#or bc dc keeps repeating the phrase

[oifaaa]

op im gonna be completely honest I thought you left off tim on purpose. like I thought /that/ was the joke LOL

Oh that definitely was the joke don't worry I was just also planning on asking people what makes the best Robin as well gotta multitask

[imbellarosa]

21 Books for 2021

Hi I did this last year some time around here and so i wanted to do am end-of-year book reviews and i promised @dependsonwhospitching she could see my top 21 books of this year bc it was a REALLY wild one!! There is no particular order to this! Let's gooooooo

1. Human Kind by Rutger Bregman - if you're looking for the best kind of history book, this is it! It combines hope, fact, historical context, and a belief in the best of us to show us that people are, fundamentally, willing to help each other and love each other. He believes it, and I think he's right.

2. Medical Apartheid by Harriet Washington - if the first book on this list displays the best of humanity, this one displays the worst. It is about the medical studies on Black men in the United States, and I read it as background for my dissertation and couldn't get it out of my head. Deep and sinister and tragic, it demonstrates the lasting effects of systemic violence on a community.

3. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer - This book was given to me by someone I loved a lot this year, and i will love them for a long time. Because of this, I can honestly say it is the most deeply unsettling book I have ever read, and one of the few to properly move me to tears. There are some lessons we only learn when it's too late, and some things we only give up because we take them for granted. I wish my Person had known that, too.

4. Aristotle and Dante Dive Into The Waters of the World by Benjamin Alire Saenz - a tale of grief, love, heartbreak, and being seventeen years old in a world that does not understand you. SPOILER: I lost my grandfather this July, and this book portrays that loss perfectly. I spent the entire second half of the book crying, and feeling like someone knew what I was feeling. Also, "if we're really lucky, the universe gives us the people we need to survive".

5. Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder - I picked this book up in a donation station in DC when my life fell apart. It was the first book I read as the person I am becoming, and it taught me a bit of the way old philosophers see the world. A curious conglomeration of madness and morality, I will love this book all my life.

6. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig - if you could read your book of regrets and undo them one by one, what are you left with? who are you left with? in another life, we have everything we can ever dream of wanting, and this book is about unshelving them all, and then deciding who we are gonna be. I could not put this one down.

7. Dreadnought by April Daniels - this was an incredibly fun superhero adventure that definitely beats out all of the CW shows that trend on this Hellsite. Dani becomes the superhero Dreadnought after the her predecessor dies in a villain attack and leaves her the mantel. A story about belonging, becoming, and creating yourself, Dani grows into the woman - and the Hero - she's always known she was. Lovely and queer, and one of the best stories I read this year.

8. The Birth of the Clinic by Michel Foucault - this is another dissertation book that became really important for the theory behind healthcare. The idea that creating systems of medical knowledge fundamentally politicized and changed how we view patient treatment seems obvious, but is also fundamentally important. When we have a record and a place to treat people, then the 'when' 'how' and 'who decides' have been politicized.

9. Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut - This is one of my favorite books of all time, and it is the book I gave to the person that gave me Into the Wild . About war, tragedy, and trauma, this book repeats the phrase 'so it goes' after each death in the book, and people think that it is a pessimistic view of life. But the truth is that it's optimism - we die, and the world keeps going with or without us. The only thing that is the end of the world is the end of the world. Beyond that, the birds will always be chirping. Poo tee weet.

10. T.S Eliot Collected Poems 1909 - 1962 by TS Eliot - this was a book I gave one of my People this year for their birthdays. I drew into the whole thing and turned it into a sketch book with dragons and mermaids and everything in between. I wish the person I gave it to loved me a bit better than they did, but they changed my life, and I am so grateful for them.

11. The Wild Silence by Raynor Winn - this is a book about being nomads, and how the earth and the family we find along the way find and heal us. It is written lovingly and is lovely, and it has a happy ending to boot.

12. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury - I read this book every October since I was 16, and it continues to be one of my favorite books of all time. It's about the friends we make when we are young enough to believe in magic but old enough to tire of childhood, and about the wishes we make and the people and love that saves us. Read this book. Love this book. Keep it.

13. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho - About a boy that goes to Egypt to find his treasure, and learns so much about the world along the way. Everything is an omen, and sometimes we get sidetracked to where we need to be, but if it is our destiny, the universe will conspire to make it so. This has been true in my life, this year especially. The other thing that I love about this is that it speaks that love that is true would never stand in the way of your destiny, and that it makes you better than you are. Lovely book.

14. Meditations in an Emergency by Frank O'Hara - Frank O'Hara was a new discovery this year, but this book!! Especially the title poem!! "Each time my heart is broken it makes me feel more adventurous". This has never rung as true as it has this year. I've had my heart broken more times than I thought I could handle, and I've patched it back up myself with golden thread and all the miles in the soles of my shoes and the city lights that still shine, and the ghosts of the loves to come.

15. Wild and Crooked by Leah Thomas - this was the last thing I read before I left Texas, and it was a gorgeous book about how our pasts haunt our future, and how love can reach past that and heal. Friendship, connection, and family are all verbs. They are actions, and choices, and you do them over and over and over, and sometimes you get them wrong. But the doing is in the staying, too.

16. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov - this is number 16 on the list but really it's my #1 book of 2021. It's amazing - a magical realist book set in Lenin's Russia about when the Devil goes to Moscow. It is, in turns, funny, poignant, tragic, lovely, really sweet, fierce, and a breath of fresh air. I loved the book, and I've never read a character that was so much like me! Margarita and I are the same, and if you read it, you'll know why.

17. Eight Detectives by Alex Pavesi - this one was cool because 1. I wasn't expecting ANY of what happened in the story, the twists were WILD but so well done that I COULD have seen it coming if I was looking ! It was a mystery story with a mystery that was so well done and thrilling and really human and a fun read and I couldn't put it down but ALSO 2. One of the murders took place at the Spaniards Inn in Hampstead Heath in London, and I got to go there and look around the area and it TOTALLY looks like somewhere you could get murdered in the twentieth century! SUPER spooky vibes! But also very pretty! the whole thing was lovely, and I don't know if I'll read it AGAIN but I loved reading it.

18. Any Way the Wind Blows by Rainbow Rowell - I can't believe I hadn't read this one before! A really lovely and worthy conclusion to the Carry On series. One of the moments that really stuck with me is the moment when one character looks at the other and said "I realised that I wasn't trying, and I wanted to know if if would have made a difference if I had tried, and I hadn't been so scared to lose you." and the other character is like WTF DUH. It's a standout moment in a book FULL of standout moments, and a really kind way to say goodbye to this universe. Or not! I'd be down for another series in this world!

19. Leaf by Niggle by J.R.R Tolkien - Okay i read this short story and I CRIED!! It isn't widely distributed so I came accross a copy by pure chance, which really explains a lot of this year tbh. It was a story about an artist - Niggle - who never really had time for his art before he has to go away on his big adventure. It was written before Lord of the Rings was published and is fundamentally about an artist, his work, and the millions of ways it has an impact on a million different people, even if we don't notice it. And maybe especially then.

20. American Gods by Neil Gaiman - yeah. Neil Gaiman is always going to make the list. Beautifully done. I listened to this book on Audible in Spanish, and the reader was a perfect Shadow. Laura was creepy as hell, and my favorite moment in this book isn't IN this book, it's an addendum at the end, but the quote "strangers are just friends we haven't met yet" has really stuck with me this year.

21. Love, Aubrey by Suzanne LaFleur - I read this book when I was twelve, and I reread it this year and damn. I think twelve year old me knew what was coming. It's a book about losing everything and starting over, but finding that maybe what's waiting for you on the other side can be just as good, even if you never get back what you lost. Even if you're never the same, and you'll always carry those reminders. It's damn powerful, and it's a kid's book, so kudos to the author!

And that's it!!!! those are my books of the year! if you read/have read any of these, please come talk to me!! I want to hear all about it!!! I'll do a longer year in review post, but really thank you all so much for sticking with me this year. So much love to everyone, and especially to those that the universe has given me. I wouldn't have made it without y'all, and I wouldn't have wanted to.

[tonyglowheart]

Okay thinking more about Dean’s theme that plays at the end of the confession scene, it’s like... the first two phrases of a 4 phrase melody? (I’m like straining to remember back to composition exercises from when I took music theory lmao..) but okay so the first line (first two phrases) resolves on a dominant (V). Which is fine for the middle of the composition, I thiiink? If I remember correctly, it’s like.. a solid choice for to resolve a musical phrase in the middle. But. You want to bring it back to the tonic (I/i) at the end of the composition. (that’s like, one of the easiest things you can do, mark out the end chord so you know what to lead into)

And... Dean’s theme is kind of interesting bc it roughly has a 16-bar structure with 4-bar phrases, but it doesn’t quite resolve the ends of the phrases, it mostly just... holds chords and tapers off. The first 8-bar line seems to end on... a V-iv? or at least the fourth is in there with the tonic. not quite a resolution. (the leitmotif is designed to repeat, so it doesn’t actually seem to resolve in the 16-bar structure, it does like a dc al coda thing that riffs a bit and then ends on some chords that eventually resolve to the parallel major tonic)

The part that’s quoted in the Confession is roughly the first 8 bars, but without that ambiguous tonic resolution, so it just ends on the fifth. Which is a (music theoretically speaking) “unstable” way of ending a piece. Not uncommon, relatively speaking, and not unstable-unstable in a never-use-it sort of way, but definitely more unstable than resolving to the tonic. It’s a technique used for keeping suspense, or for leading into something else (like I suppose if someone is playing a set and transitioning to the next piece, or to keep the energy going). There’s other uses for it as the ending chord, but basically it leaves a sense of suspense, of something hanging... like... you know... 

(the orchestration takes over then and it teeentatively resolves it? the pitch bending tho still sonically throws it off a bit, and it’s not as defined as the piano theme was, so it all kind of... leaves it all hanging.. leaves you with just Dean alone in the bunker...)

[thegeminisage]

well I’m obviously very fascinated by your writing process and I admire it a lot. So you should do the questions 1-4 which are obviously very process oriented. But I’m curious about 50 too 😜

MCCCC that’s so nice of you to say i’m gonna write “fascinated by your process” down in my book of favorite compliments waaah

OKAY HERE WE GO (edit: this got long NOBODY is obligated to read all of this)

1. Favorite place to write.

so i actually don’t get out much firstly because i am kind of a homebody and secondly because where i live there’s not really many places to go…we don’t have starbucks, we don’t have cafes or coffee shops in general, and the few we do have would be weird to just HANG OUT in unless i go to the local college campus and i’d never pass a student LOL so mostly what i do is just write at home. which is fine! my favorite place to write IS at home on my computer bc it’s where i can be most comfortable. i have written in different places (especially when i travel to visit buddies - i have written in a starbucks in dc, a parking garage in dc, the ferry that goes past the statue of liberty, a mall food court in sanfan…i have also written fanfiction on my phone while over at my grandparents place or on the computer in the high school library LOL) but when i’m in public 1. i can’t relax and so have a harder time getting into my zone 2. unless i have earbuds i cannot utilize MUSIC which is simply crucial to my Process™

2. Favorite part of writing.

this is a close tie between outlining and actually rough drafting. i do not and never will understand why all writer culture jokes are about writers not actually writing because i love to write?? writing is the best part of writing? when i really get going and knock out like 2k or 3k in a day that’s the best feeling in the world. i LIVE for that feeling. however i also REALLY enjoy outlining because it’s sort of like rough drafting without the extra work (i can just block things out w/o worrying about making them look pretty) and also the outlining process is where i run into and then solve most (not all, unfortunately…) of my plotholes. there is nothing in the world like trying to untangle a plot problem for hours or even days and then suddenly coming up with the PERFECT solution. that is a GOOD feeling.

3. Least favorite part of writing.

editing/rewriting can go straight to hell THANKS! i already wrote this once! i don’t want to do it again! i had to pause work on the current thing i am doing to go back and clean up a subplot that was finally coming to a head and it took me THREE WEEKS because thats how unenthusiastic i am about editing. i can never decide what needs cutting, it’s tedious to decide where to jump in and start rewriting new stuff, it’s too much work and to depressing to have to scrap a whole scene and start from scratch…i have a real problem killing my darlings (just ask @callowyn, who has been co-writing @cambionverse with me for nearly a DECADE - she knows the struggle). it makes editing hell

4. Do you have writing habits or rituals?

yes!! i have 3, a small one and 2 big ones. 

small one is: i like to turn pomodoro on and have some sort of snack/beverage/gum nearby. this is to minimize distractions, firstly because if pomodoro is on i have to use my phone to access the internet which is not my preferred method and secondly because if i get momentarily bored i can stimulate my brain with like a sip of coke or a cheez-it or something and that will satisfy the momentary urge to get up and walk away a lot faster than picking up my phone to scroll social media will. then i can go back to work and not lose my momentum!

big rituals are FIRSTLY is that i always always ALWAYS have to block out a scene before i start. i talked about this on this blog before so i won’t repeat myself but the gist of this is that i basically write the entire scene in the ugliest shorthand possible and then “edit” it just like that - delete/add lines of conversation, switch things around, remove off-topic threads, etc. it’s easier to see “zoomed out” like this, more malleable, and i’m not attached to any pretty sentences or turns of phrase. it’s also EXTREMELY fast because once i get to actually drafting it i know exactly what i’m doing, i’m basically just transcribing my notes! i have written almost 7k in a single day with this method. i can absolutely fly

adn finally the most important ritual of all is that i have to be listening to music. there are some albums/songs i can listen to to write anything (mostly soundtracks) and that’s “writing music” but more often than not i pair a specific song or handful of songs with a specific scene, something that matches the “feel” of what i’m working on. if i’m really getting into it i might even go and play some ambient noise (like rain sounds during a rainy scene). this is actually especially helpful at triggering hyperfixation to get from feeling kind of “bleh” about something to absolutely enthralled with it. (edit: for especially long stories i MAKE PLAYLISTS i can tell you exactly which of these songs corresponds to which scene in my current project and i will never be able to disassociate the scenes from the songs so long as i live)

50. Weirdest story idea you’ve ever had.

it’s @cambionverse! haha no that’s cheating, that was cally’s idea

actually i think most of my story ideas are a little on the cliche/predictable/tropey side bc that’s what i enjoy consuming. but i DO get weirdly obsessed with like, the most unimportant background characters or very off-the-wall rarepairs and then devolve straight into OC territory. and then when i was younger i would actually write fanfiction of my own fanfiction - so my first fanfic ever was a novelization of ocarina of time, and then when i was finished with that i actually went back and wrote stories about link’s parents before they died. i had a name and a backstory for that little deku kid (the butler’s son) in majora’s mask. ganondorf and nabooru had a daughter who featured as a main character. it was wild. i becomes absolutely obsessed with minute details and the longer i spend in a fictional world the more i branch out into utterly irrelevant shit. that said i think the WEIRDEST idea i ever wound up writing to fruition was a teen wolf fic that feature my teen wolf rarepair (which i don’t talk about on this blog BC I TRY TO KEEP IT SFW HERE but like…it’s on ao3 LOL) and in the sequel to that fic i spent about half the screentime talking about the death of an OC in one pf the characters’ pasts. ask me before i started and i would have said that sounds like the most boring shit in the world but i wrote almost 100k in that verse in 3 fics and i think it’s one of the better stories i’ve ever worked on solo.

(send me a writing ask)

[annashipper]

Re BC in DC interview. I swear if I read/hear "an embarrassment of riches" one more time I'm going to puke and never again read or see an interview of him. Gawds he has taken a 180 degree of his likable old self, and is not fun anymore. He's like one of those automatons that move and talk whatever they're programmed to do/say.

I could make a list out of all the phrases Ben keeps repeating in interviews Nonny, but it would be tedious.  Especially considering that the list would be a long one.  

Look at it this way though:  At least RinseLatherRepeatBatch doesn’t get his foot in his mouth nearly half as much as he could potentially do so if he were to ad-lib his quotes.

[punkfistfights]

i was tagged by @nerdygingerandproud for this. thanks friend!! 1) Time Right Now: 7:57 when i started this 2) Nicknames: tea, nina, chrissy, christy 3) Gender: genderqueer af (specifically stellarian gendervague) 4) Star Sign: pisces 5) Height: technically 5'7.5 but closer to 5'8 6) Birthday: March 13th (fun fact i was born on friday the 13th) 7) Favorite Solo Artists: um my favorites are p!nk, ke$ha, lady gaga, hozier, hayley kiyoko, nicki minaj, ed sheeran, and tbh there are a bunch more but those are my mains. i also listen to marilyn manson a bunch but i wouldnt count him as a favorite 8) Favorite Bands/groups: pansy division, green day, fall out boy, panic! at the disco, dropkick murphy, modern baseball, marina and the diamonds, blink-182, my chemical romance, 5 seconds of summer, and paramore 9) Song Stuck In My Head: the cut hamilton song, let it go, because my sister keeps playing it 10) Last Show Watched: the bold type? 11) When Did I Create My Blog: november of 2014 is the official start of this blog. i have another one that i created in 2013 i think?? but i never really used it 12) What Do I Post: lots of memes, social justice stuff, fandom, and queer shit mostly 13) Last Thing I Googled: “taz ao3" because i'm fucking trash n wanted to see what i'm looking forward to 14) Do You Have Other Blogs: so. fucking. many. i'm not tagging them all but you can find (most) of my sideblogs and my links page/post. 15) Do You Get Asks: every now and then but i want more!! 16) Why Did You Choose Your URL: because diana, princess of themysira, is the love of my life and i want to honor her. also because dc was basically my first fandom 17) Following: 2114 (jfc i need to unfollow some of them, that is ridiculous). 18) Followers: 1362. i lost one recently after i said trans women are woman (: 19) Favorite Colors: blue, purple, red, and black 20) Lucky Number: 13 bc of my birthday 21) Habits: idk if echolalia counts, but yea i tend to make lots of "random" noises/repeat phrases a lot, i chew on my fingers (thumb and pinkies mostly) and lips a lot too, and i fiddle with my hair 22) Instruments: i used to be able to play the flute, but nothing really. i wanna learn to play the guitar and/or the piano 23) What Am I Wearing: right now just a camo tank top, but i've been wearing a pair of fuzzy red and black plaid pajama pants, my cream hoodie, and a pair of fuzzy blue and purple striped socks all day 24) How Many Blankets I Sleep With: just one super warm one 25) Dream Job: a college professor or the owner of a queer cafe. also an author 26) Dream Trip: nyc, greece, england, france, japan. san francisco again! (i used to live there) 27) Favorite Food: steak, sushi, and salads are my tops! oh and beef stroganoff 28) Where do you live?: a small town in michigan now. i just moved from indiana this week! 29) Favourite Song Right Now: "homo christmas" by pansy division or "hallelujah" by leonard cohen. 30) Other social medias: snapchat (if we're mutuals, ask and i'll share mine!), instagram (same as with sc), twitter (hpfandomlover but i'm rarely on it and really need to change the url), and facebook (just for family and im almost never on it) i'm tagging @thequantumqueer @mermaid-hair-and-swords @nbnightwing @phynali @ayotofu @cursivelettering and anyone else who wants to do it :)))