#I’m currently reading brothers karamazov

[topxmenfan]

One of my favorite things about classic literature is how I’m reminded that humans have always been this unhinged

[ashstfu]

books i’m currently reading 📚

the brothers karamazov — dostoevsky

nausea — jean paul sartre

the godfather — mario puzo

the years — virginia woolf

[perfectwitchcrown]

Allusions in Make the Exorcist Fall in Love

So far in Make the Exorcist Fall in Love there’s been a lot of allusions to various texts. I thought it might be fun to compile all the ones people have noticed so far as far as I've seen. Some of these are more speculative than others and I will update as I go along. Also, I read Ekuoto as free first read chapters on Mangaplus so unfortunately I can’t go back and check much so this is largely through memory, so if anyone has anything else to add I would greatly appreciate it! All I’ve got is a few screenshots and a dream. If I get anything wrong feel free to correct me! I’ve organized this in order of allusions I’m confident about to allusions I’m less so confident about.

CW: reference to sexual violence

Dante's Divine Comedy and Vita Nuova: Dante Alighieri

This one is pretty obvious since there are characters directly named after the characters figured in Dante’s Inferno. It’s been a long time since I read it, but other details are also taken from the text, such as the frozen center of hell where Satan is located.

Lmao Leah from the Bible (who is probably Leah’s namesake) also shows up in Dante’s Divine Comedy apparently in Purgatorio.

Ok also super important to Dante retellings r Beatrice, who’s used as a symbol of divine love and is instrumental to Dante's journey through hell, purgatory, and paradise, so of course Ekuoto Dante advises Priest to fall in love lmao. So far though there hasn’t been a direct Beatrice in narrative (which there might never be one since the text has already made the Dante-Virgil connection an active choice of Virgilius's to reference the Divine Comedy rather than just an allusion by the author).

To be so real though I figure that Vergilius is probably also intended to be the Beatrice in this narrative.

The points I would draw attention in support of this would be these: 1. Beatrice is the woman who Dante has been in love with since early childhood but unable to ever be with because they both married others. Ekuoto Virgilius and Dante have known each other since childhood, and have something going on. 2. Beatrice is, like Virgil, one of Dante’s guides (through part of purgatorio and paradiso) 3. We still don’t know what Virgilius’s name was before he took that one on. Beatrice does not have a masculine form in current use and I tried finding some sort of nickname that would work and was unable to do so. However. Beatrice’s name is rendered in Japanese as ベアトリーチェ, and Beato is at least a surname. Then again, I’m not sure anyone has both a first name and last name except for Imuri so far???

"Book of Tobit"

I wasn’t familiar w this one so I didn’t notice it until I saw posts pointing it out, but the Asmodeus flashback was a retelling of the book of Tobit. Other people have already done analysis of this so I’d recommend checking other’s out. Unfortunately I failed to save the link to any of them so I can’t pass any along :’) Belfagor arcidiavolo: Machiavelli

Another one that I wasn’t familiar with but have seen people referencing. As above, I recommend checking out other’s analysis. "Those Who Walk Away from Omelas": Ursula K. Le Guin

The Brothers Karamazov: Fyodor Dostoevsky

Ok major spoilers and I also highly recommend this book, but also, its super long so I don’t blame anyone who chooses not to read. This book is about the most disgusting father alive and his three, maybe four, sons: Dimitri, Ivan, Alyosha, and maybe Smerdyakov (rumored to be an illegitimate son). Most of the action follows Alyosha, who is the youngest and probably the most idealistic character in the novel, at least in the beginning. Alyosha starts out as a novice in the local Russian Orthodox monastery under the purview of Father Zossima, an elder who really emphasizes love in religious practice. There's a series of chapters that cover a theological debate between Ivan and Alyosha.

In this theological debate, Ivan is arguing not that God doesn’t exist, but that the foundation of the world as understood by Christianity is something he fundamentally rejects.

Quotations from the Signet Classics edition:

“I don’t accept this world of God’s. Although I know it exists, I don’t accept it at all. It’s not that I don’t accept God, you must understand, it’s the world created by Him I don’t and cannot accept” (Dostoevsky 266) - “If all must suffer to pay for eternal harmony, what have children to do with it?....I understand solidarity in sin among men. I understand solidarity in retribution too; but there can be no such solidarity with children. And if it is really true that they must share responsibility for all their father’s crimes, such a truth is not of this world and is beyond my comprehension” (Dostoevsky 276)

“Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last. Imagine you are doing this but that it is essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature—that child beating its breast with its fist, for instance—in order to found that edifice on its unavenged tears. Would you consent to be the architect on those conditions?” (This quotation, although from a different translation, is the one that inspired Omelas - I think the bowling alley theological discussion between Virgilius and Priest bears some similarities to this conversation. Its not a debate about the existence of god, but rather a debate whether or not the world envisioned by Christianity is inherently unjust or not. Demian: Hermann Hesse

“The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God's name is Abraxas”

Potential references but tbh they’re a bit of a stretch:

“Book of Martha”: Octavia Butler

"Book of Martha" is an Octavia Butler short story in the Bloodchild collection about an ordinary woman who is visited by god one day who tells her to choose one thing to change about people to try and make the world a better place. It’s a very short read and I’d recommend reading it before you read the next sentence where I’ll spoil the end.

She eventually decides that the thing to focus on is people’s dreams. Specifically, to give them the things they desire most within their dreams, in the hope that people will be less violent to each other in real life. A stretch, but Octavia Butler comes from similar recommendation circles as Ursula K. Le Guin (feminist science fiction authors with overlapping periods of activity) so I don’t think it’s impossible for the most recent chapters' use of dreams to hold some sort of inspiration from this short story. Again, this one is a pretty big stretch, as the idea of dreams to escape reality is pretty common.

The Monk: Matthew Lewis

Ok! So! Demon seduces a person is like not at all an original story (The Daemon Lover, Cazotte’s The Devil in Love, etc etc). BUT! The Monk is specifically a story that’s like. What if there was this extremely virtuous young man who has never lived in the outside world ever because he was raised in the church as an orphan and then the devil sent a demon girl to seduce him.

I have not finished the book yet so I can’t comment in depth on it other than to say the concept is similar but the execution so far is very different (It's a fairly misogynistic text. Ambrosio turns evil in ways that I doubt Priest will because thematically they’d go completely against the story. Also, The Monk is veryyy lurid in terms of Lust is Evil!!! And will turn you into a murdering maniac!!!! Because evil women are out there seducing you!!! Whereas so far sexual desire in Ekuoto has been handled as a perfectly natural thing, but complicated by religion, patriarchy, trauma, etc.)

This is all I have so far but I'd be interested to see if anyone else has any other ideas!

[darkfictionjude]

hey! what have you been reading lately?

Well I’m currently reading the Aeneid, Dolls, Dolls! Dolls!, My Brilliant Friend, American Yap, The October Country and very soon Minor Detail and the brothers karamazov and hopefully some Marquez or Allende book

[clearcloudlesssky]

Hellooo — you can call me Stella, Ara, or clearcloudlesssky. Clown who casually dabbles in a smorgasbord of avocations (art, writing, hoarding, piano…..)

KR/AMER, pisces, minor

Eng/中文（一点点) I can speak light korean, but I’m unfortunately pretty illiterate

Totally open to asks, dms, tag games, etc. I love meeting new people, although I’d like to add that i have a block button, so please be cordial

Films/Shows/Series:

✣ NBC Hannibal ✣ Alien (1979, Prometheus, Covenant, Romulus) ✣ The Thing ✣ Alice in Borderland ✣ ALNST ✣ The Ring ✣ The Descent ✣ Scary Movie ✣ My Fair Lady (to look at :3)

Books:

✣ The Agony and the Ecstasy ✣ Crime and Punishment ✣ Perfume: The Story of a Murderer ✣ Nonnos: Dionysiaca ✣ PJO ✣ The Picture of Dorian Gray ✣ Brother’s Karamazov ✣ The Stranger ✣ Carmilla ✣

Games:

✣ Path to Nowhere ✣ Honkai Star Rail ✣ Genshin Impact ✣ Reverse 1999 ✣ Cookie Run ✣ Twisted Wonderland ✣ LoL ✣

Music:

✣ Bad Ass Temple (specifically Jyushi Aimono <3) ✣ Fling Posse ✣ The Hoosiers ✣ Ado ✣ The Oh Hellos ✣ Epic ✣ Hadestown ✣ Chicago ✣ Frankenstein ✣ Glass Animals ✣ Babymetal ✣ Hozier ✣ Queen ✣

Misc:

✣ The Magnus Archives ✣ Short Stories (personal list) ✣

Status:

Currently Reading: The Plague (Camus)

Currently Listening To: APT. (Bruno Mars & ROSÈ)

Misc. Trivia:

Art history, philosophy, and horror are all points of interest for me (aesthetics, and existentialism are the most interesting to me)

Current favorite artists include Rembrandt, Takato Yamamoto, Fan Kuan, Goya, and one of my favorite works is The Anatomy Dissection of Dr. Nicholaes Tulp

I have two german shepherd dogs

Love love LOVE BJJ, blue belt

Currently interning at a hospital and writing butch lesbian historical fiction because the byzantines and kievan rus were cool asf (ignoring historical inaccuracies as we always do 🤡)

@/animatedglittergraphics-n-more @/bunnysrph

[gophergal]

Author Commentary - I Know Where to Look (Chapter 1)

Howdy y'all! I just posted the first chapter of my first tf2 fic, and figured that rambling about my thought processes from writing it would be fun. So, enjoy?

Welcome to my first Author Commentary post!

Regardless of if anyone other than my best bud (and partner in word crimes) @cursed—alien read these going forward, I thought it would be fun to explain references and thoughts from the process of fic writing. These are the sort of thing I love to know about my favorite art. I’m a great lover of artist interviews (specifically the ones where the artist in question explains the development of the concept and reasoning for the techniques they use) and an avid reader of author’s notes, so I hope that if anyone reading my fic is like me that they will enjoy this addition to the story.

Formatting

I feel that the most notable thing about this fic is that, despite being rated as explicit, every explicitly sexual scene is under a cut. Why do this instead of just making the scenes fade to black or formatting it in a standard manner? Because, dear reader, I have had the experience of reading explicitly rated fic solely for the buildup to the smut scenes. I experience fluctuations between sex favorability to neutrality, all the way to aversion. When I’m feeling uncomfortable with explicit sexual content, I often wish there was a way to just skip those scenes entirely. But on the other hand, I also acknowledge that sex scenes CAN have narrative and character importance. For the specific dynamic that Corey and I envisioned for Red Oktoberfest- that being a relationship that starts as professional and sexual before becoming emotionally involved, those scenes would be a shame to ignore entirely on my part.

Behaviors and thoughts during sexual intimacy are rich with characterization, and I wanted to be able to express that. So, the best of both worlds, to me, was to have a second layer of opting in to reading those scenes. I may have to redo them later, however, because the way I had to go about it doesn’t work with pdf downloads and likely isn’t screen reader accessible. My current thoughts in regards to those problems is to encourage folks to download as some other format, and eventually create a podfic of this story.

Headcanons Involved

Something you may notice about this is the amount of headcanon I’m trying to cram into it. To be frank, I use most fic writing as a vehicle with which to go “look at my headcanons, boy”, so this isn’t surprising.

The first of which I would like to note is Heavy’s love of pulp romance. I couldn’t tell you why I first thought of it, but it’s grown on me like moss. Mikhail is a lover and a fighter. To me. In my heart. He views all art for what it is, and values the stories themselves pretty equally. The only important difference between the two books he’s carried with him from Russia and the pulp he’s collected in the US is sentimentality.

Speaking of those books, why the two I picked? Brothers Karamazov is a pretty obvious choice. It’s a classic and widely studied. Tsar Hunger by Leonid Andreyev, however was actually mentioned by name in Poker Night At The Inventory. In one conversation, Tycho asks Heavy what his favorite book is, to which he replies that he “prefers war.” Eventually, though, he does end up saying that he likes Tsar Hunger. I wanted to know if this was just a book picked at random, or if it actually meant something about Telltale’s interpretation of Heavy’s character. After all, the tumblr side of the fandom LOVES Heavy’s PhD in Russian Literature. It was. A BITCH. To find any information about that book. There isn’t a goodreads page for it. Or a wikipedia. Or even an amazon page selling copies. Like, what the fuck? Eventually, I found that the Internet Archive has it available to borrow by the hour. The particular copy that was archived was originally from the University of Texas and has a fabric cover. So no synopsis.

At this point I was thinking “oh my fucking god I’m two hours into this research process,” and decided I wouldn’t be reading King Hunger. I’ve skimmed it a bit and, filling in the blanks with some guesses based on the information Wikipedia provided about the author, it’s a symbolic/expressionist criticism of the monarchy, but one which also criticizes bloody revolution. Please take that with a pound of salt though. Once again, I spent a solid three hours getting to that amount of understanding.

This actually leads me to discussing another element that’s important to my interpretation of Heavy. Namely, who is father was. On r/TF2, I constantly see people arguing back and forth whether its fine to joke about Mikhail being “Heavy Communism Guy” or if that’s a gross misunderstanding since his father was declared a counterrevolutionary. (Meanwhile these same dimwits are happily joking about Medic being a member of a certain fascist regime, but I digress)

Personally, I think Mikhail’s father (who I will be calling Ivan Melnyk going forward, as I headcanon Heavy’s full name to be Mikhail Ivanovich Melnyk) was counterrevolutionary, but not anti-communist. That venn diagram isn’t just a circle my friends. In political matters, it’s very easy to get stuck in black and white thinking- and that’s fair for large matters- but, when it comes down to how people believe they should go about making changes, that’s where you get in-fighting between allied groups.

More clearly, I believe that Ivan was a man who believed in progress and common good, but found disproportionate violence distasteful. And he would have tried to impart those values on his son. However, Ivan’s death and his family’s imprisonment would really sour that for Mikhail. It adds a level of complexity where he is both someone who hates senseless violence (see: the sparrow story in Poker Night), but is extremely wrathful (see: the engineer story in Poker Night).

Switching gears, let’s talk respawn. Personally, I like the idea of it as something that exists in universe, rather than just being a game mechanic in the Documentary Video Game About the Gravel Wars. It adds some more leeway for goofy shit the mercs can get up to while also opening up more avenues for mentally trauma. Angst my beloved.

Respawn

Respawn, in my mind, works by teleporting the remains to a mechanism that then recycles the matter into a pre-programmed form. I imagine that this is updated every day for the TF2 mercs, but only by the week or month for the Classic era systems. Upon exiting respawn, subjects may experience “respawn sickness,” which includes symptoms of nausea, diziness, anxiety, sensitivity to light and sound, disorientation, soreness, ect. One can become accustomed to respawn over time, and this is expedited by the modern systems, but some might remain sensitive to respawn even after years of use.

TFI standard protocol is to switch respawn systems over to the older system in order save money and perform diagnostics/maintenance without risking the permanent death of one of their “specialists.”

Another book note

The passage Heavy reads at the end is from a novella called Special Nurse by Lucy Agnes Hancock. It is Yet Another book I haven’t read, but decided to reference. Originally, I had wanted to reference a Harlequin Romance published in 1960-63, as I really didn’t want to include that flavor of anachronism. Dont fucking ask me why, but it mattered to me. However, the vast majority of what I could find online to read was published between 1975 and 1998. There were three books that technically fit my requirements, but the two from 1961 were either vacation romance or noble romance. Which just didn’t fit the vibe I was looking for. And the one from 1963 was published in November of that year. Which would have been fine, but I envisioned this chapter taking place in late May or early June.

In the late 40’s to mid 60’s Harlequin published SOOOOO many hospital romances. And this amused me, so I desperately wanted Heavy to be reading one. But I searched multiple times and just. Couldn’t find any that I could skim through. Fuck, dude, I couldn’t even find samples or excerpts. I COULD BARELY FIND SYNOPSES. I got desperate and dug through my mom’s old romance novel collection and lo and behold, there it was. Special Nurse. It’s not Harlequin (published by Pocket Books) and it wasn’t technically from 60-63 (originally published in 1948, but received 5 print runs from 1950-19060. Mine is from August 1960), but it WAS A DOCTOR ROMANCE. HUZZAH.

Dear fucking lord why do I do this shit to myself ahhhhhhhh

[munasnook]

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅ Hello!

Hi there, I wasn’t sure what to do for my first post so I thought I’d make a quick get to know me! .𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚

𖥔 Muna, 20, she/he, WLW, Aquarius, INTP

𖥔 What’s this blog? I’m prone to procrastination, but I have so many projects and ideas I’ve been avoiding for a few years. I’d like to write games, write and illustrate my own comics, make better campaigns for my D&D party, and write some short stories/novels!

𖥔 Hobbies/Interests? Recently I’ve been really into BG3, but I like playing Skyrim, Resident Evil, and SoulsBorne games too! I’m currently replaying Fable, it’s very nostalgic for me. I like to read, my favorite author is Dostoevsky. I’m currently trying to read more fantasy rather than philosophy, as that’s that I’d like to write!

𖥔 Favorite animal? I love cats! I have 2 black cats. But I love squid, jellyfish and bears too!

𖥔 Favorite music? Some of my favorite bands are The Cure, Radiohead, and recently I’ve been listening to a lot of Daft Punk, Björk, and gulu gulu!

𖥔 Favorite movies? My favorite movies are both Bladerunner movies, Interstellar, Pan’s Labyrinth, Stalker, Coraline, and LOTR!

𖥔 Favorite books? Brothers Karamazov, The Vampire of Cuttleburn, and as of recently, The Poppy War! I just started Vinland Saga as well, and I like it a lot so far!

𖥔 Favorite comics? Paper Girls, Ultra Mega, Attack on Titan, and Bungo Stray Dogs. My favorite webcomic on webtoon right now is Nevermore and Deep Sea!

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅

𖥔 Feel free to say hi, I’m looking for a community to post some of my work to get feedback and get over my fear of sharing my writing! I’d also love to see your stuff as well! And thanks so much for reading! 🪼💙

𖥔 All images except jellyfish gif from Pinterest, links to post in alt text!

[gunkbaby]

Top 5 books ^_^

Horrendous bookish rambling ahead! Also fair warning some of the stuff I read has a tw.

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer - I love this book. The whole SR series. Altered my brain chemistry. It’s a biological cosmic horror written in the most wonderful way. I have so much love in my heart for the protagonist - it was reading a book from my own perspective, I related to her so badly. I felt so seen by her. She’s second to Shuu for me. I love Jeff Vandermeer, I think he’s a truly a remarkably underrated artist especially in the horror genre. There was a film made of the book, but whilst both the book and the film deal with the same theme and have the same premise, they are different stories with different characters. Both worth looking into.

by Chandler Morrison - a very raw depiction of eating disorders. I was genuinely shocked to see this was written by a cis man, because it was such a raw, real showcase of what having an eating disorder is like. All the ugly parts, the genuine horror of it as a concept. It is the best representation of eating disorders I’ve yet to read. It pains me to not have this in print. I have Dead Inside by Chandler Morrison too, which I also really liked - but TW it’s a satirical extreme horror novel and there’s lots of gross stuff in it. But thighgap is very dear to me. Obviously huge TW if you check this one out. <3

Tender Is The Flesh by Augustina Bazterrica - Tokyo Ghouls fans might like this! Maybe. This is about a dystopian world where a ‘disease’ has spread to most of the animals of the world, crucially farm animals, which ultimately leads to the farming and breeding of the only safe meat left - human.. The protagonist is someone that basically manages several of the farms/factories (i can’t exactly remember), and he is gifted one of the farmed humans, which he keeps as a pet. It’s a very twisted novel, and so full of depth and moral questioning - all the characters in this book have great depth, and I really enjoy that. It’s never written as a simple ‘thing bad’, and I really find that valuable, especially these days. A lot of people pass this book off as vegan propaganda (very interesting take it u read certain parts of the book btw), and I’m not going to say the take is invalid, but I do think it is quite a reductive, surface-level analysis of the book. Really worth sinking ur teeth into. :)

Earthlings by Sayaka Murata - either this one or Convience Store Woman are excellent novels. Murata is one of my favourite authors. I have all three of her current releases. Earthlings is really hard to explain, but just bc the material is sensitive - tw for CSA and i guess incest? There’s cannibalism but we’re tg fans im not tagging that lmao. This book very much deals with childhood trauma and its effects, sadly very relatable. It’s a painful read, but I found it so dreadfully validating. Sayaka Murata as an author does that. One thing to note about Murata, is that she really does write about neurodivergence and asexuality in a very interesting way, I think especially for a Japanese author. Convience Store Woman is also wonderful, again dealing with neurodivergence, asexuality, being aromantic, and living a happy ‘unsuccessful’ life that the general world deems disappointing. Convience Store Woman is probably a better started than Earthlings, though I love them both. I highly rate her as an author.

The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Okay, so it’s Dostoyevsky, i don’t need to explain why it’s good. This is one of the more underrated of his works, I feel. I love Dostoyevsky generally as an author, I like Crime & Punishment, Notes From Underground is on my tbr, so is Demons, I’ve read parts of The Brothers Karamazov , but this book specifically is very beautiful to me. I feel like sometimes people understate the optimism that can be found in works by authors like Dostoyevsky, and this book is paramount to that optimism. My God, do I need to reread it.

Sorry 4 rambling! Some other books I like a lot are Watership Down, Battle Royale, Fifteen Dogs, Social Creature, and Hot Milk. I like too many books to list, my god! This is why Goodreads is a godsend! I’m planning on making a Tokyo Ghoul reading list at some point, maybe!

[dollarbin]

Nickel Bin #21:

J.D. Souther, RIP

Wow, he just died. Poor John Dennis!

I grew up with an uncle named JD. Unlike Souther, my uncle never suggested that Linda Ronstadt invite him over and cook him dinner (she, righteously, made him a PB&J). Nor did he found a terrible band with Richie Furray and Chris Hillman, nor write largely mediocre hit songs for The Eagles. Rather, my uncle JD collected archaeological tidbits from around the globe and worked as a chemist for a hospital until he died, relatively young.

I also grew up idolizing an altogether different JD: JD Fitzgerald, author of The Great Brain books. Did you read his books too? If not, turn off your computer and start reading them. Right now!

Uh oh, I see your still reading this instead. Okay, that's weird. But, I'll carry on...

Unlike JD Souther, my uncle JD and JD Fitzgerald did not retire at age 35 and then decide, “I had done what I wanted to do musically. And I just thought to myself, ‘All the men in my family worked until they died, and I’m going to take a few years off and build a great house and have a life.’”

Wow, that sure sounds nice. My uncle worked till until he died; so, I imagine, did JD Fitzgerald; after all, he wrote a whole bunch of books.

And I may not be named JD but today, when I am 13 years older than Souther was when he decided it was high time to hang up his songwriting boots and commence to forever appreciate the good life, I principaled a high school, taught 6 hours of classes on 12th Night, The Inferno and The Brothers Karamazov, cooked three family meals, shopped for hummus and sauerkraut at the ridiculous neighborhood grocery store my wife prefers over Trader Joe's, justified my existence in that store by picking up a six pack of hopefully gluten free beer, prayed for my Dodgers, had my dreams for them come true despite their troubling dirth of pitching as they crushed the Marlins, pet and fed the cat while dealing with its feces, typed this nonsense in my kitchen while simultaneously applauding the Schitt's Creek episode taking place in the family room, watched 7 glorious minutes of Neil Young shredding on stage in Japan in 1976 and read 20 divine pages of Ursula K. LeGuin.

And J.D. Souther? He apparently spent the last 44 of his 79 years retired and the other 35 years as either a child or as a guy who wrote songs for others and dated famous ladies. Plus he played occasional shows and did a little acting on the side. Sounds rough.

Wow, I sure sound bitter, don't I? Butdon't get me wrong: I enjoyed my day and I'm prepared to praise the recently departed JD Souther. But first we need to talk about JD Fitzgerald.

I note, by the way, that you have not stopped reading this and done as I directed: you are not currently reading The Great Brain books. I will take the high road and assume that you are not a lazy bum; rather, I will embrace the fact that you already know those 6(?) or 7(?) titles all too well: that you read them to all your children when they were young, or plan to do so once they are born, and that you keep copies of the books, like I do, conveniently about your house.

But just in case I'm wrong, and you are indeed a lazy bum, here's a run down on Fitzgerald: JD grew up 100+ years ago in a Utah nowheresville with a Mormon mom and a non-Mormon dad and an older brother who was a born confidence man, i.e. a swindling preteen who did everything from selling tickets to view his family's water closet - the first in their town; come, see it flush! - to using his great brain help the town's lonely and angry queer girl learn how to read and fend off the bullies. The younger brother in question grew up to write stories about said older brother and each novel is a Stone Cold Classic and is surprisingly unproblematic - there's no racism or homophobia! progressive thinking around religion and migration abounds! - even by today's probably not lofty enough standards.

I'd say J.D. Fitzgerald did more than all right for himself.

And J.D. Souther? He did all right too. After all, he passed this timeless, swaying song to Linda Ronstadt (and he even contributed some choice backing vocals).

And Faithless Love is just about equal to a lifetime of very good work...

[nedlittle]

I will never not be unwell about your post about Alyosha that you tagged “when you lose someone you love like that you have to create a way for them to never die” because HE. Also where did the whole idea of Alyosha kills the tsar come from? I read the book over a year ago so there might be some stuff I’m forgetting

i had to go back and find that post bc i was shocked that i was coherent enough about fedya d to articulate a single thought

in the author's preface, dostoevsky says "that while i have just one biography, i have two novels. the main novel is the second one--about the activities of my hero in our time, that is, in our present, current moment." (page 3 in the p&v translation)

the first novel is tbk proper, which takes place 13 years ago, placing it in 1866. our main source for tbk 2: alyosha kills the tsar comes from an article by james l. rice called "dostoevsky's endgame: the projected sequel to the brothers karamazov" which references a letter dostoevsky wrote during the novel's serialization:

"i can only say that aleksei in time becomes the village schoolmaster and, influenced by some sort of special psychological processes at work in his soul, he actually arrives at the idea of assassinating the tsar."

of course, dostoevsky died months after tbk was published in its complete form, at a time when people were trying to assassinate alexander ii, like, every two weeks. so that's our source for tbk: electric boogaloo existing. the other big source is from a guy named aleksei sergeevich suvorin, one of dotoevsky's friends, whose diary was published in 1923. here's him on the subject:

"he [alyosha] would commit a political crime. he would be executed. he would have sought the truth and in those seekings he would, naturally, have become a revolutionary."

we also know that the provisional title for tbk 2: who gave the baby a gun was "the children", referring to the titular boys of book 10 of tbk. according to dostoevsky's widow anna, alyosha "was to endure a complex psychological drama with lise [...] marry [her], then leave her for grushenka"*. there's more about how this sequel would work on a thematic and psychological level in the article and its sister article "foreshadowing the karamazov sequel" (also by rice). this isn't relevant but rice essentially diagnosis alyosha with victorian woman disease by calling him a "textbook case of male hysteria," which i enjoy.

so that's all we know about the hypothetical sequel, and i think about it a lot regarding a biographical reading of the novel because i think it's so interesting to take a character, based on your son who died of a hereditary disease you gave him, who you say is "like an angel, nothing touches [him]," and then plan a sequel where he is not untouchable and undergoes the same disillusionment and trauma as you experienced as a young man, only he dies in the end. and that's not even getting into the other biographical details like dostoevsky's own father dying under mysterious maybe-murder circumstances in 1839! or the fact that he looked at the loathsome father-figure he created for tbk whose hereditary "stain" he passes down to his sons as a black smear over their name and was like yeah i'm going to name him after ME. fyodor what was going on in your head.

i don't know, i sort of want to make a whole other post about this. he created a world in which his son survives and is loved so desperately by everyone he meets, but even still cannot save him, even in fiction. something something sons doomed to become their fathers.

tl, dr:

*this is from the rice article but is specifically referencing nina hoffman's interview with anna in 1898.

[ddarker-dreams]

happy holidays lock 🫶🫶🫶 i'm here to say i'm IN LOVE with the way you write and how you turn mundane prompts into interesting and colorful pieces literally word dancing ‼️‼️ your stories helped me expand my vocabulary as someone whose first language isn't english i get introduced to new terms everytime (it's a bit embarrassing to admit LOL, moving on)

oh and i mean to ask for book recommendations as well ! after all, a devoted reader makes a good writer. i can't say i'm not interested in your taste in literature

AA thank you so much ❤️❤️ i love taking little ideas and seeing how much horror i can infuse into them… that’s honestly how most of my stories come to be. i’m glad that they’ve been able to help some with vocabulary too!! i’ve tried to be more intentional these past few years with expanding my vocabulary, whenever i come across a new word, i slap it and its definition into a google doc so i can review it later hlslgkskfk it’s also a good resource for coming up with fanfic names…

oooh, as for book recommendations, here are my favorites! anyone who has been around this blog will probably be familiar with everything i’m about to list by now since i talk about it pretty often goskgkskfks

the brothers karamazov by fyodor dostoevsky (this is my absolute favorite of all time!!)

notes from underground by fyodor dostoevsky

the picture of dorian gray by oscar wilde

we have always lived in the castle by shirley jackson

frankenstein by mary shelley

faust by johann wolfgang von goethe

jane eyre by charlotte brontë

i basically have a strong inclination toward gothic/existential/psychological works.

i had another anon who asked what i’m reading right now, so i figured i might as well answer that here!! i’m currently about 50 pages into demons by fyodor dostoesvky. i’ve been loving it so far. dostoevsky’s cutting edge wit still holds up centuries later which is kinda wild. after i finish demons, i’m onto a book recommend by @bye-bye-sunbird called dragonwyck! i’m excited to check that one out 👀👀

[watanuki]

Tagged by @palebluerosary (thank you ♡ I don’t usually do these kinds of posts!)

Last song I listened to: I was a window by Sasami

Favorite place: on earth… maybe the forests of upstate NY?

Favorite book: there are too many but probably either the Brothers Karamazov or Demian

Currently reading: The Trial (everyone seems to have read it so I’m trying to get through it now)

Favorite tv show: Twin Peaks, Hannibal, iasip. I don’t watch shows that often

Favorite movie(s): Lady Vengeance, Love Exposure, the Face of Another, the Seventh Seal, the Wind Rises

Favorite food: bread

I’m not sure who I should tag.. I’ll just leave this open for anyone I guess

[ashstfu]

books i’m currently reading 📚

the brothers karamazov – dostoevsky

light years – james salter

beautiful losers – leonard cohen

blue nights – joan didion

[sad-eyed-lady-of-the-paperbacks]

For the Truth or Dare ask game: 🌵, 🔪, 🍦, 🎨

🌵 ⇢ share the link to a playlist you love

Sorry to disappoint but I do not have a link to share! I’m a puts-my-entire-music-library-on-shuffle-and-revel-in-the-chaotic-mixture girlie. When a song plays that reminds me of a particular book or pairing, I do add it to a playlist of that, however.

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

Well, during the research for this fic, google was literally giving me crisis hotlines at the top of the search results because I was searching things like “what does it feel like to be stabbed in the chest” “how long does it take to die from a stab wound to the chest” “how long can a person remain conscious after a stab wound to the chest” etc. etc. etc. I was making google very concerned lol.

But I don’t even know if that’s the weirdest, because those are kind of the standard “I swear I’m a writer not a murderer!” search queries. The weirdest was probably something like the time I was desperately trying to find out how long the voyage from Germany to New Orleans would have been via steamship in the mid 1860s and having to resort to a free trial of ancestry.com just so I could get the dang passenger lists in order to compare the arrival and departure times, or combing through agricultural advertisements in American newspapers in the 1860s (if I ever finish that dang chapter you’ll know why) or the fact that I’m currently reading a 400 page academic text on moneylending in Imperial Russia…

There’s a lot of weird niche research that goes into writing fic lmao.

🍦 ⇢ name three good things about a character you hate

Noooo how could you do this to me when all the characters I hate are very deserving of my hatred? Gah. Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov came to mind immediately, so let’s see… um.

He has affection for Alyosha (but only because Alyosha is loving toward him, and he’s still an absolute jerk to Alyosha quite often)

He makes Pyotr Miusov miserable and it’s pretty hilarious.

He got extremely angry when Grushenka was referred to as a “brute creature” and defended her, so we do love to see that, even though he’s still a gross pathetic little creep when it comes to her.

🎨 ⇢ link your favourite piece of fanart and explain why you like it

Noooo there’s no way I can possibly pick a favourite when all of my fandoms are full of such incredibly talented artists!! But I guess the most impressive fanart project that comes immediately to mind for me is @gegengestalt’s Microsoft Paint—yeah, that’s right, you heard me correctly. Microsoft Paint—illustration of the entirety of tbk from start to finish. It’s amazing. https://www.tumblr.com/gegengestalt/717765289928015872/the-entirety-of-the-brothers-karamazov-in-mspaint?source=share

But yeah, gah, I am in absolute awe of all the fantastically talented artists in all of the fandoms I’m in. You guys are terrifyingly talented.

Thank you so much for the ask!!!

[theoliveroil]

Intro !!!

My name is Oliver, I’m a nonbinary/genderfluid pansexual and I’m demisexual & demiromantic as well as polyamorous!!

I go by they/them pronouns.

I like to draw and make characters, as well as writing on occasion.

Fandoms i’m currently in (updated 5/10/24): BG3, Genshin (sorta), Honkai star rail, Hunter x Hunter

I’m trying to learn about and eventually play DnD, but i don’t have anyone to play with at the moment lmao.

I’m neurodivergent, mentally ill, & extremely paranoid + socially anxious and awkward so that might hinder any possible interactions i would have with anyone on here.

Stuff i enjoy besides the fandoms im in: Science of any sort really(especially biology, psychology, and anthropology), Music (I like punk music, indie or folk music, vocaloid, midwest emo or similar things, video game music, and a genre of music i can only describe as chaotic and usually happy/peppy melody and beat with dark lyrics.), playing piano, drawing, writing, reading (i’m reading the brothers karamazov by fyodor dostoevsky and animal farm by george orwell at the moment), playing video games, theology (especially with less talked about or more taboo religions), greek mythology, genetics (mainly cat genetics tbh 😭😭), musical theatre (obsessed with bare: a pop opera and falsettos rn), and nature as a whole!!

(that was a lot sorry i got carried away)

yeah!! im prob gonna make an oc intro soon cause i’m obsessed with them lmao!!!

[drowninginthoughts27]

Current Things Tag!!!

Thank you @spacexcowgirl and @messymoony for tagging me <33

Top 3 Ships: Jegulus, Pandolily, & Drarry

Last Song: Margaret by Lana Del Rey (feat. Bleachers)

Currently Reading: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Last Movie: Anastasia

Currently Watching: Percy Jackson, Peaky Blinders, & Young Sheldon

Currently Craving: Brioche with Seasoned Butter

Currently Consuming: Reeses Peanut Butter Cups and Sparkling Cider

I’m pretty sure everyone has been tagged so if you haven’t been tagged and wanna do it take this as me tagging you :)