#reminded me of some discworld stuff lol

[old-stoneface]

[alldaysarenights]

On Discworld…

…and the things I’ve learned so far.

I know, I’m late, but sometimes it’s fun to discover something on your own and in your time.

Recently, I’ve started reading the Discworld series, beginning with Rincewind. And there are so many tiny things I’ve discovered, I don’t even know where to start.

I’ll give D&D a go first. As a passionate player and also a I-once-ran-a-short-campaign DM, I couldn’t but notice all the references there to find, especially with Rincewind. Right now I’m 4 books into his story, barely at the beginning, yet I’ve laughed my a** off a few times. Always wondering what he took from a former campaign. Well, at first I wondered if Sir Pratchett actually played. The internet was quick to answer the question, yes, yes of course he did. Would have been more surprised, if he didn’t.

I discovered stuff about the gods playing dice and there are sorcerer, barbarians and the luggage, which slightly reminds me of a mimic. But I guess this beast came afterwards. I told the other players of my group, and they agreed on the resemblance. Now we definitely have the plan, to tame a mimic, lol.

I could quote you so much stuff, but I’d fancy you going on an adventure and see it for yourself. Read the books, assemble some good friends, and have some fun on a silly campaign. Not necessarily in this order.

Next thing that keeps popping up in my mind, while reading, is Good Omens. I came from the Neil Gaiman side, getting lured in by Morpheus, whom I met doing some research. My comic book dealer was happy to help. Naturally, there was a point where I did read Good Omens. And it was weird, this was Gaiman, but also not, and it was so funny. I knew one day I would have to read Discworld. Unfortunately, I was a bit discouraged by the massive amount of books. The problem sorted out itself, after a friend, I’ve talked to about it, enabled me to read them.

With it came a list in which order I should proceed, so I happily jumped in, secretly nurturing the idea of reading all the books within a year. If it works out, no idea, we’ll see. If so, I might write another article on the experience.

Anyway, the point is, knowing Good Omens well as for watching the series multiple times and doing the same to the book (reading actually), I couldn’t but notice some stuff that definitely came from Terry’s side. Like phrases, he kept using. I did read: “Not as such” as an answer more than once. No matter who said it, in my imagination it was Crowley for a split second.

The first book got me so confused, I completely forgot that this was Terry Pratchett. I caught myself thinking, I was reading Neil Gaiman. This set my brain on halt and the world stood for a second. Amazing what books can do to you.

I’ve realised Death and the horsemen and how they seem unable to start a proper apocalypse. Also, sometimes there were phrases sounding a lot like Agnes Nutter. As well as the tone it is written in, the tiny wordings you sometimes aren’t aware of as an author. And it led me to the conclusion, (of course there is no other evidence and I could be totally wrong), that Neil must have invested a lot of time in re-reading the Discworld or maybe already know them by heart. For some of the things I’ve realised definitely played a part in GO2.

It is amazing how much two people can morph into one, and yet there must be a lot of work behind the scenes. I for my part can only hope that my writing buddy and I can get to this point some day. At least I’ll have to convince him to write a full-grown novel together first.

So you might ask yourself, and I know because so did I, what’s the whole point of this article? Fair enough. I came to the conclusion, that fun expands with knowledge. And I know, my sense of fun probably differs from that of others a lot. But if you are able to grasp those tiny hints and hidden pleasures, it can make a story twice as joyful.

So go out there and consume all those stories. Not just by reading. Listen to people telling their stories, watch movies, series, anime. Maybe go to the opera or watch a play. Memorise a poem or play a game. Find the medium which suits you well but keep on searching, you’ll never know what you might learn from it and what pleasures and magic are hidden in those stories. Because our world is built, or maybe better, powered by storytelling.

[transgirlmononoke]

Oh hey I got tagged for a thing ty @warioigottawin:+)

OK

Fav colour: I think foresty green, but my like lifetime favorite colour is royal purple, however I've been real into pale pinks lately too...

Currently reading: OOOH ok so I was rereading Harrow along with my friend who I'm doing the cosplay with BUT I was also at her behest reading the Final Empire, book one of Mistborn (she's super into Brandon Sanderson's stuff) and now I'm onto the second book, the Well of Ascension. They've been really good so far, it's a really cool and unique fantasy world with an awesome magic system (eating different metals lets you do crazy shit) and I loooove the main characters, they start out a bit basic but especially coming into book two they gain a lot of depth and are just generally really likeable, I have had a bit of trouble keeping track of the side characters though lol, there's a couple that all melt together in my brain. Also ostensibly working on starting discworld, I'm a little bit of the way through Guards! Guards! But TLT and Mistborn have been keeping me busy (STILL need to read nona lol, I'll probably get to it before Alecto comes out lol) also I've been doing all of this with audiobooks which I still have some trouble paying attention to sometimes but it's massively easier for me these days than physical books OK LONG BIT OVER

Last song: last song I actually listened to was DUI by Estelle Allen, I unironically love it so much even though I can't drive and therefore follow through (I DID SCHEDULE A PERMIT TEST THOUGH WHOO LOOK AT ME BEING AN ADULT) anyways if you haven't heard it PLEASE please listen to it immediately (and also the whole album it's on, it's actually real good)

Last series: UHHH haven't been watching a ton of "tv" shows recently, but I just finished season 5 of game changer on dropout which was fun, and I'm now binging all three seasons of SoupRS's Gielenor Games OSRS competition gameshow, I haven't actually played old school in a bit and never very seriously but I do love those funny little guys fighting funny little monsters and flicking their funny little prayers :+)

Last movie: UHH I think the DnD movie? I personally loved it, it's not as cringe as I expected and is very accessible to anyone who's not into dnd the game or the internet dnd "fandom"

Sweet, spicy, or savoury: GOD that's hard I mean I am a pleasure seeking creature so like I do love sweet sugary stuff, but I also loooove sweet/spicy stuff, or really just all of those stuck together, although I think I'd actually go for umami over savoury. I've been practicing this scallion oil noodle recipe that is soooo good and the sauce especially is a really great blend of sweet from sugar, spicy from various stuff, and savory from the scallions (plus a lot of umami from the sesame oil and soy sauce lol) my rendition of the recipe is just a simplified/easier version of some I've seen on the internet, but I can post it if anyone's interested :3

Craving: SPONGE CAKE AND TOO SWEET ICING god I just love the texture its such a good sensory experience for me, and the flavor is just. Sugar lol so yeah. However seeing char's answer reminds me that I loooove the samosas from this one Indian place we used to order from that shut down BUT they JUST reopened under a new name and slightly different model so I need to get my mitts on some yummy yummy samosas and tamarind sauce

Tea vs coffee: TEA ez, I mostly just drink water and the occasional sodie (although I really should get an electric kettle for my room id drink way more tea) I think I've literally never had coffee and tbh I don't have much desire too, doesn't smell a way I like and I can get caffeine from sodies, someday I may grow up and get into coffee but I wanna get back to more tea first, I made this syrup with lemon balm that I really wanna try as a sweetener in a tea

Currently working on: well not a ton, got a callback from a job I was really excited about and they seemed into me but also I need a driver's license for that so. I'm starting work on a permit lol. Theoretically working on that cosplay but most of it is just gonna be ordering stuff, I might make the sword out of foam and wood though so I can bring it to cons. Also been drawing a sword for the same friend's fantasy series she's been working on, and just generally helping her brainstorm that stuff which is really fun :)

OK uhhhhhhhhhhhhh do I have to tag people? Idk, if anyone wants to do this you can just say I tagged you, and I'll give uhhh @the-gay-prometheus @potorch @bark-eater @zoentropy a ping for it lol, absolutely no pressure to do it, entirely just if you're interested ok bye :)

[heretherebedork]

Tagged by @pose4photoml and why not, it's still summer break.

Name: Francis

Star Sign: Aquarius

Height: 5'11

Time: 10:51 am (almost Unforgotten Night time!!!!)

Birthday: January 27th

Favorite Bands/Favorite Solo Artists:  Uh. Dan the Bard? lol sorry y'all my music is eclectic, random and very sporadic. I pretty much... don't listen to music unless I'm on public transit?

Last Movie: No goddamn idea. No clue. I don't watch movies much at this point and don't really plan to? OH! I think I rewatched the two Seven Days movies because @absolutebl talks about them so much and summer break means I am doing nothing.

Last Show: Minato Shouji Coin Laundry

When did I create this blog: 2011 or so. I was originally a Homestuck blog, just FYI. Yes, that's why I originally joined tumblr.

What I post: . BL stuff. Gifs, analysis, meta, criticism, responses to ask, deeper meta depending on the time and the occasional 'what weird food am I eating now!' which reminds me to do a post about the pickled strawberries and cherries I bought...

Last thing I googled: photopea not accepting video

Other Blogs: Nah. I have some sideblogs but they're all dead and mostly Homestuck.

Do I Get Asks?: Oddly regularly, yes.

Why I chose my url: I am dork and I am here and I like Shakespeare a lot this... weird phrasing is kinda my thing?

Following: 56 (look, I get a lot of anxiety about my dash moving too fast, so I limit my following and have a list of people that I just occasionally go look at. I'm working on being better about it but it's rough, especially considering my absolute urge to avoid all KP posts at this point...)

Followers: 3228

Average hours of sleep: 6-7, typically, less when I'm not keeping to a schedule because I stay up later but still automatically wake up early in the morning.

Instruments: none. None, none, none. I have no rhythm and I'm tone deaf and I tried to play music and all those poor teachers... suffered.

What am I wearing: boxers. It's summer in Chicago, even my AC isn't enough to convince me to wear a shirt I don't need to

Dream job(s): Pretty much what I do? I'm good at it and I love it.

Favorite Food: Sushi definitely at the tops but I also have a very special place in my heart for several Thai dishes, anything chocolate, really good deep dish pizza and butter chicken

Nationality: American

Favorite Song(s):  People can choose?

Currently playing on repeat:  Uh. Again. Music? Not my thing. Currently... JAX's "I Know Victoria's Secret" because it's been caught in my head for a while.

Last book I read: Animorphs Graphic Novel #2

Top 3 fictional universes I’d like to live in: lol I'd be so bad in any fictional universe... Discworld because frankly I'd probably just lead the same life there only with magic, Elfquest on the basis of being an Elf, Animorphs (which is just the real world but also with aliens and shapeshifting, let's be honest)

I'm not going to tag anyone to do this but I'll tag @absolutebl and @iguessitsjustme because I saw both of them do it and wanna make them read my answers. :P

[coquelicoq]

hot take: WWX can't read a room to save his life. Jingyi absolutely can read the room, he just doesn't give a shit.

jingyi speaks truth to power and gets away with it because everybody thinks he’s too oblivious to figure out when he should keep his mouth shut, but actually he just thinks it’s funny when everybody gets all indignant. (secondary theory: he never told anyone, but he LOVES handstands.) also, he has a reputation as a scaredy cat because of his ghost phobia, which leads people to assume that he’s a coward and couldn’t possibly be standing up to terrifying people on purpose, but what everyone forgets is that courage is not the absence of fear but rather the fortitude to face it. so by that metric, professional ghostbuster lan jingyi is actually...the bravest of them all??

i think wei wuxian probably can read a room very well (it would have been a survival instinct he developed from a childhood of neglect and abuse), but he worked very hard to get to the point where he could protect himself and now he takes great pleasure in flouting social conventions at every turn because what are they gonna do? kill him again?? lol okay enjoy being immediately sliced in half by his husband, the buffest dude in the galaxy, good luck surviving that, idiot

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

this is the gentleman jack anon from a bit ago, sorry I dunno why it was anon last time lol- in terms of ur fics reminding me of the show I think it's mainly due to

1) historical queerness - I kno technically most of ur stuff is fantasy but it's basically the same - Annes (eponymous gentleman jack) mascultinity n attire is very reminiscent in vibe of ur discworld fics in my opinion

2) Anne in general really reminds me of Downey bc it's mentioned she had a reputation for gambling / hanging out with soldiers and being rambunctious in her youth but now she's a very mature character and a lot of the plot focuses on her business and landownership deals similar to Downey and running the assassin's guild. also shes really invested in maintaining the status of shibden hall, her historical home which is very similar to Downey's taste for traditionalism and grandeur. Also as characters they're both very into dignity/ courtesy/ 'doing the done thing'

3) theres also scheming and drama and illness which vaguely reminds me of the Sicily plot in thus always

4) Anne's actually a proper nerd aswell and loves to mention her time studying anatomy / art / blah blah in Paris which echoes William 'poisonous plants' Downey n Vetinari the og big nerd

5) also just older queer people which u don't often see in fic n stuff- Anne is in her 40s in the series

anyway that's just a few things that came to mind I could probably write an essay on it but I would defo reccomend u watch it I think it's right up ur lane 💓 (Soz for how long this got hehe)

<3 helloooo 

1) Historical queerness - I do borrow a *tonne* from early modern and late-early modern queerness for Discworld stuff, and Downey in particular (see: Downey’s hats & Florentine mlm and their hats) - and I mean discworld as TP wrote it has no consistency in clothes so there is the late-early modern and early victorian (e.g. Moist & Adora) mixed in with late medieval and early modern (e.g. Vetinari) - I do tend towards the early modern myself because medieval and victorian is overdone 

2) ahhh that is delightful! she is clearly living her best life. But I do appreciate a good #Growth experience with characters - yet ones who never lose their joie de vivre. So, still have a love and lust for life, but you know, also have maturity, responsibility and a sense that there are Consequences for Thine Own Actions. Which us something you rarely see in characters? It tends to be Rake/Louche Living v. Stodge/Do What is Right rather than a more normal mix of someone who once ran wild who learned there are consequences and has appropriately tempered themselves. So they’re still be a mad lad when they want to be but also pay the bills on time and have descent life advice and make good relationship decisions. 

3) ooooooo! this interests me greatly! anyone get suspiciously pushed down some stairs? 

4) <3 <3 ah this Delights me. Downey: Have you heard of this rare mushroom? Vetinari: Have you heard of this super niche linguist? Downey: I love you so much you dumb nerd. Vetinari: takes one to know one. Downey: I will have you know I’m one of the cool kids. Vetinari: mmmk honey. Only because no one knows about your secret sordid plant nerd ways. 

5) YES. OK I LOVE OLD QUEERS. I love them so much. Mostly because i am a 75 year old man at heart. But yes I love old queers and i just - always want more of them. all of them living their best lives. doing what they need to do. just out their. being gay. ugh - be still my beating heart. 

-- 

well! it’s still on my to-watch list and that has been a great booster of it up the list! so good work! 💓 💓 

in cute things; my mom has watched it in an attempt to better understand me since I apparently remind her of the Anne character and she was very excited when she finished it and told me all about it and I was like “thank u you’re great” then she bought me men’s boots. 

so you know, happy 2021 everyone. 

[lambergeier]

Argfg agh I hope this doesn’t come off weird but I am SO curious as to your literary canon/fave books/stylistic influences. Your turns of phrase (??) are so wonderfully different and unexpected and I can’t reference them against anything and it kills me haha. It kind of reminds me of reading an Irish author for the first time - the language is common but the arrangement is totally different and it’s shockingly brilliant. ANYWAY sorry if this doesn’t make sense/is weird lol!!!

this is extremely kind and not weird at all, thank you! i promise you i’m possibly the most american person to be posting on this american-blighted website, but i take your point and i like your point :) it’s a lovely way to be described!

anyways, in terms of style influences, part of what’s taken me five days to reply to this is trouble i’ve been having with naming them, especially as related to turns of phrase. it is something i’m proud of in my own work, but surprisingly hard to identify where the little fuckers came from! terry pratchett’s discworld series is probably the most important influence i can name--our man terry never, ever passed up an opportunity for a joke at the expense of his characters, his settings, his plots, or himself, but (especially in his mid-career books), those jokes did not detract from the actual pace of the story and they almost always informed the characters! very hard to do! there’s a density to the gags that’s astonishing, and that i’ve been absolutely trying to ape both knowingly and unknowingly since age 14. if you haven’t read them before i highly recommend them, do look up a reading order first lol. his early work is rough and should not be read until after you’ve become addicted to the good stuff.

the other big influence i can name right off the bat is probably don rosa’s scrooge mcduck comics, which i got back into in high school but had been reading with my family on and off since like 4. they’re unfortunately a bit harder to recommend than discworld--i think they’re the best story writing that’s ever been put to paper in the 22-page comic genre, but they follow the mold of old adventure comics like tintin or asterix, and are thus very racist very frequently. if you can look past that: they’re incredible. don rosa got started in underground comix before he started working for disney, and he brought to the scrooge stories that incredibly busy, overfull style, which apparently drove his editors insane to start. a lot of the stuff i love most to write is in those comics: a love of expansive scenery, a chatty, dry conversational style, and as many background jokes as can be physically crammed onto a page. don had the benefit of an actual background to his panels in which to include these jokes, but i, a writer, do not--i’d say that some of the most inventive shit i’ve come up with has been because i’ve been trying to cram one more joke into a dialogue tag (the background of all fics) without screwing up the pacing of the conversation. it’s the same thing i love about pratchett’s best stuff: a trim story told very densely.

don didn’t do much by turns of phrase, tho, what with the whole visual medium thing. in terms of things i have enjoyed in my life where i thought “damn wish i could turn a phrase like that!” :

Fahye’s fic

mediest’s fic

Sharon Olds

Patricia Lockwood

the works of twitter user wifesimulator

Brian Phillips

Caity Weaver, idk if she even does the phrase turns in the way I’m thinking, she’s just so fucking funny

Jon Bois

probably fucking homestuck, but i’m not linking that

The Weekenders by The Hold Steady

The last verse of Spain, by Auden

gogollescent of course

hansbekhart’s fic

To His Coy Mistress

i think what i’m gleaning from my own incredibly slap-dash list here is that you should read lots of humorists and learn nothing from the english canon (except shakespeare, shakespeare slaps), and i have to say, i do agree with myself. this was a fun question to answer, thank you!

[aquietanarchy]

i just want a new pinned post idk here's some Things About Me !!

i find the enneagram to be a useful tool for understanding people and their motivations. i'm a type 4, which means i constantly vacillate between I Need To Be Deeply Known and I Am Unknowable, Stop Trying To Define Me. this post is a result of the former state probably

also i'm an INFJ but don't talk MBTI with me unless you want to talk about cognitive functions because this was one of my special interests a while back and i Will be Insufferable about it. v annoyed with people not understanding the cognitive functions but i've also decided thats not a hill i want to die on lol

i'm one half of a bisexual neurodivergent power couple, im completely and utterly in love with my adhd husband, sometimes i talk about him a lot, im. very in love. i married the best human in the entire world??? sorry to everyone else

i'm not a furry but if i was, my fursona would either be a coyote or a rabbit. maybe a magpie. i am Literally Incapable of making decisions, but i love trickster archetypes and i'm very much about disrupting and breaking down all sorts of binaries

in a perfect world, i would be perfectly vegan. the world we live in ain't perfect but maybe if we work together we can bring it closer to good ❤ anyways, animals aren't products and they don't exist for our consumption

Assigned Cringe At Birth

i'm an idiot when it comes to politics, but my beliefs basically boil down to Power Structures And Hierarchies Bad, Love Good

"no gods no masters" is a Christlike thing to say

im a christian in the same way that a feral mutt is a lapdog. i was raised fundamentalist evangelical, am recovering from spiritual abuse and religious trauma, and i am very angry at the church. at the same time i love Christ, am occasionally a bible nerd, and think spirituality is beautiful. a while back i dabbled in some neopaganism and it was cool, but it ended up not being my spiritual home. i'm trying to practice gratitude for all the different stages of spirituality i've visited in the past ❤

i don't do fandoms or related discourse. occasionally i get very excited about Stories and post about them but you probably shouldn't expect any kind of consistency wrt fandoms on this blog

that said, some of my favorite Stories include and are not limited to The Magnus Archives, Star Trek (TOS and TNG), Tolkien's entire Verse, ATLA, Good Omens, Moomins, Discworld...

i love getting asks but if they take more than two braincells to answer, they are doomed to sit in my inbox for Months On End and i'm sorry about that

here's some of the tags i use

yarrow speaks into the void: Original Content from Yours Truly. okay to reblog unless stated otherwise!

resources: this is an unorganized pile of Useful Stuff

donations: mutual aid, helping people survive

the inner light: God! Religion! Spirituality! Faith! things that minister to my condition and remind me why i love Jesus

religious trauma: Exactly What It Says On The Tin. i'm considering dropping or phasing out this one though, since there's a lot of antichristian stuff in that tag and that's not really what i want or need

sauntering vaguely downwards: floating this to replace the niche that #religious trauma used to fill. screaming at god, exposing and naming the fucked up beliefs i was raised with, embracing the humanity and queerness and wilderness i was taught to reject

i try to tag common triggers and upsetting material. if you want me to tag anything else, please don't hesitate to ask!

love y'all now go cause some quiet anarchy chaos! (because im autistic and am sensitive to loud noises. also sitting in silence is a great way to Meet God and that usually leads to chaos)

[joecial-distancing]

2019 in review in review:

A few years ago I started tracking yearly goals, books read, movies watched etc in a year, along with overview blurbs, in private posts. End of 2019/beginning of 2020 I was really frazzled/burned out about a lot of stuff and just never finished up making the thing. 8 months later, got the urge to read back what I’d got done, then figured I’d maybe go ahead and see about finishing. 

Media tracking below the break. thoughts/blurbs written in 2020 italicized, 2019 not.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~_____________________________~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Didn’t do so hot on explicit personal goals, but had a lot of stuff go ok around them this year.

School’s been fine/better than fine.

Job’s probably the biggest failing. Still with same job, haven’t made the firm moves to jump off, dragging my feet too much on exploring stuff w/ Columbia/NASA GISS.

Did not get better with covid, lol

Dating life still non-existent, but I’ve registered on apps, gotten more comfortable with selfies, improved general social life dramatically, been flirted with, updated my wardrobe, and generally started to get comfortable accepting that I’m a hot person.

Somehow got extremely better during covid.

Books

Grant (finished)

We stan a taurus legend

Guy was good at exactly one job, and was fortunate enough to have been in the right place/right time to get to do it.

Mort (discworld)

Definitely best discworld I’ve gotten to so far.

Don Quixote p. II

Really entertaining in a way that part 1 wasn’t; I was shocked how much the meta element landed for me.

Consider the Lobster (DFW collection)

had zero context on who DFW is/was when I read, and still don’t exactly tbh. Wanted to wait for a pause in The Discourse before diving into more of him, but dunno if I’m ever going to get that.

Crime and Punishment (revisited)

Weirdly didn’t get much more out of this than I did the first time I’d read it

Better Than Sex (HST Gonzo papers)

Xerox/widespread fax accessibility opening citizen access to mass media in a manner really reminiscent of what social media would go on to do at a much larger scale. Has a much more deliberate narrative arc than the other gonzo papers collections, also has that excellent HST richard nixon eulogy

The Brothers Karamazov

SPQR

Slouching Towards Bethlehem (Didion collection)

Pet Sematary

Not my favorite King, but not bad

Sourcery (discworld)

still funny/charming, but Mort really made clear/reminded me how much the hapless sadsack Rincewind mold of protagonist wears on me after a while.

The Devil's Teeth

My Year of Rest and Relaxation

Liked it a lot more once I realized it was doing a Fear and Loathing thing.

Homage to Catalonia

This should be the Orwell that gets taught in schools. Make it a followup to All Quiet on the Western Front or something, jeez.

Lyndon Johnson I

Having now finished all of them, this one’s probably the least-interesting but sets up a bunch of important context that the others still then feel the need to retread.

The Razor's Edge

Recommended to me as a “white guy discovers eastern mysticism” book, but also is more interesting in its treatment of that than I’d expected (helps it was written in the 40s). 

Cat's Cradle

There’s a part in this where Vonnegut’s making fun of people who try to bond with strangers over being Hoosiers, and my dumbass immediate thought was “ooh, Vonnegut’s a hoosier? Me too!”

Lyndon Johnson II

Robert Caro felt compelled to apologize for spending so much words lionizing Coke Stevens, segregationist opponent to Johnson’s senate run. His goal was pretty clearly to show lbj’s lack of campaign charisma by contrast, definitely definitely overcommitted in his own narrativising.

Libra

I want to go back to this after reading some more De Lillo.

Gravity's Rainbow

This book absolutely kicked my ass

Overstuffed and referential in a specific way that really keeps me hooked in instead of put off. When I learn about some piece of cultural context that I retroactively recognize as being referenced in this, I want to go back and reread the entire thing.

From Caligari to Hitler

Kind of fails both as film criticism and cultural analysis, but absolutely made me want to run for the hills when considering current relationship between mainstream movies and demands of pop culture.

I took a class on Weimar cinema in undergrad that I now realize was probably biting pretty heavily from this and never once referenced it.

Movies

Venom

Movie itself is not as fun as the Tom Hardy hype coverage. PG13 was the absolute worst space to aim for, PG- or R- versions of this could have been a blast.

Harryhauser Argonauts

Was tripping when I put this on, and it was all kinds of fun.

2001: a Space Oddyssey

First time seeing this, all-time classic for a reason!

A Good American (the NSA doc)

Dr. Strangelove

Mel Brooks History of the World p. I

Not my favorite Brooks, best joke was at the beginning.

In Bruges

Had been a while since I saw a proper dark comedy.

Spiderverse

Fukkin awesome!

Visually great, and extremely better than usual superhero stuff for being aimed at PG instead of PG-13.

You Only Live Twice

Highlander (Revisited)

I watched The Old Guard on netflix recently and it mostly just made me wish I was watching Highlander instead, because at least Highlander knows exactly how goofy it is

Moonraker

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Much like The Shining, I though this would have been 100% spoiled for me by cultural osmosis, but turns out it wasn’t, and even the scenes I had seen *totally landed* in-context still.

Kung Fu Hustle

Ichi the Killer

Really gross, really fun

Matrix Reloaded (watched thru highway scene) (Revisited)

The highway scene was not nearly as cool as I remembered it being.

John Wick 3*

Probably dumbest plot of all of them, best choreography. I like how every single fight had its own distinct flavor. “Knife museum fight” “horse fight” “halle berry dogs fight” 

Akira

A classic

Pet Sematary * (ugh, bad)

Why can’t john lithgow be in good movies anymore

The Revenant

MCU Spiderman

Fuck this was awful.

MCU Spiderman 2*

Really weird, complete Rorschach Test of a movie: it’d be totally valid to read into this that global warming is Fake News, for instance.

Lmao this was completely awful

Rites

Dredd (non-stallone)

oh hey Lena Headey’s in this

For All Mankind!

Watched in honor of moon landing anniversary

Lion King *

Watched it way too stoned, was like dark side of the moon + wizard of oz except instead it’s a lion king script reading + nature footage edited for lip syncing.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood *

Many scenes of very long setups for really stupid shaggy dog jokes, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. I do kinda want to rewatch now knowing more about manson, which I knew pretty much nothing about beforehand

Blowout

A good john lithgow movie

also I think I like travolta in things.

Lord of War

A Good cage movie

I like when Eamon Walker shows up in stuff.

Taxi Driver

A classic

Snowpiercer

Watched in a bar with only one speaker working, which is the correct way to watch. Weirder and funnier than I thought it was going to be, which still doesn’t make it good, but,

dbz big green dub

Exorcist III

Brad Dourif just tearing it apart

Deep Red (argento)

Suspiria (1977)

Watched the remake in 2020, which was ok, but nothing tops the Goblin score.

Elf Bowling

Thanks, Gnome

Parasite *

Interesting to me that this one seems poised to hang around people’s good esteem for a while

TV

FMA: B

Rick & Morty

Saw some episodes, generally pretty funny, some misanthropy that’s probably appealing to a certain type of teen al a something like House, but ultimately I don’t totally Get the intensity of discourse about it.

Leterkenny

Mob Psycho 100

One Punch Man

Deadwood

Watchmen

Only watched like half of it. Was playing around with a lot of hefty imagery/thematics, but didn’t really seem ready to rise above playing (tho also I feel like it’s weird on some level to *expect* them to rise above that in the first place)

Music

New Avantasia

HEALTH/ show

lol remember concerts

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard/ show

Just learned about King Gizz in 2019 and got completely obsessed with them. I don’t tend to expand my music selection very readily, and a lot of what I currently *do* know is old/inactive stuff, so it was/is incredibly exciting to have an active group with good momentum just immediately win me over like that.

Mistimed the edibles and ended up with a really good finale and a really long subway ride home.

New Yeasayer

Sad they split up

Steve Wilson Tull remixes

Aqualung’s a good album and the sound mixing’s kinda bad, so I liked this project.

Stonefield

Opened for Gizzard. Really good as studying music

Video Games

Civ VI: Gathering Storm

Hades

Turns out Supergiant’s design proclivities all work *extremely well* on a roguelike

Baba is You

Untitled Goose Game

Cute, if maybe a bit overhyped

finally fucking finished Pillars of Eternity

Had fun with it, but too long, and really dour for how long it is.

Pillars II

Kinda drifted off it eventually, but I do genuinely like that the flavor of the fantasy is colonial era rather than medieval.

There’s a Balancing Bastard Factions element where it’s like the writers are just being smartasses after a while. Having to go extremely out of their way to make siding with colonizers seem like a competitive option.

Pokemon shield

Cuphead

pisses me off, which was a nice outlet when I was stranded by flight cancellations during thanksgiving

Celeste

Also very difficult, but really easy to stay patient with, which is nice.

Disco Elysium

None of the discourse made me want to play this, but people talking about the mechanical stuff it did got me extremely interested. Mostly Delivered IMO.

Breath of the Wild

You can approach the nodes of the main quest in the order you choose, and the second one I chose made ninjas start fucking spawning everywhere when I’m just trying to explore, and there’s no way to make it stop. May go back to it one day.

Podcasts

Relentless Picnic Patreon feed

The treats really helped me start distinguishing individual personalities, compared to the regular eps.

Picnic Discord!

<3

FatT Counterweight

Fun, but also I think Mechs are not my shit.

FatT Spring in Hieron/ end of that particular world

8 months since I’ve last tuned into FatT. ah well.

Law School

He’s in everythiiiing!

You Must Remember This: Manson family

*There’s* the context

Misc.

Kindle train guy

Times Square sleeping guy + kids taking selfies w/ him

toddler singing along after Psycho killer (a, ya, ya ya, ya)

drunk and dragged to a drag show

Central park football family

Soft Steel Drum Subway Busker

Weird old lady going to grand central for oysters

2018 in review (cards):

MySelf (CC)

Self: Tower

Blocked: 10 Cups

Ethereal/subconscious: 8 Swords

Material: 3 Swords

Past: Justice

Future: Page Wands

Attitude: Sun

External: King Swords

Hopes/Fears: 5 Coins

Trajectory: High Priestess

Also Self:

Hierophant

7 Cups

7 Coins

Blind Spot:

(self & others): 5 cups    ||    (others not self): High Priestess

(self not others): Moon   ||    (nobody): 3 Cups

[timelordthirteen]

Multiples of 5 XD

Had to add a cut because it got long as fuck.

5. Top five formative books? Oh wow, um…  It’d be easier to go with authors but Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Pride and Prejudice, all things Discworld, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Bell Jar

10. Pick an author (or writing friend) to co-write a book with: Any of the people I listed in this post I would die for collaborate on anything.

15. How do you deal with self-doubt when writing? Hahahahaha! Uh, I don’t. I try to ignore it and push through, and sometimes I throw bits and pieces out in WIP memes or to my friends for some small moments of validation. It helps me feel like I don’t completely suck, and I like seeing people somewhat excited for my writing. Sometimes I go and re-read comments left on previous chapters of the fic I’m working on to remind me how many people like it, or on another fic of mine.

20. Any advice for young writers/advice you wish someone would have given you early on? I’ve mentioned these in more detail in other posts, but 

Find people you trust to be you betas/editors/sounding boards. Good betas are invaluable, and saying things “out loud” to someone else (or just typing them and making them more real) really helps you work through ideas. Sometimes just saying what you’re stuck on and why you’re stuck can unlock your brain, and that immediate feedback from another person, especially a writer, is so good. Don’t have anyone around? Talk to your pet, talk to a stuffed animal, talk to the TV.

Write what you know. And by that I mean if you don’t know something but you want to write about it, take a few minutes and Google. If you have time to write, you have time to do a little research.

Keep writing. Even if you think you can’t, even if you don’t type one character, one letter, one period in that fic. Open up something and at least stare at it. Re-read parts of it, or look at your outline. Having it in front of you keeps you aware of it so it doesn’t fade away to never be worked on again. And if you do think of something, it’s right there and you can do it.

25. What’s your worldbuilding process like? Strange? I don’t know honestly. True worldbuilding takes a long time. I might come up with a concept for the story and know that there will be key things I have to change about the existing canon world to fit it, but I won’t know the details right away. This is partly why I outline any fic that’s not a one-shot. I put down those key things at the top and outline under them. If I need to add more general world notes, I can, and I can expand on different things within the outline as I plot it out. Then I build the world to support the story I want to tell.

30. Do you like to read books similar to your project while you’re drafting or do you stick to non-fiction/un-similar works? Noooooo. I can’t read fics that are like what I’m writing. As I’ve posted before I don’t like to be directly influenced that way and I had an issue with it in the past where someone thought I stole their work (I didn’t) because of it. The books I read for fun are generally nothing like what I’m writing. I read a lot of scifi, fantasy, and spy/thriller stories, with the occasional period piece (reread of an Austen book or something) almost all of which is not stuff I’m writing.

35. Post the last sentence you wrote: Apparently a lot harder than it was to accidentally set an oven mitt on fire. (That is the most out of context thing ever lol!)

40. Do you look up to any of your writer buddies? Oh gosh yes. @rose-tylers who is brilliant and has published two original novels and is about to have a third, meanwhile she’s super active in fandom and on Tumblr, and somehow also works for a living and is really sweet and supportive like wtf?? @thatexactleaf who has written turns of phrase that make me weep and is my darling, dear sister from another mister. @mariequitecontrarie whose writing is so brave, she just puts herself out there with all her experiences and emotions while being the most level headed person I’ve met in this fandom. @rufeepeach who has opened my eyes and my mind in ways I never thought possible and who understands her characters on a molecular level. I always see something new to love about my faves when I read her stuff. @still-searching47, @thatravenclawbitch, @emospritelet all three on top of having limitless amazing ideas and making me ship whole new pairings I never thought of before, are also really fantastic people. @b-does-the-write-thing who worldbuilds like no one else and is incredible. @thescholarlystrumpet without whom I probably wouldn’t even be in Rumbelle fandom and who gets me on every possible level. 

I wanna be like all of them when I grow up.

45. First or third person? THIRD. *cringes at first and second*

50. Do you share your rough drafts or do you wait until everything is all polished? Do you like see how many times I post snippets and wip meme stuff? lolz I have no problem putting draft bits out there. The thing that usually changes the most is all my stupid typos.

55. How do you manage your time/make time for writing? (do you set aside time to write every day or do you only write when you have a lot of free time?) I literally write any time I can and anywhere I can. I keep everything in Google Docs so I can write, plan, edit, etc. on any computer, my Chromebook, my tablet, or my phone. I write during breaks at work, I write in the car when we’re headed somewhere, I write at home in the evenings, and if I wake up at 4am and can’t sleep. I have even written quick things at stoplights because I knew if I didn’t do it right that second, by the time I got to Walmart I’d have lost it. I wish I could set aside designated time for writing, but that’s hard with the other projects I want to do (Photoshop, videos, etc.) and also life.

[jellyfishline]

100, 92, 73, 22! ^-^ these asks are REALLY cool.

okay so this ask is like a hundred years old but I was really busy the past couple of days SO I am finally here to answer!!

100. If you could change 1 thing in this world, what would you change?

Um, off the top of my head, I think I’d probably get rid of cancer. I mean I know that’s kinda the obvious Miss America kinda answer but honestly, fuck cancer.

92. What fictional character do you identify most with?

OMG. Relating too much to fictional characters is kinda my biggest hobby. Basically every show/game/fandom I’ve ever been obsessed with has at least one character that I’ve really identified with. But in terms of all time faves… I’d say Nagisa Furukawa from CLANNAD and Prompto Argentum from FFXV. Like, I feel such a strong similarity with both of them, from their personalities to their perspectives to their goals in life, to the point that I literally think about them whenever I need to be inspired or to remind myself of who I am. It’s kind of impressive how quickly Prompto has managed to work his way up my all-time fave list lol. He’s just… kind of like an alternate reality version of myself that actually had friends in high school.

73. Is there a book or movie that changed your outlook on life? 

Okay, so, this one’s kinda hard because a lot of the stuff I’ve read/watched has left an impact on me–like, I tend to take my fiction to heart, and especially when I was a kid I was really influenced by a lot of the stuff I read, so it’s kind of hard to think of stuff that hasn’t affected me in some way. But narrowing it down to stuff that really broadened my mind, I think the movie The Iron Giant really helped shape the way I see the world. It was one of my favorites as a kid because it’s kind of an exploration of free will and personal choice, as well as the importance of empathizing even with things that seem frightening or inhuman at first glance. Without spoiling too much, it also has one of the most heart-stopping and intense finales of any movie I’ve ever watched, ever. I think it helped make me a kinder person, and I’m very grateful to it for that.

Ugh I’ve been racking my brains trying to think of other stuff, I know there’s at least something else really formative that I’m forgetting… Terry Pratchett’s pre-Discworld series The Bromeliad Trilogy definitely had a huge impact on me too. Like, I definitely picked up a lot of my sense of humor from those books, but also a lot of insights about human nature and the strangeness of things, and how easy it is for the world to seem narrow and small and predictable even though, if you stepped just a little bit to the side, you’d see that everything you think is normal is really just one tiny piece of a much bigger whole. It’s an immensely insightful, beautiful little series with a wonderful metaphor at it’s heart, and I love it dearly. I think I’ve read it more than sixteen times all through.

22. Are you more interested in WW1 or WW2?

I’m pretty interested in both, I’d say. In some ways WW2 interests me more because of the greater scale of the conflict, and also all the different cultures and countries that played a part in it, but an understanding of WW1 is pretty vital to understand why WW2 happened in the first place. I guess my true history nerd answer is that all periods of history and great global happenings are fascinating to me, though when it comes to wars I’m usually more interested in the events leading up to and following the conflict than the actual battles themselves. I’m really deeply fascinated by the period of time after WW2. It took so long for most of the world to recover and to adjust to all of the atrocities that happened, but we learn so little about that time in America, it’s kind of a shame.

Anyway! That’s those questions answered! Thank you for asking, these were very fun questions even if it took forever for me to answer them!!