I like cosmic horror a normal amount. 😊
Btw you can be intensely critical of the Democratic party and recognize that it is full of aged out of touch moderates who are refusing to meet the urgency of the moment,
and also recognize that voting for Democrats is extremely important because it allows things like the confirmation of Justices and prevents the literal fascist party from gaining more power and that harm reduction is an important end in itself
These things can coexist
Politics is a long game. Being disappointed and angry today does not obviate your responsibility to participate
THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS
As has previously been stated ad nauseam, this.
discovering the queer country scene has honestly been so healing because most queer musicians i’ve seen recommended for years i just couldn’t really connect with because it wasn’t the sort of music i listened to or had investment in and with queer country it’s like. yes. this is the language i speak in. this is Fuck You, I Belong Here Too, not just as a queer person in the country but as a rural person among (sub)urban queers, and saying it with a laugh. when will my hometown take pride in me, goddamn it
Drop the list!!
FIRST: rachel holst does the adobe & teardrops blog as well as the rainbow rodeo newsletter & zine. look into the black opry also, there are plenty of black queer country/folk/americana artists & there is a lot of collaboration between them and other queer country/folk/americana musicians
my personal list:
- adeem the artist (especially the new album, white trash revelry)
- paisley fields (stay away from my man is a good old fashioned honky tonk jam about gay on gay violence)
- jake blount (the new faith is an afrofuturist album using roots music to explore life after climate collapse, HIGHLY recommend)
- sarah shook & the disarmers (especially the album sidelong, ESPECIALLY the songs fuck up & dwight yoakam)
- lavender country (everything but especially cryin’ these cocksucking tears. patrick haggerty sadly passed in 2022 and we lost a real one. he self-described as a screaming marxist bitch)
- flamy grant (okay so. bible belt baby is Technically a christian album that i was tricked into listening to. but listen. what did you drag me into is an instant classic)
- mercy bell (especially who said we were friends. i can’t hear the lyric “mea culpa/here’s a gulpa/my drink in your face” and NOT recommend it)
- amythyst kiah (if you haven’t heard black myself by now what even are you doing. go listen to it)
- do you want to speedrun a depressive episode as a queer woman who fears you may have too much in common with your father? listen to i drink by mary gauthier now
- karen & the sorrows (there is a lot to recommend karen pittelman and the work she has done for queer country artists but i’m a useless lesbian so i’m submitting for consideration a photo of the red dress from the mv for guaranteed broken heart that i think about a normal amount:
your friends love you, your brain is just mean
Me on the phone: “So I think just 3 pizzas should be enough and….hold on a sec. Hey, bro, do you want anything?”
The deer with a human face: 😐
Me: “I never can tell with this guy. Just get him a medium cheese, that’s probably fine.”
Verona: Delighted by the discovery of the concept of ‘doomed by the narrative but your friends are punching the narrative in the face and you’re fine now’
Every time Sean Astin makes a statement on whether or not Sam and Frodo were indeed gay for each other in lord of the rings he’s always like “well we have to acknowledge that attitudes around sexuality have changed dramatically over the past several decades and since authorial intent is only up to speculation, the story is open to multiple readings, some of which might have different significances for different groups of people also they kiss on the lips because I said so”
at the rose city comic con panel this month a fan asked them (sean and elijah) if sam and frodo were in love and they said
Sean: …..yes. absolutely
Elijah: 100 percent.
Sean: dont tell rosie
Rosie: “This is my husband Sam, and that’s his husband, Frodo. Frodo is my husband-in-law. I’m not into him, he’s he’s a bit too ‘elfy’ for my taste, but Sam likes him, and that’s fine with me. As far as I know, Frodo can’t give Sam children, but Frodo looks after ours all the same, so I don’t mind sharing Sam if it means another pair of eyes on the wee ones. In all honesty, our family tree is right simple compared to some hobbits. Yes, I’m referrin’ to you Lobelia, over there pretendin’ you ain’t eavesdroppin’. Still bitter you ain’t got either of my boys or their house, eh?”
Sy: Heh, bad news. I’ve memorized your attack pattern.
Sy: The good news is that I’m not athletic enough to dodge any of them, so all your attacks will still land like normal.
imagine if the oceans were replaced by forests and if you went into the forest the trees would get taller the deeper you went and there’d be thousands of undiscovered species and you could effectively walk across the ocean but the deeper you went, the darker it would be and the animals would get progressively scarier and more dangerous and instead of whales there’d be giant deer and just wow
you have a beautiful imagination
What if I told you… there’s a TTRPG for that!
Wildsea, by Felix Isaacs, is a game about a world in which a near-apocalyptic event called the Verdancy covered the planet in giant trees. You play wildsailors, aboard a vessel that cuts, saws, jumps or crawls through the treetops, hunting Leviathan beasts, salvaging bits and pieces of the world before, and uncovering Whispers of mysterious places. It’s a beautiful book and a wild, open, full-of-possibilities setting.
WILDSEA IS AMAZING
So TIL there’s more than -one- RPG for that. I should probably check out Wildsea.
When We All Lived in the Forest by yours truly, is a 24xx RPG based on a couple of old short fiction pieces I did ages ago.
(The original is here, and a follow up here.)
In it, you play bearers, the folks who wander from town to town in enormous, lightless forest that’s covered the whole world, carrying a light as you go, because no one has seen the sky since the woods appeared, and there are things in the trees if you step off the path.
The Rope by ABeardedArtist