#← my tag for excerpts and passages

[handweavers]

"the skin of religion" by s. brent plate is one of my favourite pieces of writing on art & spirituality, i always go back to it. such a foundational work for me tbh

["The skinscape of religion stands at the crux of the matter, the heart of religion: it happens at in-between, mediated places. From this focal point, it unfolds outward to become the foundation stone in the construction of social-sacred space. Recall Lefebvre's comment: "Within the body itself, spatially considered, the successive levels constituted by the senses [...] prefigure the layers of social space and their interconnections." To understand religion and its places, we cannot merely operate through third or fourth order disembodied hermeneutics regarding texts, doctrines, or previous relatable experiences. Neither can we submit that so-called "mystical" and "im-mediate" experiences occur without the mediation incurring through one's cultural environment. Neither is it enough to iconographically study the visual arts, or phenomenologically investigate ritual movements and extract from them a system, disregarding sensual encounters with the works. Finally, to suggest that the new cognitive sciences can describe everything for us is also bound to fail for it often lacks the ways cultural environments shape cognitive processes; hard wiring is always a little bit soft.

Unpacking the chart more, in the first instance the skin (a synecdoche for the senses in general) is to human cognition as the medium is to the message. (And I am here conjuring McLuhan's hyperbole that the medium is the message.) The senses are the media of the body, the channels through which understanding occurs. The senses do not merely influence cognition, but become the thought itself. Beliefs, and conceptions of super natural/transcendent higher powers are not possible to be disentangled from sense perceptions, nor from the media in which religious conceptions occur. If, as George Lakoff and Mark Johnson have observed, there is a bodily basis to metaphor, there is likewise a bodily basis to mythology, to the stories and proverbs and ethical commands of sacred texts, and to sacred symbols. The sensual body is not relegated merely to the ritual and behavioral aspects of religious life, as is commonly posited. Rather, the body pervades all aspects of religion."]

[zareleonis]

It hadn't taken Yaz long to notice that it was never completely quiet on the TARDIS. No, it was never that, not even when nobody was dashing around being excited. Even at the quietest moments, there was always a faint hum, reminding you that the ship was alive, sort of (she certainly wouldn't chance saying it wasn't alive, and certainly not when the TARDIS could hear) and that at any moment, something wonderful and marvellous and quite probably madly dangerous might suddenly start happening. And Yaz loved it, loved every single second of it. The marvellous travelling, the wondrous marvels, and the marvellous wonders. And the danger: yes, she would have to admit she liked that too. It was one of the reasons that she'd picked her career. Not because she thired on danger, or got a kick from taking risks. Those people didn't get far. No, Yaz was the kind of person who stayed cool when other people panicked. That made her feel useful, helpful, and in control. Yaz knew that when things were going wrong, she was the kind of person who could make a difference. What her time on the TARDIS was teaching her was on what scale she could make that difference. She spent her "off-duty" time, as she sometimes thought of it, wandering this amazing ship: exploring, checking for exits (Yaz was practical and sensible too), and trying to understand something of the nature of her new digs, eventually, she would come back to the console room, and there, inevitably, she would find the Doctor, this most wonderful and marvellous of all the wonders and marvels that Yaz had recently seen; this incredible traveller and adventurer; source of fun; force for good; friend and mentor. Yaz had wondered a couple of times what she would do when her time with the Doctor was over. Would she be able to go back to her job, her old life? Would anything ever seem as brilliant and exciting again? She would put these thoughts aside. Time to worry later about the future. For now, enjoy the present — or whatever time it was when the TARDIS happened to land. Coming into the console room, Yaz found the Doctor all by herself. She was unusually quiet too—for the Doctor—but still plainly busy. The Doctor was gripping the console with both hands, murmuring something… Coordinates? Some new language? A Recipe? A spell? French verbs? You never quite knew. But there was alwasy something. Yaz got the feeling that the Doctor didn't rest—not really—and that her mind was always ticking away, absorbing some new piece of information. Learning, discovering, connecting, thinking… Yaz, watching her, thought, I want to be like that… The Doctor saw her and smiled.

Doctor Who: Molten Heart by Una McCormack

[markantonys]

#you know what this post has made me realize? poor mat is in dire need of a homoerotic rival!#<- PREV HE ABSOLUTELY IS#the show should give him one. as a treat. it'd be entirely in keeping with the show's Everything so far tbh tbh#personally i think it should be asmodean#he shows up and attaches himself to rand and mat's just like 'excuse me if anyone is going to give that man a bi awakening it WILL be me'#asmodean is torn between the urge to yell that it is Not Like That and the necessity of hiding his Very Evil Motives#(also it absolutely Is Like That but sometimes a gay lil bard needs some evil denial. for his health <3) (via @thewholedamnboulangerie)

i support this motion AND there are book grounds for it!!

gawyn with rand 🤝 dain with perrin

[crippleprophet]

i don’t understand how people can be so fucking cruel about people who can’t read much (including people who aren’t literate, though this post is from my experience with chronic illness). like, one of my main motivations behind posting excerpts of butch+femme writing on my main (@campgender ; it’s fine to go through my bookshelf tag but please only followers age 18+ on that blog!) is that it is fucking hard to read a full book!!

my reading comprehension & stamina decreased drastically when i developed worse chronic fatigue, & while i’m overjoyed that i’ve recently regained a lot of that particular ability since getting blackout curtains, there are absolutely still texts i can’t even begin to parse that i once would’ve loved digging into — texts that it would be actively dangerous for me to attempt to struggle through because it would break pacing.

idk i’m not trying to be self-congratulatory here or whatever but like. the second i could access information through this means again, the focus of my (very fucking limited!!) energy has been giving it back to my people. my life has been unquestionably, deeply shaped by tumblr users who share excerpts of theory & memoir & poetry because they were providing labor of which i was in need & incapable.

finding, selecting, transcribing, formatting, & at times contextualizing passages takes a lot of fucking time & energy, but in order for me to encounter certain concepts, experiences, & histories, it’s work somebody else had to do, because i couldn’t read 200 pages of research or anthology in order to encounter the 10 that would change my life — but posted 2 or 3 pages at a time, i could save that in my drafts to get through on a good day, & quotes that were only a couple lines i could usually read right when i encountered them.

so, in memory of the years i spent unable to access theory through anything other than excerpts & secondhand summaries,

and in anticipation of the years to come where i will live the same,

and in acceptance that the brain is a muscle, in love of we the exercise-intolerant,

to you, dear reader — whatever form & frequency & duration that reading may take, even if it’s no further than this post — i make my motherfucking covenant: the issues i discuss around pulling quotes will be about the political act of the ellipse and the ethics of transcription, not shaming people for the methods of accessing information that are available to them. as often & as long as i am able, people can ask me to explain something or summarize in plain language and i will meet them with respect, interest, & effort. if someone’s looking for information on a particular topic, identity, experience & doesn’t have the energy to find it, i’m gonna give what i have towards filtering through the bullshit for the gems.

according to our abilities. according to our needs.

and the next time somebody tells you it’s not ableist to say everyone has to read [whatever work], tell them to go put their precious ability to better use in making it more accessible.

[depraveddame]

New Fic: when pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure

1941, London, the Blitz: take 3

I am a firm believer of an almost kiss or kiss in 1941 after the events we have seen…or maybe quite possibly more.

This one shot explores what might have happened between an angel and a demon in a bookshop in Soho that night during the Blitz. It’s a study in reverence and worship, in lust, in divine ecstasy and how pain manifests itself as pleasure in a certain demon as his ravaged feet are healed by a certain angel.

The title is from Persuasion, and the referenced passage is quoted at the start of the fic ✨

Tags: Canon Compliant, 1941, Post Church Scene, Post Magic Show, Aziraphale POV, pining, minor hurt/comfort, healing, homoerotic wound care, body worship, foot worship, foot fetish adjacent, masochism, kinky allusions and themes, religious imagery and symbolism, divine ecstasy, sexual tension, coming untouched, kissing, smut, sweet/hot, mild drunkenness/tipsiness, and more!

Excerpt:

“A-angel,” the rasp that leaves Crowley’s throat after perhaps two minutes inspires Aziraphale to go faster; this must be so horribly uncomfortable for the demon, the healing process, he imagines.

“Nearly done this first one, darling,” Aziraphale mutters under his breath, the endearment slipping out nearly unnoticed, warm and lush on his tongue; his own defenses have tumbled to the ground, too, as ruined as the house of God that inflicted the damage he’s undoing, “you’re doing so very well.”

He looks up in alarm at the answering whine that darts through the quiet, loud and fractured and fraught, and Crowley’s angular cheekbones are as crimson as the tie resting on his heaving chest, the fever gleam of his gaze climbing in intensity and temperature as the goldenrod of his irises begins to bloom outward.

“I’m terribly sorry,” Aziraphale whispers, staring again, drinking in the sight of the demon like he’d downed the wine— gratefully and with gnawing, writhing hunger, “is it— is it very painful, my touch? I suppose it is technically divine—”

“No,” Crowley hisses emphatically through gritted teeth, eyes screwing shut as he shakes his head; his foot twitches in Aziraphale’s hand, “‘s not— it’s not that, it’s just— ‘s a lot. Been a long night.”

You can certainly say that, Aziraphale muses inwardly as the last remnants of hurt ebb away from under his palm, as he draws out the last of the throbbing, flayed nerve inflammation and neutralizes its sting.

“Yes, it has been,” Aziraphale nods as he glances back down, his face burning, like some of the heat he just soothed away from Crowley’s foot instead manifested itself in his own cheeks, “I know, Crowley. Thank you for letting me tend to you, for— for everything you’ve done, tonight,” he runs the tip of his index finger along the top of the really very lovely foot in his grasp, unable to stop himself from answering the siren call of its sculpted ivory curve, “for trusting me.”

He doesn’t mean to go on and on about that, but Aziraphale knows he won’t be able to stop thinking about it whenever he looks back on this evening (and he will look back on it a lot, he can tell).

The velvet of Crowley’s skin being so feather soft is something else he knows he’ll recall often.

*

@goodomensafterdark

[somethingclevermahogony]

An Introduction to Myself and My WIP!

Hello everyone! A confession, this is actually a re-introduction. I've been here on Tumblr for a little less than a year now, but I haven't been the best about being active, life just sort of got in the way. As such I would like to reintroduce myself and what I've been working on.

For the purposes of Tumblr and in the interest of privacy you can call me C. I am in my mid-twenties, I use he/him pronouns, and I am happily married to my partner, who is also a C. I am queer, as is my partner. I enjoy cooking, fishing, Dnd(ing?), reading, and of course writing.

We both originally come from the US but we are currently living on the east coast of Scotland as I pursue my Msc in Archaeology.

I am trying to be a bit more active on here and I am always open to things like tags and asks, even if it takes me a bit to respond.

I think that's about it for me, and so without further ado let me introduce or reintroduce you to my WIP.

Testaments of the Green Sea

Genre: Epic Fantasy

Themes and Tropes (Or more accurately a random assortment of words vaguely related to the plot): Found Family, immortality, loss, love, war, power, memory, magic, insanity, The passage of time, growing up, queerness in the ancient world, violence, spirits, fantasy outside of medieval europe

Summary: Book one of the Testaments of the Green Sea (The lands of the Green Sea are pictured above) follows the journeys of the giant slave Narul and the princess Ninma. After unexpected tragedy forces the two to flee from the Great city of Labisa, they find themselves on a journey which carries them across the ancient lands of Kishetal. Along the way they encounter spirits, demons, war, gods, pirates, and slavers. TW for death/grief, violence/blood/gore, mental illness, physical illness, abuse, and cannibalism, awkward queerness, secondhand embarrasment etc, etc.

Excerpt( First Paragraph of Chapter 1): The blood dripped into the awaiting bowl, painting its alabaster walls crimson. The slave watched the dark liquid trickle down his arm, skirting past the hairs, rolling veins, and moles. Even after these twenty years of weekly blood lettings, he could not shake a creeping feeling of unease as his eyes followed the sanguine river creeping its way across his arm. His own face gazed back at him from the scarlet pool. He could not meet his own eye, could not stand to look that creature. He turned away.

Draft Status: The second draft of the manuscript is currently being edited, I will be looking for my first round of Beta Readers likely before the end of the year.

This is just part one of a much larger series. My partner is currently working on the beginnings of their own series, set in the same world but 3,000 years in the future, roughly aligning with our own Great War Period. I'm so excited to share more with you, and I love answering questions!

Narul and Ninma courtesy of @faeporcelain

[katyawriteswhump]

WIP tag game!

Rules: You will be given a word. Share one sentence/excerpt from your wip(s) that start with each letter of that word.

The beyond awesome @wheneverfeasible tagged me! I was going to try QWERTY, but yeah... no Qs forthcoming so I stole some SYRUP!

So, here's some WIP excerpts, including some oldies I really need to get back to. This was a good excuse to dust off those files, so...

Less than zero pressure tags for some lovely moots and lovely tumblrs I haven't connected with in a while (my bad!) @tea42 @yesdangerpls @estrellami-1 @hey-rach247

@kal-ology @berenwrites ... word is, TOAST.

...

Screw it.  Steve’s an Omega. He’s not a freakin’ pushover, plus there were pups in danger. Okay, not his, and in fact only a few years younger the him, but that was total irrelevance. It was his duty as much as anybody’s to look out for them—in fact, presenting as Omega had been a goddamn relief, explaining a lot about his protective instincts toward younger kids.

From my forthcoming Whumptober Omegaverse fic #1

There's 18+ stuff to follow so...

“You want that?”

All Steve could do was gawk at him, incredulous. “I always wanted you, Eddie. Yeah, I was kinda surprised at the start, because sex had never been, like, fun for me before. And I’m not saying what we did wasn’t totally fucked up, but… Honest to God, Eddie, that first night, you spent more time with your fingers up my ass—driving me crazy—than your dick. The only part which was fucking hard labor was how you aaalways needed me to come too! Guess that meant you always cared if I was enjoying it, so… I wasn’t lying about much, okay? No doe-eyed guilt trips, huh?”

From The Freak in the Penthouse chapter 15

Really, truly, Steve wasn’t sure if he’d be able to come again so soon. Either way, it was fun finding out. By the time Eddie gobbled him deep, cheeks sexily hollowed and with a super-sexy glint in his eye, Steve was pretty much at the point of no return, and the soft undulations at the back of Eddie’s throat slayed him dead.

From The Freak in the Penthouse chapter 15

“Uuuuuh, how exactly did you two wind up at Lover’s Lake, anyhow?” asks Dustin, who’s getting incredibly nimble with his crutches. Steve remains out of it, so Eddie and Robin hook his arms over their shoulders and start dragging him between them back toward Nancy’s station wagon.  “I mean, we thought you were in the Starcourt base—"

“Good job you weren’t,” interjected Nancy. “Oh my God, you have no idea what’s been going down there.”

“Yeeeeah, actually, that’s precisely where we were,” mumbled Eddie. “And the apocalyptic flood? Okay, you might have to ask Steve about that. When he wakes up.”

From The Power of Love chapter 19

“P-please.” Steve begged, and for or the first time, he struggled against his bonds in his need to remove the blindfold. “What’s happening… Jesus… Holy Shiiiiiit! E-eddie? Pleeeeeease!”

Still no answer. Just scorching hot breaths, and deep grooooowl that resonated to the marrow of Steve’s bones. At the same time, mega-confusingly, the pillow-soft lips nuzzling Steve’s throat sure as heck belonged to human Eddie. The body slamming him, too, wasn’t abrasive scaly… but Holy shit! That was a definitely gigantic, scaly dragon cock that slowly nudged his dripping wet passage apart.

From Dragons’ Pet chapter 3

[cheeseofmysteriousorigin]

CHRISTMAS CAME EARLY 🎄🥹 @floonasif-blog (floonasif_art on Instagram) drew this scene from my fic and it looks so wholesome and cute 😭

It's from Chapter 11 of my fic, To Live and Love Our Way (still a WIP). There's an excerpt of this scene below (the full fic is 🔞 but this passage is SFW).

I had almost forgotten it was Christmas morning when I rolled out of bed. Ochako’s parents said goodbye to me the afternoon before when they left for Hokkaido, so I was alone. I grabbed a shirt off the floor—the one that had the phone with the heart-envelope emoji on it—and tossed it on along with my skirt before opening the door. I was still sleepy and wasn’t paying attention, and so I almost stepped on the wrapped present that somebody had left in front of my door. There was a tag on the front that just said “TOGA”. It had never crossed my mind that anybody would get my anything. I picked it up and tore off the red and green paper. At the top of the box was a card.

Dear Toga, We’re sorry we couldn’t have you with us for Christmas, but we still wanted to celebrate with you. We saved up to get you something that we thought might help you out. We hope you like it. Merry Christmas! – Izuku and Ochako ❤️ P.S.: When you’re done setting up your gift, give us a video call.

A video call!? I tore away the tissue paper insiode the box and saw my reflection in the black glass of a smartphone screen. I couldn’t believe it. They were still students! And they were saving up to buy me a smartphone? I fished the user guide out from underneath the phone and flipped to the quick setup page. “Push and hold down the side button to turn on.” I did, holding my thumb against it and, after two seconds, the screen lit up with a soft white glow. The word “Welcome” faded onto the screen in English, then in Japanese, then in a bunch of other languages. I tapped through the setup instructions, popping the SIM card out of my old phone and sliding it into the new one. Four bars popped up in the top right corner, and the screen advanced to the next step. “Set up your profile?” I tapped yes. It asked me for my given and family name. Himiko Toga , I typed. This was already so much faster than on my flip phone. I tapped the little silhouetted head icon, and the front-facing camera opened up. I was startled to see myself, but I flashed a small smile and took a picture. My head appeared in a little circle next to my name. I tapped to go to the next step. “Thank you, Himiko,” the phone screen said. That made me smile. I knew it was just preprogrammed to say that, but it still made me happy. The message faded out, and it asked me a new question. “Import contacts?” I tapped yes again. There weren’t many on my old phone—just Ochako and her parents, and that was basically it. There was a little spinning circle icon in the center of the screen, and then it disappeared, replaced by a check mark. “You’re all set!” the screen said, before fading to the home page, with little rounded squares for all the apps that came with my new phone. When you’re done setting up your gift, give us a video call. Where was that? I tapped the icon that looked like a TV camera, and saw my face again, along with a couple of phone numbers: Ochako’s was at the top. I tapped it, and heard a ringing sound. My face filled the screen as I waited for them to pick up. It rang once, then a second time, then a third. And then, ping . My face shrunk down into the bottom corner and Ochako’s face took up the screen instead. Izuku was looking over her shoulder, and someone else—I guess Izuku’s mom—waved from behind them both. “Merry Christmas, Toga!” they all shouted at once. I smiled and held back tears. I had never had a good Christmas before. This was something totally new, and even though we weren’t physically together, I wasn’t going to have to spend it alone after all. We all sat talking on the phone for an hour until my phone ran out of battery. I grabbed the charger out of the box and plugged it into the wall. After a minute, the screen came back to life. I saw a text from Ochako.

Ochako [09:17]: I guess your phone ran out of battery? It was still great talking to you! You can call us back later if you want to? Himiko [09:17]: I might later, I still need to figure out all of these apps Ochako [09:18]: Okay, that makes sense! I hope you like it! Himiko [09:18]: I love it. Thank you so much, Ochako <3 You and Izuku made this Christmas so wonderful

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

Hey so I've been wondering about inclusivsm vs exclusivism in Christianity and the Bible. I've had more of a inclusivst view before, but I find that there's also a large amount of exclusivism in the Bible. So, I was wondering what you think about it overall? Is it both? Neither? Nothing? One? Anyway, may the Lord be with you always 💛💐

Hi there! I am 100% against exclusivism, and lean towards religious pluralism. For me that means I don't believe that only Christians go to heaven, that Christianity is the only "right" belief system / that Jesus is the only path to the Divine, or that Christians are God's Extra Special Favorites.

When we pray Thy will be done, we look forward to God's will succeeding — and what God wills is abundant life for everyone! Not just for the Right Kind of Christians; not just for all Christians in general; not even just for all human beings; but for all Creation.

There are numberless ways to worship the Divine, to express faith, to glorify our Creator. Wherever there is life, there is Spirit. Wherever there are beings seeking to bring life, Divinity is glorified.

The diversity of faiths is a holy gift that we too often twist into a flaw to be corrected. God shaped humans to need one another — alone, our perspectives and gifts are limited; only together can we hope to come close to understanding the Divine. We have so much to learn from one another — if only let go of our smugness, our sense of superiority, our need to be the ones with All The Answers. If only we let go of the fear we've been taught — fear that we'll go to hell if we're wrong; fear that others will go to hell if they're wrong.

Sorry for waxing poetic lol. Here's a post where I explore inclusivism vs. exclusivism in more depth, including looks at various Bible passages.

Other related things:

Here's a really old post/video that gathers some of my thoughts on inclusivism, salvation, heaven.

Here's a more recent post where I talk about why I don't believe in hell.

My evangelism tag (tl;dr: I'm staunchly against prosletyzing to anyone who doesn't explicitly request more info about Christianity)

I highly recommend the book Holy Envy by Barbara Brown Taylor for a Christian framework for forming respectful, mutual relationships with people of other faiths. This tag has some excerpts from the book.

[destinationtoast]

hi toasty, i love your stats! i have a question for you that may be unanswerable, but do you have any insight into the phenomenon of x-reader fics on tumblr? i've noticed anecdotally for a while now that reader fics tend to have many more notes (like, thousands!) than their non-reader counterparts, and that they also seem to be mostly (?) posted in full here, rather than linking to ao3. (check the tags #wolverine fanfic vs #poolverine fanfic as an example). i know there is also reader fic posted on ao3, but i'm wondering whether anyone's done a qualitative or quantitative analysis of this (if that's even possible)? did tumblr just at some point become "the place to post reader fic"?

any insight welcome. blows my mind how there's like two entirely separate worlds of posting behavior/style happening here.

Hey! :) Thanks for the kind words and the interesting ask.

I don't have any data about xReader fic on tumblr (the only xReader-relevant data I think I have is from a 2019 analysis of Shipping on Wattpad vs. AO3 and FFN that looked at xReader prevalence in the archives at that time)..

However, I do have a couple recommendations for where to start finding out more about xReader fic (and where it gets posted):

Effie Sapurdis (interviewed by @fansplaining in Episode 221: Self-Inserts) is an Information & Media Studies researcher studying self-inserts. Effie has written a paper called Self-Insert Fanfiction as Digital Technology of the Self with this very promising abstract excerpt:

Then, drawing on a survey of self-insert fanfiction conducted across four platforms (Ao3, FF.net, Tumblr, and Wattpad), we explore how such works can be discovered, read, and engaged with, and we offer specific observations about self-insert subgenres, as drawn from a selection of these works.

I haven't read most of this paper, but a quick search for "Tumblr" revealed several passages that potentially relate to your question, including:

We observed that the keyword “Imagines” (i.e., with the -s) was most often appended to collections of “one-shot” stories, many of which were originally posted on the authors’ Tumblr accounts and were then “cross-posted” to Ao3 afterward.

(This is just one section -- there are other sections about other types of self-insert & xReader works). This passage highlights one possibility: perhaps many of the works you're seeing will eventually end up on an archive as well, possibly as part of one of those multi-chaptered fanwork that's a combination of many short works. But I don't know whether most people then go back and link to the archive version from the original Tumblr post.

Anyway, Effie's the expert here -- check out her work! :) I'll also throw this open to readers -- does anyone here have any other relevant data? (xReader writers and readers are also welcome to chime in and share their personal experiences and any patterns/trends they've noticed.)

[jewlwpet]

Hello! What do you think is the meaning behind referencing Baroque in utena songs? In particular in "Baroque Rock", but I suspect it's also tied to that one line "I Am All the Mysteries in Creation." So far I've been thinking that it has something to do with atificiality and pointless performance. Do you have any ideas or something to point me towards?

This is a great question! I love getting questions like this!

To a certain extent I think Seazer just writes about stuff that interests him, and he gets a lot of it from the stuff he reads. He reads a lot of Tatsuhiko Shibusawa. I bought a Shibusawa book once and it is so full of stuff that Seazer referenced; it's amazing. None of his work has been translated into English, but Shibusawa himself was a translator and you can read stuff that he translated into Japanese. There's a complete list of everything he ever translated here. You can see some familiar terms even in the titles, like "marionette" and "archibras."

But that's not the most satisfying answer and I'm sure there's more to it than just that. Likely there are answers lying somewhere in his blog posts. But I like your guess. Though, I see those themes just as much in songs that relate to other artistic movements, like Mannerism.

When I was reading Umberto Eco's novel Foucault's Pendulum, there was a passage that really stuck with me and that referenced the Baroque. I don't think that all the references to the Baroque in Seazer's music are referencing that one passage, but it does connect the idea of the Baroque with ideas that run through Seazer's music and through Utena.

When I posted that passage, I mentioned in the tags that I'd heard a rumor that one of Seazer's Utena CDs was inspired by one of this author's other books--I've since confirmed that as fact. I forget which CD (I have posted about it before so you may be able to find it in my Umberto Eco or J. A. Seazer tag), but I did find a quote from Seazer saying he took inspiration from Eco's novel In the Name of the Rose as well as the movie adaptation of it for at least one of the Utena CDs.

There is actually a passage in Foucault's Pendulum that is remarkably similar to the lyrics of a certain duel song iirc (I forget the title, but the one with the lines about the interval between two mirrors), but the timeline doesn't quite match up--when that song was first released, the book hadn't been translated into Japanese or even English so I don't see how Seazer could have been referencing it. Maybe someone translated an excerpt in some publication that he read, idk.

Back to the subject of the Baroque. In my opinion, based on the lyrics to Baroque Rock, I would say it relates to the idea of orbit, of perpetual motion, and of the spiral which represents the mystery of life and death and rebirth--in other words, eternal cycles from which people seek release.

[my-castles-crumbling]

📝 Word excerpt ask game

Send a random word to my asks and I'll post a line/passage containing that word from a released or unreleased fic!

I shall tag @emlovessid and @beautyoftheships if they want to participate as well, but no pressure!

Thanks @mundrakan for the tag!

[robthegoodfellow]

WIP Word Game

Rules: you will be given a word. share one sentence/excerpt from your wip(s) that start with each letter of that word.

The word that @spaceofentropy tagged me in is... BATCH. The C was the hardest to come by, and my sentences are comically hideously long, so I just found passages where sentences in close proximity started with the given letters!

All from next chapter of Only One Bed:

BAT:

Better get to lifting, Robin had joked, only the funny thing was… he had been? And not even just out of some not-so-subconscious urge to impress Billy—as soon as he landed a job that would require prolonged shirtlessness, he’d started hitting the home gym hard.

…And also stopped shaving his chest, though that had been more of a gamble, inspired by a mundane moment that had haunted his psyche: Billy in the parking lot after school, lounging against the hood of the Camaro, shirt unbuttoned to his navel, gaping wide under the leather jacket—and Steve had lost track of things en route to his car, gaze probing the play of shadows on tanned skin, toned chest, when a wolf whistle jerked him back to earth. Munson, hands cupped to holler Hey, there, Knight Rider! And Billy’s laugh, a silky, flirty sound: How about a little Turbo Boost?

Steve had driven home, gone about his evening, only for that laugh to swamp him again as he sat flipping channels—Billy’s head tipped back, lips parted, hint of teeth—when he stumbled upon a souped-up Firebird mid chase scene. He’d watched the entire episode. Hadn’t meant to compare Billy to Hasselhoff, but did.

The main difference was the chest hair—the thatch of dark that peeked from a deep V of fabric—and why was it only called cleavage on a chick? When the plush curve of pecs, hairy or shiny smooth, was just as… slutty…?

Anyway—yeah. He’d rolled the dice, embraced his inner Hoff, rocked the furry chest all summer.

CH:

If his parents were home, they sprawled out in the den and graciously accepted the parade of snacks ferried in by Steve’s mom, who was less invested in feeding them than catching them in the act. Catch him cheating, basically, and prove himself just as much a scoundrel as his father. Which is why they didn’t retreat downstairs to the rec room when she was around—his mother simply refused to believe they had only ever been and would only ever be friends, and any behavior to fuel her suspicions was generally avoided.

He'd come close to biting her head off when she heard Nancy had dumped him and her first response had been to sigh all knowingly, because he couldn’t expect Nancy to put up with it forever—sharing his attention with another girl.

Almost snapped, but he’d stormed out instead, and it was only later that night, tossing and turning in bed, that her words returned to him and he had to laugh. Because Nancy had been sharing his attention—just not with Robin. Not the way she meant, anyway.

.

Thanks for the tag! No pressure tags for others, using the word... SLEEP:

@ihni, @fizzigigsimmer, @adelacreations

@shieldofiron, @intothedysphoria, @imsodishy

[indigowriting]

heads up, seven up

tagged by @zmwrites (thank you! you can find her excerpt here)

i only early have one wip that has had any progress recently, so here’s a bit from orioles:

Tally doesn’t usually go down to the relay room; actually, almost no one does, because there’s no one beyond the generation ship to communicate with—the last vestiges of intelligent life, as far as the Firstborn could tell ten centuries ago, are contained on this generation ship, the final, dying gasp of hope from a crumbling world, bound for what they had determined to be a viable planet for settlement—, but it’s not far away from the cryo chamber, and sometimes if you’re working in there, your comms’ll pick up whatever interference the open relay channels are receiving. It always amounts to nothing more than some dying star’s emissions or the crackling reception of some probe sent out long ago that is still, somehow, not dead in the black reaches of space, but investigating them, even if they turn out to be nothing, is one of the few diversions acceptable during work hours, and one of the only ones with anything actually interesting involved.

The corridors grow wide and opulent the closer they grow to the cryo chamber, no longer the labyrinthine warrens of passages barely tall enough to stand in, cleaned religiously of any rust or other aesthetic blemishes, and it’s precisely that cleanliness that makes them unsettling—they’re relics of a past time, a past people, and they feel just as suspended in time as the hundred-odd people held in cryopods in the cryo chamber proper. Without meaning to, Tally shivers.

“Hang in there,” Bismah mutters, keeping her voice habitually low in the way all maintenance workers do when in this part of the ship. Tally has no idea when it started—it’s as old as their grandparents’ generation, at least, and probably older still. As much as their lives are in service of the Firstborn, there’s also a degree of trepidation towards them—they’re a people who no one knows much about, beyond the duty they have towards them.

featuring: my inability to end sentences without tacking on like ten clauses </3

tagging: @mjjune @saturnine-saturneight @maiawritten and anyone else who sees this! (no pressure though!)

[transmutationisms]

whats your favourite excerpt of writing by someone else?

what do you enjoy most about posting here, as in what motivates you to continue doing so?

are you happy with who you are presently?

1. i go a little bananas every time i pick up 'in search of lost time' i love how proust writes. lots of passages in there ive marked but i always think back to the reminiscence in vol 6 where he's talking about albertine's death and how he knows he'll forget her like gilberte. i had a fight with my translation class about that passage i still think they were all wrong lol

2. i use tumblr for thoughts that i want someone to be able to see and know i exist but that aren't significant enough to go out of my way to talk to a specific person. it's like if people still casually talked to their neighbours i guess. i used to journal more after i deleted my old account but it didn't scratch the same social itch and also i came back on here initially so i could successionpost. your journal doesn't reblog you and yell in the tags ykwim

3. um. can i say yes and no? i think i show some admirable traits and i have a resiliency that frankly impresses me sometimes but i am also difficult, tend to hold other people at a distance, and spend way too much time in my own head 🤪

[freeuselandonorris]

accent game!

tagged by @bright-and-burning in this cute accent game! i don't think i have EVER put my voice on the internet before lmao. i also feel like i could submit this voice note for evidence to my adhd assessment because i ramble like fucking crazy sorry. enjoy me reading a borderline pornographic excerpt of crash and figuring out how to pronounce landoscar in real time!

Your name and username.

Where you’re from.

Pronounce the following words: aunt, roof, route, theater, iron, salmon, caramel, fire, water, New Orleans, Pecan, both, again, probably, Alabama, lawyer, coupon, mayonnaise, pajamas, caught, naturally, aluminum, GIF, Tumblr, Crackerjack, doorknob, envelope.

What is a bubbly carbonated drink called?

What do you call gym shoes?

What do you call your grandparents?

What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?

What is the thing you change the TV channel with?

Choose a book and read a passage from it.

Do you think you have an accent?

Would you rather be a wizard or a vampire?

Do you know anyone on Tumblr in real life?

Name your favorite driver and your favorite team :)

End audio post by saying any THREE words you want.

i feel like everyone i could tag is just going to have another variation on a northern english accent lmao 😭