#i claim no credit only the spread of meme and funnies

[4dmc]

there really is something wrong with some of the "Alpha-Sigma" people when talking about women's appearances/bodies and it's misappropriation of academic terms (not to mention how they probably skipped biology in school)

but I'm just glad for some DmC meme afterwards

[chekushka]

Hi, I'm not sure if you know this, but you are not using tumblr correctly. Reblogging means sharing an image by clicking on the reblog button on someone's post. This way it appears on your blog and your followers can see it, but it also links back to the person who drew it. People prefer this, because the artist gets recognition for their work.

What you are doing instead is reposting, meaning you save an image and upload it as a new post. People on tumblr don't like it when you do this, because you are taking the attention away from the artist who worked hard on the drawing, and in a way you are stealing their likes, that's why you get upset comments. Most people assume that whoever posted it drew it, and they are not going to check your profile, so the artists also feel like you are claiming that you made the drawing.

You say that "you are just posting memes" but that's not true, if someone draws a funny drawing that doesn't mean it becomes a meme and they want people to spread it without credit. Saying that doesn't absolve you from criticism. And most of these drawings aren't even memes.

Don't take this as an attack, I'm just telling you, if you reblogged art instead of reposting it, you would stop getting upset comments on your posts and more people would follow you. Also by reblogging you are interacting with more blogs who could follow you back. You are probably going to get blocked by a lot of artists if you keep reposting their works. Reblogging takes way less effort anyway.

One last thing: If a drawing can only be found on twitter, and you still want to post it, you can put a link under the drawing of the tweet, and everyone will be cool with that. If you don't know the source, a reverse google image search can help you find it easily.

Ehh... I do not find these works on Tumblr, but in other places, often the author is not listed there, and even more so, I have already noted in the description of the blog that I will post memes and everything that fits this definition, if I could immediately find the author, then I would indicate him in the description, but not fate, and i don't use twitter, twitter not available russian, i seek mems on VK (ВКонтакте), okey true seek after original post, but not promised

[firelxdykatara]

gods, ok, apparently i’m not done.

atla fandom? we need to have a chat.

(....ok that made me sound pretentious as fuck. and maybe i am, but this needs to be said, cause i’m getting....real, real tired of a Certain Corner of this fandom and as a result, this is gonna be a discourse-heavy post so feel free to scroll past if that’s not your bag. as always, my salt posts all carry the catch-all #salt for ts tag, which you’re free to blacklist/filter at your leisure. i’m Very Annoyed at the moment, which will probably come through in the following post, so just. yknow. be prepared for that. or ignore it, that’s perfectly valid too.)

under a cut bc i do care for my followers and their sanity i swear lmao

there’s a real serious issue in this fandom with not understanding what queer terminology actually means or implies, especially when applied to a fictional narrative.

i’m specifically talking about ‘coding’, here. (if i were in a more meme-y mood, i might have said ‘the atla fandom found out about the term “gay-coding” and haven’t shut up since’.)

to the people who say ‘zuko is gay-coded’, i have this to say: you keep using that word. i do not think it means what you think it means. because he isn’t. i’m sorry, but he’s not! and the fact that this is such a prevalent claim in this fandom is distressing, bc it says to me that none of y’all know what gay-coding is or when and how to apply it! please, i’m begging you, go and look up these terms and what they mean and when they should be used before actually trying to plug them into your critical analysis, because when you misuse them and then call other people delusional for disagreeing with you it casts a pall over the entire fandom and is, i think, the root of some of the worst toxicity this fandom has to offer.

and the thing is, there are cases where gay-coding would apply--for instance, a couple series that are famous for queerbaiting their audience by coding their main characters as being attracted to one another (sometimes even despite their openly stated sexualities) come to mind, but those shows bare no similarities at all to atla and how zuko was written and portrayed! (and it would be funny, if it weren’t so obnoxious and infuriatingly wide-spread throughout the fandom, because the only queer couple we actually seen on-screen in either show wasn’t even queer-coded in any respect, and they’re canonically bi! [yes, i’m shading korrasami, or more accurately i’m shading bryke for refusing to give ka the build-up and development they deserved].)

this absolutely isn’t to say that headcanoning zuko as gay is a bad thing or invalid in any respect. (although the tendency for zukka shippers to do this specifically to keep zuko away from katara and/or invalidate his canon relationship/attraction to girls is more than a little eyebrow raising. especially since sokka is usually allowed to be bi, bc fans have no problem letting sukka stay in the background bc it’s no real threat, while jetko shippers are happy to have both boys be bi. [possibly bc katara is less a threat to jetko bc jetkotara is every bit as valid as any single ship between the three, but zukka can’t exactly let katara join in, and if the potential exists for zuko to be attracted to her then canon giving them the far deeper emotional bond becomes a threat to zukka’s existence? idk for sure--you be the judge.]) i prefer to hc zuko as bi (and always have, long before the atla renaissance), bc i don’t think zuko being attracted to boys is outside the realm of possibility, and it isn’t a threat to my ship since zuko&katara had a deep and emotional bond in canon that is very easy to develop further into something that becomes explicitly romantic--but the headcanon itself isn’t really the problem (although what it’s often in service to can be).

it’s the strange insistence that this is the only way to read his character, bc he was coded that way and so anyone who doesn’t see it must be too straight to understand--and i really shouldn’t have to say why and how that is so incredibly fucking insulting. (the ‘hetero lenses’ comment wasn’t cute when it came from bryke six years ago, and the same sentiment being repackaged and delivered by zukka shippers ain’t cute now.)

calling zuko gay-coded not only demonstrates ignorance as to what the term actually means, and how to usefully apply it in critical analysis, but also validates the frankly bullshit insertion of institutionalized homophobia in the world of atla where it was neither needed, nor wanted, nor ever hinted at in canon. as a queer woman i’m still infuriated by one fucking comic panel shoving institutionalized and systemic homophobia into a world where it was entirely unnecessary (and doing this in the first installment of the franchise showcasing a queer relationship??? making korra and asami worried about ‘coming out’ when they could have just gone on to have cute adventures together and tell people ‘hey we’re dating’ and have everyone else be ‘that’s awesome =DDD’ [because it is, in fact, possible to just have a world without homophobia i promise!!!!!] double yikes, i’m still pissed at bryke about it), and i doubly hate that ‘zuko is gay coded’ has become so widespread that ‘ozai hates him bc he’s gay’ has become a staple in that part of the fandom.

not only does making zuko gay and implying (or outright stating) that ozai hated and abused him because of it completely undermine zuko’s character arc by making his abuse about his sexuality rather than ozai’s toxic pride and anger at seeing himself reflected in his ‘weak’ son, but it comes very close to outright stating that abuse and trauma are inherently gay experiences, and they aren’t!!! they really aren’t, i promise!!!

abuse and trauma narratives exist outside of ‘my dad hates me because i’m gay’. and, quite frankly, there are MORE THAN ENOUGH queer trauma narratives out in the world. we do not need to start trying to retroactively make them canon in a series where they didn’t exist! if you’re gay and see yourself in zuko and project your own experiences on him, that’s understandable and valid. that does not make zuko gay-coded. and honestly, the insistence that he is makes very little sense to me, because you’re essentially trying to give the show credit for work you put into interpreting the characters! why would you want to do that? why not own your own headcanons and take credit for them, rather than insisting they are canon and everyone else is wrong for not seeing them??? like, i’ve said before that i’ve always headcanoned zuko (and katara) as bi, and even support it with my interpretations of evidence from the show, but the difference between ‘i think zuko is bi’ and ‘zuko is definitely gay-coded’ is that i know that bi zuko is my interpretation of canon, and that it is work i’m putting into the show that wasn’t actually intended by the creators/writers, no matter how much sexual tension i read into the jetko swordfight.

and like, zuko’s character arc doesn’t actually parallel a queer one all that well to begin with. it’s easy enough to do the work and twist it sideways just enough to make the general points fit, but the fact is, zuko’s arc is not one of self-discovery. it’s not one of coming to understand something fundamental about himself that he can’t change, that he was hated for, and coming out to his father in a dramatic confrontation where he shows that he understands himself and doesn’t need his father’s acceptance to be fulfilled.

zuko’s arc is actually one of trauma and healing. and those can (and often are--like i said, there are more than enough queer trauma narratives in the world, atla really doesn’t need to be one of them) be part of queer narratives, for sure! but they aren’t uniquely queer. and zuko’s confrontation with ozai during the eclipse doesn’t read like a ‘coming out’ at all. (yes, i’ve seen that post. yes, i rolled my eyes and moved on, bc unlike some people, i’m capable of not clowning on correctly tagged posts i disagree with.) zuko is specifically confronting ozai over his abuse, because his arc wasn’t about discovering anything fundamental about himself (and therefore realizing that ozai was hating him for something he couldn’t change)--it was about realizing that he was not at fault for the way his father treated him. it was also about realizing that the fire nation was broken and corrupt at its core, and that his father was an aspect of that he needed to break away from so that he could help the world begin to heal.

he says it himself:

Zuko: No, I've learned everything! And I've had to learn it on my own! Growing up, we were taught that the Fire Nation was the greatest civilization in history. And somehow, the War was our way of sharing our greatness with the rest of the world. What an amazing lie that was. The people of the world are terrified by the Fire Nation. They don't see our greatness. They hate us! And we deserve it! We've created an era of fear in the world. And if we don't want the world to destroy itself, we need to replace it with an era of peace and kindness.

making this about zuko being gay and rejecting ozai’s homophobia, rather than zuko learning fundamental truths about the world and about his home and about how there was something deeply wrong with his nation that needed to be fixed in order for the world to heal (and, no, ‘homophobia’ is not the answer to ‘what is wrong with the fire nation’, i’m still fucking pissed at bryke about that), misses the entire point of his character arc. this is the culmination of zuko realizing that he should never have had to earn his father’s love, because that should have been unconditional from the start. this is zuko realizing that he was not at fault for his father’s abuse--that speaking out of turn in a war meeting in no way justified fighting a duel with a child.

is that first realization (that a parent’s love should be unconditional, and if it isn’t, then that is the parent’s fault and not the child’s) something that queer kids in homophobic households/families can relate to? of course it is. but it’s also something that every other abused kid, straight kids and even queer kids who were abused for other reasons before they even knew they were anything other than cishet, can relate to as well. in that respect, it is not a uniquely queer experience, nor is it a uniquely queer story, and zuko not being attracted to girls (which is what a lot of it seems to boil down to, at the end of the day--cutting down zuko’s potential ships so that only zukka and a few far more niche ships are left standing) is not necessary to his character arc. nor does it particularly make sense.

(and before anyone brings up his date with jin--a) he enjoyed it when she kissed him, and b) he was a traumatized, abused child going out on a first date. of course he was fucking awkward. have you ever met a teenage boy????)

anyway, uh, that was a lot of words, so have a tl;dr: zuko is not gay-coded. there is nothing uniquely gay (or even uniquely queer) about his character arc or characterization, and he was certainly not coded gay in an attempt to sneak a queer character past the censors. if anyone involved with atla was gonna try that, it would’ve been in lok, and as established, they didn’t even manage to queer-code the actual queer relationship before the last few minutes of the final episode. headcanoning zuko as gay is absolutely fine (though if it’s only done to keep him away from female characters he may otherwise be attracted to, that smells more like misogyny than anything else), but insisting that this reading is the only one that makes sense, and anyone who doesn’t agree must be straight (hello, queer woman here making this insanely long thinkpiece) is very much not.

ship what you like, but stop trying to invalidate other ships and other interpretations of characters just to make your ship seem more plausible. it’s really not a good look.

[artificialqueens]

sometimes a fantasy [is all you need] (branjie) -- frenchy

a/n: hi hello!! i’m frenchy, & this is my first fic on here, despite being a longtime reader!! i sent an ask addressing my inspiration to write a branjie get-back-together fic, where they are hiding their still existing feelings behind a pr stunt/their social media interactions & fall back together through these/acknowledge that it’s deeper than they are pretending. it seemed to interest quite a few people so here she is!! this can be read as a long one shot, but considering how much content they are providing us with, i may continue it?? maybe!

ps. this does not include all the things they’ve posted thus far, but i will definitely try to include most of what we’ve seen so far as references/plot points in future parts if i continue this! ! this takes place while the show is airing, beginning action-wise after episode 4’s airing. it heavily involves the video with branjie that nina west posted on her instagram a few days ago! also, i am not giving into the assumption that they are actually broken up, but in the context of this fic, those rumors are true! okay that is enough, i am super excited about this, i hope you all enjoy ahhh!! <3

@Bhytes1: Hey Papi

@VanessaVanjie: @Bhytes1 What

*****

It had begun innocently enough.

Or, at least, that’s what the both of them would claim if ever asked about it. A tweet or two there, a cryptic emoji-strung comment here, and a handful of tooth-rotting gif interactions. It was almost rare for a day to pass without at least once mentioning of each other through social media, whether direct or not.

Brooke Lynn recognized the necessity for this. They both did. That’s why they were doing it.

They hadn’t necessarily discussed the inevitability of fans indulging in their on-screen romance, but there was an unspoken agreement between them, as well as with their fellow RuGirls. No one would bring up their current relationship status, and all would remain playful – that’s how fanservice worked, after all. Give the fans what they wanted, to ensure they would stay in tow. It reaped many a benefit not only for the show’s ratings, but for the queens involved. The season was only a few episodes deep, and already the interest in Brooke Lynn and Vanessa had spiked – both as a duo, and as individual performers. Brooke liked to believe it was her own doing that attracted so many new fans at such an early stage, though she had to give some credit to her more widely known castmate.

Still, as harmless as it posed to be, it didn’t take long for them to be accused of insincerity. A dozen tweets couldn’t change the fact that they were no longer together, that their relationship had ended before the season had even begun airing. They knew it, their fellow queens knew it – hell, half the fans knew it, even if they had not disclosed it officially. The fandom they found themselves thrust into wasn’t one unknown for spreading gossip and spoilers. The breakup had gone smoothly for the most part, at least when concerned with the public eye. It had been a quick discussion, albeit a tense one: was it smart to remain together when their lives were about to be changed? The two of them were self-aware and smart enough to recognize that their personal growth required separation. That the glorification of their growing relationship on TV would only put a strain on what they had in the present. Neither of them wanted to risk the prospect of resentment.

But they were being proven wrong, day by day. They talked and responded to each other every day, typically without any push from outside sources. They found themselves going from simply answering questions about each other and acknowledging fan reactions, to seeking out each other, interacting with no prompting. It was for the fans, yes, but Brooke never sensed any tension between the two of them. Maybe she was misinterpreting, but she and Vanessa seemed to do the whole “indulging the fans” thing flawlessly. Wishful thinking, perhaps.

And that’s what led them to where they were tonight, in a small office at REBAR Chelsea, too many people for too small a room. The music was almost deafening outside the walls, but was no match for the voices in said room. Specifically, Vanessa. Loud, brazen Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, in a glittery upside-down jersey dress, off her shoulders, her makeup freshly set and her adrenaline pumping even before having stepped out onstage for the night. She had been meticulously placing her blonde wig on her head in the mirror, making an effort to chime in more-than-occasionally to the conversation Nina West found herself deep in with a friend, despite being across the room. Brooke opted to sit in the corner, scrolling through her phone, Vanessa being the sole one of the three of them in drag for the night.

“More than iconic, really. The fans love it,” Nina’s friend had said, prompting Brooke to glance towards them. She hadn’t been paying attention to what was being said, though the mention of fans always peaked her interest. “Definitely need a recreation of that iconic moment at the reunion.”

“Iconic moment?” Brooke asked through a growing smile, interrupting, causing heads to turn towards the new voice contributing to the conversation. Nina laughed, with a hint of hesitation, turning her body fully to face Brooke, still sat in the corner of the seemingly-shrinking room.

She nodded enthusiastically, eyebrows up. “Untucked. Y’know how funny everyone found my reaction to you and Vanessa?” Nina clarified, gesturing towards the mentioned queen, who glanced at them through the reflection of the body-length mirror, still messing with her wig.

Brooke made a noise of understanding. “They live for their memes, bitch,” she answered. Naturally, she had seen the uproar that the last Untucked had caused, specifically when concerned with Nina’s shock towards the kiss. Brooke heard Vanessa laugh under her breath, accompanied by a curt nod signifying her agreement to Brooke’s statement.

“It’s crazy,” Nina nodded as well, proceeding to take a sip from the glass of water she held tightly in her right hand. She was halfway through swallowing when her eyes widened, an excited yet smug smile bringing the conversation back from its natural pause. “Why wait for the reunion? I mean, like, it’s fresh right now! Imagine how funny a recreation would be if we made it right now. We’re all here, aren’t we?” She nodded towards Vanessa before looking back to Brooke.

“So, milk it?”

“You and Vanjie should be pros at that with how you’re playing off this ‘on screen romance’ stuff,” Nina raised her free hand to provide seemingly unnecessary air quotes. Brooke scoffed gently. The romance was real, the follow up was not. It wasn’t, none of the tweets or interactions held any merit. But Brooke almost felt a personal offense at the implication that what they had before was fake, even if she had just misunderstood and Nina didn’t mean it that way. It shouldn’t have bothered her as much as it did. “It’ll fare well for the two of you, and it’s all good fun. What’s the consensus?”

There was a moment of tentative silence, a sudden hush. It was unusual for Vanessa to not be bouncing off the walls, her adrenaline from before nowhere to be found. Brooke looked over at her, making quick eye contact with her through the mirror. Vanessa raised a painted eyebrow at her, as if asking – no, suggesting, that it could be a good idea. It wouldn’t hurt. Right?

“Could be funny,” Brooke answered for the two of them, her smile returning.

Nina nodded, handing her phone to the woman at her side. “Let’s do it!” She straightened her denim jacket, water still in her hand, posing as a makeshift cocktail. Brooke stood from her seat, clearing her throat and watching as Vanessa finally turned her back to the mirror and faced the rest of them, a smile now adorned and her reluctance from before vanishing at the sight of a camera. The sight brought a certain weakness to Brooke, if only for a moment, just as it had every time she saw that smile. There was nothing different in how Vanessa made her feel still, she could appreciate things like that about her even if they weren’t an item.

“So, what, just kiss? Like in the Untucked?” Brooke made an effort to look away from Vanessa, but it felt like the reluctance Vanjie held was instead transferred to her. It was the same loss of focus she became familiar with during drag race, where even the just the knowledge of Vanessa being in the same room was enough of a distraction. She never complained, though.

“Yeah. Just like in the Untucked,” Nina kept herself at a distance from the other two queens, her body facing the now three people with phone cameras posed at them, others in the room joining in to capture the moment.

Vanessa again quirked an eyebrow at Brooke, who felt herself get uncharacteristically nervous. Why was she nervous? She hoped no one clocked her uneasy breathing, or heard her heartbeat as loudly as she did. She considered herself a good actress, but it was easier being playful and coy through twitter – how does one kiss their ex on camera, casually enough to make it look natural and real, but not too comfortable as to earn speculation from Vanessa herself, who clearly had no problem playing this up in front of the camera. It was certainly a tricky situation they were in. She wondered for a moment if Vanessa was struggling in the same way.

Brooke made a mental note to bring it up someday.

She wondered how long she stood spacing out, due to Vanessa no longer regarding her and instead living her directing fantasy. “You gotta start, like they did – like they did when we did this, you gotta say action,” she was instructing those who were filming, gesturing wildly.

“Ready? Yeah,” the woman nodded along, halfheartedly taking in Vanjie’s words, already having pressed the record button. “Okay ready?”

“Do it now,” Vanessa told her, and Brooke registered the deep breath that Vanessa took moments before they were to kiss.

“Action. Action.”

It was a blur after that – perhaps not in the moment, as she was conscious enough to chime in with a comically over-exaggerated “Did ya’ll see that?” after Nina and Vanessa both quoted it themselves. But when Brooke thought back to the video that ended up attracting attention on Nina’s Instagram later that night, she hardly could recall the details. It was foggy, most of it. Excluding the kiss.

Was she right in calling it a kiss? It was hardly that. A quick peck, reminiscent of the one they were recreating, not even enough for Vanessa’s lipstick to transfer onto Brooke’s unpainted lips. Not even enough to Brooke to over-analyze. Or so she thought.

Nina retrieved her phone as soon as they had finished the reenactment, smiling to herself as she hit play to watch the video. Vanessa quickly joined her to watch it, her smile losing its sincerity as they watched. Brooke remained across the room, attempting to gauge their reactions under the guise of gathering her own bearings, picking her own phone back up from where she had been sitting.

“S’it good? Convincing, too?” Brooke asked after the video had ended, the unasked ‘Too convincing?’ threatening to spill from her lips. She noticed that while Nina appeared overjoyed at the video, laughing to herself and pocketing her phone, Vanessa’s expression offered an air of concern. The look of trouble alone revived Brooke’s anxiety.

“Yeah, no, it’s good. Really good, thanks, guys,” Nina addressed both the ex-couple and those who had recorded the video, each from different angles, though only one would end up on the Ohioan’s Instagram. “I’m going to head out there, good luck up there tonight, girl,” Nina nudged Vanessa, who only gave a halfhearted smile and a quiet ‘Thanks’ in response.

Nina turned to leave, the others all following her, leaving after them a tension that filled the room. The room that only Vanessa and Brooke were left in.

“Hm,” Vanessa returned to her place in front of the mirror, lost in thought and not acknowledging that she wasn’t alone. Brooke sat back down, one hand occupied by her phone and the other fidgeting with the hem of her black blazer. Maybe she was overestimating how long and uncomfortable the silence felt, but Brooke wasn’t so sure it was that crazy of an exaggeration.

“Definitely should help fuel that fire,” Brooke spoke up, choosing to entertain the prospect of discussing the kiss rather than sitting in that loud silence. Vanessa didn’t stop touching up her makeup in the mirror to look at Brooke, just nodded. “Maybe we could post a picture together at some point soon. Is that too much?” Brooke laughed, not sure if her laugh was directed at her own question or Vanjie’s lack of an answer.

After another extended silence, Vanessa suddenly turned around to grab her own phone off the small table in the center of the room. “Let’s do it.”

Brooke was taken aback, needing a second to readjust to Vanessa’s usual volume returning after having been quiet in thought for so long. She watched as Vanessa snapped her fingers expectedly, waiting for Brooke to stand up, plausibly for a selfie.

“What, right now? We can’t post it right now, girl.”

“And why not?” Vanessa countered, her free hand going to her hip. “If we gonna do this, we have to keep feeding the children. We can’t let them go hungry,” she attempted to lighten up the tension in the room that had been there ever since Nina and the others left.

Brooke chuckled deeply, shaking her head. “Not after that video. Give it a week, maybe.” She hoped Vanessa would understand where she was coming from and drop it. She had thought they shared that logic in this situation, in the faux flirting and how it worked PR wise. It was bad to over-saturate this.

“Hmm,” Vanessa repeated from before, evidently unconvinced. She dropped her phone back, heading towards the door. Brooke felt relief ease her anxiety, focusing back on her own phone. 

She didn’t even notice that Vanessa had paused in the doorway, looking over her shoulder back at the man out of drag.

“That’s mighty shady of you, Miss Brooke,” the graveness in her voice forced Brooke to look up, making sincere eye contact for the first time that night. “Reeaaaaalll shady.” Vanessa’s tone held a certain hesitance, a caution. She was unique in that way, in the way that she carried herself in private compared to in the public eye. While most minded themselves and grew wary when being watched, in regards to what they say, how they act – she was the opposite. Upon the chaos of the Werk Room, the need to be recognized on national television, Vanessa tended to surrender her control. She was brash, and loud, and unapologetic; she was likable for this.

That wasn’t the Vanessa that stood now before Brooke in the stuffy room.

Brooke raised a single eyebrow, unsure if her growing smirk was welcome. Unsure of whether this was a real dig, or a classic shady Vanjie joke.

“Shady? And, what? You’re innocent in this?”

No longer looking over her shoulder, Vanessa turned fully to face Brooke, her back to the hall. Brooke noted the way her eyes subtly narrowed under her four pairs of stacked lashes, her head cocking with a void of amusement. She didn’t answer or play off of Brooke as she normally would have if this was a lighthearted exchange, instead opting to stay quiet, as if observing Brooke, sizing her up. Her painted eyebrows furrowed with the narrowing of her eyes, though her concentration felt deeper than her simply fabricating another shady comment to hit back with. If she wanted to, she would have already thrown it – she was quick witted enough to bypass usual brainstorming.

When Vanessa cracked a weak smile (albeit it didn’t reach her eyes), Brooke let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.

“I never said I was innocent. In any meaning of the word. We both know that,” Vanessa took a step forward, back into the room, her voice knocked down a few volumes, for Brooke to hear only. “Even the fans know that, with some of the things we’ve been tweetin’ and sayin’. Whether they’re real or not,” she added, shrugging.

“They’re not,” Brooke challenged, saying matter-of-factly.

“See, that!” Vanessa laughed, pointing to Brooke. “You betta stop! Stop that, bitch.”

Confused, Brooke glanced Vanessa up and down. “What? Stop what?” She wished she could claim naivety. She knew exactly what Vanessa was saying.

Instead of answering her, Vanessa once again stood before her, looking down at her – not much, as even with Brooke seated and Vanessa in heels, the height difference made it so that they weren’t at an unusually unfair playing field now. She waited for an instant, to see if Brooke would say something. When she didn’t, Vanessa crossed over to sit in the empty chair beside her. Brooke didn’t ask if she sat so close to the edge intentionally, to be as close as possible to the Canadian queen.

That tense psychic feeling was back, but it felt different this time. She just couldn’t point to what changed. Was the whole room engulfed by this feeling, or just the few inches between the two? Regardless, Brooke felt her stomach knot, and had to stop her leg from bouncing in the space between them. If only Vanessa would get to the point. The point Brooke already knew she was making.

“Y’know, Brooke Lynn,” Vanessa drew out her words, in a sort of emphatic yet teasing manner, it being uncommon for her to use the second part of Brooke’s drag name unless addressing her by full name. Her gaze dropped, and Brooke instinctively followed it – they both watched as Vanessa’s right hand moved to draw mindless patterns on Brooke’s pant leg, right above the knee. If it weren’t for how close Vanessa’s voice was when she spoke, Brooke could have easily hyper focused on the way Vanessa’s hand traced gently up and down. “At some point we have to quit pretending like this is only for the fans.”

“We talked about this,” Brooke kept her voice solid, despite the way Vanessa dropped her’s to just barely above a whisper. They both looked back up at the same time, although neither one backed off. Brooke could have sworn they were closer than they had been before Vanjie had taken her seat.

“Really?” Vanessa frowned, puzzled. There was a cloud of doubt in her eyes. “Musta been out of it ‘cause I can’t seem to remember us doing that. I think you’re mistaken, Miss Brooke.”

Brooke swallowed, shaking her head weakly, and tried to look away. She trained her eyes to a bulletin board on the wall. She had more than enough time to push the other queen away, or scoot back, or even get up.

She stayed where she was, could feel Vanessa’s eyes on her.

When she realized Brooke was adamant on not entertaining the conversation, Vanessa continued. “So. Tell me, then… What you’re tryna say is that if I were to kiss you right now, with no one around to see it, you’d pull out a camera to take a picture of it? You’d tweet about it? It wouldn’t feel real to you, at all?” She knew what she was doing, she could tell Brooke was trying her hardest not to look at her.

Until she did, her eyes making contact with Vanessa’s again, mere centimeters from her face. “Is that hypothetical?” Brooke’s voice entered into a whisper. She made the mistake of glancing down towards Vanessa’s coated lips. She wasn’t fast enough in fixing her error, as Vanessa had already noticed and consequently did the same, a smirk playing at her lips.

“It don’t gotta be. That one’s up to you,” Vanessa breathed, yet the way she inched impossibly closer said otherwise.

“I–”

Before Brooke could allow the anticipation to drive her crazy, Vanessa’s lips were on her’s.

It was nothing like the kisses they shared on camera, neither drag race or the peck for Nina’s video. It was only the two of them, no pressure or expectation forcing them to maneuver with any caution. The kiss all too similar to the ones they would share after finally finding privacy in between filming, after not having seen each other for a week due to gigs, after spending the weekend together and waking up clinging to each other in the morning. It was all familiarity and comfort, butterflies and giddiness, as their lips moved in a passionate fervor. They didn’t think about posing, or the door to the room being wide open, or mixing nonchalance with playfulness.

Brooke had just released the tension in her body, the reluctance she feigned, when Vanessa broke the kiss.

“Mm?” Brooke blinked, fog passing slowly.

Vanessa moved away from her with a coquettish wink, flipping her wig dramatically over her shoulder that said wig didn’t even reach. “I got a show to do.”

That little fucker, Brooke huffed a laugh with an incredulous shake to her head.

“Maybe a reenactment later?” Vanessa paused again at the door, “Good luck tweetin’ unsuspiciously about that one and not bein’ urged to give me a private phone call after.” And with that, Vanessa vanished around the corner, Brooke not seeing the bashful smile she wore all the way to the stage. And she didn’t know that Brooke wore one to match.

*****

That night, the first thing Brooke saw upon opening Instagram was that damn video. As well as all the reposts and screenshots she had accordingly been tagged in. She prepared herself before playing it, not having seen it yet.

Stopping herself from smiling was out of the question as she watched the fifteen second clip. She watched it more than once, not breaking the natural loop it made whenever it ended.

And if she texted Nina later to send her the video, simply to rewatch the way Vanessa smiled into their kiss, well, she wouldn’t bring that part up.

*****

@Bhytes1: Because everyone loves a dramatic re-enactment

[triggered-colt]

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꧁Welcome to the Cuphead amino!꧂

http://aminoapps.com/invite/6SPYGBUMP2]

(Go check it out!)

♧︎I am here to advise you to come on down to the amino! It’s not the official but it sure is pretty chilld and fun. It would be much better if we got members such as you over there! Im sure you and I would have alot of fun there!♧︎

Leaders

The Agent Muggy Girl

http://aminoapps.com/p/hebv5e]

Cala Maria

http://aminoapps.com/p/j1ti51c]

T-Bone

http://aminoapps.com/p/u425g4]

Flurry/Dr.Kahl’s Robot

http://aminoapps.com/p/617ng7]

Dr. Kahl

http://aminoapps.com/p/5l852u]

Curators

Dice

http://aminoapps.com/p/9ztkah]

Now! Those are all the staff members and now we need to show you the guidelines.

NSFW (Not Safe For Work)

•Anything that is sexual, or anything that is not meant for the vision of children, is not allowed on this amino.

• You are prohibited to make any posts or chats requesting NSFW commissions, art, stories, etc.

• You are prohibited to post links to NSFW websites, videos, and live streams. Download links also fit into this section since we have no idea what could be in that file.

• You are prohibited to making chats that are for NSFW roleplay or other content along those lines.

• Fetish art is prohibited even if its clean. Fetish art is seen as sexual, so keep it away from this amino (Fetish art includes but is not limited to, Inflation, Vore, Spanking, etc. )

• Nudity is prohibited, everything on the body that shows the groin area on it must be covered with any type of clothing, and the clothing may not be suggestive or sexual.

• Stories, language, art, chats, etc. That is posted or used that views NSFW content, or is sent to another member with NSFW content, is not allowed.

• Cropped pictures that are taken from NSFW or suggestive images are also not allowed.

HARASSMENT/BULLYING

•Bullying is a major occurrence on the internet, and our mission as the staff is to protect the members from any kind of harassment towards them.

• Spamming or threatening the user is completely prohibited, no matter what the reason of this act is it is still not acceptable.

• Construcrive criticism is allowed as far as the member is okay with it, but such comments as “this is ugly”, “horrible”, etc do not count as criticism and are totally not allowed. You are free to tell your personal opinion and speak up, but only if it doesnt sound rude and was not said to simply hurt or upset the user.

• Encouraging the other members to turn against the other member in any way (cussing at them, ignoring, blocking etc) is not allowed, no matter what the reason is. It is considered as bullying and you will be punished as well.

• Any kind of nationalism or racism is not allowed. So discard from using any specific phrases, words, or offensive words that can hurt the other users, even if it was meant to come out as a joke.

• Pulling triggers or touching the sensetive catagories is not allowed.

• Teasing the member by doing something they dont like on purpose is against the rules as well, even if it was meant to be somehow funny.

• Making jokes over the tragic events or sensetive topics is unacceptable, be respectful towards your fellow users.

• Bashing the member for their opinion on anything is not allowed. It includes sexuality, ships and other topics as well. Let people have their own opinion on things and dont rub your own.

• Guilt tripping is also prohibited. This is meant to upset and affect the user in a wrong way, and if you keep on doing that on purpose, you may end up getting a punishment for your actions.

• Spreading rucus and gossips about the members does fall into the harassment category as well.

PEDOPHILIA

Ships that involve minor x adult relationships are not allowed. These ships are:

Minor OC x Devil

Minor OC x King Dice

Minor OC x Wheezy

Minor OC x Chips

Minor OC x Pip n’ Dot

Minor OC x Elder Kettle

Minor OC x Dr. Kahl

Minor OC x Captain Brineybeared

Minor OC x Ribby and Croaks

Minor OC x Beppi The Clown

Minor OC x Werner Werman

Minor OC x Baroness Von Bon Bon

Minor OC x Cagney Carnation

Minor OC x Cala Maria

Minor OC x Goopy Le Grande

Minor OC x Hilda Berg

Minor OC x Sally Stageplay

Minor OC x Wally Warbles

Minor OC x Djimmi The Great

Minor OC x Root Pack

Minor OC x Rumor Honeybottom

Minor OC x Grim Matchstick

Minor OC x Phantom Express

Minor OC x Tipsy Troop

• If the characters are 18+ and are visibly showed as being adults, it’s alright to ship them as it’s no longer considered pedophilia.

• No art, chats, etc. that suggest pedophilia as a “good thing” is allowed. Pedophilia is not a good thing and is against the law.

Stories that may contain pedophilia as a plot point is alright to post under the following conditions:

• No 18+ content within any parts of the story (sex, rape, etc.)

•The pedophile is seen as the villain and put in a bad light.

• That the pedophile is caught and punished for his actions.

• Roleplay and chats suggesting or showing pedophilia is prohibited. Comments and posts with pedophilia content also fall under this category.

ART THEFT

•Stealing someone’s art is highly disrespectful at least and totally illegal at most. Please, be respectful to the rightful owners of the art piece and dont steal or claim their work for whatever reason.

• If you use art for your profile picture, background, or gallery images(s) it is OPTIONAL to credit! If you decide to credit the artist, please either link the original place where it was uploaded or state the artist’s name!

• If you use an artist’s art from this Amino and they want you to credit them, please credit them! This also goes along with outside artist’s (not on this Amino) permission. If they DO NOT want their art being used, please don’t use it!

• A post claiming ownership of art that isn’t yours will be disabled. Claiming in the chats and pms is not allowed as well and should be reported to the staff.

• You cannot make a wiki claiming someone else’s character or any existing design (including the designs of cartoon, story characters etc). Inspirations are acceptable.

• You must credit someone’s art if you are using it in a post, chat, or wiki. (Proper credit: It must have the name of the artist and a link to any of their social media or the art piece on said social media).

• If you trace or heavily reference something, that’s also art theft and will get you the same punishment.

OFF TOPIC CONTENT

•This amino is made for bringing you Cuphead content only. If you really are wanting to post about BATIM, Undertale, FNAF, Baldi’s Basics, etc, take these to the appropriate communities. This is why seperate aminos were created anyway.

• Any content is allowed as long as it follows our rules and stays on the topic of Cuphead.

• Topics that are political or may cause a huge outbreak of arguments is not allowed.

• It is allowed,if the art is a crossover and has characters from other fandoms in it. But, it must stay on topic to Cuphead.

• Animation memes are allowed,as long as they follow the rules and is on the topic of Cuphead.

• Contest, raffles, etc must be related to Cuphead.

• Chats must relate to Cuphead in some way.

• Stories must be on topic as well.

Have fun my Casino members! Enjoy your stay and don’t be shy to say Hi!

[shakibalifutureworks]

Limbo Trailer Journal

I have finally finished my Trailer for Limbo. So, I apologies for not keeping you updated on my work.

Limbo is a 2-D platformer game with challenging puzzles to progress throughout the game. I think that there is no plot to this game as there is no backstory between the main character (which is the boy) and the sister. So, it’s up to the players to decide whether they have backstory or not. Now, I was given the assignment to work with the Limbo trailer. However, only difference is that the audio has been removed. It is my job to put my own audio in this trailer, with whatever choice of genre I was able to choose from which was anything.

The genre that I am going with for the Limbo trailer is comedy. The reason why I have chosen this genre is because Limbo’s element in the game is dark and depressing and it would be difficult to implement a comedic element. Since, this trailer will be aimed at all types of audiences, I want to give them a different taste in a happy and funny game rather dark and horrible. Because of my research, I have managed to generate a lot of ideas by watching TV shows and videos from the internet such as YouTube. I was able to gather these ideas from both sources and make my own ideas by combining them together.

For the sounds that were made in the trailer, they were mainly my sounds that I have created using a sound recorder. For example, to make the sound of the character stepping on the grass was that I had to record myself stepping on a bunch of cassette film and step at the same speed as the main character, so the sound would be able to sync in with the main character’s steps. For pulling the boat to shore, I would require the following materials which is a brick and a wooden stick. Then I would need to drag the wooden stick against the brick to create that effect of grains of sand as the boat is being pulled onto the shore. To create the effect of the main character landing on his feet is that I would have to jump and land onto the wooden floorboards. Depending on how far the main character is from landing. There will have to be a harder impact on the landing. Another sound I have created is the boulder falling and to create that effect is that I must gather 2 bricks and rub it against the two bricks to create the effect of either the boulder falling or the boulder rolling down the hill. Lastly, as for other sounds, I have managed to give roles to my actors. Though, I chose my actors carefully so that they would fit the personality of the characters, in which case for the main character, a neutral feeling towards him, but if overwhelmed, he is easily prone to being scared. As for the sister, since she has one line of sentence and judging from that sentence, she has the bratty personality. Lastly, the spider was difficult to give audio to. Since spiders don’t have voice and is silent. So, since this is a comedy trailer, I would have to give the spider a voice that would throw off the audience and have a bit of a laugh. So, in the end, I decided to give the spider an audio. However, it wasn’t a voice, but it was yelling. Something a spider won’t ever do but it would bring a bit of humour. Although sounds effects would help improve the genre that I am doing, but having a script will fun and funny for and the actors I have chosen. I gave myself the roles of narrator and main character. Personally, this was an embarrassing as I had implement my voice into my trailer. Though I had to put my personal feelings aside and did record my voice so that it would be effective to have narrator having to break the 4th wall and the main character constantly screaming and being scared. For the sister, well, she was there for one scene. But overall, I had fun and enjoyed recording and implementing it in my trailer.

As more for the sounds for the trailer, I was able to create the sound of a wire snapping off. The way I made that sound was using can opener. As the can opener clicked, that was the sound for it. The clicking sound had needed to have more force or else I wouldn’t be able to get the sound realistic sound of the wire tripping, rather the sound would be quiet. The tree stump slowly falling was another effect that required a creaky floorboard. To make sound like it was falling, I would have to put lots of pressure on the floorboard with my foot so that it continuously to keep creaking or else it wouldn’t be enough sound for the trailer. Finally, buzzing from the light is something I created from myself. To create that effect is to make the buzzing sound from your mouth, the audience won’t notice the buzzing coming from anyone as they will think that it will be my sound effect that I have created from the materials I have used.

Other than my own sounds, I have used sounds provided by the internet. However, I just used a fair amount of sounds from the internet because I have utilised the sound recorder very well and created many different varieties of audio files. However, a few were quite tedious, as I don’t have required materials to make it happen. The sounds I have found from the internet is water stepping, yelling, circular saw, glass break, fly buzzing, swinging, stream of water and crate breaking. Having said all of that, I have referenced these sounds, so the audience would know that I haven’t claim these sounds as my own. Instead, I have credited the respectable owners responsible for the sounds.

As for the music for my trailer, I would like something upbeat and happy or funny. To make this music effectively so the audience would laugh, I would use an audio program to cut out specific parts of the audio to keep whatever is left and that sound clip will have huge impact on the audience humour wise because of the popularity that has been spread across the world. I have used certain music to emphasize my comedy is Chainmillionaire – They see me rollin’ and Rocky Balboa. Those two are well known for their music because of what it is called on the internet, a meme. Meme’s consist of humorous content and can be displayed on either a picture or video. This way the audience will find this hilarious. On the other hand, I also added another kind of music that isn’t like the two I have mentioned. It is called Iron Horse-Silent Film Dark. Now, the type of genre of music this is classical. The reason why I have used this is because the audience may find classical comedy more humorous then what we have as present in comedy. So this would be more reasonable to implement this in my trailer.

Now having my music and my sound effects ready, I have a video editing program that would put my sounds and music into my trailer. The program is called Premier Pro CC. Now, this was my first time using premier pro, so I had no idea what each button works and the design layout for Premier Pro CC was complicated. However, using trial and error for this program, I have corrupted my trailer a few times which was quite irritating, however I learnt from my mistakes and I fixed my mistakes so that the trailer was finished at the best of abilities. I have used another program that is mainly for audio. Premier Pro CC can also modify audio as well. But I prefer using this program for modify audios. This program is called Audacity. For recording sounds, I use a Zoom H2n Recorder. This recorder produces high quality audio without any disturbances such as unwanted noises and noises from other devices such as a mobile phone or PC.

In conclusion, I think have done exceptionally well in this assignment as I have learned a lot about creating the trailer that’s right for me. Since, this was a challenging task, as I have mentioned in the first paragraph, turning something dark into something more funny and cheerful is enough to say that I have achieved a few of my goals. As I got feedback from people, they were all positive as they said that they found it funny. I also learnt a few new tools in Premier Pro that I didn’t know that it would improve my trailer. For example, I was able to create the credits that scrolled upwards using text tool. I believe that it is better than making it fade into the next scene. As well as drastically improve my trailer.

Here’s the final version of the trailer.

Hope you enjoy!

References:

Playdead (10/05/2010) “Limbo - Trailer”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4HSyVXKYz8

Chainmillionaire (16/06/2009) “They see me rollin’”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtwJvgPJ9xw

NoScope Official (08/12/2014) “Air Horn Sad Violin Full”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1qXQRpF08E

Музыка без авторских прав (13/11/2015)  “Iron Horse Silent Film Dark” 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpLJVpJVKL0

Robinhood76 (08/06/2010) “ 01806 steps in shallow water.wav”

https://freesound.org/people/Robinhood76/sounds/98731/

InspectorJ (10/03/2016) “Stream, Water, C.wav”

https://freesound.org/people/InspectorJ/sounds/339324/

avrahamy (14/01/2012) “Glass Break”

https://freesound.org/people/avrahamy/sounds/141563/

Benboncan (08/09/2009) “Trapped Fly.wav”

https://freesound.org/people/Benboncan/sounds/79007/

InspectorJ (31/05/2017) “Bamboo Swing, B10.wav”

https://freesound.org/people/InspectorJ/sounds/394444/

kwahmah_02 (28/09/2014) “Circular Saw 1.wav”

https://freesound.org/people/kwahmah_02/sounds/250060/ 

kevinkace (01/02/2009) “Crate Break 2.wav”

https://freesound.org/people/kevinkace/sounds/66778/

RutgerMuller (29/08/2010) “Scream_ooa-1.aif”

[shidiand]

how i like to spot reposted pictures

YOU WILL NEED:

Reblog Graphs. You don’t really need this, it just brings up the root post’s tags nice and easy. To turn Graphs on, go to Account > Settings > Labs.

Eyes. Most people on Tumblr are good here

Skepticism. Most people on Tumblr are not good here

Tea. You may encounter circumstances where tea will taste very good

Excellent! Put on your thinking caps, and let’s get sleuthing.

None of these are hard rules, but they should ring some alarm bells:

Tags for literally everything in the picture(s), far beyond the normal first 5 that are actually registered in tumblr tags. Actually, some legitimate artists do tag everything, but like. You’ll know. No tags at all isn’t an absolute free pass, either, but at least the poster isn’t trying to jam this into every tag possible

Minor tip-off: No “art tag” tag like “my art” or “[something to do with their name] art” or “my [art noun]”. Also not a hard rule, many artists don’t have an art tag. Most reposters, however, would never go as far as to claim that art as theirs. That would be stealing! They’re just sharing for awareness. And notes! Haha!

Un-tipoff: Artist name in tags or original comment or source. Good! Ideally the reposter has secured permission from the original artist to repost, too, those folks are the best, but putting down some kind of source or artist name shows the intention of giving credit. We’re not too concerned with these people (permission to repost is a different can of worms), we’re looking for OP impersonators.

Original comment doesn’t quite sound like something an artist would say about their own work. OK, this tip empirically sucks but You’ll know it when you see it. Something immodest like, “This is breath-taking!“ or “I laughed” or “The best __ I’ve ever seen”. It might resemble something attached to something you’d see on your Facebook timeline. It might not. No comment at all doesn’t guarantee genuine or fake, though.

Confirming your suspicions (Actually you can skip to this part directly): Time to look into OP’s blog. I like to use their archive, since it gives me a good look at photo posts and tags pretty easily, but keep in mind that photo posts examined in this manner only show the first photo in a photoset.

By far, the most obvious giveaway will be dramatic inconsistencies in the artstyle of posted works.

 Take, for example, [NSF W blog, click at own risk] this fine photoset-- environment-focused, very colourful, lineless Touhou x Pokemon crossovers, tagged liberally.

Another post on the blog: clean lines, large anime eyes, extremely well-(and differently!) shaded, has @kikugetsu‘s signature at the bottom, tagged liberally. 

Yet another post on the blog: pixel art animation, also doesn’t look quite like the first. Tagged liberally.

 One more: Four panel comic, in English, with yet another colouring, lineart, and shading style. Tagged liberally (”#meme #Funny Memes”).

Sure, some artists are very skilled and can change up their artstyle quite a bit, but this is going a bit far.

Final checking: Reverse image searching. Very easy to do! In Chrome, it can be as easy as right-clicking a picture and selecting “Search Google for Image”; however, Google doesn’t handle pictures from twitter or pixiv very well and sometimes just burps up a buttload of irrelevant photos anyways, so if it’s from an anime fandom (artists tend to post on those sites), I would use saucenao.com. 

In this case, you would right-click the picture and copy the address to the image -> go to saucenao -> advanced options -> paste URL -> get sauce. If you find a definite hit to a picture, you should be able to examine the artist’s profile and websites and make some more judgements. Does the artist already have a completely different tumblr? Do they speak a different language on their websites? Did another image search from the inspected tumblr lead to a different artist? Use your judgement.

Some final thoughts:

Sometimes (especially on twitter), you post a cool picture to share it with your close circle of friends, it gets retweeted/reblogged a couple of times, which becomes a lot of times, and suddenly your nice casual share has turned into a deceptive-looking repost. WHOOPS. I get you, I get you, warn’t in a source posting mood, was chilling or gunning for a laugh. I still believe it’s a very good practice to pay your respects to the good Original Artists with a little source on the side, but I’m not as mad as I could be.

Sometimes you post a cool picture to spread the awareness, so that others can be awash in the greatness of this high quality content just like you. Neat! Consider reblogging from a direct source or repost with permission if you can find one, linking to one if there isn’t one on tumblr, or getting permission yourself (not as hard or scary as you’d think!).

Sometimes you spread your noodly attention-seeking tentacle arms all over the tags and pleasure yourself to sound of misguided notes rolling in. If this is you, please reconsider your life choices and your decision to disrespect artists.

Original artists of pictures used in examples:

@nin086, more active on twitter https://twitter.com/ninten86

@kikugetsu, direct source of image here

@migelhososi, direct source

@yoruny, direct source

If you found this PSA helpful, I recommend (once again) learning about artists and permissions. I have a tag of some useful posts here.

[ecotone99]

[SF/H] Butterfly Strike

edit: Very sorry! Realised that SP/HR would've been a better way of categorising this short. Apologies.

You know what the Butterfly Effect is, don’t you? I think nearly everyone does. It goes something like this: Everything is determined by what happened before.

What this means - in the loosest possible sense - is that a butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the world can trigger a series of events that, weeks later, causes a hurricane. Small triggers set increasingly larger things in motion. Just like dominoes.

A few years ago, people who watch - people who pay attention to patterns among the chaos - noticed something new. Sometimes, the steps between the butterfly and the hurricane are removed. For no reason anyone can tell, sometimes our small actions become microcosms for something much, much bigger. According to them, there's no such thing as an ‘act of God’. There’s just us.

They call these moments a Butterfly Strike.

There’s no telling who will be ‘chosen’ as the Butterfly (if there’s even any logic or great Decider), or where the effects of their actions will occur. It’s a crapshoot. You don’t know when it’s your turn. It might never be your turn. That’s how the theory goes. It’s all chaos in the end.

The story is that some nerd on a forum somewhere wrote that after an intense session with naught but a dark room, his well-lubed palm and Pornhub, he flicked on the news and saw that a catastrophic avalanche had taken the lives of half a skiing resort at the base of Mont Blanc. He said he felt responsible somehow. Everyone laughed, because obviously they did. The guy who jerked it so hard he wiped out a small town.

It should’ve died there and then, but it was funny, and funny things stick in people’s minds. After a series of probing questions (“Can you share the vid you were watching? I want to wreck a small town myself”), a few forced memes and the usual kicks of a dying thread, it wound down.

But then someone else commented. They hadn’t been masturbating they said, and it was nothing to do with the avalanche. They’d had a hot and heavy session dealing with their acne a few months before. They’d spent the better part of an hour propped up in front of a mirror squeezing pimples before working up to a juicy cluster of blackheads the size of a dime. They found out later that at exactly the same time as they got that final, disgusting release, a chain of volcanic eruptions had torn a hole in some province in the Philippines.

The laughter continued.

Then someone else commented. No bodily fluids for them. They’d made pasta for lunch, been stirring it like crazy under the advice of some Italian relative who said it encouraged the starch to make sauce stick better. Sinkholes had opened up in Mexico City swallowing an apartment complex that killed nearly 200 people.

The laughter continued.

But forums like these are filled with all sorts of people. Some of those people are the types who’ll do anything to pass the time - to find a mystery to make their lives meaningful - and they got to work. They started off by taking in more stories from their fellow forum users. There were a couple of decent leads, but the majority of the results were clearly jokers, misplaced guilt, or some sort of latent messiah complex-come-narcissism.

They spread their net more widely. Started looking at articles and trawling comments.

“How awful for all those families! I was changing my daughter’s diaper when it came on the radio! I hugged her close and thought about how lucky I was.”

They created their own forums and swapped findings. Patterns started to emerge. Everyday people doing everyday things that somehow reflected an event happening elsewhere in the world at the precise same time. Often these things were similar in nature, even in an abstract way. What a coincidence.

“To think I was playing fetch with my dog at the same time those people were suffering. We have it so easy here. Thoughts and prayers.”

Did the event cause the action, or did the action cause the event?

It started off like some flat-Earth crap to be ignored and derided. But everyday people are stupid. Everyday people are superstitious. As soon as this idea started to circulate more widely, everyone got in on it.

As soon as people decided this was real, just about every person with a social media account and too little going on in their lives became paranoid. No one wants to think they’re responsible for inflicting so much harm to others.

Before you knew it, there were channels and podcasts dedicated to ‘Butterfly Strikes’, a term many people claim credit for creating.

“Where were you when you heard the news? I was out watering my garden. As soon as I found out where it was happening, I got on the phone and called my friends and relatives out there. Everyday I thank the emergency services for their duty.”

When ‘after the fact’ was no longer useful, an appetite grew for something current. After all, what good is it hearing about these tragedies once they’ve happened when we might have the power to stop them? If nothing else, it would stop the spate of guilt-triggered suicides that began blooming across the globe like an epidemic as those everyday people began thinking that that one time when they revved their engine too hard at a red light they might’ve caused a forest fire.

“The wife and I had just pulled in for gas when we found out. We were so upset, we turned right back around and donated our vacation fund to help the aid workers. God bless!”

These days, the second something looks like it might happen, the news starts rolling.

Every stiff breeze, every rumble, every plume of smoke - it all gets relayed to people who believe in it, which is an ever-increasing number. Doesn’t matter where they are or what they’re doing. They down tools, they sit quietly, and they wait for it to pass. Because if you don’t then you’re basically a sociopath. A mass murderer.

There’s no law that says we have to, but the societal pressure has become immense. Sure the suicides have diminished now everyone who believes spends two to three hours of their day completely inert, but that hasn’t stopped vigilantes going up against someone they’ve decided might be responsible because they wiped their ass at the wrong time. And yes, okay, maybe the number of ‘Acts of God’ have decreased by a negligible amount, but smart money is on authorities changing up how they categorise such things rather than a meaningful change in the way the world functions. Who knows how far this ridiculous conspiracy has reached?

So, no, I didn’t stop working.

I have trained my whole life to do what I do, and I will not be challenged for ignoring some superstitious bullshit just because everyday people have decided we should. I have a responsibility and I intend to fulfill it. I don’t care that the rest of the team refused to help. If they chose to down tools and watch on in dumb horror because of some inane announcement while I continued, then that’s on them.

I won’t apologise for saving that man’s life. If I’d stopped he would’ve bled out into his thoracic cavity and died in five minutes. I had no choice but to operate.

Come on. Be serious for a moment. You’ve got someone you know will absolutely, certainly die right in front of you, and the possibility that maybe - just maybe - something somewhere else in the world might happen. You can’t gamble on a life because ‘maybe’. You can’t let a man die because ‘what if’.

You can’t.

… Only now I’m here alone, watching a livestream of a camera flying over what remains of Sicily, I’m suddenly not so sure.

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It is on posters, mugs, tea towels and in headlines. Harking back to a blitz spirit and an age of public service, Keep Calm and Carry On has become ubiquitous. How did a cosy, middle-class joke assume darker connotations?

To get some sense of just what a monster it has become, try counting the number of times in a week you see some permutation of the Keep Calm and Carry On poster. In the last few days Ive seen it twice as a poster advertising a pubs New Years Eve party, several times in souvenir shops, in a photograph accompanying a Guardian article on the imminent doctors strike (Keep Calm and Save the NHS) and as the subject of too many internet memes to count. Some were related to the floods a flagrantly opportunistic Liberal Democrat poster, with Keep Calm and Survive Floods, and the somewhat more mordant Keep Calm and Make a Photo of Floods. Then there were those related to Islamic State: Keep Calm and Fight Isis on the standard red background with the crown above; and Keep Calm and Support Isis on a black background, with the crown replaced by the Isis logo. Around eight years after it started to appear, it has become quite possibly the most successful meme in history. And, unlike most memes, it has been astonishingly enduring, a canvas on to which practically anything can be projected while retaining a sense of ironic reassurance. It is the ruling emblem of an era that is increasingly defined by austerity nostalgia.

I can pinpoint the precise moment at which I realised that what had seemed a typically, somewhat insufferably, English phenomenon had gone completely and inescapably global. I was going into the flagship Warsaw branch of the Polish department store Empik and there, just past the revolving doors, was a collection of notebooks, mouse pads, diaries and the like, featuring a familiar English sans serif font, white on red, topped with the crown, in English:

KEEP CALM

AND

CARRY ON

It felt like confirmation that the image had entered the pantheon of truly global design icons. As an image, it was now up there alongside Rosie the Riveter, the muscular female munitions worker in the US second world war propaganda image; as easily identifiable as the headscarved Lily Brik bellowing BOOKS! on Rodchenkos famous poster. As a logo, it was nearly as recognisable as Coca-Cola or Apple. How had this happened? What was it that made the image so popular? How did it manage to grow from a minor English middle-class cult object into an international brand, and what exactly was meant by carry on? My assumption had been that the combination of message and design were inextricably tied up with a plethora of English obsessions, from the blitz spirit, through to the cults of the BBC, the NHS and the 1945 postwar consensus. Also contained in this bundle of signifiers was the enduring pretension of an extremely rich (if shoddy and dilapidated) country, the sadomasochistic Toryism imposed by the coalition government of 201015, and its presentation of austerity in a manner so brutal and moralistic that it almost seemed to luxuriate in its own parsimony. Some or none of these thoughts may have been in the heads of the customers at Empik buying their printed tea towels, or they may have just thought it was funny. However, few images of the last decade are quite so riddled with ideology, and few historical documents are quite so spectacularly false.

Imperial War Museum handout of a Dig for Victory poster by Mary Tunbridge. Photograph: Mary Tunbridge/PA

The Keep Calm and Carry On poster was not mass-produced until 2008. It is a historical object of a very peculiar sort. By 2009, when it had first become hugely popular, it seemed to respond to a particularly English malaise connected directly with the way Britain reacted to the credit crunch and the banking crash. From this moment of crisis, it tapped into an already established narrative about Britains finest hour the aerial Battle of Britain in 1940-41 when it was the only country left fighting the Third Reich. This was a moment of entirely indisputable and apparently uncomplicated national heroism, one that Britain has clung to through thick and thin. Even during the height of the boom, as the critical theorist Paul Gilroy flags up in his 2004 book, After Empire, the blitz and the victory were frequently invoked, made necessary by the need to get back to the place or moment before the country lost its moral and cultural bearings. The years 1940 and 1945 were obsessive repetitions, anxious and melancholic, morbid fetishes, clung to as a means of not thinking about other aspects of recent British history most obviously, its empire. This has only intensified since the financial crisis began.

The blitz spirit has been exploited by politicians largely since 1979. When Thatcherites and Blairites spoke of hard choices and muddling through, they often evoked the memories of 1941. It served to legitimate regimes that constantly argued that, despite appearances to the contrary, resources were scarce and there wasnt enough money to go around; the most persuasive way of explaining why someone (else) was inevitably going to suffer. Ironically, however, this rhetoric of sacrifice was often combined with a demand that consumers enrich themselves buy their house, get a new car, make something of themselves, aspire. Thus, by 200708, when the no return to boom and bust promised by Gordon Brown appeared to be abortive (despite the success of his very 1940s alternative of nationalising the banks and thus saving capitalism), the image started to become popular. It is worth noting that shortly after this point, a brief series of protests were being policed in increasingly ferocious ways. The authorities were allowed to make use of the apparatus of security and surveillance, and the proliferation of prevention of terrorism laws set up under the New Labour governments of 19972010, to combat any sign of dissent. In this context the poster became ever more ubiquitous, and, peculiarly, after 2011, it began to be used in what few protests remained, in an only mildly subverted form.

The Keep Calm and Carry On poster seemed to embody all the contradictions produced by a consumption economy attempting to adapt itself to thrift, and to normalise surveillance and security through an ironic, depoliticised aesthetic. Out of apparently nowhere, this image combining bare, faintly modernist typography with the consoling logo of the crown and a similarly reassuring message spread everywhere. I first noticed its ubiquity in the winter of 2009, when the poster appeared in dozens of windows in affluent London districts such as Blackheath during the prolonged snowy period and the attendant breakdown of National Rail; the implied message about hardiness in the face of adversity and the blitz spirit looked rather absurd in the context of a dusting of snow crippling the railway system. The poster seemed to exemplify a design phenomenon that had slowly crept up on us to the point where it became unavoidable. It is best described as austerity nostalgia. This aesthetic took the form of a yearning for the kind of public modernism that, rightly or wrongly, was seen to have characterised the period from the 1930s to the early 1970s; it could just as easily exemplify a more straightforwardly conservative longing for security and stability in hard times.

Unlike many forms of nostalgia, the memory invoked by the Keep Calm and Carry On poster is not based on lived experience. Most of those who have bought this poster, or worn the various bags, T-shirts and other memorabilia based on it, were probably born in the 1970s or 1980s. They have no memory whatsoever of the kind of benevolent statism the slogan purports to exemplify. In that sense, the poster is an example of the phenomenon given a capsule definition by Douglas Coupland in 1991: legislated nostalgia, that is, to force a body of people to have memories they do not actually possess. However, there is more to it than that. No one who was around at the time, unless they had worked at the department of the Ministry of Information, for which the poster was designed, would have seen it. In fact, before 2008, few had ever seen the words Keep Calm and Carry On displayed in a public place.

The poster was designed in 1939, but its official website, which sells a variety of Keep Calm and Carry On merchandise, states that it never became an official propaganda poster; rather, a handful were printed on a test basis. The specific purpose of the poster was to stiffen resolve in the event of a Nazi invasion, and it was one in a set of three. The two others, which followed the same design principles, were:

YOUR COURAGE YOUR CHEERFULNESS YOUR RESOLUTION WILL BRING US VICTORY

and:

FREEDOM IS IN PERIL DEFEND IT WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT

Both of these were printed up, and YOUR COURAGE was widely displayed during the blitz, given that the feared invasion did not take place after the German defeat in the Battle of Britain. You can see one on a billboard in the background of the last scene of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburgers 1943 film, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, when the ageing, reactionary but charming soldier finds his house in Belgravia bombed. Of the three proposals, KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON was discarded after the test printing. Possibly, this was because it was considered less appropriate to the conditions of the blitz than to the mass panic expected in the event of a German ground invasion. The other posters were heavily criticised. The social research project Mass Observation recorded many furious reactions to the patronising tone of YOUR COURAGE and its implied distinction between YOU, the common person, and US, the state to be defended. Anthony Burgess later claimed it was rage at posters like this that helped Labour win such an enormous landslide in the 1945 election. We can be fairly sure that if KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON had been mass-produced, it would have infuriated those who were being implored to be calm. Wrenched out of this context and exhumed in the 21st century, however, the poster appears to flatter, rather than hector, the public it is aimed at.

One of the few test printings of the poster was found in a consignment of secondhand books bought at auction by Barter Books in Alnwick, Northumberland, which then created the first reproductions. First sold in London by the shop at the Victoria and Albert Museum, it became a middlebrow staple when the recession, initially merely the slightly euphemistic credit crunch, hit. Through this poster, the way to display ones commitment to the new austerity regime was to buy more consumer goods, albeit with a less garish aesthetic than was customary during the boom. This was similar to the Keep calm and carry on shopping commanded by George W Bush both after September 11 and when the sub-prime crisis hit America. The wartime use of this rhetoric escalated during the economic turmoil in the UK; witness the slogan of the 2010-15 coalition government, Were all in this together. The power of Keep Calm and Carry On comes from a yearning for an actual or imaginary English patrician attitude of stiff upper lips and muddling through. This is, however, something that largely survives only in the popular imagination, in a country devoted to services and consumption, where elections are decided on the basis of house-price value, and given to sudden, mawkish outpourings of sentiment. The poster isnt just a case of the return of the repressed, it is rather the return of repression itself. It is a nostalgia for the state of being repressed solid, stoic, public spirited, as opposed to the depoliticised, hysterical and privatised reality of Britain over the last 30 years.

At the same time as it evokes a sense of loss over the decline of an idea of Britain and the British, it is both reassuring and flattering, implying a virtuous (if highly self-aware) consumer stoicism. Of course, in the end, it is a bit of a joke: you dont really think your pay cut or your childrens inability to buy a house, or the fact that someone somewhere else has been made homeless because of the bedroom tax, or lost their benefit, or worked on a zero-hours contract, is really comparable to life during the blitz but its all a bit of fun, isnt it?

Unlike many forms of nostalgia, the memory invoked by the Keep Calm and Carry On poster is not based on lived experience.

The Keep Calm and Carry On poster is only the tip of an iceberg of austerity nostalgia. Although early examples of the mood can be seen as a reaction to the threat of terrorism and the allegedly attendant blitz spirit, it has become an increasingly prevalent response to the uncertainties of economic collapse. Interestingly, one of the first areas in which this happened was the consumption of food, an activity closely connected with the immediate satisfaction of desires. Along with the blitz came rationing, which was not fully abolished until the mid-1950s. Accounts of this vary; its egalitarianism meant that while the middle classes experienced a drastic decline in the quality and quantity of their diet, for many of the poor it was a minor improvement. Either way, it was a grim regime, aided by the emergence of various byproducts and substitutes Spam, corned beef which stuck around in the already famously dismal British diet for some time, before mass immigration gradually made eating in Britain a less awful experience. In the process, entire aspects of British cuisine the sort of thing listed by George Orwell in his essay In Defence of English Cooking such as suet dumplings, Lancashire hotpot, Yorkshire pudding, roast dinners, faggots, spotted dick and toad in the hole began to disappear, at least from the metropoles.

The figure of importance here is the Essex-born multimillionaire chef and Winston Churchill fan, Jamie Oliver. Clearly as decent and sincere a person as youll find on the Sunday Times Rich List, his various crusades for good food, and the manner in which he markets them, are inadvertently telling. After his initial fame as a New Labourera star, a relatively young and Beckham-coiffed celebrity chef, his main concern (aside from a massive chain-restaurant empire that stretches from Greenwich Market in London to the Hotel Moskva in Belgrade) has been to take good food locally sourced, cooked from scratch from being a preserve of the middle classes and bring it to the disadvantaged and socially excluded of inner-city London, ex-industrial towns, mining villages and other places slashed and burned by 30-plus years of Thatcherism. The first version of this was the TV series Jamies School Dinners, in which a camera crew documented him trying to influence the school meals choices of a comprehensive in Kidbrooke, a poor, and recently almost totally demolished, district in south-east London. Notoriously, this crusade was nearly thwarted by mothers bringing their kids fizzy drinks and burgers that they pushed through the fences so that they wouldnt have to suffer that healthy eating muck.

Essex-born multimillionaire chef and Winston Churchill fan, Jamie Oliver

The second phase was the book, TV series and chain of shops branded as the Ministry of Food. The name is taken directly from the wartime ministry charged with managing the rationed food economy of war-torn Britain. Using the assistance of a few public bodies, setting up a charity, pouring in some coalfield regeneration money and some cash of his own, Oliver planned to teach the proletariat to make itself real food with real ingredients. One could argue that he was the latest in a long line of people lecturing the lower orders on their choice of nutrition, part of an immense construction of grotesque neo-Victorian snobbery that has included former Channel 4 shows How Clean Is Your House?, Benefits Street and Immigration Street, exercises in Lets laugh at picturesque prole scum. But Oliver got in there, and got his hands dirty.

However, the story ended in a predictable manner: attempts to build this charitable action into something permanent and institutional foundered on the disinclination of any plausible British government to antagonise the supermarkets and sundry manufacturers who funnel money to the two main political parties. The appeal to a time when things such as food and information were apparently dispensed by a benign paternalist bureaucracy, before consumer choice carried all before it, can only be translated into the infrastructure of charity and PR, where we learn what happens over a few weeks during a TV show and then forget about it. A permanent network of Ministry of Food shops pop-ups that taught cooking skills and had a mostly voluntary staff were set up in the north of England in Bradford, Leeds, Newcastle and Rotherham, though the latter was forced to temporarily close following health and safety concerns in June 2013, reopening in September 2014.

Much more influential than this up by your bootstraps attempt to do a TV/charity version of the welfare state was the ministrys aesthetics. On the cover of the tie-in cookbook, Oliver sits at a table laid with a 1940s utility tablecloth in front of some bleakly cute postwar wallpaper, and MINISTRY OF FOOD is declared in that same derivative of Gill Sans typeface used on the Keep Calm and Carry On poster. This is familiar territory. There is a whole micro-industry of austerity nostalgia aimed straight at the stomach. There is Olivers own chain of Jamies restaurants, where you can order pork scratchings for £4 (they come with a side of English mustard) and enjoy neo-Victorian toilets. Beyond Olivers empire, middle-class operations such as the caterers Peyton and Byrne combine the sort of retro food common across the western world (lots of cupcakes) with elaborate versions of simple English grub including sausage and mash. Some of the interiors of their cafes (such as the one in Heals on Tottenham Court Road in central London) were designed by architects FAT in a pop spin on the faintly lavatorial institutional design common to the surviving fragments of genuine 1940s Britain that can still be found scattered around the UK pie and mash shops in Deptford in south-east London, ice-cream parlours in Worthing in Sussex, Glasgows dingier pubs, all featuring lots of wipe-clean tiles.

Make Do And Mend Photograph: Make Do And Mend

Other versions of this are more luxurious, such as Dinner, where Heston Blumenthal provides typically quirky English food as part of the attractions of One Hyde Park, the most expensive housing development on Earth. Something similar is offered at Canteen, which has branches in Londons Royal Festival Hall, Canary Wharf and after its scorched-earth gentrification courtesy of the Corporation of London and Norman Foster Spitalfields Market. Canteen serves Great British Food, beers, ciders and perrys [that] represent our countrys brewing history and cocktails that are British-led. The interior design is clearly part of the appeal, offering a strange, luxurious version of a works canteen, with benches, trays and sans serif signs that aim to be both modernist and nostalgic. It presents the incongruous spectacle of the very comfortable eating and imagining themselves in the dining hall of a branch of Tyrrell & Green circa 1960. Still more bizarre is Albion, a greengrocer for oligarchs, selling traditional English produce to the denizens of Neo Bankside, the Richard Rogers-designed towers alongside Tate Modern. Built into the ground floor of one of the towers, it sells its unpretentious fruit and veg next to posters advertising flats that start at the knock-down price of £2m.

Closer to reality as lived by most people is a mobile app called the Ration Book. On its website, it gives you a crash course on rationing, when the government made sure that in the face of shortage and blockade the population could still get lifes essentials in the form of the famous book, with its stamps to get X amount of dried egg, flour, pollock and Spam. It is an app that aggregates discounts on various brands via voucher codes for those facing the crunch the people the unfortunate Ed Miliband tried to reach out to as the squeezed middle. The website states: Our team of Ministers broker the best deals with the biggest brands, to give you the best value. Is there any better way of describing the UK in the second decade of the 21st century than as the sort of country that produces apps to simulate state rationing of basic goods, simply to shave a little bit off the price of high street brands?

This food-based austerity nostalgia is one way in which peoples peculiar longing for the 1940s is conveyed; much more can be found in music and design. Walk into the shops at the Royal Festival Hall or the Imperial War Museum in London, and you will find an avalanche of it. Posters from the 1940s, toys and trinkets, none of them later than around 1965, have been resurrected from the dustbin of history and laid out for you to buy, along with austerity cookbooks, the Design series of books on pre-1960s iconic graphic artists such as Abram Games, David Gentleman and Eric Ravilious, plus a whole cornucopia of Keep Calm-related accoutrements. A particularly established example is the use of the 1930s Penguin book covers as a logo for all manner of goods, deliberately calling to mind Penguins mid-century role as a substantially educative publisher. Then there are all those prints of modernist buildings, ready for Londoners to frame and place in their ex-council flats in zone 2 or 3: reduced, stark blow-ups of the outlines of modernist architecture, whether demolished (the Trinity Square car park in Gateshead seen in Get Carter) or protected (Londons National Theatre). The plate-making company, People Will Always Need Plates, has made a name for itself with its towels, mugs, plates and badges emblazoned with various British modernist buildings from the 1930s to the 1960s, elegantly redrawn in a bold, schematic form that sidesteps the often rather shabby reality of the buildings. By recreating the image of the historically untainted building, it manages to precisely reverse the original modernist ethos. If for Adolf Loos and generations of modernist architects ornament was crime, here modernist buildings are made into ornaments. Still, the choice of buildings is politically interesting. Blocks of 1930s collective housing, 1960s council flats, interwar London Underground stations exactly the sort of architectural projects now considered obsolete in favour of retail and property speculation.

Many of the buildings immortalised in these plates have been the subject of direct transfers of assets from the public sector into the private. The reclamation of postwar modernist architecture by the intelligentsia has been a contributory factor in the privatisation of social housing. An early instance of this was the sell-off of Keeling House, Denys Lasduns east London Cluster Block, to a private developer, who promptly marketed the flats to creatives. A series of gentrifications of modernist social housing followed, from the Brunswick Centre in Bloomsbury (turned from a rotting brutalist megastructure into the home of one of the largest branches of Waitrose in London), to Park Hill, an architecturally extraordinary council estate in Sheffield, given away free to the Mancunian developer Urban Splash, whose own favouring of compact flats has long been an example of austerity sold as luxury although after the boom, its privatisation scheme had to be bailed out by millions of pounds in public money. Another favourite on mugs and tea towels is Balfron Tower, a council tower block about to be sold to wealthy investors for its iconic quality. It is here, where the rage for 21st-century austerity chic meets the results of austerity as practised in the 1940s and 1950s, that a mildly creepy fad spills over into much darker territory. In aiding the sell-off of one of the greatest achievements of that era the housing built by a universal welfare state the revival of austerity chic is the literal destruction of the thing it claims to love.

The Ministry of Nostalgia by Owen Hatherley is published by Verso (£14.99). To order a copy for £11.99, go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min. p&p of £1.99.