#myself included i have been guilty of very similar stuff with other characters

[the-anxious-skeleton]

Hi! I don’t know if this should be a question or if I just wanted someone to listen, but I appreciate you having asks open.

So I have really bad anxiety, both general and social anxiety. It’s usually manageable in real life because I have really good friends that are emotionally supportive. But this situation feels kinda stupid to bother my friends about and I was embarrassed. They also don’t use Tumblr, so it would’ve been harder to explain.

I started a Tumblr blog a couple of days ago. It was just a small thing to write about characters for games and shows I was into. I made a pinned intro including groups I didn’t want to interact with the blog. I think the exact wording included “racists, homophobes, transphobes, furries - basically anyone with anything gross / hateful / offensive to say”. I didn’t see a problem with this at the time, however, not too long ago I got an anon ask that read “Seriously? Lumping furries with transphobes and homophobes? What’s wrong with you lmao”

In hindsight, I can totally see their point. I was undermining the severity of other hateful groups because, obviously, furries aren’t anything comparable to those things and have nothing to do with them. Even if I didn’t intend that in anyway, it could still undermine those sensitive topics and offend another group of people that have nothing to do with those things.

However, due to my anxiety, I guess I got triggered and panicked. I deleted my blog not too long after I read the message. I already have a lot going on with tests and stuff and I didn’t think it through. I should’ve apologized and held myself accountable. I would say it was be removing myself from a situation I wasn’t mentally prepared for, but I feel like I just ran away from a situation even though I knew I was in the wrong. I feel guilty.

I feel that my anxiety makes it so I cannot handle an online space. I am a creative, both an artist and writer, so I crave validation for my work from a large amount of people. But if I do so much as make a small mistake or do something unintentionally, I panic and isolate myself again. And then I feel worse because I feel like I’m running away from my problems. It’s like a bad cycle.

I’m sorry if this ask is too long or rambling, but I felt like talking to someone from the same platform would make it a bit easier for them to understand. I’m probably making this a way bigger issue than it is or maybe not. I get so in my head sometimes it’s hard to tell, and I hope that makes sense. Thank you once again and I hope you have a very nice day :)

Hey. I'm so glad you reached out!

I encountered a situation very similar to this on my main blog. I basically posted something very triggering to some people and didn't tag it properly. I added broad mental health related tags instead of more specific tags that would have appealed to a niche group that would have understood what I was talking about without being triggered. Someone submitted an anonymous ask, very kindly brought the inappropriate tagging to my attention. I was wildly embarrassed and wanted to curl up and die. I deleted the post and apologized in response to the ask. This really hurt my feelings and made me feel really stupid. In retrospect, I really appreciate that person pointing out the issue in a respectful manner. It helped me become more aware of how the Tumblr community works and helped me understand that I needed to be conscious of other people's situations. The best thing you can do at this point is to rebuild a blog for your work, and if you aren't sure about something you're posting, ask a friend, or of course, send me a message and I can help. I hope this was helpful and made sense. I am very proud of you for recognizing your mistake and growing from that. Everyone makes mistakes, but not many take the initiative to grow from them. Again, let me know if there is anything else I can help you with! Everything will be alright, you got this!

[bethchapelsbonnet]

I Dont remember if it Was on you're Ways to Tell ILY Prompt list but might I suggest a "I Choose you" Hournite One shot?

I didn't see you interact with the original submission I answered, so I included it here

I Choose You

All of the fuss that Beth went through to try to compile each and every piece of evidence that someone may need in order to get Rick the heck out of that place was simply... Well - it was actually exhausting, but she never realized until she was at the end of her days.

The database was always excellent and as the official Dr. Mid-Nite, she had access to even more information.

Not what she truly needed - to be able to actually speak to Rick. To assess how he was doing. To at least hold his hand, which.. she was conflicted about that one in particular. She didn't understand why that idea kept coming to her when she and Rick never actually really touched each other that way.

Casually - pats on the back or holding each other back in a fight, but nothing so intimate as hand holding. Maybe it was her renewed self confidence. She had chosen herself. And now, she was choosing Rick. 

They didn't allow any of them to see him. He was currently being held at a juvenile center, assigned a caseworker and a child advocate attorney, with an ongoing investigation about his uncle and his home life. But, Beth found out the names of everyone involved in his case and she was sending them documents, school reports, and everything that she could scrape up to prove that Rick was in a dangerous household and had been abused and mistreated. 

It was her hope that they would all see it was self defense and go easy on him. Courtney and Pat had tried to explain to her that Eclipso was controlling him. It wasn't self defense. It was just a terrible mind game.

Not too long ago, they were pressing her to accept murdering a bad guy… but suddenly, when it's THIS bad guy… who didn't even DIE, they were willing to accept Rick turning himself in and being put away? "It's what Rick wanted, to be held accountable.."

"He didn't DO it! It was Eclipso!" Beth had snapped at Courtney. Courtney's eyes went wide and she got quiet. Of course she knew that and she didn't deserve Beth being rude with her, either, but Beth was too frustrated to tell herself that at the moment and Rick wasn't around…

She called him anyway, as she stormed out. 

"Rick!" She took a deep breath, "You don't deserve to be held responsible for something that you didn't do wrong!" She noticed Courtney in the corner of her eye and whispered, "There's nothing you need to be held accountable for and I'm working on helping you get out. Just… I hope you aren't too hard on yourself." She hung up and looked at Courtney.

"I watched him run around, hallucinating, breaking down as he was attacked by something that we couldn't see… it was like with Yolanda, only someone did get hurt. I didn't want to have to see that again and it wasn't easy to let Rick confess, but what else could we do? What would you have done differently?"

Beth wanted to say that she wouldn't have let him out of her sight, that she would have talked to him until he was back down to Earth..  but as a firm believer in herself, some part of her knew that Courtney didn't have that type of power. Beth was the one who could stop Rick in his tracks and make him think for a moment. 

"What about when you see a dead 10 year old girl? Would you have been able to use your head in that moment and stop him from reacting?"

Beth sniffled and wiped her face, "If I was here, I know that I could have fixed this. I know that I could have talked him down. He listens to me. It's different with us. And with Eclipso… it's personal now."

.

Rick heard about an "adorable but incredibly annoying" girl who spoonfed a lot of information to his case worker and his advocate. They didn't have to describe her. He did initially automatically think Courtney, since that was who saw him last on the outside and that's who annoyed him more than any girl he knew…

But when they spoke about legal documents, school incidents and cases and studies of similar cases..  He knew that they meant Beth. A lot of her findings needed to be double checked by the proper authorities and his advocate would need to speak with a judge, but it was looking like Rick may be entitled to psychological treatment from years of abuse that resulted in him finally lashing back.

He wanted to argue with that, but in a way.. that felt like some type of hope and he couldn't say there wasn't truth in it. Whatever Beth had done, he finally felt some peace of mind, since coming here…

.

The court order to grant him a placement took shorter than he thought, even though it still felt super long. The Chapels weren't foster parents, but thanks to some… creative documentation on Beth's part, they were able to be listed as family friends to whom custody could be signed over.

He would be trying for emancipation, but in the meantime, he had a place to sleep and eat and stuff… and Beth was there.

"How did you manage to pull this off?" Rick wondered, more confused than grateful, but she didn't take it to heart. She smiled and tapped her goggles. "Of course…" he stared at his bags on the floor. "Did you get the full story?"

"I got Courtney and Pat's side of it. You don't have to tell me, but in your own time, if you want to, you can." She handed him some mail, "I filled out your paperwork and sent it in. You've gotten at least one response."

"My paperwork?"

She winced, "I totally trespassed into your car and home, scanning everything and looking for something to help me. I traced punched in walls, I took an inventory of the alcohol in there, you name it. I also found the forms that you had for college and financial aid. I took them with me, but also wondered what they were doing there. So I checked on cell phone records and saw that Miss Woods-" she rolled her eyes when she said her name. (She wasn't fond of how cruelly that woman had treated Rick, and she didn't mind saying so), "Had been there. I figured she was the one who gave those to you, went to pay her a visit and questioned her until she told me about what happened earlier. She had seen your uncle and he was belligerent and drinking. I told her that I would speak to your advocate in order to see if that was usable information. It was. She made for a very dependable character reference."

Rick looked stunned. He didn't know what to say, but eventually landed on, "Why am I at your house and not at Pat's? I don't even know your parents and they probably aren't pleased about what happened." 

"Well, I believe that I've managed to do quite the PR campaign for you when I was making my rounds to see if anybody had recollection of witnessing your uncle be unkind to you. A lot of people have been quiet about things that they should have spoken up about… myself included.." she lowered her head, "I noticed bruises on you sometimes at lunch when we weren't friends and I guessed that they weren't from some school fight, otherwise, the school would know." She looked up at him and her eyes were brimming with tears, "All of us made choices to mind our business and just leave you to fend for yourself. Everybody's been feeling pretty guilty that it came to… that.."

She cleared her throat, "There's enough going on at Courtney's house, and Yolanda's isn't an option. I couldn't let you wind up at the group home. Artemis is there. The last time you two saw each other, you almost killed one another. I thought my home was the best choice. It's safe, there's just me here. My parents believed me when I vouched for you, so they would be acting like wardens or anything, and I just… I feel better knowing that if something happens, I'll be there."

He sat down on the guest bed and twiddled his thumbs, "That's just it. If something happens, I… I no longer have the hourglass. I won't be able to protect you fully."

"I can protect myself," she said, sitting next to him. "Just wait until you hear my Eclipso story."

"Your what?"

"He attacked me the same time that he attacked you…" Rick looked terrified as he checked her over for damages. "It's a long story, but I'm fine. It went very differently for me than it did for you." She looked sad for a moment. I think he must've known."

He was confused. Beth looked him in the eyes through her goggles, "That we protect each other. That you fight for me and I fight for you. I felt so victorious when I was able to take my goggles back from me and solidify my place on the team… the. I found out he had gotten to my Rick…" 

His heart jumped in his chest and he stared at her. He reached for her goggles but she shook her head and he withdrew his hands. "It wasn't anything to do with you."

"No, but had I been there…"

"Then you could have gotten hurt or had to see me become the very kind of monster that I hate!" 

She furrowed her eyebrows and she grabbed his hand, harder than she meant to, but that demanded his attention and he stared at her face, "If I had been there, you would've had the extra strength you needed to see through him. I wouldn't have let you fight. Please believe me when I say that I'm sure I could have talked some sense into you. I could have saved you from thinking that you're a monster. Because you aren't a monster, Rick. You're a kid who was in a situation that most of us can't fathom, and when you needed me, I wasn't there." He started crying and shook his head. "I'll understand if you want to stay with Mr. Dugan instead…"

"No. No.."He had told Grundy that day that he just needed someone to care about him, to be kind to him, and he could be alright. Rick was so caught up in the stress of his uncle, he hadn't thought about how he did have someone like that. He had his friends, the Dugans, and he had Beth. She had done all of this, because she felt like she'd failed him. Like she was supposed to protect him. She wasn't obligated to do that, but the fact that she wanted to, that she tried to. 

Hell, she was even correct about being able to talk him down. He didn't know if she could have that night, but as much as she meant to him… he couldn't rule out that what if. He collected her hand to his heart and said extremely softly, "I choose you." 

@futurewriterwannebe

#beth chapel #hournite #rick tyler #futurewriterwannabe #prompts #nesha prompts #I Choose You #hournite prompts #nesha hournite fics #hournite fics #fics

[amazingphilza]

DSMP!OC HEADCANNONS

i dunno if ppl on here make dsmp!ocs for themselves outside art but here’s my long list of headcannons?? idk what to call this, but assume all names have c! before it ofc :]

,, this is kinda messy & probably has a lot of plot holes but i just needed a space to write out all my thoughts LOL

also cw / ment of manipulation & ib: dsmp wiki <3

character origin :

previous life was the l’mantree :D

allegedly planted by schlatt, we will never know who’s my canonical parent(s)

reborn as a dryad after niki burns the l’mantree

i think being a dryad would fit especially since they’re typically nymphs of oak trees :]

appearance :

my character’s mc skin has long light brown hair & is seen wearing a flower crown with petals that are around the color of a pale violet and navy blue

clothing would consist of black shoes & a long light grey sweater that falls down to the legs and covers most of the hands which adorned with 2 black stripes on the upper arms

lore / history :

since my past life was the l’mantree, i would’ve known the ins and outs of the history when l’manburg was still standing, up until niki burned the tree

after witnessing everything, i’d hold a grudge on niki (+ allies?) and loyal to wilbur since he’s the whole person that made a meaning of the land of l’manburg

however i’d still be on edge w any side because i could sympathize with everyone to some extent after seeing some sort of distress from everyone at some point

i think seeing both sides of the spectrum when l’manburg/manburg still stood could change my perspective of some other characters

but at the same time, not everything was completely centered in l’manburg so i wouldn’t know the whole story of everyone’s character

i’m currently writing this just after tommy has left the prison & mostly everyone is treating him differently, so i’d try to befriend him by not showing that i dont care about his past & trauma but also not being fully faithful about our friendship ahaha,,,

he seems like the type that needs someone to see through his past history but tommy would definitely disapprove of my character visiting dream at the prison (i would do it anyway :))

vowing my current life to wilbur, i would help dream escape to revive wilbur & follow along with their plans of chaos

i don’t fully support dream but he is the only way to wilbur, making me comply with dream’s decisions

“growing up” in my past life and witnessing endless conflict, it is the only thing i know and understand; chaos

but i think during the process of helping dream & wilbur i’d keep my connection with them secret, being the person to obtain all the inside information they need

i could see myself as a type of equilibrium like ranboo but in a bad way, i don’t know how to explain it

but i would try befriending ranboo since he seems like he is involved in many things and would know a lot, despite his short term memory

unfortunately i’m not sure how much his character actually knows since i haven’t been able to watch his pov that much but i’m sure there’s a lot in his memory book...

to blend in as a normal person within the rest of the characters, i’d surround myself with connor a lot

not only because he needs more lore, connor is one of the “normal” citizens of the smp so i believe being with him doesn’t bring as much attention to myself, unlike people that’s related to the egg and their noticeable features after associating themselves with the egg

he is currently only on bad terms with techno which is rly good when comparing that to other characters and their relationships with other people

connor could probably sense my real intentions eventually & tell everyone else that i’m not who i say i am but if that’s my flaw & my downfall is caused by connor, so be it! sorry dream & wilbur

i feel like for being a young dryad, i’d still fool around with dream/wilbur & help give tommy an small “advantage” to defeating the two ?

like yes i’m supposed to be on your side but where’s the fun if tommy can’t do anything to begin with?

i honestly don’t know if wilbur was revived he’d actually be his vassal but let’s assume that happens, but either way i’m with wilbur on his decisions

but ya dream seems like the type to punish me for helping tommy and send me to the afterlife to learn & become smarter like wilbur had done or smth

in the end, i just want to give tommy bits and pieces that tease him from ending all the wars and problems he has been faced with

like here’s some info about dream and wilbur but it won’t be no where close to enough

but who knows, ghostbur said ‘villains are just heroes that aren’t convinced yet’ & maybe tommy could eventually grow on me & change my ways,,

maybe me fooling around & teasing tommy with answers he’s been searching for is a way to mask that i want to be a good person

ok but imagine after knowing so much about dream/wilbur, the revive book, & the afterlife & then i switch sides,,,

surely if tommy can’t put and end to them, dream would make sure i’m gone for good instead

but also if me & connor are in good terms & he’s canonically a necromancer & can bring ppl back to life,,,,

personality :

to all besides dream & wilbur, i’d try to act passive and friendly on the outside to get on everyone’s good side

however under the mask i am more mischievous & strive to cause more problems for everyone on the server from the inside out

in a way, i’ve taken up some of dream’s manipulative personality but still very understanding

i’d like to think of my character as a good listener,, trying to do less talking than others so i do not open up about my true self and intentions

i’ve seen rumors about schlatt & mexican dream also being revived along with wilbur & i feel like i’d have some soft spot for schlatt & pick up a few things from his own character, not sure what though

schlatt planted l’mantree theory, dad!schlatt au part 2 !! /j

because of my character’s closed off and quiet personality, i feel like i’d be pretty analytical

i would know how to slip between the cracks with some characters & notice the smallest things to make them question themselves

maybe my character is good at holding their composure, and not that susceptible to being “emotional” in a way so it’s easier to face people

like i understand when a situation is sad, etc but i can’t show emotion towards how i feel about it (i don’t know if that makes sense but ya!)

i wanna try to elaborate more,, like imagine my character before tommy visits the prison, i would be unfazed from when i found out he died to the point he’s released and we find out he’s been revived

everything is a constant blur hehe

i just can’t fully process everything i guess? i dunno if that’s helpful but yeah!

in the end though, my moral compass has been very tainted; despite wanting to show my loyalty, it can be slightly easy to sway me, making me internally feel guilty to other people

but me trying to get on everyone’s good side to impress wilbur/dream to seem useful to them would ruin me before i would even realize that i’m another “pawn”

we know damn well dream is faking it till he “makes it” but yk,,

but i’d be stuck in this kind of dilemma of not knowing what thoughts are my own or just something trickled down from wilbur or dream

there’s like maybe something that clicks in my head like “maybe i wanna think for myself for once” or smth

like who am i really?

powers , bonuses , etc :

since dryads can technically manipulate plants in some ways, theoretically i could control the blood vines to some extent ???

i’m pretty sure dryads can communicate with plants so i could understand what the blood vines are saying as well

maybe i could get a good sense of what the egg is all about and stuff

assuming that i understood anything that was happening with the egg in the first place but anyway—

i guess similar to ranboo like how he can’t really be around water without some type of amour or something, it would make sense for me to primarily reside in a type a forest or be near one ?? who knows

seems a bit morbid in a way because of the whole history but if i can somehow easily get rid of the blood vines without it affecting me (if there is still some there) i think it would be kinda pretty to build a tree base in the middle of the l’manburg crator (iskall tease)

like it can show a sign of some rebirth, not the same government repeated once again but a new era in general

you know how you see like destruction years after it the disaster or smth happened and it gets all overgrown with plants and stuff? ya that’s what i’m going for in my head (mumbo jumbo s7 tease)

i know it’s covered in glass already but i dunno, some broken glass and a giant tree emerging from the whole thing and all the rubble seems cool

i’m not a good builder but i have the vision LMAO

omg puffy is like a sheep human hybrid im pretty sure & like there’s a specific type of dryad that are a protector of sheep & other animals?? i’m not exactly sure but that seems like an interesting element to incorporate somehow

also glatt randomly planting a oak sapling in quackity’s lore stream yes pls feed my nonexistent dsmp character lore /j

i honestly dunno how to incorporate the fact dryads can turn shapeshift into trees when trying to escape something but i read something that if a dryad stays in a tree form for too long they’ll forget who they are and stay stuck as a tree?? which like woah that’s cool & some material but at the same time what—

since everyone’s backstory is kinda a mess, mr beast parent tease bc he planted a bunch of trees /hj

i have realized wilbur saying like “the whole reason i built this nation is gone” & blowing up everything or whatever is kinda a plot hole in like ‘why would i follow wilbur if/when he’s revived when he said this?’ but i’d like to think he was the one that made some meaning of the area lmanburg was on, which includes the lmantree

like he was the one that started everything and created that sentiment of that land, and however he views it now is how i would see it now

he gave meaning to my past life and now in my current life, i feel this obligation to repay him for it

not really lore bc i think it was cc!tommy talking to cc!ranboo about his height & age when he first joined but yk it would funny to make my dsmp character than his just to slightly spite him anyway

canonically 6’4 dryad yes . /hj

also i have no idea anything about hannah and her lore but we do be flower buddies :D

also omg like this isn’t at all important but the way ranboo can pick up grass blocks will just have me at awe, i dunno seems in theme with the forest/plant stuff

and i remember reading like there was something about dryads and apples but i can’t remember but i’d give tommy a bunch of apples /hj

apples am i right chat,,,,,

i’ll just have infinite apples in my inventory, like kill me in game, not like losing lives kinda deal but just in general and boom stacks of apples

“bee i get you’re half tree but do you just poop apples out like they’re nothing??” “girls don’t poop” /j

ok but like no matter how many streams i watch i cant grasp where everything is but omg but no if i was new to the server & stuff, canonically & not, i would feel my character to be the curious kind to explore everywhere

like besides a mini tour from some other person in the server, since my character only knows things in the bounds of lmanburg, i’d go off exploring different places like pogtopia, the sewers, showchester, etc

i feel like my character would be really into history, like they would have questions about what happened to lmanburg after the last war? what was life like before wilbur? what was the whole history about the antarctic empire? i dunno but reading a bunch of books from a library seems really interesting

oh but in theory, me and tubbo are loosely related if you wanna count schlatt as my “dad” because he supposedly planted the lmantree ???

i mean could make sense but it seems like a stretch

also if my character ever got close to schlatt, i’m not sure if this is canon, but i swear one time he mentioned how the whole dsmp sever is just a game/server in a game & he’s the only one that knows that ??? but like imagine if i found that out canonically,,,,,

big existential crisis pls

and i’m not 100% sure how dryad shifting works with like going from female to tree form and stuff but if i’m able to morph into different girls on the server & act as them,,,, the about of problems that can cause in the lore omg

lemme frame niki real quick and get inside information /j

oh ya and like hey bee do you support the government then? yes but no. whatever my “fav” person is canonically (assuming this is based in the beginning of this whole hc) whatever wilbur thinks, i think. head empty. but subject to change as the dsmp storyline progresses and stuff :]

ngl i wanna throw in some like random lore that doesn’t make sense to throw people off but i can’t think of anything

not actually really lore related but my choice of stream music like how ranboo has his undertale stuff that makes everyone cry, i will have in love with a ghost

yup i like in love with a ghost sm & i’m pretty sure their music is like not dmca too which yay but yk theoretically never gonna stream on the dsmp but still a fun aspect to think of bc i love listening to music & it’s very impactful to a story & associating something to it makes it more meaningful :D

like i could imagine the chill pop lofi piano stuff fits witha few lore streams of like exploring the whole smp before my character would really go out with being this lost villain in a way?

tubbo’s gangnam style who?

like i feel like i made my character bad/evil so they could have potential to get better in the future

on one hand, i’ll end up w dream and/or wilbur for the rest of my life, which is okay but i could also switch to be with tommy or even disregard all of them and be with techno/phil or quackity & potentially schlatt even who knows

also i cant wait for more connor lore tho, like as much as i tried to make my character give him more content i wanna see how everything goes with him having connections to schlatt & stuff

anyway i would’ve made concept art for my character but i honestly don’t rly like my art currently but who knows LMAO

and lastly if u read all of this ily /p

i might update this later when there’s more lore but ya

#bee for dream smp 2021 /j #dsmp headcanon #dream smp oc #dreamsmp headcanon #dsmp hc #mcyt x oc #dsmp x oc

[nightfallgame]

I'm curious about the face blindness. I've seen online that it means that it makes difficult for the person to recognize familiar faces, so I wonder... have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror and not been able to recognize yourself?

I mean, I know myself in the mirror because I know what I’m looking at, but human facial features mean basically nothing to me. When two pictures are put right next to each other, I can usually tell if they’re the same person or not, but like with the Shigure and Kegare ones, I have a very hard time differentiating them if they’re not in direct comparison. 

I can’t describe facial features. This kind of nose, that shape of eyes, it means nothing to me. I can look at someone’s face and give a vague description of it looking round, sharp, happy, mean, or things like that, but aside from the simplest things, I can’t really describe the features at all. I also have MAJOR trouble recognizing people, especially in crowds. Like if I run into an acquaintance at the grocery store, I typically have a moment of panic because I’m not entirely sure if this is the person I think it is. 

It’s better with people I know very well, like my parents and close friends, but even then, I’m mostly relying on things like hairstyle, piercings, voice, mannerisms, and such. For example, a decent way for me to tell people apart is their teeth— like specific crookedness. 

As far as describing myself, I know I have a very round face and my eyes are a similar shape to what Asian people’s usually are. And I only know that latter part because other people tell it to me. Other than that, I really can’t visualize much of anything. 

This is also a a huge problem when it comes to media like Tv shows and movies. I hate live action stuff because I’m constantly confused and struggling to tell which character is which. I’m decently capable of telling races apart if the features are distinct, but details of individuals are basically impossible. 

And let me tell you, it sucks. People do not understand it at all. My mom asks me a lot if I can recognize her face or not, and when I say I can’t, she gets very, very offended and mad at me. I feel incredibly guilty for not being able to tell people apart, including relatives, teaches, friends, and people that I should really be able to know. My memory is shit anyway because of trauma and Adhd, and the faceblind thing makes it so much worse. ;A;

#Ask #Anonymous #Admin

[tomhardysteeth]

u wanna say anything for spn ending? Today's their last day of filming

Yeah sure! I love how you worded this ask, it makes me want to give a very serious answer. I’ve been rewatching random episodes the past few days and thinking about how much of my life was shaped by this random lil tv show, both positively and negatively, so here we go. 

I started watching Supernatural during my junior year of college, when I was grappling with being gay and religious, and had a pseudo-girlfriend who was emotionally abusive. I remember I started watching the show because I had been on tumblr for a while and thought, well this is a popular show on tumblr and looks like something I’d enjoy, so I might as well try it. I remember barely paying attention to the first season and thinking it was kind of silly, and I distinctly remember making fun of it right up until the season 1 finale when that truck slammed into the Impala and I said oh.

I remember sitting in the dining hall between classes, hiding in a corner with my pink headphones and my laptop, watching one episode after the other, completely consumed by it. My personal life was a mess at the time and I was angry and sad and frustrated, but I could forget about everything for a little while when I watched spn. I remember falling in love with Dean Winchester, season 3, when Sam gave him the amulet. 

Because I had already spent a lot of time on tumblr, I knew about Castiel. I couldn’t wait to get to season 4, the anticipation killed me. I didn’t really have a choice in shipping destiel, I literally shipped it before I even watched a single episode of the show lol. My first time watching seasons 4 and 5, I remember how mad I would feel every time the opening credits scrolled at the bottom of the screen and Misha Collins wasn’t listed. I cared about almost nothing but Dean and Cas interacting with each other. I was totally enamored by them, by their potential. At some point I got over that and watched the show because I liked the show, but boy did my heart and brain break for destiel. 

I broke up with my abusive girlfriend. I started coming out to more people, including people involved in the Christian campus ministry I was heavily involved in, and it was very very hard. It was 2013. The first episode of Supernatural I watched live was the episode where Dean turns into a fucking dog. 

I don’t remember when I started reading fanfic, and I had no idea how to read fanfic. A friend invited me to ao3, what is ao3? I didn’t know. I used my email address as my username. I read Twist and Shout and Pie Without Plot and other very popular fics that I knew about because everybody knew about them. I vividly remember the first fics I read because I was 21 years old and had never had an orgasm in my life and believed sex was sinful and so when the sex scenes in fics turned me on, I felt guilty about it. 

I quickly got over that and started writing explicit destiel fanfic. 

I still had no idea what I was doing. I know the very first fic I ever wrote was a mess, I’ve completely erased all traces of it, but other than that I began posting with abandon. Pretty much everything I’ve ever written for spn is still on tumblr and/or ao3. I was running a Hannibal blog at the time and started posting more Supernatural content than Hannibal content, so I created a sideblog, @deancasheadcanons​, and things very quickly got out of hand after that.

I was depressed, I was confused, I was spending my last couple years of college trying to figure out my sexuality, trying to hold onto a religion that was rejecting who I was becoming, trying to find my identity while picking a career path and being sad and being pulled in a hundred different directions. Sometimes I was working three jobs at once, on top of 17-credit-hour semesters. I was getting a degree in a field I did not care about, and I spent every class reading and writing fanfic, scrolling through tumblr, making internet friends, letting my life be consumed by Supernatural. I projected myself completely onto Dean Winchester and partially onto Castiel and did not even realize it. 

I started dressing like Dean, and my sister and brother-in-law noticed and assumed I was gay. They were extremely unsubtle in their attempts at getting me to come out by pointing out the flannel and army jackets, and I did not have it in me to admit to them that I was dressing like a fictional character, but I DID tell them I was bisexual. 

I went to therapy every week during my senior year of college, and I was embarrassed about how often I talked about my “internet life,” as I called it. I remember having the arbitrary goal of getting 1,000 kudos on a fanfic, and I remember the day it happened for the first time and I remember going to therapy that week and saying that I didn’t feel any different, that I thought getting attention for my writing would make me feel better, somehow, but I still felt the same, and my therapist asked me if I would still be writing if I was the only one who got anything out of it and I said yes. But I was still obsessed with writing things that were meaningful, and despite the fact that I would receive 10 negative/mean anons per day, I never turned anon off because I desperately wanted people to tell me that my writing meant something to them, that it mattered to them. I was fighting with myself every day over my sexuality and my identity and my purpose, and I put all of that on the shoulders of Dean and Cas. 

There was also chubby!dean. I had lived my entire life with this inexplicable thing, this shame that I knew I could not share, that I knew I would just have to suffer with for my whole life, and then I joined the spn fandom and found that there were others like me, others that had a fetish and had similar experiences as I did and were drawn to Dean Winchester because there’s no other character that could make eating and gaining weight be as enticing as he makes it (in fanfic). For the first time in my life I had a community of people that I could relate to about a thing that I never thought I would ever be able to talk about with anyone in my life. I don’t remember if I consciously chose to start posting publicly about it, but at some point I did, and I started writing kink fic, but I was still so uncomfortable with myself and so scared of the things I felt, and I tried so hard to temper myself and not offend anyone and not go “too far” and not be too weird and I was so sexually repressed and pent up and full of guilt and shame, and so now when I go back and reread some of the stuff I wrote it feels like reopening an old wound and letting myself bleed out. 

I was constantly comparing myself to others and wondering why I wasn’t getting as much attention as so-and-so, and I always made excuses about how maybe my writing was too weird and I was too much and maybe I just wasn’t good enough and I hated myself and wanted to delete everything I ever wrote, but also I’m awesome and receive a lot of attention and get a lot of good feedback but maybe that means I’m just a narcissist! I acted like an asshole online and justified it by saying it wasn’t really me, that I could be someone totally different on tumblr than the person I was in “real life,” but in hindsight, now when I think back on my early 20s, I cannot separate what I was doing in “real life” from what I was doing in the spn fandom. I shared so much of myself with the spn fandom without even recognizing that that’s what I was doing. 

And I made mistakes, god I made mistakes, and I tried to be so careful about everything I said but I was also presenting a certain version of myself to the spn fandom so that people would like me (for instance: running a destiel blog and trying my best to hide the fact that I also ship wincest) and still I got in trouble constantly, and I grew bitter and mean because you can only receive the “when are you posting the next chapter?” comment so many times before you want to bang your head into a wall. I became defensive and unkind, afraid to check my inbox because it was a nightmare, and yet unable to turn off anon because, like I said, I desperately needed that feedback, I needed people to tell me that they felt what I felt, that they understood what I was writing and why I was writing it.

I expected Supernatural to give me everything I needed. I fantasized about Dean Winchester being canonically bisexual because I thought it would confirm something in me, that it would somehow make my life a little bit easier. I didn’t want to watch other shows that could maybe help me, I wanted Supernatural to do things for me that it had never promised and would never deliver, and it’s because I was defined by it for so many years. Now that I’m back on tumblr, I’ve been going back through some of my old posts on deancasheadcanons and it’s like reading a stranger’s words. Even so, I find myself telling people “I was deancasheadcanons” instead of “I ran a sideblog called deancasheadcanons” because it really was such a huge part of my identity. What’s wild is that every time I’ve tried to explain it to someone in real life, they just look at me like I’m not making any sense. 

It was easy to stop watching Supernatural. I didn’t have cable, and I had been driving to my dad and stepmom’s house each week and watching it on their tv after they had gone to bed. I was in a new relationship with a woman I nearly married, I was back in school for a new career, I was working full time and absolutely did not have time to continue writing fanfic as prolifically as I had done for so many years. I finally reached a breaking point in 2017 and haven’t watched any new episodes since then (I don’t remember the last episode I saw). But now, as I rewatch some old episodes, it is easy to feel the way I felt the first time I watched the show. It’s easy to see why this campy little heartfelt show was a lifeline during my formative adult years.

So it turns out I have never reckoned with any of this, have never written it down, hence the 2k jumble of words you see here. And it’s like, I know that a lot of this may seem silly, trivial, especially for a show that in itself is not very serious, but as it comes to an end I have to reflect on it as a person who put so much of my heart, my creativity, my pain and my floundering identity into it. I am somewhat embarrassed and wish I could respond to this ask with a joke instead, but we’re in a pandemic and I live alone and have had way too much time to think and reflect and become a lot more self-aware, and part of that reflection has definitely been about my time in the spn fandom. I remember thinking the show was never going to end, yet here we are at the end and I felt compelled to type all this out with a desire to, I don’t know, get some closure? Convince myself that I was a whole person, that I wasn’t just a faceless URL posting destiel fics into the void, that my real life was not at all disparate from the time I spent online? In any case, I’ll always think fondly of the time I devoted to Supernatural, and I’ll take the good and the bad and everything in between. Thanks for the nice ask, anon, apparently I needed to get some things off my chest.  

#madd replies #long post #spn for ts #this is 2k words i am sorry lmao #wouldn't it be cool if i had any semblance of chill

[leomitchellart]

So… about this latest Inktober controversy….

Time to begrudgingly chuck in my two penneth… (Remeber you can always press “J” to skip this post altogether)

As most of you may or may not know, Alphonso Dunn released a Youtube video wherein he publicly accused Jake Parker, and creator of the Inktober challenge, of plagiarising his book. Both of these men are public figures, artists specialising in pen & ink. In the video Dunn looks at the preview pages and flip through footage of Parker’s “Inktober All Year Round” and says they draw many similarities in the illustrations, language and layout that he used in his own book, “Pen & Ink Drawing”. Parker’s book was set to this month. Hense why Dunn only used footage and not a physical copy.

Since the video’s release, the art community has been very spilt down the middle. The book’s publisher has halted the launch of Parker’s book until the matter can be investigated. Even DeviantArt cancelled their own Inktober event thing (I’ll admit I don’t keep up with these things DA keeps doing). Parker has since released a statement in the matter. Now it’s up to the courts to decide what’s happening next. The video itself is an hour long, but it’s crucial to see it yourself. 

People are, understandably, outraged after seeing it. This seems like a shitty thing to rip-off Dunn - not to mention stupid. Since Dunn is the more popular pen & ink artist with more social media followers and name recognition. Many have called to boycott inktober and condemn Parker. I’ll admit, I was right alongside them at first, at least for feeling outraged. The similarities are there. But if YMS’s Kimba video has taught me anything, it’s that, even if an accusation of plagiarism may be obvious at a cursory glance, sometimes it’s important to take a more critical eye and do more research to learn that things aren’t as cut and dry as they first seem. If there’s a lesson I can take away from the internet as a whole, it’s that no one thinks about the consequences of mob mentality.

The most common defence of Parker is that because they’re both books about pen and ink drawing, then they’re inevitably going to be similar. I’ll admit that, when you pick-up so many art books, a lot of them will cover the same basic grounds of materials, tutorials, strokes, techniques etc. The parts about rendering textures on spheres and cubes isnt new. Look up “texture study” and you’ll see so many examples of artists rendering these kinds of things digitally. I’ve also noticed a common theme of people more formally educated in art pointing out how none of these are original. Everything down to the steps and illustrations are things they’ve learned from years ago. Since I'm a pen & ink artist, inspired by my love of comics, I have quite a few books about inking: Dunn’s included. I own both his books and still highly recommend them. I didn't even preorder Parker’s book. Ironically because I didn't think it could offer anything new that my other books hadn’t already.

While Ethan Becker took the time to cross-examine Dunn and Parker’s books with several others, there weren’t many of the ones I actually owned. So I looked to my shelves to see what I could find. Books like:

“The Art of Comic Book Inking” by Gary Martin & Steve Rude

“How Comics Work” by Dave Gibbons & Tim Pilcher

“The DC Comics guide to Inking Comics” by Klaus Janson

“Making Comics” by Scott McCloud

“Stan Lee’s How to Draw Comics”

I’m sure there’s plenty more examples out there. I was planning to go through all of these and take pictures. But ultimately that’s not the core point of these post. Plus it would’ve taken WAY too long and this post itself, is long enough.

Of course, none of the them are 100% close to Dunn’s in the way they’re displayed. Not as close as Parker’s could be considered. That being said, I know Dunn is trying to claim that he invented these techniques. The nucleus of the issue is how similar they are in terms of order and how these pages are displayed. Some I can chock-up to standard practice, while others seem more coincidental.

If there’s one thing I’m adamant about, it’s that I think that Dunn should’ve messaged Parker first before making the accusation public. Some try to dispute that this would've made it easier for Dunn to be “silenced”, whatever that means; but that sounds a bit conspiratorial to me. Ideally, you confront him about it in private, if he makes any threats or blows you off, get your lawyer on the phone and then make the video. Not only is it the more civil thing to do - but it’s the smarter thing to do. This is a serious legal matter, not just internet drama. While I’m sure Dunn had no intention of tearing Parker down or getting a mob onto him, that’s unfortunately what’s happened. A backlash both from the general artisan community and several companies. Wherein it was left to Parker himself to make this an official legal matter. If Parker’s found not guilty, then this could easily leave the gate open for him to sue Dunn for damages, loss of revenue, defamation of character or whatever else, should he see fit. As could the publishers, given how this affected their sales. Companies responded to the accusation of the video alone, before an investigation could be launched. Sure, it wouldn't be “acting the bigger man” but he’d be well within his right to do it. Dunn showed that Jake has mentioned him before, shown admiration for his career and referenced him in other posts. If it comes to light in court, that Dunn is even cited as an inspiration or source in the book itself, then it’s case closed. 

Then there’s the other possibility that Parker might not have done this on his own, but that he has a team behind the book. If that’s the case, the most I can accuse Parker of is being a hack. I worry Dunn has kneecapped himself for just how badly he’s handled this situation. Made worse by him not having an actual physical copy to assess and just had footage of preview pages to go on. So far, the circumstances don’t seem on his favour. 

I don’t think ill of Dunn. I do think he believes he’s been wronged and no malice in his intentions. I just think he’s made some critical errors on how to handled this. As for Parker himself, I couldn't give a donkey’s doo-dah about him. I’m sure you could accuse me of playing devil’s advocate earlier, but to me, he was the guy who released the annual prompt list. If it really does turn out that he’s a plagiarist and had malicious intent, then fuck ‘im. I never regarded him as an inspiration of mine or paid much attention to him outside of that. It was the community that made Inktober what it is. I’ve never met Parker. Maybe he’s a cool guy? Maybe he’s a bellend? I don’t know.

Granted this isn't the first time Parker has proved himself to be a controversial figure: - Last year people were upset about him trademarking (not copywriting, as many have erroneously claimed) the word “Inktober” and some artists were stopped from selling their related work or zines. Parker would issue a statement: claiming the takedowns were a mistake of “overzealous lawyers” and it’s just a matter of the logo being trademarked. People can sell their Inktober works and even mention they are Inktober-related. Just not use the official logo. On the one hand, from a business standpoint, I get it. It’s the bare minimum you need to do to protect your IP, especially when you have a store. BUT, like most people, I don’t like how, what’s intended as a community challenge, has slowly become more of a brand associated with one man. Hardly a surprise it left a bad taste in so many people’s mouths. But, since it doesn't actually effect anyone’s ability to take part in the challenge, outside of personal principle, I went ahead with it the previous year. 

 - The year before, when asked if one can do Inktober digitally, Parker said the following:

I know some are still bitter about that, but speaking as someone who inks traditionally and digitally, this came across as needless whinging and blowing things out of proportion. Claiming that Jake had derided digital artists and said they were invalid etc etc. Take it from me, challenging yourself to try out different methods to ink traditionally can greatly improve the work you do digitally. It’s like how learning traditional fundamentals of art can still be applied to digital. Plus he never said “No.” he just gave valid reasons about how it makes it a different experience. That said, if you’re someone who can’t afford any kind of inking equipment or pens and only have a selected application to draw on - then none of this applies to you. Just the aforementioned few who took it upon themselves to get angry over nothing. Recently I’ve heard from subscribers of his newsletter that he’s now embraced the idea of people doing inktober digitally, to the point of selling digital brushes for inktober. I’m sure some will call this “backsliding” or “money grubbing” because people aren’t allowed to change their minds or update their statements.

For weeks I’ve been torn on what to do, not being able to solidify one stance over another. One minute I thought #JusticeForAlphonsoDunn then I wonder “Wait maybe I should look again?” to “But wait, those are way too similar!” Having splinters in my arse from sitting on the fence for so long. The longer this went on, however, I began to realise that I can’t take one stance over another. This case is far too muddy and complicated. I don’t have enough sufficient knowledge or evidence. Nor do any of you. We literally only have Dunn’s video to go on. While it’s a good start, it’s not enough to be taken 100% as gospel when it’s the only thing to hand. 

As previously mentioned, a lot of artists have decided to not take part in Inktober at all, or follow different prompt lists. That’s completely fine. A lot of them are based around a specific theme: halloween, kinky stuff, bears, transformers, OCs, Disney or whatever. That has massive appeal. I just can’d do it myself. I prefer the focus on random words, rather than all centred on a single subject; allowing me to be creative with my ideas and execution. I actually did try to make a list of my own random words. Problem is, I worried that because I was choosing my own, I might be subconsciously bias towards certain prompts and not truly challenging myself. Even narrowing down my options was taking too long. In the end…. I’ve decided to just do the official prompts again this year.

For me, that’s what it ultimately came down to. TIME. It’s the middle of September. I can’t afford to wait for the court case to be settled. No other prominent artists I respect have released their own prompt lists. I know there’s been some shitty people who are condemning this choice. Attacking others, accusing them of supporting plagiarism, looking to block anyone who does the official prompts. Even trying to make this a racial issue. Just…. no. 

If someone doesn’t want to take part in Inktober, that’s fine. If someone wants to do the official prompts, that’s fine. If someone wants to do their own prompts, that’s fine.

Don’t go around aggressively making snap judgements or accusing people of taking a side. Do whatever makes you feel comfortable. This has been a shit year, let people enjoy something.

If you look at this situation and it makes you feel angry, and you don’t feel comfortable in taking part in a challenge because of it’s creator. I get that, I literally get that. It’s why I haven't done Mermay. And please don’t mention Pinktober, I’m aware of it, but given his insta video on the subject and the things he said, I quickly came to the conclusion that I can’t take this person seriously. I’m sure this might make me seem hypocritical, but how this differs, if only for me, is the sheer amount Inktober means to me. It’s more than a simple challenge. Inktober's the one thing I’ve been most excited about all year. As it was ruined for me in 2019, when I lost my home and I didn't get to complete every prompt. (Long story, I’m okay now). As we all know, 2020, has been an AWFUL year. We’ve got to take whatever joy we can. As I’ve looked longer at the official prompts, I found ideas I’m really excited for. 

Once I started to really dedicate myself to it, it became a massive event. I hype myself up as I prepare for the busy month. Buy in supplies, clean the house and workspace, cook and freeze meals in bulk to save time, printing off a sheet that allows me to jot down ideas as I plan ahead.  Then once it’s done, after so much work, it makes the reward all the sweeter: Ordering a takeaway, celebrating a great halloween night and still rocking those vibes throughout November. Feeling proud of myself for doing it and seeing myself improve my technique, discipline and earning a few lie-ins to make up for the sleep I lost working. I’m like a kid waiting for Christmas. That said, don’t think that there’s something wrong with you when you understandably can’t dedicate that amount time for a simple art challenge. If anything that’s plenty of reason to why you’re smarter than me. You have a life and don’t push yourself too much.

Now, I need to crack on with the preparations. If you want to boycott Jake Parker, just not buying any of his products should be enough. Doing the inktober challenge doesn't bring attention to him, as I doubt most people even know him as the creator, nor does it even line his pockets. I just hate how cancel culture can do such serious damage like this and then try and put pressure on others to act accordingly without even doing any research themselves. 

As long as you’re not harassing anybody. Just do what YOU want to do. That’s fine. 

#Inktober #Inktober 2020 #My two penneth #Jake Parker #alphonso dunn

[julie1706]

Julie’s incredibly aesthetic incredibly autumny list of movies that she maybe recommends (part 2)

Oh sweet joy! It turns out that there are many more great, fantastic, cosy movies (and tv-series!) just absolutely perfect for autumn. By popular demand, I return with even MORE autumny recommendations, and this time, there might even be spell-checking. (Looking at you, “Silence of the Lamps”) (I won’t edit that, because that’s just funny.) 

Thank you for reading the previous one, and I hope you’ll enjoy this one too! We have some GREAT ones coming up. I hope! Maybe! But what I believe will really perfect this second list, is the fact, that autumn is close to being at its peak right now, with it being October! Woohoo! 

Pumpkins, Jack’o’lanterns, spooky movies, Halloween, tricks and treats, fog, rain, candles lit in the dark, delicious tea, and scarves, because the chill is back in the air! Amazing! The aesthetics are to die for! 

I’m on a small break from university, and have actually been having some allowed free time, to do autumny stuff. By this I mean I can do autumny stuff with my family and friends, and not feel guilty, because this time I’m not procrastinating. Well, I’m a little behind on some books, but it’s not that bad. You’re allowed free time on breaks! They’re supposed to be mostly free time, anyone knows that. I refuse to be a good student on breaks! 

This free time means that I have actually had time to watch some of these movies and tv-shows myself, and so I can feel a little better about recommending most of them, since I’ve actually seen them. Hehe. Still. I do have other, boring stuff to do, like reading for uni, emptying the dishwasher, cooking, vacuuming, etc., so there will be some of these I’m including, I have not watched, and those will be, again, backed by the power of optimism. Yay! Anyway! You’ve read enough not-halloween recommendationing, and is getting bored - Let’s get to it! (Also, these are still in random order, and I will put warnings at the end, again <3)

Coraline

I remember watching Coraline when it came out in theaters, years ago. I also remember that we had a little closet-thing in the wall, small and closed-up, but still very similar to the one she goes into, in the movie. Needless to say, this was not a favorite for little Julie, who was absolutely scared shit-less by this movie. I remember button-eyes, decaying puppets, and a very scary mom. Now, I have not watched the full movie since, but from bits and pieces through the years, I can wholeheartedly recommend this one. It’s stop-motion, the details are incredible, and wow, this movie is great. If you, like me, are no longer 9 years old, watch it! It’s wonderful, and surprisingly, very feel-good in the family aspect. A great movie!

Official synopsis: 

An adventurous 11-year-old girl finds another world that is a strangely idealized version of her frustrating home, but it has sinister secrets.

//Warning: do not watch this, if you are around nine years old. It will absolutely traumatize you about small closets in old houses. If you are not nine years old, I think you’re good! Just the right amount of spookyness, I believe!

Sense and Sensibility

I watched this with a good friend in february, I think. So I’m not sure why I think this has to go on an autumny list, but I stand by it! Maybe it’s the beige and brown, beautiful clothing, the many shots of nature, and the relationships between these characters, that fits very well with the cold and chilling air, we find ourselves in, here in lovely October. I don’t know. Food for thought. But this is a great movie, and I really think you should try watching it under a blanket, with tea and a good friend. We didn’t know the story before we saw it, and it had us guessing! And there is a part my other friend Sif told me, always makes her dad cry, and I think that should be taken as a compliment to this movie! It’s great! Love, sisters, crisis and period drama (and great clothes), this movie has it all! (also - Emma Thompson!)

Official synopsis: 

Rich Mr. Dashwood dies, leaving his second wife and her three daughters poor by the rules of inheritance. The two eldest daughters are the title opposites.

//Warning: It might make you cry. But I promise, it will be a good experience, in the end. It’s not scary, though.

Over the Garden Wall (animated series)

Well, this one, I’ve been dreading to add to my list. Now, you must not misunderstand, it’s not because I don’t like it. It’s because this series is so great, so weird, so beautifully drawn and made, that I’m afraid I could write a whole blog post dedicated only to Otgw, and still not feel that I have done it justice. It's just so good. It’s like the someone just decided one day, to make a series, that absolutely, perfectly encompasses autumn and halloween, and then did just that. The storyline is good, the art is good, the soundtrack is good. God, the soundtrack. I’ve also made sure to listen to this show’s soundtrack, since we left summer behind, and it’s just so good. There’s a reason tumblr went wild, when this show was first released. But since this is an AUTUMNY list, let me focus on those aspects. Big dark woods, scary noises in the dark, red and golden leaves, fantastical beings - this show has it all, and trust me, it WILL get you in the mood for autumn. I almost started puking leaves and pumpkins when I watched this with my friends, that’s how pumped it got me. This show has a special place in my heart, and if you promise not to tell all the other movies and shows on the list, I’ll admit something: this might be a favorite of mine. Maybe THE autumny favorite. 

Official synopsis:

Two brothers find themselves lost in a mysterious land and try to find their way home.

Warning: May be a little spooky, but I have it on good authority from a friend that is a true scaredy-cat, with nerves of whipped cream, that’s it’s fine. She  could handle it, watches it every year, and she’s fine. Good levels of scary.  

Corpse Bride

Believe it or not, that same scaredy-cat of a friend, I just mentioned, actually instructed a musical, based on this story. Is she a horror-fan or not? I have no idea, but her show was so well-done, that it actually made me like this movie a bit better. I have seen it before, but she convinced me, by telling me the original story behind this movie, that it’s pretty great. And by association, this movie became pretty great, too. It’s been some years since I saw this, but it’s a pretty good halloween movie, I think. Dead people tormenting the living. Classic autumn stuff, I would say. And it’s pretty well-made, I think, stop-motion again! I like the aesthetic of a corpse bride, though you have to admit the actual thing is pretty sad. The premise is haunting and scary, but it’s more morose, melancholic and depressing, I think. Poor Emily. But a good movie! Sorry, maybe that wasn’t a very enticing description, but I promise, it will do you more good than bad, to watch it. And then go google the original story, the movie is based on! 

Official synopsis:

When a shy groom practices his wedding vows in the inadvertent presence of a deceased young woman, she rises from the grave assuming he has married her.

//Oops, nearly forgot a warning! Warning: some people are dead, and therefore rotting a bit. If you’re squeamish, don’t watch. If you love sad love stories, definitely watch!

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Yeah, I’m not sure why this has to go on my Autumny List either, sorry. It just has to. I know it takes place over an entire year, but in my head, it jut fits very well with the whole magic, supernatural, foggy halloween times we find ourselves in. I mean, look at the cover! Maybe it’s the iconic scene, right before the troll is discovered in the girls’ bathroom (sorry, spoiler), with the floating jack’o’lanterns, and tables almost crashing undet the weight of candy and cakes, that convinced my brain, that this is a halloween movie. I don’t know. Just trust me on this, and watch the first Harry Potter movie. It’s pretty good. 

Official synopsis: 

An orphaned boy enrolls in a school of wizardry, where he learns the truth about himself, his family and the terrible evil that haunts the magical world.

//Warning: Nah, you’re good ;-)

Little Women (Important: 2019 edition)

Alright girls, we’re hopping genres again! This is another period-drama (sort of), about sisters, and wow, I cried to this. I bawled, I sobbed, I choked on snot, and was a little inconsolable, when I watched it with friends, at the cinema. One of the best experiences this year, and one of the greatest movies I have watched in a long time. I love everything about this movie: the family-bonds, the clothing, the many nature-shots, the developments of characters, (almost) all the characters, and just, wow. No good way to end that sentence, because I want to just keep describing all the good parts of this movie, because it's everything. It’s amazing, and yes, i’m exaggerating, but I can’t help it. I forgot to eat my popcorn or drink my water, when we watched this, that’s how mesmerized I was by this movie. I love Jo, I think I can empathize a lot with her, and if I could talk to her, if she was real, I would thank her for telling her story. This movie is great, you should watch it, because it makes you feel so warm inside. 

Official synopsis:

Jo March reflects back and forth on her life, telling the beloved story of the March sisters - four young women, each determined to live life on her own terms.

//Warning: Might make you break down crying. But in a good way. Very cathartic, actually.

Alien

I watched this for the first time last year, when I decided I was going to watch the classic older horror movies, and not freak the fuck out. I mostly succeed. And this movie was a joy to watch. That’s maybe weird to say about an alien horror movie, but wow I just love Sigourney Weaver, and the aesthetics of this movie. The story is thrilling, and I really did not like most of the characters, I thought they were hysteric and annoying, but I still rooted for them. It’s a different kind of horror movie, that’s for sure! But when I watched it, I totally understood why it has become such a classic.

Official synopsis: 

After a space merchant vessel receives an unknown transmission as a distress call, one of the crew is attacked by a mysterious life form and they soon realize that its life cycle has merely begun.

//Warning: Uh, yeah, Sif, this is not one for you. It’s gross and scary. Malin, I think you’ll like this one! Go ahead! Maybe we should see it together?

Edward Scissorhands

Haven’t seen this one! I want to, though. I think I’ve seen one scene, where this man accidentally pokes a water-bed, and younger me felt that was a very tragic thing, on more levels. Johnny Depp yet again, so it has to be good, right? I know this poor guy, Edward, has it rough, and was given some really not that practical hands. Man, he looks sad, huh? So maybe more sad than scary, yet again. Dont know! But I really do want to watch it. Winona Ryder is in this, too, so really, it’s a no-brainer!

Official synopsis:

An artificial man, who was incompletely constructed and has scissors for hands, leads a solitary life. Then one day, a suburban lady meets him and introduces him to her world.

//Warning: I don’t know? Maybe not that spooky? I think it’s more sad, to be honest.

Pride + Prejudice + Zombies

I mean, why the hell not - right? I love Jane Austen. I love Pride and Prejudice. And I really like halloween, so OF COURSE, I’m including this one. I’ve seen it, too. My friend Malin and I watched it a couple of years ago, and yeah, it’s good. It’s not high cinema, no, but I don’t need that. It was a fun, weird twist, and sometimes, that’s all you need. There is a very interesting scene with a corset, that was NOT in the book, and I think it really added something to this story. And Lily James. Whew. Great movie. Great for autumn. I will be watching this one again.

Official synopsis:

Five sisters in 19th century England must cope with the pressures to marry while protecting themselves from a growing population of zombies.

//Warning: I can’t really remember, but I think there’s some pretty gross scenes with zombies. Rotting flesh is NOT pretty. But just close your eyes for that, and  you’ll be good!

The Haunting of Hill House

I first watched this series when i came out some time ago. I never finished it, I don’t think my heart was in it, but by no fault of the show. Now, that the same creator has made another show, which my mom and I are hooked by, and almost through, I think I’ll be returning to this one - it deserves another chance! A great old house, ghosts, family secrets and INCREDIBLE aesthetics, mean there must be something here! Also, I think it’s based on a novel by Shirley Jackson, and it’s supposed to a classic horror novel, and Stephen King tweeted that he liked it, so yeah, it’s promising! The series I’m watching with my mom is spooky, but tumblr says the Haunting of Hill House is supposed to be much more spooky, terrifying, even, and I really want to find out if that’s true!

Official synopsis:

Flashing between past and present, a fractured family confronts haunting memories of their old home and the terrifying events that drove them from it.

//Warning: Very Scary! Faint of heart - Beware! Just enjoy this beautiful gif of Nell dancing by herself, and move on <3

Psycho

Another old classic! Woo! Have not watched, but really, I feel like that’s almost a crime by now. I HAVE to watch it. Soon, I’m planning to. Sadly, It’s old, and I grew up with the internet, so I’ve been spoiled oh so dreadfully, and knows all the bloody details and plottwists of this oldie but goldie. But I still want to watch it! It must be a classic for a reason - right? Also, I’ve never seen the full version of the famous shower scene, and that’s just embarrassing. Shame on me.

Official synopsis:

A Phoenix secretary embezzles $40,000 from her employer's client, goes on the run, and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother.

//Warning: It’s a horror classic! It’s gotta be scary. Then again, it DID come out in 1960. Be careful about this one! Sorry, I have no idea, have never watched it.

Hannibal (the TV series)

It’s gross, it’s scary, it’s aesthetic, there is a danish elegant man eating people in snowy Baltimore, and you really shouldn’t pay him to be your psychiatrist. Hannibal! I first watched this as a young, edgy teenager, and all the blood and gore didn't get to me at all - I just enjoyed the cat-and-mouse game between Will Graham, our main character, very mentally unstable, and a dog-lover, and Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a renowned psychiatrist, elegant, high-society - and also, he talks like a mixture of the bible and an old greek sonet. What I'm trying to get at is that this show is weird. Good weird. But also, now no longer an edgy teenager myself, it’s really gross. A man’s leg is cut off and served to himself. That’s gross. I didn’t like that, and I definitely covered my eyes. Other than that, it’s a very vivid show, with great focus on presentation and symbolism. I would love for someone to analyse each episode, because there's so much attention to detail. It’s honestly impressive. And after having watched many, many shows about crime and murders, I must say, this show has THE most buckwild, creative, never seen before ways of killing people. How the hell do you come up with a murderer using people’s different skin colors to make a mural? I don’t know. It’s disgusting, but man is it different. I’m halfway through season two, and there is a lot to unpack! Also, have to mention, very homoerotic - that’s a plus. Don’t think I could’ve stomached all the blood, otherwise. I hate blood, and wow is there blood in this show.

Official synopsis:

Explores the early relationship between renowned psychiatrist, Hannibal Lecter, and his patient, a young FBI criminal profiler, who is haunted by his ability to empathize with serial killers.

//Warning: Yeah. You read how many times I wrote ‘gross’. Just trust me on this one, it’s gross. It’s good, but maybe don’t watch it. You don’t need to introduce your brain to this.

The Haunting of Bly Manor

Ooh boy. Ooooh boy. This series is very good. VERY good. I’m watching it with my mom right now, I think we’re at episode 7, and wow are we hooked. It’s spooky, it’s haunting, it’s thrilling, it’s mysterious, and wow is it scary. We both agreed to go together, the first night we watched this, and our dog had to be taken out on his night-walk. She didn’t want to go alone, and i didn’t want to stay back at the house, alone. So we went together, and I was so freaked out that I nearly peed my pants, when some kids screamed in our neighborhood. It’s so very much what I want a ghost-story to be, but it’s also a lot more, and much greater for it. I love all the characters, they’re all so well-rounded, and most of them are good. The big manor is spooky, and the woods surrounding it are foggy and dark, and yes, this is really a great series for autumn and halloween. It’s the second series made by Mike Flanagan. There are some similarities between the two shows, and surprisingly, some of the same actors! I think that’s very interesting, and it also made me very confused, as I watched the first episodes of the Haunting of Bly Manor, and could not, for the life of me, figure out where the hell I had seen these people before. It made it even more eerie in a way, and I appreciate that. I love this show, and I think I’ll be very sad when we’re through with it. I guess the natural thing to do, will be to follow up with Flanagan’s previous horror series, The Haunting of Hill House! Also, there’s lesbians in this one. Very nice. I appreciate that. Also, surprisingly - I love the children! They’re so cool and brave, and it would be very nice if especially Flora could go with me, the next time I’m going to a haunted house. Such a badass.

Official synopsis:

After an au pair’s tragic death, Henry hires a young American nanny to care for his orphaned niece and nephew who reside at Bly Manor with the chef Owen, groundskeeper Jamie and housekeeper, Mrs. Grose.

Warning: It’s spooky. It’s the perfect halloween series, so of course it’s very spooky! This gif I chose is spooky, and I promise the show itself is worse. But if you can handle dead people creepily staring in the background, and maybe has someone to watch it with, I think you’ll be fine!

Alright! We made it! Another spooky, aesthetic, autumny list, for us to enjoy this crispy season! Woohoo! Also, I’m sorry if there’s any spelling mistakes or whatelse, I hope you enjoyed reading anyway! Thank you! Now go drink some tea and relax, you’ve earned it. I recently tried chili-tea, and damn, that’s another recommendation from me! It was amazing!

Hope you have a great Halloween, it’s close now. Watch out for the cold weather, remember to bundle up, and don’t let the impending darkness get you down. Light some candles! And also, watch some of these spooky tv-series and movies with your family and friends! And have a great fall! <3

Love, Julie

#autumn list #autumn recommendation #autumn aesthetic #i never know what to put in the tags #not an organized person not even on the internet #haunting of hill house #haunting of bly manor #psycho #alien 1979 #harry potter and the sorcerer's stone #edward scissorhands #hannibal #otgw #over the garden wall #sense and sensibility #pride and prejudice and zombies #little women #corpse bride #coraline #i think that's everything #man that took much longer than i expected #i really do need to go empty the dishwasher now lol #ok bye love you

[k-s-morgan]

I am rewatching after 5 years. Do you think Will was left ambiguous on purpose ? I won't say ambiguous but 'difficult to read'. He was frustrating at times and you have do some academic level research (lol) to get it, someone watching casually ( most people watch TV casually i don't blame them) won't get anything. May be could have put more straightforward dialogues ? Sometime despite evidence and stuff I feel there is a chance we aren't reading him right which will be clear in a possible s4 s5

Thank you for your words, I’m glad you’re enjoying my metas!) Will is definitely a very complex character, the most complex I’ve ever seen, and since he lies all the time, including to himself and to us, it might be difficult to distinguish lies from the truth right away.

Regarding his ambiguity — it depends on which moments you mean in particular. His overall arc is definite — he’s a person with inherent darkness that he’s trying to subdue until it becomes impossible. They used pretty straightforward dialogues and scenes to show this, starting with E2 of S1, when he admits he loved killing Hobbs and that he’s just tried to kill an unarmed Stammets to experience the same feeling of power. Then there is an Angel Maker and Will seeing himself as inherently evil through his eyes, all those endless dialogues with Hannibal about murder, the admission that he never knew himself as well as when he’s with Hannibal, the admission that he never felt as alive as when murdering Randall (confirmed later in Will’s own thoughts), etc. But I do think it’s difficult to catch this subtle transition in Will’s views about his darkness when you are watching for the first time. Honestly, I was confused myself. My impression was that Will was a very good person who then fell in love with Hannibal and started to slowly accept his views. When you re-watch, though, most things become clear, and understanding what’s a lie and what’s the truth is easier.  

However, there are definitely moments that can be interpreted differently. My biggest issue is with S3 in this regard. They tried to push 2 seasons together and as the result, some motivations are way too subtle. Like Will’s transition from being reverent about Hannibal in Primavera to his bitterness in Dolce: I have my view on it that I think is supported by the show quite well, but another interpretation is also possible. Similarly, there is ambiguity about his state of mind starting from how he set up Chilton and until the middle of TWOTL. Why does Will react so strongly to seeing what’s being done to Chilton only to be cold and condescending to him and Bedelia later, when he admits he did it deliberately? Was Will truly saying goodbye to Hannibal in TWOTL or was he already planning his escape, and he manipulated Francis so quickly because he already had some ideas? Clearer dialogues or scenes would be good here.

So, things that are clear 100%: Will is a dark person who enjoys murder. His preferred victims are bad people but he can also kill innocent ones without feeling guilty over it. He loves Hannibal and he spends the majority of time being conflicted, finally Becoming in TWOTL (as he says himself). If hypothetical S4 and S5 go against these established facts, then the problem will be with writing and not with our interpretation or with previous seasons. 

Now, is it possible that Bryan Fuller sees Will differently from the majority of us? Yes. I’ve read almost every his interview and listened to most his podcasts and commentaries. He can be very inconsistent in what he says, contradicting even himself (in one single sentence at times). For the most part, his words support people’s general view of the show, but sometimes he says things that go against what has been shown. The problem might be in what he plans and what actually ends up on screen. As an example: Bryan thinks Will wanted to ‘save’ Francis. Bedelia says the same thing to Will in S3, but it doesn’t make sense. Will in the show is never interested in Francis at all apart from the basic catch him/kill him. This phrase comes from the books and Bryan might have wanted to explore it, but it just didn’t happen. Will shows no indication he feels sympathy or something personal for Francis — Francis is mostly a tool between him and Hannibal that Will kills with very obvious pleasure. Hugh Dancy remembers a warmer relationship between Will and Molly because the script had many moments of their intimacy — what ended in the show is a mostly awkward marriage where Will never even initiates physical contact with her and where the distance between them is palpable. Will’s empathy falls into the same category — there is no evidence of him being able to fully relate to all people or losing himself in their minds uncontrollably (disregarding when he was physically ill).

Similar things might come to the surface in S4 and S5, leading Will in the direction none of us saw coming. It might be consistent with what Bryan had in his mind, but it might go against what has been established in the actual show so far. That’s why I’m not really looking forward to continuation. As of now, ‘Hannibal’ remains one of the most consistent and brilliant shows I’ve ever seen. I’d hate to see this change, and every other show I loved came back with terrible new seasons.  

But, I do trust Bryan more than others, and I believe they could give us an amazing S4. No matter what he says in the interviews, his portrayal of Will consistently makes sense in the show, and even doubtful moments in S3, like with Bedelia’s ‘save Francis’ phrase, can be easily explained. This gives me hope!) 

#hannibal #will graham

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

20 years of Spider-Man 2000

I am very late to the party with this one I realize.  

Nevertheless I wanted to talk a little about Neversoft’s Spider-Man 2000 video game seeing as it’s 20th anniversary was this year.

This game was CRITICAL in my formative years as a Spider-Man fan. My love affair with the character began before then chiefly with the 1990s cartoon and if memory serves I had begun reading the comics not too long before getting the game. But even so, this game shaped so much of my preferences for Spider-Man and made me hungry for the vast lore of the character.  

You need to understand, I wanted this game so badly that I asked for it before I even owned a console that could play it. My uncle handed down his old PS1 so I could play it whilst my parents saved up to get me a PS2. I spent weeks just pouring over the booklet inside the game or satisfying myself by taking it over to someone else’s house and watching them play it as I was THAT inexperienced with video games at the time.  

So Spidey 2000 was my gateway into console gaming as a whole.

It might seem antiquated by modern standards, but this game at the time was a new benchmark for both Spidey games AND superhero games as a whole, perfectly transitioning Spidey into the 3D era. And it was an interpretation of Spidey firmly rooted in the comics. Spidey was married, he had friendly relationships with the wider Marvel universe, he had a history with both Doc Ock, Venom and Carnage. I’m not suggesting this was akin to an untold tale from the comics or anything.  

But the game totally captured the tone and style of a well written all ages Spidey adventure. Okay maybe the Peter Parker personal life stuff was seriously downplayed but it also wasn’t totally absent as there was enough dialogue, civilian scenes and involvement of Peter’s regular life to nod towards how that was important to who he was.  

And the narrative voice for Spidey was pitch perfect, as was the performance by Rino Romano; still my favourite V.A. for the character. This rendition of the character perfectly nails Spidey’s emotional spectrum, sans perhaps the guilt element to his character. But this is a story that honestly doesn’t demand Spidey even feel particularly guilty about one thing or another. Whenever appropriate he expresses anger, sarcasm, nervousness, humour, gratitude, compassion, confidence and intelligence.

The quote that really does it for me is this:

“Look being Spider- man has given me a lot and taken a lot away. But one thing never changes. My  responsibility to use my powers for others before myself, no matter what the  cost.”  

That’s it.  

That’s Spider-Man in a nutshell. And I think this game is possibly the biggest reason that I chafe whenever anyone claims Spidey is ultimately about youth, guilt, suffering or anything else you want. The game wasn’t just broadly great in it’s interpretation, it captured the nuance of the character too.

Not to mention, for it’s day, you 100% felt like Spider-Man. I know that’s a cliché to say these days but it is dead ass true. The game play works like clockwork, with a short runtime to provide a fastpaced story and plenty of replay value.

I can attest to that because I’ve never replayed any game more than this one. Literally every time my friends came over we’d play this game for years and years.  

That replay value tied in with how this game expanded my knowledge of Spidey lore. Not only were there lots of nods to the comics in the story itself, but you could also collect comic covers in the game that could then be viewed in a gallery at the main menu. Through this I learned a whole lot about the comic book history of the character, including the iconic Owl/Octopus War story arc. And of course you had the costumes.  

Alternate costumes have been one of the most popular features of Spider-Man’s mythos since 1984 and this game was the first to embrace it. Stan the Man himself (apart from providing narration for the whole game) would drop some dialogue about each suit, which hyped you to replay the game with it.  

Not only is this my favourite Spidey game but it is also an ancestor of the 2 best Spider-Man games since then.

You’d be hard pressed to find a Spider-Man fan who wouldn’t argue that Spider-Man 2’s movie tie-in game and Spider-Man 2018 rank among THE best entries in Spidey gaming. Even technically similar or superior entries can’t hold up to Spider-Man 2 as it created the standard for an open world Spidey gaming.  

However, that game was building off of Treyarch’s Spidey 2002 tie-in game, which itself was very obviously building off of Neversoft’s work. This means that without Spidey 2000 you have no Spider-Man 2.

By extension this mean you don’t get Spidey 2018. Not only was Spidey 2018 utilizing an open world like Spider-Man 2 (and was by far the best game to do so since that entry), but it’s obvious the game was holding Spidey 2 as inspiration. Not only are there nods to it throughout the game but the fervor for the Maguire Spidey’s costume was the direct result of gamers wanting to make the gameplay experience more reminiscent of Spider-Man 2’s. In a way one might argue Spidey 2018 was trying to be the Spider-Man 2 of it’s generation. But it’s much more than that as Bryan Intihar who worked on Spidey 2018 name dropped Neversoft’s classic as one of his favourite Spider-Man games. And it must be said, Spidey 2018 is the first game since Spidey 2000 (exempting perhaps it’s sequel, Enter Electro) to completely capture the essence of comic book Spidey and perfectly transition it into the gaming medium.  

So, here is to 20 years Spidey 2000. 

#Spider-Man #Spider-Man 2000 #Neversoft #Spider-Man 2018 #Marvel's Spider-Man #Peter Parker

[wtfockinternational]

So guys I wrote a fic for what Robbe and Sander did for New Year’s. This is my first time writing fanfiction, I write a lot but only characters I wrote myself so this was a new experience. I’d love to hear what you all think. Should I write more fics?

Anyway sorry for the length I’m a very descriptive writer but I hope you enjoy it!

There were only thirty minutes left until midnight, and with each second the atmosphere got more and more anxious. Sander had planted himself on the couch where he could keep an eye on his boyfriend who was dancing with his friends at the opposite side of the room to the worst songs Sander had ever heard. He always thought he would’ve rather been alive in the eighties, when music was still good. But then he would have never had Robbe, his smiley brown-haired boyfriend. As much as Sander loved Bowie, he would not give Robbe up for him in a million years. He would rather listen to all the confusingly similar electronic music on a loop than lose Robbe. After a while, Sander decided he needed some privacy and went to Robbe’s room. As he walked away he felt Robbe’s eyes follow him. 

The room was relatively empty now, most of Robbe’s stuff had already been packed to move into his mother’s place in just a few days. The only thing still in its place was the bed, and the sheets Sander believed Robbe had never washed in his life, but that meant they always smelled like Robbe so Sander didn’t complain. He lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling, very similar to the first time he was there on a fine Wednesday afternoon with Robbe. That was the first time he had ever felt at home in someone else’s arms. The door creaked open and a familiar voice said: 

‘Everything okay?’ Sander sat up to look his boyfriend in the eyes.

‘I was just in need of some alone time.’ Sander replied.

‘Do you want me to stay?’ Robbe asked. Sander smiled.

‘Always.’ He said. Robbe closed the door behind himself and sat next to Sander and gave him a small peck. He took Sander’s hand and interlocked it with his, and Sander rested his head on Robbe’s shoulder. They didn’t say anything, but there was no need to. All they needed was to be together.

‘We can leave if you want to’ Robbe suggested after a while of silence.

‘No it’s fine I don’t want you to have to leave your friends’ Sander felt guilty about thinking Robbe would need to leave his friends for him. The only thing he ever feared was Robbe suffering because of him - or rather Robbe suffering because of him again. 

‘Sander’ Robbe said as he took Sander’s face to look at him. ‘My friends will be fine without me, they’ll barely even notice I left. I don’t want to celebrate New Years with them, I want to celebrate it with my boyfriend.’ Sander smiled and kissed Robbe, the touch of his warm lips still gave him butterflies. 

‘Let’s leave then.’ Sander finally decided.

‘Let’s leave’ Robbe said as he smiled and gave Sander another small peck. He stood up, their hands still interlocked, and pulled Sander up from the bed. They went to the kitchen and put some beers in a plastic bag to take with them. They walked down the hallway together and put on their shoes and coat and as they are about to leave, Jens enters the hallway and sees them.

‘Where are you going?’ He asked.

‘We just need to be alone for a bit, we’re probably just going to cycle around the city a while.’ Robbe explained. Jens smiled.

‘Alright have a good night you two. Will you be back before the party is over?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘Well be careful with all the fireworks being set off around the city.’

‘We will.’ Sander said as he dragged his boyfriend out the door.

As they are unlocking their bikes Sander exclaims:

‘I know where we can go!’

‘Where?’ Robbe asks as they both get on their saddles. Sander grins.

‘It’s a surprise.’ He explains.

‘Oh no.’

‘What?’

‘Well, we’re not very good at surprises.’

‘You’ll love this one, I promise.’

‘Will you be wearing clothes this time?’ Robbe joked.

‘That’s entirely up to you.’ Robbe gave him a suggestive look and took off on his bike.

‘Let’s go then.’ He shouted as he was cycling away, Sander quickly followed. Sander led Robbe across the city while humming the occasional songs and drinking the beer they had taken from the fridge. Sander finally stopped at the door of a building. Robbe soon recognized is as the side entrance to Sander’s school.

‘What are we doing here?’ Robbe asked.

‘If I told you it wouldn’t be a surprise, would it?’ Sander teased, Robbe tilted his head in the adorable way Sander always loved. Sander kissed him, took his hand and dragged him to the door.

‘Are we breaking in somewhere again?’ Robbe asked. Sander stared at him with a smug face and took a key out of his coat pocket.

‘It’s not exactly breaking in if you have the key.’ Robbe took the key out of his hand and looked at it.

‘Why do you have this?’ He asked. Sander quickly snatched the key back, placed it in the key hole and unlocked the door.

‘A teacher gave it to me once.’ He said as he dragged Robbe along with him into the building. It was extremely dark but Sander knew exactly where to find the light switch. The school was his safe space, he had been there many times, mostly when he just needed to be alone. Now that Robbe was just as much a safe space as his school, he felt that he should allow Robbe to see where he spends a lot of his time. He had already seen the studio Sander had to himself on that Monday morning, but there was more he wanted to show him. He dragged Robbe up the stairs with him. Stopping occasionally to exchange kisses.

‘Are you taking me to your studio?’ Robbe asked. Sander didn’t say a word. He just kept leading the way up the stairs, farther up than the studio. They finally reached the top of the stairs, they stood in front of a door.

‘You ready?’ Sander asked. Robbe kissed him.

‘Always.’

Sander opened the door and they were on the rooftop of the school. Robbe looked around, there was a beautiful view of the city from up there, which was one of the reasons Sander loved the place so much.

‘And now for the best part,’ Sander said as he dragged Robbe around the corner and showed him his secret rooftop hangout. Which, until this very moment, had been only for Sander. It wasn’t much; a very small couch he had saved from the dumpster that he liked to lay on to look at the clouds or the stars. A small cheap drawing table which he could sit at and look out into the city, which Sander had drawn countless things on, including Robbe. A chest which he used as a coffee table, but also contained his art supplies. There was a makeshift roof to keep everything from getting ruined during rainy days; a tarp connected to two wooden poles which could easily be taken down when the sky was clear and too beautiful not to look at. The wall was completely covered in spray paint which  he would paint over  quite often to adapt it to the mood he was in. It was currently covered in warm red, brown and orange colors, colors that reminded him of Robbe. The wall and wooden pole had multi-colored string lights all over them. It wasn’t much, but it felt like home to Sander.

‘Is this yours?’ Robbe said amazed.

‘Yeah.’ Sander replied as he walked over to the switch of the string lights and turned them on. ‘Do you like it?’ The broad smile on Robbe’s face already told him the answer.

‘I love it.’ Robbe said as he traced the chest with his fingers. ‘Do you come here often?’

‘It’s my favorite place. I come here when I need to be alone. Only one other person knows this is even here.’ Sander explained.

‘Then why are you showing it to me?’

Sander took Robbe’s face and turned it towards him, so that their eyes met.

‘Because I don’t want to be alone anymore, I would much rather be with you. And how can I not share my favorite place with my favorite person.’ Sander said. Robbe smiled and kissed him, wrapping his hands around his neck. Sander knew this is what he wanted. This is what felt right. Being there with Robbe was everything he ever needed. Robbe loosened his grip and Sander felt Robbe’s warm lips slowly let go of his, allowing the cold air to blow past them again. For a second the only part of his body still touching Robbe was his forehead, and they stared deeply into each other’s eyes.

‘So what’s in here?’ Robbe said when he finally pulled his entire body away from Sander, he pointed at the chest.

‘You can open it.’ Sander said. Robbe smiled and opened the chest up. The first thing he saw was a gray blanket, which Sander would wrap himself when he got cold.

‘Oh good I was getting a little cold.’ Robbe commented and he wrapped the blanket around himself. As he took the blanket out of the chest it revealed all of Sander’s art supplies underneath. It was a very diverse collection; spray paint, pencils, charcoal, different types and sizes of paper. Robbe took out a stack of Sander’s reject pile out of the chest. Sander quickly snatched them out of his hands.

‘Don’t look at those.’ He said. ‘They’re not my best work.’

‘They look great to me.’ Robbe assured him.

‘Babe,I love you but you don’t know anything about art.’ Sander joked. Robbe put on an exaggerated sad face with puppy dog eyes and tilted his head.

‘You can look at me with those eyes all you want, you know I’m right.’ Sander said. Robbe laughed and stood up, he looked up at the ugly blue tarp above their heads.

‘Wait.’ Sander said. He unhooked the tarp from the wooden poles and the wall and folded it up so they could look at the beautiful starry sky. The tarp was keeping some of the warmth trapped, Sander shivered. Robbe noticed and wrapped half of the blanket around him so that they were now sharing the same blanket, and feeling each other’s warmth. Suddenly, fireworks started erupting all over the city. Sander had completely forgotten it was New Year’s. He took his phone out of his pocket and saw that it was, indeed, midnight.

‘Happy New Year.’ He said. He locked eyes with Robbe, who said:

‘Happy New Year. I love you.’ Sander smiled.

‘I love you, too.’

He kissed Robbe. Robbe looked around at the fireworks. Sander knew he’d love the view. But Sander didn’t look at the fireworks. Not even for a second. He spent the entire time watching his wonderful boyfriend’s overjoyed face. Those fireworks were there last year, and they’ll be there next year. But with Robbe, the only thing he was certain of was that he was there at that moment. In that minute. There were no guarantees for what would happen later. So Sander would have to be the dumbest person on earth to look at some boring old fireworks, when he could feel fireworks while staring at Robbe’s beautiful face, enjoying the fact that in that moment, Robbe was his boyfriend. At that moment, while in his favorite place in the world and with his hands interlocked with his favorite person in the world, Sander remembered what true happiness felt like. This. This was what true happiness felt like. 

#wtfock #skam #robbe ijzermans #robbe x sander #sander driesen #willem de schryver #willem herbots #herbots de schryver #sander s5 #wtfam #sobbe #rosander

[dropintomanga]

Being Both Chinese and Otaku

I’m sure many of you may know this, but I’m a 1st generation Chinese-American. My first exposure to anime was back in the early 1990s’ through Cantonese-dubbed episodes of Dragon Ball Z. It’s been quite a ride since then. However, because I’m 1st-generation Chinese-American, my parents are both 1950s’-born immigrants from Guangzhou, China. They knew people and relatives that went through a period of time in China (the 2nd Sino-Japanese War) when the Japanese invaded the country. Even decades later, tensions between China and Japan still exist and Chinese otaku are caught in the middle of this.

I caught this 2019 Foreign Policy article “Super Patriotic Anime Youth Wars!” on one of my feed readers recently. It talked about how the Chinese government is worried about the influence of Japanese pop culture on many Chinese youth. They believe that foreign media in general will cause dissension. China has gone on to start their anime/manga stuff in order to gain some kind of control over Chinese otaku youth. Bilibili, a Chinese anime streaming service that has gotten a lot of attention over the past few years, was formed to help promote the Chinese government’s views.

I began to think about my own otaku journey and how someone else similar to me living in America feels.

Years ago, I wrote an article for an anime site about being a Chinese otaku. I forgot what I entirely wrote (link is now dead), but I remember I talked about a story that my mother once told me. It was about one of my aunts who literally ran away from Japanese soldiers during the 2nd Sino-Japanese War. My mom said that when my aunt was a young child in the early 1940s’, she carried one of her friends and searching for a hiding place with their caretaker while Japanese soldiers were looking to capture them. The soldiers yelled all kinds of profanities similar to how some anime characters say them. My aunt is still around, but has never talked about those experiences to me and I have never once talked to her about my love of Japanese pop culture.

Back in the mid-2000s’ when the anime boom was happening, my dad once said to me that he thinks anime may corrupt Chinese youth and that we wouldn’t understand the horrible things they did to China. After reading that Foreign Policy article on China/Japan tensions affecting otaku, I see that a good amount of Chinese folks, who grew up in China pre-1990, have utter dislike over otaku culture. The 2D world is full of imaginative ideas that aren’t easily controlled. What’s funny is that my parents didn’t mind me getting involved with all things Japanese. They knew it was what kept my mind occupied from depression. They knew I would probably hate them for taking Japanese pop culture away from me.

It’s hard enough being an otaku. But it’s harder when you’re an otaku and also have to deal with cultural tensions between two countries (one of which represents your nationality) that don’t like each other very much. I know China is a lot more receptive towards anime and manga compared to the United States, but the government will try to censor/ban anything with messages that sound overly rebellious against authority figures (i.e. Attack on Titan is the biggest example). It’s also very hard to businesses to ignore China because of its super-large population and the money potential.

I see a lot of Chinese youth in my area watching anime and reading manga on the train. I see them hanging around in places like Kinokuniya. That’s not going to change. I do feel that we all have our mental blind spots. I want the older Chinese generations to understand that some aspects of modern Japanese culture aren’t guilty of association for past war crimes and I want my generation and future Chinese generations to realize that Japan isn’t always some kind of great 2D holy land. It’s so easy to get caught up in the passions of whatever it is you love or hate. Follow your heart and gut is not always good advice when it comes to nuanced situations that involve complicated relationships. That thinking becomes a bit too biased for its own good.

As someone who’s been told “It’s all in the past. Get over it.”, I kind of relate to the pain that the older Chinese adults feel when they get ignored. They can’t keep up with how fast the present and future can go. My parents went through a lot to get to America. We can’t ignore the past. There’s too many untold stories that need to be told for a better future. Plus there has to be better acceptance of how random the future is. We may have a future where Japanese pop culture isn’t popular in China anymore due to politics. We may not as well. Trying to place so much control on things you can’t control leaves someone prone to endless frustration. I would love an emphasis on focusing on what someone can do now in the present moment.

I think sometimes we’re not taught to have these kinds of conversations because they make us feel emotionally vulnerable. And that’s terrifying to a lot of people. We want to look strong because that’s how we’re supposed to get through life and its obstacles according to the powers in place.

However, I do worry about China (and quite frankly, Japan as well) that focus on manipulating otaku fandom. I know that Japan’s history is awful and their tendency to not apologize for past war crimes is unnerving. I feel that otaku are being portrayed as a “dumb” kind of geekdom that only cares about getting what they want. That makes us prone to outside manipulation by people (i.e. governments) who say they care, but they don’t. That makes us no different from someone who loves to shop for brand-name clothes/shoes/etc. It’s natural to be recognized by a greater majority of people though as we have been picked on for so long. Maybe we’re getting external validation from the wrong types of people out of some desperation.

As a Chinese-American today, I don’t like China very much even though I do enjoy and respect some aspects of their culture. I’ve been there a couple of times, but I don’t feel compelled to go back compared to Hong Kong. I also can’t imagine myself living in Japan despite my fascination with the culture. I’m not sure if the country’s the right place for me as someone living with mental illness. I do see that there’s a good number of Chinese fans that have managed to find their own truths on how to handle cultural tension.

In any case, don’t let significant and mainstream in-group interference on all sides cloud all of your decision-making. Sometimes, the best kind of advice to get is from someone who doesn’t know you personally or is a part of your inner circle, but can relate to your situation and feelings. We will always have doubts and they deserve some validation. 

I think the beautiful thing about otaku fandom being more widespread due to the internet is that it allows us to connect with diverse strangers of all kinds that are genuinely good to be around. For so long, we’re taught to avoid strangers growing up because they are either suspicious or not worth talking to. However, it’s those same strangers that can lead us to new paths and friendships outside of bubbles that can stagnate us. Those paths can help us make sense of our own past and current situations as well or at least come to terms with them.

I can tell you that a lot of Japanese series I followed have helped me go back  to analyze and confront troubling aspects about my life in a way that matters. Maybe that’s why I manage to deal with many tensions including the Chinese/otaku dynamic instead of being just a passive consumer like most fans. I partake in a kind of “personal nostalgia” that’s more about your own growth and willingness to take on the bad stuff compared to collective nostalgia, which leads to hardcore nationalism/tribalism. I want you all to do the same when possible.

Life is strange to begin with. Maybe just embracing that notion will allow us to appreciate the diversity of all that surrounds it.

Shout-outs to anyone who is a Chinese otaku and managing cultural tensions in their own way. It’s hard work and as long as you’re not intentionally hurting people, you’re doing alright.

#fandom #mental health #psychology #China #Japan #Chinese otaku #otaku

[rocksandrobots]

Of Rocks and Robots Ch. 7 - Stories

Varian sat in the spacious den surrounded by piles and piles of books; comic books to be specific. Today was the last day of spring break and Varian was visiting Fred. All of their other friends were busy preparing for tomorrow, but Fred didn’t go to any of the actual classes. He only worked part-time as the school’s mascot, so he had the day free and wanted to teach Varian more about his hobby. 

Varian, for his part, was simply bored. He had agreed to meet with Fred since he had spent so much of the last week studying and wanted a break before starting classes for real, but the pages of illustrated stories, about people with god-like powers, just didn’t really interest him. 

It made him feel a little guilty really. Fred was so passionate about his interest, much like how Varian enjoyed science, and Varian appreciated that the older teen cared enough to try and include him in that. However, it didn’t stop him from zoning out while Fred rambled on about yet another story or character that Varian had no reference for. 

He looked about the room with half-lidded eyes as he rested his face upon his fist. Fred lived in a large mansion. It wasn’t quite as big as Corona’s palace, nor even the size of the castle he grew up in, but it was still very grand and luxurious. Various memorabilia and expensive décor were scattered about and the room he was in now had tons of unique statues, toys, and posters on display referencing various things within pop culture. He assumed they would make for an impressive collection, if he knew what any of them actually were. 

“….and so that is how Captain Fancy teamed up with the Fearless Ferret!"  

Varian tuned back in just in time to hear Fred conclude his story. 

"Oh, yeah, yeah, that’s real interesting” Varian yawned and stretched as he said this, giving away his true feelings on the matter. Then he tried to course correct as soon as he did so. 

“Look, Fred, this is all…great, but wouldn't it be better if I just, you know, actually read the stories for myself?” He gently suggested. 

“Oh, yeah…I guess I kind of got carried away.” Fred admitted sheepishly. “Ok, then, what did you think about the comics that you’ve read already?” He sat down, facing backwards, upon a swivel office chair as he referred to the two comics that he had bought for Varian on his first day in San Fansokyo. 

“They were fine.” Varian said. 

Fred leaned in closer, waiting for more but Varian didn’t elaborate. 

“Fine? Just fine? You don’t got anything else to add?”

Varian could only shrug in response. He didn’t know what else to say. They were okay stories but not anything to get excited over. They were certainly no Flynn Rider, that was for sure. 

“Well what about Miracle Maiden? What did you think of her?" 

That was one of the superheroes from the comic he had read. She was a princess from the deep Amazon rain-forest who took an ancient magic spear and armor and traveled from her home to fight against those that wanted to destroy it, helping others along the way. 

"Well, she was neat, I guess.” Varian admitted. “I liked how she was also figuring out how the world worked since she’d never left home before. That made her kind of relatable, I just didn’t care for the magic armor giving her super strength. It made her too unbeatable, no one was a real threat; there was no tension."  

Fred tilted his head in confusion. He’d never considered that to be a flaw. Superheroes were supposed to be well, super, after all. 

"Oookay, so maybe OP golden age style comics aren’t your thing.” Fred consented, “What about the dark aged comic you read, ‘The Avenger’?" 

"Oh, I liked that one a lot better. The hero in that had to really struggle and figure stuff out. He didn’t have any powers and the villains were more believable." 

"I’d call him more of an anti-hero,” Fred interrupted, “but go on." 

The story in question concerned an ex-soldier whose family had been murdered by a rich and powerful man. The villain had used his influence to escape prison and so 'The Avenger’, as he called himself, sought vengeance and along the way helped other poor exploited people get their own revenge against similar oppressors. 

"He was relatable too, but in a different way. I just thought the pictures were a little too…graphic.” Varian grimaced as he said that last word. He had always disliked the sight of blood and while the images in the book had only been drawings, they nevertheless were still very in-your-face with the violence and somewhat disturbing to look at. He hadn’t been able to get through the comic without skipping some pages.

“You found a guy, who kills a whole bunch of people, relatable?” Fred asked slowly, trying to piece together what Varian had seen that he had not. 

“Well, he lost his family.” Varian said in his defense. 

“Yeeeah, but that just makes him sympathetic. In order for him to be relatable you’d also have to have lost … your… ” Fred paused in mid-sentence and looked at the young boy sitting across from himself. Varian held an unreadable expression, something between a pout and a confused glare, and something inside Fred warned him not to continue with that thought. 

“Aaaannyways,” Fred said, trying to change the subject, “you like non-super powered heroes, but no gore, so why don’t I lend you one of my Fearless Ferret comics.” And with that the blonde teen hopped up off the chair and went scrounging about the room in search of said book. 

As he was throwing various comics and toys around in his quest, Fred tossed a small hardback novel that landed right at Varian’s feet. He had to move them out the way quickly before the flying object could do any harm. He looked down at the offending book rudely, but then his breath caught in his throat at what he saw. 

The novel was battered and worn from years of use and the title read The Brothers Grimm on the side. But what caught Varian’s attention was the cover on its front. It bore the image of a girl in a crumbling tower. She sat at the only window forlornly looking out as her long golden hair tumbled down to the ground below. 

“Rapunzel.” Varian breathed. 

“What?” Fred stopped what he was doing at the sound, but Varian had whispered too low for him to hear it clearly. 

“What is this?” Varian asked frantically. His heart pounding in his chest he held up the book for Fred to see. 

“Oh that? That’s just an old book of fairy tales I read as a kid." 

"Fairy tales?" 

"Yeah, you know, old folk tales, like Little Red Riding Hood, Rumpelstiltskin, Hansel and Gretel,” Fred turned back to his original search as he absentmindedly listed off the stories he knew, “The Bremen Town Musicians, Rapunzel, that sort of thing." 

Varian’s eyes went wide at that last title and he tore open the book and desperately flipped through its pages until he found the accursed name. It was printed in big bold letters at the top of the page and underneath was the story itself printed in smaller type. On the opposite page was another illustration. This one featured the titled character using her hair like a rope as a man used it to scale the tower. They were both dressed in clothing from centuries past that would have been considered old fashioned even in Varian’s own time.

Varian just stared at the page for a minute or two as his brain tried to comprehend what he was seeing. 

"This, this can’t be.” He whispered to himself, “How is this here? Why is this here?” He grew increasingly louder as his confusion gave away to anger. “How come she gets a story!? " 

He jumped up from the couch he was sitting upon as he yelled this last question, which finally drew Fred’s attention away from his rummaging. 

"You ok dude?" 

"No, I’m not okay! That no-good, lying, boil-brained, misbegotten, dizzy-eyed, promise breaker has been immortalized in print!” He yelled before glancing back down at the book he was holding, “And they didn’t even get the story right!” He whined after. 

Fred could only look on in confusion as Varian launched into another rant. This one about the inaccuracies within the folk tale as he sped read through the story; “Where’s the flower? Where are the rocks? Ha! I wish the King knew he was portrayed as a dirty thief. Eugene’s not a prince! Ew, I don’t why but having your eyes gouged out sounds worse than getting stabbed. Does Rapunzel not have powers in this?”

As he was busy loudly complaining, a viewing screen up on the opposite wall turned on and the image of an old man appeared. He had slicked backed white hair, a white mustache, and his eyes were covered by sunglasses. 

“Is everything alright son?” The man queried. “I thought I heard the sound of someone shouting an evil monologue over the surveillance system?" 

"Oh hey, Dad!” Fred turned to address the viewing screen while Varian continued on, heedless of who was listening or not, “It’s okay. It’s just my new friend Varian here is apparently really passionate about fairy tales." 

"Really? Cause he sounds like a super-villain to me.”

“Aww naw, you got it all wrong he’s just upset cause he doesn’t like the story.” As if to prove this, Fred turned back to Varian interrupting him mid-rant. “Hey, Varian, why do you hate Rapunzel so much?" 

Varian stopped and turned to them. His eyes narrowed into an intense glare and his voice dropped to low guttural growl. 

"She is my mortal enemy.” He said darkly. 

He held their gaze for a moment or two in uneasy silence, before once again noticing yet another inaccuracy upon the page. “Oh, that’s not right!” and he launched into a new wave of angry ranting. 

As he went on, outraged, father and son could only look on in perturbed confusion. 

“Are you sure he’s not a super-villain?” Mr. Fredrickson asked, neither of them being able to tear their eyes away from the sight of the small raged filled teen. 

“Preeety sure…” his son replied in a tone of voice that conveyed that he was anything but. 

Fred continued to watch Varian raving as his brain tried to process what had just happened.

“Waaait a minute, if you know the real Rapunzel, then that must mean you’re from a world of fairy tales.” He slowly said as he pieced together the clues. “Which means there must be magic and if there’s magic then there must be..” Fred audibly gasped with joy and ran to Varian, grabbing the younger boy by the shoulders and snapping him out of mid-rant. 

“Do you have dragons in your world!? " 

Varian could only look back at Fred with surprise at first. "What? No!” he snapped back. 

Here he was, in the middle of having an existential crisis, and all his friend could do was ask about mythical creatures? 

“There’s no such thing as dragons.” He firmly added before Fred could protest. The older teen looked crestfallen but soon perked back up as he started in on a new line of questioning. 

“But there is magic, right?" 

"Unfortunately, yes.” Varian said through gritted teeth. 

“Are you magic then?” Fred asked, as he circled around Varian and picked up his arm by its sleeve and inspected the length of it. 

“No.” Varian answered, now disturbed. 

“Then how come you got that blue streak in your hair? Do all people from your world have that?" 

Varian looked up at his bangs and then quickly covered said streak with his free hand. "No.” He said, this time less assured. 

In truth he didn’t know where his defining blue hair stripe came from. He had had it for as long as he could remember, and had always assumed he got it in an alchemy accident when young. But he didn’t know for sure, and he didn’t like to dwell too much on the subject. 

“Oh do you know anyone who has magic, then? Like, do you know any other fairy tale people, like Red Riding Hood or Mother Goose? Oh Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk was always one of my favorites!” Fred pressed on. 

“No!" 

Fred backed away at the sudden ferociously in Varian’s voice. 

"My life’s not a fairy tale Fred!” Varian added just to drive the point home. 

“Sorry, man.” Fred said timidly. He hadn’t meant to upset the younger teen, but he knew he could sometimes get carried away. 

Varian’s anger all but disappeared at that admission. Fred looked genuinely upset and he suddenly felt guilty for his outburst. It wasn’t his new friend’s fault for not knowing what hell his life had been for the last two years. 

“Look, I’m…I’m sorry too, it’s just…I hate magic. Okay?” He tried to explain.

Fred looked thoughtful at that, as if he had never considered that point of view before. 

“Well, if you hate magic…Oh I bet you would love science fiction then!” He exclaimed. 

Varian looked bewildered at the sudden change in subject, but Fred continued on excitedly. 

“We should watch the greatest sci-fi show ever!” Fred ran over to a shelf and pulled off a small thin case and held it up for Varian to see, “Professor What!" 

"What?” Varian asked, still confused.

“Exactly! It’s about a mysterious professor, who’s really a shape-shifting alien, who has a time machine that’s also a spaceship and he fights other aliens and…”

“Okay, okay” Varian interrupted. He agreed to go along with Fred’s idea if nothing else than to stop the older teen from launching into yet another confusing ramble. 

Fred flashed Varian a wide grin at that and then bid his father goodbye before opening the case and inserting a small shiny disc into the viewer screen. He then dimmed the lights and both he and Varian settled down on the couch to watch the video. 

“We’ll just watch the first episode and then go from there.” He said to Varian as odd sounding music filtered through the air and the opening titles flashed before them on the screen. But Varian wasn’t paying much attention. 

His mind raced as he was still agitated by the existence of the book. He couldn’t explain it. It wasn’t even a case of being an alternate version of Rapunzel herself. Fred had acted like the whole story was simply just made up. As if he, himself, was nothing but fiction. What’s more the story hadn't mention him, his father, nor the rocks and he didn’t know if this made the situation better or worse. 

He took a steadying breath and tried to focus on the screen ahead of him, shoving any uncomfortable questions to the back of his mind. 

The tv show was more of the moving pictures he had seen on the internet. Only this looked to be a recording of a staged play instead of the simple funny shorts of animals that he had only seen thus far. There was also no color, which Fred explained was because the film was so old. 

The story of the play concerned two school teachers, Cliff and Lola, who followed their new mysterious student home one day, only to stumble upon a bigger mystery. The student, Sue, reminded him of himself. She was super smart but ignorant of what was, to the teachers, common knowledge and it was no surprise when it was revealed that both she and her equally mysterious grandfather, the titular Professor, were from another world. What was a surprise was the way they traveled. 

The two teachers forced their way into a small box, no bigger than a magician’s cabinet, only to find a larger room on the inside. Said box was called a phone booth, which used to be used by people before cell phones came about, but the inside was called a STARDIS, a Space, Time, And Relative Dimensions Imperial Ship.

“You mean to tell me that a thing that looks like a phone booth, sitting in the middle of a scrapheap, can travel anywhere through time and space?” He heard the science teacher, Cliff, say incredulously before the impish Professor mischievously pressed a button on the console of the machine, locking the doors and turning the ship on. 

A swirl of stars and flashing lights appeared on screen, and like a magic trick, the box was no longer in a junkyard but an icy desert. A looming shadow then appeared and the screen cut to black as the odd music from before started to play and names flew up on the screen. 

“What, what happened? Why did it stop?” Varian asked Fred. He was just starting to get interested when it had ended. 

“Oh that was only the first episode, you gotta watch multiple in order to get the whole story." 

"You mean like chapters in a book? Can, can we watch the next one?" 

"You mean you like it?” Fred asked delightedly. 

“Well I don’t dislike it, besides I’d at least like to know what that shadow was.” Varian admitted. 

So they watched the next three parts. The group of time travelers had been transported to an ancient era, back when man still lived in caves. They were captured by a tribe and forced to make fire for them, all the while being caught in the middle of an ongoing power struggle for leadership. Varian didn’t find the politics of the cavemen particularly interesting but he did find himself on the edge of his seat whenever the STARDIS crew were on screen. 

He found them all compelling. The shifty Professor and his grey morals, doing whatever he could to survive and keep his granddaughter safe; Sue’s own fear of being separated from her only family and her mysterious ability for premonitions; Lola’s homesickness and exasperation at being cut off from civilization paired with her compassion for all living beings, even her oppressors; and the noble hero Cliff holding the team together while adhering to science and logic even while having his entire world view challenged.

In the last part they finally escaped the violent cavemen and made it back to the ship. They quickly took off, only to land on another planet entirely. The screen hovered over the console and a dial on the dashboard dropped down into the danger zone indicating all was not well before once again cutting to black and playing the ending credits. 

“Welp, that’s it!” Fred cheered. He stood up and stretched and went to take the disc out and put it up. 

“That’s it!?” Varian asked disbelievingly. “But what about that new planet and the dial? Do Cliff and Lola ever get home? How was Sue able to sense that her grandfather was in trouble? Also why is he only called the Professor? Does he not have a name? Where did he get the ship? Did he build it? Is he a scientist too like Cliff is?” The questions tumbled out of him in a jumble. He had never seen anything like it before and couldn’t remember being so excited to find out more since the time he read his first Flynn Rider book.

Fred laughed, “So you do like it! Don’t worry there’s more episodes, just that’s the end of that particular serial. The next one is a seven parter though, and you got school tomorrow, remember?" 

Varian did remember and his stomach did a little flip flop at the thought. 

"I tell you what though,” Fred continued, “I’ve always wanted to do a marathon of the whole show in order. If you’re still interested we could maybe meet up sometimes and watch it together?" 

Varian had never had a project that he could do with a friend before, nor someone to share his love of stories with, so the idea appealed to him. Therefore it was agreed; sometime next week they would meet up to watch the next serial and then possibly one day every week after that to watch the rest. 

So the day ended with Fred dropping Varian back off at the dorms and with him organizing his things for his first day of school. His excitement for tomorrow drove  away any more thoughts of comics, tv shows, or fairy tales. Stories were fun, but none compared to the weirdness of his actual life.

#All the illustrations in this chapter are in the public domain #they're either not my work or edited together from PD photos #varian #Fred Frederickson IV #tangled the series #tts #BH6 the series #bh6 #rapunzel's tangled adventure #rta

[rey-of-luke]

2020 Fic Review

I was tagged by the lovely, amazing @musicboxmemories! Thank you so much!!

Total number of completed stories: ....do oneshots count as finished stories? Because in that case I have 3 (two of which are part of a larger oneshot collection). Most of mine are still being written very v-e-r-y slowly because my muse is VERY fickle as anyone who’s had to deal with my creative outlets well knows *looks at the like 10 vids I uploaded on my fanvid channel in the entire year and everyone else is uploading like 25+*

Total number of words: Uh.... *runs to get calculator* So if we are JUST talking about things I’ve written this year (including unpublished) I’ve written a total of... 9,445 words. In terms of PUBLISHED, I’ve written... 4,738. 

Fandoms written in: Published? Supernatural and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (literally my shortest piece and it’s because I wanted it’s version of Lucifer to interact with Sam). Unpublished? NCIS.

Top 5 Ranked by Word Count: 1. we will always end up here 2. brother (let me be your shelter)

Top 5  Ranked by Kudos 1.  brother (let me be your shelter) 2.   we will always end up here

Top Fic Overall: Without a doubt, ‘brother (let me be your shelter)’. It doesn’t help that it was written not even a week after the Supernatural series finale aired, probably. And the fact the only other contender was my multi oneshot Samifer series.

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected? More, I guess, especially if we’re including unpublished? Largely because despite it being the first half of my last year in college I still had a lot of time to do so (we’ll see how much time I have when my internship this semester starts - which I also need to pass in order to get my degree... yay social work requirements)

What’s your own favorite story of the year? Honestly I really like both stories I posted, mostly because they’re larger parts of oneshot series. brother (let me be your shelter) has evolved into me writing more pieces about Dean Jr’s adventures in heaven with everyone and will probably include bits about his wife and kids that are still alive. Also I have sooo many ideas for my Samifer oneshot series it’s... kind of embarassing, really. 

Also in terms of unpublished... the largest word count is for my NCIS x Supernatural crossover series, which is going to comprised (if I can ever finish it) of multi oneshots involving Gibbs (and later Team Gibbs in general) taking in the Winchester’s as surrogate sons/brothers. Especially Sam because tbf he deserves to have at least SOMEONE in his corner throughout the entire series and damn it, if I want that make that person Gibbs (+ the rest of Team Gibbs) then I damn well can!!!

Did you take any writing risks this year? *gestures to ‘we will always end up here’* This entire damn series. Anything dealing with the pairing is asking to get sent hate and death threats in the fandom because of the implications... which is entirely why all the oneshots are dark and fucked up because there’s no way to NOT write Samifer without those things included. Unless it’s Sam x Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV) then that can actually be considered semi healthy because Netflix!Lucifer is WAY different from SPN!Lucifer (or CAOS!Lucifer to be fair). Though honestly, I’m trying to get back into the mindset that it’s OKAY to write in fiction what Tumblr + Twitter would crucify me for, because I make sure to tag and warn accordingly. And honestly, fiction doesn’t tell you jack shit about a person in real life. I’m a social work major, and I know a LOT of people in my classes who like true crime and horror movies. Me exploring darker aspects of humanity SAFELY IN FICTION doesn’t mean I’m going to end up snapping and commiting mass murder or something, jfc. This is legit a conversation I brought up with my advisor my freshman year of college and she was so confused that people think liking certain FICTION things means you like those same things in real life. That same professor is now I believe the head of a social work department at another university.

Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the new year? Maybe just get more published/finished? Then again, that’s always my goal, haha. But I’m hoping once Walker premieres I’ll get my juices flowing again so in between my internship and fanvids I can crank out a couple stories once in awhile.

Most popular story of the year? ‘brother (let me be your shelter)’

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: ...I’m going to say ‘we will always end up here’. Just because I kind of like how creepy and fucked up I wrote Samifer in my 12x01 AU chapter and would like to know if I wrote either character decently. Also if I’m the only one who finds themselves mentally reviewing different times in the series where Lucifer’s creepy obsession with Sam can pop up, because I am forever bitter about s11+ because you literally can not convince me that Lucifer would willingly leave Sam permanently truly dead. The entirety of s5 says otherwise and that is what I hold to.

Most fun story to write? Both. ‘brother (let me be your shelter)’ lets me explore Dean Jr’s relationship with EVERYONE (Sam + Eileen, Dean, Jack, Cas, John + Mary, Eileen’s Parents, Adam + Michael... Magda... everyone I want basically) and ‘we will always end up here’ because Samifer is my guilty pleasure with little fics (especially crossover/au) so I’m indulging in it myself.

Most unintentionally telling story? ...depends upon what way you’re talking. In Tumblr terms? ‘we will always end up here’ because this site will say I’m a terrible human being and psychopath (which is actually outdated; it’s now referred to as anti social personality disorder) laying in wait. Personally? ‘brother (let me be your shelter)’ because my excited to continue the story with Dean Jr in the version of heaven created by Jack + Cas in the series finale is largely my hoping that whatever life there is after death is similar to that, aka you get to see everyone again and it’s peaceful and happy.

Biggest disappointment? My second chapter of ‘we will always end up here’, the 12x01 AU. I personally really liked it but only one person has commented and there have been no new kudos or anything since I published the CAOS x SPN chapter.

Biggest surprise: People actually liking my stuff, haha.

I tag anyone who sees that and wants to participate!!

#2020 #*whistles as i wait for the hate to roll in* #i knew it was coming eventually #you can't have guilty pleasures on this hellsite without getting run off #tbh if i do get run off... it's about time tbh #this site isn't good for my mental health #i legit just stick around for friends + the rapidly growing walker fandom

[system-of-a-feather]

That ask game you rbed, how bout 3 lol

“3. Rant. Just do it.“ - The Other Anon

(tw; positive cursing, bloodborne images so moderate gore)

OKAY HERE WE GO. I GOT ANOTHER THING TO RANT ABOUT. It took me time to get the topic and info dumping / rambling urges for something that I was comfortable posting here. So anyways

Our system has a bit of a thing with gaming and between our system, we have a pretty wide taste that includes a lot of things other than MMORPGs and those multiplayer stuff (Battlefield and COD); so we have like everything from Stardew and Harvest Moon, to Souls-borne, to Management Simulators, to Stealth Games, to Casual Garden / Plant / Animal Sims to Visual Novels to RPGs to some Horror to Minecraft and all that.

Me, Ray, and another part we don’t talk about here really take an affinity to gaming. I typically prefer more story-driven, management games, and more casual farming games. Ray on prefers a lot more AAA action titles. You know those games you bank hours and hours into and BARELY finish the main story - yeah those, I can’t play those for the life of me XD

But anyways, I usually REALLY love me some Bugsnax (lowkey a slight obsession lately), Stardew Valley, Pokemon, Harvest Moon, Hakuoki, Amnesia: Memories (even though they have a problematic “DID character”, its a guilty nostalgic like), and all that but like....

My absolute favorite is probably Bloodborne. A lot of the other ones have a nostalgic pull and/or I REALLY like them, but I think at this point Bloodborne and similar games have become my genuine favorite genre even though it stands out because firstly, they tend to have legit music, secondly, they tend to have legit aesthetic, and thirdly, they are so frustrating and well managed in combat that it is so much fun to just analyze it all and try to figure out the best way to go about doing things.

So like, lets start with Bloodborne in this - because believe it or not the original intent of this rant was not it, but I really do have to establish this. 

Reason Bloodborne is Awesome, lets go

One, the story - if you can follow it - is really interesting and well scattered, but I very very much particularly love the theme / question / moral of “Would you rather return to a world blissfully unaware of all the horrors you have seen and learned and live innocently unaware” or “Live in the horrors and be aware of the rest of eternity but at least you know the truth” cause honest to god, if that aint a fucking mood I don’t know what is. 

Secondly, GOD do they have the aesthetic down on point. Theres another ask below this asking about my aesthetic, and part of that answer is just fucking Bloodborne now. Like at one point I went “Man I would look cool in Bloodborne aesthetic clothing and shit” and I guess I accidentally ended up with bloodborne armor in the inner world and at first I didn’t know how to revert back to whatever I was wearing (I don’t even remember at this point) and I was like “Uhhh” but HONESTLY I don’t want to change it? I have not found something that is such a solid aesthetic that I love that makes me feel cooler when I’m running around in the inner world so why drop it? And also lowkey now I want to actually adopt that into my IRL life if I ever get the time and money so..??? I mean I’ll go more into that on the aesthetics post but dude look

Are you really going to tell me that isn’t a solid dark aesthetic? And then the bosses are legit af?

And then the clothing and Lady Maria???

Okay and then say all of that is just average or not selling you. Okay okay thats fine.

Like there is also how absolutely frustrating, meticulous and well planned the game is yeah yeah we all know that its Souls-borne genre, but sure - give that number three as a reason.

But number four, oh god NUMBER FOUR. I don’t know how much this has been made apparent on our blog, but our system is VERY in love with music as an art. We were raised with musical instruments (both older siblings played instruments from elementary to highschool, we still continue into college), growing up we were exposed to a lot of instrumental music, and we developed an EXTREME reliance on music to deal with both our abusive family / trauma, to help regulate our own mind, emotions and all, and to also deal with how uncomfortable silence is for us. 

So music has been a HUGE developmental factor in our life and we REALLY love and appreciate it and its sometimes painful. But the composition of Bloodborne music - it is BEYOND words for me. I could probably write pages and pages of appreciation for how masterly crafted, perfect and well put together almost EVERY SINGLE piece of the game is and how - after years of listening to them on repeat - I can still find new aspects of it and a new technique or aspect I hadn’t noticed or thought much about to still adore.

I legitamently have screamed over how certain parts just click together perfectly. I can get so much positive overflowing joy and excitement from how well the parts interact and how perfectly dramatic the music flows and how active and physical the experience is that I feel the need to SCREAM internally and sometimes externally. 

I obsess over orchestral music and OSTS and film music and trailer music and video game music and all of that and I have to say with almost complete confidence that I’m pretty sure Bloodborne is - in my opinion - one of the best crafted orchestrated units.

Even from my own source, one that I love, have they only recently been able to produce a SINGLE track that echoes similarly in the intensity and amazement that I would consider it around par.

I will DIE internally everytime I hear it and sometimes I have actually had to turn it off because it was TOO overstimulating to listen to because of how much UGH it brings me. 

More than it is fun to play, Bloodborne is AMAZING to listen to and I can’t state that enough ugh XD

But anyways, before I go on THAT too much, I love Bloodborne. Joke is that as a fictive it is my “second source” even though it makes no sense. I have adopted it, I have claimed it. I love it and I will die for Bloodborne

So LATELY I’ve started a new game I just bought called Code: Vein and its apparently Anime Bloodborne or something like that and so far its really legit and while the music will never compare to Bloodborne - at least from what I’ve seen - I’ve REALLY been enjoying it and its music isn’t half bad itself

It also hilariously talks about “hearts” and loosing them and also memory issues and I’m dying cause they legitamently took Bloodborne’s Aesthetic, put anime on it, gave it a dark story with memories and indepth characters and served it on a platter for me?

And like dude I love games that comment on memory and emotions and stuff like that and I love the aesthetic and that I can kind of look like myself AND wear cool clothes like? 

Man I’m enjoying it and I’m realizing that Souls-borne is probably my favorite genre officially and I’m embracing it. Good game play, good aesthetics, good fighting, and good stories. I love it.

Anyways to finish this rant, here is the first photo I took of my avatar.

-Riku (Host)

#alter: riku #bloodborne #bloodborne tw #gore tw #cursing tw #code: vein #video gaming #ask #asks #system asks #system ask #rant #ramble

[artandhuddle]

Artist Interview with Daphne Hutcheson

Last week I had the opportunity to speak with Daphne Hutcheson, an artist I’ve admired for quite some time. Her work and knowledge in the arts has helped me, along with many other artists in the online community.

Daphne Hutcheson, also known as @paperwick on social media, has been creating artwork from a very young age, with works in both traditional and digital media. Her work covers a broad range of fandoms, original content, and client based works along with some very useful and resourceful tutorials. 

K: I wanted to first ask about your experience attending SCAD (Savannah College of Art & Design)?

D: My experience at SCAD was tepid at best. The teachers were good, but I mean very specifically the professors who were teaching in my major, which was sequential art. SCAD is really not a great institute for anyone who isn't rich enough for their parents' to cover the cost. That's my biggest issue with it, they will cripple you with debt, so if anyone is lower-income, I would highly suggest learning via some of great online courses or using a state college's art program to sort of direct you if you need direction and deadlines. I know I need them. SCAD's loans are no joke. The college itself was very good my first year, they do a lot to make sure incoming students feel heard and welcomed, and then after that they really don't try for you. As soon as you're a sophomore, they could care less about how you feel to be there. Their class attendance requirements are grueling and there's no room for accidents--you miss four class sessions and you fail the course. It's wild, and even if you're in the hospital, those absences will not be forgiven. If you're late, it counts as an absence.I don't recommend it. At all. All the learning I garnered there is online accessible these days, one just has to hunker down, find it, and put it to practice. My professors were great, but no education is worth that price tag. Depending on your major there, you will be treated differently by the school. For example, their fashion and fibers majors are doted on, whereas a major like animation is ground hard into the dirt. There were unrealisitc deadlines to meet for class projects and kids would be in the school buildings overnight trying to meet them. Some fell asleep in their chairs and Paula Wallace (the owner) saw that one day and had them replace the chairs with far less comfortable chairs. Some kids had heart attacks from staying up to meet deadlines. Such a bad work culture of "all-nighters". In part the students' fault, but none of the faculty really stopped it or discouraged it, save one teacher in a different major, and that being said, that teacher still gave ridiculous deadlines so we'd "be prepared for the industry". That's not at all what the industry is like (discluding the game industry right now). It is truly a hard place to thrive and everyone I've known who has graduated had months to years of burnout after finishing, including myself. I'd hazard real caution when choosing to go to a private art college, art institutes included.No education is worth that amount of debt.

K: Wow, that’s unfortunate to hear. I wonder if students are having similar experiences at colleges such as CAD or RISD?

D: I have heard very similar things about places like RISD and CAD where it’s all about the money, but I can’t point you towards any of the specifics. I really just want people to go into it with a clear head and know it’s going to be hard exiting. They really don’t prepare you for business.

K: What would you have done differently? Would you have signed up for online courses?

D: If I was to do it over, I would have liked to dive straight into developing personal projects, just making the work. Watching and reading free youtube videos and blog posts by artists. That would not have flown with my parents, they’re very by the book “go to college or get a job” type people. With than in mind, I would’ve gone to the local college I was within biking distance of as a sort of clean, and done fairly half assed studies by full assed my artwork.

K: That sounds like what a lot of artists, particularly those interested in digital art are doing. But, have you ever considered going back to school, or enrolling in a program or an atelier that you think would be beneficial to your art career?

D: Not genuinely. If I had time, I wouldn't mind enrolling in something that would teach me puppet animation, but between freelance and my day job, it's hard to find time to produce personal work and then also learn. I am pro-learning, always learning because that keeps your work fresh, keeps your mind sharp and ready to switch up on a dime. But course work is something I'm not super fond of, to be honest.

K: I understand. So, you've graduated and are currently doing freelance work along with your other day job. In your freelance work, what kind of work are you taking from clients?

D: Mostly I do storyboard animatics for a few advertising agencies, but I do some card art for games here and there, like Companion's Tale. I just signed on to do some tarot card artwork for a company called Legacy: Fables. I'll take anything that sounds interesting and that I have time for. It's all digital; traditional art is way more personal for me so I almost exclusively make traditional artwork as gifts for friends.

K: Are there any particular fandoms or genres that you tend to work more in?

D: As far as fandom work and commissions, it's Dragon Age all the way BABY! It's a good community and I owe a lot to them. I'm planning on reopening my tarot commissions here soon once I finish up a few of my freelance projects. I am an old hat with fantasy stuff and most comfortable there, but I really want to start working on robots and mechanics and cities. All that sci-fi goodness.

K: Wow, that's great to hear you've got very steady work, and they’re with industries and agencies! I hope you'll get to share that work once it's gone down the production pipeline. Have you ever considered applying for work with a company like EA/Bioware?

D: Yeah! I've lucked out a lot, it feels like all of this sort of dumped itself in my lap. My biggest resistance to applying to Bioware or any gaming industry position right is rooted in how they treat their workers. Bioware, specifically back when Anthem was released, had a nasty report come out on how management had run their workers to the point of many having mental breakdowns, and several just leaving and never coming back. They refer to those who have breakdowns while working during their months and months of crunch as "stress casualties", and I'm honestly quite disgusted by what I hear. I think once the gaming industry unionizes I'll consider applying, but the things I hear, not just about Bioware and EA... It's horrifying. Riot, Blizzard, Activision, Treyarch, Rockstar... the list could go on. Not to like tank the conversation into a dark place, I just have such strong feelings about it.

K: That's ok! It's good to hear different perspectives, especially when talking about the industry. Alright, on to the next question. Looking at your work, from sequential narrative to tarot artwork, I’m really impressed by your storytelling. When you’re creating stories and characters, do you pull a lot from your own experiences and emotions, or more from other sources such as music, film, or literature?

D: Ahh that's a hard one. I think I pull far more from outside of me than inside of me.The way things are shaped comes from my own experience, but I think a lot of my content comes from outside influences, like movies, books, music, and art.Howls Moving Castle, the book not the film, had a huge affect on me and how light I want the stories I tell to be, but I think I have a long way to go when putting stories together.I am super empathetic so it's easy to take outside influences and really feel them, but also it's hard to tell where I start and those influences ends.

K: Very well said, and the comment about the novel, I can really feel that in your personal work, especially your recent animated landscape piece.

D: Thanks!

K: The first time I came across your work was one of your Dragon Age tarot works, but also the tutorial on how you created them. It was incredibly helpful to me and I know to lots more artists. Your tutorials and words of advice have proven very successful, but have you ever received any advice or tutorials that really switched gears or level upped your techniques?

D: The answer is yes, absolutely. Let me see, I don't seek out tutorials anymore, but there was something I saw recently that was good. Sinix's head from any angle is a great approach to drawing faces at crazy angles. Also, check out Bunabi on Tumblr. Bunabi is so fast and her work is beautiful, and has great tutorials also, just incredible. 

I unfortunately can’t link to any specifics, but tutorials like this one do me a lot of good.  

People can just screenshot process stuff that reminds me that there are a million ways to approach art, like sketch up, grids, freehanding. I think I benefit from understanding that there are a million approaches more than following the tutorials super hard.

K: Great,thank you! I wanted to ask a few more questions, one about your Patreon. It seems like the next big wave for digital artists. How has it been creating one and keeping on top of the awards, and is there anything you would want to do differently with yours?

D: So Patreon is kind of a basket you can fill with prizes, maybe some of the prizes for money (probably prizes for money), and that works for a lot of people. I have a more of a "here's content I don't put elsewhere if you'd like it" approach to it cause I'm inconsistent with patron pay-outs. Patreon for artists with chronic mental illness is a struggle. Hands down. I started one hoping it would iron out my discipline issues a year or two back, and it didn't. It made me feel hella guilty cause I could not keep up with what I said I'd keep up with, and then I felt worse. It was disastrous. I refunded most of the pledges I got during the three months I had it open. Then I closed it for a year and brought it back online recently. Now all my content is free, it's still inconsistent, but if people want to support me I welcome it. I think Patreon is a good platform, but I will never be able to use it is intended. I respect the people who can keep up with it all, that kind of discipline takes a crazy amount of strength of character, but I don't motivate with money very well. In the end, I motivate through helping others as best I can, so it'll always be free content. I have very few plans for it, other than I want to put together a brush pack and share it there with brushes I made. I just need a moment to sit down and make that happen. I've got a tutorial for using photos to make quick painted backgrounds too, and I just have to organize that sucker.

K: Thank you for being so open about it. I think what you're doing is so insightful and helpful in what you're offering to your followers, especially those who may also be struggling with anxiety and depression.

K: Can you share what your process is like from a sketch to a finished piece? Do you thumbnail a lot before, use references to build from, and so on?

D: I like to do throw away thumbnails on notepaper.

And then I take those thumbnails and do a more thought out version digitally.

K: Wow, these are both beautiful. If you don't share these with patrons already, I would! I also like that you've given each one their own color, a good way to organize!

D: Thank you! I'll make sure to share these, I forget about them genuinely. I'll diverge in two directions from here depending on need. If what I'm working on is simple, I hop straight into color. If it's going to be complicated, ie crazy armor, specific architecture, I will do a line pass first and then launch into color. Either way, this is where most of my references come into play. Once that is solid I add detail work.

K: Reference can be so important in art; it really can bring work to a new level if used properly!

D: Yeah reference is king. I use it constantly, even when doing the most stylized thing, cause there's always stuff you forget. The waves I did for my last card, I had reference of barrel waves up constantly, and it helps a ton.

K: My last question is where do you see yourself in five years? I know this can be a challenging question, but if you had any goals or plans you’d like to see come into fruition, what would they be?

D: Five years? These questions are always a struggle for me. I try not to look past a week at a time because it's all so BIG. And my life has undergone so many huge changes in such a short period of time SO MANY times that it's hard to make long term plans. Especially when dealing with mental illness. So I try to think less about where I'll be in any amount of time, and more about what I want to progress towards achieving, it's a little easier and sets up less expectation. So this is not necessarily a five year plan, and more an eventual future plan. I want to have enough tutorial work to put together an art resources book/pdf online. I want to develop my freelance work further and create my own studio, ideally for illustrative style work, smaller animations, and maybe some classes for people interested in color and storytelling. I want to put together a small guide of sorts also for artists and people who need healing, since there's so many of us. That one is harder because it's an amorphous subject, but I think there's a lot of room for commentary there and a lot of people wanting to hear it, and I think it'll have to come from all those hurting. It's just a matter of how we'll organize that.I am a huge sap. That's my way. So in 5 years I'm hoping I'll be a better and more helpful sap.

K: Well, I hope you're able to make a lot of this happen, we need more empathy and help in the world. Thank you again Daphne for your time, this was really informative and an honest interview which I know others will appreciate.

D: Thank you, Kallie!

You can find more of Daphne’s beautiful works (and tutorials) here:

Patreon

Twitter

Tumblr

[purplesurveys]

1031

Do you usually take blame or blame others? Depends on the context, I guess? When things go wrong on a very deep and personal level between me and people I deeply care for, I usually try to find reasons to blame myself. But if it’s something superficial, like if someone messes up at work through no fault of my own, then I’m able to point my finger to whoever fucked up.

Have you ever been to a McDonald’s in another state? I’ve been to McDonald’s in different provinces and also  in different countries. The McDonald’s we went to in Baguio was so surreal because we discovered that they were still using styrofoam containers that they had already phased out years ago everywhere else, and they also never changed the original spaghetti and chicken recipes I grew up with. It was such a blast from the past. As for other countries, I’ve tried out the McDonald’s in Malaysia, Indonesia, and China and made sure to order items that we didn’t have back home.

Have you ever seen 50 First Dates? Yeah, it’s one of my semi-guilty pleasures. It’s such a cheesy movie, but idk the concept is unique and the supporting characters made the whole movie enjoyable for me.

Do you like or hate the smell of fish? The fishy smell at the market can be pretty strong and bleck, but generally I don’t mind the smell of fish. I live in an archipelago, man. We live and breathe seafood. Idk anyone in real life who doesn’t like fish.

Have you ever been to Sea World? No.

Do you know someone who suffers from short term memory loss? I don’t think so, no.

Have you ever read any of John Green’s books? Yeah, but the only one I’ve gotten to read in full was The Fault In Our Stars. I also got to start on The Abundance of Katherines and Paper Towns, but because I only borrowed those copies from friends I never got to read either until the end. All were okay, but I don’t find John Green’s writing to be as great as it was once hyped up to be.

If so, which one is your favorite? I guess TFIOS, since that’s the only one I got to read through to the end.

Are you a protective person? With my loved ones and pets, yes.

Have you ever experienced an earthquake? Yeah I’ve felt a lot but fortunately it’s never been a severe one. Just super brief earthquakes where the most that happened to me was a little swaying.

Would you rather go to a beach or city for a vacation? I love beaches, but a change in scenery would also be nice because I already go to beaches for vacations fairly often. City.

Does your license plate number contain the number 8? I never actually memorized my plate number LOOOOOOL I think so? It’s either a 6 or 8.

Were you ever a ghost on Halloween? Nope.

Has someone ever held the door open for you? Yeah, security guards tend to do that for customers/guests. Sometimes, nice strangers that I enter a place with will do it for me too.

Are you a fan of penguins? I think fan is pushing it far lol. I like penguins, but I’m not obsessed.

Have you ever stayed up all night on a school night? Just a handful of times, and it was always as part of a groupwork. I’d never willingly go through an all-nighter for myself.

What’s your favorite brand of chips? Doritos or Pringles. We also have a local brand that makes these deeeeeelicious salted egg chips, but I’ve never actually taken note of what the brand is.

Has anyone ever sang to you? Not to me. But a lot of people have sung around me.

Are you a good painter? No. That’s why I opt for paint-by-number kits, because those come with a guide haha. I can’t actually craft images by myself – that skill belongs to my sister who has an insane talent for painting.

Before buying a car, do you usually test drive it? I’ve never bought a car by myself; my dad takes care of the car purchases. I know he test-drove the Vitara, but idk about the other cars we have.

Have you ever written a poem and then read it aloud? Hmm, I don’t write poems. I don’t find the vast majority of them appealing, and only once in a while will there be a poem that is able to speak to me.

Do you like pineapple? Nope.

Have you ever met your favorite author? I don’t have a favorite.

Do you look more like your mom or dad? Most comments point to my mom, but I’ll get the occasional remark that half of my face is my dad’s as well. I’m a good mix of both.

Have you and your best friend ever liked the same person? This hasn’t happened before.

When was the last time someone called you babe or baby? Maybe August? I’m not too sure. It’s been a few months.

Do you have an older brother? No. But I’m super close with my eldest cousin on my mom’s side and we grew up together and all that, and I pretty much consider him my older brother. He’s definitely more a brother than a cousin to me, and it has always felt and been that way.

Are you a fan of art? Yes, especially paintings and dioramas.

Did you get your mom or dad’s eyes? My mom’s, I think? I really don’t know, I’m bad at recognizing this kind of stuff. You’d have to ask people who actually see me on a daily basis.

Have you ever seen the movie My Girl? Is this the one with the really sad scene of a boy’s funeral and the girl’s like, “He can’t see without his glasses”? I haven’t seen the movie, but I’ve heard about that scene a million times.

Do you watch Teen Wolf on MTV? Ugh, MTV’s teen shows are such a cringefest to me. I never followed it, but I’ve had to watch a few eps back in high school when my friends would watch it while we were at someone’s place. Not my cup of tea.

When it was on, did you watch Cory In The House on Disney? I watched a few episodes, especially when it was still new. But we were also in the process of moving then and we didn’t have cable for a few years in our new house, so I had to miss out most of it.

Do you have any blackheads? I don’t.

Do you have any freckles? Nope.

Do you have a movie that you have to watch during the summer every year? No, but I have something similar. I like watching Love Actually at least once every year, during the Christmas season. I like watching Two for The Road once a year as well, regardless of the time of year.

Do you think that life isn’t fair sometimes? I mean yeah. It doesn’t revolve around me, so I know it won’t always be fair.

When was the last time someone bought you flowers? Valentine’s Day last year.

What was the last book you read? Midnight Sun. Haven’t touched it since September, though.

How many books do you plan to read this summer? It’s past summer, and I haven’t been doing a lot of reading in general.

Does your house have a dishwasher? No, not a common appliance here.

Do you know anyone who has a flower tattoo? I probably do. But I haven’t seen people outside of family for so long that I can barely remember who has which tattoos. I’m pretty sure I know someone who has flowers.

Do you like the name Carter? It just reminds me of the underwear brand honestly, so not a fan.

Have you ever had a secret admirer? No. Should there be one, they shouldn’t be having high hopes; I wouldn’t be interested in the least.

How many different languages can you say goodbye in? There’s English, Filipino, Korean, Spanish, German, French, Japanese – 7.

Agree or disagree: You like Adam Sandler movies. Disagree for the most part, but 50 First Dates is cute.

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Did the last type of shoes you wore have laces? Yups. I wore sneakers when I went out to get Starbucks last Friday evening.

How much money did you spend yesterday? The charging cable that I ordered arrived yesterday, so I had to shell out ₱140 for that.

What genre is your favorite movie? It’s a romcom/drama. My other favorite is a drama.

Are you texting anybody right now? Nope. I’m all alone today, which is the way I want to be for this weekend.

Who was the last person you were in a car with? My parents.

Do you like the picture on your license/I.D. card? I really do, hahaha. I don’t know why the people at the LTO gave me a pass, but I had been allowed to smile with my teeth. That helped make my license photo turn out super well and I no longer feel embarrassed whenever I have to take it out and present it somewhere.

What’s your favorite thing to snack on while watching a movie? Potato Corner fries. Can’t be any other type of fries.

When was the last time somebody hit on you? July or August when this random guy slid into my PMs. I had never had so much fun blocking somebody so fast.

Was the last person you met a male or female? The last new person I met was male.

Which one of your friends do you feel most comfortable around? Angela or Andi.

Do you own a map of the world? I mean, I guess. I have a collection of the World Almanac for Kids books, and it had always included a world map in its Countries chapter every year.

What’s your favorite Thanksgiving food? We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving.

Is the light on in the room you’re in? No, doesn’t have to be as it’s bright out and I can see the sun from my window.

Who did you last spoon with? Gabie.

Are you currently watching TV? No.

Have you ever had surgery or stitches? Never. Hope I’ll never be needing one.

Do you own any clothing that has animal print? I have a tank top with cheetah print that I sometimes wear at home.

Does your family eat dinner together? Yes, every evening. We don’t eat together when my dad is working abroad, but since he has stayed home for all of 2020 because of Covid, we’ve gotten to eat together as a family all year.

Where do you work? Somewhere in Metro Manila; I’m not giving the city away.

Are you in high school? I got out of there nearly five years ago.

Do you have a TV in your room? I used to, but not anymore.

Are any of your electronics charging right now? My phone and laptop both are.

What was the last video game you played? Mario Kart 8.

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Are you hungry?: I can def go for a snack, or maybe even a full meal. It’s taking everything in me not to order Popeye’s or Army Navy from Grab rn.

What color is the chair you’re sitting on?: I’m sitting up in bed; my sheets are blue with gold/yellow prints.

What did you buy last time you went to the store?: I got bottled coffee when I went to 7-Eleven a week ago.

Do you like salsa that has fruit in it?: ...Don’t all types of salsa have fruit in them though? It would be brand-new knowledge to me if I was told not all salsas have fruit.

Have you ever opened up your computer to clean the fan on the inside?: No. I’d rather have professionals do that.

Can you count in binary?: No, and I never even understood how it works.

Do you think stained glass windows are pretty?: No. Mostly because it reminds me of cathedrals.

Are you a chocoholic?: Nah. I like chocolate, but I can live without it.

Are you scared of snakes?: I mean if they were venomous or obviously wanted to eat me whole, of course. But I’ve also already held a couple of snakes before.

Have you had your wisdom teeth removed?: No.

Do you like hard or soft pretzels better?: Soft all the way. I find the hard ones too salty.

What was the last magazine or catalog you looked through?: I don’t even remember. Maybe Tatler? My grandma has loads of those at her house.

When was the last time you wore a raincoat?: I don’t think I have ever worn a raincoat.

Have you ever been carded when buying something?: Idk what that is but nothing out of the ordinary has ever happened to me whenever I’ve made a purchase, so I’m gonna go ahead and say no.

Do you eat meat?: Yep.

Corn and mashed potatoes, or beans and rice?: Both pairings aren’t really a part of our cuisine, so neither sound appealing to be honest. As someone who thrives on rice, I hate the idea of eating beans with it; so I would go with corn and mashed potatoes even though I’m having a hard time imagining how it would work.

Can you sleep with the light on?: I probably can, but it would take me a lot longer to fall asleep.

What’s your operating system of choice?: Mac/iOS.

Have you ever broken a bone?: Never.

Do you have a favorite highlighter color?: I don’t have a favorite color to use, but I prefer pastel shades in general over neon.

Do you have a flashlight?: My phone has a built-in flashlight, but we also keep a couple of emergency flashlights at home in case of blackouts.

Do you like watermelon?: I like some watermelon-flavored stuff like candies, but I’m not fond of the fruit.

…Honeydew?: Hahahahahaha. BoJack Horseman, anyone? Anyway, I’ve never had honeydew and probably wouldn’t like it considering my established opinion on fruits.

Can you shoot a gun?: I’ve never tried, so I’ll say no. I’ve always been meaning to go to a shooting range though; I feel like it’ll be such a cool experience.

Do you like salad?: Not for the most part. The only kind I enjoy is spicy tuna salad, which only has lettuce in it alongside tuna sashimi and spicy mayonnaise.

When was the last time you smashed your finger?: I don’t know if I ever have? This doesn’t ring a bell to me.

What color is your computer?: Silver/gray.

Have you ever made ice cream in chemistry class?: No, my chemistry classes in high school and college were never that fun.

Has anyone ever walked in on you while you were on the toilet?: Sure.

What color hair do you have?: Black.

Do you use the microwave often?: I wouldn’t say so; just a couple of times a month.

Are you good at spelling?: Sure, I’d claim that. Thank the movie Akeelah and the Bee; that movie made me super passionate about spelling and dictionaries for a time. I can still feel its effects today because I’m still very much particular about spelling more so than any other kind of writing/language mechanic.

Have you ever petted a donkey?: I’ve never even seen one before :o but I’d love to have the chance to pet one, heh. It would make me so happy.

When was the last time you went to the doctor’s for a physical?: 2016.

Do you like a lot of ice in your drinks?: Sure.

Have you ever painted a room? Never have, but would like to give it a try.

#survey #surveys #multiple ones again so feel free to chop up #might make this a thing just because #we'll see! #but i most likely will