#Essay in the tags

[deweydecimalchickens]

This morning I received revelation while listening to Metallica's cover of 'Turn the Page' (Bob Seger, 1971). And the revelation was:

If 'Easy Rider' (Dennis Hopper, 1969) were made today, it would be about trans people.

I SAID WHAT I SAID.

I will double down and say 'Priscilla, Queen of the Desert' and 'To Wong Foo' were, in their a-little-confused-but-got-the-spirit way, attempts at fix-it sequels where the social, sexual and gender outlaws on a road trip *don't* all die at the hands of frightened social conservatives (spoilers, sorry).

Fear and hatred of the counterculture was dripping with gender panic, from would-be mothers having free love on the Pill to would-be breadwinners growing their hair long and becoming hippies. The main characters are called "queers" and told to cut their hair, and I don't think the moral of the story is that what happens to them is only bad because they fucked women after all.

"So you walk into this restaurant, strung out from the road

And you feel the eyes upon you as you're shaking off the cold

You pretend it doesn't bother you, but you just want to explode

Most times you can't hear them talk, other times you can

All the same old clichés: "Is it woman? Is it man?"

And you always seem outnumbered, you don't dare make your stand

Make your stand"

[pertinax--loculos]

First Line Tag

I was tagged by @ashen-crest -- thank you so much! ^_^

The rules state: share the first sentence of your last ten stories. If you haven’t written ten stories, share as many first sentences as you have.

So this is fun, because I’m a non-linear writer, so we may have to dive into the archives to find actual first lines. (Spoiler: this was a fun ol’ time. :D) Also, because I have an acute inability to perceive the singular in the word ‘line’, odds are there’s gonna be a few of these where they’re, y’know... lines. Fuck it, we ball.

Not sure who has and hasn’t done this, so randomly picking some people (absolutely no pressure if you don’t like tag games or whatever!): @oh-no-another-idea ​, @indecentpause ​, @kaatiba ​, @kaiusvnoir ​, @idreamonpaper ​, @albatris ​ and @isherwoodj ​!!

Hokay, here we go:

Absent That Night:

Latrell stared at the blank space on the wall, incensed.

ATN2 (sequel to Absent That Night):

This was not the first time Latrell had found a body in the middle of his crime scene.

It was the first time he didn't personally know the victim. So. That was novel.

CASCADE

“So you are aware what the conditions of this agreement are, Mister Johns?”

Jay leaned back in his chair, the chains binding his wrists and ankles clanking. “I’ve been given the pitch, yeah.”

Forgotten Fates

I’m gonna die because of a fucking dretter.

It’s hard to parse what’s happened in the past ten minutes or so. I just know that it’s happened, it’s happened fast, and it’s happened because I didn’t trust my instincts enough to believe what they were telling me about that message.

___RISK IT

Calden Bray was a tricky motherfucker, but fortunately I knew how to handle him.

Out of Containment (OOC)

In his dreams, he’s still there.

He walks down winding corridors that have nothing to distinguish them from the rest. Windowless, with repeating patterns on the carpet and featureless beige walls, there’s no way to tell which direction he’s going. Some latent sense of direction convinces him that they twist and turn, but there’s rarely proper corners. Intersections are even rarer.

Abandon All Hope (aka scifi horror idea)

Maddie woke to screaming alarms.

Nightmare scenario. Literally enough that it took her a few moments to realise that she wasn’t dreaming, that this was actually happening, that she was waking to red flashing lights and mechanical wailing filling her head.

Hindsight

Sometimes I wonder if it would've made more sense to get a prosthesis.

In the Shadows of Stars (now we’re really getting to older stuff, my lord)

The profile that Zayra had compiled narrowed the options down to two places.

They were both bars, both on the seedy side, both fairly well known as the establishment to go to if someone wanted to procure something that wasn’t strictly legal. They were also about as far apart from each other as they could possibly be whilst both remaining on the same planet; one in the towering structure that made up the East Dock, one hidden in the sprawl of the West Dock. And no matter how hard she tried, Zayra could not be in two places at once.

aaaaand Hellbent (lordy 0.o)

"What's the matter Lukas? You're not scared, are you?"

"No," Raleigh lied.

[chappell-roans]

words have no meaning anymore the internet needs to be silent

[bloomingonionbitch]

if you're frustrated with our public education system AND Canvas as a platform overall, i highly suggest getting stoned and writing your 7th graders individual notes of encouragement because sometimes there's not much you can do about classroom behaviors and "management" because these kids are shushed and scolded so often that they're meaningless tactics (understandably so) and moving seating charts around mean nothing in an incredibly small classroom and not to be all "Freedom Writers 'n' Shit" but i really think post-COVID all they hear are how behind + bad they are compared to previous classes of students that didn't experience a collective trauma and learning disruption that's the thing too!!! we noticed what was clogged and constrictive in the education system and instead of releasing what wasn't working (or plainly archaic approaches) we clung tighter to them as institutions and whose "efficacy" is an long-standing indication of normalcy/status quo it makes me gnaw my lip to a pulp that all we've shifted in education is "accelerated learning" (the updated term for tutoring) and making folks who create "SEL" programs wealthier so it's semi-equal parts the allure of opportunity or security and i want to be clear that i do not mean "academic opportunity" (that's the goal!) but rather the organizations who develop curriculum, standards, testing, and materials are taking advantage of the shifting situation

[throesofincreasingwonder]

"A story doesn't need a theme in order to be good" I'm only saying this once but a theme isn't some secret coded message an author weaves into a piece so that your English teacher can talk about Death or Family. A theme is a summary of an idea in the work. If the story is "Susan went grocery shopping and saw a weird bird" then it might have themes like 'birds don't belong in grocery stores' or 'nature is interesting and worth paying attention to' or 'small things can be worth hearing about.' Those could be the themes of the work. It doesn't matter if the author intended them or not, because reading is collaborative and the text gets its meaning from the reader (this is what "death of the author" means).

Every work has themes in it, and not just the ones your teachers made you read in high school. Stories that are bad or clearly not intended to have deep messages still have themes. It is inherent in being a story. All stories have themes, even if those themes are shallow, because stories are sentences connected together for the purpose of expressing ideas, and ideas are all that themes are.

[thefantastician]

is this relatable to everyone or just me

[cupozo]

Kim knew Harry had to figure it out himself. At least they had a nice moment between disasters.

[gerrykeay]

im not putting this post into words. beams into your mind The Parallels

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[ritternacht]

sometimes I see ace positivity and I get excited for two seconds before remembering my experience in my HS queer club where the very first fucking meeting I attended they were discoursing about whether demisexuality is """valid""" and called it stupid and I just stormed out of the room angry crying and never attended another meeting

[dekariosclan]

[aceissomunster]

discowing + jaybin ! press for quality

txtless + ref under the cut

ignore my horrible art please i drew this on ibis paint x with my finger and the soft felt tip pen brush. and my crappy penmanship.

[pertinax--loculos]

Me: I dunno, I'm just really struggling with studying, I can't seem to find the motivation, and the workload of the double degree is kinda overwhelming, especially with the amount of work I have to do to live. Can't really see the light at the end of the tunnel. It sometimes just feels like it's too much.

Also Me: Also I think I might start studying a grad dip on the side.

[whiskey-bumblebee]

made it to Paris. Overwhelmed with happiness.

[joicecubes]

the implications of ford pulling this photo out of his trenchcoat in the last episode you guys… THE IMPLICATIONS.

look at the state of this thing!! look at its rips! the stain in the bottom right corner! it’s dog-eared, the color is faded, the paper has browned… he’s kept this photo of them since they were kids. through all the years he stubbornly swore to hold a grudge, all the years he and stan never spoke, he kept this photo.

and we can assume he probably didn’t have it dimension-hopping, since i find it hard to believe he would’ve had it on him when he initially got sucked in, but ford pulling it out of his trenchcoat here!! implies!! that he had been CARRYING IT AROUND WITH HIM for some time after he got back!

imagine if he found it in some of his old stuff the night he returned, after punching and yelling at stan, after being sure to keep as much emotional distance between them as possible, and he finds this photo. would he have stared down at it? for a little while? smoothed the creases out on his desk? thumbed the torn, loved edges while he mourned a simpler time? then pocketed the thing to always have it with him?

i dunno. maybe i’m looking too far into it. but i can’t help but wonder if ford kept it because, against all his big dreams and ambitions, deep down he always wondered what his life might have been like if he sailed away with his brother when they were teenagers. never able to throw it away because doing so would symbolically destroy the last remnants of a childhood fantasy, the last piece of him that remains young and hopeful of a future at his brother’s side.

[a-memory-a-distant-echo]

ok, once and for all: is it rude to add things to people's posts? no nuance; none of us can know how op or anyone else will see our contribution. or 'contribution'.

[sabertoothwalrus]

my chilshi marriage comic is not only about to become my most popular dungeon meshi comic, but one of my most successful art posts ever??? which first of all I'm very grateful! I'm just really shocked cause 1. gen stuff tends to do better than ship, at least for this fandom 2. I didn't think that many people liked chilshi????