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rottenholiday · 4 months

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A letter to the crushes of the past

❤️1. I think you were an accident. To this day im not sure if my crush on you was genuine or if it was proximity combined with pressure from our parents. Either way im glad i grew out of it

❤️2. You were a mistake. I got lucky that you were never really interested in me other than to vent about your other "conquests"

❤️3. You were cool. Sometimes i wornder what would have happened if we had taken a chance, but i think you're with your soulmate now. I hope you two are happy and thriving

❤️4. You were... a complicated experience. At the time, you made me feel safe, and i gave you a lot of my firsts that probably should have gone to other people. Somehow you managed to be a significant presence in all of my relationships, but you also paved the way for me to have the friends i do now. Sometimes i wonder if you would have had the hold on me you did if i had met others like you way earlier

❤️5. Honestly, you got shafted, and i apologize for that. I met you at a time where i still had feelings for someone else, and you never gave me time to get to know you well. I dont think you ever had my full attention, and you didn't deserve that, but i was also not going to be your savior. You needed a better family, not a lover. I wish you had figured that out before you went down your current path. It's going to end you if you're not careful and no one will be able to help

❤️6. You were and are a walking red flag. How you haven't been blacklisted from the public is beyond me. Maybe you have, i try not to think about you anymore. I wish you would go away completely

7❤️ i think you were the real catalyst to me discovering myself. I wish we could have had more sleepovers. I didn't get to have enough time with you. Sometimes i still get the itch to hug you like before when i see you. I hope you're doing well where you are

8❤️ i kind of wish we hadn't tried to date. I would have happily kept my feelings to myself to keep my friend for a little while longer. I dont think there was any way we could have ended things on good terms and it sucked to lose you like that.

9❤️ I wish we had started off as friends. When i met you wli wasnt fully healed enough to give you the love you deserved, even if i thought i was. I wish i could talk to you again, maybe start over, but i wouldn't even know what to say now.

10❤️ I'm putting you here first because i need you to know that you are similar, but not the same. I really do like you for you, but i don't think we would have been able to make it work. There would always be a political undercurrent to our relationship, and i would not have had the patience necessary to make sure we were on the same page every time. I want us to stay friends, or... go back to being friends, and i know in order to do that i have to push through my insecurities to bridge that gap. I don't know if im ready yet, but i hope i get the burst of manic energy necessary to do it soon.

11❤️You might be the hardest to write for. I want to talk to you, but im scared to do so because i have too much to say, and at the same time, the words die in my head every time i try to write them out. I want to talk to you, but I'm terrified of being annoying, and currently the only way to talk to you is to be constanly aware that you may not want to talk to me back, which means i have to be sure that im not trying to talk to you at a time you dont want to talk to me, so its easier to keep my thoughts to myself. I miss being around you while you're being creative, i want to hand out with you again, but right now, i feel like the risk is greater than the reward. Maybe in a few more weeks, i might be willing to risk it, but the thought of trying to talk to you now has become daunting. I dont know how to fix it without potentially making things work. At least now im at a point where i won't cry myself to sleep at night if you reject me.

#don't mind me i just needed to vent #my journal was right there but it's too dark and my hands write too slow #we can call this poetry if you like #might try to revive my tumblr era #of course its angst i dont know any other way to live

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auxiliarydetective · 4 months

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In My ＿ Era

When I saw this prompt for Day Three of the OC New Year's Challenge, I did a little reflecting. Emphasis on "little" because it came to me very quickly:

I am definitely in my...

ONE PIECE Era!

Really, I've created three new One Piece OCs within the last four months alone. It's really fitting, because Luna - the very same Luna I talked about in yesterday's entry - was my first ever proper OC - and also my first One Piece Era/hyperfixation, and I revamped her only recently, Inari joined her sometime during my earlier Tumblr days, upon my second One Piece Era/hyperfixation, and with the arrival of the live action, I was firmly hyperfixated once more and in my One Piece Era, and I haven't left it ever since. So, I present to you all five of my current One Piece OCs, listed from left to right by the time of their creation.

Aether S. Luna, the "guardian angel" of the Straw Hats. Her crystalline shields and large wings have saved the little band of misfits countless times. Having travelled the seas since she can remember, she eventually ends up won by the Foxy Pirates, becoming part of the stakes during their fight against the Straw Hats. Of course, the Straw Hats (mainly Sanji), try their hardest to get her on their crew.

Charlotte Inari, the Straw Hats' lookout and errand girl. The complicated workings of her devil fruits like to toss her around a little, but she's fiercely loyal to her friends. Oh, and she also just so happens to be the daughter of one of the four Emperors of the Sea. Oh well... Surely, that won't cause any trouble.

Akaito Coraline, also known simply as Cora, the Straw Hats' tailor. The only living descendant of a world-famous family of tailors and a childhood friend of Sanji, Cora always carries three things: Her sewing needle, pierced through her ear. A dream to revive her family's legacy, making sure people remember the truth instead of the myths. And a burden on her mind, one that only Sanji seems to know, and neither of them like to share. Also, a crush on both Sanji and Zoro, but she would never admit that, would she?

Felicity, nicknamed Lily, is half human, half fennec fox mink, and honors a great deal of her vulpine ancestry. From being fairly nocturnal to becoming hyperactive (it's the zoomies, according to Usopp), from frequent naps and sleepy phases to a happily wagging, fluffy tail... Though then again, some of her mood swings might also be blamed on her devil fruit, its powers turning her emotions into... something. You never know.

My newest plot bunny, for now simply known as the "Black Widow", who was inspired by my history professor's tangent on the similarities between Ancient Roman patronage and the mafia. She's a spider with an invisible net of connections, her "friends", which include pirates from the old era, warlords, even emperors if you'll believe some sources. The Black Widow generously "adopts" younger, inexperienced or generally weaker pirates, dubbing them her "children" and offering them her protection - in return for some services, of course. Because friendship is a give and take. Some people claim she's incapable of love, some people claim that she's all talk and no game - but fact is that nobody has succeeded in killing her just yet, and her influence on the powers of the world is undeniable. No matter what you need - money, protection, men, weapons, or even a devil fruit - she can get it for you, for the small, small price of your undying loyalty. Those who have broken this vow all found themselves swimming with the fishes one way or another.

▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄✼▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄

Taglist: @starcrossedjedis @oneirataxia-girl @daughter-of-melpomene @supermarine-silvally - let me know if you’d like to be added or removed!

#behold! my babies!#one piece #one piece live action #one piece oc #opla oc #oc: aether s luna #oc: charlotte inari #oc: akaito coraline #oc: felicity #onyc23 #fyeahonepieceocs #photopea adventures

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artemis-pendragon · 1 year

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One of my absolute favorite things about Tumblr is how we have an appreciation for older media. Like this website is not entirely run by ad-spewing corporations trying to get everyone to watch their stupid new show only available on a single streaming service, so we have a lot more space to organically and collectively revive stories that otherwise might be lost to an era before the internet, where the only people with real access to critiquing and discussing them were filmbros in expensive academic settings and "intellectual" circles. Basically what I'm trying to say is that I'm so glad I live in a world where an entire website woke up one day and decided to rewatch Goncharov together, directly leading to me getting to see Blazed art of Katya and Sofia making out after the infamous Boat Chase/Boat Launch wound-tending scene. So happy y'all share my love for h/c scenes turning into sexy make-out seshes and the fact that it's a wlw couple is extra *chef's kiss*

#i woke up out of a dead sleep and wrote this with the fiery fury of a madman #doing my part in the goncharov revival my friends #goncharov 1973 #goncharov #martin scorsese #katya x sofia #tw unreality #unreality

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moss-sprouted · 5 months

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ive finally started doctor who (started with series 1 of the revival) and im only 3 episodes in and i might try to liveblog it a bit as i watch cause i have SO many thoughts

ive been doing a small deep dive into the show recently because of tumblrs explosion over the recent specials, and i decided to look up the bi regeneration scene on youtube and got flooded with youtube recommending me essays and scenes and stuff about the show and i honestly didnt have high hopes before that, because ive not heard great things about the moffat era and didnt really realize when that was or who was who

and holy shit this specific series/season might be almost 20 years old but it holds up extremely well, and i LOVE rose

i knew tumblr talked highly of her or at least up there,but i Really love her so far

and eccelston is such a good actor and i really honestly thought his doctor might be more of a sad angry guy, and while that shows up a lot i love how hes also just goofy and fun and it fits in with what i know about the doctor

anyway im only 3 episodes in, ill probably make another post in a few days talking about how wrong or right i was ahdkdk

also i love that charles dickens said "what in the shakespeare" my favorite thing about time travel properties is finding out what phrase the writers gonna make different and this episode so far anyway is gold

#doctor who #the doctor #the ninth doctor #rose tyler

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randomfoggytiger · 29 days

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I have a question about your encyclopedic fanfic knowledge. You mentioned having a Google doc or a spreadsheet I think? I'm at a point where I have read so many fics that I can flip through a mental rolodex but then can't find what it is I want and I'm thinking of trying to sort myself out. How do you keep track of fics for yourself?

tldr: Describe the era of the fic (IWTB, S5, etc.), create codewords/shorthand for each incident or trope (i.e. #1 for first child or etc.), and pick out a SPECIFIC descriptor/phrase/detail that is unique to that fic (because "bathtubs" may be a dime a dozen in fic, but "bubbles on the mirror" are not.)

I have several (and I mean several) Google docs filled out by author: one document might be an entire spread of one writer (@baronessblixen), or it might be grouped together by authors who've written fics for each other (Author A's complete works/links + Author B's complete works/links, etc.)

I'll tell ya, @lilydalexf might be a better person to ask this question because while my system works for me, it barely works for me. Google Docs is a pain to find one specific fic for; because unless you have a DISTINCT word explaining that fic separate from similar other fics, you'll get 20 fics in the advanced search that may have your hopeless previous combination in there somewhere or may not.

Example: I'm searching up a fic about Mulder and Scully attend a basketball game before they finally open up and make the next move. Cute, right? I name all dating era fics S6-7, (though I disagree with that timeline but ANYWAY) and all dating fics right on the cusp or becoming a dating fic as PreS6-7. SO, I type in "PreS6-7" and "basketball" into Google search. Twenty fics pop up: some might have "PreS6-7" and "basketball" in the same fic, but those words describe separate fics; and more likely than not, that document may have the word "basketball" in it but not the word "PreS6-7."

What I've ended up doing is picking my battles: describing specific scenes, people, or phrases I'll always think about when I think of that one fic; then writing down when it's set and including a link.

Example: "PreS6-7/Mulder invites, basketball game/Scully realizes other couples there/duo eat, dinner, lunch/she asks/he makes moves" + link. IF there had been a specific thing about that fic that jumped out at me (Scully wearing a headband, for instance) I'd include that detail (headband) in the description because it would set it apart from other "basketball/eat/makes moves" fics.

And come up with codewords for each genre or type of fic. I'm dead serious. For me, #1 means first baby Mulder and Scully have, regardless of era/canon/etc.; #2 means second; S11/AU is the header for that author's Revival fics; PreS1 means all fics set before the Pilot; OntheRun means post S9's The Truth but pre-IWTB; AU/Chinga means Chinga AU; etc., etc., etc.

BTW--this is the voice of experience and desperation wailing-- THE CODEWORDS MUST BE LEGIBLE BUT WEIRD, OTHERWISE "BABY" COULD REFER TO MULDER CALLING SCULLY BABY OR BABY WILLIAM OR REVIVAL BABY OR ETC.

Here's what a typical spread will look like (with extra notations written in, marked by Me:)

Author's Name(s):

Tumblr:

Ao3:

(Me: etc.)

Cancer Arc/AU

(Me: cancer arc/post Memento Mori-post Redux II fics)

Pre-Memento Mori/description-- link

Assorted/AU

(Me: S1, S2, S3, S4, S5, S6, S7, PreS1, timeline-non specific, AUs)

Through the years/Scully smiling through the years/episode, incident/episode, incident/etc.-- link

This is veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery long, I know. But now you know. XDDD

Gotta run byyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyye!

#asks #calimanc #thanks for dropping in!#this is looooooooooooooooooooong #but there are pros and cons to Google Docs #pros: my dodo bird memory has it all in one place #cons: Google Docs #fanfic #resources #important #to me ;))

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spaceless-vacuum · 6 months

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Hey msy I ask did my earlier ask that had to do with God of death reader went through or did tumblr ate it

yes they all got through and I have written things for them! I just haven't flushed them out enough to post it yet. I want to tie them all together somehow like a multipart fic but I'm having trouble weaving the web narrative but I have the next part with how reader met Fierce and Hylia getting jealous ready and that should be out tomorrow.

next up is Sun and Sky meeting reader and Sun fighting with reader on the surface as her weapon when she gets pulled down, and after that a Hyrule warriors era fic on Skyloft with Fi and the rest but that might get too long so I may posy another idea first. I have reader taking place of the Poe statue and meeting Wild in the works as well. Reader gained a lot of power during the calamity because of all those who died. The demon army reviving takes the souls away from them so they're stuck trying to fight to stop more from spawning while also having trouble protecting Fauna and Wild.

#I have done work on this but in my mind it hasn't been that long since I have time blindness #yall its been months #i didnt even realize how long its been until I saw this and realized just how absent ive been #ask and answer #numberonehere2008

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beautifulpersonpeach · 1 year

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Hi BPP. I don't know much about the mechanism behind music industry. I thought that pictures of producers with Jimin would mean they’re collaborating on Jimin’s music. Is that not the case? Not seeing their names on Jimin’s Track List made me puzzled. Also, I can't believe I'm getting so hyped over this Track List. This is my Minimoni revival era. XD I’ve been starving of their interaction, but this also shows how little we really know what’s going on. +

Ask 2: I’m listening to D2 right now, and it’s beautiful. It’s so,,, nice. ‘Set me free’ is SO calming. I can’t stop listening to this on repeat. This Track List,,, I'm imagining what those titles might mean and building my own narrative behind them. I’m incomparably hyped!! There’s a lot of first that BTS has brought in my life. Actually getting/posting on SNS, for one, and listening to music and trying to understand lyrics, for two. But yeah, I’m SO excited. Like I’m giddy and giggly. +

Ask 3: It makes me so happy and pumped that my days feel brighter and better. Lol So I had to reach out to you! Lol Do you know how I can send you longer asks with proper line breaks, and Markdown formatting? I’ve tried to get an account but that wouldn’t even let me post an ask. Whereas when I’m not signed in, I can post a very short ask. Sorry, I don’t really know how Tumblr works. I’ve never really wanted to have a blog, but I’d love to chat with you more! haha

***

Hi Anon!

For your first question, I recently replied to another Anon asking the same thing, but my short answer is that yes it's possible they still worked on the album in a bunch of ways - arrangement, sound engineering, vocals processing, etc, but it's also just as likely that Jimin met them to collaborate on his music post-FACE. We won't see the full credits until the album is out.

Everything else you said made me smile and your energy is so positively infectious. But maybe that's just the Jimin Effect - he's got us all charmed, giddy, and hungry for more. Thanks for expressing your thoughts in my inbox.

About the Anon asks format... I honestly don't know. I haven't sent an ask in forever but I think some Tumblr features sometimes don't work if the app version you're using isn't the very latest one. I've also heard that Tumblr features on desktop (through the Tumblr website, not on my blog page) allows people to post long asks and in general is better than mobile, so maybe using that format could benefit you. It's odd having an account hinders your posting though, when it should be the opposite... My settings allow asks from everyone too, I even allow submissions, asks with media, etc, so I'm honestly not sure what the problem is. If any of my followers can help Anon out with advice, please do. Alternatively Anon, my DMs are always open so feel free to stop by.

Anyway, Jimin's FACE is coming. And I'm with you that it can't come soon enough.

#I'm “giddy and giggly” too!#Might just steal that and use elsewhere thanks for this Anon!#Minimoni revival era indeed #But also just shows how RM remains one of Jimin's biggest cheerleaders #And that Jimin trusts and loves his writing so much #jimin #park jimin #FACE album #jimin solo album #jimin face

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violetsystems · 1 year

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#personal

Outside of looking for jobs and hanging out with mutuals here, I lead an extremely boring life. Or so it would seem. I've tried to increase my visibility on social media a bit but it seems like I'm not important enough to bleed through any algorithmic wall. My old job was getting sort of long in the tooth and I had been networking to find another path. But I come from an era where if being too weird on high profile social media would interfere with those kind of career goals. For as under the radar I am, people do single me out and target me often. And the last few weeks, it's been a certain type of person who apparently got my number off my CV. Everybody down here knows I've written at length about bizarre shit in my own cringeworthy way. It's half trauma dump and half police blotter. But how it all shakes out is what I pay attention to. And while people might stalk my Tumblr, I don't really interact too much with people I don't really know. Seeing as how random women from China and Singapore just casually text me like it's the wrong number. I had to put the kibosh on that by impersonating a field agent. It doesn't really register to people when I tell them that my current job is somewhere between private detective and cybersecurity professional. You'd have to be Columbo to find a job in this market at my age. But Tumblr to me always resembled the house parties I used to frequent back in the day when I worked at an art school. People were more focused on a community back then. Although I remember the fateful halloween when I was stuck in a corner at a party by myself scrolling through this app on my phone. The etiquette and culture of Tumblr these days has evolved as we've all aged maybe. I still don't really know who anyone is. And it's in this anonymity that you really connect with people in an honest way. Talking through images rather than beating people over the head with sales pitches and commercial networking is a lot more intimate to me. Like being on a couch at party with friends, leaning over to whisper in someone's ear over all the noise. And then there's Linkedin where it seems only rich Asian women find me interesting enough to text out of nowhere and berate me for being poor. But for all the crazy shit I've written on here, I've only really been hazed and bullied in real life almost every day of it. But I think it has more to do with people's perception of me outside of here. Nobody but my real friends read these. Nobody in my past life really even bothers to check in on me to see if I'm ok. So all I really have is the peace and quiet of this platform. And how dead to the world I am because of it.

I bring up this Hiroshi Fujiwara quote every six months to explain how I feel about this site. He said because of the internet there aren't really any more revivals anymore. The punk way of finding out what you are into via the internet is very close to the house party scene that vanished into clubs. You'd go to a basement show and see some sick ass fucking shit. You'd meet some people and it would be a chaotic mess of noise, art, and free spirit. Now everything needs to be monetized. I keep hearing about all these people dj'ing now that have to sell tickets or promote fake plants who might just be undercover police. How nobody makes music really or it's not important enough to listen to. I had one person I fell out of contact with tell another friend I'm sort of falling out of contact with that I needed to "get back on my social media grind." I was a great producer. But there was something missing. I didn't expose my facial features to the Instagram AI enough to be a real person. Instagram isn't going to pay me. Neither is Tumblr but it's the thought that counts. I spent most of the last two and a half years trying to maintain a professional presence on the professional website where you can get a job. And I hung out in not so much the vip lounge but the smoking section of Denny's comparatively when you think about my time on Tumblr. People aren't afraid to be seen because nobody is watching. And when people come down here to watch, I wonder sometimes if the algorithm just throws weak shit out of orbit. If I wanted to meet new people, they seem to think my resume at this point is a dating service. Pete Davidson can't even get a number at the Met Gala. I have a different problem. But it's something I'm trained professionally to deal with as a cybersecurity contractor nobody seems to want to admit breathes or has fiscal needs beyond my own passive income. I'm everybody's favorite punching bag by proxy for something I'm not even part of anymore. Art School hired me for two decades then shunned me like I wasn't cool anymore. And I ended up down here cash positive while everyone else is worried about resuming their student loans. That's not something I make light of. But I have a hard time feeling sorry for fake ass bullshit when it tries to pretend I died instead of acknowledging the pain I put behind me.

For whatever it's worth I write here week after week because I choose to. If I really believed in fate, then the scientific method has taught me it only nudges you in a general direction. You have to make the choice to focus on what you really want. That bit about evil I was going to write about in Time Bandits is mostly from that catfished WhatsApp storm of messages. Do I believe in fate? Do I believe that the people I've grown close to on Tumblr and off have nothing to do with me making a choice to change my own orbit? No. I could have sat here and been the person everyone out there wants me to be. Weak. Complacent. Never questioning anything. Afraid to speak my mind in fear someone will make fun of what I say. We are way past those red lines. What I walk through every day is nothing more than some ghetto ass catwalk slash commercial for an under appreciative audience of people ready to throw tomatoes at the world stage. The culture has fallen into atrophy. CEO's think they can become social media czars and turn entire platforms into a standing meeting or SCRUM. And that person had the money to buy it out completely. I was on Linkedin the other day and Yahoo had a poll about what other social media were you going to choose like it was the Pepsi Coca Cola wars all over again. Obviously Tumblr wasn't listed. I said the one you let get away. The reality that Tumblr is weird has a lot more to do with being shunned, abandoned and left to grow. Nobody wanted to pay attention to our wants and needs or what we thought was cool. And now what we all thought was cringe is just the unassuming and honest embrace of the underground. There's nothing really to keep weird other than the vision of what we've all become. Ourselves. The book True Names by Vernor Vinge embraced the ethos of what Cyber "Punk" was supposed to be about. You never gave your true name unless you wanted them to find you. And in my case, I've always been on main. That's been my ideological choice to be hardcore. Even if my name isn't my own. Just like the samples I've used in my music has gotten me excommunicated by Pitchfork and Hyperdub as some divine punishment for following the rules of a music called Jungle which sampled the Amen Brother so many fucking times that it's the idea and not the intellectual property. Do I fucking care? No. Everybody knows me in the She-Hulk sense of the word. Violet Fucking Systems. And I run the hazy strategically ambiguous culture that has connected me in bizarre ways to people I love without saying a word. Nobody will ever understand it or get close enough to it if only to throw rocks. And the cringe shield around me is about as thick as the ass I focus on daily. Poetically speaking of course. I don't know how fat your ass is, baby. Though I'm sure it's juicy in the exotic burger sense of the word. But I love you for it just the same. In the gyakusou sense. Which in Japanese means reverse cowgirl or something. I dunno. It's the only one for me. Just like Tumblr. <3 Tim

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dinamakan · 2 years

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11.02 PM

- Should I start reviewing K-dramas? At first I was like “Oh, I’m still a newbie I only try to watch things that I think I’ll enjoy” but for the last 2 years I ended up watching 20+ masterpieces and... flop K-dramas. Such a crazy number for me since it doesn’t include the films, western and Japanese series I’ve seen.

- Still reading some books this month but none of them have finished yet. As a replacement, say hello to the films I’ve just watched: Broker, EEAAO, Taipei Suicide Story, Yi Yi, and EoS 2022 collection. Please wait for my EoS 2022 journal!

Intermezzo— look at that googly eye :)

- Really, really need to clone myself— one to get the work done, one to do my hobbies, one to socialize, one to take care of me, and one to plan everything.

- Last week my mum asked me to draw kebaya as a brief for the tailor. Designing clothes was one of my hobbies when I was in middle school. One day I’m gonna revive it.

- The younger version of me might not have thought that one day I’d like to exercise. Back then it was an obligation in school, now it’s a minimal effort to stay healthy in this tough life.

- Twitter’s new feature (Notes) won’t make me switch from Tumblr, at least for the present. Prolly Notes will be more practical and I’ll get more audiences but at what cost? I don’t want to provoke a commotion there.

- I repeat this one more time: F this content era.

#diksi #tiny journal

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sohotthateveryonedied · 3 years

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Hiii!! I really love your tumblr posts and I'm pretty new to the Batfam (meaning I have only read fics and textposts about them, no comics) and I wanted to ask about the year Bruce/Batman gets "lost in time". I know general things of what the kids have been doing–Dick became batman and fired Tim from robin, giving it to Damian, everyone thinking Tim was crazy for believing Bruce was alive, (don't really know what Jason was up to though, was he still murderous towards Tim? Does the pit still affect him? Also I have no idea about Cass and Duke, were they introduced at this point??) Anyways, my real question was why was Bruce lost in time, what villain put him there? And how did he get out? And how long was he "dead"? Was Bruce in another reality or like just asleep the whole time? Oh! And how soon did this happen after Damian got introduced to the family–a couple months?

I'm so sorry this is so long, but I hope you answer and thank you!!

(I’m going to try and cover all my bases here by going into how exactly Bruce “died,” what went down during the Battle For the Cowl, what the Batkids did while Bruce was gone, and how Bruce came back. Hopefully it all makes sense?? We’ll see how it goes lmao.)

Part 1 - What Happened to Bruce:

So there was this event called Final Crisis (which I won’t go completely into since it would make this post a million times longer than it already is), but the bottom line is that Darkseid wants to overthrow reality and release his Anti-Life Equation, which would overthrow the whole planet and turn everyone into slaves. (If you’re interested in knowing more about the storyline, here’s a Reddit thread that explains it WAY better than I could.)

What I CAN tell you is that during his final confrontation with Darkseid, Bruce is hit by an Omega Beam and turned into a burnt chicken nugget killed. Poor guy.

Final Crisis #6

Clark and Diana bring the body back to the Batcave and break the news to the Batfamily. Batman #687 covers a good portion of the aftermath such as Bruce’s funeral, the Batfamily grieving, and Dick coming to terms with his new responsibility of becoming Batman.

Batman #687

Part 2 - Battle For the Cowl:

Musical chairs time, fellas! After word gets out that Batman is gone, Gotham erupts into chaos. Dick doesn’t want to take over the mantle, Tim needs Dick to take over the mantle, and Jason says “fuck it” and takes over the mantle himself because somebody around here has to. He becomes this murderous psychopathic Batman and starts taking out criminals with deadly force because someone’s gotta do the job, so it might as well be him.

Batman: Battle For the Cowl #1

(Okay honestly, this series had some pretty bad characterization overall, which sucks since it’s such an important storyline. Jason is portrayed as this violent psychopath, which...okay, he was kind of insane after the Pit and all, but not to this degree. Personally, I choose to owe the bad characterization to Bruce’s death because as much as Jason resents Bruce for all he’s done, he does still love him and losing him would be devastating, which would exacerbate his already fragile mental health. As for Damian, this happens roughly three years after his first appearance, so we can assume it’s been a few months since he first joined the family. He’s still relatively new at this point, so nobody knows how to write him yet. He ends up being depicted as if his main two personality traits are Bratty and Assassin-Child and that’s it. It’s all just a mess.)

Anyway, Tim tells Dick to become Batman and stop Jason’s reign of terror. Dick says no, so Tim follows Jason’s lead by saying “fuck it” and putting on the cowl himself. He goes to confront Jason, which ends in Jason beating the crap out of him (again) and leaving him for dead after Tim declines his offer to become Jason’s Robin. Dick goes to save Tim and ends up fighting Jason.

Battle For the Cowl #3

Dick wins, Jason disappears, Tim is fine, and Dick finally gets his head out of his ass and becomes Batman.

Part 3 - What Happens to Each Batkid While Bruce is “Dead”?:

Dick:

As I said, Dick becomes the new Batman a month after Bruce’s death. He’s got big shoes to fill, and it takes some time for him to get used to his new role. He and Damian end up flipping around the classic Batman and Robin dynamic, with Batman now as the fun counterpart to Robin’s edginess. Dick, Damian, and Alfred relocate to the penthouse above the Wayne Foundation building, operating out of a secret Bat-Bunker in the basement.

Batman #688

Jason:

After Battle For the Cowl, Jason is still batshit insane and determined to make Dick’s already stressful life even harder by becoming a supervillain with an ugly costume and an even uglier hairstyle. (I know it’s just because the artist sucked, but still. Jason is horrifying to look at during this time.) He mostly just gets on Dick’s nerves by running around Gotham with his new sidekick Scarlet and killing criminals as Batman and Robin wannabes. Eventually, Dick has Jason committed to Arkham Asylum and he hangs out there until Bruce returns.

Batman and Robin (2009) #5

Tim:

Tim...doesn’t do great after Bruce’s death, mentally. Dick makes Damian Robin, his reasoning being that Robin is more of a sidekick and he sees Tim as his equal. By making Damian Robin, Dick hopes that it will give him the stability he needs to keep him from straying back toward the “bad” side. (It’s the right move ultimately, although his execution was pretty messed up since he didn’t discuss it with Tim beforehand, but he’s allowed to make mistakes. Dick’s father just died and now he’s in charge of picking up the pieces of their broken family. It’s a lot to handle.)

Long story short, Tim has a breakdown, realizes that Bruce is alive, dons the Red Robin identity, and cuts ties with his family to travel the world in search of proof. It’s a rough time.

Red Robin #1

Damian:

Our little guy becomes Robin! So proud of him! As I explained earlier, Dick makes Damian his Robin with the assumption that it will keep him out of trouble, and he’s right on that account. He mentors Damian, teaching him how to channel his violent instincts into something productive, and it works! Slowly but surely, Damian makes the transition from bratty assassin to actual hero!

Batman and Robin (2009) #22

Cass:

Duke sadly was not introduced at this point in time, so he missed out on all the pandemonium. Cass, however, has been Batgirl for years by now, but she got kind of pushed aside by the writers after Bruce’s death. Bruce disappears shortly after adopting Cass, but once he was “dead,” the writers sort of moved Cass around for a while, not quite knowing what to do with her. First she was with the Outsiders. Then they got disbanded and Cass tried forming a new network of heroes to take over for Batman if needed. Then she helped out in said network during Battle for the Cowl, taking care of a newly ravaged Gotham. Then Cass gave the Batgirl mantle to Stephanie Brown after she became disillusioned with the role, thanks to the loss of her father and mentor. Then Cass picked up and moved to Hong Kong to “follow Bruce’s plans” by continuing whatever work he had set up for her there. It was all very vague and confusing, and Cass more or less got swept under the rug during this time. Thanks, writers.

Batgirl (2009) #1

Part 4 - How Bruce Came Back:

When the Blackest Night storyline happens, the Justice League realizes that the corpse buried under Bruce’s grave is apparently not the real one and that he’s actually alive out there somewhere! How wild is that! This is further proven by Dick after he places Bruce’s body in a Lazarus Pit to revive, which has the same result because it’s very clearly Not Bruce and they should have listened to Tim from the start.

Batman and Robin (2009) #9

Anyway, what actually happened is that the Omega Beams that Darkseid shot at Bruce didn’t kill him, but rather blasted him back through time to the prehistoric era with his memories wiped. The Omega Energy inside of Bruce ends up catapulting him through various time periods, which is all part of Darkseid’s plan. With each time-hop, Bruce builds up more Omega Energy in his body which, when he gets back to his original time period, will be unleashed and destroy everything.

Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #5

It’s been a little under two years since Final Crisis, though in-universe it’s uncertain exactly how long Bruce has been “dead.” We can assume it’s been a year, give or take. The way he comes back is too scientific and complicated for me to understand, so uhhhh the bottom line is that Tim and a few Leaguers save Bruce at the Vanishing Point and the day is saved! Hooray!

Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #6

(If you want to read about how it actually goes down, then I seriously recommend reading Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne. It’s only six issues, so it’s a quick read and it explains the situation far better than I ever could.)

Bruce eventually reunites with his family after spying on them for a period of time as Insider to see what has changed in his absence:

Bruce Wayne: The Road Home

After that, things quickly settle back into their new normal. Dick and Damian stay on as Batman and Robin. Bruce goes back to being Batman as well, with him handling Batman Incorporated business and Dick continuing as Gotham’s defender. Tim keeps the Red Robin outfit, Steph stays on as Batgirl, and Cass becomes Black Bat. Jason stays in Arkham for a while before filing an appeal to be moved to a regular prison. He kills 82 inmates in less than a week and gets transferred back to Arkham, which he promptly escapes from. It’s a ride, I tell ya.

Aaaaand that’s about it! I hope this answered all of your questions!

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cristalconnors · 3 years

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TOP 20 SONGS OF 2020

20. “BELOW THE CLAVICLE”- EARTHEATER

“The meaning hasn’t come up yet. It’s still under the surface below the clavicle.”

It isn’t just Alexandra Drewchin’s ear splitting soprano when she hits that impossibly high B, practically shrieking out the “cle” syllable of clavicle, though that’s undoubtedly when I first knew that Eartheater’s avant folk was for me- it’s also the cinematic, lush strings, both bowed and plucked (is that acoustic guitar or harp? I genuinely can’t tell), deepening and complicating the sonic texture of Drewchin’s study of parsing through emotions you aren’t ready to make sense of yet.

19. “PUSSY TALK”- CITY GIRLS, FT. DOJA CAT

“This pussy so ghetto, this pussy speak ebonics”

“WAP”’s funnier, classless Irish twin, though it’s important to note “Pussy Talk” came first. Yung Miami and JT enlist Doja Cat to expound on everything their pussies deserve and will absolutely settle for nothing less than. And why should they when they’re spitting out verses this inspiredly hilarious with such confidence and flow?

18. “LICK IN HEAVEN”- JESSY LANZA

“Once I’m spinning, I can’t stop spinning...”

Jessy Lanza is talking about losing your cool, letting your emotions get the best of you and lashing out instead of letting cooler heads prevail, but when that earworm of a chorus hits- “once I’m spinning, I can’t stop spinning” - I can’t stop spinning. I’m that woman on the single art, a wine mom lost in the delirium of the dance floor and in Lanza’s hypnotic, fragmented rhythms.

17. “GASLIGHTER”- THE CHICKS

“Boy, you know exactly what you did on my boat!”

“Gaslighter” finds Natalie Ames and her Chicks at their most simultaneously ruthless and ebullient, ripping Ames’s ex-husband Adrian Pasdar a new asshole and ratcheting up the righteous anger of “Goodbye Earl” tenfold, channeling it into a glorious wall of sound in what might be their most rousing, emotionally resonant chorus in their storied career.

16. “HANNAH SUN”- LOMELDA

“Hannah do no harm...”

While “Hannah Sun” begins as an exquisitely observed rumination on grappling with long-distance, pining for someone who’s a continent away, it gradually becomes clear that Hannah Read blames herself for putting the distance between her and the subject of her longing, and that the distance isn’t strictly literal. Skittering synths (or is that distorted flute?) complicate and enrich the texture of the song, allowing it to build organically and stunningly towards a heartbreaking plea to herself- “Hannah, do no harm.”

15. “FIRE”- WAXAHATCHEE

“And when I turn back around will you drain me back out? Will you let me believe that I broke through?”

When I’d drive back and forth between Dallas and Austin over and over again when I was in college, I’d often get off I-35 past Waco and take the back roads through towns I’d never heard of, the sun setting spectacularly behind the titular hills of Hill Country that were beginning to roll out in earnest. I think about that a lot when listening to “Fire,” a song dripping in rural Americana that was, unsurprisingly, inspired by a road trip. We’ve probably all been Katie Crutchfield as she crossed the bridge into West Memphis- alone in the car, awed by the simple beauty of the American countryside, making speeches to ourselves about our past mistakes and figuring out a way forward.

14. “3AM”- HAIM

“On the screen and in my jeans, just make me feel good.”

On an album full of genre departures and decidedly darker themes than we’ve typically heard from Haim in their near decade of syncopated bubblegum pop rock, “3AM” stands out not only as their most effective stab at pastiche, slipping into the trappings of contemporary R&B with shocking ease and gusto, but also as their most unabashedly fun track in their entire oeuvre. “I think you can hear the amount of joy and laughs we had making this song” Alana Haim tells Apple Music, and you absolutely can.

13. “QADIR”- NICK HAKIM

“We’re sinking down a hole without thinking about our loved ones who might be shrinking...”

I often wonder if I’m putting enough effort into maintaining my relationships with friends I don’t see regularly, who live several time zones away, living their own lives while I live mine. When the thought of sustaining simple correspondence becomes overwhelming, it’s easy for months to go by before you realize you haven’t spoken to one of your closest friends. “QADIR” plays less like a eulogy for a friend gone too soon (though of course it is that) than a plea to the listener to put in the work. It’s worth it. You never know when it’ll be too late.

12. “LEVITATING”- DUA LIPA

“Glitter in the sky, glitter in our eyes shining just the way we are.”

Just a few bars of that delightfully bouncy, extra-terrestrial beat is enough to launch me into space. It’s so refreshing to hear a song that remembers that pop is supposed to be joyful and is best when it’s a bit silly. When discussing this track with Apple Music, Dua Lipa cites Austin Powers as inspiration, elaborating that “if I do a video for this, Mike Meyers has to be in it.” Can’t you just see them together, performing a farcical pas de deux of seduction like the spiritual successor to “Beautiful Stranger?”

11. “RIQUIQUI”- ARCA

“Love in the face of fear! Fear in the face of God!”

Arca’s made a career of harnessing chaos and somehow making sense of it. On an album that finds her embracing more traditional, accessible song structures, “Riquiqui” is a reminder that even when working within an AB structure, she’s still breaking rules left and right and having a blast doing it. She’s also never sounded so ferociously empowered in either her femininity or in her Venezuelan identity, rattling off local colloquialisms with affection and verve without a second thought as to who’s going to understand it.

10. “FANTASY”- AGAINST ALL LOGIC

“I think about you all the time...”

Or, the musical embodiment of this gif:

When Nicolas Jaar’s tormented synths and crunching beats give way to Beyoncé’s unmistakable alto, it is indeed quite the shock. But should it be? Even if 2017-2019 finds him ditching the dancefloor in favor of more severe, unforgiving soundscapes, his already varied career has shown us nothing’s off limits to him. So why not reinvent Beyoncé’s iconic “Baby Boy” into an industrial, vaguely sinister certified bop that arguably surpasses the original?

9. “PEOPLE, I’VE BEEN SAD”- CHRISTINE AND THE QUEENS

“If you disappear, then I’m disappearing, too.”

“People, I’ve been sad” plays out with the vulnerability and intimacy of a tumblr text post you put out in the middle of the night, only to hastily delete later when it gets no notes. It forgoes flowery language in favor of just getting to the point. “I’ve been sad.” Héloïse Adelaïde Letissier blows up this deceptively simple sentiment with richly layered textures and a big screen gloss not to offer any remedies but instead to offer solidarity. We’re all in this hell together.

8. “DESCRIBE”- PERFUME GENIUS

“Can you just find him for me?”

Mike Hadreas has never sounded so hopeless. Utilizing harsh, rattling guitar that would make Kevin Shields swoon, he conveys the experience of being so estranged from happiness and joy that you need to rely on others to describe the sensation to you. But how, when exploring darker textures than he ever has before, does he make despondency sound so divine?

7. “4 AMERICAN DOLLARS”- U.S. GIRLS

“No matter how much you get to have, you will still die and that’s the only thing.”

Meg Remy picks up where she left off on “4 American Dollars,” reviving the subversive pastiche she mastered on In a Poem Unlimited, this time harnessing the power of funk to dismantle the fallacies we’re taught about the virtues of capitalism. Heavy stuff, but Remy makes it less didactic than joyous, ensuring the listener will be singing “I don’t believe in pennies and nickels and dimes and dollars and pesos and pounds and rupees and yen and rubles” until they start to wonder if maybe they shouldn’t, either.

6. “STUPID LOVE”- LADY GAGA

“I freak out, I freak out, I freak out, I freak out!”

Due to a healthy spirit of contrarianism mixed with a touch of internalized homophobia and genuine bafflement at her universal appeal and praise, I was a proud Lady Gaga hater for as long as she’d been a cultural entity. I just didn’t get her at all and loved that about myself. Annoying, I know. 2020 was the year I was finally ready to let that all go. Just before the world fell apart in March, I was out at Flaming Saddles (RIP) with friends the night this song came out and by the sixteenth time it played, I understood why it was inducing such hysteria. This was a cultural shift. After a frustrating near-decade of Gaga subverting expectations so thoroughly that she was actively working against her strengths and sabotaging her cultural ubiquity in the process, coupled with the most frightening era of political upheaval in our lifetimes, she was finally ready to save us and be Lady Gaga again. Booming synth, drag sensibilities, absurd thematic conceits- all was right in the world. For the first time in a long time, people had something to be hopeful about, and as I danced that night, I felt that hope, too.

5. “SHELLFISH MADEMOISELLE”- RÓISÍN MURPHY

“How dare you sentence me to a lifetime without dancing?”

As soon as that bass starts (the funkiest bassline in the history of music?) it’s like Róisín Murphy’s snake charming oboe, coaxing even the most stalwart curmudgeon onto the dancefloor and keeping them there, dancing frantically and involuntarily like the citizens of Strasbourg in 1518, trying their best to keep up with Murphy who isn’t even breaking a sweat, commanding the masses with a sultry remove, beckoning you closer, pulling you inexorably deeper into the mass of gyrating bodies and whispering in your ear “come and have a dance with yer mum.”

4. “PARTY 4 U”- CHARLI XCX

“I only threw this party for you...”

As PC Music / Bubblegum Bass / whatever you want to call it enters its second decade, Charli XCX proves not only that there’s still new textures to explore within it, but also that no one can exploit its artifice to get down to emotional truths like she can. How can she make something this slick sound so vulnerable? “I only threw this party for you” she croons over and over again over glorious syncopated synths that build exquisitely, reaching their climax only to immediately fall away, until it’s just her and her trusty autotune, pleading with the subject of the song to just come to the damn party. But they won’t, of course. They never do, do they?

3. “WAP”- CARDI B, FT. MEGAN THEE STALLION

“I want you to touch that lil’ dangly thing that swing in the back of my throat!”

Sometimes you just immediately know you’re living through a significant cultural moment. No, not COVID. I’m talking about the experience of hearing Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s instant classic “WAP” for the first time, a titanic meeting of the minds that finds both of them at the apex of their cultural influence and at their most undeniable. Can the argument be made that these two aren’t the two best rappers in the game right now? How could you hear this inspiredly filthy sex positive juggernaut, where Cardi and Megan are trading the sickest verses of their careers, and not think these two deserve the world?

2. “KEROSENE!”- YVES TUMOR

“I can be your baby in real life, sugar. I can live in your dreams.”

If the 2010′s were all about the pop-ification of all music, trading in live instrumentation in favor of polished synths, 2020 forcefully announced the return of the electric guitar when Yves Tumor and Diana Gordon’s back and forth lustfully submissive declarations of desire suddenly gave way to that nasty guitar rip lifted from Uriah Heep’s “Weep in Silence” to announce yet another cultural shift in a year chock full of them- rock and roll was, indeed, here to stay.

1. “I WANT YOU TO LOVE ME”- FIONA APPLE

“I move with the trees in the breeze, I know that time is elastic.”

We live and we learn. Years spent soul searching and on self-discovery shape us into better, smarter people, progressively knowing and understanding ourselves and the world around us more and more clearly, but Fiona Apple knows that none of that can quell the ferocious desire to be loved by someone. By anyone. By you, whoever that is. We can know that time is elastic and that when we’re gone all our particles will disband and disperse and then we’ll be back in the pulse, and we can know that none of this stuff actually matters, but still- we want, we want, we want.

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catt-nuevenor · 3 years

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hi! i played the demo today and i absolutely loved it! i'm super into the story and in love with your writing and your characters (especially my child! 🥺), the main group seems to be so tight and affectionate, it really feels like a family ❤ i can already tell this is gonna be one of my favorite IFs :) question: i'm from south america and i'm not super familiar w/ english history (outside period dramas lol), so i'm not sure When old england is supposed to be! is it like medieval times? (1)

(2) what type of technological advances did they have available to them? is there any historical fashion style that you think of when you write the characters? and what about naming conventions, do you use a specific time period for the characters? lol i'm sorry for bombarding you with questions! i genuinely love the setting so far and wanna know more to develop my mc(s) accordingly 🤭❤️ thank you for taking the time to answer! i wish you all the best 💕💕

---

Ooooo! A history query! 😄

I love a history query!

Brace youself...

Alright, I had originally thought to set the story in a specific period during the reign of the Stuarts kings (and queen), but that didn’t quite match my mental image of the tech, also the early Stuart period is the most prolific period of witchcraft trials and puritanism, sooooo... no.

I’m trying to avoid pinning it down to a specific set of dates, as such a move will bring the pedants out in force, and it does kind of restrict my flexibility in the story a lot.

We’re really aiming at an amalgamation of later Stuart enlightenment (Queen Anne), Gothic revival architecture with remnants of Tudor and Stuart housing very much prevalent in the smaller settlements, and a hodge podge of historical fashion eras though mostly drawing from the late Georgian, because I mean frock coats are a thing that should have never declined!

Though I can happily live without the muslin white dresses that’s for sure. And NO POWDERED WIGS. I just refuse. And the cast is all well below the aristocracy so no silly hoity toity bustles or wigs!

Beyond the fashion and architecture, real early firearms boil down to flintlock and shot, and they’re incredibly expensive so not a society wide occurrence. Hunting wise most of the peasantry still use the more traditional tools of bows and arrows, or a crossbow if they’re lucky, far cheaper to maintain and restock.

No electric or gas lights. There are no streetlamps as we would understand them, but each resident who owns a property on a public street must hang a lantern outside every night of the autumn and winter period or get fined a shilling (which was a real law in England between 1716 and the introduction of the public system).

Legal code is very decentralised for settlements like Aldmirham, in all but cases of the most serious crimes. These are handled by the local assizes in the nearest cities, for Aldmirham that’s Eadoccaburg.

Because this is my world my rules, gender equality is more in tune with our modern conceptions, so by no means perfect but better than the contemporary would be, and LGBTQIA+ issues are widely accepted in line with liberal modern standards. There are still arses throughout but they are the outlying minority, the MC will also never be put in a position where their identity is unsupported, and I will not have any dead naming or ‘outing’ in the story. I mean, we read these stories to get a break from reality don’t we?

Last thing, naming conventions. So East Anglia (the region I’m setting the story in) has huge linguistic ties to the Norse settlers from the Viking era, and before that the Angli (as Bede the bard calls them in his 730 writings) as in Anglo-Saxons, and despite the passing of many centuries a lot of place and people names still reflect these links. A great example comes from a brilliant article on Norfolk Place names I came across while researching:

Hevingham: Hev (taken from a family name) ing (from the Old English for ‘the people of’) ham (Old English again denoting a farm or village belonging to a family unit)

Ergo “The homestead of the family of Hefa”

So for names I’m falling back on old English, old Norse, and a smattering of modern linguistic mutations where appropriate.

Well, I could go on, but I think Tumblr might start shouting at me about post length soon. So I hope that gave you some groundwork for the world and historical context.

#MyrkMire #asks #interactive fiction #hosted games #choice of games #historical context

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aredletterday · 4 years

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change da world. my final message

I believe it’s been about two months since the discourse surrounding Freemance vs. Freehoun started, though I don’t exactly have a great grasp on the passage of time right now. I’ve spoken on this a few times already. Many of my posts on this topic have been born out of deep frustration, and I even left Tumblr entirely for about a week to calm down and gather my thoughts. I’m going to try to lay out a coherent statement on the Freemance discourse and why it has completely changed how I interact with HL content.

I also know that at least one vocal anti-Freemance blog has me blocked, and there are probably many more (which I honestly don’t care about because I blocked many users myself today), which means this post will most likely fall on deaf ears. That’s fine. I just need to speak. EDIT: This also seems like a good opportunity to plug the Freemance charity zine that might be happening?

I was first exposed to Half-Life in late 2018, played the games for the first time in March 2019. So I’m certainly not an original member of the fandom, but I’m not “new” either, per se--at least, not relative to many of the people who have flooded in from the popularity of Half-Life But The AI Is Self-Aware.

It used to be so quiet around here. There was a new post in the tag maybe once every two or three days. When Half-Life: Alyx came out I had hoped it would revive older members of the fandom and maybe bring in some new ones, and it did--but was quickly overshadowed by the odd success of HLVRAI. I really can’t shy away anymore from the fact that I vehemently dislike most of the people in the HLVRAI fandom. I think a lot of these people are the ones who are starting and continuing unnecessary discourse because they’re young and don’t have anything better to do, or don’t know better (even though they should).

It is canon that Alyx was around four years old at the time of the Resonance Cascade. It is canon that Gordon was 27. It is canon that Alyx is 24 in Half-Life 2, and, get this, it is canon that Gordon is 27. During the gap between HL1 and HL2, Gordon was in a place that is outside of the normal flow of time, and, therefore, didn’t age at all during that time. This is supported by eli_greeting.ogg: “... My God, you haven't changed one iota! How do you do it?”

Because Alyx was a child while Gordon was working at Black Mesa, I commonly see anti-Freemance people using the idea that Gordon interacted with a young Alyx as a reason the ship is not viable. While this is definitely a valid headcanon to have, it’s just that, a headcanon. In al_imalyx.ogg, Alyx says, “... My father worked with you, back in Black Mesa. I'm sure you don't remember me though.” This would imply that Alyx was such a minor presence (if a presence at all) in Gordon’s life, he wouldn’t even have a reason to remember Eli having a daughter. It could even go as far as to imply that he barely knew Eli.

There is also a scene at the end of Half-Life: Alyx where Alyx sees the G-man and immediately mistakes him for Gordon. If she had met Gordon as a child, the fact that she can’t even remember what he looks or sounds like indicates it did not have any large impact on her. In fact, there are many instances in HL:A where Alyx speaks of Gordon like a complete stranger.

And, if you’ve played HL2 and the Episodes, you certainly remember many scenes with the Vances where Eli hints at the idea he would like to see Alyx and Gordon as a couple; several times throughout these games, Alyx also shows some degree of romantic interest in Gordon. I personally find this a strange and uncomfortable artifact of mid-2000s era heteronormativity, that’s something I’ll absolutely admit even as someone who ships Freemance. However, it’s something I think is worth pointing out.

So. Gordon isn’t a pedophile if he is characterized as being attracted to Alyx, because she’s a grown ass adult. Gordon isn’t preying on Alyx, because there’s no actual, canon basis for the idea that he was any more than vaguely aware of her existence before she was an adult.

It’s well within your right to dislike Freemance--I’ve met people before this who just had a distaste for it, it wasn’t their thing, and that’s okay. What I don’t appreciate is this campaign to get rid of all Freemance content because… you personally think it’s gross? Because you personally have decided based on fanon and not canon that it should not exist?

The thing I think that’s really bugged me more than the specific problem of Freemance is the wider implications of this discourse, one of which being the worrying amount of infantilization of Alyx. People have denied doing this, but will defend their anti-Freemance statements by saying they’re “protecting her,” when she’s a grown adult. She’s 24 and very clearly capable of taking care of herself--for Christ’s sake, she literally kills fascists. She spat in the fact of a dictator.

I also see a lot of people who hate Freemance turning around to ship Freehoun. Disclaimer: I love Freehoun. It’s up there equal with Freemance for me, I seriously adore the ship. The fact that it’s Freehoun isn’t what bothers me--it’s that people seem to look at a M/M ship of two white guys and go “this is progressive of me to ship,” but yet the M/F (notice how I don’t say “straight” because M/F couples aren’t inherently straight!) interracial ship is somehow gross, or heteronormative, or whatever other word has been thrown out there. Another thing I see is people casting Alyx entirely to the wayside in favor of Freehoun, or even going as far as to dislike her. That’s awfully familiar, isn’t it? The phenomenon of shippers hating a female character for “getting in the way” of their gay ship?

(Side note: I also am heavily bothered by the fact that I think a lot of new Freehoun shippers are coming over from shipping Benry/Gordon, and also the fact that a lot of people seem to think Barney and Benry are somehow the same, when they’re not, but I digress on that.)

The ongoing discourse has made being in the Half-Life fandom completely unbearable for me. I am tired. I can’t draw or write for it anymore. This was my favorite thing in the entire world, one of the only things keeping me going through quarantine, and now it’s just hardly worth bothering with. So this is most likely my final statement on this matter unless something drastic happens.

Freemance-critical and HLVRAI blogs will be blocked upon following me. I don’t care about being courteous anymore, I’m sick of interacting with you and gifting you my patience.

#ash rambles #freemance #ship discourse

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rushingheadlong · 3 years

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December Fic Round-Up

I’ve decided that rather than cross-posting all my non-Reader fic here in full, I’m just going to do monthly posts with links to everything on AO3.

So here are all the new fics from December! There’s eight from this past month, and all links and summaries are below!

If you enjoy any of these fics, please consider reblogging this post since tumblr frequently doesn’t show posts with links in the tags.

More to Life Than This ♪ Jimercury, H/C, period-typical homophobia, 434 words ♪ For the most part, Jim is simply grateful for the happiness that they’ve managed to find together. Sometimes, though… Sometimes Jim just wants.

And Then I Think Too Much ♪ Smile-era gen, H/C and fluff, 3562 words ♪ Tim doesn’t mind being the shortest member of Smile - at least, not usually. But when his height causes problems in a band photo session, his insecurities resurface and it’s up to Brian and Roger to cheer him up again.

Play Your Games (And I’ll Fall Apart) ♪ Tim/Brian/Roger, smut, slight D/s with bottom!Tim, see AO3 for more warnings, 1873 words ♪ Brian and Roger take Tim apart, and Tim loves it more than he wants to let on.

Oh, To Belong To Someone ♪ One-sided Tim/Brian, implied Brian/Roger, angst, character study, 4575 words ♪ It was Brian that was the most important to him. Always, only Brian.

Cast Adrift Amongst the Stars ♪ Gen, Smile fic (set in the 1992 reunion), H/C, angst, 7962 words ♪ When Tim gets the invitation to play with The Cross and Brian, he’s excited for a chance to reconnect with his old Smile friends. But when the evening doesn’t go quite as he expected it to, Tim is left wondering whether it’s even possible to revive a friendship after so many years apart.

Make the Season Bright ♪ Maylor, Christmas fic, H/C and fluff, 8530 words ♪ Brian wants to get his friends the perfect Christmas gifts this year but try as he might, he finds that he’s completely out of ideas - and with the holiday only a few days away, he’s completely out of time as well.

Keep the Doctor Away ♪ Poly!Queen, medical kink but no smut, safewords, see AO3 for more warnings, 1617 words ♪ Brian makes a mistake when he tries to ignore his misgivings about Roger's new kink.

Long Outlast the Winter ♪ Gen, early Queen, a bit of H/C, 1389 words ♪ New Year’s Eve, 1970. Roger is looking back on the last 12 months and Brian tries to help him stay optimistic about the future.

Finally, it’s not new fic but all my reader insert fics are now cross-posted to AO3. There’s a lot of them so I’m not going to link to each individual fic but they’re all on my AO3 page if you just take a look over there!

I also cross-posted Baked With Love the gen fic that I wrote in the beginning of the year where Queen has a tradition of eating muffins together on their birthdays (because I meant to cross-post it on one of their birthdays this past summer and then forgot).

#queen fic #queen fanfic #queen band fanfic #queen band fic #my fic #text

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classicmollywood · 4 years

Text

The Screwball Comedy Films Review

There’s a book in there, I promise! I can’t believe I am on review #4 for Out of the Past Blog’s 2020 Classic Film Reading Challenge! This has been a blast and made me (in a good way) keep up with my reading! And also try to get my photography skills improved (not really working but that’s okay!).

Okay, let’s get to the actual review. The book’s full title is The Screwball Comedy Films: A History and Filmography, 1934-1942 and it was written by Duane Byrge and Robert Milton Miller. When I first opened this book, I got a little nervous because the title and picture on the cover sold me, but the Table of Contents seemed very textbook like. It is a wonderful thing I ignored my original assumption, because this book was more of an enjoyable reference book than a bland textbook. The book is set up into four major sections which I believe was the smartest way to intrigue a reader. Why you might ask? Because it’s kind of like in baseball (sports?) where you do a wind up and a pitch before the batter hits a home run. The wind up and the pitch are the first three sections - which are Major Performers, Major Writers, and Major Directors. The home run comes in the last section, The Films, 1934-1942. The book also explains why screwball comedy is so great. So let’s talk about that now!

Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant can’t believe I mentioned baseball too! Source: Britannica

So I used the baseball analogy because the term ‘screwball’ actually comes from that sport. But I don’t wanna talk too much sports because this a book review and my baseball knowledge is limited. This book really pointed out the comparison though and made me realize why screwball comedies are called well, screwball comedies. You could say, oh these are just romantic comedies. STOP! NO, HOLD ON A SECOND. Screwball films combine a specific formula, which yes, includes a love story and some comedy, but goes more in a satirical zone whereas traditional romantic comedies don’t always do that. There is usually some slapstick, witty fast talk, and some sort of ‘untraditional’ romantic pairing that usually ignores socio-economic boundaries and one of the characters is so zany it is hard to believe they are real and the other one keeps getting dragged into zany shenanigans even though they are the practical one. This is a gigantic paraphrase, but Byrge and Miller really do a good job of describing what makes a comedy more of the screwy variety. They also taught me something I should have known... but didn’t.

In My Man Godfrey, Carole Lombard’s spoiled rich girl against William Powell’s butler is so Screwball. Source: Pinterest

It Happened One Night is crowned by the authors (and history) as the first ever screwball comedy. It has most of the identifiers above, and really was the guinea pig to see if this new genre would even survive. Once that film became a hit, earning Oscars galore, writers went full steam ahead to create that perfect chemistry that Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable had and the new ‘screwball formula’ that delighted audiences. I also learned that It Happened One Night had so many imitation films it isn’t even funny. The imitation was mainly in the plot, with the whole spoiled rich girl meets working class male on a cross country trip because she is escaping something or someone and then she realizes she doesn’t hate the working class life or the working class male.

The film that started it all! Source: Medium

The irony is Claudette Colbert starred in the first screwball and also in the last of the glorious period of screwball greatness that was 1934-1942. Colbert was in The Palm Beach Story with Joel McCrea. Why did screwball mania end? Because when a war is going on, it is kind of hard to focus on the fun shenanigans that follow the rich mixing with the poor with excitement. The Depression audience that started the screwball craze just simply grew out of it and had other things on their minds. But the ‘70s and ‘80s had a revival of sorts for the screwball genre (this book mentions What’s Up, Doc? and that is the perfect example of screwball revival).

The film that was the closing chapter of the screwball era’s highpoint. Source: BFI

The first three chapters of this book are more in paragraph form, but are easy to read because they explain things with just the right amount of info but not to the point where you start getting overwhelmed. My favorite section of the first three is the one on the performers, because it was fun reading which actors and actresses dominated the genre and which ones only did a real toe dip and then moved on. If you were wondering, Carole Lombard was pretty much the queen of screwball and was in quite a few of those films and usually played the zany one. Lombard knew minor success in various genres but really shined when she was a bit ‘screwy’. Cary Grant had similar luck like Lombard, and the genre catapulted him to superstardom. I could go on and on about the other stars of the genre, but then it wouldn’t leave you anything to read in the book.

Screwball royalty Grant and Lombard with Ronald Colman. The duo were in films together, but the main one is a drama. Source: bridiequality on Tumblr.

The reason why I loved the last section so much is because it lists almost all of the screwball comedies made between the ‘34 and ‘42 time period. It is also in chronological order and my brain works best chronologically when it comes to movies (my extensive movie collection is in chronological order and my friends think that’s weird but it isn’t! It’s how I am programmed, okay?!). The chapter lists the film, the year it was made, director, cast, does a small plot summary and also provides background on the film. For example, in the His Girl Friday spotlight, the authors talk about the plot and how Howard Hawks inspired the actors to do that rapid pace dialogue, which gives everything a more manic vibe. Then they describe how Rosalind Russell’s character is not the zany one this time, but in fact, it is Cary Grant’s character who gives us the doses of zany. They also explain how this film is the same yet different to others in the genre. The analysis of the films is very intellectual and you can tell the authors actually researched the films they are talking about, meaning it seems they actually watched the films they discuss. I have to point that out because it is obvious when someone is just talking the talk but has no clue what any of it means!

They sure talk fast in this film! Source: Mental Floss

This book is a winner for those who love screwball films, want to know more about them, or just love classic film. I will say if you are not movie minded, you won’t like it. It is a shorter read but you will probably view it as a more academic book than entertaining. I really enjoyed reading this book, and because I love telling anecdotes, I am glad I bought this book. Last summer I was in Asheville and went to a champagne bar/bookstore. I saw this book and was intrigued but thought it was super expensive, so I walked away. But then the next day, I kept thinking about this book, with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell on the cover, and went back and told them to take my moneys. The book wasn’t too expensive and once I got around to it, I am grateful that Cary and Roz caught my eye.

#classic film reading #screwball comedy #The Screwball Comedy book review #book review #classic film #It Happened One Night #The Palm Beach Story #My Man Godfrey #His Girl Friday

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