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mswyrr · 5 months

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I love the comparisons and contrasts between Everlark and Snowbaird (edit: I wrote a meta here discussing some of what I see there and Rachel has drawn the comparison too) because there is no "safe" purely "wholesome" love. It doesn't exist.

I genuinely hate that fandom thinks there's such a thing as a pure ship. Or that we can or should take art and cut it into neat little pieces, use stories to "teach girls" (where girls are presumed to be the most ignorant and worthless of creatures, incapable of the full experience of what it means to be human, but also the only ones responsible for anything bad that happens, creatures so responsible that all tragedies that befall them are their own fault, their deepest shame) how to make love safe. It's a lie. Loving is about people, and people are never pure. Everything good we give each other is hard won with courage in the face of fear.

It is inherently dangerous because humans are. And if you're lucky, you give yourself to someone who meets that trust and courage with their own. And if you're not lucky, it hurts. And there's no way to control it. There's no way to be smart enough or pure enough or notice the right "red flags" (irl abusers are good at hiding and perfectly lovely people can become ill or addicted or just *change* on you). You can be lucky for a time and someone can still change.

Because you cannot control someone else, just love them.

And--here is the great part--it was that very lack of control that drove Coriolanus to throw love away! He was so afraid of what an inherently terrifying thing it is, how it is giving yourself away without guarantees, that he brought that fear down on them. He became the traitor he was so terrified that Lucy Gray might be. He destroyed something infinitely precious because he couldn't live with what a sublime wonder and terror it is to give yourself away with open hands. Love is never pure. It is so much better than that. It is...

I write all kinds of ships and like all kinds of love stories and see no contradiction because even the happiest ones are that too. I am endlessly frustrated by the way Gothic romance and tragic romance and other romances that explore the terror and darker side of that are pathologized because it makes the more joyful, happy endings dishonest. Love is risk, touching the sublime, allowing yourself to be remade.

Every joy we find in life--every single one, not just in romance, but anywhere--is like making love in the lap of death. In the midst of life we are in death; in the midst of death we are in life. The only thing worse than the fear of giving yourself away (in all the ways we can seek intimacy, not only romance) is the truest death, the death of never opening yourself up to begin with, never letting yourself be changed and moved and remade by another. And if we need an object lesson in that, here we've got Coriolanus Snow!

He's not an object lesson in "bad boyfriends." Lucy Gray made good choices from her pov! (I'm writing a separate meta on this). Nothing that happened was her fault! She is not an object lesson, she's a brave, loving girl who experienced a tragedy. She was betrayed. She's a character of the kind of folk ballads Collins was drawing on, which are actually more honest about people and more compassionate toward women who experience tragedy and loss than a rigidly US-centric, individualist, inherently victim blaming, just world fallacy view of control and "teaching girls good lessons." You can drain all the pleasure and joy out of life in the effort to control things and keep someone from being able to hurt you and still not really be safe, just be dead inside - like Coriolanus did.

The only way to truly possess someone is to destroy them and then you don't actually possess them at all! They're gone. The person you wanted to keep you've driven away. And the only way to truly be safe and in control is to kill your own heart. So what are you even protecting?

There is no shame in being Lucy Gray. The shame is in letting fear and the need for control own us like Coriolanus.

As someone who feels torn often in fandom because I ship both love stories that get categorized as "wholesome" and "problematic," the fact that Collins wrote both one of my favorite ships ever that gets categorized (and, I think, often massively simplified) into "wholesome" AND another "problematic" one that IMO is a gorgeous object lesson in why the whole idea of this binary is bullshit--and why love stories can and should explore the terror of being alive and living as well as the joy and genres like Gothic and tragedy are a beautiful part of the tapestry of narratives exploring love and living as a human in fiction--and we should very much NOT be Coriolanus?

I love her. I want to kiss her hand.

#suzanne collins #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #snowbaird #thg meta #my meta

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magadauthan · 18 days

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Ep 10: Quick Draw

Today's recap for @trigun98watchparty. Aw man, I love this one. It's perfect.

Vash's pajamas are the best, aren't they? <3

--This introductory interlude is so nice. It's the first time we hear Vash really talk about himself. He just wants to be a regular guy, in his adorable PJs (who on the planet would believe that Vash the Stampede wears jammies?), putting his pants on one leg at a time in the morning, cooking himself breakfast, talking to the birdies, reading the newspaper. And his hair is all messed up. Go get that boy, Meryl.

--That "you look like my dead girl/boyfriend" has never worked in the history of ever.

--there's a sublime irony in workaholic early-twentysomething Meryl lecturing Vash that he should doing something more worthwhile than playing with kids. After 130-ish years, Vash has more than enough data to have concluded that eating, sleeping, and playing with the kids is about the most worthwhile thing he can do.

--Wolfwood, you twerp. Playing Vash like a violin. (or, he thinks he does; Vash would have helped out either way.)

--OH MERYL YOU'RE SO MAD she's so mean to him omg and Milly gets it right again

--Vash's stat sheet! If WW filled it out... how does he know Vash's blood type, exactly? (yes, I understand the Japanese thing about blood types and how Vash fits the O "profile." Probably an O-neg, at that.)

--How's that pride taste, Meryl? Goes down better with a bottle of booze? Okay, now they're all friends. Love how this scene gets subverted in BR when it's Meryl who gets drunk off her ass and Milly has to carry her home.

--Poor Wolfwood, hoist by his own petard. You have to get up pretty early in the morning to pull a fast one on Vash the Stampede.

--2/2 for Milly.

--The level of mutual trust that Vash and WW have already built speaks volumes to their shared sense of justice; it hasn't been beaten out of WW entirely. That sense comes from very different origins, but the two of them end in the same place.

--STOP FLIRTING, YOU TWO, AND GET A ROOM.

--Cross Punisher makes its debut! (WW's berserk mode is a bit overdone imo)

--The feet belong to Chapel, presumably.

--Meryl and Milly, get yourselves a man who can cook.

--If I were Neil's mom, I'm not sure that I wouldn't be kicking Dad to the curb after he ran out, but eh. Love and Peace?

Nothing of any real plot importance happens in this ep... but everything of plot importance happens in this ep. The entire story arc is meaningless if Vash and Wolfwood don't have a bond. That bond makes each of them question why, exactly, are they doing what they're doing. (are you listening, Orange? Get on it.) Friends, nakama, comrades, lovers... pick one and make it stick.

#tri98watchparty #trigun 98 #Day 10 #quick draw #vash the stampede #nicholas d. wolfwood #meryl stryfe #milly thompson

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sabakos · 3 months

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I think an under discussed aspect of incest fetishism is the "there's a hot (girl/boy) living in your house, around you all the time, who you might see coming out of the shower or in sleepwear or swimwear, who you'll be building a relationship with and not just seeing from afar, and maybe you could also get close to her/him and fuck"

I think that the reason this isn't discussed is that the order of operations is backwards for this to work for normal (not stepsibling) incest fetishism, because in most cases the person is already living in your house and you already have a familial relationship with them.

For example, It's not like a horny 14 year old wakes up one day and realizes that there's a hot 16 year old living in their house, that person is their sibling whom they've already known their whole lives, who has known them since they were 2. They've both seen the other one in a swimsuit or coming out of the shower since they were both small children who weren't interested in or aware of their sexuality at all, probably there are even photos of them in the bathtub together from when they were 3 and 5. In most scenarios, these two people are not going to want to fuck each other even if they're both very attractive, so outside of genuine undiluted "pornographic" content where such things are left undescribed and everyone apparently mindlessly wants to fuck everyone else, you need to create a reason why they would want to do so, that warps their "normal" sibling relationship into a sexual one.

Typically you need something traumatic to happen, usually in earlier childhood prior to sexual development, that draws the siblings closer together and causes them to develop (at first, subconscious) feelings for each other. This trauma creates codependency and causes both siblings to become stunted emotionally, and usually thereafter romantically and sexually; romantic and sexual feelings for other people will instead be seen initially as a threat by the other sibling, which can then be sublimated into jealousy and frustration that eventually manifests as those same feelings of attraction for their sibling.

If nothing abnormal happens in childhood until after one or both siblings are old enough to have experienced sexual attraction to other people before experiencing it towards each other, you need to answer the question why they only suddenly started having feelings for each other. Here I think you only get into much more predatory models of sibling incest with larger age gaps, e.g. the (much) older sibling who suddenly notices their younger sibling's "development" and is unable to resist their perverse "urges" or the precocious younger sibling who upon reaching puberty "corrupts" the older one. I find these narrative models a lot less plausible, they typically don't address the question of why the one sibling is the way they are, this is I think usually just a masturbatory fantasy that doesn't survive literary inspection post-orgasm. Which is fine for porn, I guess, but I would consider adding "oh, and they're siblings" to what would otherwise be somewhat vanilla erotica to be sloppy writing, familial and age-gap power dynamics should be developed more thoroughly if they're going to be interesting in their own right.

#rent lowering gunshots

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mythicamagic · 1 year

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Bellissima - Ikevamp - a Leonardo oneshot

Leonardo/MC fluff. (I went with using MC's canon name) For you! @ochrosia

Word count: 1,000. Rated T. Implied post-coital bliss.

Summary: He wakes early to enjoy her.

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Warmth. That's how he'd describe waking every morning since she'd come into his life. The full circumference of whiskey hues and sun-washed surfaces of his chaotic room met his sleepy gaze. He'd forgotten to close the curtains last night, and dawn greeted him as a consequence. Leonardo awoke slowly, squinting against the glare. There was no need to rush when time meant nothing to him- but he turned all the same- fully relaxing when a fall of autumnal-coloured hair met his nose, confirming the warmth on his chest to be real.

His beloved slept on soundly, curled around him endearingly- a leg haphazardly slung over his bare waist. Leo took to combing idle fingers through her hair, marvelling at the soft texture and noting its dishevelled state. Hm, maybe he'd gone too hard on her last night. She sure seemed exhausted.

His lips twitched upwards.

Sympathy won out over ego, however, and with a kiss to her bare shoulder, Leonardo carefully manoeuvred her off him, grabbing his heavy coat to tug it over her. He made it as far as sitting up before those deceptively innocent arms wrapped around his waist again.

Mizuki nuzzled into his ribs, half asleep.

"Mn…no moving."

"Heh, can't stay here forever, cara mia."

She giggled, eyes remaining shut. "You could."

Yes, he could. The antique gold of his eyes softened.

"Alright. Wait a sec…"

He stretched awkwardly in her hold, reaching out for a bowl of apples sitting amongst a hoarder's paradise of books, notes and worldly nicknacks. Picking out a knife from a nearby draw, Leo cut an apple into segments.

"It's not much of a breakfast in bed but I'd feel guilty if you skipped out on meals just because of me. Scusa, open up." He pushed one to her tempting lips, heat stirring in his gut as they parted without question.

Mizuki finally opened her eyes as he fed her, chewing and shooting a playful look at the other apple segments he'd cut into 'bunny ears', something silly he knew she liked.

"They're cute. It's perfect."

Leonardo immediately thought something sappy like 'you're perfect' but mercifully kept it to himself. He wasn’t a wordsmith like Arthur but he'd become so ridiculously enamoured with her that lately, his mouth ran away from him. Yesterday he'd called her the most beautiful thing he'd ever held in his hands. She'd blushed so attractively, noting all the sculptures, paintings and sublime things he'd created in his many lifetimes, accusing him of exaggerating. As if she couldn't compare to trivial works of art. How wrong she was.

"So…why is the bed all the way over there?" Almond eyes flicked to his bed against the opposite wall, noting their position on the floor. They'd slept on nothing but open books and scattered blankets. Books that were very old…and now likely soiled. Woops.

"We didn't make it that far," Leonardo shot her a smirk. He didn't care one wit about the state of his things. How could he?- when resting with her nude, sprawled in the collapsed mess of his room- brought him more joy than anything the dusty pages might have given?

Her mouth formed a silent 'o' shape in understanding, rouge painting her cheeks in a happy flush. She obediently opened her mouth for seconds and thirds- before catching his wrist and taking his fingers inside her mouth alongside the fruit.

Leonardo inhaled sharply, desire striking hard anew as her tongue worked its magic.

"Cara mia…you play such dangerous games. Don't think I won't keep you here for the rest of the day- one night isn't enough to sate me," he purred.

"I don't mind," she smiled impishly, causing him to wonder where her appetite had come from. Perhaps she was becoming a little more like him the more time they spent together. Adjusting his coat to fall over her shoulders, she boldly stood, allowing him an eyeful of her ass as she carefully stepped around fallen books to climb onto the window seat, drawing her knees up and gazing out at the scenery. “Let me catch the sunrise first though- we usually sleep in. I don’t want to miss it today.”

Leonardo stretched languidly. “Why am I not surprised to hear you like sunrises?” he chuckled.

“Who doesn't like sunrises?!” she grinned, watching as the sun ever so slowly ascended over the distant treetops. “I suppose you do strike me as a ‘sunsets’ kind of man, though.”

He paused, a hollowness beating through his chest just for a moment. A reminder, as always, that he was a man meant for ‘goodbyes.’

Mizuki noticed his expression in the window's reflection, turning to him. “Leo?” she called softly, questioningly, the sound beguiling him as ever to come closer. Touch her. Reaffirm himself.

Leonardo was at her side in an instant, capturing her lips with his own and stroking her jaw with a charcoal-smudged thumb. He’d been working when she’d found him yesterday. He’d abandoned the smooth shapes on paper for the canvas of her perfect body without a second thought.

He touched her again, claiming the column of her throat with a light grip that stroked down to her shoulder, sliding to cup her breast and rolling a rose-petal nipple between talented fingers. Mizuki was moaning already, and Leo pressed closer, until she was trapped between himself and the window. “Bellissima,” he breathed against her mouth, pulling back to look at her properly, the sun drowning that fluffy fall of hair he so adored in radiance. “You’re free to think of yourself as my eternal sunrise, cara mia. It’s only fitting.”

His world would grow incredibly dark without her, after all.

She shot him a questioning look, not quite as lulled by his distracting kisses as he anticipated. She drew him closer, nonetheless, holding him- and somehow that inspired more love to fill his chest than he thought possible. Leonardo calmed as she stroked his hair- as if in reassurance- returning her embrace and pressing their bare forms together to become one in the golden light of dawn.

End

#ikemen vampire leonardo #ikevamp #ikemen leonardo #ikemen vampire #ikemen series #otome games

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noisytenant · 2 months

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🍷

does your music taste differ from alter to alter? how?

at first i wasn't sure, but after thinking about it there are a few ways.

first, i think some of us like listening to music and others don't. when certain parts are in control, they find music distracting and prefer listening to ASMR or nothing.

it was really funny, for like a month after starting our previous job we only wanted to listen to harsh noise and industrial, which we typically didn't delve into (though didn't dislike). i think it's because new parts were taking the lead and they wanted very specific things! they had high sensory/stimulation needs but also didn't want the playful aggression of our usual hardcore. after that stressful time, the parts seem to have vanished or sublimated with the urge.

generally more than genre i think there's differences in our approaches to music that map onto taste. in the abstract, music is our longest-standing special interest, but there's a lot of specificity and variation of what's interesting to us--for some the main draw is the history, curation, and categorization (lolicore and vocaloid fall here), for others the technical production and tools (production and experimental history falls here), for others just the general sensory experience of music (gabber and rave are here).

and like some of us have high stamina for exploration, and are pretty permissive of any gabber or breakcore slop because they can be opportunistic and select small interesting portions of the whole to enjoy--you can imagine this is great for picking songs for dj sets. but others just want the greatest hits LOL.

some parts are super discerning and will click out of anything that isn't a shit-kicking masterpiece as ascertained from randomly selected 2-second samples of the track. these are the kinds of parts i trust when i want music to suit certain emotional needs and so on; they're good curators. but, terrible listeners!!

and sometimes we can be inspired by something conceptually that we don't necessarily enjoy or go out of our way to listen to. the parts that care about art concepts hold onto a lot of really interesting albums that we don't regularly listen to because they're just not really that kind of music. i'm not bumping Deep Thoughts by Giant Claw regularly, but i think about it a lot more often than i think about, like, moro's works.

by the way, we have different tastes in visual art too. It might be obvious if you look with an eye for this but we have multiple artists "on the team".

I'm sure I could get more granular if I sat down with everyone and figured out their individual tastes, but given the relative obscurity of different parts, this is the most I really have for now. Thanks for asking ^_^

#indexed post #long post //#systemposting

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messinwitheddie · 4 months

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Does Soxx and Hitz hate Kii for rejecting them when they both used to have feelings for her? Was pushing her into a corner to get her to agree teaming up with them is their way of making up for it?

Was measuring stilll a thing back then or was it during the modern timeline with the control brains? Who even had that idea in the first place? I mean if there are irkens who are tall, couldn’t the ey just let them grow it out instead of forcing their body to stretch? Is there any modern Irken who died from it?

Have you ever drawn tallest Red and Purple with three fingers? Like in the movie?(I know most folks prefer them with only two cuz it’s what their used to seem them with.(also cut of the headcanon of how they ended up with them to become the tallest)

When Kii first rejected Soxx as an ally and life partner, Soxx hated her. He was determined to ruin her and bend her to his will... it took many centuries to wear her down, but he eventually locked her consciousness with his obviously.

She still refuses to love him. She always will.

His hatred for her has fizzled into strong resentment over the eons.

Hitz never "loved" Kii. He knew Soxx loved her and persued her only to anger him... and to try discredit her as a ruler to her drones.

Soxx was a highly successful scientist and a self-proclaimed oracle prior to being measured tallest of his time. He spent centuries perfecting control brain tech.

Hitz was his lab assistant. He stole some of Soxx's research and sold it to an enemy hive (of which Hitz later was measured tallest). Hitz used Soxx's research to upgrade the Irken PAK into the multipurpose super weapon/ miracle organ it is today.

It's debatable wheather Soxx actually loved Kii. Soxx ever only really loved power... and knowledge, but knowledge is power as the saying goes. He WAS highly impressed with her performance on the battlefield and he did consider her to be a sublime female specimen.

Both Soxx and Hitz were especially interested in the smeetery project Kii was developing in her hive. The smeetery would perfect the control brain/ PAK system.

The two of them, despite their bad blood, eventually teamed up to force Kii into aligning with them. Kii knew neither of them persued her with pure intentions. Her heart belonged to much better lovers and allies... who were taken from her by Soxx and/or Hitz by the end of the final world war...

Yes, during Kii, Hitz's and Soxx's irken vessel reign the painful measuring process was still a thing and some version of it or another had been a sacred tradition for THOUSANDS of years for countless hives in Irken cultures.

There are several 4th era tallests who were measured but died during the measuring process. The control brains do not put forth the energy to remember their names.

I occasionally draw Red and Purple with a thumb. Not recently but I know I have done it.

I choose to believe the tallest in ETF are using a robotic thumb attachment on their gauntlets and they do in fact only have two fingers.

We as a fandom have so little canon irken lore. The thumb thing is an oldy and probably not canon, but I like it. I use it. We will never get fleshed out Irken lore. I say make up what's interesting to you; go ham.

Wearing thumb attachments does very much go against the old irken tradotion and is considered the edgy act of two young tallests, but they're tallests so who can criticize them (besides the control brains)

Their service drones are perfectly fine with Red and Purple using thumb attachments. Less snack bags they have to open for them.

#invader zim #irken #control brains #head canon #lore

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lizzybeth1986 · 1 year

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Tagging @choicesfandomappreciation for Day 3 of Choices Spread Kindness Event!

(Again...REALLY sorry for the lateness of this post!!)

I'm a huge huge fan of fanart...often art was what used to draw me the quickest to a book or character and make me more eager to play it! It was also a great way - like fanfic but differently - to incorporate things you wouldn't find so easily in canon. Here are some of my favourite artists!!

@sazanes - She is not only an incredible artist - she is also a ball of enthusiasm and great talent!! We first met when she sent me Hayden-focused asks after finding out we were both Hayden stans 😄 Her art is absolutely gorgeous and packed with so much fine detail. I still remember being amazed by her while running my first Hayden Young Appreciation Week - not only did she make an art piece for every day...she also ensured that if the character was customisable, she did an art piece each for each face (she did this both for Hayden and Liam). And given that some of those faces have less representation even though they're among the best faces (esp bl!Haydens and bl!Liam) I truly, truly appreciate her commitment to representing them. My favourite art work of hers is this beautiful poster of all the Haydens in kimonos, this beautiful picture of kid!Sloane and Kim, Liam helping the Heir plant her tree, Hana with a teasing mile and her signature hot chocolate, and of course this recent one of Kiara experiencing intense secondhand embarrassment 😄

@cassiopeiacorvus - There's an incredible style, attitude and verve about her work. She's done a depiction of every MC she's created thus far and I find them amazing coz she draws them with a body diversity that you won't often find in canon. Some of my favourite artworks of hers include a drawing of Xanthe and the ACoR MC in their "sexy red outfits", a reworking of Kiara's Costume Gala outfit (which is, btw, FAR BETTER than anything PB came up with for her), Jax and Lily with the BB MC and Leah and LH MC being a "black power couple" as Cassi put it 🤗

@toyhenoctus - I absolutely love their cute and vibrant comics, with cheeky and vibrant characters. Whether it's the gun-toting Siobhan or Effie who wants to declare her love for Aurora Emery to the world, it's always a treat to read them!!

@ohmyblues - She was a recent find, and I absolutely loved her Hana drawings! The first one I saw of hers featured Hana by the Valtoria lake, during the lantern festival, and the use of colours was so unbelievable and Hana looked so enigmatic in the picture. But I think my absolute favourite so far was the one they made of Hana at the piano. The texturing of the silver dress was so detailed and sublime, and her expression of being lost in the music was blissful to see.

@shazrystyles - Shaz is an absolute treasure! I've always loved her work but got to meet her personally when a friend bought a commission from her for me as a gift. Her artwork is so soft and delicate and so fun and fresh at the same time. My absolute favourites include this compilation of Hayden Young sketches, this supercute sketch of Zig performing ballet, this amazing one of Liam as a fencer and here is Hana and her MC on their wedding day 🥹

@burnwoods - Their art and style is so beautiful and interesting, and honestly they depict the characters in such a gorgeous, realistic way. I love the watercolor, stepped-right-out-of-a-painting quality of their work. My favourite was one of the entire cast of TRR/H, a picture of Rafael and the OH MC hugging and looking like the giddy reunited lovers that they are, and this cute picture of the entire ITB crew!

@they-callme-ami - Just the fact that they do such incredible art of black characters brings me so much joy 🥰🥰🥰 Here's their awesome commission page! I'm new to their art so I'm really excited to reblog them and have more people see them!!

@ellezelindraws - I absolutely love their drawings of Hana Lee (personal favourite is the one of Hana in a pink cheongsam) and their lovely cartoons of Hana and the MC as a married couple (like this one of the MC dreaming Hana might be bald, Hana gazing admiringly at a sleeping MC, and goth!Hana). They've done some other incredible art of wlw in particular as well, like Sabina, Annabelle, Ava and Kamilah. I can't wait to see more of their art!!

@danniseyebrows - They make incredible art of a lot of characters but the ones I am most familiar with are her TRR MCs (she has one each for each LI!) My favourite of the lot is her Hana MC Valerie, and one of my most enduringly favourite works of theirs is a depiction of the MC reacting to the dress that Hana made for her (in Shanghai) in a way that truly acknowledges these women as being in love with each other 💗

If any of their commissions are open, please do check them out and consider commissioning art from them...you definitely won't be disappointed!

#choices spread kindness #artist day #day 3 #choices fandom appreciation

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unfinishedbusincss · 11 months

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Muse Vomit

I have So Many Opinions™️ on historical figures at this point that it’s getting ridiculous. So here’s another! Let’s start by getting the usual business out of the way:

I have not seen Will Shakespeare (1978) despite several attempts to sit through it. At this point it’s doubtful I’ll ever see it.

Once again, I just like the face. Curry’s face, this time.

So with that out of the way, let’s get into the woods here!

When I first began to write for Will, it just came out of the horrible idea of "what if Shakespeare was that kind of bard?". You know. The Horny Bard. Top stat is charisma and he seduces his way out of every situation. When he has to fight, he uses literal vicious mockery. And then I remembered that Tim Curry once played Shakespeare and a nightmare was born.

I know very little of Shakespeare's past and that's by design. I saw Anonymous (2011) as a kid and it made me very jaded about "who" Shakespeare was, historically. What I much prefer to think about is who Shakespeare is, literarily.

Shakespeare has a wonderful way with words, and a preoccupation with the human condition. These two things combined with the evolving questions of identity, justice, love, revenge, etc., culminated in some of the most inspired writings in history. I mean, say what you will, but the works of William Shakespeare continue to be as prescient today as they were at the time of their first publication. What a lot of people tend to overlook when seeing that sort of legacy, though, is that this was the same man who literally included a "your mom" joke in the middle of his villain's dramatic twist reveal. And that's the one I write for, Will Shakespeare.

Will just wants to work his way into everyone's pants. He's pined over a man named Anthony who never returned his affections. He actually knew a Rosaline. He wrote to about about real people in his life, often drawing from them as inspiration to round out some of his most famous characters. Will is a romantic at heart, and would have shared in Romantic sensibilities--awe for life and beauty, for death, for the sublime and the terrifying. When he's not pining or flirting, he's waxing poetic about the human condition. Or drinking. Joking. Trying not to be alone. It all depends on where his mood is that day.

When I started writing Will, I had this idea second idea, as a way to explain why William fucking Shakespeare was outside of his time-place. My idea was this: what if all the Greats, for as long as they are considered Greats, are kind of alive? They become this sort of temporary-apparition-given-form through the collective will of the universe to keep that person in the public conscious. They're just this eternal, immortal not-human that lived and died and got partially reincarnated. They take whatever form they held when the thing they're known for happened--Van Gogh is one ear down, Freud is forever a beardo in his 50s--and they just kinda get to vibe. The trade-off is that they can no longer create, or at least not in the field they're best known for. No new Picasso artwork, but a new historian on the scene just published the most in-depth review of his early life ever, cowritten with some unnamed civilian. That sort of thing.

'Kay, that's me for now.

#✗ william shakespeare #✗ out of character

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woreador · 1 year

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love letters i guess ii. [ooc]

@toreadorantitribulations

ang isn't quite sure how to define her current capacity to experience emotions. she knows toreadors are thought to be the emotional fluttering damsels of the vampire world, but she also spent her life pre-embrace as a woman, so. permit her a lifted brow.

mama used to call her cold and a caution and occasionally with a funny little twist to her mouth: so sensible. this was back before she left home (odd to have so many births. wasn't a person supposed to cap out at one?). perhaps she never had the correct complement of emotions, or perhaps she just had some wire crossed that made them mostly subservient to her brain's never-ending considerations.

so like, who knows if she loves pagan like she supposes someone ought to love their father. she might not be capable several times over, the things that made her such a damn fine fit for marco's plan the same ones that fatally flawed it.

but the thing is. people have been asking ang to kill off parts of herself for their own reasons since long before her embrace. and she's just never gotten the hang of it down pat. survival instinct permeating every fiber, apparently. all of her flinching away from amputation...

...but for pagan she wanted to, you know?

it's the natural reaction to someone like that intensified by the whole sire thing, she's pretty sure. he’s just so--a stained glass threat, a sweet knife. you want to stay close and puzzle out the clockwork of it all, how all that kaleidoscope complexity fits together, how when he’s creating he is art creating art in an exquisite ouroboros of being. it draws the beast in her closer to the surface in an almost peaceful way, inasmuch as the beast can have peace. she plays with that impulse now when she can--promising it that the delayed gratification will be all the sweeter, that they’re in the same boat and she has no interest in either of them starving, but it’s mostly work.

it’s not the way she remembers it. all of her transfixed with a kind of comfortably hungry awe. the desire shading purple instead of red, the overriding urge not to devour but to savor. she could've been content in a weird evil whimsical way if she’d stayed, she thinks. she would have had to bite her own tongue bloody bowing into the aims of some unforgivable things pagan himself hadn't done, but she could've asked if she could watch some nights while he worked. and those nights would have been good.

she misses him. she didn't miss her other father until years after she left, and then it was like missing an exquisitely blocked movie still from a disappointing picture. pagan she missed like a technicolor toothache even before she flipped, in that twilit space of knowing she was going to but not how or when. he was the shadow that dogged her decision. sometimes she wants to write him love letters. sometimes she meditates on the sublime inspirations at her core and curls a lip at him before subsuming their heady deviancy into softer things--embroidery inflicted on fabric, couture crafted out of linen and leather.

they're good, the things she makes. she's never been one for false pride. but they're not what they could be, and that will always be a little hollow. look what you've done, daddy. look at what i'm doing with what you did.

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transmutationisms · 2 years

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I think Logan is a nymphomaniac has has everyone cunt struck (yes I'm talking about his kids as well. Oedipus complex but he's the one they want to kill and fuck and that's how he asserts his dominance)

interesting that you characterise logan as the nympho here when canonically we know him to be a brontosaurus (always wants to fuck, never can get hard)

but yea there is a way in which even wanting to kill him is wanting to become him (shiv and kendall both try to define themselves in opposition to him, which means still using him as their reference point), & within the language of the show any given interaction has at least one person getting fucked (getting killed would be a way of getting fucked). so as long as he's the one to kill, he's also the one to fuck. & he keeps them in line partly because none of the kids are prepared for the actual consequences of the killing (shiv & kendall want to kill him and become him, but also think they will be better than him; roman wants to kill him as a way of earning his love; connor wants him to be dead but has no real appetite for blood i don't think)

the running oedipus comparisons are always really interesting 2 me because part of what defines oedipus as a classical tragic hero is that his fate is determined by the divine, and is never in his own hands. i realise that's not what anyone on the show means by it, because they're only reading oedipus via freud (& lacan??), but it's fun to think with anyway. oedipus wants nothing more than to escape his prophesied future and the more he wriggles in its grasp the tighter he's caught: a little like shiv and kendall trying to escape logan by drawing themselves ever nearer to him

also something to be said here Abt how logan continually accuses all the kids of impotence/lack of virility (in different ways for different reasons). their sexual dysfunctions/failures to produce suitable heirs are, in his mind, both cause and effect of the fact that none of them is fit to take over. and you can see them giving into this logic at points: roman defending his father to matsson by asking "do you know who he's fucking?" for instance. they can't fuck-kill their father, they can't fuck-love their partners. logan is a presence in every relationship they form, which goes back to this being the totalising freudian oedipal figure except collapsed into father-son (even with shiv) rather than the triangle daddy-mommy-me

as a side note, the kids, at least the three younger, canonically all see therapists, which i find extremely funny to imagine because they are so extremely out of time in their psychosexual dramas. the few times we hear the language of post/modern psychiatry on the show it's played for laughs (roman claims to "snort purified sertraline" and makes a crack Abt borderline personality disorder) or weaponised (shiv's open letter to kendall or really any time someone bioessentialises his drug use). it's not a healing or positive force for them it just highlights their absurdity as these greek-freudian neurotic tragic figures trying to come out on top in the 21st century, driving themselves madder as they go. one wonders how many drugs their extremely toothless psychs have tried switching them onto or off of, failing the entire time to disrupt the desire to kill the father lmao

anyway yea everything is sex, except sex which is sublimation, etc etc. someone introduce the kids to wilhelm reich in season 4 please

#i say postmodern because of the uh Distinction shall we say?#between psychiatry before and after reaganism and the Decade Of The Brain lmao #in other contexts it's usually not a term i find useful #also 2 be very clear i dont think the kids literally want to fuck their father except insofar as #(again) sex and violence are one and the same for them #but they have no other vocabulary for either one. it's all drawing from the same pool

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firelord-frowny · 2 years

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some thoughts about the uhhhh possibility of starting adhd meds.

im reading all these descriptions of positive experiences people have had with adhd meds and it's all this stuff about how, all of a sudden, they gained the ability to just DECIDE to do things. they could get up and make their bed and cook breakfast and do a lil workout before going to their job instead of waking up and then just, idk, picking at a fucking loose thread in their bed sheets for an hour and a half before rushing to throw on some clothes and then forget to pee before hurrying to work.

people talk about all the goals that had always been out of their reach that they're now accomplishing. they get their masters degree. they land their dream job. they eat better and exercise.

and like...

as much as i loathe ~altering my brain chemistry~ as a concept if only because i honestly do love myself the way i am and my only issue is that i can't seem to function in this particular culture/era/society,

the thought of finally being able to ACTUALLY FINISH my artistic goals THRILLS me. i have dozens of unfinished violin covers/arrangements sitting in my soundtrap account. dozens of unfinished transcriptions handwritten on staff paper that i can't even find anymore. i've been meaning to learn the entirety of vivaldi's four seasons for like 12 fucking years. been meaning to record versions of La Folia. Been meaning to finish like 5 screenplays. been meaning to put together some kind of ~chapbook~ featuring my creative nonfiction and my photography artsy lil iphone pics. the method book i've been writing is off to SUCH a fantastic start but i just CAN'T get myself to COMMIT to working on it on any kind of schedule. I've been meaning to audition for grad school. i KNOW now that i AM good enough to stand a chance at getting into Eastman or NEC or Stony Brook, and i know i could be all but GUARANTEED admission into Peabody... but I know I need some coaching before I'll truly be prepared for those auditions, but i just cannot seem to get myself MOVING in terms of searching for a teacher who's qualified and willing to help me. i wanna turn myself into the Number One Choice when anyone in the area is looking for a session violinist. I wanna develop art/music/etc projects that I could pitch for various ~artists in residence~ programs like the ones hosted by the national parks service. i KNOW i could create something worthy of Denali or Crater Lake or Kings Canyon.

BUT I CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN'T!!!! I can't think straight! I can't draw a straight line between any two points in time or space! even a fucking lightning bolt, with all its fractals and leaders and jagged little tendrils is more streamlined and less chaotic than I am. every idea i ever have scatters like oriental cockroaches in a damp basement the minute any light whatsoever shines on them. every intention i ever commit to sublimates into a broken promise before i ever have the chance to lift one finger in its honor.

my entire life is an attic full of failed inventions. a cemetery of stillborn brainchildren.

and yet somehow the idea of being able to actually accomplish all or even just some of these things kinda scares the shit out of me.

like, what am i gonna DO all day when i'm finally able to focus on a task?

i've spent so much of my life in a constant state of being stressed from feeling overworked and overwhelmed during a time where the decisions about how I spent my days weren't up to me. and i couldn't cope with even a quarter of the amount of Responsibilities that everyone else seemed to be able to cope with. and i was so fucking miserable, i honestly, truly, felt like i didn't even want to be alive.

and now i'm terrified of the prospect of being busy again, because business strangled the life out of me in high school and college.

i don't wanna Do Tasks because I don't wanna risk the possibility of going back to being that overwhelmed, miserable person. and i KNOW that one of the benefits of meds is - or at least is supposed to be - gaining the ability to focus in such a way that i'm not so easily overwhelmed anymore.

but i cannot imagine what that's like. i CANNOT IMAGINE what it's like to wake up every day - or at least most days - and decide to spend 6+ hours on any particular task at all, and then actually do it. and then, if i DO do it, to still feel content and at ease by the time I'm done.

what am i gonna do all day??? am i gonna still know how to enjoy having ~down time~? am i gonna wish that i had more downtime? am i gonna resent the fact that i can't dedicate as much time as i feel like to just doing things that make me happy???

wtf is gonna happen to me? what's that LIKE???

literally, what do people do all day at their jobs?? how does being, say, a department head in a youth music program, use up 6+ hours of your day? what do you DO after you get to work? how is there SO MUCH to do that you actually have to keep Doing Things until it's time to go home??

what does an architect do for 8 hours a day?? what does a sports utility store manager do for 8 hours a day? what does a dog trainer do for 8 hours a day??? are they actually, literally just training dogs nonstop?? or are there other responsibilities, too? how is there even enough time in the world to do anything for 8 hours a day?

and its STOOPID that i don't get it, bc like... i went to SCHOOL and did TASKS for more than eight hours a day! my day in high school was TWELVE HOURS. 10 if you don't count the commute back and forth. my longest days in college began at 10am-ish and went until 10pmish. so CLEARLY there are things that can occupy all that time, even if there are a couple hours worth of lulls dispersed throughout.

but like woooooooooooooooow.

im legit so afraid of being busy. :(

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theeverlastingshade · 5 months

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Javelin- Sufjan Stevens

Very few contemporary musicians own their respective lane quite like Sufjan Stevens. The idiosyncratic songwriter has dabbled in everything from ornate baroque compositions to minimalist glitchy electronic music, but the wispy folk stylings that he perfected on his sublime 7th LP, Carrie & Lowell, (and that haven proven to be well-trodden territory for a myriad of musicians) is rarely rendered with as much heart and personality in the hands of any other contemporary artist that I'm aware of. Sufjan recently returned with a new record called Javelin, and it marks a refreshing departure from the electronic pop approach of his last LP, The Ascension, by reaching the sweet spot between the sparse folk confessionals of C&L with the baroque bombast of his other most celebrated work, Illinois. It's all too easy to write Javelin off as another pretty folk record from a guy who could seemingly crank these out in his sleep, but the gorgeous arrangements, cathartic vocal melodies, and devastating songwriting throughout Javelin serve as strong affirmations that one of the most consistently rewarding songwriters of the 21st century is still releasing some of his most accomplished work a few decades into his career.

The sound of Javelin will be familiar to anyone even remotely familiar with Sufjan's work, and presents the album as both an ideal entry point to his music as well as a satisfying late-career stunner. The music is lush and vibrant, replete with woodwinds, horns, strings, and glockenspiel in addition to a standard assortment of guitars, drums, and keys. Sufjan's voice is hushed but tremendously expressive, and it's rounded out by a children's choir that provides an uplifting lilt to these already gorgeously adorned compositions. There are moments that are almost overbearing in their melodic richness, like the coda of opener "Goodbye Evergreen", but it never quite lands in excessively cloying terrain. A large part of Sufjan's appeal is his knack for couching devastating sentiments within impossibly pretty sounding music, and he delivers that in large spades throughout Javelin. While it's a tad frustrating that most of these songs are so structurally similar (highlight "Shit Talk" and his closer/cover of Neil Young's "There's A World", notwithstanding), essentially beginning as these sparse acoustic ruminations and slowly blossoming into ornate chamber pop epics erupting with melody, it's hard to deny how superbly realized they each are. While most of the songs on Javelin aren't among his most adventurous to date, they're easily some of his most richly rendered, and thankfully they never manage to obfuscate the poignant lyricism woven throughout.

The writing is generally the largest draw of any Sufjan Stevens record, and Javelin is no exception. The album would have been disarming in its understated vulnerability regardless of the context, but on the day it was released Sufjan shared a statement dedicating it to his late partner, Evans Richardson, who passed this past April, which lends a heightened level of pathos to these immensely affecting songs. Sufjan seems to be trying to reconcile his Christian faith with the loss of Evans, which is laid out in the first verse of "Goodbye Evergreen" ("But everything heaven sent/Must burn out in the end") and subsequently touched on throughout the album. "Genuflecting Ghost" seems to find Sufjan using stereotypical Christian imagery in service of paying tribute to Evans (Give myself as a sacrifice/Genuflecting ghost I kiss the floor/Rise, my love, show me paradise/Nothing seems so simple anymore") while the 8 minute centerpiece, "Shit Talk", unfurls like a breakup in slow motion with Sufjan questioning his complicity in its demise (Did I fail to believe in positive thoughts/Our romantic second chance is dead/I buried it with the hatchet/Quit your antics"). On Javelin, Sufjan reckons with tragedy in the way that he's historically done best: creating music that's simply bursting at the seams with craft and catharsis. Javelin isn't a particularly easy listen, but like the bulk of his work, it rewards close listening multiple times over.

Essentials: "Shit Talk", "Goodbye Evergreen”, "So You Are Tired"

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bigollo2333 · 2 years

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How to Choose POD Products for Your Store

The formula for choosing your products

One of the most important things you need to do as an entrepreneur is to get to know your audience. If you don't have any customers just yet, paint yourself a picture. Who is your customer and what are they buying? Thinking about this will help you shape your brand, choose the right products, and adjust your offering based on customer demand.

Settle on a niche

Before starting to comb the internet for products to sell, there's one thing you have to be sure about—your store's niche. It'll be the guiding light throughout your path and will also help you decide which products you should add to your store.

When honing in on your niche market, a good place to start is by reflecting on your interests and passions. Also, what you yourself would like to buy. Think about any gaps in the market your brand could fill. Always loved raccoons? Maybe your niche could be funny raccoon-themed designs.

When researching your niche, you'll drift into the waters of your competitors. Pay attention to the products they're selling! Maybe you can draw some inspiration from other businesses in your niche. But don't forget that you want to offer something that'll make customers choose your products over other brands.

How can you get ahead of the competition? Maybe it's with price, product range, or quality? Consider all the options and think of how you can excel.

Offer quality

One way to stand out is to offer high-quality products. It's not just the overall feel of the product, but also the materials it's made of, how the product is made, and the quality of the print or embroidery.

The best way to test product quality and make sure you're going to sell products you can be proud of is to order samples. Not only is it the easiest way to get a feel for the products you'll sell, but it also gives you the opportunity to see how your design looks on a particular product and to change any design details. Having a sample on hand is also great as you can create stunning photos of your product.

Set a fair price

You obviously want your products to bring in a profit. To do that, your selling price should include all your expenses. Assess how much each product will cost you from start to finish and you'll be able to establish an appropriate number. Don't be afraid to set a fair price for your products.

While you may want to offer the best price on the market, know that you'll have to sell more to earn more. Alternatively, if you offer quality products, you can sell them at a higher price point. After all, it's easier to justify a higher cost for quality products that last longer.

Know that profit is the reward for your hard work, time, and dedication to your brand. Pricing your products can seem tricky, but nothing is impossible with a little bit of research.

Explore fulfillment methods

Before you jump into choosing products for your store, take some time to learn more about the different fulfillment methods available for designing on-demand products. To make your design stand out for all the right reasons, think about how you would like to see your art on a product. Check out the various fulfillment methods below.

Direct-to-garment printing

Direct-to-garment, or DTG printing, is a method that sprays ink onto garments and is similar to printing on paper. DTG printing is an excellent option for those who want to add complex, multi-color designs on t-shirts, hoodies, tote bags, and other similar fabric items.

All-over printing

All-over printing, or sublimation, is a process where your design is printed onto special sublimation printing paper, which helps us transfer it to fabric by using a heat press machine. After that, the fabric gets cut and sewn into the final product. The all-over printing method is the best choice if you want to cover the garment with your design fully. Bigollo offers a variety of all-over-print products, so you can design blankets, hoodies, leggings, bags, swimwear, and more.

Patterns

In the end, what matters the most is your personal touch. Your designs are the key to unlocking your sales potential. They're the reason why your customer decided to shop in your store and not anyone else's. So make sure that you're choosing products that highlight your designs, stay true to your aesthetic, and fit with your brand.

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coloradocanopies · 2 years

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zombiepirates · 2 years

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starting the blog off strong with my funny little hcs/redesigns for the main 4