#at the very least I can use those emotions to empower those I love and even those I don’t

[cherrysnax]

I’ve watched myself become extremely jaded in the last. oh idk 24 years of life but I continue to drag myself out of that mindset. it’s not easy and I don’t do it alone, and I slide back sometimes but I know that people can be better, I can be better, the world can be better

[wilwheaton]

I have a small part in the 1987 television movie (failed pilot) version of The Man Who Fell To Earth. Lewis Smith played the titular character. Beverly D'Angelo played my mom, his love interest. (Fun Star Trek connection: Bob Picardo is also in it).

My character was a Troubled Youth, which I gotta tell you was not a stretch for me at all. I was deeply, deeply hurting at the time we made it. I was struggling not to suffocate on all the emotional and financial burdens my mom put on my shoulders, and fully aware of just how much my dad hated and resented me. You need a kid who doesn't want to be an actor, whose eyes can't hide the pain? I'm your guy.

Anyway, one of the scenes I was in took place in a record store, where Troubled Youth steals some albums, before he is chased by the cops and saved by the Man Who Fell To Earth, who uses a glowing crystal to save his life from ... some scratches on his face.

We filmed the interior of the record store at Sunset and La Brea, in what I think was a Warehouse, and at the end of the day, I was allowed to buy some records at a modest discount.

I was deep into my metal years, on my way from my punk years to my New Wave years, so I only bought metal albums. I know I bought more than I needed or could carry (I was making a point that I was allowed to spend my own money, mom), but the only ones I can clearly remember are:

Iron Maiden - Piece of Mind

Judas Priest - Turbo and Defenders of the Faith

W.A.S.P - The Last Command

(I know this was in March of 1987, because Turbo had just come out.)

Of those, Piece of Mind is the only one I never really stopped listening to, even through all the different it's-not-a-phase phases. I still listen to it, today.

Ever since I became an Adult with a Fancy Adult Record Player And All That Bullshit, I have kept my records in two places: stuff I want right now, and stuff I keep in the library because of Reasons.

Generally, records move in one direction toward the library, even if it takes years to happen. I just don't accumulate albums like I once did, because I'm Old and set in my ways.

Earlier today, I decided that I wanted to listen to an album while I cleaned up the kitchen, and because I wanted to make my life more interesting, I opened the library cabinet for the first time in at least five years.

There was the very same W.A.S.P album from that day in March, 1987. I don't have any of the others -- I looked -- but The Last Command was right there.

Before I really knew what I was doing, I put it on the Fancy Adult Record Player and dropped the needle.

I watched four decades of dust build up with a satisfying crackle, and there was something magical and beautiful about hearing all the skips and the scratches, realizing I remembered them from before.

The title track was just as great as I remembered it. It struck all the same chords in me that it did in the late nineteen hundreds. The rest of the first side was ... um. It just didn't connect with me, and for the few moments I spent trying to find a connection, I don't think it ever really did. I would remember.

But I did remember how much I loved making those mix tapes, and what a big part of them that song was. I did remember how empowering it felt to not just spend my own money that I earned doing work I didn't want to do, but to spend it on music my parents hated, right under their noses. I did remember how impressed Robby Lee was, when I showed him my extensive heavy metal album collection.

Remembering all of that, in one of those cinematic flashes of rapid cut visuals and sped up sounds, told me why I kept this record, while I gradually sold or replaced the other records I bought that day with CDs, then mp3s, then lossless digital files, before finally coming all the way back to records, where I started.

I didn't listen to the second side. I didn't need to. I took it off the Fancy Adult Record Player, and put it back into the library, next to the George Carlin records.

[yallemagne]

"And now for you, Madam Mina, this night is the end until all be well. You are too precious to us to have such risk. When we part to-night, you no more must question. We shall tell you all in good time."

I have been thinking about this for a while. I simply cannot stop ranting about it. 

Here, Van Helsing is not leaving out Mina just for being a “fragile woman”. Her safety is really only an abstract concept in the making of this decision. 

"We are men and are able to bear;"

This is about building the men’s confidence. He singles Mina out as the weakest among them to empower the men. Take note that he didn’t run this by Mina at all, though he had the chance to? Only Jack? Because her input does not matter to him, but Jack's does. If Jack disagrees, he can reason with him. If Mina disagrees-- oh, well that doesn't matter! She won't.

He designates Mina as their damsel. Now, he doesn’t mean to make her a damsel in distress, but she’s forced to become a damsel nonetheless. She is made into a symbol of domesticity. She is the woman they will return from the war to who will fawn over them and make them all feel better after their wild vengeful conquest. This whole thing is a show to rally the men by pointing at Mina and saying “this is the object we fight for!” which is so damn dehumanizing. 

"but you must be our star and our hope, and we shall act all the more free that you are not in the danger, such as we are."

She is the star guiding their way. She’s their cheerleader. If her safety mattered so much, VH would be sending her home. Or, at the very least, he’d be decking the Harkers’ room with garlic- maybe even letting someone stay behind to keep her company/protect her. But it isn't about Mina’s well-being, this is a fucking ego trip. She has to remain in the asylum, only theoretically safe, so the sight of her will warm their mannish hearts or whatever garbage.

And Mina. Mina accepts this. She accepts that her job as a woman is to shut up and be pleasant so the boys don’t have anything to worry about. VH had to go through much trouble to get Lucy comfortable with talking about her pains, but now, he is content with telling Mina to not be a bother to them.

Mina loves being a woman. She has internalized misogyny, but the womanly things she feels disdain for are the things men revile. She provides much-needed emotional support, but god forbid she acts hysterical and ruled by her emotions. She scorns women who are different for their own sake (which is evil and selfish) and preens when she is called exceptional because she is different for other people's sake (which is noble and acceptable).

VH weaponizes Mina's femininity against her, and it is so heinous. He is well-intentioned, but he values the morale of his "soldiers" over her personhood.

There is so much more to say continuing from this point for how fucking wrong this decision is, but those things won't be apparent until tomorrow. To hint at it? I don't think Jonathan catches onto VH's greater purpose in leaving Mina out. I think Jonathan is truly thinking of Mina's safety first and foremost and letting himself be led astray by men who claim they know better.

All the men, even Jonathan, seemed relieved; but it did not seem to me good that they should brave danger and, perhaps, lessen their safety—strength being the best safety—through care of me; but their minds were made up, and, though it was a bitter pill for me to swallow, I could say nothing, save to accept their chivalrous care of me.

Mina is shocked that even Jonathan is assenting to this. This is not normal for her, and though she doesn't want to admit it, she wishes Jonathan would disagree for her sake. But she does not speak up for herself, thinking that doing so would be a selfish burden on the men, and god forbid she ever be a burden.

Chivalrous care. Chivalry is not done for the sake of women. It is entirely for the pride of men. I feel like Mina recognizes this, though she is prone to letting herself be mistreated. She knows that to go against Van Helsing's goodwill would hurt his fragile ego, and she couldn't possibly do that.

Manlike, they had told me to go to bed and sleep; as if a woman can sleep when those she loves are in danger! I shall lie down and pretend to sleep, lest Jonathan have added anxiety about me when he returns.

This is not healthy. But this is what she's so used to. Both she and the men pulled this same coddling behaviour with Lucy, and now it's Mina's turn to be left alone "for her own good". She and Jonathan were finally taking their first steps toward the honesty Jonathan values so much in marriage (a sentiment shared by Lucy). Hell, the team was coming together on the promise that they would be true!! And yet now, back to painful secrecy.

[buskingalbatross]

what's the one sink you can't ship? (things to do when you have come home for the day, showered, eaten, and fallen into disrepair: analyze danandphilcrafts - slime (2024) and the context of its coming to be)

or, basically, because let's be real: this is where I extol the de facto vintage princes of the internet, who have cultivated and continue to cultivate a form of video-making and community-building that is utterly novel, radiant, and defiant.

*:･ﾟ✧

one of the best things the internet has ever done is given the coolest insanest introverts the chance to be loud and be loved. to have the chance to catalogue their lives in intimate (yet distant) association with other like-minded people, and to express themselves and their perspective on the world. for Dan and Phil, what it's led to, its culmination, has been the creation of an empowered queer subculture that is deeply invested in the concept of queer devotion—the complex forms it can take, its numinous inexpressible sacredness—and that is actively, through knowing and experience of that devotion's existence, in rebellion against the extractive, unkind, unfeeling, oft-oppressive society that reigns as normative.

the experience in the world of Dan and Phil, in contrast to many experiences had in the "real" world, has always been one that's felt intensely emotional, rebellious, existential, free, full of kindness, and full of laughter and love. at the heart of dnp's community, the string tying us together, is the massive mythology and plethora of lore of dan and phil's history beginning at the point where it converged because they met. as well as the idea of two people who are as close as two humans can get to each other. the beauty inherent in that.

the relationship Dan and Phil share has for many years been the axis around which their channels, their tours, and other projects have rotated. their being able to chronicle that relationship through the internet, through youtube, and for that relationship to be, in hindsight, purely, amazingly, and even unapologetically queer from the very start, is something profoundly meaningful and artistic in and of itself.

I find it intensely amusing and, frankly, compelling, that while the phandom has become self-aware of the ridiculousness inherent in yelling about two human beings having even momentary physical contact, we cannot stop ourselves from doing it. because it feels powerful and magical and terribly unshackling. touching has become symbolic. symbolic of an amalgam of the best things about what it means to follow Dan and Phil: to be free and connected and queer, openly, and to trust in each other to be there for one other in a world that is often in opposition to people like us.

Dan and Phil holding hands for their audience to see in DanAndPhilCRAFTS - Slime in front of baphomet has to do with all the things so many wonderful people have said it has to do with: acceptance and actualization of queerness, an image of queer power, allying oneself with the other to showcase alignment against cisheteronormative society, a representation of dysfunctional, obsessive, hedonistic, codependent queer love.

And it also has to do with freedom, defiance, happiness, and confidence. It has to do with making something only legible to a niche audience of people that Dan and Phil care a great deal about, because it is fun and exciting and insanely cool. It is about embracing and celebrating the magic that flows, the creativity that flows, between two incredible queer human beings.

Sometimes I think that at least a small part of the reason We're All Doomed exists is because of the way dark things stand out on a light background. The horrors seem stark, more overwhelmingly apparent, when bumped up against great love. Injustice and catastrophe are sometimes more startling and distressing when you are privileged enough to live outside of those things, when what you return home to at the end of the day is comfort, safety, and love. In a similar way, the themes of devotion and love are often heightened in horror narratives. In this sense, Slime is also one ideal medium for sharing a story that is especially impactful to the phandom, one about Dan and Phil's relationship to each other and their community and the ongoing story of their creative lives on YouTube. The themes of love and trust stand out because of the horror, and are heightened further by the intentionality of the storyline and the control Dan and Phil exert over the plot.

what's the one sink you cannot ship? a line from Phil just after Dan says, during their slime crafting, that creativity is nothing without friendship. An inverted paradox of a line. A mystery to be solved, a thread not to be untethered, a parody of itself, a hint to a history. All belonging to all of us, all part of us.

tldr: no one is doing it like them

[alexanders-pokemon-adventure]

A little rain in every life must fall

Sera Frigga

Sera’s meeting with Victoria was … illuminating . There was no cure that could be administered to alex to end their endarkaning. It seamed that the only thing that reversed shadowfication in humans was an inner strength the sufferer had to summon themself… but . In those Sera found or Heard about healing from shadowfication , it was treated like trauma . The sufferer was at least in part, cared for by a support system That in time helped them find the strength to overcome the shadows . Of course, they were also conscious. Alex had been comatose for more than a mouth , with no sign that verbal communication was reaching them and sera’s psychic prob providing less than Successful . How could anyone give alex the kind of emotional support they needed when so far they’ve be Functionally unreachable. Alex needs strength .

An idea floated to the top of her mind , Alex need strength . ALEX NEED STRENGTH. Alex hadn’t been traumatize into closing their heart , or incidentally, exposed to shadow-type enegy contamination. Alexander is a conductor of energy thats how they took in the power that now comatose them …but could they take in energy to heal . At its very base shadow types and their powers where molded from trauma. What helped those who suffered trauma?

Care ,compassion, sympathy , therapy Sera thought to herself. What help poeple heal? Love , love was perhaps not a means to an end but love can be the pressure that stops the bleeding. Was or could love be something that transferred like shadow-type energy . A dote connected in Sera’s mind, was friendship, not molded from a kind of love?

It was an idea Prof. Apricot was unsure of , friendship was an energy that could be transferred from trainer to Pokémon to aid in evolution , could it be given person to person? How much would they need ? Could it be measured? Apricot had objections ,Alexander’s care team had objections but none of them had better options. Had any options anymore? With alexander’s condition, continuing to worsen .So as a way the quell her own mind and maybe The mines of Alexander’s friends Sera decided Play a game of cards. Sera was an ESPer a telepath, a telekinetic ,a psychic Who had learned a great many things in her 28 years. Had gone to Alexander’s house and raid their home for supplies. She needed blank cards for her next act for them to be made of materials tied to Alex to begin with. To look into the future in a way , her power would guide the images that shown on the blank card surface. Sara knew she only would have the strength for four. Four symbols to interpret from , four cards to Divine the future. So in a Break room , in the hospital Sera watched by Derek , Alexandria( @alex-ishvan ), and Prof.Apricot Drew her first card . It took form as she motioned with the card colors coming to life on earth surface, painted with her strength.

The hangman, a major arcana showing it before them.

Sera was surprised that it was not Derek with his impatience to ask the first question but professor Apricot

“ sera while I may study empowered humans, I will admit,” she paused, searching for the right words “mysticism, and other such practices are outside of my field of study could you explain what this means to me?��

“Each card will take on the appearance of one of the major or minor arcana of the tarot . Each Arcana has its own interpretive meaning that when looked at together can be used gather information, on top of that the The way I use my power to shape the images on the cards can also provide hints and context that the symbolism of each arcana alone might not have” sera explained

“soooo what do you think this means?” Alexandria asked

“A lot of things potentially” Sera said “ Submission, new perspectives ,trials sacrifice , intuition, among other things”

“ so what does the image tell you?” Prof. Apricot asked

Sera thought it was clearly Alex falling or being held up ,hanging by dark hands emanating from the cavity on the back of ...

Derek answered first” its Alex when they tried to Spirit Harmonize with their Shedinja Papyrus . It ended poorly they couldn’t regulate the amount of energy being taken from them and stoped breathing for a minute. Alex was lucky I was near by when they tried it. “

“So Alex … Alex tried some thing and it ended poorly” Sera let out a large sigh she did not like what it could mean, that this event

She drew another card A little tired this time.

Sera couldn’t stop her gasp as she placed down the three of swords.

“ what sera ,what dose it mean ?” Apricot asked

Sera explained One of the few universally negative arcana . It symbolized Sorrow and was associated with pain ,loss and death.

“What about the picture? “ Derek asked “dose it suggest something specific?”

Sera looked at the card for long moments . She explained the image could potentially be in reference to what Alexander and their castform Nimbus did in the greenhouse and that the sorrow could be in reference to that or…that event may have related to another or be in reference to a future sorrow.

She Drew another card ,more strength leaving her as she placed it down.

“Hey it’s us and Ellisa, Lynn, and Rai “ Alexandria’s said looking down at the card” what does the five of wands symbolize?”

“Conflict…”sera said

Alexandria did not like that answer “ I’m not fighting Alex again, if this means that it’s not happening”. Derek nodded in agreement as he mumbled something about who Rai?

“i’m certain it can be more than just conflict Alexandria” professor apricot said more as a question than a statement

“The five of wands doesn’t always mean a literal conflict and the conflict it’s referring to might not be one towards or against Alexander. They’re not even in the picture. But … we are “ sera said

“ could it mean we all have to fight some thing and who is Rai?”derek asked

“ he’s a ranger in Sinnoh , he and alex are friends, I think “ Alexandria explained, as she examined the card closer, Alexandria’s sharp nails traced the image “ the wand have smooth bells on them”

“ interesting” sera contemplated it The symbols and the image seem to conflict conflict and friendship. “What if … it could maybe mean Will fight for Alex” Sera did not feel convinced of that interpretation

Sara drew the final card

“ the Seven of cups” professor apricot spoke

“ it represents choices ,true answers, delusions ,some time great revelation and making decisions”Sera spoke

Sera went on to explain that the images on the cards generally represent possibilities ,different paths or a person imagining such things. Each cup holds a different path, A different choice ,a different possibility.

“Thats me “ Derek said “yes “ sera agreed “ The top left cup, usually hold the face of an Oracle or a loved one”

There was an expression on Derek’s face that Sera couldn’t read, she knew he and Alex we’re often more than friends in recent years but also knew it wasn’t something either had made any real commitment to. Sera knew Derek had other lovers occasionally and Alex still living in the endless mountains wasn’t ever lonely. Derek’s only response was to sigh.

“What’s with the glowing figure in the center? “ Alexandria asked .Sera thought Alexandria did so to pull attention away from Derek , which he seamed to appreciate.

Sera continue to explain the symbolism .The center figure usually represents a desire for understanding of one’s self . That It could potentially mean Alex is looking for something in themselves. The symbol on the top was a little stumping until Professor apricot mentioned that it was the symbol for Uxie and represented wisdom , her symbol shown two unown The letters A and I . The bottom left appeared to be Alexander’s home with the mountains in the background that could represent stability . The center left Image with a building with the name of Alexander’s company Al.co on its roof.

“ The center left cup usually represents wealth” Sara said.

The cup on the center right Bore the symbol of Victini and represented victory , but nobody liked that the unown that floated around the image spelt D.E.A.T.H . In the final cup on the bottom left shown a shadow Ho-oh.

“ I hate that thing” Alexandria spat out, Alexandria whose vision who had been better than theirs during the shadow storm had actually seen it in the sky’s those days .

“ it could mean calamity, destruction, rage, and evil”sera said

Sera was tire , but still need to finish the reading .

She knew the other saw her stare at the card for long minutes , saw her eye glow as she pulled as much as she could from from them though about all she had learned and gathered not just from the cards, but from Victoria from her psychic probe and from Professor apricots and Alexander’s care team. She took a deep breath before speaking and in a voice with more power than she felt spoke.

“ I think Alexanders coma and exposure to shadow type energy has forced them to face terrible grief and pain that’s so long as the shadows keep them there they are never going to wake up” Sera held up the five of wands “ I think those of us on this card and maybe others need to come together and… help Alex fight the shadows . Give them strength and with that strength I think Alex will be able to conjure or forage a way past the wall that Closes off their heart.”

Derek was the one to ask “if Alex can do that will they wake up?”

There was no hesitation in Sera‘s response. “Yes Alex will.”

Professor apricot was the first to jump on the logistics, and suggested that they contact Ellisa ,Lynn( @adventures-on-foster-island )and Rai ( @ranger-rai )as soon as possible. Sera rested while the others got to work. It would take time to execute their plan.

[askgothamshitty]

Controversial take regarding the rape post:

*Tw for discussion of rape*

I think we look at rape too much through a legal and evangelical lense, which isn't very useful when it comes to dealing with the very messy way the world works. We define rape solely through how persicutable the experience was (ie how well we can fit it into the textbook definition) but sex and consent are far too complex and we end up defaulting back to prutanitarianism (i cannot spell that word) where any sex that isn't for the sake of reproduction is bad (a long shot but I can elaborate another day)

Not every sexual encounter can be easily categorized as you wanted or didn't want it. And you can't always determine what the other people wanted to do vs. didn't.

Coming back the original example, we can't say for sure if it was rape or not because it's not a cookie-cutter example. Both parties were intoxicated and therefore unable to consent, but that also meant the offending party would not be in sound mind to make rational decisions or interpret the other's boundaries. If they were strangers, then that would only make things worse. There is no way this would hold up in the court of law, nor would you be able to convince others that that person was a rapist.

But what if the offending party did force themselves onto you. You don't have tangible evidence, but you have that gutt feeling that something bad happened. And this is the part I believe we should be focusing on, providing support to women.

Creating spaces for women to talk about their sexual experiences, positive or negative. Empowering women with the language and tools to understand their own emotions and boundaries. Being when those boundaries have been violated. Providing them with support (financial emotional, etc) when things get messy.

Even if the goal isn't necessarily to prosecute the offending party, looking at things from a good vs. bad perspective and relying on the legal definition forces a lot of women and victims to do the same. This can result in a lot of women concluding that what happened to them isn't rape or isn't important enough or has too much ambiguity. It also relies on the victim's understanding of consent and bodily autonomy. Even if they find that what happened to them was unwanted, they may not be able to explain why.

My head is spinning. I can't find all the words I need to explain my point.

I just think it would be more effective not to try and fit every dubious sexual experience into one clean-cut definition. It's not productive when dealing with individual issues. Instead we should focus on helping women understand their boundaries and creating spaces for expression and providing support based on need not definition.

One girl might walk away from a black out drunk sexual experience fine, and another might be traumatized for life. We should help the latter and not debate the validity of her experience. Besides, you can traumatize someone during sex without raping them.

Also, we should consider some people just like being in risky situations. Some people just want to get black out drunk and have sex with strangers. I would never but to each ones own. We can't really stop them since the danger is a part of the allure. I think that's something people always forget. Some people just let bad things happen to them or at least put themselves in a position where it might. It's not healthy behavior, but it's reality.

This is too long. Happy holidays dear

Thank you so much for sharing your perspective and opinions! You are very articulate and you made great points. I totally agree that relying on legal definitions does more harm than good.

I really love a lot of what you said. I’ll remember this the next time this discussion comes up.

[therapythoughtstogether]

Watching triggering content...again...

TW ED talk, mentions of trauma and PTSD

I was thinking that I haven't fully processed all the things that happened to me recently. It feels now like those things happened to another person, or that I don't fully comprehend the severity of what I experienced.

Sometimes I get flashbacks and I start crying or feel extremely anxious. Sometimes I get panic attacks out of seemingly nowhere. I cry a lot over very silly things. I'm "too sensitive".

I've noticed I'm going back to spaces that feel "comforting" to me. Especially now that all the emotional turmoil has lead to binging lately. So now I find myself watching triggering content that leads to the side of restriction...again.

I find myself glorifying the idea of the feeling of hunger as a sign of "self control". Loving the pretty aesthetic of how the food is presented in that type of content, the bowls and utensils used, the cups, glasses, tumblers. I generally love the aesthetic of the people in the blogs too, the outfits, the makeup...even though I understand very well that it's mostly body-checking (not so) in disguise.

I find myself fantasising with being skinny and how that would "solve all my problems" and how people "wouldn't touch me/hurt me again if I was skinny". Which I know is not true. I know it for a fact because I've been there already and those things happened then too.

I am trying not to fall into that trap again, and it's so hard...because after some level of discomfort, I find the feeling of hunger comforting and empowering. And I know how this ends.

So what I'm trying to do is to recreate the parts of that aesthetic that I like while cooking nourishing foods. Like I'm going to order one cute white hear-shaped bowl and I already have a bamboo spoon. I'm going to make pretty and nutrient dense bows, instead of serving restriction foods.

I will also try to do some more self care, but the issue is that my self hatred and the hate to my body are astronomical at this point. So I honestly don't enjoy putting on makeup anymore (something that I used to love! and I was great at it tbh) or doing any skincare. I don't even think I deserve cute clothes because I feel like nothing looks good on me anyway and I try to hide my curves. So I'm eternally wearing a black oversized hoodie and black leggings...

I want to try to at least buy one cute hoodie that is not black to start to break the cycle...or a winter dress (but dresses scare me because I feel they won't fit or won't look good on me) and I would honestly buy a cute black cat ears hoodie!!! Or a black ears hoodie jacket. But I cannot find any of those locally and at this point I cannot justify the expense of the shipping. But maybe I can keep them in mind for the future, like something to look forward to.

I feel so trapped inside myself. Trapped by the past, the memories, the pain, my body, my fears...and what comforts me destroys me at the same time...

[boxesofmixtapes]

SENSORY MEMORY I: 1989 - TAYLOR SWIFT

2014, 48:41, standouts: clean, i know places, new romantics

in 2014 i experienced what was, at the time, the worst year of my entire life. my mom died, my dad moved my now stepmom into our home weeks after that, i was 19 years old and very directionless but i had one bright spot that kept me going.

ryan.

we met playing world of warcraft in november 2013. our friendship developed quickly and we spent an inordinate amount of time together, exchanging numbers and snapchats finally in january. i was giddy because i liked him so much and those feelings grew until they felt like hunger for months. like was no longer like it became capital L love.

ryan, despite his terrible commitment issues, general lack of emotional availability, mental health issues i wanted to desperately fix despite him never asking that of me, tried. he tried to be there for me but he had his own flaws and issues too, something a younger version of me didn’t understand at the time.

now we weren’t ever officially together. we decided not to define the relationship out of comfort for both of us but as far as i was concerned, he was my boyfriend. i treated him as such and there were a lot of times where i felt like i was his girlfriend in return. the year passed, summer came and went, and fall finally was cast upon the world like a spell.

on october 27, 2014 the album 1989 was released. on october 29, 2014 my heart was so broken i felt i’d never recover.

ryan told me we needed to cool things down because he met a girl in person he liked and wanted to try things with her.

now as a 28 year old woman with a plethora of life experience i can tell you what i was feeling was heartbreak, of course, because i cared about this man. loved him, even. but above all what i was feeling was the insurmountable grief of the year that had nearly fully passed by. everything i refused to acknowledge felt like a wall to scale and so this album became a reprieve for me.

listening to a woman i viewed as wiser than myself sing about heartbreak, returning to yourself, not letting lost love define you felt empowering in a way that only a 19 year old can understand. blasting shake it off in my car on the way to my nannying gig, dreaming of another love to how you get the girl, mentally rewriting my own narrative to this love, wishing to embody the burning wit of blank space while mouthing the words in the shower.

for weeks i listened to nothing but this album in its entirety except for clean.

i pulled the lyrics book out of the cd case the day i bought the album and read the words to clean and decided i needed to save that for when i finally felt it. clean. new. no longer in need of a love that didn’t serve me.

on november 12, 2014 i locked myself in my childhood bedroom and listened to clean by myself for hours on repeat. i sobbed until my throat was raw. i ignored my younger sisters knocking completely, something out of character for me. everyone could see i was miserable but i felt like this is the moment where i was able to let it all go.

i was bound and determined to be done. to clean all remnants of him from my life, to be someone new, to abandon the dust covered shelves in my heart where my memories of him resided.

yes i know this was a span of roughly 3 weeks, have i mentioned i was 19 and everything felt huge back then?

on november 19, 2014, ryan asked me how i felt about him. i told him i liked him more than i thought i would. three days later my period of being “clean” was over. we were back on.

hours spent sobbing to clean became hours listening to this love because the narrative had truly been rewritten. this love came back to me!

well at least for a little while. when the prospect of our relationship moving from long distance to in person became a reality and not just a concept, he ghosted me. by april 2015, we were over. i sent him one final text message wishing him well in june and he never responded.

clean once again became a regularly rotating song for me. screamed while driving to my new job in a new city in a new state. sobbed late night in my bed alone. this time clean had to stay, i was determined.

i did and have ever since.

[clusterjunk]

Hello!

For autism awareness/acceptance I had the idea to write a poem that would be an answer to Autism $peaks hateful "I am Autism" advertisement. (If you haven't seen it please be aware it paints autism in a very unpleasant way and may be triggering to watch.) I wouldn't be surprised if something like this may have been done before but I want to give it a shot anyway.

I wanted this poem to reflect something of all autistic experiences but I'm just one person with one experience and I recognize that I'm coming from a place of privilege as a cis white woman who would be considered low support needs. So if you can't find your voice in this, please feel free to give us your version! I want to hear it. ♡

I hope this poem is empowering and maybe it can even help to heal some of the damage that Autism $peaks has caused.

♾️♾️♾️♾️♾️♾️♾️♾️♾️♾️♾️♾️♾️♾️♾️

We are autism.

Sometimes we show ourselves

loud and proud.

Other times we're scared to be seen

and wear a mask.

But we're everywhere.

We're an important part

of many people.

People of all races.

All gender identities.

All ages.

All cultures.

People you love.

People you hate.

People you think you know,

but don't.

Maybe even yourself.

You just might not see it yet.

And though we are diverse

we find it easy to understand

one another

We speak our own language.

One appreciated and understood

in our community.

Our voices may be loud and fast

or soft and slow.

We might speak a lot or a little.

Using words or symbols,

hand signals or technology.

We all have a voice

and we can speak for ourselves.

Of course we have our struggles.

We're misunderstood

and misrepresented.

Sometimes mocked or even hated.

The cost of living in a world

not meant for us is high.

We don't always fit in.

It can get lonely.

Sometimes it's a battle

that no one else can see.

We are sensitive

and can be overwhelmed by things

you can't even percieve

or don't find distressing in the least.

We often carry heavy baggage.

We're in a chronic state of pain.

Physical or emotional.

We're not always easy to love.

We can be embarrassing.

We can be hurtful

even when we don't mean to be.

We may not always understand you.

We are valuable nonetheless.

We can be incredibly clever, witty,

hilarious.

We stand up for our beliefs.

We're creative.

We have a wide range of talents.

We can craft masterpieces.

We can recognize patterns

and make connections

you might never think to make.

Even though we can be forgetful,

we're still able to memorize

the things we find fascinating.

When we get excited

we can't help but show it.

Though our excitement

may not look like yours.

Our hands flutter, we twirl, dance,

tap our feet, or make happy noises.

We can spend

hours, days, months, years

learning about those things

that make us happy.

Until we become experts.

Until we're a treasure trove

of knowledge.

We pour ourselves into our passions.

The joy they bring us

is unlike anything

and we want so badly

to share that feeling with you.

We try our best in life

with whatever we have to give.

Sometimes it's still not enough.

We wish you would accept us.

We wish you would

listen and understand.

We wish you would have patience

and try to help us

understand you too.

Instead of making us feel

like a burden

and fighting

every little thing about us.

We wish you would try

to carve out a place for us

in your world.

We are autism.

And the truth is:

We're not monsters or demons.

We're not something to be feared.

We're not a disease to be cured.

We may be different and unique,

but in many ways we're just like you.

We want to belong.

We want to feel safe and secure.

We want to be accepted and happy.

We want to be loved and appreciated

for who we really are.

We want to be able

to take off our masks.

We are autism

and we are many.

More of us are found

every single day.

There must come a time

when you realize

that we're important too.

Our experiences matter

and our voices deserve to be heard.

We speak for ourselves now.

Are you listening?

[lebensmoode]

Where else to find a man who would hum Bruno Major’s “Nothing”?

I’ll tell you a secret. Actually, when we were having argument that late at night, two days ago, one of the emotions I felt was happy. Yes, it felt great to finally have a lil fight, arguments, and different opinions from each other. Not saying that I hate us being so peaceful and less conflict, but I guess I need this kind of “wave” for our ship. We’ve been in a quiet ocean for quite long.

Instad of feeling bored, I need to be reminded of why we’re still holding hands. Why we’re on the same boat. Why we’re here. And your answers and point of view made it all clear. Those statements you said, however, made me realize that …

WHAT THE HECK IS COMMITMENT!1!1!1

WHY IS IT SO FCKG SERIOUS??!1!1!

Lots of time, the talks of my rendezvous with a bestie always conclude the same point. Being “yaudah” for almost all aspect of life, relationship includes. Means, if this one lasts, yaudah. If later we meet someone new and can marry us quick fulfill what we need, yaudah. Surrender is our jalanninja. Then after we argued that night, I was slapped that it was not always good. Especially for a relationship.

You mean, you’re not fighting for this relationship until we make it?

You mean, you can easily step out from something you have build just because you have found ease?

You mean, you’re just with me for happiness and leave me when you’re tired?

You mean, you’re not committing to this ship from the very first?

Taking the easy way out. Lack of feeling to fight. Easily giving up. Off my awareness, has turned me into such a person. I wasn’t that kind of individual before. But mind really can empower and take control of who you can be.

Congrats, you made me realize that … I was a trash. But at least I’m cute 😃

Picik banget ya, kalo gw beneran ninggalin seseorang hanya karena gw punya jalan keluar yg mudah. Kesannya beneran gw orang yg gabisa berkomitmen. Gw gak menghargai hubungan yang udah dibangun dari nol. Gw gak mengindahkan besar kecilnya perjuangan untuk satu sama lain selama ini. Padahal dinding yg sedang dihadapi sekarang itu masih possible to climb, hanya memang gak mudah. Dinding penghalangnya padahal bukan di seseorang yg lagi membersamai, which is the thing I should grateful for.

Makanya gw suka banget menganalogikan hubungan itu just like sailing on the same boat in the vast ocean. You will face many waves and storms, and when it happens, you must be discussing with your partner the strategy to survive together, preparing extra tools for anticipating it. Will you really think to leave the boat and to swim on your own, just because you solely see another boat coming closer? After years sailing together, will you?

Sounds like a perfect noble human being on earth, so impossible to find one 😆

Impossible, doesn’t mean there isn’t any. Impossible, doesn’t mean you can’t be so. I believe each of us has our own value to keep. For me, the realization to not take your partner for granted and to appreciate what you've built together are ones I would love to look after. I believe this kind of relationship is worth growing.

So, for the man who was humming “Nothing” when being with me, thank you. For the sailing and the staying. Let’s survive this one wave called “financially secure” hehe 🫱🏼‍🫲🏿🩵

[bisectro]

2024 art summary

It's been a wonderful year for Pinks and Blues. In honor of probably the most creatively active and fulfilled I've ever been since 2018, I figured I'd make a blog style recap. This is a blog after all.

I did a 6 page colored comic, did an animatic (another full colored MV in the works. More on that later) and discovered that I LOVE making things move. Comics, I love you, but I think my passion lies in the gratification of making videos.

I also cleaned up my itch.io page and uploaded a digital sketchbook! It's mostly reflection ttrpg related. Participated in two more zines (Marcanne zine and Empower Zine) this year, oh me oh my.

I also did some artfight! Wahoo to artfight!

I ran a TTRPG session for the first time?????

I mean I played many ttrpgs as a player before, but GM-ing?? This was me swimming in uncharted waters, at least for me. I have been going about making a ttrpg from scratch, but how could I do that if I haven't played every game I could get my hands on, or at the very least, get over my stage fright and RUN A GAME.

After mulling over the idea of wanting to run a game for years, I finally gathered the courage to do it when I found Sentiment TTRPG.

What is the Sentiment system? Sentiment is a tabletop roleplaying game with a focus placed squarely on the emotions and complexity of each character without too much mechanical bloat. The goal of the game is to give players tools to understand their characters as people and to give all participants an understanding of the other characters at the table. And then it's also built to, if you so wish, put those characters in incredibly stressful or dramatic situations just to see what happens. How does it work? It’s an ultra flexible ttrpg system using d20s, d6s and the primary colors. Sentiment is a system that handles combat quickly and entertainingly, but the focus of this game isn’t just big climactic battles. Those same rules can easily and elegantly handle sled races. Fishing competitions. Jousting on the moon.

Source: Sentiment TTRPG patreon - About section.

Here's the blurb for my own campaign if you're curious:

On an asteroid far away, 4 crew members get dropped off with the mission of building a restock station 7.8 light-years away from Earth.

Uses Sentiment system rules. Content warnings: heavy workload, death by asphyxiation, death by crushing, and drowning.

So I gathered up my bowels, rolled up my sleeves and decided to port a mixture of mechanics from Oxygen Not Included, Chicken Invaders, Wolf 359, and Signalis into the Sentiment system and see how it worked.

My conclusion? It went well!!! I feel very fulfilled. I'd probably run another similar game that is set in either the water, or the desert. I have a few ideas for those already. Possibly going to run a Heart: The City Beneath campaign. That could be something for 2025 me to write about.

----

Animatics

It all started with a Spiderverse edit by JaQenka. It was set to an audio clip of Americano by Lady Gaga.

I recall working really hard on my college paper at the time and was just about fed up with it that I started sketching out really cool scenes from me and my friends' written reflection ttrpg roleplay. I told my friend "hey. Give me a deadline. Make sure I get this done by Wednesday." and I took off.

One day I'll polish this, but for now I am sooo happy with how it turned out. Like oh my god the transitions?? The coffins popping up as soon as Rosetta and Finn clashed blows?? The.. BULLETS RICOCHETING??? maybe I should endeavor to be a VFX artist.

Anyways, while we're still on the topic of Animatics here's what you ought to look forward to, Animation-wise

-----

Animation

After my very ambitious endeavor with Americano FlowC animatic, I set my sights onto tackling a New ambitious endeavor. This time instead of being OC focused, I plan to highlight the Reflection's main characters and what they did in Act 1. It will be set to the music of the RPG meme. Kind of like a Promotional Video of sorts, as a way to give back to the many things this show and the Stabbyness crew inspired me to do.

The reason why I talk about it is because I have been working on it for 2 months as of writing this and I'm pretty committed to making it real. Here's what I have to show for it. Currently in various stages of thumbnailing, compositing, and style tests.

For 2025, hopefully* released around the time Act 3 of Reflection TTRPG drops.

*I say hopefully. because as of Writing this (november 25th), apparently I am also writing a school paper that's taking up all of my time and energy. (future pen editing this here: Yeah... No that's too hopeful. I'll try anyways).

-----

Solitare Deck

Various side projects are being worked on while I am studying for college. One of them is the custom card deck for my RP group.

Occasionally pausing them while I power through commission work. Me and my friends discussed what our characters would likely be on a solitare deck and made a list. The deck, as I show it to you, is unfinished.

With hope, I will continue to make them as 2025 goes on. Art is a continuous process, after all.

---

Bluesky

So let's talk about twitter. I had an account that I ran from 2018. It's how I found and met the friends I talk to now.

A few years ago, I stopped doing Homestuck art. This is for numerous reasons, the main one being is that "I am not having fun anymore."

Coupled with the undesirable side-effects of twitter's new ownership meant that all the growth in numbers that i had are null and void; No one interacts with my interests, art posts, no one reblogs, retweets, or expresses their appreciation for other artists (I comment on every post I can that has touched me, which I encourage people to do).

I also found out that I got shadowbanned for not posting on twitter for a year. So like, okay, I cannot be found. What now?

I needed a fresh start. And I've been getting a good of a start as any on Bsky. I've been getting to talk to new people there and have fun and praise people for showing their works to me, and IN TURN I get inspired.

It's my wish that people continue to talk and talk and talk and talk the good talk. Please be respectful, and please encourage each other. That's the kind of world I want to live in.

Closing Words

I want to mention that even though I posted a lot of my own Visual art here, I've been writing just as much in private.

I've decided that I wanted to revisit some old darlings of my past--namely Bakugan -- and incorporate new things into my worldview (dungeon meshi, witch hat atelier, amphibia, gundam unicorn) and see which sticks

This year has been a year of processing and synthesizing different things. I'm trying my best to consume and digest other peoples' creations and a part of my whole being. Spiritfarer, FFXIV Endwalker, Signalis, Reflection, Look Back, and my own friends' creations. I Love You!!!

You're all a part of me now, a part of my art, and the way I walk, talk, and eat.

It's been a very scary year, a lot of personal things happened that I would rather keep close to my chest. That's super why I am very thankful for all the people who helped me whether it's through inspiring me through their works, or paying it forward by including me in their projects, or even giving me their best wishes. Thank you!

as a person who has had to write a 48-page research paper last month, this post isn't that long to me. But it's long for some, so I thank whoever reached the end.

I'll continue to make art. And I'll continue to Yap. #theYapper ✌

[transamorousnetwork]

The Best Way Transgender and Trans-Attracted People Can Improve Their Lives: Accept The Life We Have.

Many trans-attracted men and transgender women have a hard time with this because it sounds so unbelievably “absurd”. And yet, there’s ample evidence supporting the notion. The notion that the fastest way to a better life, whether it’s finding a partner, having family accept us or finding more freedom in society, comes from first accepting how life is now.

Now, some transgender women who come to this story will push hard against this. Their experience seemingly shows them the best way to change a life situation is to push against it, resist it, protest about it.

But one of life’s many paradoxes is, it is the accepting of what is that makes change happen faster. And, in every case where change happens, that’s what makes it happen. Even when it looks like that’s not happening.

An old client of mine found this to be the case. After a l-o-n-g period of her family disowning her, she recently IM’d me with delightful news:

^^A former client realizes a long-held desire. Her family had disowned her. But now, after practicing what we offer at The Transamorous Network, she's manifested a long-held wish.

Make peace release resistance

Persistent negative experiences, especially involving other people, remain persistent because we focus on trying to change the experience. But the problem with changing the experience involves why we want to do that. Typically, humans want change because they don’t like what they have, for example. Trans-attracted men feel shame about their trans-attraction. They don’t want to feel that awful emotion. So they try changing what they are.

But if they make peace with their trans-attraction, “shame” gets replaced with “being ok with what is.” That making peace eliminates one’s focus on the unwanted experience. Eventually “being ok” allows the person to explore their bogus stories about trans-attraction. Stories like “I must be gay” or, “my family will disown me��, under dispassionate scrutiny can then turn into more empowering stories.

In the absence of resistance, change will show up. Especially when the person focuses on what they want, while being ok with what they have.

That’s part of the practice I share with my clients. As simple as it seems, it has powerful, enduring force. Force born of what creates and maintains the Universe.

Future improvement

The same goes with transgender women. If we want love from men, love that looks like what we want, we must stop looking at experiences that don’t match that. We also need to stop complaining about those experiences. Complaining is focus. Negative focus. Negative focus amplifies that which we complain about. Since the Universe gives us what we focus on, not what we want, the Universe in this situation will give us more to complain about.

But when we come to peace with experiences we’re having and revel in the reality that we’re creating those experiences, we embrace our power. And there, future experiences MUST look different. Especially if we focus on what we want, instead of what we don’t.

^^Abraham, one of my spiritual guides, putting it plainly. Improvement happens speedily when we accept our present.

We must stop complaining. Focus on what we want instead. Appreciate, or at the very least, accept what we have. For the change we want can’t happen so long as we resist what we have.

But in the acceptance, we come into eventual new futures. Futures aligned with everything we want. It’s the Charmed Life I write about on my other blog.

Having trouble not complaining? Give me a shoutout. I can help!

[albiandreams]

So I commented this on the Eruditorum Press review for this but I feel like I should maybe include it here too:

So the good points: great concept, good use of peril, blind Vater with his ragged blindfold, helmet and BFG is an image straight out of 2000AD, as indeed are the evil capitalist ambulances. As someone who considers The Greatest Show in the Galaxy a fave because of its similarly zarjaz aesthetics, I loved that. Ncuti continues to be amazing. I love that the Doctor calls people ‘gyal’ now. Also, I’m wondering which incarnation of the Doctor hung out with Larkin…

However…well, people have mentioned the lesbian gymkhana line, and I would also ask that the off-camera Canto/Posh Graham interaction be considered another example of Moffat’s clodhopping, try-hard approach to queer inclusion. ‘Sad songs for heartbroken lesbians’ landed so much better in The Devil’s Chord because everyone in that scene reads as part of the queer community (even if we don’t know, yet, exactly which way Ruby swings), whereas these lines felt very much like those of an outsider. It’s giving Gavin and Stacey, tbqfh.

What really unsettled me, though, was the Doctor breathlessly singing the virtues of ‘parent power’ at the end. Maybe that would have hit differently in another week, one where the UK government hadn’t just introduced a new Section 28 in the name of empowering the sort of parents who should have the least amount of power, but it just seemed a bit too close to reproductive futurism to me. And it gets worse the more I think about it. Oh, so you got special dispensation to bring your kid to an active warzone, John Francis? Who’s that for? Coz it reads to me like you putting your kid in danger to satisfy your own emotional needs, which is very much Not Cool. I would like to have seen that be interrogated more, and given how much older the actress playing Splice was than the way the character was written I think that could have been conveyed by making her a little surlier and a little less in awe of Daddy.

On the other hand you can argue that it is a family show and it’s nice to give dads a hero moment, probably helps them and their kids bond a little…but then I come back to that Tom Baker story about meeting the guy who used to be in a boys’ home, whose residents were probably only too aware that no, actually, not all parents come through for their children. How would they feel, watching an ending like that? Would it still make Saturday good?

Mining Gold

In his 2012 stand-up special “New In Town,” John Mulaney quipped that he “always thought quicksand was going to be a much bigger problem than it turned out to be.” This sentiment seems to have rung true with people online. Quicksand was such a big deal in media in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Who could forget Westley jumping headlong into quicksand to save Buttercup in “The Princess Bride?” Remember the first time you saved Mario from sinking deep into golden sands? Yet in real life, very little quicksand. While I am sure there are parts of the world that grapple with quicksand, it’s more of a trope than anything. Trapping our heroes allows storytellers to show who these characters are under pressure. While Doctor Who has its share of great escapes, it’s also prone to using capture to pad time. But isn’t that a cynical view? Can’t trapping our heroes also give the narrative a moment to breathe?

Quicksand is the perfect type of trap because it’s a ticking clock that must be treated with attention and care. Characters must slow down and assess their situation. It’s odd then that Doctor Who has never used quicksand in the show proper. But it’s just a placeholder. You could throw someone into the Timelash. The Fourth Doctor had to shoot a rope while standing over a pit of horda. Or again with the Fourth Doctor when he stepped on a landmine. But that last one is different, isn’t it? The horda and Timelash are as real as the Swamp of Sandness and the Bog of Eternal Stench. But landmines are very real. And in some parts of the world, a horrific day-to-day reality.

Returning after a seven-year absence, Steven Moffat brings the Doctor back into the minefield with “Boom.” But unlike Doctor Who’s last episode named after an explosive onomatopoeia, “Kerblam!”, this episode aims to chastise capitalism’s role in atrocity, not give it a free pass. Also making a comeback are a few Moffat staples- Villengard, the Anglican Marines, and stupid children. Each does their part to build a narrative mirroring the current political climate. But have any of Moffat’s less celebrated qualities returned along with him? Will he fall into his own trappings as a writer? Is this trope just padding out time? Or can a bottle episode become an instant classic?

Coming off the heels of last week’s manic “The Devil’s Chord,” the show was due a bit of a breather. While I’m all for bombast it’s nice to know this thing has an off switch. I already saw someone on Instagram who disagrees wholeheartedly. In their words “Boom? More like BORING,” so I imagine this one won’t be popular among dullards and the chronically contrarian crowd. But as an old, I appreciated the slower pacing and the emphasis on emotion. If you need a constant source of laser swords and loud noises, allow me to quote the Third Doctor- “Don't worry, Brigadier. People will be shooting at you soon.” Luckily, Billy No-Mates and his five Instagram followers appear to be in the minority. Most everyone I’ve talked to absolutely loved this episode.

The one issue I’ve seen fans bring up that holds any kind of water has been the conversation around faith. The inclusion of the Anglican Marines introduces a religious angle that some have criticised as preachy and offensive. In the past Moffat has used the Anglicans to various ends. Spanning across two centuries, the Anglicans we’ve met so far have come in numerous forms. Sometimes they’re allies of the Doctor, and at other times, they’re a fanatic organisation hellbent on stopping the Doctor at every turn. This time, however, the Doctor and they cross paths presumably by happenstance. (More on why I say presumably later.) This group of Marines are already in a deep conflict with an elusive enemy, which they appear to be losing. Despite these losses, they keep their faith. But it’s hard to keep faith when your enemy is as invisible as your god.

The two soldiers we’re introduced to are Carson and John Francis Vater. Not as in they’re married like the Fat One and the Thin One couple from “A Good Man Goes To War,” but rather that Carson only gets the one name. As names go, John Francis Vater is akin to purple hair in an anime- total protagonist vibes. Vater even has a daughter named Splice living back on base. He has a cute “save the cat,” moment when he tells Splice to brush her manky teeth. Which is why when he dies, it feels like there’s still more to his story. Unfortunately for Carson, he exists to illustrate the way the Villengard smartmines on Kastarion 3 operate. As it turns out, it’s pretty quick, rather violent, and kind of pretty. Even more unfortunately for Vader, he is now essentially lost as Carson was acting as his eyes due to temporary blindness.

It’s never really explained why the Doctor and Ruby are parked on the planet. Presumably, it’s the Doctor doing his usual “land wherever and explore,” approach. But it’s the death of Vater that draws the Doctor and Ruby into the action. After lifting the veil from his injured eyes, Vater’s injury draws the attention of a Villengard Automated Ambulance Unit with the video face of Susan Twist. Having assessed that Vater’s recovery time would be too big of a drain on resources the ambulance terminates him. The Doctor comes running at the sound of Vater’s scream but finds nothing but an empty crater and a smartmine under his right foot. It’s the inclusion of Susan Twist here that makes me wonder if this isn’t part of some greater plan. Pretty obvious, really. Also, didn’t a big portion of Moffat’s last episode also take place in a crater?

The Doctor’s voice carries out along the horizon with a mournful rendition of “The Skye Boat Song.” It tells of the journey Bonnie Prince Charles took from Benbecula to Skye after his defeat at the Battle of Culloden, thus spelling the end for the Jacobites. This worked for me on several fronts. As a fan of the Second Doctor, I admired the nod to his past. I also enjoyed the reference to Ncuti Gatwa’s Scottish identity. The forlorn quality of his singing reminded me of the Master playing the Skye Boat Song in “The Power of the Doctor,” which was one of the better parts of that story. I was also grateful that they didn’t undercut the tension with a pop song, or something truly cringe, like quoting from Harry Potter.

The Doctor is singing to calm himself and hopefully delay the bomb until he can come up with a new plan. But it’s this singing that draws Ruby to his location. Together the two of them must move their bodies in sync to a rhythm so the Doctor can rest his leg. In yet another contrast to “The Devil’s Chord,” music is being used in an entirely different manner. But this time, the Doctor’s dance partner, Ruby Sunday, is less complimentary and more complicated. The Doctor faces death all the time, but seeing Ruby put in harm’s way raises the Doctor’s blood pressure. The adrenaline becomes harder to control. And his bio-signs become easier for the smartmine to detect. Because of this, the Doctor’s emotions are raw and prickly, another stark contrast from last week. He chastises Ruby for not doing as he tells her, but she ignores him because she’s got her own ideas about what she is and isn’t allowed to do. I was getting shades of Amy Pond from Ruby in this one, and considering the author, that makes sense.

If you’ve ever heard me say that I wanted the chance for Jodie Whittaker to get mean, or show anger, this is precisely the kind of depiction of the Doctor I meant. In many ways, Ncuti is the same brand of golden retriever adorable as Whittaker, only here they’ve allowed him to show that he’s capable of a depth of emotion. The Doctor has an authoritarian streak that he hides well, but in times of stress, the walls begin to fall away and you see the complicated Time Lord underneath the fish fingers and custard, the floppy hair, and the eccentric fit. This is exactly the kind of episode I wanted to see Ncuti get to do. I’ve seen him deal with heavy subjects in “Sex Education,” I’m glad they didn’t just hire him because he’s hot and dripping charisma. He’s also incredibly capable of going into dark places.

While looking for a rock to help the Doctor balance his dangling left leg, Ruby happens upon the “smelted,” remains of Vater. The Ambulance sort of formed and condensed Vater’s body into a tube shape topped with a nameplate and a hologram projector containing an AI facsimile of Vater’s consciousness. And I’ll say it because everyone’s waiting for me to say it- it���s an actual fleshlight. There, I said the thing. Are you happy? Is this what you wanted from me? Are you not entertained? I’d like to pretend I was so wrapped up in the episode that I didn’t think it, but I absolutely did. It’s VOR all over again. I got over it pretty fast.

That’s the way good Doctor Who goes, really. The little hang-ups are more like snags when you’re moving along. It’s easier to look past the nitpicks and grievances when there’s so much more at play. When Doctor Who is bad, all it has are its nitpicks and grievances and that’s a real sadness when that happens because we’re no longer watching Doctor Who, we’re watching the background go by. We’re admiring the wallpaper because just because the writers phoned it in, doesn’t mean the set designers did. But this is Doctor Who firing on all cylinders.

We are however getting into the realm of one of my nitpicks about this episode and that’s Splice. Because she lost her mother, her dad, Vater, has special permission to let her live on base. The issue I have is that I wasn’t joking earlier when I said she’s stupid. I don’t say this to badmouth the little girl playing her, as she was good. I also don’t mean to denigrate the script. What I don’t understand is why is she so old? That may seem like a weird question because kids come in all sorts of ages, but this one is little kids stupid. I found it hard to believe that a girl of her age would confuse a hologram for her father. I get that she might be fooled by the voice and I can even believe that she would be foolish enough to wander into a battlefield to find him, but I’ve never once seen my dad looking like a translucent blue hologram. This is why I say she’s too old. An older kid would have figured it out. They should have either changed her dialogue or cast someone younger. Otherwise, she’s a perfectly fine character.

Splice’s emotional reaction draws the attention of another Anglican Marine named Mundy Flynn. Immediately my Whovian brain was doing backflips at the sudden appearance of Varada Sethu. For those of you not in the know, Sethu is planned to be a companion in season 2 next year. Seeing her this early was very exciting. Was this an Oswin Oswald scenario or a Martha’s cousin dying at Canary Warf scenario? Did they enjoy working with Varada so much that they created a character for her in the next season or is this some wibbly wobbly sort of thing? Well, as it turns out, it’s a wibbly wobbly thing. I didn’t learn this from the show, however. I learned it from Doctor Who’s social media. And honestly, I really wish they’d have just left us to wonder on this one. Would it have killed them to leave an air of mystery around her character? There’s still a bit of mystery, but I feel like they’re holding people’s hands a bit too much. I guess they’re afraid people’s imaginations will run too wild and we’ll set ourselves up for disappointment. They know who their audience is. But still, I like the not knowing part. I like the speculation.

Mundy sees the Doctor holding the remains of Vater and commands him to drop them. But if the Doctor drops the remains, he risks setting off the mine. But even worse, if the mine goes off, it will turn him into the explosion. The Doctor refers to himself as a ”complex spacetime event,” indicating that if he were to explode, it could take out half of the planet. But Mundy isn’t convinced and tries to shoot the Doctor’s arm to make him drop the tube. Sensing combat, the Ambulance bots start looking for the injured to either heal or put out of their misery. Releasing her mistake, Mundy commands Ruby to shoot her in the arm in order to draw the ambulance away from the Doctor, but in her hesitation, Ruby is mistaken for an enemy and shot by Mundy’s comrade Canto who arrives late on the scene.

While we’re on the subject of Ruby, I wanted to point out that I found it a bit odd that Kastarion 3 was her first experience on an alien planet. Sure this is only her fourth adventure onscreen, but we were told in The Devil’s Chord that six months had passed. Granted, Rose Tyler spent an entire season having earthbound adventures with the Ninth Doctor, so there’s an explanation. I have to tip my hat to their attention to detail here as not even the Doctor Who Magazine comics have taken her off-world. I guess “Space Babies,” kind of counts. Just something I felt worth mentioning.

Not only has Ruby now died, but the Doctor learns that even if he does dupe the smartmine into thinking he’s not a living person, it will eventually detonate by default. The only way to stop this is now outside of the Doctor’s control, sort of. He must convince Mundy to surrender. Since the mine belongs to the Anglican Marines, only their surrender will disarm the device. Otherwise- boom. The Doctor explains to Mundy that the war they’re fighting is with themselves. The Villengard algorithm has been tricking the Marines into attacking themselves to keep them buying their product. It’s a war being waged against nothing all in the pursuit of profit.

Mundy asks the Doctor for proof which is where the Doctor’s stance on faith comes into play. But I feel like the actual conversation the Doctor is having in that moment is that faith is both a good and a bad thing. It’s not that he’s saying it’s bad for someone to have faith in God, but that it’s bad to let faith do your thinking for you. Splice has faith in her daddy. The Doctor and Ruby have faith in one another. Faith can strengthen us as people. But when it’s used to justify not considering deeper truths, it’s a hindrance. I feel like this is very in line with things we’ve heard the Fourth and Tenth Doctor’s say about religion in the past. I will admit though, I am an atheist, so I can’t speak from the perspective of a person with faith.

When Mundy tries to send evidence back to command, it’s intercepted by the algorithm and overruled. The machine has taken over and the smirking face of Susan Twist shows no signs of compassion leaking through. But with the Doctor connected to the machine and his hand connected to the remains of Vater, he’s able to send Vater into the algorithm. As Vater battles the ghost in the machine, I was reminded of “The Doctor’s Wife,” when the TARDIS re-enters her body and destroys House from the inside. In fact, lots of this episode reminded me of previous Doctor Who. The short war fought on the basis of a lie reminded me of “The Doctor’s Daughter.” The message about unchecked capitalism reminded me of “Oxygen.”  And of course there’s the mine calling back to Tom Baker in “Genesis of the Daleks.” Lots of what Ncuti was doing this week reminded me of Tom Baker and I mean that as the utmost compliment. He was doing stellar work here.

This episode had me grinning from ear to ear for the entirety of its runtime. But it wasn’t until after that I realised what it was that had me so happy. Sure, the episode was good, but I realised that it was the first time in the last 5 or 6 years that I had enjoyed a new Doctor Who episode without a giant asterisk hanging overhead. I cried tears of joy during “The Woman Who Fell to Earth,” but that was excitement for Jodie. My opinion of the episode itself was quite low. I enjoyed “The Witchfinders,” (also how cool was that reference to it in this episode?) and I enjoyed “It Takes You Away,” but I loved “Boom.” Without any hesitation, I absolutely loved it.

While the RTD2 era has been a marked improvement, I have had a few reservations. Mostly that it has so far felt like they’ve been trying way too hard. Trying too hard to have fun. Trying too hard to be funny. Trying too hard to be action-packed. I hope that the people in charge have seen the fan reaction to Boom for what it is. You don’t need massive budgets. You can do smaller stories with simple sets. The fans will respond well when you nail the tone and writing. Even Ncuti Gatwa said that while he was confused the entire time shotting the episode, it ended up being his favourite of the season. This felt like the most Doctor Who episode of Doctor Who that I’ve watched since Moffat left, and I’m including the new Davies stuff in there. This is what I meant when I said I wish Davies would chill the fuck out. Stop trying so hard.

Where this falls short for me is it highlights how insular the show has been since it returned. Eight episodes, six by the same writer, one by a former showrunner, and the remaining one is shared by two new authors. Why? I’ll be honest, Davies has never been my favourite Doctor Who writer. He’s a strong producer who writes people well. But when it comes to his episodes, other than “Midnight,” he’s never written one I would call a favourite. This is just a personal preference. When they announced his return, I was more excited for a return to competence than a return to classic writing. We could use new blood in the writer’s room. Even Chris Chibnall could see that, and he did hire some pretty good talent. My two favourite episodes from his era are written by people new to the show. More of that, please.

In truth, bringing Moffat back was a good choice. Unlike Davies, Moffat has written some of my favourite Doctor Who. And as with most anyone who has written the shear volume of Doctor Who as he has, he’s also written some of my least favourite Doctor Who. It’s bound to happen at that level of output. He’s not a writer without problems. His writing of female characters leaves something to be desired. But Moffat writing under a different showrunner, with an editor? Total Chad material. Some of the best. If they kept bringing him back like this every year or so, I would absolutely love it. Especially because it would continue to leave room for new talent.

With Vater in the machine, the ambulance revives Ruby. Sadly, Mundy’s love, Canto, dies just as he proclaims his love for her. This part was a bit shallow in that it was barely set up and felt like loss for the sake of loss. As Jean Cocteau once said “Emotion resulting from a work of art is only of value when it is not obtained by sentimental blackmail.” So it’s a bit difficult to feel sorry for Mundy here, but it’s not completely void of an emotional core. It’s nice that Splice has a new caretaker in Mundy, and that’s as happy an ending as we need. What’s more important is the emotional depths we’ve experienced with the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby. This was the moment when they were solidified for me as characters. I needed this episode. Not so much to show me that the Ncuti and Millie could do it, I knew they could. But rather to show me that the show could still do it. That RTD was still up to the task of delivering us something more than progressive happy fun. We’re not beyond the realm of complexity. And with that, I can relax a little. What else ya got, Davies?

[star-anise]

I'm up around 3am, thinking about incels and tradwives. (Note: If these are movements you're a fan of, or if you just want to fight with me generally, I will block you if you annoy me, and even if you behave there's a $20 fee if you expect me to actually reply to you in any way.)

This got started because of Khadija Mbowe's and F.D Signifier's videos about Black patriarchy, which has led me to pick up bell hooks' 2004 book The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love.

The thing that hooks says that really knocked my socks off in a "how dare you notice that" way is that a lot of people, men and women alike, are angry not just because of the male violence they've experienced, but because of the lack of male love they've experienced.

Which like, part of being human means that being seen and cared about is pretty viscerally equated with survival in our brains. We want it, we need it, we suffer when it isn't there. To be seen and genuinely loved by the people in our lives matters, so we are always affected when there's someone important to us who doesn't seem to see us, to love us, to care about our wellbeing, or to be proud of our accomplishments. It matters to be disregarded, rejected, or shamed by someone we want to love us.

But no power in the world can compel another person to give a shit about you—a truth most of us spend our lives frantically suppressing because being unloved is terrifying, so we work at being better, more attractive, smarter, more accomplished, more charming, sexier, or to be brutally honest, more lovable. But when we do experience a lack of love, a lot of us take that anger and decide to opt for second best. If we can't be loved, we can at least be powerful. Power can take a lot of forms, but because the lack of male love often goes hand-in-hand with violence, people who face it generally want, at the very least, to not be hurt anymore.

But there's another element in play. Patriarchal gender roles divide behaviours and skills in a very particular way: Boys and men are expected to use power to dominate, and girls and women are supposed to use emotions to tend and nurture. Anyone who fails to perform those roles gets harshly punished. Terrence Real talks about how this leaves men with very limited knowledge of their own emotional needs or how to communicate them to other people, and Paul Kivel talks about how boys are taught that this is women's work—that if they are masculine enough, they will attract a woman who will make sure that they feel loved and cared about. How a great deal of men's anger towards women is the feeling that women are witholding this essential service, or failing to fully handle men's emotions (which is pretty damn common, since humans aren't telepaths so it's basically impossible to reach inside someone's head and change their emotions for them).

So hooks notes that women are just as likely to uphold patriarchal gender roles as men, and one element of that is women's anger when men are emotionally vulnerable. Men who confess to their partners that they feel lost and ashamed and unworthy of love are doing exactly what women keep saying we want men to do, but the reaction many women have is a kind of incredulous frustration—"You want me to handle all this? Fuck no, I'm busy!"

Part of that reaction is that in patriarchal gender roles, it is a woman's literal job to completely soothe and manage her male partner's emotions—to diligently praise him, make him feel more accomplished, and to reassure him of her ongoing love and admiration in all things. And that is a lot of work that is quite likely not to succeed because it's really hard to talk someone out of a self-hating funk. (There's also an element of just plain sexism. Even without the implied demand for help, some women just think men's vulnerability is pathetic or laughable.)

The feminist response to this that hooks, Real, and Kivel advocate for is to spread the load a little more evenly; to work to reduce the violence with which gender roles are policed, to allow men to be soft and emotional, but in the process, give them the emotional skills to handle the shame and dread we all feel sometimes about not being lovable or or worthy, and empower them to form many different emotionally fulfilling relationships.

So the thing about incels is, they tend to be obsessed with finding a woman who will make them feel worthy, sexy, accomplished, admirable, and dominant, like a "real man". The prospect of getting a woman is the single potential oasis of love and support in an incredibly bleak desert landscape in which a romantic partnership is the only possible source men are permitted to seek love and care from. A man who hasn't gotten a girl is a pathetic loser whose life is meaningless.

What that entire worldview takes for granted is how the desert became a desert in the first place. How boys learn to fear the violence and rejection that comes from stepping out of their gender role by being emotionally vulnerable or by emotionally nurturing somebody else; how emotional knowledge and expression are punished by a system that says men should always seek to dominate. The desire for a female partner rests on a bedrock of learned fear and contempt for the idea that men can or even should have the kind of emotionally close and supportive friendships among themselves that women tend to have with each other.

Incels are the fucking allegory of the long spoons in action. They gather in huge numbers to discuss their pain, frustration, and disappointment about their difficulty attaining a relationship that provides emotional fulfillment, but it's impossible for them to try to seek or offer that kind of relationship with the many many people right there also looking for love, because violating the gender rules means inviting violence and ostracism. Affection and mutual esteem between men is super gay and doesn't count, especially when it's provided because of a mutual vulnerability instead of admiration for achievement. So it's incredibly hard for incels to in any way break out of the mental cage that says the way to be loved is to be as masculine, as stoic and unemotional and successful and admirable and dominant as possible. And because being dominant tends to require people to be better than, incels spend a lot of time criticizing each other for failing to be masculine enough, and therefore not worthy of love.

Meanwhile... tradwives.

If you're into men, the dream of being truly loved by a man who will take care of you and make your life materially better is fucking amazing stuff. That's just... that's just The Dream, okay? The romance industry's extreme popularity decade after decade will tell you what bell hooks also notes: Women who are into men want to be loved by men SO MUCH.

So it really seems to me that the basic appeal of being a tradwife is managing to be submissive enough to get the men they love to genuinely show up and fully commit to loving them. If conflict in relationships happen because men feel threatened in their masculinity or not fully loved by their wives, then gosh darnit, these women will plaster themselves over the cracks to make sure there are absolutely no problems. That will earn them a relationship where they are truly loved and appreciated.

(It's a trap. I hate to say it, but we're not a telepathic species, and you will never manage to be good enough to actually change what someone else feels. No matter how hard you submit, your husband will still feel moments of doubt and fear and inadequacy, because he's human and we're built like that. It's the cross we have to bear as a species. And it does not go well at all if both of you are used, in those moments, for blaming you for whatever you "did" to "make" him feel that way.)

[h7jfangirl]

TGS chapter 12's cover!

And how I said before, Hyde appears!

First of all: I really love the colors of this cover, the black and gold convination is fantastic and you can feel how Hyde is suffering while nobody is doing nothing to help him.

Now, let's start from the description of this page

When I read this for the first time I didn't catch it, I though they were literally saying that although Hyde was shown in agony on the cover, the chapter was going to be calmer than it seemed

So at first I was like:

But then I read the comments and I understood that Sabrina was being sarcastic (JAJAJSJ).

So, analyzing Sabrina's words we can realize that it reveals a little about what the chapter was mainly about:

The chapter will be about Hyde suffering the concequences of his actions while Jekyll decides to confront Laynon with his feelings, something that could affect Hyde in a worse or better way (Knowing that Hyde usually use Henry's negative emotions to escape from a emotional problem. But Edward could be inside of a deep part of Jekyll's mind where the negative emotions that Henry can feel are even more stronger and dangerous than before, so Hyde would be in a lot of trouble with the same things he once use for his own benefit.

Now let's analyze the cover image:

"The image is of Hyde being taken over by dark forces on top of a stage while many upper-class viewers watch it as a fantastic spectacle"

This is clearly symbolic, I don't think real magic dark tentacles grab Hyde on a stage and the viewers think it's part of the show LMAO. BUT what are exactily thoses dark forces?

Maybe they are the actual representation of Hyde's OWN INSECURITIES, due to everything he went through in chapter 10 Hyde's ego was very damaged and from that new insecurities were formed about himself, being such doubts as "Will I be free" or even existential questions like "Who I am?" That tun into these powerful dark forces that have manifested for drag him into the darkest part of the mind, where he belongs

For one night, he will face and feel all the fear and stress Jekyll felt cause of him, while outside of his mind the exhibition begins and Henry faces one of his own fears...

I think about the possibility that the chapter takes place on the night of the big exhibition, because in the small spoilers of Sabrina on Twitter Henry and Laynon are seen with elegant clothes. However, there is also the great possibility that it could be a Jekyll or Laynon flashback where we are shown that we still did not see EVERYTHING in the last chapter, i think so because we only see them in those suits. But at least we know that the exhibition is very close.

But then if the spoilers about Henry and Laynon are just a flashback, then the chapter would be about Jekyll remembering the little confrontation he had with Robert while Hyde suffers in the depths of his mind and he doesn't realize? Or maybe...

EVIL JEKYLL???

Nah, I don't think so but it would be super hyper mega cool. Henry being able to somehow control the shadows so they will take Hyde inside his mind and lock him in the deepest, even if it was for just one night (Surely because the poor guy just wants to sleep). It would make sense if we take into account that he will be able to empower himself with Frankenstein (According to Sabri's wip on Twitter)

So why not with Hyde too? He actually did it in the last panel of chapter 10!.

Well, whatever what will happend in this chapter, we don't have to wait to long, because nexts uptade comes next week!

So~ I'm ending the post here, thanks for take the time to read this. I'm so sorry about my bad english, i had to use Google translator for this but I hope you liked it!

I Will love to see your theorys and thoughs about this chapter in the comments!

So yeah, goodbye and have a nice day! 💕✨

[bestworstcase]

hm.

well, kind of, in the sense that the glare is emotionally motivated and seems to be triggered specifically by protective fury or desperation to protect a loved one—so it’s more effective to wield it defensively. but i think describing it as a shield that cannot also be a sword is a matter of semantics more than anything; a shield can be a weapon and a sword can be used to block or parry as well as strike. also the glare effects protection by destroying things, so its essential mechanism is offensive (and destructive) in nature.

my sense is that maria’s point when she scolds ruby for thinking about it in terms of “laser-beaming monsters with her eyeballs” is more about guiding her focus inwards, because the glare is fundamentally emotional and spiritual in nature. it can’t be used frivolously. it’s not some magic button ruby can push to explode grimm with her eyes. it won’t work if ruby isn’t in tune with her feelings.

frankly i think the core reason ruby struggles with it so much is she’s super repressed; notably every time she tries and fails, it’s because she flinches away from memories that make her feel sad or scared, even though those feelings—that understanding of loss, that pain—are what galvanizes the desire to protect what hasn’t been lost yet. (see also, ruby’s letter to yang at the end of V4.)

and i think there is also probably something in the glare coming easier to ruby when she’s in close proximity to her friends—when she faces the leviathan in V6 and when she tries and fails to glare at the megoliath, she is standing alone. with the leviathan, the only reason she succeeds (or survives, for that matter) because she had somebody to turn to for help, who chose to help her out of fondness. when maria coaches her earlier in V6 she begins by telling ruby to focus not on the people she loves but rather on the people who love her and how their love makes her feel, and later describes silver eyes as “[shining] like mirrors, reflecting the light of the world into darkness.” i think the use of that particular metaphor is deliberate and probably pretty crucial—a shining mirror does not give light, it reflects the light it’s given. i think the glare is empowered by the feeling of being loved and reciprocating that love in turn, and that ruby’s self-sacrificial streak and her feeling that she is needed but not loved contributes to her struggle to master the glare.

…all of which is somewhat tangential to the actual thought i had in mind when i jotted down the op, which is that maria is quite clearly incorrect on at least one major point (silver eyes do work on people) and there is a degree of explicit narrative mystery built up around it. i don’t think “grimm and people corrupted by grimm” is the correct answer (because cinder’s resistance to the glare increases even as she becomes more grimm) and this is one of my perennial windmills because i think silver eyes are going to play a key role in persuading the brother(s) to ascend.

V9 introduced an interesting wrinkle here in that the glare has been attributed (i think incorrectly, or at least incompletely) to the god of light and its mechanism of action evokes his annihilative approach to dealing with conflict (<- jabber) but has also been very strongly implied to transcend that; it turns grimm to dust but also petrifies them, it only works on grimm except when it doesn’t, and so forth. so my sense right now is that the narrative is building up to a refutation of light’s ideology in general and his treatment of jabber, salem, and remnant itself more specifically.

his driving motivation is preservation and maintenance of order, through the annihilation of anything disruptive, which dovetails neatly with maria’s philosophical understanding of silver eyes (preserve life through enmity with destruction) but has been overtly stated to be wrong (“balance is not two forces locked in never-ending conflict”) in combination with how ruby’s most successful uses of her eyes have all been, at best, imperfectly explained by what maria told her.

the only times ruby has been able to glare without somebody else [maria, jinn] helping her, it’s been against a person. cinder in V3, V5, and V7, the hound in V8. silver eyes “only work on grimm” but ruby has consistently found it easier to use hers against people, to the point that her two successful glares against pure grimm were required maria’s coaching or a second chance from jinn.