#and I think I’ve found that among my online friends
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it’s pride month, so i’m gonna take the opportunity to talk about something relatively serious for once.
if you have even half an opportunity, it is really important to actually mention queer stuff around other people. especially children. i’m not saying you have to personally educate everyone you meet, most people ain’t got time for that. but i am saying that there is a social avoidance of discussing even queer stuff as a topic in a lot of spaces.
let me give an example irl of what i mean. i’m trans. very openly so. and frankly, i could not have been more obviously trans when i was younger if i had tried. when i was a child in primary school, and we’d be divided into boys and girls for yard games, it was once phrased as “if you’d rather be a boy go on this side” and similar for the other. i of course, went over to the girls side, and was interrogated about why i could possibly want that. did anyone say that was even possible? mention the existence of trans people? no. nothing. similar events happened countless times through my life. i eventually figured out i liked guys towards middle and high school, and was quite openly gay. i remember so many people in that period who i’d complain to about how desperately i wished i was a girl, that i wasn’t a gay guy. did any of them mention the existence of trans people? no, of course not. even among queer people, they’d often give me a look when i’d talk about wishing i was a girl, that i didn’t have a gender, that i just hated being a guy, as if they knew something i didn’t. but did they say anything? no of course not.
and on and on it went, until one day i encountered the idea of being trans. the word trans. at a work diversity seminar of all things. i left the place yearning desperately more than anything in life that i was trans so i could transition. because that sounded like everything i had ever wanted. and i told people as such. but did they say anything? clarify that being trans wasn’t some obvious thing you were born with and would automatically know? no of course not.
eventually i did figure it out. after 23 years and meeting openly trans people online. but if literally anyone had brought up the possibility that i could be trans, when i was 5? 6? i would have leaped on it in a heartbeat.
and all that dancing around words, of refusing to discuss queer things around me for... no clear reason i know of. it didn’t help me. the extra time to think about it didn’t help without the words or concepts to even talk about what i was feeling.
what it did accomplish, was leave me with an entire experience of puberty, watching my body transform into something i desperately wished i could escape. it left me with countless scars as i carved at everywhere the body hair came in. scars on my chest, that felt wrong and empty and hard. it left me with a sharp pain in my heart every time a family member called me “handsome” or “manly”.
and when one day i eventually did find out. and came out as trans. and started talking about wanting different pronouns and for people to stop threatening to cut my hair while i slept, suddenly there was a change. everyone in my family suddenly wanted to introduce me to trans close friends of theirs. suddenly wanted to be supportive and help. wanted to introduce me to all the trans people they knew.
but i’ve seen both sides. i’ve seen how that entire concept was carefully avoided until i was part of it.
please, don’t be like that. talk about these things. especially around children, but also around your peers. even the openly queer or gay ones. not all of us have had that opportunity to learn these things. i went through school in the southern us with an abstinence only sex ed class. my “talk” with my folks was my granddad one day saying unprompted that condoms are important and i should carry them “just in case”. even interacting online, it took years before i found circles that talked about these things.
tl;dr please talk about queer subjects. not everyone knows what a therian is, or what trans is, they might not even know about being bi or poly, all of those words need to be learned. and avoiding them unless someone already is openly such, only causes more harm.
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Thrifting Philosophies 1
Getting the good stuff requires commitment, knowledge, and luck. There’s always going to be an element of luck in thrifting. What are the chances that the perfect item will be donated and put out on the shelves of the very thrift store that you are going to and that you will get your mitts on it before anyone else? There is real kismet in walking out of a thrift store with an item that you’ve dreamed of, I literally daydreamed about one of my best scores (a 2.5-foot-tall ceramic panther) for years before it actually happened – and discovering it actually went almost exactly like my daydream.* Don’t let the luck factor put you off because if you are committed and knowledgeable then luck will come to you more often.
You have to go often. You have to have a circuit and make it routine and scour every inch of the store. Like I said I daydreamed for years before I found my panther, you’re NOT going to just walk into a thrift store and find your dream thing first try, unless you are extraordinarily lucky. I’ve noticed a couple of the Youtubers I watch that have a very specific aesthetic, and know exactly what they want, often mention searching new listings online every single day, they have their list of search terms, and they just keep looking every day until they find exactly what they’re looking for. Thrifting dream items is a hunt, and you have to remember you are a persistence predator so be persistent.
Being knowledgeable about what you are looking for will also increase your luck. The more you learn about the thing you love the more search terms you learn it could be listed under. The more you train your eye the more likely you are to spot the gems. I recently scored a Lisa Larson figurine for $3; her stuff goes for hundreds, and I never thought I would be able to own something of hers. But because I was familiar with her design style when I saw this little dog (on the shelf where my favorite thrift store stashes stuff they think is crap and they just want to sell it cheap) I was able to identify it as something that looked like her other designs and scoop it up. The marking on the base was so faint it was barely readable, and I had to google her mark so I could compare side by side. I then googled ‘Lisa Larson dog’ and checked the image results and sure enough my little guy popped up. Google is your friend in these cases and whenever I’m in a thrift store and think I’ve found something good, but I don’t know enough to tell for sure I’ll put it in my basket and take a seat in one of the armchairs that are for sale, and I’ll google away. Researching on your phone while you’re in store is the best way to decide if the thing in your basket is a bargain or not, today I saw a malachite box in the cabinet at the thrift store but it was a bit pricey, $40, so I googled to see if it was worth that, boxes of a comparable size were popping up for $150-$200 so you bet I snapped it up for $40. If you’re interested in an item, then do your research so when you spot it you instantly know what you’re looking at. Looking at lots of examples of a thing online means that when you come across it in real life it will draw your eye so it’s more likely jump out at you when it otherwise might be lost in among all the other stuff on the shelves – I’ve trained myself to spot antique blue and white china from just seeing the rim of a plate in a stack of random plates. I absolutely cannot emphasize enough that you need to know that you’re looking at something special when you lay eyes on it, there is so much good quality stuff in thrift stores you just have to be able to recognize it when you see it. The more you research and dream about finding your goal items, the more likely you are to stand in a thrift store and squint at something and go: Is that? No couldn’t be. Maybe it is? Then pick it up and turn it over to discover that it’s exactly what you thought it was and you’ve got a treasure in your hands. People talk about manifesting the things you want, and I do believe that you can. But I believe it has less to do with putting mystical vibe out into the universe to bring you those things and more to do with training you brain to spot the opportunity to get those things.
*The panther story for anyone who’s interested. I’ve been drooling over these huge ceramic big cats on Pintrest for years and desperately wanted one, you can get tigers, cheetahs, leopards, panthers, and they’re usually sitting up and are about 2.5 feet tall. They were mid-century and original ones sell for $$$$, you can buy new reproductions from the original molds but even those are in the 1-2 thousand range so yeah, I was never gonna be able to buy one. I daydreamed that someday I would walk into my favorite thrift store and find one. I live in an area with a lot of retirees who had money around the time these were being made so my chances were decent. My favorite store has a fully glass frontage and they put the best stuff where you can see in the windows. I daydreamed that I would be walking up to the store and see it through the window before I’d even gotten through the door, that I would beeline for it and grab it growling “Mine!”, and march it up to the counter without even looking at the price, I dreamed that when I got to the counter I would check the price and it would be incredibly reasonable – like $200 (considering how much even reproductions sell for). The things that went differently from my daydream: It was just after a Covid lock-down and here in New Zealand we used to scan-in to public places using a QR code which registered us on a government app – if someone tested positive everyone who had been in a location they had been to at the same time as them could be warned through the app. I saw my panther through the window just like my daydream and was fumbling to scan in while making loud inarticulate noises that embarrassed my mother and brother who were with me. My brother carried him up to the counter for me because I was shaking with excitement. When I actually stopped to check his price, he was $75!!!!!!!!!!! My brother also found a David Bowie book that day that retails for hundreds and that he’d wanted but never thought he would be able to afford, it was also $75. My mother still talks about my squealing and just about running people over to get to Jayjay the Panther (my honorary nephew, Jayjay then 4-years-old, was the one that named him, and he wanted to name him Jayjay).
My previous thrift post
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2023 Game of the Year Countdown
#5 Pokemon Trading Card Game
(and also the Pokemon Trading Card Game Neo! romhack by Cataclyptic that added Gen 2 Pokes)
Nintendo GameBoy Color, 1998
This entry will include two games, but one is simply a romhack by a fan. However, that romhack is probably the best romhack I’ve ever played. First, the original.
Pokemon Trading Card Game came with the addition of GameBoy games to the Switch online subscription, and for many, it was their first experience with the TCG. My best friend and I taught ourselves to play back in the day, but we were poor kids with little allowance to spend on cards and never had any good decks. I used to read about really expensive decks filled with holographics and rares that won tournaments and always wished I could make one of my own. The pinnacle was always the Haymaker deck: a deck built around a few Pokemon with high HP and cheap attacks that could KO opponents before they could do anything about it.
The thing is, the Haymaker deck is so hilariously powerful, you can essentially stomp the CPU without even putting together a complete version of the deck. The best versions rely on Energy Removals and Super Energy Removals to hamstring opponents, and Gusts of Wind to force your opponent into switching to suit favorable matchups. I never pulled a single Super Energy Removal at all, and was lacking full sets of numerous Pokemon that were staples in the Haymaker deck, yet I was still able to absolutely blast the CPU. It was easy, but it was also fun.
However, the true experience came from the romhack created by Cataclyptic. The romhack creates a full set of new cards, removing most of the old ones from Base Set, Jungle, and Fossil. Instead, we get all the Johto Pokemon, as well as a few returning cards that have been balanced. I found the balanced cards to be wonderfully tailored to be good, but never TOO good. It was surprising to see that almost every card felt useful. Many were based on other cards, and I fell into a Meganium and Bellossom deck. There were two Meganiums, with one able to heal status conditions and the other able to shuffle energy cards among your Pokemon. Meanwhile, Bellossom was clearly based on the Do the Wave Wigglytuff of Jungle lore. However, this Bellossom felt more balanced since it was a stage 2 evolution, and the attack required grass energies, not colorless. As a result, it took longer to both fully evolve, and power up your Pokemon, since you couldn’t utilize the Double Colorless Energy.
I was also a fan of Jumpluff, as the entire evolutionary line only required a single grass energy for every attack. As a result, you had a whole line of Pokemon that felt true to their original design of being lightweight, quick Pokemon. I loved the attention to detail on this sort of thing.
Additionally, the cards themselves were created in the same GBC sprites that the original game had. Some look better than others, but I think almost all look better than their original counterparts. Clearly crafted with love by Cataclyptic.
Finally, before I get inundated with messages and comments telling me about the official TCG sequel that was only released in Japan, I did also try the fan translation of that game. However, I didn’t enjoy it much at all because they severely restricted so many things. Part of what was fun about the game to begin with was being able to get booster packs at a rate significantly above what my poor childhood self could afford. However, the very premise of Invasion of Team GR! is that they’ve taken all the Pokemon cards, making them very scarce. As a result, you can’t get cards nearly as easily. And with the extra sets added to the game, you can’t get the ones you want very easily, either.
Additionally, the entire strategy behind most of the Team Rocket cards is to disrupt play, and while that might be similar in one way to the Haymaker strategy I previously praised, the Pokemon themselves are all pretty weak. It feels like you’re just playing Trainer cards and nothing else. I’ve seen some strategies that make people discard most of their deck instead of KOing their Pokemon. It very much fits the MO of Team Rocket, but it just isn’t quite for me. However, if you like blue decks in Magic the Gathering, you might enjoy this one.
If you like the TCG or the original game, play Cataclyptic’s romhack! I’d buy a physical cart of it, if I could.
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i love ryan but i’m newer to fandom (joined during the s5 mid season hiatus) and i’ve always vaguely heard about The Incident but have never been able to figure out what actually happened?? other than it was something that got him labelled racist and if you like him you’re therefore racist too. you don’t have to explain what happened if you’re not comfortable w it but i’m very curious and i support him but idk how to defend that choice without knowing what actually happened, you know?
Hi anon! I'm glad you asked. Not a lot of people know the context surrounding The Incident and I'm tired of people's ignorance. Enough is enough. This is long, but stay with me.
In May 2020, one of Ryan's followers at the time went through his partner, Chrysti Ane's, twitter account and found an instance from 2011 in which she used the n-word. Considering this was only days after George Floyd was murdered (or might have even been the same day; I can't find the tweets that incited the incident) and tensions were already extremely heightened, this discovery blew up in a massive way.
Days later (May 31, 2020), Chrysti Ane wrote this statement and posted it on Twitter:
[img. i.d.: As these recent events unfold, so do heightened state of emotions. My family and I have been accused of being racists for the past few days and I think it's past time for me to address quite a few things.
This all started when one of my partner's followers dug up a few of my tweets from 2011 (9 years ago) that used the n-word. I will not justify using that word, but I will explain myself. At the time I was dating someone of African-American decent [sic] and started diving deeper into the culture; I made tons of black friends, listened to music that used slurs, watched black comedians that freely used the word, and I felt accepted by the black community. At the time, none of my friends found it offensive, but I must say I also didn't fully comprehend the WEIGHT of the word. I didn't comprehend the history, the struggles, the oppression. I was a 16 year old girl in high school trying to find my place and figure out who I was. I am not a woman with my own family, a child, and a partner.
I am NOT the same girl I was almost 10 years ago, I encourage you to look back at where you were 9 years ago and think to yourself "am I the same person?" That being said, this is my formal apology for those tweets and who they have offended. We must hold people accountable for things that [sic] have said or done and I am glad this has been called out and I can show that 16 year old girl isn't the woman I am today. I can tell you honestly I have grown immensely. My respect for the black community is massive. What they have endured, what they have overcome, and what they CONTINUE to go through on a daily basis has opened my eyes and my heart. I will continue to use my platform, as I have been, to do good. I have donated, tweeted links, and spoken my peace on the matter. I have stood up for the black community and will continue to do so.
Now I'd like to address a different matter - blocking certain accounts. After those tweets resurfaced, I experienced hate tweets, hate accounts, memes with my image and my partners, name calling, and worst of all foul names about my son. After responding to a tweet saying something among [sic] the lines of "I have many black friends and I couldn't fathom seeing such a thing [as George Floyd]" one of the accounts that had previously been a part of the "hate tweets" had told me I made her "uncomfortable" because it seemed as though if I didn't have black friends I wouldn't care. I responded addressing her previous online bullying and proceeded to get hate. To that I must say, I have repeatedly attempted to turn focus to what's important-EQUALITY/HUMANITY. It seems as though everything that is said nowadays is dissected and the overall message gets lost. If you don't speak or use your platform, you're "racist" or "choosing the side of the oppressor" or "part of the problem" but if you DO say something without articulating yourself CRYSTAL clear with no room for interpretation you're "racist" or "making people uncomfortable" or "part of the problem."
I simply want to use my voice for good. I want to help. I want to do my best to let the black community be heard and RESPECTED. Let's all be part of the solution and create proper change in this country so everyone can experience what America is supposed to be an stand for.
The same day (May 31, 2020), Ryan hopped on Instagram Live and addressed both Chrysti Ane's use of the n-word and his own silence over several days. [Full transcription here] I strongly encourage everyone to read the entire transcript, but for those who don't want to, most of his Instagram live was about his support for the black community. During his livestream, Ryan:
Highlighted the black community as being instrumental to his growth and development as a human being
[img. i.d.: "I love my black brothers and sisters. In fact, a lot of them have shaped me into the person I am today. I'm very thankful for their input, their insight and their culture 'cause [they are] as proud of their culture as I am of mine. And the great thing about America is we get to combine those cultures. Black lives definitely matter and they should resonate -- they are the reason that America is so great.]
Called out the racists who followed him specifically:
[img. i.d.: "If you are a racist and you're following me or you think that this whole Black Lives Matter is out of proportion or anything, get the hell of [sic - off] my Instagram, get the hell of [sic - off] my Twitter. I don't need you. That's not the America I want to live in. I'm a biracial man. I gotta accept more than one race anyways. So anybody that follows me needs to be part of the solution rather than the problem. And of top of that, this is a human rights issue."]
Highlighted the realities of systemic racism and the black experience
[img. i.d.: Our black brothers and sisters, who are human beings, are being mistreated by systemic racism. That racism has allowed white people to just hurt our own kind, our own humans. That sh*t, I can't stand for. And now how I see all this changing is not overnight. It's by each individual making that choice to stand up to the next individual who is next to him who is being racist or being ignorant or being naive. I can't even imagine what it would be like to talk to my son and tell him people are gonna look at him worse because of his skin colour. That sh*t hits deep. It hits hard, and not because some of my friends are black -- that has nothing to do with me, this ain't about me at all. It's, again, about humanity. It's how we treat our fellow people.]
Did research before speaking, sought counsel from the Black POC in his life, and reverted back to history to back up what he was saying to his followers
[img. i.d.: I was looking through things over the internet, trying to do my research before I spoke, and black people getting killed by white people for racist views is nothing new. I mean, you can go to the biggest names -- Martin Luther King [Jr.] in 1968, Reverend George Lee, one of the first black people to vote, killed by white people. And the "I can't breathe" movement? That was nothing new. You saw all the NBA players wearing "I can't breathe" shirts, anybody in sports, anybody in entertainment was wearing "I can't breathe" shirts. That was Eric Garner in 2014. Philando Castile, 2016.
I am not painting every police officer bad because there are good police officers out there, so what I'm trying to say is this is directly to those racists out there, who have embedded themselves into the American society. You could be a person working at the movie theaters, you could be working anywhere to be honest. I don't care if you got a badge or not -- if you're racist, you're a racist. And your time is coming to an end. There's more biracial people coming into the world, there's more black people getting influence in the world, we got our first black president and hopefully not our last black president. This sh*t hits deep. I keep saying it.
I employ everyone else do their research. Start looking at why everybody is so angry. You know, COVID-19 is an epidemic but this whole racial thing is systemic. It's been happening for 400 years to people with skin darker than ours, for no other reason than just that. So we need to call out people who got more power in this, those white people who have more power in this. I only know of one big attorney because I worked with them on a TV show, but Mark Geragos who has helped out P. Diddy, Chris Brown, and all these other people. Let him start speaking up. Come on, you got enough money now. Start standing up for the right reasons now.
So also doing my research and talking to the cast of 9-1-1 and trying to figure out what [we] can do, how we can help out. Some of those don't feel what it feels like to be a black person and will never be able to, so how do we help? And Aisha, who plays Hen on the show, she was all about just support, reaching out, help whenever you can, wherever you can. You can go to Black Lives Matter, you can go to defund the Police, but in my personal opinion, defunding the police won't help because there are good police officers out there. You can also go to colorofchange.org, that's a good one. I see that a lot of people are trying to help out on that one, and there's a fund for George Floyd himself and his family. So there's ways to help out. Let's just find the right ways.
It was during this same livestream [on page 3/4 of the transcript], that Ryan says this about his partner's controversy:
[img. i.d. And now we're talking about different things now, now we're talking about her using the n-word. Let's address it, okay? You're telling her that she can't speak through Twitter to her black friends that have allowed her to say that back and forth to them, specifically? Mind you, that is a private conversation had on a social platform. I can see the misconstrued insight on that. That being said, I have plenty of friends - Black, white, Asian, Indian, Korean - and we make fun of each other's races all the time. We call each other slurs all the time. We don't get butt-hurt at all, nah, because we know the actual person, we know who each other are, we know we're not trying to bring each other down. So what are y'all trying to get it? You're trying to prove that somebody who is not racist is racist? Nah, you don't have that power. There is no racist energy coming from this household at all. In fact, we're helping. Again, being part of the solution rather than the problem. I know, for sure, that all of our friends would speak up to say the same thing. They know who we are. We know we're not about bringing down other humans, at all, not even caring about any kind of colour or nothing. So y'all need to stop with that. And if you're breeding hate and throwing it our way, you're wasting your energy and you're wasting your time.
This comment was the impetus for the "Ryan is racist" narrative. The following day, Ryan once again returned to Instagram live for a shorter livestream in which he clarified previous comments. [Full transcript here]. I can't add anymore images but to quote him directly:
What up everybody. So after having some time to really think about it and really calm myself down, I felt I have to clarify certain things.
Let me first start off by saying I do not condone the use of the n-word by any non-Black person, that includes all Latinos. That's not our word, alright? So that people that are coming after me, keep that same energy for Cardi B, Tekashi 6ix9ine, Fat Joe, all of them Latinos who've been using it for years upon years and getting passes from and by 50 Cent and whoever else and what-not and saying it in their music. Keep that same energy.
That being said, let me clarify and address the real situation at hand: When I said slurs, I came from an angry place. I couldn't think straight and I misspoke. All that was going through my mind is seeing these comments about my girl and about my one-year-old son. Seeing death threats to my girl, seeing this foul-ass language about my one-year-old son. And I misspoke. I meant to say stereotypes, and do I condone stereotypes? Nah. Now amongst friends, can friends make fun of each other? Yes. That being said, I'm not here to bring anybody down, no race down.
As far as my girl goes, using the n-word nine plus years ago, she was I don't even know how old. 16? I think she's grown as a woman. I think she has apologized for it. I remember her doing a tweet last night apologizing for it. And I don't condone her using it. We don't use that word in this household; it's not our word.
I'm not here to take away from what the black community has gone through, or take something from them. I'm here to help them in any way, through support, through anything. So that being said, I apologize to those that I have offended, and misrepresented myself by using the wrong term. I stand by my "try, fail, learn, grow" state of mind and I will continue to grow, I will continue to help out the community. So hope everybody has a great day, enjoys their life, and let's help our black brothers and sisters going through this horrible, difficult time. Alright. Now have a good one.
After his livestream finished, big entertainment new companies such as Variety, EW, and TVLine began pushing the "Ryan is racist" narrative, fueled by Aisha, Rockmond, and Oliver's comments on Twitter made the following day.
Aisha:
[img. i.d.: A tweet from Twitter user RisingTom that says: Maybe we should ask his black castmates how they feel about this.
@/AishaHinds @/ImAngelaBassett @/traciethoms @/RockmondDunbar
Ryan stays completely silent during this movement then comes on to excuse his wife's use of racial slurs & admits he & his friends use slurs all the time.
@/AishaHinds: How I FEEL daily is a perpetual state of GRIEF. There's sadly no version of this indefensible discourse that doesn't exascerbate that grief. There's legions of learned behaviors that need to be named and neutured [sic] so we don't continue to give life to them. May we know & DO BETTER.]
Rockmond:
[img. i.d.: Two tweets from @/RockmondDunbar: As a black man this should go without saying but just to make sure people in the back understand when I say this with my whole chest: I don't condone the shit. I don't like the shit. And I've never been one to allow the word to be used around me by any non-black person...cont
2ND Tweet: And any alleged 'black people' that are co-signing their non-black friends to refer to them in that way need their entire asses checked. Too much history, too much pain. Past and present. Shit is utterly unacceptable.]
Oliver:
[img. i.d. Two tweets from @/oliverstarkk: I know a lot of you want to hear my thoughts on what a cast member said today on IG live. I can tell you that my opinion is there is absolutely no excuse for the use of the n word. It belongs to the Black community only and I absolutely don't agree with it being used by...
2ND Tweet: ...anyone else under any circumstances.]
Ryan apologized again after that in one of his final posts on Twitter, and then alluded to the controversy (and his response to it) once more on Instagram on his 34th birthday.
Those are the facts. Now for my opinions.
The response to Ryan and the years of backlash that have followed (mostly from white people) are completely disproportionate to the situation at hand. The controversy wasn't even his to begin with, but at the point where he involved himself in it for the sake of his partner, everyone (Ryan's castmates, the greater public, the fanbase, and Ryan himself) quickly lost sight of who was initially at fault. I don't think Chrysti Ane should be raked over the coals for comments she made 10+ years later, but the fact of the matter is that Ryan showed more contrition and genuine apology and desire to do better in his multiple apologies than she did in hers. Chrysti Ane victimized herself in her apology; Ryan didn't. That makes a difference.
I have always maintained, and continue to maintain, that BIPOC are allowed to feel about him however they want to feel because BIPOC communities were, in essence, targeted. But I encourage everyone to know the facts before making or maintaining any sort of decision or judgement.
And to all white people who read this and still decide not to like him, please know that I do not trust you. I probably do not like you. Not only have you inserted yourself in a discussion you absolutely do not belong in for years, but any continued vilification of a man of color after learning all the appropriate context is transparent and deplorable. For years, I have watched people hide their blatant racism behind empty activism, but there's no excuse for that now.
Here is all the context.
BIPOC, do with this what you will. White people, please keep your mouths shut on the matter.
#jack.txt#ryan guzman#RG discourse#one and done#jack answers mail#this took three hours to write. my poor eyes.
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AITA for asking an ex-friend for help?
First of all, let’s start with a little bit of context.
I (M23) am a detective, I’m very well known internationally because I’ve solved some very difficult high-profile cases. The reason I became a detective is because I wanted to avenge the death of a former friend of mine, who we’ll call A. She was murdered at 18, but her killer was never caught. A and I (then 18 too) were very best friends with each other and with this other girl, who we’ll call Y (F - same age as me). We all attended the same boarding school at the time of A’s death. Y ended up running away without saying anything to anyone from that school and that town and I haven’t had contact with her since. We both just never reached out.
I do know what Y did in those last 5 years since she left. She’s turned to a life of crime, constantly stealing from very influential people and institutions. She’s wanted worldwide, but due to our past as friends, I never revealed her identity or whereabouts, even though I did always have my butler/assistant who we’ll call W (M27) keep track of her. I know I maybe shouldn’t have done that, but that isn’t the point. W is very loyal to me and we’ve been friends for a while as well, he does his job very well, and usually doesn’t say anything about the tasks I give him, but he made it obvious that he disapproved of me keeping tabs on Y.
Anyway, point is; she’s never been caught and she’s very good at what she does. She’s also very popular among people online as she always gives away the things she steals - she’s even been called a modern Robin Hood at times.
And as might be obvious by now, she is that ex-friend mentioned in the title. I recently began working on a very peculiar case of serial killings. This case stood out to me because it had many similarities to the way A was killed and I suspect that this new killer is the same person as the one who killed A. I am not bad at my job, but I wasn’t able to make any progress in this case for a while now. The only thing I found are more similarities to A’s case.
Due to our shared past with A, I decided to finally contact Y after all this time and ask for her help in this investigation. I know her and I know she’s very smart, so I’m sure she’d be able to help me. I doubt taht I’d be able to solve this case without her. Additionally, so far, she hasn’t agreed to help me, but she doesn’t seem averse or opposed to it.
W says that I shouldn’t have done that, for two reasons. First, because he thinks it puts her in danger of getting caught due to my involvement with many people who are actively looking to arrest her. And secondly, because it brought her memories and grief of A back to the surface.
So, AITA for asking for her help?
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Hi love! How are you today? I hope you’re doing amazing! 💖 sending this anonymously because I’m shy and can’t handle attention 😂
I found this little slice of heaven (your blog) a few days ago and I’ve read everything you’ve wrote (and reread some) because I’m just in love with the way you write! And not even just how you write Abby— though we’ll get to her in a minute, but the way you write is just so poetic and beautiful, like you’re words mix so seamlessly, I get sucked into the story so easily and honestly? I never wanna leave. 😂 I’m so impressed with your writing skills!
And of course you write Abby beautifully. Abby is amazing person in my eyes (yes, even her ‘faults’ and ‘imperfection’ she’s an amazing and beautiful women and I love her 😤 anyways—) you don’t write her as some weapon to use or some toy to fuck, but you give her these beautiful emotions like happiness and excitement or hurt and rage. it’s just very refreshing and nice to see her get the love she very much deserves and to see her get treated so delicately with words. 💖
Anyways, I could talk(? write?) your ear off about how much I love your writing and how much I love Abby but I’ll leave it here for now.
I hope you have an amazing day/evening/night 💖
Sincerely
—Unknown
Oh my gosh, I completely understand! I think it's incredible that we have the option to communicate this way. Your message put a huge smile on my face this morning! I feel so lucky to have interactions like this online, and I appreciate your time immensely.
Wow! I am so beyond flattered by this. Thank you so much for your kind feedback on my work. Writing has consistently been a safe space for me throughout my life, and it's a goal of mine to bring some of that peace to others. To accomplish that through my small creations feels like a genuine gift from the universe.
I'll let you in on a little secret (it's the least I can do since you've been so open with me) 💖
I was the nerdy kid in school, completely captivated by reading and writing poetry, instead of hitting up parties and events with my friends. Had a crush on a girl? Hold up, where's my pen? I must write down in fluffy words how beautiful her soul is. Feeling angsty and misunderstood? Someone please pass me my journal. If I don't write my feelings down now, my emotional little brain will explode.
I spent many summers with my nose in a book because it never failed to whisk me away, and I happily floated there among the stories and characters.
It's why I developed a deep love for raves, actually. Everyone, weird and wonderful, is welcome to come as they are at every stage of life. A community my social battery can handle. Plus, our music is rad. 👽✨️ Ah, sorry. I'm off on a tangent.
Oh, I ❤️ your take on Abby, for sure. We have a lot in common there. I struggle to read pieces that I can't emotionally connect to, and it sometimes makes me sad for her character when she's exclusively written that way without any other elements to her personality involved. She is so complex, and there's so much in her character worth exploring.
I've said it before, but being a body builder myself, it's a little heartbreaking, I guess, because we are still extremely sensitive beings underneath the muscle and fortitude. I've dealt with a lot of those assumptions and opinions in real life, and it's so nice to be reminded and to remind others that we're gentle, sensitive women, too.
I think Abby is a HUGE softie deep down and maybe not so far down, really. 😍
Thank you again for this. I hope you have a wonderful weekend doing the things you enjoy most.
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Forays Into Fandom
I felt it would be appropriate for one of my first posts on Tumblr to be about fandoms, and I’ve had this bouncing around in my head for a little while, so I wanted to share it. Basically, it’s my timeline of discovering fandoms and hyperfixations on media as well as some thoughts on my experiences with fandom recently. Also, heads up, it’s pretty long XD
One day, when I was 8 years old, I was at over at my best friend’s house and found a book with an orange cat on the front of it. I was intrigued, and I asked to borrow it. From the very first page, I was captivated.
Thus, I was introduced to my first real fandom: Warriors (aka Warrior cats).
And the rest is history.
Over the years since then, I’ve had the joy of discovering many more fandoms. I was in many fandoms before I knew what the term was, and I wrote fanfiction and drew fan art before I was aware that those were things other people did.
Around the time I first found Warriors, I started discovering more fandoms, most of which were book-based and of the fantasy fiction genre. This kicked off what one might call my “fantasy phase,” which I would say is still technically going. Back when it started, however, it was marked by devouring any and all (mostly) age-appropriate fantasy books. As I said, I don’t think my fantasy phase ever stopped. But that time of my life was when my love for all things magical and mythical came alive. My tweens brought more fandoms, including bigger/more well-known fandoms like Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, and Avatar: The Last Airbender, as well as smaller fandoms like the Books of Beginning, the Land of Stories series, and Michael Vey.
The next major milestone in my fandom life came when I started watching the TV show Once Upon A Time. OUAT was the first fandom TV show I ever seriously watched, and it introduced me to my first OTP: Captainswan. I don’t think I have ever fangirled harder over a fictional couple nor shipped characters more intensely. I literally put their wedding anniversary (the date their wedding episode aired, that is) on my Google Calendar: May 7th, 2017. I love Once Upon A Time so much; I love how hopeful it is, I love the fantasy elements, and I love the characters and their relationships.
Then, my Tolkien hyperfixation started when I went to go see The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies in theater. It was my first Tolkien movie, and although people often criticize The Hobbit movies (myself among them), I will always be grateful for that film. It drew me into Middle-Earth and kept me spellbound throughout the entire movie. I had read The Hobbit when I was younger, for a book club, so I was generally familiar with the story: I knew Bilbo and the dwarves journeyed to Erebor to take back the mountain from the dragon Smaug. Despite the changes in storyline that they made for the movie, I was able to follow along enough to enjoy it. This led me to watch the other Hobbit movies and some behind-the-scenes/making of videos.
Right around the time I started watching Once Upon a Time and saw The Battle of the Five Armies, my mom started letting me use her Pinterest account (and then shortly thereafter, she let me create my own). Pinterest was my gateway into social media, and more importantly in this case, fandom media. I knew Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook existed, but I didn’t know of Tumblr until Pinterest. I was surprised and delighted to find that people posted online about books, TV shows, and movies that I enjoyed. Tumblr posts on Pinterests were how I learned of the term “fandom” in the first place. They were how I learned of the “golden age of Tumblr,” of SuperWhoLock, of iconic Tumblr posts (e.g., none pizza with left beef), and of fandom overall.
This marked another turn: I stumbled across a piece of fanfiction. And I was enthralled. Most of my reading was Hobbit and Captainswan fanfics. However, I felt quite guilty for reading it, because my parents had told me that I shouldn’t browse any websites they hadn’t approved first. I didn’t ask them because I was scared they would say no, since they didn’t know what it was. So although I enjoyed reading fanfiction, I felt like I had to hide it from my family. Finally, after two weeks of summer camp and vacation where I didn’t have access to any electronic devices that I could read fanfiction on, the habit was broken, and I stopped reading fanfiction. However, I dreamed that perhaps one day, I could admit what I had done to my parents and I could read fanfiction again. (More on this later.)
Because I needed something to fill the gap that fanfiction left, I decided to dive into Tolkien’s stories. I read Lord of the Rings and then took on The Silmarillion. Those took me into my freshman year of high school, along with Marvel movies—I started watching those with some of my friends, and Marvel was one of my top hyperfixations for quite a while. I also discovered a few other fandoms in high school that I really enjoyed: two of the more well-known ones would be Fablehaven and The Selection (the latter was my first taste of a romance-focused series). I was still an avid Once Upon a Time fan, though my hyperfixation on it waned when season 7 aired (I didn’t watch past the first couple of episodes because the majority of the main cast was gone and the overall story was different).
In late high school, after Once Upon a Time had finally ended and my Marvel hyperfixation started dying down, I began watching Doctor Who. I had always thought the show sounded interesting, but it wasn’t until a friend of mine insisted I sit down and watch the first couple episodes with her that I decided I wanted to watch it. (I have never, ever watched a show for which I have gotten SO many spoilers. Never. Most of that was definitely my own fault, because I had seen lots of SuperWhoLock content on Pinterest and I wasn’t super careful about avoiding spoilers once I started watching the show, but occasionally I would just run into something on social media or a friend would tell me something. I still haven’t fully caught up on the show, lol.)
When I started college, I found a roommate who, among the many amazing things about her, shared a love of fandoms with me. We had a lot of big fandoms in common, but also some smaller or less-known ones too. Because of this, we have had tons of discussions about different fandoms, watched TV shows and movies together, and freaked out about new announcements concerning fandoms. To this day we still do those things; we’ve been sending each other stuff about the upcoming Percy Jackson TV series, and we watched the first two Doctor Who 60th anniversary specials together.
Another turning point came when I discovered the band Greta Van Fleet in 2021. Before this, I had enjoyed different bands, but I had never really found a favorite band, so to speak: one where I liked all the songs, where I knew all the members’ names, where I kept up to date with their tours, where I watched interviews with the band, where I knew lots of background info about the band, etc. Most times, I heard a few songs from a band and went “They’re cool, but I’m not hooked.” This time was different. I really liked their first song I heard, Talk On the Street, so I decided to check them out. I listened to their songs and thought, wow. Their songs match my taste in music SO well! I was like “YES, I’ve found a band that plays the exact kind of music I like to hear!”. Another reason I liked the band was that the songs were not all about drinking, drugs, and sex. Most of them were about other, more philosophical things, without any loss of rock ‘n roll. This, I would say, is really where music and fandom collided for me. A band fandom (“banddom”?) definitely feels different than a media/fiction-focused fandom, because these are real people, and as such, I’ve drawn different boundaries in terms of how I engage with it. My hyperfixation on Greta Van Fleet has calmed down a bit, but they still have a very special place in my heart.
My newest fandoms are Inkheart and Shadow & Bone/Six of Crows, which I discovered in 2022. Inkheart was one of the books that had been on my to-read list for forever, and I finally decided to read it. I absolutely loved it (and the sequels); the style really took me back to the start of my “fantasy phase” when I was younger. As for Shadow and Bone, one of my friends persuaded me to watch it, and one night when I didn’t have any schoolwork, I decided to watch a few episodes. After the third episode, I was invested enough that I had to finish the first season, and then I read the books before the next season came out. I hadn’t realized before what a large fandom the Six of Crows books had, but upon reading the books, I immediately understood why—the character arcs and relationships are so compelling, and the setting and plot aren’t what I would expect of the typical fantasy world in fiction. (Interestingly, Inkheart and Shadow & Bone/Six of Crows are the first two fandoms I have published fanfic for!)
Sometime during college, I started reading fanfiction again on and off. And I found myself comfortable with admitting to my parents/family that I used to read fanfiction, and that I read it now. I haven’t discussed it with them further, and still don’t really talk about it much (though sometimes I'll tell my sister about fics I’m reading). January 2023 saw me getting back into reading Tolkien fanfiction, especially Tolkien fanfiction. I found some of the old fanfics I had read during my first fanfiction era, and I felt like I was 14 again, reading the stories I had read back then. I reached out to one of the authors, and it gave me so much joy to tell this person, “Hey. I couldn’t tell you back then, but I read your stories years ago and they’re some of my favorite stories. Thank you.” I’ve kept reading Tolkien fanfiction since then, and weirdly enough, it prompted me to read The Silmarillion again (it was my third time through, and it was the easiest time I’ve had reading it by far). I’ve been in the grip of the Tolkien fandom all year, and I’m planning on sharing a “Fanfiction Wrapped” soon (well, it’s going to be a fic rec list, but now I’m thinking of doing a real Fanfiction Wrapped…lol) for my favorite Tolkien fics I’ve read this year, as well as the handful of fics for other fandoms I discovered in 2023. I’ve found so many great stories and wonderful authors this year, and I want other people to get to experience the joy of new stories and authors too. Plus I love finding fanfic rec lists, so I thought it would be fun to do a rec list of my own.
For so long, I didn’t realize how much of a community aspect there is to fandom—and I think that’s because my parents kept me safe from the internet. I understand that and I will always be grateful that they kept me protected from really nasty, dangerous things that are present on the internet. I don’t feel any resentment towards my parents for that whatsoever. But now, as an adult in my early 20s, I’ve discovered that I can make my own choices about the community side of fandom and how much I choose to participate in it. It’s still something I’m pretty tentative about, at least when it comes to posting publicly; I’m very aware that anything that is put on the internet may very well be there forever. Public Discord servers feel a bit more private, because you have to join them to see the conversations taking place there, but they’re still public. Especially at this point in time, internet safety and privacy is quite important. However, you can still have fun while being safe, so that’s what I’m hoping to do. I’ve created this blog, I’ve joined some public Discord servers for fandoms, and I’ve even posted fanfiction. I have no idea how much further I’ll go into the online world of fandoms and fandom community—or just into the world of internet interaction and posting in general—but I’m interested in seeing where the journey will take me.
And who knows, maybe there’s a kid (or teen, or young adult) out there like me, who is tentatively taking their first steps into fandom and figuring out what this is all about. If that’s you, hello! And if not, hello to you too!
At the start of the year, I discovered the song “Still Into You” by Paramore through a YouTube compilation of Hobbit TikToks. (Yes, I know, I’m literally 10 years late to the game on that song, lol.) But it made me think of all my fandoms that I’ve had hyperfixations on and that come up now and again, like the Tolkien fandom.
So, to my fandoms: after all this time, I’m still into you :)
#fandoms#my fandom journey#hyperfixations#Warrior cats#Once Upon A Time#Tolkien#Marvel#Doctor Who#Greta Van Fleet#banddoms#if that's even a word#Inkheart#Six of Crows#Shadow and Bone#Grishaverse#fanfiction#fandom community#discovering fandoms#to my fandoms: after all this time‚ I'm still into you
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i know i have been *very* vocal about my support of ukraine during the current russian invasion, and pretty much silent about what’s happening in palestine and israel.
the reason being: i have ukrainian friends, my mother has ukrainians friends and colleagues, and i feel i am much more educated on the matter to comfortably have a strong opinion and a strong position to defend, no hesitation.
one thing i’ve noticed since october 7th being online most of my time, being a member of community notes on twitter (x…whatever) and fact-checking a hell of a lot of stuff, trying to educate myself, is…how quickly narrative spins. how quickly misinformation spreads. how quickly one nation is labelled the victim, then the aggressor, and vice versa. how quickly and promptly acts of immeasurable, atrocious violence were justified - some sort of perverse “well she was wearing a skirt so she brought it on herself, she deserved it” - and called it “resistance”. how quickly antisemitism escalated (like, don’t even deny this), jews around the world experiencing hate crimes, stuff we thought was left behind after ww2. how quickly palestinians as a whole are called terrorists, and actual terrorist supporters gleefully celebrate beheadings whilst in the comfort of the democratic countries in which they were born in or found refuge.
how quickly a country can be accused of fabricating/staging video evidence of atrocities just because of its flag and preexisting hate.
i don’t think i’ve ever witnessed this much hate around the world, it’s…abhorrent. people (again, from the comfort and protection of their democratic, free countries) wishing others to experience pain and suffering and being remembered as murderers for stating an opinion and supporting a specific side? like what. the. hell. we’ve reached a new low as a collective.
i have a lot of opinions, but to comment on the latest happenings i think that the blame of this current escalation solely lies on israeli politicians currently in charge, they were just waiting for the opportunity to level gaza to the ground and no foreign government could’ve done a thing - i saw how fast some are pointing their fingers at the usa especially and, speaking as a staunch biden supporter, i firmly believe that, naively and stupidly, nobody expected that by following international law, the right of defence, the israeli president would commit genocide as a retaliation to a terrorist attack.
i expect the usa and the rest of the world’s democratic governments to firmly condemn this.
speaking of, it is also my belief that the perpetrators of the attack against israeli civilians backed by other dictatorial countries, absolutely 100% knew what they were doing. they knew israel would retaliate, and they knew this situation would create disagreements among nations - look at the hate towards biden, only him as usual. somehow the decisions of other countries' presidents are always magically his fault, damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. you just have to thank your gods biden is in the white house right now and not puZZin's puppet the orange tangerine, elections are next year and you have to pray he wins 2024 and not only because he's the best, most succesful president the usa have had in fucking years and yet americans are too stupid and ungrateful to see it; if you are american and are like "nah i'm not voting him because blah blah" you ARE NOT in the position to have a 3rd party candidate, if you don't vote biden you ARE handing the victory to extreme far-right politicians - don't you dare come crying & blame the other side when republicans obliterate your rights, your medicare, your social security, they WILL impose a christian theocracy on you, if biden is not the democratic candidate or if he loses you are fucked. YOU. ARE. FUCKED. and the world's gonna be even more disastrous. i won't hear any arguments on this.
destabilizing and undermining global democracy is the point of the two most prominent current wars and in the end it’s always the innocents who pay the hardest price.
to conclude this world salad…idk. it’s all so overwhelming, and discouraging, and i feel in conflict with myself for “sympathizing” with both sides, to a degree.
i just want people to live in peace.
#pardon my american politics rant i get very passionate about it#i think 95% of my twitter posts and feed are about american politics..it's a hobby#personal#nonsims#saviorhide
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Fuck it I’m bored
Top 5 favourite video games of all time
5. Monster Prom
Initially introduced to me by Twitch Streamer Shenpai, the Monster Prom series has become a favourite among me and my friends, and I’ve fallen in love with the characters and universe (with Zoe in particular probably being in my top 5 characters of all time, a list I might make another time). This series is the source of so many fun memories with my friends (with the first game being my favourite), and it’ll forever be in my heart. In terms of individual games however, Monster Prom doesn’t fully stack up to the others on this list (though it is really good and I recommend it), so in fifth place it goes
4. Kirby’s Return to Dreamland
I was very fortunate as a child that my very first Kirby game ended up being considered one of the best of the entire series. I adored this game as a kid, and it definitely affected me deeply on a psychological level, even to this day. Everything about this game’s artstyle, music, characters, bosses, and powerups still sticks in my brain, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop loving it. I think Dedede’s design in the remaster is a downgrade, but other than that this game as a whole is flawless.
3. Guilty Gear Strive
Those familiar with my blog know that the Guilty Gear series is one of my greatest passions, almost to a concerning degree. Though I’d already been acquainted with the series before this game, Strive was the one to get me fully into it, and I’ve heavily enjoyed playing it since the moment I bought it. The game’s artstyle and soundtrack is top notch (Daisuke Ishiwatari is a god amongst men), and Strive Leo is one of the most fun fighting game characters I’ve ever played. You may be wondering “why is it only at #3 then?” and the answer to that is similar to Monster Prom’s: I love the entire series more than I love any individual game, so I’m rating it lower on this game ranking than I would on a series ranking (on which it’d definitely be top 2). For now though, Strive holds a respectable spot at #3.
2. No Straight Roads
I love this game man. After hearing of it in passing occasionally online, I saw it was on sale on PS4 and decided to try it. From what I’d seen (basically just the game’s title and a few character designs) I expected a dialogue-heavy visual-novel-type game in which your dialogue choices change the path of the story (hence the name No Straight Roads) but I was dead wrong. What I got instead was an awesome rhythm-based bossfight beat-em-up in which an indie rock band named Bunk Bed Junction fights to overthrow NSR, the tyrannical music label that's taken over their city, featuring a fantastic artstyle, incredible OST, lovable characters, and loads of passion infused in every single aspect. Due to the indie nature of the dev team, some jank can be found in various areas, but I'll always be more than willing to excuse that in exchange for such a wonderful product overall. The game's fairly cheap and available everywhere, and I highly recommend that everyone reading this buys it and supports the dev team. ALSO TO THOSE WHO DON'T KNOW THERE'S A LIMITED TIME OFFICIAL SAYU PLUSH AVAILABLE ON MAKESHIP UNTIL THE 20TH GO BUY IT!!!
1. Final Fantasy X
I don't have an explanation for this one really, it just hit me a certain way. Please ignore the fact that I haven't actually beaten it yet, the Yunalesca fight is too hard and I gave up. Good game though.
#monster prom#zoe monster prom#monster prom zoe#kirby's return to dream land#kirby#Guilty gear strive#ggst#guilty gear#leo whitefang#No straight roads#nsr#sayu nsr#nsr sayu#final fantasy 10#final fantasy x#ffx#me
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coming back to this blog and reading an online life i had 5 years ago that i don’t even remember is so surreal lmao
anyways turns out i have adhd and possible autism, apparently it’s common to be misdiagnosed with bpd when you have them due to similar symptoms. feeling kinda guilty that i had a whole ass bpd blog especially reading over all the lovely kind messages that people used to send me :( :( but i guess it’s silly to feel guilty bc it wasn’t my fault i was misdiagnosed. i do really miss the community this blog gave me though and maybe i’ll come back to it as an adhd blog instead idk. i might be too old for tumblr now lmao
honestly don’t think i would have any of the old accounts still following me, but a lot has changed since then! i’m turning 30 this year, i’m single now but i have a cat (!!!!!) + living by myself. i’ve also found an amazing group of queer friends and new best friends and it’s so so nice. oh and also discovered that i’m non-binary!!!
i have so much compassion for the person i was 5 years ago because they were having such a hard time and experiencing what i know realise was extreme emotional dysregulation and rejection sensitive dysphoria, among other things. i would want to tell them that it’ll get better one day. this blog helped me so much back then and the community made me feel less alone. if you were ever kind to me during that time, thank you so much. i really hope all the people who were nice to me are doing okay now
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Actually, I regret that ask. I don’t want to excuse the anthropologists and linguists, and thinking back over what I wrote that’s kind of what it sounded like I was saying. That is not what I meant to say.
,I’ve always found Kroeber allowing the Smithsonian to take Ishi’s brain after death disturbing and unforgivable, but I think it’s easy to simplify the story of Ishi’s years at Berkeley.
Gerald Vizenor, an Anishnaabe scholar of Native American studies at Berkeley has written a lot about Ishi, and his life at Berkeley, and about the choices he made about how he presented himself and how he told Yana-Yahi stories.
There was a terrible imbalance of power inherent in the dynamic where Ishi was living in essentially a foreign culture and needed to rely on Kroeber, Sapir, and the others, but at the same time he was also invested in their project of “preserving” his language and culture. (Of course salvage ethnography does not actually preserve culture— recording isn’t enough. You need living, thriving people, and you need to dismantle colonialism.)
hi! thank you for writing and if it is okay to publish, i did not interpret your reply as an excuse for anyone and upon rereading my own post addendum, realize i myself did not responsibly articulate ishi’s time at berkeley with all the proper historical contingencies and respect i had wanted to. yes you’re right, ishi’s actual story is much more complicated than just the set of discourses i referenced and i was careless and obfuscatory in my shorthand (’studied,’ ‘specimen,’ ‘display’-- these were not the contemporary language to describe his tenure there until after death n i shouldve said/cited more). im glad you brought up gerald vizenor bc he was among the first to propose renaming a uc building after ishi, and i wish i had thought to at least link his incisive essay, “ishi obscura” (2001). anyways there’s much to address that i took for granted in my post, and i hope i can take this as an opportunity to clarify a bit here and direct to more sources—
first, to explain my own point of entry into this ‘discourse,’ i initially came of awareness about ishi’s story in 2020-- namely during the messy back-and-forth abt removing kroeber’s name from berkeley’s anth hall, to which my anthro/lit friends n i closely followed from the east coast as we engaged in our own institutional battles against [redacted]. much of the blog posts, internal documents, op-eds, and other journalistic coverages are still up online, which i revisited while drafting the post. they formed a lot of the more recent conservative “scholarly” perspectives insisting on ishi’s so-called happy “celebrity” status and kroeber’s “disordered mourning” decision to remove ishi’s brain, which i found myself unconsciously arguing w/ within the post lol (this is all from nancy scheper-hughes). this obvs came at the expense of fleshing out ishi’s own participation in sharing his cultural knowledge and hermeneutical agency in narrativizing his life story, but vizenor and norman denzin (building on vizenor’s ishi and the wood ducks, which i dont have a linked copy for) have made critical efforts to recuperate and deconstruct those figurations.
i did write up a longer summary abt the impact of ishi’s death on the kroeber family, which was indeed devestating for kroeber and which leguin was likely most intimately impressed by and thus likely affected her public discussion later on, since she was born long after ishi’s death. i deleted it bc there’s a plethora of (understandably) sympathetic explanations for the kroeber family’s ‘silence’ on ishi, and i didnt think it productive to rehash scheper-hughes’ already tortured, naval-gazing apologia circulating on behalf of kroeber (and which the kroeber sons themselves vociferously protested in their edited volume together). i can link some of the 2020 coverage but imo there are better and yes more ‘nuanced’ discussions of kroeber’s legacy not coming from a white woman anthropologist terrified of the ‘cancel culture’ mob.
and as you pointed out, there exists long and rich traditions of rigorous, indigenous-based critiques emanating from anthropology and linguistics. the traumatic conditions that kroeber, the boaisian school, and salvage ethnography emerged from and of their own fraught interventions into racial discourses at the time. ishi’s relationship with kroeber and their posthumous representations has been extensively re-evaluated, re-staged, etc--including kroeber’s sons editing their own collection of essays in 2003 after ishi’s repatriation. more recently, indigenous visions: rediscovering the world of franz boas (edited 2018) curates provocative perspectives from indigenous & black scholars.
finally-- i dont have a bg in literature nor do i read leguin’s fictional writing extensively by any means so i cant speak too much further abt her literary development and its critical reception aside from the anthropologists’ perspective (rip). i think my suggestions abt leguin’s latent politics came off as polemical and ungenerous, but i do consider myself indebted to her essays n shorter works for introducing me to anarchist politics and humanist inquiry in anthro. i recommend her books to students curious abt speculative fiction and radical worldmaking (which we should continue to do btw, learning abt kroeber should encourage us to read leguin not put her off), which is why i think it’s critical we not only explicitly "acknowledge” ishi as i concede leguin did (altho i rlly did use those examples to highlight how thin those mentions are but would b interested in more substantial writing on the matter given her brothers’ involvement) but encourage an analytical repertoire to think with the larger politics of representing ishi’s lifestory as intimately bound up in leguin’s own reckoning with civilizational-racial discourses and indigenous epistemologies... and perhaps to exercise some caution abt potentially espoused universalisms (there r some rlly interesting altho idk how persuasive anthro-based rebuttals against fedric jameson’s historicist analysis of her work). idt we should b as concerned abt morally evaluating her writing for evidence of settler ‘complicity’ and ‘exploitation’ (i semi-regret using that language now in the context of leguin’s own mediations), as i am abt how we should understand how leguin’s proximity to colonial abuse is inflected textually and animates the political horizons of her own literary narrations-- and our reception of it. it rlly is not abt her anymore but how we interpret certain so-called silences (again, not always ‘bad’ or complicit)--which is why im drawn to jameson’s ‘critique’ prev bc unless ive been misreading it completely (note 2 reread), actually appreciates n takes seriously the conscious world-production moves made by leguin’s the dispossessed and id would like to see a similar literary treatment of leguin’s anth debts too.
#free to engage further but i work until 6pm but idk when ill see it loll#let me know if u want this deleted
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°˖✧My Top 3 Comfort Characters✧˖°
☆I introduce these Lovely Fictional Men who had always given Meaning to my Life☆ ( ´ ▽ ` ).｡.:*♡
1. Guzma
(Pokemon SM, USUM and Masters)
I LOVE GUZMA! ♡( ´ ▽ ` )♡
I've been in love with him since he was introduced in the Pokemon Sun and Moon game trailers back in August 2016 and it's all thanks to his swag, cockiness and punk aesthetic. Goth Punk boys are my ultimate weakness and Guzma is a combination of Goth Punk hard as nails and Hip Hop swag. His design plus his backstory was the best part of the game and since then, I couldn't get enough of him. He's everything I want from a guy. (≧▽≦)
Speaking of his backstory, he by far is the most relatable character to me. I can easily understand his frustrations and empathize with his inner pain and desire to prove his worth. Learning from his struggles and redemption made me love him even more.
Therefore, he'll always be my no. 1 favorite character and maybe forever? ଘ(੭ˊ꒳ˋ)੭✧*:・ﾟ
2. Junkrat (Overwatch)
I can't get enough of this crazy, loveable bloke!
Before discovering Guzma and just when Overwatch was new (around May or June 2016 I think), I saw some random game screenshots and hot art of Junkrat in Tumblr. You know I’m CRAZY for Goth Punk Boys! So Mad Max Punk Junkrat immediately caught my attention.
But not too long, Guzma came to my life and swept off my feet! And for a time I forgot about Junkrat. Poor baby. That happens when a lot of hot characters are introduced in a very short period of time. (っ´ω`)ﾉ(╥ω╥)
Last month, I remembered Junkrat when I found my collection of old hot fanart of him. Thus, rekindling my love for him. It's kind of unusual for me to like him because I'm usually into muscly men, although he still is well toned but on the skinny side. But it's the crazy personality that I loved the most about him.
I both love Guzma and Junkrat! They’re two different men. One is cocky while the other is maniacal, but they’re both Wild Punks which is why I LOVE the two of them!
3. Ramsay (Gigantic)
I discovered him after a friend of mine mentioned about the character during our online chat. After searching him up, I realized I have the hots for Ramsay! (ᗒᗨᗕ) I feel so bad not knowing about him sooner. I don’t know why I wasn’t familiar with the game or the character, maybe I missed him or he got drowned by the more popular games like Overwatch and Pokemon.
Ramsay is like a combination of Guzma and Junkrat. I love his overall appeal! I love his design, his clothes, that smug look, cocky attitude and roguish personality. And that Punk Hair! Also he’s so sexy to brandish his blade coated with poison fruit juices. σ(≧▽≦σ)～♡
ヽ(o´∀`)ﾉ♪♬♫•*¨*•.¸¸♪
So there you have it folks, but I'm not done yet with my mushy ramblings.
Guzma may be my no. 1 but I'm still debating on who’s the hottest among the three of them. I just don’t know I’m so confused now. ლ(¯ロ¯"ლ)
But the main reason why I love these men is because I find them very unique and highly appealing. What do they have in common? Their big personalities, wild looks and penchant for trouble. I have a feeling that they were inspired by 80s and 90s troublemaker characters that I enjoyed watching when I was a kid.
Gosh, I still never overcame my love for bad boys. (⁄⁄>⁄▽⁄<⁄⁄)
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Re: DADWC, no but seriously though, I'm invoking the wildcard space for Hawke & anyone (or everybody in the flock) + "Can I propose a more anime solution?" if you so wish! Modern AU Kirkwall if you fuck with those, but if not, wildly out of context is also works
You have carte blanche for sending me prompts in any case, Goose! And I don't know why this is Carver/Merrill, but it is. I made up so much stuff here. (The post referenced is here.)
Under the cut, please find ~1352 words of Modern AU Kirkwall, with Carver/Merrill, silly het tropes, and striped socks, for @dadrunkwriting.
-
Carryingly, but not over-loudly, Garrett Hawke cleared his throat. Heads turned; tongues stilled; Fenris pushed Anders’ admonishing finger from his personal space. An anticipatory quiet fell.
Moments prior, as Varric had been going over the statistics of the monster they were supposed to fight, Garrett had appeared listless and unengaged. The sudden attention of his friends, however, revived his famed charisma like water flowing into a sponge.
He leaned forward on his elbows and rested his chin on steepled fingers. The stupid but accurate glasses he’d bought online, a replica of those worn by Gherlen the Blood-Risen in the original Tales of the Blood-Risen, glinted in the basement’s buzzing light.
“My friends, party members, devoted followers. Your strategies sound great and all, but can I propose a more… anime solution?”
“Oh, here we go,” said Carver. He had come down to the basement for snacks, and found that the six-pack of fancy soda he’d bought for himself the day prior was missing from the fridge, having been distributed among the D&D players. Garrett had two cans in front of him. Pig.
“Shush, brother,” said Garrett. “Now, my suggestion is…”
-
“Garrett doesn’t even watch anime,” Carver seethed to Merrill later, having texted her and then met up to hang out in the only laundromat in Hightown. He was lying on a bench too narrow for his back while she paired up her socks. “He’s only seen Wait, My Girlfriend Is A Noble-Hunter?! and two episodes of the second remake of Tales of the Blood-Risen, not even the original. If there’s an anime fan in the family, it’s me. But he just has to take that from me, too!”
“Anime,” Merrill mused, folding together the top cuffs of two mismatched striped thigh-highs. The basket in front of her brimmed with more and more colorful socks, like an assortment of cotton candy or the hoard of a tiny, pastel-loving dragon. It was lucky there were only a couple other customers at the laundromat. “I don’t think I’ve seen any anime.”
“I’ll make you a list of recommendations,” said Carver, shifting his shoulders. “I have a broad knowledge of the genre. Garrett’s a dilettante.”
Merrill put her thigh-highs in the basket and set it aside. “Have you asked if they’d let you play D&D with them?”
“Yeah, I tried once, when they were doing a one-shot campaign with him and Varric co-DMing. He killed my character off in the first dungeon.”
“Oh.”
“He claimed it was supposed to be fixable and plot-relevant, but come on, Merrill. He lives to lord himself over me! I’m not giving him more chances on purpose.”
Merrill sighed and patted him on the knee.
The washing machine that she had been using beeped. She went across the laundromat to inspect it, and returned with an armful of damp lingerie bags, which she placed on the bench near Carver’s feet. With a twitch of her fingers, the bags began to emit a light steam.
“Um,” said Carver. He liked it a little too much when Merrill did magic so casually. Garrett was a mage too, but he was flamboyant about it; Bethany was ashamed of her magic and usually hid it. Anders, the only other mage Carver spent much time with, tended to over-explain whatever he did and also get defensive about it. But Merrill just did as she pleased, when she pleased.
Merrill bent, rummaged through another among her cluster of laundry baskets, and retrieved a complicated-looking hanger with about 50 clips on it. She looked around the room, chewing her lip, but apparently found nowhere to hang it.
“Could you hold this for me?” she asked. “I’ve just got to clip these.”
Carver sat up, careful not to knock her bags over, and took it from her. He looked around to make sure the other two customers weren’t watching them. “Why are you washing your underwear in public?”
“My sink’s not big enough,” said Merrill. “And my shower, I have to get naked or put on a swimsuit to wash clothes in it, and then the bathroom floor gets all wet.” She studied his face. “Oh dear, I’ve embarrassed you, haven’t I? You don’t have to help.”
“It’s fine,” said Carver, who could tell he had gone red.
“Thank you,” said Merrill, quick and sweet. Too sweet. Carver looked at her with suspicion, and she gave him a guileless smile. “Here, be careful with the garter belts in this bag—they’re delicate…”
-
Carver ended up helping Merrill with the rest of her laundry, including her towels and linens. It wasn’t like he had anything pressing that afternoon, and he didn’t feel like dealing with Garrett and his friends back at the house.
They got hungry, so she took him to a cafe and tried to pay for his tea and sandwich. Carver would have none of that.
“I make at least twice what you do. Plus, I’m the guy.”
He winced as soon as he said it and prepared to apologize. However, to his surprise, Merrill seemed flustered rather than offended. Some Dalish cultural difference, maybe? She ordered dessert for herself when he suggested it, and didn’t hesitate to choose the pricier cake that she preferred.
Merrill was coaxing him to try a bite of her cake when Garrett tromped into the cafe. He was followed by the other players, two or three more of his friends, and the dog, Calenhad, who as usual was shamelessly soliciting attention from Fenris.
“They don’t even let dogs in here,” Carver hissed, as Garrett commandeered two tables and directed the others to go in search of additional chairs. The dog sat in Fenris’s lap. “I got kicked out last week when I came in with him. But look! He gets away with everything!”
“I really think you should just tell him that you want to play with them again,” said Merrill. “Oh, Isabela’s here.”
She got up and ran to Isabela, who made a big deal of it. They had this whole hugging dance that involved Isabela lifting Merrill up multiple times. Isabela looked at Carver over Merrill’s shoulder and waggled her eyebrows, and he put up a hand in reluctant greeting.
Being around Isabela was awkward—she was blunt and fearless, she was devoted to Merrill, and she knew Carver had used to have a crush on her. He was always afraid that she would say something about his interest in Merrill, though she’d contented herself with sly looks and innuendo so far.
“Hey, Carver,” said Garrett from too close by, startling him. “Did we crash your date?”
Carver turned and fixed him with his most hateful glare. “You took my special soda.” He’d been saving it all week.
Garrett had the grace to look guilty. “I saved one for you! You left before I could give it to you.”
“Yeah, well, you owe me a replacement pack of soda.”
“Can I just get you some cake or something? They have good cake here.”
“We already ate,” Carver snapped. He glanced over at Merrill, who was absorbed in conversation with Isabela, and flushed.
Garrett’s eyes crinkled in that annoying way they did. “So it really was a date.”
“Shut up. I was just helping her with her laundry. We got hungry, that’s all.”
“Her laundry, huh?”
“Not one more word,” said Carver, bristling; but Merrill and Isabela were coming over now, and he knew it upset Merrill when he and Garrett yelled in front of her. She never said anything about it, but he could tell. So he was the one who shut up.
Garrett held out his arm, and Merrill went right under it. She fit perfectly. She looked so cute, and small, and comfortable where she was. Carver ground his teeth, conscious of Isabela’s eyes on him.
“Can I join your next campaign, Hawke?” said Merrill.
“You can join if Carver does,” said Garrett. He squeezed her.
“I’ll do it,” said Carver before Merrill could protest. “But on one condition. I want to wear those glasses.”
“Glasses?” said Garrett, then realized, and laughed. “I knew you thought they were cool!”
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Lestappen Boarding school #6 (18+)
Read the whole work on my AO3
14th September 2019
Max had been right in thinking it would have been his last night sleeping in the room. Well technically while his stuff still remained there and he kept his head boy badge he’d barely gotten one full night's sleep for the last three days. Him and Charles had successfully managed to avoid each other in person but keeping clear of Charles in his own mind was becoming impossible. Why was Max the one feeling insane when it was clearly Charles who’d lost his mind.
Despite his best efforts people were starting to notice something was off with him too. Daniel hadn’t even tried to empty his water onto him during games which was possibly the first time he’d ended the day dry in six years. Alex had even served up his cereal for him this morning under the guise of getting into favour with the new head boy but it was obvious to max that it had been out of concern.
The prefect's meeting had been perhaps the worst. Not only did Max feel the pressure of living up to the role he’d assured to himself, it was the only time he couldn’t avoid speaking directly to Charles, nor it seemed would he be able to keep up the act of pairing the new prefects with the older ones for night duty for the rest of the year. Isa had taken a lot of convincing as is since it meant she was separated from her friends too.
After the third night waiting for the headmaster to burst into his room for homophobia or imagining Charles texting everyone in the year about what had happened he gave up. After lights out he slipped down to the night office and asked Charles to leave the 6th year Oscar for a second so they could talk. Oscar assured an apologetic Charles that he could manage on his own and Charles followed him down the corridor to his own room without a word.
Max shut the door and locked it this time, the thought that they hadn’t last time was among the ones that were keeping him awake at night.
“That was rude.” Charles said.
Was he determined to pretend nothing had happened, perhaps Max should have been grateful. He wished he could have just done the same, but he read online that he was only a week away from going insane sleep wise.
“We have to talk about…” Max paused. “I mean just agree so we can leave it.”
“About what?” Charles laughed at himself. “I’m joking. - I’m not going to out you.”
“Okay then.” Max nodded.
Charles kept looking at him though pushing Max to say something else.
“I don’t hate gay people.” Max blurted. It was true he didn’t. For himself it was different though, being gay would cause problems. His father, his grades, his mum at least would forgive him but that’d be the end of private schools and brand new laptops for Christmas.
“I know you think I’m stupid, but if you need to talk.” Charles started.
“No one thinks you’re stupid.”
“So you think I’m clever?” Charles smirked
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
Then Charles kissed him. Max had been so close to relaxing, and now he would spend the rest of the evening wondering why he’d kissed Charles back and kept the problem going. He wished Charles had been a bad kisser, Charles probably thought Max was a bad kisser. Charles’ hand slipped up under Max’s shirt and it felt good and confident while Max's were frozen on Charles' waist like they felt they weren't allowed to be there. Charles broke the kiss after a while, touching Max’s cheek and looking up at him. He looked happy about it, beautifully happy. Max thought he probably looked constipated.
“I need to go back,” Charles said. “Do you want me to come back here after? Pierre won’t ask where I’ve been.”
That was a terrible idea Max thought. No.
“Yes.”
*
Max laid on his bed without moving until he got soft again. Twenty minutes later Charles came back and knocked on his door. Max bolted up and opened pulling Charles inside and shutting the door quickly. Charles had sprayed some cologne on before he’d come back and Max found himself entranced by it. Charles was quick to start removing his tie and his trousers without speaking a word to Max until he noticed he wasn’t doing the same, only watching.
“Take your clothes off.” Charles whispered and Max obeyed.
They stood for a moment appraising each other once they were down to their boxers. Charles looked too pleased with himself for someone faced with Max. Determined to have some sense of control Max pulled Charles into kiss this time, relishing the fact Charles was the one reaching up to kiss him.
Charles' hands this time found their way quickly to Max’s cock that was already half hard. Charles cupped him through his jeans and licked up into Max’s mouth like he was desperate for it. Maybe he was, Max could feel Charles was fully hard too. When Max slipped his hands inside Charles’ boxers and wrapped his hand around his cock just like Charles had done yesterday, Charles let out a broken moan into Max’s mouth.
“Putain, that feels so good Max. It was so hard to wait.”
The praise made Max shiver and Charles definitely noticed because his face broke into a grin. Max just began to move his hand faster and made his fist tighter until Charles moaned again. His face falling to Max’s shoulder. Charles rested his whole body weight on him, his hands gripping Max’s upper arms and his waist. They moved up and down, always somewhere between stroking and grabbing at him. Max spun them around and pushed Charles down onto his bed.
Charles looked so pretty there. Spread out over Max’s bed in front of him, for a moment Max felt like he had stumbled up to a celebrity. It didn’t feel right that Charles was here walking round the school like this.
“Max, please.” Charles pleaded and Max rushed forward to pull Charles' boxers off him completely. He wanted to see him bare, the way his cock looked below his slim waist straining up against the smooth skin of his stomach. He climbed on top of him and took Charles cock in his right hand, spitting into his palm like Charles had done. His left hand he let run across Charles’ chest. He was so desperate to pull and scratch but for now he wasn’t confident enough to mark any part of Charles. Max stared straight into Charles' eyes as he stroked him. Listen for Charles broken encouragements. The way his mouth started to tremble the longer he continued.
“You’re so good Max, please.”
“So good for me. Need more, faster”
Max couldn’t look away. Charles moaned more and more and spoke less and his eyes scrunched together.
“Fuck, I’m gonna come” Charles whispered, his eyes still tightly shut.
Charles' fingers dug tightly into his arms suddenly and Charles' other hand flew over his mouth as he spilled all over Max’s hand.
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The Voice of the Prophet ("My Copy")
"…I had a cheap, paperback mimeographed copy of “The Faith, Hope, Tradition and Heritage of America” and a hard, brown covered, well printed copy of “The Voice of the Prophet”. - Sonia H. Davis, Two Hearts That Beat as One.
The Voice of the Prophet is a collection of poems by Dr. Nathaniel A. Davis based on the Jewish faith and traditions. Nathaniel was the third husband of Sonia, and genuinely the happiest marriage in comparison to her previous relationships. After Nathaniel’s passing in April 6, 1945, Sonia worked exceedingly hard to pay the debts she procured during his illness, and to save money to ultimately publish his poems. Unfortunately, when Sonia sought financial support from well-to-do individuals for her endeavor, she was met with rejection, and even in one instance, she was cruelly scammed by a publisher. Evidently, she persevered and was able to publish some of his poetry. Many of the poems she selected for publication were highly regarded by many persons from literary clubs, radio shows, and lectures.
It is unclear, however, the number of copies Sonia made of The Voice of the Prophet. I, myself, own two copies, one of which has the most importance to me. On August 25, 2021, I found Sonia’s personal copy of The Voice of the Prophet for sale online. I bought it, thinking it was too good to be true, and it was the best decision I made in that season of my life. When I finally received the copy several days later, I was so amazed by the book that I emailed the bookseller in gratitude and to ask for the backstory of how he managed to acquire such a book. He emailed me in return with this account:
My friend and book-mentor, Roy A. Squires—whom you may’ve heard of—was a friend of August Derleth. After years of corresponding, Derleth informed Squires that Sonia was retired at the senior care facility I mentioned. Squires wrote to Sonia, because of his own great interest in H.P. Lovecraft, and asked if he could visit her. Sonia was very suspect, as she’d been visited not long before by an HPL enthusiast, who’d stolen valuable memorabilia from her, and wrote to Derleth to inquire about Squires. Derleth told her that Squires was the most trustworthy of men, and not to worry. Squires visited Sonia on some occasions, especially on her birthdays. She enjoyed his company.
After her death, and Sonia being estranged for years from her daughter, left no heirs. Diana Lynn Lodge asked Squires if he would come and take away her last few belongings. Squires retrieved what little she had left. Among those belongings were a few copies of your Nathaniel Davis book.
And thus, after nearly 50 years, this “well printed copy” has reached me and inspired me to look deeper into the life of Sonia Haft Greene Lovecraft Davis. I’ve always had a secret inclination to write her biography, but to never publish it because I ignorantly believed no one would find it of interest. This particular volume of The Voice of the Prophet was a challenge to that secret inclination, and I took the leap of faith to unearth Sonia’s life, regardless of the future readership. It is because of this volume that the many, who have been waiting for decades for her autobiography, can now appreciate the remarkable life and character of Mrs. Sonia H. Davis.
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What I Did on My Summer Staycation, a list:
1. I mentioned in my last entry that I had enough money to treat myself to a few small things. I think that some of my personality and current interests can be well summed up by what I treated myself to: a pack of multicolored Sharpie markers, some pins for my leather and denim jackets (mostly ‘Mats-related, cuz I’m kinda obsessed), a jug of cold brew coffee, and a visit to the local art museum.
2. I’ve gotten back into visual art. Not that I ever really got out of it; I make collages and Xerox art and pages in my art journals all the time. I just mean—well, I started a new canvas last week and it just burst out of me; I painted for hours a day until I’d finished. And since then I’ve been working with oil pastels in my art journal, plus sketching out ideas for some other, larger pieces.
3. It took me years to consider myself a ‘real’ visual artist, or to think that I might have any talent for visual art. Even when people—people whose opinions I respected, people whom I considered ‘real’ artists, even!—complimented my stuff, I’d downplay it; assume they were just saying those things to be nice. Even when I was part of art shows, and complete strangers paid money to take something I painted or drew or photographed or collaged home with them, I’d somehow find a way to talk myself out of feeling like it meant I might actually have talent. And I think a lot of it had to do with how badly I did in art class in elementary and middle school. And just the other day I thought…huh, I wonder how many well-respected, awesome artists did terribly in grade school art class? Probably quite a few! Because in my experience, those art classes had nothing to do with encouraging kids’ artistic abilities, or even teaching us much of anything…except how to follow the rules. Most of the teachers I had in grade school art class were looking for very specific results for each project, and if we couldn’t, or didn’t want to, reproduce them, we got in trouble or got a bad grade. They acted like we were in Warhol’s Factory, where every piece had to be damn near identical to the example they’d shown us. I don’t mean that we were expected to learn the fundamentals of different kinds of art; there was very little actual instruction designed to make us better skilled. I mean…oh, here’s but one example among many: in third grade, we had to make clay sculptures of dinosaurs. I made a dragon instead. I got a bad grade on that project.
3.5. I often got in trouble for not following rules. I got in trouble or got bad grades in Language Arts sometimes, because I got weird with my writing and didn’t do exactly what was asked. Yet that never made me think I was a bad writer! So why did grade school art classes make me think I sucked as a visual artist? Maybe because I had enough writing teachers who encouraged me to balance out the sucky ones? Who knows.
4. Last Thursday I took myself on a date to the art museum. I hadn’t been there since last November. I fell in love with so much of the art, discovered a bunch of new-to-me artists as well as seeing works by artists I was already well familiar with. They have a Paula Rego in one of the current exhibits, and I nearly cried seeing her work in person. (I did cry in front of the Franz Gertsch.) I stopped by the gift shop before I left, to buy a couple postcards and check out the used book rack, where I found a copy of a 1969 book called Pop Art Redefined for two bucks! When I went to pay, the woman behind the counter told me she loved my necklace (I was wearing the blackbird + rosary bead necklace an old Milwaukee friend of mine made for me years ago) and my tattoos. Then she noticed the paint on my fingers and said: “Oh, you must be an artist, too!” And she handed me some info about the museum’s upcoming community art show. It’s free submission, everyone is eligible, it’ll all be up online, and the community gets to vote—and the three top-voted artists will receive a voucher for a studio art class! And it’s zodiac themed!
4.5. I just loved being recognized as an artist, okay?
5. Friday was the start of our house and dog-sitting job. C. insisted we go to the beach pretty much right away, so he and I went while P. and D. stayed with the dog. We looked for rocks and beach glass, built a sandcastle, walked in the water; I drew for a while while he ran in and out of the water and squealed with glee anytime a big wave came up. Later, back at the house, I sketched out some ideas for the zodiac-themed art show. I have two ideas, but it’s limited to one submission per artist; I think I’m going to make both and then decide which one to submit once they’re both done.
6. None of us slept well that first night, so the next day was a little rough in some regards. But there were good things, too. I talked to the neighborhood crows. I made a batch of pie crust while listening to La Traviata and Django Reinhardt. I worked on some poems, and some pieces for my zine. I did some more sketching in my art journal. I saw the proofs for LOTD, and oh wow did the publisher ever get the aesthetic exactly right. We went to the beach again, all four of us this time. D. brought a bag to pick up trash, his idea, and he thoroughly cleaned up the beach, and I was so full of love and pride for my budding environmentalist. I picked up more rocks, felt their energy, gave most of them back to the lake, except for one that wanted to come home with me. We all slept better that night.
7. Sunday was probably the best day. I did a tarot and oracle spread about what the upcoming week had in store for me; a lot of it involved transformation, healing, breakthroughs. I did yoga. I wrote postcards to some friends as though I were on a real vacation. We took a long walk. The storms rolled in, I made a nectarine and blueberry galette, wrote some. Cooked a delicious Provençal-inspired salmon dish for dinner, drank some vodka rocks with a twist of lemon, watched the rain. But then I barely slept again that night.
8. I woke up Monday feeling completely wrecked, both from lack of sleep (I used to stay up all night on purpose, for fun?!) and allergies (fall allergy season is starting, yay!). The first half of the day was really rough. I found a dead mouse on the front walk, poor little gray fuzzball, and it made me cry. Then C. had a huge tantrum, and I reacted very poorly. But it turned out okay in the end. I have a tendency to let a bad moment or bad mood ruin my entire day, but I’m trying not to do that. P. took C. on a little outing, I took a long bath with some stress-relief bubble bath, when they got back I apologized to C. and we hugged it out and things were fine the rest of the day. We grilled out, listened to the howls of the coyotes that walk along the lakeshore, then watched a movie as a family, all cuddled up on the same couch (along with the dog we were dog-sitting). And I slept well, finally.
9. Yesterday, we cleaned the house we’d been staying in, then packed up our stuff, and waited for the owners to get home. They got home late afternoon, paid us, and we came home to our house. Then my parents stopped by. They just got back from a trip to Michigan to visit family, and wanted to give us some things they’d brought back. I got a series of paintings done by my dad’s cousin (who is actually a quite well-known and respected artist, and also pretty much the only cool weirdo on my dad’s side of the family), a piece of pottery made by one of my mom’s sisters, and a pair of earrings made by another of her sisters. But before that could happen, my mom immediately started in on me. I had off-handedly mentioned how rough a lot of the weekend was for me & P. & the kiddos, and because I said that rather than asking how her trip was, well, there was hell to pay. It’s exhausting, sometimes, that I never seem to be able to do anything right in her eyes.
9.5. When I freaked out during C.’s tantrum on Monday, I noticed that some of the things I said/the way I said them was very, very like my mom, and I was horrified. (They fuck you up, your mum & dad…) But at least I apologized to C. For all my failings, I admit when I’m in the wrong. I can count on one hand the number of times in my life my mom has apologized to me. Usually, even when it’s something she started, I’m the one who has to apologize, otherwise she’ll send me passive aggressive text messages until the end of time.
10. After that blew over, everything was fine for a while. It was good to be back at our own house. The kids seemed mellower than they’d been in days. P. and I had some drinks in the backyard and watched the dragonflies swarm overhead. But then, after the kids were asleep…some rough stuff got brought up, and we were maybe not sober enough to talk about it calmly, and it turned into a big argument where we both yelled and I cried. He slept on the couch and I got in bed and cried some more.
11. But we talked again this morning, and things are better. I thought again of my tarot spread for the week, and thought: oh. Healing, transformation, breakthroughs. Sometimes those things aren’t pretty, and they’re seldom ever easy. The truth is, my mental health has been…not great…for the past month. I’m in kind of a scary place that I’m not sure how to get out of, but as of this morning I feel like I can. I also got on Facebook for the first time in a while, only to discover that a lot of my friends are going through some similar hard times. I want us all to make it, and be even stronger and happier on the other side of whatever this is. I still don’t fully know how to get out of my dark place, but I’m trying some things. Cutting way back on caffeine and alcohol. Making sure to exercise every day, depending on physical ability. Continuing to make art and seek out things that bring me joy.
12. Today was pretty good, overall. Took a long walk with C., wrote some, got my favorite chicken tagine simmering in the slow cooker. LOTD came out, and I think at least half the copies have already sold. Tomorrow, we are taking the day trip we were originally going to take last week. Backroads & burgers & Big Foot Beach, here I come.
13. Sometimes I feel like I get weirder & wilder as I get older, not less. Certainly, my life is more staid than it was in my younger days, and even my appearance isn’t always as outlandish. I think I need fewer outward exhibitions of weirdness and wildness now that my internal life is so much richer. Not saying my internal life was totally dull when I was younger, but…to paraphrase Patti Smith, I’m better able to live my life with balance and stealth now that I proceed with abandon in art and dream.
#ashtrayfloors#dear livejournal#i don't feel like tagging this all obsessively like i normally do#so#proceed at your own risk#there's nothing too graphically awful in here#but there is some talk of mental illness and familial dysfunction
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