#a very 2020s sort of sentiment

[tgmsunmontue]

Am baking and had a thought about a Hangster enemies with benefits, to sort-of not-quite-exes (but they have those vibes anyway) and then with the TG:M happenings we have them speed run through friends to lovers.

Set in 2020 Jake and Bradley are stationed together, and then there are lockdowns and bubbles and they were SO CLOSE to the end of their current deployment when all the lockdowns were announced, but they're safe. (For a value of safe given that year etc). But tensions/nerves are high, and disappointment is huge.

They get rip-roaring drunk together one night (Jake finds Bradley already drinking and decides to catch up). Bradley admits his longterm boy/girl-friend has broken up with him (he hasn't proposed and that's what they were waiting for (cue Hangman making 'snug on perch' reference, which obviously hits different in the Hard Deck scene when he repeats the sentiment).

So they end up in bed. Drunk. Have sex. God fucking awful sex because they're both drunk and it's almost a comedy of errors and the next morning Bradley makes a pithy throw away comment thanking Hangman for the worst sex of his life, so yeah, thanks for that.

Of course, hyper competitive Jake is NOT okay with that, so demands a 'rematch', and Bradley's very much 'thanks but no thanks' but after a couple of weeks he folds because he's horny and Jake did offer (and keeps offering because his fucking pride is on the line).

So they spend the rest of this specific lockdown flying and fucking and Jake is a stubborn asshole determined to take top spot in best BJ, best top, best bottom, EVERYTHING and Bradley is bemused. But then he catches feelings.

He admits said feelings but Jake is like NOPE. I'm just your rebound guy. Go find someone else for your picket fence etc etc. But the thing is Bradley doesn't WANT that, which is why he never proposed.

But... That's the story currently circling my head looking for a landing strip.

Unfortunately all the spaces are taken up by WIPs...

[inkbomber]

Wait. So movie fans were clamoring to make Stone more badass, even before the idw comic?! Could you please elaborate? I'm new and never heard about this

alrighty, so you can go back and read through ao3 entries from the first two years of the character's existence, and you very quickly notice a pattern of people going, "oh fuck wait he's an agent for a reason," a sentiment readily shared by and with mr majdoub himself.

fanart from 2020-2022 also shows a pretty distinct want to show a side of Stone that really isnt in the movies, a possessive sort of killer instinct that, frankly, doesn't show up in official material until the IDW comic.

Stone's semi-communal creation is one of my favorite things about these movies. i think looking through some people's tagged stuff on their blogs [@mochisquish & @kellterntempest & @ayjaydraws have extensively tagged backlogs that i've been through] using the /chrono workaround on the website and you will quickly see a real evolution of character depth.

fandom history is one of those things that's so well-documented there's no point making shit up about it. and this particular group [stob shippers] have been, frankly, pretty lovely for most of that history. I'm sure there's a handful of things you could pull out that reflect badly, like any fandom, but the evolution of it is also part of that history.

Stone wasn't written this way to begin with. He was a side character to prop up the doctor in movie 1. The actor's and fans' love is what made this character who he is.

[mariacallous]

Earlier this month, Tesla, the Elon Musk-led car company, staged a publicity stunt in front of the White House. A row of electric vehicles, including an angular stainless-steel Cybertruck, was arranged for Donald Trump to inspect before a fleet of news cameras. As far as photo opportunities go, it was absurd enough, turning the supposedly august Presidential residence into something resembling the set of a car-dealership commercial. (In its jarring clash of high-and-low symbolism, it recalled the Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference that Rudy Giuliani hosted on Trump’s behalf after the 2020 election.) Trump, playing the role of the discerning shopper, stepped into a gleaming red Tesla Model S. Musk circled the car, ready to assist his faux client, and pointed out the brake and the accelerator. “It’s like driving a golf cart,” he said. Trump, presumably admiring the touch screen that the car has in lieu of buttons, exclaimed, “Wow! That’s beautiful. . . . Everything’s computer!”

The event was a transparent attempt to lift Tesla’s stock price, which has suffered recently in large part owing to mounting anti-Musk public sentiment. But it was Trump’s brief utterance that stole the show. He has always had a genius for contagious coinages—even, occasionally, when the language is accidental. (Remember “covfefe”?) “Everything’s computer,” with its compressed and fractured syntax, perfectly evokes the befuddling era we find ourselves in: technology is infiltrating every aspect of our lives—even, with Musk’s DOGE rampage, the workings of the federal government. Tesla is computer; artificial intelligence is computer; politics is computer. Am I computer, too? The phrase instantly became a meme, used to caption everything from clips of “The Matrix” and “Star Wars” to images of Kim Kardashian with a humanoid Tesla robot with which she has lately been staging scenes.

The phrase is enthusiastic yet ambivalent. It can be uttered in delight or in fear. Above all, it expresses a kind of bemusement at the tumultuous unknowability of our moment, and in that respect it has something in common with other memes that have gained traction in the first months of the second Trump Administration. As I observed in a column last year, the 2024 election was characterized online by its brain-rot memes, nonsensical collisions of imagery that produced a lot of noise but little coherent impact. (See, for instance: Kamala Harris and brat summer.) Now the brain rot persists, but the underlying subject matter is more dire. We participate in the memes to express our anxiety that whatever is coming next might be even more chaotic than what is already happening.

Another recent example: “Trump took egg. Egg gone.” That phrase is the work of Michael Sweeney, a video editor in San Diego who sometimes directs Democratic political ads. He’d been to his local Costco, where shoppers were maxing out a store-mandated allotment of eggs: two packages of sixty eggs apiece. Sweeney grabbed one of the last eggs on the shelves and, on February 4th, reposted a picture of bare shelves to the social network Bluesky with the caption in question, which quickly took on a life of its own. Sweeney told me recently, “Unlike a lot of problems in the government that Trump’s incompetence is causing, this one is very easy to point out and self-evidently a problem even to people who don’t pay attention to politics.” The phrase morphed into “Trump Take Egg” and then became a memetic rallying cry across social media, labelling more photos of empty shelves and graphs of rising egg prices. A taqueria in Virginia used it as an excuse for a buy-one-get-one-free deal on breakfast tacos: “Trump take egg. Brazos give egg.”

Democrats have struggled to craft any sort of effective message of opposition to the second Trump Administration. One recent round of video clips featuring the speeches of Democratic senators was roundly mocked for repeating tired talking points. In the absence of anything more galvanizing, the formula “Trump Take _____”—fill in the blank with “egg,” “cancer research,” or “Social Security”—is, as Sweeney put it, “sort of self-consciously stupid but at least feels like you’re landing a punch.” Another favorite target of late is Vice-President J. D. Vance. Vance hadn’t made much of an impression in the new Administration until he helped Trump berate the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, last month in a televised meeting from the Oval Office. Vance sat on a couch, looking something like a petulant child, before practically leaping out of his seat to demand Zelensky “say thank you.” It was Vance’s first breakout public moment as Vice-President, and the meme machine went to work: Vance as Humpty Dumpty; Vance as a toddler with a propeller hat and a lollipop; Vance as a hippie troubadour with a neckbeard and a mop of curly hair. The more bizarre—Vance as the center of a nuclear-bomb explosion—the more apt.

A version of the same Vance meme first took hold last October when the Republican congressman Mike Collins posted an image of Vance that had been heavily edited (“yassified,” in internet slang) to have stronger cheekbones and a more angular jawline. Collins, for unexplained reasons, had turned Vance into a “Chad,” an online archetype of bro-y masculinity. Then a Los Angeles-based creative named Dave McNamee posted an altered portrait of a chubby-faced Vance, promising, “For every 100 likes I will turn JD Vance into a progressively apple cheeked baby.” He went on to create a feminine Vance, an elderly Vance, a Justin Bieber-ish Vance. Collins’s original post, McNamee told me, “revealed a deep insecurity that the right has about J. D. Vance—that he is not the masculine icon they want to prop up.”

Liam Grey, the Canadian administrator of various Instagram meme accounts, including one called @dailyvance, for which he collects memes of Vance’s face, compared the Vice-President to “a modern-day Harambe,” referring to the gorilla that was shot and killed, in 2016, when a human child fell into his zoo enclosure. On social media, people photoshopped Harambe into every imaginable scenario, less out of any animal-rights sentiment than as an early expression of online brain rot, the pursuit of viral content for its own sake: the more meaningless the better. The profusion of memes turned Harambe into a sort of internet folk hero, but Vance is no innocent zoo animal; the images of the Vice-President function more like voodoo dolls, casting vengeful spells from afar.

Zach Silberberg, a digital producer in Manhattan who, last July, created a much-shared meme of Vance with slightly shrunken features, interpreted the popularity of Vance memes as a sign of “people feeling powerless.” The new Administration is dismantling the federal government, allying itself with strongmen, and implementing a new McCarthyism. The Vance memes transmute terror into mockery: as Silberberg put it, “This man has an unprecedented amount of access to power. I’m gonna ruin his day just a little bit.” Earlier this month, the journalist Julio Rosas reported that Vance has seen the memes and “thinks it’s a funny trend.” A few days later, the Vice-President himself posted a Vance meme to his account on X, an edit of his face onto Leonardo DiCaprio’s frame in a scene from the film “Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood,” in which DiCaprio’s character, an actor, points at a television screen in recognition. In today’s political ecosystem, any form of internet notoriety might be desirable.

It’s one thing when political memes are brain-rotted; it’s another when the practice of politics itself seems to be. This week, The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, wrote about being added by mistake to a Signal group chat, titled Houthi PC small group, in which national-security leaders—apparently including Vance; the national-security adviser, Mike Waltz; the deputy White House chief of staff; and the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, among others—were planning an attack against the Houthis in Yemen. (The White House press secretary denied that war plans were discussed in the chat.) Waltz celebrated the operation’s launch with a fluent string of emojis: 👊🇺🇸🔥. In a display of gallows humor at the sloppiness of the leaders’ theoretically clandestine communication, people online quickly turned those symbols into memes, and renamed their own chats Houthi PC small group. Making war is computer, too.

[majaloveschris]

Hi Maja.

First of all, your blog is one of the only ones I’ve always felt was sincere, on point, respectful, and not toxic. I’ve always had a good feeling about you and how you are kind despite all the toxicity on here.

That feeling has never wavered and there is a big part of me that wants you to be right and win against these ridiculous anons that seem to want to put you down.

An opinion (which I don’t claim to be fact, just some thoughts here): I see a lot of takes on here popping up from blogs that claim they have PR knowledge and claim to be experts and read and follow along the gossip, but I think nobody really knows and they can only hypothesize on what they think is the truth.

I think CE being married (by public knowledge and Wikipedia) was the main goal here. I’ve always sort of felt this, which is why I ultimately was not surprised after he did his SMA spread that he went public with Fish girl and then later on “got married.”

The reason I say this is because HW and society is very judgmental and superficial. Being single or unmarried at a certain age always raises questions whether or not it is valid to do so. I disagree with this sentiment but unfortunately the world is how it is. It happens to regular people, so why wouldn’t it apply to celebs? Especially the ones who have basically become a pop culture icon of being an eligible bachelor/desirable.

Let’s think about this. After 2019, CE was no longer under the marvel umbrella. He had to start defining his post marvel career, and then Covid hit. So many things derailed. He randomly got an IG in 2020 but people found out it had existed as an account since 2019. Perhaps it was always the plan or it was a plan hatched by his PR team to keep him in the public eye. He became relatable internet BF with a Prince Charming storyline of when will he find the one? It was almost overkill from 2020-2022.

Now it’s 2024 and he’s supposedly been with this woman since 2021. It shows longevity and then eventual commitment. He now wears a ring in public so they see him as “settled down.” That’s the image he is now portraying for the public who doesn’t dig or care to deeper in his life.

I don’t think it’s about rebranding to attract a younger audience - if so, his pr team would have realized that gen Z actually does not fare well to age gaps and the subject of grooming and etc always comes up for this hypersensitive on PC/wokeness generation. Then add on the racism and weird ass crap from her/her friends. Definitely not boding well for a generation that lives on the internet and knows how to deep dive. His PR team would have looked at how the public reacted to other relationships like this and I feel, if it was simply he was in love with her and it was real real, would have told him to keep it on the DL DL until it was absolutely certain they had walked down the aisle. At that point, there would be no turning back.

But they marketed this before that happened. They wanted to portray her as the one similar to how in movies, they want to portray a main character and love interest as meant to be even if the audience may or may not receive it that way. How many times do we hear “this movie tanked because the leads had no chemistry and the relationship they wanted us to believe was not believable?”

But ultimately, the endgoal of if CE and his wife are a good couple or not doesn’t really matter. They have achieved their goal of he is now settled down and no longer on the market. If you choose to continue to follow him, stay for his career and not his personal life. Meanwhile, her - well, they’ll keep trying to make her happen because her end of the deal was getting more visibility and breaking into the American market. That much has been clear.

But you can lead a horse to water, you can’t make it drink.

What she chooses to do with the opportunities given to her are left to be seen. Also, how the public and CE/her fanbases chooses to receive them are also left to be seen.

Will this marriage last forever? I have doubts. But I do think they considered many options and this is what they came up with. I also don’t believe CE’s actions show he is very happy with the arrangement, even less so than fish is. Because even from the subtle clues from photos and “videos” - body language does not lie.

To be fair to fish, I doubt she’s in love with him either. I think she’s getting more benefits from this because most of the negativity is being directed towards him, not her. His fans hating and harassing her are just a pinnacle of what he’s receiving from his own fanbase. Some people will disagree with me but he’s the one getting the P and G and disgusting comments and being called the worst person on earth because he married her. His own fans are turning on him and her fans can also blame him but victimize her. The general public doesn’t care too much but will say how he looks because he got with her. She remains “innocent” of any blame because at the end, she is young and he is older so he should know better. Do you see what I mean?

Meanwhile, her fans are just happy she’s getting attention and somebody to fund her poor attempts at becoming a fashion icon. She lacks in talent and work ethic but it’s an easy way for her to get engagement by being attached to him.

The day this ends and she no longer has his name will be interesting and that’s what I think his fans (remaining) are hoping for. They don’t want to reward laziness and clout chasing opportunist and I too support this. They want HIM to be better and find success and love himself more so he doesn’t continue to end up in these shitty situations. But again, he has to want that for himself. He has to want to deserve better so he can work on actually deserving of better.

I hope I didn’t offend anyone with this opinion. Just my thoughts and I support YOU. I hope things work out in the end in your favor because you are a great person and I selfishly want you to be right (haha). ❤️

I completely agree with everything that you wrote down. 

I remember seeing people criticize him for saying he wants to get married and have a family, yet he is still single and childless. As you said, it's stupid that people are being bullied and judged because they haven't already settled down, even if they wanted to. Finding a partner is hard, and finding a partner in his shoes is even harder. I obviously don't know whether he actually wants all of that, but saying he must not want all of that because he didn't do so is not right. A lot of people struggle with finding a good partner. 

I never agreed with people calling him by the P and G words. I guess these people either don't know what those words mean or are simply that mad as Chris that they feel the need to spread lies. He is not those things and never was. Yeah, 16 years is a lot, but she was a grownup when they allegedly met, and I think people exaggerate when they say she looks like a child. 

I think the reason most people are hateful towards him is because they are disappointed in him. I think most people had an idea about the person he is based on the information we had, and him being married to someone like her or even dating someone like her doesn't really fit into that. People aren't disappointed in her because most didn't even know who she was before Chris. We were just presented with her actual self, and we didn't have any expectations from her. But we had for him. 

I doubt either of them is in love with each other. Alba doesn't seem that happy or comfortable around him either. I think this is just business for both of them.

I still think he is a good man who made a terrible mistake. I just hope the best for him, to be honest, which I know is an unpopular opinion now because it seems like wanting the worst for him is what is trendy nowadays. Maybe I'm naive; maybe I'm just holding onto an image, but I don't think the last 20+ years were a lie. I hope he will prove me right. 

Thanks for writing this down and for being there. ♥

[slutforpringles]

What do you think is actually behind the Danny bashing on social media and Reddit lately?

I find it really puzzling, to put it mildly. As if the decision over an RBR or VCARB seat is simple enough to decide 4 races into a 24-race season, which it certainly isn’t.

Some of the Yuki and Liam fans seem to be really young, and for some of them, there seems to be some sort of weird ageism involved in their anti-Ricciardo ranting.

But some of it seems to be an enjoyment of tearing someone down who’s always been popular, despite him not misusing or abusing that popularity

IDK - what are your thoughts, please?

Hey anon! This is actually a really interesting question, and I’d be really interested to hear other people’s thoughts and opinions on too. I think probably how much time you spend online and on which online platforms does probably affect your viewpoint, and obviously this is just my take on the growing anti-DR sentiment based on what I’ve seen/ experienced. 

I think it’s definitely multi-faceted, which is partly why there’s so much of it at the moment, because multiple situations/things have fed into the Daniel hatred. 

I think a very large percentage of it is simply the influx of new fans into the sport that have only seen Daniel drive from the McL era onwards. 

I think a lot of people are consuming more and more F1 content from non-trustworthy sources (e.g. instagram and twitter update accounts, non-reputable websites) that use clickbait and unsubstantiated rumours to create maximum drama. I think this has been particularly tricky for Daniel, because his popularity has made him a super target since 2021 for this.

I think there's a growing sentiment of annoyance at the limited number of seats available to enter F1, particularly for fans of younger drivers who have watched them go through the feeder series and feel it is unfair that they aren’t being given a chance in F1. I think this has become even louder since F1 rejected Andretti’s bid, and I think struggling or older drivers become a much easier target for expressing that frustration than an entire sport/regulatory body.

I think the more recent wave of fans being more critical of driver’s public opinions and thoughts on social/political/moral issues has probably increased scrutiny on Daniel, too. And while I completely agree with fans expecting more and better from drivers, I think there’s a huge amount of hypocrisy and recency bias when it comes to some very vocal online fans and fanbases, which I think also underscores how many of them are part of the new wave of F1 fans. (E.g. I see ample criticism of Daniel from fans of driver’s who refused to kneel during 2020 that are clearly totally unaware that Daniel was one of the loudest supporters of Lewis during 2020 and BLM protests)

I think it’s also just part and parcel of the growing extreme polarisation of the internet. It seems people are becoming far more used to extreme polarisation in general, and the echo chambers of social media and the wider internet algorithms are only continuing to exaggerate that. People also seem to be less and less civil online, and while places like twitter have been a toxic wasteland for a long time, that toxicity and complete lack of normal human interaction has started to affect other online spaces too.

And yeah I do agree that there seems to be a certain percentage of fans that just seem to enjoy revelling in a driver’s struggles, and love to tear down someone who seems to be a happy bubbly person. And while some of that is maybe inherent sports tribalism (which I’m not really on board with tbh), I really think it’s reached a whole new low.

OK sorry I didn't mean for this to be such a long response! Hope that answers your question and I’d love to hear if anyone else has other thoughts/opinions too!! 🙂

[pippatis]

My very first 3D printer, which I bought in 2020, has recently suffered a malfunction of it's motherboard that would be too expensive for me to reasonably fix. As a result, I've decided to say goodbye to the old machine.

Never let it be said that I am not a sentimental person, though, because I felt compelled to memorialize it in the form of it's very own miniature 3D printed replica.

Thought it would also be fitting to have my first Pure Vessel, who was nearly all printed on that machine, pay homage to it as well.

Please join me in saying goodbye to my old X-Maker. You got me into this hobby. Printed so many Hollow Knight parts in your time, made so many of my customers happy. You will be missed.

I also wanted this post to be a sort of update for those of you who have been watching my Etsy. I'm going to be out of town for the remainder of June, and possibly the beginning part of July too, so I won't be selling any physical figures during at least that amount of time. I realize that I have been releasing new figures extremely slowly, and I've wanted to rectify that for a while now.

That is why I likely won't be selling any printed figures until I have a new one, or multiple, to include in my lineup. The death of my first printer has luckily spurred some motivation in me to 3D model once again, and I've been working on some personal projects aside from this tiny one. But after that, I'm going to do my damnedest to make some more Hollow Knight figures. Might branch off into Rain World territory as well, but I'm not totally sure yet.

Rest assured, I'll be working on it. Thank you all for your patience.

[sgiandubh]

Vox populi

Marketing 101:

The customer is always right.

What do certain clients have to say about a certain villa on a certain island?

I have used Booking.com, my longtime trusted provider. And I am underwhelmed.

Picture just to make sure we're talking about the same thing, right?

For having used Booking since 2010, I can say with great confidence that commenters are globally chillax, but fair (and I am a reviewer: it simply helps people who often run a family business and it's always a good thing to do, costs nothing). And for having vacationed/lived and extensively used all sorts of very similar accommodations in Greece (I very rarely need a hotel in Spain and would not venture to propose anything of the sort), I can immediately see two things: a) very few reviews and b) a damn bad score. I mean, Good on Booking is, to be honest, borderline shite, but a polite & a bit sorry borderline shite.

Price is logically aligned on an out of season market. It's definitely not what would I expect from a ⭐ semi-incognito. He's been spotted in way better places and we ALL know it.

This?

This is... but let's see what people who stayed there in the same season have to say:

Oh, my! Broken aircon! Cockroaches! Dirty!

What the hell?

Something sounds very, very off about this whole story, but I still can't tell what, nor make sense of this 🤡.

PS: I stayed in very similar conditions on Symi Island in the Empty Summer of 2020 and left at 3 AM for the ferry leaving at 6, I think, in a powerless fit of rage and with a very grumpy, sleepy and sarcastic Someone in tow. I gave those people a 4, too. I understand the sentiment perfectly.

[vanillabeanmachine]

Hi there.

Reaching out to let you know that I'm very, very much looking forward to reading 'No Letting Go'.

If I'm not mistaken I found your blog / this particular writing project when I came across another fan's post highlighting Daniel's book (A Shadow on the Skin) on Kaposi's sarcoma and the beginnings of the AIDS epidemic. Since then, I've been searching for meta - and specially fic - that explores Daniel's experience with the AIDS crisis, given that he not only reported on it but engaged in some high risk behavior (having sex with men for drugs, for one) during that time.

So I'd appreciate anything that you may wanna share regarding this specific plotline, if something of the sort is indeed to be featured in "No Letting Go".

Hiya @gardinha! 🤗 Thank you so much for reaching out with such a fantastic question! Honestly, there's so much I want to share that it was quite challenging for me to write this response!

At its core, “No Letting Go” is about intergenerational trauma in various forms, and I think it’s fair for me to say that no event has marred the collective queer psyche quite like the HIV/AIDS Crisis—and I think that, even in today’s era of PrEP, there remain aspects of that crisis that the queer community has yet to fully reconcile or "let go" of. To me, Daniel Molloy is a character who could embody much of this trauma, and could allow me to explore some of the impacts of the Crisis on individual and collective memory.

But where to begin?

AMC's "Interview With the Vampire" begins by positioning Daniel Molloy within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

And so I began with Larry Kramer.

Larry Kramer—who passed away in early 2020 from pneumonia while under lockdown and working on a new play titled "An Army of Lovers Must Not Die," which reportedly was intended to be about "gay people having to live through three plagues" (the third being aging)—was an AIDS activist. As a co-founder of the Gay Men's Health Crisis (the largest provider of resources to AIDS patients US-wide) and the grassroots activist group AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), Kramer's impact on both the community and public health advocacy was profound.

During the recent COVID-19 pandemic, Kramer notably re-entered the public conversation, his name being often brought up in conjunction with Dr. Anthony Fauci. Fauci, who first became the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in 1984 during the initial surge of the AIDS crisis—who has been a key figure in managing both the HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 health emergencies.

During the initial outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, I experienced an interesting discourse emerge in the queer leftist communities that I am a part of.

On one hand, there was a tangible, unified commitment across the community to prevent the spread of COVID-19. This collective resolve was directly fuelled by a desire to avoid the devastating losses similar to those experienced during the AIDS crisis. The phrase "remember AIDS?" frequently echoed within the community, serving as both a cautionary reminder and a rallying cry to ensure history did not repeat itself. This sentiment strengthened the communal effort to protect each other and highlighted a profound awareness of shared historical trauma.

But simultaneously, there was also a notable scepticism towards government health organizations like the CDC, a sentiment deeply rooted in the community's experiences during the AIDS crisis, when the government's response was notoriously inadequate. This distrust was further complicated by the fact that Dr. Anthony Fauci, a central figure during both the AIDS crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, headed these responses. The prevailing sentiments of "do not trust the CDC" and "don’t trust Fauci" resonated strongly within the community. (Ironically, these were the same slogans being adopted by anti-mask right-wing groups during the pandemic, highlighting a complex layer of shared mistrust that originated from very different motivations and historical contexts.)

This dichotomy, to me, really exemplified the ongoing impact of historical trauma on the contemporary queer community.

And so I took this back to Daniel Molloy for “No Letting Go.”

Starting in Act II—(Act I is set in a different historical moment that also cannot be “let go” of)—Daniel and Armand are deeply entrenched in the cultural and political fabric of the queer community during the early stages of the AIDS crisis, from 1981 to 1985. This period is captured through a mix of "more objective" flashbacks (though true objectivity is intentionally subverted, aligning with the narrative style of "Interview With the Vampire”) and the personal reflections of Daniel and Armand. The era, characterized by ambiguity and a nascent understanding of AIDS, offers a backdrop not just for exploring fear but more significantly, the political dynamics of the time.

My focus on the AIDS Crisis in “No Letting Go” is on how the community organized, responded, and survived rather than on the pervasive fear, using Daniel (who, perhaps, did not survive—according to the book canon) as a means of exploring this.

In "No Letting Go," Daniel Molloy in 1981-1985 is a still-human journalist living with Armand in their New York City apartment. Unlike a vampire, Daniel is deeply embedded in the community and its internal politics, which naturally sets the stage for tension between him and Armand, given their differing existential perspectives and capabilities. (But we won’t get into that for right now…)

The backdrop to Daniel's life during this period includes the 1978 publication of Larry Kramer's novel "Faggots," which Daniel sees as profoundly damaging to the community—and a personal attack on both Armand and himself. Kramer wrote "Faggots" to critique what he perceived as self-destructive and hedonistic behaviours prevalent within certain segments of the gay community—precisely the segments that Daniel is a part of. Kramer’s vocal support for monogamy and his stance against group sex, cruising, anonymous encounters, bathhouses, glory holes, BDSM, and the usage of both street and prescription drugs directly conflict with the lifestyle and freedoms cherished by Daniel and Armand.

So, in “No Letting Go,” I wanted to set Daniel in relation to the AIDS Crisis based on his stance within the broader discourse of queer liberation and the politics of barebacking. Daniel's animosity towards Kramer not only stems from their opposing views on sexual freedom but extends to Daniel rejecting  the safer sex practices Kramer advocated—such as limiting partners, abstinence, or condom use (things which would prove to be keys to survival during the AIDS Crisis). Daniel's perspective on AIDS is framed by his perception of Kramer as an adversary to his personal freedom.

Why should Daniel heed warnings from someone who opposes so much of what defines his community and personal identity?

To end with a content warning (just one of the many things in “No Letting Go” that earns it its place on @devils-minion-cult ‘s Devil's Minion Freak4Freak Porn AO3 list) please be aware that "No Letting Go" includes scenes set during the AIDS Crisis, depicted from Daniel’s perspective with an implicit element of bugchasing: the eroticisation of HIV. For Daniel, this is a natural progression of his established inclination to find sexual thrill in life-threatening scenarios. His tendency to eroticise elements that possess the potential to be lethal translates into a profound sexual stimulation derived from engaging in high-risk sex. And engaging in unprotected sex with a partner who could potentially be HIV positive represents the ultimate risk.

[holedaemon]

Warning: the following Post has been deemed pretentious by its author and is brought to you by the letter H

It's been a very heavy week in my own personal Bomb the Music Industry stratosphere! First off Jeff announced that Three Cheers, Vacation and 2020 DUMP were all (re)pressed onto vinyl. The very second I saw that announcement email from the newsletter, I locked in.

The second happening was that it was my turn to pick an album for the weekly music club I participate in. I spent a lot of time thinking about what album I wanted to share. I'm a very sentimental person, so that meant it had to be something that resonated with me just beyond the music itself. Last time, I chose ... Out to Lunch by Thirsty Guys: a ska-punk record that coincidentally draws a lot of inspiration from Bomb and also the album that got me to sign up for school in 2023. My life has changed rapidly since then & after much reflection, I realized my choice had to be SCRAMBLES. Even now looking at the track list, I see myself in a lot of these songs. Stuff That I Like for its disdain with the party scene. I turn 25! in six weeks and I still live with my parents. Can I Pay My Rent in Fun? because we're always at the whims of our jobs. Saddr Weirdr makes me think of who I'm about to leave behind as I get ready to move in with the person I love. But it's alright, even with the state of the world being what it is, Sort of Like Being Pumped reminds me that there's always some good out there, even if it's something as small as seeing the sun set on the tracks after a long work day. To make a long point short, I chose to share SCRAMBLES this week & I'm glad I did.

Yesterday was Valentine's Day and even though I'll be here to stay in hopefully a month or two, I flew out to Washington to visit my partner for it. A few days beforehand, I was telling them gushing to them about BTMI, its ethos and how to be true to its spirit. It's my favorite band not just because of the music, but because of the DIY and community-first values that were weaved into the fabric. Not because they were one of the few bands of the 2000s to play ska, but because Jeff tried his damnedest to make sure every show was $10 and all ages. Not for any damn reason you can think of, but because a poor college student could go out to a show in someone's basement and leave with a t-shirt and CD that was spray-painted & burned, for free, by the band themselves. It's important to stay true to these ideals, especially now that we're 10 years along from the last show. Which is why when I see people uploading ripped album cover assets to Redbubble I have to wonder if they truly knew what the band was about. Do what the band did & would tell you to do, make your own merch, make your own t-shirts or posters or bracelets, stay true to what it was. This is what I told my partner, and unbeknownst to me this is what they spent the next two days doing. Friday morning we gave each other our Valentine's gifts and as embarrassing as it is to admit, I cried quite a bit

[9w1ft]

Hey… I like how this page is still chill and calm despite everything happening around. Because it’s so difficult to be a TS fan right now. Like what is happening? Not a single post acknowledging the election, decking herself in red, hanging out with those people :/ it’s getting difficult, because we interpret her clothes, everything she does. Shouldn’t we also interpret what she is showing right now?? I know it’s part of her job. But then couldn’t she have picked a more moderate player someone whose support systems don’t scream maga?? This is a deliberate choice she has made. To fill the pockets of people who are wildly conservative. It’s not even about Kaylor anymore. So many years since that documentary and her so called growth and for her to turn around and do this to her image. I just :/

i don’t think that there is any one correct way to react so please don’t take this as me trying to prescribe a certain way of thinking about it onto everyone, it’s just my way of taking things in. i deeply recognize and respect your sentiments. let me share a bit about where im coming from

i think firstly, i came into this thing in early 2018, during the first trump presidency, and so these big level developments are more like a return to the environment from which i started. i think that it is probably even harder if you’re a gaylor or kaylor that came in to things after 2020. not saying it can’t be hard anyway, it is, but i think this might help give a little background to my mindset

next, i always saw miss americana as a coming out documentary that was pivoted and transformed into an activism-adjacent documentary. at the time a lot of us foresaw what this issues with that would come to be, and i think a lot of us recognized that she was setting herself up for very big image issues unless she took the new direction of the documentary in stride, which some of us assumed would not be something to expect. like, we had hope, but we were able to recognize how nuanced her particular situation was. like i think for a lot of us, the line in anti hero “did you hear my covert narcissism disguised as altruism like some kind of congressman” meant a ton because it showed a level of self awareness about the situation that we all assumed she had but didn’t have many straightforward examples to point to that said as much.

also i think that her unsuccessful attempt to unseat marsha blackburn in 2020 probably sent her spiraling back into the mindset she was in in 2016. that is to say, and im sorry this is an armchair psychologist thing to say but its based on what i observed from miss americana, subsequent interviews, and some of the lyricism of midnights, that taylor might worry deeply that her actions might affect political races negatively, and she might even feel cursed, or afraid of ruining things, by saying something. i don’t want to get into what i or we might think about that from an ethics standpoint because i think it’s an endless conversation but i think its worth pointing out that there is a level of stress that she probably feels that may paralyze her in ways that might not make sense to you or i. once again, im just trying to offer a potential answer as to why, not to make some sort of excuse.

then, past 2020, with the way i see things with kaylor, i believe taylor re-prioritized to focus more on her loved ones than to feedback from her fans. does this explain every move she has made since? not entirely, but i think it is somewhat more understandable —at least to me— than the popular gaylor notion that taylor is single gay and trying to dismantle the system.. or dating some other woman, the potential options of which get floated around do not seem, to me at least, to be people whose circumstances would make it difficult for her to come out or to express her political opinion. the stakes are simply not there for me, so i find these possibilities less likely whereas i find kaylor to offer several more likely scenarios

i’m sorry.. ive rambled on again haven’t i.

as for the way things are going presently, it sure ain’t ideal!! but i’ve decided to believe that the majority of taylor’s decisions up until now were considered and implemented with some level of thought and intention on her part, weighing the benefits and risks to herself and to some extent, the world, but that her thought process and decision making is informed by information and pressures the likes of which you or i simply cannot fully know. i believe that, if i was in her shoes, i would be able to understand how grey a lot of the choices are for her. empirically speaking, a lot of them would still probably not make sense to me but, i believe my ability to understand would deepen.

i think for me what i have decided for myself is that blogging about kaylor here on tumblr is something that is interesting to me and fulfilling in all these weird internet ways, and that so long as i find it worthwhile to my life and so long as i keep meeting and hearing from you or others that tell me they appreciate my.. i guess.. more lighthearted?… approach to it? ill continue. i think its a kind of internet record worth keeping.

also, throughout the years i’ve just reconfirmed again and again for myself that we as fans really do not have an affect on taylor’s or karlie’s actions, especially contemporarily. and i think this has also lifted a little bit of the stress i used to place on myself under the assumption that maybe they might read some of our blogs or our feedback and that maybe i or we had some responsibility to affect them in some way. i just don’t think that’s the case, as they provedly do not listen to the big stuff. and even if they did, i doubt we have the background information needed to provide a truly informed opinion. and oh, i guess, maybe they check in idk idk idk who knows but, i now see this all as an activity in observation chiefly and maybe once in awhile if we are lucky, a comet might pass on by.

ack! i’m rambling again.

i guess one more parting thought related to this in a way is, when i came to tumblr back in 2018, there were a handful of blogs that had a similar setup or demeanor as my blog currently does, and, especially after late 2018, but late 2019 as well, and again in 2020, and i guess again in 2021 😆, i watched as one by one these types of blogs resigned or deactivated. and within this landscape, i recognized there was a need for blogs like these. if they all disappeared… well… it wouldn’t have been good for the ecosystem and the people living it. so as the years went by i continued to build my outlook and blog into what it is presently. hopefully it is useful or provides some space for you or other to unfurrow your brow for a second. rest is also important.

[charlidos]

I keep thinking of everything Orlando said about Viggo in this interview from 2013, since it's so heartfelt. And I feel I need to delve a little deeper into his words. VERY deep.

"That's a very easy question for me to answer. VIGGO MORTENSEN."

Viggo is definitely in a category of his own, in Orlando's mind (and I think most would agree!). He answers Viggo so quickly, without any hesitation. He's without question the one who influenced him the most, despite working with all those other wonderful people. And I bet O would do anything to have a reunion on screen with Viggo. (As would I.)

"I sat next to Viggo Mortensen [...] every day for TWO YEARS nearly."

Viggo started filming mid-October 1999 and the original shoot ended at the end of December 2020. That's 14 months, not 24 months... (They didn't do any reshoots together, O only came over to see Viggo at those final reshoots and waded across a beautiful, moonlit river and O said he was in love with V... sort of). So O added a significant amount of time spent with V. Why? Because it felt like a lifetime? O himself spent 18 months in NZ, including those months of preparation, when Viggo definitely wasn't there, since we all know he arrived at the very last minute. I wonder if, in retrospect, it feels like Viggo was there the whole time? Or if O still remembers, for real, that there was a Stuart-phase too? (But that's a topic for a whole other post.)

"Viggo Mortensen had the biggest impact on me in terms of approach, dedication, intention and artistic outlook."

It feels like O would count basically everything included in life here... It feels like Viggo was his entirely world, for a while. It's actually weird how they ended up in quite different places in life, fame and work. Viggo lives mostly far away from Hollywood while O lives more or less in the middle of it. And I always wonder in what way O brought Viggo's role model with him to his work. Hopefully at the very least by being a good person, treating everyone with respect.

"I'm nowhere CLOSE to how gen.. how good he is as an artist. I wouldn't even put myself in the same category as an actor."

There really is no limit to O's admiration of Viggo. It's like he's a god. And maybe that also means a little unattainable, perhaps? There is something wistful about the way he speaks about Viggo, even when he's idolizing him to the max. Maybe because he fervently wishes to be near this genius artist again? To absorb his greatness again. Maybe because O feels he can't live up to his ideal/his idol? Because he lifts Viggo to the skies, but talks himself down, a bit.

"As a human being he had a very big influence on me. He's a very generous soul, a very dedicated soul."

It's obvious that Viggo's influence on him isn't at all limited to work, but also includes how to be as a human, how to live your life. O may be a buddhist, but really, V is his spiritual guide, his sensei, his god. His Viggod. (Let us worship.)

"He was like a mentor, without me even knowing that's what he was doing because I was probably too young to really understand and appreciate it at the time."

If you look at all the 2947294 times he's said how much he admires Viggo, how he was a mentor, how he wanted to BE Viggo, even back in 2001-2003, it's a little difficult to see that he didn't appreciate it at the time... I think he DID appreciate it, it's just now he's being sentimental about it. I think he just misses those days with Viggo, he wants to go back. Don't we all feel like that about a happy past memory? Like why didn't I see then how extremely good that was? Even though you did, since you were indeed happy. It's just that you want to go back to those moments, and truly savour them, since you don't know exactly how much they'll matter until they're gone.

"As I'm older now and I look back, I always think wow! Just the person that he was, the actor and how he was, with me, was so wonderful."

I kind of want to add O's own words "it makes me sound like I'm in love with the guy". Because yes, that is indeed what this sounds like. The way he says "so wonderful" just has this very "sigh! Viggo is such a dream!" tone. But again, it also sounds so very wistful. It's a cherished memory, but it's also something lost, I feel.

"We trade emails. We were out of touch for quite a while."

It really is no wonder he's feeling so very sentimental about those days with Viggo. They lost touch for "quite a while" (since around 2008 - since they both met new people...). In my ears, it sounds quite sad. From being a part of Viggo's every day life, to losing touch and trading a few emails (which neither of them seem to be that fond of). I wonder if Viggo got in touch to congratulate Orlando on becoming a dad? And that's why they started communicating again?

"But you know, Viggo's an artist. He's not just an actor, he's actually an artist."

To me, it sounds like he's explaining why they were out of touch for a longish period of time. Otherwise I don't understand the segue from saying they're trading emails. In my view, he's saying they lost touch because of this trait, because of Viggo's artist personality. Or perhaps just that he's very busy, having so many arts to pursue, so many talents to hone. Like Viggo is someone who is a little hard to hold on to. He had him daily, to himself sometimes even, for all that time in NZ, that the contrast must have seem huge. O was extremely busy after filming LotR, but I think what he's talking about is the period from around 2008 until a while before this interview. O wasn't quite as busy then, I believe, work-wise at least. Except for having a kid... But I sense that for O this smarted a bit, this absence. Of course, if you add the dimension of them possibly having a love affair before, then perhaps this distance happened because of a break-up. Which might have been painful. And would explain that trace of sadness in how he says this.

"He can paint, he can write, he can sing, he can dance, he can play music. He can do it all. He can take you fishing, he can take you into the wild. He's the guy who does it all."

I can't get over how much of a fanboy O really is. His admiration for Viggo is through the roof! The sky is the limit here, Viggo really is godly, the one you can't quite reach, the perfect man, the unattainable goal. O spent every day with him for so long, and yet he can't find fault with him. The only problem is that he's out of reach for O now. But perhaps O thinks that's his own fault, never Viggo's? Also, we know Viggo took O into the wild - and got lost. O doesn't blame him for that either. I guess that just turned into a magical adventure, particularly with time, Now he probably thinks of it as a perfect night, spent with the perfect man, forgetting the mosquite bites, being thirsty, being scared. I do wonder if O has a little shrine dedicated for Viggo at home. Incense and photos and all. And if they once were in love, O is definitely not over him. And will never be, I guess.

"Most men WISH they were Viggo Mortensen."

Again, Viggo has no bigger fanboy. He already said this once before, back in 2001. But then he said he himself wanted to be Viggo. So that never changed. Still hasn't changed, I imagine. When you see him press himself into Viggo at the LotR premieres, it's like O wanted to melt into him, become part of Viggo. Maybe that's what he meant by being Viggo? :)

"He's devastatingly handsome and cool."

O says this a little off-handedly, somehow. A little quietly. I love that he adds that extra adjective, he's not just handsome, he's devastatingly so. Nothing is ever normal with Viggo as far as O is concerned. Viggo is the perfect man, after all.

"He would hate me. Viggo, I apologise, I apologise, please don't hate me. It's all love. He would hate the fact that I've sad any of that, but he's that kind of guy too."

O knows Viggo pretty darn well. He spent such a long time with him, seeing his every day mood, seeing him under stress, working, on holiday, out in the wild. Really most aspects of life (except, I guess, normal life outside NZ - but then, what do I know? Maybe he did that too?). So he knows how self-effacing Viggo is, how humble and not prone to any narcissism. But it also implies that Viggo perhaps isn't that good at accepting compliments? He probably doesn't like being fawned over; maybe one reason he prefers to live outside of the rather narcissistic Hollywood bubble. O seems to regard this as another amazing trait Viggo has. Not only can he do anything, he also never brags about it. For some reason, this statement seems a little sad as well. The way he speaks to an imaginary Viggo - whom he hasn't seen in a long while, afraid (maybe not 100% seriously, but still, a little) of ruining their maybe frail rebuilt friendship.

All in all, as lovely and loving as O is about Viggo here, it's also so rife with melancholy. O adores Viggo so much, I definitely feel he misses him terribly. That maybe he feels he lost him along the way, regardless of whose "fault" it is, if anyone's. And regardless of what kind of relationship they used to have. There's a Viggo-shaped hole in O's life. I get the feeling this is still true for O. I hope they did rekindled at least their friendship at one point.

I would love to hear Viggo speak of O one day too.

[chrisgraves09]

Okey more rambling-

I’m pretty sure most of you know by now that my favorite Pokémon is this goober, right?

It actually is quite simple on why that is! But first, a lil’ refresher!

Back in like early to mid 2018 when I was 14, I have just got into the Pokémon franchise from watching many videos of it. And surprisingly, my favorite Pokémon back then wasn’t Pichu; it was Emolga that I liked. Reason? Because it was cute. Second favorite electric mouse would be Pachirisu and that was thanks to the Pokémon anime, specifically the Diamond & Pearl and Black & White. That’s how my hyperfixation on Pokémon started lmao. Drawing a few Pokémon, creating some of my own (like Icebon, Jerbounce, etc.) and embarrassingly watching AMVs of the Pokémon anime and the show.

Now, once Christmas time was around the corner, I was anticipating on getting Super Smash Bros Ultimate along with a few other games for my Nintendo Switch as it has released on that month. On Christmas Day, I got it and played through the Adventure Mode and finished it with all characters unlocked. Now, the characters that I’ve used for the Galeem & Dharkon final boss were Mega Man, Luigi, and Kirby. Interestingly enough, they were my first mains that I would use for Smash at all, since I’ve never played the other four Smash games before (yes, I’m counting both Sm4sh WiiU & 3DS as one game, sue me-). But there is one other character that I would main a few times during both Adventure Mode and Smash Mode. And that was Pichu. I even drew the four mains with a sketchbook that I also got for Christmas.

Anyways, while I was on my Smash hyperfixation as time went on, I’ve heard about one kinda harsh thing about Pichu in Smash Bros: he’s considered a joke by the Smash fandom and is called the weakest fighter in the game (at least, from what I heard that he was when Melee was a thing, but like, wgaf about Melee lmao). I don’t know, I just felt ashamed, unhappy, or just lost about that sentiment. I mean, I don’t think Pichu’s called that anymore from what I see nowadays, but it still sort it lingers around my mind not a lot, but sometimes. It kind of affected me by a margin that I don’t play as Pichu as often during Online Play. Like, what if I play as Pichu and someone during an online match plays as one of the heavy fighters like Bowser or Ganondorf? In that scenario, I would get very anxious AND scared about the outcome because I’m literally playing as the smallest and most cutest fighter against a behemoth that could just instakill me with only one move. I don’t feel that way about the other fighters sometimes, but with Pichu alone.. I legit fear the worse about being humiliated by the thought.

Mid-late 2019! So by that time, I was already a Nintendo fan with both Smash Bros. and Pokémon on my side (with Mario and others lol). New games Pokémon: Sword & Shield has just been announced and showed and you can guess that was my hyperfixation this year as that’ll be my second time playing a Pokémon game (the first was actually Let’s Go, Pikachu!) The whole Dexit controversy did sort of affected me a bit, but not much. Where was I? Oh right! So by the time of high school winter break, I grew more fond of Pichu that I drew myself with it a few times lol

It’s a weird feeling, you know? Where you just grew more and more fond of a character or thing you found interest in. I’m not sure what that word is called but, I definitely feel that way about Pichu. By the time the year 2020 hit, I definitely drew more doodles of my sona with Pichu.

It’s like Pichu has become the most defining part about me. A nerd with a small cute mouse by his side. While yes, it’s cringy, but honestly I don’t care what people say. Pichu’s like a son to me, a sign of comfort when I need it. I shouldn’t be judged for having some type of comfort in my life whenever I feel stressed or miserable. Which led to me getting a Pichu plush of my own for Christmas!

“Ew, an 18 year old kid getting a pokemon plushie? Cringe!” - says a non-existent individual before I find their house and staple their lips together.

So the one question that I might get asked is, why do I like Pichu out of all Pokémon?

Well, it’s cute for one thing. Another would be that I hate when it gets made fun of for being too weak and vow to not let anyone hurt it. But the last reason is kinda personal to me: Pichu is like, my comfort character that I needed. If I get stressed out and need to take a breather from something, Pichu would be there to clear my mind of anything. It sounds weird and corny but, I can’t imagine a world without Pichu in my life. If I didn’t have Pichu come into my life, I’ll just be… nothing. And I’m grateful that that didn’t happen. Basically in Pokémon terms, I’m basically Ash and Pichu is Pikachu lmao (evident by me doing a cringy ass story of my sona adopting Pichu back in 2021)

Yes, I know it’s weak you say. It ain’t exactly the pick that I would choose as a Pokémon, you might say. A small baby mouse is an awful comfort character that some non-existent dickhead would say. But in all honesty, I legit don’t care.

Literally call me cringe, corny, or any other names that braindead idiots would call me. Why should it matter to you what type of comfort character anyone has at all? It really isn’t necessary making fun of them for what gives them comfort and happiness in their probably not-so good life (unless that comfort is something really bad and I can kinda understand that).

This week has really showed me that it doesn’t matter what kind of fandom you’re in, there will always be a bunch of morons coming at you in any social media platform you’re in and say idiotic things about you and the thing you find comfort in. It’s sad that this happens way too often in so many fandoms I’m in like FNaF, Friday Night Funkin’, even Battle for Dream Island if today and yesterday are to go off of. No one should be afraid to show what comfort character they find themselves passionate to because, if this is the generation we’re living in now where we’re not allowed to be passionate to things on the internet with trolls ruining our fun, no one will be happy and we’ll all be pissed 24/7 with how the world is today.

Getting back to the main ramble, what I’m saying is that: Never be afraid to show what you’re passionate for and what your comfort character is. Ignore what the numbskulls say, as long as that comfort character makes you happy and the way you are, you’re good. 👍

For me, Pichu will always be the comfort character I need for a long while.

[alpaca-clouds]

Some Solarpunk Game Ideas

Folks seem to enjoy me writing a bit about Solarpunk, so let me bring in something, that I have been thinking about a lot: Solarpunk in videogames. Because so far, all we have in that direction basically goes into some sort of city builder (Anno 2070), anti city builders (Terra Nil) or some sort of farming or crafting game.

The issue, I think, a lot of game developers, who want to do something with the genre, struggle against, is the rather peaceful and idealistic nature of Solarpunk. A lot of people do not feel it is right to make a Solarpunk game combat oriented. But most game genres are kinda reliant on some sort of combat. Now, while I disagree with this assessment (Solarpunk is as much about rebellion, as about the hopefully idealistic outcome of it), I understand the sentiment.

I personally would love to create a Solarpunk game, but on my own I just do not have the skills for that.

Still, I have thought about it a lot. So, I want to offer to you a couple of ideas for Solarpunk games in different genres, that could be developed. Yes, if you are interested in building out one of those ideas, you are welcome to just take it. Also: Yes, if you want more details on the ideas, you can totally contact me! No fear.

Visual Novel

Let me start with probably one of the genre most easily used under the umbrella of “peaceful”. A Visual Novel. Visual Novels can be all sort of storylines. A lot, obviously, are romance focused, but you can use the genre to tell all sort of stories. Hence, telling a story in a Solarpunk world, could be very easy. And technically you are almost unlimited, about the kind of story you want to tell.

My personal favorites, when it comes to the ideas, is for once a polyamorous romance VN. See, most romance focused VNs do have different story paths depending on which romance you pursue and within that storyline you are very linear. I do think for several reasons, that polyamory and Solarpunk work very well together – so, why not try and mix it up?

Another idea, though, could be a storyline about building up a community within a storyline featuring the challenges of building a new community. Both social problems, as well as technical and environmental issues. This one would actually build a lot around the characters within the community you build and about you getting to know them.

Puzzle Game

Another genre that works well without any sort of violence, is puzzle games. And there would be a lot of possibility here to explore. After all, you can find a lot of reasons the player has to do puzzles of all sort.

The idea I have for this genre, is the idea of repairs. A lot of Solarpunk is also build around the “right to repair” and also around community help and community workshops. So, as the player you take over the role of someone volunteering in such a workshop helping all sorts of different customers with their repair and DIY projects. To repair things, you have to complete all sorts of puzzles.

Point-and-Click Adventure

Another genre, that most of the time does not involve much violence, is that of the old Point-and-Click Adventure. These often, obviously, have a lot of puzzle elements, too, but obviously tends to have a lot more story advancement in there. A lot of the most notable examples of the genre, are rather focused on humor, though you can tell all sorts of stories with the genre, if you really wanted to.

My idea for this, is the story of an archeologist in anno 2500 Solarpunk future unearthing the remains of an ancient 2020s city. A kinda genre reversion of the entire Indiana Jones thing – only that instead of someone being all archeologist-adventurous about something from what we call the “ancient past”, it is people from the future exploring the present. I don’t know. I found that idea kinda cute.

RPG

Now, last genre and idea for today. RPGs typically tend to be combat focused and use combat and XP claimed from it to advance. But of course the basic of it – Role Playing – does not need to use combat as a mechanic. You could use all sorts of mechanics to do this. You do not even need any sort of level progression technically – though of course this mechanic is so closely linked to the core of the game genre, that it is hard to think without it. Still, there recently have been quite a few cozy RPGs, that do not feature combat.

Cozy RPGs often feature you helping other characters and advancing through that. So, why not make it an RPG about mutual aid within a young Solarpunk community. Things of all sorts need to be done. Someone needs you to find a certain spare part. Someone else needs you to find people willing to help with a roof repair. Yet another person wants you to help in the community kitchen. And maybe at the same time you and the people in your town are trying to repair the environmental impact on the surrounding area, leading you to go out into the wildness around.

That’s it for some ideas right now. I might post other ideas at some other point, if you guys are interested.

As I said, I would kinda love to develop some ideas, but… Not alone. So… We’ll see.

[liskantope]

Today in Political Facebook Posts I Want To Complain About (really this kind of post should have its own tag): someone posted a meme with rainbows and the words "Wishing all THE HOMOPHOBES a super uncomfortable month".

I'm sort of down with this and my first instinct isn't to be critical (although the comment under it, suggesting we extend this to the whole year and towards not only homophobes but everyone to the right of "us [far on the left]" -- not my paraphrasing: the phrase "anyone right of us" is literally there -- annoys me considerably more), but it also doesn't feel like the kind of sentiment anyone should want to spread around in the service of being one's best self, somehow. This instead appears to reflect the insistence on a "warrior mode" model of the world which I find profoundly unsettling. I don't really want anyone of any social/political persuasion to feel uncomfortable unless it's a kind of discomfort that directly leads to growth. I feel kind of like responding with something like "Wishing all THE HOMOPHOBES a super enlightening month in which their exposure to gay stuff makes them chill out and realize that 'the gays' are actually pretty cool and not so scary after all."

I think also, part of what rubs me the wrong way about statements like that is that it comes across to me below the surface as, in a way, a form of bullying through exploiting the fact that today, throughout most of Western society, LGBT people and allies have the power to get in the faces of anti-LGBT people and not vice versa on a cultural level. Even as recently as 20 years ago, it wouldn't really make sense to wish an uncomfortable month on homophobes because Pride was still something that was pretty marginalized -- there was a vigorous culture around it and plenty of allies, but it wasn't being blasted into everyday awareness through slogans emanating from every major company, from the White House, etc. But in the 2020's, it is. Homophobes in 2004 didn't have to feel uncomfortable because, at least in most places, they could just completely avoid gay stuff mostly by not being around actual Pride events. Now they generally can't avoid it. And, much as I'm cynical about "corporate wokeness" and companies' role in making such a dramatic turnaround over the past decade, I'm glad that things are as they are in the 2020's rather than as they were in the '90's or '00's. But while for good rather than for evil, the pendulum has swung in the direction of giving the gay rights side the power of shoving it in conservatives' faces. And as soon as you step back from the object-level position of "pro- gay rights is the correct stance" and open your range of vision to include the other side's point of view, "I hope homophobes have an uncomfortable month" becomes "We happen to have the establishment very visibly on our side nowadays, so now I hope that that gets rubbed in your face as much as possible."

It reminds me of a (completely unrelated) Facebook friend, extremely on the progressive end of the spectrum but with a ton of conservative extended family, who a few years back got reported for posting a picture of herself breastfeeding her baby. Of course Facebook didn't respond to the report by taking down the picture because Facebook's policy was that breastfeeding doesn't constitute nudity and is okay. My friend never found out which conservative relative reported her picture but decided the most mature way to show her disdain for them was to post a dozen or so more pictures of herself breastfeeding in order to get back at them by making them super uncomfortable, openly stating that this was her purpose. Now, I'm 100% on the side of there being nothing wrong with breastfeeding in public or with images of it being publicly posted, that it shouldn't be considered sexual or indecent, and that attitudes against it probably ultimately stem from a form of misogyny. But I couldn't help interpreting my friend's response in light of "what if the shoe were on the other foot" or "what if the established rules (on Facebook) were the other way around", so that her behavior looked an awful lot like "Well we have a disagreement and Mom/Dad/Teacher the established authority (Facebook) happens to have taken my side of it, so now I just get to rub that in your face, nyah nyah nyah."

Yes, I know what the obvious response to my views is: how can I criticize an attitude of wanting to maximize enjoyment that a large part of culture is on the pro-LGBT side, let alone call it something like "bullying", when LGBT people have still overall had a pretty raw deal (and the T part of the acronym is still struggling badly to win the culture war, although I'd argue that's a bit of a digression from this post's question). And that something similar (though I have a vaguer idea of what it would be) could be said regarding the breast feeding in public issue. There is a point there, which is part of why a good bit of my gut goes "yeah, let the homophobes feel uncomfortable now; after all, they spent a good part of living memory making gay people feel uncomfortable, completely wrongly." But that still comes across to me as embracing a naive sort of "punching up vs. down" model of moral argument, and either way, it certainly doesn't seem like the path toward changing hearts and minds.

[subspaceskater]

Do you have any celeste mod recs? My friend finished Farewell a while back and I feel like she'd enjoy chewing on some more fun level designs.

yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay i love questions. i'm gonna go through some basic stuff before i get into my personal recs.

so if she hasn't done any modding at all then the first step is installing the modloader. it has all the information you'll need on now to do that https://everestapi.github.io/

don't worry about downloading dependencies when you get the mods, when you launch the game through the modloader it'll go through and download all the dependencies you're missing.

then go here to find map mods. there's all kinds of other mods on the site but those are to be applied per taste so i shan't recommend them. https://gamebanana.com/mods/cats/6800?

what i did at first was just kind of sort it by most downloaded or most liked and then just read the descriptions for the top ones and downloaded whatever i liked the sound of. there's a lot of good mods out there and the scene is just getting bigger and bigger!

there's also the celeste modding central youtube which has trailers for things and is a good way to find mods that maybe came out recently https://www.youtube.com/@CelesteModdingCentral

another thing to do is just like pay attention to difficulty levels on the mods.

beginner levels are usually a-side to early b-side difficulty

intermediate are late b-side, most c-sides, and some of farewell

advanced are around or higher than the difficulty of the hardest farewell and c-side maps and will often introduce mechanics that arent in the vanilla game but aren't too difficult to perform if you've already cleared farewell

expert is above all vanilla difficulty and will introduce mechanics that are hard to do! lots of scary shit here. but very cool looking maps. i havent really finished any expert mods but i've been able to clear a few rooms in the ones i've tried/the ones in collabs.

grandmaster is above everything else. this is where you go when you're bored of expert or really wanna do sicko shit. it's cool.

however it's also important i think to play maps that are below the difficulty level you can complete. because a lot of them are fun! and cute! and just because you can clear it in one try with no deaths doesnt mean you won't enjoy the experience. a lot of them have really cute custom art or music or custom mechanics and they're completely worth it.

now i'll put my actual recs under a cut

of course i'll just start by saying the 2020 spring collab is maybe the most well known mod because it is so fucking good. this is a great place to start and a great place to just have a big mod with a bunch of maps in it that you can complete without digging for a ton of things.

the strawberry jam collab, secret santa 2022, and secret santa 2023 are also all really good. the second two have lots of in jokes between modders that i dont really get because i only really play mods without being involved with the scene but that doesn't detract from them being fun to play.

i will say that my biggest gripe with collab packs is that sometimes there will just be a level in one that i hate. never like a bad level but just something that is antithetical to what I enjoy in a map! and it feels a little bad to be like "no i'm not fucking doing this" and just ignore one map in a floor and then not be able to do the big combination map at the end. but it's fine. maybe you aren't as whiny of a bitch as i am.

glyph is a huge one that a lot of people love. it has a bunch of really cool stuff. cannot recommend glyph enough. it has its own b-sides.

into the jungle is a custom campaign the ramps up in difficulty starting from where 7-A was.

rupture is really good. short intermediate mod with 16 rooms.

lucy's summit is a fun beginner difficulty summit remix. (a kind of mod that just sticks to vanilla level theming.)

cosmic sands is a short intermediate map with some fun mechanics i enjoyed a lot

sentimental is a 10 room intermediate map with some cool secrets

and nutty noon :) kirby.

that's probably enough recommendations.

[joannaliangart]

Nests series:

Flee The Nest (2020) 29.5 × 21 × 23 cm Old wood planks, eggshells, dried plant material (bindweed, ivy, bramble), paper and ink, pencil, fork, serrated metal, broken ceramic, broken seashell, sharp rocks, acrylic paint

build a home (2020) 3.5 × 15 × 15 cm Dried plant material (grass, moss, birch bark), fabric, tinfoil, old pen, feathers, eggshells, dried acrylic paint, cat hair, paper and ink, pebbles

Flee The Nest is about unnoticed struggles behind closed doors. From the front, the birdhouse looks pleasant and unassuming, but the back reveals a mess of broken eggshells in a nest built with sharp objects like broken ceramic, or serrated metal.

build a home is about rebuilding after a bad situation. Sharp bits of eggshell serve as reminders of the past. This nest is made of sentimental materials: fabric from childhood clothes, an old pen, a maple seed for flying off to new beginnings. 

---

Two of the staple pieces in my ib art exhibition! fun fact while shaving down one of the planks for the birdhouse I fully stabbed my left palm with the craft knife and it wasss fairly deep! not fun. so that piece really did take blood sweat and tears lmao

Initial idea came from wanting to use eggs in a piece! Especially quail eggs.. the beautiful blue colour on the inside! So I would very carefully peel the eggs I had for lunch and clean them hehe:

I believe I made these pieces over summer break, or maybe it was in the spring term? pandemic times got a little soupy. But I remember pretty distinctly going out to gather plant material in the sunlight. For Flee The Nest's nest, I used bindweed and brambles (to fit the 'trapped/unsafe' themes. Was kinda tricky trying not to get poked by thorns during nest building lol)

Nest building! did have to use glue for the foundational structure of sticks/leaves at the bottom, but nothing else is glued down. Made me appreciate the skills of birds...

Used an old fence plank for the birdhouse! Which included taking a hammer and pliers to fuck up one of the walls for the broken-in part of Flee The Nest haha (+a little peek at my very first garden in the bg of that first photo below!!)

Bird house building (ie the part of the process were I got stabbed at one point lmao) (I say lmao now but hoo boy it was. kinda rough I feel like I could see visible flesh/fat ???? it was wild But! I'm healed now and have a scar to fuckin immortalize this piece forever into my hands lol):

Here's how I wrote about these two pieces back in 2020 for my class:

Flee The Nest is about how we are unaware of the struggles going on in other people’s lives. From the front, the birdhouse looks pleasant and unassuming, but the back reveals a mess of broken eggshells in a rough environment. They’re in a nest with sharp objects like broken ceramic, serrated metal, and seashell shards. Although the nest’s main structure is made with what looks like soft plant material, I used two plants that can kill and overwhelm other plants: bindweed (an invasive species in my area) and ivy. I also used sharp plants like holly, bramble, and rose stems. I chose lines from the more negatively charged poetry I’ve written to copy onto strips of paper, interwoven into the nest to show how personal and emotionally draining these unseen struggles can be. Although build a home is a sort of continuation from Flee The Nest, I personally do not consider them a series in order to emphasize their separation from each other*. build a home is about recovering and rebuilding yourself after getting out of a bad situation, which typically involves staying as far away from it as you can. This nest is made of symbolic things in my life that are comforting like fabric from childhood clothes, an old pen I wrote with, binder clips my cat likes to steal, feathers from pillows, my cat’s fur, and strips of paper with lines from more positively charged poetry I’ve written.  Bits of broken eggshell, tinfoil, and seashell shards serve as little reminders of the past. The dried maple seed is there to remind the viewer of the journey away from the bad situation, like how a maple seed flies down from the branches to start growing into a tree itself.

*author's note: that is sooo funny cause they are definitely a series to me now. Interesting how that changes. I think the progression is important, their connection is also their separation; the implied time in-between them is the escape to something better, a crucial step.

(cough can you tell I'd been having a Bad Time being stuck in the house during the pandemic lol)

Oh huh found another version of me writing about these two pieces in 2020 lol:

Flee The Nest is about the unawareness we have of the struggles in other people’s lives and the difficulties of living in and having to leave a bad situation. The front of the birdhouse appears pleasant and unassuming, but the viewer would need to look at the back to notice the messy nest inside. Only an even closer look would one notice the dangerously sharp materials making up the nest. I wrote lines of my negative poetry to symbolize an emotional struggle.  Harm happens all too discreetly. Build a home is chronologically after Flee The Nest, but they are not a series to emphasize their separation from each other. Build a home is about recovering after getting out of a bad situation, which typically involves staying as far away from it as you can. The nest is made of symbolically comforting things in my life like an old pen I wrote with, pillow feathers, my cat’s fur, and strips of paper with lines from positive poetry I’ve written. It’s built on feelings of safety and love.