#analyzing fiction

[smallmartiniolive]

Thinking abt how Jurassic Park is like obviously abt chaos and the evils of mindless capitalism that destroys what it touches for a profit but also it’s abt the people you know? This is coming from the movie standpoint bc the book didn’t really check off the right boxes for me but the movies are just so inherently abt people and connection! To me

I’m gonna just give my thoughts abt mainly dinot3 bc they are something. So special. To me.

Imagine you’re Alan Grant, in love w dinosaurs and being in the field, ur at the top of your game and it doesn’t even matter as long as you get to study what you love. Then, unexpectedly! You get to share this passion and love w another person and part of you doesn’t understand why it works but that’s ok as long you get to dig up dinosaurs and be with her, Dr. Sattler (understandable

Imagine being Dr. Sattler and always chasing after something and wanting more. You find the love of your life and he doesn’t hold you back at all, he’s perfect! You both thrive in your own lanes! You get on a helicopter to who knows where and you meet this exciting new guy, you don’t love him, not like Grant but he’s exciting and new and you feel like he sees you for something you’re not even sure you see yourself

Imagine you’re Ian Malcolm and you’re made aware of people trying to remake dinosaurs and you know it’s impossible but you also know that life finds a way so you go along. You flirt w some paleontologists, have fun, berate the senselessness of the actions around you. I mean what else is there to do. Then, you get a life altering injury that’s gonna bug you forever and the last person you see is a person you hoped you got to save, who is risking his life to save children (I.e. Grant) and then suddenly you’re waking up to the face that saves you (I.e. Sattler).

And through that all, nobody comes out ok! There’s nightmares and injuries and assumedly they’re quarantined in a Costan Rican hospital till everything’s sorted and people are good to go. Alan and Ellie always find each other, planets in orbit etc, and of course Lex and Tim are connected to Alan after everything. The kids cling to them and they protect them, but also they at least have each other and are stronger for it, but it also makes them aware of how awful it would be to be alone right now- Ian Malcolm. So they all spend time together drifting in and out of hospital rooms (most commonly Ian’s bc he can’t move around much) and after all that they’re connected by shared experiences and the knowledge they can’t share. Pandora’s box and all that but they all end up woven together.

They separate but I’m sure it’s apparent that Malcolm ends up alone, not wanting to rely on anyone, especially not his ex-wives and kids cause that would be unfair and even in pain he’s still trying to protect other people. So they end up together again, how could they not? Malcolm needs help, they all do but that’s a touchy topic and it’s easier to focus on what they can see. Alan and Ellie and Ian finish up at the dig and Alan just wants everything to be the same so he can forget and Ian needs the change, but Ellie? She’s not really sure and it leaves her unsteady.

All at the same time you have Malcolm writing his book bc the truth was always what was most important to him, like Alan to dinosaurs. Alan doesn’t want him to ruin his life, and Ellie wants to support him but doesn’t know how but they coexist.

Ian gets better. He leaves w/ Sara a woman he met shortly after the hospital and whom he seems inexplicably fond of having witty banter with. He leaves so that when he publishes his book it doesn’t come down on them, he leaves because Ian Malcolm has never been one to want to settle down and he’s afraid of becoming complacent, that if he stops moving he’ll lose something critical (he’s shark-like, Ian).

And then the digs over and Alan’s ready to throw himself back into another, but Ellie simply isn’t. She gets a teaching position in another state, and Alan doesn’t ask her to stay but by god he wants to (just like he wanted to w Ian although he never had the chance bc he was gone so much quicker) and it’s the biggest mistake he ever makes.

Ellie leaves. Ian reconnects w his kids, reminded by Alan and Ellie how important family is and that hiding only does them a disservice. Alan digs.

They still stay relatively close, stuck in orbit even though they’re separated, they message and mail and spontaneously stop by when they’re in town (Ian). There’s distance but it’s not uncrossable, they’re still there for each other. They still call and those calls never go unanswered, no matter how late.

Ian goes to Isla Sorna and it’s shoved in his face that he’s changed, whether he wanted to or not. He wants something more stable, of course he still wants independence but he also wants to come home to *something* (he misses what he had w Alan and Ellie but he’s trying to avoid that iceberg). Alan and Ellie find out and it’s the beginning of an end, they fly out immediately and check in w him, and stay a few days. But. But Ian didn’t tell them, didn’t tell them abt something so critical to the three of them.

They grow a lil farther apart.

Alan goes back to work. Ian mutually splits w Sara (word is she and Nick have something weird going on when they aren’t traveling the world for respective careers)

Ellie marries Mark, the guy she met while teaching. He made her laugh and was a lil plain but she liked it (reminded her of Alan). Although Mark is different, he brings up kids on the third date and he’s everything she needs right now, he’s stable and kind and his job travels w him so she never has to worry which would take precedence (her or the job). He loves her for her or what she is right now and there’s something in the back of her mind but she loves him and they build a life together.

Ian meets a woman he can settle down with, an intellectual and a perfect mix of Ellie and Alan (although he doesn’t know it) and he settles down too, finally ready for that build-a-family lifestyle that he’s started to want. They have two kids (canon compliant due to the five kids comment in Dominion) probably around Ellie’s kids age, they probably have play dates. Alan doesn’t come around too much but he mails occasionally or helps set up furniture, but he’s undeniably pulling away.

Alan who couldn’t just ask people to stay, is alone and he’s become increasingly aware because of his new grad student. Billy Brennan is a mirror, he’s everything Alan was (admittedly more flirtatious tho) and Alan can’t do anything but nurture it because he wouldn’t even know how to change (because god knows he wants to). So he pulls away and focuses on work and at least w Billy he’s not alone and maybe maybe he can help him get on a better track (his version of accepting defeat)

Of course he doesn’t stop seeing Ellie or visiting w Ian over mail or the occasional spontaneous visit (couldn’t bring himself to) but he pulls away still. During play dates, Ian sneaks looks at Ellie’s calendar and will conveniently tell Alan when Marks out on business ( bc I refuse to believe Alan didn’t visit Ellie even tho Mark first meets him when Charlie is 2 so I believe he snuck on in cus it makes sense you know). Alan loves Ellie’s kids more than himself and probably bought Charlie his dinosaur toys (Ellie groans abt his taste but she knew it would happen and loves him anyway).

And then Alan, who has never really been alone but has isolated himself to that point, gets a chance to see dinosaurs again (he says it’s for the money but dinosaurs are what’s always made sense to him). He gets lost. He’s got no way out. He calls Ellie bc she’s always been his beacon of light, saving grace, Hail Mary etc etc. (Also him bringing Ian up to Eric bc that man has never been normal about *either* of them).

Ellie meets him at the hospital (maybe w Ian who knows) and Alan is made increasingly aware (between yelling and crying and thank gods) that he’s not alone he’ll never be alone as long as they’re around.

And after that they’re sort of ok. They have regular visits and there’s distance but they settle, they try. They bitch abt Jurassic World together and how all the kids they’ve collected are doing. One of Ian’s eldest going into paleontology bc she met Alan Grant at the age of 15 and it altered how she thought academically and Ian is exhausted. Ian and Ellie’s partners don’t really understand it but they also know not to interfere (even if sometimes frantic calls wake them up in the middle of the night).

Alan stays in his ways (hoping for a change but not seeking one).

Ian and his wife have a tiff bc she accused him of loving her bc he loves Alan and Ellie at least at first (still does in a different and perhaps more powerful way than her?) and he can’t lie bc it’s all the truth with him. He says it’s not fair to her to not know that Alan and Ellie are just his people, you get it. She doesn’t, not really, it only ever made sense to the three of them. They divorce but it’s amicable.

Ellie and Mark have been on the rocks for a little, they’re relationship has always been a bit boring but that was never a real problem. However, she wants to go out and do more field work (writing books was great but she’s ready for a change bc the world turns quick but she’s always moved faster). He wants to have an at home life and one thing spirals to another. She chose him bc he’d never need to choose between anything and she wouldn’t either, they could both have everything and he’s a great guy, but. But now she needs a change and once again she’s left in a situation where someone can’t bend for her, so she breaks it. They divorce and it’s heartbreaking, they love each other, but Ellie has always needed some flexibility (she calls Alan and Ian later on and they drop plans to have dinner together, she doesn’t bring up the break up but she does note how they changed things for *her*, it’s nice maybe they changed)

Maybe they’ve all changed a lil you know? Ian travels, lectures, makes connections, and visits w the people he loves. Ellie writes paper after amazing paper after amazing book between field work. Alan digs. They communicate in academic papers and books that they send each other, their love notes are annotations that feel a lil too raw so they’re kept private. Every new paper and book and interview fuels the three of them forward and keeps them in orbit. Despite everything.

Then, Ian is hired by Biosyn (Ellie encourages it a bit bc she doesn’t trust them, Alan discourages it for the same reason). And then they’re back, they are SO back. They come together to fight against what they’ve always had to fight against, it’s a lil exhausting but they have each other. Through it all it’s always them. Every single time. Alan and Ellie meet and see each other like they don’t see anyone else. It’s a little unfair to Ian because they’re prepared and his entire world gets flipped for a second when he sees them (it’s ok he recovers pretty quick). They fall in step, into old conversations and patterns.

And between taking down Biosyn and avoiding dinosaurs they all kind of fall in love, not again bc it’s always been that way for them but it’s just so so apparent. They can’t give each other up and everytime they look at each other there’s comfort and understanding without words. It was easier to deny a part but now they are here and it’s just so. Perfect

Ellie tells Alan she needs to go, she’s always been too fast for this world, Alan tells her he’ll stay which is the best love declaration she could have asked for.

Ian says he needs to tell the truth, he’s always had to, and they say “we’ll be with the you, we will tell the truth with you.” You know and that’s their love declaration, Thats them asking him to stay, to be with them.

And at the end of it all, Alan says in the end he’d just rather not be lonely again, and Ian and Ellie look at him like he’s absurd bc of course he’s stuck w them now. It’s always been them even if they didn’t realize it

OH MY GOD LOOOOONG POST IM SORRY IM NOT NORMAL AT ALL HAHA. Dinot3 is something I’m not normal about because look at their stories!! Look at how through everything they fit together!! They are in Montana somewhere rn having a beer and laughing abt something silly one of them did and talking abt their collective kiddos.

TLDR; just my thoughts on DINOT3 and just their canon timeline and how it’s always been those three.

[potatobugz]

eek! scary!

[dotcircledot]

just small thoughts on how i think their established relationship would be like

[canisalbus]

Which is your favorite platform? (of the ones you have accounts to post things I mean. I can't imagine it being Instagram since you don't really post there which honestly fair)

Tumblr, Twitter (X?) bluesky? Something else?

I think I'm going to have to go with tumblr, and it's not just because we're here. Twitter and Bluesky are nice and my experiences on both are overwhelmingly positive. But tumblr has an atmosphere that encourages originality, sharing your creations and talking about things in depth.

[hexedwinchester]

Angry Sam is Sexy Sam

What I love about Sam's anger is that he doesn't bottle and bitter it up. More often than not, Sam is the one to let go and give people second chances (notice that Dean doesn't). Neither does he hold grudges (Dean absolutely does). I have read a lot of comments that say Sam represses his anger which is unhealthy. The screencaps above, that's not repressed anger. He is literally angry and what caused that anger is something way beyond his control or his scope of forgiveness, so his anger erupts like a volcano.

[llawlieta]

I love L outsourcing his moral compass to Soichiro

[ghost-bxrd]

hi, hello. I saw your post about Jason having severe ptsd instead of pit madness and can I just say. YES! YOU'RE SO RIGHT!! I have trauma, like almost everyone on Tumblr, and in middle school cuz I was going through puberty it got very bad. I was a really really angry child, it was easier being angry than sad. Sad meant I had to admit or deal with my feelings. Angry meant I could just be angry at whatever traumatized me. I like Lazarus Pit madness, it's interesting. But using it to excuse or give a reason for the things Jason does feels cheap, especially when it's not done right, which most of the time it isn't. Ptsd explains literally everything, even the unreasonable or unexplainable things he does. Yeah, just wanted to drop this thought.

I’m sorry you had to experience that 💚💚💚

Pit Madness is still something I enjoy reading very much (despite wonky mechanics sometimes, but I’m very flexible with that and I definitely haven’t handled it great in any of my own fics) but I totally understand what you’re getting at.

If we go with real life psychology… there’s a lot of things that were handled in an atrocious manner by canon writers. Not only in regard to Jason. But comics in general don’t have the best rep in dealing with (emotional) trauma, so it’s just one of those things we have to accept.

That’s why fanfiction is so wonderful. People can explore so many different avenues with a single character 💚💚💚💚

[mask131]

Once, my English teacher said something that caused an intense debate with several members of the class (we were a literary class). However this sentence, which is actually true, but formulated precisely in a way to spark reactions, is direly needed today. I keep saying people react to fiction and fictional characters in such a way... It needs to be said.

"Characters do not have a psychology."

Of course, the answer one might have on the spot is: "No! Characters can have trauma! They can have personality disorders, or complex psychologies, and deep personalities, and personal growth! Characters do have a psychology!"

Except the answer is no. Because whatever "psychology" they have is not an actual psychology. It is not a human psychology. It is not what psychologists actually studied. It is not the psychology of a living being.

Whatever psychology characters have is the ILLUSION of a psychology. It is a fake psychology, an artificial psychology - meant to trick the audience into believing the characters are real people. (If the psychology is even here - because many characters are created specifically to NOT feel like real persons).

Because what TRULY moves characters is not a trauma, or a familial experience, or a personality type. It is what SEEMS to move the character, it is what the author "wraps" or "dresses" the character in... But ultimately, when you analyze, when you understand the character, to treat them as if they had an actual psychology - as if they were real people - is useless.

What truly moves the characters are... Oh, many things! The rules of the genre. The intentions of the author. The needs of the plot. The ambiance of the story. Symbols scattered throughout the tale. The cultural ancestors of the character's archetype. The expectations of the audience. The cultural context the novel was written in. And many, many more things.

All of this can form the illusion of a psychology. The author or creator of the character can even add more "veils" and "tricks" and "pieces" to the character to strengthen this illusion of a psychology - mentions of specific mental illnesses, cycles echoing a familial setting, specific traits the author selected to correspond to the character's intended personality... But ultimately it all stays artificial. Planned, prepared - but more especially, carefully selected and worked on to fit the project of the story, and the needs of the plot.

Characters do not have a psychology - or they can have one, but it will stay an "artificial" psychology. Because characters are not real people. They are not living beings. They are constructs.

[demadogs]

as a gay swiftie i need to say it i fucking hate gaylors so much. the news of the split of her 7 year relationship came out yesterday and gaylor is already trending on twitter. it doesnt matter how huge of a status a person has STOP READING INTO THE SEXUALITY OF REAL HUMAN BEINGS!!!!!!

[yourhighness6]

Ppl who get mad at the existence of literary analysis are so funny to me because its like sir the curtains aren't just blue they were never just blue u absolute fool

[supercalime]

Honest question, why do yall care? I mean, if it’s real, good for them but like, this feels so gross. I’ve seen how fans treat them like characters, they deserve all the privacy they can get, relationship or not

[autumn-may]

love thinking of sad traumatized edgy characters in normal situations but not in a ‘how do you think X event affected the way they handle everyday life’ kinda way but in a ‘what do you think 358/2 days rikus hair care routine is like’ kinda way

[bomberqueen17]

disturbing

I was writing a post and at the end I was adding tags, as I do, and I typed the singular first person pronoun, I, and a list of tags popped up as suggestions that took me the fuck out. It was so disturbing I took a screenshot.

[image ID: a list of suggested tags, screenshotted. It's titled "popular" and the list is "I want to [star emoji]ve" "i wanna lose weight" "i sell content" "i love him"]

I wanna star-emoji-ve???? Well there's some pro-ana shit for you.

I don't know if the kids these days remember this but back in Livejournal around the era of strikethrough (the '07-'09 time period is where I remember noticing it) there was a movement to censor pro-self-harm blogs, that were support groups mostly supporting one another in more and more extreme anorexic/self-destructive/eating-disordered behaviors.

This is absolutely that. And they were like "it's self-expression" and everyone else in the world was like "it is actually a toxic encouragement of self-harm" because they were like, concretely instructing one another and recruiting vulnerable people to join them in ways to literally starve to death, they were support groups for killing yourself more or less, and so those tags would occasionally get banned or delisted or removed from search or whatever, but remember this was very early in the history of such things, and there was no algorithm. But people did use the browsing of blogs' "interests" to find one another, it was a feature of how Livejournal worked, and there wasn't a lot of moderation but the deactivation or delisting of those self-harm-encouraging tags were a hotly-contested bit of debate.

And so they got more creative, and found other ways to find one another, and people starved to death or otherwise irreparably damaged their bodies and their mental health and so on. I cannot emphasize enough, this was not fiction. These were not fictional stories depicting fictional scenarios that weren't happening, these were real people posting stories and encouragement and photographs of their real selves, showing off how much damage to themselves they were doing, concretely encouraging one another to do the same. This was not fiction.

But they kept finding new ways to talk about it so it couldn't be censored.

And then LJ deleted blogs for posting about fiction instead, and we all kind of forgot about it and moved on.

Highly displeased to find that it's all alive and well on Tumblr, to the point that it's the number one suggestion when I type the fucking first-person pronoun into the tag field, and I can't opt out of seeing that. COOL.

[chai-en-kaadhale]

all for jdj but also i think people read every nerdy thing kdj says about him as romantic like there are so many jdj scenes to pick and choose from but. chat. thats just a guy with a fixation chat

[canisalbus]

Just a little line to say your dogs fill me with feelings! Your line art is divine. You make it all look so easy, and effortless. Like my logical brain knows this is false because I failed art, I cannot draw a stick figure to save my life, but your boys just look so NATURAL, I’m staring at them like “yeah. Easy peasy.”

.

[lostchildofthenewworld]

oh i see the hotd fandom has quickly reached the levels of racism in the asoiaf fandom concerning non-white/non-valyrian characters; how majority fandom ships a problematic white couple at the expense of the poc around them and how it’s detrimental to the narrative. ah yes, i am familiar with your game…unfortunately