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randomclam24 · 1 year

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I don't know what to do with myself anymore.

For now, I'm writing out everything diligently, be it homework so I can focus properly or other texts.

I don't know what it is. Finding out the average amount of alcohol by volume people keep even as a long-term storage amount and the level of spiciness people in general will actually put up with

So the matters they consider important are also very important, yes?

In general, the sheer difference in spiciness in whether or not you leave in the seeds with jalapeno peppers or not already serves as a deterrent to newcomers. If you're just a kid, and you eat something with the jalapeno seeds cooked into it, it's like you're dying.

I don't know that it would help my case, but in a lot of cases I want to vent just like anybody else, except that doesn't match up with the sheer intensity of what I'm saying

Just take this with a grain of salt? No, that's not going to get me out of trouble

I spoke my mind because, as ghost says it, I'm a Republican and don't care if anybody thinks I'm racist, which is what's hurting the party Virtually zombified boomer take

I got a 4TB external hard drive in hopes that I would no longer have to deal with the transfer speeds of USB sticks, and given that the last storage USB is making its transfer now, that dream is being realized

Update I shortcutted the download of the vod where, by my influence downstream, someone saying "shit yourself" to his usual boomer sayings, that being their name in a donation, ironically managed to get drunken ghostler first from a downer or demoralized state all the way into a rant that was actually inspiring against the globalist cabal (in terms of something like "the light" versus "the darkness"), which is actually very off-key to what he's normally like. I basically wish for that more often

I don't know what to actually feel when we ultimately seem to agree in theory and then soberly diverge in about everything else, minus the basics

Update Speed-runs as a concept Even if you went through the trouble of charting out where, for example, every health drink etc. is in Silent Hill 2, there is still a range of choice for you to make like I did recently in Minecraft where I decided to keep the armor down to the 15 iron pieces necessary to craft the iron leggings and chestplate only so as to conserve iron if you lose lives and have to keep going without losing your materials.

Honestly, the top priority with speedruns in any case ought to really be kudos. Not unlike high scores back in their time.

Like it's an honest question, what kinds of runs do you want to make?

I think the Majora's Mask trading labyrinth was a prime example of what it means to use an external reference and built-up knowledge of the thing to trim down overall time spent on clearing the thing - *as opposed to* - using strategies that sound like they came out of an online forum that sound like they break the game whether they're technically cheating or not, like Quake wall-running. Technically, knowing where to execute the technique still definitely involves knowing specifically where to do things in advance. I don't know exactly how to define it, then.

And really, the Quake speedruns didn't rely on tool assistance like the Super Mario 64 speedruns involving backwards-long-jump techniques over a void.

Still, I'm trying to shoehorn the idea of meaningful speedruns sans godlike reaction times.

Update Trying to find the explanation of why Doom 3 with its mission packs as a whole seemed like the ultimate example of a non-tool-assisted speed-run game is difficult.

In concept, ideally, Doom 3 with some kind of spawning randomizer would be the ultimate speed-running game, because it would constantly challenge the player even who knew where everything was going to pop out in advance. There would be no guarantee, and that's where spawning randomizers for the original Doom shine as well.

Update I don't think people apreciate what Silent Hill 3 and 4 are enough. And then no wonder the Siren series doesn't get the love it deserves - it's all in sequence

Gamer confessions: I like Silent Hill 1 better than Silent Hill 2 That's just a stylistic choice

In a sense, I actually like Siren by all means the best, because of the complexity of what is involved in order to survive But I feel like, as gamers, we're entitled to certain answers as to the games' design like - I don't even know how to articulate that

#1: Trying to play Siren with a controller that isn't like the original PS2 controllers in having a good sensitivity about them - I don't know how better to describe that - it's borderline unplayable. But I love it.

Okay, definitely my biggest and most legitimate gripe - if Siren was supposed to be targeted towards the veterans of Team Silent's games, then why in all hell did they retcon the Silent Hill function of strafing while using the sprint button? (If you strafe in Siren, it's slow as all hell. I don't care what narrative appeal you're appealing to)

Update It feels like a deliberate throwback to the days of Wolfenstein 3D or such where people in general still weren't using the strafe function at all. It's ridiculous.

Update I'm internally conflicted, because I think the people's favorite, Silent Hill 2, is patently not scary enough, as opposed to the tension I always get with Siren. And I hear people recommending Siren in my local area too, so there's a real pressure toward that.

This pressure literally supercedes the urge to repeat "penis" over and over despite the audience - that's how much pressure is involved in Siren, and I kid thee not.

Siren is one of the few things that enters the realm of profundity in my mind as something like LSD Dream Emulator, which was never released in the West. But there are enough broken-feeling mechanics about it, I don't know if I feel like defending it.

*Literally*, comments I've read hold that Siren is like Silent Hill but doesn't give you breaks, meaning you have to do everything continually while zombies can potentially respawn, but that doesn't account for the broken-feeling mechanics. And yet I still love it.

So much so that I'm conflicted between considering playing *it* and just toughing it out over doing a speedrun of any kind on the most well-received of the games of Team Silent [(because I don't feel like that's intense enough)].

Update At any given time, I can hold it to my own name that I can retain my good judgment even when under the influence of what could make, as my parents called it, *five* grown men drunk - which is in relation to the fact that I have a very high ability to resist hypnotic suggestion. But at the same time, if people want to know me as a "pimp", that's not okay. Take what Common Filth said about the way society classifies people they hold in high esteem as "pimps" - they all have mommy issues, and they're not really alpha males.

Update So at times like these, it seems very clear what I want to do, but it's still the same with, do you really want to deal with these bad controls? I've had dreams about Siren by now. I think that already makes it larger than the thing itself.

Update Basically, the idea was, people with certain IQs, they could be put under the military practice of spraying them repeatedly with a fire hose to condition them to be normal unlike what they've discovered, and it still would not work. Ideally, that's the principle that sets me apart. I hope.

Update So ideally I'm a boon of my own ideology, be it good or bad.

And I don't see people making respectful argumentation one way or the other. I wish.

Update *But* - minus rep. - you're not really from tha hood - minus rep. - something completely autistic

I don't know what to think, if everything that I say ultimately gets applied all the way down to the lowest common denominator to make the judgment. Then what are we really talking about? I never thought about that. Honestly.

Update I got to the point, where, spoilers, with "Maria", she says, she's "not your Mary" - did no one ever make the connection with the whole social scheme of, "not your grandparents' xyz", like not your grandparents' Saturday morning cartoon, etc., meaning they've got it filled to the brim with cringey corporate attempts at coolness, like skateboards, etc.

And then for all that they give you game over if Maria takes enough damage What even is life What are they not telling us

Update Underrated despite everything: Silent Hill 2, still being the uncontested best survival horror game of all time, has the music exclusively in the bowling alley - technically you can have it play for a long time again when returning before making the great descent

Why are Siren's controls borderline broken - "Abba" - yeah, yeah

8/27 There's nothing to do. It's all over now. The r*ght lost the culture war with flying colors.

8/28 Honestly, the only reason that thing happened with ghost is because something very out-of-the-ordinary happened with his mental state as a reaction, *while* drunk. I don't even want to disrespect him that much because he gets trolled enough already, but normally he's a boomer faggot.

Update Continued on Saturday night's quip - things like actually considering the sheer levels of spiciness and the level of alcohol by volume in any case makes me reconsider, when we're talking people in general, what are the *units* we're really talking about?

I don't know how important it is, but there was recently a story about somebody who was saying all smiles despite my depression and whatever other disorders, and he was a well-renowned part of his community or something, and he just up and offed himself, just like that. That could happen to me, with alcohol, and thank God, by so many people, but I thankfully never bothered with all that "all smiles" crap - because I feel like it really just denies yourself the ability to work through your real feelings as they're coming, and they come in tidal waves.

Update soon after At some point, I guess the illusion breaks, and I have no choice but to be honest: the life I'm living right now is essentially perpetually on the cusp of falling apart into chaos, because it was never a permanent solution. What I'm doing is the closest I can get to being a NEET in secret in *spite* of what minimal effort my parents expect of me - like, I got really lucky and didn't get even my dad curious as to how much actual time was predicted for the courses I completed to actually take despite the months I took for them. Ha ha ha.

Incidentally, I'm starting to actually have a reaction to the sheer poverty I'm living in when I want something apart from what my parents already buy, which is just standard food plus the electric / air conditioner bills. And water. They don't make me pay rent. They *could* have, but - technically they know then that would mean having an entire confrontation, literally ongoing wherein they have to keep reinforcing that I'm obligated to have a job to pay for a rent that's right in their boomer standards, which would be significantly lower than the rent people pay on average to-day. Right, that would already be good for me, but they're essentially, secretly, pushovers. Of course the difference in base requirement in going from not having a formal job even part-time to *having* one is that you have to go and have a car in advance, which they would have to pay the rent and insurance for in the first few weeks or something to make the ends meet on that - honestly I think if it wasn't for the incident of me having a kind of mental connundrum at the last job with the way I was basically being flat-out overloaded, having multiple jobs to do where it was all in the back room where there was absolutely no one to ever notice - if that hadn't happened, mom and dad probably would have still thought that I still get the greenlight for holding down an occupation. Honestly though I do have issues with being in one place for several hours at a time. It gets to me very harshly. Then that starts to stack up over the sheer weeks. It doesn't just subside. It builds up. That's why I just went and held down a part-time job at a pizza joint after that. That's where I still had that - set of mental "lock-ups" I just described above where I just couldn't take the overload anymore for some psychological reason - meaning, I *could* physically keep going because I wasn't exhausted, but something about the acceptance of just being bogged down beyond any kind of reason just got to me. It was like no one really cared, and I was then going to be going out of my way to be rationalizing the overworking?

Everything I do, I got OCD or whatever to that effect where I'm completionist about getting it done, and it was even more intensified considering I was doing the dishes for the entirety of the restaurant at any given time at the pizza place. Then they give me this massive machine to clean off with non-distinct instructions as to how to get all the worst of it off and next to no experience to go on. Normally that doesn't sound that bad. How do I vouch for me? Well, at any given time, there was the additional job of collecting the dishes from any table out there that was done eating already, and I think they had me waiting tables on top of that. I think waiting tables was actively split up amongst the employees. Even among the guy in the back. Also, this was a team with an active system of cutting down the number of employees involved at any given hours to what they could milk them for all they're worth, basically. Essentially. I don't know if I could have toughed it out over the difficulty spike or not, but in such a moment that they gave me a large machine to wash by hand over a long period of time where I was already drowning in the requirements of trying to keep up with every other task, my mind told me that I had had enough, and I had a kind of breakdown where I got very nervous.

They didn't have more than one dishwasher at any given time, and I was working the most active shift of the day, so I don't think they were paying any mind to how balanced that shift would be compared to the other positions.

Honestly, I *did* open up socially during the event that, once a year, they all had a collective meeting at the place and then went to a bowling alley, and I talked with the employers, and they actually told me during that time they thought from the impressions I made that I was just antisocial and distant. But even though that happened, it was my first time dealing with these things, and I didn't realize I could have just asked them about the possible imbalance of the shift I was working, since, all things considered, I was working during the busiest hours of the day every day. It was part-time, but set up so all the hours I was working were as intense as you could get.

I can't apologize for being evil, but I can complain to find just a sliver of justification. I know how to do that.

Ikuso - shabba-dabba doo

This is the only result I managed to find for it

"* In Episode 20 Sakamoto shouts "Shabba-Dabba-Doo!" in the same way "[[WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones Yabba-dabba-doo!]]" is said, all while doing the classic Hanna-Barbara run startup."

History for ShoutOut/Nichijou - TV Tropes

I don't *have* anything worth saying

Update Even the New Testament says to be as crafty as serpents, for the sake of keeping yourself alive amongst adversaries. But a lot of the time, doesn't that mean doing nothing? And if I'm a Nietzsche fan, then that tends to go directly against that. I will read the Portable Nietzsche before continuing further in the book of Acts - not to abandon one for the other.

If we were in a world where no one knew about Christian theology, would that be the same? No

And second take: if Nietzsche is more a contrarian than he is productive ultimately, and doesn't really intend to help anyone - but at the same time, I legitimately haven't read enough to make the true judgment, being completely honest - even though you could probably tell by his followers whether or not they actually benefit anything - well actually they're spread out enough I don't actually know that

The obvious contrarianism to the idea that the value of kings on this earth is to be patient is something I identify with, so naturally I want to know more

Update And a legitimate concern I'm having is, after the books of the gospels, which reinforce each other as historical accounts by different people, the book of Acts has people being visited in visions with just the one account, and I don't think people in the modern day see things like the way they would back in these times with these things happening as they went along. Do modern people believe in miracles? It seems to rely very heavily on that.

Update I guess it's just very weird that there's this contradiction that goes unspoken within people's theoretical beliefs, that the historical record strength of the gospels gives validity to the idea of miracles *as something that could happen in those times*, but when it comes to the idea of miracles as something to justify the lifestyle of the actual original Christians, that's just defunct and no one listens, because clearly no one lives like that, and there are no miracles to even suggest the necessity of living like that.

Update I just don't think my illegitimacy as a source should even factor into that - the original Christian lifestyle described, that they shared in every bit of their finances and material wealth, is so far-fetched from anything we know today. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that it was reliant on the miracles still happening even after the passing of Jesus that people actively lived like that.

I asked my little sister who is already occupied as a teacher now whether she ever had Biblical groups, and she said she had classes back in high school - I tried asking her if it was in church or in the actual school, but that wasn't clear anyway. I asked her about it, and she doesn't know if she even read past the gospels in the New Testament or not.

Update I have a shirt of the Grinch with a Christmas tree behind him that was gifted to me by my cousin who took it up the ass once and said it wasn't that great to me that I'm wearing right now that says "You're a mean one"

My favorite rapper is the Grinch from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas

"Mr. Grinch you're a bad banana"

That was my cousin's in-joke, not mine

Update So, no matter how you approach that reality with the post-gospels New Testament, it still leaves some loose ends untied, like, what exactly *is* the Holy Ghost that there are no longer any miracles? Are they not needed?

Update So what is left? I read the Portable Nietzsche by borrowing it from my local library which was apparently leaning liberal, because after they had me on camera looking at the cameras like an idiot, knowing that those books were right next to some kind of documentary on them titled "Hitler's Philosopher", which meant they were on to us or something, meaning it was dangerous to pick them up at all even, before ever purchasing the text from a bookstore elsewhere. After that, they removed all Nietzsche texts from that local library, so I figure they might have been reviewing that camera footage.

Nietzsche says certain things against the Nazis and other things in defense of international jews that I think are unnatural to whatever extent. So if that in particular is not what it's about, I'll have you know I *am* contrarian like that. I'll just not show up at that liberal library anymore. I have it right here.

Update So, while there is starting to be a definitive split between the Christian right and the political right - I guess over the fact that Christianity is now accepting gays? Functionally it has no reason to be being like that - for the short-term I'll be reviewing Toward a Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche, because it's the one I've seen recommended the most, next to Beyond Good and Evil, Thus Spake Zarathustra being too long for these purposes. The purpose of this search was to determine what his core philosophy was above all else.

Update Out of those two, we're going to review both of them before going in depth with either, because either way, we're typing out both in their entirety as they're sampled in The Portable Nietzsche, which is a hard task. We'll bounce back between then until a satisfactory conclusion is reached as to which one to pursue as serious over the other.

Update Essentially, I could reject him based on his core philosophy, but the job is to get to that point faster.

Update In addition to the one dream I described in short detail, there was one the day after that where there was first a very intimidating elaborate version of the special sky stages of Super Mario Sunshine where you find a secret warp pipe or such and arrive there as a special course, and then three segmented additional episodes of The Mandela Catalogue that will never be, where there was the same thematic involving fractured wrists where the alternate zombies made out of friends in the starting bedroom end up slicing the main character vertically with some kind of paper cutter that's larger than the real thing.

"Fuck all that let's get to it" - "What lil' shawty say?" Yes, as in, we disregard everything for whores, as being whoremongers, in the most strict interpretation

But I still have some part of me having belief in anything that glitters like gold

I found out from another 4chan post that the average age of marriage in classical America whom every appeal to the Constitution and the founding fathers derives from knowing it or not was ten years old, some reaching down to seven years old, and the original progenitors of the movement to raise the age of consent to more toward eighteen years of age were definitively feminist movements. So what's your conclusion

In any case if it went on that long, I feel like people have a right to know

Update So yeah, if you stop bullshitting in order to consider the actual units involved with the matters themselves, it's less like "what is the meaning of life" and more like, it's already, "you will live in the pod, you will own nothing, and you will be happy - World Economic Forum" in real life with the modern institution of marriage, given how she can divorce you and put you on eternal mortal alimony and throw it around like it ain't shit. So that's not good.

And one of the few stories from the Gospels that I *hadn't* heard and retained explicitly beforehand was that Christ negated the Pharisees' notion of marriage as an institution as well, in that he said that it was because of Jews' disobedience that it was granted to them the ability to put away one's wife in divorce in the first place. In theory it was never supposed to be divinely granted at all.

Update Definitely that bit about the average age of marriage in classical America was what set me off the most in relation to all these people of the modern day - contrarians are like in their satire videos, this girl's twelve years old? that's okay, I don't have any morals. All I have to say left is this annoying, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch bitch bitch bitch

So then it would make sense to "put two and two together" with the ages of girls from anime in the modern day. What age is Shiro from No Game No Life? Eleven

Realistically, that sounds like a fantasy world, but if it truly went on that long, who am I to judge, even despite the entire multitude fearing the same poster who posted that's saying, this is something all Americans have to be embarrassed over?

Nobody was bold enough to go forward and try to verify that history one way or the other.

Update In summation from my present thoughts, I don't know what else to say, but, let's try to summarize what we have to "appreciate" about our feminists

The modern casual sex scene totally trumps young fertile pussy from the daughters in any generation or age (sarcasm)

Okay I had a clarity just now: what I want is definitely what they call "shed talk", where you only do it normally in privacy, which is what Trump happens to have been attributed with in 2016 in his first election cycle - that's absolutely a good thing for this day and age. But getting drunk as a necessity for such a thing is something that can be co-opted for evil. Right.

I feel like it's showing my ass to say there's porn and hentai out there without having to actually commit real-life fornication. That's not a moral proclamation. I'm just saying from experience.

I don't know what to say. People don't do their research, first and foremost

Update *I don't know.*

In any case, it's like there's this reality out there that has these clearly wider outer limits, that constitutes physical reality, and then even so, there's the lower "mild sauce for white people" limits that, when broken, even so, after that point people will still definitely go crazy and lose their minds in any case, so it's like there's no point in going into that range because people consider it like there's sharks in the water. It's like I just have to listen when I'm told of an upload, this is probably too pleasurable for most people.

Update Is it accurate to say, when you make the insult "white people", it's patently not classical Americana?

Update As someone who wanted to cause an uprising among the common people, I'm actually kind of insulted by proxy that something like "extra mild [sauce] for white people" ever came into prominence, as a meme. But what can you do

Update Okay, so I went by something said in an authentic classical American location that was made into a touring place, and I found out smoking was only made illegal ranging from ages 14 to 24 by the 1920s, whereas back in the founding days it wouldn't have been banned locally, but even so you can't make an appeal to that later than the 1920's.

And we have enough historical accounts even taught to grade schoolers about how historically, women impregnated in young ages like fourteen would die in childbirth, so that doesn't require self-explanation.

And yet that was approximately the age of both Romeo and Juliet in that play, which I guess would make people shit their pants.

Update "Extra mild for white people" - I guess if nothing else, let's just blow that out of the water

But then again, if people of other races wanted to justify their presences in repopulating all our neighborhoods in the coming years with, oh, if you wanted to be seen as so tough, why would we be such an issue despite the fact of you having natural instincts and all of that? Because, technically, it's still a meme running rampant as we speak that "white flight is a human right".

Update Honestly, I don't have any other means of violating the principles I would appear to have as a wh*te person without it being so edgy that it violates my principles as an actual person. Just, nothing comes to mind.

Update "I got a hundred problems, but a bitch ain't one"

Actually if a women died giving childbirth that would obviously be very bad

8/29 definitely already night One time when we were kids, and we had a night over across states - so not something that happens very often - I started making sounds from the sides of my lips with my tongue stuck up on the roof of my mouth like what I remembered from the weird tongue of the voice from Harry Potter 2's movie from the bunk above my older female cousin's bed, and I did this until she copped out and went to her father for moral support in the middle of the night, and then after she came back with his assurance it wasn't a real thing, eventually I just kept doing it

Update Once, I had a nightmare where the spinners from Cuphead's "Floral Fury" became incorporated in an interactive segment of Silent Hill 4's opening sequence where they came through your front door, where both them and you were stuck in a painful slow motion.

Definitely the meme "I give no fucks", as in, "they can't give me *nothin'*" isn't entirely true, as there are a lot of things that could go wrong that would be very bad - still, that doesn't mean I'm going to give the sources of these kinds of complaints any credence.

In retrospect, that doesn't sound very good at all

I had a few nightmares in recent months where a water slide where everybody was in an eight-person-or-so water-tube was constantly at risk of sliding off the edge at such a height that everyone would die at any given time

If I'm awake, I don't particularly like anything, and if I'm asleep, I get ridiculous things like that more often than not

"Fair dinkum" non-racism - I'm playing Cuphead and Mugman, of which the designers said, this actually *is* your grandparents' videogame - see n*ggers beat me in sheer skill level at this, clearing it beyond world 2 which I'm more or less limited to with my own skill level - then say you are worthy of my inheritance - no cucking, no bullshit

Then everybody's like, "I will beat you to an inch of your life" - epic

Update But millenials and zoomers don't *get* any inheritance generally, so that's that

Update At the limit of posting here, but - the genre of music ragtime was, that was primarily composed by blacks post-civil-war - I remember in some museum, it was claimed it was considered a radical genre of music at the time

The most complicated pieces of music I know are all composed by Scott Joplin

Update You would get the kudos; that's for sure. My younger cousin already did the whole game on the extra hard mode, whatever that is once it unlocks. I don't know how that's humanly possible, but so it is that it's been done.

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a-nice-and-interpretive-fanzine · 3 years

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[ID: A cream-colored banner that says "A Nice and Interpretive Fanzine: essays and art about the meanings we've found in Good Omens." There is a photo of a book page with a key on it behind the banner text. The photo source is rosy_photo on Pixabay. /end ID]

A Nice and Interpretive Fanzine: Information Masterpost

Welcome!

This is a zine for those of us who love the subtle, complex work that is Good Omens, and who’ve enjoyed the thoughtfulness of the fandom as people interpret how the many moving pieces of the story come together, creating a slightly different meaning for each of us.

To put it simply, it’s a book full of the fandom’s own analysis and commentary about the Good Omens TV show, enhanced with illustrations from our brilliant artists.

This zine is analytical in the sense that all the writers are expressing their own nonfiction thoughts and feelings about the show, rather than writing fanfic, but it is not meant to be heavily academic. Anybody who likes to pick apart the series and discuss it should be able to enjoy it.

The zine will contain essays by fans who are passionate about analyzing and interpreting different parts of Good Omens - the characters, the plot, the writing techniques for the book and script, the cinematography of the TV show, the popular content of the fandom itself. Accompanying these essays will be black and white illustrations from our artists.

How are you organizing this process?

May 1-May 15: Everyone submits their application to do writing or art through a Google form. Behind the scenes, I’ll be setting up a separate email and Discord.

May 16-20: Applicants will be screened during this time.

May 20: I’ll email everyone to let them know the outcomes of their applications. The final participants will get a link to the Discord server for the zine (totally optional, of course).

May 21: If there’s any clarification or solidifying of ideas that needs to happen, I’ll contact you and discuss with you by this point. This is also when artists will be matched up with essays.

May 22 to August 14: This will be a period of just working on our essays and art. The Discord chat and Tumblr will be there for support and for exchanging ideas!

August 15: Participants need to email their full works to the zine’s email address by this date. No special formatting is needed; I’ll do that in InDesign.

August 15 to August 31: I’ll be putting the zine together in InDesign.

September 1: Preorders will open.

September 30: Preorders will close.

October 1: The zine order will be placed!

October 15: Assuming all goes well with printing and shipping, the zines will be shipped out in waves starting on this date. If the printing or shipping from the manufacturer is delayed, then shipping will just start ASAP.

Writer Application HERE Artist Application HERE Asked and Answered Questions on Tumblr The Fanzine's Page on Twitter

Read below for more detailed information about the zine in a Q and A format!

What are the specifications for the zine contributions?

For writers, I’m starting with 3k words or fewer per essay (approximately 10 pages at the size of this book). This depends heavily on how many participants we actually get, so it may change!

For artists, I’d be looking at black and white works, 300 DPI, 5.5 x 8.5 inches or smaller. If your art is supposed to fill up the entire page (i.e. no white space), please make it a total of 5.75 x 8.75 inches with nothing too important around the edges to account for bleed during the printing process.

Can I submit an essay to this zine if I’ve already posted it on Tumblr?

Not as you’ve already posted it. We don’t want to just copy/paste the exact thing that hundreds or perhaps even thousands of people have already read.

However, it IS fine and maybe even a good idea to take the same thought from your post and refine it, preserving your same thesis. For example, a lot of Tumblr posts are just us fans jotting down 5 or 6 paragraphs of random thoughts at 2 AM, but some of them are really cool thoughts! Expanding them and turning them into a bona-fide Essay would make those posts into excellent zine chapters. And you can copy small pieces of your own language as long as the whole thing isn’t just pasted word-for-word.

How long do essays have to be? Is there a limit?

With the number of writers we have, I've calculated that each person should ideally keep their essay to about 6000 words. There is wiggle room.

There’s no real minimum for your contribution; some analytical ideas are really good but can be expressed concisely, so it’s okay if your essays only come out to a few pages typed. For reference, with our book size, a page is about 300 words.

What happens if the zine sells a lot and you end up not only breaking even, but turning a profit?

It’ll go to charity. While I’ll ask the participants what they want to do for certain if we do make enough money, my suggestion will be donating it to Alzheimer’s Research UK in honor of Sir Terry Pratchett.

I’m not really comfortable calling this a “charity zine” up front since I simply don’t know if it will raise a significant amount. For the most part, I just want the thing to physically exist, which means breaking even, and don’t want to make it more expensive for buyers than it needs to be to afford the printing costs.

What kinds of essays are you talking about? What could be included?

In short, any analytical thoughts about the Good Omens TV show - and possibly even the fandom as it interacts with the show - are possible inclusions for the zine.

To expand a bit, think about the meta posts you see floating around Tumblr. Often these involve analyzing characters, or picking up on patterns in the plot. Sometimes fans use their own background knowledge to write posts about the significance of certain costume choices or the way music plays into each individual scene. Some posts examine the ways the series approaches gender, while others might discuss ways that the characters present as neurodivergent. That’s how diverse the pool of possibilities is for subjects in this zine.

How does art come into this?

Images will be black and white, to match the bookish mood of the project overall. Images can range in size from a half page to a full page.

I’m planning to talk to the artists and authors and loosely pair artists with essays that appeal to their personal interests.

I know how to illustrate a story, but how do I illustrate an essay?

There are infinite answers to this! I’ve seen some beautiful symbolic artwork in the fandom already (e.g. a number of takes on Aziraphale munching on an apple with Crowley in snake form curving around him), and there are tons of symbolic motifs to draw from, but these are not the only options. An artist illustrating an essay about cinematography, for example, could draw a well-known scene from an alternative angle. An essay about Heaven as a capitalist corporation could be illustrated with a cartoon of Gabriel giving some sort of excruciating PowerPoint presentation. A character analysis could be accompanied by a simple portrait. And on and on. I’m not interested in limiting the possibilities by trying to make a list, but just know that there are many and you don’t have to make it complicated if you don’t want to.

If the writers can reuse their essay ideas, can artists reuse their drawings?

Similarly to the writers, if you already have an interpretive drawing that you’re in love with, artists can use the same ideas and the same fundamental composition that is present in their own existing work. However, it has to be redone in some significant way. Whether it’s taking something you drew in 2019 and redrawing it using an updated style, taking a sketch and turning it into a lined and shaded piece, or redoing a full-color drawing so it presents more strikingly in black and white, it shouldn’t be identical to the thing you’ve already posted.

So how are you choosing participants here?

It’ll be based on what people are interested in writing about (or illustrating). I’ll be looking for people who are passionate about their essays, but I’ll also be looking for variety. It all depends on what people want to offer, so I won’t know for sure what it will look like put together until everyone’s application is in.

For artists, I’ll be trying to figure out whose style looks like it would adapt well to illustrations in black and white, and also who demonstrates an interest in the same subjects as the writers.

If we don’t get a lot of applicants, I’d love to simply include everyone, but I can’t commit to that without knowing for sure how many people are involved.

Do I have to use a formal writing style to participate?

No. You should use a style that makes your thoughts and ideas as clear as possible, but as long as it’s understandable, you can also get a little artistic with it. You can “write like you speak,” though perhaps in a more organized way. You definitely don’t need to worry about stylistic rules like not using the first person. This is not academia.

Is this zine going to center only on Crowley and Aziraphale?

That remains to be seen! It depends on what ideas show up in the applications. There will be a lot of the ineffable partners for sure, but whether the whole zine will center on them or whether there’s plentiful stuff about other characters will depend on what the participants suggest.

Do we have to agree with all your personal interpretations of Good Omens to be in the zine?

No! In fact, I’m assuming that a number of essays will contradict each other, too, and that’s perfectly okay. The zine is a sampler of fan interpretations meant to inspire, not instruct. It’s not “Here’s a fan-made guide on how to understand this TV show,” it’s “Look at all these moving parts and how many meanings we can find in them. What does it mean to you?”

However, there are some basic rules and assumptions by which I’m working here.

I don’t personally have the energy to include essays that are highly critical (“negative”) in this zine. It’s analytical but also meant to be fun.

I’m pretty focused on the TV adaptation. This isn’t “no book analysis allowed” but just that the essays will end up being weighted toward subjects that apply to either the TV show or both the book and the show.

Each writer should focus on making their own points over disproving other fan interpretations. If you’re writing in an expository style, it’s normal for the essay to contain rebuttals to opposing ideas, but these should be minor supporting points, not the heart and soul of your essay. For reference, I’d say the majority of meta I see floating around on tumblr would follow this rule just fine.

Essay ideas that seem to contain bigoted or exclusionary sentiments will not be accepted (no TERFy stuff, for example).

What kinds of editing will go into the zine? Are you going to argue with us about the contents of our writing?

While I might ask you to elaborate on certain points in your writing or clarify your thoughts about your subject, I’m absolutely not here to ask you to change the thesis, opinions, or headcanons on which your writing is based. If I really have a problem with your initial idea, I’ll tell you that up front and politely decline the contribution.

While formatting the zine, I’ll make minor edits if I think I see a typo or misspelling, something small and obviously unintentional. As with any other zine, your content won’t be changed without consulting you.

Is this a SFW zine?

Yes. If people want to discuss sexuality in a theoretical way, like erotic subtext, that would be allowed. There are canon references like Newt and Anathema’s moment under the bed that might come up, too. But there will be nothing explicit, and since these are essays instead of stories, there will be no “action” going on between characters. Let’s just say sex isn’t a forbidden topic, but it will be like discussing it in English class.

As for other topics that could make the zine NSFW, like gore or extreme language, I don’t think they will be an issue. Some dark topics, like abuse by Heaven and Hell, may be discussed, but they will be warned for, and these are not stories, so you aren’t going to see violent actions playing out.

Will there be any “extras” like charms or stickers?

I’m not sure yet. I’m most inclined to keep it simple, because of the nature of the zine, but would be open to including some bonus items if there’s an artist who’s really passionate about it.

With that said, I am pretty committed to making a hardcover edition of the book available, in addition to the standard softcover version.

You’re doing this with only one mod?!

Yes. I personally find it easiest. While I’ve worked on multi-mod projects in other domains and adore all of my co-mods, it’s a little bit different when it’s a project with this many moving pieces that includes real-life components like printing and shipping. Though there are a lot of individual things to be done, I am experienced with all of them, so it’s less overwhelming to just take on the whole project. That way, I know exactly what needs to be done and when, and there are no issues with assigning tasks.

What qualifies you to run this zine?

The résumé answer: in fandom, I successfully solo-modded a large not-for-profit zine in the past, the @soulmakazine2018, and while I can’t speak for the whole fandom, it definitely seemed to be well-received. <3 In real life, I’m a case manager and this involves coordinating and communicating with a lot of different people including my 100-person caseload, budgeting services, and filling out all kinds of paperwork on the fly, all skills that can be imported into zine work.

The practical answer: well, I’m the one who decided to start this project, so if you like the sound of it, you're stuck with me. I say with encouragement and enthusiasm that if you’d like to do a different take on a commentary zine, you should absolutely do it.

#good omens #ineffable husbands #ineffable partners #fanzine #good omens zine

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strawbebbynya · 3 years

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seriously, why would anybody want to donate to you? you offer no incentive or anything in return... a 10-pair of underwear goes a low as $10-15 tops at target/walmart, a decent pair of pants is around the same amount; youre not looking for designer-type clothing! if you really need new clothes that fucking bad then prioritize whats essential & buy those first(you have more than enough) dont fucking panhandle over the internet, get a REAL JOB if youre that low on funds, McDonalds is always hiring

1. I *cant* offer any incentive, bc I'm fucking poor and all my skills are based in things I can do with my hands. I can't take any commissions because I'm already doing one major one, I can't write bc I don't have the energy, and I can't afford to buy supplies.

2. I don't think you understand what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to look for clothes that not only I can wear, but clothes that will match my style. I also need clothes that will *last*, and I plan to mostly buy through the internet, which means buying through sellers that are generally expensive, bc I'm fucking 260 pounds. Most clothes won't fit me anymore.

3. WHAT FUCKING PART OF "I LIVE OFF A PALTRY DISABILITY PAYMENT" CAN YOU NOT GET THROUGH YOUR LITTLE PEANUT BRAIN. I CAN'T FUCKING WALK PROPERLY WITHOUT PHYSICAL THERAPY, WHICH I AM WAITING FOR MY REFERRAL. EVEN THEN, I CAN'T BEND OVER, AND I CAN'T DO HEAVY LIFTING. MCDONALDS WOULD LITERALLY KILL ME. I PAY RENT AND MOST OF THE BILLS FOR MY FRIENDS BECAUSE I MAKE THE MOST MONEY RN. I AM CONSTANTLY LOOKING FOR WORK, AND HAVE A TICKET TO WORK COUNSELOR WHO CHECKS IN ON ME EVERY FEW WEEKS AND SENDS ME JOB RECOMMENDATIONS. THE IDEA THAT I AM NOT FUCKING TRYING TO DO THIS ON MY OWN IS FUCKING LAUGHABLE.

4. The fuck do you think you are to tell me what to do? You really think I'd be fucking *begging* on the internet if I could afford my own clothes? I literally set 500$ as my maximum, just in case. When my friend Micah sends me money I'm literally going to be using that to buy the essentials. Stop pretending like you know me.

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passable-talent · 4 years

Text

ya boi is back with a new niche character played by hayden christensen for yall to enjoy.

CW: blood, wounds, cursing, piercings, tattoos, guns, fighting, deaths of unnamed characters

AJ x gn!reader - Takers (2010). the stupid hat grew on me.

dedicated as always to @haydens-moles and @iscariot-rising for being my friends and for appreciating hayden as much as I do

The story of your life, as you loved to explain it, boiled down to a little math joke. Excited five, you called it, or it’s official terminology- five factorial. Written as “5!”, hence the awful pun.

“Factorials,” you’d say, “for those that don’t remember, are a multiplication of every number up to the one that’s being discussed. As such, five factorial is five, times four, times three, times two, times one.”

Your life, your excited five, was as follows: five major scars, four tattoos, three piercings, two eyebrow slits.

“The one is usually ignored,” you’d say, “as it makes no multiplicative difference. That’s why I don’t have a ‘one’.”

In August, 2009, you got your ‘one’. Its a doozy. But we’re not there yet.

~~~

Five major scars.

December 25, 1983. It’s your first Christmas. Your parents think you’re just being a cranky infant, but something way more serious is going on- they find out the next day that you’ve got RSV, a respiratory virus that’s especially dangerous for infants. You spend the next three years periodically using a ventilator whenever the coughing acts up. You don’t remember much of it, other than the vaguely crayon-looking piece of the machine, but you can’t forget that it happened, due to the pretty white scar over the bridge of your nose. It’s not such a gnarly wound as it is a reminder- not of the ventilator that wore through your skin thanks to frequent use, but of the virus that almost took your life only a few months after it had begun.

July 28, 1993. You’re seven years old, staying at your grandmother’s house with your cousin, who’s six months older than you. You’re playing cops and robbers- he’s the cop. The forest streaks by as you run the length of the property, slightly faster than him, but he catches you and throws you down. You land on your back on a jagged rock, not only painfully impacting your spine but digging deeply into your muscles beside it. It was the first hospital visit you remember, and the dark, long scar halfway between your tailbone and your shoulders reminds you never to fall without controlling it.

January 15, 1998. You’re in sophomore year of high school, and not the most popular. You like to play by the rules, and some asshole junior decides that he doesn’t like the way you won’t let him cheat off of your trigonometry homework, and decides that a knife is the best way to settle the problem. Those homework answers weren’t worth the long white line over all four of the knuckles of your left hand, but it is a pretty little reminder that lowlifes do what they want. And law enforcement, or whatever your school called the ‘anti-bullying league’, does jack shit about it.

October 30, 2002. You’re almost done with your certification to become a cop- thank god. You couldn’t stand the people who were to become your graduate class. They were so ready to become cops just to bully people, just to get to weild an iron fist and hide their bloodlust behind the law. Not you- you’re here to do some real good. That’s what they don’t like about you. And that’s why Fred Young splits open your cheek when just he’s supposed to be practicing his sparring. It’s an ugly scar, needed six stitches, but it’s a reminder that even the cops aren’t always the good guys.

May 14, 2004. You’re a new cop, working under detective Wells. There’s a robbery of a jewelry store a few blocks from where you’re patrolling, and as you’re making your way to the scene, a man in a fedora runs smack into you, taking you both to the ground. Broken glass digs into your shoulder, but he apologizes, and his blue eyes look so genuine. He’s afraid. You’d not realize until a month later that he wasn’t a scared bystander, but in fact one of the thieves. The fifth of your scars matches your first meeting with AJ- who would, by the end of the summer, become one of the most important people in your life.

~~~

Four tattoos.

August 4, 1999- Left wrist, inside knob of the bone. The little symbol had represented something to you when you were sixteen, but it had long lost whatever meaning you’d given it. Now, it was just a pattern to pass your thumb over whenever you got restless.

February 16, 2002- The cap of the right shoulder. It was your bunk number, from when you were training to be a cop. Nothing extravagant, but it was supposed to represent the beginning of the rest of your life- it was supposed to represent your calling.

June 1, 2004- Left arm, the outside of the forearm. Bleeding from your first tattoo was a new one, the largest one on your body. It was geometrical and high contrast, black lines loosely following your veins up toward your elbow, as though that left hand was bringing darkness into your body. It did- you shot with your left hand.

July 17, 2004- Right collarbone. A single, circular monogram, made up of six letters.

T A K E R S.

~~~

Three piercings.

April 7, 1989. Your father took you to get your ears pierced, but insisted upon arrival that it was too expensive to get both done, so you only got your left. The assymetrical style would have to grow on you- at six years old, you hated it.

May 19, 2003. You couldn’t have piercings at the academy, they were unprofessional, they were dangerous. So the night of graduation, you went out and got a hole punched into your nostril- the pain made tears well up, but more than anything, it was the satisfaction of giving a pretty little ‘fuck you’ to your superiors, who you’d never see again.

July 18, 2006. AJ takes you to a fancy beauty salon for an eyebrow bar after hearing maybe once that you’d wanted another piercing. You knew you were in love with him- who else in your life had ever paid such close attention to you?

~~~

Two eyebrow slits.

June 23, 2004. You leave the police force. You tell Wells that it’s because you’re pissed you can’t find the guys that robbed the jewelry store, but that’s not even close to the truth. You’ve found them- hell, you got a good look at one of them on the very day of the robbery. But you’ve done the looking, and didn’t have the heart to bring them in. They had families. They donated ten percent of every heist to a charity. They did more for the community than the police you worked for, and they did it clean- they didn’t hurt anybody, if they didn’t have to. They did what you’d hoped to do, when you joined the force. What you’d never gotten to do. Eyebrow slits were considered extremely unprofessional, so the moment you were free of your two week notice, you split open your right eyebrow. It would give a good balance to the bar piercing you hoped to put through your left someday.

March 4, 2007. You’re cleaning up your slit when AJ walks into the room and stands behind you so that you can see him through the mirror. You keep your eyes on the trimmer you’re so delicately running over your skin, but when he opens up a little felt box with a pretty ring inside, you whirl around with such panic that you make the slit approximately half an inch wider than it should’ve been. Lilli helped you fill in the gap for the engagement photos, but you decided to keep a second slit on the other end of the unfortunate shave- a little reminder of the evening in which he proposed to you.

~~~

“The one is usually ignored,” you’d say, “as it makes no multiplicative difference. That’s why I don’t have a ‘one’.”

On August 27, 2009, you got your ‘one’.

You’d been out of the game for two years, choosing not to take a cut of the winnings. You’d advise, you’d plan, you’d set up, but you did not want to be on site when the heist went down. The boys had it taken care of, and you butted heads with Jesse far too often for anyone’s comfort.

You especially couldn’t work on this project, thanks to a little fucker named Ghost- he didn’t trust you, as a member of the Takers he’d never met, and you didn’t trust him, as a criminal you’d never grown to respect.

You knew that most of them didn’t trust Ghost either, but everything he brought forward checked out- AJ must’ve mumbled the plan thirty times in his sleep in the five days from its suggestion to its fruition. There were no holes. Knowing Gordon and John, they had some ‘insurance’ for Ghost, anyway. In case it went wrong.

Still, you stayed at the Hotel Roosevelt through it all. You were their sitter, keeping the hotel room warm and ready for their arrival. They arrived back one by one- and like usual, AJ got there first. He, Gordon, and John were usually the first to get out, but he always made it back to the room first, because that way he could get some time with you. That way, he could have a private reunion, fresh off of a job.

“Hey, baby,” he said as he closed the door, and you waited for him to turn his eyes to you before you gave him a smile. He threw down his bag onto one of the chairs, and it landed with a heavy thump, but you’d long grown used to the sound of the score. However much he pulled, good for him. You were just happy to slip your arms around his neck and feel him kiss the scar on your cheekbone before sliding his lips to yours.

He always kissed different right after a job- before the boys had all gotten back, before the total was counted. He had a confidence to his movement, but there was fear, insecurity, just a tinge. He wasn’t just a taker, he was a man, who had worries and risks just like every other man.

You were out of the game for a few reasons. They had it taken care of. You butted heads with Jesse. You didn’t trust Ghost. But you knew that you were AJ’s biggest fear- you knew that if you got hurt on a job, he’d never forgive himself.

So he kissed you, he held you close, he reminded himself that you were here, you were fine. His long fingers seems to take up half your back, and his hair was already in his face, as though you’d tugged it there yourself.

With just one more pass of your lips over his, you pulled away.

“How’d it go?” You asked with a soft voice, rolling your first finger through the curls at the back of his neck.

“Could’ve gone better,” he said with a chuckle, “but we got it done.” You heard a knock at the door, and Gordon was the next arrival- then John, then Jake, then Ghost. Jesse came last, and with him, a whole host of new problems.

A bullet splintered the door and caught AJ somewhere under the ribcage. Everyone hit the floor, diving behind couches, and you popped your head up long enough to see AJ launch over the kitchen island. The room shattered into gunfire and feathers from expensive pillows, glass shards littering the ground like raindrops. It all moved so fast, and the air exploded into noise. You could barely track AJ through it all, he was so far away, all the way across the room. And you wanted to keep your eye straight down the barrel of your gun.

“AJ!” Jesse called from beside you, hidden behind a brown leather couch, “You okay?” You looked around the side of it, and saw him ten feet from you, the longest ten feet of your life, behind the kitchen island. He was struggling, on his hands and knees.

“Get up,” you snarled, knowing he’d already taken a hit.

“Out the back!” John ordered from the doorway behind you, and you started to realize the moment, the dangerous, heavy moment. AJ was all the way across the room- he couldn’t cross it. Not with these mobsters holding ground.

“Let’s go!” Gordon shouted, and your eyes connected with AJ’s. He saw the same thing you did.

“Go,” he said, voice calm, and it cut through the chaos of the room, cut through every hardened lesson ever pounded into you, cut through every wall you’d ever built around you, around your heart. “I’m coming.”

AJ was a good liar. But he couldn’t lie to you.

“No,” you growled through gritted teeth, and you made a rash decision.

You’d always been good at gymnastics. You had strong control over the movement of your body, and had, ever since you’d learned from your cousin throwing you down onto that stone that split open your back. You could move and slink and roll and dive in ways that would keep you not only from falling, but even from being noticed.

Using the chaos as your cover, you did a tight diving roll across the room to him, slipping between shelters unscathed. This brought you just a bit closer to the mobsters, but further from the back door exit that Gordon had been trying to guide you toward. You’d chose AJ over your safety any day- the surprise and the fear in his eyes said that he wished you wouldn’t.

Making sure you had enough ammo, you considered your final move- this didn’t end until these mobsters did. There were five of them left, after all this commotion: four in the room, one in the hall. You couldn’t take all five, not with their guns being so much more than yours, but you could take out a few. You could shift attention, you could buy time.

And hopefully, you could stay breathing, too. That’d be nice.

“Stay down,” you hissed, leaving AJ behind the island where he’d be forgotten about, or assumed dead. Then, you rounded the corner and rolled to the feet of the closest mobster. As you came out of the roll you caught his legs in yours, wrenching them from under him and taking him to the ground with one of the first moves you’d learned in basic training. He hit the wall hard, and was unconscious by the time he landed- the same could not be said for his friends.

From your right, you could see Gordon, still firing, still hopeful for your and AJ’s escape. Your shoulders were above the couch, so you knew he saw as you turned your weapon to the second mobster before he could turn to you, and stopped his heart.

Your commotion had caught the attention of the other three who still remained. You whirled around and raised your gun to one of them, but they managed it first.

Gordon had to swallow back his horror as he saw a bullet enter the front of your side profile, and blood explode from the back. He took out the mobster who still had his attention on you- but your shoulders smacked to the ground outside of his view, and he closed the door.

Luckily, their aim was spotty. You now had a useless left arm, but you were still breathing. Not that you’d let the one remaining mobster notice that.

You and AJ played dead, only a few feet from each other, but the kitchen island becoming a thicker wall than any you’d ever been split by. As you stared blankly at the ceiling, taking shallow breaths hidden by the folds of your shirt, you hoped he didn’t think you were dead. You hoped he wasn’t bleeding out.

After what felt like agonizingly long minutes, the shooting finally stopped, and the door opened again. Gordon was the first to enter the room, and rounded the couch to you, grief in his eyes, expecting the worst.

But you could give him a smile.

“Surprise,” you groaned, and he lit up in relief, helping you sit up with your good arm.

“Look at you, playing dirty,” he said with a laugh, “I thought you were gone for sure.”

“AJ,” you heard Jake say from across the room, and finally AJ could sit up from where you’d forced him down. The two of you had both bled straight through your shirts, but there wasn’t any time for sweet reunions- everyone had to get out, and fast.

AJ left his car wherever it was. John gave the two of you a ride to the airstrip where Gordon was going to disappear for a while, and on the way you and AJ attempted to give each other first aid until the personnel on the plane could take care of it.

Eventually, you leaned against his left, and he against your right, your wounds still stinging and sticky with blood, but manageable, for as long as they needed to be.

The night didn’t get any easier, but that didn’t matter- you were home free, they’d managed the job, and Ghost was out of the picture, and neither of you were going to die.

And someday, when you felt brave enough to recount your near-death, near-loss, near-jailed experience, you’d say:

Five major scars, four tattoos, three piercings, two eyebrow slits. And one gun shot wound.

-🦌 Roe

#reader insert #angst #aj #aj takers #takers #takers 2010 #hayden christensen #anakin skywalker #x reader #gn!reader #aj x reader #fics

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ourimpavidheroine · 3 years

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Wait you think that Qrow is Ruby's father?

I surely do. Despite Miles and Kerry's insistence that he isn't.

I'll put this under a read more since it’s long and most of my followers are here for the Wuko and not RWBY.

Well. Let me get this straight. I think Qrow is her biological father. I think in all other ways that Tai is her actual father; he's the one who has raised her as his and obviously loves her very much. This is not me dismissing Tai at all. He is her father in every way but the actual sperm donation.

I'm not the only person who thinks this; canon and the timeline certainly support it.

To whit:

Yang is born to Raven and Tai. Raven bails pretty soon after Yang is born - we're not told exactly when, but it's made clear that it's when she's still a baby. Raven still cares about her daughter - she's saved her ass several times (despite saying she'd only save it once) and she can use her Semblance, Kindred Link, to access Yang at any time.

Kindred Link can only access people Raven is very close to - those whom she considers her kindred, in fact. That's canon. Who has she accessed that way? Yang, Qrow, Tai and Vernal (RIP, Vernal). All people that she's very close to. We also know she's gone in her raven form to watch over Yang. But that’s not all. In fact, she’s using her raven form to watch Tai when Yang isn’t around and furthermore, he both knows this and acknowledges it. (See the final end scene in the final episode of Season 5 where Raven comes to see Tai and he knows it.) Between that and still being able to use her Semblance to get to him demonstrates that Raven still has feelings for him. Complicated feelings! For sure! But feelings. And Tai is the same. He's clearly got some complicated feelings about Raven as well that go above and beyond ex-wife who bailed on me and left me with the baby.

In other words, Tai and Raven had a marriage and what was clearly a loving relationship that went wrong somehow, leaving them apart but still dealing with Feelings about each other. (I mean, icky feelings, Raven is one fucked up individual but you know, Feelings are Feelings.)

According to the timeline:

Yang's birthday is July 28th (same as my father, glorious Leos the both of them) and she's 17 when season one starts in the fall. She's just turned 17. Ruby's birthday is October 31st, and she's 15 when season one starts, soon to turn 16. If you do the math to calculate that a pregnancy lasts 40 weeks (give or take) then Summer got pregnant with Ruby when Yang was about 6 months old.

So either Tai knocked up Summer pretty much the second Raven left him or he cheated on Raven to knock up Summer and that’s why Raven left him.

The former is certainly what is hinted at in canon; I’ve never seen the latter even remotely hinted at but you never know, I guess.

But let’s take the theory that both canon and the showrunners seem to be going with, which is Raven left Tai and then he hooked up with Summer.

Per canon, Tai was upset when Raven left him (as well as Yang!) and clearly he did not want her to do that. Now lord knows things happen and maybe Summer comforted him and the next thing you know BOOM. Along comes Ruby. I mean, it is a possibility. Doesn't really match up with what we know of Tai but a few drinks that lead into accidental pregnancies happen all the time. An unplanned pregnancy is something that could have happened, sure.

I do not, however, for one second believe that he fell out of love with Raven and then in love with Summer enough to purposefully get her pregnant all within six months of Yang being born, never mind whenever it was that Raven left them. Nope. Nothing in canon supports it - on the contrary! - and even if Miles and Kerry retcon it into being I call BS all over it. Nope.

Now what we do know from canon is that Summer stayed with Tai after Ruby was born and that she loved Yang and raised her as her own until she left on the mission that she never returned from. There was certainly a family thing going on there.

But - and here’s the but - Tai never talks about Summer as if she was his wife/girlfriend and neither does Qrow.

Now obviously people do not need to married to have a baby, but the fact that Summer’s role in that house seems to be as Ruby’s mother and Yang’s loving stepmother as opposed to Tai’s romantic partner is pretty telling.

And really, it’s just a whole lot to have happened in the six months after a baby is born. People divorcing and falling in love with someone else and getting them pregnant. Not impossible, no. But not in the ordinary, especially when the two people who got divorced still seem to be carrying a torch for each other. A fucked up torch, for sure. But Tai seems to be entangled with Raven in a way he’s never been entangled with Summer, and that’s what we know from canon.

So let’s look at Ruby’s relationships with her father and her honorary uncle.

Tai:

Tai is a very good father and clearly loves both of his girls. Despite the issues revolving around their respective mothers, Tai has raised them in a loving, secure and stable home.

He does, at length, discuss Raven with Yang. It's clearly a discussion that is uncomfortable and sad for him, but he talks to her and answers her questions as best he can. When she loses her arm he's the one helping her to rehabilitate, the one who contacts Ironwood for a high-tech replacement arm, the one who knows before she even realizes it herself that she's going to leave him to go and find her sister.

We don't see these kinds of interactions with Ruby. Oh, that is not to say that she is somehow second banana - that is clearly not the case. However, the discussions about Summer with Ruby are reserved for someone else, not Tai.

Qrow:

So how does Qrow all play into this?

According to current canon, Qrow is Yang's biological uncle due to being Raven's twin and is an honorary uncle to Ruby due to his friendship and former team member status with Tai and Summer.

We do know that canonically he's much closer to Ruby than Yang. He taught Ruby how to make and use her weapon, for example; it's a version of his own scythe. We certainly see his affection for Yang - he obviously loves her - but his affection is greater for Ruby and that's canon, baby. He follows Ruby and Team JNR all the way across Mistral until circumstances force him to out himself (as it were). He's not only following them but is proactively clearing the way for them by fighting off Grimm!

He's also the one who saved Ruby after she used her eyes at the fall of Beacon and you know damn well SHE was the one he was looking for. Not Yang, not anybody else. Her.

Plus let's take a look at this scene, at the very end of End of the Beginning, the last episode of Season 3, taking place in Tai's home after the Fall of Beacon:

*********************

Ruby and Tai look to see Qrow suddenly standing in the room, near the door. He finishes off the contents of his flask before continuing.

Qrow: Mind if we have a minute?

Tai: What, I can't stay here?!

Qrow: Tai. Please.

Tai stands up, sighs, and then leans in to kiss Ruby on the forehead.

Tai: I'm glad you're alright. (he starts walking away) I'll go make us some tea.

Tai glares at Qrow on the way out, but the latter doesn't appear to care.

***********************

So let's get this straight: the honorary uncle overrides the father over the 16 year old in the father's own house? And then HE'S the one to ask her what happened and then goes on to tell her what her silver eyes, the ones she inherited from her mother, are?

Her "honorary uncle" and not her own father?

Uh huh. Mmmmmhmmm. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

I mean. Come on.

And sure, Ruby looks way more like a combination of Summer and Qrow than of Summer and Tai (whereas Yang is a clear combination of both her parents, Ruby has literally no Tai in her at all) but whatever, she could take after her mother only.

*cough*

Qrow is the only one who talks about Summer with Ruby, and he's done it more than once. There's love there - for Summer, for Ruby - and I guess we're just supposed to buy that it's just Qrow being a stand-up honorary uncle but I am not buying it.

There's also these lyrics in the song Bad Luck Charm, which is Qrow's song.

Trust one thing, take my advice If you linger close, it's a hefty price You and I are not the same You don't want the burden of my name

It's been proven, again and again, that those character songs aren't just throwaway lyrics. That's something that's been acknowledged by the showrunners as well. Somebody isn't getting the burden of Qrow's name, but who?

Yeah. I think we know who.

Me? I think Summer and Qrow were the ones in love, I think Ruby is the result of that, and I think that the decision was made by Qrow, Tai and Summer that Tai and Summer would raise her because of Qrow's Semblance. And when Summer was gone, Tai continued to raise her, due to their agreement but also because he also loves Ruby as his daughter, not as her honorary uncle.

(I’m not sure about Raven - she canonically knows that Ruby is Summer’s child but she never really gets into Ruby’s father at all. She clearly doesn’t give a shit about Ruby and is happy to let Cinder take a crack at her but as weird as it may seem I don’t think she would actually tell Ruby her father was or wasn’t Tai if she knew. Raven is....well, she’s Raven and she’s morally gray shading into black but she’s not personally malicious, if that makes sense. It probably doesn’t make sense. But it does seem like a Raven way to be. Like...she’s got nothing personally against Ruby so why bother with her at all and that includes talking to her about her parentage. I don’t think it would matter to her if Ruby was her blood or not and if anything Raven holds her cards close to her chest, she basically never gives out any information about anything unless she absolutely has to.)

I've seen people state Qrow being Ruby’s biological father can't be true because it would mean that Tai wasn't really her father and that Yang wasn't really her sister and I call bullshit all over that. If you say that then you are dismissing every single adopted child out there as not being "real" family. Tai is Ruby's father and Yang is her sister regardless of biology.

I do know that the showrunners, from Monty to Miles and Kerry have denied this again and again. Either they really mean it and they've just set up canon in a way that is pretty wobbly and nonsensical and amateurish at best or they are flat out lying in order to avoid spoilers and try to preserve a surprise reveal of Qrow as her father. I don't know. But I will say for the record that if they really mean that Qrow is not her father they've done a pretty poor showing of it in their own canon. And that's all I have to say to that.

#long post #spoilers I guess

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fidelcastrato · 5 years

Text

Saturday Night Dead

A dull roar floods a small, derelict house and about a block of surrounding land all of a sudden, followed shortly by a piercing screech which acts as the conditioned stimulus to roughly 30-40 people between the ages of probably around 15 at the youngest, up to pushing-40, causing a mass salivation in response to the promise of real, proletariat, bullshit-free Punk Fucking Rawk™. Brando Murely himself sits on a cinder block outside the door, just enough out of the way of the crowd distractedly making its way inside, everyone in the middle of a conversation, turning around every few seconds to give their latest opinion on the eternal IHOP v. Waffle House crisis, shouting-match phone calls, drunken wobbling, stoned hobbling, and oh-that-sweet-cocaine's-a-calling. From Brando's arm dangles eazily-breezily a small bucket, perhaps formerly housing some domesticated plant, with the word "DONATIONS" written in sharpie on the side. He is only a few brainwaves away from REM sleep, that sultry temptress.

Avey and Fyo take their sweet time. The openers are about to play, now sound-checking, if you can really call it that (not to be rude, but the opening acts of these kinda shows were more often than not either local upstarts or local failures, and lacked some level of expertise in regards to acoustics, dynamics, levels and such), but they have both just lit a new cigarette. No worries, though; they've been around enough that they know the path straight to the front, if it should turn out that The Ushi Onis were worth front row listening.

Towards the back of the house stood in solidarity the introverts so in love with music, but so out of touch with people, the old farts who didn't really care anymore but still attended out of habit, the few (if extant) devout fans of another band on the line-up who just wanted to get it over with already, and the stray college kid; not any art or philosophy major, no, just some regular Joe (and hilariously enough, one independent study in "Crime and Punkishment", a locally famous zine, reported that 73.7% of these people were actually named Joe) who happened upon this utterly obscene proceeding via a stack of coincidence and misfortune--maybe they were there with some punk ladyfriend from class.

In the middle, by far the largest section, you could find pretty much anybody from anywhere. Regulars who still hear the heartbeat of the scene, newcomers enthusiastic but not enthusiastic enough to put themselves out for judgement if they happened to accidentally nod their heads a bit with the music (mortified.....), and that strange demographic that seemed to place itself starkly in the middle of all the aforementioned alignments; middle-of-the-roaders through and through, to the point where they have risen above the road, and the ideal of the road, and smugly glance at one another and then down to you as if to imply a transcendence which those of us who have ever experienced anything in extreme can never know of.

Front and center, ears blasted to bits and facial muscles entering anaerobic respiration due to excessive smiling, the All-Stars of the scene danced alongside strangers, either naïve or drunk. The frontmen of the most famous local bands, the influencers, both silent and megaphonic, the photographers, the beauties, the hype-builders, the next band, the people who arranged this show in the first place, all of them stood in almost equal amounts of admiration as the performing act themselves. The rich and famous of the DIY; the proletariat bourgeoisie; the broke stock brokers; the soothsayers and the fortune tellers; basically, the people you want to know.

"Hey, let's make a film tomorrow" says Fyo.

"About what?" from Avey.

"Who cares? Let's climb that billboard at the top of the hill. Let's hop on a train and record the city from like, some weird dutch angle, or something. Let's see how many cats can fit in one box."

"We could never find enough cats for that. All of our friends have like two cats at least, including me, and that still wouldn't be close to enough."

"Let's give the camera some 4-aco-dmt and see what happens."

"Easy on the Adderall, bub."

Fyo had a pretty publicly-known problem with stimulants, which he was recently combatting with a burgeoning benzodiazepine habit. Avey's personal dog hair was Kratom. Both of them partook in casual use of just about every recreational substance at this point, always especially eager to try something new. They still more or less had a handle on their sanity, but not without their eccentricities. Both had a deep love for consumption and creation of art, primarily music; between them they owned a veritable arsenal of digital and analog synthesizers, samplers, ancient MIDI keyboards, melodicas, and various novelty instruments collected over the years. Each had their own individual recording endeavors, as well as a joint operation making full use of their combined setup. They had played shows, Fyo more than Avey on account of having played in front of various kinds of audiences since the age of 15, from dull high school jazz band performances to the exact kind of venue they found themselves at tonight--in fact he'd played at this house several times already in the past year. “Holy House”, one of the few legit punk houses remaining in the city after a long string of misfortunes over the past two years lead to some places being shut down, others burning down, some simply forgotten about, living on only in the ink of flyers taped to the walls of just about every DIY art kid in the area--it was kind of like collecting baseball cards. Avey had played a couple of the more fleeting art spots once or twice, but was generally overcome with anxiety at the last minute.

Now three cigarettes in a row have been smoked, throughout yet more overly-anxious stim-fueled artistic brainstorming, both Avey and Fyo silently assuming that tomorrow would in reality consist of the same events as every other Saturday; recovering from the debauchery of the previous night, maybe with a half-hour or so of absent-minded musical improvisation.

The Ushi Onis had completed their set, and from what they heard from outside, it was agreed that their nonsense conversations were about on equal footing with the music, as far as time-wasting went. Not that they were bad, it's just.....it seemed as though they'd heard this same band hundreds of times, despite the fact this was their debut show. It seemed to Fyo, who had been in attendance for, shit, a decade now, that every show more-or-less went the same these days. You could even predict non-music related events. There was the guy who got way too drunk and was basically floating around the crowd, eyes only half-open, flailing around off-rhythm in a disconcertingly unhuman way during particularly intense performances--Fyo himself had been this guy on more occasions than he'd like to admit, as well as more occasions than he could literally remember. There was the creep getting kicked out for being creepy; that was a very strict rule for this scene, "NO CREEPS". You'd see it on basically any given flyer. House shows did tend to attract these creeps, what with the combination of pretty, young, and drug-addicted attributes of many of the female frequenters. Thankfully, Fyo had never been that guy. There was the kind of slapstick situation that occurred immediately after every band played, where the members of the other bands playing that night would come up and say "Hey, great set, what pedals do you use?" and then annoy the shit out of the poor guys just trying to fucking get their drums in the van, only for the same thing to happen to the original complimentary artists. Nobody ever learned their lesson. Nobody ever learned their lesson, forever and ever. This pretty much sums up the stagnation that Fyo has recently come to observe within the scene.

"Hey, I'm done here, if you are. Head back to my place?"

"Right you are."

The four-minute drive back to Fyo's apartment left just enough time to blair at obnoxious volume Avey's favorite song by The Mountain Goats (at least, his favorite song that day--the song changed frequently, but The Goats always remained Mountainous). On the way upstairs, Avey got a text from Tomie: "Beck pulled through. Pool party?"

So Avey said to Fyo; "Beck pulled through. Pool party?"

"Fuckin duh."

Tomie was a close friend as well as ex-girlfriend to both Avey and Fyo. Beck was their communal coke dealer. Fyo was the only person in The Crew whose apartment had a pool, and it was the deep depths of summer, so late night swimming was a common occurrence. Tonight, Tomie had brought Beck along (who surely had more coke, and anyone can see that hanging out with a coke dealer, who definitely had plenty of coke to spare, would certainly turn out to be a fun time--Fyo knew this from experience, as an old friend, Jericho, also happened to be a coke dealer before moving off to.....fuck-knows-where; Fyo wasn't sure WHY they hung out so much exactly, or why Jericho had given him so much free coke in those days; Jericho was gay, but Fyo didn't really feel like he could possibly be desirable enough to warrant such favor, especially with his [back then, at least] very socially awkward mannerisms, even after several lines of really honestly pretty great coke--although, Fyo [himself being hetero, this only now in the narrative needing to be made clear] usually thought the same thing about ladies he spent time with, and surprisingly often was proven wrong) as well as invited Fitch, who invited Les, who invited Beck, who invited Lil, who invited Vick, who invited.....

.....

Noujeff.

"Wait you say WHO the fuck is coming to my apartment???" Fyo demands answers.

"Shit, I'm sorry Fyo. I didn't know Vick was friends with him, don't know why he still is. We'll tell him to fuck off once he gets here, waste some gas at least. But hey.....The Crew here ain't gettin' any younger, so let's fuckin' get to it. Pick a record already."

The Crew was, in no particular order:

Avey, reserved but strong-willed and resilient, and disarmingly cunning; he once got Fyo, his on-and-off-again girlfriend Elise, and himself a free pass to this really exclusive music festival in what can only be described as an "experimental city"--FORM Arcosanti was the name of the festival (the town being just "Arcosanti"), located smack dab in the middle of the deserts of Arizona, where Fyo first glimpsed that now-out-of-reach image, occasionally dreamt or half-remembered, of a lone mountain, in the middle of one of the least forgiving deserts in an entire superpower-nation's worth of land, one of the hottest and driest places around, soaring so high into The Places We Cannot Reach, the great heights, the domain of myth and fiction more than anything, of a mountain seen from the road of a lonely desert which had a peak covered, even here in the frenzied peaks of July, the radioactive horror show burning of July, a peak covered in SNOW. Beautiful, nostalgic (and always nostalgic, for there was no "winter" in Arizona), almost, no yes certainly CLEANSING snow. The rest of the trip only got better. That is all we'll say of it, for now;

Fyo, the one whose thoughts we gain direct access to (to hell with a fourth wall; give me 50, 500, 5,000,000 more walls, and I will break them all), generally responsible, has a dependable job as a pharmacy technician, "almost" a real job, and two major flaws; here we move into

1.) Intense Manic Episodes On a Yearly, Predictable Basis

-----

Every year, in the period of time spanning between around March and June-Mid-July, Fyo would suffer an intense clinical episode of mania; he would become obsessive over ideas so obscure and opaque that he only sounded like a lunatic when describing them, and indulged in drug abuse as if suicidal, and more than once now had indeed proven to be so. Fyo would and did argue, however, that during these periods of admittedly (even by him) questionable ties to reality, his artistic output became noticeably higher in both quantity and quality than what was usually found in his "seasonal depression" (so-called) episodes during the months of October-February. No psychiatrist has yet explained this adequately.

2.) An Unhealthy Obsession With All Forms of Art, As Well As the Definition of Art Itself

-----

From a very young age, Fyo had shown great interest in art, and strangely enough but of course conspicuously naturally, surrealist art in particular. At 12, on a family vacation to Florida for the purposes of the (back then affordable even by the lower-middle-class family, with some planning) relaxation of the beach and the primal thrill of the Great Twin Amusement Parks, he devoted a day to visiting the Salvador Dali museum in St. Petersburg, Florida; a couple years later, the very first band he was in (at 15 years old) was named after Dali's "The Burning Giraffe". Then he gradually caught on to the growing web of obscurities, myths, exaggerations, half-truths, genuine enigmas, and philosophical contradictions that were accepted by some as truth, and saw the art embedded in life; and in the mirror, he saw the reflection of such, and in that he saw things that moved him in ways he was naïve to previously. That's how he got older. That's how he saw that the waking life was just as absurd as the dream. All that mattered was which space he occupied at a given time;

Tomie, as mentioned previously was both a close friend and ex-girlfriend to both Avey and Fyo. Each relationship was separated by such distance (spatially and temporally) that it really didn't matter, everyone had moved on cross-country and it was just nice to have people just fuckin' caring about each other, you know? Tomie was not afraid to bite into you in a very personal way, as long as she knew it would help you. She was a great ally to have in the world, if sometimes blunt; but this bluntness was out of a genuine kindness and invariably proved effective somehow. If you trusted anyone's advice, it was Tomie's;

Fitch, constantly in-and-out of jail for something or other, after so many years the circumstances blurred out a bit. Being eternally and self-admittedly impermanent, he always seemed almost as if acting in repentance to the best of his abilities; but around people like this, hope for repentance was laughable;

Lil, probably the most adult of the group, an ex-girlfriend of Fyo from back in the day, had worked her way to a very well-paying analytics gig. She still found herself hanging around with these wannabe artists and revolutionaries, for whatever reason; she was certainly always welcome, and that gave her a warm, content feeling.....

"Pick a goddamn record" says Lil.

Every time The Crew got together for some midnight coke-fueled swimming, someone got to ceremoniously choose a record from Fyo's collection, off of which the cover of the cocaine would be inhaled. It was Fyo's night. He was having trouble deciding. The record that was chosen would also be played on the record player while the lines were being drawn and erased; the lines themselves were on the sleeve, the small but not ignorable visual component of the LP. He looked through his stack; Joyce Manor (played a show with them before they became big--frontman was kind of an asshole. No.), The Antlers (far too sad for shamelessly inhaled thrills), Talking Heads (no, we'll just end up putting "Once In a Lifetime" on repeat), no, no, no, no.....LCD Soundsystem? Hm. Yeah, this one. Sound of Silver, talk to me.

"Fuckin' finally. Okay let's get this train wreck a-rollin'."

Greed filled the eyes of everyone in the room. Along with record-choosing duties came the first line of the night. Fyo lays down one FAT fucking line, finely crushed almost down to the individual molecule it seemed, grabs the closest straw, leans over and looks down at the snowy mountain range here in the middle of the silver desert, and unflatteringly snorts with all his might, and feels each crystal immediately begin its own personal attack on his neurotransmitters, leans back to make sure everything falls into the mucous membrane, nothing wasted, except for Fyo himself, and steps back to fall comically onto the couch, a smile of contentment and even relief overtaking his facial expression as Nancy Whang chants "You can normalize. Don't it make you feel alive?"

This. This is the life.

#fiction #short story #drugs #punk #punk rock #diy #metamodern #metaphysical #arkansas #little rock #lcd soundsystem #surrealism #salvador dali #addiction

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