#which means! love is there it’s out there and it’s findable

[wensvol]

life is what happens to someone else.

lisel mueller / marie howe / chen chen / isabel allende / franz kafka / alice oseman / ryan o’connell / morrissey

[nicolabarth]

Can I know more about the Pirate part of your wips, please? 👀

That one is mostly notes so far. The idea is as follows: Pre TPM Maul gets captured by pirates and they try to get a ransom from Sidious, but Sidious is like: "If he can't get out of there alone, he's not worthy to be my apprentice. Kill him for all I care." So the pirates keep Maul and raise him and he grows up alongside Hondo and he reconnects with his Dathomirian roots and learns some nightsister magic.

I drew pirate Maul once.

And I also wrote a snippet for a picture that @obimaulartfire drew a while ago with belly dancer Maul. Sadly the picture got swallowed by tumblr somehow and is not findable anymore, but here is the flashfic:

“Why do I have to be the distraction, Hondo?”

“Because between the two of us, you’re the pretty one.” Hondo pats Maul’s cheek and makes sure to pull his hand back before the Zabrak can snap at him. Maul tries anyway, but Hondo knows his adopted brother well enough. They’ve grown up together ever since Hondo’s mother had tried to get a ransom for Maul and his master had abandoned him. They’re partners in crime ever since mom died and Hondo took over the pirating business. Well, Hondo and Maul took over together. But obviously, Hondo is the brains of the operation, if he can say so himself.

Since biting failed, Maul settles for glaring at him. “Something is distinctly wrong with your eyes if you think I’m pretty.”

Of course Maul thinks himself the brains of the operation that’s why he uses words like “distinctly” and insist on speaking with his coruscanti accent even though everyone normal would’ve adapted to Hondo’s superior way of speaking by now.

“You really should learn to take a compliment, dear brother,” Hondo says. “And believe me, this Hutt has a type and it’s all bright skin colors and interesting markings. You’re perfect for this job.”

Maul glowers but doesn’t argue any further. “Let’s not waste any more time, then.” When he walks towards their ship, all the jewelry he’s adorned with clinks with every move. Hondo could get used to that. Usually, Maul’s foot steps are way too quiet for his liking. You never get used to a red and black zabrak stepping out of a nearby shadow without warning. Maul loves doing that. It scares the pants off guests most of the time and it has given Hondo a few near heart attacks in the past.

“You can’t kill our target,” Hondo reminds him. “He’s more profitable as a hostage.”

“Yes, I know,” Maul says, annoyed. “Gods forbid I have fun at this mission.”

“Well …” Hondo grins. “I heard a certain Jedi is among the guests. So, if you play your cards right …”

“I don’t know which Jedi you mean,” Maul says coldly. Liar. Hondo has seen him make moon eyes at Kenobi every time they’ve met so far. Or what counts as moon eyes for Maul. It’s his usual glare, just with more intensity and a bit of a hungry edge. Every time Hondo crosses Kenobi’s path, he makes sure to take the Jedi hostage. As a treat for his dear brother. Of course he doesn’t get any thanks from Maul, but he know he appreciates it. Hondo makes sure to give them time to talk alone, too.

Honestly, Maul should be more thankful. For the exceptional job Hondo has done with Maul’s outfit for tonight, too. But that’s little brothers for you.

“Sure,” Hondo says with a grin. “But I heard him say last time that you look good wearing gold.”

Maul scoffs. He throws Hondo a quick glance from the side, though, as if trying to assess if he’s serious. Hondo’s grin grows. “Trust me,” he says. “This evening will be a success in more than one way.”

“Just focus on what we’re going to steal,” Maul says. But he doesn’t complain about being the distraction anymore. And Hondo sees him check his reflection in the cockpit window before they leave their ship after landing near the Hutt palace.

Hondo smiles to himself. He’ll get Maul to thank him later.

[thegrapeandthefig]

The Adeia - a modern festival to Demeter

Historically, it’s often during times of hardships and crisis that new cults would be established and religious innovations would appear. This one is no different. It’s through discussion with @iliosflower that the idea of creating a new festival, one that would more accurately respond to modern problematics, came to fruition. This is what we’d like to explain in this post and hope that the idea finds an echo, and hopefully, validation from the wider community.

Why? What is it supposed to do?

On a global scale, we’re dealing with a climate crisis that is putting food sources at risk. On a more local level, conflicts and abnormal weather are creating risks of bad harvests, resources shortages and/or inflations.

We are aware that not everyone is impacted directly by the current ongoing issues, but we hope that this festival (or at least the idea) can be useful beyond these and be seen through a wider scope of praying for food security at large. 

We named the festival Adeia, from the ancient Greek ἄδεια, which conveniently can signify both “abundance”/”plenty” and “freedom from fear”/”security”. All things the festival aims for.

How? What would the festival entail?

For whom? Demeter Soteira (the saviour) and Herakles Alexikakos (averter of evil). While this is what we thought was appropriate, we gladly encourage additions, especially if it fits your local situation (eg. Poseidon or Zeus could both make logical additions to protect from droughts or other natural disasters that impact food security).

For what? An answer to the needs of current events; fear of food shortages/wheat shortages

Purpose; invoke the Saviour and Averter of Evil, ask for their continued blessings for plentiful food in the home for you and your loved ones, thanking them for past blessings, ask them to watch over those that will be hit the hardest by the current food crisis. Ask for Herakles’ strength and forbearance in the coming year; ask for Demeter’s continued blessing of your home’s stores.

Date: 1st weekend of September (2022: 3-4th of September) / a week before Eleusinian Mysteries. These dates are based on the Northern hemisphere, feel free to make the dates match your local harvest calendar. 

Ideal food offerings:

Pig; preferably piglet (if findable); fat and smoke to go up to Demeter; BBQ will do perfectly.

Rye, barley, and wheat as grains (if rice/corn or another grain is the majority grain in your area, go for that instead), baked into cakes, and/or tossed on the fire for Demeter.

Some kind of honey fritters; honey and bees are connected to Demeter, as a thank you for their pollinating the plants, flowers, and all that grows; or fruits and vegetables; to honour the “fruit of Demeter’s labour” and all she does for mankind.

Ideal drink offerings;

Grain-based drinks (see: Kykeon at her festival in Eleusis); you can get close to this with beer, mead, with a mint flavouring preferably.

Other ideas to offer;

Donate either food/money to your local food banks or charities that help in relief from food shortages.

Support local farmers/buy your groceries for this weekend solely from regional products.

Bring awareness to the current crisis and see what you can do to support others.

Make a votive offering and give it to Demeter and/or Herakles on this date.

Read the Hymn to Demeter out loud/listen to a recording of it, as a reminder of her blessings to mankind and how she relieved us from famine before.

A simple libation and prayer of thanks goes a long way; offering what you can afford/can do in your situation is historically attested and perfectly valid. Offerings should be made according to what is possible and reasonable for your means.

Feedback, discussion & questions welcome.

Sources used in the making of the festival;

Hesiod, Works and Days Pindar, Olympian XIII A Companion to Food in the Ancient World, Nadeau, Robin Wilkins, John Earthquakes and the Gods: Reflections on Graeco-Roman Responses to Catastrophic Events, Fritz Graf Demeter, Myths, and the Polyvalence of Festivals, Sarah Iles Johnston

[c7thetumbler]

Quick Game reviews: 2023 (Part 2!)

Continuing on! These were ones I played closer to the end of the year, but also as I remember them throughout. Other than that, order doesn't matter

Let's keep this ball rollin!

Kirby's Dreamland 2 (Switch online)

The only Kirby's dreamland I never played! I enjoyed it quite a lot, though of course it's a pretty easy Kirby game. Back in the day this would've been a lot of fun, and still is as a quickly little romp through a classic Kirby game. Nowadays it doesn't really hold up vs SuperStar DX and Planet Robobot, so not an essential playthrough by any means

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This next section's going to be about playing and 100% every Super Mario Advance game! How incredibly pointless interesting!

To put an age on myself, GBA was my late kid/early teen years and I have a long history with these games. Since they all got added as part of NSO+ or whatever I'm mooching off of Keewy's subscription (love you so much bud), I figured it'd be fun to go back and 100% all of them. Mixed results, but let's get into it.

Super Mario Advance (Switch Online, GBA)

This one was the original Mario Advanced, and more first into into SMB2 (Doki Doki Panic). Since it was fresh to me I didn't realize at the time that it was just a remaster, and thought it was difficult but a lot of fun. The addition of the findable Yoshi eggs adds some replay-ability, but mostly in the form of a tedious hide and seek.

Additionally, the playground rumor was if you got ALL of the Yoshi eggs, you can play as him! This is an outright lie. Ryan. You get nothing for finding them all other than the satisfaction of knowing you did it. As far as an experience goes, this is definitely one of the better ways to play SMB2 as long as you can get back the crunchy but frequent voice lines

Super Mario Advance 2: Super Mario World (Switch Online, GBA)

This one was one I spent COUNTLESS hours playing on my old GBA, and continued playing after the DS came out on my Micro. Easily my favorite 2D Mario game, no contest. This is the best way you can experience SMW officially, and I'd highly recommend it since it made some of the more high-score aspects like dragon coins collectibles instead.

Unlike The previous game, this game actually rewards you with some fun screens and congratulations when you finish everything too!

Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi's Island (Switch Online, GBA)

Another incredibly solid title! Same as the original but with some minor tweaks and additional levels. This is the definitive version of the original Yoshi's Island, which if you haven't played, you absolutely should.

I Don't remember a reward past the "All Clear" congratulations you get, but still that's enough of an accomplishment because these levels can get tough.

Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 e+ (Switch Online, GBA

This one and I have a funny history. I got on e-reader at the tail end of it's incredibly short lifespan in the states. While I have fond memories of scanning cards for NES games, Animal Crossing, and this game, I unfortunately was not able to find the packs to play all these e-reader levels. Now that this is re-released, I can finally play all them and see what the reward is for getting all the cards and collectibles in the levels (which involves playing each one at least twice!).

You get nothing! And the card levels vvary in quality, definitely with a very proto Mario Maker vibe to them. They were fun at the time, but honestly they should've just done a bonus world with all the levels already available after beating the game. Playing all this once-lost level content is interesting, but as far as this game goes it can get pretty grindy and overstay its welcome, especially in comparison to things done nowadays in 2D mario with Wonder and Mario Maker

Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga (Switch Online, GBA)

A classic masterpiece. Offers a big, beautiful, wacky world to explore without overstaying it's welcome with unique ways of traversing and interacting with the environment and an incredible battle system. Honestly? I'd suggest playing this over its 3DS remake; what that adds isn't worth missing out on this iconic art that defined a small generation of sprite-artists, and the QoL stuff added doesn't really do that much for this game since it was already incredible.

Will always recommend SuperStar Saga

... And that's all the Mario advanced games! Basically, play Superstar Saga, the rest is up to you but SMW is great as well.

BurgerTime Deluxe (Switch Online, GB)

Me and Burgertime Arcade go waaaaay back to the dentist office where they had a cabinet that I would play when I finished my cleanings but had to wait for half an hour afterwards. I had no idea this game existed!

Similar to Annalynn in the last post, this is a classic Arcade experience that in order to get really good at and beat without failure, you need to deeply understand how all its simple mechanics work. Since it's on NSO, I cheated a bit near the end. Still, This is a great portable expansion on Burgertime the arcade game, similar to how Donkey Kong GB blows the original DK arcade game out of the water! Would recommend you give it a try if only to get that classic arcade feeling.

Vampire Survivors (Steam)

I have a hard time recommending games like this. On the one hand, I did enjoy my time with it and it was pretty fun to slowly get better and find all the things, as well as learn different really cool combos for some crazy shenanigans. On the other hand, there's not really much gameplay here other than wandering in the right direction and a skinner box. It's kinda like cookie clicker to me; not something that I like the idea of fondly, but still some good fun for a little bit. The kind of thing I could easily hyperfixate on without actually enjoying myself, if I'm not careful.

Pikmin 1 (Switch)

So this surprised me. Was not expecting a Switch re-release, but it did make sense. As far as things go, this is a good way to experience the game (legally), and it does fix a number of issues with Wii Play Control versions, but at the end of the day I would've preferred a bit more; either some online high score comparison features or an actual HD remaster. Pikmin's a great time, but this entry shows it's age a bit; I'd recommend Pikmin 4 first.

Pikmin 3 also perfected the challenge mode, so going back to this version's classic mode with no changes or comparisons was just a little bleh.

Pikmin 2 (Switch)

I feel like I can recommend this one a bit more, however it falls into the same pitfalls that rereleasing 1 does. Pikmin 2 is a phenomenal game, but loses all of the stakes of a time limit in exchange for being much larger (and hilariously unfair at times). It's challenge mode is also certainly more engaging than 1, but again it fails in comparison to 3, and I would've liked to see a remaster instead. Especially since Pikmin 3's DLC and later Pikmin 4 confirmed that they had all the HD assets for it. Again, I love pikmin, but Pikmin 4 perfectly captured the Pikmin experience for me, so I'd recommend checking that out first.

Castle on the Coast (Steam)

A fun, easy, short 3D platformer whose mascot is based off of the mascot of a Children's Hospital! How cute.

It's a good time to just play through casually; the movement is a little strange but I was able to get used to it and it was a great time. Another game that feels of perfect length for what it's doing. It's pretty cheap on sale, I'd give this a god if you're aching for a classic 3D platformer game.

Grounded (Steam)

This one's hard to recommend; I had a lot of fun playing it with my good pally pals June and Keewy, but it definitely seemed like it was more fine-tuned as a single-player experience since the scaling for additional people made everything WAY harder. Admittedly I wasn'ty playing my best and I'd still like to try and beat it, but I found myself frustrated a lot. I've not delved to much into the crafting survival genre past Minecraft, and while this one has good visuals and a fun 90s story, I have trouble giving it a thumbs-up

Pikmin 4 (Switch)

After so many years...

It's fucking amazing, best entry in the series. The definitive Pikmin experience, if you've never played Pikmin start here and work backwards if you fall in love. Instant masterpiece, tons of content, but still found myself wanting more

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages (Switch Online, GBA)

Finally got around to finishing one of these! It's a very fun 2D Zelda, but is in drastic need of some QoL and modernization. Constantly using the start button to swap items and check the map is as tedious as expected, but in terms of gameplay it's a lot of fun! I didn't play Seasons yet, which feels like it's mandatory for getting the full expeience, and there were a few moments where I found myself lost and frustrated, but past that a solid 2D Zelda entry.

Animal Crossing New Horizons: Happy Home Paradise (Switch DLC)

I had been playing AC to catch up and finally complete the museum, and was astonished by how little content there was in this DLC.

Then I learned that it doesn't Download automatically if you get it for free via NSO+ subscription. Oops.

It goes a long way in adding to New Horizon's experience, which after so many hours playing it can feel strippedof its charm as you repeat the same tasks with a limited number of personalities is refreshing. Is it worth $30? ehhh.

I've designed ~80 homes in it so far, and while it is fun to decorate around their guidelines and play with villagers you may have fond memories of from previous entries, it's very much a make your own goals kind of thing. You'll find yourself very easily bored of it if you don't engage with it seriously and only do the bare minimum to "progress", but it definitely allows AC's home designing experience to really shine.

Sonic Frontiers: The Final Horizon (Steam)

Wow, this was not good! Incredibly hard platforming levels and bosses scattered all around the world that only Sonic could deal with, with some incredibly janky mechanics for all 3 the new playable characters that don't really work well enough to design levels around (which is good, because they didn't). Boss fights and new challenges are super difficult and annoying as well. The only Positive is the endin g is better, but you can watch that on Youtube. Honestly, the best experience you can have withg a farily good game like this is to play with all DLC downloaded but not going through the portal to this content. It's got 3D Sonic jank, but in a way that's incredibly frustrating and not fun to navigate around.

F-Zero 99 (Switch Online)

I miss Super Mario Bros 35.

... This game's fine, and a fun re-imagining of classic F-Zero experience, but I was never really a fan of F-Zero and thought that the 2D ones were a bit too tough for me so I didn't play it much. If you like F-Zero though, you'll love this

Super Mario Wonder (Switch)

Another hit, highly recommend this one for it's charm alone! It's 2D Mario, you know if you want it or not.

I will say my experience with it is from the perspective of someone who has religiously played every Mario game, and I did actually very much enjoy the game so the rest of this review will be from that perspective.

Game length felt a bit... short to me. There are just as many levels and worlds as you would expect in a 2D Mario game, as well asa lot of things to collect and a bonus world with it's own secrets of course. But I still managed to beat in 100% in about a day, whcih is kinda surprising to me given how much time I spent on other games. 3D World comes to mind as one with just about the same amount of levels, but one I spent way more time playing and had more enjoyment with just because of the way 100% is done. I would've liked to see a bit more is all I'm saying, but it's defnitely a full game.

The online ghost helper features is a welcome addition to the game. It allows you to help or be helped by other players and having that extra bit of interactivity and silent community without getting in the way of playtime. Visually it's also a stunning style, and I hope in future they continue to stylize Mario Games and move away from the Gamecube era models and NSMB styling and get something with much more character like this.

Gameplay wise it's also very fun, though you can feel the traditional 2D Mario formula in every level which is something I wish I could un-know. Badges are neat, but can be a mixed bag. There's one really good badge and then some okay badges and then others you would never touch, which doesn't really encourage the variations in gameplay as much as they would've hoped it does, I think. Additionally while I understand the idea of all characters playing the same (sans Yoshi + Nabbit), I think I still would've preferred unique movement for each character over the badge system.

All in all, it's great, but I want more.

Knytt Underground (Steam)

So for those unfamiliar with Knytt, it was an atmospheric, simple, 2D indie platformer that allowed you to make your own levels and games and let other people play them. It was very popular amoung a certain group of early let's players that overlapped strongly with SMW Rom hacks. This is essentially a sequel/remaster of that style.

This game is just okay. It's very simple, involves a lot of backtracking and the story and characters aren't terribly engaging. It's not a bad time, but feels very much of its time so I can't really recommend this one.

Super Mario RPG (Switch)

A fantastic remake of a trend-setting classic! I had forgotten how short the original was, but this adds a number of features and improvements that make it worth it. I love that they kept the very strange character designs that we never got to see again, as well as how faithful they were to the original's quirks while also fixing the localization issues. $60 is still a lot, imo, to ask for a game that already existed, but like that's a pretty good game and remake so I'd say go for it.

Lethal Company (Steam)

This one I was unsure if I would like or not because I'm a big baby when it comes to horror games. Playing this with friends though changes everything, and I had a wonderful time with it. It's definitely one of those games where the less you know about the enemies the better, as once you start getting "good" at it it feels like a different experience than wandering into the unknown, but I'm looking forward to future updates. I'd give this one a try if you have some friends to play it with!

Paper Mario (Switch Online, N64)

After finishing Super Mario RPG I had a terrible Mario RPG itch that I needed to scratch, and with TTYD remake announced and coming next year this seemed like a good move. I'm glad I did since I only played it once and didn't remember much of it. It's a fun, simple RPG, but the lack of depth to its mechanics and at this point pretty standard Mario story made it age less well than it's predecessor and sequel. I'm glad they're remaking TTYD and not this. It's by no means a bad time, but not one of the essential Mario RPGs over TTYD, Superstar Saga, and SMRPG.

Disney Dreamlight Valley: Eternity Isle Expansion (Switch)

This is one that I mostly watched my Sister play over Christmas but then had to pick up so she could get the rewards for a limited quest she unlocked. This adds an interesting area, a much more thought-out storyline and world, and is overall an improvement. However, the basic flaws are still there, including random crashes and softlocking, stuttering framerate, some very low-poly resources, and just all around tediousness and grindy nature of it. I'd recommend this if you're a huge disney/ Animal Crossing fan, and even then on PC instead. It still feels like an early access game and has some pretty intense monetization, so for the cost of the base game plus expansion I cannot ethically recommend it due to its quality and bad internal practices

... But like, it's not a bad game. It just needs a lot more work.

__________________________________________________

BEST GAME I PLAYED THIS YEAR

Golly, lot of suspense in this one right? I raved about Tears of the Kingdom, but like a LOT of good stuff came out this year and I even enjoyed several incredible indies there.

I mean, you know what the answer is already, but I can pretend for a split second I wasn't going to say Pikmin 4 right?

It was Pikmin 4. Pikmin 4 is the best game I played this year, and nothing anyone says will convince me otherwise.

It was such a long wait and having come out as such a fun and packed experience, basically containing Pikmin 1 and 2 as sub games within it made it easily come out ahead. I just love it so much.

Tears of the Kingdom is 2nd place, and I didn't play Baldur's Gate so that's just not here.

...

Anywho, that's it! Hope everyone enjoyed gaming as much as I did this year, despite, well, you know. Motions vaguely towards entire planet

See ya!

[terrainofheartfelt]

i 1000% agree with the point you made in the tags (and am now considering checking out my dark vanessa!!) i just also had a quick question about an aside you mentioned - in what ways do you feel prejudice has been woven into the way libraries organize information? i don’t mean to distract from the broader, more important message of the post, i’m just really curious about this as i’ve never really considered how organizational systems could have that kind of impact, and am now wondering how much of an effect it has on the overall institution of the american library system

oooh we love an academia question in this house!

Now, I am about 4 years removed from library school, so I'm going off memory and a quick cursory search, but I think this lithub article is a good jumping off point, but as a librarian I feel duty bound to encourage you to look up the sources they cite (they also misconstrue Thomas Dousa as from the University of Chicago when Dousa is actually from University of Illinois but whatevs)

to give a simple digest of a complicated issue, it comes down to the organizational system that most american libraries use (because it's easier to share resources/find resources if they're findable in the same way) was designed and implemented by cis het white men.

So, libraries of a significant size, like big academic research libraries where I work, use the Library of Congress (LoC) classification system to organize their books. the broad breakdown is that it sorts books into subject & catergory, then sorts them further by genre, author, title, year, volume, etc. the pros of it are that it's expansive, and was built with room to grow to make room for new subject areas, and one can go a granular as necessary to adequately classify and describe a work in the library catalog.

the main con of this system can be best described by the principle taught to me by my mother when she taught me how to use a calculator: Garbage in, garbage out. and that is when this LoC system was designed form only one perspective, that of a cisgendered, heterosexual white man, that point of view obscured other useful, and arguably, essential viewpoints for organizing information. because if only one perspective is sorting the information, their biases---no matter how unconscious---affect their priorities and what they value.

one way this is most obvious is with LoC Subject Headings. in addition to the call number system and everything else used to catalog a work in a library, every work is also ascribed Subject Headings, that, to use a library science term, describe the "aboutness" of the book. like: Literary Fiction, 19th Century; Music Literature, 21st Century. and since many of those subject heading were writeen by straight white men librarians, the language of them can be, well, racist, and homophobic, and transphobic, and sexist. a quote from the post I linked above:

Library of Congress Subject Headings, which are rooted in what Amanda Ros, a cataloger at Texas A&M University calls “the straight white American male assumption.” Research from Ros shows that about one-tenth of Library of Congress Subject Headings contain the word “men” in the title, compared to the number of subject headings that include “women.” Ros finds that without gender, race or geographic qualifications subjects containing the word “astronauts” in Library of Congress Subject Headings can be assumed to mean white American men. As Ros illustrates in a 2019 article for The Conversation, “Women are designated with ‘Women astronauts’ and ‘African American women astronauts,’ but there is no subject heading for male astronauts. A book about astronauts who are men would have the general subject ‘Astronauts,’ unless the racial identity prompted the use of a subject like ‘Hispanic American astronauts’ or ‘Indian astronauts.’ Likewise, a book about Russian astronauts would have a geographic subdivision added: ‘Astronauts – Soviet Union’ instead of ‘Russian astronauts.’

and even if their shortsightedness in designing this system wasn't malicious in intention, it is harmful in practice, especially when marginalized groups are the ones most in need of protection by libraries.

it's not that dissimilar from the conversation around software and artificial intelligence: programs are being taught that cisgender heterosexual white man is the default, and so the machine system adjusts poorly to the innumerable variations on that assumed "default."

so uh just to say, if prejudice informs the design of an organizational system -- even unintentionally -- the system will have ingrained prejudices of its own. but, I think I should note, librarians are aware of this, and are working on adjusting the resource descriptors to be inclusive as well as accurate. I remember reading in grad school about initiatives to change subject headings, and I'm pretty sure that task is a part of my workplaces diversity, equity, and inclusion strategic plan. the problem is being addressed, it's just a big and complicated one.

[slowjamastan]

tumblr for me has always been about stress relief, a fan outlet, and a means of collecting nice pictures. but when ppl post abt their real life i feel jealous! id like to be comfortable linking my online self to my real self. id like to not be so self conscious that i miss opportunities to find happiness and connection.

if i opened up more on here (posting face pics, talking abt real life non-vaguely, etc) maybe people would open up in return and we could be friends but if i start opening up then im publicly on the internet and findable/stalkable. with controversial opinions attached and also basically diary entries. i dont want to Exist online but i do want to exist online. i dont want to be seen but i do want to Be Seen. or something like that.

i do like having no one anonymously in my business especially tech corporations and ad companies. but god thats not really avoidable no matter what huh. google knows my location as long as i have a phone or whatever. the only middle ground is "no social media" which is just "the big corporations can know where i am and what im doing but not my friends and family"

like whats my goal here? not existing online for the sake of being unknowable? and yet im here now wishing i was more known? so isnt this just all making me lose touch with people more than necessary? i cant think of any upsides that dont boil down to "sense of superiority" — the main exception being sn*pchat i hate that app so much lmao

i guess another reason is that giving myself a Public Image is exhausting. if im a contactable shiny microinfluencer on instagram i would ignore SOOOOOO many messages. i hate replying to messages. if anyone tried to be like omg ur on insta now long time no talk :) id ignore them ......... theres no point in putting myself out there bc its the opposite of what i want.

i guess in the end id rather be known 5% by a group of tumblr strangers than 10% or more by irls. i dont know if this is just comfort in habit or what. i do know that this gets easier when you dont have a tumblr at all. i didnt feel the drive to post my feelings when i didnt have a place to put them. i was happier for it. idk

i dont want my friends and family to know anything about me tbh. i always want to cut everyone off and ruin my own life, and i dont know how to work around that. i can make friends but i cant keep a healthy friendship and love my family but i dont want to talk to them about anything important or really at all! and i end up very alone at the worst times. again i do not know how to work around this!

[hardestgrove]

I've been really into your Harrington siblings AU with @officialjoekeery could you tell me a litt bit about Shannon Harrington like her personality, age, and relationship w/ Steve? Also may I please use her for my own headcanons for Steve's family I'll tag you if you'd like?

first off, yes ofc you can use Shannon in your headcanons and things! I'm honored you even want to to begin with! this blog is currently still glitched out of being like, findable or viewable outside of the dash so i'd recommend tagging my main @namorian for now if you want to be sure i'll actually see anything lol 💀

SO ON TO THE HOT SHANNON DEETS!!!!

I've finally done some math on her age since Ria's already sorted out the brothers 💀 her birthday is June 15 1968, she's a Gemini and she's about 2 years younger than Steve and in Nancy's year. She's also 5ft with a gymnastics kind of athletic build since she's the one they hurl around in cheer. Overall she's very petite, except her hair ofc. Big hair is a Harrington family trait lol.

Her personality is like, stereotypical insane teenage girl to comical levels. Characters that she's similar to are people like Cordelia Chase from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Alison DiLaurentis from Pretty Little Liars (early seasons when everyone thinks she's dead and all the flashbacks of her are Fucked Up lol), Damon Salvatore from The Vampire Diaries, Mona-Lisa Saperstein from Parks & Rec and Megan from Drake & Josh to give like a vibe palate lol.

At her best self she's Cordelia— she's intelligent, caring, determined and brutally honest. Some of Cordelia's best and most character defining lines are "Tact is just saying not true stuff", "You think I'm never lonely because I'm so cute and popular? I can be surrounded by people and be completely alone. It's not like any of them really know me." and "I'm not a sniveling, whiny, little cry-Buffy. I'm the nastiest girl in Sunnydale history. I take crap from no one." All of those really do also apply to Shannon, they're 100% things she could and would say. When she's at her best and healthiest she's a Massive Bitch™ but she's your Massive Bitch™ and she loves and protects the people she considers hers aggressively and she doesn't lie to anyone just to make them feel better. She can and will fight anyone and she'll win.

At her worst she's like Alison or Damon, just this selfish bordering in sociopathic, needlessly mean, manipulative and just...The Worst™. Just a petty spiteful bitch who alleviates her own boredom and issues by torturing people for fun. She rarely feels bad about it and never apologizes. She's a Bitch (derogatory) and kind of a monster. Like she's not a very insecure person, she's actually very comfortable in how great she is, but she's also intimately aware that she lacks direction in life and that most people around her don't actually like her. Even at home there's an air of "ugh it's my turn to look after Shannon? GREAT :/" which naturally does not make one feel awesome.

Where Steve has internalized his issues with loneliness as "there's something wrong with me and that's why people don't want to be around me" Shannon's internalized it as "people will never understand me because I'm too much for them, I'm too different and better than them. That's why they don't stay." and it shows in how they interact with the world. She feels very comfortable being the Worst™ because well, she kinda is a small fish in a big pond and she knows she can be a monster and still have people begging to be near her. She's learned that her outbursts and bad behavior get her more rewards than her good behavior so she's just gonna keep rolling with that until it stops being true.

She craves attention and will do a lot of things to get it. She's very funny as part of gaining and maintaining attention.

When she was first conceived of and it was just her and Steve as the siblings there was a kind of unspoken knowledge that a big part of why she was even born was the "they can entertain each other" aspect, like going to the pound and getting another cat/dog to keep your existing pet company while you're at work. Steve was the golden boy and even then he wasn't given much attention and she was just kind of There. She's never held this against Steve since he's you know... not really getting a much better shake than she is but it's absolutely present in her behaviors like the attention seeking and manipulation.

With the addition of more brothers she's less of the "extra" and more "The Girl™" and much of the attention and special treatment she gets is because she's The Girl, not because she's a preferred child. It's just because it's assumed girls need different things than boys. There's a lot of assumptions made by their parents about her, her interests, her personality etc because she's The Girl™. And while she is very feminine and does like many traditionally feminine things it's just very reductive and ignores her actual strengths and her genuine struggles. Her social life is not really respected, her hurt is not really seen as valid etc etc because she's a Teen Girl. That last bit applies whether or not she's got 1 or 4 brothers but it's more blatant and intense when they've had 4 boys before her.

Shannon's relationship with Steve is probably the healthiest and most genuine in her entire life. She loves all her brothers a lot and genuinely loves to be around them and bother them but Steve's basically always been the one saddled with her so he's the one she's the closest with. It also helps they're the closest in age and go to school together. When it's just them and no other siblings they 100% did entertain and keep each other company just like it was kind of intended they would. They are unironically each other's best friend.

Steve is one of the very few people who can clap back on Shannon for her shitty behavior and have her actually then feel bad and apologize and try and do better (the others are her brother and heather). She really loves and looks up to Steve. She knows she's a very tough to swallow personality even when she's toning it down and plenty of people have decided she's not worth the struggle. Steve gets annoyed and exasperated and even angry sometimes but he still sticks around and hangs out with her. She teases him and annoys him and is just an utter menace to him but it's out of love and he understands that and bitches and moans and retaliates and gives her a big hug at the end of the day because she's an annoying little shit but she's his annoying little shit.

It's why she has SUCH a grudge against Nancy— like to the point she WOULD fight Nancy in the halls. Shannon is very aware of Steve's soft gooey center— having spent her whole life taking advantage of it— and she really can't stand how that relationship ended and what it did to Steve's self-esteem/image/worth. She really hates anyone/thing that makes Steve think he's shit. Like even SHE doesn't do that, not really. Like she'll call him stupid and then ask him to help her solve a problem. Of the two of them, Shannon is the more academically successful but she's always turning to Steve for help and advice and returns that favor when/where she can. Like we're not gonna get into the bloodbaths of Steve's senior year in the Harrington house, Shannon was ready to come over the table for their dad lol.

[phoenixiancrystallist]

Day 14, and I!!! Am so pumped to work on this!!!! @magical-game came over and we hung out and watched the Legend of Mana: Teardrop Crystal anime and y'all it was so good! I loved it so much, and I went in honestly kind of expecting to be disappointed, but no! I think it's my new favorite anime :D

Unfortunately after watching 12 episodes in a row we did dishes together (get yourself a friend who will do dishes with you), so I am Le Tiard™, which means I didn't do as much work as I wanted to. But that's okay! El's shirt and torso is shaded now, the lake has a reflection, the sky has clouds, and I've cleaned up and organized my layers so they make sense and are findable when I need to change things on them XD It's been a very good day today :3

[ghxstshxrk]

hey there!!! GIANT fan of ur ultrakill art I've seen i LOVE the quality of the brushstrokes and the composition :D and you're one of a handful of people posting about Doom on here as well! you should check out sanchomps's art if you have not already.

I don't mean to sound too entitled but could i politely ask if you have/could make your blog(s?) not dashboard-only? you don't have a tumblr.com url, and i'd love to be able to browse your art via an actual webpage, and not just having the blog open in the tumblr dashboard at /tumblr/ghxstshxrk. there's a toggle for it in your blog settings! here's mine on desktop, for example -

and when visited at that URL on desktop, my blog is a whole little website of its own! (I know my blog has the steam theme, but even if you don't have a CUSTOM custom theme, tumblr automatically assigns you a default desktop theme which is perfectly serviceable.)

that way it'll be easier to find specific tags on the blog and you're way less likely to lose your place in a tag when browsing it. (check out how I just linked you directly to sanchomp's doom tag up top!) desktop themes retain functions like reblogging and liking posts, and they're way more convenient for sorting and accessibility. Just wanted to throw that out there, since it's a great venue for making specific posts easily findable on your blog.

I'm guessing from some comments on your work and the fact that you don't have this turned on that you're here from twitter. if that's correct, welcome!! :D and if you've been here the whole time, sorry to have just explained all that to you. thanks!!!

Hey there!! Hopefully I fixed it, I've never been too savvy with the webpage mechanics here so I had no idea it was set to dashboard only, oops lol

Thanks for letting me know and I'm glad you like my scribbles :P

[thiefpodcast]

The path to 1,000 downloads per episode

The goal is 1,000 listeners by year’s end, and I will blog my progress.

Season two progress began in earnest this last week. It’s going a little slow, deliberately, (read my 2023 annual reflection), but I am well in to the initial arrangement of Chapter 5. Remember, The Thief starts out as a recording from a Dungeons & Dragons game, so “initial arrangement” is the step where I edit down the two or three-hour session into the main story. Follow The Thief on Patreon for free for more behind-the-scenes progress updates.

In my 2023 Annual Reflection, I wrote that The Thief’s slow-to-emerge product/market fit demanded attention. As a slow-to-produce and expensive story, I must choose how much time and money to spend to produce a podcast that will likely never be in the black.

And what might that look like? While I share actual numbers with my wittan on Patreon, in an advertising-only model where the average advertisement CPM is $25, we would need something like 20,000 downloads per episode to break even. So, I think I will just hand-wave that out of my mind.

But that is a target, and — I don’t know — Saturday-morning me loves a game.

Traction

In “The Phases of Podcast Growth”, 

Jeremy Enns names the trough of growth between 100 and 1,000 downloads per episode the “traction phase.” There is some validation that The Thief’s audience is out there — award nods, glowing reviews, consistent charting in niche genres — but

To move past the thousand-download-per-episode milestone, you’re going to need to get savvier with your marketing, both in the way you position and create your show, as well as how you get it in front of new potential listeners. … While the core idea might have been validated, there’s a lot of work to be done to refine it into a show makes the most of your marketing.

Jeremy’s advice rings true.

Walk before running

I have paid for a lot of advertisements but some axioms need some real research and qualification:

Does my pitch work?

Is The Thief even findable if sought

Is my audience who I even think they are?

This is pretty interesting.

I’ve already been experimenting with my answer to “What is this show?” My latest iteration is

A fully cast, low-fantasy mystery podcast, starting with the catalytic arrest of a City Watchman, leaving all to the only person he trusts: an undermarket draw-latch named "Symphony."

I don’t call The Thief an actual play — which it is — nor do I call it an audio drama. I don’t mention Dungeons and Dragons because some early anecdotal observations were that, well, people who listen to actual plays may prefer the table-relationship to the story, and The Thief all but strips out the former.

But this is more gut-feel than science, although I do have some data from prior ads that I mean to investigate.

Rough plan

I may write about this later but I’ve largely written off the value of organic social media marketing to [my] podcast growth. The CAC — or cost of new listener acquisition — is poor unless you hit the virality lotto. A good ad has exponentially more listener conversion than a good TikTok.

But I’m not doing myself any favors if I don’t question the - ah - “goodness" of that ad. I need to do the work.

The assets — the logo, the copy — resonate with the audience I want

The audience can find the show if they look it up

They can discover the show by looking up certain keywords

Ads mean I must trust the algorithm to deliver to the right people. But, there are other strategies for finding that audience. Namely, collaborate with folks who already have an audience that would like the Thief.

More on that, later.

[olderthannetfic]

This is probably a stupid question, but did you ever think about becoming a Youtuber and talking about fandom? I imagine you talk exactly how you write, so that would be engaging for your existing audience and beyond, and you are also a filmmaker and could do your own editing. Again, apologies if the question is silly or unwarranted.

--

LOL. Yeah, I totally talk how I write.

It's not a stupid question. A bunch of people have asked me that. The reason I'm not a youtuber is a couple of things:

First, time: Being a proper youtuber who releases shit constantly is a shitton of work. If it's your full-time paid gig, okay, but that takes a long time to work up to, and you have to do a lot of marketing work. My current main job (being a novelist of indie selfpub genre trash) doesn't pay that well yet, but I like more of the work it involves, and I don't want to take time away from it to pursue a job that is more soul-sucking than working retail.

Second, integrity: Being a for-realsies youtuber means sacrificing any actual values and views you have on the altar of clicks. Sure, if I were a costuber or something, perhaps that would not be true. Bernadette Banner et al. have skills that are inherently visual and engaging with a built-in audience. They can stay away from the majority of wank while cultivating a paying audience that isn't a nightmare to deal with.

But for someone like me, monetizing youtube is a terrible, terrible idea.

I might have more tumblr followers than you, but I'm still your peer in the fandom space. You can go on AO3 and read my horny fics (though you'll need an account because I archive-lock everything). We might actually become friends. Not in the CC way where I'm holding out a fake carrot of that to make you subscribe to my Patreon. Like... actually. In the normal fandom way. I've made a few new fandom friends even during the pandemic. Ms. Boba is one, for example.

Selling my friendship would make me an escort, not a fellow fandom nerd. It would ruin my social life.

(And yes, I think being a youtuber of a certain kind overlaps heavily with sex work in terms of its drawbacks and blurry boundaries. Neither is inherently contemptible, but they're tough careers.)

But even beyond emotional boundaries stuff, getting clicks and staying on top of the algorithm means saying things that are popular. Or maybe it means saying things that are inflammatory, but in just the right way. What it does not mean--what it can never mean if you're reaching your audience via an algorithm--is honesty.

Why does Sarah Z laugh at the freaks? Because it's good for clicks. Why does she present herself as progressive while having a strong undercurrent of puritanism? Because freaks don't pay the bills: cringe culture does.

I talk about the fandom things I care about, which have historically often been small fandoms, current BTS love notwithstanding. I stand up for weird porn even when that's unpopular but not clickbait-level shocking. But I also roll my eyes at things I dislike and don't pretend this is a neutral fandom history blog without squicks and bias.

Tumblr is a good platform for me because the sorts of things I like to post go viral and find me new friends. AO3 is a good platform for me because old, small, obscure things are findable as they would be in a library, and people can consume meta that requires thinking and returning to discuss, not just reacting in the heat of the moment before the algorithm sweeps it away. The hipper, more monetized spaces I'll use, but I will never be famous there or make any money even if I were willing to turn on monetization.

Reason 3 is... well... I'm an editor, not a cinematographer. A lot goes into a good video, including not only the camerawork but lighting oneself to look good instead of terrible. I'm not necessarily good at or interested in all those other aspects of filmmaking, at least not when it comes to being a youtuber. Some day, I'll make that supervillain/superhero f/f romcom, but for now... IDK... maybe I'll get out my real camera and tripod in the new year and film some shit, but no promises.

--

That said, if you just want to hear my voice, I have a couple of videos floating around the internet:

A Good Swiss Watch: Queer Coding, Slashy Subtext, and Why Queerbaiting Doesn't Exist

Pie That'll Kill Ya: The Problem with Fandom Statistics (my section of a convention panel)

And if you want to see me... looking like I've had a stroke and lisping like crazy because filming oneself with a phone and no pop screen is hard... There's a video of me here.

--

Telling the haters to fuck themselves and making exactly the content you want to requires not doing it as a job.

[six-costume-refs]

Hey just want to say as always I love the blog and your dedication to the upkeep of this truly doesn’t go unappreciated! I’ve seen your comments about how auditions have been done for prior casts and it was pretty well known to fans ~when~ the auditions happened. Do we know anything if the Boleyn tour has had theirs/what are your thoughts on Keri being a possible Boleyn tour Seymour (or alt plus covering Seymour, but I already think less likely)?

Hey! Thank you! I'm so glad it's helpful!! Regarding auditions: Whether it's public info when auditions happens depends a lot on the production and what they're looking for. UK, NCL, and Broadway/NATs had all had relatively open video submission calls immediately before or after lockdown (Aragon Tour, for instance, was supposed to start their initial in-person callback process the day Broadway shut down). They've added a few open submissions or even open calls since all of those, but many of the people who we know have been auditioning in the most recent auditions are still people who were originally joining via those earlier auditions and are just still being called back to audition for upcoming productions. (this isn't at all uncommon for theatre or even with Six - think of some of the rehearsal alts like Amy Bridges and Maddison Firth who were then cast as principals in later cruise productions, or Erin Palmer Ramirez who originally auditioned for Bliss but was called back for and booked the Aragon Tour, or any of the large number of UK actors who have mentioned auditioning for the show 2-3+ times before booking it). That's relevant because it means they have a huge pool of former auditionees to pull from and can mostly continue to do so with smaller, mostly recall rounds and without putting out open submissions for every single cast....which also means the non-industry fans get less public info. The info is still definitely findable, but accessibility of specifics is much more limited and a lot of the info that can be found out is more from word of mouth within the industry and people who are already adjacent to it. It does seems like the Boleyn Tour falls into this category by mostly drawing from (supplemented) Aragon/Broadway callbacks. All that being said...yes, it seems they're in the casting process for it, but it's likely going to be callbacks from ANAT/Broadway and therefore it’s not super public and hard to pin down definitive info as a result. Regarding Keri Rene Fuller being a potential Seymour in the future: I absolutely think she will be a principal Seymour with some production in the future! Her casting doesn't seem to have been super last minute (even though I know it may feel like it) and very short contracts like this would be are really uncommon, so she likely had a scenario like Cassie Silva seems to have where she was offered a combined contract as both t/r and principal on whatever production it is in the future. My bet is actually on Broadway; if they're already casting her here it makes more sense in my opinion that she'd just be a replacement for Abby down the road, especially as a Broadway cast change should hypothetically happen sooner (between Aragon Tour's start and Boleyn Tour's start). However, Boleyn is totally possible. Regarding her being a swing on Boleyn Tour: Theatre, like most other careers, has this really strong set of hierarchies that people typically have to work their way up through. When you get to a certain point on the ladder, you usually don't accept jobs that are perceived as taking you back down (whether that's true or not) a few rungs. Being cast as a principal on Broadway is the highest you can climb on the Six US ladder, and her becoming a swing for a tour would be viewed as a downgrade (that’s not that swings are lesser but it’s not considered as ideal- you don't get to perform as much, touring means you don’t get to stay in one place which most people prefer, and both touring and swinging are a very stressful job). It's not totally out of the realm of possibility, but it's just super unlikely that she'd go from Bway principal to Tour swing. Principal on either Tour or Broadway is a much more common career trajectory and much more likely overall!

[theveryworstthing]

some old drawings from June! i never posted them for some reason, i think i was going to do a whole big lore write up on their village's deal but i don't have time for that right now so here’s some fun facts about the gals from over on patreon.

1st pic is Bea at some kind of fancy event. Their village doesn't really do proper dances anymore, but the spirits still like to get down and the Sisters are always invited. Bea will dance until she collapses if you let her. Which honestly is kind of a hassle for the other Sisters so she gets led off the dance floor for mandatory rest and water breaks often.

2nd pic introduces Bea's best friend, Luc! Bea and Luc are childhood friends who came to the Sisters a few years apart. Luc was a chronically ill child who's parents eschewed proper medical care in favor of snake oil from the 'community leaders' and good ol' bootstraps. she was eventually abandoned in the woods as punishment after said leaders convinced her parents that she didn't want to get better and that she was only ill because she was communing with the spirits and other blasphemous things when they weren't watching her.  This happened when she was 11.

Luckily the Sisters found her and got her proper help, facilitating her and Bea's reunion years later after the other girl was also disowned. The village officially sees Luc as dead, or 'Nil' and talking to her or looking her in the eyes is forbidden. She is basically treated like a ghost. She doesn't really care though because she loves the Sisters and uses her newfound ghostliness to go and do what she likes. And what does she like? Why, snails of course! And bugs, but mostly snails. Lotta mollusc biodiversity around the village. Bea and Luc's favorite thing to do is just sit down with their field notes and have bug and snail chats. Their second favorite thing to do is going out looking for bugs and snails together but they have to match up their schedules for that. See, Luc is still chronically ill. some things got better with regular care, but she still has certain limits she can't cross and she has an absolutely chaotic sleep schedule. She also still kind of has that weird bootstraps 'must do something all the time' mindset, so instead of waiting until she's awake and active at the same time as her friends, she gets up and goes whenever she's up and energized no matter what. This means it's normal for Bea to wake up in the middle of the night and find out that Luc has been wandering through the forest for the last three hours noting snail migration patterns because she woke up at midnight after a 10 hour nap feeling peppy.

Bea supports these weird snail adventures with her whole heart. Best friends.

Last pic is Tani! Tani is not Bea and Luc's best friend but they WANT to be her best friends so bad because they think she's cool and mysterious. They're trying very hard to make this dream a reality and it might be working because so far Tani has shown she can tolerate both of them. She even tolerates when they both go into a special interest whirlwind of no escape and she has to hear about the entire life cycle of a bug for and hour or two.  She will slip away for hours after the intense social interaction, but she always...Well she doesn't really come back to them, more like she makes herself findable? Same difference.

Tani's specialty is creating dyes/pigments for the fabric that the Sisters secretly sell to outsiders in the nearby dwarven markets. She has a very sharp eye for color and carries a magnifying glass everywhere so that she can study different materials close up to note how different weaves and patterning impact color when seen farther away. She also has an uncanny ability to guess what made a certain stain at a glance. Which is a fine talent? Most of the time?

Anyway.

She's been arranged, betrothed, promised, and engaged, in that order. Marriage has never caught her and if she has her way it probably never will. Last time she jumped off a cliff to get away and her dad just gave up and pronounced her Nil. She's been with the sisters ever since.

[hillbillyoracle]

Some Thoughts on Why White Pagans Need to Heal Their Relationships with Christianity

Note: I've been trying to write a piece like this for months and the only way I know how to write this is to be very vulnerable and personal. So just please keep that in mind as you read this. It isn't very refined and it's something I'm still very much in process with, to borrow a phrase from my charismatic Christian upbringing. It's more a diary entry than a finished piece and none of these thoughts are original or eloquent. My hope it's helpful to see someone thinking through these things though.

If you're white and you don't want to further colonization and imperialism in your spirituality, then going back to Christianity in some form is pretty necessary; to do the work of decolonizing it's doctrines and to prevent taking from traditions that aren't ours.

This is just the conclusion I've arrived at after a lot shadow working in and around both my ancestors and my religious trauma. My ancestors aren't all white Europeans. But given that I'm white and I don't have any way to carry on the traditions of those that weren't, I feel like the best way to honor those non-white ancestors is to go back to the spiritual traditions I do have access to and doing the work of reshaping them into something less harmful.

I have read and intellectually understood that culture forms the foundation of spirituality and that when you remove something from it's originating culture, that concept or tool no longer works properly, if at all. In working with my non-white ancestors, I really got it on a practical and emotional level. There was this sense that they'd love for me to know their traditions but that it required an understanding that just isn't possible for me given my upbringing and disconnection - "you don't know the words and there's no way to find a person who can teach you" as one ancestor put it. It was an important reminder that "this isn't for white people" isn't merely a categorical assertion but a cultural and practical one.

They've generally asked I stick to practices I have a cultural grounding in when honoring them, even though it is not theirs - the cultural and linguistic element is that important to them. They would rather an authentic expression of gratitude and care through a ritual that isn't theirs rather than an imitation of one that is or being left out of my practice all together. Which makes sense to me in a relational way I hadn't fully grasped before.

In working with my white ancestors, I've come to more viscerally understand that the present understanding of Christianity is wildly different than other historical understandings. One thing that surprised me was that some of my more recent ancestors have expressed more discomfort around my queerness and transness than many of my older ancestors but both root their understanding in the Bible. I enjoyed one ancestor who, when I explained that I'm partnered with a woman, to mean that I would have a life of service - "no men to distract you from God" - which I mean is not wrong on several levels. It really highlighted for me that Christian doctrine is far more flexible than I'd initially thought. It challenged ideas I'd picked up through traumatic religious experiences. So much of what I'd assumed was Christianity itself seems to be more Christianity right now.

The historical angle is really important me. One of the things that drove my interest in Paganism was trying to understand what came before Christianity, to connect with whatever had been cut off in that process. The more I've come to learn about imperialism within Europe - how various empires conquered and destroyed localized traditions indigenous to parts of Europe - it clicked for me that my white ancestors did to others what had been done to them. It is intergenerational trauma in a nutshell.

It's also striking to me that so many people term the traditions pagans pull from as "dead" religions or at the very least "not living". For years I took that to mean they were "safe" to take from, that I wouldn't hurt anyone by doing so. But I hadn't really understood the weight of what "dead" meant - that there was no one left alive who could teach me, that I can't live in a context where all of the beliefs, tools, and traditions make intuitive sense. And if it was important to my ancestors who had had a connection to their traditions, then what was I missing by reanimating these traditions without that link?

I don't have a full visceral understanding of what I'm missing to be honest. I have a feeling that'll develop as my practice evolves. But that question alone has marked a pretty important change in how I understand myself spiritually.

The living and cultural element to my practice is more important to me now. For me, just given the family, community, and area I was raised in, that means Christianity is the living tradition I have access to and I've been revisiting it. I was reading an interview the other day with someone who is both a Catholic theologian and a practicing Buddhist. I liked the way he put it when he referred to Catholicism as "one of his sources of wisdom". That better captures my relationship with Christianity that's been unfolding over the last few months.

Making sure that intergenerational spiritual trauma stops as much as possible with me is really important. I had mistakenly thought that meant abandoning Christianity all together, that it was the problem. Which in hindsight, is fucking wild - I hugely fucked up there. There's nothing stopping me from just enacting the harm I learned in the context of Christianity in a different context, a Pagan context. It doesn't get to the root of the issue. At the end of the day, I just want to be sure I do not use my religion, any religion, to further the harms of structural inequality and colonial oppression. That's the goal.

In reading around about this, I've come to feel pretty strongly that one of the best ways to work toward that is to strive toward animism. Animism has been a great antidote to the spiritual entitlement that colonial religions cultivate (including white paganism). Animism also builds a relational spirituality rather than a goal/individual centered one. White paganism isn't inherently animistic since white culture teaches values that undermine quality relationships - individualism, competitiveness, and seeking domination of some fashion in order to feel safe. An animistic lens requires you unlearn those values and cultivate new ones - mutuality, respect, and accountability.

So all this is to say that given my current understanding, I think trying to build a practice out of New Age concepts while trying to avoid appropriation sounds impossible and hellish. I also think it doesn't deal with the work that needs done. I'm choosing to take an animist lens to the living traditions I do have to see if that's a better space for both my spirituality and my evolving understand of decolonizing to grow in.

People will rightly question my use of the term "shadow work" given this perspective. Shadow work is a problematic term for a lot of different reasons that are beyond the scope of this piece.  Where I'm at with it right now is that most western religious traditions seem to have some understanding of what we might call shadow work which points to it being important and useful. However they all used different terms given their contexts so I'm still unsure of what term might be the most appropriate given where I'm at. So for right now, you might see me use it less in the title or body of work I write from here on out, but I still might use it as a tag to make it findable. There's a good shot this doesn't go far enough and I'm not sold on this approach. Just know it's something I'm trying to figure out.

So that's where I'm at right now. I think white pagans really need to be more serious about animism at minimum and hopefully also looking at the role living religious traditions play in their current practice as well. I think white pagans' unhealed reactivity around Christianity too often serves as a justification for spiritual appropriation and furthering colonial harm. Changes are definitely needed. What that looks like in practice for individuals will likely vary a ton. I'd love to hear from other folks doing work in this vein. What's worked for you so far? What hasn't? Where are you in the process?

[fuckyeahfightlock]

I would love an update on Ray "Crazy Ears" Bork! :)

Ray BORK! (aka RayRay, Ray el Rey, RayGun von Borkatron) is about 97% perfect, as 16ish week old puppies go.

First of all, he is my first puppy (we got Ollie when she was about 4), and he will definitely be my last. Mostly because he does not know where to put his poop, and I. Have. Had it. I changed diapers every day for FIFTEEN YEARS. I signed up for the minimum of dog clean-up when I got a dog, yes, that's fine and I accept it, but I'm completely over being constantly over-involved with pottying/potty training. Ray's like, Yeah, No, I'll hold it 'til we go back inside, then sneak away for ten seconds to ruin another rug. Potty training score is a D-. It's way easier with children, at least it was for me.

Also, I did not appreciate enough just how little his big sis barks. She is a very non-barky dog. He never stops, and he is loud, and I am deaf and on edge. His bark is knife-shaped and fits precisely in my ear drum. We are working on the "quiet" command but he has selective hearing. Quiet while waiting for food. Barks to invite play with Ollie, which he does endlessly because puppies like to play. Bright side: at least I don't have to play with him much. 10/10 recommend only getting puppy if you have older dog to run interference.

He was about 5lbs when we got him on 20 May. Two weeks later he was 11 lbs. Yesterday at his 16 wk vet check he was 19 lbs. He's gonna be a BIG boy. Which is fine; we like sturdy dogs. Have a feeling he will be tall and sleek (greyhoundish?) rather than vaguely tank-shaped like Ollie (American Staffy/boxer). He likes fetch because Ball is Life. Also likes tug. Requires a slow-bowl or puzzle because he eats like there will never again be food.

Put a pad in his crate this week as he has finally earned bedding by proving he won't destroy it, and he willingly/independently goes in there now to nap, which is progress--up to now all time in the crate not involving a meal is accompanied by scream-barking, crying, and jumping. Hopefully crate training will lead to potty training; the vet said so and it makes sense.

He is afraid of cars so won't go on walks outside our back yard. We'll work on that. Also very anxious riding in the car; I have never seen so much drool in my life. He likes squeaky toys, could take or leave peanut butter.

His ears do give me life, though. According to some of the Guam-based folk in the Boonie Flight Project facebook group for our "flight crew" of 5/15/21, boonies take a while to figure out their final ear arrangement, and have "the most mobile, busy ears I've seen on any dog". I think Ray's will end up upright and bunny-like, but time will tell.

He outgrew two harnesses (size xs and size s) in six weeks and can finally wear just a collar. Still drags a leash everywhere so we can catch him if he runs or we need to rush him outside (for the pottying he won't do out there).

He defaults to a sit when at rest; Ollie always, always stands when she is not lying down. I think this means he is less high-strung than her (hanging loose island style!). His belly button is prominent enough to notice! I didn't know dogs' belly buttons were even findable.

That's enough about him.

[dausy]

(I filmed all these and put them on my tiktok @dausypoo btw)

So I wanted to do like a Christmas Gift guide for people looking for art related christmas gifts because at this point I'm such an art supply snob that I can talk about this all day long.

So I dun did a WATERCOLOR ONE first and provided links to stuff that I own and recommend and think would make a good christmas gift for people like me who like art supplies (*breathes*). This is not price specific.

First The Shinhan watercolor set. I'm a sucker for all things Pastel flavored if you haven't read any of my stuff before. Shinhan ofcourse does have other sets and larger and smaller set. This is one that I personally own and I love it and I use these colors all the time. It is one of my primary, most used sets a longside the art philosophy pastel set. Shinhan products are always impressing me. They have other supplies that I would love to try. They have a weird gouache/watercolor hybrid paint that I'd like to try. I'd love to own their markers if I could justify the cost. They have a new gouache set out that Im semi keen to own. I've purchased 2 of the gouache colors but weirdly..enough..I think they're ugly tubes and I do..judge..art supplies..on their covers. These watercolors however are ridiculously cute. The colors themselves are beautiful as well. The pastel ones in particular are pretty opaque..which..given that they're pastel and pastel colors tend to have white in them I'm not suprised. But I lay them on tinted watercolor and mix media paper with little issue.

Highly recommend. I'm sure the not pastel colors are beautiful as well. This set is about $70ish..dollars USD..which is..quite expensive..$ for beauty and all.

Link to amazon below

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This is probably my most used and abused set. I love everything about it. I own the regular pastel set also but for the sake of space I just linked this one but I recommend both sets.

This one in particular..again because its pastel and has to have white in it the colors are pretty opaque for watercolor. That means they can add some really cool effects with layering that I really love. Plus they give that vintagey vibe..hence the name. The charcoal black in this set in particular is the ABSOLUTE PERFECT matte black. I use it to paint all of my animals eyes and lips. I feel like I use it so frequently but ofcourse those small areas it lasts forever

this is findable in big chain stores like hobbylobby but its usually sold out. About 30$USD in store/online.

Link below.

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NEXT!

Oh blessed holbein. I'm a number 1 holbein fan. I trust anything holbein. I love their packaging and I love their products. To me they look like candy and I want to collect all of them. The cool red box is very Christmassy too if I may say.

I actually personally own a pastel 12 piece set a specialty anime set. Both those sets though I believe I purchased from amazon japan itself and aliexpress. Looking at prices though.....omg..I didn't pay that much in price. The anime-y sets are pushing 80$ on aliexpress..I think I paid 25$ for the pastels and 40 for the anime one. Whoa. They're also really hard to find now. The anime ones are great for collectors but because of price I'm recommending the standard set instead which give a good load of intro colors. Holbein ofcourse does offer monster large sets and various tube sizes.

you can also ofcourse just buy open stock. I have a few 15ml tubes I purchased open stock. Namely white. You can never go wrong with TITANIUM White. It looks beautiful on colored watercolor papers.

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My bb. The hahnemuhle tinted watercolor book. I love the tan one best but theres a grey one as well as demonstrated in my most recent sketchbook tour. My only regret is that they don't have like an 8x11 or 8x8 sized journal because these are tiny.

st louis art supply does sell large lose leaf paper which I own but I like bound journals. I dont like keeping up with tons of individual paper.

I love this paper though and I love the tone it gives to ones paintings. The tan especially if you love that vintagey vibe (with the vintage watercolors above)

very inexpensive too

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Last!

so these japanese watercolors below are from Choosing Keeping in London. I did indeed pay for overseas shipping BUT LOOK HOW CUTE THEY ARE.

I got the spring one but theres 4 seasons and various mini sets sold by the same shop. A single season though is pretty pricey at around 76£.

japanese watercolors in general are pretty interesting in general. Real weird and filmy texture but the box sets are so cute I think it makes for a fun gift. If I were to visit England one day I'd hit this shop up.

So thats it for right now. I do own more watercolors but these are the ones I think make for a fun gift with cute packaging and all.

Next I'll do my favorite topic of gouaches in a different entry.