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420technoblazeit · 2 years

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sometimes,,,, u need to jump into freezing cold water (a mr beast video) to see the fishies (karl jacobs)

#mcyt #karl jacobs #the pig squeals #mr beast #ik htis isnt v original but i just saw Karl's insta post about meeting gordon ramsey adn I got excited but its. a mr beast video.

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artist-issues · 2 months

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I’ve just come across your Wish analysis (which led to binge-reading loads of your other Disney rants, which I so loved reading and totally appreciated), and you’ve got me thinking. So please allow me to rant for a bit.

Flash back to when the live-action Beauty and the Beast came out. My friend loved it, raved about it for ages, and made me go see it with her. The original was my favourite childhood movie so I was excited for the new one… and subsequently disappointed to an extreme. I couldn’t put my finger on it for ages - just that there was a general feeling of wrongness I couldn’t explain (until I read your post and I was just like, “YES! THIS EXACTLY!”). My friend couldn’t understand it and would say things like, “I thought you said you liked Beauty and the Beast!” But I do like it, and that’s why I’m so upset how badly they missed the point.

It feels like that’s all Disney is doing these days: missing the point! Because it doesn’t matter how many times they give us a sassy girl with long hair and some vague magic skill that helps her in the third act! We want characters. As in, people who remind us of actual people! What makes Belle so charming and relatable? She’s polite when other people are rude, but firm when they push against her morals, and enjoys reading. A relatable female character is one who can be compared to other female characters. Belle on her own is just a girl who likes books, but against the motherly Mrs Potts who takes care of everyone, or the vain triplets who only want Gaston’s attention, she’s suddenly so much more real, and that’s what these new films are missing!

Anyway, I could go on and on about this, but I’m sorry because I didn’t mean for this to get so long or out-of-hand 😬

That is why you like it: that is why you’re upset; because you DO like the real Beauty & the Beast! Wonderful! Yes, you get it!

I think what makes Belle feel real is some of the raw emotion she shows—and how she shows it.

When living furniture puts on a light show, she gasped and claps and dances along. When the Beast asks her a romantic but loaded question, her first impulse is to say “yes!” but then she does double back and admit that she misses her father; she doesn’t have all her thoughts collected, exactly, but she is being honest. When wolves attack her, she screams. When she has to give up her life, she sobs on a bed. When she’s in a terrible situation, she does initially basically pout and refuse to leave her room. But when she’s being watched by others, she tries to be strong; she cries silently when she’s following the Beast to her room. She gives him her word with her back straight and her eyes closed all grave. Like I said, you can almost see her remembering stories she’s read of brave heroes giving solemn oaths, and she’s trying to be like them.

Emma Watson didn’t bring any of that.

She had to make the character too in-control of her own emotions even when outlandish or traumatic things are happening, because her idea of a “strong woman” can’t be delighted or horrified or fazed, in general, by anything st all. She made her as distant and unrelatable as any caricature. I mean, I remember very clearly the one and only moment I felt a glimmer of “that’s Belle!” in the movie, and it’s when Belle is given the library and the Beast leaves the room, and Emma Watson gives this excited little half-shriek of joy. And it’s like…where is that in the rest of the movie?

I can even find fault with that moment, too though. Because she waits till the Beast, the gift-giver, leaves the room before she really reacts that strongly. Why? The real Belle tells the Beast how wonderful she thinks it is, breathlessly, over the moon.

Because when someone gives you a gift, if you’re a self-protective, cool-calm demeanor feminist, you don’t let them see that they have any control over your emotions—not even the ability to impress you or make you happy with a crazy gift.

But, instead, if you’re a selfless woman, who is happy to share her emotions with others especially when it brings them joy, you have no trouble showing that a crazy gift delights and impresses you. It’s part of the gratitude/

Anyway! I could go on and on. But don’t let anybody get it twisted. You do like Beauty and the Beast. You just happen to know what Beauty and the Beast really is, and why you like it.

#Thanks for the ask #beauty and the besdt #Emma Watson #the beast #Belle #batb #live action #live action beauty and the beast #Beauty and the beast

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worra-arts · 7 months

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OKAY, hear me out before reading the text below: this blog of mine is just a place, where I can see my progress in many of things, and writing in english is one of them. the deal is - english is not my native language, and my way of writing can look very bad.

if you decide to read my little sketch, firstly - good luck; and secondly, if when you see some dumb mistakes - feel free to comment because learning stuff is fun!

(also I'm like probably need to do a disclaimer or something like this, but I don't know how :D)

well, it's just fluff (?), without any triggers and just something that was in my head for a while. also I'm using the real names on the dream team in this text. actually, all my thoughts slowly became a whole au (this is the right word for it, right?), so if I will be really confident, maybe I write something else....

UGH this is again a super long text, I'M SORRY.

imagine that you've been friends with «dream team» for an almost a three years.

originally you were an employee on a mr. beast team, something that others would call an errand boy (well, errand girl in your case). but despite your small position in a whole team, everyone was simply in love with you. you just were a little shining star, that everybody adored. and beside that, you knew how to do your job. and by one of these hard-working days, you've meet sapnap.

there were a small pause between shooting for a new challenge video, where nick was one of the judges, and it happend that you both had a chance to chat for a little bit. you two find in each other someone nice, almost like a soulmate. when you too start to speak about different topics, including hobbies and favorite things, something just clicked. after a shooting, y'all just spontaneously decided to go for a walk. you both just can't stop talking, and after a hour or so, you find yourself on a basketball court. the day slowly becoming an evening, there only a few people around, and you two with beer cans just lazily playing basketball.

and after that day your life just start change entirely.

after sapnap you've met sunshine with name karl, and then dream, george, even quackity. the boys was also amazed with your warm personality and you all pretty fast become great buddies. you start to show in theirs instagram photos, twitter posts, stories. you've slowly become an important member of their group. staying for a movie night, cook for them, give a ride on your car, making birthday presents, spending time in video games, and eventually joining the streams.

to be honest, chat was kinda aggressive by the first time and full of comments like "omg why are they even let this girl to join, she's just ruining all the fun" and bunch of other not-so-nice words. guys were super sorry that you have to deal with all this hate, but you honestly won't making a big deal out of that. you just continue to show up from time to time, and slowly but surely people realize that your "boring" side was actually a "super caring" side.

and only after this realization everybody understand how cool actually your character resonates with sometimes childish characters of the rest of the group. the memes start to full the internet, boys start jokingly addresses to you like "sweet mother of ours", and you were very audible and visible cringing at the name, but they're just unstoppable.

and after a two and a half years of your friendship, after george finally gets a visa and clay does a face reveal, four of you guys finally moved together.

and that simply become a golden era of your friendship.

you spend mornings with george, when you get ready for work and this man with no sleep schedule gives you company. at the moment that you start making a breakfast, this man just magically appears with his cute puppy eyes, and after the few times when your plate was getting empty for about a fifteen seconds, you just start to cook for you two. imagine: dark room with only one working lamp, you both eating some puffy pancakes, drinking something warm, chatting and silently giggling. it's a little foggy outside, and almost absolute silence. sounds really comforting, does it not? after you finished eating, you give george a small kiss on his head, maybe mess up with his hair and beg him to get some rest.

the days fly by really fast, when you making stuff with dream. join the stream for a moment? sure. what about the new idea for the video/song? tell me everything. maybe you want to go to the shopping together? get in my car, clay. you freely can go to his room when silence in your head gets too loud. often you just knock on his room door shyly, and ask if you can sit on the bed while dealing with work. and he never refuse. also you absolutely love to draw him in the moments when he really focused on something, maybe make him a few more knitted hats or something cute, but stupid. and he absolutely melts at every single touch. you just need to tell him that everything is okay, and he always can find a support in his friends. and he's so thankful for this.

and finally, you want the evenings to never end because you spend them with sapnap. he don't want to show it, but you just see it anyways - he cares about you. of course, that doesn't mean that other guys don't care, but sapnap do it in his own way and you really appreciate it. almost every evening he casually walks into your room, and if he sees how tired you look because of the work, all his appearance softens immediately. with his silent, raspy voice he asks how do you feel. and if your answer not satisfying enough, nick just casually says that he's going to wait you in the car. and that means - this evening going to be awesome. you both have no clue what are you going to do tonight, but that's just more fun, right? basketball court, just like in the old times? eating junk food in the car, while chatting and shouting the songs? skateboarding park, when nick trying to impress you, but just stupidly falls and now you need to bandage all his wounds, while you just can't stop from laughing? (he's trying to act offended, but inside he's all fluff, believe me).

but sometimes you decide to hang out in the house. sapnap picks up some random film, brings more pillows and blankets, you cook (or order) snaks, and you both just simply chilling together after a long day. and I don't need to tell that almost every time the rest of the group decide to join. maybe it's even spontaneously become a movie night? who knows. you can't even blink, and it's 3am already, the third movie silently playing on the back, all the boys sleeping and barely audibly snore. and only you stubbornly want to wait until the credits. and the movie finally ends, you trying to clean up a little, while you judge the main character in your mind. when you come back to the sleeping kingdom, you can't help but smile at the view of three big men just calmly sleeping, and unconsciously trying to hug something. you definitely take a few photos, and when you want to go to your room, suddenly dream wakes up and mid-sleep reach up to you, whispering that he want to cuddle. your heart was not ready for this, and you just can't say "no" to him.

and when you slowly falling into sleep, while warm big hands carefully hugs you, you just think to yourself - oh, how extremely lucky you are.

well, maybe you can skip the next day at work.

...you can't miss how nick and george all morning going to scream that they're absolutely-for a hundred percent-for sure-definitely didn't hug each other all night.

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girlfriendsofthegalaxy · 3 months

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tuesday again 1/30/2024

a good 60% of my brain is screaming in unemployment terror at all times so these will be somewhat abbreviated until that situation resolves itself

listening

sleeping on the ceiling by friday pilots club. this is a song by a five-piece alt-rock band from chicago that could EASILY open for mid-aughts fall out boy. i would like to think it is from the point of view of a freshly-turned vampire. listen this slot isn't about the best song i heard this week it's about the one that got stuck in my head the most

Hey, I swear I'm okay Honey, I been sleepin' on the ceiling all day Yes way, like hey I swear I feel great Looky, looky, love the feeling of being okay Yes way

spotify.

youtube

reading

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and the Amulet of Power by Mike Resnick. it was in a dollar book bin and i got it as a joke gift for a friend. mike resnick is a remarkably prolific writer who's done a lot of tie-ins. i don't have anything particularly notable to say about his star wars books but they are a sort of minimum viable product? they feel star warsy and don't annoy me on every page.

this book was published in 2003 and treats the people of the Nile delta and their beliefs with all the delicacy you might expect from a 2003 video game tie in novel. i do think the twist is being telegraphed way too hard. perhaps i should say instead of sending a telegram mr resnick has simply set the telegraph office ablaze as a signal fire. the titular triangle-pointed woman herself ms croft is VERY insistent she's just as good as the boys. this is pretty on par for my experience of 2003 empowering womens' feminism AND my experience in a male-dominated field so i can't really ding it too hard? aside from the racism, in the notably racism-free fields of archaeology and video games and archaeology video games, this book is aging a little strangely overall. i do not know if i will finish it before i mail it out to my friend, but despite its sins it is a very fast read.

watching

watched the four dungeon meshi episodes. it's cute! ProzD was an unexpected delight! it made me want to make something fancy for dinner but alas i still have to go food shopping!

some posts on my dash were talking about how the episode with the mollusks inside the living armor really got them hooked and i have to agree. i also saw the full potential of the show's speculative biology unspooling before me. i don't know if i currently have the brainwidth for the manga but it is going on my reading list for after i finish berserk. which is kind of like saying i'm going to watch chopped after i finish up hannibal

playing

forgot i had an original gen switch, given to me through a complex series in a complex series of friend barters back in uhhhh late '21? early '22? i got through 3/4 of the divine beasts the first time around and then could not crack the camel. it was well past time to create a new switch profile so i could start a new game without losing the old one.

omg twinnsssssssss

i did forget how goddamn big the map is. i have just now unlocked the camera and the memory quests, i have not really. done much more than basic tutorial and beginning of game stuff.

making

anxiously junebugging between a whole bunch of shit. finally figured out the correct charger/extension cord setup for my bedroom. replaced all the fluorescent lightbulbs and took them to be recycled. fixed the hall door enough so it latches closed and an irritated cat can't claw it open. tidied up the balcony and patio and repotted the surviving houseplants.

in textile news, started this cross stitch. this is a Bless This Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy Star Wars themed sampler, i have made two as gifts and had to throw out a mostly-completed one i made for me bc of the moths. but i now know exactly where this will go in this apartment and i already have the frame and i bought all the floss pre-being fired, so might as well? the real bitch of the situation here is backstitching the buildings. it's so start and stop. it's so much tan. i talked about this on the weekly siblingchat facetime and now my brother has requested one lmao. that's his christmas gift settled. i suppose.

i had somehow forgotten how loadbearing textile crimes are for me. i haven't done much of anything since the moth debacle, and that was almost two years ago. last night i found some suspicious holes in a camisole and i'm really really hoping it's just cat claws and not moths or carpet beetles or any other fun things that eat clothes.

#tuesday again #tuesday again no problem #feeling unsettled. feeling petulant.

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emmatgc · 5 months

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Beautiful Beast

This is a post in HONOR of Grace Helen Burgess/Shelby. The 1st and original Mrs. Shelby and 1 great and true love.

At first, I wanted it to be "in DEFENSE" of Grace but nah..I changed my mind. I would like to celebrate her and not defend her for she is not a villain nor a bad person. Grace is one of the most stable, well developed and written character despite its limitations of her presence. She could have been more but SK decided otherwise...for the f***kin plot.

Haters are hating Grace for some illogical, non sense , hang ups and petty jealousies of her character and what she is to Tommy. Its like as if they love Tommy but does not want Tommy to be happy. Ridiculous,isn't it? Poor Tommy this and that but the chance he was actually happy, you hate on the 1 person who made him exactly happy? 🤣 Crazy.

Grace is not just a pretty face. She was an educated gal. Grew up with a well rounded family, a healthy one with ups and downs. A patriotic person who chose to become a spy to avenge her father. That is noble. In a time where rarely a spy is a woman, that is progress. Grace was independent, free spirited, sophisticated and classy. She stood for something more than herself. That is very admirable. Grace was already "somebody" even before he met Tommy. She had a life and path she thought she was going to follow. Most women at that time depend solely on a man, cant love without them but not Grace. She was smart. She was witty, manipulative and cunning. All true. Perfect for a spy or a detective, or an agent of the crown. She was powerful. She has her pride and integrity intact until she fell for a cold blooded gangster. For a bit, she lost it, her identity by falling in love. Imagine all your life, you are sworn enemy with the likes of Tommy only to end up loving him as the only man in your life?

See, that right there could have landed Grace as the victim. But, she didn't see it that way. She took her life back, in control, came clean at the expense of losing her heart and love but not her self respect and integrity. She did what she was told at first then she knew its not just black and white but grey then she chose for herself. She could have walked away and just have Tommy and hos whole family hang bit she didn't. She risk every bit of who she was to carve a different path of the new version of herself by actually staying true to herself. She took control of her own life, her own destiny because that is Grace. She messed up. She was not perfect. She came clean. She did not sulk or whine. She took responsibility. She took the beating. She moved on. She was built that way. Amazing, amazing woman! Tommy fell hard to this kind of woman. Tommy was the lucky one. She has to die for love. It sucks but Grace already knew that. She always does and did the moment she chose Tommy.

So to compare her to other PK women is blasphemous in my opinion or shall I say to compare her as the love of Tommy's life to other "loves" of his is just pure fallacy. Nowhere near what Grace means to Tommy other ladies can compete. They were loved out of loyalty, business, obligation and family. They can give Tommy all the sex he might crave, but they can never feel the void in his being. Grace was chosen out of love. He will always choose her in a heartbeat. Just pure love that nobody can come between regardless of time and distance. Nowhere Graces character is less than the others, too. In fact, she is way above them in every station. She is the alpha female. She is the boss. She was the best female character in PK.

The gif above reflects the scene that I find fascinating eversince. When Tommy said "beautiful beast" talking about the horse with baby Charlie, looking at Grace, I wondered that maybe it was really meant for her. She was beautiful but she was also a beast. She can run circles at you and bury you. She is her own person. Thats frightening for some. Nothing ever can change that even becoming Mrs.Shelby didn't change that. She was too good for Tommy but then again, she knew that already.

She even took a bullet. Oh, Grace, the woman that you are!

#tommy x grace #grace burgess #grace shelby #tommy shelby #peaky blinders #tommy x grace forever #thomas shelby #annabelle wallis #true love always win #cillian murphy

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shapeshiftersvt · 21 days

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Cryptid Collection Spotlight: The Squonk

We're going to be spending this week infodumping about the six cryptids we chose to feature in our Cryptid Collection! We'll be posting about the lore and origins, our thoughts, experiences, and relationships with all of these cryptids, and we encourage folks to share their own!

Today we're talking about the most #relatable cryptid, the Squonk.

👣The Cryptid Collection 🗺️Cryptid Travel Posters 👥Cryptid Binders & Sportsbras 🧵Cryptid fabric designs

Much like the Jackalope that we spotlighted yesterday, the Squonk is a creature from tall tales of the previous centuries.

Descriptions of the Squonk nearly all originate from the same source. Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods was a 1910 collaboration between William Thomas Cox, Minnesota's first State Forester and Commissioner of conservation, who wrote the text; Coert du Bois, US Consul and forester, who drew the illustrations; and George Bishop Sudworth, Chief Dendrologist of the Forest Service, who created the Latin classifications. In the introduction, Cox claims that the fantastical field guide was born out of a desire to preserve some of the tall tales invented by lumberjacks and the stories they told about them around campfires "to regale newcomers and frighten people unfamiliar with the woods". The guide details twenty creatures from heavily wooded regions all over the US. There on page 31, between the Hodag of Wisconsin and Minnesota, and the Whirling Whimpus of Tennessee, lies our friend, the Squonk.

Later texts inspired by Fearsome Creatures expanded on the lore, describing, among other things, a mass migration from its original widespread territory that resulted in the evolution of webbed toes, but only on its left feet; wax and hair-covered ears; crooked yellow tusks; and asexual reproduction through cell division. But Cox's original, much more straightforward description, seems to have truly stood the test of time.

The Squonk, like many regional cryptids, has a fairly small territory, being limited to the hemlock forests of northern Pennsylvania. Cox claims that those familiar with the Squonk describe it as being "the most morbid of beasts". These days, we might interpret that to mean a fearsome creature that lurks in the darkest, thickest part of the woods, hunting unsuspecting lumberjacks who unknowingly wander into its territory and toying with them the way a cat toys with a mouse. Quite the contrary, though, the Squonk is described as morbid because of its constant weeping, the source of which is the skin which hangs off of it in wrinkles as if it were a piece of much too large clothing, and its many warts and moles.

While the Squonk is most active during the twilight and dusk hours, it can also be found traveling at night. In fact, Cox relates that "frosty moonlight nights" are the best conditions for Squonk hunters, as it doesn't like to move much at all on those nights, and its tears flow more slowly. Why might slowly flowing tears be an advantage, especially when the trail those tears leave behind in the Squonk's wake are an easy way for hunters to track it? Why, because the more scared the Squonk is, the more tears it cries, and likely it is to be completely dissolved by those tears.

In fact, this curious characteristic is described in the only encounter related by Cox:

Mr. J. P. Wentling, formerly of Pennsylvania, but now at St. Anthony Park, Minnesota, had a disappointing experience with a Squonk near Mont Alto. He made a clever capture by mimicking the Squonk and inducing it to hop into a sack, in which he was carrying it home, when suddenly the burden lightened and the weeping ceased. Wentling unslung the sack and looked in. There was nothing by tears and bubbles.

It's probably fairly obvious why an inherently queer company selling garments intended to relieve body dysphoria would relate to a creature like the Squonk, which is so uncomfortable in its own skin that it simply can't stop crying. But we're certainly not the first to feel empathy and kinship with the Squonk. In fact 2024 marks the second annual Squonkapalooza in Johnstown, PA, hoping to "turn those frowns upside down. Spreading the love of the Squonk might cheer them up."

Which is fair! I think that if most of us discovered a festival organized and attended out of pure love and empathy for us we'd probably feel a little bit better about ourselves.

#squonk #cryptids #cryptozoology #pennsylvania #shapeshifters #the cryptid collection

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beardedmrbean · 6 months

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An online ad featuring an artificial intelligence-generated version of Scarlett Johansson without her permission appears to no longer be online following a request from the actor’s attorney.

Lisa AI: 90s Yearbook & Avatar allegedly used actual footage of Johansson from a campaign she did in conjunction with Omaze, a for-profit fundraising company that often partners with celebrities, and Marvel Studios, according to Variety.

NBC News has not viewed the advertisement. It appears to no longer be on X, where it originated.

“We do not take these things lightly,” Kevin Yorn, Johansson’s attorney, said in a statement. “Per our usual course of action in these circumstances, we will deal with it with all legal remedies that we will have.”

The advertisement first began to bubble up on X around Saturday. Text under the advertisement read, “Images produced by Lisa AI. It has nothing to do with this person,” according to Variety.

Lisa AI is one of a number of AI apps that have flooded the market in recent months. It lets users “create amazing artworks with AI,” including text suggestions that produce images, its website says. As of Wednesday night, the app appeared to be available on both Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store.

Representatives for Lisa AI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Johansson is the latest celebrity to take issue with the alleged misuse of her likeness in AI, as deepfakes — a type of artificial media in which people’s faces are replaced with those of other people — and the technology behind them becomes more sophisticated.

Actors have also been sounding the alarm about AI images for some time. The digitally altered images have been a sticking point in the negotiations between the Hollywood studios and SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, which is on strike.

Last month, actor Tom Hanks posted on Instagram that he had “nothing to do with” a computer-generated image of him “promoting some dental plan.” Zelda Williams, the daughter of the late actor/comedian Robin Williams, called the AI recreations of him circulating on the internet “personally disturbing.” And YouTube star Jimmy Donaldson, who goes by Mr Beast, also shared with his millions of followers that a deepfake advertisement using his likeness was a scam. The advertisement he posted about was quickly removed from TikTok.

#nunyas news

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thegameartist03 · 6 days

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@cryptidcaper I'd love to talk about them! This is gonna be a pretty long post, so I put in a couple tl;dr's for those who just want to get the gist of it.

I have no idea what to call this, so I'll keep running with it being a Phantom of the Paradise au. There are some changes to the themes and content of the original story based on what I felt comfortable writing about and discussing, but everything else is pretty much intact. If you have any questions, suggestions, or comments, feel free to throw them my way! I'll be happy to talk more about it.

(overall tl;dr: the au is set in the 2020s, the supernatural is part of everyday life, Swan is the head of media conglomerate Death Studios and working for an Entity known as Sparrow to collect souls, zombies and ghosts make for cheap labor, Winslow is trying to get his stage production of Faust seen, Phoenix has a YouTube channel for explaining the paranormal and wants her own show, Beef is a writer, actor, and director who gets an arguably worse fate than the movie, Swan took the band name Undeads too literally and now the Juicy Fruits are trapped working for him forever, Philbin is a stone construct disguised as a human)

A little context about the world to start. (tl;dr, it's the 2020s, paranormal beings like zombies exist and are well known but not talked about, Swan made a deal with a powerful Entity called Sparrow to stay young forever and collects souls for Sparrow in exchange, now Swan is head of the Death Studios media conglomerate, he's incredibly influential and successful, meanwhile he's using contracts to exploit and control his workforce which benefits both him and Sparrow, most workers are Undead or constructs because their labor is cheaper.)

This version of the story is set in the 2020s (partly because I didn't want to do a ton of research on the 70s, partly because I thought it'd be funny if Winslow started dissing Swan on twitter). The supernatural is very present and well known by people but not often acknowledged. Ghosts and zombies exist, spirits can decide to help your houseplants grow or give you bad luck, hand-carved constructs are used for jobs that would be too dangerous for humans, and fae-like beings known as Entities walk the lines between worlds and lure people into contracts to increase their power. Talking about these paranormal parts of the world is taboo for most so there's a lot of fear and misunderstanding surrounding them. It's also kept hush-hush by certain people who rely on the supernatural to profit.

Swan is one of these people. In the 50s, an Entity known as Sparrow approached him at his lowest and convinced him to sign a contract. In exchange for eternal youth and power, Swan would collect more souls for Sparrow. Swan has been largely successful with this through his company Death Studios (upgraded from Death Records) and has expanded from the music industry into general entertainment. He now directs a media conglomerate and makes use of social media to promote his definitely not stolen or exploited productions. Think Mr. Beast meets Disney meets Netflix. He's wildly popular, and partly due to the influence and power granted by Sparrow, almost no one questions how he's still so young and successful and those who do ask questions are quickly silenced. Every artist, writer, actor, singer, musician, producer, etc dreams of one day working for Swan.

Behind the scenes, Swan uses his sweeping control of the entertainment industry to hire fresh faces, sign them onto exploitative contracts, and then drain them of all they're worth. This benefits both him and Sparrow. And, if someone tries to leave or raise the alarm, they simply have a little 'accident' and are brought back as an Undead who can be exploited even more and paid even less. The majority of Swan's employees are actually Undead who have been trapped by their contracts and unable to move on as long as Swan finds them useful.

With that lengthy explanation over, onto the characters!

Winslow Leach is about the same, he's a composer and writer who's been working on a musical stage production of Faust for most of his life. He's not well known and dreams that his work will one day be seen by the world. He has a knack for getting into places he shouldn't be, he's bad with computers and writes most things out by hand, and at this point he's naive and almost blindly optimistic. I'm also giving him The Tism and reclaiming those vibes from the movie because Projection and Yes.

Phoenix never got into singing, though her voice is still terrific. Instead, she's a paranormal investigator and has her own small YouTube channel talking about the supernatural and its presence in their world. She's not as afraid of the unnatural as most people are, and she hopes that exposing these things that people try to sweep under the rug will help them understand the paranormal better and be less afraid of it. She dreams of having her own show one day with the budget to do proper explorations of lesser-known paranormal sites and beings. She's determined to reach this goal to the point of recklessness and risking her own safety, especially since some of these beings can be incredibly dangerous. She's waiting for her shot to get out of her dead end job and chase her goals, and she's not letting anything get in the way.

Swan is Swan, the only big difference is he has a bit more obvious supernatural-ness to him. His Entity-given power relies on perception, making people perceive him however he wants them to. He can extend this power to others and disguise his more inhuman staff so they blend in with the natural world. He plans to open a new major studio location/online streaming service called Paradise+ and is looking for the right content to do it. He's also on TikTok, which is horrifying enough.

Beef! He's a professional actor and writer who's directed and taken part in plenty of stage productions and films in his time. He's also a guitarist, which doesn't come into play in his work as often as he'd like. He suffers the same fate as he does in the movie, but that's far from the end of his story.

The Juicy Fruits are Swan's swiss army knife of an entertainment group, and of course they've all signed contracts with him. Whatever the trends are, the Juicy Fruits will adapt to them. They've gone from songs to gaming to children's entertainment. At one point, the group decided they wanted to move on from Death Studios and tried to exit their contract. Unfortunately, there was an 'accident' during one of the rehearsals, and now they're permanently trapped under Swan's thumb unable to escape or reenter society. The 'accident' also affected their looks, so when they perform they're either animated with motion capture or disguised by Swan or heavy makeup and prosthetics to hide the fact they are no longer alive.

Sometime in the 60s, Swan purchased an older property that included a number of stone gargoyles. In need of some body guards that wouldn't ask questions and weren't as fragile as the usual human grunts, he had them removed from the building and then brought them to life. Thus, Philbin was created. He's Swan's right hand man and does all the dirty work. He doesn't have much to complain about; Swan gave him a disguise so he can appear as human, he gets paid enough and treated better than most of the other employees, and he's got relative freedom in his job. Most contracts are signed through Philbin on behalf of Swan.

This is already really long, so I'll go in depth about the plot in a separate post. But, to give a short summary, the plot of the movie still happens (with a few twists and a different ending), and then the characters go through a few arcs trying to figure themselves out and how to escape Swan's influence. Winslow in particular struggles with his identity and who and what he is after getting Phantom'd. There's laughs to be had, horrors to be witnessed, and not everyone is going to be making it out alive (or un-alive). As a final note, if anyone has any ideas for what this should be called, lmk!

#gamma thoughts #phantom of the paradise #potp #potp au #gamma’s writing

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mangobubbletea7 · 1 year

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Remember the DSMP/MCYT citizen memes? I think we should make ones like those again but it’s just memes predicting what we’ll be posting about as a fandom or as ex-fandom members in like a decade from now. Here are my first contenders:

• Not my coworker asking if I saw who the new Vice Presidential frontrunner is and me looking it up to see that it’s fucking ConnorEatsPants HELP 💀💀💀

• “Living life peacefully. Remembering BadBoyHalo has 4 kids now” jumpscare meme.

• Has anyone else seen that trending law firm ad for Quackity’s new practice? Crazy that he got Mr. Beast in there, I thought he hadn’t left the bunker for 3 years? Or did they film it in the Beast™️ Underground Content Room?

• Tubbo: “Tommy it’s time for the 48th origins SMP reboot”

Tommy: “Yes honey”

• LOVEJOY AT THE MET GALA THIS YEAR?????

• Guys! I’m eating my apocalypse rations and I think Michael McChill was just behind me in line. I couldn’t really tell because of all the smog but it sounded like him,,, small world I guess. If I see him again I’ll start humming Mamma Mia to find out

• If I had a nickle for every time a former DSMP member won a Nobel Prize, I’d only have 2 nickles but it’s weird that it happened twice

• Anyone remember when Hasan started that IRL gardening stream trend? And then Karl started showing up on HGTV landscaping shows? That was a weirdly entertaining spring.

• the jerma-jack manifold collab channel is pretty strange tbh but it’s funnier than i thought it’d be

#dream smp #dsmp #mcyt #dsmpblr #mcytblr #tommyinnit #Tubbo #connoreatspants #quackity #Jack manifold #michael mcchill #badboyhalo #I’m glad of the characterization I’ve got here I feel like it’s accurate #mango speaks sometimes

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wanderingmind867 · 23 days

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Of the original 5 X-Men, my favourite is Cyclops. I relate to him and his loneliness to an incredible degree. I also relate to Beast a bit, but Cyclops is still more relatable. I think I've made posts about this before, actually.

On the avengers (of their core members in the issues I read), Hank Pym is the most relatable. His anger issues, his mood swings, etc. It's all really relatable. Really, really relatable. I also relate to the hulk on an insane level, but he wasn't really a member of the team for long.

I haven't read the Fantastic Four in a while, but Mr. Fantastic seems like he'd be the most relatable character. He's very similar to Hank Pym in my opinion, which itself makes him relatable. But I think the thing is probably the funniest and therefore most fun character the team had, and the invisible girl is the one whose powers I'd most want.

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wackyrumble · 11 months

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FINAL

Roommate v.s. Isaac and Miria

Roommate - Diary of a Tourney Kid

A clone of Adam Ruins Everything that came out wrong. He debunks things in the same way as his original, but completely incorrectly. Bill Cipher turned him into a hand puppet and fused him with a clone of another character. Fought Walter White and his evil shadow self, Walter Black. Read more about Roommate below.

Isaac and Miria - Baccano!

"They're incredibly flamboyant bank robbers, perpetually dressed and acting a decade or two out of date and never notice this is weird, they made themselves and two dozen other people immortal by accident, they didn't *notice* that they were immortal and unaging for seventy years, and when they did notice they immediately concluded it meant they were vampires. (Vampires don't exist.)" Apparently this last part might be inaccurate but I don't know this series and I love misinformation. Read more about Isaac and Miria below.

Full description of Roommate:

"OK OK OK SO LIKE. HE'S FROM THIS MASHUP TOURNAMENT HOSTED ON SOUNDCLOUD & DISCORD CALLED "DIARY OF A TOURNEY KID, RIGHT? YES, IT IS BASED OFF OF DIARY OF A WIMPY KID IN NAME, THEMING, AND A BUNCH OF THE CHARACTERS IN IT. AND YES, THE ENTIRE PREMISE WAS STARTED BY GREG HEFFLEY TRAPPING A BUNCH OF PEOPLE IN THE DIARY. LOOK. OKAY. THAT ISN'T THE POINT HERE. (including a few real people but. roommate isn't one of those real people, LOL)

so Roommate is, like, a WEIRD case. he's a clone of a TV personality version of a real guy(adam conover specifically the whole thing he does in, like, adam ruins everything), but is SPECIFICALLY STATED TO BE A SEPERATE CHARACTER IN LORE. LIKE. HES A WHOLE OTHER GUY. HE DOESNT EVEN ACT LIKE HIM. HES LIKE. THE SCOOBY DOO VILLAIN EQUIVALENT OF A MAN. all he does is run around and "Debunk" shit but hes getting it all totally WRONG. It's like, if someone who never watched adam ruins everything before took one look at its name, the blonde, glasses wearing combover having guy on the cover, and went. "oh, this guy is gonna be HORRIBLE, isnt he". and in the shows case thatd be wrong but in roommate's case, he's...he's so pathetic. he's not even the same guy at this point. (and also literally isn't. but)

He never even manages to intimidate anyone even once. not even mr beast and ninja fortnite, (part of a team called Dubious Duo) who he just. VERY much annoyed via "ruining" twitch. He also got turned into a meaty handpuppet and fused to another clone of a different character by BILL CIPHER, of all characters but then immediately fell into a hole. He got his shit beaten out of him by a 19 year old punk catboy JUST before this, too. the punk catboys name is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart BUT HE IS IN NO WAY RELATED TO THE REAL GUY. HES LITERALLY JUST. SOME RANDOM TEENAGER.

Also, extra fun facts about him include: during an event that happened on the discord, he canonically went ":3". He made his own ytp and posted it on the soundcloud account, too. he put a bunch of goofy wacky cartoon sounds in it. (his mashups use these sounds a lot outside of the ytp, too.) (incase you REALLY wanted to hear the ytp, though. here it is:

P.S: extra information from a friend because they like to infodump this sort of thing & this isn't nescessary at all. but: He gets the fandom nickname of "Roommate" from his connection to Collegehumor & the Insane Clown Posse song In My Room, which he used in the tournament & is strongly associated with. He's so. He's so normal.

(P.S, P.S: THE IMAGE I SENT WITH THIS IS TECHNICALLY ART OF HIM FROM A CROSSOVER WITH ANOTHER SOUNDCLOUD TOURNAMENT THAT HAPPENED. BUT. its the best render i have that isnt done in like. ms paint LOL. IN SAID CROSSOVER (WITH A TOURNAMENT CALLED "THE PERFECT TOURNAMENT") HE ALSO FOUGHT WALTER WHITE AND HIS. EVIL SHADOW SELF, CALLED WALTER BLACK. WHO WAS LITERALLY HIS SHADOW.)

also: nobody in the fandom knows what his deal is, either. they literally just couldnt catch the real adam conover at first so they (In canon) just went "well! time to make a clone, i guess!" and then he came out WRONG."

Another description of Isaac and Miria:

"Ok. they are two people but do not seperate them. they are the stupidest immortal people in existence.

They became immortal in 1931 and would have died a bunch of times. they didnt realized they stopped aging and were immortal until 2001. They dont know how train robberies work so they just rob people then get onto a train. They tried to become good people after robbing a bunch of places by instead robbing the mafia, this worked because they dressed in such stupid costumes that bystanders assumed they were street performers

This video has a good job having their cadence of how they act" "so you take this boxing game. you give it a title defense mode. and then once you beat THAT youre in mac's last stand. you lose 3 times and you retire. the game is over. this is mostly familiar faces. the same human boxers you've already fought to make it this far. but theres also a CHANCE. that you will fight Donkey Fucking Kong. straight up him from the donkey kong games and shit. just an actual cartoon monkey. and you might not! if you get unlucky you could be forced to retire, never having fought Donkey Fucking Kong in a boxing game. and i think thats just like. what makes it all so insane that hes just there. also hes in the audience the whole time throughout the game as a sillhouette. hes hard to notice. but hes always watching. studying you for when he eventually faces you in the ring."

youtube

#The Wacky End #roommate #diary of a tourney kid #isaac dian #miria harvent #baccano!#SoundCloud #Youtube

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girl-monkey-odalys · 8 months

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Five comfort characters, five tags

Thanks for the tag, @popy1ut, and I’m sorry I took so long to respond. I had to think about it for awhile 😂

Also I know that this was a chain post and I’m supposed to reblog it 😂 but since the chain is so long I’m just going to include your response and mine 🙃

Ok Popy’s response was:

“ohh boy do i have some characters to share.

also thanks for the tag mushysposts

1 ratigan great mouse detective

2 monkey d luffy : one piece anime

3 scrooge mcduck from ducktals

4 mike and nancy from illumantions sing movie from 2016

5 donaled duck from ducktals

as for ppl im going to be tagging my best pals idk a hole lot of ppl on here lol

girl-monkey-odalys picapicamagpie

secret-tester”

————

Ok my 5 comfort characters are:

1) Klaus Kickenklober from Sing 2

2) Rafiki from Lion King

3) Gramma Tala (Moana’s grandmother)

4) The Splinter from the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles show

5) Mrs. Potts from Beauty and the Beast

Now I tag:

@singanddisneyfan, @tigresslanzhu, @gianludo, @stinkyhyena9000

(Sorry if you’ve already been tagged and don’t feel like you have to respond 😀).

#Me having Klaus as a comfort character was a pretty big paradigm change for me #As you can see I usually like the old wise kind spiritual characters #So what the heck is Kickenklober doing here??? I am still wondering.#Is my psyche compensating for something?#I swear that monkey busted into my mind and did some serious damage 🙈#I tried to resist but monkeys don’t take no for an answer

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kukuandkookie · 6 months

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wip titles meme

RULES: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! and then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

Tagged by @crimsonrainseekingflower! 💕💕💕

Thank you for the welcome surprise—another one I finally discovered once I looked at my notifications and stuff! Fortunately this time I’m remembering to make my own post haha. 😆

I hope you don’t mind if I also divide by fandom, and these only vaguely include a couple art wips!:

SVSSS:

Grave Matters

Cinderella III: A Twist in Time AU!?

Just a Dream (is this unfortunately a lame-ass title 😔)

Haunting You

Singles’ Day

TLJ/ZZL/LBH/SXY ADDAMS FAMILY AU??????????

Bingqiu White Snake (animated movie) AU

Waiting for the Tree Branches to Bloom Again

Safe from the Storm

I See in Both Your Eyes (Something Indigo)

AU: The Lion King II??

Family Meal Goes “Wrong”

TLJ’s Lament

LBH²

狗哥狗哥，你真了不得 (Gou-ge, Gou-ge…)

Slavic Vampires…

CNY Dumplings Competition

Enchanted (because we’re doing this now, I guess)

Limb Regeneration What If?? 🤔

Of Costumes and Candies (Something Orange)

Something Old, Something New, and… (Something Blue)

SV OTGW AU

I Ship My Rival x Me AU

I Have to be a Great Villain AU

Happiness Just Out of Reach

Lost and Found

Words to Heart

Breathing Smoke Into the Lungs

HORRIBLE NEW IDEA: Maybe title: Just Enough. Just Enough for Me

Love Letters (that’s all I got so far *insert deepfried emote here*)

Daycare AU???

Hmmm. Prince x Princess AU?

Xi Yang Yang AU

Gongzhu

Followers Milestone Celebration

Teacup scene

I Think My Uncle Ships Us Help

Unattainable

I’d Like to Try Staying Awake (for You)

Breaking the System (aka Fuck the System? Literally or—jk jk lmfao)

Bonuses include the latest chapters for I’d Rather Spend My Whole Life Asleep (With You) and To Tame a Beast, except the former doesn’t have a wip title. The latter does in the sense that the chapter title is Pixiu!

Erha:

Putting the Musing in Amusement Park

This Venerable One Will Not Be Outdone

What You Left Behind/Do You Also Miss Me?

[The] Romance of Wolf/Husky and Haitang

Ghost Bride (Corpse Bride but Chinese?? And Reincarnation)

Reconciliation

Fifteen Growing Up Flirty

Out of the Closet (and Into Your Arms)?

The Prince and the Pauper (but based on The Princess and the Pauper because I’m a criminal who hasn’t read the original 😂)

Wo Jia Dashixiong Naozi You Keng but with an Erha Twist

TW WARNING FOR THIS ONE but Passive suicide ideation fic

IDK WHAT TO WRITE FOR CWN’S BDAY… GOD SOMEONE SEND HELP GFGKDFHGKSDFHG (this one has a more polished but still wip version titled CWN Birthday Fic: Past, Present, or Future, I Want to Celebrate With You 😆)

Jiaoren CWN

Priest CWN & demon MR…hehehe (now a Dianran AU?)

More Than Just Puppy Love

Flower Shop…Redemption…Thingy?

From Wanton Wants to Wonton Wonders

A Taste of What Could Have Been

Screwdriver

First Bow to Heaven and Earth

Hidden Love AU

Mo Ran pulls a Bing-ge

Mind(-Reading) Games

Stone Lion

Swallowed Flowers

Confessions (Role-Swap AU)

TXJ Week (help we’re way past that now 😔): De-Aged Fic

A Tear in My Heart aka Read You Like an Open Book aka To Leave a Piece/Page of Me in the Nooks and Crannies of You?

Shi Mei Jiaoren Fic: [I’m] Afraid to Live Without Breathing

I also have a lot of Erha and SVSSS fic ideas that are unfortunately just blurbs in my ideas document right now and not full-on wips so they don’t have any titles I can share. 😔

Misc:

First Times, Second Chances, and Third Time’s the Charm…s (?) (Link Click)

Missing a You of Another Time (Link Click)

Danmei, xianxia-esque story (Link Click)

Suriel/Sariel

Call of the Wolves (specifically chapter 78)

Chuju the Chou

Papillon and Akuma’s Story

Papillon and Akuma Role Reversal AU Story

Circinus and Pyxis

Smoke & Mirrors

Dimension Hoppers

Take Me Back to Hell (All Saints Street)

I’ll Love You Until All the Stars Fall from the Sky (The Legend of Luo Xiaohei?)

Fengxi like Shade in Firewing (The Legend of Luo Xiaohei)

Mafia AU Xuanli x Laojun (The Legend of Luo Xiaohei)

Continuation of Falling for You (White Cat Legend)

How Could I Ever Ask You to Love Me? (White Cat Legend)

My Shadow It Follows Me

The Us of the Present Could Perhaps Be Just as Tender as the Us of the Past (Scissor Seven)

A Conversation With a Dead Man (MDZS)

Magical Girl AU (MDZS)

Xue Yang’s Regrets (MDZS)

Ao Bing and Nezha in a shoujo high school AU… That’s it. That’s the whole idea (Nezha 2019)

Surprising the Un-Surprise-Able (I Have to be a Great Villain)

Xianxia AU (Kiss the Abyss)

Breathing New Life (Kiss the Abyss)

I Will Chase You to the Ends of Time and Space (Kiss the Abyss)

A Family Outing (Beryl and Sapphire)

Just Some Gay Little Dudes (Beryl and Sapphire)

Steven Universe AU (Beryl and Sapphire)

Something as Sweet as You (I Ship My Adversary x Me)

A Present to be Cherished (I Ship My Adversary x Me)

I Ship My Adversary x Me and 严禁造谣 Crossover? AU Swap?

Additional misc wips I haven’t touched in forever are the latest chapters for The World Doesn’t Deserve You (MDZS) and Frostbite (All Saints Street). 😅

And as a bonus, these aren’t at all “official” yet but the more I read for some manhua the more I’m tempted to write fics for them… For example, a fic for Blemishing the Contaminated or My Lovely Troublemaker season 2 would be so cute, even if I don’t exactly have any clear or obvious ideas for them. 🥺

Phew, wow. I had way more wips than I expected AKFJSKFHSJS. Some are honestly just super half-baked documents tucked away in a folder with only a title and outline, but I hope something here was of interest to you guys. 😆💖

As for tagging…

I also don’t think I’m capable of tagging as many people as I have wips otl. So I hope you guys don’t mind if I tag just a few of you!

@ezrathesplit @levia-kun @yumichanhamano @softdekus @rongzhi @azunshi

(Of course, if you would rather not, feel free not to do this!)

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meltedbuttersblog · 9 months

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goofy nicknames for twst cast :D

i originally sent these to @duskymrel but she said i should post these so here we are

heartslabyul

riddle: riddler, mr. president

trey: reddit nice guy (me), bread boy, oyster sauce fiend, peeta

cater: caycay the craycray, mr. chronically online, vil's aborted son /j

ace: little shit, asshat, acehole

deuce: big shit, double trouble, double bubble toil and trouble, bonk, cauldron

savanaclaw

leona: lil kitty meow meow, princess, regina george, apex predator (mean girls reference, meant to go with the regina nickname), munchies (ruggie, see his "grammy doesn't need fancy" vignette), sir snores-a-lot

ruggie: buggie wuggie ruggie, snuggie as buggie in a ruggie, reggie

jack: big buff cheeto puff, furry, handcrusher (back to my anime origins 😨😔), beast mode

octavinelle

azul: daddy (rook), monopoly man, stonks

jade: shroomie, mr. premeditated murder

floyd: chiropractor, mr. non-premeditated murder, psychopathic adhd

scarabia

kalim: big dick baby, death's best friend

jamil: x-games mode, sheryll's mexican neighbor (he seasons his chicken) (maybe just a little too much...)

pomefiore

vil: regina, heather, germy wormy ( /affectionate, cuz he's german)

rook: titty croissants, theatre kid (derogatory), theatre kid /pos, fox

epel: peepaw, meemaw, chicken fried by the zac brown band, good lookin' by dixon dallas (I CAN'T STOP LAUGHING WHEN I THINK ABOUT THIS SONG) (it's a very homosexual country song and it makes me crack up) (it used the word bussy)

ignihyde

idia: beta cuck, stinky boy (me: /j, /affectionate) (others: /srs, /derogatory)

(not including ortho cuz idk what to do for him 💀)

diasomnia

malleus: malicious malleus, gargling gargoyles (that would be a great catchphrase for him ngl), daddy (lilia but we don't talk about those many one or two times EVER.)

lilia: peepaw, serg (called serg once cuz he very sternly gave an order to player or smth and was like "if you're going to give me a military title, it best be general."), daddy (mal, but this time we do talk about it)

sebek: croc shoe, speaker, iida kinnie (player) (sebs has no idea what they're talking about 💀), sergeant

silver: sleepy, lil guy, kiddo (lilia), narcoleptic (me)

#twisted wonderland #twst shitpost #twst heartslabyul #twst savanaclaw #twst octavinelle #twst scarabia #twst pomefiore #twst ignihyde #twst diasomnia #i gave them funny nicknames cuz i came up with ruggie buggie wuggie while conversing with duskyms over this #i don't normally post ever so YAY first fandom related thing :D

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veliseraptor · 1 year

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April Reading Recap

so apparently I read a fuckton in April. I put that on the week off for Passover and also a number of very fast reads last month. here goes

The Spite House by Johnny Compton. Might be the best horror book I'd read in a while, and I did not see the twist coming for a long while. Good and very spooky on the whole, but the "creepy kids as ghosts" thing took some of the luster off it. Still, some good and original ideas here and I'll be watching for more books by this author.

The Nine Eyes of Lucien by Madeleine Roux. Not very good writing and a good third of the book was rehashing the events of the end of Campaign 2, which I just watched. It was fine, I guess? But I didn't find it added much.

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. I've had this one on my list for literal years - it's a retelling of the Biblical story of Dinah, Jacob's one daughter. I kind of wish I'd read it sooner, when (a) I was less burned out on retellings/reinterpretations of familiar stories, and (b) when I would've been less bothered by the flavor of gender essentialism of the text and could have appreciated other things about it without getting stuck in feeling iffy about that. I am trying to work out why it bothers me so much that Diamant chose to change the reading of the text from (an implied) rape to a consensual love affair, and I'm not quite sure I can explain that.

It's an interesting book and I'm glad I read it but I don't think I'd recommend it without disclaimers; I think in some ways it's more interesting as an artifact of the cultural movement it comes out of than anything else. Would analyze in a class about Jewish feminist responses to stories in Tanakh (or Talmud, tbh).

Six Myths of Our Time: Little Angels, Little Monsters, Beautiful Beasts and More by Marina Warner. Fascinating collection of short essays originally given as lectures on the BBC, apparently - the one essay about the way the West conceptualizes the simultaneous purity/monstrosity of children was particularly interesting to me. Interesting piece of work I picked up totally by happenstance because it was short and looked interesting and it lived up to both qualities.

Gallows Hill by Darcy Coates. Good spooky horror recommended by @cigaretteburnslikefairylights and actually legit scared me in places, which doesn't happen all that often to me anymore when I'm reading horror. (I'm still a weenie watching it.) I actually...liked this one start to resolution and am going to be looking up more of Darcy Coates' writing, because if it's not, you know, doing something super ~innovative~ it is good spooky reading and that's really what I've been craving.

Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded by Simon Winchester. Reading this book was a weird experience. I went into it just thinking "ooh, book about an interesting natural disaster, I love volcanoes" and came out of it going "whoa, surprise Islamophobia," checked the publication date, and learned it was 2003, whereupon I was miserably unsurprised. I don't know why the author felt like he needed to make colonial apologetics and blame the post-eruption upheaval on Islamic fundamentalists manipulating the natives into uprising against their Dutch masters but apparently he did. (I'm exaggerating. But not that much.)

The geology stuff was interesting. Mr. Winchester should've stuck with that and the reportage of the eruption itself and left politics out of it.

Violent Phenomena: 21 Essays on Translation ed. by Kavita Bhanot & Jeremy Tiang. This might be my favorite book I read in April, honestly. It's a really good collection of essays about the concept of decolonizing translation, and what that means, and whether it's possible, and the uneasy and uncomfortable relationship between translation and imperialism. I didn't agree with all the essays in here, and they didn't necessarily all agree with each other, but all of them at least had something interesting to say. I would recommend this one to people who can find it - it's by a small press - who are interested in translation or who frequently read in translation. The writers have a lot to say that I think is worth thinking about.

She Is a Haunting by Trang Thahn Tran. I think I just need to give up reading YA books with the realization they're generally not for me, though this one almost had me. It's something about the...I know there's a range of styles, I can't generalize style across the genre, but there is a texture to YA writing that doesn't quite work for me.

I love the concept - diaspora horror, colonialist horror, some really fucked up body horror stuff that got surprisingly gruesome - and would love to read a slightly different book about it, but alas, that book wasn't this one.

American Midnight: Democracy's Forgotten Crisis, 1917-1921 by Adam Hochschild. Another contender for favorite book I read this month though I think this one loses out to Violent Phenomena and possibly Gallows Hill, though comparing horror fiction to historical nonfiction feels kind of unfair. Anyway, I knew some of what this book was digging into - the Sedition Act and the intensely violent repression that was going on in the United States during World War I - but I learned a lot more here.

The depressing thing about reading this, though, was watching (so to speak) the brutal crushing of a once fairly robust American Socialist Party such that it never recovered. Not to mention the grinding down of the labor movement, which I think was at its most powerful during this period of time and hasn't been as strong since.

Just looking at that and wondering what might've been if Woodrow Wilson wasn't such a fucking dick.

Elektra by Jennifer Saint. I feel so funny about this book. I read another mythology retelling even though I swore not to because a Tumblr user I respect mentioned it being good; my experience was that it wasn't bad and it didn't actively bother me like some other retellings I could name, but I don't know that I'd actually call it good. Mostly I'd say I wasn't annoyed, just uninspired.

Of the three narrators, Elektra was definitely the best, and I really did like the construction of her relationship with Clytemnestra, which really felt like the meat of the book. (Perhaps, considering the House of Atreus, that's a bad turn of phrase to use.) The Cassandra sections felt like a distraction, mostly a way to keep the reader up with what was going on across the sea and provide some action in between the familial drama. Ultimately I just felt like those sections took away from the Elektra/Clytemnestra dynamic, leaving insufficient meat.

Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach. I went through a period of time where I was reading all of Mary Roach's books, and was kind of obsessed with them, so this was sort of returning to an old and familiar friend. I found I wasn't quite as enamored with this one as I remembered being of some of her others (I think I remember Stiff being my favorite), but it was an interesting look at the intersections between human and animal - which is really more what this is about than law, per se. It's about what we do when animals cause problems for humans, from monkeys to bears, and the questions that are raised about the best way to handle those issues.

Nero: Matricide, Music, and Murder in Imperial Rome by Anthony Everitt & Roddy Ashworth. I'm so confused by this book. From the insistence on referring to Nero as "princeps" throughout the book, to the random dropping of French in places it really didn't need to be, to the frankly credulous approach to the sources, particularly when it comes to sex, even when the author mentioned how sex is often a proxy for politics in Roman historical writing, the weird sideways digression into "did Rome have gay marriage?", the weird "maybe she got what she deserved" aside about Messalina's death...

I learned a fair amount, I can say that, I'm not as knowledgeable about this period's Julio-Claudians. Frankly I think Agrippina (the Younger) was the real star of this book, despite Anthony Everitt's heroic efforts to make Nero the protagonist. Buddy, I see your point, but you're pushing a little too hard here.

Anyway. Weird reading experience, I'm tempted to recommend it just so someone else can either validate it or go "what are you talking about, this was a perfectly normal history book."

---

woof long post, but hey it was a lot of books. currently reading A Fever in the Heartland for more American racism in the early 20th century. I have a stack of library books that are waiting for me and I think the next one is probably going to be The Social Lives of Animals, which will either be really enjoyable or annoy the hell out of me, possibly both.

#reading recaps #sometimes i read things #long post for ts

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ask-elland-n-will · 6 months

Text

🎃Halloween HL rp 2023 🎃

🕯️ Description of the Halloween Ballroom

👻 Costumes and participants:

Hellendil (Egyptian pharaoh) [x, x]

Allegra (didn't specify) [x]

Felix (goat mask) [x, x]

Will (vampire)

Elland (phoenix costume made by his brother)

Wren and Imelda (Mrs and Mrs Adams) [x]

Sebastian (unsure) [x, x]

Theodora (Scarecrow) [x]

Richard (The King of Hearts) [x]

Ominis (mouse) [x, x, x, x, x]

Duncan (puffskein) [x]

Montrose (Dorothy) [x]

Andrew Larson (pirate?) [x]

Gwen (Norwegian forest cat) [x]

Pascal (raven) [x]

Cora (fwooper) [x]

Magnolia and Cecelia (matching pjs) [x]

Marge (a student but wanted to be a squid at first) [x]

Nurse Blainey (nurse) [x]

Alsius (unsure what to wear) [x]

Tessa (has a few options, is choosing) [x]

Demetrius (mystical beast/demon with a huge wooden mask?) [x]

Amelia (not attending but plays chess) [x, x]

🍬 Misc:

Andrews make sure their hair look great [x]

Theodora dances with Clawdia [x]

Cora stays at the Gryffindor Halloween party [x]

Theodora and Demetrius, The Gryffindor is hiding under the table because a girl wants to dance with him and Meech can't [x].

Montrose gets turned into a white cat [x]. Somebody places a pink bow on his head [x]. Meech tries to catch Andrew because he thinks that it's Egg — Wren's cat [x]

Gwen and Theodora wearing Halloween sweaters [x]

Theo goes into the Haunted House Room [x]

Montrose shows up at the party in a... different costume [x]

Duncan dances with a girl [x], comes up to mouse Ominis with a mouse trap [x]

Magnolia said Happy Halloween to Richard [x] and Gwen went to trick or treat him [x]

Ominis has a costume-related conversation with his mouse [x, x, x, x]

Felix brought sweets to his fellow Raveclaws: Montrose [x], Hellendil [x], Wren [x], Larson [x], Magnolia [x], Alsius [x]

Gwen and Fred get tangled after Fred drinks the Halloween potion, Pascal helps [x, x]

Hogwarts Student Association officially invites the nurse to participate in the event even if it is originally for students of 6-7 years [x]

Amelia bumped into Ominis on her way to play chess with Felix in RoR [x, x, x]

Will checks on Magnolia, Maggie spends Halloween with Cecelia at the Hufflepuff's dorms [x]

Somebody flirting with Larson for Halloween Ball [x]

Gwen and Pascal the day after Halloween. Richard joins [x]

Elland asks Allegra for a dance

Allegra convinces Will to ask Elland for a dance

Will and Monty at the Ball

Gryffindor with fluffy hair asked Anne to get her the Halloween potion in exchange for a favor [x]

🦇 William's corner:

Will thinks he's picked a good costume because of Monty and biting

Gwen plays a prank on Will (pickles on his bed) and Will ends up donating the pickles to earn more money for the Halloween decorations [x]. She sends him Halloween cookies as an apology [x]

Will getting pumpkins for the Halloween Ball decorations from Demetrius [x, x]

Will buying sweets for Halloween as a representative of HSA (Hogwarts' Student Association) [x]

Will checks on Montrose to make sure he attends the Halloween Ball [x]

Will about Marge's costume [x]. Will brings Halloween potion to Marge after the party [x].

Haunted House with Hellendil, Theodora [x]. Turn: me.

Will's bites: Nosy + Seb, Allegra, Hellendil, Felix, Wren, Theodora, Montrose

💀 THIS POST IS TO BE UPDATED because I need to hunt down everyone's asks and rp (feel free to send me links if you wish something to be added!) I'll be saving not only my characters doing things but others as well as long as it's within HL rp world. A lot of work was put into this, thank you to everyone who participated/es!

#hogwarts legacy rp #hogwarts legacy #hogwarts legacy mc #roleplay #Sorry if I missed anyone #It's a work in progress and it's a lot of asks #But I want to keep it all in one place for sure

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