#i coast on vibes and mental illness don't be like me

[spareparts-vn]

Hi! I'm really enjoying Spare Parts. I really appreciate how it has so much heavy drama, but it never feels oppressively dour or meaningless. There's plenty of more comedic or otherwise lighter moments that don't feel out of place, too. Can I ask as a wannabe writer myself, do you have any tips or processes for writing such effective drama?

thank you! i'm very bad at giving writing advice. i've written and deleted this post half a dozen times already. it's pretty hard to lay my thoughts out since my process is so tangled up in my brain's very specific eccentricities. so here's some extremely scattered thoughts that loosely connect to how i write "drama," which in my mind is just an extension of any compelling relationship between characters.

1) "iteration" is my main thing. write a bad draft, then edit it to be better, then edit it to be better, then edit it to be better, then erase the whole thing and write another bad draft that's slightly better, then edit that one to be better, then edit it to be better, then do that 100 more times until you have an epiphany that ties it all together. it's not very efficient but it helps me identify what works and what doesn't so i can hone in on what's interesting to me. in the context of drama, that means i can write out an argument between two characters and ask myself if it hits on anything compelling. if it doesn't, i scrap it, but if there's some feeling there that i want to flesh out, i can restructure it to pivot around that.

2) similar to the previous one, but i try to start broad and narrow my focus over time. taking two characters' relationship as an example, i'll start from the most generic interpretation of how they relate to one another and start adding nuance/complexity over time. i think of it like a life drawing, if you've ever taken a class for that. you want to start with the gesture of the pose first, then start to fill in shapes and values until the foundation is solid. you go around the whole drawing adding details in bits and pieces, rather than focusing on one body part and fleshing it out to completion first. you can slowly choose where to exaggerate shapes or darken shadows to add a little more visual flair to it. in telling a story, these details can often play out and develop through the course of the narrative.

2.5) this is an aside, but during my brief stint in art school, i once turned in a self-portrait for a life drawing assignment that i was really unhappy with. i spent so much time working and reworking it that it looked really smudgy from all the erased lines, but i was too stubborn to start drawing on a new piece of paper. i was very anxious about turning it in for critique, but the professor surprised me by saying that he liked the ethereal quality it had from all the eraser marks. that there was something interesting in how obvious it was that i'd redone it so many times, allowing the evidence of previous attempts to leave traces in the final image. that comment always stuck with me. i think of life, and art by extension, as additive in nature. you can't completely erase the past, so as time moves forward your canvas become more and more dense with information, even if it's been scrubbed away. relationships are the same, which i try to convey when writing my characters. the longer you write them, the more friction and drama will naturally fall out of them. so don't be afraid to start simple, you might surprise yourself with the sort of feelings that appear without you realizing it.

3) i try to imagine a person who would become psychotically obsessed with every possible pairing of characters. what would they find interesting in this dynamic? how could i give them something to chew on? how could i surprise them, or entice them to think about their relationship deeper? in spapa's case, there's obviously a lot of interplay between the most central characters, but i have internal dossiers on every obscure pair of characters that most people won't think about. but that means i'm going to write more about them and flesh them out, so the web grows more complex and interesting. (i've developed a fixation on a secret ship that i'm hungry to explore, but probably won't get the chance to for a while. i'll leave you to speculate on what that is.) every character's growth and experience is shaped by their relationships, so tugging on those threads can reveal things about my characters i hadn't realized before. and sometimes those threads are connected to sticks of dynamite, which explode. and then you get lucy and melanie yelling at each other, even though their first interactions don't really suggest they'd end up there.

4) i'm the type of person who struggle to resist cracking a joke when i think of one, no matter how inappropriate the timing is. i've seen some critique of spapa that jokes occasionally feel misplaced in really serious scenes, but personally, i think they're important! people are complicated and can have multiple modes of thought/expression at once. sometimes when you're in the middle of the biggest sobbing breakdown of your life you'll think something stupid and mundane that snaps you back to reality for a second. sometimes you're having the best day of your life and you'll suddenly remember The Incident and have to just brush it off. i try to reflect those sorts of weird moments in my writing.

5) i lean a lot on my experience in writing fanfic/doing roleplay of characters/ships that i'm interested in. taking the dynamic that's presented in the source material and bending it to suit my interests more, or to flesh out ideas that i want to explore through them as a medium. every now and then it helps to take a step back and assess what parts of my story i've built i feel are most compelling or could use some more attention. what scenes i would write fanfic of, and how i can place them in the story itself or build up to something that paints those scenes in the reader's mind. i just love characters. they're little toys i can make do anything

6) i guess overall my approach is very naturalistic/holistic. i let characters develop themselves and create drama on their own, just by being complicated little animals and thinking about them a lot. then i can take those shapes they make and mold them into something more refined. i try to treat everything as a piece of the whole. let the threads get really tangled up and leave a lot of time for exploring what those knots look like and how you might try to de-tangle them. but meanwhile there's other knots forming too. there's no getting it completely organized but you learn a lot about the mess while trying to pull it apart. the process is essential. the end product should reflect that process in whatever ways feel appropriate. imo

i don't know if Any Of This Shit makes any sense or is helpful. like i said, i've rewritten this several times already, and i've gotta do other stuff today, so hopefully you could pull something useful out of it lmao

[jorisjurgen]

My Kerubim Playlist - explained

Very self indulgent post going into details on why I picked certain songs for my playlist. Will explain the other playlists later because this post took ages to write.

CHILDHOOD PART:

1. Kikuo - the Good Child and the Fox Spirit

I chose this song because Ecaflip is a bad father. Yay <3

It's also a parallel to the song "You Are A Worthless Child" by Kikuo, which is on Atcham's playlist.

2. Regina Spektor - Two Birds

I chose this song because,,, I like to think that Atcham and Kerubim had very different visions if their lives and futures, when they were kids. And Ecaflip's manipulation didn't really help.

3. Maretu - The Flavor of a Cockroach

I chose this song because it's very unique in being a song about bullying from the perspective of a bystander/bully. I don't think Atcham was having a good time in the orphanage, and him not having a good time was also making Kerubim feel unwell.

4. Eve - Sister

The thing about my playlists is that I like to use them as a medium to retell the story of a character. I think it goes well with Maretu's song because it expresses Kerubim leaving Atcham behind.

5. SEDO - Bad Mouthing

While I don't think Kerubim was bullied in the orphanage, I do think he was excluded and tried to cope with it by clownery and denying it was happening. And by trying to leave Atcham.

6. Abuseken - Um, Ren-kun?

This is a special type of song I add to playlists - a "vibe-builder". This song might not fit a character but it expresses story ideas of Kerubim and Atcham being badddd to each other, because the entire song is two people going "I'm going to kms because you don't love me" "Good I think you should in fact kys" at one another, which is entirely how I think they talked to each other at the tail end of still being on talking terms when they were kids.

7. Pinocchio-P - Isn't it "A"

The last song is very "Kerubim and Atcham" /neg, while this one portrays a conflict between two people in a less mentally ill way, exploring that neither is right and that both are looking at the world with different opinions that may or may not be the same opinion viewed in a different light. I thought it might be important to use this song to reiterate my belief that in this situation there is no right or wrong side.

8. Maretu - Maegamist

I always interpreted this to be a song from the POV of someone who closed their eyes from mistreatment someone close to them suffered, either by someone else or by their own hand - before realizing far too late how bad things have gotten. I do think Kerubim coped his way into Atcham detesting him.

9. Glass Animals - Space Ghost Coast to Coast

This song is inspired by the singer's real experience of finding out that his childhood friend tried to commit mass murder, and I think that when Atcham went off the deep end Kerubim uhhh. struggled. As we've seen in canon, while he feels bad about their relationship, he also unflinchingly thinks Atcham is a very mentally ill individual and has nobody to blame but himself for 90% of the predicaments he's in (at least, ever since leaving the orphanage). So this song's unflinching "I understand life hurts, and I want you to get better, but you are insane" energy is very fitting.

ADOLESCENCE / ADULTHOOD PART

10. Glass Animals - Take a Slice

This song is another of those "vibe-builder" ones. This song is very lustful, the most sexual one Glass Animals ever did. It follows the story of a female sex worker who is falling in love with one of her clients. I think it's a good opener for the part of the playlist that touches on Kerubim's youth, because the lyrics are vague, and Kerubim has an inherent femininity to his self-confidence and his crush on Lou, which is very well expressed through this song. He's a bit of a femme fatale to me, and this song is very "Kerubim Crepin at his most confident, to the point of arrogance. He is cute and sexy and dangerous, and he knows it".

It's also a very high point, which serves well, considering his life gets worse afterwards and the songs do reflect that.

11. K.Flay - High Enough

This being the first song after the one that serves as the "character intro" of adult Kerubim immediately sets the stage to his relationship with Lou being completely fucked and unhealthy, with him using this relationship to numb the pain of everything that happened to him.

12. K.Flay - Thicker than Dust

His "femme fatale" that was expressed in the last song is, in a way, just him abusing various substances and falling in love with people to distract himself from the whole "my parents died and I went to orphanage and my brother hates me and is a criminal now" thing. Less real confidence and more of him confusing numbness and need to distract himself for confidence and happiness.

13. K.Flay - Wishing It Was You

While he is using his on-and-off relationship with Lou as a painkiller, he does love and pine for her - but the whole song being "I'm drinking and imagining myself giving you head instead of drinking" is kinda very Kerubim-core. At this age he wasn't very deep and WAS addicted to multiple substances imo, including alcohol, frat boy style.

14. K.Flay - Fever

This is also a Lou pining song, but in a far more desperate way because Kerubim is a very lonely person and his way of living his life actively makes him miserable.

15. K.Flay - FML (FUCK MY LIFE)

Guys I don't think alcoholism and substances and being a cute sexy adventurer and dating are fixing him.

16. K.Flay - Bad Things

This is a very sad, hopeless, and introspective song about trying to drown one's troubles in addictions. With this one, I am slowly upping the sadness ante. And also, it is the first Very Self Aware Kerubim Song, even if it is hopeless (basically saying "I will never get better and I will be alone forever.")

17. K.Flay - Make Me Fade

A spiritual sequel to me including "High Enough" by K.Flay in this playlist. Instead of speaking of the relationship as a painkiller, this song goes fully in the "you make feel like I have disappeared, and it's a good thing", and feeling like Lou not being there is torture.

It also touches more on the budding understanding that life is baddd. Like with the lyric "Sad about the bad I've done, on my grave, please believe me."

18. K.Flay - Can't Sleep

The last K.Flay song in this huge chunk of the playlist that's nothing but K.Flay music.

The most explicit song in the whole "my life is bad" arc. References other people being displeased with the way of life that is being led, which fits with Lou probably not liking Kerubim's self-destructive behaviours but not really being able to help him and blaming him for said behaviours.

19. Glass Animals - Waterfalls Coming Out Your Mouth

This is so ironic about someone who seems shallow and very confident, hiding behind a veneer of being cool and sexy. The song itself seems funky and filled with vibes, but hides something deeper and more violent/ill.

This song seems like a conversation he would have with himself, extremely self-hatingly.

20. Abuseken - Menthol Tear

Another "vibe-building" song. It doesn't fit him well outside the context of this playlist, but here it is included to express his rising feelings of jealousy, "she is going to leave me fr fr", and feelings of inadequacy.

21. SODDIKEN - Hansel

This song might not fit him entirely, but it is a mirror of the song "Gretel" by SODDIKEN which is on Atcham's playlist, and does express a sense of a slipping mental health + Kerubim's abandonment issues and need to be the center of attention and love.

22. skyfish66 - Go Big or Go Home!

ALL GAMBLERS QUIT JUST BEFORE THEIR BIGGEST WIN! But to be serious, this is extremely Kerubim-core to the point of being self-explanatory.

It fits with the previous song's theme of "upping the ante to be liked" and turning your life into a show. And it is kinda... Ecaflip City-ish.

23. Kikuo - Love me. Love me. Love me.

OK so what if your father was a god and he wanted to manipulate you into spending centuries living with him and to do that he constantly berated you and said you were worthless but also sad you're literally the most wonderful and cool and amazing child ever. And what if your relationships all fell apart because you keep using people to fill the void within you that you have felt ever since your family died and your brother left you. Wouldn't it be fucked up or what.

24. TX2 - I Would Hate Me Too

"I'm a 5'4'' manwhore who slit his wrists. there's a reason I keep wrecking relationships. And I would fucking hate me too" - worlds realest kerubimcore lyrics.

25. Akali - Surrender

This is an another "vibe" song, and a very dark and cryptic one. I always interpreted it to be about a conversation that takes place during a break up caused by severe mental illnesses that have eroded a relationship in ways that are both unfixable and haunting, and uhhh. You can guess why it is in the kerulou part of this Kerubim playlist.

26. Nantoka-P - Love Love Nightmare

Its just a horror song, but lyrics "which one of us is the bad one?" and "I wished I would be the only one who exists for you" are Very kerulou, especially as reflections on a relationship that has ended.

27. DECO*27 - Ghost Rule (Cover by Crusher)

If I don't add this song to the playlists of characters whose central trait is being a liar/faker, the Blorbo Police will execute me.

28. GHOST - ROTARY DIAL

An angry sort of "everyone always abandons me and I hope every one of them dies for having boundaries and cutting me out of their lives for my negative influence" song. He deserves a moment of being toxic and a hater.

29. Red Vox - In The Garden

A song about the guilt that follows habitually ruining relationships, trying and failing to change, and escape responsibility for your actions.

30. K.Flay - Punisher

Themes of divinity of one's self in their life, which flows into the theme of being one's own worst enemy and obstacle.

31. K.Flay - Yes, I'm Serious

This always makes me cry, whether I'm listening to it normally (I am a big fan of K.Flay and the circumstances behind it's making are just. heartbreaking) and in the context of Kerubim.

In a way, in the context of this playlist, it's the finale of the "Kerubim being very mentally ill" arc of this playlist that's been happening since song #20.

It's very introspective and has many self-realizations, in a way.

"Really, I feel like I'm feeling the feelings of my inner child whose been pounding the ceiling; Repeatedly asking for reasons and soothing, so I found a bottle and covered the bruising; But I was confusing a numbness for comfort, abandoned myself while I slipped under cover." — ngl these lyrics make me fucking insane both in blorbo context and normal person context.

32. Shikiura Sougo - Poison me, I want to drown in you.

It's a very beautiful and dare I say cute song reflecting on a horrible relationship that is described as being "a painkiller" and "poison", ending with words that go something like "I want to face you properly and say I really do love you."

I think it's a very cute and melancholic sort of post-break up kerulou song. In the context of Kerubim, even knowing how bad things were, he still loves her and wishes neither of them did this harm, even if it is far too late.

33. Glass Animals - Heat Waves

This song is literally about a relationship that failed and it has lyrics like "I wish I could make you happy". Big divorcecore track. I am going to throw myself into a river.

34. K.Flay - Slow March

This song is about life moving on regardless, as you try to heal and make sense of everything that happened. I think he'd be in limbo, after the divorce, for a pretty long while. There's a reason none of his stores in the show take place after it...

35. Rainbow Kitten Surprise - It's Called: Freefall

This song is about battling suicidal ideation after things went just completely Over. Besides that, it also is a conversation between a godly figure representing the bad urges and vices and the desire to die (but also, depending on the interpretation of the song that you prefer, might be trying to help instead, despite his evil nature), and a man who is at the end of his rope and is talking to him out of loneliness.

Kinda Ecaflip-core ngl.

36. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

It's a song about growing old. It's a song about moving on from even the things you thought were completely world-shattering. It's a song about regretting your youth.

It's a song about hoping to have a child just to show them how beautiful the world is before the damage is done.

37. DECO*27 & Pinocchio-P - (Not) a Devil

The version in my playlist is a cover, because I think the subs there are beautiful than the subs on the official upload of the song.

I think "angel who is being choked by purity and trying to appear better" and "demon who is trying to appear angelic" is a very good aesthetic for Kerubim and Atcham. Two opposites that are more similar than one might think.

I think this kinda fits because after the divorce and growing old, Kerubim and Atcham start actively beefing again due to going to a war AND due to Atcham trying to kill him in Astrub.

38. Nashimoto - Die In a Place Where I Can't See You

LITERALLY all of Kerubim's feelings on Atcham as an old man. He still loves him. (Sadly.)

39. Shikemoku - Hocus Pocus

YOU WILL NEVER GUESS WHY THIS SONG IS ON THE PLAYLIST.

40. K.Flay - Mean It

A song about wanting to get better to love someone more sincerely and without selfishness.

"I hope to die next to my daughter, let her sing me to sleep. Having made the mistakes of a mother, still I taught her to breathe [...] So when the world gets painful, she becomes her own god."

41. K.Flay - Get it Right

A song about wanting to become better, despite your impulses, wanting to break the cycle and carve out a good life for yourself despite how much it hurts.

42. K.Flay - Giver

Song about trying to unlearn selfishness and find a new way of living.

43. Pinocchio-P - KICK-ASS *LITERALLY

A song about waging a one-man war against your past self by holding yourself to new standards of not being a bad person, for the sake of your happy future and other people.

44. Iyowa - Until Your Tears Dry

World's Hardest Challenge: Imagine Kerubim singing this to Joris, without crying, throwing up, and then killing yourself.

I think this song fits very well with Dofus Cartoon-era Kerubim, and his thoughts on life, and Hopes and Dreams about Joris not repeating his mistakes in life.

45. Nagisa - Touch

A song about loving someone so gently to the point you'd melt at touching them, and yet hurting them anyway. Dying dying dying.

46. Trickle - Homunculus

A song about having tried everything but still being mentally ill and ashamed of yourself. Because bros, I don't think Kerubim is healthy even during the show, even if he did do a lot of work on himself.

47. Onoken - Fluquor (Deemo OST)

I shit you not, this song is literally canonically (I'm about to spoil a major plot twist from an oldass mobile game) about dying in the arms of your child who has no family left except for you, and your thoughts on it being "Being left alone is scarier for me, than it is for you. I don't think I'm going to heaven. Please hold me just a bit longer... But please don't forget to let go of me before I drag you with me."

Isn't it fucked. Haha. Btw it's one of those songs you should listen to at least once in your life.

48. VocaCircus - Déjà Vu

A song about cyclical relationships. I think it fits Kerubim and Atcham well, esp with them meeting once again in the movie. (Albeit not for long...)

49. syudou - Handle with Care

Imagine using a child to heal your mental illnesses and give you therapy and giving them so much brain damage that they begin to feel pleased when doing that after 6 centuries.

You will NEVER guess why this is on my Kerubim playlist.

50. R.I.P. - Mommy (Twins in Paradise OST)

Vewn's short indie animation "Twins in Paradise" is the closest we as a society will come to experiencing whatever emotions a depressing OVA about Kerubim and Atcham's childhood would make us feel. Marcy and Darcy are LITERALLY Kerubim and Atcham.

51. Hanyuu Maigo - Aun Beats

Listening to this song and thinking about Atcham dying in Kerubim and Joris's arms in the movie is just as emotionally devastating as listening to this song and thinking about the 48487538 years of separation between Qilby and Shinonome, or The Situation between Nora and Efrim.

This song has done a lot for doomed siblings economy, despite not being about siblings and instead the concept of doom itself.

52. Sohta - Twilight Station

I'm insane about Kerubim feeling anxious and ashamed of all his faults and the ways he wronged Atcham (and Joris).

53. Faded Paper Figures - Pointing at the Moon

This song feels the same way Kerubim loves people, and I think it's a good song for the end of the playlist. He loves everyone he's met this way.

54. Faded Paper Figures - Relatively

A general crepinjurgen-core song that touches on the theme of their relationship lasting forever.

[mothoscope]

...May I ask about your fursona ideas for the different beavis and butthead characters? 👀

HEHEH THANKS FOR AWAKENING MY MENTAL ILLNESS, ANON. I could talk about fursona headcanons (of anything) for HOURS.

I'll go through as many characters that I have ideas for. I definitely might miss some, but if you have a particular side-character I missed don't be afraid to ask. Again, I love thinking about this stuff : )

Beavis and Butt-Head: African wolf (Senegalese subspecies) and Spotted hyena, respectively. Hyena was too good an opportunity to pass up, but I felt Beavis needed to be a different animal. Hyenas are kind of "box-shaped" which lends itself well to how Butt-Head is designed, but Beavis is a lot more angular and "pointy" to me. I was considering a coyote, but it felt too basic. African wolf felt like a good median.

Also....consider...the size difference. Very silly. Buzzcut: American Staffordshire Terrier

It just felt right. Cassandra: Okapi

Just felt right (that might be my reasoning for a lot of these if they don't have extra commentary lol) Daria: Water opossum or Yapok

Earl: Sumatran Rhino

Principal McVicker: Gulf coast toad

I did this based off of vibes/character design initially but, now that I am writing this, I am realizing there is a connection here between frog baseball and the mental abuse Beavis and Butt-Head put on that guy on a daily basis lmaooo. Stewart: Syrian hamster

It is literally him. 'Nuff said. Todd: Red fox

Basic "cool animal". Also I like the name pun (for those not in-the-know, Tod is a term for a male fox).

Tom Anderson: Texas pocket gopher

Van Driessen: Water deer

Gentle beast. Very befitting for him <3. I could also have him be a regular type of deer but I like the visual of their tusks. Hoping to make more art of these interpretations, so keep an eye out : )

[nematanthus]

Album Review: Folie à Deux- Fall Out Boy

Release Date:

December 10 2008

Tracklist:

Disloyal Order Of Water Buffaloes:

I Don't Care

She's My Winona

America's Suitehearts

Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown On A Bad Bet

The (Shipped) Gold Standard

(Coffee's For Closers)

What A Catch, Donnie

27

Tiffany Blews

w.a.m.s.

20 Dollar Nose Bleed

West Coast Smoker

Favorite Track:

West Coast Smoker

Least favorite track:

w.a.m.s.

Album art opinions:

This is an album clearly about mental illness and the effects that fame can have on your mental health, and the character in the bear costume shows this very well. Holding back what seems to be a very angry bear, the character is shown physically holding a heavy weight that could be a metaphor for either the weight of knowing everyone's eyes are on you (fame) or the weight of trying to act normal while struggling with mental illness, though for the purposes of this, I'm going to say it is both, which is in the true spirit of the album, the name of which means a shared delusion/other mental illness,but literally translated is "trouble for two" and the album focuses quite heavily on the dilemma of being famous v taking care of yourself.

The bright red background is immediately eye catching and compliments the colors of the two figures on the cover without drawing attention away from them, which makes this cover one that is very visually pleasing to look at

Color: 9/10

Recognizability: 7/10

Vibes: 9/10

Total: 8/10

Music opinions/notes:

This is a no skip album for me. Each track feels like it's in its own little world while simultaneously seamlessly fitting into the overarching theme of the album. It was hard for me to pick a least favorite, as I like this album quite a lot. This album is a great listen, and as a musician that has learned to play songs on this album with different instruments, its also rather fun. There's enough changes in pace that it doesn't feel monotonous, and who could forget Patricks rich vocals, ranging from the lowest of lows to the highest of highs all with such a clear tone that it is rather impressive, and shows how much one can change in 5 short years. While it was not a success when it was first released, causing the band to ignore the albums' existence up until their most recent tour, it has made a Renaissance and it seems that the band has healed from its initial failure. Most fans have come to the consensus that the record was simply before its time, and it is now a top 3 album for most Fall Out Boy fans out there.

Vibes: 9/10

Mix: 9/10

Lyrics: 7/10

Instruments: 8/10

Total: 8/10

Total Score: 8/10

[kris-and-the-pnictogens]

saying goodbye to childhood sci-fi optimism and the I.G.Y. future

I don't want to say farewell to optimism and hope altogether. Both concepts are still valid even though we're getting the Second Coming of Donald Trump (or maybe it's his third or fourth or tenth, because he keeps crawling back into the spotlight after repeated humiliations) and it looks like the U.S. and the Democrats are both mortally stricken. Hope hasn't vanished, but now I'm going to have to work for it.

It's something to realize that despite years of trying to toughen myself up, trying to cultivate a dispassionate and analytical approach to the challenges of a world dissolving into chaos, I've been hindering myself through nostalgia—nostalgia, the same sickness that infected the U.S. with the "Reagan Revolution" (actually a fascist counterrevolution) and has finally slain the patient. Both my older sibling Frisk (born 1972, I was born in 1974) grew up in a staunchly leftist household, raised by a scientist father with a great many friends from many other countries and a mother who'd fled the wreckage of Allendist Chile and taught her children to believe in revolution and social justice. But we were still children being brought up in whitebread West-Coast U.S. society, going to whitebread West-Coast U.S. schools, so we got corrupted by whitebread American optimism. Even my saturnine sibling, for a little while there in childhood, wanted to believe that somehow everything would be OK. The hard times were temporary and things would get better and we'd have a different world to live in by the time we were grown up.

Right? 😬

Obviously that did NOT happen and, if I'd been wiser during the 1980s, I would have perhaps noticed that the nation was already mortally wounded. I think Frisk, always more practically minded and attentive to mundane concerns, noticed much sooner and this contributed to the extremity of their growing despair and mental illness. I continued to put faith in escapism, fantasy, and sci-fi optimism. I don't think that was wrong exactly but like way too many privileged American kids growing up in those years I was too willing to be merely dazzled by technology and its promises—rather like Snowball in Animal Farm, altogether too excited by his daydreams of a miraculous mill—and seduced by the notion that "progress" (that vaguest of abstractions) was inevitable merely because technology was always improving. As I got older, sci-fi and fantasy slowly became more mainstream in popular culture, especially after the advent of Star Trek: The Next Generation which I faithfully followed in high school and early college years. Surely this was a sign! Surely the future really WAS getting brighter all the time!

Right? 😬

Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony. My sibling and I would eventually clash on this matter—we grew apart, estranged by our vast difference in temperament. Frisk thought I was fatally frivolous; I thought (*sighs*) that Frisk was simply lost, their mind now so scrambled by illness that I'd never understand them again. We were both wrong about each other, and yet we were both correct. We are reunited in Hell, however; that is something to feel good about.

And somehow, our clash of temperaments is reconciled in a single song, one of Frisk's favorites, so now it's one of mine as well. Frisk tried to get me interested in Steely Dan and eventually I picked up the vibe. Frisk found little peace in their previous life but music helped. Donald Fagen's solo album The Nightfly has much the same mellow sardonic vibe as Steely Dan's music and was a big Frisk favorite. Fagen was a big sci-fi fan as it happens and the lead track on The Nightfly, "I.G.Y." (International Geophysical Year, a grand worldwide science project from the late '50s) has a lot of sincere enthusiasm for old-fashioned sci-fi visions of a gleaming space-colony future like I got from magazines and books during childhood, but deftly undercut by Fagen's world-weary sarcasm. Can you tell? I quote the lyrics in full:

standing tough under Stars and Stripes, we can tell this dream's in sight you've got to admit it, at this point in time that it's clear the future looks bright on that train all graphite and glitter undersea by rail 90 minutes from New York to Paris well by '76, we'll be a-OK 🎶 what a beautiful world this will be what a glorious time to be free what a beautiful world this will be what a glorious time to be free, oh 🎶 get your ticket to that wheel in space while there's time the fix is in you'll be a witness to that game of chance in the sky you know we've got to win here at home, we'll play in the city powered by the sun perfect weather for a streamlined world there'll be spandex jackets, one for everyone 🎶 what a beautiful world this will be what a glorious time to be free what a beautiful world this will be What a glorious time to be free, yeah 🎶 on that train, all graphite and glitter undersea by rail 90 minutes from New York to Paris (more leisure for artists everywhere) just a machine to make big decisions programmed by fellas with compassion and vision we'll be clean when their work is done we'll be eternally free, yes, and eternally young 🎶 what a beautiful world this will be what a glorious time to be free what a beautiful world this will be what a glorious time to be free 🎶

"Well by '76, we'll be a-OK" rather gives the game away: if this song is written from the late '50s perspective, the bicentennial year of 1976 must have looked very optimistic indeed. It wasn't so bad in reality either; Jimmy Carter was elected and the U.S. could still feel like a member of the international community, albeit a humbled and troubled one stained by Watergate and the genocidal fixation on Vietnam. But The Nightfly came out in 1982, after the fascist GOP installed the ghastly grinning Reagan in the Oval Office, and Reagan had no use for international coöperation or space exploration—Ronnie Raygun wanted to put bombs and spy satellites in space, not peaceful explorers.

The '50s sci-fi future had NOT come true and now Fagen could only look back regretfully on it. Here in 2024, with the nightmare of Trump II and Elon Musk looming over us all, the daydream of eternal freedom on that wheel in space in the sky seems more phantasmal than ever, although Musk keeps alive a horrifying parody of it, promising his cultists a vision of Martian paradise that must surely be completely illusory, for in reality Musk wants SpaceX to be a military contractor and revival of Reagan's space-weapons notions, and Starlink is blotting out the stars rather than reaching for them. People still long for "a machine to make big decisions", that's for sure, although the LLM fraud is a terrifying betrayal of that promise.

Frisk, nodding along serenely to this song, might well tell me: "told you so!" I had believed in the I.G.Y. dream, which Fagen was perhaps consigning to history with his gently sarcastic take on it. But I choose to believe still. Fagen believed in it once; maybe he still did, just a bit, and that's why the song is so appealing still. I haven't given up hope. Maybe I'll make it to 2076, and make the song come true.

~Chara of Pnictogen

[appalchianesque]

First post

Hi Tumblypoos!

My name is Tate and I've decided to start a blog dedicated to my academic writing and shit like that. I wanted a place to publish publicly my writings because I'm an attention whore and also because what is the point of writing a bunch of pretentious academic shit without other people to read it and think you're stupid and/or argue with you? I wanted to start a wordpress, I think I'm going to still, but I'm way more familiar with tumblr.

As a mentally ill individual, I've been using tumblr since 2015. I haven't been on for a few years, but I'm back because this is a familiar environment and I know I can swear and basically say whatever I want because way worse has, and will, be said on here. As much as I would like to only be strictly feral here, I think I should have some type of decorum, so I will not be indulging on my personal life and shit talking those I hate, that I know personally. Public figures are fair game. As a tumblr veteran, most, if not all, of my personality and sense of humor are derived from this website, with that being said: I am 25, so essentially geriatric when it comes to the niche culture on here so if what I write comes across as buzzfeed millennial in any way I will be very insecure, and also probably book an appointment to have myself put down. Unfortunately, this is my inner monologue and I fear it may be too late anyway.

I'm very slowly pursuing history and english literature degrees, I think they're fun (hence the hobby blog) and wanted to go to school for something I thought was fun. I'd like to go back for human resource management and tourism and hospitality. I can defer my loans longer :) and I think I would have a wider range of job opportunities in more interesting places. I love Appalachia, which is why my blog theme is centered on that region, the user name, my literal living identity, etc. etc., but I don't want to never not leave, and I would have a better appreciation of it when I come back.

I live very close to the midwest, so in driving through (to buy my weed in Michigan (which I smoke all in Michigan before going home)) I like to compare and contrast the differences between where I live, and how people in .. Ohio .. live, the differences between western and Eastern Pennsylvania, architectural variation across the East Coast. Shit like that. Its all very niche and localized because I've never been anywhere else, and I don't frankly care that much about the cultures of the rest of the US like I do the Midwest, Appalachia & Southern states. They're important, they do have influence on these regions, obviously, and I will give credit where its due but I'm not here for them.

My mother's family is from Ohio. This portion of my family derives from Ireland, Germany, and Czech/Slovak regions. My father's family is Italian. These things are a part of why I do what I do, I think its important to the hard work and perseverance of all of my blue collar family members and what they did to get me where I am today. With the way the US is set up, after a certain point, those cultures were diminished and erased, I know nothing about any of them and so I hope that in this way I will be able to better know and understand what they went through, and who they were.

Furthermore, I love food, clothing, and cultural trends. I firmly believe I can sus out someone's vibe by the shoes they're wearing, and I think that its something that comes with practice, experience and observation. I'm a restaurant industry person, and a food person in general. I'm working on a West Virginian themed cook book, that I can start on again when the spring rolls around because there will be edible things out and about. Not animals, I'm not killing animals. So anticipate recipes and shit like that. I am also a movie snob in the worst way possible, I believe every movie I like and them all together is the best movie curation ever, and those that I don't like are bad for good reason. This is, obviously, not true, but its fun to feel like it is and I'm not ashamed to admit that.

I overuse commas, and I will not apologize or adjust to that. They make sense to me in my head and I am the most important person to me, especially here.

Love u tumblypoos xoxo

Tate :) <3