#the one before was pretty but was from January!! I don’t like using art that old D:

[kyurochurro]

far-out girlie!! 💫🪐🌙

[romana-after-dark]

Dead Dove December 2024

Hello everyone! This December I’m hosting a multi-fandom event that I’m calling, Dead Dove December! From 12/01/2024 - 12/31/2024 I’m encouraging others to create something that expresses their deepest and (most importantly) darkest desires. I will be reblogging all pieces of art or fanfiction, and will post a masterlist in January. or whenever i get around to it. i have not even done the pride masterlist bc I'm a disaster! But most importantly this will be for funsies.

I hosted this last year with just oscar/pedro Characters but Logan is my special guy so he's here now too <3

Details below the cut…

What is Dead Dove Do Not Eat?

Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, or DDDNE has its origins in one of my comfort shows!

The phrase comes from a meme referencing the 2003 Arrested Development episode "Top Banana", in which Michael Bluth opens a paper bag labeled "DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT" and, upon discovering that there is a dead dove inside the bag, says, deadpan, "I don't know what I expected." - fanlore.org

In short, what you see in the tags is what you should expect to see in the fic. This can apply for any type of fic, including the fluffy ones, but it’s usually associated with darker themes. That being said, this is your warning that this is a DARK THEMED EVENT. If you aren’t comfortable with darker topics like non-con, excessive violence, blood/gore, death, toxic relationships, 18+ age gaps, and more, then I encourage you not to participate in this event.

How to Participate

For the month of December, post your Dead Dove fanfiction or fan art on your blog. Use the tag #deaddovedecemeber2024 and tag me. You can also send a link via ask or DM if you like! I will not be posting anything for you, just reblogging and linking. At the end of December I will post a masterlist with links to everyone’s works! Side Note - Since Tumblr doesn’t really allow for NSFW art, you can post your work on Twitter or any other site that allows it and just send me that link so I can add it to the masterlist.

Rules

You MUST be 18+ to participate. I will be checking your blog/social media to be sure. Please make sure your age is easy to find. If I find that you’re a minor or if your age isn’t readily present I will be blocking you and you will be unable to participate. You can just add that you are over 18 if you don’t want your age out on the internet. As the creator and promotor of this event, I need to know I’m not interacting with minors given the nature of this event.

The work MUST be dark in some way. There’s no limit to how dark your work needs to be or can be, but it needs to contain some sort of dark theme in order to qualify. If non con isn’t your thing, dub con via stockholm syndrome or brainwash can let you write a more comfortable scene while still remaining dark. Fics and art do not necessarily need to be NSFW. last year a friend even did cnc, where it was seemingly dark but then ended with it was Marc and reader ding a scene. Dark reader or oc is an absolute yes.

Your work MUST have an Oscar Isaac, Hugh Jackman, or Pedro Pascal Character. It can be x reader, x oc,xcanon character, crosoversec. If you want Joel Miller fucking the ghoul from Fallout (or both of them fucking a reader)you can even though Eddie doesn't exist in any Oscar Pedro Hugh content. If you want Marc and Logan to fuck, go nuts. Got a series you're already writing, and wanna submit a dark chapter or a dark Au to it? That's fine too! We're pretty open here. No rpf.

Do NOT post anything before 12/01/2024. I will not count submissions prior to that date or after 12/31/2024. Masterlsit will be posted in January.

Your work MUST contain the proper tags. I won’t police how detailed your tags should be, but, for instance, if your work contains non-con, and you didn’t tag non-con then your work will not qualify. Please be inclusive in your writing where you can, but aware of POC queer and disabled people.

You may submit no more than two (2) pieces. This can include a fanfic and fanart, two fanfics or two fanarts. This is to allow someone to write a piece and make a work of art to accompany it. You can also work with another creator together.

I’m not going to yuck someone’s yum, but there are some things I’m just personally not comfortable with and since I’ll be reading/viewing/promoting all of these, I have a few things not allowed in the event. The list of what’s NOT allowed is shorter than the list of what IS allowed so here’s a list of the things that will NOT be tolerated in this event:

No underage/aged up minor content - To clarify, this includes things popular ships like - TLOU 1 or "Show Ellie" x Joel or Miguel O’Hara X Gwen Stacy. No "ageing up" minors for the purpose of a fic.

No Bestiality - To clarify, monsterfucking does NOT count as bestiality (at least to me). For example, werewolves, venom, Khonshu, e.t.c. are all allowed.

No Real person fanfiction. Can’t include Oscar, Pedro, or Hugh. This is not a moral judgement or me looking down just not in my comfort zone

No incest - To clarify, step-sibling/step-parent relationships are permitted as long as everyone is 18+. Different age of consent in your state or country does not apply here, and frankly I'd prefer 21+ but I know there are younger people than me who write so I'm not gonna say you gotta write like that. Selfcest relationships are also allowed (like Moon Knight or Miguel with his alternate self, e.t.c.).

No necro/snuff. Plain and simple.

I have final say in what I want to promote. Is TLOU 2 Ellie an adult and not technically Joel's ctual kid? Yes. technically it fits all the rules but it gives me the ick so I'm not gonna accept it. I cannot possibly prepare for all scenarios, and i want to just be able to have fun here with yall.

If you’re unsure if something is allowed or not, you can send me a DM or an ask for clarification prior to posting.

You can use any prompts you want or none, you aren’t tied to any one idea but here are some to get the ideas flowing if you need them!

Also, you can absolutely use a fic to inspire your art, or art to inspire a fic! Your inspiration piece, whether yours or someone else’s does not have to be from December, but you MUST obtain permission from the original creator before I promote your work. Most creators are happy when their work inspires others, and all my fics are open to being used for inspiration, but please reach out to the creator first.

I’m very excited! This is my second year hosting this an I've hosted other events by myself or with friends so I'm happy to keep going, this time with Hugh Jackman bc i can't get Logan out of my head.

Dividers and header made by the amazing @melodygatesauthor

Please consider reblogging to spread the word!

I don't reall know many people in the logan/hugh jackman fandom so I'd love if this was an oppritunity to get to know yall too!

Dark prompt list to come, also check out #deaddovedecember2023 to see what last year had!

[ponett]

Bobby's 2023 Media Wrap-Up

So! Like I said before, this past year I kept a running list of everything I watched, every game I finished, every new album I listened to, etc., and wrote one-paragraph blurbs with my thoughts on every single one. Please enjoy this journey through everything I liked, or didn't like, in 2023, with my favorites of the year listed at the bottom.

(Yes! This is long!!)

Some notes:

I mainly only included things I finished. Exceptions are marked with an asterisk.

I included some YouTube stuff as "TV shows" - mostly particularly long, high effort video essays and documentaries.

I was a bit less adventurous than I'd like to have been this year. Part of this was just that I felt like I was constantly playing catch-up with Big Releases I felt obligated to check out, and part of this was just executive dysfunction from burnout. Wait until you see how long it took me to beat Mario Wonder lmao

Yes, I need to read more books. I don't read a lot of books these days. I need to get back to Discworld.

COLOR KEY

Video Games • TV / Web Video  •  Movies  •  Comics  •  Music

January

1/15: Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (MSQ) - Very slow at times, the Primal shit is generally extremely lame to me outside of the boss fights themselves, but god if the quality of life improvements over WoW, the JRPG energy, and the fact that it Actually Has A Story carry it pretty hard.

1/18: Sonic the Hedgehog: Scrapnik Island miniseries - One of the most creative and compelling uses of the Sonic IP… ever? Fantastic little self-contained arc about the struggles of Eggman’s abandoned creations that gracefully weaves between heartfelt optimism and moody horror with some of the best art ever seen in a Sonic comic.

1/18: Mega Man X4 - Glad I finally actually beat this after never even beating any of the Mavericks as a kid! I can see why it’s a lot of peoples’ favorites. The gameplay has very little of that X series bloat and is just fun, especially after getting X’s armor upgrades. (But the story really is a long series of missed opportunities.)

February

2/2: Donks - Felix Colgrave continues to be an exceptional artist. The sound design on this is fantastic and really sells this short as something unique. Had to go back and watch his older stuff again after this.

2/4: Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward (3.0 - 3.3 MSQ) - I get it now. I get why people say this is just a proper mainline Final Fantasy game built into the framework of an MMO. That shit ruled. Not even walking back the drama in Ul’Dah from the end of ARR can sour me on it because the main storyline was so strong.

2/8: Disneyland's Forgotten Sci-Fi Rock Band - Live From the Space Stage - A nice and honest tribute to a group of artists who could have easily been forgotten. In hindsight this feels like a precursor to Kevin’s Disney Channel jingle video, a tribute to the unsung artists pouring their hearts into “lesser” art for a megacorporation, art that was designed to be transient but sticks with people nonetheless.

2/9: Metroid Prime Remastered* - Not gonna finish because I just played through the Wii version in 2021, but still. Very, very pretty remaster.

2/16: Theatrhythm Final Bar Line - It’s more Theatrhythm. What more could I want

2/17: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean (anime) - Probably the best part of the anime so far (assuming they continue on to SBR). A near perfect mix of the more structured plot of part 5 with the goofiness of parts 3 and 4 that crescendos into a fantastic, bombastic, emotional, bittersweet ending. The use of footage from the original opening and the new ending set to Roundabout in the finale were perfect, and made me intensely nostalgic for the early days of my JoJo fandom between seasons 1 and 2 of the anime.

2/22: Aggretsuko Season 5 - I don’t really know what to make of this one. Once you get past the agonizing initial arc all about Haida where Retsuko has to be his overbearing mommy GF who flips out and starts spying on him when she’s left on read and chides him when he misbehaves, it feels like an improvement over the previous seasons. But I don’t know how much of that is due to the extremely low bar set by season 4. And then the ending is extremely rushed and anticlimactic. They got legally married and the only acknowledgement was a shot of them signing the paperwork in a montage partway through the final episode?????????

2/24: Double Fine PsychOdyssey - God, what a journey the making of this game was. I already loved 2 Player’s past efforts at documenting Double Fine’s process, but this takes it to a whole new level. This feels culturally significant. The depth and honesty with which they depict not just the nitty gritty of making a game, but also the inherent struggles of working on a collaborative creative work for years at a time, is astounding. Not to mention that they were there to capture the shift from office life to remote work as COVID hit. So much of this would have been nightmarishly stressful to watch if I didn’t already know how successful the game was, but that’s just because they really didn’t sugarcoat it. And yet even after all that, it leaves me feeling optimistic about video games as an art form in a way that the constant headlines about cynical live service games don’t. There are still people out there pouring their hearts into making real art, and this is their story. Everyone who plays video games should watch this.

2/25: Cracker Island (Gorillaz) - New Gorillaz albums feel like less of an event these days, but after Humanz it feels like they’re just more chill with the project and their ambitions with it. Every couple years we get some more laid back jams from Damon along with some fun new collabs. Hard to complain. Favorite track: New Gold

2/25: Pool Kids (Pool Kids) - I discovered this band because Derek knows them and was excited when they got a song added to Fortnite through the Bandcamp collab. Always down to find more cool indie rock bands I can vibe with. The mix of dreamy vocals and energetic riffs on some of the tracks here almost fill the Crying-shaped hole in my heart. Almost… Favorite track: Conscious Uncoupling

2/25: Insane in the Rain (insaneintherainmusic) - I thought it was really funny timing when Carlos announced that his first original project would be a jazz fusion album inspired by acts like T-Square and Casiopea right as I was getting into those two specific bands. The final product does not disappoint. Favorite track: Insane in the Rain

2/26: Get Up Sequences Part Two (The Go! Team) - I’ve never been one to believe that a band’s sound has to remain exactly the same forever, but it really does hit you hard that the first two tracks here sound like classic The Go! Team. Their more recent cleaner sound is still here too, though, for a nice mix of old and new. Favorite track: Divebomb

2/28: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury (Season 1) - Oh my god. Oh my god. I got distracted around the time I was finishing SLARPG, but finally catching up now, wow. My assumption that the seemingly lighter tone of the series compared to the prologue was there to lull us into a false sense of security before twisting the knife when war finally breaks out was spot on. This is peak Gundam.

March

3/4: Pizza Tower - One of the best platformers I’ve played in a long time. It transcends its blatant Wario Land inspirations with the sheer speed at which Peppino can move and the way things like the level design, his wall running, and even the hidden ability to do a second lap around the level reward getting into a flow state where you’re just constantly moving. This is the type of game that wants to turn you into a speedrunner. My only real complaint is a few iffy enemy designs that I wish would get patched.

3/6: Bloons TD 6 * - I bought this before bed one night on a nostalgic whim and then the next morning woke up and saw the Steam receipt email on my phone in one of the most “what did I do last night” moments of my life. I like when the monkeys pop the balloons.

3/7: The Book of Boba Fett - I put off finishing this show for a very long time but finally caved upon the release of The Mandalorian season 3. This show spends four episodes failing to make me give a shit about Boba Fett trying to be “the daimyo” and drive the drug trade off of Tatooine, then just gives up and becomes season 2.5 of Mando, which in turn feels like it undercuts the main series. It fails as both its own story and as a spinoff. I know that finishing this after Andor did it no favors, but WHOOF.

3/12: Obi-Wan Kenobi - Some interesting ideas in the first half hinting at a more introspective show, but it’s mostly swept aside in the back half so it can become a generic Star Wars adventure remixing things from A New Hope and Rebels (and apparently Jedi: Fallen Order). Action scenes have zero stakes because you know nothing can happen to any of the returning characters and none of the new ones are particularly interesting. Why there’s a second climax hinging on a Luke Skywalker death fakeout eludes me. Obi-Wan throwing the rocks at Vader is one of the funniest things in Star Wars history. But it was still better than Book of Boba Fett, I guess.

3/19: The King of Braves GaoGaiGar - Wow, cool robot indeed… GaoGaiGar isn’t going to blow anyone away with its writing, but sometimes you just need a really fun monster of the week mecha show with great action and lovably goofy characters. This is a show where like 20% of every episode consists of recycled transformation, combination, and signature attack sequences and I ate it up every time because they look fucking cool as hell. I don’t care. I’d watch Final Fusion another 49 times.

3/21: The Last of Us (HBO) * - Watched the first two episodes out of curiosity, but I’m not sure if I’ll continue because I don’t give a shit about The Last of Us. It’s definitely a well done adaptation, though, even if I know it’s inevitably going to devolve into miserable torture porn with questionable politics if they adapt Part II faithfully. The ending of episode 2 also lines up perfectly with where I stopped in the game in 2013 lmao

3/27: The Future is a Dead Mall - Decentraland and the Metaverse (Folding Ideas) - Another banger from Dan Olson. This time the premise inherently gives him more time to just show off a bunch of stupid ugly bullshit made by crypto guys, which is fun. My main complaint was that I wished he would’ve brought up Second Life more as a point of comparison (a thing I basically always want out of discussion of “the metaverse”), but he at least did touch on it in the last section.

3/31: The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog - I can’t believe after years of begging for the supporting cast to get more and better material in a Sonic game I got my wish in the form of a freeware murder mystery VN released for April Fools. This kicked ass.

April

4/7: Berserk - Completed Miura’s run and caught up on the chapters that have been released posthumously. It’s hard to say anything that hasn’t been said about Berserk, universally agreed upon as one of the greats of manga and fantasy fiction as a whole. What begins in its first few volumes as a nihilistic and edgy action comic built to facilitate as much sex and gore as possible quickly evolves into something deeply human and vulnerable and beautiful, both figuratively and in terms of its lavish art. The world sucks and is immeasurably cruel, and you will see that cruelty illustrated in graphic, sickening detail repeatedly throughout the series. (Perhaps a little too often throughout the Golden Age, where it feels like Miura never misses an opportunity to threaten Casca with sexual assault mid-battle.) But the point isn’t to wallow in that misery. It’s the story of a victim of horrific abuse learning to slowly open up to others, having those people he cares about torn away from him in the worst night of his life, hardening himself into a cold killing machine, and then slowly learning to open back up again, even if it means leaving himself vulnerable to more hurt. Anyone who says that the series peaked with the eclipse and went downhill in the “Guts’ JRPG Party” era is missing the point. Guts needed to find new people in his life to care about, to begin to find happiness again. Because no matter what unspeakable things Guts has gone through, it’s still possible for him to heal and to be loved. It takes time, but eventually you stop and realize that life has moved on.

4/8: Dedede’s Drum Dash Deluxe - Skipped it upon release because I didn’t particularly care for the minigame in Triple Deluxe, and I didn’t miss much. It’s fine as a little distraction, but not as a standalone rhythm game with only seven songs. If you don’t bother with the hard modes or chase after high scores this game is 15 minutes long. Oh how I yearn for Kirby to get the Theatrhythm treatment.

4/10: The King of Braves: GaoGaiGar FINAL - Eh… It was okay. Lots of cool robot fights, but said fights are stitched together with a mediocre plot that tries too hard to be more “mature” than its unabashedly schlocky kids’ show predecessor. Not crazy about the ending, either, which tries to be a bittersweet farewell closing off the series once and for all while also teasing that maybe there’ll be ANOTHER sequel after the OVA series they literally called “FINAL.” Ah well.

4/11: The Owl House - Sad to see this one go, but it’s hard to imagine them doing a better finale than this, even if they had gotten the six seasons they deserved. I’m not as obsessed with The Owl House as I probably would’ve been had it come out when I was, like, 20, but it’s a really fantastic show for all the reasons people always say. Great characters, great world, great story. I love that this starry-eyed fantasy story about a teenager finding love and a place where she belongs is also set on the rotting corpse of a titan with Hieronymous Bosch-inspired scenery and freaky monsters everywhere. What a great mix. If anything, I just wish I would’ve watched the first season as it aired so I could’ve had more time with it.

4/29: Mega Man Battle Network 3: Blue Version - FINALLY beat this via the new collection, 20 years after playing it as my first Mega Man game. (Technically my first was White, not Blue, but whatever.) There are more annoyances than I remember - lots of really really bad forced backtracking sections where you have to revisit every previous part of the internet, low chip drop rates, some really aggravating bosses like BubbleMan and KingMan, etc. But it’s still a great time overall. It’s Battle Network. In the back half the story gets surprisingly emotional, too. I was always under the assumption that the Hub stuff never came back up much in the story after 1, so I was pleasantly surprised with how relevant it was to the emotional arc of 3.

4/30: Mega Man Battle Network 4: Red Sun * - Yeah I’m not playing through the whole thing lmao. I just wanted to play the first couple hours for nostalgia’s sake, and as a baseline for how much better the rest are. Even before getting deep in the game and having to deal with all the shit gated between doing two new game+ playthroughs, it’s immediately obvious how much of a downgrade this one is. Tons of glaring errors and typos all over the script, blander music, a way more boring aesthetic for the internet, and a premise that mostly just recycles the tournament idea from 3.

May

5/14: The Venture Bros. - Glad I finally sat down and watched all of this with Anthony after having seen one (1) episode as a teenager and a bunch of random clips in the years since. Great show. Some jokes in the early seasons haven’t aged gracefully, but what the show grows into over time... man. Hank and Dean go from being the butt of the joke to being characters you actually sympathize with - while still also being funny little goofballs. And the journey Henchman 21 goes on throughout the show. Man. Amazing that a comedy like this could run for 20 years and maintain its level of quality. Can’t wait for the movie.

5/18: Future Me Hates Me (The Beths) - Okay yeah I’m now just discovering bands through Fortnite lmao. I can’t complain really, they pick some really great indie artists for the in-game radio stations. Anyway: It’s very easy to win me over with a combination of energetic power pop, catchy guitar riffs, and earnest lyrics like this. One of those albums where three or four tracks in I know I have to buy it. Favorite track: Not Running

5/18: Jump Rope Gazers (The Beths) - Ditto. Favorite track: Dying to Believe

5/18: Expert In A Dying Field (The Beths) - Another good album. (I’m listening to these in release order.) I’ve been a bit slower to warm up to this one, initially thinking it was a little too mellow overall, but it might be my favorite after a few listens. Some real high highs. Interestingly, the lead singer’s New Zealand accent is also coming out more in her singing? Favorite track: Your Side (or maybe Head in the Clouds)

5/19: The Super Mario Bros. Movie - As a Mario fan, I think I enjoyed it? As a movie, less so? It was decent, in spite of feeling like they came up with a list of fun action setpieces first and then wrote the absolute bare minimum possible for the story scenes tying it all together. Full thoughts here. (This is the first movie I’ve seen this year, huh? I really don’t watch a lot of movies.)

5/23: Don't Know What You're In Until You're Out (Gladie) - I feel like I don’t like Gladie as much as I should. Their style of noisy indie rock is very much in my wheelhouse, and I do enjoy listening to them, but I dunno. Maybe it’s that the particular style of vocals makes it more monotonous to me. A good album nonetheless, if not 100% my thing. Favorite track: Nothing

5/24: City Slicker (Ginger Root) - Yes I am still making my way through Bandcamp artists I heard on Fortnite don’t @ me. Any excuse to get me to listen to some cool city pop-inspired funk like this is a good excuse. Favorite track: Loretta

5/24: Rikki (Ginger Root) - Favorite track: Why Try

5/25: Spotlight People (Ginger Root) - Favorite track: The Classic

5/29: Succession - A good dramedy series that increasingly focuses more on the drama than the comedy as it progresses, but it’s hard to complain about that since the drama is so compellingly produced. I enjoyed it. That being said, I kind of rankle at the claims that it’s The Greatest TV Show Of All Time. It’s great, don’t get me wrong. Amazing performances all around. But the show LOVES to spin its wheels, to repeat itself, and to let most of its interesting dramatic developments fizzle out before anything really comes of them, almost as if the show is constantly getting bored with its own ideas. To some extent this is intentional - Logan Roy is the untouchable billionaire, his kids fail at everything (but will nonetheless remain billionaires), and in the long run none of them really give a shit about anything other than their own status. But it’s not like things tend to visibly impact anyone else, either, be they supporting characters or the world at large. Even the Big Scary Election, where the Roy siblings are directly responsible for plunging the nation into chaos, ultimately has zero impact on the finale a mere two episodes later. Certain Other Things do have an impact in the last season, though, allowing things to meaningfully change for the cast and for the show to sit with the ensuing drama, which has stopped me from souring on Succession more. There was finally a payoff for something. But it does still kind of feel like a show that goes in circles until it’s ready to call it quits, even if those circles did contain a lot of great acting and music along the way.

5/29: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts - I’d watched the first 12 episodes when they originally released, but I guess the Netflix binge release and the fact that all three “seasons” came out in one year led to me waiting until it finished… and then I just never got around to finishing it. Glad I fixed that! Really fun and stylish cartoon with an art style reminiscent of Teen Titans, a hip hop-filled soundtrack, dynamic fight scenes, and a colorful post-apocalyptic world filled with mutant (mostly anthropomorphic) animals. I’ll admit that at times I do kinda roll my eyes at Kipo’s unshakeable belief that everyone can be friends in a way that I don’t necessarily with similar shows like Steven Universe, and not every joke lands, but I dunno. It’s a kids’ show. That’s to be expected. It doesn’t detract from the overall package for me.

June

6/1: Craig of the Creek (Season 4) - It’s been years and I’m still processing the fact that kids can turn on Cartoon Network and hear Jeff Rosenstock. Anyway! Craig continues to be one of the best cartoons on TV, consistently funny and creative and way more engaging than a show about a bunch of kids LARPing in the woods has any right to be. This season turned into One Piece with the gang effectively hunting down the Poneglyphs in search of a legendary treasure. The kids think it’ll be magic. It isn't. An increasing number of cartoon logic gags aside, this show is firmly set in the real world. Does that make it any less interesting? Hell no. Season 3 turned a game of capture the flag into an all-out five episode war between the heroes and villains, filled with dramatic turnabouts and a climactic guest appearance from Del the Funky Homosapien. I’m sure however they wrap things up in the (sadly shortened) final season, it’ll be great. (Also? I would watch a whole show based on that “what if” episode that jumped forward to everyone’s 20s.)

6/6: Barry - Holy shit, what a show. I ended up binging it in less than a week in a cycle of “okay, just one more episode.” The way this show is able to swing between tones and genres while still feeling like a cohesive whole is truly masterful. It’s a layered character drama, a tragic crime thriller, a farcical comedy, an understated action series, a surrealist morality play, and a scathing satire of Hollywood, all in one. Even within the criminal underworld subplots the show ranges in tone from Breaking Bad to Paddington 2. And it works! While the show naturally gets bleaker over time as it confronts the repercussions of Barry’s murders, it never completely loses sight of its comedic roots. My favorite episode was easily season 2’s “ronny/lily,” a mostly self-contained episode that somehow manages to keep throwing the perfect curveballs to escalate its dark comedy.

6/12: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Extended Edition) - Y’all heard of this movie? Pretty good, it turns out. (I’d seen the theatrical cut before, but this was my first time watching the extended edition. I’ve also only seen parts of the other two movies, so it’s time I finally watch all the extended cuts. The Gollum game pushed me to this.)

6/13: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Extended Edition) - give it to us RAW and WRIGGLING

6/17: The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Extended Edition) - I’m not crying YOU���RE crying

6/22: Clone High (Season 2) - While the first episode being about “cancel culture” (or, more accurately, a teenager from 2003 being transported to 2023 and putting his foot in his mouth a lot) put a lot of people off, I ended up enjoying the new season of Clone High. The new clones grew on me as the season went on and their roles in the web of teen romance melodrama crystalized, and it made me laugh a lot, and Cleo/Frida is galaxy brained. Also they played one of my favorite Antarctigo Vespucci songs like a minute into the first episode. I don’t think I could really ask for much more.

6/28: The Mandalorian (Season 3) - I'd been watching this weekly but put off the last episode for no real reason. Responses to this season have been all over the place, but my blistering hot take is… it was fine. Is it as good as the first season? Probably not. But Mando no longer needs to carry the whole franchise on its shoulders and set the bar for how good the live action Disney Star Wars shows can be, because Andor exists, and it’s never gonna top Andor. The Mandalorian is free to just be a pulpy space adventure show where Giancarlo Esposito plays a scenery-chewing cartoon villain and a little puppet does wire stunts. These are things Andor cannot and should not do, but that’s Star Wars, baby. It’s delightful. I could watch Grogu get underhand tossed like a sack of flour all day.

July

7/2: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury (Season 2) - LOVE WINS. (More nuanced take from way later: It definitely feels like a lot of the more messy political conflicts in this show got swept aside by the big final battle where some more easily resolved family conflicts take center stage. I’m not sure the ending is the most satisfying. But also this show only got half the episode count that damn near every other Gundam show ever made got, so that might be a factor here. Idk. Still one of my favorite Gundams.)

7/4: Final Fantasy XVI (watched Anthony play) - I had to write my longest Medium article ever about this one because I was so frustrated

7/10: Home Movies - “Things I like that I’ve never seen in full” has certainly been a recurring theme this year. Home Movies remains an all-time classic of animated comedy that went out on a high note before things got stale or the characters became parodies of themselves. While it’s mostly known for its funny improvised banter, throughout the last season you can really see the arc where Brendon no longer enjoys making movies, yet he feels obligated to keep using them to escape from the real world. In that light, the ending where the nature of their dysfunctional makeshift family is cemented, Brendon’s camera suddenly breaks, and life moves on really does feel like the perfect note to end on. Truly one of the best to ever do it.

7/15: The Legend of Zelda - Tears of the Kingdom - Wow. Just… wow. I had serious doubts about TotK in the months leading up to release due to how close Nintendo was playing their cards to their chest. I didn’t want this to be a Saints Row IV, where the game is fun enough but the recycled map makes it feel like a rehash. Instead, I found a game that made me look at BotW’s map in a whole new light, brimming with so many more things to do and people to meet. Add on a better, more versatile set of tools, more varied dungeons and bosses, and a story that I felt was told somewhat better and we’ve got a real contender for my new favorite Zelda game. It was hard to tear myself away, but as this list shows, it’s been basically the only game I’ve played since it came out.

7/16: Sonic Prime (Season 2) - I liked the parts with Shadow and Chaos Sonic, but I’ve come to the sad conclusion that most of this show is just mediocre. More thoughts here.

7/18: We ♥ Katamari Reroll + Royal Reverie - “I’m a dog, but I love Katamari Damacy.” Truer words have never been spoken.

7/19: Transformers: Rise of the Beasts - Pretty good! It didn’t blow me away, but after how bad the Bay movies got I’m just thankful to have a decently cohesive Transformers movie where the human story is okay and I like the bots (although half of them needed more screen time), even if it is just another Hollywood blockbuster about two sides fighting over a macguffin that devolves into a big CGI battle against an army of nameless monsters in the third act. This is basically a mid-tier MCU movie but with Transformers, which won’t do much for most people, but again: the bar was underground.

7/22: The Venture Bros.: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart - God DAMN. A phenomenal ending for the series. While I would have loved to see a full final season to get some more one-off episodes in there, this doesn’t feel creatively compromised in any way–either due to the time constraints, or due to a desire to make it more marketable as a movie. It really does feel like they just took their outlines for the canceled final season and gently massaged them into the shape of an 84-minute movie, and I mean that in the best possible way. It’s completely on par with the previous seasons. A hilarious and fitting sendoff for one of the greats of adult animation.

7/23: Beautiful Katamari - This was one of my first Xbox 360 games, but a frustrating temperature-based level made me put it down for 16 years. “Maybe it won’t be as bad now that I’ve beaten the first two games and am better at Katamari,” I thought. Nope! Still an absolutely dogshit level. But also, turns out the whole game is only like two hours long lmao. It’s still Katamari, so it’s still fun - the final level in particular, which seamlessly takes you from ground level all the way to space, feels like a logical endpoint for the series - but beyond that it just doesn't have the same soul without Keita Takahashi's input.

August

8/4: Doom Singer (Chris Farren) - I’ve been waiting so long for Chris and Jeff to do another Antarctigo Vespucci album, but god damn. This is the best of Chris’s solo work, and a contender for his best record, period. Every track’s a banger, with more energy than some of his previous solo work but also a good deal of variety. Favorite tracks: First Place, Cosmic Leash

8/4: Transformers Earthspark (Season 1) - This show had a bit of an uneven start, unsure if it wanted to have the emotional maturity of a more serious action cartoon or a preschool cartoon where the characters have little kid mood swings and outbursts and learn basic lessons. It also felt like it was speedrunning its Wholesome Found Family Dynamic with characters who just met, which didn’t feel earned. While these problems never completely go away (see: the cheap and corny way the otherwise very dark season finale suddenly resolves), the show improves quickly, and the positives outweigh the negatives. It’s so great to have a Transformers cartoon that feels fresh, giving us a post-war setting with a bunch of new characters and new dynamics between the Cybertronians and the humans. The returning characters are also uniformly great as the old veterans overseeing the new generation. (Reformed Megatron! Danny Pudi as Bumblebee! Steve Blum returning as Starscream! Keith David as Grimlock!!!) And those super dynamic action scenes! I can nitpick, but Earthspark’s a ton of fun, and easily the best new Transformers cartoon since Prime and Animated.

8/5: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (remaster) - Everyone who told me this game was a masterpiece was right. I had played the first chapter when it dropped as the demo for the iOS version years ago, but never went further than that until now. What a game. Absolutely incredible through and through. Great story, great twists, great characters, great puzzles, great art direction. Everything comes together so perfectly to form a totally unique, unforgettable package, a top tier video game murder mystery. Everyone should play this, preferably going in as blind as possible.

8/15: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Season 16) - Wow! Recent seasons of Sunny have been kind of up and down, with some interesting experiments (Mac Finds His Pride, the Ireland arc, etc.) paired with some comedic duds. Most of this latest season is standard fare for the series with fewer big creative swings, but it’s just hit after hit in terms of comedy. Not a single dud, whether we’re seeing Mac and Dennis try to start a rental business for inflatable furniture or watching the gang meet Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul, believing the entire time that the latter is Malcolm from Malcolm in the Middle. Even the attempts at topical comedy landed better. Easily the funniest season in years.

8/16: One Piece Film Gold - It’s easy to see why this one has kind of been forgotten in the wake of Stampede and Film Red, which revolve around established fan favorite characters, but this was still pretty fun. Perhaps a little too long, but it’s fun to see the Straw Hats fool around in a giant casino and do a heist. They definitely cranked the fanservice up even more than usual in this one, though, as I probably should have expected for a movie made alongside the anime’s adaptation of Dressrosa.

8/17: One Piece: Stampede - This one goes for a different kind of fanservice. While most One Piece movies are isolated from the ongoing plot and its expanded cast of characters, Stampede instead asks “What if we just put damn near every active character on the same island and had them fight?” The answer: a fun time! It would get old if all of the movies were like this, but after a bunch of movies that are just like “the Straw Hats are gonna land on another new island and fight some more weird guys” it’s fun to see characters like Law and Buggy and Smoker get in on the fun. It’s also nice to get a movie with the Wano era art style, and Usopp surprisingly gets some really good character moments in here.

8/18: One Piece Film Red - This really is the best of the One Piece movies, huh? (Baron Omatsuri is a close second.) It really feels like a change of pace after the last four with the most interesting and emotionally engaging story out of any of them. And even if the events of these movies are never canon, it still feels significant in my understanding of Shanks as a character as we move into the final phase of the manga.

8/21: Pikmin 4 - The opening hour of the game made me really question if they’d changed too much, with all the focus on your new dog unit over your Pikmin and the extremely dull, drawn out dialogue scenes with your new companions back at the base. But once I got into the swing of things I had a blast. This is probably my new favorite Pikmin game. There’s a great mix of activities here to keep things fresh. I also really ended up liking Oatchi’s role as basically your second captain who can also serve as your tank or a rideable mount. The Dandori stuff and nighttime missions in particular show off how useful Oatchi is for your multitasking without necessarily overshadowing the Pikmin.

8/22: Never Get Tired: The Bomb the Music Industry! Story - I literally backed this on Kickstarter eight years ago (my name is in the credits!) and then never got around to watching it for no reason. It’s on YouTube now, and Jeff’s got a new album out next week, so now feels like the perfect time to watch it. And man… what a great documentary. Obviously I’m just a fan of the band, but this also really spoke to me as an artist. Jeff wanting to stick to his principles and give out his music for free and play cheap all ages shows, his discomfort over the idea of selling merch, and the struggles that come with not playing the game like that… It's hard. They readily admit that Jeff is an idealist, that people fight him on this stuff, that he’s missed out on some big opportunities because of these stances, and that he’s had to compromise a bit on some of these things over time. But that incredible climax with their final show, including a full opening performance of the slowly building “Campaign for a Better Next Weekend” and the closing performance of “Future 86” where the whole audience is singing along as the members of the band are hugging and crying… it’s beautiful. This may have been a band where the members had to go back to their shitty day jobs after every tour because they weren’t selling out arenas, but their art meant something to people, and that makes it all worth it.

8/25: Nimona - I haven’t read the original comic (yet), so I can’t compare them too much, but it’s nonetheless pretty apparent that some things were softened and easy kids’ movie jokes were added by the studio to squeeze this graphic novel for teens into a PG animated movie. Regardless, the emotional throughline hits REALLY hard, particularly the very blatant trans allegory and the climax. (It’s no wonder Disney was afraid of this movie seeing the light of day lmao.) The animation is also very squishy and fun to watch throughout. Great movie.

8/26: Puss in Boots: The Last Wish - Spider-Verse really has done so much for animation, huh? This one was as good as everyone said. Beautiful use of stylized color and lighting throughout, and every time this movie very conspicuously shifted to different framerates for a flashy fight scene it owned. Very cute and heartwarming story, too, which thankfully gave its second act plenty of time to explore the cast and let them go on their journey, unlike a certain plumber movie that came out a few months later. Also I would let Death [redacted]

8/28: Holocure: Save the Fans! - This isn't really something I can beat, but I've been addicted to Holocure lately. I don't even watch VTubers aside from maybe seeing a funny Korone animation every now and then, this is just a really, really good freeware Vampire Survivors clone with a huge roster of varied characters to pick from.

8/31: HELLMODE (Jeff Rosenstock) - A new album from Jeff is always a major event for me. If there were any worries that he was starting to go soft at 40 (because one of the three singles off this album was a gentle acoustic piece), the frantic opening of this album put those worries to rest. The first two tracks are Jeff screaming out for help as he’s pulled in a million directions by the chaotic state of the world, a theme that becomes the thesis of the album. I’d say it lags slightly in the middle, but overall this is another extremely well-rounded record full of bangers that’s unapologetically Jeff, with possibly my favorite closing track he’s ever done. Favorite tracks: I WANNA BE WRONG, 3 SUMMERS

September

9/3: One Piece (live action, Season 1) - They did it. I can’t believe it, but they did it. While I have my nitpicks (Usopp and Sanji don’t get enough big moments to shine), this is an extremely solid and faithful adaptation of the first few arcs of One Piece with a great cast. For the most part the changes feel smart and logical, and the big emotional beats of the story are all there and executed very well. I doubted it a little in episodes 2-4, where the Orange Town and Syrup Village arcs saw some major changes to shift the action indoors, and the increased focus on the drama in favor of repeating every gag and battle from the manga 1:1 took a bit of getting used to, but by the end I was having a blast. It’s a different take on One Piece, but it still feels like One Piece. Genuinely very excited for season 2.

9/4: Pseudoregalia - A great little N64-style 3D Metroidvania focused on platforming and very satisfying movement. I always love entries in the genre that are less prescriptive in what order you have to tackle areas in, a la Symphony of the Night or Hollow Knight, and this one’s great in that regard. While there are a number of new moves to find, most of the map is open to you very early in the game, and smart use of your moveset can allow you to “sequence break” without even realizing it. (You would not believe how long I went without getting the wall run.) I do wish it had a map, but that’s already being patched in.

9/6: Bomb Rush Cyberfunk * - Not a bad game at all, but I quickly remembered how bad I am at skating games, so like… eh? Not sure I have much desire to play past chapter 2. Also the soundtrack is sadly kinda hit or miss for me outside of the obvious Naganuma tunes.

9/9: The History of the Minnesota Vikings (Dorktown) - Jon Bois never misses. Even as someone who doesn’t actively follow sports, Jon Bois is a master storyteller, using graphs and statistics and funny anecdotes to explore these deeply human stories. He can convey why people care so much about these teams, these people, and sports in general, and how our popular sports reflect on American culture. He could tell the story of just about any team or player in any sport and I just know I’ll come out the other side a misty-eyed fan. And what a fascinating cast of characters we have this time, with origin stories for everything from the Hail Mary pass to a Minnesota state supreme court judge to the Griddy. Nine hours well spent.

9/10: Timespinner - A fun and highly polished Metroidvania that maybe doesn’t quite have enough of its own identity in its quest to replicate Symphony of the Night…but also, like, this was pitched as a Symphony throwback on KickStarter in a pre-Bloodstained, pre-Hollow Knight world, so I can’t really blame ‘em! Stopping time to avoid boss attacks is fun, the pixel art is gorgeous, and I liked the dark science fantasy story about warring empires and meddling with time a lot more than I thought I would - lore journal text dumps and all.

9/14: The Decay of Sam & Cat (Quinton Reviews) - All the stuff at the end with Matt Bennett (the actor who played Robbie on Victorious and Sam & Cat) in this was really good and sweet. It’s that kind of thing that makes these videos feel like they’re still worthwhile on some level. But the padding and the things Quinton chooses to spend the colossal runtime on does drive me more and more insane with each passing Nick sitcom video. I don’t know how much longer he can keep this schtick up. I hope he’s able to move on to other things before too terribly long instead of continuing to extend this “miniseries.”

9/19: Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales - AKA Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man 1.5. It’s fun for the same reasons Peter’s first game was fun. I had a good time swinging around New York again in preparation for the sequel, and there’s a lot of cute stuff with Miles becoming Harlem’s neighborhood hero, but WOW did the Underground v. Roxxon conflict fall flat for me.

9/20: I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson - I understand so many posts now.

9/25: Spider-Man (2002) (rewatch) - It’s you who’s out, Gobby! OUT OF YOUR MIND!

9/25: Futurama (Season 8) - I was ready to be a hater, recalling the fact that Futurama has already had three “perfect endings” with the show getting a little weaker with every revival. Then I watched the first new episode on a whim and thought it wasn’t bad, so I was like, eh, sure, I’ll watch the rest. Overall Hulurama is hit or miss. There are chuckles to be had, and it sure as hell beats modern Simpsons, but almost every episode is either a belated take on an overplayed Topical Issue (the pandemic, Amazon, cancel culture, etc.) or a direct sequel to an old episode people liked. Or both! It’s also really noticeable that certain voice actors sound way older - Billy West is struggling with the Fry voice in particular, and it hurts his comedic timing. But just when all hope seemed lost after the nigh-incomprehensible toy-themed anthology episode, possibly the worst episode of the entire series… the last episode, where the Planet Express crew explores whether or not the universe could be a simulation, was really, really solid. Great note to end on to make me not regret my time with this season as a whole.

9/26: Spider-Man 2 (2004) (rewatch) - Once the GOAT, always the GOAT.

9/27: Spider-Man 3 (rewatch) - Revisiting this movie for the first time since I saw it in theaters… it’s not bad. It’s fine! It continues to have the heart and sincerity that make the first two movies work. It’s just not as concise with three villains vying for the spotlight, but I also wouldn’t cut any of them, necessarily. I guess Eddie/Venom would be the easiest, but Peter getting the black suit and giving in to his resentment feels too central to cut. (Yes, even with Emo Peter becoming a meme.)

9/28: Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake - I wasn’t really sure what to expect with this one, especially since I was never really a fan of the genderbend episodes in the original show. (At the time they mostly just felt like an excuse to crank up the teen romance stuff to 11.) But MAN. This was a fantastic coda to the original series. It made me care about Fionna and Cake and their friends as their own characters separate from their original counterparts, it gave the Simon/Betty arc a much more satisfying (if no less bittersweet) resolution than the original finale had time to do, and it even managed to be a multiverse story that didn’t make me roll my eyes in 2023. A+ all around. Makes me wanna rewatch the original show again. [spoiler: I did]

9/29: Meanwhile (aivi & surasshu) - It’s been a whole decade–they were busy with, you know, all the music in Steven Universe, among other things–but we finally have a new aivi & surasshu album! Their chiptune/piano fusion style is familiar, but they’ve definitely grown as composers in subtle ways. Favorite track: Time Travel

October

10/1: This is Financial Advice (Folding Ideas) - A lot of the nitty gritty finance law stuff turned into white noise for me, but still, great video. I had no idea that the GameStop stock craze devolved into this bizarre cult that thinks they’re going to crash the global economy and rise from the ashes as the new kings with the value of their GME stocks. Glad this video exists to try and balance out the narrative.

10/5: Sonic Frontiers: The Final Horizon DLC - Good ideas, absurdly frustrating and tedious execution. Full thoughts here.

10/10: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (rewatch) - I didn’t plan this, but very fitting that I would end up rewatching this on 10/10.

10/12: Half-Life Alyx but the Gnome is Self-Aware (wayneradiotv) - ha he! (Seriously though, that finale was a fucking masterpiece. The RTVS crew has an incredible knack for using the framing device of video game livestreams to blur the lines between comedy and horror, or ironic anti-humor and complete sincerity. I’ve never seen anything else like this.)

10/15: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse - Not sure how much I can say that hasn’t already been said. The most visually creative movie I’ve ever seen, grounded by some really excellent storytelling about Miles (and now Gwen) that’s probably better than his actual comics. But it also does feel like it’s about to end and then the movie just keeps going like ten times over lmao. Can’t wait to watch this a second time on a better TV.

10/20: Sonic Superstars - A mostly really solid and fun 2D Sonic game that’s unfortunately dragged down by an extremely hodgepodge soundtrack and some overly drawn out boss fights. I spent HOURS trying to beat the final boss of the bonus scenario (which is required for the true ending in this one) before giving up. Really a shame that that’s the note I’m leaving the game on, because I otherwise enjoyed it, but ah well. More thoughts here.

10/27: Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 - Another good Spider-Man game from Insomniac. Liked the story more than the one in Miles Morales, but maybe not as much as the first game. Extensive thoughts here.

10/28: Venom - Was in the mood for more Venom after the game. As expected this was not a very good movie, but the dynamic between Eddie and Venom made it a fun watch. Tom Hardy is constantly about to shit his pants in this movie. It’s great.

10/28: Venom: Let There Be Carnage - I had a way better time with this one. Is this a good movie? No. But it cranks the insanity of the first movie up to 11. Goofy as fuck in an extremely watchable way.

November

11/5: Pluto - An absolutely masterful series that anyone interested in sci-fi needs to watch. The anime adaptation was great, and I immediately understand why people who’ve read the manga speak so highly of it. Really makes me want to get into Astro Boy more, and also read some of Urasawa’s other works.

11/18: Scott Pilgrim Takes Off - Wow, just wow. When news of a Scott Pilgrim anime broke I was cautiously curious to see if we’d get a more direct adaptation of the comics, and instead it veered off in the exact opposite direction in the best way possible. This is almost entirely a different story, one that’s in conversation with the previous versions (sometimes in very meta ways), and I think it’s really valuable to see O’Malley revisiting these characters with new things to say about them. The major story divergence gives us a chance to examine the characters from a new angle - particularly Ramona, who’s the real protagonist of this version, and the evil exes, who completely steal the show. This was a great reminder of why I fell in love with this series as a teenager. I now genuinely hope we get more Scott Pilgrim.

11/22: Void Rivals (Issues #1 - #6) - The first arc of the new Robert Kirkman series that kicked off Skybound’s new “Energon Universe” is now complete, and I’m left thinking Void Rivals is… okay? I thought the first issue was a decent (if not particularly original) sci-fi comic with an appealing art style, which just so happens to also briefly have a Transformer in it so there can be a Big Surprise. And the series still hasn’t quite shaken that feeling to me. It’s an okay sci-fi series that arbitrarily dedicates a couple of pages of every issue to something from Transformers, but I’m not really sure what the shared universe stuff adds to Void Rivals, or what Void Rivals adds to Transformers and GI Joe. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

11/22: Journey to EPCOT Center: A Symphonic History (Defunctland) - Yeah, gotta be honest, I only got halfway through this one. It seems like Kevin just 1) really wanted to push himself creatively and 2) make a love letter to Epcot, and while I respect that, I think it suffers as a historical documentary. It’s Fantasia but for the creation of Epcot. That might be very impressive on a technical level, but it feels more like a piece of Disney propaganda than prior Defunctland videos due to a lack of context and nuance. 

11/24: Aperture Desk Job - A short, sweet, and funny little tech demo for my new Steam Deck set in the Portal universe. More effort was definitely put into this than was strictly necessary.

11/26: ESCHATOS - I am not good at bullet hell games, but I enjoy them from time to time and I really love this one’s FM synth soundtrack, so I picked it up on a whim in the Steam sale. I only beat it on Easy, but still, I had a lot of fun with it! It’s straightforward but very flashy, with the camera dynamically zooming around from set piece to set piece at ridiculous speeds and each level segueing directly into the next. The lack of a powerup system on the main mode in favor of just needing to know when to use your different shot types makes it feel very approachable.

11/27: Lunistice - A great little 3D platformer with a good soundtrack that I had fun hunting down all the secrets in. This is an easy recommendation for fans of games like Kirby or Klonoa - whimsical games set in colorful dream worlds where the underlying story can get a bit more somber. (Although the story in this one is mostly told through mildly cryptic lore dumps, so your mileage there may vary.)

11/28: Spark the Electric Jester 2 - The leap from 2D to 3D here is impressive, but this is very clearly a rough draft for Spark 3. Very, very fun Sonic-style 3D platforming, but the combat is lacking and the storytelling is just kinda bad. More extensive thoughts on this and the above two games here.

December

12/2: Fortnite (Chapter 4) - This was my first full chapter of Fortnite, after having been roped into the game by the siren songs of Zero Build mode and Goku during Chapter 3. This means it’s harder for me to compare this chapter to previous ones, but still, Fortnite remains a genuinely very well made Battle Royale shooter that’s a blast with friends. If I have any complaint about this Chapter, it’s that they would regularly introduce zany ideas and then slowly reel them back in, whether it was the Augment system or the increasingly mundane movement items. It also felt like it was a little too easy to get the perfect loadout in every match, meaning the final showdown would almost always be against players with Slurp Juice and gold shotguns. And I missed the smaller mid-season map updates of Chapter 3. But overall I still had a really good time, and look forward to playing more for the foreseeable future.

12/4: Plagiarism and You(Tube) (HBomberguy) - This will get written off by many as “YouTuber drama,” but this really is an excellent video essay that feels like the kick in the pants that YouTube needs. If video essayists are gonna be a major source of information for so many, then they gotta have standards. I also think it does a good job of highlighting the people that have been plagiarized and trying to drive more attention their way in an attempt to right those wrongs.

12/6: Transformers (Skybound comic) - We only got the first three issues of this in 2023, but I just HAVE to say something about how incredible this series is here. Daniel Warren Johnson is knocking it out of the park. This is the new bar for Transformers. The hand-inked art is extremely dynamic and full of character, and the story is using the familiar beats of G1 Transformers but doing very new things with them. You can tell this from the very first page, but the emotional scene of Optimus accidentally crushing a deer in the forest and realizing how fragile life is on Earth sealed the deal for me. And yet in the very same comics Optimus can do suplexes and clotheslines and lord knows how many other wrestling moves on Decepticons, and it doesn’t feel like tonal whiplash? These comics just fucking rule, and anyone with even the slightest interest in Transformers should be reading them.

12/8: What We Do in the Shadows (Season 5) - [spoilers] WWDITS has very much settled into being a status quo show. Every season has its own little arc where one or two things change to keep things interesting, but then everything returns to normal by the end. Guillermo finally becoming a vampire, only to become a human again in the end, might just be the most egregious example of this yet. But also… the show’s still really funny? And I continue to be happy that Kristen Schaal has stuck around as a series regular as the Guide. So it’s hard to complain. I could see the show running out of steam over the next few seasons, but it’s still hitting for me right now.

12/12: Pony Island - Finally got around to this since the trailer for the sequel dropped. I feel like playing this years later in a post-Inscryption world where Pony Island is a known quantity kind of lessens its impact, but still, it’s a fun and funny puzzle game where you try to hack your way out of a possessed arcade machine. I’m not sure I found it particularly scary, but I’m not sure it’s supposed to be? The way the game messes with you during the Asmodeus “boss fight” was probably the highlight for me. I also like being able to say things like “The part where you have to not kill Jesus was so hard. I kept getting terrible butterfly patterns.”

12/16: Breaking Bad VR but the AI is Self-Aware (wayneradiotv) - As always, Wayne and co.’s commitment to the bit is unrivaled. This kind of got interpreted as just a way to troll HLVRAI fans, but so many moments in this genuinely made me laugh out loud.

12/18: Soul of Sovereignty Prelude - As someone who would list Cucumber Quest as a big creative influence, I was naturally very excited for this first chapter of GGDG’s new visual novel. Their mentality of both scaling things back in terms of labor while also going more shamelessly self-indulgent in terms of storytelling after burning out on making webcomics has really spoken to me, and WOW, the end result of that new process of theirs is shaping up to be something really special. The art and music are sparse but extremely evocative, giving you the rough sketch of the world and letting your mind fill in the rest. The story blends literary high fantasy vibes with the style of fantasy seen in ‘90s JRPGs (you can definitely tell this came from an idea for an RPG), but rather than constantly winking at the audience and making self-aware video game references it plays these storytelling ideas extremely sincerely, giving them real dramatic weight while still indulging in fun tropes to their fullest extent. While it’s a far cry from their most famous work with much more mature content, GGDG always excels at creating characters and worlds that immediately grab me. I can’t wait for the rest.

12/18: Barbie - I’m only… what, five months late for the whole Barbenheimer thing? Perfect timing. Anyway! On the one hand, I get the critiques saying that this movie is just a major corporation funding a self-aware feminist critique of their own product as a marketing ploy. And I kinda agree with that. And the movie is a little too long, and I don’t really know what to think of the way the Barbie/Ken conflict plays out. Anthony asked me to summarize what the story ended up being about, and I had no idea what to even say. But also… I did still like the movie? We don’t get a lot of cartoonish, absurdist, fourth wall breaking comedies like this anymore, and this is a good one of those. Also the whole cast is great, the set design is kind of stunning, and the cinematography is consistently appealing. I wouldn’t say it’s a revolutionary work of feminist filmmaking by any stretch, but it’s a good comedy movie.

12/21: Dr. Stone: New World - Man, Dr. Stone is great. I’ve said this many times, but I just love that this series uses all the trappings of shounen that would normally be used to hype up the protagonist learning a new move to instead hype up things like the protagonist building a loom or a hot air balloon. It’s shounen Bill Nye. I didn’t completely love everything about the Treasure Island arc this season, but it all built towards a really fun climax with a lot of satisfying turnabouts where the heroes use their ingenuity to just barely win.

12/23: The History of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out World Records (Summoning Salt) - Truly one of my favorite Summoning Salt videos ever, even with how repetitive Punch-Out can get to watch. It’s just so hard to beat “and that runner… was me.”

12/24: Super Mario Bros. Wonder - What more can be said that hasn’t already been said? It’s the best and most creative 2D Mario game since the ‘90s. The only real flaws are that it’s a little easy, the Search Party stages are annoying in singleplayer, and I wish that every boss prior to the final boss wasn’t just some form of Bowser Jr. fight. But those aren’t nearly enough to drag the whole experience down. It was a blast.

12/24: Do a Powerbomb! - Got this from Anthony as a birthday present. This is the previous series by the creative team currently doing the new Transformers comics I was gushing about a few entries ago. Even with the high bar set by those comics, Do a Powerbomb! exceeded my expectations. Holy shit. An absolutely entrancing fantasy wrestling miniseries full of dynamic, energetic action and tons of heart. These comics where a guy wrestles a giant talking orangutan almost made me cry. Twice. An instant favorite.

12/25: Adventure Time (rewatch) - We ended up finishing our rewatch of Adventure Time (the main series, anyway) on my 30th birthday, which feels appropriate. I already kinda knew this, but this rewatch has truly confirmed that Adventure Time is my favorite TV series of all time. The entire show is even better on a full series rewatch. In hindsight, even parts that annoyed me when they aired end up being important parts of the beautiful tapestry that is this series. The many low points of Finn’s adolescent love life are important stepping stones in his growth as a person, which leaves him in an extremely satisfying place by the end. Jake having kids didn’t get to be a huge status quo change because they grew up instantly, but then they did a bunch of fun episodes about Jake’s relationships with his adult children that deepened him as a character. And most of the big lore questions they kept teasing over the years (“Where’d the humans go?” “Who are Finn’s parents?” “When’s Finn gonna get a robot arm?” etc.) ended up getting satisfying and creative answers, because the show left itself the room to figure those things out later. This is a truly special, one-of-a-kind series, one that lasted nearly 300 episodes and yet still seems like it was over too soon. And yes, I did in fact cry during the final montage, like I knew I would. I will always cherish this show with all of my heart.

12/25: Olive the Other Reindeer (rewatch) - Haven’t seen this one since I was a kid! It was a favorite of mine back then, and while it might not be quite as funny as I remember it’s still very cute, with a 2D/3D hybrid art style that remains very unique and appealing. As an adult I can also appreciate the cast they got for this, with like half the cast of Futurama bolstered by guests like Michael Stipe from REM and The Sopranos’ Joe Pantoliano.

12/26: Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio - Anthony and I capped off our Christmas with the most jolly and festive stop motion movie of all! Jokes aside, man, what a beautiful movie. The animation is immaculate, and we really just don’t get children’s animated films like this anymore. Ones that overtly feature real world politics and religion and so many other dark themes in a way that doesn’t talk down to kids or sugarcoat things. This one hits hard. We need more movies like this.

12/31: Oppenheimer - This was an interesting one. Despite being three hours, the way that first hour jumps around in time makes it feel like Oppenheimer is constantly being propelled forward through life at a breakneck pace, swept up by the rising tide of nationalism in spite of his personal left wing politics, never really reflecting on what he’s doing until it’s too late. Then when he’s no longer useful to the empire, he’s chewed up and spat out, only to eventually be honored as a national hero as a symbolic gesture. It’s a compelling story. However, I’m a little torn on how certain aspects of history were framed. Does the abstraction of the bombings detract from the true weight of those events, in favor of sympathizing with the man who built the bomb? Or is it clever a way to show how the realities of the war were compartmentalized away by people who were complicit in its most heinous acts of violence? One minute a bunch of physicists are talking theory, thousands of miles away from the theaters of war, and the next they’ve killed 200,000 people. So which is it? Eh, probably somewhere in the middle, I guess. But I liked it overall.

12/31: Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe - I’ve been really surprised by how good this rerelease is. It kind of flew under the radar for me. I liked the original game, but at the time it also almost felt like the New Super Mario Bros. of Kirby. It was a straightforward throwback game where you went through a grass world, then a desert world, then a water world, etc., and also they added four player co-op. But returning to this one after the kinda mid Star Allies has made me appreciate just how solid RtDL is as a Kirby game. I really like the updated graphics, too - yes, even the new cel shaded outlines around the characters - even though I didn’t think it looked that great in screenshots. Also the two new copy abilities (Sand and Mecha) are fun, the minigame collection is shockingly fleshed out to the point that they could’ve sold it as a standalone eShop game, the collectible character masks are fun, and the new epilogue mode where you play as Magolor is one of the coolest bonus modes they’ve ever done. This is a top tier Kirby remake any fan of the series should check out.

Ongoing things I followed in 2023 that don't have a blurb:

Halo Infinite multiplayer

IDW Sonic the Hedgehog (main series + specials)

One Piece

Chainsaw Man

My Hero Academia (not caught up)

The JOJOlands (not caught up)

Things I started in 2023 that I still need to finish:

Freedom Planet 2

Hi-Fi Rush

Live A Live

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Picross 3D Round 2

Rhythm Heaven MegaMix

Mega Man Battle Network 5: Team ProtoMan

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

Spark the Electric Jester 3

Sonic Dream Team

One Piece (Wano arc, anime)

Jujutsu Kaisen season 2 (I’ve already read the Shibuya arc already in the manga, though)

Astro Boy (2003 anime)

Futurama (original run rewatch)

One Piece (manga reread)

The Amazing Spider-Man (Lee/Ditko era)

Scott Pilgrim series (reread)

And finally... my favorites of 2023!!!

Overall favorite game: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Favorite indie game: Pseudoregalia

Games remastered in 2023 that are now among my all-time faves: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, We Love Katamari

Most pleasant surprise in gaming: The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog

Favorite film: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Favorite live action show: Barry

Favorite anime: Pluto

Favorite anime written by a Canadian guy and an American guy based on the Canadian guy's old graphic novel series: Scott PIlgrim Takes Off

Favorite live action adaptation of an anime that I still can't believe they didn't fuck up: One Piece

Favorite Western cartoon: Adventure Time: Fionna & Cake

Favorite older cartoon I only got around to watching in its entirety this year: The Venture Bros.

Favorite documentary: Double Fine PsychOdyssey

Favorite semi-improvised semi-scripted absurdist comedy/horror/tragedy Twitch livestream performance art thing: Half-Life Alyx but the Gnome is Self-Aware finale (wayneradiotv)

Favorite manga: Chainsaw Man

Favorite older manga that I only read this year: Berserk

Favorite Western comic book: Daniel Warren Johnson's Transformers

Favorite album: HELLMODE (Jeff Rosenstock)

And that's a wrap!!!!! Happy new year, everyone! Here's to me maybe actually reading a goddamn book this year

[judgeanon]

It Sure Has Been a Wild Couple of Days to be a Lady Shiva Fan

(Art by Skylar Partridge)

So after only showing up for a backup story in DETECTIVE COMICS a few months ago and for a few pages in the last issues of BATGIRLS back in January, turns out that Lady Shiva is gonna be a major part of not one, but two different series come November. Putting my thoughts under the jump 'cause they might be long:

First, there's an all-new BATGIRL ongoing written by Tate Brombal and drawn by Takeshi Miyazawa. I'm not really familiar with either of them, but I'm gonna try to check some of their work in the weekend. As for the plot:

When a deadly group of assassins shows up to kill Cassandra Cain, Lady Shiva must come to the rescue, and they’re forced to put their complicated past aside and work together as mother and daughter to ensure they make it out alive. Unfortunately, things are never as easy as they seem, and Batgirl must embark on a jaw-dropping, martial-arts filled adventure in her quest for truth and justice…and revenge?! This is a Batgirl unlike any other so don’t miss the opportunity to dive into the psyche of one of Gotham City’s deadliest fighters, while exploring her deep and complex relationship with her mother.

Here's the thing: while I am overjoyed that after Bryan Hill's OUTSIDERS we've pretty much exorcised the idea of Shiva as a zealous, card-carrying member of the League of Assassins, I've been a little bothered by how literally every single big Shiva appearance afterwards has revolved around Cass. Even in that weird short stint leading a new Birds of Prey team, her motivation was somehow gaining Cass' trust for... reasons. So I'm glad Shiva's no longer an LoA flunky, but I'm concerned with how she seems so tied at the hip with Cass -- especially since Cass does get to have stories that don't involve Shiva at all.

But at the same time, I do think there's a lot of meat on that bone, meat that, in my eye, nobody has really sank their teeth in yet. Hill tried but he was working within a team book, and Cloonan and Conrad just sorta teased it. This one, however, feels like a story about Shiva and Cass built from the ground up, with all the room necessary for some actual development from the two. This is them not as a subplot or as a tease for future stories, but as The Story. And while that may go in a bunch of different ways, I'm definitely interested to see what way this will go.

Annnd then there's Tom King and Ryan Sook's BLACK CANARY: BEST OF THE BEST, which I'm... a little less interested in.

Black Canary faces her toughest opponent yet, Lady Shiva, in a battle to determine who is the single greatest hand-to-hand fighter in the DC Universe. To make it to the final round, Black Canary will need all her fighting skill and ability, plus additional training from some of DC’s most accomplished fighters, including Batman, Wildcat, and even her mother, the original Black Canary!

Yeaaaaah, I just... I'm not feeling this one. There's not any real mention of a plot here, not a lot to really grab on to other than vibes, and the vibes are just weird. It's weird how Dinah is fighting to determine who's the best fighter, something that to me isn't really a huge part of her character. It's weird that, from the preview pages, they're fighting in like a Vegas casino, in a ring, with an audience. It's weird that there's three trainers mentioned and none of them are Cass, who not only has beaten Shiva before but has trained with Dinah at least twice in canon. And this being tumblr, let me say it's also weird that this is a story about a white woman training with three white people to beat up an Asian woman in martial arts.

It's a six issue mini and the short solicit and weirdness is clearly meant to pique curiosity. But I'm dreading how much this all sounds like it's using Shiva to put Dinah in a pedestal, to show how strong and resilient and stubborn she can be. Even if it goes for a ROCKY ending of "Lost the fight but won at life", unless Shiva is written very thoughtfully, it feels like she's just gonna be there for the sake of Dinah's character. And I dunno if I trust King to write Shiva with any real thought.

So that's kinda where I'm at. Neither of these are a full Shiva solo, and one of them fills me with dread, but it's been a real rush to have two major Shiva-related projects like these be revealed one after the other. And with 2025 being the 50th anniversary of her debut, hey, who knows? Maybe this is just paving the road for something special. Hope springs eternal, no?

[ms-m-astrologer]

Transiting Mars enters Retrograde Zone

Timeline (current events in bold)

Friday, October 4, 2024, 04:40 UT - transiting Mars enters pre-retrograde shadow, 17°01’ Cancer

Monday, November 4, 04:10 UT - transiting Mars enters Leo

Friday, December 6, 23:33 UT - transiting Mars stations retrograde, 6°10’ Leo

Monday, January 6, 2025, 20:45 UT - transiting Mars retrogrades back into Cancer

Monday, February 24, 02:00 UT - transiting Mars stations direct, 17°01’ Cancer

Friday, April 18, 04:22 UT - transiting Mars re-enters Leo

Friday, May 2, 2025, 06:06 UT - transiting Mars exits post-retrograde shadow, 6°10’ Leo

***+++===+++***

Mars energy is usually very straightforward to work with. Even when it’s retrograde!

Cancer isn’t Mars’ most favorite place to be. It’s in its “fall” here, opposite the sign (Capricorn) of its exaltation. A planet being in its fall is like staying in someone’s home, but you don’t know who they are, and you don’t know what their rules are. It can be useful to the planet to (have to) learn some new ways of operating.

Physical strength - this is an opportunity to see how our diet and digestion affect our health, for good or for ill. If we’re angry or stressed out about something, it can manifest as stomach problems.

Energy levels - very dependent on our mood. We can be great at psyching ourselves up, one minute, only to feel lethargic and apathetic the next.

Sexuality - cuddly! There’s so much emotional sensitivity to our partners. But again, mood is everything and subject to change.

How we go after what we want - crabwise, cautiously, ie coming at it sideways, which is extremely frustrating for full-speed-ahead Mars. A straight-on approach isn’t always going to guarantee success, though, which Mars needs to learn.

Some problems with this placement: it can anticipate defeat and loss, quitting before it even gets started. It isn’t very consistent. It’s passive-aggressive, and it can be manipulative about getting its own way; other people don’t like that. And it gets crazy sensitive about boundaries.

When Mars enters Leo on November 3/4, building up to its retrograde station in December, we’ll witness how we can’t quite get Mars/Leo right, without first getting Mars/Cancer right. (Just consider Dolt 45, whom I consider the poster boy for Mars/Leo Run Amok - the vanity, the pomposity, the insecurity!)

On the way there, we can allow for a couple of days on either side of these aspects. (Pay particular attention to those which “ding” something in your birth chart.)

Saturday, October 5 - Mars/Cancer square Mercury/Libra, 17°33’. Probably nothing too serious, provided we haven’t taken on too much. A lot of sweet-talking going on, empty nothings perhaps, ulterior motives probably.

Tuesday, October 8 - Mars/Cancer trine Venus/Scorpio, 18°38’. This is pretty sexy and fertile, so if you don’t want to become a parent in the next 9 months, take precautions. We’re very emotionally attuned and sensitive to our partners, as well as to art and beauty.

Sunday, October 13 - Monday, October 14:

Mars/Cancer square Chiron Rx/Aries, 21°15’

Mars/Cancer semi-sextile Jupiter Rx/Gemini, 21°18’

Mars/Cancer square Sun/Libra, 21°28’

First of three for the Chiron square. Becoming aware of woundedness regarding our right to be alive at all. If we have a particular role in our family (bratty little sibling, the smart one, etc.), and we aren’t like that anymore, we find some resistance when we try to move on from it.

Monday, October 21 - Mars/Cancer square Eris Rx/Aries, 24°53’. First of three. This energy is spoiling for a fight - we’re mighty pissed off about something, and yet we hesitate to (or can’t) come out swinging. Be careful, and work on your situational awareness.

Thursday, October 24 - Mars/Cancer sextile Uranus Rx/Taurus, 26°10’. First of three. Very supportive of firmly establishing our own individuality. Insight about who we’d like to be. It doesn’t have to be complicated.

Sunday, October 27 - Tuesday, October 29:

Mars/Cancer (27°24’) sesquiquad Venus/Sagittarius (12°24’)

Mars/Cancer trine Neptune/Pisces, 27°34’

Mars/Cancer (27°56’) sesquiquad Saturn Rx/Pisces (12°56’)

First of three for the Neptune trine and for the Saturn sesquiquad. With Venus involved there are undoubtedly some relationship problems - we may not see things clearly, or have a realistic grasp of the situation. Commitment-phobia masquerading as bad timing.

Saturday, November 2 - Sunday, November 3:

Mars/Cancer trine Mercury/Scorpio, 29°21’

Mars/Cancer opposite Pluto/Capricorn, 29°45’

First of three for the Pluto opposition. We become aware of some unpleasant situation, or traits in someone we meet in the world - violence, evil, darkness, tragedy - maybe that Merc/Scorpio is a little too curious and goes there? This isn’t the time to confront it, but simply to recognize problems with (in Steven Forrest’s words) “blind adherence to the past” as well as “a selfish me first attitude … insensitive to the suffering of others.” (The 2nd and 3rd oppositions happen after Pluto returns to Aquarius, which is a whole ‘nuther kettle of fish - we see exactly how the selfishness and blind adherence lead to alienation.)

———————————

Venmo Mary_Brack

PayPal MaryVBrack

Thank you!!

[punkbakerchristine]

coming up on a year of me baking, so here are some things i’ve picked up on along the way:

read the recipe, especially with baking. if a recipe tells you to do something, it’ll probably tell you. the biggest mistake i see happen with people on the great british baking show (especially the celebrity one) is people overthinking things. a recipe is basically a successful lab experiment that was recorded, so i would listen to them if i were you.

that cooked.wiki/ shortcut is a huge lifesaver. really, i don’t know where i would be without it.

baking is science. cooking is an art. in fact, it wasn’t until around the 18th century when women started entering the kitchen to bake. i.e., this whole trope that baking is a feminine thing flies right over my head.

as mary berry would say, chocolate melts in your pocket. in other words, it literally does not need that much heat in order to be tempered.

if chocolate is shiny, that’s good. if not, turn down the heat and keep going until it is.

good way to save a frosting that’s “split” or curdled in appearance: add some more liquid and keep beating it.

butter is your friend. so is olive oil. hell, any kind of fat is your friend—except margarine. avoid that shit at all costs.

oil is used in spice cakes because butter will turn them into bricks. oil makes it lighter and fluffier.

when you’re adding some more wet ingredients, add a little more flour. this will help balance out the batter. this works the other way, too: add a little more liquid if it’s too dry.

a good method of making chocolate a little more chocolate-y: add a tablespoon of coffee. i did this for the chocolate bailey’s cake on st. paddy’s day and my last two chocolate babkas and the chocolate came out rich and delicious.

cardamom does this with cinnamon and ginger. one of the reasons why i love my recipe for spice cake so much is because cardamom enhances all the spices.

literally the best way to stop yourself from overbeating a batter is pause the mixer as you pour in an egg, dry mixture, whatever. you spare yourself from injury doing this, too.

always flour your surface and rolling pin before you roll out your cookie dough/pie crust/any kind of dough. do the same with powdered sugar for marzipan and fondant, too.

literally watch caramel as its melting down and bubbling because it turns amber in the blink of an eye. another big mistake i see on tv all too often.

the hellofresh kits: their best proteins are their beef, shrimp, and anything ground up. their chicken and their pork can be pretty hit-and-miss, but when they’re good, they’re amazing.

wash your hands after handling any kind of raw meat, eggs, onions, and chili peppers. make sure your knife is sharp and you’re wearing some kind of protection when you’re slicing an onion (something i heard in welding and machine shop a lot whenever i took off my glasses: “nothing worse than a blind engineer.”)

don’t ever let anyone tell you that you have to laugh if things go awry in the kitchen in order to be classified as a good cook or chef. shit’s an emotional experience and you put your heart into the food, probably more than art or writing (and i get emotional over art all the time, and i’ve found i give more of myself in writing than i do art). like… i cried over a quiche.

i actually have mad respect for anyone who does vegan baking. i made a vegan chocolate cake back in january of this year and it was like a crepe 😅

bake what you like. i like spice cakes, anything chocolate, breads, cookies, pies, and tray bakes. i like stuff that’s kind of unusual like babka and anything jewish, canadian, latin, indian, or british. i like aromatic stuff. i like the kinds of goods you get at halloween or christmas, like they’re warm.

if you’re making something like a pot pie or a wellington, something that has an interior that needs to be cooked, cook it beforehand and then put it in the crust and bake it.

you actually don’t always have to blind bake a pie crust, like if it’s a meringue pie or one of those enclosed meat pies you can get in england. it is a good idea if you’re making a tart, a quiche, or any fruit pie, however.

forget pastry: if you can master bread, you can tackle anything.

when you’re baking bread, you don’t necessarily have to bloom the yeast—i guess some authors do this because it wakes up the yeast and preps it for the dough, but moisture + flour will do that trick as is.

keep the salt and yeast on opposite sides of the bowl. salt stunts the yeast and will take longer for the dough to rise.

depending on the type of dough, you can just knead bread with your hands. if anything, this is the best way to do it. go by time, too: my first loaf took me 15 minutes to knead until it felt as smooth as the inside of my arm; really put your arms and shoulders into it, too, make your muscles work (and this was back when i was still over 200 pounds, too).

fewer things in life are more satisfying than kneading bread dough. it’ll make your arms and shoulders nice and strong, too.

good way to tell if your bread is underproved: there’s a big split near the top. if you poke the dough, and it doesn’t bounce back right away, let it proof for longer. if you poke it, and it sort of collapses, it’s overproofed (never been a problem with me because i’m always on top of that, but i see it a lot in my bread making group on facebook).

mnemonic device for remembering the different types of meringues: french meringue starts with “f”, “f” for “foundation”, it’s the most basic meringue with the egg whites, cream of tartar, and sugar. swiss meringue. “sw”. “sweet”. “sweet water.” whip the egg whites over a bain-marie and add the sugar there (swiss meringue inexplicably is a bit sweeter than french). italian meringue is made by pouring a simple syrup into the egg whites so it looks like the boot of italy. at some point, i’ll come up with one for the different types of pastry cream 😅

salt is also your friend, even in sweet goods. especially in sweet goods.

it’s a little difficult to confuse salt with sugar (especially if you’re like me and you keep them in separate cupboards). a mere taste will save you on that, too.

145° is the safe temperature for beef and pork. 165° for chicken. 200° for bread.

iirc: it’s your cheekbone for rare beef. the tip of your nose for medium rare. your chin for medium.

less really is more with baking and cooking. this is another thing that people on baking shows do that drives me nuts (judges often don’t like it, either, believe it or not). you don’t need to add cherry, lemon, ginger, and nuts to that chocolate cake, becky, you can just do the nuts.

i just barely started with sourdough but so far, i’ve learned that with some recipes, when it misses, it REALLY misses. like i made sourdough english muffins a while back: they were good and we ate them at breakfast, but they were weirdly heavy, like hockey pucks.

i actually really don’t like it when there are other people in the kitchen with me. i’ve always been autonomous and did better working alone without any distractions. for this reason, i could never be on a baking show, what with all the cameras in your face and producers running around.

the more you bake, the more you’ll want to turn away from any store bought baked goods.

and finally, i really could not have become a baker at a better time, if i’m honest. i made my first loaf of bread on october 7, when the middle east fell into chaos again and this fated feeling swept over me. food in america is mostly comprised of things that aren’t even food, like high fructose corn syrup—that’s part of why i managed to lose 60 pounds since then, i know what’s going into what i put in my mouth and i can think ahead to what i’m going to eat through the day (and we wonder why american society is having the mother of all health crises, on a physical and mental level: everyone is eating garbage and not getting their vitamins, good fats, good carbs, and proteins, and everyone isn’t treating themselves to something comforting like a donut or a piece of pie). i hope more people realize this, too, like… when shit hits the fan and america descends into chaos itself, turn to those of us with the tools of the trade and like to work with our hands.

[neon-ufo]

Luv's Monthly Makeover 2022

I wanted to show all 12 pieces of this project, and add a little paragraph about each of them, their themes (if applicable), and their inspirations. 

The point of this project was to redesign my mascot Luv every month, trying out new art styles and techniques in the process. Luv changed every month, but still remained the same recognizable character throughout. The idea was to embrace the beauty and challenge of change, and grow with it.

💕January Luv is generally a very androgynous-looking character largely due to cuteness and fashion, but for this piece I wanted to give him a somewhat more masculine look, which created the little fire goatee. Technically this piece was drawn in December 2021 before I thought of this project (in February), but it hasn't been posted until January and it fit the bill so I counted it as the January piece.

I wanted this to be a more ‘serious’ piece, so there’s no exaggerated fashion or detail to it, aside from the realistic heart in place of the usual love heart on his chest. This is the oldest of the pieces, but I’m still very happy with how it looks!

The Japanese text is from the song Hello by Fire Bomber, saying; "We fear nothing, We go on along this path”. The vibe of the drawing was inspired by this song’s classic rock tune.

💕February This piece was largely just playing around with clothing textures and such, and the main idea was to present Luv's heart mask in a different way. Some looks had a much stronger thematic vision than others, and this is definitely one of the weaker ones. I don't have much to say about it tbh

The jacket is inspired by a Coach x Keith Haring collaboration jacket, and the mask is a "Lover" mask design by LikeADrugg.

💕March This was done when Ousama Ranking was airing and I fell in love with the demon's heart-shaped mouth, which I referenced here. Contrary to popular belief, Aku from Samurai Jack was not the inspiration for this.

There isn't much more to say about this one, I wanted him to look creepy and spindly. I had a blast with the rendering, very proud of how it turned out!

💕April I was really excited for the concept of this one, but it did not turn out how I wanted it to.

He was supposed to be essentially mask-less on this piece, with the visor of his hat casting a heart-shaped shadow on his face. I also wanted to push more in the fashion aspect in this one, the main inspiration being a pair of RoseCut pants & Vivienne Westwood's Love logo, which I used a few more times in my work after this.

💕May Ok I suddenly got struck by an extreme passion for punk fashion at this point, and I poured it heavily into this iteration. Another different play on the heart mask, this time it changed to heart-shaped glasses. Various spikes become a pretty recurring element from here on lmao. There's also the Westwood Love logo again.

A fun fact; this is actually largely a re-used design of a GothPunk Luv I tried drawing once, but scrapped because I didn't like how it was going! I loved the ideas behind that design and am really glad I got to bring it back here. <:

💕June This is a very simple one, as I was dealing with the loss of a beloved pet, and I simply didn't have the energy to draw anything bigger.

This actually turned out to be one of my favourite designs for Luv, as it's very simple but very fun, and easy to draw. It became my go-to design for doodles. Lyrics is from "It Gets Harder" by Good Luck

💕July Tried something very different with style here. I wanted the style and colours to be a little bit more ethereal in vibe, hence the very bright soft shapes and floating gold bits. The doll-like face also adds o the dreamyness, with the matte black eyes and no shine. I think that adding some thick lineart in the centre of the drawing makes the image a bit disorienting, which I quite like.

Main focal point is the golden Jeremy Scott + Adidas Wings sneaker, which was basically what this entire piece was built around.

💕 August This is another one of my favourite looks. I really love the outfit elements of it, as well as the colours, and I can definitely see myself drawing it again sometime, which is not something I can say for most other looks in this project!

Despite it being one of my favourite designs in this series, I don’t have much to say about the piece  itself though. The shirt was inspired by a shirt worn by Donquixote Doflamingo on one of the One Piece manga covers.

💕September This piece has recently been chosen to partake in a group exhibition in the capital city of my country, which is quite a big deal for me!

Luv is sporting a very casual streetwear look with a graffiti can in hand. This was the first time I familiarized myself with gradient maps, experimenting with which helped me choose the final palette. The "Love & Peace" sign in the background is taken from a Trigun episode title. The decorations on the pants were inspired by Lirika Matoshi's S/S22 collection, and the shirt evokes several Junya Watanabe/Comme des Garçons shirts from the early 2000s.

💕October Spooky Luv for spooky month, I really love this piece. It's one of my favourite recent pieces!

Again a lineless piece like the month before, but I took a very different approach to shading, and honestly I expected it to be so much harder than it was. It was a blast to work on this one and I love the effect that pitch black shading has on a monochrome body. I did a lot of experimenting with the background and used gradient maps again to get a cool background effect. I was aiming to get some kinda old video game cover look with this. The text on top is my favourite quote from Dracula. The background is a photo from the Croatian coast that I took last summer.

💕November The aim of this one was to capture the nostalgic early 2010s anime & deviantART style. I looked to a few anime for reference, but I think in the end Lucky Star was the most helpful.

I tried to channel deviantART character designs I remember from that era, using typical design features I remember from it, such as demon wings, stripes, collars, off-the-shoulder oversized shirts, and checkered belts. The fashion inspiration here is largely the signature Chrome Hearts crosses, while the shoes were inspired by the fantastic toothed heels from the GCDS spring/summer '23 collection which I only now realized does not fit the Y2K theme I was going for with this one lmao

Either way, I'm very happy with this one, I think I achieved what I went out to do!

Oh yeah, and the text in the background is the entire lyrics of the album Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge by My Chemical Romance.

💕December Last piece of the challenge was almost entirely re-drawn, as I didn't like the first look of it. There isn't much specific inspiration for this one, but I wanted to make it vaguely connected to the December season.

As a reference to Christmas, there are elements of angels in the design, with a bright halo and tiny wings. The symbol I personally associate with new year is the peace sign☮️, because I remember that my dad used to give family friends a New Year's card with nothing but a peace sign in it. He stopped doing it recently, so I'm taking up that mantle instead.

The little sleepy Luv on the right side is taken from a different Monthly Makeover piece that I scrapped.

I'm not sure if it's clear, but the shape at the bottom says 2023.

Thank you

[gumnut-logic]

We all love a piece of fanart. Art can communicate so much in just one glance.

But I would like to acknowledge that fanart can take aaaaages to create and the result can be glanced at and then it disappears into the depths of Tumblr if you don’t have the online storage to display it on Ao3.

So let’s take January and find all the art and reblog it like crazy. It doesn’t have to be yours, just make sure you are reblogging, not reposting, so the artist gets the credit they deserve. (More on reposting vs. reblogging below).

If you are an artist and you feel like using this month to tackle some works-in-progress or create some new art, go for it…I know I have a couple that need attention.

Tag with #FanartAM and #FanartAM2024

So, what art?

Pretty much anything!

Traditional

Digital

Photomanips

Gifs

Fanvids

Craft work

Fandom inspired works

Anything that has required visual creativity.

And when?

All of January 2024! Starting tomorrow, Adelaide time (so you might get some before the end of this year in other parts of the world :D )

This year, let's just post whatever you want whenever you want. No topic restrictions, just reblog that art and celebrate our artists!

But I don’t create visual art!

Doesn’t matter! You can dig in by reblogging other artists’ art and showing your support. Or if you really want to create something and you are a writer, I certainly won’t object if you get inspired and write fic – or you could write a fic based on someone’s art (though you might want to check with the artist first if it is okay).

Reblogging vs. Reposting

This is a distinction that you must be aware of before going in. One is good, the other bad. If the art is on Tumblr, and connected to the original artist’s account, hit that magic reblog button and show your admiration.

If the art is on another platform outside of Tumblr, put a link in your post – NEVER EVER copy that piece of art and ‘repost’ it to your blog. We are Thunderfam. We can click on a link and visit an artist’s account. We can reblog that link easily to share. The art belongs to the artist and by copying it and reusing it, you are disconnecting the credit and the control from the artist – this is considered stealing. It is the same with fic – always link, never copy and repost.

This is basic netiquette, please conduct yourselves like the wonderful Thunderfam I know you are.

The Point

But anyway, the point of this exercise is to bring all that wonderful Thunderbirds (or other fandoms if you prefer) eye candy to the surface so we can all gaze upon it in appreciation, drool all over the artwork and show our amazing artists exactly how wonderful they are.

Nutty

(we did a fantastic job the last three years, let’s do this again and celebrate our artists :D )

[sumire-no-nikki]

Hardy Days

January is a month that takes some time to break into like brand new shoes. It always feels longer than it is. It has been a while since I’ve been online properly though for the best reasons. My days have been full. My desk succumbs to entropy just as soon as I’ve tidied it up, my planner is abundant with marks, overflowing with tasks in constant flux. But that just means my hours are well consumed. My days feel very lived in and I’m endlessly thankful for that.

It hasn’t been all work though! I managed to read 4 books so far this month, two of which I would like to mention here. The first book I read is Before We Say Goodbye, which is the fourth book in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold Series by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. I think the fourth one is my favorite so far, if not a close second to the first book. This one made me cry so hard it felt like a cardio exercise haha. The fifth book hasn’t been translated yet and I’m too impatient so I went ahead and started it in Japanese. I was just telling a pal how much comfier it is in the original language. I think I will reread the previous books in Japanese as well once I can get ahold of it from Kinokuniya. I’m so excited!

Another book I finished recently is Voices of the Dead by Ambrose Parry. It’s a historical fiction medical/crime novel set in Victorian Edinburgh. It also has hints of angsty romance between the two main characters, and if you know me at all, you know angst is my fuel, my reason for being lmao. But on top of the already very attractive premise, I must say the pervasive question of “am I what I come from or am I what I can become” throughout all the books is such a robust subject that I can never get enough of. I really enjoyed it! Ah, but now I’ve got to wait for the next book (if there is one). I’m pretty hopeful because the ending was set up for a continuation for sure, but you never know. Also, can I just complain about something extremely petty? Why is the fourth book’s spine different from the rest of the series? It’s from the same publisher, the same font is used. But why is the symbol not the same size as the other volumes’ symbols? WHY. Why would they make it not line up properly like that? I’m losing my mind!!

Now, I’m not one for redecorating just because it’s a new year, but I did change up my vinyl corner by switching out the old art with two posters in matching red—one from a Mitski concert way back in 2017, and one poster of Billie Marten’s 2023 album. Two very different eras of my life coming together. Quite poetic now that I think about it.

While on the subject of music, I’ve had Marika Hackman’s new album “Big Sigh” on repeat since it came out. Oh my god it’s so so good. I remember thinking when I first heard it, god, this is like having my guts pulled out of me. The lyrics are so raw I felt like my chest was going to cave in. Even the music conveys such angst and self-sabotage. The one song that struck me the most is the penultimate song called “Please Don’t Be So Kind.” That one really spoke to me. I love it so much I figured out the guitar chords by ear because I badly wanted to play it. (It’s just three chords in slightly different arrangements throughout the song: C/G-D/A-Em7/B. Half-step up tuning or more conveniently with capo on the 1st fret). I haven’t stopped thinking about the album and I don’t think I will ever stop doing so. I feel that my life is made richer by having listened to this body of work. Even though it’s rather depressing, I actually relish that about it. I think I’m at an age now where I can clearly see my emotion outside my body. It’s a place I can visit as I please. I can work through my feelings and then when I’ve done my best with it, I can leave it be. I can experience things as deeply as I want to while having the confidence that I won’t lose myself in it. It’s a very freeing sense of clarity.

Also, this is from a while back now but I got the newest volume of the coffee magazine I’m subscribed to and the coffee sampler they sent for the quarter is stellar. It tasted of peach and orange, it was insane. The sampler had enough for only two espresso double shots but it made such an impact I just have to note it down here. The roaster, A Matter of Concrete, is based in Rotterdam. I might have to pop in there to try more of their coffee one of these days. Oh, but this reminds me that my grinders are due for a cleaning. Right, I’ll have to do that sometime tomorrow. And I’m not looking forward to it because I’m always anxious I’ll fuck up the burrs or put the grinders back all wrong. Also, looking at this photo, I have to polish my espresso machine, don’t I? Oops.

What else have I been up to? I’ve recently reconnected with my best friend from my undergraduate days and it has been such a blessing. We didn’t have a fight or anything. We just drifted apart because I moved away for my MA and they went back home for a job offer. But they reached out to let me know they’ll be moving to Europe to start a second degree and a career change!! Which means we will be able to see each other again!! Oh, I’m looking forward to that so much I’m counting the days. I have such fond memories of them I can’t wait to bear hug the hell out of them haha.

I also finally decided to finish a writing project I have left alone to stew in its own unfinished mess for far too long lol. I forced myself to churn as much words as I could, and then the arduous task of negotiating what to keep, what to expand and what to cut came soon after. I’ve since finished it and I’m relieved to have concluded that story. I’m quite satisfied with the arc. It felt like a good study of how I write, what I want from a story and how I can achieve it. Writing is a process of self discovery and I’m always overwhelmed by that feeling when it’s happening in real time. Like you feel minute parts of yourself shifting into new positions, light shed in previously dark corners. It’s overwhelming and terrifying, yet tranquil and natural at the same time. I look forward to whatever I’ll find in the next writing project.

Anyway, I’m off to do a bit of translation work. It has been quite an eventful Friday for me over here, and my weekend is looking like it will be just as busy. How has your January been? I hope you’ve been taking good care of yourself. I leave you with a song by This Is The Kit called “Inside Outside.” It has a groovy bass line that I enjoy playing and straight up just vibing to. I recommend the album it's from if you’re in the market for something new to listen to.

That’s all for now. Until next time!

[chierafied]

December Drabbles Day 19 - The Mistletoe Mix-Up

Read on AO3.

Banner fan art by the amazing @sayuri-liu

For @mythicamagic, the superbly talented sweetheart. Thank you for sharing your gifts with the fandom and all your fantastic support over the years. Love you! 😘💕

For 12 Days of Promptmas, Day 6: Mistletoe

Day 19 - The Mistletoe Mix-Up

“I heard Shippou and Inuyasha discuss a wonderful custom yesterday,” the monk said.  

“Oh? And what kind of a custom is that?” his wife asked, sounding sceptical.  

“It is part of the winter celebrations from Lady Kagome’s time. It’s called a mistletoe.”  

“That’s an odd name.”  

“It’s the name of the plant used in this custom.”  

“A plant? How is it used?”  

“A mistletoe is an invitation to exchange a kiss.”  

A soft laugh followed, as well as a light smack.  

“As if you don’t already get to exchange all the kisses you want,” the slayer grumbled, affection evident in the tone of her voice.  

As it sounded like some kissing might be about to happen in the immediate future, the silent observer of the conversation turned to leave.  

It was just as well. He had a custom to honour.  

*

Kagome stepped out from her hut, pulling her overcoat tighter around herself to keep from the cold, and almost walked right into the daiyoukai standing before her door.  

“Sesshoumaru!” Kagome clutched at her chest. “Good morning. I didn’t know you were coming to Edo today.”  

“I had an important errand to see to,” he intoned, his hooded eyes boring into her.  

Kagome tried not to squirm under his intent gaze. “Uhh, really?”  

“Indeed.”  

Then he held out his hands. “Here.”  

Kagome stared at the clump of sorry-looking green plants on Sesshoumaru’s palm. There seemed to be some kind of fern in there. And mugwort. She’d been learning a lot about plants since she’d returned to live in the Feudal era. But she had no idea why Sesshoumaru would be presenting her with any. Was this some weird youkai thing she hadn’t heard of? Or was he trying to be helpful after seeing her many trips to gather herbs for cooking or medicine?  

In any case, he definitely seemed to be expecting some kind of a response from her.   

Kagome plucked the sad little clump from him and offered Sesshoumaru an uncertain smile. “Thank you?”  

He stared at her. Kagome stared back, thoroughly confused. Then, he growled and left Kagome blinking at his retreating back.  

*

The mistletoe custom had gripped Sesshoumaru’s interest. He’d thought to finally have found a way to communicate with the miko in a way she’d understand and make his intentions clear. He’d been harbouring said intentions for a long while now, but had found no fitting occasion to act on them. After all, he had never had a reason to court anyone — even in the manner of youkai that he was familiar with. He had even less experience in courting a human and had no examples to model his behaviour after.  

He’d truly believed the mistletoe to be the solution to his dilemma, but now it was clear that in his excitement he had overlooked one crucial flaw: he did not know what a mistletoe was . Or where to find one. He doubted the monk would know, either, and he was certain that his foolish half-brother would prove to be entirely unhelpful.  

Still, despite this difficulty, Sesshoumaru did not falter. He was patient and persistent and fully committed to this search for the mistletoe. Even if he had to scour all of Japan, he would find the right plant. Eventually.  

*

Kagome stomped over to where her friends had gathered by Kaede’s hut and plopped down with a groan.  

“Did you get another visit?” Sango asked.  

“Yes! I did. Today I got plum blossoms. It’s not even January yet, where the hell did he find plum blossoms?”  

Kagome tucked the delicate cutting out of her sleeve and showed it to her friends.  

“Ooh, it’s so pretty!” Rin sighed.  

“I wouldn’t mind getting some flowers every now and then,” Sango said, slanting a glance at her husband.  

“It’s the fifth time this week. I have no idea what’s happening and my brain hurts. Is this some obscure youkai thing?”  

“It’s not something I’ve ever heard of,” Miroku said.  

“Me either,” Shippou chimed in.  

“Then why does he keep bringing me plants?” Kagome despaired.  

“Maybe he wants kisses,” Shippou suggested.  

A stunned silence settled over the group.  

“ What ?” Kagome choked out.  

“You know, like with mistletoe.”  

Kagome gave Shippou a long look, even as Rin giggled. “How do you know about mistletoe?”  

“Inuyasha told me.”  

“How does Inuyasha know — Never mind.” Kagome shook her head, more confused than ever. “I don’t think that’s it, where would Sesshoumaru have learned about mistletoe, anyway?”  

The shock was dissipating now, giving way to laughter.  

Miroku was fully chuckling. “Can you imagine Sesshoumaru trying to find mistletoe to bring to Lady Kagome?”  

“And how disappointed he must feel when he gets no kisses in return.” Sango laughed.  

“Guys, it’s not funny,” Kagome tried to interject. But the laughter was contagious, and a few stray giggles bubbled in her own throat. Maybe it was a little funny. But only because the idea was so stupefyingly impossible.  

*

Two days later, there was a knock on the door of Kagome’s hut. She shook her head even as she rose to go answer it. She felt the prickling of youki along her skin, even if the precise hour of the visit hadn’t been clue enough.  

She opened her door and found Sesshoumaru at her doorstep.  

“Good morning,” he wished her in an even tone. Then, he proffered a plant, as if bestowing her some precious gift.  

Kagome stared at the sprig in his clawed hands. Unbidden, the echo of Shippou’s words came to her. She plucked the plant he was giving her, blushing as her fingers brushed his callused palm.  

Kagome looked up from under her lashes and found Sesshoumaru’s usual hooded gaze on her, as intent as it was expectant.  

And then another thought followed the memory of Shippou’s suggestion. What if... ?  

Kagome bit her lip. Sesshoumaru’s golden eyes sharpened.  

Nerves fluttering in the pit of Kagome’s stomach, she rose on the tip of her toes and gave Sesshoumaru a shy kiss.  

A growl rumbling in his chest, his arms immediately came around her, clamping her to him in a possessive grip. His lips slanted against hers, turning what had been soft and hesitant into a smouldering declaration.  

A mystery solved at last.  

[real-british-empire]

0: Height 151 cm

1: Age 16 :p

2: Shoe size 4-5

3: Do you smoke? I have, but don’t anymore

4: Do you drink? Whenever I have the chance 👁️👁️

5: Do you take drugs? No

6: Age you get mistaken for Depends, sometimes like 12, sometimes 17+

7: Have tattoos? No :(

8: Want any tattoos? YAYA

9: Got any piercings? Yup

10: Want any piercings? Ye

11: Best friend? Ya his name is Johnny

12: Relationship status Single, ready to mingle, no one wants to mingle with me though and I high key don’t blame them

13: Biggest turn ons biting, violence, literally anything sexual, being picked up

14: Biggest turn offs Discriminatory language, anything to do with trump and other such figures, not to kink shame but piss kinks and shit kinks (sorry)

15: Favorite movie DEADPOOL AND WOLVERINE

16: I’ll love you if… You’re nice to me or at least willing to tolerate me and aren’t a trump supporter or homophobic/xenophobic etc, as well as wanting to make things work and I would LIKE physical affection (being a very physically affectionate person myself) but I can go without

17: Someone you miss My great nan—she died in January :(

18: Most traumatic experience Between June this year and October last year. October last year, I got caught doing SH for the second time that year and my mum beat the shit out of me 😍😍

and June this year, I’d got in trouble at school for being late with my art coursework not too long before, and had spent all day doing it that day, but wasn’t finished by the end of it, so my mum lost her shit and, again, beat the living crap out of me. So, after a lot of persuasion from my best friend, I decided to tell my councillor, who then told the school, who told social services, who told my mother. Of course, again, she went ape shit and started calling me manipulative and spoilt and a liar and blah blah blah and going on about how she’d lose her job (she’s a cop) and how we wouldn’t have any money and I’d never be allowed to go out with my friends again and I’d never get anymore birthday presents (because this was a week before my birthday) or have any privileges etc etc, making me feel bad for spilling even though I knew I’d get her in trouble (I thought my councillor wouldn’t tell if I asked her not to, but I was honestly too distressed when I did anyway). eventually she calmed down and promised not to hit me anymore and that she’d try to control her temper/what she says when she’s angry (she failed the second part VERY quickly) and I pretty much had to go back to school and lie, saying that what I said wasn’t true and I was doing it to get out of homework. And now I can’t open up to my new councillor, like, at all!! 😃😃😃

19: A fact about your personality Uh.. I’m INFP-T if that’s useful?

20: What I hate most about myself Most things, idk, looks, humour, personality, voice, stupid genitals

21: What I love most about myself I’m good at not getting angry ig?

22: What I want to be when I get older Literally anything to do with art because I can’t do anything else (well, I could, but I can’t do anything else and not hate my job)

23: My relationship with my sibling(s) Two half brothers on my dads side (I don’t see them much but I LOVW THEMMMM so so so so much I love them) and a little little sister (she’s a goblin and a little spoilt but oh well)

24: My relationship with my parent(s) I love my dad, even if he’s not here all the time

and my mum.. anything positive with her is like trying to light a fire with wet wood

25: My idea of a perfect date Literally anything, I won’t complain (please love me, I’m desperate)

26: My biggest pet peeves Trump 👁️👁️, again, discriminating, uh.. forcing your religion onto other people (love you religious girlies, you do you, especially if you find it fulfilling etc, but please don’t use it as an excuse to hate people or force other people into it—that’s not okay!! :( ) and eating kitkats wrong

27: A description of the girl/boy I like Uh.. strong chin, curtain bangs, brownish blond hair, nice boobs, he’s very nice and funny, he’s like pure English

and I also like this girl—she’s got bleach blond and brown hair, wears glasses, gets called emo a lot, very funny too, from turkey (we’ve done.. things, but I’m pretty sure I’m more of a side piece—not that I mind, I’ll take what I can get and I’m pleased with only being there when she wants me)

If never pursue anything with them though, I don’t want to tie them down (they can both do a lot better and deserve a lot better 💀)

28: A description of the person I dislike the most Frizzy brown hair, punchable face, kinda chubby, very heavy handed, annoying as hell and mixed race (got stuck in a friendship with them for 8 years, turns out they’re like really manipulative and just not a very nice person over all 😐)

29: A reason I’ve lied to a friend Because I don’t want to upset them/bother them with my problems :(

30: What I hate the most about work/school The constant demand for hard work and very little consideration for student wellbeing

31: What my last text message says

[Pic of me at comic con in cosplay, mext to someone in a blow up dinosaur suit that’s Deadpool themed] ”Johnny took a crappy photo but DINOPOOOOOL 😍😍😍😍”

32: What words upset me the most Honestly, can’t decide, but they’re all from my mum

33: What words make me feel the best about myself “You’re my best friend and I love you so so much”

34: What I find attractive in women

35: What I find attractive in men

^^for both of these, I have like literally NO criteria—I’m not one for looks, and can’t really afford to care regardless. I just like boobs (of all kinds)

36: Where I would like to live The countryside ☺️

37: One of my insecurities My boobs (I want to cHOP THEM OFFFF)

38: My childhood career choice Uh.. I didn’t work as a kid 🌚 but I wanted to be a scientist, a zoologist, an artist, a chef and a bunch of other things all at the same time (I was.. ambitious, let’s say—I only pursued art though£

39: My favorite ice cream flavor Caramel :P

40: Who I wish I could be Literally anyone close to Hugh Jackman (ONE CHANCE HUGH PLEASESEEE 😭😭😭)

41: Where I want to be right now The void

42: The last thing I ate A chocolate yoghurt

43: Sexiest person that comes to my mind immediately HUGH JACKMAN

44: A random fact about anything They say fuck 118 times in Deadpool and Wolverine… that’s a franchise record.

Are you ok?/gen

[thislovintime]

London, January 1968.

“[Karen] Harvey was living in the same apartment building as Tork, at 35 Bedford St., and they cemented a friendship that had started earlier. ‘We’re still very, very good friends,’ she said. Through a girlfriend at one of the art galleries, Harvey also go to know David Crosby. He and Tork were responsible for getting Harvey to move West. 'He [Crosby] fell in love with my girlfriend and took her back to California. Then Peter got this Monkees thing and moved there. Everybody was trying to get me to come to California, and so I eventually went,’ Harvey says. 'She came because I asked her to,’ Tork confirmed during a phone call from California. 'I can’t actually say she was my girlfriend. She was my roommate. She came back and forth for a while. I’m an old fan of hers from way, way back. Karen is a wonderful singer.’ Although she eventually got her own apartment, Harvey spent much of her time at Tork’s house, under the famous 'Hollywood’ sign. 'I was handling a lot of affairs of the house because he [Tork] was working like a slave,’ Harvey said. 'TV work is no picnic.’ With the increasing amount of money and fame through the Monkees’ TV show, Tork moved to a bigger house (once owned by actor Wally Cox) in Studio City. They also needed more room because Tork, Harvey and Robert Hammer, who directed the horror film 'Don’t Answer the Phone,’ had formed a film company called Breakthrough-Influence, whose work included videos for Crosby, Stills and Nash, and Steve Miller." - The News Journal, July 16, 1989 (x)

“I don’t know that it [fame] affected my ability to have friendships. Basically I don’t think I knew how to be or have a friend beforehand, and I don’t think I learned while I was in that operation [The Monkees]. I mean, I had some good buddies, you know, but that wasn’t the same thing, I didn’t really understand. There was only one person in my life that I could turn to when I was hurting who happened somehow to know what it was, what it took to stop me hurting, and that was a woman named Karen Harvey, who later joined me on the West Coast. And I thought, well, here’s a friend come to join me and this will be a real friend. And we were pretty good friends, I guess, but there wasn’t any that, you know, that — I didn’t know what a friend did in a sense of how, on a day-to-day basis, do you maintain your friendships, do you go out of your way to make sure that things are nice and right and, you know, the kind of work that a friendship takes. You don’t just have a friendship without work. And I didn’t know that. And I’m not so sure I know it now.” - Peter Tork, NPR, June 3, 1983

“The producers at one point for some reason decided to take us to Paris, right before we were doing a short tour of Britain — I think one of them had a girlfriend in France, I don’t know. And they took some cameras and they shot us being goofy on the streets of Paris, and that was a lot of fun. And then at the end of the shooting day, ‘Okay, you’re done, go home, go to your rooms, to your hotel room.’ Luxurious hotel room in Paris, who could wish for anything more? Well, I was lonely as hell. So there’s more things than luxurious. So I wrote a couple of songs, just out of, you know, loneliness. One of them will hopefully be forever confined to the dustbin of history. The other one [’Lady’s Baby’] was about the lady that I was living with at the time, and her son. That’s them, that’s my darling Karen, with whom I am still very good friends all these years later.” - Peter Tork during his My Life In The Monkees & So Much More tour, 2013 (x)

[doraminatook]

Five hundred theatres said no (and then one said yes)

What does an artist DO, anyway?  

Obviously, they create art.

In my case, as a playwright, I write plays.

But any artist will tell you that creating the art (writing the plays) is only half the battle.  The next step is getting someone interested in looking at your art (producing your play).  

Everyone has an opinion on how to do that, and while there are some general guidelines and resources, there are no hard and fast rules to “getting noticed”.  The last decade has been a baptism by fire of me writing and then doing whatever had to be done to get the attention of prospective theatres.  (Within reason, of course, I love my art, but I’m quite fond of my soul and would rather not part with it.) 

About a year ago, I thought I had come up with a genius plan, and dove headfirst into setting it in motion.  

I was going to host a virtual pitch meeting for three of my plays and invite EVERY theatre company that I could think of to join.  And when I say every theatre company, I mean it. 

I am not exaggerating when I say that I sent out at five hundred emails, all with the same message: I’m a playwright, I’m going this reading of short scenes from three of my plays (The Cafe Mocha Murders, Leannán Sidhe, and Dancing With Hamlet), here’s a synopsis of them, here’s the Zoom link, join me on October 14th, okay bye! 

It became sort of a part time job for me to scour the internet looking for theatres that looked like they could potentially produce something of mine.  I looked up theatres in every US state and territory and even reached out to some UK and Australian companies.  The thought process was, “It’s a virtual reading so, theoretically, anyone can attend!” 

Even before the reading, I was running into some snags.  90 percent of people did not respond to my invitations…but just because they didn’t didn’t respond didn’t mean that they wouldn’t attend, right?  Those who did get back to me almost always declined the invite or outright told me, “This is not how we do business.  Please contact your agent and have them send your submissions through the proper channels.” (For the record, I don’t have an agent.) 

I cannot overstate how hard I worked at sending these emails and the hours that went into researching theatres.  

The day of the reading came!  My actors had their scripts, I had my Zoom subscription renewed, I opened the virtual door to let all the virtual people in and…three people attended.  Three people showed up to the reading, and they were all friends, no one who represents a theatre company.  (While I love my friends and cherish their support, they were not the target audience; the idea was to get theatre companies to attend…companies that could potentially produce my shows.)

I was pretty devastated and felt incredibly stupid. Obviously, this had not been the right route to take and I probably just came off as another loud-mouth playwright hocking my script onto someone.  

The talk-back session was more brainstorming WHY people didn’t attend rather than discussing the scripts or potential productions.  (Our biggest theories were that people are just sick of virtual events given the pandemic, that theatres would rather read a script than have to attend something, and that many companies don’t respond well to cold emails.  “Don’t call us.  We’ll call you” kind of mentality.) 

I licked my wounds, tried to take my friends’ suggestions to heart, and chalked it all up to experience.  I had tried and I had failed, but at least I had tried.

Several months passed with me trying to put some distance between myself that disconcerting night.  In January, though, I received an email from someone at the Network Theatre in London.  They had received my email about the reading back in October and while they had been unable to attend, they thoroughly enjoyed the sample I’d sent along of The Cafe Mocha Murders.  (They very politely said, “I hope the reading was well-attended!” Hah!) 

Furthermore, they wanted to purchase the full script.  I sold them a copy and before you knew it, they were asking about purchasing the rights to it. 

So it’s happening: this December, The Cafe Mocha Murders by yours truly at a genuine theatre in LONDON!  I have not seen a production of the show since its world premiere back in 2022 in California, and I am over the moon that I’ll get to see it this time around (did I mention it’s in LONDON!?)

I was dumbfounded: something good actually came out of this embarrassing night that had left me feeling like an idiot.  I don’t think I’ll be in any kind of rush to do another virtual staged reading, but I take this as a great reminder that you never know what will happen in life or what kind of connections you’ll make, even in the face of failure.  It sounds incredibly cheesy to write this,  but the truth of the matter is that this theatre probably would know who I am or any of my works had it not been for this dismal miscalculation.

You have to try and fail in order to figure things out.  No one is given the rulebook on how to make art or how to get your art out there.  Five-hundred (plus) theatres said no, but then one said yes.

And here we are.

Furthermore, it is my ultimate dream to see one of my shows produced at The National Theatre in London and The Network Theatre is located just down the road from them.  I’ve learned a lot about cold emails, but I think I may have to try just one more time and see if I can’t get someone from The National Theatre to come on over and see what my work is all about.  

Who knows?  Could be awful.  Could be great.  

If YOU find yourself in the London area this December, come support the arts and say hi.

[dawnrider]

Hi doll! I’m sending you these asks now for your 20 yr tomorrow.

Happy 20 Years Dawn! That’s so exciting! 💕You ready for some questions, because I wanna know so much.

1. What is your favorite story you’ve written? (It doesn’t have to be completed or even posted, just one that stands out for you.)

2. Do you have any projects coming up for this next year that you’re excited about?

3. Would you rather become a famous writer, being able to make money for doing something you love, or keep writing as a hobby for the rest of your life, but still really enjoying it?

4. What made you start writing in the first place?

5. Do anybody in your life outside of tumblr/fanfiction/ao3 know you write? What was their response/how do they feel about it now?

6. Is there anything you’d like to learn? (Could be a hobby, a new technique in your writing, a skill for work, improvement for something you already do,etc.)

7. What is something most people don’t know about you?

8. If you could write one paragraph (3-5 sentences) to describe your life, your experiences, your personality, who you are, what would it say?

9. Any advice for people who write/create, new beginners or experienced ones?

10. What is a goal you wish to accomplish this next year in regard to writing?

Well hi @heynikkiyousofine! Here goes!

1. What is your favorite story you’ve written? (It doesn’t have to be completed or even posted, just one that stands out for you.)

I think it's a toss up between To Sleep Perchance to Dream, How Does Your Garden Grow, and Given. They're all pretty different, but they all try to characterize our favorite idiots as close to canon as I could get them.

2. Do you have any projects coming up for this next year that you’re excited about?

I'm always tinkering, puttering, procrastinating. I'm excited to finish up Garden, which will hopefully be sooner rather than later. And Possibly Your Lying Smile, if the stars align properly. And of course, always excited for @inuparentsday in January!

3. Would you rather become a famous writer, being able to make money for doing something you love, or keep writing as a hobby for the rest of your life, but still really enjoying it?

That's a hard one. If I could still love it as much as I do and make money from it? I think that's a no brainer. But obviously the reality is a lot different. Writing doesn't pay the bills, especially not right away. So I can dream about it, but I think it will always just be a hobby, and that's ok.

4. What made you start writing in the first place?

I used to write silly stuff as a kid. Like 10/12 years old. I always wanted more story than what I read. So I made more. I started fanfiction in college though. I was inspired, was often alone, and had the free time between classes and while working overnights in my dorm.

5. Do anybody in your life outside of tumblr/fanfiction/ao3 know you write? What was their response/how do they feel about it now?

Just a neighbor friend, and now my best friend. Obviously Mister does too. My neighbor is an editor, so I asked for her help with the chapter Fundamental from Bushel and a Peck. I wanted an outside perspective and she was willing to help. My best friend I just recently told and she was very happy for me. She was amazed that I'd kept it secret for so long, but also impressed that I had done something for so long.

Mister is... He's not always that supportive. But it is what it is.

6. Is there anything you’d like to learn? (Could be a hobby, a new technique in your writing, a skill for work, improvement for something you already do, etc.)

I always dream about being able to do art. I can admit that I just don't have the patience to keep at it. I'm one of those people that doesn't stick with something if I think I suck at it. I do dabble with handwriting/hand lettering stuff and would like to work on it more.

7. What is something most people don’t know about you?

Uh.... Hell... lol I've mentioned it before, but maybe not recently. I am a swing dancer. Mainly Lindy Hop. I haven't gone as much recently with kids and COVID, but at one time I danced 4-6 nights a week. I was an instructor in my old city for years.

8. If you could write one paragraph (3-5 sentences) to describe your life, your experiences, your personality, who you are, what would it say?

I suppose I would say that I am someone who tries to take care of others, sometimes to the detriment of myself. It has been my mode of operation for most of my life. Writing is one way in which I am able to do something that is ultimately for me. (Though I share it with you all because I can and you're so kind about it!)

9. Any advice for people who write/create, new beginners or experienced ones?

Mostly that you should enjoy it. It was something we often said about dancing (as a hobby): Once it's not fun anymore, it becomes Work™. Don't make your hobby Work™. You are not obligated to anyone to create something in a certain way, in a certain timeframe, or even at all. If you choose to post your work, do it when you're ready to, not because someone is making demands of you.

10. What is a goal you wish to accomplish this next year in regard to writing?

Finishing WIPs where I can manage it. And moving older stuff from FFnet to AO3 after editing and modifying as needed.

[lumiereandcogsworth]

What are your headcanons for Belle and Adam’s engagement? How and where did he propose? :)

oooh yes yes !! i talked way too much so i’m putting it under the cut to spare people the scrolling lmao

so i’ve actually posted two (2) proposal fics since i’ve been on ao3 lol. the first one was maybe 3 years ago, and THIS one is already a year and a half old ! ah! anyway i think about their engagement every now and then and i melt into a puddle. i love how i wrote the more recent one though i think it’s quite fitting.

without spoiling too much, he proposes to her on the roof of the castle. he’s SO nervous and he still doesn’t feel completely worthy of her, but he just loves her so much he can’t bare ever being apart from her in life. he wants to be hers!!

i think the topic of marriage comes up Kind of early in their courtship. and i don’t think they courted for long. my vague timeline is:

June: the events of the movie, (which, i personally think the curse made them feel like they’d been together for weeks, a month or two even. even though it was 5 days in real time, it seems pretty clear that the curse skews time heavily. but that’s a post for another day.) and the curse lifting and them beginning a “proper” courtship !!!

July: courting, getting to know each other more and more and being SO cute. i think belle kind of splits her time between the village and the castle. she definitely Prefers being at the castle but she also doesn’t want to just abandon maurice completely. at one point she joins him on a week-long trip to an art market (at maurice’s request; i think he was sensing that adam & belle were nearing a point of marriage and he wanted some alone time with her before changes started to happen 🥺) but it’s good for the two love birds to have some time apart anyway! healthy, and all that. one of my favorites of my fics this year is set when she comes back from that trip though, it’s so so sweet.

August: I think adam proposes some time early august. maybe in the second week or so. he proposes with his mother’s ring (not her engagement ring, just a ring she wore often and loved). his birthday is the 26th and they’re already engaged by then, though it’s very new! and they probably used his birthday ball as a means of announcing/celebrating the engagement as well

September: they get married september 24th!! it’s all sunny and the trees are turning orange and it’s just beautiful. they get married in paris at notre dame cathedral. and from there they have a Very Long (like two months sjdksj) honeymoon traveling around europe. it’s mostly because adam just wanted to show his adventurous girl EVERYWHERE, so he went a little crazy planning this trip. BUT also it’s their introduction tour as the new king and queen of france. (they won’t be officially coronated until january, but once they’re married it’s like yeah they’re king and queen now. basically.)

anyway i got sidetracked lmao. my POINT was that i think the topic of marriage came up kind of early on, probably even by july. not so much like “I Want To Marry You” (though they both probably Thought that) but more like. the elephant in the room: adam is a prince, and heir to the french throne. and as soon as he finds a wife, he’ll be crowned king. as has been the law looming over him since his father died. HUGE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM !!!!

and some day i would love to write this conversation, i think about it every now and then. like, i think adam worries that the pressures and role that comes along with marrying him will scare belle off. and that’s not really true, though i do think belle Does take time to consider it. like. she’s been a small town farm girl with zero prospects her entire life. now she’s supposed to be queen of france????? quite the leap!!! they discuss it best they can, though it is a nerve wracking discussion because it kind of pops their romance bubble, so to speak. they’re not just a simple couple that can have a normal life. marrying adam is marrying the crown, and wearing it yourself.

i think adam is also very careful about how he approaches it, because in his heart of hearts, he KNOWS belle would make an incredible queen. her kindness and her brilliance, her determination and fearlessness, they’re all the perfect qualities for a leader. he is entirely uncertain about himself as king, (and he struggles with the role a lot at first after the coronation) but he knows belle would be an exceptional queen. when he tells her this, she scoffs and says her background has done nothing to prepare her. she’s not even properly educated. but adam assures her that she will have access to any university she wanted, if that’s what she needs to feel prepared, as well as any instructors and tutors and advisors at her disposal. he doesn’t care about her background, he knows what she is capable of when she sets her mind to it. (and this of course makes belle tear up).

anyway, belle of course comes around to the idea of becoming queen. i think adam even apologizes at one point, wishing they COULD just get married and be a normal couple. but belle tells him she’d marry him in any world, and if this one calls them to the throne, then so be it. (i think i have a fic about that too omg !! it’s very good. set after they’re engaged).

ANYWAY WOWZA ! i sure am rambling. did i even answer your question? i do not know. but i hope you enjoyed the infodump sjdks

[majorxmaggiexboy]

15 Questions 15 Mutuals

Rules: answer the questions and tag fifteen mutuals

tagged by @beterparker shgjsghjksl!

1. Are you named after anyone?

according to my mother it’s the phonetic spelling (it is not) of Michaela Quinn medicine woman bc she liked the way Sully, specifically, pronounced the woman’s name but she did NOT want people nicknaming me Mike so fast forward to last year when one of my coworkers nicknamed me Mickey,,,,,momsauce was,,,,devastated,,

2. When was the last time you cried?

*Noir Detective Voice* Thursday, January 5th, 2022, hours before being diagnosed with COVID-19 and unknowingly six days into actually having it,,,,,ngl if i was like, a cartoon character, it would have been adorable and i find it infuriating but i fully did the, eyes swimming, valiantly holding back tears, until momsauce looks at me and FLOODGATES AND “I really don’t feel good” AND *STARTS SOBBING* 

3. Do you have kids?

yes i have two daughters, Amicia de Rune and Wednesday Addams thank you for asking

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot?

i don’t think what i use even counts as sarcasm, it’s too obnoxious

5. What's the first thing you notice about people?

usually just that they’re in the room

6. What's your eye colour?

brown

7. Scary movies or happy endings?

Happy Endings, though Bittersweet is also good. I like to have my emotions wrung out and turned into a baseball bat which is then used to ALMOST murder me but then the ending turns out to be a highly competent doctor which then Heals Me and waters my crops and builds me a little house in the countryside to live out my days in peace

8. Any special talents?

i think my developing-stories hobby counts as a talent? it doesn’t really qualify as ‘special’, but i do be coming up with some Stuff and can make some pretty big leaps from very small prompts on the fly, which i didn’t realize until a friend pointed it out.

oh, also don’t know if it counts as a talent since there’s no on and off switch on it but irl people tend to come tell me their problems/backstory/any Drama(tm) they have going on even if we’ve barely spoken before that so

9. Where were you born?

A hospital in Alabama

10. What are your hobbies?

Painstakingly outlining stories and then usually not writing them, daydreaming about Blorbos, analyzing fiction, crochet, painting, sewing, a few little videogames.

11. Have you any pets?

YES i have three boys their names are Norrell, Chellers, and Eggroll. Eggroll is actually the eldest, he is gray and fluffy and smaller than the others. He was an outside cat until last August, when we moved and brought him with us. He has been thoroughly enjoying his retirement from the outside cat life. Norrell is SealPoint and Squishy and has big paws and Chellers is a fluffy black cat with no bones, they’re both four. These three are perfect and silly and i love them so much

12. What sports do you play/have played?

I played Red Rover once. OH!! I did paintball once. I think we used to play foursquare fairly frequently. 

13. How tall are you?

Last time i was actually measured it was 5′1/2″ but i think it’s more like 5′2″ now, surely.

14. Favorite subject in school?

Originally it was Math but then we hit that part where Math was work and Language Arts was intuitive and it’s been Language/related ever since.

15. Dream job?

Being paid to live as Madame from The Aristocats

Tagging:

@therapardalis, @cutecutejames, @brassandblue, @poploppege, @slow-burn-sally, @castledock, anybody else who would like to!