#at this point I might check the Internet Archive because they have cool stuff

[zero-on-the-clocktower]

I always wondered why bird field guides were organized the way they are. I’ve been reading a book on birding, and according to it, apparently their organization is based on when the birds evolved. The oldest birds evolutionary wise are listed at the front.

[mask131]

I originally had this whole series of posts about Radagast in mind - but ultimately I will probably scrap the project so instead, I'll share random trivia and cool stuff.

And I will begin with something I don't see ANYBODY talking about anymore: Radagast ALMOST appeared into the Lord of the Rings Peter Jackson trilogy. Like... he was there, you had the actor, the costume, the place in the scenes, everything was prepared, but he was scrapped at the last minute.

You might have seen this picture before if you are a long-time fan of the LotR movies:

This picture of a live-action Radagast comes from the Decipher Inc.'s "Lord of the Rings Trading Cards Game", an official set of collectible cards affiliated with the Peter Jackson LotR trilogy. By affiliated I mean, "based on the movies and using exclusively images from the movies". Well... almost since some characters that did NOT appear in the movies still get live-action pictures (and yes this was LONG before the Hobbit movies were even in the work).

Here are the cards depicting Radagast and affiliated items:

If they are not from the movies, where do these pictures come from? Well, they were created by Weta Workshop - who worked on the Peter Jackson movies. A lot of the cards depicting subjects not appearing in the movies were created after the trilogy was concluded, completely with new material, the concept just being checked by the movie-team, but the Radagast cards are a whole other story, and truly fascinating in this regard...

Because the costume and props were already pre-existing before they decided to make this card game. As I said above, there were plans for Radagast to appear in the trilogy at some point - as a background character in unspecified scenes. Daniel Falconer revealed all that in interviews: John Harding had been cast to play Radagast, they designed his costume and staff, they made him undergo photo-shoots for the upcoming movie... But Radagast was ultimately deleted.

However all was not in vain, since when it came time to create Radagast cards for merchandising, all Weta had to do was call back Harding, put him back into the costume, and tadaa!

We still have a few, low quality pictures of the behind-the-work designing of Radagast - very precious pieces and some of the only clues of this iteration of the character. Here they are:

All these pictures come from a 2008 forum thread on The One Ring forum where the upcoming Hobbit movies were discussed (it was still the time when it was thought it would be a duology instead of a trilogy). Link is here.

The images originally came from the website of Weta Workshop - it was on the same website you could find many more pictures of their behind-the-scene works for the card game, as well as the interviews I evoked above. Unfortunately the pages do not exist anymore... But the Wayback Machine of the Internet Archive allows us to go take a look at them! Praise our lords of the Internet Archive!

Here are saves from 2004. Here Daniel Falconer's interview with assorted pictures ; and here an illustrated article about the making of the card game. (You'll find in these pages not just Radagast talks, but also talks of Glorfindel, Tom Bombadil, Beorn and more - and here is a third article about the making-of).

To conclude this post about a Radagast that never was, here is a picture that was taken of John Harding in his Radagast costume, standing between two cardboard cut-outs of Peter Jackson's Saruman and Gandalf. As such, we can see what the three most famous wizards of Middle-Earth would have looked like in the original Peter Jackson trilogy.

[writing-for-life]

I totally understand the dilemma, but this came absolutely from people in the wealthier countries you mention who think it’s some sort of social activism or “fandom kindness/looking out for fandom friends” to basically steal (because let’s face it, that’s what it is) from authors. When it’s really just about feeling entitled to have something they can’t afford. Or they’re very clearly able to afford it, but they don’t WANT to pay for it. Because they want to “try it first and maybe buy it later”. Or simply because they don’t see the point to pay for it because they think the world owes them something. Because they simply do not value the arts while loudly proclaiming they do.

Don’t get me wrong: If situations are dire, people can do what they think they need to do. But there’s a world of a difference between just doing it and keeping quiet about it, and loudly proclaiming it’s okay to do it somehow, or that we’ll pass around links etc.

We are defunding the arts everywhere. If we want our art to be valued, we need to assign it value. It’s as simple as that. That value isn’t just monetary, but for pro artists, it’s ALSO monetary. Because we need to make money from it to survive. It’s our intellectual property. We often spent decades to hone our craft. And I know that there’s a whole movement on Tumblr that’s very anti-IP, but all they see are big corporations. But that’s not how it works. Grassroots artists aren’t big corporations. And most writers very much fall into the category of grassroots artists.

I’d also hazard a guess that the majority of the people who think piracy is ok just like the sound of their own echo chamber of (mostly very young) people who think it’s somehow “cool” and “anti-establishment”. All the while not getting that by not assigning value to the arts (because they’re not willing to pay for them because they assign higher priority to something else, which is fine), they play into the very hands of the people who want to defund it. And then cry years down the line that no one values the arts/their art…

I personally think it’s a false equivalence to compare, “I can’t really afford it but I still feel entitled to have it,” with “This is something I need for a degree or similar.” Because artists even in those wealthy countries you mention are struggling. I can still remember the days very well when I made barely enough to scrape by (thank God they’re over). But it honestly would have never occurred to me to say, “I still feel entitled to stuff, so I’ll take it anyway.” Or to have a list of criteria that would need to be fulfilled so it’s good enough for me to read (disabilities/questions of accessibility aside).

There are online libraries like parts of the Internet Archive that people everywhere can join via OpenLibrary. They might not have everything, but they have quite a lot, and over 1,000 libraries worldwide have linked themselves in. What I’m trying to say is: Sometimes it’s just more convenient to do a quick download from some fishy piracy site instead of really looking into what’s out there.

The problems you mention are systemic. And they’re bad, and they need solutions. But is the solution to an underfunded University degree or an underfunded library to take the money from the weakest link in the chain, i.e. the author? It’s an honest question, because of course it points at wider problems that go far beyond this post.

I don’t have answers to these questions either because none of these are simple when it comes to systemic problems. But I’d urge people to really check in with the difference between a “want” and a “need”.

That comic people think is okay to steal? It’s a want, but not a need.

That book of the indie author people think is okay to steal? It’s a want, but not a need.

And in those cases above, it won’t hit the big author because they’re established enough not to care. But it will hit the indie-author.

And just before I finished this, @tickldpnk8 has added such a great reblog. I will just add it as a screenshot to this one because it’s already written, but yes: the irony should not be lost on people. And yet, it seemingly is:

Considering this is a site where so many people have aspirations to become professional authors or artists, I think it’s really astounding that many (often the same) people encourage book piracy. And by that I mean: They don’t just do it behind closed doors (whatever, do what you have to do and keep it to yourself)—they actually package it as some act of immeasurable kindness in the name of “social justice”. And I’d say: If you’re not a professional author and have no experience in or with publishing, hence don’t really understand what it means to make your living as a writer, maybe just… don’t? And if you ever want to sell your books, maybe also just… don’t?

It’s not some cool subversive thing in the name of social justice you’re doing. You’re really hurting authors with it, and it’s in no way comparable to “fighting the big bad streamers.”

Yes, Neil Gaiman will be okay, but if you’re saying it’s okay to do it to him, you’re also saying by extension it’s okay to do it to lesser known authors. And those authors make up the vast (and I mean vast!) majority of authors. But maybe you’re one of those people who think that all artists are minted and picture them in La La Land, entirely possible. If that’s the case, maybe educate yourself what the median income of authors is, be very surprised and wake up. Sometimes, it really helps to think before hitting post. And if rants are not your thing, this is the exit sign because I’m not going to mince my words…

Here are a couple of really good comments from *that* post that people should maybe inwardly digest before they prioritise being oh-so-understanding and supportive of every Tom, Dick & Harry who “can’t afford the book” via piracy (how about buying them one instead if you care so much. No? Thought so) over supporting authors, artists and, yes, libraries:

(Re the last comment: Or use online libraries—they’re also free. That was also part of above post btw. Libby, Hoopla etc exist for a reason.)

If that’s all too hard, then let’s at least stop pretending on here that we care about supporting authors and artists while vocally supporting book piracy. Because really, it’s the same in all arts, even if the symptoms are slightly different—take it from one who is both a published author and used to be a stage performer.

And to say it quite frankly: These “ideas” are probably held by the same people who were tearfully blabbering about the arts being what kept them going during the pandemic and then forgot about it all when lockdown was over. Or maybe they are the same people who think that art is a “jolly pastime”, and that everyone should just be content to “do it for the love of it and give their art away for free because awwwww, so amazing, here, buy food with my exposure bucks.” Go on then, write and consume fanfics and create fanart, problem solved. Just don’t ever ask for the pro art that inspires it again. Ah no, I forgot, it’s all made for money and soulless anyway, innit? Why oh why then do you want to consume and pirate it though?

You’re not progressive and/or supportive of artists. You just have no clue how making a living in the arts works and think your comfort (= “I have to have all the things even if I can’t afford them”) matters more than someone’s livelihood (namely that of the people who devoted their lives to creating that art for you), and it really shows.

I don’t care about anyone’s Google history and even said so several time on here when people asked (this is the latest one, and yes, I see the people who had a “reaction” to this one or the reblog above, but I bet that’s “coincidence”). Do whatever you want to do, it’s your choice, keep it to yourself. But stop pretending that piracy means “caring about the noble cause”, because repackaging entitlement as social activism is performative crap…

[ehmuhlee13]

For Naming Your Sims...

Outside of trying to find accurate-ish CC (in relation to time-period and culture) and all that jazz for my Sims games, I take great care to try and find appropriate names as well. I'm sort of a self-proclaimed namenerd. If I'm not doing something Sims-related you can find me looking up things about names, naming fake families, etc...

That sorta leads me to the point of this post: RESOURCES so you don't have to keep naming your Sims the same 5 common names everyone else is using for their games! I notice a lot of name overlap for various gameplays I follow, especially the historical ones. There are so many unique options and variety when it comes to choosing an historically accurate name. (This may not matter to a lot of you, but I figured if I cared about it someone else out there might too. So, if that person is you, I hope you find this helpful!!)  Also, if anyone else knows of any sources for time-periods/cultures that I didn't include please let me know!!

Disclaimer: Majority of these are European based, because that is the easiest to find. I have searched for reliable, extensive sources of names from underrepresented cultures/ethnic groups/countries, but I don't always know the best way to search for accurate information, especially regarding something I'm not as familiar with.

A couple of good sites to start with are nameberry.com and behindthename.com. Nameberry is not always as accurate with meaning and origin, and it is lacking in tons of cultural diversity. (This is, thankfully, slowly changing). It can, however, be a good starting point, especially if you take the time to go through some of the forums on the site! The forums there are my favorite part of the site overall. There are also links to other name sites in various blog posts on the site. I believe I actually found my way onto most of the other sites I've linked here through various posts on Nameberry! Behind the name is more accurate when it comes to meaning and origin, and has a much wider range of cultures represented. There are, however, some user-submitted aspects, so always take those with a grain of salt. There are also pages related to different naming customs from around the world on the site as well.

British: British Baby Names has a pretty good collection of names from various time-periods. The blog has lists for Romans, Medieval, Tudor, Georgians, etc... plus a slew of various surnames! She also has posts on other European countries as well.

Medieval: Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources - the medieval name source of my dreams! They aim to provide the most accurate list of names that were actually used in medieval Europe. No made up names from stories here! Some of my personal faves: 

Altabella(f.) 

Blanchefleur(f.) 

Cadwobri(m.) 

Dulcibelle(f.) 

Erchamfred(m.) 

Framengilde(f.) 

Knightwine(m.) 

... I could do a whole post of the names to be honest. Anyways, also check out their blog, it's super cool history, namenerd stuff!

Anytime in recent-ish history: Newspapers, court documents, birth certificates...the list is long! Basically, in most western countries, you can find public access to a lot of documents, or an archive of newspapers to pull names from. This one does take a lot more dedication on each person's part as to how long one wants to spend searching for a name they like! (I spend, arguably, too much time doing this). If you're focusing on the Sims 4 Decades Challenge starting in the 1890's, then the SSA website will be a good bet, as it has records going back to 1880 for the USA. Unfortunately, majority of this stuff that is easy to find is going to be very western, very european, very white. 

Japanese: Beyond Sakura and Hiroshi - Super cool blog with a lot of cool names. Also, some of my favorite features a good name site should have--pronunciation guides, etymology, history, and popularity. 

Ritsuka (りつか)

Katsumi (かつみ)

Emi (えみ)

Saori (さおり)

Ryūya (りゅうや)

Yohē (よへえ)

The Sims 4 team has been upping the Asian representation in the game lately and it is great to see. (There are still so many underrepresented cultures in the game, but anytime I see something added that is not white and/or European at its core my heart gets so happy!) So I want my sims to have appropriate names that can fit the culture and aren't just a sad 'sounds like', made up attempt at being culturally correct. (Not that that's a pet-peeve of mine or anything)

West African: So, one of my favorites, because it can be very difficult to track down a source like this, at least in my limited experience, is The Yorùbá Name blog. The Yorùbá are an ethnic group from Western Africa, mainly in the modern countries of Nigeria, Benin, and Togo. Just a few examples:

Hárúnà 

Fádáhùnsi 

Ọláọmọ 

Tiwaladé 

Ẹfúnrántí 

Rọ̀mádé

The site is described as "an online intervention to preserve and document all Yorùbá names in a multimedia format. It is part of a long-term project to document all types of African cultural experiences on the internet as a way of ensuring the survival of African identities in their various expressions." I can't even begin to put into words how amazing I think this is and how much more of this sort of thing is needed! So if you know of any similar resources please share! Even if they're not name-related!

And that is the end of my first post...it ended up super long, but I don't know if I could've done it shorter. So if you're still here at this point, thank you! I hope you enjoyed this and can find it useful:) I’d also like to so more specific name lists in the future, so, if I ever remember to do that, hopefully it’ll turn out:))

[rrrawrf-writes]

lordy lordy loo it’s been a hot minute since i’ve made an original post, i forgot where the button was

so. some of you may have seen the stuff running around about violetvineyard and mvcreates, some of you may not have. i’m just gonna lay out my experiences here, now that other people are talking about it and now that the server has been deleted. i’m gonna try to present a fair and nuanced version; i’m not gonna include screenshots (right now) bc i’m lazy, mostly.

there are several other people who are putting up way better breakdowns than i am. i just figured i might as well toss mine onto the pile bc why not? but if you’re hoping to hear from me a story about how i’ve been wronged, per se, you won’t find much of one, because i played mainly a spectator role, and never had much trouble there. i will have a vague, lukewarm defense of some of the people involved that other people may not agree with, but again, this is all just the whole VV deal from my point of view.

@nuwuhorizons (i haven’t said how dang much i lOVE your url) and @sapiencenotes have very good receipts and breakdowns. if you want a more in-depth (and dramatic, forgive me for using the word, i’m not trying to downplay this), check them out. @time-to-write-and-suffer also has some great stuff on their blog about all of this.

all righty. so. i joined VV not right at the beginning, but soon after it was started. there was an application process, i got accepted, i was looking for a community to help me start writing more. (it didn’t help, but that’s not their fault, that’s mine.) the person who owned the server was called mina, and on tumblr, mina’s url was mvcreates. mina is a nonbinary Muslim woman of color, a professional who i believe works at harvad and deals a lot with things like infectious diseases, iirc. she was doing a whole lot of work when the pandemic came around, and so the past few months wasn’t quite as active as she had been at the start, both on the server and tumblr. 

the very first time mina came on my radar, before i joined vv, was because she had corrected someone’s typo on a post, and it stirred up a minor drama about “don’t give unsolicited criticism” and “is pointing out minor errors like that okay” and blahblahblah. i ran across that on a friend’s dash, and also ran across the promo for vv from that friend’s dash, as well, and joined bc y not.

everything was p cool for a while. it was nice to meet some new people and some of my mutuals on there. mina seemed like a fun person. she was about a year, year and a half, maybe, older than i am. the first things that kind of started rubbing me wrong at the start was how she would kind of dismiss suggestions for the server than i and a friend had, and how she kept bringing up her age - she would often say things like “well i wouldn’t do that but i’m an Old(TM) so maybe i just don’t get it” and i can’t really explain why that bothered me. i think it felt dismissive, like Younger Folks Don’t Know How Things Should Work. also, like. she kept bringing it up. as if it meant something, as if plenty of us on that server weren’t actually around her age. there was a convo on vaccinations where i wanted to make the point that a lot of anti-vaxxers should be educated instead of ridiculed and shamed, but i never really got to making that point bc she jumped in very sharply and explained that anti-vaxxers all come from a class of people who are generally educated. i didn’t bother saying anything else. 

at the start, it was tiny little things like that. i chalked it up to her personality and mine just not quite matching up. i sat down a lot and examined my own internal biases, bc i knew something was bugging me, but i couldn’t tell if it was legitimate, or if i was jealous and petty, or if i was being discriminatory towards her identity. i still wonder that a lot; i want to be careful that i’m examining her actions here, and not the person who made those actions.

because the other thing that bothered me was that she was perfect at pretty much everything. she was a decent, if not good, writer, from what i read. i thought her “art”/edits were neat, even if sometimes i looked at them going “that just looks like an edit, not your own art, but u kno, edits are art too, so i’m not gonna say anything.” she had a lot of motivation, a lot of ambition. soon, this kind of transferred over into me feeling like she acted like she had to be perfect at everything. i think this is probably one of the more “lisa is just being petty” things, rather than a judgement on her character, but she seemed to flaunt her own skills and accomplishments a lot. not that no one is allowed to brag sometimes! but it was just another layer of “this bothers me.”

then there was the hero worship.

people in the server loved mina. i liked her. i had no problems with her, even if there were a few things i was a little “ehhhh” about. vv got pretty big, pretty quickly, and i assume there was a decent amount of turnover and people who just joined to lurk or sometimes share things in the promos channel or elsewhere. but the most active folks just. they adored mina with every fiber of their being. mina could do no wrong. no one ever called her out on anything; everything she did was hailed as fantastic and wonderful. and honestly, for the most part, it wasn’t like she was doing crappy stuff. some of the praise was well-deserved, imo, but it just bordered on embarrassing for some of these people, how much they just worshipped the ground she walked on.

and she didn’t really like, discourage it. like, at the start, i think i remember her being more modest, but in general, she just let it go, and so did i, bc like. i aint that kinda jerk.

the stated purpose of violetvineyard was to have a community that valued reciprocity. reciprocity was mina’s biggest thing. there was a channel for people to post their stuff on, so the rest of us could browse and read and reblog. i, admittedly, didn’t do as much of that as i wish i did, but part of it was because i do have a life outside of the internet, a memory and attention span the size of a gnat, and because like. 90% of the stuff that people put in the promos channel were things like edits, writeblr intros, wip intros, etc etc, when all i wanted was to just read some actual writing. but that’s neither here nor there. what got hilarious to me, though, was whenever mina’s fervent admirers would talk about how mina was, quote, a pillar of the community. how vv was doing something No Other Writeblr Group Had Done Before. how Important and Special this server was.

folks. i’ve been on here for several years now. we don’t have a community. we have a bunch of little cliques who reblog from their friends and complain about people not reblogging them. noah fence, but come on. vv got pretty dang big, but it was still a small corner of a small section of tumblr. like. sorry, all y’all, but them’s the breaks.

also, this was hilarious to me bc there are several big writeblrs who have been running around long before mina and vv showed up. yet, according to these people in the server, mina had Single-handedly Brought Hope To This Desolate Wasteland.

in the end, vv became just another little clique whose members reblogged from their friends. i don’t want to devalue the good that did come out of vv. a lot of the picture being painted rn was that the majority of the server were scary dog-piling people. the majority of the server were just writeblrs looking to promo their stuff and talk about their writing. unfortunately, few bad apples, bad rep, negatives outshine positives, etc etc. but i think it did do some good re: exposure for a few folks, even tho it didn’t turn into what it could have been. 

another one of the things that was a minor irritant to me was that they eventually started archiving the vent channel, which was probably the most-used channel. that didn’t sit right to me, but as always, i was a coward had nothing to say about it, so i didn’t. the reason given was that there were often things in the vent channel that people might regret being there, so it was periodically archived and a fresh channel started.

so i’m rambling a lot about stuff that’s probably boring and inconsequential. that’s 90% of this whole vv thing, tho, you need to understand that. 

the biggest thing that bothered me about mina, i think, came about from the constant hero worship from her adoring fans. and i know there’s a whole argument to be said about expecting labor from people with marginalized identities, which is an argument i agree with - don’t expect someone of a minority group to educate you or to face trauma or to shut down bigots, etc etc. but by now, mina had a lot of followers in general, and in specific, she had quite a few people who would defend her at every single perceived slight.

she made a lot of those fun writeblr reblog games, like “send me a fruit that says this about my writing.” those were cool, i’ll admit that. but she was super into “you have to send an ask to the person you reblog from, RECIPROCITY!!!!!!!!!!!” and seemed to struggle with the fact that sometimes, people don’t follow her established rules on her posts for these games. she’d complain about it every single time that happened in the vent channel, which, again, that’s fine? that’s what vents are for, it’s annoying to not get cool fun asks when you do these games, but also, that’s life for you. she could depend on her fans to send her plenty of asks, whereas the much smaller blogs who reblogged these games would probably get f-all, half the time. if you’ve gone through nuwuhorizons or one of the other blogs i mentioned earlier, you’ll have run across the incident where mina’s friends harrassed an 11 year old for not doing her ask game right.

an eleven year old. 

and this is my biggest grief with mina. she only stopped her friends from dogpiling people... once? maybe twice? that i remember. and not only that, but there were SEVERAL occasions where she would get on the vent channel, complain about someone who had said something wrong on one of her posts (and sometimes, again, these were legitimate!), and then ask if someone in the server wanted to reply to them. reasons for such ranged from “i’m too busy rn” to “they would probably listen more to a white person than me.”

again. this, on occasion, is not necessarily a bad thing. we cannot expect labor and response from minorities. my issue was that she kept doing this. and sometimes it was fine, just someone who would drop a note on the post or send a polite anon. but this, to me, the whole asking someone else to fight your battles for you? that really bothered me. mina is a grown adult. either ignore it, like the rest of us chumps, or deal with it yourself. having friends support you is not a bad thing - if i was attacked on tumblr and my friends jumped in to defend me, i’m cool with that. but i wouldn’t ask them to, and then not do anything myself.

to me, this attitude just encourages dogpiling. this felt like she was taking advantage of the people admiring her so whole-heartedly, and using them to deal with minor grievances. (again, i don’t want to downplay some of the actual racism and xenophobia she experienced on this website, because there was some pretty sketchy stuff that did need someone else stepping in to object to. but then there was “ugh this person asked me what program i use to make my music and i don’t want to answer them bc that’s rude,” and stuff of that caliber. like, mina, you built yourself a pretty big following here on tumblr, you don’t get to complain when people are trying to ask you questions and engage with you when you set yourself up as a knowledgeable person on a subject.)

i’m going to mention @gingerly-writing because she already made a post on the subject, but there was an instance where we were in the vent channel and watched a lot of mina’s friends send anons and reblogs of a hurtful nature to one person. eventually, ginger stepped in to say “hey, i don’t think we need to keep doing this, they are a minor,” and after she did so, i also jumped in, saying something along the lines of, “yeah, i’ve seen this kind of stuff blow up in another server and end in a really regrettable situation where no one was happy, can we stop.” both ginger and i received a private message from the mods (individually) saying that we shouldn’t police the chat, etc etc. not during that message, but on the vent channel, another mod jumped in to say that the people dogpiling the blogger were also minors. as if that makes it okay, and isn’t actually extremely worrying in its own right.

after that, i pretty much took a stance of “all right then i just won’t say anything at all.” i stuck around vv because i hated myself actually really liked a few of the others in the server, including a couple of the mods who are actually really cool people, not all the vv mods are sketch, and because honestly? i lowkey knew that vv was going to crash and burn sometime, and i wanted to be there to watch what happened. due to the pandemic, and her line of work, mina became less active, and the whole server died down a bit. 

then someone reblogged one of mina’s ‘art’ posts and accused her of tracing. mina’s admirers immediately jumped into action. nuwuhorizons has it pretty well documented on their blog. there was nothing in the server about it, except one of the others said “oh man i saw that and it pissed me off,” there was some minor chat, and then i woke up and wanted to know what had happened, and was told “don’t worry about it.”

so, naturally, bc the only thing i thirst for is water and Drama(TM), i went looking for it.

found it on some of mina’s friend’s blogs, where i found who had reblogged and said mina was tracing, and followed those reblog chains, where several of mina’s followers attacked the accuser and made fun of their name and age and defended mina, pulling out progress videos and stuff of mina’s work. the accuser was trans and still a teenager, even if technically an adult, so that made things a lot worse. mina eventually posted something explaining that she was pencil tracing and had a very cheery, false-positive tone to the whole thing.

things sorta ended at that, but then maybe the same day, or the day after, user hyba made that big ol post about the Big Scary Tumblr Mirror Website Copying All Your Good, Hard Work. mina and her friends jumped on this. they threw it in the server and talked about things like intellectual property rights and “i don’t like how this makes me feel :(” and from there, went in to how tumblr was a terrible garbage site and then mina and most of the mod team decided that it was time to pack up VV and leave tumblr completely. 

pretty much everyone i know were mina’s besties have vanished off tumblr. mina made an announcement that VV was “migrating” off tumblr and discord(???) and dropped another application to join the great vv migration. i did not apply bc i just have too freaking much going on in my life and needed to get out of this for the sake of my own mental health. it was tempting as hell, tho, i will say that. 

a couple things about this - at the time, mina is also having some pretty bad things going on in her family. she was very vague on the details, but i think that really contributed to wanting to leave; on top of the pandemic and everything else, she was probably heckin stressed. but also like. she never called out her followers for attacking her accuser. she never made any sort of post talking about it. she never told her friends on the server “hey don’t do that.” she never took accountability for it, or, honestly, for anything else she or her friends have done that didn’t feel too good. the mirror sites aren’t really a big deal. 

after the server was archived, it was left up a couple days so everyone could grab contact info, etc. during this time, i was checking the ‘violetvineyard’ tag and saw someone post “what happened to mvcreates they haven’t answered my application to vv,’ and i responded with “oh, the server closed down bc of the copy cat sites.”

the same day, i got a tumblr DM from one of the former mods asking me not to give away any details about vv leaving tumblr. it was very politely worded and everything, but it was still just like

okay? vv is over? why are you asking me not to say anything. and it wasn’t like i was even spilling any hot goss, i was just repeating the excuse (and i do mean excuse) mina gave us. 

anyway, that mod is off tumblr, too, as far as i know, or else they stealthin. which is fine, u do u, buddy.

uhh conclusion time, i guess? i have a few scattered screenshots of things, but i’m not posting em bc i’m lazy and also running late for a thing. but really, for me, i didn’t have a whole lot of beef with mina or pretty much any of the other folks on vv. i thought that mina and her friends were a bit too eager for blood, and that really bothered me. i’m annoyed they shut down vv completely, because it could actually have been something great. if mina wanted off writeblr, i wish she had given the whole network over to people interested in running it; instead, what was a good thing for a lot of people is now completely gone, with no existing framework for people to build on. sure, anyone can go make their own network/family for writeblr, but now it’s just going to splinter into a bunch of different, smaller groups, and we’re all back to square one.

but whatever. i didn’t get to see the server go down in flames, instead it just ended with a hasty retreat and a few whimpers, and quite honestly i wished my staying in had paid off.

i do want to reiterate - there were quite a few people in vv who i think are great, and this does include some of the mods themselves.

i’ve also gotten a couple messages from a few other folks who had been in vv who have their own real, real sketch stories, which are making me rethink how i feel about mina and her friends, and all the good credit i gave them. i just wanted to present this bc it’s my blog and i do what i want, fight me.

and if anyone wants to chat about vv, hit me up. i keep things as private as you want them to be, and i love love love talking about this nonsense. Give Me The Deets.

[houseofvans]

WORKSHOP SHOUT OUT | SKATEISM | VANS US OPEN

It’s the last weekend of the Vans US Open of Surfing, but we’re not ready to go just yet! 

We’ve still got some of our favorite workshops over the week to share –like the fun folks over at SKATEISM who hosted a zine making workshop at Van Doren Village. We caught up with Tobias from SKATEISM to find out what folks created, more about the zine making process, and what special gift they're giving out on this final weekend. 

Introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about Skateism. My name is Tobias Coughlin-Bogue, and I’m the online editor for SKATEISM. The magazine was founded by Christos “Moch” Simos and Oisin “Osh” Tammas in Athens. It began as just a little local Athens skate blog in 2012, but when Osh signed on they started doing more English-language posts and international coverage. Moch is one of the only out skaters in Greece, and at some point he and Osh realized that the stories they were most interested in telling centered around that… as well as some other areas of skateboarding they felt had been neglected like skate charity, global scenes, and women’s skateboarding. They also realized they wanted to make a magazine, as a place for underrepresented populations in skateboarding to see themselves in a proper print publication. Two years and four issues later, that’s exactly what they’ve done and we’re very proud to present Issue #4 as the Pride issue, focusing on the experiences of LGBTQ+ skaters.

Take us through your workshop and what were you doing with attendees at the Vans US Open? Essentially we facilitated everything to make a zine except shooting photos or binding the final copies. We had prints of images on hand for people to cut and glue onto cardstock, creating what’s called a “master” page. Masters are what zinemakers make photocopies of that they then bind together into their final zine. We started the workshop by talking a little bit about what zines are and why we think they’re so cool. We covered the zinemaking process, and then dived right into it.

What about zinemaking do you think is super fun and accessible? Zinemaking was a fundamental part of the pre-internet skate culture. While it isn’t exactly a necessity anymore, when it comes to communicating our own unique visions of skateboarding it’s still super fun to do. It forces you to take all the things that catch your eye at an event like the US Open, that might be a quick Insta story or something, and put them all down on a page together in a thoughtful way. Plus we like writing about skating, and zines incorporate a lot more text than some of the forms of storytelling we do on social media these days. 

As far as being accessible, well zines were kind of the social media in skateboarding (and punk and queer scenes too) before social media existed. They were cheap to make and there was a broad network of people sharing and exchanging them around the country, all interested in the same kind of subcultural topics. If you had an idea you wanted to share, you could just paste the images and words that capture it best to some backing paper and get to photocopying. Then mail it out to a distro or drop it off at the skate shop and — boom — you’re a publisher. 

Obviously a lot more work goes into what we do with something like SKATEISM, which takes hours and hours of reporting and editing and designing to make, but I at least got into the world of skate media via zines, and I have a huge soft spot for them. For what I do, and what a lot of people getting into media these days do, learning to publish fast and loose is actually really helpful, because that’s the pace digital media operates at.

What type of materials did you have on-hand for folks to work with? We shot a few photos of the first weekend of the event on Kodak Fun Savers (a very accessible and enjoyable way to source art for your zine!), and made photocopies of the best exposures. Plus, we had copies of some pages from past issues of SKATEISM… And of course all the scissors, glue, card stock, staplers, and other stuff folks needed to put together their own master pages. We encouraged attendees to supplement the images we’ve provided with writing and drawing that documents their own experience at the event!

Are there any rules to zinemaking? Have a good time doing it and don’t be hateful. That’s about it.

Any tips you’ve learned over the years for readers who may want to try creating a zine on their own? Just start doing it. To borrow a concept from Ira Glass, you know what you like to see on the page, so keep trying until the stuff you make starts to look like that. Don’t stress out too much if it doesn’t work out at first. Technically speaking, it’s really important to think in terms of spreads (two individual pages facing each other is one spread), and understand that a magazine is essentially a bunch of sheets of paper stacked up, stapled, and folded in half. Making sure that the individual pages in the spreads line up correctly can be tricky, so it might help to take a bunch of blank sheets of paper, bind them, write page numbers on them, then remove the staples and use them as a template for what to paste on each master page as you’re working.

What other zine techniques can people incorporate besides cutting and pasting? Doing it by hand is obviously the classic method, and will get you the most zine scene cred. But I am not ashamed to admit that, after two issues of cutting and pasting my first zine, I started scanning my photos and putting it all in InDesign. There is no shame in using layout software, and it will give you a whole new appreciation for how much thought and effort goes into every single print publication you ever read. It’s not just what they’re writing and which photos they’re publishing, but where on the page that stuff is, where it is in relation to the other stuff, what color and font things are, what angles they’re tilted at, what the background is, and so on... It’s definitely a different look and feel than handmade, but now that design software is so accessible, we think it’s every bit as DIY.

What did participants create and walk away with after the workshop? Well, besides hands on experience making zine master pages, we’re going to take our favorite masters and make a limited run of a compilation zine to give out on the final weekend of the event. 

So we’d like anyone who enjoyed the workshop to come back and grab a copy of that! And failing that, just a better understand of the zinemaking, DIY ethos that skateboarding was built on. Skateboarders have always made their own spots, their own rules, and their own fun. That definitely applies to their media too.

Who are some of your favorite zine makers? In the areas we’re focused on, you can’t not mention Xem Skaters by the Swedish nonbinary skater Marie Dabbadie. They’ve been making a rad, unapologetically genderqueer zine for years, and have done loads to change the conversation around gender in skateboarding. Of course, The Skate Witches are killing it too. In terms of general zines that I like, I grew up volunteering at the Zine Archive and Publishing Project in Seattle, which had copies of really rare ‘90s skate zines like Pool Dust, so I tripped out on those a lot growing up. Not ‘cause I’ve ever actually skated a real pool, just because they had this really scrappy, no bullshit aesthetic and made skateboarding look so cool. 

Recently, I was on a team for Thrasher’s “Zine Thing” Challenge in Seattle, which gave people two weeks to shoot a zine with Fun Savers; two weeks to do writing, editing, and layout; and then gave awards in different categories. Looking through the compilation book of all the entries still blows my mind. It’s a great reminder that skateboarding is full of cool, creative people, and everyone has a wildly different experience of it. I still can’t pick a favorite, although Leo Bañuelos' ’Skaters in Drag’ article is pretty legendary.

Three words that describe what Skateism is all about? The underground and overlooked. Sorry that's four!

Who or what were you most excited to check out at the Vans US Open? Personally, I’m excited to finally skate Cherry Park (nearby). But that’s just because my joints are falling apart and I can only skate low ledges. At the Open, I was excited to see all the pros skate the course, especially the women. Women’s skateboarding has been growing at an insane pace in the last few years, and the level of talent is out of control. When I started skating, I never thought I would see little girls back-smithing huge hubbas and female pros filming back-tail-kickflip-outs for their video parts, but here we are. The rate of progression is so exciting to me, and I feel like people will definitely be throwing down for the event.

FOLLOW SKATEISM | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM

[stopforamoment]

“Hang with Me” (9 of 10)

Book: The Royal Romance (After Book Three)

Pairing: Bastien Lykel x OFC Rinda Parks Word Count: 1,664 Rating: M for Language Author’s Note: Thank you to all the amazing artists whose work got me through a *really* long semester and TRR break. Chapters are named after songs I was listening to at the time because I’m real original like that. This one is “Hang with Me” by Robyn. *Obligatory disclaimer that Pixelberry Studios owns the TRR characters and my pocketbook with those darn diamond scenes. OFC with all of her quirks is all mine. My apologies if Tumblr or I do something stupid when I try to post this. Summary: Bastien learns more about the Kakos dysfunction and the school’s secret passageways from Rinda and they begin to form their working relationship. Oh, and NOW the slow burn is finally getting started! *The “Keep Reading” link should be here!

It was Thursday afternoon and Bastien was in Kakos’ old office, trying to sort through the mess he left behind. There was a knock on the door. It was Rinda. “Mr. Lykel, do you have a few minutes?” Bastien smiled. “Yes, please come in. Sit down.”

Rinda gave a grateful smile. “Thank you. I wanted to touch base with you about coordinating things with the security program. I didn’t know if you wanted the two of us to work together, or if I should just wait for the permanent replacement.” Bastien nodded. “I’m putting together a short list, but I would like your input when I get that far.” “Thank you, I appreciate that. Please let me know when you’d like to meet. Oh, and before I forget . . .” Bastien looked up as she handed him a piece of paper. “If you have Kakos’ laptop, these might be the usernames and passwords to access the laptop and his email.” Bastien looked at her in shock. “He gave this to you?” Rinda gave him an even stare. “No. He left his laptop lying around with the internet tab minimized. He wasn’t logged out of his work email, so I went in and updated his password and added a protection lock on the laptop. He would have gotten an email notification that his password was changed, and it was my hope that he would make note of the security breach and make the necessary changes. As for getting locked out of his laptop, well, I hadn’t figured that part out yet.” Bastien continued to stare at her in disbelief, and she misread his reaction. “Please understand. I had to do a lot of passive aggressive things just to ensure a basic level of security and there was no one I could speak to about this. I promise I won’t do that to you or the new security officer because first, I know I won’t have to. And second, because I know there’s no way I would get away with it.” Rinda chuckled. “Trust me, I’m too terrified to even think of what you’d do to me if I was stupid enough to try something. There were a lot of things I kept from you because I thought you were only here for a few days and it wasn’t your problem to deal with. Now that it’s more permanent, well, there’s some other things I need to fill you in on when you have time.” Bastien leaned back in his chair, silently staring at her. “I know you’re busy so I’ll let myself out. I’ll be in room 137, Laura’s room, if you need me for anything during the day.”

. . . . .

Bastien and Rinda met the next morning to start going through things.

“Rinda, those passageways you used during training. Does everyone know about them?” Rinda shook her head. “I don’t think so. They’re pretty musty, and some didn’t seem safe to use, even in an emergency. But there should also be some outside tunnels in the area that I haven’t looked for yet. I’m sure all the local kids know and have been using them for years. I was planning on asking them when the school year started once they got to know me better.” Bastien nodded. “How did you know about the passageways, then?” “Oh, I asked for a building plan to be sent over before I came here. Plus I did research on the area, and there was some cool historical information about escape routes for royalty during times of war and tunnels created by the locals who smuggled goods into Cordonia back in the day. Well, I’m kind of a history geek, and who wouldn’t be excited about secret tunnels and escape routes, right? So when I got here I went to the Valtoria Library to get more information, and then I was told the Cordonian Royal Library Collection also had information. I have carte blanche to library stuff because of the exchange program and I’ve had archival training . . . sorry, rambling. Long story short, I found enough info that I was able to piece together a basic map of passageways in the building and possible tunnel entrances nearby. I started exploring the passageways when I got here, trying to get a better idea of everything. I highlighted the stuff I was able to explore within the school building this past week—it wasn’t much—and I gave it to Kakos so we could consider them as escape routes. I assume he gave you the copy to help with your security preparations?” Bastien didn’t respond. Shit. I should have listened to my gut and given the copy directly to Bastien. “Bastien, I’m sorry. Kakos has the only hardcopy and I didn’t make an electronic version. I wasn’t sure about security protocol. But I’d be happy to make a new one for you.” Bastien shook his head. “Hopefully that won’t be necessary. I’ll talk to Kakos tonight and ensure that he hands over the copy. So, how long did it take you to do this?” Rinda shrugged. “I did a little here and there, and I knew the bulk of it I’d work on when I could actually get into the passageways and tunnels to map it out. Really, it was fun. Like solving a mystery.” Bastien nodded. He was used to doing research for his job, but not this. The type of research Rinda completed in such a short amount of time? He was impressed.

“You know Bastien, this room is one of the main access points to the passageway. I’m assuming the entryway is behind the bookshelf. It didn’t seem like Kakos tried getting into the passageways from here, but that was something that terrified me. That he would have so much access from his office. It makes sense from a security perspective, but only when we can trust the person in charge.” Rinda trailed off. “Mr. Lykel? Bastien? I don’t know what happened yesterday, but I’m so glad that you’re going to be a part of this transition.” Bastien nodded in agreement. Now that he was learning the full extend of the dysfunction, he was relieved Kakos was let go. With the King and Queen coming in October . . . Rinda already did more than she knew to make his job easier. Rinda suddenly looked up at Bastien, a hopeful gleam in her eye, but then suddenly looked down and bit her bottom lip uncertainly. “You would need to keep exploring those school passageways and area tunnels as part of your security preparation, right? I understand if you don’t want me poking around in them anymore, but if I can tag along I’d really appreciate it.” He glanced at Rinda. Her normally hazel eyes were turning green, her obvious tell when she was excited about something. He gave her a mischievous grin, thinking about the work she put into the map, her excitement about Jules Verne novels, and how she instinctively knew the local children would know about the tunnels and play in them. She was loving this. “Yes,” Bastien began slowly, “but without that map I wouldn’t even know where to begin. Hmm.” It sounded more like a seductive purr as Bastien continued, teasing out his next sentences, not breaking eye contact with Rinda.  “It would help if I had someone with me who was already familiar with the area. Someone who could take charge . . .” Rinda’s pursed her lips, trying to give Bastien a disapproving glare, but she couldn’t pull it off. Instead, she gave an exaggerated sigh. “Well, I did already start exploring the school passageways, and I have to admit I was planning on exploring the tunnels on my own if Kakos didn’t join me. I guess you could join me. I mean, Professor Lindenbrock really did need Hans to save him all the time. Bastien chuckled at the Jules Verne reference. She remembered . . . Rinda stood up. “Just let me grab a couple things first, okay?” She was so excited, and he couldn’t stop himself. Bastien looked up at her, feigning confusion. “Why?” “Why? So we can start exploring the school passageways. I can help you move the bookcase. Then we can figure out another time to find the entrances to the outside tunnels.” “Now? What made you think I wanted to do anything right now?” Bastien’s face was a blank slate, mustering his years of training to keep his lips from twitching. “All right. So when should we go?” “Let me check my schedule and get back to you, okay? I can’t just drop what I’m working on to go exploring.” Rinda blushed, embarrassed that she had been so presumptuous. “Of course. I’m sorry that I . . .” Bastien cut her off. “Mrs. Parks, would you prefer that I invite Kakos to go with you? I am really busy and don’t know if I’ll have time this week . . .” Rinda grinned, suddenly realizing that he was messing with her. “Well, you said you were going to see if he has the map, so then I guess you don’t need me. I hope the two of you have fun together.” Shit. He didn’t like how quickly she was gaining the upper hand. Rinda tried to appear calm as she walked out of his office, but she began laughing too hard to be convincing. “Okay, seriously. The two of us will do this, right?” “Yes, Rinda. I promise we’ll do it. You just need to be patient.”

Rinda’s eyes widened in disbelief and then she threw back her head and laughed. “Damn, Bastien. That was amazing.” She suddenly turned to him with a mock seriousness in her eyes, her voice deepening.  “I mean, it will be amazing.” Then she walked out of his office, leaving a blushing Bastien with a shocked look on his face as he realized what just happened.

[donnerpartyofone]

remember that time someone got mad at you for ripping off their vhs covers

Come now, anon. Surely you're not interested in my ability to retain information. Of course I remember that. What's your real question? Is it something more like "Why did you used to do that?", or alternatively, "Let's talk about what an asshole you used to be!" I'll tell you about that stuff, there's no need to be so coy.Anybody who was around for the early days of this ~8 year old blog (jesus...) knows that I used to post a lot of old vhs covers, in part or whole. I grew up around a mom & pop video store where the metalhead clerks called me "Igor" for spending so long hunched over the scary, forbidden-feeling horror boxes while my parents checked out LABYRINTH for me for the zillionth time. As an adult, I started incorporating them into my "art", which are like these clutter drawings that swipe from sources like comics and pulp novel covers and stuff. So, when I found out about Tumblr, I was super stoked, because I suddenly had this new outlet for my undying obsession, somewhere I could stockpile useful images to my heart's content.Whatever else I'm guilty of, I have at least never knowingly and deliberately reposted, as opposed to reblogging, another Tumblr's content. I never took something right off my dash to pass off as original content later, and I never lied to anybody if they spoke up. It's still very hard for me to understand why people do that, what comes over them, how it gets them off to just steal shit and lie about it. My crime had more to do with wilfull ignorance. My process was pretty simple: I'd just do a Google image search, and pull whatever I found directly out of there. Sometimes I'd find some specific resource like, for instance, an incredibly primitive-looking Dutch web forum where guys were just showing off their tape collections to one another, and I'd work through that for a while, but mainly, I never even looked at the URLs that the images came from. It could have been ebay, or it could have been Tumblr itself--in fact, we all now know a bunch of it did turn out to be from Tumblr--but this just seemed irrelevant to me at the time. My instinct was that these were prefabricated images that had been around in the world for decades, so I had no imagination for who could be hurt and how, by what I was doing. I didn't even ask myself. Basically, I had a very idiotic sense that it was all just "stuff on the internet". I did not have a sense of like, a human being who had spent years accumulating specific things that they loved and grinding away at the scanner for hundreds of hours to present their collection of rarities to the world. If I had been even slightly more thoughtful about it, I probably would have said that these images were not the original "art" of the person who posted the thing online, even the way a great gif is, and I wasn't interrupting anybody's ability to put food on the table. I hadn't been around long enough to develop the awareness and empathy to "get it". In fact, somebody called me out at one point, and I didn't even totally understand what they were saying. My response was to post their complaint and just cheerfully say "ok everybody, please check out this other person's cool blog!" I didn't even get the deeper (obvious) message, at that time, of "please take this stuff down, or go back and add sources, and stop doing this altogether, it's painful that you just took all my hard work."Another contributing factor in my behavior, though, was a feeling that I think a lot of people have about Tumblr, that it's supposed to look like the inside of your head. I remember that in the beginning, I didn't even like it when OTHER people added a whole bunch of tags and captions and links and stuff to their posts, I felt like it cluttered up this collective stream of intuitive, instinctual, wonderfully mysterious imagery. It brought something of the unwelcome real world into this sanctuary, something dry, stiff, didactic and anal retentive. Mainly I think I just felt like, none of us "owns" these old found images we're posting, in fact most people don't know who produced the original art for a video sleeve, so what's the big deal? At a certain point, I started to turn around on it. One reason had to be that I managed to witlessly snag at least one image that had been scanned by someone I knew and liked from Tumblr. Ironically, I think it turned out that I had taken it from a site where it had been posted by a whole other thief--but the point is, my friend recognized that it was his scan, due to some old sticker residue on the cover. Surely the very thing that I did was the bane of this friend's existence as a real deal collector, but for some reason, he was relatively gentle with me about it. He definitely didn't have to be, I was wrong, but it probably helped me understand the problem better, than just someone telling me bluntly to go fuck myself, from which I had demonstrably learned nothing.I remember I had a few hiccups after that. I had posted a couple of panels from a Simpsons comic that I picked up, and they were immediately spotted by this big important fixture of the independent comics community (who I have come to think of over the years as an unnecessarily combative blowhard in general, but hey, he wasn't wrong about me then!). So I'm like oh shit, ok, and then the next time I posted panels from a comic, I loaded them up with tags--artist, series, whatever occurred to me--and I STILL had some total stranger call me out for not crediting the artist. I'm not sure if this person just saw reblogs that didn't have the tags on them anymore, or whether they were offeneded that I used tags instead of a caption (which people can and will delete, but I digress), or that I hadn't found a source link for the images, since I owned the books. I only know that this person felt that I was somehow interfering with the livelihood of the artist by posting their original work on my blog--or I think that's it anyway, I guess this was more than five years ago. Hopefully they didn't think I was pretending to BE the artist? Anyway, it was around then that I realized there was no way to preserve the dreamlike stream of consciousness character of Tumblr, which I was so precious about. Everything had to be indexed and cited and attributed and crossreferenced and have its provenance verified and everything. Oh well, I said, petulently.This happened to me once, too--somehow, I spotted an original drawing of mine posted to somebody's blog with no credit or anything. Naturally I freaked out and threw a fucking fit, but the person asked forgiveness right away, and explained that they didn't want to reblog something out of my very old archives because apparently that is considered really stalkery by a lot of people. I found it pretty baffling, that anyone would PREFER to have their content reposted rather than reblogged for any reason, and moreover, that people get upset at the idea of someone else looking through their totally public archives. But, apparently that's a real thing, according to this person and others I heard from later. It's probably too bad this didn't happen to me earlier in life though, I might have been more sensitive.It's also too bad this story doesn't end with me having a nervous breakdown from guilt, although I do feel bad enough about it to want to talk about it publicly when prompted. Eventually I just grew out of posting this kind of content, though. It felt like everyone in the world was posting the same thing over and over, and it became extremely rare for me to see vhs art that I hadn't already seen on Tumblr, or in person, or in a book on my shelf, etc. My enthusiasm for this imagery has never waned, I just ran out of reasons to keep posting it. I got more interested in just flexing my ridiculous personality anyway, and that's the way it's been on here for years now. And here you still are, years later, so it must be working.

[esseastri]

Megan Reads Oathbringer (part 9)

Happy New Year, y’all.

“Heavy Fuel” by Dire Straits is a punk!Dalinar song, sorry, I don’t make the rules.

Part 9 encompasses pages 666-753 (previous parts)

Pray for the mountain internet, please, that it lets me do this liveblog without dropping tumblr every five minutes.

okay, but Elhokar is drawing a map and I’m suddenly vaguely desperate for Elhokar/Eshonai map buddies.

I s2g every time someone calls him “the bridgeman” I just hiss protectively. HE HAS A NAME

oh snap his baby’s name is Gavinor. that’s... listen bud, your dad doesn’t deserve to have anyone named after him, sorry.

“Nice work, Elhokar.” *Gloryspren* THIS CHILD NEEDS MORE ENCOURAGEMENT, PLS, HELP HIM. BE KIND TO HIM. HUG HIM.

“Storming lighteyes, Veil thought as she watched [the food distribution].” YEAH HON, THAT GOES FOR YOU TOO, NORMALLY.

Okay, no, not quite--Shallan would probably not go so far as to send her servants to get food that could be given to the poor instead of rich people, but like... the principle stands. Shallan does not recognize her own privilege half the time, and I guess?? that “Veil” noticing it... might? be a step in the right direction? But... probably not until she fuses her multiple identities back into one person.

And that doesn’t seem like it’s happening any time soon.

HOID

WHY ARE YOU WEARING SADEAS COLORS? 

aw yis. storytime.

Aight, can Hoid see through Lightweaving, or can he just recognize Shallan by like... her stance and the way she moves or? HOW COOL IS HE, IS WHAT I’M ASKING HERE.

“You look like you could use the opportunity to buy me something to eat.” HOID, PLS.

“I’m not stupid enough to get mixed up in religion again.” Again. Hoid, wth does that mean.

but dear god, Hoid as a Herald would be hilarious.

THE LAST SEVEN TIMES HE’S TRIED IT. WTH, HOID, OH MY GOD.

“The sum total of stupid people is somewhere around the population of the planet. Plus one.” “Plus one?” “Sadeas counts twice.” GOD BLESS, WIT.

wait, so he wasn’t lying about the promise? About “always being there when needed” but not always knowing where or why? hm. Interesting concept. That I kind of love and wish I’d thought of first.

“Who came with you?” “Kaladin, Adolin, Elhokar, some of our servants.” I thiiiink the other bridgemen would take offense at that, but sure. Whatever.

I’m...intensely amused that chapter 69 is titled “Free Meal, No Strings.” Because I’m eleven and crude as fuck.

Idk, Kaladin, they have a point: the world is ending, so you might as well party. You can be miserable and afraid, or you can be partying and afraid. I’d go with the second.

OH OOOHHHHH OH ADOLIN CALLED HIM “KAL” AND I DIED A LITTLE BIT INSIDE

MY BOY’S GOT FRIENDS AGAIN AND HIS FRIENDS ARE ADOLIN AND I’M CRY

(but dear god, the Kadolin is real)

Also, Adolin being stupidly happy about getting a new wardrobe is giving me life, I LOVE THIS RIDICULOUS FASHION BOY

HEHEHEH Adolin is going to bring Skar and Drehy pastries from the lighteyes party, that’S SO CUTE I LOVE THIS

“What?” “What what?” “You’re going drinking with bridgemen?” “Sure. Skar, Drehy, and I go way back.” “We spent some time keeping His Highness from falling into chasms.” I’M LIVING MY CROPS ARE FLOURISHING MY SKIN IS CLEAR THIS IS ALL I EVER WANTED THIS IS THE BEST THING THAT’S EVER HAPPENED TO ME I LOVE THIS I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS.

“He felt good lots of days. Trouble was, on the bad days, that was hard to remember. At those times, for some reason, he felt like he had always been in darkness, and always would be. Why was it so hard to remember? Did he have to keep slipping back down? Why couldn’t he stay up here in the sunlight, where everyone else lived?”

The Megan-and-Kaladin-Think-the-Same-Exact-Way-and-It’s-Both-Comforting-and-Terrifying Trend continues. 

Sometimes people ask me why he’s my favorite and I just. Have literally never related more strongly to another person ever, real life or fictional. It’s wild.

ADOLIN COMING TO CHECK ON KALADIN WHEN HE FALLS BEHIND WORRYING.

THERE IS TOO MUCH. STORMING. KADOLIN. IN THIS BOOK.

I love that the phrase “and you’re lighteyed today” is a normal thing now. That it changes and he can just. change it. and they’ve all accepted it. I love it.

PUNCHY GUYS.

IT’S THE ACADEMIC TERM

SWORDY FELLOWS OR SPEARISH CHAPS. AXALACIOUS BLOKE.

bless these two nerds

“Adolin Kholin was simply a good person. Powder-blue clothing and all. You couldn’t hate a man like him; storms, you kind of had to like him.”

YOU REALLY REALLY DO. He’s infectious, this sunlight boy. And I adore him.

oh no

“Should have just gone to the party” YES YES YOU SHOULD HAVE. I’M WORRY.

also, why did the illusion wear off????? Shallan, what you do?

“The stew didn’t smell anywhere near as good as Rock’s.” HEHEH Nothing does, I’m sure.

I loooooove that Kaladin gets to tell the truth about Amaram now. Drag him, my boy.

the over-friendly wall guards are makin me nervous

I’m sure there are some good men here, and a lot of good soldiers, but... who are they and where did they come from and why are they all lighteyes and.... I have sooo many questions.

......I don’t remember if the squires’ eyes turn light when they’ve been flying with Kaladin.

I don’t think they do, but I don’t remember, and now I’m thinking...maybe the highmarshal is. some kind of Radiant whose squires are all...lighteyes?

hm

AAHH!!!!??? AAAHH!!???? A LADY SHARDBEARER!!!!!?? A LADY!!!!

Okay. That was a pretty dang good speech.

But who is shhheeee

Is she a radiant or is that an Honorblade???

Mmmmmm, Kaladin also thinks she’s a Radiant, but WHICH KIND? If she’s got a bunch of squires, it could be Windrunner, but... dangit, I just... really want to meet a Stoneward.

“In every way, she was the perfect Alethi wife--and her unhappiness crushed his soul.” IT SHOULD. SHE DESERVES BETTER.

I’m reaaaally glad that Evi recognized the Thrill as a bad thing. A monster crouching in her husband’s body.

“...the Thrill was your reward.” Reward? Dalinar, listen to your wife. Please. That is not a reward.

Dalinar, look at you go. You did try this before, the talking thing. You are talking to this angry kiddo, and you’re bad at it, but you’re trying. This isn’t very punk!Dalinar of you. I like it. I can see the bits of presentday!Dalinar poking through the Thrill-encrusted shell of punk!Dalinar. I like it.

This is such interesting character movement, gaahh.

Evi still deserves better though. “Because of a good woman’s tears” ugh the fridge doors are slowly swinging shut, aren’t they?

whhhhhhhhaaaaat

I mean, I’m not surprised, because it’s Sadeas and he’s Sadeas and of course he’s a fucking traitor, but

whhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaat

...........gross.

Shallan needs to stop getting killed, please. This is really gross.

NO, DON’T TRY TO TALK WITH A CROSSBOW BOLT IN YOUR FACE PLEASE THIS IS REALLY UNNECESSARY

I DID NOT ASK FOR THIS LEVEL OF HORROR NOVEL PLEASE TAKE IT BACK, BRANDON.

Kaladin “Good at Making Friends” Stormblessed being all sheepish at making friends easily when it took so much effort to make friends with Bridge Four, like... listen, buddy. YOU are excellent at making friends and these guys were all ready to be friends with you. The Bridge was not ready and you had to wear them down with your charm, and you did, and doesn’t that make it all the more precious that you are friends with them?

Also, I miss them. Are my boys okay, Brandon? How are they doing?

omg, Adolin, pls. Yellow?

The Wall Guards making fun of Adolin’s new wardrobe is DELIGHTFUL.

Kaladin: HELLO, FELLOW LIGHTEYES, FOR I AM SURELY A LIGHTEYES, YES INDEEDY, LOOK AT MY VERY LIGHT EYES.

Hi, I love Kaladin, I am not sure you know this about me.

“Yes, his suit was a little bright--but if they would merely spend five minutes talking to him, they’d see he wasn’t so bad.”

Kaladin.

Babe.

You’ve come. So. Far.

I’m so proud of him, oh my god.  

mmmm this food shipment stuff is so weeeiiirrd. where is it coming from? why is it going?? uuugghhhhh

Part of me is like, “I love that they call Azure ‘sir’ and use male pronouns because there is no gender on the battlefield! Everyone gets treated equal!” and most of me is like “fuck this, she’s a fucking lady in command and she deserves to be known.”

also, wtf, she had them attack a monastery? Okay, I get it, you want to control the Soulcaster, but like.... you didn’t just go in there a kill a buncha monks for it, did you?

OKAY, SO MAYBE IT IS AN HONORBLADE THAT WAS DEF MY THOUGHT

but which one.

We have the Skybreaker one.......so whose is this?

Unless it’s not.

I’m

confused. and worried.

Tell me things, Brandon!

OH. But then she wouldn’t need the Soulcaster...if she had an Honorblade for Soulcasting... so she went and got the Soulcaster to...keep up appearances? Hm.

....is it awkward that Stormlight Archive has, so far, been the story of several people slowly becoming atheist (Jasnah, Dalinar) or agnostic (Kaladin) as their lives fall to pieces around them and they slowly rebuild?

Kaladin is a Good, guys.

The best.

omg, okay, but the Swiftspren is just.... LISTEN, BRANDON, YOU CAN’T GO MAKING SHALLAN A ROBIN HOOD. DON’T DO ME LIKE THIS.

I feel so bad for Elhokar.

Buddy just needs some hugs, okay.

Okay, I know logically that Roshar is Bad At Horses, but somehow it never occurred to me that they wouldn’t have archers trained on horseback. Mounted archer is just... such a very Alethi thing, especially non-Shattered Plains Alethi. I didn’t realize, but of course they wouldn’t have that. Horses are too rare.

aight, I didn’t really think Sadeas had betrayed them THIS early on, but STILL, I was so hoping...

Still, rockslide ambush is... a pretty solid strategy for dealing with a Shardbearer.

Sucks for his elites tho. They did not deserve that. That’s shitty.

“They must know the punishment for broken oaths.” Huh. Even back then...

“for none shall remain to weep.” #YIKES, my dude. y i k e s.

punk!Dalinar needs to take a chill pill.

And maybe get some sleep.

Listen, if the Thrill is telling you not to sleep, yOU SHOULD PROBABLY SLEEP.

also, any time you are actually LISTENING to SADEAS? You should probably rethink your life and your choices.

Just saying.

So... presentday!Dalinar had a conversation with Taravangian, about sacrificing the few to save the many. That’s...sort of what Taravangian’s entire plan for world domination salvation rests on. But now here...at the Rift. This is 100% Sadeas’ argument: sacrifice the ten thousand commoners living in the Rift to make an example of their highlords to stop any rebellion further down the timeline that might result in more soldiers’ deaths. Which gives ...a really fascinating insight into just how incredibly far Dalinar has come. past!Dalinar is literally employing the exact plan that Taravangian is trying to do on a worldwide scale, and so he knows it. He understands the consequences that Taravangian can’t know and can’t anticipate and refuses to consider. And present!Dalinar learned from this, and knows what end these means lead to and...refuses. To do it again.

It’s SUCH an interesting character progression. And it’s absolutely fascinating to see it laid out in this order--to see the good, honorable man we know and love first and to see this...monster that he was and see exactly how very much he’s grown... It doesn’t excuse this bad period, the good he’s doing now, but maybe it explains it a little bit. Dalinar is getting a redemption arc and we didn’t even realize that he needed one until he’s almost done with it.

And that’s some badass non-linear storytelling for you.

Also past!Dalinar can get fucked by a cactus, holy shit, what an unbelievable fuck.

nooooo wonder Kadash leaves and becomes an ardent.

hoooooly shit.

“We’ve gone too far.” YA FUCKING THINK??

Meanwhile, Sadeas: “Nonsense!”

Fuck Sadeas, uuugghhhh I’m so glad he’s dead. UUGGHHH

what

the

fuck

THAT JUST HAPPENED.

Fun facts, y’all, the refrigerator is now on fire.

hoooollly fucking shiiiiiiit

WELP

[floatingpetals]

This person isnt going to see this from me and nor will daybreak because I've had her block since the beginning of time for comments similar to this before, but everyone defending the user is part of the problem. You're so hyper focused on that one goddamn post (and get over the stupid hacking bs already my god I'm tired of hearing it) because it's the example used. You're missing the whole point.

It's not just the fact she posted about a house he lived in 20 years ago that no one knows about unless you do some serious over the top digging. Where does it stop with this? Oh wait. It's already gone past this. They've posted the apartments he lived in when he was in Romania. With pictures and detailed information of it all. How many of you had prior knowledge of that and how many of you just found it on the front page of his Google search?

Oh, but wait. That's not all!! She posted pictures, private pictures, might I add, of his step father with his siblings and then wait! She posted and discussed private information about his other half brother AGAIN WITH PICTURES that I guaranteed you, no one knew he had until she posted them. This isn't all including the pictures and newspaper articles she's found when he was in high-school that are stored in old data bases because they're archived now that they're literally that old. It's also worth mentioning again the information she's found about his family and what they do, his parents income, where they are now, all that most if not a large part of the Fandom have never seen because he keeps that part of his life private. People think it's so cool how she found that stuff but never questioned her methods.

How long does it take for someone to look up information thats so buried deep on the internet? Why does someone need to spend that much time hyper fixating searching for information of him?

And where does it stop? Because you say it's not stalking by finding his old home but do you really think that's all she's found? And that in her perilous searches she hasn't already found where he lives now? Are you that naive?

Get off your high horse and quit defending what's she's doing. No, she's not the only problem nor is she the worse stalker in this Fandom. There are alot of other girls that are just as bad if not worse that need reality checks as well. But this user is one of a certain level(whose contradicted herself countless times about being one too) and don't bring the bs about this not being the reason why he's not in IG anymore. Because that's a whole other topic of its own, but I have no doubt this could be a minor reason why.

If you're still sitting here thinking there's nothing wrong, then you need to reevaluate things. The problem the rest of us have is this invasion of privacy. Simply because he's a celebrity does not mean he's pardoned from having it. He's still a human and we have to respect his boundaries. Certain things should be private. What these people are doing is not respecting his boundaries, which in turn is not respecting him. If this was a woman, no one would be defending her.

So earlier tonight, I came across a blog that posted a photo of the actual house Sebastian Stan supposedly lived in as a kid. As far as I’m aware, this isn’t common info shared by Sebastian himself. I’m not even sure really how to find information like that. But of course I’m not a fucking stalker.

I’ve been in several fandoms since I was about 12 and i don’t think I’ve ever witnessed such a violation of privacy. I’m having a hard time even processing it. Sebastian is incredibly private for a reason, and I can’t help but wonder how he would feel about this.

Seb is of course a grown man and doesn’t need some stranger being his keyboard warrior so I’m not going to contact that person. But I’m shocked by some of the behaviors I’ve seen around the fandom. The lack of maturity. The pure creepiness.

I know there’s a handful of fans that literally go everywhere he goes, and does everything they can to get even an iota of his attention, which I find sad. Maybe the person posting that picture is less dangerous than those fans. Maybe they’re one and the same.

Either way when Seb decides to delete his Insta, stop going to cons, stop interacting with fans or offering any sort of information about himself so that we may have even a brief glimpse into what kind of a person he is, don’t be fucking surprised.

[cookiedoughmeagain]

Haven Rewatch. DVD Commentaries: Ain’t No Sunshine (Season One, Episode Eight)

Sam Ernst and Jim Dunn (Co-Creators) commenting.  

For reasons unknown there is no commentary for episode seven (Sketchy) - or not on the DVDs I have anyway. So we go straight from Fur to Ain’t No Sunshine.

Episode written by Sam

The opening scene where we see the first victim stabbed was intended that it not be clear who was attacking him. It wasn’t meant to seem like a shadow at this point.

The next scene (where Nathan is waiting for Jess), was originally written as Nathan sitting on her porch, but the director wanted to take advantage of the view, so they moved it (and Sam is happy with how it worked out).

What he wanted to show in this scene is Nathan stepping up to a relationship, but being unable to cross the threshold (metaphorically and literally) to start a relationship with “this beautiful woman”.

Sam and Jim being in complete agreement (“one of those things we don’t have to discuss”) that Nathan only drinks black coffee. It might be a stereotype that cops drink black coffee, but he’s that kind of guy; there’s “not a lot of adornment” to him.

Liking seeing Audrey and Nathan as friends hanging out.

The scenery as one of the main characters in the show.

The idea that Audrey doesn’t have any friends being something they talked about from the beginning; they always knew that she wouldn’t have friends. And why that is the case will be revealed in episode 13.

There being various things they always knew they wanted to include and sometimes struggling for time to fit these things in with the “trouble of the week” stuff.

Sam wondering if he over-used the thing of Audrey not knowing people’s names.

The Hessberg Center being named after someone they knew when they ran restaurants together (a wine rep). For no particular reason other than “it’s fun” to use friends names in episodes. And then a comment from Jim that it’s frustrating to do that and then it not get cleared by Legal.

Sam being pleased with the line where Audrey compares Nathan and small-talk to Superman and kryptonite.

There was originally an extra line, where the woman shows them in to the office. Audrey compliments her on her hair and there was a line after that “Do you want to go to a movie sometime?”, but they felt it was too much and cut it. Sam talks about tending to “really go for it” when he writes, expecting to bring it back at some point; “Hopefully I get around to it at some point, or someone else does it.” (Jim jokes that’s why he has a partner).

Sam talks about how his wife had cancer a few years ago, and is now fine, but went through six months of chemotherapy, which was “brutal”. And so that side of this story was very easy for him to write because he’d lived it. And jokes that “no one could argue with me”.

Sam acknowledges points made about the support group being open so that Audrey and Nathan could just walk up and sit in on it; he concept was that it wasn’t a formal support group session, but was the end of a programme, almost like a graduation. But he acknowledges that didn’t necessarily come across very well.

And they talk about how it can be very easy to write things one way and not realise that others will see something different in it and how easy it can be for things to be mis-interpreted.

Nathan’s response to the “Are you Jess’s detective?” question as “a big relationship moment” for him.

Emily doing a great job of showing Audrey’s initial denial over the point about her not having friends (and getting people’s names wrong).

Acknowledging the discussion online (about the scene where Jess brings them food at the station) over the relationship between Audrey and Jess and whether they are competing over Nathan, but leaving that topic alone because “we have a way to go here”.

Sam’s intention in this scene was to show Nathan with two women and him “not being comfortable with either of them in a way”.

Commenting on the difference between Lucas as a “goofy guy” and the character of Nathan that he plays.

Sam being happy with the moment where Jess comments about “Let’s get to second base first” and the way the women laugh, but Nathan finds it awkward. Liking the way Audrey and Jess are having fun with him.

The next scene where we see the woman stabbed through the back of the sofa originally had a different ending, which was deemed “too gruesome”. It went like this; the gas fire isn’t working and the husband leaves the room to go check some related thing in the basement. The shadow stabs the woman and then drags her across the room to the fireplace, stuffing her inside. Then we see the husband in the basement where he finds the switch that will turn the fire on. We see him press it and here the woosh of the flames.

Having a lot of discussion in the writer’s room about how a shadow sword would work. Would it pull blood from the body through onto the couch? Sam finding this idea ridiculous, but them both acknowledging that you can play the logic games forever about how supernatural stuff like this would or could work. And then Jim comments “That’s what the internet is for. In the writer’s room, we pick one and we move on.” Sam adding that “We pick one after an hour of discussion.”

The scene with Vince and Dave arguing about drawing versus photography is something Sam wrote before planning to follow it up later in the episode. It was just written because he “thought it would be something they would do”.

There having been a lot of discussion about the “Black Man Makes Haven His Home” article from the 1950s that Audrey finds in the Haven archives. There having been debate about whether having this in the show was crossing a line, because “everyone wants to be respectful”, but it being a realistic thing that an article like that could have been written in the 50s and that Vince and Dave would be embarrassed about it now.

Audrey and Nathan being good at their job because they often don’t have a lot of information to go on, but they track things down.

And then “the big scene” where Nathan tells Audrey why he’s worried about being with Jess (not being sure if he will be able to “make it happen” with his Trouble). Sam talks about being pleased with how this worked out; the actors doing a great job. This question of “whether Nathan can perform sexually if he can’t feel anything” as something that occurred to them right away; a conversation they had four years before when developing the show “because even though we’re grown men … we’re still seventh graders”. And this being another one of those long discussions in the writers’ room about; how would it work.

This being almost the first draft of this scene; because they had spoken about it a lot when Sam came to write it “it just came out the way it needed to”. Jim comments that “When scene write that easily, you know that’s what they’re supposed to be.”

Talking about Nathan’s trouble, Jim comments that “There’s no viagra for his condition,” then adds, “Or is there?”

Sam finding something cool that Nathan is able to talk about this very personal thing with his partner who’s a woman [the implication being that it shows what a good friendship they have].

So now we see Nathan and Jess with a bottle of wine and Sam talks about what was behind this scene which he hopes was clear enough. This idea of Nathan being unsure if he could “make it happen” and the fact that “that happens to men not because they’re touching anything”, but because of what’s happening in their brain. It’s a mental thing and that’s what Jess means when she asks “Can you feel me?” because the answer is no; he can’t feel any of this. But what she’s really asking is “Can you feel it now if you look in my eyes?” and the answer is “Of course he can” because he’s still going to feel the mental side of his attraction for her; because “that’s where it all happens”.

And feeling that both of the actors “did a beautiful job here, to get the honesty of this moment”.

And Nathan as having “so much baggage” that he carries around with him, and this as “one of the largest pieces”.

Jess as being “exactly the right medicine for Nathan’s condition”. Jess as being “so on board” with the situation. Sam being very happy with how the scene worked out, but feeling that he would have had them both keep their eyes open as they kiss; to have them look each other in the eye the whole time and he comments that “kissing someone with your eyes open is very intense”.

With Audrey, Vince and Dave in the station, commenting that it must have been difficult to act around a shadow that wasn’t really there.

Hoping that no one would catch the fact that the sword had to be the blind man’s cane. And how they went out of their way to establish that the character had a cane; but to not show him using it.

How they had a lot of discussions about the rules of the shadow i.e. the idea that it can’t exist without light. Sam enjoying talking about this kind of stuff, but also having found it frustrating that not everyone got that.

And then the scene with Nathan and Jess and less clothing than before. And Sam talking about his reaction when he first saw this, which was to “jump out of my chair and run screaming out of my office”. He was freaked out because these people (he mentions both Nathan and Lucas) are his friends and it’s awkward to see them like this. But feeling that it worked and was tasteful enough.

Jim comments, “It must be said that the corollary to the questions about can Nathan do this, would be that if he can, then he can probably do it for a long time, with the numbness”.

They discuss the question of “whether there was consummation” for Nathan and Jess. Sam feels no, Jim says Yes. But they agree that “no one knows” i.e. that it is unclear in the show.

Where Jess is reading to Thornton, there was originally a similar scene with Jess and Menchie, but it was dropped for time concerns.

Them both liking the way Thornton (and his house) looks; as being elegant. That wasn’t in the script, but just one of the ways that Production can take what’s written and make it better. And being pleased with the way this was all done. And finding the process interesting to see how something they’ve written ends up looking like once it’s been through someone else’s head.

Thornton keeping his wife’s drugs as coming from the fact that Sam’s grandmother wouldn’t throw out his grandfather’s drugs after he died (though not from cancer). And Jim’s mum being similar with his dad.

Questioning the idea of whether it would be possible to take a photo of a shadow with a flash; “it should cancel it out”. And liking what Production did with the photos to show the shadows as slightly bleached out.

One of the reasons Thornton was reading Shakespeare being that it’s in the public domain; the practicalities they have to consider. And how this can be one of those decisions that can be easy to kill yourself over, and then get told you can’t do it anyway for some practical reason.

The idea of someone stealing chemo drugs being based on a true story - a pharmacist in New York diluting drugs so essentially selling them twice.

Originally this was written so that Jess died in this episode. The whole idea when she was introduced in Fur was to “bring her on and kill her”. The idea was to show a different side of Nathan and address these issues and then have “the Troubles cost Nathan his love” directly. But at the last moment it was decided from on high that maybe that was a little too dark, too much. So they dialled it back so she is injured rather than dies.

The aim was to get Nathan to a place where he is not reliable and could do anything. And feeling that this part would maybe have worked better in a version where Jess died, because as it is we have to wonder why he doesn’t go to the hospital with her. But he is acting emotionally and irrationally and this as “an episode where we see Nathan doing a lot of things we never thought we’d see him do”.

The concept of the shadow as all the negative aspects of Thornton’s character and being pleased from what they saw online that people seemed to get that.

Being pleased with how the actor did a good job of making Thornton seem likeable - because he’s kind of murderer, but also it wasn’t really his fault.

Audrey talking to the target practice figures, was originally written as two mannequins, but the production designer suggested the targets and feeling that was a good move.

The actor who plays Thornton doing a good job of playing a blind character (the actor not being blind).

Nathan as grappling with what to do with Thornton; wanting to kill him, but having promised Audrey he wouldn’t. And how it’s not so easy to have sympathy for Troubled people and the horrible results of their Troubles when they directly affect your own life.

Originally they had it so that Audrey destroyed the shadow with the flashes in the station. But it makes sense that if the shadow heads away from the flashes, it’s probably going to head back to it’s “host” i.e. Thornton.

And so Jess is leaving Haven, and feeling that this works and that there’s something beautiful about Nathan turning up with flowers and her coffee and everything, ready for them to start a life together, but she’s on her way out. And Jim comments that “He finally puts down his baggage; she picks up hers”.

And the resolution of what to do with Thornton as a very Haven ending, because there is no good solution to what to do with him.

And then “the big kiss” and this as a scene that never changed all that much (although originally would have happened at Jess’s memorial service). And loving the way Lucas acted feeling Audrey’s kiss; because when this was just lines on a page everyone wondering whether it would be clear that he felt it, but he shows it really well.

And they end by saying that yes, you could argue forever about how life is going to work for Thornton, if he ever leaves etc. Because there are no easy answers to those questions and so they hope people will talk about it.

I should say, through all their discussion about things not working out quite how they planned or this being difficult or that being a challenge; they’re always joking about it, they always sound happy. They’re not gripping, it’s just the realities of their work; which they seem to very much enjoy.

[theconservativebrief]

The new coming-of-age comedy Eighth Grade is one of the surprise successes of the summer, turning a tiny story of a 13-year-old girl’s last week in the titular grade into a much larger tale of the universally awkward and cringeworthy experience of being an adolescent just trying to figure shit out. Its hero, young Kayla (played by the remarkable Elsie Fisher), deals with trying to launch her YouTube channel, with a crush that goes nowhere, and with her feelings of inadequacy when compared to more popular girls or older teens she sees on her Instagram every morning.

So here’s the part where I point out that it’s somewhat remarkable the film is the product of a man, writer-director Bo Burnham, who makes his feature film directorial debut with Eighth Grade.

Burnham launched his career as a teenager making funny videos on YouTube, but he’s gone on to be a hugely successful standup comedian, a director of standup specials, and an actor in numerous great movies and TV shows. But Eighth Grade marks him as an unusually empathetic and humanist director — and as perhaps the first filmmaker to really grapple with the internet not as a blessing or a scourge but as a simple fact of life.

When Burnham joined me for the latest episode of my podcast, I Think You’re Interesting, I was really fascinated to talk about how he approached creating the experience of consuming the internet cinematically. And Burnham challenged the years of received wisdom that shooting people looking at their phones was about the least cinematic thing one could put onscreen. He believes that for people of his generation and younger, the connection to the internet is deeply personal and emotional — and films about the internet should reflect that.

An excerpt of our conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity, follows.

Director Bo Burnham discusses his film Eighth Grade. Araya Diaz/Getty Images

Todd VanDerWerff

Looking at your phone, cinematically, is just not very interesting. How did you come up with ways to depict that reality without boring your audience?

Bo Burnham

I found it always cinematic. I didn’t really understand the phobia for it. It’s a light source! Barry Lyndon writing a letter by candlelight’s the most cinematic thing in the world, but a girl on her phone in the dark, which literally is the letter and the candle fused, [isn’t]? And now the cool light of the moon that’s outside the window for Barry Lyndon … I don’t know why I’m harping on Barry Lyndon. It’s the warm orange glow of the candle over the letter, and the cool, cold light of the moon out the window. And now it’s the cool, cold light of the phone in your hand and the warm yellow light of your dad in the hallway.

For me, a character looking into a light source, practically, is exciting. Like, they’re looking into lights? That’s perfectly cinematic. I’ll be in bed with my girlfriend and look over at her on her phone in the dark — which, I’m not saying she’s uniquely on her phone in the dark, I just couldn’t see myself when I was on it. But it’s a surreal image, staring into that phone, and the look on your face — there’s nothing comparable to when you look at a phone.

So that was something we tested before we even had money for the movie. How do we film screens practically? We wanted to film them practically. For me, the stupid thing I hate is when people are tweeting in movies and the tweet shows up superimposed. That’s when it gets corny and weird to me. It’s the equivalent of somebody reading a newspaper and then the letters are typed out in front of them or something. A close-up of a shattered phone to me looks gorgeous, very interesting and cool.

There have been movies that have done it well. Social Network did it really well, but in a different way. He’s doing those very cold, still close-ups. Or even in one of the abstract trailers for that movie, I think to “Creep,” and you saw the close-ups of the pixelated images of profile pictures on a computer screen. You realize the significance of the pixelated image and what that means. And it also has something to do with digital filmmaking. We’re not using emulsion anymore. We really are just using little pixels. Is there a sort of pointillism equivalent for film in digital stuff next to the more watercolor-y way actual film stock behaves?

It was all cool and interesting to me and significant to me. I think probably it’s uncinematic to people that maybe don’t view it emotionally. Phones mean something to me.

A24

Todd VanDerWerff

I do think one of the things Eighth Grade does well is it captures through editing that feeling, too, like the quick-cut montages of Kayla hitting “like” on a bunch of Instagram photos and begging to be liked back, in some ways. Tell me about your approach to editing the online experience.

Bo Burnham

It’s defined by the restrictions of the phone. So the internet and what things are on a screen are quick-cut, nonlinear, discontinuous, and flat. A flat screen. That’s what they are. So part of the movie was trying to interbalance the real world with that and have the real world play against what would be the “cinematic language” of a phone, which would be, in theory, flat, so really long lenses and quick cuts.

So when we’re out in the world, we’re going wider and cutting less, so you feel like, “Oh, look at all of these moments that the internet would cut out. Or look at this shot that would be too long to post on an Instagram, because it’s over a minute long.”

That is sort of my issue with a lot of media that tries to tackle the internet. They try to tackle the internet on the internet’s terms, and it feels like big, flashy, quick-cutty, satirical stuff. To me, that’s just satirizing the internet on the internet’s terms, where it feels like, “We’re going to take down the internet by making a meme movie that’s really quick-cut and moving.” It’s not that that stuff can’t work, but I wanted to do a movie about the internet that I guess existed sort of in opposition to the aesthetics of the internet, which are silence and maybe a little bit more room to just sit in a moment.

That thing the movie’s trying to reconcile is, I think, a thing that we are forced to reconcile in our own lives, which is stressful. We have this hyper, hyper-paced — I’m holding up my phone — stimulative thing, and then our lives are not that. They’re really not that. And that’s hard for us. That’s why it’s so hard to be bored and not do things, especially if you’re a kid. How the hell do you sit through history class when you have the internet in your pocket? I have no idea. I could barely sit through [history class] with my chunky Nokia phone with, like, Snake on it. I could barely reconcile those two things.

Todd VanDerWerff

The internet, when you look at it in aggregate, feels overwhelming, and I think that’s what a lot of shows and movies try to do is tackle that overwhelmingness. But when you look at a single Instagram photo, a single tweet, a single Facebook post, that feels very approachable and human. It’s just that then you get hit with an onslaught of them. That’s an interesting dichotomy.

Bo Burnham

I think the audience can sort of accumulate those images in their own head, to know that she does this every morning, to know that she’s scrolling through this all the time. But the hope was just to look at the internet very granularly and emotionally and personally and subjectively, and not in this big, macro term of “cyberbullying” or [something].

The first rule was, it will be meaningful to me if she just doesn’t go viral. That’s the bar for me of what to do. [Laughs.] I want to make a movie about the internet where someone doesn’t go viral, because they always go viral.

And as someone that went viral, first of all, it’s not interesting. And second of all, it’s not the experience of the internet; 99.9 percent of the internet, people who express themselves on the internet are not being heard. And the internet is something like God, or some void that you’re calling out to, and it might be there and it might not. It might answer you. It might see you. And it might not. And going viral is like God answering, which is not interesting. That’s like the Old Testament.

I’m the oldest person that really grew up with the internet, so when you see people my age and younger that are going to start to be able to express themselves in film and other mediums, I think you’ll see the internet talked about more personally and emotionally.

For me, when I see it talked about, it’s like, “Oh, this is clearly talked about by someone who sees this as some other thing, and doesn’t see it as a part of their life.”

For so much more with Burnham, including his thoughts on understanding the teen girl experience and on how directing standup specials prepared him to direct a movie, check out the full episode. There’s also so much more about how the internet can be presented onscreen, including a chat about the aesthetics of YouTube.

To hear interviews with more fascinating people from the world of arts and culture — from powerful showrunners to web series creators to documentary filmmakers — check out the I Think You’re Interesting archives.

Original Source -> Eighth Grade director Bo Burnham on what most movies get wrong about the internet

via The Conservative Brief

[superduperfandomgirl]

Hamilton: A New-Found Obsessio-I Mean, American Musical

Sooo, if you couldn’t guess from the title, I’m obsessed.  Like “wow help me from the feels and humor and gaaaah” obsessed.  And this textpost is basically me just proclaiming (or rather, writing incessantly -- to keep with the theme of Hamilton) my love for Hamilton: An American Musical and especially my love for Aaron Burr.

Lemme just start off by saying, yes, Aaron Burr is presented as the main “villain” of the musical.  And yes, he did some bad s--t (just look at what he did in real life, tho; the guy was a total skeez, although he did support some really cool causes like women’s rights and ending slavery).  He made mistakes like killing Hamilton in their infamous duel.

He was a shitty guy many times.  But, to be fair, so was Hamilton.  There’s the whole Reynolds affair (pun intended), not to mention Hamilton’s comments on the poor (”How can you trust people who are poor and own no property?” -- kinda rude, dude).  But, in my opinion, that’s kind of the point of Hamilton, and part of why I love it so much, despite the historical inaccuracies and overwhelming feels.  As an amazing YouTuber pointed out in their video (their name is Make Stuff and the video is called “Hamilton and Motifs: Creating Emotional Paradoxes” -- I highly suggest you check it out because it is so amazingly well done and makes fantastic points!), Hamilton is chock-full of characters who make mistakes but also do great things.  I agree, and I would argue that one of the main themes of the show is that you should honor your heroes but never idolize them.  No human is perfect, and the characters who represent some of American history’s biggest idols definitely aren’t.  To quote Burr himself:

“We rise and we fall and we break and we make our mistakes.”

Burr definitely makes mistakes throughout the musical (and in real life), and many of them can never be redeemed.  But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve the same amount of compassion that we show for the “hero” of this tale, Alexander.  In fact, I personally found it easier to empathize with Burr, for whatever reason.  Possibly because I often get the feeling (and I know others do, too, so if there are any Burr fans reading this, I would love to chat ;D) that I am being left behind in life, too scared to take chances and seize the moment like Hamilton.  Perhaps it’s because, like Burr, I often feel like I am being unfairly bullied for my personal approach to living life.  I can’t really say, because there always seems to be a lot of factors that go into me choosing a favorite character in a fandom.  All I know is, once I choose one, I am bound to that character.  Their sadness, their pain, become mine in a way I am pretty sure is emotionally unhealthy. :P

So, where does this leave us other than me ranting at the Internet when I should be sleeping?  Well, the whole reason I started this rant was because I was reading an absolutely SPECTACULAR fanfiction series by allonsy_gabriel on Archive of Our Own called “History Obliterates (the Hamilton Reincarnation AU No One Wanted)”, and there was a part where Laurens makes fun of Burr.

Now, I’m usually pretty upset with the way Hamilton treats Burr.  Don’t get me wrong -- there are plenty of times Burr is an absolute a--hole to Hamilton.  But I also feel like there are a lot of times Hamilton just comes out of the blue and insults Burr and (especially) his “wait for it” tactic with no provocation, from the time they first meet during “Aaron Burr, Sir” to “The Room Where It Happens”.  Like, seriously, I love ol’ Hammy, but he has no chill, especially when it comes to his first friend/enemy Burr.  And Hamilton’s friends are no different.  “Story of Tonight Reprise” is an extraordinary song, but it always makes me sad when the Hamilsquad starts saying things like, “You’re the worst, Burr”.  It’s all in good fun...but is it?  Burr is known and despised by many throughout the musical, and while this conversation may just be formed from drunk ramblings, it might also be an indication of how most conversations between Burr and Ham&Co go (especially given the amount of vehement hatred that is aimed at Burr by Lafayette during his line).

So, when I saw the part about Laurens making fun of Burr, I took it as the standard Hamilsquad Hate and felt a twinge of sadness for my baby.  But then, something miraculously, incredible, and astounding happened -- Hamilton stood up for Burr.  And this is something that has happened earlier in this epic reincarnation series, too (although I won’t give any spoilers, because you should definitely read it).  At first, I was like, “Aww, I wish this was canon, but unfortunately, Hammy never stands up for Burr like this in the musical”.

But then, I felt a little tingle and was like, “Actually, wait, this moment seems familiar”.  And it should be, because this is almost exactly what happened in “Story of Tonight Reprise”.

The guys were all heckling Burr about his love life and insulting him (Lafayette, sorry buddy, not to throw you under the bus, but it’s true), and Hamilton turned them away so that he and Burr could have an actual heart-to-heart (or the closest the two of them can get, at the very least).

This moment warmed my heart, and I realized that, even though they didn’t have your conventional type of friendship, Burr and Hamilton had their own unique way of interacting with each other that wasn’t exactly friendly but wasn’t exactly hateful either.  Of course, this all went to s--t when politics got involved, but I think if they had both been without the pressures of the political lives they led, they might have been able to be friends.  Or, at least, not have entered the f---ed-up relationship they did that ended with a bang one eventful day in July.

To sum up, I just want to say that this musical, Burr, Lin, the entire Hamilsquad, the fandom, and basically all the characters in the musical are beautiful in their own way!  I think that it is so wonderful that Lin created Hamilton so that it gave everyone a voice, even characters who were only known as “the damn fool who shot him”.  Burr got to be represented, to be understood for the human he was.  Eliza got to become more than just Hamilton’s wife, more than just “that wife he jilted that one time”.  Hamilton was seen as more than just the Reynolds Pamphlet; Lafayette’s extensive help during the Revolution was shown to be even greater than what I had already thought; Hercules (a man I had never even remembered before I listened to Hamilton) got to show off his incredible spying/sewing skills; Laurens’ struggle for a brighter day for the enslaved and his tragic death were put to light; and Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and so many more were shown as the imperfect Founding Fathers they were.  

Yes, there are many parts of the musical that don’t match up quite well with reality, but the whole musical is designed to show off the good, the bad, and the ugly of all its characters.  In its own way, Hamilton is very, very real, because it goes more than skin-deep with its heroes and villains.  It provokes thought into its watchers and listeners and makes them want to look deeper into the stories we’re all told in history class.  It helps us see more than just the black-and-white version of events, where Hamilton was Burr’s enemy and could never have defended him or sat and talked in peace with him.  In the end, it really depends on who lives, who dies, and who tells your story, because so many facts get mixed up depending on the narrator.  And sometimes, even with its own imperfect version of events, it’s brilliant to have narrators like Lin and all of the talented people behind Hamilton: An American Musical who can tell the story from multiple perspectives.  Life doesn’t discriminate between the sinners and the saints, after all...so why should our view of history?

[monkeyandelf]

New Post has been published on Buzz News from Monkey & Elf |

New Post has been published on https://www.monkeyandelf.com/7-minor-arguments-that-led-to-laughably-ridiculous-crimes/

7 Minor Arguments That Led To Laughably Ridiculous Crimes

What’s that saying about making a mountain out of a molehill? The cliche is important to keep in mind when someone does something that gets your blood boiling, so if you’re the type of person who vows revenge when your waiter accidentally puts ice in your drink after you asked for no ice, then may we recommend you take it down a notch or two thousand.

During the course of any given day, you’re bound to have any number of minor disagreements, so it’s vital to keep your cool, no matter how idiotic you think the other person is because there are plenty of yokels who go off the deep end for the pettiest of reasons.

Check out some of them below and while you do, we’re going to figure out just what the heck a molehill actually is.

“But, Mom, I Don’t Want To Go!”

Kids fighting with their parents is older than time itself, but at some point the child needs to control his or her emotions. Like, say, when the kid is a full-blown adult.

A 39-year-old woman in Indianapolis attacked her mother with a cheeseburger after the mom told her she could no longer stay with her. Because unless they’re named George Costanza, no 39-year-old should be shacking be up with mom or dad.

After the mom broke the news to her daughter, the two got into a fight at a McDonald’s drive-thru and then got their order. And then police can fill you in on what went down:

“While her daughter was seated in the front passenger seat she took a bite out of her cheeseburger,” an official said. “The victim stated her daughter yelled ‘B—h I outta kill you’ and hit her in the left side of her face with her hand and the cheeseburger.”

The daughter then fled the scene. Hopefully, whomever took her in knows they run the risk of getting pummeled by greasy cuisine when they ask her to leave.

Kirk Is a Jerk

These two knuckleheads almost put the “die” in “Jedi.” A man in Oklahoma City was arrested for roughing up another fella after they got into an argument over whether “Star Wars” or “Star Trek” is better.

Twenty-three-year-old Jerome Whyte got into it with the unidentified victim in an apartment when the dispute erupted. Hard to believe they weren’t in their parents’ basement. We’re just as surprised as you are.

The two exchanged some insults before things turned physical — shoving and choking, to be precise. In fact, Whyte choked the vicim so much he nearly passed out and he cut himself when he tried to grab a knife the victim had grabbed to defend himself. Police later beamed up Whyte (that’s Trekkie lingo for “arrested”) to the station on charges of assault and battery, possession of marijuana and other warrants.

A Killer Story

Breaking news: people still read the newspaper. A 51-year-old man in Germany wound up dead after he got into a fight with his 42-year-old newspaper delivery man. Yeah, you read that right.

The two had repeatedly gotten into tiffs before because the customer was annoyed the paper didn’t show up on his doorstep when he wanted it to be there. Things reached a fever pitch and the delivery man stabbed the customer with a knife. A relative of the victim saw the whole incident and called police, who arrested the delivery man. The customer went to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.

All of which begs the question: can you imagine how upset the ones of other people in town who still get the paper delivered must’ve been when they woke up the next day to find nothing waiting for them on their driveway? Here’s a hot tip for them: get the Internet and read the news online like everyone else.

RELATED: 10 Shocking Butt Crimes

Hotter Under the Collar Than the Food on the Plate

Some people just can’t take criticism. Jodi Ecklund, of Merrimack, H.H., got into a standoff with police after she metaphorically lost her raviolis when her boyfriend said the spaghetti she cooked for him was just “okay.”

After he used that fateful word, Ecklund punched Jason Martin in the face, arm and hand. Martin skedaddled out of the apartment while Ecklund, who had two guns, barricaded herself inside while cops rushed to the scene.

Give Ecklund credit because if the cops are going to come to your door, you might as well go full-blown loony tunes. She threatened to kill officers if they entered the home and threw some of her boyfriend’s stuff out of the window. She’s a swipe right on Tinder if ever there was one.

Eventually, officers weaseled their way into the house and arrested Ecklund after a few hours. Our guess? She gave up because she was hungry.

There She Is, Miss Demeanor

Assault is this beauty pageant hopeful’s talent. Police in Stuart, Fla. arrested a 24-year-old contestant in the most definitely prestigious Miss Sailfish Regatta Bikini Contest for bopping a rival in the show with a high heel shoe.

Miss Congeniality, indeed.

Erica Miza claims the 23-year-old victim had engaged in some real trash talk by saying she was going to whoop her butt. After the pageant ended (we don’t know who won), the two continued jawing at each other before they indulged in every man’s fantasy and got physical — come on, you know you’re picturing two bikini-clad babes coming to blows in some sort of soft porn Cinemax after dark flick come to life. Miza shoved the woman and then swung her shoes, which hit the victim.

As if that’s not juicy enough, the victim claims Mize told her “you should go to the gyno because you’re in for a rude awakening.” That, ladies and gentlemen, is a serious diss that the judges should’ve taken into account when giving their scores.

Pretty Sure the Birthday Wish Did Not Come True

Well, this crime certainly takes the cake. Police in New Britain, Conn. arrested Carlos Gonzalez-Oliver after he killed a man during an argument over birthday cake. Not too many crimes can hold a (birthday) candle to this one.

Gonzalez-Oliver, 41, was returning to his boarding house with a birthday cake for a resident when another tenant, who would be the one to die, started harassing him.

“The victim banged on his door with an ax, destroyed the birthday cake and threw some of it at the door,” reports the Hartford Courant.

Gonzalez-Oliver, who has racked up a whopping 20 criminal convictions over the last 21 years, says he stabbed the man after the victim tried to go at him with the ax. He fled the scene before cops tracked him down.

It’s like they say: it’s not a birthday party until someone starts swinging an ax? Oh, wait, they don’t say that? Well, they will now.

Dog Poop and Bullets

Being neighborly has gone to the dogs. A Tampa, Fla. man shot his neighbor after the neighbor’s dog pooped on his lawn.

Joshame Sewell, 20, became so incensed that Donte Roberson’s pooch went number two in his yard that he grabbed a rifle and opened fire on Roberson, hitting him in the leg and hand.

Sewell remained on the run for a few days before police captured him.

Aside from being too loud, letting Fido do his business on someone else’s property is probably the worst thing a neighbor can do, so we can understand why the guy was ticked off. And while you’ve got to have some level of sympathy for Sewell, you can’t side with him here.

Picking up the poop with a shovel and flinging it back onto the neighbor’s property? Yes. But reacting like some hothead in a Quentin Tarantino movie? No. You’ve got to draw the line (of fire) somewhere.

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[ceridwyn2]

Writing Meme: Cool Asks for Fic Writers

Snagged from a few others :D

Describe yourself how you would describe a character you’re introducing Mmm. Petite. Early-mid 40s. Adept at many things. Nurse, photographer, writer, crafter. Introvert. Observer.

Is there any specific ritual you go through while/before/after your writing? Often tea & biscuits (digestives, gingersnap or shortbread)

What is your absolute favorite kind of fic to write? Drama w/ slight to moderate angst

Are there any other fic writers you admire? If so, who and why? Many. And they vary by fandoms that I’ve participated in. However, Melissa Good (Xena /Dar & Kerry) particularly stands out because she was one of the early fic writers I started reading, and I’ve gone back to read her stuff many times. Her stories are very well-written. She does over-arcing love stories that are not explicitly sexual in detail, nor do they need to be. Her love scenes, when written, fit in very well with the tone and style as the rest of the story. Trust me. That vision of Xena scaling a mountain, risking death more than once, then running - practically flying - over the fields in a rainstorm to the borderlands between the Amazons and Centaurs to save Gabrielle from a renegade shit disturber amazon, then landing a big kiss on Gabrielle in front of said crowd of Amazons and Centaurs is pretty legendary. Story is called ‘At A Distance’ (http://www.merwolf.com/ata1.htm). The series of stories is A Journey of Soulmates and begins with 'A Warrior By Any Other Name’ (http://www.merwolf.com/warrior1.htm). Melissa’s Dar & Kerry series is here and starts with 'Tropical Storm’ - http://www.merwolf.com/ffiction.html#dk

How many words can you write if you sit down and concentrate intensely for an hour? Don’t know that I’ve actually counted. When I get into a zen stage of writing where the characters keep talking I just go with the flow and don’t stop until a) I need a trip to the loo, b) my tea has gone too cold/run out of biscuits, c) my stomach is growling to loudly to ignore.

First fic/pairing you wrote for? (If no pairing, describe the plot) Oh heavens. Not published anywhere, but Beauty & The Beast (Catherine & Vincent) - the Linda Hamilton & Ron Perlman version. I was in my late teens. Pre-internet.

Inspiration, time, or motivation. Choose two. Inspiration & time

Why do you choose to write? An outlet to explore feelings, explore characters that speak to me on some level, and sometimes to challenge myself.

Do you ever have plans to write anything other than fic? I have one original story in the works. I’ve also written a published academic article in a Canadian Oncology Nursing Journal back many yrs ago when I was a nurse trainee. I’ve also written interviews with musicians, writers, creators. (https://celtic-dragon.me/tag/interview/)

What inspires you the most? Different things. Sometimes it’s being out in nature, conversations, reading other well-written stories, sometimes music, travel.

Weirdest thing you’ve ever written/thought about writing/etc.? At the moment I can’t recall. Well, not completely true. I can write a love scene and have done in the Otalia Virtual Seasons, but I can’t write explicit sex scenes as it feels weird to me. Not a prude; I can read them at times - if it feels right within the context of the rest of the story and it’s well-written without feeling like I’m reading a young-adult’s attempt at porn. I’m also not a fan of vulgarity or overly flowery terms for sex.

A fic you wish you had written better, and why? My early stuff seems a bit cringeworthy now but again we only learn from our past and reading other well-written stories. Also, as we age, our own life-experience contributes to our overall knowledge (or at least it should). How I wrote as a teenager/early 20s is quite different from how I write now (nearly mid 40s), as well it should. Reading other well-written stories with correct spelling, proper punctuation and grammar, verb-tense agreement, etc. REALLY helps improve one’s writing skills, as well as really knowing the characters (and their development). Getting a beta-reader who can constructively critique your stories to bring out the best in your work is also a recommendation. I’ve been writing fic off and on for about 25 years.

Favourite fic from another author

@lunacatriona - 'Waves that Rolled You Under’ (Holby City - Bernie & Serena). More of my Holby fic recs here: http://ceridwyn2.tumblr.com/post/160719828756/a-warm-blanket-of-a-story

LarkhallReturns: 'Love With Deception’ and 'Abuse of Power’ (Bad Girls - Nikki & Helen AU). I don’t think either are online anymore (I have them in PDF format for reading offline); they might be accessible via WaybackMachine search - it’s been a while since I checked.

SelVecanti: 'Reunion’ (Babylon 5 - Ivanova/Talia, set post S4.) Brilliant story. Capt Ivanova has a new Warlock class ship made unknowingly to her at the beginning using Shadow technology. Psi-Corp are trying to get to Ivanova by using Talia.

Nordica: 'Jungle Fever’ (Hospital Central - Maca & Esther, plus other HC regulars). An AU set at a Médicins Sans Frontières clinic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (Another story I have archived in PDF format offline)

G.L. Dartt - After Larkhall (Bad Girls - Helen & Nikki) series, starting with 'Dead Slow’ (http://users.eastlink.ca/~ginadartt/OtherFanFicIndex.html) - some odd coding on the site at the moment, though.

And just to plug something I was a part of (both as a writer, editor, and sometimes season planning collaborator) was the Otalia Virtual Seasons (http://www.celtic-dragon.ca/otalia_vs/OVS_Downloads.html) - Guiding Light - Olivia & Natalia.

Your favourite side pairings to put in?

Depends on the fandoms I’m writing in at the time. And not necessarily romantic pairings, but sometimes just friendship pairings.

Holby City sides: Sacha & Essie.

Call the Midwife sides: Delia & Phyllis friendship or pretty much any dynamic with Sister Monica Joan. (This is stuff I’ve only partially gotten round to writing)

Scott & Bailey sides: Gill Murray & Julie Dodson - though sometimes they’re the main with Janet & Rachel as the sides.

Guiding Light sides: Doris & Blake

Your guilty writing pleasure? Don’t know that I really have one, that I can think of at the moment.

Do you have structured ideas of how your story is supposed to go, or make it up as you write? I have a general sense of direction for the story, particularly if it’s a shorter one-off piece and not a multi-part story. When I was writing with the OVS (mentioned above), we had an over-arcing plan of things that we wanted to accomplish over the season, so specific plot points were planned out well in advance. However, like a serial drama, one story had to follow from the previous so we needed to be aware of what the writer before us was incorporating so that there was continuity between one story and the next, also to lay in bits in our story that would be picked up in the next one. What was really fun was coordinating the multi-author stories in the season, where each writer would take a different group of writers to write about and making sure no one character was in two different places at the same time.

Would you describe yourself as a fast writer? On the one-off pieces, usually. Or if I’ve got a deadline. Multi-part stories, not so much…unless I’ve got a deadline.

How old were you when you started writing? Crikey. In my teens I wrote for my high school Creative Writing class book (circa 1989-1991). Before that, just my own jotting of ideas.

Why did you start writing? As a way to express ideas & feelings

4 sentences from your work that you’re proud of. Oh, good heavens. There are many, over 20+ yrs of writing, writing in over a dozen fandoms.