#more paintings bc this is how i cope with living

[neurodiversequeer]

"False Righteousness" acrylic painting by yours truly

(also thank you to @eldrytchcryptid for giving me the advice to take pictures in natural light, it helps so much)

[frodolives]

1850s Tumblr Dashboard Simulator

👸🏻 girlbossladyjane Follow

It really makes me sick to see people giving money to penny weeklies when Franklin's expedition STILL has not been found 😭 There are good men out there trapped in unimaginable temperatures and literally all that's needed is a little more funding for another rescue mission yet all you guys seem to care about are your vulgar little stories...

🧔🏻‍♂️ queerqueg Follow

the franklin expedition is dead as hell

👸🏻 girlbossladyjane Follow

Disgraceful thing to say but I'd expect nothing more from a M*lville fan

10,558 notes

👨🏻‍❤️‍💋‍👨🏻 hartgrindisreal

Sorry for posting so much about Tom Gradgrind/James Harthouse from Hard Times lately. It turns out that I was getting arsenic poisoning from my wallpaper? Anyway I took a seaside stroll and I'm normal now. Check your walls y'all

#whyyy did i assume they were committing unlawful actions together like where did i even get that from lol #hard times isn't even that good by dickens standards tbh

659 notes

🎨 asherbrowndurand

Just painted this

2 notes

ss-arctic-girlie-deactivated18540927

RIP Napoleon... you may have been unable to conquer Alexander's Russia but you sure as hell conquered Alexander's bed

🖼️ preraphaelitebro Follow

HERITAGE POST

📝 shakespearesforehead Follow

How does this have less than 100k notes you could literally not avoid this post back in the 20s lol

82,170 notes

🌄 loyalromantic Follow

poets just aren't dying young in mysterious water-related incidents like they used to :/

#as useless and degenerative as i find 'the living poets' and i'm glad we're finally moving on from them #i have to agree with op in this respect

6,884 notes

🎀 thefopdiaries Follow

I finally got a daguerreotype of myself ^_^ Porcelain urn for scaling

📜 bartlebi-thescrivener

i think i hauve consumption

112 notes

🐋 whaler4life

They found oil in the ground??? WTF. THIS IS LITERALLY THE WORSTTTT. FUCK MY LIFE FOR REAL THIS TIME

11 notes

🌿 naturesnaturalist Follow

I swear this website has 0 reading comprehension skills. Darwin NEVER claimed we "evolved" from apes like if one of you guys actually bothered to open his new book you'll see all his arguments are backed up by evidence. He actually makes a lot of sense

#sure there's nuance like i don't fully agree with all of it #but his general theory of natural selection seems pretty sound imo

56 notes

🤵🏻‍♂️ byronicherotournament Follow

🙈 butchbronte Follow

Of course these are the finalists lmao this website is so predictable. Anyway vote Heathcliff if you dont i'm going to assume you're a phrenologist

📖 sapphichelenburns Follow

It's not problematic to acknowledge the fact that Heathcliff was a brute like he literally killed dogs in case you forgot. #rochestersweep

🙈 butchbronte Follow

I love the implication here that Rochester never did anything cruel either. He literally locked his wife in the attic and lied to Jane about it 😭 like that was a pretty significant thing that happened

📖 sapphichelenburns Follow

And? God forbid women do anything

#why'd you have to pit two bad bitches against each other #anyway i'm not attracted to men but still went with rochester #bc in terms of living quarters thornfield hall > wuthering heights easily

8,027 notes

👨🏻‍❤️‍💋‍👨🏻 hartgrindisreal

Not the Russian tsar dying immediately after hartgrind became canon

#i know dickens hasn't technically confirmed it yet but like. SOMETHING was strongly implied ok #see: my previous post #dickensposting

522 notes

👨🏻‍❤️‍💋‍👨🏻 hartgrindisreal

LORD HELP ME. THE BODY LANGUAGE. THE WAY THEY'RE LOOKING AT EACH OTHER. AHHHHHH

#this installment!!! im-- #dickensposting #i can't fucking cope #dickens wants to KILL us he wants us DEAD....

2,309 notes

⭐️ newamerican

Hi guys sorry I haven't been posting lately it's been so difficult getting to California 💀 I'm finally here now though just need to find a pickaxe and soon I'll be digging! :-) wish me luck lol

#gold #gold rush #gold rush grind #california #adventure

0 notes

[wordy-little-witch]

Dropping random One Piece ideas bc this is it now. This is how I cope.

Buggy focused bc I love this little blue haired buffoon

Buggy

• AuDHD

• BPD

• gender is a performance and he LOVES THE SPOTLIGHT BABYYYY

• Buggy is actually a year or so younger than Shanks, and they both use this as an insult point for arguments. Buggy calls him old man, Shanks calls him a teeny tiny little clown baby, Buggy punches Shanks, Shanks cries dramatically, the works.

• in my perception between them, their relationship could go either way - I love the interpretation of them seeing one another as brothers, I love the interpretation of them being lovers, I think either one fits them and it's precious and depending on the Shuggy flavor of the day. It's never both at the same time though. One or the other.

• Buggy has always been terrifyingly flexible. It was waved off when he was very little, but it was only around the time Crocus joined the crew that he noticed Buggy was much more flexible than most kids his age. Turns out baby blue has hypermobility syndrome. The Roger pirates helped him learn wrapping techniques to help stabilize his wrists and knees and hips, his biggest problem areas, but after the Devil Fruit Fiasco, he can and will just drop a limb. Floating is so much easier on bad pain days.

• Buggy still wraps and braces his body when he can, but he also hides most of them beneath his clothes. Few have seen him freely in braces. Cabaji and Mohji are the most familiar with that. Ritchie takes his role thereof as a living, furry weighted heating pad.

• kinesthetic and visual stimming Buggy my beloved.

• sometimes he's just. Touch Alvida. Not in a weird way, just... her Devil Fruit makes her skin and hair feel absolutely DIVINE and he can spend hours just. Playing with her fingers or brushing her hair. He's embarrassed by it.

• he has a very meticulous skin and hair care routine. It's one of very few routines he keeps to. Not even being in prison stopped it.

• he's actually really damn good with money and running a business. The situation with the Cross Guild was a Bad Time, Bad Place, Bad Luck situation, which is honestly just his brand at this point.

• He was a warlord for all of a few months, but in that time, he did, in fact, have to attend a few meetings, and he did, in fact, make a friend! A friend nobody ever expected.

• Boa Hancock and Buggy are the most underrated Mean Girls Squad ever and I'll die on that hill, I think they'd be so funny as friends. Ask me more on my Boa Buggy Besties ideas please I am begging I love them so much

• Cross Guild happens, and it goes fairly similar to Canon, but Buggy quite literally within that three week time frame got the entirety of his loan back AND the interest and was like "hey so like. Did you still want this or-?"

• the mercenaries at Karai Bari are all very progressive. Buggy is a lax ruler, by most standards, but he puts his foot down firmly regarding bigotry, racism, sexism, etc.

• Buggy is not actually human, but he doesn't know that. He was orphaned at a VERY early age, was adopted by Roger pretty young, and he doesn't really remember much pre-piracy. He does know his genetics are a little weird, #ThanksCrocus, but not much beyond that. This may be Important later on if anyone wants some silly little concepts

• demisexual nblm, but once he catches feelings, he becomes a harlot harlequin

• once took off a limb and forgot where he left it. Has genuinely devoted microchipping his limbs.

• some people have comfort activities like hiking or painting. He makes bombs. It's very soothing and he likes the BOOM

• has a multitude of explosives btw; everything from large range, highly damaging, lethal weapons, to flashy, mildly inconveniences. He once made a batch of mini muggy balls full of itching powder just to see if he could and now it's his favorite thing to prank people with. ((Yes, he designed those while a Warlord. Yes, he tested it on the Navy. No, he was never definitively caught.))

• when he's busy, he ties his hair in a bun and puts pens, pins, etc in his hair, ends up looking like a porcupine or sea urchin.

• he has a really bad habit of hyperfixating for hours upon hours on end. Galdino, Alvida, Mohji and Cabaji have a rotation system to check on him if he hasn't been seen for 5 or more hours. They'll drag him away from his work (some more gently than others), make him eat, drink, etc. ((Alvida huffs and puffs about it, but she's also among the first ones to wipe a grease smear from his face, look him over head to toe and determine whether she's pulling the Girls Night card. She will die before admitting that she adores this bastard.))

• Buggy is allergic to pineapples.

That's all I got rn okay ily byyyeeee

[brains5ana]

zombie blog turn around!!

this is my personal blog about my anorex14 and depression this is both my safe space where i can cope with my life right now and my way of documenting this disorder in case i dont survive it so that my loved ones or anyone who wants them might get some answers.

₊˚⊹ 𐂯please dont interact if you are not already disordered or are in recovery. block dont report this is really all i have .₊˚⊹ 𐂯

life rn - mom died in august now im taking care of my 15 yo autistic sibling and household because my dad is abusive and doesnt really parent. my grandparents help take care of them sometimes but they dont live with us and are televangelists who try to convert us(my sibling is pagan). my sibling is awesome but its a lot to take care of them while grieving so much and i worry about them a ton.

꒷꒦︶꒷꒦︶ ๋ ࣭ ⭑꒷꒦꒷꒦︶꒷꒦︶ ๋ ࣭ ⭑꒷꒦꒷꒦︶꒷꒦︶ ๋ ࣭ ⭑꒷꒦

me ୧ ‧₊˚ 🥩🦴 ⋅

17 they/them bi and taken veryyy happily dni creeps

bg - grew up in poverty w pretty bad parents (i love my mom a lot but she was young and fucked me up a little bit as a young kid mostly she was good but our relationship was kind of complicated for while). got bullied really bad from elementary school till quarantine when i was in middle school. my dads a redneck and my mom was a hippie now my dads like a frat bro?? and hes insane.

alternative (riot grrl goth punk etc) i like music(esp live punk shows), painting, writing, horror movies, ZOMBIES

political activist mostly w the environment but also general big leftist

white, able bodied (maybe) hindu vaishnavite

im very mentally ill and have had suicidal thoughts and depression my whole life. diagnosed cptsd, ptsd, chronic depression, generalized anxiety disorder, ana suspected adhd

my ed - got bullied for my weight and started trying to lose weight in 5th grade. i went to a nutritionist in 6th grade who told me to count calories so i did and then i went lower and lower and lower seeing how little i could consume in a day(i also started having an exercise addiction then). in 7th grade i started doing intermittent fasting and restricting below what you need to live in retrospect. then quarantine happened and i started looking at ana tips. id sleep all day until 4 pm to avoid food and workout at night. i got to my lw and was plateauing and worrying about dying so i told my very shitty therapist at the time who told me i wasnt low enough to have an ed but still told my mom who got me an appointment w an ed doctor. and there started my forced recovery bc the ed doctor told me i definitely did have ana and wouldnt have survived another month or two. after resisting for a long time and trying to secretly relapse i gave in. and it worked, i fully recovered. i didnt get thoughts i was happy and didnt have to lose weight anymore. and then people started treating me badly and a girl who was in my friend group started making fun of me for being fat and i realized i cant deal with that and everything else. so im 40 lbs down and trying to loose more.

꒷꒦︶꒷꒦︶ ๋ ࣭ ⭑꒷꒦꒷꒦︶꒷꒦︶ ๋ ࣭ ⭑꒷꒦꒷꒦︶꒷꒦︶ ๋ ࣭ ⭑꒷꒦

this blog ୧ ‧₊˚ 🥩🦴 ⋅

BYF - this is an ed bl0g w triggering content do whats best for you i cant facilitate everyones recovery but it is possible and waiting for everyone

DNI - 14 y/o and younger, those interested in recovery (you can so do it i believe in you), creeps, p3d0s, p0rn accounts, fatphobes (fuck off and die), terfs, transphobes, etc

this is a number free blog for the most part and if not ill tag #tw ed numbers or #tw ana numbers

on here ill post wieiads, b0dy checks, collages, diet plans for myself, themed moodboards, a lot of zombie content.

i use the tag #brains4ana or #brains4ana4vent for vent posts (if im coherent enough to care)

other ongoing tws - meat, cannibalism(all the zombie stuff) alcohol addiction, nicotine addiction, mentions of sh, ed (duh)

[wolfex126]

Max from Sam and Max for the character ask meme

Max for this ask meme!

I'm gonna be so honest I got DEEP in the paint here and I'm writing this after having finished answering everything - and. Yuh this need a cut LMFAO so the answers are under the read more! Ain't wanna clog your page without warning - and my most sincere of apologies in advance for yappin as much as I did but. What can I say. Special interest fun.

I have to thank you regardless for having me think about these, because this was super enjoyable!! Plus I find any opportunity to pour my heart out really cathartic ☁️🩷

How I feel about this character

LOVE im. Love im to bits it's quite incredible actually LMAO. As with both parts of that pair they're stronger characters put together, but I think Max has way more nuanced personality as an individual than people tend to think about him!! In Sam's bio in the original Save the World, it states they've known each other all their lives and "speak a common language" - and I think that fact, about specifically Max, goes to show he's more detailed than it appears :] More than their hijinks and playful taunting, they do speak a common language: and it's supporting the other how they need case-by-case 🥺

I don't know, I always appreciated how Max was a deeper character than was outwardly demonstrated most of the time. At the end of TDPH, the moment where Max is recalling what happened in his timeline with nonchalant humor in the face of pretty horrific circumstances (whether used to cope or not), but then sees Sam visibly disconcerted, and Max immediately changes how he approaches the conversation with more tact, is beautifully subtle in showing Max is capable and willing to be gentler with Sam when their usual joking doesn't work.

Maybe it was or was not intentional, and I'm reading way too much into it, but long story short Max is a wonderfully comedic, yet nuanced character, and even as more of a Sam fan (by a mere margin, mind you), I would be remiss to deny that the pair are interwoven pretty inseparably - and Max being any other way wouldn't make their dynamic work nearly as perfectly. Good rabbity thing character 10/10

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Sammy Hound Dog is my only ship for him 🐶🐰I couldn't imagine those two being with anybody else. "In every life, I will find you," type beat y'know?

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Does Flint Paper count LMAO? I think they'd be rather close (whenever they have free time between cases really JWBFKSN) and I'd imagine Max still has a bit of an idol thing going on even post Night of the Living Dead :]

Maybe a cheating answer but truthfully my gut answer was Sybil!! She's the pair's bestie imo so sure maybe obvious person to say but all the same I think she and Max could be a hell of a lot closer than it appears (⁠´⁠∩⁠｡⁠•⁠ ⁠ᵕ⁠ ⁠•⁠｡⁠∩⁠`⁠) I think she'd be a deeply trusted confidant, and he thinks to go to her first concerning things he couldn't ask Sam about/for - not that that'd be. Very much. Considering the little to no filter he's got But for dates or to surprise Sam with something and he knows he's gonna need help with it she's his first thought. Though I'm sure the end of TDPH probably went to show how much deeper Max cared for Sybil than what showed on the surface 🥹🩷

My unpopular opinion about this character

PG opinion? Now I am The Number One, Uno, Un, Ein, Énas, Yek crossdressing fan wholly and truly I've never known myself without that passion But I would probably say as far as the content I see, I'm way surprised that Max is the most chosen of the two to do so!! Immediate disclaimer bc one will always be Grateful to be fed and the work is always SUPER delightful regardless but just from what I hear in dialogue and have seen in the cartoon I was always under the impression Sam was more willing and even eager to crossdress, while Max was pretty hesitant and/or did not do so very often :0 At the end of the day this is a huge nothing-offense but it's more something I found interesting in the fandom! Clothes aren't gendered just in case I have to say that but I'm quite fond of the term and the history so it's just how I call it :]

Adult opinion? Max prefers to top and Sam prefers Max tops too. Sure they'll switch off on occasion but I think after that dog does all the work and talkin all day there's a dynamic shift (⁠◍⁠•⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠◍⁠)👍🏼 That's all I've got for now I would further elaborate with great love but being that I'm not sure how you feel about this sort of thing I'll leave it out of courtesy!! But it was an honest gut answer I had so I didn't want to leave it from my rambling

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon

That he gives Sam a big ol kiss right on that snout of his and then rehashes that line about his warmth being alarming

If I can't answer that then I'm also cool with a peek into their actual bedroom!! I was always under the impression they lived right in the office, but I've also seen iterations from other fans of them having a house or an apartment!! Regardless of depiction, I think having a concrete bedroom visual for them would be super interesting (⁠☆⁠▽⁠☆⁠) Though it is fun as fans to be able to speculate and show off our own ideas, so it isn't upsetting or anything of that sort - just something I think could realistically be done!

Sincerely I don't have any specific wishes for Max specifically - I think he was handled very well in all the media he's in, and anything that wasn't directly shown or written is very easily remediable with fanon and community ideas!! I don't find anything wrong with the stories serving their purpose as is, and the people being left to interpret and add onto what exists 🩷

Though, if I can give a more dramatic answer to this, however unrealistic, then I'd say I wouldn't at all hate a musical motif for him (or all the main characters really!!) I understand that hardcore story-telling is not really a Sam and Max special, but if I can be self-indulgent and shamelessly passionate about music, then I'll say especially for a game like TDPH something during more emotional or intense moments including character musical motifs in the background a la God of War reboot style would make things a hell of a lot more impactful.

Like Max's motif could be something lively, something typically with drums and violin or harp, or even flute, and changes depending on the progression of the story - during his initial power sequence, it's powerful and upbeat and smooth; during his beast transformation, it's chaotic and defeaning and gritty; during Sam's departure from the lab after finding out they couldn't bring Max back, it's quiet and drawn out and almost sounds like a lullaby before Sam takes to the streets and the motif stops playing to transition into Sam's sole motif, which would be equally quiet and solemn, to imply Max being left behind and Sam left alone. Maybe Sam and Max while they're together also have a motif that's both of their individual ones combined - and when it matters most, their motifs can be separate like when Noir Sam happens or when Max is trapped in the ship.

There's a lot of potential in music being powerful for this series, and while I think the sound direction is good as is (I mean, "That Rainy Neon Glow" is a pretty damn good Noir Sam track), I think a little extra care to make motifs to consciously and subconsciously recognize themes would be tremendous. I mean shit maybe they're gonna do that for the upcoming remaster and I'll be taken aback but I'm more of the belief that this is something only in a wistful dream ☁️🩷

[fruitytrollroll]

Hello! I’ve been advised to ask you about how you would plan to write the sequel “yet i do fear thy nature.” How would you say you would go about it? - void

omg hiii hello :) @mouseyblue-ao3 and i looove collaborating on writing (see our robo scarab collection including our latest scorbo rp, our spades slick/bec noir fic, etc)! i've had the privilege of beta-ing for them several times, and they've been kind enough to make several unofficial sequels listed as "inspired by" some of my work... but I think this is the first time I'm writing a proper sequel for something of theirs?? so i'm SUPER EXCITED!!! 🤩✨

SO!!

My initial thought, when yet i do fear thy nature was still in the planning stages, was that I could have Orbo let Scarab stay at his home as a kind of witness protection situation, with Orbo somehow getting permission from the Boss to have his home taken "off-the-grid", so to speak--that way it would be unable to be monitored from the Time Room, and Scarab didn't have to worry about Prismo spying on him all the time after escaping his clutches. 🥺

Then, Orbo could give Scarab his own room, while telling Scarab he could "do whatever he wanted" to Orbo as revenge... resulting in some pretty spicy reclamation of agency on Scarab's part with Orbo as his willing victim~ 😊💞

But in that situation, I had imagined Orbo only as Scarab's rescuer with a long-time crush on him... So when mousey finally wrote it out, and they made Orbo not only haplessly complicit in Scarab's rape, but a fellow perpetrator, that added some interesting complications...! Most crucially, it hadn't occurred to me that Orbo might have a mancrush on Prismo--but not only did mousey make a compelling argument for that being the underpinning motivation behind Orbo saying "Prismo? Nah, that guy's cool. He wouldn't do that! <:)" they went and made it a PIVOTAL ELEMENT OF ORBO'S SUSCEPTIBILITY TO PEER PRESSURE IN THE ORIGINAL WORK!

so I'm just sitting here thinking, like... okay... I can't NOT address the Prismo thing, right...?!??!

So maybe Orbo has always been crushing on Scarab AND Prismo (this heightens the tragedy of Orbo believing he was getting everything he wanted from Prismo's deceit in yet i do fear thy nature 🥲)... Let's say his crush on Prismo was absolutely obsessive. I'm talking fanboy levels of maladaptive, parasocial admiration. MAYBE Orbo asked for his home to be taken off the grid a long time ago, citing reasons of "privacy"... I mean, it's one thing for Prismo to be a cosmic voyeur of all mortalkind in every dimension, but it's another thing to have to go to work with a guy who might have been watching you sleep or shower or masturbate while calling his name, right? Nothing unusual with Orbo wanting to keep his work and home lives separate!

But maybe with the added security of knowing his home is truly beyond Prismo's sight, he was able to feel more comfortable indulging that crush with somethingl ike, a room full of custom Prismo merchandise... painted the same sunshine yellow as the Time Room, Prismo area rug, Prismo body pillow, Prismo-themed bedspread. Obviously after rescuing Scarab he has to toss it all... But maybe Scarab catches him in the act and demands to know what he's doing with all this garbage. Orbo is mortified, bites his lip and scuffs his heel on the carpet, but he swears he's trashing it... Never meet your heroes, haha...! But y'know. Maybe Scarab snatches the gigantic Prismo plush/body pillow and takes it back to his room and locks the door... Orbo feels a little culpable for handing over such a patently maladaptive coping mechanism, but well... if anyone needs a safe stand-in for Prismo to cope with his unwilling desire and lingering trauma, it's Scarab, right? 🥺

So basically it's Orbo and Scarab living in the most fraught domestic bliss known to man (I love crippling Orbo with guilt 😇), while Orbo tries to respect Scarab's boundaries (and fails half the time bc he wants him so bad), while Scarab copes with his NEWLY ACTIVATED LIBIDO and having PRECIOUS FEW OUTLETS (he doesn't even know how to masturbate 😭) (but then, Orbo is right there...)

so like the highlight of all this and the part that's living in my brain rent free rn is the thought of Orbo knocking on Scarab's door and telling him to come down for dinner or sth, and when Scarab doesn't answer he opens the door and sees him riding the giant Prismo plush... 😵‍💫 but Scarab is so frustrated... poor thing doesn't know what he's DOING... Scarab gasps in scandalized humiliation and Orbo flushes and hastily apologizes and slams the door shut. and then thinks. well. Scrabby didn't lock the door, did he...?

so Orbo comes BACK INSIDE and gets astride that giant prismo plush behind Scarab and gently guides his hips to show him how it's done 😵‍💫 😵‍💫 😵‍💫 hi im unwell!!!

anyway that's the plan--a few more awkward scenes like that as they orbit around each other, grow closer, orbo taking such good care of scarab... 🥺 then wrap it all up with the most disgustingly sweet domestic bliss you've ever seen in your LIFE after they get over all their hang-ups, live happily ever after, the end!! :)

[hamiltonconfessions-but-better]

confession time here’s what I got:

really long yap sesh sorry

Ten things, one thing has more weight (for the duel itself) but the world was wide enough is better narrative-wise, which is why i’m glad it is the one that lin went for! but im afraid ten things, one thing is extremely slept on, that song is so good

burr’s verse is practically the same except some small bits, and then the addition of hamilton’s perspective with the reverse is incredibly creative i adore it so much (maybe if we cope hard enough its a callback to angelica’s rewind in satisfied idk)

Hamilton’s number 3 and 4 are just so good idk, he recognizes here, he needs to slow down, he needs to throw away his shot, it really shows how much act 2 has changed him especially reynold’s pamphlet and it’s quiet uptown, he finally understands burr philosophy somewhat unlike his clear mocking of it during the start of the room where it happens, but its kinda ironic since when hamilton finally gets a grasp of burr, burr drops this mentality of waiting for it

anyways hamilton’s number 4, which parallels burr’s, he is getting first position, while burr believes this is hamilton showing aggression, “like a man on a mission”, while in hamilton’s view draws first position to (in his eyes) save both of their lives by aiming at the sky and shooting first and instead of what burr thinks is hostility, hamilton is at peace, looking over his city

but imo the best part of Ten things, one thing has to be number 8 with the additional hamilton perspective on things, and realizing that hamilton thinks burr is only approaching this politically while burr is actually thinking of his daugther, also at number 8 where hamilton wears his glasses to understand burr better, while burr thinks hamilton puts on his glasses to aim at him better IT MAKES ME SO SICKKK AAAAA

and especially at number three burr says “just apologize, we have worthier pursuits!”, like this all could’ve been avoided, its all a tragic misunderstanding and lack of communication that is so in character for these two characters, like realizing the tragedy unfold from both perspectives

and hamilton’s number 9 “my last thought is of Eliza… …god i can’t wait to see her again” but we as the audience already knows he gets shot bc this is after the rewind which just makes this line hurt even more, also just shows hamilton’s trust in burr too or it also shows confidence in knowing burr’s character (as he has been doing since the room where it happens), even if its sometimes wrong, he fully believes that burr will not shoot, burr is still that man that will not confront, the man who will simply wait for it

and in the end, we are back to the same narrative as the world was wide enough, where hamilton throws away his shot and burr does not wait for it, but the additional story after burr shoots hamilton is what makes the world was wide enough so much more fitting imo, and like it also has one of the hardest lines from burr, “history obliterates every picture it paints, it paints me with all my mistakes”, so, worth ittt

thanks if you read all of this, hope i converted some of you to ten things, one thing enjoyers like me but the world was enough is a top hamilton song for me 💯

.

[chirpsythismorning]

I'm not trying to be a bummer but im genuinely scared Stranger Things may get cancelled. This strike is not looking good and as you talked about in another post the longer they wait the harder it would be to pull this next seasons release off. I will really be heartbroken if it is especially because of how invested I am with byler.

I’ve sort of touched on this before, but in the case Stranger Things doesn’t continue as a result of the studios refusing to come to a fair deal (this is still very, very unlikely), we’d have a lot bigger concerns than our favorite show being cancelled.

It would mean the end of entertainment as we know it, with any and every current show out there being cut at whatever point it was left off on, basically a complete dismantling of the industry.

And something like that occurring would have a ripple effect on all of us and our lives, bc as many have said, the prospects of AI has the capacity to interfere in all lines of work eventually, even outside of the entertainment industry.

That future would look pretty goddamn bleak, and we’d probably all be dealing with the effects of that in ways that would be a lot more serious to our livelihood than a fictional show continuing to its end.

Don’t get me wrong though. I love Stranger Things and movies and television in general, like it’s literally what gives me the courage to fight on through the boring day to day (🥴😭🫡). And yet still, the livelihood of everyone affected in a scenario like that concerns me because it would mean something very detrimental to our future.

While I am willing to consider the possibility of this scenario, because the state of the world is already pretty bleak as it is and will likely continue to be regardless of which way this goes, I also want to make clear that in the case of ST, this show not finishing is a very very unlikely scenario.

99% of current shows could be cut short by the studios as a result of the strikes, and ST would very likely be in the 1% that survived. So again, this is a very doomsday sort of picture I'm painting when I talk about this. That's what I mean when I say I'd be way more concerned about the world itself...

Because I do think ST ending before it's intended end (with contracts already written, mind you) would literally mean Netflix's downfall bc what else do they have that’s worth continuing or starting up, all while not finishing ST? I would argue nothing. They also have a bunch of spin offs and other projects in the works planned with the Duffers, and all of that would kind of not be worth going through in a scenario where the original show that inspired it all got cut short. It’s just not feasible.

I think I tend to juggle a sort defeatist attitude about it because that's probably just my way of handling all of this stuff that is largely out of our control. It gives me some sanity to at least make myself comfortable with the idea of it not continuing, all while knowing that is an unlikely scenario. Then in the case it does get cut (again, very unlikely), maybe I won't be so devastated.

Let's just call it what it is. I'm coping!

[chiangyorange]

Are there any lines or scenes in WMAS that you're really proud of that you wanna shed a spotlight on?

this is a hard question bc wmas is smth i like to call an ensamble fic (its literally just pov alternating) so it kiiiinda doesnt narrow ANYTHING down for me in terms of specific scenes.

hm. you know what? lemme show you smth.

(taken from ch 1) Uncle Michelangelo said that the old New York could be really pretty. There were so many lights that made the fog glow a brilliant color that makes everything magical. Quieter, he told Casey that there was always a person behind those lights. Someone was always adding to the beauty.

(taken from ch 2)

He takes his time turning around in place, seeing the tall battered buildings covered in bright colors of paint. Greenery of plants overtake the sides of buildings, framing the bright formless graffiti, the dull grey of concrete to something colorful. It clings to the bricks in a relentless enduring grasp of life. From the windows of the buildings shine lights through them. Multicolored, like they are the LCD screens from Times Square. It’s bright. There are no people, the city is in shambles, but it’s still alive. 

oh yeah the dreamscape is a fucking call back lads. and let me tell you there are more in the fic

(taken from ch 4)

Raph lets out a breath. “That’s going to be hard to find. Some of dad’s old stuff is still in the old lair and we haven’t really… cleared it out the first time.”

(taken from ch 8)

“Is there a reason why Dad and April came back into the lair covered in debris looking upset?”

i keep a lot of details in my brain (dming dnd for my friends trained me whether i liked it or not)

(taken from ch 1)

“Never will the Hamatos continue to live to be sacrificed, not if I have anything to say about it.” Splinter pokes a finger to April’s chest, right above her heart, “I will hold our family close and never let go.”

(taken from ch 3)

Splinter had to think about death a lot recently. Forced to, really. He’s had to think about death a lot in his life in general! It clings to the very fiber of his being in a way where every bad coping mechanism looks just a little too tempting to take up on. Then the Shredder happened, something he thought was complete and utter bullshit that took his mother, seemingly, for no reason. The Hamato legacy he grew up to resent came back to haunt him with a ferocious force, and it hurt his boys. 

(taken from ch 4)

Splinter was so adamant about giving her a second chance after the fight with Shredder. He saw himself in Cassandra in such a personal way that no one else in the family would get. He was willing to let Casey stick around close too. He saw himself in the Joneses that she can never really understand. April doesn’t know the full weight of what it’s like carrying a legacy. She shares that burden with the boys, but to bear it alone like Splinter did, like Casey has been, like Cassandra is doing now?  Fuck, man. How lonely does that feel?

(taken from ch 7)

The hovering and the mother-henning was annoying, sure, he'll give you that. The fact that he had to see how each of his family members grieve over the choice he had to make to save the world? Absolutely hellish, would not recommend. He can see how much it haunts Dad. He can see how much it weighed over his siblings. They all know that it was do or die. It doesn't make the choice any less harder to bear.

something about fucked up legacies, something about generational trauma, something about trying to break a cycle when everything in the world is not letting you

[and a little bonus line for a chapter in the future ;] <3]

[waters-and-the-wilde]

HEY @kyliebyelie I had a weird couplea weeks but I did say I would yell about Nureyev and Vespa some more so *launches enrichment pumpkins*

also OG post thread for anyone who wants context it was just getting a little unwieldy

First off! re: Nureyev still being willing to bet on the hope that Juno would still vouch for him – I’ve also been thinking about how he had to be willing to bet that it wouldn’t backfire on Juno. Like, ‘you have no idea how much I did to keep the Kanagawas off you’. The fact that tying Juno’s name to his own work could have very easily painted a target on him. Even if he couldn’t have known that Buddy and Jet were going to pull a ‘come with me if you want to live’, the fact that he put Juno on their radar suggests that he trusted Buddy to begin with. To not threaten Juno, or to use Juno to threaten Nureyev. Jet talks about how the criminal reputation informs a potential employer that their prospective is reliable, but it also must work in reverse – that a potential boss won’t screw you over.

re: Nureyev being a fan is something I think about A Normal Amount

You’ve absolutely nailed the whole vibe of their communication styles, the chain reaction of politeness/rudeness → perception of emotions and control → measurement of honesty → how that exacerbates the friction, like that is such a good breakdown goddamn.

to add to that since I am constantly frothing like the cappuccino about the concept of 'solid coping mechanisms that backfire in the wrong situations' so for your consideration: one of those pesky little first rules of thieving being 'don’t rise to the bait’. Oh it was intended for Being In Situations with weird rich people or standoffs with other criminals, but when it's his default setting for responding to things, it's just gonna just drive the wedge that much further every time Vespa questions his integrity and he doesn't show where he keeps his Give A Damn. (And it's probably even harder to untangle as a 'no that's for jobs not your personal life' thing when it still has its legitimate applications in his personal life, bc Juno’s own survival reflex MO is ‘how fast can I piss somebody off to find out what I need to know’ and that ability to stay focused and letting him know when that's uncalled for is probably extremely necessary for the both of them)

‘Vespa is terrifying’ – okay so funnily enough! i'd been telling @one-joe-spoopy (pssst hey come look I've got enrichment pumpkins!) about my headcanon of 'ranked order of members of the Carte Blanche crew by how much they scare him and why number one hands down goes to Rita,' which is a whole post in itself but long story short, I think out of everybody he gets the most sense of security around Vespa (though she probably still does terrify him, like, a normal amount and for the exact reasons you described, especially pre/during Man In Glass.)

Basically the concept I’ve been toying with (and I think moreso in a later, probably post-Cyberbots context given some time to settle in) is that her opinion of him is decided and earning her approval under the circumstances is What We Call A Non-Starter. When he's reflexively trying to manage everyone's expectations and invested in their approval, and realizes in no uncertain terms that he can't win Vespa over as long as the name thing is a going concern, the pressure’s off a bit there. Though not in the healthiest of ways, necessarily, if he’s just more comfortable with letting her believe what she wants about him because that’s how he usually deals with people.

And another aspect of this sense of security dovetails with your previous points about how Vespa and Juno are more reactive than performative, how they wear their principles on their sleeves and others recognize them as genuine. I bet Nureyev absolutely knows better than to make the comparison in her earshot, but I can see him just sorta unable to help liking her for the same reasons he’s drawn to Juno – he can brush off a little belligerence from someone whose integrity speaks for itself. Vespa abides by her own codes as well as visibly aligning herself with Buddy’s – she’s pissed about not knowing his name but won’t coerce it out of him even when the requisite leverage is right there – and like you said, she would be insulted by the idea of using underhanded means to get him fired. He knows where he stands and possibly figures that trying too hard to fix it is just going to piss her off further. And it's not like he's gonna stop being dramatic and making his gay little jokes and smooching Juno in the mess hall, he just needs to focus on comporting himself as a reliable crewmember and establishing himself the hard way with time and Buddy's family bonding activities (and yeag he wants to Get A Good Grade In Crewmate which is Normal To Want and Possible To Achieve).

oooh also I’m a little fucked up on the idea of him on bedrest with his broken leg and getting filled in on what he missed during Shadows, realizing that Vespa thinks he’s got it in for her right around the same time he’s having an epiphany that he trusts her to keep him alive and patched up even if she never likes him as a person and that the shapeshifting robot impostors don't stand a chance with her around. like not only is she not the thief she was twenty years ago, she's even tougher and smarter and cooler and doing it all with the brain horrors on top.

ALSO in light of Next Page I now think about ‘hey what if he’s Inherently Suspicious of Medical Personnel due to The Trauma and did he spend a bunch of his broken leg recovery time fretting that she was going to try to wring his name out of him while he was on painkillers only she never does??’ (god there’s this one fic where he and Juno get MacGuffined into kids and she’s like. ‘well shit. yeah I could find it out but goddamn. that’s a line I just can’t cross. Not Looking At It I Do Not See It’)

gah it's just. Nureyev's trust issues are so goddamn multifaceted, like. local baby boy too trusting, gets his only security ripped out from under him, tanks his shot at happiness bc the trauma gave him suspicion, becomes the suavest charlatan in the galaxy so he doesn't get taken advantage of again, craves genuine connection but hasn't actually had a chance in the last two decades to figure out what he's like around other people for any stretch of time, also still literally paying the price for the last time and can hardly bear the thought of confiding in his new connections because there's nowhere truly safe in the galaxy he's terrified of putting a target on them.

But I think about his little 'much more so than usual these days' to Juno's sarcastic 'happy now??' and that maybe he was a lot closer to an honest version of himself on the Carte Blanche. That he was getting places, that he was trusting them with as much as he could. something something 'Peter Ransom' wasn't intended for putting at least half the truth under their noses the whole time but he kinda let it turn into that the moment he let Buddy start calling him Pete.

Handful of miscellaneous thoughts on things they have in common:

- the debts thing. Vespa of all people is the most painfully, intimately aware of what it feels like to have a life that isn't one's own, so the way she approaches Nureyev being in massive scary debt with suspicion made me go huh. so I've been thinking about that one and tbh given how she internalizes shit and doesn't entirely trust herself (and god I have to imagine that she's really messed up about how close she came to killing Buddy in Time Gone By), I think seeing her situation in Nureyev's wouldn't engender sympathy because is that because she also knows exactly what she was prepared to do to get out from under it. and is just expected to tolerate the fact that they're taking their goddamn chances on him. there's this sense of 'even if he cares. even if he thinks this is real. even if he tells himself he wants to be a part of this. who's he gonna be when push comes to shove. probably not even Steel is safe.'

- They are both extremely functional under pressure and in more in their element in full on crisis mode, and are probably spending S3 figuring out what the hell to do now that they have access to things like reliable meals. privacy. affection. (pretty sure Juno is also experiencing a similar kind of 'things... getting better? after being. really bad all the time???' and having a lot of midmorning scuffles about it)

- Also they both have their shitty dads living in their brains rent-free!! and they are never ever going to talk about it but one (1) time Nureyev hears Vespa yell 'shut the hell up old man!' from another room and. sometimes thinks that very hard in her voice when Mag's advice is being unhelpful

re: feral kittens in towels - I want them to get into it that day after Heart of It All where Juno isn't getting out of bed and isn't there to get all protective, and for once she's in a half-decent place brainwise and he's riddled with eight kinds of guilt and half on the edge of a nervous breakdown and having all of his defenses shot is actually a good thing for him because she's not actually going to do anything with the upper hand except cuss him out a little bit. Like 'I was gonna cut your throat without hesitation yesterday and you're all fine and dandy about being in the wedding party? no shut up I'm not saying you can't. it's whatever. Bud thought it would be nice and I'm not against it. I am saying. the fuck is wrong with you.' hurt can sniff out hurt in-fucking-deed. I am dying inside like the fact that Nureyev himself would prevent any closure we might have gotten between him and the Lighthouse Crew after S4 is very him and also it hurts me and I need to pick it all apart with a seam ripper and see what spills out

likewise it’s hard to picture them ever reaching an actual rapport but I can’t even tell you how many times I pictured the prison break with all of them converging before Clean Break aired, where it’s like finally sunk in that he’s on their side and she goes ‘Ransom watch my goddamn back I need to kiss my wife’

also. does anybody want. some fic? I have some job interview/Man In Glass missing scenes where i am gnawing on this at all times

[pineapplerightsideupcake]

maybe kinda random but you give good advice so I wanna hear your thoughts. I feel really lonely due to living in a small town, not being able to make friends in hs bc my toxic parents never let me go anywhere. I have 2 irl friends that I love and appreciate but they work a lot so we rarely text or see each other bc they’re always so busy/tired. I wish I had more friends so I wouldn’t feel so lonely. I’ve tried dating apps, online spaces, etc but nothing worked. And if I made a (online) friend they’ve ghosted me for whatever reasons. I’m trying so hard to stay positive but I really hate my life (being stuck in a toxic household tryna save money in this economy…) not having anyone to have meaningful connections with makes it worse. Idk what to do. These days I’ve been thinking a lot about s*icide even tho I’m a coward and won’t do it. The only thing that makes me feel better is disassociating and pretending like I’m someone else or in a different situation. But I can’t do that forever…. I could go more in depth but I don’t wanna burden you. I’m wondering how can I make friends and actually feel like life’s worth living?

If you’re in your early twenties, I have good news! No part of your life will ever be as hard as it is right now. I’ve been right where you are. Depressed and lonely and suicidal. I felt like there was no escape. But there is light at the end of the tunnel.

My first bit of advice is that nothing external is going to fill the emptiness in you. It’s a wound that needs to heal and self love and fulfillment have to happen before anything else can. And those words look big right now because we don’t do a good job of talking about how to achieve them in little ways. Ways you can start today.

First pick the easiest thing to motivate you to do something regularly. Therapy is a good start, but for me my healing began when I started cleaning my (actually my dads) house. Cleaning was something I kinda liked and it wasn’t scary because I didn’t have to leave the house. I started by just picking a shelf to organize. Then one thing to scrub. Eventually I was proud of my spotless house and wanted to do things like cut fresh flowers for a nice table. I wanted to go to the store and get a fancy snack or a nice candle. I walked my dogs everyday and being in nature was profoundly healing for me. I picked the things I could do even when I was miserable.

Where you can start is the easy places for you. Maybe you’re more like my sister and need to pour that effort into your job. Or maybe you need to build things like my other sister. Maybe you’re close to a grandparent and can schedule a weekly dinner. I have a friend that started writing fanfiction, then her own novel. I have another friend that works on cars. That started with just tinkering with his own.

And none of those things have to be huge on day one. If you paint, just swirl colors or doodle on day one. If you write, write a paragraph. Do a 100 piece puzzle. Listen to music. Cry if you have to. Forgive yourself for the days you can’t do anything. If you’re self medicating with alcohol/weed/cigarettes try and cut back a tiiiiny bit.

But kids from disfunctional families are set up to fail. Children have very little autonomy to begin with and we spend the first 18-21 years of our lives having life be something that happens TO us. This is even worse in dysfunctional families where you have to sort of float with the current just to survive. Then they push us out the door and say “go live” without any instruction. All your skills and coping mechanisms are built around enduring life and not around building one.

And that’s the big secret. You have to build your life but you also get to. Fill it with things you love and enjoys and prune out the things that stress you out.

And lastly, the way to make friends is the same way you ask someone on a date. Luckily unlike a date, most people are JUST AS DESPERATE FOR A FRIEND AS YOU! People have never been lonelier. My secret is I go out, I do activities. I tell friends to invite other friends, then befriend them. If I run into an old childhood playmate, or college pal or old classmate I follow up on those half baked plans to “get coffee sometime”. Family can be included here too. Maybe you have a chill sibling or cousin.

DnD has been great for me. People hear I DM and so many people are like “oh I’ve always wanted to play” so I invite them! A low stakes way to find a new friend is to talk about a really fun thing you’re doing around coworkers/acquaintances and when someone makes this face 🥺 you say “why don’t you join us/me!”

Or do what my autistic best friend did and I quote “find one really loud but nice extrovert and don’t blast their huge social group with your autism until after you’re their party healer” which is a silly way for me to say that making one friend leads to others.

I could go on and on here but this is an essay already. Hope this helps and isn’t just a stream of consciousness.

[ondaspectrum93]

Do you have a diagnosis of ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) & love to paint/draw/sketch/collage/sculpt/collect various visually pleasing objects/create online visual media/mixed media/sing/dance/write/participate in any medium of creative expression as a means to communicate as a person with an intellectual disability? WELL I DO & YOU WILL DEFINITELY ENJOY IT AS MUCH AS I DO FOR I AM LEARNING TO BE PROUD OF THE BEAUTIFUL CREATIONS, CONTENT, PHOTOGRAPHY & THE PROCESS OF REPETITIONS INVOLVED IN MY TRANSFORMATIONS FROM RAW PAPER OR BLANK PIXEL SLATES TO WHICH I AMPLIFY THE BEST SENSATIONS OF COMPLETING THE SELF STARTED AND CHOSEN TASKS TO WHICH I COMPILE AND SHARE WITH MY STRANGERS WHO STUMBLE ACCORDINGLY TO MY TAGS ACROSS MY PAGE. I want to discover other humans, specifically people above the age of 18 who are either intellectually or learning disabled or co-morbid the way I am, at this point in their life, I’d love to hear about their experiences & struggles & random thoughts that pop to mind as shared along with their own thoughts about how they relate to each other’s creations… what circumstances led to this artwork being made & published & what is your name/handle/identity in your own words as the artist? I’m hoping for this page to be a place to make friends, especially even if you don’t create any art or writing or videography for yourself by yourself just yet, but plan on doing so in the first opportunity coming up with something inspiring you to go ahead and bite the bullet & stop letting people/places/things/because/but/fear driven overwhelming thoughts setting fear inside & preventing the accessible pathway from dipping your toes in the water & making a mess of mistakes bc they are so much more important to make than it is to be practiced in perfectionism’s which nobody succeeds at in this universe with or without the idiosyncrasies known to our community! This is a judgemental free space which has been made possible by the low functioning highly sensitive empath named Jacqueline Mae Gutwilik who has been going through worst heartbreak of her life post missed miscarriage12/22 & subsequent trauma caustic to her husband who is afflicted with opioid & crystal meth addiction which is now the scariest thing she is grieving on a daily basis for the past two years now (when she noticed his soul was not compatible with hers any longer for she started slowly catching up to the social cues, anxiety and pressure driven by her partner to make decisions about life that were harmful to her poor health problems in retrospect causing her Wilson Disease to deteriorate & displacing her from her comfort zone/stability by moving back to her childhood abuse/abandonment home & wound up w/o anyone b/c she had been living in an isolated domestic abusive cycle for 7 years before aware of it & her environment is NOT safe STILL to date; No matter how much she is a positive helpful, healthy, supportive to others around her, she cannot seem to make any progress or difference in her own life as per she is broken from her entire life lived trusting in the monsters who took/take advantage of her [as they victim shame her & cry wolf & dictate her life by making false reports to the police against her to try & control her or make her forced into homelessness] so she has no choice but to make her own artwork as she is doing the best she can to cope with the tremor from Wilson Disease symptoms that truly makes her feel unable to tolerate living alone in suffering while being unable to be as productive or professional or socially responsible for her own needs because she has changed exponentially from her trauma & ptsd & day to day problems that she cannot control anyone but herself & do her best to make better choices, which involves creating as much mixed/multi media prompts & writing snippets for sparking ideas for other people to join in & share their projects & play along with me, as well as hopefully find comrades with similar experiences in life through the process of learning w/their ASD diagnosis as transitioning from childhood to adulthood).

[kentuckyanarchist]

Songs of 2022

Year-end lists always seem doomed to become outdated. Am I really expected to have heard all the best songs of 2022 in 2022? It’s never going to work, they’ll seep through over the course of the following year or years. But giving it six weeks is better than nothing, so here we are in mid-late February.

1. Tomberlin, “Stoned”.

Stoned indeed: woozy, baffled, bodily undone.

2. Camp Cope, “Running with the Hurricane”.

Camp Cope perfected a bassy, blunt melancholy with How to Socialise & Make Friends; here they don’t so much break from that template as turn it to other—affirmative? aggressive?—purposes.

3. Caroline, “Good Morning (Red)”.

The year’s most something-new-on-every-listen song, its most capacious.

4. Christian Lee Hutson, “Age Difference”.

Lyric of the year: “Do my impression of John Malkovich critiquing food in prison / At first it isn’t funny, then it is, and then it isn’t.”

5. Big Thief, “Change”.

A panoply of possibilities on such a sprawling, immersive album by the absolute best in the game, but this most plaintive and stubborn lament just edges the rest.

6. Rachika Nayar ft. Maria BC, “Heaven Come Crashing”.

Sounds for the silentest disco.

7. The A’s, “Why I’m Grieving”.

A path not taken from an archive not delved-into; a peppy sad spurt of jolly heartbreak.

8. Black Country, New Road, “Snow Globes”.

I’m still not sure if this song’s about going mad, getting old, living through winter, all three, or none.

9. Arctic Monkeys, “Body Paint”.

Searching, insistent: like Alex Turner’s got you caught in a lie.

10. Stella Donnelly, “Cold”.

This could’ve been any of Stella Donnelly’s songs where the lilt of her voice is always dropping into conversationality, but this one, where she ends the conversation, full-stop, shuts me up the most.

11. Martha, “Irreversible Motion”.

So many of these songs are about little things, like the bones of the inner ear; this one maybe more than all the others.

12. Florist, “Red Bird Pt. 2 (Morning)”.

A delicate retrospective collage, a slow bashful loving appreciation, a puzzled amazed asking-why, a cautious comfort.

13. Aldous Harding, “Fever”.

Aldous Harding’s songs have this wonderful, dignified refusal to cohere; this one just lopes, or loafs, in and out of view.

14. Meg Baird, “Will You Follow Me Home?”.

The way Meg Baird’s vocals stay half-submerged here is what gets me: “Will You Follow Me Home?” goes from lazy river to maelstrom without you quite noticing.

15. Brian Eno, “Making Gardens Out of Silence”.

If you ask me, “Making Gardens Out of Silence” is a panorama from the time after humans, built from salvage by whatever-comes-next.

16. Hurray for the Riff Raff, “SAGA”.

A lot of these songs express a specifically 2022 kind of bafflement. “SAGA” doesn’t know how to get past this condition either, but it’s pushing against the boundaries.

17. Lana Del Rey, “Watercolor Eyes”.

You think you know someone’s schtick, but they surprise you.

18. Black Belt Eagle Scout, “My Blood Runs Through This Land".

Alternating between wordlessness and breathlessness, either way keeping on building to something.

19. Jake Xerxes Fussell, “Love Farewell”.

Stoic and stolid, Jake Xerxes Fussell bets on metaphor but could’ve made do with just rumble, growl and twinkle.

20. Ezra Furman, “Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club”.

Secret-telling in movie-theatre darkness.

21. Let’s Eat Grandma, “Happy New Year”.

Let’s Eat Grandma have the saddest synths but this one’s rose-coloured.

22. Joshua Burnside, “Louis Mercier”.

Time-travel klezmer-pop that jostles you like a cobbled towpath.

23. Beth Orton, “Weather Alive”.

When talking songs become singing songs so sylphlike and effortless.

24. Sault, “Life We Rent but Love Is Free”.

Sounds like certain small parts of London, for certain small moments, on busy summer days in the past.

25. Bill Callahan, “Coyotes”.

One for slickrock and sagebrush, which are not without their romance.

26. Yard Act, “Tall Poppies”.

A self-consciously small story, a kitchen-sink drama, a talking head, no denouément.

27. Angel Olsen, “All the Good Times”.

A rhinestone widescreen production, a road movie on a soundstage.

28. Beach House, “Hurts to Love”.

Generationally speaking, the ending of Skins series 1 still packs a fair bit of a punch, so rewriting “Wild World” by Cat Stevens makes more sense than you’d think.

29. The 1975, “The 1975”.

Imagine taking “All My Friends” and making it about your cock and it’s still good; that takes rare talent.

30. Craig Finn, “Birthdays”.

Comforting because it really is nice to know there’s someone in this world who’s always known you, and comforting because it’s Craig Finn doing Craig Finn stuff with his big dumb Craig Finn voice.

31. Julia Jacklin, “Lydia Wears a Cross”.

A bodily song: knees, eyes, clothes, adornments.

32. Anaïs Mitchell, “On Your Way (Felix Song)”.

You get the sense Anaïs Mitchell finds nothing all that difficult—eulogising, philosophising, doing justice to a life, picking out the pithiest reminiscences, in just under three minutes she bowls it all over.

33. Billy Woods, “Pollo Rico”.

Intrusive thoughts, compulsion to repeat. A personal history of madness.

34. Bright Eyes, “Arc of Time (Time Code) (Companion Version)”.

This year Bright Eyes re-recorded some of the songs from the 2000s I love/hate the most. “Arc of Time” gets remade without the beats or the keys, but stays smart and wry and death stays on its mind. 

35. Fred again.., “Berwyn (all that i got is you)”.

Fred again..’s songs are urban explorations, entries to London’s subterrene.

36. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “Spitting Off the Edge of the World”.

Cosmic.

37. The Big Moon, “Ladye Bay”.

Supersized, tectonic.

38. Drive-By Truckers, “The Driver”.

Grimy, grunting noir.

39. Ethel Cain, “American Teenager”.

D. H. Lawrence would’ve liked Ethel Cain and her Great American Hauntedness.

40. Girlpool, “Butterfly Bulletholes”.

Such a shame to lose Girlpool in 2022 but they were four or five bands in just two people, they gave us a lot.

41. The Beths, “Expert in a Dying Field”.

This one speaks for itself.

42. Nilüfer Yanya, “Shameless”.

Breathless, almost somehow fleshless, rattling ribcage xylophone.

43. Mesadorm, “Soap Opera”.

Skew-whiff boiler-hiss robot pop.

44. Porridge Radio, “Back to the Radio”.

Porridge Radio’s skills are in cacophony, cataclysm, crisis, ruination, disaster mismanagement.

45. Wet Leg, “Too Late Now”.

Every introspection needs a wise-crack or two.

46. Wilco, “Tired of Taking It Out on You”.

Aged 29, I had chickenpox recently; I recovered but it’s made looking in the mirror interesting, all these new small markings on the same face.

47. Plains, “Hurricane”.

The lyrics to “Hurricane” read like an apology, but Katie Crutchfield’s voice always sounds a little barbed to me; that’s what makes this work, I think.

48. Daniel Avery, “Higher”.

Frenetic travel in place.

49. Kevin Morby, “Bittersweet, TN”.

Kevin Morby hits all the requirements, he straight-A’s being a country singer.

50. Beabadoobee, “You’re Here That’s the Thing”.

In 2023 I resolve to continue to love silly rhymes, campfire rhythms, dewdrops and holding hands.

[imanes]

Dear Imane, hi! I would like to ask how you stay afloat in times of stress? I was invited to be a part of a research team in (redacted) late last year and we’ll be here until October this year. What started out as a dream job is now… well… the stakes are higher, there is little to no room for errors bc things can’t be easily fixed as we go further into the project. I am also stationed with two other nationalities we have nothing much in common but it’s my only form of socialisation for now bc we are located in (redacted) where only planes come like twice a week for supplies. Now I know all I have to do is hang on til October and I’m not a girl who breaks easy, but this is taking YEARS off my life. Constantly worrying about something going wrong and not so much other forms of recreation bc of where we are situated. Girl HELP 😫

hi angel! first off i'm so sorry you're experiencing so much stress at the moment :( this sounds like a really extreme situation like complete isolation for months at a time... i have a lot of admiration for your strength!!

i can't tell you what i do to relieve stress in my normal life bc the difference of context is too wide but if i were in your shoes i'd definitely rely on alternate modes of communication, i.e., talk to friends and family and just people in general online. like it might seem out of pocket but to channel some of that stress i feel like i'd try to learn chess in order to set my mind on something completely different and rather consuming brain-power wise (the learning of a new skill) and play online with other beginners. it doesn't have to be chess it can be digital painting, writing, ... something that makes sense to you and that takes your mind off of how much pressure you are under due to the nature of your project. i don't know how stable or sporadic your access to internet is but make the most of it as a communication tool!

there are also live reading sprints on youtube all the time, like you can read a book collectively (not the book itself but the time spent) and then have 15 min breaks to talk to one another in the chat. when I'm under a lot of stress and i don't have the intellectual capacity to actually read a story i usually turn to mangas and webtoons. check out what's popular on mangadex and give it a try! the perfect distraction for brain-fried people

another thing i'd do is HIIT training or something intense like that (basically not yoga) like whatever i have bad knees but i need the post-workout boost of endorphins MORE

and honestly when it gets stressful you can treat my inbox as your brain dump! i won't publish the messages if you don't want an answer but if you need to talk shit about your coworkers and detail the ways in which you're losing years of your life know that I'll read your messages and that basically there's another person who cares on the other side of the line

you got this!! do check in regardless of whether or not you actually want to talk to me ajdlfg I'm invested in your continuous well-being now. and sorry for the lousy answers honestly i wouldn't know how to cope under your circumstances either so props to you

[heartsbind]

i got the urge to talk more about tatsu’s mom bc i love her soooo much here we go looong infodump under the cut:

- to set the scene: miyu's 5'2" and was in her mid-60s when tatsu was born, so she's generally around 77-78 when tatsu's in their final years of high school.

- miyu was and still is a very artsy and craftsy person! her husband was kind of the breadwinner and made a generous amount of money as the vice president of a financial company, but she helped run a quaint little gift shop that a friend of hers owned; there she got to sell some of her own homemade jewelry and trinkets made from things like seashells. she’s a great painter, although she hasn’t tried selling too many of her paintings and oftentimes prefers to just gift them to people.

- she is soooo funny. tatsu’s sense of humor comes from growing up with her, which is why you might hear them make jokes about her old age (which is really more of a coping mechanism on their end than they care to admit) -- both of their jokes can run just a touch dark sometimes.

(she's got a whole inside gag about how she has enemies but they're all mysteriously gone now. this is not true: she had one enemy, and it was her dead husband. she also will not hesitate to say that she knows she's going to live a long life because she's the unproblematic one--)

- her and tatsu both share a sweet tooth. she claims it's because she is so sensitive to bitter tastes, a trait which allows her to detect poison more easily. see above.

- though, speaking of sweets, she and tatsu have an evening ritual of having one chocolate truffle with tea after dinner. tatsu sneaks two chocolates every night and thinks they've successfully kept this from miyu all their life. miyu knows, but thinks the fact that tatsu is so convinced she doesn't know is funny.

- tatsu more or less knew about their father's infidelity at a young age -- not that miyu info-dumped the whole thing on them all at once, but miyu's fear was that if the truth took too long to reveal itself to tatsu later in life, the pain of the shattered image of a perfect father would be much greater. this did mean that tatsu spent more or less their whole life just hating their father, but at the moment it's not particularly anything either of them regret.

- miyu's reasoning for keeping her husband (minoru) around was entirely for his financial support. minoru's reason for staying was that he was far too used to not having to care for himself to bother striking out on his own. he was a housemate more than anything else; to miyu, he could do whatever he wanted, as long as he helped pay to support little tatsu. when he passed away due to illness in tatsu's teenage years, it didn't really impact them emotionally, but financially he got one more clapback in, refusing to bequeath any of his finances to miyu, and making tatsu wait until adulthood for any of his inheritance. miyu's own pension covers enough to get by, but tatsu still works at a convenience store when they're of age in order to cover things like groceries, things they want, savings, etc. so that they're not necessarily hurting for money.

- initially, miyu was completely at peace not having any kids. it wasn't that she couldn't, nor that she was entirely against the notion; she just didn't feel compelled, and minoru shared a similar disinterest. in that regard, there wasn't any bitterness over the fact that minoru wound up having a child with someone else; only entirely in the fact that he lied and cheated at all, that 40+ years of marriage had gone to waste - and especially because he'd had very few qualms with trying to leave tatsu's bio mom (naming her nicolette) to raise tatsu on her own. unfortunately for him, nicolette was in grad school and just did not have the time nor resources to care for a child on her own, as much as she would have wanted a child, and she was similarly pissed with minoru for his deception, having been led to believe minoru was a widower.

- both miyu and nicolette are kind of girls girls. miyu found out about nicolette and her pregnancy through nicolette herself first, because as soon as nicolette realized minoru had been lying and miyu was actually alive she was set on doing something about it. she was probably many months along at this point, and it was such a shitty time for both of them but miyu really did everything she could to help nicolette through it. once tatsu was born, miyu took them in, and while miyu offered nicolette to have contact they both wound up mutually agreeing to cut ties.

- really just love miyu because she took it upon herself to carry most of the weight of what was going on in spite of how much it hurt her too but she loves tatsu sooo much... and she is the most important person in tatsu's life. i don't think it's something they've talked about specifically but i think they both share this experience of having been unwanted in one way or another, and tatsu really is sensitive to seeing that kind of thing reflected in other people in one way or another (ex. i imagine tatsu just does not care for sae because what they see is sae not appreciating the fact that he has a brother who cares about him, etc.). tatsu really becomes more and more cognizant of this when they get older and they really do everything they can to make sure their mom stays happy for the remainder of her life.

- miyu loves women. crackship with reo's granny when--

- she walks with a cane but still has a lot of pep in her step. she still paints and makes things recreationally to keep her hands and fingers active. she also likes to build puzzles.

- she continues to try to take very good care of herself because she's determined to see as many of tatsu's life milestones as possible.

- she has a visiting nurse - her name is ayumi and miyu tells her absolutely everything about tatsu; how they're doing, every crush they've had, how sports are going, any friends they've made, etc. etc.

- for bllk-verse tatsu, the very first thing tatsu cashed in their goals on was their cell phone so they could call miyu to check on her.

- i mentioned it in tatsu's jjk verse but they became a sorcerer really to help pay for her care; she is not a sorcerer herself and doesn't really know what tatsu does in school at all aaaand i'll stop here for now --

[bisluthq]

Smoked a joint with husband after a really good faith analysis of taycaptalism he sent moi and we both got to the bottom of joever. 3 hours discussing joever and we were both pulling up sociology books 😭😭😭

But like ok, (i poisoned the man and now he thinks joe is a bebe that cant do mistakes but w/e) they both did whatever people do when the relationship turns shit and you want out ofc, but put all that aside, this is the closest thing to civilian megxit.

royal famz like their miney too much to be happy just throwing dinners, shaking hands and getting gifts. They're there to be the perfect nuclear fam (with that one pedo uncle) and the more they speak, the more unpleasant and "off with their heads" the people get.

civilians bilionaires are different though. Taylor has no problem yielding her power in her industry (and good bc she changed some real stupid shit), but the girl was dry heaving to daddy over coming out as a Democrat. I love that woman but I could not marry into that.

Like, they were mostly living with a veneer of normalcy because fame aside, she's still outrageously rich and the only way to cope with that is through disassociation. If they married or whatever, I can't imagine opening any news paper and not dying inside a little for not doing anything? No wonder he was dragging his feet the second the rerecording project started lol girlie doesn't like saying how much she has on the bank after that for a REEEEASON - she knows how it comes across.

And I'm not saying it like he's a bleeding heart saint that should get a Nobel prize (mr. husband is close to saying that tho), but again, fame aside, people that are THIS RICH can only be really happy with someone also happy just being THIS RICH. The end of Notting Hill is her giving up her career to live quiet and pop out a bebe 😭.

Tayvis working out or not working out it's whatever, him or the next person, she can't be with someone that will pearl clutch or eye roll if she ever wants to drop 8 figures in some vapid pretty jewelry. And if joe goes for the next most popular person in the world again, it needs to be a paul newman type that actually loves that type of normalcy and will still drop 8 figures in a rare painting but hang it in their house in the middle of nowhere (and then raise kiddos that will donate it to charity when the time comes ofc)

And like, she can do all the important shit Elizabeth Taylor did in life too! COVERED IN DIAMONDS TOO! I dont get what she's so freaked out over having opinions and being poised all the time. Even in her current rebellious METAL era, she's such a complicated messy darling to me 😭😭😭

(Pls tumblr don't eat my ask, pls nat, I need your go off queen 👼 I'm in too deep)

my sister my queen ur still stoned af lol which I don’t judge but idk if I can meaningfully contribute to your thoughts. Just here to say you are valid lol and your relationship sounds awesome lmfao. Find u a person who’ll get stoned with u and discuss Joever and sociology 👸🏻 Queen shit.