When I was little, my parents sometimes took me to a nearby amusement park with a fairytale theme. It was super adorable and had squeaking stairs, a dragon guarding his treasure, lots of magical attractions and talking garbage cans. The garbage cans are actually what I remember most clearly; they would call out to people to throw their rubbish into them and once you did so, they would say "Dank u wel!"

Fast-forward to a few weeks ago. You know how buses sometimes/often have advertisements on them? I've seen some recently that advertised this amusement park and didn't think much of it (except maybe "oh, that's the cute one with the talking garbage cans!") until I took a closer look one day while waiting for my own bus to come. Guess what one of the attractions they specifically put on the buses is...

I guess being thanked by a wastebin stays with people.

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Oh hey, it's been... a year again? Funny how that keeps happening. How have you all been?

... she asks, having talked to most people on here elsewhere anyway. But still! There's some people on here that I adore and still haven't talked to in a loooong, long time. I've asked myself why I keep wandering away from this site even though I like its functionality so much more than, say, tumblr's, and I think it might have something to do with me having this expectation in my head that DW posts have to be well-thought out and stuff. Like, on plurk or twitter for example I can just say something and if I thing of something more to add a few hours later, I can just add it and people will see it anyway, but an edit to a post might get overlooked and besides, the DW format doesn't lend itself to that kind of style as well anyway? Maybe. Or maybe it's all in how you use a site.

Point is, gamera said something on plurk about switching back from tumblr to DW and that reminded me that I have my DW reading list perpetually open in a pinned tab in the corner but I still hardly look at it anymore, and that maybe I could try to change that. (Again.) Now, it's entirely possible that those other sites (plus of course stuff like talking to people in person/on the phone/via text message) cover all my communication needs these day, but maybe DW can also fill a niche (again) that I'm not even quite aware yet is there? It's certainly worth a try.

Unrelated, but: oh! The Post Entry page has changed a bit since I last wrote something here! I can't put my finger on what exactly (button colour/shape? font type/size in the text entry field?) but it looks neat. Ah, sites that change something without breaking it in the process tumblr I'm looking at you why can't you fouwnbcsoughwrgrrrrrr--- Dass die immer alles verschlimmbessern müssen. :/

Err, where was I? Oh right, nowhere in particular. Anyway, my new icon over there shows the heroine of Puzzle & Dragons Z which was released in Europe yesterday and wish I've swooned over on plurk already but seriously, it's so cute! I'm not a big fan of match3 games and hadn't had a chance to try the original/mobile phone Puzzle & Dragons before since the android version isn't out over here, but its 3DS RPG version is super cute, and a lot of fun to play so far. <3 Thus, a new icon was introduced to its, err, 170 neglected siblings. Yay puzzle Pokémon with dragon beasties! \o/

Now, let's see when inspiration will strike for another post. (Famous last words? XD )

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Because I'd like to apply for it. You see, yesterday evening I was brushing my teeth, as you do, walking around a bit while doing so. Earlier that day, I had left the house with a (hardcover) book in my backpack and it still stood in a corner with the book. Who do you think tripped over her own feet, spit out her toothbrush and managed to fall down in such a way that her shin hit one of the book's surprisingly pointy corners?

Fifteen minutes later, I was very confused to find that my leg both hurt (duh) and sported a rather impressive bruise. *pokes it* Who knew that could happen?

(I'm kidding, I'm kidding. But normally, I either bruise but don't even realise until later because it didn't hurt, or I end up injuring myself somehow and it hurts but I don't even have a bruise to show for it. It's very disappointing. One time I hit my arm just below the elbow on the corner of a table while gesturing and it hurt for four full days but I didn't even get the tiniest bruise. No fair!)

In hindsight, maybe I should've known better than to let books about Tricksters just lying around.

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Mark, Who Does Stuff, is a guy who once upon a time started a blog that's all about him reading and watching stuff in the most unspoiled manner possible, often recording himself on video while he does it. If that sounds familiar and you're reasonably sure you haven't heard of him elsewhere, you might remember that I mentioned him before - he is reading his way through Tamora Pierce's Tortal books (and has now reached what he's been calling the Doggy Books forever!).

And now he's got it in his head to watch Star Trek. Needless to say I'm excied, especially since he's obviously starting with TOS and I've only watched that for a tiny bit as a very young child and then caught the moves sometimes when they were on. I was more of a TNG kid (and eventually fell head over heels for DS9 and never stopped loving it), so aside fro two or three episodes in 200...9?, this'll be the perfect opportunity for me to watch more of it too.

What can I say, I find watching Mark react to stuff so fun. ♥

Until he's done with season one, the video of his reactions to TOS' episode 1 will be free to download! So if this whole idea sounds appealing to you at all, this is a pretty good opportunity to check out what this dude's doing. :D

They usually cost $1 per episode since he can't just upload them to youtube and has to pay for hosting them & stuff. I'll buy a bunch of them anyway so if any of you just fall in love with Mark's style, I'd be happy to share. (Since each download link is good for 10 downloads total and sharing is encouraged!)

(Oh and read the notes at the top of is post; especially the spoiler policy!)

[Edit: Oh and you know what else I love about Mark's sites? You can read the comments. Without running into some asshat half a comment in! Or at all, really! (There've been a handful of clueless people that I've seen, but a handful in like two years is pretty good. ^.^)]

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Yesterday evening when I came home, one of my neighbours was walking up the stairs to her flat with some laundry, losing part of it as she went.

"Excuse me?", I called, but she had headphones on and didn't hear me even when I spoke louder and gestured. So, not quite sure what else to do (just... leave...?) I just kind of went after her, picking up socks, a towel and a half a bra (half?!) in the process. When she'd arrived at her door and turned around enough to push it open with the basket still in her arms, she finally noticed me being like "Uhm... ^^;;" and proceeded to giggle for at least thirty seconds I swear.

After some "Oh I'm sorry."s and "No no, it's not a problem!"s and "And thank you!"s I was halfway down the stairs to my own place already when she called after me "But would you like a cookie?" and waved a bag of chocolate chip cookie around. It was super tasty. :D

Little things like this make me so happy. ♥

(I should add for nubriema's benefit that this was not a metaphorical cookie. It was a real life chocolatey chocolate chip cookie and I did not name it Sera.)

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I have only played Dragon Age 2 for a couple hours but I can already see myself yelling at the game. A lot.

In a good way! I already like the game much better than the first one. I think that's in large part due to the fact that "life in the fucked-up city of Kirkwall" is a much more appealing plot to me than "save the world from ancient Evil!" Not that there's anything wrong with saving the world from ancient Evil, especially if you unite a bunch of groups in the process, however temporarily, but now that that's done, maybe we can save people from, err.... other.... people?

Speaking of people, I've now collected all party members aside from Mr DLC. (Bought him too though; there was a sale so I got the whole game and Sebastian and Legacy and Mark of the Assassin all for a total of ~30€ so that's cool.) Every time there's party banter, I stop to listen. (My favourite in Origins was the one where Wynne and Alistair started talking about literal dirty laundry all of a sudden.) This party's conversations... well. We basically go from two characters realising that the last time they met was in a brothel ("Oh! Were you the runaway mage who could do that electricity thing? That was nice! :D") to "I hate you and everything you stand for" in a heartbeat. It certainly doesn't get boring.

I also see a lot of frustration and heartbreak in my and my Hawke's future. I mean, I'm already at the point where I'm going "graaah, I see where you're coming from (even though I am probably still missing a lot of context) but god damn it will you stop that!!" This is going to be fun. In, you know, a way.

(But hey, I found a prettyboy elf and he shares a voice actor with Balthier. Balthier. Just, well, a good deal more growly and angry and bitter and stuff. But still! And I also found an adorable bubbly elf who sounds like Gwen from Torchwood. (which makes sense of course because, again, same actress) And Mr Mage Rights Activist (..... that came out wrong.) is also Shulk from Xenoblade. At this point, the only one of my potential love interests whose voice I don't think I recognise is Isabela. I'll have to talk to her more and listen closely. That's as good an excuse as any, right?)

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It's a trailer! A real actual trailer! Trailertrailertrailertrailertrail---

Err. For Sailor Moon Crystal, as you can see, and I might be a tiny bit excited. Maybe. Possibly. I don't know, I woke up an hour ago and this was literally the first thing I saw when I went online, nibbling at my breakfast because it's what I do, and eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee ohmygosh it's so pretty and cute and pretty and aaaaah can it be July yet pretty please, can it?

(Here's a fansubbed version of the trailer but let's be real, we all know what Luna is telling us.)

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... okay, I'd tell my teenage self a lot of things and probably give her a hug while I'm at it, but right now I mostly want to have Words with her about how she SHOULD NOT PUT PASSWORDS ON SILLY WORD FILES. I've been trying out different potential passwords that my teenage self might've used on this old, old story for a good twenty minutes now, without success.

It's been fifteen years, how am I supposed to remember this?! I wanna know how that story from that other word document ended! This is the worst cliffhanger...

(Of course, if I had a time machine I could just, ya know, ask younger me what the password is but that's beside the point. XD)

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A friend just included one of those "get off the internet (it makes people lonely!) and live in the Real World!" videos (here's a link to the video) in one of her posts and after about a minute and a half I was distracted by having to direct a bee that had flown in through my window back outside (Hello little bee friend! I promise there are more pretty flowers on the other side of the window!) and before I went back to the video, I wondered.

(And if you're in a hurry or are like my mum and like to read the end of a book before starting it ^.~ the last two big paragraphs (or even just side note 1) will tell you the gist of it.)

Does this person live with a version of the internet where absolutely everything you do is a performance act?

Does this person live with a version of the internet where you somehow don't laugh with your friends (about how, if you vacuum a place where a cat lives, you end up with enough fur in the vacuum cleaner to make a new cat. About something ridiculous some person on a train next to one of you said yesterday. About how that bug in that video game where a horse walks upside down on a lake is the funniest thing ever. About the overly complicated metaphor you got yourself tangled up in while trying to explain why broccoli is the devil)?

Does this person live with a version of the internet where people don't band together to spent an amazing week together to raise money for charity, have fun and, yes, entertain other people with their evil, evil performance act while they're at it? Where people don't use the internet to plan out time to spend with their friends who live farther away, be it by meeting them offline or via the phone and chats (because hey dude, even train tickets are expensive and don't get me started on how I can't just hop on a plane to visit a friend who means the world to me but who happens to live on the other side of the planet)?

... I was going to go on but it boils down to, does this person live with a version of the internet where everything is superficial and friendship and emotions and all that don't exist?

But I hadn't even watched the whole video yet, so I decided to, well, watch on. Somewhere around the two minute mark, he starts going on about how when he was young, he used to play outside and have REAL experiences! And I'm like... wait, is this one of those "if you don't live life the way I do/in a way that I approve of, I will do my best to shame you into agreeing that your kind of experiences are inferior" deals? But I wanted to watch the whole video before jumping to even more conclusions.

Of course he also subscribes to the school of "insult people - it's provocative and will force them to think and re-examine their sad lives and it's totally a valid form of argument." (quote: "We're a generation of idiots - smart phones and dumb people") which doesn't exactly help the whole "not jumping to conclusions" thing. I don't even feel particularly insulted at this point (although I see why someone would be - and not because "they are forced to re-examine how sad and empty their life is" but in the same way one would feel insulted if videodude had instead made a video about how, I dunno, sports make people dumb because you don't use your brain in videodude-approved ways), but I would like to share my experience of rolling my eyes a lot before I'm even done with breakfast with someone, but everyone's either fast asleep or on their way to work and I'm not sure I won't have forgotten about it once someone's actually around.

Anyway, back to the video, because I recognised with a sigh of resignation that I was still only halfway done with it. I was holding out for a twist at the end.

Instead, we go on with a story about how some dude asks some girl on the street for directions and they are then used as an example of a happy healthy family with children and grandchildren and then the wife dies from old age and isn't it great that they had such a fulfilled life? (sidenote: I sigh again at choosing, of course, some very straight, very white, very able-bodied and presumably neurotypical family to illustrate this happy healthy fulfilled life, and telling it from the man's point of view.)

And then we lament that all of that never happened because the dude looked up directions on the phone instead and walked right past the girl (and then we get a shot of him staring down at his phone while dozens of people walk past him in a blur with him never noticing) and presumably lived some sad and empty life staring at his phone to do... what exactly?

I come back to those paragraphs above with all their examples taken from just my last week, and think of something else. I have an acquaintance who sometimes shares pictures of his daughter on twitter and sure, I don't know them that well but those pictures still radiate happiness and I'm happy that this person I sometimes talk to is happy. (But of course that's invalid, because he's not, I dunno, a workplace acquaintance who shows me these photos in person or something.)

And there's another couple I know, also with a small child (to, err, say nothing of the people in relationships I know that don't have children, or the people not in relationships, but the video chooses straight white able-bodied neurotypical monogamous relationships to illustrate True Happiness so let's talk about that other couple with a kid for a moment. I've known them both for years and have been friends with them since before they got together and adopted a kid and I expect to be friends with them for a long, long time. ♥ Also, they met and got into their relationship years before they met in person, their kid is adorable and they send me photos and I could go on about, I dunno, little G's fantastic idea of trying a handstand and falling into the fridge and wanting to tell auntie Sternchen about it but I've spent more than enough time on this post already, so let's move on.

Now, I could give videodude and anyone involved in this production the benefit of the doubt and say, hey, they're obviously not talking about me and my friends (my family, my former co-workers) who use the internet as a tool for communication and to connect with one another, and that they're obviously talking about getting distracted by the internet and overusing it as a tool for procrastination, and about people who, I dunno, use the internet solely as a performance platform but never write back or something like that.

Thing is, the very last thing the video tells its audience is literally, and I quote, "live life the real way." So it was just a case of "live life in a way that I approve of or else I will pity you and your sad empty life that I think you are living" with a dash of "I was one of these sad lonely people once but now I have found the One True Way". Aww, I was hoping for a twist.
Because let's face it, even if there are some people who'd like to make connections offline/procrastinate less using the internet (as opposed to, I dunno, making empty small talk? Cleaning the windows for the third time in a week? Re-arranging your sock drawer?) but needed a push to actually do it, but when it comes down to it, what the video ends up doing is, it regurgitates damaging stereotypes in the most condescending way possible and then pats itself on the shoulder for being so edgy.

Excuse me if I fail to be impressed.

- - -

Side note 1: Obligatory disclaimer that this is obviously just my reading of the text. If you got something positive out of this video, that's great! I'm not trying to say that there isn't a useful message somewhere in there for someone, but I really, really wish the video had been able to make its point without throwing people who communicate differently (who live their lives differently, who find happiness in different ways) under the bus.

Side note 2: "Make eye contact." What I think the video is trying to say is, "don't be afraid to look people in the eye". However, while a "lack" of eye contact can certainly be a sign of anxiety (or even just nervousness), I am so, so tired of people insisting that it always is, or that "you're not making eye contact regularly while speaking to me" is some universal sign of anxiety/nervousness (also, shaming people for not making eye contact doesn't exactly help people with anxiety who already think poorly of themselves).

Because NO. No no no no no. Eye contact doesn't come naturally to everyone. To use an easy example, many autistic people aren't exactly fond of eye contact and certainly don't appreciate being told this somehow makes them less human. (When my aunt [S] remarried, her husband once made the mistake of mentioning something like that where my cousin [J] ([S]'s son) could her him. [J] didn't talk to him for a full year.) And that's not even going into all the cultural differences that exist regarding eye contact. So. Please don't treat eye contact like another thing that has to mean the same thing to every person. Thank you.

- - -

[Edit from a comment thread to illustrate something:
They could've made a video illustrating the kinds of experience that the internet doesn't quite offer, like, I dunno, an actual in-person hug or mountain climbing or the smell of a forest after the rain, and have a message like "If you want any of these experiences, why not try try to go & have them" (maybe even "and if you need help with that, that's okay and here's some resources"). Instead they made a video that implicitly tells people that the kinds of experience they're already having are worthless (or at least worth less) and explicitly not only prescribes them only one kind of experience as Real and good.

And they use insults to try and get people to listen to them. For some people, it might work. For some people, it might be annoying. For the people who are using the internet as a coping mechanism and for whom a balanced approach might be the most important, that insult might be one too many.

(And hey. If you're trying to get me interested in table tennis, don't go on a rant about how table tennis is so much better than books and how I am not really living if I read books instead of playing table tennis. Explain to me what's awesome about table tennis and why I might enjoy it! To quote someone who'll recognise a sentence like this if sie reads this, Putting down the things I like to elevate the things you think I should like will just make me think you're a jerk. (even if I might have an interest in table tennis.)]

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Are you looking for something new to read? (Or maybe just something more to add to that mountain of unread books that's about to fall over but you swear you're going to get to it soon?) Because I have a recommendation!

See, I just finished The Kingdom of the Gods, which is the third book in a trilogy and now I'm sad that I don't have anyone to squee with. The first book, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms can stand on its own (if you're not sure you want to get into a trilogy) but the second one (The Broken Kingdoms) is my favourite so of course I would be delighted if you read on.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here. So, what's the first book about? The story begins when Yeine, ruler of one of these bazillion kingdoms, is summoned to the city of Sky, where the Arameri live. The Arameri effectively rule the world, so why would they summon her, a distant relative? Yeine soon gets more involved with Sky's politics than she ever wanted to be, but it also gives her an opportunity to try and uncover the mystery surrounding her mother's death... and that of the Arameri's god-slaves.

Because that's a thing: two thousand years ago, or so the story goes, Bright Itempas, god of daylight and order, was betrayed by the other two members of the trio, the Nightlord Nahadoth (god of chaos and darkness) and Enefa, goddess of life and death. In the war that followed, Itempas killed Enefa and forced Nahadoth and the minor gods that fought on their side into human form and then handed them over to the Arameri to do with as they please.

And now, Yeine and the captive gods (who call themselves the Enefadeh: "those who remember Enefa") find that they have a common enemy, and maybe even a shared goal...

It's hard to really describe the story (especially while keeping the other two books in mind; I had to edit the above paragraphs several times to keeps spoilers out) but as interesting as it and the various mysteries are - there were definitely twists I didn't expect, even when I saw others coming a mile away - it's (surprise, surprise) the characters I love the most. They are engaging, there are some great character arcs over the course of the series (one in particular melted me into a puddle of happy Sternchen goo) and I love them. ♥

Oh, and have I mentioned that there's a ton of characters/protagonists of colour in these books? Lots of queer characters too. And awesome ladies! (sometimes even awesome queer ladies of colour)

(A few words about the writing: I really liked he prose; it's not overly fancy but it's really really good at hard-hitting single sentences that I just had to stop and marvel at. The exposition in book 1 is a bit clunky, especially in the first chapter or two, and the author hasn't quite found her feet at that point but certainly managed to locate them by the time we get to The Broken Kingdoms.)

I would gush more, but at that point I would just vomit spoilers onto my keyboard in a most unorderly fashion and that just won't do. But if you have any specific questions about these books or just want to assure me that you'll give them a try, let me know? I'm so excited about them. ♥

Toph icon because book two finally gives us a blind lady protagonist who can hold a candle to her when it comes to sheer awesomeness.

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