#I am AWARE and I am ANGRY about it

[kindlythevoid]

Don't you hate it when you read an old WIP (that you made, mind you) and you're reading it and it's good and fun and interesting (even if it could use an edit or two here and there) and then it just--

ENDS!?

Like who decided it could end t h a t early when it CLEARLY had a lot--!?

Oh.

[temperamentalaquarius]

Ugh the way fanon Jason calling Tim replacement v.s. canon Jason calling Tim pretender flattens Jason's motivations and the whole Jason and Tim relationship. 'Replacement' directs all of Jason's anger to Bruce. It makes Tim and Jason allies in victimhood. 'Here is this callous man that views us as interchangeable, can't you see that we're nothing to him?' 'Pretender' though... that holds Tim accountable for his role in making Jason's death meaningless. 'You saw everything I was, all that I gave, and you used it as a springboard to become what I should have been' is a lot more complex, and a lot more thematically accurate to Jason's whole deal. It's a larger gap for the characters to bridge, especially when Tim is coming from the perspective that his becoming Robin was not only right, it was necessary.

[thranduel]

astarion, the man who was dying and offered eternal life, but had no idea that it meant becoming a slave to a sadistic master.

astarion, the man who had his freedom and bodily autonomy ripped away from him.

astarion, the man who was forced to befriend, seduce and sleep with people to lure them back to his master, resulting in severe sexual trauma and the struggle to form any sort of intimate relationship.

astarion, the man who was horribly punished whenever he refused his master’s orders (one punishment being sealed away in a dusty tomb, starving, for an entire year. he scratched his hands raw trying to carve his way out).

astarion, the man who was forced to eat rats.

astarion, the man who hasn’t even been able to see his own face since he turned.

astarion, the man who had his body mutilated as cazador carved scars onto his back, which he later found out was to bind him to a ritual.

astarion, the man who is so severely traumatised that he admitted he doesn’t know how to say “no” or ask for help (and he feels guilty when he does).

astarion, the man who waited two centuries to be helped and freed from torture, but no one came.

astarion, the man who was always treated like a monster when all he wanted was to be treated like a person.

astarion, the man who came up to you in the middle of the night just to thank you for defending him and allowing him to make his own decisions.

astarion, the man who said that no one ever looked out for him or showed him kindness, and that you’re the only one. “other people don’t have a heart like you. you’re you. no one is like that.”

astarion, the man who broke the cycle of power and terror that started centuries ago thanks to the love, care and compassion that you showed him when no one else did.

astarion, the man who confessed that he loves you and feels safe with you; something he has never felt with anyone before.

[danmeichael]

What type of twitch streamers would the svsss characters be?

i think i've said before i don't think most of the characters would be twitch streamers, most of them aren't the right type of attention-seeking for that kind of thing.

i'm currently watching trackmania videos and i think shen yuan is the right kind of insane for that. by far his most popular streams, though, would be his ban review streams where he shreds people to filth over their unban requests.

binghe has the potential for the streamer's temperament, though it honestly depends on how i interpret him, but i'm not sure what games he'd play. cozy games are the pidw option -- everything the viewers want, an incredibly beautiful man in eyeliner and a v-neck playing cute little farming games or whatever, but incredibly hollow in terms of binghe's enjoyment in them i think. he might like soulsborne games, or he might do cooking streams, but i think he'd probably enjoy something with pvp the most. he spends multiple days trying to speedrun a trackmania map sy holds a record on to get his attention.

sha hualing is the only bitch here with the true twitch streamer's temperament. she's clever, calculating, and driven in addition to being gorgeous. she strikes me as someone unafraid to play the role of the exact kind of streamer twitchbros get reaaaally mad about: ditzy, cute, lowcut tops and short skirts, shallow view farming material where she just watches tiktok/youtube/other twitch streams and comments on them. a lot of people hate her because she's shallow coomer-bait, but you don't hit it big by just sitting there and looking pretty. sha hualing is undeniably charismatic and willing to put in the time and work to secure her position. the controversies she gets involved in only boost her engagement, and she's probably in the top 3% of earners. she's turned it into a science. she watches over her analytics like a warlord looks over trade routes. she intentionally starts a rumor that her and binghe slept together at twitchcon and binghe is too busy mooning over sy to care. this is not about the love of streaming or her deciding to simply broadcast another passion. success is a game to her and she intends to win, no matter how many fake teary-eyed apology videos it takes to get there.

nobody else would stream unless they were forced at gunpoint.

[antihibikase-archive]

It is incredibly isolating to navigate through fandom as an aromantic person. Aro experiences are so varied, and there is no definite aro experience that encapsulates the alienation that fandom spaces cause for certain people.

Fandom is mostly built and structured on shipping. And if not, the blorbofication of characters, which tends to go down the shipping pipeline; where does that leave the romance repulsed aro person who genuinely does not want to see any form of shipping? Platonic dynamics, right?

Yeah, sure. But by platonic dynamics, it's only "best friends" or "family" right? Where does that leave the aro folks with undefined labels? No, qprs aren't a get-out-of-jail card.

And qprs- they have no rules or standards set upon them by society, not even having a clear definition for what it is, because not all qprs are the same. Yet, for some reason, it ended up becoming the "nonbinary" option to a lot of people- not romantic or "regular" platonic? Qpr it is, right?

But where does that leave the aro folk who don't want a qpr? Who don't wish to see characters depicted in pairs or trios or so forth- who embrace the lack of a partner?

And these concepts presented; when aro folk talk about them, do you care? And if you do, do you understand? Do you try to?

If you aren't aro, but wish to be supportive, are you a genuine ally? Do you raise the concerns of aro folk you share the space with?

Or do you take a look at these concepts- and decide you understand them "well" enough? Do you decide to speak for aro folks instead?

Do you depict relationships outside of romance because you believe in the importance of platonic relationships? Will you accept the fact that not all platonic interactions will be familial or "best friends"?

Can you accept depictions of qprs outside of "more than friends, less than lovers"? Are you willing to accept it is not just "best friends" or "romance lite"? Will you accept that nothing is inherently romantic- and characters in a qpr may fall under your standards of lovers?

Can you resist the urge to put every character in a pair or trio or group? Are you comfortable with the notion of characters finding more joy in being by themselves, outside of all those lenses you see them in?

It's good if you can.

And if you can't, at the very least, do you understand why some aro folk in your space are upset? Embittered by your favorite ships? Starving for representation?

Did you depict these characters with these concepts with the knowledge that aromanticism is fluid?

[tennessoui]

I just read the hanahaki au and I feel like I AM GOING TO START THROWING UP FLOWERS MYSELF FOR THE TOO MUCH LOVE I HAVE FOR THIS AU!!!! It's amazing. Can't wait for the next chapter x

thank you!!!!

next chapter starts like. anakin bursting in on obi-wan just having a soothing sore throat cup of tea and he has like 12 billion things he wants to say and they all want to come out at once and what he actually says is like. why the FUCK is VOS still YOUR EMERGENCY CONTACT.

and obi-wan is like. ah. i take it the healers did not honor my request that the appointment notes be written on flimsi and kept close to chest.

[roseapprentice]

Never thought I'd be happy to see a candidate avoid a question in a debate, but when Kamala dodged the question about the economy under Biden, all I could think was, "Oh thank fuck she's acting like an actual coherent politician, and not actively contradicting reality. This is so refreshing!"

For a second I worried that my rose-tinted glasses were oversaturated. But then the "eating dogs" part happened and I remembered why my standards have plummeted through the floor.

I do miss the lower-BS version of her from when she served on Senate hearings. Back then she would have been like, "Yeah, the cost of living has become untenable. Here's what I'm gonna do about it. Remember the bread lines in 2020 though? That wasn't great either."

I get why she's having to learn to be more evasive though 🥲 Gotta build the muscle of dodging questions in case they ask something that has no good 2 minutes answer

...okay I also do need to adjust the tint on these glasses

[autobotmedic]

[ good morning~! i have to remind everyone that while i know it's popular/there's literally essay analysis out there about ratch being "unreliable narrator" and high ranking caste mentality etc etc which is fair enough to argue especially if you want to slap idw into aligned and i support exploring opinions and ideas freely, it is no less important to note that I don't do that by default which is relevant to this blog and that is my choice too

also, what is commonly NOT considered is that: (1) when ratch gives a background summary about orion's past, he is trying his best to summarize MORE TIME THAN A HUMAN MIND CAN COMPREHEND to a group of humans most of which are children in like five minutes, of course he hits the most relevant highlights in the moment, to the point he never even MENTIONS HIMSELF DESPITE US KNOWING FROM OTHER DIALOGUE THAT HE KNEW ORION CLOSELY (2) the aligned timeline is all kinds of f*cked up to the point that things like 'everybody just forgot the quints for some reason' like what do you mean all these main name characters were also involved in a previous war and also orion is supposedly the oldest mortal tf but somehow is also a young archivist millions of years later, that directly contradicts itself as many things do in aligned because writers did not follow the bible made for them they all did their own thing and i have to suffer for it (3) if using the canon aligned bg info which is already borderline non-existent for ratch, that information consists of the fact that he was from an unnamed village. there's literally no way this guy didn't have his own culture and opinions as his core from said village who survived the wilds where barbarians and wild cretchers were a threat, and that would have stayed with him even after going on a pilgrimage to iacon to learn more and become the medic we know. which is why you will continue to see me make country and cowboy jokes about him. lmao

is he biased? absolutely, but he's also blunt and honest, to the point that he is humble and does not take credit for anything if someone else helped him at all and clearly intentionally leaves out information on himself regularly, and i will not overlook that here to go for an idw filler angle, because sometimes the things that aren't said are just as important as the things that are, and mine is not based on idw

[flying-cat]

Two intense hurricanes hitting Florida back to back is fucking insane and like we already know Milton is gonna be category 4 (iirc) when it makes landfall but the fact people were downplaying it when they thought it would be a category 3 is crazy because HURRICANE KATRINA, KNOWN FOR BEING CATASTROPHICALLY DESTRUCTIVE, WAS A CATEGORY 3 HURRICANE (though a lot of its destruction was due to the levees failing in New Orleans). Milton's storm surge is going to be 15-20ft and the fact that anyone at all is CHOOSING to stay is absolutely fucking bonkers. It's one thing about people not being able to leave, which is the majority of people who have not yet/will not evacuate (which is a whole different issue because, by all means, people who are incapable of evacuating for any reason at all SHOULD be receiving help so that they CAN evacuate, but they AREN'T) but choosing not to? Crazy. Insane. Putting you and your family at risk because you want to be a stubborn fucking moron. And the people who are upset about having to cancel their Disney vacations, or people who are REFUSING to cancel their Disney vacations even with the current situation, should be ashamed. Those poor workers have to come to work, worried about their own safety, worried about the safety of their families, and the reason they have to be there is because they're expected to be there by people who don't give a shit about anyone else. What the hell are you going to do at Disney anyway? It's literally going to be raining for DAYS STRAIGHT.

[fieldsofbone]

this isn’t directed at anyone here and i’m just treating tumblr as my outlet for frustrations i can’t or don’t want to express elsewhere, but

i have deep, deep qualms about american electoral politics both as a regular person and as a political scientist. i also recognize and understand the position of viewing voting as a tactical form of harm reduction. i recognize the ever-growing cloud of fascism settling upon us. i am aware of the structural and practical differences of having a democrat vs. republican president. and i am capable of holding these facts and feelings in my head while being frustrated with the increasingly prevalent messaging i’m seeing that is not far off from “do you fucking stupid whiny babies want to stop pissing your diapers for one second, shut up, and come join the adults at the big table to vote blue?”

[novelistparty]

PSA: a negative covid rapid-test is only a true negative after a second negative test 24-48 hours later Testing only once right before going into a shared-air space is not enough. The oligarchs have found the pandemic to be inconvenient for their quarterly reports and thus they have decided it is over. But it is very much not over. Be careful out there. Violet Blue has a free weekly roundup with information to help you be better informed (make sure to send her money if you can).

[goldkirk]

.

[hella1975]

basically threw away £20 on my nails today so was already getting weird bc i apparently cannot be normal about money and then my paycheck came through just for my manager to have knocked off 11 hours worth of pay. so naturally i am crying in a dark room about it

[lightblueminecraftorchid]

My roommate and I had a conversation last night and I keep rotating it in my brain and I Don’t Like It

[kal-thas]

guys when the disability is disabling 👎

[lafcadiosadventures]

Madame Putiphar Groupread. Book Two, Chapter XXXIII

The Parc-aux-Cerfs makes a stage entrance via our disgusting main libertines's secret schemeing meeting (as always, sensitive content is discussed within)

{check my friends and fellow readers's posts as well-> @sainteverge and @counterwiddershins }{pro tip: sainteverge is translating this lexical goliath here, Even if you can read it in french, their verson usually has very interesting footnotes and research you cannot find in the online french versions}

[x]

Not to be redundant but formaly speaking this is one of the theatrical dialogue chapters. Borel makes his dolls talk with each other, the narrator makes zero interventions.

We have the rare pleasure of an intimate glimpse into Villepastour's and Putiphar's secret reunion...

Our two friends (like Saint-Ange and Dolmancé, or Valmont and Merteuil, but even less likeable somehow) are together because Villepastour wants to be paid back for the help he has given Putiphar in the Patrick affair.

Our borelesian libertines are hypocrites. If the sadian duo had their own mansion and boudoir to speak as freely as they wanted and rip as many social conformity masks as they wished, Villepastour and Putiphar do the contrary. Even in private they feign offended morality, especially Putiphar.

She intends to make Villepastour believe Patrick has dishonoured her “up to the waist”. (the “woman pretends to be raped by the guy who rejected her” trope is pretty disgusting, do better Borel) Villepastour humours her and goes off in a rant full of mock puritan indignation. Interesting concepts in his speech are: “contagious” people, who spread their noxious mores among the Court and the City... who are these contagious people? Foreigners? Not really, but Villepastour is keen on demonizing foreigners during this whole chapter. It's Readers of Philosophy, apparently. The Philosophers (aka the french Enlightnement gang, most of whom had been in jail or in exhile) had corrupted France irreparably, causing according to Villepastour, children to need wet nurses out of their own sheer perversion, among other things. The philosophers had gone too far in their attempt to shake off prejudices, they have shaken virtue as well.

(I will always remark how much influence the french enlightenment, CERTAIN TEXTS of the French Enlightenment have had to many romantic authors. Within the petit cénacle, Nerval was a huge admirer of Diderot's Jacques le fataliste, of Rétif de la Bretonne's Parisian Nights, Borel has some Diderotian turns of phrase in Passereau, and names "Jacques" in Medianoche, seems to be in a constant dialogue with some of Rousseaus works in Passereau and in Madame Putiphar... Gautier was an admirer of Diderot's Salons, and followed his conversational and passionate school of art criticism, beging to go against artistic and moral conventions. The Enlightenment is of course, what the Romantics were reacting against, but. Hastag notalllumières. The secret, posthumously published fictions of Diderot, those transgressive texts he didn't dare to publish for fear of being incarcerated a second time, seem like a crucial key to undertsand where some of the interests of the young Romantics came from. He is even part of the inspiration behind Schiller's Rauber, and with it, the Romantic Outlaw trope. Don't sleep on Diderot is what i'm saying, his influence is vast and his secret texts are not what his more divulged writings would lead you to think he is)

That last paragraph about Virtue is interesting because, on the one hand, OH THE HYPOCRISY. You can totally imagine the ironic tones in which these two speak of Virtue, how disgustingly they accuse mere children of being perverse. On the other, it's always interesting to see how the elites will seek for a scapegoat: philosophers in this case. And I also like how Putiphar, who is shown to be a fan of the enlightenmet in previous chapters (owns a Rousseau volume that Patrick uses against her) likes the Philosophes only when they are useful to her (once they go too far in their challenges to her class, she cracks a whip and it's off to jail/exhile for them) Remember how Borel spoke of her being a benefactress to the Philosophes because it gave her power, it provided her with intelligent people who were indebted to her/therefore in her service.

So these two delightful fellas continue their tête-à-tête, the marquis complains about Deborah to Putiphar, he wants her arrested. Why, asks madame Putiphar, when raping her would be so much simpler -she is now alone- and less of a boureaucratic hassle, surely. (men she says, can always triumph over women, “courage, marquis!”, noone is un-rapeable, even if she pretends to be so)(the marquis knows that the fact that Patrick is away is almost irrelevant since Deborah has been more than capable of defending herself, but he conveniently keeps silent.)

So, given that Debby is an “impenetrable” fortress, Madame Putiphar reasures him “don't worry, we will form her” (Putiphar, like the marquis before her and like many Sade characters, insists that sex is a discipline one has to be enlightened on, by force if necesary...)

The marquis does a description of Debby's "English hipocrisy" that is so appealing to frenchmen who are too accustumed to their women's shamelessness, (very hitchcock to truffault's definition of english vs latin beauties core)(but we don't need to go back to the 60's... this stereotype is alive and well)

So Putiphar claims that her Punishment for Deborah will be Educating her, forming her... the Marquis should know by now what she means, but he cannot tell..

Putiphar explains she is worried her enemies are pushing a new favorite to turn the King against Pompadour. She is certain she is not as witty to hold his attention for long, as she has. And the Parc-aux-Cerfs is pretty barren at the moment, only a couple of young girls are being trained in it (and when Borel writes young, he means it, after the first period in which the parc was mostly populated by soldier's widows forced to sexually satisfy the king, the royal person became fearful of syphilis, so he started demanding children, girls aged between 12 and 14 years)(this is all real, Borel has been accused of demonizing Pompadour but she was actually involved in this, at least during the initial period of the Parc, and she was well aware of what happened in it, since it was strategically beneficial for her to be the author of the king's pleasures even if it was by proxy. It is important to recognize that many Romantic novels, while melodramatic and exagerated if you will, root their fantasies in facts and have the intention of denouncing real forgotten horrors from a ruling class that had managed to return to power like reventants, after the french revolution, with no long lasting punishment for their crimes...)

Villepastour is delighted by the perverse perfection of the idea. Pompadour is weary Deborah, being so beautiful and intelligent, will grow ambitious and become a threat.

Villepastour says this is out of the question, since she is a prude and a peniless foreigner (it doesn't follow but ok) her pride is more of a potential threat, but there is no one The Madame cannot break in, Pompadour reasures him. She has tamed the most rebellious of them...

Pomp commands some henchman to kidnap deborah, in the meantime she makes out with Villepastour and invites him to dine with her. Cruelty is the ultimate aphrodisiac, but more importantly, a tool of government.

------

annex:

first hand source on the children of the parc aux cerfs. even this person who intends to rescue the king from very partial anti-royalist historians (Michelet), considers this a reliable, dispassionate source (a source brought to light by Michelet himself)(Michelet accuses the king of being sadistic, wilfully harming the children. The fact that this man thinks it's all good since the children were "not virgins, but sluts" and there are no historical accounts depicting the king hitting them makes it all ok.... is beyond me)

20 février 1756 … …Le roi se livre à la nature, et cherche à se ragoûter par de petites filles très-neuves qu' on lui fait venir de Paris. Il se pique d' emporter des p... de quinze ans. On lui amena, il y a quelques jours, une petite fille de cet âge qui était à peine vêtue ; il s' enrhuma à la poursuivre dans le lit et hors du lit. Cependant, il fait du bien à ces petites créatures, et, s' il se comporte en paillard, il ne fait rien en ceci contre l' honnête homme. L' on dit que le Sieur Lebel, son grand pourvoyeur, est sur le côté, et l' on ne sait qui a procuré sa disgrâce….

Journal et mémoires du marquis d'Argenson Vol. 9. 1755-1757. [2]  publ... pour la Société de l'histoire de France par E.-J.-B. Rathery