This is the same Sam that was running the OG catrasredemption (now @catrasredemption-moved). I’ve unfortunately had to pick up and move because I lost access to the blog, which is sad. But new beginnings and all (especially with Twitter going to hell in a handbasket…).
I have so many memories about this, but one in particular: when I was away at camp with 89 other teenagers, and at the one-month mark the post was collected distributed to all the dorms. 89 other children tore open their boxes and, shovelling handfuls of sweets their parents had sent them into their mouths, read pages-long letters and handed around photos of their brothers and sisters.
I didn’t. I didn’t get anything, I sat on my empty bed watching them. The teachers had to call my parents and ask if perhaps the post had gone missing…? but my parents were surprised they were required to interact with me while I was away.
Well, today, my 3-year-old daughter had a fun-run. The childcare centre invited parents to come but stressed that if we weren’t able to, it was alright. There was no fucking way I wasn’t going. My daughter wasn’t going to be the only child there without a parent watching.
I got time off work and stood there in the beating sun and plastered in greasy sunscreen waiting to see my little girl emerge from inside the centre and stand on the track.
When she did, her little eyes searched through the crowd person-by-person for me, and absolutely lit up like the sun when she spotted me.
Mine filled with tears as I waved at her and cheered.
I’m breaking the cycle.
Man this one hit hard.
My mom raised me pretty much by herself - she had her family helping, and technically I have a stepfather, but he was useless and the rest of her family had their own damn lives.
When I was in third grade, we learned about the American Revolution, and we did a little classroom play based on it about if the war was a baseball game (idk man, the 90s were weird). All the big people in the war were baseball players - Washington, Hamilton, etc. for the Americans, King George et. all for the British - and I forget who I was, but I was the person who hit the winning home run that gave Americans the game (I think I might have been Lafayette?).
Parents are invited to see the one-day play, which is in the middle of the day during school time. I get it, it’s hard to get out of work. My grandparents were sick so they couldn’t come. But my mother promised up and down, over and over, left and right, that she would absolutely be there. It was a really big deal to me, I’d never been in a play or had an event that needed to be attended. I was excited. I wanted my mom to see me get the winning home run.
She showed up five minutes after the play ended. I was absolutely devastated. She apologized, she said she hadn’t been able to get out of work. I cried.
And that pretty much set the tone for the rest of my life.
She managed to make it to my fourth and fifth grade chorus concerts, which was great because I had leads in all of them, but she never enjoyed it much and made it pretty obvious. She was the same way about my high school band concerts - worse, honestly, because I think she stopped caring about hurting my feelings.
When I turned twelve, my grandfather said he wanted to have a birthday party for me at his house (it was kind of a big deal because I always had my birthdays at that house, except for the year before because my grandmother died and we just didn’t want to celebrate there). My mother said she’d get the day off work. She got the day off work. We’re all gathered at my grandfather’s house eating cake while I unwrap my presents, aaaaaaaand her phone rings. It’s work. They need her to come in. She can’t say no. It was the last birthday I had at my grandparents’ house, and we ended up cutting it short because she never learned how to say no.
Fast forward to age twenty-six, when I’m getting married. My mother makes a big fuss about it because the wedding is in Texas, and she lives in Massachusetts. She is, by the way, the only blood relative I have in attendance at the wedding (my aunt and her husband were going to come, but there was a medical emergency with my sixteen-year-old cousin and they didn’t want to leave him. Totally understandable). My mom shows up at 10pm the night before the wedding, makes it obvious she’s miserable the entire ceremony and reception, then leaves at 5am the next morning because, you guessed it, she couldn’t miss too much work.
I’m 33 now. My mother has never visited me - we always have to go to her. She will absolutely never take the time off to get on a plane and come see the life I made for myself. I know this, it sucks, but I’m used to it by now. That’s just how she is.
I don’t have a kid yet, but I am going to make damn well sure that in thirty-some odd years, my own child isn’t on the next version of Tumblr rewriting this story with their own experiences.
the next time you hesitate to leave a comment on a fic remember that I go back and read all the comments I get on my fic whenever I’m feeling down and it makes me feel so much better
I feel like enough time has passed since Steven Universe ending to say this: inventing your own alter ego and then launching a war against yourself is an iconic move actually. It’s like if Batman and Bruce Wayne had public beef except if entire armies were involved. She really Did That. She said “go big or go home” and then went so big that no-one could ever go home, and then changed the fate of the entire galaxy by faking her own death. She slutted it up bisexually and broke countless hearts along the way. Iconic move after iconic move. Non-stop slaying. A queen an icon a legend. No-one does it like her.
TikTok user unravel.me.now has just launch an app (lore.fm) she is calling “Audible for AO3”. It’s an app that uses AI voices to read out fics.
🚨She is requiring any authors who do not want their fics to be on this app to OPT OUT by emailing team@lore.fm 🚨 🚨She has not given an actual template or how you’re supposed to prove you’re the author or said how her team will process this or how she will keep these requests secure🚨
I do not have this app. I haven’t seen anyone use it yet. According to Reddit users, unravel.me.now’s earlier TikToks stated she envisions the app being able to create libraries stored on that app and to have version of “Spotify wrapped”. That implies that eventually data collection must happen, if it’s not happening currently.
I don’t know the actual capabilities of this app. I don’t know the legalities. I do know that it personally feels like this app is trying to turn AO3 into a content generation source and I haven’t heard of the app allowing you to leave a comment or kudos or interact with the original work.
I’m just sad about this.
I checked their page and I found this:
So for now it seems like this could be the only barrier we have? Because their email system seems absolutely fucked and inefficient.
But I think it’s worth still keeping an eye on, because this is mostly dependent on the honor’s system of them keeping their word, and personally I don’t trust people.
It’s finally here! The She-Ra anniversary Big Bang event!! I had the best pleasure of illustrating “HYMN for the Missing” by @catrasredemption. Literally one of the best fics I’ve ever read, so go check it out!!
My contribution to the 4th anniversary @spopbang. This is a very special idea - the very first fanfic idea I ever had for She-Ra, finally reworked to my liking so I can actually write and post it, and I’m excited to share it with everyone, and even more excited for everyone to see @mochatrufflesamazing artwork for it. It’s going to be amazing!
Love determines how long you live, some people are in their hundreds, but some don’t even live to be 20.
AU where She-Ra is so beloved on Etheria she *cannot die* so she has no choice but to start to be a jerk in the hopes that she’ll finally be allowed to die.
OKAY BUT. Catradora AU where Catra fully expects to never make it past like, ten years old, but Adora loves her so much that it keeps her sustained forever.
the curse having character thoughts but none of them are coherent
how do i put it into words…… hmmm…………. KHGDKGHRLUGHKJWRHBEJKGRBNUI:OTHJNLRJTBHM RGNJPBK KLDUHRGNKRJGNBDIUGRHNBUYG HJBHKDPGBNURHGNRBGHBEF<MGNRIPRYGBBPOIURGN CHARACTERRRRRRRRR CHARACTER CHARTACET CHARATCGERJ 👍
