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Fanfic Angst Material that I won't write: There is a giant family portrait in Wayne Manor (taken recently) where everyone can see. The frame holds Bruce and all his children. Except Jason.
and slowly all the batfam members start to notice his transfixation on it. Because he mentions it randomly, asks when it was taken to a few separate siblings, because he's paranoid about the timeline. Was he in Gotham when they took it? (he was). and he jokes that his dead robin memoriam is just like the family portrait, because everyone else's suits are all beside each other down in the cave, and his is in a corner. (why can't he stop being dead?) and he's suddenly a lot more willing to be in selfies they take. He has a sudden, and odd insistence to be apart of whatever they're doing. But there's something specifically weird about the missions he tags along with. He's throwing himself into harms way for them, taking the brunt of the hits, and trying to listen really well to the plans they lay out. (He hates them all. He wants them to love him so badly).
That, and they all walk past the room to see him just standing there staring at it. The bat fam all start talking about the random experiences they've had with him, seeing him staring at it, and his comments, and it takes them way too long to realize he's like-- really, really hurt about it.
It all comes to a head when Jason is patrolling with Bruce, and gets really hurt. He's super out of it, minorly concussed, and seeing stars and suddenly he's calling Bruce 'dad', and he's asking why Bruce doesn't want him anymore--
And Jason is crying (thanks concussion) and is like: I can't stop calling you dad, but I don't think I'm your son anymore.
and Bruce, being the shitty and emotionally unaware person he is, is like: Jay tf?
and Jason brings up the portrait. And then he passes out.
(the whole next part is him waking up and Bruce and his siblings very awkwardly trying to address what he said right before he went out. He's mortified but also really wants some sort of excuse. and they all explain super emphatically that they figured he wouldn't want to be in the portrait, because of the way he is. They redo the photo with Jason in it, a week later, once his bruises have faded. He doesn't know if he feels any better about it. He doesn't like begging for scraps from them, and he doesn't like that it didn't occur to them to at least ask him if he wanted to be apart of it. But he's there now... and that's okay, right?)
BONUS POINTS if the batfam starts piecing it together because a working girl makes an off hand comment to Dick (when he's in crime alley looking for Jason) that Red Hood is really upset with his family right now.
And Dick is like: Um shit? like murder mad?
and she's like: No, like sad.
and then she says something about the portrait and Dick is like: NO MY BABY BROTHER--
(I just think it would be lowkey funny if a few of the working girls managed to get Jason to open up to them, and they know how to tell when Red Hood is in a rage induced rampage, or if he's in a state of sadness better than his own family).
#I see this sometimes in fics#but not ENOUGH#gimme more#write me a whole fic about it#or just mention it in one. does not have to be the main focus#Jason todd#batfam#batfam angst#fic idea#Bruce wayne#dick grayson#Tim drake#Stephanie brown#damian wayne
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author interview!
thank you @orchideous-nox , @emlovessid , @pretentiouswreckingball , @star4daisy , @angel-daydreams for the tag <3
total works: twenty-four! (mostly one shots oops) total wc: 76,784
your top 5 stories by kudos/likes?
mine
parallelos
home
tripping over air
invisible string
do you respond to comments? it might take me a little bit but yes!! i try to reply to all of them
what's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?
one of these three:
'the one with the breakup'
'essential'
'maybe someday'
(they were all about a diff breakups lol i dont think i'll reread to remember which one is angstier oops)
what's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?
absolutely any other fic outside of those three i swear, it's absolute fluff
do you write crossovers? not yet but it's not something i'm closed off to
have you ever received hate on a fic? i don't think so? some weird comments maybe
do you write smut? oh yes, it's very yummy
have you ever had a fic stolen? not to my knowledge
have you ever had a fic translated? nop
have you ever co-written a fic before?
yes! very recently, with @star4daisy and it was for @v7lgar birthday it was so so fun. very yummy fic if i say so myself: apartment 26
what's your all time favourite ship? reg and james
what's a wip that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?
god i really wish to finish past lives but i fear it will hurt too much
what are your writing strengths?
i think i have a lot of ideas, especially scenes like just snippets of their time together. i think i'm good with small moments
what are your writing weaknesses? can't stick with a story to save my life lol
what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?
i don't think i've added yet but i would talk to someone who actually speaks the language. i think if you're using google translate better to not use it at all (at least with latino james pls free my man)
what's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?
i must write more wisestar !! and i'm working on my itafushi fic so that's fun
what's your favourite fic you've written?
i'm doing top three because no one is even reading to this point and if you are then damn i appreciate you, i will write you something, go text me u read up to here and claim ur prize lol i truly think not even my besties are actually reading up to here, like goddamn i forgot how long this was or am i just tired? idk anyway here's the list:
dearly departed
dare to stay
same boat
open tag! + @moon-seas @v7lgar @lavenderhaze @ultravioletbrit
@sixlane @velanavis @del-stars @futurequibblerjournalist
@staringathesun1 @pressedink
#this took me so long to do i apologize!!!#but its here#lovely to do in january#i wanna look back at this when the year ends#elena's stats#fanfic#fanfic authors#ao3#ao3 writer#marauders#jegulus#regulus black#james potter
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Is that comment real? I received those two comments from the same person. (please help, because I don't know if I should respond to those comments, or delete them and block the account)
The first comment seems to be real, and I was happy to read it, however the second one is looking like an average artist scam.
But I also have another question: could the first comment be generated by the AI? Is that possible that this person feed chatgpt with my fanfic to generate a comment?
Also, this fanfic has two-chapters, however they only commented on the first chapter, and even left a kudos which makes things a bit weird. I saw other scam comments before, but they were more generic and those accounts were never leaving kudos.
This person claims to be a digital artist (it's also written in their bio), however I was unable to find their Tumblr or any other social media account. Their AO3 account is new (created on the 27th December 2024). I only managed to find a Tumblr account with the same nickname, however the last post is from 2021. So I assume it's only a coincidence or the username is stolen.
Am I overreacting or those scammers are getting better now?
I also won't deny that this makes me sad (and angry), because now I don't know whether real people are reading my fics, or those are only bots/scammers. 😢
*sighs*
I think the Dead Internet Theory is real.
(I tag this post as sabezra, because this comment is from one of my recent sabezra fanfictions)
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Thank you for writing up that post about the engagement of the alleged themes in campaign 3. I've seen the argument for them and honestly that plus some of the C3 stuff has almost made me feel weird playing a cleric in this setting. The implications just are so unfortunate if it really is the angle they're going for?
Hi anon,
So I have two thoughts on this. The first is that like...it's actually really difficult to make a story set in a fantasy world that deals with racism and colonialism because you have to develop fantasy racism and colonialism, which is a really fucking unpleasant headspace to exist in! And then, if you do, you have what I alluded to in tags on a different post today, where you will get people up in arms about how D&D or an actual play show or a fantasy work depicts orcs or goblins as racist or antisemitic stereotypes and then it's crickets when it comes to any real-world support of black or Jewish people. Chuck Klosterman said sci fi is philosophy for stupid people, and I disagree, but I do think speculative fiction is frequently sociology, anthropology, and geopolitics for stupid people, particularly if it's a setting with a lot of magic and fantasy races vs say, works like Butler's Patternist series, or a lot of Latin American magical realism, or (girl who just finished Disco Elysium voice) Disco Elysium, where there's a lot more grounding in our reality. I think this post covers the concept of real vs mythic, and I think the Critical Role stuff with the gods is in the realm of the mythic and people are trying to force it into a very human narrative. And yeah, the implications are really unfortunate if you do.
I think it's worth noting that a lot of high-profile (and beloved) TTRPG/AP projects from actual people from colonized cultures imagine a world in which they were never colonized (I am far from an expert but just off the top of my head: Coyote and Crow; Into the Motherlands; Desiquest; Islands of Sina Una) rather than make a story where a bunch of mostly white characters explain how they are the victims of colonization from two separate sources and only really focus on the one that's way less obvious and true but don't worry they're GONNA FIX IT, maybe, idk, should we open this door? I just don't know! golly gee this is tough!
The second related thought is just that D&D isn't a game that is well-suited to dismantling complex political structures either on a narrative or literal level and also it's pretend so you can do what you want forever. I mean don't call other people slurs while playing it but if we're talking in-world? I genuinely think that people who are unabashed murderhobos in D&D are often perfectly fine, generous, and lovely people in real life, and a lot of people who are like "I unionized the goblins! We're playing non-combat D&D! I de-escalate every situation" are often the sort of person to claim it's ableist to suggest that perhaps you should try to use reusable shopping bags. Like, are you living your values in your real life and capable of critical thought? then who cares if your D&D character is kind of a dick, or the show you are watching doesn't align perfectly with what you believe? And I find people who get overly hung up on how good and virtuous they are for their media consumption tend to be compensating for a lack, or at best a deep insecurity, about how they comport themselves in their real life.
so anyway yeah if the cast actually is like "yes i see this as a decolonialist work" I am going to have Thoughts and Pretty Harsh Critiques but to grant the CR cast the benefit of the doubt here, I think it's just...a mythic, epic scale story that draws from interesting sources (creation myths, the idea of a world created as an envious reflection by a sealed hunger) and didn't come together very well. I cannot extend that same benefit of the doubt to those fans who have argued otherwise, however.
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what are ur thoughts on nightwing yr 1 (the chuck dixon comic)?
mixed! i love the version of the firing and dick getting the nightwing identity there, and in theory i like dick going back to his roots with the circus to get a version of his dad's costume, and i'm glad it gives additional context to the jason-dick relationship, and it's very fun to see jason's gauntlet as a callback to dick's gauntlet ("batman chronicles: the gauntlet," 1997).
all the PARTS in there are things i enjoy, and i personally take #101-102 as part of my like comprehensive Mental Canon for dick because i enjoy the brudick drama of those issues so much. which sort of requires me to take the rest of it too because of how my comics autism works (i personally feel weird taking a single scene or event from an arc and ignoring the rest of it).
but i never really find myself wanting to reread it or revisit it for any reason other than pulling screencaps...?? just like, as a story itself it doesn't particularly compel me. idk if it's the pacing, if it's the fact that it's set in the old days of ntt but the art and writing are so distinct from that era that it doesn't fit with it in my mind, if the sudden jump from grayson's writing to dixon's threw me off too much the first time i read it... i just don't feel the connection with it that i do with robin: year one (also by dixon) or with batman: year three (also a brudick-centric story that invokes jason's memory and deals with dick's personal history and his relationship with his mantles).
i think it's partly that dick seems to have so little connection to the titans in nightwing: year one... like, they're around, and it ends with dick going back to titans tower iirc. but given that nightwing was originally created to help separate dick from bruce and establish the ntt version of himself as distinct, and nightwing's history as a character is so deeply tied to dick's role as the leader of the titans, it feels odd to me that nw:y1 isn't more concerned with the titans and dick's relationship with them. i feel like that was deliberate on dixon's part to make his version of dick more of a solo character across his entire history to line up with how dixon's nw96 run is about making dick a true solo character after a long history of being a partner/team character... idk. it makes sense to me as a writing choice but it's one that makes the comic itself less appealing to me.
rating: 4/5, good source material for ao3 tag Dark Bruce Wayne
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thoughts on thistle and yaad's dynamic that i vomited in the tags of another post but will now try to articulate here: they're not actually family, or at least they shouldn't be. not in a conventional sense anyway. framing them as uncle and nephew (even in a non-literal, silly fantasy world way) rides more on technicality than anything concrete.
what i mean by this is yaad calls thistle by name and says he and delgal were raised "like" brothers. he talks about thistle like he's an outsider imposing himself into the melinis' space, and it's clear that thistle was never legitimized as a member of the family. for thistle's part, though we don't know how he would treat yaad pre-demon brainrot, it's safe to assume based on the way he punishes him—turning him into a doll—and how little is shown in the way of any sort of relationship between them that thistle only cares* about yaad as an extension of delgal (otherwise i'd expect something like kabru and milsiril, because it's not like another complicated interspecies family dynamic would be out of place, yet there's next to nothing on them even in bonus content, just their scant interactions in the main story).
in essence, they're strangers to one another. thistle's desperation to preserve the illusion of a family, a model where he doesn't even fit, was the snare they were caught in for the past thousand years of stasis. yaad-as-nephew is a prop to uphold that illusion, and thistle is playing a role he's unfit to play. in the context of post-canon interactions, attempting to reconstruct that facade would only be a reenactment of trauma for them both (in a deeply compelling way i'd love to watch unfold, tbh), as that "uncle and nephew" framing places thistle in an implicit position of power over someone he's already traumatized through misuse of authority in the past, a role which also perpetuates his adultification and yaad's infantilization in turn. it'd mostly be an obstacle to any real connection.
best to burn the melini family bridge, i think, and if there's still anything salvageable left in the rubble, let something different supplant it.
#not to say i don't enjoy when they're portrayed as a weird set of uncle and nephew - that's really fun too#i think their history and shared connection to delgal would be a key element to their dynamic no matter what#and it's something they would tryyyy to make work at some point. for lack of other options.#it's not smn i take too seriously either! but thinking about it for more than 2 minutes makes me go oh yikes#i do think they could be family - i'm a certified sucker and sap so i want them to be - but#growth means moving past that more conventional way of thinking of family#side note as someone with a large extended family i DO have uncles who are younger than me lmao#but i'm viewing the whole uncle + nephew thing with thistle and yaad more symbolically for the purposes of this#additional note the fantasy age-fuckery and power dynamics at play means thistle has been in an actual position of authority#over his younger family members like any older relative would be in spite of his being quite young and immature#so. no. don't try to be his uncle anymore. and he isn't your nephew. and oh god he isn't your dead brother let it go. stop with the labels#don't try to resurrect that corpse (< writing them trying to resurrect that corpse as we speak)#not sure if these tags are coherent pero basta lang. yaad and thistle stay complicated forever that's all i want#feel free to chime in or disagree as i'd like to crack into this like crispy lechon and my opinions are subject to change#roomba media#thistle#yaad#thistle & yaad#melinis#dunmeshi#dunmeshiposting#dunmeshi spoilers#thistle dungeon meshi#dungeon meshi#edit: changed some inaccurate wording in this one whew. english
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I just remembered the time I was a summer camp counselor and I tried to read the first Harry Potter book aloud to my campers, and I had to skip over so many fatphobic lines
Because why would I just expose these perfectly nice kids to a bunch of mean comments, played off as comedy, that they would use as ammunition against other kids and themselves? It's just plain cruel. Joanne was incredibly fucking weird for that
#cl thoughts#and Many other things#should I even tag the series?#i hate giving it any air especially online#harry potter#I can't believe I read those things as a kid I think it genuinely made me a more cruel person#harry potter critical#anti jkr#anti jk rowling#i kinda hate using the crit tags bc I know the ppl that need to hear it most will have them blocked but oh well#i have a lot of nostalgia for the series but it's really gross in retrospect#the racism antisemitism misogyny fatphobia transphobia queerphobia in general - the list just goes on#like why'd she have to be so weird with it she could've been normal#hell i reread the series multiple times a year from 5th grade to 9th grade#ugh#like i don't want to say these awful lines then hear the kids repeat them at camp for the rest of the week#obv those books weren't the only source of fatphobia - it was rampant back then and still bad now#but I distinctly remember this book being what introduced me to a lot of specific awful ideas around weight :(
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very sad still see the saria/silence divorce headcanon still going around
have you ever tried to consider that they never dated before lone trail because it would be unrealistic with the timeline and the events and also because it would be overshadowing the actual truth of why they couldn't get along
#i'll elaborate#firstly it's ok if you headcanon this i don't want to invalidate what people think#it's just that I think it's a fanon joke that have been going around for way too long#and I can't help but shed a small tear when I see people really headcanoning it#I personally think it's way more interesting if we consider that they never had something going on before Lone Trail#mostly because it's weird that they started dating in like some months when they barely knew or saw each other#but also because it adds nothing but just makes things even more harder for them#my personal headcanon is that Silence was maybe having feelings for Saria but like#you know these very premature feelings#like just “oh wow she's pretty and nice”#but nothing like really deep#but they never had anything going on before the diabolic crisis#and after lone trail after they made up and saw each other's true person#they start to actually get real feelings#I'm just complaining but I've been still seeing it around somehow and it's sad to me that this joke became a fact for many people#there's still a lot of fanfics about how they had been dating and now they're on bad terms#I think that going on the “they're exes” route is way too easy and actually hides the potential and interesting reason#of why Silence was mad at Saria#it's not because she hates Saria or blame her#it's because she's mad at herself for being so weak#really making them appear as exes just hides this really interesting truth and makes it all seem to be a sad love story#consider that they never had any of this and that this tension between them is because they blame themselves!!#their story is not a love story but above all a story about self love and acceptance#just my two cents enjoy my rambling i go back to bed now#(not putting this in the main tag I don't want to start a war I'm just rambling)
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y'all can all cancel me (again) for this, but if there's even a SHRED of 'who should I pick?' from Penelope in season 3, I am tuning out SO fast because like. . .sorry not sorry, there IS no choice. Debling is some crusty OC suitor she barely even knows and Colin is a man who she has been so supposedly in love with to the point where she'd ruin her entire family's reputation to have a potential love story with him. Penelope and Colin have background, years of knowing each other, intimacy that few people in the Ton can boast of having (letters, conversations about purpose, fights and arguments and makeups) and her and Debling have. . .a dance or two at a ball because he's a rebound for Penelope's broken heart. he means nothing. he has no nuance, he has no weight to the story, he is such an afterthought to me. either I wanna see Penelope going 'you know what? I don't even LIKE this dude. he's. . .fine, but I don't care about him even a shred as much as I care about Colin' or the INSTANT Colin's like 'you know what? we should get married' if it's not an immediate 'say less, you're already my husband, try returning me without the receipt, Debling whomst?' then I don't want it!
like. . .it's just so frustrating to see all the 'I hope Debling sweeps her off her feet and she rejects Colin's proposal and she makes him work for it and and and-' nonsense from the fandom and it's always tagged and no matter how many times I block it, it just keeps popping up. I go into the Polin tag for POLIN. I don't give a SHIT about a male love interest other than Colin. Not one. Not a shred. Not an iota.
and also. . .Debling has the 'benefit' of not having depth, or character traits, or HISTORY, so peeps can project onto him however they want, but I'm calling it now, there is NOTHING he could do or be that would make me like him more than Colin. Colin will always hit different, and I will always love him more. and if Pen's not on that same page? lol bye
you want me to believe Penelope and Colin are soulmates and it's romance for her to hem and haw about how difficult a decision it is for her to marry a stranger who knows barely anything about her. . .
when Marina was out here dropping banger lines like 'You were the only man with which I could see myself being happy' and 'I do not care about any of these men, where is Colin?'? like hello??? and she wasn't even fully in love with him!!!! but we'll demonize her until the cows come home in our fandom and make her the villain in Polin's love story for DARING to get in between Polin, yet Debling, a white man, is a darling dear perfect prince for getting in between Polin? existing in our fandom solely so Penelope can be like 'lol, Colin ain't shit, let me entertain any and everyone else'?
if that's the direction it goes then, ten toes down and on my mama, she doesn't deserve Colin and she can move because I'm on my way to court him my damn self
and that's that on that
#you know what? lol it's been a bit since i've posted a controversial opinion#tagging it#polin#sorry not sorry i ship polin. . .so i wanna see. . .polin. . .and i'm getting damn sick and tired#of all the bullshit pen/oc pen/other dude theories and stories in the polin tag#and i don't want polin to lose screentime over a frankly bleh male oc#you can't change my mind#if i don't see at least marina's 'you've seen him with the little bridgertons!' level of squee and 'i only want to talk to colin'#levels of devotion then i don't fucking WANT IT!!!!!#yeah definitely try out the marriage market#realize that NO ONE has a good time on the marriage market#try to get over him w/ whomstever#but then be like 'i don't even LIKE this dude where's colin i miss him' about it!!!!!#because otherwise i am not here#i am asleep#and i am courting colin in your place pen#i'm coming for your man#anti debling#if debling has 100 haters i am one of them if he has 10 haters i'm one of them if he has 1 hater i am the hater if he has 0 haters i'm dead#it's incredibly obvious that 'pebling' is half rooted in a revenge storyline fueled by anger at Colin and his complexity#and half a projection of wanting Penelope to have 'choices' because she is a representation and manifestation of the fans themselves#and so people think an OC that can be 'perfect' for them- whoops I mean Pen (because he doesn't have any real depth or interest)#he's a cardboard cutout we can throw whatever you want onto#so we can make him 'perfect' instead of the much more meaningful storyline of pen and colin both being messy and loving each other more#and part of it is bitterness over Polin not being insta-love#which. . .if it was i wouldn't like them as much as i do#anyways y'all ain't slick#and it's fucking WEIRD to be in a fandom that's like 'i ship this couple but i hope she gets with ANYONE else'#maybe you. . .don't ship the couple??#like. . .to the point of wanting her necklace to be from debling. . .and her wearing it everywhere??? WHAT??
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skeledog Leander WIP
the skull here is actually modeled closely after a deer skull, just compressed to fit a dog's overall face shape. also tried to make the eyes a little less wide-set than a deer's without making them completely front-facing like a dog's. here's the rest of the (still un-rendered) body:
i'm testing out the screen recorder i just downloaded so if that ends up working the way i want it to i'll have a timelapse of this piece when it's done :)
#whump#i mean leander is unharmed#he is fine#but i would NOT put it past him to go whumping someone else while he's like this#or most any other time really#tor draws#original characters#oc: leander#leanimals#drawing#art#don't think this really counts as gore but perhaps i'll tag it as#horror#if of a milder sort#skeleton#bones#drawing wip#also fun fact! i am doing all the painting and rendering on one layer for the most part#like the rough sketch is on a separate layer but i'm painting completely over it and all that is being done on a single layer#i hate to do that with art of humanoid characters#it's just really difficult for me for some reason#but when it comes to animals and monsters and creatures and such i actually really prefer doing things on a single layer as much as possibl#which is weird bc for years i've been a steadfast 'has dozens and dozens of layers for a single drawing#so every little thing can have its own layer' kind of girlie#still can't get the hang of single-layer painting for humanoid characters tho#can't seem to get the hang of applying this same lineless painterly style to humanoid characters either#which causes me absolutely no end of grief#i WANT to#but it's so fucking hard lol#but ig that's what practice is for 😔
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< Prev Doodles | First Set of Doodles
Surprise, @redstringraven!! Guess who watched a playthrough of Horizon Forbidden West AND the DLC Burning Shores and Then proceeded to reread Pretend that I Never Left and draw Four More DOODLE PAGES!!!! To all the 2k3 Mikey fans out there, this is the fic for you!
#tmnt#tmnt 2003#tmnt 2k3#tmnt mikey#hzd aloy#hfw beta#should I tag Donnie and Erend and Varl and... Nah#my art#pretend that i never left#fic fanart#in which Mikey showcases all his badassery while becoming fast friends *cough*siblings*cough* with Aloy#correction: ALL 2k3 fans should read this#as I've stated before this fic does Not Need any prior knowledge of HZD#hzd fans who see this you might have a little more trouble reading this if you don't know anything about TMNT 2k3 lol#hey to all who know HFW do you think it's weird as hell that Beta didn't get new clothes???#like Damn Aloy you have a whole walk in closet and a kitchen sink's worth of clothes and you don't share any of them with your sister????#anyways fixing that lol#also can you tell I've slipped from trying to draw Aloy and the rest in 2k3 style to just doing whatever's most comfy for me#also ALSO Hannah if you're reading this Apologies if I've somehow predicted more of the Epilogue#my brain would Not Stop thinking about What IFs lmaooooo#anyways no matter how many times I reread PtINL I will Never be over how well it's written#nor will I ever be over Aloy and Mikey being found siblings and what a blessing it is on my entire soul#straight up could not stop thinking about PtINL while watching HFW#anyways anyways lol back to work on other stuff!#I've got less than a week left of vacation let's see how much I can get done *cracks knuckles*
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I read Possession by AS Byatt after people told me "if you liked Gaudy Night you'll like this" and WELL.
Warning- spoilers for both books abound below!
So it sounded great- as a lapsed academic (though not in the field of literature by any means) there's a part of me that loves reading about academia because it's full of such obsessive people, and this book seemed to be exactly that and so I was excited.
Then I read it, and on the one hand, my first thought was "all these people are dull as heck, the only sane modern-day one is Val, and at the end of the day the historical stuff is just two people having an affair, who cares." My second thought was "there's just enough stuff here that makes me think that maybe the author knows that all of this is stupid, like the fact that Val is obviously one of the few sane ones here." But the ending made me doubt even that. Essentially, and I say this even as that lapsed academic, the author could not convince me to care about the important things at stake here, and as a result couldn't get me to care about the people who only seemed to care about those things.
I didn't care about Ash and LaMotte- they came across as two people high on their own supply who had a tawdry affair. (And each of them is the less interesting person, as a person, than their official partner!) As a result of not caring about them, I couldn't POSSIBLY care about Roland, Maud, and the rest of their crew, because their only functions were to be possessed by, and weirdly possessive of, these two entirely unworthy individuals, whose in-universe historical and literary significance Byatt couldn't convince me of, and to use that possession as a mirror for their own very lame romance. Beyond that they're utterly uninteresting, and there isn't even meant to BE much beyond that so it's not that surprising.
Anyway, I didn't like this book much, but it still made me think a lot. And there's a way in which a certain kind of person might say "well if it made you think then that's surely a sign of some positive quality" and... maybe? I don't know. I didn't hate all of it, and some parts were interesting, and I do have a whole separate list of things about the book that bug me including a breakdown of some of the book's (perceived by me) themes that I particularly disliked lol. Perhaps I'll post it another time. So I guess you can say it spurred me to thought, but loads of things that I don't like do that, and the only positive thing that that draws from me is that they're not downright dull.
The thing is, after finishing the book I was immediately struck by that "if you like Gaudy Night..." element, because it has a situation that felt weirdly similar (if for totally different reasons)- a young scholar stealing a letter from a library/archive. The circumstances are different- in Gaudy Night, the scholar does it to hide its existence so as not to contradict his thesis, and in Possession, the scholar does it so as to explore the document further, though still secretly- but there are still some interesting parallels vis a vis class. Possession goes into the class thing more than Gaudy Night does, but neither book goes much into it- the scholar is lower-class and someone who has scraped their way to their position, and is encumbered by a female partner of lower social and academic standing, and in the end they are juxtaposed against scholars who come from an elevated class and who have more money and opportunity. In Gaudy Night, Arthur Robinson is judged by the likes of Lord Peter Wimsey and a college full of women who don't have to do anything but think, teach, write, and grade papers; in Possession, Roland has to convince a bunch of academics of standing and resources to take a chance on him (and while this is more about money than class, he's the main one who's like "maybe it's good if Lady Bailey gets her wheelchair"). Byatt elides over this at the end by having him magically become in demand and on his way to achieving his academic goals, but I think in both books, the class element really could have taken on more significance in the text.
(I'd add as well that Byatt pits the upper-class and moneyed Maud, who of course is doing things for "the right reasons," vs the evil American businessman who clearly... doesn't care about Ash enough? Despite how much he clearly and obviously cares about Ash? The book was way more interesting when he seemed like a valid rival to the British team, who only thought that they deserved the letters more because of their obsession, rather than how it turned out at the end where the American dude is an actual cartoon villain. What made him genuinely less worthy besides having money without class, and of course having the bad taste to be American? What makes one scholar's possession more justified? Sayers was never this unsubtle.)
So that made me think more about Possession vs Gaudy Night, and the thing is, there are actual living people in Gaudy Night! Say what you will about the unworldliness of the academics at Shrewsbury, but you get a very keen view of their personalities by the end, even as they are (by necessity given the rules of their world) subsumed by academia, or subsume themselves in it. And the people who do fall in love are REALLY in love, and you understand why...
And somehow a book from 1935 feels far more interrogative of the possession (or lack thereof) found in love and romance, and just about the place of women in academia and relationships overall, than one from the late 80s. In Gaudy Night, Harriet accepts Peter once she has determined that despite their power differential (brought on by class, money, history, and to a degree gender) he will not threaten her personhood, because he has proven himself to her. In Possession, Maud accepts Roland because she has the power (money, class, position, even height) and so Roland actually cannot threaten her- and yet still that final scene is about her being taken by him, basically to prove some kind of a point. In contrast, in Busman's Honeymoon, the euphemistic sex scenes are about Peter trying to please Harriet.
When I say it's to prove a point, I'm paraphrasing Byatt, incidentally- who said: "And in the case of Maud I had made it very inhibiting. She was a woman inhibited both by beauty (which actually isn't very good for very beautiful women because they feel it isn't really them people love) and she was also inhibited by Feminism, because she had all sorts of theories that perhaps she would be a more noble kind of woman if she was a lesbian. And so she was a bit stuck. And Roland was timid because I am naturally good at timid men. It's the kind of men I happen to like. He's a timid thinking man, so of course it took him the whole book." I mean... yikes, but also that explains a lot. Maud can only bring herself to be with a man who is weak/effeminate (?) enough to justify whatever weird psyche Byatt has imagined up for her, but still she needs to get over her inhibitions and under him because... reasons. I don't know.
(Height is also interesting here as a point of contrast- Byatt makes Maud taller than Roland to make a point about how on the one hand she retains the power but on the other hand there is now even more of her that has to surrender. Peter and Harriet are the same medium height and wear the same size gown.)
I think the thing that most stuns me is how regressive Possession feels when it comes to gender politics on relationships than Gaudy Night does. I'd need a whole other post to talk about this, but the theme of Possession seems to me to be "relationships that produce things (whether art or children) are worth more than ones that don't." Roland is better with Maud than with Val because Val is a second rate scholar who drags him down (while supporting him financially) and Ash is better with LaMotte than with Ellen because LaMotte didn't only inspire his writing (Ellen's contributions are described only in the negative "didn't impede"), she gave him the child that Ellen refused to. Incidentally, in both cases it's the man pursuing a relationship that will give HIM something... But, to paraphrase Peter in Busman's Honeymoon, one wouldn't want to regard relationships in that agricultural light. Gaudy Night is about how two people can produce great things without each other but choose to be with each other for their own, and each other's, happiness. They aren't each less apart, and as I noted in a prior post, they don't need to solve cases together or conjoin their work in order for their relationship to be worth something. It is worth it for them to be together because it encourages some kind of inner balance within them and between them, as people. They enjoy collaborating but that is by no means the basis of their love (and, incidentally, I think that a lot of, if not most, detective series romances fail this basic test of "would they have fallen in love if they were accountants who met on a dating app." Peter and Harriet definitely would have- would, say, Albert Campion and Amanda Fitton have? I do NOT think so).
And here's the thing- another reason why Byatt's quote above is so off-putting is that it makes it clear that not only in the text but on a meta level, the purpose of the relationships is to prove a Point. I found Roland and Maud to have zero chemistry, and honestly I was expecting them to get together 3/4 of the way through and split up at the end when it turned out they had nothing in common- it seemed like that kind of book. I was kind of stunned when they only got together at the end in an "it's meant to be" way because nothing about it seemed meant to be. They were stuck together by that one thing and they each apparently needed the relationship for some kind of self-actualization or historical rhyming or other. (Whatever I say about Ash and LaMotte... at least they seemed to like each other!)
Peter and Harriet... they get together because they love each other. Do they change over the course of Gaudy Night, and over the course of the other books they share together? Of course they do. But if it makes sense, I'll put it this way- Harriet doesn't accept Peter's proposal as proof that she got over her hangups, Harriet gets over her hangups so that she can accept Peter's proposal. Her hangups only matter because they were keeping her from this particular kind of happiness- she was a fully actualized person even with them. She is a person who does things for human reasons so that she can build a mutually happy life with the person she loves, not a little plot mannequin being moved around in order to tell the author's desired Message. People can say what they want about Gaudy Night and its flaws, but despite the intricacies of its construction, nobody can call the characters' actions and motivations anything but brutally human.
Whether within their universes or on a meta level, the books have SUCH different things to say about the value and nature of love, the place of and purpose of sex, the place of art and intellectual accomplishment in relationships, all of the above in the context of femininity… and I can't help but feel that each time, Gaudy Night wins the contest. It's possible I'm missing something major about Possession, and maybe sometime I'll post the rest of my notes about the things I disliked and people can tell me what I'm wrong about- but if nothing else it made me appreciate Gaudy Night even more, so for that I'm grateful.
#possession#as byatt#gaudy night#dorothy l sayers#lord peter wimsey#harriet vane#i'm not tagging all the characters from possession bc i don't actually really remember their full names and i'm too lazy to look them up#I also saw recs for possession for “if you like jonathan strange and mr norrell” and “if you like jfsp s9”#for jonathan strange and mr norrell i actually have several Thoughts#and am happy to share if asked#but i'm perplexed by the jfsp comparison#though a reading of ellen ash as asexual vs uncle newt would be...interesting#i guess it's based on romances contrasted through time?#also- i've seen people claim that possession is satire#to which i say#BS!!!!#the way that book is written either literally every word of it is satire and none of it is meant to be taken seriously#or it's serious as gospel#the only bits where some parts felt like they might be meant to be “satirical” in relation to other parts#came across more as caricature than anything else#cough cough lesbian feminist american professor... i mean jeez#which reminds me#any future writing i do about why i disliked possession#will have to include my take on that thing some women writers do where they're really WEIRD about how they write women#(sexually but in a way that they THINK is clinical to the point of objectivity)#while barely even describing what the men look like#and not having the women be physically attracted to them#another contrast point with sayers actually#who is perfectly prepared to have harriet be physically attracted to peter
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how does the raft not capsize.
#puppy rambles#yo-kai watch#yw3#i mean komasan's not there in canon 3 so it's slightly better but not by a lot#i feel like someone should at least be falling off how is the raft also big enough to hold them all-#whisper floats so he doesn't add weight or any space really but like#it still needs to both hold the weight of three teenagers and two yo-kai#AND have the room for them all to fit#the rafting challenge in bada-bing tower is probably worse cuz it has to fit two additional yo-kai#i think komasan not being that important in the mainline games is very lame. he's pretty important in the anime so it's kinda weird#he is at least somewhat important in 3 since he's there for the yopple tour and everything in bada-bing tower#whereas in 1 he has the auto-befriend yo-kai curse (only being important in their debut chapter)#and in 2 he literally only shows up during the jibakoma quest in psychic specters#(excluding being an npc during the beginning of the jibanyan's secret quest alongside a bunch of other yo-kai)#idk what's weirder the fact they made him so important in the anime despite that or the fact they never made him important in the games#i personally go with the nyanderful days continuity that he also moves in with katie cuz that makes sense to me#i've literally never written anything where nate's the one who gets the watch in 1 so idk what i'd do there-#(funny how i've never written anything that's in the same timeline as canon-)#i want to at least write something at somepoint where nate and katie both get watches cuz i like that idea#i mean i have a dumb au idea where nate and katie independently get watches at the start of 1 at around the same time#and take an extended period of time to realize#mostly just haven't actualized that cuz 1) i already have the rewrite and 2) i don't have enough ideas#basically just have the basic concept-#these tags got derailed quick. and also make me really wanna work on the rewrite more-#i have so many ideas but i'm just not motivated to write any of them#and also most of them are for 3 and i haven't finished rewriting 2 yet 😔#‚‚‚ anyways-
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I want to write something but I can't quite decide on any good ideas for the things I want to right. So here's some things from the squip horror au
Jake Jason has been having weird dreams and memories that are surely not his own... right? Ever since meeting the blonde guy at a party...
#1
I met this guy. Briefly, might I add. He’s close with one of the cast members. Christine’s friend, I believe. Dirty blonde hair that gets in the way of his eyes. I couldn’t tell what colour his eyes were. Maybe brown? It was dark. It was a party with the cast and friends. I managed to slip away from my management team for a while and that’s when I met him. He had purple in his hair. There was just something about him. Like I’ve seen him before? I haven’t. I didn’t even catch his name. I would like to see him again.
#4
I’m having nightmares. Every night seems to be a loop or continuation. A fire. And I’m always running through the fire and it’s like I can feel the flames. And I’m always looking for a blonde boy with red in his hair. He’s holding the matches. Sometimes I reach him, sometimes I don’t. It feels all too real.
#9
I don’t know why I keep track of these. These dreams just seem too real. And Rich is in all of them.
#10
Since when did I know his name is Rich?
#19
Who the fuck are you? What the fuck is this?
#20
I don’t remember that last note. I don’t think I remember anything from last night.
#lohst.txt#bmc#be more chill#jake dillinger#rich goranski#richjake#< vaguely#squip horror au#i wanted to write something horror. maybe something vampire#(royal pains vampire au my beloved....)#or the thing I said i wanted to write about richjake and violence because of that one boat boys animatic#but i couldnt figure it out so here's this instead#anyway i don't think jake would be leaving himself messages on his notes app but oh well#jason would. especially when things start getting weird. when jake's memories start bleeding into his own and he starts questioning things#just thinking the horror on both sides. jake realising something has taken over his life#jason realising that there is someone else in “his” body. or that this body isn't really his#neither of them feeling like they have any sense of control#but jake wants his life back and jason doesn't want to disappear#im actually still unsure on the jason thing#on one hand i could play it like this. like a genuine consciousness (not sure if that's the right phrasing) has formed#it has thoughts and feelings. it could be just like any other person#except it was never supposed to exist#and then i get to play with the conflict between jake and jason#or jason is purely the squip. like. literally just the robot wearing jake's body#i get these sound similar but i imagine the second option is less someone finding out that this isn't their body#and they never actually existed#(goddammit tumblr and the 140 character limit in tags you keep ruining my train of thought)#and more the squip purposefully trying to keep jake's consciousness suppressed#every action from the squip as jason is very calculated and nothing is really genuine#whereas if jason was less squip then any action/reaction/emotion is genuine
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Recent-ish life pictures and etc.
#image commentary in tags once again since they don't allow captions anymore and I feel weird using the alt text for that --#1. bright very poofy cloud sky#2. saw these weird bugs on a sidewalk that were clustered in a pile and some of them were sitting butt to butt or something.. I wonder if#that's how they mate?? or maybe just some sortof strange bug fight or something.. interesting little creature party happening#out on the pavement on that day#3. Its kind of hard to see but on the inside of this watermelon there is a slightly lighter formation that sort of looks like a heart shape#4. special breakfast of scrambled eggs. soy sausages. and jarred artichoke heart. with some black coffee and whipped cream + a strawberry#5. ARBY.. fish ...traditional summer treat available only until like september maybe for like a month. but I love them because theyre cheap#lol.. the next closest/cheapest fried fish sort of option that is easily acessible to me is a more upscale fast food place where you can ge#three tiny little chunks of fish maybe the palm of your hand sized for about $17 lol... so 4 arby fried fish chunks for like $5 is good#6. & 7 - very cool sunset colored sort of pink/yellow/orange flower I found growing wild in someone's yard#8. got as a gift from someone who got it for christmas but didn't really want it and asked if I did since everyone knows Im like The Person#Who's Obsessed With Cats out of any group of people.. but I still havent done it lol.. it just sits there gathering dust until I have#the time on top of my 600 other projects. I think it's cool that it's gray so it does look like noodle (my cat)#9. Noodle (the aforementioned gray cat) with fancy lighting behind him#photo diary
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finally decided to start watching s2e17 of ii
#wheucto#wheucto speaks#there are spoilers in the tags for like 17 and 18. not much since i havent actually seen those (at least not much) but beware#i am about to implode!#(not because of any opinion i have of the finale so far i just started watching it)#why did i start watching now? i was hearing Things about the finale (not really much spoilers_ just that the note 17 left wasn't a happy -#- note [since it seems to be the darkest hour. yknow. general 3-act stuff] and that people weren't really sure it was the last episode)#and i remember thinking “either i don't watch until act 3 comes out or until it's been long enough to know act 2 was the last episode”#i also have a tendency to do this with ii episodes_ i'll wait a couple of days to watch it#in the case of the ii s3 finale i literally only watched it because s2e15 came out#i dont really do this with other shows? and by other shows i mean BFDI i can't think of any other i watch regularly like II#well not regularly . yknow what i mean. to watch to completion like that ?#anyways another reason i didn't was probably bc of not knowing anything about the finale#yknow. didnt want it to end on a bad note but especially not something that like takes away the characters'... whats the word... agency tha#'s it. i think it would have felt weird to me if the ending was like everyone dying or smth in a way that interferes with that#but i feel slightly reassured since the characters do seem to come back to life i think from what i've heard#so yay!!!#i think hearing some mild spoilers about the ending of ii did help me mentally prepare for watching the finale#getting spoilers doesn't necessarily have to ruin your show-watching experience. i dont think id like having it all spoiled but having some#spoilers don't really hurt me_ and sometimes actually helps me in the experience (as in. gets me to actually watch something or lets me wat#-h without like... worrying about something needlessly? or at least maybe its like a detriment to my watching experience)#i dont really like all the suspense. some is good but sometimes i cant handle it or dont want to so a little spoilers helps me have my mind#- at ease yknow? i do remember as a kid id be worried about possibilities (like quite worried) that authors don't tend to do (because it'd#- be a bummer) and it hindered my enjoyment of shows then. obviously now i know shows dont tend to do stuff like that so i reassure myself#- “they probably won't die_ fail_ etc. they'll win in the end” (obviously not all shows but like kids shows and that stuff probably)#i think with most shows i could handle that possibility but i think i'm more attached to ii so_ while i could probably handle that_ it woul#like... be harder for me to like watch and handle and that stuff#anyways enough rambling on about that! wow they really ARE his OCs aren't they /JOK#(i don't actually believe they are his OCs_ since that removes their agency and i Dont Like That and i think that goes against II's themes_#but WOW drawing the ideas of them on paper... that's so OC-creator core of you mephone)
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