Pyromaniac Pumpkin

Writer| mushroom enthusiast|spooky bitch sher/her

[lelif]

on survival

-// @aridante // @orivu // @buzzkillgirls // ? // ? // richard siken// @cemeterything // moomin, tove jansson// @disenchanted-killjoy // isn't that enough, shawn mendes// @ prettytheyswag on twitter// @ coletyumuch on twitter// ? // ? // bird by bird, anne lamott// undertale// @strawberrycircuits

[pyromaniacpumpkin]

Teaching myself to draw

[powells]

🍄 Fatal Fungi 🍄 OR: Watch out. The Body Keeps the Spore.

Serve the Spores Bumper Sticker "For that friend who has already succumbed to the siren song of the mushroom, this sticker will show their allegiance"

Finch by Jeff VanderMeer "Noir meets sentient fungus — what's not to like"

Ghost Music by An Yu "Replete with dreamlike sequences, enclosed walls, and talking mushrooms..."

Mushroom Travel Flask "Protect your drink from the spores!"

Mushroom Cats Game "Compete to forage the best mushroom collection, but beware of the cats trying to sabotage your efforts"

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia "The best elements of Gothic literature — crumbling ancestral home, disturbing nightmares, threatening atmosphere, distressed heroine — with a decidedly fungal flavor"

The Mushroom at the End of the World by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing "Will mushrooms outlive us all? Probably..."

Fantastic Fungi Coloring Book "Get comfy, break out the colored pencils and relax with this non-threatening coloring book"

The Girl with All the Gifts by M. R. Carey "Downright chilling."

The Truffle Underground by Ryan Jacobs "It will make you want to steer clear of truffles forever."

📚 Browse all the books on this display! 🍄

[pyromaniacpumpkin]

Hoping to get through my tbr pile for Finish It February 📚

[emberwhite]

I spent the last 11 months working with my illustrator, Marta, to make the children's book of my dreams. We were able to get every detail just the way I wanted, and I'm very happy with the final result. She is the best person I have ever worked with, and I mean, just look at those colors!

I wanted to tell that story of anyone's who ever felt that they didn't belong anywhere. Whether you are a nerd, autistic, queer, trans, a furry, or some combination of the above, it makes for a sad and difficult life. This isn't just my story, and this is your story as well.

I also want to say the month following the book's launch has been very stressful. I have never done this kind of book before, and I didn't know how to get the word out about it. I do have a small publishing business and a full-time job, so I figured let's put my some money into advertising this time. Indie writers will tell you great success stories they've had using Facebook ads, so I started a page and boosting my posts. Within a first few days, I got a lot of likes and shares and even a few people who requested the book and left great reviews for me. There were also people memeing on how the boy turns into a delicious venison steak at the end of the book. It was all in good fun, though. It honestly made made laugh. Things were great, so I made more posts and increased spending.

But somehow, someway these new posts ended up on the wrong side of the platform. Soon, we saw claims of how the book was perpetuating mental illness, of how this book goes against all of basic biology and logic, and how the lgbtq agenda was corrupting our kids.

This brought out even more people to support the book, so I just let them at it and enjoyed my time reading comments after work. A few days later, then conversation moved from politics to encouraging bullying, accusing others of abusing children, and a competition to who could post the most cruel image. They were just comments, however, and after all, people were still supporting the book.

But then the trolls started organizing. Over night, I got hit with 3 one-star reviews on Amazon. My heart stopped. If your book ever falls below a certain rating, it can be removed, and blocked, and you can receive a strike on your publishing account. All that hard work was about to be deleted, and it was all my fault for posting it in the wrong place.

I panicked, pulled all my posts, and went into hiding, hoping things would die down. I reported the reviews and so did many others, but here's the thing you might have noticed across platforms like Google and Amazon. There are community guidelines that I referenced in my email, but unless people are doing something highly illegal, things are rarely ever taken down on these massive platforms. So those reviews are still there to this day. Once again, it's my fault, and I should have seen it coming.

Luckily, the harassment stopped, and the book is doing much better now. I'm currently looking for a new home to post about the book and talk about everything that went into it. I also love to talk about all things books if you ever want to chat. Maybe I'll post a selfie one day, too. Otherwise, the book is still on Amazon, and it's also on YouTube as well if you want to see the full story for free.

[talkingmongoosethegef]

alright boys, girls, neither, both, and those in between we need to clear something up:

if someone says they are queer, they are queer.

no ifs, ands, buts, etc. they are queer.

and if they discover later that they're cishet, great, amazing, wonderful, i'm glad we gave them community when they were figuring themselves out and needed it.

no gatekeeping of queerness here, alright?

because when shit hits the fan queerphobes wont care whether you're a cis gay man who goes by he/him or a bigender aromantic pansexual who goes by it/its

so stop with the respectability politics.

we're a community, fucking act like it.

[retrogamingblog2]

Pokemon Artwork in Japanese Woodblock Style made by Totetsuu

[acepalindrome]

Alternatives to Squishmallow

So as many of you have probably already heard, Jazwares, the company that produces Squishmallows, is donating to charities that support Israeli soldiers and the IDF. They’re also supporting Canary Mission, which has been doxxing people who speak out against Israel. BDS hasn’t called for a boycott against them, but I can’t in good faith spend my money on their products, and I would strongly encourage everyone who enjoys plushies to really think long and hard about if you want to give your money to a company that’s helping support genocide!

But the holidays are coming up, and lots of us enjoy plushies and were fans of Squishmallow, and were planning to give Squishmallows to friends and family this year.

Fortunately, there are a number of great plushie companies out there, and I want to promote some of my favorites in the hopes that folks will get their plushie fix from a source that doesn’t side with Israel. So without further ado:

Fluffnest

Fluffnest got their start on Kickstarter a few years ago, and I adore the round shapes of their PuffPal plushies! My favorite is Pete the Possum, which is probably the best possum plush I’ve ever seen. I’ve also got a beautiful moth from their Kickstarter and I’ve been wanting their bats for ages. They also recently had a Kickstarter for an Animal Crossing-esque video game featuring their plushie characters and it looks fantastic.

Squishables

I can’t get over the plague doctor plushies. They’re so perfect and cute, and they’ve released other variations of them called Alter Egos, like a ghostly version, an alien, or a really sweet cottagecore one! They’ve got a ton of variety, but what I like the most are the fantasy plushies. There’s a lich! There are dragons and demons! Cryptids! Biblically accurate angels! A lot of really fun stuff!

Also they do a lot of great charity work! Right now they’re doing an auction for the Food Bank of New York City.

AfternoonFika

AfternoonFika is a very small business of only three people, but their plushies are extremely cute. They tend to sell out fast, so I recommend following them on social media to stay on top of any restocks! They recently released a line of dinosaurs that are precious, and of course I love their iconic cactus cat and cinnamon bun bunny.

Jellycat

Jellycat has been around since 1999, so they’re the oldest of these companies. They’ve got great designs, a ton of variety, and a lot of their plushies are made to be cuddled on and not just displayed. All three of my tiny nephews sleep with a different stuffed dog from Jellycat. My mom has a sun and several succulents that she uses as decorations. There’s a little something for everyone who enjoys plushies!

If you have any other favorite companies I haven’t mentioned, feel free to add on! I’ve enjoyed Squishmallows for a while now and I’m sad to see their leadership coming out on the side that’s committing war crimes on a daily basis, but this is a good time to discover new favorite plushie companies! And remember, money speaks loudly. Even if BDS hasn’t called for a boycott of Jazwares, it sends a message when sales start dropping for companies that support genocide. It’s a small thing, but the little things we do can add up!

[importantanimalfacts]

[the-indoor-kites]

[william-snekspeare]

A spooky and snakey little short I've been working on! 🧡 Happy Halloween!

[ashesnddust]

some chaotic academia things in my life

- never sleeping through the night, sometimes waking up at 3am and just staying up because why not

- writing some of the best poems you’ve ever written while sleep deprived at 4am

- drinking a cup of coffee to stay up and work but immediately falling asleep anyway

- using your phone notes app for everything

- listening to classical music one minute and classic rock the next

- folding the corners of book pages instead of using bookmarks because you like your books to look used

- wearing the same sweater for 3 days in a row because if you’re not leaving the house, why change?

- watching crash course literature in your free time

- trying to learn latin on duolingo

- fun socks always, never just plain white

- crying while writing in your journal, tears staining the pages

- being a hopeless romantic

- reading almost every genre of book imaginable

- having a huge physical tbr but reading books downloaded on your phone instead

- disney movies playing in the background while you do homework at 3am

- quoting yourself but pretending someone else said it first

- forgetting coffee exists most of the time but when you remember, drinking 3 cups a day

[pyromaniacpumpkin]

Feeling called out by a few of these and I’m not even in school

[ms-demeanor]

Hey kids, wanna learn what signs of botulism look like?

[ms-demeanor]

Since the sell by date wasn't for another 4 days I returned them. I was checking out at the store and I was like "i'm not sure you want to take them out of the bag" and he did and a passing manager was just like "That looks like a bomb, I'm just gonna take it to the back" and was off like a shot.

[ms-demeanor]

Okay but seriously, if you have a package of food like this or especially if you have a can that is bulging like this, it is literally full of poison, do not open it and absolutely positively do not eat it under any circumstances.

Any food packaging that is bulging has to be considered unsafe to eat. A lot of people who might be living on their own for the first time don't know what that looks like, and this is a really, really extreme example, but yeah if the top of a can has become slightly domed from internal pressure that's going to kill you, don't eat it.

[clingynepenthes]

Some fascinating spoilers and previews of things to come in MtG's next set, The Lost Caverns of Ixalan!

The very first artwork up there is of the Skull Spore Nexus:

[pyromaniacpumpkin]

Mushroom dinos, let’s gooooooo!

[strixhaven-star]

Are we playing Magic the Gathering?

If you go looking at the News on magic.wizards.com, you wouldn't the site covers actual in-universe Magic the Gathering until around Page 3 or 4. Instead, in those first three pages, you get articles on Doctor Who, Lord of the Rings, and Arena. This is what I was worried would happen. The folks at Wizard might say canon, paper MtG isn't going anywhere, but you wouldn't know it. Focus on Universes Beyond products needs to be lowered and actual canon premier/standard Magic needs to return to the forefront. This is ridiculous that I have to through stuff I'm not even interested in to get to the material I do have an interest.

[demifiendrsa]

Castlevania: Nocturne has been renewed for season 2 at Netflix.

[alpaca-clouds]

How Nocturne uses Music

Alright, one thing I found endlessly fascinating in Nocturne is how it uses music. Honestly, to me that is one of the biggest differences to the original show, that had a really great soundtrack but never used any diagetic music at all.

In comes Nocturne in which every episode involves at least one scene of people singing. Most of the time Edouard (and yes, I will go through the songs he is doing - admittedly I am not that well versed in opera stuff, but a friend is), but there are also two other instances: The slave songs in Haiti and the Revolutionary songs sung in the tavern.

And you have no fucking clue how important this is. Especially because it builds up one theme throughout it: Singing as a form of resistance. Which it basically is within all of the scenes.

Songs were always used in rebellion and revolution to tie people together. Music is both an emotional outlet, but also something that builds a strong sense of community. (I am not even kidding here: Singing together with people can at times release oxytocin. You know, the same stuff that gets released during sex. It helps you build a relationship with people and build trust with them.)

There is a reason why so many authoritarian regimes forbade a lot of songs, while pushing for their own. Because this stuff is fucking powerful.

And I just love, love, love how the show is playing with that. Especially with Edouard inspiring the other night creatures through music! OMG! This is perfection!

[pyromaniacpumpkin]

So I got a theory as to why Alucard went from this in the original show:

To this in Nocturne:

We’re shown in the first show that Alucard ages more or less like a human except much faster but even as an adult he’s still looks more like Lisa than Vlad. Well my theory is that eventually his human aging got to a point where he “died” and took on more of a vampiric appearance. Hence why his hair is white like an old man and why his skin is ghostly white like his dad’s.

Further proof:

Like look at Dracula, that man pale as fuck