#i am basic there but that's bc i'm only just working through the classics

[clouds-of-wings]

I don't even know what my top albums of the year are, but here are some I discovered this year that I really liked, so that I don't come across as ONLY a hater. Linking my fav track, or one of my fave tracks, on YT every time.

Molllust - Mother Universe (A glimmer of hope in the irradiated wasteland that is symphonic metal at present. Also one of the four female-LED metal bands I know. Like with a female composer! Such wow!)

Knights of Heliopolis - Ferrum Fero Ferro Ferror (ditto about the hope thing. Also they have an operatic bass frontman and holyyyyy shiiiit that is the best thing ever! I keep fangirling about this band but they used to be called "Phoebus the Knight", so that's the tag that's in.)

Nostra Morte - Sin Retorno (A flicker of light from the NON-wasteland that symph was 12 years ago)

Silent Opera - Immortal Beauty (ditto. Oh how I wish for soothing rain and some fucking OPERA VOCALS in the fucking OPERA GENRE. Why is symph metal full of COWARDS and CASUALS? I know I sound like Holden Caulfield, but that's because he's right and my role model.)

Nanowar - Dislike to False Metal (Power Metal, Nanowar being awesome as usual. I link perhaps one of their less surprising songs bc I'm a sucker for that Rhapsody stuff but plz listen to the whole album, it also has tracks like this - great variety really, and greater wtf! I gently pat Gatto's head and wonder what he will do next, clearly he's called Cat for a reason.)

Elina Garanca - Habanera (These are just some famous arias, but her voice is really nice! Dark-voiced mezzo-sopranos rule the world!)

Snowy Shaw - White is the New Black (I have been listening to this so much lately. Somehow I always ignored his solo work after the Notre Dame stuff except for some of his singles, but this album is actually really really cool! I don't know which genre it is lol. Metal Archives says "Heavy Metal", but that doesn't really describe it so well. Snowy has a lot of personality, and so does his music. Just click! You may not even regret it!)

Wolfenmond - Can't pick an album... Galdra (EP!) I guess. Folk metal or medieval rock with a woman who doesn't get forced to sound cute.

Grendel's Sÿster - Myrtenkranz Heavy metal / folk metal with a woman who REALLY doesn't get forced to sound cute. As SATW said, women should be respected, but sister Germany should be feared. Damn straight. This is an EP, same music first in English, then in German.

Kornalyn - Intemporel (French acoustic folk, revolutionary communist and anarchist songs. This guy is a folk song recording MACHINE and I like almost everything he releases.)

Therion - Leviathan 3 (I still wrestle with this album. A lot! I also know from past experience that in retrospect I'm more likely to regret not including it than I am including it.)

---

I also watched like 20 operas this year in an attempt to be a little less of a poser in the genre. I don't know which I would recommend the most. Wagner's "Die Walküre" touched me the most, both in terms of story and of pure epicness of the music. Kinda wiped the floor with everything else :/ It seems Wagner is the only one in opera who isn't shit at plots. Lohengrin also had a good story! Vivaldi's "Juditha Triumphans" (not technically an opera but an oratorio, but really I don't care, it's basically an opera) and Bizet's "Carmen" (I'm not linking that, there are 8945098340 good recordings, just find one that looks appealing to you) had the most pleasant music.

I also liked Alessandro nell‘Indie by Leonardo Vinci (no relation). I link my favourite scene. Don't worry about the lack of English subs, the plot is 4 hours of soap opera. They did a very traditional staging of this, like back in 1730, which means it's all countertenors and sopranists, half in drag. Thus it pairs nicely with the all-female Vivaldi one above. Back when women were real men who led armies and men had fake boobs or danced under falling rose petals singing about love, LIKE GOD INTENDED! TRADITIONAL VALUES!

[arataka-reigen]

hello!! i saw the tags on your pinned post abt how shoujo wasn't just romance and it got me curious bc i've read some nice shoujo but really dislike romance-heavy plots. are there any shoujos you like that don't have much or any romance in them? ty and i hope you have a good day! 💛

Oh, there are lots of mangas that are classified as shoujo and don't have romance!!

I am just now beginning my journey through shoujo as well, so I don't have a lot of recommendations for stuff I actually read, but the ones I did read or watch so far are:

Natsume Yuujinchou and basically anything else by its author, Yuki Midorikawa. Sometimes, her works do include romance, but the focus is almost always in the interpersonal relationships and the difficulties her characters go through in life. NatsuYuu is about an orphan boy who can see yokai, and for that reason he acts in "weird" ways and his foster families dislike him, so he keeps going from family to family. The story is about how he finds a good family who accepts and loves him, makes friends, and learns to make friends even with yokais.

There are currently 6 anime seasons out, and a 7th season is on its way, so you can either read the manga or watch the anime.

Akatsuki no Yona - i mean, this one does include romance, but i'll still put it on the list because as far as the anime went the focus is heavy on Yona's actual journey to gather the dragons of legend to be able to recover the kingdom that was stolen from her. It shows how Yona goes from a sheltered spoiled girl to a person befitting the title of dragon king.

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom - this one is the og villainess isekai and it truly deserves the hype. It is about a girl who wakes up in the child body of the villainess of her favorite otome game. She remembers that the villainess' fate in the game was always either death or exile, so she tries her hardest to change her fate. This one is classified as a reverse harem, but the main character is pretty oblivious and worries more about farming and eating sweets and generally being the best girl ever than actually worrying about romance. Aro ace queen tbh. And her harem is just happy to be with her and be dragged along for her stupid adventures. Plus, the female members of her harem are taken seriously as well, Mary is a raging lesbian and it is not subtext. I mean, it is a shoujo, so of course the female characters would be important lol.

Usagi Drop - listen to me. You will absolutely not look for anything related to this manga. If you like the premise you can watch the anime. But, please, do not look for the manga. You will only be extremely disappointed by it. That being said, I recommend the anime. It is about a man who returns home for his grandfather's funeral and then finds out his grandfather had an illegitimate daughter who has now become an orphan. He ends up having to take care of her because the rest of the family considers her a shame to the family.

Now, for the stuff I havent seen yet, I'll just write some that are on my "plan to read" list and put their genres next to their names so you can check it out if you think the genre's sound interesting:

7 Seeds (drama, horror, psychological, sci fi, survival)

Requiem of the Rose King (drama, historical, supernatural, gender identity)

Basara (drama, fantasy, adventure) (i think this one has romance, but from what i've heard, the main character's story is a lot deeper as she takes her brother's identity in order to fight against the king who killed her brother, it is pretty famous and considered a classic)

Ghost Hunt (horror, mystery, psychological, supernatural)

Helter Skelter (horror, psychological)

My Stepmother and Stepsisters aren't Wicked (comedy, historical, slice of life)

Ikoku Nikki (drama) (this one is the one i'm currently most interested on, i hear it's about a distant woman who's never had a good relationship with her sister and now has to take care of her teenage niece because her sister died)

Itsuwari no Freya (crossdressing, historical)

Limit (drama, psychological, school) (this one sounds incredible tbh, on a field trip their bus gets into an accident and only 5 girls remain, having to learn to survive and trying to assert themselves over one another because they hate each other.)

Machida-kun no sekai (school)

Mitarai-ke, Enjou suru (drama) (the main character wants to infiltrate the household of the family who blamed her mother for a fire, in order to prove her mother's innocence)

Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You (comedy)

Uramichi Oniisan (comedy, showbiz, workplace)

Usotoki Rhetoric (mystery, historical)

Don't Call It Mystery (mystery)

If anyone has more things to recommend I would also love to hear about it!!

[multifandommadnessblog]

Narilamb; an in-depth(ish) study by Rachi that is totally deranged but maybe someone else will like it :) - aka it's her headcanons and stuff (with videos from other creators)

okay so why am i so obsessed with narilamb? uh... look i can explain i swear

Okay first off: my opinions here are probably very similar to many others and I know I'm not original in any way, shape or form. BUT, I like to talk (or type I guess).

SO... why is narilamb so good?? Most of us agree it's kinda pretty toxic. I see it as a relationship that was (heavy on the was) built on unhealthy power dynamics, manipulation and overall nuh uhs. To be clear it's kinda toxic on both sides, Narinder and lamb both at some point in the overall relationship do bad things and that's just how it is. it's complicated

but anyways

Idk how many of us actually chose to spare Narinder versus kill him at the end of the game (I personally spared him) but this is where a lot of these headcanons (and I'd argue the ship itself) starts.

When spared Narinder is escaping the jail that he was held in for thousands of years, but then forced to adapt to a new life in the cult. Which kinda sucks, and most of my headcanons center around Narinder going through some deep character arc (not excusing his previous actions) and learning to live life again basically.

and obv the lamb's personality is supposed to be based off the player since we play them, but I picture them in two ways:

Classic sunshine, happy go jolly. Their "cult" personality if you will - they're silly and goofy and meme worthy

Numb, cold and just trying to get by. Without proper support they withhold all of these negative emotions and experiences. They didn't want this - they just knew this was their only chance at life again (this video by Paper SU conveys this)

Part of me thinks that the lamb never wanted any of this cult business, they probably had a simple life before. The only reason they are here is because they truly don't have anything else. Their cult members don't really have the depth to help them, and lamb sees them more as children to live for than a companion or someone who truly understands their experiences.

then black cat babygirl Narinder comes in and BAM.

The two have been harmed by deep trauma without a proper outlet for it. I picture both having to live with these and just kinda hide that part of them (for Narinder it comes out as anger and falsely guarding himself so he doesn't get hurt again. For lamb they just hide behind this happy facade they put up, Ratau and his folks are the only ones who see some of what the real lamb is like)

When first interacting in the new dynamic (Nari is in the cult now) it's messy to say the least. Lamb finally realizes someone could potentially understand what they had been through for the past uh.... many many years. Ofc, Narinder kinda started it all but he also gave them life again. It's complicated, and lamb's feelings about it are also complicated. Narinder is just sassy and mean like usual, refusing to accept lamb as the new god, still angry from their (and others) betrayal, blah blah blah, kinda wanting to just live his new life but he has lived for so long in anger it would be weird to not...

and for a while lamb thinks it's not going to work :(

But then MmMMMMMMMM THE IMMORTALITY OF IT.

Okay look look, can we all agree that Narinder is canonly immortal (cause of his trait if you spare him) and Lamb ascending to godhood is immortal? Yes? Cool.

I love the idea that these two got literally all of the time in the world to figure out their dynamic and help to heal each other after all of their traumas. Even if they go through rough patches they have all the time to work it out and that just gives me so much hope :,) Cause in the real world relationships can't work like that so I almost feel like there is a pressure on relationships to rush through and never have extreme conflict bc there isn't enough time in life to work through it and still enjoy the time together (existential crisis)

A really great video I watched that (in my opinion) demonstrates this idea is this animatic by Strawdool on youtube! (it's also just really cute please watch it)

So even if these two are as different as can be, both mentally damaged and overall not doing so hot, one is angry as hell, and the other is in denial and just sad THEY GOT ALL OF ETERNITY TO FIGURE IT OUT. They can learn to live together because they know they will always have each other :>

I mean there is a tumblr post i saw where someone complied the official art of Narinder and it shows him just being kinda silly n goofy

i'm sure it's for the sillies BUT PERSONALLY I see it as Nari finally being comfy in his life (maybe a very long time after he is indoctrinated) - finally working on healing and he's just chilling

i wanna thank lamb for that, and i hope lamb also is doing just as good because of nari

please i need to write more of this its so unhealthy all of these ideas sitting in my little brain - for now i must shut up

(also I have SEARCHED FAR AND WIDE for fan content of this ship so if any of y'all are up for fanfiction or fan art reccs hmu I have many)

okay thanks

bye

[kenjiyabuki]

so here are some thoughts about DMD Friendship the Reality while we are nearing the end

yeah yeah its not that deep but actually no one caring/talking about a show makes me want to write a LONG ASS POST bc i cant get gratification from going through the tags and reading opinions lmaoooooo so HERE damn okkk i will make the content i want to see in the world i guess dont mind me......😞

im not even the biggest Domundi fan but i was intrigued by the premise of this show. i mean it's a basically fake dating show (like one of their challenge rewards was getting to sleep in a suite together as if they are there to date for real) and the end prize isnt just an acting opportunity as it comes w the big decision of choosing a looooooong time acting partner. so i wanted to see how they would do it. BOC did a similar thing w The Hidden Character which i dropped halfway in bc it was too long and i found the challenges to be irrelevant to the ending goal. this show is the opposite of that and thats why ive been enjoying it.

it is edited to be concise (only 5 eps) and honestly, is quite tranquil. all the challenges were about things they will be required to do in the future as DMD actors/idols and stakes aren't even that high. You could always guess who would win before they even started (((like of course broody model guys won the photoshoot challenge and guy w two series under his belt won the acting one, DUH))) but it was still enjoyable to watch. show's goal isn't to generate tension and competitiveness. it is more of a workshop/chemistry building camp and also a way to introduce the new generation and get the fans warm up/attached to them.

as i spent time in bl fandom sphere, i've come to realize introducing a new gen is tricky. i thought everyone would be ecstatic to see new blood and a lil bit of mix and match but BL fans are reaaaaaaaaaaally attached to their faves and generally see newcomers as threats who will take opportunities from their already neglected (!) precious babies (e.g. just couple weeks ago FortPeat fans were protesting the new lesbian side couple in the upcoming show for stealing screen time from their faves, which is a joke in itself). this kind of show is genius way to get people to warm up to idea of new faces. at the end of the the day, these fans' weakness is two beautiful boys indulging in sweet moments they can be delulu over and considering how ships were already born from the first episode, DMD FTR succeeded in their goal.

LETS TALK ABOUT THE BOYS :-) *this starts playing*

I had to make this during first ep bc they are all dark haired boys w similar builds so I kept confusing them lmaoooooo (Tle not pictured as he joined later)

i will firstly talk about the fan favorite possible "couples";

KengNamping, the quiet visual couple and yes I love em!!!! they were kinda the only "conflict" in this very conflict free competition.

is Keng the CALMEST person I've ever seen? Latte is laid back too but Keng is just seems zen. sometimes (in the face of conflict) he just seemed hard to read but mostly he has such a calming presence. honestly, he should open an ASMR channel if this acting gig doesn't work out.

Namping also comes off very warm and graceful. him being "wow I'm finally in the winner suite" to Keng after finally getting chosen in ep4 made me laugh like DAMN he really was offended by what happened in ep1 and kept letting it slip. Idc, you are so right my prince and don't ever let Keng forget what he did to you...

when it comes to the possibility of them as a couple: i am kinda here for it while also not knowing if i actually believe in their "moments" in the show? Namping definitely set his sights on him from the beginning but Keng seemed nonchalant about it. Keng finally choosing Namping after his win, their sweet moment on the bed etc. seemed to me like classic reality show moment prompted by production to fit a certain narrative WHILE ThomasKong's pseudo-date-night chats seemed very real and spontaneous.

they do visually have chemistry, i'm not gonna act like i wasn't blushing when Keng trying to flirt during dinner or Namping softly touching a sleepy Keng's chin in the bed etc. Or even in ep2, when Namping tries to confront Keng about his pick but they are too timid and just unable to talk about it openly!!! arrghhh it's a hard to watch moment but still, made them more intriguing because they had such a tension between them. it would be a shame if it wasn't explored more. that tension can be channeled into an angsty series, just saying...

So, they def have a long way to go in their bond and arent comfortable like LatteFirst or ThomasKong but still, they are a strong contender and I would be glad to see them as a couple in a show. Namping already got my attention in the acting challenge and wonders can be achieved w a lil bit of workshop. they got the juice already!!!

Now, lets talk about ThomasKong.............

me watching Thomas relentlessly chatting Kong up since THE FIRST EPISODE

so I knew LatteFirst are set be a side couple in upcoming Love Upon a Time but i was confused to see why everyone on Twitter was already going cuckoo over these two random boys until i saw them interacting... Wow, like Thomas really came here w one mission: get Kong and leave.

because Thomas is such a flirt like DAMNNN😳😳😳😳he needs to be jailed for carrying lethal amounts of charm... IT MUST BE SAID: I love his fits w those thin glasses, he should've been wearing those in those office BLs he was in because he has been serving "office siren". Tiktok girlies eat your heart out.

while Kong isn't the best at acting or singing (he is the best KengNamping shipper tho and i LOVE a fudanshi BL actor), he definitely would win Mr. Congeniality if they were giving that title. he naturally and effortlessly has great on screen charisma. he is a certified cutie and the only one who can get real full belly laughs from Thomas!!!

i think what they managed in the acting challenge is the testament to their palpable chemistry. acting wise they weren't perfect (naturally, their uneven acting experience levels were apparent) but they were the only one who managed to tonal shift in their scenes. it's because they were the only ones who played into the romantic subtext of the scene. they also held eye contact for the longest (because they are comfortable w each other and not shy!!!), which elevated their chemistry and made me AND the judges giggle and roll our hair and kick our feet and shit!!!!!!!!!!!!

they are obviously the most likely to win the show and they deserve it too. no matter the result of the show, i want see them carrying a series as mains because they can and should. i also believe DMD won't fumble their bag, so i am not worried about it.

to conclude, I will quote Zee,

then we come to LatteFirst, the kinda established couple: in the ep5 preview, we see First trying to choose between Latte and the newcomer Tle, which seemed random to me and could be a production touch to create conflict in this very smooth sailing show.

i loved seeing Latte being nonchalant about the possibility of First choosing someone else, what a laid back guy. like Mio in THC, every BL reality show needs a half asleep and occasionally funny dude.

now i am thinking; what if First chose Tle, would he also replace Latte in LUAT bc DMD doesn't really fuck w mixing matching their couples. i honestly don't know where did all that come from but i feel like the result wont be too shocking, First and Latte are already really close and comfortable and got The Chemistry. need i remind of Latte punching the air a la Judd Nelson at the end of The Breakfast Club when it was announced they both chose each other for the dinner date? and their sweet and comfortable banter on that said date??? let's put our pens to work and write a friends to lovers rom-com for the boys based on that material please...

i dont think they are likely to win but might be strong contender. i just want to see them as a side couple in LUAT (hopefully this year!!!!) so they can develop themselves and their bond a little bit more before getting to a main couple level. their sweet friendship shouldn't go to waste!!! (is it obvious i am more drawn to BL couples who are besties in real life?)

damn this post is about to be a novella so i will make it short about Gems, TeeTee and Tle, i hope Gems won't be too upset about getting slighted again 😥 like i said, stakes aren't high on this show and results are always obvious: these guys are going back home empty handed, we all know it. they are all charismatic and VERYYY talented but i just felt like none of them really focused on "getting a partner" part of the show, not just the main challenges. even TeeTee who was picked by Thomas and Keng seemed kinda uninterested about partnering up. but you cant really force chemistry and i am sure they will get many more opportunities in the future. they already started their fanbase!!! i cant stand to see Gems so upset, i hope he wont be too sad.

these are my opinions. maybe the ending will do a whole 180 and idk, GemsKeng or TleKong or some other random couple will win, who knows???? cant wait to watch the new overly airbrush filtered, Cheewin directed DMD show up to like 5 episodes and then get bored and drop it and follow the rest from gifs!!! good luck to the boys <3

[hickeygender]

javert is WRONG: the thesis of les mis is that legality and morality aren't synonymous!

i just found the internet's most unbelieveably dogshit hottake that makes anything woobifying javert written by Die Girlies Auf Tumblr Und Twitter galaxy brained in comparison. rest is below a cut because i got Wordy in my goal of ripping this motherfucker a new one.

The point about “fault” is very important here. Following Rousseau, Hugo believes that the poor become criminals out of necessity. They “fall” (i.e., become poor) and then become morally “degraded.” Therefore, our response to crime should be “charity,” not punishment. This is a classic Romantic view that became the basis for modern liberalism. According to Rousseau, people are basically good and are corrupted by society, committing crime only out of ignorance and desperation; the solution to crime, then, is education and welfare. Christians obviously worry that this view has no place for the doctrine of original sin, and conservatives object to this view because it leaves out personal responsibility for crime.

i know this is a christian publication but the concept of original sin even factoring into criminality and criminal justice genuinely pisses me off. stop forcing your shitty worldview that everyone is popped outta the womb an evil sinner, i beg. the seperation of church and state is a vital part of democracy. also, you can believe people are shaped by society and driven to crime through desperation without taking away personal agency. those two things are not contradictory.

If I am right about the Rousseau subtext, then Javert is not necessarily a villain; he’s just a conservative, albeit a liberal caricature of a conservative. There are two good examples of a liberal bias in Les Mis. First, notice that Valjean’s position in his society is roughly analogous to an illegal immigrant in our society. When he leaves the prison, Valjean can’t get work because he doesn’t have the right papers. He’s an undocumented worker. In a scene from the musical cut from the film, a farmer allows Valjean to work for him, but then only pays him half as much as the other laborers. The farmer reasons, “You broke the law….Why should you get the same as honest men?”

i've never seen anyone, even javert fans, try and argue he isn't a villain. this is breaking new ground here, folks. it's a hell of an assertion, but it's demonstrably false. jean valjean is the main character. we root for him and wish to see him succeed. javert is hunting him for the entire narrative. thus, he is the antagonist. there may be some moral ambiguity on both their parts, but he structurally is the villain and that is a narrative fact.

next, as an american i am fucking BEGGING on my HANDS and KNEES for other americans to learn about the differing political terms for different countries and times if they are speaking about them with any supposed credibility. i'm not asking you to memorize every country's parties and political intricacies, but at least acknowledge that even if there is some overlap between 21st century american conservatism and 19th century french politics, that there is no one-to-one analogy!! modern american christian conservatism is a consequence of hundreds of years of unique geopolitics and religion stewing together, and you can say similar things about french politics of the time! you CANNOT just say shit like "javert is a liberal caricature of a conservative" without sounding like an utter clown because hugo was not an american liberal and javert is not an american conservative. now, if you were to alter your language a bit and say something like "javert is a leftist caricature of an arch-conservative," you'd sound less foolish (hugo's politics are hard to pin down but leftist is i believe the best label for him at the time of LM's publication. and to my understanding javert isn't really a fervent arch-conservative but it is at least a plausible reading bc he's a traditionalist, deeply religious cop and 19th century french arch-conservativism actually existed in 19th century france (shocker, i know!)). but that change in language would require actual intellect and effort to learn about other times, places, and worldviews on the part of the author, and judging by his ignorant politics, something tells me he's lacking that!

then there's the bit about illegal immigration. hoo BOY is this fucking stupid. jean valjean is a white, culturally catholic, working class french male citizen. he's an everyman of the time, his name and story of class struggle couldn't be more generic unless he was named john doe or jean dupont (the french equivalent) from nowheresville, france. hugo had a point here, and that is that as a member of the wretched poor, les misérables, valjean, representing a large swath of the french populace, is so removed from education and self reflection and truly living life that he's more akin to an animal or an object, that he's so beat down by the daily grind that he verges on inhuman. this is only magnified by his time in toulon. i'll stop there, but it is very important in jean valjean's story that he's impoverished, yes, but a french citizen. he is as french as the king, but treated like dirt because of his social status and criminal record. this sets up a dichotomy in the france of 1832 between the wretched poor and those with privilege, which is an important part of the novel.

the issue of "illegal immigration" both in france and america is a modern one. there was still bigotry and xenophobia, obviously, but the discourse around the intersections of border control, the nation state, and citizenship is a very modern one. to say "valjean's position in his society is roughly analogous to an illegal immigrant in our society" is ignorant. yes, both jean valjean and many undocumented immigrants are faced with similar abuses, but that does not mean it's intended by hugo to be a reading of the text or political commentary because let me restate this: 21ST CENTURY AMERICAN POLITICS DIDN'T EXIST IN 19TH CENTURY FRANCE!

also, valjean is the opposite of undocumented. he has his yellow papers, which are quite literally documents that are the root cause of the daily discrimination he faces, hence why him ripping them up is a radical act of freeing himself from the control of an unjust state. i don't even know how you miss this, it's stressed in the movie musical multiple times.

“Men like you can never change,” he tells Valjean. But Javert is not simply being prejudiced here. He knows from his own experience that it is possible for the poor to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Javert, too, was born in poverty. He is “from the gutter,” as he puts it, but he embraced law and made something of himself.

oh, of course the bootstraps ideology rears its ugly head. not even gonna waste my breath on this one other than to call it stupid and wrong. all javert made himself was a class traitor and a bootlicker, and that's honestly tragic.

Consider a second example of liberal bias. The character of Fantine is designed to elicit the viewer’s sympathy for “welfare mothers.” Fantine, a young, unwed mother in Valjean’s factory, faces persecution from her coworkers. The factory foreman expresses a conservative attitude toward charity: “At the end of the day, you get nothing for nothing.”

this part. this part was so unbelievably cruel and so far removed from the empathy that this narrative bleeds that i had to step back from writing this and take a smoke break. firstly, fantine is NOT a stand in for "welfare mothers", which is, once again, a modern conservative strawman! the welfare state did not exist in 19th century france. there was little to no support for mothers in fantine's position, and to my knowledge, none stemming from the state. hugo was writing her character to bring to light the unfairness of her position. she had a lover who left her flat out, with a child to care for and no financial support. she was ostracized, eventually fired, and resorted to survival sex work.

Fantine shouldn’t expect special treatment, but rather should take responsibility for the consequences of her own sexual license.

fuck you, john. where in the text did she ask for "special treatment". where in the text did she do ANYTHING but take responsibility for her child. she sold her hair. she sold her teeth. she sold her body. she got sick because of her living conditions. she died. all out of love for her child. also, framing children as "a consequence" is disgusting, and you should be ashamed of yourself and reflect on why you think that's an alright way to view a living, breathing, human being. if you don't wanna take my word for it, psalm 127:3 clearly states "children are a gift from the lord; they are a reward from him," so your stance is decidedly unbiblical. children aren't punishment.

Likewise, when Fantine turns to prostitution to feed her child, Javert is unmoved by excuses. Valjean’s family was starving, and Fantine’s daughter was sick, but these facts don’t excuse them for breaking the law. Theft and prostitution are wrong, and it is Javert’s duty as police officer to arrest them.

how is theft to feed a starving child immoral. how is sex work to ensure your child lives immoral. give me ONE reason aside from your and javert's religious worldviews that either of those things is wrong. "but the bread didn't belong to valjean!" and would inaction, watching his nephew die simply because a windowpane and empty pockets separated him from a piece of bread be more moral? is watching a child die when you believe you can save them the better option? the whole point of this damn book is that legality is NOT synonymous with morality. javert may have the legal high ground, but he does NOT have the moral high ground, and when he realizes this, the thesis of the book, he fucking kills himself! for an example outside the text to perhaps get it through your thick skull: slavery was legal. biblical, even! does that mean it's morally right? no!

Thus Les Mis is designed to get us to see Javert’s conservatism as cruel and to elicit sympathy for Hugo’s liberal social policies. It should be noted, however, that Les Mis is a caricature of the conservative position. Conservatives agree that we ought to treat the poor with dignity and compassion. They think that compassion programs, however, should be administered by the church instead of the state, and they think true dignity requires personal responsibility and submission to the law.

how can javert both be an exaggerated, cruel conservative caricature and be right? i'd argue he's both an accurate portrayal of the inherent cruelty and misanthropy present in the politics of the political right, and that he's decidedly wrong as proven in the text. jean valjean is a good man, despite it all, but javert couldn't see that because of his worldview and chose to relentlessly hound him until he finally realized his mistake, a realization that overcame him so strongly that his only solution in his mind was to kill himself!

and do conservatives actually agree they should treat the poor with dignity and respect? it's in the bible, sure, which christian conservatives hold as the absolute truth, but in this very article you, a christian conservative, have expressed nothing but contempt and cruelty for undocumented immigrants, for unwed mothers, for thieves and sex workers. for les misérables - the wretched poor. and why shouldn't the state handle "compassion programs" as you call them? the gov't is electable and manageable (in theory), unlike the beast of untraceable wealth and power that is the church. we don't live in a theocracy, so the only reliable way to ensure people get the help they deserve is through the state, which can actually be held accountable for these expectations (again, in theory). that's more than you can say for the church.

The fact that Les Mis contradicts evangelical theology does not mean apologists shouldn’t use it—on the contrary. We can help non-Christian fans of the musical see how the vision that draws them toward the story can only be fulfilled in Christ.

his conculsion is LAUGHABLE. personally, the "vision that drew me to the story" at age twelve was my attraction to men. i'm a flaming homosexual, you see, and a transgender one at that. the overwhelming majority of musical theater fans i've encountered are some variety of queer. at age 22, ten years later, i'm drawn to the story still partially because i find these characters attractive and magnetic, but much more so for the literary and socialist political value i find in the narrative. i'm an unrepentant leftist as well, as are literally every other les mis fan i've ever met (besides yourself, of course). i've found more fulfillment through reading les misérables than i have in my exploration of the new testament, and i'm not even done with the book yet!

i don't really know how to conclude this other to point and laugh at john and his publictaion, because somehow i stumbled upon a conservative fan of les mis and the lack of self awareness is more baffling than i could have ever imagined it being

[arcplaysgames]

Actually, no. lemme recap now because I bet once I meet the Big Bad and beat them it'll be like 2 hours of cutscenes and dialogue.

Where did I leave off-- REALLY? THAT LONG AGO? FUCK ME.

Okay SOMEONE remind me LATER to sum up Empress, because I completed it. Note to self, it's around 12/2 in your screencaps.

So Shido wins the elections because it turns out that no one saw the Thieves' big calling card for him, and those who did didn't remember it. There is obviously Some Shit going on with people's mass apathy syndrome.

Because Persona only has one theme and it's "people will be too lazy to pay attention to the truth, fucking sheeple," I guess.

/clucks tongue. I'm not really impressed by this turn of the story, I'm kinda Over the slow increase in apathy that winds up being the undoing of the world until we beat up a god and save everyone. This is the third time, I would have shaken shit up by having the Hidden Big Bad send the Thieves a calling card, demanding they come protect their Treasure, and then you meet the Big Bad and just gimme a villain with a motive, goddamn. It's a supernatural story, the sky's the limit!

I shouldn't kvetch too much yet. Anyway, Shido admits to his crimes, but the populace doesn't seem to care and still supports him.

Shido's lackeys basically go "okay Shido had a major meltdown buuuuuut we can still carry his agenda forward bc if we don't, we're all going down with the ship here."

Excellent question. In P4G I had a pretty strong idea what was doing that and here I do not, can y'all drop some hints?

Morgana points out that the general public has a Palace and has a Treasure. It's Mementos. So if the crew wants to force a mass shift in the world's perception, they can do that. But like all other Palaces, when the Treasure is taken, Mementos will collapse, to be replaced with new, corrected cognition.

In the process, the crew will lose their powers. Oh and Morgana is gonna die.

The game hasn't said that part yet but if they didn't kill Ryuji, they're gonna kill Morgana, fucking bet.

I love you, Morgana Notacat.

This was actually where I got my idea of what Morgana is. Morgana's upgraded Persona is Mercurius/Hermes. Yanno, the god of messages, of thieves, of swiftness, and well-known classic psychopomp.

Morgana keeps remembering himself being born in Mementos. He's without a doubt some manifestation of humanity's rebellion against systems, the literally cognitive patron saint of Phantom Thieves. He's a mascot in the most literal sense, an emblem of good luck for the Thieves' work.

Even the fact he's a cat kind of fits in nicely. Cats are free spirits who opt-into being it other people. They are creatures of choice.

I'm gonna be big sad when Morgana fucking dies lemme tell you. I'm pretty sure he's, like, sustained by Mementos and the plan is to collapse it? Yeah, Morgana is fucked.

Goddamn HERMES, that's so cool. Morgana, our psychopomp into the bowels of the collective unconsciousness.

GODDAMIT NOTIGOR WHAT DO YOU WANT, IT IS CHRISTMAS FUCKING EVE, YOU BETTER GIMME PRESENTS.

I know that you know that we all know that this isn't Igor but sometimes it fucking floors me how much he isn't Igor, jesus fucking christ. Who tf is this guy. I hope he's the Big Bad somehow bc there ain't anyone else at this point.

Please don't pull another It Was The Gas Station Attendant, Persona, I'm fucking on my knees begging you.

lmao i love the game poking the player to ensure they noticed Morgana is acting odd

Deep in Mementos is... this..... uh..... thing. A bunch of otherworldly veins flowing down into the core.

/looks nervously around

so uh. is it a hot take to say that, uh, the last segment of this game here, the Mementos Depths, is the ugliest place in the game? Just wondering because wow working through this place, I was struck by how completely aesthetically unappealing all of this is. It should be mysterious and eerie but mostly I am finding it.... blurgh. I thought Kaneshiro's Palace was pretty unappealing too, but this is bad enough I feel the need to remark on it.

/gestures at screen. What is all this????? oh god it reminds me of the Collector Base in Mass Effect 2. Except that game came out in 2010 for the previous generation console. /winces

Anyway.

The Depths of Mementos is a prison of complacency.

All of the Shadows the Thieves defeated are in the prison cells. They are relieved to be there, where they don't have to think. Everything is taken care of for them.

Man, remember back in Persona 3 when it turned out that defeating all the Full Moon shadows was actually the thing that doomed the world? Wouldn't it be hilarious is the Thieves fucked all this up the whole time? l m a o.

I honestly don't know if that's what's happening here yet, I haven't reached, like, the Explanation, but it does feel a bit like alllllllll the way back at the start of the liveblog when I was contending with the ethics of the entire idea of stealing someone's heart and what it does. The game went out of its way to justify doing it with Shido's attempted suicide, but the bridge to far for me (and thankfully for Ann too) was killing these people.

But now what happens seems to be akin to ego death instead, and.... I dunno, man, is that much different than murder?

SIGHS LOUDLY

okay is that true or is this another fucking situation where Izanami is like "WELL REALLY when you THINK ABOUT IT all I'm doing is giving humanity what they really want soooooooooo it makes you think huh, doesn't it make you think"

MAYBE THE GAME WILL PROVE ME WRONG, I DUNNO YET.

oh my god. oh my god.

IGOR!!!!!!!! IGOR IS IN THERE!!!!

LEMME IN!!!!!! LEMME IIIIIIIIN I NEED TO SEE HIMMMMM I NEED TO TALK TO HIM I MISS HIM sobs

yeah no, bet, it's igor's cell. which means Notigor locked him up? maybe Notigor is the final boss, that'd be great, it'd slot in perfectly with this place being a prison and Reverie having been stuck in the shitty Velvet Prison this whole time.

please igor help me, i'm so tired of the edgelord execution shit.

PSYCHOPOMP MORGANA!!!!!!!!!!

me pressing my face against the bars whispering I'll be back for you igor i love you

lol what if it isn't even igor in there can you imagine

[too-many-rooks]

thanks @dykesville for tagging me, this was fun! (DISREGARD how my first answer seems to suggest otherwise)

When was the last time you cried? Ough. Um, my grandad died, and then I feeling guilty about how much more of an emotional reaction I had when my dog died about six months ago, and then I started thinking about my dead dog, and then I started crying. Anyway this is getting off to a great start, lets roll on to next question babyy!

Do you have kids? Nope, I'm 24, single, live at home and work a part time minimum wage job, and have in no way figured out my life/what I want my life to be. Don't particularly plan to have kids, but the concept of even thinking about having kids is extremely distant rn.

Do you use sarcasm a lot? I think so? like a normal, british amount, I guess?

What sports do you play? None really, I played Hockey when I was at school, and did a lot of swimming, then in my late teens and early 20s I had some physical health issues that prevented me from doing anything like that, but in the past couple of years I've been building back my muscle and stuff, and at the moment I'm really into going on long walks as I live on the edge of my town and get into the countryside quite easily.

Whats the first thing you notice about people? What they're wearing, usually.

What's your eye colour? Blue.

Scary movies or happy endings? I am a big big coward, so can't really do scary movies - if it's like an unnerving psychological horror sure, but if there's some spooky victorian ghost lady lurking about and the threat jump scares, I'm OUT. I like a happy ending.

Any special talents? I'm a really good cook, bc I have a good palatte, I'm really good at tasting a dish and knowing how it needs to be altered for the flavour balance to be right, and I'm good at knowing what flavours will go well together, and freestyling a meal. Also I can roll my eyes back in my head so only the whites are showing, which is kinda freaky and fun.

Where were you born? Pattaya. (Technically the hospital was in Na Kluea, but it says Pattaya on my passport.)

What are your hobbies? Cooking, Hiking, Video games, Writing, and I've been getting increasingly into photo/video editing stuff as I've been learning how to make gifs, and have been making assets for a tabletop thing (basically an alex rider au) I'm planning to run with my friends.

Do you have pets? Ah.. uh, not anymore. 😅

How tall are you? 5'8", I think?

Favourite subject in school? I'm a humanities girlie, through and through, so English, History, Politics, and Classical civ.

Dream job? I've got two history degrees so would love to make those useful. If I lean in to the fantasy of a 'dream' job where it has none of the actual real life shittyness and I'd magically be great at it, I'd love to be able to write? Or, different fantasy element, just a skill I totally don't have, I think doing historical costuming for tv/stage/movies would be an extremely fun blend of historical research and creativity. Though I can barely sew a button IRL, so that dreams probably a little distant.

tagging @countessrivers and @icebluecyanide or whoever else might want to answer :)

[rammbles]

DAY #15: 𝐟𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐨𝐟 𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭

ugh this is gonna be hard for most without going back through their entire discography, but I'm gonna try me best here. I want to point out that I have always, since getting into rock and metal as a middle schooler, been deeply more prone to recognizing and remembering guitar work and obviously the vocals; it's not a conscious choice, it's just what my brain does, but it does make this a much more difficult question for every single thing besides guitar. So, I'll start with guitar!

(Cut here bc I'm sure this post is gonna be long and yucky formatting-wise)

So my mind could possibly change if I listened to everything again, however I am pretty fucking confident in that for guitar, it's "Mutter." More than anything else, it's that fucking refrain; it sounds entirely overflowing with wrenching pain and sorrow to me, and I cannot BELIEVE Reesh has said he wrote that shit for a wedding, like bitch it makes me want to cry without vocal assistance to set the vibe, holy fucking shit who died at that wedding??????????????? It will regularly give me goosebumps when I listen to the song.

Okay, second-easiest (I think, lol). For Flake's keyboard work, I'm a BIG fat lover of his performance in "Weit weg." I adore synthwave-style musical works, and this sound is just so classic and really does it for me. I think it also helps that I recently binged it for like, a full day for no reason other than it was stuck in my head real bad lmfao

All right, next one: bass. This is one of those more difficult ones, because I think like a great number of people, the bass is astronomically harder to single out in heavier music, unless it's basically the only thing playing (which we stan hard as fuck I wanna hear my Boy), and because of this, I took the time to listen to some bass covers of various tracks to have the sound singled out more, and now, I think I'm going with "Stripped." It's a head-bobber to me!

... aaaaand the hardest: drums. I want to scream from the fucking rooftops that this is no disrespect or disregard for Schneider, he is a vital member of the band that I adore, and drums are so instrumental in establishing the beat of songs, it's just that this is the one instrument that for some reason, my brain doesn't seem to latch onto and remember when I think of the song? It's completely indeliberate, I hear it and it just slides off my smooth-ass brain. 😭 I hate it because I love our dilf drummer so very much, so like this makes me feel so rude and as if I don't care for his part in the band, which couldn't be further from accurate; I reiterate, he's vital, as much as everyone else. All that being said, this is the instrument I am least confident about when picking a favorite, but like for Ollie, I visited a big chunk of songs that made me think "wait I think the drum performance is strong here," so take this one with the biggest grain of salt: I think I'm going with "Eifersucht." I like the fast pace of the drum in this one, and it's super rhythmic, and that's... all my non-drum-intellectual ass has got, lol. I'm that kid critiquing shit they don't know about right now.

previous days: 　1.) favorite song 　2.) favorite era 　3.) favorite single 　4.) favorite album 　5.) favorite music video 　6.) favorite member 　7.) favorite lyrics 　8.) favorite b-side/unreleased track 　9.) favorite remix 　10.) favorite live photo(s) 　11.) favorite live video 　12.) favorite "making of" 　13.) favorite picture 　14.) favorite vocals

[tequilamoonrock]

𝐆𝐄𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐔𝐍.

—BASICS

NAME : rev

PRONOUNS : they / them , he / him , she / her

ZODIAC SIGN : capricorn

TAKEN OR SINGLE : single

— THREE FACTS

i am a HUGE slasher / horror fan. i'm still working my way through the classics and people's recommendations for movies / games / books (having strict parents put me back a few years lol), but i love scary / dark things! my only drawback is that i'm pretty bad with torture-porn horror (see: anything involving and made in the years after saw) and i prefer psychological horror or things that don't focus on people being HURT - i can handle them being KILLED though!

i'm a relatively new roleplayer compared to a lot of people in the community - ok, i used to write in like 2013, but i was a kid and it was solely warrior cats or "anime high school" threads on a now defunct forum. i then decided in my teenage brain that that was "cringe" and "bad" and stopped doing it for ages, but i've recently (with all the credit to my lovely friend flowers) regained my love for it!

i have an extremely fat cat. yes we've tried putting him on diets. yes we've tried exercising him. nothing has worked (he's lazy as hell and steals food), so now we just let him live out the rest of his life (he's pretty old now :( ) however he wants to. i would die for him. please ask me for photos of him at any given opportunity.

— EXPERIENCE

PLATFORMS USED : mostly just tumblr, although when i was younger i used to roleplay on deviantart, kik, and a now defunct warrior cats site known as warrior cats rpg / feralfront!

PLOTTING / WINGING IT / MEMES : my most-used way of interacting is memes and starters, but i am very up to plot with people - i'm just bad at saying it unprompted! i don't think plotting is always necessary if it's just a short thread, but for longer ones i'd prefer to plot!

—MUSE PREFERENCE

GENDER : cute girls! ok in all seriousness i will rp any character i enjoy, but i feel a LOT more comfortable writing female and / or fem-presenting muses, which i know is uncommon

MULTI OR SINGLE : a mix of both! i like the range of multis, but i feel like it makes it a little harder to explore them in as much as i'd like sometimes. i do also run a few single blogs though!

LEAST FAVOURITE FACECLAIM(S) : i don't have a problem w any faceclaims!!! as long as it's not someone that's like, a renowned bigot or something like that i don't really care who u use - i tend to use faceclaims very loosely anyway!

— FLUFF / ANGST / SMUT

FLUFF: fluff can be super fun!

ANGST: I LOVE ANGST. i love writing conflict and arguments and situations where characters do not like or trust each other, whether they have to co-operate or are at each other's throats! it's therapeutic :)

SMUT: i have not written smut in a roleplay context and honestly i'm a little scared to start - jokes aside i think i'd rather do that sort of thing in private rather than in public, and with people i trust! i am okay with flirting/more suggestive interactions though bc like with angst, i love writing tension ;)

tagged by: @imposingclaymore tagging: @mortisvitae (if you haven't already done it) , @n-galmurrr , @fogdweller , @hrrorstrie (let me know if ur not okay with being tagged in this kind of stuff!)

[loregoddess]

Hm, maybe my memory is poor but I swear that I've seen you reblog Tolkien stuff (or maybe I'm mistaking it and it's all Legend of Zelda posts?)

But there I was talking as if you'd read the books or watched the movies!

I watched the movies so long ago that I forgot a great deal of them and I'm determined to finish the books before I re-watch them so that I can experience the whole original story of LotR without the film giving away the parts I'm still reading.

You'll find out more about Boromir in the first book and the very beginning of the second book. As for Denethor, he appears in the first chapter of the third book (and he had me just a little bit salty, to put it mildly.) You'll also see the Fellowship in all three books!

I'll be honest and say the only reason I have time to read at all is downtime at work and really long wait times for public transit. And I've only just recently began branching out from reading only Discworld to other books that I either read in high school or heard about but didn't get a chance to read yet. I'm keeping track of my reading on an app called StoryGraph, which lets you record start and finish dates and get recommendations based on what you've already read!

I mostly just use it as a reading diary of sorts. But if I ever get through my to-read pile (good luck, it's long) I might see what it recommends me. But even still, I usually go by friends and family's suggestions for any books that I might be interested in.

Haha, no you're right, I have reblogged LotR stuff. I have basically no fear of spoilers, if only bc I have been spoiled on stuff in the past only to not realize it was a spoiler and still get surprised when I reach it in the story anyhow (and also I think the weird culture of "no spoilers" is silly anyhow, bc like, sometimes the fastest way to convince me to look into something is to show me major spoilers that baffle me so much I need to figure out how a story could function to accommodate what I know out of context with the new knowledge).

But no worries, I totally get where the confusion came from. I know just enough LotR from osmosis that I can kinda hold a conversation about it. Your excitement for the stories does get me excited as well, and I really am looking forward to reading them when I can make the time.

Also I feel you on having free time to read things. I think that's part of my issue, is a lack of free time (or energy), but at some point I also developed this weird environmental thing where I couldn't focus on reading if I could hear human voices or if there was too much background noise of a certain type? Which, given that I still live with my family and they are all very noisy (and also assume that they can just start talking to me whenever if I'm sitting in plain sight, which is more or less everywhere where I like to sit to read), makes it hard to actually find the sort of quiet I need to read when I do have the energy for reading.

I used to be a voracious reader too, I was basically always reading a book from middle school through high school, sometimes multiple books. And I used to be able to read in the middle of a school's worth of noise, so I have no idea why all the academic reading I had to do in college messed with my reading habits so much. It's not that I haven't read anything--I made it through Dracula all on my own a year before Dracula Daily happened, just because I was interested in it and wanted to read more classics. And I've made my way through about a third of the complete works of Lovecraft, which are easier for me bc they're all short stories more or less (though I keep stalling reading the next story bc I know it's one of the "almost a novella" length stories). And of course, The Hobbit.

A lot of my free time is limited though, especially since I'm very particular about how things need to be if I'm to do something (which is partly the house situation, partly my brain is my own worst enemy sometimes). I often have to choose between art, video games, writing, general decompressing (i.e. interwebs), or watching something, and usually video games or art/writing win out if I don't need to decompress, because I can deal with being interrupted or ignoring outside noise when playing a game better than I can reading, and no one bugs me when I'm working at my computer generally.

Which hmmm. Actually, I think that might actually have more to do with it than anything, because now that I'm thinking on it I have read a metric ton of manga over the past several years, which I usually use various websites for (and am therefore at my computer). Granted, that's a slightly different storytelling medium than a text-based book, but considering I can finish a completed manga series in roughly a two-week span, I don't think my issue is with focusing on reading so much as it is getting interrupted or having too much background noise...hmmm.....

Well this was an excellent conversation actually, I think I might have figured out part of the reason my brain wants to strike when I do try to read, and if I can get to the root then I can maybe figure out some sort of workaround to trick myself back into reading text-based books again. Which is great, because I have so many books in my to-read pile, and I do want to check out the Discworld books at some point (which I've never read, but they are also books that I just know from out-of-context things that I will love), and I really do miss reading as a leisure activity. So, thank you for prompting this discussion!

[transxfiles]

alright buckle up. it's petty and probably boring but it's classic.

actually after i wrote this out i started to realize just how awful it is. you had to be there ig but you don't want to have been there. it did kinda suck.

last year a new student, Y, came to my school. no one knew why she made the switch so late in her schooling (she switched schools at the start of junior year) and from what we could tell she had no reason to leave her old school.

i'm in a small honors course at my school and i basically have the same people in all my classes. Y joined this honors program as a new student.

everyone in the honors program wanted to be her friend bc she was a new student (duh) and she was interesting by default. i thought she was pretty and developed a little crush on her (also nothing new, i get minor crushes on classmates now and then).

there was also another girl, X, in the program, who was pretty much universally hated bc she's an all around jerk who can't maintain a friend group for longer than a year. we're all pretty familiar with X's pattern of behavior: she picks up one person to be her "best friend" after the first quarter, they're "besties" into the summer, and then there's a dramatic "friend break-up" that usually involves X blackmailing her "bestie" through second semester and then her "bestie" finally breaking away over the summer.

meanwhile a local news story breaks that Y's old school has received parent backlash for kicking out students suspected of "homosexual behavior". seeing no other reason why Y might've transferred, some people start to quietly speculate that she might've been accused. of course, beyond the fact that it's just rampant speculation, people also remind each other that even if Y was accused, it has no bearing on her sexuality, because according to the news the accusations were low key like the witch trials. zero evidence, just vibes, and if someone didn't like you and decided to lie you'd get kicked outta school on a whim. the subject gets boring bc gossip dies quick if it can't go anywhere. people drop it.

school year goes on

X's pattern of behavior is disrupted bc she's burned through half the school by now and if you weren't in the half she burned through, you were in the half that watched stuff go down and had learned better.

X and Y never interacted bc Y had already made friends in the honors program and X decided to target Z, a pretty chill stoner in the program, to be her new "bestie" for the year.

Z knew better and was highly resistant, generally just didn't really like X and was a pretty sensible and independent critical thinker, so Z's tactics didn't work on her.

everyone who's been at the school since freshman year knows how awful and repetitive X is and we're surprised that the cycle hasn't started up again. we keep waiting for it to happen.

towards the end of first semester last year and realizing that her tactics weren't getting anywhere with Z, X decided to instead just join a small friend group of the girls in the honors program who lost their old friend groups after deciding to go the honors route. the group includes Z and Y.

shortly after, X hears an old rumor that i might've been interested in Y at the beginning of the year. by now she's realized that the "lesbian predator" trope is overdone (she's tried it in the past and people call her on it) so instead she just does a half assed mean girls attack and brings up that i am "in love with Y" every time she's with Y and i'm not around.

no one buys it bc no one believes X

this makes Y incredibly uncomfortable especially bc there's already been speculation about her sexuality and now she doesn't need X "shipping" her with a lesbian just bc we're the only two sapphics in X's vicinity.

X realizes that talking about Y's sexuality makes her uncomfortable and uses it as a tool to isolate Y. loudly defines Y's sexuality as a bunch of different things, Y is not having it but is a quiet new student and doesn't speak up. X eventually cuts Y off from the rest of the friend group and isolates her to be her new "bestie."

for all of second semester they're "besties" and the cycle has seemingly continued but it's off kilter and none of us know what will happen next. also, Y seems to be hanging on a lot longer than past "besties" X has burned through.

we come to school one day and Y has stopped wearing glasses, started doing her makeup like X, and wearing outfits that are basically shadows of X's outfits. she's become a cheap copy of X.

Y never talks except to laugh at X's jokes and support X's opinions during class discussions.

the friendship, miraculously, seems to survive the summer.

over the summer, i become close friends with Z and find out about the rumor X spread. Z didn't believe it but asked what i thought and i said that i'd never found Y attractive (yeah it was a lie, sue me. it was true in the sense that by the time X spread the rumor the crush had died completely.) but that i was fascinated to see where the X Y dynamic went next. me and Z became masters of speculation of what would happen.

coming back from summer break X's and Y's relationship starts to feel almost oddly sexual. X also acts like she "owns" Y and kinda treats her like a pet?

of course the honors program (all the same people and we all know each other even more than before) latches on to this new material and starts making fun of them.

wide speculation as to whether X and Y are fucking

the jokes abt them are generally more targeted at X bc most of the group knows her deal through and through and views Y as the victim of what's essentially a hostage scenario.

select group of ppl who've heard X talk abt sex PRAY that Y is not having sex with X bc X has no idea what healthy sex is at all and doesn't understand the difference between top/bottom terminology and bdsm dynamics. this specific brand of speculation is kept to small, closed circles bc people don't want to hurt Y

"free Y 2022" jokes reign.

X gets mad about the jokes and says they're "inappropriate" and "not funny". Y is silent on the matter bc Y is always silent.

their friendship holds on into first semester and people are shocked. this has never happened before. X's friendships have never lasted this long.

Y's grades start slipping. back when she transferred, she wasn't a genius per se bu she was smart enough to get into the honors program. but no one gives her notes or helps her study any more bc if we do X gets oddly territorial and mean about it, and X is not a good study partner at all. not to mention X and Y skip school together. a lot.

one day, Y is missing from class the whole day. we don't know where she is. i ask X where Y is expecting her to know exact coordinates except for the first time ever X doesn't have an answer. she fumbles, blushes, and is embarrassed about it. i make a standard joke like "what you forgot to take her out to feed her" you know how it is

i talk to Z later that day and mention how weird X was acting about Y and Z says she had a similar experience later in the day with X, except X pretended to know where Y was and had come up with a cover story abt her whereabouts.

Y is absent almost every day leading up to exam week. on the days she's in school, she's quite literally ducking corners and hiding in classrooms. another girl in the honors program, Q, is seen with her, sometimes.

Q is notably one of X's ex-"besties" of yore

Y is only fully in-class on days when X is absent.

exams happen.

break.

we are currently back in school and everyone is still waiting for the tension to break. Y has been absent two days in a row and has not shown up to the "virtual school" options open to students since quarantine.

X says she knows what's wrong with Y, but she's slipped up and changed details in the story a few times. we all have the same classes with the same people all day. we notice these things.

today in bio i saw X texting Y. there were enough messages to fill the screen.

they were all from X.

Y's read none of them.

anyway that's all we've got so far.

free Y 2023

anyway does anyone want to hear petty high school senior drama while i'm busy not doing anything anway.

[hazelnut-u-out]

EPISODE REVIEW TIMEEE:

(contains spoilers for "a rick in king mortur's mort")

i actually really loved that episode. i've been so fucking starved for morty content that this was really nice. i loved the callbacks, parallels, and contrasts that were drawn pretty clearly between this episode and "the vat of acid episode." TVOAE is actually one of the episodes that makes me the sickest to my stomach. it's so unsettling and bone chilling to watch.

this episode, on the other hand... this felt earned.

(perhaps because of my morty bias and the fact that i've gotten basically no morty this season, buuuuut...) i'm giving this one a 10/10???

wow... didn't think i'd go that far, but uhhhh... yeah. i went there.

it just mastered the art of parallels, callbacks, and development beautifully.

my initial thoughts, as always:

(this is a long one… yk how i am with morty…)

-morty acted so much like early-series rick at the beginning that i was honestly a little bit ready to accept that part of his character progression is becoming a mini-rick. to be honest, i still see that being a possibility, but this was... not exactly that.

he still took the sword for a reason early-series rick would have instead of a classic "these guys seem cool" morty reason ("oh shit these other guys want the sword so now i want the sword, even if i'm jaded and cynical about it"), and it almost felt like the "rick and morty" dynamic was flipped a little bit- as in, morty being the rigid jerk and rick being berated verbally for a second. that being said, morty was still childishly excited about being a medieval knight and it was cleared up that morty was only being rude to rick initially as a trauma response. he expected rick to abuse him, but that wasn't the case. when he realized he was safe, he let his guard down.

(look at him sulking in line awww)

-RICK USING MORTY PET NAMES. RICK USING MORTY PET NAMES.

i think a little part of me melted when he called morty "lil junebug."

SHUT THE FUCK UP- i am so unwell. so mentally normal about that.

i genuinely cannot believe that's a canon nickname rick uses for morty. that. is. so. cute.

just the sweetest lil pet name.

(plus grandpa rick putting a hand on his lil junebug's shoulder, because why not?)

-OMFG RICK APOLOGY?? like genuinely?? oh my god??

i mean... that was still kinda dickish lol. "i'm gonna intentionally do the least amount possible to actually change, but make you feel like i am."

you know what, though? bc of the fact that this is essentially a follow-up to TVOAE, i'd say the entire premise of this ep WAS change, and highlighted that... so i'm giving the undercut a pass.

-i also liked the subtle callback to the "auto park feature" with the sword "fighting deacon frost." i liked that morty didn't think it was cool, but it didn't trigger some insane reaction in rick.

he's just like, "i dunno... i thought it was cool... :(" and he moves on.

-"holy shit, this is who i am to this kid?!... i've gotta fix this!"

and then he... actually puts in the work to better a real human connection instead of manipulating morty to keep him pliant?

wow.

-like i said, rick is still being a fucking dick here and there in the convo, but i'm genuinely proud of him.

-i'm also so happy for morty. this must have been such a healing experience for him. god. he's been through so much. shoutout to the writers for not putting him through more emotional abuse for fun.

-another bit that made me think that morty is slowly developing into a little rick was the moment where he uses a science lecture to ruin the knights' faith in their culture. during that whole sequence, he does sound a lot like rick...

-SPACE BETH CHILLING WITH HER GIRLFRIEND, GUYS.

-RICK BRAGGING ON MORTY ABOUT THE LITTLE LECTURE! THE HANDS ON THE SHOULDERS! EVERYTHING!

this reminds me of an ask i answered a little bit ago where i talked about rick being morty's primary caregiver. this episode felt a lot more like a father/son type development than a grandfather/grandson.

i get that the rest of the family was proud of morty, but rick was the one saying "hey! this is the little dude i'm raising! look at him go!"

-i was a little nervous that morty was going to kill/let rick kill the knights, which would have meant that he's veeeery similar to rick now, but he chose not to. that was a nice touch.

-(i thought the little moment where jerry was like "what's happening? appliances are breaking that i haven't touched!" was funny hehe..)

-i thought it was sweet that rick got the meeting's attention just to give morty the floor.

-i wasn't a fan of morty begging rick to stop supporting him, though. it felt like punching the underdog character with his own fist, but i guess i like it better in hindsight because it shows yet another trauma response. morty doesn't trust himself AT ALL. he thinks that by doing this his way, something will inevitably go wrong. damn.

-i also liked the little details about how witchy rick can be, haha. first, we see him ACTUALLY bend down and read the bones himself, then the witchcraft penis? that was a nice touch. rick definitely has an interest in witchcraft.

-(one of my favorite songs as a kid was "ruby tuesday," and i got so excited that the montage song was a cover of it, but... alas... no.)

(i just thought mort looked cute here lol)

-THE HUG? (of course they had to make it less heavy with the "we're gonna make your dick so fake," comment, but it's so nice to see rick hug morty and try to calm him down.)

-TELEPATHY? WHAT THE FUCK? THAT THREW ME SO HARD I GOT WHIPLASH.

-shit, man....

"i love you."

"i love you, too..."

-as soon as morty asked rick if he was a robot/clone, i was on the edge of my seat, chewing my lip, biting my nails, pulling my hair- waiting for the reveal that he was, but...

they didn't fake us out! hey! :)

(will say that the "this family has enough clones and robots in it" comment did make me a lil nervous, bc we KNOW of a clone, but... uhhh... who's the "robot"?)

-one of my biggest issues with "rick: a mort well-lived" was that marta stayed in the game, meaning that the only part of morty that heard rick say he loved and respected him didn't join with our morty. it bothered me that our morty didn't get to hear that.

i'm so happy that they fixed that this ep. MORTY HEARD RICK IS PROUD OF HIM. MORTY HEARD RICK LOVES HIM. i hope this is the "morty gets the grandpa he deserves" beginning. i'm loving it, and hope it's far more than just 22% of the time.

overall, AHMAZING EPISODE! kinda sad we had to wait until the end of the season to get a decent in-depth exploration of morty, his current character, and his reaction to rick's healing, but i'm so glad my boy got his apologies. he got his "i love you." he got his "i'm proud of you." he got is hug.

he got his autonomy.

congrats, lil junebug.

hope ya get more <3

[cinematicnomad]

now that the buck hair rankings are done, can you explain why you ranked the way you did?

can do my grey, anonymous, little friend!

#9 season 4a yikes do i hate the fluffy, combed out, big hair that buck has by the end of the winter finale. it gives me very...pauly d late-00s jersey shore vibes. the start of s4a isn't too bad but it really gains volume in the last few eps and i find s4 ep7 to be particularly egregious.

#8 season 3b complete opposite direction, s3b is a little too short and tightly gelled. even after frantically trying to save eddie by digging with his bare hands in the pouring rain, buck's curls barely show up.

#7 season 2a honestly, it's not that bad! from this point on my opinion on buck's hair is more "well it's not as good as other seasons" than actively thinking "this is Not Good". there's no real hint of curly haired buck in s2a and it's still a little too styled for my taste, but the length is good.

#6 season 1 so this is the only ranking that i really wavered on—i almost put s1 in #5 because i do PERSONALLY like this look a lot, but like i said last weekend this hair definitely feels like a s1 hair & makeup team trying to figure out the actual aesthetic of their cast. by the end of s1 it looks more like classic buck, but it definitely feels like they're working through some things

#5 season 2b i feel like season 2b is when everyone was like "oh shit, oliver has curls???" because they start making an appearance around maddie's kidnapping. that hint of his curls is really what bumped this up ahead of season 1 because to me it feels like this is when they started to really get a handle on buck's aesthetic.

#4 season 3a not gonna lie, for the longest time i've said s3a was my favorite buck look and i really thought it would be higher on this list. but while making the list i realized it's mainly because they really lean into buck's curls during his unemployed-blood-clot-tsunami arc. and they're BEAUTIFUL but it only lasts 3 eps and as soon as he's in fire marshall buck mode that hair is tightly controlled. honestly, without those first 3 eps, s3a would be Much Lower on this list.

#3 season 5a if you haven't noticed, this ranking has basically dovetailed into "how curly are they letting buck's hair be??" and while this is not PEAK curl, buck's hair is definitely softer and less carefully styled as previous seasons.

#2 season 5b so many curls! but it doesn't get top billing because the sides are so closely shaved down—it's almost giving me s2 hair vibes, but with some added length at the top and much, much less hair product. i'm hoping they'll continue to let his hair thrive in this softer look for s6.

honorable mention, lone star 2.03 i'm gonna be honest, i was very generous with this gifset bc at the start and end of the episode buck has some strong s4a hair moments going on with the blow out look. but the helmet and the humidity and the dirt and the grime in the middle of the ep really helps to bring out his curls and it looks so good on him that i had to gif it all.

#1 season 4b it's no surprise once you realize that i love his curls to understand why buck's s4b look gets top billing for me. this is like they took the curls from the first 3eps of s3a and were like "what if we just embraced it??" and it WORKS. i feel like this is what i thought s3a was in my memory, but the reality of s4b is So Much Better and i am even more obsessed with it after making this gif series.

[galacticlamps]

DW asks 4, 7, 12? (This *is* a good list!)

4. who’s wardrobe would you steal?

I thought embarrassingly long & hard about this during a slow point at work & came to the conclusion that while there are very many characters who I'd like to steal specific pieces from (and even more that I'd want if I believed I could pull them off), for whole wardrobe I'd have to go with either:

Doctor - Seven (I also think he'd be a great character to cosplay, his clothes look really comfy & are a nice mix of silly & practical)

Companion - Clara (there's no way that needs explaining, is there? just like. a few sizes up, as I am neither as short or as petite as her)

7. which doctor is not necessarily your favorite but is the doctor you’d most like to travel with or the doctor you think you’d get along the best with?

Hmm. I like to think I'd get on with most of them, given time to grow into it like a companion, but right off the bat clicking with? For some reason, my gut is saying 6. (then the next ones to come to mind were 8 & 9, at which point I realized I was just listing doctors canonically proven to put up with americans/people with american accents lol)

Yeah, I'm gonna say 6. I'm the most confident/least worried about potentially getting along with him - I wonder if that's a surprising answer lol

12. what’s a headcanon that’s you forget isn’t actually canon?

(Ignoring the fact that there are probably several I've completely forgotten aren't canon & therefore can't list here:)

a great many things @the--highlanders says about Two-era characters

romantic relationships on Gallifrey being seen as inherently queer in their society?

Ian/Barbara & Ben/Polly as legit, endgame ships (as far as their time on the show goes - I know EU expands upon it, but DW EU is basically just Fanon Plus - which doesn't make it 'not canon' in my book, I just find it funny that there are things we're all in agreement over that were technically never established in the original source material. And again, as @the--highlanders has pointed out, this sets a rather wonderful precedent for what Classic-era romantic relationships actually look like, because honestly speaking, do either of these ships have anything more overtly romantic about them than, say, Two/Jamie or Nyssa/Tegan do, aside from being 'obvious' on account of being m/f? Idk, I find it comfortingly door-opening that this is a show in which you pretty much have to draw your own conclusions about things like that which were blissfully undefined onscreen, even to the point that fans-turned-writers will reference popular consensuses in new material)

Liz Shaw's exit isn't onscreen because she left to go travel w/ a later Doctor who could actually take her through time & space (obviously, they couldn't shoot that in 1970, not having cast the [x]th Doctor at the time)

Time Lords suck at mind wipes on humans (not just for 6b purposes - why else would 10 leave Donna in such a precarious state, if he could potentially save her life by doing it better?)

Part of One & Two's vagueness about their background comes from the fact that they're avoiding using proper nouns even when speaking to people they trust, because they're on the run from a race of reclusive telepaths, and it might be suspicious for their human companions to even have words like 'Time Lord' or 'Gallifrey' in their heads

Benton quits the military after the 3-era characters leave bc he was only ever in it for his pals

[nathaniacolver]

REACTION CONTINUED!!!

this is leading up to the ******* ** **** and the ***** ******

just jumped a gap to a lower island and barely made it. wait

and what if I fall?? what then??? early head-start on the ground-world quests???

why did i think with my full chest that i was gonna be able to see zelda 15 min into gameplay. you FOOL

bruh so now you're telling me i gotta go get more power. that's so classic i'm almost annoyed

SPIRAL SHRINES???

Oop llama

"Source of the Right Arm" lol rauru baby i'm sorry. i'm sorry that an unnamed narrator would even say that

he has HECKA hair

the reason why open world games market so well to our generation is bc of the ADHD. like i'm trying so hard to stick to the linear path bc there's really not that many cool finds up here but i keep getting distracted and going off just to find more stuff and usually that's so fun but rn it's just like GIRL THERE'S NOTHING HERE. maybe a few stray arrows but the ADHD wants there to be a full-on chest every nook and cranny

ok miss philosopher calm down and play some zelda

my roommate who is the furthest thing from a gamer just said "wow, good art" and that is a COMPLIMENT!!!!

oh okay first shrine pay attention (who am i kidding it's just gonna be some puzzles)

oh right you stick them together.

what are my feelings on ultrahand??? my feelings are that i fell in this hole and can't get up this dang ladder

okay i'm gonna have to practice my rotating skills bc think janky handiwork is NOT doing anything once i get outta this shrine

oh they knew that. they gave me these two hooks and this board SPECIFICALLY to practice rotating. nintendo if you don't stop being the masters of video game education -

Oh no NO DON'T GO YET oh okay i pulled it off. nice pun haha

basically they said "why limit ourselves to magnets?" and they were so right

shaky shaky shaky yep that's right unglue that sucker

so basically instead of rotating. just approach it from the right angle and all will be well

woohoo ski lift ride

oh there's a ledge that the stuff would have caught on if i accidentally dropped it. oh

the familiar sound effects are so comforting

stomping pillars. fe fi fo fum

no more monks only hetero arranged marriage couple of zelink's ancestry

WAIT DOES THAT MEAN LINK IS PART ZONAI. wait are they BOTH part zonai???? bc their ancestors got married, right? wait wait wait

OH i rly thought they were gonna give me a tear right off the bat like WHAT

ooooooh orange glowy now. zelda colors.

love the runes

WAIT okay i need to sort this through. so if they both are descendants of these legendary heros from the imprisonment war, does that mean that both link and zelda are part-zonai, part-hylian? wig. my mixed king & queen.

i BETTER be able to see Zelda after opening 2 more shrines!!!!!!!!!!! and not just open the door but SEE ZELDA

even if link isn't technically the descendant, at least zelda is mixed???? wig.

the way they cater to people who already know the controls. they KNOW their target audience.

dragon. DRAGON. -mushu

btw link is still Shirtless. has been this whole time

Honestly the scope feature combined with pin marking is one of THEE most useful controls ever. whoever came up with it deserves everything

ukouh......rhymes with zuko?

okayyyyy logging off again bc work.

need to live tweet my playing of totk but don't wanna be annoying on my irl so i'll just do it here. this is the first bit:

BEWARE: TOTK SPOILERS BELOW

"i know i'll be ok with you link" okay they are IN LOVE

WHERE IS LINK IN THE CUTSCENE. THEY HAVE TO SHOW HIM IN THE NEXT 10 SECONDS OR I WILL FRET

ZONAI????!!?!!?!??!?!?! (Listen i forgot the gameplay trailer)

me walking at a respectable pace as to not leave zelda's side

BABE THERE'S TOO MUCH MALICE HERE WHY ARE WE STILL GOING

just talked to zelda and she was like "i'm so excited!!!!" GIRL DO YOU NOT HAVE AN OUNCE OF SELF-PRESERVATION

swinging the sword swinging the sword

WAIT WHY DO I HAVE 30 HEARTS WHYYYYYYY DO I HAVE 30 HEARTS

THEY JUST ADDED AN INSTRUMENT OR TWO OH FRICK AND IT'S GETTING LOUDER oh i already love the sound engineering

GLOWY SPIRAL????

DON'T PICK UP THE TEAR BABY oh frick oh frick

OH THAT'S WHY I HAD 30. FOR THE DRAMA

CAN'T LOOK AT MY TYPING I'M WATCHING THE CHTSCENE

OH FRICK IT JUST SHATTERED OH FRICK

gamer lean on x games mode rn

mans said screw it i'm out. fly you fools

BRO I WAS TYPING THE ABOVE WHEN HE LUNGED AND I GOT SO NERVOUS THAT I'D HAVE TO FIGHT FJSKDKJSJDAHHDLADG THE JOYCONS ARE FLOPPING AROUNS ON MY ARMS

THAT TEAR BETTER PROTECT HER I HOPE THAT'S WHAT THAT GLOWY YELLOW WAS

BRO WHAT. THE BLUE GLOWING IS GOOD. this is so anakin skywalker of him btw

baby don't you worry i'm gonna make link level up so fast so he can come and get you

oop naked link again AND HIS SHORTS ARE SHORTER????

nice mani link

A MAN'S VOICE???????? WHO IS IT WHY DOES EVERYONE KNOW THEIR NAMES

okay so The Voice just gives him an arm. okay

the malice or whatever stopping just at the triforce is Symbolic, i think

is it really a master sword or is it a master Dagger

i rly be taking screenshots of everything like i'm a tourist

okay green hand thing go off!!! oop give it a high five and it turns blue and goes behind you as a save point

*taking notes* okay cogs are cogging.......gears are gearing..........

now why the frick did it have me dive like that. what was The Reason

i Forgor that link can tread water indefinitely. swimming king

not me searching every nook and cranny like there's gonna be secrets in this Cave

PANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ARCHAIC PANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

wait i put them on and now he looks like a gladiator.......cardboard skirt & Jesus sandals........ok shirtless king

oop just noticed his hair animations & the layers are CRAZY but it lookin good

wait so they was underground......and now in the sky...................i have Theories

they said aerial view shot once again but i mean AERIAL

ope no climbing, you're already too high in the sky

the lighting looks SO GOOD!

it's so silent up here i love it.

the MUSIC AHHHH

WAIT EVERYTHING'S AN ISLAND???? OH WE WAY THE FRICK UP IN THE SKY LINK. HOW CAN YOU BREATHE THAT THIN AIR

this game is making me fall In Love. with Silence

TREE BRANCH YES THE WORLD IS HEALING

apples. i could Cry

is that a broom?????

wait so the soldiers are bad and the stewards are good. it's just like real life!

why do i have the feeling that this is a /different/ princess zelda that left this to him.......oh nvm it's just the purah pad. what happened to the sheikah slate???

is link gonna look at pics on it and get emo

wait so. garden of time (ok Christianity reference). so zelda has lived through some trash already and is like poor link in the past. let's give him this

aw it's lonely :(

YES WE'RE GETTING ZELDA RIGHT AWAY I COULD CRY

ooh the purah pad looks slick (i'm so sorry but why does that sound like a tampon brand LIKEEEEE)

high five!!! oh wait high fives have OTHER FUNCTIONS???!?!

now why did the bridge have to do all that fancy stuff. (ik it's for stability or whatever don't @ me engineers)l

just smashed some pots. link's Primeval Urge

ok so linear path for Diving. got it.

that's a hot-footed frog.......................i could cry. i AM crying

picked up a rock. now i just have to see some Chickens

there are Grates in the ground and you can peek below. idk why i like that so much.

i am hunting these ostriches like i might die

THAT GUY SNUCK UP ON ME SO SILENTLY. I DECIDED I HATE FLOATING MACHINE ENEMIES (don't worry i was fine)

why did i try to light a frog on fire

[janiedean]

First off, I'm a HUGE fan of I'll be the frosting to your cupcake, one of the first fics I reread and a comfort fic staple of mine from the on.

Having said that, I recently learned English isnt your first language, and I'm shook. How do you write in such a flowy ample vocabulary precise english? Are you half British or sth? Have you live outside of Italy? What's your secret? What are your tips, please help a sister in need!

first of all thank you so much you're too kind ;v; and I'm really happy that it's been... ALMOST TEN YEARS and it still holds up ;v;

that said hahaha well I'M VERY HAPPY I HAVE SUCCESSFULLY MASTERED THE POWER OF NOT MAKING IT KNOWN ENGLISH IS NOT MY MOTHER TONGUE MUAHAHAH but in all seriousness:

no I'm not half british, my aunt was a high school english teacher but that was it and she definitely didn't speak english to me growing up beyond giving me the basics

no I haven't lived outside Italy just been on vacation in english speaking places so those two guesses aren't correct but

take into account that I'm 33 and I started learning english srsly when I was like twelve and I started writing in english when I was.... nineteen going on twenty so the way I write now is because I pretty much wrote in english nonstop since then, obviously whatever I wrote in 2007 had a worse vocabular/wasn't as good as it is now so count that a lot of that is practice

now basically i know it'll sound like ARE YOU SERIOUS but: I learned first translating songs by hand which meant I spent two years with a vocabulary translating bruce springsteen's and bon jovi's opera omnia that I had booklets for (YES THE INTERNET WAS ON 56K I HAD THE DAMNED LYRIC BOOKLETS RIP) and that.. I mean it didn't give me the widest vocab ever but it got me started, and then I jumped the bridge and started reading in english at.... eh I was 15 but like I got into stephen king, read a few of his books in italian, then got one I already had in italian in english for kicks and realized it... was better not translated so I swallowed the whole OH GOD I WON'T UNDERSTAND 1/5TH OF THE WORDS thing and went for it and like I can 100% assure you that if you get through the dark tower's second book and the indecent level of nyc slang in it you won't ever go back

(then being a masochist I went straight for steinbeck and if you manage the grapes of wrath at the level I was you're good X°D)

now like... that shows because every single time I take english tests like HOW DO YOU PRONOUNCE WORDS/WHAT IS YOUR WORDING CHOICE/WHAT DOES YOUR WRITING SOUND LIKE I without fail get as results that I pronounce like someone from new jersey/pennsylvania and I use words like someone from maine and that I read like king which... LIKE I LEARNED 95% OF MY ENGLISH on all of that so that makes sense

now the thing is after king I basically went like okay if that writer's english or writes in english I'm not checking the translations so basically I've read in english for twenty years and like... if you want to write you have to read and like I swear that when I was in high school I didn't need to open grammar books beyond the basics or actually study english at all bc having actually read stuff I like... having seen the word/expressions used on paper meant I knew how to use them so there was that but like the point is that if you read a lot your vocabulary automatically gets wider and if you see how published people you like write that helps you too because it gives you the background, makes you see how people break the rules etc

with this I mean... like you know everyone is like YOU HAVE TO WRITE SHORT SENTENCES IN ENGLISH UNLESS YOU'RE A CLASSICAL AUTHOR OR YOU'RE WRONG? okay like I always struggled with it bc I tend to be long-winded, then one day I ran into michael chabon who not only has the kind of refined vocab I can only dream of, but he also has no issue dropping six-lines long sentences (or a 12 pages stream of consciousness of a parrot without a dot bless him) and he won a pulitzer prize and while I am certainly not michael chabon and I can only dream of being 10% as good when it comes to that mix of craft, if he can do that then who stops me from six-lines sentences? yeah, no one XD

and I mean like... just to say one re how you re-elaborate things, the whole thing I do with using parentheses on another new line to say how characters are feeling or switch pov for a moment etc etc is a thing I absolutely lifted from king bc when I read him doing it I decided it was genius, but like at some point I started doubling or tripling the parentheses if I wanted to show what someone was thinking superficially and subconsciously which is a thing king doesn't do but at some point it happened and I liked it so I did it, and that's like the only conscious example I can give you but like you develop your style also based on what you like reading and what comes easy to you but that's things you find out through practice and again... if you like specific writers most likely it'll show up in your writing but that's fine everyone has their role models

also like... I personally don't gaf if supposed english tradition says I can't do something I'd do writing in italian ie abusing semicolons and long-winded sentences, like... if you're good at specific thing that your language allows and english doesn't don't gaf and write it in english anyway who cares

tldr the tips are: read a lot in english, consume a lot of media in english, practice a lot because you get better/get the hand of it with time (again if you read my lost fanfic on lj written in 2008-2011 it's nowhere near the same level as what I write now but not even the stuff I wrote in my spn days is at the level I am now etc), read a lot also in your own language or in any other you know, write as much as you can, if you feel like you're copying your favorite writer don't gaf and go ahead anyway at some point you'll sound like you and not like whoever your fave writer is and be constant because again 50% is reading a lot and 50% is practice, I know it sounds like the discovery of hot water but I swear I managed that without living anywhere else and only reading/writing/talking to people on the internet so... it does work X°D

<3