#some reddit communities are delightful

[marq-lynch]

I've only been a wrestling fan for a few months but I have to say with the nervous flutter about wrestlers lurking on Tumblr and fic sites and other traditionally closed-off fandomy spaces? I get it. On both sides.

But if I was a wrestler with the natural inclinations and curiosity to poke my nose into what people are saying in my industry outside of the dirtsheets, I would get really, really tired of the same six talking points regurgitated over and over on Twitter and Reddit threads arguing about ratings, whether X is washed up, the same fucking wank over and over floating to the top. I say this because I have tried to stick my nose into the wrestling Twitter and Reddit communities a few times as a new fan and it exhausts me already.

So yeah, I can see the appeal as a lurking wrestler on Tumblr for the exact same things we do.

Look at that! HD Gifsets of the matches! Showing off the moments that really made people pop and the moves that were incredible in more than just YouTube clips, filled with tagged commentary.

Oh fun, longer form commentary on where matches might go, pulling together histories of feuds and reigns, lighter hearted debates and shitposts all around.

A tagging system that actually allows some muting once in a while that people sometimes use?

And yes, fic, art, and objectification. Cheers, I have been working very hard on my pecs, my tits did look amazing tonight, thank you for noticing my costume details change.

Yes, we're horny, we're ravenous, we're transing your genders, foaming at the mouth, etc etc. But we've been here doing this for a while. I was doing this shit with a community on LiveJournal for Kayfabe Jon Stewart & "Stephen" Colbert back in 2009 and they knew and played it up for us too.

The weird pervert who is harmless but a good friend trope has gone way down lately, which makes sense given the current climate post #MeToo, but Kenny Omega on Being The Elite was a great example: in a sea of other dick jokes he was the ulti-perv they all still chose to hang out with. We on Tumblr are for the most part not bashing, harassing, haranguing, or spreading misinformation. We're just making art, noticing details, supporting work, and throwing out lewd jokes.

It's entirely up to the wrestling community if they want to hang out with us while we do those things, but it seems pretty clear that that is a vibe a lot of them are comfortable with, and some are happy to dig deeper into the weird shit we're making.

I just see a lot of people getting self-loathing about what they've been posting and I wanted to offer a different perspective. I've seen actors lose their minds being delighted at body pillows of themselves or mousepads of their supple tits. Adults are all different and none of this should be forced on anyone at conventions or tagged at them etc, but if they seek it out and like it? Well then, welcome to the Devil's Sacrament. Have fun, and personally I'm glad Tumblr is also your happy escape space.

[twistingman]

I'm a big fan of vampires and wanted to join a community centered around it, so I looked to discord, but most of the servers were roleplay focused or were lacking in vampire stuffs entirely (like vampire based media and folklore).

So I decided to make my own called 'The Wake'! It's a social server with different channels based around a bunch of different vampire related things, like movies, books, internet finds, resources, music, memes, and more. There's also a bunch of off-topic channels as well for pets, art, food, gaming, etc. (Also, vampire emojis!)

I've advertised it on tiktok, instagram, and reddit (as well as putting it on disboard), but I thought I would go ahead and put it here too to see if anyone would be interested in joining and sharing their vampire love or knowledge with the rest of us!

If so, please let me know! I'd be delighted to welcome in some more active members.

[drdemonprince]

I’m moving to Chicago soon for work, neighborhoods I should look at vs avoid as a queer person? Have read a lot on Reddit but curious about your perspective

oh lord i know i had something like this written up before. a lot of what you are gonna find online is out of date -- neighborhoods that have already gentrified to hell and back and have become expensive and generic. here is the real advice for a queer broke person

HUGE BIAS ALERT: I am a northsider. I moved here for school (on the north side), I stayed here for work (on the north side), and as a white person this is especially A HUGE GLARING BIAS. The North Side is the whitest, most expensive, most segregated part of town. There are exceptions, big ones that I will mention here, but I will be giving a lot of the west and south sides short shrift here!

Okay, neighborhoods to look into:

ALBANY PARK: Affordable, quiet, and diverse, this neighborhood was settled by a bunch of Swedish evangelicals in the 1800s who established a weird shitty college that is still in the area and fired me once for being gay. HOWEVER the neighborhood itself is a delight, with lots of affordable properties, big parks hugging the river, and a very large Latinx population and Arab population. GREAT grocery stores, fruterias, dulcerias, thrift shops, big trans apartments that members of our community have held down for years/decades, dog parks, a public pool, and brown line train stops. A great place if you are a retiring, tabletop games and bubble tea and crochet kind of gay but also poor and want to live with people who are the same.

ROGERS PARK: This area on the northernmost tip of the city bordering Evanston is one of the most diverse neighborhoods on the northside (and one of the least-segregated in the entire city), with a large Indian neighborhood (with lots of great shops and restaurants), an Eritrean diasporic community, Hispanic grocery stores, some orthodox Jewish communities (esp on the west side), and lots of affordable housing. The area HAS gotten a bit more early-stage gentrified in recent years, but (for better and for worse) what this has meant is that a lot of young queer people have moved in and established a lot more queer spaces (us queer people, especially white ones, are so often used as one of the initial "wedges" of gentrification). There are multiple gay bars, a lesbian pool hall, a witchy store, a theater, dance halls, a Food Not Bombs chapter, anarchist skill share sessions, beautiful beaches with some natural restored lands, lots of affordable food, and best of all the LEATHER MUSEUM AND ARCHIVE! So many of the trans queer people I know live there (especially lesbian adjacent ones) but I would never live there again because I get recognized too much and also just happened to have a really awful relationship in graduate school in that neighborhood so, bad memories. But it's a great area. Noon Hour Grill is the best bibimbap I've had in the city.

UPTOWN: In the 1960s and 1970s, Uptown was a hub for Black Americans coming into the city via the Great Migration, hillbillies/Appalachians moving out of their home region due to economic disruption, and was also the home of the American Indian Center and host to a sizeable Indigenous community. These communities came into numerous squabbles, especially over gang territory, along with several Latino gangs, until the Black Panthers came in and brokered a peace. To this day it remains a highly diverse area with a strong history of working class resistance. Some buildings are getting bought up by flippers and I would not be surprised to see a Sweetgreen around here soon, puke. This is the neighborhood where the COOL, BROKE gay guys live. Not northhalsted. Fuck northalsted. Anyone who tells you to live in boystown/northalsted is a cop. Uptown has multiple gay bars and drag shows -- Baton Lounge hosts regular BDSM and drag events, Miss Continental USA is held here at the Riv theater, My Buddy's is a drag bingo bar with sports bar food and nightly events, Two Bears Tavern Uptown is a fun, sporty gay bar for casual socializing, Big Chicks is a classic, timeless old haunt for old gays and their trade and everyone that loves them, and if you open up Grindr you'll find all kinds of freaky guys to fuck from talent bookers to historians to camera operators with dungeons hidden in their modest two bedroom. There is a DOG BEACH. The book MY FAVORITE THING IS MONSTERS is about Uptown. I loveit.

Edgewater/Andersonville: The full sweetgreenification of this neighborhood is underway. Originally another Swedish neighborhood bordering Albany Park. Edgewater/Andersonville became a home for lesbians and domestic queer couples in the late 20th century. Much of its cultural legacy remains but it's beginning to change. There are multiple well-regarded theater companies, a women's bookstore, cute coffee shops, a tabletop game store with open table events every week, more witchy/tarot stores, lots of pet supply stores, everything you really need. It's very cute and cultured and also the most population dense neighborhood in the entire city, thanks to its numerous high-rises hugging the beach along Sheridan road! ...but the main strip of the neighborhood (Clark st) is starting to have Taco Bells and Warby Parkers and all that bullshit. So. Some places are still affordable some aren't. Lots of lesbians, trans people, people who read self help books... I get recognized the most in this neighborhood.

Irving Park/Avondale: A solidly working-class neighborhood buffeting one of the city's most recent full gentrification hipster nightmares, Logan Square. Logan used to be largely Hispanic and very affordable, but it has become wall-to-wall tiki bars and overpriced new apartment buildings these days. Move to Irving Park/Avondale if you want some of the Logan Square hipster culture without the price tag. If you like craft fairs, ironic wrestling tournaments, music, artsy film, you might like this neighborhood. Has one of the best Asian groceries in town, Joong Boo. There's a skate park under the overpass. My friend Tina hosts noise shows at it every summer during the day. There is cool shit! Lots of the like punks and music freaks all live together and have basement shows out here.

Humboldt Park: A predominately Puerto Rican neighborhood with one of the prettiest, biggest parks in the city (swan boats! A regular outdoor, sober friendly daytime DJ event in the summer called Humbolt Park Arboreal!) this area is a little more 'intimidating' if you are a white person who doesn't know how to behave, but if you have lived in majority non-white or majority Hispanic spaces or are not white yourself this area has a lot to offer, and it's on the West Side so it's more embedded within a variety of majority non-white communities (whereas even the diverse neighborhoods on the North Side are mostly surrounded by whiteness and like, straight Cubs fans, yuck). I know a lot of circus arts performers who live out here and some radical anarchists. It's affordable, there are some beauuuitful coffee shops, the park is great, there is a tool lending library, you're close to the gorgeous Garfield Park Conservatory, and a quick trip from downtown.

Hyde Park: Ever since my hand injury has been taking me down to the University of Chicago's medical campus every week, I have fallen in love with this neighborhood. Hyde Park is predominately Black and on the south side, though it also contains a massive university area that is kinda full of rich white assholes and out of towners and all the tensions that creates. There's a lot to love here. The actual park Hyde Park is lovely as fuck, and it's host to the Dusable Black History Museum, which is really cool. I love the Museum of Science and Industry in this neighborhood too (model train set!). Multiple beaches here, a great university hospital system (though a very shitty ER), a good number of queer people and students, and if you want to escape the nonsense of north side white people it's a pretty good starting place. I have known lots of Black trans people that have lived around here, as well as some white trans ppl who work in the area, it's just cool.

There are a lot more I could list (Pilsen? Wicker Park? The Evil Northalsted/Boystown?) but I wanted to avoid anything that was fully gentrified and expensive here, even if there still are a lot of cool people in them. Those areas are still worth checking out for events, bars, cruising, checking out parks and bookstores, making new friends etc. But I wanted to avoid the most obvious options and give you the real deal. I hope that my fellow Chicagoans will add commentary and other suggestions because my north side bias is REALlly clear here if you pull most of these up on a map!

The other big thing to know is that Chicago is a very neighborhoodsy city; if you have a friend on the west side and you live on the north east, sorry but you dont have a friend in town you have someone you're gonna see quarterly (unless you are both really cool about two hour bus trips or one of you has a car). this city has done a lot to keep communities separated and it's most obvious and overt in the predominately white north side areas (like Wrigleyville/Northalsted, just to name an example -- but the gold coast, lincoln park, lincoln square, etc are all really bad in that way too). These systemic problems are reflected in who turns up to events in certain areas, which artistic and queer communities make contact with one another, where it's safe for a person of color in the city to be, bigotries in dating, and lots of other things. I love a lot about this city but working against this stuff is a huge effort -- something to be cognizant of. Check the public transit options for where you work and where you live to make sure you dont give yourself a like two hour commute unwittingly. the city is big! not nyc big, but neighborhood matters!

[fl00mie]

you know underverse/xtale is criminally underrated when its most popular video has no +20mil views and the rest of 'em don't exceed 10mil

considering how MASSIVE undertale au community is this is straight up unacceptable??

let's remember only THREE PEOPLE work on this series: Jael Peñaloza as the animator/writer, NyxTheShield as the musician and Strelok as the sound designer (although searching up a bit the first result that pops up is a reddit post pointing out they don't appear on credits in the last uvs episode, i just hope they're ok), they truly need more recognition and support

yeah everyone says good thing about this show but they're mainly superficial stuff, as statements from a first glance and that's fine, they know how to identify it as a well-written, structured and animated work despite having seen it only once, but i don't think that's enough

these people work hard to get the chapters out in the shortest time possible and it's impressive; every bit of detail is a delight and a hug to the soul for undertale fans, xtale in itself is an au that knew how to use every resource of the original game very ingeniously (i will probably talk about this in another post); the songs know how to capture the essence of the characters perfectly and add a lot of life to the scenes, it is truly incredible how immersive it is thanks to the ost; and the sound effects just make everything feel surprisingly real

the quality of this series is indescribable and it seems unfair to me that it doesn't get the support it really deserves like other works that achieved much more for some reason

please go support these community folks! they make a lot of effort to offer us quality content without disappointing, and although it's true their names resonate in everyone's heads, they deserve much more support of any kind

[myrsinemezzo]

You’re not a real Tolkien fan if you—

Ok, I’m gonna stop you right there (theoretical person I’m talking to). Because that is just a ridiculous take. I’ve seen a lot of posts in the past several months and especially lately about published and unpublished lore that are all about tearing each other down for supposedly not understanding Tolkien or TROP or just not doing fandom correctly because you don’t “know” enough, and that’s really just…sad.

Recognizing LOTR canon and Legendarium stuff makes for a rich (not a richer, necessarily) experience when watching Rings of Power since it informs what choices were made to be seen and heard onscreen. I know I had only read the trilogy and the Silmarillion way back in high school and a bit in undergrad and loved a lot of what ended up in the Peter Jackson movies before sighing, giving in, and watching TROP.

And yeah, I shrieked in delight when Halbrand said “call it…a gift” and when Isildur and Elendil showed up onscreen in season 1 to the point that my partner probably thought I was having some kind of attack, but that was it for me when it came to recognizing a lot of things. And I still managed to enjoy the show on its own terms and have things to contribute in fandom here and elsewhere if I wanted to.

I relied on people who became my friends here and on twitter who posted explanatory things of “see this detail from the various books? Cool, right?” and getting to say, “That is cool!” in return only made me enjoy the show even more in rewatches like they were easter egg offerings to the fandom.

The concept of you’re “only” a fan of the show or not a “real” Tolkien fan framed in such a negative way over the past several months creates a real barrier for participation and enjoyment of community from people either new to the fandom or those who don’t have the sheer time or the inclination to read 20 books and memorize every detail or even use the search function on ebooks they might or might not have to weigh in on things they like or dislike or get excited about or hope to see.

Instead we get debates that are less “Cool, right?” anymore and more “I’m right and you are lesser”. If I wanted that, I would go hang out on Reddit where that is what conversations revolve around and people shit on each other over the texts.

This is getting long (sorry) but where I do live for scholarship on Tolkien, it is not the be all end all. It does allow for a deeper understanding of content and the context of the content depending on the specialty of a given scholar, but you don’t have to read it to prove to some faceless person on the internet that you’re a Tolkien fan. I also love JRR and Christopher Tolkien and the trop showrunners and Peter Jackson as primary sources, but they are also not the be all end all of what constitutes a correct way to experience these works. That way lies stagnation and more of an idea that there is somehow only one true way to interpret texts and films and our beloved television adaptation through the lens of only what the creator possibly intended.

This is certainly not intended to be a callout post, I’m just waxing sad on my blog about fandom today. But hey! We can always change that narrative! So be well and welcome or mae govannen fellow fans and trop fam in the broadest of terms possible.

[sonicenvy]

[Megapost] Online Resources For Fiber Arts

Hi y'all! Local crazy lady librarian n' crafter here! I am one of those people who loves collecting resources and to that end I created my Weird Wonderful Web spreadsheet many moons back (which is an ever updating project btw) which is a spreadsheet of useful, interesting, wacky, old school, unique, or just plain delightful gems on the internet. For the purposes of this post I decided to pull out all of the fiber arts related resources (+ I added some new stuff just for this post that will make it on the sheet eventually)

Today, I am here to share with you collection of useful resources online for embroidery, cross stitch, sewing, knitting, and crochet. If you have any useful sites that you know of that I didn't share here I'd love to know! Reblog or comment and share!

Without further ado:

Sewing

@fatmasc’s google drive of sewing resources ���– lots of sewing resources in one gDrive folder

Dagraeve’s Jedi Robe Pattern –– sew a simple jedi robe for a costume!

Vincent Briggs’ tutorials on making fabric covered buttons (18th century style!) –– what it says on the tin. These are very thorough video tutorials on this topic from a dude is extremely knowledgeable about sewing 18th century men’s clothing. Check out his whole YT channel for more 18th sewing content and his blog @ vincentbriggs.tumblr.com for more excellent content!

@wastelesscrafts basic circle skirt tutorial –– learn how to design and sew a basic circle skirt

Google WeWearCulture Project –– browse a huge collection of images and information about fashion around the world and throughout history.

Embroidery/Needlepoint/Cross Stitch

Sarah’s Hand Embroidery Tutorials –– a complete visual dictionary of embroidery stitches with tutorial videos for each stitch. Super thorough and informative!

Lord Libidian’s Cross Stitch Blog –– lots and lots of useful resources for cross stitch and embroidery, including the extremely handy downloadable DMC thread color chart spreadsheet for helping you organize your thread hoard. Lots of reviews of products and free patterns as well.

ThreadColors –– DMC thread colors to html hex codes. Excellent resource for selecting matching colors from your reference image to color block your next project. Note that some of the color names on this site are older names that DMC no longer uses, but the number codes and the colors themselves remain unchanged.

Faimyxstitch’s embroidery blog posts –– embroiderer Kseniia Guseva, who is well known for her stunning embroideries of scenes of various cities around the world has a variety of freely available posts with information about getting started with embroidery, including a very thorough post on the supplies you might need. She also sells patterns on her etsy and teaches a class (paid).

Free Patterns on the Official DMC site –– DMC has a lot of free to download patterns for cross stitch and embroidery.

DMC thread conversion charts –– convert DMC colors to other brands and vice versa using these handy charts.

reddit’s embroidery community r/embroidery –– lots of great, talented people, many of whom very kindly offer tips when asked!

Needle n’ Thread embroidery tutorials –– lots of posts and videos for beginners!

Knitting/Crochet

Ravelry –– if you’re not new to crochet or knitting you probably have already heard of Ravelry, but I figured I’d stick it here because if you’re brand spanking new you might not have heard of it. You need to create an account but you can download free patterns or purchase patterns on Ravelry. The other main thing you can do with your Ravelry account is to use it to keep track of your projects in your “journal” where you can put notes, a list of the yarns used, the hooks/needles you used, etc. and continue to update the project as you go along. Because I am a person who starts a project and completely forgets about it for like 2 months, I love my Ravelry journal because I put down the yarn I used, the hook I used and the stitch counts for the last row that I crocheted. Nifty!

Left handed Knitting from LeftyKnits –– short, sweet videos on knitting for lefties posted 16 years ago. All are less than 2 minutes long and cover a single micro topic!

Rowbot’s Knitting Videos –– similarly old knitting videos that are short, sweet and to the point from 10+ years ago.

thecrochetside crocheting videos –– short, sweet and to the point crochet videos from 15+ years ago. Right handed mostly.

Internet Archive’s Collection of Knitting Magazines –– collection of knitting magazines that can be viewed online via IA from a variety of time periods. Some magazines also contain crochet and a few crochet magazines are buried in the mix. Magazines contain patterns and project ideas.

Bella Dia’s “vintage” style vertical stripe crochet blanket pattern –– photo tutorial for crocheting a vertical striped multi-color blanket.

General:

findoldvideo.com –– for those who weren’t on YouTube 12+ years ago, you might not know this but there were a TON of super useful fiber arts tutorial videos that were short, sweet and to the point that were all over YouTube, but since the YT search algorithm heavily weights new content you’d never be able to find them now …. unless you use this site! findoldvideo allows you to search YouTube videos from a particular year and sort your results chronologically. A good example search would be “crochet” year: 2008 Boom! Now you have tutorial videos that are less than 2 minutes long and have no promos, random extra talking, title cards, or other fancy shit because they were posted 17 years ago before YouTube was awash in “content”. You’re welcome.

Degraeve Color Palette Generator –– generate a color palette from any image on the web and get hex codes. Good for graphic design, but could also be useful for coming up with “inspired by” color palettes for your projects.

Kleki –– digital painting in your browser for free. Includes a wide range of brushes and the ability to use layers. If you need to do some drawings for your project, Kleki is a good free alternative if you don’t have paid software on your computer or tablet.

Library of Congress Digital Collections –– Free to use reference images of a wide range of items, including images of historical fashions!

ManualsLib –– did you just buy a second hand sewing machine, digital embroidery machine, or knitting machine that doesn’t have a manual? You might be able to download a free copy here on the internet’s most comprehensive catalog of product manuals.

Stitch Fiddle –– A site/tool for designing patterns for knitting, crochet, cross stitch, needle punch and more.

The Smithsonian Image Archive –– Free to use images of a massive amount of things! If you like designing embroidery or cross stitch images of botanicals, insects, animals, etc. you can find high quality images of these here and download them for free and use them for anything.

Encyclopedia of Needlework by Thérèse de Dillmont (1890) –– Dillmont’s Encyclopedia of Needlework contains tutorials for sewing, embroidery, cross stitch, lace making, knitting, macrame and more. Originally published in 1890, it was an extremely popular work on the topic and is still being reprinted today. The link takes you to a free online copy on  Project Gutenberg. It unfortunately doesn’t seem to have included the Table of Contents so you’ll need to pop a ctrl + f (cmd + if you’re on mac) and search your desired terminology. If you get it in print it is HUGE!

The Dictionary of Needlework­ by Sophia Frances Ann Caulfeild (1885) –– Read another popular book stitching, with the delightful subtitle: “an encyclopaedia of artistic, plain, and fancy needlework. Dealing fully with the details of all the stitches employed, the method of working, the materials used, the meaning of technical terms, and, where necessary, tracing the origin and history of the various works described. Illustrated with upwards of 800 wood engravings, and coloured plates. Plain sewing, textiles, dressmaking, appliances, and terms”

Volunteering Opportunities:

Project Linus ––  Project Linus seeks to “Provide love, a sense of security, warmth and comfort to children who are seriously ill, traumatized, or otherwise in need through the gifts of new handmade blankets and afghans, lovingly created by volunteer blanketeers.” Knit, crochet, or quilt blankets that will be donated to NICU babies, Peds Oncology kids, and more. My grandma quilted for Linus for many years. I think that this post is a great encapsulation of the impact of Linus and similar orgs that donate blankets to kids in need.

Loose Ends Project –– “Loose Ends is an everyone-is-welcome movement that aims to ease grief, create community, and inspire generosity by matching volunteer handwork finishers with textile projects people have left undone due to death or disability.”

[umseb]

Sebastian Vettel Gives Fan Unforgettable Experience With Heartfelt Gesture At ROC

Sebastian Vettel once again proves he's a man of the fans.

At the Race of Champions in Sydney, Australia, four-time Formula 1 world champion Sebastian Vettel once again proved his genuine connection to fans. Following the event, where he partnered with Mick Schumacher in an all-German team, the former F1 driver stayed to chat with fans. A Reddit user on r/formula1 community posted a story of his encounter with the former Red Bull ace, where he turned the fan's camera into a cherished keepsake. "I didn't bring anything to sign, so he signed my camera and took a photo with it," the user posed. They continued: "All the other drivers had left by then, but he stayed back in the stands to meet with the fans!" This followed Vettel's involvement in a heartfelt tribute for his good friend, Michael Schumacher, who withdrew from the public after an accident in 2013 resulted in severe brain injuries. Lined up in Syndey's Accor Stadium, some of the greatest drivers in the world teamed up to unfurl a banner that read: "Keep Fighting Michael - We Miss You." Alongside his godson, Mick Schumacher, this was an emotional moment not just for Vettel, but everyone involved. Vettel was excited to return to the Race of Champions alongside Schumacher, who finished second in 2019 behind rally driver Benito Guerra. "I'm delighted to be coming back to the Race of Champions and teaming up with Mick again. It will be exciting to race in the former Olympic Stadium in Sydney that looks like it will be a great venue for the Race of Champions," he said ahead of the event. "All the drivers who have the honour to participate in ROC fall in love with the event, because it reminds us about why we first started racing; pure competition, and of course with the identical cars there are no excuses. I will do everything I can to help Germany win another ROC Nations Cup title with Mick on Friday evening, but I will not be doing him any favours when we are going for the outright win on Saturday night, especially as he beat me in the semifinals of the individual ROC in Sweden in 2023!"

[ohnoproblems]

ok i know youre probably done with these kinds of asks, but i have a question that probably wont make sense

i am apart of the precure community, and one of our jokes is calling toei animation, the creators of precure, john toei. the term came from the kamen rider community from what i know, but i wanna know the first instance of the term "john videogame/company"

i searched 4chan since i thought that would be to most likely place for the term "john toei" would come up, which, it did in 2016

another lead i got was john backflip, but due to the undocumented nature of it, i am unsure it came from that since as far as i know, the joke as we know it originated in 2013

i also got clues from people asking the same question as me on reddit, which lead me to you. i cannot contact op since they deactivated and i dont know if youll even respond but always shoot yo shot ig

my question is

before you made the john darksouls reblog post, have you, by any chance, seen that term be used even before the john darksouls post? has there been an earlier instant of something similar to john darksouls?

oh fuck it's no trouble at all and this question delights me. the thing is we HAVE done a cursory historical analysis of the term "john darksoul" before. but i do mean cursory - the mesh of influences grows diffuse almost immediately, but nonetheless i and others have attempted to weave them. the one i was thinking about was here, though some of the links to @3liza's blog in the post itself might have exploded:

(for those of you saying "huh? john darksoul?" well, here. he's had a hard life.)

one thing i always remember is that one time i had a phone interview for a writing position at gearbox with some Names there while they were still working on battleborn. and over the course of the interview i said the words "john darksoul" with my mouth to them. they didn't know what i meant in the slightest. i realized this gulf of understanding and my own mistake immediately. i didn't get that job

[xencthlu]

I was really surprised and honestly delighted to see this post on reddit the other day. When you're in the ESO housing community, it seems like people respond the best to own builds, which is to say, homes players make from the ground up, completely ignoring and hiding the actual housing plot that's there. I wish I had a reddit account to plug my stuff -- What this poster asks for is essentially every one of my projects! My builds on home tours are specifically made for roleplay, for any roleplayer to pop in and use for their scenes whenever they want. You have to build your houses in specific ways to make them good for roleplay. I'll make a full post about the qualities I try to build towards and the things I consider requirements for a good roleplay build later. Firstly, though, you better be able to sit in your chairs. A chair you can't sit in is a space someone can't roleplay in. My good friend Princesspurpleblob went around to some of my builds and took screenshots for me to prove this kind of build can screenshot well, so here's my Golden Stallion Inn for example, built in a Strident Springs.

I used the Alkosh Hourglass to set it to eternal night, because that's when you're going to be looking for an inn to stay the night, right?

It's a small inn, so check in might be overdoing it a little. I actually started with the front desk and fountain and built up from there.

A bar on the first floor for all your barp needs and a cozy lounge upstairs for less alcoholic roleplay. Say hello to Princess' beautiful character here. Fun facts, my good friend Siankan looked at my bar and said "No one roleplays at a bar! You need a space people will actually roleplay." I did laugh at him and explain that about 95% of MMO roleplay happens at bars.

The inn's standard suites. Made for two or so roleplayers at a time to have private scenes, but I'm not going to stop you if you want to throw a massive party. I can't stop you. I'm not your boss, and there's no fire marshal here to enforce the maximum occupancy limit.

And if you want something a little more special, the Golden Stallion has a luxury suite in the tower that overlooks the surrounding countryside. The lights of the nearby town twinkle at night. Where is the Golden Stallion Inn? Wherever you need it to be for your roleplay. Who owns the Golden Stallion Inn? Whoever you want for your roleplay. And, hey, if you think this place is a good backdrop for a story for your characters, be sure to give me a recommend on home tours to improve visibility for more roleplayers.

[sitehound]

There’s this intangible quality to Gumi that I’m really in love with and I think it’s rather her capacity to just be a freak. Just genuinely strange and off putting. The flaws of women in media tend to be appealing or carry with them some greater idea of girlbossery. Rarely are they the sort of eccentricity which has you like “what the fuck” and if it is that response then it’s usually through the shock value of gore or something like that.

I love the fact that I can see a Reddit post where a guy waterboards himself every morning and I can reasonably conceptualize that Gumi would do the same. I love that Gumi is genuinely annoying. Not even annoying in the charming sexy way that women in media tend to be annoying where they playfully flirt and flounce and push their hip into the person they’re annoying. Like, the way Gumi manspreads, for lack of a better term is genuinely annoying. The way she’ll click her tongue loudly and look away when something displeases her is genuinely annoying. The fact that her lack of personal space often isn’t sexy and flirty and is actually closer to the visceral discomfort of a dog shoving their snout into your crotch while you desperately close your thighs for them To Not is how Gumi is with personal space.

Maybe not as lawsuit-worthy in terms of appropriateness, but that same “get BACK oh my GOD what the fuck is your problem.” The fact that Gumi has an ugly little laugh and cackle. The fact that Gumi is a creature which burps and farts and passes out drunk on the couch sometimes after pouring beer into a tub of ice cream and deciding that’s good enough to be dinner.

The fact that Gumi will take a sword through her throat in combat and rip it out, not caring that she’s mangling her fingers then still tries to tell a joke while blood gushes from her and she can’t form words because she hasn’t healed yet and she’s cutting it very close to the kind of healing Tornado will allow.

There’s just something about her which is so genuinely annoying that rounds back to charming? This also isn’t to insult other tropes of women because I fucking love. Female characters in general and a lot of the things I listed are things present in women that I’ve not only written, but own merch of that I’ll lovingly purchase from conventions. And don’t get it twisted: my favorite oc is actually a glorified Disney princess who is the picture of elegance and beauty who you’d reasonably see in a renaissance tapestry seated next to a unicorn in a green field.

But there’s also something almost cathartic in writing someone like Gumi who is a nasty little beast who sweats, grunts, farts, cackles, snores. There’s something very cathartic in writing a woman who is still very visibly a woman and still presents very femininely, but has a lot of behaviors that are considered undesirable in women especially. A lot of eccentricities are only afforded to men and I take personal delight in that Gumi has them and that they make her worse and show just how obnoxious these traits are.

It’s so important to me that Gumi be a figure who loves and protects her community while also being just the worst little she-beast too. Her flaws are on her sleeve but they also make her virtues brighter to me.

[theflameisgonee]

was thinking about romances yesterday as one does and particularly mourning the fact that i've not been able to find any good poly ones lately - the ku girlies are particularly monogamous - so i was pondering that

i ALSO started thinking about that phenomenon of reddit posts, i'm sure you've seen them, where the husband wants to open the marriage and the wife is incredibly reluctant in agreeing, but then she's the one who ends up going on tons of dates and maybe getting a boyfriend and being happy, and the husband is now upset bc he hasn't had any dates and she's happy and now he wants to close the marriage again

anyway i combined these two thoughts and tried to think of how to make the concept with a happily ever after and less heteronormative and i arrived at this which has been delighting me:

character A convinces character B to open their marriage. there's is absolutely more nuance and discussion and communication and boundaries established in the course of this than the reddit post situations like the whole act 1 of the romance okay.

also, not in like. a regurgitating therapy speak way. that drives me nuts sometimes. it should be stumbling and confusing and probably uncomfortable at times!! we gotta create tension to get to the hea!!

act 2 we see both our mains!! going on dates!! and like a mix of good and bad for both of them!! but also we start building on this idea that character B is actually having a good time with this but character A is probably not. and can't figure out why bc what they ARE enjoying is seeing their spouse have a good time dating

aside for a particular scene im rly loving envisioning is the two of them debriefing post dates and having a genuinely silly fun time talking to each other about it

the break bad i think is character A going on a date with someone who by all accounts should be great for them, and it's a good date, but they just. don't. want to. and they like this person and have a fun time but there's no romantic spark - idk details

the important thing is like. character A realization that oh my god this whole time all they really wanted. was to have more friends to hang out with.

(i do think it would be particularly funny if character A was a man and ended up accidentally on a "date" with a lesbian and had to unpack why he was so relieved that it was actually a friend hangout the whole time)

i think we can get one (1) dash of intentional miscommunication where character A doesn't want to tell character B that actually they don't want to date other people but they do want character B to keep dating other ppl bc it makes them happy to see them happy etc

also fun if character B at this point has a steady additional partner and character A genuinely likes them and wants to be friends with them so bad

they do talk about it tho and it's like. the weirdest not-fight fight that eventually just breaks down into nothing bc they're both arguing the same side just saying it differently and then they realize what's going on and just. have to laugh.

anyway the happily ever after is that like. character A gets more friends and a better understanding of themselves and character B gets another partner or partners and everyone is rly happy together the end

think this is also born out of all the poly romances i read being closed triangle relationships and like cool yeah good i love that but also i would love to see some lopsided poly where everyone is happy and thriving!!

[bazzle10]

This is another of my looks behind the curtains of the beautiful and sexy women that day in and day out kindly share with us pictures and videos of their delightful smoking habit.

Smoking Zara Lu

Zara Lu is a twenty-three-year-old stunner, originally from South Africa but after going via Angola she currently lives with her fiancé in Portugal. On average, Zara smokes up to half a pack a day of Marlboro Golds.

Her smoking and spicier content can be found below: -

Her Reddit is u/ZaraLuxxx

Her Only fans is https://onlyfans.com/zaraluxxx

Her X is https://x.com/ZaraLuxxx

Zara’s smoking journey is slightly different. She only became a committed smoker in the past couple of years, much later in life compared to many of her peers. She was of an age where she should and could have known better. However, it wasn't her first time smoking, she had tried cigarettes back at home a few times. Just socially, trying to be a typical teenage rebel. For all the messing around with her mates, at that time Zara never became addicted to nicotine. Back then she never smoked enough or thought about cigarettes more than a brief moment for smoking to become integrated and part of her life.

This all changed when she moved thousands of miles away from home. Ultimately as she was alone, and studying at university in Portugal, everything in her life became a little too much. Trying to work to pay for the rent as well as manage the stress levels of studying for her degree. There were more and more layers of angst that when looking forward at the time were only getting higher and higher. It was then that she knew a solution. All her friends were doing it anyway. Portugal has a smoking culture. Her salvation of the tension built in her body came in the form of nicotine.

She found at the time smoking fitted in with her life. The social aspect of having a cigarette between her fingers and lips made her feel complete. It also helped during the day with the stresses of trying to work and study in that important final year. Also got pleasure during the evenings hanging out with her friends. Ultimately smoking helped her get through that last year of university.

This meant that Zara became a daily smoker aged twenty in her final year of studying. Because she is thousands of miles away from her family, and they are not in her day-to -day life; they are still unaware of her new found devotion to nicotine. Her partner also smokes, which assisted her along with her addiction. They can spend time together in the evenings and can share a romantic smoke or two. Or record some racier smoking videos for her Only Fans.

Zara uses the phrase “I chose my poison.” Regarding her smoking habit. She knows exactly what the future may hold with her addiction. She still occasionally gets high when drinking coffee with her cigarettes. If she smokes the whole pack, she definitely still gets a dizzy feeling. Which Zara sees as a positive experience of smoking. Every day Zara will start her day with coffee and a cigarette. She has her last smoke just before washing her teeth and going to bed.

Her smoking level has hovered around the half a pack a day, sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more. It depends on what she is doing and what time she can set aside to enjoy smoking. Last Saturday she smoked a whole pack easily and by the end of the evening was still borrowing cigarettes from her friends, just so she could keep smoking. When she is in the mood, there is no stopping her.

Zara found the smoking fetish because she started her OnlyFans in a way to make some more money. Yes, she has a job, but making more money is always good. She researched what she could share. After scrolling through Reddit trying to find something different that she could market her body, especially trying to find a niche that she could relate to, she found the smoking fetish communities.

Since posting on Reddit, Zara has been fully receptive to the positive comments she has got from her content on the smoking fetish subs. She feels at home putting her pictures and videos up there.

As she has been only smoking properly for three years, so far, she has not found any downsides to smoking, other than the obvious addiction. She has the repetitive need to smoke, she has to light up. There is no negotiation.

She smoked a lot more at university than she does now. She has to spend more time in the office, as such Zara feels as if she is on top of her habit.

Zara sees the best thing about smoking as breathing in relaxing filled air. Each and every drag on a cigarette unwinds and relaxes her. The worst thing is the fear that ultimately each drag is not good for her.

She is the youngest employee in her office, as such her colleagues have nicknamed her “the baby”. It does surprise her colleagues that she smokes. Zara believes she can come across as very sweet and rather naive. Which means when she is sitting outside and lighting up on her breaks it does shock many.

Looking to the future Zara has no intention of contemplating quitting. She will get married soon, but for her ultimately wants to look forward to that moment of lighting a cigarette and what feeling inside her it creates.

She will continue to light up and take photos and videos to share with us of her smoking cigarettes.

[fairykukla]

Have we lost the ability to throw a drink in someone's face? Have we lost the ability to say, "I don't think so, bud" or "No, thank you" or, "This vibe is rancid, I'm going to leave"?

There was an incident at a party recently, where an older man was being friendly with a nonbinary person young enough to be his child. And when I say, "Friendly" I mean that he was being flirty and getting into their space.

Some of the breakdown in communication was that the younger person, being nervous and uncomfortable, responded with smiles and giggling. I'm not blaming the victim, here; the older man really should not have been trying to foster intimacy with a person that young, someone in a relationship with the child of his best friend. *This was not cool.*

But I worry that these youngsters aren't being taught the art of saying no, clearly and concisely. It's a really important skill. When a pushy salesman tries to bulldoze you, you need to know how and when to put down a hard stop. When a friend tries to get you to do something that you think is dangerous or just hits you with a Bad Vibe, you need to know how to say "No" in a way that doesn't nuke the friendship. (You also need to know when to nuke the friendship, but that's another story for another time.)

Creeps exist, folks. People we don't expect to be creepy will pull creepy stunts. People we do expect to be creeps will meet our expectations. Sometimes you see the creep coming, sometimes you don't see it until the behaviour occurs. And creeps can be any gender! I've met some spectacular female creeps! But it does seem to infect the Cisgender male population more intensely.

And for all you know, this might be Dudebro's first, bashful foray into using creepy pick up strategies he read on some disgusting reddit thread.

You have an opportunity to stop Dudebro right here. At the very least, you need to alert the other person to the fact that you are uncomfortable.

1. You don't owe creeps anything. Even if it's someone you know, you still don't owe the creep anything.

2. Don't feed the creep. If this person creeps on you, anything that encourages the creep just makes the creeping stronger.

3. Calling out creepy behaviour doesn't mean destroying a relationship. Just like calling out a racist comment, a transphobic attitude or ableism, it's absolutely possible to tell someone that they need to check their behaviour from a position of love and respect.

4. Your boundaries are important. This includes personal space, conversational boundaries, and physical boundaries.

5. In order for your boundaries to be respected, you absolutely HAVE to express them, clearly and unambiguously.

6. High pressure sales tactics basically boil down to straight up trickery. It's about hacking into a person's head to manipulate them into doing something they don't actually want to do. Educate yourself about sales tactics, please please please. These tactics are used by con artists, salespeople, recruiters, and guys looking to score.

Here's a thought exercise: There's a person out there who loves to be touched by strangers, is delighted by threatening jokes, and really does want a potential partner to be very pushy. That's a super rare person, but imagine that the Creep's only social experience is with this person. You have to be clear about your boundaries and never assume that your needs are obvious or "normal." None of your needs are unreasonable, but they are unique to you.

So:

DB: (Creeps on you.)

You: No, thank you.

DB: I just wanted to talk to you

You: You're in my personal space. Please leave me alone.

DB: Well, that's rude.

You: No, you're being rude. I didn't invite you to talk to me. Please don't be a creep.

DB: You're being a bitch!

You: (to friends, the bartender, the bouncer, to any other potential ally in the room) Excuse me, this guy's being a real creep, can you help me out?

This is a scary situation, for sure. You can be brave, and you can express yourself clearly, and you can pull in allies if you need them. Here's another:

Creep: You know, you're really mature for your age.

You: Oh, that's the trauma.

Creep: trauma? What happened to you? Can you talk about it with me?

You: when guys creep on me it makes me have to act very mature for my age. It's because they're being really immature and I have to compensate for it.

Creep: That sounds really tough.

You: I saw this in an old movie once. This super mature woman threw a drink in the face of this guy who was being really creepy to her.

Creep: Wait. You mean me? I'm not a creep.

You: Yeah, actually you are. Can you please give me my personal space back?

I know what you're thinking. You're worried that things will escalate quickly into violence or threats, right? The important clue I have for you here is to get out early, get out often, don't let someone corner you or separate you from your support structures. If you identify someone as being a threat early on, and say so to the people around you, it's less likely for the creep to morph into an asshole.

So what if it's your friend? If you witness creepy behaviour in one of your friends, it's ok to call them out on it. "Hey, watch it, you're getting a little bit creepy there." Friends don't let friends get creepy! Don't wait until it becomes a big problem!

So here's the TL:DR

Dealing with creeps 101:

Step 1: stop smiling. Don't offer any encouragement.

Step 2: establish boundaries. (You're too close, I wasn't talking to you, I'm here with my friends, I have work to do.)

Step 3: involve assistance. (Ask your friends, an adult in the room, security personnel, etc.)

[zingsthings]

sooooo first of all I LOVED your fic! Thank you so much, it looked like a ton of work on the language especially <3 Any chance you can share some of those good Star Wars insults for people like me who always end up googling it and going with the same three dumb things from any given Reddit post?

first of all THANK YOUUU it was a total delight to write, so i'm glad that other people are enjoying it too :)

second of all EVERY CHANCE !! though fair warning you're in for it now...... the intersection of Massive Fucking Nerd business and language development and boundary maintenance...... my jam......

now, i do maintain a note that is just a compilation of star wars cursing that i can draw from (mostly lifted from wookieepedia); i will paste this at the end of the post.

BUT the main thing to think about when developing creative swearing is that most cuss words/phrases have to do with sex, body parts/functions, and blasphemy.

so when you're trying to think of a new insult or profanity, first think about what is ideal and what is taboo in the culture you're trying to write for. as with anything, language can be used to maintain boundaries (in this case i'm thinking mary douglas purity & danger if anyone wants bibliographiesss), and the invocation of the locally profane both reinforces and transgresses those boundaries. the greater the transgression, the worse the insult. but also sometimes things just sound funny. ANYWAY.

in the case of the ghorman language/culture i was extrapolating, the planetary economy and pride is based in spinning and weaving, so low-level insults of the kind a kid like marghîde would have used regularly might be drawn from those fields. hence "slubby" (unevenly spun or woven and therefore bumpy thread or fabric) as a word for stupid/shitty/cheap/etc. and "noudes" (from fr. noeudes) meaning knots, which would have similar force to "nuts!". for longer phrases, what would be the worst thing to experience specifically in this culture? thinking again that marghîde's vocabulary is from childhood, we can probably ignore the sex elements for now. but one would imagine that metaphorically being torn out of the cloth and having your threads trampled would be a big deal in a community that prizes unity and beauty in the craft of spinning and weaving.

if i were writing an adult using ghorman insults, probably i would try and think about which parts of the spinning/weaving process also could be euphemisms for sex (dropping the spindle, if you know what i mean) or applying features of the tools/process/etc to body parts or sex acts. maybe i would also consider what is most feared, or what different kinds of cloth imply about a person's status, and then think about what the least-respected mode of being would be within the culture (and what transgressions are involved) and extrapolate something from there. also you really can just throw the word "fuck" into anything.

moving on to the ruder ones! so in this fic these are things that marghîde learned from overhearing medics and patients. they are in basic/english, mostly, but with a few words/phrases in other languages and also references to local fauna on other planets--presumably not everyone in medbay is from coruscant or corellia, and some cussing will be one-to-one translated from its originating language, and some will stay in its originating language. i had a pretty good set going but then got very stumped on my last few, which is when i asked mel and niitza and frost for help because they are all very talented at star wars idiom. their advice was EXCELLENT, so i reproduce it here.

from @melyzard:

I mean,you could always invent an "alien" organ (i.e. make uo a random funny word) then have your character say something about it getting wrecked. "That Banga-fucker is trying to flip my gulanga, dammit! He's gonna straight up invert ALL our gulangas!!" Alternately, make up a silly goobledygook phrase, and when someone asks "uh, what does that mean?" Have the speaker say "he's gonna, you know, kick us right in the…" and then make a complicated gesture. The pov character can simply remain baffled while feeling a sudden sense of dread. Alternately alternately, I like to just imagine the weirdest physical problem you can imagine and then use it like a curse.

from @princessniitza:

The way I go about it is usually 1) find a figure of speech / an idiom that matches what I want to express then 2) go on a deep Wookieepedia dive to find out the most egregious Star Wars equivalent for the metaphor. In the case of an expression for "majorly fucked over" it might end up as something like "more fucked than [insert name of a small species] stepping out of a [insert name of a generously endowed / large species] orgy" or something like that. Bonus points if both species come from the same system! 8D

so! here was my final selection of Rude Phrases (i never ended up using "fucked by both ends of a dagobah python" but you know. someone should.):

claw in the cloaca (ouch!), real banthafucker, fucked worse than a chuba at a worrt orgy (thanks niitza and also tatooine!), salting your wounds with blurrg piss (an iteration of the twi'lek "salting your wounds with spice" plus animals AND bodily functions, a real bonus), shut up tighter than a gula-- (sometimes the most profane thing is the thing you don't say! in this case, someone's tight gulanga--thanks mel!--implied something Very Obscene and presumably deeply offensive), shut tighter than a lee romay (this one is not rude but is a nice idiom a la tighter than a clam. though you know. when is a "clam" not just a clam u feel), son of a krik-licking sith (wooooo religion AND sex AND bodily waste), out of his scudsucking mind, starclusterfuck (i was proud of that one).

then there were a lot of phrases that just used english or star wars cussing as emphasis. people have many different approaches to star wars swears--some only use english curses if they've been used canonically, some refuse to use star wars ones 'cause they're too silly--but i enjoy using a mix. more so, i enjoy taking compound swears in english and replacing the curse with a star wars one (motherfarking, crukhole, rodder it, etc). be free! follow your heart!

here's my notes app list with a good assortment of tame and profane (again, mostly drawn from wookieepedia if you want more deets): karabast, kark/karked/karking/kark it/surę as kark/where the kark, balls, bantha shit/piss, blast, by the stars, crik/crikking/crik-licking, cruk-hole, damn/damned, dosh/dosh off, druk/drukhole, e chu ta, fark, krike’s sake/stars’ sake/void’s sake/kriff’s sake, for the love of the light, frag/fragging/frag-head/frag it, fratz, hell/hellhole/helluva, mother of meteors, hells, krayt spit, kriff/kriffed/kriffing/kriff off/kriff it, laser brain, look what the tooka dragged in, (twi'lek) may spice salt your wounds, not the brightest star in the system, pfassk, schutta, scob, scrag, scud-sucker, scug off, sithspit/sith me/sithspawn, varp/what the varp, void/void below/void take, blast, chaos take, dag, farkled, grist, honest to entropy, koochoo, ktah (chiss curse), pifgot (gwurran), rodder (= bugger), shavit, skrog/skrogging, skrag/skragging, son of a ruskakk...

thank you for coming to my fucking ted talk :)

[voxofthevoid]

I'm so sorry you get so many hate messages. You're always so cool about it and don't let them get to you but I know it must suck anyway. So I just want to say I think all of your jjk opinions are correct. But seriously, your characters are always on point and I especially love how you write Yuji. People are crazy for complaining about something you chose to write and share with the world. Anyway, you're a really skilled writer and I love all of your fics and ideas, so please keep sharing them!

Thank you, anon 💗

I do appreciate the support, especially because I've been in a bit of a shit mood the last few days. This was a nice pick-me-up.

I won't deny I've been very lucky. Half of it is my internal workings; the hate messages piss me off, but they don't affect my confidence or creativity. However, I've been at this for well over a decade now, and my brain chemistry was never prone to things like imposter syndrome. Newer authors or authors who struggle with self-esteem issues often don't have that internal scaffold.

The external support I get from you guys is the other half. It's the community aspect that makes a fandom worth staying in for me, and if I were to be treated solely or mostly with hostility, I'd have packed up my bags and found a new home a long time ago. I have no control over which ship/show I fall in love with, but a hostile fandom is the greatest killer of passion. The reason I stayed so long in the MCU was that its people were wonderful and vocally so. JJK isn't quite that pleasant overall (younger, more drama-prone fandom, I suppose), but the vast majority of my readers are amazing, supportive, and very kind. That's why I'm still here.

I had an exchange with another author on Reddit the other day, and they were saying that the reason they quit writing for their current fandom was that, when they got harassed, the larger fandom's reaction was to ignore or actively dismiss the harassment. I see plenty of posts/discussions in fandom spaces, from subreddits to blogs on here, about people getting bullied out of fandoms because of the toxicity of a few bad actors and the apathy of the rest.

I don't post/share all of the hateful messages I get because some of them straight-up don't deserve to be inflicted on human eyeballs, and they're blatant, unrepentant attempts to actively hurt my confidence as a writer and my dignity as a human being. I do not have sufficiently harsh words for the kind of filth who'd do that.

I hate that people have the fucking audacity to try this and that it's distressingly effective most of the time. Nobody wants to spend their hobby hours fending off assholes. I don't know if fandom as a whole has become more hostile recently, but I do find the overall atmosphere more toxic and downright violent than it was when I started actively participating in fandom in 2014. For all our sakes, I hope it gets better and soon.

Sorry, that got way longer than I intended 😅

On a cheerier note, I'm delighted to hear you enjoy my takes on JJK and its characters! And nothing makes me happier than hearing you like how I write Yuuji in particular. Thank you again 🥰💗

[softness-and-shattering]

Two mini reviews, partly brought to you by tumblr autosaving - Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas. I wasn't sure what to expect; I really liked The Sunbearer Trials (Ive not yet read the sequel), and DNF'd Lost In The Never Woods because it was the wrong type and intensity of dark and spooky for me at the time. Cemetery Boys is a freaking delight. Maybe my least favourite part was the villain reveal, it made sense but either it wasnt foreshadowed enough or I just wanted better for that character? idk. But this isnt primarily a plot book, its a romance, and its a story about community and acceptance, and figuring out how you fit into the world when you're not the shape you're expected to be. And it did really well with both those aspects. I also appreciate that with so many stories, real and fictional, about people who have to leave their communities to find themselves, I appreciate a story of someone who never once thinks maybe I need to leave, and instead forges on to create space for himself in his community and his heritage. That's not everyone's story and thats totally fine. Our experiences are diverse and we deserve diverse stories. Its all good. As for the romance, its really believable. Its quite an opposites-attract situation, from Julian's aggressive queerness and non-issue with Yadriel's transness making his albeit and unexpected presence a breath of fresh air to Yadriel, to their growing understanding of each other's lives and admiration for the strength of each others convictions. (When Julian is upset about his friends and Yadriel nevertheless pauses to set that boundary about ghost-safety, that was hot.). And the ghost aspect! (this is not a mini review anymore lol). I was not really sure how that was going to go, and then cheering for them, and then wondering what the heck they were gonna do about ongoing ghost-itude and the finiteness of that situation, and actually I really liked how it went. The romance and how they push each other and grow to understand each other is fun, romantic, sexy, heartfelt. Remarkably sexy given that one of them is a ghost who cant be touched. (Spoilers for a sec - the scene on the car where Yadriel reaches for Julian's jacket to pull him closer and there's nothing there to grab? Oh that feels like grief.) The book is quite a bit about grief. Missing parents, missing support networks, missing opportunities to be yourself and be accepted. Its about a guy who can communicate with ghosts and its set around Dia de Meurtos, there's grief themes.

I also really love Maritza, showing off another aspect of (gender) non-conformity, that its not only trans people who have trouble fitting fairly strict defined roles. (Julian's friends do so similarly). Almost all the Spanish I picked up from context, but how Julian refers to Yadriel at the end I knew I had to look up that word specifically and oh my heart. Overall really enjoyed. probably 9/10 second, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off. I havent read the books/comics, I have seen the movie. This show....for at least the first half I had no idea what the rules of the universe were or what exactly was going on or what themes exactly were being explored. I was definitely entertained though. The last few episodes manage to make sense of the first few and deliver on those themes in ways I quite liked. I liked that Ramona is the "manic pixie dream girl" and then almost immediately gets upstaged for that role by Envy Addams. I normally am annoyed at stories in which some boring guy "gets" the manic pixie dream girl and certainly doesn't appreciate her - you know the kind who goes on reddit and complains that she wont stop talking about slugs or decorates their whole house in anime? And I know scott pilgrim is a comment on that trope. I like how its about scott but its not really about scott. Largely its about Ramona and her friends (and her exes). And the others recognise that scott isnt so great, or so smart, and also that if Ramona likes him thats cool. He can be a "lovable idiot" and shes not automatically making a mistake with him. If they're happy they're happy. (and of course the ways that *could* go wrong, but arent destined to). Plus the music is fun, the visuals are bright and pretty. It might lean overstimulating for some people, I had to stop and think about my spoon levels between episodes. Thats what I got for today. Two very different fun stories I recommend like 8-9/10, not perfect but a damn good ride.