#i use a different moniker on those sites but

[laufire]

yesterday I finally finished my ARC of ✨ "When The Stars Alight"✨, and I have now posted reviews in goodreads and storygraph ^-^

(c&p under the cut)

I had the honour to receive an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

(this review might contain some very vague spoilers) 

The first thing that merits mentioning in this book is its prose. With an omniscient narrator and lush descriptions of the settings, the characters, and every grand or minute detail, reading it feels like being immersed in a vivid moving painting. I’d recommend the story to those of us who appreciate this kind of writing style; and to those who might be on the fence, I’d ask them to be open-minded, to take their time, and to welcome it in in order to enjoy everything else this story has to offer. I must also commend the artist that illustrated the beautiful cover, as well as the art inside the book, for aiding to the sensory experience. 

As for the book, I’m particularly enamoured with the worldbuilding. WTSA, and the universe it introduces us to as a first installment, can’t be called a typical fantasy story. If, like me, you both love this genre but tragically find yourself disappointed by how repetitive, superficial or conservative some of its examples can be, this book could be just what gets you out of that slump. The world it presents is utterly different from our own, with original fantasy species, each wonderfully distinctive. On the one hand you have Solarites: powerful star maidens fallen from the sky that benevolently rule over humans (some of them with magical abilities of their own) and other races like the sprites (another immortal race of monster slayers with a strong connection to nature); on the other you have the Occassi, a more demonic race in the artic. Here in particular the prose becomes indispensable, presenting two opposing races and their societies, constantly contrasting them with light/dark, life/death symbolism without falling into black and white thinking. From the matriarchal society lead by the Solarites, filled with more subtle (yet still dangerous) political power-plays, to the more patriarchal, militaristic Mortos; the luminosity and abundance of one setting and the more gothic, tenebrous and scarce environment of the other. As the lead travels from one to the other, we discover these differences with her. 

This leads me to the next point: this book puts its money where its mouth is when it comes to a matriarchal society, filling it with outstanding female characters and showing us women in power across all fields: diplomats, scientists, soldiers, etc. 

Laila, the protagonist, is the clear star. She’s delightful, curious, adventurous, with strong morals paired with a deep-seated insecurity. She’s also a political animal; charming, manipulative, with ambition that’s presented as a positive. Her optimism can be a sign of her youth and naivety, but born out of genuine compassion and want for progress. It all comes together into a lovely, complex lead character that I can’t wait to see grow and develop. 

Someone else I found unusual and fascinating was Amira, Laila’s mother. She’s powerful and seemingly untouchable, exacting, and the opposite of nurturing. Her influence over Laila is never-ending, both as her maternal figure and as her monarch, influencing all aspects of her life and looming over all of her relationships. 

Another one with key importance is Lyra, a sprite. She and Laila were past lovers, and in the present have a deep, sometimes difficult friendship that goes beyond most princess/lionheart dynamics. Lyra is irreverent, with a sturdy sense of justice that comes from sympathy for the underdog, and often the blunt warrior to Laila’s diplomat. 

Others that, while less prominent, still tell us a lot about the world are the Odakan scientists (whose part foreshadows what might come in future installments), full of excitement and purpose to change and explore the world; or Dr. Mielette, with a small part, but that offers insight into Solarite culture. We see less of the women in Mortos, so far, but they serve their purpose. In Vasilisa, the Regina, you can see the precarious, risky position of a woman who is ostensibly at the highest one of her kind can come in a misogynistic society. The looming absence of Serafina, the king’s former lover, or of Katerina, another blood sorcerer, both women who sought power outside society’s confines, contrasts with her. 

But Mortos’ most prominent representatives are the men in the Calantis family. Most significantly Darius, the male lead. He’s the king’s bastard and eldest son, resentful of his lesser position in court, and eager to retake the place he thinks he deserves. His more intellectual pursuits (he definitely incarnates the mad scientist archetype, a favourite of mine) haven’t always been of help among Occassi, who value brute force above all. He’s charming and sophisticated, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, which can fool others, audience included, into not fearing his monstrous nature. 

The other members of the family are Lanius, the tyrannical father and king opposing Laila’s diplomatic efforts, a poison in the family and the kingdom; and Dominus, the younger son and reluctant heir. Both brothers do take part in a love triangle with Laila, but it’s not your typical, never-ending F/M/M triangle; as someone who sometimes side-eyes such trope, I must say I appreciated how this one develops, with Laila’s differences in approach, in chemistry, and in the emotional risk she incurs in each relationship. Related to the love story, because I know this will be of interest: the book’s sex scenes are delightfully written, just as beautiful and descriptive as any other, steamy and evocative. 

To finish off, I’ll say that this story was perfectly crafted to appeal to both my baser and higher interests. Its world and its characters have raised quickly in my list of favourites, it makes me think and wonder and speculate about what will come next, and it will stay with me for a long, long time. If you enjoy this book half as much as I did, I recommend checking out the author’s page for any other related stories or materials.

[luminousbeings-crudematter]

Should you write it? Uh, please do!😭🥴😩 as a corporate girlie I would love me some Office!Ghost tbh, maybe you’re from another agency working intel on a joint operation w 141 and he gets a kick our of teasing you bc you’re such a stark contrast with your cute lil briefcase and the business casual dresses, totally not used to working literally on site surrounded by all these military/law enforcement men you usually do work for behind the scenes in the safety of your office

PAIRING: Office! Ghost/Co-Worker! Ghost x F! Reader 

WARNINGS: that particular kind of tacit sexual tension you find in corporate Britain || sexy eye contact from across the bullpen || filthy language || 18+ only

A/N:  corporate girlies unite! || anon is referring to this post || i tried to do the prompt as it was but realised that I know nothing about how the military works :) but this is fiction, so we ball, I hope you like it anon! I have no idea where this fic going, please help :)))

Part 1 of 4 || Part 2 || Part 3 || Part 4

***

It starts simple before it gets complicated, as these things tend to do.

There are exactly two things that keep you motivated in this job—the smoke breaks you take 5 times a day, and the off-chance of seeing Ghost around the base.  That’s it.  Two things.

And one of those was being ruined by your newest friend’s lack of enthusiasm for the other thing.

“I bet he's blond.”

Simon just takes a deep drag of his cigarette, looking at you with the distinctively irritated side eye that he gives you about 12 times a day.

“Ask me why I think he's blond.”

“No.”

But you’re undeterred.  “He just has that energy, you know.  I’ve only ever seen him with MacTavish, and he stands there like a tall, sexy, dumb…tree.  Like, I bet he’s fucking gorgeous, but he’s also giving blond himbo.”

Simon’s eyes roll up to the sky in irritation.  “I dunno what himbo means.”

“Yeah you do.  You said you’ve worked with Ghost before.”

You almost want to perform a pirouette in joy at getting Simon to finally look at you.  “N’ what of it?”

“Then you know what a himbo is.  It’s Ghost.”

You don’t even try to contain your manic laughter when Simon just about turns and leaves.         

***

What Simon doesn’t understand (the cantankerous bastard) is that you’ve made eye contact with Ghost a few times around the base.  The man is more elusive than average, even in this line of work.  His presence around the base is...well.  Entirely consistent with his moniker.  The man is a ghost.  

Sometimes you wonder if it’s all really performative, but something about the way he moves in the spaces around him leads you to conclude that maybe he’s omnipresent after all.  He'll catch your attention from the periphery of your vision, only to disappear when you try to actively seek him out.  He melts into the background of wherever he looms, like a shadow. (Or a Ghost).  There and not there, all at once.

And on the rare occasions you’ve seen him around, he keeps to himself.  Not surprising, given everything you know about him (which isn't a lot), but what is interesting to you is the way he looks at you.  And when he’s around, he does look at you.

You can't say you mind, considering you look at him too.  Even after all these years working with big, handsome, massive men and women, day in and day out, you still can't say you've gotten used to it.  And you could never be used to someone like Ghost.  

But then there’s Simon.  The other man you’re finding yourself increasingly attracted to.  

They tell you he’s only there temporarily and as punishment.  You can't even begin to imagine who could (and would even dare to) punish the big grump.  You don’t actually know why he’s being punished with desk duty, and even if you wanted to, you have no way of finding out.  He won’t tell you, and neither will your supervisor. 

More importantly, you decide, you couldn’t care less. 

Simon’s punishment means that your week has suddenly become very, very interesting.  The mood around the office is different while Simon sits at your absentee colleague’s desk.  People are quieter around him—uneasy and the slightest bit put off by his brutish nature. But you can’t deny that there is something about Simon, something you can’t quite seem to put your finger on.  The man is just...effortlessly sexy.  

You sit across the room from him, but facing him, and so every time you look up, he’s there.  The height of the desks combined with the height of this mammoth man mean that you can’t see his entire face, but his eyes stick out from the top of the desk partition, and it’s enough to create…issues for you. 

Five days ago, when you'd walked into the office, and noticed a stranger on Davis’ seat, you hadn't actually known it was him.  He was just...some guy.  A nose that looked like it had spent more time being broken than not, wicked scars running down his face and into his lips, mean-looking but with the most expressive brown eyes.  And then your supervisor introduced him to your team as Simon.  And that was it.  Thus had begun your love affair with permanent arousal. 

You must be one of Pavlov’s dogs with how you’ve been conditioned to associate the feeling of his eyes on your face with wetness between your legs.  It’s mercilessly constant and you’re left feeling achy and unsatisfied every day, having to content yourself with rubbing your thighs together for some much needed relief.  And through it all, Simon just watches you.

You know he’s interested.  And he must know of your reciprocity, because your traitor face gives it away, and because his interest is quickly replaced by smugness.  

During a brief stint of temporary insanity, you consider confronting him about it.  But what would you even say?   So sorry, Simon, you big, scary, grouch, but would you just please hit this and we can both call it a day and I can move on to making heart eyes at Ghost again? Hehe, no.

But you’re stubborn to a fault, so you befriend him (albeit with you doing most of the hard work in your “friendship”) and downplay your attraction, while he pretends he doesn’t spend most of the day making bedroom eyes at you.  Win-win.

And if you end up carrying an extra pair of panties in your purse, then it’s not like he needs to know about it.

****

Taglist: @devcica || @kneelingshadowsalome || @tiredmetalenthusiast || @xintothewoodswegox || @miyabilicious ||

[hex-xiv]

A Gifted Tome

The timing was everything for those within the underworld network. The network drew in the attention of the unsavoury folk and the curious, often the curious bit off more than can chew and would be forced to join the underworld. 

For this particular soul, they were the curious kind. A noble, sold to the underworld for their prying. The nobleman believed his gil could keep him safe. But everyone knew that it wasn't the gil that made you powerful there, it was the power you wielded. Your gil was just a substitute. 

Cleaning his bloodied hands, the tall elezen man stood and walked to his subordinate who was busy cleaning off the weapons used to teach this nobleman a lesson. 

For months rumors circulated that he could kill the leader of the underworld network. His claims were outlandish, that not even other powerful men and women in the network would dare to proclaim. Considering he was the one who found and funded this particular part of the underworld. 

"Well?" His low baritone voice rang out in the dimly lit alleyway. 

"A minor noble of Ishgard." The other man's voice replied with a file in hand. 

"I don't mean the dead bastard, I meant the soul farrier."

The man scrambled closing the file and hung his head low. "The soul farrier should turn up soon, will you make your way back to headquarters, boss?"

The tall elezen man thought for a moment and wondered whether he should return or remain standing where he stood. He was always curious about the work of the soul farrier. 

"I'll stay." He turned and leaned his back against the wall with his arms across his chest. 

"It's about time I meet this soul farrier."

When they called, she answered.

Curiosity always got the best of her and while she was once one of the woods and peace, her fascination with the dead lead her to a nomadic lifestyle. No death was ever the same and just when she thought she learned all she could about the underworld there was one soul that truly held her attention. 

As if she knew they were speaking about her she made an appearance dressed in a dark cloak with a hood covering her face. Under the hood her sea blue eyes were glued to the corpse before her as she walked closer to the corpse. 

Maybe by now she could tell who the killer was? Maybe knew his methods enough to tell if those she worked for were the same? Or maybe they were different. She worked effortlessly and when she was done she pulled the hood from her head revealing her viera ears and wolf haircut, "Sleep well." She spoke in a hushed tone before slowly walking away from the scene. "I wonder what you did to deserve such a fate." Her eyes however shifted to see the pair if they were in a viewing site.

"So are you the one I should thank for all my recent work?"

The soft footsteps against the cobblestone path brought attention to those waiting in the dimly lit alleyway. 

His arms still crossed over his chest. Standing in the dark alleyway, Hex wore a dark suit with a hard-to-distinguish colour. The sleeves were rolled up to his elbows with a silver clasp chain on the collar that glistened lightly. 

There were rumours that the soul farrier was a hyur, but how wrong they were. He lifted his head as he gazed down at the Viera. 

"If you have to ask then you know I won't grace you with an answer." The tall elezen pushed himself from the wall and walked towards the Viera. 

"As for what this sod did to deserve such a fate, he threatened me." His tone was cold and unforgiving. 

"Soul farrier, is that your name? Or is it a simple moniker for your profession?"

She didn't have to ask, she knew very well but there was a joyous tone in her voice, " A threat? I must say that I do admire your craft," If one were to call killing a craft it would be her. No kill was ever the same and each told their own story. 

"I wonder if the last one was because someone crossed you if I compared my notes just right." 

Soul farrier was a simple moniker for her profession. It added a certain darkness to it and made her feel slightly powerful to those that actually took the life. "To those I work for and with yes. To those that are friends or allies I go by another name."

Her eyes fell towards the other, "Apart of the cleanup crew as well?"

"A simple warning." He smiled looking down at her now. There was a soft glow to his crimson eyes and just as quick as they appeared, they were gone. 

He didn't have to say anything to his subordinate, the only indication given to him was a simple nudge of his head. 

"Please choose, Soul Farrier. A payment from the leader of Onychinus." The shorter man wore a full mask over his face to hide his features and wore a black and dark crimson modernised hanfu. He presented a pouch of gil to her, or a tome wrapped in black cloth. 

The man looked at her slightly perplexed and shook his head. His answer silent.

Her smile grew in admiration and respect until her attention was brought elsewhere, "Hm?" She turned to face the shorter man but leaned over to look between the two items. Gil was easy to come by if she ever needed it all she had to do was provide some form of entertainment or help some messy murderer in the shady streets of Ul'dah. It was the tome however that nearly called out to her. 

She looked back, "You've spoiled me this time." She said as she reached over for the tome. Her eyes sparkled as she took it in her gloved hands and slowly removed the cloth. "A man of fine trinkets as well? I hope we continue doing business with each other." 

The tome itself was black with a moth like creature on the front cover. Her eyes were glued to the book as if she was ready to sit down and be lost into another world but as she opened the tome all there were was crimson pages with a purple glow. "No words... Such a strange thing." But as she spoke it was as if the book came to life. 

The book shook and fell on the floor as the air around them started to blow crazy. The pages flicker and words slowly appear as if they were being written right there on the spot. "I call upon you creature to serve me again." Her left brow raised as she read it out loud and from those pages that violet glow turned into an orb that started to take shape. 

The orb started to take the form of yet another being, that was until wings and something else upon its head appeared. Giggles soon filled the air and that violet glow busted like shattered glass revealing a moth like creature. 

A soft yawn filled the air "You called for me Master..." The mothlike creature spoke looking between the trio.. "...." She first flew towards Umari and then towards Hex and his subordinate, "You are not her... Where is my master?" Her head tilted to the side as her eyes danced between the bodies before her. It was hard to tell if they bared any life or if her eyes were just like some of the souls Umari decided to never help. Lost and wandering for all time.

After the selection was made, the man took a step back and stood silently off to the side of the tall elezen. 

Hex glanced towards the tome and nodded silently. "Payment for a job well done." He took a step back just like his subordinate and stood close to him, his arms crossing while she flipped through the wordless pages. 

At first, his eyes narrowed, wondering if the rumours were baseless. He paid a hefty sum for that tome, equaling nearly 50 million gil. If the seller was wrong about it, he'd skin them alive. 

As he was about to leave and search for the seller, a burst of air came around them and a burst of purple came from the crimson pages. 

"Rumors were circulating around the underworld that a tome existed for the sole purpose of housing some form of entity. Seems those rumours were correct."

Hex gave a half-tilted grin and nodded towards the others. They all left and he took those few steps forward as he glanced down into the pages and then the moth-like creature that came fluttering towards him. 

"The gil will be deposited to your account. Both forms of payment were yours equally. You've done a lot for Onychinus and me as an extension. We finally meet, Soul Farrier." Hex eyed her with a vacant expression.

"Soul Farrier?" The moth-like creature struggled as she fluttered her wings towards Hex, "My master was no such thing. She was beautiful and like you. But much darkness.." A series of giggles escaped her lips as she fluttered towards Umari, "Did you steal me? Does that mean you are a Soul Farrier? Are you my Master now.." 

The moth flew up a few feet before looking down at them both as if she was a god.. A very small god.. "Bound by pages I may be but to tame a deal must be made. For who open my page-" Before she could even finish she saw Umari's lantern and was quickly drawn to it. "Such pretty light.. What is it used for..." 

Umari looked at Hex, "So your intention was to truly spoil a girl. I guess I can use the funds for a new dress or two. After all, I must look presentable when I have such wonderful clients." Her attention was then brought back to the mouth. "It is use to let those know they are no longer lost and will be carried back to the stream. A light to guide them to their new home." 

Sybil stared at it and even tried to steal it. Her hands were firm on the handle until Umari smacked her hands like a child being denied a treat. "There is no touch.. You were speaking and I am interested." 

Sybil's tired eyes looked at Umari and then at Hex before fluttering away. "Soul Farrier is a new master to me but for Sybil to work a deal must be made. I am hungry one.. I could eat you both.. No it won't be because I will be here and no one will find me again.." 

Umari thought for a moment, almost chewing on her bottom lip before putting the pieces of the puzzle together. "A voidsent. Well that explains it... So a deal then... I keep your book safe, you work for me in aiding the souls. In return to feed you get a bit of what remains of their aether." 

The very thought made Sybil's mouth almost water as she fluttered towards Umari and offered her delicate bruised hand, "A deal made. A deal was kept. Sybil obeys Master." 

"Umari but when in the presence of strangers Soul Farrier." Her gloved hand shook the delicate bruised one and it was like a violet ribbon had wrapped around the hand as if sealing their fate and binding the two together. 

Sybil soon pulled away and fluttered towards Hex. "So now that one is done this one has questions. How did you find my book? Did you kill my master?" As she was just a few inches above him her small wings grew tired causing her to almost fall face first on the pavement. She sat down and another bruise claimed her left cheek. Her soulless eyes looked towards Hex almost as if she was about to cry. "Ouch.. That hurt..."

Hex watched as the moth flew between them. Extinguishing her energy rather quickly. While she sent a barrage of questions he remained silent, his eyes turning down to the worded pages until the moth threatened to eat them. 

He looked up to the moth and his eyes glowed a much brighter red, showing the little voidsent that he'd extinguish her life if she so much as touched a hair on his head. 

"Truly, I couldn't have my associates dressing like they came from the slums." Hex mouthed, his eyes on the moth, eyes still glowing red. 

Once the deal was struck, his eyes dulled to their original colour. 

Umari, so that's her name. Hex made a mental note of the Soul Farrier's name. He liked knowing the names of those he worked with, but in this world, names were never given out. Names were worth more than any gil, any weapon, any treasure. Names were something that could be controlled. And having her name? Well, that was more than enough. 

Hex made no inclination of what he was thinking. His face remained neutral even as the moth fell to the blood-stained cobblestone. 

"A procurer found your tome. You'll learn soon enough you can't ask these questions, sweetie." Hex's gaze swept up to Umari. 

"Teach your pet the rules of the underworld, lest you find your head on a pike." It wasn't a threat made from him. But a threat that everyone in the underworld knew. An unspoken rule if you will. 

Don't ask questions, unless you have the gil or information to pay for it. Or you'll pay with your life.

Sybil stood up and walked towards Hex like a newborn deer. "You..." She stopped as she listened to his words and then looked at Umari and then back at him. "No more questions... questions..." She then bounced on her heel with an attempt to fly again but she only found herself falling on the bloodied stone again. "That means... Master is gone.. No more questions for this one knows.. She is a creature. Not here nor there.. Maybe over there.. Where it is dark." Maybe it was a riddle or maybe she was still trying to remember the last memory with the previous owner. 

She then looked towards Hex and attempted to fly once more, this time it was a success."Two more questions. These are okay.. One may I come closer to you and ask another but something only meant for two ears and no more." She waited and if there was a consent she would flutter closer and use her hand to cover her lips and part of his ear. "You are like me but not me. We are the same no? I seen pretty color.. But shh secrets are always safe with me." She would then offer the side of her face as if offering to get his answer before fluttering away. 

"No more questions... Not here.. Or there.. Not in the world of darkness. We go now and find something to eat.." 

Umari watched the interaction and only waited until it was time to speak. "I would never dress like that. Only the finest but also what makes work easier. She will learn the ways so next we meet she won't be so curious." She winked towards Sybil who by now flew just a few inches over Umari's head. 

"No more questions.." She did look around but watched as Umari picked up the tome to see if there were more words. "Looks like I have some reading to do." 

"Lots of it... Master knew so much and was greedy."

"Gone into the aetherial sea... or worse." Hex tilted his head down at the little moth. He was close to leaving them there but the moth finally flew up and leaned into his ear. 

His eyes swept down, his lashes just gracefully touching the apples of his cheeks when she made the connection to the void festering within. 

She'll be useful. The void within him spoke. He didn't give the moth an answer, but the slight flicker of light in his eyes gave her unspoken consent. Though it wasn't his doing, it was the other one. 

"I heard moths need their powder to fly, so watch your tongue, sweetie," Hex whispered, barely enough for her to hear. 

When she was done, or well when he was done with her. Hex lifted his hand and used one finger to push her head back to give him some breathing room. 

"Good, we'll be in touch and there will be another job for you soon, Umari." He placed a hand in his pocket, tosing an aether stone to the moth. 

"I won't expect all the contents of the book to be relayed to me, but I am curious as to what's in it." Hex motioned to the book, expressing some interest in it, but not enough that he'd take it away after giving it to her.

Sybil was fragile at least for the moment. Her head slightly flew back from his touch, "No push please." However she heard his faint whispers and then hushed. She caught the stone and looked at it as if she was about to eat it. "......" 

Umari nodded, "Should I find something that may seem useful to you I will gladly share." She said in a flat tone while her focus was on Sybil who indeed tried to eat the stone. "That's not for that dear. I am being called again.." She pulled her hood over her head as her eyes focused on the book. Once the book was in Umari's hand Sybil started to grow smaller. 

It was almost like she was about to return to the book until she took a seat on Umari's shoulder. As she came in passing she handed Umari the stone just before claiming her new seat. 

"She went to the sea.. Not much worse... They always get too greedy..." She softly repeated and then it was almost like Sybil became lifeless. Her soulless gaze fixated on what basically was her prison. 

Umari smiled, "Let's keep the name private now. You never know who is truly listening." She kindly bowed as she started to leave for her next body. The tome was kept in one hand as she pulled the lantern from her belt. The lantern began to softly glow and once again Sybil stared at it.. 

"Pretty light... Light leads somewhere..."

Hex nodded, waiting for her to go in one direction so he could go the opposite. His eyes turned down to the little moth who followed the light just like any other insect. 

He wondered how much the little thing would know or if it would be useful in the future. Nevertheless, the tome was out of his hands and in the hands of one of his long-time associates. 

"Mmm.," Was all he said in response to her wanting her name private. 

"Until then, Soul Farrier. Keep your link pearl open, there will be a job soon enough." Hex went in the opposite direction, disappearing into the dimly lit roads with red and black smoke billowing out from beneath him.

Collaborative writing with @cruelintent-xiv

[saintmeghanmarkle]

Some sugars may have soured a little... by u/booksy200

Some sugars may have soured a little... Mods... please delete this post if not allowed... Sinners do not go there to bang on their posts... which are few and far between anyway.Spotify Bill may truly have broken the dam, but something happened before that.There's a fan site for Haz and Megraine that I believe we were told to not link to... Had no idea what site it was but one day googling their name on Reddit's main page I found a fan site about their Nutflux work.It only has 6k followers and very few interactions.Well anyways a couple months ago - This is a pinned post on the fan site:Directional shift.I have to admit that I have an uneasy relationship with social media. It can be a powerful tool for community, education, and catharsis. However, it can be a very negative, toxic, selfish, and anxious place in which to spend time.Many of us are here because we see the unfair treatment and outright hate Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have received as the result of walking away from a toxic institution and family structure. We will continue to be on that journey with them. **We will continue posts that support them, point out the double-standards in their treatment, and you should too.But it isn't satisfying enough to illustrate or comment on just this royal family (and their followers) as the villains. It has also been important to the sub that we explore other themes:racismsexism and misogynymedia literacy and manipulation, disinformationfeminismviolenceharmful family dynamics/family traumaanti-monarchy/anti-democracymental healthIf we solely focus on the Harry, Meghan, and the royal family antagonism, we miss opportunities to learn from one another in a way that promotes diversity, inclusion, empathy, understanding and activism. At the end of the day, Harry and Meghan are activists. How can we combat the negativity in real and sustainable ways? Outrage without action is to make oneself experience anxiety and trauma for little gain. How can we push ourselves to evolve?Harry and Meghan are not in opposition to the royal family, on the contrary, they have embraced parts of being royal, probably because it is linked to family. We don't agree with royalty, but Meghan has made it clear that they do not desire to live the events of the last five or so years over and over. If you get exhausted of the media cycle mistreating and villainizing them, imagine how they feel!Although we will continue posting about H&M, if you are reading thought-provoking materials, do not hesitate to post about those things too. Maybe something you have read online or in a class.On Bad Actors/Anti-fansI am very grateful to our intelligent moderators for trying to keep peace on this sub. We are a multi-cultural team who have taken time from our very busy lives because we believe in social justice and anti-bigotry.Unfortunately, we have had some bad actors who have increased activity in the recent weeks leading up to the coronation. They have now taken to rampant downvoting.Reddit is aware, but we would like to ask that you refrain from mentioning or alluding to them in your comments and posts. I would like to get away from being their diametric opposite, because we are [more] than just a shit-talking sub: we can have nuanced conversations, educate and inform; we are a different thing altogether.This sub was always meant to be a conduit through which we could explore issues that we care about, that Harry and Meghan care about.As far as the bad actors go, we can talk about anti-fandom in general, but no specific monikers or names please. Also, if you would like to help our sub combat negativity, please_________________In other words...they have more important things to talk about? post link: https://ift.tt/fYLXyxI author: booksy200 submitted: July 09, 2023 at 01:50PM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit

[narlernarler]

The VVS Jewelry Chronicles

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brass, gold and silver are a couple of elements our team utilize in the goods plus they are significantly tough along with quality looking. Luxuriousness and durability originate from gold as well as brass. The main purpose for using these kind of material is to offer a top quality sensing to our clients by using retaining our goods pocket friendly. Andrew tate is just one of quite a few celeb influencers whom affected the style. You can consider our “Top G” shades inside Andrew tate area which now we have made for lovers. A lot of people became bewildered with regards to jewelry selecting; but do not stress, we're present to help! Selecting an circumstance will be a preliminary action. With holding this in consideration, pick in line with your clothing that you will be donning, and not to mention tone of that clothing. In the end, what truly counts is your individual liking, and it is essential to select the choice that offers ultimate comfort. I desire you for you to wear an of Cuba watch accompanied by a of Cuba wristband. Those that want to fully understand vvsjewelry.com, they may click here.

The maintenance and service is the central consider the age of a jewellery. Jewelry's longevity depends on a attentive maintenance and nurturing it gains. We put a fine covering of the precious metal onto our ornaments, and also the finished item is called plated gold jewelry. To defend this tier's endurance, it's best to guard it from every watery materials, for instance scented liquids, greases, plus bleach, because their interaction while using metal could devalue it. To keep up the luster, release a soft cotton ball to take out any pesky dirt specks. For years to come, a jewelry's glimmer shall stay unharmed. At our online store vvsjewelry.com , find out the ultimate destination for vvs Hip Hop jewelry - several possibilities along with unmatched customer support await you! Individuals with goals to be aware of vvs hip hop jewelry plus different specifics can appear liberated to click here.

[atlanticcanada]

N.S. chainsaw carver turns Fiona fallen trees into wood sculptures

When post-tropical storm Fiona damaged the “grandfather maple” in Sheridan and Ryan Rupp’s yard, the couple was devastated.

“It’s really incorporated into our first couple of years at this home. We even have our engagement photos in front of the tree,” said Sheridan. “You kind of think it will have some sort of permanence."

Instead of focusing on the destruction, the residents of Seabright, N.S., saw an opportunity.

“The tree could be up to 100-years-old,” said Sheridan. “You just feel a bit differently about things that have that degree of age on you.”

Jay MacKay runs DaVinci in Wood Chainsaw Carvings out of a studio in Black Point, N.S. He also carves regularly at a site near Peggy’s Cove to the delight of spectators and onlookers.

MacKay said he was approached by the Rupp’s to turn a limb from their fallen tree into an art sculpture.

“When they told me the story that it was a family loss to lose a tree and it really held some sentimental value, I decided to do it for them,” said MacKay.

The Rupp’s requested a blue heron, a homage to their home and the nature that surrounds them.

"There's a blue heron that has a flight pattern that goes right over the house,” said Ryan. “You can see it pretty consistently when it's out flying. It became a moniker for the home.”

Since then, MacKay has been commissioned to carve two other storm sculptures including a dolphin and an owl.

“It was a very fulfilling project to do those sculptures for those people,” said MacKay.

Over the years, Mackay has created hundreds of pieces that range in different sizes. Some have sentimental value while others have been used in film and television productions.

"All of those things is kind of what I feed off of as an artist to make things that bring joy and happiness to people,” said MacKay.

The Rupp’s say they are grateful to be able to hold on to a piece of their tree in such a memorable way.

“I’m just filled with such appreciation that we have this ability to keep it in our lives,” said Sheridan. “Even as time goes on, and what’s left of the tree fades away and deteriorates, we’re still going to have that piece of the history of the house that we will share with our kids.”

To see more of Mackay’s work, visit the DaVinci in Wood website.

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/tCRGHAr

[dovemoda]

Why choose prescribed Modafinil as your medication?

Modafinil can be both a prescribed medication and a "smart drug." Multiple treatments and interventions make use of modafinil. Modafinil is sold in many internet pharmacies under several brand names, many of which are generic medication company monikers.

Do you ever have trouble sleeping or staying asleep, such as narcolepsy, insomnia, shift work disorder, or jet lag? Are you constantly tired and unable to focus? If that's the case, you might benefit from taking a brain pill. Alternatively, do you find that you're just generally exhausted? If not found online, contact a Canada Modafinil Vendor.

Numerous medications available with a doctor's prescription can relieve these symptoms. Of course, not everyone has access to health insurance that will pay for these prescriptions, and even for those whose plans do, the out-of-pocket cost may be too high.

What Online Stores Have the Highest Quality Modafinil, and Where to Buy Modafinil

This is why I choose Modafinil over everything else on the market

All in all, it can be said that the people who deal in nootropics all offer essentially the same pills. From a more macro perspective, though, there appears to be no noticeable difference between the many modafinil suppliers globally. Despite this, Modafinil is distinguished from its rivals. Online forums, as well as other message boards, have been raving about it.

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Numerous shoppers evaluate available nootropics in part by their price. As a result, clients are predisposed to support companies and service providers that offer more affordable options. Pricing is competitive compared to those of other big pharmaceutical companies in the field of brain-function boosting drugs. Its rates are competitive with the market, and it offers discounts to customers.

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No longer will simply buying nootropics online suffice. The question is, how can you sure that you are, in fact, receiving the best? As a service to its customers, Australia Modafinil Vendor offers free samples of its product line to ensure their confidence in the effectiveness and quality of the medications it sells. No onerous procedures or examinations are required to qualify for the free distribution of these samples.

The Proper Way to Use It

Tablets of 100 mg and 200 mg strength are the most common dosing options for modafinil, which can be purchased under various brand names.

To aid wakefulness, take 200 milligrams once daily, with or without meals, if you have trouble sleeping. Dosage should be taken exactly as prescribed. However, patients with narcolepsy and obstructive sleep apnea are more commonly directed to take their dose in the morning. In contrast, patients with SWSD are often instructed to take their medicine just one hour before the start of their shift. If your doctor has prescribed modafinil, you must follow their dosing instructions to the letter.

[pinersick]

Gennaker vs code zero

Gennaker vs code zero code#

Gennaker vs code zero professional#

Gennaker vs code zero code#

This is a much larger furled gennaker than the Code Zero. This webinar is perfect for shorthanded sailors, performance cruisers, or those looking for more. I have heard people saying very good things about Code D (Delta voile) and if what they say on the Doyle site by its costumers deserve some credibility, it seems that it is also the case there. Broad reaches are, in percentage terms, less frequent than upwind or deep downwind legs. Our cruising experts discuss various styles of Code Zero’s. This sail permits both things and will not collapse like a spinnaker when too near the wind. I have sailed many years with a Code 0 and it is an incredible sail upwind till 120/130º tw but I could not run. The boat go very good with the selftacking ACL North sails at a AWA from 30 to 90even in light to moderate winds.The code 0 will do it better by light winds from AWA 40 to 90 but more downwind you need a gennaker or a spinnaker. In fact you will have a sail that can do both things relatively well. Of course they are exaggerating a bit, it would not be as efficient as a Code 0 upwind neither as efficient as a spinnaker downwind, but the difference would not be much, in what regards a cruiser's perspective. With this new kind of sails you can have the two in one and even have it on an easily deployable furler.Īs Doyle says: The Utility Power Sail, UPS, gives cruising sailors the speed and power of a traditional spinnaker and the ability to sail at wind angles as close as 35 degrees. To sail fast in light winds against the wind you need a geenaker, to run you need a Spinaker or an asymetric spinnaker. Grouped collectively under the name reacher, they are ideal for those hot zero- to 10-knot days, when they can take you from drifting to moving. MAKE YOUR OWN SAIL BAG If hoisting a gennaker or a code zero is something you. Among the different monikers are the gennaker, reacher, screacher (a term used primarily for multihulls), drifter, light-air genoa and cruising code zero (the flattest variation). these sails are set on roller furling systems like Harkens Code Zero ot Facnor FX Code Zero. This sail is precisely about that, about to have less sails. SECURING THE SPINNAKER HALYARD As a general rule, all three corners of the. Asymmetrical spinnaker or gennaker: Called by either name. The effect of this fibre layout is to reduce the load on the Mylar film, helping the sail to retain its shape longer.Click to expand.Yes it can but the sail has to be modified. Our ZigZag fibre layout ensures efficient support and distribution of the loads over the radial panels in your sail.

Gennaker vs code zero professional#

Stormlite is of a similar weight and finish to the equivalent Nylon spinnaker cloth but its Polyester weave gives it greater stability under load.Ĭontender Sailcloth has responded to the high demand for increasingly lighter but form stable sails with a series of laminate fabrics suitable for yachtsmen from the performance-oriented cruiser through to the professional racing teams. Clearly mounting a Code 0 or 1 or a genaker or an asym spinnaker on a furler solves the size and handling problem. If you do prefer a woven fabric, we suggest you ask your sailmaker about Contender Stormlite polyester sailcloth. For a boat of that size (and smaller ones as well for that matter) I would consider a furling code 1. Using Contender ZL Code Zero laminate your sailmaker can make you a sail which is very stable but still light, pliable and easy to handle. That is why we recommend our ZL Code Zero laminate, designed especially for this type of sail. We are thinking of replacing the Marlow torsion rope for a Manufactured one by Future Fibres in an attempt to reduce the amount of twist in the rope when we furl. Our boat is a Van de Stadt 47 foot cruising yacht with a big fractional rig. Nylon spinnaker fabric is not sufficiently stable for these sails. Code zero's and gennakers are always either fully furled or fully unfurled and historically people have been content to tie or cleat off the furling line when the sail is furled However, increasingly customers like the security of using a lock to prevent the accidental unfurl. We use a custom modified Harken code zero furler for a Top down furl on our Quantum Vision V3 of 2100 sqf. A screecher and a code zero are the same thing. Gennaker is just a general term for a potential downwind sail, a cross between a Genoa and an asymmetrical spinnaker. Excellent series of furlers for sailing yachts of 24 to 42. The term gennaker can cover a code zero, screecher, or reaching spinnaker. Get to know affordable and reliable NS gennaker furlers - asymmetrical spinnaker furling systems. Is your performance cruiser or racing yacht equipped with a non-overlapping jib and/or a bowsprit? Then a rolling Code Zero or an asymmetrical reaching spinnaker can considerably improve the performance of your yacht in lighter weather conditions. Code zero is another name for a gennaker. The term gennaker can cover a code zero, screecher, or reaching spinnaker. Great performance on beam/broad reach courses Code zero is another name for a gennaker.

[cockslutpadalecki]

Congratulations on your milestone!!!

For your challenge, how about Andy Barber + #16 + Cockwarming?

Family Emergency

Characters: Stepdad!Andy Barber x Stepdaughter!Reader.

Words: 332.

Warnings: stepfather/stepdaughter relationship, stepcest, reader is 18+ (this is not paedophilia), explicit sexual content, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it kids), vaginal sex, cockwarming, 18+.

A/N: Thank you for the prompt my love, I saw it and knew I’d have to write something along these lines. Prompt is in bold. Come join my Eleven Sentence Challenge! While likes are gold, feedback/reblogs are golden. Please support your content creators. My work is my own, therefore I do not give consent for this story to be re-posted or translated to any other site.

“I’m going to meet friends, what do you think?” you ask sweetly, twirling in the doorway of Andy’s office, your skimpy outfit leaving very little to the imagination. 

He looks up, features hardening as he takes you in all of your half-naked glory before barking at you, “If you don’t change out of those shorts and into some pants, I’ll have them around your ankles by lunch.” 

Pushing out your bottom lip you pout at him, your voice rich and thick like honey, “Is that a threat or a promise, Daddy?”

A low, gravelly frustrated sigh-turned-moan hums deep in his throat as he eyes you with a frosty blue stare. You can already see darkness starting to seep in at the corners— see the way his lips twitch at the moniker he begs you to use for him in private. When he’s buried inside you, he’s no longer Andy, but an entirely different entity altogether. He wears the identical face as your stepfather, talks to you in the same voice he uses at the dinner table when he asks you about your day— but the way he caresses you, fucks you; that’s not parental love of any kind, but twisted lust, a sick desire he can’t seem to control.

“Come here,” he orders finally with authority, and you slowly begin to stalk the edge of the desk, fingers skirting along the soft mahogany until you’re close enough that he can grab your wrist and pull you roughly down into his lap. 

“What about my friends?” you lament, feeling his fingers edge the material of your shorts and panties to one side before he’s reaching into his slacks to pull his cock free. 

“Call ‘em and tell ‘em a family emergency came up,” Andy growls, thrusting inside you as you let out a little yelp, your hands flying out to grasp the desk in front of you. “Now you’re gonna sit here like a good little princess until I’m ready to move, y’hear?”

***

ALL CE: @chamberofsloths @dreamlessinparis @imanuglywombat @kind-of-crazy-butthatsokay @la-cey @livstilinski @ladydmalfoy @otomefromtheheart @patzammit @stargazingfangirl18 @starlightcrystalline @saiyanprincessswanie @sunwardsss @selfsun @threeminutesoflife @xoxonotme

Forever: @amandamdiehl @b3autyfuldisast3r @buttercandy16 @crashdevlin @dangertoozmanykids101 @daughterofthenight117 @donnaintx @danneelsmain @dandywinchesterbras @deangirl93 @doozywoozy @downanddirtydean @foxyjwls007 @gayasslookinass @hoewkeye @heyyouwiththeassbutt @hoboal87 @ilovefanfic86 @jewelswrites-ish @joseyrw @letsby @letsdisneythings @mogaruke @notyourtypicalrose @nik2write @novawillowbarnes @obsessivelycapricious @pinkshenanigan @princessmisery666 @rattwritesfics @sea040561 @sweeterthanthis @slutformarvelmen @simpformarvelmenandwoman @stoneyggirl @that-one-gay-girl @warriorqueen1991 @wonder-cole @xoxabs88xox @zooaliaa

[jmdbjk]

Welcome

Hello everyone. I appreciate the nice words from you all in my asks and inbox. 

I know a lot of you are new to BTS and I can totally relate to all the confusion when you are just trying to figure out what’s going on, what’s gone on and why do they do that and what were they thinking?? (haha).

Please feel free to ask anything, use the anonymous feature, no question is a dumb question, there are probably a lot of people who have no idea what this or that is, whatever your question might be. I will absolutely do my best to answer to the best of my knowledge, though I am by far no expert.

And for those DIYers who want to figure it out yourself, here are a few resources to help:

The BTS Lexicon. This is just one of several fan-based websites that serves as a glossary of all that is Bangtan.

US BTS ARMY is the United States based BTS fan base website and has a lot of different information.

TheRiseOfBangtan YouTube channel. Describes as “This is the official Youtube channel for the fan-made documentary series ‘The Rise of Bangtan.’”

And of course: 

BANGTAN TV the official BTS YouTube channel.

BTS_twt the official Twitter account of BTS that the members will sometimes post to themselves.

BTS Weverse official Army membership website and its sister site: Weverse Shop. You can find shows to purchase that they’ve produced: Run BTS, In the Soop, Bon Voyage, etc. as well as Weverse Magazine (the magazine is a website and is free).

V Live the official BTS platform for live broadcasts and their variety show Run BTS.

Just to make it clear, I am Jimin and Jungkook biased and a supporter of their relationship/friendship/bond/snoogie honey bunches of love thing they got goin’ on. But I also love all 7 and love to see them back together doing anything. 

Peace out!

Disclaimer: Thoughts expressed here are my own and are often silly or thirsty, or all of the above. All third-party opinions expressed via the aforementioned resources linked to from this page are those of the individuals concerned and do not necessarily (but might) represent those of JMDBJK (me)(who came up with that nonsensical moniker anyway), its parent or its affiliates. Jeez, I hope my parents don’t ever happen to read any of this shit. No responsibility can be accepted for any action you take or refrain from taking as a result of viewing this page and/or the resources linked to therefrom, including but not limited to modifying your own beliefs to include all or part of any of these disclaimers or elements thereof. Amen.

[retronator]

The last 10 years of pixel art

Retronator the blog is exactly 10 years old right now (+ an hour or so more since I can’t seem to stop editing this post)!

I want to take this opportunity to look back at the teenage years of the 21st century and reflect on how the pixel art scene has grown over the years. I only promise a personal perspective, pieced together from my faulty memory and a bit more reliable archive of 1,700 posts on this blog.

2010

Social media sites emerged already in the late 2000s (Facebook launched in 2004, Twitter in 2006, Tumblr in 2007), but it took quite some time before they caught on, especially outside the US. I joined Tumblr in July 2010 and there were relatively few pixel artists active on the site. @jinndevil​ and @unomoralez​ go the farthest of those that I followed. The first post I reblogged was a Back to the Future piece from @megapont​ (via some blogpost share, since Megapont duo didn't join till 2013).

What was huge on the network however was sharing retro-gaming artworks by blogs like @it8bit​ and @gameandgraphics​. This included many pixel art pieces and it helped grow a community of fans that adored both old games and pixels.

2011

I'd put 2011 down as the start of the hi-bit era of pixel art games, championed by the release of the iconic adventure game Sword & Sworcery. Pixel purism of the initial pixel art movement was left behind by mixing pixels with high-res special effects like soft shadows and vignetting. Also, spaghetti legs started their fad period.

Artists such as @probertson​, @drewpixel​, and @merrigo​ started their days on Tumblr, gathering huge audiences over the years. Meanwhile, Retronator grew to a whooping 100 followers by the end of the year.

2012

Tumblr's fan spirits were going stronger and stronger, to which I threw my own logs on the fire by releasing Tribute, my biggest and most popular piece of fan art I created so far.

The highly anticipated FEZ got released (to critical acclaim and other more controversial consequences), further bringing pixel art in front of the mainstream gaming audience.

From newly-followed artists, @johanvinet​ was damn inspiring with his smooth animations. Anything GIF did immensely good on the Tumblr dashboard.

2013

This was THE year for Tumblr. So many new artists joined, it was hard to keep track. Anyone from established names like Mojang's art director @jnkboy​ and @konjakonjak​ of Noitu Love 2 fame (later Iconoclasts) to pixel art beginners such as @waneella​, now one of the most well-known illustrators in the scene.

The push for modern art direction with pixel art games wasn't stopping either. Not that amazing, more traditionally styled titles (with fresh color palettes) weren't present, as Chasm's debut on Kickstarter showed, but it was Hyper Light Drifter that really stole everyone's heart (machine) on the same crowdfunding platform. Gradients and smooth dynamic shading became unapologetically part of the pixel art (gaming) vocabulary from then on.

When Papers, Please got released at the end of the year to universal appraisal, a new example was set for showing that pixel visuals don't necessarily need to be the most polished, technically-impressive pieces of artistic expression, they can also be simple—the majority of detail-filling can be offloaded to the player's imagination.

2014

Pixel purist ideology was a highly debated topic. Dan Fessler, the background artist on Chasm, did a strong push against the tighter set of constraints which said you should only use 'clean' tools such as the pencil and color fill to complete your artworks. Dan instead only cared about clean results, pioneering in the process the technique of HD Index Painting that used the depths of Photoshop layer magic to get otherwise identical results. And there were plenty of others right around the corner that wouldn't even care about keeping the results married to traditional pixel art ideals.

Still, the majority of pixel art at this point was very orthodox. I started the Artist Feature series that showcased my favorite artists and none of them did anything controversial (nor they needed to). The biggest break from the old days was mainly highly increased color counts that allowed for subtle transitions without dithering, and free color picking without creating predefined color palettes. Octavi Navarro started his highly iconic @pixelshuh​ scenes, and the completely unknown @8pxl​ started her journey towards experimentation with pink sky gradients.

Even more importantly, Pixel Dailies were born on Twitter, following Ben Porter's 365 days of doing pixel art daily.

2015

I called 2015 The Year of Pixel Dailies in the end-of-the-year article in my newly started Retronator Magazine. The Twitter community really exploded this year, bringing in many new artists to the medium, with Pixel Dailies serving as a platform to raise visibility to everyone, old and new. I found out about @weilarddrake​ and @orange-magik​ this way, Slynyrd, @iceztiqarts​, @igorsandman​ … Other freshly-discovered people on tumblr were @kirokazepixel​ (one of the most prolific artists on the scene), @faxdoc​ (his learning journey was inspiring enough for its own article), and Talecrafter with @deathtrashgame​ (starting a whole new style of aliased, low-res painting without caring about individual pixels).

The discussion whether pixel art could survive past its nostalgic roots was still in the air, stirred by opinions such as A Pixel Artist Renounces Pixel Art. History is proving them wrong however, with pixel art stronger than ever in 2020. It's not a visual language people born after the 80s couldn't understand.

New-school voxel art pieces started trending with the advent of Magicavoxel, pioneering the development of pixel art's sibling in 3D. The first pixel art convention Pixel Art Park was held in Tokyo. And (important for me personally), I came up with Pixel Art Academy, an adventure game that would take my ambitions in pixel art education into the future.

2016

After 9 years in development, Owlboy released! Also Hyper Light Drifter! And Stardew Valley! And Kingdom! Pixel art games were not dying, they were on the rise.

Edge (the popular British video game magazine) published a special 200+ page issue called Art of the Pixel. It featured contemporary artists outside the gaming context, championing the aesthetic's transition from its video game roots into its own art form.

Pedro Medeiros of @studiominiboss​ started his famous series of GIF tutorials, subsequently encouraging many others to share their knowledge in the popular square format. Tumblr still saw new artists joining the platform, such as @motocross-arts​ and @apolism​ (two thirds of the Japanese trio The Ultimate Pixel Crew), while others like @6vcr​ started their first pixel explorations that year. @brunopixels​, an old-schooler on the platform like me, sparked the Octobit movement, a pixel art alternative to Inktober.

2017

Further new names on Tumblr included @guttykreum​ (outdoorsy perspective pieces) and @scrixels​ (one of the most consistent daily posters with over 1,000 artworks by now).

The annual Shibuya Pixel Art Contest joined Pixel Art Park at promoting the art form in Tokyo, Japan (and worldwide really). Lospec became the new go-to resource site for pixel art, picking up the mantle from PixelJoint and Pixelation that—while still active—stagnated technologically and feature-wise.

More than anything, pixel art games were everywhere. Maybe it only seemed to me this way since I was able to go to the Game Developer's Conference as press and had the chance to interview many many people in the scene, leading to over half a year of daily content on this blog. Indie games felt stronger than ever with so many of us full-on realizing our dreams of creating our own games professionally. The one that left the biggest splash on the scenes was no doubt The Last Night, announced front and center in-between AAA titles during Microsoft's E3 conference. The brothers Soret pushed the art direction even beyond the hi-bit era moniker, fusing 3D, shaders, and modern cinematography with pixels in an iconic combination that, like Sword & Sworcery's spaghetti legs, was so atmospheric that it couldn't be resisted by future imitators.

2018

Another game that pushed technological boundaries was Pathway, finally stepping into full light in 2018 and releasing one year later. I still think it has the most advanced pixel art graphics engine to date, using voxels and other tricks under the hood to deliver a completely dynamically lit environment while retaining the pixel-perfect 3/4 view aesthetic. Pixel art games were firmly part of mainstream gaming by now, with Celeste winning many awards alongisde pixelish Return of the Obra Dinn, further cementing the presence of pixels as an ever-evolving medium capable of expressing very different art styles.

I decided to focus solely on developing Pixel Art Academy in 2018, putting this blog on relative hiatus with very sporadic updates towards the end of the year. But I never let it die. I thoroughly enjoy writing about the scene and my interest in the art form only grows with time.

2019–2020

Ironically, the closer the years are to the present, the less I remember what things stood out most. Maybe it's because my brain hasn't had the chance to automatically prune my memories yet from the overload of information that is the interwebs these days. Pixel art seems so out there, so much of my everyday life, encompassing me on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, DeviantArt … Even on TikTok you see kids zooming out of their freshly pixelized Minecraft photographs they call pixel art. The medium is alive, and more than ever.

As for the Retronator blog, from its zero followers exactly 10 years ago, it grew to 100 after a year and a half, 1000 the year after, 10k when it was 5 years old, and 30k just last month. Tumblr is still the platform where most of you follow my pixel art reports and I don't intend to stop anytime soon.

Here's to the next decade! Thank you all for reading. <3

[phroyd]

Oh My, what terrible timing, and what a great loss! Rest In Peace Justice Ginsburg, thank you for all you have done for our country! - Phroyd

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the demure firebrand who in her 80s became a legal, cultural and feminist icon, died Friday. The Supreme Court announced her death, saying the cause was complications from metastatic cancer of the pancreas.

The court, in a statement, said Ginsburg died at her home in Washington surrounded by family. She was 87.

"Our nation has lost a justice of historic stature," Chief Justice John Roberts said. "We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague. Today we mourn but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her, a tired and resolute champion of justice."

Architect of the legal fight for women's rights in the 1970s, Ginsburg subsequently served 27 years on the nation's highest court, becoming its most prominent member. Her death will inevitably set in motion what promises to be a nasty and tumultuous political battle over who will succeed her, and it thrusts the Supreme Court vacancy into the spotlight of the presidential campaign.

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Just days before her death, as her strength waned, Ginsburg dictated this statement to her granddaughter Clara Spera: "My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed."

She knew what was to come. Ginsburg's death will have profound consequences for the court and the country. Inside the court, not only is the leader of the liberal wing gone, but with the Court about to open a new term, Chief Justice John Roberts no longer holds the controlling vote in closely contested cases.

Though he has a consistently conservative record in most cases, he has split from fellow conservatives in a few important ones, this year casting his vote with liberals, for instance, to at least temporarily protect the so-called Dreamers from deportation by the Trump administration, to uphold a major abortion precedent, and to uphold bans on large church gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic. But with Ginsburg gone, there is no clear court majority for those outcomes.

Indeed, a week after the upcoming presidential election, the court is for the third time scheduled to hear a challenge brought by Republicans to the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. In 2012 the high court upheld the law by a 5-to-4 vote, with Chief Justice Roberts casting the deciding vote and writing the opinion for the majority. But this time the outcome may well be different.

That's because Ginsburg's death gives Republicans the chance to tighten their grip on the court with another Trump appointment that would give conservatives a 6-to-3 majority. And that would mean that even a defection on the right would leave conservatives with enough votes to prevail in the Obamacare case and many others.

At the center of the battle to achieve that will be Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. In 2016 he took a step unprecedented in modern times: He refused for nearly a year to allow any consideration of President Obama's supreme court nominee.

Back then, McConnell's justification was the upcoming presidential election, which he said would allow voters a chance to weigh in on what kind of justice they wanted. But now, with the tables turned, McConnell has made clear he will not follow the same course. Instead he will try immediately push through a Trump nominee so as to ensure a conservative justice to fill Ginsburg's liberal shoes, even if President Trump were to lose his re-election bid. Asked what he would do in circumstances like these, McConnell said: "Oh, we'd fill it."

So what happens in the coming weeks will be bare-knuckle politics, writ large, on the stage of a presidential election. It will be a fight Ginsburg had hoped to avoid, telling Justice Stevens shortly before his death that she hoped to serve as long as he did--until age 90.

"My dream is that I will stay on the court as long as he did," she said in an interview in 2019.

She didn't quite make it. But Ruth Bader Ginsburg was nonetheless an historic figure. She changed the way the world is for American women. For more than a decade, until her first judicial appointment in 1980, she led the fight in the courts for gender equality. When she began her legal crusade, women were treated, by law, differently from men. Hundreds of state and federal laws restricted what women could do, barring them from jobs, rights and even from jury service. By the time she donned judicial robes, however, Ginsburg had worked a revolution.

That was never more evident than in 1996 when, as a relatively new Supreme Court justice, Ginsburg wrote the court's 7-to-1 opinion declaring that the Virginia Military Institute could no longer remain an all-male institution. True, said Ginsburg, most women — indeed most men — would not want to meet the rigorous demands of VMI. But the state, she said, could not exclude women who could meet those demands.

"Reliance on overbroad generalizations ... estimates about the way most men or most women are, will not suffice to deny opportunity to women whose talent and capacity place them outside the average description," Ginsburg wrote.

She was an unlikely pioneer, a diminutive and shy woman, whose soft voice and large glasses hid an intellect and attitude that, as one colleague put it, was "tough as nails."

By the time she was in her 80s, she had become something of a rock star to women of all ages. She was the subject of a hit documentary, a biopic, an operetta, merchandise galore featuring her "Notorious RBG" moniker, a Time magazine cover, and regular Saturday Night Live sketches.

On one occasion in 2016, Ginsburg got herself into trouble and later publicly apologized for disparaging remarks she made about then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.

But for the most part Ginsburg enjoyed her fame and maintained a sense of humor about herself.

Asked about the fact that she had apparently fallen asleep during the 2015 State of the Union address, Ginsburg did not take the Fifth, admitting that although she had vowed not to drink at dinner with the other justices before the speech, the wine had just been too good to resist. The result, she said, was that she was perhaps not an entirely "sober judge" and kept nodding off.

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Ruth Bader went to public schools, where she excelled as a student — and as a baton twirler. By all accounts, it was her mother who was the driving force in her young life, but Celia Bader died of cancer the day before the future Justice would graduate from high school.

Then 17, Ruth Bader went on to Cornell on full scholarship, where she met Martin (aka "Marty") Ginsburg. "What made Marty so overwhelmingly attractive to me was that he cared that I had a brain," she said.

After her graduation, they were married and went off to Fort Sill, Okla., for his military service. There Mrs. Ginsburg, despite scoring high on the civil service exam, could only get a job as a typist, and when she became pregnant, she lost even that job.

Two years later, the couple returned to the East Coast to attend Harvard Law School. She was one of only nine women in a class of over 500 and found the dean asking her why she was taking up a place that "should go to a man."

At Harvard, she was the academic star, not Marty. The couple was busy juggling schedules, and their toddler when Marty was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Surgeries and aggressive radiation followed.

"So that left Ruth with a 3-year-old child, a fairly sick husband, the law review, classes to attend and feeding me," said Marty Ginsburg in a 1993 interview with NPR.

The experience also taught the future justice that sleep was a luxury. During the year of Marty's illness, he was only able to eat late at night; after that he would dictate his senior class paper to Ruth. At about 2 a.m., he would go back to sleep, Ginsburg recalled in an NPR interview. "Then I'd take out the books and start reading what I needed to be prepared for classes the next day."

Marty Ginsburg survived, graduated, and got a job in New York; his wife, a year behind him in school, transferred to Columbia, where she graduated at the top of her law school class. Despite her academic achievements, the doors to law firms were closed to women, and though recommended for a Supreme Court clerkship, she wasn't even interviewed.

It was bad enough that she was a woman, she recalled later, but she was also a mother, and male judges worried that she would be diverted by her "familial obligations."

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is pictured in the justice's chambers in Washington, D.C., during an interview with NPR's Nina Totenberg in September 2016.

A mentor, law professor Gerald Gunther, finally got her a clerkship in New York by promising Judge Edmund Palmieri that if she couldn't do the work, he would provide someone who could. That was "the carrot," Ginsburg would say later. "The stick" was that Gunther, who regularly fed his best students to Palmieri, told the judge that if he didn't take Ginsburg, Gunther would never send him a clerk again. The Ginsburg clerkship apparently was a success; Palmieri kept her not for the usual one year, but two, from 1959-61.

Ginsburg's next path is rarely talked about, mainly because it doesn't fit the narrative. She learned Swedish so she could work with Anders Berzelius, a Swedish civil procedure scholar. Through the Columbia Law School Project on International Procedure, Ginsburg and Berzelius co-authored a book.

In 1963, Ginsburg finally landed a teaching job at Rutgers law school, where she at one point hid her second pregnancy by wearing her mother-in-law's clothes. The ruse worked; her contract was renewed before her new baby was born.

While at Rutgers, she began her work fighting gender discrimination.

The 'Mother Brief'

Her first big case was a challenge to a law that barred a Colorado man named Charles Moritz from taking a tax deduction for the care of his 89-year-old mother. The IRS said the deduction, by statute, could only be claimed by women, or widowed or divorced men. But Moritz had never married.

The tax court concluded that the internal revenue code was immune to constitutional challenge, a notion that tax lawyer Marty Ginsburg viewed as "preposterous." The two Ginsburgs took on the case, he from the tax perspective, she from the constitutional perspective.

According to Marty Ginsburg, for his wife, this was the "mother brief." She had to think through all the issues and how to fix the inequity. The solution was to ask the court not to invalidate the statute but to apply it equally to both sexes. She won in the lower courts.

"Amazingly," he recalled in a 1993 NPR interview, the government petitioned the United States Supreme Court, stating that the decision "cast a cloud of unconstitutionality" over literally hundreds of federal statutes, and it attached a list of those statutes, which it compiled with Defense Department computers.

Those laws, Marty Ginsburg added, "were the statutes that my wife then litigated ... to overturn over the next decade."

In 1971, she would write her first Supreme Court brief in the case of Reed v. Reed. Ginsburg represented Sally Reed, who thought she should be the executor of her son's estate instead of her ex-husband.

The constitutional issue was whether a state could automatically prefer men over women as executors of estates. The answer from the all-male supreme court: no.

It was the first time the court had ever struck down a state law because it discriminated based on gender.

And that was just the beginning.

By then Ginsburg was earning quite a reputation. She would become the first female tenured professor at Columbia Law School, and she would found the Women's Rights Project at the ACLU.

As the chief architect of the battle for women's legal rights, Ginsburg devised a strategy that was characteristically cautious, precise and single-mindedly aimed at one goal: winning.

Knowing that she had to persuade male, establishment-oriented judges, she often picked male plaintiffs, and she liked Social Security cases because they illustrated how discrimination against women can harm men. For example, in Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, she represented a man whose wife, the principal breadwinner, died in childbirth. The husband sought survivor's benefits to care for his child, but under the then-existing Social Security law, only widows, not widowers, were entitled to such benefits.

"This absolute exclusion, based on gender per se, operates to the disadvantage of female workers, their surviving spouses, and their children," Ginsburg told the justices at oral argument. The Supreme Court would ultimately agree, as it did in five of the six cases she argued.

Over the ensuing years, Ginsburg would file dozens of briefs seeking to persuade the courts that the 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection applies not just to racial and ethnic minorities, but to women as well.

In an interview with NPR, she explained the legal theory that she eventually sold to the Supreme Court.

"The words of the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause — 'nor shall any state deny to any person the equal protection of the laws.' Well that word, 'any person,' covers women as well as men. And the Supreme Court woke up to that reality in 1971," Ginsburg said.

During these pioneering years, Ginsburg would often work through the night as she had during law school. But by this time, she had two children, and she later liked to tell a story about the lesson she learned when her son, in grade school, seemed to have a proclivity for getting into trouble.

The scrapes were hardly major, and Ginsburg grew exasperated by demands from school administrators that she come in to discuss her son's alleged misbehavior. Finally, there came a day when she had had enough. "I had stayed up all night the night before, and I said to the principal, 'This child has two parents. Please alternate calls.'"

After that, she found, the calls were few and far between. It seemed, she said, that most infractions were not worth calling a busy husband about.

The Supreme Court's Second Woman

In 1980 then-President Jimmy Carter named Ginsburg to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Over the next 13 years, she would amass a record as something of a centrist liberal, and in 1993 then-President Bill Clinton nominated her to the Supreme Court, the second woman appointed to the position.

She was not first on his list. For months Clinton flirted with other potential nominees, and some women's rights activists withheld their active support because they were worried about Ginsburg's views on abortion. She had been publicly critical of the legal reasoning in Roe v. Wade.

But in the background, Marty Ginsburg was lobbying hard for his wife. And finally Ruth Ginsburg was invited for a meeting with the president. As one White House official put it afterward, Clinton "fell for her--hook, line and sinker." So did the Senate. She was confirmed by a vote of 96 to 3.

Once on the court, Ginsburg was an example of a woman who defied stereotypes. Though she looked tiny and frail, she rode horses well into her 70s and even went parasailing. At home, it was her husband who was the chef, indeed a master chef, while the justice cheerfully acknowledged that she was an awful cook.

Though a liberal, she and the court's conservative icon, Antonin Scalia, now deceased, were the closest of friends. Indeed, an opera called Scalia/Ginsburg is based on their legal disagreements, and their affection for each other.

Over the years, as Ginsburg's place on the court grew in seniority, so did her role. In 2006, as the court veered right after the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Ginsburg dissented more often and more assertively, her most passionate dissents coming in women's rights cases.

Dissenting in Ledbetter v. Goodyear in 2007, she called on Congress to pass legislation that would override a court decision that drastically limited back-pay available for victims of employment discrimination. The resulting legislation was the first bill passed in 2009 after President Barack Obama took office.

In 2014, she dissented fiercely from the court's decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, a decision that allowed some for-profit companies to refuse, on religious grounds, to comply with a federal mandate to cover birth control in health care plans. Such an exemption, she said, would "deny legions of women who do not hold their employers' beliefs, access to contraceptive coverage."

Where, she asked, "is the stopping point?" Suppose it offends an employer's religious belief "to pay the minimum wage" or "to accord women equal pay?"

And in 2013, when the court struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, contending that times had changed and the law was no longer needed, Ginsburg dissented. She said that throwing out the provision "when it has worked and is continuing to work ... is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet."

She viewed her dissents as a chance to persuade a future court.

"Some of my favorite opinions are dissenting opinions," Ginsburg told NPR. "I will not live to see what becomes of them, but I remain hopeful."

And yet, Ginsburg still managed some unexpected victories by winning over one or two of the conservative justices in important cases. In 2015, for example, she authored the court's decision upholding independent redistricting commissions established by voter referenda as a way of removing some of the partisanship in drawing legislative district lines.

Ginsburg always kept a backbreaking schedule of public appearances both at home and abroad, even after five bouts with cancer: colon cancer in 1999, pancreatic cancer 10 years later, lung cancer in 2018, and then pancreatic cancer again in 2019 and liver lesions in 2020. During that time, she endured chemotherapy, radiation, and in the last years of her life, terrible pain from shingles that never went away completely. All who knew her admired her grit. In 2009, three weeks after major cancer surgery, she surprised everyone when she showed up for the State of the Union address.

Shortly after that, she was back on the bench; it was her husband Marty who told her she could do it, even when she thought she could not, she told NPR.

A year later her psychological toughness was on full display when her beloved husband of 56 years was mortally ill. As she packed up his things at the hospital before taking him home to die, she found a note he had written to her. "My Dearest Ruth," it began, "You are the only person I have ever loved," setting aside children and family. "I have admired and loved you almost since the day we first met at Cornell....The time has come for me to ... take leave of life because the loss of quality simply overwhelms. I hope you will support where I come out, but I understand you may not. I will not love you a jot less."

Shortly after that, Marty Ginsburg died at home. The next day, his wife, the justice, was on the bench, reading an important opinion she had authored for the court. She was there, she said, because "Marty would have wanted it."

Years later, she would read the letter aloud in an NPR interview, and at the end, choke down the tears.

In the years after Marty's death, she would persevere without him, maintaining a jam-packed schedule when she was not on the bench or working on opinions.

Some liberals criticized her for not retiring while Obama was president, but she was at the top of her game, enjoyed her work enormously, and feared that Republicans might not confirm a successor. She was an avid consumer of opera, literature, and modern art. But in the end, it was her work, she said, that sustained her.

"I do think that I was born under a very bright star," she said in an NPR interview. "Because if you think about my life, I get out of law school. I have top grades. No law firm in the city of New York will hire me. I end up teaching; it gave me time to devote to the movement for evening out the rights of women and men. "

And it was that legal crusade for women's rights that ultimately led to her appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court.

To the end of her tenure, she remained a special kind of feminist, both decorous and dogged.

Phroyd

[theoniprince]

If you had to pick one name/alias/moniker to go by, fandom-wide, what would it be?

Where, besides Tumblr, can people find you doing fannish things? (Obviously only mention sites and usernames you actually want to be found at. Don’t expose your secret identities on my account.)

What other names have you gone by on these platforms, including Tumblr, if any?

When did you join the IT fandom? And what got you into fandom, to begin with?

What are your favorite ships, or characters, if any, and why? What do they mean to you?

In what ways do you participate in fandom? (ex. Posting memes, reblogging/commenting on content, writing fanfic, making fanart, creating fanmixes, etc.)

Do you have any in-fandom inspirations? Other members of the community that drive you? (And if you have the time/energy, in what ways do they inspire you?)

Name and link some of your favorite works, please!

Do you have any works of your own that you feel particularly proud of, or wish more people would’ve consumed? Please provide links if possible.

Have you ever participated in a fannish event (ie. IT Week, a fic Big Bang) or applied to be a part of a fanzine? If so, which ones, and can you please link them?

Without any form of bashing or lashing out, what is something you feel this fandom is missing?

First of all thank you so much for asking me!!! 8D It was a pleasure to answer all these questions. During this I got quite emotional (haha Stanpat, Eddie). It showed me again how much I love this 8DDD

( I apologize in advance for all misspellings and my sloppy English =_=)

If you had to pick one name/alias/moniker to go by, fandom-wide, what would it be?

Oh, what a start XD I'm not that into nicknames. Generally people using my first name to address me or my username which is mostly onyprince (in reference to a character from Hakuouki) ID Sometimes they say Oni or J(ay) (Nickname for my first name). Do as you wish (though I like ‘J’ the th most) 😉

Where, besides Tumblr, can people find you doing fannish things? (Obviously only mention sites and usernames you actually want to be found at. Don’t expose your secret identities on my account.)

Twitter. But everything I post there is also here. Feel free to follow my account, but you don’t have to. https://twitter.com/oniprince_

What other names have you gone by on these platforms, including Tumblr, if any?

Oniprince_ (Twitter) yeah… you see, I am pretty boring XDDD

When did you join the IT fandom? And what got you into fandom, to begin with?

Actually 23 years ago (haha I am old XD) When I was eleven I saw the miniseries with my cousins for the first time. The horror factor wasn't that important to me or maybe I didn't see it that way. It was more like an adventure story with an unfunny and nasty clown. A group of friends who had to endure an adventure. In any case, it entertained me well, even if I was not aware of some elements like that it’s a story about growing up, friendship, love and all these issues around becoming an adult XDD Then with 13 I read the book. It was a  new experience, and I loved every single word. Over the years I talked with friends and Kingsianer (XD) about it and read it for a second and a third time. At this point I could start a list with things I don’t like about the movies, but I’d rather mention on thing I really appreciate about them: they are a good opportunity for a new generation to explore this universe. Every adaption like the book itself is a reflection of a specific decade and what is more yeah… immortal, universal and diverse than a story about growing up. It was a discussion with a dear friend about book to movie adaptions some weeks ago that probably brought me back to this fandom

Nevertheless there are things from the book I would have loved to see in the movies. Let’s be honest at this point if you want to adapt such a brick of a book you simply have to cut some elements. You can’t please everyone

What are your favorite ships, or characters, if any, and why? What do they mean to you?

Ships:

Stanpat - orz q__q they are such a sweet couple and it is so heartbreaking, they never ever had a real chance to become parents. They would have been excellent parents. Imagine them on a beautiful summer day. They have a picnic with their children and Stan would watch birds with them. He would tell them all about the birds and keeps a journal about their observations with his kids

Reddie - Despite the constant teasing their realtionship seems like a natural, casual und easy thing from the start. And Eddie likes the nicknames. These secret names are like another identity. He can be someone else. They take care of each other. Their relationship is a deeper friendship that runs mostly on an emotional level and is sometimes expressed through small, physical gestures. The chemistry between them is indescribable. It is cute when 90s Eddie immediately starts to giggle as soon as Richie makes a dumb joke at their reunion. And thing about the little moments when Richie pokes Eddie and calls him cute. I am won’t quoting this one passage in the book that leaves much room for speculations, but there is no doubt their special bond is official. In any case, the decision to make Richie gay in the movies gave the ship another push. I don’t complain. I love it. Though I still think Eddie would have been a better option. There are already some scenes in the book which are like an invitation to speculate about his sexualityTheir chemistry is very obvious and believe me, there is nothing I would more appreciate than a happy end for them Q__Q

Benverly  „Your hair is winter fire

                   January embers

                  My heart burns there, too

This is one of sweetest things I have ever read in a book and that is all I need to explain why I love this ship.

Fav, Characters:  Hmm when I read „IT“ for the first time I had a crush on Bill. He ist the born leader and in my childish, pre-teen way found his stuttering cute. There is something about him that cast a spell on you. It is perfectly understandable that he was a role model and an inspiration for his friends – especially for Eddie. In my personal opinion book!Bill ist the best Bill.

Richie - I love this chaotic megane dude. He is this silly type who use jokes, pranks to protect himself. His voices are like safe heaven (the same goes for Bill, whose stuttering almost disappears, when he pretends tob e someone else). He hides himself and his insecurities behind them. It is a shame that he doesn’t know what an impact he had on his friends. Richie seems to never ever shut up and sometimes his trashmouth is still talking, when he better should be quite. And I am famous to fall for funny characters. He can lights up the mood immediately ( and OMG…. I love Harry Anderson in the miniseries. A real entertainer, BUT BILL HADER…. Bill Hader…just to make it clear BILL HADER  did such an amazing job. He rocked the movie and I still think, not just because I love this dude since over a decade, without him… the movie wouldn’t  have been so entertaining)

Eddie - He is in these abusive relationships. First with his mother, who keeps him small and makes him believe that he is weak. At the end her own fears of beeing left behind prevented her son from becoming a self-confident adult. Eddie always thought he is weak and fragile. Although he knows that he doesn’t need all this medication, his childhood experience were the reason for his coping-behavior as an adult – he still uses his inhaler. He married a woman who is like his mother. Mike's call was something of a turning point. Until this call Eddie could not overcome his fears and had to face them again as an adult. I can remember. While reading the book there were several moments of silence and I stopped reading and thought: poor Eddie.

Ultimately, his story is about a hero who surpasses himself, overcomes his fears and by sacrifice himself he protects what is most important to him - his friends. It just touched me. Eddie gave his life for his friends and I think you can say he's my favorite character. His death may be a tragedy, but it was necessary for his character arc. My theory is that Eddie represents someone who has lost track in his life and prefer to stick on old but unhealthy patterns.It is almost like Eddie stands for missed opportunities, but at the same time it is never to late to change something. He is a hero. There are so many things I would like to talk about, therefore I should start an own thread XDDD

Oh and Bev - I could always identify with her (not bc of abuse or domestic violence. My childhood was amazing). She is the only girl around the losers and I was the only girl in my  favourite clique too. We spent most of our time outside  - it was great. Of course I had other friends (female) as well, but with my boys… it was always special).. As you know as an adult she falls back in old patterns. Her husband is tyrannical man like her father. Again Mike’s call is a turning point.  Maybe the Benverly arc is the most satisfying. I was… I am very happy that Bev got her happy end.

Last but no least - I like Ben, Mike and Stan too. They have all there unique character treats and you sympathize with all of them. The Loser’s club is bunch of adorable idiots who just doing their best to become adults. I think it is normal that their friendship feels more intimate in the book – I highly recommand the book.

In what ways do you participate in fandom? (ex. Posting memes, reblogging/commenting on content, writing fanfic, making fanart, creating fanmixes, etc.)

Mostly fanarts, but recently I thought about posting my own theories and sharing my hcs and random stuff about the characters and the different relations.  

Do you have any in-fandom inspirations? Other members of the community that drive you? (And if you have the time/energy, in what ways do they inspire you?)

The fandom is full of amazing artists and writersand actually it would be a, but i want to name those who inspired me the most (mainly artists – hopefully I copied the links correcty):

https://tonyofthetrees.tumblr.com

https://meowsteryyy.tumblr.com

https://slashpalooza.tumblr.com/ ( you have to check out ‚Loose Ends‘)

https://coldcigarettes.tumblr.com

https://vvanini.tumblr.com/

https://eggocrumbs.tumblr.com

https://twitter.com/10_sgan

https://twitter.com/kasphacked

https://twitter.com/tac_nor

(oh.. the list got longer than expected IDDD)

Do you know this?

https://ragnarozzys.tumblr.com/post/189890790551/those-early-hours-after-a-sleepover-when-you-wake

Have you ever seen something as cozy and cute before I///D? – me neither XD

Trust me they are all worth a visit and I am sure most of us already know them 8D

Do you have any works of your own that you feel particularly proud of, or wish more people would’ve consumed? Please provide links if possible.

My art I provide on tumblr can be found here:

https://theoniprince.tumblr.com/tagged/myart

Honestly I like these the most:

https://theoniprince.tumblr.com/post/649446311120273408/my-first-reddie-sketch-now-scanned-the-quality

https://theoniprince.tumblr.com/post/649548606679007232/close-to-you-now-scanned-with-coloured

https://theoniprince.tumblr.com/post/650697175346593792/hammock-iconic-richie-is-reading-a-monthly

Have you ever participated in a fannish event (ie. IT Week, a fic Big Bang) or applied to be a part of a fanzine? If so, which ones, and can you please link them?

Oh… unfortunately I am not feelin‘ very confident about my own artworks. Sometims I have the feeling I am not creative enough and that my ideas are more or less boring. Nothing special ID Totally dumb – I know. As I mentioned before I came back lately to the fandom… I guess I missed many amazing IT weeks. I participated in some weeks/mainly shipweeks in other fandoms (Yakuza/Ryu ga Gotoku, FFXV) If I find an interesting annoucement I can imagine to participate in the future ; )

Without any form of bashing or lashing out, what is something you feel this fandom is missing?

In general… the fandom is really friendly – I hope so. Lately I have seen some salty comments on different stuff, topics… and well.. I have just an advice: life can be exhausting enough and time is always running. Don’t spend time on things you don’t like. Discussions can esclate quickly and worde can hurt too. So, just thing about before you jump in.

Thanks again! <3

(Special lil sketchy piece of art I did for this ask)

[woman-loving]

Brenda Howard: Mother of Pride?

A lot of mythology has sprung up around the Stonewall Riots and the annual Pride celebrations that commemorate them. This mythology often serves a community function: by lifting up a particular narrative of events, and emphasizing certain actors, communities create a history that provides legitimacy for their current identity, values, and goals.

As well-intentioned as these mythologies may be, they aren't always historically accurate, and may end up obscuring more complex realities and the contributions of other actors.

One myth I'd like to examine is that bisexual activist Brenda Howard created the first Pride parade.

You can see this claim repeated in various forms in online LGBTQ magazines such as The Advocate, Curve, LGBTQ Nation, Pride, and Instinct, as well as places like the History Channel site, CNN (8th slide), Bi Pride UK, LGBT History Month, and various other blogs and sites. The 25th anniversary edition of Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out also includes this (poorly-edited) footnote on bisexual activist history:

Bisexual activist Brenda Howard (1946-2005) conceives and co-coordinates a one-month Stonewall Rebellion rally, and a one year anniversary march and celebration. This became the annual NYC Pride March that, in turn spawned Pride Marches around the country and the world.

Much of what's been written about Brenda Howard's contribution to Pride is misleading. While it seems that she was on the Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee as a representative from the Gay Liberation Front, she was not the primary organizer of the event, nor did she come up with the idea for it. Describing Pride as "conceive[d]," "organized," "planned," or "invented" by Howard suggests that she played a much more prominent role than she did. And when Howard is the only person whose involvement in Pride is highlighted, it results in a distorted narrative where other, more principal organizers are erased.  

Brenda Howard has likely received the spotlight due to her representational value to the bisexual community. The presence of bi people at Pride--and even within LGBTQ communities--has often been challenged, and what better rejoinder is there than to say that it was a bi woman who started it all? (A bi woman who later partnered with a man, no less.) The narrative of Brenda Howard as creator of Pride therefore works to justify bi people's place in "queer" communities and history and counter the misconception that bi people are merely apolitical spectators to community activism.

It makes sense that bi people and their allies would spread around such histories. However, the justification for bi people's belonging doesn't rest on this one figure or the role she played in Pride. Brenda Howard is an example of a bi participant in general "gay" activism (as well as specifically bi activism), and her role in Pride doesn't need to be inflated to find value in her legacy.

----

Now I'll turn to look more closely at the claims made about her role in Pride, and the evidence for them.

First of all, I must mention that I'm not an expert on Stonewall or its legacy. I haven't done an exhaustive search on all the sources that document the origins of Pride, so it's possible that I've overlooked some evidence. If anyone has any other sources that would illuminate her role in Pride, I'd be happy to consider them.

As far as I can tell, most of the online information about Howard's connection to Pride can be traced to an obituary written by her partner, Larry Nelson, after her death in 2005. Part of the obit is quoted in these memorial articles:

A militant activist who helped plan and participated in LGBT rights actions for more than three decades. Ms. Howard was a major player in starting the annual Pride celebrations that take place every year around the world. She coordinated the 1-month anniversary rally and the 1-year rally/march commemorating the Stonewall Rebellion, which became the annual New York City Pride March. Howard also originated the idea for a week-long series of events around Pride Day, called Pride Week. Most U.S. states and many countries and cities around the world now celebrate Pride Day/Week annually, descended directly from those first marches and rallies in New York City which Howard coordinated and created.

As you can see, several of the other articles take language directly from this obit, which appears to be their source of information. (The Bi Any Other Name footnote also uses similar language.) The only additional details come from the Lolita article, which describes Howard as "one of the organizers of the first Christopher Street Liberation Day march in 1970." Considering that this author includes the correct name for the first march in New York, I'm inclined to believe that her knowledge (or research) extends beyond Nelson's obituary. I think it's notable that she describes Howard as merely "one of the organizers," in contrast to Nelson, who doesn't qualify her leadership in any way.

Another article called "A Long History of Activism" was posted to Gay City News a few weeks after her death. This article draws quotes from a number of people who worked with Howard, and provides more details about her activism and community involvement. Other than mentioning that she was "there at Stonewall," it has nothing to say about her role in organizing the Liberation Day march. This would seem to contradict the claim that Howard was known as the Mother of Pride. The origin of this moniker may be the title of the Bilerico article from the previous set: "Pride founding mother, Brenda Howard's, memorial service announced." None of these articles call her the Mother of Pride.

The one pre-2005 source I've found that connects Howard to the Christopher Street Liberation Day march is the book Stonewall by Martin Duberman (1994). But before I turn to that, let's see what else we can find about the one-month anniversary rally at Washington Square Park and the 1970 Liberation Day march.

I happen to have a book about post-Stonewall activism called Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America by Dudley Clendinen and Adam Nagourney (1999). I checked the index for Brenda Howard, but her name wasn't listed. However, it does discuss the two events Nelson credits to Howard. I'm going to outline and quote some of it to give you a better sense of what happened leading up to them.

According to the authors, in the weeks following the Stonewall riots on June 27 1969, the New York Mattachine Society began distributing leaflets proclaiming that their organization “stands ready to arrange a meeting” with public officials. A man named Michael Brown saw one of the leaflets and went to the MS office, calling for a more “aggressive response.” The executive director of the MS, Dick Leitsch, “put Brown in charge of a new Mattachine Action Committee, and called for a public forum on July 9 at the Freedom House, where the Mattachine Society held its monthly meetings.” (Out for Good, p 26)

The people who met at the forum were “younger, more radical, new to the world of homophile politics,” and included Marty Robinson, Jim Owles, Lois Hart, and Martha Shelley (p 26). Martha Shelley was a member of the New York chapter of Daughters of Bilitis, and is credited with proposing the idea of a rally:

Leitsch wanted to work quietly within the system, and he argued against the creation of any new groups that would, he said, divide the limited energies of the movement. But shortly after he called this meeting to order, Martha Shelley rose and proposed a different idea: a march and rally at Washington Square Park to protest police harassment. Leitsch wearily asked if anyonetruly through this made sense. Hands shot up across the room, so Leitsch unhappily suggested that anyone who wanted to organize the march move to acorner of the room. (p 27)

Martha Shelley’s own account corroborates this:

Shelley remembered, “As soon as I found out that gays were rioting against the police, I called Joan Kent, who was running our local DOB chapter, and said, ‘We need to have a protest march.’ She said that if the Mattachine Society agreed, the two organizations could co-sponsor it. So I called Dick Leitch, the head of NY Mattachine, and he said to come to a meeting at Town Hall and propose the march idea to the membership.

[…] Town Hall held 400 people, and it was jam-packed with 398 men, one female member of Mattachine, and me. When I proposed the march, Dick asked how many were in favor. Everyone’s hand went up. So he said, 'Whoever wants to organize it, go to that corner after the meeting.’ A few of us formed a march committee. We subsequently met at the Mattachine Society office to work out the details.

The rally occurred on July 27 1969 at Washington Square Park, one month after the Stonewall riots. My book describes Shelley addressing the crowd of 500 from the rim of a fountain:

“Shelley had taken responsibility for obtaining whatever permits were needed to rally at Washington Square Park and march the four blocks to the Stonewall Inn. It turned out the only permit needed was for a sound system. And Shelley[…] decided she would rather yell than ask for a permit from the New York City Police Department. So there she was in the middle of the Washington Square Park–all five feet four inches of her, as fierce as ever–bellowing at the top of her lungs, a little taken aback by how many men and women had turned up (mostly men), many wearing the lavender armbands she and Marty Robinson had handed out that morning.” (p 28)

She and Marty Robinson are described as “the principle speakers” at the rally (p 29).

Shortly thereafter, Shelley would be among the founding members of the Gay Liberation Front. She is even credited with coming up with the name--or at least proposing to use "gay" (p 31). She and Jim Fouratt were "probably the most forceful" personalities "responsible for setting [the group’s] tone as much as its ideology" (p 41). The Gay Activists Alliance would split off from this group by the end of 1969 (p 46-47).

Considering that Brenda Howard was also a member of GLF--and that some of the early members were rally coordinators--I don't think it's a stretch to believe that Howard was involved with planning the rally. However, it doesn't sound like it was her idea or that she was the primary organizer.

---

However, crediting her with "coordinating" the 1970 Christopher Street Liberation Day march is an even bigger claim. Everything I’ve read points to Craig Rodwell being the primary coordinator. I'll start drawing on some other sources here, too, especially "Movements and Memory: The Making of the Stonewall Myth," by Elizabeth A. Armstrong and Suzanna M. Crage (2006).

Before the Stonewall Riots, Rodwell already had a history of gay/homophile activism. He created Mattachine Young Adults in 1964 and the Homophile Youth Movement in Neighborhoods, and was a member of East Coast Homophile Organizations. He opened the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop in Greenwich Village in 1967, which served as an informal community center (Craig Rodwell Papers, p 3). For five years he participated in the Annual Reminder pickets, which were first organized by Frank Kameny in 1964 to bring attention to the lack of civil protections for gays and lesbians. Apparently, Rodwell was the one who suggested making this an annual event. ("Movements," p 736.)

Some months after Stonewall, an Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations took place on November1-2, 1969. A resolution was introduced "by Craig Rodwell, representing the Homophile Youth Movement, and Ellen Broidy of NYU’s Student Homophile League" (Nation Historic Landmark Nomination: Stonewall, p 19). It proposed changing the Annual Reminder into an annual Christopher Street Liberation Day:

RESOLUTION #1: that the Annual Reminder, in order to be more relevant, reach a greater number of people, and encompass the ideas and ideals of the larger struggle in which we are engaged—that of our fundamental human rights—be moved both in time and location.

We propose that a demonstration be held annually on the last Saturday in June in New York City to commemorate the 1969 spontaneous demonstrations on Christopher Street and this demonstration becalled CHRISTOPHER STREET LIBERATION DAY. No dress or age regulations shall be made for this demonstration.

We also propose that we contact Homophile organizations throughout the country and suggest that they hold parallel demonstrations on that day. We propose a nationwide show of support. (“Movements,” p 738)

The authors of "Movements" say that Rodwall had friends from NYU’s Student Homophile League introduce the resolution, so it might have just been introduced by Ellen Broidy. Frank Sargeant, who was Rodwell’s partner at the time, says that "two women, Ellen Broidy and Linda Rhodes, were instrumental in getting a resolution for that first march passed"(1970: A First-Person Account of the First Gay Pride March). Another resolution was passed to form the Christopher Street Liberation Day Umbrella Committee (“Movements,” p 738).

So what role did Brenda Howard play in coordinating the march? Returning to Duberman's Stonewall, she was apparently one of the GLF "mainstays" on the coordinating committee:

The first thing Craig did, after the final ERCHO convention in November 1969 gave its blessing to the formation of a Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee, was to diplomatically send out notices to all of ERCHO’s constituent groups that such a committee had indeed come into existence. The niceties performed, Craig then had to find people to do the actual work. He began by notifying all the New York gay groups of the committee’s formation and–making clear (more niceties) that the planned celebration was not owned by any one organization–asked that they send representatives.

GAA delayed until some six weeks before the celebration, and Mattachine was overtly negative until the last minute, when DOB also decided to join in. But GLF responded immediately, and from that group Brenda Howard, Marty Nixon, and Michael Brown became mainstays. To fill out the committee, Craig buttonholed some of his regular customers at the Oscar Wilde Bookshop, and managed to bag Judy Miller, recently arrived in New York from Denver, and a pair of lovers, Jack Waluska and Steve Gerrie. All three turned out to be hardworkers, and stayed the course. (Stonewall, p 270)

The also book notes that "the small group of eight or so people began to meet monthly in Craig’s apartment on Bleecker Street[…]” (p 271).

However, as I was doing some additional research for this post yesterday, I found a comment responding to a Brenda Howard article that appears to be from Frank Sargeant, although I see no way to verify it:

We should talk. I was one of the four people that proposed the march at the Nov 69 meeting of the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations. Brenda Howard was not there. ERCHO created the Christopher Street Liberation Day Umbrella Committee to organize the march. I served on the finance committee of the CSLDUC and at the head of the march. Brenda Howard was liason or representative from GLF that attended one meeting at my apartment. Once.

I don’t know what sources you’re relying on but if it’s the family website created after she died in 2005, it not a reliable source.

Brenda Howard was very peripherally involved the march and had no role in the organizing committee. Her group, GLF, did not have anything remotely like the myths suggest in organizing march any more than any of the many other groups whose names are now forgotten but that I’d be happy to tell you about.

This would again confirm that she did have some invovlement, but it seems to contradict Duberman's characterization of her as a "mainstay." In contrast, Duberman writes that "Foster [Gunnison] fully credited Craig with being the heartbeat of the committee: He was "like a guru," Foster later said, "everything revolved around him[…]" (p 271).

In any case, the march took place on June 28, 1970. It "covered fifty-one blocks, from Washington Square Park to Central Park," and ended with a "gay-in" at Sheep Meadow (Out for Good, p 63). There "were no floats or platform displays, at the insistence of Rodwell, who feared they would distract from the political significance of the day” (p 63). Several thousand people participated in the march and gay-in. Jean DeVente, also known as "Mama Jean," headed the march (p 63).

---

In the obituary, Nelson also credits Howard with "[originating] the idea for a week-long series of events around Pride Day, called Pride Week."

"Gay Pride Week" is related to, but not interchangeable with, the Christopher Street Liberation Day march (or Pride parades more generally). The march was the central event, which had already been proposed as an annual commemoration by the time Brenda Howard apparently joined the coordinating committee. While it's possible that Howard may have first floated the idea of a week-long series of events surrounding the march, or even have had a larger role in planning these events, that needs to be understood in its larger context. We shouldn't credit her with creating "Pride parades" or "Pride" in general if she just proposed expanding on already planned events.

I haven’t had much luck finding information about the 1970 Gay Pride Week in New York, so I can't say exactly what role Howard played in it. All I’ve gathered so far is that:

It was sponsored by the Christopher Street Liberation Committee. (National Historic Landmark Nomination: Stonewall, p 19)

"To accommodate the interests of the many different groups participating, the Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee named the days leading up to the march "Gay Pride Week,” when individual organizations could host their own events and activities." (Out History exhibit)

"Lesbian activities organized by Women of Lesbian Liberation were centered at [the new Lesbian Center at] the Church of the Holy Apostle, where they held a discussion with WL women and Daughters of Bilitis on the connection between feminism and lesbian liberation. Communal suppers and all-woman dances were held." (here, see more discussion here)

It "suffered some glitches–some poorly attended events and a double-booking with the pro-Castro Venceremos Brigade[…]" (“Movements,” p 741). It was also criticized as "not very well organized" in Iowa City’s women’s lib newspaper Ain’t I a Woman?

The events included "workshops, dances, art shows, conferences, and a culminating 'mass march'..." (Nation Historic Landmark Nomination: Stonewall, p 20; footnote 52: “A Week of Gay Pride,” Village Voice June 25, 1970.)

Given that this is one of the more specific claims in the obituary, and that there's no evidence to directly contradict it, it's perfectly possible that Howard did come up with the idea of "Pride Week." On the other hand, considering Nelson's track record here, I feel like I ought to take his account with a grain of salt.

---

Another piece of online trivia about Brenda Howard appears to originate from the webpage "Pride (trope), Homolexis," for which I’ve only found broken links. This information on Howard’s wikipedia page is sourced to it:

Additionally, Howard along with the bisexual activist Robert A. Martin (aka Donny the Punk) and gay activist L. Craig Schoonmaker are credited with popularizing the word "Pride" to describe these festivities.

I’ve not found anything else about Howard’s role in this, which doesn’t make it false. For his part, Craig Schoonmaker does take credit for this:

My name is Craig Schoonmaker, and in 1970 I authored the word ‘pride’ for gay pride. Somebody had to come up with it!

We had a committee to commemorate the Stonewall riots. We were going to create a number of events the same weekend as the march to bring in people out of town, and wanted to unite the events under a label. First thought was ‘Gay Power’. I didn’t like that, so proposed gay pride.

There’s very little chance for people in the world to have power, but anyone can have pride.

As for Stephen Donaldson (Robert A. Martin), as far as I'm aware, he wasn’t involved with the Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee at all. It seems he was mainly involved in the Student Homophile League at Columbia. In fact, he says that "late in the spring of 1970 I dropped out of the gay movement, for a number of reasons, one of them the increased hostility from within the movement to my own bisexuality.[…]" (In 1977 he returned to Columbia--and to the SHL, which was then “Gay People at Columbia-Bernard.” You can read his own account of the creation of the SHL and some of their activities. [cw for rape and homophobic violence on p 258/30, second paragraph under “Background”])

Whoever came up with it, it seemed to catch on pretty quickly.

---

Although I'm challenging the narrative of her responsibility for Pride, I don't mean to downplay Brenda Howard's activism or community involvement, which appears to have been extensive. Here are some other things she did (info taken from the memorial articles, and other sources):

Involved in the anti-war movement

Member of the Gay Liberation Front

Member of the Gay Activists Alliance and longtime chairperson of the Agitprop (Agitation-Propaganda) Committee, GAA’s speakers committee (source; also source: Howard is mentioned on p. 19 and you can read about the speakers committee on p. 16)

Active in the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights (an umbrella group co-founded by GAA to rally support for the New York gay rights bill, which would pass in 1986)

Worked at a phone sex service starting in 1985

Co-chair of the S/M-Leather Contingent for the 1987 March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights (I found a notice she wrote about it in a National Leather Association newsletter p 3; link's broken now)

Ran the New York Area Bisexual Network’s Info Line (and possibly was one of NYABN’s founders in 1987?)

Involved in BiPAC ("Bisexual Political Action Committee," of the NYABN)

Worked with the Queens’ chapter of the Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (they now give out an annual Brenda Howard Memorial Award)

Ran "the nation’s first Alcoholics Anonymous chapter for bisexuals" and also ran a bi S/M group

Active in the (successful) campaign to change the 1993 March on Washington name to "The 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Rights" (source: p. 2 mentions that she gathered signatures in New York, and p. 5 says that she was one of seven out bisexuals at the Bisexual Caucus at the National Steering Committee, where the change was voted on)

A coordinator in BiNet USA

Worked on organizing the "Stonewall 25" or “Spirit of Stonewall March” in 1994, which celebrated the 25th anniversary of Stonewall

A member of ACT-UP New York (she was jailed following a “protest of the firing of a lesbian from the state attorney general's office" which occured in 1997)

---

While that's all I have to say about Brenda Howard, I wanted to include a bit more information on the first Stonewall commemorative events for those who are interested. The Christopher Street Liberation Day march and Gay Pride Week in New York weren’t the only ones that took place in 1970. The New York committee reached out to other organizations to participate, and events occurred in three other cities.

Chicago activists also celebrated a Gay Pride Week ending with a rally and a 150-person march on June 27, a day before the others (“Encyclopediaof Lesbian and Gay Histories and Cultures,” p 871). Moderate activists in San Francisco declined to get involved, but a few more radical activists organized a small gay-in, and there was apparently an unrelated march as well (“Movements,” p 741).

Los Angeles activists also organized a parade under the name "Christopher Street West." They had trouble obtaining a permit from the Chief of Police, and had to get a court order for him to issue it (“Movements,” p 741). In contrast to the New York march, this event may be more properly described as a "parade":

With the permits in hand, Morris Kight and Troy Perry led their march through West Hollywood. By their count, 1,163 people showed up at McCadden Place at 6 p.m. on June 28 to mark the anniversary of Stonewall. There was a sound truck blasting martial music, a GLF float featuring a homosexual nailed to a black-and-white cross with a sign reading “In Memory of Those Killed by the Pigs,” a GLF guerrilla theater skit with “fairies” dressed with wings being chased by vice cops with night sticks and even an Orange County contingent hoisting a banner that said, “Homosexuals for Ronald Regan.” (Outfor Good, p. 64)

Pat Rocco was another organizer for the 1970 Christopher Street West parade. He takes credit for creating the first Pride "festival" following the parade in 1974. (Although I know Toronto’s 1972 Gay Pride Week had a “Festival of Gay Culture” at the homophile center to kick off the week, which included “carnival events.”)

There’s a video of Rocco talking about it, and I typed up a partial transcript [starting around 1:25]:

So what happened is that they had a big--a whole bunch of the people together in Hollywood--got together and elected me the very first president of a Gay Pride organization. […] And I said, ok we got to do two important things at the very beginning. One, we’ve got to get our 501c3. […]

And I said the second thing is: we got to stop stopping everything that happens at the end of the parade. The parade ends and everyone just goes their way. I said I’d like to have something where everybody in Hollywood gets together at the end of the parade. I said let’s have a festival, and let’s have the parade end at the festival. And let’s just make it that way.

And they said no way! You want us to be there in the middle of people? It’s one thing being on Hollywood Boulevard, and then you’re off and nobody sees you anymore. But another thing is being some place for three days--I wanted a three-day festival--and we show ourselves and everybody knows--I said yes, what everybody knows is that you don’t have horns. You’re not strange, you’re not unusual. […] I said just do it, and I think you’ll be surprised.

They finally gave in. We had a three-day festival. I had seven carnival rides. I had 24 booths. I had a big lot on Sunset Boulevard, one block from the end of the parade. And the place went crazy. The place was packed every day. And at the end of the parade, everyone on Hollywood Blvd has to go to the festival. They all ended up there.

So it was an idea that not only caught fire, but people were calling: what is that guy Rocco doing in Los Angeles, in Hollywood? San Francisco was calling and they said well we’re gonna do it next year. And I said fine. Since then there have been parades and festivals combined together all over the world. And I’m the proud papa. And I’m so proud to be.

I don't bring this up to turn the spotlight to Paul Rocco and say, "oh, he's the real inventor of Pride as we know it," and I don't have any other information to confirm or deny his account. Rather, I include this as an illustration of how Pride continued to develop even after the first year, and how multiple people may have had a hand in shaping what it looks like today and what it's looked like in different cities.

Well, I hope this has been an interesting history lesson, or at least a cautionary tale about how easily poorly-sourced information can spread online and beyond. Had you heard this myth before?

[beachknit]

MYSTERIOUS AUTHOR OF SIGNED, VENUS, "THE WRITER," FOUND

Sorry for the clickbait title. Pretty soon it won't be clickbait, though, and that's what this post is about!

If you don't already know, my name is Hayden. Welcome to my blog! Loyal readers might notice that all my old posts are gone… don’t worry, they’ve just been archived to a different site, and I will be sure to send everyone who was following before this post (which, honestly, wasn’t many people) a link so you can still read those old posts if you’d like. But for what I’m about to do, I think a fresh start and introductions are warranted!

Those of you who are from Coast Venus yourselves (which, I believe, will probably be the majority of you) will be excited to hear that the mystery we've all been keeping tabs on for the last ten years is about to be unravelled. Yes, that's right, I'm talking about the anonymous author behind Signed, Venus. The person, the myth, the Coast Venus legend themselves... The Writer!

To start this off with a bang, I have managed to identify and track down the slightly-less-enigmatic illustrator of Signed, Venus to their home here on Coast Venus's beach. Please do not try this at home, though, readers, for in most cases, it is rude to blatantly disregard the privacy and boundaries of others.

Now, I know what you Coast Venus skeptics are thinking, but rest assured: by the time you've finished reading this post, you will be completely convinced that I, Hayden, am the best and most worthy person for the job! But before we get to that, let me explain to our readers from out of town just why any of this matters.

Coast Venus is a little town in the country of Conclaire. If you've heard of us, it's probably because the town is known as a hotspot for authors and creatives. I copied this description from the town's official website, but we've been described as "Everyone's dream vacation, with breathtaking ocean views, world-class resorts, and famously friendly locals who will inspire with storytelling and poetry." The really important thing is that writing means a LOT to us here. You won’t find a person in this town who doesn’t at least read regularly, and I’m told that our local budget for literary arts is much higher than the international average.

The second most important thing to pay attention to is that, apart from Coast Venus, travel to other towns in Conclaire is generally off-limits. There’s a bunch of history behind that, blah blah, but basically for the last eighty or so years travel throughout Conclaire (except for Coast Venus, of course) has been almost completely unheard of. Almost.

Until The Writer did it. The first issue of Signed, Venus was published roughly ten years ago. In it, The Writer explained that they are breaking Conclaire’s travel taboo, going to the different towns, and recording what they find for publication here in Coast Venus. Signed, Venus is the only modern source of knowledge about what the rest of Conclaire is like. It’s such an important project for anyone who is interested in learning more about Conclaire, and The Writer conveys their findings with a unique and personal flair. Signed, Venus is my absolute favourite creative work, and I highly recommend that all of you check it out if you haven’t already.

Now, of course, there is a catch to all of this: nobody actually knows who The Writer is. We know that they’re from Coast Venus (or claim to be), and that they work with a local artist who illustrates and publishes each issue of the series. We know a bit about their personality from their writing, but we don’t actually have any identifying information other than that. Signed, Venus is published completely anonymously, and The Writer has only earned the moniker of “The Writer” from Coast Venus locals discussing their work.

Thank you for bearing with me through that explanation, Coast Venus readers, and you’ll be glad to know we’ve reached the part you actually care about. Here are the five W’s for your convenience:

Who: Me, Hayden, and my partner, Kameron, in pursuit of The Writer of Signed, Venus

Where: We will be going on a road trip throughout five locations in Conclaire, visiting sites that The Writer talked about. Specifically, we will visit Arabella, Sayre, Quidel, Mulani, and Urbina

What: We’ll be meeting and talking to locals of these different towns mentioned in Signed, Venus to ask them about their encounters with The Writer and their impressions of them

Why: The Writer is known for exaggerating. Instead of trying to go straight to where The Writer is right away, we want to try to learn more about what they’re like as a person as part of the process of uncovering their identity. Talking to those who have actually met him will be a great way to get a sense of what their character is really like off the page

When: This plan has been in the works for years, actually, but the first tangible step is happening today!

Okay, I know the “why” didn’t really answer the question you’re actually asking, which is, what prompted this? Why now?

The answer can be found in the latest issue of Signed, Venus, #44, in the final paragraph:

“… with my hammering heart and a tank full of gas, ready to head into what will likely be the last chapter of Signed, Venus, I want to thank those loyal readers who've kept up with my journey over the years. And, if my vain hope I've nurtured all this time ever comes true, that someday these journals will inspire one of you to set out from Coast Venus and explore Conclaire yourself, I'd like to ask that you not come after me or try to identify me."

As you can see, The Writer clarifies here that they have hoped for Coast Venus readers to someday be inspired by Signed, Venus to explore the rest of Conclaire. They then request that those of us who do make that journey do not try to find The Writer.

I believe that The Writer is being purposely facetious here (see issue #31 where they explain at length about their use of reverse psychology when talking to River). In the ten years since the first issue of Signed, Venus was published, no one has ever tried to find and identify The Writer. Sure, there has been plenty of guesswork done as to The Writer’s identity, particularly with astute readers comparing his writing style to the writing of other famous Coast Venus authors, or looking up records of locals who have left town, but no one has actually tried to follow in The Writer’s footsteps for the purpose of uncovering their identity. Also, there haven’t been a lot of attempts to travel Conclaire. The ones who have left end up either returning fairly soon after, discouraged by how this country isn’t exactly built for tourism once you’re outside of Coast Venus, or they create no written record of their travels so it’s pretty well useless to the rest of us. Keeping all of that in mind, it’s curious that The Writer would even bother to mention this, right?

Well, not really. If you’ve read enough of Signed, Venus, you’ll recognize this as a clear sign of encouragement. The Writer mentioned that readers travelling Conclaire is their hope because it’s something that they want readers to do. They love a good twist and a challenge (as we can see from the entirety of the series…), and they’ve been carefully creating a mystery around their identity since the very first issue. There’s a reason that here in Coast Venus we refer to The Writer as our town’s very own urban legend - that is exactly how The Writer wants us to feel about them. Telling us not to try to identify them just makes their identity even more mysterious and intriguing. The Writer knows that, and that’s the entire reason that they said it - they want us to look for them, and they want us to find them.

This morning, Kameron and I took the first steps on our journey. Like I said at the beginning of the post, I’ve figured out who the elusive illustrator of Signed, Venus is and their place of residence. But what I didn’t mention is that today, we actually went over to their house to ask them about The Writer. It didn’t all go exactly according to plan… but that’s a topic for the next post!

Follow my blog to keep up-to-date with me and Kameron as we set out to find The Writer! :) You can also follow Kam on Instagram.

[heli0s-writes]

One Constant

Summary:  It's been five years without Bucky. You and Steve travel to Vormir for the Soulstone to bring him back.

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader x Bucky Barnes

A/N: 3.5K word count. Post-Endgame. Angsty!

It’s absolutely insane the lengths Steve Rogers would go to in order to save the ones he loves. He is feeling this sentiment now as you clutch his hand in one and grip the edge of your seat with the other, warping at top speed into the depths of inky black space. Kaleidoscopic lights zoom by, and he feels dizzy just thinking about the fact that he is traveling through space.

But just a few moments ago, he had traveled through time, so space could have well been a logical next step.

If he is feeling nervous, or possibly about to vomit, he doesn’t show it.

He only grips your hand a little tighter, strokes the bone-white knuckles of your fist a little slower, leans over and kisses you a bit harder.

“We got it, baby.” He soothes, “He’ll be back soon.”

“I swear to God, Steve, if he isn’t, I will personally remove every single one of Thanos’ teeth with my bare fucking hands.”

Steve grins and brings your palm to his lips, kissing the creases. He knows you well enough to trust in your promise. Vormir lies only a half hour away as they reach their destination and descend slowly into the rusty red atmosphere.

You strap the sleek black Ka-Bar to your thigh, fingers running over the handle lovingly, as if you were touching a part of him. And in some ways, you are. It’s one small reminder the two of you have had for five years. His favorite knife. A reminder of the love lost in the snap.

For the first year, you refused to even say his name. You railed against any possible attempt to return your days to normalcy, and even frustrated Steve on nights when you’d stumble through the empty compound completely in shambles, gripping that Ka-Bar, slamming it into the wall, livid and drunk, screaming and crying.

A part of him felt a little sting of jealousy and curiosity. He wondered if you would have cared this much if it was him that had been lost.

The same part of him also felt ashamed because at the end of every episode, you would be curled up on the floor, or in the bed, or sometimes in the shared closet, hugging Bucky’s clothes, repeating the same broken phrase to his ghost.

Come back. Come back to us. Come back to us, please.

Us, not me.

Steve would wrap his arms around you, pull you close, tell you he’s got you now.

Even though he’s clean shaven and carefully coiffed, a picture-perfect representation of his moniker, even though he leads sermons at the VA about moving on and forward, he knows a part of him would never let Bucky go. You would never let him.

Steve isn’t only saving Bucky on this journey; Steve is also saving you.

 “Steve.” You whisper, “Steve.” A little firmer the second time. “I love you.”

Then you’re in his lap, forgoing your own seat and squeezing him so tightly his breath gets lodged in this throat. “Don’t go, too. Promise me.”

Steve wraps his arms around you, the lover he always dreamed of having—sweeter than sugar, doe-eyed, a goddess in human form, one part of the third of his heart. You and Bucky had been so close, even in your shared relationship—he always felt a little left out. Even though it was him first. Even though Bucky came later.

The ship whirrs mindlessly forward, autopilot on, technology beyond his understanding steering itself. You shake in his arms. “Take it off.” You mutter, suddenly clawing at his suit, fingers desperate to find his buckles and zippers.

“Take it off, Steve!”

He does as he’s told, albeit confusedly, but soon enough he’s stripped down and you are shedding your clothing too, straddling his waist with frantic breaths.

“I want to fuck.”

“Sweetheart—“

“Now. Steve.”

He always lets you have what you want. Against the backdrop of inky darkness and muted far off stars, swirling planets colored in shades he doesn’t know how to name, you palm him and glide on top.

There are tears in your eyes when you lean your head on his shoulder. “I miss him.” You sob, “I miss him so much.”

“I know.” Steve kisses you deeply, rocks up into you until you shudder all over. He presses his lips to your eyes and cheeks, traces the line of salt down to your chin, and rolls deep strokes of his cock in and out until you both come.

“I love you.” You sigh against his neck, landing a chaste kiss to the lobe of his ear.

It’s been like this for five years, oscillating between tender and torn, high and low, and not much in-between. Before the snap, you had been their shy girl, lover not a fighter, even though your hands could crush granite. Pressed between them in a feverish haze, you were still soft, and they were gentle as a result.

They would always be gentle with you. Even Bucky, who had the pent-up sexual energy of an animal in rut. You would put his fingertips in your mouth, lick the pads with slow flicks of your tongue, and he would melt. Sugar, he’d croon, gorgeous girl, how’d we get so lucky?

Now, when Steve gets you into bed you put his hand to your neck and make him squeeze. You ask him to hurt you and he hates it.

You’re different. Things have changed.

The ship descends, blowing clouds of dust all around and Steve is so beyond thinking about this landscape that he doesn’t give a shit anymore about how they can even survive the atmosphere. Four boots trek on wordlessly until they reach the peak of the lonely jagged mountain.

A billowing cloak and gaunt cheeks appear.

“Schmidt.” Steve hisses, gearing back for a fight, but you put your hand up and step forward instead, that Ka-Bar already in your hand.

“Don’t fuck with me, Skeletor. You know what I want.”

-

He’s a self-sacrificing asshole and he almost killed you to launch himself off the cliffside. The crack of his skull echoes and is smothered by your shrieking hundreds of feet above the site of his death.

“No! You fucking promised! You fucking promised you wouldn’t fucking leave!” You howl and howl and slam your fists into the rock until it cracks and crumbles into dust.

Those will be the last words he’ll ever hear. Your throat gone raw and the venom and disappointment and hurt inside of you sputtering out wet with blood.

You launch yourself at Schmidt and pass right through his shadow.

“Superhuman or not,” his voice is a ghostly warble, “You cannot kill me. I am free now to roam and leave this planet.” The tight skin peels back to reveal his teeth.

Your head is falling apart. Both of them, gone, and even if the stone will be used to bring one back, you’ll live again with a piece of your heart missing. The tears blur everything, turning it into one giant blotch of orange. The speck of red and murky black stills and whips around, in shock.

“What-- how?”

You wipe your eyes as Schmidt peers over the edge. The planet rumbles and shakes, wailing an ear-splitting shriek and your head spins until there’s nothing left but the pounding of your brain rattling loose.

It’s wet when you wake up. Water laps over your face and for a second you forget where you are, how you ache, but when it rushes back the sea feels like tears.

There is no stone in your clutch.

But there is something else. Soft. Small. Delicate bones and skin so pale, it could be a child’s.

Steve’s right hand reaches over his torso, shrunken, now too small to fit rightly in his suit and it wrinkles and warps around him. The gangly fingers open and reveal the amber gem, shimmering against the darkness of the water and your eyes.

“You’re alive.” You rasp. “You’re here.”

“I-I’m back... t-to before...” He’s half in awe and in shock. There is a disappointment that mars his brow and tilts his mouth down deep until it looks like it could fall off his chin. His hands pat his chest, pulls the bunched Kevlar and neoprene away from him. “I--” Steve clenches his jaw.

You’ll never see him the same again. He’s different now. You’ve never known or loved this version of him. It’ll be just you and Bucky, like he’s always thought and feared. Steve’s mind flies a mile a minute, swirling in self-hatred and pain.

How could you look at him like this? Tiny, fragile, sickly thing that he’s been before. He’ll be invisible again, sinking into the backdrop, eclipsed once more by James Buchanan Barnes’ tall frame and fine figure. You’ll never--

You leap into his arms, knock him backwards with a splash. “Thank god!” You cry, dripping salt down his face, soft lips trailing all over him. “Oh, fuck, baby.”

If he wasn’t so stubborn, you’d pick him up, but instead you settle on dragging him by the wrist back to the ship where you tear off the stupid too-large suit from him, push him on the smooth floor and giggle as the engine rumbles back to life.

The jerk of the ship taking flight smashes his chest into yours. Steve burns red with embarrassment and tries to push you off, but you won’t budge.

He’s too weak now, something that turns him almost purple with shame.

“S-stop— I’m--”

“Don’t fuck with me, Rogers.” You hold his wrists down, “I still love you, no matter what you look like. I love you, you little asthmatic shit.” You kiss him and undress and he’s baffled, heart hammering in its cage- short of breath and wheezing. Your hands make quick work of him and he’s hard like a rock when your mouth goes south.

“Still the same down here, baby.”  

When he comes a stuttering, blubbering, mess all over your stomach, Steve’s eyes roll so far back he thinks he needs to add blindness to his list of ailments.

-

Bucky’s head is wrenched backwards as soon as you find him over the hill. Among the chaos and terror of an enormous battlefield, aliens screeching, guns and blasters, and sizzling ancient magic, you leap, legs wrapped around his torso and kiss him with too much tongue.

“Shit, baby!” He laughs before ducking down, taking you with him, “Fuck! Can ya save it for later?”

You’re different. Your once-blue suit is black and your eyes are painted all the way up to your brow with soot colored shadow, reminiscent of the way he used to as Soldat. Usually, your hair is pulled back and away from your face, but now it hangs all around, whipping over your cheeks with the wind. You look fearsome.

And, God he thinks, you’re beautiful. Although you might have once been a pink and blushing rose, you’re now suddenly bleeding red and silky, overgrown with thorns, still beautiful.

Then, his head turns back and forth, “Wh-where is he?”

You smile shyly and kiss him on the cheek while readjusting the strap of his gun. For a brief second you look like the pink flower again.

“Don’t worry,” You say, “He’s okay. He’s got to sit this one out, but I told him I’d bring him back two presents.”

Bucky squints.

“Two?”

-

Jesus fucking Christ on a stick Bucky’s heart is going to drop right out of his ass. You are straddling Thanos’ neck with your thighs. The Titan—the semi-god or whatever he is—you are on top of him and wrenching his jaw open.

Bucky doesn’t know if he should scream or cry or faint.

Next to him, Danvers is matching his expression. “What the hell?” She breathes and he has no fucking idea. Mantis is shrieking and you are shrieking right back.

“Don’t be a pussy! Hold the motherfucker!”

Bucky could cross himself right now because their sweet girl, their angel, is digging into Thanos’ mouth with his Ka-Bar and pulling her hand back out drenched in blood.

-

Afterwards, you’re still sticky. The blood coats all five fingers but you skip past the ash and dust and grab his face with your hand and plant another kiss on him. Wilson shakes his head, mutters about how it used to be the other way around and a part of Bucky abruptly catches up to the truth.

You are different. You’re hard and lethal and it hurts him so much to think that he wasn’t there. The fact that he wasn’t there is all he can think about. His absence left you raw and moldable. It must have hurt so much, for their girl to transform from satin to steel.

“Come on,” You say with a grin he’s never seen before, “Let’s go get Steve.”

And then it hurts differently. The guilt starts eating him through his stomach and up his throat because Steve has been with you all this time, watching helplessly—all because Bucky got dusted. It must have killed Steve to see you crumble and rebuild into who you are now. Killed him to not be able to do a damn thing. Killed him for five years, even though Bucky is the one who died.

-

Back at the compound, Steve sits nervously in the shared room, chews on every inch of his mouth until the skin hangs from his lip and then he chews it off, too. It used to smell like all three of you: brisk pine and cedar with the faint drift of freesia.  

A part of it still does, dusky and sweet, but salty too. Acrid, if he breathes too deeply. Stinging and dark, like bourbon.

Huh. Steve thinks, maybe he’ll have a drink. Now that he can again.

 By the time you swing the door open, Steve is piss drunk and wheezing sprawled out on the floor. Bucky’s breath lodges in his throat as you stumble over to Steve’s collapsed body.

“What the fuck!” You cry, patting him down, checking his pulse.

“S-Stevie?” Bucky breathes, “Is that you, pal?”

With a shuddering breath, you turn around and show him your teeth, a wet laugh springing forward, “We— we had to go.. to Vormir. Get the damn stone back in time and— I could have died.”

Steve wheezes again, “Wouldn’t have let you.” He hiccups, fingers lazily reaching up to poke you in the nose. “Nope.”

He pops the p.

Bucky steps cautiously forward, resurrected only hours ago and has no idea what Vormir is. Nor does he care. All he sees are his lovers, transmuted entirely by their loss— by their love for him.

It’s all changed. Everything is different and terribly new. You wipe the dark streak from your eyes and wipe Steve’s face too as Bucky stands speechless. The two of you together, leaned against each other on the floor. Bucky thinks, how many nights did this happen? How long did his two lovers suffer and cry for him?

Softly, he pads forward, kneels, and takes each hand into his. “I love you. Both of you.”

Steve looks away and so do you, nostrils flaring to hold back the torrent of tears threatening to explode. “I’m sorry.” Bucky whispers, kissing your cheek and then Steve’s feeling the sharp bone of him through the face he had known so well long ago. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

The room is so still Bucky’s afraid he might be getting dusted again, back into that terrible split second where the world stops, and he knows nothing else but the speck of sand suspended in motion. Then, a snort.

“The hell’re you sorry for? S’not like you wanted to turn into dust. Or ash. What’s another—hm. Baby powder. Buck, ya got baby powder-ed.”

Even though he’s small and asthmatic again, Steven Grant Rogers is undeniably more of a little shit than ever. It doesn’t help that he’s drunk as a skunk, breath spicy warm with the heady draught of liquor.

To his right, you laugh and ruffle his hair. Steve flinches at your touch and pulls away with a scowl. You freeze and glare right back at him, grabbing his shoulder until he winces, “What the fuck is wrong with you?” You hiss. “He’s back. He’s right here and what the fuck, Steve?”

“Yeah.” Steve grunts, shrugging off your hand, “He’s back. So be with him. Be with him like you’ve wanted to for the last five years.”

Bucky watches the tension roil in waves, emanating from your bared teeth and Steve’s downcast eyes. He doesn’t know when to step in or how to begin to stop the train wreck unfolding in front of him. Steve is piss drunk and pissed off—haven’t had a drink probably since 1942 and is completely off his rocker. You look like you’re ready to snap his neck like a pretzel stick.

It scares Bucky.

It scares him when you dig into your pocket and pull out the tooth he watched you wrench from Thanos earlier. For whatever blessed or cursed reason, it remains as it is, enormous like a half-dollar, shining dully and crusted with Titan blood.

“Here’s this, asshole.” The tooth bounces off Steve’s sternum with a dull thud, landing in his lap. Then you take Bucky’s old Ka-Bar and throw it at Steve, too. “And here’s this, you self-flagellating shithead.”

Bucky winces at your words. He’s never heard them before. Ever. Tears well up in your eyes.

“If you hadn’t come back on that dusty ass planet, I would have thrown myself off too. Fuck the stone. Fuck Earth and Vormir and fuck everyone else, too. I would have died with you.” A choked sob escapes as you glare into the side of Steve’s face, suddenly pinched with embarrassment, “You’re an idiot.”

Bucky sighs in relief when Steve looks up and leans forward onto your shoulder, resting his golden head against you. “Sorry, baby.” He mutters, “I just—I hate… this. I’m not… Captain America anymore. I’m just… Steve.”

Bucky starts to laugh, despite the moment. He laughs and leans back until he slips off his knee and foot and falls back on his bottom. You and Steve turn, bewildered at the sound of him, slight smirks on both of your faces because regardless of it all, Bucky is alive, and he is happy.

“Captain America was an asshole.” Bucky exhales, mirth in his eyes, “Tightwad. Stick so far up there he was chokin’ on it.”

Steve sputters an indignant response.

“I like you much better.” Bucky says, leaning forward and placing his hand on Steve’s jaw, pressing a soft kiss onto his swollen red lips. “This guy… dumb Brooklyn kid who didn’t know when to give up.”

“That’s not the quote goes.” Steve hiccups, drawing from an old memory. His head hangs low, embarrassed at himself, leaning into the warmth of Bucky’s palm.

“Well, I wasn’t there in the forties, but I like this new quote just fine.” You grin, reaching forward to smooth Steve’s disheveled hair back. “You done?”

He nods, reaches out and takes your hand and you return his gesture with a light squeeze.

Bucky grins at his two lovers, sitting cross-legged on the floor. One, who used to be soft, hardened like diamonds, and one, reverted completely... but to Bucky, Steve hasn’t changed at all. He was telling the truth when he said this version of Steve was his favorite.

Five years and the changes have stripped all he’s known away—the transformation of the lives around him makes Bucky sigh with uneasiness. He can’t help it. He feels like he’s always in a state of falling asleep and waking up to an entirely new world.

Steve kisses your mouth, kisses Bucky too. The three of you share quiet gazes at one another before you begin to unhook your vest and look at him behind long lashes. Your hands work nimbly, just like he remembers. Steve strokes your arm, guides Bucky forward to help you with your clothes. That’s familiar too.

Bucky smiles and presses his lips to the apples of your cheeks. Still soft.

“Did you miss us?” Steve asks, steering him further, “Buck?”

“Yeah. I did.”

You moan faintly into his mouth, strip down until you’re naked and then move to help Steve, too. Bucky watches in awe of those deft movement, swallowing when both bodies are revealed to him in the lamplight glow of the bedroom.

When he sheds his clothes to match, he can’t help but smile at the two faces contemplating back at him.

Maybe some things are different now, Bucky thinks. But the love is still the same.

You and Steve run your hands all over his body, kiss him everywhere your lips can touch. Bucky blooms all over with heat and electricity. He melts into twenty fingers and two hot mouths.

Yeah. The love is still the same. And it is so goddamn good.

--

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