#but I fear I may be projecting

[bbugsy]

she may have a type

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Dungeon Meshi: The RPG

[atlas-of-galaxies]

been listening to cyberpunk dead boy on repeat again

[mxthgrinder]

he’s literally me

[bluebugjay]

funniest part of The Secret History is that for the first third of the book anytime someone acts slightly strange, Richard's first thought is hm maybe he's gay...

[kagdowo]

[rexscanonwife]

This time I'm really gonna do it!!!! (finish my fucking animatic)

[valinoar]

thinking about otto’s insane pseudo marital dynamic with alicent (‘you look so much like your mother’ ‘your mother’s dress’ etc etc) paired with viserys’ pseudo paternal dynamic with alicent (all their discussions centring rhaenyra, viserys talking down to her like he might a daughter… yet…) and how they resulted in alicent having the weirdest dynamics with her own children

[fadetouchedsilk]

all things considered i think the letter from iron bull is a solid safe. it's not great, it's not awful, it makes enough sense with everything else happening that i'm just kind of whatever about it. the comment on the antaam is a bit :/ & flippant but i didn't think we would be getting anything deeper anyway tbqh (if at all). anything deeper and i don't think a quick name drop in the letter would have been sufficient.

(this was also just funny to me specifically because of the 2 last paragraphs. sir you've been married to this woman for several years now you own property together you've already made that speech to her In Person.)

[fazgoo-connoiseur-1987]

Henry's whole deal to me is that he is selfish in his inaction, his self preservation, his desire for closure. His self hatred is all consuming in such a way that it harms those around him but he is so consumed by his own misery he does not recognise their suffering. His anger at himself, William and the world animates him but also gnaws at every inch of his being like a virus. Spreds from him into the world. Seeps and harms and burns the way Will's actions burned him.

[diegusting]

Upon reviewing this I’m now thinking really hard about which hand uses which cutlery. I forgot.

[science-lings]

people always say that they want to study their blorbo but are you writing research papers? are you studying the sources? are you exploring their trauma and diagnosing them with psychological disorders? Where's your powerpoint? How professionally is it formatted? can you teach a class on them? or are you just spinning them around in your brain and giggling?

[friend-dogor]

actually wait in relation to the last post about ghibli and how it is aestheticized into bland and toothless images of comfort, it's got me thinking abt Ursula K Le Guin again

The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe a happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.

(from The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, 1973, top of pg.2)

i think that the original post is guilty of this to a degree, seeking to refute the idiocy and simplicity of focusing on the "happy" themes of ghibli movies my instead shifting attention to the horrors and pains contained within the text—those which could be seen as intellectual, needing perhaps a more sophisticated understanding of environmentalism and geopolitics.

but, furthermore, i think i'm guilty of it even in trying to defend miyazaki's often returning narrative commitment to hope and environmentalism and anti-war sentiment and kindness—after the last tag, i wanted to add something about "i know that putting kindness above pursuit of power feels like a baby theme for babies" because it Does, to me. "be kind" is, like, the first and simplest rule most of us are taught as children, be kind, don't hit your brother, be kind, share, be kind.

i don't refer to this as one of his more challenging themes, of course, because why should i? we all know to be kind. of course, i refer only to topics of war and environmentalism and grief as challenging. kindness is simple!

(nevermind that one of the biggest challenges for myself and a lot of people i know is how to stop being cruel to oneself after decades of practice and learned examples and instead to learn to be kind and forgiving with one's own mistakes and failures and perceived flaws)

and i wonder two things: 1) is it possible that the self-aestheticization of miyazaki's movies (for example, the rapturous visual attention paid to food, the attention paid to soft chairs, pillows, small and pleasantly cluttered environments, with plenty of natural light, lush plantlife and endearing creatures) contribute to miyazaki's more "challenging" messages, and if so, that there's a degree of success in people remembering the thick-cut bacon and eggs on toast from Howl's Moving Castle before they think of Sophie Hatter's town on fire because of the king's war? Has Hayao Miyazaki succeeded in making war and destruction at once horrifying and banal, but a simple good breakfast fascinating and compelling? ——not to say that people who simplify the movie to Only the aesthetics are right. they still aren't. they exist in dialogue with the destruction and it's ridiculous to sever the two. but is it possible that the majority of people thinking first of the "cozy" elements of Studio Ghibli's work is not nonintellectual and reductive, but rather contributes to a larger point of attention?

2) i ought to find other examples of media which do not treat "happy" themes or "light" themes—(i struggle even to talk about the category i mean without dismissing it entirely as Simple, or mischaracterizing it. i mean things like kindness over power and compassion over fear, things like that) which do not treat the themes as childish or nonintellectual, but also do so without fetishizing violence and suffering as Special and More Deserving of Thought than Simple and Stupid Good Feelings so that i can kind of investigate this concept a little more

[aceghosts]

ALL I KNOW IS A PLACE WHERE I HAUNTED (Rooney Shepard, b. April 11th, 2042)

MOD LIST | SPOTIFY (Youtube links are included in the titles of the songs. Be warned; some of the music videos contain flashing lights.)

I. The Altar/Mary by Silverstein | II. Uneven Odds by Sleeping At Last | III. Are You Ready To Live? by Dream State | IV. Mars by Sleeping At Last | V. Soldier's Eyes by Jack Savoretti | VI. Memento Mori by Architects | VII. Too Close/Too Late by Spiritbox | VIII. Paranoid by I Prevail | IX. Running From My Shadow by Mike Shinoda feat. grandson | X. again&again by Against the Current feat. guardin | XI. Avalanche by Bring Me the Horizon | XII. Taxi Cab by Twenty One Pilots | XIII. Who We Are by Hozier | XIV. Give Me the Future by Bastille | XV. Jaded by Spiritbox | XVI. Curse by Architects | XVII. SENSITIVE by MOTHICA | XVIII. lullaby by Against the Current | XIX. I DON'T WANNA DO THIS ANYMORE by PVRIS | XX. Meteor by Architects | XXI. Life Less Frightening by Rise Against | XXII. Rinzler by Daft Punk | XXIII. A Long Way Down by Le Castle Vania | XXIV. Glow in the Dark by MOTHICA | XXV. The Anchor by Bastille | XXVI. Knights of Cydonia by Muse | XXVII. Kingslayer by Bring Me the Horizon feat. BABYMETAL | XXVIII. Already Over by Mike Shinoda | XXIX. Deep End by I Prevail | XXX. Landslide by Fleetwood Mac | XXXI. Oldies Station by Twenty One Pilots | XXXII. Two by Sleeping At Last | XXXIII. Burning in the Skies by Linkin Park | XXXIV. Black Dog by SAMURAI | XXXV. Contra la Luna by P.T. Adamczyk | XXXVI. The Foundations of Decay by My Chemical Romance | XXXVII. Hereafter by Architects | XXXVIII. The Game Has Changed by Daft Punk | XXXIV. Wetwork by Le Castle Vania | XXXX. So Much (For) Stardust by Fall Out Boy

Tag list (Opt In/Out): @bbrocklesnar, @marivenah, @alexxmason, @sergeiravenov, @carlosoliveiraa, @voidika, @nightbloodbix, @strangefable, @socially-awkward-skeleton, @captastra, @amalkavian, @inafieldofdaisies, @clicheantagonist, @cloudofbutterflies92, @onehornedbeast, @cassietrn, @katsigian, @direwombat, @thedeadthree, @confidentandgood, @theelderhazelnut

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

sweats okay so. i sent my monstrously over-long hotel scene to three (3) readers, right??

well. today i received word that the one i trust LEAST with my prose. is apparently doing a Heavy Markup to try to knock down the word count for me. which. i did ask for help with this. but. now i have ~Concerns~ lol

[the-way-astray]

my computer hates my secret project and wants me dead