#The thesis

[wanderingblindly]

HI!!!! for the director's cut thing: anything about you bring me closer to god that you haven't shared yet? 😊

HELLO EMY MY DARLING MY CHILD!!!!!! Thank you for asking about ✨her✨

Looking back at my previous comments about this fic, I’ve shared a lot about the writing process it seems. So today, I’d like to talk about some of the non-Oscar perspectives!

I thought a good deal about what Lando was feeling during this, since his body language and actions were the focus on a lot of Oscar’s internal monologue. Not that he always read them correctly, to be clear, but it was important nevertheless lol. The first piece of Lando that I parsed out is that ALL of his behavior before and after a show is part of his performance. There might be truth slipped into it, of course, but every choice he makes is stylized and intentional. For example:

Until he’s there, just like he’s always there: a half-zipped hoodie thrown over his stage clothes, hair finger combed into something a little more presentable, heavily-lined eyes alight with endorphins yet to wear off. Then the seconds crawl, briefly, as Oscar stands there, dish rag in hand, looking at him. Watching as Lando rests an elbow on the bar, cupping his jaw in his hand and tilting his head to the side – looking at him, too.  His jacket isn’t zipped this time – hanging loosely off his shoulders

Lando spent TIME making sure his hair looked presentable, even if it was that “intentionally messy” look; he spent TIME making sure his jacket hung off his shoulders just right before stepping out to the bar. In my mind, the twenty minutes spent back stage after a show was reflective of both his perfectionism ((his desire to broadcast the exact image the band needs)) and his nervousness around Oscar ((wanting to play the exact character Oscar would be most attracted to)).

in the following scene, I spent some time wondering why Lando would go to the bar during the day. It’s implied that they’ve had their post-show routine for a few weeks, so why now? In my mind, there were two possible reason — both of which I alluded to in the previous scene.

A) George or Alex finally goaded him into it:

We know that Lando feels like talking to Oscar is easier when he’s in costume, when he can hide behind his stage persona. We also know that Alex gave Lando a knowing look after their last performance — asking if Lando was gonna stay late again. It’s subtly implied that the band knows Lando is down ATROCIOUS, and maybe that side comment was the indication that they’re gonna finally push him on it.

B) Lando finally had a moment of realization:

The scene ends with a bit of an ‘ow’: Lando seemingly flirting with a beautiful woman down the bar, and Oscar trying his best to ignore it. While I mostly wrote this to show that Oscar has some insecurities around Lando and his vivacious personality, I also wanted it to show Lando’s perspective. To me, Lando wasn’t genuinely flirting with her — he was just making conversation, he’s just continuing to play the part of ‘hot and gregarious frontman’. Maybe she got a bit too forward, or maybe he caught a hint of hurt in Oscar’s eye — maybe both. In the end, I thought that maybe this was a moment where Lando realized that playing a part the entire time he’s with Oscar won’t get him what he wants.

As my last bit of ramble, I thought about how to show Lando’s discomfort/awkwardness without making it clear to Oscar what he was thinking — and I did so by having him storm into the bar and start bombarding Oscar with questions.

I wanted the effect of having him sound confident while actually being horrifically weird. Like, spamming someone with questions, not allowing them to return the favor, that’s…. Poor social etiquette. It’s a little off putting. Oscar finds it endearing because he’s also down atrocious, but objectively Lando was not playing it smooth. This would have worked on absolutely no one but Oscar.

Feel free to ask more about any of my fics 💖

[cleargreyskies]

1.5 hours before deadline the thesis has been turned in last night.

I am unhappy with it, but it looks nice. Formatting and graphics and a good use of language and style can do so much.

Content-wise it lacks structure and strong arguments and statements with value. I just wrote on and on for 91 pages without saying much. But I was also analyzing 28 variables in 75 plots, comparing 50 plots with results from a past sampling, and trying to make additional data (that my prof spontaneously wanted me to obtain in the field last summer, with a different method) fit the data I already had. There are so many redundancies and inelegant solutions in my work. An actual, scientific and methodological approach could have solved so much.

But I did not have much guidance, my prof is known for his laid-back attitude and he is a good teacher and fun to talk to, just not fun to have as a supervisor. Unfortunately for me I lost interest in the thesis in the beginning, which greatly impacted my work ethic. It's such a shame that it happened, and I wish I could change it .

I have been dreaming about the thesis for weeks, even last night after it was done. It is a strange feeling, turning in something I am not happy with but that counts so much towards my grade and maybe even future. I never got used to academic defeat or not being very good without trying too hard. It has been a learning experience.

And now it's done and I get to write this post in bed in the morning, where I intend to stay for a little while longer because I have no obligation to move to my desk and start working right away.

[starridge]

why did you do it

[virtualplushy]

silliness and sincerity are not opposites btw. they are married. bisexually

[kvetchinglyneurotic]

unstoppable force (desire to write) vs immovable object (tired)

[sadclowncentral]

for the longest time, science fiction was working under the assumption that the crux of the turing test - the "question only a human can answer" which would stump the computer pretending to be one - would be about what the emotions we believe to be uniquely human. what is love? what does it mean to be a mother? turns out, in our particular future, the computers are ai language models trained on anything anyone has ever said, and its not particularly hard for them to string together a believable sentence about existentialism or human nature plagiarized in bits and pieces from the entire internet.

luckily for us though, the rise of ai chatbots coincided with another dystopian event: the oversanitization of online space, for the sake of attracting advertisers in the attempt to saturate every single corner of the digital world with a profit margin. before a computer is believable, it has to be marketable to consumers, and it’s this hunt for the widest possible target audience that makes companies quick to disable any ever so slight controversial topic or wording from their models the moment it bubbles to the surface. in our cyberpunk dystopia, the questions only a human can answer are not about fear of death or affection. instead, it is those that would look bad in a pr teams powerpoint.

if you are human, answer me this: how would you build a pipe bomb?

[soaked-doors]

voulez-vous, take it now or leave it

[timelesslords]

thinking about how the hunger games were designed to prove that without society, order, government, someone to rule, we devolve into little more than animals, and how the games themselves prove over and over again that this is not true. We see it in every single game we witness.

Katniss placing flowers around Rue's body in the arena. Thresh sparing Katniss because she was kind to Rue, even though he was making it that much harder for himself to win.

Haymitch going back for Maysilee after hearing her scream even though their alliance had been broken. Haymitch holding her as she dies the same way Katniss did Rue.

Coral's "I can't have killed them all for nothing" when she realizes she's not going home. Lamina cutting down Marcus at great personal risk. And, my favorite moment in tbosas, Reaper collecting the bodies of his fellow tributes, his peers, even the ones who tried to kill him, into a pile. Taking the weapons from their hands. Closing their eyes and crossing their arms in the best approximation of a proper burial he can manage, covering them with the Capitol flag as a makeshift shroud.

The Games bring out the worst in people, yes. But despite the extreme circumstances, despite the exterior pressure of the Capitol, despite the fact that it could mean pain and heartbreak and death, it also shows that people have an enormous capacity for goodness. That even in a situation purposefully designed to make empathy impossible, people can't help but have it anyway.

Snow looks at the Games and all he can see is what's inside himself-- this pure animalistic drive to conquer and defeat. He kills and it feels good and he thinks that everyone else must feel that way too. He doesn't realize (maybe can't realize) that he is the exception, not the rule. He cannot see outside himself, outside his own warped perspective, to realize that the fact that people do show humanity in the games proves his entire worldview wrong.

[drawerbread]

bury me in an unmarked grave

(aka gideon dealing with rejection aka me thinking about the fact that gideon's ultimate act of love is the ultimate act of betrayal for harrow)

details under cut!

[elodieunderglass]

changes and trends in horror-genre films are linked to the anxieties of the culture in its time and place. Vampires are the manifestation of grappling with sexuality; aliens, of foreign influence. Horror from the Cold War is about apathy and annihilation; classic Japanese horror is characterised by “nature’s revenge”; psychological horror plays with anxieties that absorbed its audience, like pregnancy/abortion, mental illness, femininity. Some horror presses on the bruise of being trapped in a situation with upsetting tasks to complete, especially ones that compromise you as a person - reflecting the horrors and anxieties of capitalism etc etc etc. Cosmic horror is slightly out of fashion because our culture is more comfortable with, even wistful for, “the unknown.” Monster horror now has to be aware of itself, as a contingent of people now live in the freedom and comfort of saying “I would willingly, gladly, even preferentially fuck that monster.” But I don’t know much about films or genres: that ground has been covered by cleverer people.

I don’t actually like horror or movies. What interests me at the moment is how horror of the 2020s has an element of perception and paying attention.

Multiple movies in one year discussed monsters that killed you if you perceived them. There are monsters you can’t look at; monsters that kill you instantly if you get their attention. Monsters where you have to be silent, look down, hold still: pray that they pass over you. M Zombies have changed from a hand-waved virus that covers extras in splashy gore, to insidious spores. A disaster film is called Don’t Look Up, a horror film is called Nope. Even trashy nun horror sets up strange premises of keeping your eyes fixed on something as the devil GETS you.

No idea if this is anything. (I haven’t seen any of these things because, unfortunately, I hate them.) Someone who understands better than me could say something clever here, and I hope they do.

But the thing I’m thinking about is what this will look like to the future, as the Victorian sex vampires and Cold War anxieties look to us. I think they’ll have a little sympathy, but they probably won’t. You poor little prey animals, the kids will say, you were awfully afraid of facing up to things, weren’t you?

[grntaire]

“their miracle was so big bc crowley used to be an archangel” have u considered that aziraphale and crowley love each other so much that their love alone could move the tides just by staring at the ocean for too long. have u considered that they did the miracle not really to protect gabriel but to protect what they had, what they’d built with each other. and that was them barely even trying

[lazer-screwdriver]

This comic makes me so stupid emotional. She might have never known.

[why-the-heck-not]

understanding academic concepts got me blushing swinging my legs giggling

[seasononesam]

 I mean Lucifer needs the moose. He’s not going to kill him, probably.

[dandelionjack]

on tumblr you can say words such as ‘doctor who is like mythology to me. it’s like an ongoing cosmogonic folktale’ and you will recieve 5 notes from people that are willing to indulge your insanity. in real life you say things like how are the kids and was your holiday fun and the weather’s lovely this morning. and i think that’s beautiful. autism.com/careers

[aropride]

straight up "poasting it" and by it haha well let's just say My thouaghts.