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yellobb · 1 year

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15 Questions Tag Game!

Thank you so much to the wonderful, amazing, stunning @raenestee and @shrekgogurt for tagging me 🥰 I love oversharing and I love other people oversharing, so this was a lot of fun! I definitely wrote a fuck ton, so it's under a cut 😅

No pressure tagging: @onepintobean @frjsti @angelsfalling16 @skeedelvee @cutestkilla @moodandmist @petedavidsonscock @palimpsessed @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @gekkoinapeartree @confused-bi-queer @ivelovedhimthroughworse @aroace-genderfluid-sheep @martsonmars @chen-chen-chen-again-chen

1. Are you named after anyone?

My first (government) name is from my aunt on my dad's side and my middle name is from my great grandma :) The nickname Macey is something my grandma came up with, and it has certainly stuck! I dunno, my full name is gorgeous, but it's not really me, so Macey has always suited me just fine 😌

2. When was the last time you cried?

Relatively recently 😅 It was... last Saturday, I believe. One of my best friends got me the book Burn After Writing by Sharon Jones, which is essentially a journal that prompts you with different questions about your past, present, and future. I was stressed and anxious about my future and feeling generally shitty, so I cracked it open. I wrote for the prompt "You have 9 minutes to live and you have a pen and paper. You can get a message out to the people close to you, giving them the best that you have learned. Give them something to carry with them in their own lives. What do you have to pass on?" It was incredibly therapeutic, but I also cried a lot, since I wrote to my sister, mom, and grandma about the things I'd learned and what I wanted them to know. Idk, it was a great exercise in gratitude for the people I care about most in life while also making me think about the lessons life has taught me

3. Do you have kids?

Not yet! I hope to adopt or foster one day. I'm aroace and deathly afraid of pain, so having bio kids isn't in the cards for me, but I still want to help kids. I love working with them, so I hope one day I'll be in a place where I can take care of a few, whether temporary or permanent :)

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot?

Not at all lol. I only tend to around the people I've known for the longest, and even then I don't really like it. I just feel like I'm being mean when I'm being sarcastic, which isn't great. Not that sarcasm is mean in general, it just doesn't land when I do it, so I try to be as genuine as I can be. My brother got all the sarcasm genes lol

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

I'd say the way they behave, probably. Like, are they talkative or quiet? What's their mood like? Stuff like that. I'm notoriously unobservant about physical characteristics (I'd have to think about it to tell you what my best friend of over a decade's eye color was whoops)

6. What’s your eye color?

Brown! Not super dark, but definitely not hazel.

7. Scary movie or happy endings?

I'd say happy endings. I do like some good sad endings, too, but only in controlled settings, like fanfic

8. Any special talents?

Not sure what counts as a special talent, but I can play the oboe and alto sax, so that's cool! I also pick up song lyrics really quickly, have gotten a perfect score on the jetpunk name all the countries of the world quiz, and can imitate the Disney font, but only to write "Disney" lmao (proof attached) (my sister thinks this one is a whole ass personality trait)

9. Where were you born?

The eastern coast of Virginia! I can't get too specific since I still live there when I'm not at school lol

10. What are your hobbies?

I'm a serial hobbyist. I think it's an ADHD thing, but I want to learn everything, but I almost never stick with the skills I learn. I'd say the ones that I have right now are art, reading fanfic (this counts!), video games, watching YouTube, and hiking

11. Do you have any pets?

I do!!!!!!!! My family has a dog (Piper) and a cat (Wishbone). I also count my grandparents' dogs (Nip and Tuck) and cat (Toby), since I used to spend half of every single week at their house (not exaggerating)

Piper and Wishbone are both sweetiepies 😭❤️ They both are very lovey-dovey, though Piper is a lot more hyperactive. Piper loves to play and terrorize the local wildlife, but she always comes and curls up with me to take naps in the bend of my legs. Wishbone is more hesitant about cuddles, though she's always down to play or receive pets. She's lied on my lap three (3!) times, and it melts my heart, since she makes muffins on my tummy first 😭❤️

Nip and Tuck are brothers, and they're old men in little puppy bodies. Nippie is very calm most of the time, just wanting to lie on laps and get pets, but he's also a manipulative little bugger. He likes to drop his treats when him and Tuckie get them, bark until Tuckie switches treats with him, then abandons his new treats to do it again. Or drop treats and stare at them until Tucker comes to pick them up, then bark like a madman when he does. Tucker is more of a sweetheart. He's a butterball, since he tends to eat some of Nipper's leftovers, but that's okay. He likes attacking my hair lol. Both of them are big face-lickers (Tuck is on the left and Nip is on the right)

Toby is a fat asshole lmao. He likes being around people he knows, but you can't come too close or he'll fight you. He bullies the puppies (he's way bigger than them) to the point where poor Nippie has anxiety!

12. What sports do you play/have you played?

I tried a bunch when I was little, but dance and swimming have stuck around the longest. I did dance (ballet, tap, and jazz) from when I was a little 5yo (hehe I actually had a picture of me and my sister in our costumes on hand, so enjoy) until I graduated high school. I still enjoy jazz dance in particular a lot, but haven't really found an avenue to continue it casually yet

Swimming I've done since I was like 6, if I had to guess. We have a pond in my backyard, so my mom wanted to make sure my siblings and I knew how to swim just in case. I ended up doing summer league from 10-18 and being on the varsity team at my high school (not a high bar, I'm very slow lol). Whenever I want to get a workout in, I go swimming above anything else. It's just so nice to be in the water :) Also, my main stroke is backstroke since it's the best one no I will not be taking criticisms

13. How tall are you?

5'6"

14. Favorite subject at school?

In high school I was always a STEM gal (with an emphasis on the STE). Right now, I like my more creative ones, so human-computer interaction, cinema courses, or anything that involves creative computing :)

15. Dream job?

Something that I won't get burnt out on, that allows me to work later in the day in the day instead of early in the morning. I want to do something with virtual reality and/or video games, but in a position where I can do all the different things. Design the experience, make the art, make the script, and code the stuff. I just love the creative process of video games and the art you can make with it and am also obsessed with virtual reality as a medium :)

#m rambles #Macey rambles a LOT lmao #I spent a lot of time on this #I also spent a lot of time finding the best picture of Piper to use

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ziracona · 1 year

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For the videogame ask game 5, 7, 9, 11 :D

5: Game(s) coming out that you’re looking forward to

Hmmmm I guess the next Dark Pictures game, because I really like Supermassive, and I’m enjoying the series! Someday they’ll make another main series Fallout game, and I’ll be excited for that. I’m excited for the new Spider-Man determinately—not playing until I hear if they did right by Harry Osborn, because he’s a blorbo of all time, but if so, I will be over the moon. Wolf Among Us 2, like most people, and I’ve heard if it succeeds, Batman the Telltale series season 3 will be next and I desperately need to help John and Harvey and see what happens, so that too.

7: A series you’ve lost interest in

Right now I’d have to say Dragon Age, if this question means in a moving forward way? Like I still Adore Origings through 2, but DAI was so fucking horrible in a lot of the pulls they made that I have -200 interest in Dread Wolf or any new DA game unless the devs like, un-become shitty people. I felt genuinely betrayed by a lot of stuff they did in DAI, and I’m still very hurt over it.

9: A game you played completely blind with no prior knowledge of and enjoyed/loved

Hmmmm Oxenfree I think I just snagged on a PS sale? OH The Council is a fantastic little mystery/suspense/eldritch horror game, and I love playing titles where the ends aren’t even all known because it’s so branching and so few people have played (this was also my experience with Oxenfree, bc I played around launch back when people thought there just was no good ending). I googled like ‘suggestions for decision based games’ and that’s how I found The Council, but I hardly thinks subgenre counts as prior knowledge. — oh I could also say Fallout 4. I knew nothing about Fallout at all, and got a PS4 to play Until Dawn as many times as it took to save Josh right after launch, having played once with my brother on his. I came home with my system after a shady Walmart parking lot Craigslist deal half an hour away where both I and the seller were sure we’d be murdered by each other, and when I got home my brother offered me his copy of FO4 for ten bucks (a month after release, back when it was a sixty dollar game), because he’d beaten it and only plays games once. I owned no games yet and wanted to try out the system, and happily agreed. I’d never played an open world game before. Or one where followers had an affinity system, or branching choices in the large scale way, so my mind was blown. I remember Piper stopping me (literally) to tell me she thought I was a little bit of a do-gooder, and being amazed the game was keeping track of my actions and she had comments on it. Core system memory there. It’ll always be a special game in my heart.

11: Do you prefer ‘blank slate’ main characters you make yourself or otherwise project onto, or characters with a set personality and backstory?

I like both! I guess I prefer a little backstory though? Because a game like FO4 where you can chose almost everything but you had a spouse, kid, and specific job, solid building blocks to rp with while getting a more complex personality. if I start a game like Skyrim where there’s a fuck ton of backstory I don’t know for the world, and NO history for me, I have no idea how to RP correctly. Because I don’t have the social and historical context. Like, DAO? Okay I get a quick background. Tabris. I love in a shitty Alienage, humans oppress us, I’m getting married, here’s an overview of my immediate social and political system. A+ — my personality and feelings are mine, but I have enough context for the world and my species and class that I can rp well. DAI? Idk we assume you played the rest of the series and tell you fuckall. I was a mage Vashoth. I got ‘your powers that would have made you a threat back home made you a successful mercenary. People are afraid of your species though.’ I’m there for some meeting?? That’s nothing. I started DAI before any other game, and had fucking 0 clue what anything to anyone was, and I couldn’t even give ‘I don’t know’ answers to make that work. Terrible game design. You can’t assume every player in your franchise played all 5 games before this. I know like 30 people who started Witcher in Witcher 3, and it did a great job of giving us not only world background, but specific past game facts too, so we /could/ start in 3. Anyway uh, I like minimal but enough context to rp well out the gate I guess? But it’s also fun to like, play a Telltale game be Lee Everett or Bruce Wayne. Like that’s cool too, idk which is more fun. Both fun for different reasons.

Ask game

#thanks for asking! : D #tis-the-marmot #ask games

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seattlesea · 3 years

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✨My (maybe) Unpopular Heroes of Olympus Opinions✨

(maybe part one??? idk)

-I don’t really ship any of the main canon ships in HoO. None of them had any chemistry and most of them are either pedophilic, forced and rushed, or toxic in some way

-Most of the characters that were shoved into relationships (Leo, Nico, and Hazel especially) really did not need a love interest to complete their character arcs and their relationships ended up boring and flat cause Riordan just wanted everyone to have a love interest and it never went deeper than the skin

-Piper took advantage over Jason’s amnesiac state and manipulated him. She really went ‘But what if he has a girlfriend he can’t remember 👉👈 it would be wrong to start a relationship with him while he still has amnesia 👉👈 and cause it was based off lies and fake memories 👉👈 lmao imma just jump all over him and make him fall for me while he’s still amnesiac 🤪’ as if that’s not taking advantage over someone’s mental state

-And then she blamed her relationship being forced on Aphrodite and Hera saying they ‘forced her into a relationship’ and ‘arranged their relationship’ even though Aphrodite never said anything about or did anything to them and Hera gave Piper fake memories of them being a couple but it was Piper’s conscious choice to act out on those memories she knew were fake and her relationship was in no way influenced by anyone (especially Hera and Aphrodite) other than herself

-Shelper and Solangelo were way too rushed and forced (inside and outside of the books) and were only added for publicity, plus it seems like most of the fandom only like them cause they’re LGBTQ+ ships

-I hate Pipeyna and Pipabeth. My girls (especially Reyna) deserve better than some manipulative little girl who went ‘we were friends? no weren’t ❤️’

-The fandom portrays the characters really inaccurately (tweaking them a bit for humor is fine, but changing their entire personality is a different thing)

-The movies actually aren’t that bad when not compared to the books (I mean, you gotta admit- it’s pretty good effects for 2010)

-And speaking of the movies, they did a better job at portraying Thalia and Annabeth’s relationship in one movie than Riordan did in 5+ books

-Speaking of which, Riordan wrote pretty much every platonic friendship that weren’t Thalia/Nico and Reyna horribly and most of them shouldn’t have been friends and wasted all the potential for the good friendships

-Calypso should’ve joined the Hunters, not Reyna

-Annabeth and Piper are horrible friends lmao (separately and together)

-Silena is a hero and deserves redemption, but Luke doesn’t despite most of the fandom agreeing he does (he was a pedophile y’all)

-The fandom over-exaggerated the Tartarus fall, it wasn’t really that bad tbh

-Reyna is stronger and a better leader than Annabeth

-Annabeth’s intelligence is more tell than show (and quite a few characters including Leo, Reyna, and Octavian have shown more intelligence than her)

-Riordan over-glorifies and overpowers Percy way too much. Just cause he’s the main character doesn’t mean he has to be the best of the best after barely 8 months of training (four years at CHB only in the summers is 8 months total)

-Speaking of which, Jason can beat Percy (8 months versus Jason’s twelve years) and so can Annabeth, Reyna, Thalia, Hylla, Luke, Hazel and maybe Frank and Nico. Percy’s skill is overrated and unrealistic

-And I feel like most of the fandom knows that Jason can beat Percy but just doesn’t want to admit it cause they like Percy more

-Same thing with the Greeks and Romans- the majority know the Romans are stronger and can easily beat the Greeks but they don’t want to believe it cause they favor the Greeks more

-Percy and Annabeth shouldn’t have been part of the Seven, they already had their chance to shine. Riordan should’ve brought minor characters into light instead

-And Piper shouldn’t have been part of the Seven either. Riordan really expects me to believe that she’s stronger, more powerful, and a greater/better hero and deserved to be part of the Seven more than Reyna, Nico, Clarisse, Thalia, etc.?

-Riordan’s women line-up of Reyna, Annabeth, Hazel, and Piper was really cheap and boring (Avengers: Endgame women line-up who?)

-Percy (in HoO) and Piper are easily some of the worst, most underdeveloped characters Riordan has ever written

-Annabeth got really bland and weak in HoO and couldn’t do shit for herself without others (especially newbies) having to help and/or save her. She pretty much became exclusively Percy fangirl

-As much as I like them, Frank and Hazel don’t have what it takes to be Praetors and Reyna and Jason should’ve stayed as them

-Jason’s whole ‘am I more Greek or Roman’ arc was dumb af

-Riordan’s bias towards the Romans is also dumb af (the Romans could beat the Greeks in an instant)

-Jeyna is and always will be 1000x better than Jiper

-Hazel is the most powerful demigod (way more than Percy and even Jason)

-My hot take on who should’ve been the Seven: Reyna, Nico, Thalia, Frank, Hazel, Leo, and Clovis (son of the god of sleep puts Gaea back to sleep who?)

-Riordan confirming Piper bi was a cheap move to make her more likable. It didn’t even make any sense. A character is confirmed LGBT only after they become a minor character despite being a main character before and kisses some random unnamed girl only three months after her ex-boyfriend whom she still loved dies??? girl what??? Kinda obvious it was just for publicity. Like- Riordan, honey, the LGBTQ+ community is not a circus you can plop your characters into to make them more entertaining❤️

-The PJ series as a whole isn’t that creative. It’s legit just a copy of exactly what past mythological figures have already done and a bunch of character tropes and clichés shoved into one book

-And in general it’s not even that well-written (like HP, it’s over-exaggerated a lot)

-All of the romantic relationships and platonic friendships are extremely unrealistic. Like they never argue/fight, disagree, etc. (then grow stronger from those fights) at all??? Even if they’re complete opposites???

-Reyna is the best-written character in the whole series and a queen she deserved better and y’all sit on her too much

-Theyna is ✨amazing✨ their dynamic and chemistry was just *mwah Pansexual Muslim blessings to you* and people are allowed to ship them even though they’re Hunters and swore off love

-Rachel doesn’t deserve all the hate she gets. Y’all hate on her cause she crushed on Percy when half of you are doing the same thing and then y’all go and ship Percy with Nico, Jason, Artemis, Athena, etc.

-If y’all want to hate on Jason for ‘not having a personality’ you’d also have to hate on most of the main HoO characters except Reyna, Nico, and Leo (and maybe Hazel) for the same reason cause they have the exact same problem tbh

-Zoë and Bianca’s deaths weren’t actually that sad. We didn’t get to see them enough nor did they have enough development for their deaths to have a real impact. The only sad thing about them was Zoë’s last words and Nico’s reaction

-Thalia needed more time in the books

-Reyna was the only main female character in HoO that wasn’t a boring, bland Mary Sue that all the other characters automatically loved. She was the only one with real flaws and distinct personality traits she’s my queen

-Piper, Annabeth, and Calypso did have flaws but the fact that they weren’t called out by other characters or even noticed are what makes them Mary Sues. It doesn’t matter how many flaws a character has, if they’re not called out by other characters (more specifically, other protagonists who actually like them) they don’t count as real character flaws

-Riordan can’t write female characters for shit

-Clarisse, Drew, and Octavian deserved better than being completely antagonized for no explained reason other than to make the protagonists seem better and to make the readers root for them. Those three had more potential than most of the Seven combined

-The whole ‘Aphrodite kids don’t train’ thing is bs. It’s specifically stated that all the demigods follow a strict schedule and have to follow it or they’ll be on stable duty or smth and the Aphrodite kids shouldn’t (and can’t) be excused from that

-Therefore, Drew should be way more powerful and skilled than Piper, at least enough to not back down automatically from a duel by a newbie who hasn’t even learned how to fight (Drew can control an entire cabin of people at once and Piper can barely control one person at a time, who’s more powerful again??)

-Also I have no idea why Riordan portrays all the Aphrodite kids as weak and girly in the first place. ‘Femininity’ and ‘weakness’ are not synonymous and ‘love’ and ‘beauty’ don’t equal ‘feminine’

-Speaking of which, love is actually really powerful but Piper doesn’t stand for love or ‘inner beauty’ and all her ‘thoughtful/insightful’ quotes in ToA/TBM about love were complete bs

-Riordan using the LGBTQ+ community for the sole purpose of making Piper seem more likable and ‘special’ was disgusting and proves he thinks that straight is the default- “...Or Hera’s ideas of what a perfect couple looked like. Piper finding her own way, not the one people expected of her” my ass. In other words, he’s saying ‘The expectations for love and the idea of a perfect couple are a heterosexual relationship, and anyone who 'finds their own way instead of the ones people expect’ are different’. ‘Different’ and ‘default’ are antonyms, so if you think LGBT people are different, then you think that straight is the default. Aphrodite is the goddess of love not heteronormative bullshit. Like Riordan, honey, you’re the one who thinks that the expectations for love and the idea of a perfect couple are heterosexual couples, not fictional gods from a fictional mythology. Remember kiddos- an author writes their own beliefs

If you don’t agree with some of these that’s fine sis it doesn’t matter if you have different opinions than me❤️

#heroes of olympus #opinion #unpopular opinions #percy jackson #annabeth chase #jason grace #frank zhang #hazel levesque #leo valdez #reyna ramirez arellano #reyna avila ramirez arellano #thalia grace #nico di angelo #zoe nightshade #bianca di angelo #will solace #clarisse la rue #octavian #ships

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phoebehalliwell · 4 years

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I loved your cataloguing all of prue’s potential kids!! Like the detail that went into it is *chef kiss* I can’t wait to see what story you come with with Sheridan and Warren! Also, that post got me thinking, what do you think would have happened had Andy become a whitelighter and come back? How do you think that would have effected his and Prue’s hypothetical kids? Like would one of them been the twice-blessed do you think?

it’s 2.2k under the cut bc idk how to shut up

okay so for a whitelighter!andy & prue i think The Move would be like in the s3 finale the source has tempus reverse time but then like idk knocks out leo or whatever because he knows that without him there both prue and piper will die from their injuries what he doesn’t know is that there’s a certain other whitelighter who will watch from the fringes check in but not interfere for risk of being caught going against the rules but when he sees piper and prue inches from death and no way leo can get to them in time, andy has to make a choice. he has to heal them. oh but now we have the elders all pissy because whitelighters are only supposed to work with their own charges their not supposed to run around freelance healing other people’s charges that’d be chaos so clearly there needs to be some consequences and andy’s ready to like gracefully take whatever’s dealt out to him and prue’s like I Think The Fuck Not and like goes to bat for andy talking about how she would have been dead without him how the charmed ones would be gone without him really rains hell down on the elders so they’re like ᵒᵏᵃʸ ᶠᶦⁿᵉ ʷʰᵃᵗᵉᵛᵉʳ ʷᵉ ʷᵒⁿ’ᵗ ᵖᵘⁿᶦˢʰ ʰᶦᵐ ᶦᵍ ʸᵒᵘ ᵈᵒⁿ’ᵗ ʰᵃᵛᵉ ᵗᵒ ᵇᵉ ˢᵒ ʳᵘᵈᵉ blah blah blah so prue and andy talk in the heavens and it’s sorta awkward at first bc prue’s like so. you’re not dead. that’s good. bc you know. you’re not dead. and andy’s like yeah. but like he’s reading the subtext here bc he Knows prue and she’s saying i’m so happy your alive but i’m really hurt that you never told me. that i mourned you and thought you were gone forever but you weren’t you were right there. and andy’s not entirely sure what to say bc like. what was he supposed to do. and he understands how prue feels but he couldn’t have just orbed in like hi i’m a whitelighter and you’ll never see me again it was better for prue to mourn and move on so she that had a shot at happiness but now he’s face to face with her and what i thought it would be better for you? it sounds hollow so instead of trying to explain himself he just says the first thing that comes to mind i never stopped loving you and he’s ready to orb back into the ether or whatever bc while the elders won’t punish him for saving prue & piper they’re still not jazzed and he’s still not allowed to interact with them when prue kisses him and tell him like i lost you once i’m not about to do it again marry me. and like they’re married within the hour bc by now the charmed ones have done this before they can do it on a speed round mode and the elders are like hey we said- and prue’s like sorry i can’t hear you over the sound of holy matrimony suck my balls blah blah blah like end season 3 i’m not sure when prue would have her first child though and if it would predate wyatt bc like. y’know her career’s still very much in its early stages she’s still on the up & up and her and andy haven’t actually like been together in a minute so there’s a lot of catching up to do whereas like piper and leo have consecutively been together longer she’s owned p3 longer than prue’s been a photographer so she’s already p locked in on that & she can do her job sitting down which is a plus. so i think in a whitelighter andy au wyatt will still be born first but patricia will be born within the same year, maybe six months after wyatt and i don’t think wyatt would really be like the twiced blessed bc like patricia would be Right There and he’s just no longer special enough to really warrant a prophecy y’know? i also think in this au it would take longer for prue and andy to move out bc y’know like again they just got andy back but i think she would still be out of the house by the end of season four beginning of season five ish i also think like the thing they really didn’t consider is that their kid’s gonna be half whitelighter so when piper’s like yeah have you vomited orbs yet lmao prue’s like wait. especially bc like andy’s only been a whitelighter for like a year or two and they’re both like oh word what does this mean and like they have leo and sorta piper to answer their questions but it’s sorta like they’ve got this vibe that no matter what happens like we’re in this together we have each other’s back we can do anything real power couple vibe they’re very like sappy like they’re aware they’re sappy & they’re not gonna stop.

& then a bit on sheridan & warren bc in the specific au i’m gonna write them in it still starts the same as it did here but i am keeping prue’s canon death in s3. and so like s4 the twins are still toddlers and i think piper and phoebe would still offer to watch them on like weekdays or whatever bc they still have a bedroom in the manor and jack still sorta lives in a bachelor pad and like the kids do have magic powers and jack definitely is there more and shows up more bc those are his kids and one day he shows up and there’s a demon attack and he like knew prue fought demons but he had never y’know. been in the line of fire so to speak and he’s like does this happen a lot and piper’s like yeah sort of and phoebe’s like there’s no need to worry warren and sheridan are totally safe here and jack’s like really because the scorched wallpaper begs to differ and piper’s like we understand your panic but like we can keep them safe and jack’s like no i don’t think you understand my panic those are my sons they’re my only kids and they’ve already lost prue i’m not. i’m taking them with me. and like the girls get where he’s coming from (paige is also here she just doesn’t really know jack so she’s hanging out with leo in the kitchen like 😐) basically they bind warren & sheridan’s powers and phoebe modifies the dominus trinus (now the dominus dualis ig) and tells jack that when they’re ready this will give them their magic back. and so like he moves them into his place but it’s not built for kids and so he’s on the hunt for a new place but also like a new jobs bc like bucklands blows without prue and almost everything there reminds him of her and he really just needs a fresh start so when he gets a job offer in japan he packs his bags & the three of them are off and then it’s like maybe four years in japan and then we’ll say he goes to new york and that lasts maybe two years and now warren and sheridan are like in elementary school and he knows the hopping from place to place isn’t like good for them and he really needs to settle down for a place that’s gonna be like Home and he knows he has to return to san francisco. so 2007 he’s back in san francisco he does not cross paths with the halliwells again and he sorta feels like he should bc like sheridan & warren Are Witches that’s like part of who they are and like he and prue had agreed before that they would raise them with magic because prue wishes she had known she was a witch she had always thought that had she had come earlier to the craft she could have done more good maybe not lost as many people and jack knows he has to unbind their magic eventually especially bc that was what prue wanted and like prue was always right but like. fuck dude. his kids were wizards. witches, whatever. like how is he supposed to raise kids with magic. like should he just go back to the manor and be like hi raise my magic kids for me he doesn’t want to do that those are his kids he doesn’t want to dump them off somewhere much less the place where their mom died so basically he keeps postponing it he keeps blowing it off and the kids are growing up normal & safe but still it’s gnawing at him bc it’s not what prue wanted and he doesn’t want to send them into the world unprepared and like sheridan & warren are like sixteen now and he’s like fuck. fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. what am i doing what am i gonna do i don’t know a goddamn thing so he’s like fuck it. hi god it’s me jack. i don’t believe in you and i don’t really believe in praying but here i am on my knees bc i’m lost. i think i’ve fucked up but i don’t know how to make it better, i want to do the right thing but i don’t even know what that is, would love some like. guidance. or something. i guess. and he like waits because like magic is real so like. hey god. do something please. and nothing happens and he’s like whatever this is why i never went to church blah blah blah That Night he dreams he’s at p3, which is weird because it’s been closed for like eight years and jack hasn’t thought about it in like twice that long but that’s where he is. and it’s like empty and a bit messy like there’s been a concert but now it’s late and everyone’s gone home. everyone except him, and the raven haired woman at the bar. prue. and listen jack doesn’t cry okay he doesn’t saw marley and me and like didn’t even sniffle (lie, he cried) but he sees prue and well uhh he’s crying a lil bc like fuck. he misses her. and he misses her confidence and the way she always seemed to have the right answer and could always manage to save the day and he misses her. and he’s like i hope you’re here to answer my prayers and she smiles at him bc he’s always so glib and stupid and it drives her up the wall but she still loves it about him and she’s like actually, i am. and idk she talks with him and quells his fears and he’s like how do i even bring that up to them he guys you’re wizards -witches. yeah that. like how do i even broach that. and prue’s like get the spell. and be ready. and she just sorta vanishes and he’s like cool are you gonna save the day like you always do but he can already feel she just isn’t there anymore and he’s like okay :/ and he wakes up and it’s like three am and he wants to go back to bed the whole magic thing is just niggling at the back of his mind so he gets out of bed and hunts down his old briefcase he had from all the way back at bucklands and finds just like a blank unlabelled folder and takes a deep breath and in it are some old photos of prue and him from the 90s and a thick folded up piece of paper with a torn edge and he carefully unfolds it and in like a really nice script is the unbinding spell and then like warren and sheridan are like dad? why are you awake right now and he’s like why are you awake right now? and they twins sorta share a look and warren’s like weird dream and sheridan’s looking over his dad’s shoulder and sees the pictures of prue and is like is this mom? and he takes the pictures and jack’s like yeah those are from. they’re from a long time ago. and sheridan and warren are looking at these pictures and like they wanna ask something but aren’t sure how to say it so jack goes first and he’s like your mom wanted you to have this and hands them the spell and they’re like what. is this? and he’s like its a spell. to unbind your powers. magic powers. i know i should have told you earlier and i’m sorry but i- are ghost real? what? like. can dead people... y’know... and jack breaks into a smile bc he’s so glad that they actually got to like. meet prue. have at least one memory of her. and so sheridan and warren take the spell and are like. so do we read it? and jack’s like idk i’m not a witch yeah i guess so y’know hear now the words of the witches, the secrets we hid in the night. the oldest of gods are invoked here. the great work of magic is sought. in this night and in this hour, i call upon the ancient power. bring your powers to we brothers two, we want the power, give us the power. and like the apartment shakes and idk the lights flicker and the brothers are like cool. now what. and jack’s like i don’t know. guess we’ll find out.

#throwback to before i know how to put a cut in an ask #and would just post massive blocks of text #bc like #i;m not gonna edit these #charmed #andy trudeau #prue x andy #jack sheridan #warren halliwell #sheridan halliwell #💌

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sugainmycoffee · 6 years

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Yoonmin Fandom Metrics

Last month a survey was conducted to analyze the metrics of the Yoonmin fandom. Here are some of the responses:

Of these 903 responses, 826 of them (92%) of the respondents had selected that yoonmin are their only ship, their main ship or one of their main ships. This group is the one that will be focused on for the rest of this analysis. (Also was that one person lost? Did you get home okay?)

Of this focus group who mainly ship yoonmin, the bias distribution was:

Unsurprisingly, Min Yoongi and Park Jimin, the two individuals responsible for the YOON and the MIN in yoonmin, came out as the top two biases’.

However, Min Yoongi, with a staggering count of 453 votes (55%) heavily outweighed all the other members, hereby proving that he was in fact not fucking around when he claimed “Sorry mom, your son’s too popular,” in his Mic Drop verse.

As a follow up to these results, respondents provided their second bias (if any) to help the other members stand a chance against Rap God Min Yoongi.

(He still took a whopping 23% of the votes).

The most interesting part about these graphs is that it alludes to the fact that most yoonmin stans bias Yoongi (not Jimin, although he is obviously second in rank). This is probably due to the fact that of the “popular” bangtan ships, Jimin’s name comes up multiple times. Thus Jimin stans are more evenly split in who they ship Jimin with, but there are not that many “popular” Yoongi ships.

A little more detail on the focus group and how they came to stan bts and ship yoonmin is summarized in the following graphs.

BTS’ popularity has grown exponentially, with the greatest increase seen from 2014-2015 due to the release of their HYYH series. A parallel trend was observed in this analysis with the growth of the Yoonmin Fandom.

The next part of the survey focused on “Secondary Fan Creations” as Mr. Bang likes to call them. This includes but is not limited to: fan art, fan fiction, photo edits, video edits, blog posts, memes and so forth.

The results show that 99% of us are on Tumblr for the right reasons.

In terms of creating fan content, 31% of the respondents bless us on the daily with their contributions to the fandom. (Amen.) The rest of the majority enjoys and wishes to contribute to doing the lord’s work. 2% of the respondents who consider yoonmin their main or only ship do not create or want to create fan content because they think it is wrong (and that’s okay - to each their own).

The next question was the most revealing and one of the most important to this analysis. Of the 861 responses, 640 voted that the reason they ship yoonmin is due to their relationship / interactions themselves. Only 2-4% of the respondents said they shipped yoonmin because of how they look together/aesthetics, fan content, external influences, or the availability of yoonmin materials in the fandom itself. This outright disproves the common (and tired) anti-yoonmin stan (and “rare pair” stan) claims that yoonmin is usually shipped for these reasons.

Of the 30 respondents that chose “other” their reasons often eluded to specifics moments / interactions by yoonmin. Some of the more notable mentions are:

“They look like they understand each other’s struggles.“

“Their real and supportive friendship, they know each other's limits and share their vulnerabilities, so soft for each other, involve each other in the most intimate parts of their life.”

“Everything?? Idk they just vibe with me best, they're lovely and sift but also savage and have a really fun dynamic that i enjoy best.. they calm me when I’m upset as well which is like surprising bc I don’t calm down easily. +their soft moments like the earlier answer.”

“Because Yoongi is so whipped for Jimin and they look at each other like they have galaxies in their eyes“

“They look like they are real / they act like they are married / they honestly seem like they’re in love.”

“the way they are with each other in general. platonic or not, they love each other, care for each other a lot and it's nice to see. “

“From what I saw, it felt very real. Like yeah, I could get that super unbreakable bond with all of the BTS ships but for some reason, Yoonmin just stuck out for me and it felt really genuine and not just for fanservice.“

“Just...everything” (Many of you said this or voted for multiple categories from the above so everything x 10)

“You Know” (thank you Anonymous, I do know :’).

There were so many other great ones yoonmin is such a soft ship with even softER STANS istg but I won’t post them all here but you can see them in this supporting post.

It is commonly believed that ALL yoonmin stans only ship them because of the “typical” subby bottom jimin/ dom top yoongi stereotype. The data below proves this is untrue - as 34% of respondents don’t care at all or like all dynamics equally, and 18% prefer a more balanced switch relationship dynamic. Combined, the votes for these categories make up over 50% of the responses, signifying that, no, not all yoonmin stans, in fact not even the majority of yoonmin stans, ship them for this reason.

It should be noted though that, of the 48% of fans who expressed a preference for a specific relationship dynamic, 5% preferred top jimin and 43% preferred top yoongi (so yeah, top yoongi is more popular, but only to the minority group of the stans who actually have a specific dynamic preference).

Similar results were observed for which dynamics yoonmin stans feel are most realistic.

FANDOM FAVOURITES

Special thanks to my partner in research @syubd ♡ who organized and compiled the below lists of fandom faves.

Note, I have removed the “N/A” and “All” from the rank to more accurately reflect individual favourites. Furthermore, I have removed myself from the rank to eliminate an obvious bias as it is my survey most of the people who took it would be my followers (but thank you to all the people who chose me as their fave!)

TOP 10 FAVOURITE YOONMIN BLOGS

N/A - 260 votes

All YM Blogs - 107 votes

@yoonminist - 182 votes

@yoonmin - 97 votes

@foolsyoongi - 64 votes

@yoonminficrec - 48 votes

@parkjizzmin - 41 votes

@softeyoongi - 37 votes

@jimiyoong - 27 votes

@yoonminedit / @yoonminfiction - 25 votes (tied)

@mintysugasweet - 22 votes

@yoonminnet - 19 votes

Other - 217 votes - LIST OF OTHER MENTIONS

Comments: Congrats to all of the above! The real winner is “N/A” and “All YM Blogs” so tbh if you run a ym blog, don’t be discouraged, you all out here being amazing and we appreciate it!

TOP 10 FAVOURITE YOONMIN ARTISTS

N/A - 474 votes

All YM Artists - 107 votes

@knart95 - 144 votes

@artofennun - 52 votes

@yuniizu - 42 votes

@kkumri - 30 votes

@finny-red - 22 votes

@NanoNoonie - 19 votes

@askjeon / @min_x_minmin - 14 votes

@kharys - 10 votes

@colorcalamity - 8 votes

@thaidesu - 7 votes

Other - 109 votes - LIST OF OTHER MENTIONS

Comments: Congrats to all of the above! Special shout out to literally all fan artists that share their talent with us on the daily. You make this fandom what it is!!

TOP 10 FAVOURITE YOONMIN AUTHORS

N/A - 342 votes

All YM Authors - 122 votes

@MissterMaia - 161 votes

@Sharleena - 71 votes

@sugamins/BabyLove - 70 votes

@mintsoda - 43 votes

@PrettyBoyKiller - 35 votes

@springrain21 - 29 votes

@momora - 28 votes

@staticscreen- 22 votes

@jflawless - 19 votes

@Elemir - 16 votes

Other - 475 votes - LIST OF OTHER MENTIONS

Comments: Congrats to all of the above! LOOK AT THE DAMN OTHERS LIST. SO MANY GOOD AUTHORS TO CHECK OUT!

TOP 10 FAVOURITE BTS SONGS

N/A - 9 votes

All - 23 votes

Spring Day - 41 votes

Intro: Serendipity - 24 votes

Tomorrow / Blood Sweat & Tears - 20 votes

Autumn Leaves / Save Me / Mic Drop 16 votes

Young Forever - 13 votes

Rain / I Need U - 11 votes

Pied Piper - 10 votes

Let Me Know / Baepsae - 9 votes

Lie / Sea - 8 votes

Love Is Not Over / House Of Cards / BTS Cypher 4 - 7 votes

Others - 140 votes

Comments: This category was added to the survery much later and therefore did not have as many responses as the others above. Nonetheless, there’s seems to a correlation between who you ship (yoonmin) and fave BTS song. Many of the songs on this list have “yoonmin parts in the MV/Choreo” like Spring Day and BST, or are song’s where the two have particularly shined and / or produced. (They might also just be on this list because they’re lit songs in which case truuuu I agree).

DEMOGRAPHICS

YM SURVEY DEMOGRAPHICS: GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION

Overall, there were ym stans from 74 countries and/or regions that participated in this survey. The below countries were home to 10 or more respondents:

USA - 292 respondents

Germany - 44 respondents

Canada - 33 respondents

UK - 29 respondents

Brazil - 26 respondents

Australia - 24 respondents

Philippines - 24 respondents

England - 20 respondents

Indonesia - 20 respondents

Mexico - 20 respondents

France - 18 respondents

Portugal - 18 respondents

Italy - 14 respondents

Singapore -12 respondents

Sweden - 12 respondents

Turkey - 10 respondents

In addition 15 respondents declared “N/A” to opt out from providing their location information.

Other - 195 respondents (Click To See Complete List of Respondent Countries)

Argentina - 5 Armenia - 1 Austria - 7 Bahrain - 1 Belarus - 1 Belgium - 2 Chile - 9 China - 2 Colombia - 5 Costa Rica - 3 Croatia - 5 Czech Republic - 5 Denmark - 5 Ecuador - 1 Estonia - 6 Finland - 9 Great Britain - 1 Greece - 6 Guatemala - 4 Hong Kong - 2 Hungary - 5 India - 8 Ireland - 7 Israel - 1 Jamaica - 1 Japan - 1 Kuwait - 1 Lithuania - 1 Macedonia - 1 Malaysia - 9 Maldives - 1 Malta - 1 Morocco - 2 Nepal - 2 Netherlands - 4 New Zealand - 5 Northern Ireland - 1 Norway - 3 Pakistan - 2 Palestine - 4 Peru - 1 Poland - 8 Romania - 6 Russia - 1 Saudi Arabia - 2 Scotland - 2 Serbia - 2 Slovakia - 5 Slovenia - 1 South Africa - 3 South Korea - 1 Southeast Asia - 1 Spain - 9 Switzerland - 4 Thailand - 3 Trinidad and Tobago - 2 Ukraine - 2 Vietnam - 2

THANK YOU ALL FOR PARTICIPATING IN THIS SURVEY!

#yoonmin #sugmain #yoonmin fandom metrics #ym survey #yoongi #suga #jimin #afkdsjlafjlskdjfkla #ill post more istg #theres just alot to sort

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rorykillmore · 6 years

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oh i know youve rped one of the Charmed Ones before but who is ur favorite?? (if u have one) and who do you think is/would be the most fun to play as?

i always have a really hard time picking a favorite sister because. idk i grew up with the characters and in a weird way they all feel like family to me??? i love them all for different reasons, and i guess an easy way to answer would be to say that like, there are certain seasons/arcs in which one sister becomes my favorite, or just certain periods of my life where i relate to one more than the others.

there is a lot in the early seasons re: piper’s and ESPECIALLY prue’s stuff that tends to hit me the hardest, but i do in a way have a special connection to phoebe i guess, if only because she’s the one i rped the longest? i actually have also rped prue (for a brief period of time on pandora) and recently months ago on denny i yolo’d paige (idk why piper is randomly the only one i’ve never actually tried to play) but phoebe is just. she’s special to me because i’ve spent years playing her on and off alongside fate’s piper, and she feels like a character i really grew into over all that time? i have a lot of fond memories of rping her tbh

and a lot of her character stuff just in general appeals to me; like in the early seasons she’s so free-spirited and openminded and generally just loves being a witch and that’s a really contagious energy?? and this wasn’t entirely intentional on the part of the writers because it wasn’t planned for prue to die but i really like how. her growth over the first few seasons, her learning to become more grounded and responsible and empathetic, flows really easily into the arc she has when paige comes about going from being the baby sister to being the middle sister and having to learn to mediate between piper and paige more.

and even then she still makes a lot of mistakes (boy that’s understating some of her arc in seasons 3/4) and always struggles a lot with worrying about the darker side of her nature and seemingly being the sister who’s most drawn to the “dark side” and without spoiling the specifics of that stuff... she comes out of those arcs with a lot of fear and lowkey issues of self worth and i always found it easy to connect with her over that.

(okay to gush a little bit about one specific thing, phoebe has. a fucking disaster of a love life as you’ll see a few seasons in, and there’s one relationship in particular that really scars her and leaves her disillusioned about love in general and she eventually gets into a brief ship with a character who was secretly sent there to teach her how to heal and believe in love again even though it was never meant to be permanent and i’m sorry i am SUCH!! A SAP FOR THAT STUFF!!)

anyway...... all that being said, i had a lot of fun rping paige when i tried her. paige as a character also appeals to me for her own reasons. like when they introduce her in season 4 the writers clearly knew it wasn’t going to work to just, try to replace prue, so they really highlighted a lot of paige’s struggles to feel like she belongs in this family she never even knew about, and a lot of piper and phoebe’s struggles accepting her, and a lot of it is so poignant!! and i love the unique perspective paige approaches the magicial community with as a result; her sharp wit and fierce independence and guarded emotions and the underlying compassion that makes her a good witch and whitelighter in spite of it all. a lot of the rp potential behind paige... really appeals to me because i would be reaaaally interested to explore whitelighter/charge relationships in panfandom as well as just getting to sink my teeth into writing paige in general.

picking her up properly or possibly trying to rp phoebe again have definitely been on my mind i’m not gonna lie.... but We’ll See

#thanks jay!!#i love all these girls #jougletmann

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davidjjohnston3 · 3 years

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7.24.2021'Reflections of a Russian-Romantic-Orthodox-Post-Soviet Obstetrician / Aspiring Catholic-Post-Reformation-Unified-Church Pediatric Neurosurgeon (Divider of Freak-Conjoined Child-Brains) cum. Bethlehem College and Seminary M. Div. Global Studies + Savior of Worldwide North Korean Studies + Policy + Final Flaming Sword Destroyer of Democrat Intellectual Arrogance, Child-Hate, God-Hate and Anti-Korean Racism' Flaming swords that divide people, change the world, change souls... Russia's determination to remember tragedy as well as mercy and a spirit of gentle adoption whereby they treat students and other young people much different from what I did; also Russian anti-Nazism - everlasting I imagine - in an age when respect-me-or-die attitudes, moral purity, intellectual hubris and Scientism, messianic corporatism and much else are either being accelerated or badly necromanced as everyone tries to settle every little score (an easy way to forget all the starvation, organ-harvesting, betrayal of human promise that is going on every second). I'm only writing this because it's 7:08 in the morning and it's easier to write than not to write. Lately I developed the habit of 'Holding the Dream' to paraphrase the title of a Nora Roberts novel about children that I tried to turn in to 'Project 521' in a gentler time. I read a C.S. Lewis essay though I forget which one, perhaps 'Home,' about being known. When I read this essay at night it reminds me of a more trusting whole time as does Knausgaard's 'A Time for Everything' whose title is a joke at several levels; a book I'll finish reading, if I even finish 'Autumn' which is my favorite work of his about an unborn daughter, a 'notebook-letter-bouquet' which is a genre I appreciate.For a while I felt I was close to greatness and that my mind and heart were in unison with those I most respect around this globe such as Chancellor John Piper with respect to abortion-culture - playing God - but no matter what I say this is a Maoist era in which power has to be backed by guns or other 'hard' resources. I was also compelled or perhaps tempted to provide background for my spiritual development which in retrospect attracted 'assassins' who were only interested in cherry-picking my worst moment. I honestly came to feel that there is some 'unconditional evil, unconditional hatred' in some that makes them - no matter how nobly they speak or how hard they worked in the past - determined to destroy something at the end rather than build something or help someone or do what they said they would do.I wondered if I blasphemed someone or something so that God allowed the Prince of Darkness through these people, every professing Christians or family-members. People are talking about spirit and intellect and insight but forget that Lucifer has all these in abundance. I've had some delusions and kept responding to people outside of myself. I learned a lot about people whom understanding was without purpose or profit as a) telling them to themselves, that their expectations were wrong or criminal or sadistic or nihilistic or of the party of 'the protest of ultimate futility' - the messaging whereby someone says ultimately nothing matters or you don't matter - was never going to alter their mindsb) this increased experience of human / spiritual evil didn't really constitute increase of knowledge, wisdom, understanding but only more 'CCP-esque pimp-love lie-fare gas-lighting brain-damage; brick to the head' or to put it more gently a wrong emphasis of factors which distorted mood or disposition as an orchestra with good rehearsal, preparation, and conductor could be eroded in the wrong hands over time, and people were just trying to wear me down in a 'Bleed France White' war of attrition against everything I've tried to be and do I also realized of late the time had come to give up certain perquisites that I had had in mind to one day gain or 'help myself to.' At the bottom of my soul I guess I always wanted to cash in; someone else on FB after the miraculous sparing of my life in 2012 started spreading around an experience that I had had with a student in 2012 which was nothing like the K-wave NC-17 version could have been the CCP deepfake character-assassination pretext for WW3 or Covid unrestricted biowarfare against white guys. Words can't fly back in to the mouth that once let them out and at this point I have no idea what my legacy could be - or in a way hopefully no one even cares anymore although I suspect they keep some version of the story somewhere for a dinner-party IDK why I am saying this; you can reason with some people / try and teach them but if they have no compelling reason to change they might just savage youI wondered lately whether some people really believe. They want life but their interpretation / understanding or imago of life - who knows? 'Tomorrow will be like today only more so' (Isaiah, mutatis mutandis). They might love life or hate life but they want it and they also often don't care where it comes from, which is part of why right now the debate over social justice or the fact that so much in the United States comes from outside of the United States, or the fact that poor Millennials et al. are often still unable to get married and have children while Boomers ride emperor-on-palanquin- style on top of the Social Security system and reproach us for believing, like the title of a novel about Shanghai, 'What We Were Promised' at the breakfast-table or in (public, Democrato-Maoist-intellectual-town-bike-fruitbasket) schools about freedom, self-esteem, magic - world peace, nuclear disarmament, the 'salvation' of the natural environment, outer space, technology, non-traditional families, racial reconciliation, international adjudication of breaches of international law and esp. enforcement of human rights. It struck me several times in recent months and years that the rulers, the sovereigns, the princes and great captains of the nations I admire such as Israel and Korea were often either a) special forces soldiers (such as Moon Jaein, Ehud Barak)b) human rights lawyers (Roh Moohyun, Moon Jaein again)c) spies (the individual who might actually have closest to total control of world-events right now; or at least the ultimate veto of everything and everyone, with variable selectivity and specificity / detail) I don't know if I was overreacting or what; I was comfortable with my 'modest income' from mental illness and felt adequately justified since I was engaged in respectable activities; I felt I hadn't really had a moment's rest in life since I was about 4, constantly shot at, judged, abused, thrown to wolves etc. and blamed for my own problems since I 'didn't "make" daddy____.' I even believed I had a chance to re-emerge since everyone amid Covid appears to be essentially on the same side. Before recent events I event felt an 'FDR-moment' / 'New Deal moment' was feasible under Biden though I now see clearly I believe that JRBJr. can't control his underlings, staff, et al. as FDR was able to do; and America and the world are simply too complicated. Vladimir Putin was saying - and he doesn't always lie - basically that constitutional democracies are too weak. Neoliberal+ shills, 'Wahh bureaucracy, Milton Friedman, grist for our mill, cliche, cliche, eat the poor, abandon the weak, post-partum-abortion, God is dead' but a lot of these people are part of a bureaucracy as well and Russia's got government bureaus, CCP does, Korea does. Anyone who ever loved or admired Confucius or studied China knows - though many such as Ezra Vogel and Tu Weiming and some dumb-ass Australians and Indian-Singaporean pervert this knowledge for pleasure and profit - what can be achieved through sincere, spiritual, loving, reverent, educated, talented, qualified, also beauty-loving, statecraft.I guess the only question in a way is whether Microsoft themselves have nuclear weapons or Google built the guidance-systems or something and that's not an LRB title though if I had lived a purer life to this point I might be on staff there or at least they'd welcome me in the cake-shop. Howbeit at this point my 'last wish' is kind of to die in Korea where they journalists are NOT affected or mercenary, and the rag-picking of ppl like me is not fake or ultimately egocentric / meretricious / simulacrum or sham-virtue (again I hate to talk about Nietzsche since I wanted to move on to just David Platt, Saint Augustine, John Piper, John MacArthur, global Christianity 2022). Korea's also, I noticed, a country where the Covid body-account appears to be honest and I know for a fact, as Dr., Prof, much else Eric Feigl-Ding has been talking about on Twitter about 25 hours a day, a country in which the Democrat mentality of 'you got sick you're stupid' or the Milwaukee mentality of 'you got sick bypass watch you die joke at bar but we're still good Christians South Park Satan must be good to be evil sometimes' isn't in effect and people have resolved to do everything they can both to prevent and to mitigate as well to contain or pocket though no one wants to talk much about that. Like I said the other day I wish I were in Korea; I also had a dream about one of those free-standing station-stops in rural Japan that reminded me of 'Cafe Lumiere' by Hou Hsiao Hsien and a conversation I had with Prof. Ban Wang fmr. Rutgers and last I checked Stanford about how Japan had built these intricate rail-systems in order to help preserve rural culture. Another good film about rural Japan is 'Hanamizuki' although IDK if post-Covid anyone is going to want to talk again about micro-sized kindergartens, the Iraq War, fishing, the meanings of trees, following through on commitments or promises, or returning gratitude and love. IDK whether the stuff I read over the last 5-10 years about housing-prices in places like rural Japan or, alternatively, Vladivostok are as low as I've read but if they have good internet I might go if only b/c people there aren't interested in teaching you every lesson or extracting the max. from you then leaving you to die in the name of 'getting to know one.' There's a short Somerset Maugham book called 'The Moon and Sixpence' though I don't admire Maugham that much and prefer his literary criticism / critical appreciations of other writers and cultures to his fiction but it feels like what some people are looking for today is more like 'huge amounts of money, charming personality, offer we can't refuse, satisfying sexual favor or we either vivisect you or pozz you up with 1st-gen anti-psychotics / kill you with ECT and still deny the exist of God, as well as demons.'My other privileged Millennial friends are all mad at me for not bearing fruit and my 'last love' said I dishonored my parents but Koreans & maybe they don't get just how much Mark Johnston et al. are totally committed to reversing course at the most destructive possible moments and never paying what they said they'd pay; like how terrorists will sometimes detonate one bomb for the civilians and another for the first responders on the scene - though maybe I just ran out of chances.

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paraclete0407 · 3 years

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All the books I read in Korea, ‘Vita Nuova’ and ‘On Love.’ IDK why I became such a miniaturist later as well as pornographer. I literally realized today people love pornography, love isn’t too weak a word. It’s dear to them. It really warms some people’s hearts. I remember reading in a magazine from NY I don’t look at anymore how old men love it so much.

Sexual frankness was en vogue for a long time when I was a kid in the Bill Clinton era and everyone found it funny till they realized Clinton, Epstein, Dershowitz and pedophilia isn’t really funny. Later K-wave put a different spin on it since it’s so raw as if to say ‘I’m above this all and can say anything’ but it’s still violent and it trample’s people’s valid dignities and decorum.

I literally spent so long hung up on Houellebecq and regressed; ‘Elementary Particles’ is visionary if flawed but some part of me decided it was too sweeping so I concentrated on ‘Whatever / Extension of the Struggle’ and the figure of the lonely stranger girl in the nightclub, exemplar of a ‘sacrificed generation.’ I wrote so much impertinent fiction fascinated with these sacrificed girls without ever grasping that they have better options than to become object-lessons in the callousness of society. Timothy Keller’s ‘The Meaning of Marriage’ is revelatory as it reminds, the nightclub sexual liberation culture can be escaped not through Romantic individualism or self-esteem / -regard but remembering husband and wife are one flesh - it’s secure, invulnerable. I always thought about running away.

My family are mad at me and my dad still appears to want to know something about my inner life which I’m afraid is a lingering ghost or recapitulation of the now-decades-old Boomer-v-Millennial college culture thing where all these dads were like ‘drmdrmdrm free oral sex on campus?! - I hate my son let’s execute him and steal his co-ed friends.’ Chad Kultgen stuff but even more psychopathic, homicidal-suicidal. I didn’t even do that; I just heard about it in the magazine from NY I don’t read anymore because its whole message was, ‘I’m going to go on observing myself abusing myself and consuming myself and analyzing my consumption of experience forever as if nothing will ever change.’ People who never did the math on the pandemic and ‘water.’

I truly feel as if right now Saint Augustine of Hippo is watching over the whole world which, John Piper reminds us, was ‘cursed in hope.’ What is at the bottom of the pandemic, the sudden questioning of freedom, the openness to communism and totalitarianism, the ambivalence regarding all private life and private ownership and proprietary supply-chains and chains-of-care (such as ‘my child you leave him or her alone’ it does not take a village), if not the rediscovery of Original Sin, the tragic cursedness of sexuality or ‘woundedness’ of sexuality, that it was supposed to be great but it led to all this dejection and grief and actual permanent loss.

I remember many pieces of piano-music which I hoped to learn but in a way the most personal piece to me is Beethoven’s opus 109 / Sonata 31 final movement, ‘Gesangvoll mitt Innigster Empfindung.’ To me this is the ultimate statement on a couple’s tearing each other apart and ending where they began with the same beautiful yet vain regret. How many times do you have to punctuate the same sentiment? Just walk away; toward the new day.

‘After that I moved out of there.’ I really did give up on the details of man-woman love-relationships after 2011; I decided I would get a wife-in-a-box or just be single forever. There was a Korean girl I liked in 2010 who made me change my mind about Shanghai-Beijing-and/or-Harbin v. Seoul and I was friends with her friend too but said something really terrible that in retrospect prefigured my teaching-career’s failure as well. ‘She is a complicated woman 23.5 years of history.’ ‘I can simplify her.’

I was like some communist social engineer. I really flattened out my own character into an .XLS of sorts and believed I could do the same for others. Years later I regarded how Lee Sooman had studied robotics in America, became hung up on more non-religious non-Christian ‘special electric sauce’ books like Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Love of the Last Tycoon.’

I feel as if all of this is in some distant way, ‘mental North Koreanness.’ ‘Love is broken, people are fools, Dad hit Mom, Dad is a man-child, cannot face himself, doesn’t know his own intentions or motives, obsessed with being understood sans understanding, Mom was bricked in the head, the priest molested my sister, Ki Hyungdo, I will eliminate freedom with a colossal everlasting permeating Monolithic Ideology and give everyone precisely what is right for them.’

IDK whether I ought to say this but ‘Last Tycoon’ crystallizes and incipits(?) at Palm Springs International Airport which is a place where something happened to me. But North Koreanness appears almost totally Faustian, samurai-like in the worst sense.

IDK if I should say but someone I respect and admire and esteem immensely is the CEO of NKNews who supports food-sanctions (that at other times I think is a form of US state terrorism as well as diametrically anti-biblical) and I could almost understand in one way why America would choose to feed Soviets in the past but starve North Koreans b/c something truly went horribly wrong. During my last (intellectually) intimate love-relationship we touched on the Pyongyang Revival & why did all of that get blown away? It’s truly a testament to the power of Satan and the fragility of human purity and innocence.

There’s a novel someone else I really love was translating for free about ‘pleasure squads’ and these women being daughters of someone and I took this scholar to task for his ‘Japaneseness,’ his oneiricity, his vagueness, begging the question when he could actually answer with guns blazing. I get mad at Hwang Sokyong and want BR Myers to stomp Bruce Cumings for being a hippie as well as for constantly trying to correct American East Asia Studies when soon enough Western EAS won’t really matter because Asians are no longer yoked to traditional blinkered methods of scholarship or historiography. Like just give up, Asians are figuring themselves out and Western EAS is also highly mercenary and in many cases naively enamored of Confucianism, Maoism, platonistic messianic communism. Every scholar’s convinced he knows ‘the one thing other Westerners don’t know about China’ but a lot of it again comes down - I realize - to the same quality which makes me a mental North Korean; namely men being hung up on the little points that made them money, special, competitively edged.

Maybe it’s neither here or there. I’m time-traveling. The best book I saw recently before my life fell apart was ‘I Am Kim Jieun’ whose specificity astonished me. It was a mystic experience to look at, searing, black and white; I felt something similar when translating Ku Sang. I realize however that this ‘absolute specificity’ itself became an idol, to me - heart-idol, soul-idol - that exacerbated my intellectual belligerence and rendered me even more severely mentally North Korean than ever before. ‘David Johnston Global Offensive.’

Everyone I care about in any case seems to be dreaming of Saint Augustine of Hippo, this man who wanted his little wife, his happy students, caring Mom, silly but avoided Dad, son Adeodatus (’God-given’), but ended up rebelling against liberal education and realizing that infants are evil and depraved in many ways. Christianity today hesitating between a new engagement, a farewell to ‘cultural Christianity’ and ‘Christian nationalism,’ the question of freedom of religion or, as John MacArthur points out, acknowledging that religion and freedom are incompatible in the in the American secular understanding of the word ‘freedom.’ Freedom to die, freedom of death, perhaps a hundred million or more abortions. But was St. Augustine a quietist who turned his back on the world? Did he say go home? He was advising the Roman general Beliarius and provided an immortal pastoral reflection on traumatic sociohistorical upheaval in ‘City of God.’

I still feel wrapped up and flattened out. Today I remembered ‘The Teacher of Creative Writing’ which was my too-late apology to a former student for whom I wrote a good-but-not-great essay-letter and game good but not the best advice. I wanted to tell her Cambridge UK has fewer anti-Korean rapists than Harvard but I wish that I had simply talked about God. She turned up on FB a while back doing all these ‘luminous ampoule face-gel’ bed-pictures which Russian men commenting and stuff(?!). ‘Tis part of why I turned my back on institutional Christianity - to my very abiding regret - and started thinking in ‘Baudelarian’ terms again with songs like f(x)’s ‘Butterfly.’ ‘I want to get inside your twisted logic / white-faced mysterious you.’

I sigh. Thank God today kids maybe can get the specific wisdom they need from devices or something instead of wanting to believe in someone like me who as more of a image of a leader-teacher-priest than the real thing. I really am in more trouble than these kids who simply allowed themselves to be vulnerable, I feel. No less had I been more pertinacious and decisive and staid I might have had that room full of books in Itaewon with the spiral staircase instead of being so far away in a place where no one’s really interested or apt. Another matter of which I have been tragically slow to take cognizance is the inferiority of creativity and conceptualization to redemption and Resurrection. Today I guess AI can create almost anything but I keep trying to crack ‘Hope in Times of Fear’ and truly hold fast to the knowledge that I can weather what’s coming and give up whatever I will need to give up if I remember that I don’t have to keep inventing and scheming and imagining and surprising everyone. I keep hearing the word ‘Sadducee’ in my head. The methods of Christianity are available to all and everyone is talking about Thomas Jefferson doing vaccine-experiments and a guy whose slave’s name was ‘Onesimus’ though the NPR reporter didn’t know about St Paul and his spiritual family; but the lynchpin of Christianity is still the Resurrection and Yeonmi Park may have a point about America becoming mentally North Korean if the methods of Christianity are catholically and rigorously implemented without conviction in the mystery and miracle of Christ’s being ‘first born of the dead.’

I’m 100% certain at this point there are people who want to murder me but Yeonmi Park has a very big point to make and I’m concerned for her as well as her way of conveying the message. So many people think she’s a huge harlot and Kim Jong Il is a sympathetic anti-hero; they hate her for having a few million dollars. My dad’s furious at John MacArthur for having a net-worth of like 15 million dollars and a nice watch; Bill Gates still has like 70 billion or something and is bragging about saving lives while 100 million kids are backsliding into poverty, starvation, possible trafficking due to I used to be this way as well, always having good ideas then worsening them deliberately. I remember reading on Wikipedia how love-shyness destroys careers; of all the things to be ashamed of, true love, holy love, an augury of Eternity and immortality, recognition of the Imago Dei (Image of God) in the other. ‘Why hold your beloved friends and family fast when you can talk about spaceships to Venus?’

Covid and the people on the street 100% love Bill Gates. Everyone’s afraid of Christianity; they’re love-shy; they’ll always take the second-best thing..

The world is really mentally ill and I wish I were living on an airplane writing speeches for JD Vance 20hrs a day but JD Vance is a brand too dueling people about Tucker Carlson and I can’t message him on Twitter (’100 million kids? - that’s something but first establish yourself and pay your dues in the profession by writing a 1,000 page dissertation about Tucker Carlson’). I’m about 1.5 years too old to join the SJ (Society of Jesus / Jesuits) by my last investigation. I just wish I had given my best over the last year and a half instead of ‘tracking’ matters for so long and gathering so much evidence without replying or responding.

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hwiyyoung · 6 years

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SF9 in Boston Member Impressions

Okay so I still need some time to process everything. But basically every member of SF9 is so talented and beautiful and a wonderful human being. And I’m shook by all of them. This is going to be super long so I’m putting it under the cut!

Youngbin highkey seemed really tired. His moves weren’t as sharp as they normally are, and a couple of times I saw he was a quarter beat behind on the choreography. Nothing super big but I think SF9′s busy schedules have been taking a toll on our leader! He still worked really hard to interact with fans and he seemed happy. Also his ENGLISH. Dude. I was VERY impressed with it. He spoke very clearly and his pronunciation was spot on. He also seemed like he could follow the MC’s comments without needing Inseong to translate.

Inseong was amazing and I’m shook by him. He was already a biaswrecker for me along with Taeyang but he has officially shoved Taeyang over to be my #1 Official Biaswrecker. I was sitting in the second row of the mezzanine level and from the lighting angle/maybe because the shape of his eyes every time he was center and singing, it looked like he was staring straight at me/my area. You can definitely feel his passion for singing by watching him and all around he was energetic and happy the whole night.

Jaeyoon OH BOY. This boy was HYPER AF the entire night. While each member was doing their special fan-chosen talent he kept standing up and doing this weird wiggle dance thing that was half-cute and half-sexy? And that basically describes him the entire night–just busting out random dance moves and being an all-around great and goofy performer. Did I mention that he’s actually BEAUTIFUL? He’s so so pretty. I’m jealous. And his voice. Damn. He sang a bit of “Believer” by Imagine Dragons and my heart stopped.

Dawon MY HYPER SON. This kid is downright dangerous. He was crazy hyper like Jaeyoon and super extra per usual but also there were a million moments where I screamed out loud because of him. Example A: there was a point where he was just wearing his black t-shirt and he rolled up the sleeves because he was hot ‘n sweaty and DAMN. HIS ARMS. HIS ARMS. Idk if someone has pictures or videos but I need them now. Anyway he was super happy and energetic and basically everything I expected from him.

Zuho has amazing stage presence. Like I swear I was trying to watch Hwiyoung and my eyes would just naturally wander over to Zuho because that boy just takes up space on stage. Not physically per say but he definitely is very confident and he was super relaxed when performing and interacting with fans. During one of his raps (either Fanfare or Roar I can’t remember rip) he took off his jacket and FLUNG it across the stage and I straight up melted. Literally every time it was his part the audience got ten times more hype. Also he was so cute with his fanservice especially to the mezzanine and balcony levels! He made sure to do things specifically for the balcony level (the highest level) which was really sweet of him. Also during the last chorus of Easy Love he slipped and fell but was super professional about it and got up and kept dancing and had this stupid grin on his face the ENTIRE time all the way to the end of the song so you knew he was having a good time.

Rowoon is so so so so so handsome. Like I already knew that before the concert, but seeing him in real life? Mind-blowing. He was super sweet and also seemed pretty hyper compared to what I was expecting. Bless him for elongating Taeyang’s girl group dance by pointing out that Taeyang’s butt looked really good dancing to Very Very Very (IOI) and telling him to dance again with his back facing the audience. He like Zuho was also really great with fanservice to mezzanine and balcony levels. AND he killed the English tongue twister (it was the Peter Piper one).

Taeyang like Zuho also has amazing stage presence. There’s just something so intense about his eyes?? Basically he looked like every fancam I’ve seen him in, flawless as always. He was also super greasy with the winks and body touches and his smile GOOD LORD HIS SMILE IS BEAUTIFUL. His English pronunciation was also really good!

Hwiyoung my bias my shy baby my everything asdfghjkl. He is SO FRICKIN BEAUTIFUL. SO HANDSOME. HOLY MOTHERALKJLGLSDVKJFHL. Every time he rapped in a song he would smile to himself for a solid five seconds and his. stupid. smile. makes. me. want. to. throw. myself. at. a. wall. He seemed really happy throughout the night, even if he was a lot mellower than most of the other members. That’s pretty normal for him though. Anyway he and Chani played the 참참참 (cham cham cham) game and he lost so then he looked at the MC and asked, “one more please?” and I lost it. His English is so cute. His pronunciation is not the greatest, but it’s still understandable and literally I love everything about him. Ugh.

Chani like his dad Youngbin also seemed pretty tired to me. :( But he still tried his hardest and I was very impressed by the energy in his dancing! Also he was SUPER extra during his special fan-chosen talent. Fans apparently said they wanted “wild” Chani over “cute” Chani in the SubK survey, and so Chani being the little shit he is went “I prepared something. But I need a wall and there is no wall.” At that point, the girl sitting next to me and I both screamed “I VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE” lol. Anyway, Chani made Taeyang and Rowoon stand side by side to be his wall and had Youngbin stand in front of the “wall” to act as Chani’s girlfriend. THEN CHANI FKIN SHOVED YOUNGBIN AGAINST THE HUMAN WALL AND KABEDON’D HIM. (if u don’t know what this means dw I’ll gif it soon) ALL OF US LOST OUR SHIT. THIS KID. Also I knew his voice was low but I didn’t realize how low it was until I heard it in real life. It was actually crazy. Anyway yeah I’m sorry I didn’t really take a lot of time to process my impressions toward Chani like I did for some other members but I’m pretty sure he also had fun and I hope he gets a lot of rest when he goes back to Korea because bb looked like he needed a long nap!

#sf9 #ot9 #sf9 in boston #personal #my writing

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comicteaparty · 5 years

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March 25th-March 31st, 2019 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party week long chat that occurred from March 25th, 2019 to March 31st, 2019. The chat focused on Tamberlane by Caytlin Vilbrandt.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- WEEK LONG BOOK CLUB START!

Hello and welcome everyone to Comic Tea Party’s Week Long Book Club~! This week we’ll be focusing on Tamberlane by Caytlin Vilbrandt~! (https://www.tamberlanecomic.com/)

You are free to read and comment about the comic all week at your own pace, so stop on by whenever it suits your schedule! Remember, though, that while we allow constructive criticism, our focus is to have fun and appreciate the comic. Below you will find four questions to get you started on the discussion. However, a new question will be posted and pinned everyday (between 12:01AM and 6AM PDT), so keep checking back for more! You have until March 31st to tell us all your wonderful thoughts! With that established, let’s get going on the reading and the chatting!

QUESTION 1. What has been your favorite scene in the comic so far? What specifically did you like about it?

QUESTION 2. Where do you think Tamberlane is from? Is she from Abroad as some characters have suggested? What do you think Tamberlane’s past history is? Last, what do you think will happen when Tamberlane’s origins are uncovered?

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

Yay! Hi all! I can't wait to talk about Tamberlane with you!

I'll add my answers to the discussion when I'm more awake =w=

Delphina

I remember reading the first chapter of Tamberlane once upon a time; so happy to have the opportunity to catch up again and see where it's gone!

I love just about every scene with Oakewood or Piper because they're both hilarious, but this one probably wins for me. He's such a good reverse psychology grandpa. https://www.tamberlanecomic.com/tamberlane/page-94/

Close second is Piper's brilliant plan because I am also a saleswoman at heart: https://www.tamberlanecomic.com/tamberlane/page-110/

Delphina

All signs definitely point to the idea that Tamberlane is from Abroad, and I'm very curious about what's so scary about it. (My guess is that it's the world of Humans and animal-types get treated like animals there, which would explain their fears). From the conversation with Tagg and Danger, I suspect there's internal conflict in the land of Abroad (a plague? a war?), and Tamberlane was sent out baby-on-the-river-style by a well-meaning mom that wanted her to have a better life. Tamberlane seems to be good at making friends, though, so I think even if they confirm that she's from Abroad, the community will still accept and protect her. It very much feels like "it takes a village to raise a child" is a big central theme in this comic.

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

Oooh, that's an interesting theory!

I definitely wanted to explore It Takes a Village in this story for sure

I didn't grow up in any tight-knit neighborhoods and our distant family was either extra distant or just not close emotionally, so I don't really know what that kind of mentality is like on a personal level. I wanted to see what I could figure out with a story like that. :3

As for MY answers......:3c 1. My favorite scene in the comic so far is probably still this one dang page because it came out exactly like I wanted it to in my head.

2. Obviously I can't comment much on this due to spoilers, but I do think when her origins come to light, people are gonna flip their dang lids. :3

Delphina

I think you did a really good job of conveying a close, loving community! I can tell even between minor characters there's a lot of kindness and support in this setting and it's very refreshing to read!

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

Yaaaay :D

I know for a little bit early on in the writing, I was planning a more contentious environment around Belfry ("what a hassle") but then was like, who wants to read that? Not me. Screw that, lol

RebelVampire

QUESTION 3. At the moment, who is your favorite character? What about that character earns them this favor?

QUESTION 4. Why do you think Follybrook is held in such low disregard? Who exactly are the creatures who occupy Follybrook? Also, what do you make of the rumors that Follybrook residents are disappearing because of something happening Abroad?

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

Hmmm, my favorite character is hard to choose. I love them all. But right now, I'd say probably Belfry. She tries so hard, and she didn't get a lot of spotlight in Chapter 3, and I really want to do more interaction with her and Tamberlane in Chapter 4.

As for Follybrook... :3

varethane

I like Briar! Something about her combination of moodiness and compassion just gets me, haha

Delphina

Briar is an MVP for sure

varethane

Oakewood and Piper are second (I'm really enjoying watching Oakewood pretend he doesn't actually CARE about Tamberlane, he's just studying! It's not parenting, nope)

(Piper because she is a hilarious troll)

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

Briar has a special place in my heart for sure! She's me when I was 13, lmao. Though, a little more confrontational than I was XD

varethane

I dunno about Follybrook, though I get the impression it's closer to Abroad than Treehollow is? Which I guess might be why it's being affected first by whatever's happening out there.

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

You are correct! Follybrook is on the "border" of Abroad. Sort of the last gasp of civilization so to speak.

varethane

(yess)

Nanners

Oh damn, was not expecting lore when I popped into this channel

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

Mwahahaha

Delphina

Belfry is definitely a sweetie, but I feel like I need to see her not in crisis and/or mom mode to really connect with who she is and what she's about. I'm looking forward to more stuff with her in Chapter 4 and the scenes with her and Tamberlane are always very sweet, but I'd also like to see more of who she is as an individual when she's not being defined by her relationship to others.

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

That is a good thing to note!

varethane

same, re: Belfry

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

-scribbles notes- All I'd heard so far from folks was wanting more scenes with her and Tam, so that's a good thing for me to think about going forward!

Delphina

Oakewood is probably my favorite too because he's clearly got this "big fish in a small pond" sort of wisdom and crusty outside/softie inside personality that's just perfect. I'm looking forward to how Milo's introduction might accent or challenge that.

(Also does Milo have a pet moth because I want 40) https://www.tamberlanecomic.com/tamberlane/page-125/

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

He totally does

A big ol fluffy moth named Sophie

Delphina

Awwwwww, Sophie looks so soft!

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

Since he's a cameo, in the reference character that was provided, he actually had a pet spider!

But I decided I did not want to stare at reference photos up close of a spider

So Sophie became a moth XD

Delphina

Oooooh

varethane

oooo

RebelVampire

1) my favorite scene is probably the one where tamberlane tries to help the crow guy and the crow guy goes all prejudiced. and then oakewood swoops in and calls her his grandaughter and yells at the guy. i like seeing tamberlane still trying to be helpful, but i also like oakewood way more clearly defining their relationship cause that opens up a whole new can of worms and kind of adds some vulnerability to him. also, has a great ending where milo comments on this and oakewood tells him to shut up XD https://www.tamberlanecomic.com/tamberlane/page-140/ 2) i think Abroad has been mentioned way too much for Tamberlane to not be from aborad. This is not to mention a) they don't know what a human is and b) they seem relatively unfamiliar whats going on in Aborad land. So i mean, all the clues only point to one place. unlike @Delphina , im actually assuming a darker route. cause tamberlane seems kind of neglected so im not sure this is a situation of well meaning mom. more like mom who might of tried and gave up. im also less optimistic about ppl saying its fine tamberlane is from abroad. cause there seems to be a lot of built up prejudice there and man, idk. prejudice is hard to just flip at the turn of a hat.

Delphina

But yeah, if Follybrook is super-close to Abroad, then that sorta explains why the villagers treat them as social pariahs more than "those kids with their piercings and bad attitudes who are only let in once a year". The big drama in which Tess revealed that if Belfry went there for even a GOOD reason like trying to care for Tamberlane, she'd be full-out exiled was pretty shocking. Because yeah, if Abroad was simply dangerous and full of monsters, I can't imagine why it would be wrong or bad to come back; the big fear would be that you WOULDN'T come back. It seems like Abroad almost has a demonic/evil status in their minds and that they believe (rightly or wrongly) ANY contact would fundamentally change a person or attract something bad. I just struggle with the fact that if Abroad has so much mindshare in the fabric of their society, and if Tamberlane (and maybe all humans) are from there, absolutely nobody what a human looks like or have any stories that might help them identify Tamberlane as one? If there was something big and scary that I was to stay away from at all costs, I'd want to know what it looked like.

RebelVampire

3) my favorite character is definitely oakewood bar none. i am a sucker for grumpy guys. but i especially like oakewood cause hes not the stereotypical grumpy guy. cause usually old grump guys are the most prejudiced. but in this case oakewood is actually the more forward thinking of the bunch. when everyone else was telling belfry to just abandon tamberlane hes just like "nah come live with me." and then tolerates her clumsiness and all that jazz. its great contrast that plays on expectations and i love it. 4) I assume the creature occupying follybrook are just regular creatures. but ya know, prejudice and all that. which i think the comic does a good job of showing through example how prejudice works. all the characters weve known seem to have this fear and sort of "they're different think" about them. so as a reader you cant help but think "oh they must be different" even tho that might not necessarily be the case. As for the rumors, I assume theyre based on truth. Maybe some secret slave ring or something. Though not sure what it has to do with what might be going on in abroad.

yeah you make a good point @Delphina . for a place they seem to hate so much its just flat out exile, they dont seem to know much about it. or at least anything that theyre willing to talk about yet. which its strange even follybook folks who are closer are just kind of vague about what they know of abroad

Nanners

Hey @Caytlin (Tamberlane) , you mentioned that you spent a lot of time making the bartering system. Tell us about it!

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

I can say, at least, that a lot of these topics will be broached in Chapter 4! :3 I can't wait to see reactions, haha

AS FOR BARTER! Oh god the barter system. I read some novels, did some research on different kinds of monetary systems. The world of Tamberlane is sort of a socialist utopia where folks' basic needs are taken care of and the town bands together to care for each other. You do work for the town, the town does work for you. So there's not a lot of, like, "how much does this cost" so much as "what of my work can I trade you"

Which! Let me just say, I have a HELL of a time trying to write and get that across

If I did it over, they'd just have a dang money system lmao

Nanners

I dunno, it makes sense that a small town would work on a trade and favor system. I live in a tiny neighborhood in the country, and things tend to work like that

A side quest economy, essentially

TimmoWarner

This isn't story related (or only tangentally), but I love seeing the groups of pallette changes when you look at all the pages in a grid on the archive.

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

Oh yeah it totally makes sense! It's a good story decision! It's just difficult to get across narratively and causes more confusion than it helps when it comes to telling a story

Also :'D Thanks Timmo!! I really enjoy having different palettes for different scenes!

Folks are just more used to parsing "I bet you five bucks" rather than "I bet you six months of library research"

Nanners

I bet you 15 pounds of pickled beets

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

It's much easier when you have a good like that, yeah! Trying to figure out what Oakewood would offer was tough XD

Nanners

Does scowling count as a good or service?

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

It's like a kissing booth!

But it's a scowling booth

2 pence per scowl

TimmoWarner

Oakewood offers access to the "good" books in the back room.

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

"Y'like that, do ya? Yeah?" "Oakewood... this is a book about gardening" "THE BEST BOOK ABOUT GARDENING, THANK YOU"

TimmoWarner

Exactly.

Nanners

Is it cannon that Oakewood's a good DM?

Delphina

I would totally play DND with Oakewood

He would totally murder the party though

Nanners

What class would everyone be?

Milo as a wizard, obviously

Henry as a paladin

Belfry cleric?

Delphina

(Except she keeps rolling critical fails?)

Nanners

Constantly rolls low on cure wounds

Delphina

-7 Dexterity

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

Oh oh I was thinking about this recently lol!

Tess is a Barb for sure

Belfry might be a wild magic sorcerer lmao

I totally can see Oake as the DM though yeah LOL

Delphina

Oake would be constantly complaining about all the weird stuff the players do.

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

"Rrrrr, another five minute break, I DIDN'T PLAN FOR THIS."

TimmoWarner

So... the climax is the coyote character was right all along?

I thought... we'd fight a monster or something.

"Why would you want to fight a monster?!"

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

LOL

"The real monster was your stubborn refusal to accept the truth all along"

TimmoWarner

Haha

(Though I suspect Oakewood actually likes swashbuckling stories.)

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

He does; he also likes romance

He's a cranky old softy

TimmoWarner

I think I knew about the romance.

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

Yeah, that was one of the first character Q&A comics

Delphina

I can definitely see him taking a stance of fictional relationships being so much better than real ones because when you're done with them you can put them on the shelf.

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

Lol! Omg so true

darch

It's late, but I just found out about this, so some thoughts until I get to be around when other people get to be around.

(1) My favorite page is definitely page 81. Because (a) the punch line is fantastic, (b) it lands right in the middle of a really emotional scene without undercutting the emotion even a bit, and (c) it is the most perfect summation of the Belfry Existential Dilemma, which is made up of two parts: (i) you can't mess this up and (ii) you are going to mess this up. Magnificent.

(2) Tamberlane is from the future. Obviously.

(3) With apologies to all of the well-realized and multi-faceted characters at play in this story, Sophie is and shall always be my one true love because SHE IS SO FLUFFY AND I LOVE HER. My opinion is extremely biased; Milo is my cameo (though not my Cameo cameo, that would be weird) and worth it just for the fluffbug sidekick.

darch

Milo was original a My Little Pony character of mine, and I continue to think that having a spider sidekick is great. For a look at Midnight Sun and Sophie before they were translated to the Tamberverse, have a look at [cw and spoiler because spider]

SPOILER

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ff7o7k5jda5pfgo/midnight-sun-the-adventurer.png?raw=1 (that art also by Caytlin).

RebelVampire

QUESTION 5. What has been your favorite illustration in the comic so far? What specifically about it do you like?

QUESTION 6. What do you believe happened to Belfry’s biological parents? How might Belfry’s abandonment issues regarding them play a role in how she raises Tamberlane (both positively and negatively)?

RebelVampire

5) okay. ill fully admit this is not the most epic illustration i could pick, but i really love this full body of tamberlane on this page https://www.tamberlanecomic.com/tamberlane/page-100/ tamberlane was always cute, but this is the one where my heart was stolen. like everything about her look is precious and makes you want to snuggle and protect her till the end of days. and i also like how contrasting it is to how she was before, so even without words you can tell time has passed and growth has occured and i really like. 6) Honestly, I think theyre imprisoned some how. But tbf i ironically want them to be alive and fine and showcase its the fact they were auto exiled thats the problem. And that they couldve been with belfry at any time but nope, rules and prejudice and such. but thats just my headcanon. I'm more interested in how itll affect how belfry raises tamberlane, and in a lot of senses i think its going to be a negative impact. like i feel belfry is kind of obsessed with making sure tamberlane feels loved and accepted. and while on the surface that sounds great, what happens if she has to punish tamberlane severely? is she going to panic tamberlane not feel loved and not do it? is it going to be lighter than it should? belfry already showed when she took in tamberlane that shes hyper conscious about her abandonment, and i dont think tamberlane alone is gonna make that hyperconsciousness about it go away. but on the otherhand, maybe by association others will confront belfry and make her talk about her feelings.

lonelytuatara

to reiterate what i said in the general webcomic chat: i only just started reading and the art is soo pretty!!

lonelytuatara

continuing to read: belfry pulling the pie out of the oven without mitts..... child.........

darch

She is a problem.

lonelytuatara

:O the "ghost"!!!!

lonelytuatara

"congratulations, it's a swamp monster" made me chuckle

lonelytuatara

got to page 100! tamberlane's lil pigtails are adorable

lonelytuatara

all the way caught up now! i really liked the comic and i'm excited to continue following it!

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

Aaaa yay :'D I'm glad you're enjoying it!!!

lonelytuatara

i'm gonna let it sink in for a bit before i go to answer the book club questions, but overall I found it a enjoyable mix of comforting and intriguing! im always glad to find stories where trans and nonbinary characters are treated as just a normal part of society

darch

There are many things to like about Tamberlane. The gorgeous art and casual representation are high on that list for me.

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

./)//w//(\

I will get around to answering the latest q's in a bit. I'm pretty wiped out today =w=;;; but! I am super happy people are enjoying the comic and convo :'D

Rebel, you made a great point about how Belfry obsesses over Tamberlane. I love it.

anonus

Tamberlane is a beautiful comic

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

Thank you! :D

kayotics

so, i just started, like... 10 minutes ago so I'm not very far, but the art is extremely cute and i love the expressions and colors. Really great shapes on all the characters. the main strokes of each character's personality is painted straight away in a really strong way, too

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

Oh my gosh, thank you >u<;;; I'm so glad

anonus

@Caytlin (Tamberlane) so, um, how did you come up with the idea for Tamberlane?

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

So! I had spent a couple of years trying to write a comic and was just writing myself in circles and running into walls. Finally I got really fed up with not having a project so I said, FINE, next story idea to come into my head, I'M JUST GONNA DO IT. And then during D&D the next week I was doodling creatures and I drew Belfry and Oakewood and was like Ooo I like them. Then I drew Tamberlane's previous form, a little dragon, and was like oh hey they're taking care of an unknown creature, that's fun! And then I was like, actually a little dragon is not weird enough to set her apart from a buncha animals ... Oh hey what about if she's human?? And within a month I had started the comic haha

I wanted to challenge myself to do a project where I allowed myself to make mistakes and not be perfect and not worldbuild myself into a pit

varethane

I think that's pretty important, is the willingness to be flexible and play around

with longform webcomics, when it takes so long to make something, and you're working on the same story for years..... people grow as creators, and as people, and develop different tastes and learn things..... and it'd be a shame to not be able to express that if you're stuck to the same script you wrote 5 years ago, lol

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

Exactly!! When you think about like every longform webcomic taking like at least 5 years ... there's not a lot of years where you can be creating compared to the number of stories in your head.

And I really just wanted to make something and get my hands dirty. So it's been a really interesting experience, half following a plan and half throwing it out the window lol!

varethane

for what it's worth, from a reader's perspective, it flows very nicely

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

Thank goodness, haha! I always worry. XD

anonus

yeah it definitely flows nicely

also I've never played D&D

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

D&D is a lot of fun with the right group! And endlessly frustrating with the wrong one. XD But if you end up having a group of friends online or off, it's totally worth trying it out!

anonus

I do have lots of online friends! Don't get out enough offline at the moment though

also what inspired you to become an artist

stubat

Hi, all! just spotted the invite. Busy bat. Love Tamberlane!

I'll try to catch up with you all tomorrow evening, if I get a chance. Midnite now, kinda slow and I've got work in the morning. Belfry forever!

RebelVampire

QUESTION 7. Which characters do you enjoy seeing interact the most? What about their dynamic interests you?

QUESTION 8. What has been your favorite moment in regards to how Tamberlane has been accepted or not accepted in Treehollow? What about it made the moment emotionally compelling and what should we take away from it in regards to discrimination and acceptance?

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

Heeeey Stubat! <3

5. My favorite illustrations seem to be a rotating toss up of Belfry & Tam in the sunrise, Oakewood walking along the docks with Piper/Anthony/Tamberlane at sunrise, and the full shot of the Library at night(edited)

6. :3c(edited)

7. I really enjoy writing Briar and Belfry interacting. Small factoid that I don't think will ever be revealed in the story: the bulky blue and white scarf she's been wearing this chapter is one Belfry knitted for her (poorly). It's knotty and has a lot of gaps, but it was a work of love, and Briar wore it because 1) she loves it and she loves Belfry no matter what, and 2) sort of as a good luck token for Tess and Bel to make up.

Oh super belatedly, another thing about Follybrook: I LOVED that a lot of readers jumped to the conclusion that they were Othered because they were punky/bad tempered/non-binary. And then I loved watching them come to the realization that there were a lot of characters in Treehollow that fit those descriptions so it had to be something else. I think someone specifically called it out as an allegory for trans people, and then a couple readers mentioned Marie and they were like ... oh huh, hm.

I like making people think lol!

8. Hmm, I think I like the interaction with Leon, the grumpy crow. It was a scene that was written late in the game (like, during the scene before lol!) and I put up an auction for Leon's cameo slot. I really enjoyed being able to pack in a lot of underlying meaning to the interaction, and remind readers that Tamberlane's transition to creature society is not as smooth or effortless as it's seemed.

Plus, yeah, deciding on a whim to have Oakewood call her his granddaughter and out himself and his feelings was fun :3

Delphina

There are SO MANY cute/loving character interactions, but I think when Briar is relaying her mom's message to Belfry really stood out to me because of how much she clearly cares and how torn she is in the middle of their conflict.

RebelVampire

QUESTION 9. What sorts of art or story details have you noticed in the way the comic is crafted that you think deserves attention?

QUESTION 10. Which of the parents did you connect with the most in regards to how they parent their child(ren)? What do you think we can learn about life in regards to the various parent/child dynamics work and growing up?

RebelVampire

7) Probably Piper and Tamberlane. Unlike all the other relationships where its either warm fuzzies or kind of understandable anger and drama, theirs is the relationship i think is built entirely upon misunderstandings and kids being kids. Cause at the end of the day, Piper is still a kid so i have some forgiveness in her initial treatment of tamberlane. because honestly she probably just doesnt fully grasp yet the consequences of her actions. but its interesting to see how their relationship has been one of tension where youre really not sure if the trauma can be overcome or not. so that makes it really interesting. 8) I liked that small moment when Walter kind of took Tamberlane away from the fighting. Cause holy crap was that a significant change going from "your mistake" to here let me protect this little one. it was such a small thing but it really demonstrated the time passage and also kind of reflected that sometimes non acceptance is less about hatred, more about unfamiliarity. not to say he might not think shes a mistake, but that still was a lot warmer of an interaction than i expected and showed he cared. https://www.tamberlanecomic.com/tamberlane/page-132/

9) I love a lot of the little visual details on Tess. Like the scars, the bit that's taken out of her ear. It really shows off her past. And its just one of those super good character details a lot of people dont utilize and adds so much character to the character. <3 10) I actually connected with Avery the most, but this is in large because i was raised by a single mother. And to me i think Avery really captured that balance of needing to work, trying to be there for your kid, while also not really able to be there all the time cause of the work issue. So while Piper may not be the best behaved of the children, it's totally understandable given the circumstances and i give props to avery seeming to make it work regardless. overall, though, i think what we can learn about the various parent and child dynamics is that 1) parents are winging it and 2) while parents are a big influence, theres a point you have to divorce yourself from them and make your own choices in life.

snuffysam

aaah i finally caught up and this comic is so good! it's kind of late where i am rn, so I'm just gonna cut right to the chase and say - oakewood is my favorite character, hands down. i couldn't tell you why, but I'm just a sucker for the gruff, older guy with a heart of gold

TimmoWarner

Everyone loves Oakewood.

He'd be the best character if not for Marie.

Caytlin (Tamberlane)

I definitely took a lot of inspiration for Oakewood from the cranky old guy in Wolf Children lol! That's his voice in my head too (the dub version)

RebelVampire

QUESTION 11. What do you think are this particular comic’s strengths? What do you think makes this comic unique? Please elaborate.

QUESTION 12. Which aspect of the comic’s world caught your attention the most? Alternatively, what world aspect are you hoping to see explored more? What culture detail do you think is the most significant when it comes to the story?

snuffysam

I think the strongest aspect of the comic is its theming. Just the overarching theme of parenthood, and how the best of intentions don't always work out the way you planned. You can see that theme everywhere in the story (from big things like Belfy & Tess's fight to smaller things like Belfy's clumsiness), and it all fits togeter SO well.

RebelVampire

QUESTION 13. What are you most looking forward to in the comic? Also, do you have any final thoughts to share overall?

QUESTION 14. Do you believe Belfry might have to go Abroad for Tamberlane as Tess ominously worries about? Why do you believe creatures who go Abroad get banned? How might what goes on in Abroad affect their lives regardless?

RebelVampire

11) I feel the comic's strength is showing relationships and having that be a major drive of the story. Like there's no shortage of parenting styles, friendships, or anything else. And everything is about how the characters work off one another. And no character is really all black and white either. they just all have different views and different ways of handling things. so i think that makes all the character interactions interesting since you never know quite what youre gonna get ever instance. 12) The aspect that caught my eye the most was the presence of another spoken language. I hope it's explored more where that comes from and such, cause its a really interesting facet given everyone else is otherwise speaking the same language. the other detail im really interested in seeing explore is how the world is set up. like we know there are sailors who go around and explore but avoid aborad, so im curious what their known world is like in its totality. 13) I'm looking forward to seeing Belfry grow more and come more into her own. Atm, I kind of feel shes still just a kid trying to figure stuff out, so itll be interesting to see how tamberlane changes and effects her maturity levels. 14) Yes. Aborad feels like it's brought up too many times for belfry to not have to go. But I feel going will be a good thing cause it will kind of force the world to maybe stop ignoring abroad and accept that its part of the world too, whether they want it to be part of it or not.

varethane

I wanna find out what Tamberlane's deal is!

And also what's going on in Abroad, there've been hints about it being a strange and dangerous place and I am excited to find out what it's actually like.

lonelytuatara

I wonder if Abroad is like..... a portal to the regular human world or something!

or if it's still in the same world but with more humans

varethane

That's kinda my theory

The fact that they're SO nervous about it makes me wonder if it is closer to the portal thing

Would make it feel more alien to them

lonelytuatara

yea!!

like it seems like even GOING close to it is seen as dangerous, not just entering the actual place

ohh also speaking of different locations: follybrook! my theory on it, based on the way that characters interacted w folks from follybrook, is that body modifications like piercing and docking (and maybe even gender-related body mods) are a cultural taboo in Silver Sage

so anyone from silver sage who Wants to do those things has to move to follybrook, and the creatures of follybrook have just as much disdain for the ol' fuddyduddies who refuse to let people do what they want with their bodies as the creatures of silver sage have for them

also it seems like metal is Important to silver sage's culture in some specific way, like it has spiritual significance

altho i could just have misread

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- WEEK LONG BOOK CLUB END!

Thank you everyone so much for reading and chatting about Tamberlane this week! Please also give a special thank you to Caytlin Vilbrandt for volunteering the comic and creating it! If you liked Tamberlane, make sure to continue to support it via some of the links below!

Read and Comment: https://www.tamberlanecomic.com/

Caytlin Vilbrandt’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/tamberlane

Caytlin Vilbrandt’s Ko-Fi: https://www.ko-fi.com/pixelprism

Caytlin Vilbrandt’s Paypal.me: https://www.paypal.me/pixelprism

Caytlin Vilbrandt’s Shop: https://www.tamberlanecomic.com/shop/

Tamberlane’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/tamberlanecomic

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