#cannot overstate how huge this video was for me

[pensherosjourney]

colorado's #1 sweetheart!! 🥰

[alicedrawslesmis]

(sorry this is from a week ago but) Wait, what's going on right now that's complicated with Amazonian farmers' land rights?

Not farmers, indigenous people

See, recently they put a new law through congress that severely reduces indigenous land to the borders established during the late dictatorship, or immediately post-dictatorship, in 1988. An absolute joke of a border that was dreamed up by some military assholes. People in america may recognize this type of society from the times of westward expansion and think this is a thing of the past because for you guys it is. But here it is a reality. Murder is rampant. The reach of the law is incredibly limited. Government is just too weak and landowners basically run things. THAT'S WHY it's so important to donate directly to the native peoples instead of random NGOs because native people are fucking there and the more power they hold in the land the safer the land will be from agroindustrial expansion.

Well the law was vetoed by the the president and the Supremo Tribunal Federal, aka supreme federal court, labeled it as unconstitutional. Which it is, because our 1988 constitution describes native american land rights in some of its first articles. We thought this would be it for the law

But then the senate (that already overrepresents landowners in rural states) just went along and approved it anyway. I had no idea they could approve something unconstitutional. The progressives and particularly the socialists are fighting this in court. But it happens that for now the legal border is the severely reduced version.

Doesn't mean they'll just give up, because as it happens we don't have any stand your ground laws so even if you own a piece of land, you cannot legally speaking just shoot everyone there. Or attack or threaten them in any way. They'll just have long legal battles individually for the rights to occupy land based on use. Also the Xingu national park, the largest preserved land of the Amazon described as 'larger than Belgium', is being encroached by huge farms that are poisoning their water supply. The border is Visible. I'll try to find video of it but essentially you have a forest and a desert separated by a strict line.

Just last week in the south of Bahia (not the Amazon, let me explain more about the Amazon situation in a bit) Hãhãhãe leadership Nega Muniz Pataxó was shot and killed by an armed militia group that invaded and occupied the Caramuru territory.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by SOMOS PATAXÓ HÃHÃHÃE (@somoshahahai)

The situation in the Amazon, specifically the yanomami territory in Roraima our northernmost state, aka deep forest, is more dire than average given difficulty of access, sheer size, and government abandonment. It's a place that depends on government aid for medicine. It's land that is being systematically invaded by gold miners, pandemic, toxins from nearby farmlands, wood extraction etc. (wood extration is rampant everywhere tho). Early 2023 saw a massive federal government operation by now president Lula to empty the mines and try to look for where funding comes from. Yanomami land is still being invaded to this day, the struggle is ongoing.

The yanomamis need support right now more than any other. Last year saw a massive heat wave that (well, one, caused a girl named Ana Clara Machado to die during the Taylor Swift concert. This is unrelated but I feel like not enough foreign media covered this, Taylor even lied about it as well.) dried up a lot of rivers, killed a LOT of fresh water animals including an unprecedented amount of pink dolphins. Access that was already hard became damn near impossible without boats. I cannot overstate how many pink dolphins were found dead.

Another technique that landowners use to clear space for farms is to just set things on fire and then occupy the empty land, which they legally can do to land that was naturally burned in a forest fire. It happened that Pantanal, another national park of swampland, was massively devastated by fires last year too

this article is from 2020, the year that the worst fire happened, but in 2023 there was another one. It's been happening yearly now due to a) deliberate action and b) climate change aggravation.

And this is not nearly all. Just off the top of my head. If you speak portuguese I recommend following the APIB or the COIAB on instagram to keep up with the news. The FUNAI is the government branch of indigenous organization, but it's not generally that well liked. Still.

[tomorrowusa]

« Russia’s war economy is heading toward an impasse. Signs that the official data masks severe economic strains brought on by both war and sanctions have become increasingly apparent. No matter how many workers it tries to shift to the defense industry, the Kremlin cannot expand production fast enough to replace weapons at the rate they are being lost on the battlefield. Already, about around half of all artillery shells used by Russia in Ukraine are from North Korean stocks. At some point in the second half of 2025, Russia will face severe shortages in several categories of weapons.

Perhaps foremost among Russia’s arms bottlenecks is its inability to replace large-caliber cannons. According to open-source researchers using video documentation, Russia has been losing more than 100 tanks and roughly 220 artillery pieces per month on average. Producing tank and artillery barrels requires rotary forges—massive pieces of engineering weighing 20 to 30 tons each—that can each produce only about 10 barrels a month. Russia only possesses two such forges.

In other words, Russia is losing around 320 tank and artillery cannon barrels a month and producing only 20. The Russian engineering industry lacks the skills to build rotary forges; in fact, the world market is dominated by a single Austrian company, GFM. Russia is unlikely to acquire more forges and increase its production rate, and neither North Korea nor Iran have significant stockpiles of suitable replacement barrels. »

— Prof. Marc R. DeVore of St. Andrews’s School of International Relations in Scotland & Prof. Alexander Mertens of National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. At Foreign Policy (archived).

Russia's military strength is almost always overstated. Close to none of the pundits expected Ukraine to be in existence long after Putin's invasion. Yet the Ukrainians were able to hold off the world's so called "second strongest military power" with just shoulder-fired missiles, innovative technology, and Ukrainian tenacity. The large stocks of new weapons only began to trickle in from the West weeks after Ukraine had already stabilized the fronts and even kicked Russia out of the north.

Russia is forced to buy ammunition from North Korea – a third-rate power run by a nutcake tyrant. It even has to import North Korean troops to protect Russian territory.

Russia's economy has experienced a temporary boom because of massive military spending. But when the war ends, that spending will drop and recession will set in.

And don't get me started on Russia's demographic issues.

All Putin can do is bluster about nukes. But even a delusional sociopath like him knows that if Russia is the first to use nukes, it won't be the last.

So let's not worry inordinately about Russia's reaction to Ukraine defending itself. It's a bigger worry for the West in the long run if Putin is given free rein in Europe.

And even all of its nukes can't keep inflation from surging in Russia due to Putin's war.

Chronic inflation hits Russia as huge pay increases fuel rising prices

The Russian Ruble is now worth less than 1¢ US.

Russian central bank intervenes as ruble tumbles past 110 to the U.S. dollar

[nerice]

sote thoughts roundup since we are close 2 the end. i have accepted that video game is still too challenge for my rsi so i'm watching my partner speedrun instead. spoilers for up till first(?) boss at the top of enir ilim and entire map unlocked though not all regions fully explored yet, only just got 2 the abyss too,,

good stuff first. messmer HOT good fucking lord knows i cannot pass up a chara who pulls out his own eyeball PLUS serpent content >:3 his moveset is incredibly fun and i hate to admit it but more engaging as a fight than malenia who has a little too much downtime if you keep distance to bait out waterfowl dance. my favourite npc is jolan in the manus metyr church I CANNOT OVERSTATE how quick i barked when we found her. quickly followed by rellana bc good lord that fight slapped. the music for the dlc is soooo goddamn good in vanilla ring the only memorable track 2 me was malenia's tbh but rellana and the lion dancer fight both had absolute hits running in the bg. also the addition of light great swords??? inbefore i stopped i ended up fully upgrading the milady sword nd putting flower blooms twice on it bc Ofc im that bitch w the scarlet rot build so nice baby dmgs.

lukewarm on the scarlet rot lore we got in sote bc none of it connects rly back to the much more interesting beats in the main game. bad hrs for malenia copium keepers like me though maybe miq will drop a line abt her. ON THE NOTE OF THAT. summoning radahn huh. his loyal blade huh. im hoping that since we also got a mention of mohg's body gone missing this will just be a fkcin "miquella's fake champions" gauntlet where he has charmed all of them into thinking they're his consort, going radahn>mohg>godwyn ideally bc the alternative is the Miquella Griffith Route wherein he did use everyone to his end including malenia in which case the dlc is dead to me. charming the merry band of npcs who did indeed all fucking die is one thing (and leda talks abt the charm even before it is broken) so i don't fully consider it betrayal since they seemed aware of it? also speaking of disappointment. WHY. is the "those stripped of the grace of gold shall all meet death in the embrace of messmer's flame" line such a downgrade from the trailer version??? genuinely upset they just used a completely different take or sped it up a little since u hear it everytime he kicks ur ass but cmon. it was way more edgelord dramatic in the trailer im >:/ also taking the L on blue dancer lore which i also blame on the way the trailer made it look like the dancer was a common enemy instead of a mausoleum ghost miniboss. they did that w all the mausoleum enemies for the gameplay trailer which i understand for aesthetic reasons but it still was such a huge red herring :// oh well.

final notes bc we only just unlocked the abyss. torrent lore (since he refuses to be called) and melina lore seems vry much to be back on the table with the madness area!! esp since messmer's remembrance pretty much confirmed she's his younger sister nd they both have kindling flame stuff going on :> what's up w that <3

[themainspoon]

Thinking about the misery that is Silent Hill: Ascension again. And also consequentially thinking about how fucked up it is that gamers aren’t all staunch anti-capitalists again.

Like, I love video games, and I agree with people who say that they can be art (I may go a little harder on that belief than most, thinking that games should therefore be criticised as art, and that since games are art they therefore don’t always need to be fun or enjoyable to be good. [yes, I’m one of those people]). But if video games are art, than what is true for all other art is also true for video games, in that capitalism is bad for them.

If video games are art, than the Silent Hill franchise deserves so much better. Silent Hill has a huge legacy within the medium, Silent Hill 2 alone is a major source or inspiration for many later works, and a work that had cultural impact much greater than any capitalistic metric focused on sales or profits could ever show.

PT wasn’t even a full game, it was a teaser, and yet it was revolutionary. PT was a trendsetter and a trailblazer that stood as a powerful demonstration of the potential that video games as a medium had for horror as a genre, and for evoking powerful emotional experiences. It is a work that should have been preserved, archived for it’s immense cultural impact, made easily available for everybody who wanted to experience it. And yet, it now exists only on a few old PS4’s that are slowly deteriorating and that are inaccessible to the general public. The only way to get this game now is through piracy and jailbreaking a PS4. If video games are art, than a work as influential and important as PT being inaccessible is unacceptable.

If you truly believe that video games are art, than the current state of the medium should horrify you. No other artistic medium gets so cynically and consistently desecrated as video games do. We may think of this medium as one with immense artistic potential and value, but those who run the industry continue to show that they don’t. Witness what they have done to what was once one of the most important horror properties in the entire medium, it is not just bad and embarrassing, it is symbolic of how those in control of the medium view it. To shareholders and CEO’s, video games are not art, they are content to be cynically produced and consumed, not appreciated. To make money, and nothing else, Silent Hill: Ascension is merely an extremely egregious example of this fact.

As many before me have said, fuck Konami. But if we love this medium, than we have to realise that Konami isn’t the real issue. The real issue is that we live in a system that is actively hostile to art, and a medium as young as video games, and that requires as much effort to create as video games do, is one that is uniquely susceptible to the worst of what art becomes under capitalism. Artistic vision stifled for the sake if profit, bland and inoffensive taking precedence over bold and expressive, profit over creativity, consumerism over preservation and archiving.

Developers, the artists and creatives behind games, are treated horribly. We’ve all read the stories of inhumane crunch conditions and inexcusably cruel abuse that come out of big studios. We all have at least a vague understanding of just how hard being an indie developer is, we’ve all seen the good but flawed games released by double A teams who had to choose between releasing an unfinished game or watching their offices power get shut off. And we’ve watched as more triple A games get released in buggy, unoptimised, and incomplete states because greedy shareholders and corporate entities demanded their profits asap, with no concern for the quality of what was actually being released.

This is by no means a new or uncommon take, but the fact that every issue video games face as a medium, almost every valid complaint that the people who play them make, is unambiguously the result of capitalism cannot be overstated. And it really does beg the question, how do gamers not all become staunch anti-capitalists after seeing the effect this economic system has in their favourite artistic medium?

[snugglyporos]

What amazes me in so many of the comments is that so many people simply don't understand why the change was so radical and why it was such a hit. Let's create a timeline!

Dragon Quest 1 came out in 1986. Final Fantasy 1 came out in 1987. I bring this up because D&D First Edition came out in 1974. For those curious, my parents were 13. As a side note, the animated Lord Of the Rings came out in 1978. We should also mention that the basis of what would become 'the rpg format' that is western fantasy was, by 1986, thoroughly established setting wise. 'The Last Unicorn' was written in 1968, 'Lord of the Rings' was finished in 1949, and Conan the Barbarian's books were written in the 1950s.

Now, by the time of Dragon Quest 1, the tone of most fantasy settings was established; all of the works I listed all share a similar tone and vibe, save for Dragon Quest. The 60s brought huge interest in the fantasy genre, the 1970s saw this continue with the dark tone of Lord of the Rings and Dungeons and Dragons. Final Fantasy 1 got sued because they named their giant eye monster a beholder, which was copyrighted.

Dragon Quest, by being cute and cartoony, was fundamentally different from everything else out there. It was unique. It was novel. It stood out. Remember, there are hundreds of fantasy settings around this time that take the standard medieval fantasy approach. You want swords and sorcery, there are lots of options. Dragon Quest stood out by having a unique design and memorable look. RPGs were a popular genre at the time; they weren't hugely difficult to program and you got lots of hours out of them. And in that saturated market, Dragon Quest's vibe and design set it apart.

Literally, the original design looks straight out of D&D, because it probably was, because most fantasy by that point looked like the original design.

The simple act of, well, simplifying the design and making it cute literally made the franchise.

In some ways, this change mimics the cultural rise of kawaii in the wider Japanese culture, which in the 1970s exploded as a way of writing in schools, mostly by girls. It was such a cultural thing, for women to write in big, cutesy writing, that it was banned in schools. In the 1980s, the people who had been in school in the 1970s took that culture and brought it to animation and magazines, especially advertising. To know just how everywhere it was, Kazuma Yamane was a dude who dedicated two years to studying handwriting culture, and dubbed this writing phenomenon "Anomalous Female Teenage Handwriting." The years he did this? 1984 to 1986. Guess what came out in 1986? Dragon Quest!

I bring this up because Kazuma Yamane found that kids weren't picking up the style from others, they had come up with it themselves. It was a trend. It was underground style.

And Dragon Quest was, at the time, hitting that same trend. In other words, the reason the slimes look like that is because the artist literally rode a popular teenage trend while also separating himself from the rest of the fantasy stuff at that time.

As for why they kept it? Aside from the popularity, D&D 2nd Edition was about to release in 1989, and in the early 90s there would be government investigations in the US about video game violence. Dragon Quest, by being so obviously cute and non-threatening, avoided the struggles of some of its competitors.

It cannot be overstated that this design idea created this franchise and steered it towards decades of financial success.

reminder

[theclashmark2]

19th January 1984 - Santa Barbara (California), USA 🇺🇸

No Recording

‘Hip Hoppers, Punk Rockers, Young Ladies, Flat Toppers…and now for you we have; The Clash!’

What’s all this about then?

If Don Letts’ otherwise fantastic 1999 documentary on the band is to be believed, The Clash imploded at the height of their ascendency in the immediate aftermath of the US Festival. A band torn asunder at the peak of their commercial powers.

Has such a hilarious, almost Stalinist attempt at a revision of history been carried out with any other band? Sure, you see this sometimes with long-running film series, but just because you write a new Halloween sequel where Laurie Strode isn’t Michael Myers’s sister, it doesn’t stop the previous movies existing. Media doesn’t just wink out of existence no matter hard you wish for it.

And what is Cut The Crap if not the Halloween 5 of the Clash’s back catalogue - except instead of poor Donald Pleasance being reduced to yelling at a small child to reveal their psychic visions, you have Joe Strummer trapped inside an aural vortex of squelching synths, radio chatter and knuckle-dragging gang vocals. We’d like to save them from their fate, spare them the indignity and return them to their former glory, but life just isn’t fair.

So the Clash camp begrudgingly began to acknowledge that something did indeed happen after the band departed that San Bernardino stage in a flurry of fists and bad feeling. A 2003 compilation was closed out with one track from the post-Jones/Headon era, the Singles box set that followed a few years later went one step further and faithfully recreated the This Is England single in the same fashion as the other ‘approved’ material.

Even so, the message was clear. This Is England = Good. The Rest = Here be Demons, avoid.

And that may be partially true. ‘Aural Vortex’ is not a phrase I would generally attribute to too many musical triumphs. And yet, here’s the secret - The Clash Mk.II were on many occasions a thrilling live band and there’s surely an alternate universe where fate, luck and one Bernard Rhodes took a different path, they fulfilled their undoubted potential and went on to rule the 80s.

This blog will therefore aim to redress the balance somewhat. We know it wasn’t a happy ending, but we can still celebrate what it was and what might have been. And yes, it wasn’t all smooth sailing or the best version of the band that ever took to the stage, or even the coolest (god help me, I’m going to have to watch that video of Paul Simonon breakdancing again, aren’t I?). But if you can listen to them absolutely laying waste to a hostile audience at the Glasgow Barrowlands and not feel your adrenaline pumping then I’m confiscating your rock ‘n’ roll passport, no exceptions.

With that in mind, in this series you can expect every Clash recorded performance from 1984 onwards to be reviewed, catalogued and critiqued. And on the nights where there wasn’t a taper present, various musings on all things Clash Mk. II. Who knows how long this will take but it’ll be more fun than driving a great big car up the boulevard, that’s for sure.

No dice on a recording of the new incarnation’s debut in Santa Barbara in January of ‘84 so a small piece of housekeeping before I finish. This project is hugely indebted to those who run and contribute to the Black Market Clash website and IMCT boards. I’m standing on the shoulders of years of commitment and work by passionate Clash fans around the world, and the usefulness of these sites as a resource for this project cannot be overstated.

See you next time when we join Joe, Paul, Nick, Vince and Pete on stage in San Francisco. No-one better defile the memory of Mick Jones by awkwardly covering Should I Stay Or Should I Go or there’ll be hell to pay…

[whysojiminimnida]

Hi, I'm a new army and my favorite duo is Jikook. They caught my attention immediately so I've decided to go back and watch their previous moments. Watching their 2016 dynamic, I noticed they were different, very active that it surprised me. They were always posting selcas (together or of each other), posting videos, commenting on each other posts, making posts related to the other, doing vlives together. It's true that the flirting, compliments, closeness, gentleness and care still exist, that's what made me love them, but why do you think this open interaction in social media changed?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t0LRazPwO8

Your link, anon:

I'm gonna preface this by asking you a couple things :) Have you ever been in a long term committed relationship? (More than 3 years)? If so, did that relationship remain static over time or did it mature and change as you and your partner did?

In 2016 Jungkook was 18, turned 19 in September. Jimin was 20 and turned 21 in October. Both guys had been living together, with the rest of BTS, for over three years - since they were essentially a Western ninth-grader and eleventh-grader, respectively. They were high school kids, basically, who acted appropriately for their ages.

They also weren't on the radar of the entire world. They were popular, and getting moreso. They were working much more than a full-time job schedule. Everything they did was on camera, for the most part, and they were still learning to live with growing up in front of that visibility - but the massive arena tours weren't happening just yet. They were still very able to hide in the open, knowing that "skinship" could often be a great cover for what was really happening.

We got GCF in 2017-2019. We did used to get selfies a lot but then the antis, solos and TKKers ruined literally everything with their Jimin hate (PS, thanks Bxxx you hateful bitch you can sit on Twitter and fake respectability but I see your for-profit cult "analysis" videos that villainize Jimin and treat Jungkook like a self-insert Y/N fanfiction victim)

Fast-forward to 2020 - 2022 era Jeon-Parks. There is no less love or affection but there have been some burns, some rough patches, some erosion of the sharp corners and steep cliffs of overwhelming passion. I see it as a maturing but also a recognition that literally everything they do is now seen under the unforgiving flourescent lens of Western culture, where gay looks gay and is called gay and you are either out or someone will out you, eventually.

It's one thing to be an open secret at home where people KNOW but they don't TALK ABOUT SUCH THINGS. It's a whole other animal to be visible in a culture where people talk about everything and don't understand why that might not be safe or okay for you. The social media intrusion has been HUGE and they have handled it sometimes well, sometimes awkwardly, but they're still young men in their mid-20s. They're DOING THEIR BEST OKAY.

There's also the looming possibility of military service. I cannot overstate to you how major this is for them. Being gay is not a crime in Korea but having gay sex while you're in your mandatory two years of military service IS A CRIME and is punishable BY JAIL TIME. Better to stay in the closet at least until that question is handled for certain. WHICH brings me to my current theory, kids, WANNA HEAR IT?? OF COURSE YOU DO LET'S GET THIS BREAD LET'S GOOOOO HIT ME UP IN MY NEXT POST ANYWAY

I don't think we've been lacking in Jeon-Park Household Content, though, anon. Just because the media has shifted doesn't mean we're getting less. If anything, do you a Google image search for "jikook 2021" and OMG. THE TREASURE TROVE.

(collage credit twitter user @ kmgoogiemin) It's there. The Jeon-Parks haven't changed, fundamentally. They've just evolved. Grown up a bit. Learned a lot. Did a little stamp collecting. That's all.

[renmorris]

there’s so much I can say about twin peaks, it’s dear to me and once you become familiar with it you can see the dialogue that Elysium is holding with it (particularly in Sacred and Terrible Air, which yes is an edgy Scandinavian neo noir but is also written with Laura Palmer's ghost presiding over its totality)

Its DNA exists in just about every modern detective fiction, every prestigious tv show. Its impact on video games as a medium is also huge, as it was extremely popular in Japan and it just. It cannot be overstated just how much impact this show had on modern storytelling.

the second season gets rough, the studio execs meddled and as a result Lynch left and the remaining writers had seasons of ongoing development shoved in the trash. but the ending is legendary. the movie is a masterpiece. and the third season was a dream come true. the books are delicious, painful and lovingly written with an almost self indulgent zeal to explore the characters and world building in a tighter medium

there’s a lot of shoddy twin peaks knock offs that give twin peaks a bad name, a lot of shallow takes from an audience that still refuses to identify with Laura Palmer but nothing beats twin peaks, it’s not a perfect show but is thee show

and like of interest to disco fans, the other co creator Mark Frost is one of founders of the 'police procedural with ongoing interpersonal drama plots' genre. which makes him beating the genre to death with his twin peaks involvement all the more satisfying and fascinating. this is a rare case where the creators of the thing you like became more leftist once they got older. David Lynch, beloved arthouse director who has never once answered a question straightforwardly or explained his art looks into the camera in s3 and tells transmisogynists to die.

fire is so many things in twin peaks, it’s also a destructive byproduct of the evil that men do (tm) it’s tied to imperialism and western expansion when the town's two lumber mills get in a pissing competition and deforest ghostwood so heavily that the log flows jam the river, until a storm struck fire and the whole river burned for seven days and seven nights

[cononeillbreastingboobily]

There's so much to be said about how huge corporations are destroying the media we consume, turning it into brainless mush designed to be binged in one sitting, so that by the end we don't know whether we really liked it or not.

But one of the things that worries me a lot is how it affects the preserving of culture. From the standpoint of actual archiving.

Let's say this: you want to watch an old film. You search and "oh, it's on this and this streaming site :)". Same with shows, if you're lucky to find them.

But we rely way too much on streaming sites already. I saw a post lately about the archiving of queer media (for the life of me I cannot find it, forgive me) and I think now that holy shit, that's it.

We need to be able to preserve traces of our culture, all of them. Not just books, not just movies and tv shows. Video games, board games, zines, all of it, we need all. Of. It. We need to be able to make our culture accessible for generations to come, past the rules of censorship and past individual decisions of a handful of people. We need to keep all of it alive outside of the slimy embrace of companies who care only to gain money and data from us.

I don't know how to do all of that. All I know is that it needs to be done. Being a creator myself I know how important it is whenever somebody interacts with the things I made. And if somebody a hundred years from now watches a forgotten, extremely-low-budget slasher film made by a bunch of college students, and thinks "oh my god that's awesome!", or just "ew", it's amazing either way.

Because culture, art, is made to be interacted with. Even if you create for yourself or your friends and literally nobody else has ever experienced the things you create, you still created. You still made something where there was nothing. You still made something worth preserving.

And I cannot overstate how important it is that we don't hand over our right to create freely. If we make only the things allowed by advertisers, if we adhere to the rules put in place by people who don't even know us and don't care about us... What will become of us? What will become of our creativity? Our art?

We need to let our creations be what they are. No sugar-coating, no beautifying. We need to let it stay raw and incredible and gross and amazing. And we needn't let our creations be forgotten. Corporations aren't our friends, and neither are streaming sites. If we let ourselves forget that, soon we will lose beyond saving things that should've been there for the next generations.

[candyradium]

I just. I'm gonna miss him. A lot.

Technoblade had a huge impact on my life. He was the person that got me interested in the Dream SMP, and by extension, back into MCYT in general. His videos have long been a comfort to watch and entertaining in the darkest of times. When I was going through an incredibly difficult period of time (and still very much am), he gave me something to care deeply about, something that made me laugh and cry and get passionate about and connect to so so many new people over. And I cannot overstate how important that was to me. How important it still is to me.

Nothing I can write down will ever truly describe how incredible he was and how much he meant to me, let alone to the millions more that he had an impact on. My heart goes out to his family and those that knew him personally.

Rest in peace, Technoblade. Thank you for everything you've done for me and for so many others. I'll never forget you.

[rainbowsky]

Hi! I saw that you mentioned that the bts of them (them being dd and gg) play-fighting and handling each other aren't even the most exciting ones, and now I'm curious! What are your favourite bts moments? or the most telling? Would you mind sharing with us? Thank you <3

Anonymous 2 said:

in response to what you said about the nie ancestral tomb bts not being as major as people make it out to be , what are your fav bts moments ? or any bts moments that really made you think wow they’re really together? for me it’s the 4 men weibo chat

This is in reference to a previous post.

I’ve talked about this before but I might as well update that list. Here are some of my faves.

9 minutes of bickering on a boat - Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, can compare to simply watching these two interact and chat. They are entertaining as hell. I think it’s a ridiculous, insane shame that they haven’t been given a regular variety show together. Money to be made!! These guys are good for TV.

Everything GG did to make DD’s birthday special - I get choked up just thinking about DD being bullied online, GG being there to cheer him up and look out for him. There are many bts videos about this, some of the best ones come from that time.

GG singing Sam Smith Lay Me Down to DD - I cannot possibly overstate how much I love this bts. Everything about it was 💋👌. More on that here.

The chocolate bar hug

GG in the rain with mud on his face, DD reaching out to wipe it off, those soft GG eyes

The entire makeup room saga

Flirty GG kabedon - how is DD still sane?

GG and DD singing Nanhai and Kepler to each other  

GG chasing DD with a caterpillar while the rest of the staff scramble to get out of their way

DD complaining water leaked into his boots while GG is standing waist-deep in the pond, about to submerge his entire body and face (and having to do a second take)

GG and DD’s innuendo-laced banter in the cave, GG making a certain gesture at DD

I wouldn’t ban you (it’s always been a huge favorite of mine, I can’t fail to mention it)

I don’t even think that’s the half of it. There are a lot of really good clips, probably a ton I am forgetting about. Most of them were released as part of the official bts, so easy to find on YouTube.

Every one of these is infinitely more exciting than the Nie tomb one. That one is so underwhelming, I don’t understand the hype about it. I mean, we’ve seen GG and DD make overtly sexual gestures to each other in the bts and people get worked up about a bit of play wrestling?

[ohayohimawari]

On Tumblr-ing

I used the most recent Self-promotion Sunday to experiment with sharing my works on Tumblr. As everyone knows, this site is difficult to get a handle on.

Is it worth it to play nice with this site, so my posts show up in tags?

That’s the question that I wanted the answer to and why I chose to fill my queue with all of my original works for one day but posted them in a way that I hadn’t before. I’m not an expert on Tumblr, but I’ll share what I’ve learned from it. However, my observations aren’t going to be helpful to all.

The situation: I create fanfics and podfics. I don’t typically create for popular ships or tropes. I fall in the category of content creators that are no longer new but aren’t battle-hardened fandom veterans.

If any/all of the above applies to you, and you’ve experienced frustration with having your work ‘seen’ on Tumblr, and you’d rather read about someone else’s experiment with this site than do one yourself, keep reading.

First, realistically consider what content you share and how it appears to someone scrolling through the site. For example: sharing fanfic and sharing fanart on Tumblr are two totally different beasts. I cannot overstate the importance of this fact. Be fair to yourself and don’t compare your stats as a writer to those of an artist.

Another thing to remember about sharing your written works to Tumblr is that you’re asking someone to click a link to view/read it. It doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it is.

Imagine a member of your target audience laying in bed in the morning, waiting for the need for breakfast or coffee to be great enough to coax them out from under their blankets. In the meantime, they’re scrolling down their dash (and what appears is dependent upon how they filter posts, but that’s a whole other box I’m not going to unpack here). They’re laughing at memes, getting riled up over politics or social issues, gasping at celebrity controversies, wishing for the days before Tumblr purged the naughty stuff, cute baby animal videos, etc. It’s so easy for a text post to get lost in all of that. It’s too easy for a text post to be overlooked in all of that.

It’s important for posts to show up in tags because sometimes, people don’t just scroll through their dash. Sometimes, they search tags for something specific, and when they find it, they’re more inclined to click on that link to check out your stuff.

I’m going to reel it back to myself and explain why I played with posts and tags. I run a fandom server, and I see folks (mostly new to fandom) who feel bad because their works don’t get many notes on Tumblr. During my first year in fandom, I felt invisible, and it was awful. I want to give advice and encouragement, so I experimented with making my posts visible in tags to see what kind of difference it would make, or not make. I’m going to be the first to say that if I created for popular ships, or popular tropes, or a hot and thriving new fandom, or were a BNF, I probably would’ve seen a huge difference. While what I experienced wasn’t an immediate tidal wave of new admirers of my work, I see how this could increase my readers and listeners over time.

Tumblr, in its infinite wisdom (???), hides posts that have linked works within them. So how do you share a link to your work and have it show up in tags? AO3 has a handy ‘share’ button at the top of your individual works (if you don’t see the magical ‘share’ button, check your account settings to confirm that it’s on). You can share your work directly to Tumblr or Twitter (an even worse site for promoting fanfic) and add bells and whistles to the post, and customize it with what tags you think should be assigned to it.

When it comes to tagging, start with the biggest first, and put the most important in the first five tags. For example: Fandom, pairing, characters, and genre tags should be listed first. Do create a unique tag for yourself to tack on at the end (more on this later). Don’t add tags for popular characters, genres, pairings, etc., that don’t appear in your work.

For the purpose of my experiment, I didn’t add any snazzy images or gifs to my posts. I simply shared the post from AO3 and added tags. I shared all different pairings, genres, and content of various ratings. They appeared utterly unremarkable to me. They were boring, and exactly like something that I, myself, would scroll past. However, I did it that way because the more you add to a post, the more you risk using a word or image that Tumblr doesn’t like. And if it doesn’t like it, your post simply won’t show up in tags. Then you’re left with dissecting your post and editing editing editing until you figure out which word or image was the offender.

At the end of the experiment, I had to conclude that I receive more immediate activity on posts that I draft on this site that include links to my work, even though those don’t show up in tags. I’m going to assume that’s because those original posts are more attractive. However, most of the slight interaction that I saw with my experimental posts were from new-to-me Tumblr users, and I earned some new followers from it. The fact that those posts now reside in tags means that I can expect more of that in small doses, in the future.

Will this change how I post new works going forward? Yes. Typically, I draft an original post linking my work, then reblog it for my followers in different time zones. Now, I’ll share that same work from AO3 in a new original post instead of reblogging the initial one. But I’m going to try to make them look more interesting, and hope they still show up in tags.

I learned from this, but I want to stress something to content creators who feel invisible and get down on themselves for it. There are a million reasons why posts don’t get traction on Tumblr, and they are not because people don’t like your work. Basing your work’s worth on statistics is incredibly unfair to yourself. However difficult that is to ignore, don’t do that to yourselves.

I once shared something that I was proud of writing. Then, I cried for three days straight and ate my entire ice cream supply because it received fewer hits than I have fingers, never mind kudos or comments. Then I realized that I shared it on the same night as the GoT finale. Facepalm.

The joy that comes from creating something new is (or should be) the reason you do it. Congratulate yourself on being so incredibly clever to come up with your work and brave enough to share it on the wilds of the internet where it will remain for someone to find and love. And when your gem of a work is found, make sure you’ve added a unique tag that is all your own to it, so that others can search that tag and binge on all the beauty you’ve made.

[sheliesshattered]

This Isn’t A Ghost Story extras for Chapter 7: The Museum

The penultimate chapter of This Isn’t A Ghost Story has been posted! It’s here on Tumblr and here on AO3. Lots of pictures, explanations, and a few spoilers below the cut. The extras follow the flow of the chapter, so it’s safe to follow along with this post as you read, if you like. 

Chapter 7 is named for and takes place in the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo. This is the same location where Clara and the Doctor first met in 1921, as detailed in the journal entries in chapter 3 and some of Clara’s recovered memories in chapter 4. The museum was originally built in 1901, and besides a few modernizing improvements over the years, it hasn’t changed much since then. Here’s a postcard depicting the museum while it was being built:

And the museum as it appears today in modern Cairo:

The interior of the museum hasn’t changed much either, and a few of the larger artifacts haven’t even been moved since they were originally put in place for the opening in 1902.

Here’s a short walk-through video of both the entrance and the interior of the museum, showing what it looked like in 2017. The new Grand Egyptian Museum was supposed to open in the spring of 2020, but has been pushed back to at least 2021 because of the Covid-19 pandemic. For Ghost Story I decided to skip right over 2020 and assume that by May 2021, the original Cairo Museum will still be open to the public, whether or not GEM has finally opened.

Clara asks the Doctor if he remembers what she wore to that black-tie party in 1921, and I have to imagine it was something like her dress from Mummy On The Orient Express:

This amazing dress from 1925 is also a strong contender.

While the Cairo Museum doesn’t have a reproduction of the tomb of Thutmose III like I described in this chapter (and, in fact, until the new museum opens, the Cairo Museum is far too crowded with artifacts to be able to devote an entire room to Thutmose III), that specific burial chamber has been recreated at a museum in England, with stunning attention to detail:

Comparing it to the original tomb in the Valley of the Kings, you can see how accurately they’ve reproduced it: 

Clara comments on the star ceiling, photographed in the original tomb here:

Which, as the Doctor notes, is a common feature in a lot of 18th dynasty and other New Kingdom architecture, and in This Isn’t A Ghost Story connects directly with Clara’s star sapphire wedding ring:

Those of you who have followed me here on Tumblr the last few months may have heard me yell about the tomb of Thutmose III before, and in particular the art depicting the Amduat aka The Twelve Hours of the Night. What Clara describes as “stylised stick figures” is in fact what the walls of the burial chamber are absolutely covered in, and I cannot overstate my love for it. I mean:

I love this art style, possibly more than anything else in all of ancient Egyptian art. I love how stylized and timeless it is, I love that it’s used to tell a complex story that is part of an even more complex funerary tradition. I love the sweeping lines and tiny bits of shading, I love the little upturned toes of their shoes and the tiniest hint of hand shapes. I love their skinny little arms and skinny little legs, oh my god. The fact that this is a real 3500 year old work of art constantly boggles my mind.

The reproduction of the tomb of Thutmose III at Bolton’s museum in England also has a short video that retells the story of the Amduat in gorgeous stylized animation, following the recently deceased pharaoh as he joins Ra on his journey through the underworld to rebirth, if you would like a more complete idea of what the wall art is depicting. 

The Twelve Hours of the Night poem Clara quotes is credited to the poet William Ashbless, the less about whom is said the better. But if your curiosity compels you (and I certainly hope it does), I do highly recommend Tim Powers’ excellent novel The Anubis Gates. Tim Powers is possibly my all-time favorite author, and a huge influence on all of my writing. This Isn’t A Ghost Story is quite definitely the most Powers-esque thing I’ve ever written, and was probably influenced most specifically by The Anubis Gates, Declare, and The Stress of Her Regard. Finding a way to work in a subtle nod to both Ashbless and The Anubis Gates felt fitting and highly amusing to me.

My long-standing love for the Amduat was an early part of the development of this story, coming right on the heels of deciding to give the Doctor a background in Egyptology. I spent a fair part of mid-June digging into research on the Amduat, reading every little scrap about it that I could wring out of the internet. On June 19th -- three months ago this weekend -- all of that research quite suddenly solidified into this chapter, which at the time I figured would be chapter 6, before chapter 5 up and decided to split into two chapters.

Using the twelve hours of the night as the linchpin for the happy ending I wanted for these two really helped solidify and clarify my ideas about how the Doctor functioned as a ghost with regard to sunlight. The sunlight/darkness and day/night theme is really the backbone to the whole story, and is also echoed by the dichotomy of Clara’s wedding ring, which looks like a star in the night sky, but only when viewed in direct sunlight. All of that, from chapter 1 onward and even the story’s title, was leading to this moment, the twist at the end of this chapter.

I wrote the first draft of this chapter in basically one go, beginning to end, which is super unusual for me for any scene, much less an entire chapter. The first version was about 400 words shorter than the final version, and almost all of that growth was in the moment right after the Doctor starts feeling lightheaded. I wanted that sequence to have enough emotional weight, without tipping over into feeling like I was milking it for melodrama. While editing this chapter, Jack said that he thinks there will be a lot of wailing in the comments this week, and I’m very curious to see how that moment will go over for all of you.

Clara and the Doctor have so many exquisite moments of heartbreak in canon that I couldn’t help but borrow from them all heavily here. And as a writer who really enjoys eliciting emotion from the reader as well as communicating the emotions of the characters, I couldn’t resist the urge to make you, my lovely readers, think that I just might take this down the path of tragedy, even if only for a couple of paragraphs. I would say I’m sorry except that I’m really, really not. :D

We’re down to just one chapter to go now, an even shorter epilogue that grew out of some of the research I did for this chapter. I’ll be back next week with the behind the scenes details for that chapter, as well as a few things about the story as a whole, including the full timeline for Clara and the Doctor. 

Do you have any questions for me heading into the final chapter? Any behind the scenes details you’d like me to cover? Let me know! ❤️

--

Extras for Chapter 8: The Temple

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

The thing I find weird, if this vid is supposed to be a lesbian party or wlw rep, not only the lack of body diversity is a problem, but how bout the lack of butch rep. As an amputee who’s also a soft butch lesbian I felt no rep in this video at all. That’s fine but don’t act like it’s an ode to wlw while ignoring so much. I liked a lot about this vid and while also v much not seeing it as a wlw video, it’s ok to do that and acknowledge the problems while enjoying the product rn

I totally agree anon - as a depiction of wlw this video is really fucked up. I’ve talked about the very narrow range of women’s bodies.  I’ve also talked about the fact that the women barely look at each other, and look much more at Harry, or at the camera, or at the middle distance for the camera.  I think your point is a really good one - there’s nothing queer about their styling. Obviously wlw dress in a huge range of ways and some dress like the women in the videos.  But I don’t think there was any intention to style these women as wlw. It’s very easy to style actresses in ways that suggest or imply that they’re wlw.  In addition, one way to signal that a group of women are wlw is variety in their styling.  There’s none of that here.  This is basic 1970s music video styling.  I think if Harry L was trying to style a group of wlw he’d do a better job.

But I don’t think that this was intended to be a group of wlw.  I think the idea that it was is the result of a very narrow reading from some fans. There’s nothing wrong with that reading.  There’s nothing wrong with enjoying the video as a depiction of wlw (although I don’t for all the reasons I list in the paragraph above).  But it’s completely absurd and unsustainable to suggest that seeing the video as a depiction of wlw is anything more than maybe picking up on subtext.  

It really frustrates me that any discussion of what actually is going on in this video becomes much harder to have, because any discussion has to wade through lots of complete nonsense ideas that I find very hard to believe are made in good faith.  (I try not to argue that people don’t mean what they say.  But when there are such loud claims that are so insupportable it’s hard to avoid that conclusion.  I cannot see another explanation for hugely overstated claims of the video being a depiction of wlw, except that fans are trying to deny or ignore the video’s very clear and textual depiction of Harry as someone who is attracted to and goes down on women.  And I find that response both tedious and dishonest).

[enchi-elm]

This is a summary of some of the historical research I did for Chapter 4: WWCD? of my Turn:Washington's Spies fanfic, You've Caught Me Between Wind and Water.

Disclaimer: my information is the result of only two weeks extensive googling. I have focused on Oneida sources for the Oneida material. This is meant as an overview, and I heavily recommend looking into the events and subjects described to supplement your own understanding.

I'm not going to talk about the dozens of articles I read about supply problems the Continental Army endured during Valley Forge because enough is enough. The information is easy to find. It's practically an origin myth.

In this post:

Native/Indigenous Involvement in the American Revolution

Oneida Language

Tehawenkaragwen, or Han Yerry (Hanyery, Honyery, Han Ury)

Sea Shanties

Sackett's Cryptography

Native/Indigenous Involvement in the American Revolution

I cannot overstate the importance of Indigenous contributions to the American fight for independence and the British attempts to quell it. 

By the 18th Century, the many Indigenous nations were a powerful political force in their own right. They were vital trade partners and it behooved both the colonists and the colonizers to make important and life-saving trade and political alliances with them.

For the start of the American Revolution, the Indigenous tribes (loosely comprising here the Six Nations (Oneida, Mohawk, Tuscarora, Seneca, Onondaga and Cayuga) along the other tribes, such as the Algonquin, the Mikmak, etc.) were neutral--and this was a lot of political pressure they wielded, because they could often threaten to side with the others if trade agreements were unfavourable. Eventually though, and I'll be narrowing in on the Six Nations, cause that's kind of what I understand the best from my research, sides were taken.

The Six Nations overwhelmingly sided with the British: Cayuga, Onondaga, Tuscarora, Seneca and Mohawk, often making up almost half the fighting force on the field. The Oneida, due to where they were living, i.e. in closer proximity to and having stronger trade ties with the Continentals, sided with the Patriots. Now--this was not clear cut. Individuals within the tribes could lean either way. And often, this provided a means to parlay formally between the British and the Americans, for example, through Mohawk-Oneida connections.

The Battle of Oriskany featured such a pre-battle parlay, between the Oneida teenager Paulus and the Mohawk chief Joseph Brant. This link provides some great information on the Oneida-Mohawk relationships in the Revolution, particularly leading up to the Battle of Oriskany.

You really get the sense that, despite how contemporary portrayals brush it under the rug, political ties within the Six Nations and other Indigenous tribes hugely affected allegiances and outcomes of the war. 

This quote really says it best:

During the Revolutionary War, Oneidas bound themselves “to hold the Covenant Chain with the United States, and with them to be buried in the same, or to enjoy the fruits of victory and peace” (Duane, 1778). Choosing to ally with the young United States, the Oneida Nation served the American cause with fidelity, effectiveness, and at terrible cost.

The Oneida also famously arrived at Valley Forge in May 1778 with, it is said, anywhere between 60 and 600 bushels of corn for the army. It was a relief mission.

In my story, I’ve massaged events a little (mostly because I completely messed up the timeline while I was researching, mea culpa) and the Oneida will save the day much earlier. I figure a little gratitude is overdue, so I’m not fussed with this detail.

Oneida Language

The two phrases used in the story were chosen after looking through an Oneida language source (useful, but beyond what I needed) and then consulting an Oneida-made youtube video. Languages evolve with time, and it is worth noting that Oneida now likely sounded different than Oneida in 1777.

Tehawenkaragwen, or Han Yerry (Hanyery, Honyery, Han Ury)

I had the toughest time researching this man. Considering he was a chief warrior in one of the bloodiest battles of the Revolution, not to mention an important political ally, the fact that he is memorialized as an "Indian guide” is... deeply unsatisfying and undignified. 

There's also very little known, or at least available to read, about things a fiction author would value: his demeanor, his appearance, his values.

His characterization in my story I have based mostly on this account, see "Hanyery at Oriskany." He's described as being in his fifties, fearless, competent and evidently much admired. His wife, Tyonajanegen, and his son fought with him at Oriskany. When Han Yerry was shot through his wrist, on horseback, his wife would load his gun for him so he could still shoot.

There is only one other specific account of Han Yerry in his role as a chief and interlocutor. It is... horribly biased, awfully phrased, and reads like... *flaps hands, shakes head* Forget it. All I took from it is that Han Yerry is referred to as the "leading chief of the Confederacy" and interfaced with Patriot magistrates. My description of him is deliberately light, as there are no paintings or accounts I could find that suggest what dress or ceremonial/practical items he would keep on him in his capacity as a chief, or as a warrior. (And frankly, I'm not sure that I would trust a Western portrait.)

I also wanted him to speak words that were spoken through Oneida oral tradition:

As the Oneidas expressed it: “In the late war with the people on the other side of the great water and at a period when thick darkness overspread this country, your brothers the Oneidas stepped forth, and uninvited took up the hatchet in your defense. We fought by your side, our blood flowed together, and the bones of our warriors mingled with yours” (Hough 1861 1:124).

In 2x01, Caleb calls him Han Yerry, and he is credited as such, so I used this version of his name.

Sea Shanties

To start with, please behold this glorious master post by @gerrydelano​. 

There is no reason for Caleb to be singing "Santiana" other than that it is currently my favourite shanty. "Santiana" describes events that take place during the Mexican-American War in 1846-1848. So, you know, a good seventy years after this story is set. I was going to look up era-appropriate songs, then ran into this baffling article that declares that sea shanties were a thing that had fallen into disuse by 1777. Given the highly romanticized and very lucrative economy of whaling and seafaring in the 18th Century, I find that hard to believe. And at any point, I remembered that this is fanfic and I can do what I want, so, Santiana it is.

Sackett's Cryptography

In 1x06 "Mr. Culpeper", Sackett discusses his favourite methods of encryption, including Rossignol, Trithemius, and Dumas then promptly roasts Ben for not using any encryption at all. These are all single substitution ciphers, where individual letters, syllables or words are substituted by numbers.

The Spartan scytale, which I name-dropped, is a transposition cipher, where the text itself is unaltered but the letters are put out of order. It indeed, as the name suggests, dates back to fifth century B.C.E.

A polyalphabetic cipher like the Vigenère cipher, a very complicated substitution cipher, had already been invented by the 18th Century, and wouldn't be cracked until 1863. A downside of this cipher is its complexity and the time it takes to compose a message (though I'm not sure it's less secure than keeping copies of codebooks with multiple agents).