#i collect records/books/movies and just a lot of physical media

[pftones3482]

Being so serious when I say that NOW more than ever, if you live in the US, you NEED to preserve physical media.

- Physical books, ESPECIALLY commonly banned/likely to be banned ones (not just the classics - those are important, but people are much more likely to have those secured. I'm talking children's literature, especially non-white and LGBTQIA stories. I'm talking religious texts, gardening books, crafting books ((sewing especially)), dictionaries/books in other languages, ESPECIALLY native American languages - get em all)

- Physical music - CDs, records, cassettes, whatever you can get your hands on. If you have the ability to get the supplies to burn your own CDs with modern music, even better. Songs about dissent and rebellion, queerness, blackness, a lot of punk/rock/rap, will be the first stuff to be targeted

- Movies - DVDs, VHS, whatever. We've seen with Netflix removing their own original shows that content can disappear off the face of the earth with a snap. I've been collecting my favorite movies from childhood, highly recommend you do the same

- Cookbooks. In a worst case scenario, it is very handy to have recipes in a physical book. Most cookbooks also have sections with information on how to properly and safely cook many foods, which can be helpful. If you don't own a cookbook, start by taking your favorite recipes from online and either print them out and put them in a folder OR do what I do and hand copy them into a notebook (your hand will hurt but you can personalize the recipes easily that way!)

We are entering an age where our media is being controlled by fewer and fewer people, one big monopoly. Preserve it while we can. And while you're at it, read Fahrenheit 451. It is, in my opinion, one of the most important banned books you could ever read to understand WHY the preservation of media is so important

[werebutch]

Making other stuff besides drawings/writing/pinterest boards for your ocs is very fun guys.. i think a lot of people are long term obsessed with their ocs like me and may have run out of ideas, so we need to make this common practice.. :>! some things ive done:

ZINES: ive made 3 collage zines about the same character including imagery and poetry from the perspective of 3 other characters, including his partner, best friend/situationship, and mother. it can also be informational, comics, etc, but i like poetry the best since my ocs are imagery/lore heavy, and i do cutout poetry which can feel like a puzzle.. its fun to go hunting through magazines and books. challenge urself to find words/images naturally and not print anything out. ITS FUN. i use "legal" type paper, which is slightly longer than A4, because we bought it on accident AND it makes the zine pages slightly, but noticeably, bigger, which is nice.

WEBSITES: i made a carrd to store in-depth character information that i can easily share with people. i also made toyhouse profiles. the customization is extremely fun, and a website seems more "official" than a regular google doc! with toyhouse, its been a while but i believe you can also set up character relationships and things like that.

PROFILES: spacehey.com is a myspace lookalike. i made a fitting email for one of my ocs and an account :D he uses it as a diary / place for rambling which is very fun to do in character, idc if its cringe. you can also customize the profile a lot to reflect the character, which is my fave part. You can do this with other social media of course, but i chose spacehey because of the customization and because my story is set in the late 2000s.

PHYSICAL OBJECTS: this costs money, but i also sometimes (very rarely because i like to reduce clutter..) collect things that reflect my ocs, or things that my ocs would own. i have a very special lamb plush and a black dog plush to remind me of my ocs, and sitting them together makes me feel so silly, but it is very cute.

PAPER STUFF: adding onto this, ive also seen people make paper dolls + paper belongings like wallets (think of a library card, Polaroids, receipts, their ID, etc..) .. VERY CUTE. you can also make paper dolls digitally of course. i havent done this but may in the future!

JOURNALS: i made a journal for my oc by writing in their POV. i made the mistake of getting a normal-sized one, i recommend getting a tiny journal so that you can actually fill it. an entire journal usually has way too much space to fill unless you're more insane than me. doesn't have to only be writing, you can include receipts / pictures / stickers / polaroids based on what your oc would put. obviously. AND, you can pick out a journal or make a journal cover that fits your oc's aesthetic. yay.

ALBUM COVERS: since my ocs are in a band, i created their album cover by collaging (you can also do it digitally, draw, photos, etc) which was SO fun. i cut it to size and put it in a CD case! the other album cover i made was digital, and i made the back with all the songs, fake publisher/record label, etc! eventually i plan to burn a cd with songs that sound similar to their band!

CDS: if your ocs dont make music, you can still burn CDs with either songs they would listen to, songs that they would sing to/sound like their voice, or songs that fit their character arc / personality. you can also make one that a character would make FOR another character, very cute.

SOUNDTRACK: make a soundtrack for your ocs' game/show/movie, and if you want, do it based on time period and location. genres are extremely fun to play with, and finding background tracks is surprisingly rewarding (i include a lot of NIN). ITS VERY FUN!!

BAG TOURS: similar to this post. i havent done this yet, but it seems like a really good way to develop your characters' personalities, day to day lives, and interests/needs :) ive even thought about collecting the real objects instead of just drawing or collaging bahahah. maybe one day !

CAST / VOICE CLAIMS: if an actor were to play your oc, who would it be? if someone was to voice act your oc, who would it be/what would it sound like? you can write this down or make clips of audio to show off ^__^ it takes a lot of digging sometimes and i love doing this for both my human ocs and my ponies.

MEMES: making memes of your ocs is smth i used to do constantly, it was very fun ! self explanatory mostly !

...TAGGING: this is very fun, but ive never heard anyone besides me do it BAHAH. i came up with tags for 2 of my ocs to write with paint markers. don't do this with expensive markers, they will get torn up depending on the surfaces you're writing on OBVIOUSLY. they can be as simple or complex as u want. come on. get into character. what is your character writing on that wall over there? .... i know this might be silly but its genuinely so fun and a way to integrate your ocs irl. BAHAHAHAH.

AND, most problematically, you can method act which i do not recommend doing for years on end because it has fundamentally changed me as a person. have fun ! that's all i can think of right now

[toopimpabutterfly]

making my INTRO!!!!! or this is my intro. ykykyk. (meet my shitty way of designing intros and stuff too,)

HIHI call me Jésus I'm 16 Apache Mexican American. With some other stuff cause yeah. just mentioning that cause. I will say a lot of stuff yk. I'm autistic and scitzohenic but PLEASEEEE I NEED FRIENDS and PEOPLE TO talk to about my current interests!!!

MOVIES

Oh to go. on ABOUT THIS.. here's my letterboxd I fucking love movies.

DOGMA, MOONLIGHT, CLERKS, NATURAL BORN KILLERS, GOOD WILL HUNTING, FIGHT CLUB, NAKED LUNCH, FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS, CONSTANTINE, HELLBBOY, GUMMO, MAD MAX + FURIOSA, GODZILLA, I SAW THE TV GLOW, AVATAR, JACKASS, MID 90S, STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON, I LOVE YOU PHILIP MORRIS, WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S, FRIDAY, THE MATRIX, JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK, THIRTEEN, REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, TRAINSPOTTING, THE PEOPLE VS LARRY FLYNT, DUCK TILL DAWN, THE WATERMELON WOMAN, DONT BE A MENACE TO SOUTH CENTRAL, BOYZ IN THE HOOD, 12 MONKEYS, X-MEN, MENACE II SOCIETY, WATCHMEN,MALL RATS, KIDS and a lot more.. coughs.

TV SHOWS

PREACHER, THE BOYS, THE MAXX, ÆON FLUX, THE BOONDOCKS, LOITER SQUAD, CLERKS ANIMATED, X-Men 92/97 AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE, BOJACK HORSEMAN, BEVIS AND BUTTHEAD, JACKASS THE SERIES, SMILING FRIENDS, THE ERIC ANDRE SHOW, FUTURAMA, KING OF THE HILL, MORAL OREL, BLACK DYNAMITE, HOME MOVIES, SPACE GHOST COAST TO COAST, THE OBLONGS, and more stuff again. Assume that a lot tbh.

MUSIC

THE BUTTHOLE SURFERS, KENDRICK LAMAR, ICE CUBE, N.W.A, BLACK FLAG, DEAD KENNEDY'S, LEONARD COHEN, NINE INCH NAILS, OUTKAST, TYLER, THE CREATOR, NAS, DR DRE, BONE THUGZ, QUASIMOTO, EAZY-E, KMFDM, ALEX G, WEEN, CHEMLAB, JANE'S ADDICTION, GERMS, ANGRY SAMOANS, NEW ORDER, JOY DIVISION, COWBOY JUNKIES, JESUS LOVES JUNKIES, PIXIES, DINOSAUR JR, HOOTIE AND THE BLOWFISH, THE VELVET UNDERGROUND, THE DEAD MILKMEN, NECROS, CIRCLE JERKS, HOLE, and a lot more. I love hardcore punk, crust, hip-hop, rap, and basically everything tbh.

MISC + FIXATIONS

I love comics like the Punisher, The Maxx, Preacher, Bratpack, the clerk's comic, X-MEN!!!!!, Watchmen, Hellboy, little things. I like reading, TOO . I LOVE HUNTER S THOMPSON!!! Mostly Fear and Loathing in las Vegas, Hell's Angels, and the Campaign Trail 72, and other books like Revolt of the Cockroach People, Get in The Van. Little books like that sorta. GAMES TOO I like Faith the unholy Trinity, DOOM, POSTAL, GTA, DUSK, and a few others!

I collect DVDS, games, VHS tapes, books, CDs, records, laser discs, literally any piece of physical media . All of it. I like conspiracy theories, civil rights activists, some art history, Malcolm X. I'm a punk I go to local shows and stuff and might sometimes post that when I can. I have a HUGEEE fixation rn on Dogma(1999), X-MEN!!!! and Kendrick Lamar. I do powerlifting as a hobby and like to go on walks around my town and say nonsense please interact. I will post whatever I want here really tbh.. BYE.

TAGS!!!

#toopimpabutterfly <- tag for everything I post

#TPAB lyric posts <- me lyric postin, nuff said.

#TPAB rants <- mostly vent or ranting about my horrible life. how fun

I got socials too, discords are irlwillhunting MAIN and h0peeradicated as alt. My Instagram is topimpthebutterfly . Spotify is here .

[dani-ya-dig]

Do you have any Headcannons for Rose,Bud,and Abby? If so are you willing to share?

That is all😅 thank you!!

Tumblr user child-of-hades28, I would like to formally apologize for how long it took me to answer this ask because those are MY FUCKING LADIES RIGHT THERE!!! I LOVE ABBY AND ROSE AND I AM HORRIFIED THAT I DIDN’T TAKE THIS CHANCE TO YAP ABT THEM SOONER???

THIS ONE IS FOR YOU MY FRIEND!

—

Abby is the type of person to watch a movie and confidently say “would” about the most abhorrent characters at the most abhorrent moments.

The first time she did this around Rose, it led to a look of absolute horror on the poor librarian’s face and a thirty-minute debate about why that was an insane thing to say. Then the little rat that operates Abby’s brain started rubbing its little rat paws together evilly.

Abigail started saying “would” at characters she isn’t even actually attracted to, just to see how angry Rose could get. It’s turned into a bit of a game for her. A game that Dear picked up on pretty quick, and now sometimes joins in by defending Abby to hear Rose’s blood pressure rise in real time. 

It took Rose a lot longer to pick up on the fact that this was a game for the other two, but when she did, she had the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever. When the three were watching a movie together, she waited until the most disgusting creature with a face only a mother could love came onto the screen and says in the sweetest, most polite voice you’ve ever heard “would :)” and watches Abigail and Dear lose their fucking minds.

—

Rose doesn’t carry a purse around with her; she carries a little tote bag. Considering she is usually carrying around, at least, two planners (one for work and one for her personal life), and whatever book she is reading, ‌she needs more carrying space than most purses provide. 

Abigail carries a backpack, it’s the most convenient option! She takes her headphones with her everywhere she goes, and sometimes she has to bring her laptop with her for editing on the go. Not to mention it gives her so much room to carry other stuff (snacks) and it keeps her hands free! 

As far as Dear is concerned, if it can’t fit in their pockets and it’s too inconvenient to carry it in their hands, they didn’t need it in the first place. 

—

Both Abby and Rose are extremely passionate about the importance of owning physical media. 

For Rose this means owning a copy of every book she has ever loved, and she also loves collecting vinyl records! Rose definitely owns some books on tape too. 

For Abby this means having cabinets dedicated to he insanely massive (-ly impressive pls marry me ma’am) DVD and VHS collection. 

—

To that point, Abby has such a love for obscure ass movies that no one has ever heard of. It’s hard for her to find DVD copies of these movies sometimes, or when she can they are being sold on eBay for an insanely high asking price. She will often, oh so dramatically, complain to Dear about this. To which dear will pirate the movie online and burn a DVD of it for her. Sometimes they will even decorate the cover of the box for her ^^

—

Rose is a painter and has drank paint water far more than she is proud to admit. Dear has caught her doing it. Abigail has not. She fears she would never live it down if Abby caught her. 

—

Rose = Painter 

Abby = Digital Artist 

Dear = Writer 

— 

I’ll leave it at that because I feel like this post is already too long, but thank you for the ask, and the chance to talk about the polycule ever! 

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 4/9/2023

the best photo i took this week

listening

i have not been keeping up with either the tuesdaypost spreadsheet or the tuesdaypost playlists so there's a strong possibility i have already talked about Joywave's It's A Trip! off the 2017 album Content. spotify

driving ten hours in one day is ideal for listening to albums and i listened to almost every joywave album on my way home from the eclipse. american indie rock band from rochester ny, i have loved them since early college. i think they were made in a lab to get to stuck in my head bc they tend toward lower register synthier tracks that deceptively amble cheerfully along and talk about dealing with fear. songs for a male protagonist to splash water on his face, look at himself in the mirror haunted by what he's seeing, linger in his children's bedroom doorways, and then drive off into the night for the finale.

i think i listened to this song for an hour on loop yesterday bc the chorus so perfectly got stuck in my brain

When you've gotten what you want (Maybe I should start over) There's nothing left to want (Up and at 'em again) You don't know what you want (Yeah, I'm thinking it over) Just tell me what to Want

they have spent a lot of time figuring out how to have longevity as a band: "The record kind of attempts to figure that out but it doesn’t end in a definitive place. For me personally, it’s just to create things that matter as long as I possibly can, and to make things that are going to outlive me that people can hang onto for at least five to six years after I’m dead." they are deeply cranky about virality/content churn, especially in this interview. i appreciate this in an artist.

could not tell you how i first found them. i think i would have to go back to the proto-tuesdayposts of 2018.

-

reading

when you're not sleeping well you can average a book a night!

Uprooted by Naomi Novik destroyed me. (image from here)

“Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful.”

my best friend real-life influenced me into reading this book and i have since managed to convince four other people to read this book bc i won't shut up about it. the descriptions of the physicality of magic and how different kinds of magic and different families of spells Feel was only part of the coolest magical system ive ever read about. this is not a dark romance but it is a little brutal in a brothers grimm/this is how battles shake out sometime kind of way. i think a companion piece of media written from the Dragon's point of view would nicely parallel that post going around about how Howl's Moving Castle the movie is from Howl's point of view and Howl's Moving Castle the book is from Sophie's point of view. i would die for Agnieszka.

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik (image from here)

Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders… but her father isn’t a very good one. Free to lend and reluctant to collect, he has loaned out most of his wife’s dowry and left the family on the edge of poverty–until Miryem steps in. Hardening her heart against her fellow villagers’ pleas, she sets out to collect what is owed–and finds herself more than up to the task. When her grandfather loans her a pouch of silver pennies, she brings it back full of gold. But having the reputation of being able to change silver to gold can be more trouble than it’s worth–especially when her fate becomes tangled with the cold creatures that haunt the wood, and whose king has learned of her reputation and wants to exploit it for reasons Miryem cannot understand.

i don't know if i've ever read a book with seven points of view before? i think it was well handled, but it required significantly more brainpower than screaming through three of kingfisher's light fantasy/romances in two days and it threw me a little. saying this book is about debts cheapens it a little, i think. it is concerned with debts but also safety, and it is very much about cost in a very fairytale way and in the horrible everyday calculus of survival way.

Swordheart, Paladin's Hope, and Paladin's Strength by T. Kingfisher. god these go down So smooth. kingfisher has a niche and i respect that. i am reading the Saint of Steel tetralogy out of order bc even four library systems can only do so much, and i don't think you particularly need to read them in order.

i'm a bit cranky that the terfs took feminist fantasy from me, bc when the protagonist got her period in Paladin's Strength a little alarm bell went off in my head and i had to put it down and google some stuff (the answer is no btw). there is a way to write female-focused lightly historical fantasy without being terfy and kingfisher does it, but it's so rare that i was genuinely expecting some sort of. weird agenda to be at play.

these were all fun, fast reads and i don't have much else to say about them! not that they are better or worse than novik's books but they will not live in my head quite as long. there are fewer tantalizing hints about systems of magic that make me want to graph things out u kno

-

watching

kanopy has Animation April as their focus this month which is how i saw The King and the Mockingbird (1980, dir. Paul Grimault) which is a longer piece adapted from something he'd been working on since the 40s.

This animated fantasy tale follows the romance between a lovely shepherdess and a handsome chimney sweep. The land's imperious king falls for the beautiful woman and tries to thwart her relationship, but a kind mockingbird assists the lovers in evading the ruler. At the king's command, the chimney sweep and his bird friend are imprisoned, and they must escape in order to rescue the young man's true love.

GOD the animation in this. there are so many references to early animation and silent film. there are so so so many gadgets and methods of conveyance in an absolutely architecturally dizzying castle. there is a ROYAL MECH that plays its own theme music. the backgrounds have a very Chuck Jones quality in that they are exactly as detailed as they need to be for the gag to work. the castle is lush and beautiful but not dizzyingly, overwhelmingly lush. there is a clear vision to every shot and a clear path your eye is meant to travel, which i appreciate very much. i think a lot of technically impressive animation (i am specifically thinking of the Nimh movies) muddies itself by trying to jam too much on the screen. just a fucking delight of a film. a delicious confection

-

playing

nothing specific to say about genshin this week ur welcome

-

making

painted a frame (it was a dead basic michaels frame i got at a yard sale and it was giving little boy's room) and framed a thing. this is a poster that came as a freebie with a 1997 album, and i actually bought this CD case without the CD inside bc i was so delighted with the poster. scuff sanded the frame with 120 grit, i went with a matte black acrylic bc i felt that disguised how the poster did not quite fit the frame a little better? and also bc it was what i had in the house.

i did not bother with a mat, i just used the lining paper with the stock photo and painted the back of that. do not do this with particularly valuable or beloved pieces. i do not think this is necessarily acid free and there is some danger that the paint may transfer to the back of the poster over time.

[thessalian]

Thess vs Corporate Amnesia

I check Facebook for, like, three people who haven't got into this Hellsite (affectionate). I mean, obviously it shows me more "Things We Think You'll Like" than my actual friends, but I knew what I was sticking with.

Anyway, one of those "Things We Think You'll Like" was this one vid probably stolen from TikTok (because if it's on Facebook, it's generally stolen from either TikTok, Twitter, or right here on Tumblr), along the lines of, "No one under the age of 70 knows all these songs". And the songs originally came out in, like, approximately the 60s with some overlap? And a lot of them were used in the soundtracks for movies in the 80s and 90s. It said that no one under the age of 70 knew them all. I am not even 50 yet and I could sing along with each and every one of them. I mean, it was like "Pretty Woman" and "My Girl" and stuff like that.

Then I thought back to a whole bunch of videos I got recommended on YouTube because I like reaction videos that largely involve people in their 20s and 30s getting their minds absolutely blown by their first hearing of, say, Queen. I mean, a couple were, "Wait, Queen did that?!?" about stuff like "We Will Rock You" and "We Are The Champions", but none of them had ever heard Bohemian Rhapsody.

So I'm looking at the dichotomy between the experience of, like, me knowing music from well before my time and kids not knowing music from 30-ish years ago and thinking ... this has to be deliberate. And I'm thinking that a lot of it has to be about the ongoing death of physical musical media. Which I say that way because I have been around since vinyl and 8-tracks were a thing and all I used my little Fisher-Price cassette player for was audiobooks.

(No, I'm serious - when I was seven, I had a very small vinyl collection that involved Muppets Greatest Hits, songs from a Quebecois kids' show called Passe-Partout, Men At Work's Business As Usual, and a single of Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It". And books like Watership Down on tape. I was weird, okay? ...That has not changed much, but anyway.)

...Okay, thinking about it, I guess that's half of it. Like, it's harder to get into your parents' music collection when it's not physical media that you can look at and get curious about. I know I was into my mother's records before I can even really remember - everything from Black Sabbath to Suzanne Vega to her Monty Python's Greatest Hits album and everything in between. But parents cannot possibly be encouraging their kids to try their playlists either. And the radio's generally no help because unless you're on an "oldies" station, you're not getting anything that's more than maybe a year or two old at best. And that's assuming anyone listens to the radio instead of switching on their Spotify playlist.

(Or they're like my stepfather who keeps the digital radio in their car tuned to the BBC World Service.)

I'm grateful that there are still kids and young adults curious enough to go out on YouTube and find something interesting. Watching a twenty-something rapper and rap enthusiast losing his godsdamned mind at Metallica's Master of Puppets, or two kids in their maybe early twenties watching Queen's Live Aid concert and being entirely mind-blown by it, gives me life. But it feels like it should happen more often. Like, let your kids listen to your playlist. Hell, encourage them to do it. Don't be pushy; just be like, "Hey, here's what I listen to - give it a try, and if you don't like it, you don't like it".

I figure everything is someone's classic. We just need to make it easier for people to find theirs. But ... I mean, come on. Capitalism keeps trying to turn the art form that is music into just another consumable commodity, same way they do with TV, movies, video games. It's in their interests to have people forget the old because maybe we won't buy The New if we feel that The Old is serving our needs ... or because we're comparing The Old to The New and seeing how much their attempts at homogenising it for the biggest mass market appeal diminishes the art form.

Not to throw shade at those who enjoy current music, by the way. That shit's been happening since boy bands and girl bands were being focus-grouped into existence. Just not having Mum's Record Collection to dig into when you're bored after school kind of limits people's options, even as things like Spotify give the illusion of choice. For instance, my Liked music is full of bands from my childhood and early teens, and older stuff that I really enjoy. It gives me The Doors more often than you'd think when I put my Liked songs on shuffle. And yet my "Music Chosen For You" lists never include anything that's more than five years old. Why can't it recommend some gods-damned Rolling Stones?

[davidmariottecomics]

Keep it Forever? Me and Physical Media

Hello friends! 

I swear that this blog isn't just me advertising that I've got some stuff up for sale on ebay (but also, I totally do). 

As I think I've made pretty abundantly clear, I'm a big proponent of physical media. At a guesstimate, I probably own something around 2-3 dozen VHS tapes, 50-ish records, 100+ video games, 100-150 CDs, probably 200-300 DVDs & Blu-Rays, and more books and comics than I could reasonably count. And that's not even getting into toys and plushies and other physical collectables that Becca and I have strewn across the house or in storage. I am a person who likes to own things. And I'm starting to hit the point where I also need to be a person who doesn't own all things I have. 

Why Physical Media Matters

While I'm pretty sure I've written about this before, doesn't hurt to reiterate why I am such a big proponent of physical media and owning the things you like. 

1. You own the thing. This is probably the single biggest point of physical media to me. You own it. Definitively. You can go and pick up this object that you have and use it. You aren't subject to the terms, conditions, and service changes of companies. If I want to watch Bratz: The Movie or play Super Smash Bros Melee or read The Lady from the Black Lagoon, I can. I don't have to see if it's currently on a service that I'm paying for or even available digitally. I don't have to worry about limited time availability. I don't have to worry about increasingly clueless executives who in trying to maintain the wealth of stockholders basically erase projects from existence, nor do I have to worry about changes of ownership or site design or functionality or licensing agreements that can take your purchases and just blip them away. 

2. Preservation. Piggybacking right off of that, some things *only* exist as physical media. Or, at least, only officially do. I mentioned Smash Bros Melee because it's a Gamecube era game that only exists on/was released for Gamecube. The game only exists as long as there are people who have working copies. There are books that I own, that, similarly, are no longer in print and have never been made available digitally. While most physical media can eventually deteriorate, there are things I have had for the majority of my life (and some things that pre-date me, honestly) that're still in really good shape because they've been cared for and it's important to me that these things exist and it's cool that I can do a little bit to help that. 

2.5 - As an aside, I do just want to say that I am in favor of digital archiving as a tool of preservation. Between the things that only exist digitally and the things that can have a longer preserved life by being converted to digital, I do think it's an important part of the preservation conversation too. With sort of an asterisk of just because I think most works shouldn't be lost, I don't know that it means they should be digitally accessible if it comes at the expense of the creator(s). Preservation = good. Piracy = still bad. 

3. Tactility and greater use. This one goes especially for books and comics, but I like being able to hold things. I like having my reading material in print so that I can, y'know, consume it on the beach without wifi or power or whatever. While a lot of my physical media is dependent on technology still, there are certain things that are more usable in more ways/places because they're physical. 

Why I'm Clearing Some Out Tho

On the other side of all of this, there are some very compelling reasons not to keep all my physical media. And these are some reflective conversations I'm having with myself. Some stuff's easy, right? Things that are redundant--whether they're exact duplicates of something I already own and somehow acquired twice or, like with some of my Transformers, I don't actually need 6 mildly different variations of Bumblebee--are easily put as something that can go. But once you get past that, for me at least, a lot of it comes down kinda to the Marie Kondo "does it spark joy" method. 

Potentially unfortunately for me, a lot of stuff either does spark joy, or sparks almost a sort of FOMO. Tied to preservation, there are some things that while I haven't really engaged with them in heck, maybe a decade of owning it, I worry that if I got rid of it, I wouldn't have it when I *do* want it. But there are also some things where I know it is no longer meaningful to me to own this thing, but I think it might be meaningful to someone else. 

I know I've written about this before, but I'm not really a Funko Pop guy. I have owned a few that I've thought were neat. But even the one I'd say was my favorite, I found tucked away because it had been on a low bookshelf behind our living room furniture before our last big cleaning/reorganizing session for that room, and I don't think I had realized that I hadn't seen it in such a long time. It wasn't just that it had been tucked away, it was that I hadn't thought to see if I knew where it was in months and months. And so, we're parting ways. 

It is tough--at least for me--to be at the intersection of genuinely believing in the good of physical possessions (and, yes, I recognize the faults in them too), wanting to be a person who does preserve things, and honestly, believing in some part of me that the reason I have all this stuff is I might want or need it in the future. That there could be a reason I held on to the Steve Oedekirk Thumb movie collection that'll somehow be relevant to my job or to finding a treasure chest or something. But also knowing that I need to make some space. And that I could use some extra scratch. And that there are things that I bought with enjoying them in the future in mind, but that I now don't think I'll ever return to. 

Loss and Regret

Nothing that I'm trying to get rid of do I feel like I'm going to regret parting ways with. But I've heard and--to some extent--have experienced that feeling of great loss in the past. I think all of us have had or know someone in our lives who has had some variation on the experience of "my [parent] threw my [toys/comics/books/important childhood memories] away and I used my adult money to try to get them back." Or, closely related the "I [lent out/went on vacation with/otherwise left the house with] my [toys/comics/books/important childhood memories] and they're now lost forever." 

I've had a couple of those experiences. The summer between my senior year of high school and my freshman year of college, I lent a friendly acquaintance who was going to the same college as me a bunch of my Gameboy games because they had just found their Gameboy and wanted to get back into it, and I was mostly playing my DS and only my Pokemon Gameboy games at that time. I'm fuzzy on the details, because it has been a decade now (whoof), but as I recall, said acquaintance didn't remember to bring my games when they came to college and somewhere between when they moved into the dorms and their first extended trip home, their family moved and the games were "lost in the move" and if they were ever found, I was never told. And there were some really good games that I miss even today. 

Another time, we were living out at the ranch and a lot of our stuff was in storage in the barn (yes, I lived on a non-working ranch and, yes, we had a barn). Now, sometimes that meant things got a little gross. There was dust and the occasional bugs or mice that found their way into things. But overall, it was actually pretty secure. That is, until the barn flooded once. And I lost a ton of meaningful stuff: books and comics and toys. In particular, I remember that the flood lead to the death of my Marvel Legends build-a-figure Galactus, which was quite the loss. 

And my third big loss/purge is when the ranch was being sold, I had to go back to the ranch, and to the barn, and go through and try to parse at least some of my stuff down. At that point, I was in college and knew I only had a storage unit to work with to hold this stuff, and I was distraught with changes to my life around the ranch being sold, so I know there are things that basically got thrown away that I probably could've kept or saved or gotten to someone who would appreciate them, but in a wave of angst and just deep tiredness, some stuff just got tossed and because it's been a while and I was a little hazy at the time, I still don't entirely know what all was lost in that either. 

I bring all of this up because, like I said earlier, I know that I and many of us have that experience of losing the things that mattered. And I know when I posted about selling some Transformers not too long ago, I had a couple people reach out to say "hey, I don't want to see you lose something that matters to you if you just need money." I wanna reassure folks that, no, it isn't just that influencing my decisions here. I'm really trying to be thoughtful in my decisions. So, don't worry. ;D

Next week: Inspired by a conversation on Becca's Twitch stream yesterday (viewer discretion advised on this last stream: there's some language and a spooky drawing and a slip of some NSFW art for a sec), I'm going to talk about manuscript wishlists and like ways to maybe find agents and editors that'd be a good match for you! 

What I enjoyed this week: Blank Check (Podcast), Craig of the Creek (Cartoon), Honkai Star Rail (Video game), My Adventures with Superman (Cartoon), Barbie Dreamhouse Challenge (TV show, my friend Sina's in the finale!!!!), The Broken Room by Peter Clines (Book), Crime Scene Kitchen (TV show), Dumbing of Age (Webcomic), It's Walky/Joyce & Walky/Shortpacked (Webcomics), Solve This Murder (Podcast), Batman: Wayne Family Adventures (Webcomic), Praise Petey (Cartoon), Queen of the Damned (Movie), this very cute Superman drawn by Fernando Luis Cruz during a Superman conversation on Becca's last Twitch stream, this hunky boy Superman drawn by Gigi Dutreix on said stream (and the hunky lady She-Hulk too), The Prank Panel (TV show), Chainsaw Man (Manga) 

New Releases this week (8/9/2023): Nothing from me! Sorry! But...

New Releases next week (8/14/2023): Brynmore #2 (Editor) Godzilla: The War for Humanity #1 (Editor) Sonic the Hedgehog #63 (Editor) Toldja I had a bunch in the pipeline! 

Announcements: Becca will be tabling at Cartoon-a Palooza in Temecula on 9/15 & 9/16. It's a cool free all-ages little con, so come on out and see them! I'll be around too, I'm sure! 

Wanna support me? Consider joining my Patreon! Not only do you get the blog, but you get neat extra stuff like Patreon exclusive blogs, sneak peeks on other stuff I'm working on (and sometimes full original comics posted there), and coming up this week, the first of my sharable scripts and pitches! And even more at higher levels! Or, you can buy something from my webstore! Some of the stock on that stuff is running low and not going to be reprinted anytime soon, so prolly a good time to check it out! 

Also, at time of posting, I still have not pulled Kafka in Honkai Star Rail, but when I do (boy I hope I do), I'll let you know.  Pic of the Week: This is just a very nice picture of Nadja. But those Supermans are also kinda the pic of the week!  

[finethingswellworn]

This is a random rant, but I just had to get it out somewhere

So I have always loved collecting physical media. I used to have a huge collection of tapes, CDs, records, movies, box sets of TV shows.

I like holding things in my hands, knowing that they are mine, being able to put them in my bag and take them wherever I happen to be. Especially because I used to move around a lot.

And this extends to books. Ever since I was old enough, I’ve been collecting them. Except… I read braille…

So one book might be split into 3, 4 sometimes more volumes.

Needless to say, my collection takes up a lot of room, and I’ve invested a great deal of time, energy, and money into it.

And one thing among many, many things that frustrates me about being a Braille book collector aside from how fucking niche it is is that a great many of the ones I really, especially want are simply not available and there’s absolutely no way to make them available myself. 

So it’s left me with a bunch of second and third books in series that I have no way of knowing if I will ever get the first books to. Or last books that I will never get to read in braille format. Unfinished collections.

And, of course, I could, and absolutely do, have these things in audio format, but the little book hoarder in me hates that. The completionist, the perfectionist. And I hate that my selection is so limited. I hate that I can’t have everything I would like to have because it’s expensive or just plain not in stock. Not being made or produced. Because the demand isn’t high enough and most people think physical books for braille readers are a waste of time nowadays anyway.

It’s not a waste of time.

We are here and we deserve to have things made accessible to us.

[artfulacrostic]

18/19 for the 2024 book ask??

i love these ones! let's see...

18. How many books did you buy?

actually not many!! i've been trying really hard to not do that in order to save moneyyyy. i did a pretty good job actually; almost all the books i bought this year were gifts for other people from my library's used books bookstore! i think the only exceptions were a copy of aristotle and dante dive into the waters of the world which i purchased to get it signed by the author, benjamin alire sáenz, at an event, and a copy of last night at the telegraph club by malinda lo, which i read for a class. i did get quite a few free books at this year's ala (american library association) convention though, including signed copies of barda by ngozi ukazu, the gender binary is a big lie by lee wind, and this land is our land: a blue beetle story by julio anta and jacoby salcedo, all of which are titles i loved and recommend heavily.

19. Did you use your library?

YES! i love my library, and not just because the library i primarily use right now is also my place of work. i actually have four different library cards for various systems near where i live depending on where i am at any time, and all of the different branches i visit are wonderful in different ways. if you don't have a library card, i highly recommend getting one. they're free, and can get you access to a lot of resources in addition to the full catalog of books for every age and interest. i acquire almost all my books for all my classes as a literature major through different libraries, and save a looot of money doing it.

things besides books that you can get access to through library systems if you have a card (and sometimes even if you don't):

~free passes to national parks at certain times of the year

~induction cooktops (that you can check out and return)

~3D printers and silhouette machines

~free puzzles/puzzle exchanges

~STEM and arts-related maker-kits for kids that cover a ton of topics, from circuit boards that you can put together to rube goldberg machines to music theory kits with instruments and more

~free hygiene kits including menstrual products

~free seeds for planting/seed exchanges

~audiobooks in formats like voxbooks (which have the physical book with an embedded player to read aloud as you or a kid reads; invaluable for folks w dyslexia) or playaways (small cartridges that serve as players) in addition to the classic cds

~media conversion stations where you can transfer anything like film photos/film recordings/cassettes/8-track/multiple kinds of records and vinyl into digital or electronic formats

~databases like Hoopla and Kanopy where you can borrow books and audiobooks that aren't in your library catalog and stream shows and movies for free with no more than a library card

~genealogy and family history research support and departments

~even more niche databases where you can get access to records like historical newspapers, scientific journals, and current newspapers and magazines without any kind of paywall

~collections like the Alexander Street Performing Arts Collections, where you can access and stream full theater productions shot on high quality cameras from providers like Broadway On Demand, National Theater, and the Royal Shakespeare Company, as well as music, dance, opera, historic moments on film, and a bunch more

AND A LOT MORE RESOURCES that i can't think of off the top of my head/that libraries other than the ones i'm affiliated with have. this is without even mentioning programs like free movie screenings, kids and teens programs, book clubs, etc. so seriously, your quality of life can be enhanced by actively using your local library and finding out what they offer so easily with no cost at all to you.

and the more the library is used, the better resources they can offer with the money they get for higher use of their programs and increased traffic.

that got really long. but thank you anon!! great choices. 💕

[myoldcrow]

Ahh my sweet fellow Sylus worshiper girlie! Thank you for tagging me <3 @yes-no-maybe-soo

Sylus

We are both fire signs

Similar MBTI types! I’m an ENFJ-T, Sylus is an ENTJ-A (he is definitely Assertive over Turbulent imo)

I also love shiny things <3 jewelry and diamonds for me. I just like to hoard them

I enjoy the finer things in life

I am an avid music lover with a penchant for classical and jazz music

I, too, have a massive collection of records

Surprisingly good at domestic tasks such as cooking

Prefer darker genres of books, movies, media.

I prefer to handle things myself and trust in my own abilities rather than rely on others

Passionate

Achieving goals is closely linked to my sense of self worth

I am fiercely loyal, sometimes to an unhealthy degree.

I’ll sooner set myself on fire than cheat

I do not like being touched by basically everyone

However, I’m extremely physically affectionate with my fiancé

Gift giving and acts of service are my love languages

I joke / tease a lot

Mushy lover girl to my core

Night owl (sadly)

I love to read and learn

Low key obsessive and hyper fixate

Love when my loved ones open up to me and allow themselves to be vulnerable

Protective

Did I mention lover girl? I act as though I hide it so well but it’s glaringly obvious lmao

Red wine and whiskey > everything else

🐦‍⬛✨

This was fun, thank you again for tagging me 🫶🏼

Paging @abyssconqueror @sylusandzaynes-girl @minniestarmj @rafayelxsylusho @littlecrowkitten @toruland @totallyxtaurus !

so let's play another game

Tell something you have in common with your favorite (s) LI(s) then tag someone else

Me and Zayne are both lightweight. Y'all I can't drink alchohol to save my lips 🤚💀 without ending up tipsy just a glass of wine is enough to make my head spin .

Me and Rafayel are both dramatic but only with people we care about , I like to get on my friends and family's nerve (that how I show my love 😔)

@jinwoosbabyboo @yourlocalcatscammer @erensfeed

[snowangeldotmp3]

15 questions & 15 tags

tagged by @gothbat99 & @serskets <3

are you named after anyone?

yes actually! my mom named me after olivia newton john bc she loves grease so now by default i also love grease

2. when was the last time you cried?

no idea. i cry at movies and tv shows more than like, actual things. so i couldn't tell you tbh. probably some time last week

3. do you have kids

nope!

4. do you use sarcasm a lot?

absolutely

5. what's the first thing you notice about people?

um... this is hard but i guess their hair? maybe just face in general my brain just processes it as a whole so.

6. what's your eye color?

blue

7. scary movies or happy endings?

happy endings 100%. i am a huge sucker for a happy ending i can't help it.

8. any special talents?

hm. well, i can kind of swordfight? i took stage combat my last year of college so i learned it there. oh! i do impressions a lot, my best impression is unfortunately lois griffin. i'm also aware of how bad that is.

9. where were you born?

in a lab as an experiment gone wrong. next question.

10. what are your hobbies?

writing, mostly, whether it's fic or screenplays or whatever, i just love it!! reading too i LOVE books <3!! oh, and i collect a lot of physical media, dvds, vinyl records, cassette tapes, etc etc.

11. do you have any pets?

yup! i have three cats; padme, precious, and sox!

12. have you played/do you play any sports?

i don't play sports anymore, but i played t-ball when i was really little, then basketball for a while, then i was a cheerleader for a little bit (hated that) and i tried out for volleyball but i never made the team in middle school rip </3

now though it's just archery occasionally, i only just recently got a new bow (my other one i'd had since i was like 12 she was NOT working properly lmao) and i've got to get some stuff before i can actually do anything with it.

13. how tall are you?

5'8!

14. favorite subject in school?

in high school i was more of an english/drama kid but in college i drifted towards history and drama/film (and religion, i love religious studies.)

15. dream job?

eh, it changes. for a long time i wanted to be an actor, then a writer, then back to actor, then to writer/director/actor. so it just kind of goes all over the place. definitely something creative though, it's my favorite type of environment.

thanks for coming to my wired autocomplete interview, tagging: @lavenderlevetan @robins-raspberry-beret @haaawaiianshirt @eddiethehunted @lionydoorin @verymuchablog42 @staellaris and anyone else who wants to do this!! <3

[whereistheonepiece]

So @lesbian-space-ranger​ and I accidentally created a new Zosan AU that we’ve been talking about since last night. A note: half of this is me summarizing, half of it is pulled directly from Discord because Cas (lesbian-space-ranger) has such great ideas.

This is a long post. I don’t feel like putting it under a read more. So. Enjoy. Or keep scrolling. Either works.

So this post happened

These roles just came to me. Didn’t need to give it much thought because Sanji has the appearance and demeanor of a lead singer and I like the idea of him using his skilled hands to play piano at the same time.

I also watched the movie Rocketman earlier in the week. You know, that Elton John biopic. I adored it and it’s been heavy on my mind lately and I liked the idea of Sanji giving a high energy performance from the piano. (Sir Elton John’s music comes into play later.)

And as for Zoro, I find the bass and/or the beat the sexiest part of the music in a song and, naturally, I can see him rocking at either.

So I asked Cas if she had any other headcanons for this AU and this thing is too good to not share.

Yeah, so Zoro and Sanji are in a boy band with Usopp and Luffy. Luffy started the band. Luffy does guitar, Zoro is on bass, Usopp is on drums, and Sanji is on keyboard and vocals.

Nami is their manager. She works them hard and has taken a 40% cut of the profits because of the guys’ naivete and inexperience. But she’s why they took off. She booked their gigs at every venue she could manage, no matter how small.

They got their big break when Nami met Vivi, who’s a talent scout for the record label Baroque Works. Nami insisted that Vivi had to see the boys perform because they’re something else and Vivi’s heard that a thousand times, but she agreed because Nami is cute. Nami and Vivi are dating. Also, re Baroque Works: Crocodile looks like a sleazy music producer, doesn’t he? So does Doflamingo.

So Sanji is the pretty one, Luffy is the funny one, Zoro is the quiet/broody one, and Usopp is the smart one.

Zoro has a lot of deals with fitness brands, but secretly finds the famous life unfulfilling. This comes back later, so keep that in your back pocket.

Robin runs their social media. She’s so good at her job, running all of their accounts and tweeting simultaneously, you’d swear she had four sets of hands. Wink.

Franky does pyrotechnics/lighting.

Brook is their stylist.

Chopper was their first real fan. He and Zoro grew up in the same neighborhood and Chopper just always idolized him. He followed them before anyone knew their names. He was their hype man, saying encouraging things like "I know you guys are gonna be great!" He believed in them even when they didn't believe in themselves.

Usopp set up their recordings before they got signed because he’s savvy. And then Chopper would sell their crappy CDs. At these tiny gigs. Like coffeehouses and stuff.

Sanji can play keyboard because his parents forced him to play piano as a kid. They had this idea that classical music would teach him discipline and make him smarter. This is how he meets Zeff. Zeff’s your typical stern instructor, but he’s the first adult to ask Sanji what he actually wants and likes. Zeff sees Sanji’s not into it so he asks him what music he likes and Sanji tells him he likes pop, so Zeff gives Sanji a more rounded education. This includes Elton John because I say so. It did inspire me to put Sanji on keyboard, after all.

But other than being Sanji’s piano instructor, Zeff becomes the one positive adult figure in young Sanji’s life and he becomes something of a mentor figure for him. Zeff has a garden and he lets Sanji work in it with him. This garden is how Sanji gets his “little eggplant” nickname. Sanji pulls an eggplant out before it’s ready and it’s so small and pitiful and Zeff won’t let him live it down. Like, Sanji keeps in touch with Zeff even into adulthood and after he makes it big and he still calls Sanji little eggplant.

Zoro and Sanji are always doing that, "Kind of flirting, not really” thing on stage.  Sanji is always like walking up to Zoro on stage and acting like he's going to kiss him but pushing him away at the last moment. And it's this huge mystery whether they're actually an item or not. This comes from Nami. Sanji and Zoro have this natural chemistry with each other that leads to speculation and Nami, knowing how boy band fan bases work, saw dollar signs. But it’s not just pragmatism on her part; she knows that one cannot simply go up to Zoro and Sanji and say “You obviously like each other. You should date.” So she makes money and helps her friends find happiness.

Usopp has speculation going on as well. People are always confused as to who he’s dating. Tabloids keep being like "Usopp dumped Nami and is now dating Luffy!" "Luffy Scorned?" "Luffy ditches Usopp and steals his girl!" And they just think the entire thing is hilarious. They collect headlines. The answer is Usopp is dating Luffy and Nami and Luffy and Nami just become really affectionate with each other after dating Usopp long enough. Also Nami is dating Vivi, like I mentioned, and sometimes Nami brings her on as a plus one. 

Sanji and Zoro keep giving conflicting answers about their relationship status. Like they'll tell one person they hate each other and another person they're gonna get married someday. Sanji has to walk this fine line of being "in love" with all of his female fans and also "in love" with Zoro. Or not. Who knows? Like Sanji enjoys the attention but he really really plays shit up for his fangirls. This makes Sanji even more popular. Just picture pages upon pages of Sanji/Reader and “Zanji” fics on Wattpad. Nami is one smart lady. "I am the smartest, prettiest, most clever person alive."

Zosan getting together really is just a bunch of Fake Dating tropes. At first it really is just to get more press for the band. Nami schemes with Usopp and Robin to push them together. Robin's a social media genius and knows how to craft tweets and Instagram posts that fans will overanalyze. 

Meanwhile eventually Zoro and Sanji admit to each other they have actual feelings and one day Usopp finds Sanji sleeping in Zoro's bed, both of them completely tuckered out. But they don’t know Nami crafted this. They just come clean and hope she won't be mad and she's like, "Yes! Finally!" and they're like "What?" and she's like, "I've been waiting for you two to realize you have actual feelings. Did you really think I'd just use you for profit like that?" and they're both like "Yes" "Of course"

Zoro’s mad at her for meddling. Secretly he’s grateful, but he doesn’t want to give her the satisfaction and he’s yelling until Sanji grabs his hand and he just calms down.

And to bring Elton John back into the picture, just picture Sanji doing a cover of “Your Song” and uploading it online and thinking about Zoro. Naturally the comments are abuzz with people speculating that he’s singing about Zoro. And like. Onstage Sanji does his rendition and sends these small glances Zoro’s way, partially because he knows it’ll get the band a lot of attention, partially because that song is sweet and beautiful and it’s such a simple way to explain his feelings. (There is a reason why Moulin Rouge included it!!) I imagine this happens before they come clean to each other. Like, Zoro comes to him and is all “I keep thinking about that song you did...” And they go from there.

And eventually the band comes to its natural end. 

Usopp goes solo and flourishes, working as a songwriter and a producer. He wrote the band’s songs and he’s had a drum kit since he was, like, ten and he can make his own beats. He’s not the singing type (though he is good at it and could reach new heights if he came out of his shell), so he’s the kind of artist who makes the beat and then gets super famous pop singers to feature on his tracks. But he also writes songs for other singers and is so good at it and produces other artists’ tracks. I also like the idea that he’s taught himself to play multiple instruments, but he prefers the drums/percussion. He totally played percussion in school and was in marching band. I was in marching band for one year. I loathed every second of it, but I know he’d be phenomenal in drum corps.

Luffy isn’t much in music anymore, but he keeps himself busy. He’s something of an influencer, the kind of celebrity who gets paid to wear fashion brands’ clothing. He’s also Usopp’s trophy husband, living off the money he made off the band. Usopp grew wise to Nami’s antics and made sure he and Luffy would live comfortably for the rest of their lives, even if Usopp were to retire. Luffy also is secretly a Buzzfeed journalist because it’s fun for him to write these hit articles and people not know it’s him because he’s writing on this super bland pseudonym. 

And then there’s Zosan. They have a falling out after the band splits and go their separate ways.

Sanji quits being a professional singer because he’s tired of the prying into his personal life, but he still mentors and/or teaches. He has a string of girlfriends and finds no fulfillment in those relationships because the women are only interested in his celebrity.

And they aren’t Zoro.

Zoro tried branching off into commercials for fitness, but his heart wasn’t in it. He kind of takes up ranching on a whim and learns that he’s really good at it. He likes the physical labor, the quiet, being away from it all, nobody knowing his name. He doesn’t pursue anyone after Sanji because he feels like if it’s meant to be, someone will appear.

And Sanji does.

Sanji finds out where Zoro is through Luffy. So he makes his way to the ranch and finds Zoro and Sanji is all “Come back. I miss you.”

And there’s just a lot of soft Zosan content during Sanji’s visit. Sanji’s always been afraid of horses, but he’s not afraid when he’s with Zoro, and Zoro teaches him they can be gentle creatures, it’s just that you just have to respect them. (Ha. Get it?) Zoro takes Sanji on a ride and they go out and he takes him up the mountain and shows him how beautiful the view is. Sanji's watching the sunset and he's like, "Damn that's the prettiest thing I've ever seen." And Zoro is looking at Sanji and he says, "It sure is." And Sanji's like, "you're not... even looking." And Zoro's like, "No, I'm looking alright. Prettiest thing I've ever seen for sure."

More soft things like Zoro taking off his cowboy hat and putting it on Sanji. Them sitting by the fire, Zoro playing acoustic while Sanji sings. Whenever people see them they’ll ask them if they’re musicians and they share a knowing smile and say “Yeah. Something like that.”

And Zoro convinces Sanji to move out there with him. The others come to visit. Luffy and Chopper are obsessed with the cows and horses and the chickens. Luffy wants, like, eight pet chickens. Usopp is skeptical. Doesn’t believe Lu can look after a pet.

And it kind of ends there. It was us going back and forth, oftentimes out of chronological order, and so here I am putting it all together because it’s too good not to share. But it was a lot of fun.

[ourladyofomega]

Close to the end of the year, and also when the semester ended, I looked forward in selling my books after finals so that I would get money back. I’d get a friend together to take me to Tower Records in Huntington. In a matter of one hour, that money would be gone. Right now I’d be very excited about what I would find in those bins. But due to the pandemic it hasn’t been the case and the euphoria of being in a store, any store at midnight, has been absent. During the mid-00′s, Tower Records went under and currently co-opting the former Huntington location is a third-rate clothing store.

One day as I was driving to work, people stood on the sidewalks of Route 110 holding picket signs like it was the end of the world. First advertised on those signs were 10%-30% percent off all merchandise at Tower. When passers-by and sidewalk shoppers took a closer look, they ended up in shock as they realized that it was an end of an era of some sort. A few days later, the stakes went up. 40%-60% discounts finally garnered Tower’s final audience and rush of shoppers. The final swan song came when all merchandise was down to a whopping 70%-90% percent off. That was when they had their biggest ever turnout because no one wanted to pay full price for music. (Not then when downloading broke, and still not now.) Music collectors and fans were reluctant to buy any new release or any title that was full price. Now they all jumped at the opportunity to clean out Tower’s shelves with a steal. Buyers hovered and tracked entire sections looking for that one shining crown jewel that made their lifetime.

As a music fan for years, I couldn’t begin to tell you how much Tower shaped my taste in music and style. Unlike FYE and Sam Goody, Tower was the one commercial music chain that had a lot of artists and titles that no other commercial store had. Think of what was the Port Jefferson Music Den (closed in 2002) where they were the one underground record store that had everything other stores didn’t even come close to carry. I remember summertimes visiting the Massapequa location picking up rare CD singles and imports as well as other rare hard-to-find and ahead-of-release-date CD’s and artists I picked up such as Autechre’s LP5 (1999) and EC8OR’s World Beaters (1998).

And being a fan of print media and graphic design, I also bought stacks of magazines every week. The magazine selection in Huntington was unrivaled, measuring at least several rows of 60-70 feet of anything and everything you could think of: Industrial Nation, Punk Planet, The Wire, Disruptiv, Mass Appeal, Mean, Vice, YRB, and art design magazines like LoDown, as well as hardcore zines Short Fast Loud!, Maximum Rock And Roll, Under The Volcano and other cult magazines I happened to be lucky to pick up (Lisa Carver’s Rollerderby, anyone?). Every month went at least $60.00-$70.00 total on magazines alone.

Yet towards the end of Tower’s presence I didn’t pick up on music as much because just like other buyers, I had to stand back at the higher-than-usual prices for releases. Compared to discount chains like Best Buy and other record stores, it wasn’t unusual to find a new release with no-frills to be priced at $19.99 or even $21.99. DVDs I noticed were priced at times to be five dollars higher than their competitors. Maybe some shoppers felt the same sentiment as I did.

Not only that, the forces of internet piracy and MP3 downloading of recent years proved to be too dominant and powerful to be stopped, and is currently but begrudgingly co-existing with other existing record stores this day and age. Consumers then re-routed the system right to their own bedrooms with no price to pay for their music. These factors, plus incurring debt that led the chain to bankruptcy proved to be too much for them.

Without Tower Records, it was less convenient for me to pick up whatever artist or movie title I wanted right away right after work. When Tower closed down it took a bite out of some of the physical record collecting I had. Yet, only they could have given me these experiences: no more magazines letting me know what the latest art direction was or who was in the spotlight. No more frantically walking around with a huge stack of everything and more in my hands still looking for one more CD. No more back room full of posters, sheet music, jazz, classical, hip-hop, techno, and soul. No more silly Hollywood memorabilia and comic-book fantasy merchandise. No more video games, no more characters hanging out in the store wearing goth, back-pack indie, or hardcore.

No more attitudes from the employees who treated customers like nothing because they felt like it. That was really the only problem I had with Tower Records, mostly in Huntington. The cashiers pointed people out with a huff and puff because they were given more than enough change or money, or how they rang up a transaction without even making an emotion or saying a word. Some stuck female cashiers had that flat out know-it-all act for no apparent reason. Sometimes I even renounced the shop because of its sometimes poor service, but that was not the case in the end as the attitude did improve, thank you.

And no more of where I had my first date with my Peruvian then-girlfriend. I would never forget wandering in that Huntington store looking for the next purchase when she walked in, greeting each other with open arms. We left when a thunderstorm knocked the power out but we returned after dinner and had a fun time, the first of many for months to come. This was also where I met a pretty pale Irish ginger who I later met again into at community college the following year.

What is now left of the record store scene on Long Island? A few of them which existed when Tower crumbled are still around (Cheapo’s, Looney Tunes, Infinity Records) and even new ones popped up (High Fidelity and Record Reserve to naming two). Some opened and either re-located (Record Stop) or said good-bye by the time you read this (Permanent Records and Vinyl Paradise). The majority of shops in total are still around because internet opinion made their case about the lack of quality, esthetics, art, and ritual of having the physical thing that you don’t get from digital or streaming; and the classic ritual and synesthesia of experiencing a record store and handling the format makes the case of cherishing these shops. On the online circuit, some titles are now being released in very limited quantity, mainly in the low thousands or even in the mere hundreds. It’s a huge drop-off from what the millions in print runs used to be. Naming your own price for digital downloads, streaming, or even buying from the label or artist directly is the way to go nowadays.

With my radio show, Omega WUSB, I do most of my music testing at home. My habits have been ruined by MP3s and streams as acquiring music is of very low cost and extremely ubiquitous. After all that, it hasn’t stopped me from going to record stores or celebrating Record Store Day to find breaks, samples, or dollar music to win it all. Yes, I still very much prefer to go out of town to buy music with my money which I support the artists and shops I like. Even to this day, I’ll be very happy spending $200.00-$250.00 on music just to have the artwork, colors, lyrics, pictures, ink, liner notes, credits, barcodes, and the entire release itself, because later on I will turn a profit in style points as time goes by, just like when people are hoarding and sharing their vinyl and cassette collections now.

That November was my last visit to Tower Records ever, a few months after getting a substantial check from a near-fatal car accident. Acquired would be some titles that made my pre-Omega shows and would be part of some personal seasonal mixtapes. Prices were 40% off on music and that was when I decided to go and treat myself. There comes a time when you just can’t wait and risk a good sale on music before they’re gone forever. The total spent on my last ever visit there was $200.00 on music and the Andy Warhol book at $75.00, originally $125.00 (have you ever carried a book so massive and so heavy?) I took my bags worth of music and magazines with me to the trunk of my car, never to return to the Tower Records experience again.

On another note, I’m still friends with M-Ro to this day, a former manager there. He moved on to become a lead of Hicksville’s Utopia further west before becoming a ticket broker at an independent movie house. He once had a show on WUSB and was a major figurehead and darling of the Long Island punk scene. You might also know his brother J-Ro, a master archivist who still has his own show with us and is known as a major record collector by practically everyone on the island.

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If Tumblr shuts down, where do you go?

Most likely nowhere. In my good-bye note on onehallyu I said I might decide to answer questions somewhere. Then I regged this tumblr, but after a while decided to not do that as I wrote in the first post on this page. But with my usual “luck” in timing, Jessica left SNSD just some days later so I ‘had’ to post a bit.

supermofficial.*com/#events weren’t you bragging SM never forces their artists to do free events             

Sigh. All artists of course have to do promotional events for new releases. And this is even some new group. And not just artists. If an author has a new book coming out, he’ll have to be on TV shows to promote it. If there’s a musical, the cast need to promote it on TV etc. Heck even the very top star Hollywood actors have to go all around the world and be on TV shows and events to promote their new movies.

What I’ve complained about is how many shitty idol companies make their celebrities constantly do lots of promotion for free, and also especially when they use very big established celebrities for events to which fans get “free tickets” by buying CDs.

What would happen to Taeyeon’s music if she were to leave SM? Would she still be able to perform these songs or she’d literally have to start anew?

She (and anyone else) can continue to perform her music however she wants, but she (presumably) can’t make new recordings without SM’s permission. Look here: when it comes to music, there are 2 different types of intellectual property rights:

The first is for, so to say, the ‘creation/invention’ of the song, and belongs to the composers/songwriters.

The second is the copyright of a specific recording. This typically belongs to a record label. That’s literally what record labels do: they organize the recording of music, then market and sell copies of that recording. And the record label will typically sign deals with songwriters, producers and singers to make a recording from which these get a royalty % cut of the total sales of that recording.

Anyone can perform whatever song anywhere without needing anyone’s consent. But if you do it for commercial purposes you need to pay the songwriters. This is handled by collective agreements and organizations such as ASCAP in the US, JASRAC in Japan and KOMCA in Korea which work to collect money for song usage and distribute it to the songwriters.

But to make a new recording of the song (for commercial purposes) you need explicit permission of the songwriters. However, whenever any record label signed a contract for a recording to start with, that agreement would typically stipulate that the record label now has the right to determine who can make new recordings of the song.

So, surely, if you’re a fan of a kpop group, you must have experienced that members of the groups have performed covers of other songs in concerts (because they can perform whatever song they want) - but if there’s a DVD release of the concert some of those covers might be missing (because record labels have refused the right to make recordings of the song).

What does it mean for an idol to have a lot of copyrighted songs, like the ones on those lists?

Per the above answer: it means he/she is listed as one of the ‘creators/inventors’ of a song as composer and/or lyricist. So whenever that song is used for any commercial purpose (such as played on TV, played on radio, performed by at any concert/event, etc) he/she will get paid some money.

However, as I’ve said countless of times before: for any really successful artists the payments from songwriting are really small compared the very big money they can get paid in other ways, particularly from performing at concerts and from doing CF/endorsement deals.

Also, I’d like to point out that it’s difficult to know how much an artist really have contributed to creating a song. Sometimes I get the feeling that YG lists whatever people that happened to sit next to Teddy while he composed a song. And it’s well known that many big western artists throughout history have demanded to be credited as songwriters even though they didn’t actually contribute anything at all.

Does Jessica have the right to use Girls’ Generation’s name to promote herself? Other girls who left SM - left the group as well (at least for now) but they all still use GG’s name when promoting their new projects. OT8 stans believe GG should never be mentioned anywhere near Jessica but I don’t think their situations are that different actually? but maybe I’m wrong?

I doubt that there are any legal constraints, but really, your question is strange because she’d be laughed at if she went around saying she was still an SNSD member. Any ‘group’ in society is defined by how the members of the group recognize each other as part of the group. The other 8 members have made it quite clear that they define SNSD as 8 members without Jessica, so it would be ridiculous for her to call herself as SNSD. Of course, she could if she want have journalists write news-articles calling her ex-SNSD Jessica and she could do interviews talking about her time in SNSD etc. I’m not sure if that would help her or not.

How so many bands and solo acts in japan are able to survive for a long time even though they don’t have good digital or physical sales?

But the Japanse music sales have been completely fucked up for the last 15 years as I’ve ranted about plenty of times before.

Can those bands and solo acts actually sell decent amounts of concert tickets in Japan? If yes, they’re living a good life no matter what their music sales are.

what is more important for a company, the success of their newer groups or their established artists? sorry if it’s a dumb question

Err, it’s not entirely black and white. But for a company to make really big profits (as in money for the owners of the company) it’s most important to get a new group to become really big really fast. This is partly about how new groups are on worse contracts and partly about how fans of these new fresh trendy groups spend huge money on buying albums and streaming like maniacs etc which are things from which the company gets most of the money (unlike for example concerts).

But it’s not all about contracts. Several of these smaller companies have absolutely horrible contracts. That doesn’t mean the companies make any profit. Because their acts simply aren’t successful enough. They spend so much money on everything from music videos to stage outfits and make up to road managers and security guards so there’s no money left.

And so on the flip side, for most of the normal employees who work in these companies to sort everything from music videos to stage outfits and make up to road managers and security guards, it’s really just important to have successful acts period (no matter if new or old) in order to make sure they get paid safely.

It is true that GD alone bring as much money as blackpink?

Per above: yes, GD alone would generate much more revenue than Blackpink. But they are both profitable in the sense that they generate much more money than what’s spent on music videos, outfits and managers etc. And obviously Blackpink has a much worse contracts than GD, so after splitting profits per their contracts YG probably makes bigger profits on Blackpink than GD.

Why do you think YG did a fanmeting in seoul for blackpink instead of another concert?      

Well, considering the amount of negativity YG has ended up in recently:

I thought it had been well established that much of the audience at their previous Korean concert was in fact not paying for tickets, but people who had been given tickets through corporate sponsorship of the concert. In this current situation, there’s probably not a single company willing to sponsor a concert.

Secondly, even with regards to that fans actually would pay to go, I think it’s likely that media would have put out critical articles about YG doing concerts in this situation. By calling it a fan-meeting they’re pretty much making it impossible for journalists to write such negative articles.

Did that super junior member really leave because he got married or there is something more to it?

As I’ve always expressed: save humanity - disband Super Junior.

So no I really have no idea about what they’re doing. But I used to say some 7 years ago that there will probably be a Super Show 10. And we’re soon there. Because members seem to be aware of their own short-comings and their joint success and are OK with doing group activities.

But it was my understanding that this member not only didn’t really contribute with anything to the group, but that he also really pissed off the few fans he had with his actions (such as drawing symbols for his girlfriend when signing autographs for fans).

Is Mnet bigger than SM and YG?

If you just mean Mnet as in the cable-TV channel, the answer is that SM/YG are bigger. But this question is not straight forward to answer. First off it’s difficult to define what one mean with ‘bigger’ company:

By profit? By market cap (value)? By number of employees? By revenue?

My take would be to in most cases (such as this) go by revenue as the most relevant measure of ‘big’ company.

Secondly, in Asia in general and in Korea in particular they have this horrible habit of building conglomerates and interlinked companies. And it just runs in their culture/society. Both SM and YG were new small independent startups initially. But look at them now. They have used all the profits they’ve made over time to start all kinds of businesses very vaguely related to their core businesses and invested in a myriad of other companies and started to become big conglomerates in entertainment.

And Mnet goes way back and to the very top. Mnet is just one cable-TV-channel. The actual company here is CJ ENM. CJ ENM also has a lot of other cable-TV-channels and a huge home-shopping-channel. CJ ENM are also very big in for example producing musicals and concerts in Korea. CJ ENM once upon a time also almost had a monopoly on music distribution in Korea, but nowadays the music distribution business (now called Stone Music Entertainment) is far from the leading distributor. CJ ENM is also the biggest producer of Korean TV dramas and films. That was spun off into a separate company (Studio Dragon) but CJ ENM own like 75% of that company still. CJ ENM has also spun off its music streaming business (but they own like 15% of Genie Music) and its gaming business (but they own like 25% of Netmarble). So CJ ENM is a very big and powerful company in the Korean entertainment industry and much bigger than SM and YG.

And CJ ENM is in turn owned by and part of the CJ Group. The CJ Group also own a whole lot of other companies primarily into food production, restaurant chains and entertainment. Most known to kpop fans is probably that they also own the biggest cinema chain in Korea, but the main businesses are food related.

And CJ Group was in turn part of the absolutely gigantic Samsung chaebol group. CJ was one of the parts of the Samsung chaebol that was split off around 1990 following the death of Samsung founder Lee Byung-chul. It’s a separate group now, but basically, CJ Group is run by 2 siblings who are grandchildren of Lee Byung-chul. Other parts of the former Samsung chaebol are run by other relatives of Lee Byung-chul.

(PS, Lee Byung-chul had TEN children who in turned had a lot of grand children, hence why his gigantic corporate empire is nowadays a bit of a drama mess)

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11/11/11 Tag (22/11/11? Tag?)

Another one of these! This time, I was tagged TWICE by the wonderful @sassypandacandy (go read her books,, i love them). I’ve gotta answer the questions, come up with my OWN questions, and then tag 11 people to answer, only I’m not going to tag eleven people because I still don’t think I quite KNOW eleven people yet. Also, because I got tagged twice with two different sets of questions, I’m going to answer both sets in one post, and then just come up with eleven questions of my own, because it takes me yonks to come up with questions and I’m lazy. Eso si que es, y’know?

What’s the first thing you remember writing?

A four-page story about a Diplodocus when I was… definitely before I was ten years old. Maybe like five or six. I was very proud of it.

What’s the last thing you wrote purely for yourself?

Actually, I pretty much always write for myself, so the last thing that I wrote/started to write… ooh-er. That’d be the Warrior Cats fanfiction I’ve been working on. :P

Are you a WIP playlist person or a WIP aesthetics person?

Playlist, probably. I tend not to make playlists specifically for WIPs – instead, I’ll assign songs and soundtracks to specific characters and scenes – but I’m still better at throwing together playlists then making aesthetics LMAO

What’s a book you wish you’d written?

Uuuuh… maybe it’s just because I’m young (barely an adult), but I don’t have anything where it’s like “ah I wish I’d used that idea” or “wish I’d written this book”. I still have a lot of writing ahead of me, hopefully, so all my ideas I hope to actually get out some day. (Assuming that’s,,, what the question is asking me)

What’s your favourite book adaptation?

Ironic because it doesn’t follow the books that closely, but I love the How To Train Your Dragon films very much.

Which of your characters would you like to have a conversation with? What would you like to talk about?

The downside to Pandemonium’s Bane being filled with eccentric personalities and cooky characters means that there’s actually few of them I’d LIKE to have a conversation with, because most would be too dickish or too annoying for my tastes xDD That being said, I think me and Plue are on very similar wavelengths, and we have a lot in common (such as both of us wanting to write), so I wouldn’t mind chatting with her for a bit if I had to.

Which of your WIP worlds would you most like to live in?

The Power of Ages stories are mostly set in one universe (the Nimbus System) so I guess I’d have to go with that one by default. There’s Neil’s dimension, I guess, but it’s destroyed, so…

Have you ever written anything inspired purely by a song? If so, what song was it?

I haven’t written anything inspired just by a single song, but I HAVE got certain scenes or character backstories based off of songs, or even the concepts they’re based around. I have a whole battle between brothers planned out to the soundtrack that plays when Shifu fights Tai Lung in Kung Fu Panda, and listening to the Iron Man soundtracks helped me with both the conception of a new character and her placement in my roster (and yes, she does invent things and fly around, although there are also some major differences)

Have you ever written poetry? Do you still? Why or why not?

I… haven’t written poetry. And the reason for that is… I mean, I guess it doesn’t really jibe with me? Granted I haven’t considered it heavily, but it was always my least favourite aspect of learning English at school, and I just never fell in love with it the same way I fell in love with writing conventional narratives.

Who would direct an adaptation of your writing?

I ain’t big on directors, so IDEK. I guess in terms of the rewrite of Maelstrom (my current main WIP) I’d pick Sam Raimi, who proved with his Spider-Man films that he can blend fun superhero narratives with slightly darker elements pretty well.

How do you motivate yourself when you don’t feel like writing?

Mainly by having multiple projects to work on! That way, if I ain’t feeling what I’m working on, I can switch over to another one, and bingo bango, I can keep writing. (Hypothetically. Sometimes it ain’t that simple, obviously.) I also use music, and I also take advantage of being in situations where it’s like, I’d rather write then do the alternative. Do you know how much writing I got done in lessons? So much. :P

What scenes are the worst to write?

The ones that I haven’t planned out – sometimes I have very specific ideas for how I want scenes to happen, and I’m excited to get to them, but other times they’re just obligatory because there’s certain information I have to convey. That makes it a challenge to write it in a compelling way, because why should the reader care if I don’t?

What can you say is a thing you love most about your writing?

I’d say I like the dialogue/character interplay/narrative description-y sort of stuff. I think I’m good at giving everything levity, and keeping it breezy and entertaining even if I myself find the writing process to be a bit of a slog. Plus, it’s funny to read back over, and it’s also funny to watch my discord quote a line and then keysmash at it. :P

What is writing advice that you take to heart?

It’s from Aaron Sorkin’s writing masterclass – the idea that a story is defined by the main character’s INTENTION, the OBSTACLE facing them, and the TACTICS they use to overcome it.

How do you keep yourself from quitting writing together?

Honestly, it’s not like I have to try that hard! By this point I’m desperate to tell these stories that I have in mind, so I have a sort of innate compulsion to write because I wanna get it all out there. I’ll get back to you if that compulsion runs out, but for now, I see myself writing long into the future.

What is the strangest thing you’ve searched up on the internet for writing purposes?

Probably the capabilities of medieval-era people to recognise nuclear technology. (And for the record, the answer is “pretty low”.)

Not a question, but shoutout a writeblr (or multiple) that you think needs to hear that they are awesome and doing a great job (by the way everyone, you all are awesome and doing a great job. Keep it up.)

Well obviously I’m gonna shout out the person who tagged me in the first place – Kels. I await the final(?) book in the DOOT series with great anticipation.

Your OCs are trapped on a deserted island, what would they be doing?

I WANNA say they’d try and work as a team, but, uh. It may not go so well. Dante and Plue would probably be the most practical. Gaia would be good at grunt work but not focus on the task at hand, Rose would be functionally useless but good at moral support, Jacen would try to organise things but Gaia would just push him in the sea for jokes… I reckon they’d escape eventually, I suppose, but it wouldn’t exactly be a clean-cut affair, you know? xD

What is your biggest inspiration for your WIPs?

I actually have various inspirations – I think collectively my biggest inspiration is the MCU, in that it’s a bunch of interconnected stories set in the same universe about different characters and also there are superpowers. xDD

A habit you have when it comes to writing?

Not doing it (thank you writer’s block)

A fact about your world and/or characters?

I have debated killing of MANY of my characters, but have only actually come to concrete decisions one way or the other with a few.

If your WIP/s got turned into a movie or series, what would be the quote on the promotional poster or trailer?

Oh, I’m gonna do this for ALL the WIPs, this seems fun!

Of Encounters and Trysts – Two Hearts, One Soul (or something equally cheesy)

Hit and Run – Even the indomitable aren’t invincible

Maelstrom – Destiny Begins

The Destroyer of Worlds – One Case, One Team, One Superpower

Survivor – It’s every man for themselves

Savants – Not so different

Omnia Vincit Amor – Good things come to those who get traumatised

Cometh the Hour – Six thousand years from home

  Alright, now it’s (finally!) time for my eleven questiones:

1 – Does music help you write, or does it just distract you?

2 – What’s your favourite writing tool? A laptop? Notepad and pens? Quills and inkpot?

3 – Do you have to physically go to places to get a feel for them and feel as though you can set writing in them?

4 – What got you into writeblr?

5 – How well can your OCs dance, do you think?

6 – Do you have a favourite writing snack? If so, what is it?

7 – Bionicle. Thoughts?

8 – Is there a specific piece of media (movie, show, book, w/e) that you could say has been more of an inspiration to you than anything else?

9 – What’s the best soundtrack you know for getting pumped and hyped up?

10 – If you could only write one genre for the rest of your writing career, what would you go with?

11 – What’s your favourite music-based meme? (Examples include “LET’S GO”, “CREEPER/AWW MAN” and “We Are Number One But ___”)

 Tagging… @thelimeonade, and @dawnuchiha!