#especially for someone like me who lives in brazil

[metamorphesque]

If you consider historical evidence and photographs “misinformation,” I’d say it’s you who chooses to live in a shadow of willful ignorance. You might not like that history doesn’t bow to your denial, but it doesn’t change the facts. No matter how many times you repeat your baseless denials, history will remember the truth of our suffering, and it will remember those who stood against it with courage — and those who tried, in vain, to erase it.

For people like you, no amount of evidence will ever be enough. Even if you were there, witnessing it all with your own eyes, you’d still find a way to deny it — if not actively partake in the horrors yourself.

Oh, I know very well what ASALA is. After what your "people" did to the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks, even ASALA’s actions seem too soft and restrained in comparison to the brutality inflicted upon us. What you deserve is something far greater — a force powerful enough to break through your fortified denial, though perhaps only an unimaginable horror experienced on your own skin would be strong enough to pierce it. Then again, expecting humility, accountability, or any trace of humanity from someone like you is like waiting for a river to flow uphill. Oh wait, let me guess — you're going to bark about how Assyrians and Greeks, too, made it all up, right? What, is that their "chosen trauma" as well?

As for “spreading” anything with your responses, don't flatter yourself — you’re barely a whisper in the vast march of truth, which moves forward regardless of your denial.

That's quite a list, isn’t it? Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Paraguay, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Vatican City, Venezuela, United States, and Uruguay — all of these countries recognize the Armenian Genocide. So much for "no one," as you claim.

When you dismiss the voices of all these nations, you're not arguing with just me; you're contradicting governments, historians, and countless people around the world who have recognized the genocide for what it is.

Denial may give you a false sense of power, but it’s merely a barrier built from shame — one that time will, sooner or later, dismantle. When you finally come to your senses, I hope you won't be consumed by self-loathing for defending the heinous crimes of your ancestors, but instead, be forced to confront the depth of your mistake and use it as the bitter lesson it is. Some stains can never be washed away — especially the ones you choose to carry.

Talaat Pasha's Official Orders Regarding the Armenian Massacres, March 1915-January 1916

March 25th, 1915

To Djemal Bey, Delegate at Adana:

The duty of everyone is to effect on the broadest lines possible the realization of the noble project of wiping out of existence the well-known elements [note: Armenians] who for centuries have been the barrier to the empire's progress in civilization.

We must, therefore, take upon ourselves the entire responsibility, pledging ourselves to this action no matter what happens, and always remembering how great is the sacrifice which the Government has made in entering the World War. We must work so that the means used may lead to the desired end.

In our dispatch dated February 18th, we announced that the Djemiet has decided to uproot and annihilate the different forces which for centuries have been a hindrance; for this purpose it is forced to resort to very bloody methods. Certainly the contemplation of these methods horrified us, but the Djemiet saw no other way of insuring the stability of its work.

Ali Riza [Note: the committee delegate at Aleppo] harshly criticised us and urged that we be merciful; such simplicity is nothing short of stupidity. We will find a place for all those who will not cooperate with us, a place that will wring their delicate heartstrings.

Again let me remind you of the question of property left. This is very important. Watch its distribution with vigilance; always examine the accounts and the use made of the proceeds.

THE DJEMIET

[source]

[thedevilsrain]

ok kind of a silly rant coming

[brethilach]

Headcanon: Dwarves have event-oriented culture(s). Let me explain.

When I say "event-oriented" I mean that their activies and doings in the day are centered around events rather than strict timeframes, and therefore do not "begin" until a certain amount of people have shown up. Most people come and go as they please, parties often go late into the night, many have a "if you're on time, you're early; if you're late, you're on time" mentality. For example, if someone says they're throwing a party at 6:00, what they're actually saying is that you're setting up the party at 6:00 and the party itself won't start until a couple hours later — and for parties at someone's house specifically, there is no set time to end. People will often put a delay of at least 30 mins just to be sure the host is ready, and people closer to the host might arrive before the scheduled time to help organize. So if you show up on time, you're expected to help set up. Then the party will often go for hours on end, so most just show up when they can and then stay as late as they want. Time is (often) treated like a suggestion and it is totally acceptable or even sometimes socially expected for you to be late (because the set time can sometimes actually be the time people begin preparing for the event).

Most real-life event-oriented cultures are centered in places near the equator (Brazil especially comes to mind for me), and I think the reason behind this is because there's so much warmth and time during the day that it isn't much of a problem for events to go late into the night — whereas for places north of the equator (who usually have stricter time-oriented cultures), there's only so much time in the day before things start getting very dark and cold (impractical for... everything, really), so you need to be more strict with how you spend your time.

For Dwarves, I think it would be the opposite scenario, but would still come back to the same cultural phenomenon. Because most Dwarves live underground in the mountains and probably don't see much of the Sun in their day to lives, they don't need to worry about it getting dark or cold outside because they're not outside all the time to begin with!! I'm thinking about how the Dwaves in the book actually stop Bilbo from getting a lamp for the meeting because they just "like the dark" and tell him that there are "many hours left until dawn" (when it seems as though it's already fairly late for Bilbo at that point).

I don't think they would see (solar) time as a binding. They'd see it as just a guideline at best (and probably have their own methods of keeping time too, actually, but that's a different conversation).

This could be reason behind why all of the Dwarves arrived to Bilbo's house at drastically different times (at least in the book) and the "party" didn't actually begin until most everyone was there. The only one amongst them I think who was really considered late (in the movie) was Thorin, but no one even mentioned it after he said he "lost his way" and explained he just had a hard time finding Bilbo's house (they probably kept their mouths shut in part because he's their King, but even when Gandalf pointed out that he wasn't there before, Dwalin seemed very nonchalant about it).

Think about what happens in the book: Thorin tells Bilbo (in his letter) that they will meet at the Green Dragon to depart from the Shire at 11:00, and explicitly says they expected him to be "punctual." Bilbo wakes up at 10:45 in a panic, rushes out of the door, and runs a mile south to arrive at the Green Dragon "just on the stroke of eleven". When Bilbo apologizes, Dwalin says "don't be precise, and don't worry!" (despite the fact that the letter seemed to clearly state that he should be precise). If you put this in the context of a Dwarven event-orientated culture, they would have meant they would meet at the Green Dragon at 11:00 to prepare for departure. Whereas Bilbo most likely would have intepreted it as though they departing at 11:00 exactly. Thorin's definition of being precise (in this sense) would be "you should start preparing the leave your house at 11" — rather than "we're leaving the Green Dragon at 11 and if you're not there by then we'll just leave without you" (which is probably what Bilbo thought). I imagine that Shire-Hobbits likely have a much stricter time-orientated culture where events start whether or not you've shown up, you're expected to be early regardless of the set time, and being more than a few minutes late is like a social death sentence (just taking into consideration Bilbo's behavior and the fact that jirt pretty obviously based the Shire on pre-industrial Britain)

This is just my headcanon though! I just think it's a neat concept to think about.

[hitoshi-yuuto]

I came across the post of someone who said that they liked the kagehina but as a background couple with no problems, and this post opened my eyes on myself.

because it's going to be I think 5 or 6 years that I've been watching haikyuu, and kagehina and is one of my favorite couples but in all the AUs I've done their always in the background or when they are the main couple, they don't have a problem.

Well 95 percent of the time

And my main and personal headcanon of the Kagehina is that they starts dating at the end of their first year, goes abroad to get married when they turn 18, lives a long distance relationship, meets up after Brazil and starts living together.

And that's it.

That's why in 90 percent of my AUs, they're their friends' relationship therapists.

Ushijima : Kageyama Do you have any advice for me to make long-distance relationships work?

Atsumu : Shouyo!!! Omi doesn't want to take me seriously when I tell him I love him, what do I do?!

Daichi : Kageyama, how you and Hinata had managed to start living together without any problem? I heard that all the couples argued when they move together.

Kenma : Eurgh Kuroo annoys me so much these days, he comes sticking to me all the time, can't he understand that I want to be alone?

And their advice is just super basic /Obvious, but still works

Kageyama : Often send message even if it's a stupid photo, poses hours for daily call, and trust?

Hinata : Have you tried to have a heart-to-heart conversation with him?

Kageyama : We share all the tasks of the house, and when something bothers us we talk about it?

Hinata : Did you tell him that you want to be alone?

None of the people who know them in high school can believe that they are the ones who have the best relationship, and that they are the ones who are asked for advice.

Especially tsukishima (He asks them for advice too)

Bonus

Another of my headcanon is that they are among the first to buy a house, because their friends are always in their houses. So, when they buy a big house, everyone participates a little bit in the purchase because they are at theirs home half of the time.

So there you have it, thank you for listening/reading to me ranting about Kagehina/Shobio

Sorry for the mistakes, English is not my first language😭

[0xstarzx0]

Don’t write it it stinks of toxic love

synopsis: Nate never found someone to love, Rafe was never loved and Y/N was never taken serious Maybe their entry into college will change their lives.

Frat Rafe x Reader x Frat Nate.

[English is not my native language❗️❗️] TW: toxic, smut, sex, penetration, fingering, non-con, manipulation , insult, fight, humiliation, misogynistic attitude. [PART1]

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

NATE 

The summer vacation had not been easy for Nathaniel Jacobs. Between the divorce of his parents, Cassie who was just stalking his and his going to college, nothing was right.

Two weeks before homecoming, he decided to go to Chris Mckay’s, he was happy that Mckay was still talking to him about what happened between him and Cassie.

They were in Mckay’s room playing a fighting game. They were focused in their game when Nate was talking. "Dude?". Mckay turned his head to look at him. "Yeah?" he said.

"How’s college, I mean is there a lot of hot chicks?" Mckay and Nate laugh, Nate laugh to hide his anxiety.

Nate wanted to leave, college was one of the best ways. What Nate was afraid of was not being number one. He was afraid that he would not be THE best football player. That he is not indispensable to his team.

"Nah, man, college is where you can fuck whoever you want, it’s not like high school, people don’t give a shit about who’s fucking who, as long as it’s not cheating." Mckay said.

"How do you get respect?" Nate asks. Mckay seems to think long." I had sex with the cheerleading captain and the opposing college captain. Nate opens his eyes wide. "Two cheerleaders but not the same team or the same college?"

"You’re gaining huge popularity and a huge repsect. You’re teammates will trust you after that." Mckay laughed." So if I understand correctly, a good fuck with a cheerleader captain is the deal?" asks Nate. "Got it all figured out, man. But one advice, close the door of your room when you’re inside."

Mckay’s expression changes, it becomes empty and hard. Filled with hate and sadness. Nate nods, and as he was about to speak the door opens. Drawing the attention of Nate and the latter.

"Chris, your aunt is here, comes to help her carry her boxes." said his mother. "Is she already there?" asked Chris sighing." Yes, she’s already here, with her daughter, so be nice and come now." Demands her mother.

Chris gets up and Nate follows him, they go outside where, his head car is parked. Chris hugs his aunt and takes boxes, Nate only says hello and helps her carry her boxes.

Nate poses where he needs to, he goes back out when he crosses a small head out of the bathroom.

Nate looks at the girl and he feels something, he doesn’t move me and she doesn’t either. He looks at the girl.

She is small, her hair is black braided, long eyelashes that put her brown hazelnut eyes in values , black skin but which shone thanks to the passage of the sunset in the long corridor. Nate begins to detail her body, she has beautiful boobs, a slim waist and beautiful hips that enhance her legs.

She’s wearing a Brazil jersey with black shorts, a cyclist? He doesn’t know, but anyway, this girl makes him feel what no other girl has ever made him feel not even Maddy.

"Y/N" says Chris enthusiastically. Y/N looks at Nate looking away at Chris. "Did you miss me?" she asks trotting towards him.

Chris laughs and hugs her. Nate remains in his thoughts for a short time.

______________________________________________

Nate learned a lot about Y/N. She’s her age, she likes to read, write and fine art, she doesn’t have a boyfriend and something that makes Nate want to have her, in two weeks, they’ll share the same campus.

They go to the same college, she looks so pure and kind, Nate intends to make sure that she lives only by him.

Nate falls in love every time she talks to him and that’s a big problem for our football star.

Especially when Y/N won’t just attract his attention.

______________________________________ [PART 2]

.

.

.

[dapg-otmebytheballs]

hi!!

i don’t feel right putting my opinion here as i am white and from the us so im not even close to the demographic of people you’re talking about, but i just wanted to say i like reading your posts!

now i don’t know everything that dan and/or phil has said, but i do think it’s important to realize the context

i really do wish they were going to other countries, as it does suck that they aren’t able to see everyone, but i’m also sure they have a valid reason for not, whatever that reason may be…i can’t see them deliberately avoiding other countries just cause there’s “better” options (not saying there are better options i just couldn’t think of another word hehe)

i feel very privileged to be in a place financially (barely) and geographically to see it

i don’t think it’s that outlandish to say that they’ll do something to attempt to make up to the people who couldn’t see it, but i know it won’t be as good as it should be, which isn’t fun

also, i will agree that i don’t like the arguments of other countries not accepting of gay rights, as there’s not much weight there. not only do gay people live there too, but they’ve been to japan three different times. they love it there, and while there’s other countries that are definitely worse when it comes to queer rights, gay marriage isn’t legal there and they obviously know that

jesus christ i yap so fucking much i apologize

tl;dr, i completely understand what your saying, and while calling them “racist” is a little harsh, i definitely understand that not going to other places is not ideal and wish they are able to be more inclusive to everyone

i know they’re touring cause they love it, especially dan, and that going everywhere is impossible, but that does not mean that people can’t complain about them not going over to where they live

i’m sorry this is so long, i just can not stop typing ffs

<3

Hey! So yeah again as I've said many times but feel the need to reiterate: what originally started the discussions from poc and particularly non western blogs was that they have made disparaging remarks particularly to do with tours like come to brazil type remarks and then not taken time to add on like, one line or anything somewhere about not touring in entire continents.

Also obviously we don't think they aren't visiting because they think we're lower to them or whatever, and I'd say you'd be hard pressed to find a post on my blog that says that. Seriously, try it, no implications of the sort have been made, we are just saying it's clear that they've never felt the need to makeup for past mistakes either, and then the phandom defends them each time and all of that together feels very alienating, especially when western fans talk down to us constantly and feel the need to tell us to chill out or whatever and make it out to be that the tour is the primary issue

It isn't! This isn't about the tour!!! The tour was the latest thing that sparked the discussions again because some people, especially LATAM fans who have microagressed So Often, were understandably thinking "seriously they aren't gonna say anything about it?"

And again, I will ask that you try because you'll be hard pressed to find a post on my blog where we day dnp "are racists". My previous ask to this also explains this but just because someone "isn't racist" doesn't mean that when they do racist things we don't call those things "racist behaviours". Racist microagressions are still racist even when coming from goody two shoes progressives. Please understand this and don't get defensive over the language, it's a humble request

And if I may for anyone else looking to talk with me about this in any way, please please stop bringing up the tour with me. I don't care about the tour, I promise you I do not care about the tour, you can talk with me about the other stuff but I've just said it in almost every post I've made: I Do Not Care About Them Not Touring Here, it's small fucking potatoes and it's more western fans' defensiveness and racist remarks while trying to defend them for no reason that are Far Far more of a problem racism (and orientalism) wise than DnP not talking about the tour yet, I don't carrrreee About that I care about what you all are directly saying to US which is more hurtful

I hope this clears stuff up for you and others, again, no hard feelings whatsoever, you were genuinely reaching out and I appreciate that ❤️

[qcellbit]

meta talk. i don't quite know how to word this properly, but adding french creators to the qsmp is the riskiest thing quackity studios could've done and it doesn't surprise me that the success to which it was executed was minimal.

adding portuguese speaking creators exclusively from brazil as the first batch outside of the initial english and spanish speakers was the perfect "soft expansion" for the server when you consider the reason for the project's conception - because quackity had experienced poor treatment from white americans as a bilingual latino creator and sought to unite his two communities in an empowering way, further expanding this very noble and personal idea to encapsulate all communities and all languages spanning across the entire world. inviting more latino creators who have likely had the same experiences and would be able to appreciate what the project is trying to achieve is a no-brainer.

it's an uncomfortable thing to touch on (which is why i've never, ever, seen it spoken about on this website), but minecraft projects and communities have always had massive problems with all forms of bigotry, but especially racism. white americans and white europeans have probably not felt the euphoria of seeing their culture celebrated in mainstream global entertainment projects as they already absolutely dominate the entertainment industry on a global scale. as someone who is visibly brown and living in europe, i've always got a lot of grief from classmates and co-workers in the form of ignorant jokes and flat out exclusion - it's an unfortunate cultural norm that bleeds into streaming due to the medium's casual and open nature, unnoticed or unchallenged by white viewers who don't want to have to confront a content creator's bigotry in fears of having to stop watching them. something that cannot be ignored by the people it's actually affecting. there is a reason dsmp and hermitcraft cosplay meet ups are dominated by pale skin.

i love the qsmp because its inclusion of latin american creators and quackity's selectiveness based on personal experience have largely (and i do mean largely, not entirely, but that's a discussion for another day) eliminated that problem.

the most prominent and succinct example i can think of is the photo of quackity's bedroom that was mocked countless times by his english speaking community and his bigoted english speaking friends when he streamed on the dsmp - when that photo was brought to the qsmp, forever, a fellow latino creator, was the first person to gently offer solidarity because he had come from the same impoverished latin american background. to me, and to a lot of minorities, that is what the qsmp is about. yeah, sharing languages in a minecraft server is novel, it's a fun way for americans who did poorly in high school to get back into learning spanish, but it stands for so much more when you're a racial minority. when your pleading in the dsmp fandom was drowned out and ignored for the entire duration of its run. when you're completely unrepresented in minecraft tournaments, and when known bigots are encouraged to participate in said tournaments to boost viewership because numbers are paramount. when you are finally seeing your culture appreciated rather than mocked on streams with tens of thousands of viewers all over the world as part of a massive project with a brilliant, engaging story.

it was obviously necessary to branch out of the americas at some point with what the project is attempting to achieve, but such a task is daunting when the next group you're inviting and their community probably do not have the capacity through personal experience to appreciate what the project stands for at its core in the same way the first batches do. can non americans all relate in discussions of the internet and entertainment industry being america and by extension english speaking centric? yeah, of course. but can white europeans relate when the only representation you have in said media revolves around harmful bigoted stereotypes? can there be a quiet solidarity between a white frenchman and a brown brazilian based on experiences with government, racial profiling, and online mockery? no. and in the landscape of livestreaming stupid jokes for entertainment alongside fast paced gameplay, these nuances are probably not going to be acknowledged.

in complete contrast to the solidarity exhibited between quackity and forever when discussing their poverty growing up in latin america, i have not forgotten and never will forget aypierre excusing his constant racist jokes aimed at the brazilians on his uniquely "french dark humour" that the brazilians, hurt by his comments, could "not understand." this is not an excusable cultural difference, but a symptom of white european privilege, and total ignorance towards what the project is meant to stand for. a smooth integration of all the world's cultures necessitates white european and white american introspection in a way that i haven't seen a lot of streamers capable of. admitting fault to such a degree and the ego of a large online personality do not often mesh well.

i'm always very irritated when people (especially english speakers) complain about them not "adding the germans" sooner despite us seeing applications for german speaking admins many months ago - because it would not be a task of simply throwing out server invites to content creators and cobbling together an animation of a submarine crashing into the island. you cannot downplay the ambition of this project and the mammoth task its trying to accomplish. people take for granted and forget that this is an unprecedented melding of cultures that would never otherwise interact and clash on the rare occasions they do. the french qsmp community being small and the french creators largely being outliers when it comes to the qsmp is not something born out of malice or purposeful exclusion, but simply a symptom of an unspoken lack of solidarity and inability to meaningfully relate based on everything from wildly varying privilege to global placement.

and don't get me wrong - i'm not excusing things like the times at which events are broadcast (i literally live in europe and have to stay up until sunrise to see most events, i think the admins do have to bite the bullet and begin structuring events around a new timezone that isn't the globally inconvenient unsustainable PST), or the exclusion of clips from french content creators at the presidential dinner, but i think attributing those admin choices to the brazilian community being unfairly favoured is downplaying what the qsmp as a project means for minorities, especially when the brazilian community receive the most scorn for infamously being the first to call out bigoted behaviour from qsmp content creators. yeah, it sucks that the french haven't slotted into the qsmp as well as the brazilians and aren't anywhere as numerous, but with all these unspoken contributing factors being taken into account, i can't be surprised.

i wish quackity and his team the best in smoothly integrating more languages and cultures in this amazing project in the future, but for the love of god please understand that the implications of this project and its impact are far larger than any streamer "drama" you might've witnessed in the past. and stop underplaying what this project is trying to achieve in an online landscape saturated in bigotry.

[gaykarstaagforever]

1969

Jim Shooter wrote this, so it is significantly less idiotic than most of these.

That said...

Most of the plot - Superman and the Flash having amnesia and thinking each is the other one - hinges on the fact that they are identical men, except with different hair. Which seems implausible, since one is a magical alien with super-strength from the Sun, and the other is a nerd who was near exploding go-fast chemicals. But I guess it at least acknowledges how DC artists could only draw one muscley man over and over again in different skin-tight unitards. Fair enough, Jim.

We also get the weirdest random explanation for where Superman stores his Clark Kent clothes:

Clark Kent and Barry Allen spend most of the story running back and forth from Central City to Metropolis, desperately trying to find each-other to figure out what the hell is happening. Barry uses makeup to look like Clark Kent and gets almost-fired by Perry White for being bad at reporting on weddings. Because while this comic takes time to remind us Barry is a "police scientist," Perry also says he writes like a child.

Which...I mean, seems kind of rude to me, especially coming from someone who writes superhero comics for 8 year olds for a living. But I don't solve murders with science. So if you do, please confirm if you and your colleagues don't know how to write.

Eventually, Clark and Barry accidentally meet clandestinely on a Metropolis park bench. But Barry is dressed like Raphael from the Ninja Turtles, so they still don't figure it out:

...Why does this look like something someone drew from a picture they took from a bush? Is that just me? That might just be me.

This, however, is 100% exactly what it looks like:

They finally meet in an abandoned train tunnel and figure out each is the other, and trade clothes.

So it is canon in DC comics that Clark Kent and Barry Allen have been nude together in a train station, at least once. And then traded underpants.

Clark suddenly remembers what happened to them (possibly from the shock of being naked with Barry Allen; the comic breezes over this). There is giant space seed flying towards Earth, carrying the spore of a monster space plant that will grow to consume all life. Superman saw it and summoned the JLA to help him, but only the Flash showed up, because "Green Lantern is off helping Hawkman," and...I guess Jim forgot who else was in the JLA at the time.

Good on Barry for showing up, but how exactly is he going to help Superman stop a threat that is still in Space?

Answer: he is not. But Superman came up with a plan where he and Barry changed outfits to confuse the space seed (yes, really), and then Barry put on a helmet and Clark flew them both into it.

...At which point he suddenly realized it had kryptonite in it. He and Barry fell to Earth, unharmed but with amnesia.

But now that they're inexplicably cured by re-switching pants, it is time to hurry up and actually stop the space seed. Superman draws Barry a helpful diagram of his plan:

...Thanks, Kal-El. Totally worth the time it took to do that.

Assuming, like me, you have no goddamn idea what his plan is, think of the absolute dumbest way Superman could save the Earth from a giant kernel of space-corn. And that is exactly what he does:

He temporarily stops the Earth by making the ground really hard (specifically in Brazil, for some reason), and then repeatedly doing flying elbow drops onto it. Which, I won't lie, is exactly the awesome way all problems would be solved if we lived in a better universe where wrestling was real, and wrestlers were Superman.

...I still assume this probably killed at least a few people. Or fish, at least, on the daylight side where the Sun suddenly boiled an entire ocean.

Also, note how this "new" Superman plan ALSO DIDN'T INVOLVE THE FLASH WHATSOEVER. Except that he came along and narrated it for our benefit, while Superman was repeatedly smashing himself into Brazil.

The story ends with Barry hugging his wife and Clark musing to himself how he and Barry can trust each-other with their secret identities from now on, because their balls sweat into the same Spandex for like a week.

Implying that, what, the members of the JLA go into that WITHOUT knowing who each-other are? I mean, I of course see Batman pulling shit like that. But Wonder Woman and Hawkman barely have secret identities to begin with.

But I guess if Clark and Barry have exactly the same proportions and faces, maybe it doesn't really matter either way.

This issue also features the following ad for jeans:

I don't know if cattle-rustling was still such a huge problem in the West by 1969. But if you are a teen boy keen to take it upon yourself to stop it, I suppose it makes sense you should make sure your butt looks good while doing it.

Also, if you need more cheap plastic armies in your house,

[lovethatmakingcoffee]

i think there are a lot of contradictions with the forever stuff going on and just frankly, a lot of questions that need to be answered if anything is to be resolved. And not just on Forever's part. I want the reason and name of the anonymous user who started this. Because u better show your face and explain why you began this, because the person on the other side is out in the open for the world to jump on. If u r accusing someone of something like this, it feels a bit cowardice to hide behind your username. These are serious accusations after all. Whether true or not.

I know people might disagree, but for too long these users have hid behind anonymity and threatened/ruined people's lives. Just thinking about swatting alone for example and how those callers are never caught and tried.

Next question, is if there is a victim, a real victim, where do they stand in this? They do not have to come forward, but why is it this random twitter user name talking and not the victim?

How did this user acquire over 900 deleted tweets? That's the number, right? Why were they searching for it? What are their intentions?

If this was resolved 8 years ago, why is it being brought up again? I assume Forever is taking some steps back in this situation in order to calm down and handle this properly, so it will be a while for us to see his proper response. I don't know if the original apology exists, of it was in video format or another one of those supposed 900 texts, but perhaps a refresher on the previous drama is required.

And lastly, I do wonder if quackity and admins knew. I would hope they would have done thorough background checks on every qsmp member and at least received explanations in case things like this came up, and this type of drama appeared on the qsmp. I wonder what their tactical response will be for this.

I do think it's unwise, to kick Forever to the curb, because no matter the legitimacy of these tweets, this type of stuff is bound to be targeted everyone else's way too. I'm sure Forever is not the only own with an alleged sketchy past. Not that I believe he really did anything physical with this continuously changing aged underage girl. She's 14 one minute (which is very convenient for this story that she just meets the age of consent in Brazil and is so young that of course it would anger all of the internet) and 16 the next. Both is bad, but the number keeps changing making me question it's accuracy at all.

I just hope people are asking questions instead of deciding right away. Especially the intentions and legitimacy of this random twitter user.

Know, I could be completely wrong in the end. But please, question this. I'm quite frankly very tired at all these artists and content creators being burned at the pyre the moment the first person yells witch. It's too mob mentality.

[lettheladylead]

Hi! I was looking through Magica De Spell’s Wikipedia page today and it says that Magica has a sister named the Wicked Witch of the West, who has children named Witch Child and Warlock. I couldn’t find any information of them online so I was wondering if you knew anything about them, if they exist at all.

If they don’t, do you think you could instead do a character post on Magica’s cousin Matilda? Your old family tree posts helped me a lot in understanding Duck lore.

Aw I'm glad those posts help!! I'm still down for making them 'cause it's a lot of fun for me to find old comics and do some research.

So before I talk about Witch Child, I wanna clarify some things that are relevant to the character.

This is another case where Americans can't stop themselves from taking "sister" and "aunt" literally. Aunt can be used to refer to any older woman in someone's life. Sister is frequently used in stories about witches (because a coven is like a sisterhood/sorority, it's a whole thing). Neither imply blood relation! Even "cousin" is often used to refer to friends/neighbors. Different cultures and languages treat words like that very differently than Americans do.

Witch Child, Warlock, & Witch of the West are all from a very specific time period of Brazilian duck comics where Magica and Madam Mim (from The Sword and the Stone) were living together/dating/???? and interacted with other Disney movie characters. In this specific timeline, the ducks live amongst regular humans which is very strange but you just gotta accept it. Magica also lives in Duckburg I think? It seems like she and Scrooge just run into each other randomly so I believe she and Mim have a house in Duckburg for whatever reason

"Witch Child" is not her name and I don't know why she's referred to like that on InDucks/other wikias. Her name in Brazil (where she was created) is Magali, in Italian she's Maghetta/Maghina/Streghella (inconsistent names in translations are very common), and in French she's Seraphine. None of her comics have an official English publication so again idk where "Witch Child" comes from! But I'll probably refer to her as Streghella for the remainder of this post 'cause it's easier that way.

OKAY now for details:

In Streghella's first comic, Magica gets a letter from a friend asking her and Madam Mim to babysit her friend's daughter. Streghella is whiny and rude and a troublemaker. She ruins a magical career opportunity for Magica and it's pretty funny

Then there's a whole bunch of comics where she just appears for no reason, making trouble. She's a surprisingly powerful witch but she just loves to piss everyone off, especially Mim.

Another important note about Streghella - she was only really drawn by two comic artists during the height of her appearances (in the 70s, pretty much). The above drawings were all done by an artist named Jim Fletcher. But she had a lot of appearances drawn by an artist named Glenn Schmitz, who drew her completely differently.

I don't know if I would've realized these were even the same character if it wasn't documented lol but y'know they didn't have the same resources in the 70s that we have now so they did what they could.

Anyway, from what I can tell her personality stayed mostly in tact through most of these comics. Whiny, stuck-up, nosy, but also very funny and magically powerful. She would occasionally interact with Scrooge or HDL but mostly her appearances were in Magica and Mim comics.

Oh there's one comic where she looks like this for some reason?

BUT THEN what's interesting is Streghella making a few appearances years after her comics all came out. First there was one comic in 1995, then twice in 2011 and once more in 2016. There's also apparently a 2020 appearance but I couldn't get my hands on it :(

In her 1995 appearance she looks really cute but her personality is, well. Personality-wise she's completely unrecognizable. Now Magica makes comments about Streghella always trying to be good and getting in trouble for being good all the time.

(Ignore the bad english translation I was just popping pages into google translate lol)

She's still a troublemaker in the sense that she tries to trick Magica and Mim into consuming a potion that will make them good, kind people. But then the comic ends with Magica doing something nice by choice and it's cute but yeah the character is nothing like her original self.

Her first 2011 comic is where she...wants to go to a Jonas Brothers concert and chats with April May & June online to try and make it happen. Something like that. It follows along with "Streghella is too kind and Magica tries to teach her to be evil" from the '95 comic, but for some reason the colorist made Streghella a brunette. Idk! They also forgot her iconic hat!

Next 2011 comic has Huey Dewey and Louie accidentally traveling to a magic academy. It's very Harry Potter-y? I guess? Streghella is friendly and does some magic. You can tell it's her 'cause of the pigtails and bows. But still no hat :(

In her 2016 appearance, she's been reading April May and June's blog and wants to help them with some problem. Magica is like no be mean and Streghella's like no I want to help! You get it.

This comic is pretty fun. Magica turns herself into Grandma Duck and puts a truth potion into some cake Streghella bakes for the Duck Family and gets a bunch of secrets out of them.

There's also a joke at the end where Daisy accidentally reveals Brigitta's age to everyone (we don't get to see it) but according to this comic, Brigitta is much older than she looks lol Not that we didn't already know that.

Anyway so that's all there is to know about Witch Child/Streghella. She's cute!

Warlock time!

Warlock is Streghella's brother. He's only in four comics total and they're mostly very early comics - his real name is just whatever Streghella's name was at the time but with an -o at the end. If she's Maghetta, he's Maghetto. If she's Maghina, he's Maghino. You get it. He'd probably be Streghello if he had a named appearance more recently.

His personality is not very distinct from Streghella's. He's also magical and a troublemaker. In his first comic he arrives in the mail, in a, like...little jail cell? Crate? Idk? And then Magica and Mim eventually box both kids up into the crate and ship them away.

(Yes that's supposed to be him, apparently.)

He appears in the magic school comic as well...

And that's it! There's not really anything else to know about him.

Last but not least...the Witch of the West! Actually, that's a lie. Least. She appears just the one time. And I'm gonna be honest. I don't think she's the biological mother of these bird children.

'Cause yeah she's a human witch. Idk if she's from another Disney property or if she's supposed to be the witch from the Wizard of Oz. Idk man. But Streghella calls her "mama" and she refers to Streghella as her daughter so I'll take those ones literally.

There's nothing much to say about her - she doesn't have a name and all she does is drop her kid off with Magica and then reappear when Mim and Magica threaten to lock Streghella inside a bottle.

NOW if you're wondering...how do these characters connect to the previously known characters that are related to Magica De Spell?

They do not! The fact that Streghella has made a few recent appearances means you can decide how you want her to fit in, but trying to blend these different canons will not be seamless. You just gotta take what you like. Streghella frequently refers to herself as Magica's apprentice so you can always take that route, too.

Aaaaaaaaaand since you asked, I'm happy to talk about Matilda! God there are too many Matildas in duck comics. I have never met a woman named Matilda in my life. It's fine.

Matilda De Spell (not an official name but I call her that anyway) - Magica's teenage cousin! Is she actually, biologically, Magica's cousin? Probably not. But it's fiiiiiiine.

I did actually scanlate all three comics that Matilda appears in, so you can read them if you'd like:

There's not really anything to know about her outside of these comics. She's tomboyish, spunky, fun. Really looks up to Magica. I think their dynamic is fun and I always like to see more teen characters lol I think I've portrayed Matilda as Amelia De Spell's younger sister but that's definitely not canon, just me trying to stick the blondes together.

Anyway sorry this ended up being such a long response. I haven't had the opportunity to research random duck characters in a while. I hope this has the answers you wanted :)

[herejusttosufferalong]

Okay, I just want to get it off my chest and share my thoughts about what happening with them and their dynamics.

I do recognize we have too little information, and we'll never know, but still I just want to.

After reading all the rumours about them and his break up from various points of view, I feel like they are both right now in very gray and problematic area of their relationships. Upcomming months or even a year will show me if I am right. Blogs who make people think that's not mutual attraction and pinning from both sides are living in delulu land, as well as blog stating Nick rejected him imo.

The way I see it. They both wanted it for a long time, and they've just admitted it that it's not just friendship. Press tour was a trigger, Something sparkled and got out, that was sitting there for a very long time. I mean even Nick comment about 'level of chemistry'. I think their case is subconsciously desiring each other or observing each other from afar, while slightly being interested and acting as friends the whole time because of the other relationship and duties. They've never acted on it during filming though first 2 season, but i 3rd season experience changed the way they see each other. Filming somehow allowed them to fulfill their interest in that area. It's funny, cause I do think it worked as first Polin kiss for them lol. Something shifted during the filming, I fell like for Luke especially. Then, did they hook-up? Who knows, but it seems with the break-up Luke was confused enough. Whatever happened, could it be they've never acted on it or Nic told him its not the right time, or they together decided it was unnessary, or maybe they've never acknowledged that. Anyways, they both took a break. Luke, erm, doing whatever he's doing to heal, while Nic working and maybe dating Eamon. And, well, they kinda forgot and did the relief sigh, thinking they won't need to deal with all of that, cause Luke finally got himself soothed down with A with the unfair power dynamic, where he's not likely to hurt, and Nic just was doing quiet alright, feeling happy.

Well, well, well, the thing is those kinds of feelings, they'll never disapper, u know. Doesn't matter how much you try to close the eyes, it's just there, until you wll act on it.

Press tour started. Nick was or was not in relationship. Someone told tht maybe she broke up with smn in March, while Luke was feeling it for A certainly, untill they started to spend time together again.

And so it went, and it got messier, my lord! This time I guess Luke was aware, juding longing looks that he gave her during all the interviews in Dec, Jan and Feb(but still like it will fade away, I have a girl now), but Nic was kinda still in the era 'aw, we are just friends, lets hype up the season, it would be fun'.

I think that Instyle stunt was like him, really thinking it's serious with Antonia, I bet.

And then Nic and Luke started spending time together again, and they got really flirty, and things stated to heat up. That time the brick of realization hit Nicola. As many said before, her final point was Brazil, Italy was very weird for me, cause it seemed they were slightly worked up and at the same time enjoying each other company, holding hands and e.t.c. But Luke sometimes was kinda pissed with her, while Nic shading all the 'friends to lovers interviews'. I feel like in the beginning of the tour she was friendlier and less subtle with him, but in Italy they were kinda hot and cold. Nic was not THAT touchy INTIMATE feely until Braxil, while Luke only gave her checking-out looks. They were having fun as friends, flirting and so on, time passed, and whatever they did to easy the tension, Brazil was very diffirent! After that they kinda both admitted that it's there and gave into it, doing more and more unhindged things every time. That's the point, when they are stylists started communicating, and I don't think it was a concidence. Luke was feeling it since the filming, I guess. Kinda trope 'he fell first, she felt harded'. Nicola got herself hooked by whatever they were planing to do to sell of their chemistry lol 😆

Luke was still up for it, although in relationships with A. Maybe, he thought it would pass, but nope(sorry lol). And that what made me think that NOW he is even more lost than before. I think A requested to get acknowledgment, cause she watched them in their bubble and realised something is not right(AND IT IS NOT) and it got right in every of her insecurity. This Brazil hair cut was funny, Don't get me wrong, she is young. If I were 23, I would do the same, but you kinda just can't make someone to deny their feelings, no matter how hard you try, That's way paps happened, and that's way I think Luke got more overhelmed, feeling like she's right in her desire to be offical and at the same time thinking about their press tour with Nic.I don't know if Nic and him really spoke about it or maybe they did, and now it's just the way it is. The pap photos got out, and I think Nic is pissed on timing and her feelings make it not easy, and now his time to get it or loose it.

But I do enjoy their dynamic. For me, Luke seems tender and softboy, no matter what he's trying to do with his looks, while Nic is way stronger and dominant, but they do find comfort in each other. I guess he is indeed a lot like Colin, and Nic is kinda Penelope Whistledown post 3rd season era. I like watching couples like that, yay! Thanks for comming to my Ted talk!

I really appreciate you TED talk anon, thank you!!!

I have gotten a bunch of asks recently from people who are claiming to be new to this fandom ship. This right here is a great jumping off point for thoughts and theories regarding the current timeline.

I don't fully agree with everything but a lot of it is consistent with the general theory between L and N within the fandom.

[wuffgang-ameowdeus-moozart]

no because I spent less than a third of my school years in Brazil and yet whenever I do maths in my head I still always resort back to Portuguese

no because I always speak Portuguese with my mom and we almost exclusively listen to Brazilian music at home but the first time we went back to Brazil after covid just listening to all the people around me casually speak in Portuguese almost made me burst into tears

no because one time I was sleeping at my grandma's and I still hadn't completely woken up and the birds were singing (we used to have australian budgies) and for a moment I thought I was still living there, at my old apartment. I don't even know how many years ago this day happened and my memory is absolute shit but I still remember the feeling of bittersweet grief when I woke up properly

no because I always get so hyped whenever I hear someone casually speaking Brazilian Portuguese like even if I don't outwardly acknowledge them just hearing it always fills me with so much joy

no because whenever I forget another word in Portuguese my heart breaks a little

no because even if I do my hair the exact same way here and there it still comes out with a completely different texture (it looks better over there in case you were wondering btw)

no because I mostly speak Portuguese with my mom and I didn't even realize that some of the words I use are actually super outdated

the point being: I really appreciate that there are so many characters that come from different countries in Stormlight Archive, and that Sanderson has clearly thought a lot about their different cultures and religions and politics and worldbuilding in general. however. i don't think he quite realizes how personal a place and a language can be. like obviously my experiences are far from universal, not to mention very different from theirs (much much less trauma for one lol), but especially when we get a pov from one of those characters I can't help but think that there is always something.... lacking? missing?

let shallan complain about her hair and skin routine not working the same anymore ever since she moved away from her home. let lunamor be a bit resentful of his new family for not even trying to learn his real name. let The Lopen forget more words in alethi now that he's surrounded by his herdasian cousins again. let shallan not be able to properly talk about her drawings in the way she wants to whenever adolin asks because she learnt all the proper words in her vadan art book. let there be foreign members of bridge four who adore alethkar and those who hate it and those who feel a bit of both at the same time.

dunno. i know these are just small details, but i noticed that these are small details that matter to me (and I can imagine that many people with a foreign background may feel similarly?)

[nadiegesabate1990]

I, Nadiege, am being expelled from my own home because of my homosexuality and also excluded from society. I'm in a situation where I can't work sex (among other things) in my own home in Buenos Aires, Pernambuco.

Where I live is in the city of Buenos Aires, Pernambuco. Rua Laurindo Gomes, number 2, Centro neighborhood.

A bunch of idiots, behind the house. It is the neighbors who are mainly welcoming demented old men with bizarre behavior. I see everyone passing by my street, looking at my gate with suspicion. I understand that they are being persecuted by imitators. They occupy, or rather invade houses, remain motionless and do nothing, making incoherent and strange sounds. Some laugh or cry for no reason. Someone arrives and they get excited. Everyone is raping and being raped. And it repeats itself. Every day is the same situation. It's getting to the point where people and neighbors don't like to see me talking to anyone, I'm isolated and alone. And there's no point in persuading, it's useless.

I'm very worried about my publications on Soundcloud, especially from 2022 onwards, as they didn't have much influence and didn't attract much public attention. Since I'm not that famous, these criminals can steal my music and be successful. But they didn't steal my music, thank God.

And life is very violent around here. I don't know how I can work with these individuals who live on the margins of Pernambuco society, getting in my way and interrupting me all the time and trying to kill me. In fact, they are trying to steal my work and my money. And I hope that my fans have the sensitivity and delicacy to understand this situation. It seems like I'm in the biblical passage Sodom and Gomorrah and I mixed it up with The L Word series. I'm very scared of being murdered.

[dailydanielewski]

MZD Interview 03.2024

Bit of a different post, but here you will find some words from MZD himself about things like a House of Leaves audiobook, the impact of HoL on modern horror, the TV Series Teleplays, Inspirations and more.

This is a translation made back to english from an official interview published earlier this year in march in brazilian portuguese in regards to the newly published brazilian translation of the book.

The interview with proper formatting in google docs can be accessed here, but is also pasted down here in the See More for ease of access.

MZD Interview [2024-03-13] - Every book is an universe of inspirations

This was translated from the source https://darkside.blog.br/entrevista-mark-z-danielewski/, dated March 13th, 2024. I am in no way affiliated with Darkside Books, or MZD for that matter, and am just a mere instrument in translating this translated interview (of which no original record is available) back into english. This was translated on October 4th, 2024.

DarkSide (DS) interviews Mark Z. Danielewski (MZD)

[Intro]

It’s expected that an author that has written such work that has taken over a decade like House of Leaves has a lot to say. More than that, Mark Z. Danielewski is a person who doesn’t only like to talk, but to listen too.

Like a good novelist that knows how to draw inspiration from everything around them, he shows a genuine interest for people he just met and with whom you could easily spend an entire afternoon talking ideas without seeing time pass.

This is the way that this conversation with the author from House of Leaves happened with DarkSide/DarkBlog [the blog from the Brazilian publisher of the translation]. With the humility of someone that considers himself a mere instrument of the universe through his books, Danielewski went a few decades back to tell us about his book first steps, its repercussion and the theories around the work and even his relation to Brazil – at the end of the 1980s he visited the country, getting to know Rio de Janeiro and Saquarema, and doesn’t hide his will to come back and get to know other regions.

This will be a conversation that is wide and with many layers, the way House of Leaves deserves. Check it out:

DS: When did you start to write House of Leaves at the end of the 80s, did you imagine the impact your work would have in modern horror?

MZD: What does a young man dream when they are 22, have close to no money, and no idea of his place in the world, or even if there is a place in the world? With these initial creations, that are so hard at the start of any young person’s career, you can’t go beyond the obvious despair that you’ll never finish. And that when it’s done, if anyone will ever read it. And if someone does, that it will never be published. Oh, to think “well, maybe it is a success”.

But how can we categorize this success in terms of impact on horror, impact on literature? There is something that happens in a book when you are in the middle of its creation, especially on a so intricate book like House of Leaves, that takes so long that you start to orbit it. At the start, it’s the book that kind of lives in your orbit. You are the central mass. And that mass includes everything that is frenetic or calm in your life, be it doing laundry or going out to get some coffee. But step by step, as you start to craft and create and imagine it, the story becomes the bigger mass. And that mass grows, then suddenly it’s you that are orbiting it. And the more you orbit it, the more you are governed by its necessities and requirements.

So you don’t really think much beyond that. You don’t think what will happen to it, because to you that became a planet now. A sun or a black hole. You are just a tiny particle that is becoming increasingly smaller, as the story becomes increasingly bigger. Not to talk much about me, but I’m writing a western which I've been working on for the past five or six years, and I’m exactly in this situation. And I have many questions about how it will be received. Where will it fit in the bellic culture of today? But those are just some sparks, because the main thing that is drawing me to its orbit is its immensity and complexity.

This is a way to both answer and not answer the question, but is at least an introduction about how this process worked and how I see it many, many years later. Even now, as I work on this new novel, I’m fascinated by how a book almost takes a life on its own. And that feeling is scary and great at the same time.

DS: It’s almost like you are being taken by your story, and not the other way…

MZD: Exactly. And I believe this applies to any creator, from any medium. It’s when you start to understand that your piece gained a bigger mass, a bigger gravity, than you. It’s at that time that you know you are starting to reach the end. There are all types of metaphors for that, be it talking about stars or about someone being born. It’s that sensation of “oh, we have a conclusion here”. There is an immensity, a component that changes your life with it.

DS: One of the more famous aspects of the book is its experimental formatting on some chapters. Was there any visual experimentation that did not go into the book?

MZD: The final version represents a beautiful evolution of it all, so there is nothing that I was attached to that is not there. I believe that, as you get older, and if you are lucky like how I was to have a successful career – unless you were swollen by your ego instead of by your books -, you realize how lucky you are. Of having met the right people along the way, of having the editor that I had at the time – and I still have almost 30 years later. Someone that instead of saying “no, don’t do that”, says “well, how will it be visually? How are people gonna see it?”. And part of the mythology of the book is that it was presented with all these typographic explorations everyone now knows so well.

But in my ingenuity, I believed the publisher would help in this process, that there would be a room dedicated to this type of work with layouting for every writer that would show up. Soon it became clear that I would be responsible for it. My editor/agent/publisher basically said “If you can come to NY, we can give you access to our computers and everything you need at Pantheon”. And that is what I did. I arrived there at Pantheon in NY every morning at 6am, bought the best coffee that I could find so, when everyone would arrive (they had that thing), we would have the best aroma/scent of this gourmet coffee, that at the time was something new. A gourmet coffee that I had no way to provide by myself, but that was important to me, to have some coffee, and one or two more for others, to understand that that was not a creative process. I used the word “creative” a lot, but it was not about destroying things – although the house destroys things in different ways -, but it was the evolution that was in the process.

Things being that way, I started the formatting, and my editor/publisher was always with me and I started to talk with preparers and advertisers, and the people that printed books, and everyone was getting increasingly curious. Slowly I was finishing chapters like 9, with its labyrinth with all its convolutions and stamps. And then I saw how people got fascinated by that, and, as that happened, people would get increasingly excited.

I’m very cautious to say that, but while the book looks impactful and original, It comes from a tradition of old poets that worked with concrete poetry, be it Pauliner, Mallarmé, there were a lot of folks that explored that before. We can go very far into antiquity, where we can see ways that were already present.

I believe the novelty there was the use of film rhetoric, that I learned with my dad, of basically understanding how movies/films were edited. It’s not just getting an image and then putting another image right after. It’s the way angles are divided, be it from up or down, the position of focus on the screen, the movement, the way how you can slow down the audience response to a scene by doing some specially long cuts/shots, and then speeding up the experience by using quick cuts/shots and moving the focal/focus point of the scene.

All this was incorporated in House of Leaves appropriately, because it is about a movie. This, in that sense, starts to intensify the experience. There were a lot of first readers, long before the book’s publication, but even at that time, and, once more, how lucky I was to have some of the best readers. They were professional readers, and just for getting a single moment from them to see some few pages, made me see about what was and was not working with the book, what maybe would not work and how to better refine it.

DS: You mentioned your father, who was a filmmaker. What was his influence, and of movies and general audiovisual works, in the construction of the narrative and format of House of Leaves?

MZD: Oh, very big. We still get mentions from cinema academics that identify some various references from movies that are there, be it Nouvelle Vague, or even the origins of cinema, and all those little gestures and moments that readers see some reference. And that is fascinating, because in some ways, there is a story, albeit a dark one, of cinema that is hidden between the scribbles of that house.

DS: On the internet there are numerous reading groups and discussion forums dedicated to unravel all the book’s references and riddles. Are there secrets in the book that are impossible to be solved?

MZD: There have been very intense readings of it and certainly many findings. But there still are tiny moments, like when a person contacted me about a specific movie, that no one, as far as I know, had mentioned yet. And this person was able to say with certainty that there was in fact a reference there and its own variety of mysteries. It's the influences, whether literary or cinematographic, but there's still other ways that the house works.

But yes, the book is extremely dense and there's still layers that were not completely deciphered to the present moment. But it still is the source of some smiles, for example, in my daughter's school, the mother of a student reached me and asked "I finally started reading your book. It's really good". She looked relieved and gave me the impression that she had this big idea that it would be very hard, that, according to what people said, it would be a very hard read for a reader that just wanted to dive into the story. And then she discovered that it was exactly the opposite, that there is a genuine pleasure and a real horror there, and that surprised her.

It's one thing to have all these intense groups, where people read the book many times before. They are not on a different level. They are advanced readers, sure, but there still exists the wonderful experience of being able to read the book for the first time and discover how it really is.

Recently I had this experience: only two people read my new book completely, and here there is a note because my wife is still not finished, but she is almost at the end, and keeps telling me to get out of the same house space as her because she wants to finish it, and I realized that I envy her for that experience. I envy the feeling of getting to have the first experience through everything that is about to happen. Now that I think about it, I can think of some people that read House of Leaves for the first time and how special that was.

Every author is tormented by the anxieties of "will they like it or not". But if you can get past that, and that is something hard to say to someone that is just starting this path, because you are very vulnerable. You still don't have any type of skill, scars or calluses that will keep you ahead of it. If you can focus only on the story, the unraveling that I had the opportunity to observe in some of the first readers entering the house for the first time it's pretty incredible. A great feeling.

DS: There is a theory that some of the blank spaces in the book's formatting are an invitation for the readers to make their own annotations and footnotes. Was this intention there? Do you like to see House of Leaves scribbled out in various ways?

MZD: I love it! I love any book that is annotated. Even when I buy a second-hand book, I get fascinated when it has the margins scribbled. It's like I've received a gift from two minds. What has this person discovered? I'm infinitely fascinated by that.

And yes, there was an intention there, there are many intentions there, so I rarely get surprised. I say "rarely", but honestly I think I never was surprised. The book was so planned out. I don't say that I don't get surprised by the connections people made, that are very personal, but for the book as an artifact. Even the way the margins were created, the spaces, everything you mentioned, that the spaces are there for people to add their own annotations, their own perceptions, of becoming other editors of that process, even more narrators.

There even is some recent discussion in transforming House of Leaves into an audiobook or not, for example. How would that experience be? Would it be completely different? Should we look at it more like a movie that is being made and is something completely separate, and kinda an experiment too? Or is there a way to create some kind of space in which the listener can participate? These are some of the questions that come up.

The same with an e-book. In some way, you are a company to House of Leaves when you have the book, and the e-book doesn't allow that. But when you have the digital version, you are facing a glass screen, in a way. You are robbed of the unquestionable interactivity that the page allows. Yes, you can write in an e-book, in some you can create annotations, but it's a bit complicated. It's less personal. And also a bit risky. Yes, the technology got better, but I remember creating annotations in a digital version and lost all of them, and that was not cool. I still have annotations on my books, in my bookshelves, that are 40 years old.

This is an important question, and one that made me think a lot, literally in the last two days: how do we feel about an audiobook and e-book? That said, I give the question back to you and all readers of this work: what do you think? Would you like to hear an audiobook version? Would this bring something new or would it lessen the experience?

DS: It's a valid question. Talking adaptations, much has been said about a possible House of Leaves film or TV series. In your website there are Teleplays for the work. We know the challenge it is to adapt a complex work like this one. How do you see an audio-visual adaptation of the book? Is there something in the works or that you would specifically like to see?

MZD: No, I'm not attached to any one vision of what I would like to see produced and made. I'm a novelist and there will come the day, when the right constellation of people align, there will be a meaningful representation of the book. But it's a dance, and unfortunately we don't have all the celestial time to make this dance, but there are, yes, many brilliant and creative professionals in Los Angeles and the whole world, but here specifically, those involved in making things happen

Many times that just doesn't work. But the question is: Could it be done? At this point I am still on the dance. There is nothing to announce, but there is allways excitement. We always have requests coming. People want meetings. If I answered them all, and got into all those meetings, I would never be able to write another book. And that is what I love to do. So the process gets slowed down. But still, there are people asking "what about Hulu? You could make something on FX". Maybe, who knows?

DS: Yes, A24, maybe?

MZD: Yes, A24, maybe. Talking about A24, I think someone sent it to me, something going around, maybe on TikTok, a false advertisement that A24 finally made the movie. And it was created with generic images. I don't know if any kind of AI was used, but it was like a trailer and everyone was saying "Oh my God, it's happening", just because they put on A24's logo. It was fun and I like to see that kind of stuff. There is a joke tone to it and I allways receive that well.

DS: Even though there is no adaptation, there are many known movies and games inspired by your book. Do you consider any oen of them particularly good or faithful to your work?

MZD: I don't follow that too closely. Like, these works are not House of Leaves, they don't answer the ideas and the energy that are part of the book. And who am I to say if anything is better or worse? There are inspired things that are really fun. There's this magnificent map of a Doom mod that was made on YouTube. It's extremely well done and you can see in the comments how people lived that. You can see that it's honest work, from the person or group of people that made it. If you look now, there's over 10 million views [12 million by the time I'm translating this]. Like the term I used before, it's something meaningful. It was not an errant attempt of just looking if the house was bigger or not on the inside just by looking at this. It's something that looks at all the complexities of how we understand space.

[Here, they linked the video. So I am too. https://youtu.be/5wAo54DHDY0]

A simple example is like when you're in a relationship and you feel much closer to that person. And suddenly there's a rupture in the way you communicate, or the way you present yourself to each other. And that person seems miles away, even if you are sitting close to one another. It's there that the complexity shows up. There's where the emotional journey starts in House of Leaves. I believe that's why readers come back to it.

So, when I see a project like that that was executed with so much emotion and integrity, it's not exciting only because it's related to House of Leaves. It's exciting because it's a continuous conversation, because this shows that there are big creative hearts out there. And that shines a more brilliant light into the future.

DS: House of Leaves is a work that surprises many people from their first encounter. Has there been an event or personal happening that caused you a great impact, that marked your life as a storyteller? Which?

MZD: I think you already know the answer to your question. The interesting part about this type of questioning is that there is some type of safety in the idea that there is this singular moment that offers inspiration for a big book like this one. I think we all feel comfortable with that idea. But, in many ways, I can point out the moment that I understood that the house was bigger on the inside.

I remember it happened shortly after my father died and I understood that there was a footnote that would become a poem or a short story. Only later I realized that that was actually the structured answer to everything I was writing in the previous years. There I was able to give form to a voice that is as similar to Johnny as it is to Zampanò, it was something resonant with this big idea I was exploring. Dissertations that I wrote to myself about how the language of films could be used in text

But each book is filled with a universe of inspirations. Frequently I am questioned where my inspiration comes from. For artists, inspiration is everywhere. The big problem is that, as you open the shutter [the camera thing] to this extraordinary world, where we're able to live, it can be oppressive. It's too much. So, in many ways, we're hiding all the time. I can write about a tree, about this little moment outside myself. Or this interesting conversation I heard on the bus between two people. It 's everywhere.

If there's anything wonderful about being a novelist it's that constantly there are moments that you can enjoy and remodel in your book [I don't get what he's saying here. Did my best]. One piece of advice that I give to new artists is to not block yourself too much from your tiny idea. You had just a little spark in the face of this vast and celestial wonder where we live. So it's more "be the way through which the universe can speak, so it can speak through you". Writers have the right to rearrange things. The voice that sounds in a bus by a powerful man can become through you a character that is exactly the opposite.

I believe that this is a more valid answer, that when the journey begins, there will be constant inspirations, coming from tiny moments. I'm in debt to all of them, I don't consider myself an author to any of them. I'm just lucky to have had these moments and for them to have given me the energy that I needed to write phrases that became meaningful to other people.

DS: This is the first time that Brazilian readers will have the possibility of reading House of Leaves in portuguese. What note/warning would you like to share with them?

MZD: First things first, I'd like to apologize for it taking almost 25 years for the book to have a version in Portuguese that would arrive in Brazil. I have a great affection for Brazil. Who am I to warn someone? I can only share a story for the people who read the whole book to have their own personal journey. The people that only get to the middle are the ones I worry about the most, because they are still in the darkness. They are still trapped in the house. I sometimes worry about those people that are still stuck in the darkness and are not able to leave.

I remember a beautiful and humble moment, when I was in an art gallery, and an old man came to me and asked me if I was "Mark Danielewski" and if I had written "House of Leaves". I confirmed, and he told me that he did not read the book, but that he wanted to thank me because his daughter tried to take her own life and, when he was beside her as she woke up, the man asked if he could do anything for her. And the daughter said "could you get House of Leaves for me?". And that is one of the things I've heard that makes me feel each time more a mere instrument of this book. Because to them it allowed a journey in trying times. I believe this should be available to any reader, no matter the language you speak.

[End]

[mebemilena]

You are my Candy girl and you got me wanting You

A/N:  life is tough sometimes and i got a few issues. There was this stray cat, we called him Sushi. He'd come to visit nearly everyday and i was preparing to adopt him. Sadly, he passed away. Little guy was run over by some irresponsible shithead. He wasn't living at my house yet and i'm not okay about it , i wish i had done something sooner. We took him to the emergency vet but he didn't make it. I feel so small sometimes. 

I didn't want to leave more fanfiction on the wait because i love writting, but i've been feeling sad and tired about everything. Thank you for the kind messages though, I appreciate them. 

A/N 2: we don't celebrate valentine's day in Brazil, we have another saint for romantic relationships and marriage and it's celebrated around June 22nd, i guess. 

-

Summary:  you're working doing errands for a bakery on valentine's day. You're not amused but Maya likes you. 

tittle from Sugar, Sugar by The Archies (one of my favorites)

- 

You took your bike and went to the Firefighter station, your first stop. Wandering around Tamaha, you noticed there were more couples than you'd usually see. The stores seemed more pink and there were love songs playing everywhere.

"A box of donuts for Boonie!", you entered the patio yelling, hitting the small hornet on your bike.

Boonie came almost running to you, she grabbed the box and smiled. She checked it for any name on the outside but there was no card, no name nor anything that could identify who had sent it. She shrugged, opening the box. 

"Why are you grumpy? It's Valentine's day, smile!", she took a large bite of one of her treats.

You looked at Boonie frowning, you hated Valentine's day. Especially because the one person you wanted to be your valentine seemed so out of reach.

"It's a holiday created by Europeans to sell cards and chocolate.", you muttered just as Maya arrived. Maya and her leather jacket, riding that motorbike and looking like the woman of your dreams.

She parked the vehicle and took off her helmet, her eyes landing on you instantly, a smile trying not to appear.

Maya walked towards you and Boonie, greeting the two of you. "Why do you look upset?", she signed to you, accepting one of the donuts Boonie offered. You huffed and replied slowly. "i don't like today. Valentine's day.", you signed.

Boonie smiled at herself, she's been helping you with ASL vocabulary lately. You nearly begged her to teach you so you could impress Maya during class, but she talked you out of it. "It's a pretty great opportunity for you to spend more time together. Ask her for extra classes!", she had said. But she did teach you a few more signs and of course you could practice with her too.

Maya contemplated for a moment, she finished the donut and cleaned her hand on her jeans. "We can study love words today, and i'll teach you how to ask someone on a date.", she started. "I can teach you how to flirt too.", she smiled, confident, not knowing you were already charmed. 

For the first time in a few weeks you understood all of what Maya signed. You couldn't reply how you wanted to, but you did understand and that made you blush.

-

You and Maya planned on practicing your daily vocabulary at a bakery store, eating cake. But first you had to go to Skully's store, him being one of your errands' destinations. 

"Oh, someone remembered me on Valentine's day?", the old man nearly giggled as you handed him a small package, a few decorated cupcakes inside. "Is it from pokni?", Maya asked, making Skully blush and smile. He nodded, not trusting his words as another wave of giggles left his mouth.

You smiled at the old man's antics, a bittersweet feeling spreading on your chest.

-

 Maya noticed you were too quiet. You barely looked around, your eyes on the floor while you pushed your bike around. The two of you bought some soda and pretzels for lunch and sat at a bench to eat and chat.

Maya sighed, she looked around and could finally notice the amount of couples and flowers around Tamaha, her eyes stopping at a couple on the other side of the street. She looked at you and back at them, nudging your shoulder with her own.

"I know you are upset" , she signed. "But it's just a day. You don't need a valentine to celebrate.", she signed to you. "But if you want one, I can be it. Though I like to be with you many other days too.", she smiled, that big smile that showed most of her teeth. 

Your heart danced inside your chest, you could feel the vibrations all over your body. Thump-Thump. Thump-Thump. You kept staring at her, thinking of an answer.

"I understand what you say, but i don't know reply.", you finally signed to her, watching her face turn into a half-surprised expression.

"Someone's finally studying more?", Maya mocked you, nudging your shoulder with her own. Again. 

You noticed she does that as an act of affection.

"I don't need...", you started, trying  to remember the signs. "C-H-O-C-O-L-A-T-E", you spelled , your hands moving slow. "I have something. More. Candy", you continued. "I have you.", you signed, nervous.

Maya laughed but she understood what you meant, leaving the opportunity to correct you for later. She took a caramel candy from her jacket pocket and gave it to you. "Not chocolate.", she told you with a smile, leaning to give you a kiss on the cheek. 

You sighed, your big smile matching Maya's.

"Happy Valentine's day, Maya.", you signed, linking your arms together as you ate the pretzels and watched the couples walk around town from your bench. 

[celticbotanart]

Shuffle your favorite playlist and post the first five songs that come up. Then copy/paste this ask to some of your favorite mutuals 💌

I was tagged by @sideadde, thank you so much!! Sid tagged me on my personal blog but I'll just go ahead post this here since it's a music post - this blog has been pretty dead too as I mentioned on my previous post, so this is a good way of posting SOMETHING here, at least. SO, I dont have a favorite-FAVORITE playlist, so I'll just use this opportunity to activate my Brazilian music playlist - accurately named "Tropical Gothic" bc our music is very fun and lively but also a lot of them is more melancholic than y'all from outside might think kkkkkk

Let's do this!

Milton Nascimento - Peixinhos do Mar ("Little Fishes in the Sea")

Starting strong! The song seems to be an adaptation from folk music and it shows - he says "Who taught me how to swim / It was, oh sailor, it was the little fishes in the sea", which is very whimsical. Then, it goes on and it also mentions how Portuguese came from overseas to Brazil, "bringing gunpowder, lead and bullets, we want to fight wars". You see what they did here, lol

2. Zé Ramalho ft Belchior - Garoto de Aluguel ("Rentboy")

This one is a huge favorite of mine djkfhdjhgf It goes HARD on the tango, accordion and all, it's just SO good. Zé Ramalho and Belchior (and Milton from the previous track) are like... legends, they are incredibly important figures to the brazilian music history, especially Milton and Belchior, really. I highly recommend going for their stuff if you're interested in more MPB ("Brazilian Popular Music" in Eng)! The song itself, it's literally what it says on the tin lol. It's about this prostitute guy and how he goes on with his life. This one might or might not be in my OC Cassie's playlist kdjfhkdf

3. Nana Caymmi - Flor da Noite ("Night Flower")

Jfc, this one. So atmospheric, and Nana's voice is very deep and smooth. And the fucking strings in this arrangement???? Iconic and gorgeous AF. It talks about someone reminiscing far into the night about past events, especially about a love that ended long ago. She keeps saying that if the person she loves meets someone else, than her former lover shouldn't talk to this new person about the past, and what's gone. It's such a beautiful song ahhh <3 3. Casa de Caba - Cílio ("Eyelash")

Oh dang, it's another Brazilian Sea Shanty time! Or at least, that's how I see this one, with all the instruments they use and the vibes. He starts mentioning a bunch of imagery to tell us the character singing is tough and is here to fuck with people in ways they WILL dislike, lol, such as "I'm the eyelash falling in your eye, an eye that cannot see", "An ugly, poorly-made ceramic pot that never breaks"; at the same time he's also "the word that guides you, the caress that comforts you, the delivery food you order and always arrives quickly", haha. Then the chorus, he's pleading: "Janaína, Janaína, Mother of my February, take me back, to the seashore" - Janaína is another name for Iemanjá, or Yemoja, the mother of seas and deity of oceans in many afro-brazilian religions, who came from the Yoruba culture. He mentions February there in the lyrics because Iemanjá is celebrated here on Feb 2nd! :)

5. Margareth Menezes - Faraó ("Pharaoh")

OH GOD YESSS! Probably the most creative track in here - the music genre is called "Axé" and very based on African / Afro-Brazilian instruments as you'll hear. Here, POWERHOUSE DIVA Margareth Menezes will fucking give you a fast course on literal Egyptian Mythology/History ("The ascension, not even Osiris knew how that happened /The order or submission of His Eye was transformed into true humanity"; "The Epic of Geb's Code, and Nut who gave birth to the stars"; "Osíris asked Isis in marriage / And the evil Seth, full of wrath, assassinated him"); then, she uses that as a way of saying we should look at our African roots in awe and joy, and how the black people is still fighting to this day for basic respect and equality, even originating from the land of legendary kings and queens and golden gods. It's SUCH a powerful song, and it's catchy af. Depending where you are, if you just scream "EU FALEI: FARAÓ!" (I said: Pharaoh!), people WILL answer to you with EEEEE, FARAÓ back lol that's how fucking iconic this one is and I love it so much

Hope you like the songs on this one! <3 Tagging @dravenxivuk @feykiller !