daja-the-hypnokitten

[daja-the-hypnokitten]

emperor kuzco was clearly gay

[daja-the-hypnokitten]

I did an induction like this once, on a hypnotee who was studying something like electrical engineering. I'd have to see if I still have any notes from the negotiation, but there was a whole thing about overloading resistors and short-circuiting the brain, iirc? It was fun, the moreso because it traded heavily on what she knew so well.

Using things your hypnotee knows deeply "against" them works super well!! It's why one of my favourite lines to use on my subby partner is a lyric from her favourite band. She's primed to accept it because she practically auto-completes the lyric anyway.

what about hypnotic capacitance and resistance and whatnot

[daja-the-hypnokitten]

@misscammiedawn , for your House of Leaves tag <3

I love the idea of a roomba topography map being the jumping on point for a liminal horror story. House of Leaves II: Roomba.

[daja-the-hypnokitten]

“You need to believe in things that aren’t true. How else can they become” - Hogfather, Terry Pratchett

[daja-the-hypnokitten]

I see you moderate spaces from time to time and I really appreciate the thought you put in to say the right thing at the right time. Thank you for caring.

oh, gosh, thanks nonny. I try so hard to moderate with care, to keep spaces safe while also allowing for folk to be human and therefore imperfect.

Heavens know I'm far from perfect. But I try to lead with care, compassion, and curiosity, and that often goes a long way.

[daja-the-hypnokitten]

What are your favored drinks? Are you a person who enjoys tea?

I like some teas! Tho it depends heavily on how you prepare it - I'm extremely sensitive to bitter tastes, so a tea brewed too hot or too long won't be all that palatable for me.

Tisanes/herbal teas are safer, and I absolutely adore peppermint tea!

I enjoy a good apple cider, especially mulled with clove and cinnamon and allspice and sliced orange.

I ... drink more mountain dew than is entirely healthy. It's my caffeine source of choice.

But my absolute favourites are sprechers root beer and orange dream sodas. (separately, not together). Like, so much so that having Sprechers root beer on tap was a gift from my spouse's and my wedding venue, because they knew me well and wanted to be sweet. (It's a hall owned by a club my father's a part of and I volunteered at all through high school, so y'know, not like a super fancy business or anything.)

[daja-the-hypnokitten]

Do you have any stuffed animals? If so have you given any names? If so and if you want to share, what is the reason for one name you have given?

I do have stuffed animals! A handful!

Only 4 have names though:

Amber, my kanto vulpix, named after my very first vulpix on my original blue version cartridge so very many years ago. Even then, she was my favorite. (I have a soft spot for foxes with orange fur, I suppose)

Emma, my matching alolan vulpix. Named for someone I love dearly, love that persists even tho she died many years ago now. Over a decade ago. But I don't stop caring for people when they aren't in my life, that isn't how my heart works.

My small black squishmallow cat with a purple tummy and insides of her ears, who is called both Pounce and Faithful. Explaining why both is a bit of a spoiler, but the folk who read the "right" books will know.

And my favourite, my torso-sized calico car squishmallow, CamKitty, with her ever-constant lavender scent, named for @misscammiedawn (Cammie, specifically) and charmed with tricks to make the distance feel less far in between our visits.

[daja-the-hypnokitten]

The Insider and Outsider Detectives

So there's a lot of discourse about detectives floating around, ever since 2020 shifted a lot of people's Views on the police. Everyone likes a good mystery story, but no one seems to know what to make of a detective protagonist- especially if they're a cop. And everyone who cares about this kind of thing likes to argue over whether detective stories hold up the existing order or subvert it. Are they inherently copaganda? Are they subversive commentary on the uselessness of the police?

I think they can be both. And I think there's a framework we can use to look at individual detectives, and their stories, that illuminates the space between "a show like LAPD straight-up exists to make the cops look good" and "Boy Detective is a gender to me, actually".

So. You can sort most detectives in fiction into two boxes, based on their role in society: the Insider Detective and the Outsider Detective.

The Insider Detective is a part of the society they're investigating in, and has access to at least some of the levers of power in that society. They can throw money at their problems, or call in reinforcements, and if they contact the authorities, those authorities will take them seriously. Even the people they're investigating usually treat them with respect. They're a nice normal person in a nice normal world, thank you very much; they're not particularly eccentric. You could describe them as "sensible". And crime is a threat to that normal world. It's an intrusion that they have to fight off. An Insider Detective solving a crime is restoring the way things ought to be.

Some clear-cut examples of Insider Detectives are the Hardy Boys (and their father Fenton), Soichiro "Light's Dad" Yagami, or Father Brown. Many police procedural detectives are Insider Detectives, though not all.

The Outsider Detective, in contrast, is not a part of the society they're investigating in. They're often a marginalized person- they're neurodivergent, or elderly, or foreign, or a woman in a historical setting, or a child. They don't have access to any of the levers of power in their world- the authorities may not believe them (and might harass them), the people they're investigating think they're a joke (and can often wave them off), and they're unlikely to have access to things like "a forensics lab". The Outsider Detective is not respectable, and not welcome here- and yet they persist and solve the crime anyway. A lot of the time, when an Outsider Detective solves a crime, it's less "restoring the world to its rightful state" and more "exposing the rot in the normal world, and forcing it to change."

Some clear-cut examples of Outsider Detectives are Dirk Gently, Philip Marlowe, Sammy Keyes, or Mello from Death Note.

Now, here's the catch: these aren't immutable categories, and they are almost never clear-cut. The same detective can be an Insider Detective in one setting and an Outsider Detective in another. A good writer will know this, and will balance the two to say something about power and society.

Tumblr's second-favourite detective Benoit Blanc is a great example of this. Theoretically, Mr. Blanc should be an Insider Detective- he's a world-famous detective, he collaborates with the police, he's odd but respectable. But because of the circumstances he's in- investigating the ultra-rich, who live in their own horrid little bubbles- he comes off as the Outsider Detective, exposing the rot and helping everyone get what they deserve. And that's deliberate. There is no world where a nice, slightly eccentric, mildly fruity, fairly privileged guy like Benoit Blanc should be an outsider. But the turbo-rich live in such an insular world, full of so much contempt for anyone who isn't Them, that even Benoit Blanc gets left out in the cold. It's a scathing political statement, if you think about it.

But even a writer who isn't trying to Say Something About The World will still often veer between making their detective an Insider Detective and an Outsider Detective, because you can tell different kinds of stories within those frameworks. Jessica Fletcher from Murder She Wrote is a really good example of this-- she's a respectable older lady, whose runaway success as a mystery novelist gives her access to some social cachet. Key word: some.

Within her hometown of Cabot Cove, Fletcher is an Insider Detective. She's good friends with the local sheriff, she's incredibly familiar with the town's social dynamics, she can call in a favour from basically anyone... but she's still a little old lady. The second she leaves town, she might run into someone who likes her books... but she's just as likely to run into a police officer who thinks she's crazy or a perp who thinks she's an easy target. She has the incredibly tenuous social power that belongs to a little old lady that everyone likes- and when that's gone, she's incredibly vulnerable.

This is also why a lot of Sherlock Holmes adaptations tend to be so... divisive. Holmes is all things to all people, and depending on which stories you choose to focus on, you can get a very different detective. If you focus on the stories where Holmes collaborates with the police, on the stories with that very special kind of Victorian racism, or the stories where Holmes is fighting Moriarty, you've got an Insider Detective. If you focus on the stories where Holmes is consulting for a Nice Young Lady, on the stories where Holmes' neurodivergence is most prominent, or on his addictions, you've got an Outsider Detective.

Finally, a lot of buddy detective stories have an Insider Detective and an Outsider Detective sharing the spotlight. Think Scully and Mulder, or Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde. This lets the writer play with both pieces of the thematic puzzle at the same time, without sacrificing the consistency of their detective's character.

Back to my original point: if you like detective fiction, you probably like one kind of story better than the other. I know I personally really prefer Outsider Detective Stories to Insider Detective Stories- and while I can enjoy a good Insider Detective (I'd argue that Brother Cadfael, my beloved, is one most of the time), I seek out detectives who don't quite fit into the world they live in more often than not.

And if that's the vibe you're looking for... you're not going to run into a lot of police stories. It's absolutely possible to make a story where a cop (or, even better, an FBI agent) is an Outsider Detective-- Nick Angel from Hot Fuzz was originally going to be one of my 'clear-cut examples' until I remembered that he is, in fact, legally a cop! But a cop who's an Outsider Detective is going to be spending a lot of time butting heads with local law enforcement, to the point where he doesn't particularly feel like one. He's probably going to get fired at some point, and even if his badge gets reinstated, he's going to struggle with his place in the world. And a lot of Outsider Detective stories where the detective is a cop or an FBI agent are intensely political, and not in a conservative way- they have Things To Say about small towns, clannishness, and the injustice that can happen when a Pillar Of The Community does something wrong and everyone looks the other way. (Think Twin Peaks or The Wicker Man.)

Does this mean Insider Detective Stories are Bad Copaganda and Outsider Detective Stories are Good Revolutionary Stories? No. If you take one thing away from this post, please make it that these categories are morally neutral. There are Outsider Detective stories about cops who are Outsiders because they really, really want an excuse to shoot people. There are Insider Detective stories about little old people who are trying to keep misapplied justice from hurting the kids in their community. Neither of these types of stories are good or bad on their own. They're different kinds of storytelling framework and they serve different purposes.

But, if you find yourself really gravitating to certain kinds of mysteries and really put off by other kinds, and you're trying to express why, this might be a framework that's useful for you. If your gender is Boy Detective, but you absolutely loathe cop stories? This might be why.

(PS: @anim-ttrpgs was posting about their game Eureka again, and that got me to make this post- thank them if you're happy to finally see it. Eureka is designed as an Outsider Detective simulator, and so the rules actively forbid you from playing as a cop- they're trying to make it so that you have limited resources and have to rely on your own competence. It's a fantastic looking game and I can't recommend it enough.)

(PPS: I'm probably going to come back to this once I finish Psycho-Pass with my partner, because they said I'd probably have Thoughts.)

(PPPS: Encyclopedia Brown is an Insider Detective, and that's why no one likes him. This is my most controversial detective take.)

[daja-the-hypnokitten]

tumblr discourse after 13 years on this fucking website

[daja-the-hypnokitten]

The thing with the Mari Lwyd, though, is that it's being... I don't know, 'appropriated' is the wrong word, but certainly turned into something it isn't.

Thing is, this is a folk tradition in the Welsh language, and that's the most important aspect of it. I feel partly responsible for this, because I accidentally became a bit of an expert on the topic of the Mari Lwyd in a post that escaped Tumblr containment, and I clearly didn't stress it strongly enough there (in my defence, I wrote that post for ten likes and some attention); but this is a Welsh language tradition, conducted in Welsh, using Welsh language poetic forms that are older than the entire English language, and also a very specific sung melody (with a very specific first verse; that's Cân y Fari). It is not actually a 'rap battle'. It's not a recited poem. It is not any old rhyme scheme however you want.

It is not in English.

Given the extensive and frankly ongoing attempts by England to wipe out Welsh, and its attendant cultural traditions, the Mari is being revived across Wales as an act of linguistic-cultural defiance. She's a symbol of Welsh language culture, specifically; an icon to remind that we are a distinct people, with our own culture and traditions, and in spite of everyone and everything, we're still here. Separating her from that by removing the Welsh is, to put it mildly, wildly disrespectful.

...but it IS what I'm increasingly seeing, both online and in real world Mari Lwyd festivals. She's gained enormous pop-culture popularity in recent years, which is fantastic; but she's also been reduced from the tradition to just an aesthetic now.

So many people are talking/drawing about her as though she's a cryptid or a mythological figure, rather than the folk practice of shoving a skull on a stick and pretending to be a naughty horse for cheese and drunken larks. And I get it! It's an intriguing visual! Some of the artwork is great! But this is not what she is. She's not a Krampus equivalent for your Dark Christmas aesthetic.

I see people writing their own version of the pwnco (though never called the pwnco; almost always called some variant on 'Mari Lwyd rap battle'), and as fun as these are, they are never even written in the meter and poetic rules of Cân y Fari, much less in Welsh, and they never conclude with the promise to behave before letting the Mari into the house. The pwnco is the central part to the tradition; this is the Welsh language part, the bit that's important and matters.

Mari Lwyd festivals are increasingly just English wassail festivals with a Mari or two present. The Swansea one last weekend didn't even include a Mari trying to break into a building (insert Shrek meme); there was no pwnco at all. Even in the Chepstow ones, they didn't do actual Cân y Fari; just a couple of recited verses. Instead, the Maris are just an aesthetic, a way to make it look a bit more Welsh, without having to commit to the unfashionable inconvenience of actually including Welsh.

And I don't really know what the answers are to these. I can tell you what I'd like - I'd like art to include the Welsh somewhere, maybe incorporating the first line of Cân y Fari like this one did, to keep it connected to the actual Welsh tradition (or other Welsh, if other phrases are preferred). I'd like people who want to write their version of the pwnco to respect the actual tradition of it by using Cân y Fari's meter and rhyme scheme, finishing with the promise to behave, and actually calling it the pwnco rather than a rap battle (and preferably in Welsh, though I do understand that's not always possible lol). I'd like to see the festivals actually observe the tradition, and include a link on the booking website to an audio clip of Cân y Fari and the words to the first verse, so attendees who want to can learn it ahead of time. I don't know how feasible any of that is, of course! But that's what I'd like to see.

I don't know. This is rambly. But it's something I've been thinking about - and increasingly nettled by - for a while. There's was something so affirming and wonderful at first about seeing the Mari's climb into international recognition, but it's very much turned to dismay by now, because she's important to my endangered culture and yet that's the part that everyone apparently wants to drop for being too awkward and ruining the aesthetic. It's very frustrating.

[daja-the-hypnokitten]

It's Friday the 13th! Time to celebrate the unlucky voids in all their glory~ Here is a collection of Space Cat that I've painted over the years. What shenanigans will he get up to next?

[daja-the-hypnokitten]

Shout out to all the Black ppl that can no longer participate directly in the fandom they love because of the stresses of racism ���🏾 you contain multitudes of value and I'm sorry that the color of your skin and the power of your voice makes people not want to acknowledge that.

[daja-the-hypnokitten]

"Good Morning, Rose"

My short story for the wlw anthology GLIMM*R!

[daja-the-hypnokitten]

hey (shows you a spiral on my phone) (flirting)

[daja-the-hypnokitten]

it's really quite effective and turns my brain into an empty, pliable puddle of blankness

Using the DING sound effect from Powerwash Simulator is an effective hypnotic trigger and lets the game double as a Brainwashing Simulator.

[daja-the-hypnokitten]

has this been done before

[daja-the-hypnokitten]

sorry since realizing my gender i have zero tolerance for the whole “man hating” angle of being queer i hate i hate it i hate you. stop. you are hurting people.