#maybe i will at some point or ill try to diy | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

homosociallyyours · 5 months

Text

This is a post for one of my best friends who's been going through a lot for the past few years. I'll go into more details below, but here's the heart of the matter: My friend has a serious auto-immune condition resulting from the long term after effects of cancer treatments (worsened now by the addition of long COVID to her long list of diagnoses). Over the past few years, she's gotten sicker and sicker and has been forced to change her diet from a vegetarian anti-cancer diet (she's a breast cancer survivor, and fought HARD for her health) to one that's become more and more limited as her body becomes allergic to every food one by one. She's now reached a point where one of the last 2 foods that she was able to eat safely, chicken, is causing an allergic reaction; she has to eat it anyway to survive, so is now very sick all the time.

What can you do?

One of the last hopes that she has to turn things around is something called a fecal microbiome transplant, which has worked miracles for other people with similar issues, but cannot currently be accessed through medical channels in the US for any but one (unrelated) condition. It's really easy to do as a DIY treatment though, it's just hard to find a donor: so we are putting it out there to see if one of you might be able and willing to be that person, or know someone who could do it.

Here is what she has to say about the ask:

Finding the right person to do this is difficult, but actually doing the helping is extremely easy and quick if someone was that person! If you live in the continental US and are fortunate enough to have both physical and mental good health (or know someone or have a child who fit the criteria) and are willing, you might be able to change my life! Please consider clicking through to read more and maybe even come aboard... (For clarity: this isn't a medical procedure or anything, it is literally just donating poop, there are a few specifics but it is very much from the comfort of your home on your own time.)

You can click here to fill out a google form to see if you might be able to be a donor. The questionaire is detailed: fecal transplant is a bizarre and magical thing in which the patient sometimes can even end up acquiring personal preferences from the donor- the gut microbiome (sometimes called the second brain) is incredible! But this means that any illness, chronic issues, or risk factors you carry may also be transferred to the recipient so while it may feel invasive, getting detailed info in very necessary; I am just too sick already to take on any more problems.

A note- yes, it is possible to buy screened and processed treatments even in the US: unfortunately the cost (~$2k per round of treatment) is way outside my reach, particularly given that it isn't really any better than just getting poop directly from a good candidate (proven via studies), and that often it takes trying a couple donors/ rounds to find a match that gets results. If anyone wants to just buy me that stuff, I sure wouldn't say no to that, but given the severity of my situation (medical and financial; I cannot work due to disability) it is likely I will need to do medical fundraising at some point and I am trying to save that for an even worse point. Also if you have that kind of money to help out honestly it would be better spent on specialists or my astronomical food costs. I will cover all costs associated with this process if I find someone though, of course!

Thank you for reading/boosting/etc, please consider sending the link to possible healthy friends or family who might be a fit, or consider whether you have a child fitting the bill you might be willing to enlist- young microbiomes are the best ones, as children's systems have had less time to be ravaged by the effects of the modern world or the simple deterioration of age.

#signal boost #medical issues #health #please fill out the form at the link that's below the read more #and share this post and/or the survey link with anyone you know who might be a good fit #i'm not exaggerating when i say that the worsening of her condition is really fucking scary #genuinely don't know what i would do without her #also how great would it be to tell everyone your shit is LIFE SAVING??

59 notes · View notes

bumblee-stumblee · 1 year

Note

Just saw your link from Reddit. But don't you want to eradicate all trans people? Don't you want them to all kill themselves rather than live fulfilling lives? So, surely, their comparison to groups of people who have been persecuted is correct. Because you do want to kill them.

I'm sorry, what makes you think i want to kill and eradicate all trans people? I don't want anyone to commit suicide.

Radfems don't want to kill trans people.

I want to be able to have my female only spaces such as bathrooms, sports, shelters and lockers and spas and so on and so on. Rights and spaces that women fought so hard to get are being eroded. In some places just discussing women's rights and oppression is seen as transphobic.

Watching the MTF subreddit and seeing men talk about how since starting estrogen they feel themselves getting dumber, getting horny at the sight of a cute male, feel themselves getting more submissive now that they are taking estrogen because obviously this is what women are; dumb horny submissive creatures obviously.

This is what these men think women are.

It makes me resentful to read these things and very little people within that subreddit try to contradict what is being said. And why would they? I was a TRA, i know how they talk. The misogyny is rampant within the community.

Women speaking up against gender affirming care such as puberty blocker, HRT, and SRS for children isn't killing them. Kids cannot consent. They should be getting extensive talk therapy to figure out if it's truly gender disphoria or if it's a different problem being masked by this social contagion. Kids with mental illnesses that need to be addressed with actual therapy rather than hormones and surgeries.

Trans people in the US haven't faced the same oppression and systemic racism as people of color.

They haven't been persecuted like people of color & it's a fucking mockery to compare them to the racism, murder and dehumanization and even more of a mockery to call it a trans genocide. There isn't a genocide happening but gosh there's a quite a few in the community that would love for there to be so they could claim victimhood.

Anyway, no radfems don't want transpeople dead. We do want you to stop suggesting GNC kids and GNC women and men might be trans actually. We'd also love it if the trans community could call out the predators and stop telling kids how to get diy estrogen and testosterone. Stop telling them that going through puberty will kill them and stop coaching them on what to say to obtain hormones oh and maybe stop suggesting that they could be suicidal and reinforcing suicidal ideation if they can't immediately get hrt or blockers. It kills kids.

Create your own spaces and stop trying to take ours, stop reinforcing harmful stereotypes, disclose to your sexual partners your agab otherwise that's called rape(obviously in a safe way). Stop assaulting women trying to speak, stop sending women death and rape threats and stop trying to use people of color as well as the atrocities that have been done to them as some sort of comparison talking point.

it's disrespectful as fuck.

#radblr #radfem #asks

346 notes · View notes

oldmemoria · 7 months

Text

lmao i fucking forgot to share this

not only do i have unorganized miguel heacanons but i have unorganized HOBIE ones too

i have unorganized random headcanons for all the characters i brainrot over these two are no different!!

identity headcanons first hehe:

hes trans. he probably diyed his hrt and also has top surgery somehow hes magic. (i also think he'd have tattoos over his scars, either super cool bat/devil wings or an intricate spider design on their whole abdomen cant decide ill draw it later 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉)

he, however, doesnt really have any specific sexuality or gender labels they feel like they fit into. theyre attacted to all genders of varying degrees but doesnt really put a label on it. he just exists.

also doesnt mind what pronouns you use for her. any/all. basically.

also also would encourage people to use the weirdest and coolest neopronouns they can think of for zem like REALLY go out there WHATEVER YOU CAN THINK OF.

ADHD haver?? MAYBE???

to the rest acaksdlfj;akdjf:

theyre very crafty and dabble in basically every form of art. music, graffiti, painting, sculpting (mainly with trash or scraps or random discarded items he finds, more on that later on), sewing, whatever. if he can learn to do it she will.

he is super touchy and likes being close to people, but also understand boundaries.

very emotionally intelligent, i feel like this is canon anyway but ill just put it out there, ze can basically sense if someone is upset.

LOVES ABSOLUTELY LIVES FOR talking to new people, will go out of their way to introduce himself to basically everyone, especially new spider-people she meets.

he is a bit of a joker, ofc, but he wont try and push boundaries that he clearly sees or hears from the person theyre talking to. hi people who hc him as being an unself aware dickhead shut up you are very wrong did you even watch the movie.

this one is probably my favorite but he will pick up random things he sees around him and keep them for art projects. cool rock on the sidewalk? its a rock, hes gonna take it. funny lookin bug? might pick it up for a little to look at it and put it back in a safer spot. bottle cap? "mine now". like i said before he likes using litter to make art.

he will stop mid-mission if he sees something cool that he can take home like "oh [riff] cool leaf" and put it in his pocket.

i was referencing this post btw i love this headcanon, absolutely genius, i will steal it ty /lhj

this stealing of random objects from all around the multiverse has caused many lectures for miguel (they arent listening)

they have some kind of control over what texture/color they turn into if xey really think about it but most of the time he just kind of.. lets it do its thing. (sort of like a RainWing?)

shockingly good at vague yet oddly specific threats that are unrealistic but if you really think about it it's like "oh yeah he could totally do that..." but she wouldn't. yknow what im saying right???

while he does live in the 70s where technology was uh... not as popular nor as advanced as they are now, he's aware of modern tech through Gwen, Miles, Pav, DEFINITELY through Margo and Miguel, but she doesn't really use it often. doesnt really see the point.

along with that he also is aware of modern music as well, he has mixed feelings (gwen is probably the biggest influence though she is such a Pinkshift/Paramore/My Chem girlie it hurts to think about)

100% collects record of artists, especially smaller artists, that they like.

if you get them going about music he will talk for HOURS. HOURS until you tell him to shut up, even though fae totally wont listen and will keep going anyway. (just like me teehee projecting is fun <3 )

while hobie does use his guitar as a weapon for some reason he is quite protective of it. they wont try and stop you from touching it or playing it, but he will watch you like a hawk. half out of "oo look another person is interested in guitar" and the other half of "👁️👁️ dont break it i can only do that /j" (a lot of musicians are like that, i would know, im one of them. ha)

loves stray animals. cats, dogs, birds, anything. he will stop to pet them if they let him.

he also will talk to cats like any other person. especially spider cat. spider cat could make a cat noise and he'd act like he understood it. "yeah totally man, i get it. meow."

he can sing like... averagely? he has a good sense of pitch and timing, as most musicians do, but she isnt professionally trained or really does it too often

they will scream though

also really likes messing with makeup and bodypaint. he will spend hours on it if he can.

FUCK I AM SO HAPPY I DIDNT POST THIS IMMEDIATELY BECAUSE I KEEP REMEMBERING THINGS ACK HERES ONE LAST ONE POST THIS AFTER ASH I SWEAR (edit from two weeks later: i forgor): he definitely isnt a morning person. he loves to sleep in. definitely values rest, like a lot. miguel will call him at like 7 am and hobie will flip him off and say 5 more minutes when they really mean 2 more hours.

do i have any more?? hmmm maybe if i remember but this is what i have so far. mostly just silly lil headcanons that arent entirely plot relevant as most of my headcanons are.

#across the spiderverse #atsv #spider punk #hobie brown #headcanons #might draw some of these later :)#almost forgot new hobie tag im so sorry #british spider #FUCK I SHOULD HAVE POSTED THIS WEEKS AGO LMAO

16 notes · View notes

captorsicallfriends · 2 years

Note

I've run out of intensely detailed stories so I'll just tell you a bunch of times I've been extremely bitchy and hot instead <3

-there's this one fucking idiot in my class and I hate him so fucking much omg. If this guy was burning to death engulfed in flames and I had a bucket of water I'd drink it all Infront of him this is how much I hate this man. So anyway at the end of every week I steal one item out of his locker cuz he's a dumb bitch and doesn't guard it well, and I either put it in the trash or I hide it. So far he's lost his calculator, pencil case, spare book, and his tic tacs which are now sitting in my belly yummy yummy. Anyways I'm not planning on stopping anytime soon Josh if Ur reading this stop saying slurs and get a haircut ffs you look like a triangle how is it goING UPWARDS

-one day my friend and I saw some soccer bro being a dick to someone else and I got so mad I was ready to march over and shove my hand so far up there I'd be walking around with a DIY hand puppet istg. But my friend was like "no anon don't do it, if you are rude to him you're no better than him you know that, you've got to be a good person" and I went "well maybe I don't want to be a good person maybe I want to have fun and become a minor inconvenience instead" and so I walked over and poured my red drink all over his white shoes <3

-my bucket list only has two dot points and those are "punch 12 police officers in the jaw" and "look like the charismatic gay villain in a kids tv show" and I have to say I'm pretty close to achieving both

-not only is my dog a coke addict but he's also a raging homosexual so like. Happy pride month from my feral creacher and the eternally damned male Dalmatian he keeps trying to have sex with (you've got your balls cut off dipshit it's not gonna get far)

-i can't think of any more right now but rest assured I'm omw to kill someone ill let u know how it goes :D if you don't hear back for me I'm either in my science teacher's freezer or I'm in jail either way money is much appreciated

oh damn yes stan robbing bigots with weird haircuts

HOLY SHIT THAT IS BOLD, he probably never recovered from that <3

oooooh wow sound bucket list, you know what you want bestie

ghdjhgjkfkd your dog is so feral we love to see it

venmoing you money asap #freeinsaneanon

#diya answers #anon

1 note · View note

sningo-prompts · 2 years

Note

A series of events!

-Ingo returns to the future, as a hisuian sneasel

-Emmet finds him, takes him in, finds out who he is, all par for the course

-until it’s made public knowledge that subway boss Emmet has a hisuian sneasel

-and one superfan looks down at their johto sneasel and thinks to themself, ‘hmmm…’

So, they aren’t the best trainer. They mostly have their Pokémon for show, right? So this sneasel is a bit neglected and a bit listless and doesn’t really care when it’s trainer goes to a ton of effort to get it looking like a hisuian sneasel

It’s not *perfect* of course, I imagine Emmet wouldn’t let the press get any super clear shots of sningo. But it’s pretty damn close

And they take their diy hisuian sneasel into the gear station like ‘check this out!’ and they get a ton of attention, almost immediately get in over their head

From here ive got a couple branching paths of ideas. Maybe station employees see what’s happening and confiscate the sneasel, thinking it’s sningo. Sneasel is deposited with Emmet— Ingo isnt there for whatever reason, and Emmet ends up very worried that Ingo’s lost himself/his sense of identity before picking up on the differences and deciding that this poor Johto sneasel is His Now. (Or the very least it’s the stations)

some shady folks have been hanging around gear station hoping to get their hands on sningo, and in the commotion both the fake and the genuine article get snatched by two different groups.

Emmet goes after the wrong one.

Im so tempted to use Jasmine Spencer for this lol. Maybe at the end ill put a little bonus of her.

So Emmet and Ingo are indeed famous so they probably do have fans who just take things a little too far. So one fan decided to dye their sneasels fur to match what few photos could be found about Emmets. This fan (im a call her Madison)so Madison of course isnt the worst battler, i mean you cant even meet the twins without on the battle subway if you suck at battling. Shes never been good enough for that though lmao. But she is a regular at the station and the staff knows she’s trouble. She has lets say a record with sneaking into places shes not supposed to be. So she probably has better pictures of Sningo than the press. Thats how she ended up doing such a great paint job. Im sure there are pokemon safe dye and what not that she can use though ill leave that up to you if she does it the face away. Once happy with her work she sets to taking her sneasel to the station to show it off. Of course she uses a pokeball to transport her sneasel so its pretty easy to sneak it in. If people saw her walking around town with the sneasel she never would have made it all the way to the station after all.

Her goal? Why do this? Well she wants to get close to Emmet so having a rare pokemon like his is her plan. Once at the station she releases her sneasel and starts ranting about how it came to her. How the sneasel picked her. Must be what happened with Emmet. They are chosen for something… together. The press are eating it up!! Asking her question after question but she wasnt ready for all this. She just wanted Emmet to notice her and to be closer to him. Now theres a crowd and they are all hounding her. The station staff quickly get to her and take her to a staff room. Somewhere private for questioning idk. Someone goes to get Emmet while they wait. The station staff know at this point that Ingo has been turned into a white and purple sneasel so they arent buying her story. They know how Emmet and Ingo got back together so they know everything shes saying is false. They try to confiscate the sneasel from her to which she just returns it to its ball. Right when Emmet walks in. Oh snap!! All Emmet has seen is this chick catch his brother. He walks up to her, giving off vibes of death, and just holds his hand out. Not a word said but the moment she looks up into his eyes all she knows is fear. She hands him the pokeball to which Emmet quickly releases the sneasel. Kneeling down Emmet asks if they are alright. The sneasel just looks confused. Thats not How Ingo reacts. Grasping the sneasels shoulders Emmet is almost to tears. The sneasel doesnt respond to anything. Just looks blankly at Emmet. The station staff see Madison out and leave to give Emmet a moment. Emmet tries anything and everything he can to jog Ingos memories but nothing is working. When Emmet has a full on break down the sneasel tries to comfort him but its all wrong its not how Ingo would do it and it makes things worse. He feels like hes lost Ingo again. Hes alone again. No not again he cant do this again. Where does he eve start. Then when hes cupping the sneasels face he sees it. A small spot where the dye didnt cover. He quickly looks the sneasel over. Upon a closer inspection he can see it now. This isnt Ingo. This is just a normal sneasel. Oh the relief is so overwhelming he cries all over again hugging the sneasel close. Oh thank god.

Once he calms down a bit he can start thinking rationally again. If this isnt Ingo then where is Ingo? Drying his face he reclaims his composure and calls the staff back in. He informs them what he has found out and has them help him search the station for Ingo. They check all his usual nap spots or hiding places (sometimes the station can be overwhelming to Ingo and he needs a little safe spot to calm down). Finally finding him oh Emmet has had a day. Hugging his brother close Emmet probably cries a little bit again. Ingo is so very confused. That is until he is brought the the staff room where he sees a similar looks sneasel. Big oof Ingo gets excited to see one that survived and rushes to it. Asking all sorts of questions. What a let down for him too. So they really are all gone. Nothing left of his lady after all. He let himself have hope again just to find it was a trick. Emmet hates seeing Ingos disappointment. Emmet explains the situation to Ingo. Well now Ingo understand Emmets desperation earlier. When they go to confront Madison it turns out she just fled. Leaving her poor sneasel behind. Someone on the staff quickly volunteered to look after the sneasel. Of course they pick up Ingo by mistake. Who quickly yelps out. A cautious laugh as they set him back down. A glare from Emmet which leads to rapid fire apologises. Though by the end of the day no real harm was done at least. At least till the next day that is... DUH DUH DUHHHHHH ~~~~~~ ok so im gonna make this a two or three parter post i think cause my phone is almost dead and i suck at typing on my computer cause i type to fast and cant really get the proper punctuation in. plus i make a lot a lot of errors. but i do plan on making the bit about the sneasels getting nabbed dont worry! went back and forth on what to call the new sneasel. we had Jefferson we had Simon, we had Franklin, Fletcher, even Bingo came up. i dont think im sold on Danny tbh but if yall come up with something better please feel free to send em in causei can always change this post to fit the new name

#I wanna make it even more angsty #was planning on having Ingo already kidnapped when emmet went looking for him lol but nah i want there to be a chance for emmet to fuck up #like the horror on his face when he figures it out #also i still wanna redo the whole prompt with jasmine being the one who has the painted sneasel #shes rich she can pay someone to do the paint job for her so hers is gonna be even better done #sneasel ingo au #sneasel ingo #sningo #transfer error au

28 notes · View notes

ezwhump · 3 years

Text

Let the Cat Out of the Bag - pet whump, pet-sitting, pampered pet, introduction of characters

“Explain it to me again.”

“Aw, fuck off, Farhan.”

“No, seriously!” Farhan spat a seed shell into the solo cup and took another swig of his beer. “This woman puts an ad in the fucking paper, for christ’s sake, asking for someone to what? Look after her kitty cat?”

He buckled over, eyes creasing, and barked out a laugh.

“No you got that exactly right, man,” Gregor let his mouthful of warm beer dribble back into the bottle and set it down on the table. “She’s got some sorta terminal illness, says she won’t be home enough to look after it, yeah? That’s where I come in.”

Farhan snorted and rolled his eyes. “Yeah but she could just sell it though. Get some dough before she croaks.” He leaned over and snatched the paper off the table. “Pet-sitting. Fucking hell. I can loan you the money, you know.”

When Farhan got serious he got fancy, started picking up his ‘t’s, shortening his vowels. Offering money. It made Gregor raise his hackles.

“When you think about it, it's not a bad gig. I get to fuck around in some OAP’s house all day and I get paid for it. If I do a decent enough job maybe I get in on the will.”

Farhan shook his head, flipping to the sports section of the paper. “You’re a fuckin’ vulture, man.”

Gregor smiled to himself and drank his warm beer anyway. Farhan didn’t really understand, it didn’t matter what the job was, it mattered what the pay was. And he’d do pretty much anything at this point (except become Farhan’s charity case), so long as food got put on the table and the bills were paid, even looking after some geriatric’s pet.

Even if he was allergic to cats.

The car pulled up a few streets away from the old lady’s, and Gregor opened the passenger door.

Farhan leaned over and rolled down the window. “You got your cell?”

Gregor patted his jean’s back pocket.

“Right, good. Wallet, keys?”

“Fuck off, Farhan.” Gregor was getting irate, jumping on the spot with his hands in his front pockets. It was too fucking cold outside for chit-chat, he wanted to get into the warm house and start eating.

Farhan laughed and cranked up the window with a “right, right”.

The house was in a cul-de-sac of luxury townhomes, redbrick with intricate railings and a courtyard with a fountain. Gregor was suddenly very aware of his ratty sneakers and DIY buzzcut. He spat into the bushes and rang the doorbell, stopping short of shouting up to the closest window. It seemed like the sort of place where people would stop and stare if you spoke too loudly, and god forbid he caused a kerfuffle and the police were called.

He patted his pocket for his dab pen and rolled it between his thumb and finger while he waited to be buzzed in.

“Katz residence.”

Gregor jumped and turned to the intercom speaker on the side of the doorway. He pressed the little purple button.

“Uh, hi. It's Gregor. Enache. I’m here for the pet-sitting gi- job.”

He waited for a moment, wind whipping inside his jacket and making him shudder. Then the intercom buzzed and he heard a lock click, so he took his cue and went inside.

After processing the excessive grandeur of the lobby, Gregor took the elevator up to the top floor. All the hallways were cream with soft white lights in sconces and glittering from chandeliers. The floors were marble, and Gregor almost laughed when his soles squeaked and tracked dirt if he scraped them hard enough.

There was a soft tinkling music coming from somewhere and all the doors were painted a deep plum colour with gold handles. The whole place smelled like sweet perfume. Part of Gregor wanted to break everything just to check if it was real (especially the little statues on the antique tables), part of him wanted this whole place to be preserved in resin so he could stare at it forever, but he mostly just wanted to see if there were price listings for any of it. The pawn potential made him lightheaded.

“She’s gonna pay you,” he reminded himself, stopping at door 19 and rapping the golden knocker. It was shaped like a cat.

A boy answered the door. Well, not really a boy, though he seemed younger. He looked around Gregor’s age, 22 or so, but they were leagues apart.

He had pearl-blonde hair that stopped at the base of his throat and his lanky frame was a little taller than Gregor. He was wearing a long-sleeve shirt and slacks made out of the same muslin fabric, but his feet were bare and clean.

“Pleased to meet you Mr. Enache.” A woman’s voice called out from the guy who stepped aside silently to let Gregor in.

Salma Katz was sitting on a white lounge sofa in a skirt and blouse, her legs crossed at the ankles. She wasn’t geriatric by any stretch of the imagination but she did have an air of vulnerability around her, like something was wrong and she was using every vice at her disposal to hide it. It showed in the way she picked at her nails or kept tucking back her blonde bob.

“Hi.” Gregor stood dumbly in the entryway, eyes darting to all of the fanciful objects littered about the place. Little markings of money, of privilege. He felt sort of trapped. “Um, so where is the little guy?”

Salma was blinking sluggishly, and Gregor couldn’t help but compare it to when his mom had gotten hold of Farhan’s Vicodin after his dental surgery last month. Hazy, drugged up. It was probably painkillers or something.

“There are a few things I should go over before I leave, but just in case there’s a list on the refrigerator.” She gestured for Gregor to sit and he did, slumping into the love-seat across from her, a glass coffee table between them with a small vase of peach roses in the middle of it.

“I’m very invested in the comfort and safety of my pet while I’m enjoying treatment, and thus very meticulous. . . about who watches him.” The boy had taken a seat on the floor in front of her lounge chair, and Gregor had to drag his eyes back to Salma.

“Right. Well, I mean, why put it in the paper then? Any dickwad off the street could come in.” A humoured smile lit up her face, and Gregor caught himself. “Uh, with all due respect, ma’am.”

Salma laughed, an airy, unbothered sound. “Well, just prove to me that I made the correct choice young man, and we won’t have a problem.” Her eyes trailed Gregor up and down and he tried not to squirm, setting his jaw and meeting her eyes. They glinted. “Now, Leander has a particular diet which I included on the list. I presume you can cook?”

Gregor nodded. He’d had to learn a long time ago.

“Wonderful. Taking him outside the apartment is discouraged, however we do have a balcony if you’ll be needing to smoke or he needs fresh air. He takes a bath most nights, and you’ll know what to wash him with. Oh, and of course if you need anything from him all you need to do is ask.”

“It’s trained?” Gregor felt his eyes widen, impressed. Cat’s weren’t usually trained, but he should’ve figured given the context of the whole situation.

“Indeed he is. Now, I wouldn’t want him to get lonely, either. He has his own room but he does enjoy company. Would you be available to watch him five days a week?”

Gregor thought for a moment and nodded. He’d cover his bases, pay his dues, on the weekend. And besides, pets didn’t really require all that much effort.

“Perfect. Does 7-12 feel appropriate? Of course we’d provide you with adequate food, a bed, transport, and whatever else you require to perform your duties.” She was talking slowly, like she was trying to coerce a wild animal into a cage, but Gregor wasn’t going to complain. Living in a place like this all day, free food, a fucking car, and all he had to do was refill a food bowl and wrestle it into a bath sometimes? He felt like he’d stumbled upon a get-out-of-jail-free card.

“Sure, no problem.”

Salma smiled again and smoothed her hand along the boy’s hair, standing up and gesturing for Gregor to do so as well. Gregor tried to keep the incredulity from showing on his face.

She reached out and took Gregor’s hand, clasping it briefly and then turning back to the boy. Gregor looked around again for a tabby, a persian. A fucking tiger.

Salma ushered the boy forward, and he stood graceful and silent in front of Gregor, avoiding eye contact.

“Mr. Enache, this is Leander. My pet.”

---

I’m taking a short break from Russ & Lennon, but hopefully you guys will enjoy reading about Gregor & Leander as much as I enjoy writing them :) I’m starting up a new tag list for these two so if you’d like to be included pls just let me know! <3 - ez

tag list: __

#pet whump #pampered pet #whump #brief mention of drug abuse #cw unknowingly using it as a pronoun #cw brief mention of cancer/terminal illness #cw brief mention of alcohol #cw unintentional dehuminization #pet-sitting #again pls lmk if i missed any tags

38 notes · View notes

genevulva · 4 years

Text

I want to talk about kindness to TRAs I think. I know what some of you are thinking, “I’m just so frustrated and angry at the homophobia/racism/misogyny from them” and that’s completely valid. You’re allowed to feel those things. I even feel those things. But I try not to act on them and here’s why:

I used to be a TRA. I was a young child who just realized she was gay. With a difficult homelife and difficulty fitting in, I was desperate for community, so I went online and to local GSAs. I found community and support for the first time in my life. I found friends. Yes they told me my attraction was wrong, but it was a byproduct of the “transmisogynist” world we live in, so I followed those “how to fix genital preference” guides desperate to fix my internal biases. Obviously it didn’t work. I would continue doing this DIY conversion therapy to myself, while pretending to the world (at 13 mind you) that I would happily be with a trans girl and touch her “girl dick” and that terfs could suck it. But internally I knew the truth, that the thought made me feel ill. And I beat myself up about it. But I didn’t leave because I was surrounded by friends and community and love. And I was told constantly never to read radfem rhetoric because of how manipulative it was. Because I was told how evil and horrible and nasty terfs/radfems were, that they wanted me and my trans friends dead. They wanted gay people, dysphoric people, and gnc people to suffer. That they were on the same side as nazis and racists. And of course I listened to that. I was 12-15 and desperate to feel accepted, to feel loved, to feel supported. And I would’ve done anything to stay. And after all... I trusted them. I was a child looking to those who were part of the community longer than me, who told me all these things and I believed them. And I repeated the things they said because I was taught that that was what was right, that terfs were monsters

But one day that all changed. I met a girl and I fell in love, and she happened to have radfem/gc beliefs. I was shocked. Here she was saying “genital preferences” weren’t transphobic and I was being stupid. At first I was angry and shocked. But then I realized, she wasn’t this mean nasty person that everyone told me terfs would be. She wasn’t the “evil TERF” I was told to fear, told to spit on. She was kind and compassionate and funny and smart and I loved her for all those reasons. I started to get curious and I couldn’t shake the thought that maybe they all weren’t so bad. So I started looking into radblr, and I realized so many of you made excellent points that made sense. I even asked questions and got kind responses. That you all weren’t monsters, that many even had compassion for trans and dysphoric people, and that so many of you gyns were even dysphoric/detrans/gnc yourself. My whole world shifted when that happened. I tried to forget it, but I couldn’t, and I kept coming back to it

People often ask me why I peaked, and the answer is kindness. I was shown kindness from gc/radfems, I realized that they weren’t the monsters I was told about. I hear about cult members and how they eventually left (I think that the TRA community is different from the trauma from cults, but they definitely have similarities) and so many of them left because they were shown kindness and compassion from the outside world, when all that they were taught was that outsiders were evil and untrustworthy. I think of myself when I was a child. I think of all the other kids/teens/adults still in the community, too afraid to think for themselves and lose everything. Too trusting of what they are told, too scared to think critically

This is why I will always approach conversations with kindness, respect, compassion, and nuance. This is why I refrain from making petty comments and such. Yes I feel frustrated, yes I feel angry. But I find other ways to let those emotions out. Because all I can think about is that 12 year old girl, putting herself through so much pain in order to feel a part of something. Putting herself through so much grief because she doesn’t know any better, because she hasn’t even thought to question what she has been told. And that is why I will continue to always be a “nicefem”, even if some people on here will call me weak and a “handmaiden” for doing so

#radblr #radfem #rad feminism #radical feminism #terf safe #radfem safe #op is a radfem #op is a terf #peak trans #radfems do touch #radfems interact #radfems please interact #radfems do interact #radfems please touch #terfs please touch #terfs do interact #terfs please interact #terfs do touch #mine

108 notes · View notes

nurfhurdur · 4 years

Text

Hard Enough Left Modern AU

Because I miss Ruth

There hadn't been activity on that particular channel in weeks. Every few days Emily would log on, only to be dissapointed to see that nothing had changed. The only activity being comments from other viewers asking when to expect another video.

It had gotten to the point where she had checked to make sure she was still subscribed, and she edited her settings to make sure she'd get a notification the next time there was anything uploaded. It was another three weeks after that, that she had checked the time on her phone to see the banner across the screen.

Rushing through the last of her course work, she threw her backpack on the floor and reached for her tablet. She tapped a fingernail against the screen impatiently as YouTube finally loaded, hitting pause quickly so she could dig her headphones out of the nightstand drawer.

She'd binged Ruth's videos in the span of a few days. She didn't know how girls on YouTube did it, especially with a DIY channel. Starting back from the first videos posted a few years before, the video quality had improved, the girl's editing had improved, and she'd become more comfortable in front of a camera. From cooking, and baking, to personal desk size succulent gardens, or organizing and purging a closet, somehow the girl had made a name for herself on the internet and the most mundane of tasks seemed more interesting when discussed and explained on this girl's channel.

Comfortable in her bed, she finally pressed play and tilted her head as the personalized graphic of a constellation came on screen, which the girl had done a tutorial on also....

When did she have the time to do all this?

She was pulled from her thoughts, and rather startled, to see an exhausted looking version of the girl who ran the channel. Ruth's dark hair was pulled in to a messy bun, circles under her eyes and she looked like she hadn't taken the time to get out of her pajamas. What was most startling, was what looked like a medical oxygen tube beneath her nose.

Looking up into the camera, she waved vaguely with her usual greeting before continuing.

"I've never really shared this, because I never had any reason to-" She held up the small tank of oxygen sitting beside her and grinned flatly. "-but now I do.....so today's video is a bit of a PSA."

Her expression dulled and she stared at the screen a moment. "Get out of the shot."

"I'm not in the shot," came a low response from the corner.

Ruth addressed the camera again. "I have help today."

A few clips were edited in of Ruth and....was that Jesse Hudson?

The Piston Cup driver?

The two were figuring out where to stage Ruth's things, and Ruth watched in exasperation before telling him to leave her stuff alone and let her do it.

"I'm just trying to help."

"This isn't my first video or anything-....no, leave the tank there-"

"Wh-"

"Because that's where I keep it when I'm working here-"

The clip cut back to Ruth's slightly more professional expression and she reached for the camera. "For those of you who keep up, yes, that was Jesse Hudson. Jesse, say hello."

"Hey." He muttered with a glance up from his phone.

"We're twins. Before you flood my inbox, I'm older, it's not that exciting to have a celebrity sibling and-....." Ruth paused and stared at the screen again. "Did you just kick the footboard of my bed?"

Just barely in the frame, Jesse's Nikes could be seen as he kicked off from the bed again, spinning the chair slowly. "Yeah, cause you lie."

"I do not lie. You're- you know what, this is my video, and I'm not spending ages editing it so now the world can see how sulky you are."

The chair rolled further in to frame and Jesse only shrugged a shoulder before going back to his phone.

Ruth took a slow breath, for effect or because she needed it, it was hard to tell, before launching in to a lengthy explanation of why she had been absent for so long.

"I don't have an actual diagnosis, no one can give me a specific name for it-"

The more she spoke, the more emotional the video became. The natural lighting of her bedroom made the video a little surreal, the way it picked up the threatening shine in the girl's eyes wasn't staged, or planned, or even wanted. It was apparent that a portion had been cut. She looked like she had been crying, and instead of lazing in the background, Jesse was sitting beside her at her desk, chin rested on his hand as he looked between her and the screen silently.

"Some of you wonder how I have time to do any of this, some of you are very rude in your questioning of how I have time-"

The clip had been edited again and a more composed looking Ruth stared at the camera before speaking and glancing over her shoulder. "Our older brother thought there was a problem and I'm sure Jesse is getting lectured for something...."

She'd edited captions in, and color coded them for each brother. They appeared at the bottom of the screen while she made a show of her impatience on camera.

"Can you for once in your life-"

"She asked me to help-"

Ruth made eye contact with the camera a moment before continuing, explaining that her illness started back in the early 2000s. Doctors had originally treated her for bronchitis, then walking pneumonia. X-rays, blood tests, screenings and different antibiotics had all been tried with only mininal results. There was the possibility of an autoimmune disorder but they hadn't started that round of tests yet.

"I don't always have an oxygen tank, this is a bit of a new development...." She eyed the small cylinder beside her and it was obvious to see that she was still trying to wrap her head around it. With a shaky and watery smile she looked back at the camera.

"It's extremely hard to be looked at the way people do when you have something like this basically tied to your side."

She ignored her twins' return to his chair beside her.

"For some it's an insulin pump, for me it's an oxygen tank, for others it's chronic pain. We know we have it, while the general public tends to look at us like we're looking for sympathy or leaching the system. Just because it's an invisible disease doesn't mean it isn't there."

She looked at her brother before leaning back in her computer chair. Drawing her knee up, she wrapped an arm around it.

"Where had we gone the other day? Was it the grocery store-"

"Doctor appointment."

"Oh, yeah. It was." Ruth frowned. "I've been issued a handicap sign for the mirror of my car....they haven't sent the new license plate yet. I didn't even want to use it but it was a really bad day for me. My family convinced me to use it to park as close as possible, and then wanted to get me a wheel chair."

She pursed her lips, taking a moment to gather her thoughts and looked in to the camera.

"Some middle aged woman came right up to me and told me she thought it was horrible that I would do such a thing for a closer space. That as a young woman in my twenties, I was more than capable of walking the extra hundred feet and had no right to be using my grandparents' issued sign like that."

She looked away from the camera and swiped a tear from her eye. Barely seen on camera, it looked like Jesse might have nudged her chair with his foot.

"I was so upset I showed her my signature on the back, and then my driver's license. Just because I'm in my twenties doesn't mean-"

She shook her head and sighed while rubbing her forehead.

"It's hard enough for people like myself to be so restricted when we're supposed to be 'enjoying our youth'...don't be that person. Just.....take a moment to realize that we're not always how we appear. It's a smack of pride to even have to use that handicap sign. I just stared at it hanging from the rearview mirror, convincing myself not to take it back down for some complete stranger to then treat me that way?"

"That was the appointment they gave you the tank." Jesse muttered lowly.

"It was." She agreed. "Like that wasn't a hard pill to swallow already...."

There was a brief pause, and it was obvious she was mentally shaking herself. She diverted the topic somewhat, sitting up straighter and getting composed.

"So that's where all my time comes from. This started as a hobby a few years ago and because of you-" she gestured to the screen. "-faithfull viewers and subscribers, I've networked with a few different small businesses, I work from home. I have my Etsy shop, I've been able to review different products and be sponsored by those companies. If you haven't visited, be sure to check the links in the description. There's my Etsy shop, Instagram, Twitter, and links to my favourite channels."

As an afterthought, she added. "Maybe I'll do more videos on this, I'm not really sure. Leave your thoughts in the comments."

It was her usual send off, but for some reason it meant so much more after a fifteen minute video explaining something so personal.

"Remember guys, there's always a reason to smile. Until next time."

The personalized LittleDipperCo. appeared on screen alongside the subscribe button and list of links before the next video in the playlist began to buffer.

She hit cancel and set the tablet aside, trying to digest the last fifteen minutes. She'd ordered from the Etsy shop, LittleDipperCo. before and had recieved a little handwritten note alongside all the little items she'd ordered.

Stickers, bookmarks, a personalized mug for her dad, the earrings she was currently wearing....because she'd ordered so much and had been so patient, Ruth had added a few small items and a personal thank you card.

She was her favorite shop, there was something unique about LittleDipperCo.-creations by RuthAnne- that had always stood out to her.

Grabbing her tablet, she went back to find the link and glanced up at her open doorway in surprise when her brother appeared.

"Did you see what he's saying about me?"

"What who is saying-"

"Hudson thinks he's being funny-"

"Get off of Twitter, Alexander."

Alex held his phone up and read the time stamp. "An hour and a half ago-"

Emily glanced back at the upload time of Ruth's video. It was only about half an hour old.

Jesse Hudson was apparently roasting her brother in that video.

She blinked a few times and hid a smirk, busying herself with reaching for a hair tie. "Don't you have some kind of conference to get ready for?"

Another alert popped up as he made a show of leaving her doorway and Emily shook her head while clicking the link.

Let's lighten the mood! PSA- BLOOPERS AND REAL TALK.

8 notes · View notes

polyamorouspixie · 5 years

Text

on age gaps

Right, we gotta talk about this. Elsewhere on the internet I saw an 18yo asking for advice regarding a man in his forties and his girlfriend in her twenties, who had approached the 18yo on Tinder and were intending on her losing her virginity with them.

I was the only one commenting who did not encourage her to go through with this.

There is a lot to unpack here.

I’m going to start by saying, teenagers of Tumblr, I know you’re not going to like a lot of what I say. I’m 31, but I remember being your age and that’s how I know this stuff. I don’t mean any of it as an insult, simply a fact. I want you to be armed with the information to be able to make informed choices about your life.

I want to quickly point out that because it’s the most common occurrence, I’m going to mostly refer to older men trying to get involved with younger women, but of course people of any gender can be abusers and people of any gender can fall prey to that. If you’re a 17yo boy who has a woman in her fifties chasing you, this definitely all applies to you.

So where to start. In the original post that inspired this one, she said “what’s so wrong with two adults wanting to teach another adult about sex?”

Now, an 18yo is an adult. But there are different kinds of adult.

An 18yo is a BABY adult. Adulthood isn’t achieved in one day; it takes time to become one.

Here is a list of things you generally learn between the ages of 18 and 25, probably the most important growing up stage (you know how they say “you really start to learn to drive once you’ve passed your test”? You’re out on your own now, the real learning begins): --how to keep a home liveable, clean and stocked up. --how to support yourself financially --how to physically pay bills, set up services and organise money --how to solve financial problems, DIY problems, emotional problems, and other issues without involving a Grownup --how to cope with illness by yourself --how to cope with a financial Disaster like losing a job --how to talk to Adults who are not your peers without subconsciously seeing them as an Authority Figure --how to have authority figures without subconsciously resorting to obedient child or rebellious child headspace --how to be independent from your parents --how you feel about alcohol, and if you want to use it, how to use it moderately --how to cope with the end of a relationship --how to tell a partner what you want from them, reinforce boundaries, tell them you’re unhappy with some of their behaviour without being afraid it will end the relationship

Those are the things that separate a young adult from a general adult. A lack of confidence and skill in many of those areas makes a person vulnerable to abuse, especially from someone older with an established career and home. Simply put: if someone has resources and you don’t, you subconsciously feel they are an authority figure, and you are not practised in reinforcing your boundaries in relationships, you are not in a position to consent to a relationship with them.

I get it. Teenage and early twenties boys are crap. They’re morons. They love farting and videogames and they treat women like prizes. I accidentally fell into relationships with men all my adult life, but I didn’t know I was attracted to them until I was in my late twenties, and I suspect before that maybe I wasn’t. But if you’re looking for maturity, you won’t find it in a man past his early twenties who is okay with dating teenagers.

Adult men do not just happen to run into young girls all the time. If you see an older man on any dating website or app: he has deliberately set his preferences to show women of your age. My Tinder range is 24-40, and I tend to go “eurgh” at the under 25s anyway. Because those people are in the same period of their life as me, they have similar knowledge, understanding and experience. I have friends who are in their early twenties and they are awesome people. But they also have extremely poor relationship skills simply due to lack of experience and I would not like to date them. And when I talk to people at work who are that age, (once they realise I’m not the same age as them, I’m really babyfaced): they treat me as if I know things purely by being older than them. I’m not a higher authority than them, but if I give them commands, they do it. They ask me questions on the assumption that I know everything a manager would know. I bet they don’t even realise they do this; I didn’t when I was their age. So we know that any older man finding young girls on dating apps is deliberately seeking them; we know if he meets them in the workplace there is a serious power imbalance. Other than that the most common way these guys meet women is by seeking out hobbies and social groups that attract teenage girls, so guess what? Predatory behaviour.

Some of the reasons adult men seek teenage and early twenties girls and women: --younger women probably don’t know what good in bed looks like so they won’t call out the fact that he’s lazy and inconsiderate --they’re easier to groom into putting up with the kind of bad or even abusive behaviour a woman his own age would dump him for --they fetishize youth and innocence because they’re gross creeps who find the idea of willing consent a huge turnoff --they’re sexists who think women are prizes and objects that “expire” at 25 and are somehow soiled by having relationships instead of seeing that woman are beautiful, interesting and fascinating people throughout their entire lives --they are vile people who don’t give a toss about consent or having a relationship with someone who understands what that means and is his equal, and who wish they could date younger but don’t want to go to prison

If anyone dares come to me with some absolute guff about how it’s “just biology” to be attracted to teenage girls no matter your age, consider this: 1) humans can become pregnant up to and including during their forties and they aren’t “most fertile” at 15; they are still GROWING up to 25 and pregnancies in teenagers are dangerous 2) there are millions upon millions of people out there in happy relationships that cannot result in biological pregnancy for a multitude of reasons, and they are attracted to one another anyway 3) if you’re a man who uses Viagra and you’re making this argument I hope you stumble into an unexpected mine shaft.

I think once you get to your late twenties, the gap narrows between you and much older people because you’re experienced at being an adult, and I’m not going to judge a 50yo dating a 30yo unless he only dates 30 and under exclusively. At that point the power difference is minimised and the younger person can hold their own in that relationship. I’m not against age gaps as a concept; I’m just deeply worried about people who are the target of people who are attracted to them BECAUSE they are vulnerable, and don’t realise how unhealthy sexual and romantic relationships with older people are.

#polyamory #relationship advice #ranting

3K notes · View notes

pinehutch · 4 years

Video

youtube

There’s a lot of words behind the cut, about light and breezy Saturday night topics like history, family, aging, illness, loss. Here’s a bit about the shape I’m in, if you will.

Here is a list of things I have inherited from my father:

My complexion and colouring;

My emotionality;

Some (watered-down) impulsiveness;

A knack for numbers;

A tendency towards inflammatory conditions;

My love of a good horn section.

Here is a list of things that were not inherited from my father:

Unsubstantiated and overwhelming confidence (I don’t have that);

Most everything else.

This likely worked out as well as it could have. I’ve been lucky or determined or cared for in the right ways to learn how to live with or even love those pieces of myself. I’m grateful for the work that I’ve put in to being kinder, more compassionate, better able to identify and work with my emotions (even if I’m not perfect at it). If I am practicing that compassion with myself, I even like many things about me, sometimes. Very few people really raise themselves, and I certainly didn’t, but I let my curiosity raise me, and my friends, and books, and the other adults around me, and my own sense of reason.

The point is: here I am, and all of the ways that I’m not like my father are how I’ve found myself, over the last two weeks, as the adult in charge of keeping track of his decline.

My dad just turned 70 last year. He’d quit smoking, and been able to manage his diabetes with dietary approaches only. He’s a much different older adult than he was in his youth and middle age, and after retirement he spent a great deal of his free time with his second family, and his friends and neighbours, his community, his dog. Over the last year he’s had a series of severe and concurrent health problems that have put him in the hospital twice now, since January. I have tabs open on anorexia of aging, in-home nursing, and DIY will options for Canadians who can’t get to a lawyer.

His second hospital stay started almost two weeks ago, and my ability to be patient and steady and to deal with complex information (work skills, all) have meant that the family contact role has switched from my dad’s wife, or his step-daughter, to me. I woke up this morning to a 6:15 am call from the hospital; the nurse was gracious enough to start with “he’s okay, we just have a policy that...”.

They still tell me that they expect he will be going home from this in-patient stay. He’s open to having a nurse in once he’s home, which he wasn’t after the last stay. We’re having these conversations every couple of days, when he has the energy (and even then he mixes up words, and forgets himself mid-sentence, and he tells me he loves me more than he has ever said it before). I haven’t figured the discharge out yet: I’m in a high-risk group for COVID, and going to the hospital seems like something I shouldn’t do. (”Going to the hospital” is actually impossible right now under most circumstances: our hospitals are closed to visitors, except on compassionate grounds.)

When he’s out, it will be me trying to make room for him in the system, trying to keep things clear and organized so that he can get to Point B, and then the Point C, and ultimately to Point Maybe-He-Gets-Some-Potentially-Life-Sustaining-Treatment-Sometime-Soon. He’ll die, of course, but maybe he’ll have some of his quality of life back, for six months or a couple of years or five.

My dad’s people are long-lived. His father was 84, and ‘young’ when he passed, by family standards. His mom was 93. I thought I would have another five years, or ten, before this became part of my reality. There is a calm but firm and resonant voice inside my head telling me that I’m not cut out for caregiving. Those are both foolish thoughts, ungrounded.

He and I aren’t what anyone would call close. I moved out the same year he did, and I don’t think I’ve ever lived more than a thirty minute walk from his house, but we’ve spoken maybe three or four times a year for the last twenty years. In a good year. There’s no one, single reason - there are things that have happened in those twenty years, and in the 18 before that, but no one thing, no insurmountable betrayal or whatever. When I talk to people about my dad I say ‘we’re not close - not for any reason, just kind of a casual estrangement’ because to say anything else is to think about how shared experience is not always enough to make a familial bond.

Except here we are, and he will probably go home, and I will have to get him to doctor’s appointments (and try not to feel too guilty about being worried I’ll catch something), and maybe he’ll get better, and maybe he won’t, and I will have to tell the impulse inside me that says “you need to prove to his second family that you are working hard to save his life and dignity” to please be quiet, I’m trying to get things done.

So here has been my quarantine: I have not made sourdough starter. I have not written a poem a day, or even a week. I haven’t started seeds for the planters (though I did clean them up today), I haven’t found the perfect at-home exercise routine yet, I haven’t recorded myself reading fairy tales to all of you, I haven’t pulled out the cyanotype supplies, or gotten to the to-be-read list, or chipped away at the Netflix queue, or played any of the short list of games I’ve been meaning to play for years. I have been on the phone, and writing long texts to the family-of-his-youth and the family-of-his-older-age, and talking to the doctors’ offices, and to the hospital, and I’ve been working from home, and just kind of getting by. (I’m fortunate that I have the kind of job that I can do from home, and to work with people who will understand why I’m not wearing mascara anymore.)

A lot of my childhood was spent going to and from a house in the woods that my parents built. The house got bigger with time, and there was a winter where we had more floor space than furniture, and my dad would play his records and we’d dance in the living room, my mom and dad, my brother and I. There were a few that my parents could agree on, and The Band was always one.

A few years later I remember that my mom was away for work and my dad and his best friend, went to see The Band (or an iteration of it) for a Last Waltz performance at a localish venue. He came home at three in the morning, stoned and tipsy and happy, having driven an hour on country roads in the dark. He was the primary income and had two children. My childhood best friend and I were curled up in the double bed in the guest room, and we laughed at him when he walked by singing. “It was - festive,” he said, and we, worldly and all of thirteen years old thought that was the funniest thing ever said.

I’m not sure where to go from here - I was raised in such a way that the admonishments I feared were “careless” and “irresponsible” and “too sensitive,” and now I think I’m being called upon because I can be careful with the details, can be overwhelmingly “responsible,” and I’m sure I’m going to get told off for not emoting enough while I’m going through the next steps with dad. We all make ourselves up, over and over again, until we stop.

#personal #illness #parental death tw #hospital tw #drunk driving tw #i think my upbringing was normal just like i'm sure you do #also #covid-19 #coronavirus #i'm tagging a lot because i know this one is a bummer folks #but it's one layer of the thing that's been in the way lately

6 notes · View notes

grimes-claireboucher · 5 years

Photo

GRIMES | WHO KNEW WORLD-BUILDING WOULD BE SO DIFFICULT?

BY SID FEDDEMA

APRIL 23, 2019

You can hear it, can’t you? The pulsing, panning synth bass, ingenious and instantly memorable. A gossamer coo, almost a sigh. And then a voice in an unusually high register singing  lyrics full of menace, at odds with a calculated syrupy-sweet, faux-naive intonation: I never walk about after dark / It’s my point of view / If someone could break your neck / Coming up behind you always coming and you’d never have a clue.

Seven years later, its power remains unmitigated. “Oblivion” turned horror into art, and, while drawn from a personal, particular experience, it spoke to a universal pain, a sense of predation and vulnerability all too familiar for women. Most importantly, it is a defiant act of resistance, a steadfast insistence on Grimes’ ownership of her own experience, and a refusal to be silenced. Pitchfork named it the best song of the decade so far. NPR named it one of the “greatest songs by 21st Century women.” Grimes was suddenly a cultural touchstone, a feminist symbol, a cherished member of the resistance. Everyone was watching.

They still are. Look at the Twitter fusillades, the talmudic readings of even the most flippant utterance, the team-joining. Feuds! With contemporaries, the media, her label. Gossip! A storm of it, following her spacetime-warping appearance with Elon Musk on the Met Gala red-carpet. And to hear Grimes tell it, being caught up in all this has been excruciating. She’s said that 2018 was one of the hardest years she’s endured.

When we speak, Grimes is in flux—emotionally, artistically, career-wise. But that’s nothing new. If I was to describe her with one word, I think it would be '“mercurial.” Or “protean.” She never stands still, never settles. She feels less like one person than like a collection of occasionally-combative creative spirits inhabiting one body. Hence the wide cast of characters in her albums, the fashion experiments, the accretion disk of material spanning mediums and genres. As I was writing this article we got word that she has changed her name—to c [lowercase italic], rather than Claire Boucher, and that the Grimes identity she’s built up over the course of her career could be next to go. For a journalist, she’s a tough subject: not only is she encyclopedic in conversation, but by the time you finish your draft, half of what you’ve written may no longer be true. While this capriciousness is a powerful creative resource, it can also make things difficult. She is a hell of a lot of fun to talk to, though—a whirlwind of ideas, opinions, wisecracks, and puckish self-deprecation.

I was given four tracks from the new album to prepare. But when I bring up the first, the disarmingly raw, strange, and lovely “Shall I Compare Thee,” she laughs. “I hate all these songs now. I might even replace them all. I’m supposed to be finishing the album this month or whatever, but I’ve been making a shit ton of new music instead. Which is a really bad idea.” She sighs, thinks for a moment. “But I’ll probably put out the songs that I said I’ll put out.” I tell her that her fans would surely appreciate seeing what she’s been working on. “Maybe, maybe not,” she replies, grinning. “I think the fans want me to stop making metal, nu-metal. Which I will! I have, I have stopped making metal!” Meanwhile, she’s dropping demos for an augmented reality side project under the moniker “Dark,” scribbling away on a novel, and thinking about a suite of “hymns, like glossolalia vocal music,” but which she “probably won’t release as ‘Grimes,’” as she explains it. She has changed her artistic approach, and is intent on unshackling her creative impulses. “I read a book on speed painting, about how you just lay it down and become satisfied with it. So I’m trying to do a bunch of stuff like that right now. It does feel better, because it just contains more life,” she explains. “Shall I Compare Thee” embodies this speed-painting creative methodology: DIY production, recorded in “like, two hours.” But the other single from the album, “We Appreciate Power,” is the opposite. It’s polished to a shine, conceptual, accompanied by a well-produced video. “‘Power’ is sort of the end of the old music I was making,” she says. “This era of super-produced and perfected sound—it’s sort of a thesis on that, a bookend.”

She’s eager to explain the concept of the new album. However she feels about the songs at any given moment, she’s clearly excited about the story that they’re telling. “Miss Anthropocene” is a character, essentially an anthropomorphization of the concept of climate change. The name is a witty pun on “misanthropy” and “anthropocene”—the geological era defined by humanity’s irrevocable impacts on the planet. “All the media about climate change is like one big guilt trip. It’s super depressing, like, here are some facts that make you wanna go home and kill yourself. It sucks and it sucks to look at, so people just kind of look away from it,” she says. “I want to change that. In ancient Greek culture you have these gods that represent abstract, terrifying concepts. Like a God of Death. So I wanted to make Miss Anthropocene this idea of, like, the God of Climate Change. She wants the world to end and she wants to bring about the end of humanity, but she’s fun. She’s fucking fun and evil!” Grimes laughs. “Also, climate change is beautiful, even if it’s terrifying. It’s so nice to look at. The sunsets are brighter and more beautiful. Volcanoes, oil rainbows, hurricanes... destruction is gorgeous—people are drawn to it.”

Miss Anthropocene marks the end of an era for Grimes. When it’s released she’ll be finished with her obligations to her label, and she’s excited about the prospect of working without contractual restrictions. “I’ll never sign with another label. I’ll never have to put out another album... If I didn’t have this whole requirement to release an ‘album,’ I would have just dropped a bunch of music ages ago.” The album format, she says, feels increasingly ill-suited for her shape-shifting, experimental style. “Albums are trash unless you sit down and make a really good album. I’m not really that consistent. I feel like I would work better in like EP-ish formats.”

It’s not the only departure from musical tradition that she’s considering. Touring, she tells me, has increasingly become a stressful obligation. “I wanna retire from touring. I wanna do a hologram tour. Why do we keep doing them for dead artists instead of living ones who have stage fright?” Does she still get stage fright, this far into her career? “Oh my god, yes. It’s nightmarish. Apocalyptic. Terrifying, horrible. I can’t hear clapping or cheers—I just hear an echo chamber of death. I black out. Dissociation—I can’t tell what’s happening. After a show I’m always thinking, What happened? And people are like ‘It’s ok!’ I know people like the authenticity of live performance, and I do too. But I’m not a good performer. I’m a director who accidentally fell into this position, and now it’s too late to change. So I need to Gorillaz it—I need to find a way to not have to do the Beyoncé thing as much.”

The sense is that Grimes is finished with facades, done pretending, done jumping through hoops to meet our expectations for what a ‘pop-star’ should be. Coming to terms with all this has been a messy and difficult process, but she’s finally feeling like herself again. She’s optimistic, if wary. And she’s ready to let it all out. Her forthcoming album, to hear her tell it, is Grimes unleashed. “I feel like at times there is an extreme rage that I haven’t been able to lay down,” she says. “A rawness that I have withheld from the public, because people always told me to make it more accessible. I’ve given that up for this, and it’s been freeing.”

She’s confronting her past as well. Miss Anthropocene was written during a period of intense self-reflection, and in the midst of personal tragedy. After losing others to addiction and overdoses, yet another close friend had passed. She hints obliquely at her own struggles with substances. It’s hard for her to talk about, but she has confronted it head-on while making this album, and is ready to be honest with the public. “I had early disturbing experiences with kids coming up to me and admiring things that were self-destructive. I was like, fuck, people think it’s cool to cut yourself or vomit or do crack. That’s not good! But then it became this stifling thing,” she says. “I don’t know. I’ve lived this hard, fucked-up life. I can’t pretend I didn’t. It started feeling like I couldn’t express myself properly, because I was so worried about being a good role model. It scares me to be hyper-honest, but we never see women getting to be that way. There should be someone out there that’s messy and fucked up—for some people this is how it is. It scares me because I don’t want little kids to romanticize certain things that are not cool. But I also don’t want to lie about the reality of my existence. I can’t make super honest or super emotional art if I’m always pretending to be cool and chill all the time.”

Grimes’ fans, who love her rabidly, have expressed worry at times in the last few years. If it seems she’s been self-sabotaging, whether online or in her relationships with collaborators and partners, it’s because she really has struggled. But unlike most of us, every step of her journey has been seized upon by a fascinated public and a cynical press hungry for headlines and clicks. And her reticence to tell us what she was really going through left all the more room for speculation. “Two of my best friends died before I was 18, and I lost like five friends to opiate-related deaths. Really close friends. I had one die when I was on a shoot, and found out while filming the second day. All this stuff, fucked up stuff, is happening. Before I would just not mention any of it. I feel like I’ve been through war when I think that all these people around me are dead. In 2016, my good friend died. They were a friend of 15 years, and I felt nothing. Just nothing. And it was so weird. But, you know, there you go. So you start removing yourself from everybody because you don’t want to face it. Life becomes too shockingly fragile, you know?”

It hasn’t been easy for Grimes to engage with her past, but talking about it—in her art, in interviews like this one—is helping. “I’ve gotten better. I was really fucked up in 2016 when I wrote this album, but now I’m doing much better. When I was going through the Art Angels cycle, I was having severe PTSD, and everyone was like, ‘Don’t let the public know!’ I know there are people who think I’ve fucked up the last year, and I do need to be more organized and reasonable and thoughtful at times, for sure. But I feel my art is better.”

Grimes’ favorite part of her job comes before she records a single note. “Dreaming it up feels so easy. The making and releasing can be horrible, but the dreaming is always fun,” she sighs. And that’s why she’s such an interesting figure, right? She’s a prodigious dreamer. We may love the music—I still blast “Oblivion” on an almost monthly basis, revisit the strange and compelling world of Art Angels—but it does sometimes feel almost beside the point. Grimes is building a universe, and she’s shedding the strictures that get in the way of that grand vision—the album format, her label, even her own carefully-crafted identity. “Part of what I’m doing is setting up the world-building. Reverse Harry Potter it. Soundtrack comes first, then the fashion, then everything, everything, everything. Then the book, right before I die,” she says, not really joking. Reaching this point of liberation hasn’t been a smooth process. Grimes is unfailingly honest with herself, her own worst critic. But she feels free, she’s happy with what she’s creating, and her ambitions have only grown. We just need to get out of the way and let her dream.

#grimes #claire boucher #actuallygrimes #interview 2019 #flaunt magazine #sid feddema #2019 #zoey grossman

299 notes · View notes

superpooped · 4 years

Text

Dealing with Quarantine (from an actual expert)

Hello!

Today’s post is for people who are having their first taste of isolation or quarantine and are feeling a bit overwhelmed.

There’s a lot of these going around, and although they can be useful (I have no idea about specific Corona-based medical practise or finance) they seem to be written by people who are generally out and about in the world.

No offence, but what you really need is a Professional. You need… A HOUSEBOUND PERSON!

And that’s where I come in.

For those of you that are new here, I have a condition where, amongst other things, my body doesn’t create energy like it should. My mitochondria are all messed up, so, as you can imagine, that has an impact on… everything.

I am too exhausted to leave the house, or sometimes my bed. So I’ve been cared for by my lovely family for seven and a half years, and have been housebound for the last five and a half.

By now, I’m an old hand at this, so I’ll be able to help you out with some of the lesser known issues that people without that half a decade of experience just can’t tell you.

Some of this may seem strange or contradictory in places, but I don’t make the rules. This is how it is.

Choice makes a difference

You’re probably learning (or about to learn) that the one thing that makes a difference as to whether doing something or not is fun is Choice.

The number of times I’ve had someone say to me “it must be so nice to be at home all the time” is ridiculous.

The person saying it is thinking of the fun type of staying at home, where you decide to have a duvet day and watch movies and eat toast in your pants.

But now people are being faced with the less fun kind. The kind where you can’t leave.

Staying at home because you want to… fun. Staying at home because of Doom Plague Potential… not fun. (Also, bagsy “Doom Plague Potential” as a band name.)

It’s tough being uncertain when you’re going to see people, do things or get on with your life, but…

If you think about it, you are making a choice. You’re making the choice to put your health first. That’s sensible.

And if you’re careful with others who are more at risk then you’re making the choice to be kind. That’s even better.

You can do it

I’m not even meaning this in an inspirational quote sense, you can actually do this. It may be tricky, but if I can last half a decade in my house, you can last a couple of weeks, or even a couple of months.

If you’re actually sick then make sure you have people who can check up on you via the internet or phone if not in person. Seek medical attention where necessary.

Otherwise…

The Internet exists - embrace it

All that “put down your phone and live in the REAL WORLD” stuff is about to become a load of cobblers.

You will feel lonely, the Internet is a great tool to prevent that, so embrace it.

Group chats, social media, and video chats make a MASSIVE difference in the lives of people stuck at home, so utilise that.

Even when you’re watching tv, have a group chat of mates watching the same thing and talk about it as if you’re all there together. Because you are... kind of.

You can also contact plenty of mental healthcare professionals over the internet (or phone) if you feel that’s something you need. Don’t be afraid to reach out. There are people available.

The Internet isn’t real

At the same time as the internet being an amazing tool and opportunity for social interaction, it’s important to remember that it’s not a complete experience of the world.

It seems obvious when you’re able to leave the house, but it will quickly become clear that things start to feel a bit more skewed without the regular interaction of polite (or not so polite) strangers in everyday life.

Things will seem more polarised and polarising, and specific, potentially small things may seem extremely important. That’s normal, just... bear it in mind and take a deep breath before reacting to things.

TV, Radio, Things to do!

If you, unlike me, are at home as a precautionary measure instead of long term health condition you can probably do things. Hooray!

Right now that is less than you're used to, and BELIEVE ME I know that feel, bro, but you can still do things and that’s wonderful.

Imagining a lengthy period where you’re stuck at home sounds awful, but imagine it without TV, books or the internet. Or crafts. Or DIY. Or the ability to clean your clothes or yourself.

I’m trying really hard not to play the “be grateful” card here, because people have said it to me despite me struggling (or being completely unable) to do any of those things and it made me want to bite them. But also... you can likely do those things. So maybe this is the point where all those trite inspiration memes come in handy and you can embrace the things you can do.

Unless you are sick, in which case, for the love of all that is holy, do not do the things.

Stay in bed. Drink fluids. Have people check in on you as safely as possible. Resist the urge to get up and make your body fight harder than it is, because that will not help you.

Trust me, despite all those “you can do anything if you BELIEVE” quotes, it’s not strong or clever to push your body when it’s struggling. You will just use up energy your body could be using to heal you. Take it from the sick person.

Stay in bed till you feel better, and then a bit longer, just to make sure.

And resist the urge to go out in public and rub your germy self onto various surfaces.

You will come to love your Postie/Courier.

Oh, those kind humans who strive through wind and gale to bring us parcels and food, and most importantly, contact with the outside world.

A face! A new face! Possibly some small talk. You never knew that was a thing you could miss before this moment.

Will you potentially feel the need to disinfect everything you get in the post? Possibly. Will you be ever so glad to see someone who doesn’t live in your house or flat? Most definitely.

They must be protected for they are the keepers of the parcels.

Time will lose all meaning.

The only thing I can reliably liken it to is that weird week between Christmas and New Year where you don’t know what day, time or year it is. Or why you’re covered in biscuit crumbs.

If you don’t celebrate these events and have have no prior experience in this weird time warp... I’m sorry. Things are about to get real.

I genuinely forget my own age at this point.

Keep to a regular schedule.

You’re going to re-enter the world at some point but that’s going to be difficult if your schedule is all messed up.

Keeping to a normal(ish) schedule will also mean you’re more likely to sleep better, which will be handy if you do actually get sick.

If you’re going to be working from home then you’re probably going to have to use alarms to get you to do anything because otherwise you will look up and it’s three in the afternoon, you’ve done nothing and you’re still in your jim-jams.

(To be fair, if you want to work in your jim-jams that’s a totally valid choice.)

Try to stick to specific working hours if you can. It’s much easier to switch off your mind from work worries when you’ve got commute time in the middle, so having set hours or a signal to yourself (like changing clothes) that the work day is over will help you wind down a bit easier. I remember that much from my healthy freelance days.

Exercise?

I imagine that if you’re housebound without being sick you’re probably going to have a ton of pent up energy.

I’ll admit I’m completely guessing here, because energy is quite literally what my body is rubbish at producing so exercising makes me worse, which is why I’m stuck in my house unable to do anything in the first place.

Looking back at those heady years before I got sick, however, I would get pretty restless being stuck inside during that weird post-Christmas week, so it’s probably good to try and exercise some of that off.

Stretches, yoga, kick a football about in the garden. Whatever floats your boat.

You’ll probably sleep better and it’s good for releasing endorphins too.

Again, if you’re sick, don’t do this. Just don’t. Coronavirus targets your respiratory system so nobody wants you to be doing star jumps like a muppet. Go lie down.

Touch withdrawal

If you live on your own, or even if people inside your house are avoiding contact to prevent potential contamination you may experience mild touch withdrawal. I don’t know if that’s an official term, but that’s what I’m calling it.

You can counter this with:

Blankets, duvets, or weighted blankets

There’s a reason people are given shock blankets after trauma, and that’s to simulate a hug and release the associated endorphins. Having a blanket, duvet or weighted blanket around you will do that same thing.

Pets

Having access to a furry (or scaly or feathered) friend will help with loneliness and touch withdrawal. A lot of them will be loving the chance to spend more time with you.

ASMR

I’ve had people tell me that ASMR videos help them with loneliness and touch withdrawal.

ASMR stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response and is basically a tingly feeling of calm and being cared for that a person can experience when watching or listening to certain triggers.

YouTube is full of people tapping on bottles and turning books pages, and it can be really useful.

I was a bit dubious to begin with, but honestly the ones where the person pretends to cut your hair make me into a giant pile of goop.

Not the same as long term isolation

This is going to pass. You will be able to leave the house again, and it will be relatively soon.

When it does, please be respectful of those who are still here.

Yes, a two week quarantine might give you a tiny glimpse into what it’s like to be housebound, but it won’t make you an expert in long term isolation due to illness or disability. That’s a whole other ball game.

Please do not equate the two, because it honestly feels a randomer in a bar who has spent two minutes thinking on a topic telling you about something you have a doctorate in.

Coronavirus is scary, and quarantine or self-isolation is not something you’re used to but it is temporary.

Finally

If disabled or sick people are getting salty on the internet it’s because they have reason to be.

A lot of us have been stuck like this for years or even decades, and many of the options that would make things much more accessible for us have only magically become possible now there’s a threat to the general, abled population.

It doesn’t help that lots of people are trotting out the old “it’s only the old and sick who are in danger”. Thanks for that, mate. So glad that it’s only us sickies (and oldies) who might die and not the important, useful people that are in danger.

Many of us do not have that light at the end of the tunnel when we can leave the house and just get on with our lives. I have no idea when or if I will be able to rejoin society fully, or even partly. And I just have to get on with it.

So take this opportunity to be a little more mindful of those people.

I do hope this helps people who are nervous about being isolated. Keep calm. It will be alright.

Originally posted on superpooped.blogspot.com

#coronavirus #corona #covid 19 #covidー19 #covid19 #isolation #self isolation #quarantine #quarantined #virus #stay home #mecfs #pwme #disability #disabled #chronic illness #ableism #housebound

6 notes · View notes

dentalrecordsmusic · 4 years

Text

Album Review: No Momentum - “everything's whatever”

Words by Ari Jindracek

I became acquainted with No Momentum at Sled Fest, as I did with many bands, and after seeing them live, the chance to check out their first full-length LP was one I knew I had to jump on. I left Mount Prospect that night with their CD in my bag, though various holiday circumstances meant I couldn't actually check it out until January, and the second I listened, I was in. The more I listen, the more in I get. No Momentum feel like the sort of band that would result if you took topics that the DIY scene spends a lot of time on, like love, nostalgia, and modern Internet culture, chopped up a weird and sometimes distressing therapy session, and shoved everything into a food processor with early Fall Out Boy. That's a bad metaphor for a good band, but you might get my point: there's a bit of old, a lot of new, and the result is wholly terrific.

The first few seconds of “yr telescope” feel like a cool day in a small park in the middle of the city, soothing but with a sense of modernity still there. This impression goes away as soon as it came and I must admit the transition into the more bouncy, vocally-fried song was jarring. The lyrics take a backseat, for me, to the rhythm which singer Will Bowman spits them out; if I brought this song to my sophomore year class on prosody (look it up), my professor would probably listen to “I’m not defined by rhymes or lines,” look at the class, and say something in his deeply profound voice about how he thought it was cool as hell. It feels like every word of this song falls perfectly into its right place, a perfectly-played game of musical Tetris. I long for a return to the serene beginning just so it doesn’t seem like such a one-off, but this song latched in my brain and I think of it sometimes, unprompted, on walks to the train, wishing I could listen to it on my phone.

The way “gts” starts steeply contrasts the way “yr telescope” does, opening with harsh, metallic, picky noises that make my teeth itch before opening into the guitar-backed vocals, and sliding into a bouncy rhythm like water off an umbrella. The vocals lapse into traditional nasally emo, into a rasping, into screaming. The range of sonic texture in this song alone is stunning and makes me think about how some hardcore bands have separate people giving clean vocals and screamed vocals, unable or willing to cover all that territory. A lot is going on in “gts”, so much that I feel like it slipped off my brain on the first few listens. The first half of the lyrics are grounded in simple reality (“You’re probably used to it by now / you’ve probably got your script out” reminds me of that now-dead meme about the “I’m at capacity” text script. I’m on Twitter a lot, sue me.), then after a beachy instrumental interlude, the song collapses into murderous imagery, ending with what seems to be the death of the listener at the hands of the speaker. The first line, “my brain feels like it’s overloading”, is right. I’m not mad about it, but feel like I’m missing something between verses.

“not my home” grabs my attention almost immediately with the way “dot dot dot” smartly multitasks, working on the levels of both lyric and catchy, pop-punky sound effect. This song feels colossal, partially because the two before it are so short, a billowing blanket castle that takes up half the house. The line “you said this body’s not my home anymore” is the most powerful of the song to me, though I’m not sure if it hits for me, a transgender person, for the same reasons it might hit for the band. The song feels like it comes in waves--soft-loud, gentle-fast. Every time I get used to the sound I’m hearing, it flips again. In the end, the slow rhythm underneath the tragic-sounding apologies gives way, almost naturally, to the more intense moment that follows, which slows down again as the song fades out. The beginning of “painted yellow lines” feels like it follows naturally, in much the same way. Again, the cadence of the lyrics in this song grabs my attention. The vocals feel like a rhythm instrument in their own right for the way they seem to be hammered out, exactly on every beat. This song was the first one that outright surprised me with how good it was. The lyrics read as a simple but painful testament to mental illness and intrusive thoughts; “who’s to say some painted yellow lines can quell impulse / but that’s not me, no that’s the disease” and “maybe I’m damaged goods but I’m good” both hit me hard. The former feels very visual, an image of an image in someone’s head of steering their car out of its proper lane, crashing headfirst into traffic; the latter, an almost-too-easy denial of the very distressing feelings that might make one want to steer into traffic. I love the ghostly effect of the effect-riddled vocals behind the guitar solo, and the thick bass in the breakdown right before the end of the song makes me think of it as a headbanging moment.

The beginning of “chill’d,” the first single off the album and first half of “chill’d / passenger,” echoes that of “gts” but feels more suspenseful, from the chords and growly bass to the little triplets. This effect dissolves when the vocals start, much like it does in “yr telescope.” The band does echo this in the chorus, though, which I’m grateful for. My primary thought about “chill’d / passenger” is that it feels like two songs--and not like one two-part song, as I would have expected by the two-part title. Both are remarkable, don’t get me wrong. “chill’d” is high-energy with remarkable drum fills and one of those bridges I love that slows down before picking itself back up. After a second of tuning, “chill’d” lapses into the much slower “passenger,” which glitters like black ice under streetlights. The breakdown of the song, screams of “what are you scared of?” is raw and stunning. My main problem is that these two halves don’t feel like they cohere, which is sad because they’re both such brilliant halves! The feel of the two songs, however, both lyrically and musically, is just too different for me to connect them as one and the same without a little more transition work than those quiet seconds that it takes to twist up one or two guitar strings. There are smoother transitions on the album between songs that are listed separately. I think picking “chill’d” as a single independent of its mate was a good choice--it’s a lot more fun and less gut-wrenching. Honestly, if my only problem with a song is the transition between it and the next song, even if they’re both the same track, that’s pretty high praise.

My first impression of the second single “my dad invented punk and he’s gonna cancel your band” is obviously tied to the title, because I judge a book by its cover more than I should. It’s a good impression--feels very mid-2000s--and it doesn’t let me down. The opening guitar grit feels familiar at this point, a thread woven through earlier songs. Bassist Dan Watkins’s part feels extra distinctive, partially because the guitar largely drops out at the end of the first verse to give the bassline extra room, but also because it drives the song as it crashes forward through the brush. Lyrically, I love “deify me, crucify me” as a couplet, and as a quick summary of the way cancel culture works in the music world we all live in: musicians and their work are so important we end up idolizing them, until they step over a line, at which point the scene, metaphorically, cuts their heads off. The ending is abrupt--like the end of a smaller band’s career if they cross that line--and I wish I had some more of it to sink my teeth into, but I also have no problem with the song slamming the brakes in a way oddly similar to how it started.

“orange julius erving” kicks off with that scratchy guitar sound that seems to be a No Momentum signature sound over lush rhythms. I feel like I could listen to the drums at the very beginning on their own and they’d feel like a song in their own right. The subject matter feels very domestic, in great contrast to the very-online subject of the previous song: brushing teeth, kitchen towels, and love for someone with the sort of deathwish that makes someone crash their car into a wall. The guitar solo slots in perfectly after the second verse and I love the way it feels so tonally clear. The slow tremolo at the end of this solo creates a great springboard for launching into the final sequence of screaming, loving but brutal to feel.

The song “yes, momentum”, obviously named with tongue in cheek, is also very aptly named: it builds from the wash of sound in the first few notes, into a first voice sung normally, into a slower bridge, into a final minute of screaming. Even in the slower verse, the line “sit on my hands and scream too loud” indicates what is to come, and Marty Headley on drums keeps the energy up even as the instrumentals fade out. The whole effect of this build feels like I’m trying to walk down a steep hill--tentative, then walking, then running due to the buildup of, well, momentum. The end of the song after “the buck stops now” feels right, because if the song had kept going any more, it seemed like it would spin itself out and wreck on the side of the road, so great was the force behind it.

"donettes" is a great example of a type of song I-- probably wrongly, let's be real -- refer to as "grand emo ballads.” Out of my top five songs of all time, I would classify three under this heading. That is to say, "donettes" falls into my favorite flavor of song: characterized by slow-tempo instrumentals that take up a lot of real estate in a long song full of lyrics that contain significant emotional depth. Think of the richness of the instrumentals here, paced much slower than almost anything else on the album so far but pulling just as much attention in as the killer songs earlier on. The drumming in the final two minutes is phenomenal. The lyrics, though there aren't as many of them as one might expect from a song almost six minutes long, hit me like bricks every now and then. “What made you think that you could outrun time?” got me immediately, as did the slow, heartfelt rendition of, “tell me what you want, what you really really want.” The imagery in the last verse is vivid for how grounded it is, all sugar sweet and nostalgic.

There is a rawness in the love there, shown in the desperation of the vocals, the cries of the guitar. It all comes together into pretty much my platonic ideal of a slow song by a fast band. The album's title track follows, another slowed-down closer. "everything’s whatever" begins with a doubled guitar that isn't present elsewhere, probably because No Momentum only has one guitarist. It takes more than a minute and a half for the rhythm section to come in, and the first time they take the foreground is more than halfway through. Most of the song has a sonic feel like a gray-skied day by the shore of a lake. Lyrically, there is apathy and neutrality showing in lines like “I’m waiting for some things to fall together so I can start living.” It's very relatable but there is a distinct undercurrent of forcing it--there is more emotion under the facade. “Can’t seem to stop the room from spinning” feels like the beginning of the cracking of that facade to me, a crack that leads to a crumbling in the last full minute; after that, there are explicit mentions of pretending regularly, subtext fully made text. In the end, the song gets musically much harder, more wrenching, and you can tell that the end is nigh. It feels like light is slipping out through the places where the mask of not caring has worn thin.

While working on this review, I found myself wanting to listen to everything’s whatever more than just when I was at home with my good headphones on, flipping through MP3s, with my orange CD player waiting for when I needed it. No Momentum at times remind me of some of my favorite bands. Sure, there are a few blemishes on the album, but the sheer caliber of the work means I am all too willing to ignore those little scrapes and stage-dive into a crowd about it instead. No Momentum’s work is going to make it into my rotation, absolutely, and when they blow up and start headlining national tours, you can catch me in the pit.

everything’s whatever was released today, 2/14. You can listen to the album here on Bandcamp and be sure to catch up with No Momentum on all of their social media.

Ari Jindracek wants some powdered sugar donuts now. Ari doesn’t even like powdered sugar donuts. You can find Ari on Twitter.

Follow DRM on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Subscribe to the DRM YouTube channel.

#no momentum #everything's whatever #everythings whatever #punk #punk rock #emo #emo punk #poughkeepsie #poughkeepsie new york #new york #indie #indie rock

2 notes · View notes

punchythecat · 5 years

Text

some thoughts on the acnh e3 trailer: long post lol

march 2020??? YOURE KILLING ME. guess ill keep having to get my fill on acpc for basically another year T__T maybe start a new acnl town lol

but overall it looks like a really fun game with a lot of elements taken from happy home designer & acpc and some new ones

crafting: i dont know how to feel about this one. it’s one of the things i was scared they were going to take from acpc

getting materials seems tedious and im sure the less common materials are going to be hard to find (cotton, preserves, paper...) but i guess it gives you more access to all of the furniture as opposed to waiting for it to pop up in the store. idk what do you guys think about crafting?

outdoor furniture: it looks like we can have backyards and put outdoor furniture wherever we want on the island! thank g od

it might be only certain furniture but definitely something positive they took from happy home designer

path making: I AM SO HYPE THEY ADDED THIS it was definitely the top feature i was praying for

nintendo saw the trend and added the feature to the game, love it. it looks nice and clean too and im sure you can still put your own design over it (in a much less tedious way hopefully).

pole vaulting: this one is just so funny to me aKdjkshdkj animal crossing said fuck bridges

diy flower crowns?: just something small i noticed. she picked flowers and in the next shot it looks like shes wearing them in her hair as a flower crown. super cute who even needs to craft hats now?

villager (islander?)-environment interactions: something else they took from acpc and hhd as well? your islanders can interact with the town in new ways (like sitting on the ground or furniture outside)

character customization: like we expected it looks like you can choose your skin color (hopefully hair and face too)

it doesnt look like theres many new hair/face options though? the only new one i see is the girl with the braids in the front im hoping its not a wig but it doesnt look like it so thats good. i hope they add a bunch of new eyes and hairstyles to the game (i need a long hairstyle badly)

also backpacks and bags??? Yes

i like that the feet on the character model arent freakishly small anymore so the shoes look nicer lol

i also wonder if they were showcasing how many friends can be in your town at once in this shot or if it was just for advertisement sake

Questions:

i wonder what the capacity for villagers is now? surely it has to be more than 10 at this point

i also wonder if you have more of a choice of who moves in/leaves your town. they might keep trying to bank on amiibos in that manner

also can you choose where villagers put their houses? it’s super needed lol

where’s isabelle? i wonder what role she’s going to play in this game, if any (im sure she will). it looks like tom nook took her place as the main npc though lmao

i wonder where the shops are? im sure theyre going to be incorporated somehow, maybe you have to unlock them or theyre in a certain place on the island (like maybe shops on ships at the coast or something)

i guess being able to put furniture outside takes the place of public works projects in this game?

im sure there’s a bunch more questions and comments to add so what do you guys think?

#animal crossing #animal crossing new horizons #acnh #e3 #e3 2019 #ac

23 notes · View notes