i_sus_ella

She/it (is), fae/they (are). Crazy weird bitch. Pensively vomiting on main. Check notes before reblogging (note to self). There could be anything in there. Who knows.

[issela-santina]

if you find yourself here and you're bored, there's always these links below that give you something off my blogs at random but good luck with that

emojimashups.tumblr.com/random

issela-santina.tumblr.com/random

[prokopetz]

Whatever else you can say about Johnny Mnemonic, you have to give it credit for establishing "the best hacker in town is a dolphin, and no, that's not some weird Canadian drug culture slang, we mean a literal dolphin" as a recurring trope in the cyberpunk genre.

[prokopetz]

(If anything, it's a failure of the broader genre that it didn't take the trope and run with it rather than merely replicating it verbatim. I want to read a cyberpunk story where the protagonists have to negotiate with a deep web data broker who turns out to be an ex-military cyborg parrot.)

[lurker-at-thresholds]

Thinking about a new bit where i start using “workers of the world” as my go-to second person plural pronoun. Like “chat”.

[lurker-at-thresholds]

Workers of the world what do we think of this. Is it funny.

[lurker-at-thresholds]

Workers of the world please like and reblog my post

[headspace-hotel]

how were so many of the things that were basic writing/plotting advice in Every Single craft book when I was a teenager just completely straight up wrong

[headspace-hotel]

the biggest and worst offender I think was plotting advice that encouraged me to build my plot around my characters "desires" or "goals"

protagonists were kind of forced into a flat dichotomy of 'active' (takes actions to further their own goals, thus driving the story) and 'passive' (is acted upon by events beyond their control, moving them through the plot) with 'active' being considered good and passive being considered bad

I think this framework is very locked within a certain cultural viewpoint... specifically of a 20th century western white male. For one thing it assumes a "protagonist" will have a certain level of agency, to have goals and pursue them, overcoming obstacles in the way. It is not very inclusive of characters that don't have much agency.

It also assumes that desire/want = orienting toward or pursuing.

As far as I am concerned, characters don't have goals. They CAN, but these goals aren't actually the functional gears of the plot, and are instead their conscious rationalizations of what's really running the show.

Rather, characters have instincts and drives. I don't like to say "desires" because desire suggests something that is explicit, a thing that the character can attribute their feelings to.

I realized when reading Shakespeare's Othello that interesting characters often can't be understood in terms of "goals" or "desires" because they don't understand what they want or why they want that and they constantly act in ways that are contradictory to what they want or think they want. What a character consciously thinks is a whole layer on top of their actual instincts and feelings, which are primal and buried in traumas and needs and other aspects of creaturehood, and often is a fiction to resolve contradictions and dissonance in the demands of the creature-self. some characters can reflect upon their own thought processes and some cannot.

real humans don't often act rationally to pursue goals, they just do stuff based upon a seethe of inner instinct and the reasons why are post-hoc rationalizations. i like writing characters that reflect this and exploring the ways they do and don't understand themselves, the fictions they use to understand what's going on in there

[flicker-fly]

Love this post because it gets at something I've vaguely felt, which is that often the most interesting characters have some core inconsistency to them (sometimes entirely unexplained). That contradiction feels instinctively real, maybe because it's forcing you to either solve the contradictions yourself, putting more life into the character, or give up and acknowledge the unknowable aspects of other people's minds. (imo Hamlet is like this.)

Whereas a character with perfectly coherent motivations and traits is almost more like a stylization, excellent as a side character or for a particular narrative purpose but not as chewable.

I'm always being reminded of the Hugh MacLennan quote from The Watch that Ends the Night:

“But that night as I drove back from Montreal, I at least discovered this: that there is no simple explanation for anything important any of us do, and that the human tragedy, or the human irony, consists in the necessity of living with the consequences of actions performed under the pressure of compulsions so obscure we do not and cannot understand them.” (274)

And I think that's a really great point about storytelling as well, and tragedy, that characters are also stuck with the consequences of things they can't take back but never really understood. They've become the kind of person who does [action] and they have to contend with that.

[headspace-hotel]

Exactly I agree fully!!

[unprettyextra]

Meet Lochlan O'Neil, the creator of DashCon

"So the whole ball pit was my idea. I wanted a ball pit."

[beyondthisdarkhouse]

God, this part...

But I feel like an asteroid. I feel like the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. I was very, very guilty for years. I had to go to extensive therapy because I was like, “oh my god, I, Lochlan O'Neil, single-handedly destroyed fandom culture?”

She didn't she didn't she didn't. That wasn't it. She wasn't an asteroid.

She was the first skater that fell through the ice of Web 2.0.

I was also a teenager who found an amazing world, and My People, and friends I'd still talk to every day, on the internet. I spent years getting my mother to let me go to conventions and meet friends in distant cities. I started ambitious internet communities I didn't have the experience or skills to bring to fruition. I don't think there was a lot of difference between us, in a lot of ways. It's not that I was somehow smart or skilled or suave and she wasn't. She didn't have some awful planet-killing stink or velocity that she brought to the show.

The difference was this:

In 1994, when the Endless September began and the Internet felt perpetually full of stupid newbies, there were 20 million people online.

In 2001, when I got my first LiveJournal account, there were 500 million.

In 2012, when she joined Tumblr, there were 2.43 billion.

When I started out, and you joined a new messageboard or chatroom or mailing list, you had to introduce yourself to the community. Except in the biggest of websites, people expected to log onto the internet, read through all the new things that had been posted to their local bit of it, and then log off again. Older members took it upon themselves to greet the newbies and answer any questions they might have, directing them to the relevant community FAQs. People would say things like, "Oh yes, I remember you. This is only your second Thursday with us, right? I hope you have fun!"

I joined an Internet full of adults who got online through their jobs or their universities, one of the first wave of kids allowed to roam free. And the proportion of adults to kids kept steadily changing, but until DashCon, I don't think people understood how much. I remember a discussion that happened in early 2000s slash fandom, where the very true observation was made that in particular artistic ways, we had all agreed to suspend shame, which created a unique kind of space. As a community we could all admit that we were there to be embarrassingly enthusiastic in unusual ways about absolute nerd shit, and we understood that it wasn't life or death, it wasn't rocket surgery, but it also wasn't going to get broadcast onto the clouds and our bosses didn't know who we were. Everyone was (willing to act like) an adult, and we could hold the circle and create safety there.

That felt like a lot of geek spaces, then. Anime conventions, science fiction conventions, furry conventions, videogame stores, D&D meetups. Images were bulky and pixelated, video incredibly hard to move. When you got to a con, it was like a brief oasis of Weird that sheltered you and screened you from view, and you ended up volunteering because the weary, cynical, intelligent, kind people in the con ops office looked like you were throwing yourself in front of a bullet just for offering to run a clipboard down to the other end of the hotel for them.

The ice was thick enough to skate on. The circle was strong enough to let you be brave and funny and silly and free, and you could buckle down with some friends and clean all the trash out of the ballroom by 11am on Sunday, and you'd see everyone next year.

The bubble was going to burst, but nobody seemed to worry about it.

Things were changing fast for fans, all kinds of fans, in the early 2010s. Conventions that used to get news coverage like "Local Freaks Weird Out Hotel Employees: This Weekend Only" to "#Cosplay: The Hottest New Trend" and from Geocities sites that shut down if you exceeded your page visits for the month to AO3 getting 10 million pageviews a week.

It was great. We could conquer the world together. We could stay safe and together and the circle would hold.

And then the ice broke open and Lochlan fell through. Right through the bottom of that goddamn ballpit into freezing arctic sea. Right into years of people sorting through the churned ice of the wreck, taking years to come to the realization that there really had not been ANY goddamn adults in the room making sure things were okay. The community had not actually failed so much as never been formed in the first place.

Because as it turns out, group-bonding techniques that work for 100 or 1000 people do not work for 10,000. Or 100,000. Or one million. Or one billion.

That line about agreement to suspend shame sticks with me all these years after because the defining feature of post-Dashcon Tumblr has been shame. And scorn, contempt, derision, and hatred. Cringe, in short, and kys. Exactly the kind of bullshit I saw every day in junior high school, and ran to the Internet and fan conventions to get away from.

I got the kind of community and mentorship and support that have made fandom a refuge and a resource my whole life. Lochlan O'Neill didn't. Not because there was anything worse or dumber or less experienced about her.

Because a system built in the 1990s was incapable of bearing the stress of a load fifty times bigger than what was already "way too full."

Just because I'm from one generation, and she's from another.

It was not her fault.

[lightwxrker]

NONBINARY ADP CONFIRMED

obsessed, source interview is really cute

[issela-santina]

they're only missing a purple to complete the flag at this point

[lux-scriptum]

No, you see, I wish to be an author. Not in marketing. Or an influencer. I wish to tell my stories, be told I did a fantastic job, and then go back to my hovel to scribble some more. I am delicate of constitution and awkward in crowds.

[issela-santina]

there's a little twinkle in Klek's mouth eyes

[issela-santina]

fun with Angine de Poitrine's debut and sophomore albums track by track after listening to both albums in full too many times this year

Sherpa 🤝 Fabienk : moshpit party banger singles. love songs but not in standard human definitions or methods. by that I mean both of them vocally call out people they appreciate

Tohogd 🤝 Mata Zyklek : things in our ordinary 21st century life getting a cute little feel-good surf rock song written about them in which the title makes it clear enough what they're writing about

Tamebsz 🤝 Sarniezz : “weed out the weak” song. messiest-sounding on first listen due to the quarter tones, then they make more sense iff you stop hating the band for clout. surprisingly flirty, danceable beat. popular by live performance footage alone

Ababa Hotel 🤝 Utzp : atmospheric fan favorites that let you immerse in worldbuilding. and then stumble into a debate about the genres/cultures that made these songs („Ababa Hotel“ is jazz rock, „Utzp“ is polka and klezmer)

Sahardnieh 🤝 Yor Zarad : heaviest/most challenging listen especially if you're looking for Klek's drumbeat. arguably the album's resident dark horse (CEM let ADP make a music video for „Sahardnieh“ while „Yor Zarad“ gets longlisted for awards)

L'Aberek 🤝 Angor : road trip soundtrack worthy. they sound the most chill but they travel. „Angor“ feels like a liftoff while „L'Aberek“ cruises

[issela-santina]

there are terms for these and as someone who sings in choir I feel like I should know them by name. examples from ADP after the guitar emoji

monophony ≈ one everything. 🎸 when Khn layers his guitar playing the bass melody an octave up. „Mata Zyklek“ refrain/climax is also this as the notes fill up the entire bar

monody ≈ one melody/lead, the rest harmonize as accompaniment. 🎸 when Khn adds a melody above the chords he built up from the loops. „L'Aberek“ might be an interesting example because the melody is in the foundation itself while the chords above it support its downbeat

homophony ≈ supportive harmony/chords. 🎸 much of „Sahardnieh“ falls here as it messes with fifths, I think that's the verticality you were referring to?? „Angor“ moves from monody to here once the bagpipe-like solo comes in

homorhythm ≈ when all the different notes play the same rhyrhmic pattern 🎸 „Fabienk“ second half. „Sarniezz“ manages to somehow do this without sounding homophonic (see above definition but also YMMV. that one was the most difficult to place)

polyphony ≈ what parallel play is to an autistic human being is what this is to harmony. multiple melodies doing their own thing. 🎸 „Tamebsz“ whirlwind before they are pulled back in by the drums to a monody

counterpoint ≈ where polyphony starts. 🎸 „Fabienk“ first half, juggling two lines at a time

polyrhythm ≈ self-explanatory 🎸 „Sarniezz“ and „Sahardnieh“ in which the melody is 12/8 as the drums transition to 4/4. „Angor“ with 2/4 drums and 3/4 guitars the entire way through

[issela-santina]

fun with Angine de Poitrine's debut and sophomore albums track by track after listening to both albums in full too many times this year

Sherpa 🤝 Fabienk : moshpit party banger singles. love songs but not in standard human definitions or methods. by that I mean both of them vocally call out people they appreciate

Tohogd 🤝 Mata Zyklek : things in our ordinary 21st century life getting a cute little feel-good surf rock song written about them in which the title makes it clear enough what they're writing about

Tamebsz 🤝 Sarniezz : “weed out the weak” song. messiest-sounding on first listen due to the quarter tones, then they make more sense iff you stop hating the band for clout. surprisingly flirty, danceable beat. popular by live performance footage alone

Ababa Hotel 🤝 Utzp : atmospheric fan favorites that let you immerse in worldbuilding. and then stumble into a debate about the genres/cultures that made these songs („Ababa Hotel“ is jazz rock, „Utzp“ is polka and klezmer)

Sahardnieh 🤝 Yor Zarad : heaviest/most challenging listen especially if you're looking for Klek's drumbeat. arguably the album's resident dark horse (CEM let ADP make a music video for „Sahardnieh“ while „Yor Zarad“ gets longlisted for awards)

L'Aberek 🤝 Angor : road trip soundtrack worthy. they sound the most chill but they travel. „Angor“ feels like a liftoff while „L'Aberek“ cruises

[json-derulo]

it sucks that the overwhelming majority of medical messaging around salt/sodium is "evil poisonous substance that you're definitely already eating way too much of," because like. you do still need it. (trust me, as a POTS-haver, I've had to completely rewire my own brain about salt.) and you need more salt when the entire northern hemisphere is hot enough to fry an egg on. ever tried sucking down the recommended 64oz of hydration per day entirely as water, only to find you're peeing constantly without any of the purported benefits of being "hydrated"? assuming you don't have another medical condition that causes frequent urination, your body probably needed more salt/electrolytes to be able to hold onto that water and make use of it. if there was ever a time to keep a sports drink/pedialyte/etc within constant reach, it's when the heat index is 110°F/43°C.

[headspace-hotel]

Southern folks salt their watermelon for a reason I suppose

[issela-santina]

my Filipino ass at Southern folks: you too?!

btw I also salt pineapple

[issela-santina]

thank you Jack White. standing like a proud parent with the Poitrine kids and emphatic eyebags like he'd come straight out a 1990s movie (I was thinking The Crow ok?)

Khn knew he was next to a living legend and he wanted to look fucking sexy. are you flirting with the bisexual disasters here, Khn?

and I dig the gold on Klek's ventilation tube. it's like a detachable tail now. he breathes through his spine and needs a little help processing Earth air

♪ well, a loop left open, an alien walking by, some dice in the water, a look in the eye, a dog and a blow torch, sardines on your side, or timing that you think that you can trust is just another way to dot ♪

[cutecipher]

it really is annoying as hell how someone will talk about how poor people can't avoid ethically dubious products because of how being poor works and then someone with a two story house in the suburbs will take that to mean they can order harry potter books through a drone delivery from amazon and if you criticize that you're a bigot

[rimeheart]

[queeranarchism]

No ethical consumption under capitalism also means: "the production mechanism of capitalism are deliberately obscured and so complex that it's nearly impossible to accurately measure the environmental and humanitarian impact of everyday items and it's okay if you can't do the research to find out. Even if you're financially very comfortable, you don't have to spend 5 hours researching which tomatoes are the most ethical before you take a trip to the grocery store. Spending your whole life trying to accurately measure the ethical impact of every purchase is a time sink that will not bring about a systemically better world."

not "obviously shitty choices don't exist".

[sandersstudies]

Every time you go in a public place and something ISN’T disgusting it’s because somebody cleaned it. Every time you feel comfortable using a public bathroom or sitting at a restaurant table or setting something on a gas station counter or playing on a playground it’s because somebody cleaned it.

Thank you to everyone who cleans the world, especially those who are underpaid and under appreciated.

[my-life-is-a-sidequest]

I worked in a supermarket for 7 years and I don't think I can understate just how much cleaning you had to do for it to look clean (it very often where not in the places you aren't supposed to see)

[sandersstudies]

True for food service, retail establishments, gyms, outdoor areas, schools, religious buildings, office buildings, etc. People usually only notice when a space is NOT clean, meanwhile every time a space is clean it’s only because of the diligent work of janitors, maintenance staff, custodians, parks workers, or volunteers.

[estro-boi]

we gotta get back to torrent distribution, i just watched someone eat eight grand in bandwidth charges because they ran a direct-download piracy site with local file hosting through cloudflare. torrents were invented literally for this exact reason

[estro-boi]

torrents work like this

i have a file or folder on my pc that i want to share with other people. let's call it gayshit.mp3

unfortunately gayshit.mp3 is 750mb and im not paying for discord nitro so i need another way to send it

i put it into qbittorrent and it makes a torrent file. this is essentially a very small file that points to gayshit.mp3 so other computers can find it. kinda like a treasure map

i send this tiny file to my friend, who loads it into qbittorrent. their computer takes a moment to find mine over the vast expanse of cyberspace and then (as long as my pc is running and the file is still where it should be), it gets copied from my hard drive to theirs

this is the cool part: if somebody else loads that tiny file, they can download it from both of us. if i'm offline but my friend is on, the third person can still get it. this also means that if two people have separate halves of the file, they can download the other half from each other. as long as some combination of people have the pieces between them, they can all have the whole thing.

crucially this does not require a server!!! you can just upload the file to a few people and as long as they keep it, it's still accessible. as long as somebody, somewhere is still connected, it's available forever. the only way it goes away is if everybody disconnects from it.

please learn to torrent

[macleod]

How to Use Torrents (with Pictures) - wikiHow

An expert guide to get started using torrentsTorrents are one of the most popular forms of file sharing on the internet, accounting for over

always use qbittorrent, do not use bitorrent or utorrent.

[valtsv]

maybe this is insensitive of me but i find it really funny that the human behavioural response to being sufficiently bored and isolated is to devise increasingly creative ways to harm our bodies and risk our lives just to have something to react to. and no small amount of innovation has been achieved this way. yeah sorry but if you don't give me enough treats and puzzles i'm going to start hurting myself for fun.

[valtsv]

"you're going to hurt yourself badly doing that" actually i'm very good at it. i've had lots of practice you see.

[bcollisons63]

When I have a opinion so unpopular but I can't say it on here or else I'm getting slimed

[issela-santina]

ok I'll drop one for encouragement

you will only actually understand the motives of bands like Portal, Sleep Token, and especially Angine de Poitrine insisting on keeping their unmasked selves private if you watch Hannah Montana