#NO BUT LIKE THIS IS THE FIRST TIME IVE DRAWN A FUCKING LINE IN YEARS

[faux-ee]

Literally all i can think of after seeing that official art yesterday

Ref

[cowvboyenema]

yeah ive made a living making movies

yeah i didnt watch most any of them in the formative years of my life

we exist

[jackinalex]

Hi there! I really like your writing, you write plots that suck people in very well. I have a question though, and please take this as genuine curiosity because that really is what it is. What are your thoughts on the, hmmm let's say ethics, of writing fanfiction about real people? Ive found myself drawn to the dynamics of relationships for both real and fictional pairings, but when it's real, there is always something that kind of twinges at me. I've seen interviews where sometimes the subjects get uncomfortable knowing people write about them, and I could see how I might feel wierd about it if it were me. But on the flip side, the stories are of course fiction. You seem very involved in this side of the fandom, and I would be very interested to know your thoughts.

Putting this under a cut bc it’s so long lol.

Thank you for the compliments! You made my morning. To answer your question, I think that rpf is a complex and nuanced topic, but what it really boils down to is the subjects' feelings. I’ve written rpf in some capacity for going on thirteen years and will use each of those fandoms as examples to express the nuances of the topic.

When I was 14-16, I wrote WWE fanfiction. The difference between wresting rpf and say, bandom rpf, is that WWE for the most part is fictional and the wrestlers portray some sort of character, even if they go by their real names, therefore it is similar to writing about a tv show or movie (though some people include their real lives and real families). I’ve heard a few wrestlers say that fan fiction is a little weird, but the ones I wrote about never said it made them especially uncomfortable. In fact, Torrie Wilson (my queen), has even tweeted about Jorrie, which is the ship of her and John Cena, which was my first rpf ship I ever wrote about.

When I was 16-18, I wrote YouTube rpf, first about Pewdiepie and Cryaotic (I know, yikes), and those two (especially Cry, and I know, yikes again) spoke at length about how they didn’t mind fan fiction at all. They even read some as content for their channels. I then wrote about Ian and Anthony from Smosh, who also read fan fiction (MANY) times for their different channels. They even read part one of my fics on their channel at one point. Sometimes Ian and Anthony did seem a bit uncomfortable with the fanfiction, but it was more that they didn’t want to read the fics themselves and less that the fics existed. They’ve spoken at length about how they’re happy for people to express themselves in any way, even if it’s through fan fiction about them.

Finally, we have ages 19-now. I’ve written about Jalex for the longest period of my life (nearly ten years, which is nuts). It’s interesting because they’ve made hundreds of jokes about fucking each other for years, made references to fics and how they want people to keep writing them, and Jack even had a Jalex shirt for his JAGK line. Then, around 2012, interviewers started pushing them to talk about it far too much to the point where it made them uncomfortable. So I don’t think it was the fics themselves, but rather being asked about them and being put on the spot.

I say all of this to say that I think rpf is okay if you do the following:

Find out if the subject has explicitly stated that they do not want to be included in fic.

DO NOT send the fics to anyone you’ve written about (unless they’ve asked for them, for some reason). Also, do not mention fics or shipping to these people (unless, again, they’ve asked you to).

I think that people have the right to not want to be written about, but as you said, it is purely fiction. Also, when people have large platforms and have lots of fans, there are “fan” things that kind of just happen, not just fics, but also fanart, fan edits, speculation, gossip, etc. It’s part of the fame. The love and admiration people hold for their favorite celebrities has to go somewhere and that’s often through fanwork.

I hope this somewhat answers your question! I can only speak from my own experience, but this is the conclusion I’ve come to after years of rpf. If you’re interested in participating, we’d love to have you! Our fandom is small, but loyal and tight-knit. Much love!

[osidius-el-enfatico]

ive seen annoying libs saying "this is turning into a fascist government" and in turn "leftists" call those libs dumb. and while the libs ARE dumb, and they ARE saying that because they dont understand politics.

there are a few worrying phenomena happening right now, both in the government and in society at large that mimic the rise of fascism according to scholars like paxton and adorno and whatnot

first things first, boric is giving the right wing most of what they want this year. he did have a few hits last year but he hasnt drawn a single line in the sand this year.

this is of course to do with the perception the media is giving people at large about the supposed lawlessness of the country. they are pulling masterfully at the strings of people both in their fear of crime and their fear of immigrants. and boric is relenting on both fronts, he's giving cops more fucking money for more fucking weapons which in turn they sell to drug cartels, as it has been proven time and time again, and then he's spending more money in deportations that the previous far right government did.

by this time next year we are either gonna see him completely 100% sell out (id say he has sold out in a 45-55% atm) or straight up we will have a coup.

[thevindicativevordan]

If you were in charge of the new Ultimate line and had to assign creative teams to five books, which books would you make and who would you put on them?

Obviously Hickman needs a book but generally I would like to see:

Ultimates - Written by Jonathan Hickman and drawn by Bryan Hitch. The flagship title that drives the line. Whatever Hickman wants to do with them works for me, I doubt I could come up with a better pitch than he can.

Ultimate X-Men - Written by James Tynion IV and drawn by Alvaro Martinez Bueno. Look Tynion would never do it, he's making bank with his creator owned work, and I'd rather have him do a DC cape book, but he's who I would pick to write this. Mutants coming together in a world that hates and fears them, but with a twist: they're not out to win over humanity. This version of the X-Men is primarily focused on protecting mutants from humans, and part of the change is because who is on the founding team this go around. My choices, restricting it to five like the original X-Men team, would be Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, Forge, and Emma Frost. Emma taking the position you would usually see Jean in helps justify this team being more militant. She's pushing Cyclops and the rest towards going on the offense. Senator Kelly wants to pass an act aimed at forcing humans to register and build Sentinels to kill those who won't? The X-Men frame him in a way that destroys his political and personal life. Hellfire Club is trying to assert control over mutants? Blackmail them into backing off. It's an X-Men team that is more morally gray than we're used to seeing, and is primarily focusing on countering human bigotry at first. Later we would see Magneto show up and the X-Men react to him.

Ultimate Fantastic Four - Written by Christopher Cantwell and drawn by Federico Vicentini. Cantwell has written both Doom and Reed before, and I think he would kill it on a F4 with a villainous Reed and a Doom that could be heroic. Two pitches come to mind like I mentioned in my previous Ultimate Universe post. Either this team is a traditional Fantastic Four with Maker back in the role of "Mr. Fantastic", but concealing that he remembers the old timeline and is biding his time while he studies this new universe, or it's Dr. Doom taking Reed's position as leader of the F4 while Maker serves as their primary antagonist. Reed back with the FF would make for great tension, you have this guy that everyone thinks of as a great hero - which Reed deliberately goes along with - all the while the other three don't yet realize that he's a monster. Maybe Reed is aiming to kill off Ben and Johnny (Ben for "betraying" him when Reed first turned and "stealing" Sue, Johnny for burning his face and being annoying in general), but keep Sue this time. So the tension is that Reed wants to get Ben and Johnny killed off but doesn't want Sue to blame him, so he's trying to maneuver the two into getting killed by one of their villains in a way Sue won't blame him for, all the while he's also wooing Sue to embrace his outlook on life. Alternatively you go with Doom as leader of the F4, with the new Ultimate Universe being a timeline where Reed is the one who gets fucked up by the events that give them their powers this time. Maker still remembers the old timeline and is pissed that he somehow has ended up even worse off this time around, with Sue, Johnny, and Ben pitying him and chafing under the leadership of Doom who is just barely a hero.

Ultimate Spider-Man - Written by Donny Cates and drawn by Ryan Stegman. This is who I would put on a Peter book. Would be a standard Spider-Man book just like the Bendis one was, only I would have it set in Peter's college years because I'm sick of high school Peter.

Ultimate Black Panther - Written by Geoffrey Thorne and drawn by Sanford Greene. Thorne has wanted the gig for ages, and I liked his post Hickman Secret Wars pitch for the character, from what I remember it was T'Challa patrolling economic zones Wakanda had established internationally to share some of their tech and improve life on Earth elsewhere. Doing that with a "Year 2" T'Challa is my pitch. He's established himself at home and is trying to turn Wakanda into a superpower via sharing it's tech with the world through certain economic zones. He's allowed ordinary Wakandans to leave the country and travel abroad. Wakandan conservatives are pissed at him for doing that, while the liberals are angry T'Challa still has left the strict immigration laws for outsiders intact. Other global powers are eyeing this new player warily, particularly the United States and China. T'Challa has plenty of enemies at home and abroad who are aiming to bring him down, and he has to use his brains, tech, and the power of the heart-shaped herb to stay on top.

[scolek]

@tunkus you ready to have your mind blown?

alright, so first off ive been aware of akira since before enstars, he wrote a light novel series called "kyouran kazoku nikki" which got turned into an anime and i saw it and remembered it fondly. its one of those "crack" type things like flcl or nchijou but with a really strong emotional core, like, the government assigns them all to be family but then they find it again on their own. i recommend it! i know the anime is subbed.

oh but theres a trans character in it! it's from like 15 years ago so its not. its not a great portrayal. but you can basically draw a direct thru line from that to early arashi who was very clearly supposed to be the same type of person, and then from early arashi to modern arashi as we move into an era where its not fucking acceptable to say the o word so goddamn much. progress!

so what i found out about. i was on akira's wikipedia page and because i read at a second grade level my eyes are often drawn to any snippets of hiragana/katakana i find and i see the phrase センス・オブ・ジェンダー (sense of gender) and its another wikipedia page so i click on it, and then that page, unlike akiras, has a version in english so theres this award for literary works that deal with themes of sex and gender, and akira wrote a novel called 'biscuit frankenstein' that won the grand prize in 2009.

so im like, ok, what the fuck is biscuit frankenstein, and its never been translated into english, but there is a review of it in english.

and THEN, in that review, it mentions another novel akira wrote called ikemen kanojo, and theres even less about that one than there is about biscuit frankenstein, especially since theres some fucking isekai or whatever novel out there with kind of the same name, but from the name ikemen kanojo alone its like.

AND THATS AS FAR DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE AS I'VE GOTTEN BUT THERE COULD BE MORE!!! THERE PROBABLY IS BECAUSE IT APPEARS AKIRA HAS A COMPULSION TO TRANS CHARACTERS' GENDERS.

like you know how serial killers can only go a certain time without killing, and usually the more they kill the shorter that window gets. the time between shu's grandpa and hokke was like, barely four months!!! if this guy were a serial killer i'd be like somebody please stop him, he cant keep getting away with this, but honestly. imagine youre like 9 years into a successful franchise and you go. hey you know one of the main fucking characters??? that dude's been trans the whole time. yup. fuckin afab. and then you just, dont explain???? thats legendary and we need to keep letting akira do whatever he wants.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Lost Cause prologue part IV

I'm coming to Minneapolis! Oct 15: Presenting The Internet Con at Moon Palace Books. Oct 16: Keynoting the 26th ACM Conference On Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing.

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a rollicking solarpunk adventure about defending the Green New Deal from seagoing anarcho-capitalist wreckers and white nationalist militias; Bill McKibben called it "a chronicle of mutual aid that is politically perceptive, scientifically sound, and extraordinarily hopeful":

The book comes out on Nov 14 from Tor Books and Head of Zeus, and I'm running a Kickstarter campaign to pre-sell the ebook, hardcover and (especially) the audiobook (Amazon refuses to carry my audiobooks, so this is the only way to get them into readers' hands); you can back it now:

http://lost-cause.org

To whet your appetite, I'm serializing the book's prologue, which really kicks things off:

Here's part one:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/06/green-new-deal-fic/#the-first-generation-in-a-century-not-to-fear-the-future

And part two:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/07/met-cute-ugly/#part-ii

And part three:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/09/working-the-refs/#lost-cause-prologue

And now, part four:

A couple of my friends were working on an AP science project—­ they’d made an enzyme they thought would break down polyethylene at room temperature—­and I’d promised that I’d help them after school. Walking home past Verdugo Park, I ran into some more friends sitting in the grass and chatting, so I sat with them, watching the kids on the playground and the dog-­walkers and the swordfighting class boffing each other with foam swords, and hours slipped by.

By the time I headed home, the sun was low and the day was finally starting to cool off. I remembered that I’d forgotten to pull the blinds before going out and imagined how hot and stuffy the house would be. Maybe Gramps had gotten back early enough to lower them. Otherwise, I could lie in the backyard in my hammock and do some reading while I waited for the house to air out some.

The blinds were drawn. I went in through the back door and dropped my bag on my bed, stripped off my tee and pulled on a fresh one, and headed to the kitchen for a snack.

“Gramps?”

He didn’t answer, which I figured meant that he was playing his podcasts through his hearing aids. They were supposed to be smart enough to pass speech through, but they struggled with people shouting from other rooms. I grabbed some more iced coffee and went into the living room.

Gramps was sitting in his spot on the old sofa, staring out the window. “Gramps?”

He didn’t look around. I moved into his line of sight and then drew back. His face was set in a mask of rage I hadn’t seen since I was a kid and came to live with him, the face he’d make before he’d hit me. He hadn’t hit me in a long time, not since he’d raised a bruise where one of my middle-­school teachers could see it and she’d called CPS on him. They’d made him do a month of mandatory anger-­management classes.

“Gramps?” I reached for him but didn’t touch him. He was quivering.

He fixed his gaze on me. Glared.

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

He stood up. He was shorter than me now, and couldn’t quite straighten up, but it still felt like he was towering over me. “Kid, you know exactly what’s wrong, and don’t pretend otherwise.”

Oh.

“Gramps, he could have killed me. I saved his life. I know he’s a friend of yours—­”

“Shut the fuck up about that, kid. Don’t talk about my friends. Don’t talk about who I know and who I don’t know. You know what that dumb asshole Mike Kennedy is up against? Forty years. Seven felony counts. Most of ’em to do with you: kidnapping, assault, attempted murder. Death penalty shit. Don’t think that the DA isn’t going to use that, the feds have got a hard-­on for anyone who doesn’t toe the line on their Green New Deal bullshit. They’re gonna tell him that either he testifies against his friends or he’ll get a lethal injection. Kennedy’s no genius, either. He’ll cave. You just watch.”

“Gramps—­”

“Shut up, I said. You think saying my name on your viral video is gonna help anything. Shit, kid, why didn’t you just turn me in yourself?”

“Come on, Gramps. I didn’t plan this, Mike did.” I wanted so badly to leave, but Gramps was between me and the door. “Tell you what, let’s go visit him. They’ll let him have visitors in lockup, right?”

Gramps sagged back down into his chair. “Kennedy’s not in lockup. They let him go an hour ago.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, that sounds good, right?”

He shook his head and gave me a disgusted look. “No, kid, that doesn’t sound good. That sounds like he ratted everyone out already. In which case he’s a fucking dead man.”

I took a deep breath. Gramps was clearly on the brink of losing it altogether and telling him he was being overly dramatic would definitely push him right over the edge. “If that’s true, then maybe you should talk to your other friends, or maybe him—­”

“Just shut up, okay? Don’t talk about shit you don’t and can’t understand. Look, if Kennedy sold out his friends then he’s got what’s coming to him and besides, there isn’t a damned thing in the world I could do to stop it. But what’s more likely is that he didn’t say a word, but they’ve put him on the street so that people get the impression that maybe he did, and now he’s in fear for his life and the only way to save his skin is to run back to the station house and start talking. It wouldn’t be the first time they tried that stunt. And the fact is, it doesn’t matter which one it is because he’s gonna get shut up before he can do that, because everyone understands what’s going on here and what’s at stake. So me calling that sad sack now would just make me the last person who spoke to the victim before he turned up dead.”

“That’s terrible.”

“No, kid, that’s life. What’s terrible is that my own grandson is involved in this ugly stupid mess, and that every dumbass on the internet is trading clips with my name in them, doxing me, associating me with this ridiculous garbage.”

Now I was starting to get mad. “I didn’t do it on purpose, you know. Your friend threatened to kill me. I didn’t tell him to get up on that roof or fill his Super Soaker with hydrochloric acid.”

“Yeah, you didn’t, that’s true.” He picked up a beer from the table next to him, finished the last swallow, set it down. “You didn’t. But you were and you did and now—­” He shook his empty beer. “Ah, shit. Brooks, listen, you know that my friends are okay, but some of their friends . . .”

I knew. I’d sometimes spot Gramps’s friends marching with the Maga Club groups, carrying ugly signs, conspiracies and racism and “demographics are destiny.” Or set up with a table on Magnolia on Food Truck Friday, showing videos about “the great replacement” and “socialist tyranny.”

“I know who you mean.”

“None of ’em ever liked you. They didn’t like your father even before he went to Canada with that woman. When he did, well, that sealed it for ’em. To leave America and go work for the socialists? Kid, it’s a good thing he never tried to come back here, I’ll tell you that much. Far as they’re concerned, the only good thing that rabbit flu did was kill a bunch of foreign commies, agitators, traitors, and climate bed wetters. By which they mean your father and mother. And by extension, that means you. Your sex thing doesn’t help either—­”

My head filled with that buzzing sound I heard whenever Gramps tried to talk to me about sexuality. The fact that I wouldn’t call myself straight made him crazy. The fact that I wouldn’t say “gay” or “bi” or any of those old-­fashioned terms made him absolutely bugfuck. “Queer” was okay with me, or “pan,” but honestly, who the fuck cared? Why would my grandfather need to know which people I wanted to fuck and which people I did fuck? I’d explained this to him calmly and I’d had shouting matches with him about it. My other friends had problems with this stuff, sure, but their parents were able to at least pretend to understand. Gramps was a generation older and not only didn’t he understand, he didn’t want to. “Just pick one, kid,” is what he’d say, and then I’d overhear him saying worse to his friends when they took over the kitchen to play poker or the living room to watch a game.

“Jesus, Gramps”—­that buzzing sound was blood, of course, coursing in my ears as my rage built and built—­“would you just shut up about that bullshit? I don’t care what your asshole friends want. In case you didn’t notice, one of them nearly murdered me last night—­”

“Shut. Up.” Loud, in that boss voice he used when he was getting everyone else to listen to him, whether it was on a jobsite or during an argument over cards. “Yeah, one of my friends just about murdered you last night, but he didn’t, did he? You know why? Because of me. Because of who I am in this community. Our name, Palazzo, it goes back a long way in this town. We’re Lockheed originals, thanks to my own dad. That counts for something. You’re safe because you’re my grandson, that’s what I’m trying to explain to you. But it’s not a get-­out-­of-­jail-­free card. You’re not untouchable.”

“Thanks for letting me know.” I hated it when Gramps acted like he was in the Mafia because he and his friends were the kinds of assholes who periodically got drunk or disturbed enough to commit some act of idiotic vandalism.

“Kid—­” he started. I left.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/10/weaponized-interdependence/#super-soaker-full-of-hydrochloric-acid

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

[tiredassmage]

can we hear more about in dreams, hopes to die... 👉👈 those lines are so tasty..

CHOMPING AT THE BIT, AYE AYE CAPTAIN!!!!

Would you believe me if I reveal that this snippet is from the same piece? It's obviously an overall not very good time kind of piece, so I felt a tiny bit bad about it for once and decided to throw Tyr a bone. Valkorian and Tyr's own conga line of bad times couldn't be the only thing in five years worth of dreams, I figured, lol.

Also, that very scene is where the banger In the dark, it’s easier to hide and easier to tell the truth came from, lol.

Don't get too excited though because that's... very short. And also it's mentally set to Eyelids by PVRIS, so uh. It still punches me in the face.

Eventually I'll hopefully throw him another bone and give him and Theron's time on Rishi or Yavin IV a little pass because I'd like to think Theron's at least a little right and something came up. And stars know Tyr needs a fuckin' break, good gods almighty anlkfdnafldsf. Says she who continues to put that man in Situation after Situation after Situa-

And it was very hard to stop at just the first line for that initial post because the three lines that follow it are the meat and potatoes of what is currently the opening sequence of what I hope will eventually be a coherent fic. Or at least kinda coherent. It's still a very nebulous piece and I kinda like that, so I might not really do much more setup because it seems fitting that there wouldn't be a lot of setup and transition in something like the carbonite dreams era.

And, perhaps unsurprisingly given the nature of the setup of that chapter, but a lot of these scenes flirt with the concept of death. Tyr's dangerous dedication to "finishing the job" isn't anything new to those of us who have been here a while, lol, but this is a good character study piece if you're newer to my favorite blorbo, though it's an undeniably heavy one and obviously a bit fucky and nebulous by nature.

Also, fair warning, yes I'm giving you lines, but also I am going to give you a ramble and a half about Tyr lore because this is the piece I'm stuffing some juicy tick-tock workings into because I realized it was good for that and I love my boy so much, he's so fucked up. I love him though.

Anyway, I teased, so the next three lines of that scene, as foretold beneath the cut:

At first, it’s a firing squad. Mud cakes their boots and the rain pelts heavy on worn, drawn faces.

Tyr pushes to his feet unsteadily. A flash of lighting breaks overhead, glancing off of leveled blasters and hollowed eyes.

It will end as it should: without a soul remembering his name. He’d prefer it that way.

Okay, so... this is also not necessarily a piece I intended to write, but I realized there is... almost no better place to do a deep dive into some of the things that tick inside of Tyr that maybe aren't best portrayed in dialogue alone. This also wasn't meant to be in present tense, but it didn't feel right in past, so I ended up caving and that's... been a theme of the week, I guess, lol.

This is also like. I always chuckle a bit in that scene from Visions in the Dark later where Valkorian threatens you to meet his challenge and grow stronger or die alone and unremembered because wouldn't that just be ideal for a former Cipher. Wasn't that how the story was supposed to end? He didn't ask for your bullshit, grandpa.

There's currently two other scenes I have - they're all relatively short as I try to keep with that sort of drifting feeling. But the other one that might [Large Eyes Emoji] be of... relevant interest...

What’s been done has already been done. It doesn’t matter what it was. Maybe it won’t matter to anyone else.

Because it’s going to end here and now. Such were the decrees of the Sith - of the Empire.

Absolutes.

It matters to him that he tried. This is one of the kinder ways this could go - quietly, without the fanfare of blood on his teeth and a fire in his eyes.

“For what it’s worth, sir?” Nine exhales long and slow as he closes his eyes. “I’ve always admired you… You did your best.”

Finally.

No.

More.

Running.

“But I’m not going back.” The old man’s one of the few he could ever hope to ask this final favor. “Finish this - what we started.”

The Minister of Intelligence pulls the trigger.

It’s over before Tyr feels the ground beneath him.

Also topical given the "are others concerned about their sleep schedule" tag post reblogged earlier today, lol, and the idea of chronic nightmares. That Tyr and I haven't talked about. To each other. Or the world. Possibly not with the people he cares about, either. I'm sure Theron knows nebulously that he can have some troubled sleep - you don't share a bed with someone and not notice how consistently they have trouble falling or staying asleep.

But I think the fuckiest part of the whole Castellan Restraints period for Tyr is how he doesn't want to let the old man down. The Minister is more a father figure in Tyr's eyes than his own father, quite honestly [Tyr has a... kind of non-existant relationship with his entire family, unfortunately - and it's not because he went into Intelligence], and there's absolutely a part of that dynamic that is mentor and protégé.

And it's important to me that he sees this scenario with the Minister and not Shara - at least in Chapter Two, where it first haunts his nightmares with some consistency. Because I made a conscious choice in Shara knowing as Keeper about his Restraints - not because that ever comes up in-game, but because it adds something very crunchy to their already doomed narrative. And the background to that decision is that I decided it's... the kind of silent acknowledgement that the Minister can afford to give of their more intimate relationship. It's damage control, mitigation. With a heavy heart I imagine he tells her this in private, off the record, because Nine was her Cipher. And both of them still hold him in high regard.

Nine's given a possibly unusually loose leash to pursue the SIS investigation because of the Minister and Keeper's word; Watcher Three mentions this in broad strokes when he questions you about the blackout in records.

Anyway, the point to me mentioning this is actually that Tyr makes a very conscious effort to not think about this in the midst of the Restraints causing problems. He's reluctant enough to cede that he should hold the Minister responsible for this gross violation of his privacy and trust, but he's even more reluctant to give that the woman he loves has any knowledge or hand in the process - unwittingly or, especially, wittingly. Ultimately, he stubbornly doesn't hold them responsible. It hurts less to place the blame elsewhere. And he never loses the inescapable nostalgic kick to go home in the sense of the old paradigm - him and Keeper and the Minister.

He gave them everything.

And there's something in here about his regret at not being able to say all of this respect in better words or more directly. There's that acknowledgement that there's one person he trusts to understand why this was his breaking point. And, ultimately, there's the acceptance of the likelihood that none of this is going to end well, that he's living on borrowed time stolen from fate or destiny, or hell, maybe the Force. Tyr doesn't give a whole lot to whatever higher powers might be out there - relying on them hasn't ever saved him and he doesn't expect it to.

It makes it very interesting to watch him knowingly and willingly lie about the Black Codex after he lets Ardun walk with it and promises to double for the SIS. In a way, he's committing the greatest failure and throwing away everything the Minister has fought so hard with him to maintain and keep, especially when both of them have spoken of ideals instead of goals, etc. But it's necessary. It's what's best for Tyr, mentally, at that point. And even one of the figures he loves and respects the most can't override that desperate intrinsic need to fight for himself. The old man is, after all, one of the largest advocates of it throughout his career as Nine.

And, I suppose speaking of the nostalgia for Intelligence, my favorite set of lines from the final scene so far:

She’s sobbing against his shoulder. Dust and blood stain an almost unfamiliar uniform - he hasn’t worn uniform on Dromund Kaas in months, maybe years…

Everything’s been such a blur since Intelligence was disbanded…

so YEAH. I uh. I have a lot of feelings and this is where I'm sniffling and sobbing and word vomiting them into one doc but in story format, I suppose, lol.

Also completely unrelated to this particular fic but I am. Still thinking so intently about Eight x Tyr thoughts. They're now living rent free in my head and all of this.... absolute devotion stuff... hrhrhghghghghghghghrhhg. Brain vibrates because this is obviously all related to it because of the few people who could ever possibly understand any part of this series of events and feelings, it'd be another Cipher.

Tyr really does mourn Intelligence like... ghhghg. I'm unwell about it. He gave everything to it and its success. He doesn't regret it. The SIS investigation and the following fall of Imperial Intelligence were some of the worst fucking years of his life and it's destroyed him, really. He's living in and with the ruins like a bombed out city. It destroyed his everything and he'd almost gladly let it finish the job and destroy him to finally get his retribution. And he'd just as gladly let love destroy it all and rebuild it from the rubble when he has the right person beside him. Something something doesn't realize that he doesn't want or need to continue that destruction, he just needs fucking... idk validation or something. Acceptance. Acknowledgement. And then they can work on what "okay" looks like in the aftermath. He needs to be just as responsible for someone else's "okay" to even begin figuring out what the hell it looks like for him. hOUgh anyway.

I'm fucking normal about Cipher Nine, obviously. Thanks for comin' to my TED Talk.

[mostspecialgirl]

Insiders (2023) - redrawn from 2019

(rambling under the cut)

thank you tumblr for compressing my image down to disgusting crusty poop pixels on the app

i love to do a new big reference piece for my babies every few years, and the time has finally come due… and WOW !!! LOOK AT THAT IMPROVEMENT !!! everyone looks Normal And Alive and Non Bugeyed !!! everyone is a little less pasty white (im talking about you, tanith) !!! i think they all show a lil bit of nice personality in their faces now too which is lovely for me. i love to see my children happy. now to write about each of them

angelo’s line art has the least effort into it here and i was GONNA redraw him but honestly if anyone is going to look like a scrunkly little bug IT IS GOING TO BE HIM !!!!!! It’s been a minute since i’ve drawn his body-saws and on a whim i made them red AND !!! IT WORKS !!! I’M A FAN !!! i think he’s due for a main-outfit change though. not sure. i struggled with finding him a natural-looking skin color too because i’ve slowly made him as a person less undead-corpse-like and i think i’ve found a good spot. for now.

i pulled the perfect angora out of my mind and honestly i am shocked at what i have created. she looks so sweet and kind and innocent here (as she should) that to any unfamiliar observers you’d be hard pressed to tell she’s a big lazy gross vulgar piece of shit rat of a fishwoman. and that is EXACTLY how it should be. i have lost the plot for too long, giving her more sharp edges and a hunched back and wild expressions, but the standard angora really should be deceptively pretty. because that’s my girl.

Mila looks great as always. What more can I say? She’s always perfect. I had fun giving her lips for the first time!

AMPH … MY ADISHESHA … (slamming my fist down) I’ve finally perfected him… isn’t he pretty? isn’t he so pretty? I chose to draw him in his naga/incarnated form instead of the shadow form this time because i wasn’t lazy. I decided to throw a big coat on him, originally intended to be more lab coat-y, but influenced by how fucking cold it is outside i allowed myself to give him a big fur collared one. because if you can’t tell i love giving characters though. i think it worked out well for AMPH here, and now I have to be putting him in all sorts of cowls and capes until the end of time.

TANITH !!!!!!!! GGGGYRRRRAAAAHHHHH!!!! LOOK AT MY GIRL !!!!!!! I’M FERAL OVER THIS!!!!!! LOOK AT MY IMPROVEMENT !!!!!!! it’s been a hot minute since i’ve colored her, but i changed her palette in my mind a while ago AND looking at it here ? existing ? i’ve done it again. My lovely little sword daughter … i know i JUST doodled her but christ something was in the water here because SHE LOOKS SO GOOD. this is the best ive drawn any of them. i gave her some nice clothes this time instead of her usual big t-shirt because i realized i only gave her that in the past because i didn’t know how to draw clothes.

speaking of “best ive ever drawn any of them” somnus … THIS IS HIM … i’ve gotten close to capturing him in all the times i’ve drawn him but i think i’ve finally pinned him down here. and of course, he’s hitting the same pose as his wife because they’re cute like that. i ripped his colors straight from the solo reference piece i made for him a while back which has held up quite wonderfully.

FINALLY !!! SETH IS HERE !!! HE HAS ARRIVED IN PROPER INSIDERS GROUP ART !!! he looks pretty good here. i think he could still look BETTER, but for the purpose of having a nice group reference piece he looks pretty great i think. I struggled pinning down some colors for his clothes and was pretty lazy with the Purple Under His Hair That Glows BUT WHO CARES !!!! LOOKS GOOD TO ME !!! LOOK AT MY HANDSOME SON !!! i also decided to stick his full name on here that i’ve kept vaulted up for the reason that i’ve never had to put it anywhere before. if you know why he has “-zoe adamiel” as his chosen full name, congrats, you’re a huge fucking nerd.

eventually, i’m probably going to tack daisy, kane, sampi and demiurge onto the right side of this piece, but that’s for another day down the line. thanks for reading!

[meikostan]

OK finally watching oshi no ko anime, it turns out all i needed was to go outside for like an hour and im normal again

my thoughts under the cut (writing as i watch) (long) (lots of thoughts) (beautiful and true?) (manga reader) (don't read if anime only) (spoilers) (seriously) (i talk alot) (lots of thoughts)

at this point i've reread oshi no ko enough times that even if i didnt already know japanese i could probably make it without the subs SDJLF but its so cool to see lines and panels that im so familiar with brought to life!! i also liked goro's death scene, especially the way they used static and cut between shots. i keep on pulling out my physical copies of onk (well mostly vol 1) and pointing at my screen and the corresponding part of the book like

2. AIIIII little known fact about me is that ai is genuinely my favorite character... WHICH SUCKS BECAUSE SHE DIES IN THE FIRST VOLUME. seriously we only ever get to see her after this when a. her name or demeanor is invoked by another character b. aqua has his numerous mental breakdowns or c. flashbacks (including but not limited to aqua's mental breakdowns). i am always down for ai content!!!

3. its so much easier to ignore the weird vaguely sexual stuff from their babyhood because i know the rest of the series is normal and cool and not into that sort of stuff👍

4. speaking of normal yayayay it's aqua back when he was actually normal and not "normal" :D like he is just a baby. do you think now that oshi no ko is popular people will get into internet arguments about whether you can ethically have aqua as your favorite character post-normalification. actually wait this may already have been happening in the dark depths of some discord server out there.. but i dont use discord so im blissfully unaware

5. OH i dont think ive seen all of the OG b komachi before? or at least not in high detail. epic!

6. infant ruby telling people on the internet "kys" before age 2... truly a model twitter user

7. not gonna lie i havent really ever liked the way babies are drawn here (including manga)... idk their heads just look way too big like adult heads drawn on toddler bodies then ""cutified"". but this is a personal gripe

8. do you think because of infantile amnesia the twins forgot about the whole pretending to be amaterasu moment. do you think miyako still remembers. can you imagine being the foster mother of two kids who you believe to be gods sent to earth. do you think she remembers that she was "charged by the gods with keeping ai's secret" and then aqua. you know.

9. imagine: you married the ceo of a mid production company because you want to date hot men. there are no hot men in sight. you have to watch over one of the idol's twin infant babies. they reveal to you that they are divine messengers of god and also they can speak normally. there are no hot men in sight. you tend to their every need because you don't want divine retribution. you explain the intricacies of the idol industry in detail every couple of days when they complain about the injustices of the world. there are no hot men in sight. you become their foster mom after they witness the traumatic death of their mother, whose secrets you where charged with keeping safe. at least 12 years pass. they never mention any of this again. you manage the idol group one of them is in. there are still no hot men in sight. your name is miyako. every day you wake up.

10. i like how gotanda gives his business card to a toddler. whats he gonna do, call you on his fisher price dial phone? well actually nevermind aqua is probably the only other toddler (alongside ruby) who could make use of a business card

11. KANAA LETS FUCKING GOOOOO but also nothing will ever top 'lick a lying snitch/flick a crying switch'...... nothing ever... :( also taking the opportunity now to say ive always found it hilarious she assumed 'aqua' is his stage name and not his actual legal name, that's how ridiculous it is DSKLFJ

12. sobbing at the ruby ai dance... dont even have that many words i just really like it.. do you guys think ai was thinking about her own mom [& abuse/lack of relationship thereof]? not even just in this scene but in her more serious moments when she's thinking about her kids it's like "i want to make millions so they can go to the nicest schools and have the nicest things" "i want my daughter to dance freely and happily and i will support her in this" which ig can also be excused as 'thats just what a normal parent wants' but idk i like taking into consideration her own past and lack of parental support when looking at the way she tries to raise her children (not that she exactly got a chance to, even while still alive)

13. also i realized at this point that ep 1 is like an hour long not just because of the whole 'we gotta make sure no one drops this before the reveal that shows what this story's actually gonna be about', but also because it would be kinda awkward to have cut any of these scenes out? or not like out completely but like from each other. like if we had ended ep 1 at for example where they do their silly baby dance and go twitter viral (chapter 5 aka the midpoint of vol 1). that wouldve been terrible. but we can't cut it any earlier, or any later. ai's death feels like the natural conclusion to this problem. also i can't really see much of the other sections being stretched out to fit a full episode length being done very well. having ep 1 be a full 90 minutes lets them be as long as they need to be, aka a 1:1 adaptation of the manga.

14. oh boy chapter 9 time

15. i don't have anything to say about ai's outlook that has not already been said but this is the scene that made her my favorite character. not being able to tell at what point your lies become reality.. not really knowing if you've ever loved or been loved truly because your entire concept of 'love' was based off insincerity necessary for survival.. and now not ever being given the chance to explore what 'real love' means to you. FUCK

16. aww i love all these little family moments they added! very cute ^_^

17. yayy go kids get traumatized ^_^ also for some reason i remember the stalker as having really light hair o-0 fascinating. i remembered his name though!! just like ai fr

18. speaking of hair i also did not realize saitou was blond i thought he had brown hair..

19. hey the bandana (? i forget the word) guy holding the ai fan sign during the news montage is from one of the intros to the vol 1 chapters where hes like 'oh yeah i wonder where those dancing babies are now'!

20. another part of that montage shows a house with a wii in it, which came out november 19 2006. characters are shown using twitter which started earlier that same year; it was a pretty popular website even in 2008, but the mobile app only became a thing in like 2010. i'm seeing a mix of flip phones and smart phones so this has gotta take place sometime around 2010. it's kinda difficult to tell exactly what age the twins are in the main story because like the first page of vol 2 has ruby listing her age as 14, but - and the proof is not at my finger tips rn - i swear to god they're like 16 at this point. i have legitimate reasons to believe this but i need to grab exact proof adding to that we also have 15 years of lies, which if im remembering right would be referring to the twins age? i was trying to logic out exactly what year oshi no ko takes place in even though i already know the answer is 'in the modern day' but anyway yeah i'll just finish my episode and move on

21. THE IPHONE RUBY IS HOLDNIG HAS A HEADPHONE JACK. i want so badly to say that's an iphone 4 but there's like a separation between that and the power button. i also dont have an iphone 4 with me so i cant check it irl :( but anyway the iphone 4 was released in 2010, meaning the evidence is piling up for this part of the story taking place some time around 2010. or maybe i'm looking too deeply into this and should go back to actually watching the episode.

22. this is reminding me i was gonna write a fic specifically about this time period where the twins go to therapy and have to adjust to life without ai, having miyako graduate from fake mom to actual mom, aqua faking being fully recovered from the incident so he'd be released from therapy (fic concept was inspired from him stating this in like vol 6), etc. i never did because i spent like 3 hours researching play therapy and never got anywhere with it.. but maybe...

23. THE KIDS HAVING TO WATCH HER FUNERAL THROUGH THE FUCKING CAR WINDOW... I'M GOING TO KILL MYSELF

24. YESS AQUA NORMALIFICATION COMPLETE

25. AM I INSANE OR IS THAT AKANE? HER HAIR COLOR IS THE SAME BUT IT'S SO SHORT

26. MEM!!!!

27. AHHH POST CREDITS AI MAKING HER VIDEO FOR THE TWINS "i don't think i'll still be an idol by then" YEAH BUT AT WHAT COST 😭

FINAL THOUGHTS: i liked it alot ^_^ i dont really watch that much anime anymore (not that i watched an incredible amount before, but i am familiar with it) but i really liked this. i think they did a very good job of adapting the first volume! i know the rest of the episodes will be not-film length which does make me a bit sad because i think it would work out well, or at least not badly, if they were. it does also make me really excited for the future, seriously i will actually explode when i see the theater arc in full. cannot wait to see aqua mental breakdowns and ruby evil arc and and and and

the only thing i would've liked is if they could somehow have found a way to incorporate the pre-chapter intro scenes from the manga where they're talking about 15 years of lies, interviews with their pre-school teacher, etc. though both the pre-school teacher and the aforementioned bandana guy appear which may have been their way of doing it? like adding a fun detail for obsessives like myself to point at like 'my god it's those guys from exactly 2 panels in the manga'

tumblr ate my post and erased everything up to #2 while i was writing it and i was about to flip but it turns out that it automatically saves posts while youre writing them now and it was in my drafts safe and sound soooo crisis averted ^_^ anyway those were my thoughts on ep 1

[nonclassyparty]

Ive been a silent reader of yours all this time but I have to speak up on this. I'm sorry but I just can't agree with this "San has done bad things but that's okay because so did others" that's like saying this murderer is horrible for killing innocent people but it's not really THAT bad(?) because there are others who committed murder too I don't know if I'm explaining it right because English is not my first language lol. Regardless if others have done bad things, it doesn't justify San's shitty deeds. One's bad deeds should never be downgraded/downplayed just because there are others who do bad things too so I find it pointless to bring up others like y/n seonghwa wooyoung etc when we're talking about San and the things he's done or why people think he's irredeemable. Also maybe because I've dealt with someone irl like starring role San and that's why his character is just irredeemable to me. Like I don't care how bad he feels after for doing what he did, the impact of his actions is still 10x more hurtful than whatever remorse or guilt he felt and the fact that he KEEPS doing it despite being self aware makes it even more worse than it already is actually. I wish we can have a conversation about people's terrible deeds without bringing up others to either make justifications or comparisons.

Like if a person killed somebody then feels guilty about it but then does it again. It just doesn't make sense to me (I know San is not a killer lol but I'm trying to make an analogy and this the best my non English speaking ass can come up with)

For me San is an asshole point blank period and if we're being for real, a person like him who grew up with that mindset can't change in as little as two years. Before anybody come here and say i'm team mingi and thats why I'm saying this, actually I'm team nobody. I'm just here to read this very entertaining and we'll written au 🥰

ouuuuuuu i love this, had to get a drink before i started typing. and don't worry your english is fine everything is great, i get what you're saying. soooo let's talk;

first of all, i need all of us to be on the same page here so let me ask you guys (all of you that actively participate in these little quiz nights 😭), what is it that san did wrong exactly? and i don't mean "he did this wrong so he doesnt deserve to be with yn" we're not talking about that and frankly don't care about, its what did he do wrong that makes him a bad irredeemable character? i'm genuinely curious about this.

while writing this story, i can think of two instances where he actually fucked up but still not to the point where its not redeemable.

you say bad deeds of the other characters shouldn't be brought up when talking about san's? and i disagree! you know why? it's not bc i'm trying to downplay his wrongdoings ( or trying to justify them, if it ever seemed like that then i probably didnt word myself right) or bc it's "Oh san my poor meow meow he can't be the bad guy!!!!!" but because all of the characters that i've compared him to are halfway ( if not the whole way) already forgiven by the readers and why is that? what makes them more redeemable than him and where is the line drawn when it comes to forgiveness? again we are not talking about relationship-with-y/n forgiven but "he's not the villain" forgiven bc apart from y/n's mother i don't think there are any other villains 😭

(and this is not defending san, he is an asshole i'll be the first one to say it bc i literally created him😭 but that's simply not all that there is to him bc as people we are not one dimensional. no one is all good and all bad, there's no such thing unless we're talking about idk psychopaths or something lol and just bc we haven't seen san's good towards y/n doesn't mean there's no good at all. i've already written all his parts for the next chapter so this is just a formal notice that i won't be trying to make him more appealing so he can get sympathy points or something and i can say that he won't be asking for forgiveness either but he will be in a huge chunk of the chapter and for all of you that plan on just blocking out everything he says well...u wont be having a good time😭)

[finn-shitposts]

I posted 41,927 times in 2022

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I tagged 3,286 of my posts in 2022

#kenobi spoilers - 233 posts

#andor spoilers - 210 posts

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Longest Tag: 139 characters

#choosing how dark the colour of the lines should be and whether i should use black lines here or there to seperate parts of the drawing out

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Its so funny that i got my email confirming my first HRT prescription on trans visibility day! Like fuck yeah the universe said trans rights babeyyy

11 notes - Posted March 31, 2022

#4

I start my first day of work tomorrow :OOO its not an actual planting day yet, just getting to know the team/office and doing lotsa paperwork, but still im hella excited :D

first proper tree planting day is thursday n friday so im gonna be satisfyingly knackered for the weekend heh ^_^

Despite it only being part time im just so happy i found a job that i can actually enjoy instead of a soul sucking corporate hellscape skssksks

12 notes - Posted February 13, 2022

#3

Guys someone i beg help me find this one thing of Thrawn and Anakin

im still catching up on star wars content after being out of the fandom for ages so i have no clue where to look for it ;;

A while back i listened to an audio clip of anakin trying to pronounce thrawns name and failing terribly, but ive been looking for it for ages and cant seem to find it T.T does anyone have it on hand or know the title of the audiobook (if it even came from one)

17 notes - Posted October 1, 2022

#2

Oh holy shit? The regenerating cybermen

DOCTAAAAHHHHH!!!!

THE ORANGE SPACE SUITS

old man dan struggling to climb a ladder and then superhero landing xD

Cyber masters... so dramatic lmao

Dan looking at his smashed in helmet like. Wtf. How am i alive

Dans gentle train conductor voice <333 what a dork

Nouhhhhh not the kiddo :(

19 notes - Posted October 23, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Girl help im slowly being drawn back into kpop....i cant do this again... im not strong enough.... it consumed so much of my time from 2017-2019.......

but i keep seeing skz in my youtube reccomended and the urge to just. Rewatch all their content and start doing kpop fanart again. PLus chens new songs dropping. GAh someone help

25 notes - Posted November 25, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[pwblogarchive]

July 2006

July 1, 2006

“sex and the city (the part theyll never tell you)”

its strange here this time of year. because the weather never changes.it is always summer here. so it doesnt feel like the same desperate love of these three pages on the calendar. or at least not what i am used to.patrick and i wrote a song yesterday. not a hit single or maybe anything that would even turn your head.noone knows how it goes.sometimes the worst wishes are the ones that come true.yellow and white lines to the coast.you can learn to love anything if its around enough.some people learn to love their mistakes.shakes hands. "thank you, our time is up".what keeps you coming back?i got a long rap sheet.(the statute of limitations is running out on you pretty fast).the powders wet. the sparks arent coming.the hammer isnt hitting. its spinning.you can learn to love anything.posted by xo @ 11:22 PM

July 5, 2006

the last thing i think of before i fall asleep and the first thing i think of when i wake

regardless of what stars i end up under- for the best and for the worst- you have made me who i am. and i try to make myself more decent and better only because of you.

haveanicelife

Posted by xoat 6:06 AM

June 5, 2006

Stick around long enough and everyone becomes parody of themselves 

you dont hate me, you hate the part of you that is like me. i cant sit here and ride my flaws until the end because the truth is i live the charmed life because of you and them. we are a gang. maybe its time to disband. im not sure i am thinking clearly but i just want you to know that i waited on you guys calls all night- they never came. i just wanted to say i miss you or im sorry or you know something that would have meant something to you. i would have made it poetic and memorable or at least something you could laugh at while drifting off to sleep. always trying to relive the glory days.

i dont care how poorly these sentences were constructed or how in the light of day i will wish i had not written them- right now i can only curse the fucking light off of this stupid western city because it wont ever get dark enough for sleep but otherwise how could you guide your way back here?

my head always feels warm right before i pass out, i always worry that there is something wrong and i wont wake up or you know i will. promise me that you wont take anything i ever say too seriously.

July 7, 2006

“his and hers”

sometimes i cant wait to be forgotten.i wish i could put up an away message in real life and just go to sleep forever.posted by xo @ 3:10 AM

July 7, 2006

“im so sorry, but not really. ('straighten up and die right’)”

i said i want to be rebuilt like a frank lloyd wright only without all of the water damage. or painted over like a monet only less blurry. she said “no, youre something different”. like what? “something better”. it gave me the rush of warm blood like you see in cartoon dogs right before their eyes pop out and all of the bells go off. my head is spinning like a car off of an icy guardrail. show me what you are made of. your eyes were always rolling but youd tilt your head so they were somehow always still stuck on me (have your cake and eat it too). i feel safe but not like a bet more like the way mothers feel when the lock the car doors in bad neighborhoods. i am blue waves across the red rootlike veins in the bodies drawn flat in medical books. i wonder at the way that someone can write thousands and thousands of pages about my insides. when i met you i gave you a name- not your own- but in my head so i wouldnt ever mix you up with anyone so ordinary- i cant tell you- but to me it meant salvation. you only wanted reaction. but i cant be bothered. not anymore. ill see you in the spring. first pew on the left. wear your white veil and dont forget the words. warped tour. sun drenched days. bestfriends. new roads. so long salvation. dont worry your pretty little heads. i am sleeping safe tonight.

July 8, 2006

“the fraternal order of the handsome boy”

ive been watching you from afar

my breath on the inside window as you walk in from the car

candy caned lies in red and white against clashing patterns bending in and out of understanding.

"youre the stranger ive been dreaming of", stranger than any ive ever known.

love through a telescopic lens. when the air is clear i can see how perfect you are for me.

late at night when the city sleeps i cast a spell on you

to make you think of me the very same way i think of you.

i only love how the words feel in my head when i write them.

fireworks over the valley. how can i tell you i gut people for a living.

that everything you say is likely to end up as evidence when i rewrite history.

over and over again.

how everything you do reminds me of something else, someone else.

how im humble and arrogant at the same time,

chased and never caught.

that i just want to stay up late and wake up early to talk to you.

that i want to show you all of my jealousy and insecurity and have you not care.

youre like a light switch and i just want to turn you on and watch them all shrink away.

the words come out of my fingertips on impulse. it is instinct. my head cant keep up.

i envy the comatose. i admire the bedridden.

i am addicted to the way i feel when i think of you.

"im blowing smoke rings around the moon...."

i wish i was the exact opposite of how the world knows me.

Posted by xoat 2:36 AM

July 11, 2006

we used to talk on the phone every single day (nooneknowshowitreallygoes).

its strange the way people will window shop on your life or score it for style and grace.

my personality and everything about me is just a carefully constructed collage of magazine articles and flashy pictures.

i am (not) real.

sometimes the days spent all by myself in my head are the scariest.

its enough to make you want to pack it up and call it a day.

all i can do is read and write and wait.

ihavecodedmessagesforyou.aretheygettingthrough.

Posted by xoat 6:32 PM

July 14, 2006

a little life, alot of death (i want to be known for my hits not my mrs.)

i should probably not be typing in this mood. i wish there was a lock on the keyboard. it is too enthralling in a state like this. just like all of this has always been. the world around me has changed as if overnight. "for someone so smart you are acting pretty stupid". i cant focus on but like three thoughts in my head but i am compeltely wrapped in them. they keep me warm at night. i pray for something to crash into me and smash me back to something more simple. i pray for fistfights so i cant be knocked out and wake up in the e.r. i wish for disaster so i can be razed. im telling you if i could do any of it again, im pretty sure i wouldnt.

fuck your life under the microscope.

fuck your conclusions.

you have no idea.

it never got me anywhere but here.

over and over again.

every single time.

i wish for five months ago. and not in the way you would imagine either. "you are unfixable". my eyes are washed out but they dont feel clean. they are strong you know not the athletic type, but could definitely used to carrying heavy bags. im guessing in any real light i will delete this, apologies in advance. whatever caption is written next to the picture is the exact opposite of me. i am mapless. you are caught. lets go out and get forgotten.

bad news travels fast. and i am the worst of it.

i will always remember the day i met you.

"leave you feelings in your heart boy".

Posted by xoat 12:57 AM

July 22, 2006

“my phone cuts out in the same place every single day ("the gospel of gossip").”

it feels like there is so much to say.but it can only be said in songs.please dont go so quickly."The city with fires of night seemed an archipelagoWomen asked the love and for the dulieBut in my eyes of male horror I rememberThe busy ones of the evening were never prettyThen the day returned but sometimes without sunTo draw up the houses coast at coast at the edge of streetsWhere our lives with the other smilar lives are mislaidLives trailing their shade while passing in the streetIntercalated in the year they was widowed daysBloody and slow Fridays of burialsWhite and whole blacks come from the skies which cryWhen the woman of the devil beat her lover"guillame appolinairesend me a flashlight. i cant seem to find my faith.iwishicould.posted by xo @ 2:17 PM

July 23, 2006

“we used to talk on the phone every single day (nooneknowshowitreallygoes)”

its strange the way people will window shop on your life or score it for style and grace.my personality and everything about me is just a cerfully constructed collage of magazine articles and flashy pictures.i am (not) real.the puppy is purple after spilling a grape soda on himself. he then ate the tropic of cancer by miller. paperback, so i guess it went down easier.sometimes the days spent all by myself in my head are the scariest.its enough to make you want to pack it up and call it a day.all i can do is read and write and wait.ihavecodedmessagesforyou.aretheygettingthrough.posted by xo @ 8:32 PM

July 26, 2006

you spend every waking moment and many sleeping ones thinking of one heart, one person. you let it slip, they let it slip. who knows where it all begins or ends. but as it falls to pieces you keep grabbing them and collecting them less like for a museum of things that used to matter and more like you are going to keep putting it back together. except there are akways a few pieces missing each time. deep breaths. slow your heart beat. the road winds. there was a time before you always felt like this. try to remember pete. you are being pulled in every direction. everything is bigger under the microscope. you want it to be simple. you make it complicated. "hey, pete- i am middle ground. how come we've never met before". sometimes i wish i could re-engineer the path from my heart to the tip of my tongue and let my head have a shot at it. i dont got bigdreams, i just want to be okay. it comes down to my word versus your word versus the worlds word and i dont think i want to anymore. im worn out. my head is full, my eyes are empty. the dog loves the salt in the corners of my eyes and on my cheeks- i am nervous about cutting it from his diet. and i could and should be, and jealous of it, from the children on the street walking hand in hand with their mothers to the homeless man content with his world of a bench. and noone knows the way i spend my nights counting the individuals grains in the tiles in the bathroom, the coolness of the floor the only comfort- or if anyone does they dont want to ehar it, i cant blame you... i dont even want to hear it anymore. in the mornings the world is blurry. it comes in and out of focus. this is when im the worst. when i awake from a dream to realize that none of it was real possibly ever.one of the things stranger than realizing you are alone in this world is realizing that you are not.pupils the size of baby worlds.every bad decision is put on file for later viewing. mapquest your way back to me, take a turn for the worse and then continue for .5 miles.i want to file a restraining order against myself.and i want to be myself again looking at my reflection in your eyes from the first time i failed you. i am nostalgic for disaster. i want it back.he sleeps sound. he has no care for what buzzes and changes in the world around him.because of this i envy him.run away from a city because of one single heartbeat. it doesnt make sense.its not that i dont trust you, actually it is. and i dont trust myself when i think of you. i sell myself out.i wish you were awake right now. i just want to let myself be happy.posted by xo @ 3:53 AM

July 28, 2006

as i run away from everything i have ever known. just whisper in my ear."and the tears come streaming down your facewhen you lose something you can't replacewhen you love some one but it goes to wastecould it be worse?Lights will guide you homeAnd ignite your bonesAnd I will try to fix youHigh up above or down belowWhen you're too in love to let it goBut if you never try you'll never knowJust what you're worthLights will guide you home"so obvious. so much more brilliant than i could ever imagine to be.be bright and shine. its dark. im sorry ive come so off course.tell the pilot to clear us to land in your backyard.posted by xo @ 11:02 PM

July 30, 2006

regardless of what stars i end up under- for the best and for the worst-you have made me who i am. and i try to make myself more decent and better only because of you.happybirthday.posted by xo @ 3:05 PM

[jenna-of-eluria]

Saw IF with the kid yesterday. I don’t know that I’ve seen a movie with such a heavy background plot so vaguely explained. This is not a criticism, even though it sounds like it. The main character’s mother dies of cancer within the first ten minutes and the only way you know that is a quick shot of her in a hospital setting with a colorful scarf on her head.

Then when the main character is a few years older, her dad is in the hospital with a “broken heart,” but aside from a song and dance number with an IV bag that isn’t even connected to him, there’s never any standard hospital paraphernalia. I think the only thing I ever spotted on her dad was a pulse ox on his finger. Even after an operation he was just lying there in his hospital bed in a gown sleeping….no monitoring equipment at all.

The hospital itself is bright and overall friendly.

I appreciate this approach a lot in a kids movie. This is not a critical review of this process at all, I think it’s kinda nice to not have a hospital be a scary place in a kids film.

The main plot was great, with one exception. Ryan Reynolds’ Calvin was a little angrier than I thought he should be. There might be a plot reason for this that I won’t spoil but still… it felt not good at times.

Other than that, it’s a good kids movie. Ok that and nobody laughed at the long drawn out I’m gonna sneeze joke at all, zero kids laughed at that.

And I’m not sure that I understand why there are so many copies of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s character?

It doesn’t matter, but it did take me out of the movie a bit.

Since the runtime is so short, there is no explanation for a number of things, and character development is nonexistent. Relationships just “are,” there’s not much depth to them. This movie is 1:45 which unfortunately is not enough time to have two plot lines going coherently. You’re left unsatisfied with both.

I had to explain the twist at the end to my son after the film’s big reveal, because he didn’t catch it. Again, more background story would have helped. Would adults pick up on the clues? Probably. Kids have no hope of doing so until it’s explicitly laid out for them in the next scene, which is also far too short.

Did I cry? Of course. Those few minutes with Bobby Moynihan made me feel things, okay?

Did I leave the theater wishing (spoiler redacted) was MY imaginary friend? You fucking bet.

Fiona Shaw was incredible as always, Cailey Fleming just was not convincing as an actor. She needs a few more years I think. It’s painful when you can see an actor gear themselves up for line delivery in character, watch them deliver the line, then watch them revert back to the actor in between lines. She’s young though I bet she’ll get better.

I kind of love that Brad Pitt played Keith. That’s a great Reynolds-verse in-joke.

As for the draw of so many talented actors and comedians being in this - well… they maybe have a couple lines here and there and that’s it. I don’t know that I would call them cameos, even. It feels like that was a gimmick to get parents to buy in to bringing their kids to see the movie.

It was okay. Wish there had been more time spent on both plot lines. Rewatchability is nonexistent for me. The kid loved it though, which is all that actually, truly matters.

Afterward we spotted a Luna moth just chillin on the theater

[solardick]

Happy BS day. Its valentines. I’m not allowed knowing love. Because god’s an asshole. And enjoys fucken with me. And it’s always ever going to be just me. And know that in dying. I dont care anymore. That stupid girl they always talking about is going to be there. Today, yay! My lung hurts. Smoke another ciggarette.

Wonder whys the dovstor arw going to say when i ask to be euthanized. Just send me a guy already so i can spend the rest of my short life being fucked. Like i have been since my first memory. And Since im never going to add anything to life. And for the first tome this year theres the semblance of winter. Its only ten degrees warmer than it should be today and not 20.

Oh and the girl is gone. Wonder who’s gonna replace her.

Yay for being punished all fucken day. Get the fuck out of my way.

And fuck tarot im done. All y’all fo id give me the oppositre of what i create and my intent. Fuck this rapist culture. Soend tbe rest of my short life gaming and hetting drunk. An dmy dragon image in now trash.

Not allowed being healthy others control my life. Wonder what having independance from malicious influences. Something id like to experiemce before i die. Ive never been. Maybe one day. Ill go. Lol.

I nailed it in that dragon image though. My perfect reflection. And the tower crumbles. Everytime.

Mmmnn i can feel it. Serpent. Its stirring. And after fetting hit in the face with a box. Fuck this. Im done. Fuck all of you. Go sit in the corner and wait.

Souffy, fuck off pls.

And… uh, maybe she realized she was in love with me. And could no longer stay. It was a nice two step dance we did though. Was fun. Bye luv. Maybe one day.

It’s always sexual. I have a very lovable image. I just be me. I always get fucked over. But circumstances won’t allow. Im locked down. Man. And they won’t leave me be. I left my family what eight years ago now. Haven’t had any peace pressence has always been there. … born in hell. I dint know what else to say.

Well you know what they say. Gotta poor your sexuality into something else. Like making love to god. Or jesus. Or blogging indiscriminately, unfiltered. It has to be raw. Or. Not at all. When uou have nothign good to say you sys nothing at all. Maybe in. Fairy tail ‘bout being saved by thee glorious father.

Maybe her boifriend, will show up and beat me up. Because she flirted to spite. Spite. Yeah, yeah. That word, works well. Think im being framed up again? Probably.

Hahah. Ugh. I mean. Im pretty celibate. So its usually from the opposing parties. Thats how it started. Even down near 6-8 yr’old. If its coming from women, its either a good desire that would play out right if present corcumstnaves werent treating me lije a marionnette or there wasn’t amole amounts of violent carnage preventing any act forward. Or its a dirty desire. And im turned off. And do the morally good thing. Ethically may be skitchy. The couple times it did. Treatment and marionnette and all that. Not in a healthy state of being. And thats beside the while line up of scripted ones. There to be serpents. Other people serpents. The white ones with the crow.

Where do you want me to step? Here?

Uh, ok. The added script. Strength from mother to the “king” the child as self. Mother to child. Leo. And death. A parental bond with mother. One showing trust and support. Missing piece to the script. My own, fuck her. Man. I cant do it. There’s nothing there. And for as long as im nothing but tred, i couldn’t afford to care even if i wanted to.

Now to see of i camt find something to watch that isnt predomiantly gay, or gradually drawn into being. Risky stuff. I live dangerously.

Like tomorrow war, where the threat is actually the russians. With there symbolic connection to man and the machine vs. Women and temptation. Gotta fight the good fight. It had monsters and russians in it. I should have known better. In godzilla it was what the Chinese? God sake. Gotta keep my uranus in sag occupied. Uh?

I soent what 20 years in a hole. Not being a part of the system. And then as soon as i do. “Covid”happens. Yeah, ok? Where the real world? I dont think ive met it yet.

Anyway. Crazy bs aside. Im grateful she left. Better pay, closer to home. Can’t go wrong. Even though she hurt me in two ways. Knowing that she wasn’t there to get in my way today. Was awesome. And the good feeling remains. The Dove and the Dragon. The dove, a portent to positive experience. This land is populates by too many crows though. The most dominate species here. Only in the spring and summer are they mostly chased away. Creating a loop of conditional experience. That of using the the functioning increases of solar energy to overcoming the negative association to growth. Its not at all different that the tv. Of fighting monsters and such. Except that there’s not an overlaying fabricated script over nature. And this function is towards the means of reproduction and establishing a suitable nesting home.

In high populated city zones, the natural is all but lacking. Amd the mass lives within a bubble of conditioning. Which cost millions of lives to make possible. While claiming peace on earth. Though millions of lives doesn’t seem so consequential considering the what now, eight billion?

Twisted metal does seem promising. Thanks justin.

No, it’s just sneaky. It hook punches you.

Well guess im goving up media. And going back to the wind.

Well y’all could give some hearts if your going to stock me anonymously. But no. Only the bad stuff.

[daedalusdavinci]

ao3 wrapped 2023

taken from here. i did this last year and it was fun so im doing it again

1. How many words have you written this year?

i published 110,143 words this year! written...... no clue.

the first half of this year was mostly spent working on the jdau, but the second half was mostly spent on working on oc stuff that i dont post anywhere. i have no way of tracking how much i wrote for that bc this year i shifted all of my oc works from google docs to saved files on my computer, so the dates are all fucking wrong. ; ; if you add that mystery number onto the mystery number of scrapped projects and wips..... theres no telling. theres no telling.

2. How many works did you publish this year?

i posted 12 works on ao3 this year, not counting the fics i rewrote. i posted 9 drabbles on tumblr. this wasnt a great drabble year for me, i think.

3. What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?

i like the afterlife drabble i wrote about jason and nico. i feel like every time i write about them theres just something so bittersweet and punchy about it. it was a cool idea that kind of leaves me thinking about the world behind it, but not in a way that needs to be elaborated on.

as far as fics psoted on ao3, maybe under the skin? its such a different dynamic, and the tension is drawn so taut, it walks the line perfectly between violence/hatred and grief/love. its one im always second guessing myself about, but i had so much fun with it, sometimes i just have to remind myself its okay to make things just for the sake of exploration/indulgence.

4. What work of yours has the most hits?

snow day, with about 1k hits. i think thats the fic where a lot of people stop reading the jdau. its short, its fluffy, and i do actually still love this one a lot. i wrote it when i needed it.

5. What work of yours got more feedback than you expected?

i feel like a lot of my drabbles this year were really weak, so ive been surprised by the number of notes some of them have gotten. otherwise, mostly oc stuff? ive always struggled with sharing original content bc it never feels interesting enough, but the few friends i have shared it with have been so supportive and it means everything. @roomfulloferidans and @ashysiashy especially are always encouraging me and motivating me to keep making more, and i mightve given it up a long time ago otherwise tbh

6. Favorite title you used

oh thats gotta be The Family Disappointment actually. i like how much meaning and interpretation is embedded in it. if youve been reading the jdau, you might think its jason, but seeing that the fic centers damian, you might think its him. both boys struggle with feeling like theyre bruces biggest disappointment, but the fic is about brotherly solidarity, and recognizing that maybe bruce is actually the disappointment.

honorary mention to under the skin, bc i think that one was very funny/clever. i also named some oc works "the debilitating fear of garage doors" and "the inherent eroticism of handholding" and i like those a lot.

7. If you use song lyrics, which artist’s songs did you pull from the most?

its a fucking miracle. for once, i didnt use any.

8. Pairing you wrote the most for this year?

i guarantee it was bruharv again. bc the jdau. ive finally finished it tho, so who knows what the next will be?? the world is full of possibility.

9. Favorite pairing you wrote for this year?

im going to be so real w you. my ocs. their dynamic is so much fucking fun.

10. What work was the quickest to write?

i guarantee it was one of the drabbles. altho i did spend much more time agonizing over them this year

11. What work took you the longest to write?

the jdau. but specifically, im sure it was retirement, bc that one is the longest by miles.

12. How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year?

one!!! im working on a hs fic for the first time in ages, tho i dont have all of my plans for it 100% solid yet. ive got threeish chapters written tho, so i think i will end up finishing it. ill probably start another wip soon so i dont contaminate this one w the urge to write nonsensical fluff.

13. What’s your longest work of the year?

its retirement. its definitely retirement. its 46k and everythign else doesnt really pass 10k

14. What’s your shortest work of the year?

one of the drabbles. on ao3, its off book.

15. What WIP are you taking into next year with you?

the aforementioned. its davesprite centric and so far its a lot about family and growing up.

16. What’s your most common “Additional Tags” tag?

probably “Harvey Dent Adopts Jason Todd” again. god im so glad im done w that au

17. Your favorite character to write this year?

my ocs. otherwise, im going to say 2f bc he is so babygirl to me w his sexy trauma and anger issues, and rose, bc rose <33333333

18. The character that gave you the most trouble writing this year?

bruce fucking again i hate writing him so much its unreal hes barely even a person to me hes been written so many different ways so many different times the source material is basically a suggestion and i HATE IT. also, nepeta. i cant get her voice right and its killing me and i refuse to write in pesterlog format im NOT DOING IT

19. What’s one pairing you want to explore next year?

eridve baby im coming home <333333 (<- insane) but probably also a lot of hal ships eventually

20. Which work of yours have you reread the most?

i have reread the jdau so many fucking times reviewing for the next chapter its fukcing unreal and insanity inducing. if i reread it any more im going to start hating it

21. How many kudos in total did you get this year?

772. this feels liek nothing compared to last year but its so much compared to the previous years so i think im doing good and last year was just a fluke

22. Which work has the most comments?

snow day w 7 comments, which tracks, bc it also has the most hits.

23. Did you do any collaborative works this year?

nope! not this year

24. Did you write any gifts this year?

most of my drabbles were requests, and i definitely wrote some fics w specific ppl in mind, namely @roomfulloferidans (Calming a Storm) and @ashysiashy (some oc stuff), but i didnt technically tag any gifts on ao3 this year

25. Did you receive any gifts this year?

nope! im kind of the writer of my friend group so fics are not generally smthn i receive. however, trustymikh drew this drawing inspired by my mermay bruharv drawing inspired by their mermay harvey drawing, so maybe that kind of counts?? i was delighted to see my bruce design in their style, at least. @roomfulloferidans drew a very nice drawing of my oc rogue that i cherish, @mudp1es and another friend of mine drew our spidersonas, and i participated in an oc art trade where another friend drew my oc barbie. i think those count as gifts, even if its not Ao3 Gifts(TM)

26. What’s your most common category?

M/M again bc i think its hot when men

27. What do you listen to while writing?

i tend to just loop playlists or single songs, unless im really struggling to concentrate, in which case ill switch to white noise.

28. Favorite work you wrote this year?

my oc fic, the inherent eroticism of handholding, which im 99% sure i did write this year? it captures a very specific kind of uncertain tenderness where a crush is new and theyre feeling out flirting still. i think about the scene where theyre lying together in the dark while everyone sleeps and holding hands for a reason they cant justify, not looking at each other, talking about nothing, all the time. i also rlly like the oc fic i just finished a lot- domestic(ated).

that i published, i guess under the skin for reasons i already talked about.

29. Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

im just gonna collect a few here, bc its hard to pick when i write so goddamn much:

Two Face hesitated. Carefully, he asked, “Do you think they want to get rid of you?” Jason’s eyes flickered away from him, his mouth opening, and then closing. “Yeah?” he said, finally. He sounded unsure.

Water dripped from Two Face's curls and slid off of his nose, spattering against the symbol on Bruce's chest. He found himself blinking hard, his breathing coming fast and tight. "You told me- You were supposed to be- Not even in death. Not even in death, would you have ever told me."

The Backroad Home

Eridan kissed like a fire slowly burning him from the inside out. He tasted like liquid courage and saltwater spray, sticky sweet like taffy the way he stuck in Dave's chest. His hands left scorched trails behind when they slid over Dave's skin, haunting, dizzying, warm like the inside of his mouth.

Calming a Storm

back when he and Bruce had lived so deep in each other’s pockets that the line between his and mine had vanished.

To Late Bruce Wayne

For a while, Two Face just let the breeze wash over him, ruffling his hair as his skin prickled from the chill. A siren blared somewhere in the distance, and he sucked sauce absently from his thumb, setting aside the tupperware. “I care deeply about this city,” the TV crackled. “That’s why I’m donating-” Two Face tucked a cigarette between his lips, pulling his lighter out of his pocket. There was a ritual to it. The slow inhale, the gradual exhale. The wind pulled the smoke from his lips, and it disappeared over the rooftops. Bruce’s laugh washed over Two Face. It was vapid and fake over the airwaves, but the memory of it rattled around Two Face’s chest, warm and startled as they rolled in the sheets in Bruce’s dorm. Longing took hold and ached.

Under the Skin. there are a lot of great lines from this one, but this may be my favorite

Spectre's chin bumped gently against Rogue's shoulder, inches left between them, and Rogue thought about how easy it was to steal things in the dark. "Tell me about something," Spectre whispered. "Anything. And I'll sleep."

the inherent eroticism of handholding. this whole fic was very quoteable and so is Domestic(ated) but i will make this my single oc quote.

30. Biggest surprise while writing this year?

that people would like my ocs, really. moth tenderly cares for them like real blorbos and i still dont really know how to process that