#and I've checked out a bunch of other queer books before

[confirmed-for-trash]

me: hmmmmmm i think i will bring home 10 books from the library

me one month later, still having 5 of the 10 books: i think i will bring home 10 books from the library

[dee-the-red-witch]

The only slightly belated August Pinned

Hey. I'm Denice.

I'm a forty-something year old transfem. I'm an artist. A writer. A Leatherworker. A maskmaker. A tattooist. A voice actress. A queer polyfuckerous kinkster. A mom. And a bunch of other hats besides that, most of which I am constantly juggling. Let's cover the basic bits.

One- I've got a new book coming out October first. It's a queer horror novel featuring an aroace character, and it's one hell of a ride. You should go check it out and preorder it.

I ALSO HAVE MY GENDER CONFIRMATION SURGERY AND FACIAL FEMINIZATION SURGERY COMING UP. In just a few months, only my gfm for that got stalled out by, well, everything else in my life. If you can, go check it out, share it around, maybe donate to it?

Otherwise, here's a lot of the rest of what I do:

Most of which you can find on my site, Tormented Artifacts.

Beyond that? Free Palestine. Land Back. ACAB. TERFS and all other forms of fash can fuck right off. Tipping should be mandatory. Curate your own experience, I will not do it for you. Self educate in everything. No I won't tag. No I'm not Your Responsible Adult. Yes I post NSFW. SUPPORT YOUR SEX WORKERS. Love every trans woman you meet before it's too late. Do it alone, do it scared, and do it crawling out of the haunted house while drenched in blood if you have to. Discord server admission, voice recording requests, general conversation, etc, are available, just message or ask. Questions? Ask 'em.

[oblivionsdream]

Ooh yes I love the murderbot diaries! I discovered them this year and I'm so sad that I've read all of them now.

Book recs. Not ones that I read this year for the first time but one's I love and never shut up about.

The first series is called the tarot sequence by K.D. Edwards. It's an incomplete series. Nine books are planned, three are currently out plus a bunch of extra free stories you can find on his website.

If you read and enjoyed aftg you'll probably be fine but I'd still recommend checking out the trigger warnings just incase.

This is so difficult to describe in a way that doesn't turn into a rambling mess but I'll try.

Atlantis is real and was discovered sometime in the 1960s when an astronaut saw it from space. There was a war. Atlantis lost and they now live on Nantucket. The governing body is a bunch of super powerful magic users. They are the major arcana. (Tarot decks are based off of them though humans didn’t know it at the time) they are sort of royalty and have lesser houses belonging to them.

The sun throne, the court of our main character Rune, was raided when he was a teenager and nobody knows who did it. (His secret mission is to find out who killed his people and make them pay.)

His best friend/bodyguard/companion (basically a human baby is aquired and put together with an atlantian baby to protect them and they can feel each others emotions, it's described much better in the books) and Rune are detectives for hire. In the first book they are hired to solve a missing persons case but due to something that happens right at the beginning of the book they have some unforseen circumstances they need to deal with simultaneously.

The other series is the last binding by Freya Marske. The first book takes place in London in 1908. It's dual pov. Robin is mistakenly placed in a small bureau and is suddenly thrust into the world of the magical community. Only problem he had no idea it existed before and something happened to his predecessor but nobody knows what. Also after his first day he has a terrible curse put upon him and he needs his coworkers help to remove it.

A larger conspiracy is uncovered and they’re in a race against time to stop their enemies from succeeding.

What i love about both of these series is the relationships between the characters. They care about each other so much. And not just the romantic relationships. The sibling dynamics are amazing and they are so fleshed out.

And obviously the plot is incredible as are the intricate magic systems. It's also so queer. In the tarot sequence polyamory and being attracted to more than one gender is the norm. And in the last binding all of the main characters are queer and even though it is a dangerous time to be queer it's not all doom and gloom.

I always feel like I don’t do them justice when I try to describe them and I never know how much to say without it venturing into spoiler territory but they are so good!

OMG THE TAROT SEQUENCE IS SO AMAZING. I am eagerly awaiting the next book. It's a terrible shame that it doesn't get as much hype around it because it's just so good. I did a bunch of art for it a couple years ago in the style of tarot cards but I never finished them all. I always think about going back to them. 😂

I also adored Last Binding! I haven't read the other books in the series, but they're on my tbr and I keep meaning to get around to it. I just haven't yet!

[sapphoshands]

For the fandom ask game!

Fandom:

Agatha All Along - 12, 17, 19

Ship - Agatha/Rio - 2, 10, 14

Character - Agatha or Rio: 1, 8

for agatha all along:

12. ...what attracted me into checking it out.

agatha harkness, baby! i looooved wandavision - like, got up early every week to watch it while i worked out so i wouldn't get spoiled - and i loved agnes/agatha from the moment she popped into wanda's kitchen and started flirting her face off as a force of chaos. and then they added patti lupone, and then i started hearing rumours they were going to make agatha as canonically queer as we all knew she was? i was ready. (except for how i was not, actually, ready.)

17. ...the world-building aspect of the story I have the greatest admiration for.

hahahaaaaa not to cheap out on this one but it's absolutely the fact that agatha harkness is jolene. can't beat it.

19. ...one behind-the-scenes trivia fact I've learned somewhere and my thoughts on it.

oh my god, so daniel selon, the costume designer, recently posted that the shot of the coven flying in front of the moon was done with puppets and that blew my mind. check it out! they are so cool. i actually got to work a bit with a master puppeteer earlier this year (i realise that sounds like an innuendo but it is not) and so i am in awe of how much effort went into these. practical! magic!

for agatha/rio:

2. ...why I do or don't ship them.

holy fuck i ship them like crazy. they are so fucked up. they have so much history. they are each the only person who could ever match the other's freak. jac schaeffer and the writers' room were like, who could stand up to agatha? oh, i know! death! and they were right. death broke all the rules of nature for agatha. how could i not??? and that's BEFORE getting into the knife thing. come on.

10. ...rate the level of stupid they reach in their pining.

absolutely zero. neither of them ever pine for the other. that would be ridiculous. death does not pine. and agatha simply has better things to do. rio definitely does not spend half her time keeping an ear out in hopes that agatha is going to suck another coven dry so rio can figure out where she is. agatha definitely did not dedicate herself to tracking down the book of the damned specifically so she could piss off rio by disappearing instead of dealing with her feelings. none pining. none. (1000000/10, they are both utter fools)

14. ...which tropes I think describe them the best.

hahaha iiiiiiis lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers a trope? (shhhhh they are going back to lovers shhhhh)

for agatha:

1 ...why I love them, like them or hate them.

where do i even begin. okay okay okay okay. i love her. to start with, i have a real pathological thing for characters who slap on as many masks as possible in order to avoid dealing with feelings, for absolutely no reason, thank you. and agatha is such a master manipulator and troll. i love how smart and calculating and incisive and determined she is. i love how greedy she is - for knowledge, for power. i love that she refuses to feel shame about her desires, or at least refuses to let any shame she feels stop her. i love that she does - grudgingly, unwillingly - make space for love in her life. i love that she's such a dick. i love that she has faced so much horror that she just refuses to take most things seriously because nothing else can be as bad. i love that she looks good in literally anything (except maybe that mobcap from ep 9, but to be fair that is playing on hard mode). i love her.

8. ...a headcanon I have about this character.

hmm, i don't know what i want to share that i either haven't already written about or don't plan to write about. let me think. oh, i know i wrote up a bunch of options, but i do believe she makes billy take señor scratchy home, hahaha.

for rio:

1 ...why I love them, like them or hate them.

do i love rio? i love agatha so much and i had to think about rio. do i just love rio because of how much she loves agatha? hm! i wish we had gotten so much more rio! i love that she cannot say no to agatha, hahahaaaaa. i love that she can't quite maintain her poker face when she's feeling strong emotions - the times she lets it slip are devastating. (i have to say, i have never much cared for aubrey plaza, but she has some great moments in this show.) i love her anger. i love that she is fair. i love that she's so petulant ('why don't you want me'). i talked about the scene with alice in another ask, but i love that rio takes a moment there to have a conversation with alice and to be like, actually, you fulfilled your life's meaning here. what more do you want. death isn't kind, but she is truthful, and i love that.

8. ...a headcanon I have about this character.

i absolutely believe that every time agatha kills someone, rio knows immediately.

thank you! ask me more things!

[forgedbondspod]

Alright y'all it's day 5! It's time for more talk of the gods and the wonderful people who voice them. This voice actor needs no introduction because I've talked about them so much, but I shall introduce them anyway! Today we're talking Aphrodite and the wonderful @totcoc0a

Aphrodite as you might already know is the goddess of love (among other things). In myths, Aphrodite is forcibly married off to Hephaestus in order to stop people from fighting over her. Aphrodite, however, isn't pleased with this arrangement and cheats on Hephaestus with Ares. I wanted to turn that story on its head and give them both more agency, similar to things that had been done with the myth of Hades and Persephone. Aph and Ares being friends who were forced into a marriage just made sense with this idea, giving them the ability to find other partners without adultery as they didn't actually want to be married. I also wanted to explore Aphrodite as demiromantic in this story. She's the goddess of love and is always pictured as desirable, but what of her desires? Her trying to create strong bonds before falling in love felt fitting to her as a character and was something that I hadn't seen explored before so I decided I'd do it myself.

As mentioned up top, Aphrodite is being played but the incredible Tatiana Gefter! I met Tot last year when she auditioned for my other show, @thefringespod. They fully knocked their audition out of the park and became the show's Marigold (another love goddess, I swear I'm not typecasting you Tot). When I started to turn this idea from a book idea to an audiodrama idea, I immediately started writing Aph with Tot's voice in mind. There is just something so magical about Tot's voice that I had to write another show for her and hope that she would say yes. And luckily for me, they did say yes. They're bringing such a life to Aphrodite and I can't wait for y'all to hear it.

In addition to being in both of my shows, you can hear Tot in her own show, @souloperatorpod which ripped my heart in half (it's incredibly good y'all) as well as The Department of Variance of Somewhere, Ohio, WOE.BEGONE, Wake of Corrosion, and a bunch of other incredible shows because she's so talented

If you would like to support Tot's work in Forged Bonds along with the rest of our amazing cast, you can check out our crowdfunder on indiegogo!

And to Tot specifically: I'm not sure what higher power I believe in but I know for a fact it was a blessing to meet you. You are an incredible friend and a ridiculously talented voice actor and writer. I'm so fucking proud of you and cant believe how lucky I am to be your friend

[runonthewater]

A long haul day today, from Williams Lake to Dawson Creek, about 400 miles of driving. I stayed last night outside the Scout Island Nature Centre, a marshy nature reserve at one end of the titular Williams Lake, pulling up around 8PM. A sign said "No overnight parking in the reserve," making me nervous, so I left the van parked outside the gates and went to walk along the marsh, figuring that if someone came to kick me off the property in the next hour, I'd at least have gotten a walk in. I was rewarded with the sight of two pelicans -- I think -- nesting down for the night on the marsh, and the sounds of waterfowl quacking at each other as the sun set. My pictures aren't very good, but the hills behind the lake were mirrored in the water as I walked back to the van. (Plus I met a cute dog.)

Another driver, a German named Linnea, had parked beside me by the time I got back and looked like she was settling in. We chatted a little before I set up the Starlink and got situated for bed. A little while later someone did indeed come to lock the gate to the reserve, without giving us a second glance. Despite a plethora of midges gathering around the dome light over my bed, I fell asleep fast.

I woke up early as the sun started to come in, and finally gave up on tryiyng to stay asleep around 6:30. I knew I needed to get on the road in any case, so after making coffee I popped the hood of the van to go check the oil. Outside, I saw a few crows and an immature gull standing around next to the car beside me and thought I'd get a picture called "morning stand-up," so I grabbed my phone, stepped out the side door, and came face to face with a doe some twenty feet across the road.

We stared at each other. I was probably more shocked than she was. A moment later I realized there were two more sets of satellite-dish ears in the grass behind her: two fauns. I took pictures and video -- though the birds left as soon as I started moving around -- and after another fifteen minutes or so got going, a bit after 7AM.

A long driving day like this ends up feeling like several days in a row, especially on a third day of driving. My posture is starting to go to shit; I can feel my head turtling forward, hunching my back, whenever I stop paying attention, and my lower back always feels a bit like it needs to crack. I stopped several times over the day, usually in a place where I dowsed with my phone for a strong wifi signal: a Tim Hortons in Quesnel (after I found that I was there too early for the visitor's centre to be open), the Prince George public lilbrary, the Chetwynd visitor's centre. (British Columbia's vistor centres are generally good places to stop for wifi, and a lot of them seem to be fine with RVs staying overnight.)

I tried to stop for pictures of mountains more, too, feeling like I'd slacked off the day before. My sister and mother always have dozens of photos of interesting sights when they travel, even when they're road tripping -- but of course, they generally have a second driver. Still, they have a gift for finding interesting things and then documenting them that I have to make a conscious effort to imitate. I did get a bunch of pictures of Chetwynd's chainsaw carvings, at least.

The multi-day feeling is probably also influenced by my powering through stories as I drive. I finished one book in the morning (Anna-Marie McLemore's Self-Made Boys, a Latine and queer "remix" of The Great Gatsby that I enjoyed, even if I wished Daisy was allowed to stay horrible to the end). I switched to Broadway for a bit (first Water for Elephants, a new listen for me, then Hadestown, because I'm determined to learn Orpheus' track). Then back to books with Lolita (which I've never read and figured I really should; turns out it's an excellent horror novel, whodathunk). Living through days and weeks and lifetimes in my head surely messes with my ability to know when I am.

And the whole reason I'm doing this, really, the reason I like road trips in the first place, is that I like to spend time unstuck. In my senior year of high school I wrote an overwrought essay for a scholarship about the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and how I could know how fast I was going or where I was, but not both at the same time. I did not get the scholarship. But I think I was grasping at articulating a feeling that I now usually just call "the act of travel." My best friend Elisa likes going to places: she goes to countries or cities and sees museums, goes shopping. Even in Seattle she prefers to go for a walk to an activity, to get a coffee and pastry or browse a vintage store. I, on the other hand, go on rambles that stop nowhere, or bike rides that loop Lake Union. I just want to be moving. I'm trying to spend more time allowing myself to be bored when I'm moving, on the grounds that I think it promotes creativity, but I also like to move let a story fill up my head. Slosh around in there, soak into the grain.

Tomorrow starts the actual, official Alaska Highway. Mile 0. I expect to get to Fort Nelson -- a storied place for our family -- but I'll be stocking up on a few things before I leave Dawson Creek. And I'll get some tourist pictures. The act of travel may be the point, but a few mementos of stopping don't go to waste.

[indystrange]

Hello

Queer writer checking in. I thought I'd start an author account here because I wanted to post somewhere chattier. No, I don't talk much, but I lurk a lot. Due to current events(looks at shitshow country), I need a break from other sites where people are posting too many things without verifying them first. There's enough stress in my life already, so I can do without that. I do still post on Bluesky. As for the writing part, I write mostly Romance that's mixed with Fantasy or Horror. Or a better way to put it, my writing is a result of reading a bunch of King Arthur tales, watching Hellraiser at ten, and then being introduced to Nora Roberts's books. There's a lot going on in my brain. And I mean a lot like over 200 stories fighting in a tournament-style deathmatch for a spot as a main wip. >.> I've also watched an unhealthy amount of anime. Anyways, so I can put out a decent number of stories before I croak(the publishing process is long and I don't have much patience for it anymore), I post them on Patreon. For $7 a month, readers get access to 7 stories, current and past episodes. They're mostly M/M and a few MF with queer elements. The stories are under two names: Sam Argent - long series Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Sci-fi Indy Strange - standalones or duologies, Fantasy, Horror, Urban Fantasy, and Paranormal(the only long series) All of them have happily ever afters.

And now I go back to my cave to edit.

[haveyoureadthistransbook]

Salt the Water by Candice Iloh

goodreads

Cerulean Gene is free everywhere except school, where they’re known for repeatedly challenging authority. Raised in a free-spirited home by two loving parents who encourage Cerulean to be their full self, they’ve got big dreams of moving cross-country to live off the grid with their friends after graduation. But a fight with a teacher spirals out of control, and Cerulean impulsively drops out to avoid the punishment they fear is coming. Why wait for graduation to leave an oppressive capitalist system and live their dreams?  Cerulean is truly brilliant, but their sheltered upbringing hasn’t prepared them for the consequences of their choice — especially not when it’s compounded by a family emergency that puts a parent out of work. Suddenly the money they’d been stacking with their friends is a resource that the family needs to stay afloat. Salt the Water is a book about dreaming in a world that has other plans for your time, your youth, and your future. It asks, what does it look like when a bunch of queer Black kids are allowed to dream? And what does it look like for them to confront the present circumstances of the people they love while still pursuing a wildly different future of their own?

Mod opinion: I've heard of this book before and I really like the cover, but I just don't enjoy novels-in-verse, so I won't check it out myself.

[arwainian]

Reading This Week 2024 #52

and NOW that we are caught up, I am back to a regular (for me) reading pace. also as a fun note, my mom gave me an ereader/i stole on from her so i can read cool indie epubs in e-ink and not awkwardly on my phone

Finished:

Is it Wrong to Try to Pick up Girls in a Dungeon?, Vol. 1 by Kuneida, translated by Andrew Gaippe my dad likes this manga, and asked me to read the first volume to see if i also liked it before he donated his volumes to the library. i did not.

Scorched Grace by Margot Douaihy mystery book i learned about from a lesbian on booktube. lesbian nun as the sleuth! my mutuals book club randomly picked this as our book for January and I finished it in the backseat during the drive up to canada for extended family christmas. it was alright!

What Did You Eat Yesterday? Vol. 11 by Fumi Yoshinaga, translated by Jocelyn Allen at this point reading a volume of this manga is a christmas season tradition for me. I first picked it up on a christmas break and aside from reading some volumes this summer that's pretty much exclusively when I've read it. it's cozy slice of life cooking manga nature is very suited to relaxed end of year reading for me

Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien, narrated by Rob Inglis woo! this was a fun beast to slowly get to. i am confident that next year, and by the time my friends are doing a lotr marathon, i will have read the lotr book finally. i like the structure of the series

10 Dance, Vol. 1 by Inouesatoh, translated by Karhys i got it in my head to take a bunch of manga ebooks out of the library and read a bunch of first volumes to decide if i wanted to keep them tagged on my libby account. that was very silly, but i did read this (i think eventually actually gay but for now mostly queerbait vibes) manga about ballroom dancing?

Look Back by Tatsuki Fujimoto, translated by Amanda Haley i picked this up on my final day at home with my parents when my mom and i stopped by the library and read it that afternoon. I cried. what an excellent introduction to Fujimoto's work, i can't wait to read more

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle, narrated by Hope Davis read for my local sff book club for January, despite never reading this myself as a child it was a very nostalgic read, bc i vividly remember my younger sibling reading it and being obsessed with it. i even recognized several scenes as one's I had overheard from their audiobook

Started/Ongoing:

Unpainted by Dani Finn i am packing my ereader with books by indie queer/trans authors and Dani Finn had a big sale in my line of sight. i'm about halfway through, i'm having a bit of trouble connecting with both the plot and the romance, so.... but I am interested in checking out their other work. just maybe not going to finish this one

I will see you all in the new year! with more reading than ever probably. or less if i get a job. maybe i'll post some hopes and goals for reading next year sometime over the next couple days

[canmom]

I was tagged by @baeddel and charged with the following questions:

Last song: Mephisto by Queen Bee. This is the ED for Oshi no Ko, and that is indeed the context I first encountered it. But I've kind of become obsessed with Queen Bee ever since I saw this video of Avu-chan:

There is definitely an element of "I want to learn to sing but I cannot sound like a cis women no matter what so I have to figure out some other sort of voice to aspire towards". Not that I could ever have Avu-chan's ridiculous range lol. But they are sort of the coolest person I've ever seen.

After that I learned that I'd been hearing Avu-chan a whole bunch. For example, Avu-chan voices Inu-oh! All the fantastic songs I enjoyed in that film...

And that's not even the first time Avu-chan worked with Masaaki Yuasa. You remember that amazing version of Devilman no Uta from Devilman Crybaby?

Yeah, guess who.

But that's just focusing on the anime link. Queen Bee is the shit. Like check out this duet between Avu-chan and Avu-chan:

Or King Bitch with all the martial arts. Or Inu-hime which manages to pack a whole gory jidaigeki story into a three and a half minute music video. I'm still working my way back through Queen Bee's videos.

Forgive me, this is way more than one song ^^'

Currently watching: Besides Animation Night tonight? ^^

I recently finished Tengoku Daimakyou - which was imo strong right up to the end, and there's a bunch to write about it. But this says 'currently' so...

I'm presently catching up on Oshi no Ko. (Hence the Queen Bee listening.) Which is the one where the gynecologist is reincarnated as the son of an idol alongside one of his patients; said idol gets murdered, and then as a highschool student our boy's attempting to solve her murder while getting caught up in all sorts of showbiz drama. I've written a bit about Oshi no Ko before; two eps further on, the story continues to have some delightful swerves and I'm fascinated to see where they're going with all this. I can see it steadily orbiting certain themes - falsehood, performance, self-identity and so on - but what the ultimate thrust will be, remains to be seen.

I ended up rewatching a few episodes with @footsteps-on-the-dance-floor a couple weeks ago. On the rewatch, I was struck by how, in this show about acting, just how much attention is indeed paid to the acting of the characters. Not so much flashy sakuga, just lots of carefully observed interactions that I came to appreciate a lot as I understood the characters better.

Currently reading: [whoops, forgot this one, editing it in] Ghost in the Shell for fiction. Shirow's manga is fascinating. In some ways you can see all the material that made it out into Production IG's various adaptations, but in some ways the tone is so different, way less dry, way more unabashedly nerdy, the characters much more emotional. I'm fascinated by all the little asides and margin notes by Shirow.

For non fiction, I've got this book called "Queer British Art 1861-1967" by the Tate that I'm steadily reading. It's fascinating, I didn't know shit about most of the people they write about in here.

Current obsession: What do I do that can't be characterised as an obsession really ^^'

But besides work, and writing long posts on here, and drawing pictures, I've been trying to learn music. I mentioned singing, but the other strand is trying to learn the zhonghu. So let me tell you about zhonghus.

This is a Chinese musical instrument, a close sibling of the erhu. Like a violin, it's a bowed instrument; unlike a violin, it's held upright on your lap, it has only two strings, and the bow is held in between them.

The bowstrings are very loose compared to a violin bow, and you use your fingers to press them against one or other string. There is no fingerboard, let alone frets, so pitch depends on how hard you press the strings as well as where your fingers are positioned. Not to mention a million other variables to do with your specific instrument.

The zhonghu and the erhu are almost the same instrument; the zhonghu is tuned slightly lower, similar to a viola compared to a violin. Also? The soundbox is covered by snakeskin, so if you import an erhu (or zhonghu) from China, you have to go to some effort to certify that the snake in question was from a farm and not a wild snake. And you have to be really careful that the bowstring doesn't catch on the scales.

Why am I learning the zhonghu? Well. That's a long story but the tl;dr is my friend suggested I should be a zhonghu player and I was like you know what sure. So now I have her old zhonghu.

I used to play the violin, but I think the way I learned the violin left a lot to be desired in terms of actually understanding music. I could translate sheet music into finger positions, and fulfill my role in an orchestra for kids, but I lost the thread at uni, where I tried to play with the ceilidh band and found I was completely at sea in a more improvisational setting. Add like a decade of rust on top of that.

So it's safe to say that right now I'm really fucking bad at playing the zhonghu. Nevertheless, I'm trying to persevere. In the month or so since I started, with very irregular practice, I've gone from 'can only make a horrible scratching sound' to 'can play an open string' to 'never hitting a note first try' to 'can mostly hit notes until I try to move my hand', so I'm inching forwards. It's a long way until I can make the kind of beautiful music that the erhu is known for, and I don't have any belief I'll ever be notably good at it, but there's nothing to be lost in trying to learn a new thing, even if it's one that is not coming naturally to me at all. Better to struggle than to go my whole life never picking up an instrument again you know.

Tagging - uhhh let's say - @mogsk @schizsune @sisyphication @catnumbers @argyrocratie @centrally-unplanned @hamiltonianflow @sapeami-scalps-whites [if you'd like, in each case!] The questions are 'last song', 'currently watching', 'currently reading', 'current obsession', answer in as much or little detail as you like

[alarrytale]

You may have already answered one about this but did you notice how Nick has started ignoring everything related to RWRB? First of all he never posted anything when they announced the sequel nor did he even like any posts related to it. He attended the panel they did but then said nothing about the announcement on social media. He usually uses social media to announce things so this is strange for him. He deleted all but two ig posts about the movie and he muted ‘rwrb’ because people were asking why he never mentioned anything about the sequel. Muting it means people can’t see any comments that mention rwrb under his ig posts. He left a bunch of posts up of his other projects by the way. The other shitty thing was he didn’t go to the glaad awards. I can give him a pass on that because maybe he was too busy…but they won the fan favorite award and again he said nothing about it. It’s almost like he’s embarrassed of it or thinks it’s beneath him. I hope I’m wrong but that’s how it feels. It’s so strange considering how huge that movie was and it really launched his career to another level. His stans of course had every excuse in the book for him but it truly makes no sense. I’m sure he has people helping him with his social media and image now but that doesn’t mean he has no control over it. Even sharing prime’s post about the sequel in his story and sharing something about winning the glaad fan award would have been fine but he said absolutely nothing about either. Is this his teams way of trying to push his straight agenda? And even if it is, how does it help his career to bury his best project? It’s so insulting for the queer fans especially :(

Hi, anon!

I've addressed all of this before, yes. Check out my nick galitzine tag. Is this his teams way of trying to push the het agenda? Yes, at least partly. It is disappointing, but it's his choice to make. I wish he would have done things differently.

[pocket-lin]

hii <3

4, 11, 16 and 19 for the fandom asks??

(almost just wrote a plea for you to answer all of them but managed to restrain myself😅)

hi hi hi!! thank you for asking me these, this is so much fun!! reading back on these answers after I've written them is shocking because I really can just go on and on about stuff, huh? I really don't talk that much irl so I didn't know I had all this in me hahaha I'm so sorry!! I'm actually so embarrassed 😅 I'm gonna put the answer to 11 in a separate post so I can actually attach the picture I'm proud of!

4. say something nice about a ship you don't ship (it can be another ship in your fandom, a mutual's OTP, etc)

the one ship that's jumping out to me is dramione. I am a huge hater of this ship (sorry sorry sorry if you're reading this and it's your thing I love you and support you!!!) but you guys make some really cool shit and I'm happy you have a community you can share it with!! I've poked around in the ao3 and tumblr tags and its absolutely not for me, but there's some really beautiful and horny stuff out there for this ship and I so genuinely love that for all of you!

16. a tiny detail in canon that you want more people to appreciate

if I'm being totally honest with you, I haven't interfaced with the harry potter canon in a very long time. i already own all the movies and books and stuff, so I wouldn't even be giving jk money by rewatching/reading them, but it just kind of makes my stomach hurt when I think about supporting her in some way. I've had to work through a lot of complicated feelings in regards to jk and harry potter in general, as I'm sure many people have had to do! her words and actions and how I feel about it are not complicated at all, but what to do in the aftermath of it was something I had to figure out. I mean, I have a hp tattoo on my ankle!! my pinned post is about this specifically, but where I've ultimately landed on it all is this: I don't want to let her steal any more joy from me than she already has. there are so many queer and trans people in this fandom creating such incredible stuff, and I just don't want to lose that! I got off on a whole tangent here and definitely have a lot more I could say on the topic, BUT all this to say, I can't really think of tiny hp details anymore!! and in this specific fandom, I'm totally okay with that!

19. your current fandom(s)

the fandom that I interact with the most is definitely harry potter, but I have a bunch of other stuff I'm super into!!

the whole reason I got back into any fandom–and the entire reason I logged back into Tumblr for the first time since 2018–was because of our flag means death!! I've loved rhys darby since flight of the conchords and was so pumped that he was a lead in an hbo show! I was totally shocked when ofmd turned out to not be queerbait!! something about that first season just flipped a switch in me and I looked for fan fiction for the first time in like, 10 years!! I actually didn't even know about ao3 and tried to go to ff.net and it was a whole thing. getting back into fandom was very intimidating, I'm not gonna lie. (wow I really could just talk forever huh?)

my other fandoms are: the sandman, the witcher, good omens (I was so late to that show but jumped on right before the second season completely on accident), check please!, disco elysium, red dead redemption (especial rdr2), the x files, the walking dead, the rivers of london series, and d&d: honor among thieves.

and then there's some stuff that I don't even know how I got into!! like, the spideypool ship. gang, I've barely seen any marvel movies, I haven't read very many marvel comic books. and I honestly don't plan it because I just don't like marvel (once again, could go on about this forever, I was a manager at my local comic shop and have many opinions). but someone I follow posted about a fic (and I am not immune to beautiful fan art) and then I fell down the rabbit hole!! def have recs if anyone is interested!

another one is the ted lasso fandom. I genuinely don't remember why we never finished watching the second season but then the reviews for the third season was kinda mixed so I never went back to it. and then I saw a writer I'm head over heels for had a ted lasso fic (other lives by @andthepeople) and WHOOPS I fell down another rabbit hole!! i also have ted lasso recs!

essentially, if ya boy's read/watched/listened to something, you know he's gonna go look at what the freaks (affectionate) are posting on ao3.

[nameless-and-joymaking]

advice for someone from another country visiting new york for the first time for like 2weeks?

ahh honored that you would ask my advice!

General/boring advice: be prepared for Weather (carry a sweatshirt and an umbrella bc the ones they sell on the street are shit, carry a handfan bc the trains aren't always air conditioned), avoid the G and L trains wherever possible, and the 1 train on the weekends, be alert but don't be afraid, pay attention to subway announcements and read the subway maps carefully (ppl will know you're a tourist if you're glued to the map inside the train car but who cares), avoid times square if you can help it, walk fast if you're in midtown everyone will be grateful, dont smile at strangers except old ladies and babies, thank your bus driver. Follow @got2gonyc on insta bc they have a map of public bathrooms that is VITAL (my personal favorite public bathroom in nyc is inside the shops at columbus circle.)

NOW for fun stuff/ Grand List of Recommendations. im going to split this into sections and go into WAY too much depth. im also assuming you're staying in manhattan but going to provide recs throughout the boroughs

Culture

if you have some money to burn, definitely see some theatre. If you like musicals, Kimberly Akimbo has $40 rush tickets (meaning if you show up at the box office right when it opens you can get cheap seats), Parade has $45 rush (if you're going to the city before it closes).

see a film at the Metrograph or Film Forum (metrograph has uncomfy seats tbh but always shows great stuff.) The Angelika is also fine, and Alamo Drafthouse is not NY-specific but it's cool.

go to The Strand! not on a weekend bc it's far too crowded but there are just so. many. books. or go to a community bookstore like Word Up in Washington Heights or Bluestockings downtown (lots of queer and political books)

You gotta do a museum or two. The Museum of the Moving Image in Queens is all about film and if you love movies, it is beyond delightful. You can spend a whole day at the Met just wandering, but if you like an agenda, I really recommend going to the Dutch painting collection in Gallery 964 and checking out my favorite painting I've ever seen up close, as well as the sculpture garden in the American Wing, the Asian Wing, the Islamic Wing, and the Egyptian exhibit (you have to walk through it to get to a bunch of other things anyway). There are some van Goghs there, too, and the costuming exhibit and and and-- ok i'll stop here. The American Museum of Natural History has the ability to make you feel like a kid again if you were into science as a child.

Lots of museums, including El Museo del Barrio, Bronx Museum of Art, and the Museum of Jewish Heritage have days where admission is free. Lot of the galleries in Chelsea are also free every day (including the Gagosian Galleries on West 24th and the Chase Contemporary)

Visit a library! The big one in midtown or a smaller one (Morningside Heights Library by the Columbia campus is nice, I like the Mosholu one in the Bronx as well)

Food

you cannot leave NY without having a good NY bagel. Downtown: Bagel Bob's. Uptown: Pick-A-Bagel. Bronx: Riverdale Bagels (you need a bus to get to this one, or a long walk, but worth it.) Downtown, midtown, and Brooklyn: Russ and Daughter's. any old dollar pizza place is probably great, but if you want to be fancy, go to Luzzo's on the upper east side.

if you eat fish, Astoria Seafood is a MUST. fresh, delicious, no frills, BYOB. easy to get lost on the way there if you don't know Queens, so be careful.

Queens in general is a great place to eat. Most diverse urban community in the world! Mama's Empanadas (right by the Museum of the Moving Image, on Steinway Street) is a strong recommendation there, as well. Hot pot, bubble tea, Greek food, and momos are, as a general rule, very good in Queens.

if you want relatively affordable sushi and sake, Marumi is my go-to in Manhattan.

if you want a bougie brunch or dinner, go to Lido in Harlem. Any Jamaican place in Harlem or buffet-style southern food is likely to be good if you want to be adventurous and just pick one. Pies n Thighs in Brooklyn is also good southern-inspired food if you eat meat.

Tasty Handpulled Noodles in Chinatown (there's one on Doyers and one on 9th ave) is some of the best Chinese food. Chinatown Ice Cream Factory is upsettingly expensive but very delicious.

If you like to cook, go to Kalustyan's in Little India and get yourself some spices. They have more kinds of pepper there than you've ever seen in your life.

there is a sandwich shop in the Bronx i will ONLY tell you about via dm bc i won't have my secret faves revealed in a public forum.

lmk if you want Fancy-fancy recs for food, I can make a whole other post.

Green Spaces/Nature

Wave Hill up in Riverdale is beyond beautiful, and free on Thursdays. A bit of a trek from any trains, buses involved etc, but worth it!!

If you're going with friends or peers, a picnic in Central Park (North Meadow by the 103rd st/CPW entrance is a good spot, also Sheep Meadow or the Great Lawn) or just a walk through the park can be amazing. A little touristy, but who's counting.

The Coney Island Aquarium (whether or not you also go to the amusement park) is really nice. Very far from Manhattan, but easy to find (lots of crowds lots of signs)

I don't know Prospect Park in Brooklyn super well, other than the area right by Ample Hills Creamery-- great ice cream, by the way-- but it's pretty and really huge. On that note, also try The Social in Brooklyn for ice cream and DEFINITELY eat an icee from a cart. Churros from a cart in the subway in particular also always hit.

It is tenuous to call this nature but the Union Square Farmer's Market pops up every Saturday and you can buy really good produce/honey/flowers/booze (also, incidentally, right by a good ice cream place, Van Leeuwen's) ((also incidentally, I'm at the market pretty much every Saturday. idk if meeting a tumblr friend is on your want list but yeah.))

[c-is-for-circinate]

Okay! Putting a genuine dent in this list, actually, so let's do some keeping track, shall we? (Especially since my goodreads account seems to have...deactivated itself? or something? fuck goodreads anyway)

A bunch of books I've read (or at least tried to read) in the past week and a half, under the cut:

Finished:

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin: no magic/sci-fi, major award winner (NYT bestseller, One Book One Chicago 2024)

OBOC isn't exactly a major award, but it seemed worthwhile to check out this year's book, especially since the Chicago Public Library is currently overflowing with ebook copies. I don't regret the choice, exactly, but I didn't love it either? Mostly it reminded me that stories need conflict, and in the absence of external dragons/monsters/etc, Literary Fiction tends to create it by simply writing about very unhappy people. T&T&T has sort of a fascinating irony going on: it's a story about playing, and yet there's very little sense of playfulness in the story itself. There's a bit towards the end where the Gen X'er protagonists have a bit of a 'kids these days' moment about how their late-2000/early-2010s college students think their trauma is the most interesting thing about them, and it makes them more aware of systematic injustice but also sort of humorless. I genuinely do not think the author wrote that bit in full awareness that she was describing her own book. There's a lot of sincere love for video games and the art-making process in this novel, but somewhere in the midst of writing about her complicated characters' miscommunication, chronic depression, and struggles, Zevin forgets to include any of the actual joy of it. I think this is maybe how Literary Fiction works? (This may explain why I am a genre-fiction reader.)

Into the Riverlands, When The Tiger Came Down The Mountain, and The Brides of High Hill, by Nghi Vo: recommendation from friends

This is technically three novellas, but they're all part of the Singing Hills Cycle and I churned through all three in one day, so I'm counting them as one excellent thing. This is exactly my jam: a complex fantasy world that plays around with the echoes and tropes of folktales from a culture not my own, which means it feels exciting and new to explore while also echoing things I've seen before in interesting new ways. Also so much playing around with storytelling itself, as a convention and a topic of discussion! Wonderful. Many bonus points for being a casually queer world. Aside from the nonbinary narrator, Tiger features an f/f main narrative, Riverlands implies some potential relationships and poly things without technically saying it explicitly, and High Hill features m/f relationships while still feeling very much like it exists in a world where queer things can and do happen, they simply aren't right here and now. I wouldn't call any of these romantasy (maybe Tiger? technically? but oooh boy that is some toxic yuri if so), but I love the shrugging easy queerness that simply exists in the world.

The Crane Husband, by Kelly Regan Barnhill: major award winner nominee (Nebula 2023)

This book was...fine? I enjoyed it well enough, but I don't know what everybody at Nebula and NPR and all the other rave reviewers have been reading by comparison to like it as much as they seem to. This is, ultimately, a story about a parentified daughter and her mom's abusive boyfriend. It does a good job of being that, but I can't say it's particularly layered beyond that one thing. There's an edge of fantasy, with the crane himself, that doesn't particularly impact the plot or the worldbuilding; there's a hint of near-future scifi to the setting, which is basically unexplored aside from one or two little moments. If anything, this is one of those "fantasy" stories that's more interested in using its magic as a metaphor for a Real World Situation than engaging honestly with its premise for its own sake. I know there are people who like that! I just tend to find it an uninspiring way to go about creating a book.

Stories of the Raksura, Volume 1, by Martha Wells: well-liked author pick

Look. I'm fandom trash. We are on tumblr; it's just how it goes. Have I now read the 450k word FF7/Crisis Core Raksura crossover three times. Is that what it took to finally get me branching out into Martha Wells' works beyond the Murderbot books. You all already know the answer to these questions. This is where we live and this is just what we are doing okay. That said, I am enjoying working my way through the Raksura books for their own sake, and there will be more of them coming. As someone whose entire personality was basically Dragonriders of Pern for approximately 1-3 years around seventh grade, this series feels like a game of playing with that specific source material inspiration in a very new context. It's pulpy spec-fic, but look, the joy of pulpy spec-fic that's more interested in engaging with its premise than in being Respectable is that it can tear off on crazy hypotheticals that end up playing with cool ideas and layered themes. (This series is doing shit with questions about gender and social value as determined by reproductive function. It's not answering any of those questions, but it's definitely doing something with them.) Anyway, the short stories in this one were good and fun and not particularly deep but I liked them. Moving on.

Thornhill, by Ursula Vernon: well-liked author pick, major award winner (Nebula 2023 nominee, Hugo 2023 winner)

Ursula Vernon is great, we love Ursula Vernon around here. There will be more Vernon before this list is through. This is one of her appeal-to-younger-readers works, which are generally my favorites (her horror is just a little too spicy for me, and her romances are often just a little too extremely straight). Anyway, this story was just extremely sweet, very cute, and a nice fun read. Was the main character an anxious, guilt-ridden wreck raised by child-eating monsters, of course. (She would have been so much less anxious and guilt-ridden if they'd just left her with the monsters.) There's enough sadness in the story to keep it from being sugary or forgettable! It's still primarily a story about a kind person who's tried very hard for a very long time, very alone, who gets help and then doesn't have to be alone any more. It's nice. It's got that Vernon flair! Also, I read this in about an hour at the trans witch coffee shop across the street from the library where I got it, which was just an A+ October 1st decision for my life.

Still in progress:

The Little Friend, Donna Tartt: no magic/sci-fi, owned it for years

I really liked The Secret History when I read it back in college, which is...approximately when I bought this book. Ooops. Anyway, now that I'm finally reading it: the craft visible in this book is phenomenal. I am learning and remembering so much about ways books can be structured and written, when they're not fanfic. The characters in this book are sketched so very deftly, not with a cascade of facts but with such specificity that they all feel absolutely alive and individual, flawed and complex and understandable. This also feels like a master class in writing characters who're racist and class-ist without villainizing, excusing, or soapboxing -- everybody in this book is so intimately a creature of their own context, small town Mississippi in probably-the-1970s. Because every character is so allowed to be human, flawed, and multifaceted, the characters' prejudices and preconceptions all feel like part of that, in ways I will hopefully have more words for when (if) I finish the book. The one downfall: this book is so good at detail that it is dense and it is slow. I read about a third of it in a night, had to put it down for bed, and it's been sitting there as this looming, intimidating brick of a book ever since. It's very good! but oh boy do I need some things to actually happen in it soon.

The Eye of Jade, Diane Wei Liang: no magic/sci-fi, murder mystery novel

I went scouring the library recs lists for interesting mysteries, and this one looked fun! Doesn't seem to involve any murder just yet, but I'm still pretty early in the book, so it's still possible! This is another story that's very intimately wound into and around its setting, in this case 1990s Beijing, and I feel like sixty pages of book here has given me more of a snapshot of a culture I should probably know things about than every history class, news report, and General Vibe I've come across in the past thirty years combined. I should really learn more about day-to-day life in modern China. So far the mystery itself has only just begun, but it's a decent hook and a likeable heroine, and I think it'll be a quick read!

L'Etranger, Albert Camus: written before I was born, originally written in a language other than English, and a book I hated had complicated, ambivalent feelings about as a teen and haven't read since.

So I decided recently that it was about time to re-watch The Good Place, as one does (A+ idea, do recommend), which had me wanting to revisit some of the existentialist classics we were assigned in high school. In particular, I remember thinking The Stranger was fine but I did not like the ending, which wasn't happy enough for me. Twenty-odd years later, I suspect it's going to hit very differently -- though, hey! maybe it won't! We are reading to find out. This one is going to take...a while, probably. The little voice in my head that has more ambition than sense thinks that, while I'm investing in the self-improvement of reading again, I might as well also go for the self-improvement of "hey, remember when we were strongly conversational in French instead of just having an accent that let us pretend to be?" I absolutely do not have the vocabulary to read this book in its original language. I...am apparently going to try anyway, dictionary in hand. We'll see how that goes.

Coming soon:

The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies, Alison Goodman: no magic/sci-fi, murder mystery novel, random library pick

This just looks FUN. Middle-aged Regency ladies without husbands Solving Mysteries? It was on a library book list somewhere and it sounds like a delightful romp.

Foucault's Pendulum, Umberto Eco: classic sci-fi...probably not sci-fi, but definitely genre something, originally written in a language other than English, written before not actually before I was born, but statistically speaking definitely before most of you

I may have made an ill-advised trip to the local thrift store to look for thirty-year-old mass market paperbacks. I may have come home with six books I did not need and a pair of $5 jeans, and I am not sorry about it. Anyway, this is exactly the sort of thing I wanted to be reading as part of this list, even if it doesn't technically fit most of the categories: a weird fucking spec-fic novel that doesn't fit categories well, but made a zillion international bestseller lists, from 35 years ago -- steeped in the genre conventions, understandings, and conversations of a totally different world. The past is a foreign land, but one whose works created the genre and narrative conventions we have today. Fuck yeah, bizarre philosophical semiotics study, conspiracy theory, DaVinci-Code-wishes-it-could post-modernist bullshit. This is going to be such an experience. It cost me $1. I can't wait.

A Spell for Chameleon, Piers Anthony: actually written before I was born, a book I loved as a teen and haven't read since

I read a lot of trash pulp fantasy in middle and high school, and I loved the hell out of it. In retrospect, I am sure a lot of references and implications in the Xanth novels went over my head as a 13-year-old. In retrospect, I...also suspect they may not have actually been very good. But I also know they felt magical, and I'm interested to see how much of that magical feeling might still be there as an adult, or whether I can identify what about the books feels that way, in spite of the probable flaws.

...also so many other books currently on hold that the library will send soon and also from my inadvisable thrift store trip LOOK I AM WORKING ON IT OK. We're churning through novellas and chewing through the novels. The queer romantasy recs should start trickling in through interlibrary loan soon! I am finally going to get to read Legends and Lattes!

Okay, between my incipient un(der)employment and my desire to actually fucking manage a NaNoWriMo this year, the thing I most need to do is start reading books again.

Which means a goal list, based on what I actually want to write and also what I think is going to be useful for me in doing it. And there's no sense not aiming big! So--

1 book I loved as a teen and haven't read since

2 gothic horror novels

2 books I've owned for years but never read

3 murder mysteries

3 books I hated as a teen and haven't read since

3 books from my own well-liked authors I never got around to

4 classic sci-fi

4 books with no magic or sci-fi in them whatsoever

4 books originally written in a language other than English

4 brand new releases no more than six months old

5 books written before I was born

5 random picks from the library that look interesting

5 queer fantasy/romantasy novels

5 major award winners

5 assorted recommendations from friends who know me

Am I going to read 55 books before November? No, probably not. But if a book fits more than one category it counts for both, and I bet I can at least make a good start.

I think I might need a Goodreads for this shit.

[bookwyrminspiration]

well you were talking about getting book recs and i got inspired so :D

my favourites are she gets the girl (strangers to friends to lovers, very slow burn), she drives me crazy (enemies to friends to lovers, fake dating) and one last stop (strangers to friends to lovers, plus a bunch of sci-fi shit)!! they're all sapphic because i'm sapphic and like reading gay stuff

Yooo!! Book recs!! I love getting book recs! I have read zero of these before, but I have heard of One Last Stop at least. I will add this to my periphery of books to check out--though like I said, I cannot promise a prompt reading. No clue when I'll get to these, but I will get to them!

Sapphic books my beloved <33. Just the other day I was thinking about how I should read more queer books. I'd made a list of a good portion of the queer books I'd read for a project, and while it was longer than I expected, it dwarfs in comparison to the number of other books I've read. So thanks for contributing to my queer book mission!

[bonefall]

You can call me Bones!

I am a queer adult over 20 and I use He/They pronouns. This is a side blog where I post Warrior Cats analysis and discussion, designs, and writing for WC-related projects.

Currently, I'm maintaining the Better Bones AU, a WC conlang called Clanmew, and my Clan Culture series. All of these are free to use, reference, or take inspiration from.

My side-sideblog is @bonebabbles, that's where I do most reblogs, live-read books, and discuss other media (usually xenofiction). I also occasionally do other fun stuff, such as a livestream of Critter Cove I'm planning for the 10th. Consider that my 'spam blog' if you will!

Please read this entire post before sending an ask or tagging me.

You are never bothering me with "like spam" or "reblog spam!"

I LOVE seeing people talk in the tags and replies

I adore asks and I read all of them! I can't promise to get to every single one though, please check out my Ask Etiquette

"Can I use Clan Culture in my project?" Yes. Please read this entire post.

Do not ping me for my AU on other people's posts. If you want to know how I will handle something, send an ask.

Better Bones AU, also called BB or BB!AU

My most comprehensive passion project is the Better Bones AU, a revamp of Warrior Cats that aims to:

Fix the tangled family tree and give it clearer rules, expanding on kinship between cats while not neglecting friendships

Make the environment accurate to northwestern England, including education on how different biomes are managed and lists of local flora and fauna

Build out Clan culture by giving the Clans tool use and food preparation, additional traditions and customs, their own language, and medicinal treatment guides from sniffles up to HRT.

Change the themes of canon by addressing (not removing) its problematic elements, giving the cats consistent politics and making the narrative conclusively anti-authoritarian.

Be cool as fuck, with wilder deaths, more clanborn villains, bloodier battles, and even MORE complicated innerClan drama

HERE IS ITS CONTENT WARNING LIST.

Its old name was #Bonefall Rewrite, but was changed as it became more divergent from canon.

Individual posts are tagged #Better Bones AU, and are sorted further by arc such as #BB!TPB, #BB!Po3, #BB!characterName, so on.

GO SEE ITS MASTERPOST OVER HERE

It even has a TVTropes Page that was created by @halogenwarrior

If you want to see or submit memes, you can hop over to @bb-fennelposting!

Clan Culture

Like I mentioned, I create extra culture for Clan cats and society (tagged #Clan Culture), with a whole bunch of guides that expand on canon-adjacent crafts, meals, medicines, and so on. Clanmew is part of the Clan Culture series.

Go check out the MASTER POST here!

These are free to use for YOUR projects, AUs, FanClans, etc.

YES even things unrelated to warrior cats. You can use it in your pathfinder campaign, rainworld project, etc.

Feel free to send suggestions or ask questions!

Other Things

Canon analysis and discussion

I also talk about the books and the general themes of Warriors! When I’m analyzing characters, themes, plots, or anything else about canon material, I tag it as #Warrior Cats Analysis.

When I discuss the newest books as they’re released, I tag it as #ASC Spoilers.

Fan Work

I've gotten fan art for some of the things I do! I collect it all OVER HERE. I try to contribute to this list as I receive it, and its last update was 1/10/2024