#We had such a generous amount of time to get stuff sorted and I cannot emphasize enough we have not done this

[rotzaprachim]

when both you and a parent have adhd and have to do things on time

[viivenn]

making an important announcement about some things i’ve noticed in the gwendoline christie fandom that really bug me.

disclaimer: read this at your own convenience and discretion. i am not responsible for any sort of hurt feelings and frankly… i don’t care. if you’re mad about this, you are probably the problem. /lh

to start with id like to begin on a positive note so that i’m not diving into negativity, i don’t want to be completely negative about my experiences because i’ve actually met some of the kindest people in the world through this fan base.

the gwen fandom, the gwandom, the gwendoline christie fandom , the lesbian cesspool, has been an incredible experience that i’m grateful i’ve had the pleasure of being apart of.

i went through a rough patch during november, and if i hadn’t found out about gwen, or met such wonderful people during my time here , i honestly wouldn’t be here right now. i owe my life to these people, gwen included. i will forever adore miss christie and what she stands for alongside the friends i’ve made along the way.

and while i know someday this hyperfix will end, it’s really disheartening to me when a fandom is what makes me grow distant from things i enjoy. it happened before, i feel as though it is happening all over again.

and no, i’m not taking issue with anything like the catrissa stuff or the brienne and larissa ship going around or anything like that. i like that we can all be weird together and enjoy aus like catrissa and crackships like bririssa (not sure the official name that was decided lol). my issue is the amount of content i’ve seen that either focuses on gwen herself, or the strange relationship with minors, or the odd artwork of gwen, and the absolute disgusting behaviour towards giles.

gwen would be absolutely appalled seeing fanfictions of herself that involve nsfw or just her in general, anyone would, it’s disgusting to make works of real people in that setting. it’s like you’re treating them as an original character you can mould and manipulate as you see fit and using someone who is real with thought and feeling and consciousness for smut fics is not okay, or any fic in general. i totally get the hype around her characters, i literally have “brienne’s princess” in my bio and i’ve had “jane murdstone’s bloodbag” (in reference to my vamp au) as a name in a discord server.

but i think the fandom has begun to blur the lines between fictional characters and reality settings when it comes to gwen and the personalities she portrays on the television screen. it’s not fair to her. it’s disgusting. i’ve seen a minor do it, i’ve seen a grown adult do it. it’s something i don’t see shamed and frowned upon often enough and it’s really not okay.

on that note i’d like to quickly mention the photos, we alllll know what photos i’m talking about. the bunny one, the nudes, the ones gwen has expressed regret towards and wishes to not have them spread. was there not a “fan” who brought her a book of her nudes and wanted her to sign it? that person who was blocked on instagram by gwen because they reposted her nudes on their story and tagged her???? how can you refer to yourself as a fan after behaving so abhorrently? absolutely disgusting behaviour. as a collective fandom we need to stop touching those photos (metaphorically speaking) and leave them in the past.

i’ve been told of numerous circumstances in which adults have shown their nsfw works to minors in this fandom and it has to fucking stop. it’s disgusting!! how can you do that knowingly? i constantly ponder terminating my account after a minor got ahold of my nsfw work, and upon realising they WERE a minor it was as simple as blocking and moving on. it’s truly not that hard, folks. and the minors on tiktok who fight with others saying silly things like “that’s my wife” or worse. i’ve seen it all, i feel like, and the more i see it the more sick i become. i cannot stand it.

i have seen and heard of fans who have fat shamed gwen for that one pink dress she wore to the met gala. she looked so happy in that dress, and the audacity one must have to fatshame that poor woman on twitter then turn around and continue to proclaim your ‘love for her’ as if you’d done no wrong? are you fucking serious? are you mental?

and the sexualisation over the porcelain doll look, gods some of you are sick. those were not real breasts, people. considering the fact she wholeheartedly regrets her nude photoshoots , what possesses you to believe she would actually flaunt her chest in that outfit?

the blatant mistreatment of poor giles is not fucking okay either. just because you’re jealous of someone who makes her immensely happy does not give you the right to post something so vile and cruel about him. shame on you. why do you believe this is okay to post:

????????

are you serious? have any of you stopped to consider how HAPPY giles makes her? or is her happiness the last thing you ponder when you look at her? have you even noticed how unhappy she looks lately? have you truly paused to consider how she would feel about seeing this on your page, random twitter user, or the rest of you who think this is okay? bless your hearts.

and some of the absolutely horrific things i’ve seen about her online and the hurtful behaviour towards giles makes me question the difference between a fan and just the general paparazzi. because if you truly loved her and you truly loved giles then i would not be ranting into the fucking void about it for no reason.

i avoid interacting with pages i find problematic on here to keep from stirring the pot but tonight i chose violence and got reeeeeal pissy about how i felt about this place. it’s not okay what i see on here and it’s getting exhausting seeing the same cycle of content on a daily.

that’s everything i have to say, i think. i probably missed a lot that should be discussed in the comments but i’m done for now because i know if i go on i’ll probably cry.

before you post things about real people with real feelings , stop to consider how they will feel those real feelings towards the content you put out. chances are you’ll become less problematic and obnoxious that way. 💘

[markantonys]

The show hasn't really gotten into the Breaking as much as I think they should have at this point. Which does kinda go into the fact that Lews Therin doesn't seem to be feared by the general public at least as far as we know? Which does make me a bit concerned as that is important. It does seem like the AOL flashbacks are leading up to Dragonmount and therefore the Breaking so maybe that's why it hasn't been addressed as much yet? Rafe did say there's less knowledge of the prophecies or at least less belief that they're 100% accurate since they're over 3000 years old and translated a million times so that might play a role too? Idk I'm curious for them to get into the prophecies more so we know what the world thinks and believes about the Dragon.

i just wanna say that as someone who studied ancient history and ancient literature, it is completely accurate that the current people of randland know very little about what happened 3000 years ago, that the average population outside of scholars doesn't care about what happened 3000 years ago, and that nobody is willing to put full trust in the accuracy of the few ancient texts and prophecies that survived to the present.

and mind you, i ran into all these things in my studies of events that happened only 2000 years ago. 3000 years, we are talking the late bronze age collapse in the mediterranean region - an event that's infamously mysterious precisely because we have so little surviving evidence to say what caused it.

when it comes to human history, 3000 years is a MASSIVE amount of time, and to be honest i don't think RJ/the books really understood just how massive (for example, randland should have been able to advance more, technologically, in 3000 years than it did, even considering how destructive the breaking was and how destructive the taint & false dragons & shadowspawn continued to be). the general population outside of scholars does not spend a second thinking about things that happened 3000 years ago or specific people who lived 3000 years ago. they just don't. realistically, lews therin shouldn't be anything more than a vague fable to the average population of present-day randland. of course they're not afraid of him. why would they be? he's insanely far-removed from and irrelevant to their lives - for now. i daresay they'll start to get nervous once they start to see true signs that the dragon has been reborn and that the last battle will happen in their lifetime. but until then, i cannot emphasize enough how much any dragon- & breaking-related shit is not on the general population's radar. they don't care about the bronze age collapse. they don't care about any sort of war or destruction or apocalypse until it starts to affect them personally (see: nobody caring enough to help falme in s2, just as nobody cared enough to help manetheren).

i will also add that as someone fresh from reading the books for the very first time, i can comfortably say the show is NOT lagging behind on Breaking Info-Giving compared to where the books were at this point. we had zero clue about the bore or any of that stuff until rand's rhuidean trip (and even then, i didn't really understand what the hell was going on in his visions until quite a bit later, and in large part due to learning some extra-book information that explained it better). as a show-only during s1, i can assure you that the 3000 years later flashback showing us a futuristic society made me go OH SHIT and hit home the full impact of the breaking far more than anything in the books, where we don't even see any AOL scenes onscreen aside from the rhuidean visions (which are very confusing to a first-time reader) and the dragonmount prologue (which isn't very useful since it's the first scene in the whole series and a first-time reader has zero context for anything learned there).

honestly, i think longtime readers forget just how much of our AOL/forsaken/breaking knowledge comes from extra-book sources like the companion, Word Of Jordan, etc; the books alone are very vague about so much of that stuff and i remember being repeatedly bewildered as to how you guys knew so much about the AOL when the books either didn't have those details at all or had them so vaguely that they flew right over my first-time reader head. i'm not 100% sure, but i believe latra posae decume isn't even MENTIONED in the books and comes purely from "the strike at shayol ghul", as do many of the details about the strike and the bore and the breaking. and so i definitely think the show has already included more information, and more CLEAR information, about the breaking than the books alone had by the end of TDR and in fact for much of the series.

[ell-vellan]

A bunch of my random, non-story initial opinions of Veilguard, with the knowledge that I do and will love this game no matter what, because I need somewhere to put them all:

I kind of hate the color customization system?? I cannot figure out the brightness and saturation levels to make the colors I want. Am I just dumb?? What am I doing wrong here that all the blonde options look green

I do love the stylized look of the game, it's different from DAI but it has a unique flavor and the colors are very lush (for once in a DA game lol)

So far, rogue has been more fun for me than mage. Haven't tried warrior yet.

i wish we could have customized Inky's arm/prosthetic even a little

It's so cool that we get body tattoos and scars and we can customized which ones go where. Would have loved to be able to mix and match but I know we can't have everything (sigh).

It's pretty apparent as someone who has background with the games, but it would've been cool to have the tattoos labelled "Dalish," "Dwarven," "Lord of Fortune," "Crows," etc for story reasons (even though I'm sure it only matters to the small percent of us who are into the fanfic side of things lol)

Elven ears are huge again and we can't change that. lol it's whatever i guess

The thing about customizing heads based on 3 different heads is...hmm. It's difficult to get the hang of, but I'm glad that you can customize it so much? Still, it's been hard for me to figure out how to make that look good.

they let us check our character in different lighting and with different armor!! great idea

terrible idea: only 3 previous worldbuilding choices. I got spoiled to this so I was prepared. but what the heck was the point of the Keep? why did we waste our time with all of that if none of it was carrying over? Way to flush the previous 15 years of story down the drain. Who's the leader of Orlais and Ferelden? Who's Divine? Who got left in the Fade? Guess it doesn't matter at all! I'm okay that we don't know where our Hero of Ferelden is, it's been long enough in game that their part is done, but Hawke? boo.

At first I was so excited about the "random" name generator! But it's literally just like 15 pre-made names not sorted by race naming conventions that you cycle through. Could've been cooler. oh well I know most of their demographic just wants to kill things I guess

The elves look like dwarves to me for some reason? like they're stockier now, not lithe like DAI. Just takes some getting used to.

While I kind of miss the open world a tiny bit, just for the sake of feeling like we're truly exploring and less "point A to point B," it's also nice not to feel like i'm wasting hours of my time just walking through open nothingness and getting a million meaningless fetch quests

The voices are all so good

Rook's moves are cool, they're fun to play

Speaking of, why do we walk so slowly?! I'm sprinting 100 percent of the time.

Miss the search function for items, even the highlight/glimmer is faint enough with the lighting of the maps I missed a bunch of stuff the first ten minutes

I wish we had a teensy bit more unique dialogues/reactions based on our background/race, so far it's been quite a small amount

I'm undecided on the whole...armor system thing

the maps are gorgeous

I love how many settings we can customize, it's great. I don't care about combat and I can make that part so much less annoying and save myself a bunch of time spamming attacks to get back to the story, which is what I care about, lol

Solas is so hot like this. wow

[rocketinthesky]

hey! in case if no one asked for norapinto in the ask game yet, here i am!! i know it's like a budding ship, but i really enjoyed your takes on the other ships as well, and i'm curious if you have some lingering thoughts about them? aaand if i could be greedy, i'd ask for gax as well, since i don't really know much about that pairing (yet) but you seem to enjoy them, so i might came to the right place? :D

ALSO! also thank you so much for sharing my silly little fic? it means a whole lot to me! 😭 ♥

Hello! Ty for mentioning two of my otps lmaoskjdjf (thank YOU for writing norapinto dude we need more content of them ugh thanks for contributing! <3)

As for the ask game i realise i highkey forgot to label the last two asks with the compel factor thing so i’ll do that this time hehe i’ll try to keep my ramblings short

Norapinto: makes sense and compels me very much

I mean yea franco JUST entered the grid and has been in like three races but we already have a LOT to work with for these two.

The reveal that Lando was the first one to text him at when the news broke that Franco was joining the grid?? CMON. Like. Lando?! Wtf?! That’s so fucking sweet. We overlook how much of a sweet guy Lando is and the fact that he was being thoughtful for this rookie who was joining in less than ideal circumstances, immediately doing everything to make Franco more comfortable and relaxed on the grid? CMON.

And ofc before we even had this bit of lore THE DRIVERS PARADE! Franco Yapinto and Lando heart eyes Norris? That pic is going down in fucking history LANDO U CANNOT HIDE FROM ME.

And ofc the post race moment where they were down to duet the interview and the way Lando’s gaze just lingered on Franco, the way they smile at eo, the general EASE in their interactions from what little we’ve seen.

Obv we haven’t seen much yet but like the little we have i just think they’re a fun, fluffy and sweet pairing. Like i just picture Franco the professional yapper yapping away while Lando fondly smiles at him while hanging on to every word. There’s the angle of Lando being a sort of support system for Franco, being a comforting presence to quell his anxieties, to make him feel wanted and less alone with the complicated situation surrounding him getting his seat. Lando who doesn’t wanna see a rookie get consumed by all the not-so spectacular sides of F1, and in the process finds himself falling head over heels for this dude who can’t stfu and is flirty with everyone and sounds hot when he speaks spanish. Then there’s Franco who came into the whole thing with the mentality of maybe staying strong, putting up walls, telling himself he can take all the pressure, but then when he finds Lando so readily offering him so much comfort despite being virtual strangers atp, he feels more relaxed and open.

Anyway they’re fluffy and sweet and total switches ty.

Gax: MAKES SENSE AND COMPELS ME SO MUCH I’M DYING ON THIS HILL

OK SO there’s a surprisingly amount of LORE to gax and i will sum it up without too much rambling: they’ve been racing more or less all their lives tgt in the same categories and stuff since their karting days. They were even teammates at one point in a junior category. The incident that most people know Gax by (and admittedly what got me into F1 to begin with) happened last year in Baku where they had a bit of an inchident with Max confronting him childishly and George just bein his goofy gremlin self.

ANYWAY. A lot of people like to see them as enemies to lovers which i mean hey its a delicious dynamic and i love that but Gax is more complex than that. They’ve have their quarrel but they’re actually really friendly? It’s a friendliness that comes with just knowing eo practically all their lives. They have a mutual respect for eo and always speak good things about one another, but it’s also clear from their racing and few incidents where they clash that neither of them are the types of back down. Max is definitely more explosive in his rage and arrogance but George is a more simmering fire. He will say things as it is with a smile, and i could see how their egos would clash hard cuz they’re both passionate about racing and winning. But they’re also not the types to hold a grudge, they’re able to separate racing from off-track relationships, which is evident in how quickly they made up from the 2023 inchident and went back to their friendly interactions.

I see Gax’s dynamic as something akin to comfort. They’re both sarcastic chaos gremlins who know how to banter and tease, but Max can be a bit explosive and sensitive about racing which might carry out off-track, but George is the type to calmly be both upfront about his stance while not being outright combative. They’d balance each other out in a way, though they’d still have their disagreements and arguments given how prideful they are as drivers.

Gax is a dynamic where there’s an understanding there from the years of being in each other’s orbit. They’ve never been the best of friends but there’s an attraction there, with sparks flying on track, the adrenaline persisting even off track and condensing into a carnal need. It’s confusing at first—they have people they’re much closer with you’d expect them to fall for but then they find each other? It’s unexpected for them too but they fall into the dynamic easily, their sense of humor clicking. They wouldn’t be overly sweet but they’d be pretty domestic imo, like have an easygoing, chill dynamic in their relationship.

The horniness needs to be studied tho esp Max’s obsession with George being shirtless like bro i am NOT kidding about the carnal magnetism between them. As for their bedroom dynamics i’m a 100% bottom max truther and George is such a service top so there’s that :D

Hope any of that made sense lol ty for sending in the ask!

[beigetiger]

I could do some analysis on Valkyrie and Mevolent’s dynamic Or what about Valkyrie and Nefarian’s friendship? I can think of stuff to talk about there

I would laugh manically about either of these things. Your SP posting is amazing, I really enjoy it even as a casual reader of the series!

Valkyrie’s dynamics with random people who’ve tried to kill her are all absolutely gold lmao

Starting out with Valkyrie and Nefarian, their friendship is the most unlikely thing ever. They met when Val was seventeen, didn’t see each other again until Val was twenty-five, and then had to spend a number of months on a team together. And during that time, they came to a sort of understanding of each other through Nefarian trying to piss her off in the most platonically flirtatious way possible and Valkyrie not taking ANY of his bullshit.

And then when Valkyrie goes missing, Skulduggery becomes a lot more unhinged and ends up cutting up Nef’s hand. And when Valkyrie makes it back, she manages to not only kill Lord Vile but also successfully regenerate Nefarian’s hand, which pulls him closer to her since she’s capable of shielding him from people like Skulduggery. And her surprising amount of patience for him that she shows in SoW and UtE probably doesn’t help either.

I really want his arc to be learning to care about other people/learning to be a semi-functional human being, because I think it would be sweet to watch. I also think Landy should give him a boyfriend for the funnies, because he already hates the idea of caring about people in a platonic sense so much that him realizing “oh shit I like this person romantically” he’d break down then and there. Also you cannot convince me that Valkyrie wouldn’t offer to wingman him.

As for Mevolent and Valkyrie, their dynamic is a bit odd but it’s so interesting to see them together. Mevolent is a weirdly polite, eight-feet-tall fascist while Valkyrie is a much more emotionally straightforward freedom fighter. But there’s a constant sense in SoW that they hate each other, yes, but also have a profound respect for each other that makes their interactions so fun. They aren’t degrading each other, they’re kind of just…talking. While trying to kill each other.

And Mevolent actually trying to comfort Valkyrie right before he was going to kill her was honestly great?? That whole interaction was gold from start to finish, but “it’s ok to lose” was such a fascinating line, especially coming from an older sorcerer who managed to conquer the world to a younger sorcerer who earned his respect and who has the potential to one day be as great as him. And Valkyrie’s “I think we could have been friends in another life” seemed actually legitimate. Yes, she was trying to stab him with a god-killer, but there still is a general vibe that she meant it, and that Mevolent actually agrees with her. And then he helps her get to her feet to he can kill her with dignity, and she just accepts her fate without showing any real resentment towards him.

I am FULLY convinced that Mevolent sees a younger version of himself in a lot, because I honestly don’t think he was always evil. I think that came around simply as a result of him living so long and being so successful, especially in defeating The Unnamed. And Valkyrie is really similar to that, and I think that’s a big part of why he respects her so much (and why he registers her as such a threat). I REALLY hope that Mevolent and Valkyrie get to have an actual conversation in phase 3, because Landy has the opportunity to pull some emotional gut-punchers with them, and also we don’t get to see them interact a lot and that is a travesty.

[ourshadowstallerthanoursoul]

Ask-in with a LZ a week - interview to JPJ

(by Ritchie Yorke, NME - April 4, 1970)

What were you doing before Led Zeppelin formed?

Vegetating in studios in London mainly. Jimmy’s also done his share of that. But he got out and went into the Yardbirds. Just before joining the band, I had gotten into arranging and general studio directing, which was better than just sitting and being told what to do. I did a lot of Donovan's stuff. The first thing I did for him was 'Sunshine Superman'. I happened to be on the session and I ended up arranging it. The arranger who was there really didn’t know about anything. I sort of got the rhythm section together and we went from there. 'Mellow Yellow' I did entirely on my own. I was pleased with it; It was different to what was happening in the general session scene.

Were you surprised at the success of LZ?

Yes, I was surprised as to the extent of our success. You see, we’d been doing all this for a long time and, after a while, you can see how a group breaks up and what causes all the ups and downs. You reckon that if you should consciously put together a group that won’t have a lot of stupid troubles; and the basic thing of what people want to listen to; good musicianship; and a certain amount of professionalism; the right promotion — with those things you figure you must stand a good chance. But to what extent, nobody knows. To this extent, its unbelievable!

Do you think your success came because there was a gap in the rock scene after Cream and a perennial need for a hard-hard rock band?

If you think from a pure popologist’s point of view, you could say it was foreseen, inevitable, predictable. There was a gap there and we filled the gap. But there’s a lot of other things which may do it. I think the business did need something different because Cream was going around in circles. They never talked to one another, it seemed. The groups that did have a good sound were successful but they always seemed to have internal troubles; while the groups that did get on never got heard, and somehow you had to get the two together. An amicable group, a good sound and exposure.

LZ seems to be a group which gets on well.

Yeah, especially as we’re all different people. Robert and John have got the Birmingham band thing in common. Nobody had actually worked together before LZ though. We just got together in a 6ft. x 6ft. room and started playing and looked at everybody else and realize what was going to happen.

Who influenced your bass playing?

Not a lot of people because it was only recently that you could even hear the bass on records. So apart from obvious jazz influences — like every good jazz bass player in history; Mingus, Ray Brown, Scott LaFaro… I was into jazz organ for quite a while until I couldn’t stand the musicians any longer and I had to get back to rock'n'roll. I listened to a lot of jazz bass players and that influenced my session playing, and then I cannot tell a lie, the Motown bass players! You just can’t get away from it. Every bass players in every rock group is still doing Motown phrases, whether he wants to admit it or not.

It's a shame that so few artists have credited the Motown bass influence.

Right. Yet it’s been one of the Motown sound’s biggest selling points. I used to know a few names of Motown bass players, but I can’t remember them. Motown was a bass player’s paradise, because they’d actually found a way to record it so that you could hear every note. Their bass players were just unbelievable; some of the Motown records used to end up as sort of concertos for bass guitar.

What do you think of Jack Bruce's playing?

Jack is very good. I’m not too keen on the sound he has, but that’s personal taste. Being a bass player, I obviously have more idea of the sound I like than someone who just listens to records. I like his LP 'Songs For A Tailor' though.

What about Paul McCartney?

Well, I think he’s perfect. He’s always been good. Everything he’s done has always been right, even if he didn’t do too much, it was still just right. He’s improved so much since early Beatles days, and everything is still right. They’re really beautiful, the things he plays.

How about Rick Grech?

I don’t know anything about him.

Bass has really become important in the past two years.

Bass players have really got annoyed and said to engineers “You’ve got to get it through.” Then they went to the people who cut the record, because you can get it on tape and then lose it on record. The cutters start screaming that it won’t play with too much bass and people’s expensive magnetic cartridges will jump up into the air every time you hit a bottom string. I think Cassidy did an awful lot, and he’s still doing so. He designs bass guitars which are utterly unbelievable.

Did you hear Moms Marbley's record of 'Abraham, Martin and John'? It had fantastic bass reproduction.

No, I didn’t hear that. The Motown record that really impressed me was 'I Was Made To Love Her' by Stevie Wonder. When it came out, I just couldn’t believe it.

You must be one of the few people who actually sits down just to hear a bass pattern on a new record.

Bass players are always like that. The first record that really turned me on to bass guitar was 'You Can’t Sit Down' by Phil Upchurch, which had an incredible bass solo and was a good record as well. Very simple musically, but it had an incredible amount in it.

After years of session work, how does it feel to be in a group?

It’s a strain, but it’s a different kind of strain. I much prefer it. In sessions you just vegetate and you reach a certain period where you’re working a helluva lot and that’s it. You can’t do anything musically and it’s horrible. You became a well-used session musician with no imagination. I used to be the only bass player in England that knew anything about the Motown stuff so I used to do all the cover versions. I often used to almost be in tears at the sound they’d get and the way they used to mess up the songs.

The English session scene is rather unique in that. They really only have one man for each instrument, and if you're the man, you get to do every session going.

Right. But it’s not specialised, which is the strangest thing. You can do anything. Every record that��s been made in England you could have been on, if they used your particular instrument — from Petula Clark to visiting Americans. I remember one day — firstly at Decca Studios with the Bachelors; then Little Richard, who’d come over to do a couple of English sessions — and it was bloody awful.

It must have been rough at first, though with people only thinking of LZ as Jimmy Page's band?

Well if Jimmy had been incredibly insecure and really wanted to be a star, he would have picked lesser musicians and gone on the road and done the whole star trip. Everybody in the band recognised that at first having Jimmy’s name was a great help. In fact, it opened a lot of doors, and once you realised that, and because aware that you had a job to do, it worked out all right. I’ve been playing bass for ten years now. I’ve been on the road since I was two years old — my parents were in the business, too… in variety. They had a double act, musical comedy thing. I was in a professional band with Jet Harris and Tony Meehan. That was when I was 17.

What do you think of Robert Plant?

Robert is unique. We’re all unique really, but Robert is really something. I couldn’t imagine any other singer with us. I just couldn’t. Robert is Robert and there’s nothing else to say.

How about John Bonham?

John is the find of the year as far as British drummers are concerned. I can’t remember anyone like him either. It’s obvious why these people have ended up in the same group. We’ve all the right people. If anybody had to leave, the group would have to split up because it wouldn't be LZ anymore. Each of us is irreplaceable in this band.

How about Jimmy?

For years and years, I’ve rated Jimmy. We both come from South London and even then I can remember people saying: “You’ve got to go and listen to Neil Christian and the Crusaders, they’ve got this unbelievable guitarist.” I’d heard of him before I heard of Clapton and Beck. I probably listen to more of Clapton through Jimmy telling me to than any other reason. I’ve always thought Jimmy to be far superior to all of them. It sounds like a mutual admiration society; people don’t believe me when I say this. but I mean it.

Why do you think English bands are beginning to be stronger chartwise, than American bands again?

The Americans have got lazy. They’ve had it their way for so long. As soon as some competition comes along and does well, the not-so-good bands get uptight because they think they’re missing out on all the work. The better bands pull their fingers out and really come up with something great, and they do as well as the best English bands.

Do you think we're in the middle of a second English invasion of the US charts?

I think it can be taken as a criticism of American bands that so many English groups are getting into the US charts. American groups should look at themselves and their music if this is the case, and ask themselves why all these foreigners are going so well when they’re not. And I’m sure if they looked hard enough they’d come up with one reason or another, and they’d be able to get it back together and make it again.

[bts-polls]

hi. i know this blog is just for fun, and i don't want to be a downer, but jk rowling is a terf. she actively does not want trans people to exist. as a trans army, it makes me wildly uncomfortable when people who aren't fans are called 'muggles' or when people Sort the members. again, i know it's all supposed to be fun, but. i don't feel at all safe anymore whenever hp stuff is brought up. i hope you have a good day though <3

Hi anon,

First, before I get into the rest of my response I want to say that I while i can't truly empathize on this specific issue, I do sympathize with not feeling safe due to a marginalization from 'the mainstream'. I do apologize for any part my posts played into this for you and anyone else that may have seen them. I'm going to put the rest of my thoughts on this topic below a cut for anyone that isn't up for a discussion-type post from this blog.

HP was my first real fandom and as someone who was raised in an extremely conservative rural area, I'm unfortunately very familiar with this mindset and viewpoint.

I also had to do a hefty amount of soul-searching when deciding how much of hp-fandom I would continue to engage in. I've never been a merch-focused person (which honestly gave me some heartache getting into kpop..there are legit ppl out there that try to make you feel like a fake fan if you don't spend serious money on this interest... but that's a discussion for another day). Anyway, back to HP, I'm not into merch and I didn't like the movies, (I've still only seen the first two and a handful of clips from some of the others) so I'm personally not contributing anymore to the money channeling in but money isn't the only thing that fuels this massive engine.

Again, I had to have a very frank heart-to-heart with myself to see where I personally feel comfortable continuing to engage. For me, being involved in the Fandom to any degree and even having casual conversations about the themes and meanings was an essential part of learning to be curious enough to see more lifestyles different from the one I was raised in. And my story is not dissimilar from many that I knew in situations similar to mine. So I know that this body of work has actually had cases where it fosters discussions and mindsets for minority groups more than anything else of its time. I really cannot overstate how significant the HP books and fandom were in creating the first space where we were able to even explore the idea of being different from those around us, let alone feeling comfortable or even celebrating it. To us, HP was less about the magic of being able to move items without touching them but more about the magic of finding your own worth when everyone around you said otherwise. This concept takes different forms each generation, for some it's superheroes or musicians; for my generation, it was HP.

Do the unveiled viewpoints of the original creator now undo all of the progress that was triggered by her work? And should we all attempt to bury it as if it never happened? Another point of discussion, especially where I now live in the southern US with many entrenched systems of racial discrimination. (Again, another tangent but we're not here to talk about tearing down ugly statues that don't add any value to the current population).

There's also the literal logistical issue of deciding that I can't engage in anything because I don't agree with the views of the ppl in charge, then there will literally be no viable method to exist. My professional expertise is in systems design, implementation, and maintenance; and let me assure you, the world is legitimately run by people who have despicable beliefs. From entertainment, food manufacturing and distribution, to health care and politics; there are scummy mindsets infecting it all. The biggest lie in our society is that good ppl do good things and bad ppl do bad things. No. People with awful motivations do good things continuously. And the inverse is true as well. There is remarkably little black and white in the world, everything is on a spectrum.

Attempting to cut myself off from ALL of it is not possible, nor do I want to engage with ALL of it. So again, I need to decide where that line is. And it needs to be re-evaluated frequently as both myself and the world around me grows and changes.

But this really comes to my main point of this whole post. I had to do my own personal soul-searching to decide where my own boundary is with this issue. And each person should do so as well. We are all so beautifully different in our life experiences and thoughts and mindset. I would NEVER want to claim my personal boundary on any issue should be upheld for ANYONE else. That's where we must empower ourselves to understand our own sovereignty. I have complete control of how I choose to respond to a push of my boundary but not to dictate that others must place their own boundaries.

This is where we are right now. I recognize that my past actions have induced some harm, intentional or not. Again, I apologize for that. I've shared a few reasons why we have different viewpoints and may continue to create similar polls in the future. So, to move forward, I will be more diligent in tagging any polls so that anyone trying to avoid such content may do so. You will have to decide if that is sufficient for you or if you will need to also disengage here.

Whatever you choose, I do wish you the absolute best and thankyou for bringing this lapse to my attention. Like you said, this is intended to be a fun place where we can vote in meaningless tumblr polls about a group of guys in Korea that make music. I would never want to compromise someone's peace with something so trivial but I am just another stranger on the internet. The one thing I can do is try to give you the tools so that you can make informed decisions about what type of content you may encounter in my space.

I'm not looking to turn this blog into a discussion one, so if anyone wants/needs to chat further, please reach out in DMs or through my main blog @curio-queries . This blog will continue to focus on BTS polls.

BORAHAE 💜

[eyes-inthe-dark]

Hi Hello I actually make things sometimes

I don't know if anyone who follows me is interested in this stuff bc I very rarely post things from my own life, but I decided to be a little more active on here besides reblogging funny shit regarding my current hyperfixation.

So, here is the (incomplete) crafting diary of a neurodivergent trans person surviving christmas with the family and the dark and dreadful times (winter) in general by making shit! with my hands!

First: fiber stuff

I picked up tablet weaving over the last few months of 2023 and made my first pair of somewhat mistake-free shoelaces over the holidays! Only got the pattern completely right on the second try with the red but both laces now get to add a fun little detail to my shoes.

Next I tried a more complicated pattern and experimented a lot, hence the irregular pattern and troubleshooting at the start of the band. I'm now repurposing it as a camera strap and I learned a lot from it tho.

My current setup is basic cardboard tablets (I had to make extra ones so I had enough for the last band with 30 cards), tying the warp to something sturdy like a bookshelf, and sitting down with a backstrap belt on the other side of the room. I used thin wool yarn for this, which stuck to itself quite a lot, but not too much to be unmanagable, and I really like how the finished product feels.

If anyone's interested, I could make a longer post on how I made the shoelaces, I think it's a very beginner friendly project.

I managed to get my hands on a drop spindle and gave that a try, but I ran out of wool after making a very small amount of very chunky yarn and am currently working out where to best get sth local. It was fun tho!

I also finally finished the knitted scarf that has been in my wip pile for... approximately three years? I started it when I was still in school, feels like an eternity ago. It's just a simple (although very long) red wool scarf, but it keeps me nice and warm in this cold, harsh- *checks weather* ...5°C and neverending rain.

Next up: woodworking!

Noodled around with my grandpa's old dremel that we still had lying around, which resulted in this truly terrifying weapon:

Behold! I named it Toothling. It's great for poking friends and family when they least expect it.

This was more of a test run to see if it all still works and to try out doing small scale work with wood, now I gotta think of something fun to make. (I say, as if I didn't already have 50 different ideas)

Before that fuckery, I made this magnetic dice box/rolling tray for my lovely partner's birthday.

Though I don't feel like I can take credit for working the CNC magic on this, I did all the hands-on work with the sanding, assembling the magnets, shellac coating, and whatnot. I'm pretty sure wood is some sort of fruit tree, since it smells strongly of what I suspect might be plum or cherry.

Last but sure as fuck not least: embroidery

This I actually get professional instruction for at uni. I've kinda lost patience for it atm, but mostly because I cannot resist making unnecessarily complicated pieces with tiny little stitches and then am forced to finish it because I do actually kinda need to pass this class. My lecturer keeps telling me not to go so detailed, yet I have proven resistant to her good advice. But, I figured if I have to make two full pieces of embroidery to be graded on and put hours of work into, I might as well choose designs that I can turn into patches for my jacket:

Catha and Ruidus! I love me some big moon little moon imagery. The prompt was to incorporate most of the techniques/stitches we've learned so far. Added the little gold chain stitch around ruidus for the arcane latticework. It came out a little wonky shape wise, but I love it nonetheless.

And my most recent wip, a stained glass window design with the Ninth House skull and Gideon's sword behind it, to feed my current Locked Tomb obsession.

And that's it!

[transmogrified-in-the-void]

Hey 18-20 year olds? You’ve only just started the hardest part of growing up: learning how the hell to do that and how to be an adult. And yeah, I’m in the same boat, here’s some things that have helped me so far

- a friend who is older than you

My best friend is 7 years older than me, and he’s been able to give me so much advice on personal philosophy, how to work on personal issues, etc.

- a friend who holds you accountable/is very honest with you

having a friend who will take you aside and tell you “x thing you’re doing is actually making y hard/unfun/stressful/etc.” is more valuable than yes men friends. These are the friends who will question life decisions if they seem to make you unhappy, in the pursuit of making sure you’re exactly where you need to be.

- learning how to make accountable apologies

Here’s how I structure my apologies now, and I’ve had not only good reactions and conversations afterwards, but I’ve had to use them in various ways. “I’m sorry about x. Y was happening, and instead of doing x thing I should have done z thing. Again, I’m sorry.” It not only has removed the loathed “but”, but it also allows for explanation and a plan on how to avoid it. I will also sometimes add “I’ll try my best to do z thing” if I know I’m going to need some time to fully erase the mistake if it was a habit, but in general that helps a lot.

- start trying to find who is a small dose person and who’s a large dose person

What is a small dose person? For example: I know someone who I can only be around for maybe an hour when with other people before I become irritated by their presence. Is it their fault I’m irritated by them? No, and they’ll never know I am. Because I’m only around them for around an hour once every few months. That’s small dose. It’s the “you’re not a bad person I just cannot be around you for long periods of time”.

- if things you read on social media/the internet make you emotional, restructure how you spend your time

Here’s a really hot take. For those who were tuned in for the dungeons and dragons drama, I’m about to tell you guys something crazy. The draft that was leaked was actually incredibly lenient (I can’t remember what it was called haha). How do I know this? I could tell I was getting a little heated and sent it to a friend who knows way more about that sort of stuff and asked for his opinion, and he told me about other examples of it that were more harsh but not lambasted. If you read a headline or a post or tweet and get up in arms, take a step back and take a breath. You don’t have the time to get emotional about every little thing, you’re too busy growing up.

- make friends or acquaintances who don’t believe the same thing as you

My best friend is a centrist who leans more right than left. I am more left leaning than he is by a good amount. We both have very enlightening conversations because of that. Here’s the funny thing, I do hold some right leaning beliefs anyways because that better supports the area I live in. I don’t want the government grabbing the land around me because they’ve proven to be incompetent. I’m fine with looser gun control because there have been times where mountain lions just. Appear in my city. We have an overpopulation of wolves right now. A few other ones I don’t feel like sharing. My friend has changed how he views certain issues and so I have I because we talk about what we disagree about. If they respect you, they’ll debate but not argue

- not everything is about you

Building off that last point, not every counterpoint is an attack on you. It can feel like it, because you’re still expanding the telescope you see out of into two working eyes (I’m still getting there too), so being able to say to yourself that this is either a) bigger than you or b) not about you at all can help you get through more conversations more levelheaded

- you’re in puberty

Final thing: your body is still a hormonal war zone. Emotions are heightened, thought processes are everywhere, you are still growing up. Give yourself time. And grace. And kindness.

[adhbabey]

I wanted to explain some thoughts on my psych critical view.

I find psych abolition to be a foolish thing, and the only thing I would like to abolish is psych wards, not the whole entire psychiatry system.

I believe in therapy, medication and all forms of treatment to be important and helpful. I do not think anyone should be forced to take medication or be in therapy, however.

Autonomy and respecting human rights is key, and I understand those who have been hurt by the way psychiatry has treated them. I am not defending medical professionals who abuse or harm their patients.

I think everyone should express some sort of caution towards medical professionals and not trust them with everything. Also, psychiatrists are not an authority, but should be treated as advisors instead. They cannot (usually) and should not force you to do anything.

Diagnoses are incredibly real and important. Those who self diagnose are true in their feelings. Anyone who says that you should not identify your disordered experience, just because they had their own negative experiences, is foolish. You should use medical terms as how you see fit, and you should respect other people's uses for them.

While diagnoses have helped many people, I do believe the DSM and other diagnosis criteria should be edited and changed to fit a more accurate representation of this disorder. And doctors who wish to gatekeep or limit the symptom list are horrible people.

I believe that psychiatrists should be more well educated on rarer or uncommon diagnoses, and should be tested every so often to retain their license. Doctors should not be able to retain their license when they practice with outdated language and method. It should be more standardized than it is.

I believe disabled people are often times more of an expert on their disorder than psychiatrists are. But we should still continue to research and talk to one another in these disabled communities. New information is always important.

I don't think overlap in symptoms matters too much as much as many of y'all think it does. Yes, there is some overlap, but all of our disorders are distinct in some way. But I wish people would consider comorbidity way more than they consider they are "faking it" or not.

If you have symptoms, you have symptoms, I know not every lived experience is a symptom, but its okay to see them as psychological occurrences. I think people who get frustrated by people identifying their lived experiences as symptoms, need to touch some fucking grass. Symptoms exist, its okay to label them as so. No amount of whining about "tiktokification" will change my damn mind about this.

People who armchair diagnose others with things like "narcissism" piss me off. Stop using mental disorders as a way to judge or insult someone. True crime has ruined y'all.

Outside of that, saying stuff is "crazy" or "insane" or whatever is too normalized in our vocabulary to connect it directly to mental illness. That's completely different from directly naming a disorder as an insult. (sh*zo, psycho, psychotic, autistic, narcissistic, etc.) The only term I am on the fence about is "delusional", I relate to both sides on that argument.

People with aggressive, homicidal, dangerous, etc. thoughts or urges are not the enemy and deserve respect and should not be locked up just because they have those thoughts/urges.

I will always be mentally ill and disabled in some capacity and I am at all times this close from losing it. All mentally ill and disabled people deserve rights, even the fucked up, unhinged and unpalatable ones.

I have several different thoughts, feelings and opinions on topics like these, and it may change depending on who you are talking to. But in general, I am psych-critical. Not pro-psych, not anti-psych. I am cautious and distrustful of psychiatry, but I still need it to exist and I rely on its existence. I do not think abolition of psychiatry entirely is helpful and I think the medical existence of things should be acknowledged, and I am not a bootlicking motherfucker.

I definitely have more thoughts, but this is all I can remember right now. I have no obligation to agree or care about anyone else's thoughts on things like this. I wish the american health system and many other health systems would change to be more accommodating and accessible to all.

Don't trust everyone's opinion on here, be cautious regardless of people's status of mental illness. Always get a second opinion and learn how to trust yourself. We're all trying to have a better life.

[hms-no-fun]

i both really wish (and dont wish) cohost had a similar ask system to tumblr because im 300% more comfortable on that website than this one but ive had this particular burning question since i binge read godfeels during a covid ridden fugue

The more general version of this question is: how has optiministDuelist been involved in the writing of godfeels 3.1? (or even the future parts you're working on, if you can do so without spoilers)

The more specific version that makes this a question better suited towards you rather than shooting the question towards optimisticDuelist, and is rather a series of questions extrapolating on the first one is: why did you involve them? are they helping you write dirk or jake? are they providing input/advice? and that goes towards other people you've had help with the project too, if they're comfortable with being spoken about - i was just a fan of od's analyses and was surprised to see his name attached to godfeels! in fact im so curious about the nature/process of collaboration in godfeels it seems reductive to even try to condense it into questions that would be easier/faster to answer, in that i fear that what i put in will be what i get out, and that logically it's silly of me to bank on the fact that you might go more in depth than how these questions may imply on first glance. i fear my words make no sense and rather instill anxiety into the reader. anyway these are more like guidelines for something i was hoping you could talk about

oooooo this is a good one! i've written a fair amount about my collaborations in the past. here's a post where i talk about working with taz on chapter 8.2. here's a post where i talk about working with janet girlpillz on chapter 8.6. and here's a post where i talk about working with julia on the nsfw interlude 'stomach'! and then for bonus points, here's a piece my gf zoe wrote about working with me on the first official godfeels art in chapter 7.

but you want more, so here's more.

to start with, taz and i have been friends for some years now! back in early 2019 i was on the hbomberguy donkey kong 64 stream where i (briefly) tried to defend homestuck, which i guess gained me some form of notoriety/infamy. i can't remember if it was taz or kate who reached out to me first but i know taz liked my stuff (and i liked his!). then kate had me on pgen, i joined the pgen server, we all started gaming together and talking about homestuck in group chats. this period, pretty much through the entirety of 2019, is when i went from feeling like i had zero grasp on homestuck to becoming cohost of an at-the-time popular homestuck theory podcast! it's funny going back to my first appearance on pgen because you can tell i was so in over my head. i couldn't remember the names of the hiveswap trolls and still didn't even really know all the homestuck trolls by name. AND I OPTED OUT OF TALKING ABOUT VRISREZI LMAO. oh how turned the tables did the tables did turn

[[[oh god i just realized the pgen website expired and i'm not sure if the eps are still up anywhere... i should talk to kate about that lmao]]]

anyway, i actually talked to taz a bunch when i was first writing godfeels 1!

shortly after this we all did a stream for the launch of the epilogues with folks from the pgen server as well as hiveswap writer/director aysha u farah. i played gamzee lmao i still have the clown horn app on my phone from that

i guess i don't really know to what extent any of this is common knowledge anymore now that i think about it! this feels sort of superfluous to me but i guess this was FOUR YEARS AGO lmao

early godfeels straight up would not have existed without all these people. i cannot stress enough that literary obsession is a social contagion. i was not born a homestuck, i was made. and i think maybe some of the extremities of gf2 especially feel a little weird or dated these days, because on top of everything else godfeels was responding to it was also responding to the particularly toxic 2019-era vriscourse. so a big part of june's confrontational nature came from me being fucking sick of the baby's-first-conservatism that took root in the wider fandom when us cancelable queers had the audacity to like problematic womens and not apologize for it. i won't say anymore about that because like, whatever, it's all dead and buried now even if the ghost lingers. that ghost will have its day eventually! but not anytime soon.

ANYWAY, so, going back to the beginning even though i wrote godfeels alone, it came about in a context of lengthy conversations with other homestuck theorists. so when gf3 started to blow up in scale and become less about my trauma specifically, it made a lot of sense to broaden my horizons and get some new blood into the mix. the posts i linked at the start will fill in a bunch of gaps for you there, i think. it’s worth noting that a bunch of us already had a history of at least attempting to collaborate. we had a thing building for a while like a visual novel with one choice that was basically, what if we wrote every possible version of “transgender john” and just had them all together as branching paths. this was before some of the broader fandom really dug their heels in on the reactionary transphobia, after which point i at least lost some of my taste for that project. maybe we could come back to it someday, we wrote some cool stuff for that...

as far as my collaborative philosophy goes, idk. i first started writing fiction on the zeldapower forums in the early 2000s and developed a thick skin for critique pretty fast as a result. i wrote and rewrote constantly, shared what i could with friends and talked about plot/story/character ideas with them. when i realized in year two that writing school had nothing to offer me, i transferred to film. but i did so explicitly not wanting to be a director or writer or anyone above the line, really, because i didn't know what i wanted to make or even if i wanted to make something of my own. what i wanted was to help other people realize their own visions and see how they did it. so that's how i ended up working grip/electric in the oklahoma film industry, because it turns out all it really takes to get your foot in the door is to lose the ego and make yourself useful. it helps that i am cursed with constant psychological awareness of absolutely everything in my vicinity at all times, so i gained a reputation for being practically psychic the way i could know exactly what my bosses wanted lighting-wise before they even said anything.

i miss that job tbh. i loved the people, i felt more physically and psychologically fulfilled than at any job i've ever had. oklahoma has a relatively small film scene so it wasn't long before i was on a first name basis with most everyone working on my side of the state. when a crew is all on the same page, man, there's nothing like it. not every set can or should be like this, but some of my favorite experiences were on sets where it felt like everyone was the director. the director had their own vision but they knew how to adapt it to the location, to the ideas of technicians and craftspeople who had their own insights. a good director knows how to let their collaborators take ownership of the work, even when they reject their suggestions! i loved film work and i think about getting back to it sometimes. problem is it's extraordinarily physically demanding work and it leaves no time for anything else. 12 hour days five days a week minimum. i quit because i wanted to focus on video essays, one thing led to another, now we're here and homestuck changed my life lmao

so that's where i come from as writer. i have very strong opinions about my work and what it means and what it needs to do, but i try very hard not to have an ego about it.

the way we work together is pretty simple. when i finish the first draft of a chapter i’ll post it to the work server, and then folks will leave comments. but also, every member of the team has their own little corner of godfeels that they’ve adopted. taz is the dirkjake whisperer, julia is the queen of dana and the upsilons, etc. so when i write these characters i’ll ask for their insight, and invite them to modify or add to the scene as they see fit. sometimes this means prose, sometimes this means dialogue. our understanding is that nothing goes in the final published work without my approval, but that also that nothing is entirely off the table until we’ve had a conversation about it.

i get a lot of my storytelling philosophy from the tv show LOST, where every question was introduced with an explanation in mind but with the caveat that those explanations only remained true until the writers came up with something better. this gets back to something i said yesterday about needing a story to be dynamic and not planning things out too much in advance. for more detailed explanations, here’s a post i wrote about my hooks & hats philosophy, and then here’s another post about my process in general. but basically, i have this massive web of interconnected plotpoints going out very far into the future right? so when someone makes a suggestion i know exactly how possible it is to fit within that framework. i know how much information about any given hook has been introduced, so i know whether one explanation has been seeded too thoroughly to be changed.

but the flipside of that is that now my collaborators are inventing OCs! taz created a fantastic character named xifus that i can’t wait to write more of in 3.2A. we talk about this setting all the time, we talk about what makes sense for it, what would be cool, what mistakes would absolutely RUIN IT, how we can avoid the mistakes of our predecessors, all that fun stuff.

collaboration is all about honesty. godfeels has become what it is because we’re all fans both of homestuck, of anime, of broader culture... and of godfeels. my dirty secret is that i love writing godfeels because i’m its biggest fan. it frequently does not FEEL like i am composing this story, but rather that it is just happening to me. always i am wrangling cats in this petting zoo. i don’t want to be making this thing for the rest of my life but also this story is SO COOL and we are all chomping at the fucking bit to get to the upsilons and so much other shit besides. is that egomaniacal? idk. i think the idea that you’re supposed to be neutral leaning negative on your own work is kinda bullshit. but also, i don’t see the creation of art as bound to suffering or even being a process that requires much expertise. writing isn’t magic, even if it can feel that way sometimes.

i talk a lot about my work and how i write because i want to help demystify the process and try to show that it’s a learnable craft same as anything else. imo the preponderance of mediocre-to-great artists is not proof of Exceptional People but rather that it’s actually dirt simple to become a mediocre-to-great artist. all you need is time and money and access to the right tools! which is why so many mediocre artists are the rich failsons of killfactory millionaires. which is why every artist should be pro student debt relief, pro public transit, pro affordable housing, pro welfare, pro socialized medicine, pro deprivatizing mass media, and pro wide-ranging government arts funding. our nightmare neoliberal media landscape is the result of decades of making the creation of art & culture economically inaccessible to the working class, hence everything being set in rich suburbs with giant houses, hence the inescapability of pro-capitalist pro-nationalist messaging, hence the refusal of all national media to talk to trans people about trans issues, because only the middle and upper classes get to touch the levers of public perception and they have a direct economic incentive to convince the working class that they are middle class.

the notion that this stuff is at all mysterious or naturally the purview of those who can afford expensive degrees is just the narrative they sell to working people to cover up the fact that once you ascend past a certain income bracket, absolutely everything is just nepotism. it’s all just rich guys giving their rich friends and their rich friends’ stupid fucking libertarian manchildren high paying jobs forever. that’s why they never go away, that’s why they always fail up, that’s why trans women and queer people can get bullied off the face of the internet for half-joking that a fictional woman who did a murder was blameless in her crimes while grifters who moonlight at raytheon can weather blow after blow and stir the pot and solicit donations they don’t need and never disappear no matter how hated they are, because they HAVE money and they HAVE security so none of this shit is a real threat to anything besides their shallow fucking egos. which, you know, to be fair, threatening a rich person’s ego is basically the same thing as killing a man in cold blood, so who can say what is wrong or right?

there’s obviously a lot of complicating factors to the anticapitalist yarn i’ve spun here, but that’s how i see it. the rich want to own culture, they commodify it through copyright and box it up and insist that we are trespassers if we try to reflect those “““properties”““ through ourselves. that is, in part, a big reason why i haven’t given up on godfeels or tried to “file the serial numbers off.” i love this story and i am treating it with as much care as i would something original, because i believe this is art that stands up even with its imperfections and it’s insulting to me that “fanwork” is considered naturally lesser than “original” work when literally everything around us that is owned by disney et al was stolen from what was once an open culture. i reject the enclosure of the commons of our imagination, and andrew hussie themself quite famously said that postcanon homestuck belongs to the most conscientious and invested members of the fandom.

and frankly, even as i wish i COULD make a living off of godfeels alone, i like that my art isn’t particularly monetizable. i like that it is considered low art. i like that many people see it as shameful or a waste of time. i do not want to create a commodity. i do not want to run a business. i do not want to be famous. i want to make art that is freely available that maybe, just maybe, can help a handful of queer people deal with the shit going on in their life and have a good time in the process.

in short: we have no choice but to revolutionize the world.

UHHHH wow that got off the rails at the end there didn’t it? i love giving writing advice hahaha!

[toasted-valentine]

Would like to give a big thank you to @elliotly and @pyrotechnicarus for making Adamandi and TAOPP.

Context, first time I watched the two shows I was struggling to figure out college and my future. I’d always wanted to go into performing arts, make plays, musicals, movies, tv shows, what have you. But I was super unsure if I even could, the theater environment I had around me growing up had the directors rejecting people from roles for not “being biologically male” or not “fitting the part” due to their skin tone. Shit like that was always super discouraging, and part of the reason I quit theater for two years.

Then one night I’m sitting in my sister’s apartment in Brooklyn, just scrolling tumblr after visiting her, and I find a joke comparing We Are The Tigers and Adamandi. I got curious and decided to check it out, clicked on the tags and looked the show up on YouTube. Then I went feral and binged Adamandi and The Art Of Pleasing Princes in one sitting instead of sleeping. I had the soundtracks on loop for weeks after, just completely not normal about it.

I’m Puerto Rican and trans masc, I never in a million years thought I’d get to see people like me make stuff like that. My high school theater director wouldn’t cast trans actors for anything but chorus members or as their agab, even if they had the voice for it and were on hrt, he said it “didn’t work”. All the main roles he gave out to white students because he thought it would “work better”. Then to just see stuff where the actors got to be openly queer, got to be poc, and we’re actively encouraged to show those part for the roles. It changed my perspective.

Big probs to @cynopter as Vincent and (they don’t have a tumblr blog to my knowledge so I’m just using the name on the cast list from the website) Miel Escamilla as Beatrix because fucking christ they were absolute delights to watch and are incredibly skilled. Asides from giving me an unholy amount of gender envy, it was also amazing to see two people who are poc and engage in gender fuckery get on stage and destroy god with their performances. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a trans actor, let alone two gnc poc actors, be allowed to be leads in a show and have their backgrounds be part of the characters.

If I hadn’t stumbled across Adamandi and TAOPP when I did I’d probably be going to trade school to become some flavor of electrician, plumber, or house painter like the rest of my family. It genuinely changed the course of my life, and I cannot thank the people who made it and participated in it enough for doing what they do and putting their hearts and souls into it. Now I’m going to one of my local colleges for two years, have a plan to head to a nearby performing arts school after that’s done, and am going to be the person who creates art for other people to see. Forgive the vagueness of where, I’m attempting to keep where I live hard to find, just know I live in New York so do have access to colleges with these sort of programs.

I have a long way to go, quitting theater and performing in general for multiple years due to various reasons did set me back a chunk, but I do have hope for the future. I’m currently working on a short film with a few of my friends, hopefully will have that out before the summer ends, and I’m also working on drafts of a play I want to make, but that’s a far way off and just a general idea right now.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for doing what you do. Managed to change the mind and life of one person with it, and I cannot put into words the good it has done, even if it’s just for me.

Thanks for the killer music and stories,

-Teo

[hibiscustea9]

Long-overdue update

Hi, everyone. This is a quick update about “Blue Velvet” and my fanfics more generally.

There’s no easy way to say it other than this: I’m fried. I’ve crunched the numbers, and since July of 2020, I’ve written almost 1.75 million words of fanfic. During the worst of the pandemic, when I was able to work mostly from home, it was sustainable to write the amount of pages I was writing in a single week and maintain a pace of uploading a chapter a week.

But we are no longer in the worst of the pandemic. I’m working a job that regularly requires 50 to 60 hours a week out of me, some weeks more than that. Not all of these hours are in person, but a good number of them are, and I have other obligations outside of that. Many nights I have to get work done for my job, and even days where I’m technically off, I still have to get work done (the joys of being a salaried employee).

I simply cannot sustain the pace I once did. It’s not possible. I’ve tried, and the only thing that’s happened is that I’ve been burnt to a crisp doing it. Writing eleven to fourteen thousand words a week, on top of all the other stuff I’ve had to do, is not possible any longer. It’s frustrating, because I really love writing, and I’ve been particularly enjoying writing “Blue Velvet,” but I’m so, so, so tired all the time.

I’m not doing well lately. I haven’t been doing well for a long time. And as much as I’ve hated coming to this conclusion, writing fanfic is contributing heavily to the constant exhaustion I feel.

So here is what’s going to happen: “Blue Velvet” is going to update every other week, starting with this upcoming chapter. There are only nine chapters left, and I will have some extra time over the holidays where I can get work done, so my goal will be to finish by the end of January. After that, I’m taking time off. A good bit of time, probably at least six months, to try and fully recharge my batteries. I have another unfinished fic that I may do what I can to get finished in and around that time, but I’m not starting any new projects for a long while after this.

I don’t see a way anytime in the near future where I’m going to be able to get back to the chapter-a-week pace. Any fanfics I pick up going forward are almost certainly going to have to be updated every other week. Thank you all for your kind comments and your support throughout. I’m incredibly grateful that you’ve been along for the ride, and while I’m sure this isn’t the sort of message you want to read, it’s necessary if I’m ever going to come back to writing any more fanfic after this.

[jennycalendar]

im loving your energy rn, for me it came a point where i just avoid interacting with fandoms as much as possible because of these kind of stuff, somehow in every fandom i go people always have the worst takes on poc and it gets tiring so fast. with robin and kennedy my only takeaway after watching was that it sucked that they were only in s7 bc that season sucks at character development and i wanted to get to know them better, but then i come to tumblr and everyone hates them?

excuse me for thinking that spike wearing nikki's coat is not the super badass empowering moment it was framed as or that robin's hatred of spike shouldnt have been brushed off the way it was

and the episode on ats where there's a demon feeding from hatred feels super hypocritical given the treatment both shows give to poc, why are they suddenly talking about racism? same with the thanksgiving episode, why are the racist writers writing about racism?

idk i just get upset and thats why i limit the amount of fandom blogs i follow

getting around to this a little late so sorry about that :') i sort of have had the benefit of being in a corner of the fandom that's very small, and a lot of the dialogue around jenny (her and giles being the only part of the show i'm invested in teasing apart) is generally very receptive to discussing the anti-romani stereotypes that she is saturated in.

and honestly it's just .... yeah! yeah. i think one of the hardest parts for me is to see people who i enjoy and respect and have had conversations with just completely stepping back from engagement with the parts of this that aren't fun to think about. my most beloved bonus mom pointed out, like ... of course it makes sense that a lot of white people are not going to want to have these conversations in their fandom escape from frustrating shitty real life stuff, or think about how messy and intrinsic racism is, but thing is, there are people of color here too (like me! i don't talk about it much because my relationship to my jewish/indian ethnicity is So Fucking Complicated and Y'all Don't Know Me Like That, but it's very much part of what's going on w me!) who also want to have a nice little fandom oasis and end up not being able to enjoy it when there's just Racist Weird Shit On The Walls.

i've seen a couple of posts that have made me think that maybe my takes have breached containment a little, but i don't know if anyone actually heard what i was saying. this goes well beyond just going "the show was racist sometimes and we never talk about it and we should talk more about the racist parts of the show in greater detail," this is "the way we as a community talk about characters we love in fandom needs to not incorporate racism." which is something i have seen so many times here from white fans regardless of ship or character. and which is so much harder to unlearn because it is a consistent corrective process and it isn't as simple as not saying slurs on the internet.

also, yes. i hate the thanksgiving episode. i cannot stand it. i am going to have to get to it at some point and grit my teeth because whenever btvs does race it does it very very very badly.

[crepusculum-rattus]

^-^ you said there were mostly endermen in the city, but what about pets? pests? cattle?

what did they make their clothes out of? do you think there was a wealth distinction based on dye or material?

what sort of jobs were childrens top picks? (like firefighter/astronaut/etc. is here)

was there some sort of day and night cycle? how did they keep the time? did they even keep the time?

the main pest in the city, which is truly no surprise, was endermites. a problem the king could never quite solve despite his promises to his people. other than that, i think it would be hilarious if they had an unreasonable amount of chickens. they aren’t really pests but like. jfc how did they get So Many LMAO . but i don’t think a lot of animals can survive the city very well tbh. that’s just something i cannot explain bc i don’t have a ton of concrete reasoning. chickens r jsut built different or whatevs

and i think clothes were mostly made from materials from the overworld. there isn’t a whole lot to work with in the end tbh, and so it’s for sure a status thing. different colored fabrics is how i think status was easiest determined tho. a lot of clothes were made from the same materials (aside from ender’s outfits lmao) just bc it was easiest to grab .. it’s the dyes that truly show wealth for them. a majority of citizens wear either white or black, not usually both at once though. some citizens wear a bit of plain leather as well, no dyes or anything. and the more colors an enderman is wearing at once, the more likely they are to be in a higher class. it’s not Always the case, but usually rings true. and colors associated with higher class in general are purple, grey, and lighter blues for the endermen. bc i’m all about that aesthetic ya feel

there’s a lot of children who idealize being a soldier in ender’s army unfortunately. they don’t really understand the war, but they get it’s important. BUT there’s a lot of children who want to be farmers of some kind actually. and farm all sorts of things, not just chorus fruit. some of the stuff they want to farm is a bit unrealistic (as it can be with children).. but it’s a pretty popular “dream job.” and lastly, many want to be trade merchants of sorts. they don’t um really get how it works (or what they’re trading), but they want to do the trading. be the ones making deals or whatever. it’s the need to travel around to different realms that gets to them.

there’s no actual day/night cycle for the city. and they don’t really keep time the same way that we do (or at all for that matter). i think a lot of time passage is based off of farming cycles n stuff like that. that’s more long term though. but their “day” is just based on when endermen are most active and out. which truly is random and changes week to week because there’s no daylight cycle in that void. i think during the war, days were Literally longer for them. there was always a job for someone to do, and time already works funny in the end bc it’s near impossible to track.. so like. it’s not like it particularly bothered anyone