#and if theres one thing i hope this blog is good for its showing that there are so many more trans books and trans authors out there!

[haveyoureadthistransbook]

Not a book recommendation this time, but an essay recommendation that leads to book recommendations! I've found and really enjoyed this essay about trans literature with an overview of some important voices in the genre and I just wanted to share this here in case anyone is interested in checking it out as well.

[lycorid]

Sometimes venturing onto the For You side of Twitter sparks joy.

Based take. Shoujo and Josei are fucking top notch, both in characters and art style (how can you not think they’re beautiful?)

“Ruined the JJK and MHA fandoms” is WILD. I avoid fandoms for the most part (except perusing tumblr for the occasional fucking thesis women write about character motivations i love you women <3) because they usually suck. Seriously, I kept up with OPM for a bit because it was entertaining but holy shit the subreddit (very much full of men) is literally just… sexy woman. More sexy woman. Memes about artist constantly drawing sexy woman. Memes. Occasional power scaling arguments. Low quality page colorings of the exact same page. There is NOTHING. How the hell can women ruin the fandom when the fandom IS the women?!

It’s the women creating in depth analyses on characters; it’s the women writing fanfiction, creating doujinshis; it’s the women creating fandom centered accounts; it’s the women buying every new merch piece that comes out AND giving free advertising by posting about it online. And then men will go on and rag on women for doing all these things. It’s infuriating.

Longevity of a series is also something these idiots ignore. Seriously, look at Katekyo Hitman Reborn. The manga ended in 2012 and the creator is working on a different series. Katekyo Hitman Reborn still gets regular merch releases. This is a series that ended over a decade ago and still has an incredibly dedicated fanbase of, I wonder who, that regularly spends enough money to keep it consistent. You cannot look me in the eyes and tell me that series is supported mainly by men. I do not care how hard Amano Akira tried to alienate her female fans with her treatment of the female characters you know exactly whos spending the money based on who is constantly getting merch (minus the titular character, because of course he has to be there.)

Honestly I don’t give a damn that fandom can often be absolute insanity; you get a group of people together and it’s always going to be a shitshow, that isn’t unique to fandom, people just like to pretend it is because as always, there’s an undercurrent of misogyny because people know women carry that shit but they only want to acknowledge it when they can use it to criticize them.

I love that she came for the JJK fandom as well. I’ve been following the series because honestly it is really fucking funny because it is the epitome of shounen tropes. The author literally baked them into the world. Explaining your abilities to the opponent makes them stronger. So this entire series you get giant pages of just white with text explaining every little fucking thing like theres a narrator standing over your shoulder making sure you can’t possibly miss anything on the first read. Fuck dude, I don’t mind exorbitant amounts of text in my manga, but you cannot be serious in pretending that is good writing. There’s a deus ex machina that every character can pull out of their ass called a binding vow. Black flash also falls into this category.

Hell, the latest arc has literally just been flashback after flashback playing during the battle of the characters forming a bunch of plans in preparation for the fight we currently are following. This is genuinely one of my most hated tropes. The characters just get off screen power ups that then get handwaved as “well we showed you the flashback right?” there is NO anticipation, any excitement you feel for the battle is purely manufactured rather than genuine. It’s not “I can’t wait to see how the growth I followed of these characters affects the battle” it’s “wow, what cool ability will they pull out of their ass next?” I hate it I loathe it and it’s even worse with emotional moments. Why couldn’t you write this into the story in the first place? Why are you giving it to me in a shitty flashback?

Maybe I didn’t explain it well enough because I launched into a rant. The reason I hated it so much is because it forced the reader to be an observer rather than an active participant in the manga. Everything is spoonfed to you. You don’t need to reread the chapters over and over to put together the pieces on how, where, and why each action took place, the author does that for you. You don’t see everything from a new perspective when you read it a second time, catching lots of things you may have missed because you’re not allowed to miss anything the author deems important.

I enjoy this manga. There is good things about it. But it is nowhere near the god manga (“kamige” would be the term if it was a visual novel; I don’t know a manga equivalent) men like to pretend it is. It genuinely seems like they think everything being explained every page is good writing.

Based and succinct.

Anyway, you shouldn’t restrict yourself from experiencing specific genres because they’re for “the lessers” because that’s actually fucking cringe and maybe you should touch a Josei manga, or even a Shoujo manga. Maybe it’ll open your eyes and you’ll realize, hey, women’s media is actually- oh who the fuck am I kidding just pull the trigger.

[totallyblooktacular]

Heh, thank the old Spider Riders blog for that haha. Not a lot of folks remember the, even up here in Canada, where we dubbed it and aired it constantly; though everyone remembers the old game, which people are trying to revive. I've been revamping my own fic on AO3 for a while now, and I think I'm the only person currently writing new content for the show both there and on FFNet lol.

some of this feels a little vague so im worried im not thinking of the same things youre actually referencing, but i still definitely agree.

its a shame not very many people made their own dedicated blogs for it here (i only know like 2 ?) but theyre definitely very helpful for general access to content (official and otherwise), especially when pretty much anything of substance about it is so obscure, so i would say i do owe a lot to at least the one that was kept up here until.. i think just right after i started getting more into it myself, coincidentally enough lol

nice to be able to hear from a fic writer too though!! and that ur still kicking, as well. i havent read a majority of the ones out there, but i’ve been trying to stay pretty on top of some more recent ones being updated, so i think ive been reading it too, good job there!

[dunmeshistash]

in regards to skin tone variation in DM, i do think a lot of it is colorism/racism too. theres a few characters of color, but not many (just like how theres some fatter characters, but none of them are main characters (even senshi & other dwarves arent really depicted as fat)).

ryoko kui has surface representation for these people, but it lacks much substance, and the brown characters she does draw arent given brown facial features, and are almost always colored with very ashy skin. a lot of them just look like a recolored white person (especially cithis, kaka, & kiki). her random portraits of characters who dont actually appear in the series otherwise tend to be much better about this, but the actual characters that show up and play a part all seem to suffer from this issue.

im not saying kui is like, super-duper racist and we all need to stop reading DM etc etc, but i think its important to recognize and point out everyday/usually-overlooked colorism & racism when we see it, and i know im not the first or only person to point this out about her character designs. if she can draw fat people and actual brown people as part of the portraits, why cant she or wont she do the same for any of the featured characters in the series?

(i know the orcs are fat, but its not a good thing the only consistently fat people are the ones who are a fantasy race based off of violent racial stereotypes, who are also pig people, while none of the main cast of "real" humans are fat except *maybe* the dwarves, who still have small waists and flat stomachs, and the lord of the island, who is depicted as corrupt & decadent)

Well yeah.

I'm just a lore blog so I don't like to get too into real life issues or make assumptions about how the author feels about these subjects. What I talked about on the skin tone post was assumptions as to why she thought it would be important to show skin tone variations on certain races as a character design choice. (In the sense that her character design is very purposeful)

I realize some people over praise Kui's designs when most of it is pretty safe for what it is, but even if it's just a step closer to better representation it's something that's rare to see in anime. So I understand why some people get so excited about it.

It is important to realize this isn't the ideal either (Dark skinned characters with the same features as the others, mostly well build characters on the thinner side) but I personally don't like to criticize these type of stories on what it "could/should have been".

As someone who is fat and not white, I'm happy we get some diversity in dungeon meshi. I hope this opens up the possibility of better character design in the future even if what we got now wasn't perfect.

It shouldn't be the case that this piece of art filled me with so much joy I teared up cause I had never seen someone with a similar body to mine drawn with so much respect and objectivity. But unfortunately that's the world we live in and I don't think it's wrong to be happy for what we get for now while acknowledging it's not perfect and that it should be better.

I'm also super happy the anime chose to make the dark characters even darker.

[prodbyton]

I JUST FOUND YOUR BLOG AND LET ME SAY IT IS SAUR GOOD

here me out!!!

you're all chilling with the boys and you all start talking about random things together, it turns into a conversation of who's most likely too, and everyone points at sohee for who's most likely to never dom in their entire life, and you (sohee's partner) points at him too, because you think your baby would never do that, because your always domming in the room :(

sohee gets slightly pissed that you agree with the boys and let's say later on that day, he teaches you otherwise, and maybe it could be at the dorm so you "accidentally" are too loud and the boys here you :((

also can i be 🐶 anon?

AHH THANK YOU SO MUCH 😭😭🙏🏽 and yes ofc you can be 🐶 anon welcome!!

i did some tweaking to this so its not exactly what u said but i hope you still like it <33

everyone would be laughing and joking, giggling saying theres no way sohee would be able to dom and they were sure that you were the one domming in the bedroom and your shy silent giggling only added more fuel to the fire. it was all supposed to be lighthearted fun but sohee didn’t like that he was viewed as some soft boy who couldn’t take charge in the bedroom, especially by you. so he wanted to prove everyone wrong.

when the night dies down and you both make your way into sohees room he is already kissing you roughly, giving you no room to breathe. you follow along, already knowing where this is going and you wanted to see how it would play out.

doubting your boyfriend was something you realized to be a mistake, because he was already showing you just how good he can make you feel without your guidance. he’s eating you out like he’s starving, fingering you and pulling out right before you cum, he’s not listening to your whines, letting you beg some more for him to do something. even when you try to get some more of your control back he’s just swatting your hands away and pushing you back on the bed.

sohee is fucking you in a way you never expected from him, holding your legs open while he fucks you with deep fast thrusts, rubbing your clit despite the noises you make about it being too much.

you were moaning so loud, and sohee felt good knowing he could have you a moaning mess the same way you usually had him. it only drove him to fuck you harder, making sure the boys could hear you even from their rooms across the house.

[dhmis-autism]

im new to dhmis tumblr do you have any dhmis blogs you recommend i check out?

OH HIIIII HI HI HI OKAY SO. I HAVE A LOT OF FRIENDS IN THE LIL. tumblr dhmis sphere and theyre all great and lovely and I'll introduce you to them all and YOU can decide who you want to follow okay? OKAY!!

First up is my lovely friend Lulu @lulu-draws-stuff who has a cute very crayony pastelly style! :] They also have a keen fashion sense and love drawing the guys in new and fun outfits! They also have some very cute funny comics in there that I very much reccomend -v- )b

Next is my good friend Sodie.. @mtsodie who also runs the account @dailydogdadduo and he has a very textured, experimental style with a lot of variety! Very fun! A lot of his pieces like, you could swear were by different people if you didnt know better, that's how good he is at it!

Also my friend @its-mayo0 draws a TONN of great DHMIS stuff, their style is very loose and colorful! It's extremely funny stuff and I love the way they mix cartoonish antics/proportions with sincerity, their stuff is SOOO FUN!!

theres also @carehounds which is run by my buddy Fio! Theyre most well known iirc for spurring off the little fandom thing of people making their own versions of the trios? Though if you're new you might not know that. Good stuff, esp if you want to see a new spin on the old guys!

There's also all these great pieces from other friends of mine who aren't necessarily DHMIS centric blogs!

On the more written side of things, one of my friends Pere ( @marsupials-of-mars ) is actually writing a pretty good fanfic atm that's still currently updating- but they also do art as well if youre SOLELY looking for that.

Then there's Am @gnomeniche who I believe is mostly well known for their DHMIS analysis posts, they break down a lot of different aspects of the characters and the show (usually with a twinge of meta in the analysis) and, like Pere above, also make fanart on top of that! Though I will warn you a bit that their analysis is very… academicy? Lots of complex concepts and big words that you might not fully get on the first go round. But thats okay! Theyre lots of fun to reread! ^_^ )b

Also in the analysis sphere is my friend Gray @yellow-pig! They also do a pretty good job breaking things down and they talk often about theories and parallels and reoccurring elements in the show, some that I didn't even notice myself! Very fun. As with my other analysis friends, they ALSO draw some! Isn't that wonderful! How the love of this show supersedes mediums!

Also on the writing side but more on the funny side I would say is definitely Roswells' DHMIS blog @joepelling , lots of headcanons and jokes and fun info about the people BEHIND DHMIS. Their side blog, @dailythreeofthem is also really good if you want references for drawing the main three yourself!

I hope this was helpful and I hope it was a good start!! :D

[thesiltverses]

I don’t know who types up the ask answers on this blog but to whoever’s reading this: how do you all feel about being alive and sentient? What keeps you going, what purpose propels you through this chaotic void? What do you think (or hope) waits for you after your inevitable end? What do you think constitutes a life well lived?

I'm going to answer this in the most wayward and stupidly overlong manner possible, because the previous ask had me thinking about puppets, and I was already mid-way through writing up a book recommendation that's semi-relevant to your questions.

Everyone (but especially people who've enjoyed The Silt Verses and all the folks on Tumblr who loved Piranesi by Susanna Clarke) ought to seek out Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban.

Riddley Walker is a wild and woolly story set in post-apocalyptic Kent, where human society has (d)evolved into a Bronze Age collective of hunter-gatherer settlements. Dogs, apparently blaming us for our crimes against the world, have become our predators, hunting us through the trees. Labourers kill themselves unearthing ancient machinery that they cannot possibly understand.

A travelling crowd of thugs led by a Pry Mincer collect taxes and attempt to impose themselves upon those around them with a puppet-show - the closest possible approximation of a TV show - that tells a mangled story of the world's destruction, featuring a Prometheus-esque hero called Eusa who is tempted by the Clevver One into creating the atomic bomb.

Riddley himself, a twelve-year-old folk hero in-the-making surrounded by strange portents, ends up sowing the seeds of rebellion and change by becoming a conduit for the anti-tutelary anarchic madness (one apparently buried in our collective unconscious) of Punch 'n' Judy.

It's a book in love with twisted reinterpretation, the subjectivity of interpretation, buried or forbidden truths coming back to light (the opening quote is a curious allegory about reinvention and cyclical change from the extra-canonical Gospel of Thomas, which is a good joke and mission statement on a couple levels at once) and human beings somehow stumbling into forms of wisdom or insight through clumsy and nonsensical attempts to make sense of a world that is simply beyond them.

It rocks.

The book starts like this:

On my naming day when I come 12 I gone front spear and kilt a wyld boar he parbly the las wyld pig on the Bundel Downs any how there hadnt ben none for a long time befor him nor I aint looking to see none agen. He dint make the groun shake nor nothing like that when he come on to my spear he wernt all that big plus he lookit poorly. He done the reqwyrt he ternt and stood and clattert his teef and made his rush and there we wer then. Him on 1 end of the spear kicking his life out and me on the other end watching him dy. I said, 'Your tern now my tern later.'

Riddley's devolved language - a trick which has been nicked/homaged by many other works, most notably Cloud Atlas and Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome - is a masterwork choice which may seem offputting or overwhelming at first, but which has its own brutal poetry and cadence to it, and ultimately which makes us slow down as readers and unpick the wit, puns, double-meanings and playful themes buried in line after line.

(Even those first five sentences get us thinking about cyclical change, ritual and myth in opposition to the dissatisfactions of reality, and 'tern' to paradoxically indicate a rebellious change in direction but also an obedient acceptance of inevitable death.)

In one of my favourite passages in literature and a statement of thought that means a lot to me, Riddley has been smoking post-coital weed with Lorna, a 'tel-woman', who unexpectedly declares her belief in a kind of irrational, monstrous Logos that lives in us, wears us like clothes, and drives us onwards for its own purpose:

'You know Riddley theres some thing in us it dont have no name.' I said, 'What thing is that?' She said, 'Its some kynd of thing it aint us but yet its in us. Its lookin out thru our eye hoals...it aint you nor it dont even know your name. Its in us lorn and loan and shelterin how it can.' 'Tremmering it is and feart. It puts us on like we put on our cloes. Some times we dont fit. Some times it cant fynd the arm hoals and it tears us a part. I dont think I took all that much noatis of it when I ben yung. Now Im old I noatise it mor. It dont realy like to put me on no mor. Every morning I can feal how its tiret of me and readying to throw me a way. Iwl tel you some thing Riddley and keap this in memberment. What ever it is we dont come naturel to it.' I said, 'Lorna I dont know what you mean.' She said, 'We aint a naturel part of it. We dint begin when it begun we dint begin where it begun. It ben here befor us nor I dont know what we are to it. May be weare jus only sickness and a feaver to it or boyls on the arse of it I dont know. Now lissen what Im going to tel you Riddley. It thinks us but it dont think like us. It dont think the way we think. Plus like I said befor its afeart.' I said, 'Whats it afeart of?' She said, 'Its afeart of being beartht.'

While Hoban is, I think, deeply humanistic to his bones and even something of a wayward optimist, the notion of human beings as helpless and ignorant vessels, individual carriers - puppets, if you like - for an unknowable and awful inhuman power-in-potentia and life-drive that lacks a true shape or intent beyond its own continued survival (even when that means destroying us or visiting us with agonising atrophy in the process) conjures up the pessimism of Thomas Ligotti, another big influence on our work and a dude who was really into his marionettes-as-metaphor.

Let's go to him now for his opinion on the thing that lives beneath our skin. Thomas?

Through the prophylactic of self-deception, we keep hidden what we do not want to let into our heads, as if we will betray to ourselves a secret too terrible to know… …(that the universe is) a play with no plot and no players that were anything more than portions of a master drive of purposeless self-mutilation. Everything tears away at everything else forever. Nothing knows of its embroilment in a festival of massacres… Nothing can know what is going on.

Curiously, both Ligotti and Riddley Walker have appeared in the music of dark folk band Current 93, whose track In The Heart Of The Wood And What I Found There directly homages the novel and ends with the repeated words,

"All shall be well," she said But not for me

These words, in turn, hearken back to Kafka's* famous reported conversation with Max Brod:

'We are,' he said, 'nihilistic thoughts, suicidal thoughts that rise in God's head.' This reminded me of the worldview of the gnostic: God as an evil demiurge, the world as his original sin. 'Oh no', he said, 'our world is only a bad, fretful whim of God, a bad day.' 'So was there - outside of this world that we know - hope?' He smiled: 'Oh, hope - there is plenty. Infinite hope, just not for us."

So, we walk on.

We carry this thing that's riding on our backs, endlessly bonded to it, feeling its weight more and more with every passing day, unable to turn to look at it. Buried truths come briefly to life, and are hidden from us again. Perhaps they weren't truths at all. We couldn't stand to look the truth directly in the eyes in any case.

If there is hope, it's for the thing that looks out from our eyeholes, which thinks us but cannot think like us. We'll never get to where we're going, and the thing will never be born. There's no hope for it. Perhaps we don't want it to win anyway. It's nothing, and the key to everything.

The Jesus from the Gospel of Thomas says:

'When you see your own likeness, you rejoice. But when you see the visions that formed you and existed before you, which do not perish and which do not become visible - how much then will you be able to bear?'

Kafka, writing to his father, begins by expressing the inexpressibility of his own divine terror:

You asked me why I am afraid of you. I did not know how to answer - partly because of my fear, partly because an explanation would require more than I could make coherent in speech…even in writing, the magnitude of the causes exceeds my memory and my understanding.

Kafka concludes that while he cannot ever truly explain himself, and that the accusations in his letter are neat subjectivities that fail to account for the messiness of reality, perhaps 'something that in my opinion so closely resembles the truth…might comfort us both a little and make it easier for us to live and die.'**

It doesn't bring comfort to Kafka, whose diarised remarks both before and after the 1919 letter make it clear that he views his relationship with the things (people) that birthed him as an endless entrapment that prevents him from attaining any kind of self-actualisation or even comfort, since he cannot escape their influence or remember a time before them:

I was defeated by Father as a small boy and have been prevented since by pride from leaving the battleground, despite enduring defeat over and over again.

It's as if I wasn't fully born yet...as if I was dissolubly bound to these repulsive things (my parents).*** The bond is still attached to my feet, preventing them from walking, from escaping the original formless mush. That's how it is sometimes.

Samuel Beckett returns again and again (aptly) to this pursuit of a state of true humanity and final understanding that is at once fled and unrecoverable, yet to be born, never to be born, never-existed, endlessly to be pursued, pointless to pursue. From the astonishing end sequence of The Unnameable:

alone alone, the others are gone, they have been stilled, their voices stilled, their listening stilled, one by one, at each new-com- ing, another will come, I won’t be the last. I’ll be with the others. I’ll be as gone, in the silence, it won’t be I, it’s not I, I’m not there yet. I’ll go there now. I’ll try and go there now, no use trying, I wait for my turn, my turn to go there, my turn to talk there, my turn to listen there, my turn to wait there for my turn to go, to be as gone, it’s unending, it will be unending, gone where,where do you go from there, you must go somewhere else, wait somewhere else, for your turn to go again

I’m not the first, I won’t be the first, it will best me in the end, it has bested better than me, it will tell me what to do, in order to rise, move, act like a body endowed with despair, that’s how I reason, that’s how I hear myself reasoning, all lies, it’s not me they’re calling, not me they’re talking about, it’s not yet my turn, it’s someone else’s turn, that’s why I can’t stir, that’s why I don’t feel a body on me, I’m not suffering enough yet, it’s not yet my turn, not suffering enough to be able to stir, to have a body, complete with head, to be able to understand, to have eyes to light the way

From Thomas' Jesus:

When you make the two one, and you make the inside as the outside and the outside as the inside and the above as the below, and if male and female become a single unity which lacks 'masculine' and 'feminine' action, when you grow eyes where eyes should be and hands where hands should be and feet where feet should stand and the true image in its proper place, then shall you enter heaven.

Tom's Jesus makes a particularly Gnostic habit of both insisting that the hidden will be revealed and demonstrating the impossibility of attaining a state where the hidden ever can be revealed. Contrary to C.S. Lewis, we will never have faces with which to gaze upon the lost divine and the mysteries that shaped us, and crucially, as Christ puts it, we would not be able to bear the sight of ourselves if we did.

We will never become the thing that's riding on our backs.

Jesus again:

The disciples ask Jesus, 'Tell us how our end shall be.' Jesus says, 'Have you found the beginning yet, you who ask after the end? For at the place where the beginning is, there shall be the end.'

The Unnameable:

I’ll recognise it, in the end I’ll recognise it, the story of the silence that he never left, that I should never have left, that I may never find again, that I may find again, then it will be he, it will be I, it will be the place, the silence, the end, the beginning, the beginning again, how can I say it, that’s all words, they’re all I have, and not many of them, the words fail, the voice fails, so be it

The final passage of The Unnameable, which often is hilariously shorn and misinterpreted as an inspirational quote about how if you don't succeed, try again:

all words, there’s nothing else, you must go on, that’s all I know, they’re going to stop, I know that well, I can feel it, they’re going to abandon me, it will be the silence, for a moment, a good few moments, or it will be mine, the lasting one, that didn’t last, that still lasts, it will be I, you must go on, I can't go on, you must go on. I’ll go on, you must say words, as long as there are any, until they find me, until they say me, strange pain, strange sin, you must go on, perhaps it’s done already, perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don’t know. I’ll never know, in the silence you don’t know, you must go on, I can’t go on. I’ll go on. †

We bear this thing that's riding on our backs. We'll never get to where we're going, and the thing will never be born. If it was born, it'd be too terrible for us to bear. There's nothing riding on our backs.

It will never speak us into being.

We keep on calling out into the silence, we keep trying to explain or understand the thing that's riding on our backs, searching for a way to birth it before we die. Our words about the thing are crucial, and they're meaningless, and they're all we have, and they're nothing at all. We cannot name it and we cannot express it, but we cannot stop trying, and we will keep turning back to our words about the thing, obsessing over them, tearing them to pieces, putting them back together.

I'm fumbling at something I can't think or say, but fumbling is all we're capable of. There could be beauty and meaning and comfort in the fumbling, but it's also vain, and foolish, and pointless, and we're lying to ourselves about the beauty and the meaning and the comfort, and we're indulging ourselves pointlessly by going on and on about the pointlessness of it. Nothing can know what's going on. We will never get close enough to understand without being destroyed.

Thomas' Jesus again, warning those who seek to reveal what's hidden:

He who is near me is near the fire.

Riddley Walker, reflecting on the Punch puppet's inexplicable desire to cook and eat his own child:

Whyis Punch crookit? Why wil he al ways kill the baby if he can? Parbly I wont ever know its jus on me to think on it.

If you got to the end of this, congratulations: but the above is honestly the most appropriate patchwork of what I believe, what propels me, what I feel.

As for what comes after life, I think it's fairly straightforwardly a nothingness we are tragically incapable of fully knowing or accepting - it's Beckett's unimaginable and unattainable silence, a silence that his characters' voices keep on shattering even as they cry out for it.

-Jon‡

*I can't remember if Kafka makes prominent reference to Czech puppets in his work, which is interesting in its own right given the thematic relevance (the protagonist in The Hunger Artist is perhaps a kind of self-directing puppet show?).

However, Gustav Meyrink - who some unsourced Google quotes suggest was pals with Czech puppeteer Richard Teschner - did write a strange little story, The Man On The Bottle, about an audience watching a 'marionette show' who are too wrapped up in performances and masks to interpret the reality that they're actually watching a human being suffocate to death.

**Thomas Ligotti: "Something had happened. They did not know what it was, but they did know it as that which should not be.

Something would have to be done if they were to live with that which should not be.

This would not (be enough); it would only be the best they could do."

***Beckett's Malone Dies actually kicks off with a related sentiment:" I am in my mother’s room. It’s I who live there now. I don’t know how I got there...In any case I have her room. I sleep in her bed. I piss and shit in her pot. I have taken her place. I must resemble her more and more."

† I don't necessarily align myself in humour with Ligotti on a lot of this stuff but I imagine he would recognise both Beckett's writing and Kafka's frustrations re explaining the causes of his hatred for his father as sublimation: finding artistic and philosophical ways of sketching the inexpressible horror and uncertainty of our existence in order to reckon with it at a remove without destroying ourselves. A higher form of self-deception, but self-deception nevertheless.

‡Muna's more of an anarcho-nihilist, I think.

[matt-roseheart]

I 'Lava' you

A short murder drones fanfic based on @dronebiscuitbat 's characters from their rp blog, @ask-elliot-doorman-fam, Tera and Kiara, Rad is here too :P

Kiara paced around the hideout cave, nervously fiddling with her fingers. "What if she doesn't like it? What if she thinks its too cheesy? what if-" Her rant is cut off by Rad trying to calm her down.

"Kia chill, this is Tera you're talking about, sure she may be tough, but every tough person i know has a soft and squishy side that loves this stuff" He says, as he's on the couch tuning a ukulele. "So, lets go over the plan one more time before shes back from checking the perimiter"

Kiara takes a deep breath, which doesn't help much to calm her nerves, "Okay, we're here becase you are 'practicing' for the short-story musical Mr.Roseheart is hosting,"

"Which is thankfully real, couldn't think of an exuse otherwise" He adds.

"Mhm, and hopefully she'll agree to sing along, oh robo-god i hope she'll sing along, she has to for this to work" Kia was nervous about that part, Tera had a beautiful voice, but only ever sang in the privacy of her room. Hopefully the hideout would be enough to bring her out of her shell a bit, no chances of others overhearing her here.

Before Kiara could linger on that thought, there was a sudden whoosh at the entrance, meaning Tera was back. Kia rushed to a seat, put on headphones, and brought up her laptop to a blank page, pretending to be writing something. No stories would be written today, only some of her thoughts going a million miles an hour, dont screw this up please work i have to tell her.

"okay, outside is clear, so Rad, why did you bring a ukulele again?" Tera asked, as she sat down on the other side of the couch.

"Oh, you know the musical Mr.Roseheart is gonna be hosting?" Wait, did she even know about that?

"The music teacher? Uh, yeah i think I've heard about that. Isn't it about a bunch of short-stories instead of one big one? My dad seems pretty interested in going." N had seemed exited when he heard about it, even wanted to audition.

Oh thank robo-god

"Yup, a friend of mine that auditioned asked if i could help with their story, so im here to practice"

"Ok, cool"

"And i was hoping you could help."

"Oh? with what? Guitar?"

"Vocals, i struggle on my own when theres multiple characters singing"

Oh no, she did not like the sound of that.

"I am NOT going anywhere near a stage and singing, no way!" Tera growled, which made kiara more nervous.

"No no no, just for practice, only here. The only audience being Kia" Rad said, as he motioned over to where Kiara was sitting. "The part I need you to sing is basically the same line over and over a few times anyway, please?" He was looking up at her with puppy eyes, hoping to convince her.

Tera hesitated for a moment, normally she wouldn't, but in this case, it was just the three of them, no prying ears to worry about, so why not. "Ugh, fine. But if a video of this starts floating around, you're dead. whats the song?"

"Do you know the song 'Lava'?" She should, Kiara made sure to show her, hoping Tera would listen to it for this.

"That cheesy lovesong between two volcanoes? Yeah, i think Kia showed that to me a while ago"

Good, so far the plan is working "Cool, I'll be the narrator, so all you need to sing is the volcano's part. Do you know the words?"

"He basically says the same thing over and over, so yeah, whenever you're ready." Wow, Kiara was suprised, this is going a lot smoother than she thought it would.

With Tera ready, Rad began to play, and sing suprisingly well, like he's practiced before....

"A long long time ago, there was a volcano, living all alone in the middle of the sea."

"He sat high above his bay, watching all the couples play, and wishing that he had someone too."

"And from his lava came, this song of hope that he sang out loud, every day for years and years" With her part coming up, Tera cleared her throat and began.

"I have a dream I hope will come true, that you're here with me, and I'm here with you, I wish that the earth sea and the sky up above will send me someone to lava"

"Years of singing all alone turned his lava into stone, until he was on the brink of extinction"

"But little did he know that living in the sea below, another volcano was listening to his song"

"Every day she heard his tune her lava grew and grew because she believed his song was meant for her"

"Now she was so ready to finally meet him above the sea as he sang his song of hope for the last time"

"I have a dream I hope will come true, that you're here with me, and I'm here with you, I wish that the earth sea and the sky up above will send me someone to lava"

At that part, Kiara began to remove her headphones and close her laptop, nervously making her way over behind Tera.

"Rising from the sea below stood a lovely volcano, looking all around but she could not see him"

"He tried to sing to let her know that she was not there alone, but with no lava his song was all gone"

"He filled the sea with his tears as he watched his dreams dissapear as she remembered what his song meant to her"

Tera was about to sing the next part, thinking nothing of it, until someone else began to sing, making her jump as she turned around to see Kiara.

"I have a dream I hope will come true, that you're here with me, and I'm here with you, I wish that the earth sea and the sky up above will send me someone to lava"

Tera was caught off guard, by both her singing and the fact that Kia reached out to hold her hand that was resting on the arm of the couch. Theres no way, is she....

As Tera realised what she was doing, Rad continued the song.

"Oh they were so happy to finally meet above the sea, all together now their lava grew and grew"

"No longer are they all alone with aloha as their new home, and when you visit them this is what they sing" Tera, now holding onto Kiara's hand, hoping this wasn't a dream, continued with her.

"I have a dream i hope will come true"

"That you'll grow old with me"

"And I'll grow old with you"

"We thank the earth sea and the sky we thank too"

"I Lava you"

"I Lava you"

"I Love you"

Tera's face was all blush, lighting up the cave with a lavender glow, along with Kia's equally bright white blush. They sat there staring at eachother in awe for a minute before Kia broke the silence.

"Was that too cheesy?"

Tera stood and said, "Not at all, you weren't practicing for the musical, were you?" she asked looking over at thad.

"Nope, this was all her idea" He motioned over towards Kiara.

"So did you like it?" She asked nervously.

"I loved it" Tera said, before placing a kiss on Kia's forehead, nearly sending her into a reboot.

"Oh! I think I need to sit down" Tera sat back down, with Kia sitting next to her.

As Tera put her arm around Kiara, she let out a sigh of relief, everything went perfectly, and she couldn't be happier.

[suffarustuffaru]

The fanbase is scaring me, the redesigns brought up some weird people that are REALLY passionate about Liliana being half naked

Like theres a whole war going on on twitter rn and the poor character designer got harassed

My problem is with the amount of people upset with this, like i knew we had a bunch of pedos around because of the way tappei writes the girls, but damn i didnt think there were this many of them 💀

yes ive heard about that....... im answering your ask late oops haah but i hope the situations a Bit better..... the toxic parts of this fandom give me a headache but my usual motto is to stay off twitter, touch grass, ignore people, and then hold onto my own viewpoints unless proven wrong alsjdflsdj but like. yeah this fandom is a bit tough to stay in when it comes to certain circles (for example the amount of people low quality shitposting / ranting about the fandom or whatever on rezero ao3 atm in the past days/weeks is. mm. interesting). not my first time being in larger fandoms that make you sometimes feel like youre fighting in the trenches (you could name off a few big fandoms notorious for being toxic that date back to like 2016 and odds are ive been in a couple lajdlf) but yeah seeing people complain about liliana and capella's designs and then overly fixate on emilia's boobs when these three characters have more to bring to the table than just that and theres lots and lots of good things to say about the s3 trailer and their designs..... mm. yeah. im squinting hard at a few of the things ive heard on that. but anyway!!

like the new designs are an Improvement. In General. like ok, as a boob haver myself ("boob haver" is the funniest phrase to me alsdjfls but it is true nonetheless, i am one) i do not give a shit about emilias larger boobs like ok?? her boobs are bigger?? she is still my fav ever and sometimes it just happens when youre still a growing teen/young adult and emilias back to her more revealing main outfit when she wore a different outfit in s2 so the difference in chest size is really not that much. but liliana and capella? those are Improved designs. i think ive talked abt the treatment of underage characters / characters who appear underage on my blog before (and i definitely couldve worded myself better then but i stand behind the fact that some of the stuff otsuka and tappei do regarding this in rezero is just Unnecessary).

could designs like emilia's still be improved on in other ways? yeah 100%, just in the sense that there could probably be changed a bit to fit her slightly more timid and soft spoken personality. or you could take different directions on it in general if you wanted. ive seen some great redesigns of her main outfit!! though her main outfit in of itself is pretty nice to look at imo and its iconic and well-known for a reason. im of the personal opinion that i wish it was a little less revealing in the same vein that her s2 main outfit was (i like that outfit a lot!!) but its still a really solid design overall.

i had some faith after seeing the anime designers fix up typhoon's original design to be More Appropriate, and i love how the essence of liliana and capella's designs were kept the same. like its not just that theyre a little less revealing (and even then, theyre both still showing a lot of skin!!! which is good!!! i like the improvement while keeping the main stuff the same), but stuff like liliana's pants aren't transparent (probably to make it easier to animate?) and the yellow/orange gradient in capella's hair looks great!! they also both look more like grown women which is a bonus. unless youre Weird about this shit which is unfortunately a small percentage of the rezero community. like you cant win with those sort of people ig, bc capella's boobs are bigger too ljasdlfj youd think that win more people over.

also i appreciate capella's sports bra bc unlike elsa's outfit it Actually looks like it's supporting her chest. if youre someone with boobs and you dont have a flat chest, youre gonna need support when being active or itll Hurt. and elsa Does Not have proper chest support okay. ill forever wince remembering elsa's design in that sense HAH....

anyway but i digress. i got no clue what to do with toxic people in fandoms despite spending a lot of time lurking in large fandoms with loud toxic people haah.... its hard to do much about it especially with increasingly declining media literacy rates everywhere.... the notorious misogyny/homophobia/etc that can happen sometimes in anime communities.... that sort of thing. i kinda just avoid it when it comes to rezero in specific, or briefly talk about it on here, or rant about it to myself in my head or chat with pals about it in private if it really frustrates me that much!! and id say im a pretty patient person hah... im not frustrated often. and the fandom is not all weird people of course and i can attest to that as ive chatted with a lot of people here... ive also seen a lot of people leave due to the fandom's Issues which is. totally fair tbh.

and i think rezero is often a "baby's first fandom" so to speak... i dont mean that in a bad way of course but its more like its the first exposure to fandom and fandom etiquette and fic etiquette and that sort of thing when it comes to english circles. or at least its a pattern ive noticed, so my theory is that that occasionally that combines with toxic fans and then you get a few people complaining about the community and how bad our fics are on rezero ao3 ig lajdlfjsdlf. which is false by the way :<< and an annoying misuse of ao3 as a free creative archive :<<

but ultimately i hope the rezero character designer's alright (and honestly theyve done super super great work - like the anime Did Not need to give emilia a bajillion outfits and go above and beyond with improving liliana, capella, giving the suwens and their hometown a whole unique aesthetic, etc). and also while i have stuff to criticize with otsuka and tappei... and the toxic parts of the fandom hah... i still enjoy rezero apart from that and the uproar with the designs has not chipped away at me too much!! ive been in this fandom long enough i guess lmao i just roll with punches at this point T^T but i also just try to look on the bright side a lot in general so ;-;;;

these are the sorts of things i like to be aware about but i dont like to get myself super involved with it (since itll probably make it worse and/or make me stressed for no good reason lmfaoo) and i wont let it enjoy the parts of rezero that i do enjoy a lot (which is to say like. the other 98% of rezero hah). so. getting off twitter is the biggest godsend i promise lajdlsfj.

but anyway!! yeah i dont have much organized thoughts on all of this, this is just me rambling my feelings on it. hope this all makes sense anon <3

[etherealspacejelly]

hi!! you seem like a very chill and kind person so I thought I'd ask you. I'm fairly new to this website and I don't know how to make friends on here or how to engage and chat with people? if that makes sense. (I'm also autistic so maybe I just have a hard time picking up on The Rules if there are any). I was wondering if you could maybe perhaps give me some tips? tysm in advance! (also: hope you're having a nice timezone :) )

absolutely i can give you some tips!!!

the first thing you want to do is make sure you're posting things. no one will want to follow you if theres nothing on your blog! make original posts about your thoughts on things you care about (and make sure to tag them appropriately!), and reblog things you like, and likeminded people might give you a follow!

follow some accounts that follow you, especially if they have shared interests. making mutuals is the best way to make friends. write friendly/funny responses to things in the tags of their posts, send them asks to get to know them, and tag them in things you think they'll like

i would advise sending asks first before any direct messages, as this is a more public and informal space so it makes people more at ease with interacting with you. if you dont know what to ask, find some of those ask games that people are always reblogging and take one of those questions (thats what i do!)

if you want to direct message someone and start an actual conversation, this is usually pretty universally welcomed if you are already mutuals with the person and have been exchanging asks and comments in tags for a while. if you are Not mutuals with the person in question, make sure to introduce yourself and state your intentions Straight Away. dont just start messaging them as if you're already friends. if you arent mutuals, its pretty likely they have no clue who you are, but they might still be interested in being friends if you tell them thats what you're after!

my last piece of advice is, dont jump into a conversation with nothing to talk about. if you are initiating the conversation, it is on You to bring something to the table to start things going. otherwise you're putting a lot of pressure on the other person to make the conversation engaging, when they didnt even choose to start the conversation in the first place! think of it like you're auditioning to be this persons friend, you want to make a good impression!

go to their blog first and look at what they post about. have they reblogged a bunch of gifsets from a show you dont watch? ask about the show! whats the plot about, who is their favourite character, what do they like about it, etc.

thats pretty much it! this is the way i have made most of my friends on here. i hope that helps. good luck!

[pinkmoondoll9shihtzu]

hi, im a mutual of yours who is too shy/on&off tumblr to interact, but i do look up to you; and your blog and way of seeing things helped me in the past when i was struggling quite a bit.

Lately I feel as if im lost in life, lost my passions and floating aimlessly without a real goal, detached from the future etc. Do you have any advice? I appreciate ur view on things, hope this isnt overstepping 🌦🌈

hi its ok no pressure too interact w me ona personal level just cus were mutuals i enjoy the ambient bonds that can form on this website its why i stay ^^ and no it's not overstepping at a;ll sorry it took me a lil while to respond i was trying to think of good advice since i often feel lost too---

well firs t n foremost to give credit where credit is due, this bjork reddit AMA response really gets to the bottom of it , ever since i first read this here on tumbr a few years ago it really rly stuck w me:

the way this answer helped me is like, it helped me realize i dont need to be so regimented i dont need to put all this pressure on myself to create..All that does is feed into self inflicted guilt when i cant live up to my own expectations u.u you see for my whole life i've never been able to plan anything. yes i can think about the next steps i want to take, i can assemble a plan, i can see the logical way forward, but my moods. or like, idek. how to explain..

i cant force anything. if im not feeling it, i cant force it. ive STRUGGLED w this like i dont wanna be this way. because my feelings i cant predict. like for example i worked on music all winter because thats what i was feeling. then suddenly in march i just like, wasnt feeling it all of a sudden. As soon as it hit me i was like Fy767*T&UG*** because i didnt know when it was gonna come back. i still dont know!! im just trying to be patient waiting it out..in the mean time i have suddenly become enthused with drawing again after not ~feeling~ drawing for most of 2023. sometimes i go for weeks where i dont take a single photo and then suddenly it starts flowing again.. my website was also left untouched for most of 2023 until recently.

thats just one example of this repeating pattern in my life that i didnt understand for so long. theres years of my 20s where i couldnt feel passion for anything at all, looking back now i believe those times i was meant to be focusing on stuff in my psyche that needed healing to clear out some headspace for art. and this bjork quote put a lot into perspective it showed me how to reformulate my thinking to be more accomodating to my disposition. when i'm patient & kind w myself, take each day as it comes, let go of the imaginary pressure, let go of "the future", stuff starts to come thru easier.

and maube its gonna show up in ways you dont expect but its true that the mundane world offers so many ways to practice being creative & giving u stuff to weave into the art u want to create.. every water fall starts w a single drop its trueits true :] thats my advice i spose i really didnt meant to write this much but im boooored.. actually my nighttime boredom writing is one of those habits i never considered to b creative until very recently. there's so many small & automatic things we do that can lead to a meaningful life & purpose.

thanks for the question anon i hope this helps in some way , this is whats helped me but everyone's process is different. and i still have moments where im like WTFFF is happening but its easier to ride it out now. i wish the same for you just give it time <3 thanks again xPmd9

[intertexts]

since I can't talk about my favorite bits that made me go AUGH bc of things you dont know about yet. give me ur favorite bit. what was ur favorite bit in that fic. gimme the authors notes behind the scenes ramble

AUAUAUAUA.... u r so nice 2 meee godddd what the hell. exploding u💥💥💥!!!!!!!!!!! ANYWAY. OK. OK. AUTHORS NOTES.

things i included that i am VERY IFFY ON but nevertheless went for:

>i think there's like 70/30 odds that they (dakota) try to do the putting ashe's headphones with thank you scientist or smth blaring on him to try & bring him back thing. can't tell you if it'll work or not but it has to come up. nevertheless i think if u were stuck in yr head for a year with the fucking trickster u would appreciate some quiet!!!!!! & its just. idk man. that's what i'd spiral over. what if one day u wake up n u don't even like all the stuff u love anymore. etc.

>I'M ALSO TAKING. A REALLY FUCKING LONG SHOT by explicitly referring to wiwi as alive? honestly? like it's a 50/50, i think that all the stuff w/ the heart etc should continue to have thematic resonance, but also i don't know how that will work with the wisps when they..... return? (<- using this word in the loosest possible way i just don't know how else to say it. when theyre onscreen again??) i'm sure the wisp thing gets some resolution i have no doubt. and i don't know if "whisperer william" and "alive body traits" are mutually exclusive. idk. idk. we'll see!!

>i'm assuming tide will make another appearance b4 the season ends. idgaf if he shows in deadwood or not i fucking HOPE NOT but i just thought man. he Would come to bring them all back n take care of them. i think he and mark should get to have a really long slightly more. real? conversation on how much parenting fucking sucks and is stressful and terrifying and they feel bad at it.

MY FAVORITE BIT. goddd. iiii. ok. i have a lot of Thoughts on wingfics & idk. i guess i always think they're a bit too easy. u have wings that u Never Ever Let Anyone Touch Except Family And Lovers and u Let Someone Preen Them and what-- there isn't even any terrifying indecipherable swirl of emotions about it?? it isn't even scary?? (& also the whole Why Is It Good When People Touch Ur Wings. "because it is" okay??? and why then?? i also am guilty of this but at least theres like. two sentences about it.) & when there's hybrid shit & its like ok suddenly u woke up with Searing Pain in ur back and things writhing around in there breaking through yr skin and bone to get out and-- thats IT??? there isn't even gonna be any lasting trauma about it? you're not even gonna feel weird about being permanently Different now? it isn't even inconvenient and painful?? so ig that's like-- the core of this one, lmao. obviously i have. Thoughts and Feelings on the whole prime nonconsensually and irrevocably changing ur body defenders thing. like. of course. thesis statement of my blog. & i have thoughts about. being a vessel & not getting any say in it, ig. idk. i hate when people take my stuff without asking!! the idea of someone taking my ME without asking is like, viscerally terrifying 2 me. not unpacking that moving on etc.... my favorite bit is ig ashe having conflicting and messy emotions on liking the way it feels. freaking out and trying 2 stonewall it out & eventually just. letting himself have the good thing. oversharing 9pm time but idk... ashe is a little Like Me in that he was a fucking shut in & never had friends until he was a teenager and doesn't really. know much about it? didn't have much experience in it? so he's really satisfying to write not in a projection-y way but an ah! i KNOW what this is like i can write this correctly!! very scary!!!! very 24/7 butterflies in ur stomach!! OH. I LIED. ACTUALLY. my favorite bit is ashe unconsciously using words & such abt capacitors and voltage and electricity etc. bc of growing up with an electrician dad :] very very small and minor but i have a lot of fucking emotions abt it actually!!! anyway. yeag <333

other behind the scenes thing: in my head wiwi is freaking the FUCK out the entire time he is going shit SHIT SHIT i'm so fucking bad at this shittttttttttttt is this what it's like for dakota to deal with me. is this what i'm like. shit. what do vynce and dakota do. hes like. cartoon running putting down the tracks just in front of the train this entire time <33 this is important to me.

[davekat-sucks]

>Pride month includes trans pride, and who’s deemed canonically trans by the Huss? THAT’S RIGHT! HOPE YOU LIKE SEEING JUNE EGBERT ON YOUR DASH A WHOOOOOOOOLE LOT AAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL MONTH!

(hopefully this formats the text right i dont use tumblr a lot and i usually only lurk)

Listen anon, this shit aint gonna work. June Egbert is not canon and she wont be, it doesnt matter if she appears on HSBC because let me tell you, its already on its name: BEYOND CANON.

You are not owning transphobes or helping trans people by screaming that June is canon everywhere you go, all you do is annoy people who arent trans and help make those trans stereotype become even worse and that just makes everything more awful than it already is. What you are doing is not helping ANYONE and it just makes you look like an asshole.

In fact Homestuck trans rep sucks as a whole. Vriska sucks in general and people like Kate will use her being "canonically" trans as an excuse when like I said all that does it make things WORSE. June is forced and people like you usually try to force people that its canon when its not and the Roxy one from HSBC is the same thing but nobody gives a shit about one so people usually dont talk about it.

And no just because Hussie said it doesnt mean its true (ie. Andrew Hussie Formstring) and sure the circumstances are different but the webcomic is done, its like if George Lucas claimed Luke Skywalker was actually a trans girl in secret all this time or some shit, it would be nonsensical to suddenly say that when theres never evidence for it + the main material having ended years ago. It has already ended and HSBC is just a non-canonical continuation.

And I don't know how much it "being planned from the beggining" means but I'm pretty sure its about being planned since the epilogues or something and not since the Homestuck Beta from april 10th, look at me in my invisible eyes and tell me that the Hussie from that era was thinking about transgender rights and not about his next webcomic and i dont fucking know that creepy puppet he had as a kid or horses.

AND before you assume Im transphobic, Im not and support trans people because i know how gender dysphoria feels [even though i do feel like some people online are faking it for attention or are there not for support but because they have some fetish which is pretty fucking bad (and Im unsure if fit the label or if I want to fit it considering I dont tell anyone about it at all and everyone online nowdays seems to suck overall and I also dont want to go around telling online strangers on a public profile about it)], so please understand this. June Egbert is not canon and is not a good rep, if you like it then keep it on the parts of the community that like it and stop trying to force "dubiously canon" on everyone. You are causing more harm than good, in fact I think that you are doing might not be doing any good at all.

And because I feel like I didnt let enough steam off Im gonna say this

Fuck June. Fuck her stupid fucking name. Fuck her rep. Fuck Post-Canon. And she and other shit reps deserve to be forced to take a permanent vacation straight to Hell.

Oh and davekat-sucks please keep existing and dont let these people put you down, you are one of the few people in this community nowdays that seems to not be overly aggressive and you allow people to show their opinions without having to fear getting harassed on or getting dragged on a full blown warzone just for not thinking like most people on the community do. Your blog means a lot for fans like us and remember, just because a lot of people seem to disagree with you it doesnt mean you are wrong! ^U^

Thank you for the kind words, Anon. And thank you for this amazing post here too. ✧ദ്ദി( ˶^ᗜ^˶ )

[mutini-ooc]

oooo! i wanna know your theories now - gfrj mod C

oh my god okay im Not That Smart though so im probs gnna be SO off uhhh lemme put a cut rq

this isnt a theory moreso analysis. mod marcy makes me ILL. "i wasnt good enough as a bard" & then dies as BARD OF HEART. destroying the soul of the session & then everyone starts dropping like flies becuase THEY ALL SLOWLY LOSE IT. im normal. im ill. im soooooo normal & ill abt this how they cld only fulfill their sburb assigned role after death AFTER . THINKING THEY WERENT GOOD ENOUGH HELLO IM SSOOOOO ILL.

okay now actual theories. i think its super interesint felix is a space player yet they talk. a LOT abt time. like. a lot a lot. ? whats up w that. also i STILL have no clue abt why they switched 2 the whole stagehand thing. v bizarre. v curious. i thiiink it has 2 do w the fucked up creature but after that im lost. horrorterrors??? fuck if i know.

anyways YEAHHH I WAS RIGHT ABT THE SCRATCHING. i KNEW it. im soooo curious 2 see the dancestors(? its not the right term but i dont even have a collective name 4 the original so,,,,) esp bc i rmmbr walten/stagehand mentioning beforus as a way 2 suggest the scrtach. also stagehand mentions "the new cast" & "the next play." so i wld imagine were getting beforan versions of the original cast so YEAHHHHHHHHH RGAGHHHHH IM SO NORMAL. RUAHGHGHH

sad as hell 2 see the better luck next time. god. im so normal. i kinda hope the original cast comes back but ik there isnt much luck of that happening. a fan can dream tho. :C

super interesting that stagehand says walten "exited stage left//" but theres no [JUST] sprite. so walten MIGHT not be dead. & i know that doesnt have 2 do w the scratch physics cuase lamb goes heroic like right after.

im still super curious 2 see what the fuck is possessing(???? stagehand didnt make a unique intro + js edited felix' + felix left when stagehand showed up + stagehand has space powers so i thiiiink its possession. smth along those lines @ least.) felix bc theyre clearly still alive. im super curious 2 know if itll ever leave & felix will have 2 deal with. uh. the Consequences of the first session.

what the Fuck was the thing in the sky bandit bandit what was that.

also WHAT HAPPENED 2 BANDIT. WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT. HELLO. WAS THAT THE SCRATCH??? i doubt it cuase the scratch construct shows up LATER. so. ? whats up w that one.

again. what is UP with stagehand/felix & walten they clearly have something similar especially since SUPER SEUPER early psots like the FIRST walten posts are mixed w felix. its bizarre i cant make heads or tails of it str8 up but im presuming thats getting answered in the next sesh. please tell me if it was said in the 1st one & i missed it.

anyways thats it idk how much or if any of it is accurate. @ all. i havent been keeping up w the middle parts of the blog super closely so i might need 2 go thru the archive. idk how relevant most of itll be 2 the bef session tho but im gnna try 2 read more of it b4 stagehand finishes the new play & caste.

[sophieinwonderland]

hi o/ jus wana start by saying dis is jus semi incoherent rambling of a sleeby oupy who didnt get to eat 5 borgars for dinner.

i find the anti endo point of “just doing it for attention” so weird

for one its really disconected from real life, like, attention is a basic need fir our body, its why solutary confinment is such good tourture. its like saying “theyre just doing it to get food” :l dumb argument, evyone needs and withholding food because someones starving is an evil thing to do, an so is ignoring someone who’s in need of social interaction.

and two, its blatantly wrong. like, we’ve told 0 people irl about being a system, we’ve only told like, 3 online friends, and we never talk about system stuff with them still cuz we’re scared of loosing those friends for being too weird. we pretty much never post about it on our blog an besides the blog description no one wud probably ever know. the one time someone guessed we’re a system in a discord servr i had a full anxiety attack an avoided any interaction for 2 weeks even tho they were accepting, an then when we finaly went back to talking there i made sure we had any trace of system stuff wiped from the servr profile an deleted the messages that made them ask and only just showed that all again after 2 months of keeping everything hidden. we’re terrified of people we know knowing we’re a system or getting attention cuz of tgat.

tho we’re definitly on the extreme end for that (mostly me tbh… the social isolation and abandonment issues exo-memories and the body’s trauma from similar irl stuff deff made me super scared about this) but its a pretty similar experience for a lot of systems from wut ive seen where telling ppl is pretty much an act of compleat trust an usualy very anxiety inducing.

besides, if someone really wus just after attention, they could just post a incorrect fact online or a really dumb take. thats much easier an will get a lot more attention than faking being a system ever could. like, saying something like “reading is bourgeoisie” on a semi popular post will be a thousand times better at getting u attention than being a system ever could.

theres so much more i wana say about this, like the ableism inherent to that argument point, or the way its linked to child abuse, but phone keyboard is stupid and terrible and im too hungy to think well enough to write out those points properly an do them justice.

anyways, i hope u have a great day/night depending on when u read this.

Right! And if they're claiming people are wanting positive attention, I don't see that as being that hard either.

Like, if someone wants to talk to people on the internet about stuff, there are spaces out there for literally anything and anyone. You're not going to get more attention for being a system than you would for being outspoken in a fandom or a religion or any other social group you're a part of.

People who want attention... don't need to pretend to have people in their head to get it. And the attention you would get for that is often going to be negative because a lot of people are sanist and pluralphobic. But as you mention, it's not even the best way to get negative attention when there are so many actual troll-y things you can do.

You can find hundreds of communities online with people who will support you and give you attention for your takes on various topics! Or you can find hundreds more who will hate you if you push the right buttons!

There's just... no logical reason to fake being plural for attention.

And isn't this, again, the very same claims that have always been made against the LGBTQ community?

It's actually kind of funny how that happens, isn't it?

The people who are getting attention are generally the ones who most conform to society. It's not plural or trans people. It's the ones who do their best to fit in and be like everyone else in their group. Meanwhile, people who have identities that diverge from the norm are often left outcasts and shunned by peers.

And yet it's the latter group that's accused of attention seeking?

It makes no sense. 🤷‍♀️

[tadpolesonalgae]

helloooo, i hope this isnt weird at all.

u really inspired me to start writing one of the wips ive had cooking in my head for 10,000 years with CBMTHY (i love your interpretations of all the characters across everything youve written, even dark! versions of everyone).

but how do you get the thoughts in your head onto the page :( its a little demotivating to not be as good of a writer as I'd like. so im terrified constantly that the story isn't coming off correctly. it certainly doesn't help that I've been stewing on this fanfic concept since i initially read acotar and tog, (crossover shit woo!) but the scenes are so vivid in my imagination that everything i can actually type out seems to fall flat or seems jumbled with the amount i try to include.

like, i posted a part last night after having it ready to go for months (there are several more im hiding 😭) and have reread it 3 times and have to remind myself its fine and i dont need to delete it. but idk if im just being crazy tbh. Im also very much the same type of person who needs feedback in order to continue with creative projects. however the idea of even asking about it here is intimidating, especially after your stories helped push this lil amateur to write. But any help would be so greatly appreciated, especially becsuse theres no one ik personally who enjoys the series who would be willing to chat about it 😅

again, i hope its not weird that im not sending anything in directly related to ur work and asking for advice 😅😅 but i hope you have a good rest of ur day/ night !!

haha, don't worry about it! I'm not sure I'm the best person to offer advice on this since I'm just kind of writing what I want to write though, but I'll try and help.

What you mentioned about struggling to get thoughts down on the page - I think an element of it is probably feeling comfortable enough to put them down there in the first place? That and also having the words to know what you mean? Read around, listen to music, chat with people if you can and see if you can find stuff you resonate with and then pay attention to what it is and try to figure out why. And it can take a while to find the right words, so let yourself breathe.

Suddenly jumping into a project you've been hyping up in your mind won't come out pristine immediately, it might be a case of writing paragraphs once, then writing them out again beneath that but trying to improve on what you've already written with a thesaurus in hand. It might also be a case of listening to music that simulates the emotions you want to write out and then trying to articulate them in the moment. Also writing without thinking can help. Or writing exactly how you're thinking, I guess? It doesn't always work though, so I'd sincerely suggest trying to write some smaller things to start with or have on the side to help practice.

In terms of trying to find people to give feedback, I think interacting with other writers can help. I'm not the best person for this since I like being away from my computer/phone as much as possible, but chatting to writers off anon, or if your writing blog isn't your main one then switching to your writing blog to leave a comment or reblog and leaving notes in the tags is a really great way to show other people you're interested in acotar/tog and writing. If the idea of coming off anon to interact with writers is (like I find it) absolutely terrifying, you can always keep anon on but sign off using a specific pseudonym or emoji that will be recognisable! That way you can get used to chatting without entirely compromising your anonymity and hopefully become comfortable. Asking other people what they do to help them get their thoughts down too can help since you'll be more likely to find someone similar.

I'd also recommend that if your story is long to try planning it out roughly as chapters or bulletpoints so you don't have to store it all in your brain. Have playlists on hand or boards on Pinterest to look over.

I think it's great that you've posted a chapter though - if you have a project you want to do well it's so easy to get caught up in wanting it to be a good as possible that you never actually get around to posting it, so I think what you've done is a great start. If you're unhappy with it after a few months or so you can always edit, nothing's written in stone.

And if you want to write in again please feel free to! I promise it doesn't have to be about my writing and I would think other writers would feel the same. If you want to turn off anon that's fine, and if you want to use an emoji as a sign off that's cool too, you can work your way up to chatting more openly about the stuff you enjoy :)

Also, if anyone else thinks they have some good tips for writing, getting thoughts down, keeping up interest/motivation with a project please add them!

And anon if you want to send in a link to the first part of your story feel free to, or if you want to chat with me directly I'd be interested to have a peek at what you're writing? I love acotar but tog still has a special place in my heart so I'd love to read more content around it too. I know how scary it can be sharing stuff you've worked hard on :)