#don’t expect coherence

[ketchupchipsaregross]

Hi 🩷

19, 31, 64 pls!

Howdy 🤠

oh boy did i start yapping

19. what are some books or authors that influenced your style the most?

definitely agatha christie and other mystery authors. i think between the ages of 11 and 17 it was the only thing i read. and it basically made it so i used murder as a subplot. dodors was the first multichapter fic/work i’ve written where i didn’t kill anybody off, pretty proud of myself for that.

a big influence on how i write settings and visual things is The Book Thief by markus zusak. i read it when i was 14 for school and his descriptions of everything were so vivid, and the comparisons were both mundane and brillant that it fundamentally changed how i view the world. it’s the only book i’ve read so many times the cover is falling apart

and of course, i have to shout out ivy and bean for teaching me to write the most chaotic ass duos ever. i read that series as a kid and man does it fucking slap.

31. tell us about one of your characters who’s an absolute joy to write

i mean, how can i say anything but dodors ellie? she’s so fun, and precious, and just an absolute delight to write. she’s based off a real life kid i babysit, baby blues comics (that’s where i got the snails go crunch from), and stories from when my brother and i were little. writing her feels a lot like a nostalgia. plus she usually just possesses me and does whatever the fuck she wants

64. what is your favourite title for a fic you’ve read?

this is such a good question!

ellie of green gables by @bumblepony cause it makes EGG which i think is hilarious and bumble kindly tolerates

didactic by @penandinkprincess which is a real term used in education, and a method of teaching i already don’t like without everything from the fic ontop

kiss from the lips of monsters by @two-birds-alone-together cause it’s so fucking scary

queer clicker: a pride month crack fic by @adhdprincess it’s so descriptive! you know exactly what you’re getting! and it’s the lesbian clicker!

the transit of venus by @marchflower cause come on, that roman mythology reference is too good to ignore (and also whatever the title of foster baby au is gonna be cause i’m so excited)

[pizzazz-party]

System Collapse: at this rate the corporates are going to shut down this planet and enslave its people as salvage… unless we put on the biggest talent show this town has ever seen.

[skoulsons]

Talking about the sniper section bc it’s. My heart feels like that house.

First, BEAUTIFULLY DONE. absolutely perfect, every part of it. But rewatching, Joel never stops watching Ellie. Not for a second. He’s watching where she’s going and he’s watching behind her for infected. When she’s knocked to the ground after Joel shoots the one clicker, she spots an open window in a van. Joel is watching her and sees where she’s looking and knows exactly where she’s trying to go. You see his eyes move to the left to see the van. And she knows he’ll kill all of the infected in her way. Because she trusts him. And because he won’t let her die.

And once Ellie’s in the van, Joel’s fire ceases except for killing the ones behind it. He is only looking out for her. Anything gets close to that van, he’s there immediately. There’s a shot of him after the bloater surfaces of him just watching. Not firing, just observing the van. Watching for infected. Keeping her safe.

And then one comes up, a young girl in a BLUES CLUES SHIRT, and you see the panic immediately on his face. He goes from completely still to shaking. He fires and he misses. His reload even feels rushed. His breath is shaky, hitching even. His entire face is trembling. And then the clicker is in the car and he can’t see it anymore. He can’t protect her anymore. And it cuts again to him taking two quick, rushed, and paralyzing breaths. He adjusts his grip on the gun because his hands are sweating. And now he, much like she had to minutes prior, has to trust that she can and will get out of this, as much as he wants to be the one to save her from it

Then it cuts to Joel again when she’s outside the van.

This is panic. Fear. This is not knowing what’s coming out of that van. If that clicker ate a hole in her neck and it’s the one escaping. The fear of not knowing her fate and if he just lost her again. Of not being able to protect her because he can’t see her through the windows of the van. The fear of so many uncertainties.

And this is relief. His shoulders have even fallen back slightly, relaxing. When he sees she’s out and closed the door on the clicker. That she’s, in a weird, twisted way, safe again. Because he can protect her again. Because he can, and will, kill every infected in her path.

And then she’s on the ground and they can see each other again. Ellie looks over to Henry and Sam and sees them struggling under the car. She can’t leave them. She reaches for her shiv and she looks to Joel in the house.

She’s determined. And he knows it. He can’t see them under the car, but he can guess what she’s saying. What she wants to do. What she’s asking him to do. To continue to protect her (like he’d ever stop), as dangerous and heart attack inducing as it will be for him to see her do this. And he makes a face that Pedro seems to make in every role he plays.

This face. This face, to me, means a plethora of different things depending on his role. But in this context, it’s more of a ‘fine, I’ll do it. I’ve got you’ one. He even nods slightly. Really slightly. Deep down, he wants them safe, too. It’s dangerous down there. It’s full of infected. And he’d like nothing more than to get out of there with her in one piece. But Ellie has a big heart. She cares about Henry and Sam. And Joel knows that. He’s seen how she’s been with Sam. Laughing with him, reading with him, signing with him, playing soccer with him. How long has it been since she’s been able to do this with another kid? But Ellie’s asks him just a little more. I need to get to them. Protect me.

And he does, of course he does. He kills five(?) clickers that touch her or get in her path. And he’s no longer shaking. He’s as stable as ever in firing. He nails every single shot, killing every clicker in her way. Ellie gets to Henry and Sam, killing the clicker on Henry and stabbing the one on Sam while Joel finishes it off. And he watches for any more that come their way. And once he sees they’re in the clear, he leaves and meets up with them immediately

Main point being - protective dad Joel <3

[amoritasart]

Why is there no war or conflicts in the Boiling Isles before Philip came into the picture?? I’m so confused?? Like everyone in the past was so nice ?? You telling me humans back home were suffering poverty, war, famine, killing and accusing each other of witchcraft, committing genocide against natives, but the witches had a whole utopia? Why did Evelyn even take interest in such a place?? You telling me tween Philip single-handedly introduced evil to an entire civilization?? A random fatherless, motherless, brotherless man took over an entire world full of beings that naturally have immense power, no one else ever even tried to abuse this natural born power ever ??

[secretmellowblog]

The moments where other criminals try (and fail) to threaten Jean Valjean are fascinating, because we get a glimpse of how deeply Valjean was altered by prison— how much nineteen years of prolonged torture really has made him into a “formidable” “dangerous” criminal.

If he weren’t a shy gentle compassionate person who just wants to be left alone in peace with his daughter, he could easily be the most deadly man in Paris. He’s strong, he’s cunning, he has decades of knowledge about how to evade police and a wealth of hidden tools at his disposal, he’s highly skilled at deception, he can fend off gangs of men at once even while unarmed and has perfect aim with a gun; he could do so much harm if he decided to, but he doesn’t.

I love how Jean Valjean seems to view Patron-minette’s affiliates as… amateurs? They’re bad criminals in that they’re bad at being criminals. When Montparnasse attempts to rob him, and when Patron Minette/Thenardier ambush him, Jean Valjean speaks to them with lofty pity and kinda implies he thinks they do not really understand how to commit crimes. He explains the galleys to Montparnasse like he’s lecturing a silly misbehaving child.

When he burns himself with the hot chisel, the implication is: “I spent nineteen years in a prison where I was beaten and tortured every day, and you’re naive and inexperienced enough to think you can hurt me with a single scrap of metal you’ve heated up in a fireplace. You poor things. Don’t be afraid of me because I’m certainly not afraid of you <3”.

Compared to Jean Valjean, Patron-minette and their affiliates really are kinda just …play-acting. I think that’s part of why they get all those comparisons to theater and Vaudeville. Thenardier is a failed innkeeper puffing himself up as the most dangerous and clever criminal mastermind in Paris. But Jean Valjean actually has decades of experience living in “the criminal underworld” of the galleys, and as a result he has more deeply traumatizing knowledge and experience than Thenardier can even begin to imagine. Thenardier fails at torturing Valjean because Thenardier does not have the experience to even start to imagine the torture Valjean has already survived. As I mentioned before, Valjean has all the skills and knowledge that Thenardier wants to have, but doesn’t. So it’s like….Jean Valjean is in many ways the kind of “successful expert criminal” that Thenardier is only pretending to be.

[human-adjacent]

i’ve been thinking about the relationship between the eye and the lonely so i’m gonna rant about it and you’re going to read it

i’ve been relistening to tma, and one thing that’s been bothering me is the fact that the lukas family funds the institute. it doesn’t make sense. the eye and the lonely are hugely opposing forces. the eye is the fear of being Known, of being watched at all times, the feeling that you are never alone. the lonely is the fear of being completely alone, that there is nobody there to see you or to Know you. the lonely itself also manifests in a similar manner to the dark, where it preys on the fear of the unknown (as can be seen through the heavy fog inside the lonely). meanwhile, though the eye is also related to the fear of the unknown, it manifests differently, because it doesn’t try to hide the unknown from its victims, rather it encourages them to uncover the unknown and seek out that knowledge at the cost of their own safety. so why would the lukas family want to fund an institute dedicated to serving an entity that is fundamentally opposed to theirs in every way possible?

however, with these lines in mag 92, it starts to make more sense

elias believes that companionship cannot truly coexist with the eye. after all, it makes sense, the eye is all about watching and observing, but it is also about inactivity. you watch people, but you do not interfere with them. you can observe your friends, learn things about them, but you do not form deep connections with them. people are simply a vessel to obtain knowledge, and friendship is meaningless unless it contributes to that pursuit. so in this way, the institute seems to have some attachment to the lonely, as it isolates its employees from the rest of the world and even from each other. and it only makes sense that the lukas family would want to contribute to that loneliness.

less serious, but this also made me think about lonelyeyes. based on elias’s personal philosophy about companionship, it’s really so fitting that the one man he would choose to connect with is an avatar of the lonely. both of them outright reject the idea of deep interpersonal relationships, so of course they’d be perfect for each other (and of course that’s why they constantly get divorced)

[sableeira]

okay but ada dazai is so pretty princess vibe and prison dazai is so cat vibe. pre-dark era dazai is also cat vibe but not in the silly way but in the haunted way. dark era and beast dazai are both bastard vibe but in a tragic way and in the most affectionate way possible. the peak of dazai’s pretty princess vibe was during dead apple.

[grace-williams-xo]

Someone please tell me (a non book reader) why y’all are INSISTENT that there will be an in universe time skip of a few years before/in s4 of bridgerton?

It can’t be bc the season isn’t coming for two years, bc look at s2 to s3

I know that in aofag benophie meet and then reconnect two years later but A) they haven’t met yet in the show B) the show plays so fast and loose and insane with timelines, what makes you think they couldn’t make them reconnecting just a couple months later instead of two whole years???

[hetchdrive]

Honestly deeply disappointed the blood pact Dracula thing was Harvey manipulating John but also it slightly turns the onus of the Aeryn Scorpius parallels back on John’s subconscious which is arguably way funnier.

[the-travelling-witch]

hi hollyyyy im just dropping in to provide some additional info regarding kingdom hearts/FF to the non FF/KH players 🏃‍♀️

sora (the lil guy u posted) is actually a brunette 14-16 (depending on game) years old kid

the reason why some might confuse cloud w him/KH is bc cloud (and other well known FF characters such as tidus(x), selphie(viii), aerith(vii), squall(viii),etcetc) also appear in the KH games as characters :) FF/KH have the same publisher and designer (most ff games) and its not a disney game but rather a collab. sorry for rambling, youn out 🏃‍♀️

hiii youuuuuun!! it’s definitely nice to have someone around who’s knowledgeable on ff if i ever do wanna pick it up

(lmao i actually know who sora is and that he’s brunette despite having not much interest in kingdom hearts, i think i watched some content for it when i was younger, i was just trying to pass him as dirty blond for the joke jsjsh /silly; i was not informed on his age though, so i partially retract my twink statement)

i didn’t know that they had the same designer since they never really felt similar to me, but now that you mention it i do vaguely recall seeing sora and cloud next to one another some time

(but honestly i might have passed it off as being from smash bros since i think both of them are in there? or at least cloud and shulk are, i think, idk i didn’t keep up with who they added lol)

anyway, don’t worry about rambling, i really don’t mind <3

[dykeseinfeld]

so like no one cares and no one should care abt my take but here’s the thing abt the chappell roan thing like.

nobody at all should expect any musician or actor or whatever celebrity to be an informed political commentator abt anything they are first and foremost artists who presumably spend the vast majority of their time on anything other than reading the news staying informed etc. it’s not their job to have coherent political stances and shouldn’t be their responsibility to make comments on every political issue and it’s a fools errand to ask them to do that bc you should be trusting informed experts who literally dedicate their lives to studying and forming opinions abt these issues not blindly trusting whoever your fave is anyway. but whatever.

[tomwambsmilk]

Thinking a lot about that post about how when criticizing storytelling you shouldn’t criticize an absence. ie saying “they didn’t do x” or “the character isn’t x” and levelling it as a criticism. And how instead you should reframe it into a criticism of what has actually happened in a story or what a character actually is. Because the risk of criticizing what a story isn’t is that you may have missed the point entirely, and this reframing prevents you from levelling unfounded criticism. That post actively changed how I talk about and analyze stories and I think a lot of you should read it or read it again

[skoulsons]

Baylan and Shin’s parting

The scene that has upset (me) or confused (also me) most people. A chunk of people, who I respectfully disagree with, have said that Baylan is “abandoning” Shin. While I agree she definitely feels abandoned, I do not believe that is or ever would be Baylan’s intention. I just don’t think it works.

There’s an obvious amount of care (love, you could say) in their relationship. They’re not your typical competitive Sith master / apprentice relationship or Jedi master / padawan where feelings like that were repressed. They’re not mercenaries who were put together for a job or purely for the selfish gain of power. Shin has been under his wing as his padawan, borderline his child, for a long time.

He’s very protective of her as we see most notably in episode 4 when he ‘kills’ Ahsoka because she threw Shin into a rock. That sort of protection that drives you to kill someone (I don’t believe his original intention was to kill her—it was that that set him off) doesn’t come from a lack of love or lack of a relationship.

Their first scene on Peridea is another to consider. They’re comfortable, open, and vulnerable. Shin’s tone when she says “I know no such stories (shoutout to the person who made that post about Baylan telling Shin stories about the Jedi when she was younger. i still think about you)” is a sarcastic tone, almost teasing. They both comfortably smile and are way more relaxed being around just each other. Shin asks him questions without fear and Baylan answers without hesitation.

So, no, I don’t believe he’s abandoning her.

Now, nothing is known for sure. What exactly does he hear? What exactly does he see? What vision does he have?

Hopefully we get that answer, but my (and maybe most of you) bigger concern is why part from Shin for a wasteland and some power (yes yes we know he wants the ‘beginning’ but that’s still kinda VAGUE)?

Again, don’t know the truth, just throwing out ideas. i cant wait to be wrong on every front and be completely humbled tuesday night lolol

For one, he’s sensed and understood her questions and doubts and is actually considering them. He’s recognizing “OK, she doesn’t see all that I do”. He isn’t saying “Nope, I’m forcing you to join me in this”. He’d be a jackass if he did that. Since he seems pretty sold on staying on Peridea for… whatever it is he believes is there, he’s letting her go so she can, in turn, find her footing and take her place in the coming empire. Yes, he doesn’t know if that’s even what she wants, but Shin hasn’t exactly told him what she would want. All she’s mentioned (I think) was about leaving Peridea since Thrawn is desperate to leave as well.

Either way, he’s considering her and letting her go her own way instead of forcing her into a future with him that she obviously isn’t interested in.

Two, Baylan actually knows a lot more than he’s letting on and sees something that is… dangerous. Something he doesn’t want Shin exposed to. Something he knows is dangerous and he’s trying to keep her from (so she doesn’t suffer the same fate as his last padawan—if it’s true, of course). This one seems more selfish than some other thoughts. It can even fit other fandoms—he’ll go into it guns blazing for himself despite its dangers, but not her.

Three, which is just a bit of a vaguer, rephrased Two, he can’t / doesn’t want to lose another padawan if he can help it.

“Oh, then why’d she even follow him to Peridea? Why’d Baylan even let her come if he was going to abandon her anyway?”

He’s her master. Of course she’s going to follow him. It’s the guy she’s known longer than anyone else in her life. Her master, her father figure. Why wouldn’t she follow him? Why wouldn’t she stick it out for him? And, again, don’t believe at all that it’s abandonment or even something that was planned. It seemed very spur of the moment—like an off screen decision being made in Baylan’s head. Parting from her wasn’t something on his bucket list he was waiting to check off.

Fourth, the “ambition” that Baylan said was driving Shin is her willingness (not the word im looking for please read my mind) to embrace the dark side compared to himself. If he truly wants to bring an end to the Jedi v Empire back-and-forth, he’ll stay more Gray. So, he parts from her to give her that freedom. It’s the thing that drives them apart.

There’s even more ways to try and understand why, im sure. These are just word vomits and nothing to be taken as truth.

While I don’t at all believe Baylan’s intention was to abandon her, leave her for dead, etc, I definitely agree that Shin does feel abandoned.

Was the decision easy for Baylan? Highly doubt it. I don’t think he would watch her go, take a deep breath in, and roll his shoulders if it was easy. I don’t think he’d look around after Ahsoka stole his howler and debate going back for her if it was an easy decision. I don’t think he’d wait on the hill to keep watch and protect from a distance if he didn’t care.

I think one thing is for sure. Baylan thinks he’s doing what’s best when it’s really not. Shin looked like a kicked dog when Ahsoka offered to help—and whether that’s because she was reminded of 30 minutes prior on the hill beside him, or 15 years prior when Baylan stood above her and offered his help that started them on their journey (yari put this thought in my noggin), it hurts all the same.

I just hope the finale clears something up

[byanyan]

I really can't seem to hold it together for more than a couple days at a time, huh

[hotdogcabbagesausage]

was trying to look up hot topic today and confidently typed in “hot potic” no i didn’t misclick, i thought that was the correct spelling for a second or two

[inkykeiji]

watching willy’s wonderland (finally!!!) and i am absolutely loving the 1930s—1950s B-movie horror vibes!!! like the wooden acting and horrid script + the cheap practical effects and prosthetics are all great, but oh my god,, the cinematography n editing are by far my favourite. like the nonsensical camera angles and the shot compositions and the jump cuts and the shot/reverse shots with nic cage vs the animatronics???????? brilliant i loved it so much