the thing about art is that it was always supposed to be about us, about the human-ness of us, the impossible and beautiful reality that we (for centuries) have stood still, transfixed by music. that we can close our eyes and cry about the same book passage; the events of which aren't real and never happened. theatre in shakespeare's time was as real as it is now; we all laugh at the same cue (pursued by bear), separated hundreds of years apart.
three years ago my housemates were jamming outdoors, just messing around with their instruments, mostly just making noise. our neighbors - shy, cautious, a little sheepish - sat down and started playing. i don't really know how it happened; i was somehow in charge of dancing, barefoot and laughing - but i looked up, and our yard was full of people. kids stacked on the shoulders of parents. old couples holding hands. someone had brought sidewalk chalk; our front walk became a riot of color. someone ran in with a flute and played the most astounding solo i've ever heard in my life, upright and wiggling, skipping as she did so. she only paused because the violin player was kicking his heels up and she was laughing too hard to continue.
two weeks ago my friend and i met in the basement of her apartment complex so she could work out a piece of choreography. we have a language barrier - i'm not as good at ASL as i'd like to be (i'm still learning!) so we communicate mostly through the notes app and this strange secret language of dancers - we have the same movement vocabulary. the two of us cracking jokes at each other, giggling. there were kids in the basement too, who had been playing soccer until we took up the far corner of the room. one by one they made their slow way over like feral cats - they laid down, belly-flat against the floor, just watching. my friend and i were not in tutus - we were in slouchy shirts and leggings and socks. nothing fancy. but when i asked the kids would you like to dance too? they were immediately on their feet and spinning. i love when people dance with abandon, the wild and leggy fervor of childhood. i think it is gorgeous.
their adults showed up eventually, and a few of them said hey, let's not bother the nice ladies. but they weren't bothering us, they were just having fun - so. a few of the adults started dancing awkwardly along, and then most of the adults. someone brought down a better sound system. someone opened a watermelon and started handing out slices. it was 8 PM on a tuesday and nothing about that day was particularly special; we might as well party.
one time i hosted a free "paint along party" and about 20 adults worked quietly while i taught them how to paint nessie. one time i taught community dance classes and so many people showed up we had to move the whole thing outside. we used chairs and coatracks to balance. one time i showed up to a random band playing in a random location, and the whole thing got packed so quickly we had to open every door and window in the place.
i don't think i can tell you how much people want to be making art and engaging with art. they want to, desperately. so many people would be stunning artists, but they are lied to and told from a very young age that art only matters if it is planned, purposeful, beautiful. that if you have an idea, you need to be able to express it perfectly. this is not true. you don't get only 1 chance to communicate. you can spend a lifetime trying to display exactly 1 thing you can never quite language. you can just express the "!!??!!!"-ing-ness of being alive; that is something none of us really have a full grasp on creating. and even when we can't make what we want - god, it feels fucking good to try. and even just enjoying other artists - art inherently rewards the act of participating.
i wasn't raised wealthy. whenever i make a post about art, someone inevitably says something along the lines of well some of us aren't that lucky. i am not lucky; i am dedicated. i have a chronic condition, my hands are constantly in pain. i am not neurotypical, nor was i raised safe. i worked 5-7 jobs while some of these memories happened. i chose art because it mattered to me more than anything on this fucking planet - i would work 80 hours a week just so i could afford to write in 3 of them.
and i am still telling you - if you are called to make art, you are called to the part of you that is human. you do not have to be good at it. you do not have to have enormous amounts of privilege. you can just... give yourself permission. you can just say i'm going to make something now and then - go out and make it. raquel it won't be good though that is okay, i don't make good things every time either. besides. who decides what good even is?
you weren't called to make something because you wanted it to be good, you were called to make something because it is a basic instinct. you were taught to judge its worth and over-value perfection. you are doing something impossible. a god's ability: from nothing springs creation.
a few months ago i found a piece of sidewalk chalk and started drawing. within an hour i had somehow collected a small classroom of young children. their adults often brought their own chalk. i looked up and about fifteen families had joined me from around the block. we drew scrangly unicorns and messed up flowers and one girl asked me to draw charizard. i am not good at drawing. i basically drew an orb with wings. you would have thought i drew her the mona lisa. she dragged her mother over and pointed and said look! look what she drew for me and, in the moment, i admit i flinched (sorry, i don't -). but the mother just grinned at me. he's beautiful. and then she sat down and started drawing.
someone took a picture of it. it was in the local newspaper. the summary underneath said joyful and spontaneous artwork from local artists springs up in public gallery. in the picture, a little girl covered in chalk dust has her head thrown back, delighted. laughing.
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On Saturday, in New York, a group of friends pulled into a strangers driveway to turn their car around. The homeowner came outside, shot at them, and killed one of the 20 year old women in the car.
Last Thursday, in Kansas City, a 16 year old boy ended up at the wrong address by mistake trying to pick up his younger siblings. He rang the doorbell. The homeowner shot him in the head. He is, miraculously, alive and recovering.
Yesterday, in Texas, a group of high school cheerleaders stopped at a grocery store on their way home. One of them opened the door to the wrong car by mistake, realized her mistake, and quickly retreated and found her friends car nearby. The man in the car followed her and shot at the group. 2 were shot. One remains hospitalized.
In less than a week- 3 people, doing normal, nonmalicious, nonthreatening, everyday things. Turning around in a driveway, ringing the wrong doorbell, going up to the wrong car by mistake. And with no escalation, no warning, it turns to gun fire.
It's a terrible intersection of easy access to firearms and an entitlement to use violence against others. All 3 of these recent incidents were so unprovoked and unjustifiable, and the core thread remains the same.
A man who felt entitled to use violence and had the means to do so with a firearm.
I don't even know what to say.
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Exploring some concepts for a slightly older Ghost!! I imagine them as about 8-9ish during the game.
I’ve been neglecting them in most of my AUs lmao, I think it’s time for some Ghost centric stuff shxhxjxj (also they’re VERY fun to draw)
After killing the Radiance, the siblings take some time to rest and recuperate, and at some point decide to try and rebuild Hallownest. Hornet takes over Deepnest, taking her rightful place as Queen, while Hollow becomes king of Hallownest. While Ghost is technically the crown prince, it’s more in name than anything, as they would rather run the Path of Pain handcuffed in the dark than have that kinda responsibility (also they’re like. 13 by this point)
Some tidbits about their design and this AU for those interested:
- They resemble their mother more than PK, and as a result their horns are more like branches and grow to resemble antlers!!
- They also have a faint wood grain pattern all over their body
- Vessels typically have small glowing white dots on their bodies, and darker spots on their face and horns (I’ve been referring to them as soul spots and void freckles shbxxn), and you can generally tell whether they’re more proficient in soul magic or void magic depending on how many of either they have!!
(E.g. Hollow has a few void freckles, but they are COVERED in soul spots, meanwhile Ghost has a few soul spots but they have a TON of void freckles).
When they come into their power as Shade Lord, Ghost’s soul spots are swallowed by their void, and as they get older more void freckles appear until their horns are entirely black.
- I like the idea of Ghost’s power as SL showing in their physical form more as they get older, like their mortal body can’t contain their entire being, so it leaks out in the form of wispy void hair, void freckles, etc etc
- When they started rebuilding, there became a sudden need for formal clothing once again, so Hornet raids every closet in the White Palace to cannibalise the different dresses and robes into something presentable (luckily Ghost fits into most of Hornet’s old stuff)
(Assume the White Palace appears again at some point (finding PK’s corpse is a VERY fun time for Holly ahahaha))
- With the discovery of kingdoms beyond the Wastelands (via Silksong), the siblings start reaching out in the hopes of establishing some trade routes, and getting some help with the rebuilding effort
This opens some opportunities for visits from neighbouring royals (and pooossibly some new friends for Ghost, they need to meet people their age lmaooo)
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Hello I mcyt fandom-ified la Team du Lundi members and wrote a shit ton of text about it
After exhausting myself on trying to catch up on the current QSMP lore I got a sudden craving for a more familiar and fast paced kind of minecraft content and ended up rewatching all the Team du Lundi's SMP best of's I could find
And while doing so with my brain still hazed in fandom brainrot, I started picking up on minor details or info the players casually dropped, and drew parallels to the French speakers' QSMP counterparts
This is going to be a long wordy post I don't even know what I am rambling about and for. Three things you need to be aware of about la Team du Lundi before reading :
Baghera, Antoine and Etoiles are the only QSMP players that are part of la Team du Lundi
As far as I remember the only two elements that suggest that la Team du Lundi's SMP could be canon to QSMP are Antoine being pressured into building another Tower of Shit, and Baghera's infamous fountain being mentioned when she was asked if her character remembers anything from her past before the island
La Team du Lundi's SMP was NOT a roleplaying server, it was just a private survival server for a small circle of friends casually playing together. So whenever I quote someone in this specific post, it is the streamer : there is no character other than the persona the streamer is usually showing on stream, but I just thought it would be fun to interpret certain situations while keeping in mind the QSMP lore. And here goes :
Baghera claims that when she was a kid she strongly believed that she could breathe underwater. The others joke about her having fins
Antoine jokingly tells Baghera he doesn’t need oxygen at all
Antoine claims he will still be alive thousands of years forwards
Antoine’s voice shifts when he wants to appear creepy
Baghera built an aquarium at her place, then helped Antoine build one at his tower, then built a giant swimming pool, then a fountain, then a waterslide- do you see a theme ?
Baghera knows that her skin is actually that of a chick and not a duckling, and calls it so here
Chat said that Baghera has a middle child syndrome, justifying that she bullies Angle Droit because Etoiles bullies her in the first place (Etoiles has also called her « little sister » in a derogatory way)
Etoiles has repeatedly asked people to play Valorant with him at least once
Here's a clip of Etoiles getting languaged in french and owing "a gifted sub in the swear jar"
Unrelated random clip of Etoiles because it creates happy hormones in me brain
Etoiles is regularly refered to as "the warrior"
Etoiles guided the whole group during an expedition to the End and he was literally glowing doing so (enchanted arrows effect)
Everyone called him "the guide"
Baghera was the one who gave the final blow to the Enderdragon (and died from magic right after)
Etoiles spent most of his time adventuring in order to bring stuff and gear back to everyone for their builds
Etoiles asked Aypierre for help in order to design a redstone door for his cave which could only open upon solving a puzzle (which was egg & arrow related) (Aypierre was not a member of the server)
Etoiles built a nightclub with the walls and ceiling covered in wardenblocks making it look like a starry sky. He also rehomed Allays holding golden apples inside claiming them to be the souls working for him and that they lived there peacefuly
Etoiles jokingly talks about Antoine acting jealous and violent towards him because Etoiles told him he wanted to go and visit Kameto (who also was not a member of the server)
Baghera (along with Horty) had a rivalry with Joueur du Grenier (host of the server with admin powers) after he decided to build a massive parking lot right next to their house. They countered by covering the whole thing with dirt, followed by JDG building a factory and the two parties went back and forth. Baghera argued that it was stupid because they didnt even have cars to begin with (which is a sentence she reused when talking about Forever's roads) Also she tells JDG that he could've built a seaport instead, which makes JDG contemplate the thought of building an airport (and though he ended up never building it, I am side eyeing the French's plane crash)
At some point JDG wonders about what a roleplaying minecraft server would look like (RPZ 2), to which Baghera replies that she has a hard time picturing the thing "We'd all just build things you see ? I don't think we'd create stories, we would all just be like "I'm a builder, ah you too ? Well awesome, builders, cool"" and I find this to be hilariously ironic (fun fact : Baghera had no idea that QSMP was a roleplaying server when she first joined and often claims she would've taken a different approach with her character had she known right off the gate)
As I was finishing to write this down, these fuckers (/lh) decided to host a closure night for the server as they've never really officially did it, everyone just sort of deserted the server after a while. Baghera, Etoiles and Antoine kept referring to QSMP throughout the night, mostly talking about how weird it felt without mods. Among other meta commentary things
They mentionned Cellbit and Bad multiple times as the group was trying to solve enigmas. Antoine talked about "the cultural sharing" between communities as he taught insults to each others with Mike, Roier and Maximus in their respective languages
Multiple more players were namedropped (including eggs) while Antoine was talking about how the server functions
Yes, Baghera and Etoiles kept their QSMP skins. Etoiles with his code corrupted purgatory one, and Baghera with her fading pink disheveled hair (with the addition of her cubito wearing Horty's merch)
Baghera admits that going back to this small familiar vanilla server feels like coming back home to your family during the holidays
Team du Lundi's cameos in QSMP :
Though Pomme has never canonically met JDG (even though most of her parents have talked about him to her at least once), she occasionaly breaks the 4th wall to refer to him. She once compared one of BBH's "vacation" flower shirts with his, and when Foolish and Bad asked her to elaborate (obviously not getting the reference) she proceeded to play JDG's music theme with the flute instead (Also I really feel the need to once more point out how mindblowing it is for your average french speaking viewer to have JDG's intro theme being added to the mod they use in the QSMP because of how anchored it is within french internet pop culture. Like this shit has been existing for 14 fucking years, it's part of the childhood of a lot of us, so to find a clip of British hardcore player Philza peacefuly listening to Mexican egg admin Tallulah play this theme on her flute feels like a multiverse fever dream)
Horty has been on Quesadilla Island through cc!Baghera's account, but neither of them really wanted to justify it RP wise. Baghera just wanted to give her best friend a tour of the island. Horty only got to meet Richarlyson who gave her a tour of Cellbit's castle and made her pick a room (she chose Chaos). She also chatted with Etoiles who tagged along for a bit and (this is obviously justified by it being a one-shot out of roleplay filler episode kind of night) they both already knew each other and were on friendly enough terms to bicker with one another
Also she was part of the French speakers Quackity reached out to to invite on the server, but she had to decline because she was very busy at that time (and also not interested)
Also also she was Baghera's teammate for that Formula 4 event, and Baghera has discussed it and showed pictures to a couple of islanders, including Richas who was very hyped about it
Another player the viewers were hoping to see on Quackity's server is Mynthos. He exists within the server with the picture of him that hangs in Pomme's art gallery, the cursed animation video that used to play in La France, as well as with Aypierre's health potion factory that bears his name
Angle Droit and Zerator are sometimes namedropped when the French speakers talk with their chat. Angle Droit frequently raids Baghera's and Antoine's streams, and though it has never been confirmed, a lot of viewers theorized that she was the +1 player Baghera and Etoiles wanted to invite on the server had they won the elections.
As for Zera, Etoiles went AFK on QSMP a couple of times in order to test some of Zerator's TrackMania maps (which he later discussed with Pac). I also remember a very trivial conversation Etoiles had with Mouse and Aypierre where he laughed about hurting his back very badly after carrying a fellow streamer during a caritative event, said event was hosted by Zerator (he's also the one judging them with concern from his desk)
I'm done.
Bonus alternative design for Angle Droit because at first I thought she was a fox then it turned out she was a corgi but then she changed it again to a fox and woop
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