#posted this to cohost but

[sunlightfeeling]

Drink SMAP 2002 Live Report from Nagoya

[pallisia]

hi. it's the itch winter sale. have you considered playing the first chapter of my visual novel, soul of sovereignty? have you considered this list of enticing reasons to play it?

a rich fantasy world inspired by rpgs without all that pesky "g" getting in the way

an inscrutable dilf-clown relationship with an estimated 65% chance of making you insane

beautiful art [you make brief eye contact with me and see the incredible pain i must endure to praise myself in this way. and you simply have to stan]

a magic system based on the language of flowers that has kept me up at night for years (i acknowledge that this says much more about me than the work itself)

music by my friend toby fox, and also me in the background hitting the tambourine like at karaoke

what if kefka had the big bap

hello. are you still there? then take my hand, and come with me...

[winonaparadise]

🚨KNOW YOUR MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE CRYPTIDS🚨

BUCKET MAN - 300 POINTS - DOCILE IN NATURE BUT EASILY STARTLED. GREAT FOR BEGINNERS!

CAKE CATCHER - 800 POINTS - INCREDIBLY AGILE, MAKES A GREAT HUNTING COMPANION. HAS THE “PICKUP” ABILITY.

FALSE DEWEY - 1,000,000 POINTS - DO NOT ENGAGE THE FALSE DEWEY UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. FOR PROFESSIONAL HUNTERS ONLY.

[reliably-derogaffectionate]

inflict situations on your characters (or yourself, i wont stop you, im not a constable)

[horseblob]

my girlfriend is taking me to the m&m store and they're putting me back on the shelves because of my joy and a big nut inside me

[avithenaftali]

October 28, 2022, 7:11 P.M.

For whatever reason I enjoy thinking about Diana Wynne Jones' writing as a whole and picking out unexpected or resonant trends. For example, some things that comes up often is:

She'll fabricate a world (right down to its cosmology), fill it with memorable characters, set one or two short novels in it... and then never touch it again. On to the next one. Rinse and repeat for her entire career.

The concept of multiple/parallel universes appear half a dozen times in different novels/sequences, but always in completely different ways. The multiple worlds of Chrestomanci function very, very differently from the multiple worlds of The Homeward Bounders, which themselves function so different from the Ayewards/Naywards of Deep Secret, or the walls between the worlds in Dark Lord of Derkholm. More importantly, all these approaches to multiverse explicitly contradict each other. There is no larger DWJ multiverse; there is no way to coherently combine any of them, much less all of them. I love her for this. Every book is its own project. Franchising be damned.

With one exception (which is the Dalemark quartet, oddly enough), none of these worlds are sealed-off secondary worlds. Our own Earth appears in all of them, though usually from the 'wrong' end of the telescope. Meaning, it's stuff like reading Charmed Life and assuming you're reading a magical secondary world fantasy for most of the book... up until the point when Janet is pulled into the story due to Gwendolyn's spell. The reader instantly understands that Janet is from our own world, from the 1970s when the book was written. She never makes it home, either. She never sees her parents again. She's a supporting character who becomes permanently stuck in the world of Chrestomanci, as a casualty of Gwendolyn's spells.

It is interesting, though, how there are almost no sealed-off secondary worlds in DWJ's oeuvre.

There are lots of neat things to say about how DWJ did this, and why she'd do it, and the implications in the storytelling. But tonight I'm thinking mostly about how it can be a moment, narratively, that makes you halt and have to recontextualize all these things you thought you knew (or were assuming) about the nature of the story.

In Ursula Le Guin's The Dispossessed, Urras is obviously the metaphorical capitalistic stand-in planet for our own Earth... up until a moment right near the end, where we realize our own Earth exists in this novel too and is an ecological wasteland due to unchecked climate change.

Urras may be the distorted-mirror, uber-capitalist version of our own world. But it's also a planet with a functional ecosystem. It's a planet where society is careful about maintaining that ecosystem. We're not going to be Urras, says Le Guin. We'll be lucky if we become Urras. To become Urras means we wised up in time to not go extinct.

And suddenly, little subtle moments in the worldbuilding around both Anarres and Urras—their shared attention to their own ecology—come into a different light. All because our own, devastated Earth turns out to be present in the novel too.

And in Howl's Moving Castle, Howl is a magician who fits into the fairy tale landscape of Ingary as naturally as anyone else—until the chapter when he has to go home to retrieve a lost spell, and you realize home is in another world, aka home is our world, aka Howl is fucking Welsh and found his way into Ingary by pure accident. And Ben Sullivan, Ingary's missing royal magician, is no native of Ingary either.

To Sophie, it just means that both magicians travelled to Ingary from the same enigmatic foreign land, which is as strange to her as any spell.

To us readers, it means "oh my god he's Welsh too? Just how much is Wales secretly connected to Ingary? Next thing you'll tell me Ben Sullivan's a rugby player as well—"

[secondbeatsongs]

RIP to cohost, but more importantly, RIP to the best post on cohost:

[hollowtones]

There's a eulogy for the fucking queen of England in the middle of "Peppa Pig: World Adventures" that I've seen people joke about, and which I assumed was fake until I played the game and saw it for myself.

The bit I don't see people talk about (which, to be fair, is largely because no one is playing or talking about "Peppa Pig: World Adventures" because they're normal) is the second eulogy for the queen during the credits of the game. It's even funnier to me, I think. The main thing we know about The Queen (rip in pigs) is that she made children and pigs across the world sooooooooooo happy. We don't really know anything else about her which is too bad because she Died.

[girlballs]

i wish i could reblog cohost posts to tumblr. there's a really cool gombella and vivian penis image on there

[logicpng]

characterization hc notes

also an excuse to shade sketches more. i don't yet totally comprehend cell shading, as opposed to blending colors until they look right, but never too late to try i suppose

[Image description in ALT, text transcribed under cut]

Text from the image as putting them in alt seems like murder for screenreaders (with some typos corrected):

Off the clock:

Facial expressions more natural

Verbally less strained but can still be a bit dramatic/morbid

Casual but not outright impolite

Can be much more of a troll

In-game / On the clock:

Professional

Speaks relatively tersely, can be somewhat dramatic

More or less calm/collected, but can come off as trollish

Does their best to appear relatively nonthreatening but just appears scarier for it

bonus point: seems to care for humans/players but it's unclear if it's simply pity for their inevitable mortality/fragility or genuine empathy for the position they put themselves in for the cash. one way or another their death in the game's context is simply business

[annabelle--cane]

can you imagine the drama videos about melanie in the tma verse. she gets cancelled for having a public meltdown about being stabbed by a ghost, vanishes from social media, is rumored to have been shot on a solo trip to india, and then reappears a year and a half later, having moved in with another paranormal influencer after blinding herself on her old work premises. what could the public possibly make of that.

[ocpdzim]

okay here is my opinion about ezri dax. it's really sad the timing wouldn't have worked since it had already been going for a couple seasons when jadzia died, because ezri BELONGED ON VOYAGER!!!!! she kind of sucked on ds9 because they were so bogged down in her relationship to jadzia and kept putting her in miserable romantic drama so various men who didnt even need or benefit from it could have sad dead wife angst about jadzia but if she was on voyager then no one there would have known jadzia and so bringing jadzia up would just be something that would happen every now and then like w other past hosts and it would've been a nice tie in to get ds9 fans interested in voyager but otherwise wouldn't bog her down. she would've gotten to be her own person. and she would fit in so well thematically and interpersonally with the voyager cast as a young person thrust into a situation she wasn't prepared for and didnt know how to handle. she would've had time to grow and mature as a character instead of a rushed 1 season arc. she would've had a great dynamic with like every single person in that cast but especially with harry kim. she could've been actual friends with harry kim and they could've been actually nice to each other. they both needed a friend who would also truly treat them as an equal and a peer so badly and did not ever get it. voyager needed a counselor on the ship so badly so she could've really shone in her career. there could've been an interesting plot about her being the only trill on voyager and how the dax symbiont would potentially die with her because of that and how she would cope with that especially because she wasn't "supposed" to have it in the first place. TRAGIC that she was stuck on ds9 instead

[solarpunkani]

I think it'd be fun to imagine a solarpunk society where most buildings come with a greenhouse, whether its attached or a separate but nearby structure, and people take great pride in their greenhouses' looks and vibe.

Like imagine personalizing your/your family's greenhouse, and visiting your friends' greenhouses. How you use it in different seasons, what you have growing in it, the spaces dedicated to hanging out.

Imagine you go to a friend's house and they have a greenhouse with green and yellow panels interspersed, light shining through the glass and onto a nice warm floor on a spring day. There's a rug and some pillows tucked into the corner with a small table, so you can sit or pull up a chair to enjoy snacks or just hang out.

You go to another friend's. Their greenhouse is dedicated to output, with dwarf citrus trees and strawberries and peppers and tomatoes and herbs growing in neat little pots on the tables. Some of them will be planted in the beds outside, some will be given to friends, some will live their whole lives within the glass walls and be perfectly happy. Sometimes your friend opens the panels, and the greenhouse comes to life with all kinds of butterflies and bees stopping by to visit.

There's a nice greenhouse by the library, which has a few fragrant herbs and tea plants growing inside, but is mostly a cozy space. A nice table and a few chairs are inside, for students who like to use the space to study or hang out together. There's one great big chair that's nestled in the perfect spot to read in the warm sunlight, or to listen to the sound of gentle rains tapping against the glass in summer. In fall and winter, they keep a healthy supply of warm hot cocoa and coffee for visitors to enjoy, but in the summer you're more likely to find fresh lemonade.

You know someone who uses their greenhouse as more of a gathering place, its perfect for parties. Plenty of tables and chairs, string lights along the walls so get-togethers can last well into the night. The various panels in pink, orange, and yellow make the room feel magical as light filters through.

Some families turn their greenhouses over to the kids quite early, and it quickly becomes a place full of toys, tiny seedlings of their favorite flowers in colorful pots, a few study books tucked away in a study corner. Or a popular hangout spot for them and their friends to post up with snacks after school.

A few couples may grow a few plants, but keep the area mostly clear--perfect for times where they just want to turn on a small radio, and slowdance with one another well into the night.

And your greenhouse? You can use it however you'd like after all, make it your own.

[googieplague]

From my heart and from my hand, why don’t people understand, my intention?

(Close ups under the cut!)

[metroid-fusion]

regarding the post reading "if zun did it you can too: make all of your characters women" and the tag "i'm doing this but in the opposite direction bc im transmasc and gay"

i love transmascs. shoutout all transmascs. they all deserve so much love n safety. heres an opinion i posted once, for context.

"why are you doing all this disclaiming io?" because before i turned off rbs on that post, people were saying stupid shit like "making your characters transmasc and gay is boring" which i cant abide. literally if ur trans and gay and ur making characters to explore & celebrate that, im supporting u so much. so if youre gonna say some shit disparaging that on here i dont respect your opinion; that said, this post is to address the other half of the arguing that went on on that zun post: "actually commenter was fine i dont get the big deal"

(i recognize that im preaching to the choir here, the target audience REALLY is the CHOIR'S followers not mine but hey)

my post was one that i made advocating for something which was IN THE MINORITY. which is a story with only women. there are many MORE stories with characters that are only men. so the question one must ask before leaving a tag or replying: what REASON do you think i, op, had to post a post like that?

what factors were influencing the post? what media environment led to the posts creation? what do u think the reason is that the post had such a clearly defined call to action? im doing some critical reading question shit to you right now. do you think me being transfem and lesbian have anything to do with it? im gonna show you these numbers

so if you have come to a conclusion about why i probably made the post, and what my post was meant to say, and you extrapolate, what does leaving a comment that says "im doing this but with men" IMPLY wrt those factors? what effect does it have? theyre UNINTENTIONAL effects, this commenter had no ill intent and was just trying to relate their own experiences. but nothing exists in a vacuum and one MUST consider the purpose of a post before leaving ANY kind of comment.

i guess thats all. i just want people to understand why myself and others were peeved by an innocent comment like that yknow. just consider what your comment implies in relation to what it was posted on

[vampire-eros]

i had a discussion with my partner the other night and like

a while ago, i'd say early 2022 i was kind of enlightened to exactly how bad the transmisogyny problem is I did something that some TMEs felt was offensive and… what happened? well. i received 1 ask reprimanding me for it. an UNRELATED TRANS WOMAN who DID NOT DO WHAT I DID, got the backlash for it and would experience regular, pointless, harassment about it.

and i received 1 singular ask about it and kind of sloppily apologized for it and never heard anything about it again in my askbox. while i would watch my mutual become bogged down and dogpiled about it… something I DID.

and i realized. oh. i really get it now. it's so bad that people would rather target a popular trans woman than a (currently) TME nonbinary person over something that the trans woman did not even do. people will literally make up stories to attack trans women. i understand what TME/TMA means, it's not a repackaged discussion of what's in your pants, it's a discussion about how you're treated in society.

and i think some TME people see that trans women/TMAs are rightfully upset and angry about what they've been put through, that trans women will try to clarify that their situation is BAD. it is TRAUMATIZING. it is ACTIVELY DEADLY. it is PSYCHOLOGICALLY DAMAGING.

and they will see that and think "well hey!! what about me? i'm not a trans woman, but i'm affected by this too!!" and feel like THEIR problems are being dismissed, as if they don't go through transphobia, misogyny, toxic masculinity, and even death. but the thing is, i feel like a lot of them just don't see behind the scenes and see how hot the flames are for the circumstances trans women are being put in, even some of the struggles that people affected by transmisogyny hold in to try to create an environment that isn't festering with hate and sorrow.

imagine this situation is basically you are in an emergency room. and the order that patients are served are, most urgent patients come first. and yes, the transphobia, misogyny, white patriarchy, toxic cultish masculinity practices come down in one sweep. if you are trans, you are probably going to be affected by transphobia unless you are incredibly lucky, and we are all hurting. but some trans issues are much more urgent, more of an emergency and these people in our community are vulnerable and desperately need our support.

we need to stand up for our trans women and TMA nonbinary people (especially our black trans women and black nonbinary folk because they are in a doubly vulnerable position) and everyone else affected by transmisogyny because the way they are affected by this may be way more crazy and out of proportion than you think. easily, this issue currently going on with the tumblr CEO is shedding a sickening light on this problem.