#THE SYMBOLISM IN THIS IS MAKING MY BRAIN GO BRRRRRRR

[shubaka]

[wanderingblindly]

liquid my beloved!! 6, 12 & 20 for "cheating at bingo and other christmas traditions" (a new christmas CLASSIC) please!!

A CHRISTMAS CLASSIC I —

I have no words u are too kind 🥺🥰 but let’s answer some questions about Cheating at Bingo!!!!!!!!!

6. What do you need to write?

Non negotiable: Music that’s making my brain go brrrrrrr at the moment. For this fic, I listened to Last Christmas by Wham! over 200 times and — more embarrassingly — Watch Me Work from the goddamn trolls movie ((I was in an energetic slump))

12. Was there a scene you wanted to include but didn’t?

Yes!! Originally I was going to actually write their first date, aka ice skating in New York. I ended up scrapping that idea in favor of having more emotional vulnerability in their other scenes (bingo, tree shopping), because the progression felt more natural. Once I added more meat to those scenes, the date felt redundant and slow.

I also planned on having grandma Leclerc tell them to “stop flirting and just go on a date or whatever young folk do these days” during the tree decorating scene, but alas. It wasn’t meant to be.

20. What is something you wish more people noticed?

Honestly, this fic was designed to be very “brain off, heart open”, so there wasn’t any sort of deep symbolism I really wanted people to catch. The thing I’m glad people caught on to was the fact that — unlike a real hallmark piece — there was no misunderstanding/miscommunication plot line.

That was entirely on purpose! It felt totally contradictory to the characterization I had for Max (earnest, blunt, no secrets) and Charles (would have common sense beat into him by grandma). So I deleted that option from the jump lol

[alpaca-lad]

symbolism makes my brain go brrrrrrr

if i want to include potted carnations that are overflowing in their pot and covering a chair and use it as a source of conversation/banter between two characters to symbolize how character a’s admiration/love for character b is shielding her from some very obvious truths abt him then LET MEEEEEEEEE

CUZ IK THE ONE PERSON WHO GOES THE EXTRA MILE TO LOOK UP/KNOW FLOWER LANGUAGE WOULD PUT UT TOGETHER AND THEYD FEEL SMART GRRRRRRRRR

“Keep descriptions short and don’t use poetic/flowery language in a novel” “if a scene doesn’t advance the plot cut it” “avoid complicated symbolism and hinting at things, just say what you mean” “too much worldbuilding is distracting” bites you bites you bites you bites you bites y

[concerningwolves]

I special interested sooo hard today that I got choked up and tearful bc we visited the Norske Folkemuseum. They have reconstructed buildings from all over the country like farmhouses and logger huts, but the thing that got me was the stave church.

[Image description: a full size reconstruction of a historical Norwegian stave church. It is a tall building, primarily made of dark wood, with four roofed tiers that make it look a bit like four increasingly small buildings stacked atop one another. /End ID]

Just,, the way that Christian and pre-Christian symbolism is meshed together and incorporated into the architecture makes my brain go brrrrrrr. There's a medieval biblical mural inside and decorative carvings of Jormungandr on pillars outside (not pictured) and dragon heads on the topmost gables. It makes me need to lie down I love it so much. There are only 28 stave churches still standing in Norway iirc but they're a testament to how culture is about interwoven threads of history and how people still took time to Make Art even in such hard conditions. Most beloved

[pinkpuffballdude]

okay this is copy pasted from a series of discord messages I sent, just throwing my hat into the ring of Gay Pirate Analysis

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I read an analysis about. how a lot of showrunners/people in general thought that fandom just, didn't like canon queers, cause fans would fixate on shows like supernatural or avengers, or even non canon ships within queer shows (the example given was What We Do In The Shadows, where one character is confirmed to have at least had a relationship with another male character, but most of the fanworks are of him and a different dude)

and just. I keep thinking about their point of all the shows with queer subtext gave the fans something to obsess over, symbolism or small moments or whatever, while for the most part canon queer characters didn't. but in Our Flag Means Death, we have both. it's not about the ship being canon or not, inheriantly it's about how much symbolism and subtext can the viewer pull from any given scene with them

right. cause OBVIOUSLY Stede and Ed are Together, the showrunners have called it a romcom multiple times, but we also have scenes like "you wear fine things well" where Stede literally takes a red square and folds it into Ed's pocket, but metaphorically takes his fucking heart and holds it carefully, and gives it back. like.

simply based on how much I've written about this here, in my own channel where I can just Say Things, I think a lot of fic people and fan people are also literature nerds who LOVE analyzing a text, and when there is not only text to analyze but an explicit confirmation that yes, this was on purpose, you're allowed, that. brain go brrrrrrr

like when Im watching supernatural I can safely bet that none of the writers or showrunners set out to make Castiel and Dean's relationship as homoerotic as they did, and there's a very real chance that at any moment they could undermine it, or worse, the text itself could turn and mock me for reading too far into it

I don't ever feel that with ofmd. like. if you notice a thread and pull at it, the money's on the showrunners having put it there deliberately, and they will take great joy in the fact that you noticed