#This is my longest time on a single art piece ever

[roo-was-here-art]

This took too long

Espen D. Akuji, circa canonical 2016

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Thank you all for an incredible 500 days of love and support. I offer you: answers to questions that no one has asked.

(As always, more can be found in the tags <3)

[headspace-hotel]

This year has, so far, been for me a series of rapid realizations of what I have been unlearning.

I went to the library. This was a couple weeks ago. I knew I needed to read a book, fiction. I hadn't done so in over a year and it was the longest period of time I had ever gone without doing so. I made a rule: I would only pick books I had never heard of, by authors I had never heard of, and I would not do any preliminary research or even bother to look at what the book was about. I would make my decision on whether to read or not purely on my impression of the title, cover and opening lines.

The book was The Connoisseur by Evan S. Connell. It was kind of a random selection. I sat down with it in a corner of the library and straight up devoured it. I tore through the book within a few hours, without taking a single break. I was captivated. I couldn't put it down.

It is a book about a guy who buys a Mayan figurine in a knickknack shop while he's on a business trip. and becomes obsessed with pre-Columbian sculptural art. There isn't really much of a plot apart from this. He goes to sketchy antique shows, has conversations with museum curators, wealthy art dealers and forgers, and seeks to learn how to distinguish a genuine pre-Columbian piece from a fake one. It was written in the 1970's, so the views on Native Americans are antiquated and sometimes offensive, and there is the troubling thread of the very concept of looting another culture's treasures and treating them as collectibles, though the book is not without commentary on this.

All the same, it was a completely intoxicating read. The vicarious experience of becoming fascinated with a topic and having it unfold a whole world for you was ferociously gripping, and so was the intrigue of the art collecting world itself. The frauds, forgeries, smuggling, museums, academics, aristocrats, auctions and seedy flea markets. Will he ever be able to tell if a piece is "real?" Does it matter if it's "real?" Why does he want to own and possess a piece of art, and how does its "realness" affect that desire? The book leaves you not knowing what to think.

It is a book about curiosity, portrayed in the narrative as a totally unreasonable lightning bolt that strikes a man who has never been fascinated by anything and changes him forever. Why? Why does a Mayan figurine, in particular, speak to him? Why does any piece of art, or any fascinating thing in the world, speak to anyone? It is unknowable.

I went to the library again. I picked a new book using the same rules. This book was Fragile Beasts by Tawni O'Dell. Just like the last time, I was totally captivated. I couldn't put it down.

Did I have a couple major problems with the portrayal of some important aspects of the story? Yes. (It would make the post much longer to discuss.) Was I completely captured by and invested in the story for the time I was reading it? Also yes. The book braids together several very different strands-- the story of a legendary Spanish bullfighter and a wealthy American woman that he loved, two brothers stuck in an ugly family situation after their father's death in a car accident, and a rich old heir to a Pennsylvania coal mining fortune and to the sinister underbelly of her family's business.

There was a lot about baseball, which I know nothing about, and bullfighting, which I know nothing about, and I certainly don't know anything about being a teenaged boy who resents and mistrusts his estranged mother, or an aristocratic old lady who lives in a mansion and eats fancy Spanish food. It was fun to experience so much unfamiliar stuff and to care about things I wouldn't normally care about. Once again I couldn't stop reading until I had finished it.

I don't know that either book was "good," though I thought they were both well written; I just know that reading them was like being hooked up to an IV of something essential and life-giving and feeling it reanimating my body.

It had been a year since I had read any fiction, but it had been much, much longer since I had loved to read. As I became an adult I had become picky and critical about books, and developed a highly sophisticated sense of my taste and the books I considered good- which were very rare. My taste in books became so sophisticated, eventually, that I didn't like books at all anymore.

I had almost withered away from deficiency of that essential nutrient known as STORY. I'd almost crumbled myself into dust from pretentiousness! I may have been terribly wrong about the kinds of things I liked to read, on top of it. And I certainly hadn't realized that story was such an essential nutrient.

"Just entertainment" the pretentious sorts of people might say of a book they think is useless-- but what is entertainment but to absorb your mind in something, and what is absorbing your mind in a book but to experience things you would never have experienced? It expands you and makes you more complicated. It is the study of human existence itself.

Now all I have been able to think about today is finishing my work and going to the library again...

[holmesianlove]

Chapter 7 - Violin

A quiet night at home was in order after the busy investigations of the day.

John sat reading in his chair, by the fire, very quiet, and very still. Sherlock felt it best not to disturb him when he was in such a mood so he settled on some violin time on the other side of the room.

Sherlock played for a while, moving between a series of songs and not able to settle on any one particular piece. He was too distracted. The moment between them, in the snow, would not leave his mind. Being so close to John, touching him so intimately, had not been something he had planned, and now, he feared he had overstepped.

John hadn’t said a single word since they had returned home and it was unsettling.

Sherlock worked his way through some Mozart, Brahms, Beethoven and even an arrangement of a Beatles song he knew John tended to like, even him along to, hoping to elicit a response. Somehow filling the awkward silence between them seemed incredibly important right now. He was speaking through music to his friend.

But what exactly was he trying to say? He didn’t even know. John had been the one stable thing in his life, the rock he could rely upon. And strangely, while Sherlock didn’t agree with everything John had been implying in his rants about the case, he did agree with him about the devotion to one person. And hadn’t they been that to each other for the longest time already? The two of them against the rest of the world? Whatever John’s issues with men stemmed from, Sherlock understood that he had a devoted friend and companion in John Watson. Whatever it meant to his flatmate, he knew what it meant in his own head and nothing ever needed to change. He never expected it to. In Sherlock’s mind, they would live out their lives working together as they had been in a de facto arrangement that was ambiguous to everyone around them but perfectly natural to the two of them, so long as no one said anything about it. Sherlock never planned to make his feelings known to John. He could see it would distress John to hear it, or at least he firmly suspected so. Maybe one day, years from now, things may progress but he knew not to assume it would ever change beyond the happy situation they were in. John seemed happy, when he wasn’t moping and thinking, at least.

Sherlock wandered as he played, sometimes looking out the window at the street below, sometimes moving closer to the fireplace for warmth, drifting across John’s field of vision casually.

He felt John’s eyes on him often and wondered what was going through that mind of his.

The case was troubling John. Was it really just the four marriages? Or was it the fact that the victim was bisexual? Sherlock had wondered since the day they met, if John had been hitting on him at the restaurant. But then after that, he had maintained a steady stream of awful women who spent their time mocking John and Sherlock’s connection. John was incredibly quick to announce he wasn’t gay, and the dates felt like some kind of direct message to prove something to Sherlock and anyone else who spotted him out. John Watson liked women. But he never seemed happy with them, aside from getting off, obviously, which, if Sherlock was honest, didn’t even seem to improve John’s mood anyway. But even so, he understood it to be John making a point, and scratching some kind of itch which never abated.

Was it possible that the case bothered John so much because he saw himself in the victim? A man who couldn’t make up his mind where his heart lay?

Or was it truly the lack of respect and health and safety John felt was on display in being sexually and emotionally prolific.

Sherlock needed to gather more data. John Watson was a fascinating work of art that he never tired of looking at and learning from. So many contradictions and hidden messages. A code he was yet to break.

“That one,” John finally whispered softly with a little smile.

“Hmmm?” Sherlock asked.

“That piece. That’s my favourite.” He let out a contented sigh and went back to reading.

Sherlock added it to the catalogue. Bach. John liked it when he played Bach.

— —

Thanks for reading. Let me know if you want to be tagged!

@notjustamumj @lisbeth-kk @helloliriels @totallysilvergirl @221beloved @safedistancefrombeingsmart @givemesherbet-blog-blog @naefelldaurk @a-victorian-girl @phoenix27884 @peanitbear @starlitkeys @lumilama

[swedetastic]

Hi tumblr people. Let me present to you... my Alex Horne/Josh Widdicombe ship manifesto.

(It's basically just a collection of shippy moments, or "evidence")

AKA the ship that nobody asked for but I'm gonna keep captaining the sail boat.

This interview. (It's not that shippy, I just think they're cute.)

Josh being mock-offended, and Alex’s lip bite smile back. 🫠 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Alex? (@britcomshotsbutmostlyhorne)

Josh becoming one of Greg’s *cough* Alex’s special little boys.

Josh sitting next to Alex during this task, sharing the meal together😊

Popping the balloon near Josh like a schoolyard bully.

Josh using “Alex Horne’s naked body” as a frame of sexual reference (Greg’s words).

(and Alex's reaction)

The blindfolding for no reason. (I mean it was part of the task, but why did Alex have to do it for him?)

The fact that Josh was brought in to do this task in the first place.

The eyebrow raise and “hello, Alex” (really every time Josh says "Hello, Alex")

Singling out Josh’s “nub” 😅

Alex devouring Josh’s mask.

And the fact that Josh made a mask to look like Alex. (Which is hilarious, but also–why?)

Every time they’ve kissed. (that we know of)

🥰

Josh announcing their “incredible chemistry”. Again, for no reason.

This quote:

“He’s good at being enthusiastic. He is like a puppy. As he had the longest gap between series one and doing this, he was the most excited to be back and desperate to do a task. I think he has a ‘never say die’ attitude although he’s probably less good in the creative ones. His big weakness would probably be the hair. It’s just unrealistic.”— Little Alex Horne rating Josh’s Taskmaster: Champion of Champions performance (x)

This task.

And finally, this story. Because it's the sweetest thing ever. 🥹

So yeah I'm writing fic of these two, and I've commissioned two art pieces of them so far. You can see it all here, if you want:

(None of the gifs or anything in this post are mine. Credit to all the original owners!)

[what-is-fanart]

Requim (1976) reimagined as the daedric princes

(From left to right: Barbas, Clavicus Vile, Meridia, Sanguine, Boethiah, Azura, Mephala)

Plus some bonus close ups. I started this drawing in Febuary, it’s now April. I’m literally astonished that I actually did it, and here’s the specs.

NEARLY 22 HOURS. Not to be dramatic but this is single-handedly the most complicated piece of art I’ve ever made. Not only that, but I have never spent this long on a drawing in my life. 8ish hours is like the longest I’ve ever spent on a drawing before this. Thank you to everyone in discord for all the help and encourage,ent!,, and for listening to me whine about it the whole time <3

[bberetd]

My dear bestie, I am SO LATE in reaching out to let you know which ones of your AMAZING pieces are my faves, but I wanted to take the time to sit down and properly see them all, and even bring back some older ones that I had shared in my old blog but not in this one yet. I still have a few more I wanna reblog so get ready for more love to your art these days hehe 😁 But at least now I feel ready to finally let you know which ones I love most!! This is probably gonna be the LONGEST ask I've ever sent so get ready 😂💖

You know that I LOVE your Luaisy dearly, so every piece you've made of them? I love them all. Yes, every single one of them: the love and friendship doodles (especially the second since you included a reference to my bookworm headcanons 🥹), the winter piece you posted at the end of 2024, the Wonder one you drew in your class notebook, that one of "My wife! Even better" that's just so funny and silly, Luigi and Daisy as Carl and Ellie from Up, the one of them playing tennis, that Christmas one in which they look so cozy, and OF COURSE, your Luaisy wedding post that's just SO inspiring. I still want to write an entire story based on it 🤭💚🧡

Still, I'd say my top 3 Luaisy from you is: the suggestive one that you drew based on one of your fave celeb couples, the autumn comic of Daisy lending Luigi her scarf, and of course, the absolutely STUNNING piece you made for Vulpix's fic "A moment together." And I was just so HONORED the very first time you drew them reading together when I first shared this headcanon through an ask that I got on my old blog 🥹 Needless to say I cherish that drawing and the one from your friendship doodle like the treasures they are. Thank you so much for making them and PLEASE keep blessing us with your Luaisy content, my queen 🙏🙇‍♀️👑

Aside from that, there are obviously other pieces that I LOVE, like for instance, your Mario and Daisy doodle dump that's just so funny and encapsulates their dynamics so well 🤭👌 And obviously the Peach and Luigi one too, and I LOVE how you included references to my bookish hcs again as well as to Vulpix's story "Sweet gratitude and happiness" and Vee's "Mama Luigi's Mansion" AU 🥹💖

Speaking of which, the doodle dump you made for him, I'd say it was the first piece of yours I saw? 🤔 Or at least one of the first ones, and it led us to become friends, so I obviously love that one as well, not only 'cause it's amazing and I love Vee's AU so so much, but also because of what it means to us and our friendship 🥹🫂💖

APRICOT. I love this little girl so freaking MUCH. I remember the comic you made of her and also the doodle dump of her interacting with her friends and family, and again I have to thank you for including a reference to my beloved musician bros!! 🥹🥹 And I also loved seeing her with Vee's Vivi, the cousins ever 💖

And related to this... I'm still not over the AMAZING piece of my girl Violet you made, and it was such a BEAUTIFUL birthday present!! 🥹🥹🥹 I swear I'm so HONORED you love her so much, my dear bestie, and I really appreciate you bringing her to life. I just LOVE how cute she looks in your style 💜

And, well, just every single piece you've drawn for me, I treasure it dearly 🥹 Like the hug from "Anything for him" or the Odyssey headcanons, which, btw, the wallpaper you made of the moon scene??? So freaking PERFECT??? It remains as my PC wallpaper and I swear I can NEVER get tired of staring at it 🥹🥹 I LOVE IT ❤️💚

I cannot fail to mention the time when you drew Mario and Luigi as Estopa, both hugging and doing the forehead touch. Boma, that one, I swear it still makes me SCREAM every time that I see it. The fact that you also love Estopa and I get to fangirl about them with you??? The fact they even inspired you to draw Mario and Luigi like them??? And OMFG, to think I got to see firsthand the forehead touch you then draw Mario and Luigi doing. I was in that freaking concert and I just can't believe you drew *that* forehead touch specifically, out of all the times Mario and Luigi have done it. ELATED is an understatement to explain how I feel about the fact that it was Estopa who inspired you to draw them like this. Over the freaking MOON, my dear bestie, and BEYOND 💖💖💖

Among your other pieces, I freaking LOVE the one you made of Mario wearing his Odyssey wedding dress and Luigi looking so mad he wasn't inviting him to the event 🤭 As well as Peach wearing her wedding tux and making Balloon Luigi spin in the air!! So so SO adorable and beautiful, and the one of ALL the characters dressed as Luigi is also PEAK 😂💚

I also remember fondly your Mar10 Day piece from last year and how PERFECT it was, as well as the post of Luigi being the sexiest man which is the greatest truth ever told 😌👌 And I think one of the first posts of yours that I saw was also a Luigi doodle in which he was surrounded by Daisy, Peasley and Bowser. LOVE that one, my friend 😂👏

Continuing with the bros, I love the one of Luigi being sleepy and Gooigi imitiating him, as well as your sketches of Mario, especially when he's SO angry 😳 The one of them wearing the raincoats is SO CUTE, and what can I say about them cuddling together in their hammock 🥹🥹 It warms my heart so much ❤️💚

Your recent trio doodle was SO COOL 👏👏👏 Luigi "sitting" like Charlie Day is so freaking hilarious 😂 I'm still not over the Chris Pratt joke OMG, I swear I'm still laughing to this day 💀 The princesses' picnic is so beautiful and delightful to look at, and even if it's older, I do like your drawing of Luigi and Toad from LM3!!

And last but not least, I freaking LOVE your collab with Mugi 😁😁 How could I not, being a bookworm myself!! I'm right there with Peach and Luigi, but the way Daisy is holding the book like she literally doesn't know what it is kills me 😂😂

As I said this is the LONGEST ask I've ever written, so I'm gonna leave it here because I could just go on lol. But I mean every single word, my dear bestie!!! Your art is SO beautiful and perfect, and also so special to me!! Please keep up the good work, my incredibly talented queen 👑 Te quiero mucho!! 💖💖💖💖💖

🙂

highkey spent a good half hour trying to find a way to respond to this in the most normal way possible

now if you'll excuse me

THOSE. ZAHRA. THOSE WERE MY REACTIONS TO THIS POST IN EXACT ORDER.

and not even THOSE gifs are enough to sum up what I was feeling and what I'm STILL feeling, but we move.

first of all. THAT explains why I got so many notifs from you liking and reblogging my old art! i thought it was a part of your ongoing mission to restore your blog (and maybe it can be a bit of both, but either way, I am not complaining at ALL!!!!!). in that case you can ignore the ask I sent you because for some reason I did NOT see the notification for this ask and I had 0 context and I was so confused in the happiest way

but all that art?? ALL THAT ART??? you're telling me that I made art that stuck with you so much that they have the honor of being a part of your list of favorites from me?! 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 my friend. I. GENUINELY. don't know what to say. oh my god. all I can do is grin at my computer like an idiot alfkejieowlklkjklgiyglkh HOW AM I SO LUCKY TO HAVE YOU AS ONE OF MY BIGGEST SUPPORTERS.

GIRLLL I've only been doing Luaisy as well as you claim because I'm constantly piggybacking and feeding off of your ideas to the point it fuels my absolute feralness™ for them, AND I GOTTA ADD MY OWN TWISTS. like seriously!! you're a HEAVY Luaisy inspiration for me, Zahra. And the fact that we both have about the same craze as them has always been so comforting because I can just yap and give you the most random scenarios of them 🧡💚

AAAAAHH you're still thinking of doing the wedding fic?! that's amazing and I'd be SO HYPED to see a Zahra-fied Purple Luaisy Wedding 🤩 I still think about the mini drabble you sent me and G O O D N E S S. i love them so much chat. I can't lie, I've been wanting to draw the two in their wedding outfits again and mayhaps a PROPERLY illustrated wedding in the form of a comic (that would be a summer thing though LMAO), so if you can make it happen... get ready for that 😏 totally okay if it doesn't though! I'd still make the comic anyway hehehe

the suggestive one? hoooo boy, I was in a 𝒎𝒐𝒐𝒅😅 i'm still proud of how it turned out and ESPECIALLY the lighting! but looking at it now from a viewer perspective I'm like "...🫨." Out of the ones you listed the comic has GOT to be my favorite piece I've done of them!! No words, but message clear. plus autumn is my favorite season AND green and orange are fall colors, so it's a match made in heaven 😌 and yes the book sketch! I think that was my first exposure to your Luaisy, so I hold that one close to my heart too ♥️

uurughhg Mario and Daisy have been so fun to explore I'm telling you. Literally after Super Mario Land they merely existed in the same space together, ZERO interaction whatsoever. So I was more than happy to take a possible dynamic for them into my own hands, and I'm so happy you love what I do with them! but I've haveeeee to do Luigi and Peach stuff more though. I have an upcoming doodle dump for them planned, so look out for that!! but adding yours, Vulpix's and Vee's content into my art was so much fun :>

funny you say that... the first post of mine you (probably) interacted with was actually the Charles Martinet retirement piece! It was on your old account and you had reblogged "❤️❤️❤️" around the time I published it in August 2023. and you had no idea who I was, and we became moots 6 months later, so funny how that works.

EHEHEHE my gorlsss Appy Vivi and Violet!! I STILL have yet to draw Apricot and little Vi together, shame on me 😔 but of course I love her so much!! She's THE first Luaisy fankid I was introduced to, plus she was created by my super duper talented bestie, so she's practically my fan-niece. SHE DESERVES THE WORLD MY FRIEND

I always love making art based off your work!! the wallpaper's also my favorite. hell, I still have it as my own 🤭it's been a few months since I looked at the M&L drawings I did based on Estopa, and omg my heart is melting all over again 🥹🥹 just??? they???? the purest pairs of bros to EVER exist. I need to draw the bros being bros I sweeearrrrrrrr

LISTEN. the world needs Mario in a wedding dress. I must deliver. and we canNOT leave out wedding suit Peach 🤌🏾

I remember your comment from my earliest Luigi doodle dump (this was still right before we became moots), and it made me smile so much I screenshotted it!! Daisy, Peasley and Bowser surrounding him is still my favorite part about it LMAO

all very fine choices you listed, the rest of them (won't lie I forgot I did the Toad and Luigi one for LM3 💀), and YEAHHHH the Boma & Mugi Collab™, it was SUPER fun to see our styles come together AND see the friendship dynamics used as well. glad you loved that one too!

WHEW.

Zahra, I swear this ask had me genuinely cheesing, giggling, and maybe even tearing up a little 🥲 it just makes me SO happy you love my art so much and have stuck with it, even before we became friends. again, I don't know how on earth I was incredibly lucky to be brought into your circle, but I am so, so blessed and I love you so, SO much. THANK YOU, I can't say it enough. I'll never be able to EXPRESS it enough. you've made my entire year with this ask.

and now? i'm gonna go to sleep like a queen because you told me to feel like one 💅 (totally not past 3 AM where I'm at)

Te quiero muchísimo!!! ♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

[foggyfanfic]

Hi uhm I saw you rbd a post about asks so- here's one!

What is your main inspiration in writing? I mean not the "what's the reason you write?" or "why do you keep writing?" (although I wouldn't mind getting the answers to them as well!) but more "do you have media in mind that you want your writing to be similar to?"

For example, do you try to replicate writing "tricks" of your favourite authors or do you like a specific way characters are introduced in a movie?

Hello! Seeing your icon pop up in my notifs always makes my day. This is tricky, nothing immediately comes to mind, I think I’d have to say a little of every story I’ve ever consumed pops up some where in my writing. The one I’m posting right now is inspired by Overly Sarcastic Production’s piece on time loops, but it’s sort of an outlier in that it has one single inspiration, everything else is a hodgepodge.

Separating the art from the artist, I’m a huge fan of the way Joss Whedon writes dialogue in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Prose and character wise, I like the book The Rook by Daniel O’Malley (at least I think that’s his name, my dog is asleep on me so I don’t want to get up and check my bookshelf). The economy is in shambles, so I crave happy endings, even when dealing with dark topics. Subject matter wise I can write short stories that are just about the characters and plot, but anything over twenty chapters risks becoming a way for me to examine a deeper subject like rape culture, colonialism, or globalism vs isolationism, so the inspiration for my longest stories are essays and editorials I’ve read. (Except Leandra’s story in Love and Fury, that ended up being about a real experience of mine).

And that doubles as the reason why I keep writing, the little stories I tell myself are how I digest the world, and pacing around the room while I daydream disturbs my dog’s sleep schedule so I write fan fiction instead!

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Asians are all the same, right? The racism of a company cock gurgling moron

Like herpes and unlike the Dobbear, I am back baby.

At this point, deepest apology for my long absence. Personal issues over the last two years prevented me from writing anything and also destroyed for the longest time any desire to really continue the blog.

However, I don’t want to let things unfinished and seeing how the hypocricyofandrewdobson still manages to get some rise out of old Dobson related stuff, I wanted to just return, in order to properly contribute a bit more critical thinking in regard to his old comics.

And while I will not immediately return to my retrospective of SYAC, here is at least (for a start) my opinion on one comic of his, that in my opinion just proved hilarious and controversial in hindsight, and rather racist even back then.

I admit, I don’t know anymore what the title of the comic here is. All I know is, that it came out around 2018, shortly after the release of his “Black Panther” comic, another malignant piece of Dobtrash that has made the rounds online ever since. However, unlike the Black Panther comic, which became the center of a lot of discussion regarding Dobson’s racist assumptions about comic book fans while ironically trying to present himself as woke, this one was weirdly drifting off into obscurity. Which is kinda weird, cause in my opinion, it is way more racist and actually kinda insulting to the very craft Dobson supposedly “dedicated” his life to.

Let me explain.

First, over the course of three panels, Dobson comes essentially off like he is considering the medium of comics as inferior to the medium of movies. Making it look as if comics are unsuccessful because they cannot rail in the same amount of money than certain flics and calling them at best nothing more but a pitching ground for corporations to create new shallow mass product.

Now I am a bit of a realist and I know that, especially in the world of mainstream American superhero comics, this is kinda the case. Most comic book characters, stories and franchises are owned by multibillion dollar corporations, who either have a direct hand in the creation of the product (via corporate mandate for example) and/or use the likeness of the product to make profit in additional, more valuable revenues than the printed medium. Such as cartoons, merchandise and movies. One example I can think of, to show that it isn’t just an American issue: Yugioh. The card game wouldn’t have come to be if there hadn’t been a manga starring a little boy putting together an ancient Egyptian puzzle, but while the original manga ended way back in March of 2004, the card game makes millions globally still after 25 years and counting.

But that doesn’t change the fact, that comics as a medium still have value. Without the stories told within their pages, we wouldn’t have characters such as Captain America, Superman, the Mask, the Ninja Turtles and so on to begin with. Don’t get me even started on stories that aren’t falling into the American mainstream comic trend, but still succeeded in the printed comic medium partly because of genuine artistic and profound value such as Maus, Barefoot Gen, Watchmen, V for Vendetta, TinTin and a shitton of (other) stuff from Europe and Asia.

So when Dobson, who always acted like he is proud to be a cartoonist and that comics are a superior medium to others, suddenly reduces them to just being a “pitch ground for better stuff down the line” at best, I as a fan of the medium and just the art of creating stories in itself, get kinda pissed.

Additionally, the way how he compares movies to be better than comics, is severely flawed.

He brings up the fact, that “Captain America: Civil War” made over one billion dollars at the box office as an example, while pointing out the fact, that most single comic issues barely manage to sell 100.000 copies, while holding up a copypasted “Civil War” issue.

Already, Dobson essentially compares apples with bananas, while also giving both false and incomparable data, that also ignores many aspects to be considered.

For starters: He compares the earnings of both movies and comics with two different values. For movies, he goes by the monetary profit a superhero movie could possibly make, while for the comic issue, he goes by the total number of copies sold.

But here is the thing: Assuming the average selling price of a comic is at 4 dollars for a single 30 page issue, selling 100.000 copies would ring in like 400.000 dollars. And considering that producing one issue likely costs a company less than 20.000 dollars (obvious costs for mass production and distribution not withstanding) they can still make a decent profit this way from ONE issue alone. One issue. Not multiple issues of a long running, but sadly underperforming series. All of that by the way doesn’t even account for the fact, that most single issues at best tell only a quarter of a decent short story nowadays and ignores later “long term” factors, such as reprints of the issue, late term buying of the issue, tradepaperback sells of the issue, the longterm effect and cultural impact the issue may have on the actual series or plot continuity  (such as Amazing Spiderman 122, aka “The Night Gwen Stacy Died”). Don’t get me even started on the fact, that many of these issues get first sold in the US and only over the course of one year or longer may then additionally be sold in other parts of the world, therefore bringing in even more money for the publisher.

Example: The Duck comics by Don Rosa, which earn more than four times more in Europe, than they ever did in America, despite the guy being from California. Finally, a a little add addendum: that example Dobson gives indirectly via the “Civil War” issue? A quick google search revealed, that Civil War issue 1 sold over 300k copies in May of 2006 alone. Sure, not necessarily the best numbers ever for a single issue (as evident by the following list: https://bookriot.com/bestselling-comics-of-all-time/ )but still nothing to be ashamed of.

And yes, I know that we live currently in a time, where comic book sells have dropped significantly for a variety of reasons, one of them being an overall lack of decent stories. But as long as other stuff still manages to run freaking circles around American superheroes (*cough* One Piece *cough*) I wouldn’t say the medium itself is dead. Just a specific branch of it is suffering from a lack of quality and the customers are jumping ship.

A superhere movie meanwhile is a completely different beast. Ever since “The Avengers” came out in 2012, most superhero movies are 150-250 million dollar behemoths, that get overhyped by advertisement campaigns that are almost equally as expensive and try to trick the audience into believing, that they all are somehow the next big mindblowing thing on the big screen. Plus there hasn’t really been a superhero movie in the last 10+ years, that didn’t release simultaneously worldwide, instead of only coming out in the USA, and then a few months later, in other parts of the world.

So is it any wonder then, if a superhero movie that got advertised like the second coming of a saint, makes 1 billion, when there are already billions of potential customers worldwide all at once when the product launches?

That number btw becomes actually less impressive, once you start to think about how it came to be. Something our blue bear obviously didn’t.

See, on average every movie theater demands like what, 12-14 dollars per movie nowdays?

If we divide the box office of Civil war (1.152 billion btw) with 12 dollars, that makes on average 100 million people worldwide who watched the movie. A bit more than one or two percent of the worlds population. Not to forget, that of the box office success we have to substract such things as production cost of the movie, advertisement, the earnings of the theaters… so suddenly the movie may at best have had only earned one quarter of its box office for Disney as actual profit.

Not to forget, Dobson made that comic in 2018, when superhero movies on average did ring in so much money, because of the hype machine. But now we have 2023 and within the last five years (and especially 2023 itself) we have seen how superhero movies can also utterly fail to make money or even earn just enough to make back the production cost. Birds of Prey, Eternals, Ant Man 3, that Secret Invasion streaming show that still cost over 200 million… Do I need to get on?

Bottom line, Dobson’s indirect jab at comics as the less profitable revenue doesn’t hold that much water really in the real world, where once the hype dies down, comics may actually prove themselves as the more valuable longterm medium. Even if it may just be for the fact, that they end up staying longer relevant in the popcultural subconscious than the current movies, which tend to lose relevance with each new hastily produced and released installment in the franchise.

But where this comic really shines and shows Dobson’s ignorance on a cultural level, is in the last panel. When all off sudden it turns “racial” by claiming that Asian people, unlike “traditional” comic readers (aka white, in Dobbear s eyes therefore instantly racist people), would eat a Marvel character like Amadeus Cho up.

Question Dobson: Why do you assume, they would eat him up? You give no real argument based on anything the character does storywise, that the “target audience” may find admirable. So I can only think, that your reasoning is, because he is ever so slightly east asian coded.

Boy, do we have to unpack not just a can of worms, but a whole package of cans now.

First, the chosen language by saying “eat it up”. When being a writer, you should know that you need at times to choose your words wisely, because of the sheer implications they can carry. And the statement “eat it up” sounds way to close to a negative statement like “suck it up”. Making it come off as if Dobson considers Asian people to be mindless cattle that will consume the grub the House of Mouse will give them without question or any desire for actual quality to it.

Second, it recks of a certain mind set I hate within the American entertainment industry and some of its creators and consumers. That mind set being, that “non-traditional” American cultures supposedly don’t know better than Americans in what is okay for the sake of representation and entertainment or not. It’s a mindset that goes beyond the necessity of e.g. localizing a foreign product to the national market, by e.g. creating a sterilized, corporately mandated and rather unrealistic depiction of another culture within their product, that will fall apart as soon as the people who are supposed to be represented get a proper look at it and realize, how pandering and often times badly researched, if not outright offensive, it is.

Only recently did we see in the world of animation how that can backfire, when Disney released the trailer for “Primos” an upcoming animated show supposedly about a half Latina girl spending her summer vacation with her annoying cousins, people calling it based on the intro (and a leaked pilot) pandering towards a latino audience in a racist manner. And guess what: currently, Disney shelves it and tries to bury its existence like Dobson his old inflation art.

Dobson himself has actually indulged in that sort of shit kinda, back with his infamous Nintendo comic.

Essentially calling the “true”, Nintendo corporation approved depiction of his childhood Nintendo heroes disgraceful, for not falling in line with the late 80s depictions he saw in localized, made in America products such as the DiC cartoons. That and minor homophobia mixed with misogyny by calling Link “girly” for having longer blond hair since Ocarina of Time and blaming fangirls for it.

Third, and that is kinda related to my prior point, the reality of things is, that “Asians” actually did not eat up that sort of thing in the last couple of years. Sure, there is always that thing about a Chinese market. the big movie companies try to pander to and may succeed with some dumb action flics featuring big robots.

But the reality is, that not even people living in a dictatorship will eat up every trash you give to them, just because it comes from Hollywood or is supported by their glorious leadership. Disney tried to create two pandering messes of movies for Chinese people to watch, called Mulan (the live action adaptation) and that Shang Chi movie. And how did they do there? Oh right! The government did not even allow Shang Chi to be released and Mulan was released but supposedly didn’t do so well, considering (COVID not withstanding) it only made 70 million globally!

Don’t get me even started on every human right controversy in relation to the later, starting with filming in China near a concentration camp and ending with the main actress being essentially a Chinese propaganda puppet.

So, if those movies flopped, why would Chinese people for example flock for an Asian Hulk? A hulk that is not even Chinese but Korean.

See, this is another issue that fails with the example: The actual choice of character Dobson name dropped is actually kinda terrible.

For those unaware: Amadeus Cho is a supporting character in the Marvel comics, created in 2005 by American writer Greg Pak and artist Takeshi Miyazawa. The later, despite the name being very east Asian, sounding, actually being from Canada. Now both do have east Asian roots so to speak (Pak  e.g. is the son of an Korean-american man with a Caucasian woman), but they also have grown up within a society that taught them both western social values more so than we would see in east Asian countries. So with the creators already not necessarily having the most real life experience with the average mindset of a Korean citizen, can we really say that their actual creation helps “represent” those people of a foreign, non-american culture?

And that is not even covering stuff like the actual story of the character itself.

See, in the comics, Cho is supposed to be an American-Korean genius (wish fullfillment much, Greg?) and one of the smartest people in the Marvel Universe. His parents named him after Amadeus Mozart (a pretty white motherfucker as far as I remember) and he grew up under Methodist beliefs. So basically the “Korean heritage” of the character has already been thrown out of the window. Now I don’t expect the character to act stereotypical Korean, listen to K-pop, declare bulgogi to be his favorite dish or any of that shit. But when you want to sell me the character as being in some way or another connected to his ancestral culture, shouldn’t he engage at least in some “Korean coded” things?

I mean, the character of Anne Boonchuy in Amphibia is a Thai-American who acts more like a 13 year old girl that learns to be less selfish and impulsive over the course of the show and whose “heritage” isn’t thrown at us, the viewer, most of the time. In fact, Anne herself acknowledges that she e.g. can’t really speak thai, despite her own mother being fluent in it and a season 3 episode reveals, that Anne is “begrudgingly” a part of the L.A. thai community. And yet, in connection to the shows story and as part of Anne’s characterization, her heritage is acknowledged and plays a part of who she is. Even if it simply means she knows how to cook certain thai dishes, loves her parents and their customs, helps out in their restaurant, can speak a few words thai and knows the basics of Muay Thai, a form of martial arts (and fighting sport) from Thailand.

Amadeus doesn’t even have Korean parents anymore, because they were killed as part of his tragic hero backstory. Nor has he ever visited an Asian country. Oppps.

To build further up on it, Amadeus becomes for the longest time simply a major supporting character in the Marvel universe for the likes of Hulk and Hercules, two white coded characters. Sure, he plays a major role in the defeat of some cosmic horror level villains (such as Mikaboshi in the Chaos God storyline most people forgot even existed) but it takes a long time for him to become a “A-lister” so to speak.

In fact, according to Wikipedia, it wasn’t till after “Secret Wars” in 2016 (eleven years after the character was created), that Amadeus thanks to a chain of events eventually got his chance to Hulk out. And then they still had to kill Bruce Banner to make Amadeus “stand out” initially (don’t worry, Bruce came back. I mean, characters actually staying dead in comics, so that heroes can learn there are consequences? Preposterous) In fact, Amadeus hasn’t really proven himself as a decent “solo” act. Instead he became a member of the Champions (among Miles Morales, Mrs. Marvel, Vision’s daughter Viv. Nova and Cyclops), essentially creating yet another superhero team for teenaged vigilantes. Despite the fact, Cho himself should be by now in his mid 20s.

Now look, I do not want to shit talk the character. Partly because I haven’t read everything he was in myself and partly because in the few things I did see him in (both pre- and post Hulk) he was okay. He is a decent hero and person, who tries to do good, even if he screws up here and there. That is something I can admire in a character in general. But he is not a good “representation” of another culture, because his complexion and minor physical features aside, he is NOT embodying even minor values or traditions of that foreign culture. He is simply a Korean-American (or technically Canadian), who falls more on the American side of things.

So essentially, Dobson who virtue signaled on multiple occasions how bad it is when companies he didn’t like tried to speak on behalf of other cultures, would have no problem at all to ask for Asian people to swallow this obviously “Made in American” product. The “Made in America” line actually working both on a metaphorical and a storytelling level, cause trying to google what “east Asian coded” heroes in the Marvel Universe actually come from an Asian country instead of being simply born on American soil, is pretty damn small.

After 20 minutes I only found Shang Chi, as he was born in China, and that character was created as part of kung-fu exploitation in the 70s by white dudes.

Yaiks

However, none of that tops the next two points that really sell Dobson to me as an American centralistic racist. Or at least a twat who doesn’t understand how through bad wording he comes of as ignorant of other people’s cultures.

The way he generalizes Asian people in his statement, while also ignoring the actual accomplishments in the creation of entertainment in multiple Asian countries.

If you’ve read closely what I typed, you may have seen that I used the term Asian at times in tandem with the term “east Asian” to e.g. describe Amadeus Cho.

And that had a very deliberate reason. While I was not a fan of geography in school, even I know that Asia as a continent is not “nationally” as homogenous as let’s say Australia or North America. In fact, Asia is the biggest continent on the planet, hosts more than half of earth’s population and consists of at least 47 internationally acknowledged states.

States such as Turkey, Russia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, China, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, North- and South Korea, Egypt, Israel, Iraq, Iran and so on.

Now what all these states have in common, is that they have their own unique historical, social and “racial” culture and background. Heck, religiously speaking, Asia is the cradle of the world.

As such, Dobson stating that a “Korean coded” character such as Amadeus Cho (who is only Korean on the most surface level and would technically just be a legacy character of yet another white person) would be an immediate hulk smash hit with all these different people of different backgrounds…. Yeah, it sounds like condescending, colonization inspired shit, a smooth brain would come up with.

To Dobson “Asia”, at least based on that comic, is only defined as the “yellow skinned” people from the far east, who like rice, noodles, spicy food and give us anime, Godzilla, fireworks, buddhism and communism. It does not include anyone from the middle east or of more European ancestry. And if you are even remotely familiar about history, you would also know that Japanese, Koreans and Chinese all around do not e.g. like to be thrown into a pot with the others for a variety of reasons. Many of them political.

Or to sum it up even shorter: Dobson insinuated that a very shallow, “east Asian” coded American comic character would be an immediate hit with more than 47 different countries, ignoring that not all of them share the same background despite being part of the “same” landmass. And in doing so, he simultaneously generalized and denounced entire groups of people based on their racial and cultural background, which in as far as I am aware of, is considered racist.

But the “racism” is supposedly justified, because “representation” matters, it would be giving the middle finger to “traditional” comic fans and those nations and their culture are underrepresented globally.

Which is baloney.

Don’t get me wrong, I myself think that representation does matter. But the world does not necessarily rely on the good old US-Ayy only to give it to us.

Cause a lot of the Asian nations I brought up here? They have their own entertainment industry and stories, which again, get ignored by Dobson to make a dumb and false point.

I mean, manga is currently dominating the international comic market, all while Japan has also a booming animation industry and some of the most iconic heroes in modern popculture with the likes of Son Goku, Kamen Rider, Super Sentai etc.

China has a prominent -if propaganda driven- movie industry.

India has Bollywood and delivers some of the most ridiculous but awesome musical movies on the planet.

Russia had authors such as Tolstoy and movie directors, that redefined the “art” of filmmaking.

Korea had a few years ago one of the biggest streaming hits with Squid Game, while also earning an Oscar for a movie titled Dobs- I mean “Parasite”.

Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Turkey… even nations that have not entertainment living up to “western standards” still produce stuff in some way or form to entertain the masses and their people. Just google up the character Kara Murat aka the avenger of Anatolia.

And don’t get me even started on the sheer ton of mythology, stories and history each of their cultures have provided the world with. Journey to the West? Baba Yaga, the entirety of the Gilgamesh epos...

And yet, there is this indirect assumption by Dobson, that all of them would be so deprived of “heroes” in their media and folklore, they would letch on second hand shop Hulk? Fuck off, Dobbear. I know you like to suck corporate cock as long as you think they are woke and you have childhood nostalgia for them, but this is pathetic. Take Amadeus before A Rama Raju comes around and roundhouse kicks him back to Canada. Then get the taste of mouse smegma of your Disney cock gobbling lips.

[kitkat-the-muffin]

*drum-roll*

*louder drum-roll*

*even louder drum-roll*

*loudest drum-roll*

GUESS WHO? IT’S WEBTOON!!!!

Here's a quick little bio for you:

She/Her Pronouns

Obsessed with Drama (default skin)

Verified Sword Lesbian™️

Wields a one-handed cliché anime sword using the upper body strength of a Mary Sue

Has terrible taste in everything (movies, character design, advertising methods, friends)

Enjoys Amino's presence (disrupts a canon event)

Exchanges cryptocurrency with Amino on a regular basis

Creative, artsy, and colorful

Jumps to conclusions easily

Not immune to propaganda (will believe ANYTHING)

Easily susceptible to clickbait

Overconfident gambler and gold-digger

Optimistic Derse Dreamer

Unhealthily invested in the romance lives of other people (and fictional people)

Constantly forgets to renew her Spotify subscription

Doesn't know what an adblocker is

Forgets to use trigger warnings sometimes

Probably has an ongoing feud with TappyToon

"How can you read this? There's no pictures!"

Her genre changes depending on her mood and the topic of discussion

Her skirt and bow change with her genre

The bell on her zipper rings whenever her genre changes

I will make a separate post of all her genres for easier access later and put the link [here].

Funky little rant under the cut as well as a single progress-shot at the bottom

I've been working on this character for a few months now and I'm happy with how she turned out. It was a lengthy process of trying to make her look the way I wanted her to and part of that was changing aspects of her design and allowing my friends to help and support me. At one point one of my friends told me the drawing was too stiff and ordered me to doodle ugly things until I felt confident enough to break out of my comfort zone, and that really helped Webtoon feel more personalized I think

To be honest, Socialstuck has pulled me out of my artist's block. For the longest time I had no motivation to draw anything at all because I wasn't confident enough in my abilities and art style to even try. I'm still not good at drawing poses, and even now this drawing is an imitation of Cloutchase's art style. However, the simplicity of that art style inspired me to draw, and suddenly I found myself creating more and more drafts. Whether those drafts will ever be completed is up to the future, but it's a big step for me to finally try again

This piece may be in Cloutchase's art style, but it's also got a little bit of me in it as well, and I'm more than happy to contribute to a fun community of people making stuff together by adding my own OC into the mix

Funny addition: At the bottom of my Webtoon notes is a small section of past-me complaining about how hard it was to draw with my dog staring at me. I got peer-pressured by my dog XD

Anyway here's the progress shot and also Webtoon's beta-design I made with a picrew (I beta all my character designs in picrew lol)

And here’s a vertical draft of her final design in HD as a treat:

[eccentric-nucleus]

so, i finally finished (posting) my huge, novel-length teenage mutant ninja turtles fanfic. i just posted the final epilogue over on ao3!

here is my director's commentary on it, if you want to read even more about it. this contains spoilers for the whole thing. maybe read the epilogue first and sit with that for a minute. also this will probably be pretty incoherent if you haven't read the whole thing. it's just a disconnected series of thoughts i have about the story, really

man, this story. this is maybe the longest thing i've ever written? like 'the new hive' and 'hell game' had more words (i think) but they were mostly a disconnected series of sex scenes with thin connective tissue between them. this is ~200k words of a single, linear, mostly-plot narrative. i'm writing scenes that aren't just about getting the two leads to fuck!! that's weird. it's definitely the most ambitious thing i've written. kind of weird that it's tmnt fanfic. that's just how it worked out, i guess.

so back in 2022 i watched the rise of the tmnt movie because people kept talking about the animation quality of the fights and that got me into a spiral of actually paying attention to the ninja turtles. i had never been into them & genuinely i think a huge part of getting into tmnt stuff was that rise actually varied the design of the turtles so that they weren't all basically identical save for color-coding. turns out visual design was the missing mystery ingredient.

also in 2022 i was burning out on writing 'goblin cave', when what i had intended to be a fun little writing exercise ended up getting algorithmically surfaced and getting me hundreds of comments on each chapter. that got a little stressful and i wasn't really enjoying that, so i stopped. but i was like, hmm you know i mostly just write weird porn but maybe i should write something a little more ambitious. with a plot, and everything. 'goblin cave' was (in my mind) all about a character who was created for violence deciding art was a much more worthwhile pursuit. but the main character of that doesn't know what art is. because it's a magical dungeon core. and i was still thinking a lot about dead zones of the imagination, by david graeber. so i was like, okay, let's do this again but in a slightly more self-authentic way and make it weird gay porn with weird animal dicks. let's give michelangelo ninjaturtle a monologue about how the powerful are utterly insulated from any consequence.

(also early on, after watching most of rottmnt, i stumbled across this blog post about the tmnt comics and the end of the world. that ended up being deeply influential on the fic too. i've been kinda in a state for the past few years and this fic is absolutely a part of me working through a lot of complicated feelings about the world and the future. lol people talk so much about people writing dark fic 'to cope' but this was pretty much the first time i've outsourced my emotional processing by having bad things happen to fictional characters.)

so uhhh where to start here. the setting of the fic is this complicated messy mashup of a half-dozen tmnt continuities. it's very rise-heavy, since... that was the only series i had watched(/read) when i had determined the major plot points, but there's a lot of bits and pieces from all over.

to roughly outline the characters here, a huge influence on mikey's personality in this is... mikey's 'dr delicate touch' persona in rottmnt. in the sense that... okay yes yes that is a kid's show and all of his dr delicate touch lines are, you know, setups and punchlines. you think he's going to be nice but actually he's mean! etc. but in-universe it's like, wait hold on a second. mikey is like the most emotionally-intelligent of the four. he absolutely knows when people are on the edge of flipping out and need a calming out to a stressful situation. and instead he freaks them out more! mikey's hobby is: being mean to his friends & family, for fun! what a fun character trait.

i was thinking about this tweet a lot, too. i read some writing advice once that people tend to make characters who are supposed to be likable too squeaky-clean. nothing but positive character traits for them! but actually every 'positive' character trait is exactly the same as a 'negative' one; it's just a matter of focus and degree. a character is light-hearted and comedic? they can never take things seriously, even when they really should. a character is willing to do anything to protect the people they love? so they're violent and threatening and scary if they happen to decide you're something that they need to protect against. etc. i was really dedicated in this to bringing out the worst characteristics of everybody's personalities.

mikey was also very deeply inspired by: all the garbage progression fantasy stuff i've been reading. i've complained about this several times on this very blog, but a constant theme in most progression fantasy is 1. the main character will constantly get more and more powerful and 2. the main character will never really have their relationship with the rest of the world changed via that power. it's just stat-ups. they just have higher stats so they're more powerful. mikey is the most powerful person on the planet and it's fucking ruining his life. he knows that there's nobody capable of actually checking his behavior, & he's in this constant state of thinking he's maybe a few bad days away from murdering half the planet and incredibly aware there's not really anything he can do about that aside from constantly worry. he's kind of an anxious mess.

mikey absolutely thinks it's more ethical to murder somebody out of the sheer glee of seeing people crushed before you than murdering somebody for something as tedious as mob orders. you're satisfying a deep, raw desire felt from the heart! that's good!

what he'd like to do, in some sense, is just hang out in his studio and chill with other artists, but he knows the world is not gonna let him do that. things will come up. a lot of his being a creepy bystander thing while people get murdered is b/c he's very much formulated his morality to be like... it is not his responsibility to fix other people's problems. other people will do what they want and that has no bearing on him. is that a pretty cowardly and self-serving morality? sure! but he was kinda designed to rule the world & his flinch away from that pretty much defines him as a character in this. that's kinda the morality he needed to end up on to convince himself not to be a genocide machine.

he's incredibly aware he could basically be a superhero, & all it would take is... giving up on all his hopes and dreams and constantly engage with his abilities. and being a superhero isn't that many steps removed from living up to his full design spec and just taking over the world and ruling as god-emperror. idk how well i hit all those notes in the actual fic, but, that's what i was going for. mikey as the narrator clearly doesn't want to talk or think about it so it's never really directly confronted.

raph is... okay so i guess a fairly common piece of fanon, for rise especially, is to characterise raph as having multiple personalities? whether that's him just having alters or him having full-blown MPD depends on the fic. my fun little nod to that is that he's kind of a disassociative mess. he has kind of failed to reconcile the disparate aspects of his personality and he switches between one of several different facades depending on the situation. also, you know. the trauma.

(i didn't really mean for it to be as such, but there is this theme in the story about names? despite everything else mikey has a crystal-clear self-conception of himself and has one name, which he gave himself. raph, who has kinda failed to build his own personality, has a collection of name other people have given him, none of which he feels actually fits him. donnie has a more fluid self-identity and also has roughly a million aliases and false identities & constantly slips in and out of character when it's convenient. leatherhead still going by the name mikey gave him goes hand-in-hand with that bit where mikey meanly thinks about how maybe leatherhead's entire self-conception is hung up on something mikey said to him once, etc. this is one of those things that i'd go back and make more present if i did go back and clean up the rough draft, b/c as it is it's there, but it doesn't really do a whole lot.)

--

this fic was inspired by... i had read a few big aus that were just like, taking the characters and loose bits of setting and going off in completely different directions. some of NeiNing's aus were a definite influence, plus like, this one au where raph is an ex-con mechanic, etc, etc. just like "i am going to play out a completely unrelated drama using turtles as the dolls". maybe most directly influential was Of Knights and Thieves, where donnie & mikey are corporate espionage hacker/thief types and raph & leo are do-gooder vigilantes. the original concept for this was much more heavily focused on the art forgery. in a very early draft the idea was leo would get involved much more actively in trying to track down the creator of the false takenobus. then i was like, "i am going to crash a completely separate story concept about the dark armor into the side of this art-forgery story". the filename for the story is still 'lol grindr hookup art thief'. that is not really where the story went.

oh man, the art stuff. i made some posts about this at the time! that are now several years old. here's one! i did end up getting a traditional woodcut printing of Tokaido 53 stations, no. 11, Hokone. in a lot of ways doing all the art research was more satisfying and fun than writing the extensive downward spiral that was the latter half of the fic. but, hey, that's life too i guess.

also raph in this is... okay, so, i don't mean this in a mean way. i really liked the fics! but cndrow has written several raph/donnie fics where raph is just like... like a repeated theme in them is raph confessing eternal love & talking about how he's like, mentally planning on them being together forever. on the first date. and sure sure everybody has different tastes; i'm absolutely sure that my interest in guys who are mean leads to some stories that are extremely offputting to some people, etc. but it's like, oh man, raph, please slow your roll a little. if somebody said they were planning our future wedding all of ten minutes into talking to me i would flee the room. & the raph in blinded by the summer sun is very much inspired by that. sadly, i never fully committed to that. originally i even had a line in chapter 9 where slash was like 'please tell me you didn't drop the 'i love you forever' on this guy already' to imply that that was, you know, a theme for raph, but i chickened out and cut it. raph as a kind of rolling series of bad relationships characterized by him falling forever in love w/ his latest crush until the relationship detonates and leaves him not really understanding how things went wrong. but i don't think that's expressed well like, at all. but that ideally should characterize a large part of why he keeps chasing after mikey even well after the point where it would be reasonable to disengage. also to convey some of the downsides of a character believing in true love. it's rough out there in the world.

also thank you tumblr user averyterrible for writing this goncharov post. that was the point in the story where i was like, actually i have been writing raph as way too much of a sad boy. if i want to play in the space of crime drama, there needs to be some crime! he's a yakuza assassin. he needs to chop off somebody's fingers with bolt cutters.

--

to me, the central question in the fic isn't really 'will the mikey/raph relationship work out' or 'will mikey succeed in his plans', it's 'why is mikey doing these things'. & i think the leatherhead chunks in chapter 23 finally give enough context to what's going on with mikey to let people answer that? like oh, mikey is a mess.

(lol the initial setup for the early chapters are supposed to give an audience response of like, "oh no, raph has some dangerous secrets" "oh no, raph is a violent yakuza murderer! i hope mikey is going to be okay interacting with raph" "...oh no, i hope raph is going to be okay interacting with mikey")

a lot of the story really is about how... mikey & raph's relationship is in a lot of ways very adolescent? they have not had a lot of prior experience with healthy relationships, and they're trying, but, uhhhhhhh. mikey likes to act like he's so cool and above-it-all and unaffected by things happening, but that's actually just b/c he doesn't really care about most things. when something happens that he genuinely doesn't like he immediately snaps and has a giant meltdown. (we see this once with raph, when mikey has a panic attack and throws up when raph blows him off wrt warning him of bishop, and once with donny about the armor, where mike immediately starts tantruming and threatening to kill himself. mikey is very bad at resolving conflict. he's kind of a brat, actually.)

like every character in this is in some way their worst self. they're all pretty awful people. but they're all also trying to... grapple with their place in the world and try to be better people. to even figure out what 'better' means. this is a story about how 'being a good person' is a constant struggle, not to 'do the right thing', but to even figure out what's 'right'. it's about picking yourself up again after a bad period and going, well, let's keep going. like mikey has a lot of traits but one that i, the author, actually think is fairly admirable is his ability to get back up and keep going after a really bad period. which is funny b/c characterwise that goes hand-in-hand with his callousness. just shrug off all the misery you caused other people, i guess! see above about positive/negative character traits.

(also uh there's another tmnt fic author whose work has a lot of... a Bad Guy is constructed/identified. then helpless children (or teens!) are rescued from him. then the bad guy is ruthlessly & violently murdered. sometimes onscreen, sometimes offscreen. and then it's nothing but chapter after chapter of people being happy and cutesy to each other. and like, i get it. but the, like, recurring theme there of the Bad Guy having done something fundamentally unforgivable that separates from all understanding & mercy, to which the only justice is a violent death, just strikes me as... simplistic. sometimes people do really awful things and part of grappling with that as an adult with an adult moral conceptualization is realizing that you gotta look past your initial reflex to punishment.

or like, mikey's whole childhood in this really fucked him up but a huge part of his identity is him having to form an identity from that. having to make the determination of which parts of him are 'him' and which parts were done to him. lol @ him aggressively and extensively rejecting everything about what draxum made him to do & then blithely being like 'we were engineered to eat humans anyway' as a defense for all the corpse-eating. mikey you just like eating people & have decided that part does align with your self-identity. mikey would really not appreciate anybody being like 'i'm sorry nobody saved you from that' b/c that (to him) would basically be the same as them saying they thought he was fundamentally, irreparably damaged & was going to be forever incapable of being anything other than what draxum made him to be. he wouldn't take it well.)

uhhh what else. i mean there's a lot. fun fact pretty much every time mikey gets mad at somebody else he's hugely projecting. even his pacifism is like... hmm maybe he should have killed draxum. a lot of his talk @ raph about splinter is secretly mikey relitigating his feelings about draxum. oh what's that mikey you think that splinter is only playing happy family b/c he's immortal and he has infinite time to spend humoring somebody's illusions but that when push comes to shove he'll drop all that? gee i wonder if that might apply to any dynamics in mikey's own life. lol at mikey being like "wow red your life is kind of a fucked-up nightmare of weird psychopaths playing like they're happy family" and then two chapters is like "hey come meet my family. we live in my genocidal dad's bombed-out lab and we're treating him like a weird racist grandpa". i kinda wanted something that would complicate mikey just being like "i am a pacifist now and i don't kill anybody"; mikey that's all well and good but like half his inner tension comes from not being sure if he should've left draxum alive. that's kinda the mirror to him debating whether or not actually killing leatherhead would've been better. (in a few years shelldon is gonna go through a period of not wanting to talk to any of them. mikey & donnie are better parents than draxum but that's such a low bar.)

(likewise at the end when mikey is like "this is raph's healthiest relationship so far!" to leo, like, this is more mikey projecting. really the raph/casey relationship was probably better for raph & casey, idk, who can say. but is mikey's relationship with raph the healthiest romantic interaction he's ever had? yes, absolutely. we don't get to see the mikey/leatherhead relationship really up-close and personal but it should be pretty clear that it was pretty awful for everybody involved. compared to that, the mikey/raph is absolutely mikey's healthiest relationship so far. just. low bars.)

lol i am a little concerned that mikey's tendency to monologue, & especially his whole political monologue near the end, will get people to think he's just acting as an author's soapbox. i mean, okay, the little author's note where i'm like "as always, mikey is a perfect role model and everybody should do what he does" was a fun little joke. but, oof, the number of fics i've read where the authors feel the need to loudly and repeatedly disclaim that This Story Contains Things The Author Does Not Condone In Real Life is pretty disheartening. way to have absolutely no faith in your audience. but likie, the part where mikey is pretty much flat-out like, "actually i think my moral framework is whatever is necessary to justify my actions" is meant to be pretty damning. maybe not of mikey specifically as a character, just of, you know. the whole world where that's a pretty common outlook among people with power.

--

lets talk about the rape. part of it is that it felt like it would be inauthentic to go through the entire story without mikey seriously violating one of raph's boundaries. part of it is that mikey here kinda has the trifecta of ASPD, ADHD, & bipolar, and the thing with that is it's very easy to just say that but a little more difficult to convey the personality traits involved. this isn't really something ever stated as such in the fic, aside from various people calling mikey crazy + raph calls him a sociopath once. it's kind of too didactic to just flatly state "and this is what's wrong with mikey!" imo. but. this is a story about violent people. imo you can't just gesture to a character with the background level of callousness for the genre and go "okay this is a clinical sign"; you kinda gotta do something more direct. 'wow mikey sure is CRAZY and WEIRD good thing it only shows itself as him being slightly mean to people'. no. mikey has done some pretty horrible things in the past and clearly isn't fully done with that.

(i did pretty much go straight down the list of symptoms there. impulsive, suicidal, aggressive, violent, risky sex, arrogant, limited empathy, no regard for other people or social norms, difficulty with relationships, arson, etc, etc, etc. but it's not like he's a 'realistic' portrayal here, since... i mean, he is a super-powered ninja. there's a level of 'superficial charm' here but we do get enough of mikey's interiority to be able to tell he's a total mess in a way that's not particularly constructed.)

also it's like. raph graphically tortures several people to death & i didn't really feel the need to disclaim that here. murder is usually seen as a lesser crime in fiction than rape. people love their violent blorbos but the second there's the implication of sexual violence people freak out. the usual line people say is that the threat of murder is a little more removed for most people than the threat of rape, which idk if i fully agree with. but part of it is also to draw a line between raph's violence and mikey's boundary violation. like mikey says, well, raph tried to non-consensually murder him a few times too.

anyway i don't think i really stuck the landing with that either, in part b/c raph's response to it. he's a little too pathetically accepting of things at the end instead of being angry + violent. that could use a rewrite or two.

--

honestly i'm kinda sick of this story now? which sucks a little, since i kept realizing things about the story all the way up to the very last moment of editing. if i had waited to post any of this until i was done with the first draft... well, it'd be a very different story if i went back and turned this rough draft into something more complete. i never really did manage to hit the character beats with raph i was hoping to. oh well. like, i still like it. but i can definitely see all of its weak points. i guess that's just part of the process of writing. it'd be worse if you wrote a giant novel and came out on the other side not more aware of your failings as an author.

i feel like raph isn't super well-realized in terms of character motivations. or... his relationships aren't shaded in as well as they could be. if i were redoing this whole thing i'd definitely include some chunks of raph pov just to lay out more concretely what he's doing & what his life is like when he's not in the same scene as mikey. i kinda included that raph+donny conversation at the very end just for jokes, but actually ending every chapter with a little section of non-mikey pov would've helped ground a lot of the characters. raph isn't super well-developed and leo is pretty much incoherent absent external familiarity with his character's deal. they're not conveyed super well, in part because, well, any time mikey is onscreen everybody is having to deal with mikey. it's a problem.

but something that absolutely could have worked as a secondary narrative to the story is the whole thing with raph working w/ the oroku. that was a bit of a late addition to the story. it's meant as a reference to, you know, all the times raphael ends up being compared to/assuming the mantle of the shredder in the comics. but as it is since we don't get any real looks into exactly what's going on in yakuza town when mikey's not around none of that got developed very well, imo.

--

it was very important to me that mikey not learn any lesson here. where things are at in the end are pretty much the exact same as where they were in the beginning. the bit in the pizza scene where he's like 'you guys get to live and i get a boyfriend' is very accurate. literally the only change in mikey's life through this entire thing is that at the end he is in a relationship w/ a guy who he can tell some of what his life is like to. not that it's a super healthy relationship, but it is there.

well, that, and also now he's maybe out of time. (uh, so the laughter at the very end of the epilogue is mikey realizing he's out of time. the whole epilogue really is about how he's got all these conflicting tensions of who-knows-what in his life, & then right in the middle of the tension it's like, whoops, the utrom aren't coming in 10 years or 20 years, they're coming now. and in a week you're gonna be getting some really pointed questions about how you know the utrom envoy. and in a few years, well, there's gonna be some planetary evacuation) like the whole story is about... anxiety. mikey feeling the weight of the future on him in every moment. actually seeing things collapse would be a relief; you'd get the release of all the potentiality collapsing into an actual problem. the moral of the story is you get what you get and in the end all mikey's actions, good or bad or otherwise, have bought him is nine more months of ignoring his problems.

anyway sorry to all the tmnt fans who were expecting a happy cheerful mikey/raph story. this is actually about the fundamental injustice of existence. whoops!

[momocicerone]

has tumblr ruined me for discord?

so i am not very active here, but ... i'm not awfully active on discord either? and i've found it very hard to find new social circles on discord over the years. i've tried everything under the sun: fandom servers, friends servers, anime servers, gaming servers, girls only servers, support servers, chilling servers... nothing sticks.

fandom servers, they are usually big and .. um. no. just no. controversy and gatekeeping hub is not my place. friends servers: ppl get lives, and the chat dies, that simple. anime servers is fandom server on steroids, plus always a 15 year old creep trying to get in your pants (sometimes the 15 year old is 25. sometimes he's 35. it matters not, nor it makes any difference). gaming servers are, um first of all there is 1% game talk, 45% who wants to join for a game rn?? and 54% feet gifs and waifu sexy art.. i did not sing up for -- this is not what i,, . girls only servers are very good, very mindful very demure but also no vent rule and i'm sorry i'm a bitter bitch who needs to moan about my work sometimes. chilling servers are way too chill like hello anyone active??

there's an (imo) obscure type of server which is adult servers (hold up NOT adult as in XXX or anything like that but like, grown up people servers who chat about their jobs, hobbies, cats and spouses or lackthereof ）and i've joined a handful of them but i can tell you right now that 90% of them feel like high school. and i didn't even have that kind of high school experience growing up so it's kinda ironic witnessing these popularity contests and gossip happen in real time. I think i'm used to fandom hierarchy and BNFs and i understand the logic of people with talents who give for a community being popular so the whole... using pretty privilege to build up relationships is absolutely bizarre in my eyes. I am an adult, i do not understand other adults.

Needless to say I feel like 98% of the new relationships i managed to forge in the past years, since i joined discord in 2017, are desingenuine. Granted, almost every single one of them has fallen apart as expected.

I review my friendships and I realize the longest and most meaningful started here on tumblr and some of them on the fanfiction community, even when we have long lost our shared interests, the friendships remain intact, if no stronger.

perhaps what im trying to say is that through tumblr and writing we were able to accidentally find more alike people than by entering social settings which intended purpose is to make friends. is it because blogging to the void is infinitedly more personal and lets us show ourselves more? i've gotten in so much trouble because of my tumblr humor getting misunderstood in discord chats, i stopped making self deprecating jokes altogher. I am also kind of morbid, ngl, which i guess doesn't help my case.

am i just a weirdo in denial lmao?

i don't feel lonely, per se. I could catch up with a handful of people if i wasn't the lazy mf that i am. but i am bored. i am bored to death. to oblivion. and i refuse to engage in conversations with people with clearly disengenuine intentions, even if it's to entertain a joke.

will i ever meet another one who matches my energy, or learn to break that energy apart into moderate pieces that i can hand out of my friends?

[katysfavoritethings]

The Waterboarding Department: My Journey from 1989 Socialite to Tortured Poet

No one knows everything about someone but there are always a few defining clues, a couple indisputable pieces of lore, that define you.  For me, that has always been Taylor Swift.  In the 2010's, family members would tease me about her latest breakup.  In the age of the Eras tour, people would offer their favorite tidbits or fun facts that I already knew about her.  Like most of us millennial white ladies, me and Taylor go waaaay back.

In Summer of 2007, I remember working at a local Vacation Bible School to find a gaggle of girls gathered around an elderly CD player in the church parking lot.  “He’s the reason for the teardrops on my guitar” it sang. I thought it was the saddest conceit I had ever heard in my 13 years.  “Who is this?” I asked, and the rest was history.  The next iTunes gift card I received went to “that one country song” I had heard that afternoon.  

Over those earlier years in her career, I was what I refer to as a “closet Swiftie.”  I think in light of the global smash that was the Eras Tour, it can be easy to forget how hard it was, socially, to be a young girl who loved the art of a slightly less young girl.  Taylor was “the girl in the dress,” the serial dater.  I once overheard a zinger that maybe her next single should be called “I’m sorry, it’s my fault” (clearly they did not wait around for her hit single “Anti-Hero.”)  As much as my heart fluttered to her lyrical rain-soaked kisses and as often as I had her choruses stuck in my head, I would never call myself a Swiftie.  I wasn’t a big fan, I had only memorized  the entire "Red" album both musically and lyrically, coincidentally.  But then, she had an announcement.  She was going pop.

Many were disappointed, but this was the nudge I needed.  I, a self-professed country-hater,  had found her first three albums even more shameful to love than it already had been.  I eventually learned about her main collaborator on this new album and  I couldn’t have been more thrilled.  As early on as I discovered Taylor, there had been a prior musical love in my life: Max Martin.

We will do a deep dive on his oeuvre another time, but for now, what you need to know is that all my childhood favorites:  Britney, Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC and many, many more were all written for and produced by this mysterious man.  As someone who sincerely believes I could lead a compelling university course on this era of boy band music, you better believe I had been waiting for this.  She had collaborated with him on the aforementioned “Red” album, and I had liked those songs, but there was the promise of a whole album that could potentially have all of its songs be as hooky as those singles.  

“It’s a new soundtrack” she sings on the album opener, and, boy, was it ever.  “1989” topped charts and blared through my car speakers.  The glistening Ryan Tedder produced “Welcome To New York” opens our ears to the new sound and primes us for her greatest pop hit to date:  “Blank Space.”  I still remember exactly what stretch of road I was on when I heard Taylor pivot from “you know I love the players and you! love! THE GAME!’ to the lyrical shuffle on the line “‘cuz we’re young and we’re reckless.” I could gush forever about this album, and maybe I will, but not here.  This post promised tortuous poetry, and we will get there.  But why all this preamble?   I adore Taylor Swift, but she is not a perfect artist. 

As much as I grew up with and adore the work of Taylor, I am also a critic at heart.  When I hear something as mid as “Midnights” was or conceptually inconsistent as “reputation,” I need to say something.  Her newest work “The Tortured Poets Department” has been the longest think I’ve had over a Taylor album in years.  My opinion has vacillated drastically over the near year I’ve had to listen to it, and I believe that if we take a track-by-track journey through “Tortured Poets,” I may finally have a verdict on how I feel about it. 

“But Katy,” I hear you say, “this post implies that you made TTPD your new favorite album over ‘1989’!  Isn’t that clickbait?”  And I say to you, dear reader, “Who’s to say I won’t be a Tortured Poet by the end of all this?  All’s fair in love and bloggetry.”  

Join me in “The Waterboarding Department:  The Anthology” for a track-by-track analysis of the entire 31 song collection of Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department.”

[jimothystu]

Talk Hockey To Me

Tagged by @david-reinbacher - thank you Alek!!

1. The thing that got you hooked on hockey

So I was kind of assimilated into the hockey world through Blue Jays moots (ty <3), and it was a slow progression for me to 1) start watching 2) pick teams I liked and 3) regularly watch. BUT what really made me be like holy fuck was the final game for the Habs in the 2021/2022 season where they had 10 goals and Cole got his first hattie and people chanted Guy's name. That was insane and just gave me chills the entire time.

2. Your first ever fandom friend

Like I said, I was assimilated through Blue Jays moots, so all of them!! But probably specifically @donttelltheelff <3

3. The jersey you would most like to own

I'd love any jersey tbh. They're so expensive and I have none - so any for my favourite players would be great.

4. YOUR player (you only get ONE so choose wisely)

Jimmy Stu. James. Timmy. The wettest rag in the league. My beloved floppy piece of bread.

5. A pairing that deserves more fic

There are a lot in my humble opinion. Juraj Slafkovsky/Arber Xhekaj, Cole Caufield/Nick Suzuki, Thomas Chabot/Josh Norris (though Jeh and I have been going a lil crazy with them lately...), Quinn Hughes/Josh Norris.

6. Your favourite on-ice moment

When G got his 1000th career point and the entire Sens bench went onto the ice to hug him mid game!!!!!! Vibes per 60 were through the roof!

THEN

link someone else's art/fic/etc that you love & think everyone should check out

Anything @canadian-as-puck writes for Chabs and Josh! These fics keep me sane.

AND

link something you made & are proud of & want people to see

Honestly 99% of the fics I've written the last sixish months have been ones I'm really proud of and loved writing and rereading. But here are my top 5:

Intoxicated: Tim Stutzle/Brady Tkachuk; silly fic where Timmy's high and drunk and can only speak German

Don't break the dam or you might drown in the current: Tim Stutzle/Brady Tkachuk; my longest single chapter fic in which the weight of being the Sens captain finally gets to Brady

You don't go to parties anymore: Thomas Chabot/Josh Norris; Josh stops going to Thomas's house parties and Thomas is desperate to know why

Desperate times call for desperate measures: Tim Stutzle/Brady Tkachuk; Brady's an idiot and has to win Timmy back after not realizing they were dating

Do's and Don't's: Tim Stutzle/Brady Tkachuk and Thomas Chabot/Josh Norris; G is sick of their pda

Tagging @donttelltheelff @canadian-as-puck @gordiemeow @graves-makar @may-the-puck-be-with-you @kylesdubas @lam-ila - no pressure + sorry if you don't wanna do it!!

[inventedfangirling]

Nanon + Khao in 55:15 Never Too Late appreciation post

I had been wanting to watch "55:15 never too late" for the LONGEST time. For several reasons not least among them was that it featured two of my most favourite thai actors - nanon & khaotung. And pls the premise of five 55 year olds returning to their younger 15 yr old bodies in order to make some changes to their past selves and the hijinks that ensue is interesting enough. But ofc the prime reason i was there was to watch the acting masterclass that i knew nanon and khaotung would deliver. I'm only 3 episodes in but im already bowled over.

Nanon especially. I don't know if there is any role that he can't do. he just becomes the role he is doing. It's virtually impossible to see nanon in the role he is playing.

This scene where he is hiding from prim. What shook me was just how much of childishness nanon was able to convey in this scene. He's playing a 15 year old after all. And he does an excellent job of it. Not at all in a forced caricature sorta way. In fact he was so convincing i had to replay several scenes multiple times. It was so very impressive.

And look at that. That's pining personified and you cant even see his face. He is just THAAAT good.

His body language, his micro-expressions, the delivery of dialogues, everything is just pure perfection.

Look at him absolutely nail the look of a lost hurt child who doesn't know who or what to turn to. He really has no business being this good!?!

I was in a bad mood when i was watching that episode. But Nanon is just so good at his job that by sheer force of his acting brilliance he turned my mood around.

His dimples helped for sure. of course.

i mean LOOK AT THEM.

This scene was especially fantastic. Really fun to watch.

But i meant something much more intangible.

You know that feeling when you feel better just by seeing certain works of art, a painting or a sketch, or if you're looking at the sky, or listening to a piece of music, just knowing that such beauty exists in the world by itself enough to lift you up?

Watching Nanon do his thing in this episode felt more or less like that!

Especially this scene that took my breath away.

How was he just 20 when he did this??? it's so mind blowing!

I'll never not be beyond grateful that i decided to watch bad buddy, cos 1. it gave me patpran and 2. it gave me nanon! one of the finest actors i have seen in my entire life. EVER. And he's just 22? I really can't wait to see what all he does over the course of his acting career!

Episode 3 follows the adventures of Khaotung's character "Songpol". I loved his story the most out of all 5 of them. No surprises here. How it's about an adult closeted gay man decides to stop suppressing his identity and live out a life he had denied himself all along. How he has known that he was gay for decades but because he hid that part, he still remains a sorta baby gay at the age of 55, and how this time/body reversal situation gives him a second chance at a more free life.

And while there were fewer opportunities for moments of acting brilliance, he did amazingly well in whatever there was.

And more importantly there wasn't a single second where he was on screen where my heart wasn't brimming with affection.

I especially am LOVING this gay uncle and supportive niece dynamic. We usually see it the other way around so loving this twist on the usual trope. Also khaotung does SO well in this scene where he is occupying his 15 yr old body but his facial expressions reveal the maturity of a 55 year old uncle of his niece who he is talking to.

Also LOVING the way he fanboys over "Jaya".

His devotion is so visible. It's unbelievably endearing. I would make a home for him in my pocket if i could.

Like that's MY baby. A whole cutie patootie.

And also he is SO so handsome i could just watch him just existing for hours.

Gorgeousness🤌

I'm so excited for him to be living out his happy dream gay life. He deserves it so much. Pining for decades and then finally going to confess and then finding out he has found somebody else yet again, just next level of pain. He needs his happy ending. And he better be getting it. I am really looking forward to it.

What i'm not looking forward to is how the multiple love triangles the show has already set up is going to blow up in everyone's faces. It's such an annoying trope. But ANYTHING for a show featuring Nanon and Khao. And for the most parts i am LOVING this show, hopefully i will love it till the end :')

[suckitsurveys]

Have you ever gotten into an accident with you parents’ car?: I mean, technically in my mom’s car, but at that point I was the main one driving it.

Ever thought of just picking up and moving far away?: I mean, sometimes. But never seriously.

What’s the wallpaper on your computer?: On the one I’m on it’s a really cool fan art piece of the “Hollywoo” hills from BoJack, complete with the sign missing the D and BoJack’s house.

What is the last thing/person you took a picture of?: My kitty.

Name a band/artist you like that isn’t that popular.: I don’t know, everyone I’m into right now is pretty popular.

Can you lift your significant other (your best friend if you’re single)?: I can get his feet off the ground but not like, carry him.

What is the first vehicle you recall your parents/guardians owning?: A blue Ford Aerostar minivan. My dad had a “work van” too but I can’t remember what kind of car it was. I think it was a Dodge Ram?

You only have $5 for the whole week; What do you buy with it?: I have no idea what that would even get me. For the whole week? Do I already have food in the house?

What was the worst job you’ve ever had?: Party City.

Have you ever seen counterfeit money?: Maybe.

Have you ever lost a pet you were attached to?: Yes.

You’re at an amusement park; What ride do you want to go on first?: I mean, it would depend on the park.

You can read minds; Whose mind do you snoop around in first?: No thank you.

What was the most rebellious thing you’ve ever done?: I’m not sure.

Do you ever talk to inanimate objects?: Oh yes.

Pick one: Laundry, Dishes, or Vacuuming?: Laundry, because I can do other stuff while it’s happening.

Have you ever moved and had to change schools growing up?: Nope.

You are forced to move out-of-state. Where do you go?: I don’t see that happening, and if I was being forced to move I probably wouldn’t have a choice of where I’d be going either.

Name the most meaningful thing a non-relative has done for you.: My best friend fought to get me into the dress rehearsal for SNL and I will always be eternally grateful to her.

The highway and back roads take you to the same place; Choose your route: It would depend on my mood honestly.

You’re going to be a mom/dad; What do you think/do?: Get an abortion.

Have you ever tried to fold a piece of paper more than 7 times?: I probably have.

Are you more likely to give up or persist when you’re having trouble?: It would entirely depend on the situation.

Do you resemble one parent more than the other?: I look more like my dad for sure.

Your best friend needs a kidney to survive; Do you give them one of yours?: I would consider it.

Your brother breaks into your house; Do you press charges?: I don’t have a brother.

Name a big life event that has taken place for you within the last 2 years.: Getting to see SNL live lol.

Do you end up regretting things you say often?: I end up over-analyzing everything.

Would you rather have a huge cat or a tiny dog?: Huge cat.

Pringles or Lay’s Stax?: Pringles.

Name one difficult lesson you’ve learned.: Grief doesn’t get easier.

Name one thing you look forward to as you get older.: Oh god.

Do you use your hands when you talk to emphasize what you are saying?: Oh yes, I am a big hand-talker. It helps my brain remember shit.

You own a huge business; What is it?: An event planning business is my dream.

Are you afraid to ask for help when you know that you need it?: Usually. I hate inconveniencing anyone ever.

Should adopted kids be allowed to find their birth parents if they want to?: Sure.

Name somebody you think died before their time.: Lots of people.

Name the possession you’ve had the longest.: This little horse figuring I got on Mackinac Island when I was 4.

You’re writing a novel; Is it horror, mystery, romance, etc.?: Just fiction with some rom-com influence.

You have an embarrassing secret; Do you tell anyone?: I mean, it depends?

Will you usually admit it when you’ve made a mistake? Yeah.