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aspiringhorrorauthor · 2 years

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As is tradition with Dracula Daily, let me give you today’s Cultural Lesson Based On Today’s Entry. Let’s talk about money.

See, if you’re thinking Dracula and the characters are handling what we see today as British money, don’t be fooled! Dracula is set in the 1890s, and they use an entirely different money system to what we use now, it just seems on the surface that it’s the same.

For context, if you didn’t know, Britain uses pounds (£) and pence (p) as the currency now, with 100p to £1. This is called decimalisation, and has been in practice since the 1970s. Before then, we were the last country in the world to still use the Roman monetary system.

In the Victorian era, there were 3 used measurements of currency: Pounds (L), Shillings (s) and pence (d), which was written in that order: l.s.d, so a sink in a shop may list the price as 1.7.2, which would be 1 pound, 7 shillings and 2 pence.

Now lets break those down a little more. There are 240 pennies to the pound, and 12 pence to the shilling. That makes 20 shillings to the pound. Most working class laborers would be using shillings as their highest coin in day-to-day living. You could get a pint of beer for a couple of pence. A pound was an incredible amount of money to your average person (maybe less so to the fancy characters of Dracula).

But I want to talk about the coins.

See, a penny was not the lowest coin in circulation. That was a farthing, which was worth ¼ (a quarter) of a penny. Then next was a half penny (or ha’penny if you prefer). Of course there was the penny. Then there was a two pence (tuppence) and a three pence (thrupence) piece. Then you had your half shilling (sixpence, pronounced more like sixpunce, with a ‘u’ rather than an ‘e’), and the shilling itself (twelve pence, remember? Also known colloquially as ‘bob’). Then you had the florin, which was 2 shillings exactly (24 pence). From there you had your half crown, which was worth 2 shillings and six pence, for a total of 30 pence (though you’d never call it that), and then a crown, which was 5 shillings. From there the next step is the half-sovereign, worth half a pound (120 pence, or 10 shillings), and finally the gold sovereign coin, worth £1, or 240 pennys, or 20 shillings.

Yes, that’s genuinely the method of money these characters are using. Some old people insist it was easier than the current system.

Here’s some more fun money facts in case they come up later!

A guinea is a pound and a shilling (1.1.0, or 252 pence), and was used to make things seem a little cheaper to wealthy buyers. It’s used from time to time in Victorian books so it’s worth knowing.

The correct way to read out prices is ‘[x] and [y]’, so say you were selling something and wanted a shilling and fivepence for it, you’d ask for “1 and 5”. This is often used for the stereotypical cost of a half a crown, so when someone in a period drama asks for “2 and 6”, what they’re asking for is 2 shillings and sixpence.

There is a fairly obscure coin that I’m not sure was in circulation at this time which was nicknamed ‘The Barmaid’s grief’, it was only used for a few years. This was worth 4 shillings and was the same shape and (very nearly) size as a crown (5 shillings). So people would buy a pint of beer, the barmaid would pick up the coin in a hurry and not realise that it wasn’t a crown, and give 4 shillings back along with change from a shilling for the beer. So people made money from buying beer. It was not a good time to be a barmaid.

#Dracula daily #money #british money #Yes I also laughed when i found out old british money was written as Lsd #For someone who is not all that interested in coin collecting I love knowing about the old coins!#My dad was a bairn when they changed the coins around. His dad used to keep the old coins for him from the shop and give out the new coinage #Some people of a certain age get the value of shillings mixed up because post decimilsation a shilling could still be used and was worth 5p.#I worked as a social historian for one summer can you tell? I was paid £8.75 an hour to tell people this. So you guys owe me like £3.50 #For my work here.

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chirpsythismorning · 3 months

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“Mike said his life started the day he found El in the woods, which was technically the following night. What he said had nothing to do with offending Will because he went missing the day before.”

#byler #ignore the logistics of it #mike’s brain thinks of Nov 6th as the day Will went missing aka the day his life stopped #he met El after a whole day of worrying about will #its the day they had to see etched on will’s tombstone #Nov 7th is just an extension of him finding out and doing everything to get him back #nov 7th evening is a whole 24 hrs later #so yes not the same day #but it doesn’t make it any less incriminating #it’s not that Mike didn’t exist until he found el #it’s that it stopped that day #and then started again when he got hope will was alive #so many lines in mike’s monologue felt like lies mixed with a dose of truth #friends don’t lie co-founder and his loopholes 🙄#I think it’s interesting also that we never really get Mike and Will talking about his time in the UD #the one time they do it’s brief and mostly about uncovering what’s happening to Will in that moment in s2 #but like we never see them talk outright about what happened or how the party all coped #so the prospects of him finding out how Mike truly felt back then…#in a scene where mike explains the ‘i feel like my life started-‘ line to Will #(and even more importantly the audience who has to buy into this)#that could be quite something…

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flipp-ppilf · 6 months

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New sketchbook page:

I knooow u guys followed me for good omens content but,, i forgot that i have ocs that need some love too. Anyways, thats God. Yeah, that god. Im one of those ppl who have biblical characters as ocs... is that appropriation..?

My thoughts abt them: God (any prns) creator of everything, a being very hard to reach and even harder to comprehend. Humans have never seen any part of its body and the angels had barely seen anything above its hands, the hands that he uses to see. But here's the truth, God isn't a perfect and enlightened being, neither a careless and cruel monster. They are simply an author, an sculptor, an architect, a performer, a painter, a musician, a director.. an artist. Their passion for creation is infinite because creating is all that its has, this universe is all that its has. Yeah. They're very lonely.

Oh I almost forgot abt the coolest thing of this drawing! God's head spins:

(This took a decade to work out,,)

#god #original art #oc #sketchbook #mixed media #artists on tumblr #BRart #i like how messy this looks #also love this oc #poor god #so lonely #he had nobody #so he made everybody #and still #feels lonely #also yes i have religious christian themes as one of my main special interests how did you guessed

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sysig · 10 months

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Went absolutely feral on WOY again recently (Patreon)

#Doodles #Wander Over Yonder #Specifically about Peepers #Commander Peepers #Wander #Lord Hater #Fist Fighter #Emperor Awesome #Sylvia #The quality's gonna be scuffed for the next little bit 'cause it was too scribbly to work with lol #I had fun drawing! I just was not feeling particularly careful or clean #Also I decided to try out a new challenge and editing would've eaten up too much of my time - give and take!#Hhhh even after all this time Peepers is still my fave of the cast <3 The Most queer-coded villain (minion) how could I resist!#I'm simply too gay for evil that's just how it goes lol #Plus he is So fun to draw - like all of the WOY cast is they're all so bouncy and squishy! Very fun shapes!#But Peepers is the perfect mix of elements to me - effectively an objecthead with a rounded triangle torso and so expressive!#I love himst #Immediately going in on the shipping lol - yes I do genuinely ship him with everyone featured here #The Fist Fighter is new! But everyone else has precedent lol #He's my favourite so I love all of his dynamics! Or did he Become my favourite Because of his interesting dynamics? Who can say ♪#The most obvious ships like Wandering Eye and Death Glare are probably my favourites but hhghggg he's too interesting to leave alone!#I like him with Awesome because of a specific fic but I even besides that I think they could bounce off each other well!#And with Sylvia it's their begrudging comradery of being the Keepers of their fools <3 They have a lot in common especially their passions #As before I did not expect the Fist Fighter but I recently realized how cute they are and it turned into a rival/friendship/crush thing lol #They're arguably more competent than the Watchdogs - I think C.Peeps could grow to recognize and appreciate their prowess lol #For now it's all one-sided tho haha - still cute!#Anyway let Peepers say ''fuck'' even just once he deserves it

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chaos-bringer-13 · 2 days

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Jazz's little. Her parents are super cool. They're ghost hunters! It sounds like something from a movie about future and scientists and supernatural beings and cool-looking tech. They have cool-looking tech at home. It's even cooler than tech in the movies.

Jazz also has a little brother. He's stupid but he's hers, and she will protect him from anything. Her brother is very small, he needs someone to protect him and teach him about the world.

She knows about the world. She understands their parents much better than him, and she can tell her brother when they shouldn't be distracted. She knows when they're upset and irritable, and she knows when they're too excited and being near them is dangerous because of all the inventions.

Jazz does a very good job keeping her little brother safe.

---

Jazz goes to school. Her teachers say that she's very smart, the best student in class, and very mature. Her parents are proud of her - when she manages to distract them from ghosts. Her brother is still kinda stupid and doesn't know how to properly fight food, but she's always there to protect him, because that's what older sisters do.

Her classmates seem to think that she's weird though. Some of them say mean things and call her a teacher's pet and a show-off. Jazz isn't sure why they think so because she's always trying to be friendly but maybe she's doing something wrong. She goes to the school library and finds a book about people and their communication.

It's a very interesting book.

---

Jazz is almost a teen. She's gotten better at communicating with people. The school library ran out of psychology books, and Jazz now has to go to the city library but that's fine. Human brain fascinates her.

She's been feeling like something is wrong about her though. She even thought that she was going crazy for a little bit. That probably wasn't true because she didn't match any symptoms but she was still worried.

Someone told her that being so good at lying and faking face expressions is not okay. That's probably not true, Jazz is pretty sure almost everyone can do that. Or maybe she's just being a prodigy again. It's a very good thing to be able to do after all. She can hide her emotions from her family when she's feeling sad. She wouldn't want to worry them, would she?

She'll have to research it.

---

Jazz is a teen. She now knows that her parents aren't actually that good. It's something that was really hard to accept but it did explain everything. Her parents are kinda bad at being parents, and they also don't really listen when she tries to explain it to them.

It's okay. She's almost an adult and Danny has her. She can take care of herself and her brother.

She learns everything she can about being a parent and a therapist and tries to use her knowledge. It's hard, but she's a Fenton, which means that she's very smart and determined. She pushes through, and trains on her classmates and herself.

In the evening she writes about her feelings in a journal. It's very important to be aware of her feelings because that's the first step to dealing with them.

She's experiencing sadness. And anger, actually, even though she doesn't like to admit that.

She writes "this family is a fucking mess" in her journal and then covers the paper with ink until the sentence is absolutely unreadable.

---

Jazz is sixteen, and her stupid parents opened the stupid portal, which means that they're even worse than usual. It's pretty much okay when they're just stuck in their stupid lab, making some stupid weapons. It's not that okay when they're out of the stupid lab, because they get their stupid inventions all over the stupid house, and stupid food comes to life, and she has to protect Danny from both their stupid weapons and stupid hotdogs, and oh god everything is so stupid.

She's experiencing anger.

She's also acting perfectly calm and almost cheerfully.

Jazz hates how perfect her fake smile is in the mirror.

---

Jazz is seventeen. She wants to put her headphones on and listen to some loud music. Jazz can't do that, because she gets anxious if she can't hear what's happening around her. She needs to be fully aware of her surroundings because she needs to be able to protect herself and her brother if weapons against ghosts become weapons against children again.

She thinks that it's not okay.

The house smells of ectoplasm, so she'll be extra careful when opening the fridge.

She thinks that she shouldn't know how ectoplasm smells.

Jazz should probably also warn Danny: her little brother's gotten better at fighting food but doesn't notice the smell of ectoplasm. Funny, considering his ghost sense.

Funny, considering that her brother is a half-ghost.

That her brother died.

That she failed at protecting him after all.

Jazz stops breathing to prevent herself from crying, and doesn't need oxygen for a few minutes too long.

Maybe she failed at protecting herself too.

---

Jazz is turning eighteen next month. Her parents are all of a sudden more attentive and caring, as if that can change their almost-absence during her whole life. She doesn't like their attention because she doesn't know how to deal with it. She doesn't even really think of them as parents anymore.

She thinks of them as a threat.

Once she's eighteen, she's gonna try to move out, and she's going to take Danny with her because it's not safe to leave him here. Maybe after she gets a good job and saves some money, she'll even get into therapy.

Jazz thinks that she needs therapy.

She's been having Bad Thoughts lately, and she doesn't write them down in her journal. Jazz stopped writing anything in there ever since she found out that Danny is a ghost. She just couldn't risk anyone finding that journal.

Jazz isn't sure if she should call those Bad Thoughts intrusive. They scare her, and they're Bad, but it could be just her normal thought process.

It's still definitely not normal.

---

Jazz is eighteen. Her parents are very excited, whispering to each other about how they found a perfect present for her, some surprise that she's gonna love.

She doesn't care.

Her little brother is late from school, and it's weird, because he was also super excited about giving her his present.

She's worried.

Her parents brush off her concern, say that Danny probably just got distracted talking with his friends. They don't listen when she says that Danny wouldn't get distracted like that on her birthday because he's not them, he actually cares about her, he doesn't forget her birthdays, and something has to be wrong for him to be that late.

They don't listen to her at all.

She's angry.

Her parents are excited and talk loudly about how they wanted to find a perfect gift for their favourite daughter, and how they managed to do it because they love her so much. She hates when they're excited. It only leads to problems.

They bring her to the lab because of course they do, why would they make a gift that is normal and isn't kept in the lab, right? They usher her in, so obviously proud of themselves.

She hates them.

And she hates them much, much more the next second, because the gift is her little brother in his ghost form, strapped to a table, unconscious and injured, and the smell of ectoplasm is strong in the lab because of his green blood dripping on the floor.

There's a cold part of her that analyses her feelings and tells her what emotions she's experiencing, and that part is very aware of thick black smoke of wrath twirling and twisting under her skin. It's suffocating, and she stops breathing as it invisibly fills her lungs, scared of letting it out.

There's a perfectly fake part of her that keeps the smile on her face as her parents gush about how hard it was to catch the ecto-scum, and what they can do to it - together with Jazz because they wanted to share this with their amazing daughter.

Jazz is black smoke of rage under perfect glass of calmness when she grabs Fenton anti-creep stick. The smile she learned to fake under any circumstances doesn't falter when Jazz brings the baseball bat down on her father's head. It grows a little bit wider when she hits her mother, because Jazz learned to smile brighter when she's hurt or sad or scared or angry - experiencing any "bad" emotion actually.

Jazz is angry when she grabs her weapon.

Jazz is furious when she kills her parents.

Jazz is worried when she checks her brother's wounds.

Jazz feels nothing when she rigs the portal to blow, walks out of the house and presses the button.

She is her parents' genius daughter after all, and she did listen when they were telling her about their inventions. Maybe it would have taken longer to do, but she had Bad Thoughts, and they probably weren't just intrusive after all, because she did what they told her and made it very easy to make a bomb out of a portal. Just in case. Her parents were a threat, and Jazz was smart enough to prepare to dealing with threats, and she was smart enough to make it look like the threats dealt with themselves.

She really hoped she wouldn't have to use that button though.

---

Jazz is nineteen. Her sort-of-friends at uni offer to go to a restaurant, and she tells them that she doesn't celebrate her birthdays. There's a noise of all of them saying that maybe she should try, noise that she really should have expected, because humans are always so excited about any holidays, it's hard for them to understand that someone might not like them. It's not hard to stop that noise though. They shut up very quickly when Jazz says that she had "a very traumatic event" on her birthday.

Good. She doesn't like loud people.

Jazz goes home to her little brother. He's sad because his parents died in an awful explosion a year ago. He's still trying to smile because it's also her birthday, and Jazz is very happy that he's bad at faking a smile.

It means that he won't end up like her.

Jazz hugs her little brother, and he gives her a little present that she adores, and then they sit in silence and eat some takeout. It's very nice.

She never tells Danny that their parents died before the explosion, and that the explosion wasn't an accident, and that their ghosts did form after that because of all the ecto-contamination they had, but she made sure this wouldn't become a problem. She never tells him what she's done, because that would hurt her little brother, and she would never let anything hurt him.

Jazz will protect her little brother from anything.

#I was feeling kinda upset yesterday #and decided to make it everyone's problem #this just clawed its way out and why not put it on tumblr #it's not like many people will see it #I love when a mix of “bad parents” AU with “protective Jazz” AU turns into “Jazz kills her parents” AU #I've seen a few stories with this twist and apparently it wasn't enough for my brain #Jazz deserves to go a little crazy #also yes Jazz is liminal here because of the ecto-contamination #and she found where the ghosts of Fentons were starting to form and destroyed them #killed them twice #double double kill #protective murderous Jazz my love #make her brother upset and she will make sure you're gone *forever*#if it's not clear: the “Bad Thoughts” was her thinking “maybe I should kill my parents before they kill my brother”#and then she went and did something with the portal so that it would be one added detail and a press of a button away from exploding #in case she needs to run away from home with Danny and kill their parents #she didn't know if she would be able to kill them with her hands and not from away because it's hard both physically and psychologically #but she couldn't risk them doing something to Danny #and it was easier than she thought it would be #I've been thinking a lot about how Jazz could get interested in psychology because of her own problems #and how she definitely hides her emotions #if you see any mistakes please tell me because this is also kinda my way of learning English better #danny phantom #tw: murder #tw: death #tw: neglect #this is my first time doing this so please tell me what warnings I forgot and I will add them

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quietwingsinthesky · 3 months

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oh, yeah, another thing i noticed that was odd about s5 in comparison to earlier seasons was how much they relied on like. not the history of the doctor, exactly, but the image of that history. whether from little easter eggs of the first doctor’s picture popping up everywhere to i think the two(?) times in the season we get a montage of past doctors. and i honestly can’t remember anything like that happening earlier (with the exception of the time crash short, which felt more substantial to me and was also like. 7 straight minutes of david tennant being allowed to fangirl.)

and i say ‘the image’ because hell knows the RTD era was pulling from doctor who past left, right, and center, but it rarely felt like a moment of ‘look at this old thing, you remember old thing? old thing was cool and so are we for continuing it.’ and more like ‘here’s a species/character/etc from classic who. and here’s how they’ve changed and fit into the new world we’ve built for the show.’

I guess, the difference here for me is that. i haven’t watched classic who. s5 shows me a slideshow of doctors and to me, those are the guys i once ranked by how sexy i think they are. and not much else. i don’t have an emotional connection to an image. but take, say, school reunion? an episode that was my favorite even back when i was a kid specifically because i adored sarah jane? i had no idea who she was then, i only just figured out a little bit ago which doctor she traveled with, and exclusively all i’ve watched of her is that episode in s2 and the sarah jane adventures. and yet, that episode, without the context there for me, managed to make sense to me. i’m sure it was probably even more impactful to fans of sarah jane from classic who, but it didn’t lose its impact without that knowledge.

so, that’s a shift. i don’t want to say it’s a negative one, exactly, because maybe people who have seen classic who like these references and i’m missing something. but, to me, it feels a little more shallow.

#sorry if i kept talking about sarah jane and school reunion we’d be here all day. her reintroduction to nuwho is phenomenal.#even without classic who. you get it. you get what the doctor did to her. you understand how much it hurt her. by giving her time with rose #we’re able to use what we know about rose to parallel her with sarah jane and infer that sarah jane was a lot like her once. it’s good!#and seeing pictures of the first doctor is like. very funny because he’s a silly little guy. but i don’t know that man.#but yeah. another example i’d put out there is Dalek. and yes everyone loves dalek we all know its good. but. without the context of classic #who. this was the choice of how to reintroduce the daleks to the audience. not as silly tin can killing machine. but as this. this wretched #and pitiable thing that dies to see the sunlight. this monster that is. in its last moments. capable of change. however small.#(a theme that i think links up well to evolution of the daleks in s3. i think its interesting how we’re invited to see the daleks first as #beings that have had a great and terrible injustice done to them. (in episode: the dalek being chained up and tortured. in a wider context:#how daleks are made at all.) before we’re introduced to them as a galaxy-wide threat intent on inflicting that same suffering on the rest of #the universe.)#MY POINT IS: nuwho and classic who mix well when the classic who elements are reintroduced in a way that makes sense both for people with #the back knowledge of classic who (and maybe they get even more out of it) while ALSO makign sense to people who’ve only seen nuwho.#anyway. this is a small thing its far from like. a show-ruining point. its literally fine lol.#doctor who #dw lb

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moregraceful · 11 months

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Me out here like, oh boy I am chewing on the bars of my enclosure threatening to go crazy. Maybe I will typeset some fic and do some bookbinding tonight because creating things with my hands always makes me feel like I'm doing a total body reset on my mood. Microsoft word: Ah, I see you are frustrated with many things in your life right now. Would you like to be furious for an entirely new and different reason? Me: No. Microsoft Word: Great! I did not save all your pre-made styles from the last time you typeset a mixed media fic. Have fun recreating every single one. Me: 🥲

#i get NO REST--#this fic is very interesting to typeset bc it is both mixed media AND is split into chapters which i have never done before #so i am enjoying the puzzle of how to make chapters flow on printed pages naturally when it is half media half regular story #the fic is paced seasonally - it goes month by month and it's very short but the format is such a neat challenge #i'm simply on the floor. when i did the train fic i had so many styles for each kind of media type. i THOUGHT i saved them all but i. didnt #and to be fair i have now done a total body reset on my mood just instead frustrated with doctors i am mindlessly furious at word #but! i found a decorative font that is just octopi! and since the fic features the seattle kraken well we're really gonna be rollin #as soon as i get off the floor lol #(and i hear you say but kasper didn't you swear off microsoft word for typesetting??? and i say yes and mama raised a damn stubborn fool)#birdbindin'#fresno oilers.txt #i'm being very vague bc it's not my fic and i am giftung it to the author but it's. very obvious what fic this is and who wrote it lol

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transingthoseformers · 4 months

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I have been thinking about pre-war gladiator!earthspark Megatron these last few months and there's fun to be had

#is it likely? probably not #but is it an interesting plotline to run? yes #let me play mix n match with my plotlines #maccadam #transformers #tfe megatron

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radio-4-is-static · 1 year

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LADY | Kenshi Yonezu

引っ張ったり噛み付いたり傷ついたふりしてみたり明日の朝に持ち越したり浮ついたりして思いきり傷つきたいいつまでもそばにいたい今すぐ行方をくらまそう

///

Pushing and pulling, biting remarks, acting hurt Occasionally carrying over unresolved issues until the following morning Feeling giddy at other times Want to be hurt as much as possible Want to stay by your side forever Let’s break away and disappear right now

#lady #米津玄師 #kenshi yonezu #音楽 #gif #my gifs #made another lady gifset >.<#whipped it together really quickly bc i decided yes the long shots must be giffed 😤#i think this mv kind of mixes together some elements from the m87 & kick back mv's which is v interesting #it's like welcome to the kenshi yonezu cinematic universe #the kycu #there is little to no gravity here but there are lots of freight containers to climb #anyway 😂#i really do love this video #he's so expressive & it looks like a lot of fun :)

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gothwizardmagic · 7 months

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Music Tag

Shuffle your 'on repeat' playlist and post the first ten tracks, then tag ten people!

(i dont use spotify so i just shuffled my entire 22k song itunes library which makes this kind of the opposite of a record of what ive had on repeat lmao)

Tagged by @thequeerestdad

He Went To Paris - Jimmy Buffett

Afterglow - José Gonzaléz

Ryan Jigs - Calan

Indelible - Brooke Fraser

Scraps - Cupcakke

Desire - Alela Diane & Wild Divine

What Are You Doing Here? - Bruno Coulais

U KNOW - Willow (feat. Jaden)

Leviathan - Everything Everything

Gift From Virgo - Beyonce

I tag @trombonechurchill @magicradishhead @teacupsandcyanide @do-you-have-a-flag @goldenaltar @g0sts @corvidaeus uuuh and anyone else who wants to do it pls @ me i wanna steal ur music taste

#interesting mix albeit not a ton of variety lmao all but two of these came out of my chill playlist #i rly wish cupcakke's serious rap got more attention shes extremely good #yes her comedy songs are funny but shes also unironically one of the best rappers out there rn

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aeide-thea · 5 months

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poäng appreciation post 💛

#i forget if i said but Baby Sister and i stopped off at ikea on the way back from picking her up at the bus stop on monday #and finally replaced the ruined-by-a-succession-of-cats-(in-ways-both-unsightly-and-gross) Accent Chair in the living room #with a poäng rocker (bc the shape is a little more interesting and less instantly recognizable than the regular chair) in birch (my beloved #also they make fancy tufted cushions for it now! wish they came in more colors but it's a real improvement on sad options past #and anyway it's like. now you can actually sit here in the morning and look out the window at the extremely beautiful view #and the chair actually supports you??? like i could see down the road trying to work out some kind of custom cushioning that's thicker #but the shape of the frame is so ergonomic for me that it's genuinely quite comfortable regardless. bentwood exocorset…#anyway. not a very original post but i just DO really love ikea #like yes it's a mixed bag but also honestly if you're buying particle board—#(i was going to say 'and expecting it to hold up' but. honestly i think it's just. if you're buying particle board period)#—that might be on you.#(like. if you're being pressed in from all sides by budget constraints and immediate need and no accessible better-made used alternatives—#obviously you do what you have to. but it's like buying pleather—you know‚ or should‚ that the material is going to disintegrate.)#but the things ikea makes with decent materials are remarkably well-designed and affordable for what they are‚ has been my sense?#you just gotta shop carefully but like. that's true literally everywhere.#anyway. in conclusion i love my new buddy with its clean lines. …do people name chairs ever.#i've never before had the urge but this one feels like a little assembly-line friend that deserves its own identity. like a star wars clone #(lol what if i gave it a little nametag somewhere hidden. secret identity talisman 4 chairpal.)#(& yes i promise i'm as aware of the‚ uh‚ itself-ness of this tag spiral as you are. :) )#domesticities

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dogmannn · 1 month

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Thinking… about newest aipri character… susumu hirasawa…

#hirasawa planned to appear in the newest installment of pretty rhythm???#yes #this is true actually #japanese comoposer susumu hirasawa?! > <#susumu hirasawa #Im just mixing my current interests with each other #like a blender #new layout

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aro-sora · 7 months

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Heartless

This month's Carnival of Aros theme is "Humanity and the Non-Human" and these prompts were particularly resonant with me:

It’s been a fairly well-documented phenomenon that many aromantics tend to feel some sort of connection to some sort of fictional non-human species, whether as specific examples, or as a whole. If you relate, what are your thoughts on these characters and concepts as an aro(-spec)? Do you have any experiences in any subcultures related to non-humanity, such as Voidpunk?

So I thought I'd write something about my personal experiences.

It will come as no surprise to people who follow this blog that I am a heartless aromantic and I'm also a huge Kingdom Hearts fan. (To anyone who isn't familiar with KH, in the games there are beings of darkness called Heartless. There's a lot of designs and some are cooler than others so here are a few of my favorites:)

[ID: Various Heartless from Kingdom Heartles, in order, a Shadow, a Neoshadow, a Soldier, and a Darkling. End ID]

These beings are both literally and very much not literally (it's complicated) heartless. They are manifestations of the darkness in people's hearts and seek to steal more hearts to transform into Heartless.

(something something beings that are recognizably human but also . . . not and yet still have the instinctual desire to reclaim what was taken)

A common stereotype about aromantic people is that we are heartless and unfeeling because we don't experience romantic love. Aromanticism may influence a person's emotions and definitely impacts views on romance, but to say that all aros are cold and emotionless is hurtful and arophobic. But I also genuinely identify with the term "heartless." Not feeling romantic attractions makes me feel alienated from amatonormative society, and "heartless aro" is the best way for me to describe that feeling.

My love of Kingdom Hearts is also a huge influence on that. When I say KH rewired my brain, it's only a half joke. I was 5-6 years old when I first discovered these games and this bizarre Disney/Final Fantasy crossover was a very formative experience. "Heartless" is not just a way to describe my aromanticism, its a defining aspect.

What is it, to be Heartless? To be human, once, but now something . . . other: a being born of darkness. Darkness is a force that is often used for evil, but still KH makes a point of not making it inherently evil. Darkness exists in every heart. It can overwhelm, but it can also be accepted and mastered, like in Riku's case. To choose to become Heartless, in Sora's case, is a defining moment of humanity.

My blog url might be aro-sora (because let's be honest, he's super arospec) but the title, "My Heart Belongs to Me," is quote from Roxas, one of the best examples in KH of someone being denied humanity for supposedly not having a heart, yet being one of the most caring and emotional characters in the series. He's not an actual capital-H Heartless (that's Sora, briefly) but his story and his struggles just . . . resonate with me. "I am me! Nobody else!" I want for people to stop thinking of me as something I am not, as desiring relationships I don't want, or even being a gender I am not.

I don't have much experience with voidpunk culture (but now I want to look into it), but recently I discovered the term otherhearted: "Identifying strongly with something nonhuman and/or fictional, without literally identifying as that thing." (I'm a bit on the fence between being otherhearted and otherkin, but otherheart literally has the word "heart" in it and the KH influence is strong.) It's a very queer experience to want to change your identity and be something other than what people see you as. Sometimes I imagine that for myself—claws of darkness, eyes of burning gold. Darkness cannot exist without light, but neither can light exist without darkness. Nothing can destroy me, because I am the shadow at the very heart of the world.

I guess that would make me Heartless-hearted. An ironic term, I know, but similarly to my personal heartless aro identity I find it absolutely hilarious. So many parts of my identity are "contradictions": being bigender, being human and heartless. It fits with the lore of the Heartless themselves: some technically do possess hearts and some don't. (it's complicated)

I call myself heartless the same way I call myself queer. Bigots will use them as insults and an attempt to make me lesser and other and nonhuman, but to me these are my words. They are mine and I give them power, no one else. Someone thinks I'm "heartless" for not experiencing a certain feeling? Fuck them, I AM heartless. And I am still human because I choose to be, not because humanity is something to be given or taken away. I don't have to prove anything about myself to anyone. I define my own heart, NO ONE ELSE.

And if they still think that being heartless—being aromantic—is something "wrong" or "unnatural" or not human? I only have a warning for them:

Beware the darkness in your heart. The Heartless prey upon it.

#kh #carnival of aros #a carnival of aros #aromantic #aro #heartless #heartless aro #otherhearted #my ideal gender presentation is either a mix of masculine and feminine or literally just a neoshadow. or a darkling #semi-related note: the terms “Heartless” and “Nobody” make sense for their respective beings and I will fight anyone who says otherwise #i was very tempted to include images of the wackier heartless designs but it would have taken away from the point #non kh fans reading this i highly recommend browsing the kh wiki and seeing all the designs. some are . . . interesting #like scar. yes. scar the lion from the lion king #you may have heard of him #i also use loveless and lovequeer but mostly heartless because. as i said. the kh influence is very strong #it's about beings that USED TO BE human but AREN'T ANYMORE yet still have that instinctive desire to restore their missing heart #*gestures wildly to the air* DO YOU SEE MY POINT #ITS ABOUT A SCARED CONFUSED BOY HAVING EVERYTHING TAKEN AWAY AND HUMANITY DENIED FROM HIM YET STILL SO PAINFULLY HUMAN #i'm going to go cry about roxas now #happy spooky month everybody!

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