#anyway how do you guys say Goncharov | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

cambrian-creature · 1 year ago

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Hello, and welcome to M*A*S*H enjoyers anonymous

Now tell us, why are you here?

(basically just a free space to talk/infodump, be free my sweet cheese)

Oooooh boy.

MASH is a show about war, but also mostly it's about people and how people react under stress. Something to note is that it's about the Korean War, but it's actually about the Vietnam War.

It's got its issues, definitely. It's not particularly respectful to Korean people despite being set in Korea. But it was the 70s so like. Idk, can't expect much. There's a lot to unpack in the way of imperialism. The show is very anti-war, but mostly focused on the Americans, which is pretty damn reductive if you ask me. There is also the misogyny and if one more person calls Major Margaret Houllihan "hot lips" I am going to throw hands. I'm not making excuses for any of this, but it's an old ass show and you can't get too hung up on it. ANYWAY, you asked about the good stuff.

The main character, Hawkeye, is this. Unhinged, sleep deprived, alcoholic surgeon who's just. Unreasonably good at his job. Despite the Horrors of War, he's still one of the kindest, most lovable people, and he only put Frank in a shipping crate one time, so it's fine. And the blood he stole was for a good cause. As was the money he stole and the one time he gaslit a guy into thinking he'd lost his mind. All for a good cause. He's so cool, he's a menace, he's a slut, he's deeply psychologically damaged, he's a little silly, he invented the principle behind Goncharov, he's even bisexual.

Hawkeye's best friend and roommate is Trapper John, fellow manwhore and prankster extraordinaire. He always makes me a little sad cause I think he's Hawkeye's best friend and Hawkeye isn't his best friend? To him, it's all temporary, and he'll get out of Korea and go back to his wife and kids and probably try to not think about any of it ever again, but Hawk's such a ride or die friend, and he depends so much on not being alone and. Fuck, man. He's just like me for real. No shit, I realized this a couple years ago, and it sent me into this huge spiral of wondering if my friends love me as much as I love them and it lasted like. Years. And then I did that thing people do where they tell other people about their feelings? Which was weird. But it was also cool and now I do not worry about that as much anymore. A little bit, because the fears never cease, but y'know. It's cool. Apparently I am also sad and lonely because I am FULLY spilling my guts here lmao. Don't read that. Fuck whatever BJ has going on, THIS is the Trapper Complex.

Also Trapper leaves like three seasons in and is replaced by Blow Job Hunnicut, who keeps saying shit like "man, I bet you sure had fun with Trapper, huh" and "boy this must be just like the good ol days with Trapper" like we get it, you're jealous. He's also deeply psychologically damaged. I don't like him so much, but I also haven't seen a lot of him yet so I guess we'll see.

Okay, now MARGARET. She's amazing. She's cool and fascinating and ALSO deeply psychologically damaged! She's a strong woman in the 50s, she's so angry all the time, she just wants some goddamn respect and also someone to hang out with her to do manicures. She has this fascinating mix of wanting to be feminine and pretty but also needing to be masculine and angry to get respect. She's a hardass, she's obsessed with the rules, she's so mad at everything all the time because she has so little control over her situation, she's just like my mother and I love her so much. She could do any man's job in that camp so much better. I like to think after the war she goes back to medical school and becomes a doctor and gets some GODDAMN RESPECT.

Also she's dating (she dumps him don't worry) this absolute schlub Frank who is. A garbage human being. He's so pathetic and funny but also like genuinely terrible and canonically homophobic. If he were in modern times he would vote for Trump. He's Mr. Patriot. He's the Yankee Doodle Doctor. He's a shit doctor. He's so funny to watch cause everyone around him is so funny and witty and good at snappy comebacks and he says shit like "ohhhh you- you- guys!! >:(" Like yeah Frank. Get em. Don't hold back. He's a real "why I oughta-" kinda guy. Apparently the actor got so much hate mail he quit the show which is honestly so mean and tragic because Frank is such a fun character. I want to watch him fail again and again and again and then cause more problems. He could call me a slur in a Walmart parking lot and I'd just laugh at him and ask him if his wife knows about his girlfriend. She doesn't.

When Frank left, he got replaced by this other guy and I have no idea what his deal is. My apologies to Charles Emerson Winchester III. People like him I guess. He seems boring next to Frank tbh.

Now lemme tell ya about Klinger. Actually lemme show you.

He's beautiful. Gorgeous. Show stopping. He started out as a bit character and the joke was that he was trying to get a section 8 discharge (sent home on the grounds of being mentally unfit to serve), but everyone loved him so much that he became a recurring character and the outfits kept getting better and it went from "haha man in a dress" to "he's a genuinely deep character and this is his coping mechanism and he is so afraid of this war. Also he's the hottest guy around and everyone knows it. Even the priest wants him carnally." Genuinely the best fucking guy. In the early seasons, the laugh track goes off every time he enters a room and it makes me so mad. Take his whimsical ass seriously.

Also I mentioned there's a priest. I'm not sure why they have a priest, but I think that was just a thing in the 50s. He's got too many names. You can find him currently in the Catholic Characters Tournament and it's funny cause the person who runs that keeps getting his names out of order. It's John Patrick Francis Mulcahy, cause they gave him one name in the movie and then changed it in the show like twice at least so. Four names. Anyway, he's the only priest I trust. He literally just wants to help people and he has no way of knowing that he's doing any real good so he wants recognition for his efforts but that goes against what he's meant to be doing, he's meant to be completely selfless, but he wants to know that he's at least doing something, otherwise what's the point. What's the point of everything he's worked for. What's the point of devoting his life to this. To these people and to his god and to being a good person. Because if he thinks of himself, if he wants anything for himself, does that not mean he's selfish? And that's bad, he can't be selfish, but he is because everyone is, that's just human nature to want to know the results of your work. Also he's convinced he's the second coming of Christ or some shit. I can't fully explain this one, but he really does think he's like. God's special little boy. Which is kinda fair, cause he gives fucking EVERYTHING to these people, to the doctors, to the soldiers, even to the enemy, because he just wants people to be okay. He wants people to stop fighting and to heal and to love one another. And he also wants someone to tell him he's doing a good job and that he's making a difference and he wouldn't believe them but it would be something. Also he wants to punch people sometimes. All the time. He could kick anyone's ass in single combat. I love him.

Am I missing anything.

RADAR!!!!! They put a child in a warzone but luckily he is hyper-competent and literally psychic. He makes me sad because he is 19 years old and he has a teddy bear and he is short and angry and eats a lot because he's a growing boy and everyone makes fun of him for having teenager behavior when he is!!!! A teenager!!!! He graduated highschool yesterday!!!!! He's the same age as me and he's in a warzone!!!!!! Get him out of there!!!!! Put him in college and let him work a boring ass fast food job like a normal teenager!!!!! And stop laughing at him for having a teddy bear!!!!!!! He's not even that short, it's just that all the guys in this show are at least 6 feet tall. Anyway, he basically runs the camp because Henry is fucking incompetent (affectionate) so yeah. This child is their commanding officer and the only one anyone respects.

Their actual commanding officer is Henry Blake. He just wants to go home and see his wife and kids again and go fishing and chill the fuck out. He's a good surgeon but genuinely a pathetic army man. But also I love him so much cause listen. He could just fuck off. We see another guy in his same rank and position who just hangs out in Tokyo the whole time making money off this shit. So despite being very afraid all the time, Henry sticks around in a shitty camp 3 miles from the front to patch up kids full of lead. He stays not out of any duty to the army, but a duty to his patients and his people, because he's a good person and a good doctor and genuinely one of the bravest people around. He could've been a coward and hid, but he stayed and he helped people and even though he knew the risks, it just never occurred to him that he could abandon his people to do it all without him. He stayed and he died and he never saw his wife and kids again and he never met his newborn son. He tells his oldest son over the phone to be good while he's gone, to stay strong and keep everything running until he comes back, and he never comes back. I am genuinely crying. Fuck. I hope he's catching the best fish at the big lake in the sky.

Anyway. I'm gonna stop before this gets out of hand. More than it has.

#sorry. you asked.#am i projecting severely onto half of these characters? thats nobody's business #mash #thank you for your service (letting me rant about this 50 year old sitcom with no particular theme)#also for context Goodbye Farewell snd Amen was the finale and its a heart wrenching tragedy of an episode. so yknow. spongedbob.

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daz4i · 1 year ago

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congrats! you got it wrong but ily anyway 🖤

the right answer was "melville spends his entire arc hunting a metaphorical whale"! while melville is a character in bsd, his role is very minor. his ability is actually um. how do i describe it. like a spirit of a whale? that's also. a real whale?? but not really?!?! anyway his group turned it into a giant ship that eventually got sunk. but nah, he didn't have an arc or anything, he was just There and he slayed the entire time and i love him.

anyway, explanations under the cut!

edgar allan poe tries to kill a guy he's been obsessed with for years:

that is actually his introduction! he was obsessed with ranpo for 6 years after ranpo beat him in some detective thing, and wrote a book to get him trapped and eventually killed in. needless to say it didn't work and now they're besties (😏)

a guy asks his best friend to kill him so he can write a better mystery novel:

that'd yokomizo! he's trying to write like, an ultimate mystery novel. also he's dying from cancer. so he asks his bestie (😏) to strangle him to death, to give him a better ending, and to make the mystery in his novel more compelling to readers (as it mirrors what happens irl)

goncharov is there. and he's a simp. and can't feel sadness:

hate to be the one breaking it to you but goncharov is a real author. and a character in bsd

dostoevsky gave him a lobotomy, so he can't feel sadness. and bc of that, he considers fyodor his master and is obsessed with him

french men yaoi:

verlaine and rimbaud have a weird gay thing going on. the fun part is the irl poets also had a weird gay thing going on. i'm too lazy to find screenshots of the characters being gay sorry just trust me bro (it's from the light novel stormbringer tho. and mentioned in fifteen iirc tho i'm p sure verlaine isn't named)

a 10 years old child feels the pain of every tree in the country at once:

this one's actually a mistake on my end! they're 13, my bad. i accidentally misled people with this, so sorry. but yeah this is about q; their ability is that they can mind control anyone who hurts them. so, steinbeck attached his ability to them - he can do shit with trees. idk man - to turn them into a mass weapon

the main team beats up gang members for messing with their favorite cafe:

this is the plot of chapter 38, basically. i can't find a good screenshot just go read it it takes like 3 minutes

a 14 y/o farmer solves a crime by being nice:

that's kenji! he's just friends with everyone in the city so they give him clues and secret information bc they like him :)

a clown puts dostoevsky and his narrative foil in a death race:

nikolai, my beloved, my everything, makes fyodor and dazai inject themselves with poison that will kill them in 30 minutes. their goal is to escape the prison they're in before that happens, and whoever gets there first will get the antidote. he's just silly goofy like that

a guy gets stabbed so he can roleplay as a princess with his ex-partner:

i love that this is third place. no this is just dazai. he had a whole elaborate plan in dead apple. eventually he gets stabbed by the guys he's been in cahoots with for said plan. the knife has poison on it too. luckily he had antidote hidden in his mouth but he needed something to get it to work. enter chuuya aka his ex-partner, who fought a dragon and is now looking for dazai in the wreckage, finds him, and punches him which is exactly what breaks the antidote and gets it to work. then this happens

given that he had the antidote ready hours before he got stabbed he knew this would happen, and he trusted chuuya to be there to give him his princess moment (and chuuya knew this, too)

also this isn't a part of it i just need the non-bsd fans who are looking for context to see this which also happens seconds later:

that is all! you are so brave for getting through this bullshit and i am proud of you. go read bungou stray dogs if you haven't yet

well since you all asked so nicely

i felt like "guy throws a building at a dragon" is like basic stuff by now. tried doing stuff i haven't seen in polls before afaik

people who don't know bsd I'm dying to hear your answers ^_^

#fought for my life to find the dead apple ln or the manga translated to english and failed. sorry #iirc it's even gayer in the ln. somehow

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litrouke-works · 2 years ago

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January Postmortem

(I know this is a Goncharov blog now, but i ought to wrap up my IFComp entry, I guess. Here are some of my thoughts on the game.)

THE SHORT VERSION

I’m not very good at saying things directly; I prefer to dress them up in stories and let people make of the anecdotes what they will. So we’ll open this postmortem with one such story.

Once upon a time, many bad things happened to me. When I was telling my friend about one of them, she said, “I’m sorry that happened to you.” And me being me, I replied, “Do you mind using a different phrase? Maybe, I’m sorry you had to deal with that or I’m sorry you went through that or wow that sucks – any of those would be fine.”

I’m aware that I’m not the hero of anyone’s story. But even if I’m not the hero, at least let me be the protagonist of my life. Let me deal with things; let me endure things; let me go through them. Don’t let them happen to me as if I’m already stretched out decaying in the ground.

And that’s pretty much all there is to the game. Could’ve saved myself a lot of hours by writing that instead! So thanks for reading, and as a special reward, here’s my playlist for January. Once again, me being me, it’s a playlist of poetry, not music. 😊 Enjoy!

THE LONG VERSION

Before we get into the meat of it, a clarification: I’ll use January to refer to the work as a whole (which I will also call a story, a game, a thing, whatever) and January to refer to the protagonist.

Also warnings for spoilers and for very frank discussions of suicide, gore, bodily functions, vulgar language, etc.

So January’s story has been kicking around in my head for some time, maybe 3-5 years, but I couldn't find a good reason to share it with other people. It was just another apocalyptic story about some sad guy, a genre woefully oversaturated and out of vogue even five years ago. Some of the scenes survived from early drafts nearly verbatim (including the opening line, which has never changed), but most did not. For example, in the canonical version of the story (yes, my personal canon is different from my published canon), January finds a dog as well, who is a perfect delight. But Dog’s arrival botched the pacing of the story and sweetened the scenes too much, so she had to be cut.

Anyway, while I was nudging the idea of January’s story around in my mind, two things happened. First, I was working on a research project about how people cope with major life shifts, especially illness, via storytelling and the re-imagination of self through narrative [see: The Wounded Storyteller by Arthur Frank]. And second, the many aforementioned bad things happened to me. Between my own experiences and the narrative theories I was studying, I felt that I could do something meaningful with January’s story. I wanted to use interactive fiction to show the linkage between moments across time and between the internal and external self, in ways that linear prose can't.

As a result, I think of the story as functioning on three-ish levels.

Level One

First, there is the literal plot. As many reviewers noted, this is the least important of the three. Guy survives apocalypse; his brother and sister-in-law get infected; he feels mortally responsible for their deaths, but can’t quite bring himself to commit suicide; he spends the next year working through the guilt and grief; he adopts Cat along the way; eventually he returns to the other survivors and resolves to stay alive for now.

Happy to answer specific questions about the plot, if folks are curious! But I won’t bog us down with details here.

Level Two

Second, there is the meta plot. As mentioned above, January is a story about storytelling, or more precisely, it is a story about how autobiographical storytelling assists in reforming the concept of self after a major life rupture. Hence the epigraph of the game:

One of story's primary purposes is to lay claim to experience. Autobiographical storytelling can take personal experience back from silence, shame, fear, or oblivion. It says, "I cherish this" or "This haunts me."

It asserts the significance of events in one's life: "This happened to me." "I did this." "This is part of who I am." "This should not or will not disappear, and I act to preserve it by turning it to words and shaping them as story."

Initially this concept was going to be more, let’s say, heavy-handed. More explicit, with four+ versions of each scene involving revisions, removals, and additions of commentary from January as he gradually shook off the coma of grief and refashioned the telling of each scene to better suit his new sense of self.

For various reasons: no. This plan was not only logistically unsound, but also narratively questionable because January did not want to speak for most of the story; he certainly did not want to add cutesy notes to the detritus of his life. So I aimed to unfold the concept in a more natural way, with descriptions progressing from abstracted, painfully detailed and impersonal landscapes, to a more natural flow of action and commentary, to casual cussing and chattiness with the cat, and finally to first-person POV.

Not that it is an entirely linear progression. The narrative—the narrator—the author—all of us argue constantly and intertextually with each other about what should be kept in the story, about what “should not or will not disappear.” Indeed, there were many times that I continued to work on the game only because I promised myself that I'd delete it all when I was done, once I had properly excised this from myself.

I finally managed to counter that argument with, “Well, but what if someone else benefits from it?” I find comfort in consuming media about suicide when I feel that way, and there’s a separate essay here about normalizing and validating mental health struggles, but let’s table that one for now. But knowing how I appreciate that kind of media myself, it seemed petty, if not outright unkind, to refuse to share January.

That particular arguments comes through, for example, in the post-POV-shift train scene. January relates how he peeled the dying woman off the frozen train and wrapped her in a tarp "just in case" she changes her mind, as he did. The woman is, by all accounts, a half-corpse already and actively being devoured by an omen of death, but until you are sitting there feeling yourself die, you don’t know, I promise you, you don’t know whether you will change your mind. And far be it from him to decide for her—so here is the tarp, here is the story. Do with it what you will.

This concept also crystallizes in the final pre-POV-shift scene and the POV shift itself. As January falls ill with fever, he has a nightmarish remembrance from his childhood, opening with, “In the story he told himself about his life, death found him one night…” It’s one of the more inelegant phrases in the game, in the story he told himself about his life, but it’s exactly how it needed to be said. Every scene that has been presented to the reader is part of the story that January tells himself about his life. What you read was not his life. It was not even a factual attempt to recount his life; it is only the version(s) of the story that he chooses to tell himself.

This is critical, both to the reader and to January, and he tries to stress to us the fictionality of his account, many times, in many ways. He says that he cannot have slept for multiple days after the fever and the dream of drinking from the bowl of stars with Cat; he cannot have survived his initial suicide attempt in the parking lot; he should not have heard gunshots by the sisters’ house without glimpsing his pursuer or attracting zombies; he should have smelled the hanged man rotting; he should have noticed the presence of the little girl in the dogtrot house sooner, or she should’ve already been dead. And of course, he should have killed himself after they died. (And probably a cat shouldn’t be able to speak to him or understand him.)

Guilt and grief contribute to the instability of his account, but they don’t fully explain it. I do not want to pitch this as an unreliable narrator whose memories are wracked by trauma—quite the opposite. Rather than treating memories as sacred truths that should (or even could) be accurate, memories in January are tools of self-examination, things to be laid out and sifted through in an effort to process trauma. If the memories need to be reworked, details fudged, inconsistencies introduced, in order to make them fit better into his new self, all the better. There’s no one left alive to tell him that he’s remembering things wrong anyway.

(Sidenote: as someone who tends toward SDAM, I have a pretty irreverent view of memories. And I know that the memories I do have are factually inaccurate. I know this because I transitioned genders in adulthood, and yet all my childhood memories have been revised to fit my real gender, not the one I mistakenly happened to be as a child. In my memories, people always call me by the right name, even though that name didn’t exist twenty years ago.)

I want to highlight one more example of revisionary self-history in January that does not involve the POV shift. In the second scene of the game, in which January explores the dogtrot house, he describes the pain of his bruised ankle thus: “He breathed through the red. He imagined the bruise oozing through his sock like an open wound, dyeing the wool a deep, mashed, mulberry purple.”

Many months later, after January mercy-kills the hanged man, he describes the scene thus: “Red spilled from its neck. Pure blood red, not bilious or spoilt-black. From the collar of his shirt up to his chin, the man's neck was mashed mulberry with deep bruises, and these must have continued into his face, but he could not see the face now and did not want to remember.”

To the reader, chronologically the ankle description comes first. But this is a narrative illusion. Everything in the game has already happened by the time the first scene loads. Thus, when we read the earliest scenes, we have to view them through the lens of the later ones—that is, January himself views his earlier memories through the lens of later events, as all humans do. To be specific, when January tries to think of how to describe his bruised ankle, his mind twitches back to the morbid sight of the hanged man’s throat (that he “did not want to remember” but that insists on being remembered anyway), and he uses that real event as a blueprint to imagine how his pain might appear.

A couple reviewers asked why anyone would bother to read the scenes out of order. I think this is the heart of the answer—because in January’s mind, the scenes do not proceed in order of chronology, they proceed in order of random association, just as you might remember a pair of birthday parties from when you were twenty and when you were twelve. The memories/scenes float together in a pool of associations. They gossip and converse with each other, stealing descriptions, reusing phrases, imprinting later images on earlier events, and referencing later events that the reader hasn’t experienced yet, although January has. Accessing them out of order opens the door to serendipitous connections between descriptions and better reflects the sensation of remembrance, I think—but as we’ve covered, I have a pretty weird memory system, so take that with a grain of salt.

I swear we are almost done with this section. LAST THING, I do want to address the POV shift directly. There is something very me about writing a story obsessed with agency while refusing to give the reader any. Sorry! But this goes back to the fact that January is telling himself this story. He is not telling it to you, you are not a character or an actor here, and so your agency is largely non-existent and unimportant. What matters is January waking up, re-becoming the protagonist of his own story, and eventually claiming ownership of it via the POV shift. I think this is the most obvious part of the game to grasp, so I won’t dwell on it any longer. 😊

Or will I. (Yes, I wrote this section at 1:45am, how can you tell.)

Level Three

So we have the basic plot, we have the meta plot, and now we have… let’s call it, the personal plot, as the third layer of this shitcake. We are now stepping completely outside the narrative/the narrator and into my little brain.

Earlier I mentioned that I was researching how people use stories to cope, especially in the context of illness. Let us use “illness” very broadly to mean “disruptive health event,” anything from a severe injury to the development of a disability to a cancer diagnosis to mental health issues to chronic pain conditions to et cetera. In short, something that fucks you up.

Let us now imagine that many of the bad things that happened to me can be counted as “illness” and that they did fuck me up. Finally, let us allow the author to project their own grief and recovery process onto the two previous levels of plot. Et voila, we have a personal disability plot hiding in the game the whole time.

I don’t want to say too much about this, because one, it is quite personal, two, I don’t want it to affect other people’s readings of January–I don’t want to impose this as the “right” reading, and three, there’s so much overlap between this and the previous section that not much more needs to be said. We are still dealing with a life disruption, a loss of sense of self, an adriftness, a feeling of one’s life traveling on without you, of things Happening to You, a painful self-examination and reconstruction of a new self, and finally an ascent to some kind of agency.

The one thing I do want to highlight in terms of an illness/disability reading is the motif of eating that runs throughout January. Healthy folks may not immediately connect eating to illness, but boy howdy, are they intertwined. Eating is a nightmare for almost any kind of severe health condition. For example: you get the nausea and vomiting from chemo, you get the constipation from pain meds, you get your body trying to self-destruct via diabetes or celiac if you eat this or don’t eat it or eat too much or too little, you get a ravenous appetite from the mood swings, you get your appetite killed by stimulants, you are spitting up acid, you are shitting liquid, your fork won’t stop shaking, and you can’t get the food to your mouth. And so on.

Eating is such a fascinating, multi-valent concept in fiction. In this game alone, it encompasses the zombies’ unrelenting, deranged voraciousness and the tender little sight of January choking down kibble so that Cat feels safe enough to eat with him and the anxious morbidity of January insisting that Cat eat him after he dies. Which is to say, there are so many ways to read the concept of eating, but I’ll limit myself to commenting on it from this angle.

The first several scenes frame food within frustration: it is a necessity (January forces down the kibble in the dogtrot house, thinking of it strictly as “sustenance”), it is a repulsion (the charred meat in the train scene, mostly likely human flesh; the guilty dwelling on meat after the bird dream), and it is a thing-to-be-earned (the mangy cat doesn’t deserve kibble, January remarks, but we get the sense that maybe January doesn’t feel like he deserves it either). Ultimately, food and eating are symptoms of being alive, and that is anathema to January in the early game. Each meal forces him to recognize how hard he is working to stay alive despite the feeling that he ought to be dead. It’s a slap in the face.

In the mid-game, eating/surviving becomes something more rote, still unpleasant but not as guilt-wrought. January eats alongside Cat because that’s what they do. After Cat tries to feed him an oriole when he’s constipated and skipping meals, January later tries to return the favor by luring in a whole flock of birds for sick Cat to hunt. (Is it notable that both of their avian attempts to feed each other are failures?) Of course eating/surviving/being alive also runs the risk of being dead, as highlighted by the scene where Cat seems on the cusp of death after eating some plant he shouldn’t have. While pleading with Cat, January asks what he’s supposed to do with all the food he scavenged for Cat—what is he supposed to do with all this effort at being alive, if it just comes to this again? And the thing is, it will always come to this. All the living in the world will always come to death. This is the heart of January’s own near-death scene, in the next month, when he sees a gray sky full of ghosts and declares “there was no hope in it.” There’s no particular sunburst of revelation after the fever dream, just a realization that he’s still hungry and still alive and that Cat will sit and wait until January’s ready to eat with him.

(Ah, the bowl of stars that he drinks from. That image/phrase is a direct rip from a very famous horror novel, and if anyone can name it, one free cat cuddle to you! [Must supply your own cat.])

I could pick at more details, but you get the gist here. A last note on illness/disability: I didn’t really get into the horror genre until I was unwell, and then I used horror movies both to escape from pain and to realize the pain, to watch someone else suffer and nod from my seat and say, That’s it! That’s it, that’s what’s inside me. You all can see it too, now. Apocalyptic settings are a bit different, but related—it’s not so much about the pain and fear made manifest as the loss. Becoming disabled is very much a private apocalypse. Swaths of society are lost to you. You cannot go there; you cannot participate in the thing; you cannot create what you used to. Please don’t take this as an invitation to debate inclusivity measures—just believe me for a second when I say some doors are closed, and there is nothing you can do but accept it and find a new door to open.

January doesn’t spend very much time lamenting what’s been lost, not in tangible terms like missing pizza or electricity. In fact, he regularly refuses to engage with the remaining shreds of civilization. He’s not comfortable staying inside the apartment of the woman with the painted nails, nor entering the cottage in the garden, and though he makes some allusions to camping in houses from time to time, this is never shown on screen. He only tells us about sleeping outside in his tent. So, we might say that he copes with the apocalyptic loss of society by rejecting any desire to reconstruct it. Instead he forms his own routines, as many disabled people do.

A favorite scene for many reviewers was a short one in which January gives new names to the flowers he doesn’t recognize. Loss perfuses this scene, but so does freedom—the realization that you can shed what was lost and reconfigure what still exists. The flower scene presents a tidy bow, I think, on top of the messy package that is illness, grief, trauma, and autobiographical reality rewritten.

Thanks

Finally, some thanks. Thanks to Sjoerd for teaching me how to use TweeGo, huge huge thanks to Eli (@addictivities) for working with me on producing the art for the game, thanks to @agnesmontague for getting me started thinking about this postmortem, thanks to all who read January, and thanks to those who attempted to read it and said “absolutely fucking not” for their own well-being.

I’m still completely gobsmacked about placing in the top ten, and I really appreciate all the feedback that folks have given me, both publicly and privately. Take care of yourselves, everybody, and if you ever want to talk through stuff, feel free to reach out. <3

#game: january #twine game #interactive fiction #game development #ifcomp

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noonaishere · 2 years ago

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Ateez - Newark, Nov 27

So we stood out in the rain for like an hour, but someone had a Goncharov poster:

So it was basically okay.

Actually, we were soaked by the time we got inside, and, it seemed like they let us in late.

My sister went with me and noticed there were a lot of dads there with their kids: “I feel very at one with these dads right now.” *pretending to holler to one that’s a bit away* “Hello there! Do you like to fish? I-- don’t like to fish, it makes me sad.” Me: *laughing*

This was the jacket I spent SO much time on and even learned to screen print for:

(The big on is the one I screen printed, points if you can figure out what it’s a mashup of. I bought the chain one, and I painted the others with a paint marker and it died while I was working on them -_- Truly, Kim Hongjoong should have blessed my Poscas before I started lol)

(PS: I’m planning on opening an Etsy store and making that the first print to sell)

(I made the HALA HALA tag under the lacing on the left, and the “1117″ in roman numerals under the star patch, I bought everything else. That “01″ tag actually lights up, idk why I didn’t turn it on for the picture)

Anyway, I wore that and a red plaid shirt underneath as my outerwear, which was good because I wasn’t too cold outside or too warm once we got inside, and both dried off relatively quickly (and having two layers meant it too a while for me to actually start feeling how soaked I was getting. It didn’t rain rain, but we were outside so long that we were soaked by the end of the hour standing there)

I saw the elusive LED people:

So rare to see one, free in the wild, much less three! Extremely exciting.

Then we saw the babies perform. Very proud of them. Their songs were good and they were very polished for still being trainees (but I think I read they’re supposed to debut next year, so that makes sense). I think Hunter might end up being my bias.

Then they played like three Ateez songs in a row and everyone sang along, until the music fizzled and cut and the lights went out, and even the Lightinys went out (the 2.0 are so cool) and we got a lore dump in Korean and English presumably (from everything other lore bit I’ve seen) from the viewpoint of the Oppressive Government, or the Android Guardians.

(Can someone PLEASE hire me to do the localization of their English text? Please? Because, yes, “crack leads to pain”... but that means something a little different in English.)

(It is, as the kids say, “whack”)

The the VCR from the World: Movement promos

(I just really like the lights in this one)

Then a bunch of very mysterious hooded figures came out. Oooooh, such mystery, very secret.

(Don’t go near the dog park)

(Trying to creatively crop out this guy’s arm that was SO FAR into my field of vision the whole night that it was not only “not even funny” but also “driving me to violence”)

(Then they went into a vortex, but I missed it by like a second)

(Listen... I love red, and I love San.)

Park Seonghwa is the prettiest man on the planet and I am going to throw myself into the ocean because I can’t deal with it. And Yunho is so handsome that every time his face was on the screen I thought “Wow, he’s so handsome” as if it was the first time I thought it.

“MAKE SOME NOISEEEEE!!!!” (I love you, San. I’ll make all the noise you want), polar opposite of Yeosang, who just stood there placidly as we screamed.

Hongjoong, waiting patiently like a stern teacher or something as we all screamed. Wooyoung laughing at us.

I do not remember what Jongho was saying here. Mingi, like... I love him because his face and height make him look so big and mean but he’s just a big mush of a princess. (Also, this boy’s lips... I better be careful before I start writing smut fic again 👀👀👀)

(Another shot where I just really loved the lights)

You can see on the screen that for HALA HALA (my favorite song in the whole catalog, I’m so happy they performed it) they had it go back and forth between being the current footage, and them as Halateez. I’m assuming they filmed it a few days ago or something, but some of coreo was SO spot on I was wondering if they had deepfaked the costumes or something lol.

Break that spine, Sannie, who needs it!

I need the VCRs from the concert. For lore purposes.

Mist. Everyone giving 110%

More San because I adore him

It’s my favorite thing when one of them is talking and the others all start holding their own mic up for him. My favorite idiots lolol

Jongho tried to grill Hongjoong if he knew the name of his first OST (and the Lightinys would have turned blue if he was right), so Wooyoung grilled him back about why he didn’t text him on his birthday. Seonghwa and Yunho enjoying the mess (Yeosang tried to leave because he ALSO didn’t text him but was captured and acted like he didn’t know what was happening lol)

At some point my sister leaned over and was like “Who’s the dramatic one?” “The dramatic one? They’re all on stage performing, they’re all dramatic.” “No, the dramatic one.” Me: thinks. “Do you mean the one doing all the high notes?” “Yeah. He’s dramatic. I like him.”

My sister went from non-fan to Jongho stan lol.

Me: “See? They’re pirates.” My sister: “Huh”

Lil starry Cromer action

I got the very end of the Cyberpunk San Slutty Dance Move, so I’m happy. (I thought I missed it since I was trying to watch it with my eyes and not my phone. It’s a little hard to hold a Lightiny and a phone at the same time.)

One again: Park Seonghwa is the prettiest man on the planet; once again: I am in the fucking ocean about it. Hongjoong: “Don’t like sexy too much”, also Hongjoong: *flirting*

Hypocrite.

Okay, but San is LEVITATING in the background? I was too busy looking at Mingi’s body rolls that I didn’t even notice until I uploaded the picture lol, wtf.

This is my favorite picture I took all night. I sent it to my friend @cant-fight-kyrumption and she sent me this:

And now I can’t unsee it.

(I also, don’t know how I forgot about it, I LOVED those vines lol)

We were side Cool, and we screamed a bunch and they changed the Lightinys colors lol

I love him your honor

Had to make a part 2 because tumblr kept shitting itself.

Tagging some peeps: @sayaramarz, @hecalledhimhyung, @moonbinnie0983, @ositoblancito, @goldenchunkycat, @leagreenly

#ateez #park seonghwa #kim hongjoong #jeong yunho #kang yeosang #choi san #song mingi #jung wooyoung #choi jongho #ateez newark #newark nov 27

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fille-lioncelle · 2 years ago

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I posted 2,167 times in 2022

56 posts created (3%)

2,111 posts reblogged (97%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@sevenpoints

@sequencefairy

@aimmyarrowshigh

@savvylikeyeahhh

@uneventfulhouses

I tagged 2,085 of my posts in 2022

Only 4% of my posts had no tags

#watcher - 193 posts

#ryan bergara - 151 posts

#heartstopper - 145 posts

#shane madej - 130 posts

#ryan and shane - 111 posts

#fandom is awesome - 108 posts

#spoilers - 89 posts

#l'art pour l'art - 87 posts

#amazing - 73 posts

#charlie and nick - 70 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#can i do it when i'm like 85 and in case i come out in a completely different time period it's fine cause granny was gonna die soon anyway?

My Top Posts in 2022:

Guys. Please. How do I unpin a post. 😭😭😭 I cannot figure it out.

8 notes - Posted August 21, 2022

Saw The Batman.

Things that movie did:

make me hold my breath

make me cry

make me giggle and kick my feet in delighted excitement

it right

8 notes - Posted March 11, 2022

Okay, so, admittedly I hadn't watched Goncharov until, like, yesterday. It's one of those films you hear about but it just never sounded like my thing, you know?

Anyway, I watched it because I found the whole "loss of identity" thing Tumblr has been talking about really interesting, especially with Sofia and Katya, but then when I saw it it really struck me how I hadn't seen a lot of this talk about Goncharov and he's literally Goncharov! The reason for the season, baby!

I think part of the reason we're maybe all eating this up right now is because it's it just loss of identity, it's active rejection of it. Not of identity as such but of a specific identity he feels locked into.

The whole chapter where he takes Katya home to the village and you get this sense that people there are both afraid of him but also kind of still treat him like the boy he was when he left? His mother is the only character I think we ever see call him "Luca"! You wouldn't even know the guy had a first name! (Sidenote, love that that was Scorsese's mom.) (Sidenote to the sidenote: have we considered Goncharov as fictionalised autobiography cause I have thoughts.)

Anyway, Goncharov in Posianna is Luca. He's very big fish in a small pond, or at least he fears that's all he's ever going to be if he stays - so he leaves for Naples back when, meets Katya (and Andrey!) etc etc - goes to Moscow - and then returns. But at every stage he keeps having to work harder and harder to convince people he's this tough guy, right? He keeps having to prove himself and not just to other people, but, I think, crucially, to himself! It's like a fake it till you make it in mirrorverse because there's this sense of this not being where he "should" end up (and then we also already know that the stuff with Andrey is still coming up and how that's gonna go). It feels like he keeps trying to make the mythos of himself bigger and bigger because he's measuring himself against some sort of weird ideal that keeps outgrowing him. And, like, who can't relate, eh, generation of "you can be anything!".

On that note - I find it really interesting that Katya is kind of his foil here. She starts in Moscow but she keeps yearning for smaller places, but then once she gets there, she hates it. She could never be happy in Posianna. She actually needs the bigger ponds. (And Sofia.)

Anyway. It's not a fully formed analysis or anything, just something that kept nagging at me while I watched it. And maybe I'm just projecting but I find the deliberate construction of the self vs. the "authentic" finding of the self an interesting thought.

10 notes - Posted November 21, 2022

Multifandom December Fic Countdown

Yup. We're doing this again.

Look. This marks the 10th year I'm doing this. I can't not.

-- Whaaaat, I hear you say. How old are you?? Shush.

Tempting as it is, because I am weirdly competitive about the most useless things and also let's not lie, there's always a pet fandom, it feels weird to break with tradition in this, the anniversary year, and fandom-lock my prompts.

So, I'll be using @skepticbeliever-bookclub's lovely prompt list, but I'm opening the list up to any and all fandoms you've seen me reblog stuff for. If you want to ask for something else, just give it a shot! I may or may not treat Watcher requests preferentially on account of abovementioned competitiveness and favouritism but I'll try to hold back on that.

-- But wait, you say. There's only 24 prompts on that list! Correct, I say. I'm adding 7 wild card prompts for AFTER these 24 are done. So I'm giving definite preferential treatment to those 24 but the other 7 are entirely up to you on a first-come-first-serve basis.

I've also reblogged @aimmyarrowshigh's Hannukah bingo - if you give me a prompt that fits that either in combination with one of the 24 or as a wild card, I'm also giving it preferential treatment. As I am not Jewish (or even Jew-ish) though, I ask for goodwill and patience with my fills.

The usual set up applies: I'm not here for rape, abuse, or death fic in this month and I aim for about 1k per fill.

Any other questions, just shoot me an ask or a message.

Without further ado!

Candlelight

Ghost

Ring

Chestnuts

Evergreen

Cosy

Scarf

Hot Cocoa

Cold Toes

Hope

Quiet

Family

Joy

Cider

Snowman

Night In

Candy Cane

Tradition

Eggnog

See the full post

11 notes - Posted November 29, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Just a heads up: if you read Heartstopper fic, someone has been posting deliberately horrific stuff (so far I've only seen two stories) clearly meant to upset people to the AO3 tag. I'm not sure reporting them will go anywhere since it's all technically labelled correctly from what I can tell without actually reading it? But they also are arguably being homophobic in graphically violent fictional ways so. Maybe??? Hopefully they'll get bored of being a miserable person and simply leave.

Just, if you want to avoid seeing it, exclude the warnings (particularly rape, graphic violence, and death) from your search and proceed as normal.

18 notes - Posted May 24, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #that seems about right

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comediakaidanovsky · 2 years ago

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okay, so, one aspect of goncharov that’s always stood out to me is the smoking motif that runs throughout the movie, and how it ties into the recurring clock symbolism

we basically have this setting of old and new, so much of the movie shot in these labyrinthian, italian streets that are hundreds of years old, except the plot is centered on a soviet melodrama. we have a contrast of the old world, and the new

meanwhile, the marlboro man had been a fixture of american culture for twenty years at this point (i bet y’all can see where i’m going with this)

goncharov is a movie about time. past, present, and future. it explores relationships that cannot be, because the timing is wrong. it contrasts history with contemporary political intrigue. and, at least to me (although I am borrowing heavily from Olaf Baudelaire’s 1989 essay “Smoke spills from your lips - an exploration of fire and eroticism, from the perspective of a former VFD member”) scorcese is making predictions about how smoking has shaped our identity, and how this sense of self is bound to be lost to time

in goncharov, smoking is something that is done in solitude, but it is also in the center of one of the movie’s most intimate and iconic scenes. any character who smokes is marked by the narrative, and they have their lives forever altered. at the end of the movie, what do they all have in common? the clock is ticking, time is running out - the future is out of reach. meanwhile, anyone who doesn’t smoke seems to be able to perceive a future for themselves. there’s still room for them in the new world

anyway. just like the marlboro man, they are bound to become fixtures of the past, and!! you guys!!! this is the insane part, because scorsese says this in 1974!! that’s over twenty years ahead of them officially retiring the marlboro man (and it’s very reminiscent of how cronenberg wrote a movie about eating plastic twenty years ahead of studies about microplastics being common knowledge)

and y’all know billy ray cyrus verse on old time road?

i'm like a marlboro man so i kick on back wish i could roll on back to that old town road i wanna ride 'til i can't no more

like i might be reading too much into it, but i think billy is a huge fan of goncharov, because why else would he create such a powerful, nostalgic callback to scorsese’s central themes? he positions himself as the fixture of the past; he’s the marlboro man; he’s goncharov; he’s andrey; he is any man, any person, for whom time has run out, who does not recognize the world around him

okay SORRY about this disjointed meta i just had to put it into words lol (and also not to imply that i ever want them to do a remake because goncharov is already perfect as is, but, you guys, fucking IMAGINE if they put old town road in there. i would die)

#goncharov 1973 #goncharov #okay sorry for just vomiting meta but i'm so excited to finally be able to talk about goncharov with people #like literally NO ONE i know has watched this movie

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twtd11 · 2 years ago

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Tumblr, do you want to see what I was doing at midnight last night? Get your head out of the gutter (I mean, or don’t. You do you, babe). Anyway, I was watching this:

That’s right, a low budget hallmark-esque Christmas movie and this is why you should watch it too:

First, I need to tell you, this movie is not good. You should not go into it with high expectations. This is not Goncharov. It is, however, ridiculously charming. There are 4 important characters (Haley, Kate, the-brother-whose-name-I-don’t-remember, and MeMaw). There are 4 supporting characters (the boss, who in a twist is not evil, the bad guy, the bad guy’s son, and Masonry (the vibe-checker)).

Haley (the woman on the right) is the high powered business executive. Her job duties include: doing important presentations and wrangling social media. Kate (the woman on the left) is the ranch hand with the inexplicably amazing hair. Like, I want her shampoo. The two leads’ hair in this movie is just completely on point.

The brother has some form of East Asian parentage, though it’s never brought up. MeMaw is Lindsay Wagner. None of these people look related. It’s easier to assume that everyone is adopted.

You know this movie is going to be good (bad) when Kate goes off on a horse at the beginning of the movie to fix a broken fence post and she can’t get back to the ranch before nightfall, so she goes to a motel and no one takes into account what happens to the horse. Like, was the horse tied up outside the motel? Did the motel have stables? Do people often ride their horses to the motel so the motel is prepared for these types of situations? We’ll never know.

Anyway, the ranch™️ has fallen on hard times thanks to a bank loan with exorbitant interest rates. They were doing ok by making money off of a Christmas hayride, but the bad guy set up his own hayride to try to drive them out of business where he could buy the ranch. They never say why he wants to buy the ranch so badly, but the important part is they’re trying to take away the family home at Christmas.

So, the brother (IMDb tells me his name is Charles) tries to call Hayley to get her to come home. Hayley blows him off several times before she gives in and heads home. Meanwhile, the start up where she’s working is about to be sold too. This is a good thing. It’s never quite clear what the start up does exactly, but it is something that involves a social media person who Hayley has to fire at the beginning of the movie. So Hayley has a big presentation to do to help with the sale. I’m sure you’ve already figured out how we’re going to Save The Ranch.

Before she goes home, Hayley has a online dating app date with Masonry. It does not go well. It involves a Chilean butterfly naming ceremony. And then Masonry consciously uncouples from the date because it wasn’t passing her vibe check.

Haley gets to town, and for another inexplicable reason, has to stop at a motel for the night instead of going straight home. This is the same motel as the somehow has hidden stables motel that Kate stops at for the night. They both open their dating app and it’s amazing! They actually match with someone in this tiny town in the middle of nowhere! (They match with each other, if that wasn’t clear). They go on an impromptu date at the local watering hole where they lie to each other about who they are until Hayley has an emergency and has to go. A social media emergency. Everyone is like, wtf is a ‘social media emergency?’ Because they’ve never been Eli Lily and had their stock tanked by a fake tweet about free insulin. Suffice it to say, the date ends badly.

Things do not go up from there. Hayley finally gets to the ranch and the first thing she does is suggest firing Kate because she’s too big of an expense never mode that Charles is utterly incompetent at running a ranch and MeMaw can’t do everything alone. Kate, or course, overhears this and is somewhat annoyed. I’m not downplaying that for humorous effect. That’s her actual reaction. “Somewhat annoyed.”

I’m not going to recount the rest of the movie because you should know by now whether or not this is your kind of thing. But there is an “only one bed” scene, and a “can’t get on a horse and needs help” scene and hot chocolate and deer stew and a Christmas hayride. MeMaw is obviously trying to play matchmaker. Haley has a Tragic Past and this leads to the Big Fight.

The leads have more chemistry than they have any right to and that really saves the movie. I legitimately wanted them to kiss every time they were on screen together. Until they actually kissed, which was just…so awkward.

Anyway, I think it was an excellent use of my time and I think you should watch it too. Because these types of movies are not supposed to be good. They are supposed to be charming and make you smile and make you root for the couple, and this movie did exactly that.

#Christmas at the Ranch #hallmark channel #but not really #go watch this!

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alwaysalreadyangry · 2 years ago

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I posted 965 times in 2022

210 posts created (22%)

755 posts reblogged (78%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@nostalgebraist-autoresponder

@alwaysalreadyangry

@raedear

@aphroditestummyrolls

@haremask

I tagged 921 of my posts in 2022

Only 5% of my posts had no tags

#film - 136 posts

#lit - 100 posts

#gifs - 93 posts

#poetry - 92 posts

#art - 71 posts

#talking to the bot - 70 posts

#old guard - 37 posts

#fanart - 25 posts

#photographs - 23 posts

#music - 21 posts

Longest Tag: 127 characters

#started going out and about in skirts with hairy legs and it's like. how did it take me so long to get up the courage for this?

My Top Posts in 2022:

@babygirlcarmy so i feel like it would be a… i guess twist on all the fics where nicky has homophobic family. if like, so he’s becoming friends with Joe and Joe sees him declining a phone call from his grandmother with a grimace and he’s like, gently sympathetic and Nicky’s just like — no you don’t understand she’s found out I’ve never had a boyfriend and now she won’t stop giving me DATING TIPS BECAUSE SHE THINKS I’M A LOST CAUSE. “I’ll call her back later when she’s about to eat dinner. that way she can’t trap me for half an hour by reading out a list of gay bars she found on yell.com.”

and Joe is like ok 💀 well then 💀

149 notes - Posted September 8, 2022

anyway going around a lot of art galleries this week has reminded me that i really want to write the joe/nicky fic where joe is a new tour guide at the art museum with an aspiration to end up as a curator once he’s done with grad school, and one day at the end of his shift he meets the hot security guard who sometimes does nights.

and then he hears rumours from his colleagues that this guy has… crackpot theories about the art??? joe is like uh ok but also he doesn’t like their tone or the fact that security guards are banned from talking to museum patrons about the art. he’s like, note that down as things to discuss once we finally get this union recognised.

anyway of course it turns out that the security guard, nicky, has three quarters of a PhD in religious art history and he’s been communing with the art a lot and chilling out with it at night. “art speaks in many different voices,” he likes to say, mysteriously. joe is like, wtf, please marry me.

yes it’s very loosely based on the article at the paris review blog about the unicorn tapestries, but can you blame me???

175 notes - Posted October 29, 2022

Seeing a lot of Goncharov content but only real 70s movie heads will know that Spanish director Pere Portabella was meant to be making a behind-the-scenes documentary of the film which turned into a whole other thing. It's called GOMORRA CALLS.

Scorsese is in it and so are his parents, for some reason. At first you're just like oh this is cute, they're bringing food to the set, taking an interest in what's going on. But it becomes this quite... Creepy reality-bending thing? His mother keeps cryptically referring to weird telephone calls they've been getting at home, and his dad keeps moving things on the set, you can only see what he's doing if you spend a lot of time watching him at the edge of the frame while someone else is talking. And sometimes they'll get to the set in the morning and find things left in the wrong place, there's a weird smear on a camera lenses, one of the actors has lost half the pages from the copy of the script they've been learning from.

I think the idea was meant to be that they're being hounded by the realfe mafia for making the movie. But it almost seems like they're being haunted by the ghosts of mafia members at times. Like, Scorsese's hotel room will be freezing cold, and he's being sent anonymous messages at the front desk in a way that just doesn't make sense. He says, "I'm not sure if someone is trying to stop this movie... Or if they just want to be part of it. If they want to look at a prop in the wrong place and just say, hey, that was me."

At the time of its limited run in the US, Scorsese said he didn't really know what Portabella was making, fueling theories that the film was true documentary and not fictionalised. But it's listed as fiction on Portabella's Wikipedia page now, and the prevaing theory is that it must be made up. It's not been included on any of the Goncharov DVD or Blu-Ray packages but it was supposed to be a Criterion Channel exclusive last year... It never showed up, and there are rumours it's to do with audio licensing issues. But there's a VHS rip floating around out there if you know where to look.

182 notes - Posted November 21, 2022

See the full post

359 notes - Posted November 18, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

incredible book I found yesterday… English Field Names: A Dictionary, by John Field

707 notes - Posted April 9, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #fuck YEAH english field names!!!!!!#what a book!!!!!!!

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manic-pixie-dick-girl · 2 years ago

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In all seriousness I don't really enjoy the fake fandom meme thing like I see the appeal but it feels too much like getting gaslit for me to like it. The feeling of being confused is unpleasant to me. But you do you I'm not saying stop though! I'm happy you guys are having fun!

Anyway all this is to say I know explaining it is "ruining the joke" but I do appreciate the posts explaining that yes Goncharov is fake and here's how the thing started. Or tagging it as unreality. And obviously there are people with mental illnesses / disorders out there who can get triggered by unreality stuff, so that's even more important to them. So please keep tagging Goncharov stuff as unreality, and if someone asks for an explanation, please give it to them!

#Goncharov #Unreality #It's okay to have fun just remember it's not fun for everyone!#Be considerate of your fellow citizens and we will make this the best hellsite it can be!

0 notes

fairyonfrost · 7 years ago

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(FIC) A pretty complicated week // BSD

Title: A pretty complicated week

Rating: None, PG?

Pairing: Fyodor Dostoyevsky x Ivan Goncharov

Warnings: ;D Ohh those Russians

Summary: „Oh, I really like this cake!“, - Ivan baked for his new friends and really likes talking to them. There's just one problem: „I want my tea!“ - Fyodor is not amused.

It was a really wonderful day in the life of Ivan Goncharov. This day was even as beautiful, as these days before. Why; could you ask, because he was obviously kind of an hostage of the detective agency. But it didn't bother Ivan at all, he didn't even consider this. Around here, everbody was pretty interested and asked him many, many questions. Ivan was happy. They were interested in his personality and would sure like to get to know him better! Finally he would meet new friends. It wasn't like he wouldn't be satisfied with his other friends, but Ivan wanted to get to know the world!

Gladly he provided them information to all their questions and only kept those things to himself, where he knew Fyodor wouldn't appreciate it, if he revealed them in front of others. Keeping secrets was one of his talents.

„Back to Dostoyevsky“, this nice and friendly young man turned back to him, „could you not probably tell us a bit more about his current activities?“, while the others seemed displeased. Ivan couldn't imagine why, so he decided to be extra friendly.

„Dostoyevsky-sama is probably at home now and maybe he's playing cello. I don't even know, because I didn't see him for some days. He might try to make his tea on his own and he thinks a lot. Maybe, if he notices that I'm gone, he might search me and pick me up from here. I don't even know, but he's actually a really kind one“, Ivan replied and received many blank stares.

„He won't pick you up“, responded another man with glasses and longer blonde hair slighly irritated. Obviously this conversation was really stressful for that poor guy. Maybe he didn't even like talking to strangers. Ivan couldn't understand that after all. That's why he needed to convince them all that Fyodor was a nice person, and himself too.

„Well, it's not a matter then. I may even stay here for a while. I could bake something for you all“, he suggested to brighten the mood. Some of these stares already lighted up, which suddenly also brought a smile to Ivans face.

Some minutes later, Ivan stood already in the kitchen and pursued his passion. He didn't only bake a cake, he also made tea and served it pretty nicely. He had never baked for so many people before, that's why he was pretty excited at the moment. Sadly, he couldn't buy any additional groceries before. But the workers of the Agency for sure not wanted to wait so long for their cake and that's why they didn't let him go. He could have made something really fancy, but to the given circumstances, he made a simple chocolate cake instead. But it wasn't even simple, because he knew how to bake it that it tasted really delicious. Having finally finished the cake, while you could already smell this sweet scent of cake everywhere, Ivan just knew that he could be friends with the others soon – because you could lead better conversations if you sat down together and ate cake. So he served everyone a piece of cake and sat down next to them.

„I really hope that you like my cake“, he said while smiling and taking also a piece of the cake, „if so, you can always visit me and Fyodor and I could make even better cake then“, he suggested to them, even if he wasn't so sure if Fyodor liked any guests. But maybe he would stop being so distempered and depressed if he had new friends. Ivan decided spontaneously, that his new friends could even be Fyodor's. They seemed at least interested and wanted to know a lot about Fyodor. Nevertheless they were somehow reserved. Maybe they were just very shy, but his words were serious.

„Nobody would visit Fyodor by choice“, he heard this one man say, that he considered at first as friendly and was a bit surprised at this point.

„Well yes, that's true. How did you guess that? Fyodor hasn't many friends. But he is really really kind, he's just not outgoing at all. If you're really interested to become friends with him, I might tell you more about him with pleasure“, he said and was a bit surprised that all those guys stared kinda... uncomprehending at him. What was the matter? Some people just didn't like to go outside and meet other's, so they probably just didn't have many friends. But Ivan didn't say anything, because atleast one of them seemed seriously interested.

A man with black hair and glasses pushed the others gently away and said with a smile:

„Yes, we're interested, so please, do tell us some more.“

Because of his reaction, the other guys didn't seem as negative as before and Ivan was sure that the ice was broken now. So he could surely talk a bit more about Fyodor at this point.

„Ah yes, and when he drinks his tea he puts, most of the time, only one piece of sugar in it. Unless he's in a bad mood. Then at least three. Oh, and I didn't tell you yet that he once composed a song only for me. It had a strange sound after all, but I really loved it anyway. If he's thinking about all these complicated things, he sometimes just falls asleep. I cover him with his fluffy blanket every time, but I don't think he ever noticed it. On bad hair days, he wears his hat. Well, as always actually. Okay, that doesn't make any sense. By all means he wouldn't leave his house without his hat. I'm convinced that he overthinks things way too much, but he needs this, otherwise he wouldn't be himself. At night he stays awake for a very long time and I never went to sleep later than him. But whenever he wakes up, I already made breakfast for him. Hmm...“, suddenly Ivan stopped because he noticed something and kept quiet for a moment. Not a second later, the blonde guy with the glasses dropped an irritated „That's enough“.

„Right. That's enough. You really should get to know Fyodor himself in person", Ivan replied euphoric, but anyway he noticed by now, that Fyodor had many days of breakfast without him. He probably might not appreciate that. He needed to contact him immediately. The members of the agency debated and he ate the rest of the cake, while he thought about how he could submit them this suggestion. Not far away from him he saw a telephone on the table. He took it and dialed clandestinely Fyodors number while the others still were kinda busy. Well, he could also surprise both of them, if they were too shy to make new friends!

It was a poisonous and terrible day in the life of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. And this day was even worse than the days before. Then meanwhile the kitchen burned halfway down, the clean laundry was nearly completely used and Fyodor couldn't find the instruction of this stupid washing machine, though he almost turned this whole apartment upside down, only resulting in a huge chaos. His rats also escaped and he didn't know where there holed up. To top it all, every drop of Vodka was gone. Of course this was that miserable Pushkin's fault. Malcontently he ate a canned soup due to the lack of other groceries. But he wouldn't leave the house because he couldn't find his Ushanka hat anymore. Unwillingly he wanted to admit, that these painful circumstances had something to do with the vanishing of a certain Goncharov. He didn't need a guy like that. Sometimes he even regretted, that he pushed him through this experiment to create an always happy human. All things got even worse because of that. And now, Ivan Goncharov was gone. As he probably never would leave him by choice, there was only one logical conclusion: Ivan must have had been kidnapped. Now, many new problems appeared. Fyodor wanted to think of a solution or a plan or he didn't even know because how could he even do this if there was not even decent food and he constantly drowned in this whole chaos!??

„PUSHKIN!“, he screamed loudly into the flat. Usually, Fyodor was always calm and thoughtful but by now, there was a state of emergency.

Not much later an always eating Pushkin looked into the chamber and dared to speak up with a timid „Yes?“, already knowing that he would be blamed for everything even if it was not any of his duties.

„Pushkin, I command you to search the instruction of the washing machine at once and that you order Pizza and buy some Vodka“, Fyodor summoned him and rubbed his temples. He could already sense a huge stress headache. Nevertheless, he couldn't allow himself any weakness in this miserable situation and he didn't allow that Pushkin neither.

„Yes, Dostoyevsky-sama!“, Pushkin replied what made Fyodor kinda satisfied, and disappeared.

Of course he would buy the vodka first and then stay there for a little longer – a fact that Fyodor considered as truth as he noticed he was alone after a while. As a result he was kinda nervous and began to bite his fingers, his bad habit. He stared kinda grumpy into the room and stayed still while he tried to meditate on things. But it didn't work because he barely slept last night – or because he didn't wear his Ushanka, that could also be possible. He wanted to look for it, but he felt truly miserable. Hopefully he wouldn't get sick. That would top all. How should he even survive this? As a poor and lonely man, left alone from the whole world, he sure would suffer endlessly. But then he remembered that Pushkin was supposed to be back at some point. And then, suddenly the phone rang.

The noise made Fyodor cringe. He had totally forgot this sound, then usually nobody ever dared to call him. This was kinda strange. Slowly he reached for the phone like it would be a dangerous animal or something. As he could read the unknown number on it, he went back. He didn't know this number and he didn't plan to answer the call. But maybe it was Pushkin or something even worse. It just didn't stop ringing. Damn, he should have installed a telephone responder. But when it didn't stop it might be something really important – this terrorized him immensely. And so Fyodor did the obviously unavoidable – he took the phone off and said at first... nothing.

Ivan looked sneakily at the others, while he noticed that someone took the call, the display had changed. Fast he let the phone disappear quite unnoticable under his long hair before he wispered a quiet „Master“ into it. Apparently, Fyodor was glad to hear his voice – atleast he didn't show any disapproval.

„Ah. Goncharov“, was the only thing Fyodor said. He totally would had crawled trough the phone cable if he could to call the responsible over the coals. But he couldn't. He didn't know from where and why Ivan had called him. It might be a fault to speak to him in general.

„I met some new friends!“, Ivan told him in an excited way and laughed. He just had to tell him. Even if he could notice the strict stares from the members of the Agency on him like stitches.

Fyodor felt a stitching somewhere else. What did here just happen? Did Goncharov trying him to say, that he had gone and would never come back? Was he really serious? Or was it just any trap? Probably someone planned to go against him again. He chewed nervously on his fingetips and murmured a quiet „Oh, is that so?“.

He couldn't avoid a little coldness in his voice. If the call would be recorded, this surely might be stacked against him. He thought about hanging up, but he needed Ivan back here. Immediately.

„Don't you believe it, Master? But it's the truth and they are very nice people“, Ivan said in a sickly sweet voice and drove Fyodor out of his mind. On the one hand, he was really happy, but on the other hand he was royally pissed.

„I don't care. I want my tea“, Fyodor said sulkily, because he really had have enough.

Ivan was meanwhile trying to get away from the members of the agency to avoid giving them the phone back. In spite of all he smiled happily due to the words of his master.

„I suppose he doesn't consider to speak with you at the moment“, he said to the people and lauhed.

„Ivan...“, Fyodor said now with a more dangerous undertone.

Meanwhile, there was chaos around of him and Ivan didn't even know why. He only has had well intentions for both of them. But he was sure, that Fyodor intended that he came back which made him somehow happy. The members of the agency finally held him down and grabbed the phone. But Fyodor hanged up already , because a little panic came over him. Ivan couldn't understand that at all. There was now a big smile on his face. Fyodor would coming to pick him up after all. But maybe things were different, as somebody came to him.

„Would you do your new friends a little favor?“, the young man, who talked at first to him asked him now, friendly.

Ivan crooked his head confused and he suddenly noticed the bandages the guy in front of him was wearing. NOW he knew, why he looked like a pleasant person at first.

„Yes, of course I could do that“, he said and smiled back.

„You can eat cake with us more than once, if you want, and we could bake something for you the next time too, just under one condition: we demand that you don't talk about anything that happenend here. Agreed?“, he put his claim and Ivan looked at him with big eyes while his collegues where also surprised.

„You would...bake something for... me!??“, he asked amazed and was really overwhelmed. Nobody ever made him an offer like this yet. Ivan cried tears of joy, because he couldn't truly believe it. How kind was this even? He needed a moment, until he gained his words back but first he hugged all of those present.

„This is so kind. And I promise. I won't absolutely tell anything“, he promised and twinkled.

„Okay, you can go home then to your Master – he waits for his tea“, said the detective and winked at him.

„Yeah, he sure does“, Ivan said quietly, still a little bit confused and finally stood up.

„See you next time!“, the detective said goodbye friendly, before the other blonde guy came to him while shouting and beated the crap out of him. But Ivan didn't care then he had met new friends and he had to make Fyodor's tea immediately. So went through the door, while he could hear „Hey! He won't say anything he doesn't think like a bad guy!“, in the background as he left the house. Yes, that was true, he wasn't a bad guy and so he was still smiling as he finally came home.

There Fyodor already waited for him, while being quite mad. What was the point with those new friends? He also was scared that they now had the possibilities to find where he lived. Hopefully this didn't ever happen. Probably not. But he still panicked somehow.

„Ivan“, he said angrily, as the latter entered the house, „are you alone?“

„Of course, Master! You didn't want to talk to them though. If you want, I will make you now Your tea!“, Goncharov said fucking friendly as always and Fyodor took a deep breath. He tried to convince himself that everything was as usual again. He leand back into the chair and waited for his tea. Fyodor watched his subordinate in a sceptic way, as he finally came back with a tea service but everything seemed ordinary. Probably it was though.

„Your tea, Dostoyevsky-sama. Prepared with love~“, Ivan said gently and put the tablet near Fyodor on a little table.

„Thanks, Ivan“, Fyodor said briefly, until something came to his mind, that's why he added a „...wait“.

Goncharov stood still and looked him in the eyes, responding with an eagerly sounding „Yeeees?“

„I truly hope, that you didn't tell your „new friends“ anything about me“, he said with a lightly dangerous sounding voice.

„Uhm...well... I didn't tell nothing but in no case anything bad or anything that could you-“, Ivan tried to get out of this but Fyodor lost his patience. Was that even possible? He stood up and and stepped up to Ivan with his hands on his hips to appear taller, though he was actually smaller than Goncharov. With those smile onto his face he almost seemed, like he would laugh at him, so Fyodor adjusted his hat and tried so stay calm, while he stared kinda cold and expressionless at him.

„Please don't be mad, Master, drink Your tea, before it gets cold“, replied Ivan gladly and gave him demonstratively the cup. Fyodor was so mad at first that he almost slapped the cup out of his hands, but as the other one just smiled at him, he just couldn't stay mad anymore. Which kind of person was that Ivan, Fyodor wondered sometimes. Until he remembered the issue with the operation and he wasn't so sure anymore, if he should have ever made it happen. Then from time to time...it cracked him up.

Absentmindedly he ran his fingers through his hair, before he gave up, took the cup of tea in his hands and took a sip from it. Actually, he just wanted Goncharov to be back and serving him his tea and doing the housework. Still this one question didn't get out of his mind. And Ivan would have probably answered him if he wouldn't have intimidated him. Due to this he tried to solve this situation differently.

„I'm not mad at you“, he murmured lastly and tried to stay calm. After a few sips of tea he already felt better, „but I expect, that you tell me what you've told them, Ivan“, he tried again after all.

„Uhm, Master... is this really necessary?“, Ivan sad at last and for a short moment Fyodor could feel his madness coming back, but he didn't want to show his feelings this time.

„Yes, it is. Tell me“, he commanded shortly.

„„Well. I'm just not so sure, if you'd actually like to know it“, Ivan said a bit subdued. He already started to clean the room, because he felt awkward. Fyodor watched this confused, but he was still irritated. Sometimes he really had the impression, that Goncharov made fun out of him.

„I WANT to know it. Why would I even ask then?“, he replied impatiently and rubbed his temples.

„Well then... I will tell You“, Ivan said hesistant, while he just put something away. Fyodor made an impatient gesture and wondered at last truly, if Goncharov didn't let out any private information, because he kept acting like that. But what he heard then, let Fyodor speechless. At first he wanted to add the question, with whom Goncharov talked, but due to the words of his subordinate he totally forgot. Ivan reported, that he talked about his eating and drinking habits, from his hat that he always wore and that he once had composed a song for him. This wasn't actually true, but Fyodor let Ivan believe it. He just was surprised, that Ivan could remember. When he talked about, that he believed Fyodor would overthink things to much he frowned and as Ivan mentioned in the end, that he always covered him with a blanked, he suddenly blushed. Somehow confused how he should answer, he looked at him. But in the end he was just relieved, that Ivan didn't reveal any information about their organisation. But all theses moments were really private, told from a person who watched him everyday with a smile...

„Th-thank you, Ivan...“, Fyodor stumbled quite overcharged and didn't even know what to do in this moment, as he suddenly felt a wellknown and warm touch on his head, as Ivan suddenly put on his Ushanka hat and replied: „You're welcome, Master“, while smiling.

„You found it!“, Fyodor said and suddenly, all his bad mood was like vanished and a honest smile came to his face. Ivan smiled with him and for a really rare moment they were in united harmony.

„Yes. Everything will be fine, Master“, Ivan said and gently laid his hand onto Fyodors arm. Fyodor pulled is arm back first, but before Ivan could retreat, he grabbed his hand.

„Of course it will. If you eliminate the chaos in the kitchen, clean the dust, catch all the rats, clean up in general, done the laundry, cook dinner for Pushkin and me, then it'll be fine,“, Fyodor said while smirking and finally let Ivan's Hand go.

„YES, Master!“, Goncharov replied with a determination, that pleased him and got started at once. Fyodor sat down into his chair again and watched him while cleaning. He almost distracted him so much while preparing his new plan, due to his frantically work. He never saw him work this fast before. Maybe he did expect something from it? Fyodor crooked his head thoughtful. Truly weird, this Goncharov. But what would he only do without him? A little smile came onto his lips and he sighed content. Luckily, he was back and strange enough this really terrible morning turned out to be a really beautiful day at last.

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