#i liked the context of the pictures on the last collage too much not to share them as well

[tricorderreading]

In honor of this post, I thought it might be fun to share (some of) the many faces of captain kirk as he appears on the star trek book covers throughout the years. Novels shown here were published from the 70s through the 90s

#i liked the context of the pictures on the last collage too much not to share them as well #dino time motherfuckers #star trek #books #tos #the original series #star trek tos #covers #kirk #*marge simpson voice* i just think they're neat #the slight variety on what the artist chose to emphasize and all that

[bex-la-get]

Hello, hello! This week, we are going on a little:

Home Tour!

Notes: Answer the following with pictures (dialogue from your characters is optional!). Collages are highly encouraged if you want to answer a question with multiple pictures because tumblr mobile only allows 10 total pics. Otherwise, tumblr on a desktop lets you add multiple pictures (non-beta)!

For both:

What does the outside of the home look like? (Front/back yard, garden, pool, etc)

Living room and home office (if any)?

Kitchen and dining room?

Bedrooms? (Master, guest, others)

Other rooms?

Do you own your dream home? If not, what does that dream home look like?

What is your favorite room to spend time in with each other?

Hi babe! Thanks for the fun questions! Hope you like them!

So, little bit of context: Nat and Ethan recently bought this house after finding out that Nat was pregnant with their third child [Lydia]. So, I imagine them doing this tour shortly after Lydia’s born and they’ve settled into the house. Enjoy!

(Also, please imagine Nat doing with this with a baby strapped to her in one of those wrap things ‘cause that is the cutest damn visual and I need it to be seen).

Previous Questions

For both: What does the outside of the home look like? (Front/back yard, garden, pool, etc).

Nat: Ethan likes a much more modern look when it comes to houses while I prefer more traditional so we tried to find something that matched both. Instead, we ended up finding this beautiful Victorian and we both fell madly in love with the place!

Ethan: I have to admit, it surprised me how much I love this place. But I can’t imagine us living anywhere else now.

Nat: You can’t see it in the picture but the front yard is completely gated which is a huge weight off my mind. With two kids under the age of six and a newborn, the last thing I want to worry about is my kids getting out of the front yard. The gate has a special lock on it too so only people with the code can get in or out. It gives us so much peace of mind.

Nat: We really wanted the backyard to feel like an extension of the house so we decorated it as such. It’s great in the summer time when we can have friends over and have a big cookout. 

Nat: Ethan installed the hammock for me shortly after we moved in. I had always wanted one as a kid and now we get to curl up there in the evenings whenever we want. Plus, the kids love it. 

Ethan: *smiles* Next on the list is to set up a vegetable garden. I would have done it sooner but with Nat so close to giving birth when we moved in, I decided it was worth the wait. But by next spring, I’m hoping to have it set up and ready to go.

Living room and home office (if any)?

Ethan: Technically, we have two living rooms. The first one is more of a formal living room where you can sit and talk with guests, if you want. It’s not pictured but there’s a large fireplace with some bookshelves around the room. We treat it kind of like a study. It’s also where we plan on putting the Christmas tree come the holidays.

Ethan: The second is our “informal” living room-- or “den” as Nat calls it. This is where the television and game consoles are. This room probably gets the most use out of the house since this is where we have movie nights and just spend most of our time when we’re home.

Nat: Don’t forget the office, babe.

Ethan: Oh, right! We try not to bring our work home with us but with both of us working on books right now, we figured it was important to have a good work space away from the rest of the house.

Nat: I admit, I was worried about the black interior when we first saw it, but I’m kind of in love with it now.

Ethan: *smirks* I knew you would.

Nat: *rolls her eyes* Hush, you.

Kitchen and dining room?

Nat: Ah, Ethan’s favorite place in the house!

Ethan: One of my favorites, at least.

Nat: You know, before moving I never understood the hype for all-white kitchens. But I get it now! Look at this place, it’s so bright and open! And remarkably easy to clean.

Ethan: I could’ve told you that a long time ago, my love.

Nat: Yes, but I probably wouldn’t have believed you. *Ethan laughs*

Nat: You know that chandelier is original to the house? This whole room is, actually. It was basically untouched during the renovations. They just upgraded the windows and re-stained the flooring. The rest of the room is virtually untouched, which I absolutely love.

Bedrooms? (Master, guest, others)

Nat: Our room isn’t too fancy. Ethan likes it clean and simple and I like a lot of pillows. I think we managed that alright.

Ethan: We’re trying to keep the kids rooms as neutral as possible right now. Their interests are changing so fast that we don’t want to have to keep redecorating every time they change their mind. We’ll probably do more detailed decorating as they get older.

Other rooms?

Nat: We do technically have a guest room but it’s not considered a “bedroom” since it doesn’t have a closet.

Ethan: It’s a room in our basement that acts as a guest room. The rest of the basement we’re treating like a kids playroom and home gym.

Nat: It’s also where my mom has been staying for the last few weeks. She came up to help us settle in with baby Lydia. She’s been a godsend. *Ethan nods in agreement*

Do you own your dream home? If not, what does that dream home look like?

Nat: Absolutely we own our dream home. This place is amazing and everything I ever wanted in a family home.

Ethan: I never pictured myself with a big house or living in the suburbs, but here, surrounded by my family... it’s beyond my wildest dreams. This is better than a dream home; this is heaven. *Nat smiles and kisses his cheek softly.*

What is your favorite room to spend time in with each other?

Nat: Oooh, that’s a tough one. I love all of the rooms. But I think I’m gonna have to say the den and the backyard.

Ethan: Agreed. Any space where I can spend time with family is my favorite place to be.

Tag list below the cut:

Tag List (let me know if you want to be added/removed):  @genevievemd @jamespotterthefirst @paulfwesley @ethansdique @openheartfanfics @perriewinklenerdie @little-flowers-on-heaven @stateofgracious @coffeeheartaddict @liaromancewriter @potionsprefect @mm2305 @gryffindordaughterofathena @actuallybored @writer-ish @queencarb @takeharryandgo @lsvdw-blog @itsjustwinter​ @imaneditorthankyouverymuch-deac @chaoticchopshopheart​ @ohchoices​ @maurine07​ @oldminniemcg​ @parisa-kh​ @shanzay44​ @uberamsey @izzyourresidentlawyer​ @adiehardfan​ @custaroonie​ @mia143​ @a-crepusculo​ @takemyopenheart​ @toadfrog26​ @quixoticdreamer16​ @barbean​ @headoverheelsforramsey​ @natureblooms24 @jerzwriter

#bex answers #asked and answered #messrprongs #newlyweds game with your host bree #ethan ramsey #natalie cusack #ethan x natalie #ethan x mc #open heart mc

[themadauthorshatter]

It's been a while since we last checked on Flippy, so let's see how he's doing!

We start with Cuddles this time, who's sitting upside down on a bench when Petunia and Flaky approach him, asking if he's seen Flippy anywhere.

He has not, because he thought Flippy was with Petunia.

Petunia folds her arms and asks why Flippy would be with her for about a half to a week and a half, and Cuddles shrugs; maybe they got REALLY intimate and just needed all of that time together.

Flaky squeals, because it's dirty, and Petunia tells him to get his mind out of the gutter because this is crazy serious.

Cuddles gets up and relentls and asks if they stopped by his house.

They did, and he wasn't there.

Did they check the woods?

Not there either.

The GYM?

He doesn't even BELIEVE in going to the Gym, most days; why GO to a place to workout when you have the equipment at your house or just outside in general?

Cuddles finally realizes that Flippy's MISSING missing, and gets up, joining the girls with finding their friend.

Flaky hopes that Flippy's okay, but Cuddles assures her that he's smart, he wouldn't do anything stupid like run away.

Funny he say that because Flippy IS doing something stupid, staring at a projector that's showing a bunch of war footage, like pictures that NO AVERAGE PERSON should see.

Splendid cringes as turns a small dial on an IV line and watches Flippy struggle to both handle the medicine that's being pumped into him and not flip out.

Thankfully, all that happens is that he vomits in a bucket.

Splenedid stops the medicine and hands Flippy some water, asking if he's really okay with continuing; they've been at this for a while and they're making very debatable progress.

Flippy washes his mouth out and nods. He can keep going.

Splendid hestitately changes the image to a collage of very familiar faces:

Tiger General, Sneaky, and Mouse Ka-Boom.

Flippy gasps at seeing them and asks how the hell Splendid got these pictures.

Splendid admits it was a simple internet search, because people spread information around like it's a puff puff pass, especially if said information is a tragedy and a victory. He can give Flippy a few minutes, if he needs it.

Flippy only takes a few seconds seeing the faces of his dead partners and nods.

Splendid gets the IV and medicine going again and Flippy takes a few deep breaths as what I call the "Make Me Sick" medicine(MMS for short)(if MMS is a real thing, I deeply and sincerely apologize. I know there's a name for the drug/"medicine" used for aversion therapy, but I forgot it🙏🙏🙏) runs through his system. TV perspective, his eyes dart between Mouse Ka-Boom and Sneaky and he sees old memories of the three in training, i.e. standing still while a drill sergeant yells in their faces and/or tries to make them laugh, having a meal together, goofing around before bed, and even comforting each other after getting tased and pepper sprayed as a part of training.

Flippy's eyes go 'killer instinct-y' and he fights a gag as he remembers how they all promised to meet again once they were out of the army, and how both looked at him with shock, sorrow, and betrayal because of how he accidentally killed them.

The memories change to taking on Tiger General 1v1, how he had to fend for himself, got his hands removed, and was almost strangled to death until he ultimately came out on top amd took down the rest of the enemy base.

When I say he vomits, I mean he VOMITS until there's nothing left to get out of his system and he's dry heaving.

Splendid quickly turns off the projector and gets Flippy off the IV, though the veteran tells him he can take more, he just needs a few minutes.

Splendid, however, tells him to call it a day; they've been at this for hours and he's already making phenomenal progress; of course Splendid is not going to TEST it right now because his friend just threw up all of his digestive system.

Flippy sighs and agrees, relinquishing for the day.

Splendid helps him up and asks if he's okay to walk home and Flippy states he's fine; he just wants to go shower and clean himself up after throwing up so much.

The two bid their farewells and Flippy begins a very uneasy walk home.

A bit of context: it's been a week or so since the last part and they've been doing this all day everyday since then, from dawn to dusk, and today they started around MAYBE 4 am in the morning and it is now 12 or 1 pm in the afternoon, so yeah it's time for the Flipster to go home and rest.

Back on track, Flippy's not exactly the best because he needs to get the vomit taste out of his mouth and just feels like crap, so he takes a shortcut home.

He gets there relatively fast and flops onto the couch and falls asleep, exhausted.

He dreams he's with Sneaky and Mouse Ka-Boom, all three playing a mix of Spades and Poker, Sneaky and Flippy speaking in english before translating for Mouse Ka-Boom to understand them; yes, Mouse Ka-Boom speaks french. He understands English well enough, but isn't the best at speaking it, aside from, 'Sir, yes, sir,' 'Sir, no, sir,' and a few insults he picked up from Flippy on accident; he may or may not have gotten the three in trouble because he repeated one of these insults in front of a commanding officer.

Regardless, the three are having a good time before Sneaky asks Flippy a question: How did it feel to throw that knife at him rather than the General? Did he enjoy it? Did he hate Sneaky that much he had to throw a KNIFE through his chest?

Flippy deflates and clarifies that he did not mean to miss the General; it was a heat of the moment thing and he's, admittedly, not good under stress.

Mouse Ka-Boom lowers his cards and asks if cutting him in half was another 'heat of the moment thing,' along with getting them both blown to smithereens.

They change before Flippy's eyes, both mangles and burnt, and Flippy leaves the table, backing away from them.

That is until a hand claps on his shoulder and his own voice tells him to admit that he actually did enjoy killing his friends; it's what he's been trained to do, so what better way to see the reward of all that effort?

Flippy turns and sees himself, who demands he admit it, admit that he's never going to change, that he won't let himself because not only does he like it, he also wants to go back to fighting and wants out of Splendid's Aversion therapy.

Flippy barely gets a word out because his other self tackles him to the ground and starts to choke him, calling him weak, a liar, and a coward, saying he should've died on that mission, not Sneaky or Mouse Ka-Boom.

Speaking of which, the two appear and grab both of Flippy's arms, holding him while he's practically being strangled again.

It gets worse when his other self turns into Tiger General, who laughs that he wouldn't be surprised by such an admission because it took Flippy how many tries to kill him. Might as well return the favor.

Flippy, breathless and trying to break free screams out and wakes up on the floor, though he gets up and runs to the kitchen sink, where he dry heaves and coughs up spit.

He stops after a while and sits against the cabinets, having regrets about the choice to go along with Splendid's idea.

These regrets linger as he walks outside the next day, catching a toy Cub dropeed while and Pop are on a stroll, though Cub is in a wagon.

They walk off, Pop thanking Flippy, and Flippy gets a surprise attack hug from Flaky, who's close to tears because he's been missing.

Cuddles, Giggles, and Petunia also approach, asking where the hell he disappeared to, because they've been looking all over for him.

Flippy apologizes for worrying them and straight up lies, saying he just left town for a little bit to enjoy some quiet time; and to restock on his medicine as soon as he could because he ran out.

Cuddles still lightly punches Flippy on the arm and tells him not to scare them like that again, or they'll put him on a harness or walk around with him in a wagon.

With Flaky now piggybacking him, Flippy muses that it sounds tempting, because he could see everyone getting some excerise because of it.

The group laugh it off and start toward a diner, because they all skipped breakfast and lunch on accident.

Flippy decides to join them, having NOT skipped breakfast, and they head to the diner.

On his back, Flaky asks Flippy if he's okay, because he looks pale and feels tense.

He nods, claiming he's fine, just a little sore from a workout he did while he was away.

Flaky is suspicious, but drops it. FOR NOW.

Cut to them at the diner, all talking and looking over the menu to see what they want, and a visual gag of Cuddles and Giggles having a contest of who can spin longer in their chairs(they're all sitting at the bar).

Flippy is a little uneasy because ANYTHING can trigger his instincts and he doesn't know how well this aversion procedure is going to qork because neither he nor Splendid went out and actually saw if it was working.

Petunia sees his unease and asks if he needs to step outside for a second.

He shakes his head and admits he's just trying to figure out what to eat.

Good thing he's having a hard time, too, because Petunia is not in the mood for grease.

Flaky fakes a gag or an "Eugh," and jokes, "Ew, flirting."

While Flippy laughs, Petunia DARES Flaky to repeat that, because it was her that helped the two get closer.

His laughter dies when a kitchen fire starts on accident right in front if them.

TV/anime perspective, we see the reflection of the fire in Flippy's eyes as they widen and he gasps/whimpers. We don't see his flashback, but we hear about a bomb going off and people screaming in pain. Flippy clenches a fist on the countertop, silent as the fire is put out and everyone relaxes.

While everyone talks about how crazy that just was, Flippy spontaneouly gets sick to his stomach and gags, excusing himself really quick to go to the bathroom.

The group watch and are now very confused, because usually flame triggers him, but he did not go off on them.

Cuddles, being the only boy, follows Flippy, saying that he'll try not to die in the process.

He does not die, but he does see Flippy vomiting into one of the sinks, very violently, I must say.

Cuddles asks if everything's okay, which scares the crap out of Flippy, but the ex-soldier claims he's fine; the fire just got him scared.

Cuddles doesn't really buy it, and asks another question: Has he been eating, AT ALL? Because he looks like he lost a little bit of weight and sick as hell.

While he waters away his mess, washes out, and wipes off his mouth, Flippy admits he has been, as much as he can, at least.

Cuddles still doesn't buy it, asking WHAT he's eating and when.

Flippy leans over the now clean sink and measures his options.

If he tells the truth, there's a chance his friends are not going to take it well.

If he keeps them in the dark, they will be fine, even though he'll feel even more like garbage.

Flippy turns and holds up his hands in surrender. He's been eating venison to build immunity, and because it, honestly, tastes really good.

Cuddles reels on him, asking why he'd do that when he's almost deathly allergic to the stuff.

Flippy apologizes and admits that, yes, he knows it's stupid, but he's just trying to make himself better, in case they have a cookout and someone accidentally brings venison instead of steak.

Cuddles points out that's BS because NO ONE eats venison(whatever it is)(Flippy corrects him that it's deer), but still drops it because Flippy clearly doesn't want to talk about it; guy code.

Flippy thanks him anyway and they rejoin the group, everyone keeping an eye on Flippy as he eats, Flaky especially, because, having known him the longest, she canntell he's both hiding something and isn't as good as he's pretending to be.

HMMMMMMMM????

#happy tree friends #htf flippy #htf splendid #htf giggles #htf cuddles #htf flaky #htf petunia #ptsd tw #nightmare tw #strangle/choking tw #medicine/drug use tw #aversion therapy tw #vomiting tw #thank you for being patient

[takiki16]

THOTS (thoughts) on Russel Crowe in gladiator ?? 👀👀

Hoooooo boy.  Hooooooo boy.  HOOOOOOOOO BOYYYYYYY

THOTS

ON

RUSSELL CROWE

IN

GLADIATOR????

LIKE...OKAY THIS NEEDS A CUT

This movie was one of my weirdest early gateways to I Find Restrained Men Hot even before I had the vocabulary to articulate that to myself.  My highschool english class had to make collages for our classics unit and one of the guys had printed out a still from the scene where Commodus comes to visit a chained-up Maximus and stabs him?  The first still above?

And.  Bby takiki16.  Was. FASCINATED.  I had to ask my teacher what the picture was from and just sit there very Confused and Intrigued by the context I could read on the actor’s expressions and going ????  Chains???  Talk??? Shoulders??? Accepting??? CHAINS????

And then I got to see the movie and I found out that the whole thing is just LIKE THAT.  The entire saga of Maximus Decimus Meridius is the saga of a sad subby bottom in a room full of morally grey tops with Issues (TM) who all want to wreck him and have varying degrees of willingness/unwillingness to be nice about it.  EVERYONE!!!! Every single person!  All of them take like ONE LOOK at Russell Crowe’s sad mourning face of “I Will Submit Myself To Abuse Without Protest” and go WOW, is anyone gonna tie that up????

Lucilla’s tragic control in not destroying this man while he was chained to the wall i swear 

Which okay, I could MAYYYYYYBE handle all of the above if Maximus weren’t such a fatal combination of all the tropes that I find attractive in a subby male character?  ESPECIALLY the Good General part, which is less and less common a trope in terms of larger scale formal command.   Not only does Maximus get whumped physically AND emotionally throughout this movie, he is a Great Leader and Loving Husband and Homesick Father and Competent Soldier all rolled into one - all of which makes his suffering THAT MUCH SWEETER in terms of knowing like...the worth of what is being broken?  If that makes any sense?

And yeah, some combination of traits is not unusual among white male action heroes in Hollywood - badass soldiers with a fridged wife and kids are a dime a dozen, and it’s easy to bunch the extras together and have them cheer the lead.  It’s an overused trope.  But when they are well done, it cuts straight to my cold dead heart, and MAXIMUS DECIMUS MERIDIUS, SAD SUBMISSIVE DILF WITH AN ARMY THAT WOULD DIE FOR HIM, I JUST-

(a portrait of the entire royal family of Rome in this movie)

When i talk about Submission as a character trait I find attractive in whumpees and male faves in general, I REALLY CANNOT do much better visually than this deleted scene (shut UP I own the extended version) from the movie where Maximus is chained up talking to the soldier who betrayed him to Commodus in the beginning. Maximus says “Nothing happens to anyone that he is not fitted by nature to bear.”  Which is.  SUCH.  A Stoic thing to say (and for some last paltry pretense at historical accuracy, Maximus would be SUCH a Stoic) and SUCH A TRAGIC SUB thing to say!!!!  He isn’t fighting the chains, he isn’t fighting what’s about to happen to him, he isn’t angry or indignant or even particularly defiant.  Maximus just nobly endures the things that are done to him in the movie with this sad solemnity that is JUST *chef’s kiss* PERFECT for me rather than cocky defiance or screaming rage. 

 What I want more than anything is a fanfic that completely rewrites Gladiator in a D/S AU - they wouldn’t even have to CHANGE much, they would just have to explicitly put into text the things that are already there.  And it kills me that Gladiator was released way too early to spark a wave of fandom content as I prefer it? 

(it kills me that I can’t grok with most of the Maximus/Commodus content on ao3, even astolat’s.  It just kills me.  I’m starving for something that doesn’t exist and I refuse to write it and I’m DYING HERE FOLKS)

I fully understand.  That this movie is cheesy.  I fully understand that it is almost completely historically inaccurate. I FULLY UNDERSTAND that it is directly responsible for several tiresome trends in Hollywood.  But this movie TURNED A KEY IN MY BRAIN that CANNOT be unturned and you all just have to live with me and my THOUGHTS and that is that on that

#gladiator #russell crowe #my posts #you are responsible forever for what you have tamed #THOTS ON RUSSELL CROWE IN GLADIATOR THERE YA GO #rhaeneystargaryen

[phoenotopia]

2019 December Update

The game is officially playable from beginning to end!

That battle has concluded...

Soon begins the war! But first, a brief reprieve for the holidays.

And I must throw in the usual caveats. We're still playtesting, we're still polishing, we still gotta get age ratings, more red tape, etc etc. And most importantly, we need to figure out the launch strategy. Think Megaman, charging his shot for 5 and a half years... We're not allowed to miss at this point. It has to HIT.

Luckily, we're in a relatively stable position where we don't have to rush the game out immediately. It's not LAUNCH or STARVE - it's... take some time to aim a little. We don't want to launch in the shadow of a bigger behemoth game, and we don't want to launch completely unknown either. We have to build up the game's media presence, which has been neglected so far. I know it's annoying to have to continue to wait... but please bear with us a little longer!

Here's what we've been doing for the past couple months.

---------- THE SCRIPT ----------

The script sits at over 80,000 words. I didn't realize the significance until a teammate told me that that's actually as long as a novel! I looked it up, and sure enough, it's a little longer than the first Harry Potter. But unlike Harry Potter, hardly any of these words are wasted on, pffft, narration. It's all juicy dialogue!

(Some of the game's golden nuggets of dialogue)

There was actually a lot of mundanity getting to the end. Pirate, acting as my editor, caught tons of errors and inconsistencies. One of the most recurring issues had to do with capitalization. I like to capitalize things, often inconsistently. Some common questions that arose:

Why is this text highlighted yellow, and this one highlighted blue?

Why is this monster name capitalized, but this monster not?

Why is this item capitalized, and this one not?

... and so on!

All very mundane issues, but all very necessary to tackle. And there was a TON of 'em. (em vs 'em was another thing we had to make consistent). I actually did some research to see what capitalization rules Zelda had. From what I could tell, when it comes to animals and monsters in the Zelda universe:

All monsters are capitalized

All regular animals are not capitalized

The Cuccos are special, and ARE capitalized

(a collage of Zelda pictures I assembled to study)

In the Zelda universe, all regular items are lowercase, but highlighted blue when mentioned in a quest context (e.g. "butter", "hylian wheat"). Items can be uppercase, if they are special named items (e.g. "Sheikah Slate"). We adopted similar rules as Zelda in some cases, and deviated in others. For instance, in the Phoenotopia universe, there isn't a clear distinction between animals and monsters - that fish monster is really just an animal that happens to be the alpha predator in its natural habitat. So most entities are lowercase, but "big deal" entities can be uppercase.

(we made a formal document to consult whenever a question regarding capitalization arises)

---------- A SAMPLING of QUEST AND CHARACTERS ----------

A lot of new quests have arisen in our great writing effort extending over the past several months. And with it, new characters, big and small. I'll tease a sampling of some of them here (warning: some light spoilers ahead):

My favorite new quest is undoubtedly our game's new "Trading Quest". This one takes inspiration from the Zelda series - the trading quest similarly has you roaming the world and its towns in search of needy people who desire a particular item. Deliver them the item they desire, and get a new item. Do this 10 times, and the ultimate weapon awaits you at the end.

I tried some things to vary up the formula. Some NPCs don't reveal what they need right away - steps have to be taken to get them there. It's also possible to go down the wrong route in the sequence, and have to double-back. We try to keep it interesting.

---------- LOOT PLACEMENTS & GAME BALANCING ----------

A great effort was also spent towards balancing the game this past 2 months. Because even one good healing item, easily obtained, can throw the game's whole difficulty off-kilter. And this same principle applies to other areas, like the money economy and player powerup options. Altogether, they form a very delicate ecosystem for enjoyment.

One of the recent things I did for this game was put down exactly where each heart ruby, energy gem, and moonstone could be found. And this was actually a rather involved process because you have a limited number of rewards to distribute (you wouldn't want the final max HP count to be a weird number like 297). Put too many rewards in the beginning, and the late dungeons would have no rewards to offer. Put too much in the end, and the inverse happens.

I found myself going back into earlier areas and plundering their rewards to fill the later areas. And then to ensure a relatively even spread of rewards within each area themselves, I drew crude maps of the dungeons & their reward spots, so that they could be studied from a bird's eye perspective.

But it was still not enough. With NPC quests and towns also taking up their own allotment of the rewards, I found myself running low on things to distribute. So I went back to the books and upped the number of rewards across the board. Before there were 44 Heart Rubies to collect - there are now 55. Before each Heart Ruby boosted your max HP by 5, but now each one now boosts your max HP by 4, so your final max HP count would still end up the same. It's kinda similar to what happened with Twilight Princess, where they broke with tradition and made 5 heart containers required to gain a new heart instead of the usual 4. Overall, the final tally for treasure to find is:

55 heart pieces

30 energy gems

108 moon stones

Who's crazy enough to collect them all?

---------- BADGES / ACHIEVEMENTS ----------

As one of the game's finishing touches, there's a menu for BADGES - they're this game's version of achievements. This is an ongoing task that we hope to stamp out this December. A few favorites of mine from the original flash game will return ("Pillow Connoisseur" is among them).

(The menu looks like this before any badges are earned)

I allocated slots for just 33 badges, so we're selecting the badges very carefully. We got rid of most of the fluffy ones that appeared in the flash game - we wanted to reduce the number of badges that you would earn automatically for just playing the game (so no more "1st boss", "2nd boss", "3rd boss" achievements). We're aiming for a healthy mix of easily earned badges, hard earned badges, collectathon badges, secret fun badges, and so on.

The badges have another twist - they bear miniaturized portraits of characters from the game! In the initial brainstorm mockup phase, I wasn't really fond of the badge designs. You got a medal of a heart because you collected some hearts, and you got the medal of a moonstone for collecting moonstones, etc. It just seemed so... expected.

(various badge mockups)

How could we engage the players on a more fun and deep level? The idea came - what if we attached pictures of the people you meet on your journey? And these people's stories and character would have a connection with the achievement? That could keep the player guessing which character would come attached with an achievement, or even reveal a hidden detail about the character you didn't know.

---------- MUSIC ----------

Will has just one more task to do. And that's to recut the song for the trailer. One of our other goals for this December is to make a really good trailer... again. There's actually 2 other trailers we cut and never made public for reasons. Maybe I'll talk about them one day in the post-mortem.

Since this may be the last conventional update, we wondered with which song to best leave the audience. And we decided that the most suitable song is "Sanctuary". It's a song that the player will often encounter often when they happen upon a quiet resting place in the world.

There's a little story behind this song. Two and a half years ago, I linked Will the Earthbound song, "Buzz buzz's prophecy", and told him, make a song like that!

In response, Will made "Sanctuary".

Give it a listen HERE. What do you think? Did Will hit close to the greats?

---------- FAN ART ----------

Three fan arts have come in the last couple months. I display them here proudly:

Another submission by Cody G! Gale looking shy as she flashes the V sign for the camera. I like how Cody G's art is continually evolving. Note the additional detail on her eye, and how her hair is drawn extra fluffy. Very nice!

Shafiyahh is another consistent contributor, and made one in the spirit of Halloween. I really like their costumes! Gale as an angel, and Lisa as a demon, fittingly captures their relationship, since Gale is the responsible one and Lisa is the troublemaker. So cute!

A contribution from a new artist, Negativus Core! Wow, Gale looks so bada-- here! We often forget about Gale's tough side due to the cutesy graphics. This is probably how her enemies see her. And the gummy (slime) is a cute touch!

---------- FINAL NOTES ----------

Similar to last year, this will be the last update for a while. If things run too slow, I'll post a status update come end of February 2020.

It's possible, and this is a BIG IF, that something notable happens sooner than expected - like we're going to a con or we have reason to drop the trailer sooner than later. If so, this blog will update earlier than expected. BIG IF. Otherwise, it's end of February till next you hear of us.

The game's development has reached a new uncharted territory. We're going to take the time and figure out exactly what our next steps are. In addition, we'll still be doing some playtesting and script polishing. And we'll be taking a break too. It is the holiday season, things move kind of slow around this time of year. We'll enjoy the company of our family and friends.

Until then, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

[inmyarmswrappedin]

Thoughts on each even, you don’t have to answer. You just have some of the better skam opinions on this site.

Hi 🤩💫 First off, flattery will get you absolutely everywhere with me, anon, thank you so much haha. 

I took a few days to think about how best to answer this ask because most of the Evens don’t feel so different to me that I could think of many things to say about each one. But then I thought I’d approach the Evens through their art style. 

I was a bit of an Even in high school— liked 90s hip hop, fell in love a lot, was a bit of a dreamer and a romantic, doodled and tried my hand at different art projects with mixed results, etc. So in talking about the Evens, I’m also going to talk a bit about myself if you don’t mind! 

I’m also not going to rank them this time, let me know if you want me to rank them (or to rank anything else about Skams, idc).

Even - I like Even’s drawing style and I feel it suits him very well. He never had an insta, but Isak’s season banner features a good amount of his drawings, plus the ones we saw on the show. He’s obviously influenced by American hip hop and comic culture, what with the COOLCAT, the weed, the crown, the diamonds… and the dicks. I’m very fond of Even’s Illuminati eye surrounded by boners, lol. It really feels like the kind of things a boy like Even (who loves Romeo + Juliet and Pretty Woman and Gabrielle, but also Nas and Lars von Trier and Stjerner uden hjerner and FIFA) would draw. I like that Even felt inspired by his conversations with Isak and pushed through his own fears to make art directly referencing things Isak said. Even felt scared by the possibility of parallel universes, but in order to show Isak how much he cared, his drawings for Isak all referenced parallel universes. I also like that Even’s art style is not stereotypically cute. It reminds me of the borderline gross style of Daniel Clowes and Peter Bagge.

Niccolò - Okay, so at this point I think we’re all aware that Skam Italia didn’t even have the budget for insta content, and they clearly didn’t have the budget to hire an artist specifically to create Niccolò’s art. He does have lots of drawings in his room, but then he doesn’t really draw anything for Martino? It feels like Niccolò is more of an arts and crafts kind of person, at least to me. Anyway I like that (aside from the red string of fate, which never got a follow up of any kind) the stuff Niccolò makes for Martino all reference Last Man on Earth, the TV show they bond over, in one way or another. The show is really not what I would call epic romance material, which I feel works for them tbh!

Eliott - My thing with both Eliott’s furry thing and Polaris, is that both seem really cute, but ultimately like… they didn’t mine either thing for all it was worth, I guess I would put it. Also, in comparison to other Evens, Eliott’s thing is almost developed (Eliott is after all a fictional character, not a real person) in order to elicit maximum cooing from its audience. Like, no one would say the illuminati boners or Last Man on Earth are objectively cute, not out of context! (And I’m far from a Skam Italia fan, I’m just saying.) But the hedgehog and the raccoon and the cat are all drawn in a very cute style. It feels a little too saccharine sweet for a 18-year old. However, Maxence not looking like a 18-year old might also play a part in my hesitance, because as a 18-year old I legit drew a full on comic about me and my then crush as superheroes fighting against our teachers in order to conquer college admittance tests together. (Like I said, Even and I have some shit in common lol.) And I drew my crush as a cat because he looked like a cat to me. So where the hell do I get off criticizing Eliott, y’know? As for Polaris, it’s like… Okay, so one is afraid of the light and one is afraid of the dark, and they meet and kiss right outside the cave, what else? It’s like, it’s cute and romantic, right, but not very developed as a season long motif.

David - I mean, do I have to say it? I love David and everything about him. I love that he has different art styles and uses different tools, it’s very realistic for someone his age still trying to find what his specific thing is. I love his sketches and his collages and the fact that he has a vampire persona that he draws in thicker lines. I love that he didn’t initially have an insta, and that he only got it because Sara and Leonie needled him about it, and I love that he didn’t post selfies or pictures of himself until he went through his character development. I love that his vampire persona crap is only for Matteo and he doesn’t post those cartoons on his very serious, very aesthetic insta. I love that his vampire persona looks similar to the Magdalene Hanke-Basfeld illustrations for the Angela Sommer-Bodenburg “The Little Vampire” book series. (I have no idea whether it’s intentional/an homage or just me seeing things where I wanna see them, but I loooove it.) I love that his first posts on insta really just seem kind of random (aside from the bird taking flight ofc) and like they don’t have a connection to the s3 storyline, it’s as if David really existed and made art and had ideas and thoughts before he met Matteo. I get such a kick of David’s sense of humor, like he seems kind of angry at the cliche of being barefoot on the beach and having a good time (ZUM KOTZEN!!!). Lol he’s just so delightful. I love that he can’t post a goddamn pic or video without a filter, oh no that’s simply not him!!!!1 And let me tell you about the time he made a highlights folder and named it Nights on Earth, I almost lost it on twitter I had such a great time. Anyway, David’s art and insta really scream that he’s a bit of a pretentious snob who corrects people on proper terminology and will only make cute things for the person he cares about the mostest AND NO ONE ELSE. PERIODT!

Joana - I’m a bit torn about Joana because I’m not into her more anime-esque stuff, but at the same time, god, if that isn’t me. I learned to draw by watching anime and trying to emulate the style, and because I’ve never really taken lessons, my cartoons just scream anime. I’m a bit embarrassed about it, because weeaboos and what not, and that extends to Joana as well lol. Before I revisited the Evens’ stuff for this ask, I had this idea in my mind that Joana’s art is a bit unrealistic because it seems too polished and professional for her character, but really, that’s just the piece that she in character made for the hospital/the BDP project. The stuff on the show and on her insta is actually believable as doodles or pieces she can put a bit more effort into, but aren’t like, art gallery-ready. I like that Joana started posting black and white doodles from graph paper notebooks (ftr this is the kind of notebooks most Spanish students use, lined or blank paper notebooks not so much), and started adding colors and creating more complex pieces as her relationship with Cris progressed. I think it says so much about Joana that the cartoons that represent her are always in some kind of pain, physical or emotional, but the cartoons that represent Cris (including the toads) are always cute, always happy, always desirable. Like, be more in love pls. I love that Joana is a bit of an edgelord, and uses a lot of imagery related to arrows, knives, tears/blood drops. That’s so accurate of girls like her. I love that the season banner has an actual to god vulva on it. Compared to other Evens, Joana seems more focused on drawing than anything else, so maybe that makes her video for Cris’ birthday not plausible, but on the other hand, I feel like Croana shippers could’ve used more cuteness in week 10, so you know what? Imma take that video, copypasta of “Gutten som ikke klarte å holde pusten under vann” as it is. I hope that Joana keeps posting art in s3 and s4, and so we get to see how her style develops. ✨

Sander - I haven’t really watched wtFOCK. 

#skam #druck #skam españa #skam italia #skam france #ask #Anonymous #brain vomit

[carolinesbookworld]

tagged by @kabeswaters and @swellwriting <3

on a scale of 1-10, how excited are you about life right now? 0

describe yourself in a hashtag? very similar to @fortisfiliae #stressedanddepressed

if you could do a love scene with anyone, who would it be? Harrison Osterfield

if your life was a musical, what would the marquee say? prepare for disaster

what’s one thing people don’t know about you? um...idk my boyfriend knows basically everything about me sooooooo

what’s your wake up ritual? wake up, turn off alarm (bc with this at-home learning stuff i’ve been waking up like literally 1 min before my alarm goes off???), text good morning to my bf, snapchat, discord bc moonlit fam talks allll night, tumblr, get out of bed, wash face, get dressed, coffee and breakfast it’s very specific

what’s your go to bed ritual? wash glasses and face bc my skin is soo oily by the end of the day so you best believe my glasses be needing washing everyday, shower, say goodnight to fam, text bf for like 15 mins or until he says goodnight, turn alarm on, plug in phone, go to sleep

what’s your favorite time of day? morning but specifically from 7:30 until 9  

your go to for having a good laugh? FRIENDS as in the show

dream country to visit? Australia bc my dad once got to hold a baby koala there and i wanna do that so bad

what’s the biggest surprise you’ve ever had? so my family moved before my sophomore year so me and my bff started trying to surprise each other whenever one of us came to visit and the weekend of my birthday, she skypes me as she’s walking around what i thought was her house and then i start hearing an echo and next thing i know she’s standing in the doorway of my room and that was pretty much the best surprise ever

heels or flats/sneakers? sneakers converse

vintage or new? new but i love vintage aesthetic i just couldn’t live with it

who do you want to write your obituary? karli @swellwriting bc she is my brain twin and i would be mocking her horrible grammar and spelling from my grave and we would both get a good laugh about it in the afterlife

style icon? the mom i babysit for haha she’s like one of my best friends tho which sounds really weird but it’s true

what are three things you cannot live without? books, dogs, days that are exactly 65 degrees

what’s one ingredient you put in everything? um idk chocolate??

what 3 people living or dead would you want to make dinner for? Sarah J. Maas, Eddie Redmayne, my boyfriend bc i haven’t had dinner with him for 47 days

what’s your biggest fear in life? losing the people i love...and spiders

window or aisle seat? window bc aisle makes me anxious that i’m in people’s way

what’s your current tv obsession? the cw’s nancy drew it’s so good please go watch it

favorite app? instagram, discord, or tumblr, depends on my mood

secret talent? um idk i can draw very realistic portraits of people when i take the time to

most adventurous thing you’ve ever done in your life? okay so technically this wasn’t me who did it but i was part of the adventure. when me and my boyfriend were just “friends” ie. liked each other and knew we liked each other but were too scared to admit it. anyway, we had this elaborate plan to shave our youth group leader’s head if we were able to bring in a certain amount of food for the food drive during vbs week. so yeah we spent like three days planning the whole thing out and then decided to go price shopping at walmart with all of our younger siblings bc we needed supervision or something lol to see how many individual things of food we could buy with $20 each we ended up just getting like 20 huge boxes of ramen and then his sister ended up throwing up so we took her home and then went back to church where my car was parked but instead of turning to get to church my boyfriend decides to go straight through the stop light (it was green okay) and spontaneously drive up into the foothills. well we get to the top of the foothills and we’re at the lake and we all get out to look at the city and my boyfriend claims that we need to document this moment so he takes a selfie with all of us and we somehow ended up right next to each other in it and i only found this out like three months ago (this happened back in june) that he only took the picture because he wanted one of us together in case we didn’t start dating lol so sweet and yeah, that was a very long story but i needed context instead of just saying “yeah we drove up a mountain”

how would you define yourself in three words? loyal, anxious, passionate

favorite piece of clothing you own? this dark coral dress that makes my eyes and hair look really pretty

a must have clothing item that everyone should have? a hoodie

a superpower you would want? i want to be able to project my thoughts into someone else’s mind bc i’m so bad at explaining stuff sometimes especially when it comes to how i feel

what’s inspiring you in life right now? ACOTAR series by Sarah J. Maas, highly recommend

best piece of advice you’ve received? opening up to more than one person is important because if you lose that person then you’ve lost all your support

best advice you’d give your teenage self? the friends who have stuck around this long are the ones you want to hang onto and the ones that you need are the ones you don’t always see

a book everyone should read? The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

what would you like to be remembered for? being a crazy dog mama

how do you define beauty? confidence in yourself and not caring what others think about you

what do you love most about your body? my metabolism

best way to take a rest/decompress? open a window to feel the breeze and listen to Islands by Hey Ocean! which is so calming to me

favorite place to view art? nature or tumblr

if your life was a song, what would the title be? we’re going with a fob/p!atd theme here and calling it “depression screwed me over so i screwed it back and ended up worse off”

if you could master one instrument, what would it be? piano

if you had a tattoo, where would it be? probably on my forearm or by my left hip

dolphins or koalas? koalas did i mention that i want to hold a baby koala

what’s an animal that represents you? great dane puppy ie. very excitable but will also take a four hour nap when tired

best gift you’ve ever received? my best friend made this photo collage for me when i moved that is hanging in my room and it has a bunch of pictures of me and her over the years and i just love it

best gift you’ve given? for christmas i gave my boyfriend a hammock and the bookshelf addition of clue, two things he had no idea i would remember him mentioning and his face was priceless. also i made my mom a cake for her birthday this year and she was so happy and said it made her feel very special <3

what’s your favorite board game? clue or ticket to ride (specifically nordic countries)

what’s your favorite color? currently a pale turquoise

least favorite color? any shade of light brown

diamond or pearls? diamonds

drugstore makeup or designer? drugstore bc i don’t wear makeup enough to validate buying designer, also i don’t really care

pilates or yoga? yoga

coffee or tea? coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee cof-

what’s the weirdest word in the english language? palindrome is wild because it means a word spelled the same way forwards and backwards but it itself is not one such word

dark chocolate or milk chocolate? milk

stairs or elevators? stairs

summer or winter? summer but like, only june

you are stuck on an island, you can pick one food to eat forever without getting tired of it, what would you eat? panera mac n cheese

a dessert you don’t like? red velvet cake which btw is not red-colored chocolate cake as many would have you believe

a skill you’re working on mastering? writing

best thing to happen to you today? i got to put all of my new plants in my windowsill and i named one of them (its name is albert in case you were wondering)

worst thing to happen to you today? idk today’s been pretty good as far as quarantine goes

best compliment you’ve ever received? my boyfriend calls me beautiful all the time and he always reminds me that that is describing looks and personality

favorite smell? coffee or my boyfriend’s sweatshirt for the week after i steal it

hugs or kisses? can i choose both?? depends on my mood mostly but i guess hugs if i just had to pick one

if you made a documentary, would it be about? literally anything relating to the mcu

last piece of content you consumed that made you cry? a court of wings and ruin by sjm

lipstick or lipgloss? lipstick

sweet or savory? sweet

girl crush? literally any female in the teen wolf cast

how do you know you’re in love? hahahaha haha what's love

a song you can listen to on repeat? we fall apart by we as human or uma thurman by fob

if you could switch lives with someone for a day, who would it be? idk my boyfriend probably, this is something we have discussed in depth

what are you most excited for/about this time in your life? for life to go back to normal

tagging @finnofamerica @woakiees @beskarjedi @outerlacy @swanimagines hahahahaha have funnnnn this took me an hour to answer

#about me #tag game

[slowly52]

[ hold you close ]

[ lovestruck au || male reader ] • yoongi

warning: it's long, it's cringey, it's angsty. anyway, it's three am, so i don't even care anymore. maybe i'll make a second part with a happy ending, we'll see ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

let's start with a little bit of context

you've known each other since you were really young, let's say elementary school or something like that

so you feel like you already know everything about him, and that he knows everything about you

back when he was getting to terms with his sexuality, you were the first one he told

you've seen him cry, you've seen him laugh, and all that cheesy shit

you've seen him places where some of his partners didn't even come close to

for years, you've only seen him as a brother, and you were sure that he felt the same way

but, you know, college always makes things different

specially if you don't get to see each other often

after eight months without a proper hang out, you started feeling left out

of course you weren't jealous, he had all the right to have other friends besides you

but you missed him

you didn't have the guts to call him, or send him a message

"i can't think of any excuse..."

"what if i distract him from something important?"

well

in the end, you didn't have to

he called you first, right in the middle of the night

not gonna lie, you heart skipped a beat

anyway, you picked it up

"hey, y/n... uh... a- are you busy right now?"

something sounded off

he was sad

"yeah, why? are you okay?"

"mhm, yeah, i'm fine. it's just... can i stay at your place tonight?"

okay, he wasn't fine

"c'mon, you know you don't even have to ask"

you said, trying to lift his mood a bit

"do you want me to pick you up?"

you heard a sniff

it made you panic a little bit

"yeah... yeah, that would be great"

in a blink, you were already inside of your car, heading to his apartment

as you got close you noticed someone sitting at the side of the road, in front of a small park nearby

knowing it was yoongi, you parked the car and walked towards him

as soon as he saw you, he got up and hugged you, hiding his face so you didn't see him crying

you both stayed silent for a bit

"... do you wanna talk about it?"

you asked, feeling your body get colder because of the wind

he shaked his head

"... okay, you don't need to"

again, silence

"we have to get inside, though. you'll get a cold"

he chuckled, and let go of you while wiping his tears with his sleeve

as you were driving home, you made sure you were holding his hand as much as you could

(automatic is a blessing amirite)

long ago you learned it was the best way to comfort him, since he didn't really like to talk when he was in a bad mood

still, he let out a few words this time

"i missed you"

you smiled, your heart beating a bit faster

"i missed you too"

and that was all

when you got to your apartment, he looked at everything like it was the first time

"huh, it's really been a long time"

you chuckled, taking off your jacket

"i'm gonna make tea, do you want some?"

he was busy looking at the pictures hanging on the walls of the hallway

"hm, okay. thank you"

he was smiling again, looking at a collage you made together when you were in middle school

it was mostly funny pictures of you both from when you were toddlers

you ended up watching a movie together, with him clinging to your arm the whole time

you didn't even remember what the movie was about, since that was the only thing you could remember about that moment

after getting ready to sleep, you turned off the lights and laid besides him

he snuggled into you, trying to get his nose warmer

that made you remember how he always had cold hands as a teen

after a while, your free arm got around him, petting his hair

a lot of memories were coming back to you those last seconds, from all the times you cuddled before

you felt him tighten his grip around your arm

he was crying again, apparently

"he cheated on me"

you heard him say quietly, the sound muffled because of your clothes covering his face

"he even had the balls to do it in my apartment, that bastard..."

at that, all you could do was listen

"it makes me sick to even think about it..."

you patted his back, softly

you were sad for him, and also mad at his now ex-boyfriend for fucking up such a precious relationship

what could that other person have that made them better than yoongi, anyway?

actually, don't even think about it

the answer's nothing

fucker was blind

a n y w a y

"he didn't deserve you"

you said, anger and jealousy running through your veins

"yeah, i knew you would say that"

his breathing became softer, telling you that he was calming down

"... maybe i don't deserve you, either"

softly, you lifted his chin so you could see his face

at this point, you weren't even thinking about the stuff you were doing

you wiped his tears and kissed his forehead, with all the love you could possibly put into that, trying not to cross any lines

"sounds unlikely, huh? i couldn't even function correctly these last months without talking to you"

you both laughed, the mood finally feeling a bit lighter

"did you know i love you?"

he said, still smiling

still, it hurt like hell

you couldn't help but feel you heart slowly breaking into pieces, knowing that if you answered, it wouldn't have the same meaning

"i love you too"

#bts imagines #bts x male reader #yoongi x male reader #suga x male reader #bts mlm #kpop imagines #kpop x male reader #lgbt bts #lgbt kpop #bts angst

[guylty]

Today I am doing something I usually don’t: I am going to show you something that I have made, but *before* it has arrived at the recipient. Those of you who have been following Flat Richie, know that my latest crafty obsession are junk journals. The little log book that is accompanying Flat Richie, is one such. I discovered junk journal making about a year ago and have been hooked ever since. I have made a good few, sold some, given some away. And right from the beginning, I had *one* particular theme for a custom-made junk journal in mind: Mr Thornton.

Seriously, why is the man not immortalised on a stamp yet?

I had it all in my head, and I started hoarding all kinds of pretty designer paper to make a junk journal with, but somehow the last push was missing. And then I came across a digital kit of images and designs that featured lots of yellow roses. The last piece of the puzzle was there, and I set to creating the journal.

This is already the inside cover of the journal

Rather than make this a big picture post, I have actually done a little “flip-through” of my North and South inspired junk journal and hosted it on Youtube. Much easier to show you my handmade journal that way. It is called “Thornton’s Signature” (in junk journaling terms a signature being one section of papers that is sewn into the book). Total added bonus: You have the pleasure of listening to my weird mixture of Djerman and Irish accents dulcet tones for all of 11 minutes! Watch my stumble and stutter now:

There we are. What do you think? Suitably Thornton-ish? Do you think I should make more of these, for inclusion in the birthday auctions later this year?

What I forgot to mention in the clip: The book cover is made from an old entomology book, hence the butterfly on the cover. It was just the right size, and so I decided to keep it and only cover the spine as well as the title (now obscured by that book plate). I had great fun creating the “ephemera” for the book – those are the decorative elements, i.e. the tags, journaling cards and envelopes, the pouches, collages and clusters etc. No matter how small the scrap, if it is paper, fabric or lace, I can use it.

And of course I had major fun sneaking “our man” into the journal. “I’ve always thought that it can’t be me [the fans] are responding to, it’s the character”, said Richard Armitage countless times. Sorry, darling, but no. I am *definitely* responding to you, because I am usually not fond of paternalistic, free market-loving capitalists. So I am doing him the favour and am creating some NS context. Luckily for us, photography was invented between 1838 (Daguerre) and 1840 (Fox Talbot), so a few images of Mr John Thornton, master of Marlborough Mills, Milton, survive.

As I mentioned in the video, this first Thornton junk journal is going to a very dear fandom friend of mine whom I owe some happy mail. In fact there are two shrines ready to go on their way to her, and now that I can add the journal, I am finally ready to ship. I just hope that she still likes RA. I haven’t heard from her for a long time…

If you think this junk journal malarkey has legs, let me know in the comments. I have a few ideas for other chaRActers up my sleeve, although I am actually quite happy to build another journal around Mr Thornton again, too.

Crafting for Fan Friends: “Thornton’s Signature” Today I am doing something I usually don't: I am going to show you something that I have made, but *before* it has arrived at the recipient.

#fandom love #John Thornton #North and South #Richard Armitage

[sunbrights]

fic: drop dead twice

fandom: danganronpa characters/pairings: peko & fuyuhiko, with a handful of original characters (the POV character is original, for reference). kuzupeko. rating: m notes: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY FAVE @thewildwilds (whose birthday was yesterday, but still)!! she is a wonderful friend and a gem of a human being, and this is based off of her 1950s AU which is rad as hell. If nothing else, I'd recommend reading her fic set in this universe before reading this one to get some context!

CONTENT WARNING: this story depicts an emotionally and sexually abusive relationship (not the kuzupeko relationship), as well as physical child abuse. I don't consider the scenes extended or graphic (though someone please let me know if you don't feel the same and I'll adjust this warning), but they are more than single-line references to off-screen happenings. please read with discretion!

read on AO3

The Kuzuryuus don’t have any children. It doesn’t seem like it at first glance, at least; Sachiko ties back the curtain in the living room to peek out into the cul-de-sac when they start unloading the moving truck, and there’s not a crib or toy or playpen in sight.

There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. Everyone has their own struggles in life, and Sachiko would never pretend to know someone else’s. It’s interesting, that’s all. The lady of the house is still young, even if she looks quite a bit older than Suzume down the street, who’s already heavy with her first. There’s time.

Keep Reading

#fuyuhiko kuzuryuu #peko pekoyama #kuzupeko #sdr2 #danganronpa #kiss kiss kill kill is one of my faves #i had so much fun writing a pseudo murder mystery lmao #i know the format of this one is a little different from what i normally do #i hope you guys still like it though!! #HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANH UR THE BEST!!! #sunwrites #i axed the read more after the fact because i realized the cut wasn't working on mobile #and i don't want potentially triggering content sitting out in the tag #lmk if anyone has trouble getting to the full story #i might just stop posting the full fics on tumblr if read mores aren't gonna work on mobile lmao

[bec0z-i-c4n]

OUTCOME ONE - Painting develop

Because I liked the idea of a list piece but was underwhelmed by the outcome of the first one I attempt to do a second. This time however, using the reply’s for to the survey given when asked to state one negative thing people had done because they could.

Over all I think this piece turned out really well, I think the composition is balanced, the colours compliment and clash where needed for example the yellow blue and orange. I think I succeeded in portraying the graffiti aspect, the party life style referenced in the text used and the over all context of the piece; other than it coming off a little too positive visually.

I feel the last piece was very visually similar to that of Stokou’s work so when doing this pieces I opted to do it landscape instead of portrait.

Unfortunately I again, due to an issue with technology, lost the progression shots of this piece. That being said I noted my steps so will walk through the making process.

I first prepped the paper with emulsion before going straight in with blue and orange paint pens to add in text. I then added in a grid structure on the left hand side. I then began filling in the white space with the various marking that can be seen the image (the blue and orange lines and circles etc). After this I began to add chunks of acrylic in areas for example the yellow sections that can be seen. I then again began to add more text or pick out areas I thought were interesting, for example I added the ‘getting high’ arrow. I knew I wanted to add in an element of collage to my piece but I was unsure what with out a printer or any images to hand I could use. Because of this I decided on adding parts of the pages of my note book as you can see in the image below.

This particular piece already had text on it to do with the pieces however I decided I wanted to blend it into the rest of the piece better. To do this I first white washed it then when it was dry and more scribbled and layered text going over and of the edge. To make sure this wasn’t the only area biro was used I then went around adding in bits of text little bits of mark making and some outlining.

While dong this I began to pick out these shapes showing through the layers of paint and turned them into the dancing people seen above. I came back to this area a few times however to build up with the layers. I worked adding various layers for a while trying to pull things into the foreground or mute the tones of an area. I decided to embrace a mistake with a watery blue that had dripped down the paper faster that anticipated by trying to create a box type area for it to run down in and wiping the exes away in and upward motion with tissue.

You can see this area in the image above. Because I thought it took up too much space I decided to use correction fluid to add in the text you see in hopes of blending it into the picture and it ended up being one of my favourite parts.

[officialthiamlibrary]

Welcome to another profile on Behind the Screens, giving you personal insight on who your favorite creators are and what they do when they aren’t wowing you with their creative ability.

Happy Tuesday friends! Today, we have the delightful pleasure in getting to know one of your most requested authors, @formerprincess. Rena, our aforementioned guest, is the writer of numerous works, most notably A Tale of Claws and Fangs, Overslept, and Finding My Way To You. As you’ll come to find out, she’s also so much more, so let’s not wait a second more to dive in.

Rena! To get us started, share something about yourself! And for the twist: the word could should be around the number of letters of the characters in you’re favorite TW rarepair ship.

Erica Reyes + Stiles Stilinski = 25

Shy but it you know me I can be pretty weird. Huge book lover. Disney Fangirl. Big heart. Need writing like air. Wrestling fan.

Woah, really?! A wrestling fan? What got you into it?

I get this question so often haha. Because I appear so shy and innocent, people are always like: What? Wrestling? You? It’s fun.

My dad watched it for a while and sometimes I watched it with him, nothing too invested. But then I learned about Nikki and Brie Bella over tumblr rp and I got really curious about them so I researched online. I love them both, especially Brie, love that they stand for strong women and through them I started to actively watch Wrestling and over time gathered some other wrestlers, male and female, I love to see in the ring. It’s fun to watch them and what they do in the ring is impressive.

From wrestling to Teen Wolf, I dig it! And, how you find your way to the Thiam fandom? What about the two grabbed a hold on you?

That’s kind of a long story. I started watching Teen Wolf because I saw gifs and pictures of it on tumblr. I got curious and wanted to see this show but it wasn’t broadcasted on TV in my country, so I kind of searched online for a way and I watched until the point where Liam was introduced in the series  but then stopped because I lost interest and with work I was too busy to even think of Teen Wolf. And then I was on tumblr and I saw a gifset of the scene where Liam and Theo almost fistbumped and I was like ‘Oh hey, these two are cute together.’ I don’t even know why, I just liked the chemistry they had in the scene, Theo’s soft smile, and all. I grew curious who they were because I recognized Liam but I had no idea who Theo was. Quick online search. Aha, those two are Theo and Liam, Thiam for short. Interesting. The Thiam fandom was so very small at this point, there like five fanfics or whatever, so I didn’t really get much from my little expedition into the Thiam fandom.

I kind of forgot about them again because life and other stuff and all and then I saw something about Theo being evil months after my little encounter with the Thiam fandom and I was all ‘Wait a minute! What? But he and Liam…What the hell is going on?’. I was totally confused and stayed confused until was finally able to watch Teen Wolf again (I watched because I heard about the series ending and felt nostalgic so I gave it another shot). I watched season 4, 5, and season 6A and I was hooked!! And so ready for more screen time of Theo and Liam together, so ready to see what would happen to my boys.Tumblr came in handy again and damn had the fandom grown. I saw what everybody had to offer and the ship itself gave me so much inspiration that I wanted to contribute and put in my own two cents on them. The fandom was so welcoming and friendly, it felt like a family from the start and thus I decided to stay. I met many great people because of Thiam already, it’s really awesome.

What drew me in about them? The unspoken chemistry between them, not only romantically but also platonically. Even when I saw gifsets from them without any context, the looks they shared showed such a connection for me, I was astonished and delighted. And when I saw the whole scenes with them, every episode, I liked how different they acted around each other. I always felt like they got each other to a point no other was possible. That doesn’t mean I don’t like the relationship they have with other characters but I always felt they had this special level of a connection. As if they found their ideal counterpart with each other because they both have this fire inside them and don’t shy away from unleashing it.

Oooh, that last bit is so poetic!

Thank you. It came to my mind while I laid in bed and couldn’t fall asleep. When I thought of this, I sat up and almost yelled “That it! That’s Thiam!” Thank god I didn’t or I would have scared the neighbours probably haha.

Haha, most definitely. What’s another thing you’re passionate about beside Thiam and wrestling?

Being creative in general, not only writing.  I mean, yes, writing is the biggest thing I am passionate about. I view writing as a way to deal with the stress of daily life and I would go crazy if I couldn’t write. I also write poetry sometimes.

But not only writing, sometimes I like to create some picture collage or maybe an outfit on Polyvore. Or I simply create things in my head, characters, storylines, worlds, whatever I can think of at those moments. Sometimes I take my thoughts and try to realize them in my Sims game, it’s fun.

LOL, fellow Sims lover! This is one of my fav things to do! What’s been your favorite characters/scenario to conceptualize in the game? How did the game turn out? Any entertaining stories?

Hey, that’s great haha! I love to do this and I’m currently building some houses I could use as inspiration for my stories. I usually play with original Sims, see them starting a family and see how many generations I can have until it starts to get old or until I’m running out of ideas but I once created Stiles, Lydia, Erica and Derek in the game and the Stiles Sims immediately took a shining to the Derek Sims. It was hilarious to watch because even when I was not telling him to, he was interacting with Derek, followed him around. It was adorable. He tried to make Derek laugh^^. It ended with them falling in love and Lydia and Erica being the bridesmaids.

Aww, natural shipping, sigh. That’s the best. Let’s say you could put Thiam in a similar situation, but with characters of another show. Which would you choose? How’d you think the interaction would go?

I’d chose Shadowhunters tv series and to me, this would be hilarious and awesome at the same time. Theo and Jace would so have this little competition who’s better at basically everything; Izzy would be like an older sister to Liam but without actually treating him like a baby. She would admire his determination and will to protect those he loves, they have this in common. I imagine Liam and Jace siding when it comes to fighting because they are all like: Act first and think later but really just want to protect their family and friends. Alec would roll his eyes and ask himself what he has done to deserve this but come around in the end because is actually someone able to not like Theo and Liam? 

Magnus would be totally amused by the whole thing, especially if Liam and Theo are not a thing yet but he has eyes and he can basically taste the sexual tension okay? And Luke, Liam would not stop asking Luke questions about how he leads his pack and everything because another Alpha, how cool is that??? Also Maia and Liam? Dreamteam! Both struggle with control sometimes and they so would get each other. Imagine Luke and Scott running after their Betas to save them from trouble XD. Theo and Clary, because I love the headcanon about Theo being an artist, would bond over that and probably have a tentative friendship going on.

Before we chat about your works, one more silly question. If you could build the ultimate paintball/laser tag team from any five characters AND one villain on Teen Wolf, who would they be and why?

Liam, Kira, Allison, Theo, Erica, and Kate Argent

Liam because he is very athletic and competitive.

Kira because it surely would fun to have her around and she is just an awesome badass cutie. Also, she has fast reflexes.

Allison because she has an amazing aim and also girl power!

Theo because he is like a mastermind and can come up with the best strategy.

Erica because she is my queen and she would lure the other team out so we can shoot them. She and Theo would be great at making a cunning plan.

And Kate because she is ruthless and would destroy the other team.

Perfect. I still say Theo and Allison would’ve been a sight to behold together–for better or worse. Alright, so we have wrestling, sims, shadowhunters, outfit planning. And on top of all those, writing! If your creative process was a person, what type would they be? What would they do? Wear? Listen to? How do they handle conflict?  

They would be a very chaotic type, all over the place. Somebody you see and wonder how they get any work done because they seem to not be organized at all. They would be that type of person that oversleeps and then bolds into work with their bag hanging off one shoulder, their jacket almost slipping down the other shoulder, travel mug filled with coffee clutched in their grip, and clutching a notepad with lots of notes hanging out from it to their chest. They would not be the one that steps into the spotlight at all but rather satisfies with the result of their work.

Their clothing would be a mix from different styles, Boho but also athletic, sometimes chic. Everything they want to wear, they wear it.

Their taste in music is mixed. They mostly listen to Pop but they also have some rocks songs they are addicted to, some Hip Hop. Whenever they hear something with a good beat, good lyrics, that’s what they like and listen to. Their favorite band would probably be Little Mix.

Handle conflict? That’s a tough one. Hm. They would try to see it from the other’s perspective while at the same time telling themselves they should not explode and yell. They are mostly quiet but if they are peeved, they can lash out. If somebody yells at them they would shy away and close themselves off.

Does your creative process also extend to other fandoms? Pairings? Novels or stories with original characters?

I started to lay down the basics for my own original novel and I can’t wait to start. I wanted to write it for years and now I finally got the right motivation and the right mindset.

Aside from Thiam, I have written some fanfictions for Charmed since that’s one of my favorite tv shows. And I have some Stucky fanfictions started as well as the base for a Malec fanfiction that lingers in the back of my mind.  But Thiam is definitively the ship that inspires me the most and I wrote the most about.

An original novel, that’s awesome! What genre are you setting it in? Also supernatural?

It is a novel playing in this day and age but it’s all about the supernatural world mixed with the normal world of the humans. Think Charmed or Shadowhunters. You have the innocent humans living without actually knowing that demon witches, vampires and such live among them. The supernatural society is still in the focus of the novel.

That sounds awesome. Would you say there’s one trope or situation that somehow always wrangles itself in your stories?

I try my best to use different tropes and situations to challenge myself as a writer but one thing that happens for sure is character A watching character B and marveling around how gorgeous they look and how stunning they are. Just some good old-fashioned swooning. I just like to imagine one person being so completely enamored by another person that they have to stop and stare for a while because they sight is breathtaking. And the other person is either completely oblivious and continues with what they do, or knows exactly what they are doing, smirk at person A and preen at the attention.

And yes, friends to lovers, I’m a sucker for this.

Who isn’t really?! What’s the best friends to lovers story you’ve ever read, either fanfiction or novel? (Or one of the best, since they’re probably so many to choose from)

I guess it’s one of the greatest tropes out there haha. Puh, I read so many great stories and novels about that trope, it’s hard to tell. I remember a novel I once read (I can’t remember the title  or the character names though) where this was one of the main story lines but it really took the whole novel for them to finally become a couple and yet while reading you saw their relationship growing and evolving. That’s what I always try to achieve with my stories. 

I also read a Malec fanfic once where both were human but Magnus was a tattoo artist and Alec a florist. They got to know each other and it was simply perfect, Magnus helped Alec with some things and it was just adorable and awesome and amazing. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the title of this one either. I will search for it and maybe give it a shout out later when I found it again because it was really good

Oh, I’ve read that Malec fic, so good! There’s a fantastic MM novel called Switched—I think—by N.R. Walker that’s friends to lovers and I read it in one night. It’s just something about two people, who know one another in and out, coming together, more sighs.

I’d love to jump into your Thiam works. First, the Raeken Twins and your story, Finding My Way To You. Do you have any twins headcanons/imagines which helped you bring Mike Raeken to life?

I got this awesome ask one day about Theo and Mike from PPL being twins and my mind began to rattle. I thought about Theo, his personality, and began to develop someone who would be Theo’s complete opposite. Pretty Little Liars helped a lot because Mike was a sweetheart there, at least until the point where I stopped watching the show. I absolutely loved the idea of Theo having someone to take care of and protect, being a big brother.

I had a vague scene in my mind where Theo berates Mike for being too trusting and Mike just rolls his eyes and tells his big brother to relax. That was the base on where I developed the Raeken Twins. I wanted somebody who was the opposite of Theo but I didn’t want to go completely black and white and so I carved out Mike’s character more, gave him some rough edges as well.

It is fun to play around with the aspect of Theo having his counterpart who at the same time gets him to a T and has someone he always aimed to protect. He may act like he doesn’t care but it had always been my headcanon that he would do anything for Mike and Mike is that one person who knows everything about Theo and who also knows Theo does in fact care

So, if Mike Raeken was part of the Pack and the TW universe, how would he handle these few scenarios:

a: Who would be his pack allies, the pack members he’d bond with? Who would be his pack friend-enemies?

Mike, just like his brother, would become a member of the puppy pack because Mike’s a puppy too. He’d probably bond the most with Nolan and Corey because they share the most character traits with them being kind of cute and sometimes awkward. Brett would be his crush for sure. But he would also be good friends with Liam and totally root for Thiam.

Friendenemies? Good question.  He’s not as harsh as Theo so he probably would not really have problems with the people around. Unless you come for his brother, then he will end you.

b: In a Supernatural crisis, how would he respond?

That clearly depends on the situation. When it comes to facing an enemy and taking them down, Mike’s a fighter and goes into the full experience. He is fast, he is agile, he is ruthless. But if it comes to protecting the people he cares about, he gets very defensive and worries more about them and bringing them to safety than taking part in the fight itself. He’s not even afraid to charge in and drag the person out of the fight (especially his brother). Mike is pretty level-headed and can stay calm even if times get rough. He checks a situation, makes his own theories about it, but he mostly stays in the background, lets the others talk and discuss, and only interferes when he feels like it’s not going anywhere. But most of the times he is fine with just watching and striking when it’s the right time.

c: One hilarious scenario you think would occur between him, Theo, and other member of the pack?

They would pull a Switch-A-Raeken so often to confuse the pack and get their laughs out of this. Liam is probably the only one who can tell them apart because he pays so close attention to them (mostly Theo though) but the others always get totally confused and the twins love to switch even during a conversation to completely confuse everyone.

One situation I find absolutely hilarious and I will write one day would involve the Sheriff, probably to introduce them as twins. One twin gets arrested, the other shows up to bail him out. Stilinski is in his office when suddenly one of the deputies knocks at the door. He calls them in and they open the door, slightly nervous. “We…uhm…have a situation here with the boy we arrested. You might want to check? He said you surely would love that.” The sheriff narrows his eyes and gets up from his chair. He walks out of his office and there they are. Two identical smirks on their faces and casually leaned against the backrest of the bench in front of his office. “Hey, Sheriff!” One of them says. Stilinski is baffled, moments pass by. He finally finds his voice again. “There are two of them? Because one Raeken wasn’t enough???” He yells, voice cracking at the end. He scratches his neck and grimaces. The twins’ smirks intensify. The deputy ducks away and hides behind the computer screen.

Rofl, I hope you do write it! Are you planning to continue Finding My Way To You too? Any spoilers you can slip us?

I am definitely planning to but I have more prominent ideas for A tale written with fangs and claws and other stories at the moment. I do have written some part of the next chapter still. I love this story and the feedback I received was wonderful. Raeken Twins are a fun thing to write about, so expect more to come.

For a spoiler, I will tell you we will have some drama, much love and yes also smut. There will be a slightly different take on the Dread Doctors spin because I am dissecting the storyline a bit to make it more fitting for Finding My Way To You. There will be a shift in the relationship between the twins as well. For everything else, you need to stay tuned ;D

Well, I suppose we must now haha. Until then, we have all of a Tale of Fangs and Claws to keep ourselves busy. Speaking of….a Tale of Fangs and Claws Time!! (I held out for this long; I’m proud of myself.) For anyone unfamiliar, could you give us a quick synopsis? What inspired the idea? 

Whooo!!  The story is about Liam becoming an Alpha when he least expects it. He and Theo are living in Seattle, are roommates in college, and totally in love with each other but they both feel the other might not return their feelings in the beginning. Theo still joins Liam’s pack and together they return to Seattle. The story follows Liam’s journey in his new role, especially when other werewolves appear and Liam and Theo soon have a pack of their own to take care of. They become a family, face many battles and they all learn more about each other and their strengths and weaknesses, help to find their place in the world.

My inspiration for this came from the sole wish to see Liam as Alpha. I think he would be a great Alpha and would have loved to see it happen at the end of the show as some kind of next-generation thing with the older pack members leaving Beacon Hills and him taking over from Scott. The more I thought about this, the bigger the need for Alpha!Liam became and I started to imagine his pack, created their characters a little bit and searched for faceclaims. It took me a while until I finally started to write the story; until I had a decent enough base to actually imagine turning this into a multi-chapter fic and upload it.  Add me playing around with my basic photoshop program and create some Liam as Alpha manips and the inspiration was there. It came to the point where I could no longer hold back and thus I uploaded the prologue. I never imagined the success it would have and I am still amazed by this.

Wow, and it’s almost 300,000 words long! First, huge congrats on being the longest Thiam fic thus far! Is this the longest story you’ve ever written? Did you originally plan all the chapters or has it reshaped itself? Would you say you have a secret to writing longer fics while also keeping your personal interest high?

It’s crazy! Thank you so much!! I have to say I never expected this to turn out so huge, I still can’t believe it. Every time I check the chapter numbers, it still feels so unreal. When I started, I had no idea how long this would be. I had basic elements and certain points I wanted to have happen but everything else was non-existent in the beginning. It still is nowadays because that’s how I write. I don’t have everything planned out and so my own story keeps surprising me but I love this.  I’m writing a chapter and some things are coming to my mind while I’m writing and I take a break to consider, bring this in a vague timeline, and then continue writing.

 I admire people whohave every little detail plannedout but I’m so not like this and I had it happen to me that I wrote a chapter completely different than I intended to. Because my thoughts didn’t work as good as the thing I had been actually writing, if that makes sense. Sure, I have some scenes I have in mind for a long time and while I have not every word planned out, I have a pretty solid image of the scenes. Theo’s development for example. I knew how I want to have the big moments to happen and I am even more excited than usual when it is time to write it.

The story is indeed the longest I have ever written until now.  Who knows what the future has in store? :D

I wouldn’t exactly call it a secret. Thiam itself inspires me so much and receiving so much feedback from so many people is also a very good source of motivation, not gonna lie. This story, the reactions I got from people, has made me feel better about my talent as a writer and that fueled my passion. I associate so many great things with this story and I got attached to every single character that writing a new chapter feels like coming home. I see them as part of my family, my babies if you want, and I am curious to see how they develop further. That’s what keeps me inspired to make this story longer and longer. I’d say the secret, in general, is creating something you truly love, no matter how cliche this sounds. Create this word that is truly you that brings yourself joy and I’m sure you won’t lose interest.

Yes, I so agree! When I was writing my main Stacksonstory, I fell so in love with the characters and the progress of the story! And then to be able to talk about them with so many people, it definitely kept the thoughts coming, even long after I finished it!

Exactly what happened to me with A tale written with fangs and claws! It is wonderful to have such great response and it’s a great source of motivation. I get so many ideas for this story just by reading comments or talking with people. That’s the beauty of fanfiction I think.

Most definitely! Would you then say any of your original characters are based on people you know personally?

Actually no.  I was more inspired by fictional characters, took some things from them, and created my own individual character. If there are any resemblances I haven’t noticed them yet but hey, maybe I will someday^^

Maybe, who knows what might happen. Not us, certainly. Thinking forward, is there one thing you’re dying to add in the story but you have to write a few more chapter before it comes up?

Liam’s and Theo’s wedding! I am dying to write this since a few chapters and everyone who read the last chapter knows I’m toying around with this thing a bit but I really, really can’t wait to write their wedding. It will happen one day and I am excited about it but it will take some more (a lot more) chapters until we can get there.

Yessssss, we’ll be patiently waiting until then! Before we wind down, I’d love to give you a time to impart some wisdom onto us. Any life hacks or creative wisdom on your mind lately?

It is important to figure out what works best for you and never let anybody butt in, writing-wise and in life too. I had to learn this myself but there will be people telling you how you should do a certain thing and then you need to figure out if this is really the best for you. I’m not saying you should not take advice, you definitely should, but it is okay to change this advice, maybe combine it with the advice you got from someone else and create your own special way to get things done. There might be people who are very critical of how you work, how you handle things, and sometimes it can really get to you and be a bummer but it is important to remember that as long as it good for you, as long as it helps you get something done the way you want it to, it’s the right way for you. Your own opinion and your own wellbeing are more important than what some might think are the right thing for you. Your way is the right thing and great things will come from this, just stay true to yourself even when it’s hard sometimes

Also: Allow yourself to change. What was on your mind a year ago, what you wrote a year ago, doesn’t become less valid just because you changed your perspective. You are ever-changing and there will be moments where you realize that your old mindset doesn’t apply to the situation anymore, not to the person you became anymore. That’s okay. It doesn’t take anything away from the progress you made before, doesn’t take anything away from what you created back then. It simply shows your development as a writer, as a person, and that’s a fascinating progress.

Thank you so much for your honesty and depth. Aww, well, we reached the end of our time, Rena! Luckily, we’ve learned so much about you in our short time together. To end us out, what’s next for you? Any big plans?

I have several projects planned. In terms of fanfiction, I’m planning a sequel to A tale written with fangs and claws if I finish the story, I’m planning on continuing my Mated series, Finding My Way To You will be continued as well, and there are several other fanfictions on the line. I’m also planning on finally writing my first original novel, something I’m very excited about.  Those are the things I have planned, who knows what else is gonna happen? Life is full of surprises.

Good luck with your novel! And all the other bundles of surprises and happiness that are whirling your way. Is there anything else you’d like to share? The mic’s in your hands.

It’s okay to struggle. I sometimes feel like the standards expect everyone to be perfect at anything they do and it can be really frustrating when you feel like you’re not reaching these standards. You feel like a failure and it’s a horrible thing to feel. I had so many moments where I felt like I would never reach the standard for that thing to be considered good or even great and it took me a long time to learn not to always compare myself to others and be proud of who I am, my talents, what I create. I still feel like I’m not good enough sometimes but every time I struggle, I learn new things about myself and that’s what made me realize it is okay to struggle. You learn next to nothing when you don’t struggle and ease everything perfectly on the first try.

Sure, it’s great to have a lift first time you do something, it’s even important to be a natural in some things, but I also know that struggling causes doubts and insecurities because you feel like anybody else doesn’t seem to struggle at all. What I’m trying to say is embrace your struggles as part of your development process on becoming the best version of yourself that you can be. And remember: Nobody has the same story to tell as you. The world needs to hear yours, don’t let the doubts take this away from you. It’s a long and difficult way to go but it’s worth it in the end.

Thanks so much Rena! It was a freaking blast getting to know you and your life, inspirations, and quirky interests haha! 

Thankfully, the conversation doesn’t have to end here. To chat with her about her works, Thiam, Teen Wolf, even Wrestling, you can find Rena at these three places:  

AO3: Former_Princess

Tumblr: formerprincess

Ask Box: formerprincessask

In her words, “It’s more than okay! I love getting asks, messages. I’d even love to get a carrier pigeon. I am a shy noodle myself but I absolutely love to interact with people and have them interact with me. Ask as many questions as you want, send in as many things as you want, you will never bother me and in fact make me very happy. Also - on a non fandom related note - myaskbox is always open for anybody who needs somebody to listen to them.”

She’s also currently accepting prompts, though it might take her a while to get to them–you know busy lives and what not. So, feel free to “send in things, share your thoughts, headcanons, and everything else,” with her. (Also, her words!)

Thanks so much for reading. We will see you next week as we get to know about fandomtrashwhore, aka Marie, our resident Thiam Social Media expert. Until then!

Have a Thiam Creator you fan over? Send us their names. Likewise, if you as the creator, would like to be a part of the Behind the Screens series, give us a shout too! We’d love to get to know you, as well.

#officialthiamlibrary #behind the screens #thiam #teen wolf #formerprincess #mod: minna

[jimbotimes]

In the same spirit of my peers, honoring and respecting the community’s loss of another youth whose life was taken too prematurely from him, I want to reflect on a few of the details circulating about the altercation which led to the tragedy. The following writing places this most recent loss of life for our neighborhood in the context of the ongoing changes making their way through our community, through vecindades all across Los Angeles, and throughout major cities everywhere in America.

In a picture of the collage of the memorial and candlelight vigil, one of the writings can be found to read:

“fuck white people.“

On seeing that note, while I could not endorse the statement, I could trace immediately where its sentiment came from. Within the United States in 2018, through the prevalence of smartphones, videos and news through these mediums, there’s been an increased attention to everything absurd everywhere, but no increased attention has been as polarizing as the growing focus on what’s called white privilege in America, and the accompanying criticism of that privilege, which has had the effect of dramatically transforming how whites and nonwhites alike perceive their place in this country in a way not seen since at least the radical 1960s.

The most concerning effect of these changes has been the increased backlash from white America to the scrutiny of white privilege, including the rise of white supremacist groups, their gatherings, and the networks developed by these phenomenons, not to mention their role in electing he whom Ta-Nehisi Coates calls The First White President.

Young people across America with even remote access to smartphones have been able to access this information, although through different lenses like those of the meme, the Facebook video, or the hashtag, thereby repeatedly seeing how the institution of white privilege plays out daily throughout the United States, if not through news regarding the aforementioned backlashes, then through clips of policing that disproportionately attacks Black and Brown bodies, or through clips of rhetoric that slanders immigrants, the religion of Islam or whole other nations, or via bits of other daily media-storms ignited more often than not by the supposed leader of the ‘free’ world, and more.

The message has been clear and consistent through each of these data, so that if there’s ever any doubt in a young person’s mind about the racialized power dynamics of the United States, the evidence is ubiquitous: that the white ‘right’ is first and above all, anywhere and everywhere like a law of the land. And because these power dynamics are daily made known, the great divide at the core of their messaging is in turn embedded into the psyches of these young people to a degree and frequency unlike anything previous generations would see when they were identified as the youth of this country.

‘It’s us versus them.’

In pueblos like those of our communities, however, this problem is only compounded, not because of even more data through the screen of the smartphone–although that also has its own part–but because of the data out on the street, in the gentrification of the urban neighborhoods which our families and their predecessors were once only relegated to.

Let us be totally clear here: the neighborhood which makes up these blocks, like neighborhoods all through East and South Los Angeles, took generations to characterize or develop in the particular ways that they have been. That is, going as far back as the 1930s, the neighborhood has always lacked a certain type of quality due to the certain groups of people who were known to live here, which is to say Black, Brown, and Asian people, many with special needs, and other ‘minorities’ dealing with the ‘lower-rung’ economics that often came with starting or restarting a life in L.A. through the 20th century, the majority of whom were discriminated against or merely ‘forgotten’ by the city’s, and by extension, the country’s leadership.

This is why, for example, in the late 1940s and 1950s, the 101 Freeway, among others, tore its way through East Los to open up a path for more of Hollywood’s commuters onto Santa Ana–because the people on the East side were Chicanos of humble means who would simply have to get out of the way; it is also why the same freeway tore its way through our own vecindad in that process–because the people of our neighborhood–the Blacks, Latinos, Asians, and others–were also people of humble means who would simply have to get with the program or get lost.

Half a century later, from 1998 – 2000, that same humility of means for the people of la vecindad played a major part in why the local police force, the Rampart division, saw a grand total of 70 of its police officers indicted for decades’ worth of charges on corruption when its special task-force, the ‘CRASH‘ or ‘Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums’ unit, was found to have perpetrated scores of unprovoked shootings and beatings of our youth in their patrols through our neighborhoods, the planting of evidence and framing of those same youth, stealing from the department, perjury, and more.

Twenty years later, of the 70 officers implicated by the investigation into Rampart’s ‘CRASH‘ unit, only five of those officers are known to have been terminated as a result of the findings; the humility of means of their victims in these crimes has much to do with those numbers.

But there is a ‘flip’ side to such histories: the fact is that through each period before the  one we share today, to any discrimination against the character of a people there has also been a resistance and opposition.

In Rampart’s case, a year after the indictment of its CRASH unit: “Defense attorneys [were] still scrutinizing thousands of convictions that might have been tainted by Rampart wrongdoing, and plaintiffs’ attorneys [were] awaiting settlement decisions in a hundred and fifty lawsuits and claims against the city.”

In the 1950s, when it came to the construction of the freeways in East Los: “Residents did fight back, flooding public meetings and picketing construction sites. But unlike the mostly white and politically powerful neighborhoods that killed plans for a Beverly Hills Freeway, L.A.’s Eastside couldn’t stop the bulldozer. By the early 1960s, all seven of the planners’ freeways crisscrossed the community.”

And in a similar spirit of resistance, the oldest ‘gang’ in Los Angeles, the White Fence gang of the Boyle Heights area, was formed in the 1940s as a way for Chicano youth in that part of The City to defend themselves against their white counterparts when the latter targeted and attacked them without penalty from law enforcement. To be sure, the documented Zoot Suit ‘Riots’ of Los Angeles in 1943 speak precisely to how this played out.

We are of course not in the 1940s or 1950s anymore, but these periods are still relevant to us not only because of the parallels between them and the state of violence in the U.S. against its ‘others’ today, but also because of their legacy for both white and nonwhite Angelenos when it comes to occupying spaces in proximity to one another today, as we do increasingly in the 21st century.

For historians of Los Angeles, then, or for anyone with an interest in how the city came to be, and how it is still coming to be, there’s a responsibility to make these histories and others known.

The same day as this most recent tragedy in our neighborhood, the White House made a press release dated for May 21, 2018 entitled What You Need to Know About the Violent Animals of MS-13. The memo references President Trump’s State of the Union speech, when he called upon as his guests the parents of two young women who were killed in Long Island, New York by alleged gang members, and proceeds to list a few handpicked details of that tragedy.

The memo then follows this account with brief mention of other cases and selected details from their records as to how the alleged gang members behind them carried out their crimes. It is a thinly veiled form of propaganda designed to rile up support for an official dehumanization of youth identified as ‘gang members’, but rather than hailing from an ‘alt-right’ website or straight out of some neo-nazi’s basement, the statement is listed as the official position of the executive branch of the United States.

Of course, the memo is from the office of the same president who just last summer had the audacity to claim after the white supremacist gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia which cost Heather Heyer’s–a Jewish woman–her life, that between the white supremacists whose intention it was to attack and the counter-protesters who defended themselves from their assaults, there were “good people on both sides”.

It’s likely that the youth at the heart of our community’s most recent loss, like most of the people in the neighborhood, did not hear about the memo, but it’s also likely that over the last year and a half in particular, he and several of his peers did hear about the litany of racist, misogynist and ableist put-downs from the president who as a candidate for executive branch promised to ‘build a wall’ between the United States and neighboring Mexico.

Yet even through the days of the president’s candidacy and on through his administration’s memo last week, neither his uninspired words nor those of his staff could actually so much as graze the curb of the street that my peers and I stand on, let alone graze us, for they are words made for televisions which our generation turned off years ago for have nothing to do with the air’s we’re concerned with in our day to day mechanisms of survival. It is the histories on which such statements are built do and have had a lasting impact on our communities, however. Jeff Sessions looks to be John Wayne in the 21st century, but this time the natives are gang members.

It is a central concern of this writing that in the city of Los Angeles in the 21st century, many of the natives of the neighborhoods here are so-called ‘gang members’, who have made life through the intersections of their barrios daily and over decades, but who now find themselves increasingly cornered by an enemy of far greater proportions than any other clique in the process that is the gentrification of la vecindad, through the influx of middle-class types who’ve never encountered people like them before.

As with the freeways in the 1950s, the redevelopment of the neighborhood happened quickly, that is, in our perception of it, and with such normalization from the city’s leadership that it can be difficult to understand or interpret altogether, but because it’s taking place at the same time as of the hordes of data described at the beginning of this writing filter through so many of our screens, one sentiment seems to make perfect sense in it all:

“fuck them.”

In a recent essay for The Atlantic on The New Aristocracy, writer Matthew Stewart reflects on just why people might feel so much resentment towards his class, which is upper ‘middle-class’:

“We live in safer neighborhoods, go to better schools, have shorter commutes, receive higher-quality health care, and, when circumstances require, serve time in better prisons. We also have more friends—the kind of friends who will introduce us to new clients or line up great internships for our kids.”

It has circulated throughout the neighborhood that the shooter who took the life of the youth referred to by this writing was a white man acting in self-defense. It’s a damning circumstance to consider under the context, but one can see how the color of a man’s skin when he takes the life of another ultimately changes nothing about how the latter’s loss will be felt.

One can also see, however, the way in which to the young people who have just lost their friend, everything–including the presidency, the policing, and the gentrification which is welcomed by so many of the local ‘elected’ officials whom are supposed to represent them–it all somehow actually adds up to place them, the youth, in defense.

And the fact of the matter is that their lives are in danger; even if they and their families have made their way through these intersections, they are all at the risk of being displaced. It is a subtle form of the warfare of wealth, but warfare nevertheless against their character, of humble means like their predecessors. In resisting that warfare, as I do in solidarity with my peers all throughout Los Angeles, it does not mean it’s time to prepare for 1992’s Los Angeles to make its way through these streets again.

Rather, it means that all of the members of our community, old and new alike, need to seek an end to the collective violence inflicted on our respective communities together, with the shared goal of transforming the current trend of redeveloping of our streets for the purpose of displacing our families into redevelopment of these streets for the purpose of coalition-building alongside us. It’s only in this way that all of us will able to share these streets between us in true harmony, honor, and respect, and free of the great division which is so frequently trying to be enforced upon us.

I am willing to stand for it. Indeed, I have to. But I know I’m not the only one who is willing, and that gives me hope: we can and have got to do better together Los Angeles.

J.T.

Los Angeles Can and Must Do Better By Its Youth In the same spirit of my peers, honoring and respecting the community's loss of another youth whose life was taken too prematurely from him, I want to reflect on a few of the details circulating about the altercation which led to the tragedy.

#community #development #gentrification #Los Angeles #nonfiction #stories #writing

[caveartfair]

After 30 Years of Scrutiny, David Salle’s Paintings Still Confound

David Salle, Mingus in Mexico, 1990. Courtesy of the artist and Skarstedt Gallery.

It’s only natural to desire a simple, straightforward narrative. Artworks (and people) that seem to proffer easy interpretation, then deny any satisfying conclusion, are eminently frustrating. For over 40 years, the artist David Salle has been making work—and giving interviews—that deny tidy conclusions.  

Though Salle began exhibiting in New York in the 1970s, it was his association with Mary Boone that launched his career. The gallerist first displayed his work in a 1980 exhibition alongside that of painters Julian Schnabel and Ross Bleckner. New York’s critical and financial attention fixated on the trio throughout the rest of the decade.

A widely accepted story developed: the so-called “return to painting” in the 1980s. The Whitney Museum played on this trope when it organized last year’s “Fast Forward: Painting from the 1980s.” Tate Modern operated on similarly reductive assumptions in its 2008–09 exhibition “UBS Openings: Paintings from the 1980s.” Both shows romantically posited a decade-long surge in exciting, innovative painting in New York that coincided with an eager, receptive market. The shows alternately grouped together such disparate artists as Mary Heilmann, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Salle himself.

Salle, however, disagrees. “I don’t put a lot of store into art world narratives,” he tells Artsy. “People aren’t very observant. They like to repeat stuff that sounds provocative.” He admits there was a “tremendous shift in emphasis” during the decade, that socio-economic changes during the 1970s led to something in the 1980s, though he doesn’t quite articulate what that is. Salle is content with the slight contradiction.

While he might normally ignore the art world’s narratives, Salle does take stock in the idea of a “Pictures Generation.” In 1977, critic Douglas Crimp organized an exhibition called “Pictures” at Artists Space in Lower Manhattan. In the catalogue, Crimp described our increasing reliance on media images: “While it once seemed that pictures had the function of interpreting reality, it now seems that they have usurped it,” he wrote. A new wave of artists were using found images and photographsin their work to challenge preconceived beliefs about what they signified. The Pictures Generation, which took its name from the show, grew to include such figures as Cindy Sherman (who created “film stills” sans films), Richard Prince (who photographed magazine advertisements, claiming the results as his own artwork), and Salle himself.

David Salle, Ghost 4, 1992. Courtesy of the artist and Skarstedt Gallery.

David Salle, Open Boat, 1992. Courtesy of the artist and Skarstedt Gallery.

For the first time in art history, says Salle, a number of artists’ orientation to the visual world was “to the page.” He and the Pictures Generation took after Andy Warhol and the Pop artists as they manipulated popular media for their own work. Like Prince, Salle briefly worked at a magazine company in the 1970s. “There wasn’t a single photographer on staff,” he recalls. Instead, they used “slightly campy stock photographs.” These shots were increasingly devoid of meaning; when the magazine shuttered, they literally became trash.

After he left the publication, Salle himself “quoted” found images and other artists’ styles in his paintings, offering little to no hint of where he got them. The obscured sources could turn the works into impossible guessing games.

Take Old Bottles (1995), for example, which is on view at Skarstedt Gallery through June in a new exhibition surveying the artist’s work from 1985 through 1995. Attempt to reconcile, without floundering, the collaged pictorial elements that make up the painting: clenched fists; cups and bottles; butterflies, snowflakes, a train, the backs of two women. Hypothesizing where these images are from, and what they mean, becomes an infuriating exercise. Salle himself has suggested it’s more fruitful to look at a painting’s structure, rather than its component parts. Still, it’s easy to get stumped.

The Skarstedt exhibition highlights works from not just the decade with which Salle is most associated, but from the 1990s, as well. “Life continued after the 1980s, as inconvenient as that might be for some people,” the artist says (he kept painting, disregarding claims that his heyday was over—indeed, he’s still making and exhibiting new work today).

David Salle, Final Cut, 1993. Courtesy of the artist and Skarstedt Gallery.

During the late 1980s, Salle turned to new sources; collaborations with the American Ballet Theater generated crucial material and ideas. Salle created costumes and sets for a Mikhail Baryshnikov ballet and a number of other productions choreographed by Karole Armitage (the pair were also romantically linked).

Indeed, a sense of theatricality pervades the works on view at Skarstedt. The depicted folds in Ghost (1992) resemble those of a fallen curtain. It’s divided into three bands of color, suggesting the typical three-act structure of a stage production. Open Boat, from the same year, has the feel of a dark prop closet filled with objects incoherently discarded and jumbled together, seen outside of their original contexts (an apt metaphor for much of Salle’s painting). Like Stephen Crane’s 1897 short story of the same title, which explored the unknowability of the natural world, the painting suggests that interpretation is probably futile.

Salle’s engagement with the performing arts, combined with his predominant interests in simultaneity and juxtaposition, eventually found a natural outlet in film. In 1995, he made his directorial debut with Search and Destroy, a movie about an aspiring filmmaker that featured Dennis Hopper, Rosanna Arquette, and Christopher Walken. Salle had been editing and splicing images together for years; now he was doing the same with live action reels.

The title of Salle’s painting Final Cut (1993) evokes the language of cinema. The vertical bar at the center neatly divides the canvas as though into two still frames. The painting has a sun-drenched, pop-infused look to it, the central text derived from a whiskey ad. With its light tones, depictions of cool drinks, and identifiable source material, the painting is perhaps the most inviting in the show.

There’s a spooky, chilly aura to the others. The most disturbing may be Fooling with your Hair (1985): In three distinct sections within the painting’s lower half, the viewer sees pictures of a woman in compromising positions on a thin table, unclothed from the waist down (except for a pair of shoes). The emphasis on light and shadow reminds us that these representations derive from black-and-white photography. The scenes look staged, eerie, repellent, and ultimately anti-erotic.

David Salle, Fooling with your Hair, 1985. Courtesy of the artist and Skarstedt Gallery.

Such depictions of women (or, depictions of photographs of women) have garnered Salle plenty of vitriol. In defending these works, he returns to his ideas about theatricality and his engagement with the ballet. He describes “directing a performer to occupy space in a certain way,” suggesting that he’s truly critiquing his photographic process, not women themselves.

Critics, including artist Mira Schor, weren’t accepting of such rationales. In a 1986 essay, Schor asked why Salle hadn’t ��drawn and quartered” male nudes in the same way as he had female nudes. “Salle uses woman as a metaphor for death; woman has become a vehicle for the difficulty of painting,” she wrote. She criticized his supporters such as writer Carter Ratcliff, who had depicted Salle as “a self-conscious pornographer, one capable of embarrassment.” For Schor, that presented the artist as “a repentant rapist” who could be excused from culpability. Salle’s work, Schor suggested, invoked an exclusively male spectator.

Over the next few weeks, viewers will be able to judge for themselves. Salle himself hasn’t seen many of these paintings for decades, and even he’s not sure how they will fare. What matters to him is whether they still appear alive and vital. As for the show’s overall reception, the artistdoesn’t seem too worried. “It’s difficult to talk about the art world as a whole entity because it’s so fragmented,” he says. “You can’t really find six people to agree about anything.” Perhaps that, for Salle, is also its appeal.

from Artsy News

#Artsy News

[kathleenseiber]

Zooming in on the hidden world of invertebrates

By Nick Porch from Deakin University

Which animals are quintessentially Australian? Koalas and kangaroos, emus, tiger snakes and green tree frogs, echidnas and eastern rosellas, perhaps. And let’s not forget common wombats.

Inevitably, most lists will be biased to the more conspicuous mammals and birds, hold fewer reptiles and frogs, and likely lack invertebrates — animals without a backbone or bony skeleton — altogether.

I’m an invertophile, fascinated by our rich terrestrial invertebrate fauna, so my list will be different. I’m enchanted by stunning dragon springtails, by cryptic little Tasmanitachoides beetles, and by the poorly known allothyrid mites, among thousands of others.

Australia’s terrestrial invertebrate multitude contains several hundred thousand uniquely Australian organisms. Most remain poorly known.

To preserve our biodiversity, we first must ask: “which species live where?”. For our invertebrates, we are a long way from knowing even this.

The Black Summer toll

Last year, a team of scientists estimated that the Australian 2019-2020 bushfires killed, injured or displaced three billion animals. That was a lot. But it was also a woefully inadequate estimate, because it only accounted for mammals, reptiles, birds and frogs.

Hidden from view, many trillions more invertebrates burned or were displaced by the fires. And yes, invertebrates are animals too.

A mite from the family Bdellidae (on the right) has captured a springtail, and is using its piercing mouthparts to suck it dry. Mites and springtails are among the most abundant animals on the planet. Nick Porch, Author provided

Admittedly, it’s hard to come to terms with invertebrates because they’re often hard to find and difficult to identify. Most species are inconspicuous, even if they belong to incredibly abundant groups, such as mites and springtails, which can occur in numbers exceeding 10,000 per square metre.

Most invertebrates are poorly known because there are so many species and so few people working on them. In fact, it’s likely only a quarter to one-third of Australia’s terrestrial invertebrate fauna is formally described (have a recognised scientific name).

Meredithina dandenongensis, a species from the wet forests of Victoria. It can be found during the day under rotting logs. The land snail family Charopidae contains hundreds of species across wetter parts of southern and eastern Australia. Nick Porch, Author provided

One of the problems invertebrates have, in terms of attracting attention, is that many are not easily seen with the naked eye.

Macrophotography can magnify these wonders for a view into a world most of us are completely unfamiliar with. Even then, it often will be hard to know what we see. Everyone will recognise a kangaroo, but who can identify an allothyrid mite?

The photo below shows an undescribed species of mite from the family Allothyridae, from Mount Donna Buang in Victoria. The mite family Allothyridae has three described Australian species, and dozens more awaiting description.

An undescribed Allothyridae species. Just one of the many species in this group waiting to be studied. Nick Porch, Author provided

This collage shows a selection of mites found in the forests of southeastern Australia. It’s likely many of the species shown here are unknown to science.

Mites are a very ancient and diverse group. They can be found abundantly in most terrestrial habitats but are rarely seen because most are several millimetres long or smaller. Nick Porch, Author provided

A deeply ancient lineage

Animal ecologists, most of whom work on vertebrates, often joke that I “study the ‘food’, haha…”. They think they’re funny, but this reflects a deep seated bias — one extending from scientists to the wider public. This limits the development of a comprehensive understanding of biodiversity that has flow-on effects for conservation more broadly.

It’s true: invertebrates are food for larger animals. But their vital role in maintaining Australia’s ecosystems doesn’t end there.

Every species has an evolutionary history, a particular habitat, a set of behaviours reflecting that history, and a role to play in the ecosystem. And many terrestrial invertebrates belong to especially ancient lineages that record the deep history of Australia’s past.

The moss bug family Peloridiidae, for example, dates back more than 150 million years. For context, the kangaroo family (Macropodidae) is likely 15-25 million years old.

Their history is reflected in the breakup of the ancient supercontinent, Gondwana. In fact, Australian species of moss bugs are more closely related to South American species than to those from nearby New Zealand.

Chasoke belongs to the beetle family Staphylinidae, which is currently considered the largest family of organisms on Earth, with more than 60,000 scientifically described species. Mt. Donna Buang, Victoria. Nick Porch, Author provided

This is a common pattern in terrestrial invertebrate groups. It reflects how the New Zealand plate separated from the remainder of Gondwana about 80 million years ago, while the Australian plate remained connected to South America via Antarctica.

Similar stories can be told from across the invertebrate spectrum. The photo below shows a few examples of these relics from Gondwana.

Peloridiid bugs — such as Hemiodoecus leai China, 1924 (top left) — are restricted to the wettest forests where they feed on moss. Top right: A new species of Acropsopilio (Acropsopilionidae) harvestman from the Dandenong Ranges. Bottom left: a new velvet worm from the Otway Ranges. Bottom right: Tasmanitachoides hobarti from Lake St Clair in central Tasmania. Nick Porch, Author provided

Their fascinating evolution

Overprinting this deep history are the changes that occurred in Australia, especially the drying of the continent since the middle Miocene, about 12-16 million years ago.

This continent-wide drying fragmented wet forests that covered much of the continent, resulting in the restriction of many invertebrate groups to pockets of wetter habitat, especially along the Great Dividing Range and in southwestern Australia.

A consequence of this was the evolution in isolation of many “short-range endemic” species.

A short-range endemic species means their geographic distribution is less than 10,000 square kilometres. A short-range endemic mammal you might be familiar with is Leadbeater’s possum, restricted to the wet forests of the Victorian Central Highlands.

This is Idolothrips spectrum, the largest thrips in the world. It’s called the giant thrips, even though it’s less than 10mm long. Dandenong Ranges, Victoria. Nick Porch, Author provided

But short-range endemism is much more common in invertebrates than other organisms. This is because many invertebrates are poor dispersers: they don’t move between habitat patches easily. They may also maintain viable populations in small areas of suitable habitat, and are frequently adapted to very specific habitats.

Take Tropidotrechus, pictured below, a genus of beetles mostly restricted to the same region as Leadbeater’s possum. They, however, divide the landscape at a much finer scale because they’re restricted to deep leaf litter in cool, wet, forest gullies.

As Australia dried, populations of Tropidotrechus became isolated in small patches of upland habitat, evolving into at least seven species across the ranges to the east of Melbourne.

Tropidotrechus victoriae, Victoria’s unofficial beetle emblem (left). Related described and undescribed species are found in the nearby Central Highlands and South Gippsland ranges (right) Nick Porch, Author provided

Discoveries waiting to happen

The trouble with knowing so little about Australia’s extraordinary number of tiny, often locally unique invertebrates, is that we then massively underestimate how many of them are under threat, or have been badly hit by events like the 2019-2020 fires.

If we wish to conserve biodiversity widely, rather than only the larger charismatic wildlife, then enhancing our knowledge of our short-range species should be a high priority.

You don’t necessarily need specialist equipment to take pictures of our fascinating invertebrates. This is a phone picture of mating Repsimus scarab beetles (relatives to the Christmas beetles). It was taken at Bemboka in NSW, which burnt during the 2019-2020 fires. Nick Porch, Author provided

We’ve only just scratched the surface of Australia’s wonderful invertebrate fauna, so there are enough discoveries for everyone.

You can join iNaturalist, a citizen science initiative that lets you upload images and identify your discoveries. Perhaps you’ll discover something new — and a scientist just might name it after you.

Nick Porch, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Earth Science, Deakin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Zooming in on the hidden world of invertebrates published first on https://triviaqaweb.weebly.com/

[accidental-memory]

Vagueposting time I guess.

I had a female friend, who I have known for a long time. You will not learn her identity from me beyond this; that'd be shitty. This post is long.

JULY We had not spoken much in a long time, and it had been even longer since we'd seen each other in person. She was sending me photos of where she lives now (which, where she lives now is awesome), and I was gushing about how beautiful the scenery is. Then I asked: Me: "with apologies, would it be weird to ask if I could see your face?"

Her: "No but it's not great!" And then she sends a single photo of her face.

Our conversation continued for awhile after she sent the selfie. I thought nothing more of it.

AUGUST We have another conversation. She stops the conversation to say the following:

Her: "I just have to stop for a second and tell u. I like talking to you, as a friend. But my husband did get mad when sent you a picture and I do have to make sure u understand I’m happily married and just feel like [[context of how we know each other]] and we have that bond of all having that same ridiculous experience, I feel bonded to them. But u have to understand that this is fully platonic and I can never send another picture or anything like that."

Okay. This as you can see is her setting a boundary. That's fine; great, even! More people should be that open about their boundaries!

But also, I want you to notice the part where she says her husband *got mad* that she sent me a picture of her face. This raised some red flags for me, and I wanted to make sure she was okay:

Me: "Like.. 'that picture' was just you chilling at your house; I wasn't trying to read anything into it. Past experiences aside, frankly, it's just nice to see a friend. That said, I find it alarming when people don't let their significant others be a person with other people if they're the gender their partner would otherwise be interested in; and I feel dutybound to say that out loud."

Her: "No I def know that and so I don’t think we are inappropriate at all but later when I thought about 'how would I feel if he had done that?' I realized I wouldn’t have liked it either. I’m allowed to talk to and do what i want, which is why I do, but I also think feelings are valid. I don’t at all judge other people’s lifestyles. If they are polyamorous, anything people want to do between consenting adults that’s not exploitative I am completely fine with. But I entered into a traditional marriage with eyes wide open to what I was doing and so I did need to clear that up before I kept talking to you."

Me: "<3 understood"

I feel like this was a very good, productive moment. But I want to know... did I miss something? This sounds like a perfectly reasonable adult conversation to me. I let her know that what she had just said was concerning to me. She told me not to be worried. So I said I understood. The boundary is thus set, and we can move on with our lives and continue being friends, yes?

SEPTEMBER: I send her a wild story from the Riverfront Times. She responds that I should keep an eye out for another story that she is interested in. Talked for a few minutes, went on our ways.

OCTOBER: I mention I went and looked around to see if I could find details on the news story she wanted me to look out for, and shared what I'd found; but it wasn't related to what she was trying to find. Talked for a few minutes, went on our ways.

JANUARY: I send her a couple of funny photos of a frog, and a link to my New Years Cabin photo album. She does not respond.

FEBRUARY: I tell her about a shitty thing my dad emailed me lionizing Clarence Thomas. She does not respond.

APRIL: I show her a couple of photos of a bizarre stuffed-dog-pillow that was left in a basket outside the laundromat just as the pandemic was hitting. She responds: "Put it on [[facebook group for weird stuff]] !"

MAY: I send her a funny webcomic. She does not respond.

YESTERDAY: I send her a message telling her about how I've spent the last 30 minutes bawling my eyes out because I watched the collage of police violence in the latest Some More News episode about the riots: "my nerves are fuckin' frayed. I'm so angry. And the only thing I can do is talk about it."

TODAY: She responds: " Adam I don’t know how to be more clear after essentially ignoring your messages for months. So I’ll be blunt. Women in general, and me in particular, are not on the planet to emotionally labor for you. It sounds like you need a therapist. I’m guessing you will say you can’t afford one but that doesn’t oblige me to do it for free.

After I placed a boundary with you, received a lecture about how I’m in an unhealthy relationship because it has boundaries, realized you’re just another male who is going to be mad and throw a fit when he doesn’t get what he wants from a woman, I honestly lost interest in talking to you altogether. So if you were under the impression I’m a bird in a cage not being allowed to, that’s false. I got nothing out of sending you a photograph, aside from avoiding the discomfort at having to say “no.” It wasn’t something I’m over here DYING to do until my Neanderthal husband said “no way!!!” Your reaction to a normal boundary threw up a thousand red flags for me and I don’t want to talk to you anymore.

We are all sick over what’s happening in the US right now. I’m sure you can find someone else to discuss this with. "

...................What did I miss? Like, genuinely, if I'm in the wrong about something here, tell me. I don't understand what brought this on!

Stop reading here if you don't want my opinions or interpretations or any of my expounded confusions.

I don't want to sit here and tell you how to feel about this message to me. You can make up your own mind. But I'm going to express how I feel about this.

1. We talked intermittently for years. Not responding to me is no indication that you're ignoring me; it means you're busy. Plenty of other friends of mine have that kind of communication style.

2. We had lengthy conversations between me stating my concerns and this moment. We had intermittent conversations too. How would this have ever been an indication that you were upset?

3. Fucking... you were my friend! I wanted to talk to my FRIEND about a hard time I was having, and now I'm literally having chest pains because I'm being accused of... what? Being manipulative?

4. What do you say in response to being called manipulative? Cuz like. Anything I say is immediately going to be called manipulative! That's infuriating!

5. I didn't say your husband was a Neanderthal. I said that what you said was concerning. I don't even know the guy! In fact, that's part of why it's concerning; if the only thing I know about him is that he GOT MAD AT YOU FOR SENDING SOMEONE A PHOTO, then yeah I think I'm absolutely in the right to make sure that you're not in a fucking abusive relationship! I've had friends in abusive relationships before and that's exactly the shit they'd say to me. It's not an accusation; it's an invitation for help if the situation is actually bad, which you said it isn't, and I took your word for, said as much, and never brought it up again.

6. What do you mean, "angry that I'm not doing what you want?" I know of precisely two things I've ever asked of her in my entire life: that one single photo of her face for which I had no intention of asking another, and advice as to how to get makeup out of your clothes (I still have no idea why there was makeup in my pants leg, either).

7. I did not have an "impression" of you being "a bird locked in a cage." You said something alarming, and I confirmed with you that it was actually fine, and that was all it ever had to be!

I don't know what else to say on the matter. My heart hurts. I saw this message pop up while I was in the middle of a tutoring session. I was like, "Oh, she responded! I hope we can commiserate for a moment so I can feel like this is even remotely normal ....... Oh. ....oh, what??"

I'm absolutely certain someone on my timeline knows even from any of this who I am talking about; she may have even talked to them about it. I'm not really interested in the gossip. I'm not even looking for advice. She's blocked me; the friendship is over, however much that hurts to say. But like. If you have actual fucking light to shed on it, that'd be nice. But also. Not right now.

I don't want to talk to anyone right now. I had to hold it together through several hours of tutoring. I'm fucking hurt and I need some time to heal.