#it came from Tumblr is basically a Tumblr audio book

[berzerker-nerd]

Welp now I'm not gonna stop thinking about this for the rest of the day. Thanks I guess

PM Seymour's " it came from Tumblr" videos are just audiobooks for Tumblr.

[nutmeggery]

I need Neil Gaiman to know that Good Omens 2 made me feel emotions I haven't felt in nearly a decade.

When I heard there was going to be a Good Omens 2 I was looking forward to it, of course. I just wasn't expecting it do anything super special to my emotions. I was sure I'd enjoy it, though. I really enjoyed s1.

But, for the last few years, I watched shows and afterwards basically thought well, that was fun, and I quickly moved on and didn't think much about them. There was only about 3 shows in the last 5 years that had made me feel truly emotional and stayed on my mind to the point where I felt like I needed to engage in fandom for a while. (Good Omens 1 was one of them.)

I wasn't spoiled by the leak. I never even knew there was a leak. So I had no idea what was coming in s2. And oh boy...

See, I'd watched Our Flag Means Death, a show where you don't expect the lead characters to kiss, because, well, that never happens in these types of shows, right? And this is important because when they did kiss, it felt like a door that had been locked with just about all the high security locks in the world had suddenly, inexplicably, been opened. Something switched inside me. It took me months to understand what it was, but when I thought about Good Omens before s2 came out, I realized what it was.

I would never truly enjoy a bromance they're-only-queer/in love-by-your-own-interpreation story ever again. Stories where nothing is confirmed, just subtext that anyone who doesn't want to see it can easily deny and mock those who wish it was more.

While it was clear that Crowley and Aziraphale cared a lot about each other in s1, and were probably in love, it was still just a fun ship for fans to play with in fanfiction and fanart. Do they love each other? Oh sure. In what way? Well, that's up to interpretation. Ok, cool. But it's not quite Our Flag Means Death, is it?

Then I watched Good Omens 2. And from episode 1 I saw my favourite Angel and Demon duo love each other. And I was having the best time. I hadn't had such a good time watching a show in a long while. It was not only right up my alley, it was an alley I wasn't even aware was my alley until I saw it. I enjoyed seeing the old characters, the new characters. Oh, I was wonderful.

It was clear to me that, of course Crowley and Aziraphale love each other, are IN love with each other, showing it in their own way. And I wasn't expecting it to be THIS obvious.

And then when the kiss happened, I couldn't believe it. I covered my mouth with both hands and gasped and sat up straight in my seat. I had never expected it--the heartbreak it added to the already heartbreaking scene--it rewired something inside me.

It was like my emotions had been locked up in a stall like a horse for so, so long, and now the gate had been opened, the stable door kicked down, and the horse was running out onto the large pasture into the daylight, bucking and kicking up grass. Oh my god, I have to take a few minutes to process that entire 6 hour marathon of emotions.

And by a few minutes I meant a few days.

More than a few, actually.

I didn't need a kiss to understand how much they loved each other, but I did need the kiss to understand how intense and heartbreaking their separation is for them after everything.

But more than that, the kiss broke a barrier. They really did it, I thought. They really dared.

Aziraphale and Crowley aren't human males, no, but they're played by male actors. And that is significant. That makes the kiss significant. In the world we currently live in.

Weeks later, I'm still obsessed with the show, re-watching s1 and 2, reading the book again, listening to the audio drama. And I'm on tumblr, seeing people's posts and art to somehow sate my hunger for a s3 that doesn't exist (yet).

And I'm having a wonderful time.

[explosionshark]

2, 3, 9!

2. Did you reread anything? What?

I actually did reread a lot this year (for me)

The Priory of the Orange by Samantha Shannon - I reread this as a buddy read with my homie @nataliving who hadn't read it before. It was fun going back after reading A Day of Fallen Night last year. I think overall Priory on a second run meant the pacing issues stuck out to me more, but I was delighted to find that my favorite parts of the book still held up really well.

A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny - reread this advent calendar style for the second year in a row. This time got @holdsteady to join me. Super fun, highly recommend this for anyone who wants to read something Halloweeny and fun next October.

Stranger Things Happen and Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link - this was a big Kelly Link year for me. I re-read these two short story collections as well as reading her other two collections for the first time. I'm basically caught up except for The Book of Love. Anyway - there were a few stories in Stranger Things Happen that I really liked, but overall Magic for Beginners hit way better for me

The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman - reread this in anticipation of the prequel, The Daughters War, being released. Probably the first book I've ever genuinely been able to call a comfort read. Loved it even more on a re-read.

Whipping Girl by Julia Serano - re-read this when the new edition came out. As vital as ever, able to present things in a very approachable way, it's a foundational and highly recommended intro to transfeminism for a reason, I think everyone should read it at least once.

The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik - also reread this with @nataliving. It's my favorite Scholomance book, I wanted to be keeping pace with them while they got to all my favorite parts. Super fun to buddy-read this, I truly love this book.

3. What were your top five books of the year?

okay not counting re-reads

Penance by Eliza Clark - this is a fake true crime book. a book about toxic relationships between girls, a book about true crime fandom, a book about the true crime industry, a book about bias and journalistic ethics and perhaps most importantly a book about TUMBLR a decade ago. Also the most brutal and realistic portrayal of bullying between girls i've ever read. Could NOT put this down.

A Tide of Black Steel by Anthony Ryan - another book in the world of the Covenant of Steel series, which I read and loved last year. Just really good fantasy, I've become such a fan of Anthony Ryan. Love how he writes women and gay people and magic and sword fights! Been patiently working my way through his books, waiting for when I'd get a queer woman out of him and the answer is NOW! Thera, my hyper-competent bisexual viking babe. Love of my life.

The Daughters' War by Christopher Buehlman - as mentioned above I really loved The Blacktongue Thief. My main critique when I first read it was that I wish it had more Galva and then BAM Buehlman announces a prequel from Galva's POV. It's basically a war memoir, Buehlman really gets to show off his horror chops here, which is always a plus for me. Loved it, read it once on audio and then again in print, both versions are great but the narrator was really strong, added a lot.

The Jasmine Throne and The Oleander Sword by Tasha Suri - okay counting these as one entry bc they're part of the same series and I read them pretty close together. EXTREMELY COOL FANTASY SETTING. Indian-inspired, cool mythology, cool magic, lots of intrigue and court politics and some of the best women-vs-misogyny i've ever read in a fantasy book. ALSO a lovers-to-enemies lesbian relationship that made me fully feral. Some of the best pacing I've ever read in 500 - 600 page books, absolutely propulsive, literally no part of these books dragged for me which is WILD.

White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link - as mentioned above, it's a big Kelly Link year for me! White Cat, Black Dog might be the strongest collection I read from her this year. There was only one story I didn't really care for. Link is so incredibly talented - her style is so whimsical, but there's always this brilliant, vulnerable emotional honesty to her work. Look, I won't lie, sometimes she's a little hard to follow and I can't say I understand everything I read from her but the way I don't get it STILL feels satisfying somehow. It's a good tension! If you're interested in trying a story from this collection, you can read one of my favorites, The Girl Who Didn't Know Fear for free via Tin House

9. Did you get into any new genres?

Not really! Okay, wait, no, that's a lie. I read some history this year, which I don't usually do. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, The Wager by David Grann, The Medici by Paul Strathern. Cool, interesting stuff! Good texture for my reading list!

[cultivating-wildflowers]

2024 Reading - July

Finally, things are turning around! I managed to pick some good books to read this month; even the printed books weren't the trial they have been for me lately.

Total books: 10  |  New reads: 8   |   2024 TBR completed: 6 (1 DNF) / 26/36 total   |   2024 Reading Goal: 44/100

June | August

potential reading list from July 1st

#1 - All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy - 5/5 stars ('24 TBR, audio)

mild content warning for language and some sexual content

McCarthy's writing is some of the most gorgeous and atmospheric writing I've ever read. It's also incredibly depressing. I want to continue with the rest of the trilogy but I'm in such a mental funk after finishing All the Pretty Horses that I'm scared to keep going.

More like this: McCarthy's writing reminds me of Wendell Berry in some ways. They both have a soothing, melancholic style that is deeply immersed in the period and setting of their chosen stories. But where Berry tends more towards righteous anger, McCarthy tends toward bleak inevitability.

#2 - The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson - 5/5 stars ('24 TBR, audio)

Not at all what I was expecting from this long-time resident of my TBR. Thoroughly enjoyed. Absolutely would not recommend to most people, but I DID recommend it to Kenzie:

#3 - Shadows in Flight by Orson Scott Card - 2/5 stars (audio)

Possibly the worst missed opportunity in this series yet. We could have had so much fun with this one. It could have destroyed me emotionally. ANYTHING could have happened. Instead we had the most dull, drawn-out little episode where Bean is basically a vegetable (heh) and his bratty children argue for 200-odd pages. The discoveries aren't incredible, the revelations fall flat, the emotions don't exist, the characters are artless caricatures, and near the end I was yelling in frustration because Card had to go and get snotty and superior in the name of writing a "realistically hyper-intelligent person". All of the little things I dislike about Card's writing? All here.

Side note: I got the actual, physical audiobook CDs for this one and when I went to pick up my holds, the librarian looked at me, looked at the CD case, and said, "You know these are CDs, right? Some people don't realize that." Hoopla didn't have this one on audio and I was already physically reading two books with two more fresh from the library, so I was kind of desperate. The downside is that I can't speed up an audiobook when it's physical CDs.

Second note: The part that had me yelling in frustration had to do with Card's prediction of why artificial wombs might be outlawed in most places in a futuristic world, and why his characters thing most places are unreasonable. His take: "Because they're unnatural. Or they deprive surrogate mothers of a livelihood. Lots of reasons, but it comes down to the real reason: artificial wombs suggest that women aren't necessary, and that really bothers a lot of women." Your Mormonism is showing, Orson.

#4 - Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens - 4/5 stars ('24 TBR)

the usual content warnings apply

This book, something I probably never would have picked up on my own, came to me as a recommendation. There was some content I didn't care for (easy to skim), but the writing grabbed me from the first page and the pacing, characters, and setting were incredible. I haven't finished a printed book this quickly in ages.

#5 - The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street by Karin Yan Glaser - 4/5 stars ('24 TBR, audio)

Simply adorable.

More like this: I've only seen the movie, but it immediately reminded me of "Ramona and Beezus". The description also says it's in the tradition of "The Penderwicks", which I haven't yet read.

#6 - A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters - 4/5 stars (audio)

Tumblr rec time! Some of y'all have been chatting about this one, so I snatched it up.

It was a fun, cozy sort of read. I definitely enjoyed it for the most part, though I felt like the ending kind of dragged. Not particularly interested in pursuing this series.

More like this: I'm not a huge fan of Father Brown (personal taste), but this had the same tone that I recall from the Father Brown collection I've read.

#7 - Network Effect by Martha Wells - 5/5 stars (reread, audio)

As good as ever.

#8 - The Food Explorer: The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats by Daniel Stone - 5/5 stars

What a treat!!! I was recommending this to people before I even finished it. Quick, fun, engaging, and informative; one of the best nonfics I've read all year. Now I want a buddy adventure film about Fairchild and Lathrop.

More like this: "Salt: A World History" by Mark Kurlansky.

#9 - Agent Garbo: The Brilliant, Eccentric Secret Agent Who Tricked Hitler and Saved D-Day by Stephan Talty - 5/5 stars ('24 TBR, Top 5 Anticipated Read)

"There are three kinds of people," [Pujol] wrote later, "those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder what happened."

Ahhhhhhhhh this one was fantastic. Like many, I was first introduced to Agent Garbo via tumblr, and I was really hoping this book would do his story justice; it absolutely does. It is expertly compiled and written. An adventure from start to finish.

Side note: I read excerpts of this to my dad on our drive to church and already have him interested in it.

More like this: "Agent Zigzag" by Ben MacIntyre. <- also shared this one with my dad (he read it in two days) and he loved it and others from MacIntyre.

#10 - System Collapse by Martha Wells - 4/5 stars (reread, audio)

Still not quite sure exactly how I feel about this one, but I enjoyed it overall.

DNF

On Death and Dying by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross ('24 TBR) - Either I'm dense or this (at least in the first chapter) is another case of someone with a highly specialized field of study interpreting the larger world through that lens, combined with some historical nuances that I'm completely missing. Possibly it's a worldview conflict and I ought to have pressed on for my own edification, but every page was a fresh slog.

The subject matter itself is fascinating, as is the viewpoint of someone in the medical field in the 60's. (Hello, common practice of fully sedating women during childbirth. I hate you.) The delivery is dry and academic. (Side note: I didn't realize until browsing reviews that THIS BOOK is where THE five stages of grief comes from.)

The Last Shadow by Orson Scott Card - Gave up within the first chapter after rolling my eyes every other paragraph. Hot garbage, which the good folks in the Ender subreddit confirm. I don't care how the series officially ends. Children of the Mind was a good enough conclusion for me.

The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World by Eric Weiner - Not my style at all. The man took his self-ascribed title of "grump" way too far.

Updraft by Fran Wilde - Somehow I didn't really pay attention to the fact that this was YA fantasy until I started reading. That's on me. But between an incoherent opening action scene and over a dozen Special Words introduced in the first chapter alone, it quickly became obvious that this wasn't for me.

Currently Reading:

Disorderly Knights by Dorothy Dunnett - As expected, I'm still working through this one.

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell - I just started this one.

[aziraphales-library]

Lost Fic #157

1. Hello, first of all thank you for all your hard work 🫶 really appreciate! I'm looking for a fic i read about a year ago: unfortunately i can't remember much, so i apologise if it's a vague description. I also think i might be mixing some facts with this fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39533883 so i’m sorry if i’m making it hard to find. Trigger warning from here on (depression, su! c!de): the fic was set in the crowley's flat and the characters were canon (im pretty sure it was set a short time after S1's canon events, but somehow C still had holy water). Crowley had just suffered some sort of physical and emotional trauma (r@pe? sorry, i can't quite remember) and couldn't trust neither Aziraphale nor himself. He fell in a state of depression and couldn't see any other way out but use the holy water in his safe. (Spoilers) | remember a scene where he weakly walked to the safe and wrote a note, then tried to reach the thermos but was stopped last second by Aziraphale. Thank you in advance🫶; and if you manage to find it, congrats😅 - anon

2. Helloo I hope it's not too hard to find but I lost a fic on ao3 a bit ago I didn't finish reading and was hoping someone recognise it, it starts off with post apoca-nope Crowley being confronted by demons in his flat who tell him to stay away from aziraphale and summon a screen through which to view him. buuut since there was no audio they all missed a conversation between aziraphale and god in which god gives him a golden string (I think) and explains that metatron has been giving orders independently from god, then asks aziraphale to go to heaven and stirr up trouble. And that's when I accidentally closed the Tumblr app and lost it :( - anon

3. so theres this fic i was reading where its post canon but basically crozira gets locked up in heaven and crowley does his snake thing and releases them both (was in the beginning ish) but thats all i remember 😭😭 im sorry if this is too much to ask for, thank you in advance!!! - @stars-v3ria

4. Hello! I hope y'all are doing all right in what I imagine is a swamp of new asks from season 2's approach. (Writing this in the final few weeks til release.) I'm writing in search of a lost fic--I've scrounged through the Aziraphale's True Form tag but come up empty. It was T, M, or E rated, and more or less a true form sex fic, but may or may not have included genital sex. The part I remember (which I think was the focus of the story, it being a oneshot) was framed as a divinity/grace kink scene in which Aziraphale revealed his true form to Crowley. It was overwhelming to him (verging on pain iirc), but also very beautiful, intense, and possibly sensual or sexual. The part I really remember, though, came at the end-- Crowley, crying, used their safeword, which was "Amen." And after that I think it was more on the tender side. Would you happen to have encountered such a story? Thank you very much for your time, and potentially that of your followers-- I very much appreciate all the work you do for the fandom. <3 P.S. In case this reaches the author, and you with to remain anonymous, please know that the fic really stuck with me and I was merely searching for it in hopes of leaving a comment to that effect. &lt;3 - @elderly-worm

5. Hello! I was recently told about the (cursed) movie script and was told that there is a fanfiction of Book and Show Crowley saving movie Aziraphale from movie Crowley. The person said they're sure they read it on ao3 but cannot find it now and I'm extremely curious. Any help would be very appreciated and thank you so much for the library you're doing here, helped me to find a lot of gems. - anon

If you know any of these fics please include the number in your reply! Thank you :)

- Mod D

[xpic-mike-adult-mature-content]

ALTERED CARBON (tv show) DHUH!!! (1334)

If you are an idiot like me, no offense to you, I quit watching the TV show Altered Carbon because I couldn't understand NOTHING, talking New Yorker, meaning ANYTHING of what was going on in the first 4 episodes of season one. Than AI came into my life and I asked it to make sense of it for me. It did, our conversation is posted on notes below. But if you are as brainless or clueless as me, I suggest you read our conversation and how it makes sense of the SHOW, enlightening me. It's not a long conversation, but that depends on concentration span. However, I have started anew seeing the show but now with a broader sense of understanding. Wikipedia does a fairly good job description, but like I said, I sometimes can be a real idiot and a pain to myself.

What set me off on this adventure was the GIF posted on my Tumblr wall of Martha Higareda (35) in Altered Carbon (TV 2018) posted by actressplayground2. Actress Martha Higareda in the GIF is seen coming out of a bathtub in all her bodily splendour. which you can see by clicking on green below.

link 1 https://www.tumblr.com/actressposts/767496518669320192?source=share

link 2 https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.f576997f11badaa8c6f399779d32c80c?rik=cyUcEDZxmpvwcA&pid=ImgRaw&r=0

Altered Carbon is an American cyberpunk television series created by Laeta Kalogridis and based on the 2002 novel of the same title by English author Richard K. Morgan.

The series dwells in a world where consciousness can be transferred to different bodies, Takeshi Kovacs, a former soldier turned investigator, is released from prison in order to solve a murder. The first season consists of ten episodes and premiered on Netflix in 2018. The series was renewed for a second season of eight episodes released in 2020. Though the series received generally positive reviews, it was canceled after two seasons. Altered Carbon (TV series) - Wikipedia

Altered Carbon (TV Series 2018–2020) - IMDb 7'9

The meaning of the title: ALTERED refers to the significant technological advancements in the series that allow for the modification and transfer of human consciousness. The key technology in "Altered Carbon" is the cortical stack, a device that stores a person's consciousness and memories. This stack can be transferred between different bodies, or "sleeves," essentially allowing people to live indefinitely by moving from one physical form to another. Where the CARBON comes is to indicate that the basis of all known life forms on Earth, including humans. Our bodies are composed of carbon-based molecules. The title suggests that the very essence of human life has been altered.

See season 1 episode 1 of the TV series Altered Carbon that follows...

GO TO THE FOLLOWING ADDRESS TO SEE THE COMPLETE SERIES SEASON ONE AND TWO AT Free Altered Carbon Season 1 Episode 1: Out of the Past Full HD online Flixtor

AUDIO BOOK:

link https://youtu.be/3E92l-3_iv4

link https://youtu.be/KtNG_fS92gs

notes:

Me to AI Copilot: Hi, I want to talk to you about the TV show Altered Carbon, Let me start off that I did not understand nothing. I saw 3 episode or maybe 4 and I quit because I thought it was a senseless show, weird and weirder as the get gets going. What you can you tell me to ease my understanding.

“Altered Carbon” can certainly feel overwhelming and complex, especially in the first few episodes. The show dives into a deeply intricate sci-fi world with dense lore and multiple themes. Here’s a simplified overview to help clarify:

Basic Premise: “Altered Carbon” is set in a future where consciousness can be transferred between bodies (called “sleeves”). This means that people can essentially live forever by transferring their mind to new bodies, provided they have the resources. The story follows Takeshi Kovacs, a former soldier who is “re-sleeved” into a new body after being in a sort of suspended animation for centuries. He’s brought back to solve the murder of Laurens Bancroft, one of the wealthiest men in the world, who believes he was murdered despite being alive again thanks to this technology.

Key Concepts:

Stacks and Sleeves: A stack is a small device implanted in people’s necks that stores their consciousness. Sleeves are the bodies that people can inhabit.

Envoys: Kovacs was part of an elite group of soldiers trained to adapt quickly to new sleeves and environments.

Meths (Methuselahs): Extremely wealthy individuals who can afford to live for centuries by continuously transferring their consciousness to new, young bodies. Bancroft is one of these Meths.

Themes: Immortality and Its Consequences: The show explores how living forever impacts human behavior and society.

Identity and the Self: It questions what makes us who we are if our consciousness can be transferred to different bodies.

Class Disparity: The rich have access to endless lives and pristine bodies, while the poor suffer in degraded conditions.

Structure: The series starts off by throwing viewers into the deep end of its world without much exposition, which can be disorienting. However, as it progresses, it unveils more about the characters, the technology, and the societal issues at play.

Tips for Understanding:

Patience: The first few episodes set up a lot of groundwork. It often makes more sense as you go along.

Focus on the Main Plot: Keep your attention on the murder mystery. Other details will start to fit into place as you understand more about this central storyline.

Character Connections: Pay attention to the relationships and histories of the characters, which are key to unraveling the plot.

Altered Carbon, created by Laeta Kalogridis,novel, based, Richard K. Morgan.

[thehaemanthus]

Recently Read

In addition to enjoying the Graphic Audio productions of the Kate Daniels series (again, for like...third time?), Mercy Thompson series, and Hidden Legacy series (alas, only book one is out so far), I found some time for new books.

Poison Study, Maria V. Snyder

Poison Study is the first book in a series. I read it a while ago, so my recollection is slightly fuzzy. Basically, our main character, Yelena, starts the book in prison for murder. Instead of execution, she is offered the chance to live and be the Emperor's food taster.

The premise is interesting, and Yelena had a really hard past. I wanted some more angst from that. In the present, she has to navigate magic, the threat from her past, and the dude who oversees her work. No spoilers for the rest of the books, but things change very quickly!

I enjoyed the first book and wanted to see where the series went, but I couldn't finish the series. It was just...flat. I think the characters were speaking too much about what they were doing or feeling? Or the...pacing or flow or something was just off. I wasn't excited to read, and it started to feel like more of a slog. I did not finish the third book, Fire Study.

Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City, K. J. Parker

This one was fun! We followed a colonel (I think? Not sure about the rank WHOOPS) in charge of a group of engineers who must, as the title suggests, defend a walled city. It was creative, funny, and kept me guessing. I didn't know while I was reading, but apparently its loosely based off of a siege of Constantinople.

Slight spoiler: the ending kind of left me deflated. I can't say what happens, but there is a little bit of "all that for what?" Now, there are other books, following completely different characters but continuing the story. But I got attached to the ones in this book, despite the book itself sort of warning me not to lol. Immediately after reading I was like "idk if I'd recommend it" but with some weeks behind me, I would. The journey was good, even if the destination wasn't my cup of tea.

For She Is Wrath, Emily Varga

Vaguely Pakistani-inspried world, another protagonist in prison, second chance romance, revenge-- standard YA stuff. I thought this book was going to be the first in a series, but it's actually a standalone.

Our protagonist, Dania, is on a mission to get revenge on the people who framed her for a crime. There's djinn magic involved, hoodwinking corrupt people, friendship, and romance between her and the dude who framed her.

Really just standard, mostly entertaining YA stuff. I came away being like "huh, it was fine".

Kiss of the Basilisk, Lindsay Straube

Cough. Ahem. Um. Actually idk why I'm shy, this is tumblr.

Premise is that young women who are the same age as the local prince "train" with basilisks (who are not basilisks all the time, they turn into humanoids, which makes things much less interesting than I had been picturing) to learn how to be really good at sex, in hopes that being really good at sex will make the prince marry them.

Just go with it. There's a LOT of sex in the book-- dare I say too much. In the beginning it has an impact, but by the end it's like....again? And, despite people clutching their pearls, the sex doesn't even become that interesting (to my AO3 poisoned brain).

HOWEVER I was sat! I was interested! If you take it for what it is, I was into the characters, the problems that our protagonist faces, and the relationship she has with her basilisk-man and the prince.

If you look deeper than the surface nothing makes sense, but it was entertaining and mostly hot. I'll have a go at the next book when it comes out.

The Kinsmen Universe, Ilona Andrews

Ilona Andrews is just always good, no matter what. I hadn't read these (short stories/novella length), but they were solid and entertaining. Good Andrews world-building, as always. The stories were short but entertaining, each featuring a unique romance, setting, and cast of characters (with some small overlap).

___

Annndddd that's a wrap! What else shall I read? Any recs?

[kmclaude]

Forgive me Father, I have no awful headcanons for you, only a general question on comic making. How do you do it, writing-wise/how do you decide what points go where, how do you plot it out (or do you have any resources on the writing aspect that you find useful?) Not to get too bogged down in details, but I attended a writer’s workshop and the author in residence suggested I transfer my wordy sci-fi WIP into graphic novel script, as it might work better. (I do draw, but I don’t know if I have it in me to draw a whole comic—characters in motion? Doing things? With backgrounds? How dare, why can’t everyone just stand around looking pretty)

I was interested but it quickly turned into a lot of internal screaming as I tried to figure out how to compress the hell out of it, since novels are free to do a lot more internal monologuing and such compared to a comic format (to say nothing of trying to write a script without seeing how the panels lay out—just for my own sake, I might have to do both concurrently.)

As an aside, to get a feel for graphic novels I was rereading 99RM and was reminded of how great it was—tightly plotted, intriguing, and anything to do with Ashmedai was just beautifully drawn. I need more Monsignor Tiefer and something something there are parallels between Jehan and Daniel in my head and I don’t know if they make sense but it works for me. (As an aside, I liked the emphasis on atonement being more than just the word sorry, but acknowledgment you did wrong and an attempt to remedy it—I don’t know why that spoke to me the way that it did.)

I thought Tumblr had a word count limit for asks but so far it has offered zero resistance, oh well. I don’t have much else to say but on the topic of 99RM, Adam getting under Monsignor’s skin is amazing, 10/10 (about the Pride picture earlier)

wow tumblr got rid of the markdown editor! or at least in asks which means the new editor probably has no markdown....god i hate this site! anyway...

Totally! So first, giant thank you for the compliments! Second, I have a few questions in turn for you before I dive into a sort of answer, since I can give some advice to your questions in general but it also sounds like you have a specific conundrum on your hands.

My questions to your specific situation are:

did the author give any reason for recommending a, in your words, "wordy" story be turned into a graphic novel?

is the story you're writing more, like you said, "internal monologuing"? action packed? where do the visuals come from?

do you WANT it to be a comic? furthermore, do you want it to be a comic you then must turn around and draw? or would you be interested in writing for comics as a comic writer to have your words turned into art?

With those questions in mind, let me jump into the questions you posed me!

Let me start with a confession...

I've said this before but let me say it again: Ninety-Nine Righteous Men was not originally a comic — it was a feature-length screenplay! And furthermore, it was written for a class so it got workshopped again and again to tighten the plot by a classroom of other nerds — so as kind as your compliments are, I'm giving credit where credit is due as that was not just a solo ship sailing on the sea. On top of that, it got adapted (by me) into a comic for my thesis, so my advisor also helped me make it translate or "read" well given I was director, actor, set designer, writer, editor, SFX guy, etc. all in one. And it was a huge help to have someone say "there is no way you can go blow by blow from script to comic: you need to make edits!" For instance, two scenes got compressed to simple dialogue overlaid on the splashpage of Ashmedai raping Caleb (with an insert panel of Adam and Daniel talking the next day.) What had been probably at least 5 pages became 1.

Additionally, I don't consider myself a strong plotter. That said, I found learning to write for film made the plotting process finally make some damn sense since the old plot diagram we all got taught in grammar school English never made sense as a reader and definitely made 0 sense as a writer — for me, for some reason, the breakdown of 25-50-25 (approx. 25 pages for act 1, 50 for act 2 split into 2 parts of 25 each, 25 pages for act 3) and the breaking down of the beats (the act turning points, the mid points, the low point) helped give me a structure that just "draw a mountain, rising action, climax is there, figure it out" never did. Maybe the plot diagram is visually too linear when stories have ebb and flow? I don't know. But it never clicked until screenwriting. So that's where I am coming from. YMMV.

I should also state that there's Official Ways To Write Comic Scripts to Be Drawn By An Artist (Especially If You Work For A Real Publisher As a Writer) and there's What Works For You/Your Team. I don't give a rat's ass about the former (and as an artist, I kind of hate panel by panel breakdowns like you see there) so I'm pretty much entirely writing on the latter here. I don't give a good god damn about official ways of doing anything: what works for you to get it done is what matters.

What Goes Where?

Like I said, 99RM was a screenplay so it follows, beat-wise, the 3-act screenplay structure (hell, it's probably more accurate to say it follows the act 1/act 2A/act 2B/act 3 structure.) So there was the story idea or concept that then got applied to those story beats associated with the structure, and from there came the Scene-by-scene Breakdown (or Expanded Scene Breakdown) which basically is an outline of beats broken down into individual scenes in short prose form so you get an overview of what happens, can see pacing, etc. In the resources at the end I put some links that give information on the whole story beat thing.

(As an aside: for all my short comics, I don't bother with all that, frankly. I usually have an image or a concept or a bit of writing — usually dialogue or monologue, sometimes a concrete scene — that I pick at and pick at in a little sketchbook, going back and forth between writing and thumbnail sketches of the page. Or I just go by the seat of my pants and bullshit my way through. Either or. Those in many ways are a bit more like poems, in my mind: they are images, they are snapshots, they are feelings that I'm capturing in a few panels. Think doing mental math rather than writing out geometric proofs, yanno?)

Personally, I tend to lean on dialogue as it comes easier for me (it's probably why I'm so drawn to screenwriting!) so for me, if I were to do another longform GN, I'd probably take my general "uhhhhhh I have an idea and some beats maybe so I guess this should happen this way?" outline and start breaking it down scene by scene (I tend to write down scenes or scene sketches in that "uhhhh?" outline anyway LOL) and then figure out basic dialogue and action beats — in short, I'd kind of do the work of writing a screenplay without necessarily going full screenplay format (though I did find the format gave me an idea of timing/pacing, as 1 page of formatted script is about equal to 1 minute of screentime, and gave me room to sketch thumbnails or make edits on the large margins!) If you're not a monologue/soliloque/dialogue/speech person and more an image and description person, you may lean more into visuals and scenes that cut to each other.

Either way this of course introduces the elephant in the panel: art! How do you choose what to draw?

The answer is, well, it depends! The freedom of comics is if you can imagine it, you can make it happen. You have the freedoms (and audio limitations) of a truly silent film with none of the physical limitations. Your words can move in real time with the images or they can be a narrative related to the scene or they could be nonsequitors entirely! The better question is how do you think? Do you need all the words and action written first before you break down the visuals? Do you need a panel by panel breakdown to be happy, or can you freewheel and translate from word and general outlines to thumbnails? What suits you? I really cannot answer this because I think when it comes to what goes where with regard to art, it's a bit of "how do you process visuals" and also a bit of "who's drawing this?" — effectively, who is the interpreter for the exact thing you are writing? Is it you or someone else? If it's you, would you benefit from a barebones script alongside thumbnailed paneling? Would you be served by a barebones script, then thumbnails, then a new script that includes panel and page breakdowns? What frees you up to do what you need to do to tell your story?

If I'm being honest, I don't necessarily worry about panels or what something will look like necessarily until I'm done writing. I may have an image that I clearly state needs to happen. I may even have a sequence of panels that I want to see and I do indeed sketch that out and make note of it in my script. But exactly how things will be laid out, paneled, situated? That could change up until I've sketched my final pencils in CSP (but I am writer and artist so admittedly I get that luxury.)

How do I compress from novel to comic?

Honest answer? You don't. Not really. You adapt from one to another. It's more a translation. Something that would take forever to write may take 1 page in a comic or may take a whole issue.

I'm going to pick on Victor Hugo. Victor Hugo spent a whole-ass book in Notre-Dame de Paris talking about a bird's eye view of Paris and other medieval architecture boring stuff, with I guess some foreshadowing with Montfaucon. Who cares. Not me. I like story. Anyway. When we translate that book to a movie any of the billion times someone's done that, we don't spend a billion years talking at length about medieval Paris. There's no great monologuing about the gibbet or whatever: you get to have some establishing shots, maybe a musical number, and then you move tf on. Because it's a movie, right? Your visuals are right there. We can see medieval Paris. We can see the cathedral. We can see the gibbet. We don't need a whole book: it's visually right there. Same with a comic: you may need many paragraphs to describe, say, a space station off of Sirius and one panel to show it.

On the flip side, you may take one line, maybe two, to say a character keyed in the special code to activate the holodeck; depending on the visual pacing, that could be a whole page of panels (are we trying to stretch time? slow it down? what are we emphasizing?) A character gives a sigh of relief — one line of text, yeah? That could be a frozen panel while a conversation continues on or that could be two (or more!) panels, similar to the direction [a beat] in screenwriting.

Sorry there's not a super easy answer there to the question of compression: it's a lot more of a tug, a push-pull, that depends on what you're conveying.

So Do I Have It In Me to Write & Draw a GN?

The only way you'll know is by doing. Scary, right? The thing is, you don't necessarily need to be an animation king or God's gift to background artists to draw a comic.

Hell, I hate backgrounds. I still remember sitting across from my friend who said "Claude you really need to draw an establishing exterior of the church at some point" and me being like "why do you hate me specifically" because drawing architecture? Again? I already drew the interior of the church altar ONCE, that should be enough, right? But I did draw an exterior of the church. Sorta. More like the top steeple. Enough to suggest what I needed to suggest to give the audience a better sense of place without me absolutely losing my gourd trying to render something out of my wheelhouse at the time.

And that's kinda the ticket, I think. Not everyone's a master draftsman. Not everyone has all the skills in every area. And regardless, from page one to page one hundred, your skills will improve. That's all part of it — and in the meantime, you should lean into your strengths and cheat where you can.

Do you need to lovingly render a background every single panel? Christ no! Does every little detail need to be drawn out? Sure if you want your hand to fall off. Cheat! Use Sketchup to build models! Use Blender to sculpt forms to paint over! Use CSP Assets for prebuilt models and brushes if you use CSP! Take photographs and manip them! Cheat! Do what you need to do to convey what you need to convey!

For instance, a tip/axiom/"rule" I've seen is one establishing shot per scene minimum and a corollary to that has been include a background once per page minimum as grounding (no we cannot all have eternal floating heads and characters in the void. Unless your comic is set in the void. In which case, you do you.) People ain't out here drawing hyper detailed backgrounds per each tiny panel. The people who DO do that are insane. Or stupid. Or both. Or have no deadline? Either way, someone's gonna have a repetitive stress injury... Save yourself the pain and the headache. Take shortcuts. Save your punches for the big K.O. moments.

Start small. Make an 8-page zine. Tell a beginning, a middle, an end in comic form. Bring a scene to life in a few pages. See what you're comfortable drawing and where you struggle. See where you can lean heavily into your comfort zones. Learn how to lean out of your comfort zone. Learn when it's worth it to do the latter.

Or start large. Technically my first finished comic (that wasn't "a dumb pencil thing I drew in elementary school" or "that 13 volume manga I outlined and only penciled, what, 7 pages of in sixth grade" or "random one page things I draw about my characters on throw up on the interwebz") was 99RM so what do I know. I'm just some guy on the internet.

(That's not self-deprecating, I literally am some guy on the internet talking about my path. A lot of this is gonna come down to you and what vibes with you.)

Resources on writing

Some of these are things that help me and some are things that I crowd-sourced from others. Some of these are going to be screenwriting based, some will be comic based.

Making Comics by Scott McCloud: I think everyone recommends this but I think it is a useful book if you're like "ahh!!! christ!! where do I start!!!???" It very much breaks down the elements of comics and the world they exist in and the principles involved, with the caveat that there are no rules! In fact, I need to re-read it.

Comic Book Design: I picked this up at B&N on a whim and in terms of just getting a bird's eye view of varied ways to tackle layout and paneling? It's such a great resource and reference! I personally recommend it as a way to really get a feel for what can be done.

the screenwriter's bible: this is a book that was used in my class. we also used another book that's escaping me but to be honest, I never read anything in school and that's why I'm so stupid. anyway, I'd say check it out if you want, especially if you start googling screenwriting stuff and it's like 20 billion pieces of advice that make 0 sense -- get the core advice from one place and then go from there.

Drawing Words & Writing Pictures: many people I know recommended this. I think I have it? It may be in storage. So frankly, I'd already read a bunch of books on comics before grabbing this that it kind of felt like a rehash. Which isn't shade on the authors — I personally was just a sort of "girl, I don't need comics 101!!!"

Invisible Ink: A Practical Guide to Building Stories that Resonate: this has been recommended so many times to me. I cannot personally speak on it but I can say I do trust those who rec'd it to me so I am passing it along

the story circle: this is pretty much the hero's journey. a useful way to think of journeys! a homie pretty much swears by it

a primer on beats: quick google search got me this that outlines storybeats

save the cat!: what the above refers to, this gives a more genre-specific breakdown. also wants to sell you on the software but you don't need that.

I hope this helps and please feel free to touch base with more info about your specific situation and hopefully I'll have more applicable answers.

[bakurapika]

free jewish resources online

Because so many of these lists require a high buy-in cost, I feel like I should add my own personal resources for learning about Judaism. Because on the one hand, yes, unfortunately a lot of resources cost money, and if you’re actually converting, you need to be working with a rabbi. But if you’re just wanting to educate yourself, or if you want “lighter” reading, I have some recs!

Keep in mind that Judaism varies a LOT in both belief and practice. This is not all-inclusive and opinions on EVERYthing may differ. 

Podcasts/audio (I grabbed whatever link seemed best, but use your fav streaming platform):

Bad Jew Weekly is hard to find on some streaming services right now, but it’s SUCH a good casual look at Jewish thought from a more relatable/average point of view.

Jewish History Matters - for historical context, told engagingly!

Jewcurious is a podcast (also uploaded as a series of Youtube videos) specifically for people new to Judaism. 

Hashivenu is put out by Reconstructing Judaism and shares practices that encourage resilience.

ReformJudaism’s podcasts include “Wholly Jewish” (interviews about identities and how they intersect with the individual’s Jewishness), “Stories We Tell” (fun short stories, child-appropriate), and “On the Other Hand: Ten Minutes of Torah” insights on the weekly Torah portion.

Judaism Unbound is another informative podcast. A few episodes are transcribed on their website here. 

Digital Hammurabi is a Youtube channel put together by historians studying the ancient world. They tend to cover Biblical history as well as the history of cultures of the surrounding peoples. 

Books that tend to be available at US libraries

(note - your local library may be willing to buy books at your request. Additionally, some libraries let non-residents sign up for a digital library card for free or for a small fee. These change frequently so you may need to check out the library’s websites individually! You can also specifically search for a book on Overdrive and then “Search for a digital library with this title” to find one near you. I’m only listing stuff here that I didn’t pay a dime for and which are on Overdrive; most have audiobooks available too.)

Jewish Literacy Revised Ed by Joseph Telushkin. A broad view of Judaism basics and history. (Note that IMO, some of the history seems anti-Islam in a way that I don’t usually see in other Jewish histories.) 

The Jewish Book of Why by Alfred J. Kolatch. Another one of those basic training manuals.

Choosing a Jewish Life: A Handbook for People Converting to Judaism and for Their Family and Friends by Anita Diamant.

Uncovered: How I Left Hasidic Life and Finally Came Home by Leah Lax: A moving memoir of a gay woman and her experiences with the Hasidic movement of Judaism. (May be triggering for those with negative religious/homophobic experiences.

Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Woman by Abby Stein: A memoir of a transgender woman who was raised in the Hasidic movement. (May be triggering for those with negative religious/homophobic/transphobic experiences. I dealt with panic attacks from this for weeks but I still recommend it. It’s that good?)

Torah Queeries edited by Gregg Drinkwater, Joshua Lesser and David Shneer. Commentaries on Torah portions from a queer perspective.

Tevye the Dairyman and Motl the Cantor's Son by Sholem Aleichem. This also is more cultural history than religious information but dammit. It’s the source for Fiddler On The Roof and it is charming and you will cry.

Other:

Visiting a local temple is free and informative - check their website to make sure visiting is cool. Many are currently streaming services and even have their recorded services on Youtube. (Mine did not charge a fee for any conversion-related services. Based on what I see online, that’s not the norm... but it’s possible!) As an example, here’s OurJewishCommunity.org’s Youtube channel, which uploads services regularly. 

Note - many temples and synagogues filter attendants for safety reasons. If you can’t access your local temple’s streaming services, you may need to reach out to an administrator to ask. They also may be able to direct you to other local activities, like Torah study. In my experience, there is no barrier to entry saying that you can’t participate unless you’re Jewish already - it’s only about being open and engaged and respectful. Even if that’s not the case for your local temple/synagogue, it tends to be true for streaming online events--which also tend to be “pay what you can”! For example, some of Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan’s programs, classes, and holiday services. 

Sefaria. Sefaria. Sefaria. Did I say Sefaria? It has holy texts (English and Hebrew!) along with study texts, hosted for free, and it is HUGE. Click on anything and it will link you to commentary and other resources. Users can create “sheets” to arrange quotes by topic. Here’s a helpful list of information by topic! 

Stay informed on social media. You will see a lot of perspectives online. Reddit has a subreddit of course if you want a taste of those. Ask-jumblr here on Tumblr also shares great resources and has an FAQ page. Of course, following people who you like who are also Jewish is good and may give you a more well-rounded perspective on Jewish life (but you probably knew that!).

The Jewish Theological Seminary has tons of online resources for the curious. The link is for their Youtube.

MyJewishLearning has how-to articles and other easy-reading info.

RitualWell is great for finding prayers.

I can’t write a list like this without mentioning Chabad. It tends to be the first result for Google inquiries because it is an extensive online resource, but note that it doesn’t necessarily curate perspectives that are LGBTQ+ friendly.

ReformJudaism also has a resources tab which includes an “Answering Jewish Questions” section. They also offer Judaism 101 courses online.

T’ruah is a political rabbinic group fighting for human rights. I’ve linked their news section, but you can also sign up for their newsletter to stay updated!

OKAY. So that should be a few hundred hours’ worth of no-cost resources, audio and visual, and I’m sure there are a jillion more that I don’t know about yet. So go!! Go read and listen!!! And share more info if you’ve got it!

[untamedunrestrained]

The Untamed and Mo Dao Zu Shi

These past eight days have been surreal.

I have drowned so fully in this story that it feels like I am just surfacing.

On Valentine’s Day, fandom on tumblr reblogged this fanart of WangXian by qulfeeh and I was intrigued. The reblog was tagged with two important key words ‘Wangxian’ and ‘The Untamed’. In the brush of a few keystrokes I came across the Wikipedia page for a show known as the Untamed that was available on Netflix. The thing that stood out was that it was based on a BL novel and that both the very male protagonists were described as each other’s soulmates and somehow that was enough. So, I opened Netflix and after like a second of hesitation I started watching the show and I didn’t stop. I started at eight in the evening and I watched nine episodes in a row which basically meant I was up till five in the morning. What followed seems like a record for me. I finished all fifty episodes of the Untamed in under seventy-two hours.

I put hardly five minutes of thought into my decision to watch this story and ended up dedicating the past eight days straight. The first three days to the live action drama and the past five to reading the novel.

If it isn’t obvious this story is that good.

The Untamed

The Untamed is a first for me on so many levels. I have never watched a Chinese show before ever and that seemed extremely significant to me because China is actually a neighbouring country yet as far as my mind is concerned it might as well be on another planet. Which seems particularly odd considering shows from English speaking countries like the UK and the US are a staple for me which makes these countries feel so much closer though they are geographically on the other side of the planet. Of course, a major factor is the language barrier but another is the political scenario between our two countries and amazingly this show made me realise how much of an impact perceiving different cultures can have on your perception of their people. It has literally opened up a whole new world for me that I have just realised I have never taken the moment to discover. Well, considering this is me we are talking about, how appropriate, that it would be a drama based on a BL novel that unlocked this whole new world for me.

I have tried reading a Danmei novel before which was awful and it completely turned me off the genre but it did have a side effect of educating we about elements of a wuxia novel which made this xianxia world seem a little familiar but even if it hadn’t, I would have still been hooked.

It didn’t take long for The Untamed to find a new fan and I have been obsessing over it ever since.

The Untamed is an amazing drama which revolves around the love Lan WangJi and Wei WuXian have for each other and the plot is so intriguing that you wouldn’t be able to stop even if you tried (I didn’t because that thought didn’t even manage to enter my mind).

It’s a love story and that is undisputable for me, they don’t say it, it isn’t mentioned but there is this palpable force influencing events and you know they love each other. I have somehow really disregarded how much a show can show you stuff without ever explicitly stating it but The Untamed set me straight in that regard. I doubt anyone who watches the show would mistake it for anything but the love story it is.

Wei WuXian was an instant hit for me. He is a lovable, gregarious character always up to mischief but is someone who always wants to be on the side of justice and I have a weak spot for characters with a hard on for justice. He is just such a lively character who keeps smiling all the time that it’s just hard not to fall for him in minutes. His antics and his demeanour are so charming that you’re hooked. He would have easily been my most favourite character in any other drama that doesn’t have a Lan WangJi.

Lan WangJi is an amazing character. In a world, which has become increasing about everyone voicing their opinions (like I’m doing at present) it is hard to believe that people like Lan WangJi exist. People who are quiet, who don’t speak unless absolutely necessary. He is literally the embodiment of tranquillity and more important he is Wei WuXian’s hero. Like literally he protects him like he’s protecting his life which on second thought he definitely is.

I literally had second-hand embarrassment from how obviously romantic these two are.

Hands down the best thing I have watched in 2020 by far! The characters are amazing, the plot is intricate and it is so, so interesting. I watched almost fourty hours of this series non-stop and I don’t remember a single point where I felt like the story became boring for a second which now that I think about it is, is… astonishing. How can such a large drama be so engrossing? This isn’t binge-worthy there is literally no other way to watch the show!!!

Mo Dao Zu Shi

But after coming down from the high of the first seventy-two hours of being submerged in this world, I was reluctant to leave this world so much so that I didn’t even contemplate it. I had a wide variety of media to choose from. The story is based on a web series by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu that was made into a manhua, followed by an donghua, followed by an audio drama followed by The Untamed. It must speak to the universality of the story that the people are willing to read the same story in so many different formats, I know I’m not done.

But, high up on my list was the source material, one of the articles described the show as being extremely faithful to the novel, which made me want to jump on that wagon posthaste, and I agree whole-heartedly. I read the translation by Exiled Rebels Scanlations and what struck me was how the show and the novel were tonally the same. I had switched mediums but it didn’t feel like a different story or like I was reading different characters which is shocking because that’s literally how good the show was at translating words into video.

Differences

One of the startling things about the book is that it really ties up the plot neatly. There are tons of plot points that aren’t as completely resolved on the show as they are on the novel which I only ever realised after reading the novel. A lot of this had to do with how certain details of the plot are different. A classic example that the reason behind the scars on Lan Zhan’s back is different in the two. In the novel, LWJ whisks WWX away from the Nightless City after he massacres and pretty much beats-to-a-pulp the entire alliance of sects. LWJ then has to tend to WWX so they remain in hiding for three days. When cultivators from the GusuLan Sect finally discover the two, LWJ has to defeat all of them to keep WWX safe and that’s why he is given one whipping for every cultivator he defeated. Of course, since WWX dies on the battlefield in the show this couldn’t be the reason behind the scars so they have LWJ defend Burial Mounds which wasn’t all that fruitful considereing the LanlingJin Clan does end up with a lot of WWX’s artifacts, there was no point in defending Burial Mounds as he couldn’t have kept it up in the long run but him going to Burial Mounds after the massacre at Nightless City is important to ensure they story can credibly reveal Lan ShiZui to be A-Yuan. So, yeah differences, the show focuses on the Wen Clan and the Yin Iron while the novel doesn’t have the Yin Iron at all and focuses on Jin GuangYao. But, despite the differences the story still feels coherent between the two mediums mainly because the relationship between LWJ and WWX that is at the core of both remains central to the plot at all times.

The plot of the novel though is extremely intricate and the author does an amazing job of deconstructing it which makes it easier to understand what’s happening while the show in hindsight does get away with sweeping up certain loose ends.

Of course, the kisses and the sex are gone but I will gladly take that cliff scene in exchange. I was actually shocked that the novel actually doesn’t dwell on WWX’s first death at all. Like, we don’t even know how exactly he died in the novel and this was hsocking given how pivotal that cliff scene is in the show.

Characters

Surprisingly though a lot of the roles of side characters were expanded for the show, the novel seems to have delivered a better understanding of these characters. The biggest example for me being Jiang Yanli.

She has an elaborately expanded role in the show which does highlight how deep her bind with her brothers particularly WWX is but somehow she seems like a timid character among a bunch of very strong characters. What the novel does is that it gives you a very realistic picture of her, she might not seem like a significant influence on the story but her impact is far-reaching. The novel doesn’t showcase much of her character but the scenes that feature her in the book are some of the most poignant ones and incidentally those are the same ones that stand out in the show. I feel like novel did a better job of showing off her strength. While, in the show I couldn’t look beneath her timid demeanour the novel manages to showcase the strength of her love. She cares deeply and loves deeply and the novel manages to show you the courage it takes to love someone so deeply. I definitely admire her character more and in fact I’m kind of in awe that someone who appears so traditional was so awesome. It felt easy to dismiss her character but reading the author’s words made me realise that I would be very, very wrong in doing so.

Wei WuXian might be the luckiest guy in the world to have a shijie like her followed by a husband like LWJ who both seem very determined to spoil the hell out of him. I might be experiencing some jealousy right now.

The author somehow manages to imbue her characters with qualities that makes them real and unique. Like WWX forgetting everybody’s face which is a real world problem that I have never seen anybody suffer from in a novel but just the fact that WWX doesn’t immediately bring his old hang-ups in his subsequent meetings with side characters didn’t only have hilarious consequences but made everything that much more intriguing and credible.

This author also does an amazing job of flipping characters. There are very few villains who are black and white in this story. WWX himself is a character caught in the gray of it all, universally reviled for standing up for the right reasons. This is a theme throughout the show and the novel where bad characters might be good and good might be bad but the author endeavours to show us all sides to a character. While this most definitely applies to Jin GuangYao, I’m surprised with how it resonates with Xue Yang who’s relationship with Xiao Xinchen can only be characterized with the words “It’s Complicated”. I don’t actually know what to think of these two Xiao Xingchen was definitely betrayed but can we ignore the fact that he found himself a companion in Xue Yang his sworn enemy and Xue Yang’s feelings for Xiao Xingchen are enough to drive me crazy. This guy has no idea how frustrating he is, that piece of candy clenched in his fist will drive me crazy for the rest of my life. The entire Yi City Arc is a big mess of grey there are no whites and blacks and the show underscores that with this quote –

Once upon a time, there was a little child who liked sweets very much. But because he had no parents nor money, he could never have such things. So he’d been dreaming if only someone could give him a candy every day.

Don’t even get me started on the music that plays in the background when this quote is being narrated.

There are just so many amazing things about the show and the novel. I mean the show might have actually worked harder to make things more romantic and one scene that I’m surprised isn’t from the book is the lantern scene with both of them making pledges like that particular scene neatly underlined who WWX is and would become. The hand-fastening scene is also not from the book but then there are other scenes and other delights to be found in the novels.

This story is definitely worth reading and watching for years to come. If anyone has any apprehensions about the novel I will be glad to clarify but the everything about “The Untamed” and “Mo Dao Zu Shi” stand in the same breath.

[desirableendings]

Cancel culture

I’m so upset right now. I’m gonna try to put my thoughts in a coherent form but I’m afraid I won’t be completely capable.

This is about cancel culture and about how unhealthy and toxic it is both in the realm of cancelling people and cancelling works of fiction.

This is about in particular two situations that triggered this reaction on me that I consider both really dangerous, and though both probably came from an initial place of worry and accountability what they both achieved was the opposite.

I also come to tumblr, where probably almost no one will read me, but where I know cancel culture it’s more in hype. This is why I want this text to be on my blog, for anyone that follows me and anyone that might come after to see.

I’ll start with the problem of cancelling fiction. Because there’s a difference between being critic and wanting something to disappear from the face of the earth and fall into oblivion. You might think I’m exaggerating or using hyperbole to establish an argument, but I’m not. Cancel culture fueled by rage doesn’t look for reparation, doesn’t look for growth, doesn’t look for real accountability it looks to burn and destroy. Cancel culture it’s fueled by shame because those who foment it cannot stand something problematic to exist, but even worse cannot stand that to exist within them. Now tell me, how is this not close to burning books, something most conservative cultures have done several times when disagreeing with a particular posture or when fearful of the reaches of fiction to critical and open minded thinking. 

Fiction is not there to paint you pretty worlds in which every single character it’s perfect for you, fiction it’s not there to be morally acceptable to you, fiction is not there to rewrite history and tell you an unproblematic version of it. Fiction is there to be read critically, to be interpreted, to be questioned and to question as well, that’s why it is highly feared by dictatorships and extreme governments. You read something (and by this I mean book, tv show, movie, audio, ANY type of fiction that its read when its interpreted) and you can point its flaws, see its blind spots, learn from its characters and then maybe get inspired and write something that speaks more closely to you. What cancel culture does, though, is not even read it critically, but just throw it to the fire pit and watch it burn while warning anyone else to not ever read it again, not form your own opinions, not create new critics, NOT held it accountable, because how can someone hold something accountable without having the chance of reading it? No, just ignore it, forget it, burn it, because it’s problematic.

My example for this is Hamilton. I’ve been hearing for ages that it has become problematic and thus it should be canceled, but until now I haven’t been able to reach the arguments behind it. But of course with the whole release from Disney everything exploded, and by everything I mean a weird mixture between the people that want to cancel Lin Manuel Miranda and the ones that want to cancel Hamilton, and the ones that mix both and conclude the best way of doing it it’s canceling Hamilton first. For the sake of this argument I will focus only in the canceling of Hamilton which gets based in four principal arguments: 1. It portrays as main characters problematic people who were real life slavers, and shows them instead as the heroes founding fathers of the USA, without addressing their problems one by one. 2. Lin Manuel Miranda’s relationship with Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico’s policies and the way he brought Hamilton to Puerto Rico. 3. Some well done critical articles that don’t cancel either, but rather present what happened and what both Lin Manuel Miranda and Hamilton should be held accountable critically, but instead are used to cancel both of them. 4. The fact that Alexander Hamilton, the real figure, it’s portrayed free of charge of also engaging in problematic behaviors specially those related to slavery and the creation of banks and kind of the capitalist culture of the US.

Now, in the sake of criticism and holding things accountable but NOT cancelling them, let’s address each one by one: 1. Hamilton its based in real people that were problematic, and slavers and racist, BUT that also coincidentally fought for the independence of the US and were the founding fathers, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You can cancel them and want to forget they existed but the truth is that the US it’s what it is because of them and their actions, and actually most of today’s issues with race and capitalism are because of that history, and until we all accept the US comes from that we wont be able to change it and move on, REMEMBERING were it came from. Believe me, being a person of color that comes from colonialism and that had to come to the hard truth that I am what I am because of the people that came and killed and raped and stole, and that I even carry part of their blood because most latin American population is mixed race, and that just is what it is, I understand how hard but necessary this process is. Do I think Christopher Colombus should be praised each year and celebrated in statues all across the world? HELL NO, do I think we should all kill him in our memories forever and cancel him? HELL NO, because I come from that, it’s part of who I am, and I’ll remember him, but holding him accountable for the genocide and exploitation of the land and people of America, and for in the end forming part of the mixed race I belong to. Denying or canceling this or him would be canceling a part of myself that I HAVE TO LIVE WITH FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. So, yes. The founding fathers were problematic, hell yeah, they were racist as well, but the musical Hamilton addresses this in some ways that the story Lin Manuel Miranda is trying to tell allows, without only focusing on it because that’s one of its flaws we have to hold the musical accountable for even if its out of the reach of the musical. What the musical actually DOES is that it casts people of color in their roles as a criticism and a way of saying that the US of now is not the white US they were trying to make back then, and that the power should shift, and OF COURSE he is criticizing slavery not only by the verses in the Cabinet Battle that everyone seemed to conveniently forget, but also in this subversion of casting and the way he decided to tell this very traditional part of history through RAP, a genre that comes and its largely belonging to black culture. This is actually a clever way of holding a history you cannot change, accountable for its previous violences, and also calling out current violences that people will only come to notice by watching the musical and questioning themselves about why they expect other cast, music and history, and that’s all in the nuances you can only get from READING through it. 

While we are at it let’s address point 4: I don’t know which musical these people has been seeing but Hamilton is hardly a saint, neither presented as one, in the musical, he is a tragic character at best, he has a lot of qualities but these same qualities are the ones that condemn him to disgrace and ultimately early death. But he is mostly shown as a human, and I honestly don’t know in which part of cancel culture “human” started being equivalent to pure and free of charge but that’s far from it. Human means conscious, capable of mistakes and capable of causing hurt, but also capable of growing and reparation that heals oneself and others. Do I wished the musical would have been more critical of the way Hamilton introduced a capitalist culture as the best one and the way he criticized slavery but did nothing about it personally... yes, but the only way I can make this criticism and hold it accountable is because I watch and listened to it, took the good and identified the bad, and recognized both.

The second and third point have absolutely nothing to do with the musical whatsoever, but with its creator and the poor interpretation of proper criticism. And thus is that what should be held accountable, Lin Manuel Miranda as a person, and the situations that happened related to him and his decisions. Now, about the link of profit and “supporting” Hamilton, by all means don’t do this if you think him and the people involved (because a musical it’s never done by just one person), doesn’t deserve it. I, for one, I’m certain that Disney does not need or deserve a single dollar more, they are quite rich already. But not watching Hamilton when its eventually published in Disney + is miles away from erasing Hamilton from existing, not listening to its songs and forgetting about it because it is problematic. These last things are the equivalent of burning it, and I recommend listening to the song Burn from the same musical to learn about what fire does to words.

Now, the problem of cancelling people. If in fiction cancelling it’s equivalent to burning books in human beings its equivalent to murder, and I’m not exaggerating here either, because it is. And again here there’s a difference between holding people accountable for their mistakes and just erasing them from the face of the earth because they fucked up. And here the same problem as before stands, if you cancel them you are also taking away the opportunity of holding them accountable, because if there’s no one there to listen, then why would they even bother saying sorry and trying to fix their wrongs. Basically, cancelling people not only murders them but also gives them a free pass to be someone else and not repair those they hurt with their problematic behavior before. Like, what the fuck do you think happens in peace treaties after wars and process of reparation and restitution are in place? THE OPPOSITE OF CANCEL CULTURE. In reparation processes after a lot of violence has been done to victims, the process is to listen and hear words of repentance, that help victims heal and forgive, so BOTH parts can continue living a better life. Because turns out in the end we are all human beings that want to live and continue to live and we only get ONE life to do so, and if you take the chance for a person to live their lives, then how is that not taking also their lives away? How is not giving the possibility of growth and forgiveness not burning them alive, as if you get to choose over their future??

My example for this case is Jenna Marbles, and how ridiculous and upsetting is that people really wanted to cancel her from mistakes she made AGES ago, that she clearly grew from, as it’s evident from the person she is now and her everyday current actions, and also from the way she is clearly ashamed and upset about it, as it’s clear from the fact she had private the offensive videos so people didn’t reach them and get hurt by them. Jenna is a human being, that’s also clearly hurt by what she did but mostly from the fact that no matter what you do, how you repair, how you grow, the internet is fixated in letting you drown in your mistakes forever, and I’m sorry but how is that not killing someone and not letting them live their life to be a better person? How is that not as problematic as the so judged original behaviors?

In the end I just want for all of us to stop being so hypocritical at aiming judgements and cancelations at everyone else before looking at ourselves, our own violences and problems and understanding if we could grow and be critical of them to continue living, then so can others.

How about we let them do so.

[dimancheetoile]

Wait, what happened with the Arcana?

Hey, so I’ll try to explain in a good way because I was like you, pretty much I played the Arcana every day, loved the game despite some criticism I had of it. 

But then I followed a tumblr of a talented artist that I came to love (@kissingagrumpygiant), and the Arcana kept coming back in their posts, their asks, and always in a negative way, so I became curious. I looked through their blog and the blogs of who I believe are their friends and they had a post (link below) about the Arcana’s creators and their creepy, borderline p*edo^hilic and i*ncest content, racist narrative direction, over-sexualization of poc, exploitation of the promise of a non-binary character who, in the game, is never referred as such, and the BDSM, extremely sexual nature of some of the Julian story line and Nadia, in a game rated for children. 

And on top of that, the lies from the Kickstarter, how the special scenes should have been accessibles like it was promised, where now if you want all the romance scenes, you need to pay something outrageous like $5k to unlock all the coin needed for it, which of course no one has the money for. Except a few rich players and the creators keep it that way for them, to make money.

Now let’s be clear, I’m telling all of that from memory. I read that post around march during quarantine and of course I did my own research because I didn’t want to just blindly believe something just because a tumblr creator I like says it’s true. But they produced a lot of evidence in that post and I found overwhelming evidence myself as well. 

So I stopped playing the Arcana. And it was very hard, because I had become very attached to this game, I had just finished the Nadia story line the day before and I was so excited to start a new one (with Asra or Portia, because even before knowing all that, I was extremely uncomfortable that you could romance Lucio, a known abusive, violent, murdering man, who created the plague, set people on fire for fun, enslaved poc (Muriel) and orphaned poc (Asra), or Muriel, basically an exploited, ex-slave poc always half-naked and in chains.......)

But anyway, I was literally heartbroken. I even recorder something that I wanted to post on tumblr and never did in the end, because here’s the thing. When I was playing the game but didn’t know about all that, I kept seeing asks on the tumblr I had followed, and people were not nice. Attacking, or disbelieving, and I was a coward. I was afraid that if I posted that audio clip, I would get a ton of backlash. It was the middle of quarantine, and I was very fragile mentally, so I didn’t post it. But now feels like the right time, since I’m feeling good enough to actually stand against things that disgust me, like what Ubisoft is doing.

Anyway. If you read through all that, thanks, but I didn’t feel like this could be explained in a couple of sentences. Now, to support my claims, here are:

the original post I found that talked about the issues (the post is in three parts: the first is about the problematic artist, the second is about the problems in-game of sexual content, racism, exploitation of poc, etc. and the third part is about the money-side of business, their business model and the scammy way they make their money off of the player

the audio recording I made when I read all of that (tw for panic attack, I was not in a good place like I said above, and I read that post late at night, then did couple of hours of research so when I grabbed the phone to record this, I was tired, mentally and emotionally exhausted. anyway, that’s why i sound like i’m in the middle of a breakdown. i mean i kinda was. uuuuh apologies for terrible english accent too)

I hope this is enough to explain to you my problem, and the problem of many others, with the Arcana. Of course no one can make you stop playing. It’s like Harry Potter, it was so hard for me, but I decided I wouldn’t engage with it anymore, even though I’ve been reading HP since I was 7. It’s always a choice. And I’m not blaming the people who can’t make it. 

I almost kept playing the Arcana, because it was quarantine and I was fucking miserable and I would have taken any form of distraction possible just to get through the day. But lucky me, I found a new book for myself to distract me, became passionate about the subject so much that I even started doing research on it, and that allowed me to let go of the Arcana. I hope you can see our point of view, and why we hope people stop playing it to stop supporting the creators.

[d20trashcan]

Lmao rlly? I just assume all fandom blogs I like the content of are around 3k asfhsdjf... no idea you were so new to this you give off big blog energy

I think its because of my 9 years of social media centered towards fandoms. I’m 21 so almost half of my life was devoted to fandoms, creating and getting involved in any kind of fandom creativity, from fanfiction writing to roleplaying ocs.

I started out on deviantart, with my first account solely focused on one anime fandom. I wrote alot of xReader fanfiction and got oddly popular there. Its probably my second highest follower count.

A year later, I discovered tumblr through a dear friend, a bit before peak tumblr. I also got involved in that anime fandom there as well. Fun fact, I apparently created legendary memes in that fandom that seems to still be shared. And when I say legendary, I mean like an average of 1K likes and probably more cause they have been shared outside deviantart still only got a bit less than 300 watchers there

After a while, I started getting into Superwholock, more so towards Doctor Who than the rest. I had a balance of those 2 fandoms for a long time. in both deviantart and Doctor Who.

However, somethings happened and I left that anime fandom and created a new deviantart. I forgot why but I wanted to just cut myself off from that fandom. Around this time, I had been deep into One Piece, especially the One Piece OC fandom.

I don’t think many people know this, but my passion had always been making OCs. My oldest oc was a One Piece OC that I still have now and kicking. My deviantart was where I posted alot about my op ocs. I owe alot to One Piece and its influence to my life. I wouldnt have the friends, experience, or even art skills without it.

After awhile, I kinda dropped the Doctor Who fandom as Superwholock ended. I became a jack of all trades in fandom, where I knew different fandoms and was into anything from video games, Youtubers, anime, books, and the like, but I was still focused on One Piece.

After a a year or two, I got into rp on tumblr. I made an rp account for my op ocs and did stupid things here and there with my friends in the community. My art skills were still not that great at the time nor was my writing skills but I kept going at it.

Even then, I dropped that rp account to focus on other things like art and more oc development and creation. It was during the time of Mary Sue witch hunting. If you were a part of the One Piece oc community, you will know what I’m talking about. It was around this time i was more active on tumblr than deviantart. There is just a easier way of sharing art and creative works here than on deviantart, where you would need a strong following to even get your work noticed.

During 2014-2015, my experience as a oc creator went to a next level. So a tdlr in the op oc fandom. Because of the anime and its pirate crews, its common to have people create ocs for preexisting pirate crews. During that 2 year time period, I decided to create a original pirate crew called the Nemesis Pirates. I won’t go into big detail, but this pirate crew was and still is my main ocs. Anyone in the OP OC community who know me will only know me by my pirate crew. I received a lot of love for my pirates and my art skills were improving very vastly. I also started writing more, but alot of it was never published work. Around this time, I got into sports animes as well and made a lot of ocs for them.

Right before college, a huge event struck and hit me emotionally bad. Thats when I really got into the rp fandom hard. I created a new op oc and made an exclusively op oc rp blog to cope. People really liked my oc and I got pretty active and kinda popular in rp terms. That stayed like that for about 4-5 months. Then university started and I got my first relationship. There was so many things to balance, I just had not enough time to devote my time to the rp blog so I left. I was so busy, I even had no time to really get into my art or basically the OP OC community and was kinda inactive for 2 years. The only thing that kept me even involved was my discord group.

During 2018, this is where things changed a bit. I got back into OPOC creation and talking to my friends and also that’s when I was introduced to DnD. I think out of my friend group in college, I was the most passionate because DnD is not that different from OC creation and rping so I was like basically prepared. I got back into art but for some reason, my art was incredibly stagnant. It didn’t improve but it felt like I had regressed. It was a pretty low point in my art career.

However, that didn’t stop me from wanting to enter a Webtoon contest. Around June there was a contest to make a webtoon comic and I wanted to enter. I...uh...never even got to publish the first episode. I did en up publishing the first episode around Dec 2019 but thats because I felt like I might as well get something out of my hard work. My art steadily got a tinge better in 2019, my wrtiing also improved slightly. I was a bit more active in the OPOC fandom. I even made an instagram for my art and ocs. Summer 2019 happened, drama was brewed and I was left alone for Fall 2019. I missed my old friends and I missed the times we had together but we all couldn’t go back to those times.

One night, I was going through tumblr and found posts about Dimension 20. Some were about “Are you My Dad” some were about going up a corn monster’s butt. I knew of Dimension 20 because for like a year, ads for it was spamming my videos. It was late night, I was depressed and bored and they had episodes on Youtube. And in 2 days, I finished Fantasy High. In one day, I finished EFTBK and in 3 days I caught up with The Unsleeping City. These were the best days of that year because also during that time, my favorite Youtuber , Markiplier was made a Youtube Red series and a Audio Story podcast. I was drowning in content and I was even talking to my discord friends much more often. I was lonely, a bit depressed, and still hurt from the Summer but I wasn’t fully alone.

Fantasy High went by and strong, I was more active with the OPOC fandom on instagram and Discord, oddly enough. Because of the quarantine, I had more time to make art and I somehow have improved so much. A Crown of Candy was on the horizon and I thought to myself, I know live blogs, I’ve seen people on twitter. why I don’t try it. I’ll just live blog the first episode.

One April 4, right after the last episode of Fantasy High Live, I made d20trashcan. I just made a few memes here and there and people liked them. The first episode came out, I lied blog, made some memes and was gonna call it a day. Yeah, well we can see what happened.

A month later, I’m at single digits away from reaching 400 followers, creating a Webtoon, gained huge art improvement.

TDLR: I’m a huge nerd and people seem to like that

[missmudpie]

Name Ten Films That Have, For Whatever Reason, Stuck With You

@millennialfangirl tagged me, and this was harder than I thought and I might have gone over the ten.  Also, tumblr is being tumblr and not cooperating with gifs, so only the first film has one.  Here they are, in chronological order:

Casablanca, 1942

Look, Casablanca is the best film ever made.  Is it my favorite?  No, but it’s the best, much better than Citizen Kane, which is often heralded as the pinnacle of cinema but is about a rich old white guy who loves his sled.

Here’s looking at you, kid.  Of all the Gin joints.  Round up the usual suspects!  I’m shocked - shocked!- to find that gambling is going on in here (Your winnings, sir.). This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.  As Time Goes By.  Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman and a supporting cast to die for.  Renault throwing away the bottle of Vichy water.

I could go on, but here’s why Casablanca has stuck with me: It’s one of my Dad’s favorite movies, too.  When I think of Casablanca, I think of him.  One Christmas (I can’t remember if I was in high school or college), the old timey theater in town played Casablanca.  I got us tickets as his Christmas present.  It is one of my favorite movie-going experiences (more on that below).

Star Wars, 1977

When I was little, we used to go to my maternal grandparents’ house every Tuesday, and I would watch Star Wars.  I was probably waaaaay too young - there’s audio of me playing out Star Wars with my My Little Ponies and I was like, three.  On my college essay, I wrote about how Return of the Jedi was my first movie (true story, I was six months old and slept through the whole thing, because apparently taking your sleeping infant to the movies is something parents did in the ‘80s).

Star Wars is where I learned about the Hero’s Journey.  About princesses and rebellions and wizards and flying spaceships.  I devoured the Timothy Zahn books and Young Jedi Knights series.  And yes, I’m a little down on it all after Episode IX - but I still love it.  It has impacted me in so many ways.  I know my life would be the poorer for not having seen it.

Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981

If Princess Leia was the first damsel I saw who get herself out of distress, Marian Ravenwood was the one who solidified the idea that women were perfectly capable of getting into and out of trouble themselves, thank you very much.  Then there’s Harrison Ford in being Peak Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones - Intelligent, clever, brave-bordering-on-reckless.  Who wouldn’t want to go on far-flung adventures to find hidden treasure, and maybe punch some Nazis while you’re at it?

The Goonies, 1985

Speaking of far-flung adventures, how about going on one in your hometown?  Booby-traps, pirates, Italian gangsters, Sloth, hidden treasure - it’s every kid’s playtime fantasy come magically to life.  I still want to go down those tunnel slides and shoot out into a hidden lagoon.  They just don’t make movies like this any more - fun, family movies that don’t dumb down the action or characterization for kids, that’s a ride for both kids and parents alike.  This was the first movie I showed my kids during quarantine.

The Princess Bride, 1987

Inconceivable.  The Six Fingered Man.  Death cannot stop truly love.  Only mostly dead.  Have fun storming the castle!  Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya.  You killed my father.  Prepare to die.  ROUSes.

This is a perfect movie.  It is.  It is lightning in a bottle and it should never, ever be remade (those were just rumors, right?).  This is romance and humor and suspense and two of the best swordfights in cinematic history (fight me on this.  No, really, fight me.  I took fencing in college because of this movie), all wrapped up in the sweetest Happily Ever After.  I love it so much.

Jurassic Park, 1993

I’ve told this story before, but here it is again.  In the summer of 1993, I was 10 and my sisters were 8 and just turned 6, and we convinced our parents that we were for sure old enough to see Jurassic Park - a book my mother had read and thus knew what level of horror to expect.  It did not go well.  I ended up burying my head in my dad’s chest; my youngest sister was in my mom’s lap; and my middle sister, with no where left to go, ended up under the seat in front of her.

Now, it’s the movie we quote (Hold on to your butts).  When my youngest had jello recently, I told him to hold it up and look scared, then texted the picture around.  We all knew immediately what I meant.  The DVDs are given as gifts and then immediately stolen.  My youngest sister can recite the entire movie.  I can’t wait to scare my sons with it.

The Shawshank Redemption, 1994

I don’t remember this movie when it came out; I remember it was this movie I hadn’t really heard of at the Oscars, where it won none.  Not until I was much older did I realize what a travesty that was.  I first watched this on a pep band bus trip in college - not the time or place to truly appreciate it.  Months later, I rented it (remember renting movies?) and fell in love with it.

This is a beautiful movie about friendship and hope and finding light in the darkness.  It’s always on TV, and I will always stop and watch at least a few minutes of it.  The ending - the last half hour, really - is pure cinematic poetry, but noting beats Red’s monologue as he travels to find Andy on that Mexican beach.

That Thing You Do!, 1996

This movie is Capital-D-Delightful.  Just thinking about it makes me smile.  This is the movie that tipped me from Tom Hanks Fan to I Love Tom Hanks and Need Him to Be My Best Friend.  He WROTE and DIRECTED this gem of a movie.  The talent.  The song is legitimately catchy, the characters are Wonder-ful (see what I did there?), and it’s all in Day-Glo ‘60s color.  I love this movie and make no apologies.

Toy Story 2, 1999

Speaking of Tom Hanks, this is my favorite Toy Story.  Look, the first is a technological marvel, but Woody is an ass throughout most of the film.  The fourth is it’s own thing, and the third is really, really good and I ugly sob at the end, but it’s also got a lot going on there.  But the second - oh the second is beautiful in its simplicity.  In addition to all of Andy’s toys, we get Jesse and Bullseye and even Stinky Pete.  It’s an ode to friendship and love and the realization that life, for toys and people, eventually ends, and we have to appreciate every moment we have now.  It is my favorite Toy Story.

Finding Nemo, 2003

I don’t know if it’s my favorite Pixar film, though.  It depends on the day, but most of the time that distinction goes to Finding Nemo.  I first saw it when I was twenty, a decade before my first kid was born, but it has greatly influenced how I parent.  The conversation between Dory and Marlin in the whale, the idea that keeping anything from happening to your kid cuts both ways, the leap of faith, the mantra of “just keep swimming,” the notion that your kids don’t just want, but need to have independence - it’s all there, in Pixar’s stunning ocean animation.  I get choked up just thinking about it.  “Now go have an adventure!”

Honorable Mentions:

Forrest Gump, 1994

I loved this movie.  I love Tom Hanks in this movie.  I would watch it in snippets during college, while I ate dinner or lunch or just needed a quick study break.  But it’s been years since I last saw it, and I wonder if it still holds up.  It’s a Boomer movie made when the Boomers were - basically, just a little older than we old Millennials are now.  It’s American history in the last half of the twentieth century, but the big events - Vietnam, Civil Rights, even AIDS - are filtered through the lens of a straight white man who kinda wanders into history but doesn’t really get why the moments are historic.  I feel like it’s a film I appreciated at a certain time, but wouldn’t love as much now.

Avengers: Endgame, 2019

There just hasn’t been enough time for this movie to make the list.  Ask about it again in ten years.  Although, to be honest, I haven’t seen the whole thing since I saw it in theaters, and I fear it won’t live up.  It was the best movie-going experience I’ve ever had.  The crowd was so into it, and the last battle had everyone, me included, screaming at the screen.  Part of what makes Endgame so special to me is that, among the three big franchises that ended last year (Avengers, Star Wars, Game of Thrones), this one actually stuck the landing.  And yes, I could argue that Steve Rogers’ end doesn’t actual make any sense and deprives Peggy Carter of her agency - but in the emotional moment of the film, it worked.  That portal scene is the culmination of twenty-plus films, and I still can’t believe it works as well as it does.

Thanks again for this! I second tagging @lerayon for this.  I feel like I’m kinda cold-calling mutuals from our Arrow days, so no pressure.  But I’d love to hear what @machawicket @dust2dust34 @dettiot @theshipsfirstmate​ have on their lists.

[lateasalways]

(Damn, I had to make a new post because something weird happened to the cut when I edited, it went into the ask itself and isn’t working and I can’t fix it lmao, sorry!) 

Anon asked:

it would be interesting to me if you made a post about the elton books you have read. like how they differ and your opinion on them. ive only read Me but im interested in finding some other reads

Hi!  I’m sorry this took so long, I’ve suddenly been CRAZY busy with work now that there’s proper concerts happening again (and yay for that), but Anon, you have no idea how much I would like to answer that question and I’ve been thinking about it all week lmao, I think it’s super interesting to look at the differences between them. So of course I went amok and wrote way too long so just bare with me.

I’ve read 5 books in full and I’ve listed them in the order in which I read them.

1. Me by Elton John. You’ve all read that so I don’t have to explain it. It was the first one I read and my fav thing about it is how funny it is, and of course it’s very personal and therefore more emotional than some of the others. I absolutely love it and I honestly haven’t read a book that has engaged me so much in yeeeeaars, I would recommend that book to anyone, not only Elton fans.

2. Captain Fantastic by Tom Doyle. This book focuses on the 70s (but also includes his childhood/youth). I thought it was a great supplement  to Me, because many of the same stories are in there, but since the time span is shorter, it’s more detailed, and we get to hear other people’s versions of the events. What I particularly found interesting is the part about Elton breaking through in America. He’s always described it as sheer luck and being at the right place at the right time himself, and I’m sure that’s his experience of it, but that’s not what happened. I find that extremely fascinating. Here we get to hear from his first American label who basically got Empty Sky for free because it had been rejected by many others. Before they got the chance to release it Elton John came out which is obviously a step up production wise and they dropped everything and started pushing that album instead. Everyone at the label thought it was so great they really went all in with the promotion and managed to create a hype even though he was a complete unknown and that’s how he got the Troubadour gig. This book in several ways I think show that Elton is too humble when it comes to his talent, like you don’t get to headline over established and popular artists before the most important people in the industry as an unknown by sheer luck. It happened because the album was so great, the label were convinced he was going to be a star and they went for it. I really liked the book in general. Even though there is no shocking new info there, it shines a different light on several stories from Me which I find very interesting.

3. Sir Elton by Philip Norman. This book is about his life up until 1991 and it’s really long and super detailed, like some impressive work went into this one. (I listened to the audio book on scribd as they had a 30-day free trial because of corona, I don’t know if that’s still an offer but if it is I really recommend it.) It’s  a bit weird because on one side the author managed to detail and capture Elton’s personality SO well (he’s said so himself too) and the way he writes makes some of the stories so vivid it almost felt like watching a movie. I actually found myself getting as emotional as I did reading Me at several points, like I literally shed tears here and there. But then on the other side, there are several things that bothers me a lot about this book. First of all it seems like Norman for some reason think Stanley was a great father and is trying to convince us that Elton is wrong about everything he’s said about him. Like, why? He’s clearly talked a lot with his 2nd wife Edna and her perspective is obviously very different from Elton’s. But some of his points are just really weird like f.x. he says that Elton says his dad didn’t care about him but this is wrong because he actually had a framed photo of him in his room when he was in the RAF. Like….????? How does that prove anything? As long as Elton didn’t know about it, it means fuck all! You don’t get a gold star because you keep a framed photo of your only son wtf? Another example: One Christmas after the divorce Elton didn’t get a present or a card or anything. But this was because they had very little money and their new son was ill. Well that’s sad, but Elton didn’t know that? You could at least have called and explained it or just sent a card to let him know you were thinking of him too? The whole problem is that he didn’t SHOW that he loved him or was proud of him, he can have as many framed photos he likes but that doesn’t matter when you never show any kind of affection. Another example cause I’m on a roll: Edna says Elton in fact enjoyed his visits to them (which he himself has said he hated) she says he used to sit alone and play with their typewriter. That sounds sad AF??? Why are you trying to convince me this is great parenting? I know it was a different time but fuck! One thing I do believe though is that Sheila probably helped along the narrative that Stanley was awful, I think it’s very likely that she has exaggerated or even made up stories about him, but that’s not Elton’s fault. Another downside with the book (imo) is that Norman is apparently the world’s biggest fan of Dick James and there’s just sooo much boring stuff about Dick James there, I’m sorry but when he starts talking about Dick James I recommend you fast forward. The whole point is to set up the court case between him and Elton that happened in the 80s (in which he clearly thinks Dick was in the right) but I’m just not interested in that at all. If you are though, this is the book for you lol. Then there’s the things the author got wrong. First of all, he didn’t know about Elton’s drug use which is quite essential. Although you can easily read between the lines of what the interviewees are saying, so it’s not that distracting. Second, he seems to believe that Elton is actually bisexual which he obviously isn’t (and before I get accused of bi-erasure, he has said so himself time and time again that he’s never been interested in women and his coming out as bi in 76 was a “chicken out”) and it really bothered me cause it reads a bit homophobic to me as he seems to believe Sheila when she said that he “wouldn’t have been gay if it weren’t for show business.” So I’m a bit conflicted about this book. It has more negatives than the others but the good parts are SO SO GOOD. I would be very interested in hearing other people’s opinions about it.

4. Elton John by David Buckley. Another one I listened to on Scribd. This is a quite new one so certain things have come to light which makes it more accurate. It’s another book that didn’t have  a lot of groundbreaking new information, but he’s for some reason the only one who’s talked to Gary Osbourne and he has a lot of interesting things to tell. I think Gary deserves more credit and he was very close to Elton in a very interesting part of his career/life so it’s worth reading for that. This book is also about his whole life but way shorter than Sir Elton so obviously not as detailed, but there’s some fun stuff and new anecdotes in there.

5. Elton, my Elton by Gary Clarke. Gary was Elton’s on/off boyfriend between 1982 and 83 (ish) and obviously knows him in a way these other authors don’t. I was a bit unsure about reading this as I think it’s a bit tasteless to expose someone to that extent (and he goes into some seriously intimate details), but otoh I felt like it was kind of the missing puzzle piece so I bought it in the end (on ebay) and I can’t really say if it actually answered the questions I had or just gave me more. I thought Elton was weird before reading this and it certainly didn’t make me think he’s any less weird. It starts kind of cute, it almost reads like one of those self-insert popstar fanfics at first (not that I’ve ever purposely read any of that but you know, it’s hard to be on tumblr without stumbling upon that stuff now and again) but then it gets really dark. Which is because Elton apparently was clean when they first met but then after some time he started spiraling, so it’s just… it actually made me a bit nauseous tbh and it’s so frustrating too, I genuinely yelled “Elton, no!” out loud at one point lmao. But I have already talked at length about this book, particularly what I found disturbing about it and you can find that post here. If you’re interested in reading this book though, you should be warned there’s some rapey content, (though to be clear, that has nothing to do with Elton) and dubious consent.

So anon, since you’re looking for some further reading, these are all good and interesting books I think. It’s a bit hard to say which one I liked best because obviously, for every book I read there’s less new info. But then all of the books have stories I hadn’t heard before so they’re all worth reading if you’re crazy obsessive like me and wants to know absolutely everything lol. I really enjoyed reading all of them (well enjoy isn’t the right word for Gary’s book but yk.) so I guess you should just consider what sounds more interesting to you and go for that :) If you take away the negatives I think Sir Elton is probably the one I enjoyed the most, while Elton, my Elton is the most revealing. Elton John is more complete while Captain Fantastic is really good if you’re more interested in the 70s and his breakthrough.

Thank you so much for the ask! I hope you found what you were looking for and enjoy some further reading! To anyone else who might be reading this: if you have thoughts on any of these books or things you want to discuss, please, my inbox is open! :D

[insomnia-productions]

modern mdzs: tumblr styles

Wei WuXian:

basically gaud

WWX would be the biggest-gaudiest-patronuses of the mdzs world

Confusing, abstract posts that are both funny and vaguely ominous??

shitposting for days

“this is an uwu safe space”

But he also dispenses really good advice to his followers and genuinely makes them feel better about themselves

also he would 100% eat a whole-ass box of crayons on livestream

This is while he’s sharing a flat with Jiang Cheng in college so JC is just sat on the couch with him, staring into the void as his brother eats crayons

He tags JC in e v e r y t h i n g

*photo of a rock* this is you *anatomical drawing of a bird* ha you *description of lichen* you on mondays lmao

After he starts dating Lan WangJi, endless posts about how much he loves his bae

102% refers to LWJ as “bae” and “boo” exclusively

Posts beautiful drawings of LWJ

Isn’t as active in adulthood but still pops in to antagonize the kids once they get tumblr

Lan WangJi:

Gorgeous calligraphy

Has thousands of followers and 53% of them are WWX on different accounts (he keeps getting blocked)

Not a single reblog to be found

No text, no tags, nothing but photo posts with calligraphy and the occasional painting

Eventually branches out a little and posts audios of himself playing the guqin

“Jiang Cheng listen to this I can’t beLIEVE” “stfu Wei Ying it’s 3am get off tumblr”

When he starts dating WWX he posts a duet of them playing music together. It’s his first video and the first time he tags a post: ‘wangxian’

His followers connect the dots pretty quickly and there is mass hysteria

WWX reblogs it and now his fanbase is screaming too

Each of them gains several thousand followers that day

meanwhile jiang cheng is sitting with his much smaller list of followers watching this and internally screaming

Jiang Cheng:

Everything is purple

Tried to delete his account 13 years ago but couldn’t bring himself to

He didn’t even want to get tumblr in the first place but WWX talked him into it and then he got addicted

His username is sandu-shengshou and WWX teases him about it constantly

“Wow, so edgy~” “it’S CULTURALLY RELEVANT”

Started out as an anti-WWX blog

“this is an uwu free zone”

His header has been “wei ying sucks” since he was 12 and will remain that way until he dies

Eventually he started including general complaints about life along with his many complaints about WWX

Known for his sarcasm and saltiness

Has a infinitely long queue filled with posts about “that one asshole from maths” and “this douchecanoe I met at the supermarket today”

Individual tags dedicated to WWX and JZX (he always saves the most creative insults for WWX)

He barely uses his blog now but the queue is still going

From time to time he still adds to it

Has exactly 714 followers and 1/4 of them are porn bots

Now he mostly uses tumblr to stalk Jin Ling

Jin Ling:

Archery and horses

Picture a hybrid of Student Athlete and Horse Girl

idk i just think if jin ling ever met a horse he would love them

Half of his posts are chain arguments with JingYi

Posts tips on archery and sword fighting techniques

Reblogs other blogs’ advice and corrects everything that’s wrong with it

Gets blocked by all other archery blogs

Works part-time at a centre for horse riding lessons and posts stories about the horses there

He didn’t have any followers at first because the blogs that he corrected made a big fuss about him, but some curious people went to check him about and realized that he actually really knows his shit

Then they read his posts about horses and realized that he’s actually very sweet under the prickly and snobbish exterior, and now he’s got a fanbase

One time he accidentally reblogged from JC and then hid at JingYi’s house for three days out of pure embarrassment

He inherited a sword from his father’s family and named his blog after it

He knows that JC stalks his blog to keep tabs on him but he doesn’t say anything because sometimes people send him asks about how his advice really helped them and he lowkey wants JC to see that and be proud of him

Lan JingYi:

Reblogging memes, all day every day

You get to his blog, the icon is screaming seagull, the header is a collage of spongebob memes, the first post is related to the simpsons probably

A few wacky conspiracy theories sprinkled into the mix, no one can tell whether he really believes them

But if you scroll for a while, you’ll start to notice breaks in the pattern

Little aesthetic collages and edits made by JingYi himself

Stuff like the various seasons of Gusu, the mood of a night hunt with SiZhui, Jin Ling, and Zizhen, the atmosphere of Lotus Pier and Koi Tower and all the other sects he gets to visit

Aesthetic boards for his friends, his mentors - there’s even one for Lan Qiren and it’s full out mountains, calligraphy pens, grey clouds, and that lemon guy who says “uNAcEPTtABLe”

And if you look really, really closely, you’ll find that amongst the collages and the edits and even the memes… he’s managed to hide every. single. lan sect rule.

All 4000 of them. Hidden amongst memes, shitposts, and mood boards.

Lan Qiren finds out and doesn’t know whether to facepalm or be impressed

Ouyang ZiZhen:

Book reviews and recommendations

Header is an edit of books against a rainy window (JingYi made it for him)

Tags the other kids in all the most wholesome posts

People discover him from reblogs on the other kids’ blogs and then follow him because of his tags

ZiZhen is That Person who chats in the tags

Half of his posts are in the tags, almost like he’s shy to have all of it out on display

He gives recommendations for books based on specific seasons, moods, themes, etc

Someone sends him an ask one day to ask for a themed rec list and he screams, he’s buzzing about it for weeks, he goes all out and researches the shit out of his library to give the anon the best book list possible

After that he gets lots more asks and it makes him happy to provide other people with good books

Is a mutual with every single one of his followers and loves all of them

Lan SiZhui:

Everything is soft and blue

He was raised by WWX and later on by LWJ as well so the day he joined tumblr was a Historic Moment for the wangxian fanbase

There are bets down about whether he’ll be a shitposting blog like his Meme Dad or an art blog like his Mature Dad (or both??)

In the end he turns out to be an advice/suggestions blog

Every day he posts a wholesome suggestion and responds to anyone looking for advice

His followers: came for the wangxian lovechild stayed for the emotional healing

A lot of his advice asks are just JingYi and Jin Ling complaining about each other on anon

Sometimes he posts a short audio or video for a message he feels should be spoken

Now people keep requesting him to do asmr (JingYi laughs hysterically and tells him to do it) (he doesn’t)

Always promotes his friends’ blogs and encourages his followers to visit their blogs

His whole blog is just super wholesome and nice. WWX and LWJ are so proud.