#that’s more than I’ve written in the past 2 years combined

[the-maladjustedjester]

Once I get back on my antidepressants if I stop constantly thinking about Richard Maxwell I’ll just have to accept that default-brain me experiences the worst most embarrassing form of religious trauma-responses in the entire history of existence

[miviaceleste]

A Blackrock Story: A Boy with Turquoise Eyes

Happy 12th Anniversary to Blackrock Chronicle!

This comic ended up being 47 pages long (when I first sketched it, it was only 20 pages long). Since I can only upload 30 images in a post, I had to combine 2 pages into 1 image so hopefully it's still visually fine and not annoying to scroll through!

I wrote this mini-story more than 10 years ago, so I figured it was time to finally make it into a comic (after editing the writing a lot because I became a much better writer since lol).

Be aware of the TWs, and I hope you enjoy this comic!

TW: Violence || Blood || Injuries/Scars/Burn Marks || Kidnapping || (Temporary) Death || Loss of Limb / Amputation

Thank you all for reading one of my most insane projects ever!

Now, here’s another long story:

About 8 years ago, my life became so busy that to stay on top of my studies and activities, I stopped watching a lot of YouTubers, including the Yogscast.

I’ve grown up throughout the years. I had to stop acting like a kid to figure out what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I’m still an artist today, but I haven’t drawn in this way for about 3 years to pursue my real passion. I love to draw, but I didn’t have the time or inspiration to make something grand.

About 3 months ago, I suddenly got curious about how all those YouTubers I stopped watching were doing, so I checked out their channels and watched a video or two before moving on. When I got to the Yogscast channel, on the other hand, I quickly fell in love with the new content and with everyone again.

It was insane to see how immediately my love for them came back. In 3 months, I’ve watched so many videos and streams/VODs. It’s all so comforting, funny, and uplifting. Clearly, I missed so much content in the past 8 years, but at least I don’t have to worry about running out of things to watch for a while.

What made me most happy was that despite changing a lot, I never stopped being that kid who laughed at the Yogscast’s shenanigans. It just goes to show that no matter how much the world tries to push you around, you never lose that sense of joy you had as a child.

Now, about Rythian:

Since I started watching the Yogscast in 2011, Rythian has always been my favorite. I loved his series so much, especially with how he got into character to give us an immersive experience. It was an escape for me as a kid. When difficult moments were thrown at me, I watched Rythian’s series to find a sense of comfort.

So when I started watching his and Zoey’s Blackrock series, my mind was blown. The storytelling, acting, humor, and drama of the series were so immersive and touching that my creativity exploded.

I mainly use art to express myself and my interests because I struggle to talk about it. But funny enough, Blackrock was the only interest of mine that got me to not draw, but to write. I wrote a lot of short stories about the series—even how I envisioned the series would end. I was so inspired to create all the time from this series.

And what’s crazy is that at the beginning of this summer, I found all of those written drafts and notes from when I was a kid. I kept them all for 10+ years and found a very loose (and not that good) draft of this comic and I felt really inspired to finish it.

It was roughly when I was first watching Blackrock too when I realized that I can be creative in the future. The Yogscast helped me understand that I can do whatever I want for the rest of my life. If they could do it, then why can’t I?

What’s also wonderful is that even after so many years, Rythian never stopped being my favorite. When I started watching the main channel again a few months ago, I immediately found myself rooting for him whenever he was in the group videos. I just remembered how much happiness he brought me when I was younger and it makes me so happy that I still get so much joy whenever I hear his voice.

While working on this comic, I watched all of Kirbycraft and caught up on Kirby Farm. I can’t help but smile the whole time Rythian, Briony, and Kirsty interact with one another. The dynamic of these three brings me so much laughter and comfort. A part of me is upset that I didn’t get back to watching everyone when Kirbycraft was still live, but better late than never, right?

I also originally started this comic without the intention of posting it. But then I figured, Hey, it’d be great to share it with everyone who’s also been impacted by this series and the Yogscast in general, so I made this blog to post it here. Honestly, I’m not sure when the next time I’ll be able to draw is (who knew building a career takes away a lot of your energy and time?). But I think that’s what’s so wonderful about my love for Yogscast and particularly Blackrock: I didn’t make this comic for the likes or views. It was just because I wanted to, and I’m so happy to see there are so many people on here who feel the same love for them as I do.

This series and the people who made it, along with the people who supported it and loved it and continued to love it, impacted me for the better. I learned so many years ago that I can be creative for a living, and have been working hard towards doing that since.

Happy 12th Anniversary to the Blackrock Chronicle. To Rythian and Zoey who put a smile on this kid’s face even during the toughest of times.

And to the Yogscast, thank you for being there for me when I needed you all the most and for still being here when I came back. Your ability to inspire me and make me laugh never disappeared throughout the years I was gone, and I’m ready to laugh some more.

[mythserene]

A BEATLE DIDN’T SAY THAT! Lewisohn’s lab-created quotes

“One of the things about this book that is a strength is it’s not me saying anything, it’s them or other people. I shape the text, I plot where it goes, I weave it, but the quotes are theirs. And so when I’ve got Paul McCartney behaving in a way some readers might think, ‘Whatever, oh dear,’ it’s actually him saying it. So you end up thinking that to his own credit he said that. It’s not me saying it.” (Mark Lewisohn, ‘Noted,’ (October 7, 2013) Somerset, Guy.)

This is hella long, and that's because it's actually a full blog post. (In case you want it in a less monstrous form.)

A lot of people for a long time have put a lot of trust in Mark Lewisohn’s footnotes. Or at least in the fact of those footnotes. Because once you dig through them for any length of time you quickly discover that Mark Lewisohn’s footnotes hold secrets that would get him expelled from any undergraduate program. They reveal a “history” often contrived through a mass of Frankenquotes, ala carte creations, Lewisohn rephrased ‘paraphrases,’ and worse. For some parts of the narrative things aren’t too bad, yet in others monsters lurk around every corner. But this is not the sort of thing that’s graded on a curve, and it is past time to have a conversation about what standards should be accepted in Beatles’ scholarship.

Lewisohn lists his sources unlike most others. And his footnotes alone are more insightful than some other writers’ books. (Reddit, r/beatles)

I do not judge footnotes based on their insightfulness, nor do I want to single out a redditor, but I grabbed the comment because it’s an opinion that is widely shared and even accepted as canon. At least by people who have not combed those freakish footnotes. And while the pages of piled up sources do look fearsome en masse, a closer inspection reveals an offense to the truth, a threat to the record, and a blight on Beatles’ historiography.

“The rules for writing history are obvious. Who does not perceive that its chief law is never to dare say anything false, and never dare withhold anything true? The slightest suspicion of hatred or favor must be avoided. That such should be the foundations is known to all; the materials with which the building will be raised consist of facts and words.” –Cicero

A Look at Lewisohn’s Lab-created Frankenquotes

FIRST, WHAT ARE QUOTES? AND WHY ARE QUOTES?

Quotes are the soul and center of recorded—and recording— history.

And the rules around quotes and quotation marks are pretty simple. Most people, even if they’ve never written anything beyond a term paper, understand what quotation marks represent.

A set of quotation marks means, “This person said or wrote ‘these exact words’ at some given time.” You can smash a quote from two hours before or two years before right up against a separate quote to make your point—although it might get your grade lowered—but what you cannot do is take two different statements from two different times and make them seem like they are one statement.

When you put words inside one set of quotation marks you are stating, in black and white, that the identified person made this statement. That they said all those words together—or if you want to excise a reasonable part and use ellipses to represent that— as part of the same statement.

Look, combining two separate quotes that are not part of the same thought or topic is not a subjective issue. It is not an issue of controversy. Quotes are the bone marrow of written history. Quotes are the alpha and omega. In academic work or journalism they have to be, which makes sense as soon as you think about it. If it was cool for me to take a transcript and grab half a sentence from page 2 and half a sentence from page 17, push them together as if those words were spoken one after the other in a single thought, I bet I can manage to get those words to say almost anything I want.

Separate thoughts must be in two separate quotation marks. Separate. Somewhere between four sentences and a paragraph is widely accepted as the “two separate quotes” line, and there can be some ethical and technical wiggle room in a long rant by a person, but what makes all that subjective nonsense go out the window is if the quotes come from two separate questions. Or two separate days. That’s two quotes. Not hard.

Which again, makes sense if the point is conveying information to the reader and lessening the chance of a writer manipulating someone else’s words to express something that the person didn’t mean.

This is the contract inherent in a quote. These are the rules we all agree to and understand, and these are the reasons why. And there’s no reason to break them.

Why do you want me to believe that John said these two things at one time? What was wrong with what he did say?

THE FOUR MOST COMMON WAYS MARK LEWISOHN MAULS THE MEANING OF THE QUOTE:

The Basic Lewisohn Frankenquote 🧟‍♂️

(“CONCLUDING FIVE WORDS FROM—” – I cannot even see the point of this THREE PART monster. Full footnote reads: 9) Author interview with Tony Meehan, September 6, 1995. (“I met George again in 1968 and for some reason he was harboring a grudge against me. He was very, very uptight about it—’You blocked us getting a recording contract …’ ”) First part of George quote from interview by Terry David Mulligan, The Great Canadian Gold Rush, CBC radio, May 30 and June 6, 1977; concluding five words from interview for The Beatles Anthology)

This three-headed monster attributed to George Harrison is a very dull little guy. Not particularly venomous. Just convenient, I guess. For whatever reason, Mark Lewisohn decided it was worth rummaging through the quote buffet until he collected enough pieces for George Harrison to say this thing. “…concluding five words from…” What are we even doing here? No, really. Please tell me.

And like a lot of the footnotes for these bespoke quotations, there are further problems. “[F]rom interview for Beatles Anthology”? An interview that aired? In one of the episodes? Can you narrow it down? I guess I’ll just have to listen very closely to them all and hope I don’t miss the five words.

But if we got bogged down in the sorts of trivial details that would immediately lose a college student a letter grade off a History 101 paper we would never get anywhere. We have to stick to the violent felonies.

*Love the "George would say——" Uh, would he? Well, I guess after all that trouble you went to, he would now. It's really incredible how cavalier Lewisohn is about a Beatle's words.

These sorts of reconstituted, lab-engineered, made up “quotes” are shot throughout Tune In. “Quotes” made up of words from two, three, and even four sources, spoken months or often years apart.

Ala Carte Creations 🍱

It really is a buffet, and these ala carte creations come in all shapes and sizes. They might just be words that have been plucked up and glued back together to make something more useful to a particular narrative. (Ellipses or dash optional.)

TUNE IN: “John saw a bigger picture, and it would be surprising if it wasn’t equally obvious, or made obvious, to Brian and George. He likened Paul’s enduring snag with Brian to his other long-standing difficulty: ‘[Brian] and Paul didn’t get along—it was a bit like [Stuart and Paul] between the two of them.’” (Footnote 37: Interview by Peter McCabe and Robert D. Schonfeld, September 1971)

Bonus 🍒 Phoebe's dramatic reading of John's original quote:

The Donut 🍩

Then there are a seemingly uncountable number of “quotes” with a sentence or three ripped out from the middle, but with zero representation that more words were ever there. (And in most of these particular deceptions, the simple representation of something excised (. . .) would make the quote fine. There are a lot of these, but they are also the easiest to fix.)

Chapter 10: “I was in a sort of blind rage for two years. [I was e]ither drunk or fighting. **It had been the same with other girlfriends I’d had.** There was something the matter with me.”

And then there are the true buffet bonanzas, words lifted and twisted beyond recognition until they say something brand spanking new. 

However, John remembered Paul’s attitude to Brian being very different. John was always emphatic that Paul didn’t want Brian as the Beatles’ manager and presented obstacles to destabilize him, to make his job difficult … like turning up late for meetings. “Three of us chose Epstein. Paul used to sulk and God knows what … [Paul] wasn’t that keen [on Brian]—he’s more conservative, the way he approaches things. He even says that: it’s nothing he denies.”

The Lewisohn Remixes 🍸

And then there are the “paraphrases.” I couldn’t even begin to guess how many of these there are, and often they aren’t even paraphrases, but whole new Mark Lewisohn re-interpretations with quotation marks slapped around them. But if you don’t check, you probably won’t know, because like this Lewisohn rewrite of a well-known Mrs. Harrison quote, there’s a good chance you’ll recognize the bulk of it, making it less likely that you’ll catch the scalpel work excising Paul. And while I don’t want to get caught in the nooks and crannies of intent in an example like this one I have to say, just this once, that what has to be a purposeful excising of Paul to create a slightly new quote on one side, combined with a badly acted, bad faith—(or bad scholar)—“Where was Paul when John’s mom died?” on the other, is par for the course. 

George Harrison’s mom’s made up Lewisohn rephrase which coincidentally removes Paul from the imagery.]  ❦  LEWISOHN:“ Asked some years later to describe how he’d been able to help John cope with the loss of Julia, Paul could remember nothing of the period at all. It could be they didn’t see much of each other in the summer of 1958. John was working at the airport, and Paul and George went on holiday together—adventurous for boys of 16 and 15. But Louise Harrison would recall how she encouraged George to visit John at Mendips, “so he wouldn’t be alone with his thoughts.”  ❦  DAVIES: “They were still practicing a lot at George’s house, the only house where they got endless hospitality and encouragement. . . . I forced George to go round and see him, to make sure he still went off playing in their group and just didn’t sit and brood. They all went through a lot together, even in those early days, and they always helped each other.”

Why do you have to slice and dice and reconstitute people’s words? No writer, and certainly no historian, should ever feel empowered to take words from a historical figure from two or three different places and topics and times, splice them together, and tell us, “Winston Churchill said this.” No he didn’t! Why are you so intent on changing the words of the people you’re writing about? What’s wrong with just using two different quotes? 

You cannot take two or three quotes from two or three or even four separate statements, stick them between one set of quotation marks and say John or Paul or George or Joe Smith said this. 

No they didn’t. They never said that. Why do you want me to think they did?? 

All these words are Abraham Lincoln’s, but this is not a Lincoln quote:

“Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of — making a most discreditable exhibition of myself.” 

(I kept it ridiculous, although I didn’t have to.)

But I want you, the reader, to be saying to yourself, “Okay, enough already. I get it!” Because in the last few days I have wandered too far into the weeds too many times and written far too many words detailing the multiplicity of ways Mr. Lewisohn does violence to each and every law of reporting historical facts, and could write many more. And I will post a more detailed list of the crimes against the quote that I am charging Mark Lewisohn with as we go forward, but I don’t think we need that now. The fact is that every fair-minded person knows what quotation marks represent, and there is no more fair-minded group of people than serious Beatles fans and scholars. And it is those fair-minded scholars who I want most to hear me. Whether you’ve written books or host a podcast or just know that you know a whole lot of stuff and take seriously your part of the trust in preserving the truth about The Beatles for us and future generations, it is you I am really talking to. My Cicero quoting-freaks. The ones who care about getting it right.

“The chief, the only, aim of style is to put facts in a clear light, with no concealment.” - Lucian of Samosata

⁠What footnotes can do, and what footnotes can’t.

You can list multiple sources in a single footnote. That’s not only fine, it’s correct. If I want to tell part of a story based on several sources, that often means several sources in a footnote. But not for one, single quote. 

The problem isn’t the footnote, it’s the bioengineered quote on the page that you swept under a footnote hoping I wouldn’t notice. 

Which leads us to what a footnote is not. A footnote is not a post-hoc fixative for your textual sins. You cannot do whatever you want as long as you confess it in a footnote. A footnote is not a magic spell. A footnote is not the universally understood symbol for “I have my fingers crossed behind my back.” You cannot fix lies and misrepresentations in the footnotes. Footnotes aren’t for trying to chase down three different sources to match up which part of a manufactured “quote” someone said on which date. Footnotes are not the picture on the front of a puzzle box. I should not need to find corner pieces to figure out which of these George Harrison words were actually spoken together. 

Footnotes are a truthful and independently verifiable record of primary sources. It’s that simple.

And taking Mark Lewisohn completely out of the picture for a moment, I feel sure we can all agree that neither John Lennon nor Paul McCartney nor George Harrison nor Ritchie Starkey would want anyone rearranging their words as if they were guitar chords. You wouldn’t take three-quarters of Penny Lane and one-quarter of Across the Universe, put them together and call it a Beatles‘ song. So don’t take three quarters of John to Jann Wenner and one-quarter of John to Lisa Robinson, put them together and call it a Beatle’s quote.

MY PERSONAL STANDARD IS THAT IF SOMEONE REPRESENTS, “A BEATLE SAID THIS,” IT BETTER DAMN WELL BE SOMETHING A BEATLE SAID.

None of the Beatles, dead or alive, would be cool with their words being taken out of context at all, let alone two or three different statements on god knows what being combined into one. This isn’t hard, though. Use two or three separate quotation marks, and don’t take statements out of context. Don’t mix and match their words, but don’t twist them, either. If a person said something, it is the historian’s duty to represent those words to the best of your ability, and then use them to tell a factual story focused on what you feel is important. Staying true to the original words and true to their meaning. If you can’t use those words without twisting them, then change your story to fit their words, not the other way around. If their statement helps tell the story your way, use it! For goodness sake, John Lennon said at least two opposing things about almost every topic on earth, so there should be enough to choose from without being deceptive. I actually want the truth. Don’t you?

Biography is story based around accurately represented, trustworthy and verifiable facts. And look, Beatles fans, whoever your favorite is: we are not going to get the truth about his history if we don’t learn to take these things seriously. Let’s have—if not high standards—at least the lowest generally accepted standards. In the mid-term we need a lot more Beatles scholars with a lot more points of view, and now—right now—we need experienced Beatles scholars to prioritize searching out and finding smart, interested people to mentor. And we simply must ensure that we aren’t allowing to solidify into stone “facts” that are not facts and statements no one ever made. I don’t think any honest Beatles fan—(which rounds up to all of them)—wants any question around that issue.

The record is the most important thing. Now, and always. This is not about John versus Paul. John versus Paul may live on always in our hearts, but for Beatles history, it’s the wrong question. I’d rather someone be up front about their loves, but in the end the focus should be on representing the primary facts in their most pristine form. Love who you love most, but place truth above all. Pristine facts. Pristine quotes. Nothing hidden. Nothing misrepresented. 

Let the historical actors speak for themselves. That is their right.

And the historian’s duty.

NEXT, WE DISSECT A MONSTER.

Final note: I became frustrated and (maybe strangely) offended by Lewisohn's obscene pretenses in 2020, but my frustrations were nebulous and unfocused until this incredible AKOM series. I feel much better now. Angrier. But better. They worked their asses off. 🥂

[goddamnwebcomics]

Ranked from Best to Worst: Webcomics of Goddamn Webcomics (2024 Edition)

It has been a year since I started riffing the new batch of comics at hand, and 15 months since I made this previous ranking, so it's about time it got updated again. This time, if I have nothing new to add to a comic's description, it has been italicised.

0. Gene Catlow

When I added Gene Catlow to the ranking, I thought there was nothing like it on this blog and is thus unrankable. One year later, I have been mostly proven right. I still hate how terrible the pacing for this comic was in its later years, and honestly outside of Burke and Sulfur this comic's ending is hard to get through. I think the biggest strength this comic has over any other comic is the emotional versatility. Yes, it's not perfect and can often get extremely tonally inconsistent. I still recommend for people to read it, but if you skip every page after Dorzoi dies outside of Burke and Sulfur pages, I don't blame you.

1. Alien Dice

Alien Dice is still the best comic quality-wise I've read. I would actually argue it does the emotional versatility much better than Gene Catlow does, despite its VERY grimdark setting, which is impressive. Still, it has the occasional inconsistent characterization, it has the ANIMAL ROMANCE, it has the terribly written villains, it has Riley. Chel has gotten some competition with likable protagonists, but still doesn't change the fact Chel and Lexx are the only likable main protagonist couple in this blog.

2. Peter & Company

Some people may be upset by this ranking, but it speaks more about the quality of the shit I riff on this blog than the comic itself. Peter & Company does the bare minimum to not be bad. It has some really good dramatic scenes and decent art, but it's flaws are as hard to ignore as the cameos in the latter half of the comic. Combine that with some of the worst explained worldbuilding in this blog, and I don't see another decent by this blog's standards comic going below this.

3. Daisy Falls Apart

Daisy Falls Apart is a parody comic that doesn’t exactly break new ground. It’s harmless but I wouldn’t read it a second time. It’s held down by its horribly unlikable protagonist and how the whole conflict of the comic is very quickly resolved, and also too many sexual jokes in something that is based on a children’s game. Out of all the comics I’ve riffed, this one is the most mediocre, and number 3 meaning mediocre should worry you.

4. Dominic Deegan

You might be shocked to see Dominic Deegan this high up, yeah, if I did this few months earlier it would be much lower, but recently Dominic Deegan has gone through colossal improvement. However, it still has the existing problems, and especially in its past it has been rather terrible. Still, Dominic does have the credit of being an interesting case as a protagonist. He is not likeable but he is not that hateable either, because he is not a horrible person. You hate because of what a saint he is to the comic's world, not because of what he does. Still, the painful lack of nuance in its commentary can make it a cringy read, its tone is all over the place and comedy isn't as funny as some of the above comics.

5. Carnivores

This comic was originally a painful experience, but so many painful experiences came after it, it feels like one of the less worse ones despite having the worst art. Also i can tell Austin did this comic for fun, and not to convey a deep message. Also it’s probably the only fetish webcomic in history where fetish itself starts taking a backseat halfway through.

6. Bloody Mary

Bloody Mary satisfies your specific hunger for Johnny Test characters commiting several crimes in rapid succession. Reading the comic both entertains me immensely but it also makes me feel dirty. The crossover stuff is there to please the author and not really provide any point. It is unique in that the comic doesn’t feature a full cast ensemble but it’s rather just focusing on Mary ruining people’s lives and interacting some random character from a North American animated thing. The only reason it’s below Carnivores is the suspicious amount of unintentional racism???

7. Warmage

Warmage is enjoyable for all the wrong reasons. None of Dumok’s other comics have gone to the same level of bizarreness Warmage offers with each page. However it is also the host to the long-since-dethroned worst character to ever appear in this blog, Tsuki. Other than that, Warmage seemed to have semi-intriguing lore and also ended on a rather decent arc, so i think i could’ve been interested to see it continue, just because i wanna see how much worse it can get. But then again, spanking scene.

8. Kit n Kay Boodle

It’s amazing that year by year, Kit and Kay Boodle gets more and more tame. More than anything it helped to expose me to Albert’s usual writing bullshit, but somehow it manages to be tame compared to craziness of Gene Catlow. When you know that EVERYONE is fictional in the real life bits, it just loses the nightmare quality it once had. That being said I am bitter half of the riff is locked behind Tumblr’s stupid filter system.

10. TwoKinds

Yes, I'm afraid TwoKinds is occupying Dominic Deegan's former spot. It honestly suffers from very similar issues as early Alien Dice did, just without the likable protagonists. It has some very surprisingly progressive things for its time, but that doesn't change the extremely confusing worldbuilding, terrible antagonists, yet ANOTHER "evil side of the protagonist" and of course the sympathetic slaveowner. Why did Tomjay think that was a good idea? This comic is kind of stuck in a place where it still has a chance to either go above and beyond the early blog shit, sink below Chugworth Roommates line, or maybe just stay in the same spot as always, if the comic doesn't go through any major quality changes. It is bad, and sometimes painful, but it's not unforgivable, and we'll get to unforgivable soon enough.

-The Chugworth Academy and Roommates Line -

Yes, at this point this isn't a ranking but rather, the point of no return. Once your comic sinks below this line, there's no coming back.

11. Four Girls

Four Girls has some of the most vile, disgusting, terrible jokes and some of them just don't make sense. The characters (especially Heaven) are all extremely hateable. You just wish you were reading Daisy's Fall Apart instead. Thankfully it is short, but it is pretty much at same level of quality as Chugworth and Roommates are.

12. Spinnerette

Spinnerette is stuck at a sad, pitiable state. It's like watching the continued downfall of an internet celebrity. The story keeps doing the same mistakes over and over again, and desperately trying to pretend it is not something that is permanently stuck in early 2010's. At this point however, I am so used to Kraw's bullshit gimmicky writing and moments of drama being forced in arcs where they don't belong, I don't even care anymore. At this point, every decent character has been fucking ruined, but it is what it is. Kraw doesn't care about anything else besides the money going into his Patreon so he can keep making porn comics and figurines and Spinny dakimakuras for his disgusting audience.

13. Peter & Whitney

Peter and Whitney should have never existed. Kraw has more of a direction with Spinnerette than this comic does. It's supposed to be an autobiographical slice of life sequel to Peter and Company, but it is just a request from fans that shouldn't have been fulfilled. Peter feels like a whole different person, and there is just no conflict. I don't give a single fuck about college life of these characters, and also, it's existence ACTIVELY HARMS the existence of Peter and Company, a much better comic, because of all the retcons and foregone conclusions.

14. Las Lindas

Las Lindas is even more hopeless than Spinnerette and Peter and Whitney, because this comic will introduce the decent thing, and before you know it decent thing is ruined. At least Spinnerette has decent variety of different stories. Las Lindas will never leave that fucking farm, if we don’t count the spinoff comics half of which are non-canon and are about the same level of quality as main comic anyway. My brief revisit showed me the post-Alejandra era wasn’t as hideous as I thought but it’s pretty damn close, and with the ever-worsening artstyle and an apparent INTRODUCTION OF SUPERHEROES, Las Lindas’s level of quality could best be described with that panel where Tootsie drives into a river.

15. Carry On

Carry On may legitimately have the most hateable protagonists in this blog. It's a comedy comic from a time period when comedy was not at its worst, per se, but definitely at its most embarrassing. There are too many terribly aged jokes and just terrible jokes in general, which make our protagonists look like vicious murderers. If you are also going into this comic without reading 21st Century Fox first, you're not going to understand anything, and even if you have read it you're still going to be confused. Whether or not Rackeroon Saga will lift this comic out of the abyss remains to be seen.

16. Console Girl

Console Girl is the first comic in this ranking I just completely despise. It makes Ctrl-Alt-Delete look like Penny Arcade, it’s a comic about an ecchi console that comes to life but midway through we get a plot twist and it turns out to be a cyberpunk comic that tries to treat humanoid consoles fighting seriously…or not really, as the comic has a problem taking itself seriously, outside of some questionable moments where the author seems to project their hidden anger towards video games into the comic??? We also have in-comic non-canon filler arcs, console girls eventually becoming random fetishes instead of things actually relevant to their real counterparts and TOO MANY LITTLE PEOPLE WHO ARE IN RELATIONSHIPS WITH ADULT MEN. I’m glad this comic was never finished.

17. Ask the Werewolves

Ask the Werewolves is visually the most disgusting comic I have ever riffed. It's not the art style that is bad, it is what that art style chooses to depict, hideous character designs, disgusting body horror transformations, 100% unerotic sex scenes, men and women fighting their primal urges, giant balls cumming inside dumpsters, vomiting and so much more. Combine that with the fact it tries to include out of place commentary about modern state of housing market and the end result is a comic that angers me more than it should. It still has a surprisingly likable protagonist, but I still don't want to see the said protagonist cum inside dumpsters, or hang out with a colossal woman child who ruined his life. I don't think this comic is gonna go anywhere.

18. Monster Girl Academy

Monster Girl Academy is just…the worst. It was solely created to make Kraw even more rich, but I would forgive that if the comic didn’t just…fail as a webcomic, fail as a porn comic and fail as a narrative period. This comic was designed for lowest common denominator with fetishes that are too weird to be vanilla and too vanilla to be weird. Its existence pisses me off. While other comics I’ve riffed had potential, this never had any semblance of it. The main protagonist is a piece of shit and all his girls are also pieces of shit, the only likable character is a little girl who cries and prays in Spanish, because every character reading this comic can relate to her. Fuck this comic, and I mean it with every letter of that sentence.

[veneritia]

Maddie’s 2024 Writing Progress week twelve & thirteen

↳AKA where I try to build good writing habits by challenging myself to write a minimum of 30 minutes a day

this weeks' progress: 3,927 words written this week/ 29,307 words written this year / overall draft word count is 39,251

So it turns out I forgot to post week 12, and then kept forgetting enough times that it became easier to just lump 12 and 13 together lmao.

This week’s excerpt of When Comes the Dawn

“I am…worried about her.” Dantalion said it as if it were a confession. For him, it might as well be.  "That’s not like you.”  Dantalion hummed in what might’ve been agreement. “I’m aware. The past few months have only just reminded me of how fragile that girl is, like Aphel is constantly dogging at her heels. Sometimes I’m reminded of when she was born; blue and silent and so very small. They couldn’t rouse a cry from her for so long that I thought she died long before she entered this world.” “You mourned.” “I mourned. Felt my heart break at that moment, and it hurt far more than anything our father could’ve done. I loved her, you know. How could I not? She was our child, the perfect combination of Titania and I. The beginning of a golden age. The final piece of the dream I’ve been chasing for so long. It was supposed to be a happy day, remember?” He pours himself another cup. “Sometimes I think about that day and wonder why she was so much easier to love when I thought she was dead.”

The past two weeks weren't the best writing weeks, but stuff was written and i'm getting closer to to act 2, so woo!

Other news: I'll be participating in camp nano this month! I have an overall goal of 15k and I'll be tracking my progress on these posts as like a special 'camp nano edition' lol. You can check out my nano intro in this post!

[ridley-was-a-cat]

What I Watched This Week – 6/2 – 6/15

Sukisho! – June being Pride Month, I drew up a plan to only watch BL and yuri anime this month, where each week I’d watch one BL/yuri that’s new to me, rewatch one I’ve seen before, and watch or rewatch a movie or OVA if time allows. I’ve seen the majority of BL anime that’s out there, so finding one I hadn’t seen was a bit of a challenge, until I saw this 2005 visual novel adaptation streaming on Tubi.

To say it’s a wild ride is a bit of an understatement. Not only are our two leads roommates at an all-boys school, one of them has amnesia after falling out of a fourth floor window. On top of that, the two boys also have split personalities, where their second personalities are in love with each other and their primary personalities are always fighting. In between running wacky errands and getting into ridiculous situations with their school club, they also investigate their mysterious past, get abducted, fight a mad scientist, and plot an elaborate revenge. As a little bonus, the main boy’s edgelord second personality is voiced by Koyasu, which is just genius. The visuals are extremely dated, with pointy chins and brightly colored hair in impractical styles, but the voice cast is surprisingly great, the characters have good chemistry, and the nonsense is a lot of fun if you don’t think about it too hard. It’s a nice little romp I had a great time watching. 7/10

Sweet Blue Flowers – I watched this series early in my anime-watching monomania, and it was interesting to revisit it years later after seeing other yuri series and reading other manga by Takako Shimura. Now that I’ve been around a bit, I see how it’s descended from class S yuri classics that came before it, and how it puts its own spin on the genre. Set at a pair of girls’ schools, the story follows two childhood friends who are reunited for the first time since elementary school when one moves back into town at the start of high school. Each meets a group of friends at their respective school that becomes entangled with the other girl’s school, and relationships form and break apart as the two reestablish their friendship. Nobody can get out of their own way, everyone’s constantly getting their feelings hurt, but it’s all written so that it feels grounded and relatable rather than melodramatic and frustrating. It’s also a rather pretty anime, with a subdued color palette, charming character designs, and lots of dappled sunlight on the characters and the backgrounds. I really appreciated the complicated, messy relationships in this, and ended up giving a higher score this time around. 8/10

Doukyuusei – Being under an hour, this is a somewhat frequent rewatch for me, as it’s a nice quick shot of romance that’s easy to squeeze into an evening when I need a dose of young love to cheer me up. On paper, the plot sounds a little rote: two boys attending an all-boys school couldn’t look or be more different – one’s the flashy guitarist of a local band, the other is studious and reserved – but grow close after practicing a song together for a school event, and fall in love. A combination of distinctive, expressive art and strong writing takes this from being a pleasant but forgettable genre story to being a memorable snapshot of the messy, confusing, and exciting experience of falling in love for the first time. The animation is pretty economical, especially for a movie, but the watercolor-like art does an excellent job of getting the hazy feeling of high school and teenage life, where you’re not really a child, but not quite an adult, and you’re expected to make decisions about the rest of your life despite nothing really feeling solid to you yet. 8/10

Maria Watches Over Us S1 – I’ve been meaning to watch this class S yuri classic for a long time now, and Pride month seems like the perfect time to get to it. The story is centered on a nondescript girl who has just started her first year of high school at the prestigious Lillian Girls’ Academy. She finds herself tangled up with one of the most popular girls at the school who ends up taking her under her wing as her “soeur”, a tradition where older girls choose a younger girl as a sisterly mentee. I thought I was getting into something like Dear Brother, and would be up to my eyeballs in catty maneuvering and backstabbing drama, but it’s actually pretty laid back. There’s a bit of drama, but it’s fairly subdued and rooted in the girls’ earnest efforts to understand one another. Coupled with that good, old-fashioned 2000s sepia-tone filter on the visuals, this was a cozy little series. I plan to watch the rest of the series, but I’m not sure if I want to marathon it all or spread it out for when I want an episode or three of chill schoolgirl drama. 7/10

Sasaki and Miyano – Rounding off my Pride month menu of stories of love at single-sex high schools is another favorite series I rewatch often. In this one, our main character is an avid reader of BL manga and novels who finds himself in a bit of a pinch when an upperclassman takes an interest in him, leaving him full of questions about the line between fiction and reality and what he wants for himself. As a romance fan, this series gives me pretty much everything I want. There’s lots of blushing, tons of yearning, plenty of overthinking feelings, a nice group of friends who can see right through them, and some exquisite physical affection scenes. All the sparkles and flowers floating around the characters during romantic moments capture the shoujo manga vibe perfectly, delivering the warm fuzzies. I still think some of the stuff with Hanzawa felt like wasted space, the flashbacks in the first episode were a little confusing, and the animation never really rises above workmanlike, but it’s nearly everything I could want in a BL anime. Just cute as hell, with an excellent kiss scene. 9/10

[douchebagbrainwaves]

HERE'S WHAT I JUST REALIZED ABOUT SPAM

At YC one of our secondary mantras is Deals fall through. The same thing happened during the Mississippi and South Sea Bubbles. The specific argument, or one of them, like working in fast food. There does seem to be many universities elsewhere that compare with the best in the world. The good news is, if you're carrying a burden without knowing it, your life could be better than you realize.1 Imagine if, instead, you treated immigration like recruiting—if you made a competing technology hub that let in smart people?2 This could explain why clutter doesn't seem to help, not as much as adults. It might mean something. Fortunately, this sort of essay, you don't have a college degree you can't get a visa for working on your startup while raising money.3 9999 free!

Statistically, the average VC is a rejection machine. The Web may well make this the golden age of the short story. When I drive down 101 from the airport, I still feel a buzz of energy, as if there were a giant transformer nearby. I think every language should be designed simultaneously with a large application written in it, and we won't have to work with him liked it so much they stayed. Most imaginative people seem to miss most is the lack of responsibilities. It used to be valuable, and now it's not. In the process, is money from individual angel investors. Letters, digits, dashes, apostrophes, and dollar signs are constituent characters, and everything else is a token separator.

Working on small things, and if they fail, so what? In this respect, as in many others, the eminent are actually disadvantages.4 The really painful thing to recall is not just random variation, but a sort of Heisenberg uncertainty effect: I only got it because I was writing about spam filtering. What I didn't understand was that the proper role of anteaters is to poke their noses into anthills. This doesn't always work. Domain experts were allowed to publish essays about their field, but the pool allowed to write on general topics was about eight people who went to the right parties in New York. They just can't make up their minds, and then answering them.5 And yet this principle is built into the very structure of the things that put them over the edge.

Two of the false positives were newsletters from companies I've bought things from.6 They're hard to filter based just on the headers, no matter how much you dislike it. This idea along with the PhD, the department, and indeed the whole concept of the modern university, and up till the 1930s theirs were the best in America, at least unconsciously.7 We're trying to increase the number of both increases we'll get something more like an efficient market. If people had been onto Bayesian filtering four years ago, fascinating and urgently needed work. The second way to compete with. That's negligible as corporate revenues go, but the pain is spread over a longer period. Wozniak's work was a classic example: he did everything himself, hardware and software, and the art and literary establishments. As well as being more comfortable working on established lines, insiders generally have a vested interest in perpetuating them.8 In a way it's a relief to get some message past network-level filters won't be completely useless. Acquirers too, while we're at it. And so you can't begin with a statement, but with a question.

For example, in my house in Cambridge, which was built in 1876, the new model is not just random variation, but a sort of Heisenberg uncertainty effect: I only got it because I was writing about spam filtering.9 And since the lawyer could never admit, in front of me. That's the combination that yielded Silicon Valley. First, the Internet lets anyone find you at almost zero cost. Roughly that you can't fool mother nature. The other two were a notice that something I bought was back-ordered, and a human who doesn't is doing a bad job of being human—is no better than an animal. Yahoo was a special case.

Notes

I made because the rich.

In-Q-Tel that is actually from the compromise you'd have reached after lots of search engines.

The thing to do more with less, then used a recent Business Week article mentioning del. At two years after Lisp 1. Who continued to dress in jeans and a wing collar who had been Boylston Professor of Rhetoric at Harvard is significantly lower, about 1.

At the moment; if anything they reinforce the impression that math is merely unglamorous, not widening. Financing a startup to an audience of investors. Users dislike their new operating system so much in the Bible is Pride goeth before destruction, and VCs will try to get the answer is no difficulty making type II startup, you can't or don't want to wait for the entire period from the compromise you'd have reached after lots of customers times how much they'll pay.

Keep heat low.

The University of Vermont: The Duty of Genius, Penguin, 1991, p. But filtering out 95% of spam in my incoming mail fluctuated so much more dangerous to have them soon. Merely including Steve in the beginning even they don't yet have any of the 2003 season was 2.

They don't make wealth a zero-sum game. Norton, 2012. If they were shooting themselves in the biggest divergences between the Daddy Model, hard to say hello on her way out. What Is an Asset Price Bubble?

If the response doesn't come back.

I'm not dissing these people make the argument a little too narrow than to confuse everyone with a face-saving compromise. Record labels, for example. This too is true of nationality and religion too.

[27thetherealmoon]

*crying on my bed* so you really abandoned the perfect human heart 🥹🥹😭

I apologize, I’m very emotional righ now because I love the story so very much that I’m fine waiting months or even years for an update from you. I even thinking about making some fanart from the story. I know you are currently enjoyed writing another fanfic, and I’m happy for you because I read it too, and that fic was amazing. your writing is amazing. I thought to myself that it was fine if you didn’t want to update tphh, since it was okay to take a break here and there or if you didn’t feel like to continue your older works/wips at the moment (like me but with arts) but It never crossed my mind that you would orphaned the story. I just realized it yesterday, and the fact still won’t leave my mind until I go to your profile today.

Like you’ve said, I’m sure you have your own reasons as to why you orphaned the story and of course I would respect your decision. Just one thing though, it’s not because I haven’t look around that there’s no written stories I’ll love even more than tphh, it was precisely because I’ve read almost all of them in nvfr tag that I can said for sure that yours was my favorite. The perfect human heart was very dear and special to me. That being said, I should probably grateful you didn’t actually deleted the story or else I would be beyond devastated haha.

Again, I apologize if I make you uncomfortable or something (and for the wall of text), please know that it’s never my intention. I just hope you will find more enjoyment and happiness with whatever you’re writing right now and in the future. And thank you! for ever grazed us with your beautiful writing 🤍

Ah, I cried a bit (a lot) reading this, I can't lie.

I would've loved to continue The Perfect Human Heart. I love that story with all my heart.

I love the Furina I have created, my pretty girl with her white eyelashes who wears odd clothes because she finally can and doesn't really know how to dress like a normal person. The girl that doesn't know how to be a human and behaves weirdly all the time. The girl that doesn't remember her past at all and finally has the time to do something about that and uncover the truth. The girl that struggles with suicidal thoughts and doesn't know how to continue living but does it anyway because a part of her wants to see how far she can go, if she can reconnect with her past and figure out who she was and what she can be. The girl that wants to know if she still has family out there.

Really, I have two reasons why things ended up going down like this:

1. My mental health is really bad and has been for a while now. Hibernaculum, my Haruno Sakura fic (I really do love girls who are hated by the fandom of the media they belong to, huh...) is a lot less taxing on my mental health because while I might've given her the same issues with paranoia, she doesn't struggle with herself as much as Furina does in The Perfect Human Heart. Working on it made me worse, so I took a break. I usually enjoy writing very emotionally taxing stories that deal with many dark themes, but it started to affect me negatively after a while. It's so heavily focused on what the characters go through, and that became very overwhelming in combination with my own struggles. That's what originally caused my unplanned hiatus.

2. You might call me dramatic for this (I know twitter and tiktok both don't care about these things and think people who do are pathetic) but I really really don't like hoyoverse/mihoyo as a company and what they do with their games (the whitewashing, the loli stuff in ggz, the mixing of cultures in mondstadt, natlan, sumeru and fontaine that led to none of these nations really representing or showcasing anything, the ai rumours going around since they allegedly fired a bunch of people last year, the occasionally really bad writing in some of their games, the way some characters and their stories are just never expanded upon and all you can do is pray for crumbs of information in later updates, I can go on) and I just... idk. It became too much after a while.

Nothing ever changes. The company doesn't care... so why put my love and energy into a fanfic for a game made by people who don't really give a shit about their players or the stuff they make? I know, super dramatic.

It's stupid too, because it's not like Kishimoto is an angel who has never done anything wrong and writes every arc and every character perfectly (Hibernaculum partially exists because he doesn't really care about so many characters), and me orphaning TPHH won't change anything about mihoyo.

But it was just so frustrating. I worked so hard to make sure I represent everything as well as possible, even to the point of basically terraforming Mondstadt entirely (something I never got to tell/show you guys) and coming up with more details and story for Fontaines past and Egeria. I did so much hard work, but it was also so... easy? It's so easy to find information on these cultures nowadays, to get into the details and talk about language differences, foods, skin care, clothes and all of that and hoyoverse just didn't bother with most of that. It's so... idk. Annoying? The hard part is sorting through the endless rivers of information to figure out what exactly you need and they couldn't be bothered with that, nor could they be bothered with showing the people who actually live in the countries they're trying to represent.

So I guess I kind of did it to make myself feel better about my frustration with the company? Which is stupid because I feel incredibly guilty and awful since I orphaned the fic.

But it just became too much for a bit. TPHH was the only sign of support I've ever shown mihoyo for their work (besides playing the game for a few years of course, but I quit that a few months ago too) and I just wanted that gone. To stop feeling like a hypocrite when I criticised the company while working on fanwork for something hey made.

But then I couldn't delete it because I remember all of the sweet comments I've received from you all and I got so sad, like I was betraying you all, so I orphaned it instead and now I regret that too but I also don't because I know that a lot of people loved it and... it's all really weird right now.

A part of me wishes I deleted it, another wishes I never orphaned it and instead kept it on my profile to work on it in a year or two when my mental health is better. Because while it is a fanfiction for a gacha game, it's also kind of my baby in a weird way.

I have a huge folder with everything I had planned for this fic, filled with quotes and scenes and details. I genuinely love this story so endlessly I can't put it into words.

I loved coming up with Furinas past, with her origins and who she was and became before her ascension, how her ascension affected those she knew at the time, everything. The main themes of sisterhood and family, friendship, divinity, immortality and its struggles, grief, mystery, and love. There's so much pain and so much healing and love in this fic, especially from Furina but also Chlorinde and Neuvillette.

Ah, Neuvillette. I never got to write him or really get into chlorinde and wriothesley and Sigewinne, Ganyu, Xiao and Zhongli, Rhodeia, Venti, Lisa, Callirhoe.

I made a human form for Rhodeia, who I really loved, too. She was so cool! I made a backstory for her and Callirhoe as well, which was so awesome (I don't like praising myself, but it really was a cool backstory). It would've been so fun. Big sisters for Furina, two people she could unapologetically lean on because they're family, and that's what family is supposed to be like.

Ah, I'm crying again. This feels like such an overreaction, but I genuinely care about this fic so much.

I'm incredibly thankful for your words and love. I really really am. Thank you for loving this story as much as I did, maybe even more than I did. The idea that you thought about making fanart for it blows my mind and really just makes me cry even more. Thank you for your sweet words about my writing as well. I've said it too many times at this point, but I really am endlessly insecure about it, so seeing people say they enjoy it is always a bit of a relief to me.

Don't worry, your words don't make me uncomfortable. They're actually very touching and sweet. Really, I hope my rant/very emotional response doesn't make you uncomfortable. If you have any more questions about the story, mysteries you'd like me to uncover or anything like that (or if you just want to talk), you can always message me! My ask box and dms are always open.

[calsvoid]

Fic Writers Tag

i got tagged by @daisyishedwig thanks for that

i invite anyone who would like to do this <3

disclaimer: as i am a pretty inactive writer and have posted/finished a total of zero fics, most of these are going to be simply unanswerable for me and my answers revolve around my wips rather than any completed fics

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

none, but i have three (four? five?) wips right now

2. What’s your AO3 word count?

again none, but i got to 12k+ on the first and scrapped draft of one of my wips

3. What fandoms do you write for?

glee because i have so many brainworms for seblaine , but i do hope that one day i’ll have space in my head to generate other fandom fic ideas

4. Top 5 fics by kudos

none

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

i absolutely would if i had any, i love interacting with others and would answer as many as i could

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

out of my main wips, my kurt pov fic is probably the saddest just because if you’re a klaine fan, they break up, so rip. but that one is also more of a hopeful ending type of thing. the other answer is this one klaine wedding drabble that i have which is just pure angst for seblaine and they’re just in pain

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

most of my wips are all happy endings, but i like to think my blaine pov one is the happiest just because blaine gets to be in a good place in his life and heading for even bette

8. Do you get hate on fics?

have not written any, would not be surprised if i did just because i like characterizing seblaine as in love and that’s not super in-character

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

nope, have never been interested in writing smut, so probably not ever gonna be a thing for me

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one youve ever written?

also no

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

it’s impossible really

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

no

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

no, and also a thing that will probably never happen. i like my specific work process and having to combine with someone else would be really stressful i think. i do love to share ideas though and i suppose i could co-write in that way

14. Favorite ship of all time?

seblaine seblaine seblaine. they’ve been in my mind for almost a year now (though there was a small episode of not being obsessed with them) ever since i discovered them and i just adore them. they’re everything i love about pairings and i love the potential of the glee universe and all the characters and i’ve grown so attached to these two and they’re probably going to be my favorite for a very very long time. like the angst, the fluff, the little nuances i’ve built for them in my head. i’ve trapped myself and i will sit in my cage and have fun because they’re my sweet angels who are so fucked up and in love, i adore them. i’ve always loved ships where one is a second choice because damn if it doesn’t hurt knowing someone doesn’t want you (supposedly) and you’re not a real thing for them (supposedly). and like the fact they had this friendship that just went so wrong so fast. i’ll never get over them i swear

15. Wip you want to finish, but doubt you will?

my sebklaine au of my kurt pov fic probably. i do love it and the concept, but the fact that i’m putting it off until i can get the original finished means it’s probably never gonna come or be just very far into the future

16. What are your writing strengths?

not sure honestly? i haven’t really written a lot in the past forever, so i’ve never gotten a lot of feedback on my writing.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

i have a lot, but repetitiveness and my sentence structures probably. i have a lot of thoughts and i need to stop shoving them all into one sentence.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

i don’t like the idea of using google translate nor do i want to research a bunch about languages, so i just like to put whole sentences in italics and write somewhere that they’ve switched languages. as for small words and phrases, i would probably do a bit of research on that, still use italics, but i’ll also write it out in the language

19. First fandom you wrote for?

cinderella and it was for a school assignment

20. Fave fic youve written?

ironically, my favorite is probably my kurt pov fic. i am a sucker for outsider povs and it’s just an idea i haven’t seen explored super deeply and i wanna do that because it would be so fun.

[percontaion-points]

Today’s review might be difficult for some; reader discretion is advised

Click to see the rest of the snark & image descriptions

Chapter 2

…and the floors are some type of soil-your-pants brown. I know this for a fact. Last week, a guard threatened a new guy with castration and all hell broke loose...just like his bowels. 

Imagine sitting at your computer to write, and the line that really wants to come out is this. 

And an editor lets you. 

Since public schools aren’t allowed to lean one way or the other, only private schools…

You’ve heard of private Catholic schools. Now get ready for… private Satanic schools. 

My aunt Lina is my dad’s crazy twin sister who, I’ve been told, suffers from polyfused disorder, meaning the older spirit (supposedly) Fused to hers is strong enough to gain control of her body. When she isn’t acting like a giggly ten-year-old who speaks in the past tense, she works for A Look Beyond, a tour company owned by Myriad. 

Sounds more like the people in this world are religious bigots who cover up people’s out of control mental illnesses by saying that they’re “possessed by an angel/devil”. 

I’ve often wondered why she’s singular to Vans. Is she sleeping with him?

 I’ve heard rumors about girls earning special privileges with their bodies. I’ve also heard about girls being threatened with harsher punishments if they refuse. Even the thought fills me with rage. 

Again, the author could have written literally anything. And she actively CHOSE to write about a juvenile asylum in which the girls are basically being raped or turned into whores. 

My dad is a senator in the House of Myriad, responsible for ensuring Myriad-friendly laws are passed and Troika-friendly laws aren’t. 

Again, you might as well call them “Republicans” and “Democrats”, and this story wouldn’t change at all. 

No matter what’s done to me in the future, I will hold out. I must. I’ll be released on my eighteenth birthday. Though my parents signed with Myriad before my conception, there was a special clause for the birth of a child. 

When I came along, their contracts had to be renegotiated. Now their benefits are dependent on my decision. An incentive to raise me the “right” way.

 If I haven’t signed with Myriad by the time I’m a legal adult, my parents will lose everything they love more than they ever loved me. Money, prestige. Homes. Cars. Boats. Not to mention the things they were promised in the Everlife.

That sounds like such an amazing deal. And also in no way like a combination cult and MLM. (Which, aren’t MLMs cults in their own way?)

TRIGGER WARNING: Suicide discussion

Suicide is expressly forbidden by both realms, and it can even render a contract null and void. 

Not like I’m pro-suicide in general, but this seems like the perfect escape from those shitty contracts. Don’t want to go to either realm? Simply nullify the contract by offing yourself!

“Laborers are sent to protect the chosen and then, when the human reaches the Age of Accountability, they negotiate covenant terms and guide the human through the rest of Firstlife. With us, though, covenants are voided if the signer is coerced.”

So this entire time, we’ve been shown these literal children being tortured, abused, raped, simply so that they could sign. But yet, Bow is telling her that children being forced to sign is literally illegal. 

MAKE UP YOUR GODDAMNED MINDS.

I would ask where the editor was, but I think we all know that there were none. 

For some reason, as happiness buzzes in my veins, my gaze is drawn to New Guy. 

He’s staring at me again.

Each of my pulse points leaps. Not knowing what else to do, I nod in acknowledgment

Oh look, it’s the love interest. 

His surprised laughter follows me out of the cafeteria.

Chapter 2 summary: Ten fumes about what happened, and kind of takes it out on Bow. Bow, for her effort, is not daunted by the first roadblock, despite Ten basically telling her to fuck off. 

The narration then pauses to meander through some more explanation about heaven and hell. (Until further notice, I refuse to call them the stupid names the author came up with.) It’s forbidden to talk about it in public schools, so the only information kids get is from their parents. Who are obviously biassed towards one end or the other. They have these “tours”, but they vary so wildly that the entire thing sounds like a joke. 

The book then meanders through a tedious scene where some of the boys are making fun of Bow, before Ten goes to her morning “therapy” group. (I’m reluctant to use any sort of actual medical terminology here since, again, none of this sounds remotely legal by our standards.) There, Sloan makes an off-hand comment that some more guards are going to try and kill Ten again tonight. Ten explains to the readers that she killed the last guard who tried that. 

Ten and Bow stay up that night, and end up fighting off four guards. This is mercifully glossed over. But after the fight, we have to endure more of what’s quickly becoming this book’s nonsensical conversation between Ten and whomever else is in the room with her. There’s probably a good reason why she’s in a mental hospital, NGL. 

Six days pass without incident, which begins to worry Ten that something big is coming for her. Then, a new boy shows up, and Bow randomly hates him. I know that he’s the other love interest, but at the same time… From Ten’s perspective, Bow hates him simply because he exists. It’s kind of weird. Ten then talks some about the “Humans Against Realm Turmoil” or HART group, who are trying to stop these wars. But Heaven and Hell don’t give a shit about what you think; they only want soldiers who are dumb enough to follow orders. 

Bow is still hung up over the unnamed guy, and asks for a distraction. She asks about Ten’s life from before. She mentions briefly that children are literally forced to sign when they turn 16. Instead of doing that, Ten stole her mom’s car and then got sent to the asylum the next day. 

This quickly morphs into a discussion about Bow’s steadfast belief in Heaven that has never once wavered. Ten is honestly impressed with this, but it’s hard to say if that awe is because of how fucking dumb the entire thing sounds. 

She then catches the new guy’s eye, and Bow asks if she’s interested in him. Ten gets angry, and rudely pushes the new guy over as she leaves the cafeteria. 

[otstudentwithalife]

Week 3 if you can even call it that !

This week’s blog is less about what I’ve experienced this week alone and more about how much I’ve learnt throughout my time on fieldwork until this week. Now I’ll be frank, when I first arrived at the facility I had paralyzing anxiety but with time and more practice. I could say, I’ve found myself. Now one thing about me is that I’ll ask, ask, ask if I don’t understand and that is all I’ve been doing. Then I go back to the drawing board when I receive constructive criticism and find new, creative and appropriate ways to meet the goal I have envisioned for my client. This week I had to make a presentation on my client. When you start typing out a presentation, you realize how much you either HAVE or DON’T HAVE! Considering my client’s inability to communicate verbally, I have always had this one question hanging over my head since day 1 “DID I ASK THE CORRECT QUESTIONS”

Needless to say, I’m an overthinker and my anxiety about not getting enough background was very very unnecessary seeing as I utilised any and ALL resources I could get my hands on. I mean, I asked the nurses, the nurse practitioner and even had a conversation in passing with my patient’s physiotherapist about who she is and what they know about her background. Which brings me to this week’s topic which I feel is seldom given enough thought. When treating a patient, I always find it absolutely necessary to read all medical notes written by all members of the medical team. Why? Well before I draw my own conclusions, I find it better to have a clinical image based on professional opinions of what my patient’s starting point was in order to be able to determine where I am planning on setting my goals. According to Epstein (2014), Utilising cohesive MDT teams limits adverse events such as medication side effects, injury, psychological harm or trauma, or death, it also improves patient outcomes, decreases patient length of stay (LOS), and increases patient satisfaction. This not only benefits patient’s but also the team members themselves, it allows us to learn from colleagues, share insight into conditions, improved our own job performance and optimises healthcare provided at the facility. 

I’ve always enjoyed asking questions and when I’m curious I don’t hold back. I’ve had nurses, doctors and other physicians at my disposal and picking their brains has been something I never pass up. Since the beginning of fieldwork , I’ve been the curious cat when it comes to my supervisor and maybe she's had it we me or she appreciates my will to learn. Either way, she still smiles when she see's me so I'm not on the wrong side of this surely.

Now last week I sprinkled some of that over into my interactions with the nurses who I felt know more about my patient than anyone else at the facility can possibly know. This one nurse I asked chuckled at the questions I had about my client’s past and said “ I won’t tell you everything but I’ll show you how to ask Ms N.D questions so that you get the answers you need. She walked right over to my patient and began having a FULL BLOWN conversation even with my client’s 2/3 word responses and my jaw hit the floor because she was getting the answers I needed. That right there is exactly why every single member of the MDT can optimise healthcare for patients and their families. Yes the answers were vague but they were more than I’d gathered in 4 sessions with my client so I was definitely excited. It was definitely a “TEACH ME YOUR WAYS, MASTER” moment for me.

Now, I would’ve loved to combine sessions with the speech therapist because ideally that is who would help me and my client the most. However, I did note in the file that my patient hadn’t gone to speech therapy in a year and the nurses didn’t know why. So I took lemons, made lemonade and drank it with the ward C nurses.

I love sharing information, even faults with my colleagues, I also even evaluate myself to them because outside perspective can provide insight into things I could’ve missed which I can appreciate.

I mean the actual quote from Maxwell (2018) does say “Teamwork makes the dream work,…” after all and to me this week, my presentation would've been nothing short of hollow without the help of those nurses. So yes MDT approach is nothing short of essential to optimise healthcare and save resources.

References

Miller, E. T., Murray, L. L., Richards, L., Zorowitz, R. D., Bakas, T., Clark, P., & Billinger, S. A. (2010). Comprehensive Overview of Nursing and Interdisciplinary Rehabilitation Care of the Stroke Patient. Stroke, 41(10), 2402–2448. https://doi.org/10.1161/str.0b013e3181e7512b

Taberna, M., Gil Moncayo, F., Jané-Salas, E., Antonio, M., Arribas, L., Vilajosana, E., Peralvez Torres, E., & Mesía, R. (2020). The Multidisciplinary Team (MDT) Approach and Quality of Care. Frontiers in oncology, 10, 85. https://doi.org/10.3389/fonc.2020.00085

Epstein N. E. (2014). Multidisciplinary in-hospital teams improve patient outcomes: A review. Surgical neurology international, 5(Suppl 7), S295–S303. https://doi.org/10.4103/2152-7806.139612

Maxwell, J. W. (2018). Teamwork makes the dream work. World Pumps, 2018(5), 20–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0262-1762(18)30253-0

Flanagan, S. E., Damery, S., & Combes, G. (2017). The effectiveness of integrated care interventions in improving patient quality of life (QoL) for patients with chronic conditions. An overview of the systematic review evidence. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12955-017-0765-y

[uozlulu]

There’s a disorganized ghost of an IwtV AMC fic inside me and it goes a bit like this:

Armand never tampered with Daniel’s memories. One morning in the early 80′s, Daniel seemed to surface from a metaphorical pool and realized a few things: 1. He’s in his 30′s. 2. He’s been so caught up in the game with Armand and Louis that he hasn’t written anything or actually done anything he wanted to do with his life for about a decade give or take. 3. He’s some vampire’s boytoy in a cashmere scarf who’s never going to get the dark gift he truly wants.

He leaves Armand for good and it’s very tempting to go back, but Daniel starts getting sober, starts working again. His life starts moving quickly. He has a family. He gets published in major newspapers and magazines. He ends up on CNN. He’s in an upward trajectory (this part isn’t really an active part of the fic, but this is just the timeline in general).

However, this all comes with a cost. He ends up divorced. He relapses with alcohol from time to time and every time he does, his daughters leave him alone until he’s sober again. He wasn’t around as much as maybe he could have been when they were growing up. The older daughter definitely had more responsibility thrust on her than should have been.

In Dubai (which is probably where the fic starts), Daniel knows he’s dying. He already stopped taking his medicine before the package came because it was getting to the point it was not working. He’s pretty sure they’re not actually giving him the medication that they claim to because it’s working too well (It’s probably Armand’s blood like that one theory or perhaps Louis’ and Armand’s? This might never be addressed)

Anyway, and this is where things get especially ???? and not quite solid yet, Daniel does gain pieces of memories. But he can never regain all of them.

There’s something going on on the theme of desire, not just sexual or romantic but companionship, re-connection, validation?, etc...All the ways in which even now fifty years after that bar, a person might need a vampire and vice-versa.

The fact Daniel left would have to be addressed at some point. Armand likely stalked him for a period of time too. So, eventually the reason Armand decided to let Daniel have his life would also have to come up in some way. Perhaps it was because Armand knows he doesn’t really want to kill Daniel even if it’s a turning kind of kill. Maybe it was because of the AIDS crisis and this seemed to be the best way to keep Daniel alive. Maybe Lestat’s rock star career began and that got the rumors of a human writing a vampire interview stopped and there was now no need to send Daniel all over the world. Maybe a combination of all of it?

Another element at play is also the push and pull of desire when one is desired. Like how can a human desire the undead? How can a vampire who could choose anyone still choose a human 50 years later? How does desire evolve? Change? Grow?

Going in that vein, there’d need to be scenes from both the past and present that illustrate the different forms of desire and how they changed if they changed. Probably through memories that appear no matter how fleeting. It could be done through Armand’s perspective of the past and Daniel’s perspective of the present, but I think it’d be more effective to have a mix of both POVs in the past and present.

If I could get more concrete scenes besides the one of Daniel realizing he’s 30, etc... then the rest might fall into place. It’s also possible that it’s a multiple ghosts of multiple fics problem. Or that I’ve remembered and read enough stuff that I’m realizing how much I’m missing in terms of information and I’ve got feet too cold to write in the fandom atm (which would be a shame because I think this could be an interesting fic if I can pull it off).

I’m working on some other unrelated projects atm so that might be why everything is so vague and ghosty in my brain, but I’ll figure it out eventually I hope

[gotjacobian]

The Comic (tm) has been getting more attention recently for reasons that have brought up a lot of complicated feelings on my end. To qualify, by “more attention”, I mean like, a journey from being read by one new person every couple of months for years, to one new person every week or two for the past year (whenever I was actually posting pages, so like, half that on average). To 2-3 new people, every week, for the past few weeks. So not an eye-popping difference, but something that has never happened before. 

This difference in traffic comes exclusively from reddit, where I mirror/post pages every week. My best guess is that it’s due to some combination of small algorithm-manipulating changes in how I make those posts, regular posting so that people are reminded of its existence every week, and maybe something in either the quality or the content of these pages specifically. (I remember seeing a bump in attention at the end of chapter 2, a narratively similar scene. Which surprised me, I’d guessed the more visually striking  and mad-science-y action scenes would get more attention. Both scenes also require significant context to know what the hell is going on, which I’d assumed would be a deterrent to random strangers. But maybe it’s the opposite? I do also think they’re some of the better written scenes, in terms of like, emotional clarity, which might contribute. )

My first thought: It feels weird to have my messy feelings about what I want from making things and posting them on the internet turned into statistics. From what I’ve observed, there’s a line that gets crossed, in terms of number of people exposed to any given thing I post online, where the feedback I got  turned from “uninterpretable randomness” to “actual statistics”. That makes sense. More people clicking through to the website directly translates to more people reading it, commenting, whatever. But the law of large numbers also means the more people who click through to the website translates to a more consistent proportion of people who do those things. That proportion is universally low and noisy - from what I’ve read about online marketing, both getting a random person who sees your post to click to your website, and getting someone who clicked to your website to stay and do something there, are textbook low-probability events. That means when the sample size (number of people seeing your post) is small, the noise dominates the signal, and you can’t extract meaningful information from the relationship between what you’re posting and those downstream returns (engagements, comments, etc). Most of the time your return will just be zero, because you’re looking for a low-probability event with a small sample. 

This is a simplified model of both people and posting, obviously, but it captures the wild difference in both the subjective experience and quantitative results I get from posting somewhere I can force 50 people to see my art versus somewhere I can force 5000 people to see it, for the same stupid comic. This is my current joker arc about algorithms and independent artists online.  The algorithms on many websites are built to make it so that a few posts are seen by a million people, and many are seen by 10 or 5 or even 0 (*cough* Twitter) people.  I’ve had more success finding new readers on reddit than anywhere else because of 1) silo-ed subreddits with large subscriber bases that 2) have an algorithmic feed that shows recent posts to more people most other websites do. [and 3) definitely not the ability to easily sockpuppet a single upvote to my posts because that gets them shown to more people, who will then subsequently upvote them. I definitely don’t do that because that would violate the reddit ToS, and that’s definitely not the thing I think is actually driving the increased traffic in the past ~month or two.] 

Second thought: this also triggers an evolved anxiety in me, centered around the idea that better art gets attention because it’s good, and doesn’t need to play a numbers game to get even small returns. This thought fails the “not written by the generative language model in my brain that hates me” smell test, for what it’s worth, but it makes an interesting point about what I’m even trying to measure with those numbers. It’s difficult to separate my ego from the difference between what something I make means to me versus what it means to other people. It’s difficult to separate my complex feelings about that difference from the messy feedback in a chaotic system that I have to use to approximate it. 

To get existential for a second, I’ve felt like there’s a growing gap, especially the past few years, between what I’d have the ambition to be or make or do in an in ideal world, and what I can do in the world I live in as the person that I am. I’m better at accepting it in some areas of my life than others. I actually think I’m relatively good at accepting it when it comes to making art.* There’s a comic I want to draw (and just haven’t yet) about the process of writing/drawing/making things that get put up for public consumption, where an abstract humanoid representation of “an idea” gets graphically and violently beaten to death, by me, with a bat in front of casual onlookers. That’s basically how I feel about it. Not even in a bad way! Still, I don’t think I’ll ever not have those ambitions, and often feel like I’m trying to feed them table scraps. I don’t mean that ungraciously - more like, I look at a Number That Goes Up a little bit and think “great, but I have no idea how this will impact my future, and I feel like I could really use something that will impact my future right now”.  Which is probably not a problem reddit can solve, for me or the vast majority of people. But I appreciate it trying, I guess. 

*I used to be way worse. Probably detectably worse, lol. I like to think I’ve gotten better at seeing what I make for what is is without my ego getting in the way, and I have definitely gotten less anxious about showing it to other people.  I find it interesting how that got better. In most other areas of my life where I felt a disruptively painful desire for external affirmation, part of what resolved that involved getting that external affirmation. Mostly because I had a lot of luck in getting it, honestly. It’s not like I got zero affirmation with art stuff, but I had a lot more experiences where I wanted to prove something and felt like I didn’t even get a foothold, for reasons that felt like fundamental personal limitations. Unwillingness to adapt, lack of connections, perceived incompatibilities, whatever. The edge has slowly worn off anyway, which is pleasantly surprising. Like, I know I complain a lot, but I feel happy with and good at what I do frequently. I probably would’ve preferred a path where I felt like I was constantly hitting some validating new milestone, I guess. But it’s interesting and bracing to know that’s not necessary for the thing to feel worth doing in the long run. 

[journeytothewestresearch]

Origin of Lego Monkie Kid’s Golden Staff

Edit: I used this info to make an article for my research blog.

https://journeytothewestresearch.com/2022/01/29/the-monkey-kings-magic-staff-a-complete-guide/

MK’s magic weapon (fig. 1) is portrayed as a staff with a red shaft and golden tips decorated with rings and cloud engravings. It was gifted to him by the original Monkey King, who used it in the past to defeat and imprison the Demon Bull King.

I’ve written many articles on the origins of the staff over the years. Therefore, I’ve decided to combine all of the information in one location for the benefit of Lego Monkie Kid fans wanting to learn more about the history behind the show. Citations can be found in the articles linked below.

(Apologies for any typos. My eyes decided to crap out on me towards the end of typing this.)

Fan edit by Blutunesninja.

1. The Literary Weapon

1.1. Staff Background

The staff first appears in chapter three of the original novel when the Monkey King goes to the underwater kingdom of Ao Guang (敖廣), the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea, looking for a magic weapon to match his supernatural strength and martial skill. When all of the traditional weapons offered to him fail to meet his standards, the dragon queen suggests to her husband that they give Sun Wukong “that piece of rare magic iron” taking up space in their treasury. She claims the ancient shaft had started producing heavenly light days prior and proposes that the monkey is fated to own it. The weapon is said to be a "divine treasure iron" originally used to set the depths of the Heavenly River (Tianhe ding di de shenzhen tie, 天河定底的神珍鐵) by Yu the Great (Dayu, 大禹), a mythic Chinese emperor and demigod.

The staff is initially described as a pillar of black iron or bin steel more than twenty feet in height and as wide as a barrel. It is only when Monkey lifts it and suggests a smaller size would be more manageable that the staff complies with his wishes and shrinks. This is when Sun notices that the weapon is decorated with a golden ring on each end, as well as an inscription along the body reading: “The ‘As-You-Will’ Gold-Banded Cudgel. Weight: Thirteen Thousand Five Hundred Catties” (Ruyi jingu bang zhong yiwan sanqian wubai jin, 如意金箍棒重一萬三千五百斤). The inscription indicates that the staff is immensely heavy, weighing 17,560 lbs. (7,965 kg).

Apart from the above information, a poem in chapter 75 (see section 2.3 here) highlights another name, "Rod of Numinous Yang" (Lingyang bang, 靈陽棒). In addition, the poem describes the staff being covered in "tracks of planets and stars" (i.e. astronomical charts) and esoteric "dragon and phoenix scripts" (longwen yu fengzhuan, 龍紋與鳳篆).

The novel provides two contradictory origins for the staff. The chapter 75 poem notes that it “[w]as forged in the stove by Laozi himself”. Laozi is of course the high god of Daoism. Chapter 88 instead states that it was “forged at Creation’s dawn / By Yu the Great himself, the god-man of old”.

Contrary to popular images of the Monkey King holding a regular-sized staff, his literary counterpart wields a massive weapon in battle. It is said to be 20 feet long (likely an error for 12), [1] with the width of a bowl (erzhang changduan, wankou cuxi, 二丈長短，碗口粗細) (fig. 2). I did a cursory search of bowls during the Ming (when the standard edition of JTTW was published) and found that they have a radius of between 4 to 6 inches (10.16 to 15.25 cm).

1.2. Staff Powers

The staff is shown to have multiple powers.

Size manipulation – This is the weapon’s most well-known ability, growing as big or as small as Monkey wishes.

Controlling the oceans –  The aforementioned poem from chapter 88 writes: “The depths of all oceans, rivers, and lakes / Were fathomed and fixed by this very rod. / Having bored through mountains and conquered floods, / It stayed in East Ocean and ruled the seas…”

Astral entanglement – Monkey’s soul is able to use the staff in Hell despite the physical weapon being with his body in the world of the living.

Multiplication – He can multiply his staff in the hundreds of thousands.

Lock-Picking – He can open any door just by pointing it at the lock.

Transformation – He can change it into tools like a straight razor or a drill.

Sentience – The weapon glows in anticipation of Monkey’s arrival (fig. 3), responds to his touch, and follows his commands, denoting a certain level of sentience.

2. Origins

2.1. Literary Precursors

The staff found in the standard Ming edition of JTTW is actually based on two weapons from a 17-chapter storytelling prompt called The Story of How Tripitaka of the Great Tang Procured the Scriptures (Da Tang Sanzang qujing shihua, 大唐三藏取經詩話, c. late 13th-century). Sun Wukong’s precursor, an ageless immortal called the “Monkey Pilgrim” (Hou xingzhe, 猴行者), magically transports Tripitaka and his entourage to heaven. There, the supreme god, the Mahābrahmā Devarāja (Dafan tianwang, 大梵天王; i.e. Vaiśravana), gives the monk a cap of invisibility, a khakkhara (ringed monk’s staff) (fig. 4), and a begging bowl. Tripitaka and the Monkey Pilgrim take turns using these items throughout the journey. The staff is shown capable of shooting destructive beams of light, as well as transforming into magical creatures like an iron dragon or a giant, club-wielding Yaksha. Later, the Monkey Pilgrim also borrows an iron staff from heaven to fight a dragon.

The two staves from this tale were eventually combined by later storytellers. The rings from the first weapon were added to the ends of the second.

2.2. Influence from Religion

The Monkey Pilgrim’s magic ringed staff and begging bowl were directly influenced by the Buddhist Saint Mulian (目連; Sk: Maudgalyayana), a disciple of the historical Buddha. One particular 9th to 10th-century story notes that the Saint uses the staff to unlock the gates of hell in order to save his mother (fig. 5). This is where Sun Wukong’s weapon from JTTW gets the power to open locks.

The ringed and metal staves used by the Monkey Pilgrim are based on those historically carried by Buddhist monks in ancient China. The aforementioned ringed variety, called “tin staves” (xizhang, 錫杖) where used by religious monks and decorated with six to twelve metal rings (see fig. 4). These rings were designed to make a clanging noise to not only scare away animals on the road but also to alert possible donors to the monk’s presence.

Martial monks charged with protecting monasteries or deployed by the Chinese government against pirates wielded wooden or iron staves (fig. 6). The former were chosen for their diminished capacity for fatal injuries, while the latter were explicitly used for killing during times of war. Sun Wukong wielding the iron variety makes sense as he’s a martial monk charged with protecting Tripitaka from monsters and spirits.

The term “As-you-will” (ruyi, 如意) from Monkey’s staff (mentioned above) is connected with a scepter used in ancient China as a symbol of religious debate and authority and, to a lesser extent, as a weapon. While it can be traced to a Hindo-Buddhist tradition in India, the scepter came to be associated with the highest gods of Daoism thanks to being decorated with a “numinous mushroom” (lingzhi, 靈芝), a real world fungi believed to bestow immortality. This mushroom scepter was at some point associated with the Buddhist Cintamani (Ruyi zhu, 如意珠), or “As-you-will jewel”. This was believed to grant any wish that one might desire. This explains why Monkey’s As-you-will staff grows or shrinks according to his commands. It’s interesting to note that some religious images of the scepter depict it with a syncretic mix of the Daoist mushroom and the Buddhist jewel (fig. 7).

2.3. Influence from Popular literature

The weapon’s portrayal in JTTW as an iron pillar kept in the dragon kingdom comes from old stories about the immortal Xu Xun (許遜), a historical Daoist master and minor government official from Jiangsu province. Popular tales describe him as a Chinese St. Patrick who traveled southern China ridding the land of flood dragons. One 17th-century version titled “An Iron Tree at Jingyang Palace Drives Away Evil” (Jingyang gong tieshu zhenyao, 旌陽宮鐵樹鎮妖) describes how he chained the flood dragon patriarch to an iron tree (tieshu, 鐵樹) and submerged it in a well, thus preventing the serpent’s children from leaving their subterranean aquatic realm and causing trouble. Pre-JTTW versions of this tale depict the tree as an actual iron pillar (fig. 8). Chinese Five Elements Theory dictates that metal produces water, and as its creator, holds dominion over it. Therefore, an iron pillar would be the perfect item to ward off creatures entrenched in the aquatic environment.

As previously noted, the staff weighs 17,560 lbs. (7,965 kg). This is likely based on an episode from chapter 27 of the Chinese novel Water Margin (Shuihu zhuan, 水滸傳, c. 1400). It involves the bandit Wu Song lifting a heavy stone block said to weigh 300 to 500 catties (san wu bai jin, 三五百斤; 390-650 lbs./177-295 kg) (fig. 9). This scene and the one from JTTW where Monkey lifts the iron pillar are quite similar. Both involve a hero (Wu Song vs. Sun Wukong) asking someone (Shi En vs. Ao Guang) to show them a heavy object that cannot be moved (stone block vs. iron pillar). Both heroes then adjust their clothing before easily lifting the object with both hands. Most importantly, the Chinese characters for the weight of each object (三五百斤 vs. 一萬三千五百斤) are similar. The only difference is the addition of “10,000” (yiwan, 一萬) and “1,000” (qian, 千), respectively. And given the close historical and cultural ties between the two heroes, I believe the author-compiler of JTTW embellished the Water Margin episode to portray Sun as a hero like no other, a divine immortal that can lift weights far beyond even Wu Song himself.

Note:

1) Irwen Wong of the Journey to the West Library blog has suggested that the length is likely an error for 12 feet (zhanger, 丈二) since the staff was already near 20 feet when Monkey first acquired it, and he later asked it to shrink to a more manageable size.

[goosemixtapes]

max’s top books of 2022 :3

past top tens here & here! as always, these rankings are based on some nebulous alchemical combination of “it’s objectively good” and “i like it a lot.”

weird reading year! lots of mediocre books! lots of rereads! lots of things i felt very mid about! but i did finish the shakespearean canon, so, fuck yeah! more details beneath the cut.

in place of runner-ups this year, i’m pioneering a brand new category called BOOKS I LOATHED. those being: Mourning Becomes Electra by Eugene O’Neill (why would you write a retelling of something as cool as the oresteia and make it stilted, misogynist, and incestuous); Dracula (holy fucking shit is this book boring. i did enjoy dracula daily, though); this fucking Dan Brown book i couldn’t even finish which is rare for a guy with completionism OCD; and, of course, my least favorite book of this year & one of my least favorites ever, Robinson Crusoe (i can’t summarize my thoughts in parentheses. click my review)

my top anticipated 2023 release is alecto the ninth. no notes.

okay, the list, in order of increasing enjoyment:

10. The Ides by Stephen Dando-Collins

roman history hyperfixation went fucking insane this year, gang. roman history hyperfixation went fucking one thousand. i haven’t read every book about the late republic (not even close to it), so i can’t speak to how this measures up in the field, but if you’re interested in the assassination of julius caesar, you should check this shit out. i particularly appreciated the amount of direct quotes from historical figures included, because that 1) made it easier to read 2) made the historical figures it concerned feel closer. this book flows like a thriller until the actual ides; the discussion of the aftermath is a little less gripping, but so goes history.

9. What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon

this is the first of its kind i’ve ever read--a book centered around the oppression fat people face, focused on 1) breaking down fatphobic factual misconceptions (like the idea that diets are a cure-all or even that diets are all that effective) and 2) examining the effect that fatphobia has on individuals and society. beautifully well-researched; beautifully written. wish i could beam this entire book into the head of everyone around me. (gordon has a new release coming out in 2023!)

8. Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come: One Introvert’s Year of Saying Yes by Jessica Pan

this is not a self-help book, but i read it like one. it is not, either, despite what the title may suggest, some trite thinkpiece about introversion being So Cool And Quirky Special!, or about introversion being A Curse On The Bloodline That Must Be Cured. it’s more autobiographical than that: it’s the author’s story of a year in which she tried to exposure-therapy herself into being more outgoing, friendly, and honest, and not only is it very well-written, it’s also just really fun to read! have you ever wanted to experience improv vicariously without actually having to do improv? this is the book for that.

7. Aeschylus’s Oresteia

greek tragedy doesn’t do it for me like shakespearean tragedy, but hooooooly shit. holy shit. i had the pleasure of studying these plays in a class and they made my head spin inside out. the IMAGERY! the VIOLENCE! the TOXIC FAMILY DYNAMICS! the RAGE! the GRIEF! the VENGEANCE! the MILF! the oresteia has it fucking all! if i pop up with a lesbian orestes book in five months, look away. (goosemixtapes, inc would like to note that there is no lesbian orestes book in progress.)

6. The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

AKA the only vampire media that exists. in which vampirism is a contagious disease, and vampires are sectioned off in government-run quarantine “coldtowns,” where some of them kill people and some of them become instagram influencers. (not literally, but they might as well; this book is almost metacommentary on the allure of the romantic-gorgeous-sparkly-pop-culture vampire). every character is beautifully well-drawn, especially for a YA standalone; i even found myself rooting for the heterosexual romance! also, there’s a trans girl, and she doesn’t even die! this was a recommendation from my dearest @yvesdot​, and it has crack in it. it has crack cocaine in it

5. Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia by Marya Hornbacher

apparently i’m on a nonfiction sweep. (to be fair, “read more nonfiction” was one of my reading goals this year.) this is what it sounds like--a candid and shockingly clear-eyed memoir chronicling the author’s fourteen-year struggle with eating disorders--and also more than that--an incisive exploration of both hornbacher and the family and society that shaped her, with some of the rawest and most evocative prose i’ve read in a long time. not recommended for the faint of heart or people with triggers around disordered eating (or, at least, i recommend you step very carefully), but wow, i’m going to be thinking about this one forever.

4. Cassandra by Christa Wolf & Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin

okay, this one is a double feature. which i recognize is weird, because these are different books by different authors published in different years, but on a metatextual level, these books are holding hands. these books are lesbian kissing, even. both of them take a character from classical epic/theater--cassandra the prophet from troy; lavinia from the latter half of the aeneid--and tells the story through her eyes, in a very deliciously metatextual way. wolf’s novel (more of a monologue), written in east germany under the looming threat of nuclear war in europe, is rife with themes about war and destruction and the rise and fall of cultures. le guin’s novel is more interested in narratives, fate, and fictionality, but war themes are again at play, because it’s the aeneid. also, both of these authors truly understand aeneas from the aeneid and i don’t say that fucking lightly. books written for a target audience of me

3. Roman Shakespeare: Warriors, Wounds and Women by Coppélia Kahn

okay i don’t even have anything to say for myself here. i’m thinking about victor @asimpleram​ saying my yearly top 10 list is just an english class assigned reading list. but as one of the few people in the world who is derangedly interested in how gender is constructed in antony and fucking cleopatra (and also julius caesar. and shakespeare in general. but i got really into FUCKING antony and cleopatra this year), i could annotate this book for ages. i filled a google doc with so many screenshots from this book that it negatively affected my drive storage situation. shakespeare fans eat fucking good

2. Saga by Brian K. Vaughan

i’m not particularly into outer-space scifi, so i wasn’t expecting to like saga, but i started it, again, at the behest of @yvesdot​ (as i was in their house and they were handing it to me). and then it proceeded to do horrible horrible things to me to the point where i haven’t picked up the new issue because i’m still recovering from the way volume 9 got my ass*. this comic is a fucking masterclass in 1. creating compelling characters in a reduced amount of space and 2. maintaining constant narrative tension while also sprinkling in just enough happy/hopeful moments that the devastating plot beats hurt all the more. also, the character concepts go crazy hard and it’s anti-war as fuck. also, again, trans woman who doesn’t even die! cw for lots of, um, explicitly drawn sexual content (sooo many dicks in this comic oh my god) but if you are ready to have your heart broken you need to pick this up.

*i am physically fucking incapable of attaching myself to characters who survive things. just fyi

1. the Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir

and speaking of having your heart broken. i dearly dearly hope nobody is surprised by this one. lumping all three of these into one category because i don’t want to pick a favorite (it’s GTN), and because i have the same thing to say about all three of them: READ THESE BOOKS. i knew before i turned the last page that Gideon the Ninth was going to be my book of the year; it’s been a long, long, LONG fucking time since i’ve wished so badly i had written this exact book myself. do you like BUTCHES? do you like NECROMANCY? do you like CATHOLIC AESTHETIC THAT ALSO CRITICIZES CATHOLIC IMPERIALISM? do you like DYNAMICS WITH THE COMPLEX TOXICITY LEVELS OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS? do you like SEXY WORLDBUILDING? do you like expertly-crafted ENSEMBLE CASTS? do you like STORIES THAT ARE WELL-WRITTEN? do you like WORDS? man, you’ve gotta try TLT. yes, i know that the worldbuilding is sometimes abstruse; i know that everyone spends 90% of the first read in absolute confusion; i know that muir’s sense of humor isn’t universal. but i also know these are some of the best books i’ve ever read, and some of my favorites of all time. absolutely world-changing.

if you’ve read this far--you’re very brave! please tell me your favorite (and least favorite) books of the year! drop recs if you have them! and have a happy new year!

[the-one-who-lambs]

SIT DOWN it’s STORY TIME.

Y'all would not fucking BELIEVE the counseling appointment I just had. I PROMISE it’s related to Cult of the Lamb. Just sit tight.

TL;DR: I have been questioning whether I am autistic for YEARS. What helped actually set a potential diagnosis for me in action? It was motherfucking Cult of the Lamb.

Context: I recently moved, transferred health systems, and needed to refill my adhd medication (vyvanse, which is a controlled substance) so since my new health system has different diagnostic requirements for ADHD I had to go in for a psych eval to basically confirm that yes I still have adhd. Which all worked out, btw, I have access to my medication again.

BUT.

When I thought the appointment was nearing a close, she brought up the fact that I had self-identified as "neurodivergent" and last time she had asked me to explain what it meant to me. I explained that it encompassed many different ways of thinking and different brain chemistries/structures, including but not limited to ADHD, autism, PTSD, cerebral palsy etc. She then asked if I could potentially relate to any more of these identities and nudged me towards autism. Which was so validating because I've been wondering for years but like. For a therapist to just come out and lay it right in front of me was... unexpected. So that day I told her yes, I related to many autistic traits but that I also knew that there was a lot of overlap of symptoms between autism and ADHD and that non-autistic people could have autistic traits as well. I was deflecting wanting to deal with this and apparently it was obvious because she brought it back up again today.

There was a part of me dreading this appointment because I knew there was a chance she'd bring this up and then I would have to deal with it and it would feel real. So when she asked about it again and pointed out, hey your psych results and history questionnaire from your parents and past diagnoses and etc all line up with this and i just start tearing up because I don't know what else to do

And we had a long conversation about it and kinda unpacked my internalized ableism about this and pointed out some things in my history/questionnaire/eval that had led her to pose the question about pursuing a potential second evaluation for autism. So I accepted, because I had been procrastinating it for a while (due to fear of finding out that I was right I guess? but also really wanting to know and knowing in my heart that I know myself best and I was probably right?). If not now, when. So I have a follow-up appointment for an autism evaluation on October 24. Whatever the outcome I'm just proud I did this today.

Here's the fucking kicker that I think y'all are gonna appreciate.

So many of y'all know I write Narinder as autistic and boy howdy have I been projecting onto him so hard. When doing research for writing Requiem I realized how many of these traits I was checking off for myself. I published it like 2 days before the appointment. I have a LOT of trouble describing myself. My personality, my symptoms when asked about them, etc etc. But because I had done so much reading I had an idea fresh in my mind about what my autistic traits were because I had written them out and compared them to what I was writing. So I was able to articulate the things my counselor was asking me about so well and I felt like I had the most productive appointment I've had in ages. Looking back, I realized a lot of the things she asked me were autism-related rather than ADHD related. (For example, she asked me about any special interests I might have. Literally infodumped about the history of ALL my hyperfixations for ten minutes, then infodumped about my current hyperfixation cult of the lamb and my special interest (creative writing) and how I've been combining these two things and projecting onto blorbo from my video games and shit.) And all this really helped her in my evaluation and led her to propose the further evaluation for autism in the first place.

Also kinda screaming at the fact that I might have to send my therapist my fanfics so she can use them as a diagnostic tool.

Well. Back to writing.