#words cannot describe how important they are. to me | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

katyspersonal · 2 years

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I get that ppl sometimes don’t vibe with certain art styles but the amount of details you put in your works is genuinely very impressive. I especially envy how pretty you draw clothes and folds, and also hair! I even want to study some of your art to understand how to draw these things better /gen

Thank you so much for these words!! ;-; I'd say I have a strange pickle between doing many details and doing not enough details? Like I can draw every button and belt and stitch on the clothes... but then draw filigree/pattern all messy. My brain selects WHAT details to elaborate randomly.

But I am incredibly flattered that you want to use MY art of all things to improve yours?? You can do it, analysing art of other creators to pick what you like and adopt it for your own art is a very useful part of improvement! Goooood luck with this!

Also honestly, I should replace 'my art' tag in my art blog with a unique tag, like 'katyarthina' or something when my hands get to it, so it can be filtered out if needed. Because yes, some people could genuinely like my theories/headcanons, even like ME as a person, but just feel irked by my art style and it's valid! Though in retrospective, having art called ugly (when it is not out of place of pettyness/envy/etc!) is a compliment of sorts? If art style can make someone angry - it means it has identity, it has nerve. Cute, simple, 'common' art styles are dangerously close to being forgettable. Like compare a very elaborate antique book shelf vs a simple IKEA book shelf! Former could be appreciated by people with specific taste OR be found disgusting and over-the-top! Latter can't irk anyone out because it is convenient, but this is the point. It is simple and fit for everyone, it doesn't have identity so sharp it can scratch people, it is "just here".

...granted it is totally possible to have art with strong identity and nerve that nobody is irked by, but if people ARE irked - this is 101% guarantee it has identity that's all. xD

#ask replies #sorry i had to ramble yet again fsdhsdh #it is hard to tell from how rarely i finish new work but visual art is my HUGE passion #it is deadass my personality trait that's how important it is for me #again hard to tell from rare new works but well... in a way this IS the point. i cannot rush or schedule such intimate thing!#everyone finds their own core value in art and for me it is 'identity'#between perfect-technique flawless super skilled art that is 'just pretty' and-#-somewhat low-skilled doodle that has 'idea' and 'personality' in it i tend to choose the latter #that's the good thing about art - everyone finds their own reason for valuing it!#for some it IS the effort and technique and skill. for others it is WHAT is drawn rather than how #for me it is something i can't explain but i know it when i see it #i don't know right word to refer what i am describing as 'nerve' or 'identity' if someone knows a better term let me know!#but that's what i like about my art. it could have been prettier and cuter but then it would be not me!

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thebreakfastgenie · 3 months

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It is extremely disturbing how many posts I see claiming that Roe v. Wade was overturned on Biden's watch and blaming him and the Democratic Party for it. It's disturbing on a number of levels.

First, it was Trump and Bush-appointed justices who handed down the Dobbs decision. This is a flagrant example of blaming Democrats for things Republicans did, and not coincidentally is one of the the most widely felt differences between the two parties. As a result, it's usually the first example Democrats and their allies point to; this misappropriation suggests a deliberate attempt to undercut that fact.

Secondly, and related to the first point, it obfuscates who the real enemy is, and I am comfortable using word "enemy" to describe the Republican Party because of the policies they advocate and enact. The truth is that states controlled by the Republican Party were where the effects of Dobbs are most severely felt, while states controlled by the Democratic Party are passing laws to protect abortion. It is important to know which party opposes abortion and which party supports it. If the Republicans gain control of the House, Senate, and White House, they will pass a national abortion ban, as they have done at the state level in several places.

Thirdly, blaming Biden for Dobbs demonstrates a very concerning lack of understanding of how the government functions. The judiciary is its own branch of government; judges are appointed by the president and confirmed by the senate. It doesn't matter who is president when a decision is handed down, it matters who was president when the justices were appointed. People sometimes react to this by moving the goalposts and claiming the real issue was a failure by Democrats to "codify" Roe v. Wade. I am not sure what "codify" means in this context, and I'm not sure they are either. One thing it does not mean is that congress can pass a law saying "abortion is legal forever." Republicans could easily repeal such a law and it the federal government cannot necessarily prevent states from restricting abortion at the state level. Roe v. Wade was a ruling stating that the constitution guaranteed a right to privacy, which included the right to have an abortion. This prevented abortion restrictions in a way federal law cannot. That doesn't mean passing federal law protecting abortion is a bad idea, but it isn't a foolproof protection. It's fair to argue that the Democratic Party and the left of center generally were complacent about abortion. The form of this complacency was not taking the courts seriously, while the right spent fifty years openly filling the courts with anti-abortion judges.

The last thing that worries me is that this is popping up phrased almost the exact same way all over the place. I am afraid that it is not merely incompetence, but intentional misinformation, that is then repeated by the incompetent who believe it.

I know some will probably dismiss this post as being from a "vote harder" liberal Biden supporter, but whatever your feelings about Biden, the Democratic Party, or the democratic process in the U.S., you should care about the truth. The truth is that Roe v. Wade was overturned by Republican-appointed judges and abortion bans are being enacted by Republican elected officials, and Joe Biden opposes these things. You can do with that information whatever you wish, but you denying it is dishonest.

#you can't build a leftist movement on dishonesty #i might have to mute this one too but i needed to say it

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vaspider · 4 months

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In defense of retellings & reimaginings

I'm not going to respond to the post that sparked this, because honestly, I don't really feel like getting in an argument, and because it's only vaguely even about the particular story that the other post discussed. The post in question objected to retellings of the Rape of Persephone which changed important elements of the story -- specifically, Persephone's level of agency, whether she was kidnapped, whether she ate seeds out of hunger, and so on. It is permissible, according to this thesis, to 'fill in empty spaces,' but not to change story elements, because 'those were important to the original tellers.' (These are acknowledged paraphrases, and I will launch you into the sun if you nitpick this paragraph.)

I understand why to the person writing that, that perspective is important, and why they -- especially as a self-described devotee of Persephone -- feel like they should proscribe boundaries around the myth. It's a perfectly valid perspective to use when sorting -- for example -- which things you choose to read. If you choose not to read anything which changes the elements which you feel are important, I applaud you.

However, the idea that one should only 'color in missing pieces,' especially when dealing with stories as old, multi-sourced, and fractional as ancient myths, and doing so with the argument that you shouldn't change things because those base elements were important to the people who originally crafted the stories, misses -- in my opinion -- the fundamental reason we tell stories and create myths in the first place.

Forgive me as I get super fucking nerdy about this. I've spent the last several years of my life wrestling with the concept of myths as storytelling devices, universality of myths, and why myths are even important at all as part of writing on something like a dozen books (a bunch of which aren't out yet) for a game centered around mythology. A lot of the stuff I've written has had to wrestle with exactly this concept -- that there is a Sacred Canon which cannot be disrupted, and that any disregard of [specific story elements] is an inexcusable betrayal.

Myths are stories we tell ourselves to understand who we are and what's important to us as individuals, as social groups, and as a society. The elements we utilize or change, those things we choose to include and exclude when telling and retelling a story, tell us what's important to us.

I could sit down and argue over the specific details which change over the -- at minimum -- 1700 years where Persephone/Kore/Proserpina was actively worshiped in Greek and Roman mystery cults, but I actually don't think those variations in specific are very important. What I think is important, however, is both the duration of her cults -- at minimum from 1500 BCE to 200CE -- and the concept that myths are stories we tell ourselves to understand who we are and what's important to us.

The idea that there was one, or even a small handful, of things that were most important to even a large swath of the people who 'originally' told the store of the Rape of Persephone or any other 'foundational' myth of what is broadly considered 'Western Culture,' when those myths were told and retold in active cultic worship for 1700 years... that seems kind of absurd to me on its face. Do we have the same broad cultural values as the original tellers of Beowulf, which is only (heh) between 1k-1.3k years old? How different are our marital traditions, our family traditions, and even our language? We can, at best, make broad statements, and of inclusive necessity, those statements must be broad enough as to lose incredible amounts of specificity. In order to make definitive, specific statements, we must leave out large swaths of the people to whom this story, or any like it, was important.

To move away from the specific story brought up by the poster whose words spun this off, because it really isn't about that story in particular, let's use The Matter of Britain/Arthuriana as our framing for the rest of this discussion. If you ask a random nerd on Tumblr, they'd probably cite a handful of story elements as essential -- though of course which ones they find most essential undoubtedly vary from nerd to nerd -- from the concept that Camelot Always Falls to Gawain and the Green Knight, Percival and the grail, Lancelot and Guinevere...

... but Lancelot/Guinevere and Percival are from Chrétien de Troyes in the 12th century, some ~500 years after Taliesin's first verses. Lancelot doesn't appear as a main character at all before de Troyes, and we can only potentially link him to characters from an 11th century story (Culhwch and Olwen) for which we don't have any extant manuscripts before the 15th century. Gawain's various roles in his numerous appearances are... conflicting characterizations at best.

The point here is not just that 'the things you think are essential parts of the story are not necessarily original,' or that 'there are a lot of different versions of this story over the centuries,' but also 'what you think of as essential is going to come back to that first thesis statement above.' What you find important about The Matter of Britain, and which story elements you think can be altered, filed off or filled in, will depend on what that story needs to tell you about yourself and what's important to you.

Does creating a new incarnation of Arthur in which she is a diasporic lesbian in outer space ruin a story originally about Welsh national identity and chivalric love? Does that disrespect the original stories? How about if Arthur is a 13th century Italian Jew? Does it disrespect the original stories if the author draws deliberate parallels between the seduction of Igerne and the story of David and Bathsheba?

Well. That depends on what's important to you.

Insisting that the core elements of a myth -- whichever elements you believe those to be -- must remain static essentially means 'I want this myth to stagnate and die.' Maybe it's because I am Jewish, and we constantly re-evaluate every word in Torah, over and over again, every single year, or maybe it's because I spend way, way too much time thinking about what's valuable in stories specifically because I write words about these concepts for money, but I don't find these arguments compelling at all, especially not when it comes to core, 'mainstream' mythologies. These are tools in the common toolbox, and everybody has access to them.

More important to me than the idea that these core elements of any given story must remain constant is, to paraphrase Dolly Parton, that a story knows what it is and does it on purpose. Should authors present retellings or reimaginings of the Rape of Persephone or The Matter of Britain which significantly alter historically-known story elements as 'uncovered' myths or present them as 'the real and original' story? Absolutely not. If someone handed me a book in which the new Grail was a limited edition Macklemore Taco Bell Baja Blast cup and told me this comes directly from recently-discovered 6th century writings of Taliesin, I would bonk them on the head with my hardcover The Once & Future King. Of course that's not the case, right?

But the concept of canon, historically, in these foundational myths has not been anything like our concept of canon today. Canon should function like a properly-fitted corset, in that it should support, not constrict, the breath in the story's lungs. If it does otherwise, authors should feel free to discard it in part or in whole.

Concepts of familial duty and the obligation of marriage don't necessarily resonate with modern audiences the way that the concept of self-determination, subversion of unreasonable and unjustified authority, and consent do. That is not what we, as a general society, value now. If the latter values are the values important to the author -- the story that the author needs to tell in order to express who they are individually and culturally and what values are important to them* -- then of course they should retell the story with those changed values. That is the point of myths, and always has been.

Common threads remain -- many of us move away from family support regardless of the consent involved in our relationships, and life can be terrifying when you're suddenly out of the immediate reach and support of your family -- because no matter how different some values are, essential human elements remain in every story. It's scary to be away from your mother for the first time. It's scary to live with someone new, in a new place. It's intimidating to find out that other people think you have a Purpose in life that you need to fulfill. It's hard to negotiate between the needs of your birth family and your chosen family.

None of this, to be clear, is to say that any particular person should feel that they need to read, enjoy, or appreciate any particular retelling, or that it's cool, hip and groovy to misrepresent your reworking of a myth as a 'new secret truth which has always been there.' If you're reworking a myth, be truthful about it, and if somebody told you 'hey did you know that it really -- ' and you ran with that and find out later you were wrong, well, correct the record. It's okay to not want to read or to not enjoy a retelling in which Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere negotiate a triad and live happily ever after; it's not really okay to say 'you can't do that because you changed a story element which I feel is non-negotiable.' It's okay to say 'I don't think this works because -- ' because part of writing a story is that people are going to have opinions on it. It's kind of weird to say 'you're only allowed to color inside these lines.'

That's not true, and it never has been. Greek myths are not from a closed culture. Roman myths are not sacrosanct. There are plenty of stories which outsiders should leave the hell alone, but Greek and Roman myths are simply not on that list. There is just no world in which you can make an argument that the stories of the Greek and Roman Empires are somehow not open season to the entire English-speaking world. They are the public-est of domain.

You don't have to like what people do with it, but that doesn't make people wrong for writing it, and they certainly don't have to color within the lines you or anyone else draws. Critique how they tell the story, but they haven't committed some sort of cultural treachery by telling the stories which are important to them rather than the stories important to someone 2500 years dead.

****

*These are not the only reasons to tell a story and I am not in any way saying that an author is only permitted to retell a story to express their own values. There are as many reasons to tell a story as there are stories, and I don't really think any reason to create fiction is more or less valid than any other. I am discussing, specifically, the concept of myths as conveyors of essential cultural truths.

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anantaru · 3 months

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hear me out.. this is fluffy 🥹

imagine wriothesley as a dad, especially a girl dad! (thanks to his teaser for this idea!!!)

cw. ・✶ ｡ none, fluff, established relationship (he's your husband), girl dad wriothesley <3 (she's around 6), fem! reader

the love wriothesley has for his daughter is the purest form of love.

it's new— and he has never felt it before, in fact, it cannot be compared with anything else in this universe.

as it was in his life, wriothesley was severely occupied as the duke of the fortress and such was the wonderful reason as to why he likes to appreciate the little moments that happen in your day to day life with your daughter— the feeling of protecting his child was inexpressible, and in order for him to at least miss you both a little bit less or make it become somewhat bearable, wriothesley finds himself romanticizing the morning hours of the day.

the duke starts his day with greeting you, his wife, and his cute daughter before he helps you to get her ready as much as he can— side note your daughter has his eyes, and if words could describe it only a little bit, she looks just like an angel.

also— it might be silly, or maybe it just looks silly seeing your husband struggle like that, but something about him doing your daughters hair was— by the same token, very cute and quite hilarious.

that's when his alter ego, the quote on quote, “hair stylist wriothesley”, comes into place.

not beating around the bush, but your husband was surprisingly very good at doing her hair. obviously, he does it the same way you showed him, yet he will always add a ridiculous amount of bedazzled hair accessories to her head.

to say that wriothesley was a big fan of glittery, sparkly head pieces would be a clear understatement— but do not try to put them on his hair, this dangerous route will take you to a tickle competition you simply cannot win, not even if you tried your hardest.

the duke didn't see anything wrong with clipping a bunch of radiant hair accessories on her head, even though she might end up looking like a disco ball— not that your daughter minds it, archons, she utterly adored it whenever her dad did her hair!

she was, in fact, the biggest fan of her dad doing it, because they got to spend some quality time together before he would be gone for the majority of her day. how he kneels down behind her while she sits on the little seat in front of her child-sized vanity, looking at her dad through glowy, admiring eyes while he does her hair for the day.

sadly, wriothesley knows that after that he has to work, he must and it will always take him all his power to get going— before that though, he will tell you both goodbye, add a small kiss on his daughters forehead before giving you a small peck on the lips.

how deeply he wanted to spend the day with you two, maybe walk around fontaine so you could shop around— because last time you did that, you actually found a matching outfit for you and your daughter and wriothesley found it to be one of the cutest, little memories in his mind.

he even took a picture of the two of you and keeps it in his wallet at all times now. who knows but when he feels like it becomes unbearable while being apart from his family, he tends to just look at it and smile.

when wriothesley met you, his live truly has changed forever.

you gave him pure, unfaltering love, deep compassion and of course— a family, something he thought he'd never be able to have.

being a parent certainly wasn't an easy task, and it was important to navigate through future differences that might occur one way or the other, more so seek out a good way to find the best possible solution for everybody involved.

not only for your marriage sake, but for your own childs sake— and wriothesley cannot wait to teach her valuable life lessons, about giving love to the world and the importance of following your dreams, opening his arms for his child with kindness, provide his cute daughter with hope, real hope.

while lastly, make his child excited to see this world and grow up with two wonderful parents that love her so very much.

#genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #wriothesley x reader #genshin fluff #genshin impact fluff #wriothesley x you #genshin x you #wriothesley fluff #genshin impact x you #genshin x y/n #genshin impact drabbles #genshin drabbles #wriothesley x y/n

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arcane-trickster · 2 years

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Typically I don’t do angry tumblr rants but this gbbo smore shit has a cold rage burning in the fireplace of my soul and the words ‘sacrilege’ and ‘heresy’ bubbling up from the depths of my being to be played on loop in mute horror like a scratched record.

So.

This monstrosity is what gbbo was trying to pass off as a smore.

This is not a smore. Look at it. It’s downright undercooked. That’s not even marshmallow. Or chocolate. It looks cold. This is about as much a smore as Cris Pratt is a voice actor. As a corgi is a wolf. As gbbo is apparently competent at research.

Also me to explain what a smore is.

For anyone who doesn’t know what the fudge a smore is, it’s a typical summertime treat often made at summercamp, when camping, or if you live in a place with a fireplace/assess to a campfire sometimes you’ll use that.

Basically it goes like this; it takes five ingredients, gram crackers, any chocolate bar with rectangular pieces you can break off (traditionally Hershey’s as it’s the cheapest and smores tend to be made in bulk, it’s one of those things a group of people make together otherwise it won’t taste right) large marshmallows, an open flame, and as previously mentioned more than one person to make them at the same time. If you make smores alone, the smores too will be sad and alone.

First you take two gram crackers and break off 1 to 2 sections of chocolate. Place the chocolate on each side, so both sides are all chocolatey. Then you take a marshmallow and skewer it on either a pointy stick from the ground or a metal skewer specificity made for roasting marshmallows/hotdogs depending on if someone has any.

Next you, well, roast the marshmallows. If you’re doing this at a campfire this involves a lot of moving away from the direction the smoke is blowing well and minor amounts of giggle-filled pvp as everyone jostles for the best spots around the fire. Mellow roasting is one of those things that is kind of the point of making marshmallows, the epic highs and lows of seeing how close to the fire you can get yours and how long you can hold it there before it either falls off or catches fire is integral to the entire experience.

Once you hastily blow out the one-fire part of the marshmallow, you slide it off the stick and between the gram crackers and chocolate. Then you squish it a bit to get the chocolate all nice and gooey, and bite in.

It’s gooey, it’s very messy, and the closer it gets to midnight the more it’s delicious.

So now we have established what a smore is, allow me to explain how UTTERLY BUTCHERED that abomination of sugar is.

First, we have the ingredients themselves. Paul Bitchwood describes the middle as ‘Italian meringue’.

Italian meringue.

Italian. Fucking. Meringue.

*deep breath*

IS NOT A MARSHMALLOW.

It does not share THE BASIC PROPERTIES OF A MARSHMALLOW.

YOU CANNOT STAB MERINGUE WITH A STCK AND HAVE IT STAY ON THE FUCKING SICK. HAVE YOU EVER EATEN A MARSHMALLOW BEFORE MR BITCHWOOD???? WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO THROW THE TOP OF A LEMON MERINGUE PIE AT YOU TO DEMONSTRATE “PAUL”?! IF IT DOESN’T BOUNCE ITS NOT A FUCKING MELLOW AND THE EFECT ON YOUR FACE WOULD BE ONE HELL OF AN IMPROVEMENT!

So already we have the single most important ingredient straight up ‘substituted’ (if you can even call it that) for an entirely different food with a completely different texture, taste, consistency, and behavior under heat.

But there’s more!

See, that chocolate? It’s not melted chocolate like you might think at first glance- no no no, that’s fucking GANACHE.

YOU KnOW, The THing With THE CoNsistenCY of FroSTING???? :) :) :)

The thing that you expressly don’t want to melt when using it in cooking on pain of death?

Thus removing THE ENTIRE PURPOSE CONSISTENCY FLAVER AND TEXTURE OF THE INGREDIENT

AGAIN!

and then. Ohhhhhhh and then.

Those are no gram crackers.

Those are ‘digestibles”

WHAT THE FUCK ARE DIGESTABLES

THATS WHAT HAPPENS TO ALL FOOD ITS NOT SPECIAL DUMBASS

WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF RICH PEOPLE SHIT ARE YOU EATING THAT YOU NEED TO POINT THAT OUT IN THE NAME

WHAT THE FUCK

AND IT AGAIN HAS A DIFFERENT EVERYTHING THEN GRAaM CRACKERS

WHY

YOU DIDN’T EVEN HAVE TO DO THAT IF YOU WANTED IT TO SOUND FANCY YOU COULD HAVE JUST MADE GRAM CRACKERS FROM SCRATCH IVE NEVER SEEN ANYONE DO IT BECAUSE WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU BUT ITS AT LEAST POSSIBLE AGHHHHHHHHHHH

And then. To add insult to injury after FUCKING injury.

It’s a circle.

It’s A CiRcLE.

WHY IS IT A CIRCLE.

IT SHOULNT BE A CIRCLE-

In conclusion; Paul Bitchywood is a fucker and a Tory and I don’t put stock in god but by whatever powers may be I hope hell exists because this fool is running a marathon to it’s center.

#gbbo #s’mores #gbbo s’mores #paul hollywood

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indigovigilance · 6 months

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The Final Fifteen is about Terry Pratchett's Death

read on Ao3

The final fifteen is obviously a major plot point, and serves a role in a story that was written long before Terry Pratchett was ever diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. But the scene itself wasn’t written until just a few years ago, during the writing of Season 2. In fact, the scene came about during a park bench conversation between Neil Gaiman and John Finnemore.

Others have noted that the non-romantic kiss that signals the story moving into the third act is a Neil Gaiman staple. The function of such a kiss, from Gaiman’s perspective, is to communicate.

In 2023 we are seeing a lot of stories written by men, for men, about men who are best friends and discover that their friendship can go deeper than the norms of society would usually allow; that platonic and romantic love are not so far apart, and perhaps the better word for a relationship that can be described this way is intimacy.

Neil Gaiman has made it clear in interviews that his friendship with Terry Pratchett was deeply intimate. They began collaborating on what would become Good Omens in the 1980’s, endured a tumultuous experience together through the first publication, wherein Neil offered to martyr himself on behalf of Terry if the book failed, and then spent the better part of two decades touring the world, meeting the people who loved their work. Neil would even off-handedly remark that Terry’s fans were so cheerful, and Neil’s seemed like they were ready to kill themselves; wouldn’t it be nice if they got married? From the outside, it looks very much as if Terry was Aziraphale-coded, and Neil was Crowley-coded, working together in an unexpected partnership to make the world a little bit more tolerable for the humans inhabiting it. I am not conjecturing that Neil and Terry had romantic inclinations the way their fictional characters do, but I think it is fair to say that their opposites-attract intimacy became an important part of who each of them were.

In 2007 Terry Pratchett was diagnosed with posterior cortical atrophy, a rare form of Alzheimer’s. As the disease progressed, he began to lose himself, and knew that the person he used to be was slipping away. He wanted to end his life on his own terms, and die as himself, but England did not and still does not allow for voluntary euthanasia or assisted suicide. He advocated for the right to die but never achieved it, and ultimately succumbed to the disease in 2015. Neil Gaiman has spoken a lot on the topic of death, and one answer of his that resonated with me reads:

Mostly it feels terrible. It even feels terrible when it’s someone who has been in a lot of pain for a long time or has not really been there for a long time and you know that Death has in some ways been a blessing: suddenly you are mourning the whole person.

It doesn’t get easier as you age. It gets stranger. The point where you realise how many people you used to know and like who aren’t there any longer, and you cannot talk to them or see them or laugh with them is painful in a way that I had never expected. The first time that someone you had a romantic relationship with dies and you realise that there had been moments both of you shared and now you are the sole custodian of those moments and one day you will be gone and they will be lost forever is peculiarly strange and hard.

~~~

The entire show is seeded with references to Terry Pratchett, but the most important one is the one that’s missing. Neil Gaiman cameoed as a sleeping moviegoer in S1E4, but a long time ago, he and Terry had discussed cameoing as sushi restaurant-goers, because sushi was weirdly prominent in the book. That cameo would have been in S1E1. But when it came time to do it, Neil couldn’t. Not without Terry.

Neil: I was gonna say our location is a Chinese restaurant we’d had turned into a sushi restaurant. So Terry and I, Terry Pratchett and I, had a standing… not even a standing joke, just a standing plan, that we were going to have sushi - there was going to be a scene in Good Omens where sushi was eaten and we were gonna be extras, we were gonna sit in the background, eating sushi while it was done. And I was so looking forward to this and, so I wrote this scene with it being sushi, even though Terry was gone, with that in mind and I thought: Oh, I’ll sit and I’ll eat lots of sushi as an extra, this will be my scene as an extra, I’ll just be in the background. And then, on the day, or a couple of days before, I realized that I couldn’t do it.

Douglas: You never told me this before either. I might have pushed you into doing it, had I known. I think you were right not to tell me.

Neil: I was keeping it to me self ‘cause I was always like: Oh, maybe I’ll be… this will be my cameo. And then I couldn’t. I was just so sad, ‘cause Terry wasn’t there. And it was probably the day that I missed Terry the most of all of the filming - it was just this one scene ‘cause it was written for Terry and all of the sushi meals we’d ever had and all of the strange way that sushi ran through Good Omens.

~~~

In the Final Fifteen, it is clear that Crowley and Aziraphale want to stay together. They love each other. They each know that the other loves them. There’s nothing that needs to be said, no convincing that their bond is true and real and precious.

But Aziraphale has to go to Heaven, and Crowley cannot follow him there.

I cannot speculate what it must have been like for Neil to endure losing a friend who, though I’m sure he desperately wanted to still be in his life, he also knew that life had become a burden to him, and grieved that Terry was not able to choose the time and manner of his departure from this Earth. This sort of complex grief, we fan-ficcers know, is the kind that is often best processed through story-telling.

I think that what we see Crowley going through in the Final Fifteen, alongside its importance to the story arc of Good Omens overall, is Neil processing his grief at losing his friend Terry Pratchett, and even the kiss, that violent, terrible, awful kiss, was the symbolic representation of Neil saying goodbye.

#neil gaiman #terry pratchett #aziraphale #crowley #good omens #good omens 2 #good omens meta #ivoc #this meta ended up being only about 2/3 the length of my usual metas and somehow that feels appropriate because Terry's life ended too soon #and the jarring brevity of this piece parallels that feeling of sudden unexpected loss #for me anyways I don't know about you guys #if this made your eyes even slightly moist you are obligated to reblog to help someone else feel their feels #I don’t make the rules #but them is the rules #blessed by Beelzebub

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anistarrose · 2 months

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I want to make my posts more accessible, but can't write IDs myself: a guide

[Plain text: "I want to make my posts more accessible, but can't write IDs myself: a guide." End plain text.]

While every image posted online should be accessible in an ideal world, we all know it 1) takes time to learn how to write image descriptions, and 2) is easy to run out of spoons with which to write IDs. And this says nothing of disabilities that make writing them more challenging, if not impossible — especially if you're a person who benefits from IDs yourself.

There are resources for learning how to write them (and if you already know the basics, I'd like to highlight this good advice for avoiding burnout) — but for anyone who cannot write IDs on their original posts at any current or future moment, for any reason, the there are two good options for posting on Tumblr.

1. Crowdsource IDs through the People's Accessibility Discord

[Plain text: "1. Crowdsource IDs through the People's Accessibility Discord". End plain text.]

The People's Accessibility Discord is a community that volunteers description-writing (and transcript-writing, translation, etc) for people who can't do so themselves, or feel overwhelmed trying to do so. Invite link here (please let me know if the link breaks!)

The way it works is simple: if you're planning to make an original post — posting art, for example — and don't know how to describe it, you can share the image there first with a request for a description, and someone will likely be able to volunteer one.

The clear upside here (other than being able to get multiple people's input, which is also nice) is that you can do this before making the Tumblr post. By having the description to include in your post from the start, you can guarantee that no inaccessible version of the post will be circulated.

You can also get opinions on whether a post needs to be tagged for flashing or eyestrain — just be able to spoiler tag the image or gif you're posting, if you think it might be a concern. (Also, refer here for info on how to word those tags.)

The server is very chill and focused on helping/answering questions, but if social anxiety is too much of a barrier to joining, or you can't use Discord for whatever reason, then you can instead do the following:

2. Ask for help on Tumblr, and update the post afterwards

[Plain text: "Ask for help on Tumblr, and update the post afterwards". End description.]

Myself and a lot of other people who describe posts on this site are extra happy to provide a description if OP asks for help with one! This does leave the post inaccessible at first, so to minimize the drawbacks, the best procedure for posting an image you can't fully describe would be as follows:

Create the tumblr post with the most bare-bones description you can manage, no matter how simple (something like "ID: fanart of X character from Y. End ID" or "ID: a watercolor painting. End ID," or literally whatever you can manage)

Use a tool like Google Lens or OCR to extract text if applicable and if you have the energy, even if the text isn't a full image description (ideally also double-check the transcriptions, because they're not always perfect)

Write in the body of the post that you'd appreciate a more detailed description in the notes!

Tag the post as "undescribed" and/or "no id" only if you feel your current, bare-bones description is missing out on a lot of important context

When you post it and someone provides an ID, edit the ID into the original post (don't use read mores, italics, or small text)

Remove the undescribed tag, if applicable. If you're posting original art, you can even replace it with a tag like "accessible art" for visibility!

And congrats! You now have a described post that more people will be able to appreciate, and you should certainly feel free to self-reblog to give a boost to the new version!

#accessibility #image descriptions

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oxydiane · 1 year

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sns is so fucking unhinged and nobody will ever be them i’m sorry. you start the series and it’s like oh haha look at these goofy angsty rivals! they hate each other! then sasuke dies for naruto thirty chapters in giving up his dream of revenge and naruto goes batshit insane. now you’re like ah they’re friends i guess that’s cute! and sasuke is trying to kill naruto because he’s the most important person in his life which is . ok and it becomes the driving force of everything or something. sasuke leaves and naruto dedicates the rest of his life to bringing him back and you’re still a casual fan so ur like he’s doing it for the promise right? then orochimaru says sasuke is his and naruto goes batshit insane feral homicidal (again) and after that sasuke reappears and they have ??? like five different panels dedicated to them staring at each other??? and he jumps off a mountain and hugs naruto for some reasons just to whisper some gay shit in his ear kishimoto frankly needs to be jailed drawing this and keep that best friend nonsense going. anyways. you have sasuke become a convicted terrorist to which the normal people response is “ok we need to hunt him down” and when naruto learns they’re gonna hunt him down he starts screaming crying throwing up he has a panic attack he can’t breathe he’s falling in the snow he gets on his knees and begs them to spare his BFF. after having a meltdown over the thought of sasuke dying what may possibly be the natural coping mechanism any stable person would adapt? of course realising that if sasuke dies he can die too. so he sees sasuke again and after he attempts murdering sakura twice and expresses the intent to murder kakashi he’s like. i will bear the burden of your hatred and die with you hehe and if we both die you won’t be an uchiha and i won’t be the jinchuuriki to the nine tails and we’ll be able to understand each other better in a different lifetime! WE’LL MEET AGAIN IN THE AFTERLIFE BECAUSE NOT EVEN DEATH CAN DO US PART! and sasuke (just as insane as him) doesn’t even flinch he’s like what the fuck is wrong with you but then ok let’s fuckingggf die together on my god i will kill your first anyways . then they find out they are soulmates and get cute matching tattoos on their hands and decide to fight to the death once more because sasuke is back on his i will shoulder all the hatred of the world alone and i need to kill you because i love you more than anyone else in the world actually you’re the only person i love so you need to DIE and naruto is like I WILL NOT LET YOU SHOULDER THAT HATRED ALONE I WILL FREE YOU FROM THE PAIN and they fight and despite all the whatever weapons used in the war it’s a fuckinggg fistfight in which just as sasuke is about to inflict what he thinks is the last blow says “farewell… my one and only…………………. (very long pause to accentuate how heteronormative this next word is gonna be) FRIEND” and fucking stops using his sharingan because not even then he can record the image of naruto dying especially by his hand but naruto STOPS HIM LIKE A f cHAMP and they end up blowing each other’s arms off (rip the matchies) and as they’re bleeding to the fucking death sasuke is like you’re the only person that has never tried to severe their ties with me why do you go so far for me and naruto from the depths of comphet hell is like because you’re my FRIEND and sasuke being absolutely done with this bullshit is like ok what the fuck does that mean to you then and this is where it gets even gayer and relatable because naruto is like i don’t KNOW i just know that when you hurt i hurt and i just can’t take it and isn’t that the most gay experience thing ever? naruto knows what it feels like to have friends but what he feels for sasuke is so bone deep and unconventional that he cannot make sense of it and can only describe the pain it brings. after that sasuke CRIES LIKE THEYVE GOT ME SOOO FUCKED UP but you know what got me even more fucked up?

naruto waking up bloodied and battered and half alive with one arm missing but still wondering if that was heaven because sasuke was next to him. sasuke looking so happy and peaceful when saying “i lost” as a stark contrast to him looking and feeling like half of his body was being torn apart when he “won” against naruto in vote1 and left him. the bitterness of victory vs the sweetness of losing if you will. AND HIM COMPARING WHAT HE FEELS FOR NARUTO TO PRAYING MY GODD. did i forget to mention that then we learn that Ohhh it was never a stupid shallow rivalry as we all thought! they have actually been watching each other from afar since they were little freshly traumatised children and have longed to hold each other’s hands since then! what was it sasukeeee you felt warm and fuzzy when you saw naruto to thought of it as a weakness? these two are so astronomically hopelessly desperately obsessed in love with each other it’s ridiculous i’ve had ENOUGH free me from this mental prison

#soo talks #its 4 am #this is word vomit #ignore me #naruto #naruto shitpost #sns #narusasu #sasunaru #pro sns #naruto uzumaki #sasuke uchiha #thoughts

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mondaymelon · 10 months

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— 𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗽𝗮𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘁. ♥

໒꒱ || :feat~ xiao, kazuha, wanderer x gn!reader:

⤷ in which you find their unsent love letter.

໒꒱ || ᴛᴀɢʟɪꜱᴛ (open!) : @manager-of-the-pudding-bank, @iamdedinside, @ilyuu, @achlysis, @swivy123

"To the resident of..."

XIAO's letter was something you hadn't meant to see - but it was so innocently set on one of the dining tables on the inn balcony that you couldn't resist the urge to take one peek.

There you find two shocking discoveries.

One, this letter is written from Xiao. Seemingly unsent, but that doesn't exactly matter... until you read the name of whom it's addressed to.

Two, it's for you.

Well, he's just about played into your curiosity, hasn't he? Perhaps the clever adeptus set this entire ploy up, and he's waiting in the shadows for the moment you retrieve the letter to reprimand you for your mortal foolishness... you dismiss the thought. The idea of someone as aloof as him attempting such a thing is truly a ridiculous notion. Instead, your eyes scan over the carefully written lines, noting the crumpled edges of the paper... as well as the countless other balled up sheets that lay pitifully in the waste bin nearby.

Has he been trying to write something to you so important, that he would go to such lengths? There was only one way to find out.

The letter starts out unsurprisingly straightforward.

"You make me feel something.

An emotion that can't quite be described... but it's comforting. Reassuring, even... being with you. I've consulted an acquaintance of mine. They told me that I was in 'love' with you.

So I suppose this is a confession, if you must look at it that way.

I love you."

"You..." The voice of someone behind you causes you to flinch as you whirl around tentatively, crumpled paper still in hand. It's slight, but you see it - how Xiao's eyes widen at the sight of the letter in your hands, before he returns to his composed facade almost instantaneously. "Foolish mortal, what are you..."

"Xiao." You say his name, a phrase that seems to lilt off your tongue. His gaze softens as his lips press into a thin line.

"You've caught me. What now?" His voice is filled with exasperation, but the undeniable red on his cheeks says otherwise.

"I love you too."

And there you are, you've made him speechless. He stands there, half-frozen as if he's afraid to move - whether towards you or away. Something in his mind seems to click as his golden eyes melt, and his face is set aflame once more.

"You should've minded your own business... but I can't complain." ♥

"To my dear companion..."

KAZUHA's letter begins softly, discreetly. You find it in his private quarters, where it lies on his desk, its neatly lettered words illuminated by a nearby lantern's warm glow. While you merely had stopped by to investigate if he was present, something about the pristinely written sheet of paper draws you in closer. It sits below an orderly envelope, as if the sender had meant to place it inside, but decided against it in a moment of hesitation.

And perhaps that was what had happened... except, the Kaedehara Kazuha you knew was certainly not a man of cowardice.

While it's difficult to resist the urge to read a line or two, it's even more so when you see that your very name is written at the top of the letter.

A letter addressed to you.

"It's rather odd to put it in words, the emotion that seems to well up when you appear. It's warm, rampant, something that cannot be subdued.

Here is when I'd like to say 'I took my time to evaluate my feelings,' but the truth is, I truly hadn't.

At that point, my heart had already decided.

Dearest, I love you."

There's a sound that seems to dissipate the daze. The noise of something dropping to the floor, and then someone's shallowed breath. "...What... are you doing here?" Kazuha's carmine eyes are wide as they meet yours, and his foot moves as if to back away. You can see the exact moment where his brain registers the letter in your hands - how his shocked expression morphs into a mortified one. "Ah, did you...? Well... I suppose there's no hiding it now..." He lets out a quiet chuckle, one void of amusement.

He doesn't need to finish his sentence to let you know what he's referring to. Instead, you give him a smile, throwing your arms around him before he can retreat out of the room. "I love you too."

And with those four words, you have him anchored once more, lips trembling with each breath he draws in.

"Then, won't you kiss me?" ♥

"I can't believe I'm writing this, but..."

WANDERER's letter seems to stand out as you sort through the mess of papers that crowd your desk - or rather, the desk the two of you share. It's nothing special, at first glance, just a pale blue envelope encasing what seems to be just a regular old piece of mail, but something about it seems magnifying. Gravitating... and before you know it, it's settled in your hands, half opened.

No going back now.

You're sure the male will scold you once he arrives home - and then proceed to scowl at you from afar for the next few days... yet the risk seems to fade as your curiosity overtakes you. The male had always insisted that he 'needed no one' and was adamant on not acquainting himself with those 'foolish scholars', so who could this letter be from? That, or who could he be sending it to?

It certainly hadn't crossed your mind that it would be for you, but it's funny, almost, how his writing sounds so much like him.

"I'm sure you are aware that I am not one to withhold my words.

Or perhaps that my tongue is sharp. Either way, you've been on the receiving end of both.

You know me well, which is rather irritating, so I'll make this brief.

I'm in 'love' with you, as they say.

(How annoying is that?)"

Those words shock you so severely that you don't even register the sound of the front door closing, or the swift footsteps of a certain male - not until a hand lands on your shoulder. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Ah- when did you... get back??" You try to hide the letter behind your back, but once again, your efforts prove fruitless as he quickly snatches the envelope out of your hands, eyes scanning the words until a sudden realization seems to dawn on him.

His cheeks flush red as he hisses, "Just when did you..." Now he's the one that's rendered speechless.

You decide that now would be a good time to explain yourself. "I was curious, and..." The words hesitate on your lips, but they exit nonetheless. "I love you too."

It's miraculous how fast his scowl vanishes, and how it's instead replaced with a gaze brimming with tentative affection. He hovers where he's standing for a moment, seemingly not sure what to do, before he slowly wraps his arm around you.

"You don't know how happy you've just made me." ♥

(a/n) quick note that i'll be offline for a lil bit as im going to be attending academic camp! i'll post a prewritten fic sometime in that 7 day period :) i'll see you!

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etoilesbienne · 7 months

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q!etoiles is such a character to me because he's so loyal he's loyal to a fault he's the defender of the island but he didn't necessarily want to be the defender he just got saddled with the responsibility because he kept picking fights with the code like a scrappy guy looking for an adrenaline rush. someone just tossed him an impenetrable shield while they were at it.

but he's SO terrified of loss he cannot lose things, like its the grounds for his loyalty he doesn't want to lose a friend he's practical but he's a romantic at the same time in his own words can't a warrior's soul also be a lover's soul? where does the line start for one or the other? aren't those lines arbitrary? the only time i feel like ive seen qetoiles even vaguely described as anything similar to "hurt" (i cant even say angry he just seemed saddened in a way) was when he lost the election and almost went total isolationist. the loss matters to him he cannot accept an L for the life of him even admitting q!kameto is gone is admitting a loss in its own way

but his fear of loss and his friends of course he can't push badboyhalo too far to ask what he's really hiding he doesn't want to push him away he has to move goalposts of what he qualifies as important each day a little bit further inch by inch badboyhalo can be an exception, why wouldn't he be? he helped etoiles start his life on the island after all! etoiles knows how violent he is! etoiles knows bbh is doing something bad, and he knows bad is cagey and weird when confronted too far but will also refuse to answer, i mean "Be careful, Badboy, because if you kill everyone, then they will want to do bad things to you. And I don't want them to do bad things to you. I mean, I won't let them, but—" like ? even if you kill everyone, i won't let them do bad things to you? i don't want to hurt you badboyhalo but i will defend you? you'll defend the island but you'll defend your friend first? he just gives in so easily too like "badboy you can hide anything you want just promise you won't betray me" like he gives up ! he gives in. of course he does he doesn't want to lose his relationship to bbh. of course being told his trust was only 85% was a loss. of course it was.

where is the line crossed when do we go too far etoiles i'm dying to know what the breaking point is when your morality is whatever makes the most amount of people you care about currently near you happiest at a given moment

#qsmp #q!etoiles #qsmp analysis #character to be clear cc etoiles has some of best sportsmanship ive ever seen #posts from the aether

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