All 13 Full Moons Of 2023 | By Ivana Fanti, @moonwise8

20 things i learned in 2020

(inspired by shannon barry)

at a moment’s notice, in the blink of an eye, from one second to another, everything can change. there’s no preparing for it sometimes. just accepting it. 

being apart doesn’t mean we lack togetherness; there are a multitude of ways to forge connection with someone aside from physically being with them.

it really is the little things – never underestimate just how healing a warm walk or reading a good book can be.

empathy is still a foreign concept to many so surround yourself with people who care about more than just themselves.

just because the world stopped spinning for a few months, doesn’t mean time stopped moving; the months may have bled into each other but that doesn’t mean we were living in an endless march - october still came and it blessed us with orange leaves and crisp skies. july brought the fireworks it promised it would. december still came with christmas. it may have felt different, but it was still there.

don’t be afraid to stand up when others are telling you to sit down; don’t be afraid to shout when others are telling you to be quiet.

the people in your corner will save you in more ways than one and maybe, just maybe, you’ll be saving them too.

you don’t need a reason to do your makeup or wear a fancy dress. look like you’re going to prom in your backyard, eat mcdonald’s with your face beat. who cares? “just because” is always reason enough.

that thing you’ve always wanted to try? do it. instead of starting your thoughts with “what if i” or “i could just” – do it. nothing’s holding you back except for you.

the world will turn upside down in more ways than one and you are going to turn with it; all you can do is hold on tight and go with the flow. 

it’s okay to be scared, it’d be scarier if you weren’t. 

injustice doesn’t stop because the world stopped; hatred will always be loud and ugly and it’s up to us to turn that pain into promise through education and action.

being alone doesn’t have to be lonely. learn to fall in love with spending time with yourself. 

we’re all connected in ways we never realized and we affect each other’s lives in more ways than we’ll ever truly understand. we’re all connected someway, somehow. 

just because it seems like everyone else is hustling, doesn’t mean you have to as well. move at you’re own pace. 

don’t stop taking pictures just because things are ugly now; one day, you’ll look back and be glad you did. 

we haven’t lived through a chapter of a US history textbook – we are still living through one. just because the page is turning doesn’t mean everything is changing. be patient. 

you’re allowed to just be. you’re allowed to just exist. 

don’t stop chasing happiness just because it’s harder to get a hold of.

keep trying. keep fighting. keep loving. keep living.

(cc, 2020)

Inspired by @two-bees-poetry

There's something in there, probably

matching jmart wallpapers i drew bc i love them sm!! the sillies!!

it’s cropped for IOS 11 but hopefully they can work on other devices! feel free to use them :))

Neil’s quotes from 2019, back when S1 was released. 🤍 I so can’t wait for S2!

thinking about Jonathan Sims and Samama Khalid.

Thinking about how, by all laws of Horror Story Trope, Jon should not be the protagonist. If I'd never heard of tma and you showed me a lineup of the archives crew and asked me to guess who died first I would have pointed to Jon. He's the paranoid professor archetype. The one who dies discovering some crucial bit of information at the beginning to push the plot forward. He's unfriendly, cowardly, insecure, and makes other people do his investigation for him for all of season 1. He doesn't do anything even remotely heroic until the second half of the show. He has no interest in romance for the first half of the show. The audience wasn't even aware Jon had a dark past until he starts telling us about A Guest for Mr. Spider. But he is *Chosen.* Despite the fact that he has no actual qualities of a hero, he's chosen as the eyes special boy. Over the course of the show he starts to become more and more like an actual protagonist. He starts trying to save the world, resist the eye, all that jazz. For one reason or another, being the Archivist turns Jonathan "definition of a side character" Sims into the main character.

Then we have Sam. Sam starts acting like a horror/mystery protagonist almost immediately. He is young, charming, has a mysterious past (that we are made aware of pretty much right away) and a curiosity that causes him to frequently put himself personally in the path of The Horrors. He pokes around where he doesn't belong and looks for clues. He's the center of an office love triangle for goodness sake. He has a strong sense of duty to others and will put himself in harms way to protect those he loves. He exudes main character energy. He has everything a horror protagonist needs to push the plot along. But Sam wasn't *Chosen.* Despite being exactly the person you'd expect the plot to follow. And I can't help but wonder if, in the same way that the narrative made Jon important, it's going to make Sam unimportant. Irrelevant. If, with his rejection from The Magnus Institute, Sam is going to disappear completely. Become a mystery.

Because at the end of the day, so much of your life, your impact on the world, your relevance, has absolutely nothing to do with you. So much of it has everything to do with those in power, and whether they decide you're important.

It all comes down to your own rotten luck.

Sophie’s silver hair

While I was looking for a screenshot of Howl’s Moving Castle, I stumbled across the same question spread over the internet: “Why is Sophie’s hair still silver at the end?”

I was surprised that the answer most readily given was, “because she still has the curse.”

This prompted me to write a mini blog about my own belief regarding Sophie’s silver hair at the end of Howl’s Moving Castle. 

So here it be.

The curse is never fully explained in the movie version of Howl’s Moving Castle (classic Miyazaki storytelling) but throughout the film, Sophie temporarily changes back to her normal age in moments of confidence, advocacy, and when she feels loved/loves others, like Howl. 

There’s A LOT going on in terms of how “old” Sophie looks and feels in different parts of the film. She has a much harder time walking, for instance, at the beginning of Howl’s than she does when she goes to the palace. 

In the palace scene, Sophie reverts to her normal appearance with her brown hair when she is advocating for Howl. As soon as Madam Sullivan points out that she’s in love with Howl, Sophie immediately changes back into an old woman. 

For Sophie, the old woman persona is both a comforting mask and a confidence booster. She continually makes comments throughout the film which cast being old in a positive light . For Sophie, she doesn’t have to worry about being “pretty” when she’s old, so it frees her to be her true, sassy, confident self.

Sometimes, as humans, we put on other identities so we can find out who we really are.

I fully believe that when Sophie changes back to her younger self for the last time with her silver hair, it’s because she wants to look that way, not because she’s cursed. She has the confidence of her old woman persona but she is the age she’s supposed to be. 

This is important: Sophie learned to love both herself and Howl when she was an old woman.

When Calcifer asks Sophie for something of hers he can consume to move the castle, Sophie gives him her hair. The cutting of hair is often symbolic of coming of age in Japanese media. It’s a final representation that Sophie is never going back to the person she was, and that she’s moving forward. 

At the end of the film Howl says, “Wow! Sophie! Your hair looks like starlight, it’s beautiful.”

And Sophie says, “you think so? So do I!”

Sophie loves her silver hair. What she learned as an old woman is never going away. 

It’s not a curse. 

It’s a metaphor, and a beautiful one at that. 

@jonmartinweek Day 4 Tea as Love Language // Beyond the Grave (also a bit of Day 7: Eldritch Powers // Caretaking I guess)

Jon and Martin seasons 1-5 :,^)

Season 3 Elias is so goddamn fucking funny to me I forgot what a rollercoaster he was during my first listen.

Like the s2 finale has Jurgen Leitner giving Jon the whole "monsters are real speech" and Jon's like "I need a cigarette. NO ONE get brutal pipe murdered while I'm gone" and Jurgen fails step 1 because Elias walks in and grabs Jon's point-and-click-adventure pipe he'd been carrying around and Brutal Pipe Murders. Which, of course, Jon walks back in on and is prime suspect #1 due to literally every single feature trait and word he's said in the entirety of s2.

So naturally s3 starts with Jon on the lam and Officer Tonner like "I'm gonna arrest him for brutal pipe murder" and I'M like "Shit. I hate this. Elias is going to SO easily pin it on Jon and get away with it."

EXCEPT Elias walks in and is like "hello Ms. Officer no Jon Archivist did not kill that man, also I won't tell you anything else, also this is what you sound like" while reciting all her childhood trauma and all her illegal activity that will get HER sent to jail for brutal murder of the non-pipe variety and now I'm like "....huh." He's also like "Jon didn't do it but you can kill him if you want maybe :)" Elias your alibi????

And then we come BACK with Jon storming Elias's office with his two lesbian bodyguards as back up and he's like "I'm gonna use my powers to make you confess to pipe murder!" At which point Elias is like "It doesn't work on me. But I'm having fun so Martin go get everyone I need to tell you all how I committed pipe murder." and Martin does and Elias is like "Yes I pipe murdered. I also killed Gertrude. I love murder. You will not be compensated extra for this time. Get back to work." And they... DO... just go back to work. Because work is haunted. One of the lesbian police officers works here now, too. This just happened. "Also living dolls from Russia are about to Apocalypse the world, Jon go stop it," Elias says, while also saying "no I'm not gonna tell you how to stop it."

Okay???? Mr. Elias man??? And you're like "maybe he's a ruthless tactician? Maybe he's brutal but it's all in the interest of stopping the doll apocalypse??? He wants to save the earth???" Except THAT'S not even true it's actually more like he's trying to get the Russian dolls kicked out of line at Disney World so HE gets to meet Mickey Mouse first by which I mean, start his OWN Apocalypse, because if the dolls do it first well then what's the point of apocalypsing a planet that's become someone else's sloppy seconds.

Anyway Elias's master strategy here is to bring the human equivalent of a drowned cat to the gun fight and just sit back and watch Jon fall down every set of stairs he finds while Elias goes "This is good. This will work." His name isn't even fucking Elias.