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wen-kexing-apologist · 7 months

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You're Mine No Matter What: The Commodification of Sand

I have been thinking a lot in the last couple weeks about the dynamic between Ray and Sand, namely the significant imbalance between Sand and Ray in their relationship to one another that has been at the very least, fun to watch, even as I have been slightly miffed at Sand being so much of a simp for Ray when Ray does not reciprocate these feelings.

Now, @emotionallychargedtowel had a brilliant write up about Sand’s possible parentification and resulting need to play the caretaker for the people around him, which everyone should read. I loved it a lot because it puts Sand in to perspective, that he can be jerked around and insulted and still have care and still want to help the person who is actively and intentionally trying to insult him. Sand likes Ray, that much has been clear from the moment Ray rested his head on Sand’s shoulder after puking in Episode 1, but Ray? Ray does not see Sand the same way, as much as his puppy dog eyes may lead Sand to believe.

To Ray, who is rich, and difficult to manage, and holds on so tightly to the belief he is a burden, Sand is a commodity, something Ray owns. And it is absolutely hilarious to me that I was thinking about trying to do this write up and drop it before Episode 8, and decided I should wait. AND I AM SO GLAD I DID BECAUSE RAY LITERALLY SAID AS MUCH TO SAND THIS EPISODE.

Listen, I love First and I love Khao and I love FirstKhao’s chemistry, but in no way, shape, or form do I want Ray and Sand to end up together, they are terrible for each other, and Sand’s lack of self respect at this point is a motherfucking tragedy. I mean, think about it, what care has Ray given to Sand?

Drove Sand to his apartment after the party (and then ditched him in the middle of a make out)

Offered to buy him a guitar

What care has Sand given to Ray?

Driven him home and taken care of him when he was blackout drunk

Hung out with him when no one else was around to care: Paid

Hung out with him when no one else was around to care: For Free

Cooked food for Ray

Changed his work schedule to play at the hostel party

Cooked breakfast for Ray

Let Ray use him as an excuse to not go to work and instead spending the day with him on Sand’s birthday

Helped Ray change his clothes

Followed after Ray and tried to stop him from drunk driving after Ray called him a whore

Saved Ray from his car accident

(Most likely) agreed to something from Ray’s dad

Took care of Ray when he was injured including helping him shave and bathe.

Tried to save Ray from getting caught with drugs by the cops after Ray interrupted his time with another guy and kissed him without consent

Tried to fight the cops to get them to let Ray go after Ray essentially said that he owned Sand.

Sand is poor, he’s booked and busy, he’s barely got time of his own to spend on the things he enjoys, he is fundamentally a caretaker, juggling school, multiple jobs, and his mother’s health. We see how much of grind Sand’s life is in the montage at the beginning of Episode 5, he does not have room to slip another person in to his life, hell, the boy barely has any friends. He’s never hanging out with anyone unless it’s Nick and he’s at home. So it is very important to keep in mind that Sand is making time for Ray. Sand has a life that is jam packed and stressful, and Ray keeps asking for more and more of Sand’s time. Time Sand cannot really afford to give and gives it anyway.

Sand is a caretaker, Sand has a crush on Ray, Sand cannot say no to Ray’s puppy dog eyes and chronic need for help. And the tragedy here is that there is a world where I can see how Sand convinced himself that he and Ray were maybe moving in the same direction. Because Ray couldn’t let go. They fucked once, and Sand said that Ray was going to keep wanting him, and he was right. From the very beginning of their relationship to one another, Ray has been the one constantly asking for and initiating physical intimacy with Sand. The first time we see Sand initiate anything really isn’t until Episode 5 when he goes slack jawed looking at Ray before they kiss and even then Ray is the one that leans in to meet him. Ray is the pursuer here, Ray is the one that stalks Sand, Ray is the one that interrupts Sand’s next one night stand, Ray is the one that is always asking if he can stay over, that is asking for help, that is asking for sex. So of course Sand is going to start thinking some type of way about what he and Ray are to each other, even if they haven’t had any conversations about the nature of their relationship.

But I think Sand is so used to taking care of other people that he hasn’t really gotten it through his head that Ray doesn’t not feel the same. We see every twist of the knife in Sand’s face in Episode 5 whenever he is reminded of that fact. But I think that despite the shit that Ray has put him through, Sand hasn’t fully realized, or at least, he is refusing to admit it to himself that there is no scenario where Ray falls in love with him, because to Ray, Sand is a commodity.

Sand is something to be bought.

Sand is someone Ray can go to when he wants to be serviced.

Sand is his favorite toy.

Ray doesn’t like Sand, Ray likes the attention, Ray likes being noticed, Ray likes being cared for, because in his life, his friends mostly ignore him, his father mostly ignores him, his mother is dead and he grew up knowing that she hated him. Ray fell in love with Mew because Mew gave him attention and care, because Ray held him in the bathtub while he sobbed, and Ray has never been able to let go of that idea. But so too, has Ray not been able to let go of the other person who is providing happiness on tap.

favorite photo ever, courtesy of @liyazaki

There are two critical details to remember about Ray. One- Ray is rich, Two- Ray has substance use disorder. Which means that Ray is constantly looking for the next thing that will make him feel good. He drinks to forget, he does cocaine, Ray by nature of his substance dependency does not have a concept of delayed gratification. Ray is extremely rooted in the present, in whatever dopamine hit is within the closest reach. And Sand and his natural tendency to give everything he has is one of the easiest things for him to reach for. Every time that Sand has tried to set a boundary, Ray has crossed it because he knows Sand has feelings for him, he knows he can manipulate that if he just begs cute enough. When he wants sex, he can get sex, when he wants adventure, he can get adventure, when he wants care, he can get care quick, easy, and cheap. Ray paid Sand once for his time, and learned he could be bought, and he has held on to that one time subscription fee extremely tightly.

When it comes to Ray and Sand, there is no winning for Sand that is not defined by the two of them never seeing each other again. Because the second that Ray paid Sand for his time, Sand became Ray’s property, and Ray has never stopped thinking of Sand as such. And we know this is true because of everything Ray does and says related to Sand showing any level of autonomy that runs counter to Ray’s vested interests.

Ray pays for Sand to hang out with him, and soon afterwards, Sand tries to bring a girl home from the bar for a one night stand, only for Ray to interrupt them. Sand ends up going home with Ray instead. Ray convinces Sand to keep making out with him in the car, and then casts Sand aside the second that Mew calls. Sand tries to put up a barrier and Ray is like “yeah sure I’ll care about your feelings, why don’t I buy you a guitar?” because Ray is rich, and so his first solution to conflict is to throw money at the problem, but Sand is easily sated by a little bit of crossed thumbs.

Sand tries to set another boundary in Episode 6 after he learns that Ray has a crush on Mew, and Ray blows right through that boundary by as @emotionallychargedtowel calls it, “aggressively falling apart”. Ray, to be fair to him is not getting drunk and falling to pieces to intentionally rope Sand back in to his gravity, but Sand’s long held tendencies to help people are going to send him back to Ray every time, because Ray is desperately in need of help and no one else can really be fucked.

If we weren’t already aware of Ray’s tendency to think of Sand as property, we get another great indication of Ray’s mentality around Sand in the same episode. When Ray is going off on everyone at the bar on Mew’s birthday, Sand tries to step in to stop Ray’s escalation. Ray does not take kindly to this, and says to Sand’s face, in public “You don’t wanna be a singer. You just want to make money. If you want it so much, why don’t you sleep with me?” thus associating Sand’s moments of physical intimacy and sex with Ray as purchasable, as commodities. Why? Because Sand could be bought once, and thus can be bought again. Ray doesn’t think about Sand as a suitor, he thinks of Sand as a whore, and again he says as much when Sand runs after Ray to try to stop him from drunk driving.

Sand: “Stop thinking about Mew and focus on me for once. Can’t you really see that I care about you?”

Ray: “Why would you poke your nose in my business? What are we to each other? What are we?”

Sand: “Right. We are nothing to each other, but at least I am your fellow human. I don’t want you to drive when drunk. You can risk your life all you want. But don’t you dare risk other people’s lives too.”

Ray: “Let go of me you shit. Let go. Or I need to pay you, whore?”

And thus we have our answer to Ray’s initial question, “What are we to each other?” “whore”. When Ray is wasted, and pissed, and Sand is showing active defiance over Ray’s behavior, Ray reverts immediately back in to the mindset that Sand is owned, that his behavior, his choices, his morals can be changed if enough money is handed to him. Because Ray has bought Sand before, because Sand is poor, and Ray is rich, and Ray thinks that the only thing that Sand could possibly want is more money.

Sand will commit crimes for money (making and selling plum wine). Sand will hang out with Ray for money. Sand will sing for money. Ray comes from a world with money, it is not absent struggle, but Ray’s struggles are more internal, engrained in his family dynamics. He has never had to worry about making enough money for rent, he has never had to worry about violence being done to him or a loved one from debtors when they can’t pay their interest on time, Ray has never had to live in a world without money, and it is clear from the first episode that Ray is someone that looks down on poor people, the way he immediately accuses Sand of stealing from him when he wakes up in Sand’s apartment.

And again, to be fair to Ray, he is not the only one. A couple of the other rich boys look down on Sand the same way. Mew wants Ray to lower his standards and settle for Sand, as if a relationship with Sand would somehow be lesser, when Sand is a good person who cares about and takes good care of Ray, he’s just poor. Top, similar looks down on Sand, he stole his boyfriend, he thinks absolutely nothing of Sand.

Ray gets in a car accident, Sand saves his life, and then Ray’s expectation from there is that Sand will take care of him. Sand (who has very limited funds compared to Ray) buys him a drink, he helps him strip, he helps him shave, he waits hand and foot on Ray. And how does Ray repay him? By jumping in to a relationship with Mew the very second an opportunity presents itself, leaving Sand once again in the dust. Because Ray doesn’t ever actually take Sand’s feelings in to consideration when he is making decisions. Sand is a plaything to Ray, and Ray has a shinier new offer dangling in front of him.

Sand, once again, tries to set a boundary, establish a barrier, remind himself and remind Ray that they aren’t friends, they haven’t been friends, and Sand is trying to be the bigger, better person by letting Ray go, by telling him he is happy for Ray to have finally gotten what he wanted in his relationship with Mew. And throughout the entire exchange, Ray keeps looking so confused when he hears Sand’s consistent rejection of Ray’s wishes about how he and Sand will move forward in their relationship to one another now that Ray is dating Mew.

“So what’s up with Mew? I heard he broke up with Top” Sand asks, and Ray swallows hard, in a way that I personally read as guilty.

“Good, you can finally end the secret crush. Such a waste of time, right?” a confession from Sand that Ray picks up on.

“Are you okay?” Ray asks, this is the second time that Ray has tried to check in on Sand after his relationship to Mew got in the way of his relationship to Sand.

“Why wouldn’t I be? You’re seeing someone you always loved. It’s a dream come true.” Sand once again is not acknowledging out loud or honestly his own feelings, but he is putting his own feelings aside to acknowledge Ray’s feelings. To try to, even still, even after how shittily Ray has treated him, even after how much Ray has taken Sand’s care for granted, spare Ray from feeling bad about fucking with his feelings.

“Can we still be friends?” Ray asks, because he hasn’t ever had actual consequences for his behavior before.

“Friends? You and I have never been friends from the get-go. We have nothing in common. Besides, I don’t know why I should be friends with you.” Sand replies, again trying to create a barrier between him and Ray that allows him to be free from Ray’s gravity.

“But, when I’m with you, I’m so damn happy.” Ray says, because shit like that has always worked with Sand in the past: “Can we hang out together?”, “jerking off feels so good when you’re hungover”, “can you help me?”, and for the first time it really seems like Sand is sticking to his guns.

*deep breath from Sand, who seems like he is fighting back tears he is so upset at hearing that Ray is happy with him and yet having Ray deny that in favor of chasing his next piece of ass* “You will be too when you spend time with Mew. What you did with me, you will get to do it with him. You might even be happier.”

Sand tries to walk away and Ray grabs him by the arm, because Ray has never once let Sand maintain a boundary, “Sand.”

gif from @liyazaki

“Let me go already.” Sand replies, and Sand here is begging Ray not only to literally let him go, but metaphorically, emotionally, to free Sand of this back and forth. To release him from this existence as someone to be jerked around, whose feelings can be trifled with because Ray isn’t fully capable of seeing Sand as a person with his own feelings that are impacted by the choices that Ray makes.

And because Ray cannot let it go, cannot just let his precious toys leave him, he remains adamant about blowing past barriers as often as possible when it comes to his interactions with Sand. Sand literally asks Ray to let him go, and not long after that Ray is wandering back in to the study room where Sand is, trying to get them back on good terms. But again, to point out that Ray commodifies Sand, what is it that Ray is asks him for? Is it to go out to dinner with him? Is it to just hang out and chill? To go to the bar? Is it to apologize for his behavior?

No.

Ray asks Sand to come with him to do social work, to come with him to play music for children. Why? Because Sand knows how to play guitar, and Ray knows that he can wear Sand down eventually. But it bears reminding that Ray’s social work is court ordered, he is literally asking Sand to suffer the (very minimal) consequences of Ray’s drunk driving with him, and he’s trying to pick the social work option that is the least miserable, the least amount of work, and he is trying to rope in the only person he knows who can get him out of the types of social work that involve manual labor. Because Ray cannot play an instrument, so he would not be able to play music for children without Sand’s presence.

Once again, Ray proves that he is not capable of associating Sand with anything other than a service provider.

Or, as we see later on in the episode, as property.

Because here Ray is, fucking with Sand’s feelings, dating Mew, making out with Mew at the party and there Sand is, not wanting to be at this party in the least but going anyway because he feels bad about what he did to Nick by stealing and sharing that TopBoston audio file, trying to move on, trying to kiss a random stranger with mutual interests at this party, only to have…

Ray interrupt them before they can kiss, squeeze himself physically in between Sand and Freddie #2, and asking if the two of them have slept together.

“Did you sleep with him?”

“Damn it, Ray. Are you high? How about you go to sleep?”

“I want to sleep with you. Or what, should we invite Mr. Freddie here to sleep with us? Let’s do it, I’ll go first,”

AND THEN RAY GRABS SAND AND KISSES HIM WITHOUT HIS CONSENT (which I am pretty certain Mew would consider cheating especially after the whole ordeal with Top) when Sand was just about to consensually kiss someone who wasn’t Ray (again, Ray is unable to let Sand ever exhibit his own autonomy). Until Freddie #2 leaves them alone, assuming they are in a relationship, and not wanting to get involved with “someone else’s boyfriend”

“What the fuck is this. You have Mew now. What do you want from me? Go guard your boyfriend,”

“I can have feelings for as many people as I want,”

“But you can’t do this to me,”

“Stop fooling yourself, Sand. You like me,” Ray points “You love me. You can’t walk away from me. You’re mine no matter what.”

gif by @moonkhao

and there is a reason why they put Ray in the fucking Joker’s costume for this episode, cause that boy is acting toxic as all hell. So even now, Ray isn’t sated, Ray made his choices, Ray picked Mew, Ray left Sand in the dust, but Ray cannot separate Sand’s autonomy out from Ray’s possession of him. I love Only Friends for the level of hypocrisy they allow their characters to have. Ray is allowed to date and have feelings for Mew, and to want Sand, but Sand is not allowed to move on from Ray, Sand is not allowed to have feelings for other people, let alone just make out with a stranger or fuck somebody else without any feelings involved.

And I cannot stress enough that this is shitty behavior on Ray’s part, this isn’t cute, this isn’t funny, the extent to which Ray is possessive over a person he has no right to act that way towards is inconsiderate, rude, and objectifying. Sand is not allowed to have his own thoughts, Ray must put words in his mouth. Sand is not allowed to move on from Ray, Ray will keep pushing Sand’s boundaries until Sand relents because Ray knows he can manipulate Sand’s feelings for him, Sand will always be a caretaker and Ray will always need taking care of. Sand is maybe waking up to this fact, or maybe the horror in his eyes when Ray is yelling at him is Sand realizing at the very least that Ray knows how Sand feels about him, and Sand is admitting to himself in this moment that like Nick, he can’t help but love this person who has treated him poorly.

Because Sand is a caretaker, and caretakers, at least in my own experience, are used to having their own wants and needs trampled over. No boundary withstands first contact with someone in need of help. I have tried to reach out and give support to people that I know didn’t like me after they went through hard times together, I don’t talk to my friends about shit that is actually and actively impactful to my mental health and wellbeing, many of the people I am friends with frequently only reach out when they need something from me. If they needed homework answers, or if they needed observation, or if they needed to be picked up early in the morning from the airport and otherwise they never really talked to me. Like, I get a lot of where Sand is coming from with his need to take care of Ray because Ray is a young adult, going through a lot, in need of a lot of professional help he isn’t getting, and Sand can’t not be compelled to help him as much as he can.

And listen, in my opinion some of Sand’s actions with Ray are justified from a safety perspective, Sand is a caretaker, Sand knows Ray is willing to drink and drive, Sand puts his pride aside to try and ensure that Ray doesn’t leave in his car, and then follows him to make sure that he doesn’t get in to an accident. Those actions make sense to me.

gif from @bird-inacage

Sand doesn’t want Ray to get in to any more legal trouble, so tries to hide the evidence of drugs and get Ray out of the party, which in a normal circumstance I would generally be in support of, but crucially, as @neuroticbookworm and @lurkingshan have touched on in some of their posts Sand cannot afford a run in with police. Not in the same way that Ray can. Ray is rich, Ray says he can handle the cops, and he can because he can buy them off, the way that Top bought them off. But Sand doesn’t come from a world where he can skirt consequences.

But there are many places where Sand lets himself get trampled over because he has legitimate feelings for Ray, and Ray won’t let Sand make his own choices long enough to wake up, look around, and realize that Ray has literally given him nothing of substance in return.

#only friends the series #ofts #only friends #only friends analysis #only friends meta #ofts meta #ofts analysis #sandray #sand x ray #firstkhao #gmmtv #jojo tichakorn #ninew pinya #first kanaphan #khaotung thanawat #wka long post

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eldstunga · 7 months

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Hi! I really love your art! The lines are so bold but the colours so natural that it feels distinct but grounded?? I'm obsessed with the shapes in your work

I was wondering if you had any advice for drawing bodies? Whenever I try it either my proportions are off or an arm ends up looking like a calf or something.

First of all, thank you <3 That's so nice and I think "lines bold, colours natural" is some truly aspirational words to say about my art, I'll strive to be what you say I am <3 I do not, unfortunately, have any great tips on drawing bodies - it's a very wide topic and fundamentally just really bloody hard. I fail horribly 9 times out of 10. How to approach it I think varies a lot with like...HOW you are struggling, and who you are as a person. For proportions and anatomy there are definitely books to look at, and some rules of thumb that can help you - anything from "the shoulders are about 2.5-3 heads wide" through "feet are the same length as the forearm", "elbows are in line with the navel and the navel is two sternums down" etc etc. For me, realising just how big the ribcage actually is and learning how to use that as a unit of measure was a big event (the torso is about two ribcages long). Look at references, Draw over low opacity references and try to look for patterns that help YOU. Like... "Hm, do the shoulders line up with something useful?"

Having a good ref model to double check things helps too. The pen is pointing to about the bottom of the ribcage. But there's also stuff like maybe you're getting too hung up on construction and then it might help more to try to draw from references by ONLY blocking in a silhouette first. This helps me sometimes still:

Or you could be like me, struggle with all of the above and then some - like how to make poses look natural and/or dynamic? Weight distribution is a whole other topic.. gah, it never ends, but it's fun to learn.

Lastly, this took me way too long to realise and I think it should be said: Do not fret too much about STUDYING. The unfair thing is that the better you are at something, the better you will be at actually learning from doing studies and exercises or reading books. We accept this with many other disciplines and sports but rarely art. Mileage is king, and mileage is best gained from having fun and enjoying what you do. If you find studies suffering and frustrating you're probably better off just drawing what you enjoy and fuck it if it isn't "pushing your boundaries" or whatever. Eventually you'll get to the point where studies start to give more than they take, and then you're home free. I'm not gonna recommend a billion resources you likely won't enjoy but here are some things I genuinely found helpful lately: * a physical anatomy model, they're pricy and not necessary but being able to just look at it every now and then, turn it over etc helps. * The "Morpho" series of books, they do not teach anatomy, but they are very useful quick reference books and much more easily digested than most anatomy material. Just try to find a real anatomy book to read once your appetite is up as well.

The zig-zag/Lightning bolt method for arms and legs, fuckin' thing revolutionised how I sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCkmB030GpQ

Gottfried Bammes "The Complete guide to Anatomy for Artists and Illustrators" This thing is insane, it's from the 50's and like 600 pages long. You could absolutely kill someone with it, but a lot of the pages are more philosophical or art history you can skip and despite its age and fear factor this dude writes in a witty, clever and just wonderful way that I've seen nowhere else. Fantastic photos. By far, FAR the best anatomy book I've ever seen. It's not a book I'd recommend for someone starting out, I would not have been able to digest it like four years ago, but once you get to a certain point it's amazing.

That's a lot, uhhh, feel free to ask me for more specific tips this was a bit of a rant. Hope some of it was useful!

#art tips #.txt #asks #sorry its such a wide topic I dunno where to start

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stagkingswife · 1 month

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Around the holidays I had the unique joy of meeting up with @windvexer in person while they were visiting my beloved New York City. Over sushi, dessert, and then just hanging out in their hotel lobby we had a wide ranging conversation about our practices, UPGs, etc. The conversation eventually drifted to comparing our spirit lead initiations. Chicken’s story is theirs to share, or not, as they choose. But I’ve been thinking a lot since that conversation about my own initiation and how it parallels another important story in my life.

When I was 15 I was a dancer and I was good, like competing at a national level. I was cast as Odette in my ballet school’s adaptation of Swan Lake. I practiced, and rehearsed, and trained all year long for the role. Then a month before recital weekend my family and I went on a weekend trip to Gettysburg. I also love history, and my dad and I had just read a book about the battle of Gettysburg together, so we clambered all over the battlefield. I tore a calf muscle doing this. I saw my usual doctor for injuries and wore a cast for three weeks, walked through rehearsals, took it easy. Once the cast was off a week before the recital I ramped up slowly, warmed up more than usual, stretched carefully, everything. But come recital weekend I danced my heart out and left everything on the stage. 3 weeks later I was diagnosed with CRPS in the leg I had injured. What does any of this have to do with my initiation? Everything, just bare with me.

My childhood mentor had been initiated by the spirits of her tradition, and she had spoken to me about the effect this had had on her. I had written an academic paper on initiatory spiritual traditions and the phenomena of initiation sickness. I knew, long before Oisin ever broached the topic with me, that a spirit lead initiation could wreck your life, that it would be trying in ways that were specifically designed to change you on a fundamental to suit the spirit's needs, and that undertaking one would have consequences I couldn’t even begin to image. I also knew that dancing Swan Lake one week out of a cast could have disastrous results for my dance career. But I loved the music and choreography. I loved how I felt while I was dancing. So I danced. I was already in love with Oisin when he presented me with this trial. I loved learning from him, and working with him, and if there was something hard, even something impossible, that he needed me to do so that I could keep learning and working with him - it was no question.

I had no way of knowing when I was teenager waiting in the wings in my white leotard and feathered wig that I was about to dance my last ballet. That in less than a year I would start using a cane, or that I would one day swap the cane for a wheelchair, or any of the changes and accommodations that I’ve had to make in my life for my disability. I only knew the love. When I said yes to Oisin I couldn’t have predicted how much it would break me when he killed my soul, dismembered it, and scattered the innumerable shreds across the Otherworlds. I could have imagined the amazing and terrifying things I saw and experienced on my journey to find those fragments and assemble myself - or what it was like to live without a complete soul in the meantime. And nothing could have prepared me for the permanent changes the whole process had wrought on my life: on my physical health, my mental health, the very fact that my spiritual oaths and promises must always come first for me. I only knew the love.

17 years after my diagnosis, and 13 after my initiation started, I look back at the choices that led to both and would make them both again, even knowing the consequences. These two choices, more than almost anything else in my life, have shaped who I am as an adult and I like that person. These choices came from the right place, both times. Not from ambition, greed, guilt, or fear, but love. And I can’t ever regret what I did for love.

#witchcraft #pagan #the returning #spirit work #initiation #spirit lead initiation

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mabelpodcast · 8 months

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some (non-Mabel-related) news

I went to a bookstore.

It’s a beautiful bookstore, maybe one of the world’s perfect bookstores. It sells used and new books, and there are comfortable seats and beautifully-curated collections created by the people who work there, people who obviously love books, and there are nooks and crannies and secret rooms and areas for children and art and bathrooms and no one will bother you if you want to wander and read first chapters for three hours, which we did. I bought a signed copy of a Caitlín R Kieran book for four dollars. I loved being there.

I also hated being there. This bookstore is Instagram famous. A solid fifty percent of the customers were influencers. They blocked aisles to stage photos. They pretended to read in the most aesthetic poses, with books whose covers complimented their outfits. There was an entire section of the store dedicated to “Book-Tok faves”. I tried to read some of these books, and found them unilaterally depressing - not because of their subject matter, or even because of their shocking lack of copyediting, but because of the clear and heartbreaking hoops each and every author so obviously had to jump through in order to sell their work. The game, as my wife put it, they all had to play. Social media. Followers and likes. The cultural capitol of diversity points. The apologism for lack thereof.

For the past year I have been writing romance novels. I’m going to be painfully honest about the three reasons I’ve been doing so: first, because I’m good at it (I’m a fast, skilled writer); second, because I like romance novels; and third, because I wanted money. I believe in the sanctity of art but also in the bills I have to pay. I wrote these books in a way that meant I would not be ashamed of them, nor of my attachment to them. They are not deeply, religiously personal, like HETTIE AND THE GHOST, but they are about flawed and damaged people trying as hard as they can to find one another, and that is a story-arc I will always stand behind. Also? They are funny. And I write good sex scenes. They are good books.

For the past three months I have been working towards publishing them. It’s been going well. I have had some meetings. Of the twelve literary agents I queried, three have offered representation. I have enough familiarity with the publishing industry to understand what this means: my work is considered marketable enough that I could, with a lot of work but with definite feasibility, make a career from these novels.

Here’s the problem. It’s come to my attention that I hate this industry. I hate the pandering, the reduction of story down to audiences and trends. I hate the “elevator pitch”, I hate the lack of ethics and environmental consideration in printing mass quantities of books, I hate advertising and marketing myself and making sure that I am palatable - just queer enough, just marginalized enough - to sell rather than put off. I hate participating in a system that I fundamentally despise; I came up with Cantrap Press’s barter system because I hate it. On a long journey home at night, surrounded by suburban sprawl, I realised that I couldn’t make this my career. It would drive me insane. These stories will not change the world but all stories are alive and to pinch and snip them into shapes palatable enough so a Big Publishing Company can successfully pimp them to a world of Book-Tok influencers sounds, to me, like a living nightmare. I won’t do it.

But: I have another problem. I do believe with all my heart that art should be accessible. At the same time, I also believe with all my heart that artists should be fairly compensated for their work. Running a small press is a wonderful and worthwhile endeavor, but it is a labour of love, like putting out a podcast entirely for free. It’s also a labour of money, and the rising costs involved mean that I wouldn’t break close to even if I were to print these books myself.

So what’s the solution? Here’s mine. I’m giving them away. I’ve done this before, and it felt like the purest form of myself. The books will be, always, entirely free to whoever wants them, under the domain of a Creative Commons License. There will be a donation button. You can pay what you like for them, pay what you think they’re worth, pay what you can afford, or pay nothing at all. No pressure. No judgement. My barter policy will apply to these, too, if you want to compensate me but don’t have the funds. I’ve come to terms with the fact that refusing to play the game means I’ll never make a lot of money from these books. I may not make any at all. But these are my beliefs. I have to abide by them. I’ll be able to look myself in the eye; you’ll get fun fiction for free.

In a post-apocalyptic society maybe I’d be riding a donkey around the countryside telling stories, and you’d repay me for my skills by making sure I had enough turnips and deer jerky and tinder and donkey medicine. Instead I’m a person who lives in a house with electricity and gas bills. The farmers I buy my vegetables from at the market deserve to be repaid for those vegetables and the weight of labour, capitol and resources they represent. I don’t resent anyone for their participation in the system. I resent the ever-tightening ropes around us all. The ways we are tracked and compelled and sold to, the advertisements masquerading as entertainment, and worse, as art, how it seems we are being moved increasingly towards a model of consumption as definition, but only under very specific umbrellas - four companies own all stories, now what will you buy to define yourself by their characters and worlds? If I choose not to participate, no company can own my stories. And now, neither can you.

Introducing Anarchic Candy.

And my first book to be released, COMEBACK.

PS: in a twist of fate that, as my wife put it, would be completely unbelievable if it appeared in a story, one of the agents who enthusiastically offered representation also represents the author of one of those Book-Tok-famous books I saw at the used bookstore. This didn’t make up my mind (I’d already made up my mind before that agent even contacted me) but it’s an ironic coincidence I really can’t ignore.

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artbyblastweave · 1 year

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Gideon the Ninth Liveread, Chapter 13

Gonna try and catch up on these.

Gideon is using increasingly possessive language used for Harrow- HER necromancer.

“I am just saying, you’d be dead.” More and more I understand the gestalt image of Harrow as the Kitten Who Thinks Of Nothing But Murder All Day. She’s a heap of bones and wet cloth held together with spite.

Big fan of the repeated use of "In a Bone”- “hiding in a bone”, “stuck in a bone”, “dying in a bone-” to describe the bone cocoon. This syntax smacks of Homestuck.

Okay. So Harrow was “just recuperating.” Here we see a reproduction of what Harrow did with her parents; sealing herself off from the world to try and recover, which is of course fruitless because you do it in a situation where you're starved for resources and there's nobody who even knows or cares something is wrong. Harrow rejects all solutions she doesn't execute singlehandedly; Gideon, meanwhile, snaps at opportunities as they emerge, even when offered by someone she hates; her brand of stubbornness only superficially resembles that of Harrow's because she was never given any real offer of assistance.

Finally Gideon starts flexing her leverage. This is good to see. Yell at your wet rat

Harrow is equally suspicious as I am of Dulcinea; she picked an interesting place to die! This, in turn, highlights something interesting about Gideon’s point of view; Gideon is cutting, but not consistently insightful. She’s very good at coming up with downright poetically mean and snarky things to say about the people and things around her; she can intuit the broad shape of the social dynamics, as shown in the chapter 12 intro- but she isn’t thinking critically about a lot of it. She’s routinely spending time with Dulcinea, and she hasn’t moved mentally beyond “she’s dying” to “why is she dying:” She hasn’t considered in the slightest the fundamental weirdness of sending a terminally ill person to complete a giant scavenger hunt. Gideon noticed and was put off by Canaan House’s dumpishness, but she didn’t parse it as a power play; instead, we overheard Naberius say that. Gideon noticed how incongruously constructed Canaan House is, but didn’t read much into it; Palamedes is the one whose bullshit detector actually went off.

The awful orange tone of human leather. Jesus fuck.

Alright, so they aren’t supposed to go through locked doors without permission. I didn’t remember the specifics of the wording on that one.

Harrow got ahead of the other houses because she has the force multiplier of skeletons; Palamedes has psychometry. The eighth house has... raw zealotry? There’s gotta be some necromantic element giving them a leg up. Here we get insight from Harrow about the other houses, insight absent from the narrative up till now because Harrow is, again, the protagonist of a very different story from that of Gideon's, with a very different set of known unknowns. All that buildup surrounding the sixth pair, and Harrow just kind of casually knows Palamedes by reputation. Also here we get a sense of who Harrow considers the functional competition- the Sixth, the Eighth, and possibly the Third. This makes sense; the Fourths are teenagers, the Second don’t actually seem interested in this, the Fifth were painted as pretty non-competitive in the dueling sequence, and the Seventh is.... actually, now that I think about it, Dulcinea is pretty heavily implied to be doing what Harrow is doing but with her Cavalier as her proxy instead of a skeleton army. Hmm. Harrow might not know this, having been AWOL the last week or so. And Gideon herself is not making that connection at the moment.

Harrow’s description of how she methodically swept the entire House for locked doors and then threw 163 skeletons into the bone grinder is yet another example of her being the protagonist completely different kind of book than Gideon. Harrow is the kind of prodigious protagonist who has incredibly in-depth understanding of the magic-system and to a lesser extent the setting politics; a strong insider of the sort whose "arc" often consists not of getting good, but of turning their incredible force of personality against the correct adversary, and whose minute-to-minute page-filling challenges consist of outsmarting hard-magic-system puzzles through cleverness and brute force. That whole "163 skeletons" thing, in a different kind of book, would be a triumphant sequence for Harrow where she tries everything she can think of until something finally works; but this is a story about how trying to do everything yourself fundamentally destroys you.

Brief aside- we get another mention of blood “skeletonizing,” which appears to involve rapidly drying it/ draining it of energy in the process; presumably this might allow for the rapid creation of occult diagrams, or that might be a mundane use compared to the mystical function of a quick powerup.

And Gideon puts the nail in the coffin; she found the door, she’s the only one of the two capable of standing upright, she’s successfully framed Harrow as being the weak link in their power projection to the other houses. Gideon is good at this kind of freight-train Laying Out Of Points when she’s given the opportunity; she hasn’t had cause or opportunity thus far in the book, but like any good swordswoman, when she sees an opening, she presses her advantage.

The sum of all necromantic transgression. That’s a fundamentally interesting concept to hear come out the mouth of a girl reading a book bound in human leather. Given what we've already seen of business-as-usual necromancy, what does the head of first house consider "transgression?"

Ten Thousand Million unfed ghosts. What do you feed ghosts? And why are there a billion ghosts? Someone was busy.

So Teacher is capable of specificity, if you hit upon the right questions. Florid specificity. Does he write his own lines? Is this his description of the situation down there, or did someone give him a script?

“Ghosts and you might die” is my middle name. Not far off- I haven’t really touched upon the bizarre circumstances of Gideon’s coming into the Ninth, but she was named by a manic ghost. (Does she, herself, know that? Did anyone tell her the profoundly bizarre circumstances by which she came to Drearbaugh, or is this something only the narrator knows?)

#gideon the ninth liveread #gideon the ninth #gtn #gideon nav #harrowhawk nonagesimus #blastweave livereads #thoughts #meta #analysis #gideon the ninth spoilers #gtn spoilers #the locked tomb #the locked tomb liveread #the locked tomb spoilers

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dairy-farmer · 1 year

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hope my question doesn't sound so awful, i'm curious, when it comes to you and your ships like BruTim and etc., would you consider yourself a proshipper?

it's not! don't worry!

i consider myself very firmly anti-censorship which means that i am very firmly proship.

i know that there has been an attempt at changing the meaning of proshipping by people trying to cast it in a bad light because if you control the definition of something then you basically control all future arguments. (interestingly it's anti shipping that is the reason for pro ship's existence. livejournal was full of people telling others that their ships were gross and launching crusades against ships they hated calling themselves "anti-x-ship". pro, the opposite of anti, emerged to show as a symbol that you weren't an asshole. a lot of proshippers don't like or even approve of all ships but they believe you shouldn't get targeted and harassed for something as stupid as a ship essentially)

proshipping is something that i agree with not only for the anti-censorship aspects, it's also the finer details

1) your fictional interests are not a reflection of your irl beliefs

2) that harassment, doxing, and threats are not a logical or stable reactions to seeing something you don't like

3) fiction is not what influences reality it is interpretation of fiction that does (you were already a bad person if something you saw on tv or read in a book made you violent or do something depraved etc)

i've been lurking in fandom for a long time and i've noticed a trend with antis that have shaped a very low opinion of them because of the glaringly clear political agenda so many antis appear to have. there's been a rise in 'anti rhetoric' that pretty closely coincides with the rise in american alt-right movements and this is no different because it's people being radicalized by the exact same pipeline. anti's, right wing, q-anon people, etc say (oftentimes line for line) the EXACT same arguments.

arguments that tend to be anti women and anti lgbtq+

i realize indoctrination is hard to spot especially if you're young, vulnerable, or its being said by someone you look up to. but there are two things to keep in mind when you think about all the claims and stances antis make.

is the claim outlandish or incredibly bold? such as saying that people who like lolicon or make nsfw art of underaged characters are pedophiles. that is a VERY serious accusation and people online say it like its nothing. when you understand the full depravity of a crime like pedophilia there is ABSOLUTELY no way you could ever equate drawings of a fictional character to a living breathing child.

who benefits from you believing those claims?

-you ever wonder why ao3 writers who are majority queer women in their mid 20s tend to be baselessly accused of pedophilia? even though the profile of a pedophile in the USA is of a middle-aged white man in their 30s-40s? if we wanted to characterize fandoms by most likely to have pedophiles i'd be eyeing the nascar and sports fandoms given their fan basis fit the profile better.

did you know referring to queer people as pedophiles is a very age old tactic of eliminating public support or sympathy for them. look up 'boys beware' a 1955 PSA directed at boys to help protect them from the "sick" "pedophiles" known as the homosexuals.

-you ever wonder why antis claim to be "for the children" and yet use terms like 'cp' when referring to real children?

did you know RAINN has stated the proper term to use is CSAM-child sexual abuse materials. because 'child' and 'porn' cannot be used in the same sentence? fundamentally "(often) pornography online depicts adults who have consented to be filmed, that’s never the case when the images depict children". you'd think someone who cares so much for real children would get that.

-you ever wonder why so many antis rally for censorship on ao3 and cite the overnight mass deletion and censorship of fanworks from livejournal as proof of something that occurred because there was too much "cp" on the cite?

did you know it was it the 'warriors for innocence' who were behind not just livejournal but issues with other fansites and who directly stated their goal was to "hunt down people who support homosexuality, pedophilia and incest" and who have very clear ties to dominionism, and "Christian Patriot" militias?

do you notice how that's exactly what antis today say about "proshitters" just without the 'homosexuality' part because that part is being whispered since they know being homophobic within fandoms who are en mass queer would lose them a lot of support?

the anti and proship structure is a very american creation because it was born on forums mainly populated by americans and its only recently that this has started affecting overseas fandoms. recently on twitter a LOT of japanese artists have started referring to themselves as proshippers and blocking anyone who has 'antiship' in their description box because proship is the default for basically everywhere else that doesn't have american theocratic conservative powerplays.

maybe being an anti started as being an asshole but that's no longer the case. it's no longer just about "i hate this ship" its becomes "i hate this ship because ive fallen into an alt-right pipeline to appeal to the young future conservative and so fiction is real and you, a dirty fucking queer, are a pedophile, rapist, molester!!!!'

all you have to do to see a grown up politically involved "anti" is to turn on an american news station and watch the debate about banning library books that contain "explicit material" like things related to critical race theory or homosexuality. because that's what an anti evolves into. that's what all indoctrinated conservatives evolve into.

so the anti objectives and alignments have very firmly changed to something i will never respect or side with.

i think that an old article about WFI can summerize what i think is happening with modern antishipping and a changing political climate:

and if by chance an anti has somehow read this far: u were lied to girl. they knew you were a sucker and desperate for online connection or to be part of the "young activist" wave. but you were easy to trick and they filled your head with lies to help them push the christian conservative agenda that women dont deserve autonomy and gay people are depraved freaks who should all die.

"No mistake should be made here: these people are not so much about stopping pedo's, they are about erecting and establishing a hate filled theocratic society by any means necessary. They are all about control. And they are firmly entrenched in the belief that they are "more right" than anyone else"

#anonymous #asks #answered asks

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rollercoasterwords · 1 year

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10 books!! :•)

ty 4 the tag @otrtbs (+ @serethereal i'm just doing it on this blog) <3 here r 10 books 2 get 2 know me

1. a history of glitter and blood, by hannah moskowitz

favorite book of. all time probably. first read this when i was like 16 i think and since then i've reread it about once a year. keep waiting for it to like...hit me less hard but every time i read it i am still v much moved in the same sort of way that i was the first time!!

2. the last unicorn, by peter s. beagle

feel like this story is like. integral 2 me as a person. first encountered it in the form of the 1982 movie as a child + then discovered it was a book in high school. there are differences between the two of course but the central themes are the same + i do think the ending like. permanently altered my brain as a child such that it has shaped my worldview ever since

3. the archive of alternate endings, by lindsey drager

newest addition 2 the list!! just read this book like a month ago and it was so good that it now has a place of honor on my favorites list <3 made me full-body sob but is like. so exactly perfect for me as a book that it felt like it was written 4 me

4. animorphs, by k.a. applegate

surprisingly not a childhood series 4 me bc i watched one episode of the tv show they made in the 90s + it scared me so much that i never touched the books. however i read the entire series in college and. it is now one of my favorite works of literature ever.

5. gormenghast, by mervyn peake

this book means a lot 2 me personally bc it's like. tied 2 my dad 4 me <3 he's a big reader but our tastes only have a small overlap, so it's not super often that we'll both love the same book. but when i was in high school i was looking for something 2 read + he pulled gormenghast off his bookshelf + was like try this nobody's ever heard of it bc peake is not well-known but it's like. sprawling dark fantasy. + it ended up being one of the most beautiful + unique stories i have ever read <3

6. you too can have a body like mine, by alexandra kleeman

a favorite satire <3 love kleeman's writing style + the sort of weird suburbia-horror of this story

7. the man who laughs, by victor hugo

generally speaking i am not a big ~classics~ person however. my final year of hs this was the book i chose for my like big final english paper + it's like. the first book i really had 2 study on a deeper level + i loved all the twisting symbolism + the tragedy of it all

8. six of crows, by leigh bardugo

technically this is 2 books bc i'm thinking of the entire duology but. yeah <3 fave like. fun fantasy story 2 reread when i want a book that makes me feel like i'm watching a movie while i read it. also love love love all the characters <3

9. this is how you lose the time war, by max gladstone and amal el-mohtar

first time i read this book i felt like my brain was melting!!! so short but the exact kind of story that i love; sort of scrambled poetic writing style + weird dark fantasy + sci-fi elements

10. no future: queer theory and the death drive, by lee edelman

i actually. do not recommend this book as it is so dry + dense and an absolute slog 2 read. however it makes the list bc encountering lee edelman's writing abt reproductive futurity + the death drive was like. top 10 life-altering moments that fundamentally changed the way i think in college. so!!!

no-pressure tags: @steelycunt @dykefever @pomegranate-pill @suspendedinbush @mayescapade :•)

#book recs #tag game <3 #obviously i am a. big fantasy person as is evident from this list lol #i think it will simply always be my favorite genre !! apologies 4 the lack of genre diversity on this list tho lol #also mutuals. if anyone wants 2 exchange storygraphs <3 #currently i am only following my beloved ridi aka tumblr user steelycunt + i think it would be fun 2 see what ur all reading!!

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wellofdean · 29 days

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Hello there! I've happened to read this post of yours and I just loved it! You've brilliantly articulated what I've been trying to explain about Supernatural, specifically about one of its most fascinating (at least to me) themes, that is the contrast between the nuclear and the queer family. In the post you've also mentioned "the backlash against the Joseph Campbell Monomyth-style mode of storytelling" and I got super curious since I've been trying to find some resources about alternatives to this type of storytelling. I was wondering if you could be so kind and share the names of some authors, or even some books/papers/articles about this "backlash". I just thought to take my chance and ask you but if it's not okay by you by no means ignore my request :)

thank you anyway for sharing your thoughts on that post, again it was brilliant! Have a nice day ^_^

Hello! Thank you so much for the compliment on my post!

When I say 'backlash against the monomyth', I am talking about conversations in the film school, and with other students, but some of them, as I mentioned, have gone on to make films that set out to subvert the Hero's Journey model of storytelling.

I personally love this piece:

Film Crit Hulk has a bit of a schtick that he's doing and yes, he writes in ALL CAPS, but he's kind of brilliant, actually, writes for some very serious publications, and this is a pretty brilliant summary of the kinds of conversations I heard and had in my University days and just after with members of the Lit and Crit fandom (which is what academics really are) and my then-aspiring filmmaker friends, and with people who were actively involved in shaping careers in Hollywood storytelling.

This is also good:

This is also really worth a read, and talks about the way the monomyth "displays ethnocentric, sexist, heteronormative, and cisnormative biases and it encourages people to ignore the ways in which stories are fundamentally shaped by the cultures and time periods in which they are produced."

As for alternatives, I will now tell you about a book I absolutely love, and cannot recommend highly enough, and that is Jane Alison's book Meander, Spiral, Explode.

EXTREMELY worth the read. Absolutely wonderful.

I also really like Relating Narratives by Adriana Cavarero, which you can read online, here, which is about selfhood and narrative, and actually is not fully relevant, probably, but it's awesome, so I include it.:

Enjoy!

#down with the monomyth!#and some alternatives #Enjoy!

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clever-fox-studios · 4 months

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Art Lessons

I'm just dropping this here because the idea keeps floating in my head about revisiting something I did back in the SAMS server (yes, hi, I was there, some of you probably know me from art chat) that I really enjoyed and I've been considering trying again to provide accessible resources to young or under-skilled artists.

So, back in the day (early 2023) when I was there (SAMS), I held a couple of streams where I tried to explain anatomy and breaking down bodies into shapes and how those lessons overlapped into other subjects like non-humans. I felt there was a moderate success, as I am and always have been, self-taught and thus I don't have the formal knowledge that comes from university classes (though I would like some one day); having been online enough I've seen the biases in the art community with the agism and such where older people who "missed" the window of opportunity are often pushed aside because they're expected to "know" by now how to Do The Thing when they weren't given the same opportunities then.

I've also seen how most how-to books, videos and classes, in many countries, seem to lack general fundamentals as part of their criteria; the number of 'students' who professed that their teachers or the instructor seemed to assume they had a basic idea of how to draw already before starting class was... staggering to say the least.

"I didn't know what [this] meant, I was just told to do it."

"We were never taught how to break this down, we just had to copy [this]."

Etc.

Nevermind the style biases; I despise the "Anime isn't art" arguments and how they try to force a style onto the learners as if they're superior for being 'traditional' or 'realistic'. I'm a person who does push for the fundamentals because they can be applied to all styles in some way; learn the rules to then break the rules and all that. Technical skill is not the same as style, in my book.

So, that being said, I would really love to revisit those streams one day soon, if the interest is still there. I'm planning to open a discord server for it where I can host the small-scale streams until I get a platform open for larger audiences; I'm thinking Twitch, but my set up isn't really good for that, and I need a certain amount of watch time/followers on Tiktok and Youtube (for some stupid reason) so while I figure that out, discord is better than nothing. VODs could be made or uploaded to Youtube later for review until I make proper edited stuff, but that's much later.

I just really miss offering help because art should be accessible and no one should feel isolated in the "you should know by now" bubble simply because their living situation or environment didn't afford them the time or resources to sit and draw all day, every day and teach themselves where classes failed or assumed they knew what they were dong already. Also, that live feedback can help a lot and allow others to run at their own pace instead of getting steamrolled by the 'natural talent' as I can repeat or revisit something and answer questions in real-time (as much as I'm able).

So if that's something that seems fun or interesting, I'd leave it open to any age (behave yourselves) to come learn; if I get enough interest I'll start making the discord and think of a schedule plan, but for now it's an idea!

Thank you for dropping by!

#art lessons #beginner artist #how to draw #discord #stream #art stream #classes #learn to draw #skill building

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farcille · 1 month

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9 people you'd like to get to know better

tagged by @healen -- omg i am SO sorry i did not see this; I just found your tag from going through my email notifs haha. thank you though this was super fun!!

Three ships:

farcille: like ok iconic as fuck and my username so obviously i have to talk about this one first. dungeon meshi is my favorite manga ever and marcille is my favorite character and i love her relationship with falin so much ;-; i think the plot point of marcille being afraid of losing people she loves due to the difference in how she ages compared to other people is super interesting and adds a really thought-provoking and tragic aspect to their relationship. i also love the difference in their personalities that shapes their dynamic; marcille is extremely neurotic and inside of her own head and "by-the-book" and falin is very in touch with her surroundings and intuitive and accepting of disorder but they're close anyway because the things that make them different are things that they admire about each other. i looove that marcille gets jealous of other people showing falin attention and that shes insane about saving her and that she would do anything to get her back. they get married in my head after the end of the manga

jaime/brienne: i've been so into rereading asoiaf lately and this has been on my mind nonstop. the dynamic of like this super big/strong very gender nonconforming ugly woman whos internally very kind and empathetic and has one of the strongest moral compasses of anyone in the series but struggles internally with her self image and her perceived inability to "fit in" anywhere due to misogyny and general cruelty and societal prejudice over her looks and like the antihero privileged evil prettyboy who seems to have everything granted by society that brienne doesn't at the beginning of the series but goes through a dramatic character shift after losing his ability to physically fight and is not actually quite as evil as you're initially led to believe but has become disillusioned and morally dark due to contempt and judgement and expectations from people in his life is kinda unmatched like no one was doing narratives about social expectations like them. the way that both of their character arcs rely on what they learn from each other about honor and judgement and what it means to be a "true knight" is also my fave. in my head where theres a universe where asoiaf is finished they finally confess their feelings 4 each other

doctor/master: haha ok time to be cringe and post doctor who on main again. but like hear me out this ship was so iconic LIKE they are the last 2 living members of their species they're childhood friends they know each other better than anyone in the universe they've known each other for 900 years but they are doomed to be mortal enemies forever because of a fundamental difference in their respective ideologies and who they are as people. like they love each other they hate each other they have to kill each other they have to save each other its so . mwah (im doing the cheff kiss gesture rn) my only criticism of it is that there's never been a f/f iteration of it that could definitely exist it's just that the dw writers hate women so it hasn't happened in the like 60 years of this show running but it exists in my mind

First ever ship: rosemary from homestuck 😭 i think they were the first pairing that i ever looked up fanfiction for when i was but a child. i still love them btw and they're still my favorite homestuck characters their dry humor and the way they bounce off of each other in their pesterlogs is still something i adore

Last song: ignorance by paramore!!!

Currently reading: ........................asoiaf...

Currently watching: game of thrones with my buddy april. we are suffering together

Currently consuming: a latte from the nearby coffee shop i like to go to on the weekends!!

Currently craving: hmm maybe sushi, I haven't had it in a long while

not tagging anyone but thanks for reading if u got this far <3333

#yeah i took this as an excuse to write paragraphs about ships i like what about it #something something text post tag

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notalostcausejustyet · 3 months

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As I’m settling into this whole academia business, I thought I’d share one of my first ever tumblr posts. Which turned out to be the basis for my first ever college essay. I’ll share the essay here after it gets graded later this week. Cheers.

On asking questions and public spaces

This is what happens when you have to take a dose of Excedrin for a migraine only a couple of hours before bedtime, because CAFFEINE. Sorry, not sorry! (Please note that for those of us who are gifted with brains of the divergent sort, caffeine only works as it ought when you need it not to lol.) So. Libraries. Libraries are magical. Always have done, even before they became a safe haven for the dispossessed members of our society (which is a brilliant bit of miracle working in its’ own right) but why? And the simplest answer is the obvious one. Books of course. Digging deeper for context here is important though. Before the internet was a thing (yes I’m plenty old enough for that) libraries were where knowledge lived. And not just the academic kind, knowledge of the world outside of what is permissible. I frame a lot of things around religious trauma. And it might seem like old hat, but it was a fundamental (pun intended) part of what shaped me into who I am now. I am 40, I am tired, I am STILL learning who I could be without the behavior patterns imposed by that upbringing. My very small town finally got a library when I was around 10. It was about a mile and a half away. Close enough to bike to, which meant I could go unsupervised. And I did. Volunteered in fact, one of the first summers they were open. Which is important. Because, yes I could check out books, but there was never any guarantees that what I checked out wouldn’t be inspected at home. Volunteering meant I could stash something in the office to read while I was there. And this is where knowledge comes in. I had read every copy of the National Geographic we had at home, the entire second hand set of outdated encyclopedia Brittanica, every bit of Christian fiction I was gifted. I read it all. But it was, for the most part, a carefully curated version of the world. Safely inside the boundaries of my fundamentalist bubble. Allowed. And then for one brief and glorious summer, I had the world at my fingertips. Any book, about anything I wished. No novel was out of bounds, no titillating synopsis had to be ignored. I could read it ALL. And I did. I read about evolution, I read about the Big Bang, the conception and gestation cycle in humanity, I read about the history of medicine and colonization, I dove headlong into fantasy and science fiction and read about queer attraction and love for the first time as something beautiful instead of seeing it painted as something unholy and wrong. I read about morality. And not the starkly envisioned morality of religion, but questions, hard choices, true acts of courage and sacrifice, shades of grey and unimaginable nuance in the world around us. I learned that I was not alone in my discomfiture when I pitted the world I was raised in against the world as it actually was. Knowledge. Direct from the tap, and I drank from it as a person dying of thirst. That summer took the tiny seed of questioning in my mind and planted it firmly in the fertile grounds of my imagination. Each new book was sunlight and rain to a rapidly growing NEED to better understand. I took many years after that one before the tree planted there grew tall enough for me to climb to the top and really see the world around me. I didn’t fully escape religion and begin the work of healing until my late 20’s. But it never would have been possible without that one summer. Without that library. Access to knowledge and storytelling is one of the most precious keystones in humanity’s development. It’s how we make sense of the world. It’s how we gain empathy and understanding outside of our own experience. It’s how we reconcile the questions we have against the world we live in. And like all things, it isn’t perfect. There exists as much capacity for deceit and evil within the pages of a book as there does in humanity itself, but without them we would be lost entirely.

#books have saved me so many times #good omens #yes good omens because that book took all of my unease with religion as a child and gave it language #books books books #public libraries #library appreciation post #I have a lot of very big feelings about literacy ok?

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esper-union-lounge · 1 year

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Dislyte's Character Design Director, Ono Dizi: To Design a Well Recieved Character (2.1/3)

Original post:

A little recap from the last part, Part 1 talks about the two fundamental of character design and how it goes hand in hand with the industry/production process of an IP. This part is where the essay goes in depth into the character creation process from scratch.

This essay is super long and IDK if I can translate it all in a three part series. So I will break it into many parts instead of being ambitious. I doubt anyone want to read a post for too long either.

Part 1 here

((Note: I am not a professional translator. This is a long read.))

2 Lilith: Building a Character & IP

In the long run, we want our designs to eventually turn into a long lasting IP.

There is a linear process to character design:

Step one: Core Feeling/Concept

Step two: Building the Characters

Step three: Characterisation

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Core Feeling/Concept

The most important aspect of character design is its concept; the core feeling, and we cannot be too subjective.

Us, designers, have three seconds to leave a memorable design impression to players.

. How will the character be portrayed?

. Are the characters able to deliver what the designers wants to convey?

For every character design, we must first establish a core feeling for a character.

Hence, we use our inspirational scope; developed when we consume and absorb media (ie. movies, comics, books etc.) especially during our youth. As a result, in ten to twenty years time, we will use what we consumed as a criteria; reflecting the aspects of the inspiration that drawn us, into our character designs.

So when we judge a design, we will see if the design is able to leave an impressionn to the players.

Once the core feeling is established and solidify, development will evolve around this criteria, whether it’s the character’s appearance or their personality.

Hence, as the team develops a design, no matter how different each person’s ideas are, they all convey the same core feeling.

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Building Characters

Firstly, we need to create a mood board that is base on the established Core Feeling. This is an important tool during the early stages of development. It allows us to be clear on the design direction.

So, we collect all sorts of images that best describes the feeling of the character we want to convey. Naturally, when you get into the process of mood boarding, you will have more inspiration.

As mentioned before, a design has three seconds to convey the following to the players:

1)Who? (Are they?)

2)Where? (Are they from?)

3)What? (Can they do?)

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Who (are they?) — The iconography

Let’s take an example, the design brief we got is to design a boxing champion.

A well known iconography of a boxing champion we know is Mike Tyson. The characteristics are: Black, average height, strong bone structure, full of muscles, tattoos, agile, bald, often seen with boxing gloves, wears shorts, and half naked.

By incorporating these elements to a character, the audience will be able to recognise the who the character is.

By using this method, wouldn’t other people design the same prototype of a boxing champion?

Humans are complex creatures. A person’s experiences shapes their personality, emotions and many other unique traits. Thus, this makes each character unique from one and other.

Knowing this, it allows us to brainstorm into character details, such as their silhouette, voice, speech, and actions.etc. With time, the character’s personality will become apparent.

Back to the design brief, if you want to design a character that juxtaposes the iconography, like a skinny boxing champion. Then the writing must able to provide sources and reasonable logic to explain why that is or people will be confused by the design.

Where (are they from?) — How the world influences design

The world influences a character’s image, and an era establishes the character’s attire.

Are we looking at an ancient boxing champion, or a modern boxing champion?

Magical or Scientific?

What about their class and identity .etc. ?

Rich or poor?

A Greek boxer, or an Egyptian boxer? Both, have different aesthetics and details that sets them apart.

How does one decide what to put in a design?

Taking elements and inspiration from reality and local culture allows players to immerse into the world of your characters, and increase the believability of such. A design shouldn’t be based entirely on nothing at all.

An example: Blade & Soul’s character designs are nicely done. We can see the designer’s foundation skills, their design direction and experience. However, the designs lacks immersion to the world-building. Resulting, in players not resonating and understand the setting of the world.

It is recommended to put at least 20% of the world design into your characters just to allow the design to make sense. It’s about the whole package.

In the context of Dislyte, the world-building concept is “Modern & futuristic mega city x mainstream contemporary culture”, implementing modern trends and a metropolitan city vibes, the choice for character design uses the current fashion trends and styles.

What ( do they do?) — Their abilities and creative execution

The use of fists and their incredible strength, are a boxer’s core abilities. So, let’s focus on these aspects.

One’s abilities must make sense in their world. If you want to use fists as a means to cast magical spells, this breaks the established familiarity; fist = punching/ physical act.

If you insist on such design, you must have a strong background story and world-building to back up the logic. To, avoid raising unanswerable questions.

Examples of (reasonable) creative execution: ARMS (coil spring arms), MEGALO BOX (exoskeleton arm guard), Doomfist (Robotic arm).etc.

In conclusion, by using ‘Who’, ‘Where’, and ‘What’, not only does it put your skills and design experience to the test, but you will be able to come up with more possibilities for character designs.

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Back to Dislyte; take Lewis (Ares) as a *case study:

Who (are they?) — The iconography

In game, it is established that Lewis (Ares) is set to be the God of War. His design concept is: An Underground Boxer.

Keywords: Impulsively belligerent, competitive, simple

“No one messes with my brothers!” — Lewis (Ares)

By using the iconography from Mike Tyson as mentioned previously, it conveys what type of character Lewis is.

Where (are they from?) — How the world influences design

In the world of Dislyte, the setting is an urban fantasy. The patron, Ares, comes from Greece. Hence, the design will implement local motifs onto Lewis.

The brief has also explained Lewis’s back story as a direction: “Street orphan Lewis and his younger sister, Bonnie. Who [Lewis] became a street gangster from a young age.”

“Despite so, he still maintains his righteous mentality: brother and sister depending on each other, protecting one and other.”

Analysing Lewis’s story, it’s a sad background, surviving together with his sister without any financial help. Taking care of his family from a young age, his personality is tough, serious and strong headed.

His dress is simple, not posh, has a street style edge to it, along with Greek motifs on his attire to reference his deity patron (wreath).

What (do they do?) — Their abilities and creative execution

In Lewis’s ability design, we integrated his ability to control of flames with his boxing gloves. Thus, solidifying the concept of ‘Espers’ in world-building.

To be continued… here

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Translator’s Notes

I believe Ono Dizi was not in charge of designing Lewis, hence, the essay states they are simply analysing the design from a third party perspective.

This part was a little scattered, even in the og text. There are some parts that are a little too abstract to be translated into English. Hence, I tried to fill in the gaps of what the writer is trying to say.

#dislyte #esper union lounge #translation #Review report

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