#i don't know if i just sound pretentious because it's hard to explain or if i even quite know what i'm talking about

[darkestrellar]

I think I decided against the idea of making any adaptation of the shadow crystal any more like a definable entity. So much of the appeal (for me personally) comes from the fact that it has no individuality, no personality, it's not an "entity", it's just a thing that exists and apparently just the fact that it exists is enough to enable weirdness.

[suratan-zir]

rambling about language, rats and dreams..?

Recently, for the first time in two years, I had to speak Russian. I had to remember how to speak Russian, or rather how to write in Russian. The things I do for love for my rats...

explanation for those who doesn't know me too well: I was born and raised in the eastern Ukraine (the so-called Donbas), in a Russian-speaking environment. Studied in the "Russian" school, which means that all subjects, except for Ukrainian language and literature, are taught in Russian. Everyone around me spoke Russian. People there can understand and speak Ukrainian, obviously, as everyone in Ukraine does. But it's not used in everyday life, due to the years of russification.

Then, as soon as we moved from Russian-occupied Donetsk, a few months before the invasion, we (my husband and I) completely switched to Ukrainian. We didn't want to have anything in common with those people. (and after the invasion, many Ukrainians also made this choice)

Anyway, one of my rats, Krobus, has a disease unknown to mankind. In all the years of keeping rats, I have never been in such a situation. Something makes it difficult for him to breathe through his nose, yet it is not a respiratory infection. His lungs are fine, he doesn't sneeze too much, doesn't have a runny nose etc. No antibiotics, nebulizer inhalations and even corticosteroids have any effect whatsoever. Vets specializing in rodents don't know what to do. Most likely, it's some kind of growths in the nasal passages.

After a lot of trial and error, incompetent and idiotic advices, I decided to contact our old and trusted vet in Donetsk. But I didn't want to explain to her why I switched languages, I didn't want to have any political discussions, especially with Krobus' health being at stake. So I had to write all the messages to her in Russian. And it was HARD. I don't mean like morally hard. No, plainly hard. I kept mixing up prepositions, word endings, etc., and generally had a tough time finding the right words.

You don't understand how huge this is. I don't know how to explain… Russian wasn't just a simple tool for me. I used to write poems and prose, long letters and essays. My favorite author was Russian. (Nabokov, probably the least Russian Russian but still). In my school years I was that one annoying girl whom the Russian teacher used as an example for others or selected for language competitions to represent the school/town. I know you can't tell that from my shitty English, because the teaching of English in Ukraine and Russia is generally at a terrible level, to the point that English teachers often barely speak English themselves.

Losing it, a giant part of my identity, one of my very few skills…it should feel terrible. But it's fucking amazing! Trying to speak Russian and sounding weird? Wonderful! Trying to write in Russian and forgetting the correct spelling? Fantastic!

In the modern world, learning new languages is a very common practice. But trying to forget a certain language? Now that's a somewhat unique experience that is now shared by so many Ukrainians. Not all of us give up the Russian language for moral or ethical reasons, although many do. And not only in order to correct injustice and the consequences of years of colonization. For some of us, the Russian language is simply a trigger for our trauma. It's a reminder of the pain Russia is subjecting us to. When Russian missiles fly over our heads, at least in they can't penetrate our minds. Eh, it wasn't supposed to sound this pretentious. Ew.

This whole language-switching thing confused my brain a little bit and now I dream mostly in English. So that's a fun side-effect? I don't know why not in Ukrainian though.

In case you're wondering, no medication is helping Krobus still. He feels and acts fine, it's not getting significantly worse for many months, but nothing makes him better. We'll keep trying.

[the-holy-ghosted]

*putting on a moustache and sunglasses*

So like what’s the deal with ghosted what’s that about

now see the deal with Ghosted is that it's not what happens within the events of the film that captivates me so much, though don't get me wrong i love this film to bits, but rather, it's the idea of what happens after the whole thing that makes me FUCKING NUTS

because the whole thing is relatively cut and dry in the sense that we don't have to guess about what happened before and we don't have to guess about how everybody is feeling in the present. we know (MOST) important characters backgrounds and what they're doing at Falkhill and slowly revealing Paul's context was pretty interesting if not a little abrupt at the end there but its the very last scene of this film down to the very frame that flips the whole hour and a half you just watched over on its head and prevents me from getting a good night's sleep because i can't stop thinking about it

ELABORATING WITH A LOT OF SPOILERS UNDER THIS

explaining the plot of this movie is hard without sounding like im writing a pretentious review and not just talking out of my ass on tumblr but for my followers who haven't watched this movie and dont care enough to: Ghosted (2011) is set in a british prison in which Jack (John Lynch) is a long time prisoner who's wife just dumped him apparently on the anniversary of their sons death (tough break) and is being advised by his friend and cellmate Ahmed (Art Malik) (who does NOT get HALF as much screen-time or plot relevance as he DESERVES,) to find something to put his mind to and be proud of outside of his failures Paul (Martin Compston) is a prisoner who was just transferred out of a Young Offenders prison AS FAR AS WE'RE TOLD... though its noticeable from the beginning that hes not a very good liar and his story is suspicious at best Clay (Craig Parkinson) is kindof The Guy of their prison wing whos dealing drugs to other prisoners and assumes the position of authority over everybody else, though compared to other inmates with bigger cliques, his foundations are shaky. the description of this film on letterboxd calls him "the wing beast" and i have never cried laughing so hard reading something in my life

Clay and Jack both hone in on Paul immediately for different reasons. Jack, after his pep talk with Ahmed, sees Paul as a source of "a little self belief, something to be proud of", but Clay scoops him under his wing for being relatively young and impressionable. This puts Jack and Clay at odds with each other. after some plot, Paul gets into very big trouble with Clay and after An Incident is promptly plopped into Jacks hands, who had requested Paul move into his cell earlier but didn't have a good enough excuse for it. Well You've Got A Bloody Good Reason Now ect ect

Jack and Paul buddy up immediately and its noticable that Paul is sort of filling in the empty space where a son would be for Jack, however we discover that Paul has been lying about his past to everybody, including Jack. he lied about his family and he lied about having only just been transferred from Y.O. and hadn't been telling the whole truth about his sentence. what the truth ends up being, in a nutshell, is that Paul is accidentally responsible for the death of Jack's son, having been the one who started the house fire he died in (we were never even told that Jack's son died in a house fire before this, we are only told this in Paul's flashback at the end of the movie and are supposed to act, like, surprised?? whatever). consequentially, Jack flips his lid and prompts my personal favorite scene in this film in which he beats the living shit out of Paul with his bare hands and immediately regrets it the second the adrenaline wears off, hitting an alarm button within the cell that alerts the guards.

the guards whisk him away and he is put in solitary confinement, which we find out was actually the first sequence of the film where hes shown with an absurdly long beard, and considering every other fucking scene he's in is of him shaving his face, i assume this is to show just how long he's been kept in solitary confinement, which quite honestly was kindof exciting to realize at the end of the film.

and then. the end scene.

after solitary, Jack is put in cuffs and brought to see Paul who looked Extremely Dead after Jack had him, but hes not dead! just almost dead. Jack is sat next to him and tries to apologize but starts to cry, reaching out a hand to hold Paul's but retracting it regretfully. Paul, having looked unconscious not five seconds before, moves his hand to place it over Jack's...

and then the movie ends. and i am left writhing on my floor in anguish BUT NOT BEFORE I EXPLAIN TO YOU THAT THIS

THIS is what the deal is with Ghosted

the pathetic gestures of "im sorry" and "its okay" are what kill me. sorry is nowhere near enough to justify anything that EITHER of them did, NOR should they be forgiven. AND YET.

and what gets my gears going is the thought of what everything looks like AFTER this scene. after they've bonded so close and after Jack already thought that Paul stopped lying to him, thinking that he could protect Paul from Clay now... after they started to fill the spaces for people they were missing in their lives... and after they've RUINED each others lives. They Have Ruined Each Others Lives and yet Paul probably would have had to DELIBERATELY ASK for them to bring Jack to see him because he just BEAT Paul within an INCH of his life and would NOT !! have brought Jack to see him upon Jack's own request!! Paul would have wanted to see him too!! after all this what does their relationship look like now... the image of father and son has been all but shattered in each other's eyes, one can assume, but are they still close... does the guilt and responsibility drift them apart or does it pull them inseparably together? Ahmed tells Jack that "there is no such thing as coincidence, only fate" but what does their fate look like... does it end here or does it mean that they're together indefinitely? the end of this film swings the door wide open and i think about it. way too often. unacceptably often, even.

all in all theres no reason that this should be my favorite film but it is. if nothing else it's made me look into the other actors involved and branch out with a to-watch list as long as my arm that will only get longer once i branch out from there. is it the perfect movie? no this film is mediocre at best. have i made a number of my friends sit down and watch it and listen to me yell incoherently about it? of course i have.

[saintsenara]

I don't know if you are still doing the ship game. What do you think about Drarry? I apologise if you have already answered it- I tried to see if someone else has asked but I may have missed your response. It's a very popular ship and there are lots of well written fics by incredibly talented authors that I have enjoyed. But when I take that aside and look at the pairing just on its own, I struggle to articulate my thoughts on what I actually think about the pairing.

thank you for the ask @sarafina-sincerity!

i do read drarry, but i think it's probably fair to say that i don't read drarry because i expect it to make sense.

i like it fluffy and stupid, to be enjoyed after a hard day at work when i want something which is crammed full of fuck-buddies-to-oh-wait-this-is-serious tropes which doesn't require too much effort to engage with.

and so the fics i tend to read aren't drarry which really grapples with exactly how difficult it can be to make harry and draco work as a stable couple while still feeling true to their canon characters.

[they're not fics which dive into how they would be as an unstable couple either, which is - frankly - because i prefer to see harry in toxic messes with other people.]

i like a bit of of out-of-character nonsense - i love to tune into a fic in which draco is assertive and witty and sophisticated [even though in the books he's an insecure little bitch whose jokes always flop] and harry is passive, preternaturally adoring, and speaks like a therapist [even though in the books he's a reckless feral cat with the emotional awareness of cardboard], or ron and hermione come around to it really quickly. i think they're fun!

but arguing that drarry could make sense as a happy relationship when the characters are as they are in canon is difficult. indeed - with my apologies to drarry-is-canon nation - i think that it's even more difficult than making many of the completely implausible-sounding harry-centric pairings work [and, indeed, draco-centric pairings, taco nation rise up]. and i think it's worth dissecting why.

the first reason is that, much as umbridge is often the villain that readers have the most visceral reaction to [and much as the thing about snape which seems to most upset readers is that he's a horrible teacher], the fact that draco is just some guy at school actually makes the pairing harder. unlike something like snarry - in which a semi-mystical connection between the two is set up by the narrative - or tomarry - in which an overtly mystical connection is - drarry is just two lads who don’t really get on.

indeed, despite a tendency to explain their vibe in the books as sexual tension, harry gives no indication of particularly caring about draco as a person while they're at school. he thinks he’s annoying, pretentious, rude, and cowardly, but - outside of half-blood prince - he's not ever actually shown to escalate those feelings into being particularly obsessed with him. harry doesn't watch draco constantly, or follow him around, or devote a huge amount of time to thinking about him when they're not together for reasons which aren't directly connected to his perception of draco as a bigot whom he loathes. the reason why he remembers so many details about him is because he wants to see him and his father punished, not because he finds him compelling.

even in half-blood prince, harry's obsession with draco is broadly external to the man himself - it's rooted in his attempts to block out his grief over sirius, his anger at the death eaters who killed his godfather [lucius malfoy among them], his suspicion of snape, and the things he's learning about tom riddle.

draco, though, is obsessed with him. harry spends seven years living rent free in his head: he tracks his movements, he can barely make it through the day without seeking him out to try and get some attention from him, and he clearly talks about him all the time [he needs no prompting from "crabbe" and "goyle" to bring him up during the polyjuice scene in chamber of secrets, for example].

he also obviously has some level of respect for harry - he acknowledges, even if it's through complaining to his father, that he's a good quidditch player, for instance - and, by the end of the series, he clearly does regard harry as brave. whereas, when it comes to more positive emotions, harry pities draco, but he never seems to like or admire him.

[and it's striking that - since i see a lot the idea that drarry is more plausible than hinny as a pairing - harry takes exactly the same view of draco's relationship to voldemort as he does to ginny's. he regards draco as someone who should be protected from voldemort, but doesn't regard him as someone who could fight back or who should be acknowledged as talented in his own right. despite the fact that, for example, he knows draco's a competent occlumens.]

as a result, i always prefer drarry in which draco is the more feral one, but the default dynamic seems to have harry chasing him, rather than the other way round. i would also like to see more authors work with how likely draco would be to put up for long with having such an obvious interest in a man who is likely to be paternalistic towards him in return

[and also a man who's quite likely to expect to become his partner's priority, rather than the other way round. one issue with a lot of harry’s relationships, whether his canonical one with ginny or a fanon alternative, is that the role he occupies in the story means that he tends to relate to people he knows not as equals but either as people he needs to protect or people he needs to protect others from. in a relationship with draco, he is likely to pivot from the latter to the former, and i can't imagine that draco - who thinks of himself as a protector as well, especially in his relationship with his mother - is going to particularly enjoy this. this is why i like middle-aged, have had decades to calm down, widowed or divorced drarry - it feels like it has more chance of being equal than the school-age or immediately post-war stuff.]

harry's indifference-bordering-on-dislike towards draco does stand in contrast to how he thinks about other male characters that he's frequently paired with. to return to snarry and tomarry, harry is shown to admire snape at numerous points prior to the end of half-blood prince, his interest in the prince's textbook reveals that he and snape have a shared intellectual compatibility, and - above all - harry understands and empathises with snape's background and experiences. similarly, harry is shown to admire voldemort at numerous points, the narrative sets them up as being very similar, and - above all - harry understands and empathises with voldemort's background and experiences.

[harry is also obviously physically attracted to tom riddle, while draco isn't - although this is, of course, not an insurmountable issue - obviously his type. the men harry finds attractive in canon are all tall, thin, and dark-haired, and draco is always described by the narrative in terms which suggest that harry thinks he's ugly (the frequent description of him as "sleek" or "gleaming" is an insult in context). the same is true for lucius malfoy.]

i think that one explanation for the above is that a lack of shared background is one of the major stumbling blocks to drarry which doesn't exist in the other two pairings.

i love an auror partners trope-fic as much as any other girl, but - in reality - draco never needs to work and never gives the impression of being career-minded or finding career ambition valuable. harry is certainly rich enough not to need to work - and the fact that he has a pureblood name and resembles his pureblood father gives him an amount of class protection in the wizarding world which means that drarry is nowhere near as socially unequal as something like dramione - but he evidently finds the idea of working valuable, not least because he wants to achieve recognition for something other than being the boy-who-lived.

but draco - who likes being thought special on the basis of unearned things like his family name - would struggle to understand this. and, in return, harry would struggle to understand how draco's adult life - something i suspect he would see as one of tedious luxury - is driven by a sense of conformist duty to his family and his peers. after all, harry believes in the value of found family and earned loyalty, and loathes any expectation that he should be deferential to people just because of who they are.

of course, i don't think this would prevent them being together. it would just cause a tension which would either see everything crash and burn [hot] or which would require growth from both characters which takes a certain lightness of touch to pull off. there are lots of drarry authors who do one or both of these in their works, of course. but those authors are very rarely trying to portray harry and draco as [to begin with, at least] a good or healthy couple…

but with this said, i also think that some common criticisms of drarry wouldn't actually be a big deal to either harry or draco.

the most significant of these is the fact that harry is morally righteous - yes - but this manifests itself in an expectation of loyalty from other people, but not an expectation of purity.

in post-war drarry, i think it's entirely reasonable to say that harry's belief that the malfoys turned against voldemort because of loyalty to each other [something he finds valuable, and clearly considers to be the appropriate way for a family unit to behave - look at what he thinks of percy weasley, for example], as well as lucius malfoy's extra-canonical willingness to help harry and the ministry by informing on all his former associates [which, according to jkr, results in him being spared azkaban and harry thinking that's fine] enables him to let go of draco's past, and to have a relationship without the weight of that history hanging over them. i don't think he ever becomes fond of lucius - although i think he is likely to feel slightly more warmth towards narcissa - but i also don't think he would expect draco to estrange himself from his family or completely change as a person in order to consider him worthy of his affection.

[this is, for what it's worth, something which makes dramione much more implausible for me - even if draco is capable of redemption (which, like everyone, he is), i don't think she's ever forgiving him or considering him changed enough to be worthy of her, and i don't think she should have to.]

draco may not, however, consider this acceptance to be as much of a gift as harry might - above all because i believe sincerely that harry would never feel bad about the sectumsempra incident. draco is clearly someone who holds grudges, and i think that this would always be in quite profound tension with harry's remarkable [but also entirely self-interested] ability to decide he's going to let things go.

i also think that harry is going to be able to handle draco's more negative characteristics better than he’s sometimes given credit for, since all of them - especially his tendency towards jealousy, self-aggrandisement, and moping - are things he shares with ron. and, like ron, i think draco is going to be surprisingly good at dealing with harry's impulsivity, his tendency to brood, and tendency to form knee-jerk judgements. these seemingly opposing personality traits are actually quite nicely balanced.

and, of course, the big one: love is strange and unpredictable; forgiveness can be easy just as often as it can be difficult; everyone is capable of redemption; people can choose to be together despite significant odds against them; choice is much more interesting than fate; and fluffy drarry is unbelievably entertaining.

my final statement, though? people are sleeping on dron. ron and draco have all the right ingredients - above all, the fact that they're narrative mirrors - which makes things like snack bang. the potential for drama and intrigue and destabilising love is right there. harry simply cannot compete.

[bharv]

Okay, here we go then! Waterdeep magical zoning law anon again.

I had followed so many new blogs after bg3 came out and then unfollowed so many more over this hot take. I don't know if you read the article but Gale's writer said that Gale is annoying. And as some one who loves his character and deeply relates to his struggle with suicide, I 100% agree with his writer's take. Gale is annoying, he is more than a bit of a prick, especially at the beginning. He is pompous and elitist. But that is literally his character growth; to either becoming more humble and sensitive to others or lean hard into his worst nature.

When you first meet him, he asks if you are versed in magic. If you answer "I'm not, why do you ask?" He says "No matter to worry the unlettered over." A completely normal question to ask and he answers in the most condescending ways possible. He straight up calls you illiterate unprovoked.

When arriving in the Shadow Cursed Lands the first time. He begins tell you about shadow magic. A sorcerer can respond that they know shadow magic and they don't need him to explain it to them. He will laugh and express his relief and how he sometimes forgets that he is traveling amongst peers again. Very much an "I'm glad you aren't an uneducated peasant."

However, I feel like his super fans, (and fans of another paler white man in the party,) will do everything in their power to sand down any and all rough edges for a white male character. All I am hearing from them is Gale can go through character devolved but only if he was unproblematic to begin with. Which they try to make him into. Its him being a pretentious asshole at the beginning that makes his argument with Lorroakan, if you convince him not to pursue the crown, so much of a great character moment for him. Its his moment of self reflection to go "good gods, is that what I sounded like????" And that is super interesting to me about him.

Abused as he was, and yes I very much think he was, he is still someone who acts and sounds like he comes from privilege. The famed arch wizard Elminster Aumar became his mentor when he was eight. He went to one of the most prestigious schools in Faerun. He can be both in need of a sympathy and also of scorn.

I feel this leads into a wider problem with fandoms that you can only like a character that is pure and good in every way. If they are not, then you have to obfuscate or bend a character to make them too good for this world. Because heaven forbid if this character doesn't get the Good Boy Stamp™️ of approval then you too are also a horrible bad person for liking them. We can't just find interest and relatability in flawed characters. This is a courtesy only extended to white male characters by the way.

Gale has to be an annoying pretentious prick at the beginning to become the humble professor ready to teach young wizards about illusion at the end.

Also I think him using the orb to kill the Absolute at the end is beautiful and tragic. I plan to do that ending with a Durge who romances him and is unable to escape Bhaal. Making it a tragedy about how people Faerun; from Ketheric, to Dame Aylin, to the Dark Urge and Gale are unable to escape the god manipulation over mortals and the deep pain that causes.

Only slightly sorry for this book I just wrote.

Ooooh anon you’re bringing the spice into my inbox!

So as somebody who relates to Gale really really way too much… honestly I know I am annoying to people and I know I was also insufferable before I was humbled by life. And I think Gale had never felt humility before his downfall! I love his mix of wild pride and self deprecation a LOT, super relatable to me.

That Lorroakan point too! Really on it for me. I think it’s VERY easy for wizards with access to power and status to go off the deep end.

I do think that when you have a character like Gale who a lot of people are going to relate to there’s going to be a lot of big feelings about the sort of stuff inferred from that interview. But I also think you’re right that the journey he goes on is a transformative one and is thematically in line with others!

I also think the happy ending was a really late addition - I fully believe EA Gale only had the sacrifice and pursuing godhood (though I thought it might be through lichdom) endings. That like more of the others there was no easy ending, but then with the rewrite it made sense to have something a bit softer. I fully intended to do the sacrifice ending and then just. Got too emotional about the possibility of happiness for him and my tav!

Basically I like Gale’s flaws a LOT and I love the complexity in his story. And probably have even more controversial takes on his complexity as a person. I love that he’s elitist and a bit of a snob but is earnestly, desperately wanting to connect and be different. He’s very special to me. Oh Gale!

[lokisis]

(Can I treat this askbox like an actual email?)(I have conflict to create)(if this is too meta, tell me so I can adjust future asks ^_^)

To: Pink

Cc: Blue, Spamton

Hi guys! How's everyone doing? Are things going good? Here's a pretty photo that I took, of a city from the Pacific Northwest of the "light world"

Being dramatic and cryptic is really fun! Here's some more pompous and /totally/ nonsense statements that I can make. Don't take it seriously. Don't listen too closely. Why would I tell the truth? But then, why would I lie?

:)

Pink, there is an abandoned machine that, in the light world was a drawing of the dream of a Lightner (presumably the dream of a certain ghost monster—who I will not name at this time).

But here (cyber world) it's a big robotic machine with wings, abandoned and tangled in vines and rotting away in a hidden room in the queen's mansion. If you ask Swatch (mansion butler) about it, they will likely refuse to tell you much of anything about it, but they know about the machine because they helped in making it.

For some reason (which I know but won't explain) spamton really really wants to get this machine (he's not meant to get it)(and probably banned from the mansion for repeatedly attempting to steal it)(from what I've seen, he's also scared of swatchlings for similar reasons)(hard to say for suresies)(I'm kind of working with literal actual subtext—like the storytelling kind—here. So. A lot of uncertainty.).

Funny thing is—it's doomed from the start. The vines that I mentioned, will become green cables or strings like a marionette, and while he would be powerful, he wouldn't be free. And, cutting the strings will just cause him to fall, and the machine to break, and killing him to the fullest extent that darkners are capable of dying. (In the versions of events that I can "read," he gets turned into an item) (hard to explain)

If I got enough of the details correct, you'll be able to confirm soon. But, I'm sure it's so blatantly obviously a lie, that it won't have any truth at all.

Of course, you won't believe a word you hear from me. Right?

I'm really just here to have fun, and sounding pretentious is tons of fun! So, once again, that was a nonsense story with zero actual meaning, just meant to waste everyone's time ;)

Have a wonderful day.

Bye!

- Marrow

Wh- hey!!

He doesn't need to see this.

Not yet, anyway.

(It functions more like mail, so only the recipient and nearby ppl can see it. They're still "emails" but it's bc they're already "e" yknow?)

[actualhumancryptid]

I feel like it's hard to talk about writing original work in a fanfic space without the fear of sounding pretentious or 'too good for fic.’ Like I am just biding my time for the 'real' writing to come.

And it's hard to talk about fanfic in an original writing space. At least a professionalised, non-online writing space that isn't fandom-affiliated. The risk there is the fear of sounding like you don't take the work seriously. Or that you aren't worth taking seriously as a writer.

Which is ridiculous, because they're so connected to me. And they both matter.

And yes, more and more I am seeing the taboo element of it lessening, in non-fandom spaces. But it's still there.

There's this post going around that shits on fanfic-turned-novels. It's like you have to prove your allegiance to one side of this. That it is a zero-sum thing. Be part of the us or the them. Be the novelist turning their nose up at fandom. Be the fanfic writer poking fun at the fics shoved into a novel box with the serial numbers filed off. And yes, I have read some fics-turned-novels where it looks like a child in an ill-fitted novel suit. Transformative works often have a certain shape, structurally, in terms of how characterisation and exposition works in them. And getting them to ape a different form can come off lopsided.

But I have also seen some that make the leap seamlessly. Because many novel-length fics already have all the necessary pieces to make them work as original stories.

Regardless of how they succeeded or not, I don't see how these particular novels have harmed you in any way.

Seeing in the comments of that post, people shitting on how they hate seeing 'bad fanfic tropes' out in the wild in a published novel. As if a lot of them aren't just romance writing tropes. I promise you, fanfic isn't ruining mainstream literature by flooding it with things like the 'enemies to lovers' trope. Fanfic isn't even responsible for that trope existing. Go watch My Fair Lady.

We need to kill cringe culture. If seeing characters 'toe off their shoes' or 'card their hands through their hair’ stresses you out that much, you need to take a breath.

I don't know what the conclusion to this is. I guess I just want to be able to talk about both sides of my writing, without feeling like I have a split personality.

I actually started this post wanting to talk about the fanfic I'm excited to be working on. And the experiments in voice and POV I'm excited to be playing around with in my original fiction. I don't want to have to explain the existence of either, like they need some kind of excuse.

[lokilysolbitch]

witchposting. my witchcraft learning method for new subjects/topics is: less than barebones research, poke my foot at it, read approximately one (1) book, play around with the topic in practice until i start having personal views about it, and at some point read more books for extra tips, to compare experiences, etc. i will explain the details of these steps in a minute

i need to have hands on experience for things to make sense or to help me learn meaningfully and i think a lot of people work this way. reading a bunch of books before you get hands on experience is (USUALLY) not very helpful. the words on a page won't have much meaning to you until you've seen the topic with your eyes and held it in your hands. it's better to have met a dog before trying to learn dog's body language from a book. you end up memorizing instead of learning

anyways. my steps:

i'm going to use poetry as an example and i'm gonna pretend this is my first time learning what a poem is. let's say i saw a youtube comment saying that they read a good poem that made them feel something. i saw this new word for the first time and figure i want to try making one.

less than barebones research:

i go on google, tumblr, tiktok, etc and search things like "poem" "what is a poem" "poetry". maybe even a baby book on poetry made with those thick cardboard pages. this is not any sort of in depth research. this is my first time hearing of a poem. i just need to know the very very basic idea of what a poem could be, how people view poems, things like that. in life this step would be equal to just hearing a phrase thrown around in general but of course with witchcraft, most people are not going to be talking about these things out at the family dinner or your friends birthday party. so this information is not meant to be gospel. it's just to expose yourself to the concept.

poke my foot at it:

this is where i make a half assed attempt or even just consider the concept of making a poem. do i think it sounds interesting? what would i write about if i made one? do rhyming and rhythm seem difficult? maybe i might write a line or two and see how it felt or if any part of it was easier or harder or more vague than i expected.

at this point you're coming up with questions and things you're curious about. so when you formally learn about more, you will naturally pick up on information that is useful to you. it makes formal learning more interesting because you have specific goals on what you want to get out of it. it's like how game tutorials are overwhelming and confusing at first, but once you play a little and realize what prizes you want out of the game, you'll care more when you're showed how to get them.

read approximately one (1) book:

the book number is optional of course but usually my little ADHD brain taps out after one book and won't read on that topic again for months, so i stick to one. i look around to find what book will have a good amount of information without being pretentious and hard to read, or too flowery to the point most of the words are meaningless. i only have one change for the next few months to finish a book so i try to find a good one.

play around with the topic in practice until i start having personal views about it:

at this point i have a good amount of general knowledge on poetry. maybe i don't know the big fancy stuff but i know about literary devices and tips of writers block and such. i have probably heard of a few specific types of poetry that seemed interesting that i could poke my foot at later.

at this point i just start writing. i try a poem writing technique i learned from the book. i try to make up my own. i write good poems on purpose or on accident. i wrote bad poems on purpose or on accident. i basically am sticking my hands in it and messing around and trying things to see how they feel. after a while i start to learn what i like, what i think is still confusing, what i think the book may have been wrong or biased on. i'm gaining personal experience and from that my own opinions that i may change later. i have experienced enough that i can discuss it without just repeating what i heard in books and i'm probably seeking out other peoples opinions to see if i could learn something from them. this is where the most useful learning comes from. maybe the book said to brainstorm one way but i learned that it didn't work with my autism or adhd or ocd or something. maybe through experience i learned a new way to brainstorm and want to challenge the idea that there's only one way to.

at some point read more books for extra tips, to compare experiences, etc:

eventually i get back to reading. i can either read on nicher poetry topics and start this whole process again. or i read more basic/general books to remind me of tips i may have forgotten about or to give me new ones. i read to learn more about other people experiences. i read more to see how much i've grown. i read more for inspiration. i read for lots of reasons

of course there's more nuance like if i do a basic search and learn something is dangerous or is sacred to a specific group im not in or initiated into, i will do more research to make sure that's true and to figure out if i should do it or not. but my main point here is that the general attitude in the witchcraft sphere is that you need to essentially need to read a million books before trying things so you don't make a bunch of mistakes. but some people like me are anxious and perfectionists and will get paralyzed trying to memorize all these books so nothing ever goes wrong ever. and sometimes you learn that to get out of that trap you need to close the book and make mistakes, sometimes on purpose. you don't learn how NOT to make mistakes, you learn how to get up from them.

you were doing witchcraft back when you were a kid and putting dirt and dandelions in a jar because your friend said it would grant you a wish, and hoping for the best, whether you got it or not. and reading a bunch of books doesn't make that any fancier or more polished. it has always been about you, your intuition, and what you have in front of you

[dnpbeats]

There's so many misinterpretations of what I said here. It seems like a lot of people just had a knee-jerk reaction to certain words and didn't think about the actual meaning. I didn't say that Dan exaggerated his struggles. I said he exaggerated how deep in the closet he was, as in how many people he was out to. Specifically referring to interviews he did post-BIG where he made it sound like he wasn't out to a single person. I think it does make sense that he meant he wasn't out as specifically gay, but that's not what someone who doesn't know his history would assume. I'm gonna be totally honest, even though I know it's probably going to get people mad at me again. Post-BIG, during the solo-Dan/WAD era, it seemed like the narrative was constantly shifting. So much that it was hard to know what's true and what's not. Was Dan completely closeted or did his close friends know he wasn't straight? Did Dan not accept that he was attracted to men at all before 2018, or did he accept it, but struggle with the specific label? Was Dan not with any men pre-coming out or was he living as a gay man in private? The answer seems to change depending on the intended audience.

I definitely don't think that Dan exaggerated his internalized-homophobia, or how much harassment and bullying he received, or lied about anything he said in BIG, but he has obfuscated the truth since then. I think part of that might be because he was trying to rebrand himself and attract a certain audience (specifically, young adult gay men) and another is that he was trying to direct people's attention away from his relationship with Phil. Both personal and professional. I definitely put more stock in what Dan said in BIG than the things he's said in random interviews. Anyway I'm gonna stop causing discourse on your blog. Sorry.

Hi again! No worries, thank you for taking the time to explain yourself :) (and sorry I have let this ask rot in my inbox for the whole day lmao)

I agree with you that often times things that dan says in interviews are confusing and can be misinterpreted. however in my personal opinion, just based on what ive observed, I don't think it's necessarily intentional. I honestly think he just speaks without thinking and puts his foot in his mouth a lot lol. I don't think that he necessarily purposely changes his answers to questions based on the audience, I think he's just a tiny bit pretentious and likes to come up with superfluous ways to say things. often times that gets confusing and gives a lot of different interpretations to what he says

I looked through a handful of interviews he did post coming out and I didn't ever see him say that he wasn't out to anyone at all as a queer man; he talked a lot about struggling with labeling himself as gay, and the fact that it weighed on him that he wasn't out to his audience. he did mention in one article coming out to his family "and friends" but that doesn't necessarily imply that he was in the closet to all his friends (fyi just bc I didn't see him say that doesn't mean an interview like that doesn't exist, I just got tired of looking I went though like 6 articles haha)

I completely agree that to an outsider, they might assume he wasn't out at all and not a soul knew he liked men. but personally, im not sure that it was a necessity for him to clarify that in the interviews, or at all. the point of all the interviews was that he was finally living authentically as himself and that he was able to be comfortable labeling himself as gay—there's no real reason for him to tack on "oh also when I say that I was closeted, I mean that I didn't label myself as gay but this list of 15 people knew I was dating a man," you know? that's not the point he was trying to make

anyway, sorry if you felt ganged up on!! ty again for clarifying :))

[blacksurvivalnostalgichanges]

bored. thoughts on literally all the dna stuff

jackie- "i can fix her"

hyunwoo-i kinda get weirded out by the power dynamic in the sheer idea but tbh. it's nice i think. i just want this boy to be a little happier, man

jenny-i am DYINGGG SHE BOUGHT A BAIENGIACA

xiukai:i cant believe that, to sissela, hed be the grandma who makes you feel like you need a second stomach once you visit. funny. he's 34 with the vibe of a 70 year old

aya-what are her thoughts on fentanyl. i wonder. btw it's always funny when someone goes "NO drugs. but alcohol is great". like mate thats just drug lite

alex-now i'm curious what his disease is even supposed to be, i don't recall anything about that. if it's just some sort of chronic fatigue thing then i'd easily say fuck it and headcanon POTS just because but. i'd like to know

leon: "don't bring gifts for me >:( i'm not a kid >:(" the repression is strong on this man

chiara:i think itd be funny to have an alliance where it's zahir, chiara and aya. impossible to understand a damn word. also "i can fix her" part 2

shoichi:you know how it's canon that chidi anagonye is buff because whenever he felt stressed he just did pushups

sissela:she likes strawberry. noted. also ngl i do find the thomas sissela dynamic sick now that i think about it. for a solid second i felt so mentally ill remembering that he brought her to the experiment because he wanted her to get actually cured and not be in pain

rio-i feel VINDICATED. every time. i want to put that "rio to yuki" voiceline on my forehead. they don't get along on such a fundamental level. they have not had a single good interaction. that's why i feel feral when i see anyone ship them, she hates himmmm. also the delivery is bad but in a way that's good because it fits her, she sounds robotic but it feels like it's just how she be OHSFKSDF SHE DOESNT EVEN LIKE DOGS!!! SHE ACTUALLY FUCKING HATES HIM IM LAUGHING

echion-"i see the hesitation in your fists" about hyunwoo is making me mentally ill. also "don't be pretentious" to magnus IS SO FUNNY. he really went "stfu i'm gonna hit you". the things i dislike is also extremely funny. this sign can't stop him because he can't read, guys. though, he sounds like hunter toh to me in a way that makes me like him by association now. past me is crying but current me thinks this mans is funny as hell

tia-im crying. "what's wrong with my hair (┬┬﹏┬┬)". danny boy roasted her so hard. that "can i draw you ◕_◕ " to jenny though. i see you

daniel-even daniel cant believe it when she says she's a doctor. the doubt in this man's voice. also it's so funny how he reads people for their appearance (like "your hair is a mess) and then with yuki he just roasts him for his personality. does he think that bowl cut ass hairstyle is okay enough to focus on something else

eva-"nah i don't feel like getting a haircut quite yet" as he definitely fucking SEETHES

bianca-"oh my god a fellow weirdo!!!". four person alliance between aya chiara zahir and bianca actually. impossible to parse a single word. and it's funny that she goes gentle on sissela (i assume she's too skinny, so) and with echion she plain goes "you have literally no body fat"

johann-YO????? i am mentally ill about that one for sure. johann is so about trying to be the sort of christian who doesn't suck absolute ass and the interaction that has with the extremely complicated relationship isol and rozzi have with church and religion is so interesting to me rn

laura-how did they get away with this "things i dislike" line. also the bizarre thought process i had with aya and laura is so vindicated. police officers are her favorite

aiden-he did not just "we're not so different you and i" her. his luke is funny as hell though. "you get paid to clean? 🤨" do i need to explain society to you???? he sounds legit confused. hKFJNSDKFJ THEY JUST SHOVED ALL THE FUNNY MEME LINES ON HIM HUH. IT'S NOT LIKE I LIKE YOU OR ANYTHING BAKA

elena-she and rosalio allying would be nonstop complaining. they'd either hate each other or be like soulmates. "i hate the heat but i hate the cold" "me too" and then a look of understanding

felix-he did not hit elena with the "you'd be prettier if you smiled". i like him but. girl freeze him. also confirmation that magnus does not use steroids. weird-ass way to ask though. what if he met a trans person mid transition? would he hit them with that exact line as the poor fucker is like "yeah???"

[gerogerigaogaigar]

B-52's - s/t

Is there anything more sincere, unfettered by societal norms, and relentlessly fun that the B-52's debut album? So much of the lyricism is extremely esoteric, almost certainly in jokes between the band members. The album makes no effort to explain and it's better to just lose yourself in the nonsense. Like what the fuck is Planet Claire about? Who cares? There's a moon in the sky and it's called the moon! Analyze that! Fred Schneider and Kate Pierson have the most iconic vocals of all time. Pierson has like a million octave range and Schneider's uh wikipedia calls it sprechgesang which is very funny to me, but his delivery is so beloved that I don't think anyone can resist giving it a go from time to time. The album is a manic daze the music bounces around stuck between hyper modern (for the time) new wave and deeply anachronistic 50s and 60s throwbacks like the surf rock on the monster hit Rock Lobster. Unfettered, unhinged, this album is pure and perfect camp.

The Beatles - Meet The Beatles

Why on earth would you choose the US version instead of the obviously superior UK release? Listen I'll compromise by listening to the three songs from Meet that aren't on With but then I'm just going to listen to With The Beatles because fuck you I like their covers. Their version of Please Mister Postman is great and so is their Money (That's What I Want). With The Beatles is basically just a slightly more polished and more consistent take on the sound of their first album. I think they fell off a bit with A Hard Days Night too so the inclusion of more covers and more rock and roll style shit is exactly what I want. Basically fuck the haters early Beatles is camp I like it.

Robyn - Body Talk

A lot of people really vibe with this kind of glossy candy-coated pop but all I hear is a lot of thumping with little meaningful artistic direction. The least interesting parts of Ke$ha and Lady Gaga distilled into a slurry of commercially viable pop music whose sole redeeming feature is a handful of good beats.

Leonard Cohen - Songs Of Leonard Cohen

Already an established poet by the time he decided to pick up the guitar it could be argued that Leonard Cohen was a little too literate to be a successful musician. His debut definitely gives that impression, although his evocative language and simple but effective guitar work definitely won over listeners in the end. Suzanne, the first track from his first album was his largest hit until hallelujah in the 80s and I think that's largely because it has a melody that you can hum. To me the best of it is when Cohen is allowed to just sing and play guitar with little to no embellishment. The lyricism is the main draw after all. The songs of isolation, of lovers having to say goodbye, of people lost in a large world. Cohen is a masterful songwriter but certainly a perpetual downer and might scan as pretentious to some. This is one of those albums that fantastic within it's niche but might not be for everyone.

Michael Jackson - Bad

Man I know Thriller is gonna be like super high on this list but Bad is absolutely my favorite Michael Jackson record. It's just banger after banger. The hits alone are bonkers Bad, The Way You Make Me Feel, Man In The Mirror, Smooth Criminal. But oh man the deep cuts are great too, in fact Speed Demon might be my favorite just for that goofy little synth bass run. The album is just bubblier and sillier than his previous work. It's extremely 80s with synths everywhere never trying to hide from what it is. There is simply no way to avoided bopping along to the whole album, it's just so goddamn enjoyable.

[certified-bi]

Watche Skinamarink. Conclusion: If you aren't prepared for almost two hours of watching artsy horror that is designed to run for too long, It's not for you.

Content Warnings for the movie: Flickering lights. Like a lot of them. Be careful. Vague(the shot doesn't show what happens but the narrative digs into it) and referenced depictions of violence towards children.

I'm going to address some things I noticed as a theatre brained person that ticked people off.

"It's pretentious"/"It's boring"- It's an experimental horror movie. If you're not familiar and comfortable with artsy films/absurdist plays/experimental shots then this is not the place to start. It's art trying to be non mainstream(by this I mean its trying to break down horror conventions and tweak them) and still be effective and part of that is the understanding that the director/artist stands in the middle of the room and you have to make an genuine effort to understand/invest in the work and walk to them. I say this not to be snooty, if you don't like that kind of film, that's okay! But please don't go into this movie without understanding what it's asking of its audience and then blow it off because it wasn't to your taste. It's absolutely fair to critique art but please do it while understanding the context of its creation and what the director was trying to do. Which leads to the next point->

"It's too long "- Yep. It's long on purpose. The whole vibe of the movie is explaining a traumatic childhood memory while barely remembering it. Everything is big and scary and long. It's the feeling you get when you're unable to sleep but don't want to get up because you know something is waiting. The hours that feel like days. The movie is overly long to show how the children aren't fully aware of what's wrong and to make us watch helplessly as the monster toys with them and slowly ramps up the violence.

The best comparison I can give is a production I watched recently where every blackout had no music or sound and we had to listen to the squeaking and shuffling as the actors readjusted. It was awkard and uncomfortable and felt like the flow was messed up. And it was on purpose and fit the story the director was telling. Same thing here. Kyle wants you to give into the boredom the kids feel despite being trapped and make it all the more messed up when things happen. And then you have to sit with them. Was I always happy to sit with them and was patient? No! I wanted the movie to end! But a lot of people think it's accidental that the film was so long that it could be boring and its not. It was a choice made by the director. And for the people who it worked on it WORKED! Myself included. That rage was part of the dread and terror he was building. The being stuck really fucked with people's heads.

"The Characters had no substance" - ....They're like 4 and 5. They care deeply for each other but you have to remember that kids don't react in ways adults do and that can make it hard to see the ways they reach out to each other as deep and meaningful. Another big point is that like Greek tragedy, this movie isn't concerned about devolping the characters upwards but breaking them down and destroying them... because its a horror story. I also will admit I found Kevin grating at times. But that's the thing of it. These are the same kids who should be playing outside and being nuances to their neighbors. And instead their only comfort is each other and cartoons that are being manipulated by a monster.

"The Violence towards kids crossed the line" - Okay. Fair. If you don't like that kind of content that's valid. Just remember that the kid never actually is shown doing anything but being curled up or under the drawer. And what I mean by this is that he(the actor) wasn't in anyway hurt or even made to act out the harmful actions. And while yes he did have to read the script that's not the same. As for the fictional side of it... it's horror. Gore is the territory. It's about a demon terrorizing children. It's going to be dark. Again if that's not for you it's fine but "movie about horrible things happening to children shows horrible things happening to children," isn't really a criticism.

[aplanetaryghost]

Sucker

I'm pretty sure my best friend's a vampire. I'm aware that opening with that makes me sound delusional, but I promise I'm not.

Maya's been my best friend since middle school. I told her when we were ten that I thought she was the most interesting person I'd ever met, and she gave me a glow-in-the-dark Silly Band and, giggling, invited me to her secret society. And thusly, we were inseparable, as most childhood best friendships go. Through the trials of middle school dances and AP classes. She was the first person I told when I stopped believing in God; I was the first person she told when she got a girlfriend last spring. We keep each other's secrets safe. So Maya's never been scary, never been weird before— I mean, we've both been weird, but in the way little girls are. Inventing elaborate backstories for our fairy characters on the playground, making potions out of sticks and grass. 

The weird-weird stuff only started this past summer. Or at least, that's when I first noticed it. I don't remember the date, but it was early August, those dreamy midsummer days when school's not an imminent threat, but a distant memory. 

Maya had had a dance recital. She's been doing ballet since she was tiny, way before I knew her. You'd think she'd resent it by now, but she doesn't, isn't the kind of person to lose her love for something because of what other people want her to be. Her dance company was doing The Firebird, and I certainly can't remember the plot, but I remember Maya. A riot of red, a ribbon of flame. You know how there are some people who just— sort of— glow? Maya's one of those people. Like, of course she got the lead, because there's something electric about her, something impossibly magnetic and expressive. I'm the quiet kind of storyteller; I keep it to self-indulgent fanfiction and the homebrew DnD campaign that'll blow everyone's socks off if I manage to finish it before I die. But Maya— Maya's a center stage sort of girl. She's the only one I'd believe playing a creature of legend. She's such a good dancer. 

After the show I gave her some flowers; I don't really believe in traditional forms of manners like thank you notes and flowers, but my mom told me to bring them, so. And then Maya beamed as she took them from me, her brown eyes warm, honey-gold. Molten. Like there was fire in her then, too. 

Anyway, her mom had work stuff (her mom always had work stuff) so she came home with us. We sat on my bed with the stripy sheets, and she didn't make fun of me for having way too many stuffed animals for a junior in high school, and after we talked for a while she spotted my ukulele leaning against the side of the desk. And she asked me to teach her something. 

I mean, everyone and their mom learns "I'm Yours" on ukulele. It's super popular and it's in C, so it's sort of baby's first uke song. I said something mildly mocking about this to Maya and she laughed and said "Well, you don't have to teach me if it's too basic," and I blushed and said no I actually hate pretentiousness, and what kind of ridiculous person would try to gatekeep ukulele anyway, and she just laughed at me again, all airy and unsulliable. Sometimes I think Maya's made of different stuff from the rest of us. Sometimes I wonder why she bothers hanging out with me. 

I explained a little bit about how chord diagrams work, but Maya's not really a visual learner, so I handed the ukulele over so she could try it out herself. But she still hadn't quite gotten the hang of how to press the strings down so they don't buzz when you strum them, so I reached over to help. It's sort of instinct to do that— I did it when I was teaching my little sister, Lou, too— because it's hard to explain it any other way. I feel kind of bad for invading people's space, but Maya's a pretty touchy person anyway, so I shifted closer to her on the bed and leaned over her shoulder. I reached to place my fingers over hers on the fretboard. 

Her hand was freezing. It was ninety degrees outside, and our AC is super finicky, so it wasn't much cooler indoors. But Maya's hand was icy, and there were goosebumps up her arm. On some sudden fervent instinct, I grabbed her hand in both of mine and rubbed at the skin. "Why are you so cold?" I asked with a little laugh.  

She looked down sheepishly and gave a forced chuckle, gently tugging her hand from mine. "Maybe it'll warm up if I actually get this chord right."

She sounded uncomfortable. Nervous, almost. Like I'd caught her out on— what? Having cold hands? Maybe she just hadn't expected me to touch her. Logically, I should have been able to brush it off, but I just couldn't. Everything about that afternoon stood out to me, but especially the feeling of her frigid hand in mine. I just kept thinking about it. In bed that night, long after she'd gone home. In the car the next day, on the way to pick up Lou from summer camp. Practicing ukulele by myself a couple weeks later. The warm line of my shoulder against her back and the slightly-too-closeness of her face and the chill that seemed to pass from her to me when I touched her hand. It was just so fucking vivid, and not in a bad way, exactly, but it was weird. 

School started up again. I found Maya in homework and she beamed upon seeing me, and something sort of bubbled in my stomach, some weird nerves-excitement that I guess happens when you don't see your best friend for several weeks. And things were normal. I can't point at anything that was actually, tangibly off in those first few weeks. It's just that every interaction with Maya felt so charged, like now that she'd passed that strange electricity to me once, every time we touched each other that current flowed between us again. And it was unfamiliar and unsettling and also it meant nothing because nothing had actually changed, except for the fact that I was sort of addicted to it now: kept catching her eye in class, kept switching seats to sit next to her at lunch. 

But I didn't really have anything to ascribe the feeling to until Mrs. Richmond introduced the first unit of Honors English. Joseph Sheridan LeFanu's Carmilla, like Dracula but before Dracula, and with more women. I'm not really a spooky-scaries person (as evidenced that I say shit like "spooky-scaries"), but it's short and has fantastical elements, both of which are very rare in books you have to read for school. So, fine by me. I know it came out before all those tropes existed— is maybe the reason we have these tropes— but it's funny reading a story that feels kind of like the ultimate vampire archetype. Spooky castle in vague eastern Europe. Beautiful mysterious stranger who hates crucifixes. Sorry Laura, but I think she vants to suck your blood. 

I've never read vampire stuff before, though, and there's something compelling about it. There's this intensity to the way Laura and Carmilla talk to each other, a sort of self-destructive desperation that feels like maybe there's a universe where Laura just says screw it and runs off with Carmilla on a whirlwind vampire quest. I always make this joke that if some kind of portal-fantasy door opened up in my life I wouldn't think twice before diving through it— fantastical dangers or no, I want to see a dragon! And there's something sort of like that in Laura. Like she's looking for something she can't find, except maybe Carmilla is it. Just something about the way Laura thinks, feels, talks, there's a flicker of— something— in my mind, in my heart, in my stomach. A sort of recognition, but of what? 

It tips over the edge when Maya bites me. That sounds weird, but— well, it's a little weird. Maybe I'm just making it weird. 

We're sleeping over Jess's for her birthday and we're marathoning the entire High School Musical trilogy. But we started late so it's 2 a.m., maybe, and we're about halfway through the third one. While Kelsi tries to convince everyone to do one last show to celebrate their senior year, we giggle deliriously and flick popcorn at each other. Maya keeps trying to steal my sour patch kids, but she hasn't got a subtle bone in her body, especially when she's on a sugar high and loopy from how late it is. I hold the cardboard box of candy over my head, my arm flinging wildly enough that it'll probably spill all over the floor anyways. She clambers over me, grasping at my arms, a tangle of limbs and warm laughter, and I stagger to my feet, using my height to my advantage and dangling it out of her reach. 

She huffs at my "unfair" use of "tall person privilege" and flops to the floor, declaring "I give up!" I follow suit, giggling softly, but I'm barely settled when she dives toward me again, eyes sparking. I fling the sour patch kids away but she just plasters herself to my side and announces, nonsensically, "I bet you taste better than sour patch kids!" and gives an exaggerated chomp to my shoulder, bare in my pajama tank top. We're all past laughing by now, more of a breathless wheeze, the kind you only get when it's way too late at night and you know each other better than anyone. 

Then Jess cackles and says "Why are you two children? I'm trying to watch Troy Bolton's existential crisis over here!" And something about the awareness of another person in the room— what, did I think it was just me and Maya? this is Jess's house— snaps me back to the present, and a cold feeling comes over me. My stomach drops, and there's heat flooding my face, and I don't know why. But Maya just blinks a little and then goes back to chuckling at the movie, and Jess and Margo don't seem put off at all, so I settle back into our nest of blankets on the floor and try to focus on Sharpay singing about her big Broadway dreams. 

The Monday after, October begins, and we're still talking about Carmilla, now with a sort of goofy spooky edge. We do a close read of the bit where Laura describes her dreams, but I can't focus on the strategic use of sensory imagery and foreshadowing because something about Laura's words is ringing, is resonating like a tuning fork set to the same note as some strange hidden part of my psyche. A magnetic pull, the rushing of a river. A strange, tumultuous excitement that was pleasurable, ever and anon, mingled with a vague sense of fear…

Mrs. Richmond says the river is the literal sensation of blood leaving her body, but I think it's something else. I think it doesn't matter what's physically happening when you're so wrapped up in a feeling; that Carmilla's consuming more of Laura's mind, or spirit, or something, than she is her blood. I know that intensity of feeling, have felt it before; it echoes the giddiness of that past Saturday, the sense that I was losing my mind in a good way. Maya's mouth on my bare skin. 

Well— okay, hang on. That's. That's not normal. Most people don't think about their friends the way they think about vampires.

I'm a pretty rational person, okay, and a skeptic to boot. But something's felt off for a while, and my brain latches onto this idea. Conjures a corkboard in my mind, draws strands of yarn between cold hands and strange attraction and teeth against my skin. Scrawls MAYA IS A VAMPIRE in messy red marker over the top. 

There's no fucking way. Right? Except now that the idea is named in my head I can't stop seeing it. Maya shading her eyes in the sun. Maya leaning into me for warmth. Maya not eating any of Margo's mom's garlic bread even though it's fucking delicious. Maya's eyes meeting mine and my brain plunging into some pool of Maya Maya Maya as if there's nothing else. Don't vampires have hypnotism or something? 

This is so stupid. I feel like a crazy person. I can't stop thinking about it, though. I go through the rest of the day in a weird haze, passing through class and homework and dinner with my mom and sister like a zombie. I try to distract myself but can't focus on anything because as ridiculous as this idea seems it also feels like an answer, like one I didn't know I was waiting for. I go to bed and toss and turn for a few hours and eventually give in, grabbing my laptop off my desk. The faint glow of the screen casts a ghostly glow on my face in the dark of my room. 

I don't really know what kind of search terms would get me where I need to go, and my brain's not really firing on all cylinders right now, so my first search attempt is the astonishingly intelligent carmilla vampire feelings real??? Which, shocker, does not bring up a helpful step-by-step checklist of signs of vampirism in your childhood best friend. 

It does bring up an article called "Queer Desire in Joseph Sheridan LeFanu's Carmilla," which takes me aback. I click on the article and read through it, then go back and click on another. The rabbit hole swallows me and suddenly it's 4 a.m. and I'm deep in the YouTube comments of some vlogger-themed adaptation of the book, all of which say things like Carmilla could murder me and I would thank her and me, not knowing I was a lesbian: wow I wonder what it's like to kiss a pretty vampire girl.

At this point the blue light is hurting my eyes a little and, exhausted from my strange fugue state, I shut my computer and stare into the dark of my room. For a couple seconds there's just white noise in my head, my brain overfull with words and snatches of dialogue and flashes of photos. I let it sieve through my brain, the fluttering thoughts settling until suddenly they coalesce into a question I somehow hadn't even thought to ask. 

It's four a.m. I sit in my bed. I ask myself do I want Maya to kiss me? And—

Well, shit. 

The static fills my brain again, but not— not in a bad way, this time, I don't think. Just that flood of Maya Maya Maya, terrifying and reassuring all at once. Uncertain what to do, I'm left still staring at the ceiling until I fall asleep. 

The next day, Maya sits next to me in math, and the world implodes. I mean, it doesn't, not really, there are no external indications that such a thing might be happening. But I feel like someone pumped me full of helium and if I don't cling to reality white-knuckled I'll float away and maybe accidentally burn up in the sun. That sounds like my luck. I just keep looking at her. That Maya Maya Maya chorus has gotten louder, incessant, like my brain has decided it's key to my survival that I be distinctly aware of her presence at all times. We're partners for solving a problem on the board. She grins at me and jokingly names our team after the two of our names smashed together, like we're a popular ship from a sitcom. My insides are fizzing like that time when I was nine and ate five packets of Pop Rocks on a dare. 

But the world goes on even after it ends, apparently, because I don't spontaneously combust that day. Or the next. Or the next. I stammer my way through a couple of interactions with Maya, I shift uncomfortably in my seat when we talk about our opinions of Carmilla, but there's no catastrophe. I think this is what they were talking about when we learned about adaptation in bio. Sometimes shit just happens and you just…continue to exist. Reshape yourself around it. The feelings for Maya, unexpected and unrequited as they are, become comfortable. Like a worn-in sweater.

Maya talks about her girlfriend— not the one from last spring, someone new from the grade below us who she's in dance with, her name's Lily— more and more. It seems like she's getting more comfortable, too, and I'm happy for her. At first I think I can never tell her about me, like the fact of loving girls is permanently entangled with the fact of loving Maya, and admitting my sexuality to her would be showing my hand and ruining her relationship and a whole other host of anxious spirals. But weeks go by, and my heart settles a little. When Jess asks if there's a guy I want to take to the winter formal in November, I seize the moment and awkwardly reply "Or girl." And Maya grins and echoes, "Or girl." And then it's done. 

And then I tell my friend Parker from band, who's been out to me since freshman year anyway, and who thankfully is not embroiled in this whole mess and therefore is perfectly willing to listen to me lament my unrequited love as much as I need to. And slowly, the crush on Maya starts to feel less like an earth-shattering event or a collapsing star and more like something I can melodramatically gossip about in the band room after school. Then we finish Carmilla a week before Halloween and I get possibly the best idea I've ever had, even though it's literally an inside joke with myself.

There's a party at Jess's on the thirty-first. Maya will be there. So will everyone else. An hour before, I press fangs onto my teeth with cosmetic glue and smudge fake blood across my lips. When I'm done, I grin wickedly in the mirror. 

Maybe being a creature of the night isn't so bad. 

[sarcastic-nebula]

Teachers deserve better

I just got hired to be a grader at my university. TLDR, I've learned a lot in the week and a half I've had this job. Rant below.

I have had to look at homework papers where students, college students!, don't write in complete sentences, answer the whole question being asked, or even label the questions they're answering (something you very much want to do in a STEM class). I don't even think some of them know how to answer a question they don't know. Some just spouted off facts that were only partially relevant to what was being asked. I'm not being pretentious when I say that some didn't even appear to try. Maybe because they don't care about the class, maybe because they ran out of time (happens to all of us), but consistently not ending a sentence with a period? Referring to Mars as a star? Answering only the first part of a question rather than all three?

This all has made me realize, personally, not just from social media or what I see as a student, how much shit K-12 teachers experience. If this is what I see in my first week from college students at a major university, what are they seeing every year in their high schools? Middle schools? What do they see when they ask their fourth graders to use complete sentences? Keep in mind, I'm seeing maybe 30/100 kids making fundamental errors like this, so I'm barely scratching the surface.

They offer so many resources, whether it's coming to school early or staying late, offering to let students retake their tests, answer any question to the best of their abilities. And most of them try to set their kids up for success. I've realized that by teaching me to read, answer questions on texts, and write answers in complete sentences with correct punctuation that they are preparing me for the rest of my education and my life. I can't understand my HIPAA rights, or my part of a loan repayment plan if I can't read or understand what I read. I can't send an email to an employer or a colleague if I can't write. And that's not even the math or science part of what I'm studying!

I would be nowhere without my algebra, calculus, or physics teachers. They put in the time and patience and energy to help me when I asked for it. They truly cared. And I am beyond grateful, I can barely explain it. I'm using skills that all of them taught me, and I am a senior in college. I'm doing derivatives that my high school teacher taught me, because she did it better than my college calculus professors did. This same woman saw me having a rough day, and let me put my head down for her class period. At the end of the year, she saw me studying for her final exam, and gave me a B even though I earned less because she saw me put in effort that no one else did. I'm able to do algebra because I had a fantastic teacher in eighth grade. I'm able to understand some physics because my high school teacher did it well. I wish I could reach out to her and tell her how much she has impacted my life. Same goes for precal; the unit circle he made us memorize? Helping me with my classes to this day. All of them got me to where I am today. Waking up early sucked, sharpening my pencil on a Sunday afternoon sucked because I needed to keep writing complete sentences wasn't ideal, but I am where I am now because they said to do this homework, write this way, read this.

Don't get me wrong, my parents played a part too. They raised me to give a shit about my education. They stayed up and helped me do my reading exercises in kindergarten so I would be literate. It must have been agonizing to have a five year old shout "STOP!" after a day at work, but they did it. They helped me sound out words, practice spelling tests, help with math homework until they couldn't anymore because of how hard it had become, so I could get here. They told me how all of my great aunts went to college for at least a year because Great Grandpa Nebula believed in education. This was 1950s America, and all four sons and all five daughters were given the same chances toward higher education. One of those aunts graduated from law school.

I remember when I graduated high school, and some teachers I still saw regularly were earnestly congratulating me. Fifth grade English teacher (I really didn't like her when I was in fifth grade but she's cool now), fourth grade science teacher, on top of my high school teachers. I didn't get it. I had done decent in high school and got accepted to a good university. Wasn't Ivy League or anything. I felt like I had achieved the bare minimum. I asked my dad about it, and he said something along the lines of, "They're probably really proud of you. Some of them don't see all of their former students walk the stage or go to college."

And it's probably true. Not everyone is able to finish high school, whether it's due to situations they didn't sign up for, not enough support from where they need it, or it just became too hard, and they dropped out.

Or worse.

Imagine the heartbreak at not seeing some good kids walk the stage and get their diplomas.

Teachers pour years of time, effort, money, patience, and love into their students. And we don't pay them tuition. They don't have to give so much. My school district was shit, but I was extremely lucky to get my education almost entirely from teachers who wanted to go above and beyond and who knew what they were teaching.

Now, imagine how they feel when students complain about having to write in a complete sentence? About having to do front and back pages of a homework assignment? The complaints they get about too much work, too hard of a class, expecting too much, from students, admin, parents, etc. Not every assignment is great, but there's a method to the madness.

I would not be where I am today, studying astronomy and passing my university classes, it if weren't for them. Even the mean and strict ones had a reason.

Now, I know I am lucky. My teachers meant well, and I know that's not how it is everywhere for everyone. But my hardest teachers knew what they were doing, at least for the most part.

I have no way to truly show them how grateful I am. I'm trying to tell the ones I can still contact, but I don't quite know how. "Hey, I know it's been literal years since you've seen my face and looked at my name, but you're one reason why I'm passing my classes! Thanks a bunch!" doesn't cut it for me.

They deserve more. So much more. I had a little cry earlier because it's not fair, the way they get treated, and how little they get recognized. Our society doesn't care about its kids. Underfunded schools; putting sports above arts so much so that arts barely get funding, teachers barely being able to have what they need. Some parents aren't parenting the way they should to create members of society (not all! dear god, there are so many good parents out there; parenting is so hard!). To name a few reasons.

My K-12 teachers have done so much for me, so, so much. And I never truly understood, and never complete will, because I have such a small taste of what they get, all because I graded a few papers for an intro course.

The tears were also of gratitude, by the way.

[live-love-laugh-lesbian]

OMG hiiii dw abt it at all! your answer is long enough and im so sorry :( i hope you feel better now/soon!!

thank youu omg well im in my first year so we do a bit of everything! some coding like coding websites and stuff and some written computer problems as well! (i would explain but it's kinda hard to and i suck at explaining so asdhkjasdhjh) its a bit of everything! programming (practical) and theory!

ahsdjkahsdkj owning two trousers is so real lmao i think i only own one pair ajskldsjad and they are flared so not fit for all weathers ajksdhkjsah they sound sooo cute! if you wouldnt mind sharing them, i'd love to see them! but thats totally up to you! i dont want to make you uncomfortable at all so the choice is yours! im just a lil nosy hehe

omg same when i was a kid i once ate like an entire chocolate egg in a day! the time after that was hell i was sooo sick but its worthh itttttt and yes exactly!! like whenever i was young i had school assemblies and they were all like 'i dont play to draw i play to win' and like yeah so real! as long as no ones too mean and harsh while being competitive then go nuts! i love a little competition!! stardew valley is more of like a relaxing game for me! also animal crossing but like i get so frustrated when i cant catch a fish asjkdhaskj fishing is HELLLLLL in animal crossing alksdjlksj

awww thank youu! your hair sounds beautiful the compliments are most definitely soo valid! my hair never reached that point when i was young tho bc its like SOOOO frizzy and fluffy it almost grows outwards rather than down askjdhkasjh so it was always kinda short and super fluffy ajsdskjh

i think stuff abt the modern day world i really hate is that almost everyones so pretentious nowadays like you see someone and youre like oh theyre nice speaking out abt this and turns out that its all hypocritical and shit but also that feels like its not exactly modern? so ill give another answer and that is INFLATION! everything nowadays is soooo expensive oh my god! and yes governments is so reall

hmm, smth in the next five years... this is sooo not related at all and im totally twisting the meaning of your question but my online friends ajsdhkajsdh okay but serious answer? i wish to see less labour! like yk sites that use fast fashion and stuff that force labour onto people and children and i want that to be addressed and reduced bc like. no. labour is bad how is it acceptable for people to pay such horrible wages to their workers who make them so much money!! that feels so cruel! what about you?

and my question for you: what is something in/from a person that makes them absolutely unacceptable in your eyes? (i dont think that makes sense lmao) basically if you were friends w someone, whats one thing they could do to make you immediately see them as a red flag or like not like them/block them immediately (apart from them saying the r word!)

byee have an awesome day!

-swiftie spring exchange anon!

Hello again! I am doing better atm - I've basically had like, one long bug for three weeks, and like...I'd start feeling better. Go to work. Get worse from the exertion. Have to miss work. Get better slightly, so go to work...yeah XD I do seem to be on the mend now, I've just got a bit of residual pain and cough, and some of my underlying issues are being a bit unpleasant. But I'm taking it XD I had to take almost a week off work last week but I think the prolonged rest helped.

And hey that sounds really cool though!! So guessing you're in uni then? How's that going? Where I am it's starting to come up to exam season, so the people that I know are in uni at the moment are all quite stressed, bless them.

I don't mind showing you them like, privately, but due to my style being quite...unique (by courtsey of making a lot of it) I try to keep it off public tumblr to some extent, just because anyone who knows me would know immediately this was me. Tbh it's not a big deal if they did, but since I work with kids I feel the need to be more careful with social media these days.

And ok but see, I have very straight hair, and I've always wanted frizzy/fluffy hair!! Sometimes I fear we just want what we don't have XD

I think the hypocrisy is related to the modern world however! Social media kinda encourages a very black and white thinking of things, and most things are not so black and white (I mean like, obviously if someone's like. "Haha, I want to murder babies"...that's not a black and white issue. But you get me XD) So you end up with people being like "x is always bad". Then they'll later be like..."this thing that's basically x is fine"?

Inflation is SHIT. Look when I moved into my current place my phone bill was exactly 10 quid a month. It's not like 13 something!! It's not the biggest hike, my energy bill has freaking doubled, but by nature of it starting at a solid 10 I can see the inflation so much easier. It's a 30% increase!!

And see I am very lucky, I have seen a few online friends! My gf and I met through tumblr, and I've got two close friends that by thankful virtue of being in the same country I've been able to meet quite a few times...I met one who I've since lost contact with sadly, but I'm hoping to meet a couple more! OH and one is in a ldr with one of my close friends so I'll see her when she comes here (well I should do) but idk when that would be yet.

And look I have SO many fast fashion complaints. A big reason why I do so much thrifting and sewing is because I just hate fast fashion. I know it's sorta popular in some circles to talk about the shit quality, but it's shit because companies are paying people like a penny a piece for it -.- I refuse to use places like shein and temu...

I think in the next five years...generally I'm wanting to see a shift in climate change. I have a lot of climate anxiety, and I'm hoping that we start getting actual change in how politicians and companies approach the issues?? I want more eco changes. More bikes, cheaper plant based food, less fossil fuels, etc...I also want my government to stop making life harder for no reason. They recently decided people who have visas to work in the care industry over here can't have their kids come from overseas too?? Like there are people who now have their kids in other countries cause of this shit??? If they're working here, they deserve their kids to be here. How is that not the default idea!!

Less generally, I'm hoping to see improvements in my personal life XD I want to see a couple doctors to get some shit sorted out, and I want to improve my art further, and sort out where exactly I'm going with my career.

And nah that makes perfect sense! Honestly I'm a bit of a pushover, I'll take a lot from people. I think mainly the things that will really make me go. Hm. I mean, if you're outright a really terrible person (like if you told me you murder babies for fun, to use my "terrible person" example from above XD) I'm not gonna be interested in talking to you, but that's kinda obvious. But I think the things that make me go "red flag" are usually more personal things based on past experience. For example, I knew someone once who would move my mobility aids away from me, and I'd be like...right well I can't. Move now. Please give them back. And they're one of the few people I've cut contact with. But tbh I feel like I probably need more boundaries, I just get like...what if I'm being too harsh on this person XD

What about you tho??

See you again soon, hope your day has been well when you see this!!

EDIT: I forgot to ask a question back!! D: If you could make one trivial change to the world what would it be? Has to be something small, like...renaming strawberries to be fluffleberries, or making bananas rainbow XD

[mobiused]

hi mobi mobiused thank you for all the loona blogging you do you’re a champion and a hero. i wanted to know what would your ideal loona album would look like in terms of songs and styling etc like if you got to be the creative and musical director on an album of theirs what would you love to see!

Thank you for the love and support it really means a lot to me. To be honest just because I know they would never do it and because Yves and I were talking about it the other night I would LOVE to see a j-idol style punk/grunge album from them. Now it really doesn't have to actually sound punk, (because 1. this doesn't work with twelve singers and 2. theyre kpop lets stick to that) it just appropriates the aesthetic from them. Ideally pulling from the j-rock scene way more than like present day cringe commercialised cleaned up bullshit you know what I mean. We can steal from the wardrobes of both Avril Lavigne and Tommy Heavenly6 though I'd be happy with that.

For the TT I'd like a shouty and fun song in major that makes you wanna sing along (Yeah sorry this is another 4th gen idol songs without a melody in the chorus LOL) like okay I'm seeing the vision it's a summer school's out anthem like mmm if I had to use examples I'd mix Billlie's Ring Ma Bell (which I thought had the right spirit but was unfortunately way underproduced) and OK please don't think I'm cringe but maybe like you know when Paramore's tone shifted and it became pop rock so yeah like Aint it Fun. So like that... Like a lot of rough guitar presence still but overall it's a good time cheerful mood you know. Maybe a little bit melodic in the chorus then I guess. And also it actually sounds good And thematically going back to the 'Schools Out' theme (And when I say school I mean way less school and way more summer holiday) we're gonna expand on what rebellion means to the girls in-lore. Like what exactly are our silent protests and what are they for. Why are the girls outsiders (aside from the obvious) and where are they taking it. Like I say every time someone asks me I would like it if they picked up the threads that were dropped in the previous MV. Like literally any semblance of continuity would be massively appreciated. And I also think that instead of a loud fuck the haters ITZY-core style rebellion (sorry I actually love ITZY but they're camp and LOONA's pretentious, so), I think building on the theme of Why Not where it's more about aligning oneself with your own values and moving forward in life independent from societal views, as opposed to that meme which is like >lives life in opposition to something >inadvertently makes entire life about said thing (you guys know what I mean. probably) would be a really good way to further it. And it doesnt have to be that lore-y its just like yeah this is a thing that fits with LOONA's brand.

And as for B-sides well they still need to do a real UK House song because flop that does not fucking count. Actually we need a Day & Night sequel forget UK house lets get UK GARAGE. Because it's fucking good and we need another. I think we can bring back a featured instrumentalist not necessarily guitar but like literally anything because getting Jungmo from TRAX on Love & Live went hard as hell even if the song itself was erm. Anyway. I also want it to be danceable because I fucking miss a classic LOONA intro (*says classic but they only did it for two TTs lol*). And I'm bored of explaining so here's the imaginary setlist 1. Intro ft. famous Korean musician 2. Kpop rock title track 3. R&B summer sunset cruising anthem 4. I actually kinda ended up liking the interpolation of Gloria Gaynor in After Like so maybe a vaguely disco inspired track because this is my imagination and I can do what I want 5. UK Garage track. Promoted Bside that shows off their vocals. Yeojin gets a part which shows off her vocals as a treat. Hyeju can have a rap with way too much english that fails to scan because I think it's cute. 6. Acid house track with trance influences and this one can be the fun one at concerts where they just kind of aimlessly hop around and pick up slogans from fans as if they're really gonna keep them

Noticeably NO FUCKING BALLADS.

...Or they could just rip off Rolling Quartz the only group that is doing k-rock right atm teehee