#also trying out using alt-text for the first time!

[vvellerr]

i keep forgetting i can post art here. what a beautiful world!

[systematicallycapricious]

Arbitrary plurality resources post for the year

I noticed that a lot of the 'system tracking' resources out there focus heavily on "who's fronting and for how long in a day" rather than "who's generally active in a day". It's seriously been bugging me, especially since non-fronting and rarely-fronting system members are an established plurality experience! So after looking at other people's recommendations of the former for the umpteenth time, in my frustration, I just started looking through clerical apps on my phone for something, anything that could potentially be repurposed for system tracking.

Low and behold, ICloud Numbers has a handy-dandy auto-graphing feature, as well as an easy-to-use checkbox feature. Salvation at last! So in case anyone else might be in similar straits, I decided to make this post about it to show the set-up I drafted up.

Theoretically, other spreadsheet software could do something similar, or one could finagle it via a mishmash of methods. There might even be dedicated graphing software out there too, for all I know. (I didn't really research it. This one worked for me, after all. xP) So feel free to use whatever works best for you, if you make your own.

Also, a quick note: I'm unsure of how well this would work for a larger system. If any folks interested in this for larger systems are reading, this is your fair warning that this might not be best suited to you. But please, feel free to read through anyways and see if I'm wrong, or if you can find a way to adapt anything here to your needs!

Anyways, that said, screenshots and explanations of things:

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Blank Monthly Template

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The blank template version of the spreadsheet, because it's so much easier to just copy and paste this than create a whole new spreadsheet page every time.

Going in order of the features...

First off, the color scheme and layout. You can change the colors of the cell backgrounds, all of the text, any shapes you add (like lines), and the page background to any color you like. You can also position elements pretty much anywhere on the sheet that you like. (Personally, I like to keep the spreadsheet in the upper-left because it's faster to access when it's the default loading position of a page.)

Next, the title text elements. Honestly? You don't really need to put anything there if you don't want to. It was just kind of there already with the basic 'school attendance sheet' template I started this from, so I kept it.

If you intend to set it up like I have it, though: “SysName” is for your system (or subsystem, or group of system members') name, though you could use your body name or a specific member's name or whatever-have-you, too.

“Any& can tick boxes at day's end” is a reminder or regulation thing, I guess? I intended it to remind headmates that the job didn't have to fall to just a specific person, and also to invite them to mark their own activity down if they'd like. If other systems have rules on who can and can't do what, though, then maybe it could be helpful to note that here?

The 'one asterisk for P.M.S., two asterisks for period' thing I added because it seemed like it might be useful to the systems that experience it, given hormones can affect mood, dealing with blood or pain can incur various negative reactions, it can involve sensory issues for those with sensory differences, people who don't track days passing very well might be helped by a record of their cycle, etc. For plurals who don't experience it, or who have other things that might be helpful to track like this, you could probably modulate or remove it from your own version?

“Attendance Sheet — Month 20[blank]” is a title to denote the purpose, as well as what month it's specifically for. If you create a different spreadsheet file (not page) for each year, though, you might not need to label the year on the sheets themselves? The file title could suffice in that case.

“Important life context” is to help give future-you context on what was going on in that month, as life happenings can affect who in your collective is active and when. You can pretty much put whatever you find useful here, but make sure to only limit it to what goes on within that month. (Happenings can still span over multiple months, though; just make sure to note it down on all months that it's applicable to.) Also, if you needed more than 3 bullet points for this, you could change the location of the text element to somewhere with more space.

The “Date” column is for every day in the month. I personally keep all 31 rows for dates on the spreadsheet, even in months with less than 31 days, as it's easier to just change the absent days to “N/A” than it is to adjust the spreadsheet template every month. As for the blank cell in the date column... I believe I had to separate it from the “Total” row beneath it due to it messing with something to do with the auto-graphing? But I honestly don't remember, so maybe try to combine that with the row below it in your version.

The “Total Active Per Day” column adds up the total number of checkmarks in the row that each cell inhabits. Thus, basically tallying how many people in the collective are active each day. I added this metric because I was curious about how many of the total member count were active at a given time, and if that fluctuated at different times of the year, or in different circumstances. It can also be a useful insight to how active the system is when life changes occur, like if your physical health is greater or lesser, if you're starting a new medication, etc., so you can see concrete information that doesn't rely on your own internal memory of time or events.

All the columns labeled “Headmate A” and “HM B through S” are for you to put headmate names, monikers, emojis, etc. in. If you don't know who someone is yet, but have evidence or a feeling that someone is there, you can also use temporary monikers such as “Unknown chores-person” or “Rando 1” or whatever works for you. Just make sure you keep their spot in the spreadsheet if you ever update their column header; that way your data stays more consistent and easier to track!

Also, just in general, I don't recommend messing with the places you put system members' columns, as that can make it more difficult to find who is where at a glance. If you need to add someone in the middle of the sheet, make sure to apply that change to your template sheet and your yearly summary!

As for why the headmate names recur in the middle of the spreadsheet's rows... I have trouble visually tracking what column is which when I can't see the headers, so splicing them into the middle of the month fixed that for me. If you don't need such a thing, you can feel free to remove it! It's not necessary for any of the cell coding.

Also related to the headmate columns is the “Max Days Integer” column. This is here specifically for graphing purposes, as things like the bar graphs like to auto-adjust to the highest number input into them, which can make them harder to read. This will have every day in that month checkmarked as to create a benchmark integer.

Lastly, the “Total” row is for tallying-up how many days out of the month that a single system member was active for. The cells are coded to add +1 for each checkmark in the column they inhabit – so make sure you don't accidentally check-off more boxes than there are days in that month!

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Filled Monthly Example

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This is a filled example of the monthly template! I tried to emulate believable patterns of activity, but I have no clue if I hit the mark, haha. Anyways, this should give you an example of how one of these looks like when used.

Also included in this example are example graphs! You can graph things however you find most useful, but I'll go over the ones I've used here. (Also, note that ICloud Numbers can't currently copy and paste graph templates, so you'll have to set them up anew every time you create a sheet. However, you can open the spreadsheet in two browser tabs at once and just copy and paste the various data-settings onto your new graphs, so long as you remember what cells you specifically linked them to, so that can help preserve uniformity at least.)

First off, the “Days Active” graph. This uses the data from the “Total” row to visually show you what each system member's activity was for that month. To create it, I selected only the cells in the columns labeled with headmates' names, not the whole row, as the blank space from the “Total Active Per Day” row might mess up the graph. (I don't remember specifically.) I also set the “major steps” to be “8”, a multiple of 40, so the data would be easier to read in relation to the days of the month. You can mess around with it and see what's easiest for you to comprehend, though!

Next, the “Total Active Per Day” graph. As you might be able to see by the empty “Date” and “N/A” entries, this reads the entire “Total Active Per Day” column from the spreadsheet and not just specific cells. This graph compares the numbers of total activity across all of the days in the month, and contrasts them against the total number of members in your collective (which you'd input in the cell that intersects the “HM-Total” row and “Total Active Per Day” column).

The T.A.P.D. graph has a major steps number of “10” and a minor steps number of “1”. I'd try to adjust the major steps number to be a multiple of your system's member count, as that way it should be easier to read.

Lastly, the “Activity Frequency” graph. This one also uses the “Total” row for set-up the same way the “Days Active” graph does, but for this one you exclude the Max Days Integer, as this graph is supposed to show you what percentage of the month one headmate was active for compared to the rest of the system. This one admittedly gets harder to read at smaller formatting sizes, as the thinner wedges lose and displace labels, but is also a pain if you make it too big on the page, especially when viewing from smaller screens.

As for the placement of the graphs, you can put them wherever you want on the sheet. I just put them below the spreadsheet, as I find it easier to scroll directly down than the full horizontal length of the spreadsheet.

(Also quick note regarding ICloud Numbers: as far as I know, graphs can only pull data from one spreadsheet at a time, and only from spreadsheets on the same page. So all of your system members will have to be put on the same sheet if you want them all to be on the same graph.)

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Yearly Summary, Filled Example

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And for our final page, we have the spreadsheet and graphs where you input all the data from the monthly spreadsheets to create a comprehensive, easy-to-review overview of the year. The formatting is pretty much the same as the monthly templates; you just reduce the date rows to '12' for labeling the 12 months in the year and fill the “Max Days Integer” column with the total number of days in each month for that calendar year. (Which means that you'll need to make sure to account for leap years!) Also, the guideline changes to 'adding numbers at the start of each month', and the title of the sheet changes to “Total Number of Active Days — 20[blank]”.

Basically, you update this spreadsheet every time you fill a full monthly spreadsheet. I find that doing it at the start of every new month is the easiest, since the idea of filling out the entire year at once seems too daunting, and this way I get to see the graphs update incrementally instead of having to wait a whole year. But you can do it in whatever way works best for you!

Also, you may notice that there's no “important life context” text element on this sheet. Personally, I think that reviewing that in each individual month would be more informative for me, but if you'd find it useful to have that here, then go for it!

As for the graphs...

The “Total Days Active” is set up the same as the “Days Active” from the monthly spreadsheets, just with 16 major steps instead of 8. It functions the same too; you're just seeing all of the single-month versions of this graph combined into one!

Again, the “Total Activity Frequency (Days)” graph is set up the same as the monthly version, and shows the combination of all of the single-month versions in its data. Pretty cool to see who was around the most and least in a year, in my opinion!

The “Monthly Activity (Individuals)” is specifically an “interactive graph”. This lets you flip through multiple data-sets while using a smaller amount of page space! To set it up like this, you want to create a cell-selection spanning your first headmate's “January” cell all the way to your last headmate's “December” cell, leaving out the “Max Days Integer” cells. The major steps is still set to 8 in this graph, as this graph compares one headmate's number of active days for each month in the year.

The “Total Active Per Month” graph is set up the same as it's monthly counterpart. The only thing is that you now have to do “the total number of members in your system” multiplied by “31” (that being the highest possible number of days in the month) in order to get the benchmark integer for “if every single member of your system was active every single day in a single month”.

This is probably something that would reach ridiculously high numbers for those with higher system counts – after all, it's already at “589” with this example count of “19”. So while it gives an interesting view of the data... it probably could be done in a less clunky way, lol.

And finally, this behemoth of a graph, another thing that probably doesn't work great at larger system counts, haha. You create this the same way as the “Monthly Activity (Individuals)” graph, but including the “Total Active Per Day” and “Max Days Integer” columns as well. Also, the major steps for this graph are 20, not 8. This graph basically lets you see the same data as the 'Individuals' version, but all at once, and with the ability to compare a single headmate's activity against the collective headmate activity for each month.

You could probably get away with using the 'Individuals' version alone if you wanted to; I just personally find it fun to be able to see them all at once.

...Also, evidently there's a column header typo of “Total Active Per Day” rather than “Total Active Per Month” on this spreadsheet that affects its entry on this graph. Oops!

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Additional Notes

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And that's a wrap! A very... lengthy... wrap... Lol.

Anyways, for 5 quick additional notes:

1: In hindsight, there should probably be a checkbox column for “Too unclear to tell” or “Bad communication”, as that in and of itself would be valuable data to track. So that could be appended to the start or end of the spreadsheet, perhaps?

2: You can put comments on individual cells in the spreadsheet. So if you want to put more nuanced detail on why or what system members were doing in a day, or note down on a 'date' cell what events were transpiring that day, then that's a thing you could do! Or if you wanted to use it to track plans you have for the month, you could also do that, in theory, though I'm not sure how useful that'd be given that comments aren't immediately visible like the cells' data is.

3: You can password-protect spreadsheet files in ICloud Numbers. It gives you the option to set unique passwords for each file, doesn't stop you from using the same password on multiple files, and has the option to set password hints if you need them. So if you'd find that helpful and not a hindrance, then that's an option!

4: I also drafted a version of this set-up to have two spreadsheets in a single month: one for 'active'-presence and one for 'passive'-presence. I did this while I was trying to combine a fronting-tracker with an activity-tracker, as fronting-trackers do still have their merits.

If you want to set something like that up, you basically have to duplicate everything on the monthly sheets to another section of a single month's sheet (or make a separate page for the same month if you want), and then either duplicate the contents of the yearly summary on the same page (not recommended; it gets long) or split the data up into 2 separate pages.

5: Aside from that, writers and character-creators who want to make super-intricate histories for their plural characters could probably adapt this to their purposes too. You'd just have to adjust the calendar to whatever calendar your setting uses, and anything else to whatever would be more useful for fictional purposes.

And that's it! Happy spreadsheeting, y'all!

[violet-dragongirl]

[id in alt text]

dark academia is when you have to read the crustiest pdf known to man

[thatonebabybat]

Being Masc & Goth

This blog usually isn't fashion-focused, but I was thinking about alt fashion and how it's sometimes a struggle to figure out how to style things in a masc way if you're interested in darkalt fashion, but you don't want to go too casual or basic with it. So I thought I'd throw together some tips, link some DIYs, and maybe throw in a few moodboards. I want to preface this with one thing: You do NOT have to adhere to traditional gender roles. Fuck anyone who tells you that you do. If you're a guy and you want to get into alt fashion don't let anyone tell you that you can't pull off a skirt or a dress or a strappy top. Literally the whole point of being alt is Doing Whatever The Hell You Want Forever. However, not everyone feels comfortable in that (I made this post because I'm transmasc and sometimes the long gothic dresses make me dysphoric), and not everyone is safe to do that ( as much as it sucks ass, if you live in a conservative area sometimes it can be genuinely dangerous for guys to wear makeup and dresses in public, and your safety should always come first), so I thought I'd lay out some tips on how to dress alt and masc from my own experience. I'm still learning so feel free to leave your own advice in the replies or reblogs! General Styling Tips: - Jackets. Jackets, jackets, jackets. Something about a big jacket always seems to give an outfit a more masc energy, and adding a cool jacket to an outfit can be a great way to elevate it and add some extra visual interest. I like black blazers, leather jackets, and black denim jackets in particular, but vests (formal menswear ones or more casual denim or leather ones) can work well too, especially in hot weather. - Any basic black pair of jeans will look 100x more alt if you loosely attach some chains to the pockets or belt loops. Also, pants with wider legs tend to look more masc than tighter fits. not sure why. Slacks can also be a really good and underrated option. - If you want to find good headwear, cool sunglasses have never failed me. You may be able to take some inspiration from Ouji fashion as well, but that's just my personal taste. - If you have a basic piece around, you can add pins, patches, safety pins, etc for a more casual look, or if you're going for something more formal, trims and lace details and embroidery can really add interest and elegance to it. (if you can't sew, you can order iron-on embroidered patches online or find them in craft stores that'll do the trick just fine.) This can take your pair of slacks or plain black blazer and turn it into a piece of formal gothic menswear you can make a staple of your wardrobe. - Find inspiration in your favorite goth artists. There's a lot of really cool goth music out there and a lot of those bands get really innovative with their looks! Figure out what you like about their style and try incorporating a few things in, it's fun! - If you have an alt wardrobe already but it just seems like something's missing or it could use some interest, try switching up the silhouettes or adding an extra layer! Seriously, don't be scared of playing with textures and sleeve shapes! I see a lot of dudes who just wear a band tee and a pair of jeans all the time, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, that can be a great look! But I think a lot of dudes just genuinely think that that's their only option and that everything else just "wasn't made for them" and that makes me a little sad. shred up some shirts and layer them, wear some bell sleeves, throw some extra safety pins or studs on, have fun! No one said masc fashion couldn't be fun. Unisex/Masc DIY Videos I Found:

... And Some Inspiration!

[These are all goth music artists, I wrote the band/artist names in small text on the images that were not already watermarked for those who are curious]

[northopalshore]

Northopalshore's

Union predictions & analysis

♀ This is just a short analytical post. I wanted to apply my knowledge onto my own chart to be used as an example of how to read your placements. I'll link my general guides under this post for you to refer to & try to interpret yours on your own as well. alt title;

(Deconstructing the natal union and how it affects the Union persona chart)

꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧Union in the natal chart

Are the general circumstances of meeting your spouse, the first contact where both start getting aquainted 1st hand with each other whether online or not.

My union asteroid is in Libra (°26 Taurus) in the 8th house. I'll likely meet my FS through some sort of service ( I'm likely the one providing said service). While I'm at home. You can look at my parents' example here.

I'll likely meet him online as everything points to meeting through some sort of research or study based (i.e involving technology or knowledge) service which could mean something related to the occult? Since I own an astrology (occult) blog. It could be related to me doing something new as well here. Perhaps finally offering paid services?

꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ Union in the Union persona chart

Is your first face-to-face meeting or first date. The first time you both get together in real life or romantically.

In my Union persona chart, the sun (natal union) is in the 11th house, conjuncting Jupiter (°28 cancer) in Libra.

Neptune is in Aquarius (°14 Taurus) the 3rd house in retrograde which means talking online a lot. There may be some communication issues at first, finding it a bit difficult to navigate our conversations without seeing each other. Could be different languages too. Literally video calls & texts as the main source of communication.

Union in the Union persona chart is in Scorpio (°14 Taurus) in the 12th house. The first time I'll meet my FS face-to-face will be in a foreign country (involving distant travelling), likely at his house as a first date. It's going to be a private & intimate meeting which is slightly taboo or risky ( I mean who tf would fly over just to meet a stranger at their house??? I would appearantly.) Our dates may mostly be indoors or somewhere with less people around and there won't be anyone with us besides each other.

Ex 1: I have a friend who has her union in the union PC in Leo (°24 pisces ) in 12th house. The first time she met her fiance face to face was at his state (she had to fly to him to meet for the first time). They both met up at a public place & their dates were mostly somewhere with a lot of people & fun things to do i.e arcades, the cinema, the market, the beach & even malls.

Ex 2: Her union persona chart sun (natal union) is in Gemini (°17 Leo) in the 10 house. The MC is in an Aries (°13) degree. She first met him online while doing TikTok live (entertaining people but also putting herself out there).

The significance of asteroid Briede & Groom in the union persona chart;

it shows you what you and your spouse will be doing when you first met. What you're doing right to the point of when you meet them or heard or them.

My Groom is in the 4th house in the Union persona chart. It's in Aries (°6 Virgo) in retrograde. My FS will likely at be at home (or at his hometown ) when he first "meets" me (online), he could be looking for something that day (retrograde) or doing something that he normally does or have been pushing back from doing for a while. He could be searching for something related to himself (placements?).

My Briede is in the 10th house. It's in Virgo (°28 cancer). I'll likely be working on a passion project that is beneficial for my career or just my "job". I will be at home or a place of comfort, doing something I would usually do i.e tend to my blog. For me, it's just another day planning a post or something. Doing something I usually do, researching in the comfort of my own home.

Ex 1: My mom has Briede in the 8th house in Capricorn (°6 Virgo) & Groom in the 11th house in Taurus. She had just started working at my father's hometown as a banker when they first met. A coworker introduced her to a guy who took long-distance driving commissions (that was my dad!). He was working when he met her, & she was at a new town for work.

Ex 2: My friend (same friend from earlier) has Briede in her 8th house in Taurus (°4 cancer) & Groom in the 4th house in retrograde. It's in Sagittarius (°14 Taurus). Both of them were at home when they met. So for starters, she was bored because she had just finished her studies & was waiting for a call back from uni. She decided to try something new (TikTok live) for fun but she also received a lot of "gifts" and treated it as sort of a side hustle lmao. Her fiance wasn't an active watcher, but he had a friend who did & showed her account to him. He was immediately interested and asked his friend to contact her for him lmao. He is from a different state than her.

Theory & speculation

My prediction of how it's going to go down would be that my FS may be a regular or a passive reader on my blog. He may go through my archive to see what I have to offer ( intellectually). If he's anything like me, he can read both the intention & " reach" certain people have. So he'll likely be stalking the blog in a way. I can't tell when he'll find it but when he does, he will do a bit of his own "research" on it. Down a rabbit hole if you will. Either that or he'll have a friend say "yo check this out" then spiral from there.

It's also a prediction, since if my calculations are correct then I'll see it manifesting in the later half of 2025. Which makes sense when looking at my 2026 SRC, there will be a lot of travelling for me that year which could be related to seeing my FS & 2027 is when Jupiter enters my 7th house in virgo. I have a feeling this post will be brought up again in the future. Looking at my chart, the progression seems to go like this

2025 meeting FS> 2026 dating period/ possible proposal> 2027 proposal & or wedding. It's quite quick lmao, but I guess we'll see. Besides, it pretty much lines up with my natal boda in aries.

It may feel or look rushed to you, but it makes a lot of sense for me. Boda is also in the 2nd house with a Virgo (°18) degree, so it's not a "reckless" marriage either.

There's a lot more information I can dig, but I'll save it for another day.

Wait a minute... Don't tell me he'll find me through reading a stolen post about him from me on TikTok??? Omg.

Links; My union Masterlist

@northapalshore

@northopalshore union 2024 all rights reserved.

[trans-axolotl]

(Described in alt text)

“I found out that I was intersex several years before I became more disabled by my other chronic illnesses, so my intersex identity felt more relevant to my life at first. When I was first diagnosed in 2015, I had an incredibly hard time trying to discover any information about intersex community. It took a lot of research in archives of primary sources just to find out that intersex people did have a powerful history of activism.

Embracing my disabled identity was a parallel process in so many ways. As a wheelchair user, it’s really important for me to define my own disabled identity outside of the medical system or ableist ideas from an inaccessible society. For me, one of the most important parts of my disabled identity is the powerful community we build to fight for justice. In both the intersex and the disabled communities, we get really good at caring for each other. When you're part of a community that's been excluded from accessing knowledge about your body, your health, and your needs, it’s meaningful when we can redistribute power from medical authority back into the hands of intersex and disabled people.

Even though there are many similarities and solidarity between the intersex and disabled communities, sometimes I still feel complicated about whether I want to consider my intersex variation a disability. “In an environment with so much pathologization through Disorders of Sex Development language, it can feel difficult to publicly talk about our intersex variations as disabilities. [Like many intersex people, I have felt] like we have to be the representative of every intersex person ever, rather than having the space to exist with a lot of complexities. For a while, I wondered if I would be betraying intersex activism if I also acknowledged the fact that part of the reason I was losing my mobility was because of my intersex variation.”

In an intersex and disabled future, I want us to have space to celebrate all parts of ourselves without feeling like we have to hide. Not only do we exist, we’re out here existing joyfully, and I want our intersex and disabled futures to reflect the power of our liberation. By Elliott L.”

-7 Disabled Intersex People Explain How They Embrace Their Identities, Teen Vogue, Courtney Felle

[a-suspicious-number-of-ducks]

Hermit-a-Day May, Day 22: Iskall85. Today's style/medium is Minecraft map art! This is because I wanted to make Iskall's portrait with as much diorite as humanly possible. The entirety of the background (except for the green) and most of his face? Yep, that's all diorite. I think I'm very funny. Details, materials, and screenshots under the read more!

Materials: Krita (for the base art), Rebane2001's MapartCraft site (available here), a Minecraft superflat world, a structure block, and way, way too much time spent trying to get the orientation and placement of the art to line up with the map borders. Structure blocks are weird, y'all. This tutorial by PuffingFish HQ was very helpful for figuring out how to access the file in the first place.

This is probably the earliest I've ever been done with my art this month, and it still took longer than it should have, due to various technical difficulties. That's probably because this piece is rather simple, but I refuse to feel bad about that because it was for the bit, y'know? Also don't ask me what's going on with his left eye because I don't know either. It just felt right.

The first time I loaded the structure into Minecraft, I just burst out laughing because it looks. Ridiculous and slightly terrifying, honestly. Diorite eldritch horror and/or biblically accurate angel.

Side note, my apologies if the images' alt text isn't useful or if it makes no sense--I honestly have no idea how to describe these in a helpful way.

[sm-baby]

HIII ive been lurking on ur account since ur first showtime posts thank u sincerely for dragging me into that hole but id just like to gently ask if its possible to do the funky lore, secret text stuff without having to use the ALT text function? it *is* a feature with a designated purpose for those that have trouble reading or interpreting pictures and tho im not one of those ppl i have seen it steadily get more misused over time in other fandom spaces and platforms and its just not a great sentiment

i totally get it if im kinda speaking for an audience that doesnt gaf / if you already know this kindly say so, not trying to make a big deal out of it or anything. just figured id send a heads up for whatever it's worth ^^

I've noticed that some of yall have ALSO have been hiding secrets in the ALTS! Please stop doing that for the sake of our visually impaired friends! :(

Hi!! Oh my goodness this was an old ask! I hadn't realized that I normalized this until I went into other blogs that followed me! I'm so sincerely sorry! I do not want this normalized! thank you very much for telling me, asker! And I'm so sorry for the late reply ToT

since this ask was sent, I've stopped putting things in the ALTS; the last one was quite a while ago. I've been trying to find more creative ways to hide things.

Wah... I've been waiting to post this at a time when it wouldn't be quickly buried, and since I'm taking a break I figured now would be a good time <:) sorry again for the trouble!

[heck-theo]

ROTTMNT Pride Flag Icons

The response to my last post about these was very encouraging so I finished them! Here are some examples using popular headcanons and/or headcanons that I like (so hard to pick cause there are so many great ones).

Below these examples are some rules for use and then below that are the blanks with the green flags for you!

Rules: First I wanna acknowledge that there's nothing I can really do to stop people using these however they want, and while I would disapprove, I'm not going to get mad and fight you about it. I won't give you the attention.

If you have any good faith/genuine questions or criticisms about these rules please let me know.

TLDR:Keep it respectful and PG.

Who can use these? I don't mind anyone using these if it follows the rules. Please credit me in some way if you use (even if it's just a text post), and don't claim that they are your own. If you would like to use it in a way that isn't specified here or with a flag not mentioned, feel free to ask.

Editing? I don't mind if you want to add small details, adjust colours etc, but I'd rather you didn't make large adjustments that could really change the overall picture.

How do I use these? I actually have no clue how to mask over a colour in a flat image, these are all clipped over the flag colour layer. If you do know please feel free to leave a comment. If you would like to request a specific flag go ahead and ask. If I only get a few requests I probably won't mind doing them for you. This is not a guarantee though, and it just depends on what I have going on and how I feel at the time.

What flags can I use? This is intended for flags that represent or support LGBTQIA identities. To be clear this does NOT include anything like TERF, MAP or Zoo flags. Also please don't use any flags representing kink and stuff.

Country flags? That is not the intended use and I'd really rather you didn't, however in the end as long as the flag isn't being used in a way that supports war, genocide or bigotry I'm not toooo fussed.

I really hope I'm being paranoid and this won't be an issue but I feel the need to say it cause I've been on the internet long enough to know it's full of trolls, grifters and creeps. If you see anyone being problematic, bigoted or disrespectful with these feel free to let me know. Free block list.

One last thing: There is a more "fem" leaning/alt version and a more "masc" presenting version. I tried not to get too carried away with changing their designs in the alt version. Also I'm still trying to figure out this style so it's not perfect but I was flattered that you guys were interested so I wanted to finish them off. Also they were designed to read well on a small scale so a lot of choices were made specifically to try and increase readability when they're itty bitty and some things might look slightly odd on full scale? Anyway.

Ok without further ado here are the blanks (I hope you can get some use out of them and enjoy ^^):

[writing-for-life]

Dream and How He Experiences Love

(Or: When the Unreal is at War with the Real, and Finally Understanding Unconditional Love Tightens the Noose Around Your Neck That Has Been There All Along)

And as always: Send me asks about everything Sandman-related!

Let me start this one with a few adjectives from the horse’s mouth (aka: Neil Gaiman said so 🤣) as to what Dream is actually like:

from: Vertigo Chase Card Set

So in short: This is probably the most accurate way to describe Dream in a nutshell, from the author himself, fully knowing that Murphy doesn’t lend himself well to be described in a nutshell.

And of course it’s absolutely fine if we want to head-canon him just being 5 out of those 50 (or none of them at all)—our stories are our own. At the end of the day, we went through a whole year of Tumblrfication (I might have made up that word), and getting back to the series will be tough. So is trying to align what the current prevalent perception of Dream is like in parts of the fandom, and what he is like in both comics and series (show and comics really aren’t that different where it matters, and I’ll die on that hill). I already worry about the fallout if I look at what happened with GO or OFMD, but that just as an aside.

Anyway, Dream in fandom spaces is often portrayed as either a pathetic wet cat who can’t get to grips with anything and constantly needs rescued in one way or another, or as a completely unfeeling arsehole incapable of relating to the human experience and being horrible all around. There are very few shades of grey in how some fans perceive him, when just the list of above adjectives shows us how complex he is as a character.

One thing that obviously comes up regularly are his relationships, be they romantic or platonic. So I just wanted to draw attention to the adjectives that relate strongly to the relational element in him (although they all apply in one way or another):

touchy, sentimental, cold, loving, [elusive], gentle, hurt, deep, intense, solitary, romantic, shy, intangible, lonely

Dream is the unreal. His way of loving relates very deeply to what stereotypical romantic love is: Romance and reality are a contradiction in terms—romanticism is dreaming because it is, at its very core, an idealised view. The intangible dream that comes back to bite us in the arse once reality sets in. And his flavour of love is the prototype of idealised and intangible (=romantic) and can never be anything else by his very nature.

And I’ve often thought that the way he experiences love is also a large part of why his existence is so difficult for him, and why he ultimately makes the choices he makes. Yes, he detests his function, but if he weren't so lonely (and weren't doomed to be so by his very purpose), he might find it easier to bear.

Let me look at, and draw parallels to, the 7 types of love as the Ancient Greeks perceived them [quick note about the image references: I would have loved to give more, but there is a limit. Also: Apologies I have no alt text for the comic panels at this point, I might add them at a later stage if I find the time]…

Eros

That’s both sexual and romantic love (to varying degrees), and it can be fleeting (like a dream) if not anchored in a less idealised view. So there’s your first cue—he totally experiences that kind of love.

The Ancient Greeks also thought it was a dangerous type of love, one that clouds our judgment and one that won’t last if not combined with some of the other types. And Dream himself knows this and probably relates (he detests his sibling Desire for “meddling”, after all). And yet, he is the intangible, the ungrounded, the unreal.

It’s all over every single one of his relationships we witness:

Killalla—“gifted” by Desire. We never get any cue as to what exactly they were up to, but it can be assumed desire, for whatever, played a large part in their relationship. Killalla makes no secret about it either (and is at the same time uncertain whether she truly loves him while being confused Dream might actually love her after what seems a very short time, at least in cosmic terms). Suffice it to say, he has a very idealised view of her and their relationship. Romantic idiocy at its best: He has literal stars in his eyes and is so grateful for Desire’s help he is basically kissing their boots in gratitude.

Alianora—again one of Desire’s gifts. And Dream tried, and I definitely think he was at least romantically (and physically) attracted to her (the art is very hard to interpret otherwise, neither is the context--she was gifted by Desire, after all). But this relationship is generally a tricky one because there is gratefulness and guilt n the mix, and that is sometimes a very unfortunate combination. He also couldn’t fully trust her because of his deep mistrust of D/desire. And lo and behold, of course the relationship soured when romantic and (potentially physical) attraction waned.

Nada—pursuing each other on and off, broadcasting sexy time all over the Dreaming because he's just so head over heels and literally bursting at the seams—need I say more? Yes, he does say to her that her body does not matter to him, which I 100% believe is true. He also says that he will love her as no mortal man can. But everything that transpires is still deeply informed by romantic attraction, because quite frankly: You don't feel love yet after you've barely met someone. It's again a deeply idealised view and that is something inherently romantic in tandem (in this case) with physical desire. Again, because D/desire was involved.

As to the particulars of Nada’s banishment to hell, and why Dream acted so out of character compared to his other failed relationships: You can find all of it here.

Calliope—read her speech at the Wake is all I’ll say. That is someone making romantic love so integral to their whole existence, I don’t even know where to start. He puts the world at her feet and makes sure she always comes first (quite literally) while they are still loved up…

Thessaly—he's the romantic idiot (affectionately) in the rain with his coat billowing in the wind, and referring to her “weighing him dispassionately and finding him wanting”. It was only a handful of months--you don't feel true, stable love at that point. Again, it has the idealised view of romance (and potentially sexual desire) written all over it. He would have given her the world, just like he would have given the world to Nada and Calliope. That is the trope of every freaking romance novel, and that is exactly how he perceives love.

Titania—who knows, she keeps her mouth shut.

Ludus

I think he has a hard time to be flirtatious and playful (at least, we don't really see it. We never really see him during the courting stage, and what went down with Thessaly was hardly "flirtatious". `Then again, bickering like they did in A Game of You is electrifying to some, so who knows. She also said at his wake he was cautious and nervous). And if he comes across as flirtatious (there is a charming on that list of adjectives after all), it’s just because he is so deliberate in everything he does that he might just push someone’s (right) buttons, so to speak. But that’s not the same as “no strings attached”-love, because I honestly believe he’s incapable of experiencing love that way. There is no “casual” with him. He always stays attached to the people/women he once loved, even if the relationship sours. He still loves each and every single one of them, he never stops. But he also doesn’t in a way that’s sustainable, and it’s an unsolvable conflict due to what/who he is.

Philia

Most closely translated as friendship and affection. Platonic love, if you will. It is also a love between equals. He has a hard time with it and only slowly learns what it means through his relationship with Hob. Needless to say: The Ancient Greeks valued platonic love as one of the highest forms of love. Hence, I’m personally reluctant to turn it into something else/slant it towards romance, because that’s exactly what this part of the story is about: His relationship to Hob is important and grows/lasts because it is not romantic in the comics.

Storge

Unconditional love for family, especially children. Based on complete acceptance and potentially sacrifice. Doesn’t need to be reciprocated. You feel it, no matter what, and you act accordingly. And for Dream and Orpheus, that didn’t work until it did. Or, let’s rather say: I don’t want to assume he didn’t feel it. But he pushed it down in his hurt and pride (as did his son in his grief). No further comment, because that one hurts.

Agape

Altruistic, universal, all-encompassing. And that’s so deeply at the core of his being, and so central to his whole conflict that I don’t even know where to start. From not wanting to kill the first vortex (or Rose, for that matter), to telling John Dee he’s hurting the dreamers, and that being his main concern while he himself was writhing on the floor in agony, to “humanity I love you”, to a million other things. He cares so deeply, there is such a deep concern for sentient beings in their entirety that it’s quite literally impossible to call it anything other than love. And it’s also what plays a large part in his demise.

Pragma

Oh, here we go. I honestly believe he likes the idea of committed and long-lasting. And he’s trying. So very hard. Calliope is the best example. Alianora was another one, because it’s not like they broke up swiftly (hard to tell how long they lasted, but since she had stayed in the Dreaming too long to go anywhere else, it wouldn’t surprise me if we’re actually talking a very, very long time. He called it “a goodly while”, and considering how old he is, I doubt that equals only months, or even just a few years, especially since he is fully aware how short his relationship to Thessaly was). And he wanted to stay true to his promise. But he is who/what he is: the unreal. And as the personification of that, love both feels real for him but will also forever stay intangible. It’s heartbreaking really. Again, it has written the contradiction between romantic love (the ideal) and pragmatic love (the thing that is grounded in reality) written all over it.

Philautia

And that’s the most heartbreaking one. He is incapable of self-love and full of self-loathing instead. The Ancient Greeks used to say that you can’t give what you don’t have. And it’s hard to feel compassion for the flaws we perceive in others if we don’t have that self-compassion for the exact same flaw in ourselves. And that one hurts in so many ways, from his not being able to forgive himself (which is mirrored in his relationship to Nada, who also couldn’t forgive herself—she didn’t need his forgiveness, she needed her own) to Orpheus being so much like him apart from one major difference: he’s mortal in spirit, and even immortality doesn’t change that. And Dream struggles with the part of his child that is so like him for a million reasons that would burst this meta at the seams, but again: it’s hard to love in others what we detest in ourselves, knowingly or unknowingly.

So in short: The particular flavours of love Dream feels (Eros, Agape, Philia growing slowly over time) and the ones he doesn’t (Ludus, Pragma, Philautia) are also at the very root of how the story goes.

And when he finally truly understands what Storge/unconditional love is--both in the way he reassesses his relationship to Nada but especially in how he finally submits to his love for Orpheus (with all that entails)--and when he allows it to become real, it’s what tightens the noose around his neck. But that noose has been around his neck loosely all along…

[mytimeatsandrockzine]

Zine Theme Reveal + First Wave Interest Check at the end!!

The council has come to an agreement on the theme. Thank you to the sudden influx of followers who expressed interest! We’re feeling a little more comfortable and confident in continuing this now! We didn’t exactly have a platform that we could work with to try and garner interest for it, but this has certainly motivated us to continue.

That said, the theme is….

“Memories of My Time at Sandrock!”

Alt: “after the rain”

We want to go with a scrapbook theme which would be reminiscent of collecting our best memories of the game with pieces based on our favorite moments of the game. This comes with a cool twist, hence “after the rain”.

What comes after rain? A rainbow! We want to section off the Zine by color to give contributors a chance to play with color themes. This means people will be assigned colors from red to violet based on their requested choices and then create a piece of their favorite Sandrock memory using their assigned color as their primary source of inspiration! For writing pieces, just find a way to integrate color or we can simply find a way to color the text. The end result we’re hoping for is a beautiful scrapbook compiling these “memories” across a smoothly transitioning rainbow of pages.

As for promotional art, we’ve gotten a couple of ideas on who and what to do. We’re hoping to have it out by the end of this week!

For the interest check

There’s two ways to go about this. Firstly, we will be putting up a poll below in order to see interest from tumblr users but

IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A TUMBLR ACCOUNT:

please feel free to use the anonymous ask box to let us know you are a non-tumblr user who’s interested in participating. That way if this zine somehow reaches other websites, no one feels excluded or like they can’t participate. Any submissions for the interest check that we receive will not be published to preserve anonymity. Tumblr users are also free to submit their interest check in the inbox if they don’t want their votes to be public.

Thanks y’all! We’re incredibly grateful for the recent interaction.

[heyyjudetheobscure]

The thing about this is that they've said it, or something like it, several times, and they still keep getting interview questions that are like, so what was it like to remove the stage persona and be your REAL SELF on-screen?? And there's something so simultaneously endearing and scary about that, the way we're sort of conditioned to see photos and videos as "true" even as, like with this movie, there are so many visual and verbal cues in the text telling us: this is a myth, this isn't emotionally untrue but it's not FACTUAL, it's more than real, it's a story.

This is also such a cool and, I think, ballsy move to make at what's hopefully just the beginning of a career, because I don't think we really know almost anything more in terms of facts or identifying info about these guys than we did before the movie, but we have a really clear emotional thesis statement about their goals and their, as much as they don't seem to like this word getting associated with their work, politics. And right now, in the crumbling-Roman-empire era of twitter, hopefully moving into the backswing reaction against the expectation of all access at all times to the personal lives of any vaguely-public figure, this great big gift of a movie which, in a sense, does absolutely nothing to feed that prurient, parasocial hunger, it feels like what I want for a direction in terms of the relationship between audience and artists.

also, it's fun as shit.

(i keep trying to link the article and my clipboard is just fucked right now, but it's the LA Times article by Mark Olsen on Aug. 1)

alt text:

[“These characters represent where we come from and the people we grew up with,” explains Móglaí Bap. “So it’s not only our story, but it’s everybody’s stories. Like, half of my class, their parents would’ve been ex-IRA members. So it’s not necessarily always our personal story, but it is the collective story of Belfast.”

The group did not set out to become lightning rods of a movement to revive the use of the Irish language, which their headline-grabbing antics and instinctive flair have inadvertently turned them into. At first the band simply wanted to talk in the way they spoke to one another, among friends.]

[ofmdrecaps]

01/05-08/2025 Daily OFMD Recap

TLDR; OFMD Recaps on Mastodon; David Jenkins; Rhys Darby; Taika Waititi; Samba Schutte; Wee John Wednesdays/Kristian Nairn; Rachel House; Dominic Burgess; Kristen Johnston; Hugo Pierre Martin; Aotearoa Treaty Principles Bill Submissions; Articles; AdoptOurCrew: Call To Action; LettersToSeaForSeason3; Fan Spotlight: Jax/North FL OFMD Cosplay/ Fandom Meet Up; Love Notes/Resources;

== OFMD Recaps on Mastodon! ==

Some awesome news! The absolute sweetest person alive, Lowrah (https://gaypirates.club/@lowrah) has been kind (and brave) enough to join my team and create an OFMD Recaps for Mastodon! She has offered to help crosspost the recaps over to Mastodon (blorbo.social) and manage that which I appreciate so much because I am completely inept at that site! She's also the one helping me with all the alt text (that I am behind at updating tumblr with sorry!) so please send her some massive love if you see her around because she is helping me out so much right now! One thing to note -- Since she's on the other side of the world for me, the recaps cross-posted there will be a bit delayed, so please bare with us :) Thank you so much Laura for all your help! You can check it out here!

Source: OFMD Recaps Mastodon

== Cast & Crew Sightings ==

= David Jenkins =

David's giving us some interesting updates on the eve of the first cancellation of S2.

Source: David Jenkins bsky

= Rhys Darby =

Rhys was in Auckland recording the first Cryptid Factor show of 2025! For all of you Cryptid Factor fans out there, he's also finally gotten to come in contact with the Sir Ed YETI Expedition backpack!

Source: The Cryptid Factor's IG

= Taika Waititi =

The Golden Globes celebrations were this past weekend and Taika was everywhere!

Source: Loop Mag

Source: Instagram

Source: VasJMorgan's Instagram

= Samba Schutte =

"14 years in LA today✨ Arrived on Ethiopian Christmas with one suitcase and 5 guiding steps I had come up with in my hut while staying in a remote Kenyan village, for my future self who would eventually make it to Hollywood. Hope you’re proud Past Samba🫶"

Source: Samba's Instagram

= Kristian Nairn and Nathan Foad =

Some great news! Wee John Wednesday is back on Wednesday the 15th! This news also has some clown potential, so please clown responsibly everyone!

Source: Adopt Our Crew Bsky

Kristian is also going to be attending MegaConLive in Dublin on January 18-19, 2025! Get your tickets at megaconlive.com!

Source: MegaConlive Instagram

= Rachel House =

Rachel House was out with friends looking badass!

Source: Maria Lewis IG

= Dominic Burgess =

Dominic is back from the UK and posted some great "Beef" pics from Skeleton Crew. He fits the Star Wars Vibe so well!

Source: Dominic's bsky

Dominic and several of our other cast members live in California so a lot of folks are being affected by the fires. I'll try to post what I can about safety/news but for now, looks like Dominic and family are prepared.

Source: Dominic's Bsky

= Kristen Johnston =

Our "The Widow Evelyn" is now on Bluesky too! Special thanks to @jilliansauers for catching her!

Source: Kristen Johnston's bsky

= Hugo Pierre Martin =

Our friend and crewmate Hugo Pierre Martin is on Bluesky now! HPM's Bluesky

Source: HPM's Bluesky

= Aotearoa Treaty Principles Bill Submissions =

Now, I generally try to keep "politics" out of the recaps because this is meant to be a positive space for the fans-- but I do know that A LOT of our cast and crew are affected by this bill personally so I do want to throw this in there. It looks like you don't actually have to be a resident of Aotearoa to submit your feelings on the bill. Here is helpful linktree with things you can say and how to submit that I tracked down via a post Rachel House reposted.

Source: NZGreenParty

== Articles ==

Thank you @adoptourcrew! You are article maniacs! So many in so little time! Thank you for always sharing!

Source: Adopt Our Crew's Bsky

== Call To Action From AOC ==

January 9, 2024 marks the first cancellation of S2 of our beloved Show. Our fan-crew, @adoptourcrew has asked that you help support our show by: 1. Taking Action 2. Sharing your love 3. Showing your pride. In short-- sign a petition, share something about the show, tell the world how it affected you! If you can get the #OurFlagMeansDeath, #SaveOFMD and #AdoptOurCrew in there, that's great too! Show all the new and seasoned fans how much you love the show!

Source: Adopt Our Crew's Bsky

== Letters To Sea For Season 3 ==

The Letters to Sea for Season 3 campaign that was being spearheaded by the darling Molly, aka aproperpirate, is finally coming to fruition! Tomorrow is the day the letters should be arriving! Molly had a special message to share re the letting writing campaign!

Source: AProperPirate's Bluesky

== Fan Spotlight ==

= Jax/North FL OFMD Cosplay/ Fandom Meet Up =

Florida crew! One of the Truly Docked members @ladymekaella is hosting a little get together in Jacksonville on Jan 19! Wanna join in? Follow them on facebook! Deets below!

1/19/2025 11am - 2pm, Atlantic Beach, FL 32233

Source: Truly Docked Instagram

== Love Notes / Resources ==

Hey Lovelies, I know 01/09/25 is going to be a very mixed feeling kind of day for everyone. It's the anniversary of the first time S2 was cancelled. It's going to bring up a lot of sad feelings, and you should absolutely sit with those feelings and embrace them. It was a rough time for all of us. There's no shame in feeling that grief again. I know I didn't show it much, but I cried so many times. Seriously, like SO MANY TIMES. My parents asked me if someone whacked me in the face with a shovel (which, thanks folks, I feel so pretty) but it was true-- I was devastated. It was a slow burn for me too because I wanted so very much to keep up hope. Seeing you all really push for the show helped keep me going-- and helped me learn more about how to cope with that kind of grief (and it was grief for so many of us because the show meant so very much-- and changed some of us at our core). No matter how tomorrow makes you feel though, I do want to remind you what came of it. This beautiful community rallied together and did some absolutely AMAZING things this past year (I wish I hadn't been sick this past two weeks cause I wanted to get you some stats). From billboards, to faxing, and calling in to Max, and Netflix, and Amazon, and Apple TV, to raising a SHIT TON of money for SO MANY charities-- to making beautiful works of art and fiction-- to making our cast and crew (not just the actors) feel loved and impactful-- this cancellation brought SO MANY OF US TOGETHER. People stepped out of their comfort zones-- talked to people they didn't know, reached out to streaming platforms and learned to use their voices in ways they'd never done before. We all built our own little communities within the fandom, bit by bit-- and those little communities have spread so much love, and kindness, and made life worth living for so many of us. It's been almost a year for my recaps too-- those officially started on Jan 13th, once again, because of the cancellation, and because of the camaraderie of the crew and all the support we all gave each other. Jan 9 is probably a tough day for most of us, but it's also the catalyst for so many wonderful things, and I'm so very grateful for it in a way. I've gotten to know so many of you, gotten to experience your joy, and participate in your struggles, and vice versa. I've met so many people from all over the world I'd never have once dreamt I could meet-- and I know SO MANY of you have too. This fandom is one of a kind-- and this special show and it's cancellation brought us together. I am still in full clown mode at all times, and I believe S3 is an inevitability, it's just a matter of when-- but no matter when it happens, I'm grateful we got this past year together, and all that came with it. So thank you lovelies. Thank you for being a huge part of my life, and turning it in a much better direction I could ever have thought possible given where I was. Lean on each other tomorrow, okay? We got through this past year together, and we'll get through whatever happens going forward, as a crew. Take care of yourself lovelies, drink some water, and get some sleep. Love you <3

= Resources =

Outside of the fandom in my day job, I work for a company that works with 211's and non profits, and so resources are really important to me. I have a lot I'm aware of, but if anyone has more they'd like to share around, please let me know! I'm happy to spread the word to help people get support they need right now!

For those of you in California or who know some folks who are-- please be sure to download the Watch Duty App, it keeps track and notifies you of nearby fires in real time.

In addition here's some additional info on go bags if you are in the evacuation areas:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Brown Issues (@brownissues)

Source: Brown Issues Instagram

Also looks like Airbnb will be pairing up with LA 211 to offer shelter for those evacuated from the Palisades fire. You can visit www.211la.org for more information.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Drew Droege (@drew_droege)

Source: Drew Doege's Instagram

As I hear more resources I'll try to share more in the recaps/on socials. I hope you all are staying safe out there!

[spockandawe]

Here's a big project I've been sitting on! All That You Love Will Be Carried Away, by our very own @ceruleancynic! And a box, naturally, building boxes for books continues to bring me immense joy.

What we have here is not just the main fic, or the main series, but also All That You Love (The High Hope Remix) alt pov short fic by byzantienne, and, a detail that I was really excited to include: the initial comment exchange between these two fantastic authors of m the first fic in the series. Did I title that second little book 'all that you meet cute will be carried away' as a silly placeholder? Did I then get super attached and refuse to change it? Uh-

Hell yeah, I refuse to be dignified about any of my favorite hobbies!

But the real secret delight here was that I've been looking for the right opportunity to get weird with boxes. Peller boxes, hinged slipcases, yes, fine, but those are like the box version of my sixfold book adventure. I'm still shooting for some parallel to my fourteenfold book, I'm looking for a way to go completely off the rails. I have some ideas, but it's hard, finding a good large chonk and a small number of equally sized texts, which made a unified and complete set, AND which excited me to work with. That might sound unnecessarily picky, but I swear, there was a good reason for it!

Oh baby. Oh baby.

This worked out so perfectly. I wanted a large book at the center of things. And I wanted two small books oriented in a different direction, placed end to end, at its edge. And I got it! I didn't want to commit too early, and it would have been heartbreaking to fail, but once the big book was together, and the preliminary typesets for the two little books were almost identical? I just HAD to try.

Tumblr is already silencing me and refusing to let me attach as many images as I want, so for this post, let's talk about the main book a little! Cute little quarto bricks are my new FAVORITE favorite thing, as I'm sure you can guess from my archives, and this one was a dream to put together.

It had to be a three-quarter leather binding, naturally. And I was sitting on some gorgeous iridescent maroon paper for endpapers (no photos in this set, it refuses to photograph well, as is the way of pretty iridescent things). I spent some time agonizing over my other material, and whether to use two different marbled patterns, but I went with it in the end. The vibes were distinct enough but the palettes overlapped enough that I really enjoyed the effect. And with the northcott art of marbling fabrics (my beloved) I was able to use lines of symmetry to get some nice fussy cuts for the big book and the little ones. All of the books have leather endbands, matching the spine. And the big book has the big thick faux raised bands I tried out with my last svsss! I don't have enough pictures to show off all the book interiors, but I used this cover plate for the series and main fics within it.

And then, like I showed you above, I put it all together. Marbled paper and silk moire for covering the box, a lot of very tense wrangling of glued-up paper in very small spaces, and, at one point, carefully lowering glue-covered pieces of moire bookcloth down these little pits (walls already covered) using that tab in the front like the world's awkwardest elevator shaft. But the EFFECT!

I'm very, very pleased with myself, and delighted to have delivered this book to its new home. I've been absolutely VIBRATING with a desire to share, so! I can't be contained by tumblr's image limit. Hold on for two seconds (approx.) and I'm going to reblog this post with some wip pictures and more detail about how I worked this thing out and assembled this box and modified my initial design on the fly

[infiniteglitterfall]

the worst part about the i/p discourse

it's NOT the posters of Nazis with the swastikas on their flags replaced by stars of david. or the pages and pages of blood libel conspiracy theories in instagram posts about why local pride organizers are such big meanies. or the newfound insistence that jews just exaggerate and make up antisemitic incidents to smear the pro-palestine movement....

it's the fact that every. single. time. i try to post anything about any of these things, i end up in a rabbit hole SO DEEP IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO GET TO THE BOTTOM.

Yesterday, I saw a --

YOU SEE? I went to Reddit for a second to find the link to the post about the Melbourne protest this week that had people carrying the Nazi-star-of-David posters. But first, I saw a post that began, "All I see on social media and the news is more and more attacks. Who beat up a Jewish family here, who stabbed a 1 year old in front of a synagouge. Those are two examples, I've lost track of all of the other ones."

and I was like, SOMEONE STABBED A ONE YEAR OLD IN FRONT OF A SYNAGOGUE?!?!

And I started to look that up. AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS. EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Two days ago, I saw an article about Cincinnati Socialists setting up a table at North Kentucky Pride without asking, it sounds like, to hand out flyers saying the war in Gaza was Netanyahu's "Final Solution" for Palestinians. Cincinnati Pride organizers alerted the NKY Pride organizers, who kicked them out.

I was like, "okay, well, let's see what Cincinnati Socialists say about it." Then I discovered that their instagram not only "names and shames" the two Cincy Pride organizers and one NKY organizer. Which led to the Cincy ones getting so much harassment and violent threats that they resigned....

But also has a related post that goes on for pages and pages of pure blood libel.

So then I sat there fact-checking all their blood libel and finding out that not only was it untrue and impossible, but half the stuff they referenced didn't even exist.

Then I ended up fact-checking things in the "article" that they'd clearly used as their source. Fact-checking things I found while fact-checking those.

Trying to write a Facebook post about how fucked up it all was. Giving up on the Facebook post after several hours because it made more sense to write it on Tumblr, or at least to write it on Tumblr FIRST.

Then I'm also looking at the post they made "naming and shaming" the organizers, which is like... "the Cincy ones are partners! two days after Hamas's incredibly violent and brutal massacre, one of them changed his profile picture to a photo of them honeymooning IN ISRAEL two years ago! they did it through some group that COVERS A LOT OF THE COSTS FOR HONEYMOONS IN ISRAEL!!!!" and "the other one went to a protest of Hamas's massacre!!! with a sign saying to free the hostages!!!"

oh no. the fucking horror. truly how did these genocidal monsters even end up on the pride organizing committee. this is a shanda scandal.

then I'm responding to people's comments, trying to talk them down from horrible positions. telling people things like, "I know it's asking a LOT, but if people could grasp the idea that "going to Israel for your honeymoon" ISN'T "committing genocide," it would be really great. Or that wanting the hostages freed is actually something that both Israeli AND GAZAN protests have called for, and it's only Westerners who are opposed to it. Or that in fact, saying you "Stand with Israel," a few days after an incredibly brutal attack that burned multiple towns to the ground in one day, killed entire families and their pets, an attack which Hamas has promised to repeat "again and again and again" till Israel is violently destroyed... is opposing that attack, NOT calling for genocide."

then i'm like, "oh, i should edit these images to show the correct info, and i can explain that I drew arrows and added the correct info!" so then i'm doing that and working on writing alt text, and holy shit??? how many fucking hours??? did i spend on this?????? just because i read a frigging reddit post that linked to an article about it?????????

and like. i can go through and debunk all that shit in the comments. (and did. i responded to every single comment that believed this shit.) but ultimately, everyone who pulls this shit has way more reach than I do.

just. like. THAT'S ONE ORG IN ONE PLACE. And it was bad enough that I persevered and finished debunking it and commenting on it today and started telling people about it. Do you even know how many more of those I've seen?! How many I would see if I looked for them on purpose?!

The tsunami of deliberate disinformation is SO FUCKING BAD. All of it is SO FUCKING LAYERED. In any single bullshit post, there are SO MANY horrifically bad and wrong assumptions. So many of them are DESIGNED, BY HAMAS, to lead people down the path to "All Zionists should die! Israel should be violently destroyed!"

There were so many comments on a "Free Palestine Melbourne" group's instagram post (Sydney? Could've been Sydney) asking, pointedly, how many Jews are Zionists. What percentage of Jews are Zionists, again?

One (1) had a response telling them it doesn't matter what the percentage is, no percentage would justify collective punishment of Jews.

The rest all said things like, "Too many."

It feels like constantly being lied to. Just constantly being lied to about things I have looked up and verified myself from solid sources, now and in the past, by people I counted as my community.

Then just now I opened Instagram because I hadn't taken screenshots of a couple of the pics I wanted to add. And I'm hit with these:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by jewsinschool (@jewsinschool)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jewish on Campus (@jewishoncampus)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jewish and Proud (@jewishpridealways)

Then some brighter posts (including one of a baby bat!!) and then a post which sums up a lot of what I'm feeling right now.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jess Cook (@jessicagcoook)

It's like, yes, that, plus the uncomfortable sense that some people are getting thisclose to going, "Most Jews are Zionists anyway, so YEAH, I DO think most Jews deserve to die."

[luci-luck]

Earth “ponies” go first! MASSIVE autism dump comin’ atcha live

TW: ableism , grief , parental death (just in case the tags failed)

This is more so for me but I still wanted to share 🫶

Sandstone (Pinkie):

- b i g puppy energy

- Built for work but prefers to play

- Has crystal pony genes but depression makes them subdued. Can only go full crystal mode in a moment of pure and raw jubilation.

- after constantly being told who she’s supposed to be, they rejected the idea of labels entirely

- no labels for gender or sexuality means loving Pinkie does not impact your sexuality score!

- (intersex is not about gender but biological sex. That being said many intersex people use intergender as their gender as it relates to their experience as an intersex person.)

- deals with internalized ableism due to conservative fillyhood environment. Feels bad when they need to ask for help/support. Got herself an unofficial certificate in psychology so he can be his own therapist (it doesn’t work out)

- Parents would totally support the pony version of Autism Speaks just saying. Pinkie’s dad thinks neurodivergency is curable with hard work and the right attitude whilst her mom mourns the loss of her son after the diagnosis.

- ADHD makes xeir rejection sensitivity off the charts

- Internal battery runs on the company of others so can’t ever live alone.

- Had problems with food insecurity

- Relies on sugar as a steady supply of dopamine

- Can have moments of poor motor control. Clumsy

- Eyesight is bad but doesn’t wear glasses. Afraid that ponies will start thinking he is smart and they will expect even more from him. (In human world she wears contacts)

- Feels embarrassed being high support needs and just wants to be treated like everybody else. Hates when xer parents call her “special”

- Also hates being infantilized but is not confident in their decision making

- Xe is a sensory seeker unlike the rest of their family who are all sensory avoiders. Sisters compromise and try to meet his needs. Pinkie in turn tries to be mindful of their touch aversion but finds it hard sometimes. “Everypony’s just so scoop-able!”

- Trained Gummy to “stay”. Is very proud of his emotional support gator

Applejack:

- Is incredibly strong for her size

- feels like she has to constantly prove herself worthy of taking over the farm. Has gotten into arguments with Big Mac about overexerting herself

- Is a hinny (donkey mom and stallion dad) (ofc hinnies are supposed to have tails more like horse but I love the lion tail on AJ so 💁‍♀️) (I said mule in ALT text because most people don’t know what a hinny is)

- Because of this, she is more calm under pressure and thinks more logically

- has major depression from grief and ptsd (duh)

- Isn’t used to being in a stress free environment so she creates the stress

- Likes running the apple stand but certain families trigger her

- Obsessed with anything from the past generation. A time when her parents were young and happy

- Can be a bit insensitive to other’s problems and wants them to “put on their big girl pants” like she had to.

- Feels like she has to fill in the roles her parents used to do. Especially so Applebloom and Granny don’t have to stress over as many things.

- Was in the process of cutting her mane when she remembered that AB liked to braid it so she stopped half way.

- Is the mom of the friend group. Makes sure everyone’s needs are met before tending to her own. (Which is bad btw)

- Has problems with insomnia but getting better.

- Struggles with OCD and will repeat unnecessary tasks if she believes it will help protect her family

- Has an emotional support dog named Winona who also reminds AJ to take breaks 🐕‍🦺

- Sees no point in getting her chronic pain checked out. Will hopefully change her mind in the future. Wears leg braces to ease the soreness.

- Got diagnosed later on. Grief masked her autistic traits.

- Also has a hard time asking for help but has gotten better after she found out that Applebloom has been internalizing that mindset. She must lead by example

- Stick around long enough and she’ll happily invite you over with a hot cup of cider 🍺

- (Other people tend to fall in love while getting to know someone. Demiromantics however need to get to know the person first and then develop romantic feelings later)

- Thought she wasn’t capable of developing crushes until she got to know Coloratura.