#a strongly worded note

[allthatslithers]

January 2025 ASWN: The Undead

Snow falls heavily in the little clearing. Fat flakes build on the small tent, threatening to cave in the thin fabric. A youthful person tries desperately to light the half drenched wood and grass within the hastily dug fire pit. They curse over another failed attempt and pray their companion returns from the trees with some dry kindling.

Just as the flame finally catches, icy fingers close over the young traveler’s shoulder. A joyful greeting dies on their lips as they turn to face the frozen countenance of another long dead.

This month’s monster theme is The Undead! A broad category ranging from zombies and liches to mummies and vampires. You’ll be opening up coffins and performing ancient dark magic to raise these creatures from the afterlife and into your creations.

Posting begins January 25th.

"Wait, I'm new here! What's A Strongly Worded Note?" Welcome! ASWN is a low-pressure monthly event. No level of completion is required to post and we encourage everyone to join in. This isn't an event intended to stress you out - whatever you have, even if it's just a plot outline or a sketch, can be posted the last week (7 days) of the month! Just be sure to tag as here at @allthatslithers so we can reblog it.

And don’t forget, if you wish to add your works to the AO3 collection, the link is here: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/a_strongly_worded_note

[spritepespi]

this is my entry for this month's @allthatslithers aswn !! the prompt this month was 'black dog/grimm'. i'm still getting a hang of how i want to draw aziraphale but i think i'm mostly happy with it.

[antiyourwokehomophobia2]

Been thinking a lot about how lesbians have to pretend they never experience any adverse feelings to rejection in order to avoid the "predator" stereotype. When we get rejected by a straight woman or even just get hit with the reality that most women are straight, we're not allowed to be upset or angry or hurt about it.

I am not saying that lesbians should be allowed to verbally abuse a straight woman for saying no, but I don't feel like we're allowed to be angry at all. Even privately. Having those feelings at all makes us 'bad'.

The truth is that it very much so sucks to watch women you love choose men over you. It sucks to know that no matter how attractive and sweet and kind you are, most women will simply not be attracted to you in the slightest and there's nothing you can do about it. It sucks to know that men get to freely love women while you have to hide from bigots. It sucks to have strong, tender feelings for women that they simply do not return.

It's perfectly normal to feel deep sadness and anger over this. I'm talking bubbling violent anger that leaves you feeling like you're a descendant of the Greek goddess Lyssa. Wishing deeply that your feelings for women were returned doesn't make you a predator. Having extremely negative feelings towards the men that catch your crush's attention doesn't make you a bad person. That is all incredibly normal.

Straight men get rejected one too many times and commit mass shootings... You feeling private rage doesn't make you a bad person at all.

I just really hate that it seems like the only appropriate reaction lesbians are allowed to have to heartbreak is demure acceptance.

[scramratz]

Package delivered, but mailman put parcel key in wrong box. Shooting myself IN the HEAD

[padfootastic]

harry’s ‘saving people thing’ comes from james potter and if you disagree, u can bite me because that is the TRUTH

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

Seriously from a comms perspective I cannot stress enough how incredibly smart and strategic this launch/evolution/whatever you want to call it is. And to be clear I’m not saying it’s because they are PR. THAT IS NOT IT. Taylor and Travis are real people who happen to live in extraordinary circumstances that necessitate a plan in this regard because people can be so fucking weird about it.

The idea of acknowledging the elephant in the room instead of ignoring it and letting it take up space is what it all comes down to. Sure it was a frenzy when they first went public and the first bits of PDA hit the airwaves, but in the end what it does is normalize it. By this point, everyone knows they’re a couple and it’s not weird when they do hold hands or kiss or acknowledge each other in public. Because that’s what anyone would do with their significant other and trying to make it secret just makes it weird, for both the media and the people involved in the relationship.

So the way they’ve navigated this again has been masterful. There clearly are boundaries (it seems especially on Taylor’s end which Travis happily obliges) but that doesn’t mean they can’t just be themselves either. So, they’re not inviting people into their living room each week, but the gradual public meshing of their image served a purpose to normalize it. From Taylor’s first game to the occasional fluff pieces to trusted outlets to steer the narrative to acknowledging the public outings to dipping their toes in social media official, it’s making it so that now that they’ve moved into the next phase of their lives (whatever that may mean now but whatever it is it’s clearly serious and clearly considered permanent by both of them), they can share what they want without it being a stressor.

So if Taylor wants to be goofy, she can change her song lyrics or invite him up onto the stage and it’s newsworthy because she’s her but it’s not weird. Travis can be interviewed and be asked about his partner who is a public figure and speak highly of her without it turning into a maelstrom. Gradually their domestic status is going to be normalized so that their every move isn’t as big of a deal. (It’ll still be news because they are who they are, but it won’t seem like they’re sitting down for a root canal every time.)

I hate to call this a “rollout” because they’re people, not products, but in terms of a PR strategy, it’s excellent. And it’s not that every move they do is PR!!! It’s that every move they make is public, so they need to navigate that so that they can maintain their personal boundaries as they wish. It’s not that every interview is calculated, but it’s more that what they do or don’t choose to share at any moment in time is helping them figure out what they’re comfortable with, and it’s also lessening the market value, if you will, of any anecdotes. The more people become accustomed to them as a unit, the less each quote like this is bound to make huge headlines. (I mean other than fans like us because we want our pop star bestie to have everything she wants.)

It’s not just that their teams have set a great example, it’s that THEY are handling it with such skill and grace. I’m honestly blown away by it from a professional perspective and suspect that they figured out early on that getting a handle on it and guiding the narrative instead of pretending it didn’t exist might have been scary at first but has proven to make things so much easier and takes up way less space in all their brains.

[st4rstudent]

Hey guys just another drawing of the thr- wait what happened to them.

(bonuses + notes under cut)

i've actually been sitting on these designs since september - october/november. The color are... subjective to change. I chose Mac and Winn's colors today. I think Winn's is fine but Mac's keeps throwing me off. Here's the first drawings I did for Mac and Winn.

I like to imagine they're in their own little department. Something to do with tech like an IT department (also to kind of play off of how they're not in the game but run a lot of important events outside of it). So they're not any cog type in specific (like boss, board, law, etc..etc).

Mac's a Macintosh 128k and Winn is just a computer mouse (the tail is supposed to be a little mouse pointer and those are wires in the back. Technically speaking, wires for mice are in the front by the scroll but we can get inaccurate here). Mac's screen can change colors and display options. Together they make the Matrix Team

Here's some Brian's that I did during class last semester. He was originally a mouse, but I found trying to design him was much more annoying than I thought. Then one day during class I had a beam of light hit into my head and made him a big. He's not specific or anything, I tried to do just a stereotypical bug (like how all dogs/cats in game are the same type). He has a triangular head to match his faceplate though :-] you could maybe imagine an ant if you'd like. I figure ants work like cogs in a machine.

The desk jockeys are there too! I haven't really drawn them, but they remain somewhat the same. Instead of being made by toons to look like cogs, they're now made by cogs to look like toons. They also can't teleport so it takes Brian 3x longer to get places, but do they act as multitoons kind of.

This is the only drawing I really have to show my design basis. And YES they are still taller than him because its funny. Ok I think that's all

[followerofmercy]

I have developed a new litmus test for Media Literacy and People I Wanna Hang With

Do they hate Skylar White of Breaking Bad for being dramatic and unreasonable

Do they think Arlecchino from Genshin Impact is an abusive parent

Do they think Silco from Arcane made Zaun worse

Answering yes to any of these questions results in immediate disqualification for having respectable opinions. To me.

[robinsgrl]

i need next smau kiara or sarah endgame pls and thank yuu!!!🤗🤗☺️

it’s actually a toss up between john b and pope rn for my next idea 😝😝🙏

[butchshepherd]

"Contextualising the weaponisation of dogs at Europe’s borders today within a much longer history of racial violence, the article shows how canines have been systematically deployed by colonial and white supremacist powers against racialised bodies as tools to enact and secure racial order."

[sskk-manifesto]

What a good episode. Maaaaaan

[allthatslithers]

The deep chill of Winter has the Northern Hemisphere in its icy grip. Family groups huddle around the fire for warmth and comfort, telling stories to pass the long nights. All the while, fearsome creatures of the snowy landscape rattle the ancient windows and pound on the thick door of the log cabin. Some beckon people out into the cold using the voices of loved ones, some the embodiment of hunger, and some are furry bipedal creatures, hanging out in the nearby caves.

This month’s theme is Ice Monsters. From the fearsome Yeti to the cunning Yuki Onna (snow woman), creatures of the cold span many countries and cultures. Looking for a few ideas? This post has a good selection to peruse: https://www.deviantart.com/whisperthewolfie/journal/Top-10-Mythical-Creatures-of-Winter-Ice-and-Snow-717911543

Posting of your works will be from Thursday, January 25th to Wednesday, January 31st. We can’t wait to see your works!

"Wait, I'm new here! What's 'A Strongly Worded Note'?" Welcome! ASWN is a low-pressure monthly event. No level of completion is required to post and we encourage everyone to join in. This isn't an event intended to stress you out - whatever you have, even if it's just a plot outline or a sketch, can be posted!

And don’t forget, if you wish to add your works to the AO3 collection, the link is here: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/a_strongly_worded_note

[istherewifiinhell]

"Ppl are missing the my point of my post anyway this person said smth about mirage comics i have no context for"

You Will Regret Bringing This to my Attention

[keikoayano]

I could be totally wrong with the instrument here but I’m having thoughts

In Just a Man immediately after Odysseus says “how could I hurt you?” the next couple notes that play sound like a trumpet to me - which leads me down the rabbit hole of “this is Odysseus being ruthless in order to protect his family and kingdom by killing an actual baby” and the whole Poseidon is represented by a trumpet and his theme of ruthlessness is mercy whICH JUST????????? THERE IS SO MUCH TO SAY ABOUT THAT

[strscrossed]

I’ve been talking to a therapist lately and I think it’s really been helping me stabilize my moods and unlock the creative part of my brain. I’m in a much better place than I was mentally a couple of months ago.

truth is, when i’m triggered by something, it’s a spiral for a while unless i reach out for help. this time, I really decided enough was enough. there are still some things but i can safely say I’m comfortable again posting publicly about warlord. it’s not the fic itself that made me uncomfortable, it’s the fandom in general that terrified me. now it’s like, sure there are people who don’t like how I write em and that’s fine.

this fic was always meant to be dark. and I’m proud of that. I’ve never really ventured into stuff like that and sure there’s room for improvement but it’s my baby and I’m proud of it. I think that’s what was more important. so going forward, all hate and harassment will be ignored. I open up to valid criticism because I do want to improve as well.

anyway, you’re responsible for yourself when you go online. you can block and mute things that make you uncomfortable. that’s always the rule I’ve stuck by.

[flockrest]

Since time immemorial, the Rito have been deeply connected to the winds and all they have to offer — in a way that surpasses bare, profound appreciation. For them, it goes beyond physical attachment ( of which is still greatly significant! ) and is indelibly tied to their spiritual and cultural identities.

Seen more as a relationship — where the winds are the source of all nourishments and fulfilments, and they are simply partakers of those boons — this concept is rooted and condensed in a word that doesn't have a concrete, established meaning so much as a contextual one that defines many things all at once: Windlines.

When speaking of the Windlines, one could be referring to the material winds and their boundless touch; or the nebulous "voice" of the winds as perceived by those especially responsive to their movements and paths; or the closely related but separate consciousness of the winds that carries, blesses, curses, or otherwise meaningfully interacts with all beings; and so on. Not quite an entity, almost bordering on a kind of philosophy with how hugely it shapes their way of thought — but believed in all the same!

Knowledge of the Windlines, and hence, this layered relationship with the winds, has been reliably passed down through generations with little to no external nor internal distortion. How an individual develops that knowledge — as well as with it — may differ ( e.g. very few may take it to unprecedented heights, bending the Windlines to their will and becoming masters among patrons, whilst others may be content with simple, competent flight ), but the core foundation is pretty much universal.

Being estranged from the Windlines in any capacity can be unbearable for any Rito. Peaks Among the Ripples saw the worst of this impact during the upheaval detailed in their Songs of the Stormwind Ark: with the Windlines so absent, population health and wellbeing waned, even if nothing was bodily amiss. Essentially, Windlines and what they embody are incredibly important! An integral part of a Rito individual and whole collective!