied, "in the face of what we're about to face."
And before too long, the storm came along. And it was an almost sudden onset of blinding snow that could easily be discerned against the streetlight across the way from the cafe, flakes being driven by intense winds and, given the low-pressure sodium lighting in use, creatd a somewhat magical sort of glow upon things. As for entertaining themselves into the night, our crew couldn't help but go into a crazy pillow fight or two, working on a few possible new items for their show (whenever that was) and trying to get something on their portable shortwave radio besides consumptive-sounding "religious" and conspiracy theorists until tiredness set upon all at around ten that evening. Even if they had to essentially sleep on their bellies, all four managed to get some sleep in.
The next morning: Considering the general state of affairs caused by the storm, not much was going on to begin with, schools being cancelled and roads being worked on in the snow-and-ice-removal department. But in any event, the cafe's owner trated all four to breakfast of pancakes and sausage with rather potent coffee as well to keep things stimulated. Followed by Bingo pulling in some time shovelling out what passed for the town's main sidewalk ... and some talk about the idea of staging a modest little concert at the town's "opry house" as a "thank you" for taking them in, which came up further over lunch ... as well as a walkthrough of the "opry house" and a look at its amenities as the storm was winding down. Suffice it to say that the hardwood dance floor was enough to impress all four, not to mention its campy quonset-hut construction, making things a little more "homey."
And it took at least three days to get everything arranged, but even with such short notice, The Banana Splits' gig managed to get pulled off in an otherwise picayune one-horse Lincoln Highway town. And with admission essentially being what you could afford, such managed to translate into a modest crowd from area farms and farming communities as were otherwise facing the same predictably mind-dulling blandness of the vidiot's lamp of Diognes as things were clearing away from the late snowstorm. Which was quite an attraction, distraction even, the point of which was not lost on Fleagle in introducing themselves ("Looks like we have quite the crowd of otherwise bored and lifeless farmers, and farmer's daughters as well, here tonight!). And it would not be until well after one in the morning (allowing for a buffet supper at midnight) that things essentially wound down and concluded.
Once the concert was out of the way, the crew's sleeping in the next morning just to deal with all the excitement The Banana Splits put into such an impromptu show was certainly much deserved. As would the breakfast of ham-and-cheese omlettes, hash browns, toast and coffee offered as another "thank you" gift before setting out on their way-ho-way down the Lincoln Highway ...
"You know something, Fleagle?" Drooper asked as the tour bus got back underway.
"What, Drooper?"
"That was certainly a show of hospitality they put on for us back in the last town!" To which Bingo added, "You bet your sweet pork tenderloin!"
In any case, this marks the 100th edition of Fanfic Friday here at It's So Hanna-Barberaesque. Your Correspondent would like to thank you for your generous and gracious support of this very blog, not to mention enjoying these Fanfic Friday missives featuring some of your favourite Hanna-Barbera characters down the years ... and, I hope, finding the time to recommend and share these stories to your friends in the interest of keeping Hanna-Barbera's Funsensically Funtastic World alive and viable to a new generation (and then some).
#fanfic friday#100th post#hanna barbera#the banana splits#lincoln highway#small-town iowa#pork tenderloin sandwiches#major winter storm
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How Hideo Kojima and Junji Ito Could Finish What Silent Hills Started
https://ift.tt/2EpTlgx
The collaboration survival horror fans have been waiting for may finally be happening, according to famed mangaka Junji Ito, who confirmed that he’s been talking to video game auteur Hideo Kojima about working together on a new horror project, which has been the subject of much speculation since the release of Death Stranding last year.
Ito shared this tidbit while talking to Viz Media during this weekend’s Comic-Con@Home event (via IGN), where he was asked whether he was currently working on any video game projects.
“So, the simple answer is no,” Ito’s translator Junko Goda told Viz Media. “However, I do know director Kojima and we have been in conversation that he might have a horror-based game that he may be doing, and so he has invited me to work on that, but there are no details on it yet.”
Those who have been following Kojima’s attempts to make a horror game over the years likely know that Ito was previously set to collaborate with the video game auteur and filmmaker Guillermo del Toro on Silent Hills, a new take on the beloved survival horror series starring The Walking Dead and Death Stranding actor Norman Reedus. But the collaboration never got past a few initial meetings and a karaoke session.
“Once the Silent Hills meeting was over, we went to karaoke,” Ito said while speaking at the Toronto Comics Art Festival (via Game Informer) in 2019. “I didn’t hear anything after that. I heard that the plan got scrapped through outside sources. I have seen Kojima and Del Toro since. I never started designing monsters. Nothing exists. There are no roughs or sketches.”
In an interview with IGN about approaching Ito to work on Silent Hills, del Toro called the mangaka “completely one of the masters,” saying that he loved how Ito seemed to “get high on his own supply” while imagining the grotesque monsters, body horror, and extreme violence that are trademarks of the mangaka’s work.
“In the way that you feel Dario Argento in the early movies was getting off on each murder or you feel David Cronenberg was secretly aroused by body horror – in the same way, you feel Junji Ito being titillated at a very basic disturbing level by his stuff,” del Toro said of Ito.
However Silent Hills would have turned out, it does sound like the trio had some interesting new ideas about how to push the survival horror genre forward.
“We had a few working sessions where we were talking about using the console, the next-generation console in a way that would surprise people. Let’s really freak out people. Let’s really cause a panic with Silent Hill. Let’s go for it. Let’s go for full-blown social madness,” del Toro told IGN. “We were planning this stuff. Ito was mainly being nice, making notes. He didn’t sing either. He was a very serious man.”
Unfortunately, when Kojima and publisher Konami had a falling out during the development of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, the game director left the company and Silent Hills was quickly canceled. Konami has done little with the series since (besides making Silent Hill-themed pachinko gambling machines).
It’s a shame this all happened before Ito could even put pencil to paper. I personally would have loved to see what monstrosities Ito’s chats with Kojima and del Toro might have inspired. Fortunately, Kojima and del Toro’s P.T. demo was a stunning proof of concept for what Silent Hills might have looked like. It was also its own experiment in “social madness.”
When P.T. was mysteriously released at Gamescom 2014 by a fake studio, many gamers quickly became obsessed with solving the confounding (and terrifying) demo’s seemingly nonsensical puzzles. Within hours, P.T. had become a viral marketing phenomenon, the subject of countless reaction videos, forum threads, walkthroughs, live streams, and social media posts. Of course, beating the demo revealed P.T.‘s biggest mystery of all: that it was, in fact, a “playable teaser” for Kojima and del Toro’s Silent Hills. Yet, by the time the truth had come out, P.T. itself had morphed into its own unique experience destined to outlive the game it was created to promote.
Much has been written about the making of P.T. and its influence on the horror genre in the years since its release. You can also find plenty of videos dissecting different aspects of the demo, including videos of players, dataminers, and modders trying to figure out how the demo works. Siux years later, certain things about the demo remain a secret, including the meaning of its cyclical narrative.
The demo is a notable example of a game going viral, as players worked together on the internet to solve the puzzles, while word of mouth on social media got others to try the demo. While Kojima explored this idea further in Death Stranding, which has its own social mechanics, del Toro and Kojima originally planned to take all of this one step further with Silent Hills, using “every aspect” of the PS4 to “create a state of widespread social panic,” according to IGN. While I’d stop short of saying it caused widespread panic, P.T. itself did spread like wildfire through internet gaming communities in 2014 like some sort of interactive urban myth or creepypasta. Or a meme.
Fans of the Metal Gear series know Kojima loves to insert metafiction and other metaphysical elements into his work, such as with the Psycho Mantis boss fight in Metal Gear Solid and the final twist in Metal Gear Solid 2, which some believe predicted the pervasive nature of meme culture on the internet as well as how technology could be used for social engineering. Many of Kojima’s games specifically tackle how technology can distort and corrupt reality.
P.T. has its own distortive qualities and can even be considered a major turning point in Kojima’s work undoubtedly influenced by del Toro’s own directorial sense. Some critics have said the demo’s endlessly looping hallway, which players must keep walking through to solve P.T.‘s many puzzles, “practically hypnotizes you into a state of vulnerability.” That sense of vulnerability also comes in part from the hostile ghost that follows closely behind you throughout the experience as well as the disorienting nature of the puzzles that work on a sort of dream logic that’s never explained within the actual game. (There are no tutorials or in-game prompts to be found in P.T.)
Read more
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Death Stranding and Metal Gear Solid Artist Yoji Shinkawa on Creating Iconic Video Game Art
By Bernard Boo
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Death Stranding’s Norman Reedus Teases New Project with Hideo Kojima
By Matthew Byrd
Kojima told The Japan Times in 2014 that with P.T. he wanted to explore “a more genuine, thoughtful and permeating type of fear” than the violence and gore usually found in AAA survival horror games.
“There are horror action games with zombies and grotesque things and so forth. The real fear isn’t from those things. It’s from standing in an empty place, where just to step forward or to turn around is scary,” Kojima said, explaining that the demo is scary because “there’s no information.”
“Nowadays, when people don’t know something, they Google it. They ask on Twitter or Facebook and they get the answer right away. We live in an age of information. When that suddenly disappears, that’s the scariest thing,” Kojima explained. “That’s why there was no information about who made P.T. There was no purpose or background and no explanation about the story, and that’s frightening. I did this on purpose. That’s why I hid my name and title and just let them play.”
While Kojima has said many times since the release of P.T. that the demo wasn’t actually related to Silent Hills in terms of gameplay or story, it’s impossible not to wonder how the success of the interactive teaser would have influenced Kojima and del Toro’s final product, and how Ito’s own work would have added to the experience.
After all, Ito was a perfect fit for the “social madness” Kojima and del Toro were going for with Silent Hills. In his seminal horror manga books Gyo and Uzumaki in particular, Ito deals with extreme levels of social anxiety and the unbridled chaos that follows.
In Gyo, Japan is plagued by undead fish who crawl out of the sea using spider-like metal legs powered by a “death stench.” Images of bloated victims assimilated into the killer fish army pervade the pages of the book as do images of mass hysteria.
If Gyo is Ito’s own take on the zombie genre, Uzumaki is something far more experimental and disturbing. In Uzumaki, a small Japanese town finds itself under attack by a supernatural curse involving spirals. The book is infused with a heightened sense of paranoia, as characters try to navigate the horrific dream logic that’s not unlike the one found in P.T.
Interestingly enough, Ito was inspired to create Uzumaki in part due to his desire to understand spirals as symbols, as well as an interest in depicting spirals in an unexpected way that would scare Japanese audiences, an approach that sounds like Kojima’s own distortion of gameplay mechanics players normally take for granted.
“The ‘spiral pattern’ is not normally associated with horror fiction. Usually spiral patterns mark character’s cheeks in Japanese comedy cartoons, representing an effect of warmth. However, I thought it could be used in horror if I drew it a different way,” Ito said in an interview with 78 magazine in 2006. “Spirals are one of the popular Japanese patterns from long ago, but I don’t know what the symbol represents. I think spirals might be symbolic of infinity.”
While Ito’s work is full of the violence and gore that Kojima wanted to move away from with P.T., it’s clear that the two creators share similar sensibilities when it comes to finding more primal ways of scaring their audiences. Like Kojima and his use of the suburban hallway, Ito often uses images of things that aren’t traditionally considered scary — like spirals — in order to terrify. Another example is hair.
“Historically, long black hair has been symbolic of Japanese women, and most women value this image. The long hair of a woman is common in Japanese horror because it conveys an enveloping feeling of movement. I think it conjures up fear in people unconsciously,” Ito told 78.
It’s in this space between what we know to be scary and what people don’t even know they’re scared of yet that both Ito and Kojima excel. With Kojima now running his own Kojima Productions indie studio where he can decide what he wants to work on and with whom he wants to work with next, his collaboration with Ito might finally come into fruition on their own terms. And their past work certainly points to a match made in hell.
If Kojima and Ito do decide to collaborate on a new horror game, one would have to wonder how del Toro might fit into the project. After Silent Hills was canceled and a previous video game project called Insane also fell through, del Toro vowed to never work on a game again during an interview with Playboy (via IGN). That said, del Toro did allow Kojima to use his likeness for a major supporting character in Death Stranding, so perhaps there’s hope the Silent Hills trio could be reunited one day.
Until then, our hopes of seeing something akin to what was planned for Silent Hills rest with Kojima and Ito. Perhaps Kojima could even teach Ito a thing or two about video games along the way: “I don’t know anything about games. I don’t play them. I am afraid if I get into them I’ll miss deadlines. I have never played Silent Hill,” Ito revealed at the Toronto Comics Art Festival while ruminating on his relationship with Kojima. “I have known Hideo Kojima for 20 years. He is a nice older brother type.”
The post How Hideo Kojima and Junji Ito Could Finish What Silent Hills Started appeared first on Den of Geek.
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Places to Shoot in Bangkok Part 6: Khlong Toei Slum (Worst Ghetto in Bangkok)
Chromacoma back at it again this month with a guide of a more serious and gritty nature. Following some recent requests, I have dedicated this month’s entry to the slum area of Khlong Toei district (also often seen written as ‘Klong Toey’).
You might recall my saying back in the Chinatown guide that you don’t need to go to Chinatown to shoot pictures of Thai Chinese people. Likewise, you don’t need to go to Khlong Toei if you want to see and take pictures of a real Thai urban slum, they are everywhere. Just look out from many high up vantage points anywhere in the city and look for the tiny little areas featuring tightly packed, wooden-walled lean to shelter type homes with corrugated tin roofs and dogs running around everywhere and that is just as likely a slum by any other name. It’s just that the Khlong Toei ‘slum’ is MUCH, MUCH worse than anywhere else. It has long been known by Bangkokians to be very much the epitome of the word and is perhaps most often cited as a typical worst-case example of such an area in Bangkok. It is famous for its extreme poverty and resulting issues such as high crime and drug abuse, which is off the charts.
That said, I believe that (at least in the case of men) it’s not especially unsafe in broad daylight as a Westerner as long as you conduct yourself humbly and with some respect for the inhabitants of such dwellings. For women, you probably would also be fine but I feel that I can’t quite recommend it to a solo female photographer in full conscience. Either go with a guy or at least go as a group of women together, I am genuinely sorry if that upsets any female readers but I want to be fully responsible for the quality of the advice I give here so that would be my honest gut feeling about it. I couldn't feel entirely comfortable recommending any woman I know to go there on a solo tip. I'm sure there are lots of Western women volunteers who have worked at many of the charity foundations in the area and found no problems roaming around there whilst they were doing their bit as volunteers or whatever but I personally think that a little caution is needed, especially once you get off the busier main routes and head deeper down into the less travelled parts (by farangs) of Khlong Toei.
With all of the above out of the way, you might feel that this is gonna be a really scary venture into a dangerous ghetto and it CERTAINLY can be (especially at night when I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to anybody really) but in many ways it can seem a deceptively different scenario. For starters, due to its relatively close proximity to the Sukhumvit (especially Ekamai and Thong Lo areas) and Rama 4 roads (mainstream Bangkok) and also perhaps because of its infamy, you do actually get some more adventurous Westerners here on their SE Asia adventure trip of a lifetime deciding to go and walk around the area. There’s also sometimes a volunteer worker or ‘voluntourist’ to be found doing their bit here and there as well, fair play to them. So, it’s not as though you are going to blend in any time soon but the locals there have definitely seen the odd backpacker with a camera before, believe me. As with anywhere else in Thailand, if you approach slowly and calmly with a smile, some people will even be a little smiley and friendly in return, despite the obviously huge gap between their lot in life and yours. This can be humbling.
HOWEVER, in more than two decades in Thailand, this is the only place where, when trying to walk down random alleys and walkways, the locals have politely tried to stop me…not to prohibit me from entering per se but rather to try and advise me that it really wasn’t perhaps in my best interests (from a personal safety point of view) to do so. That is something I hadn’t ever really experienced (or can at least remember experiencing) in Thailand before. So, think about doing your own risk assessment for this maybe because it's very much real life, not some reality TV show.
On this trip, I saw used needles and syringes lying around discarded as rubbish on the floor (again, I have never seen that anywhere in Thailand) where children were playing. I saw some of those children playing with rubbish as their toys, some of them were stinking to high heaven as they had soiled themselves and their clearly drunk or high mother right next to them didn’t seem to want to clean them up. I walked past people openly smoking either 'yaabaa' or 'ice' methamphetamines in front of me in broad daylight, as the sickly sweet chemical smells wafted into my face, they carried on like zombies regardless. People are shooting up drugs here with needles any time day and night. This is not a 'nice' place.
All of the above seems more relevant when you consider that to see the real Khlong Toei slum, you need to be off any of the main roads and waaaay down these alleys and back streets and train tracks (!) wandering around and going as deep as you dare into the labyrinthine networks of poverty stricken walkthroughs. You might well find yourself standing on top of the old train line which runs almost right through people’s little shacks (in the main photo at the top of this post, those tiny wooden and cardboard boxes on the train lines in the photos are where I found people living and sleeping!) or you might get stuck up a dead end and need to follow a local to see whether their route will bring you back out to some kind of civilization again. It’s fun but in all honesty, it’s not perhaps for the faint of heart. This is also a time to watch out for any rabid, and diseased soi dogs that might be on the attack. The potential danger from the locals also extends to those with four legs! It’s best to be confident if you turn a corner and find yourself in the midst of a pack of them as the local Thai strays often smell fear, and then things can get tricky very quickly. Make like a local Thai and keep on pushing dead straight ahead and show them who’s boss. It can take a bit of nerve at times, if you panic and get stuck, wait for a passing Thai and walk quickly alongside them, they know which dogs can be easily brushed aside and which ones you might want give a wider berth to.
It’s not the best place for normal lenses. It is certainly doable but you can really benefit from a 35mm or even a 28mm for this mission. There is a lot of shadow play and contrasting bright and dark scenery to deal with. In terms of equipment and technique, it has a lot in common with the Chinatown approach I guess. Zone focusing is highly recommended. Film shooters need ISO 400 flexibility at a minimum I would say and take an extra roll or two beyond what you might be expecting to use. Also be forewarned that one problem I have had is that in certain parts of the slum, the sheer smell of all the litter and refuse and waste can be a little overpowering at times. It’s quite an assault to the senses in more ways than one. People are basically living right in and on top of a huge, rat infested rubbish dump. In this shot below where the young woman is salvaging something from the large open skip, she was (I believe) trying to collect up old aluminum drinks cans for money but I couldn’t get any closer as I was already dry heaving, I mean quite literally convulsing and looking to get away from the stench and sheer squalor at that point as I had been in the area for about an hour longer than I had anticipated.
I did find some people who seemed quite happy in their humble little slum homes as they worked away doing some sewing or running a tiny little shop that caters to the residents of their particular little alleyway. It’s not all sad people. This is the kind of place where you’ll easily stumble on a crowd of guys having an afternoon heavy drinking session of whisky or beers around a table, perhaps whilst an illegal card or dice game is going down. Just be cool and make like Dionne Warwick….walk on by.
Of course, you could opt to sit down and take the drink offered to you but it can all get a bit sticky when you later wish to untangle yourself from the mess you might end up in. Of course, many backpackers do this and then take photos of their newfound ‘Thai drinking buddies’ and go home with tales of how they personally found the ‘real Thailand’ etc. Hey, who am I to judge? Whatever you wanna do and at least it’s as a result of going your own way and meeting people and seeing places that are not part and parcel of the standard tourist package, right?
Also, in terms of culture shock (and especially if you are on holiday here), you’ll likely be needing a steely resolve emotionally when you see how people (especially kids) are living their lives in such an area. As with many capital cities in ‘developing countries’ (whatever that means anyway), this slum area is within a fairly close proximity to huge, high end shopping malls and ‘the haves’ living their comfortable lives. This little photographic mission is more of a photojournalistic opportunity in essence really. It’s very much the gritty and certainly shitty end of the stick and it’s out there for anybody to go and see and record with a camera. I highly recommend black and white film for this kind of thing but then again I would say that of course. Use whatever you’ve got with you (the best camera is always the one with you, or so they say) and really try to squeeze the best out of it and yourself.
By the way, ‘Khlong’ means a canal, and ‘Toei’ is a flower sometimes used in Thai food and drinks, I think the English name is ‘Pandan’ but don’t hold me to that 100%. I know what it looks and tastes like, I just don’t know for sure if I’ve got that right or not. The ‘T’ in ‘Toei’ isn’t really a ‘t’ sound at all but rather a combination of what it would sound like if you tried to say ‘t’ with more of a ‘d’ sound. I am trying to make it simple for non Thai speakers to at least attempt to say it correctly.
Taxi drivers know it, assuming you can say it correctly. Nearest MRT station is Klong Toei. The slum itself is actually in several areas and so really should be pluralized into ‘slums’. Generally however, when people talk of the Khlong Toei Slum, they are talking about the biggest, most concentrated area of it and this is where you can also find a charity or foundation or two. Here below is a map cutaway for you to use on a device and show to a taxi driver, it has both English and Thai on it. Anywhere within the red arrows outer perimeter is pretty much different shades of full on Klong Toei ghetto but you should explore randomly within that area as much as possible, it’s almost different every time you go. There are some key landmarks also in English on that map in case you are very ‘directionally challenged’ (or your taxi driver is!), for example Bangkok University. I hope that this blog entry proves useful and that your day there goes well. I never normally say this but…good luck!
For those that don’t make it there, this post at least features some of my work from a recent trip there to give you just a glimpse. For anyone who is bothered, these were with a Rolleiflex and Ilford Delta 400 as I recall.
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