i put “All I Want for Christmas is You” through a MIDI converter, and then back through an mp3 converter
the result is this garbage
I’m driving myself up the wall because I swear I can hear the vocal line but I don’t know how that could be if it was truly converted to MIDI. Unless you can replicate speech sounds entirely with modulated MIDI notes, in which case I’m actually impressed with this tire fire of an MP3.
the holiday season is almost upon us and I’d like to bring back this absolute fucking monstrosity of an audio file
Alright, anyone who knows me knows that I like to joke around a lot about ships, but if I’m being perfectly honest, the kind of love I adore most in fiction is the love that isn’t romantic. Platonic love is great, but I also really, really love familial love, particularly found familial love.
I saw a comment somewhere that said Cosette was “the love of Valjean’s life,” and…it’s true. “Love of my life” is a term that’s usually used for romantic purposes, but when you think about it, it’s absolutely the term you would use to describe Valjean and Cosette. Cosette shaped Valjean and taught him the meaning of love in ways no one else had done before. Yes, the Bishop taught him virtue and compassion, and he felt genuine compassion and sympathy for Fantine and her situation, but true, deep love for another person was entirely alien to Valjean until he encountered Cosette. And Cosette, on the other hand, needed desperately to have a positive parental figure in her life, someone to love and cherish and protect her. The two became so very important in each other’s lives, and I’d argue that their love for each other was at the very heart of Les Mis as a story. Everything surrounding Fantine’s plight and Valjean’s suffering through prison led up to him encountering Cosette, and everything that followed was relevant to Valjean’s story because it involved Cosette in some way. Most things happened because Valjean and Cosette were destined to find each other, and then continued to happen because Valjean loved Cosette and wanted to make her happy.
And it’s beautiful, because their “love story” isn’t romantic, and the central “love story” didn’t have to be romantic in order for it to be powerful and beautiful. You can absolutely get meaningful, emotional stories from non-romantic love. It can be between two friends, it can be love between siblings, it can be a loving and doting father/daughter relationship. I don’t feel like media focuses a lot on deep yet non-romantic relationships as “love stories,” and it’s a shame, because there’s just so much more that can be explored outside of romance.
Courfeyrac: The cute funny guy that gets most of the leads and everyone has had a crush on at some point
Grantaire: he likes to act but always ends up on tech because no one is as good as him and the drama teacher totally depends on his tech skill
Marius: only signed up because his friends made him but ended up really liking it
Feuilly: thinks acting is really cool but doesn’t have enough time because of all his jobs so he always asks to be a small part
Bahorel: wanted to join since forever but always chose sports over theatre, but decided to finally do a show senior year
Combeferre: The best stage manager anyone could ask for. The cast will circle him and chant “combeferre’s in charge” before every performance and write #combeferreisincharge on everything
Bossuet: always gets the character roles and needs extra supervision with his props because he will probably break them
Joly: hes the kid who always has tea and cough drops and he makes sure everyone is drinking lots of water
Jehan: plans the cast parties and also helps out with costumes
Enjolras: turns out to be an amazing dancer and is dance captain and helps out the teacher with choreo. At first everyone thinks he’s full of himself and then they realize nope he’s just confident- he really is better than all of us
Cosette: has the voice of an angel and gets most of the lead roles but she’s so nice that no one can be too jealous
Eponine: started doing tech because of grantaire, stayed because she has a huge crush on cosette
I booked myself in for a massage tomorrow with my physio lady cause my jaw and neck are all locked up from the dentist today and it makes you fill out a little questionnaire to better tell your PT what kind of treatment you need. except when I was filling it in I’d just taken a bunch of pain killers and words were hard but then I logged back in to make sure I’d actually booked it and
Reason for your visit?
What kind(s) of pain are you experiencing?
Special Requests
I shouldn’t be laughing, I feel awful, but I’m just imagining you addressing a person this way.
Don’t feel too bad, my physio lady was pissing herself laughing when I showed up. Everytime she tried to pull up my profile to talk about the appointment she’d devolve into hearty chuckling while apologizing continually for laughing at my expense.
And for anyone wondering she was able to ease a considerable amount of the pain. Even while occasionally breaking out into bouts of barely suppressed giggling.
Note to vacationing non-Americans: while it’s true that America doesn’t always have the best food culture, the food in our restaurants is really not representative of what most of us eat at home. The portions at Cheesecake Factory or IHOP are meant to be indulgent, not just “what Americans are used to.”
If you eat at a regular American household, during a regular meal where they’re not going out of their way to impress guests, you probably will not be served twelve pounds of chocolate-covered cream cheese. Please bear this in mind before writing yet another “omg I can’t believe American food” post.
Also, most American restaurant portions are 100% intended as two meals’ worth of food. Some of my older Irish relatives still struggle with the idea that it’s not just not rude to eat half your meal and take the rest home, it’s expected. (Apparently this is somewhat of an American custom.)
Until you’re hitting the “fancy restaurant” tier (the kind of place you go for a celebration or an anniversary date), a dinner out should generally also be lunch for the next day. Leftovers are very much the norm.
From the little time I’ve spent in Canada, this seems to be the case up there as well.
the portions in family restaurants (as opposed to haute cuisine types) are designed so that no one goes away hungry.
volume IS very much a part of the american hospitality tradition, and Nobody Leaves Hungry is important. but you have to recognize that it’s not how we cook for ourselves, it’s how we welcome guests and strengthen community ties.
so in order to give you a celebratory experience and make you feel welcomed, family restaurants make the portions big enough that even if you’re a teenage boy celebrating a hard win on the basketball court, you’re still going to be comfortably full when you leave.
of course, that means that for your average person with a sit-down job, who ate a decent lunch that day, it’s twice as much as they want or more. that’s ok. as mentioned above, taking home leftovers is absolutely encouraged. that, too, is part of american hospitality tradition; it’s meant to invoke fond memories of grandma loading you down with covered dishes so you can have hearty celebration food all week. pot luck church basement get-togethers where the whole town makes sure everybody has enough. that sort of thing. it’s about sharing. it’s about celebrating Plenty.
it’s not about pigging out until you get huge. treating it that way is pretty disrespectful of our culture. and you know, contrary to what the world thinks, we do have one.
So the “doggy bag” thing is real?
Y-yes? Is it not overseas?
not really, in aus if you cant finish you do your best to palm it off to anyone else whos still hungry and if they dont want it it just gets scrapped
As a Canadian, I can say that it is equally true here re: big portions. Go ahead and take your leftovers home. They make a great lunch the next day.
I’m American and I still didn’t know any of this was cultural stuff unique to America.
I’ve never heard someone use the term “doggy bag” in real life, though. We just ask for a “box” and all restaurants know what we mean. It’s a cardboard or styrofoam container they all keep on hand.
A lot of people (like me) intentionally eat half of resteraunt meals for the sole purpose of stretching one meal into two so i spend less on food. It’s smarter, cheaper and less wasteful.
This is kind of vague, but I think the best way to find self-acceptance is to find community, which looks different for each person.
For me, it was knowing aro people in real life and finding aro people online to talk about experiences with. It was reading headcanon posts and fics about characters I thought could be aro. It was writing my own experiences down in stories about other people and putting them where other people (aro and not could) read them.
There’s a lot of different ways though, and you have to find what works for you.
One thing I would advise is to stay far, far away from discourse. There are parts of the internet that are full of anger, and even if they are angry about the same things you are, I don’t think it’s very healthy or productive to dwell there for long.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t feel angry or bad or that you shouldn’t express it when you do, because you should be able to. But find people that celebrate the positives as well.
This is sort of easier said than done, but I’ll try to help if I can. If you want someone to talk to about being aro, my main blog is @buffintruda. You (and anybody else) can just send me a message like “when did you know you were aro?” or “what are your favorite books?” or “what other cool aro bloggers do you know on tumblr?” or “who do you headcanon as aro and why?” or just tell me about yourself or basically whatever.
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