#i decided not to add text to the image and now they come across as like a series of mimes

[gourmetbeef]

Professional Meow Meow

[lesbiankimdahyun]

Desperately need the next part for summer session I WANT TO KNOW IF IM NOT A CHICKEN FOR MISS SANA PLSANDJSJS

here it is!!

SUMMER SESSION III

2.9K words 

CW: scissoring, face sitting, other gay activity using toys ;)

AN: this is most likely the last installment!

[Sana x F!Reader] 

Requested: Yes

“You’re gonna run out of clothes, bestie,” Chaeyoung said, “And time.” 

“Ugh,” you replied, readjusting your phone to give the tiny version of your friend on FaceTime a better view. “I know I know, just tell me what you think.” You stepped back into the frame of your full length mirror so Chaeyoung could get a glimpse of your outfit. She leaned in toward the screen, trying to get a better look. 

Clothes that didn’t feel right littered your floor, bed, and hung haphazardly on hangers in your wide open closet. This was your fourth outfit change and you were about to start sweating. “Well?” 

Chaeyoung took in your outfit– a simple white tank with a cropped, textured, short sleeve lilac button up over it, and dark denim shorts. 

“You look…” she paused. “Well, gay. Okay great! Now hurry up and add a watch or some jewelry so you can go!” 

You rolled your eyes a little, picking up your phone and reaching for the jewelry stand on your dresser. “Just gay? Oh whatever, as long as I don’t look stupid.”

The blonde-haired girl beamed at you from her New York City studio apartment. “She’ll like it,” she said, then smirked. “But you didn’t need any help from me for this, really. Not when those clothes are gonna end up coming off anyway!” 

“Hey!” 

Her burst of laughter cut off your chances of getting a smart reply in. Chae waved at you. “My job here’s done. I gotta go meet a few friends now but good luuuuuck!” Her sing-songy voice cut off as the call ended. 

You thought about sending her a snarky reply via text, but when you put on your watch and saw how close to seven it was, you decided to forgo it. Instead, you opened the chat you had going with Sana as you locked the door behind you, told her you’d be there soon, then headed for the train station. 

Sana’s apartment was modern and clean, but still very personalized to her style. As she showed you around her kitchen and living space, a few things caught your eye. 

“Is that like… vintage Betty Boop?” you asked. 

Sana smiled at you. “Yeah,” she said, glancing up at the framed image hanging on her wall. “One of two hundred original, signed, limited edition lithographs.” She blushed a little. “I uh, I really like Betty Boop. She’s just so cute! Yet sexy...”

Her bookshelf caught your eye, too. But not for the books. In fact, only the bottom shelf had books. The rest held other personal belongings of hers. The top shelves were dedicated to perfume bottles– some new, some that must have been a few decades old. The middle shelves were full of small photos and knickknacks. 

You pointed at a photo of Sana with a couple other girls on either side of her. “Who are they?” you asked, suddenly noticing just how many photos she had with the two other dark haired girls. One of them had a cute, shy gummy smile and distinct beauty marks. The other girl had a long, shoulder length wolf cut with bangs that lay perfectly across her forehead. She was intimidatingly pretty, just like the other girl. 

“My best friends from home,” Sana replied, picking up the framed photo. “That’s Mina,” she said, pointing to the girl with the beauty marks. She pointed to the girl with the wolf cut. “And that’s Momo!” 

“Wow,” you said. “How long have you known each other?” 

Sana paused to think. “It’s been…gosh, maybe ten years? It feels like I’ve known them forever, though. I’m trying to convince them to visit next summer.” 

You smiled as she set the framed photo back in its place on her shelf. “I hope they do,” you said. “They seem cool.” 

When you were done admiring Sana’s space, the two of you ordered food. As you waited for it to arrive, you hung out on Sana’s couch while she introduced you to her favorite kr&b duo, UJB. While you acquainted yourself with the duo’s two idols, Jihyo and Jeongyeon, Sana made mixed drinks for the both of you. 

“Their music is so good,” you said when she sat back down and handed you a glass. “Okay be real– do you have a favorite out of the two?”

Sana laughed, a sound you liked the more you heard it. “I love them both a lot,” she said, pausing to take a sip of her drink. “Obviously. But if I had to choose…” she nodded toward the shorter, raven-haired woman on the screen. “It’d be Jihyo.” 

When your food finally arrived, you arranged it carefully on Sana’s coffee table while she refreshed drinks for the both of you and grabbed plates and cutlery. The mouthwatering scent of bulgogi, spicy pork, steamed mixed veggies, rice and summer salad filled the room. Sana came back with not only drinks, but two tiny shot glasses and a fresh bottle of soju. 

“What’s all this?” you asked, eyeing the shot glasses as you reached for a napkin and plate. 

“I hope you don’t mind,” Sana said, reaching for the remote. “But I’ve always wanted to try…” she pulled up Jennifer’s Body, ready to stream. “...the drinking game to this.” 

“Oh, sure,” you said, filling your plate while Sana filled hers. “I love this movie.” 

At first, you thought you wouldn’t be drinking that much considering there were only eight rules to follow for the drinking game, but Sana insisted on alternating between the pure soju and your mixed drinks. Soon you were feeling much less self conscious and a little braver with some alcohol in your system. Before long, both of your plates sat unattended with only a few bites left on each as you got more into the movie’s plot and the drinking game. 

Your nerves about why Sana had invited you over in the first place were almost gone, until the scene in Needy’s bedroom was suddenly on screen and you felt a bit of heat rise to your face. You couldn’t bear to look at Sana as you watched Jennifer kneel on Needy’s bed, tucking her hair behind her ears and adjusting her glasses on top of her head. Their lips met shortly after, and you glanced away. Sana, on the other hand, sat engrossed, leaning in slightly as Needy climbed on top of Jennifer on screen and leaned down to kiss her. 

“When’s the last time you kissed someone like that?” Sana asked suddenly, making you jump a little. 

“Wh-what?” you forced yourself to only look at the screen, watching for a moment. “Oh, uh… it’s been a while,” you said. Without really thinking, you then said, “You?” 

Sana chuckled. “Hmm. A while for me, too,” she replied. You nodded a little, suddenly very aware of how much distance had closed between you and Sana since the movie started. You had been sitting more toward the corner, facing her with one arm lazily draped over the top of the couch, and now Sana was nearly resting against your arm. You kept your eyes on the screen, swallowing hard. 

Sana reached for the remote, turning down the volume of the movie. “Would you kiss me like that?” 

You blushed. You nodded before your voice finally caught up with you. “Y-yes,” you said meekly, finally daring to look in Sana’s direction. She was already looking at you. 

“Okay,” she said, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. You turned to face her, and as you did, you could practically feel the energy of the room shift. The attraction between the two of you was almost palpable now, and it gave you a much-needed bit of courage. 

You sat up a bit, resting your hand on her knee as you moved. You leaned in a little and so did she. You were about to tilt your head when she spoke suddenly, softly. 

“I…” Sana hesitated. “I just want you to know I really do think you’re attractive, I’m not just doing this because we’ve been drinking and—” 

She trailed off, eyes fixated on your mouth. Noticing this, you moved forward then, finding your confidence finally as your lips met with hers. Sana let out a muffled noise of surprise, then quickly kissed you again, giving you permission to continue. 

Her lips were soft and her touches even softer. She opened her mouth a bit, inviting you in to taste her. Her hands gently pulled on your wrists, and it was all you needed to be able to lead from there. As your fingertips focused on lightly trailing over her forearms and waist, you continued to kiss her, a little deeper, then deeper still until she finally broke away to come up for air. 

Sana’s cheeks were a deep, flushed pink and her eyes slightly hooded as she looked at you. 

“Do you— um…” Sana struggled to find her words and bit her lip to keep a goofy smile off her face. You waited patiently, amused by this new side of hers. It was like finally, your roles had traded. You felt much more bold, while Sana seemed to only get shyer. “My room’s this way,” she said finally, getting up and taking your hand. 

You barely had time to look around Sana’s room before she was pulling you down onto her bed with her. Your lips met hers again and you laid back on her bed, pulling her on top of you. Her hands pulled your short sleeve button up away from your sides as she kissed you, then moved toward your white tank tucked into your shorts. Meanwhile, you worked on Sana’s shirt, a dark off-the-shoulder long sleeve. Before you knew it, both of your clothes had been abandoned on her bedroom floor. You could see out of the corner of your eye through Sana’s window that the sun was setting, but one of her lamps turned on automatically a few moments later, filling your corner of the bedroom with an incredibly soft, yellow glow while everything else fell away to shadows. 

Sana was kissing her way down your neck fervently, one hand working its way between your legs. At first you thought she was going to touch you, but then she started pulling you closer. You were confused for a moment until you figured out what she was trying to do. You took your hands away for a moment to adjust your legs and the distribution of your weight, and then Sana’s; one of her legs over yours, and one of your legs over hers. 

“Better?” you asked softly, pulling Sana closer to you. In all of your experience, scissoring had never been able to make you get even remotely close to coming, but if it was what she wanted and needed to get off, you were more than willing to do it. 

Sana nodded eagerly, looking down to watch as your body met with hers. You closed your eyes, stifling a moan when you felt her wetness on yours. You tried not to think about all of the other things you’d rather be doing to her, focusing instead on trying to help her grind into you. It was nearly impossible to get a good rhythm going, but your own lust skyrocketed and you found yourself grinding back against her, trying to get your aching core any sort of satisfaction and relief. 

The more the two of you worked at it, the more labored both of your breathing became. 

“Is…this comfortable for you?” you asked after a few minutes, panting lightly. 

“Kinda,” Sana replied. Her eyes roamed everywhere over your body. She grabbed at your thighs, squeezing lightly, then set her gaze back on your mouth. She paused for a moment. “Actually…” she said, “I think I know what I’d like even better.”

She reached for you to kiss you, gently untangling her body from yours as her tongue explored your mouth. You found yourself lying down on her bed with Sana climbing on top of you. Her long, brown hair tickled your face as she kissed you, and then she stopped. 

“I… want to feel you,” she said, her brown eyes looking down at you for approval. “Put that mouth to work for me?” You nodded eagerly, sliding down more so Sana had room to hover above your face. You held onto her thighs as she lowered herself down, her breath hitching when she felt your tongue on her. 

You started slowly, taking your time to lick the length of Sana’s wet cunt. She held onto the headboard of her bed, eyes closed. Your tongue teased her entrance, making her gasp, and then moved toward her clit. She tried to be quiet at first, but you gave the back of her thighs a playful squeeze. “I like being able to hear you,” you murmured. “Don’t be shy.” 

Sana half laughed, half moaned as you lapped at her clit. “Y-you’re one to ta– oh, there, right there,” she said. She sank lower onto your face, her thighs warm and snug against the sides of your face. “F-fuck,” she breathed, starting to roll her hips. Your own noises of delight were muffled under her pussy, but Sana appreciated them just the same. 

Your chin, nose and lips became soaked in her juices as you continued to eat her out. You could tell it felt much better for Sana than scissoring had because her breathing slowly became more shallow and her once quiet moans were getting louder. 

“Oh, god…” Sana’s body involuntarily shuddered a little. “That feels so…” she trailed off, grinding against your mouth a little faster. “Yes…” 

But then, just as you were working yourself back into a rhythm that seemed to really please her, she stopped again. She lifted herself off of you, giving you both a few moments to catch your breath. 

“Are you okay?” you asked, slightly worried. “Did I hurt you?” 

Sana smiled, still panting lightly. “No, no, not at all,” she said. “I was actually…” she tucked some of her hair behind her ears. “I could’ve come like that. Well, I mean, I wanted to, but I… I think I’m too shy to come in your mouth,” she finally admitted. “But,” she added quickly, “I do want to come.” 

You nodded, sitting up a bit and wiping part of your face with the back of your hand. “How would you like to?” 

“Hmm.” Sana climbed toward the edge of her bed for a moment, letting the top half of her body disappear momentarily as she leaned over the side to grab a small box under her bed. You quickly looked away from checking out her hips and ass when she sat back up. When she turned to face you, she held a light purple, seven inch toy in her hand. She blushed, but you grinned. 

“I can work with this,” you said. “Lie back,” you instructed, taking the toy from her. You kissed your way down her body, lightly twisting one of her nipples as you moved. You settled in between her legs, kissing and licking your way to her wet pussy. 

“Do you want me to touch you too, or do you want to?” you asked softly. In response, Sana snaked one hand down between her legs, rubbing her clit lightly. Your own cunt clenched involuntarily around nothing as you positioned the head of the toy at her entrance. You rubbed it along her folds a bit, soaking it with her own juices before finally slipping the head in. 

Sana threw her head back, opening her legs a little wider. “M-more,” she said. “Please.” 

You prayed your own wetness would drip down your thighs instead of onto her bedding, talking to Sana softly as you worked more of the length of the toy inside her. “You look so pretty like this,” you told her. Sana rubbed her clit as you fucked her, eyes locked on you as the toy slid in and out of her dripping pussy with ease. 

“God, you make that feel good,” she said, her entire body flush from pleasure. 

“And you,” you said, listening to the lewd sounds of her receptive, wet pussy, “make it sound even better.” You leaned down to kiss her, letting Sana lick your lips and tongue. Her hips bucked as you fucked her, her body trying to get more of the toy inside as her fingers rubbed away at her clit desperately. 

“R-right there,” Sana said after a while. Her body had been growing more and more tense the closer she got, and you could tell she was extremely close now. 

“Nngh- f-fuck, there,” she reached down and put her other hand over yours, helping you fuck her deeper and faster. Her breathing was ragged. You wondered how she was getting any air at all when suddenly she let out a cry, hitting her peak. Her body collapsed completely as she came, letting out light, breathy moans. It was one of the prettiest sounds you’d ever heard. You supported her body as she relaxed into post-orgasm bliss, and gently worked the toy out of her. The moan she let out when you finally slid it all the way out nearly made you feral as you set it aside on her nightstand. 

“Thank you,” Sana said breathlessly. “Wow.” She rolled over, eyeing you for a moment curiously. “To be honest, I’m more of a pillow princess,” she said, glancing at your neglected, soaked cunt. “But I’d love to watch you touch yourself.” Then she smiled mischievously. “You uh, don’t happen to own a harness for a strap, do you?”

[theoldworldsrunnerup]

(HI I hope this post makes sense it’s almost four am and I’m tired)

Okay so I’ve been thinking about this post (I’m too lazy to summarise it, please go look at it yourself for context) since I first reblogged it and, more specifically, why exactly it translated to “romantic”, because??? Surely it didn’t actually say that (I assumed it was maybe a word that could mean romantic but had differing definitions depending on the context or something like that) (also I had already heard that it said “beautiful” instead of “cute” so I’m not focusing on that).

So, despite the fact that I do not understand Japanese whatsoever, I decided I needed to figure out where exactly in the sentence “romantic” comes from, because it was going to bother me for ages if I didn’t.

After searching for a VERY long time, I managed to find this image of the untranslated Japanese version (which I only found because I remembered where to look lmao).

At first, out of curiosity, I stuck the text into google translate myself to see if it would say anything different, but it was pretty much the same result. I actually tried several other online translators, but again, they all said the same thing (in various levels of coherency).

Now, while google translate can be unreliable, I figured I could use it to get the gist of individual words, and, in particular, figure out what exactly here translated into romantic.

Something I noticed was that “romansu” by itself translated into romance, but, since the romanised version had “romansugurē“ written as one word, I put all of it in and ended up with this.

So, from this, I had figured out where “romantic” had come from. But at this point, I was more interested as to why “romance” and “grey” were one word here, so I looked it up.

The term romansugurē is, unsurprisingly, derived from the words romance and grey. It’s usually used to describe the grey hair of a middle aged man, but its connotation can kind of differ. From what I understand, it can be a somewhat neutral descriptor (a lot of the results from my search defined it as “silver-grey hair”), but it can also be, as this introduction to linguistic anthropology I accidentally stumbled across puts it:

In this context, I guess it’s kind of similar to terms like silver fox.

I went scrolling through twitter for about half an hour to see how people actually used it, and if either connotation was more commonly used than the other, but it seemed pretty evenly split (although it seems like it’s usually used in a more positive context, it isn’t necessarily always used in the context of sexual attraction, if that makes sense???).

So, in conclusion: it DOES actually say “beautiful romantic grey hair”, which I did not expect, and, taking into account the second connotation, may or may not be somehow gayer than the official English translation.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk. If anyone who actually knows what they’re talking about wants to add anything to this/correct me on something, please do (but please be nice about it :( I’m trying my best here).

[wintermelonbear]

Just Another Picture to Burn

Summary: Just a cute little friendship between Jon, Damian, and Marinette. Can be read platonically or with some romantic inclination. Just two friends who want the best for each other and will celebrate each other’s milestones 

Sidenote: I haven’t written anything in years, but dragged my butt to write this for the MGI civil war so proceed with caution.

Sharp green eyes open up to the world moments before the buzz of a phone alarm signals the need to get up. Out of an abundance of caution stemming from his tumultuous upbringing the young teen scans the room for any signs of an intruder, most days this is a fruitless endeavor, but Damian could never find himself to drop this habit. He notes an envelope on his desk and reaches for the compressed bo staff under his pillow. As he approached the desk the only sound that could be heard was the light creak of the manor’s floorboards and low mumblings coming from the kitchen. A sigh of relief breaks this silence as Damian recognizes the gentle script sprawled across the front of the pale pink envelope spelling out “To Dami”. 

Cautiously he flips the envelope checking for signs of tampering. While the sentiment is nice, the choice to send a handwritten letter rather than a text was out of left field from his companion. He notes with a slight grin that she had used the wax seal he gifted her after the defeat of Hawkmoth. Sliding a batarang out from the underside of his desk he slices open the top of the envelope to reveal a piece of thick cardstock. At this Damian’s brow moves into a sharp arch, what could have been so important, yet so minimal that she had to portal over to his place in the middle of the night. Pulling out a piece of pristine white paper, he reads, "You, me & Jon. 7 pm CET. I already checked with your dad, so no excuses. Love, Mari”

Picking up his phone –the latest from Wayne Tech– he taps out a message to his top contact, “Spotted Menace”. A bright blue message populates the screen reading out, “An invite? To what exactly?” For emphasis, he adds in a raised eyebrow emoji then after some contemplation adds in a thinking emoji. Following that text, he quickly snaps a picture of the note to Marinette to confirm he received her letter before preparing for the day. 

Before leaving his room he picks up the envelope again, this time to admire her handiwork instead of ascertaining its threat level. Turning to the back of the envelope his chest puffs out a bit as he dons a victorious smile he takes in his handiwork. She had used the wax seal stamp he had gifted her on her 16th birthday. He hand-carved the image of a ladybug resting on a branch of plum blossoms, to signify her new beginning as a hero by choice and not by necessity after the defeat of Hawkmoth.

As Damian slipped into the driver’s seat of his sleek sedan he mused that 12-year-old Damian would be utterly baffled by the person he is today –apart from being the stronger member of the new generation of heroes, that has always been a given (Somewhere Jon is rolling his eyes). Honestly, when Damian first met Marinette he found her pathetic. She was just a worthless little girl who was gifted powers beyond her capability to wield, and he never hid his disdain for her. Thus, to young pre-teen Marinette the youngest Robin was just a massive dickhead who had no feelings apart from his superiority complex. He was an embodiment of torment; the worst parts of Felix and Chloe combined. Not to say that Damian is perfect now, but at the time he lacked the perspective he gained from his travels to and return from Lazarus Island. Now he has spent more time learning from others’ experiences, has gone through his first heartbreak after Flatline decided that time spent with him was distracting her from her personal goals, and all of that has taught him to care and have some level of empathy. He may not be like Marinette and Jon, ready to do what is right solely because they blindly believe in the goodness of others, but he understands that even if he may not find value in someone, that does not mean their life is worthless. 

The first time Robin acknowledged that despite Ladybug’s lack of technical combat skills, she had plenty of other skills that other heroes would be envious of, Nightwing attempted to give him a “bear hug” and Superboy nearly fell from the sky. What Robin to this day doesn’t know about that night is that his comm was connected to Ladybug’s and the reason she fell off the roof was not the attacker’s sharp jab to her ribs, but rather the shock of Robin giving her any form of praise. From then on Marinette decided maybe Robin was capable of growing a heart, and while it may have started as one-sided conversations with her rambling on about herself and basic topics of conversation – how’s the weather in the Gotham? It’s been warm in Paris! Did you see the new Mecha Strike game launch? What’s your favorite dessert? –  eventually, Damian started warming up to her. 

By the time the youngest Wayne snaps out of his reverie, the bell has rung signaling the dismissal of his second-period and the start of the school’s 20-minute break. Fishing through his pockets, and quickly unlocking his phone he finds several missed messages from Marinette, Jon, and their group chat “Talk Shit Get Hit”. After skimming through their private messages, Damian bites the bullet and opens up “Talk Shit Get Hit” to begin tackling the growing number of messages. Scrolling to the top of the chain of unread messages he sends Jon spamming the chat with unintelligible keyboard smashes followed by “MARI HOW DID YOU GET US OUT OF LIZZIE-SITTING DUTIES???”, Damian swears that the capslock on Jon’s keyboards must be worn down with his overusage. He reacts to the message with a set of eye emojis because there are very few people Diana trusts with her fussy toddler and he knows for a fact that she’s in the midst of an investigation into a rapidly expanding crime syndicate. As he scrolls further he is dismayed to find out Marinette cashed in this free day in exchange for a date night babysitting gig in addition to normal babysitting duties. Damian loves Lizzie like a younger sister and of course, wants her to be in the care of someone befitting of her status. Still, he has been yelled at one too many times for taking her on patrol with him, and sometimes bringing a 3-foot-tall sidekick with a tutu (courtesy of Marinette) kills his intimidation factor. Once he makes it past a wall of crying emojis and gifs of betrayal from Jon, the chat goes back to its normal contents, filled with reels shared between Jon and Mari, and complaints about their teachers. Jon eventually asks Marinette what she has planned for tonight that is worth the extra babysitting duties, but Marinette declines to answer and instead tells him to be patient.

After school Damian carefully considers his outfit but sticks with his classic black turtleneck and a pair of khakis, Marinette will call him boring but what does she know? She used to have a crush on a guy who exclusively wore a striped shirt with an open button-up and bright orange Converses. Once they became comfortable with one another Marinette made it VERY well-known that while she wished his civilian wear had more diversity and color, she found his original Robin suit to be a “crime against fashion and most people’s eyeballs”. Stating that only traffic lights would appreciate sharing a color palette with him. Damian argued that it’s tradition, while Marinette replied with “It’s fugly and you know it. Y o u! ditched the design in the first place”. Rolling his eyes, he heads to the window and yells out “Jon! I am ready!” and with a flash of blue and red Jon shows up at his window clad in a red hoodie and blue jeans. The Super family really needs to consider their civilian “disguises”. 

Swooping Damian up into his arm Jon bolts out the window and into the sky towards Paris until they reach a familiar flowered rooftop. After two taps to the trap door beneath them, the door abruptly gave way and Damian was met with a loud POP and confetti raining down onto him. Quickly Marinette busted out the door cake in hand and in unison started singing with Jon. While it was not a rare occurrence for Marinette to provide them with sweets at her residence, what was on the cake was the strange part. It was a picture of one of his earlier Robin outfits? One that after many earfuls from Marinette knew to be her least favorite, why would she put it on a cake?? 

“Happy outfit death to you! Happy outfit death to you! You no longer look like a traffic light! Happy outfit death to you!” Out of seemingly thin air, Marinette pulled out a lighter and lit the top layer on fire revealing a picture of his new outfit underneath. “You do not know how relieved I am that I do not have to be with someone whose color palette matches a kindergarten classroom rug, and not a cute one”.

Damian with a puzzled expression questions her, “Is this something to be celebrated? Besides that I changed outfits months ago”. Marinette looked at him mouth agape. “Close your mouth you will catch flies at this rate”.

Almost as if rehearsed Jon and Marinette reply in unison “What are you my maman/ma”?

After clearing her throat Marinette went to explain, “There are plenty of things to celebrate for your outfit change! You’re finding out the type of Robin you’re going to be, and I personally believe that is a worthy cause for celebration. Besides, after Monarch’s downfall, I was really struggling to figure out what to do myself. My whole world felt like it splintered into pieces, but you and Jon were there to help me figure things out when the consequences of my actions™ struck. I want you to feel empowered too, even if you don’t need it the same way I did”. With a smile Marinette brought out some forks, “Now let’s dig in”! If it made him uncomfortable how quickly his friends stabbed his frosting face with their forks, he didn’t let it show.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Hey everyone, look what I made. It took me a completely normal amount of time and I definitely did not spent all weekend on it. All weekend just transcribing and collating. Not counting the time across the last couple of years I spent finding all this stuff. I wouldn't do that.

But if I had done that, it would have started as an Excel file, but some of the transcripts were too long to fit into even the maximum sizes of a cell. Exporting it as a PDF has page breaks and won't let it take up the whole screen, and turning it into an image destroyed the links.

So I ended up going back to the HTML that I learned at computer camp when I was 13 and then used to make Harry Potter websites when I was 14 and have hardly ever used since. Had to Google a bunch of stuff to remember how to do it, but I managed to rewrite the entire table in HTML code in Notepad, and then I found a website that let me upload it in exchange for that annoying little purple thing at the bottom. I would not like to admit how long I spent trying to work out how to just upload one HTML page without having to sign up for building an entire website. Because it was too long. There had to be an easier way to do this. But I don't know what it is.

Anyway, I made this:

So... does anyone want that? It's a spreadsheet where I've collected everything I've found that seems like it could be a direct reference to the Chocolate Milk Gang. It's got transcriptions of the relevant bits of video and audio, and links to PDFs of the text or mp3s or mp4s of the video and audio files, and overall, I spent way too much time on it.

I may have gone slightly Beautiful Mind about it this weekend, pinning links up to my metaphorical cork board, connecting them with bits of red string, and frantically declaring, "It doesn't add up! What, exactly, did Andrew Maxwell call them in 2002? Because I'm getting conflicting stories here!"

At least I now have an easy thing to link to when I want to tell people what the Chocolate Milk Gang is. I realize I throw that term around a lot on this blog, and I stop to explain it every few months or, but I'm also aware that sometimes people come across these posts without all that context and it's confusing. So there you go, if anyone's ever confused by what I mean when I say "Chocolate Milk Gang". It's that, the stuff at that link. It's all those things. It's an international crime syndicate that sometimes organizes soccer matches.

I realize there are a bunch of different sources at that link, making it look like information is easy to find about it. So for some further context, those 16 spreadsheet entries are the only references to it that I've been able to find, across many many hours of searching, across the last couple of years. If you're confused about what the Chocolate Milk Gang is and you want to know the real answer, it's that a few years ago I happened to hear one particular Daniel Kitson show too soon after I'd resigned as board president of my wrestling team, and I got a bit overly attached to the idea of simpler times when people were still building their dream, before it all got out of hand. So I decided to obsessively research this term that appeared on John Oliver's Wikipedia page. It made sense at the time.

Having one link I can point to and say "the stuff we know about the what the Chocolate Milk Gang was - it's all in there" is a nice bonus for that spreadsheet, but it wasn't the original point of it. I mainly wanted to make that spreadsheet so I could get some clear data on 1) its membership list, and 2) its actual name. Hence the spreadsheet columns for both those things.

I’d consider most name that appear in my column for the membership list to be a significant Chocolate Milk Gang member. Though one membership list included Jimmy Carr, as part of the “gang” of comedians who hung out with Demetri Martin in Edinburgh. I’ve already addressed that in another post, but the upshot is that obviously Jimmy Carr’s not in the Chocolate Milk Gang. He's just a guy Demetri Martin probably hung out with in Edinburgh once, so that article grouped him in with the others.

Oh, and there’s the Russell Howard documentary that describes his "golden generation" of comedians, which included some key CMG people, but then moved on to his other comedy friends, like his roommates from the famous Bristol house, and Wil Hodgson. I don’t think the other Bristol guys (Richardson, Robins, Olver) count as CMG, since they were younger and weren't doing comedy during those earlier days when the CMG was formed. But Wil Hodgson performed in Edinburgh in 2004.

This of course gets complicated, because if we’re being very literal about defining the CMG as “people who got milkshakes at the restaurant called Favorit after late-night shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2002” – which was the original meaning of the name – then we’re leaving out some important people who turn up on most CMG membership lists, like Josie Long and Alun Cochrane. So I tend to use the term more broadly than that, to mean “people who were making a certain type of comedy in the 00s, a type that at the time was considered alternative because it was more gentle and indie-like than their more glamorous showbiz predecessors, and they crossed over with each other a lot, personally and professionally.” But that definition can make it difficult to get a clear list, as it basically boils down to: anyone who, while performing comedy from about 2002 to 2007, ever wore a t-shirt on stage, made a vaguely nerdy joke, and hung out with Daniel Kitson. And that can include quite a lot of people. It may well include Wil Hodgson. It could arguably include some of those Bristol guys (although I think “not being an alcoholic” was a fairly big part of the CMG ethos, which rules out Richardson and Robins). Pappy's Fun Club? Lots of people were around at the time.

I think of a few people as being CMG even if they’re mentioned in that spreadsheet list at all. I count Gavin Osborn as a bona fide central CMG member, even though he sure didn't perform in Edinburgh in 2002. He’s been involved in so many collaborations with other central CMG figures, and his work so embodies their ethos, that it doesn’t matter that he didn’t do all that stuff in Edinburgh. He was in the National Youth Theatre with John Oliver; his CMG connections pre-date Edinburgh 2002.

I think I’d count Isy Suttie as CMG, too. She was performing during prime CMG years, and doing that type of comedy that characterized the CMG (gentle, indie-like). She’s also collaborated with CMG people quite a bit. So she didn’t have to be literally drinking milkshakes with them in Edinburgh 2002 to count on their membership list (though it’s possible that she could have been drinking milkshakes with them in 2002, as she was definitely spending lots of time with at least one CMG member at the time, but I’m pretty sure she wasn’t in Edinburgh that year).

So I would say, probably, the main list of Chocolate Milk Gang members is: Daniel Kitson, David O'Doherty, John Oliver, Andy Zaltzman, Russell Howard, Josie Long, Gavin Osborn, Isy Suttie, Alun Cochrane, Bret McKenzie, Jermaine Clement, Demetri Martin. Maybe Taika Waititi? He got mentioned a couple of times but I'm not sure he did any actual CMG stuff, I think he was just a guy David O'Doherty liked.

So that's the membership list. Now I'd like to address the title, and issue with which is what prompted me to start on this spreadsheet in the first place. That issue being: Why has everyone let me spend nearly 2.5 years posting constantly about a British group called the Chocolate Milk Gang, without informing me that the term "chocolate milk" isn't used in Britain like it is in North America? That is an important piece of information for my research, which someone gave me for the first time last week, and it made me decide I should probably do a full-scale study into what this means.

I had wondered, before, why they got named after chocolate milk, when they were apparently drinking milkshakes. I assumed it was just other comedians making fun of them for immaturely not drinking alcohol, implying that they weren't just drinking milkshakes, they were drinking chocolate milk, the way children do.

Nope. It turns out that in Britain, when they say "chocolate milk", they're referring to a chocolate milkshake. When they say "chocolate milkshake", they are also referring to a chocolate milkshake. How do they refer to chocolate milk? Most of the time they don't, apparently it's not as common there. I think. Someone in England told me this, and I've tried looking it up further, but it's confusing. Chocolate milk definitely does exist over there, it just apparently isn't served in nearly every restaurant, the way I'm used to in Canada. So I guess they weren't using that term for the milk and started just using it to mean milkshakes? I don't know, Britain is a confusing place. They also refer to juices as smoothies.

That certainly explains why some comedians got named after chocolate milk, when they were drinking milkshakes. It also explains a bit of the occasional variation in the group's name - Russell Howard recently called them "The Milkshake Brigade", and in an interview in 2006, David O'Doherty said they were "The Milkshake Kids". If "chocolate milk" and "chocolate milkshakes" are interchangeable terms over there, then I guess they can be interchangeable in the gang's name, too.

But it's definitely supposed to be a gang. I don't know where this "brigade" stuff is coming from. David McSavage called them the "Chocolate Milk Brigade", as well. And, again, David O'Doherty once called them kids. What is that? I am not going to change my blog's tagline to saying I am preserving the legacy of the "Chocolate Milk Kids".

And then we have the differing stories about the name's origins. David O'Doherty claims that Glenn Wool coined the term "Chocolate Milk Gang". David McSavage claims that Andrew Maxwell coined it (though he also claims that the coined term is "Chocolate Milk Brigade). David O'Doherty does tell stories of Andrew Maxwell being one of those people who made fun of them for the general nerdiness that got them the CMG nickname, but in his story, Andrew Maxwell was mainly making fun of their bags, rather than their drinking habits.

The interesting thing about the above paragraph is that no one in it is British. I've tried to look up whether chocolate milk was a thing in Ireland in 2002, and whether Irish people said "chocolate milk" to mean "chocolate milkshake" like British people did. I can barely find information about British people doing it, so of course there wasn't anything on Irish differences. But they share a whole lot of cultural colloquialisms, so I'm going to assume it was probably similar.

Glenn Wool, however, is Canadian. And Canadians definitely do not conflate chocolate milk with chocolate milkshakes, even in 2002. So it's odd if he coined that term, calling them the Chocolate Milk Gang because they drank milkshakes. So maybe it did, in fact, originally come from Andrew Maxwell. I assume they both used that term, making it not too difficult to reconcile O'Doherty and McSavage's differing claims about whose term it was.

...I am tired. I think I probably have more to say about that spreadsheet, but I need to go to bed. I could save this as a draft and add more to it tomorrow, but I genuinely think I'll sleep better if I hit "post" on this now and feel like I've got something to share from an entire weekend spent on such a pointless project. I'll just make a new post later if I have more to say. It's all right. So that's what I've been up to. How's everyone else doing?

[nczaversnick]

Writing Share/Out of Context Tag

Thanks to @drchenquill for the tag

This bit is from Chapter 6

———————————————

Faint background noise echoed from a small, dark room. The only things that could be seen that were illuminated by the flashing images displayed on a 32-inch glass screen

could be heard echoing from a couple of speakers in a small room. Displayed on a 32-inch glass screen were flashing images of an unknown product, neither interesting nor entertaining to the two uniformed figures in the small, dark room.

One of them with wild, ginger hair reached out and plugged in a wire from the glass screen to their laptop to add to their endless collection of several other wires that went this way and that.

“We should really find you a better set up,” the other with golden as the sun hair gruffed, inspecting the tangled mess of rubbered strings.

“Hey, if it works, it works,” the ginger grinned, plugging in yet another wire, this time from their laptop to one of the three computer monitors they had set up in front of them.

The blonde huffed which earned a chuckle from the other.

“Jealous of my awesome setup?”

“Hardly,” he turned his attention back towards the screen, “The news should be coming back any minute now.”

“Don’t worry your pants about it, I’ve got it all taken care of in 3, 2-”

The ginger pointed to the glass screen and, as if right on cue, a brunette woman appeared on the screen with a serious expression plastered on her face. There was a red banner with scrolling white text on the bottom and the letters ‘IN’ were placed in the corner:

TV: “Good evening, this is Truman and you are watching Insider

News, the best news network to bring you the cold, honest

stories from all across Titania. In today’s headlines-”

“The ‘cold, honest stories’, give me a break,” the ginger stuffed a chip inside their mouth as the news anchor wrapped up her introduction and another commercial began to play.

“Hey, I need you to focus.”

“I can’t focus on an empty stomach, it stresses me out.”

The blonde gave them a look.

“Oh, come on, when have I let you down?”

Silence.

“Exactly. Just let your ‘ol pal do their thing.”

They leaned back in their chair, hands folded behind their head. After another long minute of mindless music passing painfully in the already tense room, the screen finally changed. They peeked one eye open and straightened up in their chair.

“Showtime.”

Keyboard keys clattered in the background:

TV: “Moreover, the government has decided that all markets and malls in the division should remain closed until the situation gets better. However, the pharmacies and the export industry will remain open.”

TV: “Thank you, Clarkson. At about 18:03 today, officers assigned to District C-7, Bourne, responded to a radio call requesting back-up. On arrival, officers found two hospital security personnel semi-conscious inside of the pharmacy. One of the security members provided information on the possible whereabouts of the suspect. Additional units arrived at the scene and began to search for the suspect and eventually located a male in the city of Dreake.”

The image on the screen froze for a brief moment and a faint bzzt soon followed. A computer mouse clicked in the distance a few times and the images unfroze as the broadcaster continued:

TV: “Officers arrested 47-year-old Riley Clements in front of his home. Clements is expected to be arraigned in Titania District Court on charges of Disorderly Conduct, Aggravated Battery, and Possession of Stolen Property. It’s still unknown whether Clements worked alone or was part of a group, but investigators are working closely with officials to make sure all who were involved are taken in. We will keep you updated on any more information that is brought in. Until then, it’s time for a commercial break. Stay with us!”

A silent wave of relief swept over the room.

“Hah,” the ginger threw their hands up in the air, a wide grin spreading across their face, “maybe this will teach you to stop using crappy security and being so predictable with all your news anchoring, Truman!”

The blonde raised his eyebrow at their fanatics.

“What? I just don’t like her,” they shrugged.

———————————————

Tags (comment if you want to be +/-)

@honeybewrites @wyked-ao3 @kittrrrr @zackprincebooks @theverumproject @the-golden-comet @fractured-shield @poppycat-writes @illarian-rambling @finickyfelix @kuebiko-writing @yourpenpaldee @willtheweaver @the-letterbox-archives @moltenwrites @davycoquette @leahnardo-da-veggie @sableglass

[snek-panini]

It's been a few weeks since I had new books to share, but I finally got photos taken of the newest ones so today's the day. Here, have a book:

This is Across Tides and Currents, a Good Omens siren AU by Sodium_Azide and @doorwaytoparadise (hi. I hope I tagged you right). My favorite thing about this AU is that, at its heart, it's about learning to communicate with someone who is so different from you that you can't even physically speak each other's language, and yet you've still got so much common ground that you find a way. It's way lighter and more fun than that description makes it sound, though, so go read it if that's your thing.

The cover on this is Lineco book cloth, scrapbook paper printed to look like leather, and blue foil htv. The foil was actually a nightmare to do. The first time I applied it, it wouldn't stick no matter what I did, and the bits that did stick peeled off as soon as I touched them. I had to peel them up very carefully, cut a new image, and try again. Thankfully it worked the second time but I don't know that I'll be using the foil type again unless there's no other way to get the color I want. The non-foil metallic was so much easier to work with.

More book photos under the cut!

I went with a coptic bind for this one for a few reasons. The first was that I wanted to try one on a quarto-size book to see if I could. I also wanted to try the mitered corners thing I did when I bound Strange Moons, and see if I could have the same effect on the interior. (That bit didn't work out so well; the front is fine but I mismeasured the inside and the lines didn't match up, so I trimmed some pieces of cardstock to cover that up. I really like the layered look though, so that's fine. It's quirky.) The third reason is that not long before I decided to bind this one, the authors published a new chapter after two years of no updates. That's the best possible reason to have to change plans, and the glueless bind means that if they ever do that again I can just redo the stitching to add more pages. Win-win.

Getting whimsical with title pages here. This took way longer than I thought it would, probably because I don't like graphic design and I did it in Word where I do the rest of my typesetting. Usually what I do is grab an image and put text around it or on top of it and then just play with fonts and sizes, but this time I drew the lines and then made the text follow them. This is the first time I've used the word art feature since...probably 2009? I'd forgotten how. I have no doubt there are better ways to do this but if I'd had to learn a new program at that point I'd have quit. And I do think it was worth it--it's cute and fun and looks about how I imagined it.

Couple of photos of the inside. Sorry the first one's blurry, I had someone trying to get my attention when I took these. The section break image came from rawpixel, I just made it gray instead of black so it's more subtle. The fic has very nice illustrations that I specifically got the artist's permission to print and then I failed to get any photos of them when I did my little photo shoot. They look very nice, though. I swear.

The last image is something I've started including in my latest books. I'm calling them "A Note from the Bookbinder" and it's basically just me talking about why I chose that story, the experience of reading it for the first time, stuff that's going on in the fandom, stuff about the process like the new chapter coming out as I was preparing to print. It's kind of...like marginalia? Part of fanbinding is preservation and that's linked to archival work, and something I know archivists love is marginalia and diaries. I don't like writing in my books and I've never found any fun in journaling, but sometimes that kind of context is important so I'm trying to add it. Someday, decades from now, I may not remember all the details, so I'm trying to preserve them. IDK, this got philosophical on me. Go read about mermaids now. Promise it's a good time.

[nerdyrevelries]

A Little Princess (1995): A Tale of Orientalism

Hey friend, sit down, I want to talk to you for a moment. Remember beloved children's film A Little Princess 1995? How well do you remember it? Is it a film you watch regularly or is it just something that you have vague good feelings in connection to?

The reason I ask is that there's something you might not remember about this film. Something that you might not have realized when you watched it as a wee child. What's that, you ask? This movie is perhaps the most Orientalist piece of filmmaking I have ever seen, and the perhaps is only because I can't decide whether or not Memoirs of a Geisha gets the honor instead.

Let's take a look, shall we?

I want to start you out by showing you the opening of the film, since it may have been a while since you've seen it.

Okay, you finished? Let's analyze this clip. First of all, we've got some mysterious tinkling and stereotypical sounds of India. Text starts to scroll across the screen in a curvy font that speaks of the Orient and far off lands. Hang on, did she just say, "The mystical land of India" like she's talking about Oz or Narnia?

It really only gets worse from there. A little girl starts to tell us a small part of the story of Ramayana, an epic that is part of the Hindu faith. The images we are given make India look like a technicolor fantasy realm. And who do we have playing Sati and Rama? A white woman with a bindi and a white man who has been painted blue.

The actor who plays Rama also plays Sara's father, so I think the implication is that Sara is imagining these two as her parents (I question how many young children are even going to pick up on this detail to make its inclusion worthwhile; I certainly didn't), but the whole thing still seems racially insensitive (especially since her father is literally a colonialist. That's why he's in India.) Not only that, but they have chosen a story that is part of a religion that is still actively practiced for Sara to be telling, not a simple piece of folklore.

To add the final icing on the cake, when the story reaches an exciting part, we pull away to show the little white girl who is telling this story in 1914 India. She is telling this story not to someone else who is white but to an Indian child of her own age, who seems to be very interested in it. What's the implication here, that Sara knows this own kid's culture better than he does?

The story of Ramayana is continued throughout the film in this same dreamlike style, interspersed with the story of Sara Crewe, a little American (British in the original) girl who comes to a boarding school in her father's home country, where her fortunes change drastically when she gets news of her father's death.

Let's unpack this more. What's the purpose of having these scenes in this movie? Well, the answer to that seems to be that they want to provide the film with a feel of magic and wonder. In other words, Orientalism.

Okay, now that you're caught up, let me address a few things. Some of you might be thinking that the movie is like this because it's adapted from a novel that was published in 1905. But this simply isn't the case. Yes, Sara is from India in the book and her father is still a colonialist. He dies of "jungle fever" and Sara is later saved from poverty by Mr. Carrisford, her father's equally colonialist business partner in a diamond mine that turns out not to have gone bust, and he has an Indian servant with a monkey and is frequently referred to as "the Indian gentleman" (making the Indian gentleman actually Indian instead of a white colonialist is one of the two changes that the movie makes that I actually like.)

But you know what the book doesn't have? Ramayana. Sara's stories have nothing to do with India, sacred or not. She generally tells stories that she has made up about mermaids and things. So why does the movie have her telling a sacred Hindu story instead? I can't think of an explanation that isn't Orientalist. (And did I mention that all of the writers are this film are white?)

Your second thought might be that perhaps this is just some 90s filmmaking that aged badly! Perhaps they were trying to have more racial and cultural diversity. There are two cases where I think this is the case in the film, one of which is the Indian gentleman, and one of which I will talk about later (because I think it also needs to be discussed), but I don't think that's the case here.

As proof of my point, I'd like to show you the opening to another beloved children's classic, The Secret Garden 1993. This is also based on a book by Frances Hodgson Burnett and has a heroine who was born in India and comes to live in her parents' home country (in this case, the movie keeps the English setting.) I would also argue that the language around India and particularly the people who live there that is used in the original book is worse than the language used in A Little Princess.

So, you have two Frances Hodgson Burnett adaptations made and released in the 90s that both open with scenes of India. But the scenes feel incredibly different.

In the Secret Garden 1993, India is firmly placed in the real world. The scene also gives us important narrative information. It tells us that our heroine, Mary, is both spoiled and neglected. She doesn't do anything for herself. She doesn't even put her own stockings on. She's always angry and has frequent fits of temper, and her parents are also selfish people who have never had time for her. Finally we learn of Mary's parents' deaths and how she survives, giving us everything that we as watchers need to know before we ship her off (literally) to Misselthwaith Manor for a transformative adventure.

In comparison, A Little Princess 1995's opening treats India like it's a fantasy land, and its opening does nothing to introduce us to our main character or tell us anything about the story that we're all actually here for. The opening is just supposed to give the viewer a mythical, magical feeling of exoticism and wonder.

Before I go further, there's one more thing the movie does that I want to address. This is the change that I mentioned that I think was supposed to be good, but I think it's extremely misguided. They make Becky, originally a white scullery maid, black.

Now, I am fine with changing a character's race from what it was in the book for the sake of more diversity (it was the only thing I liked about Persuasion 2022), but I don't think Becky is the character to do it with. This is because Becky is a servant who is treated as little better than a slave. She's starved, she's illiterate, she's poorly treated, and she lives in a freezing little attic room where she is ignored by all the students of the school below.

In my opinion, the point of making a character that was originally white into a person of color—especially in a children's film—is so that people of color can see someone that looks like them represented on screen. But Becky is the only black character in the entire film. Is it really better for a little black girl to see the only girl who looks like her be the one who is treated as if she were a slave in an American setting that is supposed to be 50 years past slavery? I wouldn't want that for my child, if I was a black parent.

It didn't have to be that way, either. There was integrated education in America as early as 1831 in the north and the west, and there were rich African Americans who would have been able to afford to send their children to a fancy boarding school. They could have made some of the students of the school black. But they didn't. They just made Becky black. (The one thing I will give them credit for is that at least Becky becomes Sara's adopted sister in this version instead of her personal servant like she does in the book.)

So, what do we do with this information? Do you have to stop liking the film? Absolutely not! I may not like for reasons in addition to those listed above (I think the 90s rooftop chase scene climax is very silly), but I don't want to tell you to stop loving something that means something to you.

But I think it's important to talk about this, and it's something I have literally never heard anyone else discussing, unless I brought it up. We can like media with problematic elements (I think it could be safely said that there's no media that's entirely without them), but I think we need to acknowledge those problematic elements. It's only by confronting and not excusing the things that are wrong in the things we love that we can get better.

[jailforwriter]

It's time for...

Look, I'll be honest with you. Nothing makes me go feral over a book faster than picking up on a bit of clever symbolism. This hand-rubbing, cunning little storytelling shortcut can really make a difference between a book you enjoyed, and one you cannot sandpaper off the grooves of your brain. In many ways, it's a sneaky bit of puzzle-solving that the author tucked under the rug of the main text for us to find, and yeah, engaging with it takes a bit of getting on your knees and dusting, but boy are those proverbial allergies satisfying!

Hopefully by the end of these series you'll love this device as much as I do, so let's get into it!

What's symbolism?

Okay, right off the bat, I have to warn you that symbolism exists in the nebulous realm of things that take some thought to like, proper get, but we as writers thrive in places where we get to dissect and interpret complex stuff, so don't worry too much.

Now, a symbol could be an object, a place, a character, an action – so long as it represents something other than their literal meaning, it's the double-agent of literature: a symbol. We come across some of the most common ones pretty often, even in daily life. Suffice to walk by a flower shop and see a red rose for it to recall romantic attraction; whether we personally have an interest in it or not, the image still sparked the thought. That's the power of association, and just this once, it's here to help.

We can use those associations on a smaller scale to add layers of depth and evoke more complex ideas in our stories – like themes and messages – without needing to spell them out. In that way, we're ergonomically inviting the reader to solve our hidden puzzle (engage with the narrative on a different level) and get a little treat for it (a deeper understanding of the story's themes and messages, yummy!).

Types of symbolism

There are no hard and fast categories for the kinds of symbolisms we might come across in media, which really means that there are so many that we can get a bit liberal in our sorting criteria. As a scientist, this hurts my soul. As a writer, however? Let's get biased! Personally, I like to look at them this way:

Objects: one of the clearest ways to express many things in one. For instance, think of a pocket watch. Yes, it symbolizes the passage of time, but what else could we add onto it to say even more? Maybe the watch is worn, reflecting on the character's old struggle with reconciling the inevitability of aging and its inexorable march toward death (joy!). Maybe it starts ticking erratically at some point, paralleling the character's own mental instability. Maybe they decide to break it in the end, symbolizing them finally freeing themselves from time's constraints and their obsessive preoccupation over aging. We can get creative here!

Animals: these we often get from cultural exposure. For instance, someone interested in Greek mythology might see an owl and immediately think of wisdom – not necessarily because of any inherent attributes to the owl itself (although there's some interesting discussions to be had about where the association came from in the first place!) but because it's been drilled into them through history and repetition.

Characters: let's take it up a notch. What if we have a character who embodies, for instance, something antithetical to our protagonist? Who questions their values and challenges their worldview by mere dint of existing? What if our protagonist, Johnny Apple-Lover, comes across our antagonist, Lenny Apple-Hater? What happens when they interact? Characters may embody archetypes or have certain attributes that, juxtaposed to those of other characters, say a lot of interesting things about them. (Deep dives about this particular topic to come!).

Settings: this is your classic "ye olde manor existed in a state of perennial darkness, engulfed by the shadows of the thunderclouds above, through which nary a sunray ever ventured" business. Gloomy weather in a dark forest tends to evoke a desire not to go there, while a flowery, sunny meadow seems more like a place where you'd wanna hang out (please disregard if you're a vampire...and also hmu). This allows for some interesting subversions of expectations, in some cases, and we'll look into those a bit more later down the line.

Actions: actions (and lack thereof) can function as a fantastic substitution for directly stating a thought, and may add onto theme without needing to overexplain it by throwing up a mirror to the character's state of mind. For instance, a character opening a bird's cage and urging them out might symbolize their appreciation for their own freedom, particularly if they have resisted doing so throughout the book for fear of its consequences. Double-points for including animal symbolism, too! You'll find that a lot of the best symbolism exists at the junctions of all these categories, so don't be afraid to get creative with the combinations.

Colors: stop me if you've heard this before: red means angry, blue means sad, green means envious...yeah, so on and so forth. This is a straightforward method of conveying deeper meaning that goes hand in hand with symbolic objects, and can cast them and the characters who interact with them in a new, more exciting light. Speaking of lights, here's an example: what if Gatsby's was red instead of green? Suddenly, the entire message changes. It's no longer the green of money, nor of "go", but may now symbolize the red of violence and of "stop". We can extrapolate a lot from a little change, and therein lies the beauty of this literary device.

It's worth noting that other people may break down symbolism as it pertains to its effect on the reader, or give particular credence to religious symbolism as its own category, or focus on thematic relevance and imagery as their own types. I've based my breakdown on what I feel most accurately represent the tools we as writers need in our toolbox, and have tried to make them as easily accessible as I can. Hopefully it's not too convoluted!

In the next part, we'll focus on how symbolism differs from allegory, simile and metaphor by looking into some specific examples, and we'll also discuss why it's important to be a little picky and careful with the kinds of symbolisms we use in our work. I look forward to seeing you all there, thanks for sticking around!

Happy writing!

[starrbar]

The July 2022 Amphibia Attacks

DISCLAIMER: Awhile back, I privated my Twitter to feel safer, but it still had some things on it that I don't want to cut off people's access to. And while the Wayback Machine is absolutely incredible for what it does, I find it so agonizingly tedious to load up even one page to read. It's even worse if there's images attached, each of which I have to manually open in a new tab to see, if they load at all. So I'm taking some of my old posts and reformatting them for Tumblr. This is STRICTLY FOR DOCUMENTATION PURPOSES. Do not assume these are recent events and do not EVER harass anyone!!!

SUMMARY: The Amphibia Attacks (as I call them) were a set of targeted stalking, harassment, and witch-hunting of four artists in the Amphibia fandom for their private, "problematic" nsfw art. This led to the doxxing of a fifth artist who was at very real risk of death. It's one of the most dire situations I've ever seen spawn from the "anti/proship" discourse, and I had the displeasure of being there as it happened, where I was able to document and collect information so that people could be informed.

CONTENT WARNINGS: Harassment, doxxing, mocking victims of such things, discussion of nsfw art of child characters (but no images shown), liberal accusations of "pedophilia", disturbing audio of the culprit bragging about what they had done with their "fans"

The original Tweet thread on the Wayback Machine can be found here. Everything below the Read More link is a direct paste of that thread and its relevant media (with a couple accessibility tweaks).

I also dumped all the individual screenshots I've used into this Google Drive folder, in case people would like to borrow them or if the combined versions I made are difficult to read for some reason.

Speaking of accessibility, almost all of these screenshots are nothing but text, and I've been working on this for hours, so I'm going to post them as is, but anyone who sees this is welcome to add captions that screen readers can follow.

In the last few days, I've come to understand that all the info I wanted people to know about the recent Amphibia Attacks has been documented by others, BUT they're all separate threads posted across Twitter.

This thread is to provide some connective tissue to form a full picture.

Several anonymous users conducted a coordinated attack against four artists, two of whom are crew members for Amphibia. The invasive release of these artists' private nsfw accounts also directly inspired the doxxing of a fifth artist (a minor), almost leading to her murder.

The "proship" crowd gets made fun of for overstating the "body count" of antishippers, but this time it almost happened. Brownteen32 was a 17-year-old girl living in a third world country where "dishonor is death", and she would have been legally killed for her art.

I'm starting with her case because it was the most dire, and thus I paid much closer attention to how she was doing. Thankfully, Brownteen is safe now, though she has decided to leave social media. I hope she will remain safe and still be able to live a fulfilling life.

The people that attacked BT have many sock puppet accounts, but a thread by @/stopnow98630374 (linked next) suggests they aren't all one person. The original attacker is @/phibbyburner, who at time of writing, is still active. The doxxer is @/ballsybeech aka @/AllBeech.

Part 1 of the aforementioned thread (and the Archive if it's ever needed).

Part 2, because the thread was cut for some reason (and the Archive)

Phibby's priv has been confirmed to be @/booboyapologist, both in these screenshots and in the linked video (more on the videos soon).

Video (and the Archive)

There are also mentions of a "mole" that helped Phibby get the information. I have not seen confirmation of who this person is yet.

Link to the video pictured above (Archived version)

I'm going to come back to Phibby after I cover Beech's actions.

These are the 1st posts Beech made against Brownteen: screenshots of her old Instagram callout against someone else for "pedo" art. Brownteen's responses included in the link so she can explain. I understand and believe her.

There's also these, specifying that Brownteen was 17 (A MINOR) when this happened. These are from Instagram.

I don't know if these are from Phibby, Beech, or someone else.

I really want people to see this in particular. She is BEGGING this person not to do this to her, APOLOGIZING for shit that wasn't wrong, and even calling her own artwork REVOLTING. Said she would get off social media forever too. All to survive!

THIS TOO! Directly pleading for her life, and this heartless monster went through with it anyway and smugly said "that's what you get uwu"! It's honestly heartbreaking.

I'll restate that Brownteen was able to get home safely, and was very thankful to everyone who supported her and gave her advice through all this. Also of note is that Brownteen deactivated for a short amount of time, out of fear.

I am DISTURBED by the fact that someone was backed into a corner like this and almost killed. She deleted ALL her artwork out of fear, tried to say she regretted drawing it, was made to express remorse for it, and all the while mocked and terrorized.

Besides that, Beech has continued to post Brownteen's private fucking photos online with VERY nasty captions.

I'm only linking these so y'all can report them. Make these into dead links please!

Link 1 | Link 2

Hey, present day Starrbar here, THESE ARE STILL UP FOR SOME GOD-FORSAKEN REASON. So I'm leaving the links here to be reported! Brownteen made it clear she didn't want even partially censored pictures of herself left online, which is one reason I literally chopped up my original thread and re-did it with all her photos FULLY blacked out. I know some of the other documentation does have partially censored photos of her, but those people were at least on her side and trying to help. These, on the other hand, were purely malicious and trying to bring her harm. GO REPORT THEM, PLEASE!

Beech had also leaked Brownteen's address, but thankfully that Tweet was successfully removed.

Now, to finish covering Phibby's (current) actions.

This thread, which I have already linked parts of, contains audio/video recordings of Phibby damning himself further in a voice chat. It's painful to listen to if you aren't a remorseless pig like him.

Video (Archived)

Phibby claiming to have a coherent motive despite admitting in a public voice chat that he just likes to fuck with people for clout~

"Cyberbullying isn't real", also said in one of the audio clips. Constantly mocking the victims and talking about how they just need to "turn off the PC and go outside", as if his entire goal wasn't to ruin their fucking lives.

I think we've ALL clowned on this one by now, so pick your favorite QRTs! Reminder that the rhetoric Phibby based his "reasoning" on is entirely bound to lead to stuff like this. If you dehumanize others by convincing yourself that they're predators, things WILL escalate.

Now, as for the other artists that were attacked, primarily by Phibby, I don't know every detail of that, but I'll highlight a few things.

Phibby's 1st Tweets were just a bunch of screenshots (and a tasteless video compilation) of the artists' private nsfw of "minor" characters.

I will not be spreading those callouts, as they were not meant to be spread in the first fucking place. But I will assure people that the ONLY thing contained in any of them was artwork. Stylized, cartoon sketches of the Amphibia characters doin smut.

The horror. 🙄

The main thing I think I need to say about these 4 artists is that people initially thought that all of them were Amphibia crew members, but that isn't true. Only 2 of them are, the other two are fanartists.

Here's a simple guide. (Archive)

I do know that Sook, aka @/DirdyBongWater, deactivated after all this. However, I have been told that they're fine. Obviously I can't verify this personally, but I really hope that they are.

Alex, aka @/raebits, has also deactivated, and the fuckers are all celebrating it.

One thing that has come to my attention is that a user by the name of @/dilydily292 has appeared and started going after Phibby, with alleged doxx information. -_- This is not okay, and I encourage people to go report that account, regardless of how much I hate Phibby.

The account also fails to prove... anything?? Like, they don't give any evidence that actually connects Phibby to the names and messages they're posting. All around lame job. And again, don't doxx ANYONE!

I think that's all I got for this. I REALLY hope I didn't accidentally post anything that Brownteen didn't want out there. I know other people have already shared some of it (not their fault—Brownteen only told me directly what her boundaries were), but I really tried not to.

Never forget what this was really about. Not pedophilia, not incorrect art. It was about stalking, privacy invasion, and people playing judge, jury, & executioner for the sake a power high. This was an attack, not a tragic outing of "bad artists".

Link to another one of my (much shorter) threads about this (Archive)

And I hope anyone who reads this will believe me when I say this. If you have any kind of taboo/dark fictional interests: You are not alone, you are not wrong, and you are not obligated to live in accordance with the wonky demands of bullies on the internet. You are okay. 💖

Tiny update: It's hilarious that all it took to make the bullies mad was for Alex to reactivate and then sit there on priv with an icon people feel entitled to gatekeep x'D

The irony of the "you're a grown adult" comments too, ah, chef's kiss~

Happy update! The other three artists are BACK and wearing their true selves proudly!! @/raebits is still priv, but they've been back for awhile, and I hope they're doing well. We also have @/FISTRAID, @/bokobokosplices, and @/bangkaigagak (just so no one has to dig around)

[tea-and-panthers]

just a quick post. i was reading a few article on how to identify bot accounts and discover that i may be miss identified as a bot/spam account since i’m new and dont know much about this wild west of a platform.

so I am here to help assist other newcomers with a summary of my research, keeping in mind I’ve only been here for a day so if someone more experienced is giving out advice theirs is probably better.

1. bot/spam accounts generally have a default icon and background. (fixed this up first thing i did after making the account was add an icon and i just uploaded a background)

Recommend course of action: add an Icon and background as soon as possible. and maybe play around with you theme a bit.

2.username looks inappropriate or spam like. (this isn’t a problem for me since i didn’t do this because why would I)

Recommend course of action: just don’t, if you may have made this mistake, best to change it.

3. a blog is sending messages that are asking if you want content that is potentially nsfw, example ‘do you want pictures of n***d women on your phone’

Recommend course of action: report and block. i speak from experience, i got one of these messages and didn’t even finish reading it before blocking and reporting. also don’t send this type of message to people wether or not they think you are a bot that would make anyone uncomfortable and explicit content is against community guidelines.

4. apparently like strings on accounts and large amounts of reblogging are suspicious.

so say you go to someone account and read like there art or something and you like everything there. apparently 10 or more likes on one account within a short time period is considered a like string.

this is one I found myself guilty of, so what happened was I found the account of someone who made a series of tutorials on how to draw kobolds that I had found in pinterest so I followed the and i wanted like all the tutorials (there where 10) but i decided that liking just the tutorials seemed suspicious so i liked some art in between (it’s good art.) i now see that liking just the tutorials would have not been as suspicious. to that person, sorry for the spam likes, I have learned my lesson.

Reblogging, so something like 40 or more rebloggs in a day with little context, than nothing for a few days looks suspicious.

Recommend course of action:

like strings; of you come across an account you really like just like 3 or 4 posts and follow. you will get another chance to like more.

Reblogging; i don’t see this one being much of a problem if you just casually use tumblr. I myself have spent some time (but not all my time) on tumblr and Liked around 250 posts over 24 hours but have only reblogged 12 (which is probably still a lot) but i have also added something with the reblog such as a comment along with the normal tags people usually only put (i feel bad reblogging without contributing something). the only way i think you would reach a number like 40+ is if you are on all day with nothing else to do and are reblogging every third post you see (not that i’m judging, apparently reblogging helps more that likes.) or you are reblogging reblogs in response to them on a post that went viral. if you are adding to those i don’t really think that would be suspicious. And try not to reblog too many posts from one blog in a short amount of time that seems very spammy

REPOSTING IS NOT THE SAME AS REBLOGGING

reblogging, if you like the reblog it likes the original post. this is helping in most cases from what i’ve read. (just try not to over do it.)

reposting is copying the image or text (some cases both) and uploading it on your own, often done without permission form or crediting the original author. this is not helpful, if you have permission form the original author and you credit them, that should be ok.

yet again, i am also new and may be mistaken about some of the stuff here. this is based on personal experience and research i’ve done.

hope this helps others new users to this wild west. I intend on posting my art soon i just need to get it all together first, that i can upload a few pieces at a time.

If you are an experienced user who has any corrections of stuff to add I’m sure new users like myself would love the help.

[webbloggerz]

The Best Blog Sites to Submit Your Content: A Guide for Aspiring Bloggers

With the rapidly growing advanced technologies, blogging is now a platform through which one can easily share information and even establish a company. However great the content may be, the reality is that it must reach the right people or target market. One such method is to promote your blog in the right blog directories out there in the market place. In this guide you will find some of the best blog submit sites such as Bloggerz.co.in and also ways to make the most of it.

Why Submit Your Blog?

When I submit your blog to other sites, your blog traffic is considerably boosted. By accessing sets up blog submit sites, there is a way of reaching out to these audiences, and in the process enhancing the visibility of the blog besides enhancing the search engine results for the blogs. This may translate to increased traffic, more consumer interaction, and if you decide to make your blog commercial, higher sales.

Top Blog Submit Sites

1. Bloggerz.co.in

Bloggerz.co.in has taken its rightful place among the best blog sites that a beginner would want to invest in. This platform provides its users with an easy and intuitive Web desktop and communities where everyone is welcome to contribute. Many of these features are highly geared toward improving a blog’s SEO and making it as visible as possible, which is why, when one wishes to attract new visitors to what they have to say, Bloggerz.co.in is a great place to do just that.

2. Medium

A few platforms that I use fairly often are Medium is a platform which people use to share their writings and get connected with the readers, as well as fellow writers. Easy to use and with an already established readership, Medium is perfect for either personal or business blogging.

3. WordPress

WordPress is one of the leading blogging sites all over the world with great and numerous opportunities to customize the blog and use plugins. Whichever platform you decide to go for WordPress.com or WordPress.org you find that the platform is one that is very versatile as it can support different types of content.

4. Tumblr

Tumblr is a micro blogging site intended for the Young Generation. It is ideal for creative bloggers because its design embraces smooth integration of texts, images and multimedia.

5. Wix

Wix is mainly a website platform however, it has powerful blogging tools incorporated into it. Wix has beautiful templates and it is user friendly in that you can just simply drag and drop your content into position without having to write code.

This article outline the best features that every blogging site should posses.

When selecting a best blog site to submit your content, consider the following characteristics:

User-Friendly Interface: Consequently, you will greatly improve your blogging experience as well as help the readers access your posts much quicker.

Community Engagement: Seek out those that offer engagement between writers and bloggers and their audience. Community support is one of the most important determinants in the success equation of any blog.

SEO Features: Select we blog websites that provide Search Engine Optimization features or have SEO plug-ins in order to obtain better search engine ranking.

Blogging Tips for Successful Blog Submissions

To make the most of your blog submissions, keep these tips in mind:

Craft Compelling Headlines: The title normally is one of the first things a reader comes across when they want to read an article and thus should be good.

Use Relevant Tags and Keywords: It is vitally important to add proper Tags & keywords to your blog for better access & usability.

Engage with the Community: Do not only write your content but try to participate in other bloggers or readers blogs. This way, it can help to drive traffic back to your blog when you reply to comments on others peoples posts.

Conclusion

Picking the proper type of blog sites where to place your content is a way of improving your blogging experience. Through the use of sites such as Bloggerz.co.in and many others, the individual will get a better chance of reaching many individuals and therefore the following will be immensely helpful. Start submitting today and witness the changes on your blog’s growth.

Read More : https://bloggerz.co.in/contact-us/

[write-lets-do-this]

What is it? If, like me, you’ve been fairly active on online writing spaces, be it reposts of Tumblr screenshots on Pinterest, or avidly following all your favourite authors on Instagram, chances are you’ve come across this term.

It’s a fairly popular piece of grammar to use, but also a pretty controversial one. Some people (like me) use it all the time, while others will avoid it at all costs.

What it actually is, is a comma that goes at the end of a list before the ‘and.’ Like so:

I bought apples, pears, bananas, and oranges. I bought apples, pears, bananas and oranges.

The first example above uses the Oxford comma, while the second does not.

The reason I and so many others swear by it is the clarity it can add to a list without overly complicating the structure of a sentence. For instance, if you’re including a pair of items in a list, or something that might be misunderstood as a pair when you don’t want it to be, an Oxford comma can simplify matters without you having to contort the structure of your list just for it to make sense.

I invited my friends, Linda and John. I invited my friends, Linda, and John.

Now, looking at this, you would think from the first example that Linda and John are the friends being invited, but in the second, the friends are more clearly a different group of people.

You could, of course, avoid this by rearranging the list to be:

I invited Linda, John and my friends.

This doesn’t need an Oxford comma to be clear to understand, but even here in terms of the rhythm of the sentence, it just sounds better with one. Also, when you have a more complicated example than this, it can become quite difficult to reorder the list without it ending up sounding all clunky.

In another example below, the same sort of rule applies, but here we’ve got a ‘paired’ item in the list.

I study Music, English and Design and Technology. I study Music, English, and Design and Technology.

This makes it a little more complicated, too, because, if you’re familiar enough with the two words being paired together to mean a separate thing than what they might mean together, then the addition of the Oxford comma isn’t especially important. But if you aren’t, the comma serves to separate the items in the list more clearly. Without it, it’s very much possible that the items could be read separately and the reader might just think you’ve worded the sentence a bit weirdly or, if it’s in a bit of dialogue, want to make someone’s speech mannerisms more accentuated.

Of course, these are all fairly minor things to be considered when reading a list, and can often be overcome by simply reading in the context of the rest of the text, but in my opinion at least, the Oxford comma adds an invaluable extra level of clarity that isn’t achieved otherwise.

Overall, whatever you decide, what’s most important is consistency. Don’t go using it in one paragraph and then a few lines later write another list without it!

Are you for or against using the Oxford comma? Let me know in the comments if you have any interesting thoughts on this pesky little piece of grammar!

-Olive Tree

header image by Paisley Diaries. source.

[vees-strangeworld-omniverse]

ARGONUS INFO: a map of the planet:

(NOTE: description copy-pasted from DA where i normally post my works. any context that is missing here on tumblr can be found on my DA [linked here and on pinned post] )

[image best view when opened in a new tab. for any context about "copy-planets", they follow the weird "earth-like planet" trope where everything identical to earth, except for some noticeable differences dont worry, you'll se why that is later on...]

[re-uploaded due to original being posted from main]

NOTE: THIS MAP DOES NOT TAKE INTO ACOUNT SOME OF THE SMALLER ISLAND THAT ARE TOO SMALL TO DRAW IN. 

_____________

don't you just hate it when you think you're doing a tiny side project that starts turning into a whole ass world building universe?

..anyways, i decided to expand upon argonus a bit more; more specifically, make the biomes more clear and add some geography. i already made a map of argonus once, but now it's time for the (more full) details.

are you ready for my nonsense rambling? ALRIGHT HERE WE GO!!!!

first of let me just say this: i am crap at making maps. I literally just googled "literal translation of countries' names" and went from there. i also just grab a photo-to-linear converter on google and then made nessisarly changes to make it workable (because converting a photo of a colored drawing to linear creates messy results), plus a few misspelling here and there. but I'm happy with the results, cause now i really got a frame of references for when i start making more exclusive fauna and potentially stories.

anyways, as a copy planet of earth, it's not just the flora, fauna and biomes that are near-identical to us, but also the continents as well, even there's an "old world" and "new world". however, when it comes to countries, that's where it ends, because they have different names than ours (and different-looking countries).

but, before I go listing off countries, i should probably talk about language first:

so, because I lack some creativity, the elkinets do speak "common human" (aka human languages). common human, contrary to what one may believe, is not specific to humans; it's called "common human" because it's the most commonly spoken languages among humans, and has been developed independently by other sophonts across the omniverse.

some of the most common and predominate of the common human throughout the planet include: -English -spanish -Korean -Russian -Chinese -Hindi -Japanese -French -Italian -German -Arabic -Greek

however, their original language is known as "true elkinish", which has nouns, pronouns and adjectives in Latin and the rest in greek. here's how it works and sounds (example text taken from Butte collage):

[tumblr edit: italics represent latin]

english (what's latin and what's greek) The young girl brought me a very long letter from the teacher, and then she quickly disappeared. Oh my!

true elkinish (greek & latin): O puer pue efere ego poly longo littera apomagister, kai meta puella grigora. O thee! if this is too complicated, that's ok. most humans (and other earthfolk that come here) usually learn the Latin parts. most countries speak common human (which correlates to where they live, ie Chinese in center kingdom), however true elkinish is still taught and spoken throughout the planet. most developing countries/indigenous tribes still use this original language as their primary language.

finally here are what the continents called, and the countries that make up them:

OLD WORLD

EROON(europe), 10 countries: 1-Geranc 2-Ben Ital 3-Maronus 4-Isle of Smainx 5-lagusain 6-Talta Island 7-Dirus 8-Brith 9-Rishin 10-Scalvania (Note: brith, rishin and scalvania all are part of what's known as the "brithian kingdom")

SONIAS (asia), 7 countries: 1-Northernland 2-Lruss 3-Center Kingdom 4-Sunrise Lands 5-Kingdom of Laos (KO laos) 6-Indus 7-Swauda

NYLUS (africa), 9 countries: 1-Islangia 2-Libu 3-Gwagir 4-Sothepio 5-Central Lakerealms 6-Mussa 7-N'gola 8-South N'gola 9-Lemura Grasca

OCEANANA INDUS ISLANDS (indonesia), 8 countries: 1-Isle Indus 2-Rogdeginta 3-Lesser Indus 4-Guinea Centura 5-North Minor Centrua 6-Major Centrua 7-South Minor Centrua 8-Milva

ASTRA (austrailia), 7 countries: 1-Northern Lands 2-West Astra 3-Kingland 4-Swoth 5-Victon 6-Moaland 7-Tasmuth

NEW WORLD

NORTHEST AMERIGA (north america), 11 countries: 1-Y'uckta 2-Kiakdika 3-Hihiuantius 4-Villageda 5-Nation of ameriga 6-Nucklon 7-Rhadnol 8-Pwatubu 9-Gulf Islands 10-Kalaallit 11-Naveloon

SOUTHEST AMERIGA (south america), 8 countries 1-Redender 2-Guwanill 3-L'twends 4-Silvy Eenda 5-Isla Nywo 6-Eenda Isle 7-North Archus 8-South Archus

THE POLES: -nolerth -soleouth

expect this to be subject to change, since it's long post that needs to be updated when new lore/info comes out.

[cathartes-aura-shitposting]

ARGONUS INFO: a map of the planet:

(NOTE: description copy-pasted from DA where i normally post my works. any context that is missing here on tumblr can be found on my DA [linked here and on pinned post] )

[image best view when opened in a new tab. for any context about "copy-planets", they follow the weird "earth-like planet" trope where everything identical to earth, except for some noticeable differences dont worry, you'll se why that is later on...]

NOTE: THIS MAP DOES NOT TAKE INTO ACOUNT SOME OF THE SMALLER ISLAND THAT ARE TOO SMALL TO DRAW IN. 

_____________

don't you just hate it when you think you're doing a tiny side project that starts turning into a whole ass world building universe?

..anyways, i decided to expand upon argonus a bit more; more specifically, make the biomes more clear and add some geography. i already made a map of argonus once, but now it's time for the (more full) details.

are you ready for my nonsense rambling? ALRIGHT HERE WE GO!!!!

first of let me just say this: i am crap at making maps. I literally just googled "literal translation of countries' names" and went from there. i also just grab a photo-to-linear converter on google and then made nessisarly changes to make it workable (because converting a photo of a colored drawing to linear creates messy results), plus a few misspelling here and there. but I'm happy with the results, cause now i really got a frame of references for when i start making more exclusive fauna and potentially stories.

anyways, as a copy planet of earth, it's not just the flora, fauna and biomes that are near-identical to us, but also the continents as well, even there's an "old world" and "new world". however, when it comes to countries, that's where it ends, because they have different names than ours (and different-looking countries).

but, before I go listing off countries, i should probably talk about language first:

so, because I lack some creativity, the elkinets do speak "common human" (aka human languages). common human, contrary to what one may believe, is not specific to humans; it's called "common human" because it's the most commonly spoken languages among humans, and has been developed independently by other sophonts across the omniverse.

some of the most common and predominate of the common human throughout the planet include: -English -spanish -Korean -Russian -Chinese -Hindi -Japanese -French -Italian -German -Arabic -Greek

however, their original language is known as "true elkinish", which has nouns, pronouns and adjectives in Latin and the rest in greek. here's how it works and sounds (example text taken from Butte collage):

[tumblr edit: italics represent latin]

english (what's latin and what's greek) The young girl brought me a very long letter from the teacher, and then she quickly disappeared. Oh my!

true elkinish (greek & latin): O puer pue efere ego poly longo littera apomagister, kai meta puella grigora. O thee! if this is too complicated, that's ok. most humans (and other earthfolk that come here) usually learn the Latin parts. most countries speak common human (which correlates to where they live, ie Chinese in center kingdom), however true elkinish is still taught and spoken throughout the planet. most developing countries/indigenous tribes still use this original language as their primary language.

finally here are what the continents called, and the countries that make up them:

OLD WORLD

EROON(europe), 10 countries: 1-Geranc 2-Ben Ital 3-Maronus 4-Isle of Smainx 5-lagusain 6-Talta Island 7-Dirus 8-Brith 9-Rishin 10-Scalvania (Note: brith, rishin and scalvania all are part of what's known as the "brithian kingdom")

SONIAS (asia), 7 countries: 1-Northernland 2-Lruss 3-Center Kingdom 4-Sunrise Lands 5-Kingdom of Laos (KO laos) 6-Indus 7-Swauda

NYLUS (africa), 9 countries: 1-Islangia 2-Libu 3-Gwagir 4-Sothepio 5-Central Lakerealms 6-Mussa 7-N'gola 8-South N'gola 9-Lemura Grasca

OCEANANA INDUS ISLANDS (indonesia), 8 countries: 1-Isle Indus 2-Rogdeginta 3-Lesser Indus 4-Guinea Centura 5-North Minor Centrua 6-Major Centrua 7-South Minor Centrua 8-Milva

ASTRA (austrailia), 7 countries: 1-Northern Lands 2-West Astra 3-Kingland 4-Swoth 5-Victon 6-Moaland 7-Tasmuth

NEW WORLD

NORTHEST AMERIGA (north america), 11 countries: 1-Y'uckta 2-Kiakdika 3-Hihiuantius 4-Villageda 5-Nation of ameriga 6-Nucklon 7-Rhadnol 8-Pwatubu 9-Gulf Islands 10-Kalaallit 11-Naveloon

SOUTHEST AMERIGA (south america), 8 countries 1-Redender 2-Guwanill 3-L'twends 4-Silvy Eenda 5-Isla Nywo 6-Eenda Isle 7-North Archus 8-South Archus

THE POLES: -nolerth -soleouth

expect this to be subject to change, since it's long post that needs to be updated when new lore/info comes out.

[printandmatter]

Session 7: Taiba Akhtar and Lisa Rahman

Written by Abla Ebbiary

Today was our last session a the Print and Matter School. We were lucky enough to be visited by not one, but two talented creatives, Taiba Akhtar and Lisa Rahman.

Taiba Akhtar is an artist, printmaker and gallery information assistant based in Birmingham. She became interested in art at a young age after deciding that academia wasn’t for her. She found that she had natural talent when it came to art making and was quickly drawn to print-making and sculpting which she later further explored through her many degrees. Taiba completed an Art Foundation, BA (Hons) in Fine Art, and Masters in Fine Art. Since completing her MA in 2020, she has continued her art practice and has also taken up a position as an Information Assistant at Birmingham’s beloved Ikon Gallery.

Taiba’s work explores the organic nature of creating textures and prints by hand, etching being one of her favourite techniques. Etching is a print-making technique where a design is scratched onto a coated plate, a strong acid or mordent is then used to cut into the scratched away areas creating a plate with an ‘indented’ design that can be inked up and printed. The outcome creates a raw, sketchy prints with so much depth and dimension, despite it being 2D.

Taiba beautifully guided us through her education and working career, quite literally her CV. She is a fantastic storyteller, she described processes which could have come across as tedious, and overwhelming for some, in the most pleasant and poetic manner.

I felt as though there was an underlying theme of growth, and growth into ones’ self, something many of us artists experience personally and creatively. At times, it almost felt like a spoken word performance about her finding her feet as a young Muslim artist (I have a soft spot for coming-of-age stories, so let me have my moment!) It wasn’t until after her presentation, she told me “I never used to raise my hand in class, now I can’t shut up!” – I love that for her, we all did! I’m so excited to keep up with Taiba’s journey!

Taiba shared her thoughts on the art-making process, which reminded me of something an old art teacher had told me. When she completed a final piece, she was often underwhelmed, and momentarily disappointed with the outcome. However, she came to realise something that was more important, the process. What she had learned through undertaking a project, the skills she gained, the message she put across, and the feelings she evoked through her work, became the things that were most valuable to her. I think we can probably relate and learn from this.

Our next guest speaker, Lisa Rahman is a creative director and graphic designer from London. Like Taiba, she completed an Art Foundation to discover her niche. Throughout her arts education she was attracted to graphic design and the potential it offered for telling compelling stories. She also developed a love for hand-drawn lettering, something she stills returns to in her commercial work today. Upon completing her studies, she undertook an internship at Elle where she climbed the ranks to became Deputy Art Director. She went on to work for other fashion and lifestyle magazines including Glamour and Lula and has also pursued independent freelance work, lecturing at Chelsea College of Art, and mentoring through various arts organisations including Rabbits Road Press.

Her role in creative direction involves communicating stories through the design, placement and curation of text and image, commonly in the form of magazine spreads. It was evident through Lisa’s work that her mission is to add a deeper meaning to the world of fashion and lifestyle, the world synonymous with the superficial. She stated that she “wants to take the reader on a journey, to tell a story about the person being photographed.”

Lisa uses an adjustable ‘flat wall plan’ to help organise the order of pages in the magazines she curates. As the editorial shoots and brand advertising content comes in, she rearranges the flow of the pages to create certain moods and cohesive narratives. I found this particularly useful to hear about since it’s an approach that could be applied to any form of art or information organising and display, whether it’s planning future posts on your Instagram feed, or deciding how to display a series of paintings your living room.

One of my favourite works Lisa presented was the ‘Millennial Pink’ editorial. Fashion publications often dedicate editorials to showcasing colours that are trending or are set to be in fashion, suggesting simple ways to incorporate the colour into your everyday wardrobe. What even is millennial pink? Lisa decided that a fun way to present this colour trend might be to display examples of millennial pink objects in a Google image search style page, with great results! Whether Lisa intended this or not, she creates work that is relatable and palatable to the audience.

Hearing about some of her positive experiences of working as a Muslim Woman of Colour in fashion journalism and branding was refreshingly reassuring. Recalling her experience, she felt like she ‘didn’t have to perform to be seen.’ It is empowering to know that she felt confident and comfortable to show up as her true self and got through by just doing the work, she didn’t have to have a massive personality or big character like many others in her world.   

I feel like some of us creatives grow disillusioned in the pursuit of becoming successful artists. Some of are stuck between wanting to practice the art we love, while also having to work to make a guaranteed, stable living. It’s people like Taiba and Lisa that reassure and remind us that we can pursue art to whatever capacity we want to, and that our journey is our art, not necessarily the outcomes. I am so happy that the students of the Print and Matter school have taken steps to achieve this. Many of us enrolled in this school for different reasons. To take time out of our working life to invest in the arts, to connect with fellow Muslims that have a passion for the arts, something we all feel has been lacking in our art journeys.

Thank you, Amal, for investing in the Muslim community, and bringing creatives together. Thank you, Sofia, our amazing tutor, for mentoring and supporting us over the past few months and to all the guest speakers, for inspiring and motivating us in so many ways. Finally, thank you, The Gap, for hosting us and making us endless cups of coffee and hot chocolate!

Come along to the Print and Matter Artists Forum where there will be talks, discussions, an exhibition of work made during Print and Matter and the launch of our collaborative publication. The event will take place at The Gap (opposite Moseley Road Baths) on Saturday 18th March, 12:00-17:00. See you all there!