#i was 12 when i first played it and now i am an adult wtf….

[nebuleeart]

* 7 Years

#undertale #undertale 7th anniversary #AUGHHGHHGH YALL I CANT BELIEVE ITS ACTUALLY BEEN 7 YEARS #i was 12 when i first played it and now i am an adult wtf…. #<- specimen baffled by the concept of time passing #anyway happy birthday undertale <3 #my art #undertale fanart

[letomills]

Sims tag

Thank you @kalux-sims and @mrs-mquve for tagging me! Answers below the cut.

1. What’s your favourite sims death?

Old age on platinum aspiration. It’s always sweet to see your sim move on peacefully.

2. Alpha CC or Maxis Match?

More on the Maxis match side (TS2 match that is, not TS4 match). In hindsight and on seeing other people’s answers, “semi-realistic” probably fits best.

3. Do you cheat when your sims gain weight?

Haha wtf no.

4. Do you use move objects?

Yes.

5. Favorite mod?

Hard to choose. I’ll just say Simler90 and @midgethetree are my favorite modders.

6. First expansion/game/stuff pack you got?

Nightlife. I never played the TS2 base game only, I started after Nightlife’s release, when my grandmother gifted my cousin and me the Deluxe Edition. I’m so thankful that she did.

7. Do you pronounce “live mode” like aLIVE or LIVing?

Like living.

8. Who’s your favorite sim that you’ve made?

There isn’t a single one but I have many favorites among the sims I use for CC modeling.

9. Have you made a simself?

Sort of, recently. That would be one of the TF sims I use for CC modeling, the nearly bald one with skin 1 and dark eyes. Their face features are not a match to mine really, I’m not good at recreating faces, but that would be the closest I’ve made (and also my first time actually using some of the facial asymmetry sliders I have in my folder). The sim I use as an avatar on my socials doesn’t look like me at all.

10. What sim traits do you give yourself?

Loner, brooding, clumsy, shy, vegetarian, eco-friendly, frugal.

11. Which is your favorite EA hair color?

The mohawks have pretty good custom gradients.

12. Favorite EA hair?

Maybe getfabulous? The name is swaying me for sure. I gave that hair to the deceased founder of my custom neighborhood Oaken Valley, so it does have a special place in my heart.

13. Favorite life stage?

I like them all and how different they feel to one another. I like the slightly crouched posture of elders, the young adult walk, or how kids materialize a stool to step on when something is out of their reach. And toddlers and babies are adorable.

14. Are you a builder or are you in it for the gameplay?

I do both, depending on what I feel like in the moment.

15. Are you a CC creator?

Yes.

16. Do you have any simblr friends/a sim squad?

I have positive interactions with people from the community but I don’t have a definite circle.

17. What’s your favorite game? (1, 2, 3, or 4)

2.

18. Do you have any sims merch?

No.

19. Do you have a YouTube for sims?

Yes: https://www.youtube.com/@letomills. I said I would upload more and I fail at that every day 😅 I have a 2/3 completed script in my Google Docs that I need to get back to.

20. How has your “sim style” changed throughout your years of playing?

I started playing TS2 when I was like 9, and for the longest time I didn’t know that CC was a thing. I was partial to faces 1 and 2 and all of my sims kind of looked the same. I even gave cosmetic surgery to some of the premades with the career reward station once I learned the “unlockcareerrewards” cheat. I remember giving Goneril Capp face 1 (one of the most contempt-worthy decisions I’ve ever made, to be sure). I am now appalled by this and my game has become more diverse, although there is still much work to be done. These days I’m in the process of making plenty of CC for custom body shapes so I can overhaul my CC folder once again and make a custom neighborhood with the best sims ever, it’s gonna be great.

21. What’s your Origin ID?

N/A

22. Who’s your favorite CC creator?

So many great creators out there. My favorites are the ones whose work I tend to use for my own CC endeavors.

23. How long have you had a simblr?

Since April 2022.

24. How do you edit your pictures?

I don’t except for cropping.

25. What expansion/game/stuff pack do you want next?

N/A (I assume this question is for TS4 players. Can’t believe they’re doing a whole expansion pack on horses btw.)

26. What expansion/game/stuff pack is your favorite so far?

Hard to choose between FT and OFB.

~

I tag @profesionalpartyguest, @spell-bloom, @mourky, @potentialfate-sims, @mrs-mquve (looks like we cross-tagged each other) and anyone else who wants to participate. (Feel free to ignore of course.)

#sims #tag game

[smolphrog-littlebrain]

I wish to have some Garry stories pretty please

Ask and you shall receive!

The first time ever I let my man Garry out the basement was actually when I was joking with a friend about what our names would be as men. I was messing around and was thinking of super weird names such as ash (stands for ash of my dead grandfathers... it will be my drag king name and is another story)... and of course, my sweet son Garry and yes. From SpongeBob. and his sweet wife... patty, can anyone see where this is going? I first ever used him as a RP for this old game I played on my ipad (I honestly can't remember what it was called) but i wanted to try being anyone other then myself and who was more the opposite of me then a 28 year old man. I would talk all about "adult things" such as taking care of myself and my girlfriend and our pet dog! (I made a lot of lore for this man) and we lived happily in our 1 bath 2 room apartment, I would say how we were looking for a bigger place and how my gf and I where looking to settle down. I even talked to some people about how I was so nervous to propose to her, and they all wished me luck.. I never stayed in one place for too long and would move from site to site, but the best memory of him was this one time that I went into this discord server to find out about a game update I was looking forward to. And this creepy gentleman asked me for my age in the main chat, and I was Like umm no? And they got creepy and demanding i told him and saying how it's not that big of a deal and if I didn't say anything then he would just assume I was Like 12, and at the time being 14 I was like THIS BITCH. Cuz u know at that age it was an INSULT to be any younger, so I was like BRO. I am literally 24.. and a man. and this dude left me alone SO FAST.

I also joined a zelda group on Discord, and they had an 18+ room and I HAD TO SEE WHAT that was about, and so my boy GARRY to the rescue!!...Honestly, nothing fun happened in there it was literally just a place for the older folks to go to and get away from the "children" ( little did they know)

We also used him cuz my mom didn't want me playing on her Farmville anymore cuz I liked following random people and she hated that so we used my boy to make a fake Facebook and he was Like 68 and had NOTHING on there just Farmville and begging for weat<3

I was also kinda lucky that I was a Tomboy/ "liked dude things" so it was kinda somewhat easy to pretend to be a older man cuz I liked fishing and other things I thought I guy liked at 24 I also constantly changed his age

This is now the time I am 16 and feeling like a big girl so I do my OWN name! (sorta it's my Nickname and it's extremely popular name, so no one will find me), and I meet a great group of friends on an animal crossing server! I like them and they are super nice and it's a huge server but I have a couple of friends!! I then get invited to another on the side server from a friend, and I join!! I meet great people and we all click and I trust them cuz it's been a year and a half now that I have known them and the youngest of us all TELLS ME HER LIFE STORY AND HER AGE THEN WHERE SHE LIVES.... and I say hay umm wtf I could be a 34 year old man named Garry (my age changed everytime i talked about him lol) or something... and she looks be dead in the eyes..(not really) and says... you type like a child and you just made a poop joke.... ur like 12.... I DIED

And she is the whole reason I made my first post cuz she is WILD and so lucky I wasn't actually Garry from staples!<3

I hope this is to ue liking and if I remember more story's of him I will be sure to post about it and I hope this was as fun as you thought it would be!

Also p.s. I know this post won't be easy to read I am bad at words lol

#hope this is good enough #garry my baby #i loved my boy

[grilledcheese-aspiration]

i wasnt tagged but im bored so here we go:

1. What’s your favourite sims death? Hmm gotta go with classic drowning tbh.

2. Alpha CC or Maxis Match? Maxis match.

3. Do you cheat when your sims gain weight? Nope, I play wants-based.

4. Do you use move objects? Ye

5. Favorite mod? TOO MANY, we'd be here all damn day, phew so honorable mentions are: fway's auto trait randomizer, object freedom, ROS generator and babydilljrs DFR turn on/offs.

6. First expansion/game/stuff pack you got? I got them all in order on release day, so I guess University since it was the first EP. Holiday Stuff was the first SP so...you can take it from here I 'spose.

7. Do you pronounce “live mode” like aLIVE or LIVing? LIVE like living your life, tf?

8. Who’s your favorite sim that you’ve made? TOO MANY omg. right now, basically all me sims in Waverly that ARE NOT premades (minus, Natasha Una)

9. Have you made a simself? Sure I have - dont have one right now tho.

10. What sim traits do you give yourself? Computer whiz, loner, artistic, rebellious

11. Which is your favorite EA hair color? ?! wtf kinda question is this lmaoooo

12. Favorite EA hair? TBH hairfuzzylongcp

13. Favorite life stage? YA/Adult

14. Are you a builder or are you in it for the gameplay? mostly both but can def be mood-depending.

15. Are you a CC creator? sometimes.

16. Do you have any simblr friends/a sim squad? o_O naur, at least, not that im aware of.

17. What’s your favorite game? (1, 2, 3, or 4) 2, binch.

18. Do you have any sims merch? Nah

19. Do you have a YouTube for sims? huehuehueheuhue

20. How has your “sim style” changed throughout your years of playing? Erm, welp for starters I did not watch my downloads folder and clean it out. I would play with alpha and MM and not mind how glaring itd look in screencaps and I'd be ALL UP in their shit. Now I watch my downloads, organize and clean that ish out. I am 99% MM and I went from being all up in their shit to being a distant god to now being wants-based.

21. What’s your Origin ID? Idk lmao, dont use origin (or the new thing that replaced it.)

22. Who’s your favorite CC creator? SO MANY AND ILY ALL, ya talented asf lil beans.

23. How long have you had a simblr? My very first Simblr post was ERRR well I made Narcissims WAY back in 2011 or some shit like that. Deleted bc i thought I was over simming, came back for Sims 4 in 2014 as Grilled Cheese Aspiration and have stayed but am forever faithful to Sims 2.

24. How do you edit your pictures? Photopea lol

25. What expansion/game/stuff pack do you want next? I'm set tbh.

26. What expansion/game/stuff pack is your favorite so far? Pfft probably Bon Voyage, I just dont take my sims on vaca often. They barely roll the wants.

If you wanna do this, DO IT! you can say i tagged ya, these things are fun!

#text meme thing

[whatididtday]

September 15/Fri:

Woke up around 11:30, was motivated to get something done today.

Looked into how to optimize LinkedIn and clicked some new photos (none of which I felt is as good) but I still added one of them to my LinkedIn profile

Got v anxious v fast as I saw I am not eligible to apply for any job as my skills are below subpar and had a breakdown

I did apply to some places and got rejection mails p soon

The whole afternoon I cried, it's like a routine now to cry in the afternoon

Again my partner reassured me that it's not the end of the world and I still have time, I'm v burnt out so doing such stressful things will make me have more meltdowns and that I should rest properly

After the encouragement and lots of love from them I felt lots better

I then hyperfixated on Yoongi for a while and had a mental monologue about how Yoongi 's songs are so deep despite him appearing so non chalant.

I ate lots of sweets yday, more than 5 pieces of thick milky sweets and that caused my head to spin real bad but I wasn't able to sleep and felt again v depressed

I've been taking medications properly, now that my mom makes me take it religiously and won't go till I have and it but the feelings of great despair and helplessness doesn't go away and I have to fight with myself to not feel that way.

My partner has been telling me to take therapy frequently ans it might help as they feel it helps them, so I should look forward to my next session.

I played Pogo the whole afternoon toll mom suggested I should go to swimming as it's been a while and my membership lasts till 12 October, which was a surprise.

I thought I've not been doing any physical exercise so I should go and also it's nice to swim and hopefully due to my exercise my periods will be regular.

I shaved my legs and got in my swimming costume, blasted *Crossed* while playing pogo on my way to swimming pool. Just when I was about to enter a bird pooped on my shirt, it was drizzling a bit so I help my hand out and that's exactly when the bird decided to poop

The poo didn't hit my hand but was on my chest area and there's a school beside the swimming pool place and all the kids were like ew and I felt v embarrassed by I think I handled it v v welln

I wiped the poo and didn't really react much and went on my way.

I reached ten mins early to the swimming pool but I took some time to fix my costume and wear my cap.

The goggles I have is really bad idk why, I'm unable to see anything when I wear it, yday I noticed some scratches, I'll investigate it more and see wtf is up with it.

Swimming after a whole month was hard, I had very less stamina, I could only do 12 laps, usually I go for 16-18.

There was a v sweet thing happened yday where two kids, one 4th grader called Di and 5th grader called Gi came up to me to talk while the swim sesh.

Gi and I have waved at each other and had skme tiny brief talks, she asked me if my septum piercing hurts and she said her nose hurts everytime she sees mine which was funny and told me back then that she was in 5th grade.

Gi and Di both came to me and asked whixh grade I am in xD, bless their heart tbh it's so sweet and I took some time to answer, I first said I'm not in any grade to which they got a bit confused and then as they are kids and won't understand I'm unemployed and all the follow questions if have if I told them this would be bad so I said I'm working in Amazon ( it's been 5 months since I resigned) and they were like ohhhh so you get Amazon things for free? Can you get us something and it was v sweet and funny.

Then these two started splashing water at ecah other while I did one lap and after I rested next to them one of the kiddos splashed lots of water on me and as they are kids it was funny that tiny kids splashing loads of water on an adult, so I allowed it and was joking around that oh no ill drown xD

And they were splashing more and more water to whuxh I splashed back some and they were having fun wuth this and whenever I splashed water they'd turn away so that they don't get splashed directly on face so I swam under water and popped up right next to Di and splashed lotsa water and she was Owo how? It was funny nice and funny

Then both the kids started asking me to play around with them instead of swimming as it's fun whne I'm there and it was really sweet so I obliged. They did their childish shenanigans and when the bell rang indicating it was 7 already we got up and the kids asked me to walk home with them

The younger one, Di asked me if I'll come tomorow and I jokingly said no I can't, because you splashed so much water on me I'll get cold and she got v scared and said no no I'm sure you'll not get cold, and seeing her distressed I said haha jo, But she wasn't like content so she held her tiny pinky out and asked me to pinky swear I'll come tomorow and I did and cuz I did this with Di, Gi also made me pinky swear with her and now I have to go to swimming today else they'll be upset

Idk why I think so much, I started thinking what will happen after I stop going to swimming, will they be sad cuz I don't want them to. Plus I just am a bit worried that I'll not get much exercise done now that I'm stuck with kids, let's see how it goes...

I was v v excited to tell my partner about all this, but not on text, I wanted to hear them laugh and giggle so I texted them I'll tell em all during the nightly video calls and they were excited but I was more excited to tell if to someone right then and it was not night yet, so I told mom ans she laughed but I have been trying not to talk to mom much as our relationship is v dysfunctional ans she's extremely controlling and when I confront she says hurting words and abandon me to deal with damage. It makes me realize it's the first time ever that I'm keeping things both happy and sad from her due to her reluctance to hear me out without dismissing and abandoning me when I need and then tell me leave trauma and past problems in the past lol.

I had tea whole telling her the least amount of retail about the kids shenanigans and mom got some dhoklas and a cashew sweet which I ate.

After that I studied for 48 mins, I realized how much more I need to study and do more projects to get a hang of the concepts, it took me so much time to replicate one simple web page and it kinda geared me to study regularly.

Was called for dinner just after that and dinner was a sensory night mare, weird texture veggies and fish and it was really overwhelming. But I had to eat so I can take my meds.

Took meds at 9:36

After coming to my room I tried studying for some more time till it was ten and then we videocalled and I told them the whole thing ans we laughed but it seemed they were very sleepy and I wanted so bad to hear things from them more, to spend more time but I wanted tu be a kind partner and ask them to go and sleep and I think they saw I'm being a bit upset and they were like nope I'm tired yes but I wanna talk to you now.

One tiny hurt in me starts branching spreading into a whole big disaster but I did my best to control it.

They said they wanted to send me another sleep story vn and I was like please don't bb, you sent me so many of them so I want to completely cherish it and then out of guilt I told them please don't put so much effort in sending the sleep recordings, it's so sweet that you do but I don't want you to exert yourself and it hurts me and to this they felt extreme guilt and said I send em so you relax and feel happy and not be upset, please don't think I'm putting lots of effort into it and hurting myself, I enjoy doing it for you and you deserve it. You deserve the best love and I'm giving you that and I was on the verge of tears from all the kindness and love but also vv upset with myself for not stringing the words correctly and yet we resolved that thing and they were so eepy, I asked them to sleep please and they agreed and we exchanged our kisses and love.

I love them so much, I really want to marry them, have the rest of my life with them and for that I need to heal and not cry a lot and also fix my thinking and work on my dreams.

I slept p soon after that

[clavis-baby]

The (possible) Downfall of Obey Me

5-16-21 (when writing this the event toys out)

(Tbh this post is just be trying to be naïve towards Solomare and at ever aspectthat I mention you have every single right to be upset and mad)

Okay so it’s no secret that Obey me is making bank and is very very obviously trying to make us money on the game with even trying to make us spend money with original stuff that was free to now secretly changing some mechanics behind our back

Here’s a post by @thalfox https://thalfox.tumblr.com/post/653994972840919040/i-just-noticed-a-little-bit-ago-that-the-barbatos that dose a really good job at explaining everything that has changed

(also this isn’t a hate thing fox has actually done a great work explaining everything to good detail of what has changed)

With all the changes I don’t think that it’s shocking to say that players are leavening the fandom because of many reasons to the games getting stupidly harder to even the game development

This is just a heads up this in no way is a post saying “hey this is why you shouldn’t feel this way” I kinda just wanted to see from a business standpoint and be naïve of what’s happening you have every reason to be mad at Solomare because even me I’ve been playing sense week 2 of game released and I’m only on lesson 42 every counter argument that I’m going to make I have complained about at some point

Arguments

(P.s grammar is really bad it’s sort of turned into more of a rant I wrote this at 5 am without any sleep so sorry)

1. Obey me is marketed as a free to play game

First there are many reasons people are mad this main thing that I hear about is from a lot of people is that is a “free game” which lets be honest is ridiculously hard

But still it is still essentially a “free to play game” I personally feel like the main prolog is lessons 1-20 to introduce all the characters to understand and getting the just on how to play the game

Okay and now here’s where I sort of stand with obey me, the gatcha rates are kinda ridiculously lucky when you play for the first week you luck is so amazing and is in my experience with gatchas the best luck I have ever seen for games so it’s not really hard collecting the cards

Now are they the best absolutely no, this I feel like is where you might have to spend money unless they up the skills on the Nightmare A

But what Obey me is technically trying to do is obviously making you pay by releasing your favorite demon card every 2 week which…aren’t essential they are really just hoping that you love your main demon enough to pay

With the high increase on the gatcha rate there really isn’t a pity unless you count the card pieces (but I’m not going to count that because you are more likely to roll your UR before completing the pieces)

Now after lesson 20 once the huge break I feel like Obey me almost expecting the players to keep logging in any doing jobs and some players did do that and boy did it pay off

But those players have not needed to spend a single dollar and are all caught up

Now for everyone else who didn’t the game was so difficult it’s unimaginable and because for that a whole lot of players left the game and personally I don’t blame them because of how much impact the next lessons were

Now sort of like Mystic Messenger you really just have to grind you ass off log in everyday and do JOBS :D and grind but as hard and long as it is you are still able to be a f2p but where obey me fails is that when grinding Mystic Messenger grinding was a lot more fun for me it took about a whole year to just get 550 hourglasses even when I purchased and same with Genshin Inpact it takes a while but with obey me there isn’t really anything else to do once you get to a certain point which I think obey me really lacks and could be part of a reason why people left. Grinding just is not fun (now I do think that on a phone there is so much you can do with a app game but I feel like there could be a bit more they could do)

Personally I’m just going to come out and say it don’t spend your money for one UR card for your favorite demon it’s really not worth it now im one of those Mammon stans but if I ever wanted a specific card for instance the Mammon bunny card when it first came out I wanted it so badly and didn’t get it but I also knew there would eventually be a revival so I saved and did not spend any DV(demon vouchers) until the revival

The events

Some people complain about getting the cards in the events onestly for me this one kinda makes a bit of sense I noticed the first change when the Vampire even came out and how it wasn’t as easy to get the second card but if you think of it it makes sence why

When the first event came out (Santa event) you only had to collect about 30,000 gingerbread compared to the 100,000 in event today but when the first event came out no one was at high enough levels for the AP required and you would every day when times rest to gain gingerbread as well as there was only one part to the story so when people kept leveling up their AP Obey Me had to higher the bar so it wouldn’t be so easy to get all these cards and have a actual reward system but eventually they also added another story lesson starting at the Ruri Chan event

Second thing about the events is that one there started just getting plain out boring.

When lesson 20 finished and we were all waiting for season 2 I was still loving in everyday and logging in at 12 and 8 for the free 30 AP because I didn’t know what else to and would participate in the event but eventually what I think that all otome games that have constant events like Ikemen Vampire and Ikemen Revolution they just start getting repetitive and getting real boring so I stoped playing until there was something more interesting

The last thing that some people complain about the events is that you can’t keep up with the story and the events now I can’t find it but I believe that @0beyme said something about the events a long time ago about how you have to pick between the event and moving through the main story which I kinda think isn’t really the games fault and more just a discussion on maybe missing a event

Add ons

Okay so they did this from day 1 you spend a certain amount of Devil point that you guaranteed don’t have and get out a card

Now this is just spelling out a disaster

Yeah so for the first Charge Mission is when you log in which everyone had but essentially what they want you to do is spend $100 on a game that you just logged into and never experienced or played I don’t really understand what they were even thinking with that but it must’ve worked for them to keep doing them

The second time they did it was when the break was over and season 2 came out and they celebrated by doing another charge mission which was the Lucifer and Simon card which would cost again $100 again I really don’t understand what they were thinking

And now this is I believe the fourth time they have done this for the 1.5 anniversary where they know that Mammon is obviously a favorite for many Obey Me players and where smart to put it on the really stupid charge mission but the difference is, is that instead of it costing $100 it would cost almost $200(same with Levi’s) for one thing I don’t understand

But one thing that you do have to remember is is that this isn’t apart of the main gameplay it really just is a mini game if you would even call it that of dress up and optimization so still I guess would be just a add on that has no effect on the actual story and game so you could I guess still call it a f2p game with really really stupidly high priced add ons

VIP

Umm so I am the first one to call myself out I have bought the VIP package first when season 2 happened and I knew how much I loved the game so personally it was worth it to me to support the developers and gain something out of it

Now I haven’t really seen much complaints on the VIP because people more use it as a “hey the game is impossible with out VIP” but the people who say this ive noticed never bought it

For $9.99 each month it is 100%

IT IS NOT WORTH IT!!! Out of everything you get which honestly isn’t much you get some extra free space in jobs and really that’s it and if you choose to use all your job slots for the highest paying you get around 30,500 about a 10,000 difference not really worth it in my opinion

With VIP you also get other things like higher chance of gifts from Jobs which you will not notice one bit, and +20 AP (which if you play the events is sort of useful) as well as extra packages exclusive to VIPs so after paying $9.99 per month you also get more things to buy and that’s about it for VIP now if you really want to get more grim just use your AP and spend it of normal lessons you will get more AP that way

The Story and Kids

This could be all me just complaining and a theory by I wanted to include it anyway

Obviously many people are not even caught up or even playing but as more lessons went on the less interesting the story became to me I don’t know if it’s a me thing but season one was absolutely amazing the once season two came out it was good but not anywhere as good and one

One reason why I think that it to me became almost bland is the amount of kids that is on the app and how sensitive people were if anything bad happens

It’s no secret that the Japanese versions a lot more non-kid friendly for hell’s sake the characters don’t even swear as well as all the colors I feel like to a American audience bright colors is usually marketed towards kids but in other countriesI think many understand that that is not always the case for instance a lot of people will thing in America that anime is all for kids but I mean look at Attack on Titan or Tokyo Ghoul you would not let kids watch that of literal people getting brutally murdered you just don’t see things like that in the West where something looking kid friendly could also be very adult like

Also wtf dose this in the App Store say +12 with Ikemen Vampire and a lot of other games if you have a game rated +17 then there will be a actual pop up that says something along the lines of how “thier could be violence acts and sexual act are you sure you want to instal”

Now the story I’ve seen people point this out but there isn’t really much character development for instance Beel he dose not have a actual personality his personality (fight me on this one) all you really know about him is that he likes food and his family now I could be wrong cuz I’m on lesson 42 but still not much and this is kinda with all the characters except the special ones where the devs really favor and love for story

Some one mentioned how the developers hold back a lot which I agree with 100% they said how when there is character development they all the sudden pull back and never will almost talk about it again like ???? So there’s this constant bland story

——————-

Honestly if you liked this I might do more cuz as much as this post made me especially at the end I kinda liked ranting so...yeah there is also many other things that I want to rant about but I’m tired soooo

feel free to comment your opinions btw

Bye ima go sleep now

#obey me #obey me shitpost #shall we date #shall we date lucifer #leviathan #obey me shall we date #lucifer #obey me beelzebub #shall we date mammon #obey me swd #obey me mammon #ikevamp #obey me asmodeus #obey me belphegor #shall we date belphie #belphie

[its-an-inxp-again]

SP/so vs SO/sx

Not sure how much this can be generalized since it's only my personal experience. When I was a pre-teen my best friend used to be a so/sx 6w7, while I am 9w1 sp/so. Sp dom vs Sp blind... some stuff went down and it’s fascinating to analyze such differences to me (I feel like I'm fascinated by sp blinds in general wtf).

She was the V immature of the pair, throwing herself in any possible weird experience she could have just for the sake of it. She would always cause so much drama it was legit concerning and I always was on the sidelines, not participating and sometimes suggesting her to stop, but did she listen to me? Never, and also, in some ways, I think I did in fact understand her desire to feel alive and feel stuff and do dumb stuff, possibly in that I am sx-blind and I won't fucking allow myself to do that, while she totally did. I guess, I don't usually pay any mind to my sx-blindness but the only time that it kind of felt like I was missing on something was when I would spend time with her? And also now that I'm actually studying the instictual variants I guess I'm starting to realize it (but also not really there's a shit ton of work to do). She would always act as if she was the protagonist of some weird 19th romantic novel but, make it dumber (we were 11-12 after all, how smart could we be?).

I deeply, deeply understand her need and wish to be like a novel protagonist. I do think of myself in that way quite often. But while she did it by acting and getting actively involved in stuff, I’ve always done the same by hyper-interpreting my simpler, more boring experiences (9 basic bitch here, feeling attached to something while being withdrawn and out of touch with your body results in amazing fantasy sky castles). She was never satisfied by this.

If she wanted intensity, she would create it by idk, doing some dumb stuff she would for sure later regret. While she went on to feel so alive, I would stay in the back overthinking my more boring life. An example would be that while she actually acted so that everyone around us hated her and shunned her, I would simply feel and think I was being shunned as well, but in practice I would never do something that would elicit a strong reaction out of others. I basically fantasized about it. As you can tell her being a Social Dominant I guess she got the sx juice she wanted through social stuff (her reputation, going against the social system (social 6s often do that)).

In so many ways, if I were to simplify it, she was a mixture of Dorian Gray and Heathcliff and I was Des Esseintes. She was an edgier version of Dorian Gray, wanting to experience everything but make it dark and painful and tormented (a là Heathcliff), not once holding herself back. Des Esseintes, on the other hand, would also feel like a misfit and a tormented soul but he did so by staying inside his house and hyper-interpreting his experiences to an insane degree, until he basically starts to hallucinate. He barely goes outside of his home and when he does everything seems weird, scary, magical in its own way, and while a bit creepy that’s also part of being sx-blind I think? You secretly want that way of feeling alive via the dark things in life (not sure if my fixes have a part in this as idk other 9s may not relate to this maybe) but also you want to go about it safely (sp) and by not exposing yourself (9), so it becomes like wearing a pair of glasses that adds a layer of poetry and beauty and suffering to an otherwise normal, boring and inane reality (again, 9 fantasy shit). But that’s about it. It’s a magical pair of glasses that at times I feel like I can remove and put on at will when I’m bored and I feel like I want more out of life. Outsourcing sx if you will w/o ever acting on this shit. I relate to Des Esseintes even though he was possibly a sp 4 but whatever I guess...

My old friend, being sp-blind, of course did not feel the same need for “safety” and had nothing to hold her back, really... the 6w7 sp blind brings a lot of energy and a way to never be able to fucking stand still, so yeah... it was so fascinating to see her act that differently from me, but also empathizing with her desire to get MORE out of life and dive into the darker aspects of it. I guess that’s why I sticked with her even when I thought she was being unreasonable and annoyingly melodramatic. Most people would shun her and don’t get her ways and while I can’t say that I got her, I would at least sympathise with her wish to experience more and be dramatic, even if I couldn’t quite elaborate it at the time and I superficially thought she was being too immature (this is so funny, we were fucking 10 and we were already doing instictual stuff with me acting like the adult one idk. Also w1 may play a part in this shit. Me being sp dom felt like I was supposed to check on her but also I didn't really do it because it was fun to tag along with her dumb stuff). But while she had the courage(?) to act on such a wish, I did not - I never had it, and instead compensated by having an hyperactive mental landscape...

There was a Wilde’s quote that went like, “the artist always represents what they themselves cannot live and experience”, or whatever, and I’ve always related to it way too deeply, lmao. I would represent, think, imagine, write the stories, and instead she would actively live them. Also Wilde was a so/sx so I guess that means something

While I may be bitter, because even as a sx-blind I at times feel....... like I want to live and get involved in stuff more? also I guess 9s have a way to dissociate with their life quite easily so that doesn't help (a sx-blind 7 would probably feel like they're getting involved more). Plus possibly having a 5fix makes it worse? it kind of sucks tbfh. Like it feels I've been dissociated since I was 4 yo and never got back to actual earth wtf. 95x sp/so may be the most fucking boring thing on earth + it may bring a neurotic need to keep your little bubble untouched by real life and finding security in that bubble, to the point that you're actually missing out. Idk. I may *do* stuff to make me feel like I'm going around with people more but it doesn't really affect me that deeply so yeah... fuck all of this. It's not even the same as being stuck in your comfort zone? I guess it is but again I may at times challenge myself in some small ways and have new experiences but it's like nothing really reaches me idk.

Again, I usually prefer to go about stuff safely (aka not disrupting my little bubble too much), and in this way, I’ve always had way less regrets than her - so in this, I’m actually fine with my way of playing it safe. I like letting myself wear that pair of glasses when I feel like it and call it a day. I’ve always been content with very little...

Though honestly I’ve not been hanging out with her in years (at least 8 years, wow) and while I do hear from her I can’t say I can get to see how much she’s changed, lol

It was weird, you’d expect that with such a melodramatic friend the break up would be at least as dramatic, instead it has been quite the opposite - we simply slowly stopped reaching out to each other once we had nothing much in common anymore, and something else going on with our lives, lmao...

Also I mistyped her as a 4w3 in the past but it's so funny I got that little about the enneagram and IVs and somehow got her IV right at first try wtf I guess she's just that obvious

#enneagram #enneagram 5 #enneagram 4 #instinctual variants #so/sx #social instinct #long post #sometimes i say stuff #ennea5 #ennea4 #enneagram 6 #enneagram test #ennea9 #enneagram 9 #ennea6 #ennea 6 #ennea 9 #sp/so

[midethefangirl]

Captain America: Civil War - My Thoughts

I know this is like 5 years late but for this, I’d like to resurrect a barely dead discourse that succeeded in not just dividing the Avengers but also dividing the fandom. Before we start, content warning for spoilers and let’s dive into this mess.

So, basically, the entire conflict of civil war stemmed from General Thaddeus Ross (who is a hypocritical dick, btw) coming to lecture the Avengers on being destructive despite conducting destructive experiments (ahem, the Abomination and the Hulk) but I digress. Then, Ross presents the Sokovian Accords which is really lengthy and we see Steve reading like a few chapters(?). Now, let us note that the Accords were presented to the Avengers after a mission-gone-wrong killed about 11 people in Lagos (lay-gos, not lah-gos that pronunciation gave me headaches as a Nigerian).

So, the Sokovian Accords were written by 117 countries and vetted by the UN asking for the Avengers to be under oversight (which SHIELD would have done if HYDRA hadn’t infiltrated it in the first place but it is what it is). Somehow, Steve made it about “our right to choose” (how?! Cause I’m not understanding) and decided to not sign*.

*he later got back to sign, then backed out when he learnt that Tony had placed Wanda under house arrest (even though it was for her protection. I do believe Tony should have fully informed Wanda about keeping her in the Avengers’ Tower)

My issues with the plot of Civil War are:

1. The Sokovian Accords were not read out loud or placed on some kind of PowerPoint slide for the audience to understand why Team Cap is against the Accords. No, the fandom wiki is not a source because that one is from Agents of SHIELD and not a lot of MCU fans are familiar with that show (yours sincerely included). Assuming the contents were read out loud or discussed by the Avengers, I’d have understood why Team Cap refused to sign the accords but since none of that was given, I’d remain Team Iron Man for this one.

2. The Sokovian Accords is not the American Constitution. Then again, the MCU fandom tends to be American-centric and most Americans seem to have this belief that the world revolves around them (and it manifests itself in Civil War discourse).

3. Contrary to popular opinion, the Sokovian Accords were about 117 (mostly third-world) countries asserting their sovereignty and boundaries, not taking away rights from the Avengers. If we go by what the MCU wiki claims about the accords, yes, some parts are absurd (like asking for blood samples and using trackers, why are those necessary?). However, when 117 countries state that they want you to respect their boundaries, I think it is best to comply. Unfortunately, respecting boundaries is one thing the USA has a problem complying with and guess who happens to represent America?

4. The Accords affected only their hero lives, not their lives as a civilian. I doubt the UN would limit the Avengers’ movements as civilians

5. Let us not forget how Steve and Clint protect Wanda from accountability and responsibility. Wanda in the MCU is like y/n in many fanfics where everyone (except for the “big bad villain” who in this case is Tony and 117 countries) seems to love her and want to protect her from facing the consequences of her actions. Anyone *ahem Tony* who has a bit of problem with her is suddenly the enemy. Not to mention how Wanda seems to have a knack for causing destruction in African countries (Johannesburg, Lagos, Wakanda)

6. And fandom behaviour from the Team Cap stans

7. Also, why is Civil War not an Avengers part 3? It’s better than making it a Captain America trilogy and then trying to frame Steve as being right.

8. I do believe that the accords were sped up which left little time for the Avengers to discuss and compromise on certain issues. If they were given more time to discuss, compromise and negotiate, I think the movie would have ended better than it had.

9. In addition, I also agree with Team Cap stans on how the UN arbitrarily deciding to shoot Bucky on sight is a human right violation.

10. “The safest hands are our own” why does this sound like a white saviour talk point from Steve? The accords is about 117 countries wanting you to respect their boundaries and the best you can come up with to refute that is saying something a white saviour would say?

11. “Even if the whole world is telling you to move...” just shut the fuck up, this is no way comparable to 117 countries trying to assert their sovereignty.

12. Look if I have to choose between surrendering a few rights as a hero and just dismissing that of civilians as potential damage, I’d go with the former because the people whom I’m suppose to protect come first. For me to dismiss their deaths as “we can’t save em all” is just not it.

13. “She’s just a kid”, a few years later and I still hate that term. One, it’s infantilizing an adult white woman (something white men have historically done and we all know how that went) . Two, while Tony was obviously wrong for not informing Wanda about her house arrest, he was right to keep her in the Tower when they were people who would harm her with every chance they could find. **

** after watching WandaVision, some people might find every reason to want to harm her.

14. Let us also discuss the motivation of those in Team Iron Man vs Team Cap

Team Iron Man

Tony: feels guilty for the events of Age of Ultron, believes that he’s stepped out of line and the Avengers need oversight.

Natasha: believes that the Avengers should listen to the public and the UN after all, if they had one hand on the wheel, they can still steer.

Vision: believes that the Avengers as a whole bring challenge which brings conflict and then catastrophe.

Rhodey: a soldier; believes in following orders especially when it is from the UN and 117 countries.

T’Challa: dude is just there to kill Bucky. I’m sure if Bucky was on team Ironman, my guy would have joined team cap, lmao 😂.

Spider-Man: not really there for a reason except to bring in Steve to Ross. I do agree that Tony shouldn’t have dragged him to the fight without Peter making an informed decision.

Team Cap

Steve: didn’t want to sign because it takes away his “right to choose”. Idk what that means or how it is relevant to the Sokovian Accords but okay. However, I understand his mistrust considering a few movies ago, we found out HYDRA had infiltrated SHIELD and as much as I believe governments are corrupt and the UN is shit, you cannot just enter a country anyhow without warning ahead of time.

Bucky: was his motivation given? I mean, I believe he joined Steve’s side to stop Zeno from unleashing the other winter soldiers. Not that that’s a bad reason, it isn’t.

Sam: again, I don’t think the movie gave us a reason for him being against the Accords. Did he also believe it was taking away his “right to choose”?

Wanda: undecided as of moment of discussion. Joined team cap because Tony placed her on house arrest. While I agree that Tony should have informed her that he was putting her under house arrest and stated the reasons why, I believe it was for good reasons especially when some people might decide to carry out witch hunts (you get it, witch hunts? 😅)

Clint: only joined because Wanda was placed under house arrest. We aren’t given any reason why he would oppose the Accords.

Scott: fan boy of Captain America, need I say more?

15. Also, to Team Cap stans blaming Tony Stark for Team Cap being imprisoned, grow the fuck up. The people in Team Cap are all adults who made their own decisions yet Tony is to blame for them breaking the law (because they did break the law), wtf.

16. “Are you capable of letting go of your ego for one damn second?” Like Steve’s ego didn’t play a part in all this too, lmao.

17. Okay, the final battle was intense and while I believe Bucky was also a victim, I can understand why Tony lashed out at him. The one to blame here is Steve because even if he had no clue Bucky was responsible for the Starks’ death, he still lied to Tony by not telling him who was responsible. It is more appalling to learn that Steve, in an attempt to “protect Tony and Bucky”, was actually covering for HYDRA!

Also, the way Steve stood emotionless while Tony watched a footage of his parents being killed. Yet, he could shield Wanda from watching the news because of how it affected her, okay.

“I can do this all day”, fuck you, Steve

18. Clint exploding at Tony is so fucking hilarious. Tony is right, Clint has a family yet he decided to fight in a war that didn’t concern him. Also, his comments about breaking backs is so tone deaf after Rhodey just broke his back!

19. If Sam was Captain America, I think Civil War wouldn’t have happened at all, from the dialogue in the Raft.

20. Overall, this movie is a fucking mess and I hate it for dividing both the Avengers and MCU fans.

Before I close with this, I want to add that I am not anti-Steve but Civil War really made me hate him. I get, Steve is supposed to be a Boy Scout and shit like that, but he’s a Gary Stu in the MCU, let’s be honest about it. Civil War should have been an Avengers movie, rather than a part of the Captain America trilogy. The Avengers should have been given more time than three days to discuss the Accords and make necessary amendments; after all that went down in Lagos, Wanda should have been made to sit out missions and maybe we could have had someone like Doctor Strange help in training her; Crossbones would have made a great villain but it is what it is; Peter’s introduction to the MCU could have been as him actually interning for the Stark Industries and forming a kind of acquaintance with Tony Stark before Tony finds out that he’s Spider-Man; Steve should have told Tony about HYDRA‘s hands in his parents’ deaths. Anyway, I’ll go read Civil War fix-it fanfics and fanfics where the Avengers are more like family. Fuck Civil War and I’m outta here.

Edit: okay this was a thought I had when I was trying to sleep but it was too good to ignore. Rhodey has a point about Steve arrogance (if that’s the correct term) in saying “the safest hands are our own” and here’s why:

Like he stated “this is not the World Security Council...neither is this SHIELD nor HYDRA” (paraphrased). This is the UN as well as 117 countries. Look, I am as anti-government as one can go and I don’t believe that the UN are reliable (plus, if we really want to go by the AoS version of the Accords, the Accords are flawed and they need amendments), however, given the US records on disrespecting boundaries in many third world countries, I can understand why 117 countries are wary about a bunch of superpowered Americans entering their country.

To us, the Avengers are saving the world. To these 117 countries and the people who have families who were killed in the crossfire (Zemo is a good example), the Avengers are a bunch of nuisances who leave destruction wherever they tread.

I am still neutral on the whole Accords as I don’t know exactly what it entails but for Steve to go “we are surrendering our rights to choose” (again, how is the Accords threatening the Avengers’ right to choose?) when asked to be under oversight is tone deaf.

#marvel cinematic universe #captain america civil war #team cap critical #mcu critical #not anti steve rogers btw #wanted to clarify #steve rogers critical

[moiraineswife]

Jasnah Meta - The Importance of Context

AKA: PLEASE stop saying that Jasnah is pro-genocide when she is. Not. At all. In any way. Shape or form. Whatsoever. 

TL;DR: Nowhere, at any point, in four ginormous books of text, does Jasnah ever say ‘you know what’s great? Genocide.’ She never even implies. It she never even actually, seriously, suggests it. Please stop saying she does as though it’s canon I lose 12 years of my life every time it’s mentioned. 

AND NOW FOR THE LONG VERSION BECAUSE Y’ALL KNOW I CAN’T LEAVE IT AT THAT!!!!! 

PLEASE NOTE! THERE WILL BE SOME MINOR RHYTHM OF WAR SPOILERS IN HERE. PLEASE AVERT YOUR EYEBALLS IF THIS IS A DISTRESSING CONCEPT TO YOU.

So first things first, let us discuss The Scene Itself: 

“Yes. The answer is obvious. We need to find the Heralds.”

Kaladin nodded in agreement.

“Then,” Jasnah added, “we need to kill them.”

“What?” Kaladin demanded. “Woman, are you insane?”

“The Stormfather laid it out,” Jasnah said, unperturbed. “The Heralds made a pact. When they died, their souls traveled to Damnation and trapped the spirits of the Voidbringers, preventing them from returning.”

“Yeah. Then the Heralds were tortured until they broke.”

“The Stormfather said their pact was weakened, but did not say it was destroyed,” Jasnah said. “I suggest that we at least see if one of them is willing to return to Damnation. Perhaps they can still prevent the spirits of the enemy from being reborn. It’s either that, or we completely exterminate the parshmen so that the enemy has no hosts.” She met Kaladin’s eyes. “In the face of such an atrocity, I would consider the sacrifice of one or more Heralds to be a small price.”

“Storms!” Kaladin said, standing up straight. “Have you no sympathy?”

“I have plenty, bridgeman. Fortunately, I temper it with logic. Perhaps you should consider acquiring some at a future date.”

So the only time Jasnah actually brings up this concept it’s to, hyperbolically, point out that asking the Heralds to return to Braize and trap the Fused may not be the worst idea.

She’s not actually suggesting this as a valid or legitimate tactic. It’s to contrast the plan Kaladin just called her ‘insane’ for suggesting (I bet that’s gonna hurt a million times more than it already does in 900 years when we get Jasnah’s book and backstory but hey. Back on topic) and point out that, in the face of the apocalypse, this is the kind of level they have to think on. 

I’ve already talked about the nuances of this scene at length here, so I’ll just do a quick summary: Jasnah is not as composed about any of this internally as she makes out to be - even what she suggests with the Heralds. 

When we see her alone with Ivory, reading Taln’s repeated mantra, Ivory notes that she’s troubled. The words (and where he was/how he was being treated when they were recorded) is enough to trigger a twenty year old flashback in her. 

This scene is one of the clearest moments (along with the Kharbranth thug scene, I suspect) where Jasnah’s outward projection of her internal feelings and thoughts least matches up with reality.

In spite of the inflammatory remark that sparks this all off,  she doesn’t want to assassinate any Heralds. She quite clearly says she wants to “see if one of them is WILLING to return to Damnation.” She wants to have a conversation with them, understand the Oathpact, and see if any of them would consent to buying them some time. She is not suggesting they knife one of the Heralds in a back alley. That’s Moash’s job.

This is supported by what she does in canon. Jasnah is actually the one who recognises Taln and Ash and, somehow, manages to persuade them to join her at Urithiru and help. She treats them with nothing but dignity and respect in her scenes with them in Rhythm of War, and tries to find out more about the Oathpact and their options - as she said she wanted to do.

But since Jasnah is a Kholin, which means the ‘D’ in her DNA stands for DRAMA, she doesn’t say that, instead she says: “let us find the Heralds and kill them.” (I love her so much y’all. Ahem. Anyway).

But there’s method to this madness, too. Please click the ‘keep reading’ button to discover why! (have to turn my own posts into clickbait bc they’re so long I have to put in a cut to spare ur dashboards). 

Jasnah likes to push people. She likes to force them to think, and consider all angles of a problem, and come to terms with their own thoughts and opinions. This is one of the things that frustrates Shallan about Jasnah in TWOK: 

Shallan caught a victorious glimmer in her eye. She wasn’t necessarily advocating ideas because she believed them; she just wanted to push Shallan. It was infuriating. How was Shallan to know what Jasnah really thought if she adopted conflicting points of view like this?

-TWOK 36

Jasnah doesn’t want to brutally murder the Heralds and force them to return to their maddening idea of hell. But in phrasing it as she does, she can get an insight into Kaladin. Despite the fact we know him very well at this point, this is, this is the first time Jasnah has interacted with him on-screen, and only the second time she’s met him ever. 

“That Windrunner. What do you think of him, Shallan? I find him much as I imagined his order, but I have only met him once. It has all come so quickly. After years of struggling in the shadows, everything coming to light—and despite my years of study—I understand so very little.”

Oathbringer, 33

Jasnah in that scene is deliberately being as exaggerated, ruthless, cold, and harsh as she can get away with. She’s trying to push Kaladin. She wants to bait responses from him, to get an idea of what kind of man he is, and what he stands for. She focuses entirely on him on that scene, and the reactions we as readers get see that as well. 

“If you wish, Captain,” Jasnah snapped, “I can get you some mink kits to cuddle while the adults plan. None of us want to talk about this, but that does not make it any less inevitable.”

“I’d love that,” Kaladin responded. “In turn, I’ll get you some eels to cuddle. You’ll feel right at home.”

Jasnah, curiously, smiled.

 Jasnah likes to be pushed as well. She likes to have people push back with her, and stand up for themselves, assert themselves, make their arguments. She all but encourages Dalinar to publicly do so in RoW. 

Socially, in spite of Kaladin’s rank or status as a Windrunner, it’s probably 100% Not Acceptable to ask an Alethi princess if she wants a basket full of eels to cuddle because she is one, effectively. But Jasnah’s unphased - and even pleased - by Kal’s response. She likes that she’s seeing this from him, that he’s unguarded, and passionate, and more than willing to go toe-to-toe with her, which few people are.

Also, because I foresee potential problems in this meta that I would like to nip in the bud right now, I don’t think that Jasnah is doing this to play with people? That’s not really in her nature or who she is. There’s a purpose to everything she does, and there’s a purpose to her doing this, too.

With Shallan it was to encourage her to think for herself and form her own thoughts and opinions. Just before in that scene, Shallan asked why Jasnah couldn’t just tell her what to think and what was the right philosophy to have in life. Jasnah replied it was something she had to discover for herself - and that’s how she approaches all of their studies. 

Jasnah never teaches Shallan what to think, or even what happened, despite that being the meat of her study. Instead, she teaches Shallan how to think, how to study, how to learn, how to critically reason, and how to form and argue her own thoughts and conclusions. 

With Kal, I think it’s a quick and brutal way of quickly getting to grips with a new, very important, element in what’s going on in her world. Remember, too, that one of Jasnah’s most obvious aims, aside from protecting the world, is protecting her family. And Kaladin is very close to everyone that she loves and holds most dear, while she knows nothing about him. 

However, something else that’s important to note, which, for me anyway, RoW all but confirmed: Jasnah has low cognitive empathy.

She’d come to realize, early in her youth, that she didn’t approach relationships the same way everyone else seemed to. Her partners in the past had always complained that she was too cold, so academic. That had frustrated her. How was she to learn what others felt if she couldn’t ask them?

Chapter 99 really was an absolute fucking gift, I mean really. Asexuality AND low empathy, all in one go. What a delight.

This little snippet can be read as her being asexual, potentially, but I actually think it reads more heavily and obviously about her being neurodivergent? And specially low cognitive empathy. Brandon says that, to him, Jasnah is not autistic spectrum, but you just keep giving me more evidence to say she is buddy!! Anyway. Diagnostic debates aside. 

I would guess some of y’all don’t know what the heck I mean by ‘cognitive empathy’ (I didn’t before I researched all of this a couple of years ago). 

There are two types of empathy, in strict psychology terms (and then there’s the colloquial way we use it to just mean ‘a good person with feelings’ which drives me BANANAS but that’s a rant for another day): 

Affective empathy - which basically means ‘this person around me is happy/sad/excited, I am also now feeling that way. Because emotion is infectious like a cold! How thrilling’. 

Cognitive empathy - is the ability a person has to pick up on/know what others are feeling without having to be told. Using tone/body language/facial expression etc etc. It’s something I, and a lot of other autistic people, are bad at. 

So is Jasnah! 

Her previous partners disliked her probably verbally vibe checking them every other week to find out where they were at. Jasnah was frustrated because how the heck else is she meant to know wtf?? What an absolute mood this woman is. Anyway. 

This revelation/confirmation makes a LOT of Jasnah scenes make a lot more sense. Including: chapter 64, and her insistence, to the point of it almost being illogical, that she fight without her Surgebinding to try and get as clear a picutre of what her soldiers are facing as she can. Jasnah starts off that chapter by saying she’s never actually been in a war before, and states throughout that she wasn’t prepared for what it was actually like. 

Her low empathy means that, without a personal context/experience to relate to and draw emotional experience from, she struggles to understand exactly what her troops are going through. 

Obviously she knows that ‘war is bad, battles are scary and not fun’. But she has no way of emotionally relating/truly understanding what they’re feeling. This is one of the reasons I think it’s so important to her, despite Ivory’s chiding, to do it that way so that she can understand. 

Similar thing is happening here with Kaladin. Jasnah struggles to instinctively Get Vibes from people, so she goes about things in a very scholarly way. 

She does research and makes notes (see: her little folio on the highprinces (which, by the way, misses out on several important aspects of them Shallan picks up on pretty quickly by the power of Intuition), she asks questions - and she sets up scenarios that push people into blatant emotion so she can observe and get an idea of what makes them tick. 

TL;DR TAKE TWO: Jasnah does not want to murder all of the Singers. Jasnah never says she wants to. Jasnah only uses it as a ‘see, asking the Heralds to go back to Damnation isn’t actually that bad now is it?’ hyperbolic counterpoint after Kaladin asked her if she was insane. Jasnah is not actually what she pretends to be in that scene. She is but a hapless gay who cannot detect emotions so she has to conduct her Vibe Checks differently from other people. She is highly valid in every way and i stan her.

#stormlight archive #jasnah kholin #kaladin stormblessed #shallan davar #rhythm of war #rhythm of war spoilers #look at all these people blessed enough to make cameos in my jasnah meta #this has been grinding my pickle for TOO LONG Y'ALL. TOO LONG. #I HAD TO SAY SOMETHING #I HAD TO #also i kinda just wanted to yell abt low empathy jasnah #was that STRICTLY necessary in this meta???? #no. i suppose it wasn't. #but i'm valid and i DID IT ANYWA #long post #jasnah meta #stormlight meta #my meta #text post tag #how delicious #the jasnah brain goblin strikes again

[rigelmejo]

march - just some thoughts

i have read more this month than any other month? and its not slowing down its only 3/12 so i have 2/3 of a month to go and i’ve read 26 chapters. even if these chapters are ‘short’ at 10 pages, if i wanna count by ‘20 page’ chunks i’ve still read 13 chunks so far. and i’ve still got more time in the month left. most other months i’ve managed to read ‘a lot’ i read 10-20 chapters. so i’m doing really good.

grammar is a weird thing? in reading i feel like its quite easy now to understand. when listening or watching - same. and yet if asked ‘why do i say/type X’ or ‘why is it written/spoken like X’ i have absolutely no explanation in my head. i could not explain the grammar if prompted. this puts me in a weird place and i feel like i SHOULD go over a grammar guide again just so i can WORD what i’m intuitively understanding.

this is a bit bizarre to me because within the first 6 months of study i DID read through an entire grammar guide just to get an idea of what i was about to look at, and it hardly made sense once actually reading/watching/listening. i understood the guide fine, but actually Seeing chinese i was still confused. i would reference AllSetLearning’s Chinese Wiki on some basic points, then after 6 months i just stopped. now its been what 1.5 years and - reading is so easy, listening is so easy, grammar wise. none of the grammar confuses me. but i no longer ‘explicitly’ have any idea what the fuck the grammar is. i used to. i studied it explicitly before trying to read/listen. and yet now that i can read/listen, i have no idea how to explain the grammar. i can listen to a podcast and i don’t think about what the grammar is i just get it. i read and just know what i’m looking at. its like english - i cannot fucking explain it. Which makes speaking/writing a bit hard. Because when i try to check if i’m right i have no fucking clue HOW anymore - i just say/write what comes to mind and HOPE it makes sense. i have no way to conciously check for errors except ‘does this feel right’? And that’s not good enough for me lol. So I definitely do need to eventually read a grammar guide for explicit explanations again.

Technically I think “English and Chinese Grammar Side By Side” grammar book would be an excellent one to use. Because i read the first 50 pages of it and it compared it to english (so it explained english too), and it was very easy to understand and started basic then got more involved. 

I’m probably gonna use my very old Chinese Grammar Self Taught by Thimm book instead. Just because I really like that book. Then I guess use another after (probably Basic Chinese Sentence Patterns since its modern and perfect for ‘catch your own mistakes’ study and much shorter than Eng+Chinese Grammar side by side). 

Anyway I’m in a very weird place right now lol. I know i’m understanding grammar that is stuff I never even studied initially in the grammar guide, but unable to explain what it is, and a lot of stuff i did explicitly study in a grammar guide i completely forgot the explanation for. My reading and listening is GREAT, because all my effort only has to go into learning new words lately! its relaxing! Its the only part i need to do! But my writing/speaking i am very concerned about because being able to check myself for mistakes is something i’d like the ability to do.

how grammar is presented really makes a difference in how well i get it. there is some serious benefit to ‘show simple first then build up what you know’ that text books tend to prefer. versus like grammar reference books that may start with some in depth stuff.

i tried to read a japanese grammar guide the other day and 1 it was great but 2 it covered some ADVANCED stuff i never learned in genki 1+2, and so it was Explicit grammar description of stuff i had literally years ago been immersing in japanese and Still not conciously known about. So i felt. Overwhelmed lol. I felt so confused. I feel like I might switch to Tae Kim’s grammar guide primarily just because its structured with basics covered first. and i feel like until the basics are again glued into my brain, seeing even more advanced stuff just confused me so much i had no idea how to remember it. which is funny because? my usual strategy with grammar guides is to just read it and let what sticks stick and what is confusing be moved on from, in the hope i will later see it again and understand it better. so like based on what i usually do i should’ve just been able to read through it (and i’m gonna try anyway lol). but truly japanese grammar just... my mind does not like wrapping around it and remembering it. (chinese grammar is so much easier for me... so much easier....;-; )

i have been tempted to just Restart Nukemarine’s LLJ (Lets Learn Japanese) memrise decks, because I KNOW they worked for me last time really really well. And they include Tae Kim grammar lessons. And I know if i did it then maybe i’d get back to where i was years ago pretty fast.

I tried Earthlingo app. Its a cool idea, I don’t think its worth it though unless you planned to get Rosetta Stone (since Earthlingo is FREE). Earthlingo features 1000 words per language, taught to you by exploring video game worlds as an alien. Its a cool concept, but since all words seem to be nouns then you aren’t even learning the most common verbs/adjectives. And 1000 words is not a lot. And you could learn 1000 quite fast if using srs flashcards like Memrise or Anki (think weeks if you push yourself, and a month or two months if going at a regular pace). Earthlingo you have to slowly explore the worlds so that eats time, you have to choose to test yourself (so you don’t review nearly as often as flashcard apps), and one test includes walking around the world clicking the object which you’re given the word for (takes time to find the right object). All this means a word that might take maybe 15 minutes to study over a few weeks, might instead take much longer to study and learn. I don’t use duolingo because it generally covers so few words (usually 2000-4000 i think which is good for a beginner resource but you have to do the WHOLE course to get to all those words and i take so long on duolingo that could take YEARS for me versus a month on a flashcard app or clozemaster). Duolingo I also don’t use because it very slowly paces learning material (it takes me months/years to get through 1000 words on duolingo - just personally i go so slow on it, i think faster people would find a use for it). Likewise Lingodeer takes me AGES to get through (and i think covers 2000 words nowadays? I’m shocked Duolingo has more words for the japanese course tbh). However, Lingodeer is by far the best ‘app’ for Japanese grammar lessons in app practice form. Even if basically all the apps feel pretty slow to me in how fast they give you new info. Earthlingo is cool that its free, and for learners 12 and under i think it would be super useful as a way to engage them and keep them studying (since what child likes flashcards? whereas as a child i would’ve loved this). But as an adult Earthlingo is sooooo slow on how fast you can learn words, and it does not even offer very many words (1000 is a nice bare minimum but without verbs/adjectives it can only be a supplementary learning tool for beginners at best).

Link about Lingodeer having 2000 words in a course. (Since its SO hard to lookup how much vocabulary lingodeer includes :c )

Nukemarine’s LLJ memrise decks (which I’m considering going through again but ToT agh flashcardssssss.... they sure do work though agh)

http://www.chinese-grammar.com/beginner/ - this is the site I read a chinese grammar guide on at like Month 3. I am rereading it now maybe it will help me remember wtf grammar explicitly is. ToT (A tip, read Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced sections). Last time I visited the site you just clicked a section, then saw each fully explained grammar point and clicked ‘next’ it was nice. Now its laid out a little less ideal for me, but its still got all the same nice info! (Also honestly if you are a beginner I really DO like this grammar guide... it introduces basic info first, gradually gets more complex, and i could follow its logic knowing like 200 hanzi and 100 words ToT. its very easy to understand even if it takes a while to apply that info).

im probably gonna read hanshe more today. i’m at the point where either i know enough vocab, or the writers style has just ‘clicked’ idk. but now i just am not getting bogged down by unknown words and am just. speeding through enjoying the plot. Also rip me this novel has 155 chapters and im only on chapter 30.

watching japanese lets plays is really fun! i feel like im 3 years old cause i just see nouns i can learn pretty easy in context cause i know the game well, and hear some vaguely familiar verbs, but its fun! also it helps i know kingdom hearts 2 like by heart so. a lot of it makes me instantly cheerful and nostalgic. roxas’s voice is so cute in the japanese version.

oh i almost forgot: I found a book recently for chinese that for it’s like 10 page grammar guide summary at the beginning ALONE i think is more than worth the 4 dollars it costs to get. It has a ton of compound words and its a reference book in mandarin and cantonese (it has pronunciation for both, all characters are in traditional). I got it initally because it as a bunch of compound words and I’d like to get better at knowing a lot of common ones. But the intro to the book has a page explaining sentence structures in chinese, then examples. Its so straightforward and to the point. I love it. The book is “Understanding Chinese: A Guide to the Usage of Chinese Characters” by Rita Mei-Wah Choy. (There is also a companion book for individual hanzi, which is nice but this book specifically I’m finding more useful).

what i really like about Listening-Reading method, and reading, as study activities: no matter how I do them it is only improvement. I have a tendency to ‘redo’ material i don’t feel i fully mastered, or refuse to move on. So when i have duolingo, flashcards (sometimes i can move on if i ignore reviews/make myself do new stuff), books, grammar guides, self guided classes - i have a tendency to redo the material. over and over. and not progress and challenge myself. whereas with reading - every time i look up a word its useful because its new or something i clearly Need to review (not something i’ve actually learned and can move past reviewing). so whether i reread material or read new stuff, as long as i run into things i find somewhat challenging (feel the desire to word look up), i know i am running into new material i can learn. Same with listening-reading method: whether i finish a book or just skip to random books, any new chapter i do will give me new words to learn/remember (until i’ve reached a point of perfect listening comprehension which is a WAYS away). There’s no way for me to mess it up. I can give up a book im bored with, i don’t have to stick to one resource to the end. 

someone tell me why professionally made chinese audio books almost NEVER line up to the chapters???? whyyyyy ;-;

Even More Notes lol:

So I read so much in Pleco, which auto pronounces, I have COMPLETELY forgot. 得 地 - for these two, when they’re attached after a description like 淡淡 慢慢 高兴 etc, when are they pronounced di versus de???? i’m pretty sure  得 is pronounced de when its an adjective like ‘-ly’. but for  地, i don’t remember if when part of a describer if its pronounced di or de????

#rant #march progress #march #everyone using ore in kh2 is hilarious a lil to me tho #u are all bishies u are all tiny kids WHy u acting so tough lol

[buzzdixonwriter]

The Purple Monster Strikes

Recently in an online discussion of 1950s sci-fi films, the old Republic serial The Purple Monster Strikes came up.

Why is came up I’ll mention later, but first let’s note it: 

was made in 1945 

was the last 15 chapter Republic serial

is awful

Not eyeball gouging / brain melting / soul scorching awful the way The Lost City or Gene Autry And The Phantom Empire or Captain Video are awful, but awful enough…

…yet at the same time, worthy of comment (as we’ll soon note).

1945 is a crucial year.  Despite the Nazis last ditch Battle of the Bulge, WWII is clearly winding down to an Allied victory in both Europe and the Pacific. 

American audiences feel tired of the war wand want something else in their entertainment, even low brow / low rent entertainment like movie serials.

Republic produced three serials that year:  Federal Operator 99 proved surprisingly good, Manhunt Of Mystery Island (their next to last 15 chapter serial) tried some new ideas that while interesting didn’t prove interesting enough to be tried again, and The Purple Monster Strikes brought interplanetary thrills back to the theaters, only this time instead of visiting Mars, Mars (at least two of ‘em) came to Earth.

As noted in my overview of Federal Operator 99, Republic serials of that year looked…inexpensive.* 

This is especially true of The Purple Monster Strikes which really needed a bigger budget, a better script, and adequate production time for the type of story it was trying to tell.

That story?

In a nutshell:   The Purple Monster is a one-Martian invasion come to steal the secret of the “jet plane” (the script uses the term interchangeably with “rocketship”) from Earth and take it to Mars where it can be mass produced and used to attack our world (Why?  WTF knows or cares?).  To achieve this The Purple Monster bumps off the scientist in charge of the project, physically possesses his corpse by turning into a ghost-like entity, and tries to kill a nosy investigator and the late scientist’s niece.  In the end The Purple Monster tries to escape Earth only to get blowed up real good (Did I mention this is silly, stooped, and trite?  I did?  Good).

So why am I interested in The Purple Monster Strikes?  Well, for two reasons, the second and more important one we’ll save for the end, the first is that when watched with fully informed eyes, it’s a testament to the single greatest contribution the serials made to filmmaking:  The production board.

Lemme ‘splain what that is.

In the old days of movie making it was a folder with slots for narrow strips of colored cardboard to be slid in.  The strips were color coded for interior or exterior scenes, night or day, specific locations, second unit or special effects, etc.

These strips were grouped together on the production board so all the exterior day shots at one location could be filmed back-to-back, followed by all the night shots there before moving on to a new location.

The colored carboard strips were further broken down to match production numbers in the shooting script (“Scene 37:  The bandits take the town”), key props and costumes, stunt work, but most importantly actors / characters in the scene.

You want all your most important / expensive / difficult stuff grouped together…but you also need to figure out what you didn’t need so you could pare down your budget.

For example, if you need someone to play a policeman in Scene 1 and in Scene 12 but those scenes are shot two seeks apart, maybe it’s cheaper to have two different actors playing two different policemen for one day each than keep one actor on call for two weeks.

Likewise, if you’ve got an actor in a key supporting role, put all his scenes together.

This necessitates shooting out of sequence, but shooting out of sequence is now pretty much the industry norm for any filmed or taped production.

The serials invented the production board and the rest of the industry speedily glommed onto it.

Once you know what to look for in The Purple Monster Strikes, you can pretty much break down which scenes were shot when.

Case in point: Masked heroes and villains aside, serial characters rarely change costume except to match stock footage from earlier productions.  It’s not especially notable for male characters but females typically wear The Same Damn Dress in Every Damn Scene.

So when heroine Linda Sterling gets dunked in a water tank midway through The Purple Monster Strikes, you can bet that was her last day of filming since they were no longer worried about ruining her costume.

Likewise when a female reinforcement from Mars arrives, the exact same location right down to the same car parked in the same spot are used even though the female Martian doesn’t arrive until 2/3rds of the way into the story.

You wouldn’t notice this week to week in a movie theater, but they’re painfully obvious when bingewatching.

Case in point: There are never more than four characters onscreen at any time; this was all the production could afford on any given day.  If a fifth character showed up, one of the others needed to be knocked unconscious (if they were lucky) shot and fall off camera (if they were unlucky), or disintegrated (if they were really unlucky).

For example, the hero and heroine could be talking to a scientist (day 1 / shot 1) when three baddies show up at the door (day 2 / shot 1).  The first baddie shoots the scientist, who falls off camera then enters the frame and knocks out the heroine, who conveniently falls behind a counter (day 1 / shot 2).  The other two baddies enter and a huge brawl erupts (day 2 / shot 2).  The heroine revives (day 1 / shot 3) and shouts a warning at the hero.  The hero blasts a minor baddie who falls off camera as the other two baddies flee the scene (day 2 / shot 3), then the heroine rejoins the hero (day 1 / shot 4).

Binge watching also reveals a lot of sets and props reused again and again.  The same footstool is used as a weapon more than once, a prop valve in one chapter serves an entirely different function in another, and while serials frequently reused stock special effects shots, The Purple Monster Strikes doesn’t just use the same exploding car shot twice in the same serial, not just twice in the same chapter, but twice in the same car chase!

(Speaking of which, whenever they get in Linda Sterling’s car you know the odds are 50-50 it’s going off a cliff in a big flaming fireball.  The Purple Monster Strikes has her going through so many identical make automobiles you’d think she owned stock in a car dealership.)

Anybody familiar with Republic serials is going to find a lot of reused sets and props here.  Having seen Manhunt Of Mystery Island recently, I immediately recognized their ubiquitous warehouse set, the Republic Studios loading dock doubles as two different factory exteriors, and having lived in Chatsworth several years I can practically name each and every rock in the exterior scenes.**

On the plus side, bonus points for some impressive looking props, including a rocket test engine that provides the explosive cliffhanger for the first chapter, a double-barrel disintegrator that looks like a giant set of binoculars (I wonder if it was originally a military surplus training aid), and a spaceship seen under construction for most of the serial that proves to be the most striking design the redoubtable Lydecker brothers ever created (a pity it’s glimpsed only briefly before being blown up in the last chapter; Republic should have reused it for their later sci-fi serials instead of the dull unimaginative designs they went with).

Fun factoid: Mi amigo Donald F. Glut, filmmaker / NYTimes bestselling author / film historian, knew The Purple Monster hizzownsef, Roy Barcroft, and reports Barcroft had the wardrobe department sew a secret pocket in his costume for his cigarettes! 

Speaking of Barcroft, he’s the best thing in this serial and he ain’t that good.  A perennial bad guy in serials and B-Westerns, he normally turned in a satisfying performance, but the script for The Purple Monster Strikes gives him nothing to work with.

I mentioned previously how Federal Operator 99’s script works more often than not and gives its characters something the actors can work with, but The Purple Monster Strikes?  Nada.

Every line is a clunky flat declarative sentence exposition dump of the “I’ll take this strange medallion we discovered to Harvey the metallurgist to analyze” variety.

Even Linda Sterling can’t do anything with this though she tries to find an appropriate facial expression for whatever scene she’s thrown in.

As for nominal star Dennis Moore, I won’t say he’s wooden but in one of the innumerable fight scenes Barcroft hurls a coatrack at him and for that brief moment the coatrack delivers a far more memorable performance.

Sidebar on the fight scenes: They are choreographed expertly, among some of the best Republic ever staged, but directors Spencer Gordon Bennet and Fred C. Brannon -- both serial veterans who could do much, much better -- really dropped the ball in shooting them.  They’re shot almost entirely in wide angle longshots using slightly sped up photography instead of intercutting to keep the pacing fast.

The rest of the cast consists mostly of stuntmen carefully enunciating their one line before the fists start flying, or older male actors who deliver surprisingly good performances compared to everyone else.

But that script -- oh, lordie, that script!  This was made in 1945 and they’ve got a damn organ grinder in it!  Organ grinders vanished from the public sphere with the damn of movies; by the 1940s they were found only in comic books and animated cartoons; in other words, kid stuff.***

It’s clear the writers on The Purple Monster Strikes (Royal Cole, Albert DeMond, Basil Dickey, Lynn Perkins, Joseph Poland, and Barney Sarecky) considered this mere juvenile pablum, not worthy of even the smattering of sophistication they sprinkled on Federal Operator 99.

An adult can watch Federal Operator 99 and at least feel the story makes some kind of sense and the characters, however imperfectly enacted, at least offer adult motives and behaviors, but The Purple Monster Strikes is just insulting to the intelligence (I mean, they call the female Martian invader Marsha.  Seriously?).

Okay, so why do I think this is worth writing about?

Because The Purple Monster Strikes is the bridge between WWII and the Cold War.

Most of the major tropes of 1950s sci-fi are reactions to Cold War anxieties, and those anxieties are transplanted WWII anxieties.

Before WWII, American moneyed interests waged a relentless PR campaign against communism, socialism, and labor unions (sound familiar?).

Forced to make peace with the Soviets during WWII, these moneyed interests -- now heavily invested in what Dwight D. Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex -- bit their lips as US pop culture portrayed the Russians as gallant allies against fascism (and they were; credit where credit is due).

As soon as the war ended, however, and in fact, even a little before the end (see The Best Years Of Our Lives; great movie), they were already recasting the Russians as treacherous authoritarian atheists out to conquer the world.

As noted earlier, American audiences felt weary of a relentless diet of war related entertainment and in the waning days of the war turned eagerly to non-war related stories. 

Likewise studios, not wanting to get caught with rapidly dating WWII related material nobody wanted to see began actively developing different kinds of stories.

After four years of intense anxiety, the country needed to come down but couldn’t go cold turkey.  Science fiction (and hardboiled mysteries and spy thrillers) provided safe decompression.

1945 marks a significant sea change in Republic serial production.  Sci-fi would become a more predominant theme, infiltrating other genres such as the ever popular masked mastermind (viz. The Crimson Ghost).

Federal Operator 99 would be the last highwater mark for more plausible serial stories, but crime and undercover espionage remained serial staples to the bitter end.

Only Manhunt Of Mystery Island seemed a misfire and even in that case it only meant the masked mastermind returned to more traditional origins instead of the inventive backstory created for Captain Mephisto.  

What The Purple Monster Strikes did was take a very familiar set of WWII cliches and stereotypes then recast them in a (relatively) safe science fictional context.

The closest prototype to The Purple Monster Strikes is Republic’s G-Men Vs. The Black Dragon, as racially offensive as you could hope to imagine, and turn the inscrutable “yellow” villains into malevolent purple ones (later green when colorization was added).

By making the literally other worldly alien the “other”, 1950s sci-fi sidestepped the worst implications of their own themes:  

Invasion 

Subversion 

Fifth columns 

Loss of soul / identity / individuality (personified in bodily possession by alien intellects)

Paranoia

The Purple Monster Strikes lacks the wit and wherewithal to fully exploit these ideas, but it sure could hold them up for everyone to get a quick glimpse.

As childish and as inane as the plot may be, by the end when hero and heroine realize there is literally no one they can trust, The Purple Monster Strikes dropped a depth charge into preteen psyches fated to go off six years later with the arrival of The Thing From Another World and countless other sci-fi films and TV episodes afterwards.

Did The Purple Monster Strikes create this trend?  No, of course not – but as Stephen King pointed out in Danse Macabre regarding the incredibly inane The Horror Of Party Beach’s selection of nuclear waste dumping as their raison d'être for their monsters:

“I’m sure it was one of the least important points in their preproduction discussions and for that reason it becomes very important.”

King’s point is by not giving the matter much thought, The Horror Of Party Beach’s producers simply tapped into a subconscious gestalt already running through the culture and said, “Yeah, nuclear waste, wuddup widdat?”

Likewise, The Purple Monster Strikes’ producers / directors / writers didn’t sit themselves down to analyze Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four but rather picked up on the forever war current already moving through the American body politic.

War without end, war without ceasing.

And if we can’t define an enemy by name or place, so much the better!  The war on crime, the war on poverty, the war on drugs…

The war on terror.

The forever war thrives on the faceless unknowable enemy with the unknown but clearly malevolent anti-American agenda.

“Them”…against…U.S.

As an artistic achievement, The Purple Monster Strikes is sadly lacking in nearly all aspects, but as a cultural artifact, it’s still a clear warning.

Only not about “them” but about…us.

  © Buzz Dixon 

  *  read “cheap”

** Republic’s low budget backed them into an overlapping series of sci-fi serials, loosely referred to as the Rocket Man / Martian invasion serials by fans.  The Purple Monster Strikes’ costume was reused for Flying Disc Man From Mars (which featured a semi-circular flying wing already featured in Spy Smasher and King Of The Mounties) and again for Zombies Of The Stratosphere, but between those two serials the wholly unrelated King Of The Rocket Men was released.  Zombies… is a sequel to both Flying Disc Man… and King Of The Rocket Men but Radar Men From The Moon introduces a new character -- Commando Cody -- who wears the same rocket pack as the heroes of King… and Zombies… but faces a lunar, not Martian menace then he spins off to become Commando Cody:  Sky Marshall Of The Universe in a quasi-serial (i.e., no cliff-hangers, each chapter a complete adventure) fighting a third alien invasion!

***  Or the works of Bertolt Brecht, but that ain’t what Republic’s going for here.

#Roy Barcroft #The Purple Monster Strikes #serial #sci-fi movies #1950s science fiction movies #Cold War

[cdyssey]

“Lyra’s Jordan” Reaction:

Hello!! I just recently got into the His Dark Materials series, and now that I’m almost done with the The Subtle Knife, I wanted to start the first season of the show! It caught my eye on Tumblr and made me want to start the books in turn. I’ve heard such good things about the series, and I’m keen to see what it does with this gorgeous world of Pullman’s.

DJDJS, nooooo, not the expositional text scrawl. I get it. You have to introduce people to this world, but still.

OH, it’s Asriel, Stelmaria, and Lyra!!!!!

Aughshsh, baby Lyra smiling at the Master. 😭

Lmao, the canon of Asriel literally just dropping his baby off at a college is objectively the funniest thing in the world. The Master is just like, Wtf? What is wrong with you, man? (To which the right answer, ofc, is a lot of things.)

OH, Dafne Keen is already everything I’ve ever wanted in a Lyra adaptation. Playful, witty, adventurous, (currently) carefree. The type of girl who has no qualms playing with a skeleton’s bones.

And I’m also really glad we get to see these shots of Lyra and Roger playing together. It feels like such a real childhood friendship.

Ooooooh, the show’s letting us see what Asriel’s up to even when Lyra’s not around, which I think is a great move. In the book, Asriel really only showed up at the beginning and end, so having some extra content to help flesh out his character is nice.

Whoa! The title credits and score are so pretty. They remind me of the ones from The Crown.

The Librarian’s fond smile at Lyra when she says please is wonderful. And then she yeets out JSJSJSJSJS. Perfect Lyra.

“The retiring room is expressly forbidden!” / “Not for family reunions.” SJSJSJ.

The Master’s hand shaking as he pours the poison into the Tokay. 🥺

They did such a good job capturing Stelmaria’s air of elegance and regality. I love her VA!!!

God @ Asriel pinning Lyra down. You suck. When I was reading the book, I didn’t know what to think of him until this precise moment, which shaded all my impressions of him from there on out.

(Holistically, tho, I actually do love both his and Mrs. Coulter’s characters. They’re both stunningly vile, but Pullman invests them with such interesting nuances that they’re genuinely two of the most electric characters in a series full of electric characters.)

God @ Lyra rubbing her shoulder after Asriel lets her go. Worst. Father. Of. The. Year.

“I’m sure he had a good reason. To be honest with you, if I were him, I would be afraid of me.” / Huh, I don’t remember if these lines were in the book, but the self-awareness here is really interesting. Asriel knows that he’s playing with dangerous fires, and he’s still doing it anyway.

That sweater on Asriel? And that little gray curl in his hair? Hot damn.

A subtle worldbuilding detail that the show was spot on to pay attention to is how all of the Scholars are essentially old men.

Between Asriel and Dr. Malone, Pullman really understands how much of academia runs on asking for grants hahahaha.

OH, MY GOD. IS THAT MA COSTA.

SHE’S SO WARM AND LOVELY AND OH MY GOD. BILLY. HE’S SO SMALL. JESUS.

And the inclusion of this little coming of age ceremony is beautiful. 😭 The Gyptians are so wonderfully communal.

BILLY 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭.

Aufh, Asriel carrying a sleeping Lyra to bed. That’s so soft.

Ur still a shitty father, tho.

But you’re a nuanced man, and I appreciate that.

Lyra waking up and smiling gently in realization. Asriel untying her shoes. Oh, my g o d.

“Can I see the man’s head?” / “No, why would I let you do that?” KWEODIDJ.

This Master and Librarian conversation has me tender. They both care for Lyra so much.

Lyra desperately pleading for Asriel to take her with him. 😭😭 And Asriel’s response: “I am sorry, but I just don’t have time for you right now.”

GOD.

“Did it look like this?” / “What?” / “The airship that my parents died in.” / “No. No, it was smaller.” Jesus.

Something that got me from the books, and that gets me here, too, is that the adults in Lyra’s life had had a similar refrain. “A college is no place for a child.” “The North is no place for a child.” And because these are the only paradigms that Lyra knows, whether through experience or imagination, the most consistent lesson that she’s ever been taught is that there is no place where she belongs.

JOHN FAA!! I love him.

And man, I’m really appreciating the way the show is paying close attention to the Gyptians, who are marginalized in their world. The way that they’re organizing to look for Billy just has me feeling some type of way.

OH? Lord Boreal!!??

“That includes her.” IT’S TIME.

I’m not going to lie. The Tumblr gif that got me interested in the series was a set of Ruth Wilson acting her ass off, so I’m ready to be hurt by her in so many more ways than one.

LMAO, this evil theme at her power walk entrance. Perfect.

The golden monkey!! He looks so deceptively cute here.

It is insane how much Dafne and Ruth weirdly favor each other. If you told me that they were really related, I’d actually believe you.

Thinks about how this is the first time Mrs. Coulter has seen her daughter in, like 12 years.

Also, ooooh, the Master in the background is intently monitoring the conversation because he knows how significant it is, and ofc, he’s absolutely wary of Mrs. C.

She’s so soft-spoken here. 😭

AUGH, and her reaching up to briefly stroke Lyra’s cheek.

“You feel utterly alone. And you feel utterly... magnificent.”

Lyra’s wide-eyed adoration of Mrs. C breaks my heart. It only makes the revelation of her true nature all the more awful. Though she doesn’t know it at this point, Lyra looks up to both of her parents, and both of them so completely fail her.

Wow, in the show, is the implication is that Mrs. Coulter gets Roger kidnapped because Lyra talked about him to her??????? Brutal.

OH, GOD. RUTH WILSON’S FACE AT LYRA UNRESTRAINEDLY HUGGING HER FOR THE FIRST TIME. THE SURPRISE, the CONFUSION, the TENDERNESS.

Roger. 😭

Ma Costa sobbing and Tony hugging her oh my g o d. I’m upset. It is no coincidence that this scene almost comes directly on the heels of the Mrs. Coulter/Lyra hug. The juxtaposition is bonechilling. Mrs. Coulter is partaking in the joys of motherhood for the first time, and Ma Costa is contending with the grief of missing a child directly because of everything that Mrs. Coulter is doing.

“Lord Asriel himself brought it to the college when you were just a baby.” Cue the Master and Librarian smiling fondly at their little Lyra, remembering. 🥺

Lyra frantically shrieking for Roger stings. The show did an excellent job of capturing their friendship—honestly, better than the books I would argue.

“BECAUSE YOU’VE BEEN A GOOD AND STRONG MOTHER TO HIM, MAGGIE.” I’m crying a little at this line because my name is Maggie, and so now I love Ma Costa even more if that’s at all possible.

John Faa’s casting is pitch perfect. He’s authoritative and stern but so caring and compassionate at the same time.

In an alternate universe, Mrs. Coulter and Lyra track down the Gobblers would be such a badass plot line.

“We’ll have plenty of time to discuss whenever you wish.” Wow, this line echoes Asriel’s from earlier: “I am sorry, but I just don’t have time for you right now.” But the irony is that they’re both saying nearly the same thing. Mrs. Coulter may say this, but she absolutely doesn’t mean it.

OH, the complexities here!! The monkey noticing that Lyra shoves the alethiometer deeper into her pocket, Pan noticing the monkey growling, and then Mrs. Coulter looking up. Such quick but charged moments.

What a magnificent first episode. I’m already hooked.

#his dark materials #lyra silvertongue #marisa coulter #lord asriel #ma costa #roger #john faa #f: his dark materials #reginian blogs #maggie blogs

[thehonestbanana]

Hi I’m bored let’s go through Onision’s shitty FAQ.

https://focal.bio/onision-faq

Is Onision married? Yes, to a man named Kai.

It sounds so cold and bitter doesn’t it? Honestly all his answers are cold and robotic. Also yeah he’s married, he almost left this husband after he just gave birth to their daughter whom he cried after finding out the baby was gonna a girl. Also cheated many times.

Is Onision vegan? Onision eats mostly vegetables, eggs, salmon & fruit.

So fucking no...you’re a pescatarian? What the fuck Greg. No. If you eat salmon, which is an animal, which is meat(his own words) you’re not VEGAN. Vegan eats NO animal products whatsoever. Also who gives a fuck what you eat greg.

What does "Onision" mean? It means "One divine community" or "Japanese demon heaven" depending on how you break down the word.

Hehehehehe.

This is cannon don’t @ me. I know but let me laugh at this.

Where did Onision grow up? In Washington State, mostly in the city of Auburn.

Eh who cares.

What Is Onision's age? Onision was born in 1985.

SKSKSKS YOURE 34 GREG! YOURE HOPING YOUR FANS AREN’T OLD ENOUGH TO COUNT! YOU. ARE. 34. That doesn’t make you look younger Greg!

How old is Onision's husband? Onision's husband was born in 1994.

Creepy ass. That looks bad, he’s trying to also them look younger by saying the year and not their ages. Nah Greg. If anything it makes you seem older.

Is Onision a dad? Yes, Onision is a father.

Why yes, my programming says I am, indeed, a father.

See what I mean?! He sounds so robotic. And yeah unfortunately he is a father to two beautiful kids he doesn’t give to fucks about :c

Who is Gregory Jackson? Gregory Jackson is the name Onision's mom had him go by in school.

....just say it’s your old last name. Or your moms maidan name. See what I mean?! Like I know this is grge but my god. He speaks in third person, just say “it’s my moms maidan name.” Also who gives a fuck?!

Is Onision dead? As of 7/12/2020 Onision remains alive.

Actually Greg your career has been dead since 2007. Also wtf was the point of adding this?

When was Onision married? Onision was married in 2012.

When his husband was freshly well into his 18’s 18 and he was 26. And then cheated on many times.

Here comes the juicy shit boyos, gal pals, non binary buddies.

What is Onision's stance on circumcision? Onision feels it is up to each individual to decide what they want for their own body.

This is an FAQ about gag so technically it fits...but.... what does this gotta do with anything? I guess he’s still bitter he is and it’s fucked up or something. Either way it’s such a random thing to bring up...

Why is Onision called onion boy? Many apps correct the word "Onision" to "onion" so the nickname came naturally.

Lmao fuck off greg. Not at all. It’s like he’s trying to take back the word: whatever you say fuckface.

What is Onision's name? James

Greg Daniel Jackson Avowhogivesa shit James Jackson. More names than Christopher Christian Ricardo Christine Weston Chandler.

What is Onision's Instagram?That would be @OnisionPrime

I swore it was taken down, but then I remember he got it back and screeched some honesty shit.

How tall is Onision? 5 feet 11 inches

More like 5’8

Does Onision have siblings? Yes, two sisters plus a half-sister.

What happened to your black foster brother Greg? You brought him up like once... where’s he?

Is Onision Canadian? No, Onision was born in the United States.

His ex who he abused mentally emotionally and maybe even physically was from Canada. Also who the hell cares Greg.

This ones my favorite.

Is Onision related to Shane Dawson? No, they are not blood related.

HES ALWAYS GOTTA BRING UP SHANE NO MATTER WHAT😂😂 GOD HES SO PATHETIC!! HE STILL LIVES IN 2007 WHERE HE WAS KNOWN AS DISCOUNT SHANE DAWSON OH GOD HOW EMBARRASSING!!!

What is Onision doing now? Onision is an adult model and a music producer.

Nooo he’s a “p0rN sTar” and music producer my hot ass. You’re a grown ass man who plays the same 3 keys on your crusty keyboard and talks, not sing, not rap... monotone stupid bullshit. You’re also not a PORN STAAAAR like you claim you need to do porn to be a porn star. Showing your flat misshapened ass in the same pose 50 times doesn’t make you a porn star it makes you a sad grown ass man who refuses to get a real job to support his family.

Now... my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE.... drum roll pls!?

.

.

.

There it is. The one successful thing Greg has ever done with his life. He holds onto that more than he holds onto Shane’s name. He’s “best known” now as a fucking predator. Look up his name the articles about him being such is all we see. The first thing! Greg has to hold on to his one twinkle of fame, the one thing he can say was successful in his decade old “career.” It’s so sad how much he has to remind everyone of this stupid video that’s not even good, it’s aged just as well as Greg has. Normally in a FAQ sure I can see this being something someone puts, but Greg holds onto this shitty video more than he ever held his kids. He stuck to this shitty kind of humor and never evolved, that’s why he’s irrelevant and always will be, he stays in his time.

God he’s been active for a decade. 10+ years and this is his life... he went from making one successful video to shoving things up his ass for 2 bucks. Technically .000000008 of a cent because he always has goddamn sales. He’s seriously desperate for money he went back to Patreon; with all the sales he thinks more people will come and he can get more customers, but no ones buying his shit. He literally is at rock bottom now, next month is the last checkup on the wetlands and it’s clear he’s desperate for the money, that’s also why he came back to youtube after he left for the millionth time. He’s so desperate it’s pathetic at this point, he rather expose himself online than get a real job to pay for his dumbass.

Anyway... TLRD: his FAQ is stupid, he holds onto shit forever, sounds like a damb robot.

#anti onision #onision

[nerianasims]

Billboard #1s 1985

Under the cut.

Foreigner -- "I Want To Know What Love Is" -- February 2, 1985

One of the quintessential 80s power ballads. It's actually kind of interesting if you think about it enough. He's not in love yet, but he's gotten sick of not being in love, so he's asking someone he's in the pre-love stage with to show him. Though he's had "heartache and pain" before, and doesn't know if he can face it again. It's not consistent. I feel like it's a missed opportunity, but oh well. It's good enough for what it is.

Wham! -- "Careless Whisper" -- February 16, 1985

Oh my god I love the saxophone in this. The music throughout the song is so incredibly sexy. And this is the kind of song George Michael's voice was made for. He's totally capable of sounding both hot and in agony at the same time. I actually adore a whole lot of cheating songs -- mostly, though not exclusively, the tormented kind. Drama! Love! Sex! Angst! Gorgeous.

REO Speedwagon -- "Can't Fight This Feeling" -- March 9, 1985

<3. He keeps singing "r"s like a pirate, but he doesn't go as hard on the other consonants, so I'm good with it. Lyrically, this song sounds like it might be two songs mashed together. "What started out as friendship has grown stronger" or "my life has been such a whirlwind since I saw you." Well which is it? Except I've had that happen. I love this song.

Phil Collins -- "One More Night" -- March 30, 1985

This is a depressing heartbreak song without the saving grace of any of Phil Collins' neat drum stuff. Blah.

We Are the World -- April 13, 1985

Whoo boy. I was 8 when this came out. Obviously I loved it. All the kids loved it. Now, though... I'm sorry, but it's bad. Really bad. Many others have gone deeply into why it's bad. I feel acutely embarrassed listening to it, so I'm just running away from it as fast as possible. (Remember all those celebrities singing "Imagine" in their mansions in 2020? I blame this song for that.)

Madonna -- "Crazy For You" -- May 11, 1985

This is one of Madonna's most straightforward love songs. Maybe the most, period. This or "Cherish," and this is a better song. It's lovely. Like Olivia Newton-John, Madonna can act a song. (Unlike in most movies she's been in.) But what I'm thinking about now is learning in this article that her label wouldn't let Madonna release "Into the Groove" as a single. That song was huge. It was played on the radio all the time. If it had been released as a single, or maybe if Billboard had tracked songs then like it does today, it would have been a massive smash, definitely #1. "Into the Groove" is also the best song of her very early career. "Crazy for You" is good, but not nearly as special.

Simple Minds -- "Don't You Forget About Me" -- May 18, 1985

As I am "Gen X", I am supposed to deeply connect with The Breakfast Club. I was 8 years old when it came out. My life as a teenager was nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, like that movie. I didn't recognize any of the "types." I liked the movie when I saw it in college, mostly, but the whole sexual harassment turns into a relationship deal was not seen as cool any longer. The "jocks vs. nerds" thing also felt very dated. The school in the movie was bigger and richer than mine, but it's a fantasy.

Anyway, though I don't feel much about the movie, its breakout song was really good. It does speak to a real fear both in graduating high school and during young adult relationships. I haven't forgotten the people I knew in high school, as far as I know, but obviously they don't have the same importance to me any longer. I'm Facebook friends with a lot of them. And very much not with a couple who were the most important then, because we grew apart -- or blasted apart. One of the nicest girls I knew in high school thinks there's a war on Christmas. Another keeps trying to get me to join her MLM. One of my best friends became my first boyfriend, and I don't regret that, but it was also a semi-disaster. And others... we just have nothing to say to each other any longer.

So, Breakfast Club: I don't connect with at all. "Don't You Forget About Me": Speaks to something very real and timeless.

Wham! -- "Everything She Wants" -- May 25, 1985

What a dick. Songs in which the narrator is a colossal jerk are perfectly fine, of course, but this one gets under my skin. He's whining about his wife getting pregnant when she's dissatisfied with their life and that they're broke. As if it's something she chose to do to him. She's stuck creating a whole other person with her blood and flesh, and he thinks it's all and entirely about him. I really hate it.

Tears for Fears -- "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" -- June 8, 1985

I can't hear this song without thinking of this Baldur's Gate fan trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdd06d2nids. Speaking of which, I am incredibly excited for Baldur's Gate 3. I've been reading the early access reviews on Steam, and anything anyone is saying that's negative is stuff I don't gaf about (except bugs), whereas the positive stuff, I care about deeply. I hope it's got some of the feeling of that trailer. Um, right, Tears for Fears.

Honestly, though, it works best as a Baldur's Gate theme song. I don't think everybody actually wants to rule the world. It sounds good though. And pretty different from other stuff around it. But I like Lorde's cover better, and not just because it fits so wonderfully with all sorts of fantasy stories.

I usually play a paladin or paladin-type the first time in fantasy RPGs, but I'm thinking bard this time.

Bryan Adams -- "Heaven" -- June 22, 1985

He's been with this woman since they were young, and while they've broken up and gone through rough patches, now they're together forever and they're "in heaven." Bryan Adams knew exactly how to write a song that would become a hit. I used to not mind it at all, but it also means nothing to me. The chorus is catchy as hell though. So catchy that I ended up waking up with it in my head and it would not leave for hours and hours, so now I resent this song.

Phil Collins -- "Sussudio" -- July 6, 1985

I refuse to believe anyone ever told Phil Collins he was too young. He was born middle-aged. Anyway, the narrator isn't supposed to be him, so it's fine, but it's still kinda funny. He's got a crush on someone who doesn't even know his name, but "she's all I need all of my life." Um. The music is repetitive, the drums aren't as interesting as Phil Collins at his best, and I don't like the lyrics. I don't hate it, but I don't like it either.

Duran Duran -- "View to a Kill" -- July 13, 1985

I'm not sure I've ever heard this song before. It's about as good a song as the Bond movie they wrote it for was as a movie. In other words, it's bad. I'm not even sure there's a melody. Just a mess. "Ordinary World" would have made a far better Bond theme, but of course that was the 90s, when Duran Duran decided to try to make sense both lyrically and musically.

Paul Young -- "Every Time You Go Away" -- July 27, 1985

I like the high keyboard notes in this. They're sort of haunting. The rest of the song is musically pretty good, too. Lyrically though, it's only passable. This woman keeps leaving him every time "the leading man" shows up, so I guess he's the backup. Why does he keep waiting for her anyway? There's no hint in the song. I'm kind of embarrassed for him.

Tears for Fears -- "Shout" -- August 3, 1985

I think "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" is a better song than this one when done by Lorde. But I think "Shout" is a better song than Tears for Fears' original iteration of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World." The chorus seems clear enough. But the verses are not. "They gave you life/ And in return you gave them hell" makes sense in isolation, but then there's a bunch of stuff that doesn't go with it. Like "I'd really love to break your heart" -- wtf? But the music is really good. 

Huey Lewis and the News -- "The Power of Love" -- August 24, 1985

This was the big song for Back to the Future, and it meshed beautifully with the movie, but it doesn't need that association to be a great song. "Don't need money, don't take fame/ Don't need no credit card to ride this train/ It's strong and it's sudden, it can be cruel sometimes/ But it might just save your life." Yep. It's sort of Motown, sort of rock, and I love it. (Also: "Stronger and harder than a bad girl's dream." Heh.)

John Parr -- "St. Elmo's Fire" -- August 24, 1985

Of all the John Hughes movies I have not seen and do not plan to see, St. Elmo's Fire sure is one of them. The song is about a disabled man who inspired people by rolling himself cross-country in his wheelchair for charity, which has absolutely nothing to do with the movie. I'm disabled, and I just... okay look, what he did was admirable. But we shouldn't have to be inspirations to be counted as worthwhile, and I've been told I should die because I can't produce for capitalism, so you know. I've got some personal issues with this and I'm gonna move along.

Dire Straits -- "Money for Nothing" -- September 21, 1985

This is not Dire Straits' best song, but it's an awfully fun one. I watched the video tons when I was a kid. (That sound is Tipper Gore falling to the floor in a dead faint.) The music is great rock. And the lyrics are very true-to-life. You can either sanitize people or present them as they are honestly, and I know which I prefer.

Ready for the World -- "Oh Sheila" -- October 12, 1985

The band's from Michigan. The English accent at the beginning of the song is fake. That's a good preview for the song, which sounds like a 3rd-rate Prince knockoff at best. Blech.

a-ha -- "Take On Me" -- October 19, 1985

The video totally ripped off one of my aunts. Somehow or other, they saw into the little comic she drew for me about someone going into a land of drawings to rescue someone else in a romantic adventure, years before 1985. Anyway, this song is great musically, massively synthesizer heavy without sounding artificial. Though I can only understand maybe a third of the lyrics as he sings them. I've always understood "It's no better to be safe than sorry" though. Yep, at least when it comes to romance, which is what they're singing about here.

Whitney Houston -- "Saving All My Love for You" -- October 26, 1985

It's not better to be safe than sorry, but that doesn't mean it's good to be an absolute idiot in matters of romance either. Nor is it good to be a colossal jerk. That's what the narrator is here -- the "you" she's singing to is married. And he won't leave his wife and children, though he used to say he would. The lyrics seem to say that's she's accepted the situation, but the way Houston sings it, I think the narrator's trying to get him to leave his wife -- and children -- for her still. This makes sense, as it puts some kind of passion and sense of story into the song, which without Houston's singing would not be there. The narrator certainly never acknowledges that what she's doing is wrong in the slightest iota. This song could be done in a way that works. But it's a completely sincere ballad. So, no. I despise the narrator, I despise the man she's singing to more, and the whole thing leaves me feeling gross.

Stevie Wonder -- "Part Time Lover" -- November 2, 1985

No one's thinking anyone's gonna leave anyone in this one. It's about cheating, and the thrill of it, but then at the end, he's found out his wife's cheating on him too. "I guess that two can play the game/ Of part-time lovers." This kind of funk groove is one way you make a song like this. It makes the whole thing sexy and fun, and the lyrics also work even beyond that ending, because they acknowledge it's wrong.

Jon Hammer -- "Miami Vice Theme" -- November 9, 1985

My parents didn't watch Miami Vice. And then I never felt like watching it in re-runs when I got older. I don't recognize this song. It's an energetic instrumental, but there's so much going on, I keep trying to figure out if there's a main musical idea anywhere. Nope. Just lots and lots of synth. Headache-inducing.

Starship -- "We Built This City" -- November 16, 1985

Blech. This song sounds both unfinished and overproduced somehow. The chorus seems designed to be catchy with absolute ruthlessness by people who didn't really care, and no one involved even seems to want to bother to fake it.

Phil Collins & Marilyn Martin -- "Separate Lives" -- November 30, 1985

This is supposed to be heart-wrenchingly sad. Well, it does tank my dopamine, but that's not what a good sad song does. A good sad song makes you feel better. This one makes me need to turn on something high-energy after about 30 seconds, before I sink into bleakness. It's aggressively boring.

Mr. Mister -- "Broken Wings" -- December 7, 1985

This was one of the first songs I recorded from the radio. On my pink tape deck/radio that was a sort of a mini boom box. I've always had my own tape player since I can remember, but that was a definite upgrade from the Sesame Street one. I was 9 then, so getting more seriously into music and developing my own taste intentionally, rather than simply absorbing what was happening around me.

Anyway, the song. It's about a relationship in trouble, and he wants to stay with her. To me it sounds like she has been so seriously hurt (and not by him), that she can't trust anyone, and he's laying himself on the line for her. That has spoken to me deeply ever since I first heard the song as a child. Moving on to the music: While the lyrics are repetitive, the music is not, which is what makes the song so good. It's a beautiful song.

Lionel Richie -- "Say You, Say Me" -- December 21, 1985

I look forward to Lionel Richie no longer being on the charts. This song was on the soundtrack of some movie I've never heard of. I wish I'd never heard of the song. Totally artificial glop.

BEST OF 1985: "Don't You Forget About Me" by Simple Minds  WORST OF 1985: "We Built This City" by Starship

#billboard number ones

[ten-ten31]

Dear Yuletide Writer

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Thank you so much for writing for me! :) I can't tell you just how excited I am. This is my first Yuletide and I guess I'm super nervous, but also looking forward to it. :)

Please feel free to browse my ao3 (KitKaos) and/or tumblr to get an idea of what I stan, like, read or write. I hope I can give you some broad ideas and inspirations in this letter to help you plan. Do feel free to fall back on my general likes if the prompts don't do anything for you. Or just use the prompts, whatever works best for you. Oh, and should you, dear Yuletide Santa, want to write in German and not in English, then I'm definitely okay with that. I'm fluent in both, so whichever you feel more comfortable with. If there's something missing or if you have a question, you can reach out to me via the mods.

General likes: I'm a sucker for the old friends-to-lovers or even enemies-to-lovers (with all the drama of grudginly admitting that the other party maybe isn't all that terrible and all). Things I'll never get tired of include coffeeshop AUs, spy AUs, musical AUs, found families, fake dating, pining, crossdressing, drunken shenanigans, fish-out-of-water situations, pop culture references, etc. Just about any kind of scene you can sneak in there about cooking or eating food (also characters being picky about certains foods and other characters going to some lengths to accommodate that) will make me happy, too. I do have a thing for descriptions of food and expecially impressions of taste - and if you want to make it kinky: food play. ;) I also have a bit of a hand fetish - so descriptions of hands are always welcome. If you want to do it, I probably also won't say no to someone breaking the Fourth Wall, any kind of alternate history AU, crossovers of my fandoms, or even some lovely steampunk aesthetics.

Do Not Want: rape/dubcon/noncon, watersports, scat, humiliation, A/B/O, soulmates AU, vampire/werewolf AU, second-person pov, character bashing of any kind.

*

Fandoms

Just two more thing before I go into detail: 1. The prompts below are nothing more than ideas - feel free to ignore them if you have a better one. :) 2. Not all of the characters need to be used in every prompt; pick and choose as desired.

*

Dial H for Hero (DC Comics)

- Summer Pickens, Miguel Montez

The 2019 12-issue run is just pure love! There is worldbuilding galore, relatable characters, a wonderful coming-of-age and initiation plot, interdimensional shenanigans, the question how Joe Average could get addicted to sudden superpowers, and so much fun with the concept of Superhero Secret Origins. Summer is a wonderfully strong and caring female lead and Miguel is a self-conscious little oddball.

As for prompts: Seeing more of their Metropolis adventures or Red/Yellow/Blue/Black Dial transformations would definitely be a lot of fun. Also, there's this cute boy Miguel asks out in the comics and I would love to see that first date. And what about Summer? She definitely won't be reduced to sidekick!

Feel free to include any other ((teenage) superhero) cameos you feel like. Please do not pair up Summer and Miguel romantically - although I don't have any problems with a fake relationship fic for them. ;)

Where to find it: Your trusted comicbook supplier.

Masks: A New Generation (Roleplaying Game)

- any / worldbuilding

I only just disovered Masks as an RPG, and ever since I started playing, it's probably the most fun rping I've had in a long time. I love that playbooks are not by the type of power but the type of problem each teenager faces personally. Like, how do you juggle school, first love, being different in a way no one should know about, being different maybe in a way people will immediately see, adults telling you who to be, chores, and being part of a young superhero team that wants to make a name for themselves? It's hard. And the best sessions alternate between deep emotional connections, hilarious teenage drama and great action scenes.

As for prompts: I would love me some good worldbuilding - so maybe there is a reason the Scarlet Songbird is still around? What was Halcyon City like back in the days of the Golden-Age heroes? What has changed since then? How do especially the older generations view the naming conventions going around for new heroes? Is there a code to follow? Who in Halcyon City pays for all the damage to buildings and infrastructure caused by superhero-supervillain fights? What was it like back in the olden days for the Golden Age heroes as opposed to now?  Are there cultural exchange programs with any of the alien races visiting from time to time? Give me a day in the life of an average Halcyon City citizen - they don't even have to be all that close to an epic fight or something. Just their way of coping with the daily madness of a huge city housing most of the world's superheroes. If you like something a little more character-specific: The one actual-play podcast that does it best in my opinion are the Theatre of the Mind Players with their "Future Shock" and "Past Tense" seasons of Masks. And I would love to read more about these characters. Have Sparrow and Figment finally get together. Give me a glimpse of how Horizon assembled his ersatz mom. What will Helix and Remix get up to?

Where to find it: The core rulebook is available from Magpie Games. The Theatre of the Mind Players’ Masks sessions can be found on Youtube.

Super Sons (Comics)

- Jonathan Samuel Kent, Damian Wayne

Super Sons is how I finally came to like and care for Damian Wayne - which, if you know me, is a major achievement! He is still a huge brat, don't get me wrong, but Jon's influence on him and the way he is confronted with certain issues he has... it's magical! It's wholesome! It's healing! They are both so fiercely protective of each other, and they both grow as characters from their experiences with each other.

As for prompts: So, dear Yuletide Santa, give me character growth and banter and friendship galore. I can see slumber parties at Wayne Manor or at the Kent farm. I can see them getting lost in space and time. I can see more adventures once they're at the same school. I can see a canon-divergence AU where Jon is finally admitted into the the Teen Titans at age 13 - how would that go? Or how about an Interrail Buddies AU?

If you want to write slashfic for them, I will not say no but would probably prefer to age them up a bit. I also most definitely don't mind any background appearances of any of their families.

Where to find it: Your trusted comicbook supplier.

Superman Returns (2006)

- any (Clark Kent, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Richard White)

I still love this movie a lot - not because it's particularly spectacular, but it treats the characters with love, it treats the legacy of the Reeve movies with love and it leaves SO MANY questions for fanfiction authors to answer. ;) I mean, I've been a Superman fan for a long time and I've discovered that I'm most comfortable with a Clark who wears a mask both as Clark Kent and as Superman, who isn't either of those two (and who is fallible). And whenever someone learns of his secret identity, they will see that he's so much more than either Clark or Superman. I know Lois is a fairly underdeveloped character in this movie, so I would love for her to be treated not just as a prize, especially since there were those years of her having to put her life back together after Supes just up and left.

As for prompts, I've always wondered about the different coping mechanisms (Lois turning bitter, Jimmy starting up daydrinking - WTF?!) and just how their day-to-day business changed without Clark and Supes there. Give me the Planet staff banding together to rescue Lois when she remembers just that second too late that there will be no superhero to save them (I also wouldn't mind any of the Bats helping out secretly, if that's up your alley). Give me Jimmy trying not to think too much and instead getting on Lois' nerves until he's rescued by Richard intervening. I am also an absolute sucker for continuation fics, so how do things settle down after what happens in the movie? I would love for some real Clark and Jimmy bonding moments, maybe even Jimmy finding out or having known all along and covered for Clark. I would love for some truce and real friendship blossoming between Clark and Richard, as they are both intelligent, compassionate, insightful men. If you want to include Jason anywhere, feel free to do that, as he makes for such a wonderful catalyst for disaster. Feel free to write gen or any canon pairings - I'm also okay with non-canon het/slash pairs (or threesomes) as long as they make sense in-universe. ;)

Where to find it: Sadly, the movie doesn’t seem to be streaming anywhere, but since it’s 14 years old now, you can buy it relatively cheap.

Young Justice (Comics)

- Tim Drake (but do feel free to have any of the other characters in the story, too)

No matter if you're into the old 1990s YJ comics, the companion comics to the cartoon show, or the new 2019/20 version of the comics - I love all of them! So much I don't even know where to begin... The snark! The lovable teenage stupidity! The friendship that goes above and beyond! My definite favourite is Tim, because he is such a bright, snarky, secretive, repressed little bird (the moment he takes off his domino mask to reveal a second one underneath? priceless)! I also love his deep friendship with the others because that's his found family. Yes, Batman is his mentor (even though Tim might understand B better than the other way round sometimes) and Dick is his older brother and idol (hero worship, anyone?), but Young Justice is where he wants to be himself and all of it.

As for prompts: Even though I did not put either Cassie or Cissie in my request as I want something Tim-centric, the dynamic with those two strong-willed girls is definitely something I would love to see explored more. Also how the dynamic with the bats is so very different than the Young Just Us dynamic. What's it like being the one without powers in a group of hormonal teenage superheroes? I also just realized that I would love to see more of Mister Sarcastic trolling the rest of the gang. Or how about: What if Tim had powers for one day? If you're into the 2019 comics, how about a 5+1 of Why Drake May Or May Not Be A Good Superhero Alias. If you want to include the rest of the gang, you're definitely more than welcome to. Tim and Kon's bickering and outright arguments in the beginning turning into such a solid friendship (or more) is something I can read about time and time again. Pretty much the same goes for Tim and Bart. Or how about some Wendy the Werewolf Stalker shenanigans? Why is having girls in your group a bad/good idea? How did Cassie's becoming the team's leader affect Tim's sense of self? Heck, if you feel like it, open up the love triangle Tim-Cassie-Kon since there's like a ton of history there. Oh, and anyway, why is Stephanie Brown never part of any of Tim's teams? Dear Yuletide Santa, do also feel free to include any of the other teens (I have a soft spot for Li'l Lobo/Slobo).

Where to find it: Your trusted comicbook supplier.

Overall, I’m sure I’ll love what you have for me, and I'm looking forward to reading it! <3

#yuletide 2020 #yuletide #dear yuletide writer #dyw #yulebuilding #cheftide #wrapping paper challenge 2020

[expression-in-its-essence]

The Goldfinch movie.

7 min 26 secs in : Why the fuck did they start the movie like that. Why didn't the explosion take place? Theo's mom's apartment? His anxiety? Also.. why do they keep cutting the scenes abruptly? They ain't tweets... No limit.. then??

8 min 2 sec in : Okay they went to the apartment. Audrey's sweater deserved more screen time. The lipstain on the mug in focus *chef's kiss* poetic cinema!

9 min 19 sec in : Do you see what I see? Tom Cable's face has a stark resemblance to Boris's face. Did Theo have a crush on him?

9 min 54 sec in : Mr Barbour's hand is shaking. I like that they put it in there. He was sick. Nice. (I'd imagined Audrey's apartment building entrance like they showed the Barbour's apartment building entrance. Wild.)

11 min 8 sec in : Don't shove it into his face that y'all are fancy okay? He's not used to that life style. He didn't have maids making his bed. ARE YOU GIVING HIM DRUGS, MRS BARBOUR? But you just glared at your husband for offering him the same sort of thing?? Oh God. Poor child. "it's perfectly understandable" my ass. You gave him meds just because your sleep was getting affected.

14 min 39 sec : Woah woah woah Theo wtf you're so smol how'd you do that? Also... Again. The frame of Theo and Tom standing close and Theo and Boris standing close when they kissed, Theo is wearing the same damn sweater.

16 min 58 sec in : Ayyyy Jeffery Wright!

20 min 33 sec in : "He drank a lot", Theo about his dad. Honey just wait up, you will too. (The grilled sandwich and the cute lil smile 😍 also this is the first time since the movie started that Oakes' voice isn't deep.)

23 min 54 sec in : Wizard of Oz poster, I see you!

24 min 19 sec in : I love how Oakes is expressing being caught off guard. Theo knows he did something bad and every time he's dealing with something he didn't expect to deal with, he's like OMG THEY KNOW ABOUT THE PAINTING AND IM FUCKED even if no one knows.

25 min 1 sec in : The glasses made a difference. He went from mature to cute. Angry bird to angry birb.

25 min 44 sec in : Another sweater? Or was this THE sweater of Audrey? (Off topic but Oakes is hella cute. I could murder anyone who hurts him.)

29 min 9 sec in : Pippa doesn't remember or doesn't wanna remember? There was something in her eyes that was hard to read. Also, why doesn't anyone say 'I'm sorry about your mom' to Theo? Do Americans not care? It's weird to see no response when he tells people that Audrey is dead.

31 min 17 sec in : "The Goldfinch, destroyed"? Then why is Theo upset. Good riddance. Oh yeah. I know why. It's Donna Tartt we're talking about.

32 min 39 sec in : Hobie just casually predicting the future. "It's only fake if you pass it on as an original". Theo's like, "noted, gonna do exactly that".

34 min 16 sec in : Why does Theo write like a five year old child? That's toddler handwriting! And omg all the Andy-prom-dress memes are making sense now. (Also did I mention that Mrs Barbour seems more selfish in the film than she does in the book. Like hey I'm putting up with this kid because he helps my kid. He's serving a purpose for me. What the hell.) (How old is Andy anyway? He looks younger than Theo. I think he's different. Didn't grow up like other kids. That was mentioned in the book right?)

35 min 20 sec in : Ayyy Hobie's earring!

35 min 49 sec in : He shopped for himself? Nice! Didn't know kids could shop without adult supervision in the West. (Because they can't in the East.)

35 min 50 sec in : Ayyyy Sarah Paulson! Damn she's hot. How can you dislike her? *heart eyes*

37 min 30 sec in : I can't bring myself to hate Luke Wilson since Skeleton Twins but SHUT THE FUCK UP LARRY! AUDREY DESERVED BETTER. Look at how Larry and Xandra are looking at the place like they're vultures.

39 min 34 sec : They got the airport scene right. STOP GIVING HIM DRUGS WTH IS WRONG WITH THE ADULTS IN THIS MOVIE!

41 min 12 sec in : Ayyy Popper!!!!!

43 min 27 sec in : It just dawned on Theo that he's alone. Oh god. My poor baby.

45 min 12 sec in : Let me take this moment to say that Ashleigh Cummings is pretty. And I finally get why y'all were pissed at the non linear storyline and the weird voiceovers. Guess I'd been prepared for that so it didn't really suck that much.

49 min 30 sec in : I'd imagined Boreo reunion like the Platt Theo reunion. In the day. Dang it. Also... Adult Platt Barbour was not supposed to be good looking? In the book?

55 min 34 sec in : Without context, none of it could make sense. Apologies to whoever didn't read the book beforehand. Crowley fucked this up.

58 min in : Ayyyy Finn Wolfhard! BORIS IS HERE AND IM SO EXCITED IDK WHY

1 hour in : It's such a Boris thing to leave the bag unzipped.

1 hour 3 min 20 sec in : Slumdog Millionaire's Jai Ho (2008) is playing in the background. The only song that I've recognized so far. Wow. Lets me know about the time setting. Nice.

1 hr 3 min in : Someone gif " That cost twenty dollars!" *Stare* "That would have cost twenty dollars!"

1 hr 8 min in : So Boris's room is exactly like I had imagined but Theo's room isn't. Boris just mentioned Kotku though.

1 hr 9 min 14 sec in : Isn't it hella hot in Vegas? Why are they wearing sweaters? Or does drug intake make you more vulnerable to the environment?

1 hr 10 min 15 sec in : Xandra Theo argument : gold. "Cocktail sausages that you like." I wanna laugh in Crowley's face. What was he thinking?? Omg I'm dying.

1 hr 11 min 17 sec in : The slap sound didn't work??

1 hr 13 min 53 sec in : I like serious Boris better.

1 hr 14 min in : The slum house Audrey dream thing was not in the book. That's an entirely new addition.

1 hr 18 min 26 sec in : The Welty Theo scene is awesome. The sound effects work. I feel suffocated. The ambulance noise fiasco is also nicely pulled off. (also Theo's Yellow bag was dirty af then how did it get all clean when he didn't even do anything to it?)

1 hr 20 min 57 sec in : Shhhh Potter.

1 hr 22 min in : Holy shit he got slapped twice!! Ouch! And Larry's audacity to tell Theo to stop with the crying?? Good thing he died. Asshole.

1 hr 25 min in : "You don't tell me a lot of things but that's okay". I see what you did there, Boris. Which was of course, I love you.

1 hr 26 min in : "Act normal" - Theo knows his way around drugs pretty well, doesn't he?

1 hr 30 min in : "No family No friends" line punched me in the face. (Also awww popchik's excuse was the last resort for Boris to make Theo stay.)

1 hr 31 min 17 sec in : That pause after "What do you have to tell me?". You can clearly see Boris struggling to hold something back. Which was of course, I love you.

1 hr 31 min 34 sec in : What the fuck is that music? Oh heyyyyyy they kissed!-- he fucking runs away?? Also what kind of a kangaroo runs like that? (Yes, the taxi driver watched. I don't have to wonder anymore.) (They didn't address why he took the bus instead of flying?)

1 hr 33 min in : I didn't imagine Welty's room like that at all. Also why doesn't Hobie seem happy to see Theo again?

1 hr 35 min in : Longer stretches of one storyline are kinda bearable. From drugs in storage unit to waking up beside Kitsey. We got Vegas and Young Theo. Nice. (Also, who the heck puts jewelry in shoes? Is Theo that dumb? And now I can't think of anything else than Boris piercing his ear for the emerald earring. Tumblr has fucked it up bad.)

1 hr 43 min in : They nailed the Kitsey Theo confrontation.

1 hr 44 min in : Ayyy Ozma of Oz!

1 hr 48 min in : I noticed it before but I wasn't sure... Now I am. Pippa has Welty's ring. On her finger. At all times. (also, is NYC always that noisy? Must suck to walk on the roads.)

1 hr 52 min 23 sec in : They nailed the Theo Pippa date. What's that song playing in the background? I want the name. It's almost like two hours and I still haven't seen Aneurin Barnard once. Why! (Jerome's mentioned in the movie btw.)

1 hr 52 min 51 sec in : Complained too soon. Boris is sat in the dark doing god knows what. My man Aneurin is here!

1 hr 53 min 37 sec in : BOREO REUNIONNNNNN - no don't look at me like that I only watched it thrice.

1 hr 56 min in : Boris saying "it's someone else" with a knowing look and Theo looking at him. The frickin yearning.

1 hr 57 min in : Boris is like you're unhappy, I'm here, we're both rich, let's f*ck. "We could"... What are you suggesting dude he's repressed!

1 hr 58 min in : "you unwrapped it and showed it to me." So many meanings. The heart, the love the soul... Wow. Good for you, screen play writers! ( It's kinda hilarious how Boris got mad at Theo for never quote unquote fucking opening it.)

2 hr 1 min in : I'm calling it. They're going to fuck up the Theo Hobie confrontation. They put it on the wrong time. And they also fucked up the text from the book.

2 hr 5 min 48 sec in : Even Platt is saving his sister's face. Also where did Todd go? Did he never grow up? I wish Mrs Barbour didn't use Theo like she did.

2 hr 7 min in : The frame where Boris is between Kitsey and Theo. Chef's kiss.

2 hr 10 min 54 sec in : *intense music playing* Boris put his leg up on the table and I burst into laughter THOSE ARE THE FAMOUS FUCK ME PUMPS.

2 hr 11 min in : AAAAA THE FOREHEAD TOUCH AAAAAAA (Theo just knows without looking that Boris is close enough to touch? Theo are you sure you don't feel feelings for him?)

2 hr 12 min in : Theo is so worried that I'm not sure if it's for Boris or for losing the painting again. Omg he just murdered a man. Oh god.

2 hr 14 min in : Theo is spiralling. In the movie they imply that Hobie played a part in him attempting suicide. So wrong. Poor Hobie. In the book that wasn't the case.

2 hr 15 min in : The transition of the Goldfinch into Audrey, wow. Also, is it the first time we're seeing her? The movie started so long ago that I've forgotten if I saw Theo and Audrey in the museum. Boris following right after Audrey? That's a subliminal message. Boris is here to rescue y'all.

2 hr 16 min in : No shit Boris is freaking out right now.

2 hr 17 min in : The diner scene. They're both crying. "Happy Christmas, Potter" - which was of course, I love you.

2 hr 18 min in : No don't you dare compare Audrey and Mrs Barbour. Audrey would never drug her child or use him for her benefit.

2 hr 20 min in : Poor kid bumps into his mom lol. I found it funny.

On the whole

The movie was nice if you'd read the book beforehand. The first hour was steak, The second hour was Korean BBQ and the rest of the twenty minutes were minced beef. If you get what I mean. Weird analogy. It could have been much better. But it was really very nice in some places. Most places I'd say.

I didn't like how the pop songs ruined the mood of certain moments. I didn't like how you couldn't hear the conversation over the music playing. For example in the engagement party when Platt and Theo talked. Or in the diner scene.

Both Borises killed the accent thing. They tried their best. Cut them some slack.

Oakes deserves an Oscar for holding up this movie on his smol shoulders. I was shook at how a kid could act that well.

Popchik deserved more screen time. I'm still pissed they didn't add the Popchik Boris reunion. But then they couldn't make it chronological, what were we supposed to expect anyway.

Ansel Elgort y'all. Theo sure improved his handwriting lol. Ansel's writing is nice. He was actually good in this movie. Better than he was in The Fault In Our Stars. The internet is just mean. The critics too. I will never understand the hate.

All in all, it could have been a better adaptation but it didn't suck as bad as everyone made it out to be. John Clownery should be punished nonetheless. Special shout-out to Roger Deakins for making it work.

#donna tartt #theo decker #boris pavlikovsky #finn wolfhard #oakes fegley #ansel elgort #aneurin barnard #the goldfinch #boreo