#i had to read the light novels because how can i not people on internet were saying that the LN has more stuff

[roimp]

hello so ya um life update lol

[astaroth1357]

A Brutally Honest Description of How Each Brother SHOULD Text Each Other

Lucifer

That bitch who corrects your grammar and typos.

"Is it 'who' or 'whom,' MC? You can do better."

Always formal, full sentences, good punctuation, with little typos.

Only changes when he's solo texting Diavolo where suddenly they're sending each other text spam and multiple emojis like gossiping schoolgirls.

Mammon

I swear, his texts should be basically unreadable. Not because he can't write, but because he never reads over for mistakes before hitting send.

Typos, misspellings, missing words, the whole works. Sending messages through only emojis would arguably be more coherent.

Very big fan of voice chat because his brothers make fun of his illegible texts.

Only person who can reliably decipher whatever he says and never gets on his case about it is, surprisely, Lucifer. But he's had to read it for so many years that he barely even notices the flaws anymore. His mind fills in the gaps.

Levi

VERY BIG FAN OF ALL CAPS but to express excitement.

Could write you a novel but will send you an internet link to what he's talking about instead.

Sends random sentence fragments when too excited because his thumbs get away from him and he'll accidently hit "Send" twelve times in a row.

Texts exactly how he speaks. Included his many Levia-isms which are just keyboard smashes or random ass onomatopoeia like "bluforgal"

Satan

ANOTHER BIG FAN OF ALL CAPS because to express ANGER.

Can write you a novel. Will write you a novel. And will squeeze it all into one or two texts max.

Run-on sentences galore. Man has never met a comma he doesn't immediately take in like a starving Victorian orphan.

Likes taking aesthetic pictures of his books, coffee, rain, and cats. Mostly cats. You would think he has to immediately report each one he sees to MC like an endangered species.

Asmo

The living god of emojis. He has ones downloaded that you've never even imagined before. Incredibly hyper-specific ones like "man bent over stop sign puking on ground."

The kind of person who will ALWAYS answer the questions "How are you" or "Where are you" with an immediate selfie. Even in the tub.

Comes up with brilliant hot-takes while drunk and spams them at you at 3 in the morning.

While send selfies and aesthetic pics to you first for approval before posting them to Devilgram. He expects detailed critique on image quality, filter usage, pose, composition, lighting-

Beel

I feel like Beel just matches whatever energy you give him, sometimes for no reason.

If you text him: WHAT IS THE GROCERY LIST THIS WEEK? You'll get back:

EGGS.

CHEESE.

TOMATO.

The only big difference is Belphie because those two can send each other messages that are just "Uh-huh." "No." "No way!" for an hour and come away with a complete conversation.

Belphie

Abbreviation king. If he can skip out on writing out the whole word, he'll do it by any means necessary.

Sometimes he doesn't even bother finishing people's names and uses initials like he speaks in code.

"M wnt 2 🛒 store"

"Wtch out, Lu is 😡"

Falls asleep texting often so messages can be perfectly fine one minute, then turn into a garble of letters the next.

Voice chats his dreams to MC like an audio-diary. Since he naps often, they may get 5 to 10 of these rambily messes sent to them a day.

[physalian]

In Defense of Fanfiction (Or the perfect starting point for your original novel)

Fanfic gets a bad rap pretty much everywhere except Tumblr. It’s misunderstood and misrepresented by its average works, seen as juvenile and cringey, or a banal point of contention between a famous person or piece of media and its fans.

Outside of fanfic that writes about real people, especially smut fics of real people, I support the art wholeheartedly. Fictional characters are one thing, but personally, caricaturing a celebrity’s life for public consumption and writing or drawing them in compromising content without their consent is a little weird. You do you. Don’t like, don’t read, as they say.

Fanfic is the perfect starting point for a few reasons:

It places you in a creative box and forces you to work within those constraints

It does all the worldbuilding and character concepts for you

It lets you write way outside your comfort zone

When published and receiving feedback, it boosts your self-confidence

It's incredibly flexible

It’s practice. All practice is good practice

—

Behold your creative box

When I was little I had no idea the majority of fanfic was shipping fics. I always pictured and looked for canon-divergent alternate universes. Like, what if X happened in this episode instead of Y? What if this character never died?

Fanfic demands you work within someone else’s canon, whether it’s an OC in the canonical world, or the canonical characters in an AU. These are like little bowling bumpers saving you from the gutter, but also keeping you on a straight-ish path toward the pins.

The indecisiveness of too many choices can be too intimidating when you’re first starting out. You want to be a writer but you have no idea where to begin, what genre to pick, what characters you want to chronicle, what themes you want to explore.

Even if it sits on your computer never to see the light of day, you still got those creative juices flowing.

Pre-packaged worldbuilding

Sometimes all we want is to get to the good stuff. Maybe I want to write a story about elemental magicians but Last Airbender already exists and I just want to play in a pre-existing sandbox. So I write some OCs into that world and have a free-for-all.

I don’t have to come up with my own lore, world history, magic system rules and mechanics, politics, geography—any of it. I get to just focus on the characters.

Even if you’re writing an AU, like say a coffee shop AU, you don’t have to think about brand new characters, you can just think “What would M do?” and go from there. The trade-off is your readers will expect canonical characters to behave in-character, but I think it’s worth it.

Stretch beyond your comfort zone!

Do you hate writing action scenes? Go practice with a shonen anime fic. Need work on dialogue? Write some high-fantasy fic, or a courtroom drama. Practice a fistfight by watching fistfights and writing what you see, and do it over and over again until what you read makes you feel like you're watching what’s on screen.

But beyond that—practice genres that you aren’t super familiar with. If you’re new to fantasy, write fantasy fic. Or a mystery novel/show, thriller, comedy, satire, adventure, what have you. The nature of fanfic still gives you those “guardrails” and you can get some brutally honest feedback on how you’re doing.

And, of course, the realm of M-rated romance and smut fics. I haven’t because I think I would die of embarrassment if I tried and I never intend to include sex scenes in my works anyway, but if you do want to, use the internet as your test audience. Post it on a throwaway account if you’re nervous.

Build that self-confidence!

The fandoms I used to write for are super dead, so it’s insane how I still get email notifications that so-and-so liked my fic to this day. Comments are as elusive as ever, but random strangers on the internet telling me they liked my work is a magical reassurance that my writing isn’t actually awful.

Random strangers on the internet are, as we all know, beholden to no moral obligation to be kind to your little avatar face, or be kind to be polite. So a rando taking the time to like my work or even leave a positive comment can feel more honest than one of my friends telling me what they think I want to hear.

I tend to avoid the more present aspects of fandom like online communities, forums, social media, what have you, so I get a delayed and diluted aspect of any given fandom through completed works. Which means, in general, I get to avoid the worst and most toxic aspects of fandom and get to sift through positive feedback and critique.

Even if your fanfic isn’t written with stellar prose, it’s fanfic. We don’t expect Pulitzer-prize winning content. And if your work isn’t up to snuff, people are more likely to just ignore it than put you on blast (at least in my experience, I never got a bad comment or a “flame” in the old FFN days).

Fanfic doesn’t care about the rules of published literature

On the one hand, try not to practice bad habits, but with this point I mean that your layout, punctuation, formatting, paragraph styles, chapter length–all of it is beholden to no rules. I get as annoyed as the next reader with giant blocks of paragraphs, or the double-spacing between pages of single-sentence paragraphs, but if the story’s good enough I might ignore it.

There’s more than just straight narrative fics, though. People write “chat” fics, or long streams of text and group chat conversations. The scene breaks can come super rapidly–I’ve seen fics with a single sentence in between line breaks to show the passage of time. And without the polish of a traditionally published novel, I’ve never seen a purer distillation of author voice in any medium more than fanfic.

All practice is good practice

Even if it’s crack fiction, or a one-off one-shot, or something meant to be lighthearted and straightforward and free from complex worldbuilding and intricate plots. It really helps break writer’s block when you can shift gears and headspaces entirely and you can get relatively instant feedback to keep you motivated.

Beyond that, the “guardrails” help you stay consistent as far as character growth and personality if you struggle with designing rich characters.

The most recent fanfic I wrote was just a couple years ago, for a dead fandom I didn’t think would get any traffic whatsoever. It wasn’t my original works, but the feedback on that fic gave me the kick in the butt I needed to get back into writing more seriously.

—

In short, I support fanfic. I may not be proud of my earliest fics' prose now, but I am proud that they walked so I can now run.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Do you think it's okay for me to write for TWST even though I don't play the game?

Personally, I don’t think anyone ever “needs” to play a game in order to enjoy it and create for it. Sometimes you can just observe art from a distance and appreciate it, or you like hearing about how it brings joy to people you know. Maybe you like the aesthetic of it but can’t really see yourself getting heavily involved with it. Perhaps you don’t like gacha games so you can’t be motivated to engage with the mechanics. There are many possible avenues.

In the case of a game like Twisted Wonderland, there may be accessibility reasons why you don’t play since the game is only in English and Japanese—and even then, maybe your country doesn’t have a server to host it. In fact, I know there are many people who are TWST fans yet only read translations or watch videos about it without having played the game themselves. Maybe they found the manga or the light novel first. Whenever the anime comes out, people might discover TWST through that. We have to consider these aspects and be more open-minded about what constitutes as a “fan” rather than gatekeeping the label of “fan” to only those who play tie game for no discernible reason. What defines someone as a fan or not isn’t the labels other people put on you—you are the one that decides what you want to label yourself, and whether you are a fan or not.

I believe that also extends to content creation in fandom spaces. No one’s stopping you from making fan art or writing fanfic (or whatever it may be) just because you don’t play the game, and nor should you need anyone’s thumbs-up to do so. When you think that you do, you’re only imposing an arbitrary limit and holding yourself back. You have to be confident in deciding what you want to make without worrying how others might perceive you for it.

Now, that being said 💦 I don’t mean to scold anyone for asking me questions, but I feel that I again need to stress this: I am an internet stranger. My opinion or approval/disapproval shouldn’t hold any more weight than the next person’s. You should not put too much value in the advice of an internet stranger either. You shouldn’t care whether or not I think something is okay for you to do. The only person who can give you “permission” is you!

I understand that maybe people may feel uncertain about themselves or are looking for reassurance from a third party, but I do not feel I am the right place to go to for these kinds of things. Even though I answer in earnest, questions of this nature make me feel like I’m being put on the spot and pressured to provide timely comfort.

I don’t feel comfortable continuously being asked for very personalized advice like this; asks like this push on the boundary and start getting into uncomfortable territory for me. I’m here to talk about Disney anime pretty boys. I’m not here to be a fandom counselor 😅 Does that make sense?

This isn’t the only time I’ve received asks of this nature, nor is it the only time I’ve had to give a public warning about this. Please be mindful and respect the boundaries I have set.

[blacknedsoul-blog]

Annabel Lee Whitlock: The Hypocrite, the Vampire and the Femme Fatale. A review of archetypes

Good news: I'm on vacation. Bad news: I'm on vacation.

And that means rest. A positive externality. But on the other hand, it also means that my brain, which is constantly thirsting for stimulation, has lost eight hours of activity a day that it has to fill with something. You know what happens to orange tabbies who suddenly become quiet and behave as if possessed by all the demons of Ars Goetia? Well, sort of.

So my brain in need of stimulation decided to dust off my college notes and talk about archetypes, because it's a thorough enough job to keep me away from climbing walls or checking random stuff on the Internet for 10 hours a day.

What is an archetype?

Just to make sure we're all on the same page, an archetype (a "type character") is a writing model that describes a role and has certain characteristics.

The term was coined by Honoré de Balzac, a French writer obsessed with what he called "micro-history. His life's work, "La Comédie humaine", is a massive collection of more than 80 novels, which, when read, will give you more information about that historical period than any theoretical book on the subject.

You may not know this sir or the protagonist of "Illusions perdues", but you do know the archetype that Lucien Rumempré represents: a young from the provinces, full of dreams, who moves to the city only to discover that the lights are there to dazzle and distract from the misery.

But at the same time, the characters that come to mind are likely to be very different from the good Lucien. This is because the archetype is a different construct from the cliché.

If I had to explain the difference, I would say that the cliché is a recipe, while the archetype is a mold.

If you follow a recipe, you will always get results that are very similar, even if you make small variations in the recipe. But if you have a star cookie cutter, the contents of the cookies can be quite different: no one would dare say that a chocolate chip cookie tastes the same as an oatmeal cookie or a gingerbread cookie. Even if all three are cut in the shape of a star.

So I'm going to do a little review of the archetypes that Annabel notices. The differences, the similarities, and let's see what comes out.

The Hypocrite

Not "hypocrite" in the sense of a personality, but in the sense of a way of behaving in the world: The Hypocrite is a character whose way of relating to the world is a pantomime, whose role is to build themselves up to fit into a system (which, by the way, they despise). If they don't have what you want, they will at least pretend enough to make you think they do. Usually for personal gain.

The founder of this archetype is Julien Sorel, the protagonist of "Le Rogue et Le Noir", the most famous work of Stendhal, one of the most prominent writers of the literary realism founded by Balzac.

Julien is this poor boy, but smart enough to memorize the Bible, which makes him seem educated enough to get him a job as a tutor in a rich house, and eventually a priest's cassock.

A more modern example is Nick Wilde from Zootopia. This fox has decided that if he alone can be a con man, he will be one, though he desperately wants someone to see him as an individual beyond that. He hates the system that condemns him, but he wants to be a part of it and will play by the rules he is given in order to profit.

Annabel, like Julien and Nick, has built her entire identity around being what is expected of her, in her case a perfect Victorian high society lady. Something that has given her a tremendous amount of knowledge about how people move in such circles. And from her point of view, people are the same everywhere (Miss Marple would be proud of her).

And in this oppressive context that fosters an environment where people kill each other, she knows what currency to give in return for loyalty: people will look for a leader, someone competent, someone who knows what they're doing.

Annabel has no idea what's going on, what awaits them outside the Nevermore gate, or even if there's a way to escape. But she can pretend to know. The quietest person in the room wins, and she's the one who takes the prizes to achieve her goal. The performance is justified as a means to an end.

Another thing that characterizes stories with a Hypocrite as a relevant character is the exploration of the consequences of this lifestyle: identity is consumed by the role, the line between actor and character is lost, and the Hypocrite is often faced with the reality that they have put so much of themselves into the character they are playing that once it is exposed, there is nothing underneath, or at least nothing worth saving.

In Annabel's case, this is expressed in her utter horror at not being trusted by Lenore. She puts her hypocrisy at the disposal of her lover and comforts herself with the reward of her affection, but Lenore's love for her is the only thread that binds her own identity: that Lenore does not trust her means that the role has completely consumed her, the complete confirmation that she, as an individual, is no longer a disturbed poseur.

Related to this point, we have the final transversal line in the conflicts that Hypocrites tend to have: loneliness. When all their relationships are based on a carefully rehearsed performance, the Hypocrite knows that they are alone in the world, that no one really knows them, and they are usually so deep in the role by this point that they don't want to (or can't) leave it. The longing for honest relationships overlaps with their self-destructive tendencies.

As much as Annabel insists that it's her and Lenore against the world, that her life is meaningless without Lenore, and that she is enough, these phrases indicate that Annabel is painfully aware of how she is perceived by others, and though she tells herself that Lenore's love is all she needs, it seems more like a mantra to keep her sane than a reality.

As you may have noticed, the main difference from the usual Hypocrite is that Annabel has Lenore. A bit like Nick has Judy. But Nevermore is a story that takes the psychology of its characters much more seriously, so while Nick just needs someone to reach out to in order to form honest relationships, Annabel passes because she has no fucking idea how to form an honest, healthy bond.

That Annabel is extraordinarily self-destructive, emotionally dependent, and so afraid to step outside the box she knows so well are, in this light, natural consequences of the Hypocrite lifestyle.

The Vampire

Here we must make a leap to another movement: during the Romantic period, the Gothic novel was at its best, and it was Edgar Allan Poe who squeezed out the last drops of what this genre had to offer.

Now, looking at the bibliography, Annabel does not have much in common with the gothic heroine (that is something Lenore takes care of), neither on an aesthetic level nor on a value level. To find her in the works that inspire her, one must look in a slightly different direction: the female vampires of gothic fiction.

Aurelia ("Vampirismus" by E.T.A. Hoffmann), Carmilla ("Carmilla" by Sheridan Le Fanu), Clarimonde ("The death woman in love" by Théophile Gautier), the vampire in the poem "The Metamorphosis of the Vampire" by Baudelaire, the three vampire women, and Lucy ("Dracula" by Bram Stoker).

All these characters have something more in common than their fangs: they are beautiful women capable of making anyone who sees them fall completely into their arms, as opposed to their role of making the one they have chosen as their prey "fall".

The Gothic vampire is practically a succubus, but much less sexualized than one might think. Although many of these works, with the exception of the poem by the good Baudelaire (an author who should be fed separately on these matters), spare no pages in describing how beautiful they are, neither do they overly sexualize them, nor are they particularly flirtatious: even Clarimonde is dedicated to simply being there and letting her presence alone do the work.

This is something Annabel shares with the gothic vampire: though physically gorgeous, the framing in the comic doesn't tend to focus on her as an object of sexual desire, her beauty is highlighted, but in a way that is more akin to an ethereal or unattainable entity.

This is due to a mixture of two things: the Gothic novel is steeped in Catholic puritanism, and even if it is to present a villain who uses her attractiveness as a weapon, the erotic component is subtly exposed, and the vampire's angelic beauty offers a contrast to her status as an antagonist: beautiful on the outside, insidious on the inside.

This is another thing Annabel has in common with the gothic vampire: she is aware that her appearance gives her a haughty, elegant, and dignified air, identifiable enough to earn nicknames like "Queen" or "Queenie," and she knows how to capitalize on it. This contrasts with the darker parts of her personality.

Another thing that terrifies romantics about vampires is that these fangirl succubi possess a quality that makes us 21st-century readers raise an eyebrow because it's supposed to make us uncomfortable: a deep, honest, and sincere willingness to be affectionate.

In context, this makes sense: the vampire is a representation of sin, temptation, and lust. So their affection is something that leads the object of it away from the path of morality (this is the 19th century, this is really important).

I understand that because of the vampire's role in all of this, she is a devoted lover. Incredibly devoted, in fact: Clarimonde is Romuald's sugar mommy (no, I'm not kidding, I'm not exaggerating either), and Carmilla never stops showering Laura with affection and attention, satisfying this girl's craving for companionship after living in isolation.

Annabel does something similar: there is a genuine interest on her part to reach out and connect with Lenore, and in scenes like this, she goes out of her way to show her that she is an amazing person in her own right, rather than being her brother's shadow.

All kidding aside, I think of the archetypes I could find to analyze Annabel, this is the one that fits her best, even though she is not, well, literally a vampire. She seems to have several things in common with Carmilla in particular.

The Femme Fatale

We all have a more or less clear idea of what a femme fatale is: this extremely attractive, sexually active, badass woman who is there to make the male character's life miserable and has a 50% chance of smoking fine cigarettes with a cigarette holder. This is…partially true, but also highly inaccurate.

Although these characters can be traced back much further in mythology, this archetype gets its name and very specific form from Raymond Chandler, the founder of the noir novel. I'm not going to go into too much detail on this topic, as entire books could be written about it, so let's just focus on what's important.

The thing to understand about the context to understand the Femme Fatale is that we are in the 30-40's and although she has many more rights than 19th century women, the decadence shown in these works emphasizes that she is in a macho context where every single rule of the game is stacked against her. This is something that Femme Fatale is acutely aware of: no matter how well she plays the game, she will always lose.

This is something that Annabel shares with this archetype: she is very aware of the rules of the game, she knows backwards and forwards how the world works, so she is also aware that they are too heavily stacked against her to ever win. All she can do is resign herself, play the role as best she can, and find small distractions to cling to like a burning nail so as not to lose her head altogether.

Therefore, the Femme Fatale's approach to life is this: if the rules are stacked against her, that means she has the right to do whatever it takes to survive. These tactics usually include manipulation, deception, exploitation, and, of course, making the most of her sexual attractiveness because, unlike the vampire, she knows how to flirt and use sex as a weapon. What needs to be kept in mind here is that for this character archetype, the use of these wiles comes not because she is factory evil, but as a coping mechanism within a system she cannot win against. If this ultimately makes her a villain, it's more about her role within the story in which it plays out than anything about the archetype itself.

Here's an interesting difference between the Annabel we see in Lenore's memories and the one we see in the present day of the comic: Annabel used to be willing to play by the rules, but the thing she learned from Lenore is that cheating is more than possible. As a result, her attitude has become much closer to that of a Femme Fatale, using her extensive knowledge of the rules to her advantage, going with the flow for personal gain. Her methods are much closer to those of the Hypocrite (especially since we haven't seen Annabel use her body or affection as currency yet), but there are definitely similarities.

Another thing about the Femme Fatale (when she is NOT a villain) is that, like the Vampire, she operates within a duality: an exterior built to be sexy in a somewhat intimidating way (which is why the aesthetics of many of these characters can be interpreted within BDSM culture), but with some goodness in her heart. A really clear example of this is Vivian Sternwood from The Big Sleep (the first novel on the subject published by Raymond Chandler): her own father describes her as "rude, demanding, clever, and quite ruthless," and Marlow, our detective, will have a long series of uncomfortable encounters with her. But by the end of the novel, when he is faced with the same choice Vivian must have made in the past, he cannot help but realize that despite everything, this woman would rather keep painful secrets than harm her family, whom she loves dearly.

So if you're wondering why the framing of scenes like this looks familiar, that's why.

Add to that the three layers of how her aesthetic works: an angelic appearance for when she needs to play dumb, her gaslighting, gatekeeping, girlboss bullshit face for when she needs to demonstrate authority, and framing where it should make you directly uncomfortable.

Looks are one of the strengths of Femmel Fatale's performance. And it's one of the strengths of Annabel's performance.

Conclusions

One interesting thing about looking at Annabel in this light is to realize two things: first, that many of the archetypes her character seems to take notes from are often in the role of antagonists or, for that matter, villains. 

The other is that these archetypes are quite well ordered and connected: the gothic vampire is the inspiration for the Femme Fatale of Noir (her beta version, if you can call it that), and the Hypocrite shares a historical writing period with many female vampires. From her conception, Annabel is constructed in a fairly orderly fashion, and believe me, that's a huge contrast to what's going to happen with Lenore (which I'll get to soon, but I need to brush up on my picaresque novel notes). 

The last thing I want to point out in this review is this: unless you're a Nick Wilde-style Hypocrite, Hypocrites and Vampires in general tend to have utter destruction in store for them. The Noir, for its part, puts us in a situation where the Femme Fatale, even if she wants to change, is generally too deep in this tangle to get out. 

So what I find interesting about Annabel in this regard is:

This is actually THE scene that shows us Annabel timidly stepping out of the scheme of things. She doesn't seem to want to change, in fact I'd bet she's terrified to change, but even though she's repeating her father's toxic pattern here, she's also breaking it without realizing it. 

It's too early to tell if we'll see Annabel have some sort of redemption towards less harmful behavior, or if we'll end up seeing her become a villain altogether. But I'm really curious to see where this story goes with all of these elements.

[allthesunlightwecansee]

The (Un)seriousness of My Practice

I just got done watching a short podcast episode on being an unserious witch, and it helped me to articulate some thoughts and feelings that I’ve been having over the past year. About a year ago now, I had a kind of breakthrough where I figured out how to connect with witchcraft and paganism, instead of vaguely calling myself a “person who wishes they were more spiritual,” like I had for several years prior to that. Not to sound like a YA romance novel, but my spiritualism was a slow build up that then hit me all at once that year. As I’m sure a lot of people on Tumblr will relate to, it was a really exciting seven months or so of figuring myself out before life got really stressful and overwhelming, and my spirituality kind of fell to the wayside. However, even during that period of excitement, it wasn’t like I was performing spells every day or doing elaborate rituals and ceremonies like some witches do (though I’m well aware the vast majority do not). Instead, that year involved a lot of reading and learning and altar building, since I am a collector at heart. I think I finally settled into kind of a routine with my spirituality, which I have come to accept, even though it isn’t what I thought it would look like.

Something that I find a bit intimidating about the Internet in general is seeing people who look like they have everything put together. Some practicing witches online clearly do make their whole lives revolve around their practice, particularly those who have turned it into a career via social media or YouTube. That’s a perfectly acceptable way to practice obviously, but it does mean that online spaces tend to feel a little gatekept sometimes when it comes to unserious witchcraft. I would definitely label my practice as being unserious; I rarely create spells at this point, I am very colloquial with the deities that I work with and honor, some of my altars are built almost solely around my need to house certain books (though I am quite deliberate in what deities I create altars for), I enjoy collecting crystals over working spells, and a lot of my spirituality revolves around feeling and the visual, physical objects that I have acquired for my various altars. I can think of several witchcraft Youtubers that I like and whose content I enjoy that would say that I am not a witch because of how I practice, which doesn’t reflect how I actually feel about myself and my practice. For me, spirituality feels more fluid than that. The fact that I create some spells and hold sacred space for my deities still falls under the realm of witchcraft, even though that’s not what works for other people. I have found that having discrete alters for different deities and purposes, makes it easier for me to connect with my spirituality, because I find that adding to altars, lighting, candles, leaving long-term spells, and other forms of magic work better for me personally.

Because of that, while I am not a serious witch in that witchcraft and spirituality do not rule my life, the practice that I do have, however minimal, does fill a gap that was missing in my life. I have also realized that a minimal practice isn’t a bad thing; it’s why their entire podcasts devoted to small magical practices (my favorite is Demystifying Magic), in addition to YouTube channels and accounts that depict serious career witches. It also means that I still keep my other hobbies, and that witchcraft has not become my primary “hobby,” so to speak. I have collected action figures and dolls for over a decade now, which encompasses all of my teenage and adult life. While I know some witches abide by notions of lowering consumption and just generally having a quieter living space, my living space is completely decked out in my various collections, and that hasn’t changed since I pinned down an evolving form of my spirituality. I think some people would see me as incredibly unserious for doing that, but I don’t feel as though one part of myself has to eclipse the other, just because it is more metaphysical in nature. I also know that I have a lot more learning and growing to do in my practice as I figure out what I believe in and what I want to take with me, but I don’t anticipate the physicality of how I practice changing anytime soon. In other words, my unserious practice doesn’t have less value just because it is not elaborate, and I am more secure in that now than I was a few months ago.

[carriagelamp]

Winter reading is the cosiest reading, I love getting to read next to the Christmas tree when the lights are on! As usual, I tried to squeeze at least a couple Christmas reads in because I enjoy seasonally appropriate stories~

And Then, Boom!

An unexpectedly good read! This is a middle grade novel that I picked up on a whim because I had some time to kill and it was there. I figured I’d read the first bit and then be done with it, but I enjoyed it enough to get it out of the library and finish — it helps that it’s all written in free verse poetry and therefore a very quick read. I feel like free verse fiction books have become more and more common lately... as a kid the only ones I can think of off hand were those books like Crank written by Ellen Hopkins, but I’ve read a handful now that have been written in verse.

This book is about a boy who comes from a dysfunctional family. His father isn’t in the picture and his mom is neglectful — she’ll get “the itch” and then up and leave — so he primarily grew up with his grandmother. However in his life he frequently experiences “and then… boom!” moments, when a sudden disaster turns everything on its head. When his mother’s arrested, when his grandmother loses her house and they have to live out of their car, they're all “booms” he needs to weather. The book explorers some of those ups and downs and the difficulty of being a child who lives in poverty until the biggest and then, boom moment happens: his grandmother dies.

The Anxious Generation

My favourite book from this month; I’ve heard a lot of people talking about it and have been very eagerly awaiting my hold at the library to come in. It's a popsci account of Haidt’s research into the sudden increase in childhood anxiety that started spiking in the 2010s, and how smartphones and social media may play a significant role in it. As someone right on the cusp of this age bracket, I found it both an interesting insight into what’s affecting the younger generation, and also a sometimes uncomfortable spotlight on my own experiences and anxieties.

The main argument this book makes, despite the focus on childhood exposure to tablet devices and social media, is less about the internet and much more about the experiences children are being allowed. He points out how much less freedom and independence children are being afforded now, and how overprotective parenting is becoming more and more the norm. Children aren’t being allowed to take risks — not physical risks, but also not social risks. They don’t have time to play independently and unsupervised, they don’t get given chances to make social mistakes and learn how to repair them on their own and without adult mediation, and that’s having a serious impact on their ability to build and maintain relationships going forward in life. This is compounded by technology that further draws them away from important real world interactions and milestones.

It’s a very well-written book and I highly recommend picking it up. Whether or not you agree with every claim that's made, I found it gave me a lot to think about and most of his arguments are well-reasoned. I think it’s valuable to look at how it may be impacting people, both so we can do better by the children our society is raising and so we can do better by ourselves.

Behind the Screens: Illustrated Floor Plans and Scenes from the Best TV Shows of All Time

This was a fun coffee table book. The author researched different sets from iconic showsacross TV history and managed to create cohesive floorplans for them. Each section talks a bit about the show, what made it important for Western television, and some of the details that went into each blueprint. Some of the shows include: The Simpsons, The Office, Seinfeld, Friends, I Love Lucy, Sesame Street, Schitt’s Creek, Killing Even, Sherlock, The Golden Girls… you get it. There’s lots!

The Disabled Tyrant’s Beloved Pet Fish v2

This series continues to be ridiculous! I already have the third book sitting on my shelf, waiting for its turn to be read so I'm pretty bought in!

Li Yu gets isekai’d into a webnovel… but as a pet fish rather than any sort of character. Despite this he’s tasked with trying to help the “tyrannical” Prince Jing. In this book Li Yu has begun to get used to his role, gets more opportunities to transform into  a human, and has even officially met Prince Jing as a human. Li Yu is convinced that he’s being very very sneaky and that Prince Jing has no idea he’s both a human and a fish. Prince Jing is convinced he has somehow acquired a carp spirit and is being very respectful about not mentioning it since his fish clearly doesn’t want it to be known. However if his carp spirit wanted to be a bit more forward about siphoning off his life force, Prince Jing is very ready and willing 👀👀👀

Dracula Daily

For anyone who's been living under a rock unfamiliar with Dracula Daily, it's an "internet book club" that started a few years back during the pandemic. It's the entire, original novel of Dracula as written by Bram Stoker, but re-arranged by Matt Kirkland so that it is being told in chronological order instead, each new entry to the story being emailed to readers on the day it would actually be happening.

When Dracula Daily first started I had read Dracula literally the summer before, so it was too early for a reread but now enough time's passed that I figured I should buy the physical edition that was released and try to follow along this year. It was a ton of fun! The physical copy is nice because it’s included a ton of art, memes, and posts people made while doing Dracula Daily in previous years, so it was a lot of fun getting to see people’s insights as I read along! Obviously I didn’t quite stay perfectly up to date, hence me including this with my December reads rather than my November ones, but I was generally fairly synched up and it really did add to the tension… waiting to see what happened to one character when big gaps of time might elapse between letters or journal entries. This is a very amusing way to read Dracula, I think I even enjoyed it more than the traditional way.

Dragons at Crumbling Castle and other stories

A collection of some of Terry Pratchett’s old children’s short stories. Not a lot to say about it — it was fine. They’re fun little stories, and Pratchett’s talent as an author always shines through, no matter what he finds things to be satirical or clever about, things that make you laugh along with or actually stop to consider. By they are, ultimately, from earlier in his career and just short stories for kids so they obviously don't have as much meat on their bones as his other work. Still, it made for a nice audiobook to listen to at bedtime.

Juniper’s Christmas

A really cute Christmas novel, I read it at the very beginning of the month to start getting into a festive mood. In this story, Santa has long since retired but many people still miss and honour him. Juniper’s family, who works as caretakers in a city park, are one such family and they host a “Santa Vigil” every year that's one part Christmas festivities and one part a time for people to donate to support disadvantaged people in their community. However when officials threaten to shut down the vigil, Juniper’s mom goes missing, and a mysterious, gift-giving woodsman appears Juniper finds herself thrust into a action-filled Christmas adventure around London. This book as comically evil villains, flying reindeer, good social messages, and lots of magic! A very worthwhile read!

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (MDZS) v1

@redoftheturks has made and posted fan-audiobooks of the entire MDZS (and TGCF!) series!!! So really, it was completely impossible for me not to start rereading it, not when it was delivered up to me on a silver platter like that! And honestly what a blessing 🙏 this has been helping me unwind during some high-stress nonsense that's been cropping up over the past month. No matter how bad things are going for me, at least I know things are going worse and weirder for Wei Wuxian. And it is such an excellent reading. I swear this is just going to be how I imagine Wei Wuxian’s voice from now on, it’s so perfect. More than anything (maybe it's rereading with a fuller understanding of the characters and story, or maybe it's thanks for the great line delivery) it's really making me appreciate how much fun Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are having together which I'm not sure I fully grasped my first time around.

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation follows Wei Wuxian, the feared and powerful creator of demonic cultivation, who was finally killed before he could rain any more terror down on the world. The story starts 13 years after his death, with Wei Wuxian very unexpectedly waking up in a new body, in the middle of a strange, supernatural murder mystery, and with a need to hide his presence before people start coming for his head again. It should all go great!!! right?

Out of My Mind

This is a book I’ve been peripherally aware of for a while and knew was supposed to be a pretty good middle grade novel, so I figured I’d finally read it. It was… fine. The story is about Melody who has cerebral palsy, and it follows her time in grade five and the difficulties she has in connecting to her peers and communicating the thoughts in her head. Everyone expects very little of her, but things begin to change when she gets a new computer to replace her old communication board and suddenly has a whole new range of communication options open up to her… and gives her a chance to show just how much she actually knows in time for the big trivia contest that her school competes in annually.

It’s a fine book, well-written, and I certainly don’t regret reading it but I can’t say it did much for me. Of course, I’m not the target demographic and I’ve never been a huge fan of contemporary fiction, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street

A fun nonfiction book that looks into all the people, work, and thought that went into the creation of Sesame Street. Honestly when I think of Sesame Street I do tend to just think of it as Jim Henson’s creation, so it was shocking to realise how late in the planning process he actually joined! So many people went into creating this show, and it was all done in such an intense, methodical way! They really were determined to try to bring early childhood education to disenfranchised families who couldn’t afford things like preschool. They had no idea if it could even be done, if this would be a failed project or not, and in the process they created a cultural behemoth! I really enjoyed reading this and learning about it all! ...And it gives you an excuse to think about the muppets, which, in my opinion, is always welcome <3

This Winter

I’ve been meaning to read this Heartstopper novella for ages, and am glad that I finally did. It’s a cute little story set between book 4 and book 5 (or is a prequel for Solitaire, though I haven't read that novel), which focuses in on Charlie’s on-going struggles with / recovery from his eating disorder during the holidays, his anxieties, and his relationship with Nick. It manages to touch on some serious or emotional topics, while also being sugary sweet and heartwarming in a way you want your Christmas stories to be. You get to see all three of the Spring children’s POVs throughout the course of the novella, which is a nice treat since that’s not something the graphic novels can really deliver.

Willodeen

Another book that was… fine. I do love Katherine Applegate’s works and I have no complaints against this one. It was a lovely story set in a world separate from ours that seems to be going through its own form of industrial (or at least steam related) revolution. It follows Willodeen, who was orphaned after a fire swept through her village and destroyer her home, killing her parents in the process. Fires like this are an on-going problem for the village which is struggling from climate change that is affecting everything from crops to the migration of hummingbears which their tourism industry relies on. While everyone else is worrying about the adorable hummingbears though, Willodeen is concerned for the disappearance of the screechers — an ugly, loud, smelly pest that most villagers are happy to kill and drive away.

The book is a very beautifully written story that looks at environmental change, charismatic vs uncharismatic species and how they fit together, and what a community can do for each other. I enjoyed reading it, it was clever, and it was quick. However my main complaint is that it feels like the novel equivalent of Oscar-bait. Very very beautiful and meaningful and it knows it, and it feels a little… hollow. Not fully formed. But whatever.

[espilver-week]

Fanfics...

Last month we had 💜🤍Espilver Week 2023🤍💜, and we set up some polls to ask Espilver fans about their favorite everything for this ship ✨

"What tags do you like to see when looking for an Espilver/Silvespio fic?"

Over half of the votes went to fluff 💕 Many people seem to prefer something sweet and comforting for Silver and Espio. Mod as well, loves to read fluff as well! But since we are talking about fanfics, there are a few that I would like to share!

Us (by Midnight Mischief, 2014-2015; Words: 17,753; Rate T)

One of the earliest fics mod has read, and this is a re-imagined story for Rivals 2 with romance subtext. For people first starting to look into the two characters' chemistry, what's better than looking at something similar to the games? There are a bunch of interesting character dynamics between the cast, and events are mainly significant moments in both Silver's and Espio's story. People will need to know the Rivals 2 plotline to recognize certain setting re-use or changes in this fanfic.

No Evidence (by Cubicrot, 2018; Words: 23,519, Rate T)

This is a fic with plenty adventure and a bit of romance, with Espio and Silver first encountering each other in an alternate event which is irrelevant to Rivals 2. Silver was in desperate need of chaos drives, while Espio was on a case investigating a case of missing chaos drives. They ran into each other by chance, and went on their joint journey to achieve what they want. Despite not following the games 100%, it can still be counted as "canon deviation". Being one of the earlier fanfics you can find on the internet, mod absolutely enjoyed reading through it!

Time Together, How Sweet (by mousewritings, 2020; Words: 2,374. Rate G)

A silly story about Espio and Silver going to a store to buy presents for Charmy, but ended up getting kicked out of the store for certain reasons. A purely fluff fic, great for people that wants a quick but pleasant time to read an Espilver fanfic. Genuinely light hearted, this is one of the cute fics mod likes a lot. 💛

New Beginnings (by TrueBlueSonic, 2020-2022; Words: 195,768, Rate T)

Mod believes many people have already read this, in fact, with how there is over 13k hits on AO3, many might have taken a like to Espilver because of this fanfic! Congrats~! 🎉 This story is an aftermath of Rivals 2, "canon deviation" fanfic that involves Silver getting to experience life in the present time, choosing between going back to the future or staying in the present. Many fluffy moments and tear-jerking chapters, those who want a few novel-lengths of fanfic to immerse will have a good time reading this!

Sharp eyes would realize these fanfics here are from years ago! Mod wants to share them for newcomers, so everyone can experience how people perceive Espilver/Silvespio during earlier days when content for this ship were less frequent. Hope you enjoy reading them!

Many fanfics involve not only fluff, but with conflicts and heart-wrenching moments as well. Mod is glad to see people willing to try out all kinds of content despite our main preference!

I noticed many people tend to enjoy stories with Silver feeling conflicted about going back to the future or staying in the past. Indeed, fiddling with timelines are a huge topic that could go on forever, and the decision of staying became very important to Silver. Espio himself then became one of the biggest reasons Silver travels back in time, and even stay in the present forever in some stories.

Letting Silver enjoy life with Espio in the present is also one of the most popular scenarios. Some fanfics with more than a chapter or two would sure to have them hangout in a chill manner, maybe explore their feelings with each other in the meantime.

Besides the main focus on fluff or happy endings, quite a lot of fanfics also go with #slow burn, #friends to lovers, #established relationship, etc. For people that want something other than these settings, now it's the time for you to shine!

There are lots of content for Espilver/Silvespio on the internet, with all kinds of preference and ratings to take note of. Remember to keep an open-minded mentality and enjoy your time within the fandom!

[ladyniniane]

For the Writblr Ask Game: 5, 7 and 13 💕

Please and thank you

End of the year writeblr ask game

Hello 👋 and thank you for the questions ✨!

5) What is your favorite book/story/poem you read this year?

Lauren Groff's Matrix! I don't know if it's my favorite, but it's certainly one of the best things I've read this year. (I don't rate books 5 stars on Goodreads that often).

It has medieval women in all sort of roles: nuns, administrators, visionaries, artists, queens, warriors... Women building their own community and being self-sufficient. A narrative with sorority at its core. And gorgeous writing to boot.

7) What are three songs you put on your WIP-playlist this year?

I tend to associate my characters with Florence and the machine songs and this year was no exception.

First: Seven Devils. My characters aren't usually people you would want to cross, but it especially reminds me of my Shadow and Bone OC, Marya. She can be ruthless and is a fearsome presence on the battlefield.

"Holy water cannot help you now / Thousand armies couldn't keep me out / I don't want your money / I don't want your crown / See, I've come to burn your kingdom down."

Next is Only if for a night. Ismene, the protagonist of one of my WIPs, has just lost her mother. This song about being visited in a dream by a dead relative was perfect.

"And the only solution was to stand and fight / And my body was bruised and I was set alight / But you came over me like some holy rite /And although I was burning, you're the only light."

Last is Shake it Out. I associate it with another of my characters who lost herself, hit rock bottom, but is determined to find her way in spite of her suffering.

"All of his questions, such a mournful sound /Tonight I'm gonna bury that horse in the ground /'Cause I like to keep my issues drawn /But it's always darkest before the dawn"

13) How did you change as a writer?

I learned many positive things and I improved my writing, but one thing I've learned was to handle disappointement.

In January, I posted my Fire Emblem Three Houses fanfic on AO3. I put a lot of work in it. It's a novel-length story, I created 4 OCs, with their backstories, their personalities... Since this game has a lot of dead or invisible mothers, I gave them a face and a story. I expanded on some of the game's lore.

And clearly, I was disappointed by the relative lack of interactions. I'm not writing for clout, but I'm also posting my stories in the hope of connecting with other people. But that wasn't really the case on AO3. I had to wait 8 months before getting my first comment.

Of course, it still had some interactions, so I don't want to sound ungrateful. I don't want to be internet famous (especially since there are cases of harassment against authors in this fandom). But the thing is that I hoped for...more. And it felt like screaming in the void, especially after having put all this work.

Then, I published my Shadow and Bone fanfic and the response was very different and heartwarming. This made me realize that the problem wasn't probably with my writing or storytelling, but mainly with the fandom. This fandom doesn't seem to want what I have to offer (I wish people would step out their comfort zone and stop being this wary of OCs. Maybe I will elaborate on this later).

Furthermore, the people who read this story enjoyed it. And I had fun writing it. So I chose to focus on the positive side of this experience and I will keep writing about my characters because I believe in their potential.

[monstersinthecosmos]

9, 19 and 89 for the writer game.

(writing asks!)

9. in an ideal world where you’re already super successful and published, would you want to see a tv or movie adaptation of your work? why or why not?

THIS IS TOUGH I DON'T KNOW. In the ideal world it means they won't like fuck my story up too much? Like I'm a huge movie nerd and I consider all the movies I watch as important to me as a writer as books that I read? I love movies? It would be so fun and cool to see ????

BUT LIKE I'M TRAUMATIZED BY BAD ADAPTATIONS THAT ARE SO REMOVED FROM THE SOURCE MATERIAL THAT THEY'RE UNRECOGNIZABLE LOL. So. """ideally""" sure! But who knows.

19. what are some books or authors that influenced your style the most?

sdgjakds what a great question; as a fanfic writer learning from other fanfic writers, my no. 1 influence would be fuckin SCARLETFEVER from FFnet whose work has been long scrubbed from the internet but that I have downloaded and I still revisit. They wrote these like EPIC NOVEL Resident Evil fics when I was in high school in like 2003 and I cannot emphasize enough how influential these were on me and how much I still am always going back to them when I ask myself questions about what type of writer I'd want to be and what type of fic I'm trying to write.

When I returned to fic writing back in like 2016 I was like exclusively reading YOI fic (bc there was like zero VC fic I wanted to read lol) so some of the YOI writers that influenced me SO MUCH: SuggestiveScribe, scribblywobblytimeylimey, and dance_across ! ALSO THIS FIC THAT HAS BEEN ORPHANED NOW IDK WHO WROTE IT BUT THIS FIC LIKE BROKE SOMETHING OPEN IN MY HEAD ABOUT NONLINEAR STORYTELLING ? HELLO?

And then from 2018-onward I've been reading almost exclusively Sheith fic and a couple people who really have influenced me so much are Rifa and an_aphorism/AphAfterDark !

(Every fic writer I linked is someone who helped me think meaningfully about the way I write porn LOL)

AS FAR AS REGULAR BOOKS; I think there's something a little unshakable about the authors I liked when I was a teenager because they sort of created a blueprint? In middle school I was reading a lot of Anne Rice and Francesca Lia Block and I think both of them are sort of opposite versions of sensual writing; Anne Rice tends to be quite verbose and go on and on and on vs FLB's writing is so tight and light but full of sensory words ! So I think like those two always made me want to like describe colors and smells and feelings etc.

Then in high school I was really into Wally Lamb (he only had 3 books at the time but I was really into all of them). Like his book I Know This Much is True was absolutely my favorite book for years. I haven't revisited it in a while so I get worried because sometimes I revisit books I loved in high school and I'm just appalled them LMAO. Like I revisited his book She's Come Undone last year and I hated it so much hkjdsgasdhjk. But I think like the way he wrote Dominick's voice was so influential to me because it just cuts through all the bullshit and there's sort of like a ruggedness to it that feels so sincere and human. (I remember around this time I also read some Hubert Selby, Jr which is like not at all something I aspire to write like LMAO but basically gave me a lot to think about when it comes to like, formal prose & grammar vs writing the way people actually speak.)

So I think I came away from these authors as this Frankensteined thing of like, trying to be sincere & human but also trying to use sensory words so that I can feel immersed????????????????

89. sarcastic narrators: entertaining or overdone?

GOD LIKE. IN THE RIGHT HANDS??? VERY GOOD. But possibly overdone. I'm actually in the middle of a book right now and I'm hating the narrator SO MUCH LOL and I'm just dying to like make it through enough of this book to figure out if it serves a purpose or if the author is just a cynical asshole lol. I'm so tired of cynicism man. Like obviously when it fits the character it fits the character but it's just so exhausting when it's thrown at you as a default you know? I've read a few too many cynical books lately and it doesn't bring me any joy LOL.

[theroseofambrose]

Where I've been

So, I've been gone and during that time, I've been dragged through hell. Some good things have happened. I had surgery on my eyes that has restored a good degree of my vison. I'm reading books and having far less migraines. Light doesn't hurt as much as it did.

Other than that, the dog that is in my page banner. She is my very very good girl, and she has unfortunately passed away in September. she was 14 years old. I've had her since I was 10 and she was my best friend. I didn't know that I could have such a deep connection with an animal. I had a human level deep connection with her. She is the reason I am alive and helped me through many hard times.

the other reason, is one I've only talked about a little bit and would like to talk about more. I've had an internet stalker on a lot of my socials. somehow, he found my Tumblr as well. so, I haven't talked about it because he's reading it. I'm going through legal actions with him. The biggest of reasons I've been unsure about talking about it is because he is Trans. the times, I've talked about it on other platforms hordes of assholes have come up to talk shit about trans people. He is a incredibly mentally unstable and disturbed person. but he not that way because he is trans. So, I didn't want people to use to as ammunition against the trans community, especially with the current climate in the U.S

I've just been extremely stressed and depressed. I have had no motivation to write. my creativity has been low.

Hopefully with therapy and depending on how my court cases go, I may be back to write again. but I'm taking a break. Just want everyone to know that I am alive.

Thank you everyone who liked my stories. I've wanted to write for so long, but I never thought I was good enough to post on Archive of our own. Writing my little fanfictions gave me a confidence boost in my abilities and I hope one day to write my own novel.

Please stay safe out there. There are truly some evil people out there. I'm sure many of you already know that and have experienced it. But they can hurt you from online in ways the law doesn't know how to fight or that others don't take seriously till they escalate into your physical space.

[veyoux]

Thanks for tagging me @candlelitutopia i haven’t done anything like that yet, it’ll be fun

tea, coffee, or soda? tea and coffee and soda for me, i drink water in the morning, coffee in the afternoon and earl grey in the evening. although in my house i’m the only one who drinks a lot of different kinds of coffee, so i’m more of a coffee person (does it make me an afternoon person??)

dogs or cats? definitely dogs. cats are cute when i watch them on the Internet. i used to have a dog, a german shepherd named Jackson, he was positively crazy, killing every garden hose, sleeping by the door so we couldn’t go outside and, beside this, really peaceful when we weren’t home

can you play an instrument? are people’s nerves an instrument? if no, then nope

what’s your sign? problems- i mean sagittarius

first song lyrics that pops into your head? “with the lights out it’s less dangerous here we are now entertain us”

do you have any tattoos? no, but i will have soon

favourite place you’ve travelled? first place that came to my mind was Galway, i spent there only two weeks but it’s really beautiful town, i just loved the atmosphere there, great, great place. i have nice memories from Dresden and Budapest as well as from Dublin, Crete and Prague, looking forward to call Milan my favourite place this summer

what’s the last movie you’ve watched? The fellowship of the ring. again. for the 50th time. i love this movie.

do you have any hobbies? i have an entire list of hobbies from sports (tennis, F1, football) to reading and writing (mostly fantasy) to music (all of the genres) to reading again (because i love classical literature as much as modern ya novels)

what languages do you speak? polish (did you know it is said to be one of the hardest languages in the world? so many grammar rules even native speakers don’t know how to speak it correctly — just had to share this piece of information), english (B2 level), i can say something in german as it was my second language in school for 6 years, and currently i’m trying to learn italian

you can hang out with one fictional character for an hour, who do you choose? OH MY GOD I DON’T KNOW WAIT… i low-key thought about someone wise like Dumbledore or Gandalf to ask them about the meaning of life or something, but idk… alright, gotta go with Avatar Aang, because he was my childhood hero

compliment yourself! i studied hard and i will pass the exams (i hope guys)

alright time to share it with the world, i’m tagging the nicest accounts i can list from memory (excluding the one i’ve been tagged by), if you don’t want to do this/have done this then sorry for interrupting!

@acrazybayernfan @musettina

oopsie just now i’ve remembered about @tam-is-blogging (short memory, sorry)

[ihatemyselfforwantingmore]

I always knew I would become an addict

Everyone (or at least most people) think that addicts are just weird crackheads who deserve no respect or empathy of any kind. They also think that something that horrible would never happen to them. I guess I used to feel the same way towards them before I became one of them.

I always knew I would become an addict. For as long as I remember, I wanted to escape from my life. Whenever people who worked in rehab came to my school to prevent drug use and described all kinds of drugs, I started craving them. I've romanticized drug use for as long as I can remember. I used to see the ecstasy pills with smiling faces thinking: "I'm gonna try this when I'm older". Then I went home and researched about all kinds of drugs while craving them, wishing I could grow up faster so I could give them a try.

Obviously, I grew up with unrestricted access to the Internet. I was obsessed with pop culture, and something pop culture obviously had was a shitton of drug use. I remember spending hours in front of the computer watching pictures of Lindsay Lohan partying wishing it was me, at the age of 10.

I loved watching movies and, of course, if there's something teen movies have is drug use, whether it's weed, acid or cocaine. I couldn't wait to try them when I grew up. It all seemed so glamorous. I loved the film 'The Bling Ring' when I was 11 after watching it on theaters. And their lifestyle was just so glamorous! I wanted to be one of them, I wanted to listen to All Of The Lights by Kanye West while driving and doing cocaine at the same time. I just wanted to have fun. My life was so boring and depressing.

I was a straight A's student who was in extracurricular actives and was known by everyone as an avid bookworm. I used to speak in front of the entire school trying to promote reading to my classmates by recommending YA books that could get them into the hobby of reading. I used to have a lot of books under my chair in case anyone from my classroom wanted to read something. I remember calling it 'my library' and getting in trouble because of it, but I didn't care. I've always loved escapism, and maybe that's why I loved reading so much. I was kind of a very lonely girl growing up, so I used to imagine fantasy worlds while I was in class. I used to think that maybe if I did drugs they would come to life.

As I grew up, I stopped having as many friends as I used to. Everyone in my class randomly decided to just stop talking to me. I only had one friend, and she stopped talking to me and became friends with my bullies after I had to transfer schools due to, of course, bullying. I thought I wouldn't care but it fucked me up really bad.

I started watching more and more movies in a depressive episode where I didn't go to school for four months. All I did was drink Coca-Cola and spend the whole day on my computer.

Two of my favorites were Requiem for a Dream and Trainspotting. Most people (like my parents) thought that they were a hard watch because of the scenes where drugs fuck their entire lives. I thought the opposite. I used to think they were so glamorous and that it was a world I wanted to get into.

I went to school again and struggled with selective mutism, so I couldn't make any new friends, no matter how bad I wanted to. Everyone thought I was just the weird, quiet kid so I kept reading a lot to feel like I had a friend, even if it was just a book.I missed my ex best friend like crazy. I started reading novels by Jack Kerouac and Irvine Welsh, just wanting to go on a substance abuse binge thinking it would fix all my problems and make me happier.

My brother used to be just like me until one day he woke up and decided to rebel against my parents. He decided to drop out of high school and tried every single drug on Earth with his friends. I always resented him for that because I wanted a big brother who'd take care of me but instead I got a Tony Stonem dupe. I don't know if I wanted to be like him?

[noahsbookhoard]

📚March 2024 Book Review (Part 1/2)📚

Well, March had been a draught so this post will be short. Even more so since I read He Who Drowned The World by Shelley Parker-Chan but will give it its own post with book 1 of the Radiant Emperor, She Who Became the Sun. Still there's some good books in here, starting with a classic!

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Basil Hallway has just finished the portrait of young, beautiful dandy Dorian Gray. The young man is just realising that he will grow old and become jealous of this picture who will keep its youth and charm; he starts to wish the portrait were aging in his place. The wish is granted and Dorian will go on living a life of hedonism and libertinage as his sins disfigure the picture hidden in his attic.

Chanson Douce by Leïla Slimani

I can't believe I had never read anything Oscar Wilde wrote before but here we are! I had to remedy this.

I really loved it, it has the gothic atmosphere I love, Oscar Wilde dry humour which I loved from his aphorisms and a razor sharp critique of the society Wilde lived in and who put him to trial for this book.

Dorian is despicable but that what makes him compelling in this story: how far would he go thinking he would never be caught and what would he do when the spell would inevitably come to ium for its due? Those last few pages and the first moment when he realised what was happening where the most interesting to me. Maybe the rest seemed harder to read for me because I lack some context to understand it?

However what hasn't aged (ha ha ha) one bit is the theme: The fear of aging up is kind of understandable one, especially today with social media and the pressure of well-being corporation trying to sell eternal youth in creams, diets and yoga classes. Would the people who use and abuse of cosmetic surgery say no to a picture that age in their stead? I don't think so. Internet also participates in the feeling of unaccountability some people feel: behind a screen, a username and at most a vpn, no one can judge what I do or say (or so they think). No one has their Google search history or their last tweet written on their forehead, so no one will ever know what the computer in the attic hides. That's not exactly true but most Internet trolls act like it is.

In so many ways it reminds me of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde but the comparison is a classic one: two morally dubious characters, who found ways to give in to their basest desires without suffering from the social disgrace, their darkness manifesting itself physically on another form which catch up to them eventually. There is something deeply satisfying in seeing all of it crumble down and their true nature finally come to light.

TW for child's murder and attempted suicide

Inspired by the murder of the Krim siblings, the book opens on Myriam, mother of two, coming back home to find her two young children in the bathtub, stabbed to death by their nanny, Louise, who had then tried to kill herself. The story then goes back in time to explain how it happened, how Myriam and her husband Paul hired Louise and quickly couldn't do without her, how much the little Mila and Adam loved her, the way a disturbing codependant relationship is born and how it all fell apart.

This is getting redundant but once again I saw the movie before reading the book! I don't know why actually: I went to the cinema with some friends it is isn't the kind of film we usually pick. It was good!

Nevertheless I never picked the book because I had to much assigned reading at the time and in the meantime forgot about it. I found it back when I challenged myself earlier in the month to pick some prize-winning novels for the TBR to fight back my prejudice of Goncourt winning books being either too hard or too boring, as it won in 2016.

The book starts really abruptly with the nanny's murder-suicide and that short but awful "Le bébé est mort" "the baby is dead". I hadn't expected it, but it pulled me in: the author gives just enough hints of what the family+nanny dynamic was to pique my curiosity.

It all started when Myriam, the mother, wants to go back to work after their son Adam turned 2, even though they have no daycare and their daughter Mila is only 5: they need a nanny. There is the theme of womanhood and maternity throughout the book with the contrast between upper middle class Myriam who is a lawyer trying to balance work and family and lower class Louise walking the delicate balance of being a nanny, a trusted employee in the home's inner circle, treated "like she's family" without being part of it. At some point the couple take her with them on vacation but whatever they might tell themselves, it's so she will take care of the kids so they can enjoy their rest.

It creates some clashes (inner mostly) but also some very anxiety inducing scene: at some point Louise is so involved she tried to protest about how wasteful she finds Myriam and Paul; she picks up from the thrash the chicken carcasse they dumped and put in back on the table, bone clean. The film ends there if I remember correctly, a much more ambigous final than the book.

It pushed even harder in the horror as it continues after the murder with the police investigation. We see the female police officer putting herself in Louise's shoes to work out how she could have snapped like that. It concludes with the recomposition of the crime and the last, terrifying, sentence: "Les enfants, venez. Vous allez prendre un bain", "children, come here. Let's take a bath".

It is creepy, harrowing, but incredible well written. This one I know has been translated in English under the title Lullaby and the film adaptation dubbed under the title The Perfect Nanny.

Ségurant, le chevalier au dragon by Emanuele Arioli

The adventures of a forgotten Knight of the Round Table, Segurant, famed for his strength and for his endless chase with a dragon.

To be precise, Emanuele Arioli isn't the author: he is a archivist specialising in medieval literature and in his research he found traces of a forgotten Round Table Knight Ségurant. He traced his adventures back in several manuscript (even though most of the texts were written at least a century after the main arthuriana) and compiled the texts in this book.

I adored the arthurian mythology when I was a kid I although I started reading over genres, I never stopped loving it. At some point I even organised a tournament in here to elect the new King Arthur (if you are reading this and participated in it you are my Brother (gender neutral) in Arms and I love you forever, if you are just curious the winner was the little swedish girl who found an ancient sword in a lake back in 2018 and her seneschal (the runner-up) is Sonic the hedgehog) This means I was a little curious about this new knight and my father bought the book and shipped it to me in January or February.

Thankfully it was translated into modernised French but still the style was a little repetitive and hard to get into. I was expecting it, after all it is a 13th century text! Every thrice paragraph starts with "What's more to tell?" and it went from funny to endearing to slightly bothering.

Ségurant himself is the most indulgent self-insert character I have ever seen - I say this with all the love in the universe, it is just so funny: he is the strongest knight ever, he beats every unbeatable adversaries he jousted, Lancelot du fricking Lac admires him, he meets every famous knights, King Arthur in person dined with him...

He is so good that the only way he was defeated is through tricks: an illusion was cast on him that made him see a giant dragon, and as the brave knight he is, he just had to chase after it (in vain since there never was any dragons). In doing so he meets even more characters (Palamedes the Saracen's fans, I know you are out there) and defeat even more enemies like they weight nothing until the spell was lifted (I can't remember by who and I lended the book).

Overall it was an interesting book that rekindled my interest in Arthuriana but it was a little repetitive: nobody is a match to Segurant in a joust and he can win a battle ten to one with one arm tied back and his eyes closed (only slight exaggeration on my part, he does battle multiple enemies at the same time and wins easily). Nevertheless, for the historical interest alone it was worth it!

[straycatboogie]

2024/04/02 English

BGM: St. Lucia - Physical

I worked early today. During a lunch break, I thought about the magical and horrible charm of the internet. I remember - when it was 1995 I started "touching" the internet (the first website I had accessed was a Japanese famous musician, Motoharu Sano's site.) After that, in 1997 I built my first website, and… a long life with the net passed actually until now (therefore, TBH I know how it was when people started using "Twitter".)

In my 20s and 30s (oh, over a decade!) I had become a heavy net user. Every day, after my work, I dived into the vast sea of information (in a way, I had almost been drown in that sea.) At that period, all I had dreamed of was just to become bigger, and stronger than others in the virtual society. Becoming famous/popular, becoming influential, etc - I started a blog of memes/news actually to try to be a leader who even "enlightens" other people.

About this, I can't tell you any clear stories which can lead you to any valuable conclusions. But, looking at the footsteps, I can say this to you a simple truth I have got - The internet is actually a sweet friend of yours in this digital era because it is really useful for us to live in this complicated world. I won't deny that. But, also I need to recognize this fact carefully, which is simply this: the virtual world has been developed from (or "according to") this real world's vital, human relationships/connections. Although this expression must not suit the English language environment, I use these words - this real world must have its "physical", and "sweaty" touch, therefore precious.

Today was World Autism Awareness Day, therefore I wore my blue shirt. Autism… this concept must be a lifelong soulmate for me (at least, I must not deny this fact.) Once, I tried to think about various things (about light novels, Haruki's novels, etc.) from a completely distant stage, another detention from my life. Now, I believe that I need to accept this myself - this uncool old guy who had suffered from autism.

This evening, aside from the current book I am reading, I picked some pages of Shunsuke Tsurumi's (a famous Japanese critic/philosopher) book again. Oh, the life like a diligent student of a college…

[sideralumen]

Since 2024 is right around the corner I wanted to type out a list of things I wanna do next year since I wasn't able to do most of the things I wanted to do this year because of the accident. I also thought posting em here would help motivate me to actually do them, so here we go!

I wanna get back into traditional art. It used to be my primary way I did art but over the years I kinda went full digital without realizing it so I think it would be a fun challenge for me to get back into the swing of traditional art. I also think it could help me in areas of my art I struggle with such as making interesting color pallets/moods by eye instead of relying on filters and blending modes along with doing poses without refs (note references are very good and very useful tool I ain't knocking em but I feel like I've been relying on them TOO much this year cause of just art block issues)

I want to post art more. I haven't really posted much art to my socials this year cause I haven't really been proud of anything I made and the few things I did post to various social media's never did well so it discouraged me from posting even more, But nothing ever did good cause I didn't post regularly so it was just a really bad cycle of art block and insecurity for me. So I wanna start posting more consistently on all my main socials I like posting art to no matter how good I think the quality is, i wanna build confidence in my art no matter the medium and just build a name for myself online. I don't really care too much about how popular I get I just wanna connect with people who love art just as much as I do and inspire people with my art and stories!

I wanna write more. I actually really like the idea of making my own webcomic/graphic novel so I'll plan these huge projects and get really far into the process but when it's time to actually write the story I just immediately burn out, I wanna get better at writing in general so it doesn't feel like a chore to me. I was thinking of actually making fanfiction again as practice to start off since fanfic communities have always seemed very welcoming to beginner writers like myself so all I really need to do is shake off the shame of my middle school klance fanfic writing days and create something. Honestly the only reason this really got delayed wasn't because I didn't have the time but it was because it was too much strain on me physically, because of the accident it was harder for me to focus on words on a screen/page so not only did I stop writing completely I also stopped reading for the most part too cause it made me really light headed and sick but now that I'm not suffering from the effects of a skull fracture as intensely as I was at the first half of 2023 I feel confident enough to give writing a try again. Also my spelling sucks i wanna fix that.

I wanna get outside more. I actually wanted to get into skateboarding really bad this year but after the accident I basically had to relearn to walk completely so even now that I can be up and about for way longer then I've been able to I still don't feel like my ankle could support me enough to skateboard. BUT I think I would be able to handle roller skating so I wanna get myself some skates and start doing that in my free time, nothing really intense or anything just kinda skating around my neighborhood or at a park or a rink. I've been doing daily walks in the morning but I feel like something more exciting and engaging would really benefit my physical health.

And thats my list for the most part, there's other stuff I left out but I wanted to focus on how to improve myself when it comes to my hobbies and how the accident effected those things, I'm not out here getting too personal on the internet. Ik this won't get seen by anyone but I'm not taking my chances lol