#I’ve forgotten a lot of the actual science and just know A + B = C basically lol

[climbdraws]

Hello I found my cat in basically an alley but he is the most beautiful coat color I have seen on a random street cat but I can't figure out exactly what he is! The base of his fur strands are white while the tips are grey, but I can't find the ticked chart that I want. You can see at the base of his tail he has a 'middle part' where the white fur shows 😂 thank you you're the only one who knows cat genetics that I know and google doesn't get it 😭😭 (his name is Morpheus also ft. Coraline and Tristan)

hiii what a cute baby!!

they’re a silver black mackerel tabby - Silver because the hair shafts are banded with white (aka the white undercoat you see), Black because of the pigment of the stripes, and Mackerel because of the broken striped pattern along the sides

here’s an example of what I mean by banding on the hair shaft & a silver Turkish angora tabby

[honourablejester]

Thinking about homebrew deities for ttrpgs, I’ve been pondering deities that are not default humanoid. A while back I made a post about D&D 5e’s version of Spelljammer, where the Astral Sea is littered with the corpses of dead gods, and I posited what some of those vast corpses might look like:

“These are the deities of a thousand worlds and a thousand species and a thousand forgotten realms. They might look like anything. Shaped by the echoes of the god’s nature and its domains and its species. The dead sea god that looks like a vast alien whale, whose gut is filled with strange waters and strange creatures, and into whose belly the party must venture. A forgotten deity of knowledge whose vast skull now contains a calcified, crystalline ‘library’ with aeons of knowledge written in light onto spun fibres of crystal. A deity of madness, darkness and despair whose corpse is a labyrinthine maze of passages that leech will and soul the further you venture into them, a lingering undead malice that doesn’t want you dead so much as maddened and undone.”

And I’m coming back around to that now. Particularly the sea god who’s a vast alien whale, because space whales, but I’m thinking about gods that are not mostly humanoid figures a-la the RL Greek or Norse pantheons, but are fully alien or weird or just non-humanoid. (I’m including elves and dwarves and most broadly human-shaped fantasy races under ‘humanoid’ here). Gods that do not appear in humanoid form. Gods whose primary worshipers are other forms of life. Gods who are weird.

I do have a couple of homebrew deities that don’t appear in humanoid form already. Nuissas, goddess of primal darkness, who usually appears as a vast eyeless abyssal fish. Ket, the First and Formless, deity of primal evil, who as the titles suggest is formless and possibly doesn’t actual exist at all. And while I was looking at them, I did notice a little … A little mental bias maybe. Because both of them are primal deities. Primordial. The first and the formless. Nuissas is likely the oldest deity in her cosmology, the primeval darkness that existed before all things. Ket is the first and formless evil, the first malicious whisper of a thought a sentient being ever had. They’re primal. Elemental.

Which made me wonder … Do I consider non-humanoid forms to be more primitive than humanoid ones? Not consciously, but just instinctively? Looking at it, gods of civilisation, knowledge, invention, law, are they usually humanoid? What sets humans apart from beasts? Fire. Science. (Possibly also thumbs). Is there a bit of post-Enlightenment bias at work here. Heh.

Although, to be fair to myself, Ineia, my goddess of city and civilisation, is also a spider as well as a humanoid woman. But she’s still humanoid, she just needed extra arms for all the work. So. Not quite enough to count, methinks.

This is only an idle thought, I want to mull on the idea of non-humanoid deities some more. See what I come up with. I just wanted to note to myself, while I’m considering, to look beyond just the primal sorts of domains while I’m at it.

That said, I do still want a sea god who’s a vast alien whale with innards full of strange waters. Being eaten by a vast divine whale-god is just too entrenched an image, you know? Maybe also a deity of light and twilight who is a vast beautiful bioluminescent jellyfish. No, I’m not stuck on sea creatures over here, absolutely not. But if you had a waterworld setting, you could have a LOT of fun drawing up a fishy pantheon. The deity of invention and adaptation is a cephalopod. The deity of war is a mantis shrimp. The deity of trickery and hunger and malice is an anglerfish.

But even in a standard fantasy world, some deities that are not and have never been humanoid. A dwarven knowledge deity who is the stone itself, a vast tracery of mineral veins across the world that carry thoughts and dreams and memories. A deity of trickery and magic who turns out, at the base of all its million forms, to be a simple mote of potential, something that looks visually a bit like a will-o-wisp or a soot-sprite made of light, a thought given vaguely physical form. A forge-god who built themselves, a machine-thing of metal and magic that built itself limbs and systems and housing as it required them, a monument to self-expression and self-construction, function over form, with no care for the aesthetic sensibilities of lesser forms of life. A black hole that is the deity of absolute law, remorseless and inexorable and pitilessly even-handed. A deity of remorse and sacrifice and healing that formed from the regretful blade of a monstrous killer, given life and divinity by their final act of self-murder. Gods who are dark moons and balls of mangled flesh and rivers of space time and tiny trembling animals and perfectly mundane objects and abstract shapeless things. Gods who are weird and funky and abstract and just do not deign to appear in familiar form for mortals. If I must look like you for you to worship me, you are not worth my time. I shall appear as I am, or as I choose, and you must simply deal with it, or shatter, as you so choose. Heh.

Non-humanoid deities, is my point here. I need to think on it some. Heh.

[loptrcoptr]

Today was our first day back at work after the holidays and I got word that there were 7 boxes of an old scholar’s files in the library that everyone had previously forgotten about and the facilities team told the librarian to ask me what to do with them

so! I was like “great, I’ll look through them” because a) that is my job, to keep as much old crap onhand as possible and b) this guy was one of the OGs at my work and I know for a fact he took fantastic notes/minutes/kept good records (unlike… a lot of other OGs did lol

So!! I go into the library to start digging through the boxes- dragged in some folders, new boxes, etc. to start organizing- and what do I find when I open these puppies up? Water damage! Recent water damage! Why? Because the library has consistent issues with leaks, which is why the librarian wants all our archival materials that are in there to be removed which is why I, the archivist, was asked to figure out if these boxes were of any use.

SO!!! “loptrcoptr”, you might ask, “if people know about the leaks, why he doesn’t anyone do anything about it?” The answer to which is I don’t fucking know and Im mad about it. They patch the roof up, I guess. Never works very well though, leaks keep happening in various different places. Luckily, only one of the boxes really got wet, and a second one got damp, and nothing appears to have been destroyed or damaged beyond legibility. Also luckily, I was able to go to facilities, get a fan, and set up an anti-mold-nope airstrip station in an office that’s going to be empty for the week. Not luckily, I told facilities why they needed the fan and the head of the group guilt tripped me?? “Why didn’t you mention this before? You guys have to tell us these things as soon as they happen” we’ll I don’t fucking know when it happened, do I, because we were all gone for a week and a half! And also! I didn’t even know those boxes were there until this morning and ALSO I AM NOT THE LIBRARIAN IT IS NOT NY JOB TO CHECK THE LIBRARY FOR ANYTHING EVER ACTUALLY

Anyway l spent the afternoon quarantining damp files and pulling out damp books because the librarian had already left and like. I understand how truly suited I am for where I work because the joint is an absolute yarnball of inscrutable chaos. It’s like an office sitcom mated with a science department and birthed this place, and I love it, but sometimes the chaos just gets to be too much even for me. Like, I’ve given up trying to get all my coworkers to understand the value of archiving everything, too much shit had been thrown away without my consultation prior to this so honestly I was surprised anyone even thought to mention these boxes to me. But also like… this is an academic institution why don’t you people give a fuck about the books in your library getting ruined?? Giles that only I care about are one thing but books? That y’all use?? Some of which are out of print?? Hello????

So guess who has two thumbs and is tired and is asking her boss for her own personal storage locker tomorrow morning 8)

[docholligay]

Please rant/rave (well, we already know which one it will be here) about Harry Potter!

GEE I HOPE THIS WAS WORTH WAITING FOR

OH MY GOD. The level of hatred I have for Harry Fucking Goddamn Potter, the culture around Harry Fucking Potter, extending its poisonous tentacles even to the concept of young adult fiction, fantasy, and the United Kingdom as a country and people. 

When you being on this, you may think, “Oh, Doc will explain that Harry Potter sucks because JKR hates trans women” and I will say, oh no, dear reader, that is a fantastic reason to hate the author, and I really suggest we all continue to hate her, and perhaps not purchase the QUEEN’S TONNES of officially licensed merchandise and movies and theme parks that give her stupid little fucking hands all that cash, but no, that is not why I hate the work. There are a number of great works done by terrible people, and the further out the lens of history gets the truer this is. 

I hate Harry Potter because it fucking sucks, and mentally stifled an entire fucking generation. 

“Well, Doc, Harry Potter was really there for me when--” Oh my god I could not fucking care LESS about your personal emotion connection to “orphan wizard boy turns out to be a rich aristocrat yet somehow less woke than Cinderella though” I have personally emotional connections to hot fucking garbage pails of media properties, and if someone came barreling through talking about the myriad ways in which they were horrible, I would be like, “Oh, you aren’t fucking wrong, pal” 

Harry Potter gained wild ass popularity in part due to its magnificent sorting system of Smart, Brave, Evil, and Other, because there’s nothing liberals like more than being able to put everyone’s personality into an easily labeled box, which is why astrology is so popular, or for the intellectuals, Myers-Briggs, which is just as fake but with the veneer of science. This allowed people to give into the tribalism they so desperately liked to pretend they did not possess, and also allow them to write thinkpieces about “The misunderstood Hufflepuff” or “Slytherins aren’t all bad!” or really anything that allows them to write a very real piece about their very imagined oppression for being a part of a totally fake house in a children’s book. Excellent use of your sociology degree, Kai, I thought the addition of phrases like, ‘Content of socialization” and “axes of oppression” really spoke to the struggles you face when wearing a green and silver scarf. 

The other reason it became popular is that it’s essentially wallpaper paste formed into characters. I have read all of the books, and I could not tell you even remotely what Harry’s defining personality traits are other than “protagonist”. In American, at least, a large part of it was the fascination with all things British, with the idea of boarding school and prefects and uniforms that aren’t inexplicably chinos and polo shirts for nine year olds. It allowed children to project onto something so bland that it could be anything. And for children, THAT’S FINE. There is a great deal of bland media made for children, but what I’m speaking to is the fandom, which is largely well over the age of 18. 

Because if we look at the books, are they...actually good? Was it good, or did I experience it as a child? I mean, honestly, on a literary level, are they, or was it just like we all watched Friends, we did it because everyone else was doing it, because I have a distinct memory of a series that involves such greats as “magical geegaws with poorly defined rules that are quickly forgotten despite being able to solve later problems quickly” or “Everyone loves Harry or is a bad guy, or secretly loved Harry all along” 

Oh, speaking of, man, if this was an actual well-written book, wouldn’t it have been wild to have Snape’s whole thing be to teach us that sometimes people do good things for the wrong reasons? Instead of naming your fucking child after the guy who ‘protected you’ because he still wanted to bone your mom? “After all this time” “Always.” 

While all this could have been explained, we have Quidditch added into the mix instead because 20 pages of the goddamn Puppy Bowl is exactly what I was looking for while I was waiting for JK to move the goddamn ball on literally any of these actual magical concepts. 

Harry Potter is a fucking trust fund baby, star quarterback, who grows up to be a cop and marries his high school sweetheart. (Speaking of, why were we shocked that JKR turned out to be a piece of shit when this was and always has been the conclusion of Harry Potter? Why are liberals so fucking into this series that upholds structures like it ain’t no one’s business? It’s a series that opines that those beneath us “Muggles” should be kept in the dark from us) Literally, he finds out he is a wizard and has a dragon-guarded fucking VAULT OF CASH. At 11. It’s such a series for little tyrants, you are special from birth and need do nothing to prove it, here is a letter certifying as such. Oh, not only are you rich and the greatest seeker and have excellent quips, but also your parents were not only rebels, but the best of rebels, and so deeply involved that your parents were killed by the big bad personally, again, because you are so special. His mother’s love literally saves his ass over and over again, because he was SO SPECIAL. He fought Voldemort FROM THE BEGINNING, and WON.  It’s literally the most privilege baby fantasy in the world. 

“But Doooooooooooc, it’s for chiiiiiiiiiiiiiiildren” 

A) Yeah, and you’re 32, you’re making my fucking point about Harry Potter setting an entire generation up for intellectual failure to launch. 

B) Okay, and? I can think of a bunch of kids’ books off the top of my head that in no way require specialness to be given by birth so as to roll out the red carpet for master protagonist. The Hunger Games. Watership Down. A Series of Unfortunate Events. The Chronicles of FUCKING NARNIA, about which I have only a small handful of particularly kind things to say. I’ve never read Percy Jackson, but it’s my understanding that despite his being a literal demigod, the attitudes of the supporting cast are allowed to fall between the extremes of “Appreciates Percy” and “naughty or will learn” Harry does nothing to improve himself even after knowing that he is HUNTED BY THE BIG BAD! “I won’t do this because I don’t like Snape”. So There” which, again, if this series were written with the slightest bit of care or know-how, could be a humbling fucking plot point! BUT NO THAT WOULD BE NAUGHTY. 

But the real reason I hate Harry Potter so much has everything to do with the fandom surrounding it, and how it intellectually stunted a generation of adults. The promise of Harry Potter was that it was supposed to make a new generation of readers, and so the popularity of them was pushed, and so there was discussion of teaching them in schools, but I tell you fucking what, I know a whole lot more folks who grew up reading Harry Potter that never advanced beyond reading YA, or even just rereading the entire series every year and that’s pretty much them done and dusted. 

In the attempt to recapture whatever it was about Harry Potter that attracted children (A lot of it was your peers doing it. I read them all as they came out, and it was literally the equivalent of watching the game so you could talk at the water cooler. That was never going to be recaptured) people, who by this time were likely in their teens, kept getting recommended stuff at the same and same level. No one ever felt pushed to read things that are challenging, to read things that have some of the concepts or themes of Harry Potter but maybe complicate. I know FAR more adults who read adult books that aren’t into Harry Potter, even if they were as children, than the reverse. 

But Doc, why is reading only books meant for 14 year olds a problem??? I mean I suppose I can’t convince you that comfort is not the job of literature or of life, it is the job of an easy chair, because Americans especially are decadent as fuck about being comfy cozy all the time and if anything causes them distress or pain it should be immediately avoided. But Maybe I can convince you that you’re fucking up these books for actual ass children who deserve to have their own writing section without adults bringing their fucking asses into it. They deserve their own spaces. There’s a number of YA editors who have talked about the difficult space YA now occupies because since Potter’s blowup, it’s no longer a niche category, but basically “adult easy reads” and so they have been buying books that are more about the tastes of adult buyers than of literal 14 year olds. 

Is that not...sad? To anyone else? Honestly, and this is not part of the essay because it’s a broader reaching problem, but CHILDREN’S MEDIA IS NOT FOR US. CHILDREN’S MEDIA IS NOT FOR US. CHILDREN’S MEDIA IS FOR FUCKING CHILDREN. The fucking 40-23 set really needs to get their shit together and grow up a little bit and engage in some fucking adult media, and maybe, if we support what we’re actually looking for FOR ADULTS, it will come to us. No one is saying you can’t read Harry Potter or watch some Cartoon Network show, but like, search your heart and come the fuck on. Engage in something more complex. If not for yourselves, for the kids getting shoved into simplified adult stories. It should not be about us. 

ANYWAY, my larger point is that it was Harry Potter, a badly written series about a magical boy who was chosen and magic and also rich and also a favorite of the headmaster and also more clever than most adults and also spoke the same magical snake language as the big bad and was also star quarterback, but at least there was a system in which you could buy a scarf in block colors and feel like you belonged to a team. 

(But not a sports team! lol handegg! I’m cool I don’t get into sports! Except Quidditch.) 

[quiverwingquack]

Okay so in this post @gosalyn made the excellent point that Louie doesn’t have any friends and it got me thinking about just how little the poor kid fits in.

Like, Webby makes friends wherever she goes, and at first she had the most trouble of any of them. If I remember right Louie was the one who was hesitant to bring Webby to Funzos because of her lack of social skills. But she makes friends with the other girls, and a lot of people she interacts with seem to like her a lot! She’s super friendly, to the point in Louie’s Eleven, Swanstantine, and Castle McDuck she gets people talking to her mid-battle.

Dewey’s obviously super friendly and he’s got a lot of people to talk to, what with befriending LP early on and knowing who both of the big superheroes are. He’s friends with Gos, and I would guess, knowing LP and Drake are going to go to Fenton to help her find her Grandpa, that Dewey has an easy “in” with Boyd too. Plus, he’s adventurous, so that means he gets along super well with Della and Scrooge, and like in Doomsday Vault he goes along with them, but none of the other kids do. He’s just close to them naturally.

Huey bonds with Boyd and Violet over Woodchuck stuff. Like Webby he has a bit of trouble socializing (autism coding, perhaps?) but he finds his people. And like Dewey he has Fenton, and he seems to hang around the lab with Team Science a fair amount. Specifically in Moonvasion he repeats that early Gyro quote like “I am man, you are machine,” which I always thought was a sign he’s been around Gyro enough to pick it up. Even if they’re not technically “friends” Huey has people to hang out with and do his own thing.

But Louie keeps getting left behind.

Boyd goes off to live with the Drakes, and I think neither of them talk much afterward. Maybe when they’re hanging out as a big group, and Boyd’s there with Huey and possibly Vi, but generally I don’t think they’re friends. It was a traumatic experience for Louie, like he might have gotten very hurt or died, and he mentions it to Della later on as such. So they probably aren’t very close.

Plus, even earlier on, he tries to connect with Doofus, thinking “oh this will be great, a rich kid, finally someone will understand me.” And what happens but a near-death experience, just like all the adventures have been for him. He’s left miserable, and he goes home with his brothers, probably feeling like they only came to help him because of coincidence(which is partly true) and like they’re only there because they have to be.

He wants to be close to Goldie. Like, she obviously cares about him, with that picture in her wallet. But he cries when she leaves because he finally felt understood, and her leaving hurt him. And maybe after Florida she’ll come around a little more, because after almost losing Scrooge I think she realizes she needs people, and she’s got them when she’s around the McDuck/Duck family. But the damage has already been done, you know? Again, traumatic experience, and Louie’s gonna always have that between him and Goldie, so they’re going to have a different relationship than what Huey does with Fenton and Dewey with LP.

Plus when it comes to his family itself, he doesn’t really get along with anyone as well as the others. It was a plot point in S2 that both Scrooge and Della struggle to connect with him right. They see his schemes as bad or hurtful, he’s not as into adventuring/tends to be uncomfortable with danger rather than excited by it. With Glomtales they kind of show how he feels like an outcast because he can’t connect with the people around him right, and in Woodchucks he has that line about being “cold and terrified” equaling adventure for him. Then, in the end of Quack Pack, they show him upset with Donald’s wish, which could signify that he doesn’t get along with Donald too well either thanks to a difference in ideals. It’s been a hot minute since I’ve seen them, but in Mervana, Impossibin, and even as far back as Atlantis he and Beakley have trouble getting along too(which might come up again in future with the whole lying thing).

Also, like I mentioned earlier, I definitely think sometimes he feels his brothers are only there because they think they have to be. I mean, remember the B-plot of the Other Bin episode? The whole thing was Dewey and Huey pushing Louie aside for their new buddy and blackmailing him into helping them hide it. Dewey hiding the Della thing basically broke his heart in Secrets of Castle McDuck, and afterward he was terrified of adventures altogether because of it, like he tells Huey in Game Night. In Cousin Fethry it’s a gag even that they blame their actions on poor Louie! He’s constantly made to feel like he doesn’t fit with them/doesn’t belong, and when they are there for him, like in Only Child Day like I mentioned, or Found Lamp and Timephoon, a lot of it is due to Louie messing up and needing their help. They’re very rarely there just to support him and I think that contributes to how outcast he feels.

Do you think maybe that’s why he leans so hard into his schemes? He doesn’t have friends to spend time with, and if he can help it, stays home rather than going on adventures. He probably fills that time making schemes and inventions alone. Like with Louie’s Eleven and Glomtales, he just wants to feel like he’s needed and he belongs in the same space where his siblings fit in so effortlessly. Part of it, of course, comes from being raised in a household where they didn’t have a whole lot of money (look at the interior of Donald’s car in Woo-oo, for one) but I think just as much of it is driven by this need to feel like he’s part of the family.

The poor kid just constantly gets left behind, forgotten, not included, over and over, and his “lone wolf” act he puts on working with Goldie is probably not much of an act, actually.

[tagsecretsanta]

From @little-old-rachel

to @misssquidtracy

Secret Santa does not own this work, full credit to the author above!

Summary: Scott will always insist that actually, Gordon’s first snow was the year he was born, to which Gordon says, “yeah, like I remember that, Scooter,” but if you ask Gordon, his first snow was when he was five and three quarters. 

Part One: First Snow

Over the last few years, Kansas has seen a spate of mild winters and wet summers - not even a snowflake to be seen. But this year is The One, Gordon can feel it. After years of envying the way Scott and Virg wax lyrical about snowball fights and school closures, this is Gordon’s year.

This particular morning had dawned like any other; a fine mist gradually curling a retreat from muddy fields, breath like dragon’s smoke before him as he and the other kids wait for the school bus, and a chill in the air that almost sounds like Mom (“are you sure shorts in December are a good idea, kiddo?"). Once sandwiched between a barely-conscious Virgil and foggy window, Gordon entertains himself drawing in the condensation. 

“Look V, it’s a dolphin!” He pokes his sleepy brother in the side until Virgil raises his head, eyes bleary, and removes an earbud. 

“So it is, Gordo,” Virgil says, though Gordon’s ‘dolphin’ looks more plane-like than aquatic. 

“Do me a squid,” Gordon says, yanking at his big brother’s sleeve and employing the big round eyes he’s fast learning will get him what he wants. Virgil obliges - of course he does, because who could resist Gordon - and the rest of the journey is spent with Virgil poking out increasingly obscure sea creatures in the condensation. 

Outside the bus, the sun rises, the fog clears, but thick white clouds remain. Virgil happens to glance up as he walks his brother to the kindergarten classroom, and says, “hm, I wonder if it’ll snow today,” and Gordon stops dead.

“Today?! Is it gonna snow? Today?”

Virgil suppresses a yawn - how is he still tired? - and shrugs. “Johnny thought it might. S’the right clouds for it.”

An electric buzz shoots through Gordon’s limbs and he can feel himself practically vibrating with excitement. Actual snow! Today! He can’t wait, even as Virgil tugs him across the ice-slicked playground towards school.

It’s going to snow!

****

Or so he thought.

Gordon’s been watching the window all day, to the extent that Mrs Cartwright has had to call his name three times to drag his gaze from it. He can’t help it that her classes are boring-schmoring and he already knows how to sound words out. 

He’s only been in kindergarten for a year or so, but he’s less than impressed. John always gushed about school, sure, but John’s a nerd (he’s allowed to say that, because Johnny’s his brother), so Gordon took that with a healthy pinch of salt. Thanks to Virgil, Gordon’s heard enough about the arts department to last a lifetime, and again that’s not really his jam.. But Scott, too, was enthusiastic about his classes and Scott was cool. 

Well, you know what’s not cool, Scotty? 

Being stuck next to Barry Duckworth, who still mixes up his ‘b’s and ‘d’s. 

“Gordon, please don’t make me ask you again.” 

Gordon smiles serenely at Mrs Cartwright until she’s turned back to the smartboard, then tips his gaze back to the window. He can’t help that his brain goes a million miles a minute, until it snags on something, like the threads of Dad’s old Christmas sweater. And then that’s suddenly all he can think about for hours at a time; it’s why he’s so good in his swimming classes, because he can fixate on cutting through the water as fast as possible like nothing else, relishing in one of the few times he can outpace his brain. 

Anyway. Thanks to Virgil’s offhand comment, today his brain is absolutely fixed on snow and there’s nothing he can do except watch as the sky gets greyer. 

Maybe Johnny was wrong and they weren’t the right clouds, after all…

****

Except, Johnny’s never wrong - something he’ll only truly come to appreciate later in life - because when the school bell finally rings for hometime, he and Darry Buckworth spill out into a playground that’s ever so slightly dusted white.

Gordon grabs Barry’s arm excitedly, has the bizarre desire to lick the icing sugar-like substance. He resists, only because his mom’s standing at the gate and the desire to fling his arms around her outweighs the urge to get a good taste of the playground. 

Besides, he tells himself, he can play in the snow later.

But there’s no time - there’s never enough time. Between rushing to his swimming lesson, dropping Virgil at his piano teacher’s place, taking Scott to Scouts, collecting John from Science Club, and the constant backdrop of little Allie’s wailing, the Tracy family is zombie-like over their dinner that evening. 

It’s all Gordon can do to shovel chicken pie in his mouth as his eyes droop lower and lower, until they finally close all the way. He would have face planted straight into the remaining saucy goodness on his plate if it weren’t for Scott’s lightning quick reactions. 

Before he can find the words to ask about the snow, he has Gordon tucked up in bed. His eyelids are too heavy to even glance out of the window, and so Gordon surrenders to sleep with weary acceptance.

****

The next morning, Gordon wakes to a whole new world he’s only seen in picture books. 

He can’t believe how bright it is, it almost hurts to look at the dazzling, unfamiliar shapes across the fields. The sharp edges of every building have been softened beneath a wedge of snow, the field boundaries vanished under an endless white expanse, trees that were bare only yesterday now swaying beneath the weight of their new finery. Delicate crystals of ice dangle from the windowsill. Tiny snowflakes trim the edges of his window like lace. 

“John. John, you were right!”

John grunts something back at him, rolling over and Gordon rolls his eyes.

One glance back outside has him letting out a whoop loud enough to wake even a hibernating bear. Gordon flings his door open, banging into his oldest brothers’ room and shaking Scott’s shoulder till he stirs with a groan. 

“Snow, Scott, it’s snowed.”

A growl from across the room has him retreating behind his oldest brother’s bed, because a barely-awake Virgil is a Dangerous Thing. 

“Gords, no,” Scott hisses. “You woke him.”

“Worth it!”

“Would someone like to tell me why I’m awake at 5:00am?” Virgil is the biggest softie in the world, with a heart of twenty-four carat gold, but in that moment his voice is deadly. 

Scott and Gordon exchange Looks for a split second, and then Gordon makes his escape, darting from the danger zone and leaping into his parents’ room instead. “Mom, mom, moooooom!” 

Dad cracks an eye open, murmurs something to Mom that sounds suspiciously like “save me from your son,” and shoves his head under the pillow. 

“Like he didn’t get this from you, Captain Snowball Fight,” Mom retorts, but she’s got the fondest smile on her face as she looks down at her husband. 

Dad peeks his head from under the pillow. “You love me anyway,” he says, sleep lines crinkling an unfiltered, joyful smile.

“More than life, Jeff.”

And then she’s ducking her head to kiss him - and - gross -

Gordon makes a loud retching sound, dramatically flinging himself across the sheets and thereby crushing any romantic atmosphere. 

Mom rolls her eyes, but it’s just as fond. “What is it, sweetheart?”

“It SNOWED, Mom it actually snowed! Johnny was right and it’s all white outside! I can’t wait to play in it, please can I go? Please? Do you think we’ll get the day off school? Please say yes, pretty please? I can’t-”

Dad swoops down, cutting him off with a surprise tickle attack and Gordon shrieks, writhing down the bed and flopping to the floor with a thud. 

He loves these moments with his parents more than anything else in the world - maybe even more than blue-ringed octopi, which is A Lot because have you seen them?! Living in a family of five brothers is absolute carnage and Gordon adores every second of it. But sometimes, it’s like he gets a little bit forgotten in the chaos, even more so since Alan was born.

Speaking of which, Alan, of course, chooses that moment to wake up, big blue eyes blinking slowly at them. Until he puckers his face up and begins howling. 

“I’ve got him!” Dad says, rubbing a hand over his face as he makes his way to Alan’s cot. “What’s up, little man? What’s with all the noise? You're gonna be like your big brother?” 

Alan brandishes his arms and Dad scoops him up, tucking up him against his chest and humming quietly. “Luce, love, I’ve got him,” he says softly, “I’m gonna need to go in to work this morning, so why not take this little sea monkey to play outside whilst you can?” He nods his head at Gordon, who perks up immediately.

“Actually, Dad, I don’t think I would be a sea monkey, they’re not much fun!”

“Oh, my mistake, what would you be then, son?”

“A seal, I think. They love to play allllll day long.”

“Sounds about right,” Mom says, ruffling his unruly blonde curls. “Alright then, little seal pup. Wrap up warm, let’s go play!”

****

John is awake by the time Gordon returns. As Gordon flings his pyjamas off, yanking on thick socks and sweats, John is there to steady him when he tries to shove both legs into the same hole of his trousers. 

“You’re going to want those gloves,” John says, pointing at the heap of discarded clothes on the floor. 

“Nah, I want to be able to feel the snow! Otherwise I won’t make the best snowballs.”

John rolls his eyes, but tucks Gordon’s gloves into his own pocket. “More fool you when you lose your fingers to frostbite.”

“What’s that?”

“John’s right, kiddo.” Mom is standing in the doorway, scarf wound about her neck and fluffy socks up to her knees. “Gloves on, or you’ll end up like Captain Hook!”

“He lost his hand, silly, not his fingers! Now come on!” 

Gordon seizes his Mom’s hand and John’s sleeve, dragging them excitedly down the stairs to the door, bouncing uncontrollably as Mom unlocks it. 

Finally.

Finally! 

Gordon darts outside, stumbling in the thick layer of snow that sinks him knee deep and lets out a cry of delight as he sinks his face into it, and-

“Noooooooooo!” he yelps - yelps, not squeals, thank you very much John - and leaps back towards the door. “It’s so cold!”

“Of course it’s cold, doofus,” John says. His tone of voice would be cruel if it were anyone else, but it’s John so of course it’s not. “It’s made of ice. Ice is cold.”

“But… but…”

A cold explosion strikes him in the chest, and Gordon turns an expression of utter betrayal to see his Mom grinning maniacally. “A little cold never hurt nobody!” she yells, ducking for another scoop of snow. 

Gordon lets out an indignant whoop, grabs a handful of snow and flings it back at her. It falls apart before it reaches her, snow scattering everywhere. The ice sticks to his hands, and he shivers at the dampness of it. 

Before he even has to ask, John has whipped out the gloves and is holding them out to him. He gratefully accepts, just as Scott rushes out of the house to join them. 

“Snowball fight!” he yells, eyes shining with glee. 

Virgil follows, still yawning a little, but he perks up at Scott’s words. “You’re on,” he says with a grin. 

Mom holds up a hand, “Scott and John against me, Virgil and Gordon.”

Scott hesitates. “But there’s three of you, and only two of us!”

“War is war,” Mom says, “there’s no shame in admitting defeat-”

“Oh you are on,” says Scott at once, as they all knew he would. “Come on, Johnny. We have some snowballs to make.”

Virgil bounds over to Gordon and Mom, and together they begin compiling their own mound of weapons. Mom shows Gordon how to pack it into a ball so that it doesn’t splinter apart, whilst Virgil quietly beavers away, producing snowballs at double the speed. Gordon’s cold but he’s also pressed between his mom and brother, and the warmth in his heart is absolutely worth the occasional shiver. 

Finally, they’re ready.

With a blood-curdling battle cry, Gordon launches the first snowball. It falls short - by a good few feet - splattering at Scott's feet. 

Scott starts to laugh, head back, just in time for Gordon's second snowball to strike him directly in the neck. 

Gordon lets out a cackle that has Scott narrowing his eyes and pelting snowballs in their direction. Mom hurls them back as good as she gets, snowflakes catching in her dark hair, whilst Virgil works to replenish their fast dwindling stock. The enemy - his brothers, that is - put up a valiant effort, but burn through snowballs faster than John can produce them. Soon they are backed up against the wall of the old barn, and Gordon is breathless and exhilarated and joyful. 

"Surrender or die!" he bellows, holding a snowball in each hand.

"Gordon," Mom says sharply, and Gordon sighs.

"Fine. Surrender or suffer!"

Even as they raise their hands in unison, John's grin stretches his cheeks wide and Scott's eyes gleam with amusement. 

Gordon is fit to burst with all of the warm, happy feelings inside of him, coursing through his veins like the ocean currents. 

****

Once a truce has been declared and Gordon's Squad are pronounced the rightful champions, the five of them drift in groups to catch their breath. It’s hard work racing round in snow, especially when you’re practically wading in it, and Gordon flops to the ground to relish in his victory. 

Virgil, predictably, begins creating, rolling a ball of snow round and round till it's as tall as Gordon! Scott and Mom head inside, tracking slush pools in their wake. John plops down beside Gordon, and then leans all the way back.

“What are you doing?” Gordon asks. John is now thrashing his arms and legs through the snow enthusiastically, flattening it beneath his gangly limbs. 

“Snow angel! You try!”

Gordon shoots him a dubious look, but obeys, copying John’s movements. John helps him up, and they survey their handiwork. One small, wonky angel, one with huge wings and long legs. 

“Snow day, guys!!” Scott sprints back outside. “The bus got stuck coming up the hill!”

If Gordon’s being totally honest, he’d forgotten today was technically a school day at all, too caught up in the fun and frivolity of experiencing his first ever snow.

“Try to look a little less delighted, Gordon,” Mom laughs, back in the doorway with Alan in her arms. He’s cocooned in layer upon layer, eyes wide at the landscape around him. Scott heads to where Virgil is jabbing sticks into his snowman’s sides, and holds out a carrot. Beaming, Virgil takes it and turns to Gordon. 

“Wanna help make your first ever snowman?”

“Yes!” 

“You can do his nose! Here,” Virgil puts the carrot in Gordon’s hands, and lifts him beneath the arms so that he’s level with the snowman’s head. Grinning, Gordon pushes the carrot in, laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. 

It’s the perfect day, and it’s barely 9:00am. No day will ever top this day. 

Unable to find the words to express all the happiness dancing little jigs in his chest, he grabs Scott and Virgil, clinging to them in a cuddle. John joins them, and before long, Mom and Alan are there too, Allie clutching at Gordon’s curls. 

It’s overwhelmingly wonderful: warming in a way that is less to do with physical heat and more to do with the absolute overflow of love in his heart. 

Later that day, they’ll stand around the kitchen, dripping over the tiles and arguing over who gets the first dibs of hot water. They’ll regroup in the lounge, Scott and Virgil curled together on one couch, John at their feet, Gordon tucked between Mom and Dad (who admits defeat when the car engine refuses to sputter into life) on the other. They’ll cradle Mom’s magical hot cocoa in thawing fingers - and Gordon’s will be more marshmallow than hot chocolate - and put on a movie they’ll be too busy talking through to pay much attention. Dad will light a fire, guiding Scott through creating the perfect log stack, and the crackling heat of it will lull them to sleep one at a time. 

It will be the perfect day.

[animatedminds]

Let’s Get Dangerous Review!

It’s dangerous. In a good way. <cue dramatic music> Okay, obviously there’s more thoughts than just that. I’ve been waiting for it for weeks, and it arrived just as awesome as I hoped. For the first time, let’s give my full movie style review to the double length Ducktales special: “Let’s Get Dangerous.”

The spoilers are open and widely discussed, so maybe don’t look past the following image if you haven’t seen the episode yet.

To note, I’m not entirely convinced that this was actually meant to be a pilot. It definitely does introduce a new status quo for the Darkwing trio of characters (minus Honker for now, here’s hoping they haven’t forgotten him), but it’s also a very remote story that still tries to take place within the context of Ducktales’ universe, so it really depends on what they choose to do.

But let’s just get down to it.

First off, as I mentioned in my earlier post… Taurus Bulba. He was maybe the biggest and most eye-catching aspect of the first part of the episode, as one of the few elements we hadn’t already seen yet, and his reputation as a really, really bad guy has quite preceded him. As I may have gushed somewhat about, he’s one of the best parts of the special.

James Monroe Inglehart, for those living away from the Disney scene for a decade, is an actor and voice actor most famous for being the original Genie on Broadway’s Aladdin. A grand, bombastic presence, he generally plays characters who - much like the genie himself - a big, jolly, kind but maybe a little mischievous souls that take the attention of a room and brighten up the characters’ day - like Lance, in Tangled the Series. The most interesting thing about Bulba is that Inglehart brings that exact same energy to the role, and so Bulba keep that jollity and lofty personality in a package that becomes increasingly less nice as the story goes on. As someone who keenly remembers Taurus Bulba as cruel monster willing to hurt kids and capable of crushing Darkwing like nobody’s business, the contrast was immediately fun to watch - and I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.

In this story, Bulba is recast from a crime lord intending to use a super weapon go on an endless plundering spree to a FOWL scientist with a respectable reputation who intends to use a super weapon to take over the world, and the transition goes off fairly well. The end result is a pretty standard mix of superhero fight and Bond plot, as Bulba ends up holed up in his lab with his squadron of elite supervillain minions - all plundered a particular fictional universe - with the heroes having to break in / escape from his captivity and stop him before he destroys everything. It’s very Silver Age, with Bulba in the role of maniacal villain, and he’s contrasted very well with Bradford - who is as always an antagonist who prides himself on pragmatism. This contrast leads to some great moments: Bradford’s increasing frustration with the cavalier attitude of both the heroes and the villains gives him the best stint of characterization he’s had since the beginning of the season - he basically spends the whole episode arguing with everyone about how badly thought out their actions are, while also badly hiding his own secrets.

The Fearsome Five (of which Quackerjack is voices by his original actor) are great to see, though used minimally. If you’re expecting to see classic show dynamics between the villains and Darkwing, that’s not really what they’re used for. Mostly, they’re minions with personality, and they’re more there to establish both to the audience and to Drake the character himself that he is ready to take on really big threats even with his lack of superpowers.

But enough about the villains, on to the heroes!

A couple episodes ago, with the Halloween episode, I criticized that story for not balancing its A and B plot all that well. This episode does not have that problem. The story is actually maybe about three fifths Darkwing’s story, and the rest of it is Scrooge and the nephews as they figure out what Bulba is up to independently of Darkwing and try to stop him themselves. It’s somewhat similar to Timephoon, where they’re there constantly and are doing their own bid to solve the story but the focus isn’t primarily on them. Instead, we have some of the best “HDL actually matter to the story” bits of the show, where they escape Bulba’s prison on their own and lead Bradford out, all the while slowly figuring out that something is shady about the guy. Meanwhile, Scrooge gets stuck in the original Ducktales universe’s most memed scene, which was a fun gag (but not the best gag - that would be the one and only Bonkers D. Bobcat as the Harvey Bullock-style cop in the Darkwing show).

Which I suppose can lead to a digression about the mad science bit here. The alternate universes here are… interesting. I always pay special attention to how things like time travel or other dimensions or alternate universes work in a series, and this one reminds me the most - I think - of DC’s Dark Multiverse: a collection of universes that are both explicitly fictional but made real because people created them. Ultimately, it’s less as if the OG Darkwing universe exists independently of the Ducktales universe and more that the in-universe Darkwing show as a world based off of it that the characters can reach into. I wish the episode had delved into that more, and now you’ve got people trying to use it to look for more establishment of OG Darkwing elements (though I was fine with it being separate, perceiving anything else as rather needlessly inexplicable), but ultimately that is not specifically what the episode is about, and is kept rather separate.

So what is the episode about? Like you didn’t already know…

As always, Gosalyn Waddlemeyer is a little girl whose grandfather was done away with by Taurus Bulba, and who falls into Darkwing’s lap over the course of his adventure with him. Here, her grandfather is (possibly) still alive, just lost in the ether a la Gravity Falls’ Grunkle Ford. And like the mighty glazed McGuffin, Darkwing’s goal in the episode is less strictly defeating Bulba as it is helping her get her grandfather and her home back. Gosalyn here is self-sufficient and action oriented (it may be my inner Brooklyn 99 fan talking, but I loved Stephanie Beatriz as her, and kind of wish she had gotten a wider range of lines), taking on her own crusade against Bulba until she realizes she can go to Darkwing for help, and is constantly trying to pull him into the fight - even while he is reluctant, and no matter what the danger - so that they can win and she can get justice. But in the end, she has to accept that they might not be able to.

As a longtime Batman fan, I immediately recognized a plethora of Robin references with Gosalyn. She’s a kid who’s family was taken from her by a villain, given a surrogate home by the hero - like Dick Grayson. She’s a street tough who originally met the hero committing a crime, and who is both skeptical of his heroism and heavily critical of his flaws - like Jason Todd. And she’s a young genius with a lot of scientific knowledge, tech skills and common sense - just like Tim Drake. There’s even elements of Carrie Kelley or Terry McGinnis there, in her determined if not gung-ho approach to heroism despite her circumstances and the hermit-like behavior of the hero.

And in the end, this is a fairly apt comparison, because Gosalyn essentially ends the story more as a Robin figure than previously, now as Darkwing’s more of a ward and official sidekick alongside Launchpad. The story does not, to note, involve her being adopted by Drake or becoming Gosalyn Mallard. Indeed, they don’t really end up having that sort of relationship. They’re distant and don’t really know how to relate to one another, and not about to broach the subject of family except in distant terms. There’s ultimately far less emphasis than before on Gosalyn and Drake being similar and hitting it off on a personal level, or even really Drake keying into Gosalyn’s potential and spirit as a person vs an element in his adventure. Throughout the story he regards her as a victim to be saved, then ultimately as an ally with potential to be respected, and in the end he gives her an offer to take up the mantle along side him while they search for her family… which ultimately creates something very different.

For people expecting something a little more akin to the implications the show made with Gyro and BOYD, Gosalyn here. The implication that they could be a family is brought up by Launchpad, but neither Drake nor Gosalyn are really there at the end of the story - I want to say they’re not there yet, but the way the story goes gives off the impression that the dynamic duo dichotomy is the relationship for the two the writing is most comfortable giving them.

Again, I’m a longtime Batman fan, so I understand and appreciate the nod. It gives them a really cool status quo that’s distinct from what came before it. Still, the strong father/daughter relationship between the two was very much the heart and soul of the original show, an endearing quality that created the character traits we love about both characters, and ultimately one of the primary characteristics that set the Darkwing family apart even from most comic book superhero stars - so even if they made something great out of it, it’s a shame to see Ducktales ultimately keep that relationship at arms’ length.

But that’s less a criticism and more just something I wish they had chosen to do differently - and it makes sense for the 2017 team’s take on Darkwing, which has always been more focused on “irrepressible hero who doesn’t give up” - a pluckie rookie growing into his competence - than “former fool whose great potential is unleashed through the people around him.” The latter is there, sometimes, but it’s not prominent. Original Darkwing was a man made better by his daughter, while the modern Darkwing doesn’t quite need that to find the hero within.

The only (and I mean only) criticism I have is the way the characters kind of jump around in how they respond to things. Drake wanting more crime, and then freaking out when super crime shows up and it’s way more than he thought he can handle is fine, and is one of the better character bits in the special. It being unclear whether Drake is against fighting supervillains because he thinks they’re too powerful vs because he doesn’t want to risk Gosalyn’s safety is another thing, though - it seems the show intended to imply the latter but forgot to include the line somewhere, so it’s not inferred until later and Drake suddenly benching Gos towards the end lacks set-up.

For her part, Gosalyn is suddenly and quickly afraid to fight for a brief moment so Launchpad can inspire her to face impossible odds, even though it was hardly the first time she had done so in the special. The ending I think wanted the characters to be somewhere that the rest of the special hadn’t gotten them to yet. But it’s all good - it ends well, so all’s well. Best gag of the episode, btw? Fenton, who is awful at keeping his secret identity secret, has hooked up Darkwing with his own hi-tech hero lair. Darkwing, despite supposedly being a detective (or at least an actor playing a detective), ends up as one of the two or three people remaining on Earth who hasn’t figured out that Fenton is Gizmoduck. Darkwing considers himself good friends with Fenton, despite hating Gizmoduck. It’s actually very funny.

It’s as of now unclear what is coming up for Darkwing. We know the St. Canard characters are going to factor in more as the FOWL plot progresses, and this episode kicks that plot into high gear - the characters now know about FOWL and their intentions, and are preparing themselves for a far more dangerous fight than usual. In short, with the midseason comes the renewed focus on the primary plot of the season, as per the usual. Like I said before, while I’m not as on board as most with the idea that this was a pilot, St. Canard was definitely established here - with series regular Zan Owlson as it’s new mayor, and a general aesthetic and set of protagonists. It wouldn’t be remiss for a future episode this season to take place there (though we know Negaduck isn’t happening this season).

The new few episodes, however, are focused more on the quest for Finch’s treasures and FOWL, so that’s going to have to wait for a while. We’ve been promised, as I recall, an episode that brings all the kids together (unless that’s part of the finale), which is nice - I may have mentioned before that the best episodes of the series have been the ones that put the kids (who are the characters with the most focus throughout its run) together and let all their personalities run through an adventure together - and with the cast growing somewhat constantly, it’s nice to know that no one is being forgotten.

Either way, I give the episode a great deal of recommendation - I only had a couple things that bothered me, and a few wishes for different choices, and ultimately I’m planning on watching it a ton of times just like I did the first Darkwing episode. From a classic Darkwing fan, and in the words of Bat-Mite, it’s a different intepretation to be sure, but not at all one without merit.

So thanks to Frank Angones, Matt Youngberg and the Ducktales crew! I hope my virtual thumbs up reaches them somehow, but either way, it was a good day to be dangerous.

[sleepyimpala]

love letters

FANDOM: IT (2017). PAIRING: Stanley Uris x Reader. GENRE: Fluff. REQUESTED: yes. WARNINGS: none. FROM MY OLD BLOG: selfish-archipelago (THE ORIGINAL ONE). REQUESTS FOR STANLEY URIS ARE CURRENTLY CLOSED!!!

luciferlxve asked:

Hello! May I request a Stan x fem!Reader where Stan tries to cheer the reader up and anonymously writes her a love letter but accidentally puts his name on it and yeah, well…fluff? Only if you’ve got the time and want to, xoxo 🙂

THIRD PERSON POV

Stanley watched her from across the table as she sighed some more, sniffing, stabbing her food with her fork quite violently as the others argued over the rules of time traveling.

Y/N’s hand slips and her fork, along with the rest of her food (just a bit, not a lot), clatter to the ground.

She groans frustratedly, her eyes already tinted red.

Only Stanley seemed to notice.

Of course, he did.

Y/N had been his crush ever since he met her.

She sighs again, this time with a louder sniff before bending down to pick up her things.

The bell rang.

All the way through science, Stan couldn’t help but think about how miserable his crush looked.

Normally, he liked subjects like science and math, because he found them interesting, but today, something seemed to be nagging away at his mind.

He kept on picturing her… crying.

Getting upset about things.

Bottling things up inside.

“S - Stan?” Stanley was so caught up in his own thoughts he’d even forgotten Bill was with him. “Are you OK?”

“What?” snap out of it, he told himself. “Uh, yeah. I’m fine.”

“Are you worried about N - N/N? I thought it was only me.”

“Yeah, actually,” Stan scratches his head. “What’s wrong? Do you know?”

Bill bit the inside of his cheek.

“Crap,” Stan says. “Wait, what did I do?”

“I don’t think you m - meant it,” Bill starts gently. “But remember Saturday, at the Quarry?”

“I spent the whole time there with her,” Stan recalls.

“No, not the w - whole time,” the stuttering boy shakes his head.

“What do you mean?”

“Stan, we literally saw y - you f - flirting with B - Beverly.”

“Yeah, but - ”

“Oh my God!” Bill explodes. “She likes y - you! OK, listen, Stan, how would you like it if I flirted with Y/N?”

“Well, I would probably beat - wait, what? Are you saying what I think you’re saying? She likes me back?”

“IT’S BEEN ALMOST TEN YEARS!” Bill crows. “How did you n - not - ”

I have to make it up to her, Stan’s mind was already racing. Write. Because… because I’m kind of good at it. Write a… I’ll write a letter.

“Mr. Denbrough! Mr. Uris! Would you like a detention?”

“No, thank you, Miss,” Stan quips. Bill nods.

Stanley zoned off once again, this time coming up of what to write.

// later //

Stanley sat at his desk, armed and ready with a pen and paper, eyes drooping shut, but he forced himself to stay awake.

I’m sorry if I made you feel unimportant that day at the Quarry. I was honestly just taking one of our friends’ advice. But, if it makes you feel better, I love being with you. You’re practically the reason why I get out of bed and the reason why I deal with all of these idiots rather than just finding new friends. I know you try so hard to be perfect, although in my eyes, you already are. I love you just the way you are, and I’ll never look at another girl the way I look at you.

He was pretty sure he didn’t sign it off, and he was pretty sure he never wrote poetry like that.

But, again, he was pretty tired, so he could have been mistaken.

// the next day //

Y/N found the letter at around noon on a Sunday morning.

She was grumpy and tired, and still upset from the Quarry when the envelope made its’ way into her postbox.

Curiously, she took it inside to her bed, where she carefully tore the blue paper open.

These were the closing lines:

I love you just the way you are, and I’ll never look at another girl the way I look at you.

- Stanley

She gasped as she read the name, over and over again.

“I’ve got to tell him,” she exclaims to herself.

Grabbing the letter, she rode a few houses down, ringing the doorbell of the Uris household.

His mom opened the door.

“Is Stanley here?” She says quickly.

“I think so. He’s upstairs, probably.” His mom affirms.

“Thanks,” Y/N smiles before running upstairs.

“Teenagers,” his mother mutters.

Stanley was in his room, reading.

“Stan?” Y/N whispers.

He looks up, surprised, before noticing the letter in her hand.

He groans and shoves his head into his palm.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he mutters. “No! I did - god.”

“Stan, did you write this?”

He nods miserably.

She smiles, a blush creeping onto her face.

“Bill told me…” he admits. She rolls her eyes. Of course, he did. “And I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was flirting with her, I thought I was just being friendly, honest!” He puts his hands up in surrender.

“Stan,” she cuts in. “It’s not your fault. Well… mostly. I’ve been having a really shitty week, and I guess… you and Bev… that was the final blow for me,” Stan gets up and closes the door.

“Well,” he takes the letter out of her hands, placing it on the bed. “I think I know how to improve your week,” he smiles.

“Do you?”

“Yeah.”

He pulls her close before planting his lips on hers.

They both breathe before pulling away.

“Holy shit, you do.”

MASTERLIST (requests for stan are open)

[kinetic-elaboration]

February 13: Star Trek Beyond

Some attempted thoughts on Star Trek Beyond.

So first it was bad lol. It is the worst. I thought maybe it would be less the worst than I had previously thought but it really, really is just irredeemably bad.

Trying to keep up with what was actually happening and talk in the group chat was too difficult and I now feel very exhausted lol. And I’m not even sure what I watched.

I liked Jaylah a lot, including her back story, characterization, “house,” traps, and cool mirror tricks.

I also like Kirk in that emergency uniform with the jacket unzipped.

That’s it! That’s all I liked.

In the past I’ve also said I liked the Spock and Bones parts but I honestly wasn’t a fan of them either this time around!

None of the characters felt IC and none of the relationships felt true or were compelling. Which is particularly egregious given that the alleged theme was strength in unity.

The movie was especially lacking in K/S content or even K & S interaction, which obviously didn’t please me. And it’s definitely the worst Kirk characterization I’ve ever seen. There’s no excuse for that either because it’s halfway through the 5YM, which means he should be pretty close to TOS Kirk--yes, he has a different set of experiences, so there’s going to be some variation, but there’s comparatively less excuse for a radically different characterization than in STXI and STID. They should have had Shatner read the script and make notes lol because whatever else you might say about him he KNOWS Captain Kirk.

Like, he (Kirk) lacked humor and charm and, often, confidence. He had moments when he was very smart and moments when he had a commanding presence. But he had just as many moments when he was whiny or bored and his Captain’s log??? I deserve financial compensation for every time I’ve listened to that. Bored of space?? No, this man is bored when he’s stuck on Earth. He stagnates in desk jobs. He is an adventurer and explorer before he’s ANYTHING else; if you don’t get that, you don’t need to be writing Star Trek.

Also, as I have frequently complained, I’m tired of him having no internal conflict or emotional complexity past his father issues. First reboot movie: dealing with his dead father’s memory and his step-father’s abuse. Fine, that makes sense for how they set up the AU. Second reboot movie: entirely motivated by the need for Manly Vengeance upon the person who killed his father figure. And for this redundant story line (in many sense) we had to lose Pike? Third reboot movie: you’d think he’d finally be ready to move on to other conflicts but actually no this time he’s sad about his birthday and having a longer life span than his...you guessed it!! father!! Yet again.

What else has ever motivated him? Legitimate question.

The destruction of the Enterprise was truly horrific. Long, boring, unwarranted, and without any emotional punch. As if it were just any ship! No, she’s a character in her own right and she’s not to be sacrificed like that but please tell me again how Simon Pegg is a true fan who brought the franchise back to its roots?

B said he did like that they split up the crew into unusual units but I have mixed feelings about it. I don’t entirely disagree, but I don’t think they did a lot that was interesting with any of those separated units. Uhura and Sulu are a cool pair (but this would have been a good opportunity to include Sulu’s semi-canonical crush on Uhura but whatever... a different rant) and they almost did some interesting stuff with them. There were glimmers of a caper in that story line and times when I could tell they were straining especially hard to make Uhura, their Sole Female Main--now that they cut out Rand, Chapel, and even Carol Marcus--into something Feminist and Interesting. But it didn’t quite gel for me. Like, Uhura would be having almost interesting dialogue with the villain and holding her own...and then she loses track of her colleague and has to watch that person die, thus undercutting everything she just said about unity and seeming to prove the villain’s point. Is she competent or not?

Bones and Spock are a pair I care about and like but again I think their canonical relationship in TOS is more interesting than STB showed. I personally read them as like...reluctant best friends who originally just had one person in common, and then realized they also like each other too, but they’ll never really say it. They understand each other but pretend not to. They have fun with the barbs they throw at each other. They both deeply love Jim but in different ways. They enjoy their intellectual debates. (That’s one thing that was definitely missing from them here! The intellectual debates!) So again, there was something there but not enough.

And Kirk and Chekov just happened to land near each other; nothing was done with that relationship per se. They really aren’t people who have much of a relationship in TOS so there’s not a lot to work off of but then on the other hand there IS an opportunity to create something new. Maybe I’m being too harsh and too vague but it just didn’t gel for me. The only specific K and C moment I remember was that supremely un-funny joke about Kirk’s aim as he sets off the “wery large bomb.”

But like there are possibilities.. they’re both pretty horny and Chekov is a whiz kid and Kirk is also very smart and has always been smart... Like in other words people Chekov’s age don’t end up on the bridge crew, in either ‘verse, without the Captain’s say, so even though he’s TOS!Spock’s and AOS!Scotty’s protege, Kirk is important to his life. Something with that maybe??

I’m upset that Spock’s individual story line was about whether or not he should go off and make baby Vulcans because, again as I have complained many times before, that was a conflict he faced and resolved in ten minutes two movies ago, and it doesn’t make sense to me for him to bring it up again now just because the Ambassador is dead. Like... the Ambassador told him to stay in Starfleet!! “Ah, yes, I will honor him by doing precisely the opposite of what he wanted me to do.”

Also--if they had made his motivation different or gone into it more, I would have been more into it. Make it about New Vulcan! Say there’s news from New Vulcan that it’s not doing well. Or what if T’Pring got in contact with him? Or what if we used this as an excuse to bring in Sarek?

This is part of a larger point for me which is that STXI set up a really cool AU and STID tried to do something with it--a little hit or miss, but it tried--and instead of pushing even more at the AU and developing it more and doing more with it... STB just ignored it! Was that part of what Paramount was warning about with making it “not too Star Trek-y?” Was it SUPPOSED to be a movie you could watch without having seen the last two? If so they did succeed but like.. .why? They made the supremely ballsy move of blowing up a founding Federation planet two movies ago and now they’ve just forgotten about that and all the reverberations that would necessarily have?

But of course we got a call back to Kirk being a Beastie Boys fan so.... Guess it was Deep all along.

We all three agreed that the core story of this film was potentially interesting but could have been done as a 50-some minute episode of a TV series rather than a whole-ass 2 hour movie. First off, cutting or cutting down the action sequences would have shaved off half an hour easily.

I’m frustrated in large part because there are certain things that are interesting here. I do like the concept of the crew being pulled on to an alien planet by a ship of former Federation crew, from the early days of the Federation/deep space flight, who were presumed missing but are somehow still alive because they have turned into aliens/used alien tech to prolong life, and who have also captured other aliens, like Jaylah, for the main crew to interact with. All of that was cool.

I would even be okay with these old Federation crew being villains but I don’t think that’s necessary or even the most interesting take.

But...first of all, as my mom pointed out, Krall was basically Nero in his illogical motivations: feeling aggrieved because someone who couldn’t help him didn’t help him and then just maniacally wanting revenge. It made more sense to me with Nero in a way. Maybe that was because he was better characterized, maybe it was because his anger was more personal (the loss of his wife), maybe--probably--it was because he was angry at Spock and Spock had actually promised to help, so there was some kernel of logic in his sense of betrayal, even if it was out of proportion etc. Also, Nero’s mania was portrayed as mania--we were all supposed to recognize that the strength of his emotion was warranted but his logic was deeply flawed. I think we were supposed to think Krall had some kinda... real criticism of the Federation, but in fact he doesn’t! He’s wrong! So like if he’d been angry with the Federation for abandoning him but the narrative and the other characters explicitly recognize that he’s wrong--the Federation tried but he was just doing something very dangerous and he recognized that danger on signing on--that might have been more palatable to me.

I’m not sure I’m making sense here entirely or explaining myself as well as I could.

I just don’t entirely get Krall’s beef with the Federation. I don’t get that whole “being a soldier and having conflict makes you strong and having people you can rely on and connections and community makes you weak.” That seems pretty obviously false. It also doesn’t really seem, not that I’m an expert, but particularly in line with military ethos either.

BUT the idea that he had a life that was comfortable to him as a soldier and then the Federation comes in and forms Starfleet and says, actually, we’re going to pull back on the soldiering and up the diplomacy and the exploration and the science--yeah, I could see that. I DO think Starfleet is military but even if you must insist it’s not, it’s clearly based on and formed from the military, and it has certain military functions. So obviously the first people to join or be folded into Starfleet probably were more explicitly military.

So he’s one of those people. Now he’s supposed to be a scientist and a diplomat and an explorer and he doesn’t like that. He’s given this very prestigious and interesting mission and jumps at it. Starfleet warns him, you might go beyond where we can reach, we might not be able to help you. That’s fine. But then when his ship is stranded and he is lost, he gets angry--maybe somewhat irrationally, but understandably--why?? Why did the Federation do this to him? What was even the point? When he put himself in danger before, at least he knew why. But just flying around space for the hell of it, and this is the cost? So that’s what creates his anger.

I thin this could be tied into Kirk’s diplomacy at the beginning--if the scene were written to not be a comedy bit where Kirk looks like an incompetent buffoon and is completely disrespectful the whole time. He’s good at this job and we should say it. But we could emphasize that this IS a diplomatic mission often, just as often as it’s a military or scientific mission. Maybe we could include other bits of their missions, too, to play up the variety of things they do and roles they play.

Another thing I think could be interesting, going back to my point about Spock, Vulcan, and using the first two movies and expanding on the world building... what if Spock wanted to leave Starfleet for better, more well-defined reasons, and we used that? Paralleled the two? Connected the two?

Because I think Vulcan in the AOS verse is very interesting and the movies didn’t do nearly enough with it. First, we have the Romulans showing up way earlier, at least visibly: in TOS, no one knew what they looked like or their connection to Vulcans until Spock is in his late 30s. In AOS, it happens not long after he’s born. So he’s growing up probably with more anti-Vulcan racism floating around the Federation. THEN Vulcan is destroyed. Now it has nothing and it needs to rely on the rest of the Federation, which must be both humbling and frustrating to many Vulcans, on top of the extreme tragedy of losing everything. Most of their population, a lot of their history, their manufacturing, their scientific facilities, their resources, their animals, literally whatever else you can think of that a planet has--all gone. Now all of the survivors have lived some period on an alien planet, by definition, and they’re probably very dependent on the Federation not just to set up the new colony, but to replace all of the resources--natural and Vulcan-made--that they lost. And they’re a founding Federation member, Earth’s first contact. They’re especially important. And now they’re weak, and reliant on others.

So maybe Spock, early on, hears from New Vulcan and they’re not doing well. Maybe we hear from Sarek or T’Pring (...I’d just like to see reboot T’Pring). Maybe it’s not about, or just about, having children, but about being from an important and ancient family, and being seen as a hero for his part in the Narada mission, that makes him want to go and help rebuild their government (taking his mother’s place perhaps? she was on the High Council) or their scientific facilities, or the VSA, or their space travel capabilities--you know Vulcan had space ships of their own, outside of Federation ships. This would be the perfect place to showcase that tension between wanting to be independent--out of pride, out of fear, even--and needing help, because Vulcan could not survive without the Federation, probably less than 10 years out from the original planet’s destruction.

And then you feed it back into Krall.

So I could see like... well the tension, and then Krall comes in, and he's angry that the Federation "abandoned" him, but we actually explicitly address this. Maybe Spock gets to interact with him and say "I get it. You had a life and a mission and a purpose that was comfortable for you. Then the Federation came in and changed everything. A lot of my people are also feeling upset for similar reasons. But here's why actually you're wrong."

So anyway as you can see I’m smarter and more interesting than Simon Pegg.

I also hated, speaking of writers of this movie, the gay Sulu thing and HEAR ME OUT on this. It’s homophobic. His husband doesn’t have a name? Might not be his husband at all? Looks like he could be his nanny or his brother? As B said “at least grab his butt or something.” That was the most sanitized, no-homo depiction of a gay person I’ve ever seen. He’s gay (see, progressives and queers! gay! you like that right!) but DON’T WORRY STRAIGHTS--he’s in a monogamous relationship and has a child, he’ll show nothing but the most platonic physical affection with his male significant other, and the plot point will be so minuscule you’ll need a microscope to detect it. Also, we’ll throw in a no homo joke about two male characters not wanting to hug and we’ll make sure Kirk and Spock interact as little as possible, because we know they give off Big Queer Vibes every time they’re together.

Yes the last point is a little unfair but can you blame me for being angry about all the “look how hip to the times we are” back-patting that went on in 2016 when canonical bisexual Kirk is RIGHT THERE and we could have had ex-boyfriend Gary Mitchell instead of Unnamed Nanny??

Also Sulu is a hella random choice because again, like... he may not have had an s.o. in TOS but nor was there any indication he was gay. So it seems a LITTLE like they picked him because (1) his original actor is gay and gay people can’t play straight people duh so probably Sulu was Gay All Along I mean did you not get vibes???; and/or (2) asexual Asian stereotypes preclude giving Sulu any kind of love interest, male or female, that is actually... sexual, outright romantic, anything.

Anyway I can’t remember if I had any other thoughts, but I’ve said quite enough I think.

I miss Kirk so much... real Kirk... even my version of AOS Kirk who is probably not even characterized that well but at least I worked with love!!!

[chorusnihili]

I'd love to hear more about the development of your Gaster! :D

BACKSTORY ASK MEME 1. How did you first come up with your muse’s backstory, if you did at all? Continued from here Also asked by @alagaster 

So I left off with the question of just how Gaster's soul ended up in pieces.

I’m actually going to detour at the moment and say that it was around that point that I had decided to make the blog.  I had a vague beginning and an ending, and usually that’s not enough for me to want to start, but I was excited, I had a lot of fun, so I went for it.

Honestly, one of the first things I need to have before I even think of making a blog is a good url.  Urls are super important to me, and generally, whether or not I think of a good one is a key factor in whether or not I actually make the blog.

But in this case, I was too eager to start and I actually just threw together chorusnihil so I could get started on the pages.  The thought process remained the same--the chorus is from Greek plays, the group of characters that narrate the actions occurring in the play.  nihil is Latin for nothing--and I later changed it to nihili, which is Genitive, to roughly make the “chorus of nothing” or “nothing’s chorus,” a reference to the fact that the guy wiped himself out of history, and so there’s no protagonist to narrate.  This was supposed to be a temporary URL, but I got attached to it, for reasons I’ll get to later.  

(And really, isn’t a roleplay blog a modern chorus in it’s own way?)

Also there’s the phonetic pun-- CORE-us, anyone?

So I threw together a lot of the basic bios.  Most of the stat pages are really bland, most of the guts of the story comes from the hidden details, most of which were added on later.  

Something that came up around this point was Gaster’s relationship to Asgore.  A lot of fanon pictures them as really close.  A lot of fanon also portrays Gaster as Gaster as desperately wanting to retake the surface, which...as mentioned previously, my Gaster just, wasn’t into.  

So it sort of put Gaster in between Asgore and Toriel--he wasn’t happy about the decision to go to war with humanity, but he wasn’t going to abandon everyone, even if he did become really reclusive.  

I thought about the idea of the human souls, and I knew that Gaster would immediately hate the idea of working with them.  And that was convenient, too, since it allowed me to further separate Gaster and Alphys’s work.  At first, it was just a heavy disagreement.  The idea that Gaster killed Asgore accidentally came a great deal later, but it honestly served to be a rather critical piece of the story. 

The design of the DT Extractor and Sans and Papyrus were also very vague concepts at this point. 

Revisiting the idea of his fall.  We know from the canon dialogue that he fell into his own invention and that he was scatted across space and time.  

The CORE is the common culprit and it was what I had chosen, too.  But how?  How could an energy source... do that? 

So the idea occurred to me that maybe--maybe that was exactly as it was designed to do.  After all, even in the real world, we have power plants that operate by ripping apart molecules.  So... magic.  Why not magic?  A machine that derives power out of ripping apart magical energy.

And monsters are made out of magical energy.  

Falling into that sounds like a very grisly fate, indeed.      

The idea of how he got erased from reality isn’t one I really have solidified.  G has a couple of theories, and I’m willing to roll with either of them, but, really?  I’m not super interested in making a hard reason for it.  Namely to adapt to other versions of fanon other muns might have. 

Essentially, the theories say that the CORE destroying him released so much energy that it tore a hole in the Determination that pushes the timeline forward, thus allowing the Void to enter and merge with his soul.  

From there, either, 

A., his Determination very briefly was larger than that of the Timeline, and he himself invoked a Reset, but given that he was outside of the timeline at the moment, it was corrupted and only erased certain parts rather than fully resetting.   I think that this was the original theory that I used in the original RP.  

B., the Void acted as a corrective force trying to correct the hole in the timeline.  In doing so, it erased Gaster from the reality, thus replacing the existing timeline with a new one in which certain things never happened.  

C., something involving the power of Rewrite that Gaster has from the duality of Determination and Void.

D., something else entirely.  

And so we had the scattered Unbound Gaster. 

Which, funfact, the name Unbound Gaster for the form was supposed to be temporary, as well.  It’s a reference to Unbound Hoopa for Pokemon.  (Which is why Provoked Form Gaster isn’t called Unbound Form!)

Within the original RP that I developed most of this lore, Refused Gaster didn’t exist.  In fact, that roleplay ended with Gaster’s permanent death--and being permanently forgotten to the world.  A choice he intentionally made because the damage he did to the timeline by falling into the CORE was still present and only getting worse, and the only way to fix it was to allow his Soul to come together and pass on properly, thus allowing the damage to mend.

It was sad.  I cried.  I got emotional.  

I got attached to a traumatic asshole character I literally had for four days.  

Somewhere in here, I began to think about the origins of Gaster.  Like, way way way in the past.  Some people have Gaster being actively involved in the war, but it didn’t work for my portrayal, of having him be so afraid of humans and the surface.  So for it to work out, I had him really young for the war, really young when everyone got driven underground.  

I killed off his parents because ......

Frankly I didn’t want to design them :|

There’s a lot of varying opinions and interpretations about skeleton monsters, and it’s a section of the fandom I’ve decided to stray away from for now.  

But I didn’t want the loss to be traumatic.  Gaster’s been through a lot already, and I have personal vendettas against characters who solely consist of trauma after trauma.  

So I decided to make the loss very distant--he’s aware he probably had parents, or maybe he came to be some other way--but he doesn’t remember them, there’s no tragic “my parents were killed in front of me,” it’s simply something he didn’t have, and something he never needed given the nature of monsters to be kind and caring.  

...

But it felt like it was missing something.

So I started to toy around with this idea of a mentor, one who played the role of a father-figure, one who would plant the seeds to give Gaster the appreciation of science and knowledge.  Someone who could take this lost and terrified boy and start to turn him into the intelligent and steady doctor we end up with.  

Then came the problem of how he and this mentor would actually meet; Gaster’s scar proved to be a convenient excuse, plus it gave me a backstory for that, as well.  A few humans attacked him and delivered the injury, and Gaster’s mentor found the wounded boy and took care of him.  

The mentor is meant to be a vague entity, and you can view this in action in this memory.  (Only partially because I didn’t want to name them.)  Unfortunately, as per the nature of characters created post hoc, their fate was already sealed.  I made the choice to cut their influence on Gaster’s life short.  

(If they were around longer, who knows?  Maybe they could have prevented some of the stupider things Gaster has done.  Maybe they could have changed fate.  But...  as we’ll get to, everything happened exactly as it had to.)  

Again, I made it a very distant loss.  It’s a rather simple conclusion that not every monster would be happy vacating the surface--Gaster’s mentor had lived there their entire life.  It was their home, they were not leaving, even upon threat of death.  And so it was a bittersweet parting, but one with closure, and Gaster said his farewells and departed to the Underground.  

Honestly, what I find really shocking about this character is just how intensely he wants to do good.  I mean, I’m no stranger to good characters, but few of my characters push it as far as Gaster does, and how quickly that feeling came to me, considering he started in the original roleplay as a ruthless asshole bastard more than willing to fuck over and torture a bunch of children just for a chance at being whole again.  

Most of Gaster’s early life in the Underground found in this post was written on the spot as I wrote that post, so it came really late.  

I still find it hilarious that he used to work in therapy.  You’re well aware you need therapy you fucking bastard.  Quit denying it.  

So, revisiting the idea of Gaster and Asgore.  I do like the idea of them being close, and Gaster even calls Asgore his best friend.  The declaration of war put a huge strain on the relationship.  

I originally thought about the idea of him accidentally killing Asgore for shits n giggles.  At my heart I am indeed an angst gremlin, so I was just thinking about what an alternate timeline where that happened might be like.  After all, Gaster’s angry, Asgore’s full of guilt, with the way monster magic works, it wouldn’t be too far of a stretch to think that it could happen.  

But the more I thought about it, the more it fit eerily well.  The guilt gave Gaster a reason to create Sans (and later Papyrus) as part of his belief in Karma (creating a life to replace the life he took) and to look into Alphys’s research into Determination enough to create the blueprints for the DT Extractor; both of these things were things that I couldn’t otherwise really fit into his storyline.  

And finally...

His declining mental state and despair over the concept of the DT Extractor was what led to him being distracted enough to make such a critical mistake and fall into the CORE.  

And given that the timeline changes when he falls, I realized that...  I could have this happen, and the current timeline be unaffected.  

Now, given that I said that I wanted to avoid more trauma in Gaster’s life, this decision might seem contradictory.  But, it also served a very important point--Asgore returning to life, that mistake being fixed upon his fall gave Gaster something to hold onto.  Something that made his fate not as awful as it otherwise would have been.  A small piece of solace in hell.  

Plus, Gaster’s guilt at the incident caused him to resign as Royal Scientist, further allowing him and Alphys to have their separate stories. 

And pretty much everything snapped together at that point.  Really, strangely well.  I joked before on this blog if I’m really the one writing it.

If Gaster had not killed Asgore, he would have never created Sans and Papyrus, he would have never created the DT Extractor blueprints; if he did not create the blueprints, he would have never been distracted enough to fall into the CORE, if he never fell into the CORE, the blueprints would have never ended up with Alphys, she could have never created Flowey, and if Flowey was never created, he could have never used the souls to break the barrier and the True Pacifist ending would have never come to pass.  

It all happened exactly as it had to.

It feels oddly poetic, given the way Undertale works.  

In some ways, it’s cruel.  Gaster regularly struggles with the idea that for his people to be happy, he had to literally be wiped out of existence.  But in other ways, it’s a comfort--for at least he knows that his suffering wasn’t for nothing.  That there was a purpose--that even if he had to be erased, he played a vital role in ensuring his people found victory. 

Oh.  One final note...  In finalizing this story, you may notice that Gaster follows a classic pattern.  We have a hero, who’s mostly good, but through his own flaws makes a tragic mistake and seals his own grim fate.

It’s called a tragedy and they’re common in Greek plays.

What was that about a chorus again?

I think that’s just about every important point I could cover.  That being said, if you couldn’t tell, this is a very fascinating topic to me, so if you have any further questions or need any clarifications, feel free to send them in.  

[vaguely-concerned]

Twisted Fate/Graves thoughts 2 Electric Boogaloo because none of you can stop me

and I just have a lot of feelings okay

- t.f. taking an entire paragraph mid-fall during a harrowing life or death chase to give you the context for how much the imminent destruction of his boots is a  tragedy is the funniest and most endearing character detail and also irrefutable proof that despite appearances he, too, really does only have that half a brain cell, it simply pingpongs around in there much more than graves’ half (which instead finds one idea and GOES HARD for it no matter what lol bless him)   

also his pov is basically just a flippant ‘well this is a goddamn bitch of an unsatisfactory situation’ until graves literally forces him to have an honest emotion at gunpoint, and y’know... that be what love feels like sometimes when you’re like that as a person, extremely relatable, I feel for him so much

- I’m still just quietly astounded by the hmmm... implied intimacy? I guess? in the argument they’re having once they’re actually talking in burning tides. let’s look at what they’re actually saying to each other:     

T.F.: “Are you ever gonna learn? . . . Every time I try to help you, I-” and “ I tried to get us out. The rest of us saw the job was going south . . . But you wouldn’t back down. You never do.”

vs.

Graves: “You’ll run again. That’s all you’ve ever done.” and “You made out alright, though . . . You know why? It’s because you’re a coward. And nothing you’ll ever say can change that.” 

like them’s the sort of fraught fighting words you have with a spouse right towards the end of an ugly divorce, the full fruitless ‘why do you always have to --’ and ‘but you never listen to me!!!’ deal, especially from graves’ side lol. it’s the sort of hurtful you can really only be with someone you’ve been very, very close to, someone you know incredibly well. considering the whole backstory what graves is essentially saying here is ‘It’s your own fault people have left you; you deserve to be alone’.

(interestingly, in twisted fate’s pov it seems that what’s really messing with him is the part of not being listened to. he tried to plead with his family and they refused to listen, he tried to convince graves to run away with the rest of them and he didn’t listen, and here they are again and graves isn’t listening  a g a i n  and at that point t.f. clearly just sort of. gives up on actually being heard, in a slightly heartbreaking way. and from how graves reacts to seeing that I really think he’s not naturally cruel like that at all, he’s just in too much pain to think until this startles him out of it and then he does actually listen)

- through both stories graves is so desperately, enduringly horny for t.f. to be emotionally present and engaged with him without slipping away into his ~*cool magic gambler*~ persona and I find it weirdly sweet 

- graves immediately getting fond of this leaky battered old rowboat... hfsadkjfhasd he’s sort of adorable in a way? it’s also really cute how he’s got this really tight focus on tf and his mannerisms and how genuine he’s being at any given moment. it’s such a neat way to show what he’s feeling and thinking about, which must be hard with a character who’s so massively oblivious to the finer points of his own inner life lol  

ALSO can we talk about how tf literally winks at him at one point, right after they’ve sort of had a little moment of regained trust... like my good sir that is so deeply unnecessarily saucy of you, please control yourself (though in his defense graves somehow still isn’t picking up what he’s putting down so y’know maybe subtle isn’t the way to go here anyway haha)

- I wonder if t.f. used to go by his initials even before he changed his name -- graves calls him by it straight off the bat in burning tides and t.f. seems to consider his real name mildly embarrassing lol. (also intriguing that he does appear to think of it as his ‘real name’, and not ‘old name’ or something like that. it’s why I feel like we’ve got more of a dual identity going on here than a deadname situation, it feels more like two distinct levels of emotional vulnerability/availability to me. and so ‘tobias’ stops being relevant when there’s no one left to know him as that. ow.)    

- from reading his bio it seems like twisted fate has had to figure out a lot of the magic stuff on his own (except for the mention of his grandpa teaching him the fortune telling part of it -- seems like they had a bit of a special connection, really, if him leaving his old cards with the kid before they left is anything to go by). what I’m saying is that I would read thousands upon thousands of words of him experimenting with it when they were younger and graves hurriedly having to topple a table over and pull them both behind it for cover before they both explode lol 

(and then t.f. popping his head up afterwards like ‘hAH see I TOLD you I could do it!’ and graves disconsolately lighting a cigar from the burning rubble b/c the things one does for love partnerships huh)

- I’ve been looking over burning tides with a writing eye a few times to figure out what makes it work so well for me, and one of the things I really like is that there are a lot of small comments/details that are there or are framed in a certain way specifically to emphasize the familiarity and history between the characters. Just small details like He moves fast for a big man. I’d forgotten that and graves mentioning he’s never liked standing too close when t.f. does the teleporting thing -- not to mention t.f.’s name reveal, which if I understand this correctly was actually new information to the readers when burning tides was going on. (and yes it is still very funny to me that his actual name is tobias. the duality of man)   

(I also feel like there are HUGE differences in writing quality between the different POV sections -- I guess different people wrote for the different characters? Well, both of the first person sections are gold and that’s what matters to me in this story so I don’t really mind. Sadly the Miss Fortune parts read the weirdest and stiffest to me, which is unfortunate b/c I love her lore concept a lot and she’s so cool in double double-cross. WHO the fuck let an unironic ‘the crimson-haired siren’ slip through the edit, is what I really want to know. please, narrator, tell me about her cerulean orbs while you’re at it) 

- The man I used to know seems lost under years of hatred.

I don’t try to say anything else. I can see it in his eyes, now. Something’s broken inside of him.

still makes me SO SAD and I’m incredibly happy it turns out not to be true in the end thank GOD

- this might just be me reading into stuff too much, but I really like this sense that in moments of high emotion/genuine vulnerability, graves tends to sound older and more tired while t.f. sounds younger than he actually is, more frightened and hurt

- if his mind hadn’t been completely focused on partner-rescuing and open murder were in any way his style, t.f. totally could have killed gangplank right there and then before miss fortune even got to blow the fucker up haha. then again if that were the sort of guy he were he’d be dead along with all the rest of them

- it’s so good that graves tries to save miss fortune’s guy before they leave the cave but also isn’t broken up about it when it turns out he can’t, that feels like such a correct encapsulation of his moral character haha

- I really do enjoy graves’ POV so much not just because there’s something immensely comforting about how he refuses to be scared even in the face of death because he’s too damn grouchy and won’t give the world the satisfaction, but also because the language/cadence is so satisfying. he does have a way with words, in a gruff non-flashy sort of way.

It smells like the end of everything – sulfur and ash and death; cooked hair and melting skin -- the rhythm of that is so gooood and that whole section conveys the horror and destruction but also the awe of the scene so well. (I’m telling you graves isn’t actually dumb at all, just astoundingly unbendingly single minded once he’s got an idea in his head lol) 

- I keep thinking about the fact that the last two things twisted fate thinks about before he passes out from drowning is if graves is scared and ‘What would Malcolm do?’ and I’m feeling real 😭😭😭 about it

- I’m still so disproportionately intrigued by graves mentioning his mom in burning tides. considering how early and seemingly easily he left home (...not to mention that he brings her up in connection with someone punching him in the face) it might be a safe bet that they weren’t that close but like. she also seems to be one of the very very few non-revengy things he’s checked up on after getting out of prison. did he send money home sometimes? would he visit whenever they came back to bilgewater? did she ever meet t.f. and if so did she approve or was this a bit of a uncharmable mother in law from hell situation? I um. I want to know these things pls riot it’s for science

.

(First post is over here btw, if anyone’s interested!)

[deamabilisworld]

My struggle with gender, philosophy and feminism

During my army days I was fascinated in metaphysics. This is what sort of got me into mathematics and philosophy. They are really intertwind topics. However, I gradually shown interest in philosophy of gender.

I can think of multiple reasons for that:

On an analytic stand point, partially under the influence of daoism, the dualic image of things appealed to me. I’ve grown convinced in the idea that there are two negating views of the world and we must accet both as living beings. It was convenient, like many of the old world writers, to assign them to the concept of gender. Not as attached to sex. Human beings developed a lore under the concept of duality, and attached to sex the idea of gender which relates to this duality. The polar genders (and whats between them) seem engrained in many cultures and especially western lore, and it has influence on the way we preceive the world.

This sort of lead me to the second reason: While philosophy historically attempted to create an impersonal frame of mind, one of pure logos, being, godliness which would rationalize basically everything, there was also this frame which attempts to understand things from the personal, from context and from emotional connection to them.

And of course, the fact that I am transgender made me think about gender a lot. As I read more I realized how useful philosophy is to rationalize these thoughts. Being transgender is not only a personal emotion, it is highly rationally justified when you understand the analysis of language, culture etc. 

Sidenote: no, philosophy doesn’t mean only ‘post modernism’ and def not ‘illogical’. I should write on the topic at some point, but most of my reading focused on the british or ‘analytic’ philosophy which really attempted to ground itself on mathematics (as the root of language) and science. At first, because like most of us, I believed in medicalism and biology as the root of all knowledge, evolutionary psychology and all, and then gradually discovered both from the empiric standpoint and the philosophical standpoint how unsound this position is, as I progressed through reading of the analytic tradition (and read my loverboy, Wittgy).

Anyway, back to present day Emma.

The Rowling incident resulted in a major split in the feminist movement in Israel. What happened basically was this: The Slut Walk in Israel started off by queer anarchists. One of its major leaders was a queer trans woman with a beard called Dan Vag. TERFs and liberal feminists really didn’t like the idea and put a lot of pressure and shaming against the Slut Walk.

Dan Vag committed suicide after this atrocies public shaming. Since she was a source of inspiration to the queer anarchists, her death broke the community down. The new leaders of the Slut Walk, or more specifically the Tel-Aviv Slut Walk were mostly cis women, both TERF and liberal (along side, began a mass marketing movement of the walk, a lot of social media coverage, association with major political figures and of course: capitalization from the walk by selling t shirts and merch).

The topic declined in the following years until Rowling raised her ugly head which raised the awareness that the feminist circles in Israel are not safe for trans and bisexual women. This brought a major split within the movement. The Slut Walk currently is much more gay (lead by a lesbian woman, open to trans people) and yet still very liberal (though not libertarian, they sided with the TERF circles).

Anyhow, thing is, that though trans were outcasted from feminist circles before, it was always more subtle and manipulative. The Rowling incident made everything louder and more exposed. Which is a good thing. It finally opened a discussion which should have occured years before. So... I guess... thank you Rowling for being such a dumb, vicious person.

Thing is, while there is much good intention, most of the discussions are made using Facebook which is sort of shit for discourse. I should note, we have many doctors and academics who were willing to take the time and write very serious posts about the matter (sadly no rational argument or post from any figure with knowledge supporting the TERF side, almost as though it is mostly a load of rubbish and they repeat the same dumb arguments over and over again), but seeing as though they are mostly posted in Facebook, most people don’t come to contact with the information and it is quickly forgotten. Plus, most of the discourse on Gender Theory within our circle remains very... undergrad and below level.

Enters ol’ narcissist me. People pushed me for some time, and I thought about it myself, of preparing a YouTube video about the topic. But I had two major issues:

A. I wished to cover the TERF side as unbiased and maturely as possible

B. I wished to bring something new and insighting to the table and not repeat the abundant information that is avaiable everywhere (which TERFs don’t seem to read or be able to understand God knows why).

Ben Shapiro’s gender video was just translated to Hebrew, and I prepared a script for it but I felt bad replying to such an idiot. While he argues similar things to many TERFs, I don’t see value in replying to them because none of his points holds up to scrutiny more then 5 sec.

I was actually insulted. They are willing to hold extremely lazy believes, that are so easy to debunk, and not think for even 5min about the people who are hurt by that. They are not the ones who are hurt by their views and I can see why thinking about these topics places them in inconvenience so I guess it doesn’t matter for them. You know... the banality of evil and all that.

But then I remembered I studied Deleuze during the last summer vacation, and I remember his view on Science in Desert Island which intrigued me, specifically with relation to intersex.

Specifically, the fact that science attempts to induct from cases to general theories, and then apply them to different phenomena, implies that science would attempt to enforce sameness and eliminate differences. Thus, for instance, by creating the binary presentation of sex, intersex become an anomaly for the theory, which is either ignored or regularly supposed to be contained in one of these two categories for convenience. Likewise, statements as 'Women have property X' don't fully describe which category has property X: people of similar sex hormones balance, people with a certain genetic markup, people with a female or male anatomy etc. Thus the description increases our underdeterminancy and raises the issue of under-diagnosis in trans and intersex people.

I also saw a rescent video which made me think about this issue further:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcOhfOrz0HM

And I had many thoughts:

It’s an interesting take on the issue, it can demonstrate many of the things people don’t understand about sex and gender in an easy to follow manner, Deleuze is a very sexy man and it would be a great opening video about the binary view on sex.

Anyhow, this got me excited.

I mailed a few of my professors, some professionals I know for Deleuze and stuff, one of them was even interested in making it a complete research with me about Deleuze and gender (apparently, not a topic discussed enough cause everyone is at the other party, parising Foucault for the same shit over and over again while forgetting that Deleuze guy who was a serious golden boy).

Anyhow, I’m excited about that.

[dafukdidiwatch]

The Happening

When titles like “The Event” were already taken.

tw: will mention different types of suicides, will start/end paragraph with tw

So....that happened. Ha, I’m hilarious.

I don’t know if this is cheating or not, but for a while I would watch reviews of movies I haven’t seen or read the wikipedia plot for movies I don’t care to see to get the story without actually seeing the film. And The Happening just happened to be one of them. So I knew from the beginning what the twist was.

But what I forgotten from those reviews was how dead and robotic the actors where.

Overview: In New York City and all over the Northeast of the U.S, people are performing mass suicide in a daze. Fearful for his family, high school teacher Elliot flees with his wife, friend, and friend’s child to avoid the catastrophe, unaware that the danger is all around them.

Let’s get the elephant in the review out of the way first otherwise it’s gonna be on my mind all the time.

Plants did it. I knew that the Plants did it. It was the only thing that I actually retained from my review watching habit. And you know what, when I heard it I knew it was going to be stupid. They came up with some psudo-science bullshit about plant pheramones being so so strong that it affects the self-preservation part of our brains to make us want to kill ourselves. Like, this is just so easy to pick apart with basic scientific and logic.

The thing is that I don’t care.

I’ve seen bad anime with worse logical reasoning for having the plot happen. Like evil virus that only affect men so there’s like 10 guys left on the planet filled with women. Or waking up on an island via LOST style and having to fight off against giant insects. So I get it. The reasoning of “who did it” or “how did this happened” doesn’t really matter in the context of the movie. The plant thing is dumb, but it is something that I can understand people ignoring it to just enjoy the movie.

The Problem is that the rest of the movie is boring as shit.

tw The beginning of the film, Very Beginning, it was interesting. It had me by my seats. People are killing themselves, that’s pretty fuck up. And the movie doesn’t hold back in how fucked up it was. Seeing people just calmly in a daze just stab themselves in the neck with their own hair pin? Like, I had to take a step back. Was not expecting that shit at all. It certainly sets the mood, though I don’t know why they do this...backwards walking thing before they die. To show them being rewired? But my favorite part was with the construction workers dealing with people jumping off the building. That was really emotional to me. You just see the heartbreak during this slowburn of one person jumping, then another, then just 30 in one go. It went from sad to horrific in a great way. tw

TOO BAD it was freaking undercut by Matt Wallburg’s science class which killed ALL MOOD that was set up.

You CAN’T set up a thriller movie with the actual scary thing happening, only for the main character to just....completely ignore it/not know it for a long ass time! It ruins the whole thing!!

Like, HINTS!!! HINTS ARE A THING!! I thought you were supposed to be good at subtly Shyamalan! 

Ok, so here’s a quick sidebar. Train to Busan. Great movie. Go watch it. Same director as Parasite. It’s about surviving the zombie apocalypse on a train. Highly recommended. But the thing with THAT movie, is that we get Hints that the zombies exist in the beginning. We get some information that there could be danger, but we don’t SEE the actual zombies until it is too late.

HERE, we SEE people literally off themselves in some very realistic ways. You can’t expect me to mood shift that fast to Matt Wallburg just casually teaching about the death of nature and bees! That kills the mood! And makes the main cast look like an idiot because WE know what’s going on, but THEY DON’T!! It’s hard to feel connected to the main characters when we know more than they do.

And these characters SUUUUUUUUCK!

Matt...you stink. If I have to judge your acting career based on this movie, I will never watch anything with you in it again. He’s just so boring! And Dull! Everything he says sounds like a blank empty husk of a man. He has the worst reactions to Everything around him. Like a woman accuses him of killed her in her sleep (which is a bizarre scene anyway) and we get THIS

God he’s the worst! And this dull-ass line-reading bleeds to every other character!

Apparently her name is actually Alma. And here I thought that it was Emma. Doesn’t matter, did not give a shit about her. I really couldn’t give a shit about the romance. At all. Like, not one ounce. I was actually rooting for them to get a divorce that was so how uninvested I was in them. They are both bland. The whole thing hinged on them working things out and not emotionally cheat I guess, but it just seemed like Emma was getting worked up over Nothing. She ate cake after work with a coworker. Alright. You see her getting calls from him and when she does answer saying “no I love my husband it was just cake we had nothing between us” except it was just the guy talking about all the bad shit happening in whatever area he was. So, again, she just blew things up all out of proportion here.

Then the children....the little child Jess gets a pass. She’s not the greatest, but she’s a tiny child. There’s a lot more things to worry about than her acting. Like the other teen boys they meet while escaping, Jake and John. They have them randomly show up as part of their small group. Only for the Next Scene for them to be killed. Like, what the fuck movie? There’s dramatic tension, then there’s just bad writing.

Most of this is just a bunch of bad tiny plot decisions like....why the fuck did they add this in the movie? Just a lot of them trying to add in characterization...but it falls flat so so bad. Humor of Matt talking to a plastic plant? Lame. Trying to distract a person from horrors with a math problem? Possibly could have worked if they actually had any personality of a rock. Matt talking about how he...I guess was thinking of emotionally cheating on his wife with a pharmacist but was just lying.....just why??

Hotdog Man who first said it was the plants to begin with? He actually gets a pass. The hotdog thing is weird as fuck but he seems like the ONLY genuine actual human in this movie. I like Hotdog man. He was just trying his goddamn best.

Then different moments of trying to add tension when there shouldn’t really be? Like...some random ass hyper tension of Matt walking into a room that just has a doll? And I guess it is to...MAYBE imply that the old woman is nuts and thinks the doll is actually her daughter? That’s a bit of a stretch coming from me, but that’s all I got for why that scene exists. But that was soooo unneeded, unnecessary, no purpose to the plot for ANY REASON! Like, just....it’s shit like this that’s bad.

Look, Disaster Films need 2 things for it to work: A) showing the destruction that the disaster is causing, and B) Showing people trying to survive through said destruction. The Happening has a decent pass for the 1st part, mostly. The suicides are creative and disturbing. Just seeing people randomly grabbing the nearest thing to passively kill themselves does make you step back. Like driving through a street where people hung themselves. Or watching 30 people jump off of buildings. Or a guy sees a nearby lawn mower and just lays down before him. (The one where a dude just sits down casually to cut himself with glass, really fucked me up).

It’s the second half that needs work. None of these guys seem to give any actual human responses to that’s going on, whether it was the main cast or any of the side characters. It was like the movie was trying to make everything high tension and that comes off forced, boring, and bizarre.

Overall: I was not a fan of this movie. Did not like this movie one way or another. There was so much bad in it, but not in the fun bad. Just bad bad. The only two good things I liked were the Hotdog Man and the beginning scene with the construction workers. That’s it, and it does not save the movie.

If you want something similar to this that is a little better, try Cell by Stephen King. Instead of Plants it was Cell Phone reception. Just as ridiculous but a lot more heartfelt and frightening that whatever this mess was.

[philalethistry]

WELP my birthday month was a bit of a rollercoaster ride. I thought about the cons of posting this but I’d like to record it, so that future me can look back and, depending on how the future goes, either feel validated or be glad that this is over. Warning: discussion of crappy mental health.

TL;DR Breakdown results in will to live and fuck current events I have a recliner

I’m going to start with today, Sept. 1, and work back, for reasons.

Today I drove to a furniture thrift store. This doesn’t sound like much, but I A. hate driving, especially to new places, B. am already in a pretty anxious state, and C. I got lost because the road I wanted to turn on wasn’t marked, nor looked like a road rather than an alley, and so I somehow spent two hours trying to find one store. (At one point I had to stop and get something to eat because I had started shaking. The cashier watched me struggle to free two bills from my wallet and then declined the change I owed her to avoid making me retrieve that too. I wonder if she thought I was high...)

The important thing about what I did today, is I went out to find the store, and even when I did not find the store and ended up circling back to my street, instead of going home and having a sandwich and watching Youtube, I turned around again. I know it’s partially because of this video’s explanation of why one gets more nervous trying to do something a second time after procrastinating or running away from it, as I’d always pin the anxiety on my guilt, instead of a fear instinct which is more managable. But I’m going to give dopamine where dopamine is due and also say that my eventual victory was partially because of the newfound strength I have in the aftermath of the freak mental storm that enveloped the start of August.

I know that no one is doing “””okay””” right now, because of Everything, and that is nicely validating, because I am not okay either. But it’s dissonant, because I’d often follow the lead of neurotypicals and high-functioning depressives and anxious people when I’m in a bad way. If THEY say things aren’t as hopeless as I think they are, they probably aren’t! While that helped, it also downplayed my brain issues, and now that everyone has the same opinions on the State of Things, I realized I didn’t have any idea of how to confront the bad shit on my own, and neither does anyone else.

I’m technically still quarantining by refraining from making a lot of trips out and from getting a job, and so the murky pea-soup fogs of the future unsettle me. I was pretty chipper for the larger part of quarantine, as an introvert. Then one day, the thought suddenly occurred to me of the sheer amount of time I’ve spent in quarantine, how COVID isn’t receding from Arizona, how I had to quit the first job I’d gotten in the face of anxiety and depression, of how much of my future rests on the coming election, and most of all of how I have no idea what my future holds, of where I’ll be five or ten years down the line. “In the same place” and “Somewhere else” seem equally intimidating.

And then hormones struck.

I’ve had bad depressive episodes; I’ve had bad days of anxiety; I’ve had bad PMS; and then I’ve simply indulged unhealthy negativity. All of these, combined, made for a surreal and frightening experience. Emphasis on surreal. Also, contextually, emphasis on frightening, obviously. There were many feelings. Emphasis on everything.

My mental space may be a mess but I’ve never been too concerned with dwelling on life and death, even when faced with the latter. It’s never been a point of any interest to me; in the face of mortality I’m pretty good at giving importance to the present moment and to my internal values, like “science cool,” “mocha good” and “drawing fun.” In fact since childhood (third grade. Is this a normal third grader thing??) I’ve been a fan of cheerful nihilism, IE “There isn’t a secret meaning to the universe therefore I can give it any meaning I can make! Anything is possible, things are great!” I didn’t really grasp the concept behind existential dread, it sounded like something that happened to movie characters when the writers didn’t know how else to portray angst. Oh boy, do I have a new emotion I won’t be able to forget. My natural disaster of a brain supplied me, among everything I was already experiencing, three (3!!!) different categories of existential crisis. I had to look it up. And the weird thing about this Satan’s asscrack of an episode, is that while I’m prone to spiraling rumination, normally I can distract myself, because it’s still just me, thinking unhelpful thoughts. This time, these thoughts, the shittiest thoughts I’ve ever had the displeasure of producing, were automatic. I was not getting stuck pondering one bad topic; everything I saw became, in real time, entangled in the web of thought pattern in the most natural way. And it was LOUD.

Have you ever thought, “I’ll sit on the couch, the couch is comfy. The couch did not exist until a few years ago, its lack of existence had no impact on anything in any meaningful way, and when it turns to dust it will be forgotten.” Because I myself had a teensy bit of an inkling that maybe that ain’t normal. The thing is, I knew I was only feeling this way because, well, I Was Feeling That Way, it’s just the mood; but being stuck in isolation, and with everyone else also troubled by issues of the past, the present and the future, knowing that didn’t help.

I can remain in a depressive / anxious state for a little while, but the actual peaks only last at most a couple of hours. This was Mt. Everrest AND it lasted a week and a half. I was at the end of my rope a day in and had no idea what to do about it, so I tried to do everything. The physical present felt empty, so I tried to fill it with media, literature, art, walks, family time. Problem is, “anhedonia” - a symptom of depression where you don’t get dopamine boosts from activities - cuts pleasure out of these things, so nothing held my interest, let alone made me feel motivated or remotely better. Another symptom of depression, weirdly enough, is the feeling of disgust - I wasn’t conscious of this symptom until it was magnified. I felt completely and utterly repulsed by everything around me. I first thought it was the clutter, then the way the furniture was arranged, then I thought I’d been inside too long so I took walks in the neighborhood when nobody was out. The confusion came when I disliked the trees, grass, and fresh air too - I had to Google my feelings to find out what the heck was going on.

Which brings me to my bedroom. My room is littered with memorabalia, I’m sentimental so I have little shrines of items from the past and of things I value. Some childhood toys and a handful of old trinkets, shelves dedicated to Pokemon and Neil Gaiman’s work, some references to Chicago and Polish heritage. My unhappiness with the situations of the present, while strengthened to an totally unnecessary degree, weren’t all inaccurate - and in combination with anhedonia and disgust, and the way I’d integrated this memorabalia into my sense of self even though they aren’t really relevant to me anymore, I found that I really really didn’t like my past or reminders of it. In a shocking unpredicted turn of tables, I no longer wanted to uphold who I once was, because it isn’t who I am now, and it’s not who I want to be.

And the revulsion of the past and the uncertain emptiness of the present culminates in a future that I feared, another emotion booted up to eleven. There was a big need to make my future and remake myself. The only places left comfort could be found were ones I hadn’t yet looked. At the same time I became sad in a powerful but vague way and desperately lonely - this part was definitely all the feral hormones - and I became obsessed, for a little while, with making sure that, when quarantine ends, I would get my social life in order. I preemptively joined groups and clubs in my local area online, which I’m still going to make good on later but maybe not to the all-encompassing extent I had in my mind at the time. Also, career hunting. (Also also, to combat a lack of control, I wanted to get my own place - but with the economy like That, and my ass like This, big alone time while also being very poor and probably overworked is not the best of ideas.)

So. The freak episode ended. And I knew. Both during. And afterwards. That I Do Not Want That to Happen Again. To put it lightly. So now I’m trying to find an antidepressant that works for me. I’ve been medicated for three weeks now. Lower anxiety, not many mood swings, but still anhedonia, and the aftertaste of existential dread which will forever haunt me. I’m completely overhauling my bedroom, because it was messy anyway and has basically looked the same since forever which can’t be good for my mental health. So there’s going to be new bedsheets (chocolate), new curtains to kill sunlight because while I enjoy it outdoors it makes the room feel exposed since the window is groundlevel and faces the street, a whole ass recliner thrifted for only 20 bucks(!) to go in a brand new study corner along with a nice aggressively patterned brown rug, and finally the grody offwhite walls will be repainted a warm inviting brown that was named “spiced cinnamon.” No matter what happens, I look forward to spending the winter in the study, invoking a cozy comfort the Danes call “hygge,” and hopefully building my gallery or participating in my interests, including fandom, in another way. And, once my budget allows it, getting some fucking therapy, what the fuck.

[mcrmadness]

I was tagged by @cupcakecurl a while back (thank you!) and finally I’m on the mood for doing this myself as well!

Rules: tag 9 people you’d like to get to know better!

Top 3 current ships: I actually have just one OTP, which is Bela/Farin (aka FUB) from Die Ärzte, and then multiple smaller ones here and there. I’m finding new ships way too easily and sometimes it bugs me because I meant to enjoy a thing and boom, suddenly I have a ship there to fuck up with my brain. B/F is pretty much the only ship that I can say to actually ship, the rest are more like just for fun, I enjoy seeing stuff but I don’t really do anything about it, you know?

But now as I think of it, I think of it, I could say another band ship here: Paulchard aka Paul Landers and Richard Z. Kruspe from Rammstein, about these I have also watched videos and read some fancomics too and last summer’s tour was a wild one and I was following the events quite a lot.

And then maybe I could throw one fictional ship here too as it’s pretty much current one since I just finished watching the 5th season of Gotham last week, and that is, of course Nygmobblepot aka Penguin/The Riddler aka Oswald Cobblepot/Edward Nygma. I’ve never in my life shipped these before, even tho I’ve been a Batman fan since 1999 (I was 8) as I saw the 60s series on TV and I can remember almost shipping Batman and Robin back then, and I was only 8 years old!, and then had been watching the movies more or less during my childhood, but this was never something I’d even think of before I started watching Gotham and things started happening in the show. But it’s an interesting one. And I have to admit that while the show was still running and I couldn’t watch it because I live in Europe (and was too lazy to look for a website to watch it :D), I was still browsing the tag on Tumblr after each episode and giving myself spoilers of what happens with them. But I think the ending was a lot different than what I thought based on the Tumblr posts, and I’m actually not sure what to think of it. Imho it was not as bad as everyone else seemed to think.

I’m putting this under a read more link as this is getting way too long and I don’t know if people are interested in reading my weird thoughts about ships and other random stuff, so here you go... 

Top 3 all-time ships:  Oh my gosh, I have had so many but only like 2 actually strong ones? And I have to say Bela/Farin here as well, the reasons are found from above and I’m just so obsessed with them and idc what it is, already the friendship is like friendhip goals, you know? But yeah, I’ve been making videos about these two idiots for like last 10 years so... :D

And the next one, okay I’m usually not so talkative about ships. I can talk about them with people in private but I don’t like to go and shout about them publicly, probably the only one I talk about this way is Bela/Farin but it’s because Tumblr is a safe place for this and there’s no hate with this ship or anything (and the other one is Paulchard, every now and then I will reblog something that crosses my dash). But mainly I like to keep ships to myself and like I said in that other tag game post, ships are more like a guilty pleasure. Maybe because of my age as it was very normal at the age of 15 but now as I’m 28? Why am I still “in love with other people’s love”? I actually don’t mind it but I think many people would find it weird, especially when I don’t read fanfictions anymore and I don’t want to imagine anything, I just like seeing cute stuff, but with many ships I don’t even want to see too much, I just like seeing them being close but with many ships even seeing them kiss would be too much.

But anyway, top 3 all-time ships... I think I need to mention here a ship that I was very much obsessed when I was 15-17, that I wrote LOTS OF fanfiction and was there to make lots of fan theories and all, and that one was Frerard aka Gerard Way/Frank Iero from My Chemical Romance. I was SO obsessed it’s insane. If you know anything about MCR and Frerard, you maybe are aware of how was the year 2007 and you can probably imagine how crazy we all went when Project Revolution stuff happened. So yeah, I need to mantion that here even tho I no longer “believe in this ship”, but I guess I’d lie if I said, that I didn’t believe that there was something there back in the day. I’ve actually recently been watching some Frerard theory videos just for fun, because there’s so many things I had forgotten and so many things I still can remember, but also lots of stuff that I kinda missed because they happened in 2010-2012, and even tho I was still very much in the fandom and I was to their second gig in Finland in 2011, I still was not that much into the Danger Days album so I was not so into digging up stuff either. And I had my own identity crisis and Die Ärzte had been my favorite band for 1-2 years at that time so I was spending lots of time watching DÄ videos, so MCR was kinda at the background. And then the whole band went quiet for some time until they quit in 2013 (and now they’re back), so all that Frerard hype kinda died after each of them started to get married to other people and the kids were born, so there just... kinda was no more room for the ship, you know? But Freard was my first actual huge slash ship, I’ve had others before it (for example, my first touch to slash fiction was Harry Potter fanfiction and of course Harry/Draco stuff, but that one also later died out), but it was the first really strong one and then Bela/Farin kinda took its place as Frerard died out but B/F has been going strong and the ship has been sailing itself since the 80s, so... :D

And as the last one I think I could again mention something fictional but at the same time something that is super weird for me as it’s not slash fiction but hetship, which is something REALLY weird for me. I usually don’t like heteroships as they’re just... boring and so cliché. But I need to mention this one that I got into when I was 15: Fox Mulder and Dana Scully from The X-Files. Yeah I know it was 2006 and the series had ended already in 2002, but I was a new fan! I had known about the series since I was a little kid as my dad was watching it back then, but I started watching it myself when the show had a rerun here in 2004-2005. And then I met my friend in 2006 when we were 15 and we found out that we both were very much into TXF and I remember how we somehow both started to ship Mulder and Scully (having no idea of how the series ended), and it was probably until the 6th season (there was 9 seasons at the time) when they stopped airing it altogether, so we were so furious about the fact because the last episode was such a cliffhanger and we NEEDED TO KNOW, so I had to buy them on dvd! So I remember how we would meet at school every day and after every episode, we went so crazy, discussing what had happened in the episode and if there was any Mulder/Scully activity, we were just so hyped :D And then, as we STILL hadn’t seen all the seasons, we went to see the second movie (”TXF: I want to believe”) in theaters in 2008 or so, and it’s set to happen after the events of the seasons, we were both so blown away by what was in the movie because we had no clue :D Fun fact: I actually finished watching the 9th season only last year. So now I understand the events of the second movie a lot better, and I’ve also seen the 10th and 11th seasons so now I’m finally aware of everything. But that really is a hetship that I accept and that is not like a typical movie romance type of ship. It has interesting dynamics.

---

Last song: Tatuoituna by Tehosekoitin

Lipstick or chapstick: Chapstick, I don’t use any make-up, but chapstick I need to use daily.

Last movie: Iron Sky. I’ve seen it before tho, but we’re gonna watch the sequel soon, so we had to watch this to remember what happened :D (And it’s made partially by Finns, so..!)

Reading: Atm I have 3 books I’m reading, all of them in Finnish:

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which has all the short stories in one. But I think there’s some of the newer ones missing and that’s why I bought this bit newer book with more stories, and I’m gonna read those once I’m finished with this one. And I’ve been reading this now for years lol... but I’m slowly getting there, I’m already over halfway through :D

A collection of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories, I don’t know the name for this book and it doesn’t say any name for the original. This one I also started to read a years back, only to pause if for years and then last year I borrowed it again from my dad and tried to continue from where I was left the last time.

The Heroes of Olympus: The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan. I’ve been reading his books ever since I was a, well, teenager probably, and I have had a long pause with these books and reading overall, but now I’m back at it and trying to buy and read all of his books I still haven’t read.

I wanted to read the latter only after finishing with SH and Poe’s stories but I needed to read something and they’re bit too difficult reading at the times, and I needed something lighter but also didn’t want to start over with Harry Potter for the 5th time so I decided to go for this series instead. I really like reading SH and Poe’s stories, but like I said, they’re bit difficult at the times. You can’t just read them, you need to think and use your brains meanwhile you’re reading, and sometimes it’s just so incredibly hard to stay focused on it and I need to go back so often because I wasn’t paying attention and then had no clue what was happening and why.

And I sometimes I skip some of Poe’s stories because they’re so purely scientific about a topic that I cannot comprehend nor care about, e.g. this one story that was almost like a science essay about hot-air balloon flight in the form of a story, probably super interesting for someone who likes this kind of stuff and even more interesting for a writer interested in stuff like that, but I’m really not the target audience of that story :D But then there’s also lots of really interesting ones, I especially like the ones that have something to do with insanity. I guess people would call them as the horror stories, but idk, I just love that kind of mystery. For some reason all of my favorite stories are those where there is a dead woman/love interest :DD But probably my ultimate favorite is the one about writing an article to a magazine with horror stories, and how this guy become beheaded and all just to write a story about how it feels like and stays alive meanwhile, and I just LOVE IT when fictional works play with death and when something that is supposed to kill you, doesn’t, and I just love the idea of that story so much :D It’s just that you never know how a story will be like, as you start reading, is it a scientific essay or a mystery or a horror story or about insanity or what is it? And then when in the middle of reading and you realize this is bit boring or uninteresting, but still want to finish, but also want to skip, and that’s why I get stuck with that book, and I change to SH or something else. Often I also grab some of the comics (or non-fiction books) I own whenever I feel like reading but these books feel too heavy for that moment.

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I should tag 9 people but I don’t even know that many people to tag lol. Okay I do know people, but I still don’t know who wants to be tagged and who doesn’t. Maybe I’ll be boring and tag @stufenlosregelbar again? :D And idk, maybe @annika-of-the-lost? Eh, I’m so bad at this whole tagging thing. I’m having a bad conscience if I don’t tag anyone/enough people in case they want to be tagged and I can’t read minds; and then I’m having bad conscience when I DO tag people in case they’re all somewhere facepalming and screaming “WHYYYYYY” into the void, as I still can’t read minds. So you can choose, do this tag game or ignore it and ban me from ever tagging you people again, I don’t mind :p

[trewloves]

tag - who’m i

thanks to @fitzrove​ and @georgefancys​ for tagging me!!

name: ivy! (i actually have a given name that is not ivy but. i go by ivy lol)

nickname: i thought it was rlly funny when bex said a few of her friends call her b b/c a few of my friends from high school ALSO call me b

zodiac: cancer

height: close to 5′10″, but i wear heels a lot in both my professional contexts so that usually puts me in the 6′1″-2″ range

languages: mandarin chinese was my first and i can understand a lot of other dialects (mostly cantonese) without speaking, but obviously living in the states my whole life i have pretty much native fluency in english. i also used to know german (i had a private tutor from age 5-12 if i remember correctly) but i’ve pretty much forgotten all of it now, i speak pretty decent french (learned it for ib) and i’m studying dutch rn and also spanish bc i think it’s pathetic that i grew up in the southwestern united states and can barely speak spanish... lol

nationality: american!

favorite season: i think probably autumn because the weather’s the most temperate (i literally live in two of the places with the worst weather) and also i’m a hoe for autumnal colors

favorite flower: carnations!

favorite fictional character: god this is SO hard but like i will always love clara oswald from doctor who till the end of my days (and ofc special shoutout to my sweet baby peter jakes)

coffee, tea, or hot chocolate? i love them ALL but i will say working in a coffeeshop and making hot chocolate makes you less inclined to enjoy drinking it lol... i drink matcha lattes on the regular but i’ll always enjoy both coffee and tea

average sleep: i prefer the classic 7.5 but i usually get closer to 4. oof

dogs or cats: i like both but probably dogs

dream trip: i loved scandinavia and the benelux countries, they’re so beautiful, but i’ve never been to iceland so i’d love to go

blog established: i believe spring my junior year of high school, which would’ve been 2017?

random fact: i’m bleaching my hair right now. lol

gender: is a scam (but i consider myself a cis woman. lmao)

current time: 20.36

favorite artists: hayley kiyoko, hozier, and flor are the first ones that come to mind. i’m a closet camila cabello fan and also i love rina sawayama as well

stuck in my head: the same 4 bars from this piece i’m playing for wind ensemble smh

last movie i saw: i can’t really remember but i’m going to see portrait of a lady on fire on saturday!

last thing i googled: ‘tim longman international criminal tribunal rwanda’ because i’d read on my professor’s wikipedia page that he’d served as an expert witness so i was googling him during class (i’m obsessed with him and need him to adopt me)

other blogs: my main is chuckrussinks but i rarely post there anymore, i haven’t even updated my age lmao

do i get asks? once in a while which is really cute and nice!

reason for url: because i thirst. nonstop. for peter jakes

followers/following: 5,120 followers (most of them are from when i was a shameless supernatural hoe...sigh) and i’m following 128!

lucky number: 8

currently wearing: shorts and my pavement coffeehouse t-shirt

dream job: bruh i don’t even know anymore... i’m currently studying music, political science, and international governance (part of international relations) so we’ll see what happens. would love to go to grad school though and work for the EU since i’m very interested in the topic of european integration and regional organizations

favorite foods: i love all spicy food, but since i’m a western united states bitch i gotta say. in-n-out burger. i miss that shit so much

instruments: obvs flute, since i’m studying flute performance at university (i’ve been playing for 10 years now, shook). my first instrument was piano which i started 15 years ago and i’m still playing, just not studying privately anymore. i also played the bassoon in middle school (i know) and can sort of play violin poorly

favorite song: CRUEL SUMMER BY TAYLOR SWIFT IS AN ABSOLUTE DRIVE!!!

i can’t really think of anyone to tag who hasn’t already been tagged, and i’m lazy af, so if u’d like to just say i tagged u heh