crystalshard

[crystalshard]

[crystalshard]

Wow! Amazing 👏

[crystalshard]

Growing up, one of my dad's favorite quotes he'd say whenever he found me writing came from a movie called As good as it gets. In it, Jack Nicholson's character is asked how he writes women so well. He responds "I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability." My dad would later bastardize this quote to "I think of a man and then take away all logic."

rather than teaching me anything about writing, what this taught me was that my dad was never going to be able to understand a woman's point of view because he was proud he couldn't understand it. He thought of himself as "logical" and anything other as "illogical." I've met other people like my dad who won't read books with female main characters because it's "unrelatable." Growing up, most of the largest series in the world featured male characters with an occasional female side character. When an MC is a woman/nonbinary I hear "why do they have to be X?"

(and this is about ten times louder when a MC dares to be a non-amab person of color)

At the heart of writing there is storytelling. And, at the end of the day, there will be people who don't want to understand that story. Not because it's not well-written or important but because it doesn't fit their world view. they don't want to hear about a main character that's female, nonbinary, black, disabled, fat, queer, etc.

Write those stories anyway. Bang on their doors and plaster those words everywhere they can see. Get comfortable telling your stories and get even more comfortable making those people who cover their ears uncomfortable.

There is community in what we do and in the stories we tell. Don't let those people who are proud that they don't understand diminish the great things you're going to contribute to that community.

[crystalshard]

Reblog if you're a fanfic writer and you wanna know what your followers' favorite story of yours is ❤

[crystalshard]

Sources: https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Nicolas_Nolan_(Prime_Earth)

https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/John_Constantine_(Prime_Earth)#Early_Life

https://hellblazer.fandom.com/wiki/Demon_blood

https://hellblazer.fandom.com/wiki/John_Constantine

[crystalshard]

if you're in my notifications on a regular basis but we have never spoken...I want you to know that I know your username and think fondly of you

[crystalshard]

Mozilla, in its finite wisdom, embedded LLM bots into recent versions of Firefox for the vitally-important purpose of… naming tab groups. Now, some users are noticing CPU and power usage spikes caused by a background process called Inference.

Ugh. Reminder again for Firefox users to visit your about:config page, search for the browser.ml.chat.enabled key, and set that to false:

If yours says true then double-click it until it reads false.

Doing that turns off the AI chatbot features in Firefox, but also the stupid new LLM tab-naming feature that's rolling out.

[crystalshard]

occasionally I am struck dumb by the sublime beauty of the world in the small moments, you know?

egg

[crystalshard]

"hurts because i need to move more" and "hurts because i need to not move it at all" should really be different sensations. i should be able to troubleshoot my own body without just picking one and seeing if that makes it worse.

[crystalshard]

I'm a fandom oldie and a strong proponent of "ship and let ship", and I defend everyone else's right to ship what they love... But I think that gives people the idea that I like, automatically love every single ship??? Or every single trope?

I don't though!

There are a lot of fandom tropes that are on my "absolutely fuck no" list. There are a lot of irk kinks that are also on my "nope absolutely not" list, too. Personally, this is healthy. I'm able to look at something and go "Yep, I hate it, but it's not harming anyone, so continue to do as you please."

[crystalshard]

I got a laptop with Windows 11 for an IT course so I can get certified, and doing the first time device set-up for it made me want to commit unspeakable violence

Windows 11 should not exist, no one should use it for any reason, it puts ads in the file explorer and has made it so file searches are also web searches and this cannot be turned off except through registry editing. Whoever is responsible for those decisions should be killed, full stop.

Switch to linux, it's free and it's good.

[crystalshard]

I love rocks that look extremely like someone just tested the demon blade on them

[crystalshard]

Willy Wonka could run Aperture Science and GLaDOS could run the Chocolate Factory. And both would get an adequate amount of sadistic glee from it as their usual roles would give.

[crystalshard]

Rules of DIY:

if it's a skill, there's rules you can learn

if it's an art, rules are not your concern

make it fucked up or you won't make it

if it's already broken, you can't break it

anything can be fixed with gorilla glue

except for pleather, and also you

[crystalshard]

The main character of the last TV show you watched is now your therapist. How’s it working for you?

[crystalshard]

(Pod)Fic Pride Tag Game

Rules: List the top ten things you've written made that you're most proud of.

Tagged by @cacodaemonia specifically to do podfics!! Let's do this!!

I will be totally honest that I do not have a legit top ten so much as a few that stick out for various reasons.

(podfic) trade your heart for bones to know (fic by @blackkatmagic) - this is currently my longest completed podfic, and one of my all time favorite fics. I think I did a really great job with this one, and I just love it so much. I sleep to it so often; I have probably listened to this more than anyone else ever will, but I know some other people relisten to it a lot too, which is wildly flattering. I adore this podfic and am so proud of it.

(podfic) when the fulcrum moves (series by wanderingjedihistorian) - my podtogether collab series with @wanderingjedihistorian, which continues to thrill me. I relisten to this so much, and it reignites my Rebels fixation every single time. I feel like I do a really solid Kallus POV voice too idk.

(podfics) cold love (series by @shastafirecracker) - this series genuinely consumed me when I read it, and I desperately wanted to narrate them in podfics to listen to over and over, and I am so thrilled to have been allowed to make pods of these fics! On a pride level, Zeb is not someone who I was super confident voicing as the POV narrator, and I feel like I really nailed a Zeb voice here, and I'm so proud of how they turned out. (I have relistened to these countless times as well--in case you're sensing a theme)

(Podfic) My Heart's Red Muscle (fic by cacodaemonia) - this is the longest thing I have podded in such a short time, and I have the absolute fondest and happiest memories of podding it (I read it all aloud to my wife in a complicated bed-nest with the mic balanced near me). The fic itself is absolutely beautiful, and Caco was so wonderful as an early listener, especially helping me bounce ideas about how I wanted to do a few trickier things. I learned some new sfx for this one, too, and am just all around so proud of the final product--I remain convinced this is one of the best things I've made ever.

(Podfic) On Reflection (fic by @dsudies) - my friend gave me the incredible idea to see if I had any older podfics, which had only two speaking parts that, that would have been made before I went on T. I found an older podfic of this fic, and re-recorded it, but spliced in my former self's lines--a podfic with myself, pre- and post- transitioning. I still think this is one of the coolest things I have ever done, and I love it.

(Podfic) Face the Music (fic by @crystalshard) - I edited this multivoice, and the fic is about "what if Anakin could hear the music and it helped him realize what was going on" and so for the podfic, I worked so freaking hard to match the music within the scenes to bring the same feeling. It remains probably the hardest I have ever worked on a podfic, and I felt like my brain was melting, but it is SO FREAKING COOL and I am so proud of it. Also, shout out to not only the wonderful podficcers who voiced the roles in this podfic, but also Crystal, who I didn't know at all before this and who was wonderful about helping me figure out what songs to put where and what vibes to go for in bits that didn't have specific songs.

(Podfic) Dustbunny Alpine (fic by @sishal01) - I made this podfic for a challenge while recording on my phone and chasing my cat (who inspired it) through the house to read to her. It's very silly and very fun and it had such a shockingly positive reception, and I am very pleased with it all even if it's nowhere near my "best" podfic lol.

(Podfic) Lightning in a Bottle (fic by @disillusioneddanny) - I did so much work making the soundscaped version of this podfic to mimic the way Dis described the Ghost Speak sounding (huge shout-out to Dis' incredible writing, because the dedication to describing the sounds is what made me know I HAD to pod this) and I am so proud of how it turned out.

(podfics) look inside of me and see that I am not afraid (series by @trixree) - I literally met my wife through these podfics lmao. But also I made these pods 100% because I thought I would love them and shared them just in case anyone else did too, which is such a cool way to meet my future spouse. Also I really nailed the second one in this series in particular, I think on a voice acting level it's one of my best.

(podfics) these fleeting things that love the dark (fics by Pakeha) - finishing out with another one that I podded as a "this has consumed me oh my god" series, and I'm really proud of particularly the second one, which leans way more into horror themes than I'm normally comfy with, but I'm so proud of how it turned out--both of these tbh

Like I said, these are kind of just some top of mind / easiest to find ones that I'm proud of! I have so many podfics lol, and I am proud of many of them for various reasons. If you give any of these a listen, though, I'd love to hear what you think of them!

Thank you again to Caco for the tag <3

[crystalshard]

Fuck it *washes your robins

Hanging them out to dry…