I Think Nate's the Schmidt

Yes! Help!! 8dD

.... And here is a practical example of why I hardly use Tumblr anymore XP let's try that again, shall we? XD

Yes! Hello!! 8D I am doing kinkuary this year and am enjoying the HELL out of it ^.^ I'm bad at Tumblr, and whenever I log in, I tend to lose several hours to doom scrolling, so discord is a safer bet to keep track of me, but I am posting all of my fics to AO3 ^.^ and that is where you can find my kinkuary collection 8D

I did a bit of a shuffle for today's prompt. I actually posted prompt 12, but that's because I want prompt 8 to be a sequel, so look forward to that!! 8D

Sleep paralysis is weird… you’re awake but your body literally can’t fucking do anything, your brain is going “back to sleeeeeep” but your survival instincts are saying “DON’T GO BACK TO SLEEP OR YOU’LL FUCKING DIE” you end up being this creature that’s half way to an anxiety attack but literally can’t do anything about it… mother nature why did you design this shitty animal

And then your brain projects a demon into your room because why not?

Brain: this situation isn’t hellish enough I’m gonna add some uuuuuhhhhhhhhhh…satan

The first time it happened to me I had a witch, complete with pointy hat, green skin and a wart on her nose, floating on a swirling black cloud above my bed.

I was about 12 at the time.

man i feel sorry for you guys. The first and only experience i’ve had with sleep paralysis was literally just a bunch of fucking ants crawling all over my body, but like it was a poorly looped gif of ants and as soon as I realized when the ants reset to their original position, they started floating off my body in chunks and clipping through my bed. Hands down one of the top 5 funniest things to happen to me.

It seems you were suffering from sleep bethesda

Personally I’ve come to enjoy some of the effects. Like, the not being able to move is freaky, but some of the weird hallucinations are interesting and I like the ‘infinite falling’ thing because falling for what seems like forever is one of those things you can’t do IRL but always feel kind of curious about? Anyway, I like that one.

I find like... pretending to go back to sleep and then taking a running JUMP towards wakefulness tends to snap me out of sleep paralysis. like “Yeah, okay... goin’ to sleep... slow breaths... down.. down..... PSYCH HERE I COME GRAAAHHH!!!!... fuck. Well, I’m awake now. also, can move. cool.”

Map of the US by a truck driver who has seen most of it…

This is DEFINITELY someone I call an expert.

I’m desperate to know who Gary is. So I can also avoid him.

Song starts at 2:30. If I have to have it stuck in my head, so do you.

ok looks like a fair few people in the notes had genuinely antagonistic relationships with their siblings, so I'm going to clarify here and say that I meant the type of friendly wrestling that most siblings who are close in age perform as a bonding activity 😟

Rough play is actually super cool. Not only is it a top notch outlet, it is also about the best damned way to learn boundaries- depending on age, rough play invariably goes “too far” once in a while, and it’s a great way to learn your own boundaries, the boundaries of others, and how to pull things back when they get out of hand.  I’m an only child, it took a long time to come to terms with how rough my kids were with each other, but in watching them I’ve learned a lot. There’s a 3 year age gap, right? So 4 and 7, but the older one only has a few pounds on the younger one. Given the age difference there’s a lot of activities that they don’t mesh together with, but wrestling? That’s for everyone. I’m sorry that so many people had antagonistic relationships with their siblings, that’s a failure on parents to ensure that boundaries were respected. Kids can’t be responsible for that, they’re still learning. The parents need to be involved, even just as spectators/referees. 

My parents were TERRIBLE referees. My father’s reaction to my brother and I roughhousing was basically “nah, they’re fine.” (To be fair, 99% of the time we WERE. I don’t actually feel he was wrong for how he handled it) but my mother -- who is an only child -- REALLY REALLY didn’t get it. I have multiple memories of her scolding one or both of us for swatting at the other and we weren’t even actually roughhousing... we were just... swatting a shoulder to be like “How Daer Thee!!” There was no real violence behind it at all.

tl;dr Your addition put my mother’s misunderstanding of the bonding my brother and I shared into a perspective that REALLY makes a lot of sense, and has always kind of sat in the back of my mind as like “Why was she so upset by this???” so... thank you for sharing your experiences.

Marvel movies have completely eliminated the concept of practical effects from the movie-watching public’s consciousness

Not just practical effects just like. Basic set design lol

How… How do they think sci-fi was done before CGI?

Really badly? Do you remember sci-fi before CGI? It was shit. And don’t say Star Wars because they went back and fixed that with CGI later.

*big sigh* *puts head in hands* heathens who’ve never watched pre-MCU sci-fi movies OR the unedited Star Wars movies, my beloathed

So first of all, most people agree that the majority of the “CGI fixes” in the Star Wars original trilogy (excluding minor visual/sound effects like lightsaber colors and blaster sounds) are unececssary, extremely conspicuous, and/or bad. This is not news to literally anyone older than about 20 who has consumed Star Wars content on any level. There are quite literally two very famous ‘despecialized’ fan projects explicitly dedicated to un-doing all of the shitty “fixed” CGI effects while simultaneously restoring the OT in HD.

And yes, I do, in fact, remember sci-fi special effects before CGI was the foundational cornerstone of moviemaking. It was not, in fact, shit:

Also, ironically I can show you by….*gasp* using fucking Star Wars, of all things. Welcome to the Tatooine pod race set of The Phantom Menace, which was not, as popularly believed, CGI’d but was instead a fully-built miniature set:

Yes, they built the entire set as a minature, built life-sized pod racers for the actors, then spliced the two together using digital effects. Yes, they did such a fantastic job that people think the entire set and scene sequence was basically completely CGI’d to this day. You’re fucking welcome for undervaluing the time, effort, and talents of set designers by implying that set design and practical effects inherently mean things will look like shit.

CGI also ages really poorly. What you think looks incredibly realistic now is going to look terrible in a few years. Just look at the original vs remastered Star Trek. They “restored” Star Trek around 2006 and replaced a lot of the practical effects with CGI, and maybe it looked ok in 2006, but it looks so bad and fake now.

You can see a video comparison for one episode here: https://youtu.be/ruPVTPCavdM

In the 60s they built a whole model of the Enterprise, complete with blinking lights and beautifully sculpted/painted details. It looks stunning! Then they replaced it with that horribly smooth and fake looking cgi ship.

Just look at this beauty

You can see the model at the Air and Space Museum in DC

Unfortunately the remastered version is the only version available to stream, but you can still find DVDs with the original effect.

made in 1968 and still stunning 2001 A Space Odyssey

the designers worked with engineers at NASA to make realistic futuristic special effects using models and matte paintings no computer effects at all! - and incidentally inspired David Bowie to write Space Oddity, later performed in space by astronaut Chris Hadfield

The CGI of the original Jurassic Park may not be aging well (though arguably still better than some), but the practical effects will always look stunning. 

I want to talk fantasy.

This shot was achieved with splicing and green screen.

This wild-looking shot (and similar manipulations) was famously achieved by having a professional juggler in a duplicate of Bowie’s jacket and gloves sitting behind him, basically with Bowie in his lap, doing the handwork while Bowie kept his arms behind the juggler. You may have seen a game based on this on Whose Line Is It Anyway.

This? Wires! Splicing! THE CGI TO DO THIS DIDN’T EXIST YET! (The juggler is hidden under the cape. If there’s a scene where he’s wearing a cape, that’s actually probably why.)

And this? This heartstopping shot?

This does appear to be from the version with CGI—

—CGI THAT WAS USED TO ERASE THE SHADOW FROM THE PRACTICAL EFFECT.

The shot itself hasn’t changed. The lift itself was done with wires and Bowie was given some propulsion with an air cannon so he could make that turn at speed. A minor amount of CGI was used in the 30th anniversary to “touch up” the work done in 1986, and one of the things they did was to remove a shadow on the wall from one of the wires.

How about this?

You don’t know it, but you’re looking at a practical effect. In real life, the Ruby Slippers are almost orange. That luxe, rich ruby color showed up on the film as black when the shoes were the correct color, so the costumers adjusted the actual costume to give the color they wanted.

A MODEL OF A HOUSE SHOT INSIDE A NYLON STOCKING ATTACHED TO A FAN.

MAN IN A COSTUME.

HORSES DUSTED WITH COLORED GELATIN.

And this? This is where it would’ve been useful to have CGI. Margaret Hamilton got really badly burned on the steam doing one of her entrance/exits, and ended up in the hospital. THIS is what you use CGI for.

You come into my house and insult practical effects?

I’ll just finish off by reminding you THIS IS ONE, TOO.

That last one, iirc, was there was a double in a sepia-toned costume, and the interior door and wall there was painted brown, so when it was lit and shot it all appeared to still be in the sepia tone of the Kansas scenes, and part of why Dorothy stepped back out of the frame was so the double and Judy Garland (in the proper blue-and-white costume) could swap.

You are correct. The double’s name, by the way, was Bobbi Koshay.

#this is also a purely personal opinion but aged practical effects are charming #in a way that aged cgi is not (via @glorious-spoon)

I saw an Adam Savage video/interview once, think it was him... where he talked about that pod-racing set, the way they made all the little people move, the reason everyone thinks it’s CGI? They’re que-tips... they painted the heads of literal THOUSANDS of que-tips and stuck them into little slots and blew fans from underneath to make them dance and bob like an excited crowd.

You are soft and squishy. The reason you ended up on the top of the food chain is because you evolved the superpowers: Stamina, cooperation, tool using, and being physically incapable of utilizing your whole strength modifier (no really, it’s a thing. It helps prevent injury, and is how people do things like lift cars in times of complete crisis). Basically, you have none of your best skillsets.

Meanwhile, the wild animal will utilize THEIR superpowers including but not limited to: no fucks, sharp bits, venom, ACTUAL ACCESS TO THEIR FULL STRENGTH MODIFIER.

So in summation:

Btw I’m pro-quitting.  This is a quitting-positive space.  If you’re doing something and you decide “I don’t like this” or “I don’t want to do this” then you should quit.  Quitting is awesome.  Grinding only works in video james.

I quit all the time.  It’s great.

Embrace the power of “Y’know what? Fuck this” and see how it can improve your life

I dropped out of college and am now WELL on my way to my first novel in the time it would’ve taken me to fail two classes and waste over a grand.... Quit bad ideas today.

Long-serving NHL captains, their multi-coloured shorts and casual holiday poses, amirite?

On it

@al-the-remix I wrote it!! 8D

Took a little longer than I meant it to, but... here it is!! 8D and it’s 2.5k of slutty, slutty porn. ^.^

obsessed with the line “if i can continue to be a minor nuisance to the forces of nature trying to decompose me, i’m gonna consider that a win. the wheel of time will continue to turn, and i with it, like a nail in a tire”

@thebibliosphere Mom this video gives me very strong “you” vibes XD

@theshitpostcalligrapher This whole thing seems RIGHT up your alley, but especially “The Wheel of Time will continue to turn, and I with it, like a nail in a tire.”

What you’re describing sounds like nystagmus. It can be a symptom of neurological issues, eye conditions, medication side effects, or resulting from injury. It can be intermittent.

I don’t have advice for it, but sometimes having a name to what’s happening helps. Nystagmus is the medical term for it, so it’s helpful for research and any conversations with doctors

“Jitter” is a very good word for what it feels like. 

Looked up “Nystagmus” and found:

Which uh... yeah, I do that... a LOT.... especially when doing photo retouching, like... my preparing to get to work routine involves “boot up computer, set up, pick music, yadda yadda, Tilt Head.” like... the tilting head is a distinct and DELIBERATE movement that I feel like I “have” to make before I can do retouching... (I also tilt my head at other times, but when retouching it’s a whole Thing)

And yeah, even if there’s no prognosis or treatment, just knowing What It IS makes SO much difference to my mental peace of mind.

I’m also FAIRLY certain I’ve got dyspraxia, got diagnosed with Fibromyalgia about a year ago, and DEFINITELY have adhd, so... wouldn’t be surprised if I could toss this on the neurological whupsies pile.

Also, checking through the notes, few people mentioned having something similar sounding happen when they look down or unfocus their eyes? I’ve been noticing it the last couple days when I have my head tilted down to look at my phone/tablet, even if I’m reclined in bed, and just now unfocused my eyes and felt a very mild version? so... yeah, I think both of those are related. Thanks to all the notes and suggestions 8D much appreciated to you and to Joy for the help ^.^

There's this theme or idea I want to write about but I can't figure out how to express it. Like a kid had a grand mal seizure in class last semester and there was a girl there who knew what to do and started ordering everybody around and it turned out that she just took a first aid class one time.

So imagine there's some demon shit going on nearby. A rent in spacetime has opened up and eldritch ooze is leaking from a nearby hell-dimension. And you need someone qualified, a priest or a preacher or something, to deal with that shit. So everyone's asking, "Is anybody here a man of God? Are you a man of God?"

And some guy gets up and is like well ive been an agnostic for 15 years but I did some preaching back in the day and they're all like "YOU, MAN OF GOD, WHAT DO WE DO?"

My dad was a pastor and in the years since people have still asked him to do weddings and funerals on occasion.

I just want to write about that situation of suddenly being the most qualified person in the room for something but also the amateur, rusty, duct-taped version of the holy and sacred. I have this idea in my head of a world where some people don't have a religious bone in their body but they can recognize a situation where you need a man of God, and they seek out the closest thing they can find, even if it's some guy who hasn't done any preaching in 20 years.

i think part of it is just how this sets up so many funny inter-cultural interactions. Like in my class this morning my prof was talking about how Confucianism doesn't really vibe with that demon and ghost stuff, but if you were a follower of Confucianism and you were having ghost or demon problems, you would go find a Daoist to deal with it and that is SO FUNNY to me.

Also just like, I'm imagining an ex-pastor who doesn't really even go to church anymore being sought out by like, a couple teenagers who are like "we need a man of god and we heard you were a man of god so"

and this guy is like, do i explain my complicated relationship with faith to them?? how?

so he goes with them and there's like this. portal to hell or something in a basement somewhere and the kids are like "okay now do your thing"

and he walks up to the demon crouching there and is just. tries to remember a scripture or something but can't and it lunges at him and he just reflexively punches it in the fucking face

and it WORKS and the demon screams and scurries back into the portal and the kids are staring at him in terrified wonder

I’m SURE there are other examples for this, but MASH does this (as I understand, I’ve been watching them in order in fits and starts with a friend XP) in reverse with Father Mulcahy in later seasons. He’s well, FATHER Mulcahy, but he used to be a featherweight boxer, so on occasion, he’ll just up and frog-march one of the officers out of the operating tent because “Nope, Not Today, Thanks.”

Additionally, Blue Exorcist is... KIND OF this??? like... the main character is training to be an “Exorcist” (which in this ‘verse is basically Neo from the Matrix, but instead of fighting Hugo Weaving, they fight demons) but he is simultaneously TERRIBLE at it, because he’s secretly the Son of Satan Himself, but he’s also REALLY REALLY powerful because he’s the literal Son of Satan Himself.