orangerful (
orangerful) wrote2020-04-03 03:09 pm
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Entry tags:
how live streams are keeping me sane during #quarantine
originally posted to my Wordpress blog at www.orangerful.com
Hello everyone, how is your quarantine, stay-at-home (unless you’re an essential worker than many blessings upon you and I’m sorry people are assholes) going?
I am one of the lucky ones, at home but still getting paid. The biggest stress for me is just being motivated to do anything. You don’t realize how much structure the work week brings to you until it doesn’t exist.

At first I was like “I’ll just get up like any other day.” which slid into “well, maybe I’ll just sleep in a bit” and that quickly became “whatever, I’m up when I’m up.” – which wouldn’t really have mattered so much if my body didn’t feel like absolute rubbish after two days of this behavior. I found that the mornings I had to wake up for Teams meetings for work were the days I usually felt the most like myself. But that was just twice a week, what was worth getting out of bed for otherwise?
Two words – Live Stream.
I watch three YouTube channels pretty faithfully – OutsideXbox, OutsideXtra and Dicebreaker. They are located in the UK so their live shows would happen when I was at work and I couldn’t join in the fun. A couple months ago, Dicebreaker started their D&D sessions and premiered the videos on Saturday mornings, and I was finally able to watch live while the YouTube chat scrolled by. It felt amazing to watch along with other fans, chatting with them and the Dicebreaker team about the game. Extra laughs, inside jokes and just a great community experience.
Then the virus hit and we were told to stay home. And bless them, OutsideXbox, OutsideXtra and Dicebreaker not only took their gear home with them, they upped their livestream game, creating content for most days of the week. And since they were on UK time, their afternoon streams became my reason to set my alarm for the morning.

In addition to all of that, Luke Westaway, part of the OutsideXtra team, who has been dabbling in music making for the past couple years, started doing personal live streams of him making music. A small but mighty group joined in his chat, some with actual music theory advice and some just enjoying seeing the process live, but all of us happy to escape reality. A few of us even started a side Discord channel, giving us a place to keep talking and keep interacting when the streams weren’t happening.
I’m not home alone either, but the other two people in my family are more introverted than me and are just doing their own thing. I miss having people around. I usually work in a public library, where people are always chatting, laughing, and I really miss it. Its been nice to hear other voices, random giggles and smiling faces. Sometimes, I’ll just put the videos on in the background to feel like I’m just somewhere else. And I know I can count on this group to keep it fun.
It is a weird time, and as I settle in for another stream of D&D played live, I start to think about when I used to watch live TV and the fandom community and while I love my on-demand life now, it makes me realize how much I miss that part of being into a show, needing to watch it at a certain date and time and then talking about it with everyone. But that’s a post for another time.
So yes, thank you to these channels and thank you to the awesome fans who have such a fun time in chat, throwing around puns and banter.
What little things are you doing to give your day structure? Or are you just taking it one day at a time? What comforting things are you watching, reading, or listening to?
Hello everyone, how is your quarantine, stay-at-home (unless you’re an essential worker than many blessings upon you and I’m sorry people are assholes) going?
I am one of the lucky ones, at home but still getting paid. The biggest stress for me is just being motivated to do anything. You don’t realize how much structure the work week brings to you until it doesn’t exist.

At first I was like “I’ll just get up like any other day.” which slid into “well, maybe I’ll just sleep in a bit” and that quickly became “whatever, I’m up when I’m up.” – which wouldn’t really have mattered so much if my body didn’t feel like absolute rubbish after two days of this behavior. I found that the mornings I had to wake up for Teams meetings for work were the days I usually felt the most like myself. But that was just twice a week, what was worth getting out of bed for otherwise?
Two words – Live Stream.
I watch three YouTube channels pretty faithfully – OutsideXbox, OutsideXtra and Dicebreaker. They are located in the UK so their live shows would happen when I was at work and I couldn’t join in the fun. A couple months ago, Dicebreaker started their D&D sessions and premiered the videos on Saturday mornings, and I was finally able to watch live while the YouTube chat scrolled by. It felt amazing to watch along with other fans, chatting with them and the Dicebreaker team about the game. Extra laughs, inside jokes and just a great community experience.
Then the virus hit and we were told to stay home. And bless them, OutsideXbox, OutsideXtra and Dicebreaker not only took their gear home with them, they upped their livestream game, creating content for most days of the week. And since they were on UK time, their afternoon streams became my reason to set my alarm for the morning.

In addition to all of that, Luke Westaway, part of the OutsideXtra team, who has been dabbling in music making for the past couple years, started doing personal live streams of him making music. A small but mighty group joined in his chat, some with actual music theory advice and some just enjoying seeing the process live, but all of us happy to escape reality. A few of us even started a side Discord channel, giving us a place to keep talking and keep interacting when the streams weren’t happening.
I’m not home alone either, but the other two people in my family are more introverted than me and are just doing their own thing. I miss having people around. I usually work in a public library, where people are always chatting, laughing, and I really miss it. Its been nice to hear other voices, random giggles and smiling faces. Sometimes, I’ll just put the videos on in the background to feel like I’m just somewhere else. And I know I can count on this group to keep it fun.
It is a weird time, and as I settle in for another stream of D&D played live, I start to think about when I used to watch live TV and the fandom community and while I love my on-demand life now, it makes me realize how much I miss that part of being into a show, needing to watch it at a certain date and time and then talking about it with everyone. But that’s a post for another time.
So yes, thank you to these channels and thank you to the awesome fans who have such a fun time in chat, throwing around puns and banter.
What little things are you doing to give your day structure? Or are you just taking it one day at a time? What comforting things are you watching, reading, or listening to?
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The other day I watched The Princess Bride again, which is one of my favorites so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised at how much I enjoyed watching it but it also really did just make me happy and did provide a lot of comfort. We decided to watch the Adam Sandler/Drew Barrymore trilogy and The Wedding Singer especially also put a big smile on my face. After that, we did do a mini-Sandler-thon watching a few more of his movies. As much flack as his movies get, it was really just nice turning off our brains for a while and watching something fun and harmless.
Stacey
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My routine is pretty much the same since I am essential, but telework capable, so I get up and work from my home machine. I get up and have a coffee while I watch the local news, because one of our anchormen, Neil Orne, is slowly going insane and I find this mildly entertaining. Then I work out. Then I get on the home machine and do some work. The main thing it has done is made me not want to play games on the computer after work is over, because I am in this chair all day and so now I do NOT want to be in this chair any more. So I will be crossing animals in the backyard.
I have been re-reading Y: The Last Man, because hey, THAT PLAGUE WAS WAY WORSE THAN THIS ONE and it makes me feel better. Also my brother has recommended a series about one of the four horsemen of the apocolypse just straight up quitting their jobs and I am excited to get that one and read it. I also comfort re-read Harry Potter, and probably next on the list for that is Mrs. Piggle Wiggle. Also I watched the goofy Charlie's Angels remake. Because it is goofy.
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Had you worked from home prior to this? I think it is definitely hard to find that routine if you're not used to it. Sylvia's school "started" again yesterday and it is all online and she is already having anxiety over how to get the work done even though it is probably a lot less than what she would do in a normal week of school, but because she has lots all structure over the past three weeks, she is panicking. It does take a lot of discipline to get work done at home.
Oooh I should re-read Y, it's been a long time. What is the name of the Four Horseman series??? I need to request that for when I have a library again.
I am reading "Layoverland" which is a YA book that feels like a good riff on The Good Place, with an airport representing purgatory and people that almost went to hell are in charge of helping other people get to heaven and earning atonement through that activity. It is amusing so far, I needed something light and fluffy right now.
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The Four Horseman series is called East of West, and my brother tells me that the general premise is that one of the Four Horsemen quits and the other three are trying to hunt them down and kill them. He has never steered me wrong so I'm excited to order it. Layoverland sounds awesome too. I am only just now watching the Good Place, a friend of mine and I were going to watch The Rook (we loved the book) for her birthday, but it was terrible in our opinion and was about as related to the book as the movie Queen of the Damned was, and we were so disappointed that we watched Good Place instead. And we were NOT disappointed and loved it. So we have been watching one episode a week at the same time together. We are only about halfway through Season 2, but so far it is THE BEST, so I will probably check out Layoverland too. :D