#absolute shit art tm

[niinnyu]

He loves his friends.

He missed them.

The official art that rejuvenated my soul.

[victimized-martyr]

flustered broflovski recipe:

1 tranquil cartman

1 close proximity

let complicated feelings simmer for 10 years

enjoy!!

[buttered-toasty]

Your honor in my defense he and I have the Exact same hair type and color. What was I supposed to do with that information. Not this? I don’t think so

Or: eddie in hairstyles I’ve had over the years

.

.

I let these sit on my phone for three days weeks (! Jesus fucking Christ) because I just thought really hard about posting and gaslit myself into thinking I did when. I did not, in fact. And then writing alt text took a hot minute

[hbbisenieks]

ok, i've gotta branch off the current ai disc horse a little bit because i saw this trash-fire of a comment in the reblogs of that one post that's going around

[reblog by user makiruz (i don't feel bad for putting this asshole on blast) that reads "So here's the thing: every Diane Duane book that I have is stolen, I downloaded it illegally from the Internet; and I am not sorry, I am a thief of books and I don't think I'm doing anything wrong, ideas are not property, they should be free to be used by anyone as they were before the invention of capitalism; for that reason I don't believe it's wrong to use books to train AI models"]

this is asshole behavior. if you do this and if you believe this, you are a Bad Person full stop.

"Capitalism" as an idea is more recent than commerce, and i am So Goddamn Tired of chuds using the language of leftism to justify their shitty behavior. and that's what this is.

like, we live in a society tm

if you like books but you don't have the means to pay for them, the library exists! libraries support authors! you know what doesn't support authors? stealing their books! because if those books don't sell, then you won't get more books from that author and/or the existing books will go out of print! because we live under capitalism.

and like, even leaving aside the capitalism thing, how much of a fucking piece of literal shit do you have to be to believe that you deserve art, that you deserve someone else's labor, but that they don't deserve to be able to live? to feed and clothe themselves? sure, ok, ideas aren't property, and you can't copyright an idea, but you absolutely can copyright the Specific Execution of an idea.

so makiruz, if you're reading this, or if you think like this user does, i hope you shit yourself during a job interview. like explosively. i hope you step on a lego when you get up to pee in the middle of the night. i hope you never get to read another book in your whole miserable goddamn life until you disabuse yourself of the idea that artists are "idea landlords" or whatever the fuck other cancerous ideas you've convinced yourself are true to justify your abhorrent behavior.

[skaruresonic]

Spinning telling me about Netflixavania's impact on how CV is viewed by the mainstream reminds me of the fact that video games, for all of their advancements, still carry something of a stigma.

Particularly old games. Call me a crotchety old lady, but there's no respect for them. Not their history, their context, their legacy, or their preservation.

In addition to the revisionist narrative that "Sonic was always inconsistent" people invented in order to elevate spinoff media over the games, I'm reminded of how Silent Hill fans are now pushing this erroneous narrative that James shows little emotion because of "technical constraints," therefore erasing Team Silent's deliberate creative decisions. (Sato stated otherwise in a 2001 interview, fyi)

People will invent narratives to ingratiate their love of viddy games to the mainstream because in some capacity, games are still considered #cringe. It doesn't matter if it's an ongoing series (Sonic), a dead series (Castlevania) or a seminal work in its genre (Silent Hill), folks will still make absolute steaming horse shit up to devalue previously-lauded works. Suddenly Sonic is no longer good and has never been good. Suddenly Silent Hill 2 isn't a masterpiece or a giant of the survival horror genre; no, it's old, and therefore outdated, and the devs were only doing the best they could with what little they had, uwu poor lambs.

I literally had to stop watching a Silent Hill analyst because she too fell prey to the "technical limitations" cruft, suddenly making up flaws she'd never pointed out before for absolute bullshit reasons because she had decided to agree with the mainstream opinion that SH2 is now "obsolete" as a work of art.

I hate the ahistoricity, the revisionism. And it's so fucking xenophobic patronizing to the game devs, sending the message that despite their best efforts, they only made silly viddy games, while others are now taking the same material and elevating it to the status of Art(tm).

[snailcubezz]

(more detailed post on my whole Deal here)

another commission/money begging post??? Absolutely!! :)

anyway to put it very simply im in an extremely Shit situation (have been stuck here for a long while but it's just been getting Worse And Worse) and i would love to get out of it sooner than later! im very autistic and disabled and have little to no education due to my Situation TM and thus can't get a job + likely Won't be able to for the next few years. only thing i know how to do is draw, so im going with that!!

(please note that the other art examples i included are just Examples and will not be as cheap as the $5-10 sketches. full color/shaded stuff will cost way more)

if you're interested in commissioning me, awesome !!! but don't dm me here. tumblr dms are pure shit and will get eaten up so fast i promise u. please just contact me on discord (also @snailcubezz)

if you'd like to just donate, my username is the exact same on both cashapp and paypal (cashapp is preferred but i understand that paypal is unfortunately much more commonly used)

[astraltrickster]

Basically my big annoyance with fiction vs. reality Discourse(TM) is how the internet is so fucking full of people who are, uh...really on extremes.

You say "hey, guys, it's a good idea to be responsible with the messages you put out there, it's really easy to perpetuate unjust biases even if you only hold them subconsciously" and another person will go "YEAH! We need to BAN HANNIBAL because they'll start to think that CANNIBALISM is GOOD, it's TOTALLY that easy to reverse a taboo like that, people are stupid monkey-see-monkey-do beasts and must only see wholesome goodness!"

To which you can say "bruh, no, it is NOT that simple, this is Video Games Cause Violence all over again, that's been disproven time and time again, I'm talking about shit like racism and sexism, not kicking puppies, what in the Christian fundamentalist bullshit IS that argument?" and whoops out of the woodwork crawls a swarm of people to say "YEAH! Propaganda isn't real, the US military funds movies and video games for fun, and it's totally not racist of me to bash every character with skin darker than a brown paper bag because I just find every single one super annoying for SOME reason, it's just FICTION, bro!"

Alternately, you'll get people who are so fucking DEFENSIVE from people who are on absolute ground level that they'll see your "hey, guys, it's a good idea to be responsible with the messages you put out there" post and immediately go "oh, so what, you think people are just so stupid that if they look at furry art they'll start going out and fucking animals? What, do you want to ban The Lion King next?"

Or someone will see your "bruh fiction isn't fucking reality, taboos as ingrained as 'don't eat people' are NOT that easy to break" post and go "OH so you think we should be airing Birth of a Nation every day for every person ever because it's ~just a movie~? Wanna have a family friendly readalong of Mein Kampf?"

You can never, ever, ever win by just addressing one side of the equation, and if you try to address both, you'll STILL get people swarming all over it thinking their take on how your villain school AU fanfic means you're an evil degenerate who wants to blow up a daycare with a death ray FOR REAL, or how Top Gun is a harmless family fun time with absolutely no propagandistic messages included or intended, absolutely fits into that framework.

And so it goes on and on and on forever.

[shadowcatzone]

xingyue child after all the trauma (tm)

Xingyue child buying/sharing lunch with yanqing bc the stupid kid used all his money for swords again and didn't buy food. Despite knowing probably that if they keep feeding him he'll keep wasting all his money on swords rather than starving once or twice and then learning his lesson.

(They probably get any money spent back from jing yuan but don't tell yanqing)

Xingyue child adjusting yanqings age like a slider depending on who asks and what will get them the most benefit out of it. Wanna go to some sort of amusement park? He's 9 so he only pays half. Wanna watch a martial arts movie? He's 14 actually so old enough. Wanna get out of trouble quickly? "Sir, i'm just the attendant of jing yuans young son. You'll have to take any complaints to his father."

(They might get in trouble with jing yuan for this, but they're rather scolded by their "uncle" than a stranger)

Xingyue childs first priority being bailu, second priority yanqing. If something, anything, goes wrong, they'll pick up bailu, (and yanqing, if necessary) then make a run for either the artisanship commission or divination commission.

(Then they'll wait any danger out on a rooftop or in the forge until jing yuan or yanqing come pick them up)

Xingyue child playing with bailu. Neither of them really needs to pretend that they're younger than they actually are, but they will. Both are over 18 technically. Neither is fully grown. Both will absolutely throw a temper tantrum if only to throw off suspicion. Then they'll shit-talk about the preceptors.

(Included but not limited to: playing in yanqings room when he isn't there, playing in jing yuans room when yanqing IS there, playing in the study when jing yuan isn't there.)

Xingyue child trying to fight (and defeat) dan heng, ultimately getting defeated without dan heng making a single attack. Man's just dodging while xingyue child exhausts themself and ultimately falls on their face. Decides that dan heng is mean and will never fight him again (until the next opportunity arises) pouting all day afterwards.

(Jing yuan says he could at least block them. Dan heng claims that would be unfair, considering he's much stronger than them. Jing yuan sighs, dan heng is as stubborn as dan feng)

Xingyue child insisting on calling blade "yingxing" or "dad". That's a problem(tm), kafka never had to fix blade that often, not even during/after the story quest on the luofu.

(Because no one wants to leave the child alone with blade, even though he hasn't done anything to the child and it's unlikely that he will)

Xingyue child most likely picking up smithing (and tinkering) like yingxing and so they try to. Create. But they want blade to show them how, look at what they made, how is it etc. Nobody wants that, least of all blade, but the moment dan heng says he doesn't want it, blade will willingly go, if only to upset dan heng.

(Dan heng will be forced to go as well, to make sure "our child is okay. I mean, your child. I mean, my- no- their child. The child of dan feng and yingxing." Cue beet-red dan heng)

Bonus: xingyue child happily working in the forge, concentrating so hard on whatever they're making. Meanwhile, blade making out with dan heng, occasionally stopping mid-kiss to tell xingyue "you're doing great, keep it up." "Careful with that part, it can be difficult. You'll know what i mean" "just a bit more... [xingyue], heat the metal up a bit more.". Also, pushing his fingers into dan hengs mouth, to make sure he doesn't close it.

(If xingyue child noticed any of that (most likely not) they didn't let it show)

Also, cue blade abruptly stopping when he hears xingyue child call out "done!" Then runs over excitedly. Blade pretends nothing happened. Dan heng pretends the forge is too hot.

[trainingdummyrabbit]

"not to ocpost-" please oc post (as long as you're ok with it) i would love to learn more about holly and chun-run!! (as long as you're ok with it!!)

! oh its absolutely ok, i love being enabled ^w^ kjfngdkjf um um. this is another Entire Thing(tm) that requires Exposition(tm) so um hope youre ready to read More Paragraphs !

the short answer is

the long answer is: i went 'hey i have two* ruina-era ocs, what if i put them next to each other for fun? haha they'd hate each other ^w^' ... 'Oh God They'd HATE Each Other.' so uh, the exposition.

Holly! You've Never Met Her Before. certainly not. ttttechnically. out of narrative, Holly was originally a branch of what Cocoa's character would have been when I was first developing her. in narrative, Holly is what would have happened if they'd never been picked up by LCorp. she's... an entirely different person, basically.

in essence, if you thought the other one was unstable, Oh Boy(tm). Holly is what happens when the city Actually gets the chance to sink its claws in. it's just this time, she was far, Far less quiet about it. girlies who completely fucking failed their stat check Again. there's only so much 'keep your head down and take it' you can really handle before you're just about ready to tear a bitch apart, and well. Well! anyway.

Holly is another angle of the Human/Monster/Object tangle, in where Cocoa's development hinges on the equivalent of trying to balance several spinning plates and Fucking Up Miserably, Holly has started hurling plates directly into the audience with intent. if you will.

humans are always talking some hot shit about how high and mighty they are, the "value" that comes with just being Human, and yet their entire lives are a horrible, animalistic dance of clawing each other to shreds while hiding behind ideas and roles they themselves put into play, like it's some stupid game. that harm is just an intrinsic part of the human nature. she can't fucking stand it.

essentially, she's an odd argument between the Human and Monster corners of the tangle. not only hates the binds that the city places on them of obligation, but also the ties of human emotion-- namely guilt and connection. that endless dance. she wants nothing more than to shed these ideals completely-- unfortunately, she still intrinsically and unconsciously clings onto them, afraid to let go. a human trying to claw its way out of humanity. it doesn't matter what it takes-- she's not letting this city take her first.

...and then there's Chun-Run.

we just don't know where chun-run came from. but she sure Is, and she's Immediately going to make it a Huge Fucking Problem. being aligned with the musicians of bremen, she has.. very normal views about art, and what it means to be Alive. she's the closest thing to a human time bomb i can think of, probably.

she doesn't have much of a character... honestly kind of intentionally? her entire being is solely rooted in the present, the What Is and the What Will Be. she strives to feel what the pianist's performance invoked that day-- through any means necessary. whatever happens to Her, to anything around her-- none of it matters. first and foremost, she is a conduit. it's all secondary to that singular experience.

horrifying. painful, disgusting. striking, poignant, pungent. it makes her sick to think about, but some part of her wishes she was closer to truly Feel it. its repulsive– but she Needs to hear it again. to witness, to experience. what is it– what was it? to grasp onto an ephemeral feeling she physically cannot understand– frustrating, frustrating. but she Needs to. to make the soul sing, cry out in reverence... to call it a Song is almost insulting.

so you have the worlds most unstable walking contradiction with absolutely no outlet and an unidentified fucking thing intent on wringing some undefineable meaning from the soul through physical violence.

so like, moth meet flame.

chun-run is pretty much Instantly infatuated with holly-- but for the Entire Wrong Reasons. it's pretty much "Yeah I Could Make Her Worse." all the way down, but expressed entirely through Murder. yknow, girl things. and holly, of course, fucking hates this are you for real right now??? shut the fuck up about reaching Art through Violence there is something WRONG WITH YOU. chun is entirely convinced that she's what will harmonize closest to that sound she's chasing-- that dissatisfaction, desire, rage... it's so painfully close. and yet she refuses to acknowledge that spark! refuses to engage entirely! is it not the nature of the soul to sing? so sing girl, sing.

girlies who are trying to claw their way back to stability and girlies who want nothing more than to burn to ashes in a beautiful blaze of Being. in conclusion:

[crookedkingdomruinedme]

Kimchay in Hogwarts <3

Yes, I'm still stuck on my fic but here's a Kimchay Hogwarts AU.

Like I said in my last post, Kim's a Slytherin in a house full of Gryffindors (straight parallel to Sirius, who was a Gryffindor in a house of Slytherins) and Porchay is a Hufflepuff, just like his brother.

To make all characters fit in, let's just pretend that Kim's only a year older than Chay but they're in the same year as Kim rolled in late. So, both of them are in their 5th year. Chay's 15 while Kim just turned 16.

Kim's the lone wolf of 5th year. (Inspired by Regulus Black my beloved) and doesn't really interact much with anyone. Dubbed the Ice Prince due to his stunning looks but his cold face, he mostly stays to himself with his nose stuck in a book and does his things without bothering anyone. He's, obviously, a star here as well for his music, but it's always uploaded anonymously, and so far no one knows who actually Wik is. So yeah, he's more than a bit touch starved and very bad at actual student social interaction. He doesn't even talk to his brother/s at school at all due to the constant rivalry between Gryffindors and Slytherins (never mind the fact that he thinks Kinn doesn't even want to talk to him after his sorting). Vegas, for the most part, leaves him alone unless there are some "joint jobs" to do with Kim. Macau, being the annoying cousin he is, always seems to stick to Kim and disrupt his peace. But that's all anyone sees on the surface.

Porchay's the sunshine of 5th-year students. A chill guy who's fun to hang out with and never judging. Everyone knows him or has at least heard of him (just like everyone knows Kim but for exactly different reasons). He's famous for his kind personality and acceptance of all things weird(TM). He's comfortable with his sexuality and is a great help to students who just want to explore or talk about their gender/sexuality issues to someone other than an adult. An absolute Wik fan and always daydreaming about who the person could actually be. So yeah, he's comfortable in his lanky form, has a cool brother who's also a pain in his arse, helps around at the herbology garden whenever he can, and is a good tutor, even if he is not that extraordinary at studies. The other students are kind of freaked out by the two brothers. It's like they have twin telepathy with the way they understand each other by just looks.

Anygays, That's their background in the school.

Kim's a straight-A student, obviously. He's an extraordinarily strong wizard, being able to do a variety of spells that someone of his age shouldn't be able to. This just adds to the rumors that already surround him though, about how he's secretly a dark magic practice and stuff. He's on top of the class by a mile to the other students, untouchable even in his studies. The one class he thrives the most is Defense Against Dark Arts, it's as if he was born to do it. Ironic considering his overall image at school.

But of course, every smart student faces a challenge in at least one class, and for him it's Herbology. Even though animals absolutely adore him, it's as if these plants can't even look in his direction. It's frustrating him to no end. He's mad at himself too, how can a few plants hate him with such an intensity that they won't even come near his hands???

It's bad for his OWLs too, which he's already stressed enough about it as it is, he doesn't need saplings adding to it. He needs to pass this class damn it!

The worst part is that no one's willing to help him. He doesn't really have anyone to ask for help. He's 100% sure Kinn would walk the other way if he even comes close to him (he already averts his eyes whenever they see each other anyway). Macau's just as shit as him in caring for anything, no matter alive or not. Vegas doesn't even take these classes, and even if he did, Kim wouldn't go near him with a ten-foot pole. It's not really as if he has any friends, with students always walking the other way if he so much as comes close to them. And he gets it, okay? He absolutely does. He wouldn't go near himself if he could, either. But this also means he's stuck without any help and he's scared of falling behind in his classes and what Papa would do if he failed one.

Enter Porchay, An absolute god at Herbology but horrendously lacking in his Defence against Dark Arts skills. He also wants to pass OWLs with flying colors, if only to help his brother and make him proud. After all, Porsche passed with one of the highest scores of his age, and who is Porchay if not competitive?

It starts one evening when Porchay's helping Professor Sprout with arranging the new batch of seeds needed for the second semester when he sees Kim, sitting in one of the greenhouses and looking at a book with such fury Porchay was scared that it might just catch fire.

Of course, Porchay recognized him. Kimhan Theerapanyakul is a mystery to everyone in Hogwarts. A kid that didn't speak much but always seemed to look superior to anyone. Porchay has seen him around the school, and even shares a few classes with him, but has never talked to him. He's beautiful, Porchay thinks, vastly different from his two older Gryffindor brothers.

Shaking himself out of his thoughts, he asks Professor Sprout what Kim's doing here, to which she sighs and tells him how that kid just won't give up on this class even though he's on the verge of failing.

And hey, Porchay can respect a stubborn person with enough fire to keep going. It's when the professor goes on to say how he's got more than enough points from his DADA classes that a light bulb goes off in his head.

Porchay's always been a bit reckless, a trait shared between both the Kittiswat brothers. He knows and has heard about the different rumors surrounding the other boy, ranging from curious to borderline disturbing, but will he listen to them? No. He likes to make observations on people by himself, something that will eventually be his downfall, but for now, it's that curiousness that pushes him forward to stand behind the green-clad boy and tap his shoulders.

He interestingly notes how Kim didn't even flinch at the sudden contact but simply looks at him with an eyebrow raised.

For now, Porchay extends his right hand out for a handshake, smiles brightly, and says, "Hello, I'm Porchay, and I'd love for you to be my DADA tutor"

[pansear-doodles]

What is your opinion of Ultrakill? I don’t know if you’ve answered this before but I can’t find it if you have

I was first given the impression that Ultrakill was not a friendly game to me. What I mean by this is that I am absolutely shit at FPS games (and general first person games to an extent based on the genre) because I'm not usually given enough time to react to my 360 surroundings. (I tend to play better when things are top-down or when I am able to see both the character and my surroundings)

I also had another bad impression when I was streaming myself chilling in the main rain world server but some kid keeps interrupting us with ultrakill gameplay. We kept switching vcs but they wouldn't leave us alone. I don't remember the name of this kid but please don't harass them since I think all they want was just attention.

One of my friends (@cyn-arts) LOVES Ultrakill and has been a fan of it for a long while, even before chapter 2 came out. She managed to (i say this lightly because most words i use are playful rather than serious) indoctrinate a majority of the server into playing Ultrakill and she was all there for it to see our reactions. Eventually, I gave in and played the game. I was told that Ultrakill is friendly even to people who are shit at FPS.

As it turns out, I really loved playing the game. It was very satisfactory and I loved joking around the characters and making fun of them. Eventually lead me to ship Gabv1el (i mean- i always ship things whenever I discover a new thing tm) and headcanoned v1 and v2 as arguing siblings (though I am not against people who ship them since you could also technically see them as two unrelated beings- much like iterators).

I was so scared of this ONE level though I literally fucking cried (and its not the existentialism one- its the one where a literal stickman chases you). Call me weenie hut jr. that's fine.

Every now and then I'd see my rw mutuals in my dashboard retweeting ultrakill art or talk about ultrakill, which is always a delight to see. And I'm quite glad this game still influences me and my friends to this day someway and somehow.

[goosemixtapes]

max's top books of 2023 :3c

as usual, these rankings are based on some arcane mix of objective quality + my personal enjoyment (previous year's lists)

it was another weird reading year! i did a lot of reading for school, more so than in the past; some of it was really good and some of it was, uh. well, some of it was william wordsworth. nothing i absolutely loathed, though (most of the reads i disliked were books i could at least appreciate on an art/history level), which is cool. so i'm bringing back the runner-up category. did not make it onto my top ten list but were really good anyway: beartown by fredrik backman (books that no joke made me understand why people are insane about sports) and the GORGEOUS re-release of my dear @yvesdot 's debut, something's not right, which i have read before but will always gladly revisit again.

my top anticipated release for 2024 is alecto the ninth again.

(but shoutout also to just happy to be here, king cheer, and henry henry. trans people! shakespeare, even!)

and the list! in increasing order of enjoyment, with pictures this year!

10. The Common Liar by Janet Adelman

no, i can't believe i'm doing this either. i can't believe i did all that preamble and the first book on my list is an academic thesis analyzing shakespeare's antony and cleopatra. but also? it's the only book anyone ever needs to write about shakespeare's antony and cleopatra. janet adelman said it all. which is cool, because i have a fixation on that play, but also sucks, because i was also trying to write an essay on it and mine wasn't nearly as good. btw if anyone wants to buy this for me, somehow, for the $120 it costs on amazon because academia is awful, i will send you my address,

9. Robert Icke's Oresteia

i don't need to say anything about this play, because it's the source of "this was always going to happen. she's been dead since the beginning." that should be enough. but after becoming deranged about the oresteia last year, i finally read this, and holy shit, this adaptation of the story is so fucking genius and icke's writing is so fucking good. it's antiwar! it's about mental illness! there's gender! the fucking ENDING! (i have a pdf if anyone would like it. anything to plug this play bark bark bark rufrufruf grrrrrr)

8. Down Girl: the Logic of Misogyny by Kate Manne

this is a little bit cheating, because i haven't finished this book yet, so maybe in the final chapters manne will say something like "what if we blew up every orphan" and i'll have to retract this. but right now it's fucking excellent! i've been making an effort to read more nonfiction lately, and this one shines; manne sets out to analyze misogyny not as a personal hatred of women that some men harbor, but as an intricate and structural system forcing women into the role of Giving (attention, affection, power, etc; sometimes their lives). and it's sooooo smart. some of it is stuff i already know (and some of it is Academic Philosophy TM that goes right over my head), but manne articulates her point excellently and i can feel it rearranging my brain, so it's going on the list for longevity and skill!

7. Dictator by Robert Harris

does this book objectively deserve to be on this list? you know what, yeah. i'll say it with my whole chest. i don't like how harris writes women and there are plenty of things to pick at in his cicero trilogy, but i had so much goddamn fun reading it that i can't not put it on the list. this was my year of being really really into cicero, and this was fun to read alongside e-pistulae. harris is sooooo good at making ancient roman politics gripping. the last scenes of this book. augh. ack. ough!

6. Detransition Baby by Torrey Peters

there are a lot of valid critiques of this one (a lot of bad critiqus, too, but such is writing literally anything about transness), but i fucking adored it. i LOVE dual timelines, i LOVE unlikable characters, and i FUCKING LOVE TRANSSEXUALITY! moreover, i love that peters isn't afraid to Go There, to poke at the messy ugly sides of transness (and queerness in general) that i think a lot of us don't like acknowledging, especially to cishet people whose view of the community is already skewed. i don’t think this is the One Great Trans Novel; i think there are a lot of great trans novels, and we need more. but this one did hit me RIGHT in the chest, and i couldn't put it down.

5. Wrath Goddess Sing by Maya Deane

the iliad but achilles is a trans woman and she's fighting the war on both mortal and divine levels and she and helen have an insane homoerotic half-god rivalry and everybody is fucking crazy. pitched as "for fans of TSOA" but as i said in my review if TSOA is a pleasant but watery iced tea then this book is gasoline laced with crack. there is a bisexual transgender threesome. i fucking love women. book of the fucking summer

4. White Teeth by Zadie Smith

i probably enjoyed wrath goddess sing more, but i can't not rank this book highly on this list. this book is such a fucking masterpiece. it's tolstoy for the modern age. it's a sprawling multi-familial multi-cultural multi-generational epic about race and gender and religion and science and humanity and britishness. smith's prose is fucking amazing; her character work is even better; this book has no plot but it uses its length sooooooo well. the first zadie smith i've read, but by god there will be more. she wrote this at TWENTY-FIVE. that's fucking CRAZY. do you know how much control over your craft you have to have to write this at twenty-five. bonkers. it is also the only enjoyable book i read in my modern literature class, so shoutout to white teeth for keeping me sane,

3. The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel

this book is ostensibly about bechdel's relationship with exercise. it is actually about bechdel's relationship with her own body, her own soul, her desire for individualism in the style of the transcendentalists, transcendentalism in general, mortality, and aging. i can't really tell you more than that because i didn't actually "read" this so much as i absorbed it through my skin like a frog while trying not to tremble like a little purse dog. i am not gonna lie man i did not have a very good. um. august. or september. or october november december. so this book really could not have come at a better time. alison bechdel i am obsessed with you

2. The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel

ALISON BECHDEL I AM OBSESSED WITH YOU!!!! this one narrowly edges out secret to superhuman strength because... well, i'm sort of rating the entire comic strip's run, and dude. holy shit. i love lesbians so much. this strip is such an important piece of lesbian history; it reminded me that a lot of the things lesbians (and LGBT people in general) argue about and deal with today are... the same things we've always argued about and dealt with, from intracommunity label discourse to global politics to hitting on women badly. but history aside--it's also just really fucking good! it's really funny! if you are a neurotic leftist, as so many of us are, it's hysterical! it's smart! it's hot! it's heartwarming! i read it over the first half of the year, in little bits and pieces, and by the end i felt like i really had gone decades with these characters. really just. so good. the power she has the range she has

1. the suzanne collins reread

okay. this one is definitely cheating. because i usually like to keep this list to books i'm reading for the first time, and i HAVE read the hunger games and the underland chronicles. but i read them, like, almost ten years ago, and i was not prepared to be so thoroughly fucking bodied by them this time around, now that i have critical thinking and analysis skills. we all know the hunger games is a fucking banger, so let me pitch the gregor the overlander series: something of a modern alice in wonderland setup, where the eleven-year-old main character falls into an underground world full of strangeness, except this world isn't whimsical, it's dangerous and stuffed with giant talking animals like bats and rats and cockroaches. there's a war on. there are plagues. there are war crimes. there is a plotline that is extremely explicitly about ethnic cleansing. there is some of the most heartbreaking fucking shit you've ever read in your goddamn life. there is also a rat who quotes macbeth and the underlanders revere a guy named bartholomew of sandwich. this series is for middle schoolers. i cried. not when i was a middle schooler reading it the first time; i mean now. so i'm breaking my no-rereads rule, because it really would be a lie to say that my best reading experience wasn't revisiting all of collins' work with my friends (yes, i read TBSOS; i think it's fine but not great). sorry to give publicity to an author who definitely doesn't need my help, but a few years ago my #1 spot went to shakespeare, so.

if you've read this far: thank you! please tell me your thoughts! tell me your favorite books of 2023! tell me which books you're excited for in 2024! and have a very lovely new year :)

[cerastes]

in the discussion of Absolutely And Totally Normal Guys Who Arent Running From Their Backstory we need to include resident weapons expert Sesa and his Normal Guns

Oh Sesa is FOR SURE Normal(tm), he never skips leg day so he can run VERY fast from his backstory. Sesa is in a different place from the other racers, however, I would say arguably, first place, his race might as well be done. Struggles are not horizontally comparable from person to person but as far as his marathon is concerned, he's already WAY out of reach of his backstory.

Sesa and Mr. Nothing have much in common in that they are fine wearing the clown make-up, except Sesa goes one hundred times harder. Mr. Nothing likes to come across as a harmless charlatan and fortune reader, and, well, Situations keep finding him, including people that see him bust out one move and immediately go "holy FUCK it's the Fan of Liquifying Skulls!? There's still someone that knows those techniques!?", whereas Sesa applies four times the make-up and, get this, metagames these mother fuckers.

Whereas Shalem and Nothing are like "I'm just a little guy", Sesa proudly, loudly proclaims to be the biggest boy around, he's NEVER had a birthday, he's the best most incredible coolest fucker of mothers around, and, well, that's why he's beating their asses in this race: If you insist you're just a regular guy, well, that's behavior that no regular guy exhibits, ESPECIALLY when Mr. Nothing is like "noooo I'm so scareeeeeeed I can't fight :(" and then goes and solo's an entire bandit stronghold.

Mr. Nothing REALLY got himself 'captured' on purpose so he wouldn't have to fight in front of the others, and then, when he was in there, broke himself out, beat the fucking tar out of every single ass in the vicinity, and then came out running like "Ohhhh noooo that was so scary :((((" and explained everything like "oh yeah I got lucky with the ropes and I got a lucky dodge then I got lucky hitting them in the liver, and then by SHEER luck I managed to beat them all up, because a lot of lucky things happened haha crazy huh?" like Nothing, mate, you SUCK at being a birthday boy, what the fuck.

But Sesa? Now THIS is a master of his craft

He is a black belt in Chuunibyou, he is so, so fucking obnoxious and overly grandiose that people just want to leave the room immediately and write him off as a Shit Nobody Punk who is one day going to chew far more than he actually can swallow. In other words, Sesa is by far the best at being a birthday boy, because instead of hiding his talents, he showcases a BIT of them (and even then, he's known as master of his craft) and then talks the BIGGEST fucking game possible. That is a perfect recipe to get people to consider you obnoxious and write you off as a wanna-be.

This makes Sesa, in fact, the best at being a normal dude, because while everyone else is constantly under scrutiny, Sesa drops in a kernel of truth (he's a master at modifying Originium weaponry so it can be used by people not adept at Originium Arts), coats it in an ocean of Chuunbyou, and gets dismissed as a lunatic, thus properly hiding the actual Great Truth (which is, if he wanted, he could make weapons that require zero Originium Arts knowledge at all to operate, thus changing Terra as a whole if this know-how were to be copied by others).

It is no coincidence that he is the birthdayest of the boys when you consider who he shares a birthday with. Mr. Nothing, Shalem, Jaye, they all have very small scale secrets, very personal, very contained. Sesa's secret could shape the entire world if it gets out. He has to be the best at this.

[magicalgirlmascot]

The Toa Inika are going to go from having only Takua as a mentor to having 2-3 experienced Toa/Turaga EACH all falling over each other to look after them and help them with their new powers. This dynamic ranges from fairly chill (Onua and Whenua are usually on the same page when it comes to teaching Nuparu, and have both agreed it's best not to watch when Lewa takes him for flying lessons), to Absolute Mayhem (What happens when you put four generations of Air Toa in the same room),

I went a little insane on this so in the interest of not clogging dashboards here

Fire: Jaller takes the whole thing Incredibly Seriously. He turns up at KNPS twice a week after school to practice combat training with Tahu in the gym and gets extremely annoyed if Tahu forgets and goes home before he gets there. Vakama is always there when Jaller comes, though, and he's always quite happy to spend time talking to him about anything and everything. He becomes something of a confidant for Jaller, and Jaller appreciates that he treats him like a young adult instead of a teenage boy.

Water: Hahli keeps trying to focus on how she can use her powers for combat and Gali has to gently redirect her towards other uses for them, like reading the weather or healing. It's not so much that Hahli is obsessed with fighting like her Hahli the Barbarian persona suggests, more just that she always wants to make sure she's being useful. Her training with Gali and Nokama tends to be a bit more relaxed and focused on meditation.

Air: Lewa is taking his role as Kongu's mentor about as seriously as he takes anything, which isn't much. He's very excited to show Kongu how to do things and only a little annoyed that he keeps getting zapped whenever Kongu uses his powers. Kongu is still extremely grumpy about not being able to fly, but between him, Lewa, and Matau they're working on a way to get him airborne. Grandpa Iruini is the one who helps him figure out how to handle his telepathy, because he's the only one of them who can sit still for long enough to come up with anything other than "just don't think about it." He posits himself as the Normal One/Grumpy Old Man of the bunch, but also can't help ribbing Matau about stuff.

Earth: Nuparu is very much into experimentation, which is kind of at odds with how slow Onua was to accept things initially. He keeps trying to ease Nuparu into things by focusing on his connection to the earth, like Whenua did for him, but Nuparu mostly works like "what would happen if I did x," doing x, and then documenting the results. Whenua thinks this is very funny, but also helps Onua redirect him to do things like help in the garden. Sometimes in the middle of Nuparu's training with Onua, Lewa kidnaps him to teach him how to fly. Unfortunately the way their flight works is very different so it's a bit of a weird one, but Nuparu loves to experiment and Lewa loves to fly so they get along like a house on fire.

Stone: Hewkii and Pohatu spend most of their training time playing sports and shooting the shit. Sometimes Macku tags along. Pohatu's sneaky, though, and manages to teach Hewkii about using both his stone and his accuracy powers through The Power Of Sports(TM). Onewa keeps trying to convince them both to use their powers to do shit like spawn uncut gemstones and make art, but unfortunately they're both way more into sports than art so he's outvoted. He grumbles about it but honestly he's glad Hewkii is in good hands.

Ice: Well, Matoro is related to two Toa of Ice so naturally he avoids learning anything from his dad and sticks to learning from Kopaka and Nuju. Kopaka isn't sure what to do with an apprentice. He treats it like he does work, planning lessons and giving clear, concise instructions. Pohatu thinks this is very funny and teases him about it when he's sitting at the kitchen table poring over lesson plans and teaching objectives. Nuju teaches Matoro more about theory than anything on account of not having powers anymore, and Whenua is always so excited to show Matoro the archive any time he has any questions. Kualus tries to get involved but Matoro tends to shut down when he comes into the picture, so he settles for needling Whenua for details afterward.

BONUS

Takua's "mentoring" style is very "I definitely know what I'm doing and am not in over my head at all haha." They're so excited that their friends are Toa now and very confidently tell them a bunch of stuff that winds up being completely off base because the Inika are Fucking Weird and don't work like normal Toa. Takua doesn't work like normal Toa either but in a different way. It's all a bit of a mess. They get them through the basics, though, enough to figure out what they are and what's going on.

Krahka doesn't have a mentoring style. Sometimes she shows up at school pretending to be a student and hang with various Toa on their spares/lunch breaks. Sometimes she makes things worse on purpose for her own entertainment. Very often she leverages the fact that she used to be their therapist to Do A Therapy on them when things seem like they're actually bad. She goes home and regales Onewa with tales of What The Kids These Days Are Up To.

[cryptidcariad]

Path of the Beast - Mutations/Adaptations

One of my favourite things about D&D (and other mechanically dense TTRPGs) is when you get your character concept and character build to complement one another. AKA Ludonarrative Synchronicity, AKA That Good Shit (tm). And I've had an absolute blast doing that with Thrash and his Path of the Beast Barbarian build. The campaign has been a great mix of fantasy, horror and D&D shenanigans, perfect for playing my angsty, cursed mess of a character. He still hasn't discovered the true nature of the monstrous form he was cursed with (mechanically he's a bugbear), but its defining traits are instinct and adaptability. In other words, when a dangerous situation arises, he mutates involuntarily in a way that helps him survive. Technically his form only changes when he rages or takes a rest, but I had so much fun with that idea we decided that it happens in smaller ways whenever he uses another ability. A larger snout for tracking things with Perception/Survival, a more simian shape when he needs to climb with Athletics, that kind of thing.

And since I've been doing more art trades with @werelocke, I have now have some sketches to represent those changes! So here they are, mostly for my own reference but maybe other character building / monster character aficionados will enjoy :)

Swimming

"You gain a swimming speed equal to your walking speed, and you can breathe underwater."

One of the three 'Bestial Soul' options you can choose from every short/long rest with Path of the Beast, gained at Level 6.

Kinda situational but I really like being able to move through difficult environments easily. It's fun to imagine him using the 'jaws' mutation to bite and grapple an enemy, then do scary crocodile death roll.

Climbing

You gain a climbing speed equal to your walking speed, and you can climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check.

One of the three 'Bestial Soul' options you can choose from every short/long rest with Path of the Beast, gained at Level 6.

At first I was thinking lizard/gecko for climbing, but I think a more monkey-like form adds a bit more variety.

Leaping

When you jump, you can make a Strength (Athletics) check and extend your jump by a number of feet equal to the check’s total. You can make this special check only once per turn.

One of the three 'Bestial Soul' options you can choose from every short/long rest with Path of the Beast, gained at Level 6.

I'm so impressed with @werelocke's art for this one. It's so scary! Even though this form is mostly just for leaping, I think it's super cool. It may sound kinda niche, but the ability to jump 20+ feet from a standing start is really huge for getting around the battlefield quickly.

Tracking

You are particularly familiar with one type of natural environment and are adept at traveling and surviving in such regions. When you make an Intelligence or Wisdom check related to your favored terrain, your proficiency bonus is doubled if you are using a skill that you’re proficient in.

Part of the 'Natural Explorer' ability gained by Rangers at Level 1.

Thrash has decent Perception/Survival for tracking, wilderness survival, etc, but it was only recently that he got really good at them when the DM decided to give each of us an ability from a different class as a homebrew thing.

To me, this represents him finally learning to understand what his new instincts are telling him whenever he's outdoors, what all those intense sounds and smells and instincts actually mean.

Spotting Predators

Your instincts are so honed that you have advantage on initiative rolls. Additionally, if you are surprised at the beginning of combat and aren't incapacitated, you can act normally on your first turn, but only if you enter your rage before doing anything else on that turn.

As part of the bonus action you take to enter your rage, you can move up to half your speed.

Core Barbarian abilities 'Feral Instinct' and 'Instinctive Pounce', gained at Level 7.

'Fight or flight' is a big part of this character's mindset. He's a little like the Hulk; he has this side of him that he's scared of and can't really control, but it mostly just wants to protect him/itself. Except rather than anger, he's way more driven by fear. And it can be fun to play act a bit twitchy/paranoid and 'pounce' into action when a fight starts!

[celestialholz]

Just the Two of Us (or 'the number two and Hassius')

So, you may remember me discussing TM20 a while ago, how it's Brassius' life story and how the numbers two and zero make up an experience shared with no one else, and... well, thought that was as far as the 'twoness' went, to be honest. That was enough, right? That's already enough gay, between the Applin and the sculptures in Artazon????

... Except no, because in case you hadn't realised by my collection of seven ephemeralart metas and counting, Paldea simply loves to gaslight me into a false sense of security. A girl thinks she's done with Pokemon's chief husbands, and yet here she is again.

What follows is a collection of 'twos' and their multiples that follow Hassel and Brassius around as though they're being stalked by their own love story.

We'll start with: if you take on Victory Road in its recommended order, Brassius is the second trainer you fight, whilst Hassel is the second to last.

I'm sure we all know it by now, but here's the order you're meant to go in:

And obviously it's followed by the Elite Four, Hassel being the last one before the champion herself. (We're... not counting Nemona. The Nemona fight's its own special little thing, and she's not part of the League anyway.) Couple that with the fact that Hassel canonically shows up to say hello after the second gym, and... mm. Mmmmm.

Point one, in fact, is almost as good as point two: Applin.

This is Applin's stat spread. Which is all perfectly divisible by two. In fact, if you just throw Hassel and Brassius (TM)20 points each... well, that's four stats covered, and it kinda stands to reason that two older men might be slower, and that that two older, emotionally damaged men might be really good at being overprotective. 'Dragon that guards the final fortress of the Elite Test,' anyone?

Oh, but we don't end there with Applin. Oh no.

The apple daughter has Ripen as an ability later, which, well...

... doubles effects. Okay then...

Is this the better of Flapple's two abilities? Oh, absolutely. But it also means nothing practically, because Hass doesn't use berries, or held items at all in fact. It's almost like it's only there symbolically! Imagine that, what a world. And Flapple, as I've discussed before, is also second to last in his team line-up, which as we know symbolises the heart and personality of the trainer. I'd argue, in fact, that Hassel having Flapple over Appletun is indicative of turning a misunderstood childhood (a 'self-defence', if you will) into a powerful and prosperous adulthood, because Flapple's much more of an offensive Pokemon - but that's an observation for another time.

Point three: there are four Harvest Cs, again two times two. I talked about the significance of The Harvest over here, and about how the sculpture I named 'C' there is a lovely fusion of Grass and Dragon, orbited by small suns. And here they all are:

(Shoutout to mini Holz for that colour coordination. She did it herself, I am but a mere humble illuminator of the lore.)

Point four: there are 34 Surrendering Sunfloras. Also divisible by two. (I am not spending another five hours on fucking Sunfloras so no photography for this one, but trust me... I spent five hours on this shit.)

And there's also that Brassius is gym two... Hassel is fourth of the Elite Four... but here's the real killer:

Point five: Art (4). Just... just going to leave that one with you, and remind you that Paldea has never heard of the concept of 'coincidence.' And I'm going to drop this rainbow two here... just because, y'know.