#really shows how committed i am

[bestbluebouquet]

nora's going to kill me one day when she finds out im dell's sword supplier but i have no regrets

[serenity-the-firefly]

Evil cbs show of all time….what if demonic possession was an accepted legal pleading. what if michael emerson had devoted his entire existence to ruining your life specifically. and most importantly, what if all sleep paralysis demons were just one guy named George.

[katyspersonal]

Stance about proanti disco horse (TW: personal CSA details)

I don't really like being a fence-sitter, especially at the risk that some mutual might grow really attached to me only to feel "backstabbed" once finding out we're not on the same page at all, and since this topic became more active after Fromsoft 'approved of incest' (debatable but it at least looks it!) and a certain person whose server is VERY appropriately literally named "a cult" makes a list of people in Soulsborne fandom to side-eye, avoid and shun, I wanted to say what I think

1) I do NOT sympathise with antis. Just try to accept this. They are insensitive loosers without basic common sense that need an excuse to feel like they are contributing to the "noble battle" and turned out to make lives of survivors of the thing they claim fictional works nOrMaLiZe uwu worse on multiple occasions. They are incredibly vile in what they accuse people of based on what they explore within the safety of fantasy, and as if they are not doing enough harm under guise of "protecting" us, survivors of incest, abuse and pedophilia, they are even eating their own if their fellow antis are "too tolerant" to proshippers. Enough instances of an anti showing sympathy under specific circumstances and being shunned too on the "if you're not with us then you're against us" notion. Antis are CULTS, plain and simple.

2) I am also disgusted by how antis tell proshippers "to seek therapy". Every person has dark impulses deep within, regardless of whether they had trauma they now cope with or not, that many people will never realise they have, and creativity is a healthy way to let them dwell. What person chooses to do with the characters is not a mental illness that somehow ruins them and the world around them. You don't get to hold having """morally better""" dark interests over proshippers and claim to be superior on that matter, and if you claim to not have dark interests at all you are just laughable in your pretence. And above all, I am upset at how trauma that I've survived is trivialised to the fanfics and fanart people can't stand.

3) People who are simply disgusted by incest, abuse and pedophilia in fanworks are NOT antis, however. Antis are people who actively police creativity, try to isolate shipper of the thing from the fandom by DMing people to unfollow them, accuse them of having horrible intentions and paraphilias, tell them to seek therapy and all that. As heartbreaking as it could be to lose a mutual over this problem, disgust is an understandable reaction to such ships and everyone should be allowed to detach from a person that posts something they're uncomfortable with for their own mental health! People have a right to not want to engage with such shippers, that doesn't make them fandom crusaders. It is a mistake that might come from someone's exhaustion with actual antis, but respectable personal discomfort is different so let's not jump onto seeing everyone as an enemy! The difference is: do they see their disgust as a personal boundary, or as a sign that you are a harmful monster they should fight?

4) Not all proshippers are innocent. There is a merit on what you could tell about a person based on what they think of fiction and how they judge it. If you want to be sure, you need to look out for the logic someone puts into their ships. For example, if someone simply discusses their pedophilia ship as something messed up yet fascinating for them, or it feels as though they're never focusing on power imbalance and manipulation aspect of it in their fantasy as horror element but instead it is just a matter of fact, or is a survivor that dwells on their trauma this way wishing their groomer was """nicer""" OR went further - they're basically Just A Guy that doesn't engage with fantasies the same way as you do. Like, it is just a guy ok? However, if they go into spiel about how age is just a number or age of consent in other countries or how maturity is psychology and not amount of years lived or how some teens are presumably mature enough to consent *flashback to yandev's suggestion about 'test for ability to consent'* etc etc..... this is probably a freak. You get the principle. If you can't help being suspicious of someone over their dark interests, you need to hear out this person's logic regarding the concept to tell which one they are, instead of assuming everyone is guilty OR everyone is innocent. Trust me, most proshippers absolutely do not want to make actual predators to feel safe in their 'let's ruin some fictional guys' interests circles, not only the trauma survived ones.

5) (STRONG trigger warning for CSA, skip to #6 if anything) Personally: I don't mind most of the incest and abuse ships. I was living under the same father figure's sexual and just emotional abuse (rarer, physical) since age 8-9 and into late teens, and only could do something to get away from him at the age of 20. Somewhere when my puberty started to kick in, I had a dream that I had an older brother and we were living under this hell together, with him protecting me from him at the expense of enduring worse physical abuse... but we were in supportive "relationship" through it. I think it altered something in my brain chemistry, that made me associate incest ships where one sibling cares for the sick/miserable/weak one and protects them, or where they're up against the same hardship or the same bad guy with safety and warmth instead.

As for the abuse ships, again, during puberty I was having guilty thoughts of seeking """consensual""" sex with my stepfather. He was not allowing me to seek a partner of my age on the side, naturally, and I was going rabid. Nonetheless, I had a will of steel and repressed those feelings, never acting on them, for the sake of what very little remained of my ruined pride. But it left me with the interest of what would happen if not, that I can take out on fictional characters (for example, a certain mutual who likes Sulyvahn x Dancer knows what I am talking about :p). If this is something I must uproot from how my brain developed, I'll do it when I am ready and consider it an improvement, and not when some no-life looser online tells me that what I can do with fictional characters somehow makes me as bad as the person who harmed me. 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

5.1) Yes, this does mean that my blog is safe for people who like Lorian and Lothric or Miquella and Malenia or alike popular pairings. I don't really 'see' these ships personally (Aldia and Blind Swordsman are better alternatives respectively sorry lmao) but I did like artworks with them; if not because they are drawn well then as expression of support for people to do what they want. You can tell my contrarian bias is sprouting wonderfully No you did not just hallucinate my like under MalMiq fanart in 4 AM delirium and yes I am aware that I have two mutuals who openly ship it (you girls know who you are)

6) Many people avoid these ships purely based on fear of harassment and not because of genuine conviction. I could make an essay on how Miquella and Radahn is aKtUaLy not incest, but on the first glance it is. And you know what happened in the fandom after Fromsoft "approved of incest relationship in their story"? Right, people who don't mind incest ships or even openly support proshippers or even ship this stuff themselves popped up like mushrooms after the rain!! This should be telling that most people are neutral or even interested, and ALL that holds them back is lack of strong support, but what can be stronger than approval of the creator of the darn thing? If you want to make a change in how people engage with fiction and promote healthier alternatives to problematic ships, you cannot do it through holding the threat of isolation and bullying over their heads. The best way to promote healthier ships is to actually ship them, as well as passionately discuss characters who are popular to put into a problematic ship in healthy non-ship context. I think more people should promote their ideas this way, because being afraid is not being convinced and your "allies against weirdos in the fandom 🥺" WILL backstab you as soon as they feel safe to do so. Sure, I will be laughing at how frail that "allyship" turned out to be when that happens. You won't be laughing, though. Allies that are simply here out of fear of harassment are not allies, so watch your back.

7) The argument about "such fanworks help groomers to fish victims" works in reverse. Many people are convinced that a pedo will grab someone's adult x minor fanfic and go at a kid being like "hey do you want something like this? 👀" or similar stuff.. Usage of fanworks really happens to fuel the dynamic when the victim got already on the hook. And when there are no fanworks, the predator will create or commission such works on their own, initiate RPs and whatnot. However, the way questionable fanworks actually help to create new victims is isolation of the person who enjoys such fanworks. Some person, a minor, enjoys an ship between adult and minor, between siblings or noncon, and their peers start shunning them for it from the fandom. They just happen to have no one to confide in about these interests and no one to talk to. Like I said in previous pointer: if someone has these interests, they will not evaporate with fear, they will just get concealed. That person, bullied for what they like to do with fictional characters, will not """seek therapy""" like antis told them. What they WILL seek tho, is someone, anyone who will listen.

And THIS is where an actual predator lurking on some dumb community Discord server will spot the vulnerable, isolated, lonely minor and chime in like, "damn I like this stuff too, we are against the world, too bad people are so judgemental of us, right? :)". Cult-like shunning creates both victims to get scooped by another cult AND victims of individual predators. No matter how much you or anyone else is uncomfortable with certain fanworks and themes, do not allow this "freak" to fall out of the community. It is dangerous out of the loop.

____________________________

Alright I hope that I've made myself clear on the topic. I've been questioning on whether to add something so personal here or not, but decided to do so. The last time I tried to discuss this topic without showing my own wound, I got yelled at for being insensitive looser who'd speak differently had they experienced anything like that personally, so.... :^) There are times where who is speaking matter. I don't want any pity for my trauma, it's alright, really..

At the same time, if you don't like me after this post you can hardblock or softblock without any grudges from my end (pay close attention to number 3 in this post, making personal boundaries is not the same as being an anti)

[moeblob]

I unfortunately picked up Bravely Default 2 again (I bought it back when it released) and then started over since I last played it in June 2021. And. You know what. I like these silly beans. And then I saw concept art for Dag's expressions and I am not the same. Why did they decide to give him huge fangs in it.

(also I'm trying so hard to avoid spoilers less for plot but more for characters so if you know anything that happens to characters shhhhh. also the expression concept is below the read more so you can see what I mean.)

[historicizing]

from monday and tuesday. JAW didn’t have a lot of carmy’s present-day tattoos on & obviously there’s the slight variation on the classico carmy outfit, all looking like Flashback. but then there was fak and suit era richie and most intriguingly GARRETT. hard to guess what it could mean if they are filming for two seasons at once, but 👀

in case it’s not clear, the person JAW was taking the picture of with crew was courtney storer

[backpackingspace]

Hey this just in? Ptsd sucks balls

[lizardinkart]

I will literally pay anyone who has read “All The Light We Cannot See” for their thoughts on this show. Because I, for one, was skeptical but ok with it until the very end

And oh boy.

That ending!

[thenwethrowitonthefire]

Shout-out to everyone who survived a "fun" easter with the family

[clonerightsagenda]

Speaking of adaptations I will probably watch while in recovery, given it looks like L&Co aged up the characters, I wonder if they adjusted the talent loss timeline or if the characters are that much closer to aging out. Lucy might be ok but hopefully the others are polishing their resumes. Probably not though.

[agentravensong]

post-hamlet thoughts

tl;dr my college did hamlet and i was in it and it was cool

first of all, in case i hadn't made this clear already, this was entirely student-produced. i mean, we got some money from the theater department, but people-wise, it was all students.

i've told the rest of the cast this time and time again, but they're so good. insanely dedicated and humbling in their talent.

our hamlet, horatio, ophelia, and laertes were all freshman, and they were all stellar. ophelia and laertes broke my heart every night in the second half with their anger and their sadness. horatio always brings top energy to scenes and had lots of funny moments (espec counting his doubling as the second gravedigger) but also made me feel things (we staged act 4 scene 6 as him alone on stage reading hamlet's letter to the audience and he killed it every time). and our hamlet was just incredible; a pleasure to act against as guildenstern and a pleasure to watch / listen to in their more emotional scenes.

and everyone else was great too! our polonius was always funny but also had genuine moments of connection with his kids; our cladius brought some great depth to the role (his take on the monologue in act 3 scene 3 was great) while still being despicable, especially in his manipulation of laertes; our gertrude brought our director's take on her to life impeccably; and, of course, i had a wonderful and hilarious partner in our rosencrantz :)

not to mention our quartet of players (who also filled out the other miscellaneous roles) who had a ton of great moments. shout-outs in particular to the guy who doubled as the first gravedigger and sang his sung lines as a sea shanty (honestly, i think he could have been a great guildenstern or rosencrantz in another universe).

the crew, of course, was also amazing. there were like 150 cues? my friend (the writer i mentioned in this post) did a fantastic job with the lights. the people behind the staging and makeup did just as well. and the costumes were so fun! everyone looked great; we had a consistent black-white-red-brown color palette that tied it all together. special shout-out to the player king wearing a white shirt with a black cape while cladius wore a zipped-up leather jacket and a white cape.

oh, and me and ros? we got fedoras :) i may share a photo later. maybe.

we did our show in the college black box theater (inside the fine arts building), which i do not currently have the brain cells to try and explain the layout of. it's a kind of weird space, but i think we made the most of it. for the majority of the show i was off stage left, meaning i was hanging out at the top of the stairs which serve as the main entrance and exit to the theater (sitting/standing where i couldn't be seen by the audience obv). you can't really see the stage at all from there but you sure can hear the actors, and by the time of the show that was (mostly) enough for me.

as far as how the actual shows went?

friday was our most engaged audience. their laughter was greatly appreciated in the early scenes ...slightly less so when everyone was dying in the final scene. i mean, i get it, people start dropping like flies and actually foaming at the mouth and spitting out (fake) blood; it's a lot. i applaud hamlet and horatio for staying in character through it. everyone did a great job that night; it was probably better than all our dress rehearsals as a whole.

saturday, at least from my pov, had kind of weird vibes at the start? i don't know how much of it was people getting to bed late the previous night, how much of it was overconfidence, and how much of it was people getting in their own heads, but it was our lowest energy show. the audience wasn't as audibly engaged either, but they did give us a big applause. i felt more good than bad about it by the end, for sure.

especially in retrospect, because, despite us having a smaller crowd at today's matinee, everyone was back on the ball. the ending in particular i think was the best we've ever done it. it was probably my best performance as well.

to be clear, i wouldn't rate any of our three shows below an 8 out of 10, for what that's worth. everyone gave so much to their performances; the funny bits were funny even when the audience didn't seem to think so, and i was always getting caught up in my feelings in the second act. you can't ask for much more than that.

now, here's a compilation of things from the production in no real order:

i already posted about this, but having the blood stains on stage where people die from the beginning of every show? *chef's kiss*

i'll also restate the thing i mentioned in the tags of that post: characters who were murderers had symbolic blood makeup after they killed someone. cladius had a bloody ear from the start of the show, the meaning of which becomes clear once you see the player king get poison poured in his ears; hamlet got blood on their face during intermission that's meant to be polonius's blood; and, arguably most significantly, gertrude had bloody handprints around her neck when she entered at the end of act 4, which, in addition to her hair and arms being dripping wet, is meant to suggest that the story she tells about ophelia's death is, in fact, a cover for something less accidental.

as mentioned above, our director's take on gertrude in general was, from my understanding, pretty different from the standard. to quote from his character spines, "you fundamentally want to prepare your son hamlet to be king; you are playing essentially a game of chess to do so." it was really compelling to see in action. the way she performed act 4 scene 7? chilling.

speaking of those character spines, the first line of horatio's is literally just, "You are in love with Hamlet." and boy howdy did that come through

prime example of that (other than just, all of his and hamlet's interactions, which were wonderful): when horatio finished reading the letter from hamlet, he sniffed it, in a very sweet and very not-platonic way

it was an unintentional running gag throughout the whole process that other cast members would forget between ros and me which character we were playing - to the point that every performance, when hamlet first greeted us, even though i would get to them first, they addressed me first, and it's written that they say my name first, they would call me rosencrantz and our ros guildenstern. ...someone should write a play about that.

i might have posted about this already, but in ros and i's first scene with hamlet, when the two of them start talking about child actors, hamlet made us sit in the thrones, and we would make moves to leave of varying boldness that they, of course, never let us follow through on. this then got basically repeated in act 3 scene 2 except that horatio got to join in on the fun of relentlessly mocking us

(the thing where hamlet handed me their copy of william shakespeare's complete works while they dud the "what is a man" mimi monologue got dropped at some point in the dress rehearsals, unfortunately. they did flip through it with the players though)

during the play within a play, polonius would keep falling asleep and ros and i would keep waking him up

(we also got to do some fun silent banter back in act 2 scene 2 while hamlet and the players were doing their thing)

then the bit after that with the recorders, aka guildenstern's defining moment, was just so fun. hamlet and horatio basically sandwiched ros and me between the two of them, and hamlet and i played off each other very well (at least imo), and though i couldn't see what horatio and ros were doing behind me i know that it got some good laughs. and i could tell every night that the scene landed despite the shakespearean language barrier, so i can't help but be satisfied.

my other best moment was when the king told me to go get polonius's body from the stairs and i got to slump and make a "do i have to?" face before my (final) exit. i managed to actually get some chuckles from that tonight, from the crowd that, again, laughed the least in general, and i can't put into words how euphoric i was to have that be my last moment playing guildenstern.

from the rest of the second half of the show, which i am not in, i will highlight a) the gravedigger eventually realizing after shoveling for minutes on end that he's been shoveling literally nothing (love me a good little fourth wall break) and b) when hamlet and laertes come to physical blows over ophelia, horatio, on his line, steps between them, draws laertes's sword, and takes a stance pointing it at laertes to hold him off, all in basically one glorious motion.

oh, and the ending, of course.

as i alluded to way earlier, we had fake blood and alka-seltzer tablets that the people who died in act 5 scene 2 used to great effect (particularly the people who died via poison)

speaking of that scene, the sword fight was very neat! well-choreographed and well-enacted. real foils btw

and the way hamlet and horatio performed the ending? more than anything, the way hamlet said "give me the cup; let go!" - that shit hurt, in the best way, every night. (and though hamlet died in the king's throne (with the king's crown on), horatio held / clung to them the whole damn time)

for a lighter final note: our polonius doubled as fortinbras and came on at the ending in this huge, heavy, vampire-ass cloak, accompanied by our director as the messenger from england who announces my and ros's death :)

thankfully, we did record our last dress rehearsal, so we do have a version of it that we'll get to watch back in the future. i won't be able to share it with any of y'all (we will apparently be in BIG trouble if we post it anywhere online) but it'll be nice to have for me.

funny thing that happened while i was typing this long-ass post out: i kept using present tense and then realizing i had to change it to past tense. and by "funny" here, i mean, uh... oof.

we never got a perfect run-through where no lines were skipped over, but, i mean, it's fucking hamlet. we did this shit in like a month and a half (with a week lost to spring break); it's more than impressive that the show turned out how it did. it was a group labor of love, and one of the best things i've ever gotten to be a part of.

and i miss it already.

...at least there's movie night on tuesday :)

[theendofmybody]

once again can't sleep because I'm thinking of all the ways the x files could have been a better show. alas

[krawdad]

I get that they probably are trying to make the gigantic robot lizard as unscary as possible but who's idea was it to give the alligator fuzzy fleece skin

There isn't a closeup where it's still enough to be sure but that sure looks like puppet/mascot suit fleece to me.

Also since I'm here it looks cool without its skin

Imagineer for scale

[the-cooler-king]

One of those texts I kind of need to sit on before I decide how I'm going to word it.

I never know how to start these, but I always have an idea on what to say. Your opinion of me actually matters a lot & the implication that you believe that I lie to you or I'm not doing enough is kinda hurtful. It comes across to me like my effort is worthless to you & that what I want doesn't matter at all. I wouldn't bring it up if I didn't think you cared, and I know you're going through a lot and shouldn't have to worry about me, but I'm getting mixed signals that are really throwing me off. What do you want from me? Am I asking too much of you and you don't know how to tell me? I sincerely want to be there for you, regardless of what it looks like to get to that point, but if you don't want me there you can tell me! What you want matters just as much, if not more, to me. I'm not the kind of person to be hostile about things if they don't work out. I don't want to be another source of stress or negativity for you, and I don't want you to be afraid of being honest with me. I constantly question if you're just too nice to tell me you aren't interested anymore, and even if you are, I might need more reassurance than you can give me because I don't think I'm very worth it to anyone for anything. If you don't think I'm trying hard enough then tell me what I need to do to change that! I'm at the point of just not knowing what I bring to your life, if anything at all. You don't need to deal with me on top of everything else, so, I'm sorry for this. Even if you don't text me back I'll feel better once I get it out there. The only thing I've ever been afraid of is not communicating exactly how much I care about you & how much you mean to me - even if it doesn't matter to you, or you don't believe me. If there comes a day where we aren't in each other's lives anymore for whatever reason, I don't want either of us to question what could've been said or done differently or regret not doing more.

[mylittleredgirl]

i keep thinking i have filtered every possible thing to avoid picard spoilers and commentary, but my friends, y'all seem to be working very hard to post without spelling out even a single character's name

[haberdashing]

Proof that I've internalized my role in the legal field: I'm playing a casual mobile game and keep wanting to object to the legal system's portrayal within the game

[toytulini]

idk. picky eater rights. im coming to your events and turning my picky bitch nose up at your fancy ass desserts you spent a bajillion hours working over in the kitchen and asking if i can find like a basic ass brownie with no extra flairs or ingredients or steps or whatever the fuck. cry about it. stop trying to feed me