#like. not utopian. not by a long shot.

[meat-loving-meat]

I want to write a Vanyel/Stefen modern-with-magic AU soooo bad but I don’t know Valdemar lore like at all. There are six books standing between me and feeling comfortable enough in the lore to imagine what Valdemar might look like with the internet and planes

[stumpyjoepete]

Thinking a bit more about Megalopolis (see prev post). It's not really the case that the script is as disjointed or schizophrenic as my post makes it out to be. The central plot is pretty simple: an egotistical city planner has an ambitious and futuristic vision for redeveloping the city, and he butts heads with the Mayor and others who oppose him in this. He ultimately succeeds in building his utopian "megalopolis". Everyone is happy, the end.

And yet.

There's this... intense centrifugal force that prevents everything from cohering into a unified whole. It's like a puzzle where all the pieces are cut from the same picture, but upon closer inspection, no two pieces quite fit together. Or like that collection of nonsensical objects. A fork where the tines and the handle are connected by a chain. A watering can with the spout facing the wrong way. A quick glance leaves you confused, and that confusion is only deepened by further contemplation.

I think this is especially clear in the pseudo-intellectualism of the title cards, narration, monologues, and quotations/references:

Laurence Fishburne does this heavy-handed narration at the beginning and end of the movie (and several random points in between). And there are these associated title cards that look like they were made by applying an "Ancient Rome" theme to some PowerPoint slides. "Or will we too fall victim, like old Rome, to the insatiable appetite for power of a few men?" My brother in Christ, you are making a movie where the hero is named Cesar, and the happy ending is when he successfully pulls a Robert Moses. This is not a story about power corrupting or good intentions going awry. What are you doing???

Cesar Catilina interrupts Mayor Cicero's speech (where he is introducing a plan to build a casino) in order to lay out an early plan for "megalopolis", which is an ambitious and long-term alternative to the (short-term) casino plan. He prefaces his megalopolis pitch by reciting the Hamlet soliloquy. What exactly does Coppola think "To Be Or Not To Be" is about? He must thinks it means, "I am a dark and brooding bad-boy intellectual", since it's hard to see how "I'd like to kill myself, but I fear death" fits into an argument about the importance of long-term thinking in urban planning.

Cesar says several negative things about "civilization". "[Imagine] humanity as an old tree with one misguided branch called civilization... going nowhere." (Shot of notebook shows an illustration with 'war' and 'cruelty' offshoots from said branch.) "Emerson said the end of the human race will be that we'll eventually die of civilization." (Note: unsourced, probably fake quote.) "Civilization itself remains the great enemy of mankind." Umm... you're an urban planner! You're doing a high modernism. What exactly does it mean for you to call civilization the enemy? Is "megalopolis" somehow anti-civilization because it looks like a Georgia O'Keefe painting instead of a bunch of straight lines and right angles? Will the "war" and "cruelty" branches wither and die when buildings have labia?

Also, there's this amazing line read that completely inverts the meaning of a fake Marcus Aurelius quote (the quote was attributed to him by Tolstoy but is not actually something he said). "The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape... finding yourself in the ranks of the insane." Why did you put in that pause??? Fake Marcus Aurelius is turning in his grave! You're supposed to be fleeing FROM the ranks of the insane! I suppose this isn't really inconsistent with the characterization of Cesar, it's just such a fucking batshit thing to say.

All of the cargo-cult intellectualism listed above could perhaps be excused if the vision that the film is supposedly about had any content whatsoever. Or, alternatively, if the movie was about something more substantive, and the vacuous megalopolis vision took place off-screen in an epilogue, like the "happily ever after" of a children's story. But no! The movie repeatedly interrupts the plot to grab you by the shoulders and scream in your face: "I have a vision! For the future!". And then--now that it has your undivided attention--it shits the bed like a man who has just polished off an entire bag of sugar-free gummy bears and washed them down with a fistful of Ambien:

"Conversation isn't enough. It's the questions that lead it to the next step. But initially, you have to have a conversation. The city itself is immaterial, but they're talking about it for the first time. And it's not just about us talking about it. It's the need to talk about it. It's as urgent to us as air and water."

"Mr. Catalina, you said that as we jump into the future, we should do so unafraid. But what if when we do jump into the future, there is something to be afraid of?" "Well, there's nothing to be afraid of if you love, or have loved. It's an unstoppable force. It's unbreakable. It has no limits. It's within us. It's around us. And it's stretched throughout time. It's nothing you can touch. Yet it guides every decision that we make. But we do have the obligation to each other to ask questions of one another. What can we do? Is this society, is this way we're living, the only one that's available to us? And when we ask these questions, when there's a dialogue about them, that basically is a utopia."

After the revolution, we won't have conflicts anymore; we'll have dialogue instead. We won't have a need for the "jobs" and "sanitation" of "now"; we'll have the "imperishable" "dreams" of "forever". We won't have problems that need solving; we'll all be too busy asking each other questions. Now, if everyone could just shut up and get the hell out of the way and let Cesar implement his vision, then "everyone" will soon be "creating together, learning together, perfecting body and mind." A chorus of children's voices gradually morphing into Laurence Fishburne's, chanting, "One Earth, indivisible, with long life, education and justice for all." It's eschatological anti-politics made entirely from cotton candy. Please, for the love of God, stop making Adam Driver monologue at me! Let's get back to Aubrey Plaza stepping on horny fascist Shia LaBeouf!

The incoherence of Megalopolis's vision is compounded by how anachronistic its depiction of our fallen world is. There are some half-hearted (and ham-fisted) gestures in the Clodio sub-plot towards the dangers of Trumpian populism, but the script was first written in the 80's, and it's extremely obvious that Coppola is writing about New York City in the preceding several decades. The city's finances are in dire straights. (There's literally a "Ford Tells City: Drop Dead" reference!) The city is full of slums, the streets are full of crime, and the elites are all decadent. (For Coppola, decadence means that ladies are doing cocaine and smooching each other in the cluh-ub.) The main character is Neo-Roman Robert Moses, and the conflict of the film is about urban renewal. In case you, like Mr. Coppola, have not been made aware, slum clearance is not a major political issue in 2020's Manhattan.

Two thirds of the way through the movie, a falling Soviet satellite provides a deus ex machina, blowing up the financial district and clearing space for megalopolis to take its place. Ironically, a previous attempt to produce the film came to its abrupt end when two planes flew into some buildings in the financial district. Perhaps you heard about it. The financial backers of the film at the time considered Megalopolis's plot a bit too close to current events for comfort and withdrew their support.

But Coppola's depiction of Manhattan was already decades out of date by then. Moses stepped down in '60. Jacobs' book railing against urban renewal came out in '61. The Power Broker came out in '74. One presumes popular opinion of Robert Moses soured in the following years. The crisis of the city's finances that peaked in '75 was over by '81 when NYC balanced its budget and reentered the bond market. The crime wave of the 70's and 80's had receded by the year 2000. The demand for housing in NYC proper is as high as it ever has been, and it's only getting higher. Megalopolis imagines America as an incoherent mishmash of several decades of mid-century NYC, dressed up in the toga of the late Roman Republic, calling out for (Robert) Moses to part the slums and take us into a promised land that is literally beyond any description, and whose only concrete feature seems to be glowing people-movers.

A Robert Moses with the power to stop time, at that!

Oh, did I forget to mention that part? Cesar discovers he has the power to stop time in the opening scene of the film. I forgot because it's literally irrelevant to the plot. Time stops a few times, and then it starts back up again, and the events of the film just plod inexorably forward. For a movie as temporally dislocated as Metropolis, perhaps that's just as well.

[sith-shenanigans]

The thing about the Omelas story is that I don’t hate it, actually.

Don’t get me wrong. Usually, when I think about it, it drives me up a wall. I also—on the subject of responses to it—didn’t really like The Ones Who Stay And Fight. (Most of my reasons are said, better, in this article. Not the part about the tone, but that it shot for ambiguity and ended up in “somehow, the clearly magical power of child suffering made more sense than intolerance being a memetic virus that can only be solved through police murder.”) I’m fond of responding to trolley problems by asking who’s tying people to trolleys, and then insisting that it is morally relevant that someone tied those people to the tracks, because you wouldn’t be deciding who lives and who dies if someone hadn’t made the deliberate choice to put those people in mortal peril for no pressing reason.

(I like to think I’d save the five people. I think a lot of us would most likely panic and do something entirely unhelpful, and in practice, I have no idea if I’m one of them, because no one has ever tied anybody to a trolley track in front of me. It just hasn’t come up. But the ideal would be to save the five people. That’s not my answer in the organ-harvesting version, though, because it’s bad for everyone to live in a place where a surgeon can decide to kill you for your organs, no matter how many people doing it just this once would save.)

But I don’t dislike the story that Omelas came from. I don’t even dislike trolley problems, unless people are trying to insist that the context doesn’t matter. (The context always matters.) The problem is that everyone treats Omelas as a trolley problem. “Here’s a utopia where one innocent person has to suffer horribly. Is it worth it, to keep so many other people from suffering? Would you stay and be complicit, or would you walk out to go anywhere else?” The child is the central feature of Omelas, the only thing that matters. The child is nonnegotiable. You can’t rescue them, you can only walk away.

But the narrator did give us the chance to believe, before adding the child in.

Omelas is described to us as half place and half thought experiment, by a narrator that adds things as they go, a narrator that says this at close to the opening:

As they did without monarchy and slavery, so they also got on without the stock exchange, the advertisement, the secret police, and the bomb. Yet I repeat that these were not simple folk, not dulcet shepherds, noble savages, bland utopians. They were not less complex than us. The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can't lick 'em, join 'em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe a happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.

And goes on, in the narrative, to consider the reader’s opinion, to ask what they’ll believe.

I wish I could convince you. Omelas sounds in my words like a city in a fairy tale, long ago and far away, once upon a time. Perhaps it would be best if you imagined it as your own fancy bids, assuming it will rise to the occasion, for certainly I cannot suit you all. For instance, how about technology? I think that there would be no cars or helicopters in and above the streets; this follows from the fact that the people of Omelas are happy people. Happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive. In the middle category, however – that of the unnecessary but undestructive, that of comfort, luxury, exuberance, etc. – they could perfectly well have central heating, subway trains, washing machines, and all kinds of marvelous devices not yet invented here, floating light-sources, fuelless power, a cure for the common cold. Or they could have none of that: it doesn't matter. As you like it.

[…]

But even granted trains, I fear that Omelas so far strikes some of you as goody-goody. Smiles, bells, parades, horses, bleh. If so, please add an orgy. If an orgy would help, don't hesitate. […] Surely the beautiful nudes can just wander about, offering themselves like divine souffles to the hunger of the needy and the rapture of the flesh. Let them join the processions. Let tambourines be struck above the copulations, and the glory of desire be proclaimed upon the gongs, and (a not unimportant point) let the offspring of these delightful rituals be beloved and looked after by all. One thing I know there is none of in Omelas is guilt. But what else should there be?

Omelas is a story being told to a listener, a utopia being described; the reader is an implied participant in a conversation, the narrator reacting to what they said where the page couldn’t hear. And so, after all of that, the narrator says:

Do you believe? Do you accept the festival, the city, the joy? No? Then let me describe one more thing.

And the narrator goes on to describe the child, the terrible price, the self-justifications that people employ. Because the listener doesn’t accept the festival, the city, the joy—only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. So the narrator engages in “the treason of the artist” (if you can't lick 'em, join 'em) and regales us with the child’s sorry state.

[…] They know that they, like the child, are not free. They know compassion. It is the existence of the child, and their knowledge of its existence, that makes possible the nobility of their architecture, the poignancy of their music, the profundity of their science. It is because of the child that they are so gentle with children. They know that if the wretched one were not there snivelling in the dark, the other one, the flute-player, could make no joyful music as the young riders line up in their beauty for the race in the sunlight of the first morning of summer.

Now do you believe in them? Are they not more credible?

I don’t think we’re being asked, as readers, to consider whether it’s worth it, though it’s certainly something we can consider if we want. But the narrative seems quite clear that it isn’t: to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. A description of Omelas, of why Omelas should be believed in, but how could that be anything but a condemnation of a city powered by a forsaken child?

And, of course, everyone wants to ask—why don’t we free the child, why don’t we comfort the child, why don’t we change things and take the risk of making everything worse? Why is the best thing we can do to walk away?

Because we needed the utopia to have suffering in it, to believe it. Because it couldn’t be real until there was a cost, a price, something cruel and unfair to balance out the scales. Something had to be wrong with Omelas, as the narrator spun it up before us. Yes, perhaps we could save the child, perhaps we could ruin everything, perhaps we could be heroes—wouldn’t that be nice? Wouldn’t that be the story we want, here, where someone is suffering and only we (who are of course more compassionate than everyone else) can fix it? That would make it a real utopia, if we could kick down the doors and fix everything ourselves.

But it would have been better to believe that Omelas could exist without someone suffering for it, when we were asked.

[falloutnewnobody]

lost this post twice because tumblr mobile ui hates me but yeah daniil dankovsky ed headcanons because i saw something that made me think of it earlier and now i cant stop thinking about it. (also the highest honor i can bestow on my blorbos is my specific brand of bulimia so yeah)

obligatory eating disorder and suicide mention trigger warning. i try to avoid triggering shit but this is also an eating disorder hc post. there's gonna be descriptions of thought processes and mentions of behaviors.

daniil dankovsky strikes me as a classic case of "undiagnosed autistic, perfectionist, mentally ill tween/teen who feels like they have no control over their life and develops AN (anorexia nervosa) as a means to cope," (i can also see him having a lot of health mortality anxiety in the vein of "if i dont eat perfect i'm going to die before i can cure death,") His parents forced him into treatment because he was like. yk. dying and shit. which was traumatizing as hell because treatment, especially forced treatment on an autistic person is like that 70% of the time.

Then he just kinda spends the next few decades caught up in the "liminal space of wanting to relapse in full again but doesnt have the resources or mental ability to -> relapse -> quasi recovery -> liminal space cycle," his first relapse was AN -> BN (bulimia nervosa) and he's been on and off that bulimia grind a la The Liminal Space Cycle ever since.

I give him bulimia not just to project but also because i like the idea of him kicking himself for having a "lesser" ed. (a common ed thought is the heierarchy of eds, where some are considered "better," than others)

He's extremely high functioning, excpecially during his liminal space and quasi recovery periods in large part due to his abuse of substances to combat some of the more glaring side effects and medical knowledge making him the king of harm reduction. Even when he gets bad, he's scarily good at hiding his ed (gloves to hide russel's sign. multilayered clothing, smoking to hide the smell. i have more specific examples but dont want to give tips yk) until it reaches critical mass and he's lost the ability to do his work, which along with external support from colleuges and people who look up to him, kicks him into quasi recovery.

i think he was knee deep into a relapse when he went on his steppe vacation due to the stress of probably losing Thanatica (and also autistic burnout, a bunch of other mental health and substance abuse issues hitting critical mass after so long of not really adressing them them). He did binge then purge once during the twelve days (in a "if i eat a large quantity of my meager rations now i wont binge and purge them later -> oh shit oh fuck whoever couldve forseen this kinda way). and simoltaneuosly freaked the fuck out and felt a little reassured because that was all the food he could afford and this his chances of starving to death shot up dramatically.

In all of the endings (termite, utopian, and humble) he hits rock bottom and grabs a jackhammer. like, he's still lost the thenatica and was massively traumatized by *gestures vaugley at the events of pathologic classic hd and the pathologic 3 demo.

like i know we dont really get a good picture as to what happens to him post-canon (though we know he returns to the capitol for at least some time according to the patho 3 demo) but i honestly think he gets pathologic-5150'd (realistically by serafima or someone from the town who came to the capitol as a witness for the sand plauge disaster) and spends some time in residential treatment, something he's initially against because he thinks himself too capable with too many responsibilites but comes around to it, realizing that he definetly wouldve killed himself if not for it.

I think he returns to the town, or in the case of the utopian ending, the new town on the other side of the river, mostly because there's nothing left for him in the capitol and his fractured psyche needs something different. i like to think he fully recovers someday and develops a half-decent support network but with him you never know.

[wagsandswishes]

🦉Positivity owl reporting for duty! This was sent by a friend who wants you to smile as much as you make them smile. Please feel free to respond to this ask by listing some of your happiest memories, favorite qualities about yourself, or discussing something you are super passionate about. You may send the owl to those who you feel deserve to smile (but no pressure).🦉

this is sososososo sweet!!!! i'll answer one of each below the cut ^_^

one of my favourite memories is honestly kissing a girl as a lesbian for the first time, no exaggeration it felt like electricity shot through me and i cried SO hard from how right everything finally felt

one of my favourite qualities of myself is something ive worked veryveryvery hard on the last 2 years and that's to be as positive of a presence as i absolutely can!! i always try to compliment strangers' outfits, take walks and appreciate the sun on my face, tell my friends i love them whenever i can. it's been really hard cause i've had a really hard few years but being more myself and being radically kind no matter what has made my life soso much better

and finally!! something i'm super passionate is ttrpgs!! right now im wrapping up a year+ long armour astir campaign about a rebellion of magical mecha pilots trying to fell a principality ruled by an immortal inhuman prince, and a coven of terrifyingly old and powerful wizards in a world where the stars fell to the sky and became kaiju that almost ended humanity. it's been super super fun!!! i've made some great NPCs who i & my players all super love, and those players have done an amazing job at making the most interesting decisions they can to make for an unforgettable campaign. i've had long term players of my many campaigns tell me that multiple sessions ive run during this campaign have been some of their favourite sessions i ever have, so i'm super proud of myself for all the work ive put in :3

once the campaign's over, since scheduling is getting hard for this group, the players are splitting in two for 2 different campaigns: post-utopian cyberpunk on a space station at the far edge of the universe that i think im gonna run using technoir (or hard wired island but i still need to read through that one); and eldritch post-apocalyptic fantasy where time was killed and now the world doesn't work entirely right, which i'm running using the newly released completed version of songbirds 3e (i own both of the older versions physically and they're so beautiful and the text is so evocative and i'm really excited to run it)

other than that, fabula ultima's also a system i'm super super interested in playing in or running, and i juust did the first session of a 5e campaign earlier this week where i'm playing a silly detective wizard girl

[dirtreally]

top 5 manga spread page (or double page)

5. the dungeonmeshi thing

honestly i like the tankoubon version of this way less but whatever this shit is still cool

4. sorry for double dipping on ggwp

actually gonna triple dip because it's followed by this shit like 3 chapters later

3. This shit from bokura wa mahou shounen. honourable mention also to yuri espoir which does the same thing but to a lesser degree (but i kinda like the yuri espoir one a lot more since the bokura wa mahou shounen one is like at least 30% a joke lol (bokura wa mahou shounen still extremely god tier manga tho))

2. this shit from girls last tour

actually since ive brought up girls last tour can i just say something. i dont like shimeji simulation and how it ended. shimeji simulation makes a lot of formalist improvements from glt with the panelling style (its still impressive how much tkmiz was able to wring out of the 4koma format even in the earlyish chapters) but the ending of shimeji feels insanely insular compared to glt. glt ends with yuu and chii (and the reader) having to witness and recognise the whole world and becomes even better with the tankoubon release adding that crazy ass bonus chapter that is ALL two page spreads that could have just as easily ended up here. shimeji on the other hand feels insanely insular in comparison. with shimeji i dont know how im supposed to experience anything but dread from the idea of everyone getting infinite utopian power and then immediately using that to hole themselves up in their own personal worlds. the shit with the art teacher and that other girl was really ebic tho

i cant fucking find it cuz i swear to god i had the epub file somewhere but i apparently just don't but arawi keiichi's CITY has this insane fucking chapter that's like. 12 consecutive two page spreads and every single one of them is the same shot of a town fair or festival or something and it's just this extremely long sequence of the whole CITY(!!!!!) moving forward in time and you can see like twenty characters acting independently of each other. i'm kind of a speedreader so i really appreciate shit like this that just forces you to slow down due to the sheer impact of the whole thing PLUSSSS it really gave me the feeling of reading one of those richard scarry kids books where he just draws a big ass factory where you can see a log slowly get turned into a stack of paper but like BIGGER and more CITY. certified Extremely Fun Manga Experience nobody fucking does it like arawii

[smallsinger5901]

my squid game s3 predictions (based on the teasers)

This is all just my personal predictions and theories based on the teaser images they released so very unlikely to happen but i wanted to share anyway :))

so. Who’s in that coffin huh? Personally, and it sounds crazy but hear me out, I think it’s Gihun. But he’s alive. I think theyre gonna psyche us out at the start of s3 by putting gihun in the coffin and delivering him back to the room, but he’ll just be unconscious and wake up soon. That way he’s still made an example of but inho doesnt have to kill him, plus it put more suspicion on gihun from the other players.

and speaking on making an example of- when the voice on the intercom said ‘any players still outside after bedtime will be eliminated’ (or something like that) i think that’ll still apply. I think Gihun will be eliminated as a participant but still forced to stay. Its probably just the angle, but in the teaser image where he’s handcuffed to the bed, you can’t see his number or an X on his jumper. I think that possibly when he’s returned to the main room, thats when he’s chained to his bed as a punishment, eliminated from the running but forced to watch as everyone else dies without him being a ‘high and mighty saviour’. Like putting him on house arrest for disobedience, kinda. They could make up some bs for the other players and him about former winners being protected or something idk, but i think it would be interesting (tho not probable).

then there’s no-eul. I think that was her who ‘shot’ 246 (forgot his name) and that she shot him somewhere nonfatal or not at all, then snuck him out maybe through the organ trafficking scheme (hopefully she gets to kill those two other guards 🥰) and then goes on the run to escape with him. I think she’ll meet up with junho. But i also think that the captain of the boat is the guy who theyre doing the organ trafficking with. I think thats why the boat was around the area to pick junho up at the end of s1. So she could recognise him snd either sound the alarm or straight up kill him. Either way i think she’ll send 246 and the rest of the side characters home and her and junho will infiltrate the games once again.

and inho. I cant stop thinking about ‘once they know who you are, youre dead’ from the first season and it just makes me think that inho will 100% die. My personal theory is that he’ll have a minor redemption and do something to stop the games, or at least save gihun/the infiltrating junho (or maybe even junhee?) and in turn be shot probably by the masked officer or another guard. Still, i feel like junho will deliver the killing shot. as a mercy. I think if its the masked officer he might even be doing a nonfatal shot on purpose since he seems fond of the organ harvesting scheme, so junho killing inho would be a final bit of dignity he’s giving his brother to prevent the guards from basically tearing him apart. Plus, we did kind of make a big deal of his organs (1 kidney) soo…

thats why i think its junho in the frontman suit in the final teaser image. It doesnt look like inho and tho it could be gihun i feel like junho fits better narratively. I don’t think he’s becoming the frontman, but i do think he’s imitating his brother to gather evidence on the VIPs to shut the game down (or at least try)

also idk how this fits in but i think the police higher-ups are in on the games

i can see the series ending with gihun successfully stopping the games in korea, but i feel like anything more than that would be too utopian. Despite everything, squid games is too rooted in reality i feel for the protagonist to be able to just ‘fix everything at once’. He’ll probably leave the games having stopped them, but look around outside and realise people are still suffering under the system that made people need to go into the games in the first place. The games may be over, but capitalism is still killing them all, yk?

Anyway this is a long post and entirely theories and speculation leaning almost into fully fanfiction but i just wanted to get this all off my chest. I cant wait for s3 to see if a single part of this came even remotely true lol!

[the-californicationist]

Just read through the chapters for The Window..... do you have plans on updating at all? Asking for a friend. No pressure!!

Thanks for being so kind with your ask, anon. I appreciate that, big time. Short answer: yes! Finished before October is the plan.

Long answer?

Let’s talk about The Window.

The Window makes me have really mixed emotions. It’s beloved. One of my most popular fics, plenty of comments and kudos. It has fans. It’s also the sort of story I’ve always wanted to write. I love the dynamic they have. I identify strongly as pansexual and polyamorous in the most foundational sense of the term. Truly free love. And I think the way that the 141 interacts with the reader serve to showcase what those types of interactions look like in my prototype of what poly/amorous freedom might look like. They rely on each other, respect each other, and they physically engage with each other without bias. It’s idealistic and utopian. It’s the most indulgent thing I’ve ever done (almost).

However.

The way that it has been written is not the story I wanted to tell. This piece was meant to be a one shot. It wasn’t meant to have a plot, and the plot that it does have is just laziness on my part. I wanted to write something else. Another poly fic, but I wanted backstory. I wanted conflict. I wanted context. I wanted character development. But I wanted those things in a true multi-chapter fic. Not in this one-shot.

This is my own fault.

I thought I could shoehorn it. I thought I could just casually move past the complexities I wanted to add and write it as a series of vignettes. None of these subsequent chapters were meant to exist. It’s a cheap imitation or counterfeit of what I wanted it to be, and it sucks that I allowed myself to indulge in it without taking pains to construct the chapters in a way that I knew it needed.

My problem is that, at the time, I was excited that readers were excited. I was getting piles and piles of asks and DMs every day. I deleted so many, but I wanted to dive in and explore with them. I was excited too. But, I wanted to be in the story that I envisioned, and not in this one shot. And I thought I could be satisfied with this revisive version. But that was a mistake. My mistake.

The truth is that it’s done. The fic is already finished. It has two more chapters to be uploaded, and then I will probably delete it on tumblr and orphan it on AO3. I know that everyone who was so excited with me in the beginning will be disappointed with the ending I’ve created, but I’m finding it hard to even open the file. I just don’t want to upload it because it’s something I’m not proud of, and I’m hurting my own feelings because of it.

So I’ve been avoiding it. When I had a family member pass away earlier this year, I used that as an excuse to put it on the back burner. Then, I leaned on my other WIPs to avoid it this summer. Every time I open my GDrive, it sits there mocking me in some sort of smutty rendition of The Cask of Amontillado; evidence of my own crime.

All that to say, it’ll be done before September ends, because my October writing schedule is buckwild.

Sorry for the big wall of complaining. I just wanted to be transparent.

[rattlyglitch1]

Hello, you wrote that you accept requests. I hope this is still relevant? I made a request for this idea a long time ago to another person, but they are more focused on one-shot stories. So it would be great to see it in your performance. So what do you think about the idea that Silver is not a person? The idea is that the Knight of the Dawn is not a person but a selkie. Mythical creatures from Scottish and Irish folklore, sea people, beautiful seal people. One day he was caught and having stolen his skin, he was not allowed to leave. And then Silver appeared who took over the nature of his father. Almost nothing is known about selkies. Even in the time of Lilia's youth, they were no longer there. Many of Silver's kind either died in the ocean from predators or were caught by people. Most often, they were caught by sailors and forcibly taken, taking away their skins, thereby not allowing them to return back to the sea. Because of this, their kind disappeared. And they became a myth. The peculiarity of the selkies and their value was that they could become people without a potion and also in their beauty. And Silver belongs to this species. Now after so many years he is drawn back into the water. Most likely it will pass on the day of Lilia's departure, but instead of the overblot of Mellius, they have the utopian Silver who tried to. He is stopped by Ortho (or anyone else who is suitable, as you think), who saw that he was heading towards the water. Realizing that he intends to continue walking until he is completely immersed, Ortho saves him and carries him to the others for help. The others do not understand what is happening. After all, Silver never had such thoughts. In an attempt to figure it out, Lilia and Mellius somehow learn the truth. Lilia, even at the moment when she found Silver, takes the seal skin in which the child was wrapped and hides it. They also learn the reason why the selkies disappeared. And they simply cannot let him go there. They come to the decision to lock Silver away from the water and his skin. I would like more carpenter yandere Lilia and Mellius. And their thoughts about it. Starting with the utopian attempt ending with learning the truth. It would be great if Silver himself did not understand what was happening to him and instead of the truth he was deceived and forced to believe that he was not healthy. I would like the story to be from the perspective of Lilia and Mellius But this is purely my vision. You can change it as you wish. I hope that this idea will interest you.Also, if you are already tired ofSilver, it would be great to see a story about Leona.The idea is that he tries to commit suicide but remains alive. And his family takes care of him. Trying to understand why he tried to do this. His brother, sister-in-law and nephew love him very much and sometimes there can be too many of them. I'm not sure about the parents. If I'm not mistaken, they have not been mentioned yet. But in any case, I will be glad to see any of your stories! Thank you for your attention and have a good mood.

i love both of these ideas. I'll definitely write them. Their amazing and I plan to bring your ideas to life truly. My only question is the Silver idea is like canon age Silver right? I'm not sure if you know about the Silver au I have but I wanted to make sure I'm right that it's canon Silver age (which it does sound like) and find out if it is canon age are there any ships you want.

Also that Leona idea is amazing. I will definitely write that as well. I've always want d to explore the kind of dynamic I'd think they'd have.

I can't estimate a time when they'll be started or finished but hopefully it'll be started in November/December so first chapters of either or both fics will be out in those months or January because I'm working to make my Christmas oneshots in November.

I'll name you the Fairy Anon and @ that name so you know which chapters that have names belong to the fics you've requested. (They'll be added to my master post along the way)

[kayas-kosmos]

Ko-Fi Challenge - 2024, the Year of Solarpunk!

[This post is intended for the Ko-Fi January 2024 challenge. However, I receive an error message every time I try to post this blog on Ko-Fi so I am uploading it here instead. I therefore don't know if I will quality for the challenge since I cannot get my posts to work, but it's worth a shot].

Hello everyone, I hope you are all having a great start to the year!

I have decided to dip my toes into the Ko-Fi January challenge and let everyone know about my plans for this year. Really, I only have one plan – Do something small every day to make the world a better place. But I plan to go about doing this in a big way.

The last several years have been extremely troubling with a lot of catastrophic Global crises happening on a daily basis. It's all around us and it feels inescapable. People are tired of the constant flood of bad news, they're tired of doomscrolling and they're tired of the deluge of films that portray some different flavour of the apocalypse. Even us artists can't escape into our art for comfort anymore because of the constant spectre of AI technology threatening to make our work obsolete. The future looks very grim and a lot of people are not looking forward to the year ahead.

That's where "Solarpunk" comes in.

Solarpunk offers an alternative to all of the doom and gloom and presents the idea of a bright future in the face of cataclysm. It is a movement both political and artistic designed to reignite our souls and excite imaginations with ideas rooted in science and observation of the world around us. Even if it is utopian, it's a utopia grounded in what is realistically achievable and the current tools we have at our disposal to succeed.

Here is a short video that gives a great summary of what Solarpunk is all about.

Now you know what Solarpunk is, here is where my art comes into all of this and what I am planning for the year ahead.

Flowerpunk.

The first and most important project I want to launch this year is Flowerpunk.

Flowerpunk is my webcomic that I have been developing since 2020. Taking place in a universe where magic has been reduced to nothing more than a commodity, the magic itself is starting to decay, causing the soul of the world itself to become sick. It is up to a group of punks and outcasts to take back the magic and heal the world of this rot.

For those who haven't seen it yet, I put up a trailer for the webcomic on Webtoon, Tapas and GlobalComix. Please check it out!

These first 9 chapters follow two main characters, Kimi and Ludwig. Kimi is a gentle soul who has a thing for pastel colours and Ludwig is a rebel with a burning spirit and big hopes.

They both have a pretty terrible taste in music as well!

A lot of work has already gone into this project. I have most of the world-building done, there's a whole myriad of magical creatures featuring in this universe and the first part of chapter 1 is only 11 panels away from completion.

Furthermore, Flowerpunk is an IP under a CC BY-NC licence, meaning that you can legally use my characters and creature designs for anything that is not monetised provided that credit is given.

"This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. Credit must be given to the creator. Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted."

To give some examples of what you can do:

~ Make derivative versions of my work (writing, art, AUs, etc...).

~ Make OCs from my species, or use them for your own stories removed from the original universe as long as the work remains non-commercial.

~ Use my creatures or character likeness for RP characters or in DnD/tabletop campaigns.

~ Using my work for any educational purposes (such as copying a drawing for an art study).

I want this project not just to tell a story of radical hope, but to also encourage the creativity of others and their own storytelling projects based in this universe.

But that's not all! Once Flowerpunk launches, this will lead me onto the next part of my plan which is...

Merch.

I would love to launch some new merch to help support Flowerpunk's development, including stickers, pins and most importantly, motivational posters. This image below is the kind of thing I am aiming for:

These posters will also be used on social media to help inspire people to take action and fight for a better world. And speaking of social media...

Social Media, TikTok and Twitch.

I plan to start Twitch streaming my process later in the year and I may even consider inviting guests to do chats and interviews with. This is inspired by the time I appeared on a LumiRue Twitch stream back in March of 2022 and the extremely productive conversation we had about art and activism. I also have shorter videos planned for my TikTok discussing a variety of topics, including Solarpunk (obviously), my webcomic universe, autism and disability and much more!

Recently, I created a Solarpunk feed for Bluesky and I plan to continue contributing more positive news and ideas to this feed. The feed consists of art, videos, book recommendation, games, real-world projects (such as re-wilding projects) and much, much more! The feed has seen a great success so far and I want to continue using it to spread positivity. I may even start inviting people to add their own contributions to the feed!

In Conclusion.

Despite the challenges we face this year, I feel like it's going to be a good one moving forward. There is a lot to look forward to and a lot of cool stuff on the way!

Also, I wanted to take a moment to thank all of the people who have supported me here on Ko-Fi over the years, it really means a lot to me and has helped so much. Even small donations make a huge difference, especially in times like these when things have become so precarious for artists.

Hope you're all excited!

[pumpkinnning]

INCREDIBLY intrigued by solarpunk au, may i hear some about it? hehe

ahaha well this is actually a folder of follow ups to my one shot sunshine, starflowers, salamander root in which sebchal are solarpunk wizards in a mostly utopian futuristic-magical city (the vibes are kind of like Miyazaki meets Star Trek but make it fantasy and with interdimensional travel instead of space)

The idea is to write more slice of life one shots at different times of their life - Charles' job is to travel across dimensions while Seb works in a little magic shop on top of a hill overlooking the harbor and they keep in touch via an inter-dimensional radio that Seb made. Very fluffy and whimsical with some more bittersweet moments and the yearning associated with long-distance relationships.

One in particular I really want to write is them having to get married as an emergency the night before Charles leaves and them going through the city to find someone to marry them at this late hour and going through a lot of crazy little adventures. The first one was really fun to write and a nice change from the angsty vibes i usually go for so i really want to go back to it at some point.

Thank you for asking !

[sapphicscholar]

20 questions for fic writers

Thanks for the tag, @lilolilyr!

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

135 fics total!

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count?

2,436,430 words (jfc hahah)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Ever? Listing them in vague order of when I started writing for them: Supergirl, Wynonna Earp, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Grace and Frankie, This Way Up, Once Upon a Time, Madre Solo hay Dos (just on Tumblr), Abbott Elementary, Hacks, and Julia

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

ALL of them are Supergirl from back in the early-ish days of the show when it was a pretty massive (by femslash standards, I suppose) and very active fandom! It's actually so interesting seeing how absolutely nothing I've written in more than half a decade even shows up, since I've largely switched to smaller fandoms since then.

But the top 5 fics by kudos are:

Stronger Together, a collection of one-shots for various Supergirl ships (with a few gen fics mixed in), which has nearly 5k kudos (WILD to me as someone now in a fandom with maybe 25 people total haha)

Welcome to the Gayborhood, my first ever fic, a looong Sanvers and Supercorp professor AU that still keeps the alien/supernatural elements of canon

6,500 miles away...but getting closer, a Sanvers epistolary fic that my wife and I actually co-wrote and posted 1 letter/email per day every day for many months

Noise Complaint, a Sanvers next-door neighbor AU that, hilariously, given its placement in the top 5 here, is what catalyzed a series of events that led to me very much leaving the fandom (and fandom writ large for nearly a year)

Supercat Sanvers 2020, a Sanvers and Supercat political AU that was maybe one of the last long-form works I wrote before moving out of DC!

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I really try to! Sometimes if it's from a person I know well, I end up responding via DMs, esp if there are questions about what comes next, plotting elements, etc., that I don't necessary want everyone to see while the fic is still being posted, but mostly I try to respond on AO3. I've gotten a bit worse in the past few years just because I'll manage to eke out a bit of time to write, which puts me behind on my work, and then I don't leave myself time to respond, and by the time I DO have time, it feels awkwardly late to do so. But even if I don't respond, I absolutely love/cherish/adore/etc. every single kind comment I've ever been given <3

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Forgoten, but not Gone - a Sanvers amnesia AU set post-breakup that's heavy on the angst with a rather ambiguous ending. I got talked into writing a part 2 that resolves the angst haha, but taken on it's own it's definitely my angstiest ending!

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Huh idk! Most of my fics end on fairly happy, if a bit open, endings. I'm not a big fan of having all the loose ends tied up, and I realllyyyy don't do the marriage/2 kids/white picket fence epilogue, so I guess maybe the political AU has to be up there because it actually envisions a world where a queer woman wins the presidency on a progressive platform, and that feels rather utopian 🙃

8. Do you get hate on fic?

Not in a while, though I used to back in the days, like super vitriolic shit (big fandoms with too-big emotions, man... which has really kept me away maybe forever from those kinds of fandoms!)

9. Do you write smut?

Haha very much so. I've written and posted before about why, but I really believe there's so much interesting character work and exploration that can be done by exploring characters' pleasures, their desires (both thwarted and realized), their fantasies, etc. Obviously smut isn't the only way to do this, but fanfic feels like one of the few venues where it's a real possibility!

10. Do you write crossovers?

Nah, not really. I've written a handful of bring characters x and y into the universe of another show fics, but that feels mostly different. Every so often I'll borrow vague character outlines for tertiary characters in other fics just to see if folks recognize them (had Grace Hanson as a grumpy background character in a Sanvers fic set at PT for instance hah)

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Once or twice, but we got them taken down

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yeah, one of my SG fics was translated into Russian! I'm not sure if it's still up (tbh I can't recall which one; it's been a long time!) I've also had a couple podfics now made of my fics, one of which I still need to go listen to when I get the time!!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yeah! The long-form Sanvers epistolary fic my wife and I co-wrote together, and a group of Supercat authors got together and did a delightfully chaotic round robin, each writing one sentence, then setting a timer for the next person to write the next sentence, etc., until we had Intergalactic Standard Cuddling

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

Oh man, I really don't know that I have a favorite! I really appreciate what various ships can offer me at different times - there are certain themes that make sense to explore with one pairing but not at all with another, or certain AUs that work in one fandom but not really in another. Basically, if a show is giving me multiple female characters who interact in canon in ways that go beyond existing near each other, I'm intrigued, and if these characters actually get depth and complexity, I'm probably in! There are, however, some ships that I might not end up feeling fannish/creative about even though I love them as ships (I talked a lot to @trying-to-get-somewhere-real about this recently, actually!), so it's hard to name a favorite when the metrics get all wonky!

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but probably won’t?

I don't want to say never, but I have a Cat-centric fic that'll end on Supercat that just has a lot of angst that coincided with a period of unexpected loss and grief in my own life in ways that have made it really hard to get back into even now (it just feels so...enmeshed with that moment, even though the timing was utterly coincidental)

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think I do a good job with dialogue and getting characters' voices down - I'm really into the character side of things (which is also what gets me invested fannishly in shows! I want a show that cares about developing their characters first and foremost vs. a show where plot takes priority)

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Certain kinds of action scenes haha - also I tire easily of writing things that feel repetitive to things I've done/written before (this was more of an issue when I took prompts)

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Largely, this isn't something I've had to deal with much outside of maybe a few phrases and sentences from multilingual characters. I've talked before about how it was actually the language/translation barrier that kept me from writing for Madre Solo hay Dos. I don't speak Spanish, and getting a show entirely via the Netflix-provided translations meant 1) I was fairly certain there were some word choice/dialect peculiarities I was missing, and 2) I couldn't catch the rhythms of their speech, the cadence of their voices at least in ways that corresponded to the specific words. For me, voice matters so much, and it really felt like a barrier to not have access to the source language because I felt like I couldn't do these two women justice!

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Supergirl

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

Oh I've answered this elsewhere with 2-3 works, and tbh I don't think it's changed since then! I'm actually far more interested in others' favorite fics of mine because it's so interesting to think about the question of *what* sticks with a person from yours (it's often so idiosyncratic!!)

I'm getting to this pretty late, so I won't tag anyone, assuming many people already have been, but if ya see this and want to participate, feel free to give me a tag! I always love seeing people talk about their own writing :)

[shmowder]

I looked at your blog at work and the grinning emoji is so scary looking on that computer?? The chipmunk/squirrel is even cuter though!

I love and admire people who are capable of inventing an interesting reader insert backstory <3 Cause mine are. Well. Low effort and bad (although I say this with affection). Young woman who just happens to be there. Daughter of a somewhat important person, important enough to be spoiled but ultimately well-behaved, unimportant enough to escape most people's notice. Personality may or may not change a bit depending on the fandom. It's fine though... just don't think about it too hard or else you'll find yourself staring at a big ol' void 😌

Ooh, now there's a scenario I hadn't considered! iirc Yulia isn't originally from the town; if the surgery is only taboo in the town then ideally it could be done most easily in the capital if she can travel there. But where's the fun and drama in that? Seems best if Artemy doesn't get involved; if Daniil's around at that time then maybe he should be on hand for backup.

There's something... romantic about the third option, I have to say. The level of trust involved! She shouldn't have to do it all by herself - do you think she would, though? It would be lovely to see her around the town more <3

Speaking of dreams, I'm not usually a dream rememberer but not too long ago I had a dream where I got shot in the kidney for NO reason. This was before I started thinking about Pathologic again so I can't even use that as an excuse. When I was little, I liked to read about extinct animals and the most vivid dream I ever had involved being chased around my own house by an enormous Great Auk that was taller than me. 0/10 would not recommend.

And lastly, I'm happy to hear that ^^ This is definitely the most I've ever spoken to anyone on here but I'm enjoying it a lot. And honestly you're making me use my brain more than I usually do these days, which isn't a bad thing. Just wish I could put my messages under a readmore for your other followers sake :P

🐿️ anon

I said it before, and I'll say it again, you hit the jackpot with the squirrel emoji. It's truly adorable, one of a kind and stands out.

Thank you <33 I'm glad you like my idea. Honestly I spend a lot of time just imagining backstories for various reader concepts and how to seamlessly weave them into the game story yk?

Like the medical engineer healer with the prosthetic approach to curing the plague and Yulia being their proof of concept prototype. They replace the infected organs of people with prosthetic ones to cure them at the hospital. Yulia x reader focused with some Daniil x reader.

There is also a lawyer reader who isn't a healer but one of the utopians. They come into the town and help defend Big Vlad Olgimsky for his crimes. They are morally grey and know there is no concrete truth in the world, so they easily twist facts to their advantage. It's younger Vlad x reader centred.

Reader x herb bride one too! Basically, the reader is sort of a cowboy/gunslinger? Their first seen is with them drowning in the river, poisonous water seeping into their lungs before a herb bride pulls them out and saves them. They are healers, and rather than cure the plague, they make it their mission to get rid of the army and their weapons of destruction so the real doctors are granted more time. They have a forbidden love story with the herb bride.

Fresh med school graduate reader insisting they company Daniil to the town. You're a Thanatica intern, but he is not your supervisor. It's a different doctor. Once you learn that Simon is dead, you completely lose interest and refuse to help Dankovsky with the petty revenge murder search. You and Dankovsky are both dandies from the capital, but you two never get along and always disagree and oppose each other in medical opinions. You're not a healer in this but one of the humbles.

My current fixation is about a semi-knight reader who carries a big fuck off sword around? While the soul n halves help the Haruspex, the dogheads are your gang of kiddos and Khan gives you insight on the town inner affairs. You're allowed on the polyhedron and vow to protect these children from any harm since day one. Except the polyhedron slowly makes you spiral into madness the more time you spend inside and the Kains really want you under their thumb. You're a healer and help deal with the plague by evacuating people to safer areas, carrying the sick to the theatre hospital and preforming basic first aid.

Reader being the inventor of this big ass canon that the army brings to tramble the town. You're a genius mechanic with a history with General Block. I haven't decided yet if reader is a healer or not

Etc the list goes on.

There are so many tbh, they just manfiest into my brain while I listen to music at the gym. I indulge the fleeting fantasies and sometimes revisit them.

But I prefer coming up with these concepts myself yk? Because I can understand my own vision. That's why general or vague requests are the best, they give me a lot of creative freedom. While the more specific a request becomes that harder, it will be for me to make a comprehensive story out of the other person's vision.

Requests are already a writing exercise each time I make them. When writing stories on my own, I can consult myself for any changes, plotholes, or inquiries I may have. But with a requester, you can only guess. You write with blind faith and hope the other person ends up liking it.

It was hard at the start, but I have been doing requests for about 2 years now? So I got better at reading between the lines in requests, noticing the anon's style and what they might like. It becomes a subconscious habit to pick on other people's preference and break down the specific words they deliberately chose to determine what kind of story they're looking for.

It makes it fun. And I enjoy making requests for other people. Someone wrote a request for me once when I was 13 and afraid of people, i spoke with broken English and was terrified of strangers online... But the writer was patient and listened to my rambling and gave me exactly what I was looking for! I didn't mention my preference or detials like that but they managed to grasp my mindest through my rambling. It was like mind reading i tell you. I still have that fic saved and admire it from time to time.

Reading is beautiful too, I like making stories and making people happy. Especially that these people already read! Like it is so much easier to go play a videogame or look at fanart, but no. You decide to read words on a screen, to get your fulfilment through the oldest form of entertainment known to mankind.

I love reading, be it fanficton or books in general. Words are indescribable. I love talking too!

-

Oh my god you got shot in your dream and didn't immediately wake up? Damn you must have pissed off the dream fairy or something. Most of my dreams are unpleasant so I feel you.

And dowhfksjsn being chased by a great Auk, especially a little kid too. 10/10 looney tones vibe dream.

Thank you for the praise <3 I do enjoy these conversations. It was a lonely empty blog before ngl- But please don't feel pressured into anything. I always be here and you can and go as you please, send an ask whenever you want.

Media analysis is the whole reason I fell in love with writing in the first place. I mean yes, you don't need to understand how a machine works in order to operate it, but once you do a whole new world opens before your eyes.

Art is a reflection of the observer. Whenever you like a piece of art, be it a video game, a movie, a story or a painting, you will be liking traits which you've already held yourself.

Think of it like light and colours. Each object under the light absorbs all the colours and reflects back one. Humans are inherently complex and filled with so many colours and traits much like light is, so when you observe art, it reflects back certian colours which originated from you.

That's why no one story will be the same. No one analysis of pathologic will be the same and not one single character depiction will be the same. Art will reflect different colours for different people. You and I can look at the same exact story and notice different things.

Even if we see the same colour and we both agree it's red, the hue will be slightly off. The saturation varying for each of us, it's brighter in some areas for you and dimmer in the corners for me.

When you ask someone for their opinion on a story or a character, they reflect back the same colour they saw in that piece of art. With their own special hue, you're seeing the story through their own eyes.

Nothing objectively holds any meaning. Words are just inky lines scratched onto preserved tree tissue.

The observer gives them meaning, You give them meaning.

It's always been you.

That's why you cannot possibly read too much into one thing, the curtians were blue for a reason. Much like the outside skies are blue and yet this character is sitting here, in a prison of their own mind between four solid walls. Yearning for freedom. For the blue skies just out of reach.

And the next best thing is a bittersweet reminder in the form of blue curtains.

Critcal thinking is a skill you nurture, a habit you build one day at a time. No one is born with great art observation skills, no one can glance at a piece of art and determine all the possible colours it can reflect.

But you can train yourself to shift the hue, to look at it from a different angle. To comprehend that art was never about beauty or skill, but communication. The artist will always leave a trail of messages behind them, even a kid's scribble can spell a new story if you pay attention to where the fingerprint smudges are located, that they drew they drew the house before the grass, that the smidges on the corner are from melted chocolate and cookie crumbs.

[gimmethepretense]

This evening I went to my local park to shoot some hoops, a hobby that I've recently picked up. There's something pure about shooting a basketball. Making a shot is not guaranteed, it's all on you and you can't hide from the outcome - the ball either goes in or it doesn't. I love the delayed gratification as the ball hangs in the air after you throw it up. There's randomness and variation in how the ball bounces, requiring your body to adapt on the fly. I love how you're mainly playing with gravity and that you need to be focused and relaxed to shoot well. If you think about it too hard, shooting hoops is almost a 🌈 metaphor for life 🙌.

As I played, I listened to Hoop Life, the basketball-centric 2014 mixtape by Lil B. The tape is mainly known for "Fuck KD", a diss track to NBA MVP Kevin Durant, a concept so ridiculous1 it threatens to cast a gimmicky shadow over the whole mixtape. But it doesn’t. Instead, listening to it, I found myself inspired.

In Hoop Life, everything revolves around basketball and the act of playing. It's an hour where basketball is the only judge and "see me on the court and let's play" is the answer to all questions. Lil B's raps are simple and crass but vaguely mystical: the tape starts with him repeating "Let's play hoop, bitch!" - by the eighth time it's sounding like a mantra for life.

His enthusiasm about the game of basketball is so infectous that it suggests a love of life itself, in all of its complexities. It helps that many lines can be read as about both basketball and life in general. When he says "Quit ball-hogging bitch, pass the ball trick", is he railing against ball hoggers or the selfish people in our lives? Is "I work on the shot, cause I can't dunk" about improving his jumper, or learning to embrace your strengths?

As I get older, I've started to gravitate towards play as the respite from the grind. Perhaps it's some "getting in touch with your inner child" shit but to me, playing is one of the joys of life. Months long a-sync board games with friends, running around a touch rugby field, trying to throw a ball through a hoop - there's a simplicity to these activites. You win or you lose, you touch the player or you don't, the ball goes in or it doesn't.

When playing, there's no shame in trying and no shame in failure. These zones feel almost utopian compared to "real life" with all of its complexities and trade offs. The meaning you can get from a game of basketball is something Lil B seems get on Hoop Life. I've written a lot of words above, but he encapsulates it in just one line: "I hoop everyday case it's fun".

[vvabbitt]

anyways. new paycheck 🙂‍↕️ and i plotted to buy a large print copy of anarchism and other essays and it is gonna be here any day now !! yippie !! i have had a long standing idea (we are talking around 14) and my mother had always shot me down because my utopian idea would never work. my concept involved a self governing society, with no money, and no hierarchical status in which all positions were equally valued and all the needs were collectively met... as i have since become a major fan and a non causal listener in punk im learning a lot. and anyone with a brain can get behind equality for all and acknowledge the systematic corruption and oppression. and now as im learning about themes of anarchy. hmmm sounds a little familiar to me. so id like to read and learn more about it!! because it sounds exactly like my long held thoughts that i really thought i was alone on. it would be really cool if a lot of other people also thought this idea was good because anytime i approached anyone with these concepts i usually got laughed at .. especially as a teenager for being “naive” to them.

[alexarodriguez00]

UTOPIA / DYSTOPIA: Proposals

Proposal 1:

Topic: Utopia-Nature life

The Utopia of Nature series will showcase various natural settings with minimal human influence, focusing solely on natural elements. The series includes landscapes, wildlife, and macro photography, all presented with an ethereal quality. Images will combine close-ups and wider shots, using compositional techniques like leading lines and negative space to guide the viewer’s gaze. The color palette will feature soft, muted hues with occasional vibrant accents, creating a serene and otherworldly atmosphere. Lighting will emphasize depth and create magical effects, favoring soft, diffused natural light. Techniques such as long exposures and intentional blur may be used to enhance the sense of ethereality and motion. The overall aesthetic will be minimalist, free from distractions, and focused on the natural beauty of the subjects, achieving a cohesive and tranquil look throughout the Utopia of Nature series.

In this series, I will explore the concept of Utopia, specifically focusing on how nature can embody this ideal. Nature provides a sense of utopia because it offers a refuge from the chaos of modern life. In its untouched state, nature represents purity, simplicity, and balance, qualities that many people yearn for in a perfect world. By immersing ourselves in natural environments, we can experience a profound sense of peace and connection, reminding us of the harmony that is possible in an ideal society. I will edit the photos to evoke an ethereal feeling, capturing the natural beauty of various settings. The photographs will be taken from different angles and under various lighting conditions to showcase the environment fully. Close-up shots of plants, animals, and other elements of nature might be included. The "Utopia of Nature" series will feature a collection of images that aim to capture the essence of the natural world, creating an otherworldly atmosphere. I will carefully curate the physical properties of these photographs to evoke a sense of tranquility and awe in the viewer.

Proposal 2:

Topic: Utopia- City life

The "Utopia of City Life" series will showcase bold and graphic compositions. It employs strong lines and geometric shapes to create visually engaging images. By strategically arranging elements such as buildings, streets, and people within the frame, the artist produces dynamic and striking visuals. This series features a carefully curated color palette that enhances the overall aesthetic of the photographs. Vibrant hues and contrasting colors are used to capture the essence of urban life. Bold reds, blues, and yellows stand out against the grays and neutral tones of the urban landscape, creating a visually dynamic and stimulating experience. Some photos will be during the day and some will be during the night, showcasing the utopia of the city, as a whole.

The concept I will explore in this series is Utopia, specifically in the context of cities and how they can embody utopian ideals. The cityscape, with its harmonious blend of architecture and nature, offers a vision of how urban environments can become ideal living spaces. By integrating green spaces and innovative designs, the city creates a sense of community and progress, inspiring hope for a future where urban living is both sustainable and enriching. A photographic series capturing a utopian sense of place can be achieved by carefully considering the formal properties of the images, such as composition, color, texture, and lighting. By utilizing these elements, photographers can evoke feelings of tranquility, harmony, and perfection, providing viewers with a glimpse into an ideal world. I also plan to edit the photographs, adjusting lighting and other factors to enhance the overall sense of utopia.