full disclosure I orig wanted to make part 2 of the wolf hall brat edit (feat Thomas More as Lorde) but I scrapped it cos i didn't really have enough footage BUT the overwhelmingly lovely response from you guys to part 1 has enabled me I fear. Watch this space
*Waves in greeting from across the Internet*
(Don't know if you've gotten questions like this before but wanted to see what you'd think, considering how much you seem to like Shadow.)
Q: Concerning Shadow's title of Ultimate Life Form, do you think that it is something empowering he should wear with pride, or a curse/burden to be freed of which, among other things, shackles him to horrific and unrealistic expectations?
I feel like this question is kinda like a litmus test for why a person may like Shadow.
Personally, I think there's nuance to be found here. To me, Shadow feels both those ways about being "The Ultimate Lifeform," but how he feels about it bounces between one or the other depending on his mood. He is The Ultimate Lifeform, a being of great power that demands respect when he's trying to intimidate someone or achieving his goals -- Goals only he is capable of achieving, with what he is and all that. Obviously. He's the Ultimate Lifeform, so of course he should be the one to step in and solve the problem. He was designed to be an unstoppable force...
... So when he fails, he has to mentally come to grips with that failure in a way that, I feel, is more difficult for him than, say, if Sonic fails. Sonic is natural. His failures are natural. Shadow is unnatural. His failures. Are. Unnatural. They are not meant to happen. It's arrogance until it's not. His status is just as much a rope he holds to climb a mountain as it is a noose around his neck. A source of confidence, and Gerald Robotnik's judgemental gaze.
He's proud. He's an achiever. He's a pillar of strength. Until he slips.
So, how he (may) feel is how I feel. Depending on his mood, Shadow's Ultimate Lifeform title is both a boon to him and a great and terrible weight. He draws strength and self-loathing from it in equal amounts. That's simply how I interpret it, anyway.
the most life-changing customer i’ve ever had at work was a guy who came up to me and my coworker when we were at cash and said ‘hey kids…. wanna see something?’
and I said sure because why the fuck not, i’m here for a good time not a long time, and this motherfucker pulled a railroad spike out of his pocket.
A GODDAMN
ANTIQUE
RAILROAD
SPIKE
It was a fucking foot long chunk of steel that weighed about five pounds on its own so i was like ‘huh….. neat’
and he said ‘wait. there’s more’ and he took out a screwdriver. inlaid into the head of the spike. ‘things aren’t always as they appear’ he said as he unscrewed the bit and pulled out of this goddamn railroad spike
a statue
a tiny, tiny golden statue stood on the base of this flathead screw. it was a tiny golden man standing next to a tiny golden flower with gemstones in the petals. the whole thing was smaller than my thumbnail is tall. it was detailed enough that the tiny man had facial features. it was amazing.
‘oh my god,’ i said. ‘how long did it take you to make that?’
‘here’s a word of advice,’ he said, ‘never answer that question when people ask it. it devalues your work. you’ll get faster and better at things, and be able to make more art in less time. they don’t need to know about the process, just the product’.
and he left and that’s the one artistic piece of advice i definitely wanna hold to.
don’t tell people how long it takes to make shit.
Caper in the Castro is a legendary video game, not because legions of die-hard fans continue to play it, but because it was thought to be lost forever. Now, what is largely considered to be the first LGBTQ-focused video game (it was released in 1989) is on the Internet Archive for anybody to play.
The game is a noir point-and-click that puts the player in the (gum)shoes of a private detective named Tracker McDyke who is, in case you couldn’t guess by the name, a lesbian. McDyke must unravel the mystery behind the disappearance of Tessy LaFemme, a transgender woman, in San Francisco’s Castro district, an historically gay neighbourhood.
OOOOOHhh!
The game was released as charityware – freely, with a strong request to give a donation an AIDS Charity of their choice. I’d like to push towards still following that and donating, if you’re able.
(And you might also want to donate to the Internet Archive, who is hosting it now, while you’re at it – they’re in the middle of a donation drive, and could use your support.)
there’s just some fics... they never leave u bro. i’ll be sitting on the toilet four years later thinking about the 94k enemies to lovers fic that captured my soul
Stone Butch Blues official free source directly from Author's website:
Stone Butch Blues, backup on the webarchive:
Transgender Liberation: A movement whose time has come, on the web archive:
Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman, on the web archive:
Lavender and Red, PDF essay collection:
Drag King Dreams, on the web archive:
(Also, if anyone ever tells you that the protagonist of Stone Butch Blues ""ends up with a man""........ they're transmisogynistic jackass TERFs who are straight up lying)
Please also check out your local public libraries for these books and see if they carry them, to help support public libraries! If you have a library card already you can checkout Libby and Overdrive to see if your public library carries it as an ebook that you can checkout :)
EDIT: another not included on the orignal masterpost-- Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or blue !
FAREWELL
YES, please!! I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on this game, gollum, gollum!
Hey, when I was a kid a twenty-something with the cartoon-rotted mind of a rat-brained child, I used to read lots of screenshot-style Let's Plays. (for anyone unfamiliar with the format, it's like a video let's play with commentary, only instead of a video it's a bunch of images from the game and the commentary is in the form of text. Essentially it's like a very long, comprehensive, full-spoilers written review.) I had a grand time corrupting my mind with Darkseed and Harvester without having to actually play them.
Long have I considered making a screenshot let's play of my own, but did not encounter a game that was quite compelling enough. ahem. until now. thinking of doing a screenshot let's play of gollum game, because there's stuff in the game I'd love to scream into the void about but I wouldn't want to do a video commentary - one reason being because I am running the game on the minimum visual settings and it would look as bad as it can possibly look, another being that it's such an intensely dialog-heavy game that I would either be talking over things that you really should be hearing, or pausing the footage in order to talk & blowing up the video length to like 30 hours & creating an editing nightmare for myself.
if I did this it would be posted as pages on my blog like the fanfic image gallery- I would not be posting spoilery commentary on your dash, I would be posting links to where you can read the full installment, probably accompanied by spoiler-free doodles. (I know the game's been out for nearly three weeks and people who would really care about spoilers have had time to watch playthroughs, but I still don't want to post spoilers because what if people just haven't gotten around to watching it yet or something. it's not a massive game but it's also not something so short you can just catch up on it right away on a whim on your lunch break)
a screenshot let's play would be just enough of a time investment that i was sort of hoping someone would indicate a little bit of interest before I actually do anything. not a ton of interest- honestly one (1) like on this post would probably be enough to convince me. if you do not want me to do a screenshot lets play please do not interact with this post, ty
edit: I am hearing some interest so this is now an announcement post! It will be a while before I post anything though, I am going through a second playthrough first to explore dialog options, look for little things I missed & decide on: 1) which dialog choices I will want to make in my official playthrough 2) whether there's enough story divergence to be worth tentatively planning an abbreviated second run playthrough, or if I can cover the game adequately by just giving a brief aside/summary of what happens when you choose the other options if you know the answer to this pls dont tell me! i'm still enjoying exploring the game for myself
So I will probably not start posting my let's play for a few weeks, unless I get really sick of doing productive things & binge this whole game this weekend, which isn't an impossibility.
From the heart of unimaginable suffering, I want to sincerely thank everyone who has supported my family 🙏🏻
Right now, famine is hitting us harder than ever, my heart cries whenever I go to the market to buy any basic necessities! The prices are crazy, and most days my children survive on just bread Hunger and thirst are destroying us, and cooking on fire increases our suffering unbearably! Severe eye and chest sensitivity, in addition to constant stomach pain due to the type of food and the way it is cooked.
All this while we flee from one place to another in fear of bombing, bullets, and imminent danger! I cannot describe what I feel, but it is a feeling beyond exhaustion!
Despite the exhaustion, your support gives us strength and I hope you will not let us down
If you can donate, please do so, or at least help us by sharing, so we can reach those who can
Your kindness truly keeps us going
>> Our campaign is vetted by gazavetters list at Momen & his family
Gaza is full of oppression #The worst is yet to come #Genocide #A resilient people
Waaay back in the olden days (2012) Pixar storyboard artist Emma Coats gave some amazing writing tips. I love these and have read them dozens of times.
#1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.
#2: You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different.
#3: Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.
#4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.
#5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.
#6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?
#7: Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.
#8: Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.
#9: When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.
#10: Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.
#11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.
#12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.
#13: Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.
#14: Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.
#15: If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.
#16: What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.
#17: No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on - it’ll come back around to be useful later.
#18: You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.
#19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.
#20: Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d'you rearrange them into what you DO like?
#21: You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way?
#22: What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.
–
Hope you liked these!