#Complexities Unknowable

[the-magpie-archives]

One thing I love about Jon is the complete horrified awe he has for the work of the other fears. When something truly horrific happens he's rarely enraged or disgusted, but simply filled with total blatant awe at the inconceivable exquisite grotesquery of it.

#There's several moments where this is really clear and every time I have to stop and sit down cos AH #It's just a beautiful way of writing.... Showing the complexities of a characters reaction to something like that... #Showing his descent into monstrosity... #Also I think I've started like 10 other posts with the same sentence but shhh...... I only have so many phrasings in my brain.... #tma #the magnus archives #the magnus institute #jonathan sims #tma the eye #Tma the unknowing

[oldestenemy]

it’s coming out day!

the young wizard’s gender is so incredibly beyond comprehension.

#and so is mine #still tapping. less murder. #lark is still playing funky wizard game from their childhood #the wizard’s gender is Savior Complex #it is Quest Marker #it is Spell Card #My Gender is Humongofrog #wizard101 #the wizard’s gender is whatever you design it to be #but for themself they are unknowable and un-nameable #the scion the paradox the savior the scourge

[literallyaflame]

i would also be interested in a post on the whole anti/proship topic, bc im also firmly in camp >can we buy some nuance here? no?< (tho i do have a "side" i lean more towards ig) so im defs interested in other ppl having opinions that fall outside the black/white view n talkin about it...bc i feel like lots of us either dont talk abt it both bc of the worry u mentioned abt getting backlash, or bc it just feels like talking to a wall bc nuance is ignored a lot...

my argument is just that “fiction affects reality” and “fiction doesn’t affect reality” both fail to address the issue. fiction is the product of reality, not the other way around. it represents pre-existing notions about the world, and must be evaluated for tonality and intent, not the mere presence of Bad Things

is this depiction of sexual abuse an endorsement of the behavior, or is it a dark erotic fantasy, written by a self-aware author? i don’t know, i would have to read it to find out. does this horror movie fetishize violence against minorities? perhaps, depending on who wrote it and who the intended audience was. is this loli/shota drawing the product of someone who seeks to abuse children, or does the artist just really like frilly dresses?

more importantly, how the fuck do we tell the difference?

well, we’ve gotta start applying media literacy skills to adult content. it’s not any different from anything else, aside from the guilt and shame factor. if we accept that depictions of murder and violence may or may not be problematic, then we have to accept the same truth about sex. not all stories function as self-insert wish-fulfillment, erotica included—but erotica can tell us something about an author’s relationship with sex in the same way that horror can tell us something about an author’s relationship with gore and violence

how and why people consume this content varies, and may or may not be healthy. regardless, we don’t evaluate fiction based on how it may “affect reality.” not even propaganda, the mind-changer of fiction, is that simple; it appeals to pre-existing biases and pre-existing notions because, again, fiction is a product of reality. not the other way around.

you can’t really defend the idea that “everyone who depicts [x] is endorsing [x] and attempting to normalize [x] and is therefore evil” because it’s neither universally true nor productive. you also can’t defend the idea that fiction is utterly divorced from reality, because artists and writers live in reality, and reality influences their art

i hate to say this, but when it comes down to it, i personally don’t give a shit if someone ships wincest or has a ddlg fetish or whatever. maybe they’re a horrible monster or maybe they just have a run-of-the-mill erotic fascination, i don’t know. i don’t feel the need to pass final judgement on individual strangers, even if they make me uncomfortable. i’m more interested in advocating for 1.) ethical, enforceable rules about tagging and filtering sensitive and/or adult content 2.) systems that prevent real-life abuse without reducing it to an evil subtype of person and 3.) the case-by-case application of media literacy skills to the aforementioned adult content, which can absolutely perpetuate all sorts of alarming ideas about sex & abuse

#tw pedophila mention #tw abuse #kind of #listen i mentioned lolishota i feel the need to tag for something fhsjfhdj #dear god i hope this makes sense #I was gonna make this a longer thing and cite sources but tbh #when you break it down it’s not that complex #like #the difference between fetishizing a trans person and eroticizing a trans person #isn’t magical an unknowable #and the solution isn’t ‘ban!! ban all the trans sex videos!!!!’ #it’s just a matter of… you know…. the relationship between the audience and the creator #how and why that relationship is facilitated who benefits from it etc #*and unknowable #man i hate typing tags on mobile lmao

[in-tenebris-et-in-solitudine]

#ocean #horizon #self-awareness #depth #complexity #mystery #unknowable #perspective #understanding #connection #infinity #eternity #timelessness #quotes #art

[incorrect-hs-quotes]

Jade: there are manmade joys beyond my comprehension, too! The horrors aren't special!!

Rose: I read this as 'marmalade joys' and just nodded along

Roxy: there sure are! yum yum orange peel

#submission #homestuck #incorrect homestuck quotes #jade harley #rose lalonde #roxy lalonde #mod terezi #marmalade is complex and unknowable to our mere mortal plane of perception

[thefuturewithoutus]

fiveverse: a decision is made in the tunnels

#the heart #tma #the magnus archives #timothy stoker #jonathan sims #jontim #fiveverse #i like over the shoulder angles and when tim is blocking off jons body with his. its personal to me #also i forgot jon has greys canonically!!! compensating here. imagine he had them in that other comic #anyways for serious i think tim would be 100% on board with jon's idea from the start #judging from how he blew himself up in the unknowing as a fuck you to stranger hed understand #and i think finding out the ritual wouldve failed whether or not theyd intervened and stopping it barely even hurt it... he'd be so pissed #in jon killing the fears hed see the end of any possibility anyone as unlucky as them would have to suffer like they did. #and killing the fears would be so cathartic #even though the way they'd have to do it is incredibly grim and awful.. in this verse im going to say their arcs really culminate in their #worst traits kind of propelling them forward into this decision it's like a negative character arc for sure #also though it's a tough decision. idk how i would've handled it personally #anyways though yeah. let the two guys with martyr complexes figure this out im sure theyll take the option thatll hurt them the least #melanie should've hit them with a steel chair #now neither of them could even leave the panopticon for her to put down #and kind of related but don't even get me started on the orpheus and eurydicing these two get up to.

[roastedsoup]

if i was liveblogging my reread of iwtv i think i’d break my blog tbh

#THE THEMES THE MOTIFS IM HIGHLIGHTING EVERYTHING THE METAPHORS FOR QUEERNESS THE ACTUAL QUEERNESS #THE COMPLEXITIES OF LESTATS CHARACTERS AND WHAT DRIVES HIM AS A PERSON CLAUDIAS INHERENT UNKNOWABLE NATURE AAAAGH #soupy wisdom

[swashbucklery]

Every time I try outlining a next fic and diving into Kit meta she gets more and more nonbinary I don't make the rules I just work here.

#like she doesn't want to be a princess #she has a complex relationship with embodying that gender role #but once you start peeling back the layers of that it's uhhhh #not NOT trans #you know? #also don't ask me what i'm working on next the answer is everything and nothing #i had a clear and specific focus #and now that's done and i have six outlines #and eventually one of them will click and i'll finish it #but which one clicks is up to the vast and unknowable universe #writing tag #kit tanthalos: girl prince #willow: medium powerful magic once adjusted for inflation

[burinazar]

Posting this since I forgot to say it anywhere public-facing besides one random twitter reply. I already prefaced my other visual parallel observations (1, 2) with “other people have to have known about this before me” , but this time that really must be the case…..this one’s not even a visual parallel it’s literally just a symbol sitting front and center with a meaning we were told about in another context. it was only coincidence that I hadn't yet happened to see the image in the right. It's from manga extras. as soon as I did I went “oh omg THAT’S what that thing is……”

#orphan hole tag #wazukyan #made in abyss #immediately fic ideas were spawned lol #my favorite right now is a story where belaf got him that #(but didn’t know it meant anything in particular) #it’s a neat parallel to Bdog being important to Waz because he’s the unknowing doorway to the golden city #and neither of them are quite sure what that means. does he even have value to him beyond that? it aaalll depends on your reading of Waz #and we the audience are unsure just how toxic and exploitative that might make their relationship… #(not as in SHIP relationship. just literally ‘what does that mean for these humans.’ but the messy-complexity potential THERE is ofc huge) #the day i take a break from belavue crimes to write wazubela crimes is the day everyone rightfully defenestrates me from the fandom

[ink-asunder]

Since the trigger point injections have basically cured me, I would like to revisit the time someone in a Youtube comment section gave me UNSOLICITED ADVICE when I disclosed having chronic pain, telling me to "look into a therapist and work on trauma healing. Chronic pain can actually be rooted in childhood trauma" and beat that guy with a chair cuz DAMN.

#i decided to be unknowable in my silence as god because otherwise i wouodve gone off #like. no. i know for a fact that it is medically caused!! i am very literate about my own chronic illness AND complex trauma thank you #it was outrageous #ableism #whats the opposite of overmedicalization where everything instead comes from some trauma related shit #because i am right sick of hearing about it from ppl giving legitimately physically ill people unsolicited advice #chronic illness #chronic pain #disability #disabled #anyway feels good to be right 😌

[reel-fear]

Talking abt how what BA did to Wasp is unforgivable but then saying u like Sentinel 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩

#ramblez #NO I'M NOT GONNA SHUT UP ABT THIS #in general I haven't had a lot of energy to talk so y'know U guys just have to put up with whatever I wanna say rn #bc I don't have the energy to conjure up more than rage rn- #how do people find Wasp at all compelling or tragic at all like did I miss an episode?? #Wasp has two traits and it's cowardly and Mean #that was enough to warrant a ton of babyfying him but BA has actually complex emotions problems and interesting trauma and y'all hate it #like I see it and I gotta tell y'all it's not subtle at all #honestly I really hate how misused the word is nowadays as just When directors objectify women bc the tfa fandom has the Most male gaze #to ever male gaze #to quickly explain no the male gaze is not when men make.women look hot in a movie #it is when male characters are treated as nuanced people with emotions and reasons behind their emotions #and women are treated as unknowable objects with Nothing more going on in their lives or brains #a great example is the walking dead S2 and onward #y do the women do the things they do? well often just to create drama in the story and it's never given reason or speculation in the story #but the men get to have grand talks and speeches explaining why they do everything they do #this can also go thw opposite way sometimes like narratives that depict toxic masculinity as genetic or normal with no underlying cause #meanwhile going deep into the women characters abt their emotions or otherwise tho either way it's usually Very sexist #but anyways yeah the tfa fandom has that going on SO HARD #like heres Wasp and Sentinel canonically their reasons for being assholes is simple they r massive self centered jerks #but the fandom speculates on that crafts backstory and complexities for them and talks about why they do the things they do #meanwhile ESPECIALLY in relation to the waspinator thing ppl don't do that with BA #She intended to cure wasp bc she was desperate to cure herself #she has nearly gotten herself killed on multiple occasions out of self loathing and trying to atleast in her mind fix herself #wasp was a last resort after multiple multiple tries nearly resulted in her death #year and YEARS of being tormented by the fact she can't go home the ppl around her including the cons r all disgusted with her #AND that Sentinel and Optimus ultimately failed to protect her despite putting her trust in them to do so #not the mention sentinels whole Omg ur scars r so ugly u should've died moment #u will never convince me Wasp is worth a damn or his problems matter when he's sitting next to someone who never did anything to deserve #the horrible fate she got

[mrbingley]

this post has me reeling. i am waiting with baited breath for brennan to break the fourth wall as himself. him having a literal self insert via scheherazade would be such a clever and sneaky way of doing so. it would lead to a better reveal rather than “suddenly the characters are talking to brennan himself” it’s “i’ve been here the whole time, as the author of this story yes, but also i have injected myself into the story itself as scheherazade to literally commune with you fictonal characters”. i want a character to roll a natural twenty perception or investigation check or make a nat twenty wisdom save and suddenly notice that every voice here, aside from their party of friends, has a familiarity to it, a certain timbre and cadence, as though every voice is coming from the same throat. how the voice of the stepmother and the wolf and ylfa’s grandmother are all somehow the same and how confusing and conflicting that realization would be. i want pinnochio, the puppet boy who thinks he finally cut himself free, to see strings attached to him still except these ones stretch to a place he cannot see far beyond his world.

#neverafter #SH: Neverafter #J: text #or like the sword of truth protesting at someone's claim of say 'i'm the captain of my fate!' #because they're not. the players are. #based on the first season of the unsleeping city i think brennan kind of likes doing corny reflective stuff (i say this endearingly) #and i can see him doing something of that vein wherein he has the players talk to their characters one on one #a la the players talking to the american dream #one of the morals/feelings that i’m getting from neverafter at the moment is that we in all our complexity and multitudes are unknowable. #no one can know us to our core; know every single element. there are many versions of us that exist in the minds of others and those #versions aren’t more or less real even if that’s what’s realest to them. just b/c a certain perception of you may be the most largely #accepted doesn’t mean that’s you. you are more than what others know even if all that is carried beyond you is #what others know/deign to share.

[pochapal]

*emerges from xml editor visibly shaking, covered in blood*

#:) #editing a defunct sims 4 mod to a) make it compatible with the latest patch and b) work on sims the creator didn't intend it to work on #btw keep in mind i have no understanding of coding and programming and am literally doing this while shitting crying throwing up #there is no guide for any of this and also this is a complex mod with many moving parts #so it really does feel like i am trying to make sense of arcane unknowable deep magic over here #if this works i don't think i will ever shut up about this actually

[applecherryraspberry]

what a communication overload kind of week. tormented relentless by emails messages calls meetings deadlines. rewarding myself with a lil cry and a takeaway order of the best Indian food i've ever had, except for that one inexplicable gem in fort st john

#small town british columbia with better Indian food than north vancouver #sometimes some things can be good #which is weird because many other things are actually very bad #the world is complex and unknowable

[goblin-enjoyer]

Anyone else get a flood of old(ish) animated show clips on your yt recommendations like once a year? Because it happens to me like all the time (well roughly twice a year but you get the point).What and how does the YouTube algorithm manage to consistently do this every year. Like I didn’t even look around that area of the internet at the time and then just adventure time kept popping up(I watched it because show good) and like half of my home page is stuff is Cartoon Network shows. I mean I don’t really mind that much, it’s just oddly consistent.

#It is going to take like a month or something for my YouTube to go back to normal #it was adventure time at first #then it was ok ko #glad to remember that old show #good watch #now it’s Steven universe #and I have to begrudgingly accept that I like that show #main reason I say begrudgingly is because 1:my mind was at a cringe unknowing state. and 2:I like the midsection of the show but I am eh on #the later bits and the early bits of the show #man who knew opinions on media I consumed as a kid can be so complex #this type of thing happen to anyone else? #man I’m tired guess I should tag this midnight brainrot as per usual #I won’t because there’s enough tag here so I’ll just go to bed or something

[lovebugism]

can i request angst☹️☹️shy!reader barely ever talking and being soo hyperaware of everything and steve slowly breaks her out of her shell? then she overhears him saying she talks too much and she just feels bad and reverts into herself

Angst w happy endingn if possible please ily!!🫶🏼

ty for requesting!! — steve tells you he likes when you talk a lot (shy!fem!r, hurt/comfort, established relationship, 1k)

Your smile is wide and unknowing. Steve thinks there’s something extra special about it because you don’t even realize it’s there. “—And since Eddie was working the register, he let me take one of the new tapes for free. You know, to try it or whatever, and he was all like, ‘flattery works with me,’ and I was like, Steve would keel over if he was here right now.”

A giggle spills from your mouth when your rambling ceases, lips curling and eyes crinkling.

Steve blinks at you with his own absentminded beam, too busy thinking about how pretty you are to react properly to your story. 

Your smile sobers slightly. “What?”

“Nothing,” he assures with the shake of his neatly styled head, rogue strands of chestnut hair draping his forehead. He shrugs and leans his elbows over the Family Video counter you stand across. “You’re just… You’re talking a lot. ’S nice.”

Your face heats. Your chest burns with a similar fire. Your eyes widen ‘cause you didn’t realize that you hadn’t shut up until now. “Oh… Sorry—”

“No, it’s good!” he tells you, laughing. “It’s a compliment.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah! I mean, I used to have to bribe you to get you to talk about your day. Remember that?”

Benny’s Burgers was your very best friend at the start of your relationship. Steve would always buy your dinner — not in exchange for you to talk exactly, but in the hopes that the additional time spent with you would help you open up. It did. Most of the time, anyway.

Your nose scrunches. “I thought you took me out because you liked me?”

“I took you out ‘cause I liked you and because the sugar rush from the milkshakes made you talk more.”

You nod once. “Right.”

The conversation ebbs. The store gets eerily silent without your voices to fill it. Steve, undeterred by the lapse in dialogue, flashes you a lopsided smile. “Wanna show me the tapes you bought?”

“Yeah,” you murmur and push off the counter. 

Steve watches you over his shoulder while you saunter down the hallway where your bag is kept. The breakroom door squeals open and shut again. A voice sounds suddenly from beside him. “Nice job, dingus,” Robin chides, gritty and montoned.

His head snaps to the other side, brows twisted with confusion. “What?”

“You hurt her feelings,” she answers like it’s obvious, dropping a stack of VHS tapes on the counter with a heavy thud.

“I didn’t even say anything!”

“You said she was talking a lot.”

“I said that I liked it!”

Robin rolls her ocean-blue eyes, huffing ‘cause he’s too oblivious to get the point. “Yeah, but if I said, Wow, you have a ton of gel in your hair— but it’s styled really nice today, it’d give you a whole complex. Wouldn’t it?”

The make-believe compliment is dreadfully backhanded. Steve’s face floods with a gentle horror, the realization of a fallacy he hadn’t realized he’d made. “Shit…”

“Exactly,” Robin deadpans. “Now go take care of your girlfriend, dingus.”

He finds you in the breakroom, idling in place. You’ve got the cassettes in your hands, and you fidget with them between anxious fingers — like you were planning to come out sometime, but not quite yet. 

You tense when the door creaks open, relaxing again when Steve enters.

“Whatcha doing?” he wonders with a crooked, pink smile.

“Getting the tapes,” you answer in a mousy voice, waving the pieces of plastic in your hand.

The door clicks shut behind him. He inches towards you, fond and terribly soft with it. “I missed you,” he confesses in a faint murmur. His wide palms settle on your sides. You warm instantly under his touch.

“I was gone for two seconds,” you respond with a quiet laugh.

“Yeah. And I felt like I was dying.”

You meet his pout with a small smile, blinking up at him with sparkling doe eyes. “You’re so dramatic.”

“I just love being around you, alright? Sue me,” he argues, squeezing softly at your hips. With a quieter smile, he confesses, “And when I said you were talking a lot— I didn’t mean anything by it, you know?”

You’d disappeared back here because you thought it was something silly to be so upset over. He’d told you it was a compliment, but it didn’t really feel like one. Your brain refused to be anything other than hurt by his well-intentioned remarks. The ache in your chest became unignorable, and you shrunk inside yourself accordingly.

“I know,” you murmur.

“I love hearing you talk,” he tells you, shy smirk widening to a lopsided beam. “It’s my favorite thing in the whole world, actually.”

Your lips purse to the side. Your anxious hands fidget with the plastic cassettes in your palms, aching to hold him. It takes you a moment or more to find the courage to speak. “I’m just… I’m normally super aware of… when I’m talking too much, you know? I was just… Excited, I guess.”

“You were. And it was really fuckin’ cute.” A laugh sputters from his lips. He wears all the love he has for you in the deep honey of his eyes, rich and swimming with warmth. “I love seeing you happy.”

“Well, you make me happy…” you whisper, gaze averted. “So, it fits…”

“Yeah, it does,” he murmurs in response, ducking down to kiss you. It’s chaste and terribly fleeting — lips locking together one moment and then smacking in protest when they separate the next. 

It takes your eyes a second too long to flutter open again after he’s pulled back from you. You find Steve already grinning as he nods to the tapes in your hands. “Wanna pop those into the radio? So we can listen to ‘em while I work?”

Your brows pinch with a distant worry. “Won’t Keith get mad?” 

“Probably,” Steve answers with an uncaring shrug. “You don’t have to worry about him, alright? I’ll take care of you.”

You melt.

#published by bug #steve harrington x reader #stranger things x reader #steve harrington #steve harrington x you #steve harrington x y/n #steve harrington imagine #stranger things imagine #stranger things fanfic #stranger things fic #stranger things fanfiction #steve harrington fanfiction #steve harrington fic #steve harrington fanfic #st drabbles #stevie drabble