#hellostarfleet

i don't. but. WHAT MAKES THIS A HOLIDAY THEMED CARRD

I have noticed that card websites like the one I was shopping on when I found that -- sites aimed at large groups (foundations, companies, etc) where you can buy bulk cards -- often have a small but significant portion of their holiday cards dedicated to the military and first responders. There’s a whole section that’s very clearly meant to be sent out by fire departments, police precincts/unions, and military units. They are surpassed only by cards aimed at doctors and dentists in terms of “themed” cards you can customize for the holidays. 

So the answer is technically “nothing” -- but it’s a card meant to be sent out by a police union or precinct, mostly to police families, which conveys a “we’re cute and harmless and patriotic” message for the holidays. 

dignitywhatdignity

Depending who sent me the covid-snowflake card, I’d probably actually find it pretty funny, in a dark way. This card is just tasteless at best.

Honestly, the second I came up with the covid-snowflake idea I kind of wanted it to be my holiday card. 

bettsplendens

How many of those things have they sold by now? I'd imagine if they worked, at least ONE would have worked by now in a fashion spectacular enough to make the news.

This is in reference to the ouija board and actually that’s what cracks me up about the Tumblr community’s fear of ouija boards. One did make the news -- in 1949. 

There was a satanic-panic style terror reaction to ouija boards after The Exorcist came out in the 70s. In the movie, and the novel the movie is based on, the demon is released into the little girl explicitly because she was playing with a ouija board. This in turn is based on a newspaper account of the exorcism of “Roland Doe” in 1949, where Roland supposedly became possessed when playing with a ouija board. After The Exorcist became a huge hit, two things happened: people became terrified of ouija boards, and people began demanding exorcisms in droves. So to see a resurgence of that weird conservative Christian conflation of “spiritualism” and “demon summoning” on tumblr just made me lol. 

forlorn-kumquat

to me, it doesn't seem that different from having a laugh track in sitcoms

Those are super creepy too! Especially the fact that the actors pause for fake laughter! 

I think part of the creep factor is being unaccustomed to it. We grew up with laugh tracks on sitcoms, whereas we’re used to organic human reactions at sporting events. They serve the same purpose, to cue us for how to react, but we’re just inured to one. 

sarriane

wrestling is sooooo eerie to watch right now. the WWE finally added in LED screens that show live feeds of fans at home, but before they figured that out, it was odd without the atmosphere. i know wrestling relies on theatrics, but it really made clear just how much the crowd is a part of the show, and which wrestlers need the crowd to feed their energy and performance.

Yeah I can see how wrestling in specific would be super eerie, because so much of it is emotionally driven. Like, if someone’s in a match and the crowd is whipping them up and they pick up a chair and just wham the other guy on the head with it, we understand that to be in part spurred by the crowd. If you just see a guy in an empty room get so furious he whaps the other guy with a folding chair, that feels like very personal, emotional violence. Strictly speaking there’s no difference, but the latter feels like maybe someone needs to be in a lot more therapy. 

Given that wrestling is really just a soap opera with a fight-scene framework, I’m kind of surprised WWE didn’t lean hard into quarantine and make it about wrestlers who can’t wrestle, or wrestlers who get into matches because they’ve been quarantined together for six months. Like. Imagine instead of having matches they just put all the wrestlers into a Big Brother style house and filmed that, instead. 

bisexual-nightmare

As someone personally responsible for the company holiday cards (we’re creeping up on 1k and I Hate It) I would *kill* to convince my bosses to spend the extra 300$ and make someone else do that bit

Yeah, this is probably the only year we’ll get to do it, because normally we have people signing the cards -- each of our managers has a small group of people they sign and mail the cards to, and then we do about 700 cards signed by everyone that get mailed to several segments of our donor base. Last year I had to manage the signing of all thousand cards and the addressing/stuffing/stamping as well; I didn’t have to DO the work myself but I had to assign it out to our temps and keep track of how far along we were to make sure it’d all go out on time. 

Oh good, I’m glad it’s not just me! Yeah, a lot of the appeal of HL1 and Blue Shift to me is thinking “I’m just a regular dude who works here trying not to die,” and OpForce doesn’t really have that sense of attachment or urgency, IMO. 

nothing can prepare u for horny on main nishitani

SOMETIMES YOU JUST SEE A GUY AND DECIDE, 

this man simply MUST wreck me with a metal bat, 

3. Something you wish a commenter had called attention to, but got ignored.

So, the fact that nobody has called attention to this probably means it’s subtle, which is what I was going for, but I’m kind of surprised nobody has noticed the intentional parallels between the first and second chapters of Whispers and Moans. Minor parallel plot points, slightly recycled jokes, deliberate (for once) repetition of my overused crutch phrases... but then again, if I’d done it enough for it to stand out, it would probably be annoying, so eh. It’s just one of those quirky behind the scenes things, I guess. Now you know.

12. What writing rule do you refuse to break?

I had to look up writing rules to figure out how to answer this one, because I have pretty much zero formal writing training, but I’m gonna say “starting a new paragraph every time I change speakers,” because failure to do that is a huge pet peeve of mine that can ruin an otherwise good fic for me. Might’ve goofed that one up with some older stuff, but I’m careful about it now. 

Number C101: Silent Honor’s DARK Knight  because wow I have a really embarrassing bias don’t I

Full Armored - Crystal Zero Lancer because it’s functional

Galaxy-Eyes Full Armor Photon Dragon

Number C103: Ragna Infinity

Number 37: Hope Woven Dragon Spider Shark

If you have any lemons it's worth transferring everything over to ao3 just in case they ever get pulled. Also, you might get a few extra views

nope, no lemons for me, but maybe the extra views would help (:

hellostarfleet replied to your post “and on a completely unrelated note, should i move all my writing over...”

i mean personally i havent checked ffn for fanfiction in years, i only look at ao3. i like the layout better and i kind of thought most people used it instead

i agree! i’m embarrassed to say i once preferred ffn to ao3 because there were more fics, but i’ve now changed my mind that i like the works and styles on ao3!

xionchan replied to your post “and on a completely unrelated note, should i move all my writing over...”

different audiences.

i personally don't read fic on ffn anymore, but i crosspost bc I have two or three readers there

so, crossposting is always worth it

ooh, that’s a very simple way of putting it! expanding my work to more audiences would be great (and i’m not embarrassed of my work from a few years ago, and i’ve caught most of the spelling errors since then!)

I watched like… I dunno maybe a little over half of VII as an lp IT SURE IS A GAME??? But I actually stopped watching IX because I was like hmmm I think I want to play this sometime, haha

relatable tbh

like, parts of my family played ffvii and it’s supposed to be Good and i like yuffie from what i saw in the movie and in kh but

i’m just really bad at it and it’s not actually my aesthetic, it just looks like it’s really good