you cannot really ever make up a music genre for a joke because there is no possible permutation of terms in which somebody is not already making serious and awesome music, anyway this is a recommendation of estonian psychedelic folktronica which is getting me through a lot of dissertation writing rn

wait I just realized you can't post music recs on april fool's day. that is not a rickroll, though, it is a spotify link to estonian psychedelic folktronica band Oopus

playing around with the Unconventional Courtship generator again (signups for the ficathon have just opened!), and it FINALLY shipped Ian/Barbara! it never does this! sound the trumpets!

ok we're back to Barbara/Nine, business as usual for the generator's weird shippy little heart

Issue 2 is here!

This time we have an accessible pdf, so hopefully that'll work for everyone! Let us know what you think of this issue. We've already started planning the third one...

Concept: a D&D adventure where the party stops to rest at a village inn where they seem to be the only guests. The village appears prosperous and well taken care of, but its inhabitants are strangely morose and blunt-spoken. Whether the party decides to investigate or attempts to move on, it quickly becomes apparent that something is terribly wrong: any effort to initiate violence or utter untruth fails as the offender is wracked with terrible pain, unkind words stick in the throat unspoken – and worst of all, anyone who attempts to leave the village becomes confused and finds themselves coming back the way they came. When (politely) questioned, the villagers will say only that the party must speak to the wizard whose tower lies to the east.

Upon reaching the wizard’s tower, the party is met by a slender, youthful-looking man with an unnaturally deep voice, who greets them with distracted courtesy, and – after making brief introductions – reveals that he knows why the party is there, and that it’s indeed all his fault. Thirty years ago, the wizard attempted to cast a blessing of peace and prosperity over the village, but the spell went awry: the enchantment proved to be much more powerful and long-lasting than intended, and its notion of what constitutes a breach of the peace far more expansive. Not only does it prohibit physical violence, but also insults, lies both overt and of omission, and simple failures of courtesy. Even leaving the village seems to be construed as an act of abandonment, and therefore of emotional violence.

Luckily, the wizard believes he’s discovered why the enchantment has become a curse. Though it was intended to ensure that people would be kind to one another, it ironically rendered its own fulfillment impossible, as the villagers began to treat each other well out of fear of reprisal rather than true good will. A sufficiently great act of genuine kindness, unalloyed by self-interest, would shatter the enchantment in an instant – but how can such a thing be brought about, in a place where all have been made strangers to love?

Thirteen people would rather be at Kroger than gardening or thrifting or babysitting??? On the "augh I hate the grocery store" website???? Be so serious

Oh I didn’t realize it was what we prefer, I thought it was guessing where your mom would be

really glad that I have curated my fandom experience such that every time I see a post complaining about the rampant demonization or hatred of a female character I don't even know who they could possibly be referring to because my dash is 100% support for women's wrongs. I cannot think of the last time I saw a condemnation of a fictional woman even though I am assured that it is happening somewhere. on my dash a woman can literally eat people and the whole chat will still stan her

I love it when there’s a tumblr post that’s like “look at him <3 I love him my little goober <3” and it’s a drawing of a topless buff white man with no tags. Like who is your goober. 

When Princeton alumni in Philadelphia celebrated the end of World War I on March 28, 1919, their speakers included Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Historical Subject Files (AC109), Box 407, Folder 4.

Okay. Say you ask a small child to draw you a house, and they come up with something like this:

For the purposes of this analogy the child is shit at colouring in, because I only wanted to give the general idea.

So, we can all agree that the child who draws a house probably isn't trying to communicate anything in particular other than “look at this cool house I drew”, right?

Cool.

So… Why is it seemingly in the middle of nowhere, when most children live in houses with neighbours?

Why is the main body a square and the roof a solid triangle when that doesn't look like any house that has ever been built anywhere?

Why does it have a wood-burning stove with smoke actively coming out of the chimney, even though the sun indicates warm weather?

Why is the sun smiling? Why is it yellow?

Answer: because the child has seen picture books, and films, and the drawings of other children, and has on some level absorbed that this is what a house is meant to look like.

Face to face, the child almost certainly wouldn't know where to begin communicating “yellow is a colour culturally associated with happiness and warmth, and two dots accompanied by a curved line symbolically represent a smiling human face, so I have combined these attributes with the sun to convey that it is a very warm and pleasant day”.

Or “historically most houses in my country used fire for heat and cooking, and even though this is no longer the case for the majority of households, most media portrayals of houses are inspired by other, older, media portrayals and therefore include the chimney. I have chosen to follow this trend.”

Or even, “I have poor motor control because of my age, and large, 2 dimensional shapes are easier to draw than anything involving detail and perspective”.

Yet this is all information that you can pick up from detailed study of the house drawing.

Ultimately, it's not about what the writer intended. That's what the whole death of the author thing means.

If you think of literature like as a conversation, then think of all the analysis stuff that your English teacher keeps trying to get you to look at as like body language. It's the stuff that the other person doesn't even necessarily mean to communicate, but that can tell you a hell of a lot about what they mean.

Also, a poem written by a poet who got high is still a poem written by a poet.

People love to say dismissive bullshit like, "oh, that's just the drugs talking" but actually, drugs can't fucking talk! It is always the human being doing the talking regardless of how intoxicated they are. The drugs are not creating the poetry. The poet's mind is creating the poetry. A person doesn't stop being a person just because they took something.

i would actually love if belinda was related to rani, but not in like an earth shattering or important way, just as a fun little detail about her