#as in they generalise about him as an author

[allforthesong]

I find it weird when people who have only read like House in the Cerulean Sea and Under the Whispering Door talk about TJ Klune's books and how wholesome and sweet and family friendly his books are 😂

#as in they generalise about him as an author #gestures at tales from verania #t j klune #😂

[not-terezi-pyrope]

Often when I post an AI-neutral or AI-positive take on an anti-AI post I get blocked, so I wanted to make my own post to share my thoughts on "Nightshade", the new adversarial data poisoning attack that the Glaze people have come out with.

I've read the paper and here are my takeaways:

Firstly, this is not necessarily or primarily a tool for artists to "coat" their images like Glaze; in fact, Nightshade works best when applied to sort of carefully selected "archetypal" images, ideally ones that were already generated using generative AI using a prompt for the generic concept to be attacked (which is what the authors did in their paper). Also, the image has to be explicitly paired with a specific text caption optimized to have the most impact, which would make it pretty annoying for individual artists to deploy.

While the intent of Nightshade is to have maximum impact with minimal data poisoning, in order to attack a large model there would have to be many thousands of samples in the training data. Obviously if you have a webpage that you created specifically to host a massive gallery poisoned images, that can be fairly easily blacklisted, so you'd have to have a lot of patience and resources in order to hide these enough so they proliferate into the training datasets of major models.

The main use case for this as suggested by the authors is to protect specific copyrights. The example they use is that of Disney specifically releasing a lot of poisoned images of Mickey Mouse to prevent people generating art of him. As a large company like Disney would be more likely to have the resources to seed Nightshade images at scale, this sounds like the most plausible large scale use case for me, even if web artists could crowdsource some sort of similar generic campaign.

Either way, the optimal use case of "large organization repeatedly using generative AI models to create images, then running through another resource heavy AI model to corrupt them, then hiding them on the open web, to protect specific concepts and copyrights" doesn't sound like the big win for freedom of expression that people are going to pretend it is. This is the case for a lot of discussion around AI and I wish people would stop flagwaving for corporate copyright protections, but whatever.

The panic about AI resource use in terms of power/water is mostly bunk (AI training is done once per large model, and in terms of industrial production processes, using a single airliner flight's worth of carbon output for an industrial model that can then be used indefinitely to do useful work seems like a small fry in comparison to all the other nonsense that humanity wastes power on). However, given that deploying this at scale would be a huge compute sink, it's ironic to see anti-AI activists for that is a talking point hyping this up so much.

In terms of actual attack effectiveness; like Glaze, this once again relies on analysis of the feature space of current public models such as Stable Diffusion. This means that effectiveness is reduced on other models with differing architectures and training sets. However, also like Glaze, it looks like the overall "world feature space" that generative models fit to is generalisable enough that this attack will work across models.

That means that if this does get deployed at scale, it could definitely fuck with a lot of current systems. That said, once again, it'd likely have a bigger effect on indie and open source generation projects than the massive corporate monoliths who are probably working to secure proprietary data sets, like I believe Adobe Firefly did. I don't like how these attacks concentrate the power up.

The generalisation of the attack doesn't mean that this can't be defended against, but it does mean that you'd likely need to invest in bespoke measures; e.g. specifically training a detector on a large dataset of Nightshade poison in order to filter them out, spending more time and labour curating your input dataset, or designing radically different architectures that don't produce a comparably similar virtual feature space. I.e. the effect of this being used at scale wouldn't eliminate "AI art", but it could potentially cause a headache for people all around and limit accessibility for hobbyists (although presumably curated datasets would trickle down eventually).

All in all a bit of a dick move that will make things harder for people in general, but I suppose that's the point, and what people who want to deploy this at scale are aiming for. I suppose with public data scraping that sort of thing is fair game I guess.

Additionally, since making my first reply I've had a look at their website:

Used responsibly, Nightshade can help deter model trainers who disregard copyrights, opt-out lists, and do-not-scrape/robots.txt directives. It does not rely on the kindness of model trainers, but instead associates a small incremental price on each piece of data scraped and trained without authorization. Nightshade's goal is not to break models, but to increase the cost of training on unlicensed data, such that licensing images from their creators becomes a viable alternative.

Once again we see that the intended impact of Nightshade is not to eliminate generative AI but to make it infeasible for models to be created and trained by without a corporate money-bag to pay licensing fees for guaranteed clean data. I generally feel that this focuses power upwards and is overall a bad move. If anything, this sort of model, where only large corporations can create and control AI tools, will do nothing to help counter the economic displacement without worker protection that is the real issue with AI systems deployment, but will exacerbate the problem of the benefits of those systems being more constrained to said large corporations.

Kinda sucks how that gets pushed through by lying to small artists about the importance of copyright law for their own small-scale works (ignoring the fact that processing derived metadata from web images is pretty damn clearly a fair use application).

#not-terezi-speaks #ai #nightshade

[lightsoutletsgo]

anxiety gremlin — op.81

pairing: oscar piastri x anxious!reader

word count: 3.5k

warnings: mentions of anxiety and generalised anxiety disorder, description of physical symptoms including; nausea, headaches, sweaty hands, stomach pains, brain fog, mental struggles, mentions of panic attacks but reader doesn’t experience one, mentions of food and making food related decisions. PLEASE READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!!  hello loves! this one is very personal to me and it was a pretty selfish write tbh... I wasn't sure if I should post it but I decided to do it in the hopes that it brings people some comfort. Oscar's dialogue at the end is a message that I, as the author, want to remind you all. you've got this, even if it doesn't feel like it! happy reading love mimi

Sometimes, it felt as though the world was out to get you. You faced the world and your flight, fight or freeze instincts kicked in. When you woke up, it seemed like it was going to be one of those days. That unexplainable feeling of nausea turning your stomach and an unexplainable headache pulled at the back of your head. Your jaw tensed as the nausea hit you in another wave and you forced yourself to roll over and close your eyes. Maybe if you could get back to sleep you’d wake up feeling better. Your mind however, had other ideas. Instead, deciding to send you down the spiral of impending doom - a lovely gift first thing in the morning. Thoughts whizzed through your head; Why did you feel so nauseous? Why did your head hurt? Had you forgotten something? What were your plans for the day and was that why this horrible feeling was creeping up? You sat up, accepting that you wouldn’t be falling back asleep and decided to get ready for the day. Perhaps a shower would help? The warm water was soothing as it rushed over you and whether it was the heat or the steam or the fact you were doing something to distract yourself, for a moment you felt a little better. Exiting the shower you decided that while the nausea had subsided, it would be a good time to start hydrating and maybe think about eating something. Your phone rang and dragged you from your internal rambling, “Hi baby!” You smiled, despite the fact that your boyfriend couldn’t see you, “Good morning angel,” You could hear Oscar’s dopey lovesick grin through the phone, “how did you sleep?” You set him down on loudspeaker as you got dressed, “I slept okay! How about you?” “I would have slept better if you didn’t keep stealing the blankets…” You gasped, “I do not!” Oscar laughed, “You absolutely do! One night I’m going to record you for evidence.” You giggled, “You do that baby.” Oscar nodded then realised you couldn’t see him, “I’m just calling to find out what you want for breakfast? I figured I’d stop off at that little cafe that you like on my way home.” You gulped, you had no clue what you wanted or how to decide, “I’d love that, thank you handsome!” You thought frantically for a solution, “Uhh you can choose for me! I trust you!” There was a pause on the other end of the line, “Are you sure angel?” “Yup, mhm, so sure!” “O-okay…” After making Oscar promise to drive safely, you hung up. 

You realised that for a moment while talking to Oscar, you hadn’t even thought about feeling anxious but it was as if that realisation had summoned the feeling back. All of a sudden your hands felt shaky and it was hard to focus on anything but the disconcerting feeling in your chest. Sitting down on the couch you did your best to control your breathing. Sometimes you wished that it would just turn into a panic attack and be done with. Anything would be better than this on-off-on-off situation. It was like feeling a sneeze that wouldn’t leave your body. Unsatisfying and unsettling. 

The front door opening made you snap your head up and you realised that subconsciously you had been rubbing your hands on your sweatpants to try and get rid of the clammy feeling. You shook your head and smiled as Oscar walked through the door, you were just a little bit anxious, it was no big deal. 

Oscar beamed at you as he entered the living room. He noticed that you seemed distracted and almost a little shifty. Your eyes kept darting around the room and your hands were absentmindedly picking at a loose thread on the hem of your t-shirt - a habit you usually despised because it had the potential to ruin your clothes. He said nothing, just walked through the room to the kitchen and placed down the paper bags filled with breakfast. “You okay there angel?” You nodded at him but it wasn’t enough to reassure him, “Are you sure?” You nodded once more, why now of all times were you feeling sick again? You sat there grinding your teeth together and clenched your jaw, feeling too sick to open your mouth and reply. You wanted to reply, you really did! But your brain had decided that words were a step too far. “Did you do something while I was out, hmm?” Oscar joked but all it did was make you more anxious, ‘was he angry?’, ‘was he going to shout at you?’, ‘breakup with you?’, “Come on troublemaker, you can tell me!-” “Nothing! Nothing happened! Now will you please stop asking.” You snapped, immediately clapping a hand across your mouth in shock before the tears were welling up in your eyes. “Oscar I’m so sorry… I’m so sorry baby I shouldn’t have snapped… Please don’t be angry!” You rambled a million miles an hour as your hands began rubbing and grabbing the material of your sweatpants again, not even realising your breathing had turned heavy and you were sweating. Oscar stood there in shock, he had never seen you like this before, was this because of him? He slowly approached you, not sure of the issue and not sure how to resolve it. “It’s okay angel, it’s okay” He held his hand out to you but you shook your head, talking through a clenched jaw in the hopes it would help the queasy feeling in your stomach, “Hands sweaty.” Oscar nodded, “Okay then, can I sit next to you?” You nodded, he gently took a seat next to you, careful not to jostle or jolt you, “Is this a medical emergency?” You shook your head, “do I need to call an ambulance?” You shook your head once more, feeling like you wanted to cry.

How embarrassing that you were having an episode like this in front of your boyfriend after hiding it so well for so long. And even more embarrassing that you couldn’t tell him what was going on let alone why you felt the way you did, “Is this a panic attack?” You shook your head no. Oscar made a little ‘oh’ and sat quietly next to you, unsure of what to say or do. You took a deep breath and forced yourself to open your mouth, despite how heavy your tongue felt. “I’m just a bit anxious.” “What about?” You shrugged, “Nothing. Everything. Hard to explain.” Oscar smiled at you through your one word answers and short sentences, “Well I can wait, it’s okay.” You nodded, hands starting to tingle with how long you’d been rubbing them against fabric and you winced as a sudden cramping feeling started in your stomach. Oscar seemed to notice your discomfort, “Please let me hold your hand angel, I promise I don’t care if it’s sweaty and you think it’s gross, I just want to help okay?” You nodded, breathing deeply and letting him take your hand in his. 

As soon as your hand was in his, his thumb was rubbing gentle circles over the back of your hand. A soothing motion that you let your eyes focus on. Watching his hands and how they moved, anything to keep your attention off of the anxious feeling. 

As he sat next to you Oscar wondered how he should approach you to talk about this. Clearly there was something you weren’t telling him. He thought he knew what it was and he understood why you hadn’t told him. He knew that people got anxious, hell he was always anxious before a race, but he also knew that for some people it went beyond unsettling feelings. He guessed that that’s what you were dealing with too. He’d seen Logan feeling like this a few times and so he wracked his brain to try and remember what the American had told him was useful. How about distraction? It was worth a shot! “Want to watch a film?” You nodded, eyes still laser focused on Oscar’s hands. “I knew you had a thing for my hands but you are allowed to blink you know.” He joked, cracking the smallest sound of an exhale of laughter from you, that was a start. “What film should we watch, hmm?” He grabbed the remote to start flicking through options, his hand never leaving yours, but aware that there was enough space between you so you didn’t feel smothered. “I think something cute and funny? Yes that’s a goooood plan Oscar.” You gave a weak smile once more as he talked to himself and he smiled at you, “how about Tangled?” You nodded and he selected the film, settling back into the couch, head looking at you once more, “Do you want to cuddle?” You shook your head and he just shrugged, wanting to keep you as comfortable as possible,  “That’s okay, you just let me know when you do, okay?” You nodded and he squeezed your hand to comfort you, “Do you want to sit back on the couch?” Your body was still tightly wound and feeling like a live wire so you shook your head, physically unable to relax. And still all Oscar did was smile at you.

As the film started, you did your best to focus on it, finding yourself unable to stop smiling and releasing some of the tension in your shoulders at various points when your boyfriend spoke the lines along with the characters, with facial expressions. You watched on screen as Rapunzel and Flynn entered the Ugly Duckling Pub and you realised your body finally felt relaxed enough to sit back against the couch. Oscar silently breathed a sigh of relief, all he wanted to do was fix it for you but he knew that he could only do so much. 

By the time the next song had finished, your body was subconsciously leaning against him. Your head rested on his shoulder and he gently tilted his head to rest on top of yours. You gave a little contented sigh. As you sat there, a wave of tiredness hit you, the physical symptoms and mental strain you’d been feeling since you woke up taking its toll. With Oscar’s warm body next to you and the comforting sounds of one of your favourite movies on screen, it wasn’t long before you felt your eyes beginning to slowly close. Oscar looked down at you and saw that your lashes had fluttered shut. He pressed a gentle kiss to the top of your head and let his own eyes slip shut. 

When you woke up a couple of hours later, the TV was off and you were laying on the couch with a soft blanket covering you. You sat up and sleepily rubbed your eyes, “Osc?” You heard low music drifting through the door to the kitchen and you could hear Oscar mumbling to himself and humming along, cursing occasionally when pots and pans clanged together. He poked his head out from the kitchen door, “There’s my pretty girl. Good morning angel.” He cooed at you and the way you blinked back at him sleepily. “What time is it?” “It’s lunchtime! I was just reheating breakfast.” You nodded, sitting up and pulling your knees up to your chest as he padded across the room to take a seat at the end of the couch by your feet, “I’m sorry.” Oscar’s eyes searched your face as you looked down at your hands in your lap. Oscar’s hand rested on your knee, “Angel, you never have to apologise for something like that…” He trailed off, hesitant to ask you his next question, “do you want to talk about it?” You inhaled slowly, nodding, “Yeah I think I would.” He gently nudged you with his elbow and you shifted back to let him sit in front of you, both of you sitting cross legged. He held his hands out to you and you took them with a shaky exhale.  

“Umm… I’m not exactly sure how to explain it?” You admitted, your fingers playing with his own in an effort to keep yourself grounded as that familiar feeling of your shoulders tightening and nausea creeping up began to settle in. He followed your gaze, “That’s okay, we have all the time in the world. Explain it however you feel is easiest.” You nodded once more, “So obviously you noticed that I was feeling anxious,” He tilted his head to one side to show you he was listening as you continued, “That’s because I have generalised anxiety disorder. And the thing is… I feel like that most of the time.” You admitted shakily, desperately willing yourself not to cry. If Oscar was surprised or taken aback he didn’t show it, instead just linking your hand with his and squeezing, encouraged you continued, 

“There are good days and there are bad days but I’m always anxious… There’s this constant feeling of underlying panic or anxiety or this sense of impending doom.” You looked up and noticed how Oscar’s eyes searched yours, willing you to understand that he wasn’t going anywhere, “I feel nauseous, I feel shaky, my hands get clammy, sometimes it’s like I forget how to breathe, my head and stomach hurt for no reason, my head goes fuzzy and it’s hard to focus on anything but the feeling of how anxious I am…” “Baby…” Oscar breathed, you gave him a watery smile, tears filling your lash line, 

“It makes me irritable, it makes me bitchy, it makes me snap at people I love, it makes me sensitive and emotional, I cry a lot, I cancel plans at the last second, I keep to myself and I build my walls up…” You trailed off, meeting his gaze and noticing that his eyes were filling with tears too, “Sometimes it feels like I’m two people. Me and my anxiety.” You couldn’t help the way the tears fell with a choked sob, “Angel, can I please please give you a hug?” Oscar pleaded, itching to pull you into his arms and comfort you. 

You nodded through your sobs, finally feeling the huge emotional release that had been building since you’d woken up. He reached for you, gently grabbing your arms and pulling you forward onto him. Falling back against the arm of the couch with you against his chest as you both stretched your legs out. He held you for what felt like forever, tightly wrapping his arms around you and stroking your hair, gently murmuring to you and kissing your forehead. When your sobs had subsided a little, he wiped your cheeks, “My sweet girl…” He gently pressed kisses across your face, relishing in the way your crying eased and you let out a little sigh after each one, “Thank you so much for telling me angel.” He paused, “Can I ask why you didn’t tell me before?” He asked gently. You sighed, fisting his t-shirt in your hand as you fought the nervous feeling that made your stomach flip. His hand rubbed up and down your back in a soothing motion as he felt you tense up in his arms, “I’m not mad at you baby, I just want to know what I can do differently in the future. I’d hate it if you didn’t feel safe enough to come to me for help.” You nodded, nuzzling into his chest, attempting to block out the world and focus on Oscar. Just Oscar. 

“Everyone I’ve told has left…” You mumbled sadly, “Hmmm?” His voice was soft, like he didn’t want to scare you out of answering, “I told a few people growing up, uni friends and stuff, and they would always answer with the usual ‘oh yeah I feel anxious too’... Until I explained I had diagnosed anxiety disorder and then,” you sighed, “then they would tell me it was too much for them to deal with, or they would get mad at me for ruining plans, or tell me to just get over it when I tried to talk to them about it.” Oscar’s hold on you tightened a little as he felt a spark of anger burn inside him. How dare they? Anyone could see that you were trying your best, he gave you his full attention as you continued, “I guess all of those things mean that I have a hard time opening up and trusting people with the knowledge of my diagnosis because it’s always backfired… Please don’t be mad at me… I do trust you, I just…” “Hey,” Oscar’s voice was low to ensure he didn’t trigger you, “I’m not mad or disappointed at you baby, I’m frustrated with myself for not noticing sooner.” “I’m pretty good at hiding it,” you admitted, the two of you led there in silence for a moment before Oscar spoke again, “Well I’m beyond proud of you. For dealing with it everyday and for opening up to me.” You tilted your head up to look at him and pressed a soft kiss to his jawline, “Thank you for listening.” He smiled back down at you, “Of course.” 

You summoned up the courage to ask him the question that had been on your mind for a little while, “H-how did you know how to help?” Oscar breathed deeply for a second, “There’s someone on the grid who uhhh, struggles with the same thing. They’ve opened up to me and explained what helps them so I figured I’d try?” You pushed yourself up to look at him in surprise, “Someone on the grid?” Oscar nodded, “I won’t say who, because it’s their thing to disclose and explain,” You nodded, “Of course!” “But they’re doing their best to work on things and ask for help and they’ve been doing really well.” Oscar made a mental note to ask Logan if he would consider talking to you. “Well, Tangled was a great choice!” You giggled as Oscar nuzzled his nose into your neck, “Yeah? I wanted to pick something that wouldn’t make you feel worse.” You couldn’t help the way you threw your arms around him and cuddled into him, so thankful for him and the thought and care he gave to you. “I love you.” It was muffled against his chest but he knew what you wanted to say and so with a chuckle he kissed the top of your head, “I love you too, angel.”

You stayed there for a moment before he was gently pushing you to sit up so he could look into your eyes, “I want to say something.” He hesitated and you nodded at him to continue. He gently held your chin with one hand, keeping you looking at him as his other hand found yours in your lap, linking his fingers with yours and squeezing, despite the way your hands were starting to get a little clammy again, “You may have anxiety disorder but it’s not who you are, baby.” Your eyes widened, he continued, “You are not your diagnosis. There is so much more to you than that. You are kind and caring, you’re smart, you’re beautiful, you’re creative.” Your heart melted at how passionately he was speaking. “You’re loved and valued by me and so many others, angel… I love you, the anxiety gremlin that comes with you and all.” You giggled at how he referred to it, “Anxiety gremlin… I like it!” He smiled, kissing your nose, you scrunched it up and he kept talking, “I know I can’t fix it and make it go away, believe me baby I wish that I could. But I promise that I’ll be here through all the bad days and the good days. I’ll do everything I can to make it easier and more bearable for you.”

You couldn’t help the way you started crying again, happy tears this time, Oscar’s thumb gently wiping them away, “So when you’re feeling up to it, we’re gonna sit down and talk about how I can help. What I can do when you’re having a bad day, the things we can do together, how you like to be distracted, how I can help when we’re out in public, maybe a codeword?-” You giggled as he started speaking faster and faster, you stopped his rambling with a soft kiss, pressing your lips to his, your hand cupping his face, thumb rubbing over his cheek, “That sounds perfect baby, thank you.” Oscar kissed you once more, pulling you into him, “You just let me know when you’re ready.” You nodded, “I will, I promise.” “Good! But for now, we still need to eat our breakfast!”

#mimi.writes #tw anxiety #f1 x reader #f1 x you #f1 x y/n #f1 fic #f1 angst #f1 fluff #oscar piastri x you #oscar piastri x reader #oscar piastri fic #oscar piastri angst #oscar piastri fluff #oscar piastri imagine #oscar piastri oneshot #f1 oneshot

[boyfridged]

i’ve been thinking a lot about what is so unique and appealing about 80s robin jay’s moral standing that got completely lost in plot later on. and i think a huge part of it is that in a genre so focused on crime-fighting, his motivations and approach don’t focus on the category of crime at all. in fact, he doesn’t seem to believe in any moral dogma; and it’s not motivated by nihilism, but rather his open-heartedness and relational ethical outlook.

we first meet (post-crisis) jay when he is stealing. when confronted about his actions by bruce he’s confident that he didn’t do anything wrong – he’s not apologetic, he doesn’t seem to think that he has morally failed on any account. later on, when confronted by batman again, jay says that he’s no “crook.” at this point, the reader might assume that jay has no concept of wrong-doing, or that stealing is just not one of the deeds that he considers wrong-doing. yet, later on we see jay so intent on stopping ma gunn and her students, refusing to be implicit in their actions. there are, of course, lots of reasons for which we can assume he was against stealing in this specific instance (an authority figure being involved, the target, the motivations, the school itself being an abusive environment etc.), but what we gather is that jay has an extremely strong sense of justice and is committed to moral duty. that's all typical for characters in superhero comics, isn't it? however, what remains distinctive is that this moral duty is not dictated by any dogma – he trusts his moral instincts. this attitude – his distrust toward power structures, confidence in his moral compass, and situational approach, is something that is maintained throughout his robin run. it is also evident in how he evaluates other people – we never see him condemning his parents, for example, and that includes willis, who was a petty criminal. i think from there arises the potential for a rift between bruce and jay that could be, have jay lived, far more utilised in batman comics than it was within his short robin run.

after all, while bruce’s approach is often called a ‘philosophy of love and care,’ he doesn’t ascribe to the ethics of care [eoc] (as defined in modern scholarship btw) in the same way that jay does. ethics of care ‘deny that morality consists in obedience to a universal law’ and focus on the ideals of caring for other people and non-institutionalized justice. bruce, while obviously caring, is still bound by his belief in the legal system and deontological norms. he is benevolent, but he is also ultimately morally committed to the idea of a legal system and thus frames criminals as failing to meet these moral (legal-adjacent) standards (even when he recognizes it is a result of their circumstances). in other words, he might think that a criminal is a good person despite leading a life of crime. meanwhile, for jay there is no despite; jay doesn't think that engaging in crime says anything about a person's moral personality at all. morality, for him, is more of an emotional practice, grounded in empathy and the question of what he can do for people ‘here and now.’ he doesn’t ascribe to maxims nor utilitarian calculations. for jay, in morality, there’s no place for impartiality that bruce believes in; moral decisions are embedded within a net of interpersonal relationships and social structures that cannot be generalised like the law or even a “moral code” does it. it’s all about responsiveness. 

to sum up, jay's moral compass is relative and passionate in a way that doesn't fit batman's philosophy. this is mostly because bruce wants to avoid the sort of arbitrariness that seems to guide eoc. also, both for vigilantism, and jay, eoc poses a challenge in the sense that it doesn't create a certain 'intellectualised' distance from both the victims and the perpetrators; there's no proximity in the judgment; it's emotional.

all of this is of course hardly relevant post-2004. there might be minimal space for accommodating some of it within the canon progression (for example, the fact that eoc typically emphasises the responsibility that comes with pre-existing familial relationships and allows for prioritizing them, as well as the flexibility regarding moral deliberations), but the utilitarian framework and the question of stopping the crime vs controlling the underworld is not something that can be easily reconciled with jay’s previous lack of interest in labeling crime. 

#fyi i'm ignoring a single panel in which jay says 'evil wins. he chose the life of crime' because i think there's much more nuance to that #as in: choosing a life of crime to deliberately cause harm is a whole another matter #also: inb4 this post is not bruce slander. please do not read it as such #as i said eoc is highly criticised for being arbitrary which is something that bruce seeks to avoid #also ethics of care are highly controversial esp that their early iterations are gender essentialist and ascribe this attitude to women #wow look at me accidentally girl-coding jay #but also on the topic of post-res jay. #it's typically assumed that ethics of care take a family model and extend it into morality as a whole #'the ethics of care considers the family as the primary sphere in which to understand ethical behavior' #so #an over-simplification: you are allowed to care for your family over everything else #re: jay's lack of understanding of bruce's conflict in duty as batman vs father #for jay there's no dilemma. how you conduct yourself in the familial context determines who you are as a person #also if you are interested in eoc feel free to ask because googling will only confuse you... #as a term it's used in many weird ways. but i'm thinking about a general line of thought that evolves into slote's philosophy #look at me giving in and bringing philosophy into comics. sorry. i tried to simplify it as much as possible #i didn't even say anything on criminology and the label and the strain theories. #i'm so brave for not info-dumping #i said even though i just info-dumped #jay.zip #jay.txt #dc #fatal flaw #core texts #robin days

[gabessquishytum]

Inspired by the cringe experience of sending a (horny!) ask to the wrong mutual who then published it in good faith:

Dreamling tumblrinas where Dream runs a blog on writing and when Hob sends the most beautiful erotic short fic he's ever read he has to wax lyrical about it but then Hob begs him to delete the ask.

I keep thinking that maybe one day I'll write a fic where Hob has a porny tumblr blog.... so this is very much adjacent to the way I'm thinking atm.

And remember my friend. There is no cringe. Only freedom.

So Dream runs this blog and its very sfw actually!! He posts romance fiction and moodboards and occasionally fantasy things, plus generalised writing tips. And he also publishes asks from other writers who want to be anon/just want somewhere to share their work.

And then he gets this VERY nsfw piece from an anon writer, something he'd usually be uncomfy about but it's SO GOOD. Dream posts it and gushes about the quality of the writing and how the author has managed to write believable smut that is also so beautiful.

He gets a panicked DM from another user (Hob) who's like omg im so sorry, that was meant to go to an nsfw blogger, i can't believe i sent unsolicited porn pls forgive me.

And Dream stalks the user's blog and falls totally in love with their aesthetic. Hob posts snippets from his writing, photography (a lot of nude self portraits) and academia themed moodboards. Dream immediately reads everything that Hob has ever written and still craves more... how can he possibly persuade Hob to drop beautiful nsfw asks in his inbox as a regular thing?

Bonus: they actually know each other in real life as acquaintances, and work in the same library. It's not until their eyes meet over a stack of spicy romance books that Dream makes the connection between fully dressed, beige slacks and jumper wearing Hob... and the nude photos on that tumblr blog <3

#panickingstudent2 #the sandman #dreamling #nsft

[yangsrose]

a fool in love

pairing: non idol!hendery x reader

word count: 298 words

warnings: none

authors notes: this was kind of random and honestly i switched it between three different members and four different ideas but i hope it came out well!!

Hendery hated cliches. He hated the over generalised assumptions that people had of certain topics, especially relationships. He hated when people said that their heart stopped whenever they saw their significant other, mainly because he never seemed to understand how people would go about their day after one of their main ways of surviving stopped after seeing a person.

That thought process changed however, shortly after he met you. Hendery never understood how the mere presence of someone was enough to floor him, but after meeting you, he finally seemed to understand the breathless feeling that others claimed to be be a victim of. He remembers the way that he was shaking profusely during your first date, feeling as if his heart would stop at every moment of eye contact that the two of you made with each other.

He remembers the way that he used to hate the lovesick sigh and stare off into space that people did, but after meeting you, he finally understood how the mention of your name would be enough to make him turn slightly red and smile widely, despite everything that he said he would never do when he got into a relationship.

Hendery knew that he was being highly hypocritical of his past self, and knew that if he was to come from the past, he would have definitely done anything in his ability to stop you two from meeting. But now, even though he was trailing behind you like a lovesick puppy, he couldn't remember anytime where he had felt happier than how he felt in the moment. Because with you, he was fine being called a lovesick fool and embarrassing himself in front of his friends, as long as it meant that he got to spend it with you.

#kflixnet #kvanity #nct reactions #nct scenarios #nct drabbles #nct fluff #nct angst #nct imagines #wayv reactions #wayv scenarios #wayv drabbles #wayv angst #wayv fluff #wayv imagines #hendery reactions #hendery imagines #hendery scenarios #hendery drabbles #hendery fluff #hendery angst #nct #wayv #nct u #kpop reactions #kpop scenarios #kpop drabbles #kpop fluff #kpop angst #kpop imagines #kpop

[cypriathus]

Here is an OC inspired by the biblical Jonah and the apocryphal Enoch!

POTENTIAL TRIGGER WARNING: I talk about mental health issues like dissociative identity disorder, anxiety, and abandonment issues for the following character. There is also a brief mention of self-harm and an uncomfortable obsession.

Joluszeniah is a shepherd, fisherman, and baker who’s a hybrid between an ophanim and an earthly angel that developed a second personality after the brutal death of his father and another traumatic event. He struggles to handle his emotional stress, and secretly engages in self-harm and obsessive fantasies about murdering people he dislikes and sexual intercourse. He often experiences memory loss of certain time periods, events, and people that has occurred when as his second personality. He has a blurred sense of his true identity, feels detached from his real emotions, and views people and differences in his surroundings as distorted fiction. He has generalised anxiety disorder, and is occasionally prone to throwing an angry fit when he feels too overwhelmed and annoyed. After his mother mysteriously abandoned him, he began to develop abandonment issues and a deep fear of being left alone or forgotten. He’s overly eager to please people by seeking reassurance from them and trying to grab their attention, but struggles to trust their intentions. He’s not the greatest with communication, so he often comes off as taciturn and unbearably insecure. Joluszeniah also withdraws himself socially, experiences feelings of worthlessness, and is excessively clingy to people who are close to him.

He feels uncomfortable, self-conscious, bashful, and timid when around new faces as he’s unsure if he should trust them or not. He puts a strong emphasis on his moral rectitude and emotional intelligence, believing that everyone should lead a life of righteousness and tenderness. He tries his best to treat everyone with respect and kindness, but will be dismissive of those who aren’t respectful and kind-hearted in return. He can be quite the perfectionist when it comes to filleting fish, decorating baked goods, and doing arts and crafts. He’s somewhat recalcitrant, especially in regards to heavenly authority, protective warfare, and helping people who mistreated him. Joluszeniah is the kind of individual who extremely values his humility, being too afraid to feed into any praise he receives for his hard work. He strongly values his alone time during hardships and moments of relaxation, shows genuine sympathy to the plight of others, and is a lover of nature. He possesses a generous heart, deep curiosity in the unknown, and an enjoyment in sharing his thoughts with other people who are interested in what he has to say. He secretly has a deep hatred for Eylvhraszokjumni for how they abused him and mistreated sinners who had every right to sin, especially if they had a terrible childhood. He absolutely despises horrible and cruel people, and most of the higher-ups of Eylvhraszokjumni without a second thought.

Inemovakhus is Joluszeniah’s second personality and he’s a warrior, hunter, and record-keeper of all apocalyptic events that took place throughout the multiverse. He has seasonal depression, but never lets it bring him down as he’s passionate about his work and living life to the fullest. He has a fairly optimistic, yet cynical outlook on life and doesn’t give up easily, even if he was defeated or warned to back off. He’s quite flexible when it comes to new circumstances, and isn’t afraid to communicate with people in an assertive manner. He does have anger issues and will become belligerent when pushed over the edge, but is strangely able to remain tranquil during heated situations. For a fighter and hunter, he’s surprisingly kind and gentle, but isn’t gullible and naive like Joluszeniah. He has a courageous spirit, impartial decision-making skills, and a bad habit of spending resources in a recklessly extravagant way. He can easily rekindle people’s faith in whatever they’re beginning to lose confidence in through encouragement and advice. He has a tendency to act pompous and apathetic towards “inferior lifeforms” and individuals who views as annoying, unintelligent, and disrespectful. He can be fairly ruthless when on the battlefield or during hunting expeditions, and is a chivalrous thrill-seeker. Inemovakhus is warmly polite, flirtatious, joyously unrestrained and enthusiastic, and marked by a clever use of humour.

Joluszeniah is a 7 ft (213.36 cm) mesomorph with a trapezoidal figure, an average musculature, sloping shoulders, a well-endowed penis, and a square chest. He has fairly delicate snow-white skin with reddish-black freckles on his face, neck, chest, and hands. His faint golden veins slightly protrude from his strong neck, biceps, triceps, and muscular back and thighs. He has twenty white-breasted nuthatch wings, three rows of omnivorous teeth, claws and talons that are slightly rounded, and a left seven-fingered hand. His left eye can never physically, psychically, and magically heal, so he had to replace it with a glass greyish-green one. His right eye is a sunburst green-gold and he styled his red blonde hair into a faux hawk with a fringe cut and soft fade. He bleached his hair a gorgeous pink lavender and painted his fingernails and toenails a glittery bluish-black. He has a gruesome scar that snakes down from above his left eyebrow to the bottom of his right ear. He has a blotchy, vaguely triangle-shaped patch of scarred skin that takes up most of his right deltoid. He also has a somewhat U-shaped laceration from the left side of his lower lip to near the tip of his chin. The entirety of his right arm is covered in third-degree burns and his lower left leg has been subjected to second-degree burns. There are cut marks and stab wounds on his inner thighs, lower back, and hips, which he tries his best to hide from the public. Joluszeniah has two tattoos: a brazen serpent with a lamb’s head in its mouth on his left shoulder area; and a winged lion and a phoenix encircling each other on his right outer thigh.

As Joluszeniah, he’s draped in shaggy Alaskan musk ox fur that covers most of his body, only revealing his wings, left arm, forearms, and lower legs. He wears knee-length drawstring pants of plum-hued silk and rope sandals made from olive-brown leather with dull gold grass-woven straps. He has a large scarf with silver tassels and flannel patterning of blue, purple, red, and yellow draped over his left shoulder. He dons a peach basket hat of turquoise-dyed straw that’s adorned with a green bronze silk ribbon and artificial white lilies, common primroses, dark purple tulips, coral roses, and red-and-white anemones. He has a golden cowbell necklace, a pair of steel shears tied around his waist with rope, a hazel fishing rod with an indestructible horsehair line, a fishing net, and a shepherd’s crook made from a yew tree.

As Inemovakhus, he wears a full suit of plate armour in shimmering lilac with silver edging and a moss green and sky blue sheen. His metallic yellow gorget has sculpted wavy fur lines and his pauldrons are emblazoned with two foxes that have shaggy black fur, crimson eyes, and seven golden tails. His right pauldron depicts a fox encircling itself, while the other one is playfully leaping across three dark blue rocks. His armoured gloves have fingers with razor-sharp scarlet claws, his cuirass has tassets, and his greaves have the same design and colour choice as the gorget. He dons a teal blue capirote instead of a helmet and a small cloak of Pallas cat fur that reaches to his mid-back with bleating lamb’s head shoulder clasps in green gold. A wisteria sash with tassels and pearlescent greenish-white polka dots is wrapped around his hips with both ends hanging in front of his crotch area and close to his knees. He wields a bow of gleaming light with quiver of opium-tipped arrows and a 5’ 8” (172.72 cm) sword that has a golden open-mouthed, azure-bearded lóng hilt with a blade of blue holy flames protruding out of its black-toothed maw. He carries around a circular shield of olive wood that’s twice his height, depicting a coppery wheel cross with a fiery blue-green whale jumping in the air. Inemovakhus’ shield has a burningly cold sensation and it can protect people, animals, and flowers from the intense heat of the Sun or any bright star.

He was born with a magical affliction called the Curse of Yona, which makes his presence on board any ship an omen of bad luck. His presence also attracts large fish that try to eat him and small fish that are dead, and causes sheep to birth deformed lambs. He has prophetic visions about the wickedness and restoration of countries, settlements, and nations every three days. He can manipulate stormy waters, fire, wind, the abyss, completeness, perfection, and all forms of energy, and doesn’t require a need for physical sleep. He’s invulnerable to physical damage, and was gifted with absolute speed from the deities in order to commemorate his hope and skillful evasion. His mind can understand and articulate the languages of animals, and the uneasiness or seriousness of his gaze can pierce through illusions. The sound of his laughter can create rainbows and the warmth of his smile can calm the most turbulent of seas. Joluszeniah can transform into any roaring beast and a lamb with seven horns and eyes, and create a scroll with seven red wax seals. The first, second, third, and fourth seals bring a bought conquest and pestilence, war, famine, and death. The fifth seal summons furies and gives white robes to the morally right people who are about to die to cement their place in Eylvhraszokjumni. The sixth seal creates a global earthquake, blocks out the sun, turns the moon red, causes destructive meteor showers, and moves every mountain and island into different places. The seventh seal creates silence in Eylvhraszokjumni for about half an hour and summons a golden censer filled with fire. This golden censer is thrown into the core Earth after the silence, which creates peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and a less devastating earthquake.

FAMILY:

Unnamed ophanim father

Unnamed earthly angel mother

Smajuzhoktrine Zeliphojandus-Mnelohaviktus Gomeszukiva (ex-lover)

Zorsjahlen (daughter)

Kasvedolun Zuraphomiel (wife)

Yomajuzhiel Galesoturvik (son)

Aremophivus Brejzuktophina (daughter)

ALIASES/NICKNAMES:

Angel of the Lamb and Fish

The Belly of Hate

FUN FACTS/EXTRA INFORMATION:

Joluszeniah is questioning his sexuality, while Inemovakhus is confident that he’s heteroflexible.

As an Æylphitus, his name means “dove”. In regards to the name of his second personality, Inemovakhus means “to inaugurate”.

He was actually born as Dawusoghiel (“roaring beast of god” in the Æylphitus language), but changed his name because he believes that he isn’t worthy of it.

He was born as an accursed angel with no true form and a defected biokinesis that struggles to heal his wounds. As a result of these three things, a lot of angels ostracise him or playfully tease him because he’s different. Whenever he’s being ostracised or teased, Joluszeniah would either ignore them and pretend nothing is wrong or instantly leave to find a safe place and break down in tears. On the other hand, Inemovakhus would either aggressively confront them or politely tell them off and walk away.

Joluszeniah rubs his forearms or bite the inside of her lower lip when feeling anxious or stressed out

He’s strangely popular amongst the female-bodied angels and he’s not sure why

He often dreams of wintry regions of stormy clouds, an outpouring from the watery abyss, an ancient storehouse of all winds, and the four cardinal winds supporting the firmament of Earth.

Inemovakhus has a secret plan to overthrow the corrupted members of the divine council and isn’t afraid of the idea of becoming a fallen angel if it ever happens.

The scarred skin on his deltoid was a result of monstrous ticks eating away at his flesh

Extreme and mild heat bothers his second- and third-degree burns, so he tries to stay inside his ramshackle home or find deepening shade to maintain normal body temperatures.

He gets cranky when hotter weather comes around, especially when it begins to cause him pain.

He sleeps in the fetal position with a thumb in his mouth

Joluszeniah likes to bake pies and different flavoured breads

Joluszeniah loves all animals and flowers equally

Inemovakhus only views animals as food, clothing, or obstacles

Inemovakhus has a greater love for flowers than animals as he’s enamoured by their simplistic, yet intricate beauty.

Joluszeniah’s herd of sheep with rainbow-coloured coats that leave trails of glittering stardust wherever they roam and sing in harmony. Their wool is woven into garments that grant wisdom to those who wear them and protect the wearers from physical harm.

Joluszeniah’s fishing nets are woven with threads of pure starlight that allow him to catch fish that grant wisdom and inspiration to those who eat them.

Joluszeniah’s baked goods are infused with the sweetness of divine love and those who consume them will receive temporary blessings of protection, wisdom, or courage.

Joluszeniah likes to communicate with wise old owls and sly foxes as he finds their perspectives on the matters of existence and survival to be unique.

Inemovakhus can sense the vibrations of the multiverse, allowing him to predict and prepare for impending apocalypses.

Inemovakhus’ armour is forged from the metals of a thousand fallen stars, granting him resistance to even the most catastrophic of events.

Inemovakhus likes to track down and collect artifacts from destroyed worlds

All of Inemovakhus’ records are stored in a mystical tome made from the breath of deceased souls and dying planetary cores. When being viewed by mortals, the language in the tome is ever-shifting, which is a tactic used by the divine council to disorient them and keep the histories of all apocalyptic events a secret closely kept amongst the Æylphitus.

Inemovakhus will never admit to this, but he’s haunted by the memories of countless universes he has seen destroyed and is driven by a deep sense of responsibility to preserve the knowledge of the past.

#writerscorner #creative writing #writing #i'm trying something new with the pictures and i hope y'all like it #mental health mention #mental health issues #abandonment issues #dissociative identity disorder #anxiety #self h@rm #original character #personality #physical appearance #outfit #abilities #power #angel #jonah #shepherd #fisherman #baker #enoch #warrior #hunter #record keeping #apocalypse #fun facts #extra information

[sempercredens]

Post about fannicalcascade because I have a lot of throughts and using this situation to ramble a bit, yay. Inserting myself in some fun conversation here, only. Let it be said, I don't wanna be tooooo standoffish and just formulate my own reading of the show and give some counterarguments to the points they make. :D

Just to start off with: different from them, I'll use an ''the author is dead'' approach, so for my own reading and interpretation of the show it doesn't matter what Bryan Fuller or any of the actors said or read into it. I wanna try and go solely by the three seasons of text that we've been given. I just find it way too easy to just appeal to authority, especially, as fannibalcascade admits themself, Bryan Fuller has said contradictory things, so going by his words just seems counterproductive to any discussion.

I've collected some of the points fannibalcascade has repeated on their blog and while discussing them will probably make them blur into one another, I'll try my best to do it orderly.

1. Basically their big point is that Hannigram is one-sided from Hannibal's side. Will doesn't really love Hannibal.

Where I believe, we agree is the subject of Will's internal conflict throughout all three seasons, really. That being that Will is torn between his own darkness and propensity for violence and killing, his enjoyment of it even, - for brevity's sake I'll just call it his ''darkness'' from here on out -, and his compassion for others, a certain sense of justice, and ''normalcy''. I think we'd also agree that Hannibal represents a personification of that darkness. The difference of opinions lies within whether or not that makes his attraction to Hannibal romantic.

My reading of this conflict and how it plays out in the show and the s3 finale is that for the conflict to work at all, it is a necessity even that Will does love Hannibal. What fannibalcascade majorly focuses on is Will's desire for a ''normal'' life like the one he has with Molly for a few years, or just Will's ''good'' qualities if I were to generalise. A huge fear of Will's is to become like Hannibal, after all. What this approach ignores, imo, is exactly the immensity of the other half of the conflict. The half of Will that does love Hannibal, as a symbol of his love for his own dark urges.

From what I read of them and how I understand it they subscribe to the interpretation that, ineloquently put, Hannibal's manipulations are the sole reason Will's morals got fucked up in the first place. Which is a reading I disagree with. We're told in s1e2 already that this darkness has been within Will from the beginning when he confesses to Hannibal that he liked killing Hobbs. This is why Hannibal becomes so infatuated with him in the first place, because he sees the potential in Will and attempts to help him to reconcile with his darkness. Hannibal sees this - uniting Will with his dark aspects - as an act of friendship.

The crux of the matter here is that Will doesn't hate committing violence and murder. He hates that he likes it. And this is an important distinction. Again, I'm of the opinion that for Will's internal conflict to work and play out as it does, it necessitates that Will loves Hannibal in some way. When he attempts to ''honeytrap'' Hannibal throughout s2b there is a real and genuine ambiguity to his actions that makes one question whether he really is still working for the FBI, f.ex. the Randall Tier situation in s2e10 and e11. Finally: that he does call Hannibal to warn him about Jack in s2e13 Mizumono is a strong indicator that Will cares for Hannibal enough to want him to get away. The same ambiguity carries into s3a when Will sets out to find Hannibal in Europe with no decided objective of what to do when he finds him eventually, even telling Jack that ''part of me will always want to run away with him''.

My point here is that while you can of course always call into question whether Will's love for Hannibal is romantic, you cannot argue that there is no love at all.

Which brings us to:

2. Will throwing Hannibal and himself off the cliff is a murder/suicide attempt to free himself and the world of Hannibal. A rejection of Hannibal.

fannibalcascades likes to quote Bedelia's ''Can't live with him, can't live without him'' for this debate, and solely this quote, which I find a little lackluster because this too ignores a lot of other dialogues in the show. In fact, it ignores the context this particular piece of dialogue appears in.

There are many instances in the show where Will acts very much like Hannibal, going with the theme that they've ''begun to blur'', which is even visually demonstrated at many points. F. ex. when he plots to kill Hannibal via Matthew Brown and his embracing of his darkness is visualised by him growing antlers in s2e5. This, being a dialogue from s3e13 is where Will is arguably at his most Hannibal-ish, openly taunting Bedelia by essentially going ''yeah, I'll free Hannibal and then we're coming for you'' - which is what ends up happening if you want to believe the Bedelia post-credit scene.

Going back to the internal conflict Will's character is concerned, fannibalcascades argues that the quote opens a dilemma which can only be solved with Hannibal or both of them dying. Which is certainly one way to interpret. It is interesting to me how fannibalcascades seems to think that the best outcome for Will is to be without Hannibal, wishing that in a hypothetical s4 Will would leave Hannibal, when Bedelia's words would imply that that, too, would not be ideal for Will because he's too attached; he's ''found religion''.

I wouldn't even necessarily disagree that the answer to the dilemma is both their deaths. But I do disagree with the specifics. When Will tells Hannibal ''It's beautiful'', the final words spoken in the series, we are coming full circle from s1e3 where he tells Abigail that ''[killing] is the ugliest thing in the world''. In that very episode you can interpret that as denial since he told Hannibal only one episode earlier that killing Hobbs felt good and just. To reiterate: Will doesn't hate committing violence and murder. He dislikes that he likes it as much as he does because it conflicts with what is expected of him by the FBI and of himself in regards to complying to ''normalcy''. The reason Hannibal is attractive to him is that Hannibal is the only one to offer a complete acceptance of that darkness in him, should Will cultivate it.

So while ''can't live with him'' implies that Hannibal is indeed destructive to Will's life and well-being and those surrounding him which would be a good reason to want to be rid of him, ''can't live without him'' also implies that Will and Hannibal have become to entangled with one another to rid each other. Will even muses in s3e6 whether they could survive separation and Bedelia's words would suggest that no, they couldn't. Being without Hannibal would be equivalent to death, if one'd want to phrase it so drastically.

Repeating my point again that for Will's conflict and how it plays out to function, it necessitates that he does love Hannibal in some way. Just as fannibalcascades points out in this post how:

it has to be equally true that his struggles make no sense if you just say ''oh, he never loved Hannibal''. After all, Will did many Hannibal-ish deeds, especially in s3 when he orchestrates for Chiyoh to kill the prisoner in Lithuania and goes on to string the guy up in a very Ripper-esque, artful display - for no other audience than himself, or when he orchestrates Dolarhyde's mutilation of Chilton. He actually shows very little remorse for his actions in these instances, even going back as early as him killing Hobbs (s1e2)

.

and he shows even less remorse when he and Bedelia hold their dialogue as shown above.

All in all, my point here is that a reading such as fannibalcascades reads Will as leaning primarily towards normalcy, as opposed to acknowledging the extent of which Will also leans towards Hannibal.

As already mentioned, Will's fear resulting from this conflict is that he fears becoming (like) Hannibal. But the thing is that becoming like Hannibal is not entirely unappealing either. Because if it was there would be no conflict. It's really a testament to how complex a character Will is.

So returning to the cliff scene, Will admitting that ''it's beautiful'' is a self-acceptance of his own darkness, by extension an acceptance of Hannibal. fannibalcascades argued, however, that if it were a confession, Will would not attempt to kill himself. Sure, tipping them over might speak for a motivation of murder/suicide but that is rooted in the very same conflict Will's been dealing with this entire time. It is the culmination of both conflicts being solved, if you wanna see it that way; Will's darkness and his want for normalcy both won in some way. To put in convolutedly: by his acceptance of his darkness and Hannibal, Will triggered his fear of becoming like Hannibal because he just admitted to having become Hannibal, causing him to choose murder/suicide to fight said fear.

Is it tragic? Yeah. Is it romantic? We'll get to that.

3. ''it's a horror show first''

In my reading, I very much identify Hannibal as a Gothic show, which is not that far off from horror and overlaps in significant enough ways to be conflated. I hesitate to call the show horror because horror films aim to make you scared and scream along with the characters, whereas Hannibal doesn't.

There is no exact definition of what the Gothic is. It's not as much as genre as it is a mode that can be applied to different genres, such as Gothic horror, Gothic fantasy or Gothic romance. But what is important to note is that the Gothic has its roots in Romance, the 18/19th century kind with a capital R. So while you've got tales of chivalry and enlightenment and such, you've also got those revolving around the conventionally less savory themes and topics; death, trauma, all those ugly emotions, murder, torture, incest even or generally speaking any kind of perverted or ''forbidden'' love. Within the Gothic mode, these topics are allowed to be explored and discussed without outside conventions impeding upon it. That inherently makes its grasp on clear morality-binaries of good and evil null and void.

We see this in the show when the film language of sweeping camera shots over the displays of the dead bodies seems to emphasise the beauty of them more than their grotesqueness. When Hannibal's cooking is presented to us in extravagance so that we forget that he's serving human meat. Hannibal the character is endeared to us by film language (and also through Hannibal's humour. He's a funny lil man and because we can understand his jokes but the other characters can't, we can feel like we're conspiring with him). By these means, the show is very little concerned with actually condemning him. He even argues himself that he is no more evil than storms or fires (s2e10) and often pulls the ''well, God is worse''-card (ex. s1e2, s2e9).

Point being: we cannot apply a basic morality of ''murder bad'' onto the show and much less the development of its characters. There is no longer a clear separation between ''this is a good thing to happen'' and ''this is a bad thing to happen''. Especially when the characters begin to work against each other and good/bad becomes entirely subjective to whichever character's view point you'd want to take. The closest we probably get to a ''normal'' pov is Jack Crawford. Catching serial killers to make the country safer is obviously a noble goal. We can empathise with that, and how he is stressed enough to let it out on Will by using him as a shortcut to catching said killers. To the detriment of Will's health. And Hannibal does point out in s1 that working for Jack is unhealthy for Will, which is correct.

However, regarding Will we must ask: what is his best outcome? Is there really an objective ''good'' ending for him, or just a subjective one from his own perspective? And what would that look like?

In the light of that, a reading wherein Will finds his good ending in self-acceptance, indulging in how good violence and murder make him feel, and accepting Hannibal after Jack had nothing more than used him to the detriment of his health, after Alana rejected him for the same things Hannibal accepts him for, after he antagonised essentially everyone else, should be equally valid to one wherein Will gets to return to his average American family. And even his relationship with Molly is shaky and not as ideally happy. I'm not denying that Will loves her and she loves him, but the series also shows us that not all is so idyllic as Will still reads Hannibal's letters that he hides from her and she still watches Baseball because she's also not quite over her late ex-husband.

So in summery, I guess:

fannibalcascades' lines of arguing do little to convince me, personally, because I feel like a lot of context is omitted from the argument and lines like ''can't live with him, can't live without him'' are being cherry-picked.

I probably made my point pretty clear about how I think that they neglect half of Will's internal conflict in favour of arguing against any notion of Will loving Hannibal in whatever way. His conflict hinges on how his love for Hannibal is equal to his adherence to common morality, so the idea - as they present - of viewing the show through ''a realistic lense'', aiming for a ''nuanced understanding'' doesn't work for me because denying that Will loves Hannibal is omitting a large part of that very nuance.

Furthermore, reading their blog, I found myself unsatisfied with the lack of specification regarding Will's wants and needs, surrounding the point around what his ideal outcome would be. Most notably, a post they reblogged from bonearenaofmyskull, which contains the lines ''there’s no reason to believe that Will “went completely dark,” that he’s killing with Hannibal, that he’s alive at all, that he’s in his right mind after that fall'' made me wonder what Will's ''right mind'' would be. Because in my reading of the show, the state of Will's mind or what would be the truly right and beneficial thing to do for Will has always been a subject of ambiguity.

fannibalcascades is a self-admitted fan of the ambiguity in the show (x) (x). However, from what I read on their blog the overall tone of their posts nevertheless seems to be vehemently against any other interpretation of the s3 finale than their own, strictly anti-Hannigram one.

In the end I just find it a real shame to hold such a rigid position in media analysis as to omit the whole romantic aspect of the show's central relationship, canon or not, when the joy of media analysis is precisely to analyse a thing you like from every angle possible. So I don't want to dismiss their personal reading and interpretation of the text as invalid - everyone is entitled to have their opinion after all, and this is mine and I hope I explained why I disagree with theirs - and I personally also did try a reading of non-romantic Hannigram because thought experiments are fun.

Lastly, I want to ramble briefly about the Gothic again and how its inherent ambiguity has historically lent itself amazingly for the telling of queer stories, precisely because the ambiguity allows for queercoding. And how as discussed above the feeling of lacking self-acceptance and resultant self-hatred that Will goes through that could all be solved because Hannibal accepts him serves as a metaphor slash wish-fulfillment for the queer experienceTM - which is why we here on tumblr dot gay flock to this pairing lol. It's the romance of the unconditional love, it's the romance of loving even one's most fucked up parts, it's the romance of being seen (and the whole theme of ''being seen'' is not one I'm gonna start now but I have a lot of thoughts about that too) And lastly - really lastly - I want to propose the question whether romantic is synonymous with healthy. Especially in the context of this show in particular, with all the stuff about Gothic mode I went into, is the romanticising of the cliff scene really that terrible? Or just an exploration of unsavory themes and topics? Is perverse love not still love?

Bonus thing where I go a little ad hominem, I'm sorry

I think it comes across as very strange to send multiple anons to an active Hannigram blog essentially baiting them into discourse only hours before starting their own blog about it. From the timing I very much assume it's the same person at least.

I find it very odd how fannibalcascades claims that they're not anti-Hannigram and ''uphold the freedom to ship as you please'' (x) and then tag their posts as #there's no murder husbands and #anti-Hannigram, invading the actual Hannigram tag, and also reblog pro-Hannigram posts to play moral apostle

Just doesn't look very ''ship as you please'' to me. Also the anon thing.

Starting of one of their posts with a big, bold red heading of ''It's tragic that people don't understand what the story really is'' which just gave me the same feeling as glancing at boulevard magazines does. Sorry to be sarcastic here but, yeah, sure, you're the only one who knows the real story, you're the only one who's eaten wisdom with spoons while everyone else picks at the wisdom soup with forks. I'm sorry but just the way that post was presented came across as kinda conceited.

Okay, post over.

Have a list of recommended further readings because I'm totally normal about this show and the Gothic mode, I promise, please believe meeeeee

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen: Monster Theory

Deborah Russell: Gothic Romance in Romantic Gothic

Julia M. Wright: American Gothic Television in American Gothic Culture

Andrew J. Owens: Queer Gothic in Twenty-First Century Gothic

Linda Williams: Film Bodies: Gender, Genre and Excess

Alexandra Carroll: 'We're just alike' - Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter, and the Monstrous-Human

Ewa Ziomek: Hannibal Revived: an Aestheticized Portrayal of Hannibal Lecter in NBC’s TV Series Hannibal

Stephanie A. Graves: 'A breach of individual separateness': Multivalent Queerness in Bryan Fuller's Hannibal

#hannigram #nbc hannibal #hannibal lecter #will graham #hannibal meta #question mark? is this meta? #i'm normal about this show i swear #i didn't just spent over four hours writing and compiling this. it's totally not 4.30am :) #i just........ love media analysissss so muuuuuuuch.................... #last time i made an op my post didn't show up in the tag #so maybe this was all for nothing lol. unseen post #oh well will loving hannibal is just as much part of his character and conflict #as him trying to adhere to whatever social construct 'normalcy' is send tweet #can you tell i also watched a certain 4h video essay on plagiarism and am now paranoid about citing sources hahahahaha

[14muffinz]

Asking some writers/artists I follow:

Is there anything in your fic/comic that you as the author know about, but won't end up in the actual story?

oh for sure

i'll start with the TMNT stuff first because of your PFP, but we gonna be here a while.

[lab rats stuff at the bottom]

warning: fic spoilers galore

In WIBE, one of the characters we meet is Yuichi Usagi, who works at the human ROTM. He also works in the original ROTM. He was robbed while on a trip to the Hidden City, and is originally from a different city entirely. Hueso is doing his best to help him out, but it'll likely be a long time before Yuichi gets to go home.

Some other WIBE background characters in WIBE include: MM!Kendra, MM!Robyn O'Neil, MM!Irma, & MM!Casey Jones. I don't have a lot to say abt Kendra and Irma, since it's been a long time since I wrote any of it down, but I can give it my best shot with Robyn and Casey.

Robyn has been diagnosed with Generalised Anxiety disorder for a few years pre-fic. She's in her first year of college which is out-of-state, and does her best to check up on her family via phone call at least every other week. She's also sort of invested in all of April's new drama, but she won't admit it.

Casey's been playing hockey for as long as he can remember, and intends to keep at it for as long as he's physically able. He's also got a knack for engineering, and I'd gamble that sometime not long after the ending of WIBE, he'd start up the Casey Jones vigilante batshittery. His parents are divorced, but he spends most of his time with his Jewish mother, and while he's never been actually taught much about his religion he accepts it as a part of his identity, and if people don't like that then they shouldn't be around him in the first place. He finds the existence of the turtles to be one of the coolest things ever, but after actually getting to know Raph and the others, it doesn't impress him as much as it used to. (If I had time, I'd add in a tiny crush on Raph, but I'm an aro with WAY too many ideas for this tiny fic)

Then there's experienced fighters, where the main thing is me ALWAYS knowing what song is playing in the background. I really love how much music is in MM, and I love being able to say hey! here's the musical vibes of the environment!

sort of on that topic, i've got a hc that any song with even small references to space are songs that rise, 2k12, and MM leo are more likely to enjoy. they don't realize these patterns, but they sure are there.

and to end off the music rant, one of these days i'm gonna make a playlist of songs that I think the rise crew all collectively agree are good enough (this is what space feels like, goodie bag, punk tactics, etc. etc.)

there's also two in one, which is based off an au by @blackfire-fanfiction. I have to be real cautious abt what I put in there, because a lot of people are looking at it instead of the extended context of the real thing, not to mention how many Thoughts that aren't really canon I have about it. For instance: today I had a good 30 minute daydreaming session abt the concept of rise!Donnie reading leonardo's notebook while he's comatose post-rise movie and finding out about the switching

in dimension desync, I poke a bit at my head canons about peni parker's movie universe and her mental health at home, and have expanded on this even further in an abandoned draft. this is going to be LONG, so here we go: Gwen Stacy and Richard Parker were around in Peni's universe before she herself was, each piloting a mech of their own [Ven#m and Sp//DR]. A few months after Peni's mother is pregnant with her, Richard dies in action, and a few months later, Ven#m sort of devours Gwen (go read the comics because it's really fucked up but idk how to describe it) So then the role of SP//DR is forcefully thrust upon Peni at the age of eleven, and her connection with SP//DR isn't exactly... perfect.

in my team blue universe, I'm fleshing the hell out of Sam-13 and Shadowcat (both from earth 65). Sam was created by corrupt parts of SHIELD (that have yet to have been identified as corrupt) but now is just a regular agent. Cap returned to their dimension when he was 14 and has been in charge of training him ever since. Cap is stubborn to a fault and is def being manipulated by the corrupt agents, but none of the kids have gotten close to that bigger picture yet. Meanwhile, Kitty was inducted into the weapon x program (or 65's equivalent of it, I don't remember much of the wolverine origin story) at the age of 8, and despite odds survived. Wolverine took her in, and she's been helping him bounty hunt since about 13, even though he's trying to stop her.

team blue is also starting to extend to universes that the spider-verse movies don't really deal with through plants that have yet to be explained. but miguel's spite at e-199999 has definitely transferred, which means that, if they were ever to interact, not many of the main team would like the mcu-vengers

in my very obscure mech-x4 series, Olivia (who is only referenced by name once in the show) is veracity's little sister, who is 7 years old. This series is more of a set of vaguely connected oneshots, but still.

i could go ON AND ON about Oliver in all of my mighty med/lab rats fics, but in short: arcturion made his hair start growing in blonde, which he hates. Horace is his adopted dad and so it sucks ass when he dies. Oliver also comes with built in hypothermia! This is also definitely a headcanon, but I think that in EF once the rats have the upgraded chips, Chase's laser bō is green instead of blue, and his super senses are togglerable (to a degree) I also like to imagine Kaz's lil bro Kyle is his number one fan and nobody in his family listens to him when he claims that Kaz is one of the bionic guys on the news.

... yeah I think that's enough for now

#asks #wibe #wouldn't it be easier #z rambles #headcanons #rottmnt headcanons #TMNT headcanons #lab rats #mighty med #elite force

[nocturneworld6]

Hello :3

I stumbled across your blog yesterday while searching for ao3 tags and discovered that you are the author of 3 wonderful diabolik lovers fanfics that I plan to read in the near future. I only got introduced to the game series after watching the anime a few months ago, and I've already played the first two games myself, but it wasn't until a week ago that I joined here to learn new and new things. Since you are a fan of one of the most complex in character and personality of the triplets, at least for me, I would be glad if you could tell me a little about him. Like why exactly he of all caught your attention, what exactly makes him different from his brothers, what mental disorders do you think he suffers from, his fears, and that weird obsession he has with Cordelia. Since I want to delve a little deeper into the character of all the brothers and Mukami, I've been doing a lot of research lately on the types of mental issues, but there seems to be very little information on Ayato despite being such a well-liked character.

(Sorry for the huge novel I just created, if you don't want to or don't have time for that you can ignore it).

I think I've answered a similar question before, so I'll keep it brief... Ayato suffers from huge abandonment issues and has obvious mental scars from the torture he has suffered at the hands of his mother. Most of the kids have but the way he internalised that trauma is interesting. He didn't drown his sorrow in sex like Laito or become totally unhinged like Kanato, didn't shut himself like Shu or Become overzealous about success like Reiji... And even though he does have self loathing tendencies like Subaru it's not nearly as serious as him. He decided to become a crybaby who wants and seeks constant attention and validation. Don't mind me making fun of my favourite Diaboy. Jealousy isn't an attractive trait but it surely is an interesting one.

Regarding his obsession with Cordelia... Have you seen Reiji's obsession with Beatrix? The man tries to resurrect her multiple times just to torture her in the games. I guess Ayato's obsession is rather tame compared to his brothers, but I would say all of the brothers are somehow in a trauma bond with their mothers. I'm not a psychologist/psychiatrist and I'm totally making a huge generalisation but, it's not far from possible. So saying someone is more interesting than any other isn't truly giving any justice to the characters. You know what character I hate the most in the game? Kou! Is he a loved character? Yes! Do I dare say that he's interesting? Yes! But does he interest me in particular? No. Every individual tends to have their own quirks and I wouldn't say any particular character is more complex than the others. They're all complex and there's something about Ayato that I particularly like.

Tbh I simply ship him with Yui and my personal favourite is Reiji, but I wouldn't tell you that. :) Also... Regarding the psychological aspect... I wouldn't mind you diving deeper into it, but I think since they're pretty different from humans, the Sakamakis and Mukamis aren't really characters we should view with the lens of human psychology. What is normal to us isn't normal to them.

#diabolik lovers #fandom

[kpchrs]

What do you think Caroline thinks of Nathan?

Ah, it's Anon again.

Tsk tsk tsk.

What, you mean Caroline Prescott: Sean Prescott's wife, Nathan's and Kristine's mum, the lady who only got mentioned thrice by OTHER PEOPLE in emails and a letter, the lady whose face and hair colour we don't even know?

HOW SHOULD I KNOW?

Okay, that's all, thank you for coming to my Ted Talk,

Kris

...Hehe, just joking. I'll work on what we have on canon. I have to over-overanalyse things tho.

So as I have said, what we know about Caroline is only mentioned in emails and a letter: Kristine's, Sean's, and Dr Jacobi's.

Kristine's email to Nathan:

"And yes, mother told me that you've been in trouble and father has been on your ass..."

It sounds like Kristine contacts Caroline regularly. Seeing that there is no complaint about Caroline in the rest of the email, I think she still has at least a decent relationship with Caroline. That means, she still has interests in her kids. Thank goodness. Since the rest of the email is about Sean and has no complaint about Caroline, I'm guessing it's Sean who is the "only" problem here.

We don't see the severity of Sean's abuse, but if that can make Kristine, a seemingly great older sister, run away; knowingly leaving an obviously beloved little brother alone in this kind of environment, I think we can imagine it.

Sean's email to Nathan:

"Nate, I know this has been a stressful week and your mother and I are here to talk if need be. Just make an appointment anytime. Your mother wants Doctor Bill to come out after his book tour but for now let's stick to your prescriptions."

I know he's a businessman, but an appointment? To your own kid? Okay, asshole. Does Caroline need to be booked in the appointment too? Is she also in the business? It sounds like Caroline is involved with Nathan's treatment at least. I don't really know what subtext to make out from the first part of the last sentence, if any. But, I guess, she at least can give opinions to Sean, normally. Maybe.

Dr Jacobi's letter to Sean:

"You have ignored my requests for a consultation with you and your wife so I have to assume you are no longer interested in my services. Regardless, I care about Nathan and I believe he needs serious help."

Dr Jacobi only talks to Sean here. He's like the top authority in the family, I get it, but it's like Sean is the only parent available. The doc seems very desperate because he believes it's dangerous to not help Nathan as soon as possible. If it were me, I would try to contact Caroline directly as well. Does he try? Is he able to? Does Caroline listen?

Dr Jacobi is Nathan's previous psychiatrist who "fires" him because of the lack of family cooperation. The doc wants to work on it seriously, he sees problems in Sean's parenting that are largely Nathan's stressor.

Since the doc is denied repetitively and so decided to terminate Nathan's therapy, I assume Sean searches for another psychiatrist who is not that "fussy" with Nathan's treatment. So maybe...this Dr Bill...is not a good psychiatrist. I mean, if he is really based on Dr Phil, that just confirms that he's a bad, unethical one.

Has Caroline ever taken THE INITIATIVE to TALK to Nathan directly? I don't know. Canon gives us nothing. And see this: in Kristine's email, it really sounds like lecturing Nathan was a regular thing she did when she was still at home. An older sibling lecturing a younger sibling is not rare. I did that too to my lil bro, my big bro did that too to us sometimes. But something tells me that the one who tells him to stand up to Sean is only Kristine, never Caroline. Just an intuition.

This is like searching for cookie crumbs on the floor but see this about Victoria talking about Nathan:

"Yes, he takes serious meds but that's not his fault. His family treats him like a total freak, just because he has little meltdowns."

Throughout the game, they establish that Sean is the menacing, terrifying, asshole figure. But Victoria interestingly generalises with "family" which means it can include Kristine too (but I refuse to believe so hehe), but most importantly it can also include Caroline as well. Using Victoria's words, Caroline might treat him like a "freak" because of his mental illness.

Btw, this is very obvious because duh, but what we know about Caroline is filtered from another person's point of view. Delving into her possible mind is hard. Kristine might hear a passive and neutral, "Nathan isn't doing what's expected of him and Sean isn't happy" from Caroline and Kristine with her already anti-Sean mind paraphrased it very strongly and made it sound like Caroline is more opinionated. I think various kinds of characterisation are possible here. But, in general, I can think of two?

The cold mum. Distant. Or at least not openly affectionate.

The "Team Sean Prescott" mum. "Your dad is right, Nathan", "your dad says that for your own good, Nathan", "you need to do as he said, Nathan", "it's just the way he is", "he did that not to hurt you, Nathan", etc.

Okay, she can be both.

Whatever characterisation in the list she has, if she lets Sean be his abusive self and does no intervention, that sounds like a bystander parent to me. Maybe she is a Sean-minded person and that's why she lets it be. Maybe she lets Sean be in charge of Nathan's education because "let me, Caroline, Nathan must learn about the Prescott legacy from me", so she is just a yes woman. Maybe she knows Sean's treatment is wrong, but she's afraid to oppose him for a reason. Dunno. Anything is possible.

Bystander parents confuse the kid, btw. It complicates their feelings on the trauma and the parent, because "I'm angry at my abusive dad but I'm also angry at my mum for never protecting me. But she never treats me like Dad did, am I allowed to get hurt because of her inaction?" The bystander effect hurts the abuse victim too, but I digress since we are on the topic of Caroline's thoughts on Nathan, not his thoughts on her.

TLDR; I think Caroline cares about Nathan and his well-being to some degree, despite the possibility of thinking that his mental illness is a burden on the family. There's no canon information of her communicating with him directly, because, well, canon gives us nothing. From the zero complaints Kristine has of her, she might not treat Nathan like Sean does, but she might enable Sean's treatment of him thus making her a bystander parent.

Well, in the end, this is just a theory, a game theory. Nathan never talks about his mum, so I really don't know what she's like. He is especially hung up on his dad, pushing him to search for validation from a father figure in the form of Jefferson.

Caroline is a blank slate. Any interpretation or effort to fill in the blanks fanfic authors do for her (dead, not biological mum, assumingly in a mental hospital, emotionally unavailable, neglectful, physically and verbally abusive, abused turned abuser, mentally ill, having Nathan as a mirror of herself thus can't face him at all, etc.), the possibility is endless, and I enjoy all I have read.

Okay, that's all from a Nathan-biased person.

Thank you for the ask,

Kris

#caroline prescott #nathan prescott #sean prescott #kristine prescott #kris got asks #life is strange

[ignitesthestxrs]

are you a kiwi? I'm american myself, but honestly feel like I haven't seen enough kiwis talk about the locked tomb (though i think im partly just missing most of the discourse anyway somehow??)..

if you ever feel like layin out some more thoughts ab tlt id love to read em! <3

i am a kiwi! there is a small but thriving kiwi sf/f community, but overall people are not...terribly online, or terribly into fiction lol. i definitely know there are kiwi fans of the series out there but in general i can imagine most of them simply not wanting to get into it. i don't really want to get into it! i just saw a reply on a post i reblogged and lost my mind about it for a couple of seconds.

as a pākehā/white kiwi i am like, both protective of these books, critical of them, and kind of ill-equipped to be the person criticising how māori characters and māoritanga/māori culture is depicted in them.

tamsyn muir is a pākehā author writing māori characters that she didn't initially identify as such getting like,,,increasingly more māori in depiction as the books go on and she learns more about the general consensus on how white people should write characters of colour. and those māori characters are involved in instituting, recreating, participating in a uh....very roman? sort of societal structure? and in the latest book there's this further māorification of Jod while also depicting him as a radical under fire from the government in a compound, and act which has both deep historical and very recent (2007!!)roots in aotearoa nz culture.

this māorification of gideon too with the prince kiriona stuff is also: something. what is it? i don't know. i don't think it's Cancellable Offense Bad, or even bad at all. but there's an overall freedom of mishmashing aspects of kiwi and māori culture into a broader sf/f context that muir has kind of taken it upon herself to perform, when ultimately it's not her who should have been the person who got to do it, you know? the structural racism of the global publishing industry means that a pākehā writer can step up onto that stage with an ease and popularity that a māori writer is going to have institutional difficulty accessing in the same way. do i think carl tor editor picks up these books if they're written by a brown author? idk man

and then on the flip side - this is a part of her lived experience too. as a pākehā writer, choosing to write, do you include your pākehā-ness? your kiwi-ness? choosing to do that, do you include your knowledge and understanding of te ao māori/the māori world? are you stealing or are you sharing? what is yours to share in the first place?

these are questions that i think every pākehā writer should ask themselves as they're writing and they're also questions that i don't think have a Correct Answer, or even an answer full stop. they're things that i think muir started asking around book 3 lol which is a very better late than never kind of thing, but it's also clear as the books go on that she's laying down her road as she runs on it, so to speak.

i think muir is Trying In Public, which is a deeply vulnerable thing to do, but also, she is right now a very popular pākehā writer introducing māori character and culture to a broader audience, many who have not encountered any of this before, in an environment where very few māori writers have an opportunity to do the same.

so when that broader american audience comes and picks up what muir has put down and then unthinkingly applies their own american cultural lens to what they have in their hands - it's weird, right? it's weird in ways that many (i generalise - not all, obviously, there are also many americans who do have global context) americans can't understand, because those americans don't live in a world where they are outsiders on the global stage. even americans who understand that the rest of the world is not america have not necessarily experienced that in a way that is intrinsic, intuitive.

the world is shaped by america, either by its presence or by its absence. so when a pākehā writer creates māori characters and uses te reo māori/the māori language in her work, which then gets read and used and consumed by an american audience as though it is a creation that belongs in their worldview - it becomes disconnected entirely from the source muir borrowed, or stole from, or grew up with. it forces the conversation into this place of whether or not the americans playing with this particular doll know what they're doing or where the doll came from or why it's a doll anyway, instead of like, why has muir made this doll and should she have and are there other people making dolls, or are other people making different things entirely.

links to some sf/f by māori writers:

THE DAWNHOUNDS by Sascha Stronach

LEGACY by Whiti Hereaka

WATCHED by Tihema Baker

PŪRAKAU, ed. Witi Ihimaera and Whiti Hereka

GUARDIAN MAIA

#this is a conversation i like #am not an expert on #and should not be responded to as though it's the gospel truth about how to consume gideon or tlt or any of muir's work #or any pakeha author at all #if you should take anything away from this as an american reader it's that the rest of the world has learned how to create content #that is juuuuuust close enough to america's exported culture #that american's don't get too weird about it when they encounter it #but there is always like #way fucking more roiling under the surface than you are going to be aware of as an outsider #and that as an act of curiosity and discover and learning about the world #it really behooves people to like #tug on that thread and see where it leads to #(institutional racism) #but you know #cultures that seem very similar because they are white dominated have many common themes #but very different histories and interactions and manifestations #don't assume that because a story is being told to you in words that you recognise that you are getting the whole picture

[seriousbrat]

I'd say Jamespiracy and Snrojection (dying at these names btw lol) most definitely go perfectly hand in hand, because after all Snape was the founding father and the creator of Jamespiracy movement and belief system with how he refused to believe that James wasn't involved in the prank and simply wouldn't want him killed despite hating him, with how he believed only the worst of him. Similarly now his fans and followers and Snrojectioners are following his footsteps and would rather believe the absolute worst of him, even when it goes against author's intent or doesn't make sense and even they have a hard time making it make sense lol, but they'd still rather do that than give him an ounce of the benefit of the doubt and accurate source text reading.

lmao!! okay this did make me laugh- I am also a fan and a follower of snape though so I really don't want to generalise, much less hurt anyone's feelings. everyone is free to project/snroject and develop their own interpretations on their own blogs. I follow many snape fans who seem like lovely thoughtful intelligent people and I'm sure that is the majority. I also want to state that from what I've seen snape fans put up with a lot of bullshit and so to me it's understandable that many would be defensive of their favourite character. like lbr marauders fans can be just as guilty of any of this (see below) and we should all be friends about it imo

so in the interest of that I'm going to 1) steer this into entirely nonserious territory 2) generally talk more about the characters than the fans

first, to be absolutely fair I would say there is such a thing as snapespiracy and..... prongjection. Although in the case of prongjection in fandom it's probably more about prongjecting (god) sexual/romantic fantasies onto him because james stans tend to treat him more like the ideal boyfriend from what I've seen rather than actually relating to him but idk. snapespiracy is much as it sounds, basically the belief that snape is the root of all evil and that he was corrupting all the innocent skittles to the dark side/deserved to be bullied because of his evil homophobic ways. ANYWAY:

snape is absolutely the no1 jamespiracy theorist. he is the tinfoil wearing jamespiracy theorist of all time, long after james is dead and you'd think there'd be no spiracy left. can we blame him? not really. but it's true.

conversely, the marauders are all snapespiracy theorists but particularly, in my mind, sirius. but obv also james. they created a failsafe in their map on the off-chance that snape would get it and that's pretty snapespiracy brained if you ask me.

curiously, harry is a diehard prongjector and a snapespiracy theorist who stops prongjecting and becomes a soft snrojector during SWM. He is then an unwitting snrojector throughout HBP because he snrojects hard onto the figure of the half-blood prince, unaware that it's snape. he's also a snapespiracy theorist at the same time though (disproving your theory that it goes hand in hand lol)

other notable snapespiracy theorists: ron, bellatrix other notable prongjectors: sirius but all the marauders. hagrid.

#god i laughed so hard writing this that i went down to the cornershop still laughing #i think draco could possibly be a snrojector but also not really #personally i think i relate to both james and snape but if i project onto anyone it's lily. #which might explain why i like them both so much lol. #god what a load of nonsense ive just written im so sorry #it was fun though! #replies #edit i realise this is totally unintelligible rubbish just ignore it. it's funny to me (sleep deprived) which is the important thing

[patrice-bergerons]

Still speaking of NTTD and Matera, it’s also fascinating to me that Bond goes to Vesper’s grave in the first place. 

What Madeleine does - taking him to Matera and then demanding he visit Vesper’s grave if they are to have a future together, if she is to tell him her secrets - is flat out manipulative (although she has her own reasons - this is a pro-Madeleine blog).  Morevoer, he has famous issues with authority, a temper, and a generalised unwillingness to revisit the past - for all the people he lost, this is the only time we see him visiting a grave.  So you’d expect him then to flat out tell her no or to leave the room and amble around town for a bit before coming back and saying that he did it.  Madeleine certainly wouldn’t have been any wiser.

But he does what she asks of him, in part I think, because he wants a future with her that much, and also because, without making him sound like a meow meow, love has always come with conditions and strings for him, and as a corollary something he only gets to keep if he is useful.  His most significant, mosre than quasi familial relationship within the canon was with M, after all. 

And, while this is a joke, I also think back to Casino Royale, where Vesper tells him that if all that was left of him was his smile and his little finger he would still be more of a man than anyone she has ever met, and he immediately responds with ‘that’s because you know what I can do with my little finger.’

Those few scenes set in Matera but say so much about who he is, and on the writers’ part, showcase such a spot on understanding of his character.  If only they’d applied the same principles to the rest of the film.

#no time to die #james bond #vesper lynd #madeleine swann #meta #now im done!

[canmom]

a journal type post

i visited some of my grandparents today. I'll give their names, Jenny and Rick, since i doubt that's enough to be PII and it's hard to talk otherwise.

i haven't been able to see them in a long time, thanks to the pandemic. Rick is... likely pretty close to dying, and Jenny is also definitely struggling at this point.

of my four grandads (lots of divorcing and remarrying on both sides of the family) Rick was always the one that i had the hardest time with. he would be brusque and overbearing at the best of times, and cross lines at the worst, and the older i got i felt like he really stifled my granny, in their very traditional middle class marriage. but he's mellowed out a lot (both of them have really), and i found it much easier to spend time with him today, despite a ton of other stuff weighing on me.

we got to talking about books. it's funny, this is something I've never thought to connect with him on, even though he evidently reads a lot. he was very happy to tell me about his favourite authors, in a way that was so sweet and like. i honestly quickly lost a lot of that resentment i had felt towards him in the past. so i went home with my arms full of RF Delderfield and Barbara Erskine, and this prompted my granny to add on her favourites by Katherine Lynn Davis.

they're all historical novels of one sort or another, a long way outside my usual zone of literature. Delderfield writes about long duration social history revolving around the British people going through social change, his central character usually a young man returning from a war. at my age, my grandad had just left the RAF - i don't believe he fought in WWII, it might have been the period when National Service (conscription by another name...) was still in effect after the war and the UK geared itself up for the Cold War, but he stayed in for twelve years, apparently not enough to get a pension, leaving due to some kind of complications around a divorce that I didn't quite follow. he became a salesman - selling cardboard boxes I think? there's a lot I'm vague on. anyway, he's very fond of Delderfield, and it has something to do with Delderfield's prose, the particular feeling of Englishness it gives, but also the historical details - one of Delderfield's series charts the rise of motor transport in the UK, which I won't lie, I'm easily enough of a nerd to be curious about.

Erskine's books seem to follow a different template. just going by the blurbs, the general structure seems to be that a young woman in modern England is haunted by a connection to another woman a thousand years in the past, suffering under court politics or the witch trials or similar. so again, the theme of the past bearing on the present. Davis, i only have a couple of books so can't generalise, but this one's about three women from different parts of the world (Scotland, China and India) drawn together for a lot of high drama in the 1800s. the sequel seems to be about their descendants. it could be really cool or it could be awkwardly racist or it could be awkwardly racist but still interesting as an artefact of a time (...the late 80s), who knows. and this is all just... cursory examination of the blurbs.

all of these books are full-on doorstoppers. they're also... completely unknown to me, which is probably an indictment of how narrowly i tend to stick to my genre. not that there's a moral obligation to read widely, but it's good to be aware at least. anyway...

I kind of wear on my sleeve that my feelings about "Englishness" and "Britishness", the egregore, the entity that lays claim to me, are very negative. today I also watched an episode of the new BBC show about the founding of the SAS, with snappy action movie dialogue and expensive CGI and a pointedly anachronistic classic rock soundtrack, with the depressing feeling you get when you watch well executed propaganda. hard not to think about the release of this piece about the sacrifices of a roguish, brave, witty SAS coinciding with an ailing farce of a Conservative government and the death of the one (inexplicably) well-loved symbol of the British state, all that jazz. (coincidences - this had to have been in the works for some time - but still).

anyway. so... the idea of the spirit of the British people is liable to make me break out in a rash. don't tell me about that, tell me about the idea of "britishness" being replicated forcefully through history, imposed on successive generations, an eternal reproductive futurism motivating all manner of atrocity. so i feel like... if what people say about Delderfield is true, I might find it... challenging.

i am nevertheless curious about all three of these authors! not just a way to connect with my grandad in what could easily be his last year on this planet, though there... there is that. but also that social history angle... for all my bluster about how much I dislike this country, it's more that I dislike the idea of countries altogether, and having to belong to one. and on some level, a severe case of don't-lump-me-in-with-them-ism. knee-jerk anti-patriotism.

but reflexive loathing is no more revealing than comforting fantasies of national character. both of them assume a 'thing' into existence. finding loopholes to be like... well i like such and such British author but I have a defence of how they're acceptably critical of the country so it's ok, that's cheap.

what I do like is having at least some idea of how things got to be the way they are. I can't help being from here, so I could at least stand to understand 'here' a little better. around a decade ago, I walked back from Exeter's gender identity clinic with an older trans woman who could tell me when a bridge was made by looking at its materials. that's so neat that I still remember it! in the garden of the shared house in London where I rent a room was a stone disc with icons of the USSR on it. why was that there? the weight of the machine of history is overwhelming, Marx was right to call it a nightmare, but it is interesting. you can't just stop at 'this sucks'.

so if the ways of thinking that prevailed in the past were very different, they certainly aren't unrecognisable; it does no good to try to set myself above them and imagine I'm more enlightened. and like, that's just all my baggage anyway. i don't want to be unfair to any of these authors, and miss what my grandparents valued in them. (I'm too tired to look up Engels but I recall he had something interesting to say about a well written bourgeois novel.)

anyway, like i said, they're doorstoppers, and i still have like a third of Worth the Candle to read, so don't expect detailed comments for a little while. but it was eye opening in a way, it's too easy to remain blinkered in your little corner and box off the rest as something you'd have no interest in. i know where I'm at with sff and comics, but on some level i find the 'general fiction' shelves intimidating, with no idea where to start or the codes being deployed, and that's limiting. anyway I'll let you know what i think. eventually.

#books #introspective nightposting #novels

[helloquotemyfoot]

Book Backlog Busting Reading Challenge!

Okay, so it's been another hot minute. In my defence... um... Stardew Valley is a really fun game?

Okay, I haven't been spending all of my time gaming, I have been reading too! So here's my (condensed and no pretty pictures) list:

The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett. For some reason I just didn't find this gripping, which is strange because I loved another of Pratchett's books for younger readers (Amazing Maurice). I gotta admit that the ending got the tears going though.

Reformation Divided by Eamon Duffy. I love Duffy's work as a historian and this was no exception, providing an important counterbalance to the popular Protestant/Whiggish historical narrative. Quite dense, though, not recommended to a general audience.

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon. Not flawless worldbuilding (the main issue being the tension between the author trying to write a feminist critique of the St George and the Dragon story, as well as building a fully realised fantasy world, which leads to things like a black man being told his religion is wrong by someone of a superior religion and culture, he's not allowed to politely ask that people don't disrespect his religion directly in front of him, and the narrative supporting this) but extremely compelling characters and I still enjoyed it immensely. Other fantasy authors should study how to tell a broad, epic narrative without eighty billion povs from Shannon too.

All Things Made New by Diarmaid MacCulloch. Really interesting studies, especially the meta historiographical essays, but I was lacking content for some of it. I need to look for more of his books.

Voices from Morebath by Eamon Duffy. Super interesting local study, Duffy strikes a good balance between the particulars of Morebath and using it as a (possible) generalising example. Very short book that I think would be interesting to general readers too!

Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan (Powder Mage Trilogy #1). Really fun, fast paced book with varied and interesting characters, gritty without becoming grim or too dark. The first time I've ever said this, but possibly a bit *over* worldbuilt, having no less than five different kinds of magic users in one story without any apparent unifying system, making it feel a bit like everything had just been shoved in there. Still, the story was never bogged down by exposition and I remain cautiously optimistic there is some kind of explanation forthcoming in the sequel books.

This leads me onto the topic of also books, but ones I haven't yet read. With my Wheel of Time boxset 4 finally arriving, I can pick up that series again and have added books 10-14 to my reading list. On top of that, per our house rule about sequels, I'm adding the other Powder Mage books to the list, so even though I have finished (brief count) 6 books since we last spoke, these additions lead me to say...

84 books remaining!

(Yes that means it did go up. I will still drag myself out of this bottomless pit of books somehow dammit.)

#book backlog busting reading challenge #bbb challenge #reading challenge #reading backlog #books #reading #history books