#literally 2 pages later:

[ecle-c-tic]

"i'm good for nothing but books and walking"

same here girl. same here.

[canarydarity]

I can’t stop thinking about (mczu) etho and the ranch. He knows theres a tragedy there—likely more than one. He knows the occupants did not make it. He knows there’s a stain on the couch and the carpet too dark to be anything but blood.

But he doesn’t know that it was built by those boys whose lives he’d spared, the ones he found hiding in that closet. He doesn’t know the stain on the couch was SCAR. He doesn’t know it’s where Scar died!! Where grian had to— !!!!!!

He ends up there and he mourns its occupants, because he doesn’t need to know what happened to them to know that they didn’t make it. It’s displayed clearly in the used sheets on an unmade bed, the stack of firewood by the unfinished fireplace, the notebook with the torn out pages abandoned on the coffee table. There’s too much domesticity, not enough paranoia. He knows they weren’t the kind of people who make it in this world. But HE DOESNT KNOW HES THE REASON THEY GOT TO HAVE IT, EVEN IF ONLY FOR A LITTLE WHILE. EVEN IF THEY DIED ANYWAY.

GOD if the mczu is all about choices (if etho didn’t kill grian because it wouldn’t matter. Bdubs would still be dead.), about decisions and consequences, then THIS choice of his is just as important, no? The ones that lead to positives, to relief, to mercy, even if momentary?

When he’s inside the ranch he cannot help but be affected by the ranchers tragedy without even knowing who they were or why—it’s enough to know they didn’t make it and were never going to. And it’s enough to see what they had and be jealous he’d never been able to have it with bdubs—to wonder if that’s why he’s still here and they aren’t. But the fact stands that without THAT CHOICE he’d made—to let them go—they may not have made it long enough to have had it at ALL, HOWEVER SHORT IT DID INDEED LAST.

AND HE DOESNT EVEN KNOW IT!!!

CAN ANYONE HEAR ME?!?

[medicallymercury]

I feel like I’ve been quiet these past couple days, I’m filled with the anxiety of someone being hunted for sport over how very unclear and annoying my uni are being about my second year modules, so that’ll be why

[arcaneyouth]

it is So Weird how working on my comic makes me feel like i have more free time. and gives me more free time. logically, working on 3 comic pages a week would mean i have Less Time. but no. despite everything, i'm getting more done and able to use my time better now that i'm working on comic pages again. what the hell is up with that.

[discocandles]

Ok that was definitely supposed to be the most fruity episode of Henry Danger, and that's a show I can barely seen as remotely heterosexual.

Like Ray and Henry basically downloaded Grindr i mean Rumblr, a fighting app and go to a gay fighting bar on a double "fight".

[chiistarri]

how many coincidences until its the truth

[dyedviolet]

Jasnah Kholin the type of woman to say "of course not you idiot it's a social construct"

[mandorinart]

sonic IDW 61 spoilers in the tags

[wethecelestial]

the way that as soon as i have a deadline or upcoming event that i need to spend time prepping for my brain MIRACULOUSLY remembers how to write fic and then holds me at gunpoint until i open a new google doc

[blunderpuff]

two unrelated kids (problematic 6yo and 4yo) were carousing together at the library, and then the older one Made Up A Guy that was just too real and the younger kid was so upset by the Made Up Guy that he had a screaming fit about it

the older kid (already known to us that day as an asshole) reported that a man outside had been banging on the windows and told the kids he was calling the cops and the kids were going to jail (please understand: this window was 15 feet from where I was sitting. none of it happened.)

4yo’s mom went running out there, i went to the window, other coworker in the children’s room went to the window, 3 kids playing at the puppet theater (with a direct line of vision to the window) all looked... there was No Man. literally the only person out there was the mom who went to check. plus, NO ONE HEARD ANY POUNDING ON THE WINDOW OR ANYONE YELLING (cuz it didn’t happen).

but the 4yo was Super Duper Upset, like red-faced screaming crying snot-flying gasping-for-breath UPSET and terrified that he was going to jail. meanwhile, the adult with the 6yo turned out to ALSO be problematic, and was haranguing the 6yo into giving a description, telling us she was going to press charges against the (Made Up) Guy, telling everyone in earshot that she THOUGHT the library was a SAFE place to take kids, etc.

The 4yo’s mom wanted us to do something, but she didn’t know what she wanted us to do, we didn’t know what to do... she did agree that she had been the ONLY person in the ENTIRE parking lot, and she was out there within 1 minute of the report of Guy Telling These Kids They Were Going To Jail, and that it was unlikely that the kids would have been able to so clearly understand someone yelling through heavy duty public building glass... but she wouldn’t take it to the natural conclusion that “Maybe this didn’t actually happen and the 4yo is doing his best to relate the situation, but his best ain’t great”

just... how unnecessary. good lord. EVENTUALLY, literally an HOUR LATER, problematic mom and problematic 6yo came up to the desk with a description of the Guy: he had a black jacket and dark hair. (do you wanna guess what the problematic 6yo was wearing/his hair color? if you guessed... black jacket and dark hair, you’re smarter than that kid’s mom!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

[fwhimmys]

wish i could draw sooooo bad look at my clan gen babygirls (not 100% updated i'm at work)

[meetthesoldier]

eli clark you will forever be famous

[secretmellowblog]

People who try to analyze what happened on Tumblr on November 5th, 2020, often really overstate how much it was actually “about” Supernatural. As someone who has never been in the supernatural fandom ever but dID join in on the hysterical destielposting—it was really more about the stress of the pandemic and the 2020 presidential election.

The two biggest Youtubers I’ve seen try to dissect “what happened that November 5th” in video essays both weren’t American—- and I think that explains why they both tried to explain the hysteria primarily via analyzing the Supernatural fandom/the original show, rather than through the lens of the election. And while those videos are cool, valid, informational, and make lots of really well-considered interesting points— I can tell you that me and almost all my mutuals had literally no knowledge or interest in the fact that “oh supernatural had made nods at the ship in the past but the creators were adamant that I wouldn’t be canon” or etc etc etc etc. the first time I learned about any of that context was way later, watching videos where people claimed that fandom history context (that I did not know anything about) was the actual reason for the hysteria.

But the reality is that people latched on to the Destiel stuff because it was a piece of big useless inane zero-stakes fandom news in a time when we were desperately waiting for serious high stakes election news. We were latching onto a “positive “ piece of inane stupid fandom news in a time of great stress, with all the desperation of a drowning man who latches onto whatever piece of wood will keep him afloat.

The core of the hysteria was that Americans (who make up a huge chunk of tumblr’s userbase) were currently glued to their laptops watching the live presidential election vote counts come in. These vote counts were taking an extended amount of time due to the pandemic causing high numbers of mail-in ballots, resulting in a constant state of Election Day Stress for multiple days straight.

This was also during the height of the Pandemic. People had predicted Trump’s presidency would be bad; no one had predicted it would be this apocalyptically bad. No one had predicted pandemics and lockdowns and hospitals overflowing with bodybags. remember Trump spreading Covid lies and conspiracies?? There were so many Qanon conspiracies about democrats being Satanic child traffickers who had to be put to death, and coup threats were mounting from the right wing side. It seemed like this election was a choice between ‘centrist democrat’ and “apocalyptic right wing conspiracy theory authoritarianism,” in the midst of pandemic conditions that people feared would never ever improve— and it seemed like a close election.

Another major point was that Trump voters were more likely to be antimaskers/Covid deniers, while Biden voters were more likely to take the pandemic seriously— so Biden voters were more likely to send in mail-in ballots instead of risking the in-person voting crowds, which meant their ballots would take much longer to count. And so, in many state electoral vote counts, it would initially seem like Trump was very far in the lead— only for Biden to slooooowly build up an agonizingly small lead as the mail in ballots came in, and then defeat Trump at the very end.

So you’re just watching these news sites giving live election updates, refreshing the page every 2 minutes to see if you’re going to live under a spineless centrist democrat or a literal Qanon Dictatorship. And then you go on tumblr to distract yourself, and there’s more election posting, and more agonizing over the votes, and more stress and despair—-

And then it’s been days and we’re right at the crucial tipping point where it’s anyone’s game and the next few hours will determine whether Trump will win, so you need to keep your eye on the vote count, because the next hours will determine the future of the pandemic and your country and your plans for your entire life—

And then stupid Destiel becomes canon! And it becomes canon in the silliest way possible!

If Destiel had become canon at any other time, it would have been a big goofy tumblr celebration? But we wouldn’t have gotten the insane explosion of hysterical interaction.

The entire core of it was the contrast between the inane meaningless stupidity of fandom news vs the actual stressful election news you wanted to hear! It really is best conveyed in that meme where Castiel says “I love you” and Dean indifferently responds with a piece of important election news.

It’s about the contrast between the low-stakes inanity of fandom and the massive life-destroying stakes of a terrifying election. There really was no reason it had be Supernatural specifically, except that Supernatural was a thing everyone knew basic things about from dashboard osmosis— it could’ve been any other equally huge silly fandom ship news about a ship everyone *knew of* but might not necessarily be invested in (ex. Stucky becoming canon, Johnlock becoming canon, Kirk/Spock becoming more canon somehow, etc etc etc.)

I think it’s true that people who weren’t paying agonizingly close attention to the American election news got swept up in it, and that non American Supernatural fans also were extremely excited for purely fandom reasons — but the entire reason it blew up to an unprecedented degree was because of that core of stressed out terrified Americans glued to their computers watching election results and suddenly receiving stupid fandom news instead, and deciding to just hysterically parodically hyper-celebrate this absurd useless zero-stakes news.

I think it was also all elevated by the fact that, as I said before, this happened at the crucial “tipping point” of the election where the next few hours would determine the winner. The fact that Biden began to slowly develop a lead in the hours after made it feel, hysterically, as if the hours after Destiel became canon was somehow the turning point where he began to win; so celebrating Destiel felt like celebrating that slow turn towards victory.

The tl,dr is that it’s so important to Remember the Fifth of November …..in preparation the inevitable hysteria that will happen in the presidential election on November 5th of next year. XD. Personally I’m rooting for Johnlock or Frodo/Sam to somehow become canon in the eleventh hour right before the democrats win

[niennanir]

Listen to your elders

So last week I posted abut the importance of downloading your fic. And then three days later AO3 went down for 24 hours. No one was more weirded out by this than I was. But while y’all were acting like the library at Alexandria was on fire I was reading my download fic and editing chapter eight of Buck, Rogers, and the 21st Century. And also thinking about what I could do to be helpful when the crisis was actually over.

So first off, I’m going to repeat that if you’re going to bookmark a fic, you really need to also download the fic and back it up in a safe place. I just do it automatically now and it’s a good habit to get into.

But let’s talk about some other scenarios. Last October I lost power for over a week after hurricane Ian. Apart from not having internet or A/C I did find plenty to do, I collect books so I had plenty to read, but maybe, unlike me, your favorite comfort reads aren’t sitting on a bookshelf. So let’s do something about that, shall we?

In olden times many long years ago around 1995 we printed off a lot of fic. It was mostly SOP to print a fic you planned to reread and stick it in a three ring binder. And that’s totally valid today too, but you can also make a very nice paperback with a minimum amount of skill and materials.

Let’s start with the download; Go to Ao3 and select your fic, we’ll be working with one of mine. This method works best with one shots, long fic tends to need a more complicated approach. Get yourself an HTML download

Open up the HTML download and select all then copy paste into any word processor. Set the page to landscape and two columns, then change the font to something you find easy to read, this is your book, no judgement. This is all you have to do for layout but I like to play a little bit. I move all the meta, summary, notes to the end and pick out a fun font for the title: 

No time like the present to do a quick proofread. Congratulations, you’ve just created your first typeset. On to the fun part.

Now you’re going to need some materials:  8.5x11in paper ruler one sheet of 12x12 medium card stock (60-80lb) scissors pencil pen or fine tip marker sheet of wax paper white glue two binder clips 2 heavy books or 1 brick butter knife

You’ll also need a printer, if you’re in the US there is almost a 100% chance your local library has a printer you can use if you don’t have your own. None of these materials are expensive and you can literally use cheap copy paper and Elmers glue.

Print your text block, one page per side. Fold the first page in half so that the blank side is inside and the printed side out:

use the butter knife to crease the edge. Repeat on all the sheets. When you’ve finished, stack them up with the raw edge on the left and the folded edge on the right. I used standard copy paper, because you’re only printing on one side there’s no bleed to worry about. Take the text block and line everything up. Use the binder clips to hold the raw edge in place.

Wrap the text block in the wax paper so that the raw edge and binder clips are facing out. I’m going to use my home built book press but you don’t need one, a brick or a couple of books or anything else heavy will work fine.

Once the text block is anchored down, take off he binder clips and get out the glue.

You can use a brush but you don’t need one, smear some glue on that raw edge.

Go make a margarita, watch The Mandalorian, call your mother. Don’t come back for at least an hour

In an hour smear some more glue on there and shift your brick forward so that the whole book is covered. This keeps the paper from warping. While glue part 2 is drying we’ll do the cover. Get out your 12x12 cardstock

Mark the cardstock off at 8.5 inches and cut it. Measure in 5.5 inches from the left and put in a score line with the butter knife (the back edge not the sharp edge)

Carefully fold the score line, this is your front cover. You have some options for the cover title, you can use a cutting machine like a cricut if you have one, you can print out a title on the computer and use carbon paper to transfer the text to the cardstock. I was in a mood so I just freehanded that beoch. Pencil first then in pen.

Take your text block out from under your brick. Line it up against the score mark and mark the second score on the other side of the spine

Fold the score and glue the textblock into the cover at the spine. Once the glue dries up mark the back cover with the pencil and then trim the back cover to fit with your scissors.

Voila:

I’m going to put this baby on the shelf next to the Silmarillion.

The whole process, not counting drying time, took less than an hour.

If you want to make a book of a longer fic, I recommend Renegade Publishing, they have a ton of resources for fan-binders. 

[lifeofmarvvel]

Me: ooooh maybe I finally actually have time to write when I'm taking a break from my midterm prep Me: *remembers all the hw I have due Monday and won't have time for on Saturday bc we're hosting a hs band competition and I'm helping out and then performing* Me: wait. dang it.

[fingertipsmp3]

This thing I've just coded for my assignment is genuinely dogshit but I think I kind of have to just submit it 🫠