#which is really funny :))) to me specifically:)))

[a-confused-spoon]

...y'know, it's not just the fact that Caitlyn knows Viktor, but the fact that this Caitlyn met this Viktor

I know I already talked about this, but like- HELLO??!

Mind you, Caitlyn isn't just a little sister to Jayce, her parents are also Jayce's patrons and her mother works with Heimerdinger (who Viktor used to work for) on the Council- the Council that basically dictated what kind of use hextech was going to serve in Piltover for however long the timeskip was (as said by Jayce in 1x04), so there's no way these two didn't have at least a couple interactions once Viktor becomes Jayce's partner.

Tell you what, I think these two vibed pretty well too.

First thing first, I just know Caitlyn treated the idea of meeting Viktor the exact same way a younger sibling wants to meet their older sibling's crush; "yeah I need to meet this so-deemed super cool person so I can shit-talk about you to them 'cause it's fun, but also what makes them so special to you and/or so stupid they'd want to spend time with you, allegedly?" type of deal. And there's more to this too 'cause- no wait, I really need to stress this point:

I think it's safe to assume Caitlyn didn't have many friends growing up, if any at all, and Jayce (who's what, twice her age?) is seemingly the only person she shared a bond with where she didn't have to pretend to be someone she didn't feel she was, which only became more and more a thing as time went by.

And everything is fine until the events of 1x02: there's an explosion, Jayce is put away, there's a trial and all of the sudden she's lost her big brother under no explanation other than "he's a misfit and you can't be friends with him anymore", and as far as she knows, Jayce will no longer be in her life and will likely give up all his hard work. She lost her best friend and he lost his purpose in life, all in the span of a single day.

...and then, the very next day, everything seems to be fine again? There's a Council meeting, she's allowed to be cool with Jayce again and when she asks what the fuck happened to this man he opens with "So there's this guy...".

I can only imagine little Caitlyn's thoughts whilst she was processing all the new info: "Okay so you're telling me there's a guy with a funny accent, Piltover's most important person's ex assistant, who I nor anyone's ever heard of nor seen for some forsaken reason, who you met literally last night and he sweet talked you into not giving up because it didn't work when I tried- rude but okay- and then he convinced you to commit a crime to help you complete the research my parents funded? When you were already at risk of exile? And that research was super personal to you specifically, but now it's a you guys' thing? And he's from the- WAIT, HE'S FROM THE UNDERCITY?!!"

'Cause Caitlyn was curious about the undercity as a kid too, innocently so; you're telling her she has the opportunity to talk with someone who didn't just go there, but used to live there? Someone who managed to get where he is with nothing other than the sheer power of will?!

Meeting this Viktor guy is no longer just a little "I wish", it becomes a fucking mission.

...meanwhile Viktor's barely aware the Kirammans have a daughter to begin with.

I mean- he does know, but just because Jayce mentioned her a couple times, perhaps forgetting to mention her being a 14 year-old.

Not that Viktor would give a shit either way, he isn't really fond of anyone in Piltover (aside from Jayce, Heimerdinger and Sky) and the likely spoiled heir of an ultra-rich family is no exception to this, regardless of age. However, she is close to Jayce, and her extremely important family is funding what is also his research now, so he's like "whatever, I guess I'll be as cordial as I can with this miss Caitlyn if I ever meet her".

Which happened, at a certain point in time.

I think Viktor was pleasantly surprised to find out that this good hearted and fairly smart girl was also very curious to know more about the undercity- perhaps he's taken a little aback at first; she is a councilor's daughter and he has to pay attention to what he says around her after all. But at the same time, she is a councilor's daughter and if she's so well intended then why not answer truthfully to her questions when she could, one day, help through her family's influence?

And on the other side, little Caitlyn absolutely adores Viktor, and not just because he's witty and has a funny accent, but because Viktor talks to her like she's an adult.

Cait isn't really used to this sort of treatment, but of course Viktor doesn't address her like a clueless child that needs protection from the real word: that's a privilege the kids in Zaun aren't really given, and they are no less important than her. Besides, what's the harm?

It's also great because whenever the Kirammans organize a ceremony of sorts to celebrate some new hextech achievement as Jayce's patrons, Caitlyn and Viktor would manage to chat separately from the rest of the obnoxiously rich guests, so she doesn't have to feel out of place or babied and he doesn't have to be at the centre of attention as Jayce's partner. Viktor would also get a healthy dose of rich people gossip through little Cait's unintentional open disdain for the environment her parents keep her in, and the only reason why Caitlyn allows herself to lower her guard when talking about it is because she knows damn well that Viktor both probably agrees and has no intention nor reason to tell anyone. If anything, he just comments sarcastically to most stories, and she's happy she can share them with someone who won't say "now now, don't say that about so and so".

And of course, whenever Caitlyn comes to visit them in the lab (not a very common occurrence since the 1x01 accident), Jayce is just happy to see them getting along... whenever Caitlyn isn't whispering something to Viktor while they both look at him, at least.

[velvetvexations]

Saw your tags on that binder post and I thought I’d share that my first introduction to chest binding was actually through the lolita community! A lot of big name japanese brands are not exactly size inclusive and did NOT cater to anyone with more than an A cup, so I did see quite a lot of safe binding advice and methods on blogs and forums back in the day before more inclusive brands became available, ranging from sports bra to actual proper binders. I’m probably not the only example of the “binding to fit into an angelic pretty dress” to “binding to fit into an angelic pretty dress and gender reasons)” pipeline, but plenty of other lolitas I know are still cis women who just do it on occasion or for specific pieces that aren’t very forgiving on the tits! I doubt that a single niche fashion subculture is the reason for those binders being marketed towards cis women so heavily, but I thought this was a funny anecdote :)

Fascinating!

patricia taxxon shit really fucking hurts. i dont want to be effected by a random internet microcelebrity not liking transdudes, that happens often enough. but god her music and essays got me through really rough shit and it really hurts to see someone i looked up to for well written essays and work fall back on the bullshit arguments used to deny my lived experiences. it really really fucking hurts, especially with how it feels barely anyone will talk about or call it out. i thought trfs were something id have to look hard for, and seeing their rhetoric creep into the fucking music i listen to and tumblrs i follow really truly scares me

I'm sorry, anon. I love you a lot. <3

“You shouldn’t break up the trans community into groups!” The TRFs literally came up with a way to break up the community via TMA/TME. They are actively distancing themselves from the community by baking fearmongering into their ideology. God forbid we create a term about sticking together against a group within the community that’s inherently dividing?

lmao literally

Just had my first time getting sexually harassed by a woman as a percieved cis man and commiserating afterwards with a cis man about how we're all just supposed to be cool with being treated like that. It's a weird experience and somehow going through the same things mostly from women as a girl then nonbinary then a trans guy it feels the same but the flavors change. I know the discourse is literally nothing but it makes me feel like my feelings shouldn't matter because of the male privilege. And I even did my civic duty and took the brunt of it away from the other trans man who was getting it worse because of his percieved feminine traits which people also like to pretend doesn't happen. All of it is just stupid.

It's fine, she was a woman and you're a man so that was praxis sexual harassment.

honestly i think a better predictor of how much autonomy a child is able to have over their presentation is probably whether the child is disabled moreso than agab, like i not only wasn't allowed to have my hair too short, i also wasn't allowed to have it too long for a chunk of my childhood because it took me awhile to understand how to brush my hair (because i was afraid to because i am hypersensitive to touch and my mother would always brush my hair in a way that hurt so much i would cry), and my mother would bitch and moan about how difficult i was about it (because she was hurting me and did not listen when i told her this) and so i wasn't allowed to have longer hair until i could brush it myself. ultimately the biggest factor is always the attitude of the parents though

God, so much of my shit with my mother was over my hair, it still really gets to me.

TRF is like the whole voting for face eating panthers. But it’s like TERFs are the panthers and TRFs are a cheetah, like “I’m a kind of cat too so they won’t eat my face as long as I eat faces too right?” WRONG they see you as prey, they won’t spare you because they see a fellow cat, they’ll eat your face cuz you’re not a panther!

cis women will like me if I explain to them how I'm -taxonomically- a woman

it’s insane to me that ‘it’s bad to hate someone for an uncontrollable part of their identity no matter who they are’ is a controversial take now

we've regressed

when people say ‘um ackshually i can say i want all men to die and if you tell me “men see these things and go far right because they think it’s true” then you are blaming women for men’s bad behaviour’ i just immediately assume that this person is stupid as fuck like. if a teenage boy goes online to see what feminism is about and is bombarded with ‘kill all men’ ‘all men are rapists’ etc then OBVIOUSLY he’s not gonna want to be feminist. it is really not that fucking hard to understand. people don’t wanna be in spaces that are cruel to them for an aspect of their identity that they cannot control it’s not ‘blaming women for misogynistic men’ to say that. it’s just fucking true. people are so stupid it actually pains me

unfortunately radfem juice is addictive

[unknown7s]

Can I just say that I really fucking HATE how the majority of the Arcane fandom praising Season 2 is deeply in the mindset of Piltover in reality? Like, it's not even funny, and I don't know where to begin.

I'll just start with Silco because he's this huge metaphorical character who is clearly written as the embodiment of a long list of sociopolitical agendas in the real world. And before I start, pardon my English, since it's not my first language.

I know y'all in the Anglo-American sphere tend to focus more on classism, inequality and police brutality theme. But the way I see it, THAT and every single dialogue plus the specific word choice of Silco & Sevika literally SCREAMS of postcolonial discourse (I guess F. Fanon is most well-known to y'all) and even some part of M. Foucault's philosophy, etc. I'm writing "etc." because the list will go on forever if I describe all these creepy historical parallels between the depiction of Zaun's internal conflict and what real countries that have been (or still are) colonies went through, and what real colonizer propaganda looked like during that time—like how those characters who fight for the nation's independence are the big bad villain and psychotic monsters who need "redemption arc" therapy, while those who cooperate with the oppressors are the good-hearted familial heroes of this story.

So upon reflection, if this fandom were to be a collective intelligence, we should have asked ourselves, "Is this show truly not problematic for portraying such a character as villainous?" and thus, "Is this show thematically implying far-right propaganda?" even before Season 2 presented us with this insane plot that glamorized the militaristic fascist aristocrat proclaiming martial law as a 'romantic revenge arc'.

But what did the majority of the fandom do since 2022? They were so busy shitting on this dead villain, claiming he has done so much wrong that he doesn't even deserve to be praised as a character. So instead of trying to understand where this character's point of view is coming from, they blindly hate him to the point where they are now fabricating a list of crimes that he didn't even commit, editing false information on the fandom wiki profile.

What's more frustrating to me is that I thought the problem was media illiteracy all along, but oh no, I was being way more optimistic than the reality. Now that I’ve read all these interviews from the showrunner and main writer—Linke and Overton—I get the sense of why Season 2 turned out like that. The more they babble on about this show, the clearer it becomes that they don't even acknowledge how messed up their political views are, which are so far-right. Taking the seemingly-centrist line doesn't make you fair, you're just passively siding with the oppressors. And lesbian sex scene doesn't make this show "progressive", in fact, hiding oppressor fantasy behind a rainbow flag makes it even more treacherous.

So yeah, I think critical voices should be much louder than this, but watching the majority of this fandom neglacting problems only to praise the show? I think my hope for humanity kind of get lost more and more as time passes, lol.

[sirenesolace]

SOLAR RETURN CHART 2024!!

Solar return charts usually last until your next one BUT because the year is almost over, i wanted to look at some of the predictions my chart indicated😸 some of them were WILD so hold on tight!!

DISCLAIMER: I am NOT a professional astrologer and these are just OBSERVATIONS I am doing purely for having fun!! My aspects or placements may not turn out like yours so don’t worry 💕 These observations were made thanks to several already written posts on here about solar return charts, my personal experience and some researches😽

HAPPY HOLIDAY ❄️☃️

————————————————☆★!!

VIRGO RISING: starting with the rising sign. I read on here (I’ll try my best to tag the creators), that the year you have Virgo rising on your solar return chart, will one of your busiest years, and BOY WAS I BUSY. I started college (as indicated with my packed 9th house) and every time I thought I could relax there was a new assignment to do or notes to take for a class. I was practically drowning in homework.

SATURN + NEPTUNE 7TH HOUSE: because I was so busy all the time, i barely had time to really form any romantic relationship even tho I daydreamed about it a lot (Neptune). I was rejecting people + dates left and right, because I was busy but also I am very inexperienced with relationships: so I was sorta scared of diving into them. (Saturn representing blockage and fears in the house of relationships). Another interesting point was me manifesting and visualizing a relationship with a specific man (Neptune)

9TH HOUSE STELLIUM: I not only started college this year, but I also traveled a lot! A lot of my travels were done by plane this year. I went to a whole new country, and visited some family in another country.

4TH HOUSE LORD IN THE 9TH: the 4th house sign is Jupiter, and it’s placed in the 9th house; because I am going to college in a new country, I moved away from my home country. I’m already settled in and I absolutely LOVE the city I’m studying in😸! The people there are so freaking sweet and nice!

SUN + VENUS IN 11th HOUSE: I made sooo much friends this year and I’ve gotten so much compliments 🤭 I also became so confident this year, and that reflected in my reality. Compliments from strangers were so common this year. People would literally walk up to me and tell me the most unique compliments. It wouldn’t be the 11th house if i didn’t talk about social media. I started posting so much more on my socials (which is funny because before my solar return I took a social media break). I gained so much followers and overall focus on posting + creating content. Also I took manifesting seriously this year and gotten so much of my desires.

CHIRON 8TH HOUSE: I avoided having intimate relationships so much this year💀 Not necessarily a bad thing for me, but it’s very paradoxical knowing that I was wishing to have it so bad. I honestly was very avoidant and kinda scared to be intimate because I never experienced it AND before I can be intimate, I have to truly love someone intensely. That didn’t happen so I’m actually glad I wasn’t intimate with anyone. The solar return chart will run all the way to 2025 until my birthday (July 12th) so who knows 😛

JUNO 21°, 1ST HOUSE: I kid you not, a stranger that saw me at my hotel (while on vacation in a foreign country) asked my mom for my hand in marriage 😭😭 my mom speaks little English so he google translated what he needed to say to my mom💀 Juno in the 21st degree makes it interesting because it’s linked to Sagittarius: languages, foreign countries and long distance .

MOON 5°, 1ST HOUSE: I read on here (pls help me tag the creator) that planets at a 5° signify change. The moon is linked to menstrual cycles and because 2024 was a leap year, there was a change in my cycle. I also became better at regulating my emotions (I started meditating, doing breath work and Yoga) and became better at transmuting them so I could persist in my manifestation instead of having break downs about my reality.

LEO MERCURY IN 12TH HOUSE: I DID ACTING!! One of the things I manifested for myself. I did theatre and I had so much fun playing the character. The ugly side was that I was extremely drained from doing homework, coming late from rehearsal and I was barely sleeping + eating (literally had a breakdown multiple time and I was hopping they would kick me out the show). One of the directors (FUCK THAT BITCH) literally didn’t care fr and acted like she did. It’s a relief my mom came to visit the week before the big show and stayed with me till now. I was well fed and had so much energy because of it. Show went extremely well and my cast members kept mentioning how much the audience always were more responsive when I was on stage, so that made me so happy that they loved it🥹 One thing is that I’m never joining the theatre club again. It’s extremely demanding with my time and as much as I enjoyed acting, what I went through wasn’t worth my sanity😭 The next time I will be acting, I know it will be film acting instead because i didn’t enjoy theatre acting that much.

VIRGO AURA CONJUNCT ASC: this one was super interesting. People kept telling me you give off the vibe of someone who’s super intelligent, organized, confident and focused on her study. The word “aura” at the moment is very well known to mean “someone who radiates a lot of power/confidence” and people have told me I do radiate that; because of it I’ve gained a lot of suitors and admires (men and women).

PLUTO 5TH HOUSE: This one is gonna be a STRETCH but, I think Pluto here kinda explains me feeling burnt out about theatre 😭 the 5th house does govern this so I think it makes sense. 5th house also governs crushes and casual relationships, and i tried to avoid these as much as possible this year. I will say that I did have at least 1 crush this year which was super exciting knowing that I haven’t had one for 3 years. He acted like a “know it all”, was not a gentleman, did nicotine (one of my biggest turn offs) and when I finally did want to make time for him/ tried to reciprocate his feelings (because he literally loved me from the first time we met💀), he kept giving me mixed signals. I take a mixed signals as a “No” so I immediately stopped giving him any attention after that.

I hope you guys had as much fun reading as I had fun making this😽

[thehypnone]

Aeon and Rain🖐️👊🖐️👊🖐️👊<3

merry christmas, my love :3

Rain has been anxious about the Christmas gift he had gotten for Aeon. It was something he knew the quintessence ghoul not only needed, but wanted, so he didn’t think he’d upset the younger, per se, but it’s not exactly a typical Christmas present, either. They’re usually funny or meaningful, sometimes both, and this is just–Rain simply doesn’t want Aeon to be disappointed.

He has a backup, except…well, it’s not really a backup because Rain is going to give it to Aeon regardless of his reaction to the first one, but he supposes he can call it that, anyway.

They have spent the previous night together—and the previous one, and the one before that, too, and a couple more before that, as well—so after breakfast Aeon skitters over to his room to fetch the present and then returns to Rain. 

“Can I go first?” the water ghoul asks, pulling a sizable box out from under his bed. Aeon’s eyes light up as he nods; Rain puts the box in his lap and sits on the other side of the bed.

He can’t stop his lips from forming a gentle smile as he watches the joy on the younger ghoul’s face when he digs his claws into the gift.

“I've seen you eyeing them,” Rain admits as Aeon rips off pieces of the gift wrap, “and even though I know it might not be your biggest dream, I think–or hope, at least, that you’ll like them.”

The packaging seems all but anti-burglary, so it takes him a little while, but eventually Aeon gets to see the vague shape as he continues the unwrapping.

“Are these–THE BAT CRUTCHES!!!” he exclaims happily; Rain can see right away that it’s a genuine reaction—not faked for his sake—so he exhales in relief. “They look so cool, Rain, I love them! Thank you so much!”

The water ghoul grins—glad about the gift well received. “I wanted to get you something functional and I know you weren’t very likely to get them yourself.”

“That’s…true,” Aeon admits, giggling. He unwraps the crutches further and runs his fingers over the bats printed on them. “Thank you.”

“Hope they serve you well,” Rain smiles and pats the other’s thigh. He admires his new mobility aids for a little bit longer before putting them away and grabbing the sparky bag that the water ghoul assumes contains his gift.

“I feel less awkward about this, now,” Aeon chuckles, handing it to Rain. “It took me a while to find them, I hope they’re going to fit.”

The water ghoul smiles kindly before digging into the shiny gift bag and pulling out the box. He turns it around in his hands and it takes him a moment to realize what it is, but then he sees the description.

He lights up immediately. “For my wheelchair?”

“They don’t make them specifically for wheelchairs, but I figured the ones for bikes should work,” Aeon explains as he nods, grinning. They’re sparkly blue shark clips for bike wheels, meant by the quintessence ghoul for Rain’s wheelchair; which is already nicely customized and decorated, making the wheels seem a little bare.

“Aeon, these are amazing,” the water ghoul smiles widely—also genuinely amazed and happy. “Wanna help me put them on?”

“Hm, yes, but…later? I have–uh, one more gift for you.”

“Oh? Do you now? I also have one more thing, but it’s–” Rain starts a teasing attempt, but gets distracted by Aeon revealing said other gift. “Oh.”

The box of shark clips falls from Rain’s hands and hits the floor as he moves to unpack the second present—a pretty little quintessence ghoul clad in lingerie, just for him to enjoy.

[dandysworldhcs]

DANDYS WORLD CHRISTMAS HEADCANONS!

tried to make one for every toon! sorry if i missed a few!!

There’s a Christmas special on the show which has all/most of the toons in it giving gifts to eachother

Sprout bakes gingerbread cookies for everyone

Goob & Scraps will make specific crafts for each toon as gifts

this one’s a bit sad but Shelly gets the least amount of gifts since people just forget about her

Tisha is like the dad who picks up all the wrapping paper off the floor

Instead of serving Tea, Teagan will serve hot chocolate with marshmallows and candy canes and stuff

Rodger spends extra time with Toodles and knows exactly what she wants each year, even if she didn’t say anything about what she wants

Cosmo accidentally burnt a few Gingerbread cookies and felt REALLY bad, he made like 5 more batches as an apology even though sprout said it was fine

Pebble has a santa hat but it always falls off, Dandy taped it on pebble to fix that

Vee does special Christmas themed gameshows, kids love them!

Flutter doesn’t give many gifts but the ones that she does are always amazing

Shrimpo was forced to dress as the Grinch one year, he ripped it off himself not to long after though

Razzle and Dazzle do appreciate the gifts they get even if Dazzle doesn’t seem appreciative, Razzle will make it known though!

Looey and Poppy get competitive on who can open their gifts fastest and have other toons count their time

Connie never gifts serious gifts, only funny ones or prank ones

Boxten doesn’t know how to react to gifts, he’s really shy and nervous especially about this stuff

Gigi won’t steal another toons gifts but she will joke about it and won’t let anyone touch hers

Brightney likes to write christmas themed poems for herself

Finn makes so many aquatic christmas jokes somehow. it drives everyone CRAZY.

Glisten gets gifted a lot off nail polish and probably has a lifetimes worth by now

Astro loves Christmas music, he finds them oddly calming. He’ll listen to them and it’ll help him fall asleep. ALSO Astro gives everyone special Christmas-y dreams!

okay I think that’s everyone currently out!!! tell me if i missed anyone and i’ll add em! Also apologies for any grammar mistakes I suck at writing 😭

[clouds-of-wings]

Because Spotify doesn't really know that much about my listening habits and because I enjoyed writing this kind of post last year I'll once more make a post about my ACTUAL musical favourites this year. So here goes! Album time!

Grendels Sÿster: Abstieg in die Traumkammer (2024, heavy/folk metal) -- This was by far my favourite album of the year. It came out this August. First album by the band, and what a debut! The album has an English version too (which you can also find if you click the link), but I vastly prefer the German one. The lyrics are really excellent and they fit so, so well with the character of the German language. Musically I would say they sound like "early Týr with a female punk singer", the lyrics feature retellings and re-imaginings of various mythologies and mythological themes of the world, ranging from Norse to Greek to (on their EP) Hinduism or even Tolkien's Valar. They once called their genre NWONOEM (New Wave of Nerd-Oriented Epic Metal).

Other albums I liked, in no specific order:

Kornalyn: Intemporel III (2024, folk) -- Kornalyn has been at this for a few years. He's a French anarchist and folk musician who records modernized versions of traditional leftist & worker songs. He's versatile, he's talented, he's got spirit and a great voice. Worth checking out whether you're a comrade, a history enthusiast or a folk fan.

Alice Longyu Gao: Let's Hope Heteros Fail, Learn and Retire (2023, hyperpop) -- Okay, I'm versatile too. Or at least not so set in my ways that I can't appreciate different genres than I normally listen to. Alice's hyperpop songs have a chaotic artistic spirit that I find charming. In a way, some of her songs are pretty metal-ish too - they remind me a little of old SOAD songs. She's funny, she's innovative, she's a delight.

Stonefield: The Light of Lies (1990, prog rock) -- Some awesome prog rock from the 90s. The singer sounds like DIO. If you like the hammond organ, CLIK TEH LINK! If not, click it anyway, you may start to! When I tried to find out which year the album was from, I found their EP The Eyes of the Dawn (1989), which is also so fun.

Alvader: Hereniging (2024, folk metal) -- Hey you! Do you like Heidevolk? If you found this post through the folk metal tag I bet you do. In this case definitely listen to this band. It's made up of ex-members of Heidevolk and sounds a lot like the "original".

HammerFall: Avenge the Fallen (2024, power/heavy metal) -- What can I say about this one. It's HammerFall. It rules by default. It sounds like all their other albums. HammerFall are one of the few bands where that's a compliment.

molllust: In Deep Waters (2015, symphonic metal) -- There is no music I like better than symphonic metal that takes the "symphonic" part really, really seriously. molllust are one of the few bands that do. Between Janika Groß's gorgeous orchestrations and her operatic voice, this is one of the bands that give me hope for the genre. At first I actually found their older stuff too inaccessible, but after I listened to the newer and more straight-forward Mother Universe album a lot last year, In Deep Waters became a lot more approachable to me.

Wintersun: TIME II (2024, Extremely Delayed Technically Complete Symphonic Death Wish Metal) -- I still can't believe my eyes, or ears. Am I dreaming? Is this the real life? It's really out! And Nuclear Blast didn't even give it a digibook edition (I have the one of TIME I and thought I might have a matched set one day). Is this because their corporate overlords don't care about physical media or are they just so DONE with the album, and Jari in general, that they didn't make more of an effort out of spite?

Norrsinnt: Djupt inni skoga (2024, folk metal) -- Somewhere between heavy folk and very folky metal. A collection of songs the artist released individually over the past years, but the album only came out a short while ago. He fortunately seems to have decided against using an AI image as cover art in the end, so I don't feel bad listing this album here. Oh, there are albums that I found this year and liked musically which I'm not listing for this reason, definitely! I'm glad this one isn't among them, because I've known all these songs for years and I'm quite fond of them, and of the power and originality of the vision behind this project.

Nightwish: Yesterwynde (2024, symphonic metal) -- I didn't expect too much from this album, but ended up really liking it! My favourite parts are, of course, the orchestral passages. I like how Nightwish are still capable of evolution, new paths, instead of being stuck in the 2000s. And, after all, what could be a more fitting topic for music that's as larger than life as symphonic metal than just the totality of existence, the universe, the human equation, the meaning of it all?

Romuvos: Spirits (2024, folk) -- Pagan Folk, immersive, meditative, dark. I don't have much to say about this, other than that I have listened to it a lot this year.

KAMIJO: ??? (????, symphonic power metal) -- I usually only have albums on this list because I'm old-fashioned like that, but that's really unfair to Kamijo, who's my top artist of the year on Spotify and whose greatest songs are spread out across a multitude of single bonus tracks and short EPs. So I will link his song TEMPLE and say doumo arigato gozaimasu, vampire prince rockstar-san, nay, -sama!

---

I also continued my exploration of the world of opera. Since I think I'm beginning to know my taste, there were a lot of works I started and didn't finish, but some I liked very much. My favourite was L'elisir d'amore (1832), which I watched in two different versions and listened to all summer. It's a rather light-hearted one, but the music is nevertheless dramatic, it's fast, it's powerful and... somehow rich. And it's just pretty, I'm not immune to the charms of the easily lovable Italian opera, or of Rolando Villazon and his musical and comedic talent. I'd definitely recommend this recording even to people who have never watched an opera before.

I also really liked Eugene Onegin (1879, can't find the recording now) - much more tragic than the one above, few operas I've watched had a better plot, I read the novel it's based on afterwards - as well as a whimsical 1979 recording of L'incoronazione di Poppea (1643) and a gorgeous staging of Atys (1676, only French subs here, sry). Baroque opera is superior to the later stuff according to me. The beautiful music, the melancholic observations on life in the libretto, the way the operas always seem to reach for the divine, beyond the limits of mundane human existence - it strives for perfection, and my ears think it comes close.

And that's my musical breakdown of the year :)

[hishighnesstheprincess]

so what's your overall thoughts on the movie??

General: sa2 still clears and specifically I think the sa2 lore for the ARK trio (Shadow Maria and Gerald) is a lot better, but this was pretty good (sometimes even great) for a movieverse (loose) adaptation of sa2. I did not like Gerald though, I think his crusty ass should have been left in the 70s

Specific thoughts under the cut (spoilers obviously)

My main criticisms rn is that it basically just feels like a watered down version of sa2, from most of the main story beats to the lore to the characters etc. Obviously I was not expecting them to have the same amount of depth that the games managed to give to Shadow's story from both the extra content that comes along with the games (like the manual that confirmed Maria's illness) but I feel like cutting out stuff like Maria's illness and her wish just left the story feeling neutered in some very important ways. The other big thing I didn't like was Gerald in general. Like yeah he was kinda funny the first two acts, but then he keeps the goofy schtick up while Sonic and Shadow are trauma bonding and kicking ass in space and idk. If they wanted to show him as a more evil version of Eggman maybe have him just actually be more evil for the final act. Ideally he should have behaved more menacing after dropping the "You're no Maria" line. Also the pacing was fast as hell, and apparently the film cut relatively important stuff like explanations for how Gerald was alive at 110 years old (he was licking that Shadow quill apparently) and also led to stuff like Shadow's entire arc being kinda rushed.

Aside from those though... I kind of loved it???? Big surprise coming from me I know, and I do wonder if it's just recency bias, but I think this is easily and by far the best project the films have put out. If you've seen both trailers for this film you can predict how 95% of the plot is going to go along with the character arcs, but they're still decently effective (for everyone except Gerald). The goofiness does get to be a bit much sometimes and my god I wish they would just let movie Sonic be quiet for once in a while, but towards the later half it starts getting really good. The parallels between Sonic and Shadow are well-made and impactful. Super Sonic and Super Shadow are hype. The action is fucking fantastic (if you go to these films just for spectacle you ABSOLUTELY want to see this one). And the found family stuff is the best it's ever been. If you like Wachowski sibling content, and specifically Wachowski sibling angst, you will be feasting. Tails and Knuckles fans, GO TO THIS MOVIE. I won't say why but you'll fucking love it

Depending on my mood, it's a 6/10-8/10 from me

Random thoughts

The non-game human characters are the best balanced that they've ever been

The game human characters are not well balanced at all lmao

Even if movie 4 will inevitably be less hype than movie 3, I can honestly see it maybe being the best so far which is 100% my own bias

Amy's design is cute as hell and Metal's design is awesome as hell

I'm kinda glad Jim Carrey is (presumably) gone ngl

I hope they keep the energy Sonic had in the third act and mid-credits for the rest of the franchise, even if it will obviously be less intense than when he was literally trying to kill someone

I am going to make so many fanfics where movie Sonic suffers bc I adore him so much (/negative) (/positive)

I think it would be best if the next movie was just Sonic, Amy, and Metal. I love the sibs but this being in live action, if the cast keeps getting inflated every individual member is just going to have so much less time. Maybe Sonic and Amy get kidnapped to Little Planet or something

I want them to keep her crush on Sonic but also her spunky and somewhat violent and irrational attitude. If they kept Knuckles gullibility they should also keep her flaws

Shadow and Maria's story may be infinitely more compelling in the games but them in the movies is just more entertaining idk what to tell you

They gotta give Maddie something to do. She is literally just Tom's +1 at the moment please god give her something to do

I do not feel bad about the GUN commander guy at ALLLLLLLL lmao i think he shoulda died choking on his own blood. bitchass

you still don't need to watch the knuckles show

[bleue-flora]

What’s funny to me is that green is commonly known as a villain color, but while green can symbolize envy, jealousy, death, poison, toxicity, evil, greed, it is also often life, security, soothing, tranquility, peace, rebirth, renewal, hope, happiness, goodness and more. It is both goodness and evil, both life and death, and yet it is commonly the color of villains not heroes, who often wear red which is commonly the color of passion, emotion, anger, power, war, desire, aggression, warning, danger, hatred, courage, sacrifice, energy, romance, confidence, and dominance just to name some main ones. And isn’t that interesting that the color of villains represents peace vs the common color of the “good guy” can represent aggression and war, you’d think it’d be the other way around, and of course there are stories where that is true (Star Wars for example), but I do feel like it happens a lot that you have green as the “bad guy” color and red as the hero: Voldemort vs Harry Potter, Superman vs Lex Luther, Loki vs Thor, Maleficent vs the Prince, Spider-Man vs Green Goblin just to name a few big examples and of course Dream vs Tommy.

And I don’t know, after seeing this [post] and Wicked I was just thinking about green and thinking about how the Grinch, and the Wicked Witch really are easily labeled as evil and terrible and such because of the green, even when green can and is often symbolic of good things. And that even Dream, while not persecuted because he was green was called a snake by Wilbur and Lucifer, The Serpent, by Tommy [post about Dream & labels], creatures that are commonly associated with green. But isn’t that fitting. That these characters are good and can be good, that the propaganda is misleading.

Even further, when it comes to Dream specifically it’s interesting because Dream wanted peace when Tommy continued over and over to cause war. Their color associated with them is fitting, even if not in the way many see it, even if instead of an outward appearance of wickedness it is the reflection of goodness in them that people miss…

[queer-ragnelle]

hi I was wondering what your opinion is on how to deal with anachronisms in arthurian legend. so many stories include jousting—which didn't exist in early medieval wales. which historic kingdoms do you chose to include, and from which period, and what if two kingdoms sound really cool and you really want to mention them both but one existed in england circa 500ad and one existed around the norman conquest? thank you!

Hey!

I could've sworn I answered this before but I must've been thinking of a conversation in my writing group. Anyway the short answer is:

Do whatever you want! Anachronism is a feature not a bug! Harness it!

The fact is, all of Arthurian Legend is anachronistic and it's great. We don't even have concrete proof that Arthur, as we understand him, existed. We don't have written sources from the era Arthur supposedly lived in, only artifacts. There are some sporadic texts throughout the early Medieval period which mention Arthur, then the majority of what we understand as part of the Legend began with the work of 12th century authors. When Chrétien de Troyes was writing his stories, he depicted the world he lived in. The same goes for Marie of France and Wirnt von Grafenburg and Sir Thomas Malory and of course the many many Anonymous authors throughout the entire Middle Ages. They wrote about knights as they, personally, perceived them, as if the Saxon conflict took place in the 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, etc centuries. After that, modern authors did similarly, while keeping the setting Medieval.

I have found that reading the forewords, author's notes, and letters of modern writers tackling this same dilemma has helped me tremendously. I have a deep respect and admiration for John Steinbeck, both his The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights and his other novels captivated me, so I cherish his philosophy regarding the creative process. In letter to his editor, he wrote:

He gets it!! Everyone is writing for their audience. Themselves, too, but with special attention to the current era and what that looks like.

When it comes to the nitty gritty stuff, you'll drive yourself crazy if you focus too much on what's "possible." Now Persia Woolley and I have our creative differences, but in her author's note at the start of book 1, Child of the Northern Spring, she wrote:

This makes a lot of sense to me. She has adopted a similar method as J. R. R. Tolkien did regarding the stories "coming out of Middle Earth." No, a Hobbit may not have called the circular green thing covering the entrance/exit to his home "a door," but that is the name of the object as the reader understands it, so that is what the author or "translator" has decided to call it.

In the end, you'll just have to sit down and make decisions. If you intend to use the names as they were in the era Arthur lived, it'll be more historically accurate, but unless you also provide a map and name key as Edward Frankland did in Arthur The Bear of Britain, you risk confusing your readers who only comprehend these locations in their Modern form. On the other hand, if you use exclusively Modern names, there's a chance it could break the immersion of your readers who perceive the story as Medieval.

I personally like to have of Medieval and Modern terms as well as technologies and cultural aspects. The fact is that we simply don't know enough about history to ever be 100% accurate about anything, so breath easier and offer yourself some allowances. I haven't scanned this book yet, but in the author's note of Phyllis Ann Karr's The Follies of Sir Harald, she wrote:

This is especially funny considering I don't recall any mention of a specific year to which the "historical accuracies" could be compared, but I assume she means the 12th century, when Chrétien de Troyes lived.

It comes down to what sort of story you want to write. Is it going to be Historical Fiction as Edward Frankland, Persia Woolley, and Bernard Cornwell wrote? Or will it be more loosely "Medieval" such as Cherith Baldry, John Steinbeck, and Phyllis Ann Karr wrote?

It really comes down to your own point of interest which kingdoms you include. I generally tried to stay accurate to the 4th-6th century, a huge 2 century window, which gave me enough wiggle room to pick and choose some names that made clear what I was talking about. Most if not all ports and islands retained modern names for ease of comprehension: Beirut, Isle of Wight, Mainland Orkney, and even Drake's Island, which is named for Sir Francis Drake, who wasn't born until the 16th Century, simply because its older name, St. Michael from the 12th Century, was not only too recent to be "accurate" anyway, but may have caused confusion with the giant of Mont St. Michael, which was of more importance to me than the impossible accuracy of landmasses in the Plymouth Sound. I did away with wooden longhouses in favor of stone castles; some I "built" on top of abandoned Roman forts that can still be visited today, others I invented completely from scratch, each brick and syllable original to my work. Many aspects called for improvision, so I did the best I could to make it all appear cohesive, even if historically those names or practices or fashions or whatever weren't actually as synchronized as my writing would have you believe.

This applies to characters too.

I refer to the main character as Gawain, although he claims it derives from the older name Gwalchmai. Other Mabinogion characters retain their Welsh names, such as Owain, Morfydd, and Bedwyr. Yet others take after their French names, such as Kay, Perceval, and Mordred. I even sometimes use both names, such as with Welsh Cynon/French Calogrenant, who was named the former at birth and referred to as such by Morfydd, but then Christened as the latter, which is what the majority of the cast call him. The Vulgate gives Yvain, son of Urien and Morgan le Fay, a bastard half brother called Yvain the Bastard. Because I had already changed the first character's name to Owain, so too has his brother's name been changed to Owain, as well as introducing a moniker of his own to more clearly identify him as a separate character without constantly referring to him as a bastard. They are from Rheged, but Owain the Bastard is known as FitzEden, as he was born in his mother's house near the Eden River. If you look it up, Rheged/Cumbria are the same general area, so I've linked the character to it through a name I made up for him. Owain FitzEden he now is. Did people use the term "Fitz" in the 5th century? No, they didn't have surnames. Was the river called Eden at the time? Probably not. But I did it anyway because I'm not writing in the 5th century, I'm writing now, for you, for me! And because I like the character enough to "bend the rules." It's not like historical Owain mab Urien had a pet lion, anyway!

It doesn't matter if these characters have "era appropriate" names or come from locations which didn't exist until recently. Say Lancelot is from Brittany or Less Britain or Gaul or France or Benwick or the Lake Kingdom, who cares! I've seen them all in one book or movie or another and they all register the same to me: Across the channel. Foreign. A new guy.

I had to do all of this twice, once for Medieval Britain and again for Medieval Persia. So trust me when I say it's time consuming. You're going to take a lot of notes for your own reference that your readers will never see but will help you keep an internal consistency once you decide what kingdoms and names to keep and what to avoid. The key is to stay accurate within your own world. Even if two kingdoms didn't exist at the same time, if you want to include them, do so, but then you have to follow through with that. Your readers will figure it out so long as you avoid giving the same area too many different names or accidentally changing a location's name between scenes. Locals may call their village something the outsiders don't, that's cool for worldbuilding, but every time you do it, you're making a bid on your reader's ability to hold all that information. So do so sparingly and with good reason.

Reading helps a lot. All the books I've mentioned do a good job of this and would be useful tools for understanding what your preferences are and what the vibe of your story will be. I hope that answers your question and gives you a bunch to think about! Take care. :^)

[steamedlotusroot]

I translated Lego Monkie Kid’s Cantonese Extended Opening

In the tags of my first post I said I wanted to translate the lyrics of the extended OP of the LMK Cantonese dub and I did it :D

Translation notes: (some translations are wonky bc either the og lyrics are ambiguous, I didn’t have enough space to translate the phrases fully, or my Cantonese is rusty)

“All reveal your true forms to me immediately!”— 現形 means to appear/reappear. I personally interpreted it as the spirits/demons showing their true forms when SWK is fighting them, but simply “reveal yourselves to me” works too

“I truly can’t help how popular I am these days.”— One of my wonky translations I think. The og lyric is more like “really, I’m trending right now, I can’t stop it even if I wanted to / even if I tried.”

“But now I have to hide away,”— The lyric for “hide away” 神隱 very specifically refers to gods/immortals/spirits going into hiding

“From now on, keep the Golden Staff with you at all times,”— In the original JttW text, SWK’s staff is called the 金箍棒 “gold-hooped staff/rod”, but in Cantonese the staff is more commonly called the 金剛棒, which doesn’t have the “hoop” character. It’s just a gold stick 

“Only rely on having enough audacity,”— I think it’s supposed to be “have a lot of/enough courage” but it can also mean “audacity”, and since this song is about SWK and MK I think the word “audacity” fits them much better haha

“I will reach the peak for a competition of skill.”— This is an instance of Cantonese being so compressed and concise that I have no idea how to structure the sentence in English

“Endure for the sake of loyalty,”— 捱義氣 means doing a favor out of personal loyalty that you might not want to do (eg. you help your friend clean his car when you hate cleaning cars cuz he’s your bud!). I think “endure for the sake of loyalty” is a goofy way of translating this but I dunno what to write instead

“Assemble surprises.”— I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. This is a very literal translation

“The me today,”— Longer version: The me I am today

“Chock-full of abilities.”— OG lyrics 一身本領 go a little bit like “the whole body is full of skills/abilities”. I wanted to just write “full of talents” but “talent” isn’t quite accurate. I went with “chock-full” cuz it sounds funny

“Clash with fire in a duel,”— I like to think that this line refers to Red Son and I like Red Son :]

“Carrying an endless mission,”— I originally wrote “shouldering” instead of “carrying”, but because 懷 means “embrace/chest” or “harboring”, I thought “carrying” sounds less grueling and more accurate than “shouldering”

“Eyeballs looking around,”— “eyes staring wide and round” probably fits 眼仔睩睩 better, but hopefully “eyeballs” sounds wide and round enough?? And I wanted to turn it into an action so I described the eyes looking around like they’re on guard!

“Grappling arduously with the enemy,”— Lots of ways to translate 搏命: fighting for your life, wrestling for your life, blah blah blah. I hope “grappling” is evocative enough 😭

“Quick-witted actions, be clever,”— I’m not sure if it’s “quick-witted, actions sharp and clever” or “quick-witted actions, be sharp and clever” 💀 靈活 means “mentally flexible”, sharp醒 means “smart, clever, alert, quick-witted”, something like that

“It’s called the NSoFFM,”— The lyric lacks a pronoun in Cantonese so I’m not sure if it means “call me/you the NSoFFM”, “call for the NSoFFM”, “you’re called the NSoFFM”, or something else. I interpreted it as SWK listing a bunch of traits and saying “someone like this will be called the NSoFFM”

“Skyrocket to ascension / I rise at Flower Fruit Mountain.”— 飈升 means shooting up really quickly/suddenly. I’m not sure what “shooting up” means in this context so I kept it as vague as possible. I also translated 飈升 in two different ways “skyrocket to ascension” and simply “rise” even though both lyrics mean the same thing in Cantonese. “Skyrocket” is most accurate IMO, but it sounds weird by itself

“I always strive for self-improvement,”— The og is just “I forever self-strengthen”, which sounds weird to me so I expanded it

“When I wedge into the crack,”— No idea what this means?? I’m guessing it’s supposed to evoke the image of SWK jamming a weapon into a crack? Also I wanted to write “wedge into the fissure” but when I googled “fissure” it showed me results for anal fissures and I was so put off by it I just used “crack” instead, even though “crack” sounds much sillier than “fissure”

“Demons please relax, lest you lose control.”— Nothing to note, I just really like the original lyric. It’s so cocky and badass and SO Wukong (or MK!) /pos

“Use kindness as the mark of recognition,”— Not sure what this really means? I interpret it as “kindness is my goal/principle”, but 記認 means both “marking” and “recognize/remember” so uh

“Evildoing is difficult to regard as the elder brother,”— The og lyric sounds fine but trying to understand it is?? It’s not “evildoers”, it’s “the way/path of evildoing”, but then it says “it’s difficult to be an older brother (non-familial)” like who is it difficult for??? Also “brother” here means a fellow disciple/classmate under the same teacher/master/school, so like the relationship between SWK and the other pilgrims (except their master, of course)

“I can’t be beat to death, swim carefree at the edge of the sky.”— The most egregious lyric IMO. I have absolutely no clue what it’s supposed to mean so maybe I’m just not that good at Cantonese??? It could be “I can’t beat to death swimming carefree at the edge of the sky” or “I can’t be beaten to death, swim carefree at the edge of the sky”. The swimming part lacks a pronoun so idk who’s swimming? What is happening in this sentence?? Help??

“Risk your life when taking action,”— 拼命 either means “as hard as you can” or “risking your life”. I’m only assuming it means the latter because I interpret this as SWK lecturing MK on how to be a hero

“And the battle lineup is again full of wit,”— I can sorta grasp what this means, but idk how to write it in English. 陣容 means the appearance/formation of your battalion and can extend to mean the array of abilities in a certain lineup. Not sure how to actually describe this though 😭 also I used “clever” for sharp醒 earlier but changed it to “wit” here so it’d be a noun and sound like an ability or something

[starryjkoo]

Kinda wanna remind everyone too, when Tae dropped that Hawaii pic of him and Jk with staff right before the AYS trailer and how it sent shippers into a frenzy and they started hammering on Jikook and AYS, saying it proved it was a fanservice show, blah, blah, tk real private yada yada, Tae sending us signals, claiming his man, you know the usual. And pretty much the entire fandom was at each others throats, like it was bad. Shippers vs shippers, solos vs solos. The harassment and targeting Jikook's relationship. Guess who came online immediately after? Jimin. Jimin who had been very quiet pretty much for a long time, came to say he was doing well, not to worry, but he said something very important, that he is now a soldier and careful of what he posts online. I think his message was clear and not only a subtle message to Tae, but the fans, considering Jikook were being attacked so bad & their show being called a fraud And that is exactly what JK did, this time coming online not even 24 hours after a hell storm. So they do both defend their relationship, the best way they can without just flat out saying back off. So yes, Jimin has come online in the middle of chaos, like JK. Maybe not as much, but he and Jk are the only ones who do it when a mess is made and fans start acting up bad. That should tell you something. That they clearly don't like it, but trying to remain professional.

JK has for sure swooped in with his lives a few times to try and calm fans down (I’ll never forget that post-FESTA dinner live 😭). I think he was probably already planning on doing a live during his break, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the recent situation was also a motivator.

With JM’s comment, I’m not sure if it was intentional or not tbh, but the timing was definitely pretty funny lol so it does make you wonder. I also just appreciate his letters, they’re always so sincere and you can tell he really puts a lot of thought and care into them (I’ll never forget the first letter he wrote to us post-training, handwritten and the little creases 🥺)

But you know what I also think is super cool about Jikook? The way they also just ignore all the noise and stay unbothered.

in CH2 alone there’s Jikook going to Japan together in the middle of the situation with JJKs tagging the military, JM posting JK’s hot100 #1 while PJMs were attacking JK during Seven era, JK doing that whole Jimin live while JJKs were attacking JM during FACE era, now JK sharing several military stories that include JM right after that whole mess. I think it’s amazing that they’ve never let antis make them change the way they behave together or stop them from hanging out, making content, enlisting together, mentioning each other, or toning down their dynamic (teasing, roughhousing, or just being weird as hell lol).

I think that’s what makes tkkrs (and some other antis) so mad sometimes because they’re constantly trying to control/demand things with vmnkook - canceling orders and threatening to boycott, tried to get GCF Tokyo taken down, trending hashtags to cancel AYS, trending hashtags for all sorts of things tbh, emailing BH to stop the gay etc. They're constantly trying to demand things from the company, which is why it’s always been so ironic to me that they call Jikook the “company pushed ship” when they’re literally the ones trying to use money and other means to manipulate BH into giving them the ship content they want 😭 (as well as force them to “hide” jkk lol) so talk about projection. But yeah, none of that has ever stopped Jikook from doing their thing.

Also your ask makes me think back on JK’s JM live. I’ve always sort of thought that JK may have intentionally hyped SMFpt2 the way he did because of the ridiculous hate it was receiving. Especially because he really emphasized how much he loved the specific part antis were trying to drag. iirc he said that it was his taste or his style or something like that. I just really loved that moment, it was super vindicating lol. I remember even non-jkkr ARMYs commenting about it too, talking about it being a slap to the haters, or karma or whatever (I definitely also just think he really liked SMFpt2 tho!).

Anyways yeah, I’ve always just assumed that it’s probably a collective group decision to not address solos/shippers. Some people think it would be so simple but it really wouldn’t. If JK said something it would just be a domino effect of extreme responses (re: his NewJean’s comment). It would also drag the other members into it, expecting them to make similar statements or risk being attacked. I think that’s why it’s easier for him to address situations that only involve himself. Maybe they'll try to address it as a team one day, but imo it definitely won’t be happening while half of them are in the military with limited phone access, having to watch what they say and do more than ever.

[nothorses]

Hi so I’m a nonbinary lesbian and have been out for well over 6 years. My gender expression has changed a lot over the years and now I’m just. A bit lost. I want to experiment more with masculinity again but I’ve kind of forgotten how to? I’m in a bit of a weird spot where most people around me aren’t trans (except for my roommates) but are of the (very good!) idea that “clothes and attributes aren’t gendered” and dress sort of unisex in as cheap second hand clothes as possible. Some guys have long hair or wear makeup to parties and some women don’t shave etc. But I still feel like most people view me as a woman or woman-lite because even though they’re well meaning and progressive, they’re not really well-educated about transness. And I’m in a long term lesbian relationship and have a lot of hobbies that are more traditionally feminine. My pronouns are they/she but most people use she/her exclusively. I’m starting to feel more and more dysphoric about this after a few years of no dysphoria, but I don’t know how to change things. So yeah do you have any tips on doing masculinity? Or experimenting more with combining gender expressions? I wish I could start t but the trans healthcare in my country is terrible.

ngl a lot of that is so familiar to me- especially the pronouns! It's been a long time since I started to lean more into masculinity from the kind of "I'm not a yucky man lol that would be unfeminist" purgatory I was trapped in pre-transition but post-realizing-i-was-trans-in-some-way (which isn't to imply that's where you're at, that was just my personal journey) but I definitely feel like I resonate with a lot of what you're describing from, like, that specific period in my life.

I think drawing harder lines around how I wanted people to refer to me helped a lot with this, early on. I know a ton of people who have pronouns they use with trans friends that are different from the pronouns they let cis people use; she/they for the people they know will make the effort to use both, but they/them or she/her exclusively for the people they know are unlikely to use those pronouns if they have an alternative. This works with other language as well- but that's all to your personal comfort level!

Outside of that, I think step 1 is really just thinking about what masculinity means to you, and what kinds of masculinity you're interested in or intrigued by. Don't worry too much about figuring out exactly what you want right away- just experiment with whatever seems like it might be fun or comfortable. Think clothes, hair, mannerisms, roles, hobbies and interests; anything you might have denied or been denied because of gendered expectations. There's no one singular way to Do Masculinity, and the goal isn't to start out with a single perfect, consistent way of presenting yourself to the world. You're just playing with things you haven't had permission to play with before!

I also have a lot of "feminine interests", and a big thing for me has been finding masculine role models within those things. In my area it's mostly women who are into horses, and I was the only man on the horseback riding team at my school when I transitioned; but cowboys are totally a thing, and I started leaning into that role pretty early on! We also ended up getting another guy on the team, I think partially because he saw there was at least one other & he wouldn't be the only man there, which was cool (he latched onto me hard, too. it was very funny to me when I mentioned being trans & he apparently had very much not realized that before. I got to watch his worldview shift in real time, lmao)

That one was probably the easiest, though. I've also looked to really positive, loving male teachers in my work in education, and that's been awesome! Sewing & embroidery have been the hardest by far, but I've definitely found plenty of men in both over time. Finding embroidery patterns to try out from gay men depicting masculine-presenting bodies has been especially fun & validating.

I know this isn't the most specific advice, and I'm not sure if you were looking for like, a list of clothes to buy? But honestly this has just been my own journey. I wear what's comfortable and I haven't really changed my interests or hobbies; exploring masculinity has really just meant giving myself permission to engage in things I haven't before, wearing things I feel good in, and looking to others who've given themselves that permission as well for inspiration. I had to be more intentional about considering the masculine-to-me options early on than I do now, but like, it should all be about you and what you're interested in. There are infinite types of guy! I think it's just a matter of figuring out which ones you resonate with and why, and building your own type of guy out of that.

[alexihollis]

Jealousy the Funny Disease (pt. 1)

*someone said something about a polycule and it grew in my brain*

There was a time where Rembrandt truly did believe that Ajax would figure it out. It being the obvious attraction Ajax had to Swan. Swan's attraction to Ajax. Rembrandt's attraction to Swan and Swan's attraction to Rembrandt that often involved Swan panicking if she so much as accidentally brushed the back of her hand against Rembrandt's. She thought that, once Ajax figured it out, maybe had a minor freak out about it, preferably chose to not fight Swan about said panic, maybe they could bring Swan into their relationship. Maybe it wouldn't be forever, but...Rembrandt thought it could be nice. At least for a little while.

They got close, in a way. There were many nights spent, just the three of them in the night, Swan and Ajax watching Rembrandt's back as she tagged. Swan might have flinched away from physical affection, but she always listened when Rembrandt went on her tangents and offered her quiet insights. She even went to the art museums with Rembrandt, which even Ajax found difficult, as much as she tried for Rembrandt. They went out to the queer bars and Swan hung around the walls, watching until it was time to go home. And despite the fact that Ajax was willing to wingman pretty much anyone, she never tried to find Swan a girl, not once. So. Rembrandt hoped. She hoped the little thing that existed between the three of them might grow.

Except Ajax never did figure it out. Swan became Cleon's number two and the closest her and Ajax came to talking about their mutual feelings was when they were pummeling each other. And Rembrandt never said anything, because she was painfully aware how badly this could go. How quickly Ajax would sacrifice herself if she thought it would make Rembrandt happy and that was simply not allowed.

Then came the night from Hell and, suddenly, Swan had a girlfriend for the first time. It hurt, a bit. To see Swan and Mercy so happy while Rembrandt stressed over Ajax getting out.

Ajax got out, though, sooner than anyone imagined and also too long - two months.

"Did she even go through initiation?" Ajax grumbled, brow lowered as she all but glared across Cleon's living room at where Mercy and Swan were curled up on the couch. Swan read a book and Mercy pretended to read the same book, but spent much more time slowly finger-combing Swan's hair.

"She did more than enough, be nice," Rembrandt chided, nudging Ajax's shoulder with her own where they leant against the wall.

Ajax's jaw flexed, but she didn't say anything. Well. She didn't say anything, then, and she didn't say anything specific.

"Her jokes aren't that funny," Ajax muttered under her breath later that night when Swan was laughing at something Mercy said.

It caught Rembrandt completely off-guard and all she could do was side-eye Ajax.

"Why the fuck doesn't she just wear her own colors?" Ajax grouched a couple of days later when Swan and Mercy were play fighting over Swan's colors, currently on Mercy's back.

Rembrandt looked down at her vest. Then at Ajax, "I stole your original vest."

Ajax gritted her teeth. "That's different."

"We were initiated at the same time."

"It's. Different." Rembrandt did not push it farther.

She thought it was cute, how Mercy stole Swan's colors. A traitorous thought occurred that it would be really cute if she stole Swan's and then Swan stole Ajax's. Then, Mercy and Rembrandt could watch Swan and Ajax fight over- Nope. Not going there, no, bad brain, baaaad brain, there is a snowball's chance in hell at this point.

"I can't believe Cleon sent them out alone," Ajax griped and, at this point, it had been two weeks of this nonsense and Rembrandt was losing her mind a little bit.

"Uh-huh," was Rembrandt's only response from her and Ajax's bed, sketching in her sketchbook while Ajax got ready for bed.

"She always sends Swan and me," Ajax continued. "Swan and I have each other's backs for gigs like that."

"They're still in Brooklyn."

"Swan's a good fighter, she can take me, but she isn't intimidating," Ajax said. "And neither is Mercy! Cleon's asking for them to get jumped!"

"Oh, my God, will you just admit you're jealous?!" Rembrandt exclaimed, looking up at Ajax exasperated.

"I'm not jealous!" Ajax retorted. Then, after a moment, more forcefully, "I'm not jealous! Why would I be jealous?"

Rembrandt groaned, rolled her eyes. "Never mind."

But Ajax was not finished. "Why would I be jealous? Just because Swan barely talks to me anymore. And now Cleon's sending Mercy out instead of me. I'm not jealous. I don't care that Swan thinks Mercy's funny. Or that Mercy's pretty in that soft, girly way. I don't want to be like that. You're pretty like that, though, so I do think it's kind of bullshit, because Swan should have noticed. And Swan needs other things, too. Swan's always taking care of everyone else and she never puts herself first, ever. Ever. She just met Mercy, there's no way that Mercy knows that Swan does that, so what if she lets Swan do that all the time. Not to mention, Swan never hangs out with us anymore! It's always, 'I'm going out with Mercy' or 'Mercy and I are doing-Oh."

Ajax turned to Rembrandt with wide-eyes. "Am I jealous of Mercy?!"

"Yes. Yes, you are, thank you for finally catching up, you have been driving me crazy for weeks," Rembrandt grumbled as she tried to return to her sketchbook.

"But- I-"

Rembrandt finally took pity on Ajax. "We both liked Swan. Swan liked us. Neither of you figured it out enough to talk about it and now we're here." Then, because Rembrandt knew where Ajax was going to go with this, "Ajax, she really likes Mercy."

"But," Ajax's nose crinkled, the way it did when she was faced with a difficult problem. "Were we dating?"

"No," Rembrandt sighed. "No. Dating implies actual understanding. We were...doing something. I don't know, but...No. It is what it is."

"I don't like that."

"I know. But do you really want to mess this up for her? She's the happiest I've seen her in a long time."

It should have been easy, to watch someone you cared deeply for be happy. Even if it was with someone else.

It would have been easy, if Mercy wasn't Mercy.

Mercy tried so hard and there was something about that effort that made Rembrandt's heart ache as she watched it. She wanted to wrap Mercy up and promise that they had her, it was okay, no one was going to send her away, she was a Warrior now. Instead, Rembrandt had to trust that Swan was doing that.

"Why is Mercy funny?" Ajax grouched at their ceiling one night.

"Because she's fucking perfect," Rembrandt grouched back.

"Why are they both- That isn't fair."

"It really isn't."

"We're funny!"

"I'm funny."

"Okay, well, I'm buffer than Swan."

"I'm at least as pretty as Mercy."

"...this isn't making me feel better."

"Yeah, no, I don't think trash-talking women we like is going to help us."

To be Cont'd

Also if y'all have any prompts, they would be greatly appreciated! writer's block is trying to catch me, but i am outrunning it swiftly!

[greyplainsttrpg]

This has gotten me to think a lot, so I hope you do not think that I'm arguing for the sake of "being right on the internet." I have a lot of opinions about horror in TTRPGs that I haven't fully materialized I guess, so this is kind of eking those out.

This is my bad: when I say that the players "do not have an answer to the problem," I meant that the players do not have 'ready-baked' answers to the problem (because the solutions are extant in other media). Like, the final resolution of games that I run which I consider to be "horror-esque" are about making a bizarre moral decision with no 'right' (as in objectively correct) answers. The players absolutely have all the information they need to make the decision (which they gathered during the adventure), but pulling the trigger on any answer requires the players to question their engagement with the fiction. You can disagree with that as well, but that is closer to what I meant to say.

I think we do disagree on the nature of games. I do not believe that games NEED to be fun to be good or valuable. Like, what makes a game is that you play it---not that it is fun. I think games, TTRPGs in particular, are held down by their supposed need to be "fun." Horror is, as a genre, not fun. I do not have "fun" watching most horror films. I did not have "fun" reading Frankenstein. I enjoy horror because it provides experiences that do not require them to be fun to be meaningful. Like, is the Blair Witch Project fun? Is I Watched the TV Glow fun? Would a TTRPG adaptation of those pieces be fun to play? Should they be? In the case of horror video games, is Silent Hill, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, or Pathologic fun? Not really, no. They're something else which can result in fun as a biproduct, but the initial intent is not fun.

So long as the horror is not obscene, most people who come into a tabletop game are usually prepared for some amount of it to crop up, so it has not been an issue for me. Like, at what point is "you're fighting a werewolf" shift from action-adventure to horror? I argue it is the pacing and presentation of the scene. When do fairies go from fun-fantasy to fae horror? It's all about context. The difference in what I'm trying to do is that I do not tell the players "hey, this fight with the werewolf might be scary." Another example: is it absolutely wrong to premise an adventure on "investigate how this noble was 'murdered'" only for the party to learn that the supposed victim is actually a vampire that lives in a ghost house (and the party is locked inside)? Nobody has had an issue with it yet because it is introduced in pieces. It just sounds worse in theory than the actual practice. Greyplains, my system, is not specifically a horror game, however it works really well for horror elements I tend to use because the mechanics support a feeling of disempowerment (and provides an emotional reward for overcoming this).

My point about comedy is that TTRPGs tend to be rooted in some degree of 1) improv and 2) probabilistic failure. Both of which tend to produce humorous results. Funny and horrible are not antonyms though, so it really does not matter that much. I retract that point as being useful. My bad.

I don't know what "If it's not a game and it still forces you to do things inefficiently, that's just A Job." means exactly. I don't know what you mean by "inefficiently" in this context.

Sorry if this annoying lol.

I think that a flaw in a lot of the more ambitious horror RPGs I've read is that they all tend to go for the pitfall of Lovecraftian horror, but mechanize it, so it very often seems to end up as "roll to see if you lose sanity."

Some games, like Absurdia, handle this fairly well by not making it about your mental state along the way. It's more like... You can only handle pushing yourself so much before something bends or breaks.

but others, like Call of Cthulhu, seem to kind of operate on a "because I said so" type logic. From the APs I've listened to, at least, the GM seems like they just have the power to call for you to roll to Stay Sane or whatever. But it ends at the same destination, that dealing with The Horrors has a negative mechanical effect on your character, and if they experience too much Horror, you lose your character. the same as if they just die.

While this is interesting to think about from a narrative perspective, I think it ironically discourages players from playing like they're characters in a horror story. Which means everyone is operating on, like, Scream logic, where everyone is playing as The Guy Who Knows He's In A Horror Movie, even if they don't say it out loud.

What I'm MUCH more interested in, although I'm not sure how compatible it is with long-form play, is a game whose whole reward structure is built around Getting Your Player Characters To Do Stuff That Gets People Killed In Horror Movies.

Split the party! Go have sex in the guest bedroom while people are dying downstairs! Give in to the monster's threats/demands! Hide the weird not-quite-dog thing that followed you home under your bed for the night! Yeah, the killer will DEFINITELY fall for that trap! Wander off alone without telling anyone where you're going! It's FINE! If you survive, it's how you LEVEL UP!

[cj-the-random-artist]

Ok hear me out: Narilamb but they're both aroace and in a qpr.

I've been rolling around in my head for like a long long time this idea that Narinder and Lambert could both be aroace and (after like. A couple of centuries or so) end up in this like very comfortable very close relationship that neither of them define as anything specific other than calling it a "companionship". But on the other hand most of the cult thinks that they're dating in secret or something despite the fact that both of them have said they don't take lovers, because they are clearly very tight but maybe not super openly so, so maybe the cultists thing they're being secretive and hiding something or something like that. Idk but my aroace brain loves thinking about extremely close (mostly) platonic relationships and for some reason my brain decided hmm. I'm going to take this and throw it at Narilamb and see how I like it.

So then I decided to make a ridiculous joke comic about Narinder asking Lambert's hand in marriage specifically because he wants to get out of paying taxes. Because like, I know that spouse followers do actually still have to pay taxes in the actual game but. Hey Narinder and Lambert have presumably never married so they probably don't know that...? Honestly the only reason I made this was because the concept tickled me and I spent too much time on this for no one to see it, so. This comic and all it's absolute ridiculousness be upon ye.

While there's a tiny part of me that's been thinking about making this into an AU (which I'd probably call something like the "Strictly Platonic AU" or something), I know for a fact that I would blatantly not do anything legitimate with it so. It's an unofficial AU I guess?? But. Anyways. I thought this would be funny. Enjoy my ramblings and I hope you enjoy this thing that I spent. Actual time on. Lol