#this was a draft that was intended to be an actual post at some point but i gave up

[crunchyorb]

some thoughts about coe + my first impressions and how they've changed

on my first watch of cell of empireo, i took the courtyard scene, isoi's comment at the beginning of chapter…….seven? eight? that yandere moment, and even "if you want to save everyone, i want to save you" as evidence of a genuine devotion--of something that started from a 'pure' desire to save and follow hatsutori, that was warped as time went on, and culminated in hatsutori's suicide attempt as the turning point--where the 'pure' desire to save and follow hatsutori became simply a warped desire to keep him alive regardless of what condition he was in or his thoughts about it.

i took hatsutori's moment in the garden (white rose) and the moment at the very end as a recognition /of/ that 'pure desire' and, i guess, an acknowledgement that it was 'reciprocated' in the sense that hatsutori also wanted utsugi to 'follow' him…regardless of what condition he was in or his thoughts about it. a similarly 'pure' desire that was warped by the situation they were in--that just like utsugi's attempt to keep hatsutori alive marked the turning point from 'they were somewhat on the same page and wanted the same thing' to 'i'm going to keep this person with me regardless of their thoughts about it', the end of the game was also the turning point for /hatsutori/ from 'i want to be with you and we want the same thing' to 'i'm going to keep you with me regardless of your thoughts about it'

i don't think i was 'entirely' wrong but i think i had it backwards-- as i went through dlc, i realized that while i do think it was 'reciprocated' in the sense that they did 'want' to be together, and i do think neither of them approached the relationship with the intention of using the other person, they were never actually on the same page to begin with and neither of them actually made an effort to understand each other, or at the very least--not in the way harada 'tries' (and only succeeds in too late) with utsugi.

part of the reason that the two of them stick together so closely despite not understanding each other or necessarily sharing the same goals is because hatsutori gives utsugi something he wants, and utsugi gives hatsutori something /he/ wants--hatsutori wants to not be called a monster, and utsugi wants someone to ask him to stay by his side. they say as much during their first meeting, but utsugi still wants the stability that supporting hatsutori (or 'having someone who needs him, rather') gives him, and hatsutori still wants to be called a star.

however the problem is that this isn't the only thing either of them want--as time goes on, they both start to find that they want something other than the roles they've locked themselves into. utsugi finds that he's gone too far down a dark path & wants to be saved, hatsutori also wants to be human (and /also/ thinks they're going too far down a dark path.)

but if they were to turn back or try to reach for something else, they wouldn't just have to acknowledge that what they were doing was wrong, they'd have to acknowledge that /they/ weren't right and that they /don't/ want this. they'd have to give up what they currently have.

and while both of them do individually acknowledge that what they did is 'wrong', this isn't the same as acknowledging that they wanted something else, or trying to reach out for those other possibilities.

utsugi does (kind of) try, once, in the library with harada, but at the time, harada doesn't understand and brushes it off as 'you must be tired'. and then, when they meet it again, utsugi /refuses/ to try again (the only thing you're allowed to say is 'you're tired'--not any of the more 'honest' options)

hajime 'kind of' tries to bring up wanting something else in the scene with utsugi ('can i really not be human')? but doesn't fully understand utsugi's answer, takes it as a 'no', and doesn't really bring it up again--

and neither of them ever fully 'reject' what they have

in fact, it's not that they don't 'reject' it, it's that they reject the other possibility--to be human, to not have to go down this path. to have something else--they both reject 'humanity' in their final lines.

because, as we see with hajime (when he's talking about seodore not being a star) to be human would mean that he needed to make his own decisions about whether what he was doing was right without the reassurance that being a 'star' gave him. and utsugi says something similar, that telling hajime that what he's doing is right is how he knows 'what he's doing is right' and the reason he's living, so 'to be human' would be to find another reason to live without the reassurance of someone 'needing' him.

neither of them can bring themselves to do that in the end, neither of them ever 'stop' what they're doing, and so they die without letting those things go.

[i-draws-dinosaurs]

i was rewatching the rite of spring segment from fantasia and i've got to wonder. Why Did We Draw Archaeopteryx Like That. i remember toys having that same, boomerang arm shaped pose too. it's like a monkey lizard more than a bird.

Ooh okay this is a fun one cause while it technically is an Archaeopteryx and is listed as such in the production draft, I don't think the design is based on Archaeopteryx at all!

To me, this "Archaeopteryx" almost exactly resembles something else, the fascinating historical phenomenon called Proavis.

Proavis, or Tetrapteryx as some four-winged interpretations were called, was a hypothetical prehistoric creature that was proposed in the early 20th century as a best guess at what the unknown ancestor of birds could have looked like. The illustration above was drawn in 1926 by Gerhard Heilmann, a Danish artist and amateur scientist who argued that birds evolved from non-dinosaurian archosaurs like Euparkeria. In his 1916 book Vor Nuvaerende Viden om Fuglenes Afstamning and the 1926 English translation The Origin of Birds, he presented Proavis as the imagined midpoint between a scaly ground-running archosaur and Archaeopteryx, which at the time held the title of The First Bird.

Other versions of the same hypothesis, like William Beebe's Tetrapteryx above, were published and discussed around the same time, but it was Heilmann's Proavis that gained immense popularity to the point that bird evolution was considered essentially "solved" for decades. It was also painted by Zdeněk Burian, one of the Old Greats of palaeoart, which kept the concept alive in dinosaur books for decades as well.

Of course further study has shown this hypothesis to be incorrect and that birds are instead members of Dinosauria (and honestly Heilmann either missed or ignored a lot of evidence for a dinosaurian origin of birds even in the 1910s), but the Proavis to me remains a beautiful and fascinating concept that represents scientists and artists striving to understand the prehistoric world and the passage of evolution, much like we still do today!

And of course, its popularity in the early 20th century put it at the perfect time for Fantasia's artists to take... let's say heavy inspiration from Heilmann's imaginary Proavis when depicting a creature that was intended to be Archaeopteryx the whole time! The pattern of feathers matches up almost exactly, although the larger leg wings might have been inspired by Beebe's Tetrapteryx as well:

So to get back to your original question that led to this whole deep dive, artists didn't actually Draw Archaeopteryx Like That except when they were mistakenly drawing something that wasn't Archaeopteryx at all! If you want to read more about the Proavis and Tetrapteryx I recommend this Tetrapod Zoology blog post by Darren Naish, he does into more depth about the history of the concept and some of the unusual evolutionary ideas that Heilmann used to arrive at this weird and cool imaginary creature!

[cryptixani]

jjk men cat cafe! au...

𝒘𝒆𝒍𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒄𝒂𝒕𝒑𝒖𝒄𝒄𝒊𝒏𝒐 𝒄𝒂𝒇𝒆! 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒖𝒕𝒆 𝒄𝒂𝒕𝒔, 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒚 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒉𝒐𝒕 𝒎𝒆𝒏. 𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒖𝒍, 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒎 𝒎𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒃𝒊𝒕𝒆...

a/n: hii, this is the beginning to a oneshot series i've decided to do for a couple of the jujutsu kaisen men, set in an au where there's no curses or sorcerers or any tragic horrible deaths and they all work at the same cat cafe! this is sort of an intro chapter to set the scene and introduce them, then i'm going to write a continued installment for each specific man. i've also opened requests for this au, so feel free to ask for further drabbles of smut or fluff for any of the guys featured if you like. <3

warnings: none. following installments will likely contain smut, and may also feature violence, mentions of violence, and/or distressing themes. absolutely none of it will be cat-related, for those that might be worried.

characters: satoru gojo, suguru geto, choso kamo, kento nanami, sukuna, mahito, toji fushiguro.

there was a new cat cafe that had opened, on the outskirts of the city centre - not far from where you lived. it looked really nice, actually. every time you had peered into it in passing, you had noticed the warm lighting and comfortable seats, how nicely decorated the place was and how much stuff there was for the cats - hidey holes and platforms and bridges and shelves and scratching posts, the list went on. it was clear the place took very good care of their kitties.

you had been meaning to go for a while, it was just a matter of time. your regular local cafe had been getting boring recently, and you were on the hunt for a new place to buy a drink, sit about and do work on your laptop in.

---

it was a chilly weekday afternoon when you had randomly decided to give the place a go. you had been out anyway, picking up a few essentials from some other stores - fresh deodrant, some some new socks, boring stuff like that. your laptop was in your bag anyway though, as you had been intending on taking your favourite spot at your regular haunt and spending a few hours finishing up some essay drafts with a nice hot cup beside you. coffee or tea, didn't really matter at this point, as long as it warmed you from this biting wind.

but then you had passed that cat cafe, and it gave you pause. you were overcome by a sudden urge to go inside - why not? your brain reasoned, you'll get to do your work with some cute kitties about.

so your turned on your heel and headed over to the glass doors. they were heavy, though you managed to get them open by yourself. stepping inside, you felt a rush of warm air surround you, which was an absolute delight after walking around in the cold.

another door greeted you, these ones less difficult to open. you figured having two doors was a safety measure, so the cats couldn't escape. smart.

now you were fully in the cafe, and you took a little look around. it felt different on the inside, bigger and cosier. there were plenty of nooks to set up in, and plenty of cats lazing around. the air was warm with a subtle scent of coffee and clean cat - fitting.

you were pulled out of your little daze by the sound of someone clearing their throat beside you. turning your head, you blinked as you realized there was a guy stood by the front desk, smiling at you. he had an undercut, the top of his hair dyed a bold pink that somehow suited him. he wore what you assumed was the cafe uniform - baggy pants and a plain t-shirt, all black, though a small logo of the cafe was embroidered onto the left side of the shirt in white. on the right side of the shirt, a little black badge with the name 'YUJI' printed in bold white lettering was pinned, a little lopsided.

"hii!" the young man greeted you politely, already fiddling around pulling out a small black binder and pen from behind the desk. "welcome to catpuccino cafe, i'm yuji! did you prebook your visit?"

"oh, no." you shook your head with a small smile. "just a walk-in. is that okay?"

"definitely. we're usually super quiet in the middle of the week." yuji replied, flipping through the binder briefly. "if you ever wanna visit on a weekend or during the holidays, though..." he whistled, setting the binder down facing you on a blank page, the pen on top. "...it gets super busy. anyway, just write your name, phone number, and the date and time please! is this your first time visiting our cafe?"

you nod and pick up the pen, quickly noting down the details yuji had asked for. once you were done, he put the binder and pen away.

"yeah, it's my first time visiting any cat cafe." you replied with a little smile.

"aw, that's great! i'm glad you chose ours, you'll love it here!" he grinned, and from the genuine enthusiasm he seemed to radiate, you couldn't help but believe him. he continued. "we have a small hourly fee we charge seperate from any food and drink. it's mostly to cover the kitties needs, stuff like their food and litter. most people pay for one hour, but since we're currently so quiet, you can do more if you like?"

you thought over his offer for a moment, before nodding.

"i think i'll do two hours, if that's okay? i have my laptop with me, so i wanna do some quiet work here too." you replied. yuji's grin widened, if that was even possible.

"sure!!" he nodded, rattling off the total whilst getting the card machine ready for you. you tapped your card and he checked that it went through before stepping out from behind the desk. he was definitely a bit younger than you, though he seemed well-exercised and energetic. he gestured for you to follow, beginning to lead you through the cafe to find you a good spot. as he did, he pointed out various kitties you both passed by.

"that little guy over there is piper, he's pretty quiet. oh, there's cinnamon!! she's super soft, and has the cutest little meow. there's jazz and jibe on that little shelf up in the corner, they're a package deal."

you smiled warmly as you followed yuji, your eyes following his gesturing at each of the cats. you were surprised at how well he seemed to know them all, though then again it also made sense - you were sure the workers here were responsible for the cats too.

finally, yuji stopped at a cosy looking spot in the corner. a comfortable looking armchair by a bigger table, not far from a pretty big cat tree. you could see at least three kitties lounging there already.

"this spot seems like it'd be nice to do some work in." yuji spoke, smiling. "feel free to get settled down, one of our servers should be with you soon. there's a little menu there on the table for you to browse. hope you enjoy your time here!"

with that, yuji was off, bustling back to the front desk to greet more customers coming in through the door. you sighed softly and smiled to yourself, glad that you had picked this place out already. between the cute kitties and the cosy, quiet vibes, it seemed perfect for a few hours of focus. you set your bag down on the floor beside you, blinking in surprise when a small tabby kitten prowled out from under your chair. it stared up at you curiously for a moment, sniffing your hand when you held it out before giving it a little nuzzle. after that, it pattered off, looking to find something new to do.

you straightened and smiled, watching the kitten go. adorable. next you pulled off your coat, pushing it down into the armchair you were sat in. your eyes flickered over the table, before spotting the menu yuji had mentioned. you picked it up, turning it over slowly. the cafe seemed to offer a variety of drinks and snacks, including little treats to buy for the kitties. for now though, you decided to pick something out for yourself.

between hot and cold teas and coffees, alongside even a few various hot chocolate and smoothie options, you felt spoiled for choice. though as you scanned the menu, you eventually settled on a drink choice that clicked instantly. it sounded perfect, and you instantly knew it was what you wanted to try. now just to order it.

you looked up over the menu, finally taking in the view of the cafe from your seat. you had a good angle, pretty close to the back so you could see the entire interior from where you were. there was a handful of fellow customers scattered around, most already with food and drink in front of them, talking or petting relaxed kitties. you looked for any servers, beginning to spot them throughout the cafe. as you glanced at each one, your brows furrowed slightly, the warmth surrounding you suddenly feeling a little more intense. you couldn't help but notice how every single one of these servers seemed to be tall, male, and tragically handsome.

oh.

one was currently taking an order, brows furrowed in concentration as he scribbled in his little notebook. his dark brown hair was tied up in messy twin buns, bangs framing his face. you squinted your eyes and swore you caught sight of a face tattoo. his all-black uniform, same as yuji's, looked a bit baggier, and he wore cargo pants instead of regular ones, along with heavy black boots.

another two men were chatting together in the corner idly. one had short, messy white hair and an idle smirk on his lips, dark rounded glasses sitting on his nose. his uniform was a bit more form-fitting, and he wore a black longsleeve shirt under the cafe logo t-shirt. the other man had long straight black hair, tied half-up into a bun with some loose bangs on one side of his face. his uniform was much more oversized, and he wore black baggy pants that tapered in at the ankle. he was listening to the white-haired man chatter, smiling slightly and nodding along, both men relaxed.

not far from the two, another man with short blond hair and green-tinted glasses was stood flicking through a binder, expression stoic and focused. his different uniform - still all black, but instead of a casual t-shirt he wore straight pants and a button-up with the cafe logo embroidered - seemed to indicate he had a slightly higher position. manager, perhaps.

you spotted two more men off near the back, by one of the doors. one had a haircut similar to yuji's, though he seemed taller and more muscular, his uniform tight around his torso. the other man had long, grey-ish blue hair tied in three sections by the ends. he seemed the leanest of them all, his t-shirt loose but his pants straight-fitted. they also seemed to be talking, though judging by the intensity of the pink-haired one's glare and the concealed venom of the blue-haired one's smile, their conversation didn't seem nearly as pleasant.

the door they were stood by was partially open, and through the small sliver you could see what you assumed was the kitchen where the drinks and food were made, seperated from all the cats. you just caught a glimpse of a man bustling about, tall and about as muscular as the pink-haired one with short black hair that fell around his face, black t-shirt tight and form-fitting.

mouth a little dry, you shift back into your seat and glance down at your menu again, processing everything your eyes had just seen. how the hell was this place so jam-packed full of testosterone? did every attractive man in this area just see the cafe opening and think, 'yeah, i'm gonna work here'? not that you were complaining, but this almost felt like one of those too-good-to-be-true situations. but it wasn't, it was real. and one of them was about to serve you.

holy shit, one of them was about to serve you.

you pull your phone out of your pocket quickly, heartrate picking up as the realization hit. using the black reflective screen as a little makeshift mirror, you do a quick check-over yourself. no smudges on your face or anything in your teeth... hopefully not. it was pretty difficult to see in the reflection on the screen. you ran a hand through your hair, trying to neaten it up a bit after how wind-swept it had gotten outside, when you suddenly hear a throat clearing right above you.

[dizzycheetah96]

i’ve had this post in the drafts for like two months but with the release of poor things on hulu has come an uptick in really really bad poor things takes so here I am clocking in for the poor things discourse!!

while art is obviously subjective and can be interpreted like literally however you want blah blah blah etc. etc., I think a lot of the criticisms of poor things are pretty surface level and in the name of like performative anger and not genuine criticisms. will be addressing and commenting on the two biggest criticisms I’ve seen:

1. poor things portrays the born sexy yesterday trope

ultimately I think the film does enough to subvert the trope, and actually utilizes the trope as a vehicle to subvert it. what I think poor things is really doing is critiquing and commenting on how men seek out infantile and docile women as a means to exert control and assert their own self importance. these men then become disillusioned when said women gain intelligence, perspective, and experiences that don’t center them.

godwin, max, and duncan all sought to control bella in some way. they sexualize her, view her as an object, property, and an experiment. at the beginning of the movie, prior to bella leaving god’s house and exploring, we do get a bit of the traditional born sexy yesterday trope. but bella being who she is, she wanted more and she wanted to explore the world, grow, etc. this fundamentally changed the way these men interacted with her, and they were no longer infatuated by her innocence and curiosity, but saw her as threatening and something they needed to reign in and control.

first, when bella asks to leave the house and see the world, she is met with pushback from both godwin and max. when bella expresses her frustration, godwin fucking chloroforms her to get her to stop talking and fighting him. this pattern continues until bella leaves.

we saw this to an extreme with duncan. he noticed that bella was gaining intelligence and perspective, was threatened, and resorted to locking her in a trunk and literally fucking kidnapping her as an attempt to regain control. but after that, she continues to learn and grow. she meets new people who introduce her to philosophy and reading and intelligent conversation. this essentially brings duncan to his breaking point and he begins to mentally deteriorate.

2. all the sex was super gross bc bella developmentally had not yet reached the age of consent

people not grasping that bella having sex with all these men is SUPPOSED to make us uncomfortable is baffling. the depiction of this kind of relationship cannot be equated with endorsement. I actually think it was important that the audience know that at the beginning of the movie that bella had the brain of a child because it allows us to see how much duncan takes advantage of her. it also just further hammers home the critique of men preferring underdeveloped infantile women they can control, rather than independent intelligent women who challenge them.

I don’t necessarily have any problem with the movie depicting that bella enjoys having sex. discovering sexuality it is an ordinary part of adolescence (when she first starts masturbating I’m assuming she was like 12-14 developmentally) and ultimately what makes the lisbon scenes with her and duncan so uncomfortable is that we know that he knows he’s taking advantage of her. I do think it was intended to be uncomfortable for the audience to watch. she does not have the knowledge and understanding to know that the dynamic between her and duncan is very very bad, but she gets there eventually. I can’t fault her for in the moment not realizing what was happening to her.

but this is where my personal criticisms come in — once bella does learn how these men took advantage of her she does not fight back against them like I wanted her to. she isn’t outraged, she doesn’t tell them how violated she feels. duncan does get his comeuppance (which was hilariously played by mark ruffalo) but I think that max and godwin got off too easy. especially max who agreed to marry her when developmentally she was a child. I just don’t think she should have been so quick to forgive them.

I also just want to take a moment to discuss the common critique that “it’s so obvious this movie was made by a man like duh this is how men perceive what female empowerment is” etc. etc. this was actually addressed by emma stone in a conversation she had w olivia coleman — emma was a producer on the film and really feels like people are taking away her agency in deciding how to tell this story. she was an integral part in the production of the film, no one was demanding her to portray bella in a certain way, and ultimately what we see on screen is a product of her involvement in the filmmaking process. by reducing this to being a movie about how men perceive women you are completely removing and invalidating the women that actually had a say in how this story was told.

tldr; idk like obviously you can think whatever you want about it, but just don’t mistake depiction for endorsement and understand that sometimes the point of the movie is to make you feel uncomfortable. stories and narratives in fiction are complicated bc people are complicated!!!! we are messy and difficult and exploring certain topics in a fictionalized world allows us to better understand the world we live in. sanitizing ourselves of engaging with this kind of material will only hurt our ability to analyze and form opinions about contentious areas of life.

[zarla-s]

Man it's been a long time since I've done an ask cluster! Let's see if I can get some down...

He's an extremely fun character to write for and play with! So in that sense I'm fond of him, haha. He's such a huge disaster of a person, there's always something fun to do with him. Well "fun" in a relative sense.

I don't have anything to forgive him for, he didn't hurt me. |D He hurt the brothers!

I do have an idea for a cute feature inspired by Six-Eared Macaque! I should really sit down and do that already... and finish the one I half started but never finished...

I don't think my opinion on any of them changed! I love them all, haha. Which ones I drew comics about just depends on which ones I get ideas for really. Sometimes I get Alphys ideas and sometimes I get Goatparents ideas! Inspiration is fickle!

I don't have any solid plans or anything. :B Just gonna keep chugging along with silly comics and art! Work on Defrag and such. I'd like to finish a Ladyverse comic I've had lying around forever, and I had vague plans for doing a doujin for them too I could work on... and also seeing if I could format Handplates into a book format... I've always got a bunch of projects, haha.

It works on that level! It wasn't intentional though. |D

I do enjoy speculation! I don't really have much of my own though, I didn't predict anything in chapter 2 so now I'm assuming I can't predict anything in the future chapters either, haha.

Emesis Blue is great! Some really beautiful visuals in there, very striking! Love the mood of it too and a lot of the surreal imagery. I think it helped spur me back into TF2 again, haha. Medic and Scout's relationship was so cute.

I have thought about this! It has its share of challenges though... I outlined them more in this post. A pdf would be more doable though... could even include some extra stuff as well! Hmm...

I can see that! He'd probably spend as much time out in the rain as he could just doing whatever to stay outside.

It was pretty much always going to end like that. I always wanted it to end on a hopeful note! Which might seem weird with how dark it is at the beginning. I DID for a brief period at the very beginning of Handplates think about stopping with the Pacifist run, but that was only because I thought going where I wanted to go would take too long and already the project seemed so dauntingly huge at the time, haha. But it was always going to end in a positive way!

Gaster talks about what he originally intended to create here, and he explains a bit about the physical experiments he runs on the brothers here. They aren't really a solution in and of themselves so much as tools to try and find a way to break the barrier. Really though, Gaster got stuck in the sunk-cost fallacy lol.

I don't really have opinions about what canon Gaster would be like. |D Handplates Gaster is his own thing really. Canon Gaster, who knows! Deltarune Gaster, who knows! I will say I hope Gaster stays a mystery in Deltarune and never actually shows up but I think the odds of that are really low at this point.

I thought about doing a script along those lines! I did a few rough drafts of one, but it never really went anywhere... it'd end up dead-ending or kind of meandering off. I might see if I can get an actual script down for a side-comic or something in the future... it might be better suited for a fic.

I was just thinking about this lately! I was picturing Gaster totally forgetting about that until he sees Papyrus squinting and is like OH GOD YOUR EYES THAT'S RIGHT D: and goes to get him looked at lol.

I couldn't come up with a good idea for Flowey which is a shame, I do like him, haha. If one comes to me though I might make a little side comic about it!

Gaster's LV is complicated... his stats in-game are ludicrous if I recall correctly. Did he carry the damage from his murders into the void, even if those murders weren't his in the new timeline? Deep thoughts.

He fed them anything he could find, haha. Which is why sometimes they just ended up with chocolate bars (which he intended as dinner for himself). He probably fed them more often than he fed himself lol. He did feed them fairly regularly though.

Not about skeletons, probably. |D

Man I know I had an explanation for this but it was so long ago... it's hard for me to remember. It could be that the Riverperson is just weird and has weird insight into elements of things, had a prophetic dream... I don't know! It bugs me now that I can't remember this, haha.

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

You might’ve already got this before, and I’m asking this in genuinely good faith.

Your essay was very interesting, and convinced me of Erikar as a ship reading. I also really enjoyed your dissection of Eridan as a very honest person drawn into destructive behavior. It very much lines up with his status as a Prince of Hope! One who destroys conviction/belief through conviction/belief.

What confused me was your insistence on the hidden hand of the author. Death of the Author and all that, what’s implied in the text can be taken on its own separate from commentary but you seem to be doing an autopsy— the text implies [this] so *Hussie* must have intended for [this] and then tried to cover it up. If they genuinely thought it was a better ending, why not do it? Why the secrecy, why the feints? I think it’s a little conspiracy-brained to insist on a secret “better ending” that we don’t have author’s word or drafts on.

I’m also a little drifted on your frustration with the deaths of the trolls? You write that the theme of Homestuck— a standard coming-of-age story, a reckoning with society and the exit from youth— is undercut by the deaths of the trolls, because that means they *had* to die, in *punishment*. I disagree. Their deaths are tragic, not just.

Homestuck has a lot of methods of revival, the choice to (for the most part) perma-kill some characters (the trolls for one, and then AR, WQ, and WK) is a deliberate choice to make death mean something. If dying doesn’t mean anything, what are the narrative stakes? Murderstuck marks Gamzee as a threat, Eridan as a tragedy. The deaths there are meant. To be sad. To demonstrate that sometimes kids don’t get to grow up, that sometimes the society they live in cuts them down.

Homestuck is a sad story at times! It doesn’t need an ending where everyone gets to live to keep its coming-of-age conclusion.

I hope this made sense. I’m not trying to attack you, I’m just skeptical of some of your points. I hope you go on to do more analysis in the future!

If you want to believe that, go ahead 👍 again, arguing my points on that front would require its own entire essay, lol, so I'm not really planning to do that as the answer to an ask. The only thing I really want to say here is that while Homestuck is often sad, as you say, its underlying tone is unwaveringly hopeful right up until Game Over/the Retcon, and even kind of beyond that. If you prefer a sad story, then you can have a sad story, but it's just not a reading consistent (to me) with the entire rest of what Homestuck is.

For example, the whole narrative grapples with the debate of predestination vs. free will. Do things happen in Homestuck because they have to, or because characters are making choices? But with the introduction of John's retcon powers, it lands firmly in the "free will" side of the debate: the retcon powers outright defy the power of stable time loops - a reflection of how Breath is associated with freedom and choice. This is the optimistic option.

Another thing the narrative grapples with is the realness vs. fakeness of magic. I don't think it's hard to argue that between LE's "evil wizard" status and Godtier!Calliope's wand-induced black hole that the arrow falls firmly in the realm of magic being undeniably real. This is the optimistic option (and yet another narrative element that Eridan is extremely relevant to).

Moreover, even post-Retcon, there are elements that are kept that soften the tragedy already present in the story - for example, the concept of the Ultimate Self, and the implication that all surviving characters will eventually achieve it, takes the edge off all their doomed and dead counterparts, who won't actually be relegated to double death in the dream bubbles, since in a way, they'll live on through their alpha counterparts. It turns those sacrifices from bitter to bittersweet, and serves as a counterpoint to common takes like John being sad that he doesn't know the version of his friends that exist post-Retcon. The inclusion of it in the post-Retcon story, even with its botched delivery, says to me that Homestuck is still intended to be optimistic at its core, even with the extreme Giving Up that Hussie did.

And let's not forget how Calliope gets to come back to life, no strings attached, and that her stated purpose is only to live. Up to the end, the tone is that of HOPE, and I think there's no mistake that HOPE is supposed to be what defeats LE.

As I said in replies on that post, as an artist, I just can't imagine spending literal years, and literally a million words and thousands of images, writing something that's so thematically and tonally consistent, only to hard swerve right at the end, without extenuating circumstances.

And the thing is, there WERE extenuating circumstances, and they're fairly well-documented.

The kickstarter got funded, and while the story is muddled, we know the production of the game was extremely troubled, and Hussie was having difficulty being a project lead for that while also grappling with everything else. Everything else being, of course, an ever-increasing number of irons in the fire - more third-party artists he had to commission and manage, more merchandise he had to be on top of, bigger updates to sate the demands of the fanbase.

Which, speaking of, was infamously one of the most awful and toxic fanbases to ever exist, and one that Hussie has deliberately attempted to distance himself from since. I can't imagine the kind of daily abuse, harassment, callouts, and worse that Hussie had to endure as Homestuck's creator during the fandom's peak years. I don't blame him at all for turning against them.

Therefore, given the way the tone and themes hard swerve, the way several characters get bent entirely out of shape (you're telling me Karkat had several means before him of bringing his dead friends back and WOULDN'T SAY ANYTHING???), the way several plot threads are simply left dangling in the air, and the way some characters reach really weird and unpleasant conclusions (davepeta, gcatavrosprite), I think it's actually LESS reasonable to assume that the ending we got was the original plan. Hussie saw that to do the ending he wanted to do back in act 4, he'd need to write for a year, maybe two years more, and then looked at his mounting stress and pressure, and looked at the fanbase he'd come to hate, and just went "nope." And I can't even really blame him for it, lol. In his position I'd probably do the same.

Also, please don't mistake "the deaths are undone" for "the deaths will not have mattered" - I think there's a reason that the game over timeline characters still exist post-Retcon. Their arcs don't end with their deaths, and their failures are weights on them that must be narratively resolved - I believe that they go on to be the ones to defeat LE, although I have much less evidence to support this. It just makes narrative sense to me - the post-retcon team focuses down the Felt, various Jack Noirs, and the Condesce - the latter of which is their final boss, as the ultimate representation of the shitty society they're doing away with on their path to creating a new one.

Meanwhile, the dead and "irrelevant" versions of the characters, the ones who grappled with and were harmed the most by what LE represents - immaturity, selfishness, and cruelty - go on to band together after death, and defeat him in the bubbles, a culmination of their vengeance for the havoc he wreaked. And with him being destroyed in the bubbles by the dead and irrelevant, symbolically, he will be rendered nothing more than a bad dream for the waking, relevant, and alive.

Thus Gamzee is still an antagonist, although it becomes (Gamzee) and (Equius) who go on to form LE. Those deaths and those failures still matter, they still happen, they still have narrative weight. Even without the Game Over versions of the characters still existing and still being important, the decision to welcome antagonists like Gamzee and Eridan back into the fold is rendered more complex and more significant BECAUSE we've seen how badly they can go.

The speech originally given by post-Retcon Vriska to (Vriska) is also, to me, a weird artifact of this hypothetical original ending - as it exists within the actual comic, it's said by the wrong person to the wrong person - Vriska with her character development reset to a (Vriska) who's had her characterization destroyed in order to make the first Vriska seem more right. I think originally, it would've come from (Karkat) to Meenah, the latter of which being the one whose idea it was to fuck off with the treasure, and who caused the Beforus team's worst problems, and who has a track record of fucking off whenever she's tasked with taking responsibility. Thus, it would serve as a conclusion to Meenah and Karkat's arc, as well as Game Over Sadkat's arc specifically, would convince Vriska to go with him, and would give Meenah some narrative commeuppance, which would kickstart some sort of Beforan troll feelings jam that would rally them together to actually be useful for once in their lives/afterlives and contribute to the LE fight.

Again, if you PREFER the sad ending, I can't stop you, but the reason I'm going in on there being an "original ending" that isn't sad is because the sad ending doesn't make narrative sense. Why is the ultimate self speech coming from a combination of two characters that barely spoke? Why is it triumphant that Meenah and character-development-reset Vriska get to be the big goods in the fight with LE? Why do multiple prophecies suddenly get dropped right at the end when all other prophecies DO come true? Why does Karkat spend so long being sad his friends are dead, and also why is he deliberately set up as the Friends Troll (blood = bonds), and then suddenly not care that multiple methods exist for bringing back his friends? Why bother softening the blow of all the dead/irrelevant alternate selves if they're intended to be fully tragic? Why introduce a mechanic that would let them save whoever they want consequence-free and then not use it to do that? Why does Roxy love wizards so much and then not get to meet the wizard boy? Why is the entire rest of Homestuck so carefully crafted, so narratively satisfying, so thematically and tonally consistent, and then all of it goes to shit right at the end?

So yeah lol this is the SHORT version lol this isnt even the LONG version of this essay

[pumpkinsplots]

Writeblr Intro

Hello, writeblr! I finally caved and got tumblr, mostly because I love rambling about my wips and hearing other people ramble about theirs and all of that lovely stuff, so this seemed like a great platform to do that. With that being said, I plan on posting about my wips and ocs, as well as art related to those things, so if that interests you at all, I’d love to see you stick around. Also feel free to call me either Pumpkin or Maria, it’s entirely up to you!

About my writing

I’ve found that I really enjoy writing in a variety of genres, so hopefully at least one of my wips will tickle your fancy. Though I’d say a common thing for me is that I really like to world build, so my wips tend to be sci-fi, fantasy, or magical realism of some variety. Anything where I can put my own spin on the setting is something I’m bound to enjoy writing about.

I write in third person, usually with multiple povs, and I really enjoy character driven stories.

I often like to have a wide variety of ages in the cast, and if I had to pick a favorite trope it would be found family, so that’s usually present to some degree in my stuff.

Tonally, I always include light-hearted moments here and there, even if the wip is very bleak. It provides some levity, and I think it makes the painful stuff hit a lot harder. This is probably partially why I put some thought into each character’s sense of humor.

Most of my wips are geared towards older teens and adults, but I’ll get more into content warnings when I talk about each individually, because it really varies.

I’m one of those writers that kills off a lot of characters, so this is your warning not to get attached /j

I’m demisexual, so at least one character being on the ace spectrum is like a requirement for me at this point.

I’m a plantser, and pretty bad at staying motivated to actually finish first drafts.

About my wips

Falling Up

Falling Up is a sci-if story set in the future where Earth is a utopia where inhabitants experience little to no hardships throughout their lives. The deceased are replaced with AI created to replicate them, and everything is automated to the point where people no longer need to work to make a living. This lack of struggle results in dull, perfect lives and skewed morals. The people crave entertainment, even if it means making others suffer for it. Quasdom, a miniature man made planet initially intended to be used to separate deviants from the rest of the perfect society, is used as a catalyst for entertainment. The people of Quasdom believe that those on Earth are superior to them, and that Earth is a place where any wish can come true. This leads to the tourney, a death game between groups of ten on Quasdom, being viewed similarly to winning the lottery. The winning team gets to go to Earth, after all. Being chosen for the tourney is the luckiest thing that can happen to you. There’s no hard feelings between participants, death is completely painless, and the afterlife will welcome any participants to a better life than they previously had. There’s nothing to fear, so smile and put on a show.

A large cast and lots of character deaths

An exploration of why we get so attached to fictional characters, and how fiction can have an impact on reality

Probably going to be a trilogy

Content warnings include language, some unsettling themes, depictions of mental health issues, and generally things that are more psychological. Despite it being a death game, there’s no gore, like at all. The people on Earth may be desensitized, but they aren’t accustomed to seeing blood, so the tourney is designed with that in mind

Facade

Facade is set in a world where the living world and the spirit world coexist. Due to some actions by the main antagonist, about 20 years prior to the current story, spirits started getting aggressive and sort of going haywire. They possess any person they can, turning the individual into an uncontrollable killing machine. The best defense to this was the invention of a certain kind of mask that prevents possession, and masks quickly became widespread. Since there’s no known way to reverse spiritual possession, the only solution is to kill those that are unfortunate enough to meet that fate. A group led by an anonymous vigilante known as K9 seek to find a way to reverse possession. Many enemies are made along the way, and there are countless obstacles to face.

Its setting is based on Singapore and set in the 90s, though there are many creative liberties taken

The wip is currently pretty no plot just vibes

Themes about individuality vs equality

Content warnings include language and some sexual content

Facade: After Dark

While Facade is currently no plot just vibes, developing the characters led to me thinking of the plot for a prequel. Is it a self-indulgent novella about two of the characters I love? Yes, absolutely. In summary, it’s a romance novella about the the relationship of Leijing and Iris, and their struggles in navigating the wild world of Facade. They have vastly different upbringings and experiences, but their differences bring them together in more ways than one.

I have so much backstory for this pre-established couple and I couldn’t think of a good way to incorporate it into the main story without cutting a bunch of it, so boom it’s a prequel now

I’ve found that working on a wip that’s more low stakes and simple is really fun—I tend to get stressed about my more ambitious plots, so this wip is a great change of pace

Leijing is demisexual with little interest in anything sex related and Iris is an omnisexual sex worker, and the story explores how a world obsessed with all things sex can effect both more sex-negative and sex-positive people

Content warnings include language, explicit sexual content, and potentially triggering subject matters. This is my only wip where it’s strictly 18+!

Lights Out

Sunlight is the essence of life. Without it, the world would wither away. However, a dangerous new life form of unknown origin festers in the light. With long, elegant glimmering limbs, high intelligence, picturesque precision, and a craving for flesh, these organisms pose a major threat to humanity. But for some odd reason, these creatures refuse to step into any area where the sun doesn’t touch. Much of humanity takes to the shadows, building elaborate underground tunnels for civilizations and doing what humans do best—using their resources and ingenuity to adapt.

Has two protagonists that butt heads but start to develop a father daughter dynamic. A young adult girl who’s from the underground and unknowingly part of a cult, and an older man with one leg who’s so stubborn he’d rather fight and die than flee to the darkness

Lots of creepy cult imagery and themes about religious trauma

So much banter of course

Content warnings include language, disturbing imagery, and gore

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading! Asks, comments, tag games, and messages are always appreciated, and I’d love to hear about your wips as well!

[mrghostrat]

I remember you posting a blurred gif of the outline of atws, so if you don't mind me asking, how do you do that? Like, get the outline onto paper and not just scenes in your head. That's something I've always struggled with, because it's hard to write without an outline, but hard to do the outline when I don't have a first draft? I'm not sure how to explain it so I hope this makes any sense at all lmao

ahh so fair! some people just don't operate that way and you gotta do what's best for your brain. no point exhausting all your energy trying to squeeze into a "standard writing process" that'll make writing even more difficult for yourself.

under the cut, i'm going to explain my writing process every step of the way, using scenes of ATWS. i hope it helps in some way? i don't think it's anything special, but this is just how i write to appease my adhd.

first, this might help: i once used storyplanner.com when i didn't know how to even start a story and i loved it. it's a great tool that can hold your hand every step of the way, or just prompt you to think on your own. there's over 20 planners that ask different questions like "what's your character's major flaw?" "what's the inciting incident?" "what outside elements hinder the character?" etc that will present you with a complete story structure when you're done with it.

ok, now, how i write:

as for the post in reference, that's the 2nd stage of my writing process. i get carried away with tangents and hone in on details, so i plan in dot points to try and force myself to keep it simple and stay zoomed out.

i just write what happens in chronological order, and if i have an idea for a later scene (or something that i just want to happen, but don't know when/where/how), i note that in a separate document that i can refer to while i plan. this also allows me to gloss over vague sections to keep my writing flow going.

stage 1:

i've started using Notion's "toggle list" feature to minimise the less important parts of a scene and keep myself focused on the overarching plot during this stage. this is what the first point looks like:

i go beat by beat, essentially amounting to an elevator pitch for each stage of my story. "crowley and aziraphale are streamer roommates" + "people start to notice they each live with someone and the speculation starts" + "crowley and aziraphale interact on twitch" + "they attend the edinburgh meetup" etc.

i finish a story before i move on from this stage. i won't start writing something in earnest until i know how it ends.

stage 2:

this is what you saw in my gif, and why that page was so long. that's every scene i'm going to write in the story.

sometimes i jump straight from stage 1 to writing, but ATWS required a lot more figuring out before i started any kind of prose. here i'm basically noting down the details of what each scene is, the brunt of what's happening. this is when i have to figure out those "vague sections" i glossed over earlier.

it's still just intended to be a rough outline so i know where the characters are and what's moving their relationship along. most of these dot points are short because i've already thought about them a thousand times, and may have more details noted down in a different document.

meanwhile some of them i'm planning out the scene as i'm dotting it, making not of dialogue that i want to include.

stage 3: my bracket method

i only use this stage when i'm struggling to write and need to baby step into it. this is my "bracket method" in which i write the scene without, like... caring? some people may consider this "double handling" which may drive you mad, but it's the most helpful thing i've ever done for my process.

i switch tenses, i write how i chat (no capitals etc) and just word vomit the scene without focusing on prose. ATWS came quite easily at first, and i didn't need to use stage 3 until i got to chapter 4 and hadn't written in a few days.

stage 4:

this is writing the actual prose, but i wanted to include it so you can see the differences, to help better understand my notes/planning/outlining stages:

and this is what a scene looks like with stage three bridging the gap:

[holmesxwatson]

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes dir: Billy Wilder, 1970

I only watched The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes for the first time a few days ago but it lights my brain up in that special way that I know I’ll revisit it a lot. Don’t get me wrong, it’s far from perfect, for one thing Colin Blakely’s Watson is a little too shouty for me, but it’s very worthwhile to check out despite its shortcomings, which I think mostly come from the fact that so much was cut from the intended script.

I absolutely love Robert Stephens as Holmes. His face is so good, he has a way of looking at Watson when he doesn’t know he’s being observed that is very soft. I thought I was hallucinating the beginning of this movie with Holmes telling the ballet dancer he’s gay and in a relationship with Watson. I thought it was going to be played for a joke, and it was a bit, but it didn’t just end there. Holmes and Watson have a conversation about the repercussions in a lengthy scene that turns very serious by the end. I can’t believe this was 1970 and no one has since tried to build on this specific dynamic in a more meaningful way. Someone needs to remake this into a mini-series exactly how Billy Wilder intended it to be, here’s hoping public domain can make it so.

[above: script page from the cut story The Curious Case of the Upside Down Room, where Watson creates a fake case to make Holmes feel better]

Also, the backstory of the making of this film is so out of control: Robert Stephens’s nervous breakdown and suicide attempt during the production, the amount of years Billy Wilder was trying to write it and get it made, the interference of ACD’s son, the Loch Ness monster prop that the crew lost in actual Loch Ness, the immense scope of the episodic story they were going for, the way it got cut down from its original 3 hour 45 minute runtime and how that cut footage was lost forever! (this is crazy! everyone go check your attics and storage lockers right now).

In one of the interviews I found, Robert Stephens says “if something is boring — if it’s three minutes long it’s too long, but if it’s interesting it’s never long enough…you don’t want it to end.” Big same Toby Stephens’ dad, big SAME. I didn’t want it to end. I read the uncut script and I am just floored at what we missed out on. Thankfully some footage and audio remain of some of the cut scenes (but still! check your basements too).

Just fully let it settle into your brain that they filmed all of these stories in the script, and then cut most of it away. Like that is mind-blowing to me, it existed at one point as it was fully intended to be. If this was made now during home entertainment times, they would have no problem releasing an almost four-hour movie, but at the very least there would be a big director’s cut dvd release and we would be enjoying all the small Holmes x Watson moments we deserve.

Anyway, in pretty short order I found a bunch of interesting links to stuff, details below. I also consulted my very well-thumbed Conversations with Wilder book by Cameron Crowe, but there wasn’t that much more information in there. I have Robert Stephens’ memoir Knight Errant and the TPLOSH blu-ray on order so I’ll add to this post if I find any more good resources. Let me know if I’m missing anything, and enjoy!

Full movie on YouTube (x) <-update: this link went private, but it's also streaming for free on Tubi and Freevee, and available to rent on YouTube, Google Play, and Apple TV

Original roadshow draft of script on Internet Archive (x)

Missing footage: Prologue [sound only plus stills] (x), The Curious Case of the Upside Down Room [sound only plus stills] (x), The Dreadful Business of the Naked Honeymooners [footage and soundtrack only, no sound dialogue] (x), alternate ending [sound only] (x)

Making of documentary that includes behind-the-scenes snippets of some of the cut scenes [this doc is in German, but you can turn on the auto-translate to English in the YouTube settings] (x)

Interview with Ernst Walter, film editor of TPLOSH (x)

Interview with Christopher Lee “Mr. Holmes, Mr. Wilder” 2003 (x)

My YouTube playlist with all of the above links in one place plus an excellent fan vid by Just Bee that I added to the list because it’s just so good (x)

Missing Movies: A Case for Sherlock Holmes from 1994 BBC Radio 2 on Soundcloud [includes interview with Robert Stephens and folks involved in the production] (x)

Articles about the lost Loch Ness monster prop (x) (x)

The soundtrack by Miklós Rózsa (x)

[outofangband]

Textual significance of Morwen being accused of witchcraft

Aka the essay draft I’m posting earlier than I should be because I wanted to post this on my birthday

my tag for this topic is word ran among them where there are way too many posts. I’ve written at length about the implications in universe and real life connotations but here are some thoughts on why Tolkien chose to include this detail in The Silmarillion and The Children of Húrin

This is my first draft of this, written as bullet points. I’m going to make a more essay style version with more sources. Pretty much all of these I have posts about, and as I said, I’m very fixated on this topic so I’m definitely looking forward to elaborating a lot of this

I actually have studied the history of witchcraft accusations and their sociopolitical contexts for years and I’m so happy it’s going to such great cause :/

cw: discussion of misogyny both in universe and historical

It’s also worth mentioning that while these accusations didn’t exist in the very first drafts of The Children of Húrin, such as the book of lost tales version, they exist in pretty much every version that Morwen herself exists in as Morwen (that is, not in the book of lost tales versions or versions of The Lay where her name is different)

-It makes Morwen’s situation precarious when her survival is needed for the plot and the doom; she’s hated and feared and shunned but not directly attacked due to that fear. She’s alive but in danger, poverty and isolation.

It also puts the reader in fear for her. Good things do not happen to women who are accused of witchcraft

Witch hunts and witch trials are events that bring cruelty, paranoia and betrayal. The invoking of this adds to the bleak atmosphere of post Nírnaeth Hithlum. The phrasing, “word among them” or rumor ran among them, depending on the version , adds to this atmosphere of paranoia and whispers, and not knowing who to trust.

-It highlights the regressive beliefs of her accusers*. and emphasizes certain aspects of Morwen’s character. Morwen is very clearly not a witch. She is however a severe and intelligent woman who canonically challenges the men around her.

She’s also presumed to be a widow. Historically, especially when women were thought to be the property of their husbands, it has often been unmarried women and widows who were persecuted as witches*

The exact reasons given in the text are somewhat vague. “But so great was the beauty and majesty of the Lady of Dor-lómin that the incomers were afraid and whispered among themselves that she was perilous and a witch skilled in magic”, “proud and fair as a queen she was…Witchwife they called her and shunned her”. These descriptions alongside other descriptions of Morwen’s personality and countenance can easily track with commonalities among women who have historically been accused; she is fiercely independent, blunt in her words and proud.

“These were women given to speaking out, to a bold tongue and independent spirit. It is no surprise that such unwelcome, even feared speech, could be mistaken for wicked enchantment”Mona Chollet wrote in a recent nonfiction book on the history and legacy of witch hunts.

-Morwen specifically being related to the elves (“he had thought that he looked in the fell eyes of an elf”, “word ran among them that she was perilous and a witch who had dealings with the elves”, “Witchwife it is but elf friend in the new language”) also is used to show how deeply Melkor has managed to turn human and elven populations against each other

I cannot say if Tolkien intended this but this aspect mirrors a common theme in witch hunts historically. I talked about this before but many if not most accused women were accused of either obtaining their alleged powers through communion with non humans or otherwise engaged with them.

I have…way too many posts about this specific connection

-I also definitely want to do more about what exactly the lore is for witches in first age Beleriand, what it’s believed they are and what it’s believed they can do

-Morwen being feared by the occupiers mean that she is largely left alone by them. She’s still suffering, we know there were times that she and Niënor nearly starved, and its implied she faces harassment and intimidation but despite the doom on Húrin’s family, she is able to resist being driven from Hithlum for decades.

Morgoth canonically sews dissent, mistrust and prejudice. The prejudice of the occupiers here has the potential to interfere with Morgoth wanting to use Húrin’s family to hurt him. This fits neatly into Tolkien’s themes of evil hindering itself.

-It highlights her as a cultural outsider. It is specifically Morwen, a refugee and exile who is accused of having sinister powers and alliances with an enemy. I think this is especially interesting because, in the earlier version of The Children of Húrin, the occupiers were comprised largely of men from Hithlum

-It adds to the power of her character and makes parallels with other confrontations and struggles with villains that members of her family have. It’s easy to parallel for example the lines about Húrin not being daunted by Morgoth’s eyes or Niënor staring down Glaurung with the encounter between Morwen and Brodda. And while it is true that he might not be quite as powerful or dangerous as Morgoth or Glaurung, if he kills or hurts her, she’s going to be just as dead or traumatized as she would be if he were a god or dragon. Her courage is extraordinarily powerful and harrowing. Does this make sense?

Anyways happy birthday to me, thank you for reading all of this and for your patience with my rambling which I have done so much of on this topic and will continue to do more of

End note: I wanted to add another note about how the position Morwen is in can also be used to show Aerin’s bravery in helping her; Aerin takes great risks to help her people and the danger she faces for her aid to Morwen is even more extreme; she faces extreme physical abuse for it. But I have several posts about this already and I think it deserves its own post

Sources

Fearless Wives and Frightened Shrews: The Construction of the Witch in Early Modern Germany

Mona Chalet, Stacy Schift

[goattypegirl]

Strictly speaking, the Vahi should have never existed. While drafting safeguards for the Great Spirit Robot, a small group of Great Beings proposed a ridiculous idea. At this point, manipulating physical space was trivial. Why not try their hands at altering time? A conditional, localized chronal knot, a way to turn back the clock, for the absolute worst case scenarios.

Just ridiculous, really. Crafting the mask for the Ignition failsafe already pushed the boundaries of the Great Being's abilities, and resulted in the loss of one of their own. The actual forging of the mask could theoretically- theoretically- be done by a construct within the GSR, but it would still require a metatemporal intelligence which could detect critical threats to the GSR, and then somehow bring about its own creation and subsequent non-creation. "Metatemporal intelligence". Ridiculous. How could they even create one? The plan was doomed from the start.

Unless, they found one that already existed.

Unless, they found one that always existed.

They said it was Destiny. Though, the more apt term would be Predestination.

Within the Matoran universe, great importance was placed on the study and recording of history. Matoran long term memories only extend a few hundred years back, and stress or trauma can induce amnesia. Ways of recording history were vital to communities, such as archives, libraries, and of course, Chroniclers. History was even considered sacred; Destiny was said to be history that hasn't happened yet. It is no wonder that Time was named a legendary element.

The Mask of Time was a common myth amongst mask makers, a white whale. Ambitious upstarts and experienced masters have all tried their hand at it, though few ever go further than a few sketched drafts. But, everyone seemed to know a guy who knew a guy who got really really close, they promise.

Chroniclers have noted that stories about the Mask of Time and attempts to make it seem to coincide with periods of upheaval, such as the conquest of the Six Kingdoms, or the Metru Civil War and Great Disruption. An interesting coincidence. Some point to political and socioeconomic factors, others to Destiny.

Though, the more apt term would be Predestination.

It is unknown, unknowable, how many times the Vahi has been forged, how many times it had been weilded, how many times the clock has turned back. It is unknown, unknowable, how many times Vakama has forged the Vahi, how many times he weilded it, and how many times he turned back the clock.

What is known is that, strictly speaking, the Vahi should not exist. The Great Cataclysm should have never happened. The Vahi should have prevented it, and its own creation. However, the fact that the GSR did not burn in Aqua Magna's atmosphere, nor destroy the planetoid itself, nor lead to a total extinction event within the GSR, points to the Vahi working as intended.

The team who initially proposed the Vahi are... unavailable to be consulted. The remaining Great Beings on post-reformstion Spherus Magna are left wondering. Why did the GSR still crash? Why has the timeline not been rewritten? Why is the Vahi still physically on the planet?

What do you mean the Vahi is still physically on the planet?

[aristidetwain]

“Legends of Earth”: The 2020s “Doctor Who” Anthology Which Never Was

Something very special today. Usually, when it comes to the production history of more or less Doctor Who-related fiction, I natter about the obscure and deuterocanonical — but did you know that around Summer 2020, Emil Fortune was working on creating an anthology of Doctor Who short stories riffing on “Myths & Legends” of Earth, whose title eventually settled as Doctor Who: Legends of Earth?

Due to the poor sales with which DWU books increasingly became saddled during the Chibnall era, it was ultimately canned. Had it happened, it would have constituted a rare case of an official Doctor Who book in the ear of NuWho opening up pitching calls to first-time writers, with the point of the book having been to reach out to beginning writers from outside the UK, to write about elements of their native cultures in particular.

As another reliable source explained: “It sounded really really cool, and [Emil] was trying so hard to do it right. Reaching out to all the right people. Getting totally new voices in. It would've been amazing.”

Perhaps more pitches will become known in time; for the time being, I have only been able to track down one of the prospective writers, S. Brennan, who submitted two pitches related to Irish folklore — archived here after the cut with permission.

(I was actually meant to do this months and months ago — my heartfelt apologies to S. for letting it slip through the cracks.)

Coat of Charms

S. Brennan's first suggestion was a Sixth Doctor story riffing on St. Bridget of Kildare.

The pitch was developed further after this initial offer, with it being confirmed to Brennan that an extended-universe companion such as Evelyn unfortunately could not be used for this project, and would have to be replaced with a TV companion.

With Coat of Charms eventually proving difficult to develop into something which fit the intended tone of the book, they pushed onwards with another pitch, this one featuring an even more prominent figure from Irish folklore.

The Way of Battle

Per S. Brennan's connection, however, this pitch was never discussed further, with them assuming that the book had already been “canned” by then.

A sad end to what would have been one of the most interesting offerings of the BBC-licensed EU of the 2020s. The only silver lining is that no exclusivity contracts or NDAs had been signed with prospective writers — meaning that those lost stories can be discussed, and perhaps brought into being through some other medium, whether it be something like BF's Lost Stories range (it would certainly beat scraping through Terry Nation's drawers for first drafts) or beyond the aegis of the BBC altogether.

At any rate, if anyone reading this post has more information on Legends of Earth and related stories-that-might-have-been, please get in touch!

[cutestkilla]

An ask game for writers to procrastinate working on your WIP(s)

Thanks for tagging me @theearlgreymage @wellbelesbian @shrekgogurt @orange-peony @bookish-bogwitch @aristocratic-otter @youarenevertooold and @thewholelemon!

1. 🦈Tell us the name of your/ one of your WIP(s):

The only WIP I’m really actively working on right now is Hiding Out in the Open.

2. 🍄Describe your WIP/one of your WIP(s) in the format of “___ + ___ =___”

Psychology Podcast Hidden Brain + AU where Simon and Baz never got together but Simon still lost his magic and got spelled by Smith = Non-linear AWTWB-era Baz negging Simon with podcast links but actually secretly being sweet the whole time until they’re having real conversations and like, excavating some trauma until Simon figures himself out (or does he?) (He does, I’m not a monster.)

(I needed more terms for this equation, a few higher powers maybe.)

3. 🌍What tags or warnings will one of your WIP(s) need if you intend to share it?

Well, so far I’ve warned for anxiety/panic attacks, implied/referenced child abuse, mentions of cannibalism, mentions of eating bugs, AND mentions of animal cruelty. SOUNDS FUN RIGHT?

4. 🧭An alternative title to one of your WIP(s)?

So this fic is titled after a Feist song. The alternate title was a combination of a Ron Sexmith song that Feist did a great cover of and the name of the fictional podcast in my story:

Secret Heart, Invisible Mind

5. ⚠️Which WIP you're most likely to finish or update next?

Oh, it’ll be this one for sure! I have nothing else even approaching any kind of written state.

6. 💾What is your document of your WIP/ a WIP called? (not the stories actual title but what you’ve saved it as)

Well, it’s just titled after the fic. But before I had a title and was just dreaming things up, I had a doc titled “Hidden Brainstorms”. There’s also a doc in the folder for this titled “Enemies Closer” that’s filled with research I did for an episode I have to invent…

7. 🖍Post Any sentence(s) from your WIP.

“You stood him up? What the hell Basil? I cancelled my plans for this.”

8. ♻️A scrapped idea for your current WIP.

Okay so I am an idea hoarder, I rarely fully scrap an idea until I’m done writing a story, I just park them all in a dumping ground at the end of my doc for ongoing review. But one for sure scrapped idea I had for this back in the start was that Shep would co-host a podcast at some point in this story.

9. 🤔What’s a story you’d love to write but haven’t even started yet?

Welllllllll, I may have an entire (shared) Trello board for a fic that @artsyunderstudy and I have been excitedly talking about co-writing. I won't say much but it’s a Canonverse AU, featuring older strangers-to-lovers Snowbaz, and it’s a ghost story. Your basic SPOOKY SEXY SAD CATHARSIS type of deal.

10. 🤡How many WIPS are you actively working on?

Actively? One. Two if you count the Trello board which I periodically add ideas to. Three if you count the Wedding fic draft I have 20K written for and could start writing on again at ANY MOMENT.

11. 🛠Is there a scene or anything in the WIP you are struggling with right now?

Well, I’m about to be struggling with writing the scene where Baz listens to the podcast episode I have to completely invent. I have a full first rough pass at this chapter done, except that part where I just copy pasted a bunch of research notes to come back to…

12. ❤️Not a question, just a second Kudos to send.

🙏YOU get a kudos, and YOU get a kudos, and YOU get a kudos!

Tags in case you wanna: @artsyunderstudy @hushed-chorus @ivelovedhimthroughworse @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @fatalfangirl @facewithoutheart @skeedelvee @emeryhall @mooncello @monbons @angelsfalling16 @larkral @chen-chen-chen-again-chen @run-for-chamo-miles @brilla-brilla-estrellita @best--dress @onepintobean @martsonmars @messofthejess @ileadacharmedlife @urban-sith

[cosmerelists]

AITA Posts on Roshar: Part 2

[You can find Part 1 here!]

Once again, we are imagining that the Reddit forum “Am I The Asshole” exists on Roshar, and that the main characters from Stormlight like to post on it. What might those posts look like?

1. AITA for talking about poop on a first date?

I really need help here, Reddit. I (LE/M/24) am not good with women--well, I’m very good at flirting with them and getting dates, but I am NOT good with keeping them. I’ve never had a relationship last longer than a few months, and my dad is always me grief about it. In fact, it got to the point where my cousin arranged a casual for me with a woman (LE/F/17) I’ve never met. So I’m engaged now! But it is only a casual, and if this woman does not like me, the engagement isn’t going to last. I’m lowkey stressed about this, because she’s really pretty and really smart and I think I like her a lot.

Okay but to get to the actual situation. I arranged a sort of first date with the woman I’m engaged to (I’ll call her S) at this wine house. Classic, right? And I was telling her about all of my heroic battles and stuff, like you do, and she seemed to be pretty into it. But then suddenly S interrupted my battle story to ask me how I, well, poop while wearing shardplate. So that’s the first thing--she brought up the poop thing first! So I answered, of course, since she asked, but then she was asking MORE poop-related questions, and I ended up admitting that yes, I have shat myself in Shardplate on multiple occasions. My shard-plate wearing bros know what I’m talking about.

Anyway, weirdly, I felt like the date went well?? But later I was telling people about it, and they all said I DEFINITELY messed up because no woman wants a man to talk about poop on a first date.

Plz help. I really like her. AITA? Should I apologize?

2. AITA for wanting to destroy evil?

Humans are so weird about it! I’m a sword (NE/NG/1000) that was literally created to destroy evil! But every time I destroy evil, people say things like “Oh god the bodies” or “please stop trying to eat my soul” or “I am going to lock you in a closet. You are a menace.” What gives? AITA? 

3. AITA for being against murder?

In before “but we’re at war.” I know we’re at war. When isn’t there a war? The fact of the matter is--violence is never the answer. You can’t save someone through killing. I know--I am a surgeon (oh right--DE/M/50), so my business is saving people.

I have one son (DE/M/20) (my other son died). I raised him to be a surgeon, and he was really good at it. And before anyone says “why did you force your son to be like you,” I didn’t FORCE him. He wanted to be a surgeon. But he ended up being drafted into war, and then he never came home. Well he did, technically. But it wasn’t him. It was a murderer.

He is ALWAYS killing people. He says he’s a soldier now, and not only does he keep killing people, but he keeps killing people in front of me! We’re occupied right now, and the other day, some of the enemy soldiers came to my surgery and wanted to move some of the unconscious patients. Just move them. No evidence that they intended them harm. But my son FREAKED out and MURDERED the solider who came to take the patients! Just straight up murdered him! In a place of healing! And when I told him this was NOT okay, he grabbed his unconscious friend (who definitely needs medical care) and ran away. And now nobody knows where he is.

My wife is pissed at me. I can tell she thinks I drove away our son. But AITA for not wanting my son to be a murderer??

4. AITA for saving my friend?

I (DE/M/20) am a soldier in an occupied city. I’m also one of the radiants, and almost all of the other radiants in the city have fallen mysteriously unconscious. My dad is a doctor, and he’s been watching over them. Only my dad doesn’t believe in resisting occupation; he’s a pacifist--like, an extreme one. So when the enemy soldiers showed up to take away the unconscious radiants, I resisted. Because I knew what they were going to do with them--they were going to kill them (or worse). Otherwise, they would have just left them there. And one of the unconscious radiants is a dear friend of mine, a man who stuck with me through some of the worst moments of my life, and I wasn’t going to just stand aside and let him be taken. So I fought back. And I managed, barely, to stop them. Then I took my friend and left so that I could hide him and protect him.

But my dad started freaking out about how I had killed someone in a place of healing, and he called me a monster. I’m not saying I’m not a monster. But I think I did the right thing in saving my friend. AITA?

Edit: Wow so apparently people found my dad’s post? 

5. AITA for stealing?

I (LE/F/17) can’t go into too much detail without potentially doxxing myself, so I will have to be vague. My brothers and I had a very rough childhood. We are talking physical abuse, mental abuse, all of it. And now both of our parents are dead, and we’re about to lose everything thanks to some bad decisions our father made. But there is one thing that might save us--there is this woman (a heathen!) who owns an item, and if it were ours instead, it would fix all of our problems. I can’t go into too much detail, so I will call it the thingamajig. 

The thing is, no one knows where the woman got the thingamajig in the first place, and it’s probably not something she should have as a heathen. She doesn’t HAVE to have it--like it isn’t keeping her alive or anything--whereas my brothers and I are in fact doomed if we don’t get one. So we decided to steal it. It’s not nice and it’s not ethical but sometimes you have to do what you have to do to survive, you know?

And it all sounded good when it was abstract, but the thing is, the woman is actually pretty cool and very pretty and once I got to know her, I didn’t even want to steal from her! But then she did something horrible. Again, I can’t get into detail, but trust me when I say it’s like “haunts your dreams forever oh god the screams” sort of horrible. So I figured--storm it. If she’s going to be terrible, then I’m going to steal from her and I’m going to save my family. So I did.

But tbh the guilt is eating me alive! She STILL hasn’t noticed that the thingamajig is gone unless she HAS noticed and she’s just waiting for me to CRACK under the pressure!

You guys have to help me--AITA?

6. AITA for being stick?

I am a stick. I am not fire. AITA?

[sonkitty]

Crowley S2 Hair Post #9

(For reference: The Sideburns Scheme)

Crowley, Good Omens 2, Episode 1, The Arrival, fragile existence

I heard David Tennant got a BAFTA nomination for his portrayal of Crowley in Good Omens 2! Yay! He did such a good job. Congrats Mr. Tennant! You're awesome!

I don't really have anything else to add, so I am moving on with the rest of the post...

Some images below are brightened as I see fit to help show things better.

...

Sideburns Check

The sideburns are shorter than they were in the previous scene with Gabriel. Their length best matches the length found in the park. That would be short but not quite the intended shortness after driving for enough time.

As noted in the main sideburns post, this reading recognizes Crowley as a supernatural entity but still giving something shorter than longer reading around other angels. Most likely, that's because Crowley and Aziraphale are supernatural friends whose relationship is very similar to human partners.

...

Brighter Red Streak Check

While the previous scene wanted to show the streak more clearly for most of the scene, this one does not. It wants anyone looking to look really hard.

There are a number of places where I think the hair is more red and hesitate. In my previous version of this post, I noted more examples than I will in this version.

The main place where I think there is a streak, it actually moved to the right side of Crowley's head, like it did when he was driving. It's from the cut when he says, "So did I."

The main other place where I thought it might be was the line where he is talking about "exactlys".

In motion without checking frame by frame, and just watching the scene a few times, it looks more plausible on that right side of the head in a few other cuts.

I definitely cannot find a more saturated red streak right before Crowley leaves the room and says, "You're on your own with this one." That's an angle where it can usually be found.

As stated in the last post, my initial streak theory was that the missing streak in that particular cut is a clue that part is Draft #1. It could still be, but I don't know why the streak disappears when it does in other scenes that I don't think are from Draft #1. The pieces don't line up in a way I understand.

...

Hairstyle Changes

Crowley's hair is erratic here, suiting his frustrated mood.

...

The sideburns are shorter than the previous scene with Gabriel. Instead of a tidy collected swoop, he has curls going up from his forehead that actually change how they curl during this scene itself.

When Crowley closes the door, his hair has two visibly thicker curls going down, then curving up toward his left back inward, ending either in the center above his left eye.

When Crowley is thinking they "just take him somewhere and leave him there", the curls go up and out from the center creating a V-like shape.

When Crowley is talking about "exactlys", the curling of his hair above his right eye is going up in and back, much like the hair more centered and above his left eye, instead of parting away from the center of his forehead like the description above. It has a stronger resemblance to the style when he encountered Gabriel than the other styles in this scene. I think Crowley looks best in that particular cut and the ones most similar to it, for the scene.

...

Earthly Objects

(For reference: Earthly Objects)

Crowley touches the door frame on the way in, but his fingers aren't shown. Due to hand mechanics being so complex, I'm not sure what it counts for, regarding earthly objects or thresholds. I tend to assume the threshold-only touches are in the Threshold Tricks with a notable exception being when Crowley agrees to loan the car through how he touches the car's thresholds. At that point, he is allowed to do that because of his actively known but unseen pocket touch, I assume anyway. The audible slap on Aziraphale's hand before such touches on the car thresholds might count for something too.

Well, here Crowley does make a small pocket with his hand, including his thumb, even if digits get blurry as he lets go. So, I would guess it's either an earthly object touch or a null touch.

As noted in a previous post, this time Crowley actually fully crosses a threshold first with Aziraphale close behind him. He generally doesn't lead when it comes to locations outside the bookshop; Aziraphale does. The door isn't closed until Aziraphale has passed by him though, now that I think about it.

As Aziraphale enters, his reflection can be found in a push plate on the door. It's mainly his arm that is most visible though there is technically some of a blurry hand. Aziraphale visibly crosses past Crowley, so this action could be a ridiculously complex assist for whatever is necessary for the Tied Hands. I'm not sure if the Tied Hands need re-tying because if they do, I think the process is being drawn out in some special way until Crowley lets the smoke hit him later with his lightning. They'll do some things shown shortly.

Crowley makes pockets with his arms due to placing his hands on his hips. Admittedly, with the left arm, it is an assumed pocket because I can't find an actual gap showing what is behind him. I just know a pocket is there because of the lighting. Nonetheless, he touches his jacket with his thumb joints. He's very particular about his jacket touches when it comes to pocket trickery, especially the thumb joints. Part of an actual door is visually in the pocket for Crowley's right arm and torso.

The tie strands switch when Crowley closes the door:

I can see his shadow on the door itself. Shadows show up in The Pocket Trick as if to allow leniency through stretching or sharing or some other word I can't place. I suspect shadows are significantly what helps Aziraphale reach for and keep his Green in the Rainbow Connection during The Door Catch.

Getting back to the tie strands, they pop out off Crowley's chest to make a pocket at least twice:

In each of those times, there is something resembling more switching happening.

Crowley makes a pocket with his shoulder, left arm, and left hand when he emphasizes the word "him" for saying Gabriel needs to be nowhere near Crowley. Part of his watch is visible.

Knowing Crowley, the left hand and watch are up to something here too:

The main earthly object touch of the scene is at the end when Aziraphale sits in a chair. For this one, Aziraphale's back actually does touch the chair.

Regarding dialogue, Aziraphale says Crowley's name. Otherwise, there is the name of a place, Dartmoor, and a title for Gabriel with Supreme Archangel of all Heaven. Titles seem to be acceptable as name alternatives. There are several questions, probably most notable of which is, "What does your exactly mean exactly?"

...

Story Commentary

Crowley is only in this room twice during the season and with Aziraphale both times. It is the most private space we see for the two of them though Muriel intrudes in episode 3.

The lighting in this scene favors Crowley's right side, instead of his left. As such, his left sideburn looks to have more hair to increase its fullness compared to other scenes when the lighting favors Crowley's left side.

There are some cuts where a lightning imprint seems to appear in Crowley's forehead. I can sometimes spot it in other cuts during the story too. He'll be shooting out lightning later in the episode.

There are moments where I think Aziraphale sees the lightning imprint too.

Here is a picture. I've indicated these imprints in red rectangles instead of white since his lightning will be red.

...

Crowley emphasizes the word "fragile". When we eventually see Crowley summoned to Hell, I take that particular scene as a way to show his meaning. He'll be there, reluctantly, and having to manage his own movement carefully in the process.

One of Crowley's points in the argument is that Gabriel is not their friend. Other parts of the story imply he and Gabriel were friends or have some further personal history together, so that might be another part of his distraught emotions on display in the scene.

Crowley doesn't bring up the possibility of Gabriel falling, but it is something he himself has experienced so that might be an understated and even unconscious fear.

When Crowley walks past Aziraphale to start to leave, there is a hiss type sound effect. Crowley uses a demonic hiss three times when removing his sunglasses later. Otherwise, he has this hiss when preparing to leave the room in anger and another in episode 3 where he is not angry at all. In episode 3, that hiss seems to mean something more like a friendly, "Follow me."

The red on the back of the collar on Crowley's jacket can be found in this scene more obviously than it usually can:

Even though the room is a private setting, there is a partially open door visible in the background during the scene.

Both characters have understandable views of the situation they've found themselves in, so I'm not particularly in favor of one over the other on their points in the argument.

I have an overall obvious bias for Crowley in general though.

...

That's it for this post. Sometimes I edit my posts, FYI.

The next intended post is very important because game tutorials are on the way! By that, I mean the tutorials are from the story, not me.

...

Main post:

The Sideburns Scheme

...

Past version of this post:

Post #9 (fragile existence)

[arlertdarling]

tldr: i’m cancelling my follower event and moving blogs to @junovie. i’m officially back from my ‘break’ but i can’t promise i’ll be frequently active (at least not as much as i used to be), much less that i’ll be writing/posting new works regularly.

i look forward to catching up with you all !! thank you for your support and understanding <3

full original post under the cut

hello!

you may or may not have noticed that i’ve been quite inactive for the last few months or so.

i’m sorry to everyone who has reached out to me in that time — i’m not ignoring you, i’ve just been logged out of this account and staying away from tumblr in general. i plan on getting back to you all privately and individually, but if you could read this post, just so you have an idea of what’s going on, i would really appreciate it! :)

anyway, i have two announcements to make regarding my blog — not bad, but definitely important changes! i’ve been meaning to make them for a while, but only just found the time and courage to go through with them.

there’s also a more in-depth (albeit rambly) explanation to why and where i’ve been gone after the announcements. it’s a little long, so there’s no pressure to read it all if you don’t want to.

my first announcement is that i’m cancelling my 100+ follower event.

...but you probably all saw that one coming lol

i absolutely intended to complete all the requests regardless of how long it took, but it’s been over 7 months now and i no longer see myself ever getting around to them at this point. i feel awful about it, especially because i was so excited about the event and milestone itself, but i just don’t have the motivation to write the rest anymore.

to be transparent, the main thing that affected and eventually halted my work flow entirely is this weird subconscious self-disciplinary rule i had where i was ‘not allowed’ to write anything until i’d finished my old projects. this isn’t an actual rule obviously, but it prevented me from writing new ideas or enjoying writing on this blog/for tumblr as a whole for months. every time i got inspired to write something, i’d remember that i have these obligatory requests to complete first, that it would be selfish and unfair to ‘ignore’ or not prioritise them, that people will be mad at me for not doing so etc, etc.

i’ve luckily stopped thinking this way now, but that’s why i’ve made this decision. i should write for myself and my enjoyment, first and foremost. it shouldn’t be an obligation. it’s not a commission or contractual assignment, it’s a silly online milestone event that i made and can just as easily discontinue should i want to — so that’s what i’ve chosen to do.

thank you to everyone who participated and/or supported the event, it means a lot to me still, and i’m sorry to those whose requests i didn’t manage to write. even with how much time has passed, i still feel shame and embarrassment about how this all turned out, so your acceptance and understanding would be really appreciated.

my next announcement is that i’m moving blogs.

i’m moving to a new account where i have an interaction/personal main blog (@junovie) and my current nsfw writing sideblog. i might make a new sfw one for my other writing shenanigans, but i haven’t made up my mind about that one yet.

it’s nothing serious, i mostly just want a fresh start. this blog has gotten disorganised and messy, and while some people don’t mind or even like it that way, personally i need structure and organisation in order to stay sane, so my plan is to move to a new blog. as for this blog — i might delete it permanently in the future, but for now, i just intend to archive it.

with the announcements out of the way, i just have a few more things i want to talk about.

i’m currently writing this part of the post in march of 2024, but i’ve been considering these changes since around december of 2023, and started drafting this post in january.

in that time, i’ve been mostly logged out of this account (aside from when i would come to add to this post) and keeping tumblr at arm’s length in general for... no reason in particular really? i know many people have had at least one bad experience or two during their time on tumblr, which may have led to them needing a break, but i’ve honestly been lucky enough to never have encountered anything severe personally.

for the most part, i’ve just been focused on my education. i’m at a stage in my life where i have important decisions to be making, paths and passions i want to be pursuing, responsibilities i need to be taking care of... and in comparison, my time for writing on tumblr has dwindled.

on the other hand, this ‘break’ of sorts, away from tumblr, has helped me realise just how much of my time i had been spending on what is really just another silly little social media app on my silly little phone. that’s not to say the people i’ve met and the feelings i’ve experienced aren’t good, valuable or a part of my life, or that the support i’ve received and joy i’ve shared don’t have worth in the bigger picture, because they are, they do, and i’m grateful for them all!! but in retrospect, there were, and are, more important things in my life that require my time, energy and attention [over writing] and that i should have been prioritising sooner. that’s on me for getting essentially addicted and becoming neglectful, and that’s why i needed to step back like i have.

in some ways, i feel a little guilty, because i feel like, i don’t know... like my sudden ‘hiatus’ should have been as a result of some big, crazy life event, or depression or something. and it kind of was [the latter], at the start, but the truth is it’s the opposite now? like, i’ve just been happier these days... but i don’t think it has anything to do with my break from tumblr, at least not in the sense that it makes me unhappy, or the absence of it improves my mental health or whatever. just in the sense that the time i would have spent scrolling or writing, i’ve now been spending doing other hobbies that make me happy, making connections with real life people, reflecting on and learning to love life and myself. i’m far from being where i want to be and i’m definitely still figuring things out, but i feel like i’m better at dividing my time now, and more capable of being on tumblr without it consuming my life force and every waking thought.

so, i’m going to come back, but i’m making no promises that i’ll be frequently active (at least not as much as i used to be), much less that i’ll be writing/posting new works regularly, especially not requests. i’m here just to have fun, be silly, bond with people over stories and fictional characters — and whatever else i may want in the future — but i never want it to feel like a chore or burden again.

even though i feel bad for basically ghosting everyone in my inbox and being inexplicably MIA for like, 3 months, i don’t regret taking this break. i just hope everyone will understand and respect my decisions and the changes to come.

friends/mutuals are welcome to message me if you’re curious about details or concerned or whatever else, but i’ve probably said enough here to answer any questions lol. i look forward to coming back and catching up with you all.

see you guys soon <3