#but I feel like this sums it up quite succinctly

[rebouks]

She knew-.. Robin was sure of it.

Despite her warmth, he’d always been slightly unnerved by aunt Alma’s presence; there was something odd about her that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Some people were harder to read than others, like Alex, but it was still possible.

Alma’s mind was like an impenetrable vault in comparison. Any attempts to feel or hear anything she did were met with a metaphorical brick wall, leaving him reeling as though he’d collided with it head first-.. but not tonight. Tonight, Alma was like an open book, and Robin was convinced she was doing it on purpose.

She’d told him all about her struggles as a child; how she didn’t fit in, how people teased her for being too sensitive, how hard it was to figure out who she was amongst the clamour of everyone else’s inner most image of themselves-.. all the while allowing him unlimited access to those very memories, like a handpicked blooper reel, just for him. Of course, that wasn’t the case though.. was it?

Alma had stopped talking now, but Robin still wasn’t sure how to react. He sat in silence instead, staring at nothing in particular for far longer than what could be considered normal.

“Can you hear me?” he thought, deciding to try a little experiment.

Nothing. Okay, so she couldn’t read his mind-.. then what the heck was she getting at? How had she so succinctly summed up his entire existence in less than fifteen minutes?

“I would’ve liked somewhere as quiet as this when I was young, it’s a shame we didn’t have an attic…” Alma offered, clearly trying to relate to Robin’s situation in any way she could. He still wasn’t entirely sure why, but she clearly wanted to help, and Robin didn’t know anyone else who understood him as well as she did, so perhaps he ought to let her try. He finally abandoned his switch and cautiously joined her atop his favourite, motheaten couch.

“What’re you getting at?” he said bluntly, curiosity getting the better of his manners. Alma chuckled softly, “You’re just like your father.” “It’s genetics, apparently…” Robin let loose a brief grin, glad to be compared to Oscar.

“I don’t know how exactly, but you’re different, Robin-.. and I thought it high time you knew you weren’t alone, and that we can’t let these things get the best of us.” Alma smiled softly as she spoke, but Robin was still too wary to be completely transparent. “We?” he asked, dubiously. “We’re few and far between, but you’re certainly not the only one who’s a little.. special, shall we say? That’s better than different, maybe?” Alma suggested.

Robin hummed thoughtfully, shaking his head, “Special is just another word for different, or weird.” Alma scoffed playfully, “And what’s wrong with being weird? I’m weird-.. we’re all a bit weird!”

“How’re you weird?” Robin asked, squinting at Alma accusingly. “Well, I can sense things I certainly shouldn’t be able to.” Alma started, excited to be getting somewhere. “Emotions radiate from people like a space heater-.. they’re not always pleasant, of course, but I can soak them up if I want to.”

Robin blinked, “Only if you want to..?” “Uh-huh.” Alma nodded. “You can block it out?!” Robin spluttered, suddenly and completely forgetting to maintain his ignorance before swiftly correcting himself. “I mean-.. it sounds like you can pick and choose, right?”

Alma nodded once more, “It wasn’t easy, but I spent a lot of years practicing.” “Years?” Robin sounded crestfallen. “I didn’t have a mentor…” Alma winked.

Robin allowed himself to smirk, figuring he might as well drop at least part of the act at this point. He was still a little nervous about being approached about such things so brazenly, but at least he knew why Alma perturbed him so much now, she was blocking him out on purpose-.. and she couldn’t read his mind either, which was always a plus.

The last thing he wanted was for anyone to know that he possessed that particular ability. Who’d want to hang out with someone who could access their inner most thoughts, the one’s they’d never dream of saying out loud? He shuddered involuntarily, hoping he’d never meet anyone that could read his.

Clementine finally nudged Robin, dragging him back to the present with her ghostly touch. “She looked right at me just then-.. she smiled! Did you see?” Robin spun around, realising that Alma had almost begun her descent. He must’ve missed her goodbye. “Wait!”

Alma paused expectantly, causing Robin to second guess himself and retreat into silence. “I won’t be far, sweetheart-.. whenever you’re ready.” Robin shivered as Clementine poked him again, “She can definitely see me…” “Can you, uh-…”

“See the ghost poking you?” Alma giggled, sounding far younger than she was. The vault doors had snapped shut again by now, but Robin got the impression that aunt Alma was just as excited as he was to find someone else who was weird. “Can you hear her?”

“Maybe-.. though I’m quite sure she hasn’t said anything yet.” Alma peered at Clementine expectantly. “Hey!” Clementine exclaimed as Robin tried to shove her into action, his hand ending up halfway through her waist instead.

“What? It’s not like you can feel it.” Robin snorted. Alma laughed heartily, thoroughly amused. “Well, I heard that-.. you two are good friends, huh?”

Robin nodded slightly, releasing a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. “I thought I was the only one who could see her-.. that maybe I was going insane…” “Far from it, honey! You hit me up whenever you feel like it, okay?”

Previous // Next

[thevanillerose]

MEMORY | 9S x 2B | NIER:AUTOMATA

~ WRITING COMMISSIONS ~ ~ PATREON ~ ~ KO-FI ~ ~ NOVELS ~

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I do not own anything except my own writing. All properties belong to their respective creators.

“The black box...it's ready.”

How did things come to this? 2B looked up at her silver-haired companion, whose artificial face was already littered with crude nicks and slight smears of black oil. The air was damp, carrying with it the smell of the sea that surrounded them.

And it wasn't the only thing that surrounded them. On all sides, great mechanical beasts stood. Rusty, giant, sentient oil rigs. Goliaths They had been sent to track down one. They had been confronted by four. Three now remained, steadily walking closer, shifting slowly through the grey waves below in order to reach them and growling as they did so.

This is it. She took a breath. There was no other way out of this besides doing what 9S had just suggested. If they detonated their black boxes then the Goliaths would get caught up in the blast, and they would be destroyed too. Technically...their mission would be a success.

However... However, it was unlikely that they themselves would survive. Impossible actually. They would be at the heart of it when it happened. If the blast had enough of a radius to annihilate the massive robots around them, then it would completely obliterate that which was right next to it. And that would be...the two of them.

Death was an interesting concept to consider. For androids it was different of course. Not only did they lack the same emotions and considerations that humans had, but they also had a back up. Literally. Their memories, their bodies, all of it could be restored if necessary, provided it had been prepared in advance. Which it had been.

If they 'died' here, they'd just come back again up at The Bunker. Really, it was nothing. But still...

Grunting, and letting out a strained cough which he stealthily covered with one slightly shaking, black gloved hand, 9S held his box up with the other. “...Right.” 2B brought forth her own.

“Requesting...destruction of enemy hostiles via black-box-” 9S stopped. He didn't finish his sentence. Something made him stop. Something made him choke. “9S?” 2B questioned, a little 'panic' rising in her throat. Looking around quickly she could see that those malevolent robots were only drawing closer and closer. “-We don't have much time.” she stressed, though kept her voice level. Shouting, worrying...it would be wasted effort in a scenario like this.

“I...I know.” 9S tried to speak again, but he was unable. “Initiate...re...”

“9S...”

Why am I hesitating? I should have been prepared for this. The male android gripped the slightly textured cube even tighter in his hand. He'd taken the necessary precautions. What was most important was that 2B's own memories were backed up. Sure, she'd be wiped out down here, but up there she'd come back and it would practically be like nothing happened. She'd miss a few minutes at worst. However, in his case it wasn't quite the same.

Sure. YoRHa had his model on hand. Yes...he'd come back. And yes, memories would be there too.

But he wouldn't be the same.

This was so silly. It was just a simple, singular memory. In the long run it would do little to benefit him. It certainly wouldn't help him become a more capable unit. Yet why did he feel so protective of it?

That little moment they'd had...together...

…

“Look at this place, 9S.” “...Wow...it's...breathtaking...”

Melancholy. If any word could sum up the sight before them succinctly, it would be 'melancholy'. The Earth...abandoned, broken, overgrown. Yet strangely beautiful in its own damaged way. Once grand skyscrapers now lay toppled like grey mottled dominoes, their windows spilling with lush green vines that grew and trailed down to the moss ridden ground. The sky above was a sad sort of blue, slightly clouded. The air was warm yet the city felt so empty...

Just the two of them, standing there atop one of the many abandoned buildings, taking in the grand sight before themselves. 9S didn't feel so lonely with 2B standing there next to him. He ought to never feel lonely at all given what he was, but the feeling still came and went.

Colorless eyes scanning the scenery behind a shadow, they settled upon something that most would consider rather small and insignificant, but to him stood out. Perhaps it was because it had such vibrant color. The flower's petals were a bright shade of magenta, which contrasted starkly with the cracked gray ground it was growing from. Curiously, 9S approached, crouching down and examining the plant.

He pulled it free from the soil and held it between his fingers, staring at it for a moment. Those same seemingly cold eyes then drifted over to the girl who stood at the opposite end of the rooftop, no doubt already making plans in her head for how to scout this area. 2B almost looked picturesque in her own way, her slender, stern figure standing there against a canvas of greys and blues.

With resolve on the mind, 9S straightened up again and walked over to the girl, taking her hand and giving her the flower without any alert. 2B didn't jolt, but she did look at him through her combat visor, and noted the little gift he had given her. Though she didn't assume it was a gift at first, when she raised it to her eyeline and gave it a good examination. Glancing at him again, 2B questioned:

“Do you want this to be submitted for analysis?” “No it's...” 9S trailed off. If that were the case then he'd have looked into it himself.

“-It's a present.” “A present?”

2B spoke the word as if it were foreign to her, even though she of course knew what it meant. She was an android, not an alien. However, androids had little use for 'presents', certainly when they were programmed to do missions and little else. Though 2B didn't reject it. Instead, she drew the little offering to her chest and held it there for a while, raising her head again and looking out over the city once more.

It was a simple gesture. 2B chose to keep it, but perhaps she had only done so out of politeness. Still. It meant something to him.

…

The last time I backed up my memories...was before that happened. There's no time now...

“9S-” “I'm fine.”

He tilted his own box towards hers, shifting a little closer to his fellow android. “Requesting destruction of enemy hostiles...via black-box reaction.”

“...Request accepted.”

Like my writing? I can write for you! Check out my WRITING COMMISSIONS!

[iamnotoriginalphil]

Confessions (Alex Blake x Reader)

Synopsis: Finding the Replicators abandoned building full of your photos leads to a number of confessions

Words: 1.5k

Warnings: mentions of the Replicator and stalking

You were going to throw up. There was no doubt about it. You hunched over, hands on your knees, under the heavy gaze of your team staring down from all angles. Black and white, their faces blazed as moment after moment crashed into you.

A hand rubbed soothing circles over your back. Tears were in your eyes. The horror was a living thing in your chest. It cried for escape. You pressed a hand to your mouth to keep it from clawing out from between your lips.

“What is this?” you faintly heard Morgan demand.

“Oh god,” managed to slip through your lips, the taloned fingers of your fear creeping out.

“This is… it’s…” JJ’s horror felt so stark, so palpable.

“Someone’s been following us,” Reid said, summing up the situation succinctly, “all of us.”

You reached out a hand, blindly searching for the person you knew was behind you. Their fingers curled around yours, holding you steady, while you tried to suck air into your lungs. You felt broken, frozen, unable to do anything.

“We need to find who’s done this,” Hotch was saying to someone.

“Doing this,” you whispered.

Because it wasn’t over and done. There was someone out there still doing this. Still following you and your friends. Watching you. Taking photos of you for their ow sick pleasure.

You felt dirty. Like bleach wouldn’t be enough to clean you from this. It stuck to your skin, making you feel alien in your own body.

The hand holding yours tugged you until an arm looped around your waist, pulling you into a warm body. Burying your head in the space between shoulder and neck, the familiar perfume helped to calm your heart.

“We’ll find them,” Alex promised, “we’ll be okay.”

“I feel so gross,” you said.

Her arm tightened around you just as your team was asked to leave the crime scene. You let her lead you out, still feeling shaky. JJ reached out to you, her hand finding yours, an extra steadying presence. You needed it, just to get you out of there where you could still see the photos staring back at you.

So many moments captured. Private moments. Moments that were yours but now weren’t. Moments that had been stolen from you by someone still in the shadows.

It took a while to settle back into your own skin after that. Returning home that night you’d been in the shower so long Alex had come to find you. She’d held you under the warm spray of water, tight enough for you to feel the way her body trembled as well.

Perhaps that’s why it took so long for Morgan to sidle up to you. You’d been the most obviously shaken by the entire thing, your anger never quite eclipsing the sense of wrongness sitting in your own life.

“When were you going to tell us?” he asked you while sitting across from you on the jet on the way home from a case.

“That I think anyone who willingly drinks green juice is in a cult?” you replied, “I thought I’d wait for it come up naturally. I don’t want to make it seem like I’m shoehorning in my political agenda.”

“I meant your relationship with Blake,” he said, flashing those pearly whites at you.

“I agree, it’s risky going into business with a friend, but I really think this bar and bookshop idea is going to work,” you said.

He chuckled, but it was with the kind of fondness you had for your younger sibling when they did something that annoyed you. You looked up from the book you’d been reading, finding his eyebrow raised in your direction.

You sighed, glancing over at Alex on the couch. Her eyes were trained on her own book, but you could tell from the slope of her shoulders that she was listening in.

“How’d you find out?” you asked.

“The Replicator had pictures of you two,” he said.

“Oh, we’ve named him the Replicator now, have we?” you replied, “Hotch will be so pleased.”

It was easier to deflect than admit how uncomfortable that sentence had made you. You’d only just begun to get over the invasion of privacy. Having someone point out they’d seen private moments of yours due to that guy made you want to scream.

“Come on,” Morgan said, “we’ll get the guy.”

“Yeah, I know,” you replied.

“I just want to know how long this has been going on,” he said.

“A while,” you replied.

“Long enough for most of your clothes to have migrated to my place,” Alex said, still not looking up from her book.

“Your place is nicer than mine,” you said.

Her uptick of lips still made you heart flutter, even after so many months together. Her eyes flicked up to you, catching you looking. You caught your lower lip between your teeth, trying not to smile broadly.

“I can’t believe we didn’t see this before,” Morgan said, breaking into your moment.

You dragged your gaze back to him, not wanting to look away from Alex. You never wanted to look away from her.

“You didn’t,” JJ scoffed from the other end of the plane.

You looked over your shoulder. The others weren’t pretending not to listen in, the only one seemingly trying to give you privacy being Hotch. You felt the embarrassment creep up again, that same sticky feeling getting lodged in your chest.

“If you’re happy, we’re happy,” Rossi said.

“Thanks.” You didn’t really know how to respond to that.

You looked back to Alex, needing her to guide how to navigate this moment. She finally closed her book, finger caught between the pages in a way that was familiar and comforting. She stood, hand closing around your shoulder. It helped steady you.

“We’re very happy,” she said to the plane at large, “and that’s all we’re going to be answering about it until we’ve had a chance to talk about it between us.”

“I want to know what the photo showed,” you said.

“Photos, multiple,” Rossi replied.

“Oh god.” You buried your head in your hands, not able to face them.

“It wasn’t anything embarrassing,” JJ reassured you, “just a few kisses, some shots of you leaving Blake’s house in the morning, I think a date. It’s nothing bad.”

Alex’s hand tightened on your shoulder. You reached out, fingers curling around her wrist if only to anchor you to the moment. Someone had been there for intimate moments, for moments that were meant to just be between you and Alex. And now your entire team had seen them too. It felt tainted, all of it.

“Come on.” Her voice was quiet, just for you.

Her hand pulled you up, guiding you away from the rest of the group. They went back to what they were doing, Morgan starting a loud conversation with Reid and JJ to cover your conversation. Her arm around your waist kept you close to her.

“They know,” she said, prompting you to say something to her.

“I don’t care that they know. I’m glad. We don’t have to sneak around anymore,” you replied, “I just don’t like that someone has been following us around and seeing these moments that were meant to be ours. It makes me feel dirty.”

“I know but it doesn’t change how we felt in those moments or what they mean to us,” she said, “they’re still ours.”

“Are they?”

She pulled you into a hug, arms tight around you. You curled your own arms around her, pressing yourself against her hoping to be absorbed into her.

“He can’t take away how much I love you,” she murmured.

“You…” You had to draw away, had to see her eyes.

“This is a moment he doesn’t get to see,” she said, cupping your cheeks with both hands, “I love you.”

You surged forward, needing to kiss her, needing her to feel how much you loved her too. She laughed into the kiss, the whooping from Morgan a distant noise when her tongue was licking into your mouth and her body was brushing against yours.

“I love you too,” you gasped when she drew away.

“I can tell, darling.” Her forehead rested against yours, “and he doesn’t get to have this moment. This one is all ours.”

“And theirs,” you said, tilting your head towards the rest of the team.

“Is that okay?” she asked.

“I think I can live with that.”

She lent forward, kissing you softly, stealing your breath. You pressed yourself to her, wanting her so much closer.

“Alright, love birds, keep it PG back there,” Morgan called over.

You broke away, laughing, your breath mingling with hers. Maybe everything wasn’t okay right now. Maybe it wouldn’t be for a while. But you and Alex were more than okay.

Definitely more than okay.

Tags: @trippol-threat​​​​​​ @theclassicgaycousin​​​​​​ @prentiss-theorem​​​​​​ @nightmarish-fae​​​​​​ @storiesofsvu​​​​​​ @rustyzebra​​​​​​ @emsmultiverse​​​

[patrickjanebrain]

Red Hot: The Slow Slow Burn of Jane and Lisbon (Walter Mashburn Edition)

I just finished re-watching Red Hot (3x07), and I have some thoughts about Lisbon and her aborted love affair with Walter Mashburn.

I admit that I didn't like it that [spoiler] Lisbon had a one-night stand with Mashburn. I enjoy the character. Mashburn was entertaining, charming, and likable in a whimsical sort of ruthless way, and Currie Graham had great chemistry with both Simon Baker and Robin Tunney. It would have been interesting if he had made more appearances on the show. But I felt it was out of character for Lisbon to just take him for a quick spin and then never see him again. And obviously he's a horrible romantic bet. The writers make that clear when they introduce him.

And then I realized that's the point.

During the 7 seasons of The Mentalist, in the course of their investigations, Lisbon and Jane meet hundreds of people, and Walter Mashburn is quite unique among them. He and Jane hit it off right away, despite the fact that Jane suspects him of being a possible murderer. Mashburn immediately understands exactly who Jane is ("You're a psychic, aren't you?").

He succinctly sums up Jane's entire raison d'etre the second time they meet.

Walter Mashburn: Oh, I know you're a charlatan as I said. You lost your wife and kid to a serial killer, your fault you think. And now you're on this hopeless quest for redemption. Battling evil and injustice, right?

Patrick Jane: Close enough.

Walter Mashburn: You play mind games with people. You size up their weaknesses, and then you give them the rope to hang themselves.

Patrick Jane: Oh, you make it sound so cool.

Mashburn happily goes along with all of Jane's schemes because he's essentially bored being the smartest, most danger-seeing, risk-taking person in the room all of the time. He enjoys new experiences.

Mashburn also has a thing for revenge. When we meet him a second time it's because he's in the process of destroying an old enemy, Yuri Bajoran. He's maneuvered a hostile buyout of his business, Yuri's "baby," because Yuri once stole the woman he loved away from Mashburn.

Playful. Ruthless. Brilliant. Charming. Hedonistic. Risk taking.

You get where I'm going here. He's Patrick Jane. Minus the trauma.

Mashburn is what Jane was trying to become before his wife and child were murdered. He was chasing fame and fortune. He was ignoring his wife's desire to live a straight life because he was having too much fun indulging himself.

And then, because of Jane's arrogance and carelessness, Red John deliberately targeted Angela and Charlotte for destruction, and Jane had to do a massive internal restructuring of his priorities.

When we first meet Jane, he's still playful, charming, ruthless, brilliant, and risk taking. But now he has a mission, and that suicide mission for revenge takes precedence over ever other thing. He's no longer self indulgent. He's sublimated his hedonistic urges, including his sexuality, to give himself greater focus. The only thing that matters is hunting down and killing Red John.

Then he meets Teresa Lisbon.

Lisbon is a soulmate. She has survived her own crucible of trauma, and she has a critical understanding of (and empathy for) broken, hurting men. She understands that Jane is off-limits romantically. He's shut down. He may flirt and charm out of habit or need, but the part of him that could give something to a relationship is no longer operational. There is an attraction between them, but it's impossible.

That impossibility is the reason they allow themselves to get so close and eventually care so deeply for each other.

Because Teresa is extremely skittish. She's a bolter. She left Chicago because she felt tied down taking care of her father and brothers. She abandoned her fiance when things got too serious between them. She's afraid of commitment. To her commitment feels like slavery, and she doesn't want that. She's afraid of that.

But that doesn't mean that she's not attracted to Mashburn. She has a type: she likes charming, ruthless bad boys who don't follow the rules. She knows they're bad for her, but she can't help it. That's her thing.

When she meets Walter, he immediately tells her he's attracted to her and available.

He asks her out. He says he'll fly his plane to Sacramento to see her. Jane finds all of this amusing. He agrees with Mashburn's assessment of Lisbon's appeal and compliments him on his style. And later he tells Lisbon that she should have taken him up on his offer, that a little empty glamour would be good for her.

When you realize that Mashburn is a stand-in for Jane, the whole thing is quite funny, really. Lisbon being attracted to Jane. Jane telling Lisbon that he'd be good for her, loosen her up a little.

When they meet again in Red Hot, Lisbon does take Mashburn up on his offer. She enjoys herself, and then like the skittish filly she is, she never sees him again. It's too much. Too tempting, too out of character for the person she wants to be. And Mashburn could overpower her emotionally. She doesn't want that.

The trauma, their mutual trauma, is what Jane and Lisbon share and bond over. It's what keeps them apart, and what eventually, after that slow, slow burn, brings them together. The attraction was always there. It's takes time to build that complete understanding and utter trust, and it never would have happened if Jane had been available to begin with.

@tmsource @robntunney @tresalisbon

[ipsomaniac]

Up to ep 4 of Severance S2 and i'm a little confused about the hype. i mean it's decent: the characters are endearing, the acting is good, Mr Milchick is a work of genius (what if your Agent Smith corporate miniboss was a member of Village People? inspired), there are some good jokes and good dramatic writing (in places), the title intro sequences are fantastic.

but overall i don't quite understand the rapturous popular and critical response it's received; to me it has a lot of good elements but is less than the sum of its parts. it seems to be operating on a lot of different levels - as absurdist theatre, as corporate satire/social commentary, as psychoanalytical allegory, as semi-realist psychological thriller - but doesn't work fully on any of them. i find it falls back too often on absurdism as a mechanism to generate a sense of meaning and obfuscate the lack of an actual point. the relentless absurdism is quite tedious - slows down the pace infuriatingly. i think most of what the show actually has to say (an exploration of the self-alienating nature of corporate life/work in general; of the nature of grief and the ways people compartmentalise parts of themselves they don't want to face; a bit of satire at the quasi-religious nature of corporations and other hierarchical institutions) could be said more succinctly.

the trouble is the writers are very good at building the pace up again for the last 5-10 minutes of each episode so they do successfully get you to keep watching. when the show is operating on that level - solid psychological drama/thriller - it works super well! all the weird worldbuilding and symbolism makes it more interesting, as a drama. but the other 80% of the show feels like you're slogging through a slightly confused performance of waiting for godot

[wetcatspellcaster]

I read the latest chapter of Honest Lie: it was devastating. I was smashed to the floor, it was incredible.

I loved the support group feedback.

Something I’m looking forward to is seeing how Rosalie deals with allowing Astarion to ascend. Rosalie’s straightforward ways of dealing with good things and bad things are something that I find difficult to comprehend - I think I personally am much more willing to compromise on good and evil for a person I love and a person I hate. I wonder if the party’s adoration for Rose is partially because she provides that strong moral compass that they all so desperately are looking for being

Good —————————- Power? Power!

(See companions vacillating between both spectrums, with Karlach being the exception, in my opinion)

And I do love Astarion’s cautiously made point, which (maybe? I feel?) that Rosalie hasn’t quite yet seemed to express fully in my reading - that people should be allowed to choose. There’s this line from a book that often resonates with me (I’ve put it below!! Please excuse my quoting another author at you, you being my respected and much loved author!) which states basically that choice is the most important thing to preserve, because it lets us choose to be whoever we want to be, which!! I love that BG3 seems to show us, that we persuade the companion but the companion makes the actual final choices!!

I’m super looking forward to the next installments!!! I enjoy reading so much your good and amazing works! Wishing you a great month ahead :)

“It was the right thing to do because it gave us choices. Having a choice is the most important thing.”

I’d heard that before. It’s a bullet-point line in the graduation handbook: As a general rule, regardless of the specific situation in which you find yourself, at every step you must take care to preserve or widen the number of your options. It hadn’t quite sunk in properly, but now it did. Having a choice meant being able to choose something that worked for you and whatever you were carrying and whatever you’d prepared. Having a choice meant you got to choose getting out.”

The Last Graduate, Naomi Novik

hey lovely, thank you for the message and feedback on the chapter, I'm glad that you enjoyed it!

I just want to give a quick reminder that Astarion doesn't Ascend in An Honest Lie! That is not my canon playthrough narrative and Pieces has the tagline 'Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence' for this reason. I only bring it up to put the lingering fears of any readers to bed, but also because it informs my response to your message!

Because, um, we've already *seen* the timeline where Rosalie gives Astarion full and free reign of choice... and that is, in fact, Pieces Still Stuck In Your Teeth :'))))

I totally get where you're coming from. I love that BG3 post that goes around occasionally being like 'I believe in supporting my friends' choices and BG3 really tests that by making my friends want to commit mass murder, become a God, kill a defenceless woman...' bc it sums up my feelings pretty succinctly. While in theory, I'd love a world where Astarion is given space to fix himself and then makes the choice a good Tav wants him to make, the fact of the matter is that if you do not make the (admittedly low DC) persuasion check, if left to his own devices Astarion will always choose to Ascend.

I've thought about that choice by Larian a lot. It's part of what made Pieces so compelling to me as a worst timeline, because that crucial moment seemed to become a perfect storm of 1. Rosalie doubting herself and her own values, choosing to put love first but in a way that is essentially, more self-sacrifice and self-effacement and self-doubt, and 2. Astarion losing a key source of support at the scariest moment in his life and suddenly feeling lost and alone. Rose doesn't speak to him once, past the flashback, in that timeline - she lets him take the lead.

So in response to your question, I operate on the belief, however subjective, that Rosalie's refusal to give in actually is what opens up more choice for Astarion, not the other way around. Because (as plenty of other meta posts that come before me have said much better than I could) he thinks the world works a certain way, and all his decisions are made within that matrix and the assumption that this is the only way the world works. Rose is offering a new model of behaviour - I'm not saying it's flawless, or even correct (it's mostly just autistic). It's just an alternative perspective that I believe (inevitably, as its author) is needed.

A secondary example of that, is him mechanising love in the Chapter 11 argument to try and get his way - he knows he can get people to do what he wants through sex, surely love is just a more powerful version of that? This is the way the world works. But Rosalie refusing to back down despite being in love with him, or love manifesting in a way that isn't immediate acquiescence, also challenges that perspective. It shows that sometimes love or sex or attraction isn't the automatic tool to a person's complacency, and that in fact sometimes love is actively working to better yourself, if you care about a person enough. Sometimes love/attraction isn't making the other person do something for you, but doing something for them instead.

I agree people should be allowed to choose... but sometimes people need support and also, to be quite honest, coaching to get through the most difficult times in their lives without turning into the worst version of themselves. That's not a failing of the person, it's just proof that things are easier when you have a support network. Astarion wants independence as freedom but I don't think independence as loneliness serves him, as it reinforces his worldview, of choices as survival and nothing else.

[duhragonball]

All right, let me put this under a cut, because this doesn’t come up often, but I think I’d like a single post I can refer people to when this topic gets brought up.

Short version: I read all seven books and hated them, and now the author is an unapologetic transphobe, which is something I have no patience for.  In recent years, critics have begun to connect the author’s neoliberal politics with a lot of the flaws in the writing, and this video by Shaun is a pretty good exploration of what was so frustrating about the books and the characters.  

Long version: I “liveblogged” all seven Harry Potter novels between 2005 and 2012.  I use the quote marks because back in those days I’m not sure “liveblog” was a term, but I certainly hadn’t heard of it.  I called it a “review”, but I basically would read each chapter and recap the whole thing with my smartass commentary.  In hindsight, this was probably more like me trying to do Nostalgia Critic’s bit in prose format, but I wasn’t very familiar with him at the time either. 

Soon afterward, I moved my online presence to tumblr, which was sort of a fresh start for me.  It sounds like I’m implying there was some sort of bad experience that came out of the whole thing, but there wasn’t.  I was proud of the work I did at the time, and while I’m not sure if it holds up in the 2020′s, I got a lot of satisfaction out of finishing a multiyear project like that.  But by the end, I was ready to move on, and so I have moved on, which is why I don’t speak of it much in this space. 

The point I’m making here is that I read all the books and I examined them pretty thoroughly, and my conclusion was that they all sucked.  Yes, even your favorite one.  No, it didn’t start out good and jump the shark later on.  They all sucked.  That’s what I had against Harry Potter.

I say “had”, because even though I’ve moved on to other pursuits, J.K. Rowling continues to maintain a public presence, selling her video games and spin-off movies and so on.  She’s also gone full-on TERF, spouting transphobic rhetoric and using her platform as a billionaire best-seller to bully people who are much less fortunate than herself. 

I’ll embed that video I linked to up top.

I think Shaun does a really excellent job explaining just what bugged me so much about the Harry Potter books.  I found the main characters extremely unlikeable, and I could never quite put my finger on the reason.  And the villains were pretty weak too, despite all their terrible crimes and talk of conquest.  Superficially, the whole thing feels like a classic good vs. evil struggle, with good wizards fighting bad wizards, kind of like how the Transformers are about good alien robots fighting a war against bad alien robots.  But it never seemed to work in the Harry Potter books.

Shaun explains why: Despite the “good versus evil” premise, a lot of the good guys just act like thoughtless, selfish pricks sometimes, and it’s justified because they’re on the good guy team.  Sometimes a character will do something terrible to another character, and it’s deemed acceptable because they’re nominally a “good guy”, and the person they’re being a jerk to is a “bad guy”, so they’re fair game.  It’s less about “good vs. evil” and more about “us vs. them”.  

Shaun doesn’t spent a lot of time getting into Rowling’s transphobia, but he does talk about a lot of the other problematic stuff in the books, like the lack of thought she put into Cho Chang’s name.  He also points out the hypocrisy in having all the other characters act irritated with Hermione’s anti-slavery campaign.  The whole thing with the house elves was half-baked from the start, and Rowling kept stumbling through each book trying to correct course, ultimately settling on having one character stand up for the Right Thing, only to have all the other characters ignore or dismiss her concerns.  Harry himself seems to have no particular opinion on house-elf slavery, which sums up the character very succinctly.   He’s the protagonist and the viewpoint character, but he doesn’t stand for anything in particular.

Now that I think about it, I suppose this was why I kept working anime characters and Transformers and professional wrestlers into my liveblog of the books.  At the time, I would have told you I was just doing it to keep myself entertained as I trudged through the series, but in hindsight, I think I was just starved for characters who actually believed in something bigger than themselves.   Harry can barely be arsed to do his own homework, meanwhile, I’ve known what passions fuel Omega Supreme since I was nine years old. 

“Diction: Straighforward.  Personality: Complex. (*snif*)”

I don’t know what sort of person you are, @endmylife69​ . You strike me as a reply guy, contrarian for its own sake.  I see feminist and antifeminist posts in your likes, and one of the three posts on your blog is about how much you hate Chi-Chi, so I don’t know why you even show up to my blog, where I think Chi-Chi is awesome.  The point is if your agenda here is to sea-lion me into “proving” that Rowling is a TERF and that TERFs are bad, I’m not interested in playing that game.  There’s plenty of critics out there who will walk you through that discussion step by step.  You asked what my problem is with her, and I’m telling you.

There are fans of hers who have to struggle with the moral implications of liking her work while distancing themselves from her hateful beliefs.  I respect the fans who have to figure that out.  I don’t respect the fans who just pretend like the dilemma doesn’t exist, because they care more about playing that new Hogwarts vidya game than anything else. 

For my own part, I can’t relate to the fans’ dilemma, because I always thought Rowling’s book series sucked shit.  What’s frustrating for me is that I spent about seven years roasting her books on the internet, and the whole time I was going “Ha ha these books suck shit!”, and it all just feels so dated now, because she’s going to go down in history as this rich, hateful bigot.  Her lousy writing is going to be a footnote to her career.  It’s like writing an “epic takedown” of Mel Gibson movies without ever getting into all the antisemitic stuff he’s done.  In retrospect, I feel kind of disgusted for engaging with her work at all, even to insult it. 

I’m sick of talking about Harry Potter, so let me make this about Chi-Chi, since that seems to be the only thing I know you have strong opinions about.  Part of the reason I like Chi-Chi so much is because she’s basically right.  She objects to a lot of the things that happen in Dragon Ball, which makes her seem like a killjoy, but her motives are sensible and important.  She grounds the other characters, keeping them with one foot in the real world. 

This is because Chi-Chi understands that there’s more to life than fighting gonzo anime battles.  Yes, she lives in a world where laser karate is real and quite prevalent.  Yes, her sons are insanely powerful warriors who are sometimes the only thing standing in the way of world annihilation.  But at the same time? Gohan and Goten really do need to study and get good jobs.  Protecting the world is important, but so is family, and home life, and the work you do.  Also, maybe it’s important to stop breaking the furniture all the time.  Its expensive, dammit. 

These are messages that a lot of DB fans don’t care for, because they tuned in for gonzo anime battles, and this loud woman is scolding everyone for wanting that.  But the point of the character is that there’s a bigger world in the lore.  There’s places to live and people to meet and things to do besides fighting Frieza all the time, and she wants her loved ones to thrive in that world, which is why she keeps reminding them of it. 

And that’s a metaphor for our own world, where there’s more to our own lives than the shows we watch and the books we read, and the internet arguments we get into.  We each have to ask ourselves what we stand for, what we’re trying to be on this planet.  My problem with the Harry Potter franchise is that it doesn’t seem to stand for much of anything.  The characters only seem to care about stopping big league threats, but have no interest in reforming their broken society.  The protagonist spends much of his time just passively experiencing the story like he’s sitting in a theme park ride.  The author only seems to feel strongly about punching down, attacking trans people and surrounding herself with anyone willing to congratulate her for this despicable attitude.  Her supporters only seem to care about being on her side, no matter how morally bankrupt it is. 

Like, okay, that video game came out a few months ago, and I saw people on Twitter trying to angrily justify their decision to buy it, even though a lot of people have pointed out that it directly supports a woman who uses her wealth to justify her bigotry platform.  They’d go “It’s just a game!” and someone made a really snotty TikTok about it or something, and I’m like “Who are you trying to convince, me or yourself?”  If it was just a game, then they’d just play it and not say anything.  But they know it’s not just about the game, and that’s why they’re so defensive about it.  They want to be on both sides of this thing, and that doesn’t surprise me much, since their favorite book series taught them that they can be a real selfish dickbag and still be a good guy as long as you oppose the main villain. 

Chi-Chi would see right through that.  It’s not enough to just oppose the final boss.  It’s the life you live before and after those kinds of battles that defines you as a person. 

Anyway, Harry Potter sucks rotten eggs, and the author is a giant toolshed.  Also, that funeral they did for the giant spider was a fucking ordeal to read.  0/10 would not recommend. 

[redlilyqueen]

i beat armored core 6! as someone who has long, long gone on record as a "souls-like disliker", and has never touched armored core before now- AC6 FUCKIN' RULES.

i think comparisons to dark souls and the ilk are... kinda fair, considering that's what fromsoft's been best known for the past how many years. understandable at minimum. in that vein, speaking on dark souls to expand on my feelings... it's basically just how fuckin painfully sluggish it is. no matter why it's like that, that's just something i can't really deal with in a video game. that and i've always been exceedingly turned off by the purported difficulty of the genre... in combination with the aforementioned especially.

by my knowledge, armored core 6's similarities to soulslikes begins and ends at: -you can be pretty sluggish depending on your build -there's a lot of difficult boss fights -made by fromsoft games. i think i had something else to put here originally but i forgot it -you can customize a thing pretty much however you like i guess

let me tell you, my friends, i have a need for speed imprinted in my soul, and armored core 6 DELIVERS. even when i made bulkier ACs for heavier weapons that stuff could MOVE if you knew how to move it... and the parts to use i guess (more under the cut)

This game goes fast. half the time, working by the arena's standards, i could kill an enemy AC in around 50 seconds. and those fights with enemy ACs are frenetic and fun as hell. not to mention the grander bosses in the game! they're often difficult fights, yes, but i never felt discouraged even once.

one thing i found particularly exciting was just the number of options- even if i only really ended up using a handful, lol. i was sort of surprised by how most weapons and even some parts can last you pretty much the whole game if the build's effective enough- my primary ACs all ended up being a Double Trigger build using the gatling guns. in fact, up until near the end of the game when i decided to expand my horizons just a bit, that and variations of it were all i would use- And i used the single same head for basically the whole game.

for my build with the lightest double jointed legs (and at the start in general), i had to use the first machine guns you unlock, because i was a maniac for lots of missiles and they got pretty weighty. but i ended up eventually unlocking double joint legs with comparable enough performance that could handle more weight, and, well... it was gatling gun city from then on.

and, even with the gatling guns and the twenty missiles, those builds stayed pretty freaking quick! whether i was using the lightweight tank treads or double jointed legs, it was showtime all the time, and i rained hellfire. ... i did tend to run clean out of ammo a fair number of times though, at least in the mid-game.

i forget whether it was here or twitter, but i saw a post somewhere not long before i started playing the game that- to sum it up succinctly- basically amounted to "best thing to do is keep the enemy in your sights and stay out of your enemy's sights, so build for fast movement + evasion". and i definitely took it to heart, at least subconsciously... and, i mean, let's be real- i probably woulda gone for builds like that anyways, being me.

on that note, the game is very newcomer friendly, i think- once you get over the first hurdle of the boss in the intro mission, anyways. the tutorials, and tutorial missions especially, were quite thorough, handed out in parts so as not to overwhelm. and exact info on any of the many different stats to each AC part were only a few buttons away in the building menu. not to mention the ease of which you can build an AC and then get right to testing it- even so far as to be able to hop into the assembly menu from testing, and go right back with nary even a loading screen. Real good shit.

to make a long post short, this game let me play as an approximation of chris yukine if she were a mecha, and that is a very powerful thing to put in my hands, and i'm very glad i decided on a whim to buy this game from a series my datefriend really likes.

time for new game plus!

(here's ICHAIVAL if you wanna see her btw :> thanks for reading all that, i think)

[ausetkmt]

Funk. It’s not just the notes and it’s not just the rhythm. It’s the feeling. When you’re listening to a band or a song, you shouldn’t have to do too much thinking to tell if it’s got the funk. You’ll feel it. And if it’s got the funk, ipso facto, it is funky.

Funk bands and funky music have recently, I’m pleased to report, experienced a bit of a resurgence – that is if one is to believe the august New York Times, who on November 3rd ran a lengthy article in it’s Sunday Review section entitled, “The Glorious Return Of Funk.” Oddly, at least on the surface, the article’s author, professor and musicologist Nate Sloan, cited as his first example the song ‘Sucker,’ a current Top 40 hit by the decidedly un-funky Wyckoff, NJ trio (and all-time favorite of my daughter, Mary), the Jonas Brothers. But sure enough, precisely 1:55 into the tune and for the succeeding 14 seconds, comes the moment Sloan described as a “stupefyingly funky drum break.” I’ll be damned if I didn’t feel it. With reflections of academia, Sloan went on to explain funk’s elusive heart is in its syncopation. “(It’s) The art of placing rhythmic accents in unexpected places,” he expounds. “The cognitive dissonance created every time a drummer, a guitarist or a group of horns strikes a note on the offbeat has a way of generating a propulsive power that can’t be denied.”

Current renaissance notwithstanding, what can similarly not be denied is that such funky syncopated power was at its peak in the groovy era of the 1970’s. Earth, Wind & Fire, The Isley Brothers, Sly and the Family Stone, Kool & The Gang, The Gap Band, The Brothers Johnson, The Commodores, The Meters (later The Funky Meters), and certainly Parliament-Funkadelic, were just some of the roster of gigantic ‘70’s bands delivering the almighty funk.

Invoking the unlikely pairing of Descartes and the aforementioned Parliament, professor Sloan further attempted to ascribe scholarly meaning to the subject with the moving, sensory description, “The olfactory nature of the name ‘funk’ suggests the music was all about sweat and sociality. And it is. But it’s also something greater. Funk insisted that physical release begets mental salvation and vice versa, a collapsing of Cartesian mind-body duality summed up succinctly in the title of a 1970 Funkadelic album: “Free Your Mind … and Your Ass Will Follow.””

That’s heady stuff (and, I suppose, booty stuff). More directly, James Jamerson, acknowledged recently as the “most influential bass player ever” by Bass Player magazine, was known to have said, “The funk is in the funk.”

Personally, I just know it when I hear (and feel) it. And probably no band (outside of James Brown and The Famous Flames) put that feeling across quite like The Ohio Players. Originally formed in Dayton, Ohio in 1959, The Ohio Players reached their zenith in the ‘70’s with gloriously funkified hits such as ‘Love Rollercoaster,’ ‘Skin Tight,’ ‘Funky Worm,’ ‘Jive Turkey,’ and, undoubtedly their greatest ever, our featured song, ‘Fire.’ The video clip, taken from a 1975 live performance on the beloved late-night musical variety series, The Midnight Special, is over nine minutes long, but well worth the time.

Right from the marvelously incongruous introduction by funk-less ‘I Am Woman’ Aussie, Helen Reddy, the Ohio Players launch into an elongated funk-fest that would almost seem to be parody – or an outtake from the Will Farrell flick, “Semi-Pro” – if not for the fact that it’s so damn awesome. There’s a lot to follow here: smoke, bubbles, sirens, afros, denim ‘n diamond-bedazzled outfits, flame-licking graphics, runway strutting, O-H-I-O chanting, the sudden appearance (then re-appearance) by a crew of pop-and-lock dancers, all happening while the band keeps churning away at its mighty funky business. But I do especially hope you’ll stick around until the end when (beginning at 8:24) double-neck guitarist Leroy “Sugarfoot” Bonner – that’s right, “Sugarfoot” – does a mind-blowing, pretty much indescribable scat/guitar finale that in retrospect seems like the only possible way to bring the entire eccentric exercise to a conclusion.

Of its madcap mayhem, a YouTube commenter astutely wrote, “Caution: this is straight funk, please warm up with lesser funk before watching. Side effects may include uncontrollable urge to get down, get it on, or get on wit’ yo bad self, randomly begin shouting and whooping, and possibly, in severe cases, set fire to your house in honor of the funk.” To that, stretching back from the Ohio Players on up to the Jonas Brothers, all I can think to say is “Funk yeah.”

[unknown68d]

U68D's End-Of-2024 Critical Value Examination

I recently finished my exams for the semester & have decided I'll be dedicating some time to critically examine my worldview. There's a lot to talk about here, but the overall theme can be summed up in one word: "Crossroads". I feel like I've been at many of them for years.

I invite you to read an article discussing the fear of saying the wrong thing from the lens of OCD, the disorder I suffer from. OCD themes often vary, and rn this one's affecting me the most. One crossroad is black-&-white morality vs nuance.

I've tried & largely succeeded in unlearning black-&-white thinking internally, but in terms of my external social spheres, I perform cost-benefit analysis CONSTANTLY. I've engaged with many new, different online communities, both actively & passively here & there, since 2022.

Some I still remain in, some I've left. Clearly, I'm still trying to figure out where I "belong". What's LESS clear to me is what's required to simultaneously "belong" to a social sphere while also being true to myself & adhering to my more established values.

Consider 4 people with established communities: A, B, C, D. Say I've respected A and B for years. Over time, A thinks B & D are problematic & shouldn't have a platform. B thinks the same of A & C. I'm not fond of C & D but don't agree they should be deplatformed. Now, scale up.

ALT TEXT: In this diagram, U68D visually describes the social dynamics he believes are always at play on social media from a purely cultural perspective. Imagine U68D likes people/communities A & B. A likes C & B likes D. U68D isn't fond of C, nor D, but believes it's important to tolerate their existence without deplatforming. However, A believes B & D don't deserve a platform & B believes A & C don't deserve one either. Scaling up this network by adding new people/communities makes this network more complex, with an infinitely expanding number of connections with different colours representing how a person likes/dislikes or respects/doesn't respect them. This is how U68D's brain sees the cultural component of social media platforms in the present day.

Scaling up here means adding more people, more communities, and more coloured arrows. Yes, it's as messy as you'd think. THIS, in my mind, is how the purely cultural component of social media operates. You're forced to choose the colour of your arrows just to socially survive.

As an observer whose actively trying to gain multiple perspectives & not get confined to bubbles, you realize this network only continues to grow & the colours of arrows can change for one reason or another, at any point. Sometimes the colour was a lie in the first place.

Then there are the arrows you directly control. Choose the wrong combo of colours? Lose friends or a community, maybe gain harassers & potentially someone so mentally unwell that they stalk you & jeopardize your safety. You may not even HAVE arrows there & it STILLS happens!

Fortunately, there ARE spaces, communities & people that don't operate like this. The best example I can give is HealthyGamerGG, a mental health platform for the internet generation, who directly tackles the echo chamber problem.

All this to succinctly say that I find it hard to really participate in communities authentically without running into these issues. Simply put: Some values I have that just aren't tolerated in some spaces I'm in, while they're quite respected in others & vice versa.

In closing, I'll be doing another wave of unfollowing people. I've cast quite a wide net of people to follow for some time, so I feel now's a good time to re-align myself once more. I'll do these periodically, but know it's nothing personal most of the time!

If you made it to the end, I appreciate you & hope you'll keep this in mind as you engage with social media & online communities moving forward. It's all I ask for this festive season. Speaking of, I hope you all have a happy holiday! 💝

[bellascarousel]

I feel like how my morning is going can be quite succinctly summed up by the fact that after declaring my deposit at work, what was left in the safe started with 666..

[vacantgodling]

i told myself mentally i wasn’t gonna add to this post cuz i still don’t quite know how it blew up (to me anyway) however, i do want to add that i’ve seen several people in the notes talking about how these types of memes and general attitude is “coping” when writing is difficult for them. i think it should be said that being burnt out and taking a step back from a hobby is a very different thing than actively sabotaging your relationship with said hobby.

not to put u on the spot but @blind-the-winds ‘s tags pretty much sum it up super succinctly:

ik ik it’s always like “omg stop trying to police my mental health or how i cope”, but seriously endless negativity creates a pit that can be very difficult to get out of. if you spend a lot of your time demoralizing yourself or finding solace in bashing yourself and the things that you enjoy then there will be a point that you will have a hard time finding any joy in it at all. it’s why it’s difficult to rebuild self esteem from low self esteem because negative self talk can take root and make it so you believe in that negativity even if it isn’t true. i’m sure y’all have heard the phrase that it takes 10 compliments to make up for one insult and this is no different. our minds are literally wired to hold onto negativity, you aren’t immune to it.

so i implore you, if you constantly reblog posts that talk about hating writing or that you’re not a real writer because you aren’t writing or anything negative about it stop and ask yourself what is this serving? is this serving to actually help you write more or feel excited about your hobby? or does it make you feel like more shit? venting every now and again is obvs chill but like i’m worried about y’all’s headspace’s half the time cuz i’ve been there and it took awhile to not be there.

please take care of yourselves. and remember: you’re a writer because you say you are there is no threshold. so give yourself a little grace esp in the new year

ngl i get that people hype up hating writing for the bit but like. idk. yall i Do actually really like writing. it is so satisfying and fun and rewarding and i get to look back what i made over and over again and get joy every single time.

yes writing is hard but if you hate it more than you love it im kinda like. idk. find another hobby?

[k00299539]

LSAD Seminar 03: Drawing with Des McMahon

Above: "Tête d'Expression"; head of an old man with a frightened expression. 1848-52, Red-brown ink, on dark buff paper, Daumier

Writing a reflection on this seminar took me way longer than the others. It was a lot more loose and free-form, with less obvious concepts to use as a jumping off point from where to give my own thoughts.

What's funny about that though, is I actually loved the seminar and found myself mentally nodding along with each of lecturer Des McMahon's conjectures. Through my own experience with drawing I had come to many of the same conclusions, and to see them represented here was deeply cathartic.

I suppose it's quite fitting for a seminar on drawing of all things to so loose and free-form. I find it difficult to articulate my feelings on drawing much in the same way I cannot articulate the feeling which viewing a drawing inspires in me, to someone who has not seen that same drawing. It's hard to explain something which I only feel intuitively, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

Still, I'll try to run down what I feel were the key points of the lecture and what I learned from them.

"Drawing is the centre-point of everything we do. It's not just the remit of the fine artist but something we all use"

I feel this quote from the first couple of minutes of the video sums up the thesis of the seminar quite succinctly. Drawing is often thought about in very limited terms, particularly in pop culture. We imagine drawing as something refined, belonging to high society. A lineage from the "Old Masters" to the modern day.

But this isn't true, or at least isn't the whole picture. Drawing is something we all do and it belongs to all of us. A child's drawing a figure with no torso and legs where a neck should be is just as valid as a well articulated pencil rendering by Rembrandt.

To really look honestly at drawing, we have to dispel the myths surrounding it.

What is Drawing?

This question is really the crux of it all, what is drawing? Depending on the answer we might end up with very different beliefs, not just on drawing and our approach to it, but how we perceive ourselves and the world that surrounds us.

Attempting to create a definition which won't by nature limit our understanding of drawing is something of a fools errand. To define something is to limit it, to cordon off the perimeter of allowable usage. I can't offer any real solution to this, other than to suggest the favouring of broader definitions. It's always good to acknowledge that despite whatever strong convictions we might have on drawing, our opinions are ultimately still just opinions.

"Solving visual problems and interpreting what is around us; a way of communicating with others and articulating yourself"

Above: A sketch by Pierre Bonnard on the left, and a sketch by Rembrandt on the right. Neither below.

Bonnard attempts to capture the essence of the subject, while Rembrandt attempt captures the exact likeness of the subject.

The child's drawing on the other hand, doesn't attempt anything. It's pure earnest nature simply communicates an idea and takes us inside its creators world.

Is the "point" of drawing in the communication or the depiction? As Des elaborates on, it's both and many more. Which leads into our next area of discussion:

What is "Good" Drawing?

As said above; there's no such thing. Or rather, the range of good drawing stretches so vast as to render any possible criteria mute. The earlier sketches by Bonnard, Rembrandt and a literal child have very little in common but I would absolutely argue they all fall under the category of good drawing.

People tend to have a preconceived notion of what constitutes "good" drawing and often revert to that when pressed. Instead of expressing themselves in a style they're comfortable with, they imitate, and thus rob themselves of a more individual expression.

Abrupt Conclusion

I accidentally left this draft open in two different tabs and the one I wasn't working on overwrote the one I was. So I lost everything I had written...

In lieu of throwing my whole ass computer out the window I'm just gonna end this reflection and move onto the next seminar. I'm already behind on everything and losing my mind. So just please trust me when I say I watched it all. I might come back and fix this up if I have time but right now I'm just done.

To end with I'd like to say I was particularly fond of the simple self-portrait by Beth Fox that Des highlighted. And I've liked below the short discussion by William Kentridge on the use of tragedy as subject matter by artists. I think that clip encapsulated the entire seminar and anything I could write about it, in two and a half minutes.

[ajoytobeheld]

Harriet Campesinos!' favourite records of the decade

January 4th, 2010

Hello all, and Happy New Year. Apologies for being the straggler here, but if anyone still cares, here are my favourite albums of the decade. I’ve put them in the rough order in which I discovered them, so that its an accurate chart of my rambling, non-sensical musical journey from the Mercury Prize to Pitchfork and beyond (hopefully).

PJ Harvey: Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea My Mum used to buy me the Mercury Music Prize CD every year, and in 2001, as far as I was concerned it was the last word in music and PJ Harvey was the last word in sophistication. On the album, she seemed to be living out my ultimate teenage fantasy lifestyle, especially in the video for Good Fortune where she’s walking the streets of New York at night. I think she welcomed me to the cult of the pop star, which I’m still quite prone to. See below…

Andre 3000: The Love Below When I finally moved beyond having Hey Ya! on repeat, Andre 3000 was there in all his splendour with more variations of style and soul than I was ready for.

The Arcade Fire: Funeral A list like this seems like a good place to celebrate collective passions as well as personal ones, and Funeral is the ultimate example of this for me. Ollie summed it up in his list.

Joanna Newsom: Ys Her favourite drink is raspberry beer because it tastes like a unicorn’s tears. Aleks has already put it more succinctly than I could’ve: its so complete and immersive.

Low: The Great Destroyer I cannot emphasize how much joining LC! has expanded my horizons, musically and otherwise. I knew Tom and Aleks liked Low, and the first time I heard them was when Tom put on ‘When I Go Deaf’ during an unexpectedly long mid-night, Mid-Wales drive. It took my breath away , and I can’t think of a better way to be introduced to Low.

Nico: The Frozen Borderline – 1968-1970 I don’t know if this is allowed…Not technically recorded between the years 2000 and 2009, but surely its a testament to the decade that it chose to reissue two of Nico’s less well-known albums, The Marble Index and Desertshore in such a complete and illuminating package?! The demos that are included are so moving, the sound of uninhibited self-expression.

Deerhoof: Reveille For many, including me, to know them is to love them. I chose this album, out of the ones that I know, for its strange and appealing mix of familiarity and weirdness. They are so unique, but at the same time seem to contain the past fifty years of musical experimentation within them. They are another band pinnacle I think, and now I will stop this vain attempt to pin them down as being anything.

Animal Collective: Feels It would be fair to say that I am a bit of a die-hard romantic, and so I had to pick Animal Collective’s most delicate record of the ones that I’ve heard. I really love their lyrics on this album and I love the thought of people writing whole series’ of songs to celebrate when they fall in love. Sorry about this readers, but I’m letting myself go because its the Christmas holidays. (I wrote this a few weeks ago and now I can’t even use the season as an excuse)

Battles: Mirrored Typically, I was a latecomer to Battles. Unfortunately somehow I got them confused with the band Battle when I first read about them, and I just really couldn’t work out why people kept going on about them! Luckily I realised my grave mistake just in time to get very excited at the prospect of playing on the same day as them at Melt! Festival in Germany. We watched from the side of the stage, which is good in some ways, but can completely destroy any illusion that the band you love so much is talented or charismatic. Of course Battles sounded perfect and were completely riveting. Melt Festival! was also a very aesthetically appropriate place to watch them play, as the site is surrounded by huge disused pieces of machinery looming over a very modern concrete amphitheatre. They seem to me to be the pinnacle of what a band can be, but no doubt their next album will redefine it all over again.

Camille: Le Fil She’s a ‘world music’ artist apparently, according to HMV. This album is also terribly avant garde because all the songs grow out of a continuously hummed drone note. What she actually is is a French singer who brings the tradition of the Parisian music hall into precisely the first decade of this century. Sadly I can’t speak French but Camille’s voice is just so emotionally direct that she seems to have all human emotions covered as well as some that are just her own.

Chrome Hoof: Pre-Emptive False Rapture My friends from Islet introduced me to this. Its such an exciting album from start to finish and I’m so happy that this band exists today. They’re such massive show-offs and clearly have a few too many ideas up their long glittery druid sleeves. The sound that somebody makes in ‘Moss Covered Obelisk’ at 6:21 is certainly my best noise of the decade.

Micachu: Jewellery I think Micachu is a special artist. This album manages to be simple and complex at the same time. Its so rhythmic and perfect to dance to and also, every moment is filled with ideas. When I listen to this album I get a sense of somebody who absolutely needs to make music, and would’ve created something amazing in whatever time, place or culture she found herself in.

[simplylove101]

2023 Horror Challenge: [49/?]

↳“I'm not finished playing yet." I See You (2019) dir. Adam Randall

Plot: While facing marriage problems at the same time as the husband is investigating a missing boy case, a family is also forced to deal with an unknown presence in their house. (I think I managed to sum this up more succinctly than I've seen other people try to so I'm proud of myself lol)

Starring: Helen Hunt, Jon Tenney, Owen Teague, Libe Barer & Judah Lewis

This is actually a catch-up review from a while ago. I always meant to type up one but just never did. I think it's because there's so much going in it that I forgot it was a horror movie. lol I actually mean that as a compliment though. It is a horror movie, just not quite in the way as you may feel led to believe at first, but I kinda ended up appreciating that deceit. Because it was done rather well. They set a tone and the world we're thrown into. We do see the boy that goes missing but we're not quite sure how besides a quick shot before they're introducing the main family. The turmoil with them is very fresh so that's an interesting dynamic. The first hour is focused on keeping us in the dark so we're like the characters as they come to the slow realization something seems off. And then halfway through, the writers turn the narrative on its head and we get to see what all those little clues actually were. Like I said, I thought that was done really well. And then we find out there's even more twists, which is even more interesting. I'm being vague on purpose because this is a movie where I'm actually glad I went in blind because all I had to go on before watching was that poster (which always just made me go hmmm idk lol) so I didn't know what to expect. I knew Helen Hunt was in it and I think she's good so that helped. Also, a familiar face to me, Libe Barer, made me excited. And people who like The Babysitter movies will recognize Judah Lewis so there's that. I don't really know what else to say but I do think this movie appealed to me in a way that was a pleasant surprise. It was definitely worth the watch imo.

[elizabethwydevilles]

words about the wars in stars

I'm never entirely sure how to sum up my attitude to Ahs*ka (the character, not the show - the show is wholly negative, ha), because neither 'I like her' or 'I dislike her' feel completely accurate. Like on one hand, her actual personality I like. I like the fact that we get another female character and that she's not human. But I hate so much around her. I think the idea that Anakin was knighted and had a padawan at 19 is incredibly stupid and doesn't really fit in to the films, I think TCW did pretty much every pre-established character dirty, but especially Anakin, I hate that fandom (and some of the people involved in LucasFilm and Disney) cannot handle the idea of two female characters and so Padmé ends up getting straight up left out or ignored, I hate that Filoni quite obviously has not ever heard the phrase 'kill your darlings'…

but I have no idea how to explain that succinctly lol