#spring offensive

[highlordofkrypton]

since maple syrup is harvested in spring, and Tamlin is the local tree-whisperer, do you think the trees just act super professional when the spouts are inserted into them or do they just "yamete Tamlin-san!!!" 😩🫦💦

[captain-price-unofficially]

The Third Battle of the Aisne. French Renault FT tanks being transported on motor wagons at La Ferte-Milon, May-June 1918.

[televisionlassie]

Love that Joe Locke found the role that he plays best so early in his career: depressed gay

[avpdvoidspace]

One of the worst parts of having SAD in summer is that all of the posts of people celebrating longer days, warmer weather, and the coming of spring feeling like they're rubbing it in your face that you're about to have the worst time of your year and things aren't going to get better any time soon. Like I wish I could be happy for people whose SAD is coming to an end but it feels like it's coming at my expense and I need space to be pissed off and bitter about it.

[bestfattsong]

ROUND 1, BRANCH C, SEVENTH POLL

[thedreadvampy]

btw about Neil Gaiman I periodically agree with the 'Neil Gaiman is annoying' stuff bc I feel like both he and Amanda Palmer seem like people who I would go insane stuck in a room with bc we have very different ideas about art and suchlike. and I also do think that the career trajectory he's on lately is cynically redoing his greatest hits and pretending that was the dream all along when it clearly was not. which is at best meh.

having said which

as far as I can tell by far the most common complaint about Neil Gaiman is "Snow, Glass, Apples is problematic/gross/it's got incest and rape and frames the child as the aggressor"

which strikes me as a weird complaint to pull out of a 40 year body of work tbh when that short story is pretty clearly coming from a place of 'how far can I push this'. like you don't have to like the story. I don't really like the story. but it is. a horror story.

like and this is the thing with particularly 90s alt horror right? a lot of the interest is in transgression and sitting in the worst possible perspective and seeing what happens if you pull those strings. like I really like Clive Barker for example but there's a good chunk of his short stories that I'm like I'm not picking up what you're putting down Clive this seems Kinda Off. but that willingness to write some trite or Bad Message horror fiction that doesn't land is imo a side effect of being willing to try writing uncomfortable and unpleasant fiction at all. which is what horror is for, among other things, it's for creating discomfort as a form of catharsis or engagement.

like I am not a huge fan of the type of sex-horror that pops up in a lot of Gaiman's work and other contemporary horror writers - to me I don't find it upsetting or horny it just ends up feeling kind of edgy and tryhard - but I'm also a bit like. it does seem like a lot of people's beef with Neil Gaiman is that In The 90s He Was A Horror Writer

and this approach to Problematic Horror in Snow, Glass, Apples I find kind of microcosmic of how The Discourse often approaches art in this kind of 1:1 way. if you write a story which seems to line up with rape apologia it can only be because you agree with it. if you write a story about transphobia you're a transphobe. if you write a story that makes me genuinely uncomfortable you're attacking me.

but artwork, especially art like horror that's not necessarily trying to provoke enjoyment as its main response, is necessarily hit and miss. and if what you're shooting for is discomfort then whether it works, falls flat or goes too far incredibly depends on your audience. and making good art - as in art that makes its audience think, art that opens the audience up to discomfort and catharsis and sticks with them and changes them - requires the space to experiment and tbh the space to fuck up. like they aren't all going to be winners and they certainly aren't all going to work for you as a singular audience.

personally I don't see the appeal of Snow, Glass, Apples, less cause it's nasty and more cause it's hack. ooh an edgy monstrous version of a fairy tale where there's lots of rape and cannibalism? you're soooo original Neil. but like. that's fine. I don't really vibe with like 70% of Neil Gaiman stuff I've read but I still like Neil Gaiman because the stuff that works for me really works for me.

idk I think there's a lot of folk on this website who shouldn't interact with horror cause they clearly aren't interested in being horrified. that's not everyone who dislikes Snow, Glass, Apples, but it's a real undercurrent to a lot of the criticism and tbh this kinda vibe is shit for art. making standout art What Is Good also requires being ready to make art which stands out for the wrong reasons. sometimes they'll be the same art to different people.

[scrapironflotilla]

Two sights remain vividly in my mind. One was our chief clerk, the worthy Mr Marshall, sitting on his typewriter with a rifle across his knees, supported by an aged gentleman in khaki, one of the Quartermaster's clerks who wouldn’t have hurt a fly, armed with two revolvers. Both of these worthies were prepared to sell their lives as dearly as possible in defence of of the divisional office and officer’s mess, and both would have been of the greatest danger to all but the Huns, for to them the pen was mightier than the sword, and neither were skilled in the use of lethal weapons!

LtCol Arthur Floyer-Acland, a staff officer in the 41st Division, reflecting on the German offensive in March 1918 and fear it caused behind the British lines.

[walker-lister]

I just have to remind myself sometimes that no matter what anyone else says, the way a piece of media makes me feel and the positive impact it has had on my queer identity is valid, and that tearing myself apart thinking I have to defend it or questioning my own place within queer communities is not at all important when compared to the almost tangible sense of 'rightness' that piece of media helped me to feel about myself.

[queercontrarian]

summer solstice

lucien celebrating summer solstice in the spring court

[drluciengaudet]

Roleplay: French Maid

"Really...really."

[travisdermotts]

if ernie doesn't make the opening day roster I'll riot

[captain-price-unofficially]

Men of 10th Battalion, The Queen's (Royal West Surrey Regiment) of the 41st Division behind a wire "block" on a road at St. Jean. April 29, 1918.

[cidnangarlond]

wanting to write a story out of a dream I had but it's really just american "battle royale"

[the-physicality]

.

[peachypizzicato]

Do you know if the Devs that made the Arcana with all the mistakes are the same that are doing Touchstarved now? I don't remember if they are all the same but if yes it means the new game will have all the same problems with not caring how they present characters

hey anon, great question!

to be completely honest, i don’t remember the details. i know the names of some of the most notorious writers and devs but i haven’t yet seen who’s working on touchstarved so i can’t say for sure

either way you’re absolutely right. i really honestly don’t have hope for ts and i haven’t ever since they revealed the characters. not only are there no female or even feminine presenting love interests AND extremely little diversity in design (hooray four more of the same fucking tall broad-shouldered relatively-thin-man shape /s), but they reuse some of the same character beats from the arcana without the charm. the short one is just twink muriel. go look at the bios n shit, they are.

frankly whether the same people who demonstrably fucked up the arcana are on touchstarved or not, i’m not paying much mind to it. its another cookie cutter all-male/masc love interest otome game very likely made by the same ignorant fujoshis. i’m gettin too old for this shit lmao

[tauforged]

i’m gonna mooch off these fuckers as long as i can because SOMEONE has to pay up for the several years when they slipped medication into applesauce and water bottles all throughout elementary school instead of telling me id been diagnosed with adhd and did untold damage to my ability to trust and eat/drink around other people. and also probably my developing brain considering i don’t even know what med i was on because they stopped after it got RECALLED 😭😭