#I just started writing my essays on a weird website

[subconsciousmysteries]

when I finally become a famous enneagram guru let me tell you I will be the most boring guru ever to most people because I aint gonna lure nobody in by saying "I'll tell you your type!"

instead I will just write boring dry essays about what each type means and what each axis represents (i.e. 9 <--> 3, 5 <--> 7, etc.) in both an abstract spiritual sense and in a more material earthly sense.

I hope to give the future enneagrammers a far better education than the one I received. going from one abusive sociopathic community of LARPers to another. being taught to identify with types and focus on what your ego looks like (vanity) when really that was never the point

(the point in case anyone is wondering is understanding the cosmic spiritual truths behind each type's personality. read Enneagram of Holy Ideas)

and you can't even say I kept ending up in these shit communities because "you attract those sorts of people". if you're into enneagram there's no way to NOT attract those sorts of people. you have to dive into a pool full of sharks in order to find a few pearls who you can bounce ennea knowledge off of and grow wiser from. literally anyone who's been in enneagram a long time will attest to how most communities are psychologically abusive cancer, yet few people talk about it publicly, probably because there is nowhere to do so.

[stagehunt]

AUTHOR PORTRAIT ...

get to know the author behind the blog! repost, don't reblog.

Basics

NAME:        vos AGE:         23 PRONOUNS:         they/them YEARS OF WRITING:          that  definitely  depends  on  what  you  classify  as  writing  but  i  discovered  rp  as  a  concept  in  2010  which  was  probably  just  a  bit  after  i  got  into  writing  little  short  stories  and  things  as  a  kid.  i  was  writing  them  by  hand  in  a  little  notepad  that  somebody  in  my  family  handed  over  to  a  school  teacher,  extremely  mortifying  ordeal  to  me  at  the  time  lmfao       

Reflection

WHY DID YOU PICK UP WRITING?           i’m  pretty  sure  i  first  started  by  writing  shitty  warrior  cats  fanfics  actually,   and  i  didn’t  know  that  fics  or  fandom  in  general  was  even  a  thing  at  the  time  so  u  could  say  i  was  destined  for  this  sort  of  brainrot   fgdjkh   little  nine  year  old  me  also  encountered  rp  for  the  first  time  by  searching  for  warrior  cats  flash  games   (i guess??  idk  what  i  actually  thought  i’d  find)   and  instead  wound  up  on  some  random  webpage  with  a  chatbox.  moved  on  from  there  to  writing  awful,  horrible   (but  very  fun)   naruto  oc’s  on  a  website  that  i  think  was  called  chatango  some  years  later,   dabbled  a  little  on  imvu,   and  started  writing  on  tumblr  around  2015  iirc

DO YOU HAVE ANY WRITING ROUTINES?          i  wouldn’t  say  so?  sometimes  i’ll  listen  to  like…  instrumental  interludes  from  certain  albums  or  smth  that  i  won’t  enjoy  too  much  because  i  find  music  very  distracting,   not  just  for  writing  but  in  general,   and  sitting  in  silence  is  a  weird  feeling  to  me  too.  when  it  comes  to  other  things  i  need  a  podcast  or  video  essay  or  something  similar  to  be  at  all  productive  but  it’s  hard  to  focus  on  writing  with  someone  yapping  in  your  ear.  i  used  to  save  writing  for  nights even  when  i  have  free  time  throughout  the  day,   because  i  tend  to  feel  bad  about  sitting  at  a  computer  screen  all  day,   but  with  my  activity  in  its  current  state  i  have  to  sit  down  and  get  it  out  the  moment  inspiration  and  energy  align  themselves  for  me.    

WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE PART ABOUT WRITING?         sorry  to  steal  your  answer  but  i  def  have  to  agree  with  what  layla  said  re  the  community  aspect  of  rp  actually.  it’s  so  nice  to  be  able  to  just  click  with  someone  over  a  shared   (sometimes  niche)   interest  and  love  for  certain  medias/characters/dynamics/genres  etc.  the  feeling  of  finding  someone  who  shares  your  vision.  and  also  stemming  from  the  same  thing,   i’ve  always  felt  that  my  favorite  and  most  “solid”  muses  are  the  ones  that  i’ve  gotten  the  chance  to  develop  alongside  another  through  plotting.  love  shared  canon,  love  affiliated  oc’s,  love  group  verses.  allllll  that  good  stuff.  

THREE THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOUR WRITING.         gonna  break  the  format  we’re  following  here  because  i  have  to  ramble  and  idk  how  to  break  all  this  into  three  titles,     so  obviously  being  succinct  isn’t  one  of  the  answers  here   kfdjghd

i  always  try  to  capture  a  different  flow  and  style   (???)   of  prose  depending  on  who  i’m  writing,   and  i’m  never  sure  if  that  really  comes  through  for  others  or  if  i  just  seem  inconsistent,   but  whenever  i  look  back  at  old  blogs  i  can  see  it  for  myself  and  that  at  least  keeps  me  content   :)   i  want  to  read  my  writing  back  and  feel  that  it  has  character  outside  of  just  the  spoken  dialogue.

i  like  to  spend  a  lot  of  time  with  a  piece  of  writing,   which  realistically  is  not  to  my  benefit  in  terms  of  activity,   but  i  do  just  really  enjoy  drafting  and  redrafting,   rearranging,   nitpicking  at  everything  until  it’s  as  close  to  being  what  i  want  to  be  as  i  can  get  it.  so  that’s  more  about  the  writing  process  than  the  writing  itself,   but  i  think  it’s  still  important  to  allow  myself  to  have  fun  with  it  fkjghd

pulling  a  blank  on  a  third  thing  bc  this  is  actually  a  really  difficult  question  but  i’ll  come  back  and  edit  it  later  if  something  pops  into  my  head  kfjgdh

A question for the next person

HAVE YOU MADE ANY STRONG  CONNECTIONS  /  FRIENDS DURING YOUR TIME WRITING?          for  sure.  one  of  my  dearest  friends  in  this  world  is  not  a  writer  but  someone  who  i  met  as  a  mutual  friend  of  my  first  rp  partner.  i’m  not  really  in  touch  with  that  person  who  introduced  us  anymore  but  i  simply  couldn’t  live  without  my  bestie  and  i  consider  writing  the  only  reason  we  really  met and she gets to kinda "beta" some of the things i do write   dfkgjhd   i’ve  also  traveled  to  the  states  a  couple  of  times  in  my  teens  to  meet  a  rp  buddy  who  i’ve  known  since  i  was  around   ,,   twelve  or  so  i  believe.  

wouldn’t  be  right  not  to  shout  out  @ohchosen  here  either  because  i  was  very  close  to  leaving  tumblr   (and  also  probably  rp)   for  good  when  we  became  friends,   and  writing/plotting  tmkz  together  has  been  one  of  the  best  experiences  i’ve  ever  had  on  this  website,   where  friends  and  mutuals  tend  to  come  and  go.  you  never  did.  you’re  probs  the  funniest  person  i’ve  ever  spoken  to,   craft  the  most  beautifully  written  responses  imaginable,   you  put  a  world  of  effort  into  developing  your  muses  and  you  let  me  derail  every  single  one  of  conversations  to  talk  about  music  instead   gfjhdg   sorry  i’m  so  mean  to  you.  ily  a  lot.

there’s  also  a  handful  of  mutuals  who  i  don’t  necessarily  talk  or  interact  with  very  much  anymore  but  have  been  around  for  years  at  this  point  and  i  have  fond  memories  with  too.  always  so  so  so  glad  to  see  you  pop  up  on  the  dash,  it  makes  me  smile  every  time  so  i’ll  use  this  as  an  opportunity  to  wave  at  you, you know who you are    <3

NEW QUESTION: where  do  you  draw  the  most  inspiration  from  when  writing?  music,   other  medias,   ur  fave  author,  a  dream  you  once  had  etc.

tagged by @oneireth tysm <3 tagging val take my love letter as ur tag, also hi @heliador @loetise @tiderider @yeonban @pearlcure @deathsmaidens @sungracd !!!!!

[marscia]

On life post-grad and how I've been, where I've been

It’s been almost a year since I finished my bachelor’s degree. Funny though, I don’t miss university at all, when all I could think of before graduation was how much my life would probably feel so weird without uni. But I think I just felt so burnt out in those last few months that all I wanted was to wrap things up and move on—which I did quite easily, to my surprise. Though, despite wanting to write about my experience in terms of graduating uni and shifting to working full-time in corporate (which was quite the change of environment!) sooner, I just could not get the right words out of my system and was always faced with a blank Word document. Now that it’s been over ten months since, I’m starting to get my rhythm back.

I now work in marketing for an e-commerce website that houses international luxury fashion, beauty, and lifestyle brands. I execute and produce (mostly) video content for the website’s social platforms, mainly Tiktok, Instagram, and Facebook. A lot of people I know describe their first few months of post-grad as overwhelming, confusing, etc., but luckily it wasn’t the case for me (which I’m very thankful for). I was given the opportunity to apply for Vogue and managed to submit my writing portfolio and even snagged an interview, but after receiving a job offer from a different company that met my requests, I took it without hesitation. 

I immediately started two weeks after graduation. So far, the work environment has been wonderful. The company values work/life balance and I always get to enjoy my weekends and hours outside of work. I’m aware that this is a privilege not many people have, so, I’m extremely grateful for it. 

What really threw me off, though, was the sudden shift in where most of my mental energy goes. In university, I was always thinking in the context of theory application and research. But now, at work, I’m required to think in the context of aesthetics and what makes something visually appealing and how to effectively translate that into an equally appealing visual content. It’s a different kind of challenge; though I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss being directly involved in academics and writing essays.

I still fall behind on some days and forget to eat lunch, or drink water to keep my body hydrated. I sometimes spend way too much time on my phone and lose what could have been a couple more hours of sleep. Reading slumps hit me more often now than it did when I was a student; because no one warns you that when you start working full-time in corporate, you get home every day, tired and socially exhausted, and most days all you want to do is close your eyes and take that nap you’ve been dreaming of since lunch. 

But I try. I’ve managed to get back into the habit of doing my skincare every night before bed. I watch Booktube to inspire me to read and lately it’s been such a big help; I’m slowly getting back into reading again. I bought a new shelf to organize the stacks of new books that have been piling up all over my room the past couple of months—now it looks so pretty standing next to my desk. Last month, I decluttered my closet to make room for new clothes. This weekend, I’m planning to buy new sheets and a comforter I’ve been eyeing for a few weeks now. I’m doing alright.

It’s comforting though, that one day you’re crying about finals and the next, you’re drinking a hot cup of tea on a Monday night after a long day at work, telling yourself that you did good and tomorrow’s another day. And you realize that no one’s after you. There’s no need to rush and everything will be fine. Things always figure themselves out, anyway.

[cookinguptales]

I almost wrote a small essay in the tags of that "fanwork as content" post but realized that it would probably be better off as its own post. So now it's... a large, rambling essay. lmao

Like... to preface, AO3 is great, it's a great resource for fandom, it feels good to have a centralized location that works well. That said, there has been a steady decline in how I've felt treated as an author since we switched to an archive-only model of fic.

For people who are newer to fandom, pre-AO3 (and even in the early days of AO3), people often crossposted fic. Sometimes to websites, sometimes to journals (particularly LJ/DW), sometimes to communities, sometimes to kink memes...

AO3, while certainly one of the primary places you could upload stuff, wasn't necessarily where you would get most of your primary interaction about your fic. It was always designed to be an archive, not a social media site.

But since we moved to an archive model (and away from LJ/DW) I've noticed that fic gets almost no traction on sites that actually are intended for social interaction. I'm not saying it's easy for any creator in fandom, but god. The numbers on fic posts are just downright demoralizing.

I don't mean to sound arrogant here, but I think I'm a pretty good writer. People seem to really connect with my fic. In multiple fandoms, I've written fic that most people have read and enjoyed, to the point where people have just taken it for granted that if someone reads fic in the fandom, they've probably read something I've written.

All this is to say, I know I've written fics that people like. I know I've written fics that people connect with. And I know those posts still only get like 5 notes sometimes on Tumblr.

I'm proud of my work and I'm happy that it's gotten such a warm welcome on AO3!!! But there are times when I feel like all this means that I could write literally the best fic on earth and still no one would talk to me. People still wouldn't want to interact with me on social media sites.

I wrestled for... honestly, a long time with all this. I had a hard time putting into words why this felt so uh. Bad. Was I just self-conscious about my own writing? Yes, but that's a separate issue. Was I just jealous of others' popularity? Sort of, but it went deeper than that.

I had an issue with a fandom that I don't write in anymore. I got a lot of fanart based on my fic, which was great, which was amazing, there were even fan comics made. Visual media travels better on social media than fic. That's just a fact. And I had to watch as repeatedly, art based on the fic I wrote got thousands of notes while my fic got maybe 12. And I realized the power of social media vs. AO3 because it did get to audiences that weren't familiar with my fic and people started to give those artists credit for my ideas.

I remember watching the tags of those posts because it was occasionally the only way I'd hear feedback on what I'd written (imagine getting one comment and 5 notes on a fic, then seeing dozens of people in the tags of fanart saying that it was their favorite fic in the fandom! it was weird!) and seeing the tags gradually devolve into "oh, this is such a neat idea for an AU, artist OP" or "wow this dialogue is perfect [artist] I love it" and like

It's weird to feel so happy because so many people are enjoying your work in a transformative way but also so unhappy because you have been completely removed from the equation. No one... even knows you wrote those things anymore. You have been removed in favor of a more "marketable" version of your work.

It's uh. It's a bad feeling. I stopped writing in that fandom eventually.

So again, I felt like... idk, like there was no point in me even trying. Because I could write the best fic on earth and still somehow get erased as a person. People would want my "content," but they wouldn't want me.

I think that's what hurt my feelings so much.

What I've realized is this: what I miss is the sense of community. On LJ, you could post a fic, cross-post it to a community, and there would be comments that would become conversations that would become lasting friendships. Not always! But often. I still talk to some people daily who I met through fic on LJ over a decade ago.

In the archive model, there has almost become a death of the author. The me on social media and the me on AO3 are very different; more importantly, it's almost like it's viewed as the "me" is on social media, but the work is on AO3. I am absent. There is only the fic, not the person who created it.

And that's okay, but when you try to combine those two things on social media and it goes over like a lead balloon... idk. There's an odd sense of dehumanization. I don't mean it in like... I don't know, a dramatic human rights violation kind of way. More that I literally feel like less of a human person the way I interact with fandom these days. Like I'm no longer a person who writes fic as a way to connect with my fellow fans and more a "content creator" whose human side is separate from my creation and never the twain shall meet.

(And I'll admit it feels especially galling to be forced into the capitalistic "content creator" box when it's not even a thing I can make money off of, lmao. It's like the worst of both worlds. I feel like if I can't make money off fanfic, I should at least be exempt from capitalistic social trends during its creation.)

I'm not so much complaining about my current fandom; WWDITS has actually been one of the best fandoms for interaction I've been in since the birth of AO3. That's one of the reasons I keep writing stories for fellow fans to read -- many of those fans feel like my friends, and I want to make them happy.

I think that poster was right when they talked about how the pivot from fan to "content creator" has fucked up fandom. There is this sense that we should be treating fandom like a job, often a fast-paced one with no pay. There is this idea that we should be separated from our "content" like you might a worker from their product, and blah blah blah alienation of labor, Marx, I get it, but damn if that isn't a shitty thing to do to your fellow fans who are making art for the love of art.

There are so many things I do love about AO3. I like having a central, organized place to put my fic. I like not having to worry about my work being lost to the ages. I like having an organized comments section I can return to on bad days to cheer myself up.

But I don't like the way that fic has kind of been relegated to a portion of fandom where people aren't particularly social. I don't like the way that authors are separated from their writing. I hear people complain sometimes about A/Ns because god forbid an author leave any trace of their actual personality to distract you from their content.

I can't have DMs with someone on AO3. I can't add someone to my friends list. There are no "beloved mutuals." There is just my work and the people who are kind enough to comment on it, even if they never actually engage with me elsewhere.

It's... a weird feeling, to feel so loved and unloved at the same time. Like you keep writing trying to make something good enough that people will talk to you but like. That's really not how it works. lmao. The best fic in the world won't make you friends anymore. It won't make people see you as a fellow fan rather than a pen name under a title.

My fic is some of the most personal stuff in the entire world, but my personhood is stripped away from it. It's so fucking weird. People like my fic, but they don't like me. They remember my stories but not the person who told them. It's bizarre. It feels like having your life and experiences strip-mined for content, and then the rest of it is just... left behind.

Frankly... I work in the publishing industry IRL and I have had opportunities to write professionally. Real, tangible opportunities. But I turned them down because I've seen it, the way that trying to fit such an intensely personal art form into a capitalistic framework can be exhausting, dehumanizing, and stressful. I don't want that for my work. Fandom has always been an escape from that.

But now fandom is starting to conform to those exact same capitalistic frameworks (and ofc without any kind of capitalistic compensation) and I hate to see it. It's so stressful. I feel like we're losing a lot of what makes fandom fun for writers and we're getting pretty much nothing in return. I'm not surprised that so many writer friends I know in fandom have quit.

like damn, I just wanna have fun with a bunch of dumbshits who love to overanalyze vampires and cry over their dumbshit shenanigans, not take on a second job. one that, I reiterate, I am not being paid for.

(Note: I am not asking for payment, just that I not be treated like a worker. The tradeoff for treating someone like a worker is that they get compensated for it. If I'm not being compensated, no one gets to treat me like this is my fucking job.)

It's a weird thing, because for a lot of people, fandom has become their job. Fanartists at cons selling fanart, youtube essayists making money off videos, professional cosplayers with sponsorships, etc. And so fandom is becoming more corporate, more capitalistic, more marketable. It's frustrating for those who don't want to capitalize on our fannish output, and doubly frustrating for people who are legally unable to do so.

I'm realizing as I write this that I'm most upset about the nonconsensual capitalization of fandom, particularly when imposed on people who are unable to access the very meager benefits of capitalism. I didn't ask for any of this!

Feels like when I'd be forced to go to assemblies for the US military when I was in high school. Like I'm morally opposed to all this but I'm also not physically fit for "service" anyway, so it's doubly insulting. I feel like I've been opted into the, ah, corporatization of fandom when I'm not even eligible for employee benefits. None of this should even apply to me! ;;

Okay!! I'm all het up now so I'm gonna go eat lunch and go for a walk! No monetization of hobbies, only trees.

[blighted-lights]

I feel like your approach to criticizing a certain fandom was the wrong way of doing it. Don't get me wrong, you are a hundred percent right about the lack of representation for certain characters. But you had to have known that you would've gotten backlash for insinuating that the only reason that content is being made is because people are... misogynistic? The characters are well-written; that's why they get attention. The women are also well-written, you're right! But instead of getting mad at the people who enjoy specific characters, you could contribute to what you want to see in the fandom. Make fanfiction, make art, talk about your favorite ships, talk about your favorite characters, talk about the head-canons you have for them, connect with other fans of those characters, make AUs with them, make the fandom you want to see! But I don't know what you were expecting when you come out and say in the tags "you must be misogynists for liking these characters and you must be awful people for playing around with AUs" even though every fandom on this website does that. That was hostile and was only going to get a hostile response in return especially when you specifically put it in the tags for fans of those characters to see. Because it reads as you insinuating that fans of these characters existing is why you don't get any representation of your favorite characters. Or, alternatively, that everyone only likes certain characters because they're misogynists who hate women characters. People make content of them because they like them and because they want to make content of them.

Want more content of the things you want to see? Pay or support the artists and writers who make that content or start making it yourself. Its not helpful to complain that some characters get more attention than others but then make no attempt to contribute to it in any meaningful way. You cannot just get mad at people for liking characters and expect the fandom to magically decide its going to give you the content you want.

This is a long-winded way of saying you are correct in that the fandom seems to hyper-focus on some characters over others. But the way you approached that discussion was combative, hostile, and unhelpful, and you're not going to motivate a community into making content by being passive-aggressive to the people making the content they want to make. Be the change you want to see in the fandom, or support the artists and writers who make the content you want to see.

Its like... You can't complain your garden isn't growing if you're not watering it and not adding seeds, and instead are blaming everyone else for having plants in their gardens that you don't like.

anon i dont know how to tell you this but if you felt the need to write a five-paragraph essay talking about how i need to be nicer to other people when i am pointing out misogyny in a fandom space then, well... actually, i dont know what to tell you other than the fact that i was trying to be aggressive and im not going to be civil about misogyny. my post wasn't made in the hopes of getting people to make more content of the women in borderlands because that would never in ten fucking million years work. it was not a constructive post. you are assuming i have some sort of goodwill about this and i don't. i wanted to be an asshole because, surprise, i am an asshole. funny how that works.

you are also pulling so much of this out of nowhere and putting so many words in my mouth that i dont even know where to begin with it?? i mean this in the kindest way possible nonnie but. this is a wild response to make when all i said was essentially "wow it sure is weird that the majority of content made for bl is focused on only three men when there's a full cast of amazing women to look at" and then "its also weird that people are making aus to erase the canon abuse and exploitation of a CHILD in order to make jack a good father". but thanks for the essay, nonnie. i guess.

[everythingsinred]

what follows is a long, rambly, and possibly sappy thank you note to the best fandom ive ever involved myself in. if you have ever sent me an ask, commented on my fics, or replied to a post i made (or even liked it tbh)--then this post is for you. (and this is most certainly not a good-bye or even close; i just occasionally get into sappy moods)

i want to start working on a career that i like, and my mom’s recommendation was to start a writing blog (she insisted i dont call it that though--to call it a “website” so it sounds more professional when i apply for writing gigs). its not the first time shes given me that advice but i have for some reason always resisted that idea before. “nobody would read it” was always the bottom line. that whole “it has to be perfect to make up for the fact that it’s me” has always been my outlook on anything i produce. its why i feel so poorly whenever i post a new chapter of a fic or any art ever. its why im taking so long on the next batch of ga essays. its why ive never formally submitted any writing ever for publishing. why would anyone read anything i have to write, especially with no dead fandom to prompt them? who would choose me out of all the aspiring writers out there?

for ga it was a bit easier after a bit of breaking through the initial anxiety of sharing bits of myself. its a small fandom. not much content going around. theyd take anything right? even if it was from me! 

but something really weird happened these past few years in the ga fandom. i started writing essays and became more vocal, posting my thoughts, writing a long, dark, fucked up fanfic. i got feedback from people who wanted more from me. theyd ask me my thoughts on things, when id never considered myself an authority on anything or even very interesting to talk to (a lifetime of being the substitute friend will do that to you). ppl sent me asks about questions. they replied to my posts to further discuss things. me! what on earth?

then it got weirder. i posted my weird messed up little fic and now every once in a while ill get a comment from a person that says that my fic is their favorite, not just in the fandom, but ever. EVER. what? a couple of people have told me that they’d read anything i wrote, even if it had nothing to do with gakuen alice.

that they’d read something just because it was me.

this isnt a rant or a vent. something has changed in my self esteem in the past few years because today, when my mom told me i should start a “writing website” and post weekly writing, it actually sounded like a decent idea. no part of her advice was different than it had ever been, but i was. i could for the first time imagine starting a blog (website) and picture someone actually liking what they found there. and that’s bc of the ga fandom and bc of the writing ive done it for it and SPECIFICALLY the writing ive actually had the guts to share. 

none of it has been perfect. im lazy when it comes to self-editing and when i finish writing a chapter im eager to just throw it out there instead of rereading it once, let alone twice. a lot of it has been imperfect, but you guys still read it. you enjoyed it, even. “it has to be perfect to make up for the fact that it’s me” has never been a problem for you. for whatever reason, quite a few of you like me, like my writing, like my ideas and thoughts. a couple of years ago i wouldnt have been able to fathom that, not even in my wildest dreams. 

im proud of myself for taking those first steps a couple years back, for posting those first couple posts and letting myself get involved in the fandom for a manga ive loved for half my life. im proud because if i hadnt done that, then maybe my self esteem wouldnt have developed like this. maybe i wouldnt have been able to picture a career in publishing as clearly as i can now. i obviously still have issues as far as my self esteem is concerned. i second-guess myself. i talk down to myself. i put off rereading bc i dont want to hate what i create. but you guys have helped me like my writing and helped me see that other people can like it too.

i am beyond grateful for that. i dont get a lot of traction or feedback like i would if i were in a larger fandom, but i dont mind. the feedback that i do get is of such good quality and has meant so much to me that it has potentially changed my life. i just needed you all to know that. that the people who have sent me asks, both on and off anon, requesting my thoughts on any topic; the people who leave comments on ffn and ao3, giving support ranging from long paragraphs to a brief sentence; the people who dm me or message me to share their thoughts on my work; the people who commented on my natsumikan essays telling me that ive helped them see something from a different perspective--you all have helped me see that there’s value in the things i create. 

i just want to say thank you. it has meant so much to me so far to be able to feel so confident in my writing. i really didnt even notice the change until today. how bizarre is it that something so important can change without you even noticing? i look forward to sharing more with you, from more fics to the mikan essay (which still has to be perfect, just maybe not as perfect as it wouldve had to be a few years ago lol). 

don’t be nervous that this a good-bye. it is not. it’s strange because whenever i’ve said anything like this (sent a message of adoration to a person i love, for example), people think it’s a bad sign. that i’m saying good-bye, or that it’s somehow a sign of something unsaid. i understand. this kind of nonsense sappiness (like all that stuff i wrote up there ^) is usually saved for the ffn bio when someone is leaving the site, for the good-bye post when someone decides to leave a fandom. “you’ve all meant so much to me and i’m leaving now.” that’s because usually people save all the important things for the end. you only say how you’ve felt when you say farewell. i don’t think life should be that way. i’m not saying good-bye, i’m saying i love you. i think people should say that more. i want people to feel good about themselves for what they’ve done, however small, to make my life--and undoubtedly the lives of others--a little brighter. and you have. you should know and i don’t intend to keep it to myself until i say good-bye (whenever or even if that happens). 

tldr; i love you gakuen alice fandom <3 youre not dead because dead things cant give life the way you have.

[maple-cinna]

I've been sitting on a blank post page for quite some time. I eventually decided to draw up something quick and post it along one of my introspective textwalls - y'know, take advantage of, well, what this website is.

I honestly wasn't around for very long the first time around, just long enough to meet some folks here and there. Some of those folks ended up being still close friends to this day, others I drifted away from, as it goes.

I deleted my account back in mid 2016 - if you know this site's history, that should sound a good bit earlier than The Exodus, and well, it was - those that know me probably know that the policy update actually wouldn't have affected me a huge amount; rather, the decision to get rid of it was rather emotionally charged, and I'll be the first to admit a pretty bad idea. It was a...Throw It All Away kinda day. I don't necessarily regret it, but there are definitely days that I wish I could go back and look at those extra old posts, just see how different things are now.

...and Boy Howdy are they different.

I'd fully embraced my orientations, finished college, gone through the revolving door of the workforce plenty of times, moved cities, moved cities again, moved cities one more time, put on about 20 lbs, started streaming games, stopped and restarted a few times (current status is stopped for those of you keeping score at home), tried out a whole bunch of different treatments, developed a tic, started and ended a couple relationships, experienced this one weird thing called a pandemic not sure if you've heard of that, gotten a streak of dye in my hair, started taking art commissions intermittently, got into VR, picked up a new hobby using that (maybe I'll tell you more later), and finally came to peace with the way friendships will come and go as they will.

...All the while still dealing with the sheer emotional turmoil that comes with simply being me.

So why am I throwing all this out there for my first post? Well, I guess it's just been a while since I could write a 400 word essay on a single post and format it in a way that flows the way that I'm actually trying to talk. It's a freedom that I don't think I realized how much I missed until I started writing this.

Well...I would say "glad to be back", but I'm not sure just how "glad" or how "back" I am yet. We'll have to see.

[farfrombrooklyn]

Reader's Log, April 2024

April was a chaotic month for me, as my wife and I packed up our belongings and moved to California. I ended up driving, transporting house plants and an oversized dog in the way-back of our old Honda CR-V.

Bob Dylan in America by Sean Wilentz (audiobook)

As the dog and I worked our way across Ohio, Indiana and Missouri, we listened to a collection of essays about Bob Dylan by Sean Wilentz, a Princeton professor but also, tongue-in-cheekily, the "historian in residence" of the Bob Dylan website. Wilentz is a passionate long-time fan of Dylan's, and much of the writing struck me as a bit too passionately fan-ish, but when he mainly wears his historian's, rather than his fan's, headgear, he comes up with some fascinating stuff.

In particular, I enjoyed his long, winding investigation of the roots of the song "Delia," one of the oldest blues songs, which as it happens (and I had never known this, even though I have played my own version of "Delia" on the guitar since I was a teenager in the late 1970s) was based on actual events -- the murder of a woman named Delia Green in 1900. In fact, Delia was just a 14-year-old girl, killed by a child barely a year older, a 15-year-old named Mose Houston, who is referred to as Curtis in the song, at least in Dylan's version. The lyrics draw on actual dialog from the case, including the murderer's insouciant expectation that he would not be jailed, but merely fined, to which the judge replied, "Poor boy, you got ninety-nine." And the most affecting line of the song actually echoes the historical record as well:

Delia, my Delia, how could it be You loved all them rounders but you never did love me.

"Bob Dylan in America" is only the third audiobook I've ever managed to listen to start-to-finish. In fact, I tried and failed to listen to several others on the cross-country trip, including "William Blake vs. the World," "Hitch-22," and Tommy Orange's new novel, "Wandering Stars." Nothing against any of those books, I just wasn't able to enjoy the audiobook experience for some reason. (With the Christopher Hitchens book, the author's lovely reading voice, rumbly on the bottom and crisp on the top, just didn't render clearly on my car's crap stereo, and I couldn't understand a thing he was saying.)

Anyway, before the long car trip, the only two audiobooks I ever listened to in full were Barack Obama's "Dreams of My Father" and Werner Herzog's "Every Man for Himself and God Against All." Like the Wilentz book, these were narrated by their authors. Somehow I find it much more compelling to hear an author reading his/her work, rather than listening to plummy-voiced actors narrating other people's stories. Unlike Obama and Herzog, Wilentz doesn't have a particularly interesting voice but it's a familiar one -- a tad nasal, a tad twangy, as might be expected of a guy who grew up in Brooklyn in the 1950s.

Regarding those Brooklyn roots, it was weirdly jarring to learn, in the first moments of listening to Wilentz read, that he had grown up in the same Brooklyn neighborhood as me, albeit maybe eight or ten years before I did. Personal info like that (his father ran a record store in Greenwich Village and was tied into the whole Village folk scene of the early 1960s) made the telling much richer, and gave me the patience to get through some of the longer, slavishly positive essays about certain Dylan performances and albums that probably don't warrant quite so much attention. (Wilentz has far more patience for late Dylan work than I do, and there's no small amount of material in the book about later albums like "Love and Theft," and Dylan's controversial gospel recordings, and even "Shadows in the Night," the ultra weird collection of covers of pop songs from the '40s and '50s, many of them made famous by Frank Sinatra.)

One of the nice things about listening to this particular book during a cross-country drive was that, after certain chapters, such as an overlong appreciation of a Dylan concert at New York's Philharmonic Hall in 1964, I could go back and listen to the album in question. So aside from that particular concert (interesting performance, I must say) I also listened to "Blonde on Blonde" for the umpteenth time, and "The Basement Tapes," which is probably my most favorite album ever, "Blood on the Tracks," which to my surprise felt like it hadn't aged well, and "World Gone Wrong," probably the most "recent" Dylan album that I liked, even despite the wreckage of his singing voice.

Having said all that, I'm not sure I would ever recommend this audiobook--unless you find yourself with a hell of a lot of time on your hands and lot of miles to drive. In that case, have at it!

Report on Myself by Gregoire Bouillier

After re-reading Gregoire Bouillier's wonderful "The Mystery Guest" in March, I got a hold of a copy of his only other book that has been published in English, "Report on Myself," a lesser and lesser-known work.

In tl;dr terms, "Report on Myself" is a fragmentary recollection of Bouillier's life, focusing mainly on his parents and older brother, but also on his various lovers.

Like "The Mystery Guest," "Report on Myself" purports to be factual, and I have no reason to think that it isn't a truthful retelling, but because so much of the life it describes is grotesque and even horrifying, you have to wonder, or even hope, that the author is embellishing the facts.

In any case, the book opens with a description of his parent's menage a trois in Algeria in the late 1950s, the result of which is the birth of the author himself. Bouillier is, his mother tells him, the son not of his father but of the third member of their menage, an Algerian, hence Bouillier's olive complexion. (We also get quick report on the quality of his father's penis, at least according to his mother.) Later on, Bouillier says, he was sexually abused by his older brother. Later still, Bouillier shared moment of grotesque intimacy with his own mother.

Suffice to say, this was a messed up family.

None of this is really shocking so much as just ick.

It's hard to believe this book is by the same guy that wrote "The Mystery Guest." That book, his second, was charming and funny. It focused itself on a tiny event, a party at which he, the author, was playing the role of "mystery guest" at an artist's birthday party. The narrator was believably aching from a broken heart and amusingly uncertain of himself as he steeled for his first encounter with his ex-girlfriend, years after she left him. And most importantly, the book was wonderfully written, with elegant curlicues of sentences that ran on and on as the narrator recalled the humiliation and pain of his heartbreak.

By contrast, "Report on Myself" is lumpy and hard to follow, jumping from year to year and even deep into the Bouillier family's past, with no apparent narrative through-line other than, well, it was the guy's life, so it all must be related somehow. The Gregoire Bouillier narrating "Report on Myself" is something of a cliched Frenchman, moody and churlish. At one point he slaps a girlfriend in the face, an act that probably wasn't terribly surprising at the time the book was written, but feels brutish today. There's no sense of humor here, none of the jokey self-awareness that makes "The Mystery Guest" such a pleasure to read.

Strangest of all, "Report on Myself" is poorly written. This may be a defect of the translation. (It was translated by Bruce Benderson; "The Mystery Guest" was translated by Lorin Stein.) I don't know, but I somehow doubt Mr. Benderson is to blame.

At the Bottom of the River by Jamaica Kincaid

I am not sure but I think I have never read Jamaica Kincaid until now. A collection of dreamy reveries of childhood, this was her first book and it's not really like anything I've ever read before, at least not anything that wasn't labeled poetry.

That's both a strength and a weakness of the book; the individual pieces, which I resist calling stories, generally lack narrative and character, and they feature rich, often repetitive language, so they resemble poems. But they are awfully long for poems, and because they tend to follow their own logic, they don't proceed, really, but flit about, like a moth on a hot night.

For the most part, the pieces express the feeling of a moment. In "In the Night," a child lies awake in bed, cataloging the sounds of the evening. The child's imagination then takes over, turning reality into fantasy: a bird-woman feeding on the blood of her enemies, a dead neighbor in a clean suit, having a glass of rum. It's wonderful, it's incantatory, it's swirling and unexpected. But it's also hard to say what it is, other than wonderful, incantatory, and swirling. I mean, that's great, but I somehow want something more. I suppose that's a defect in me, the reader, and not Kincaid, the writer. But after a few of these wonderful swirling creations I was impressed but also dizzy and disoriented.

I will read more of Kincaid, though.

Agua Viva by Clarice Lispector

I was so mystified and frustrated by the last Lispector I had read, ("Near to the Wild at Heart," blogged for January, 2024) that I decided to pick up another of her works and give it a go, but I can't say that I am any clearer on this writer and I certainly can't understand the rabid devotion she engenders in some of her readers.

As with the Kincaid, I guess it's just me!

Anyway, "Aqua Viva" is a sort of diary of an artist. Paragraphs mark individual entries. Some follow what preceded. Some don't.

As with "Near to the Wild at Heart," there is no shortage of abstract musing. For example, "The secret harmony of disharmony: I don't want something already made but something still being tortuously made."

For some reason, this reminded me of nothing more than Lloyd Dobler, the teenage hero of the movie "Say Anything," discussing his plans for the future:

I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed.

Anyway, I remain mystified by the appeal of Lispector. I feel doltish, reading the blurbs calling her a remarkable writer, a hidden genius, an artist who belongs in the pantheon of Kafka and Joyce. WTH? I'm going to have to find a thoughtful essay on her to try to help me understand.

One thing I would say is that Lispector seems to pride herself on "improvisation," that is, she is trying to express herself in writing as if she were a jazz musician. One of the last lines in the book is: "This improvisation is." And early in the book she writes, "I know what I am doing here: I'm improvising. But what's wrong with that? improvising as in jazz they improvise music, jazz in fury improvising in front of the crowd."

This strikes me as a pretty weak understanding of what improvising is -- a romanticized notion that improvisation means just letting go, that chaotic blasts of words are somehow truer or realer for the fact that they burst forth essentially unbidden. But that's not what improvisation is about, not at all. (If it were, I would be Thelonious Monk or Django Reinhart.) Improvisation is ever so much more than simply letting go, "jazz in fury."

It's a small thing but it bugged me while I was trying to dig through "Agua Viva."

Maybe I will pick up Benjamin Moser's biography of Lispector. Maybe not. Life is short.

[pinemountainobservations]

Observation: RYM Top 100 Album Cover Review #14

The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady by Charles Mingus

Out of Rate Your Music’s top albums so far, this is the first one that doesn’t fit into any subgenre within Rock or Hip-Hop. I think there’s probably some very interesting criticism that someone smarter than me could level about how RYM is dominated by mostly male users and their opinions on music. Rock and Hip-Hop are the most popular genres among men on average, so it makes sense that the “greatest albums of all time” according to RYM fall mostly within those genres, even if they are experimental or alternative versions.

Anyways, I don’t really want to write a whole essay dissecting the various flaws of a stupid music rating website, so let’s talk about RYM’s favorite jazz record of all time, The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, arranged by Charles Mingus.

This record is great. Of course it is, it's this high for a reason. It’s got a different feel than some of the other jazz albums that I’ll talk about later, Mingus was working with a much larger group than most of his contemporaries and the music ends up exploring many more spaces and feeling a lot larger and grander because of it. Personally, I think I appreciate the spiritual jazz of Pharaoh Sanders and John Coltrane a bit more, but I’m also not a huge jazz-head, and definitely don’t appreciate all the subtleties. I’m okay with that though, I’m sure I’ll get better at it as I listen to more great jazz, and for now I’m fine just sticking to album cover reviews.

So what about that cover? This one is pretty simple, it’s a photograph that almost looks like a painting, with a bit of text and a very plain background. Like a lot of older records, including ones I’ve already reviewed like Abbey Road and Ziggy Stardust, I think my current expectations for design and aesthetic are definitely getting in the way of appreciating this cover for what it was when it was made. But at the same time, I’m only here to give my opinion, so I can only really judge it by my standards. And my standards tell that this album, while it does fall into the “picture of the artist with text” genre of cover, it’s at least a nice and somewhat interesting version of that. The portrait is really cool, Mingus looks very smooth, relaxed but powerful, and it’s a great way to introduce him as the orchestrator of the music that’s to come. The text is alright, I like the font and placement of his name, but the name of the album is in a different, very boring font and I feel like a slightly different placement would make it more readable. The smaller text underneath is in another version of the title text’s font, so we’ve got three different fonts in three different type sizes sitting all right below each other, which is a strange choice. The color choices are nice though, and it's overall not a bad cover. Just kind of boring and with weird text choices. I personally think a more maximalist cover might convey the feeling of the music better, if I hadn’t listened to this I would have guessed that this is just one cool dude playing the saxophone (I know Mingus was a bassist, but that also isn’t conveyed by the cover at all). Bonus points for being a really good portrait and an example of nice photography, but it’s still not my favorite cover.

For the first jazz album in RYM’s top 100, I’m starting off pretty low with a 5/10

[thursdaygxrls]

how do you preplan homework I need the tips

this is actually such a sweet question and i am so happy to answer it, i love school and homework…it’s love-hate

my college is a weird modern liberal arts college that doesn’t do school in a normal way?? i only have 3 classes a semester, and instead of big final tests, we write 15-20 page essays and do creative projects. my homework for one class was to talk to trees, it’s fucking wild.

however, i still have “normal” homework and went through 4 years of high school. so, here’s my things:

Materials: before my classes start, i figure out whether i need to buy the materials, and if i do, how to get them cheap. if you can tell from a syllabus that a class doesn’t adhere strongly to the textbook(s) assigned, i would skip it. if it turns out you need it later on, there’s websites like thriftbooks and abebooks, both of which i loveee for purchasing all my books. full disclosure, i don’t know much about them as companies, but they have some cheap ass books. then, i recommend getting separate materials for each class: one notebook for each class, a seperate folder/binder (whether it be physical or electronic). it just keeps it organized much better. extra points for color coding.

Scheduling: i always, always, ALWAYS make a physical list of my schedule as well as my homework. i have found that writing it down sticks it to my memory much better. when it comes to the schedule, i usually write mine down in a notebook then transfer it to a cute outlay in my journal or another piece of paper.

To-Do Lists: another thing you should write out physically. also, i do want to say here that i know using physical notebooks isn’t for everybody, and i totally respect that. for me, it commits it to my brain. i slack a bit sometimes, but i try every day to write down an organized to-do list of homework. i assign a different pen to every class (usually pink, purple, and blue, but you choose as you like) and write down every single thing i need to get done for them, big or small. i tend to write these on a daily basis, but making a mass one with benchmark goals isn’t a bad idea, just don’t overwhelm yourself with the list of work. writing out this to-do list gives me an idea of how i’ll divide my time to get the work done. here’s a special secret of mine: i’ve recently discovered that if i don’t get all the work done, it’s okay. i usually start with the most important tasks (closest deadlines, heaviest projects, assignments that need turned in) and move onto the more minimal ones (readings, note taking). sometimes, you can’t get everything done, and it’s okay!!

Timing: set aside time for everything, meaning both homework and breaks. my friends and i divided this system last semester that really worked for us: on saturday, we wake up around 9:30-10, plenty of sleep-in time, and go get brunch from our dining hall. around 11:30-12, we go to the library and spend 5-6 hours studying, revising, etc. we have each other to keep us accountable as well as help with things like editing essays. then, we get dinner and call it a night. if you don’t study well with others, make it an independent thing. it’s important to give yourself the time you need to get your work done as well as having some down time. don’t overexert yourself, trust me, i’ve been there. in high school, and the amount of stress i put on myself literally weakened my immune system. you have to care about yourself more than the homework.

Notes: taking notes in class can be a big help in doing your homework. i know that sounds like a dumb thing to say, but im so serious. it can be easy to slack off with notes, especially if you’re in an lecture. try your best not to, it’s worth it!! you don’t have to write everything down, that’s not what notes are about. for me, if a professor is lecturing and also has a powerpoint, i write down what the professor is saying instead of what is on the powerpoint. i know that may seem like another obvious thing, but when professors are lecturing, they usually include better info than just the bullet points. your notes are basically miska-mouska tools: a special tool to use later. (also, side info, they don’t have to be pretty whatsoever, they just have to be legible. when i take notes, i take them in random colored pens and doodle everywhere. they’re not super preppy or anything, but they got the info, and that’s all that matters. doodle away).

i really hope that helped. if it didn’t, or you need more specifics, please don’t be afraid to ask me. i’m trained for this sort of stuff from how much i’ve experimented what works for me. please stay in school guys, i swear it’s fun. okay, bye bye 😁

[soda-boots]

Sorry I was never good like you

"Can we keep up with the ruse" 'Sober' - Lorde

I know I'm having a moment when I'm on social media a lot more than usual, feel a bit detached, more bored than usual and have the urge to put on 'Melodrama' to try and make myself feel better.

Not me getting a text mid-tumblr moment, can I regurgitate in peace.

The summer as a whole has been great actually. I can't fully complain. I went to Alton Towers for my birthday (I just remembered that I never paid for the photos. Done now).

I think the emotion is gone now. There's basically no literary flow happening sadly. Weird that I haven't felt strong enough about something emotionally to write about. Should I be concerned ? The only thing recently that has left me exhausted are these blasted internship applications. So much effort to do, like sure the initial application takes like what 10 minutes maybe (if they don't ask me to write those damn essay questions on why them. Babes be so for real right now). But it's those online assessment (shout out to when I got rejected by Costa for them not thinking I would be a good barista after there online assessments) , those patronising and arduous psychometric tests, situational judgement assessment, culture fit matches, verbal and aptitude quizzes. Ranging from analysing copious amounts of data in an incomprehensibly short amount of time, non-verbal reasoning games.

"pick which matches you best"

"I like working in a diverse environment"

"I get easily bored with routine"

Why are you asking me basically 200 personality questions, at some point it's just too tedious and too much. And I dance around for them and perform these tasks because I genuinely want these things. So far I've only gotten two rejections but I haven't applied to that many places yet (it's only September after all). I'm optimistic that something meant for me will come eventually (I only did get my summer job in like April I think. I did apply in February/March). However, did I really get rejected from Barclays because of my personality (like wtf). Got an Amazon rejection too (but I don't really care cause I don't want to work there and also I'm still not sure I want to be a SWE plus I never practiced hackerrank anyway).

Like this whole process (even just at the start) is already jading me about the world of work in technology. However, something I like will come anyway. Plus I do plan on doing a masters and/or a PhD (how do I even go about making this happen though. I should find out), so I have time (I hope). I should try and do a research internship, that would be good (and a good stepping stone for the masters/phd). So far not many successes but we're early on and I hope things only get better from here.

I should finally work on making that website for my show over the next few months, and actually learn some data structures and algorithms (and leetcode *vom*)

Uhh I love Melodrama so much (I'm on Sober II now).

[epitome-of-an-openbook]

unpopular opinion, but this anon thinks that people should stop focusing on webcomics in fandoms and focus on ao3 fanfics? anon saw a big webcomic series that lasted for a long time end... but knows that the fans will just expect another high quality web comic for quality content, and not read fanfics on ao3?? smaller level stuff isn't bad...

That sure is an interesting take. I'd like to know what your reason for believing that web-based fancomics will take away from AO3 is?

Fancomics, even high quality ones, have been around longer than the internet has, they were parts of fan zines just as often as written fanfiction back when the only way you could get fanfic/fan content was through mailing lists and underground subscriptions to zines. There were fancomics for Star Trek only a year or two after color TV sets had become the household standard. Even then, webcomics have been around since Witches and Stitches which had started coming out in 1985, 25 years before AO3 was created.

Personally, I think it's extremely limiting to focus on just one type of fancontent - webcomics/fancomics take longer to produce than the purely written works that are most popular on websites like AO3, FF.Net, and Wattpad because the creator has to not only outline and write their story, but they also have to illustrate it. A high quality webcomic is likely to take twice to three times as long as most fanfics to update, so I feel like even if someone is more invested in a webcomic than the fanfics they're reading it takes very minimal time away from them reading fics.

Also, people have media preferences - some people in fan spaces prefer webseries and fan videos over fanfics, some people only look at fan art, some people struggle with reading and only consume fanfic through podfics.

Accessibility in fan spaces is weird as well and should also be considered, especially for young fans and people with disabilities. Say a fan is blind or visually impaired, their preferred fancontent might be podfics, podcasts, or video essays. Say a young member of a fandom, around 12-13 years old, uses a computer or phone that has parental security on it which has most social media and websites like DeviantArt and Ao3 blocked because their parents don't want them exposed to anything too explicit - a lot of younger kids first social media exposure comes through Pinterest - there's not gonna be a lot (if any) written fanworks that they have access to, but web comics and fanart are the staples of Fandom on Pinterest. Say a fan is dyslexic, there have also been studies that show that text in comics is better suited for people with dyslexia - so accessibility in fan spaces for them means that its going to be easier for them to consume fancomics than longform fanfic. Also some people just don't like comics that much, and some people don't like reading that much, so whenever someone has a preference they will look for their fancontent somewhere where their needs and preferences are met.

Personally my preferred form of fan content to consume is written fanfiction, but I will still read a fancomic if it catches my interest, especially if I'm in some kind of reading slump.

I don't know for sure what your reasoning is behind advocating for less fancomics in comparison to fanfics, but just try to remember that fandom and fancontent have been around for a long time in all shapes and forms and we should respect the various mediums that fancontent comes in because all of those creators work hard and that deserves to be recognized.

[shesyourcocaine]

Hi hello, it’s your secret rocker santa again, emerged from the depths of job and apartment hunting!

First off, definitely don’t apologize about writing essays in response—I’m finding it challenging to keep asks within a reasonable length myself x) Plus I loved hearing your Springsteen thoughts!! I completely agree about how vividly he paints circumstances that are quite different from mine. I actually haven’t listened to The Ghost of Tom Joad yet—that’s something to look forward to :D I immediately gravitated to the songs from that album that you put on the playlist, so I’m really looking forward to listening to it properly.

Speaking of—thank you so much for the playlist!!! I honestly enjoyed it so much, and will definitely keep listening to it. A few standouts from my first impressions (which may shift over time—I find I tend to gravitate towards slower, simpler songs first, while louder/more complex ones grow on me with time):

I loved the Springsteen in general, of course—you put a whole lot of my absolute favorites in there! But the ones from the Ghost of Tom Joad album really stood out, because they were new to me and I was really drawn to them.

From the Morning - this is very much in the vein of music I grew up listening to, and I loved it at once.

As We Go Along - I’m not familiar with The Monkees, but I might have to check out more from them—I really liked this one!

So Long, Marianne - Leonard Cohen is one of those artists I’m always meaning to listen to more of. I’ve only really listened to a few of his songs, but I love the ones I have listened to—this one is new to me, and is an immediate favorite.

Kate Bush in general, honestly, although And So Is Love stood out to me most on first blush. Listening to her songs gave me a similar feeling that I got listening to Springsteen for the first time: the part of me that resists new things going ‘hmm, I’m not sure about that?’ while the rest of me goes ‘on the other hand I should probably listen to more immediately right now just to make sure’. She’s catapulted to the top of my ‘to listen’ list of artists I'm not familiar with.

Girl from the North Country 

After Hours - This one is more relatable than I’d like it to be x)

Tori Amos in general, but especially Pretty Good Year and Silent All These Years. I definitely want to listen to more of her music as well—I get how she could become an all-time favorite.

How did you first come across Tori Amos?

I’ll be sending some song recs in return shortly—I also got rather excited assembling them, and this ask is quite long enough already x)

Hi again! I'm so glad you liked the playlist I had a lot of fun making it. That Kate Bush song And So is Love is soooo good and honestly it's really underrated among Kate Bush fans so i'm glad that one stood out to you - it's one of my favorites.

As for Tori Amos I could probably write like an entire 5000 page book about her and her music i cant even get into all of it. I got to go to one of her concerts this year with my best friend and it was literally the best concert I'd ever been to. It's a bit embarrassing for me honestly but I first heard her music from this really bad Netflix show called "everything sucks". I would definitely NOT recommend watching it, but a character in the show is a becomes a fan of Tori Amos and goes to a concert. The show has the song Silent All These Years in it and I went crazy when I first heard it and I played it on repeat for months before I heard other songs. I got really really into her music after I saw some youtube comments and a really weird website that accused her of being a satanist? Idk what they were talking about but basically I got curious and listened to the rest of her stuff! She's really the only musician I think who can't make a bad song. Even her like really dorky songs I can't help love Idk what it is about them!

If you were to start listening to Tori I think most people start with Little Earthquakes or Under the Pink which is her first and second album which are really great. My favorite album is probably Boys for Pele but my favorite changes a lot. I think my favorite song of hers is Northern Lad or Hey Jupiter. Again, it changes a lot lol. If you like more slower songs she has the album Scarlet's Walk which is a concept album that follows a woman named Scarlet as she travels around the United States. It's really different from her other albums it's got a really kind of soft-rock pop sound to it. It's very literary I guess. Honestly might be a bit insane for saying this but its like weirdly kind of Springsteenish? The content of the album as a reflection the sociopolitical climate of America through the story of kind of down on your luck average American citizen I think is very Springsteen like lol. But of course she does it in a weird way that's not as accessible as Bruce's music. Still great though :)

I can't wait to hear what your song recommendations are! Talk to you soon!

[lazardotsocial]

LAZAR DOT SOCIAL GEN 5: ROTATE

Pre-Launch Essay

It is my intention to start writing about each generation of lazar as I launch, in an attempt to communicate what I was thinking when I made them. In these essays I'll be going over some of the inspirations and intentions that lead me to make this terrible machine. Come along with me!

1. WELCOEM TO MY FUCK HOUSE

For a short period on January 29th 2015, tumblr was the best social media site in history. On that date it reached heights that have never since been approached, let alone surpassed. January 29th is day tumblr pushed an update containing a number of bugs that gave users the ability to style their posts in new ways. Far too many ways and far too powerful ways. Users could, for example, stick their posts to the browsers so they’d stay in place when you tried to scroll away. Or put their posts on top of other posts. Or insert text into the margins of the page. For the few hours before the change was rolled back, tumblr descended into total, beautiful chaos.

Now, the primary reason websites don’t let their users do this sort of thing is it’ll make your site completely unreadable (1). I do not respect this reason. Who said sites should be legible? The social is complete mess, so social media should be the same, so say I. I have been dreaming reenacting the glorious chaos of that winter night for a while and with generation 5 of Lazar, I am taking a stab at it.

2. The Feed

Gen 5 is also about the feed. In your standard feed, the kind you'd see on facebook or twitter, each post acts as an atomic unit. Posts are capable of being related but by default they are not. Each is it’s own universe, with no relationship to the posts above or below it. Or at least that’s the idea - I don’t think people are really capable of reading like that. We create connections between posts placed in proximity automatically, even if those connections aren’t intended or if they get us into trouble.

In Gen 5 posts are allowed to wander away from their proper chronological positioning, making their own decisions about placement in the feed. Posts can block or overlap other posts. The interactions between a post and it’s neighbors becomes very active and impossible to ignore. And why not? Those posts have a relationship and I've decided to make it an undeniable relationship.

Letting users freely pick their angle and offset is an intentionally over the top method of making that point. Every version of Lazar is ridiculous. I’m not interested in making a social media site that works. I’m interested in making a social media site that stimulates the imagination.

3. LA2AR

Gen 4 of Lazar ended in February, so it’s been slumbering for 5 months. During that time I threw away all the code I’ve been using for Lazar up until now and started over from scratch. The old lazar ran on Vue, google firebase, and google cloud functions (2). But I decided firebase has too many opinions about how it delivers data and so it had to go.

The new Lazar is a vanilla rails app. No front end javascript framework, just rails and erb. I want to keep this codebase simple and flexible. I want to be able to develop new and weird features quickly and with minimum fuss. Rails is a framework I already know, so hopefully the amount of time I have to spend learning. We’ll see how it pains out long term.

Making online art is often frustrating to me because of how much time I have to spend struggling with my tools. Every form of art involves some amount of technical skill and some about creative expression – you have to learn how to mix your pigments before you can paint a picture – but with tech art it feels like the technical requirements go on and on forever. At some point though you have to stop casting around for new tools and just make something. I want a set of skills and tools that let me quickly create and deploy new sites while still give me the flexibility to make whatever I want. I don’t I have that yet. But hopefully I'm working towards it.

4. Links

Here’s some stuff I was reading and thinking about while I made gen 6.

No More Pages and Reading Humanized, the blog posts that introduced the world to the idea of the infinite scroll. It's interesting to see what the idea was at the start and compare it how it turned out.

Twitter, The Intimacy Machine by C. Thi Nguyen. I’ve known about context collapse for a while but Nguyen’s insight about how Twitter’s limit character length leads to posts that require high levels of shared context is very interesting.

New_Public and Reboot – both organizations/newsletters focused on improving social media. They're also interested in social media but are doing something different what I'm doing.

Footnotes

1. The other reason websites don’t let their users just style their posts however they like is that some styling can break or attack other people’s computers. I grudgingly respect this reason and that’s why lazar isn’t quite as chaotic as tumblr was. I’d let you just write any CSS you want but I’m afraid you might do crimes with it :( It is possible to give the users styling power while stripping out the dangerous options (cohost is doing very exciting work in this space) but that’s a lot of work and I’m very lazy. Gen 5 represents one compromise between no options and all of them but I’ll likely return to this well with future generations.

2. Shout out again to Kate Compton’s excellent social media speedrun video which I used to build the foundation the first four generations used.

[devildomimagines]

Solomon: Simeon broke the Purgatory Hall's router, so I'm borrowing your guys' router for a bit. Hope you don't mind.

How do bros react?

I'm not gonna lie, I laughed when this came in. I took this as Solomon hanging around the HOL but as I was writing I realized you might have meant Solomon taking the router so I put that in Levi’s part.

Belphegor

He probably wouldn’t notice at first.

Rudely awakened, in his opinion, by an explosion below his room in the attic.

He was going to go back to sleep but when he smelled the lingering smoke, he figured he should check it out.

Yawning, he opens the door and finds Solomon fanning a cauldron while reading through his tablet.

“Belphegor! Did I wake you? I’m sorry, there was an unexpected reaction.”

Always one to get right to the point, Belphie asks, “Why are you here?”

“MC said I could come over. Simeon broke the Purgatory Hall’s router, so I’m borrowing your guys’ for a bit. Hope you don’t mind.”

Belphie furrowed his brow and answered, “No, just keep it down or move somewhere else.” Ultimately he didn’t care as long as his naps wouldn’t be interrupted.

Beelzebub

Beel was on the way out of the kitchen and passed Solomon sitting on the couch in the common room.

He was a few steps from passing the room completely when the sight of Solomon finally registered. He took a few steps back.

Solomon giggled as Beel came back into view. “Hello~”

Beel popped a chip in his mouth as he replied, “Hi Solomon, no offense but what are you doing here?”

“No offense taken, Simeon broke the Purgatory Hall’s router, so I’m borrowing your internet for a bit. Hope you don’t mind.”

“Ah. I don’t mind.” Then a thought popped up, “Does Lucifer know you’re here?”

“MC invited me so I assumed they asked permission.”

Beel nodded, “Probably. See you.” He then headed towards his room to get ready for a run. He also doesn’t really care.

Asmodeus

“Solomon!?” Asmo gasps, “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming over!?”

Solomon sighed, “If I told you then I wouldn’t get any work done.”

“Work?” Asmo walked over and rubbed Solomon’s shoulders. Asmo scanned the papers spread over the dining room table and the website pulled up on Solomon’s laptop.

“Simeon broke the Purgatory Hall's router, so I'm borrowing your guys' router for a bit. Hope you don't mind.”

“Of course not! You’re always welcome!” Asmo smiled warmly at his pact partner.

Solomon couldn’t help smiling back, “Do you want to join us? MC should be back shortly with some snacks.”

“How can I say no to my two favorite humans?” Asmo giggled, “I’ll go grab my school bag.”

Satan

Irritation flared as he came across someone sitting in his favorite chair in the HOL’s library.

The flash of white hair had him seeing red, he was ready to rip Mammon out of the chair with force if needed.

When he stomped around to be face to face with the wrongdoer, he was taken back, “S-Solomon?”

“Oh hi Satan! Doing some reading?” Solomon gestured to the book in the blond’s hand.

“Mhm,” he hummed as he wrangled in his wrath but he couldn’t stop his next statement’s bite, “What are you doing in our library?”

“Simeon broke the Purgatory Hall's router, so I'm borrowing your guys' router a bit for research on this project. Hope you don't mind.”

Satan nodded, “That’s fine.” He resigned himself to his second favorite chair, “Simeon sure does have a penchant for breaking technology in unexplainable ways.”

“Right?” Solomon laughed and the two settled into an amiable silence.

Leviathan

30 minutes to release, Levi reminded himself. One of his favorite animes was premiering their season and series finale and he was binge watching the show to be ready. He had it timed perfectly, he’d wrap up 5 minutes before, get some water and snacks and settle in.

At 20 minutes, his TV and computer both went black. He freaked out and when they both booted up with an interrupted connection error he stormed from his room.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing!?” Levi yelled with a pointed finger as he found Solomon packing up the router.

“Simeon broke the Purgatory Hall's router, so I'm borrowing your guys' router for a bit. Hope you don't mind.”

“I absolutely do mind!” Levi ripped the router from the bag and started plugging it back in. As it reestablished the connection, he looked at the time, 10 minutes!

“Well what am I supposed to do, MC said I could use it for a bit?” Solomon looked to Levi for answers.

Hating to cross MC and also running out of time Levi said, “I don’t know, just work on the project here? I need the internet for the release of the season finale that’s dropping…” another glance at the time, “in 5 minutes! Whatever you do, don’t unplug that router or I’ll come hunt you down.” Levi made a gesture that he was watching the sorcerer and then bolted from the room.

Mammon

He wasn’t doing anything important, just scrolling through Devilgram when the video wouldn’t load. Weird, he thought, refreshed and now his whole timeline wouldn’t load. His D.D.D. was still connected to the internet so he figured Levi was playing around with too many devices.

He pushed himself up out of bed to give the third born a piece of his mind.

On his way to Levi’s room, he found Solomon posted up in the common room. He had his laptop and tablet on the table with paperwork scattered around. It looked like he was taking a break by looking at his D.D.D. just as Mammon had been.

“So it was you, sucking up all the internet,” Mammon accosted.

Solomon jumped, he looked embarrassed to have been caught on his phone, “Hello Mammon. Simeon broke the Purgatory Hall's router, MC said I could borrow your guys' router for a bit. Hope you don't mind.”

Mammon wanted to tell Solomon to get lost but if MC had given the ok... Mammon felt conflicted and when Solomon smiled, he knew he was right where the wizard wanted him.

“Whatever! I’m heading out anyway,” Mammon grumbled and decided to head to a casino, he deserved to blow off some steam.

Lucifer

Lucifer sighed, how did I end up like this? He looked up from his office chair at Solomon typing away on his laptop.

Originally MC asked if Solomon could come over to finish his essay. He hadn’t minded as long as MC was with him, not totally trusting the sorcerer to keep his nose out of the secrets of the House of Lamentation.

Solomon had come over earlier than MC had mentioned, “Simeon broke the Purgatory Hall's router. I hope you don't mind that I’m early but I have other assignments that I need to get done.”

MC wasn’t back yet so Lucifer led him inside and to his office, offering it was a good quiet spot to focus until MC returned. The unsaid added benefit that he could keep Solomon under his watchful eye.

The next time Lucifer looked up, he caught Solomon’s gaze. He narrowed his eyes, “Were you watching me?”

“Maybe,” Solomon shrugged, “Were you watching me?”

Lucifer sighed again as he thought, when was MC going to be back?

[struwwelzeter]

I’m surprised yet I’m not surprised that I haven’t seen anyone on tumblr talk about the Balenciaga collab. Twitter and Instagram are almost universally panning the move and are quite pissed off at it. Personally I think the collab was a dumb and tone deaf move on the management, but I can’t fuss about it too much because of a lot previous musicians I liked ate these kinds of designer streetwear brands up and I just had to turn a blind eye to it eventually.

😕 I was really happy tumblr largely ignored it because I expected the outrage and dreaded it. My take is not gonna be a popular one, and I am sorry it’s probably not what you hoped to get. I’ll try to explain why, but I do have big feelings about this and I don’t know how articulate i can be.

The thing I am seeing in all of these comments, and what I think you refer to when you say it was tone deaf, is a lot of hurt. And in a way I completely, 100% understand that. The problem is, I think, that it’s misdirected when it is directed at the band. The fact that some well off fashion victim can drop what some of us earn in a month on a hoodie, hurts. It hurts that people that have been with this band for years and years, have saved any and each magazine clipping they can get their hands on and struggle to save up for months to buy a concert ticket while other people can do that - that shit hurts. And I understand that. I really do. I feel it too.

The thing is though, and this is where I fear what I say could be taken the wrong way: Rammstein doesn’t owe anyone anything. They don’t owe anyone to stick with only accessible merch, they don’t owe us some weird class loyalty where they turn stuff like this down. They just don’t. Why would they? Why? Because the thing that is hurtful about it is systemic, and they don’t owe us to fix systemic unfairness. They don’t owe anyone to not take advantage of it either, when it is offered to them, because they aren’t exploiting anyone but the exploiters, if that makes sense. They just don’t. Sorry. They are a well off band, but they aren’t rich enough to fix capitalism. I am gonna ask you very honestly, would you say no to becoming successful in a system that by it’s very nature devalues what you do, makes it a huge lottery draw if you can even make a living of what you do and takes advantage of you wherever it can? Rammstein got very lucky, and worked very hard for longer than most people on this website are alive. But in general, the way this society treats people like them, yes, even a large potion of their fan base, is a disgrace. They are a 1 in I don’t know how many cases of people who took the same risks and had the same passion and didn’t make it. And I think they know that too. I am sorry, but they’ve earned it.

I grew up far below what is considered the poverty line in my country, in a community of artists, and I feel very strongly about this one thing: The same person that will drop a 6 figure number on a painting will tell you not to go to art school and get a real job instead, because you can never be “successful” that way (whatever they mean by that.) Please read that sentence again.

Society doesn’t give a shit about artists. And when I mean “society” I actually mean fans, too, because ... I could write an essay about this, but basically because they complain more about not getting a ticket refund than the fact that currently thousands of artists fall by the wayside and won’t make it through this pandemic. I repeat, society, AT large, don’t give a wet fart about artists. It pretends it does, because they want to look cultured, but it really doesn’t. Every now and then they lift one up into the heights of the glittery temples of fame and stardom, to circle jerk with their art criticism and their champagne events and photo ops. And it’s disgusting it works that way, yes. But again, that is systemic. And what I need you to understand is that the majority of people who turn to the extremely precarious lifestyle of trying to paint or to make music for a living, take up with how the world is treating them, take the risk of falling of the grod financially, take the degradation of being asked to “work for exposure” and the “why are you still doing this, wouldn’t it be easier to —— it’s clearly not going anywhere” questions year after year after year for ... they do it for that one tine little chance to be that 1 that gets lifted. This isn’t about the passion — you don’t make art to be “successful”, there are so much easier ways. It’s about taking the merciless grind and maltreatment for that one shot to one day be seen and recognised as worthy people and to get out of the grind. And when it happens, they are supposed to turn it down? Why?

Sorry, but no.

I understand that this is an inflammatory take. I do, in a way, understand why people get angry. I just don’t agree with the direction of the anger - at all. The thing is, if you look at it in a more innocent way, the creative director of Balenciaga, as I understand it, was a civil war refugee who somehow managed to become the leading designer on one of the biggest name in fashion. Do you think it was likely for him to get there? Do you think it was ever easy for any boy to become a fashion designer against a backdrop of constant teasing and a probably even smaller chance of “making it” than musicians? But he did it, and turns out he is a Rammstein fan. So he does what he loves. Big deal. To be clear: I think the existence of brands like Balenciaga is stupid to me too. But still - the same person that will drop a 1000€ bucks on a raincoat will tell you not to go to fashion school, you know? Rammstein also have a history of being in the high fashion world. They had 3 exclusive photoshoots with zoo magazine in the time they had like, idk, 1? With Rolling Stone, they were in fashion magazines first in the US, they had runway shows in their early career ... this was a long time coming. I WAS surprised it was Balenciaga. I hoped it would be something like Givenchy or McQueen but I guess they’re not that classy - what do you expect from a bunch of guys who wear sandals with tracksuits.

Another take I see quite often is the whole “well now there will be knock offs and people that don’t even know the band will start wearing it” and while that is a huge pet peeve, I have to think of Flake writing about that in his book and being all awed by how anyone could become that big - and just feeling a but of a misty eyed satisfaction of “they made it.”

I understand people are angry. But maybe consider of you’re really angry at the band - or simply the fact that we live in a world where some people have to make a living for weeks off the same money someone else drops on a t-shirt.