#Actually a lot of stuff in this post is basic :^

[nostalgebraist]

I happened to be reading over this again, and felt like reblogging it.

Because the first time I saw it, I pounced on one (tbh, probably accurate) criticism of me as a writer near the end, and went off on a long semi-related rant, which...

Well, it was a pretty good rant. I still agree with everything I said in it, and I'd already been meaning to write it all out at one point or another.

But it was also missing the forest for the trees, because this review is great. Definitely in the running for "most perceptive and on-point TAoHS reaction I've seen so far."

Also, for anyone who's curious, here's some tidbits about the writing process that partially confirm / partially disconfirm one of @thewadapan's speculations:

(under a cut for major [implied] spoilers, don't click unless you've read the book)

Like, if I had to guess at the genesis of this book, based on Nostalgebraist's comments, I feel like it's taking the starting point of "story about what if the AI doomers were right" -> "through the lens of Christmas" -> "[everything else in the story]". Of course there are tons of other influences in there, but those to me feel like the two ideas with the most explanatory power.

This is not that far from what actually happened – except that it happened in the opposite order.

The very first idea I had that is recognizable (in retrospect) as an idea for TAoHS the novel was "hmm, what if I wrote some kind of story involving secular Christmas lore, like Santa Claus and stuff."

That was back in December 2023. Esther and I were watching some Christmas movie about Santa, and I suddenly had this funny, whimsical line of thought. "This whole Santa mythos feels under-explored. It might be fun to do something with it... something dark and weird, that puts the inherent weirdness of Santa himself to new ends..."

And once I'd had this idea, it was just too funny to pass up. Especially once I'd hit on the obvious follow-up idea of releasing the book itself on Christmas. Like, imagine it: "the nostalgebraist Christmas special!" Hilarious!

(And, having just spend 7 years writing my previous novel, the idea of being on a pre-defined 1-year schedule for the next one sounded very appealing.)

Then, in early 2024 – mostly, in February through early April – I came up with a lot of ideas for this new "Christmas special" project.

A bunch of the basic elements of the book arrived during this interval: Herschel, Miriam, the Original Knowledge / Original Creation, the Emendation, the Raven scene, some sort of transcendental visitation by Santa on Dec 25 (I referred to this as "the Santa event" in my notes) which the story was building up to... Herschel's friend who's into cybernetics, Miriam's long-distance relationship with her media theorist boyfriend, the "temporally ambiguous but definitely in NYC" setting...

(Incidentally, although I can't say for sure, I think that some of these ideas ultimately trace back [unconsciously?] to Chris Adrian's novel The Children's Hospital. Which is weird, because I disliked that book! But it did have this one great and memorable monologue, which I posted as a #quote when I first read it. The main character's little brother is an eccentric and mentally troubled kid with his own personally concocted messianic religion; the context of the monologue is a flashback to when he was younger and [IIRC] the two siblings had a less strained relationship. In the flashback, the two are in their bedroom late at night on Christmas Eve. The brother can't sleep because he's afraid of Santa Claus, who he describes as a powerful and godlike being.

I think this quite likely resulted in me associating "weird, dark Christmas stuff" with an older sister and a younger brother, and their deteriorating relationship, and the younger brother's homegrown religious views – and if so, it thereby exerted massive butterfly-effect leverage over the whole of TAoHS. Weird!)

Anyway: in February through early April, I had all these ideas for the "Christmas special" book. A bunch of stuff I was reading around this time ended up "in there" in some form. Salinger's Glass family stories, for example. And The Drowning Girl, which I re-read in April, and which was a major influence on multiple aspects of TAoHS.

But like... something still felt wrong about all this stuff, at the time.

It felt like I just had a collection of neat ideas, stacked unceremoniously into a pile, and now just sitting there – inert, lifeless, lacking some animating spark that could breathe vigor and meaning into them.

And then, one day in the middle of April, I happened to be thinking about AI and "AI doomers." And I had the train of thought I've referred to in earlier posts about TAoHS, the one about "what if the AI doomers were right?"

Among other things, I asked myself: how would I want to have lived my life, in the time leading up to doomsday? If doomsday had arrived, and I was looking back on that life?

And the very first thing that came to me was: well, I would want to have written about this, in fiction. It would be a shame if I had to face doomsday thinking, aw man, I even missed my chance to write one of my little stories that was about this, while I still had time to!

And the natural next thought was: well, I guess I could work it into the "Christmas special," somehow?

After all, that's going to be my next book, so I'd definitely get the topic in on time if I did things that way.

And then, as I continued to think about "AI doom," in isolation and also in connection with the "Christmas special," it was just like...

Like a switch had flipped, suddenly, and all the lights had turned on at once. (Christmas lights, natch.)

Suddenly, the story was alight, alive, breathing, purposeful, coherent. It finally made sense! Adding this AI element made all my other ideas snap right into place, as though they'd been waiting the whole time for it to arrive. The cybernetics-friend character, the overlapping of post-WWII and present-day technologies and scientific ideas, the theme of structural resemblance versus embodiment... everything, all at once!

And then, that same afternoon and evening, I sat down and wrote a detailed outline, which (in retrospect) included most of the events that ended up in the final story, down to a lot of the small details and individual scenes.

It was all just... there, in my head, suddenly.

(There were a few ultimately important things that weren't in that initial outline at all, and only arrived later. I don't feel like specifying exactly which ones, though, I've probably said enough for now ;)

The Apocalypse of Herschel Schoen

My fourth novel, The Apocalypse of Herschel Schoen, is now available in full.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

[inbabylontheywept]

Okay so I very unwisely got tumblr because of a girl and things with said girl are confusing af but basically being on tumblr doesn't affect that anymore. I was thinking about getting off of it but I found your posts and they alone are worth staying on for.

I can't figure out how to find other blogs to follow though.

I figure since you're the thing that I like about the site, I might also like the things you like, so i was wondering if I could ask you to share some blog recommendations?

Easiest recomendation is my older sister, @lizardho. Very similar childhood, very similar writing style, if you like my writing you'll love hers too. I consider this her finest piece at present. It's an easy rec. We are incredibly similar people.

If we're doing similar writing styles, me and @foldingfittedsheets often get mistaken for each other. No relation, but again, we do a lot of slice of life work. From all her works, this is my favorite story and this is my favorite comic.

For my standard writers pack, there is teaboot, prokopetz, and gallustromegalus, and derin. They tell a lot of anecdotes and they all have great styles. Gallus is probably my favorite but it's fierce competition and they all come highly recomended. Not tagging them because they have huuuuuuge followings and I don't want to pester them.

For people that I consider significantly underrated: There's @drenamigmo / @drenamigmofridgemagnets . Amazing storyteller. Small body of work publically available right now, but the two stories in this post are just achingly beautiful. They have an AO3 called "aterriblewriter" (I need to give them more shit for that, they are actually incredible) that I check kind of obsessively for new writing. They also write league fanfic, so if that's your thing, I'm jealous. I wish I loved league more just so I can enjoy more of their writing.

I really like @miseria-fortes-viros. She has two stories from Greek mythology that I consider the two finest uses of tumblr itself as a medium. You'll see it if you clickeither of these: This one is about Orpheus and Eurydice, this one is about Icarus. She tells anecdotes sometimes, and this one about a welding class she took is again, fantastic, but it's not her bread and butter, it's just a rare and unexpected treat. You also get to watch her slowly dissolve into madness as everyone with a bad literature take seems to go out of their way to die by her hand.

If you like my earlier fiction works, @spyglassrealms writes scifi that is frankly much better than mine. I followed him to learn about worldbuilding. I stayed for his worlds.

And for my final note: I am not normally a big anime guy, and I generally avoid the stuff. BUT. But. This piece by @hakeism is one of the most bafflingly moving stories I have ever read. One of my favorite cultural changes of the last decade has been a general shift away from irony back into sincerity, and Hakeism writes so incredibly sincerely about absolutely ridiculous things that it warms my heart. They take life seriously, even when it's stupid, because life is always stupid and yet it must be engaged with. The fact that it is stupid is no excuse for refusing to participate in the world. We must, in the words of Fraggle Rock and Ben Folds Five, do it anyway.

[creature-wizard]

Why do you think so many people online - especially kids - believe in RAMCOA conspiracy theories and are so into making it central to their identity when there’s no evidence for it?

A big reason is that people and resources promoting the stuff about ritual abuse and alter programming are extremely easy to find. And from what I gather, a few years back someone came on Tumblr promoting The Courage To Heal, which promoted this kind of stuff.

There are also plenty of resources out there created by people with PhDs, which makes it all look more credible. And these people have also spun this narrative that there's actually tons of evidence for this but nobody takes them seriously because the False Memory Syndrome Foundation came along and convinced everybody that false memories are a thing, but actually false memories are a fake thing they made up to protect abusers and the conspiracy and yadda yadda yadda. (Don't think too hard about the people who remember past lives in pseudohistorical places or remember alien abductions using the same techniques these therapists are using to help people remember ritual abuse, now!)

Also, these conspiracy theories provide explanations for things that don't always have a clear explanation. Numerous health issues that are often difficult to pinpoint causes for are claimed to be symptoms of TBMC. So are general feelings of unease and seemingly inexplicable anxiety and depression.

They also provide explanation for parental behaviors that we might not fully understand or don't find the explanation fully satisfying, like why a parent kept leaving you with a babysitter who treated you horribly. Someone might not realize or not feel satisfied with the explanation that the parent just didn't have any good options, or didn't realize the babysitter was treating them like this. If part of you feels like your parent must have known or must have had better choices, "actually, the babysitter was my programmer" feels like a more sensible explanation.

They also let people feel like they have problems worthy of sympathy. A lot of people just aren't really sympathetic to the problems of teenagers and young adults, and there's a lot of stuff that just isn't recognized as hurtful behavior. A lot of parental abuse and cruelty is often not recognized as such, and people who try to talk about how it made them feel and how much it affected them are often told that they're overreacting and their parents meant well. The methods allegedly used in TBMC are terrible enough that absolutely nobody could tell you that you're just overreacting.

It also provides explanation for people who have internalized that they don't have any real problems, or can't identify an obvious problem. Like it's easy to just not be aware of, say, how stressful it is to just exist under late stage capitalism while hearing about terrible violence around the world and feeling powerless to change anything.

Plus like, a lot of these people's friends are in support groups that believe in these conspiracy theories, so giving them up would mean giving up their friends. And believers teach members not to trust outsiders and critics, whether from a general "critics are all just misinformed by the Grey Faction and r/SystemsCringe" standpoint, or from a "critics have been misinformed by the Illuminati" standpoint.

Basically, I think it's a combination of all these factors. And I think the actual solutions to the problem will include creating better mental and physical health resources, making it easier to access said resources, getting people out of the Trauma Olympics mindset, raising awareness that "minor" things can hurt worse than you think, educating people on conspiracy theories and where they come from, and teaching better critical thinking skills.

This post is referring to alter programming conspiracy theories, which are commonly promoted under the umbrella term "Ritual Abuse, Mind Control, and Organized Abuse" - RAMCOA for short. To learn more about how we know they're conspiracy theories, click here.

[max1461]

Ok, regarding my symptoms, idk if I've emphasized this point enough:

I had (what at the time I considered to be) really bad OCD from 2020 to 2023, where I experienced minor versions of some of the same tactile/proprioceptive hallucinations and odd mental effects as now. But, crucially, they were transient and easy to brush off as weird momentary sensations, or intrusive thoughts.

Anyway, in the middle of 2023, I noticed that I felt... alienated from myself and my life, I'm gonna say. Like I wasn't in continuity with who I was before 2020, and the memories of it were kind of fuzzy and dreamlike. I basically just chalked this up to being depressed and anxious for the past three years. But I tried hard to get back to being myself, both through trying to do more normal stuff and also just trying to remember what life was like before, remember that it wasn't a dream, etc.

After basically "practicing" for a year, my memories started to become vivid again, and felt like they were real memories again. None of this felt pathological at the time, it just felt like I was really removed from my ordinary life so this was a natural consequence. And it felt like it was starting to go back to normal. But it felt like, to get the vividness of my memories back, I had to practice, as I said. Like being trapped in anxiety so long had made me forget how to reflect.

But, ok, in the middle of 2024, I started to notice that when I would do this, when I would try to recall pre-2020 memories, my eyes would hurt. Like it would actually strain my eyes. First a little, and then over the next few months, a lot. To the point where I stopped thinking about this stuff again, because it would literally cause me physical pain. And because of this, when I was reminded of such a memory, it's like my mind would instantly shy away, because it actually literally hurt. I even made a post about it.

When I was at the dentist, due to my panic attack, I started thinking back on all this stuff and got into this eye-strain. And then, when they gave me the anesthetic, it's like I got stuck there.

So, of course there's all the cognitive effects of feeling like I'm in this weird dream state, as I've described. Like I'm stuck half way through what would normally be some kind of "recalling and then re-storing" loop, or something. But also, I'm stuck with the eye strain! That way my eyes were hurting before, it's now been constant for six months. It basically is like how your eyes feel if you wake up with a really bad hangover. All the time!

So, I don't know what the fucking explanation for this is.

[arceespinkgun]

Earthspark is the show that proved Transformers fans actually do not like changes or new concepts and only rate a show or a comic as good if they catered specifically to their tastes.

Just like how people act like Transformers One is so new and refreshing when I can point out so many old shits that they borrowed from other continuities.

It's so funny in this fandom.

TF fans apparently have a very long history of hating cool new ideas, but I do feel especially frustrated with the way I see TF One vs. Earthspark treated. I think for people who weren't active in the fandom when the show began, it would be easy to think that the prevailing idea was that TF fans (other than bigots) generally liked it, but that seasons 2 and 3 ruined it, but the truth is, I saw tons of nitpicking of literally every aspect of the show the whole time it's been airing. Honestly, I even saw actual harassment. With the movie TF One, it seems like TF fans generally loved it. Also, when there is the occasional critical, angry post about TF One, you'll basically always see people defend the movie! But I constantly see people say stuff about Earthspark that's just factually incorrect, but rarely does anyone defend the show for some reason? I don't really understand what people wanted from Earthspark, and I don't really understand why people feel they got what they wanted from TF One.

I don't understand why a TF show starring a diverse cast of characters and voice actors that's focused on Blasian kids and explores so many big ideas like what an alt-mode means for a bot's identity, healing from colonialism, and understanding gender, and has some of the best fight scenes in TF history, great music, great designs etc. etc. is so hated... but the movie that has celebrity voice actors, only has two major women in it who are pitted against each other, features the characters voice acted by Black VAs in roles like the comedic relief who adds nothing to the plot, the oppressed bot who rebelled too violently, and the mentor who bestows powers on the heroes but then is executed, and that ends with the hero who was blessed by Transformers God banishing people to potential death in Quintesson-patrolled territory is so loved. Also I do agree with you, TF One is basically a reworked Aligned continuity. Earthspark, while having new takes on things, I would say takes many elements from all different continuities: mainly G1, but I also see plenty of TFA, the Beast era, IDW, and Aligned too.

...Also, just look at how Earthspark teased the Quintessons for so long and then showcases them so effectively vs. TF One in which the Quintesson doesn't even get to have multiple faces! lol I won't lie, I do find it very frustrating that Earthspark has such a meaningful story and lots of references to all different parts of the franchise but I rarely see this praised or noted... but then people cheered when like. There were names on a screen in TF One XD I remember excitement about details like Skyfire's name just being said but he wasn't even there! LMAO

[chefkids]

I love Ayo, Jeremy, and Molly — they all mean a lot to me in their own ways. Ayo’s energy is unmatched, Jeremy’s loyalty is real, and Molly has always just been chill and kept to herself. I don’t understand how people can come for her when she’s never even done anything wrong. She minds her business, stays in her lane, and still somehow ends up being the target. That’s wild to me.

But let’s talk about the way you stay so obsessed with Molly. Like, seriously — what did she ever do to you? You’re always bothering her, throwing shade, and trying to make her out to be the problem when she literally just exists. Give me one valid reason why you dislike her so much. Just one. I bet you can’t, because there is no reason. It's giving more personal issue than actual beef. Let her live.

I've already explained this a million times but since you're asking again. Let me make it clear for everyone.

Why I do not like Molly Gordon

I stopped fucking with her on July 2024 when she gave a shout out to an Israeli restaurant, Miss Ada, in an interview.

As a person who also lives in NYC and makes a concious effort to avoid Israeli owned businesses, especially since October 2023, I know she is very well aware of what kind of place that is. Especially considering she was also spotted at Jack's Wife Freda, another very well known Israeli owned restaurant in the city, a few months later.

I looked to see for even an ounce of support towards Palestinians from her because I knew she had played an anti zionist who straight up mentioned the BDS movement (Boycott, Divest, Sanctions) in the show Ramy. But I saw that she hadn't even signed the ceasefire letter. I have never seen her post a single thing in support of Palestine or like anything of Ramy's or Ayo's or anyone's this whole entire genocide. Trust me, I tried to redeem her. The last picture of Ramy she has ever liked was literally one he posted of JAW while filming The Bear. She is clearly capable of signing things and posting "political" stuff like she posted her Kamala ballot, which is illegal to do in NY btw. So her silence on the matter is very much a choice.

So to me, she is someone who knowingly supports Israel, who had no problem profiting off of Palestinians stories and learned absolutely nothing from Ramy. Which btw is the only reason she got cast in The Bear in the first place cause Chris directed her episode. Either that or she cares more about not crossing any of her zionist friends and family that fund her projects like Will Ferrell, who funded Theater Camp, than supporting him. Which is still putting her own money and career above just being the bare minimum decent person to me, when she has already so much of her career handed her through nepotism.

On top of that, she had someone accusing her repeatedly of being a racist bully towards her because she got the role in high school theater she wanted.

On top of that, she used a Woody Allen (a known pedophile) movie Annie Hall (which also has pedophilic references) as reference to her romcom, Oh Hi, which literally has sexual assault as the central premise and never treats it with the severity or consequences it deserves. Her friend who made that movies also have highly questionable zionist friends.

And on top of all of that, I find the way she blatantly used her relationship for PR and called the paparazzi on herself every 4 weeks on the dot and pumped out random articles from "anonymous sources" to be extremely desperate loser behavior. I don't care that they were hooking up, quite frankly it was very funny at the start and entertaining to see it crash. He can date whoever her wants, I liked Rosalia, didn't get to know you long enough Ashley Moore but I'm sure she's probably fine.

So basically the entire picture of her that I've gotten over the past year is that she is not a good person and is very desperately trying to get attention, despite how "nice" she might be.

I do not like her as a person and at this point I never will. If I see her doing stupid problematic shit, I'm going to call it out cause apparently nobody else will. I'm sure she is perfectly nice to all her friends and coworkers. That does not make her unproblematic and good person worth supporting, to me.

[moldypoff]

you should totally drop your procreate brush settings.... it looks so nice ;;;

Oh boy, I’m about to blow your mind rn/j

I use the basic brushes

No motion filter, no stabilizer, we rawdog drawing like it’s on paper/hj

Speaking of paper tho

This is my screen protector! Also a BIG reason why it’s easier for me to draw digitally because of how FRICKEN awesome it feels to draw on it! Paperlike is kinda balls, sorry y’all :( - P.S. I only got it yesterday to replace my old one.

Also I lied, I do modify the 6B pencil brush(2) a bit! But it depends on the situation (I’ve only turned the pressure size down because I didn’t need my lines to have weight for a bit) Also the Maximum Size is huuuuuuge because it’s a painting brush!

But yeahh, rn it’s kinda just the 6b pencil brush, Inka, soft brush, and that one medium hard brush thing I made by just going to Apple Pencil on a medium hard airbrush and upping the size to max <- This use to be my main brush a long time ago but now I just use it for erasing.

Also also also, I use a drawing glove for smooth, long, continuous lines!

(I think it’s this one, I don’t exactly remember :,3)

This might not really matter too much but I also changed theee uhhhh, the thing

YEAH! That think, Pressure and Smoothing in Preferences :D

I think by turning the motion filtering expression all the way up it gets rid of that stupid auto stabilizer procreate has??? Idk, I’m not really sure how it works, also I’m completely lost on the App pressure sensitivity, I watched a video on youtube on how to adjust it twice but I still can’t figure it out for sheeit. I kinda got something I liked, but that took experimentating- which didn’t take long! And even tho it’s confusing I didn’t change it too much to, again, find something that works for me.

Remember, it’s not the brushes that make you a good artist, it’s how you use them! Digital art is difficult as hell as is if you’re working on the glass surface itself, so accommodate it to you (if you can’t, no shame if that’s what you got to work with) also ARTISTS WHO RAWDOG THEIR ART ON A PURE GLASS SCREEN SCARE ME/j/silly/lh(👀 Moonie) @paper-starz

Moonie, Moonie tell people what you use to draw, you’re literally going to knock their socks off

(They’re really humble! I have “fancy” stuff to help me draw but their digital art is still, in a lot of ways, still better than mine! And that’s credited to their creativity and knowledge of art, but I won’t speak for him, she can tell you all abt it themselves!)

[egophiliac]

A-anime?

you know, sometimes I forget that Twst is actually an isekai that starts with the protagonist getting run over by an inexplicable horse-drawn carriage. and every time I'm reminded is a delight because that's AMAZING.

also. look. okay. there's a lot of very fun stuff in the trailer but I am obsessed with that Crowley surprised pikachu face. me when I spend all my keys and gems literally hours before they announce overblot SSRs and drop the anime trailer:

[remxedmoon]

i hit 1k followers recently!!!! yipee!!!!!!! thank you all!!! so in celebration here’s all of my completed isat doodle pages, from oldest to newest. go nuts with them!! and maybe don’t look at the first doodle page too closely. it’s Old.

(no greyscale version below for once! just some mushy ramblings. you don’t have to read them don’t worry)

hhhhhha?? so many people. where did you come from. how did you all find me.

ok but seriously, thank you all so much for all the support. i never really. expected to make it this far? like, ever?? i’ve mentioned it a few times on here, but i’ve been a lurker for the past… 2 years, i think? and even before that, i never gained much traction outside of a couple posts. so this has been. very new to me!! in a nice way!! it’s weird to feel like an actual member of a community!! that people know about!

the idea of finally coming back to social media was Daunting (i literally got stress hives writing my first post lol) and the warm reception really. meant a lot?? i don’t think i would’ve ever gotten the courage to come back if i hadn’t been encouraged to by the people over at the isat discord!!

the fact that people actually care about my art still doesn’t feel real?? seeing people take inspiration from my art is just. surreal. just. auagssh. thank you all so so much for everything, i really do appreciate it!!! i’m really glad to be in this community. sorry if this all sounds sappy and long winded i’ve just got a lot of emotions about this whole thing!!

(also as a bonus for reading all this or whatever. here’s a concept page for isatscryption! it felt a little out of place next to my normal canvases so i’m putting it down here! yipee! sorry my notes here are so disjointed auauau…)

[bacchuschucklefuck]

class swap design masterpost for convenience (from top to bottom: bard!riz, cleric!gorgug, sorcerer!kristen, barbarian!fig, artificer!adaine, and rogue!fabian)

[call-me-pup2]

Friendly reminder - People that run nsfw accounts are actual people and aren't thinking about kinky things 24/7

[shakingparadigm]

modern college au where model ivan comes home late after photoshoots and listens to till's demos for hours on repeat to wallow in his agony (the songs are always for mizi)

[rosesradio]

You're the only person i follow who posts about thomas sanders

And i only watch him for sanders sides, i'm not really in the fsndom online, so i guess you are the best person to ask this

Why does thomas take so long to upload new sander sides?

ten questions scientists still can't answer, anon

[al-luviec]

compiled whatever this is (and I run out of tag space)

meh HoT gifs (3/?)

[starflungwaddledee]

something unrelated to anything at all that i have overthought a bit, but i just want to... let folks know that i use my "likes" here as bookmarks, not an interaction.

i also do so exceptionally sparingly, and usually on world news, recommendation lists, or tutorials! almost never on creative content, which i reblog or put into drafts to reblog eventually.

i know reblogs are way more helpful for visibility and i do try to rb quite generously (and always try to leave a nice comment!), and i love to interact!! but i just had the worrying thought lately that there might be some folks out there feeling that i never "like" their stuff...? and it's not that!!

i just don't use the feature much is all 😭😭💖💖 i like, and in fact love, mostly everything folks are creating here!!!

[perilegs]

i know astrology is fake but i'm not too keen on how a lot of people on this website seem to be clowning on it as a hobby a bit too hard. i swear the woman who thinks it's neat how she and her friends with the same sun sign are all similar isn't trying to say that you are who you are born as and there is nothing you can do to change it. it's a hobby. an interest. what happened to finding meaning and joy in the small things. does it affect you if someone enjoys tarot reading or crystals. does it make you upset someone has interests that they enjoy.