#and also fuck cult fiction forever

[charlieconwayy]

Favorite Character Meme [5/5 Relationships]: Shawn & Turner

"Turner took care of you, he loves you. And you love him."

#bmwedit #boy meets world #shawn hunter #jonathan turner #fcmeme #* #gifs: bmw #i will admit i never fully appreciated their relationship until the podcast came out #mainly bc it's just so bizarre to me how in s4 WHEN TURNER WAS STILL ON THE SHOW they barely acknowledged their relationship #and then just never mentioned him again (outside of the one joke in the s5 finale) #weirdos in ao3 archive also soured me #but rider and tony worked SOOOOO well together and hearing rider talk ab how much he loved this sl warmed my heart #any positive memories rider has of playing shawn i automatically latch onto #i love that look turner gives chet in that one gif. like he HATES than man #and also fuck cult fiction forever

[ineffably-human]

We're going to scream about Nandermo all week, but right now I need to talk about Baron Afanas. Because the Baron's arc, so to speak, always felt like a big part of the series DNA for me - and oh fuck did this episode deliver on why.

I think we can agree: in the show, vampire society is fucked up, right?

Vampires on their own have plenty to deal with that can make them crazy. They have to live by killing. They lose everyone from their old lives. They have to find new reasons to keep going on, forever, so shit can get decadent really fast.

But holy shit, what that's turned into in vampire society? Where you actively put cruelty over mercy, and violence over solving your problems? Death cults and scam artists roam free, but if someone has depression the best thing to do is ignore them. Someone can get their mind wiped or be locked up for centuries, and that's just what you do to your species.

--

So: the Baron's arrival is the first conflict of the whole show. The joke is about an ancient powerful creature of pants-shitting terror, vs three lesser vampires who just want to live their lives and not get murdered for being too lazy to conquer humanity. There's a lot of talk about how to please him: do you keep to the old ways, or pick up some new traditions? Decorate with flayed skin, or with glitter? And the Baron says: who cares, you're all soft and useless. All that matters is getting more control over this world, until people are cattle and we have no reason to hide anymore.

But later he confesses: that shit stopped mattering ages ago. He's not even real nobility, he's literally impotent, and he talks about doing horrible things because he doesn't know what else to say. He's angry and half-crazy from boredom. And admitting that, owning those feelings, means suddenly he has three new friends and a whole new world of things to enjoy.

There's the Baron the rest of the vampire world knows, but for one night we see the ancient, unknowable terror was just a guy. Maybe he's always been just some guy.

That fun puts him in a vulnerable position, and he's killed by the most unwitting vampire slayer in fiction. But Baron Afanas is changed. He sucks dirt for a year and still comes out of it with a new lightness and joy to him. He saves the Sire, another ancient terrifying monster everyone was eager to kill or send away. They adopt the hellhound. They get cozy and give advice. They make popsicle stick houses and go on walks. They live.

And that seemed like the end of the story until last night - when the Baron suddenly felt like the butt of a joke everyone knew but him. Spurred on by someone else who feels lonely and ignored, the Baron felt vulnerable. And he snapped back to how he lived for centuries.

'What the hell are you all doing, enjoying yourselves? We're supposed to be unhappy. We're supposed to live centuries of unhappiness, bringing pain to everyone in our path, and we're definitely not supposed to cheer up our friend who's sad.'

--

Nobody liked the Baron before Guillermo killed him, not even other powerful vampires we meet; they saw the Baron as a crazy far beyond their own crazy. But this is also how vampire society values you. It's how they measure Nandor's worth when they think he's dead, too: how old and powerful you are, how much you've been able to conquer and kill.

Vampire pods are both cliquish and aren't expected to last in the first place. If someone dies, you literally paint them out of your lives and forget. Everything we see discourages feelings, sincerity, or even basic companionship. The only way to earn respect is to be cruel. The more cruel you are, the more powerful you are. The more powerful you are, the more feared you are - the lonelier you are, the crazier you are. It's practically designed to create the Baron, or worse.

But new vampires don't behave that way. And the vampires we follow in the show don't behave that way - because they have each other, because they've been encouraged to have each other, often by Guillermo. (Holy shit, Nadja saying maybe she'd be fine dying, and Nandor immediately asking if she's okay? Nothing changes in this house, except everything does. They're not going to almost lose one of their own ever again.)

The vampires in the heart of vampire culture never seem happy to be like this. It doesn't have to be like this.

--

The Baron doesn't become a tyrannical monster for long. Because he never actually was one - and because he spends two evenings and a fireball to the face, watching Nandor and Nadja fight for Guillermo. Watching them plead and cling and defy, seeing Guillermo's earnest feelings in spite of his bloodline and the mistakes he's made. Seeing Nandor's perfect trust, and then his grief, the way he insists that Guillermo was never 'just' anything. The Baron can't find real fulfillment in hurting someone (because that ship sailed ages ago). He can't deride them for caring, because he's cared for a long time now.

And when the Baron admits that's who he is, when he says it out loud, he only gains more in his life. He finds new depth in the happiness he'd felt for a while now, because he's admitted and allowed himself to be happy. And now he has the children he's always wanted. Living together, the Baron and the Sire are still ancient and powerful - and they're also family, finding real joy together in a world that was ready to dispose of them.

"I suppose with the right company, it can be beautiful, this eternal existence."

--

There's an inherent selfishness to being a vampire, taking from someone else in order to live. But there doesn't have to be inherent cruelty, or lack of love.

They're all ready to admit they care. The Staten vampires have all cared for Guillermo or each other in their own ways this season. And Guillermo doesn't lack for flaws, but loving his monster family has never been one of them. (When he and Nandor work their shit out, they're gonna be insufferable.)

Now they just have to let the Guide in. Because she's absolutely starved for love, and vampires get pretty fucked up when they're on their own.

#fandom: wwdits #what we do in the shadows #wwdits #i am a meta gremlin #baron afanas #tl;dr i am a sucker for choosing love #especially when the world around you says it's stupid or you're not allowed #but love was always in you so it happens anyway

[lottiescutecultt]

top three yj characters and why?

1. jackie taylor or shauna shipman - because they're gay. these two characters are my top one because it's hard to choose among them but also because they're one whole person together. like i love how well both of them are written, even in past and in the present. and all their scenes : the exchanging of the necklace as a symbol of love, the jealousy, the betrayal, shauna putting the necklace in the neck of the girls she hunts so that she could eat jackie over and over again (cannibalism has often been portrayed as a symbol of love in many literatures), their little staring at each other moments, jackie haunting shauna forever, shauna keeping her old diaries and clothes just so she could revisit their time in the wilderness. i will start crying now :(

2. misty quigley - she has to be the greatest fictional character ever created cause omg??? the way she actually CRIED when she killed (accidentally killed) nat. i really like her because how complex her character is. she was willing to help all the other girls in the past (even tho she was the one to destroy the black box lol) and even in the present w/o any second thought. probably is one of the most interesting character of yj

3. laura lee - first of all laura lee my bbg didn't deserve to die like that – in a fucking plane explosion??? like she already survived the plane crash then why ahh. but on the serious note, her character too, like misty's is really interesting. even tho she had a short role, she created quite a few plots for the show and her death was so necessary and important for the show. because you see laura would never let lottie literally start a CANNIBALISTIC cult like never ever!! and even if she didn't die she would never participate in the cult. not willingly, never and then she would either be hunted down by the other girls or she'd have to die starving so yes, her death does make a lot of sense. laura's innocence and willingness to sacrifice herself for others are what made me love her so much.

ty @the-lonelyshepherd for asking such an interesting question <3333

#yellowjackets #yellowjackets brainrot #jackie taylor #shauna shipman #jackie x shauna #misty quigley #jackieshauna #laura lee #nat scatorccio #shauna sadecki #lottie matthews #lottielee #taissa turner #tai x van #taivan

[braywashed]

I think the thing that's fucking with my brain the most is the separation of fact and fiction because it's like... we spent years being told that Bray was this unkillable character that would always come back no matter what, and now it's just like...I have to remind myself that in reality he was just a normal guy, it's weird.

It's..... yeah.

Okay - I'm gonna get real wordy and wax poetically and I'm so sorry I'm incapable of just talking and crying like a normal person.

It's like a big old layered burrito of denial on all fronts, right?

Because on the surface, we have a guy who was so young, and that seems so hard to get past in itself. We also have the fact that he was prone to injury at points and disappearing for... months at a time. He had been released and came back, what, a year later? In the meantime there were always a billion headlines with his name, speculating the worst, and it never had any accuracy or mattered. We were always *looking forward* to him returning and he always inevitably did because he had half his career ahead of him still and it always seemed like the best was to come.

And we have all these stories of what a beautiful person he was, a side we roughly knew of but never got to really experience ourselves as an audience.

But the person we saw was, as you said, this unkillable character. Literally unkillable. He told us from day one he could never die and would persist 5000 years from now when *we* were all gone. Because he was this personification of all the darkest bits of humanity and American society come to force us to face our sins. We watched him, silly as it was, get burned alive and come back a shambling heap of melting flesh and be completely restored. He was forever, he was a god, you could always find him and you could never, ever kill it.

And like, as fans, we kindle that kid in us that wants to believe in superheros and villains and we grow over the years with them. We go to events, and we sing his songs, and we thrust ourselves into that role ourselves of characters in a way. Like we were always *his*. Even if you didn't love him, you played into that for his entrance at the very least because it was such an undeniable experience. He talked and you, and every babyface, listened - whether you wanted to or not.

I'll never forget that one match on Raw, still early on, when the whole crowd was first singing "He's got the whole world in his hands" and just swaying, and then turning around and chanting "Bray is gonna kill you." Like, I remember Big E was in that match, and I'm pretty sure he was on the receiving end of that chant. He was over. He was beloved. And the whole crowd was singing hymns and calling for his demise for this literal cult leader that would speak in tongues and Exorcist walk across the ring, holding his heart and smiling with some masked sinister joy at it.

It's really really hard to reconcile he's not actually some biblical force of nature looming over everything and everyone even though we know better. And like, that fan in me that's that eternal kid in a way, is just stomping my feet screaming "but he CAN'T die!"

The end of Smackdown did, and still is, really fucking me up because I kept waiting for the lantern to go out. And like, I couldn't decide if I wanted that. Because on one hand, there's a symbolism there, and a kind of sad beauty, in the light going out. He was with us, and he's gone now, and he can rest (ahahaha I'm going to start crying again). The light fades. But ultimately I'm so glad it didn't go out because A.) I don't think I could've fucking handled it and was already bawling, and B.) It shouldn't go out. Or fade. His spirit of everything he brought to that world should stay with us and with every single performer who goes out there every night and throws their hearts into playing these characters.

And like... maybe, even though it's so hard now, maybe eventually there's comfort to be found in the idea that even though the vessel is gone - *He* will, somehow, always be there haunting us. Because "I have a thousand faces and a million names." We might not see him, but we can choose to believe every time a hero is forced to face their fears that he's there behind it - silently whispering into our ears, willing us on to indulge in every second of it.

#this is dumb maybe #i guess on a less dramatic note anon #i cant remember where it was - probably jo's instagram #there was a pic of them together and he was wearing those stupid glasses he wore in that last segment for the bobby feud #the ones with the gold side frames that look like he stole them from someones mom #like no homie really had those glasses #and i had this moment of like 'oh god he's such a fucking dad for real' #i dont think anything ever threw me through a loop more than that lmao #like 'no i need to repress this imagery immediately i can't believe the eater of worlds looks like someones quirky uncle at the bbq' #now its like im glad for that stuff and the stories and pics and videos etc because it makes me smile seeing that side of him and how he #touched so many people and made people so happy to be around #but it doesnt help the confusion of it all or make it make any more sense #and i have this awful feeling a year from now im still going to be waiting for him to pop up #feeling lonely because no one else is talking about him anymore #oh it got dramatic again im a dumbass im shutting up now

[thephantomcasebook]

Dyana returning for s2 and possibly being involved in jaehaery's death and thus ultimately making it "aegon's fault" is kinda funny when otherwise the blame would've mostly been put at aemond's feet (daemon's hit on the children aside. and let's be for real, it's definitely going to be daemon's hit, and rhaenyra will look like a hapless bafoon). I never "blamed" aemond for b&c reading f&b, but it very much read as a situation of one thing leads to another. aegon's "involvement" now muddies the waters, which can be interesting, but considering aegon's track record on the show it just seems kinda overkill at this point.

I honestly think that a lot of the ground work of vilifying Aegon and creating the fiction that Aemond is a bad person - despite the fact that no one has ever came at me with a reason that Aemond is a bad person in Season 1. It is all in service of trying to justify "Blood and Cheese" and exonerating Rhaenyra from any blame.

Cause, on the surface, in Fire & Blood, there is actually no justification for the murder of the children. Luke was sent into dangerous territory for a dangerous mission, armed - You are always armed when you're riding a dragon. And he got caught up in a personal grudge and duel of which he is he 100 percent responsible for starting and fostering over near a lifetime of resentment.

The murder of Jaehaerys is supposed to be a monstrous act condoned by monstrous people who are unquestionably the villains of the entire dance. And if you still don't believe that, than all you have to do is look at Viserys II basically putting a Taboo on his own parents names - barring his children and nieces and nephews from ever naming or recognizing Daemon and Rhaenyra as legitimate in any way. And why all of Daemon's children defied his legacy by marrying into his rivals families and continuing their lines.

GRRM has a ton of inconsistencies (Shoutout to @duxbelisarius Military Breakdown series) but he has always baked into the narrative that Rhaenyra was a monster and a villain - and is forever remembered that way by the ASoIaF Universal history, not because of sexist historians, but because of her own children who survived.

The main issue with the telling of this story is that it is being told in the 2020's, in which leftist political activism has become the orthodoxy and official opiate mainstream religion of Hollywood and London entertainment industries. Thus, because of inter-sectional feminism reaching cult like devotion in writers rooms and board rooms throughout mainstream entertainment, they cannot show a woman, a protagonist, becoming evil and acknowledging it as evil.

Don't get me wrong, they're still evil characters doing evil things, it's just that these corrupted and morally bankrupt people think that what they're writing is moral. That in their fucked up algebra "Tragedy" + "Justification" X "Girl Boss" = Morality.

Therefore, as long as they give every woman that has been wronged by Aegon and Aemond justification to avenge a tragedy by being proactive girl bosses, than anything that happens to Jaehaerys is morally right.

Thus, in our minds, what happens in "Blood & Cheese" is an unforgivable and purely evil act of savagery that everyone in Westeros for all time condemns as monstrous.

But to nut jobs like Sara Hess, Olivia Cooke, and Emma D'arcry (Or any "activist" in general) - who is only interested in their political and social agenda - Rhaenyra, Dyana, The White Worm, are villainized by sexist historians for being women of their age with power or agency and that they were justified in their evil acts because they are powerful women. In fact the idea that them being women, in general, is justification enough to do terrible things and see it as morally good, because, they were women.

It's the kind of sociopathic behavior rampant on this site with a bunch of weirdo window lickers cuing over "Let women do crime!" which is fine, but those same people also don't want those same women to face the consequences, to face condemnation, to face justice, for the evil they do.

So, to sum up, I disagree with your premise that Rhaenyra will be in the dark about "Blood & Cheese". What I think is that they're building up moral justifications through villainizing the male characters of Team Green of why Rhaenyra is justified in doing what she and Daemon plan to do.

#House of the Dragon #Aemond Targaryen #Aegon II Targaryen #Anti Rhaenyra Targaryen #Sara Hess

[javier-penas-wifexx420]

Fictional men Lana album assignments

Ok so I’m always thinking about this, my fave fictional men are literally so lana coded and I have decided to assign them her albums hehe

Javier Peña- Honeymoon

First up we have my husband, Javi. Javi is 100% Honeymoon like COME ON. He’s so Salvatore coded. Honeymoon is all about romanticism but the darkness within it. And Javi is so cunty in his little tight pants like he’s so honeymoon. Also the lyrics of 24 align with him so well it drives me insane.

“Catch me if you can working on my tan, Salvatore. Dying by the hand of a foreign man happily.” Salvatore

“If you lie down with dogs then you’ll get fleas. Be careful of the company you keep” 24

“We both know the history of violence that surrounds you. But I’m not scared, there’s nothing to lose now that I’ve found you” Honeymoon

“It’s no wonder every man in town has neither fought nor found you” Honeymoon

“When I’m down on my knees you’re how I pray” Religion

“I was so wrong not to doubt your Medellín, tangerine dreams” Salvatore

Joel Miller- Norman Fucking Rockwell

Next we got Joel HEHEHEHEHE JOEL omg ok so this one is a no brainer: Joel is Norman Fucking Rockwell. Like come on how is he not. Like so many of the songs remind me so much of him. I could write a whole ass essay on this one. The whole Joe(L) part of How to Disappear like AHHH R U SERIOUS?? Also happiness is a butterfly and hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have- but I have it. HOPE IS A DANGEROUS THING FOR A MAN LIKE JOEL TO HAVE BRO. I feel like the aesthetic of NFR isn’t very frilly either, she’s in her wetsuit at the beach, in her lil shorts yknow? And I feel like that fits with Joel. Also the color green is very prominent in that album and I rlly associate that color with Joel. I feel like NFR can reflect the relationship Joel would have with a love interest but also the relationship he has with Ellie, like if you take her lyrics out of context I feel like it could relate to the relationship he has with her bc she really healed him and changed him and like broke down his walls which imo is all that NFR is about.

Anyway here’s some lyrics that I associate with him:

“You’re just a man, it’s just what you do. Your head in your hands while you color me in blue.” Norman Fucking Rockwell

“Maybe I can save you from your sin.” mariners apartment complex

“All the pills that you take, violet blue green red to keep me at arms length won’t work” cinnamon girl

“Joe(l) met me down at the training yard, cuts on his face cause he fought to hard. I know he’s in over his head, but I love that man like nobody can, he moves mountains and pounds them to ground again.” How to disappear

“If he’s a serial killer then what’s the worst that can happen to a girl who’s already hurt?” Happiness is a butterfly

“You don’t ever have to be stronger than you really are when you’re lying in my arms.” California.

-This is so him he j needs to be held. The fact that he was the little spoon w Tess :’(

NFR is just so Joel don’t even argue with me.

Negan Smith- Ultraviolence

Next we have Negan and I feel like the choice is pretty obvious. Ultraviolence is probably Lana’s darkest album and it fits him so fucking well. He literally wears a fucking leather jacket like that is Ultraviolence in and of itself. He’s also just a violent person and violence is how he deals with things. I can really see the relationship between him and a female oc being like ultraviolence: really toxic but she can’t get enough. So many lyrics for him. So many

“He hurt me and it felt like true love” Ultraviolence

“I can see my baby swingin’, his parliament’s on fire and his hands are up” West Coast

“When he calls he calls for me and not for you” Shades of Cool

“You’re fucking crazy” Cruel World

“Lay me down tonight, I’m your favorite girl.” Fucked My Way Up to the Top

“You didn’t warn me at the time, but you were worth it anyway” Guns and Roses

“You’re my cult leader, I’ll love you forever, I’ll love you forever” Ultraviolence

“If you send for me you know I’ll come and if you call for me you know I’ll run” Old Money

“Get a little bit of bourbon in ya, go a little bit suburban and go crazy” Cruel World (when he went to Alexandria, got drunk, played pool and murdered a dude)

“But I can’t fix him, can’t make him better” Shades of Cool

“Loving you is really hard” Ultraviolence

“I wait for you babe that’s all I do babe you don’t come through babe it’s just what you do” Pretty when you cry

HE DONT GIVE A FUCK ABT U BITCH CAUSE UR PRETTY WHEN YOU CRY

Tommy Shelby- Born to Die

At first I was vibing with Tommy being Ultraviolence but he’s more Born to Die. His whole outlook on life is very consistent with born to die- when lana said I wish I was dead already. Tommy feels like he’s already dead after surviving the war. He’s Born to Die because although he’s dangerous and a lil toxic he can be very loving and he’s always so gentle with his ladies. And when he falls he falls hard (i.e. Grace) also Off the the Races?? That’s literally Tommy bro

Lyrics:

“My old man is a bad man but I can’t deny the way he holds my hand and he grabs me he has me by my heart” Off to the Races

“Come take a walk on the wild side let me fuck you hard in the pouring rain. You like your girls insane” Born to Die

“I’m in his favorite sundress watching me get undressed” Video Games

“No one even knows how hard life was I don’t even talk about it now because I finally found you” Radio

“He headed out on Sunday, said he’d come on Monday. I stayed up waiting anticipating and pacing but he was chasing papers. Caught up in the game it was the last I heard” Blue Jeans

“I don’t know how you get over, get over someone as dangerous tainted and flawed as you” Million Dollar Man

FINALLY

Pedro Pascal- Did you know that there’s a tunnel under ocean boulevard

Ik I said fictional men but Pedro is the source of my comfort in this cruel world and I had to include him. I feel like Pedro is this album because it’s Lana’s most personal album. In the other albums on this post she’s kind of creating these stories but with tunnel it’s very personal and real. Since Pedro is an actual real person I feel like this is an appropriate choice since he has a lot of depth just like tunnel. Also Pedro really cares about family- his relationship with his sister, and has suffered loss to suicide just like Lana has. And tunnel explores themes of family, loss, healing and trying and struggling to find love. Like bro Pedro is Sweet. He’s sweet and he’s Sweet. Yknow?

Idk abt lyrics bc idrk what he’d resonate with but here’s the songs i associate with him:

The Grants, Did you know that there’s a tunnel under ocean boulevard, Sweet, Kintsugi, Paris Texas, Fishtail, Let the Light in, Taco Truck x vb

Ok that’s all thanks for listening🖤🖤

#dilf lover #fictional men #pedro pascal #jeffrey dean morgan #joel miller #negan smith #tommy shelby #cillian murphy #lana deal rey #lana album #javier pena narcos #i love joel miller #i love dilfs

[fagdykefriendship]

i also think u should play ascended astarion. i’m not in camp “if you have fictional characters do a bad thing it means you’re bad”. no actually i think part of the fun of the medium of video games is being able to explore multiple sides of a character. astarion when he heals has to give up his freedom. he’s relinquished to being a spawn forever, hiding in the shadows. it’s not what he wanted. in fact, he fears it from the very beginning. it’s fucking tragic. ascended astarion gets what he thinks he wants. he’s not scared anymore, he’s free. he’s fully “himself”. (this parallels dark justiciar shadowheart So Well btw) ascended astarion is also just a terrible person. he revels in the power he has. unrestrained bloodlust. he wants to control the player character just as cazador controlled him. and when you’ve played both routes it’s also fucking tragic. when you know that he had the capacity for love and restraint of his bloodthirsty tendencies but you still let it happen. idk just thinking about astarion.

i think astarion’s primary parallel character is gale. both were victims of much more powerful beings, both are overly affectionate to the player character to hide their own wounds, both are ambitious for power. the main difference is gale is more inclined towards good while astarion is more inclined towards evil.

same with shadowheart/lae’zel parallels and karlach/wyll parallels btw. shadowheart and lae’zel have both been indoctrinated into cults around evil goddesses who want to use their genuine passion. both of them don’t want to be bad they want to be strong and do what they believe is right. they can both either remain blind or decide to wake up and renounce their god, rebel under selune or orpheus.

wyll and karlach are both beholden to the hells. they can’t get free of the desperate situations that led them to be reliant on internal power. they’ve both been villainized despite being the most inherently good characters in the game. even though both want desperately to do the right thing, they’ve both been driven by desperation and fear and pain to do the wrong things. they both feel betrayed by father figures (duke ravengard and gortash).

this turned into a ramble but anyway yeah. bg3 and narratives. finding out the “bad” endings for the characters is important too if you want to understand them.

#bg3

[justagalwhowrites]

Hello, me again bestie.

This ask is a little different than my usual though.

I will be spending several hours on a plane tomorrow. This is where I wish I had some self-control and didn't read everything the minute it's posted. I will definitely be finishing Beskar Doll. I'm soooo sorry it's taken me forever. Don't get me wrong I love Din but he definitely takes a back seat to Joel.

Anyways, back to the point of my ask before I started rambling. By the time I board tomorrow I will have finished all of my ARC reads and my TBR is way too overwhelming to even know where to begin. So I'm wondering if you have any book recs? If you have any fic recs that are long enough to keep me occupied most of the trip I will take those too.

I hope you have a great day!

Hi Bestie!

Omg please do not apologize for not finishing one of my fics lol I’m just thrilled you read them at all!! I hope you love it!!

As for book recs, I’ve been really into Taylor Jenkins-Reid this year. I read Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo in a day and Daisy Jones and the Six in two, I just couldn’t put them down! I’m also a sucker for anything by Gillian Flynn, Sharp Objects in particular. I read Corinne by Rebecca Morrow in like a day, too. Also really good, about a woman finding herself as she leaves a borderline cult religious group.

Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk is another favorite. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, American Gods by Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere (also Neil Gaiman), Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Loathe as I am to suggest Rowling to anybody but the first few books of her Cormoran Strike series (under the pen name Robert Galbraith) are great if you can get a ✨free✨ download to not spend any money because fuck that woman (I haven’t read the last few because fuck that woman and also apparently no one reels her in during editing anymore and the recent ones reportedly sucked.) If you are/were a Twilight girlie, Stephenie Meyer’s The Chemist (it’s a thriller for adults) is somewhat addictive!

For non-fiction, the Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama was a fascinating read, especially in the context of a post-insurrection world. Anything by Jon Krakauer - Missoula in particular but I also did a huge paper for a capstone project in college on SA so grain of salt and all the trigger warnings. I also go through phases of being really into random historical things and I read a fascinating book on Chernobyl a few years ago that I think about often (Chernobyl by Serhii Plokhy). Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich made me want to become a journalist and I adored Waiting: True Confessions of a Waitress by Debra Ginsberg. Candy Girl by Diablo Cody was also great.

Sorry, I know that’s a lot!!! I hope some sound interesting and that you have a fabulous trip, bestie!!! Love you!

#kit answers #send asks #book recs

[hazardsoflove]

sorry i’m still upset about #that in v2 so lil rant under the cut <3

the duffers are such fucking cowards. like why are you hyping v2 up so much and teasing all these deaths when you don’t even have the fucking balls to kill off any of your main cast. this szn literally followed the same formula as all their other ones and fuck the whole “the deaths aren’t predictable” thing they said because yeah they were lol. like i didn’t want eddie to die obviously and i rly thought he wouldn’t but given the fact that they always kill a new character and there were so many signs etc etc but he was probably the stupidest character to kill off. like sorry but i’m pissed he died while the two fucking russian guys who are never going to be seen again and did nothing get to live. and i like argyle but i’m still mad he got to stay over eddie i just don’t see him having any agency if hes in s5. like you’re gonna waste all that talent and potential and chemistry and TIME you spent on developing his character and wardrobe and go to great lengths to market him and promote his actor and then kill him?

and don’t even fucking get me started on the fact that he’s still a villain in the eyes of hawkins. that is the ONE thing i didn’t want them to do. i would’ve been more okay with him dying if the town got to see that he’s actually innocent but the fact that he will forever be seen as a ritualistic satanic cult murderer to hawkins just devestates me. it feels like a slap in the face to his character too like. he literally did not need to die. he played the hero by leading the bats away from the creel house he should’ve just fucking left with dustin but instead they had to fucking kill him for basically no reason and have him die IN DUSTINS ARMS effectively traumatizing him and then do some fucking two days later bullshit where NO ONE except dustin seems to be affected that eddie died. like didn’t even tell mike??? where was the scene of lucas and erica finding out??? robin steve and nancy??? like sorry but i’m sick to my stomach over the fact that they had to leave him there. he was treated like shit at the end and it just hurts me so much it makes me so fucking SAD

and dustin. god when he talks to eddie’s uncle?? that scene make me wanna kms so fucking bad because dustin loved eddie so much he looked up to him and having to tell his uncle that he died that he always knew he was innocent and that despite what the town thinks he died a hero? he died a hero and it doesn’t even matter. like sorry for getting so worked up over a fictional character and tv show but his death ruined the rest of the ep for me. like i was just sitting there like 🧍🏼‍♀️ and i’m so glad max didn’t die bc i love her!! but it’s like. there were no stakes. none of the mcs died. they built up all this hype for like five weeks and for what. and also??? how the fuck can el do that what did she even do. since WHEN can she do that. i would literally sacrifice murray and jonathan in a heartbeat for eddie. i’m just fucking glad jason got bisected

anyway i’m developing insane theories abt how eddie can still win bc they said the upside down being stuck in 1983 is important for s5 so fuck it they’re time traveling somehow. joe quinn i will avenge you

#st spoilers #its rly my only bunch of criticisms #that and what the fuck was steve going on abt with nancy. dude?? #r.txt

[dirhwangdaseul-archived]

a rant

man y'all lead some real weird boring ivory tower lives with very little thought into your morality like very superficial morals really, i always knew the bl fandom was like that to more often than not the point of amorality with how easy they participate in certain dynamics supposedly in the name of fiction and romance, a conversation for another day like you ever think you could have more out of the text you're being given? cause man every damn time there's a bl with a dynamic of power that involves labor, consent is never part of the conversation, like is it even possible for palm to consent, is it even sth they can call part of the reality of the couple's love with how much the world is gonna try to tear palm and nuengdiao apart, like how does the commentary on labor escape the discussion of the messages of the series proper of what that means for two people to have to participate in said dynamics by force with one being less in the eyes of an empire than that of the king he protects... nor is it participant in the conversation what it means for a character to diminish themselves for the hierarchy of that empire which is maintained through the power money entails like ever, and being quite honest it's not isolated to bl using this kind of setting that this happens, years of romance exist before yaoi, where bl has its roots and which ofc simply borrows from straight romance things we still see in the feminization of one side of the couple but also a conversation for another day...

like, this all to say that i saw someone call nueng's mom a good mother in the tags man and i had a moment of why are stories never understood to be the sum of its parts rather than one isolated moment, and i really had to double check it was the actual never let me go tag because i don't think we're watching the same show people, i think you're showing how much you have sold yourselves to romanticizing capitalism and the hierarchies it creates to the extent you don't see or think about what it really means for palm to have to become subservient to someone else's literal life, to have to give up his life because another's is being held above his own, that palm knows that he will always be less than nueng whether nueng wants to accept the circumstances of their reality or not, and that nueng keeps wilfully ignoring it.

that this has been plotted by their parents together escapes you in its full magnitude like so much of what palm's dad does to palm flows from tanya, just because she's warm to nueng while she tells him that his life and worth are forever tied to an empire that has taken over the lands and livelihoods of thousands of people? it doesn't erase the weight of her entitlement, control, and thus her power, and that instead of creating trust in her own family, she decides to burn all bridges to isolate nuengdiao while also pronouncing the treatment of palm as a servant like i don't know where to fault the writers and where to fault the character because i believe a good dose of self awareness would serve either in trying to convince me and palm that his life is worth less than the money that is gonna be given to his father or to him before palm indeed has to die for nueng like if he turns i won't wonder why because idc there's no universe in which one life can be traded for some capitalist bitch's ambitions, this isn't even the mafia which entails cult like understanding as well of a rough world and trading one's life for some fucked up higher purpose, and like even there it's some sick shit to feed romance, like tbh the world has to justify it for me at least, but there the violence of what they have created justifies in some level laying one life for another person like the understanding of that higher purpose, but here for nueng and palm, here where money is so visible as the root of despair and separation.... palm doesn't get to have that fucking luxury, not in this story, he's falling for the charm of his charge, sadly, the romance is there for him baiting his very innocent understanding of life, how could it not bloom and be in him in such fucked up circumstances where nothing yields love for him, and yet, yet a part of him screams... servant... for he understands his degradation whether nueng sees it yet or not

SERVANT... one of the two in this sweet sweet sweet couple is dehumanizing himself in the performance of his labor AND the romance being joined together, his worth is tied to someone that sees him from the outside, but who chooses to obscure his eyes to who he really is, like again this is part of this supposed romance, palm's participating happily in his own dehumanization and somehow i'm meant to find the romance in how little control palm seems to have of his life and how much the creation of meaning is coming from nueng like it's insane how this commentary is there, the creation of a soulmate of a sick and twisted fairytale, and yet i do see some of you acting like the divine right of kings when it comes to nueng's position and his blindness towards that power, and just because tanya sells it with a warm smile and kind words doesn't make the destruction of land or the dehumanization of her workforce any less fucked up, tanya accepted her son, good for her, that should be the norm make no fucking mistake tho, but honestly let's go back to thinking into the fucking structure of the story, what choice does she has anyway i wonder???? when she has denied other families into her own, when she has denied her own family, so now even a tension now runs between chopper and nuengdiao over it, tanya is not a good mother, and honestly with the way the grayness of the show and jojo tichakorn's other works usually go....

i would just stop trying to categorize the characters as good or bad if you even believe there's such a way to see people in general, cause man live long enough to know you get the chances to be all, and like that's what gets me about fandom and stories like this, since for example where your eyes linger which clearly laid out freedom as the only means for this romance to work with a happy ending and not some romanticized worker abuse and people still preferred the power dynamic to thrive over getting to a moment in which both characters could consent freely in their meeting, and like i wish we actually got a better characterization for palm till this week when maggie stepped in finally to talk some sense into him because boy was he just reacting to everything only and he keeps falling for the beauty of his charge without caring for himself, like with all the messages of anti capitalism id expect a more critical view of the levels of the relationships and what their carefully crafted images present to us that's all like that's all im saying, my thoughts in the end but honestly i just don't believe tanya to be a good woman, she's just warm and kind in her life, but that hides how much she and her husband fucked up and are leaving an empire of shit to nuengdiao, i honestly hope he and palm get out, but most importantly i want nuengdiao to wake up to the fucked up amount of power he has, like for once i'd also like the writers to take this shit seriously if they're also gonna refer to real world politics...

#never let me go #or will the writers much like fandom fall in their owb trap and romanticize the fucked up dynamics #like don't yall enjoy the true fucking power of explored convoluted politics #and the mess it can create in characters with critical thinking skills #pp #also tell me you have never known dehumanization in the workplace nor are you capable of recognizing #situations where you might risk that and thus becoming participant in your own dehumanization #sorry if im being condescending im high and its 4am almost lmfao #and im a communist first so fuck nuengdiao fuck his mom fuck chopper too for good measure #although chopper is.......... angel shaped....

[jouskadevil-blog]

Vent//

I'm reminded of an anti I knew irl who drove me out of the only irl queer resources I had. I felt like I couldn't tell anybody with the threat of possible doxxing or mass harassment over my head. I feel so alone, like nobody will ever side with me, and that I'm a monster that'll forever be isolated because I like taboo fantasies. This particular anti is a complete doormat irl. They avoid confrontation, and will fucking cry if they have to make a phone call. But they use the internet as a shield to bully and harass people. They admitted their goal was driving people to suicide over fiction. They admitted that they go after poor queers instead of rich mainstream creators cause "it's easier". Importantly, they also called pro-shippers and paras "sociopaths/narcs".

Before I knew they were a piece of shit we used to give them rides to/from the group for free even though they lived way out of the way. Someday I'm going to run into that cunt and tell them they're a fucking coward. That they're a fucking transphobic abuser for pushing me out of the only group I had.

Maybe someday I'll tell the group owner about this person and their abusive actions. Antis are fucking dangerous and their actions affect people irl. If you're an anti or sympathize with them whatsoever (this includes anti-paras, fuck you!) I hope you know you're hurting isolated, abused, trapped-in-a-cult, disabled queer people. But you do know that...and you don't care because hurting the vulnerable is your goal. You're not an activist. You are evil. Fuck with me irl ever again and you're done. You deserve every horrible thing that's happened to you and will ever happen to you. You're the reason my OCD is so bad. I hope you get this illness just as bad as I have it and it ruins your life.

Edit: if you want to know who it is, DM.

[areyouafraid]

ocean ask

i can't find the original poster for the life of me but i found this in my bookmarks somewhere and wanted to do it

pearl: if you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go and why? i'm not sure! i'm in this weird headspace where i kinda want to travel but i don't know where to. i've never actually gone outside of new england at all. it can be really expensive and honestly depending on what you're doing it can be exhausting. like i couldn't imagine going to see like the eiffel tower and waiting in traffic forever and planning everything and then you get there and it's crowded and you're waiting forever... it just sounds not fun. but i do want to see the world i just don't know what that means to me yet

sails: describe your perfect partner. IDK. someone i can relate to

lighthouse: how much makeup do you wear? i never wear makeup. when i do i feel like i just look weird

shells: would you prefer to be a vampire or a werewolf? i was a vampire kid but i think being a vampire probably imposes more restrictions on your lifestyle. do you turn into a werewolf whenever the full moon is out or just whenever you look at it? i think i could handle being a werewolf and still like live normally

mermaid: most embarrassing moment? i will not answer this

turquoise: weirdest dream you’ve ever had? one time i was in an abandoned stable or pig farm and a little horned black goat told me in a high pitched voice that "it's so much fun playing with [me]". one time i read someone's fiction website and got transported to a demonic version of my street. one time i was a member of a cult that spoke entirely in french and latin and took part in a ritual sword-fight-to-the-death with the daughter of the leader. one time i was a child being escorted through a suburb by a man in a cloak and there were dead, mutilated dogs on the roofs and lawns and he was telling me not to look at the dogs. one time i picked up a teddy bear on the side of the road and was teleported to an endless garage inhabited by a demon. one time i worked in a deli with cell from dragon ball. one time i was trying to have sex with a robot but his arms were made of like pop tubes or slinkies and it was super weird

waves: favourite season and why? i used to hate the cold season but after how bad these last few summers have been i've made amends with it. i love winter now

breakers: would you ever consider getting married? i always thought the concept was weird. i mean i would if my partner wanted to but it just seemed like... it's just so much to go through and it doesn't really change what you are to each other. in my head, you don't love a "girlfriend" less than a "wife". they're the same thing. i guess there's like a financial benefit to getting married or something, but it's just. you know weddings are so out there and they're this whole... thing, and then if things ever don't work out or go south between the two of you, divorce is this whole process that can take fucking forever and i feel like the process of getting divorced can take a breakup that would otherwise be fairly amicable and just make them hate each other by the time it's through. i just dont really. get it

seafoam: describe your ideal summer vacation. probably to fucking antarctica or greenland if i'm going to be completely honest. summer is a terrible time to do big things

rain: if it were possible, what exotic animal would you keep as a pet? i wanted a giant african millipede at one point. i also wanted silkmoths and yellow mealworm beetles. if i had to go for something really ostentatious i'd say me and an octopus probably have a lot in common

sunlight: least favourite song? i don't know i don't really listen to music i don't like

marine: would you ever consider plastic surgery? i have considered it before. body troubles can make you consider a lot of things you wouldn't usually. but normally i would say no. still sometimes you have days where you think... i need lipo, i need my boobs cut off, i need leg extensions, i need this i need that etc

sea glass: what do you consider to be your best physical feature? maybe my eyes or my nose. idk

storm: do you like piercings and tattoos? Why or why not? i liek both

boardwalk: who is your favourite fictional couple? i dont kneeeowwwwww. idk... shin and noi, c-3po and r2-d2... honestly those are the first two that came up when i thought "fictional pairings that i like". im not really into shipping

coral: if you had to describe your personality as a food, what would you be and why? i wrote the answer for tidal b4 this one. ummm... probably something like salt or chili for the same reason. they can be good notes when they're subdued, but when they're prominent they can be overwhelming

nymph: old-fashioned or modern decor? i can't decide. they kinda feed into each other

seawater: scariest movie you’ve ever watched? not sure

siren: in a fantasy setting, would you be a warrior, rogue or mage? i obviously can't be a warrior... so either rogue or mage. being a mage would be cool i think

tempest: your favourite Pokemon? ummm... sawk gliscor flygon gyarados mightyena breloom emboar electivire hypno mr mime mewtwo granbull and others

tropic: what is your least favourite thing about your appearance? never ask me this

aquamarine: describe your dream date. i don't know! i don't think about this a lot. what defines a date? what gives it value? i'd say that any time you spend with someone you love has intrinsic value, it doesn't have to be an occasion

brine: gold or silver? hmm... im inclined to say gold but i can't imagine a gold wallet chain so that's a bit of a deal breaker

tidal: what is a colour that best describes your personality? my personality? ummmm i've been told that i have a "mature" or "organized" air, and i do try to remain calm and rational when faced with a challenge, but i know personally that i tend to be very obsessive and i panic when things don't go according to plan. my own desire to live in the moment and not care is undermined by that 1. i tend to fixate on the potential risks and outcomes of something INSTEAD of whether it would make me happy and 2. i do care about what people think of me / how people perceive me / how something will impact the future. maybe green or red. deep or faded tones can give a sophisticated and professional impression, but bright tones can be bold and produce a wild and jarring image

azure: what is something that you do that makes you happy? i liek video games and listening to music

fog: describe where you think you’ll be in five years. hopefully alive and well

coastline: what is your favourite flower? hydrangea perhaps. or the utilitarian dandelion. or lilacs!

shallows: what is your typical Starbucks order? IDK

voyage: what are your favourite names? like for people? or for animals? nicknames or given names? i don't know man

shipwreck: do you have an OC? If so, describe them. i have many. but eek im embarrassed

cerulean: do you believe in true love? idk. define it

shoreline: if you could become fluent in another language, which would you pick and why? i did french in middle and high school and fell out with it. in 2022 i learned some russian but also just stopped making time for it. since i already know the cyrillic alphabet i've considered ukrainian. my grandparents were ukrainian so i feel kinda like i have a ... responsibility? i don't know. i also feel like i should at least try to reach fluency in french because ... i spent that money on the dictionary and i spent the time in the classes and i should at least finish the job

tsunami: describe a dream outfit of yours. ONE THAT LOOKS GOOD ON ME

riptide: are you introverted or extroverted? Are you happy with this? i suppose i would be an "introvert" bc gatherings and stuff tend to make me feel drained after a while. it's certainly... a source of inconvenience, but i don't necessarily think it doesn't work for me because i generally don't maintain large circles

hurricane: describe a strange habit of yours. i make a lot of html files. just like... simple lists and bookmarks and stuff like that. like for example i don't have an account on etsy or anything like that so my "wishlist" is just an html file with links to things from online stores i'm interested in. it makes sense to me but saying it aloud it definitely sounds weird lol. i'm a little worried that i might die and someone will get access to my computer and think "wow. what the fuck was wrong with her"

#my posts

[oflgtfol]

I don't know if you're the person to ask about this but at what point do the "HELMET CULT!!!!11111 BAD SCARY EVIL" crowd start dipping into Islamophobia re: hijab and such

sorry i meant to answer this forever ago but instead i forgot about it in my drafts

so i've hesitated on speaking about this because i'm not muslim myself and i don't want to be that person who says like, oh real people being mean to a fictional group of people is juuust like [insert real life form of bigotry]

but. like. i don't know. i do feel like a comparison can be drawn, especially in the way i think it does expose people's thought processes about cultures other than their own. like is being mean to a fictional culture on par with real life bigotry? no but i think if you find a fictional culture scary, or evil, or demonic or savage, maybe you should in fact take a step back and think further on WHY you think that? what exactly about that fictional culture do you find so alien and evil? because THAT does have an impact on real life people

so what, exactly, about this fictional culture who highly value wearing head coverings, makes you so up in arms and ready to demonize them? what exactly about wearing a head covering makes you so eager to call it a cult and dismiss any credibility it has as a sympathetic, nuanced, and interesting culture? so yeah i do find it suspect about your attitude about real life people who have similar practices and i will fully judge you on it idgaf

especially because the thing is, i see mostly white culturally christian people saying these things, and on one hand i am also white and culturally christian, but i feel like my own experience coming from the same POV as these people means i can see just how transparent they are in why they feel this way and why it's such BS in the first place!! like i KNOW what you're doing and you're not subtle about it.

especially when they use the same language that IRL bigots use, the whole "ohhh taking off your [helmet] must be so liberating" just the word liberating should set off so many alarm bells in your head but these people just say it with no hesitation

so like, i don't think it's my place to fully say whether this is like outright islamophobia, but at the very least i do still think you're incredibly fucking weird and insensitive if you read the entire show through the lens of like, Wearing Helmet Bad, and you definitely need to interrogate why you would feel that way

#ask #Anonymous #mando posting #i'd encourage you to go look at what actual muslim mando fans have said on the topic #alas i have no recommendations because i get hives when i look at main sw tags and i only follow like. 3 sw blogs total

[ciaran-archive]

Sorry to pry but can you elaborate on the authenticity post and what you don’t like about Ender’s Game? I don’t mean this in an accusatory way btw I genuinely wanna hear you complain about it.

WHY YES I WOULD LOVE TO BITCH ABOUT ENDER'S GAME

my fatal flaw as a person is that i cannot stop thinking about ender's game . like this book lives in my head in a way that far better books i've read just don't and i think that's partly because it did so much to me.

i read it when i was, 13, i think? like. i was just kind of figuring out that i was queer, i was weirdly uncomfortably obsessed with m/m relationships, even the vaguest implication of lesbianism made me feel sick and awful, i was pretty depressed, i had very few friends, and i wasn't....in a good place at all.

and i read ender's game and it kind of maybe saved my life? it showed me that being alone and being lonely weren't inherently a death sentence. it allowed me something i still don't have a name for. ender and valentine and peter felt like facets of a reality i nearly had, and in their reflection i could be something more like myself. who knows where i would have been but for ender's game!

it also fucked me up so bad.

one of the core messages of ender's game - and of a lot of OSC's other work - is that you cannot be truly Original, and you can't Create Anything Worth Creating, if you derive from the work of others. to make something Really Great you must isolate all your creativity and not allow anything else to influence it or it will be tainted and suspect forever. like not in those words but in that essence, that was clearly one of the subtexts of the book.

the other core message is "it is necessary for adults to hurt children; it is irresponsibly stupid as a child, especially a clever child, to trust that adults will ever not hurt you" and combined with the valorized loneliness of the first message it kind of.......still messes me up? and one of the reasons it fucked me up was because i was so bad at adhering to its lessons.

and that's my problem with ender's game at the end of the day: it's like drinking nuclear waste water when you're dying of thirst. like yeah it'll save your life but it'll also teach you how to justify doing the worst things possible (to yourself and others) and i was damned lucky that fiction was my first outlet for those urges and justifications because good god i don't like thinking about what it would've been like directed at myself without any barriers! and it was pretty bad even so!

OSC is also wildly unreasonably and rabidly homophobic so there's, uh, that. To Deal With.

the thing about authenticity is that it doesn't really exist. there's no true self, only selves less articulated or entirely unacknowledged for whatever reasons. sometimes those selves aren't given form because they have nothing to do with us. but we exist in a constant state of becoming; we are built in relation to our surroundings, and we can never strive to be free of influence. isolation is its own form of torture.

there are no authentic cultures either, only arbitrary markers we place in our pasts to delineate the "real" from the "influences" like every culture isn't a snapshot of its moment in time. things are always changing and turning into something new. they rarely become more "themselves" because the idea that you can strip away everything an outsider gave you and still end up with something either real or worth having is....kind of sad, really? do you want to know the person you are without everyone you've ever loved?

it's one thing to talk about capitalism and the commodification of the self and cults of personality and another to act like the very act of articulating your identity in a series of labels/aesthetics/shiny online things inherently corrupts your "soul". this process exists offline also; we are always building ourself to be approved of or disapproved of or reacted to or ignored by the people around us.

but people get really bogged down in the idea of authenticity and the specter of a real self that can be accessed by jumping through various hoops (go offline! go on instagram! make a succulent garden! get a tiktok! buy this thing!). and then they start acting superior because they don't need the internet to feel like their "real self" - as a friend said, sounds like they have a surprising amount of ability to be their real self with parents and bosses and cops - like i'm sorry! some of us are queer and trans and autistic and can't access an offline social group! and even if i did i would prefer to be online a lot of the time: the internet is full of spaces where i'm safe and in control, and that's just harder irl. and my experiences aren't any less valuable than those of someone with different ones.

...anyway, that's on authenticity.

#asks #anon

[rataltouille]

GEOMETRY OF THE HOLY MOON (1 AM): A SHORT STORY

GENRE: surrealism, literary fiction.

POV & TENSE: this little space is not enough for how wild the form is so i talk about this later!!

SETTING: a small desi village, 1924-25.

TONE: dreamy, unsettling, melancholic.

THEMES: faith vs reality, how people perceive others and how they perceive themselves, grief dealt the wrong way.

AESTHETICS: the splash of water on a quiet night, thick clouds obscuring the sky, rippling the moon’s reflection on the water. the intensity of a garden in spring, the emptiness of a dying town, the suffocation from being singled out. hands grazing lightly but never fully held. a lingering sadness behind your laugh. believing in things you shouldn't believe in. putting faith on a starless sky.

STAGE: completed first draft, 4085 words.

LOGLINE: a young boy, surrounded by loss, claims to talk to god. the story follows him and his conversations with this god, all while his village spies on him as he weaves his way around the two most crucial and lonely years of his life.

LITERAL LOGLINE: on today’s news let’s talk about a small backward town that hates sad little boys who worship god, even though the place is lowkey a cult!!

CHARACTERS:

THE SUMMER BOY: he’s around thirteen, and he’s very emotionally attached to his past. he lost his family at a young age to an unstable force, so he spends his time talking to himself. he’s a quiet, demure and sweet person, always willing to help others. he’s outwardly oblivious and sees only the good in people to a point where he doesn't understand when they’re trying to do him wrong. but! considering how the story [like a lot of my others] has themes of perception vs reality, it needs to be said that he isn't all that innocent. he’s rather impulsive and rash, never afraid of hurting himself [and thus accidentally harming others].

A GOD: is he real? do we even know if he’s an actual god? a very elusive figure despite having a lot of screentime. he’s a surprisingly humanised character and arguably the one with the most empathy. he has a soft spot for the boy and the two have a deep bond which is not common for a human and a god to have. you don’t get insight to what the other gods are like, but they’re implied to exist. this story has a very messy and hazy view towards religion and godhood and their nature towards humanity, and this vague figure, a dreamlike character, is proof enough of that.

THE VILLAGE: okay so in general these people suck. the village consists of, well, the village, but they’re very fluid in the way they appear in the story? as in for the most part they appear as a collective, a unit. one character, the summer boy’s “friend”, is somewhat separate considering he’s a pretty important character. it’s very hard describing this unit of a character but essentially they’re the main antagonistic force and they hate the protagonist for seemingly no reason.

WHAT GOES DOWN:

sometime around this time, the boy chances upon meeting his “god”, this being who lives up in the clouds and whom he talks with often, except you don't know if this god is real or not. that’s one of the recurring themes of this story: what’s real and what isn’t. it’s :) a fun time :) for sure :)

essentially Things Happen And It Only Gets Weirder. i cannot even try describing what happens because it’s all very spoilery but let’s just say that this is a very sad story but not even in a “this makes me cry” manner, but rather in a “this is so fucked up wtf why”. the prose of this is very, very hazy and thick, in a manner that’s both smooth and suffocating. there’s also a lot of moon and water imagery which we love. i love the atmosphere + the setting—colonial india— as it’s a subtle but key element to the plot.

FORM:

OKAY YES be prepared for the true colours of how unhinged i am. i apologize for the form brainrot.

POV: so in this story i really said “what if it had all three of the main povs... jk jk... unless 😳😳” and then proceeded to use all three povs. you’re probably wondering, how did i do that? WHY did i do that? and my answer to that is: 🙂

the first-person pov: the summer boy narrates in first person. his pov takes up about 40% of the story, and this is where we unlock family backstory + how he feels about the various forces playing into his life. he’s an extremely unreliable narrator and he knows it; his narration oscillates between very naive and very self-aware, and this effect is pretty disconcerting. the summer boy is kind of a walking contradiction and we love that conflict.

the second-person pov: a god narrates in second person. his pov takes around 20% of the story, and his scenes all involve his conversations with the boy. his pov is extremely detached, and suspends belief because he seems awfully made up. there’s an edge to the prose in his narration, where you know that something's off, but you can’t exactly pinpoint what.

the third-person pov: the villagers narrate, either as a collective, or as an individual figure, in third person. they take up the other 40% of the story, and there are so many different people and differing opinions with this, and every time we read a third person excerpt it’s a different person, and this is mostly used to add onto the different ways in which the boy is perceived. this is also where the structural part of the form gets really wacky.

STRUCTURE: if my story isn't told in vignettes is it my story though /j. gothm is told in vignettes, each one between 50 to 500 words. the first and second person bits are normal-ish vignettes, with straightforward narration. the third person vignettes, on the other hand, are super assorted. we have a lot of epistolaric sections— there’s a letter, a folk song [which was found around the summer boy], and most of the conversation is told as just plain dialogue without tags. there’s also a phone call transcript, and finally some normal chunks of prose. what am i doing wtf.

also to add onto this the story is told non-linearly. 😀 the only thing that keeps me from going insane is the fact that there are chronological tags before most vignettes [also the manner in which they're tagged differs from pov to pov. for example a few of the third person conversations are marked just as “sunday” or “thursday”, while the summer boy’s narration is marked with the full date and year]

in all this clownery i completely forgot to mention what the tense was [the way everything else was so complicated that i forgot tense was a thing lmao] and good news!! it’s the only sane thing about this story!! it’s told fully in present tense. thank everything.

AN EXCERPT:

okay i’m once again not sharing much because this will be submitted to litmags 🧞

[The boy is scrawny as always. He carries an air of diswant— even death had rejected him when the plague killed only his grandmother— but walks like he doesn’t notice. He smiles at them, jitters, and wipes his hand across his knees. Blood comes away in thin, translucent lines. He saves it on the kerchief he keeps tucked in his shirt, careful to dirty the cloth even more. The villagers scrunch their noses in disgust; who knew how old and rotten the kerchief was, or how long it had carried blood like the unwashed sword of a warrior?]

also by the way this excerpt is in square brackets because it is a third-person interjection in a vignette that is otherwise first-person [at this point...]

SPARE THOUGHTS:

this was inspired by a conversation i had with my grandfather, where he was telling me about how people used to sing songs to the skies, as a way of devotion to a specific god. he used the [loose translation of] the english word “yearning” to refer to the emotion the singers would invoke, and that sparked the concept of a disillusioned young boy who talks to the moon as a way to please the god he’s in love with. it’s a very softly disconcerting story and once again deals with the theme of “perception vs reality” which if you know me and my work, is the theme i’m forever obsessed with.

i really like how this turned out? the atmosphere is exactly how i wanted it to be, and there’s so much i have to add on as i edit and i’m really looking forward to that. this is also the only short story i’ve written where i knew which litmag i’d love for it to be published in? like i never write things with publishing in mind, but for some reason while writing this story it occurred to me that it would be a perfect fit for this specific magazine and i love that. anyway if you’ve made it through the post till here,,,, bless you and your braincells. and that’s all for today!!

#am writing #writeblr #wtwcommunity #atlastracking #ofcolourtracking #crabappletracking #tw death #tw plague #tw blood #the way this post gets increasingly incomprehensible... #love how my blog has just descended into pure chaos post-hiatus #geometry of the holy moon (1 am) #god complex #god complex intro

[olderthannetfic]

I get that there has been a lot of mostly young people harassing and such, but like... the amount of hate I see young people getting seems kind of hypocritical?? Like older fandom members are great, and yeah these kids probably don't know the half of it, but... I doubt the fandom moms were perfect as fandom kids. No one is. But there is zero empathy to be found, and all these people espousing downright hatred for kids on the internet. I *work* with kids for a living, if anyone were to dislike them it would be someone who is with them 24/7, but... they don't deserve this. Especially since some TERF or SWERF or some other conservative shit fuck got to them first, probably a parent. Idk. It's complicated.

--

“Fandom mom” is almost always a pejorative applied by somebody else, honestly. I’m middle aged and trying to get pregnant, and I would never use that dumbass term for myself. But yes, no generation of fandom is flawless. In the past, the m/m shippers tended to be more pro-kink simply by virtue of a homophobic world classing m/m with extreme shit, while the people yelling about ~problematique~ fiction tended to be overtly conservative homophobes. But my fellow m/m shippers were idiotic in plenty of other ways.

Having now spent several years hearing from more randos about the depressing shit that has happened to them, I find myself knowing a lot of 20-somethings who got ostracized by their entire friend group and threatened with all the material those “friends” knew because they had been friends. Even if they were shitty little bullies as part of that pack (and quite a few of them were), that’s no way to live! Nobody deserves to live in fear that all their friends will turn on them if they’re honest about themselves or that their tastes make them a future abuser or that it will be impossible to find another group of friends later.

The problems of ostracism by the other side are very real. It came up memorably after a bunch of the thanfiction stuff in the past and after Laura Hale fought with OTW supporters. I remember the conversations around how it’s important to give people space to back off from their more toxic friends without viewing them as Forever Suspect. All you do then is isolate them with that person you don’t think they should be listening to, whether that person is a full on abusive cult leader or just a persuasive jerk. (And the fact that those conversations were happening points more to the fact that being the bigger person isn’t the norm in these situations and never was.)

I’ve seen some of those conversations in recent years with that “support ex antis” stuff, but it’s pretty small compared to the volume of messages I see that are like “If I back off from my friends, they will hunt me, and nobody else will want me now either”.

I also pretty regularly run into 20-somethings who are much more ship-and-let-ship in the first place asking me where on earth they can go find some “pro ship” friends, and I never know where to send them. The fact is, all that “conservative Protestantism in a gay hat” stuff has its claws into their age group, no matter which labels people put on themselves.

I don’t think there’s zero empathy. I think when directly asked about it, a lot of older people who are actually paying attention to fandom drama will talk about the social forces in play and how it’s not every young person. But when it’s not the direct topic, people make sweeping cranky statements that are the age equivalent of “Ugh, men!” or “Ugh, the straights!”

I agree: objectively, young people don’t deserve all this blanket blame. OTOH, all the people bitching didn’t deserve all the harassment they’ve suffered, and overly general salty statements are a fact of life on social media. I’m not holding my breath for this pattern to improve any time soon.

I say 20-somethings because, in my experience, a lot of this is 20-somethings and not people younger than that. Tumblr discourse and a fair quantity of twitter discourse is a bunch of 25-year-olds fighting with a bunch of 35-year-olds. Or a bunch of 22-year-olds fighting with 27-year-olds. It’s old vs. young, but it’s not even all that old or all that young. I assume the actual kiddos are off fighting with each other on Amino or something.

People can be dumbasses, including about history, at any age. (Try asking your average person lecturing about strikethrough literally anything about anime fanworks fandom history...)

#fandom meta #Anonymous