Steve’s arc this season is him realizing that he won’t die for Dustin, he’s going to live for Dustin.

You can pinpoint the moment he realizes it too

the fact that generative A.I. has created a completely new fundamental doubt in reality (checking to see if an artwork we see is manmade or not) and doubt in the instinct of enjoying art is unforgivable. its sickeningly tragic, and i mean it. NOTHING is worth this price and i hope that everyone will one day realize this.

Yeah...its annoying. I go on pinterest to get reference photos. Then I find out how much AI is crap dumped into it and it made me doubt my pins.

It's not fun. I hate hearing how artists are being accused of doing AI when AI is the one that steal from artists.

LOOK AT THE HANDS. I heard that's where most AI screw up. If it blends with the art, it's most likely AI. Although, I question that sometimes 😑 *sigh*

The cutest art style woth gorgeous coloring 🥰

Heterosexual relationship culture is so alien to me and I don’t know if it’s the fact I’m not cishet or the fact I’m autistic but I hear so many things that make me go “Am I insane or are they?”

There’s a lot of hate on widowers and I saw a woman say “You cannot compete with a dead woman.” which is perhaps a reasonable statement to say if he’s constantly comparing you to his dead partner but that wasn’t what the post was about. And I realized “Oh my God, these people genuinely feel like they’re constantly in competition with their spouse’s exes and the ex being dead makes them feel insecure that they cannot best her.”

There’s also been an uptick in the ‘men and women cannot be ‘just’ friends’ rhetoric which I feel like is extremely dangerous and reflects the rise of fascism and sexism. Some of these stories of women feeling threatened by their husband’s female best friend have some merit and others are like “I feel angry that my husband still talks to the girl he grew up next door to and she and her wife are invited to family gatherings and included in family photos sometimes. Am I right to be suspicious?” No. No you’re not. I cannot imagine being you and living with that high level of stress and paranoia and constant torment and jealousy about your husband having a positive relationship with anyone who isn’t you.

okay look i know this isn't relevant to this post past the second paragraph but. here's the thing. the facts of the case are as follows:

1) I am widowed. my Beloved Wife of Blessed Memory(tm) died in 2019

2) I got together with my current partner about 18 months later

3) when I am committing acts of Foolishness my current partner loves to gesture at the sky to my dead wife, like "do you see this shit, my liege" and regularly says to me things like "[wife's name] was right about this" when my Foolishness inevitably comes back to bite me in the ass

4) this happens. all the time

more importantly:

5) my current partner is on tumblr

6) they love to incessantly send me posts

WHICH MEANS:

7) they just sent me this post with this commentary:

8) they really, really are ganging up on me with her. god help us if there's an afterlife and those two ever actually meet. "eternal rest" my ass, i will never know peace again

I don't know if I'd like to stay in a relationship where I'm that scared of my partner cheating on me or whatever. It just seems miserable.

I live for the second post, though. This is the type of fun dynamics I would think about for stories.

Malvolio’s Revolve

The joy of Shakespeare is that even if you see the same play dozens of times, each production is its own, unique experience.

Having said that… there are certain bits of stage business that often crop up in numerous productions. One of my favorites is Malvolio’s revolve.

Just for fun, here are various examples of Malvolio’s revolve that have been captured on film. (If the gifs don’t work, check out my original post here.)

Alec Guinness in the 1970 ITV Saturday Night Theatre production  does the classic dubious, self-conscious revolve, although Sir Toby and his gang are safely behind a hedge and don’t have to hide.

Nicholas Pennell in this 1986 filmed production at the Stratford Festival of Canada executes a confident and rarely-seen double revolve, forcing his peanut gallery to duck out of sight.

In this filmed version of the Renaissance Theatre Company’s 1988 production, Richard Briers executes a very slow , dubious revolve that is notable for being counter-clockwise. In my experience, most Malvolios revolve in a clockwise direction.

Finally, this Stratford Festival production milks the revolve for all it’s worth, with Tom Rooney’s Malvolio turning at just the right speed to miss Sir Andrew’s desperate dash across the stage.

Some productions choose to have Malvolio turn the letter around, rather than himself. Others either blow past the line without acknowledging its comedic gag potential, or cut it in its entirety. All are valid choices, but honestly… why look a gift gag in the mouth?

“In my experience, most Malvolios revolve in a clockwise direction” is my new favorite blind of Shakespeare analysis

I need everyone to know that in The Public Theater’s 2025 Free Shakespeare in the Park production, Peter Dinklage puts the rarely seen double revolve to shame, opting for a traveling multi-spin, WHIRLING himself across the stage as he CONTINUES TO READ THE LETTER

I love specific things that people enjoy such as this xD.

And I love it when things that are interpreted in a certain way becomes a solid constant in a fandom or in this instance, a gag in a stage play.

Tumblr is super big on the "I didn't say it was good, I said I liked it" but really need to discover the value in its opposite of "I didn't say it was bad, I said I hated it".

You can acknowledge that something is good, great, a masterpiece even, and just straight-up not enjoy it.

This is me with Re: Zero. I started watching it, hated the loop and no break of the pain. I understood why it was great (afterall, my brother loves it, and he tells me why), but I DO NOT enjoy watching it. So I don't.

All I can do is appreciate it from afar.

They won’t leave my head bruh I love pathetic scared freak men and their silly little make shift not related daughter

also Sofia has that freakish blue eye stare no one can tell me otherwise

I'll add them to the "scared pathetic freak men and their silly little make shift not related daughter" pile.

it's literally them

redraw of this

:3

While I know that the prevailing theories about the Phone Voice right now are that it's the Knight or at the least Carol, in a conversation last night I was jolted to a new consideration that I'm feeling pretty gobsmacked by the thought of:

What if that voice is Ralsei, calling from the Dark? Hence the noise-- it's not exactly garbage noise, but it's distorted, with darkness as it's text box.

Honestly my biggest piece of consideration for all of this is:

Everyone has been using this to suggest the voice is Carol, because she shows up shortly after this phone call. But here's the thing: She shows up even if Kris doesn't call her. In the Weird Route, Kris is raging against the soul for whatever it did to Noelle. There is No Way they called Carol between whatever ultimately befell Noelle and Carol arriving home. She was going to come home early regardless of our or Kris' actions.

I propose instead that this was Ralsei saying the he will be right there, at the Sanctuary. He is ALREADY there when Susie and Kris arrive. We know that in the kitchen the voice mentions the fountain at the church, so for Kris, "there" is not ambiguous, while to us as the Soul audience it is vague, and we're tricked to use recency bias.

Additionally, this lets us further add meaning to the closed eyes scenes in previous chapters, where Ralsei is telling Kris something outside of the knowledge the Soul is given.

Has Ralsei been explaining pieces of the prophecy to Kris without the Soul present? Or maybe just been counseling Kris on what the Soul needs to do next? Or what Ralsei needs next alongside Kris? Kris doesn't hate Ralsei-- every option especially in Chapter 4 to be mean to Ralsei results in Kris maliciously complying to the will of the Soul, mumbling, covering their mouth, keeping their mouth shut, etc-- so if whatever Ralsei was telling Kris in these scenes was upsetting, we would know by how they allow the Soul's choices to come through.

Ralsei also tends to use Kris' name A LOT when he speaks to them directly. He does the same with Susie, too, but I think it's a very specific character voicing choice to establish that he uses Kris' name almost every single time he begins dialogue with Kris. I combed through Chapter 1 text data and every time that Ralsei begins talking specifically to Kris, their name is used somewhere near the beginning of the interaction. Likewise, the voice in the phone uses Kris' name A LOT. This isn't something people normally do when talking directly to a person, but it is an established verbal quirk of Ralsei's.

It begs the question, though, what is the promise Ralsei would be referring to? Why would Ralsei call specifically when he does at the end of Chapter 4 to say specifically what he does? And to the counter point, why would Carol or the Knight call Kris that late just to say "don't forget .... You promised"?

There's 2-3 more chapters to learn about this, and I could be heavily overlooking some key details, but part of the joy and beauty of being on the release floor of thjs game is not knowing what pieces are important yet! Would love to hear from others if this speaks to you or you have any further considerations on it!

I love this theory! It's more interesting to me then believing Kris is working with the villain of the story.

I like that this theory makes it so Kris just has beef with the soul for controlling him.

a closer examination of painted flame (jentry x kit)

this is not a babygirlifying kit rant. this is not a bitchifying jentry rant. this is not a hating on michael rant.

this is mostly trying to analyze jentry and kit’s relationship throughout the series and looking at some points that ive seen discussed online either vilifying kit, or that aren’t really addressed at all in regards to jentry, in a different way.

and, by the way, this will have spoilers for episodes 1-10, i think, so just be warned!

I've been thinking about Ford from Gravity Falls. He put metal plate in his head to keep Bill out.

It was around the 70s...and Ford was into anomalies, right? So...why didn't he try the tinfoil hat to ward against aliens? Wouldn't it have worked?

I know tinfoil is different then metal, but when faced with a trillion-year-old nightmare demon I think you would try anything.

FUN FACT: TIN FOIL WOULD’VE WORKED! BUT IT MAKES YOU LOOK LIKE A CONSPIRACY THEORIST AND FORDSY WAS WAY TOO PROUD OF HIMSELF TO STOOP THAT LOW

That makes a lot of sense, lmao.

I've been thinking about Ford from Gravity Falls. He put metal plate in his head to keep Bill out.

It was around the 70s...and Ford was into anomalies, right? So...why didn't he try the tinfoil hat to ward against aliens? Wouldn't it have worked?

I know tinfoil is different then metal, but when faced with a trillion-year-old nightmare demon I think you would try anything.

Bill actively calls Ford out for being overkill and not just wearing tinfoil

Rebloging this, because it's a great comic prompt x3

Every time I see this quote I realize how poor even very smart people are at looking at the long game and at assessing these things in context.

One of my favourite illustrations of this was in a First Aid class. The instructor was a working paramedic. He asked, “Who here knows the stats on CPR? What percentage of people are saved by CPR outside a hospital?”

I happen to know but I’m trying not to be a TOTAL know it all in this class so I wait. And people guess 50% and he says, “Lower,” and 20% and so forth and eventually I sort of half put up my hand and I guess I had The Face because he eventually looked at me and said, “You know, don’t you.”

“My mom’s a doc,” I said. He gave me a “so say it” gesture and I said, “Four to ten percent depending on your sources.”

Everyone else looked surprised and horrified.

And the paramedic said, “We’re gonna talk a bit about some details of those figures* but first I want to talk about just this: when do you do CPR?”

The class dutifully replies: when someone is unconscious, not breathing, and has no pulse.

“What do we call someone who is unconscious, not breathing, and has no pulse?”

The class tries to figure out what the trick question is so I jump over the long pause and say, “A corpse.”

“Right,” says the paramedic. “Someone who isn’t breathing and has no heartbeat is dead. So what I’m telling you is that with this technique you have a 4-10% chance of raising the dead.”

So no, artists did not stop the Vietnam War from happening with the sheer Power of Art. The forces driving that military intervention were huge, had generations of momentum and are actually pretty damn complicated.

But if you think the mass rejection of the war was as meaningless as a soufflé - well.

Try sitting here for ten seconds and imagining where we’d be if the entire intellectual and artistic drive of the culture had been FOR the war. If everyone thought it was a GREAT IDEA.

What the whole world would look like.

Four-to-ten percent means that ninety to ninety-six percent of the time - more than nine times out of ten - CPR will do nothing, but that one time you’ll be in the company of someone worshipped as an incarnate god.

If you think the artists and performers attacking and showing up people like Donald Trump is meaningless try imagining a version of the world wherein they weren’t there.

(*if you’re curious: those stats count EVERY reported case of CPR, while the effectiveness of it is extremely time-related. With those who have had continuous CPR from the SECOND they went down, the number is actually above 80%. It drops hugely every 30 seconds from then on. When you count ALL cases you count cases where the person has already been down several minutes but a bystander still starts CPR, which affects the stats)

That Vonnegut quote brings this particular moment to mind:

Yes, it’s just a pie. Yes, the pie itself doesn’t do much direct damage in the grand scheme of things. But the pie is resistance, and resistance inspires resistance. Resistance inspires survival. Throwing pies sometimes starts a movement. Throwing pies sometimes saves lives.

And of course, we haven’t spoken about the inherent morality of throwing pies at oppressors in a world where oppressors have outlawed pie throwing. At the very least, pie throwing is a reminder to the oppressors that no matter how much money they have, no matter how much power they have, there are still some people, some moments they can’t control.

I’d rather go out throwing pies than just rolling over and accepting that pie throwing isn’t going to solve anything. Yeah, the pie throwing doesn’t immediately solve the problem, but it doesn’t have to because it’s just a starting point. So throw the damn pie.

So throw the damn pie

Something I realized fairly recently about peaceful protests is that they are, in essence, a dress rehearsal.

Yes, peaceful protests can change things on their own - blocking traffic, preventing customers (and employees!) from entering a business, and so on.

But the unspoken part, is what they do is demonstrate that this is an issue that people will turn out in force for. Both to those in power who need to listen, and those trying to share the message: we are not alone, and we will do this thing if it needs to be done.

Sometimes the powers that be forget this - or think they can elide it - but the connection is there. When people aren’t allowed to talk about things affecting their work, whether it’s their wages or that the “please please pleas epleas pleas resign we’ll pay you we prommy” email is clearly a huge scam, that lack of connection takes agency and power from those people.

Art, a pie in the face, hippies getting photographed mid-protest - it’s all communication. Not everyone is happy with the status quo, and now that information is in the world. The more people who talk about it, share it, connect to it, the greater that quiet force grows until you realize it’s actually a whole lot of people when you used to think it was just you.

It’s important to note, btw, that the pie ruined her fucking career. After that pie, pretty much nobody took her seriously anymore, which didn’t end homophobia, but it pretty much did end that one homophobe.

I’m currently reading One Long River of Song (a sort of best-of collection of the essays of Brian Doyle) for a class, and his essay “Testimonio” resonated so strongly for this reason. Here’s an excerpt, but go read the whole thing - and the whole collection, if you can, he was a brilliant writer.

Drafting: The Theory of Shitty First Drafts

Writing books often exhort you to “write a shitty first draft,” but I always resisted this advice. After all,

So for years, I kept writing careful, cramped, painstaking first drafts—when I managed to write at all. At last, writing became so joyless, so draining, so agonizing for me that I got desperate: I either needed to quit writing altogether or give the shitty-first-draft thing a try.

Turns out everything I believed about drafting was wrong.

For the last six months, I’ve written all my first drafts in full-on don’t-give-a-fuck mode. Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

“Shitty first draft” is a misnomer

A rough draft isn’t just a shitty story, any more than a painter’s preparatory sketch is just a shitty painting. Like a sketch, a draft is its own kind of thing: not a lesser version of the finished story, but a guide for making the finished story.

Once I started thinking of my rough drafts as preparatory sketches, I stopped fretting over how “bad” they were. Is a sketch “bad”? And actually, a rough draft can be beautiful the same way a sketch is beautiful: it has its own messy energy.

Don’t try to do everything at once

People who make complex things need to solve one kind of problem before they can solve others. A painter might need to work out where the big shapes go before they can paint the details. A writer might need to decide what two people are saying to each other before they can describe the light in the room or what those people are doing with their hands.

I’d always embraced this principle up to a point. In the early stages, I’d speculate and daydream and make messy notes. But that freedom would end as soon as I started drafting. When you write a scene, I thought, you have to start with the first word and write the rest in order. Then it dawned on me: nobody would ever see this! I could write the dialogue first and the action later; or the action first and the dialogue later; or some dialogue and action first and then interior monologue later; or I could write the whole thing like I was explaining the plot to my friend over the phone. The draft was just one very long, very detailed note to myself. Not a story, but a preparatory sketch for a story. Why not do it in whatever weird order made sense to me?

Get all your thoughts onto the page

Here’s how I used to write: I’d sit there staring at the screen and I’d think of something—then judge it, reject it, and reach for something else, which I’d most likely reject as well—all without ever fully knowing what those things were. And once you start rejecting thoughts, it’s hard to stop. If you don’t write down the first one, or the second, or the third, eventually your thought-generating mechanism jams up. You become convinced you have no thoughts at all.

When I compare my old drafts with my new ones, the old ones look coherent enough. They’re presentable as stories. But they suck as drafts, because I can’t see myself thinking in them. I have no idea what I wanted that story to be. These drafts are opaque and airless, inscrutable even to me, because a good 90% of what I was thinking while I wrote them never made it onto the page.

These days, most of my thoughts go onto the page, in one form or another. I don’t waste time figuring out how to say something, I just ask, “what are you trying to say here?” and write that down. Because this isn’t a story, it’s a plan for a story, so I just need the words to be clear, not beautiful. The drafts I write now are full of placeholders and weird meta notes, but when I read them, I can see where my mind is going. I can see what I’m trying to do. Consequently, I no longer feel like my drafts obscure my original vision. In fact, their whole purpose is to describe that vision.

Drafts are memos to future-you

To draft effectively, you need a personal drafting style or “language” to communicate with your future self (who is, of course, the author of your second draft). This language needs to record your ideas quickly so it can keep up with the pace of your imagination, but it needs to do so in a form that will make sense to you later. That’s why everyone’s drafts look different: your drafting style has to fit the way your mind works.

I’m still working mine out. Honestly, it might take a while. But recently, I started writing in fragments. That’s just how my mind works: I get pieces of sentences before I understand how to fit them together. Wrestling with syntax was slowing me down, so now I just generate the pieces and save their logical relationships for later. Drafting effectively means learning these things about yourself. And to do that, you can’t get all judgmental. You can’t fret over how you should be writing, you just gotta get it done.

Messy drafts are easier to revise

I find that drafting quickly and messily keeps the story from prematurely “hardening” into a mute, opaque object I’m afraid to change. I no longer do that thing, for instance, where I endlessly polish the first few paragraphs of a draft without moving on. Because how do you polish a bunch of fragments taped together with dashes? A draft that looks patently “unfinished” stays malleable, makes me want to dig my hands in and move stuff around.

You already have ideas

Sitting down to write a story, I used to feel this awful responsibility to create something good. Now I treat drafting simply as documenting ideas I already have—not as creation at all, but as observation and description. I don’t wait around for good words or good ideas. I just skim off whatever’s floating on the surface and write it down. It’s that which allows other, potentially better ideas to surface.

As a younger writer, my misery and frustration perpetuated themselves: suppressing so many thoughts made my writing cramped and inhibited, which convinced me I had no ideas, which made me even more afraid to write lest I discover how empty inside I really was. That was my fear, I guess: if I looked squarely at my innocent, unvetted, unvarnished ideas, I’d see how bad they truly were, and then I’d have to—what, pack up and go home? Never write again? I don’t know. But when I stopped rejecting ideas and started dumping them onto the page, the worst didn’t happen. In fact, it was a huge relief.

Next post: the practice of shitty first drafts

Ask me a question or send me feedback!

I want to try this out. I've been struggling for a long time to write because of the process thus described, half-understanding the "just write" tip but at the same time, wanting it to be perfect.

I'm trying this right now, actually. Not good so far, lol, but maybe if I work on it more I can make a drafting language for myself.