#i might delete this rant later if i decide to be more active but yeah.

[quokkabite]

😐

[slade-neko]

I'm back! kinda...

I wasn't planning on disappearing for a whole year and a half especially leaving my last post as a poll on Sims of all things. Btw thanks to everyone who answered if anyone's still here. I will make a separate post about it later.

Loss of Interest

At the beginning of 2023 I became incredibly burnt out on playing/ making Sims, had nothing interesting to post, and at some point part of me changed and I began not wanting to post pictures of my sims anymore. I had a major loss of interest in using any social media websites and desired to be more reclusive and private. My older brother makes many sims just as I do and he never posts images of his sims online. Heck he hasn't even used the internet in years and I started to think maybe I should just follow his lead and leave this all behind...

Quit "Social Media"

In recent years I've realized the internet at large is filled with mindless drones, so I decided there was nothing to gain from using social media and it was a pointless distraction/ waste of time that I wanted to cut off completely. Twitter or "X" as its called now is a complete psych ward (not that I even interacted on there to begin with) and I locked down my DeviantART to a private profile (as I think weird fetish freaks were following me... site's name is "DeviantART," after all.)

Couldn't Kill my Tumblr

I began on my valiant quest to end all my social media and purge my accounts, but I couldn't bring myself to delete my tumblr. My first decision was to leave my tumblr and let it fade away into obscurity, but in a way seeing it again made me miss making my stupid rants posts about Sims, games, anime, or whatever. My biggest reason for ever using my tumblr was as an online journal of sorts to remember all the funny and interesting things I've posted over the years all the way back to 2015 when I started it! Skimming through it put a little smile on my face. In 2024 I finally had some revelations and came to the conclusion my depressio had me looking way too deep into things and I needed to simply "be happy" and continue doing what I like.

So, yeah I'll still stick around a little longer and continue to post a few sims pics, thoughts on games, etc like I usually do. However I might not be as active as I was in the past cause being totally honest here, not doing social media, having no connections, essentially being "un-plugged" was oh so very nice haha.

[blue-eyed-korra]

Lauren and Kieran’s Relationship: Action not Words

*Mini rant before the actual post:

So apparently someone shared my post about Kieran to the Purple Hyacinth group on Band (shoutout to @lanxyuu​​ for showing me this) and a bunch of people there liked it including Sophism herself which is crazy because this comic has become my life??? And the work she and Eph do is amazing??? And she said she liked my brain!?!?!? AHHHHHHH- sorry I’m still shook but I honestly can’t believe that she actually liked my work just... AHHHHHHHH!

*Mini rant ended here*

Anyways, seeing as how I’m currently a broke, unemployed, soon-to-be-grad student under quarantine, I have no coins to fastpass the last episodes of PH. Believe me it is the greatest tragedy of my life. But I still wanna write more about PH so what should I do? Well I decided to write about how we can learn more about Lauren and Kieran’s relationship through their non-verbal interactions. By looking at how they act around each other rather than just what they say, we can get a better sense for what their relationship was like before episode 43, and where it may go from there. Now I’m not gonna talk about every single time they interact with each other because some are irrelevant, it would take way too long to write and this post would become even more of a mess than it already is. 

Now you might be thinking this is just an excuse to discuss one of my favourite ships because their relationship in the comic isn’t the greatest rn and I don’t want to/can’t accept that they may not get together (in the foreseeable future), and you’d be right. Let me have this. 

Ok so the first scene I wanna talk about is the very first physical interaction they have where they’re not actively attacking/trying to kill each other. I’m talking of course about when they make the deal to work together in episode 11.

What I like about this is that it’s both impersonal and intimate, because they’re both doing this for their own reasons and they both see the other as a means to an end, but it’s also a blood pact. Kieran cuts his hand and offers it to her, and Lauren accepts in kind. They’re becoming bound to each other, but all in the common interest to take down the Leader.

The same can also be said for when they go dancing; it’s just an act. A way to blend in and find Anslow. They tango and banter and get all close and we all lived for it (hell I’m still living for it), because it’s hot and the sexual tension is insane but to them it’s just apart of the operation and doesn’t really mean anything. Like when she later seduces Anslow to get him alone. It’s all a part of the plan

I’d say the moment we see the biggest shift is after the whole Blakelsey situation. They’re back at the cave and Lauren is pretty shook because not only did Kieran save her life, but he showed her that he really does try to avoid killing when given the choice. So when she sees he’s injured and struggling with his bandages, she goes to help him.

Sidenote: This is completely unrelated to anything in this post but I just wanted to say that I never realised how attractive a back could be until I saw Kieran’s so thank you Soph for giving this to us🙏🏻

You can see this is part of her way of thanking him for saving her before she actually tells him. You can see that she’s beginning to reevaluate the idea of him that she has in her head, because his actions that night contradict everything she assumed about him. This is the moment she begins to see his humanity. And he’s pretty shocked too because he’s accustomed to doing everything alone and her of all people offering her help and thanks is wild to him, but more about how Kieran feels later.

Things change the most for Lauren after the whole Grim Goblin incident. She’s jumped out of a hotel window, into a tree and fell several storeys to the ground. Kieran finds her injured and trying to play it off as nothing because 1) She’s a strong, independent woman who don’t need no man, and 2) Because she’d rather not get the help of this man in particular. But he calls bullshit and scoops her up bridal style. Again, she’s shook because the Purple Hyacinth is carrying her bridal style, but it wears off quickly and she begins struggling out of his grip. The piggyback is clearly a compromise where he can still carry her but it’s less intimate and, dare I say, ‘damsel-like’ than before. I also think Lauren was ok with the piggyback because it made her taller than Kieran and therefore more in control lol.

Then they get to his apartment and she one again tries to brush off her injuries but the the turn tables and Kieran is the one helping patch her up. He picks her up, puts her on the table and rips her sleeve off to get a better look at her cut.

One thing I wanna point out is her reaction to him being so close.

She’s clenching her fist on the edge of the table because he is way into her personal space. You can practically feel his breath on her neck. He’s being very clinical about everything and probably can’t feel her discomfort, but we as readers can feel just how uncomfortable and anxious she is. This man just carried her to his home and is checking her wounds and is gonna patch her up and it’s breaking every preconceived notion she had of him in her head. He’s not some murderous monster *wink wink* whose sole purpose is to spread misery and pain. He’s just a man who lives in an apartment and likes to read and draw and eats and breaths just like any other person. Logically, she knows that he’s a human, but actually seeing it is another thing entirely. And her realizing this now only makes everything that goes down in episode 43 hurt that much more.

I realize that most of this word vomit essay is about how Lauren feels, but what about Kieran? What can we lean about how he feels about Lauren? Well, that’s gonna be a bit trickier. For one thing, Lauren is the main character, therefore we spend way more time in head than his by a long shot. We know less about his motivations and personality than we do about hers. All of this contributes to the mystery that is Kieran White. But there are moments we can learn things about him, especially when his true feelings shine through.

One thing that demonstrates this a lot is when Lauren surprises him. There are times when Lauren says or does something and for just a second, it throws Kieran off and has him really think about the mystery that is Lauren Sinclair.

We see this happen a few times: First when they’re preparing to go get Anslow and he sees her disguise and the gun strapped to her thigh, Next when she’s thanking him for saving her life and finally when he sees her the morning after she sleeps over.

With the first one he’s more pleasantly surprised than anything, seeing officer goodie-twoshoes being this resourceful and sneaky. He expected her to be more of a straight-lace killjoy, but now he’s seeing more of her ‘bad girl’ side and it’s interesting.

He’s more shocked than surprised when she thanks him for saving her. Like I said before, he’s an assassin. When do you think the last time he was thanked for saving a life rather than taking one? Probably never honestly. And now this woman, who he knows doesn’t like him very much, is helping him with his bandages and offering him gratitude and he’s kind of in awe of it all. Of course we see him try to brush it off by being a jackass (and we love him for it) but still, I see you Kieran👀.

I think the final scene is the most interesting tho. Because he comes back from getting her stuff at the cave and just sees her standing there. She doesn’t do anything or say anything out of the ordinary. She’s just standing there... in one of his shirts and basically nothing else... in his apartment... the morning after sleeping in his bed. 

He was confused as to why he brought her there the night before and he’s never brought anyone to his home before, so I think seeing her like this, all casual in his space despite everything, is really driving home just how close they’ve become and how he hasn’t had anything remotely close to a friend or companion or whatever they are in years.

But once again, this was all before episode 43, which still hurts my soul. I know things are gonna be different after everything, but I hope that Lauren and Kieran are able to express themselves more with each other as the story continues.

So yeah, this is a mess. If you’ve made it this far, congrats! Now this post was more of a labour of love than I initially thought because it took literally a whole day to write and then got deleted the next day! So this is the rewrite. Lowkey happy it got deleted because this is far less rambling than before. Take a moment to let that sink in. As I’m writing this episode 48 is only a couple hours from being made free for everyone. Watch me come back on here and post another essay about it lol. Looking forward to doing more of these though! Thanks for all the feedback and remember to send the creators some love!

[pepucz]

Death Note personal thoughts

I saw a post about thoughts on “everyone goes to Mu” part of the manga by one of my favourite tumblr users - 13eyond13 and I originally replied to it, but I figured my thoughts were more about my personal feelings than adding something relevant to the original post, so I decided to post it totally separately here just for my own satisfaction. (also my English can suck hard, so if anyone decides to read this all, I’m sorry for any mistakes)

_______

I must admit I was rooting for Light and was truly a KIRA supporter at the beginning (till the moment he killed Lind L. Tailor), I also took the information from Ryuk about Mu as a fact for everyone just like Light did, but that's probably because I'm an atheist and I have lots of nihilistic thoughts, so Ryuk saying the “Mu” part would only prove my own views and beliefs - the nihilistic aspect of the whole story is also one of the reasons why Death Note remained one of my most favourite mangas of all my time and why I’m so happy to have my love for it fully restored and be actively back in the fandom...

So yeah I agreed with the original intention of Light with the Death Note, he was pretty careful with what kind of criminals he killed, he "wouldn't kill those who killed accidentally or without malice like car accident deaths for example" (chapter 47), but I didn't agree with his God complex, that was probably the first thing that didn't click right with me even though it does make a sense as Light wanted to set new rules for humanity by his own standarts, I just don’t like the idea of “God” or whatever, but the real endgame for me was the moment he killed Tailor, he didn't know if he was criminal, he killed him just because he challenged him. That was the point where I stopped rooting for him. I also saw killing Raye Penber and the rest of the FBI agents as even more unnecessary steps and also a pretty obvious way to cast suspicion against himself. But we wouldn't have a story if it wouldn’t happen 🙃 And I still loved his character even after this tbh :)

I must admit I don't value a human’s life as something more valuable than an animal's life (of course I do value my dearest's lives super lot, I would die for them anytime or rather I do continue living for them, but those lost humans' lives of people, whom I hadn't known personally, haven't heard their story or whom I simply didn’t like just don't spur any real pity for them in me, earth is overpopulated anyway, what truly upsets me in the worldwide spectrum is losing some extinct animal species - I even cry when I see the planet lost some animal species just because of the human greediness) and I'm sick of ppl making so much fuss over the loss of a human life than over animal's one especially if they don't know those humans personally. Death is part of the human life, sometimes it’s unfair how some lives end, but the World won’t stop spinning because of it and it’s not like humans are endangered species... it’s pretty much the other way around. I mentioned this bit of my feelings about general mankind because I was pretty irritated when the task force or someone in DN universe was upset with ppl dying even if they were/might be a piece of shit, just because it’s “human life!! Human!!”. Like - I loved Soichiro Yagami as a father figure and I really loved his love for Light, but I was totally done with him ruining L’s plans in Yotsuba’s arc XD Same for innocent Light in this arc, but at least he didn’t try to do anything that would ruin L’s plans just to stop the criminal’s deaths (Misa managed it in the end and everyone was satisfied thanks to that for the time being) XD

Back to the topic of using Death Note - I would plan to use it as Light did in the beginning, but target mainly animal abusers, it would also be super hard for me to find names and faces and 100% proof that they are the guilty ones. Also I would never think of myself as a God, that's totally stupid IMHO. I would be just a mass murderer like Light by human's standards. 'Murderer' is still a word invented by humans alone, so it wouldn't faze me as much as it fazed Light being called like that... Also maybe I would never use Death Note to the extent as Light did, because now even criminals have GDPR protection and their names and photos are often kept secret (which I find to be super unfair). Light would never commit a murder without a Death Note, and I’m the same (even though I can’t guarantee what I would do if I saw someone torturing animals/my loved ones in front of me.... I still think I would go berserk probably). Anyway even with knowing there is nothing after Death for sure, I would still try to make the world a better place by what I believe is right, I don’t care that it would seem evil to some ppl, I also don't give a shit there is no meaning for human's lives in the vast of the universe, I wouldn't care that this plan of making the World a better place would also mean nothing compared the whole Universe and its timeline... I would still try to do it, because it would satisfy me for the time of me being alive...

All humans have a choice to not hurt others, those who decide to do it especially when it concerns truly innocent human's lives or animal's ones (I truly hate humans, who abuse animals just for fashion, cosmetics, household products, money or for some sick sense of fun) just don't deserve their life in my mindset and I don't care how wrong it is in human society's view. I get especially angry when some criminal runs away from Borstal (because he is not put in prison as he is mentally ill and commited crime because of it) or from prison, of even worse when a criminal is released by the court for good behaviour or some shit and then that individual ends innocent life again.... in such cases I just get furious at the impotence of our laws because it means this individual can harm someone close to me too just as simply because “as a human” he still has all the human rights even after he violated someone else’s rights, that’s just super unfair. I also don't believe in real peace, human race is not capable of it imho. That's why we have to have laws... and here I’m getting back to Death Note - our laws serve the same purpose as Kira's law did in my opinion, only Kira was more successful because it was pretty definitive and striked even those who otherwise wouldn't give a shit about our weak laws. There are people who want to live peacefully and don't need any law for that, then there are some who live in peace just because of the fear of our laws' consequences and then we have those who don't give a shit about laws because it won't cost them their lives... + a small group who don't give a shit even it would cost them their life... (we don't have a death sentence in Czech Republic anymore as it was deemed too "inhuman", I must add that I must agree that there are crimes where it's almost impossible to convict the criminal as 100% guilty and it's better to just put them in the prison - as I already mentioned I would have a really hard time using the Death Note because I would be too afraid I might kill someone innocent). So Kira's idea about peace was no different than the current worlwide idea of peace with our laws.

Now to get somewhere else for a bit - I fell in love with L and Near and I was quite happy with the ending of Death Note and how Light was served and killed by Ryuk. I felt a bit of pity for his death, but it didn't traumatize me like L's (or Mello's) death tbh. I woudn’t really change a thing about L’s and Light’s deaths anyway...

When I look at the overal picture of Death Note, Light still managed to save more innocent lives than Near and L imho. During his time the crime dropped by 70% worldwide. 70% is truly a large number considering the worldwide measure. A lot of innocent humans didn't die because of rapists and murderers thanks to Light. But as DN is pretty nihilistic the world returned back to the old standards after Light's defeat and the crime percentage grew back as it was before Kira's reign. So defeating Kira served right only to people who's life’s purpose is fighting criminals - they need them to exist otherwise their job would be meaningless - and Kira almost took it from them. L's life purpose was solving crimes, but what would there be to solve if criminals were ceasing to exist? I see it as the main reason why he got involved in the Kira case at first even if he himself wouldn’t admit it. Kira was threatening his life's purpose. But of course that's just my impression. I still fell in love with L the most even if our views differed.

_________

Dunno if this whole rant makes sense or not but that’s just how I feel....

Death Note doesn't exist unfortunately and even if it would and I would get my hands on it, if it would be haunted by Ryuk, I would be definitely served by him pretty soon anyway, because he would probably get bored with me very soon 😂 I'm not a genius and I would be afraid of harming innocent beigns, so I would be extremely careful with using the Death Note.

Might try to bargain with apples but knowing Ryuk it wouldn't be enough to keep him from writing my name down sooner than my time is up 😂 I wouldn't even blame him 🙃 I'm simple and boring average woman, who is totally done with human race and most of the humans.

BTW I really love this little bit from the pilot chapter of Death Note:

"But that would probably mean you'd have to kill the majority of mankind." 👍

(might delete this whole post later because of my social anxiety or if I get too roasted for my opinions, because I'm a coward 😄 I do stand firmly behind my beliefs especially IRL but I also prefer to be invisible on public sites 😄)

[geek-gem]

I've seen Bumblebee again

Edit I've just realized I made the stupid mistake I had seen as seem and I only noticed it in my activity messages stupid of me sorry.

So in this post there is gonna be spoilers about the film, especially I'm gonna be rambling a bunch, I'm gonna sound ignorant. Including this is coming from a ex Transformers fan. Who has feelings about this franchise.

Well first film I've seen of 2019 everybody. I still like the film a lot. Just walked to this McDonald's near the cinema 16 theater in Sierra Vista.

But yes I like this film a lot and decided to see the 11:50 am showing instead of the 10:50 am because I decided not to take the chance because it was too close at that time.

Let me talk about some stuff. I literally feel like this is a reboot because a lot of the stuff in this doesn't make sense. Or what someone else said a soft reboot but I literally feel like how this film was set up. Decided to move to a table I'm usually at.

Because okay I never seen The Last Knight and mainly don't want to. But considering past events like Megatron stuck in the artic(the original 2007 film), the Primes and the Fallen(Revenge Of The Fallen), the Ark(Dark Of The Moon), possibly even the creators shit(Age Of Extinction), and what I've read and heard Unicron is Earth, Bumblebee even in a poster and footage from a trailer or promo was around during world war 2.

Including I haven't watched the video by HN Entertainment but just looked it up there was a Megatron deleted scene.

Even though one of the final scenes is Bumblebee becoming a camero I can't think I feel during production because of how The Last Knight's box office result went Hasbro did it or whatever. I'm not trying to make up a story it's my own theory. Especially the style of how the robots look so G1 like.

Especially that final mid credits scene with Bumblebee and Optimus I honestly feel that was shot to basically reboot the film franchise of when the Autobots came to Earth. Unless they got off later it's all bullshit.

This film is a reboot or whatever.

Unless some how even the idea and I'll talk about some Days Of Future Past stuff happened. I should just talk about the movie.

I honestly feel the best thing about this movie was Charlie's and Bumblebee's relationship. Because I seriously feel emotional about it and how well developed it is. Even though I understand the criticisms about this film being cliche I understand. Yet I feel it works because of how the movie is set up.

Really over time I'm having this big liking towards Haliee Steinfeld I really do. Honestly the rest of the cast is good too still. I still like John Cena and especially the character of Memo. Very likable even though really the only reviews I've seen are Ragin Nation and FilmJunkee.

Had to go to Google then Wikipedia to spell his name right.

Especially seeing on news on Google Screen Rant made a news article 3 hours ago about how the post looked back at it they call it a post credits scene it was a mid credits scene about how it retcons Michael Bay's Transformers. No shit is does because I literally feel they did it they did that to reboot the Bayformers universe. Ether it was Travis Knight or someone told Travis hey man can you put this scene in the movie or some one did.

Really one character I didn't like was this Tina bitch. Seriously I remember the first time and even watching this the 2nd time. This blonde bitch I'm surprised during that cliff scene Bumblebee didn't roll up the window to hurt her arm or even open the door to push her. Or hell I'm surprised Charlie didn't even get violent.

Yet really glad her car was totaled.

In fact it's weird watching this film I wanna be honest. I am so used to the harshness of the Bayformers. Because I feel like in certain scenes I expect Charlie to say, "FUCK YOU!" to some of the characters. Especially the action.

I'll be honest the Bayformers films mainly that 4th drove me off of and even the 5th despite I never seen it. I'm a ex fan yet I like other parts of the franchise.

But I like the action. Yes Michael Bay's action scenes aren't the best and I guess the best way you can call them a mess. I like the set pieces. Seriously I basically grew up with those first three films.

I still like the first that film got me to become a Transformers fan I saw it four times, the 4th time being the Imax release. Because of Bumblebee to be honest it was weird for this film not be PG-13 but it's great.

Yet I weirdly want another big Transformers film that has this heart this film had.

Or just the idea of such a film like that. You know how fucking beautiful those The Last Knight trailers are they are fucking amazing until you hear the films reception.

Especially I've talked about how I would love to see Charlie again grown up. I want her to be a protagonist in one of those films. She's older in her early 50's sorry to say well she was born in 1969. I just want to see her and Bumblebee again. Especially while before I got to think more about how this is a reboot. Yeah also Agent Jack Burns and Memo if you want especially more development on him.

Remember that old idea I've talked about what if we had a movie where the rebooted movie verse met the dimension of the Bayformers. In the end the Bayformers dimension dies like a passing the torch thing. Including shit like now it's like a grown up Charlie meets Cade Yager and Sam Witwicky.

But really I feel like considering the last few movies Shia Labeouf might not wanna come back, including Mark Wahlberg because he said The Last Knight was his last Transformers film. Yet I feel with how this film changed the timeline, I don't think that's gonna happen.

God I'm seriously interested in what's next.

So I see and it's on Google the screen writer for this film has an idea for a sequel. Fucking fabulous, because I want one. I went to see this again because I'm worried it's failing. There is so much good shit out right now but some movies aren't getting money. Yet I don't wanna say they are bombing like but 3 Buck Theater made a video about this and I see a thumbnail by Ragin Nation this is a bomb please no.

I want a big Transformers film that is better then the Bayformers films. Including I wanna be excited for Transformers again and this film made me happy. I'm excited for whatever films comes next. Probably the 6th or even that Cybertron prequel because seeing those Cybertron parts was fucking awesome.

Can I just say Shatter and Dropkick are a nice antagonist duo. Considering the film was more simple then the others. They we're nice antagonists. While not like Megatron or whatever else had to go to the Wikipedia page of this movie to see their names in case. Yet yeah their different and cool.

Also when we get more and better Transformers films can we have a better version of Grimlock my favorite? Voiced by Gregg Berger had to Google search him up I got his name right but his first name has two g's. Can we have a version of Grimlock like Fall Of Cybertron portrayed him and what I've heard of the G1 comics please can we have that. Because that version would make more sense then the development Optimus had in the 4th movie and would fit Grimlock better. Especially what I hear about the 5th movie. Sorry if I'm rambling.

Especially I weirdly want Charlie to interact with a angry stubborn Grimlock who thinks his way of handling things are better.

Tags dealt with but I think I've said all that I might of wanted to say or something. Really do like the movie and want more films but hopefully and I don't wanna stress Travis Knight but can he be involved still some how. I mean these films can be big so I don't wanna have him stressed out. But can we have more directors like him or something.

Edit(I did a lot for this but taking off the edit mentions like 4th) forgot this like this whole thing this reunion of characters it's like the Infinity War of Transformers which okay and I just thought a few seconds ago before editing this. I'd rather have that big some what Infinity War event be a different version of Unicron who's not Earth instead he's his own planet who wants to eat Earth and basically humans, Autobots, and Decepticons have to team up to stop him I'd rather have that. Been wanting that for years ever since they were promoting the 2nd movie. or just whatever bring more awesome movies like this especially big ones too.

okay I added Jack Burns tag because I liked him as a character. But I didn't wanna leave Memo yet he doesn't have a last name and I feel it be weird if that was just his tag. Especially someone put a Jack Burns tag and yeah I wanna see John Cena again. That may sound weird but I liked his character too.

[canaryatlaw]

okay. today was not bad. not sure if we reached good, but overall now bad, which for now I will take. My body decided to wake me up at 7:50 am for no discernible reason, then decided I wasn’t gonna be able to fall back asleep so I was up for the day. well, might as well make the best of it and be productive. I wanted to make m&m pancakes because I haven’t made them in a while, and I’ve been getting lazy about measuring out the right proportions because I tend to like the batter to be thinner than what the measurements they tell you to use produce (thinner pancakes are less likely to burn on the outside while the middle still isn’t cooked and that gives me anxiety) so I just kinda eyeballed it, but it ended up being a bit too thin and the pancakes would just die when I tried to flip them, so I added some more mix and they were then working just fine. Made my pancakes, sat at the table with my computer and got a jump on the lecture for trusts. it was like 2 hours and 50 minutes, not too bad. It was alright, I did already do the New York trusts lecture so I did have some concept of what was going on, so it wasn’t like totally brand new information to me. I’d wanted to marathon two lectures today so then I don’t have to do one Monday when I’m running around doing a million other things to prep for the bar on Tuesday, so now that I was up early I was gonna try to marathon the two lectures, the second being about the same length as the first. this one was on “commercial paper” which is literally not a term I’ve even heard mentioned once in my three years of law school, so I really had no idea what was coming. The lecturer started off the video by basically saying there is legit little to no chance this is going to come up on the bar but we still made the lecture to be thorough at which point I was like okay PEACE and left because I’m not wasting precious studying time on shit that’s not gonna be on the bar (one paragraph I was reading said fed tax, which is a subject they still teach, hasn’t shown up on the bar in decades. DECADES.) so that was one less thing to do. there’s only one more lecture to cover that I’ll do tomorrow, and it’s secured transactions, which I just took in my last semester and somehow managed to swindle an A- out of it, so I’ll definitely have an advantage with that as opposed to these other subjects I never touched in high school. So, what to do now. I started with some practice questions trying to go slow and analytically, following their step by step problem solving theory, and the first batch came back with really bad grades and I was super frustrated and wanted to bang my head against the wall, but I calmed down and tried another, and the grade went up significantly, so I did a few more with mostly good grades, so that was encouraging. I did some outline review after that, then started going through the essays by subject and outlining them, which is probably something I should continue doing tomorrow, because I’m not great with the specialty subjects essays being that I just learned most of them. Interspersed with all of this was of course news coming out of comic con, I turned the push notifications off on my phone because there was just way too much coming out to distract me, but I would occasionally check it and yeah, there was just a lot. Of course there’s the fact that Jess met the entire cast, which I legit am not even a little bit surprised at because I fully expected that to happen at this point, because that’s just her life. But yeah, that’s all kinds of awesome of course (goddamn bar exam keeping me from going....) and then I took a break to make dinner. I’m still on the trying to convince myself I like eating chicken train, and I had bought some ingredients for a recipe I later decided I didn’t want to make, but I could add a few things and use them to make one meal I know is really good, chicken roll ups, which is basically shredded chicken mixed with cream cheese and shredded cheddar cheese and then stuffed into crescent roll dough and cooked and it’s fucking heavenly. Well. I managed to fuck things up in quite a few ways that made them really not very good. First off, I was using leftover rotisserie chicken, which of course just had a different texture and taste, and was also a lot drier, and I didn’t measure how much it was and I think the ratio was too much so it through off the mixture. I also ended up not having enough cheese because the block of cheddar I had in the fridge had grown a really gross mold spot on it so I had to ditch that. And then, idk if this made any difference, but I didn’t have crescent dough but I had biscuit dough, so I figured if I just rolled it out it would work fine, and idk if that contributed to it not tasting right at all but it was at least one change. so I ended up basically eating the dough off of a few of those before tossing them because they were just not good. so that’s one more check in the “failed” column in this venture. Oh well. I did also watch videos and such out of SDCC as I could, I saw Caity’s IG live where she had the camera on the sizzle reel airing live, so that was a very cool way to get to see the footage for the first time. Everything that came out was so good, I’m so happy we’re getting soft AvaLance and so so much more. I’m so pumped for this season. But alas, I went back to my essays and was getting kind of frustrated when I had a bit of a moment. I had my pump up playlist on, which included a song called Meant To Be by Steven Curtis Chapman (if you’re unaware of who that is, he’s a Christian singer) which I had debated about whether I should add and then had debated again this afternoon if I should keep it as I was deleting some of them, but I did, and I’m just sitting there frustrated when I begin to focus on the lyrics, and in that moment they really spoke to my soul-  

You were meant to be touching The lives that you touch And meant to be here Making this world so much more Than it would be without you in it

And in that minute, I was reminded of all of the reasons I am going on this crazy adventure, why I’m putting myself through all this stress and hard work. It’s because I care. It’s because I want to make a difference. I want to be the kind of person that has a radical effect on the areas of the world they worked in. I was meant to be here. I know I was. I may get frustrated sometimes and talk about how much I miss acting (which, to be fair, I really do) but at the end of the day, that decision wasn’t about me picking law because I didn’t think I could make it in acting, it was about me picking law because I wanted to be a lawyer more than anything else in this world. I had all of this in my mind and I walked over to the wall in my room where I have a picture of the little boy from the child death case I worked on. Manny. He will forever be an innocent four year old. He was denied the opportunity to grow up. And that is why I’m doing what I’m doing. I couldn’t save him, I wasn’t there. But I know there will be so, so many Manny’s in the future that I could be able to help if I worked hard and diligently and refused to back down when things get hard. That’s why I’m doing this. For all the little boys and girls who are facing potential deadly violence and neglect, innocent lives that can be saved, that can be spared meeting a grizzly death before they even get to kindergarten. Because I am so tired of hearing these stories. I. Am. So. Tired. So I’m going to do something about it. Alright, I think that’s enough of a rant for more, there will always be plenty more where that came from. I tried to do some more essays but my vision kept blurring on me which again idk if it’s a vision problem I’ve somehow developed or just a sign I’m overstudying, but it made it fairly impossible to work, so I gave up (I mean, it was also pushing like, 10 pm at this point, so it was probably a good cut off point). So I moved to the living room and watched Queer Eye, trying to unwind, which was helpful. And then I eventually decided I should go to bed, mostly because i’d like to not sleep the entire day tomorrow so I can actually get stuff done. And I am already very tired, my eyelids are actively trying to close on me right now, so I’m gonna finish here. Goodnight mah people. You da best.

[blueraith]

Some folks still need to learn how to constructively comment

Wish I could say that I’ve been writing Chapter... 12(? Legit, I don’t often remember the chapter numbers outside of the Google doc) since posting Chapter 11 (we’re just gonna assume I know where the fuck I’m at in my own story, okay? Give me this).

But that would be a bald faced lie.

(Mostly because of my sister’s graduation and all the family visiting and the concurrent back injury I was suffering. Really kills the writing mood when you can’t sit up properly to type.)

This is going under a read more, because this incident Vexed Me To The Max(TM) and triggered a Rant of Epic Proportions(TM).

But graduation has been over, and my back has been feeling great. What really kept me a bit down since all that was over and done with is that very morning I’m feeling better, I see that I have two comments on the 100 fic I’ve put on indefinite hiatus. Yeah, it’s not an active story, but I still care about it, and I’ve been thinking about it recently. So, in short. I still care about it a hell of a lot. Hell, I care about everything that I write. I’ve written fanfiction at what’s nearing 10 years now, but nothing has erased the fact that putting yourself out there in the public eye takes a hell of a lot of effort and, sure, a smidgen of courage and confidence.

Well, this lovely commenter told me that my word count was way too high, that I was slowing my story down, and that they skipped to the last chapter (from Chapter 2, they skipped 6 chapters of ongoing character development, an ensemble cast, Ark politics, and canon fix-its) “40k words and [Clarke’s] still not on the ground yet??”

This is me paraphrasing both comments. I deleted them with extreme prejudice from the fic because I wasn’t leaving that kind of useless bullshit on my work after it effectively ruined my mood for, like, four days.

Why was it bullshit? Well, for one thing taking the average word count per chapter, it’s only a little over 5k words per chapter. Look. I balance out my word counts very carefully for each story that I write. This fic has a longer than average word count compared to my more recent stuff (which is around 4k per chapter) because of all the fuckin shit I was pulling off in this particular fic. Reworking canon to better explain why the Arkers were resistent to the radiation on the ground while having the superior blood that the Mountain Men wanted without putting them up in their shitty space station for thousand of years that evolution would have actually required them to have gone through to be remotely realistic.

Jake’s alive in this fic because I don’t like dead characters shaping character development on a pre-canon basis. Personally, I dislike orphan/parental loss storylines before the specific original work has even started. I get that orphans exist in real life. But YA media has a disproportionate amount of dead parents. Eh. I wanted to do something different. So, this means there’s an entire extra character in the story that I have to write and develop.

Diana Allers actually matters in day to day Ark life instead of just showing up and nearly murdering everyone because she’s a selfish bitch for little to no reason other than to make Abby’s already pretty damn full storyline even more packed than it already was. (Seriously, why didn’t they develop Allers more? She’s lazily implemented in canon, and I hate it. Lord only knows I enjoyed Abby and Raven’s plotlines far more in several places of Season 1 rather than Bellamy’s Manpain Adventures Lite Before He Turns Into A Complete And Utter Psychopath Later On In The Series).

Jaha is far more competent and slimey than he is in the show, rather than being a foolish man who is barely toddering along in the plot towards something useful.

Abby and Jake are at odds because Jake technically betrays Clarke and allows her to get arrested in the beginning of the story. They adopt Raven in the interim and they’re all awkwardly trying to free Clarke while pretending that Jake and Abby aren’t having marital problems. Well, Jake and Abby are pretending, Raven is as blunt as she usually is and just calls shit like she sees it.

Ensemble cast. There’s literally a tag on this story that tells you all that “This Story Is Literally About Everyone.”

So.

Yeah.

Clarke’s not on the fucking ground yet. But you wouldn’t know that, would you? Having skipped past 6 chapters.

Is 5k really that long? I wouldn’t know, personally when I read a longfic, I go into it knowing that the chapters might be long as fuck because I know that I’m reading a fic that could literally take me through several days and I read pretty damn fast. Not that 40k words is really all that much when you’re rewriting a TV show using all the characters who already exist in canon and then getting into their thoughts and motivations because that is literally what books do, this isn’t a screenplay, I wouldn’t be caught dead writing one because I despise them. Sorry, but you’re getting the full range of thoughts and emotions of everyone involved. I know, that’s just awful, getting hours and hours of content for free, but god forbid the plot doesn’t run on your timetable.

But that’s really the crux of this rant, isn’t it? NEVER complain about word counts, people. Too short? Who the fuck cares? The author could be just beginning their writing careers, so to speak. Word counts of any significance takes practice, first of all. So, not only could they might or might not have the required experience to write longer chapters, they may not even want to. And that’s fine. Because they do this FOR FREE.

Same thing with longer chapters. Are you really going to come at me, nearly a year after I’ve written and posted this work, complaining about word count, as though there’s even a remote chance that I’m going to go back and edit down all of that time and effort I put into that work to satisfy your fragile reading stamina?

Pfffffffffft.

I mean, this is funny to me in some regard because I’m over here wondering just what would be a good length for this person. Part of the reason my chapters tend to be at least 4k words long is because that’s generally where I can get a comfortable amount of character interaction, introspective thought, and plot moving forward. All three of those things matter to me when writing chapters. I hate reading too short works (and no, I don’t tell these authors this. I read what they give me and just deal with it because they’re entertaining me for free) and it’s little more than characters just trading dialogue with each other. I want to know what they are thinking about as well. I want a bit of narration. I’m reading something from a specific character’s point of view, and I want that chapter to ooze the personality of that character.

These are all the things I keep in mind when I write to my word count goals, personally. Doing it in less than 3k words might be possible, but it would sure as hell be annoying.

But most of all, it just irritated the fuck out of me. Like I’ve said multiple times in this rant. I do this for free. I don’t expect you guys to know this, but in order to get these substantial updates when I can manage to actually feel well enough to write and get them published, it takes me EIGHT TO TWELVE HOURS of sitting in front of a computer screen to have a chapter finished. On a good day. Yes. Most of the chapters I put out are done in one day, in one block, and I’m often up until 5 AM finishing something up. I have severe ADHD. Sometimes it is a chore to get shit put on a page because I can’t sit down and focus my thoughts enough to sound even coherent. Sometimes I have issues keeping up with what the beginning of a long sentence was about and I have to constantly keep up with what the fuck I’m even talking about in any given thought.

So, you have an author with a severe executive function disorder attempting to concentrate hard enough to get her own thoughts in character for each and every character that is featured in any given story while attempting to resist even the most mundane distractions while desperately hoping she’s going to hit a period of hyperfocus long enough to get substantial work down, but if that happens she’ll probably forget to eat because she’s on a writing binge that goes on with actual significant work for a period of several hours.

I love writing, despite the challenges I have to deal with in order just to get it done. I love most of the comments that I receive. I’m coming off a period of extreme depression from some family issues I was dealing with. My skin is rather thin at the moment and that irritated the fuck out of me, but those two comments knocked more wind out of my sails that I really wanted them to, and that bugs me even more.

But I am more experienced in fic writing than probably your average person. This commenter pissed me the fuck off, but I’ve moved past this, it’s hardly shattered my motivation to write forever.

But a careless commenter could easily do that to someone just getting into fanfiction. And it makes me wonder just how often this happens everyday, every hour, when entitled, spoiled people who think their needs are more important than the author doing this FOR FREE decide to voice their terrible opinions on their works. I love my readers, I don’t hold myself beholden to them, but they are extraordinarily important to me. Plot, pacing, and character development are all my own when I write because first and foremost, I write for myself. It’s a hobby that I clearly have to work very hard at to even be remotely successful at, and taking anyone else’s standards into account is never going to happen when I have to live up to my own already very high expectations. But I do keep y’all in mind when I’m devoting my time, energy, and effort in. The chapter lengths I have partly exist to make up for the wait times I inevitably have between each release. I very much know that I am sporadic and inconsistent when updating. So, when I do, I want to have something that isn’t just a whisper in the wind when it finally cycles to the top of the AO3 listing.

I know there are inevitably readers who didn’t like my content, or do think my stuff is too long. That’s fine. But don’t come into my space and give me two comments that were effectively “TL;DR” and expect that not to be a slap in the face. Because it is. I have wonder if the fandom kids today even know the kind of slap backs this sort of thing would have gotten in LiveJournal.

But, never mind that. I’m a big girl, I took some petty revenge in deleting that bullshit from my boards and then setting the fic to moderated mode, but what I would like anyone who decides to read through what is actually a long winded post (all my rants are, admittedly) to learn is that you are not reading professional work. You are not reading work that has been paid for. You are not reading work that has been professionally edited. I’m not saying that you can’t have standards for fic, lord knows I have many, but I don’t go into an author’s work and leave shitty comments. Never. Constructive criticism on fanfiction keeps the author’s time in mind, their skill level over what they’re actually capable of, and whether or not they’re even open to criticism. Some authors don’t even want your advice. They just want to know that you liked it. And if you don’t, just don’t say anything. I’m not quite that fragile personally, when someone is giving me useful criticism that can be used to actually improve my quality of writing, but I will freely admit that clearly I have a sore spot about comments addressing word counts.

Get out of here with that shit.

In short. If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.

[gonebyionnalee]

this is a big longass (i’m talking more than 2000 words) serious post so sorry mobile users and content warning for child sexual abuse etc

okay so for context i don’t know how many people were active in the same communities as me 3? 4/5? years ago on here but long story short there was a trans woman called whitney (mentioning she’s trans because it becomes relevant later since i want to talk about why the trans community at large is terrible with this kind of subject) who was well known and popular, to cut to the point she turned out to be a pedophile who groomed multiple underaged people (mostly women and trans men) like between 13 - 15 as a grownass adult and sexually harassed a few other people of various (including legal) ages. also had rape allegations attached to her name which obviously you can’t quantify with facebook chat screenshots but you know not going to suddenly get flakey about rape charges against somebody who is quite literally grooming children

her url was purplefridge and the medium for getting her expunged from the community was callout posts because let’s be real if you have concrete evidence that somebody has attempted to groom/molest you and they’re active on tumblr, you’re going to post about it on tumblr. i’ve had to do that, multiple people have had to do that on here, in a self governing online community that is largely how things are going to happen. if people want to see the posts just go into tagged/purplefridge but also somebody for whatever reason posted a dick in that tag years ago so um you know. look out for that

and in moments after that largely she joked about it and tried to cover her ass by telling people (notably people i’m friends with) that it wasn’t that bad but after the like 4th or 5th post she hightailed it, deleted her blog and sent multiple people (talking in the 10′s and 20′s here) the same copypaste cookie cutter apology and in the years after that she managed to continue life as normal on twitter, still active in the soundcloud/furry/trans communities as if nothing had happened and cultivating social clout like a normal human with the @ polistae

i’d wanted to tell people in the past (2ish years ago) that she was that person, and just because somebody seemingly isn’t doing that now, doesn’t mean they aren’t a rapist and child abuser. the event is a large black mark on my brain and despite never having been in direct contact with her (mutual friends is how we knew each other and while i was underaged at the time she didn’t groom me), the feeling of having to cut people out of your life because, for whatever reason, they decided to remain friends with somebody who is quite literally once again a rapist and child abuser because “i have hope she’ll change” or “she told me it wasn’t that bad” or “i want to keep an eye on her” is quite literally vomit enduing. whenever i tried tweeting about it i felt like my head was going to explode (i did tell her to kill herself in traffic at one point though which was gratifying). like when people know incredibly personal things about you and your history with child sexual violence and rape during your teenage years, yeah, that hurts lol

and for whatever reason the topic of her existing and being a piece of shit came up semi recently (this week), a friend of mine linked to the posts on here for context and we had a back and forth in the replies (as she did with other people who were there and had to deal with it) and it gets a few notes from people who are disgusted (you know like any human with basic morals would be) then flash forward a few days later some hack furry soundcloud musician who makes DJ paypal ripoffs is screenshotting our tweets and encouraging people to dogpile us because we’re ~problematic~ or whatever (for context i did make a joke about soundcloud trannies but literally if you’re focusing your energy on a trans woman saying a word that she’s allowed to use and unbothered by the literal rapist you are clearly, utterly, brain dead) and then gets in my mentions and starts accusing me of a multitude of different things as to why i’m talking about something i happened to see somebody else talking about it like i suddenly made the decision to bring up something from four years ago for fun like. literally not expunging the energy with a limit of 280 characters or less having to coddle a grown adult man who needs to be told that “rape and child abuse is bad and not something that stops being abhorrent after 4 years”

and while not directly interacting with me, i had to see tweets from various people calling it “bringing up past drama” and the whole deluge into people changing and it being outright lies etc

and it’s just

like i really can’t fucking stand how idiotic some people are about this subject which i guess is why i’m writing the nihon shoki of child sex abusers here. like people calling things like this purely because it happened through tumblr as a medium “callout culture” like no fucking shit they made a giant post about it, it’s the fastest way to get somebody out of a community with hard evidence. 13 - 15 year olds coming forward about being literally groomed by a pedophile is in no way comparable to people making posts about people doing things they personally find objectionable. like, literally if somebody is a rapist and child sex abuser to boot, why would it stop being a relevant fact about them after 4 years? why shouldn’t it be public knowledge be it tumblr post or not? i don’t see you calling for the abolition of sex offenders registers so why are you harassing people for bringing up the fact that somebody just migrated communities and tried to obscure the fact she is, again, quite literally a rapist and a pedophile

and like i mentioned before in the first paragraph that’s about 3 miles away now, there’s a specific problem with this in LGBT online communities (not gonna talk about furries because let’s be real as a community they’re responsible for god not talking to us anymore) specifically transgender. like i see so much of this stuff from trans women specifically defending other trans women because they believe they’re infallible except only when confronted by other trans women. like i remember a while ago i think it was aquila talking about sexual harassment from a trans woman and some bitch tried to accuse her of “contributing to the stereotype that trans women are sex abusers perpetrated by cis people” like ????

it’s impossible to have a serious discussion about sex abuse and assault in the trans community because, at large, the community has a problem with sanctimonious white women who’re only friends with other sanctimonious white women (i’m mentioning race despite being white myself because i mean it like a lot of them are racist even if they don’t know it and talk too much about things they shouldn’t but do anyway because they think being trans puts them at the very bottom of some kind of hypothetical social ladder). like somebody comes forward with a story about sexual harassment from a specific person who happens to be trans and you get a bunch of Those People talking about them perpetuating stereotypes despite this being a literal event that happened to them

same with the whitney thing like we (small friend group of mine) were talking about it in our group chat and then some trans woman who was apart of it just up and leaves and today, we see he having a laugh and a jape with her like she didn’t find out hours before that the person she’s friends with is a rapist.

firsthand i’ve seen a lot of things from trans women who think that they’re untouchable because they have the label of “trans woman” and fall back on that as a get out of jail free card like they can’t be racist or classist or even themselves be criticised for sexual misconduct

and the sexual misconduct thing is literally perpetuated like a normal thing like all of those posts that get circulated around about how all trans women flirt with each other and share nudes like, no, if i don’t know you and you try to talk to me like that you’re a creep and need to fuck off. like a lot of my friends who’re trans women have experiences with people they don’t know trying to share nudes or outright start aggressively flirting

like i’m aware this is kind of all over the place towards the end and it might be hard to understand if you’re not apart of the trans community or you’re trans and haven’t experiences this yourself firsthand or been told by others about similar things but, really as a community we have a problem with allowing people who don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about lead discussions about identity politics and also thinking that people who’re sexual harasses ranging from “just doesn’t know what appropriateness is” to “preys on minors” to “literal rapist” walk free and interact with people like a normal human because of weird belies that only other trans women are allowed to confront other trans women about things they do (and also as much as i hate to say it some people like the people on mine and my friends cases the other day, just don’t care and consider anybody bringing stuff up from the past or because it happened on tumblr drama-whores or whatever)

like another example is during the whole dog mom escapade (yes the woman who wanted to fuck dogs and her girlfriend who dated somebody in the past who fucked a dog, and regularly interacted with her gf’s blog about wanting to fuck dogs) i had people try to accuse me of using her trans status to get people to (heh) dogpile on her and somebody go on a “you shouldn’t bring this stuff up to a crowd of largely cis people because people have a habit of persecuting minorities moreso than people with privilege and people might mock her for being trans!” rant at me to which i just responded with “i don’t care”. like she wants to fuck dogs nobody cares if she has a dick or not they just want her away from them because she wants to fuck dogs. this isn’t complex.

like, again as a community, we really need to do better. and outside of that back to the original epoch of this longass post, what the fuck is wrong with people (both cis and trans) who’re willing to excuse literal rape and child sexual abuse because it happened a while ago or because they have some perverse sense of loyalty to an online friend

and again sorry to kind of just. write a herculean passage of text and i know the stuff about the trans community failing in regards to that in mine and others experiences maybe might be hard to follow if you aren’t aware of what i’m talking about (maybe? we’ll see) but yeah i’ve had this on my mind for a while. having to see people excuse that kind of shit and outright try to start drama with you and others is, obviously, very strenuous

idk i feel being gay/trans exposes you to a lot of angels but also a lot of terrible people, online communities that’re self governed can go to shit incredibly fast if somebody with enough social notoriety is crafty enough (case in point monetizeyourcat) and enough people are willing to take their side for whatever obtuse reasons 

also i checked there’s literally around 2000 words here so again thank you if you read the whole thing and i’m sorry for the really fucking grim subject matter that seems to crop up a fucking lot in online communities, but again, lot of thoughts, this is a way to expunge them from my head so i can go play dangan ronpa without having a literal dark cloud over me. blessed thursdays everyone <3

[thecrookedgavel]

The Black Box Readings - Ep 1 Transcript

Here’s the transcript for episode 1 of The Black Box Readings, the podcast where I read to you the backup of queer blogs that have gone down. 

See Other Episodes

An: Hey, all! And welcome to The Black Box Readings, the new podcast where I read to you the backup of queer blogs that have gone down! I’m your host, An Capuano. So basically, it’s a show where I narrate through a deleted or deactivated blog over the course of a season, with a focus on queer artists. Though to be honest, there was a specific blog that inspired me to make this podcast, and unless this format is super popular, I may just do the one season. Anyway, although reading things in a dramatic fashion is definitely in my wheelhouse, non-fiction podcasts are not. So please bear with me while I go through some growing pains as I try and figure this thing out. 

Alright, so this season, we have the story of a digital artist who caught my attention with a really cool piece of Overwatch fanart. It’s about her journey through a life spent mostly online, disability, and navigating through the difficulties of realizing that you’re trans.

For those of you not in the know, I am a disabled trans woman myself, so it’s not a journey I’m altogether unfamiliar with. The biggest reason I’m doing this podcast is because stories like ours get drowned out in the media. I wanted to be able to tell her story so that queer people, young and old, can hear something that resonates with them. And I have a good feeling that this will do that for you.

The Tumblr in question, I won’t say the address. Just know that the title of the blog was: “Less Than Human”. Yeah, I know. Not a very cheery introduction. I sort of choose to think of it, kind of like reclaiming a slur. If she calls herself less than human, other people lose the power to hurt her with it. I’m telling you the blog title because it is important later.

Anyways, enough out of me, here’s the first post of the episode, which happens to be the first post of the blog itself. It’s titled:

“Welcome!

Hey, my name is -”

Ok, so I guess I didn’t think this through. In the post, she uses her deadname, and I don’t feel comfortable reading it out to you all. If I have to choose between deadnaming a trans girl and being a little inaccurate, I’m choosing inaccuracy. I should say, actually, that I don’t consider myself a journalist or anything like that. Also, I get it would be bad of me to use her real name too. So we’ll just call her… Hmmm…. Ok, let’s go with Emmy.

“Welcome!

Hey, my name is Emmy, and I’m 19 years old! Nice to meet you guys! I’ve decided to start posting on my tumblr instead of using it as a dash, lol! I’m a visual artist, though I mostly stick to digital art these days. I spend most of my time reading. My fandoms are Gravity Falls, Steven Universe, Supernatural, Sonic the Hedgehog, Marvel, and of course, Shrek! Lmao. I think Cat Girls are cute, but I’m not a weeb”

*Laugh* I never read this post while she was active. Her sense of humor is really present in this post, she was always silly like this. Anyways, she follows up this post by posting a backlog of art that I figure she must have made and not shown to anyone. It’s all really good stuff. Some fandom, some original. It’s clear to me that she’s not posting her earlier, rougher work. I don’t remember too many details though, as this was a while ago, and I didn’t think to save her artwork when I was copying all her text posts into the google doc. I hope someone out there saved them before they were deleted, though.

I’m not going to bore you by reading every single one of her posts, or anything like that. Just the ones that stand out to me. Here’s one about Supernatural and how she might be falling out of love with it. 

“I don’t know guys, I’m finding it hard to watch supernatural these days. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still one of my favorite shows, it’s just totally not as good as the first 5 seasons. That and I WANT DEAN AND CASS TO BE TOGETHER! Is that so wrong? Look, Cass is an immortal being that just HAPPENED to take a male form. If he had a female form, you can bet that he and Dean would have banged already. I’ve read the tumblr posts too, the ones that talk about all the hints the writers give that Dean is gay. This is ABSOLUTELY queerbaiting, and even as a straight guy, I can see that. I have a lot of gay mutuals who have convinced me how ultimately cute Dean and Cass are, and I feel bad for them, because they’re not being treated fair. You think in its 12 seasons there would be something, but no, nothing. Pisses me off”

Here is where we start seeing a connection between Emmy and queer culture. Although she’s currently IDing as straight and male, you can tell she cares about queer representation. Now, I’m not saying that wanting good queer content makes you queer, of course not. Just that knowing that Emmy is queer, when you look back at her earlier posts, there’s some evidence there. She even talks about Castiel, a male character, having a female form, which I find interesting for obvious reasons.

Next up is a post about something outside of her fandoms, a show called Monk. For those of you who don’t know it, it’s a show focused on a detective with OCD who uses his disability to solve crimes no one else can. As someone with OCD myself, I really enjoyed the show, but it’s not without its problems. Hmm, yeah, I’ll get to those after reading the post, I think

“I’ve been watching a new show lately! Well, a show that’s new to me at least. It’s called Monk! I’m 3 seasons in, and I laugh every episode. But it’s not without its serious moments too. It’s about Adrian Monk, a detective with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and it’s like a super power to him. He can do things no one else can. But he also can’t do things that everyone else takes for granted. Mood. He always says “It’s a gift… And a curse” when talking about it. Big mood. Anyway, I highly recommend it, because it’s a positive depiction of someone mentally ill! I’m so used to people who are “crazy” being mass murderers or some shit. Idk, it’s heartwarming.”

I noticed one of the hashtags of her post was, “Finally found a version with captions.” This is important for later and I’ll get to it by the end of the episode. Where the previous post was the first we saw of her queerness, this is the first we’ll see about her connection with mental illness. It’s unclear if she feels her inabilities are balanced off by her abilities, or if her “mood” was just about her being unable to do what others can. Since her “big mood” is regarding Adrian Monk’s favourite quote “It’s a gift and a curse”, I like to think she was being positive and was including her abilities in the “mood.”

While I do agree with Emmy that it’s a positive depiction of someone mentally ill, and that’s certainly better than having yet another bad guy is who’s only evil because he’s crazy, I’m worried that it’s too positive. It’s actually a really common trope where neurodivergent people in media are seen as “super human,” like Sheldon in the Big Bang Theory, or uhh, the main character from The Good Doctor, I forget his name. It makes it look like everyone with autism or OCD are geniuses, and that sort of skews how neurotypicals view people like us in a negative way. Like, I do view my OCD as a gift, I wouldn’t be able to write the way I do, or play video games the same way if I didn’t have it. But I’m not a superhuman by any means. But I’m expected to, in some sense, outperform everyone because of my OCD, because of this impossible standard set by the media. *Sigh* I’m sorry, I’m getting really off topic. I hope you don’t mind this little rant.

Back to Emmy, I find it a little upsetting that she feels herself cursed in some way. Knowing what I know about her, I like to think she was more gifted than cursed, but given the title of her blog, I doubt she would agree with me. We can glean from this post that she is disabled in some way or another. Maybe she herself has OCD? Or maybe she just relates her own, different disability to OCD? It’s hard to tell at this point, and I don’t want to spoil it, especially since it will come up again in a few posts. 

Next up, we have a post about not just queer characters, but lesbian characters. I’m sure you have heard of Overwatch by now, even if you haven’t played it. Well, the creative devs promised us that a handful of the cast was queer, and at least to me, it seemed like an empty promise. Hmm, I guess it seems a little bit like the queerbaiting conversation we had earlier. Interesting. You know what I mean, right? Like, why take the risk of pissing off the straight, cis part of your fanbase with queer characters when you can just say some characters are queer and attract a bigger queer fanbase that way? But then they did something that blew me out of the water. They made a comic where Tracer has a girlfriend. This next post from Emmy is about this reveal.

“Merry Christmas! And what a Christmas it’s been. Because I got something I’ve been asking for for a LONG time. Blizzard made Tracer gay! I’m not the only one who’s been asking for this, a huge chunk of the fandom has been saying that Tracer is only into other girls. It’s been my headcanon for so long, and now it doesn’t have to be, because it’s canon! Tracer and Emily are so cute together! And their kiss is so hot too! Yeah, lesbians are really hot in general. They’re every guy’s ultimate fantasy. Thanks, Jeff!”

An: Ok, so before we continue, I think I need to apologize on Emmy’s behalf for the way she talks about lesbians. As a trans lesbian, I had a period where I talked about lesbains that way too. Before I came to terms with that identity, I mean. Since you believe you’re a straight guy, there’s no real explanation for why you’re so into lesbians other than them being a male fantasy. But it’s more than that. It’s part of like, seeing yourself as a girl that the idea of being with a girl that likes girls... that is so fundamentally appealing. 

Like, ok. *sigh* I remember this one time very clearly… I was with my girlfriend at the time and a friend of mine at a bubble tea shop. This was probably 9 or 10 years ago now? Jeez. Anyways, this couple of girls starts making out at the table next to us, and I had a full on sexual awakening. I remember that I couldn’t look away. Mostly because my ex wouldn’t let me forget it. I got teased by my friend and berated by my ex. Because I couldn’t explain what happened to her, let alone to myself, I eventually came up with a rather math-y explanation involving vectors of attraction *laugh*. Something like, if women are attractive to me, and men are not attractive to me, then adding their vectors together gives less attraction than two women’s vectors being added together. It was pretty stupid. I don’t talk to either of those two people anymore, by the way. 

Anyways, my point is that since this is before she’s realized she’s a lesbian herself, she’s under the false impression that she needs to sexualize lesbians in order to explain why she’s so attracted to the concept. So please don’t hold that against her. 

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With that out of the way, we can move on to her next post. It’s a piece of art she made, and it’s pretty special to me. You see, this was the way I found her blog. One of the blogs I follow, who knows which at this point, must have reblogged it and it came across my dashboard. Again, I don’t have a copy of any of Emmy’s art, but I remember it pretty well. It’s a picture of Emily wearing Tracer’s outfit... Shit… Why did I give Emmy a name so close to Emily? Emily as in Tracer’s girlfriend. Maybe it’s because of my association with her and this drawing? Either way, it’s too late now, I’m not re-recording this whole episode. *Sigh* We’ll just stick with the blogger being named Emmy. Anyways! She’s sort of looking a bit out of place, like she doesn’t know how to feel about having a Chrono-accelerator attached to her chest. There’s a speech bubble in the frame pointing off screen that says, “You look marvellous, love!”, or something to that effect, but it’s obviously supposed to be Tracer saying it. It was a really cute drawing, and I was really fond of it, so I liked and followed. Feels like so long ago. 

Anyways, she did reblog the picture afterwards, saying:

“Thank you so much for all the notes! I really appreciate the support. Who knew that something so dumb would be liked by so many people? I really like Emily, and I hope she’s added as a Hero in Overwatch soon! I feel so happy! I’m going to go and do some more drawing, so keep an eye out for more posts!”

Not much going on in this post, but I decided to read it anyway because it contrasts so heavily with the next post. Not the next time she posted, but the next post I’m going to read. Actually, it’s the last post of this episode. 

So, I’m going to warn you, this is a side of Emmy we haven’t seen yet. The really negative side. *Sigh* I don’t know what set her off, maybe nothing did, but I think this post is very important to read to you, as it clears the air about her disabilities.

“I really appreciate all the love you’ve given my art, but I feel like I don’t deserve any of it. I’m so broken and worthless and I’ve only been pretending to be normal so that you’ll all like me. The truth is, I’m physically and mentally disabled, and life is just a never ending struggle. 

First off, I’m deaf. Very deaf. The quietest thing I can hear in either ear is a chainsaw. It means I can’t understand speech or anything I’d need to be social. I don’t know sign language at all, I was never taught. So I just… stay inside all day. I’ve been homeschooled by my Dad since I was young. He thinks something bad will happen to me if I go outside, because I couldn’t hear something like a car coming towards me. So I live my life online, for the most part. I feel so isolated, and like I can’t relate to anyone normal. 

Also, I have Bi-Polar Disorder. For those you don’t know of it, it basically means I have high highs and low lows. I’ve done a good job so far at hiding my lows from everyone and only showing my highs. Until now, I guess… I just feel so low today, and I couldn’t hold it back anymore. I just had to be real. Even if it’s an ugly side of me that I hate. My dad hates how moody I am too. He just doesn’t get that it’s not my fault. Even my highs are hard for him to handle sometimes. Anyway, please forgive me for lying so long”

So, I sense a bit of imposter syndrome here. She’s gotten some success and because she views herself as not even a normal person, she thinks she doesn’t deserve it. It’s a pretty common feeling amongst content creators and something you have to move past if you want to make stuff. It’s like, *sigh* like me, I’m not an expert voice actor, why are people listening to me? I have tricked them into thinking I’m worth listening to. If you’re feeling that way about a recent success, just know that it’s all bullshit and it’s normal to feel that way. I wish I had that knowledge at the time I originally read that post… Because then, I would have messaged her and let her know. But yeah, we have more to unpack here.

She talks about being deaf, and the level that she describes is a profound hearing loss, which is as bad as it gets. I have that level of hearing loss in my left ear, and it’s really hard to deal with. So, I kind of can’t imagine what it would be like to have it in both ears. 

Like, for me, I remember this one time where I was at my locker in high school, and someone must have been asking me a question a few times on my bad side. She wanted to know if I had any extra bus tickets, and by the time I finally caught on that she was talking to me, she said something like “Urg, I just want to punch you.” And it wasn’t a joke either, she was very frustrated with the way my hearing loss had affected her. It made me feel small, and like I was an inconvenience to those around me. Guess it didn’t help how I felt that I had a crush on her at the time… Ha… *Sigh* It was very isolating to grow up like that. I didn’t really belong there, but I didn’t exactly belong in the deaf community either, since I could hear fine out of one ear. So when Emmy describes how isolating it is to be deaf and not know sign language, I get it. I really feel that. When I saw this post, it really made me feel for her. This is probably the point in time where I made a mental note to support her art whenever I could. 

Lastly she talks about her mental illness, being bi-polar. I know a lot less about bi-polar disorder than I do hearing loss. Though I was in a production that never wrapped up about a bi-polar teen. Actually, I was the strict dad who couldn’t understand his child’s illness, which is a similar theme seen in Emmy’s post. I’ve actually been cast as a dad 3 or 4 times now? Yeah. *Laughs* Anyways, what I understand about it is that it can be seasonal. You might be manic for a season, and depressive for another. But yeah, it doesn’t always work that way. Usually medication can help balance you out, but in Emmy’s case, she wasn’t taking any meds at this point. I’ll say it here for clarity’s sake, but her having bi-polar disorder was a self-diagnosis, not a professional one. That’ll be covered in the next episode, though. 

So now the whole “Less than Human” thing makes a bit more sense, doesn’t it? Not because it’s true in any sense, but because it was true to her. Disability is something that people tend to see as different, or othering. There’s a lot of stigma there. We can sort of tell at this point that the way her Dad views her and treats her doesn’t help her feel any better about this either. 

That’s why she likes the depiction of mental illness in Monk so much, right? Because it’s a bit of a “More than Human” approach. It gives her some hope that maybe she can be seen positively one day too. As far as movies with Deaf characters goes there’s like 100, if I recall correctly. Which is honestly pitiful compared to the amount of movies, period. So it’s more than likely that she never got to see herself in media in that perspective before. 

Also, there’s the markings of a budding trans girl in there too, which may further intensify the feeling of not being human. For years and years *sigh*, there was practically zero positive representation of trans people in media. We’re taught that feeling like this makes us freaks, and that presenting differently than we’re supposed to makes us... something worse than that. It all comes together to form something bitter and isolating. Especially before you start owning those parts of you and finding a community of your own.

Thank you for listening to this episode of The Black Box Readings! I really ranted more than I thought I would. Hopefully you all liked the anecdotal stuff I added in, didn’t really plan on doing that. Follow me on Twitter at TheCrookedGavel to stay up to date on this and other queer podcasts. Feel free to contact me there as well. This is An Capuano, signing off!