#(or it has narrative significance but SHHH)

[sp1resong]

trying to come up with a comprehensive hc for how cycles work

[the-apprentice-lia]

i just watched hunger games 1 after rereading the books and i have some… thoughts.

so everyone goes on about how the movies are so inaccurate to the books, but (and i say this as an avid bookworm) i don’t think they really are. the biggest inaccuracies i noted were as follows:

a) rue and katniss don’t talk about their different districts — however, i do think this wasn’t terrible as they had to amend the plot at several points since we didn’t have katniss as a narrator, like when caesar explains what tracker jackers are.

b) the one that stood out the most to me: the mutts are just… dogs. not tributes, children, that have had their eyes gouged out and their bodies twisted and warped to be another pawn for the games, even in death. children whose families, to our knowledge, do not even receive their babies’ bodies. and this was such a big detail to overlook since this is precisely the reason katniss is so horrified, and precisely the reason the brutality of the games is made so clear to us, the viewers: because these children will always be nothing but pieces on a game board to the people in power. things to be used, warped, destroyed, and then discarded. because when katniss looks into glimmer’s (or her mutt’s) eyes, it finally hits her how insignificant the capitol views the tributes. how even when you’re winning, there’s something to be used against you. she even sees rue, the girl she saved, the little twelve year old she buried, rabid and frothing at the mouth with hate. and this is when she sees, in perfect clarity, the grotesquerie of the games.

c) key details were omitted, like when haymitch fell off the stage, when madge gave katniss the pin, when peeta threw haymitch’s glass against the wall in the train car, how katniss threw peeta into the vase after the interviews and peeta’s hands were lacerated, how the soup from the parachute was actually broth and not the infamous lamb soup with plums that katniss loves (and subsequently, the ice-breaker in caesar’s interview being different), and of course, the infamous black buttercup. i mean, all in all, these were quite annoying— but not to the point where they changed the main message of the movie: the corrupting nature of power and how this breeds cruelty and uncompassion for human life. i think they stayed true to this, and that’s why i believe the films are a worthy tribute to the books!

furthermore, to compensate for the loss of katniss’ inner narrative spelling out key details for us in the books, the film does actually come up with pretty clever ways to work around this. like, as previously mentioned, when caesar explains on live television, to a capitol audience, what tracker jackers are and why they’re so deadly, which is key to the scene where katniss cuts the nest down. or, when the parachutes come with little notes; since we can’t see katniss putting together that a good kiss = a reward, we are actually told by the note in the soup parachute. “you call that a kiss, sweetheart?” we also have further insight into seneca crane’s death, which is so breathtakingly poetic, and symbolic, in my opinion. well, at least as poetic as a death can be. in addition, even though the books do mention it, we see in real time how haymitch flatters and strokes and fights for sponsors for katniss and peeta. this is so significant, as a man who has been forced to mentor years and years of tributes, to watch them die over and over again, and to gradually lose all hope that they’ll survive— this man is the one that is fighting so hard for katniss and peeta. we can see that better in the film. so the inconsistencies, in my opinion, can be overlooked as we will never truly have a film that is 100% loyal to the books. (unless it’s lord of the rings but shhh)

but what really sealed it home for me was something that the books actually didn’t do: we have the sense as viewers, a lot of the time, that we are intruding upon a profoundly personal moment. like with katniss and peeta in the cave. but that’s exactly what the film is trying to drive home. and that’s what makes it so fantastic. because we are intruding. we shouldn’t be watching such a deeply personal and vulnerable moment for katniss, who never shows her feelings if she can’t help it, and peeta, who shows his like an open book. it’s wrong on both accounts because in addition to these children being forced to fight brutally and bloodily to the death, they have to put on a pantomime as they do! i mean, what could be more unjust than a girl who’s being put to death being forced to give everyone a show on the way out? when the camera is just a bit too close, when there is no soothing filler music, when we can see them, raw and real, two kids afraid to die in an unfamiliar forest far away from their home, we feel uncomfortable. because why should we get to see this? how can this be fair? surely, they can have just this one thing. but that’s the whole point. they can’t. and we— watching from the same perspective as the capitol audience, i would like to emphasise— feel complicit in robbing these two kids of a brief moment of respite. that is what the film tries, and succeeds brilliantly, to convey.

i’m sure there’s still more to cover, but this is just what i noticed and felt the need to write about from my first time watching ‘the hunger games’. in conclusion: the film was actually fantastic if you don’t nitpick the small details. i think it’s a raw and real and fantastic tribute to the books, and should be treated as such.

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

you said you were having sibling feels lately so consider this a free ticket to gush abt. anything related to that. i am Looking Respectfully.

I'm having a full-on breakdown about DC comics characters 24/7 for the past week I've imprinted very hard on one specific character and I'm trying to build my understanding off of fanfics and online friends and this has sent me into an absolute SPIRAL thinking about sibling dynamics

so how's about uh,,, dya remember my post the other day about MCR's Surrender the Night? yeah this song is killing me bc like. it just feels like the push and pull of dysfunctional but still determinedly loving sibling relationships, which are always the best. just like, trying to pull rank but,,, in a loving way (@brown-little-robin idk if this makes sense but for some reason whenever I hear this song it makes me think of Jason and Dick????)

also as Gracie pointed out Famous Last Words was actually hecking written from one brother to another so that adds A LOT MORE FEELINGS to this one (once again Robin will understand: this is on my very small and very intense Jason playlist adkdjalfh bc I process things by making playlists about them-)

also @disco-tea sent me this panel of a DCU comic and I uh... yeah I feel. Fine. about this. but that's like, a trademark Dana Scully "I'm fine," which is to say, I'm absolutely coming apart at the seams

also just thinking about your OCs and my OCs, because we both have at least one significant sibling pair — mainly lately I've been thinking about Yancy and Sumako, bc their dynamic just inexplicably means SO MUCH to me, they love each other so much and they're actually like, a somewhat normal/well-adjusted pair of siblings (compared to a lot of others lol) and I love to see that, they just. have fun!! and care for each other!!! and would die for each other in a heartbeat but not in an angsty way, just in a way that's been a complete given since the moment Sumako was born and will continue to be a given for the rest of their lives; simple unquestioned fact, no shadows attached.

and then MY sibling pair, Dany and her younger sister (who is currently being called either Cassidy or Carissa?? I haven't decided yet tbh) who are separated for like, over a year and are a significant portion of each other's primary motives behind... A Lot of things they do, but at the same time, they don't even get along that well. they have such totally different ways of going about things that often they're at odds even though they Get Each Other more than most people probably do??? and once Dany reaches her destination (wherever her family is) the two sisters have to reckon with the fact that they both, but mostly Dany, have CHANGED. A lot. Carissa has to deal with the fact that the sister she has now isn't the same one she had Before. neither of them always handles it totally well skdfjskfjsjwf

a lot of this is also probably initially instigated (or at least planted in my head a tad bit) by the fact that I've watched FX's The Bear nearly two times (i have one episode left to rewatch shhh) and the primary underlying struggle of that series is that the main character is dealing with the loss of his older brother and a strained relationship with his older sister (amongst other things, but I'm not giving you the whole schpiel rn lol). oh and one of the other main relationships in the show is the main character's really weird friend/family thing with his dead brother's former best friend, it's absolutely fascinating tbh. as several other people have said, in a way, it's a ghost story. the narrative is haunted by the loss of a brother.

and Gerard Way is really getting to me

and DC too

anyway thanks for the opportunity to go wild and probably come across as INCREDIBLY unhinged and incoherent, but hey, I'm in good company!

[lostinthewinterwood]

Gen Freeform Exchange 2020

Hey friend!

I’m looking forward to whatever you’re going to make for me—if you want to take what was in my sign-up and run with it, go right ahead!  But if you’re looking for more inspiration/ideas, keep right on reading.

If you’re not my assigned person, and are instead a generous person looking at this letter for treating purposes, I’d be happy to get treats in any medium.

General DNW

Rape/non/dub-con; non-canonical major character death; heavy angst; hurt no comfort; graphic depictions of deliberate and methodical self-harm*; graphic depictions of suicide; anything E rated; gore; heavy gender dysphoria; grimdark; complete downer endings; character bashing; incest; cringe comedy; a/b/o; mpreg; full setting AUs (canon-divergence is fine); graphic eye trauma; graphic and/or permanent hand trauma (unless the setting can provide a more-or-less fully functional prosthetic or equivalent); issuefic; unrequested identity headcanons.

*I don’t include things like, say, punching a wall in a fit of emotion under this. however, something like cutting would not be appreciated.

 General Likes

– I really like plotty fics

– Secret identity and disguise shenanigans, the more layers to them and more absurdity the better.

– Crossdressing for whatever reason and gender disguises, also for whatever reason.

– Time travel and time loops are always fun, especially as a fix-it.  I have a general preference for Peggy Sue style (aka, an older character getting put back in their younger body at an earlier point in the timeline) over the character’s physical body stepping back in time, but either one is good.

– A focus on family and/or friendship, especially characters realizing they’re not nearly as alone as they think they are, and just generally characters who like each other and enjoy spending time together

– Found family; families of choice

– Character studies

– Worldbuilding

All of my requests have way too many tags to relist them here, but if you’re at a loss for what to do, anything in a given request’s tags is obviously fair game; don’t feel bound by them either, since I’m definitely interested in more things than just those which appear in the tag requests.

 Fandom-specific prompts and DNWs

 Mother of Learning

Fandom-specific DNW: physical parental abuse within the Kazinski family, significant exaggeration of canonical emotional neglect/abuse/general family dysfunction, any implication or presence of romantic and/or sexual Zach/Zorian, either Raynie or the rest of her tribe being portrayed as Absolutely Right And Entirely Justified in all of their actions

 Neoluma-Manu Iljatir & Zach Noveda

Solo: Zach Noveda

Zach Noveda & Zorian Kazinski

Fanfiction

I’d generally prefer something set at least in part after the time loop begins, but beyond that I don’t have a strong preference for where in the timeline this might be set.  Maybe something from before Zorian got looped in—maybe one of the iterations where Zach and Neolu just went off across the country having fun the whole month? Zach doing whatever, possibly very early on, or maybe him freaking out a little because what the hell, time travel is supposed to be impossible, and yet—what did he do in the start? Some canon-type shenanigans with Zach and Zorian together because there aren’t lasting consequences to their actions?

Or for post-canon, I’d really like an exploration of Zach, who’s got the lived-time of a middle-aged man and the body of a teenager—how does he relate to his classmates/other people in the real world, where everyone’s growing again?  Maybe something about his lawsuit against his caretaker, or just a little thing with him, Zorian, and How Do You Live Normally, Again?  This Is Hard, or some such thing.

One tag I like especially—though obviously if you didn’t match on it you needn’t include it—is “Character expected to die but didn’t and now has no idea how to live anymore,” since Zach definitely didn’t fully expect he would get a chance to live through the rest of his adolescence/adulthood, and something delving into that would be really interesting!

 Raynie & Raynie’s Tribe

Raynie & Kiana

Fanfiction, Podfic

I love Raynie, and I love the little glimpses we get into her character and her past in canon!

For her I was thinking maybe something after the invasion, maybe her going home again.  I’d love to see a reconciliation between her and her tribe, and a settling of the issues and problems that led to her being sent away.

If I’ve got my timeline right, her brother should be old enough to have reasonable interactions with; I’d really enjoy something dealing with the tension between them, letting them reconcile and build a better sibling relationship.

Alternatively, if we’re going for pre-canon, I’d really enjoy something dealing with her initial arrival in Cyoria and befriending Kiana.

 Cikan Kazinski & Kirielle Kazinski

Solo: Kirielle Kazinski

Nochka Sashal & Kirielle Kazinski

Zorian Kazinski & Kirielle Kazinski

Fanfiction

I’d really like something focusing on Kirielle here—she is, after all, the uniting factor in this set of requests.

I’ve got a few ideas for what could come of this!

-- Kirielle and her mother.  For this one, I’d rather it not be anything where Cikan can be described as “winning” a confrontation—I’d much rather have it be a confrontation where it either ends neutrally or in Kiri’s favor, or a reconciliation when Kiri’s a bit older, coming to understand each other better.  I’d be down for Cikan realizing that Kiri is her own person, and can forge her own way in life, if you can get a story there, but I’m not sure if there’s an in-character way to do so, given how she still relates to Daimen, a successful adult in his own right.

-- Kirielle and Nochka.  They’re adorable and I’d love a further development of their friendship, especially getting to see it grow and develop over the months and years after the invasion.

-- Kirielle and Zorian.  I love their dynamic!  And again here I’d really enjoy seeing their relationship developing in real time, rather than a constantly looping world.  I think it would be great to see either of them defending the other to their parents—and maybe Zorian ends up with custody of Kiri, there’s definitely things to explore there.

-- Kirielle.  I’d be here for any sort of character study of Kiri, really, but I’m gonna prompt a few specific things anyway.

---- She grows up a little, and becomes a student mage—what’s that like for her, especially having received Zorian’s tutelage?

---- She grows up a little, and doesn’t seriously pursue magic—does she devote herself more seriously to art?  Do something else?  Get away from her parents, and get to just be a kid for a little longer than her siblings?

---- By some mechanism, Kirielle gets pulled into the time loop, whether with Zorian, instead of him, or in some utterly unrelated incident. What’s it like to grow older and older in life experience while your body remains stubbornly nine?  How does this change the story?  If you go this route I’d rather looper!Kiri not be erased in the timeline of the fic—ending the fic before it becomes an issue or letting her escape back to the real world are what I’d rather see.

---- For some reason—there’s actually a fair amount that’d have to change here, but shhh this is my ridiculous self-indulgent prompt—Kirielle is the Controller.  How does she react to being in a looping world, with no one else looping she can possibly compare notes with?  What does she do with her time?  Why did the angels choose her?  How does this impact canon—is Jornak even a problem, does the whole Sovereign Gate affair pass much as it was meant to rather than the debacle that became of it in canon?

 Solo: The Ghost Serpent

Solo: Quatach-Ichl

Fanfiction, Podfic

So, these two are just… they’re old.  They’re very old; QI, the younger, is still a thousand years old, and they’ve just seen so much??  I’d love some sort of exploration of the world’s history through either of their eyes.

For the Ghost Serpent, I’d be very interested in what it saw the other Branded Ones do that put it off of them so badly.

For QI, I’m interested both in the world history around him and also how he became what he is—why/how did he become a lich in the first place?  Who was he before?  Why did he get a divine blessing?  What did he think of the gods falling silent?  What was the Necromancer’s War like?

For this prompt, I’d be down for an in-universe document or legend/folktale/fairytale about them, rather than an ordinary narrative. I’d also definitely be down for something like an epic poem or story-song, if you feel so inclined.

  Star Wars Rebels

Alexsandr Kallus & Garazeb “Zeb” Orrelios

Fanfiction

I’m a total sucker for the enemies-to-allies redemption arc that Kallus and Zeb have going and really, anything exploring that dynamic I’d be down for.  Post-Honorable Ones is probably better—there’s a bit more to work with there—but mutual respect/grudging acknowledgement from before that point would be great too.

That being said, I would also be super down for one or both of them mentally travelling back in time and whatever ridiculous shenanigans emerge from that—honestly most of my tags can be interpreted as prompts for that, if you squint at least.

  Star Wars Rebels: Servants of the Empire

 Solo: Zare Leonis

Solo: Dhara Leonis

Zare Leonis & Dhara Leonis

Fanfiction

These poor kids, god.  I love them and I love their siblingship and I just, I want more. A lot of the freeforms I’m asking for are geared towards the aftermath of Secret Academy, and Dhara’s recovery and her relationship with Zare throughout that.  Do feel free to bring in their parents, too, though it’s by no means necessary.

Other things I’d be interested in include various types of role reversals and how that changes things—maybe it’s Zare who’s older, with a Force-sensitive little sister in Dhara, or the ages are the same and the Force sensitivity is flipped, or maybe Zare’s Force sensitive as well as Dhara, or the ages and Force sensitivity are flipped, making Zare Force sensitive and older and Dhara not force sensitive as well as being younger.

Another interesting thing would be exploring Zare readjusting to a civilian life; he’s quite conditioned into being so careful and military in his dress and his living space—does he keep that going? Let it fade?  Deliberately reject it?

 Solo: Lieutenant Chiron

Zare Leonis & Lieutenant Chiron

Fanfiction, Podfic

I love Chiron, he’s such an interesting character, and I am Big Sad that he doesn’t appear in any fics on ao3 as of yet.  He strikes me very much as a good man who doesn’t really know most of the bad things his government is doing; he cares about Zare and he cares that there’s abuses of power and murder going on at the academy; he truly, genuinely wants to make the galaxy a better place.

I would love to see a story where he lives through the climax of Secret Academy and, however that happens, is thus forced to question his government from that, since I’m also Big Sad that he died before he had that chance; failing that it would be interesting to have a fic exploring his past and how he came to be part of the imperial war machine, I think.

For him and Zare post-canon, assuming an AU where they both survive, I’d be down to see them rebuilding the relationship they had before and regaining some sort of trust/regard for each other.

  Original Works

Fandom-specific DNW: the word “queerplatonic” being used to describe relationships (writing something that you’d normally consider it is fine!  I just don’t really like the term), fics that are All About Being Trans And/Or Disabled, neopronouns, nondysphoric trans characters.

 Archmage & Apprentice

Failed Chosen One & New Chosen One

Girl Who Killed The Dark Lord & Her New Inherited Minions Who She Would Like To Be Less Scared

Fanfiction

I love fantasy, including space fantasy, and so many of its associated tropes: magic, destiny and fate and the subversion thereof, people being fundamentally human whilst caught up in something far beyond them…

This one’s a bit harder to prompt for, but looking through the tags I asked for should give you a decent idea for what I like; see also the general likes section above.

Thank you for creating for me!! I’m sure whatever you make will be lovely, and I’m looking forward to seeing it :D

[softnriot]

I posted 12,487 times in 2021

339 posts created (3%)

12148 posts reblogged (97%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 35.8 posts.

I added 14,067 tags in 2021

#bnha - 5897 posts

#bakugo - 1574 posts

#kiri - 1295 posts

#deku - 848 posts

#shinsou - 835 posts

#shouto - 799 posts

#dabi - 762 posts

#kiribaku - 742 posts

#aizawa - 725 posts

#denki - 590 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#kisses him kisses him kisses him kisses him kisses him kisses him kisses him kisses him kisses him kisses him kisses him kisses him kisses h

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

#THE HOLDING#THE#THE HANDS#HES SO#i imagine this is like right after they figure out he can touch stuff without totally dusting them#and hes like#dabi come here#and he real quick holds his face and dabis like top 10 anime betrayals i thought you loved me#and hes not dusting and theyre just standing there and its like#oh#the inherent romanticism of the First Hold SHUT UPPPPPP IM SOFTE

LISTEN I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT SHIGARAKI AND DABI HOLDING HANDS FOR THE FIRST TIME

first of all hes like ew gross creep get the fuck off me but oh hes like fuck i havent held anyones hand in so long and its so good if their in a relationship at this point but what if they arent? huh? what if shigaraki is like hey i havent had any human contact where i wasnt terrified of killing someone since i was 4 can you help me out and dabis like no and hes like im ur boss ill totally crazy murder you and so he just runs his whole hand down dabis arm and gives him a hug and they hold hands and cuddles? cuddles!!! and he cups dabis scarred little cheeks for the first time and he gives him a kiss and he pulls back expecting to have lost control and dusted dabi bc thats just his luck and he looks and dabi is giving him this fucking look and he has the thought of 'i can and will kill everyone in my sight if i cant do that again'

30 notes • Posted 2021-11-14 10:14:54 GMT

#4

HHESHDO FUCKIGN G SMALLL OH HE SOS FUCKIGNJ DSHCUTE

31 notes • Posted 2021-06-30 08:11:38 GMT

#3

listen im not saying theyre made for each other but if kirishima (all red hair), shouto (half red half white hair) and bakugo (all light blonde hair) dated they would be half red half white hair together 

46 notes • Posted 2021-07-28 03:42:29 GMT

#2

hizashi's go-to gag is absolutely whipping off his sunglasses and ogling and wolf-whistling at shouta while shouta just pouts at him like. it wasn't funny the first hundred times hizashi. bonus points if they're not together yet and are mutual pining

shhh aizawa thinks hes slick saying its not funny as if mic cant tell hes blushing 

102 notes • Posted 2021-02-03 03:14:16 GMT

#1

if sunshine boy not dating socially inept boy why significant to narrative hm?? if not dating why look cute holding hands?

599 notes • Posted 2021-01-03 03:35:45 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[elizabethrobertajones]

Hi Lizbob! 💕💕 This is more meta wank than anything else: but I was wondering if you think there's any significant reason why both Dean and Cas comment on the water pressure in the bunker? Dean first in 8x13 and Cas says it (I think) in 9x03. Do you think it's a parallel of some kind? Or reflecting on Cas' humanity? All the best!!! 💕

Heya :D

Oh gosh this is one of the older posts on my blog:

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/94289820218/awkward-fallen-angel-alovelikecas

It’s still hilarious. :D

I think the humanity thing is probably the ~reason~ for it. I was thinking about this in the car today while driving around staring at various mountains in Scotland (I can multitask, shhh… There was a farm belonging to the MacLeod’s so my brain kinda went wandering from Vacation Mode and got here somehow)… Mostly about how for example you always get something like Regarding Dean, at least these days you can pretty reliably expect weird concept stuff to hit Dean and for him to be the one having stuff happening to him, while I guess Sam stuff is about Sam - he dealt with Magda, and the girl in the next episode, as mirrors to his story, and just emotionally reacted to these stories with his own experiences… Dean tends to have ridiculous effects and things hit him… Stuff as far back as Skin where it was him who was shapeshiftered, or like, I don’t know, the episode where he was aged up to an old man or whatever. I guess because Sam had the big myth arc stuff about him, the stuff exploring the sense of transformation and body horror and inner darkness and consent violation etc etc that can slap them on the MotW circuit is already happening to him on a grand scale; Dean as the emotional POV to Sam’s big mytharc has similar things happen to him on a smaller scale where we explore him differently… And that’s a sort of older thing, because Dean was in the focus over the last few years and it’s only this year he’s shifting back to being JUST the emotional POV… 

but anyway, all these little characterisation details seem to hit him - with him being the focus in random moments about domesticity and home and so on. I think going all the way back to how Sam was introduced as the one who’d had a bit of normal life and seemed to have a better understanding and comprehension as it. He might have been raised a hunter as well, but he was still closer to being understandable to the audience because he had lived as a muggle even for a few years. Dean’s never been settled and never had home like that, so anything that makes a deal out of that is automatically more interesting to go to him, just because from a writing POV he’s the most complex mentality to approach from the standing start. Sam craved normality and Dean seemed to have rejected it, always, in his early seasons characterisation. It automatically makes his inner world and desires more fascinating, while Sam initially seems to just want the white picket fence/revenge, Dean has a sort of inside view on hunting and the job, so is aligned much more with the world/mindset of Supernatural. 

Again, something they quickly move away from because Sam starts that slide from 1x22 and in 2x02 it’s clear the writers literally swapped their motivations/relationship to the job etc and while I think they drift back to their original spaces, they’re always more complex about their stances after season 2. And of course Sam picking up the powers and demon blood arc gives him an additional thing in his inner landscape which ties him to the supernatural even if it’s again something pushed on him and disrupting/forcing him away from the normal life (and that’s the big emotional reveal in 5x22 - that Lucifer would never let him have the normal life and he’s been surrounded by demons the whole time, so that’s the conclusion of a 5 year arc >.>)

… Could probably keep talking about that for much longer but I’ve been having a hell of a time concentrating and lost the thread 100 times trying to write this in a room with people talking loudly non-stop so I think I was originally aiming at pointing out how Cas as an outsider coming to terms with humanity or just in a wider sense than season 9 being curious and drawn to it and it forming a sort of magnet pull to his story and of course starting from the position of being probably the most utterly inhuman thing they’d met at that point (it’s not until much later, like, Eve or Leviathan, we start meeting other monsters that are implied never to have been human in the same way angels are, while monsters and demons are always human in origin)… Dean’s got the similar path towards domesticity and “normal” things; in the early seasons stuff like Bugs showing him appreciating the hell out of the power shower in the fancy show homes, for example, is teasing the idea of Dean interacting with a normal life AS an outsider in honestly a lot of the same way as Cas. 

I think basically they’re both outsiders/not part of the ~normal~ social order while Sam’s lived there and been there done that as well as has a somehow more normal outlook, as well as doing little things like all the many sources of meta commenting on how Sam eating salads is rejecting the specific structures of hunter social life - diner food and fast food are part of their world and Dean and then Cas are heavily linked to things like burgers or gas station food. 

So I think it’s a whole mix of things like Dean is often the one being emotionally explored anyway because he gets the little stories about him, and his emotional day to day nonsense is often on screen far more than Sam’s, honestly maybe just because he TALKS more even if it’s grumbling about stuff or mouthing off about things or just keeping up a commentary. Sam’s much more the strong and silent type so not likely to venture opinions on food and comfort and whatever, and generally tries to get through their life without touching the sides, while Dean will happily steal from mini bars or use the magic fingers or comment on the porn selection in a motel room and so on and so on. Which all goes to exclude Sam from ever being included in having an opinion on showers or even being likely to bring them up, because though we’ve known for years he became a fancy shampoo guy somewhere around season 6/7 (when his hair became long and glossy rather than just shaggy or fluffy) he’s literally never ever bitched about the conditions on the road that would make his personal grooming a hassle - I mean if anyone would ever have 1001 horror stories about tiny cramped motel showers you couldn’t turn around in and bumped your head on the ceiling… But nah he’s silent on it and Dean gets to have multiple incidents of musing on showering philosophically or indulgently, and we’re just generally in his head more and following him around on the nitty gritty stuff that episodes focused on his immediate shit would turn up (for example Yellow Fever letting him have an epic rant about the quality of life when hunting)… And then Cas follows similar GROUND even if he’s obviously coming at it from totally different directions, learning humanity and so on…

The fact they BOTH comment on the water pressure could then JUST be because that’s how they’re both written, as almost entirely separate thing (until you get back to a root cause and that Cas is mostly a Dean mirror if you have to be crude about his role in the narrative aside from being his own character)… 

On the other hand the “shower sex is complicated” thing is one of the funniest TV conspiracies I’d read at that point in my life, being still a baby to the fandom and not jaded by the daily nonsense that produces… :P 

I mean the fact it’s such a direct repeat of what Dean said, when Cas brings it up, does make it a point of comparison - that they both find a sense of home and comfort at the Bunker, and in both cases it seems like, in a way that they’ve never experienced before. For both of them, the Bunker seems like an ideal happy endgame place to live, and letting human!Cas try out the plumbing seems a great way to give him a real desire and something to tease HIM about it never mind us… That the Bunker is a real promised land of comfort and of course a place he could settle. So it does ACTUALLY tie them together in not crazy conspiracy ways :P 

[niuxita21]

I told myself I wasn’t gonna do this every time I watched an episode of El Embarcadero because this isn’t my Livejournal in the late 00s and early 10s and no one wants to be subjected to my word vomit on every scene, but the reveal at the end of episode 2 had me SHOOKETH and also, more importantly, today I found out I may have been exposed to The Unmentionable so, you know what, life’s too short.

DUDE. DUUUUUUUUUUUDE. The decision to end the episode on Alex kissing Verónica as some sort of shocking reveal? *chef’s kiss* doesn’t even BEGIN to cover it OMG. Let’s break it down, shall we?

1) First of all, just the notion that the relationship between those two is deemed significant enough that the reveal that they kissed, this time under no false pretenses on either side and each one knowing exactly who the other is (unlike the last time), is considered powerful enough to end an episode on is just... wow. They really are betting on the audience being this invested in them because, if they aren’t, then the ending completely falls flat because who cares. That’s INSANE (in a very good way).

2) Obviously I’m not super crazy about the idea that Alex had to have sex with Conrado, but therein lies the true beauty of the aforementioned timey-wimey storytelling on this show. If it had been told in a linear fashion, it would have gone something like this (taking into account only the footage that was shown): Alex kisses Verónica, the viewer loses their shit thinking their ship is finally canon, then cut to other stuff and the next time we see Alex she’s back at home thinking about Conrado (?) and what Verónica said about people fucking the way they eat. Then she leaves the house and one automatically assumes, oh fuck, she’s really going for it, she’s gonna show up at Verónica’s hoping to have sex with her! How did we get so lucky?? Only to find out that, nope, Alex actually went to see Conrado and have sex with him, and the episode ends there, in a complete and utter disappointment because we finally thought we were getting somewhere with this couple and it just seems like a very cruel bait-and-switch.

3) Now, the way it ACTUALLY played out with the non-linear narration paints a completely different picture: The last time we see Alex she was running away from Verónica flirtily recording her on her phone and then she’s suddenly back at home thinking about Conrado (?) and what Verónica said about people fucking the way they eat. Then she leaves the house and this time you think, OK, I guess she’s finally gonna give him that signal that he’s been begging for, I mean, the whole episode had pretty much telegraphed it. It’s disappointing but she’s a grown woman who can fuck whoever she wants and there’s clearly still nothing going on with Verónica beyond friendship so, hey. So the sex goes pretty much the way one would expect, save for a couple of interesting details: Alex’s “I wanted to see what it was like to have sex with someone who wants me that much”. Once again, gurl, whaaaaa? That is one of the LEAST heterosexual reasons to have heterosexual sex I have EVER heard lmao, wow. In retrospect, that should have been a sign. Then when she’s sitting on Conrado’s bike and he’s rambling about how he hasn’t had sex in so long and she just tells him to shut up. Again, I’m not sure, but I think that’s gotta be some kind of TV Trope code for “I’m having sex with you for reasons other than being attracted to you so if you stay silent I can forget who it is I’m actually fucking”. At least, that’s how I’m interpreting it because I am the queen of digging for crumbs. 

ANYWAY, so in the midst of the sex scene, it starts being intercut with footage from earlier in the day/episode, and we actually get to see what it is that Verónica recorded of Alex after she went out the door of her house earlier, when we thought it was the end of their screentime together for the episode. I mean, it’s all very insignificant and flirty and SO SO DUMB that it makes my heart sing, BUT the sole fact that we start seeing it at exactly this moment completely changes our perception of Alex and Conrado’s sex scene. On the one hand, the constant intercutting between Alex having sex with him and Alex straight-up fucking BEAMING at Verónica while she records her with the most ridiculous hearteyes I think we have ever seen her with kinda gives the impression that Alex is thinking about that while she fucks Conrado, which is pretty big in itself but still just an interpretation. However, then comes the REAL kicker. In the flashback, Alex says “I think I’m starting to feel what Óscar felt” (whatever THAT means ????) and then... she makes Verónica put the phone down and fucking KISSES HER RIGHT THERE AND JUST AS IT’S GETTING GOOD THE EPISODE ENDS AND I AM LOSING MY FUCKING SHIT MAN.

But anyway, I just love that it comes across as, like, the TWISTIEST OF TWISTS and I can’t really articulate why. It’s just a kiss that we could have probably seen coming and yet, somehow, it feels earth-shattering? Like we were working on the assumption that she really wanted to have sex with Conrado for her own personal reasons and in the end it turns out that perhaps there was something more complex at play that is going to complicate her relationship with BOTH Verónica and Conrado. And also, it’s much more hopeful than the disappointing punch in the gut it would have been if we’d seen Alex go fuck Conrado knowing that she’d kissed Verónica earlier that day. As a fan of non-linear narration and how effective it can be, I am just GEEKING OUT about this. The GENIUS of it all, I can’t stand it.

4) Another thing that I think is super cool about this because I am a nerd is that, after Alex kissed Verónica the first time, while Verónica still thought her name was Martina, I was so disappointed in the erratic camera work that didn’t let me see shit (as you know) that I consoled myself thinking that at least I had another “first kiss” to look forward to, their first kiss as Alex and Verónica and not Martina and Verónica. However, I conceded that the show probably wouldn’t deem it as important a milestone in their journey as I had and it was entirely possible that it wouldn’t be given the deference it deserved. But LO AND BEHOLD, the show thought it was actually SO IMPORTANT that it made it a shocking reveal ending for an episode instead of tossing it in the middle and then having it ruined by the Alex/Conrado sex scene. I’m just... do you know how RARE it is to find a show that seems to be on my same wavelength regarding the importance of the narrative beats of romantic couple? This ain’t my first rodeo, I’ve shipped tons of stuff under the sun and I don’t think I have ever felt so seen, lmao.

5) Lastly, a honourable mention to the scene where Verónica starts recording Alex. First of all, Verónica being SUPER FLIRTY and teasing Alex about being uptight and thinking things too much and calling her “Ms. Architect” and djghkjhskjh I can’t believe this show is being so good to me so soon. However, I think my favourite thing is how, as Verónica starts approaching Alex while saying all this, Alex gets this wide-eyed look on her face, like her whole body is vibrating at the prospect of Verónica getting close to her. And then this:

LORD, the way she’s so hyperaware of the fact that Verónica is touching her and how she follows the trajectory of her hand even after she takes it away. I just fucking love that little attention to detail. AND THEN, as Verónica gets her face reaaaaally close to her, you can totally see Alex’s eyes darting downwards towards her lips three times, by my count, looking SO FUCKING SMITTEN I wanna claw my face off so that little smile of hers is the last thing I see. 

And towards the end she isn’t even smiling anymore, she just looks ready for Verónica to kiss her whenever she wants (which she actually does, even if it’s a chaste, almost “friendly” peck just to tease her because that’s how Vero rolls and that’s why we love her). I just fucking love this entire sequence because smitten!Alex is something I didn’t know I needed in my life and, tbh, it’s also the reason why in the end I couldn’t care less about the sex scene with Conrado, because she has never (and probably will never) been shown looking at him like that. We just keep winning!

I also love how, after that, she casually takes the apple from Verónica’s hand and starts eating it, in that same easy intimacy that we’ve been seeing between them since last season, like when Verónica automatically poured her a wine glass while “Martina” was dicing peppers (I think?) for dinner or when Alex poured one for herself and Verónica came in and drank from it and then they just shared it back and forth. Their chemistry is just astounding.

Anyway, to think that, after watching it for the first time, I was actually kinda disappointed in that, after the goldmine that was episode 1, this episode was sorely lacking in interactions between these two and Alex spent the majority of the time with Conrado (*yawn*), plus the fact that the episode was only 42 minutes long and we lost a good chunk of it to dudes talking about Óscar’s dirty businesszzZZz. But upon reflection, this scene and the twist ending continued to give me things in my wishlist wrt these two: a flirty scene where Alex smiles at Verónica in the most smitten way possible and a first real kiss. If I’m being honest, I don’t think I would have added anything except making the kiss at the end go on for a bit longer and not be cut so abruptly, because even that was shot exactly how I wanted (LMAO I’m so anal, but I have such trauma from poorly shot f/f kisses and I have zero tolerance for that shit). Other than that? Utter perfection. I’m genuinely starting to worry about when things will start to go downhill but shhh, let’s enjoy this while it lasts.

[bruceeves]

“Work # 950: From Birth to (Near) Death and Back Again -- In Four Parts”

The fluidity of power – the idea that authority can be both effectively enforced from afar as well as allowed to fester quietly within – is a proposition that has been explored in much of my work over the course of my career. While the task at hand is to address the issue of “risk”, I’ve chosen to tackle this question by greatly expanding upon an artist’s statement accompanying four works that were presented together at the Robert Kananaj Gallery during the summer of 2015 to celebrate its fourth anniversary. These works were created over the past five years – from the birth of a culture-defining method of social control with centuries-long ramifications, to the acceptance over a brief period of time the tyranny of aging (along with tangents about the death of the avant-garde and the trouble with selfies) this further elaboration and close reading of the four works at the centre of this discussion both explore and expose the political, psychological, and emotional implications of power dynamics from the macro (on a societal level) to the micro (on a cellular level). This closer examination reveals a continuity of spirit and an intellectual engagement supplemented by real-world (as opposed to art-world) experience firmly grounded in art history.

1

As a work of literary fiction, the first five books of the Old Testament (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) may provide a gripping narrative, but in 1604 when James I commissioned a translation from Hebrew and Aramaic to consolidate regal authority his intent was never to lay out the blueprint for an equitable society, but was to produce an officially sanctioned standardized document to regulate daily life as well as act as a blunt force weapon entitling the sovereign the power to supersede the rule of law. By allegedly relying on the services of the leading literary lions of the day (Shakespeare et al) to gussy up an otherwise dry narrative, the King’s political mission reached fruition. “Work # 808: Leviticus (Updated)” is the first in a series of large scale conceptually-driven photo-based works begun in 2010 after suffering a crisis of faith that the future viability of art was something other than that of a diversionary caprice for the so-called one percent. A crisis actualized by the seemingly near-universal desire to kowtow to the limitless demands for the familiar and the safe and the conventional; a crisis triggered by the despair of witnessing in the late 1970s what little remained of the historical avant-garde devolve into a morass of triviality and disposable mass entertainment. To swipe a couple of lines from Michel Houellebecq  “at this stage we don’t give a damn about the reviews. It’s no longer there that the real decisions are made, [and] we’re at the point where success in market terms justifies and validates anything, replacing all the theories.”  (I have my own theory about the late ‘70s collapse – having been a part of it – but that is fodder for a separate discussion.) We’ve reached a point in which an increasingly public debate (Bürger, Danto, Foster, Vargas Llosa et al) questions whether art even continues to exist. From Manet forward to the beginning of the Reagan/Thatcher/Mulroney era artists willfully maintained an antagonistic relationship with their patrons. And while every art student makes an unspoken pact with the notion of capitalist consumption, any engagement with or against the marketplace is a situation fraught with peril. I can think of no significant time during that century and a half before the late ‘70s when artists were willing and eager to service the slumming diversions of the well-heeled as today. The death of innovation that followed the avant-garde’s collapse saw the advent of post-this and neo-that. It’s not for nothing that “In the Return of the Real: The Avant-Garde at the End of the Century” (MIT Press, 1996) Hal Foster dismissed the “neo-s” as the “necro-s”.

  With “Work # 808: Leviticus (Updated)” the idea was to hit the reset button and return to the beginning. Relying upon David Plotz’s exceedingly witty and acerbic “Good Book” (HarperCollins, 2009) as my guide, my “Bible for Dummies”, my “Coles Notes for Scripture”, allowed me to approach the inherent foreignness of these foundational texts as raw material and to respond to and contemporize a work introduced to the world by King James by reducing the words he authorized to their visual essence.

   “Work # 808: Leviticus (Updated)” is enormous. It consists of a 228.6x304.8 cm (90”x120”) photograph of a drought-stricken riverbed chopped up into a framed grid of nine 76.2x101.6 cm (30”x40”) panels randomly covered with the word ‘no’ repeated twenty-four times. The source material’s narrative was intended as an instrument of rigid social control through behaviour modification and took the form of an exhaustive litany of prohibitions combining the ludicrous and the lethal (from the sumptuary to the sexual). My visual rendition of the document takes it’s laundry list of diktats and offers them up as a series of tiny but emphatic, foot-stamping no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no’s sprinkled like seeds across a desiccated landscape that will never allow anything ever to grow. Leviticus was the book that fun forgot; it’s only value has been to allow generations of sanctimonious hypocrites the free rein to pick and choose their weapons of mass bullying. And like the book, the artwork that dares to speak its name is heavy and dour and negative, hung so low to the floor that it becomes an all-powerful, all-enveloping vehicle of oppression.

2

Accepting as its personal saviour the guiding spirit of “Salò: 120 Nights of Sodom” – Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1975 enumeration of abuse of power, corruption, sadism, sexual perversity, and fascism – “Work # 864: The Nature of God” (2013) is one work from a series that explores the outer limits of masculine behaviour – a behaviour that is traditionally still expected from the boy before he is considered to be fully a man. While I have long delved into the question of the "gay sensibility", this is neither a trip down memory lane nor a retreat into the stereotyped suck-and-fuck paradigm. I'm positioning myself as an ironic spectator of this world of men ripped from the daily headlines where the 19th century notion of a romantic friendship is kicked into the gutter. With titles like “Trailer Trash Terrorism”, “Behave Work Obey”, “Yes I Will Yes”, “Cell Block Bitch”, “Ash(And)Tray”, and “Shhh . . . (How to Conduct a Successful Interrogation – Lessons 1-20)” this is not a series of works intended for the faint of heart.

  Cherry-picking at will from mutually exclusive sources - the morning headlines, the official record of 20th century art, the signs and signifiers of the gay male underground – has allowed me to explore the spaces between these charged relationships. What I do with this series is the opposite of aestheticize the gleaming muscleboy or explore the romanticism of male bonding. It is old news that the male body continues to be a provocation; ironically, a critique of masculinity has gone largely unexplored. Herein lies the challenge: it furthers the proposition examined in much of my work that it should be possible to be simultaneously hot and sweaty and critical and detached. It is desirable – even exhilarating – to question the givens of our cultural baggage while at the same time allowing ourselves to be wrapped in its brawny arms.

  Work # 864: The Nature of God” allows that the rigour of discipline often morphs into the disciplinarian running amok. Notwithstanding the fact that this work has been described as ‘the water-boarding piece’(which is an interpretation that I don’t dismiss), it is a multi-image cum-soaked force-feeding enacting either the predetermined choreography of an arcane sexual ritual or the resolution of cold-blooded revenge. That’s up for you to decide; it’s September and (reform) school is now in session.  

3

The seven rows of deceptively random, densely packed, brightly coloured and seemingly arbitrary numbers that completely fill the 76.2x101.6 cm (30”x40”) picture elude easy interpretation. The clue to unlocking the meaning of this secret code is somewhat revealed by the presence of “Untitled Self-Portrait #49 (Nine Readings)” along the bottom edge of the image. With study the apparent randomness resolves into a series of dates and medical readouts, and carnival-coloured though it may be and written in the language of numbers that only cardiologists would love at first sight, it is a work perhaps at its most personal and exposed because it addresses my own mortality.

  As a darkly witty attempt at wresting control away from the terrors of aging, “Work # 842: Untitled Self-Portrait # 49 (Nine Blood Pressure Readings) Old/Sick #01” (2012) is a work that grudgingly acknowledges my being granted a visa to enter the Republic of Oldmanland. After being diagnosed with a heart condition that required a surgically-implanted stent to open a dangerously blocked artery close to my heart, and thus narrowly avoiding a probable fatal cardiac event, a six-month stint in cardio rehab was mandated. It’s not without a sense of irony that the author of this self-portrait fails to appear in any recognizable form. (A target blood-pressure reading should be anything below 140/90. During the period when this piece was being put together the high point, so to speak, was 181/114. This was moving into stroke territory.) At the most recent annual meeting with my cardiologist there was no mention of me as a person but the evaluation was based entirely on my numbers. All of my numbers were below the desired targets. My electrocardiogram numbers looking good; my blood pressure numbers look good; my heart rate numbers look good; my cholesterol numbers looked good . . . With only having to rely upon minimal medications and lots of walking and a decent diet I’ve been given a clean (if slightly diminished) bill of health; so there.

  There’s obviously a difference between quiet introspection and narcissistic self-admiration, between mindfulness and histrionics, between documenting an experience after the fact and being the experience itself. There’s something charming about the humbled expressions on the faces of tourists posed in front of a wonder of the natural or built world that moved them to such a degree that total strangers were asked to document the memory of what they just witnessed compared with the more than too many sensitivity-challenged grinning idiots in front of a death camp episodes. Every moment, every experience, is reduced to having the same value as every other moment and experience. There’s something desperate and needy, something deeply anti-intellectual about not understanding the importance of an insightful experience because it’s been clouded by auto-infatuation. Karl Ove Knausgaard states that “only a poet would see the difference between poetry and poetry that resembles poetry [and] you were constantly on the verge of the insight that what you were doing actually had no value.” A quick search of Google for answers to “why I hate selfies” produced 6,090,000 results. This makes plausible the fictional encounter of a selfie taken in the Sistine Chapel where photos and video are forbidden: “God is right next to ME and he’s sticking his finger in my ear LMFAO!”

4

As a piece of conceptual art about the state of art as art “Work # 937: April 5, 2015 (My Bedroom)” a 101.6x76.2 cm (40”x30”) is a mound of trash made up of dirt, and dust, and dog hair, and dead leaves swept up from my bedroom floor. Aside from everything else, it is perhaps a rather too gentle commentary full of Duchampian disdain for two unfortunate trends – the sentimental pining over disaster and decay and the hauling-piles-of-rubbish-into-gallery-spaces-and-calling-it-baroque practice among those armed with freshly-minted but pointless MFAs. (As an aside, does it need to be pointed out the Baroque was a reactionary response that arose at the behest of the Vatican in its counter-assault against the Protestant reformation? Then as now, reactionary times foster reactionary art.) Even though it’s tangential to the fact that if you go all squinty-eyed over this pointedly ugly pile of crap it begins to resemble the face of some hominid-like thing, it is a self-portrait in all but name. Notwithstanding a nod to Quentin Crisp’s brilliant fib that after five years the dust doesn’t get any deeper, the work operates against a backdrop of darker cultural significance as one that confront ageism – the last acceptable form of bigotry allowed to be voiced openly across all sectors of society, but most pointedly and shamefully within the art world itself. (Given that one of the edits from the Kapsula writing workshop hosted by Gina Badger made reference to grumpy old men merely reinforces my contention in this regard.) The allusion to everything else that had been set aside resides in the visually whispered text “My Bedroom”, embedded in the centre of the photograph; grounding itself as a self-deprecating auto-assault and a psychological marker of loneliness and depression and its power to destroy.

  It’s not for the lack of an alternative that I’ve expropriated control over a formal studio portrait from my boyhood and claimed it as my first self-portrait, repurposing it as my profile pic on various social media sites. It’s assumed the photograph was specifically chosen by my parents from an extended session; they saw something in my pose – The slight sneer? The slight arch of my brow? The ramrod straight haughtiness? – that foretold that this little boy from the late 1950s was never destined to be the archetypal man in the grey flannel suit.

  Over the course of the past number of decades I was the little boy in the iron lung who survived most of the ravages of polio; made it through years of vicious and violent teenaged bullying almost unscathed; escaped the genocide of AIDS by sheer dumb luck when living in New York City throughout the 1980s and ‘90s while thousands of my peers were dropping like flies; watching helplessly as my partner of twenty-five years went from robust, burly masculinity on our wedding day to a shriveled corpse after six months of being eaten alive by cancers so ravenous he didn’t stand a chance; but was finally nearly taken out by a silent genetic predisposition beyond my control. It’s the missing pieces implied by ‘surviving most of’, ‘made it through’, ‘escaped’, ‘watched helplessly’ and ‘nearly taken out’ that are the seeds from which my art has be able to sprout.                                                             BRUCE EVES September, 2015

As a visual artist, Eves has been influenced by the theoretical issues raised by performance and conceptual art. This has been supplemented by experience as art director of the New York Native, chief archivist for the International Gay History Archive (now part of the Rare Books and Manuscript collection of the New York Public Library, and assistance programming director of the Centre for Experimental Art and Communication (CEAC).

Work # 950: From Birth to (Near) Death and Back Again – In Four Parts was published in the November 2015 issue of Kapsula.