#when i was only 14 years old in 2018 and i was wondering what a navalny presidency would be like

[aroacemisha]

So. Navalny is dead.

My condolences to his wife and children. And may those influenced by his work carry on the fight for a better Russia.

Even if he wasn't perfect, he was an important voice in the Russian opposition movement and gave hope to many, and his imprisonment, as well as his treatment while in prison, was completely unjust.

Rest in peace.

[captaincorgi128]

On Christmas Day of 2018, I received a paperback copy of George Orwell's 1984. I was 12 years old.

I remember the adults - aunts and uncles, parents, grandparents, looking at me cautiously, as if they had handed me a live bomb rather than a book. "That's a very intense book, okay?" my father told me. "If you want, we can talk about it after you read it." 12-year-old me, with only a dim idea of what fascism actually was and an insatiable appetite for books, only nodded.

While my younger cousins and sister played with their new toys, I sat on the couch and read the book in one sitting. When I finished, I looked up to see the adults staring at me with a strange sort of fascination. "Do you want to talk about it?" my father asked.

"No." I shrugged and turned away.

The truth was, I had been expecting a happy ending. Winston Smith was the good guy, wasn't he? Why didn't he win? Evil governments always lost in the end, didn't they? How could Winston have been brainwashed into believing such an evil, awful dictatorship was truly great? After all, when my middle school history teachers talked about dictatorships, those of Hitler and Stalin, it was obvious that they were the worst of the worst. No one actually agreed with them, did they?

Then I remembered my fourth grade class talking about the upcoming election, laughing about how obviously stupid Trump's wall idea was, and how strange it felt to hear someone say Clinton was worse. I don't remember his reasoning, but I distinctly remember thinking it was dumb because what could be dumber than a giant wall around Mexico? I remembered my grandmother arguing against vaccinating children, and I remembered flat Earthers I had seen online. That day was the first time it clicked for me: people believe what they want to believe.

The years passed. I read 1984 again, and again, and again. I watched as Trump shut down the government for sake of a temper tantrum, as he was impeached, as he told Americans to inject bleach, as he politicized a pandemic and let thousands die. I didn't know about his SA scandals. I didn't know he had called Mexicans "thieves and rapists." I just knew he could not be allowed to be president again.

Yet, when 2020 rolled around, I was only 14 years old and could not vote. I settled for watching anxiously as the votes came in - I didn't know much about Joe Biden, but he was clearly a better alternative. He actually believed the COVID-19 pandemic was real, for one. So I sighed in relief as the results came through four days later: Joe Biden had been elected president of the United States.

I kept watching. I watched as Trump incited insurrection, as terrorists stormed the Capitol. I stared in horror at the TV. How could this have happened? How were so many people so delusional?

In December 2021, for my sophomore year English class, I read 1984 again. I thought of January 6th.

My classmates thought it boring, confusing, stupid. It didn't make sense. What did it matter? Who cared whether or not we knew the significance of the character of O'Brien?

I kept watching. The summer before my junior year of high school, just before I entered a relationship with my now-partner, Roe v. Wade was overturned, and I felt a sinking pit in my stomach. Six months later, a friend of mine read 1984 for that same English class, and he loved it - we had a few intense study hall discussions about the nature of doublespeak, of totalitarianism, of a surveillance state. My partner agreed, reading it with a terrified fascination.

I kept watching. I realized I was nonbinary, and I watched in horror as the Republican Party made their creeping advances to eradicate trans rights. Idly, I reread 1984. What the right wanted did seem a lot like Oceania's government, didn't it? I wondered if I'd ever be able to marry my partner, who, despite also being trans, was still the same sex as me. If Trump ran again, he'd probably win, and then what would we do?

Then, 2024. Trump won the primaries in a landslide. I turned 18 and registered to vote. In the meantime, I skimmed Project 2025's bits about banning pornography and thought of 1984 and its carefully curated sexless society, created to achieve perfect complacency. I went off to college and voted absentee, carefully bubbling in the circle next to Vice President Kamala Harris's name. I woke up on Wednesday, November 6th to see Trump had won the presidency.

It has been one week. Again, I watch as Trump proposes a Department of Government Efficiency, which sounds euphemistically horrific. I watch as he suggests Musk to head it, a man known for being as inefficient as possible. I think of the Ministry of Truth and how its entire purpose was to disseminate lies. I watch as people celebrate, mocking me and many others who had desperately voted against a fascist, a rapist, a convicted criminal, a man who would kill us and spit on our graves if he was elected to office. I think of Parsons and duckspeak, the practice of simply spitting out the "correct" propaganda the same way a duck quacked. People really did believe what they wanted to believe, didn't they? I realize Trump won because, deep down, people hated minorities more than they loved democracy.

I hope my loved ones and I will survive another Trump presidency. I hope those in Gaza and Ukraine will survive it too, along with so many others - Jews, POC, immigrants, students, disabled, Muslims. At the very least, I hope to live long enough to watch as the bigots are forced to eat their own words and come to terms with the fact they gleefully voted in their own downfall.

At the end of the day, 1984 taught me something I could not have comprehended at age 12, 14, 15, or 16, but can understand now: democracy dies not with a bang, but with a whimper.

[goo-berz]

Talking about Vivziepops' weird art of minors

I've never been the biggest fan of Vivziepop, I've always knew about their weird behavior (since like 2018 ~ 2019) before they were as popular as they are now.

She has done a lot of weird stuff but the thing I mainly wanna focus on in this post is their character Addison. Addison is a 17 year old gay effeminate fox humanoid from Zoophobia, he's in a relationship with a 19 year old Teacher's assistant named Gustav. Many people get confused by this but Addison has been CONFIRMED to be 17 years old by Vivziepop. Someone had changed Addison's Fandom Wiki page back in 2019 to say they're 18, when this is not true, Vivzie has confirmed they're 17. I did go back and change the age to 17 on the Wiki with the correct age in hopes that people stop believing incorrect information.

Vivzie confirming their age: https://twitter.com/vivziepop/status/1128064633166712832

The tags in this post brings up the fact that Addison is nearly 18 - not 18 yet - They're still 17.

Edit: Oh yeah, I want to add on context to this tag: "I should mention the characters canon ages are higher then when I first made them because as I wrote the story any big age gaps were uncomfy"

I've heard multiple older fans of Vivziepop say that Addison was originally meant to be 14-15 years old, and I've heard that Gustav was originally meant to be in his 30s.

Addison was created 2010, She began shipping Gustav with Addison in 2011, and Zoophobia began in 2012. So the fact she shipped a 14-15 year old character with a 30 year old one to begin with, and encouraged her friend to draw intense NSFW art of them together is so.. weird.

Anyways, Vivzie also hints at Addison being a minor, using wording indicating how young they are in age in their Blogpost introducing the character

"I finally created a few concepts, but the one I have been toying with the most is a young character much like Gale. An albino boy, with an identical albino sister"

If you need more proof, Addison is also preyed on by Mirage, a character that SPECIFICALLY goes after minors... that's basically her main personality trait, that she's a p3d0. She goes after Addison because he's a young submissive boy and easy to manipulate.

Anyways, back on topic. I personally I don't see anything wrong with the age gap of 17 & 19, however I do think it's weird to have this relationship between Addison and Gustav.. he's not exactly a teacher, but he still holds power over Addison due to the fact he's the voluntary teacher's assistant. Back when Zoophobia was popular there were people who found this dynamic weird & creepy considering the fact that Addison is basically a student under Gustav. Also, I just wanna bring this up because I find this weird, Gustav was originally under the impression that Addison was a year one student and much younger than he actually is, yet he still tried to flirt with him.. erm..? Yeah..

Anyways, that isn't the main point. The point is that Vivzie DREW NSFW OF HER 17 YEAR OLD CHARACTER AND HIS 19 YEAR OLD TEACHER... erm.. holy cracker balls? Literally how can anyone excuse these?

Vivzie also drew Gore of Addison too, but I won't post it here cus it's very graphic and weird and idk why she drew it!!

And .. possibly the worst drawing of them all.. Holy titties what is this... If you're wondering, the stuff under the censors is ACTUAL NSFW. It's not suggestive, or implied s3x, It's their ACTUAL WEE WEEs.

These accounts are poorly archived, so it's hard to find the original post and what it originally said. However after some digging I was able to find out the original text said

“ dollcreep: “ i can only see ‘dark-Günter’ exposing him and addi to a public area like so…so. yeah. Günter says; merry Christmas. god this question is super old. vivz reminded me about it"

So, I'm assuming that Dollcreep drew this, not Vivzie. However I was also able to find out from the limited resources there is that Vivzie reposted this to her accounts Vivzie-zp (unarchived) and ZPanswers, which are also now deleted, but if you view the accounts tumblr archives over the Wayback machine you can see that she did indeed repost this. http://web.archive.org/web/20120801182958/http://zpanswers.tumblr.com/archive

If you don't know, Dollcreep and Vivzie used to be best friends, however aren't anymore. Dollcreep originally designed Gustav, originally named Gunter, and Vivzie bought the design from them. Vivzie designed Addison back around 2010, and taking into account the old caption, this means that Vivzie.. allowed Dollcreep to draw NSFW art of their underaged character ;-; oh my gawd!!! Whatthe heck guys... like I said at this time Addison was still 14 - 15 and Gustav (Gunter) was in his 30s.

Also I want to mention that this drawing was from 2011, so that means Vivzie had this pedophilic ship with Dollcreeps OC for years, & after she bought the rights to the character she decided to.. keep the pedophilic ship and write it into Zoophobia by making him Addisons teacher. That's crazy..?

Anyways, because I brought up Mirage. Mirage is written pretty bad. She was a character meant to be in.. or scrapped from Zoophobia, she was meant to be a villain who preyed on the kids, mainly Addison. Her main trait is that she likes kids

Vivzie's made a bunch of drawings of Mirage preying on kids which I think is pretty weird, especially considering how poorly some of them represent it and make it seem like a joke instead.

and yeah, we all know about this infamous drawing she made of Mirage preying on Kestrel, a 14 year old. Pretty weird

Also when I looked at the web archive of Vivzie's ZPanswers blog (a Zoophobia ask blog) she accepted many weird asks about Kestrel, 14, and Addison, 17, like an ask asking if Kestrel had ever been fucked by a horse & how Kestrel, Addison & others would act when they were drunk. Which is also pretty weird to me I won't lie

Anyways that's all for now. Sorry if this is all over the place its 4am and I just wanted to get my thoughts out that vivziepop is kinda a weirdo

[myjunkisyuzuruhanyu]

ISU released an article about Shoma

Two-time ISU World Champion and three-time Olympic medalist Shoma Uno of Japan has announced his retirement from competitive skating after a long and distinguished career and is ready to open a new chapter in his life.

“I have decided to retire from active competition,” Uno wrote on Instagram. “I am very grateful to have been able to continue skating for 21 years since I was 5 years old, and to have had a wonderful athletic life.”

The Japanese star will talk in more detail about his retirement and future plans in a press conference scheduled for May 14.

The 26-year-old looks back at a career with many highlights and also difficult times, but he always came back, proving his talent and showing resilience. When five-year-old Shoma went to the ice rink in his hometown of Nagoya with his father to have fun, he had no idea that he would become a World Champion, Olympic medalist and super star of the sport. He only knew that the enjoyed skating and kept coming back to the rink, taking lessons. He trained with Machiko Yamada, the coach of Japanese skating icon Midori Ito and also with Mihoko Higuchi for many years and worked his way up in the skating world.

Uno debuted in the ISU Junior Grand Prix in 2011 and was so tiny that he was unable to look over the boards. He won a few medals on the Junior circuit but his breakthrough came in what was his last Junior season in 2014/15 when he qualified for the first time for the ISU Junior Grand Prix Final where he claimed gold. Shoma went on to take the ISU World Junior title in 2015, in what was his fourth and final appearance at the event (climbing from 10th in 2012, 7th in 2013 and 5th in 2014).

Once at the senior level, Uno quickly became one of the top Skaters in the World. In his World debut in 2016 he placed 7th but then the next year won silver, his first of a total of four World medals. In his first Olympic Winter Games in 2018, Shoma skated off with the silver medal and returned on to the Olympic podium four years later, earning the bronze. In 2022 and 2023 Uno crowned himself ISU World Champion.

However, in between there was a time of struggle. In the 2019/20 season, for the first (and only) time in his career, Uno finished off the podium in the ISU Grand Prix Series. He had left his coaches since childhood and struggled with confidence.

“At first, to be honest, I was thinking about finishing my career,“ he said in an interview at Skate America 2021 about this time.

“I did not know how much longer I would keep going. But imaging the end (I thought) maybe I'll enjoy the rest of this career as an athlete.“

Uno started to work with two-time World Champion Stéphane Lambiel as his coach and choreographer in fall 2019 and soon came back strong. He grew as an athlete and a performer with beautiful programs that highlighted his versatility: “Turandot” (Free Skating 2017/18), “Great Spirit” (Short Program 2020/21), “Bolero” (Free Skating 2021/22) and “Spiegel im Spiegel” (Free Skating 2023/24) to name a few.

At the same time, the Japanese star always pushed the limits technically and made history by becoming the first Skater to perform a quadruple flip in competition in 2016.

“When I train and want to become better, it's not good for me to work on what I can already do. If I'm satisfied with just giving 80 per cent, I'm not good. The right training for me is to push my limits,” Uno said in an interview.

The Japanese Skater has an independent mind and a fun personality. He has a Youtube Channel where you can meet his three toy poodles Emma, Baron and Toro.

“When I am on the ice, I am totally focused on my sport, but when I'm off the ice, I am sure most people know I am just a lazy slacker, but I thought that would be a good way to show to the people how I am off the ice, but still this is Shoma Uno,” he explained.

When asked who inspires him the most, Shoma’s surprising answer was:

"Myself. Of course, I think I am inspired by many people and heard some good words from everyone, too, but in the end when you break it down, I do feel that it is myself that inspires me and sadly, I don't listen to anyone. Sometimes I listen, but mostly I go with my own mind,” he added.

For sure Uno will follow his own ideas in the years to come but you can certainly expect to see him gracing the ice in shows for a while.

[noyatv]

𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐫𝐚| carlos sainz jr

carlos sainz x fem!reader

part 2 of start of an era

warnings: this is fiction, reader sings a lot of taylor swift songs, angst, carlos sliding in the dms, minor age gaps (conor/yn-3 yrs) (carlos/yn-3 yrs), reader is said to be (southern) italian-american (not that relevant to the story).

fc: varies

liked by taylorswift, charles_leclerc, landonorris, and 51,368 others

ynbuscemi i remember 11 y/o me forcing my parents to put the fearless cd in. now, i get to sing with taylor. anyways, i'm announcing that midnights (late night driving edition) is now available on all streaming platforms, with 10 never before heard songs, including my personal favorite, style ft taylor.

landonorris: i wish someone would write songs about me ↳ynbuscemi wdym i wrote dorothea and seven abt you

taylorswift: we need to write more songs together

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On Monday, the world was rocked by the news of the breakup between 28-year-old Conor Kennedy and his 24-year-old girlfriend, Italian-American singer-songwriter Y/N Buscemi. The couple had been together for almost six years and was a favorite of the paparazzi and celebrity news outlets.

The news was even more surprising considering that Y/N Buscemi is friends with Kennedy’s ex-girlfriend, Taylor Swift. The two had met in 2012 when Buscemi was just 14 and Swift was 22. Kennedy was 18 at the time. It’s unclear exactly how they became friends, but it’s speculated that it was due to Buscemi's elder sister, Victoria, who may have introduced them.

This is not the first time the pair have broken up. In fact, they have broken up twice, the first time being back in 2016. Reasons for the first breakup are unknown, but some speculate that it was because of Y/N and Taylor's friendship, the latter of the two, not being comfortable about her friend dating her ex.

The second time, was because of scheduling issues back in 2018. Conor was finishing up his degree at Harvard, while Buscemi was writing songs for her, then, upcoming album, serpente, and was in the process of helping Taylor write songs for Lover.

Since the announcement of their breakup, Kennedy has been vocal about his desire to reconcile with Buscemi. He has made no secret of his feelings, posting several heartfelt messages on social media about how much he loves and misses her.

At this point, it’s unclear what the future holds for the couple. While Kennedy continues to express his love and longing for Buscemi, the public is left to wonder if the two will be able to patch things up. Only time will tell.

this took way too long and it made me wanna kms, there will be a part 2

[lbright90]

From the start

So the last few days I've tried to reflect on where my relationship began with Jesus and God. As I was reflecting I realized that despite me knowing WHO God and Jesus were from a very early age I didn't have a personal relationship with God until 2018. So I'm gonna recap on why this is. When I was little my family was always going to church. My grandparents and mom went to church and I was there with them. Now when I was little we went to mostly Pentecostal churches and I'm not here to put down any denomination for we are not to be divided but come together to form one and worship as one. However, when I was little I would sit there and listen and watch, and there are a few times I could feel the spirit talk to me, but much like I was immature that I couldn't understand fully what the Spirit wanted. Like much today when we take our children to church, we teach them how to behave and act in churc. When I got to my teenage years and joined a local church's choir I enjoyed singing and praising God. I could feel the spirit tugging at my heart but I still couldn't understand what it wanted. It wasn't until 2018 that I found myself in a world where I felt trapped raising a child (he will always be my baby) by myself with a little help of my mother and the father of my son not being as reliable. It was then that a woman I barely knew asked me, "Are you okay?" At that moment I realized that no matter what I did, no matter how much I tried, I wasn't okay because I was pulling the old fake it to you make it. I was physically, mentally, and spiritually drained. That day was when I realized that I can't get no where in this life without asking help from a higher power because everyone else is only human, they make errors, and are not going to be 100% reliable when I need them. So that's when I started going to church. The lady was nice enough to invite me to her church and that's where I met some of the most wonderful amazing people ever who will do anything and everything to help you. Even if it's just praying for you, sometimes prayers do more for you then what money or items every could. After a few weeks it was during a sermon about resentment and holding onto grudges that the Lord worked on me and showed me where I had erred all my life. That I was so quick to hold onto grudges from something that someone did over 20+ years ago and until I let go of that hatred I would never find peace or happiness. That day I left everything to God, I prayed for a resolution to an issue with my father that I had been facing for many years and guess what! God answered. I was able to make peace with my father and let go of some of the hatred I had been holding onto. Now I want to recap on why my faith and relationship with God and Jesus didn't start until 2018, despite me feeling him knocking on my heart multiple times before. When I was growing up, you were expected to act a certain way at church, but there wasn't a lot of explaining. Like we were told you raise your hands to praise but nobody could point it out to me in the bible exactly where it said this. Fast forward to 2018 when one of my coworkers who was studying the bible could point it out to me in less than a 5 minute conversation. Now I'm not putting all the blame on the church from my childhood, or my mom, or my grandparents. It wasn't for them to them force me to have a relationship with God. Now that I'm older and more understanding, if I wanted to really know the answer I should have opened my Bible and really tried to read it and let God's word speak to me. So in the end it was because I wasn't ready to accept God and that I couldn't perceive his will. Anyways I just wanted to share this story with you all and I hope everyone has a good day. John 14:6-7

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.

[episodeoftv]

Prelims, Vote 3 of 8

The top 4 finales will move on to be included in the main bracket

Propaganda is under the cut, may include spoilers

Blake's 7 - 4.13 Blake

Technically, the episode is a very, very good one. Hell, I wouldn't wish for a different finale, to be honest. It's perfect, in its own "What the actual hell!?" way, and it does wonders for the show's themes of doomed struggle. The problem with it is that it was intended to be just a *series* finale, not the *show's* finale, so it ends on an extremely high-stakes cliffhanger. It's fantastic, it's scary, it's heartbreaking, you want more, you want to see it resolved... and the show was cancelled after the fourth series. So all we have is an extremely bleak ending with all but one character presumed dead and that damned last smile in the face of overwhelming odds in a completely hopeless situation.

Castle Rock (2018) - 1.10 Romans

When this show was coming out I was still deep in my Stephen King hyperfixation so needless to say I was *stoked*. But man this was one of the most underwhelming things I've watched. With episodes released weekly we had two months of people going insane with theories, new revelations, Stephen King fans digging up their old books to pick for scraps of hints that could explain what's going on, every week there were new video essays and analyses of the new episode, subreddit buzzing with the wildest theories about who is this mysterious character of The Kid who's kicked the whole plot in motion and what the hell is going on with the seemingly cursed town. And then the finale came and just. Nothing. Everything went back to square one. The Kid is locked back up in the same cage he was originally found in. Nothing was explained. Everyone moves on as if nothing happened. After two months of Castle Rock being the main focus of all of my free time this completely took the wind out of my sails and I completely lost interest in the show and honestly, soon almost forgot it even existed. When the second season came out I didn't watch even the first episode, even though the second season *might* have explained everything, I simply didn't care enough to find out anymore. And from what I've seen, others have felt the same way because since the first season ended I haven't really seen anyone talk about the show.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina - 4.08 Chapter Thirty-Six: At The Mountains of Madness

Ok so in fairness this entire final season sucked but the real kicker is that in the final scene we learn that after the main character died, her love interest killed himself in order to be with her in the afterlife. Yeah, a teenager committed suicide and we were supposed to see that as a happy ending.

Choukou Senshi Changerion - 1.39 Over the Times...

It's the last episode, which means no new information or worlds should be introduced, right? WRONG. Inoue (the main writer) decided that, for this last episode, we should see into an alternate (maybe, perhaps) timeline alongside the regular content. The bad guys are coming, except our main guy is starting to go down and remembering all the things that have happened, as well. And then it just ends. On an explosion, of course. Roll Credits!

The Get Down - 5.11 Only from Exile Can We Come Home

rushed to complete the show and low on budget, the writers sent every character besides the protagonist (zeke) to their worst possible fate. shao, finally free and with the person he loved, was coerced to return to the sexually abusive woman who had been his boss since he was a child. dizzee is implied to have been struck by a train after breaking his boyfriend out of prison for graffiti. and boo-boo, the 14 year old, is arrested for selling drugs. in some ways its thematically appropriate, but the unrelenting viciousness of the end of each character's story is sudden, deeply tonally jarring, and leaves the audience feeling despondent and hopeless even with the main character surviving to sing it all as an adult and his love interest finding success as a singer, albeit far away in another city. tgd is an excellent show, but besides being cancelled, the big kicker for it was that the romantic lead mylene didn't hit for a lot of people, and watchers who preferred shao and zeke to get together due to having such strong chemistry and a well-developed bond probably had a very different experience than the writers had intended. mylene is a fine character and she's unfairly disliked by a lot of watchers, but her romance with zeke was simply not as well developed as shao's and zeke's relationship was

Grimm - 3.22 Blond Ambition

It forgoes the usual: 'there is a scary wesen that is causing problems and we can solve this' formula to pay off other plot points, but it kinda makes the episode feel less tethered. The focus is a wedding between supporting characters, whilst a former finale villain is just stalking around town and also a (corrupt) FBI agent is preparing to make his move. Both make their moves and the results are kinda lame. The agent is almost immediately beheaded rendering his active threat moot. And the other villain disguised herself as the MC's girlfriend and sleeps with him. The only major points are the wedding, a police captain getting shot (glossed over here but become relevant next season), the FBI agent dying (it starts a dull investigation next season), and the MC losing his power right at the end (which led to one of the worst periods in the show until he regains his powers...)

Jane the Virgin - 5.19 Chapter One Hundred

No propaganda submitted

[tilbageidanmark]

MOVIES I WATCHED THIS WEEK (#190):

Jeanne Moreau X 2:

🍿 First watch: MR. KLEIN (1976), my third by blacklisted Joseph Losey (after 'The servant' and 'Modesty Blaise'). An intelligent mystery about mistaken identity. Privileged art dealer in occupied Paris Alain Delon benefits from the misfortunes of his clients who must liquidate their collections at fire sale prices. That is, until he's suspected of being Jewish himself. One of Delon's best roles.

RIP, Alain Delon!

🍿 THE ADOLESCENT (1978), one of the only 3 movies directed by Jeanne Moreau, was a delightful coming-of-age French bonbon. In the summer of 1939, just before the outbreak of the war, a 13 year old girl is vacationing in a small village near Avignon, and falls in love with a young doctor, 20 years her senior. And then her mother, full of sensual energy, has an affair with him instead. (Suzanne Lindon re-worked the same story in her wonderful 2020 'Spring Blossom'). Thematically it was a bit thin, but the pastoral landscapes, accordion score, and nostalgic haze were catnip to any Francophile worth his Vin Rouge. Simone Signoret plays the grandma, and there's one explicit naked scene of the young girl. 7/10. [*Female Director*]

🍿

I AM GRETA is a terrific 2020 documentary about Greta Thunberg, the then-17 brave crusader. It was made by somebody who had close personal access to her from the very beginning of her journey. I admired her steadfast heroism from the first weeks of her school-strikes in Stockholm, and was deeply-moved by her ascent into a global icon and torch-bearer environmentalist. And of course, she reminded me of Adora, both physically and in spirit. It's a very personal experience to me. What an legend. 9/10.

It must be devastating (to her, and to us) to look back today at the enthusiastic movement that she inspired, and recognize that it didn't amount to jack shit. (Screenshot Above).

🍿

Bergman X 5:

🍿 BERGMAN, A YEAR IN A LIFE (2018), another documentary of another complicated Swede, is the best biography about the legendary filmmaker. It focuses on 1957, a year in which he directed both 'The Seventh Seal' and 'Wild Strawberries', as well as television play and 4 massive theater productions. He also had 5 simultaneous relationships, and spent a month in the hospital, suffering from stomach ulcer and mental exhaustion. It paints an honest portrait, warts and all, of a truly iconic 'artiste', and one who enjoyed, from this point forward, the recognition and worldwide admiration as a one-of-a-kind genius. But also a selfish, lonely 'Erotoman', a megalomaniac workaholic, and a power hungry autocrat. (Also, a Nazi sympathizer until at least 1946). Essential viewing to all Bergman fans. 9/10. [*Female Director*]

🍿 TORMENT ("HETS") (1944) is a love triangle between fallen "shop girl" Mai Zetterling, a good looking student who falls for her her, and a sadistic Latin teacher who tortures them both. It was the very first Bergman screenplay which was produced, and he also directed some of the exterior scenes. A good review - here.

🍿 WILD STRAWBERRIES was made by a 39 year old man and perfectly captured the mindset of a really 'old' man, a bitter and resigned man at the end of his life. Of all the thousands of great movies made, this is the one nobody will object to when calling it a 'Masterpiece'. An immaculate 10/10. Re-watch ♻️.

🍿 KARIN'S FACE, a 14-min. visual poem from 1986, composed of still photos of his mother Karin, the most important woman in his life.

🍿 MINNS NI? ("DO YOU REMENBER?") is a quick mash-up of clips from 170 Swedish films, including many of Bergman's. The concept was better played in 'Final Cut: Ladies and Gentlemen'.

🍿

My 18th terrific film by Agnès Varda, SALUT LES CUBAINS. After her 1963 visit to Cuba, she composed a poetic montage out of the 4,000 still photos that she shot over there. A beautiful homage to the faces and the spirit of the people as well as the revolution. Narrated by herself and Michel Piccoli, and with great music score. I watched it in the original French. 9/10. [*Female Director*]

🍿

Ali Abbasi is an Iranian-Danish filmmaker, who directed 4 features so far. After seeing his 'Holy Spider' last week, I wanted to continue with the rest of his work. BORDER (2018) is an inventive folklorist tale about a woman with a Neanderthal appearance who works for the Swedish Border Service. She uses her feral sense of smell to sniff out people's fear, guilt and shame, for example when they hide child porn on their phones. It's a dark and disturbing story which starts with an unusual premise, but ends as a weird body-horror fantasy about forest trolls and changelings and what-have you.

As a completist, I was planning on seeing his debut feature 'Shelley', which looked like a 'Rosemary's Baby' re-boot out in the country, but I'm not in the mood for another Horror Nordic. Instead I'll just wait for his upcoming Trump Origin story, 'The apprentice'.

🍿

"Don't kill anyone unless you really have to."

GREEDY PEOPLE, a new, twisted black comedy in the Coen Brothers mold: Bumbling characters turn small time crooks by making one worst decision after another. A surprising fun ride, with a specific small island community feel. The title only comes up at 24:00 min. and the defining dog murder falls at exactly the mid point of the story. The initial reviews were not that great, but I enjoyed it very much for fulfilling its genre requirements. 8/10.

🍿

OCEAN WAVES (1993), a lesser known Ghibli Studio film about two student friends who both fall for a new girl who just transferred to their school. Not a typical Ghibli drama of a teen romance, with flatter anime style, but still an understated, whimsical score.

🍿

"The continent is peopled almost entirely by homosexuals..."

DANCE FIRST, my 3rd fictionalized film by British director James Marsh, (after his much better documentaries 'Man on Wire' and 'Project Nim').

A deferential, melodramatic and uninspiring Samuel Becket biopic. I dislike filmed literary biographies in general, and I hated this boring, affectatious one in particular. I don't particularly care for Gabriel Byrne high-brow/low-brow acting style, and I definitely couldn't stomach the dude who played his younger self. The fake inner monologue, the horrible attempt at bringing James Joyce back from the dead... It was excruciating to sit through.

🍿

Michigan J. frog X 2:

🍿 “Hello, my baby; hello, my honey; hello, my ragtime gal.”

ONE FROGGY EVENING, a 1955 Chuck Jones cartoon which introduced the all-singing, all-dancing frog, but who does it only when it feels like it. Based on a Cary Grant movie from the 40's.

🍿 First watch: Mel Brooks Star Wars parody SPACEBALLS, the inspiration to 'Black Mirror' USS Callister. But I never saw any Star Wars or Star Trek movies, and it just wasn't very funny. The jokes were on the 'I Love URANUS' bumper stickers level, and Stephen Tobolowsky as a gay trooper. 2/10.

Colonel Sandurz was much better when he later played Rabbi Nachtner.

🍿

2 by young Canadian documentarian Carol Nguyen:

🍿 NO CRYING AT THE DINNER TABLE (2019) is a simple, yet powerful, family interview. Vietnamese family, father, mother and sister, opens up for the first time about private traumas they each carry with them. Then they listen to the recorded conversations together. 8/10.

🍿 NANITIC (2022) is another simple and sensitive look into the psyche of a young girl who is spending the day with her Vietnamese grandma, as she lays on her death bed in the living room. 8/10. [*Female Director*]

🍿

2 by another young Canadian, Justine Gauthier:

🍿 DEATH TO THE BIKINI! (2023) an award-winning short about a rebellious 10-year-old girl who refuses to start wearing bikini tops when going to the water park. Like the Jeanne Moreau film above, it features nude scenes of the unapologetic prepubescent girl.

🍿 "...So, there's only a living room and a kitchen and a bathroom?"

THE APARTMENT (2018), a newly-divorced mother spends the first weekend with her two kids at her new small apartment. Sad. 8/10. [*Female Director*]

🍿

Philips Cinema / Parallel Lines had a contest in 2010 where 600 filmmakers created shorts using only six lines "What is it? ... A unicorn... Never seen one up close before.... Beautiful."

THE GIFT (2010), one of the only few science-fiction shorts I love. A messenger delivers a mysterious box to a rich man in dystopian Moscow. A frequent re-watch ♻️.

THE BURIED is a 'Breaking Bad' final scene at the desert.

25 of the finalists are on YouTube.

🍿

A few more shorts:

🍿 In THE HAIRCUT (1982), busy executive John Cassavetes has only 15 minutes to get a haircut, but he gets the best one of his life. It includes a manicure, pedicure, shoulder rub, shoe shine, romance, and a performance by The Bangles. Directed by Susanna Hoffs' mother. [*Female Director*]

🍿 PAS DE DEUX (1968), my second by Canadian Norman McLaren (after 'Neighbors'). A ballet short with Romanian pan flute music score.

🍿 Only my second by D.W. Griffith, THE MUSKETEERS OF PIG ALLEY (1912). An early gangster movie, starring Lillian Gish

🍿 FUNERAL AT NINE (2022), a beautiful short directed together by 6 animators. Three brothers deal with grief differently.

🍿 THE COOK is like a Swiss 'Ratatouille' but with weed instead of food, and also it's just a dream.

🍿

IT'S A GOOD LIFE (S3E8) is my fourth-ever 'Twilight Zone'. I wonder how much of the American mindset of 'Magical Thinking' was born out of it. Or did the 1950's paranoia and crushing conformity produce this sense of 'Normalcy' threatened by the mystic, the bizarre, the 'odd'? 'Everybody must always smile, and think good thoughts.'

🍿

"...So I reached out to my local militia..."

AMERICA'S RIGHT-WING RADICALS is a new, German documentary about the military veterans who are systematically building a functioning shadow army ready for a civil war in the near future. Trumpists, Nazis, fascists and racists united for one glorious holy fight, to get rid of the Jews, the blacks, and the poor...

🍿

Throw-back to the Adora Art project:  

Adora with Alain Delon.

Waiting for Godot Adora.

Adora with Greta Thunberg.

Seventh Seal Adora.

Ballerina Adora.

🍿  

(My complete movie list is here).

[aurorangen]

sims get to know me tag!

@akitasimblr @oasivy @duusheen @druidberries thank you so much for tagging me ❤️

1. What’s your favourite sims death? getting eaten by a cowplant!!

2. Alpha CC or Maxis Match? maxis mix! and i have a lot of alpha hair too. i can't help it, they all look so pretty...

3. Do you cheat when your sims gain weight? not for weight but for the muscle. idk but it seems funny that they go buff so fast even if you've not made your sims exercise for long

4. Do you use move objects? it's on as soon as i enter build mode

5. Favorite mod? mccc and ui cheats. but for gameplay wonderfulwhims.

6. First expansion/game/stuff pack you got? get to work! and then i got that bundle with parenthood and vintage glamour/bowling night.

7. Do you pronounce “live mode” like aLIVE or LIVing? now that i think about it i've called them both ways.

8. Who’s your favorite sim that you’ve made? so i made this gorgeous sim in cas and he just became my favourite right there. he will eventually make an appearance in tjol posts, but my favourite sim you've seen it's bryce of course!!

9. Have you made a simself? yep! once i saw that simstrouble hair i had to make myself! but i've only shared it to my good friend @oasivy!! maybe i'll show you all in the future.

10. What sim traits do you give yourself? lazy, foodie and hot-headed. nooo those are awful traits but it's true....ok if i had 5 traits then it's also clumsy and perfectionist!!

11. Which is your favorite EA hair color? i love all the blond hair swatches!!

12. Favorite EA hair? when i saw that outdoor retreat hair, the one wavy hair parted in the middle i used it on all my females! it was my favourite at the time, but now i only use cc hairs.

13. Favorite life stage? has to be YA. i always have lots of plans with them and get the most gameplay at that stage (as you can tell).

14. Are you a builder or are you in it for the gameplay? definitely gameplay, but my building is slowly improving! i rarely go into cas unless it's to create a new sim for my legacy

15. Are you a CC creator? nope! no skills or patience lol

16. Do you have any simblr friends/a sim squad? yes! i have talked to a lot of wonderful people here, simblr would not be the same without you guys!!

17. What’s your favorite game? sims 4!! but sims 3 for the nostalgia.

18. Do you have any sims merch? no.

19. Do you have a YouTube for sims? no.

20. How has your “sim style” changed throughout your years of playing? i was an on/off sims 4 player since 2015 and back then i was completely vanilla, then i found out about cc in 2018! only in 2022 i started using more skin details and gshade. but one thing's for sure, i have always been a legacy player!!

21. What’s your Origin ID? same as my simblr, but there's nothing on my gallery. i changed it bc it used my real first name and i upload sims for ppl to download on simblr, but ive not done that for a very long time.

22. Who’s your favorite CC creator? there are too many creators that i have downloaded everything of. i love everything from pralinesims!!

23. How long have you had a simblr? this simblr is almost a year old! i started posting on the 13th July 2022!

24. How do you edit your pictures? i completely rely on my personal gshade/lighting mods and don't really edit, i just sharpen on photopea or add the moodlet stuff when needed.

25. What expansion/game/stuff pack is your favorite so far? when cottage living came out it was my absolute favourite!! i made all my families live there including nsb pink gen, gen 4 of another legacy and my 100 baby challenge! by the time i started my postcard legacy i played with too much cottage living so i decided to start on freegan.

26. What expansion/game/stuff pack do you want next? honestly it would be great if the sims team improves the older packs, i feel mostly everything from previous games have been included. but it was family gameplay i wanted before growing together was released.

i'll tag: @weindenburg @raiiny-bay @bloomingkyras @glowbloom @igotsnothing but feel free to ignore ❤️

[floralcrematorium]

I don't know if youve answered this before, but what made you come back? I'm not that old in the fandom, maybe half a year and it's so interesting how that fandom changed and how it used to be.

Thanks for the ask! I'm gonna be real with you, it was an accident. This is about to be a loooooooong ass post so I'm putting it beneath the cut:

It happened steadily in July. A very slippery slope.

I left in or around 2018 just because I lost interest. A friend in 7th grade introduced me to it in early 2014. I had been running my Instagram account since Summer of 2014 with my best friend (who at the time had been my partner, and by 2018 we had broken up) and our other friend. We'd all moved on and the account became dead. It wasn't a good account, but we'd amassed 1.1k followers during our tenure. Those were the days of if you wanted to post a comic, there were no Instagram slides. You had to post it all individually. The account was deleted in 2021? I think? 2020?

So come July 2023, I was poking around in my old Google Drive and found some of my old Hetalia stuff. Which included a fic with the aforementioned friends. It uh. Is not good. I reread it and oh boy is it a product of its time (we were probably 13-15 when we wrote it) and it was a 3 way POV that we all wrote with self insert characters. It was basically Heta characters get thrown in the setting of Outlast but with the plot of FNAF. Yeah. So uh. Not much to defend there. I jokingly went to my friends like "Hey, what if we rewrote this but not horrible" and we genuinely thought about it! For a night.

But for me it wasn't one night.

I kept thinking about it.

And one thing led to the next, I was revisiting old Youtube videos I liked and reread a fic I used to like.

I think what really did me in was listening to the character songs again and a couple of hetaloid covers. I was doing artfight and listening only to Hetalia music while I drew.

I genuinely did not really use my normal Tumblr before floralcrematorium came to be. I have an entirely separate account for personal stuff and art (I will not be sharing it) and it got to a point where I was seeking so much Hetalia stuff that I figured, why the fuck not, and eventually made an account. I also eventually made my first A03 account (I was on Wattpad and FFN back in the day) because someone wrote a CanUkr fic where Mattie had overexerted himself and was in the hospital and Katya and Alfred were going to kill him because he kept insisting he could work (I CANNOT FIND THIS FIC AGAIN, I FOUND IT ON TUMBLR ORIGINALLY, PLEASE HELP IF THIS RINGS A BELL!!).

And uh, so here I am!

I draw Hetalia stuff on occasion (I should... draw more considering that's what I went to college for but whatever) and have a couple of ideas for illustration series in my head.

I've got a lot of fic ideas I want to write. I have a literal list on my phone. I think about it in bed, at work, and little things remind me of Hetalia all the time.

I've gotten back into RP (I used to use Shamchat and Kik).

I've met so many cool people and I've been having a wonderful time being back so far. When I was originally in the fandom, I consumed a lot of content, but as far as mutuals went it was just me and my two friends. Meeting so many new people has been absolutely wonderful.

Hetalia is really the only fandom I've been in. I've liked other media and consumed fics/enjoyed art/bought prints (COUGH RWBY), but Hetalia is the only media I've ever had fan accounts for. It's the only media I've so deeply entrenched myself in that I feel comfortable writing fics. My walls used to be covered in Hetalia -- both official wall scrolls and shitty art I'd made myself (I have pictures I can attach at the end of the post). I had... so much merch. When I was 14 I only asked for Hetalia related things for my birthday. Every now and again I get that "am I doing the right thing?" ick because of the negative fandom reputation and reactions I'd get from people when I would admit to having liked Hetalia in the past, but I don't care about that now. Genuinely, fuck that. I like this piece of media whether I want to or not. I'm not going to be a self-hating Hetalia fan like I was in 2018-2021/22. I've come back to the show with completely different... motives? Idk what the right phrase is here -- I'm here to explore the characters of these little freaks (looking at you, Francis), I love all of the fanart I see, I like the exchange of historical and cultural information/resources.

Sure, I'd consider my fandom niche to be humanverse Francis and FACE fam, but I genuinely enjoy exploring outside of my corner of the fandom. I try to spread myself out -- I want to consume everything. I want to be exposed to everything.

Hetalia is one of the single most impactful pieces of media in my life. Without it, I wouldn't have my best friend, who broke up with me for APH Austria in 2015. The friends I ran the Instagram account with and I are all still in contact. I talk to one much more frequently than the other, but they are both so near and dear to my heart and I can't believe that this silly show is what got us to where we are. The youngest of us is about to graduate college a whole year early. I met her when she was 11 and I was 12 or 13? I couldn't be more proud of her, of the three of us, and it's been so fun to have these occasional nights where we (okay, just me) get tipsy and go through old fandom media/watch the dub and go ooooof. I was in a really bad place when I was originally into Hetalia. Coming back now feels like coming full circle.

The old fandom had plenty of its own issues, and the fandom now certainly isn't devoid of issues, but now that the fanbase has shifted to an older audience and I actually have like. Social skills. I love talking to other people. I like creating. I like thinking about these stupid characters before I go to bed.

My single favorite thing about the Hetalia fandom now is the care put into historical work as well as the exploration of portrayals of the characters. Because Hetalia lacks a plot and Hima is constantly retconning things, everyone has their own interpretations of everything. Everyone has their own version of Francis Bonnefoy, Yao Wang, or Alfred F. Jones. And that's so cool!!! You don't see that anywhere else.

I know I'm typically a pessimist on main, but I'm genuinely glad to be back. It's weird to be back. I've had mixed reactions from irl friends that I'm back.

But who the fuck cares?

I'm having fun, I'm making friends, and I can't believe there are still people here.

I genuinely hope I'm here for a while. I have so much I want to write. I want to draw all of the things my skill level was too low for back when I was a teen.

CRINGE IS DEAD AND I AM FREE.

The following images are certainly about to destroy any cool perception anyone has of me, if they even do. I was... certainly a teenager, is all I have to say! I am,,, thankfully not like this anymore. I hope.

Here are those pictures of my bedroom circa 2015 I promised:

DO NOT ASK ME ABOUT THE LIVE LAUGH LOVE.

That drawing of Russia with Neko-Talia Russia? Yeah. Uh. I did that for an art project in the 7th grade for class. I also did a ceramics piece with the mochis, that I've since lost. These images scream "I'm 14 and like Hetalia in 2015."

I used to have little hearts with all the ships I liked in them (I think that's AusHun in the picture on the left?). I also had "I love you" written in like 20 languages on index cards taped above my headboard.

Also a literal timestamp I found in my old emails with the friend who got me into Hetalia:

Being a young teenager in the old fandom certainly,,,, was something. I would not relive that, but by god would I do ANYTHING to get my favorite pieces of fan media back from that time. There was a video called "Hetalia What Did You Do To Panda" which was a bunch of clips from the anime with Katie Herzig's "Hey Na Na" playing in the background. Every now and then a dub audio clip would interject with the song.

I also really miss this one very specific Character Theme Songs video that had Poland in the thumbnail. Mein Gott would play between each song and I could tell you most of the songs that had been assigned to each character.

I would do ANYTHING to get those videos back. I miss them so much.

Anyway, if you read this whole thing, thanks for reading??? I am very Cool And Normal about the things I like, unfortunately. It's nice to come back to Hetalia and like... be a normal person about it.

All I've got to say is, when I like something, I like it a lot.

[idolsummons]

Records of Professor William Jones: 2019

Before reading over the below notes of Professor Jones, it is recommended to revise his records from both 2001 and 2003.

Tuesday, November 27, 2018

Will,

I am absolutely delighted to hear that you, Catherine and Jacob will be spending your holiday in France next year. I am so excited at the thought of seeing you again, and getting to meet your beautiful wife and son.

I think Alice is excited about having a boy around her age about, even if she doesn’t really show it, but, well, you know how teenagers are!

Keep in touch and let me know what your plans are. Maybe I can be your tour guide around Paris!

Alice sends her regards, in those words.

Sylvie

I have not returned to Europe since those fateful months back in 2001. Admittedly, as much as I would have loved to return, time simply got away from me; with my teaching career, the engagement and marriage to my beautiful wife and then the birth of our son, I found no time for such sojourns to other countries, even in the name of furthering research in the field. I am grateful, at least in this small part, that this particular field is not one which is of great interest to others.

Although, yes, this is to be a holiday with my family and the chance to spend time with an old friend, I do hope there will be some time in which I can further my research into La Cour de la Lune. Much time has passed since my last visit, of course, and I have formulated new theories in regards to the uncovering of information. I can only hope Sylvie is enthusiastic of being of some help - and perhaps the young Alice, who has spent her entire life within the congregation, will have some insight that even her mother does not possess!

Sylvie,

Rest assured that I am just as delighted as you are about the thought of seeing you again. As soon as I know of our plans, I will send you an email with regards to them so as to not delay the process.

Catherine and Jacob also send their regards, not in those words.

Will

P.S. The thought has just struck me as to how much technology has evolved since our first contact. It is almost amazing that we still write to each other in a way that anyone would consider old fashioned now!

Monday, January 21, 2019

Catherine is not particularly delighted about my plans to research the occult while we spend our family vacation in France. How lucky I am to have such a wonderful and understanding wife, though! We have come to an understanding that I might spend some downtime on my research, as long as I spend most of the time with herself and Jacob. I am, of course, amicable to this proposal; if there is one thing more important than my research, it is spending time with my beautiful family.

Thursday, February 14, 2019

I must apologise for the quality of my writing in this entry, for my hands cannot stop shaking after having read the most recent letter I have received from Sylvie. I will allow the letter to do the talking, lest I fill the page with nonsensical scribblings.

Will,

I must apologise. I will not be able to accompany you, Catherine and Jacob when you come to visit in the coming months.

I have made the decision to give my life to Vh’thra on the next new moon, falling on the 6th of March.

I understand that you might be saddened by this news, but you needn’t worry. My soul will be back in the hands of Vh’thra, and one day I might be reborn anew.

Alice will remain well and safe. She is a young woman who can make her own choices, but I understand she will continue to live among the others in our congregation. Of course, I will support her no matter which path her life might take from the moment I am no longer with her.

There will be no need to mourn me; rather, celebrate that I am one with my dear Vh’thra once more.

I wish you all the best with your family, research and any endeavours the future might hold.

Sylvie

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

I never did respond to the correspondence Sylvie had sent.

The next letter I received was on this day, though it is in a markedly different hand than the letters which I had received before it.

Mr Jones,

I felt as though it was my responsibility to inform you that my mother, Sylvie Delecroix, sacrificed herself to Vh’thra some few hours ago on this day, the 6th of March, 2019.

If you wish to continue the correspondence you had with my mother with me instead, I will happily answer any queries you might have. Likewise, I have been informed of your impending visit to France and that I should meet you if you so desire. For the purposes of preparation, I will be using my mother’s email address. For anything which is not of an urgent nature, please continue to write.

I have taken and sent photos both for your research and as proof. I hope you find them useful.

Regards,

Ms Alice Delecroix

I feel violently ill doing so much as recounting the contents of the accompanying images.

The images were numerated so that I might view them in the correct order. Though I have included the images in this bundle, I implore anyone in their right mind to not view these images. I have provided written descriptions for those curious.

The first image depicts a semi-clothed, seated Sylvie. She is being marked by a robed figure in symbols which I have come to learn over the years represent various ideas and creatures which relate to La Cour de la Lune. These symbols in particular relate to Vh’thra, defined by their long and pointed shapes.

The second image, which is particularly close, depicts Sylvie with the same lack of clothing, now laid upon the stone table. Unlike sacrificed beasts I have been sent images of over the years, Sylvie’s hands and legs are unbound. It appears that a robed figure is carving markings into her skin with a sacrificial blade. Blood has already begun to pool to the surface of her skin.

The third image is taken from a distance, behind other members of the congregation. It appears that a hooded figure has the same sacrificial blade which had been used to carve into Sylvie’s skin high above his head. It’s difficult to tell, given the distance, but Sylvie doesn’t appear to be struggling or distressed.

In the fourth image, Alice seems to have gotten to the front of the crowd. The blade is lodged well between Sylvie’s ribs. Although he is hooded, part of the executioner’s face can be seen. He, just like Sylvie (who now smiles towards the camera, or rather, her daughter), appears to be at peace.

The fifth image, like the second, is taken closer. Alice’s finger has partially obscured the lens, but this is just as well - it means that I have been spared seeing a friend dismembered.

I cannot bring myself to respond to Alice’s letter tonight. How can a child remain so calm in the face of their only parent being taken from them, particularly of their own choice? How can she take photos of the acts, and do so well enough that they are not blurred or otherwise obscured (except for in one very lucky situation)?

Is this the toll spending one’s entire life in a cult takes?

Thursday, March 28, 2019

I still feel ill and my hands still shake, if that is not proven by this entry. Sleep evaded me last night, and in those small moments when I did begin to drift, the images I had viewed burned themselves into my mind once more.

Thankfully, Alice has asked for correspondence by email for the time being, sparing me the trouble of having to write coherently by hand at the very least.

I try not to think about how she can so casually use the email address of her deceased mother, particularly in the present day when it is so common for people to have addresses of their own.

Ms A. Delecroix -

I must specify the Ms Delecroix I write to, otherwise I will feel like I am speaking to a recently deceased friend -

I thank you for the notification of your mother’s passing. Under ordinary circumstances, I would say that I am sorry for your loss, but I understand that is not what your mother wanted, nor what you believe. I hope that her soul finds its place among us again soon.

I would also like to thank you for the photos you sent.

They are grotesque, but do they not aid me in my research?

Please see below for details of the holiday I will be taking to France along with my wife, Catherine, and my son, Jacob.

…

Not too long after I send this email do I receive a response back.

Mr Jones,

Please keep in mind what I said about emails being for urgent matters only. I might be young, but I do appreciate receiving and sending handwritten letters much more than a soulless email.

To bring an end to this line of conversation - do not waste your worry or your pity on my mother. I hope for her to be among us once more soon enough.

I look forward to meeting you in Paris next month.

Kind regards,

Ms Alice Delecroix

Though I am curious to meet the child Alice of whom I have heard so much, I swear that my heart is no longer beating in my chest.

I cannot help but fear the person I am soon to meet.

[mrfandomgage]

So, way back when in 2015, Undertale came out, right? I was 13-14, but if I remember right, I was in Middle School, and one of my friends made an OC for it. I didn't know what it was so I asked about it, and I vaguely remembered Markiplier's first 2 episodes on it, before the fans harassed him into streaming the entire game. I wondered why Mark didn't play it, but I heard JackSepticEye played it, and because I was a kid without money, of course I watched him play it.

After watching Jack's playthrough, I fell in love, and basically watched everything I could about it. Learning all its lore, watching fan dubs of comics, wondering why Sr Pelo made that April Fools Genocide route (this is before I knew how Subtitles worked, and JFC when I learned that a lot of content creators were being harassed I got upset). I joined fan groups, joined Amino (hell hole), drew shitty art (I do leagues better than my old art, still shit tho), and because I loved AUs and lacked art skills, I started writing more often because of it. Hell, "Mr Fandom" was a name I made up because I was into Undertale, FNAF, My... that one I don't like talking about, but I wanted to express my interests in everything and embrace it. Gage Fandom as a name and character came later.

I have so many positive experiences with Undertale and its community, not to say it's all sunshine, but it definitely helped me out a bit. So why am I tired of it? Simple. I was obsessed with it since I was 13-14. A lot of my thoughts and ideas were about Undertale, I am 21 now and edging towards 22. I once was talking to my little sibling, and they called it a Hyper fixation, I found that wrong, because this wasn't a short term thing like those can be, I've been into this thing for nearly 9 years now. I'm just growing tired of thinking about it all the time. Don't get me wrong, if you wanna know anything about Undertale, one of the many games in my life that made me a furry, I can still recall most of it's lore, if something is only fanon or canon, if it's a myth, or even those messages Toby Fox made for when people inevitably shared them on the internet, good going Toby, you made a game interesting that the secrets that say people wouldn't be impressed with if they were put on the internet, people were legitimately impressed and made animations about that, good on.

I will tell you, Undertale is a fantastic game, it inspired me to write stories and even to an extent practice drawing (tho I definitely started drawing more when I got into HomeStuck around 2018, and I definitely started taking my own artwork a bit more seriously after accepting I'm a furry). I may have a hard time ever finishing a story I write, but I got into it because of Undertale and its writing.

Oh, and let's not forget Deltarune. I love it for some of the same reasons I do Undertale, Character writing is one of my favorite subjects (this is Kinda why I like Homestuck, a lot of characters are well written, even if also as much aren't, lol). Yes this is why most of my writings on this blog are of characters talking to each other, I'm primarily practicing Dialogue and trying to get to a point where it feels natural.

I love Undertale. I do not want to think about Undertale for a while.

[celineytumbles]

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

"With the kids jingle belling and everyone telling you 'Be of good cheer!'" - Andy Williams 🔔

So, who still uses Tumblr these days?

Apparently I do. It's 'cause this is my only personal blog page still existing. I have a devotional blog. Just wanna plug that 'cause Jesus deserves it.

Speaking of the Lord, it's His time of the year. For Christians, the rest of their lives is God's, but for most of the world, December 25 is His day.

This year, to save me from tears… Sorry. The sentence started with "This year," so I had to continue the lyrics. OK, so this year, I'm writing a blog entry here on Tumblr as my birthday gift to Jesus and my Christmas gift to the world. I actually planned to record myself singing a Christmas song while playing the piano, but we couldn't find our webcam. It has a good video quality and a very capable mic, and with it, I can shoot from an angle I want, so I couldn't film without it.

So here we are in Tumblr, and it's fitting because this is a throwback post. I was reminiscing on what I've been doing for Christmas through the years beside the gift giving to classmates and teachers as a student and the festive family dinners. What I was thinking about was the things I do, like a Christmas project of my own. I had to go back to my saved files of my deleted Facebook account that got hacked. Then I thought I could go further back to the very first blog I had because I had those posts saved too. The blogs were removed and, unfortunately, the site was shut down in 2021.

Let me take you to a walk down my memory lane of Christmas projects.

It was the year 2007. I wanted to know about the episodes of Disney's The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, and poof! I discovered TV.com, a website like IMDB where there are forums and users can blog. I started blogging, and I made some online friends.

Here was my Christmas post there. It's a poem.

"My Christmas Gift For You"

Happy Christmas This poem's for you Though it may not last These words stay true

This Christmas season Let us commemorate For the real reason It's Jesus Christ that we celebrate

He came to this world with humility He said goodbye to save our sins He'll come again for all humanity That's what Christmas means

I just want to give you something In a way that is different I chose to do this rhyming I hope you like this simple present

I can't give expensive things But I can still share what I have I share my blessings I spread the love

I was 14 years old when I wrote this. I think I didn't make it clear enough that Jesus' goodbye there was when He died on the cross, not when He ascended to heaven.

The next year, I made a picture greeting. I had to recreate it because the image in the saved file has watermarks.

Counterclockwise from the top left, that's Aly & AJ's Christmas album, the main cast of The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, Jessica Simpson's Rejoyce Christmas album, and of course, the Jonas Brothers.

In 2009, celebrities joined Twitter, so I did too. I connected my Twitter and Facebook accounts so that my tweets get posted on FB as well.

I tweeted one of my favorite Christmas songs. (How do we say that for X now? I x'd 💀) That Twitter account got suspended, so I generated this picture. I got the tweet from the FB posts saved.

In 2011, we had this laptop where you can draw on the screen, so I made the 5 squares you see here that are made digitally. The other 4 are drawn on paper.

2013 was the year I started writing many poems throughout the year, so, naturally, my Christmas greeting was another poem.

2014 had a miserable Christmas for me because I had school on Christmas day. We were in the Middle East.

I got severely depressed in 2015, so I wasn't using social media. But, of course, I still celebrated it with my family.

In 2016, my FB got hacked. That's why all the FB post pics above are just generated images.

I made a comeback in 2017.

In 2018, my family was all together in our Church's multi-generational choir. Obviously, this isn't a personal project, but I want to include it here anyway.

That year, I also started playing Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp.

Our last Christmas in Bahrain was in 2019. It was our last time singing with the choir as a family.

2020 was our comeback to our home country, and after we got settled in our new house, COVID-19 was a widespread pandemic. It was a year of playing video games, making YouTube videos, and watching TikToks.

The posts below are from my Instagram. That's why there are hashtags.

2021 was a year of productivity. I released music videos of songs I composed and produced, started my Bible devotional blog, and joined a Bible study group.

I made this vid using Animal Crossing. This song's Phil Wickham's, not mine.

This is a screenshot of this blog post.

In November of 2022, God granted my desire to buy myself a piano.

There weren't any more new updates for Animal Crossing: New Horizons, so my greeting for 2022 was from its ever-updated mobile game.

This year 2023, Blackpink released its mobile game, so here's my greeting:

I thought I would just be looking back at Christmases, but it turned out to be looking back at my life. The Lord has been truly faithful. He keeps on sustaining me and my loved ones. I'm just glad the world recognizes this holiday where we can all celebrate love, which they may not fully understand it's of God. We enjoy the season together whether it's through music, gaming, or even literature like poetry or books, which I haven't done yet, but I just recently finished listening to the audiobook of The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. Now it has become a new dream of mine to publish a Christmas book.

So, I ended up sharing myself. But what I want you to see is how Christ is the most important that I make effort every December to do something special.

"For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

- Isaiah 9:6, NJKV

A blessed Noël to us all!

With sugar plum love, Celine ❤️

[warningsine]

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, I've been suffering from a reading funk. My concentration is bad; my commitment, worse. I blame the world, not the books, but I do feel especially grateful to the writers whose novels broke through my mental clouds. First on that list is the Japanese novelist Mieko Kawakami, whose English-language debut, Breasts and Eggs, was one of my favorite books of 2020. I wasn't alone; Breasts and Eggs, in Sam Bett and David Boyd's seamless rendering, was a breakaway hit. No wonder Kawakami's U.S. publisher, the reliably excellent Europa Editions, chased it so quickly with another Bett-Boyd co-translation, this time of Kawakami's 2009 novel Heaven, which, once again, cut straight through my funk.

Heaven is a raw, painful, and tender portrait of adolescent misery, reminiscent of both Elena Ferrante's fiction and Bo Burnham's 2018 film Eighth Grade. I cannot, in good conscience, endorse it without a warning: This book is very likely to make you cry.

Heaven is less sophisticated than the tripartite Breasts and Eggs, which shifts perspectives and timelines to address the feminist question of reproductive autonomy from a variety of angles. Here, Kawakami tells a simpler story in a simpler form. Her 14-year-old protagonist suffers horrific daily bullying from his male classmates. In the novel's wrenching first chapter, they hit him, mock him for his lazy eye, force-feed him chalk, and shove him in a locker. Heartbreakingly, he seems inured to these torments. From the locker, he tells the reader calmly, "I was no stranger to the dust-clogged air and muted darkness. Whenever this sort of thing happened, I just started counting in my head, not thinking of anything else." But through his brave front, he's plainly miserable. His home life is silent and stifling, his school life torturous; he yearns for human connection, but is too afraid to seek it. No wonder that, when his fellow outcast Kojima begins leaving notes in his desk, their correspondence becomes his "only source of pleasure."

If Kawakami were a more conventional or sentimental writer, Kojima would be the narrator's first love. Instead, she occupies a blurrier space in his life: Their friendship is intermittent and baffling, rooted less in their personal connection than in Kojima's brittle teenage idealism. In her conversations with the narrator, she preaches a gospel of social martyrdom that might appeal to J.D. Salinger's Franny Glass, to whom Kojima bears more than a passing resemblance. Kojima fervently believes that getting bullied is, as she puts it, a "sign." She sees herself and the narrator as designated empaths; their suffering enables them to "know exactly what it means to hurt somebody else," and elevates them to a higher understanding of pain. She welcomes that understanding, and accepts her daily torments as rites of purification.

Kawakami makes plain that Kojima's beliefs are not only incorrect but risky. Much like Franny in Franny and Zooey, she transforms idealism into self-harm. She also objectifies the narrator, who she sees less as a real person than as living proof of her theories. Kawakami handles Kojima sympathetically enough that it's impossible to blame her. She's 14, after all, and managing an awful situation with no adult help. Ultimately, though, she cannot offer the narrator true friendship or solidarity; she's not ballast, but a weight.

Kawakami leads readers slowly and painfully to this realization, but we get there before her narrator, who takes nearly the whole novel to figure it out. He does so only via a brutal bout of depression during which he struggles with suicidal ideation, then "los[es] touch with what sadness is supposed to be." Kawakami uses her narrator's numbness to redirect the book. Because he no longer fears pain, the narrator is able to confront one of his bullies. Their confrontation — which is, really, a sneering monologue on the bully's part; his cruelty at times left me breathless — forces the narrator to admit that he can't live by Kojima's code. Within days, the "fragments of righteousness that had held me up [stop] fitting together." His time as a would-be martyr is done.

This trajectory is unusual: How many novels about bullying, or about adolescents, end with liberation via nihilism? In Heaven, though, the narrator's embrace of meaninglessness seems, much like his friendship with Kojima, to be a necessary but impermanent developmental stage. Heaven's ending is not quite a happy one, but, for the first time, Kawakami lets some light into the book. Its final chapters are reassuring without losing track of the narrator's still-dire reality. They promise that the narrator will, someday, have the future that, not so long before, both he and the reader feared he wouldn't live to see.

[davisexplainableart]

(Yeah, I admittedly rushed this one. Sorry)

September 14, 2018:

Davis (as Scorpi): Er... Okay, I think it's on, now...

*moves over to the couch that the camera is pointing directly at*

Davis: Uh, hi there, everyone. It's uh... me, Davis. So, I'm sure you're all probably wondering what is going on... Well, erm...

.......

Davis: O-Okay, let me explain. So, obviously, I'm currently stuck as a penguin in the Cartoon World, and I'm not able to speak English as one. Well, I decided that... that I could try to interact with you guys, seeing as I'm able to speak again... a-as a Mixel.

.........

Davis: N-Now don't worry, Tommy and Tara aren't being replaced. They're... they're still hosting in the Cartoon World... but they... hopefully aren't aware of this. I mean, there's not that many people that I'd... feel like telling about this whole Mixels thing... towards...

Flare (offscreen, holding the mic): *Ahem*

Davis: Oh right, um... well I uh... think it's time to get back to tonight's Stick Friends now... y-yeah....

================================================

Okay, so what the heck is this supposed to be, exactly?

As I stated in that segment, in the cartoon world, I had been stuck as a penguin that was unable to speak any language (besides penguin noises). I had been stuck as a penguin since January 2018, and I didn't get my old body back until 2 years later (January 2020).

Luckily, since I had access to the Mixels' dimension through Scorpi's body (don't worry, I don't think he minded), I was actually able to speak in my normal voice (despite Scorpi only being able to make squeaking noises).

So, because some of the Mixels were familiar with TV production, I decided to ask a few to get involved and film live segments for Fridays in the Mixels dimension.

At first, however, everything was pretty much improvised. I didn't use a script until a few months later (I think it was November), I often missed cues because I wasn't paying attention to the time, and I didn't even have a studio until February 1, 2019. Initially, I just filmed in the Spikels' tribe base, sitting on a couch.

I remember thinking that none of the Fridays crew in the main Cartoon World were aware of me doing this. That was until January 29, 2021 when I was told that they knew the whole time.

Naturally, many were upset with my addition for obvious reasons (lack of studio, no script, me being lazy, etc.).

Luckily, we began to pick things up around January/February 2019:

We got our own studio for the show, which was almost identical to the original studio from the Powerhouse Era, all the way down to the transporter they had during that Era.

With the studio, we were able to bring on an audience, just like in the Cartoon World.

On February 8, 2019, I brought on a co-host in the form of Chao (AKA that Cragster+Zorch lookalike with brown hair). She would stay for the rest of the block's run.

We quickly got a much bigger crew to help us out.

Also, If I'm being honest, another reason I did this was because of things falling apart.

2018 wasn't the best year for Fridays, with production nearly being cancelled twice.

The 1st was due to us constantly skipping weeks. This warning came about in March of that year, after a 4-week period without any Fridays shows.

The next warning came around August or September, due to the cast and crew not doing much other than say when a show was next or whatever, that or just making normal conversation with each other. This issue had started around late 2017, but had gotten worse by fall 2018.

Ultimately, this Mixels thing, though disliked, ended up being one of the factors that helped save Fridays.

I'm mainly bringing this up because there are some segments from the Mixels dimension that I'd like to share with you guys this month.

[cr1mson5returns]

Ugh. Personal under the cut.

So I lived through a lot of shit from my family. If anyone here knew me on my old, deleted blog from my teenage years, you might remember some of the uglier details. A lot of the small things are more or less lost to time, but it wasn't a good situation. I moved out on my own in October 2018, and I haven't gone back.

After a long fight that really started when I came out as a lesbian, I finally made the decision in May 2023 to cut contact indefinitely with my parents and older sisters. It just got bad, guys. My mom texted me about family plans I wasn't invited to (and not to invite me, either) and I spent an entire afternoon on the floor, sobbing and wondering what's wrong with me that I'm so unlovable. I just couldn't do that to myself anymore. I had to make a choice about my personal health and sanity, and keeping that relationship intact wasn't the right one.

So I haven't talked to my parents or older sisters in slightly over two months at this time. But there's a little compounding factor making it painful now, which is the fact that I have a little sister. She's 13 years younger than me (13 years, 2 months, and 10 days if I got the math right when I was 14 and bored) and she still lives with Mom and Dad because she's in middle school. I don't know about you, but where I'm from, it's a little bit illegal for a middle schooler to live on her own. So of course she lives with our parents, she's a minor.

But yesterday, I realized how long it's been since I talked to her. It made me so sad because that kid is so amazing, y'all. She's so bright and brilliant and hilarious, and she's the only one in the family who matches my goblin energy and hyperbolic humor. She's so interested in so many things, curious and loves to learn even if school makes her anxious and cranky; when she had the option to take a drafting class, she told me all about it and said she hoped she'd be able to do it, just because she was so excited about it. She loves Squishmallows and Among Us and BioShock and the Arkham games, though I don't know if she ever played the last two without me because it was our thing for a while. She's so smart and catches on so fast. When I last saw her, we worked on story problems for her math class and I taught her how to turn the words into equations and solve for the missing variable. She wears a million bracelets like a true emo, she's allergic to latex and has had mylar birthday balloons since she was 1 and has never tasted a banana because of it, and she worked so damn hard to come to a point where she wasn't afraid of sleepovers and new foods and crowds anymore.

I miss that kid so much, y'all. She's amazing, and I want to hold her close and tell her she should never listen to anyone who tells her she's unworthy or less than because she can reach the stars if she wants. She could be anything she wanted to be, purely because she would think of a way to make it happen before her anxiety even had a chance to talk her out of it. I want her to know I love her so much, I'm so sorry I was a shitty big sister as a teenager, I was sick and hurting and nobody got it but that didn't excuse anything, and I want to tell her I'll disappear anybody who breaks her heart and I don't care if I catch a charge for it.

She's such an amazing kid. So wonderful. One of my favorite people on Earth, honestly, but.....if I text her, will she even respond? If she responds negatively, will I keep myself safe?