#I’ve wrote an essay about this

[simpforshitposts]

I swear Batman 66 is a entrepreneur

3 seasons aired over 2 years and it had 120, 25 minute, episodes

Plus the plots? Immaculate

They just aren’t doing it like they used to folks

[my-darling-boy]

It’s horrible how my design course has killed my enjoyment in creativity because all they want is finished pieces founded in nothing but a spontaneous mark just to hang at some concrete art gallery or to sell to some “join our revolution” comfy business-casual company with a prison cell wellness room. I’m not saying that it’s “not art” —cos that’s a different post altogether— it’s that the ethos behind this particular formula for art education is ruining the way we think about creation.

Design courses (and other art courses I’ve heard?) are no longer teaching artists or designers techniques, drawing skills, art fundamentals and allowing them to find their own voice so much as they are only instructing how to tic boxes alongside pushing corporate and classist motivated style/methodology bias aimed at producing workers, not creatives, not to mention providing Adobe with endless funds for their despicable scam programs. That’s it. My creativity is only a means to money for them, and if they can extract the process of creation from me without the complex creative intimacy involved in it, they know they can churn out products and services faster and it’s concerning some lecturers don’t seem to be aware this is what they’re teaching? Like they’re buying into industry propaganda?

And the whole time it’s sold to you like you can be some trailblazer when the irony is they’re usually either prepping you for cubicle work or for some misguided high horse creative team pumping out design solutions completely divorced from the reality. I’m tired of all the talks about sustainability in a vacuum with no conversation about nuanced designs that factor in broader social and economic perspectives which lack thereof is leading to sustainable products being sold at a price only able to be afforded by wealthier people who are causing said economic and social problems and contributing to the rapid obsoletion of trades and crafts. Lecturers and speakers don’t seem to think that’s any of our concern and should just worry about producing the design for the hypothetical Bluetooth powered organic hairbrush or using the twigs to make the pattern for the £85 fabric square.

Like? Can I please make something that actually resonates with people outside the circle jerk of egotistical creatives and corporations? Something charming and maybe idk something that doesn’t make me want to tear my miserable portfolio in half with my teeth? And they’re like Mm nope sorry it has to be an extreme close up of a mark making abstract leaf you made from a recycled trash bag inspired by a stalled urban space which we will force you to price at £100 during your exhibition 5 people will bother to attend and no you’re not allowed any other style cos this isn’t the Dark Ages :///

I think the worst thing my lecturer ever said was, while looking around the room of our class work reduced down to a series of cubes and splatters and abstract typography, “Wow, I love how you can’t tell what anyone’s [main artist discipline] is!” Like awww conformity at the expense of a person’s individuality to make pieces for airport hallways and rich people’s living rooms wow so cool heehee like girl that’s not good?? Why on Earth are you complimenting us for that? Like I get it, I thought this course would boost skillset as an illustrator (as we were told), turns out the degree is really not for me, fair enough to anyone thinking that, but forcing students to produce modern abstract art because you think it’s the ONLY Logical Pathway for the future of design, judging them intensely for doing a different style, and thinking producing financially inaccessible art + design is the solution to things like climate change and community severance is an objectively bad take.

[lucky-clover-gazette]

i honestly love the fact that i have just been following two people very invested in dnf for like a year, either bc of a misclick or other mutual fandom, because i have so little knowledge about what is and is not real with those two. i have never played or watched a mindcraft in my life, however i can acknowledge insane homoeroticism when i see it, and those two are either ridiculously committed to a bit or ridiculously committed to each other, and to the like fifteen people who still seem to care post-face reveal (which i always thought was awful by the way, like people were dicks about it) it doesn’t really matter

[qprpbj]

oh thank god ppl aren’t crucifying me for saying i like it better that darry dropped out of school over just not going at all i feel so vindicated. i think it makes sm more sense for his character and—-

[moonsanoverthinker]

Guys the hyperfixation has gotten to the point where I’m considering writing whole character analysis essays…

[rooolt]

The concept of lark finding out “what the doodler wants” and then shattering it before anyone else can know is sooooo fascinating to me because the way I’ve always read it the doodler doesn’t want anything. To me, the doodler was horrifying because it was not an all powerful malicious entity with goals or wants, but a faceless brainless force of nature that was so strong it’s mere presence in the world spelled destruction. Like never once in the podcast has the doodler shown any agency or intent, every action in service of it even in amod seemed entirely motivated and verbalized by its acolytes. We know from amod that the doodler thrives of the concept of randomness and to me that’s all it ever was. It was so heavily entrenched in the random and chaos that it physically could not have wants or desires for power because it would so be against its very nature. That’s why the doodler was scary to me, because it could not be manipulated or tricked like a person could, it was simple raw destructive horrifying power, and I don’t think the lark stuff disproves that. What if that is the truth, what if the doodler doesn’t want anything? If you’re lark, a person who feels crushing responsibility for this disaster and you find out that it is no different in intent than a hurricane, does that not terrify you? Does that not instill in you a fear that if anyone else found out they would feel so powerless against it that they would just give up? They’d give up and the world would end and it would be your fault. This was not the all powerful creature 11 year old you thought it was, the one he wanted to fight to prove his strength, this is pure entropy and chaos and randomness and destruction and no one else can know lest they stop fighting? Is the fighting fruitless, who even knows, but at least it fools you into thinking you’re making a difference.

[incesthemes]

Hi! I read your (excellent) meta about s8-10,l and I would love to chat with you about it. But tumblr etiquette is hard, and I agree with your analysis in part and disagree in part, and the places where I disagree are controversial. So I was wondering if you'd prefer to have me respond on reblog (my thoughts are too long for a tag rant), on a separate post with you tagged, or just link to your post but not tag you? Or uh, maybe something else I havent thought of (like perhaps some thoughts are better left unshared lol)?

Anyway, thanks for the interesting meta!

ohh hi, thank you for reading all that, i know it’s a long one :) i can’t say i really mind what you choose to do with it; honestly i’m so curious about your thoughts i’d be happiest talking to you directly about them through like dms or something (yknow for the gratification of conversation haha). but yeah i don’t care either way, feel free to do as you like

[musicalmoritz]

Reblog this with your ao3 writer brags. Essay comments, fan arts of your fics, popularity, etc. This is the year of boasting

[spoopy-moose]

So sad that Kentucky route zero never took off on tumblr because it’s so hard to fandomfy such a work because I have so many words of analysis on this game I love it so much

[izzibeeb]

as I get nearer and nearer to senior year I start to wonder. is anyone ever going to explain to me what a college essay is or are we just supposed to figure that out by ourselves

[aaaaaaaaagenloser]

(Tw: kinda transphobia? Use of it/its for a character who hasn’t declared what their pronouns are yet. Arguments over whether a character is a person or not; that ties into the pronoun thing here. Bonus points for descriptions of canon-typical gore yipeeee)

An update from after writing this: oh this. Got. This one got away from me?? I think I started this at 4 minutes past the hour. It is now 43 minutes past the hour. shitt.

Update; it is now 17 minutes after the NEXT hour. 26 minutes after th last update. I have seen god in the past hour and she shook in fear of both my power and audacity. I have lunch with my family scheduled in like 6 hours and I have not yet slept. This wasn’t meant to be as long as it is but I was possessed and this is the result. I may edit it and make it smoother later but I’ll make that a separate post, I want this sleep-deprived chunk of words to be here as like a monument to the fact that I could have been playing stardew valley during this time but I chose to do this instead

TLDR: long ass story ahead written by a sleep-deprived and hyperfixation-driven author. Who is now going the fuck to BED

“We can’t just keep it! What if it has a tracking device? It won’t let us fucking touch it so there’s no way of knowing it has one unless it leads them right to us!”

“Ok, I hear you but think. That hasn’t happened yet. It’s been about what, three days? and that hasn’t happened, and they haven’t been violent towards any of us at all. They haven’t tried to go back either, so there’s no risk of them telling or leading Showfall where we are.”

“Why do you keep calling it ‘they’?”

“Well they can’t be an “it” now can it? …wait.”

“Ok can we figure out the gender of the thing in the other room after we figure out if it’s a threat to us or not. It’s not even a fucking person, you remember what those things did to you back there, don’t you?”

“Those people were not themselves, they were just doing what he wanted them to do—“

“They’re not fucking people! Those things are all part of Showfall, just like Hetch was! It’s just waiting for the right time to turn us in, or pull some shit on one of us like they did before.”

“They weren’t… they weren’t in control.”

“Yeah like fuck they weren’t, I saw it fucking happen!”

“You can’t just… Ok. Sneeg. Stop. You don’t speak for me, the one who, oh I don’t know, was the one that shit happened to? They were being controlled just like us—“

“No, no, not like us. We were wandering around and not knowing what the fuck was happening. None of us knew what was happening. We just went along blindly. Those things—on purpose—dragged you to that stupid wall and sewed wires into your hands—“

“Shut up, Sneeg—“

“No you shut up! You didn’t see it fucking happen! I saw them and Bitchface literally hold you down until you passed out! They were fucking choking you, they fucking—they nearly fucking killed you with just their hands, that’s not a little suggestion in the back of your brain, that’s on purpose! That is fucking deliberate, that is a thing those machines chose to do! You don’t remember, you weren’t conscious when they fucking stapled you to the wall and strapped your head in—“

Sneeg glanced at Ranboo for a moment in-between pacing as he ranted, and the far away look in their sibling’s eyes shut them up immediately. Ranboo was still present, thank fuck, but they were looking at their brother like he was holding up a knife to their throat.

“Fuck, Ran, okay, okay—I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have… shit. Do you need Charlie?”

“You don’t know when to shut the fuck up.”

“…okay. Okay. I’m sorry. Do you need me to get Charlie?”

“No, I’m fucking fine.” It did not sound like he meant that at all. His voice was less steady than before. “I don’t want him to worry about our… hitchhiker. He’s worrying enough about… well, everything.”

“The fact that it’s here, so close to us is the reason I’m trying to get you to see, Ran. What if it turns on him? What if it does that shit to him when we aren’t there?”

“We will be there.”

“And when it tries anything, we can kill it?”

“Sneeg!”

“You wouldn’t kill it, even if it hurt our fucking brother?”

“Of course we wouldn’t keep them around if they did that, could we at least just… just leave it behind? …wait, no, they couldn’t take care of themselves. If we had to leave it behind, maybe we should…”

Silence lingered for a bit too long.

“We should what, Ran?”

“…Sneeg, I was about to say that killing it would be a mercy.” The Hero laughed. “Doesn’t that sound familiar?”

The Taken didn’t reply.

“We have to help them. I don’t… I don’t want to be on the other end of a mercy killing. I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore.”

“Okay. I’m—are you okay?”

“…m fine. It’s fine. Just. Can you stop acting like they’re any different from us? Please.”

“What do you want me to think then?” His voice was softer than it had been a few minutes before.

“Just assume that they… that they were someone. Just like we were before. And they didn’t… they didn’t do anything on their own, it was all Showfall.”

“Okay. Fine. Let’s assume they were controlled, they didn’t mean to, so on and so forth. Why haven’t they talked yet.”

“I don’t think any of the drones even could talk. Wait, should we really be calling them a drone—“

“Shut the fuck up, Ranboo, we have got to figure out what to do with it. It probably doesn’t even know what is happening, what the fuck does it matter what we call it.”

“It matters to me! Do you want me to call you by your title? Do you want to call me by mine? …No? Then why are we treating them like all they are is what Showfall made them? We had lives before, we were someone, so they must have been too. They might not realize it, or… or act like it, but they used to be someone. They are a whole person, Sneeg. We have to help them, we can’t just leave them behind because that would mean we are giving up on someone just like us, and we cannot give up on each other. They… they would have hurt us by now if they were going to. And Showfall hasn’t found us since… you know, which means there aren’t any more trackers.

…okay, Sneeg?”

“…okay. If it,” he sighed at the look Ran gave them, “if they try anything, we have to leave them behind. I’m not letting a dumbass puppet be the reason we get taken back.”

“If they—ok, whatever, you’re not understanding. You can’t say one of us somehow wanted to be controlled, and they’re a ‘puppet’ but those rules don’t apply to the rest of us—“

“There is not an ‘us,’ Ran! That thing isn’t like us!”

“Guys?”

A sleepy voice shut the two of them up instantly. They had a split-second conversation with their eyes before looking to their brother. ‘We aren’t done talking about this’ ‘You’e absolutely right, so later?’ ‘Later.’ ‘We’re telling Charlie nothing happened?’ ‘Of course.’ ‘Ok good plan.’

“Why are you two fighting? I’m tired, can we please go back to sleep?”

“We weren’t fighting, we were…”

“…talking about plans for tomorrow. And you can go back to sleep.”

“I don’t want to be by myself.” Charlie looked at Sneeg pointedly, who sighed to Ranboo with a playfully annoyed expression.

“Well I guess I gotta go be a teddy bear again.”

“Have fun”

“Absolutely not.”

Charlie punched Sneeg in the shoulder lightly for that, who just giggled in response and led his little brother back to their room.

Which left Ran by themselves.

Some nights, he would join them, but some nights Charlie couldn’t stand to be anywhere near Ran, and the three of them had made a silent mutual agreement that Charlie trusted Sneeg more than he did Ranboo.

…Ranboo was okay with this. He wasn’t hurt by it. He didn’t cry on the nights he slept by himself.

He didn’t wish he could be the one Sneeg comforted sometimes. They were just fine.

They were fine, which is why they went to the living room where their… well. Their hitchhiker? They weren’t exactly a brother, or a sibling, more like a fourth wheel on a tricycle. Or a flyaway hair. Okay, maybe Ranboo needed to get tbr fuck to sleep, alone or not.

But he found himself in the living room, where their hitchhiker slept. Or, didn’t sleep, as they seemed to not need to. They would sit on the couch and stare idly at the tv. That was what had started the whole conversation with Sneeg in the first place; Ran wanted to leave some kind of entertainment for the fourth person so they wouldn’t be made to sit in the dark for hours. Sneeg took this remark as a perfect opportunity to explain all the reasons why the former drone should be abandoned, but Ranboo would have fucking none of it. Maybe the couch potato (shit, he really needed to come up with a name for them—) didn’t seem to sleep, barely ate, and stayed still unless actually verbally told to move, but they were still a person. Ranboo was sure of it.

Their hand wandered up to the fresh scabs where their mask had been. The fourth person had a mask, one that hadn’t been touched. Despite usually staying still, the person—(Ranboo thinks they might just call this person Couch for now. Maybe it’s not accurate, and they’re tired, but it’s something. C, for short.)

C would back away any time the others would try to get near them. And they did in fact try, but despite how creative or sneaky they got, C always ducked away. It reminded Ranboo of the drone who had followed them with a camera, always one step away and never letting the Hero get too close.

The mask turned to Ranboo, who stared back quietly. C hadn’t talked at all, so Ranboo didn’t expect them to suddenly start now. He wasn’t even sure if they understood what was said to them, but Ranboo wanted to try anyways. Better to be polite.

“Do you like the show that’s on? I think it’s called Lucy, or something. I don’t know, Sneeg said it was funny. And it didn’t seem, uh- scary or anything.”

The mask didn’t speak.

“If you want to change it, the remote’s right there, um, I showed you how to use it before. And there’s like, instructions drawn on there. You can thank Charlie for that one.”

…

“I think I’m going to head to bed.”

…

“Fuck it, can I stay here?”

The mask still didn’t speak, but the head hidden behind it tilted a bit at the sudden change in tone. Ranboo took this as an absolute win.

“So I just. I don’t want to be by myself. And I don’t think you sleep, I mean if you just sleep when everyone else is asleep that’s cool, but also if so how do you even? function? on that much sleep? It really isn’t that much but to be fair you don’t do much so maybe you don’t need it. …do you sleep sitting up? And just somehow wake up when we get close? I know, um. Sorry about that, again, we were just worried your mask had a tracker like mine used to.”

Ran laughed nervously. “I think I did convince them that it doesn’t, so that should stop now. If um. If we make you uncomfortable you still don’t have to be touched, it’s, it’s fine.”

Other than the head tilt before, there wasn’t a reply.

“Okay, since. You can’t talk, I’m just gonna… I’ll sit down beside you. On the couch. And if you don’t want me to be that close you can uh- you can leave. Or like, get up, and then I’ll leave. This is the only room with a tv, so I’ll let you stay here, but I can’t tell if you want me to be here or not, so. Okay, sorry, I’m rambling. Just… move if you want me to leave, okay?”

Ranboo waited for a response that didn’t come, then sighed. “Okay.” He kept his hands up and open while sitting down, waiting for a few moments before tucking his feet under himself to get more comfortable. “I’m just gonna stay here, okay? Like I said, just move if you want me to leave.”

The mask had tracked them to where they sat now, but the person—C—didn’t make a move to leave. Ranboo turned their attention to the tv, keeping an eye on their couch partner in their peripheral vision. During a moment of audience laughter in the show—I Love Lucy, they remembered—C turned their head back to the television as they had been before Ranboo walked in.

Seeing as how C (they needed a better name than that—) didn’t speak, this was the closest Ranboo could get to being told “you can stay here.” So they did. A few episodes later, his head was on the arm of the couch and his eyes were closed.

Five turned its attention to the Hero, who was now asleep. He had said it was a person, which was almost hilarious. And the Taken and the Hero seemed to think it couldn’t talk? They had to know it needed to be given permission first: any handler of a Drone or Prop knew that basic rule. It would wait until permission was given: it knew how to obey. It wasn’t meant to speak to a superior unless it was told it was allowed. It would wait.

…in the meantime, it studied its handler, the Hero. The other Actors, their two other handlers, called him ‘Ranboo’ but Five knew that wasn’t his actual label. The Hero was his character in the last show, and so that is who he was. Five didn’t know if Actors had a number, but he had been called the Hero in the script, and so the Hero he will be until the script changes.

It hoped to get new instructions, a new script for itself, something, soon. It was tired of simply watching the Actors go about their incredibly off-script show. It was sometimes told to participate, and since no other superiors were nearby, it had to obey its current handlers. But it was told to participate, to stir eggs, to help clean the kitchen, to attack small webs in corners with a stick with soft spikes on the end. Those sorts of things weren’t it’s usual directive, and so it found itself…

It didn’t resent its handlers. They were doing their best, and they at least knew that they were meant to give it orders. It simply wished they were familiar orders. It wished the Hero had told it to play dead, or play chase, or play camera, or caught, or prop. It would even listen if it was told to power down until needed. At least then it wouldn’t have to be conscious in this boring and unfamiliar set.

.

Y EA I know they probably don’t like tvs. Shhhhhh. I didn’t think about that until like. I had already written the tv part. At this moment it is 55 minutes past th hour and I want these characters to go the fuck to sleep so I can go thr fuck to sleep /lh

And yeah Five only uses “he” for glran. That is intentional. It’ll be talked about and shit later. Something about being put into a role, something about showfall being transphobic, something something I want to go to bed

Powering down = “sleeping” for a drone. Different but similar. I’ll explain how it works later?, anyway The others hav e told Five to “sleep” but it doesn’t understand because it is only ever told to “power down” so it’s like error.sleep_not_found and it stares at them like “bitch you said the wrong. Thing. You’re supposed to know how to control me so you don’t want me to power down I fucking guess” and it’s gonna be really funny after that miscommunication is taken care of.

If you remember the Five Gets A Cold And Wants To Throw Hands With Everyone post, this is wayyy before that. These motherfuckers are fresh out of showfall. Don’t ask how they got a house. I’ll figure it out

I am! Tired! I’m not proofreading this!! Goodnight please give me your thoughts if you have them. I need to know I didn’t sacrifice tbis much sleep in vain /nf /lh (I appreciate words but you are Not required to give them. Love you have a good nigt/p)

[dnbrainrot]

God I wish it was more normal for ao3 authors to have like other social medias of theirs on their profiles or something

Please,,,, who are you,,,,,,

[stylishanachronism]

It is *very* weird being the only quasi academic in my office let me tell you

[elmoshipsbyler]

i just had this horrible realization that one day, stranger things will end, the show will die down, and that that means that byler fics on ao3 are gonna die down too

like, obviously- fandoms come and go, and that’s normal. but every fandom i’ve joined has changed a part of me, and ao3/fanfiction has always been my way of expressing that

i read fics when i’m upset, when i’m bored, when i’m happy, when i’m hyperfixated on something. it’s a part of my routine. i write fics to be creative, to let out emotions, to talk myself through ideas, to try new things. i use fics to connect with friends

and every time a fandom dies down, when fics stop being uploaded, it feels like that part of my life died down too

right now, i could probably bring up stranger things to most people and they’d at least have something to say. but in 20 years, who knows if people are still gonna wanna talk about it with me. it doesn’t take long for a topic to go from relevant to annoying when people think you’re stuck in the past

i’ve been part of so many dead fandoms, or shows with practically no one talking about them. and it feels so lonely. something i’m watching could change my life, make me question everything and reevaluate the way i see the world. and there’s all these characters that i love, and no one is talking about them. i go on ao3 and there’ nothing. i’m on my own

some of the fandoms i used to be really interested in, like percy jackson, are still around. i can go back to it any time i want, and it’s still there. the people come and go, as always, but the heart of it is still alive. it never left, and neither have i, and all i have to do is open ao3 or go on tumblr

but for other fandoms, like this one taiwanese drama i watched in grade 8 with my best friend on an illegal streaming website- there’s no fandom for it. the show’s hype lasted about 2 months, people talked about it, and then moved on with their lives. but i’m still here. i’m still thinking about it, and sometimes it feels like i’m the only one still thinking about it. if i want to talk about theories i have, i can’t, because there’s no one to listen. there’s no fandom. there’s nothing on ao3. there’s barely anything on tumblr, apart from a few short posts made in, like, 2015. the only thing i can do is go back and watch the show, or talk about it with my grade 8 friend, because she’s the only person that i have. and even she doesn’t talk about it much, if at all, because she’s moved on like everyone else

and i’m scared of that happening with stranger things. if everyone moves on, i’ll have to move on too, because being all alone in a fandom feels so much worse than leaving it behind

i don’t think stranger things is gonna go away completely, because of how big it is. but it’s definitely gonna be a change when the show ends, and i don’t know what to expect. i don’t know what to prepare for

stranger things honestly changed my life, and as weird as it feels to say it, so did byler. both the show, but also byler, allowed me to see a part of myself on a screen, and made me rethink everything. even when the show ends, i’ll still have the perspective change it gave me, and i’ll still see world differently. i will always be carrying the show with me wherever i go

so the thought of everyone else moving on is terrifying

[soliusss]

daily listening of hip to be square makes the day a little bit brighter

[museenkuss]

stuck at the train station at 2:30 am and my mother is picking me up :x

benefits of being a spoiled princess I suppose but the EMBARRASSMENT