#don't at me there are several examples for all of these

[quantomeno]

I typically prefer the past tense. I consider it as a 'neutral' tense: the reader is unperturbed by it and it makes sense since most of the time you're retelling an event. But the last book I read was written in present tense and I had this distinct 'there's something off here' feeling until I realised it was the tense.

Also there's a bit in The Great Gatsby where Fitzgerald switches from past to present:

At least once a fortnight a corps of caterers came down with several hundred feet of canvas and enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby's enormous garden. On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors-d'oeuvre, spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold. ... By seven o'clock the orchestra has arrived .... The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing upstairs; the cars from New York are parked five deep in the drive ... The bar is in full swing and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside until the air is alive with chatter and laughter and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other's names.

As you can see, it goes from absolute past (came, crowded) to present perfect (has arrived, have come) to present (is, permeate). It evokes a sense of energy: "the air is alive" and it feels alive because it is in the now.

The past tense is the natural tense because that's how we talk about our personal stories. But you'll notice sometimes you'll use the present tense when recounting: "So I'm walking down the street when I bump into Marie and she keeps me there talking for half an hour, and I'm standing there with my shopping bags digging into my hands and she just yaps away."

The present tense tends to make the reader feel more involved in the situation, it makes the story feel more immediate and more real because it's not relegated to the past. A perfect example would be Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore (If on a Winter's Night a Traveller) by Italo Calvino, which not only uses the present tense but the second person ('you') to make the reader a character in the story.

There are also times where the present tense is used in recounting history. I've seen it done. I think it has a similar enlivening effect as it does in fiction.

Personally, I think the present tense is strongest when you use it sparingly. Too much of it can grow tiring. Partly by virtue of being a less commonly used tense it has a more exciting edge.

One last thing though, and as a final reason for the present, is that it makes the reader think the story is playing out now and thus what will happen next is still variable. In the case of the past tense, it's implied that the full story is over and the reader feels the narrator knows how it will end. In the case of the present, it feels more like no one knows what's going on.

Also the past tense is comforting. It is the tense of old tales and sitting by the fireplace, the tense of legends and rumour. It igves things a sense of fixity and truth. Brideshead Revisited, for example, needs to be written in the past tense because it is all about a reminiscence of the halcyon days of youth. Dracula should be written in the past tense since it is a collection of supposedly real diary entries and so it needs to look like things were being recorded properly and fully. The present tense can feel rushed, fleeting, but the past is always there and gives you time to set things down.

As a bonus: the future tense is an odd tense because it implies a degree of certainty, but can also have the feeling things could change still. It is incredibly disorienting and weird and should be only used if you really think it helps the idea you're trying to convey. Don't do things for shock value or o be cool. Like, a future tense horror/thriller story about an impending disaster to evoke a sense of helplessness in the reader might be interesting. Also consider context, because if the story is set in the past, future tense would be really off-putting (that might be the goal, or perhaps it's because a character in the past is predicting the future, there are times I'd say it's justified).

(also obviously I mean this as 'the whole book or a significant section is written in this tense, you can of course have bits where there's a bit of future tense, like that present tense passage in Gatsby. I just mean reading a whole novel in the future would be annoying)

I am thinking about fan fiction writers, but anyone who writes any kind of fiction can answer. (As far as I’m aware, non-fiction is usually written in the past tense - but if I’m wrong do let me know!)

If you like, explain why in the tags!

When I was young I gathered that all serious works of fiction were written in the past tense (past tense third person to be precise) so that is what i did when I started writing. However my mind was blown by the power and immediacy of Margaret Atwood writing in the present tense so I started to experiment with it myself, and now i strongly favour it. I get the impression that past is still the most commonly used, but I’m prepared to be surprised!

Please share!

[questionablecuttlefish]

One of the most popular topics that people likes to bring up in shipwars “against” lightcannon is that we mischaracterize (did I write it correctly?) Lux to fit in our delusions. For example: she didn't kill Sylas and she despises killers and her ideals and morality is the most important thing to her, oh, also that she's good

So you as a Lightcannon writer and someone who is very familiar with her lore and character, could you give me your perspective about this?

Ah yes, that one.

Here's my answer in pictures:

But more seriously. 😆

I think that's a gross oversimplification of Lux's character, and it's generally an argument made by people who don't know who Lux is beyond the most superficial impression.

It's a product of a mindset that can't separate modern ideals of 'morality' - what would be moral to you and me, from our culture and our moment - from a character raised in a very, very different culture and a very different world.

A good example is the opening scenes of A Game of Thrones, we witness the horrible slaughter of a group of Night's Watch by the Others. The lone, desperate survivor escapes, and in the very next scene, we see that he's been captured by the Lord of a castle, who is about to execute him for the crime of desertion by beheading with a sword. This man makes his sons watch as he decapitates this poor, innocent bastard who, to us, has done no wrong and just survived a terrifying experience. He makes sure his seven year old, Bran, witnesses him cut a man's head off with a sword.

Meet Eddard Stark, probably the most forthright, honorable, and morally upstanding character in the series.

Look, Lux is a 'good' character. She's smart, compassionate, forthright, and principled. She almost always takes the diplomatic option first and uses violence primarily in self-defense.

On the other hand, she's a Crownguard. She is the daughter of the highest ranking noble household next to the King himself. Her Aunt is the High Marshall of the entire Demacian military. Her Uncle is(was,heh) the head of the Mageseekers, so the mage hunting secret police. Her brother is the Might of Demacia, Sword Captain of the Dauntless Vanguard.

What I'm saying here is that Lux is a military brat. She has been born and raised into the values of a highly militaristic, feudal warrior culture at the very highest level of that society. She's been trained in warrior arts - riding, swordfighting, archery, and military tactics and strategy - since she could walk and form words.

In her old lore? She was literally a traumatized, brainwashed child soldier taken from her family and trained to fight for Demacia.

In her new/current lore? She's still a trained spy who has succeeded at several covert missions within Noxus.

We've seen her fight monsters and Mageseekers in the M.S game, she didn't hesitate to shoot Sylas with a crossbow and stab him with a dagger until his mages dragged her off him in the comic, as above.

She also witnessed her brother behead a man in the For Demacia story; she was trying to intervene because she had sussed that there was something else going on, and therefore his death would have been unnecessary and unjust, not necessarily out of protest at the death penalty itself.

It's worth noting - as the Mageseeker confirms - that Lux stayed out of the mage rebellion not out of 'naive pacifism' as she's sometimes accused of, but because: 1. She couldn't forgive Sylas for his betrayal.

2. A desire to protect the noncombatant refugees in her care.

3. She's still loyal to Demacia and her family and refused to fight her own kin.

4. because she knew if she stayed neutral, she could leverage her Crownguard privilege and name with King Jarvan to negotiate protection for mages after the conflict.

Which, y'know, she did.

All of these are products of who she is a character, a Demacian, a Crownguard, and a canny political operator. None of these are blind pacifism, this is the kind of soft power "Fox" move Mel Medarda would recognize and approve of.

So no, Luxanna Crownguard isn't going to be put off by Jinx's violence.

Violence is inherently part of her world, too. Demacia is a 'medieval' feudal regime that is almost perpetually at war with its neighbours and, in some ways a harsher, more brutal place than Piltover and Zaun, particularly its notions of 'justice'.

Piltover is only about 50% likely to have public executions as entertainment/morality lesson, Demacia absolutely 100% does and we've seen two of them in canon, is what I'm saying.

I think Lux would understand that Jinx committed terrible deeds, yes, as part of a civil conflict that Lux herself would be coming at with only an outsider's understanding.

Lux knows exactly how it feels to have best intentions blow up in your face, to be backed into a corner and forced to take some pretty extreme actions to survive.

I don't think, after her actions and choices triggered the Mage Uprising and cost untold lives across Demacia, Lux would consider her own hands clean enough to judge someone like Jinx. Sure, Lux didn't mean to give Sylas her power to commit second hand mass murder, but Powder didn't mean to kill her family either.

And it's also worth noting the part of Sylas' actions that Lux doesn't forgive - especially in the Mageseeker dialogue - is specifically the personal betrayal of her trust, outing her as a mage, and ruining her life.

She understands his cause. She won't join it, because that would mean siding with someone who wants to kill her family, but again, Lux's reasons for choosing not to fight are much more complex and personal than 'she hates violence'.

She's able to compromise enough to accept Sylas' help when her city comes under siege, because while Lux is a 'good guy', she's also a pragmatist first.

I think Lux would see a lot of Sylas in Jinx. I think she would see a lot of herself, as well, particularly once she learned about Jinx's past, about Silco (basically Jinx's Sylas figure, no?) and about everything she's been through.

I don't think Lux would judge her for that.

I feel that Lux would try to be the voice of reason, the hand holding hers to ground her, maybe even the olive branch to help her try to repair some of her burned bridges (this is certainly what she tries to do in Ill-Omen's) and that could cause interesting conflict in their developing relationship.

But I think Lux would understand. Jinx may be more volatile and spiteful and personal in her use of violence, but she's shaped by experiences not far from Lux's own.

And by Season Two? Yeah, no, Season Two Jinx is well and truly on her hero arc. Post-Season Two Jinx? Especially if she's trying to put violence aside and heal?

Post season two Jinx, who's grieving losing her father, her sister, her child? That Jinx would absolutely attract Lux's compassion even more than before.

I've written so many words to answer it, but to me, it's such a non-argument to begin with. You have to not even look at Lux past "blonde nice girl" to think it.

[keepmycandleburning]

It's always frustrating to me when I see people's misunderstandings about the degree to which a writer's words and writing choices are intentional. There are many types of writing and some people may be writing for fun or whatever, but in a story that is complex and carefully put together, the writer's choices are not coincidences or things that just so happen to be that way, they are carefully and precisely made choices that are designed that way to communicate something to the reader.

Surprisingly often I will see people write these complex and meaningful HP analyses, and then end their post with 'but I'm sure Rowling didn't mean any of that, or even think about it, she just wrote it this way because she's stupid.' All of that was somehow magically in the text for you to find and analyze, and she didn't even mean to write it? EVERY word of these books was typed by a human hand and reread with human eyes.

Think of how for example people will say foolish things like 'Did JKR just forget that Bellatrix was married?' Bellatrix being married is a HUGE part of who she is, who Voldemort is, how the DEs function, how the traditional pureblood families and marriages and culture function... You're missing SO MUCH of the meaning in the text by denying the writer's intentionality.

Same with things like mistaking her world-building for being statements of her real-world beliefs. 'Here's an in-depth analysis of what the text implies about gender and sexism in pureblood culture... but JKR probably just wrote all this because she's sexist, and I magically put meaning into it that makes perfect sense' ??? The idea that a writer will only write sexism into their fictional world because they're communicating that they think sexism is good is insanity. Characters don't do things solely because their writer thinks that is proper behavior. Characters' behaviors or words, or elements of the fictional world the story exists in, are not straight-forward statements of what the writer thinks is good or ideal, and in fact are often the opposite. If you can't analyze things with such complexity, that's a problem with your reading comprehension, not with the text.

Or, when people will treat the text too much like it's a real life event that happened, rather than something that was carefully put together by hand to mean something. I love analyzing characters and the HP world like they're real, but when you find yourself denying meaning by using logic like 'well it probably just happened that way for no deeper reason' you're just misunderstanding what fiction is.

For example attempting to disprove the numerous hints at the Bellatrix/Voldemort relationship by saying things like 'but other people call her Bella so it could have meant anything' or 'there are other types of pleasure than sexual so it could have meant anything.' But why would Rowling choose that word? And put it right next to Bellatrix longing for his physical closeness? And why would she set up this exchange at all? Why 'lover'? Why 'lover' placed so directly with physical closeness and care? Why 'lover' and 'pleasure' and 'longing' and 'closeness' in the same book? Why have Harry point out that she's acting in an intimate way that invokes being lovers? Why do other characters later use 'Bella,' if not to communicate that it's used by people she considers/ed family?

When everything that 'could mean anything' all lead to the same answer, why is that? Why are you assuming Rowling's implications are for some reason unintentional? Unintentional over and over and over again? If many readers are catching it, why are you assuming she's not smart enough to catch it herself? The only person not catching it here is you. Word choices or words with clear connotations are not random or accidents or coincidences, particularly when several of them occur in quick succession or when it's associated repeatedly with the same two characters. Nor are characterizations or patterns in the text. If you read that way, that's a misunderstanding on your end (not with the author, not with other readers) so don't complain when you can't understand the text. 'I'm going to act like the person who wrote this is stupid, and therefore ignore everything that the text is saying, and then say the text sucks' is YOU being an idiot. Notice how other people don't have this issue when they analyze actual meaning and intentionality in the text

[tanadrin]

I am sorry for the anon but I feel too vulnerable to come off due to the nature of my question.

I am slowly losing friends due to my refusal to engage in negative/nihilistic/doomer views of the future. My friends are 1000% convinced Trump and Republicans are going to crash the economy on purpose, leading to a depression, and carry out a Gilead situation. I told one of my friends the other day how, despite everything and the political situation, I am trying to be as positive as possible - or at least neutral. Her response to me was, "Why? I don't understand your optimism. You know they're going to enslave us all like in The Handmaid's Tale, right?" and it has become so dreadful now to interact with them. Anytime I disagree, they try to intellectually dominate me or put me under them in a way where I have no choice but to just leave the conversation.

I know this was a lot. But is there any advice you might have for someone like me? Because I sometimes feel like I am being painted as crazy. I know things will be hard but they genuinely want me to believe I have no future and I can't stand that.

Also, would it be too much to ask if you maybe mind sharing some of the other people/blogs you follow?

I once heard advice on dealing with Qanon family members who had fallen down the rabbit hole and only ever wanted to talk about conspiracy theories or the outrage bait they'd seen on Fox News or OANN or whatever, about not challenging them on their views but basically saying "I don't want to talk about this; let's talk about our plans for the weekend, or what movie we wanna go see later, or what interesting books you've read lately." The idea being, arguing with someone can only further entrench their beliefs, and if you really want to shake someone out of their dismal universe of conspiracism, it helps to remind them of all the things that aren't the fear-and-anger-activating content they're stuffing their brains with for hours every day.

Maybe something like this could help? I have a hard time imagining that someone really believes The Handmaid's Tale really is just around the corner--if you really believed that, surely you would be trying to flee to Canada or doing some political volunteer work or something--and sometimes doomer stuff can be kind of reflexive or phatic, like making a crack about how your retirement plan is to die in the water wars or something. But even if it isn't, I don't think there's any point in trying to argue about this stuff in the moment. Instead try to build on the things you still find fulfilling in that friendship, the conversations and interests and activities with those friends that caused you to become friends in the first place.

If you can't do that--if hanging out with them is always a constant grind of full-throttle doomerism, and they express no interest in actually trying to do something with their feelings of anger and frustration--you are perfectly within your rights to spend less time around them. You could, if you wanted to and you felt that you owed them at least that, give them a heads up as to why. If a close friend of mine or a family member was doing this, I would certainly talk to them about it. But your obligation to subject yourself to someone else's self-destructive idee fixe is not bottomless. Even with a partner you are within your rights to eventually say "I'm not going to talk about this with you anymore."

(And that's not only true of politics or conspiracy theories, by the way! If you have a close friend or family member or partner who--for example--has severe depression but refuses to seek treatment for it, you are not obligated to be the sponge for their misery forever every time they need someone to talk to. If someone in your life is in a relationship or a job that is making them miserable, and won't do anything to leave that relationship or find a new job, and just wants a friend to complain to, you are within your rights to eventually shut that down. Lots of people fall into a holding pattern in their life where they are unhappy but unable to do anything about it, and they will make this their friends' or loved ones' problem. That doesn't make them bad people: lord knows I have found myself doing this before. It's a very human thing to do. But sometimes the Good Friend Thing is to say "I love you, and will support you if you want to actually *do something* about your situation, but otherwise, oh my god shut the fuck up." But, you know, nicely.)

But if your friends want to make themselves miserable because hanging on to an endless stream of toxicity and doomerism from social media (and I will bet this is primarily coming from social media) is more important to them than your friendship, and they can't handle you not agreeing with them, you may lose them as friends. If you do, I'm sorry. That sucks. It's hard to lose friends, and it's even harder later in life when making new friends is more difficult, and I don't want to pretend like that's not a big deal.

[sagekjs21]

The reason I say it's classical conditioning is because I'm trying to make a connection between my child going unaccompanied out into the street and the stimulus of mild pain. Pat loves dogs with salivate simply at the sound of the bell. I would want my child, only if necessary, to make the connection between going unaccompanied out into the road and excessively mild pain.

And as to doing it to an adult. I mean the only reason I wouldn't is because I wouldn't have to but if for some reason I did have to, sure I would do that to an adult. Giving them a mild slap on the wrist or on the butt? A slap that would sing for about 10 to 15 seconds? Sure, if there was a reason of course I do that to an adult. There would just be no reason for it probably. But I do agree with you; if you wouldn't do it to an adult, no it should not be done to a child. But you're assuming that I wouldn't do it to an adult.

But you just said it yourself, you said that it CAN cause trauma for the victim, not that it WILL or DOES. The word can does not make an automatic conclusion, it does not make an every single case scenario. I fully admit that it absolutely can traumatize somebody, but not that it always does. Like I said, every single adult ranging from roughly their 80s down to probably their 50s in the United States who went through the public school system would be traumatized if that were the case and that's just simply not true.

See, this is where we differ. You're saying that what I'm advocating will actually harm a child and I am saying it absolutely will not. It will not under the right circumstances, no not simply because of the amount of pressure applied but more importantly the already established relationship between the child and the parent. If the parent is good, if the parent is attentive, loving, nurturing, under all other circumstances except an instance that would probably happen between one to five times and the child's entire life, no this is not going to traumatize a child. They will love and trust their parent and know that their parent is not abusive. If there was other abuse going on of some sort, then yes, this would only serve to aggravate the problem.

I don't doubt that there have been people traumatized by spanking, probably many of them. That was never in question for me. I doubt that spanking my child like I said a total of probably five times maximum and yet providing them with a stable and nurturing environment for the rest of their childhood is going to cause them to have severe trauma by any means, if any trauma at all. Do I have proof of this? In all fairness and honesty, no I don't. But I do have common sense. I also have the Bible which I strongly prefer to research.

I'll give you an example of how flawed research can be. Take the COVID-19 vaccines. If I want to, I can go online and find a ton of research advocating their effectiveness but I can also go online and find just as much research advocating how much damage they can cause. The point is, with the Internet these days, it is hard to tell what research is legitimate. I'm not saying that the research on spanking isn't legitimate, I'm sure most of it is. But you have to consider the type of study done, was it blind or double blind, What was the bias of the researcher going into such research, there are just so many different factors. I don't have faith in science. It's too biased, it's too easily falsified these days, it's to flawed.

Let me correct you there, I'm not trying to convince the rest of the world of anything. I'm responding to a whole bunch of people who chose to respond to me. I stated an opinion. I stated one opinion. Now? I'm responding to a bunch of people who don't like my opinion. I'm not trying to change any of your minds. I'm not trying to change anyone's mind. I'm trying to convince you that you're not going to change mine.

And as to what punishment is and isn't acceptable, again that is my opinion. If there was a law preventing such punishment then of course I would adhere to it. I do believe in following the law. But as of now, what I am talking about has no type of law preventing me from doing so. 

Everyone is so quick to state that something is abusive. Abuse requires motive, either motive or excessive harm. The motive behind abusing a child is to hurt someone who is powerless and defenseless, someone who is apparently supposed to be weaker than yourself. That's not what I'm talking about doing at all. I'm talking about taking a very small and mild preventative step to try and ensure that my child lives. I am doing this for my child safety, not for some kind of weird sadistic reason. There's a very big difference between this and abuse.

It's OK, you can make my position clear as you say. I think if anybody goes to my blog my position will be fairly clear there as well. But yes, I have made up my mind. And I sleep very well knowing that it provides my child with an extra measure of safety. That a maximum of like three minutes of mild pain in my child's entire childhood could possibly save their life? Yep, all I know is I'm going to make a very good mother, not a perfect one but a good one. 

When people get pregnant, they will give up smoking, give up alcohol, give up coffee and soda, give up fondue and raw cheese, give up cold cuts and sushi, all because they have heard somewhere, from someone, that these things can be bad for the baby. They don’t know the research, haven’t looked at the studies, can’t talk about sample sizes and control groups. But their dedication to their future child’s safety is so strong, their caution is so overpowering, that they give up these things just in case. 

So it baffles me when those same people will insist on spanking their kids. 

Even when they are shown the research.

 Regardless of what the experts in the field say. 

No matter who says it. 

Or how it is said. 

People are so invested in this ability to hit their kids without judgement or consequence, that it absolutely confounds me. 

[priv-heree]

Things/details I miss when reading fanfics

okay, recently I had a strange thought: I miss reading 3 types of things in heroes/DC/batfam fanfics. Like, the things I'm going to mention here are not mandatory to write, and if you think they are unnecessary details, okay. I also won't stop reading precious fanfics because of this. I just thought about creating this post commenting on the subject, because I thought it would be interesting.

So, I miss 3 things in fanfics:

(headcanon) the fact that the heroes, at least public figures like Bruce/Oliver and Batfam, know how to apply makeup professionally (at least, do the foundation). They probably have someone who knows how to do this for them, like Alfred. But they alone must know how to apply makeup very well. Bruce for exemple has to know how to do this, because he must have A LOT of dark circles under his eyes and permanent bruises on his jaw, and he's probably paler than he appears to be on television. It's so funny that he probably puts on makeup before appearing in public! It would be great to see fanfics show this side of him without makeup: worn out and with several scratches on his chin.

Training or warming up. Like, they're already strong naturally, especially with daily practice on the streets or saving the world. But sometimes it would be so cool for more fanfics to casually describe, for example, Jason at his place lifting weights, doing sit-ups and other warm-ups while talking to someone (or just warming up for a patrol). This is a simple detail, not necessary, but I dunno, just imagining it makes me like: 🫦🫦. Imagine Cass doing push-ups all sweaty 🫦 (we listen n we dont judged).

body hair. I don't read a lot of straight sex, but of the few I've seen, the characters' private parts are either smooth, or there's no mention of hair. And it’s like that in lesbian and gay sex too. Of course, there are fanfics that describe characters having body hair, but it's not common. DON'T GET ME WRONG, this is not a fetish of mine, and I personally prefer my partner and I to be "smooth" (forgive me for the gratuitous intimacy), but in the superhero universe it makes sense for them not to be smooth. Some of the characters may like to shave, especially women characters, but they wouldn't always have the time. Describing the characters as having body hair would be more realistic for me. Normally for hero men in comics, their chests and legs contain some hair, although not all of them and it depends on the artist. Of course, sometimes the writer might not like this, or don't think it's an important detail to mention. I know! With this post I'm not trying to force anyone into anything because it would be more "real". These are just thoughts that came to my mind.

[longsufferingcritic]

I didn't consciously intend to post about misogyny in fiction more and more recently, but it's got me thinking.

It's depressing how being a woman means most of the fiction I like -- even when it's genuinely well-written, compelling, and personally meaningful; even some of my very favorite fiction of all time -- will not treat women as equals. At best female characters are usually relegated to less-important supporting roles, or at worst they're written with active misogyny (sexist stereotypes, fridging/lost lenore, being harshly punished for mild or non-issues while male characters get away with worse, normalizing gender-based violence, etc). To name just one example, The Hobbit is among the most famous and beloved works of literature despite not including a single female character, a fact that is rarely even brought up when discussing it. Reportedly less than half of the most popular movies from the last 40 years pass the Bechdel test ("do two women talk to each other about something other than a man?") which is such a low bar that even many of the films that do pass are still misogynistic. Misogyny and male predominance in fiction is so common/"normal" that most people don't even notice it unless it's exceptionally severe.

And even if a work of fiction itself doesn't mistreat female characters, its fandom usually will. Fandom misogyny is an especially disturbing pattern since it's often apparent that those people aren't just bad at interpreting fiction -- they're using female characters as a lightning rod to express misogynistic beliefs they actually hold in real life. Take male-on-female domestic abuse for example: I've seen people parrot the very same excuses that are used for victim-blaming in real life ("she disobeyed him and made him mad so she had it coming", "she's unlikable and he's great so why should I care", "actually SHE'S the REAL abuser because she was rude to him one time", etc). I've seen people openly fantasize about canonically abusive male characters murdering their female victims because "she's a total bitch so she deserves it and he deserves a happy ending". Do you think those fans treat real abuse victims any better? It's genuinely spine-chilling to think about.

This post has been sitting in my drafts for over a month because I can't think of a clever way to wrap up these observations into a solid argument or anything. It's just horrible to experience. Goddamn.

[tuiyla]

Gleeful Paintbox Project 2.4: Inspire ↳ glee (almost) sweeps at bingo, inspired by @winestained-dresses template + rework of (x)

[firestorm09890]

Penny stardewvalley makes me so sad because she's SO sensitive to, like, basically everything you tell her (telling her that you can't stand children while two children are nearby is a pretty lousy move but -1500 friendship?? being a jerk to other characters' faces typically loses you about 50 points, and if you choose the option labeled "creepy" and ask Leah for a kiss in her 2 heart event she physically hits you and kicks you out of her house but that's only -100 friendship…) and so if you want to befriend her it's a whole lot of lying and tiptoeing around her feelings (2 hearts: George was right but saying that makes her feel bad. 6 hearts: her food sucks but even if you try to be polite about it she feels like a failure; only a bald-faced lie pleases her. 8 hearts: saying you don't want to be tied down with a family loses you a little bit of friendship and she's only happy if you say you want kids) and I can't help but think she's a product of her environment. She lives in a trailer with only her mother, who gets drunk every night and has something of a temper. Penny's like a skittish rescue animal who won’t even come out from hiding under something unless you leave her lots of treats

[naamahdarling]

You know what? You know what I think?

I think that if we lived as we were meant to, in larger intimate ("extended family") groups and with more shared labor and time to do it (UBI NOW) people like me would not feel so useless and burdensome because there would be people around to help and to do what neurodivergent people can't while making valuable space for the neurodivergent to do what they ARE good at.

The way we live right now, all right, the way we live right now forces units of two adults to be able to do EVERYTHING or PAY to have someone come do it for them. I have to do the housework. I have to do it! But I am having to do a million different things and most of them I am not good at. I suck at them.

I wouldn't feel like shit, okay, if I had more than one other person around who was not a child and who could do the things I can't, like do the yard and cook and do repairs and basic maintenance; and someone else to split everything else that I like but is too much for me. It would free me to do what I am good at and enjoy. Cleaning, as in the sink and toilet, the windows, the blinds. Taking out trash. Folding, hanging, and sorting laundry.

But because all the shit I can do often relies on other shit being done first, and I can't do or have trouble doing those things, the shit I can do often can't be done. And even the shit I can do, I can't do ALL of it. So I can't keep up, and things get very bad.

We aren't meant to live like this. We are not meant to live like this.

That thought hurts so much because being able to flee the birth family is integral to survival for so many people. I'm so afraid that living in larger family groups would create more opportunities for, say, queer kids to be isolated, rejected, bullied, and abused. But if we gave people enough money to survive, and stopped considering children the property of their parents with no system in place to help them escape bad situations except a system that is often just as bad, just different.

I'm aware that communes and collectives aren't all that successful and are kind of a joke. I don't mean that. I mean a fundamental shift to multigenerational families where taking in "strays" (which my family did) is also normalized so people escaping abuse into existing households was accepted, with these families centered in maybe a couple of different larger residences so not everyone has to buy and maintain their own fucking washing machine and vacuum cleaner, and so people can benefit from large group meals that yield leftovers, and so child and elder care can also be centralized.

Then disabled people and the neurodivergent and sick and injured people, and pregnant people, and grieving people, would not have to either labor through all those stressors or consign themselves to living off an unlivable pittance or being put under legal guardianship.

I'm not saying anything new. People live like this in other parts of the world and maybe it sucks and I am wrong. But I'm just really mad right now because I can either do laundry or clean the sink but not both, and I really think we could improve society somewhat by making it so I did not have to choose one without sacrificing the other.

[uncanny-tranny]

You know, I think many people understand the idea that disability can be a social problem, even construct, in that as more visibility man lead to more accommodations and even educate (regardless of accuracy), but not that disability can still disable regardless of society. Many people understand the idea of a social construct so long as there is still a consise understanding of the social construct, with little wriggle room for nuance and discussion.

[salemoleander]

Creator Commentary / Explaining Elements

I don't normally do this, but there's SO MUCH going on in this one that I actually wanted to do a commentary on it and why I picked what I did! I put a LOT of thought into elements and how they contribute to the overall effect of a piece, so I thought it might be fun to lay some of that out.

That all got (predictably) incredibly long, so it is under its own cut! I've labeled each bullet by what I intuitively called that element, rather than the actual title/author/etc, to make it easier to follow which bit I'm talking about. (For example, rather than "Président de la nuit", I've labeled it "Chair painting".)

Also, you seem unstable… speech bubble

Chosen because it evokes superhero comics (which is the AU we’re in) and gives a humorous/light-ish start to the piece.

Could genuinely be said from either of them.

Overlaid on the wound-tending image to form a kind of tableau

Bandaging hand art

The hands being Grian/Scar’s isn’t sensical per the fic (they only had the 2 hands during the backstory) but the theme of helping/dependence due to injury really benefits from it.

This art also works bc it ties in the seafoam green & skin tone/reddish hues that appear in the chair & other hands. (The right side of the piece is blue/black, bc it’s about Scar’s “betrayal” of evicting Grian from his body)

in his eyelids poem excerpt

Contains the idea of existing inside another person, as well as the fear - one last nakedness, one last level of being exposed to the possible judgment or harm from someone else. 

The words ‘sleep until dawn’ create an image of soft/warm affection, and the mention of nakedness also leads well into the nude man with blank eyes below it, what happens when Grian is kicked out of that body.

Broken glass

Needed a low-contrast bg image that would blend well into the art below, and to enhance the idea of superheros/danger/risk/fighting without just chucking another wounded hand into the mix. 

When you/ bend and kiss the rotting wings poem excerpt

The rest of the poem is much longer, and even this stanza is longer, but it had several bits I found either redundant or less-applicable for this use. 

The final line in full is “Even now I still need something better to say/ than this hush love creates between two people” but ending it at “better to say” hits harder. The hush love creates is being created by the other pieces & its placement over a cozy house scene, no need to belabor the point.

He tugs gently on my towel… poem excerpt

I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO USE THIS FOR FOREVER Fjords is a phenomenal collection but the poems create such a specific feeling that they’re very hard to use well. 

The full poem POV is referred to with she/her, which isn’t a dealbreaker but I found I could cut around those lines & still get the core image I wanted to steal for this.

Again emphasizing this gentle/warm/caring nature that still results in unclothing (a last nakedness!) the POV character, in reminding them they are not human, and an assumption that that is a flaw.

Blood decanter

This was one of the last additions - I like to break up horizontal/vertical edges when I can, and that middle edge was VERY unbroken. 

There are a bunch of other vein-style carafes by the artist, but this one had an alien/baby-animal-taking-its-first-steps spindliness that I liked.

The recurrent blood motif is partly my own personal bias towards it but also bc it turns out it is VERY HARD to visually convey ‘guy who is living inside another guy’, especially if you, the artist, have a phobia of parasites. So, blood/veins/connections through tendrils it is. Vaguely mold-like but not bc I am a big baby.

Red wings

Again, wanted to break up that vertical line, and also this Grian does have wings, and also also I figured I could maybe do a sort of tableau thing w/ the guy sitting. Not trying to do true collage there, but the implication of his having wings is good enough for me!

Would you murder me texts

Needed something small/with simple or no text to go over the cozy chair. At one point Grian mentions basically ghosting Scar for almost a year?? And it seemed like an appropriately funny-but-not-really thing to include.

Chair painting

I needed the coziest, most Scar-tastic living room (with a balcony/night view bc superhero au obvs) and Ms. Carole Rabe fucking delivered. All of her paintings are so richly done!! Go look at them!

Scar colors, and also blends between the seafoam/pale green & orange -> sunset tones that play so well with the red and dark blue.

Also. There’s only one chair, and it’s empty. 

Give until I’m… poll

I originally used all 4 of the results from this, bc imo they fit REALLY well to Scar Grian Xisuma and then one aimed at recovery. In the fic it’s clear they’re all kind of.. different flavors of too-altruistic, different flavors of lighting themselves on fire to keep someone else warm.

However that ended up dominating the feeling of it/ adding too much gray, so I dialed it back to ones that convey the fears/themes of the work. 

Scar refuses to become hollow, refuses to be a home for someone else; Grian trusts and trusts and that breaks him, gives up his own body until it is a shell for Scar to carry out; Xisuma has seen everyone he loves die and keeps going, doggedly continuing a heroic fight that nearly ended with him dead on a warehouse floor.

Sitting on floor guy painting

GO LOOK AT DENIS SARAZHIN’S ART. NOW.

Okay - the blue with touches of red at the toes was the right color for what I needed. He’s in the dark, almost veiled by the quotes around him.

Mostly I picked this for his expression. Go look at a full-res version of this - his eyes are intelligent but veiled, mouth slightly hardened and fist clenched. 

I also think the title has some very good synergy with the themes.

love me enough to drown me out

I don’t do easter eggs, but this is about as subtle as I’ll let things get. Depending on screen brightness a lot of people won’t even see this element to the right of the sitting man, which is intentional.

With this I was both thinking of Grian’s need for Scar (love me enough to ignore your misgivings, to let me be part of you, to escape the pain of being alone in my own head, drown me out) and Scar’s implied request in return (love me enough to drown out the distrust, to let me see you, to eclipse your fear of not being enough).

It’s hard to see bc this is the point in the story where they are the least communicative - Grian made into an insensate thing, Scar never even telling him what he was planning. 

Think of visible red/blood in this collage as representing ‘wear your heart on your sleeve’; the text is obliterated because the idea it contains is obscured.

I return to the site of injury

Trying to let some pieces be more/less easily legible, letting smaller/more private thoughts exist with less contrast.

They are each others’ sites of injury; Scar literally could not have lived without him, and Grian cannot forgive the wound of separation.

to have & to hold

This might as well be the thesis statement. To have - to possess, to contain, to consume, to be - is incompatible with to hold - to comfort, to exist beside. Wanting doesn’t make them synonyms.

happiness is…

Gonna be real, I just saw that title on an old blood donation ad and was like ‘LOL yeah that works’.

Like yeah happiness is helping other people despite the risk to yourself, reaching out will always be nobler than stagnation, etc etc.

Birds and smoke

I love the bright red of the birds against the smoke, and the sky/smoke mimics the blue of the top right side excellently.

Needed something to subtly set the scene (there’s a fire in the warehouse, it’s nighttime, etc) without being too muddy bc there’s so much stuff in the foreground.

Veins and Bones Arm Embroidery

MAYBE MY FAVORITE ELEMENT

The artist (if I’m understanding correctly): Photographed her own arm. Printed it on fabric. Drew on her bones. And then embroidered her veins!!! Sick as hell!!

I wanted something that used veins, that showed the entry/takeover of Grian into X’s body while also avoiding gore. I had a cool old blood-drawing illustration that I decided to abstain from bc I thought it might be a bit much (and also it wasn’t colorful and I didn’t wanna have to do Yet Another Filter)

The tracing of bone underneath - the implication of something permanent and solid that veins are woven around/ latticed on - felt like a good choice to convey what Grian does in the fic.

with all the holes in you already…

Abjection, baby!

No seriously, go read some Kristeva and then come back. 

Jenny Holzer the text artist of all time tbh. 

Needed something to convey injury/damage/mutualistic parasitism/’you’re afraid but you don’t have to be’ and unfortunately just pasting in a scene from the Xenogenesis trilogy would take too much room.

Also the pale mirrored silver/red fit great with the arm embroidery and bloody hands.

Car headlights

Wanted to convey city/bright/hard to see, and the moment they stepped out the door with Grian piloting X, the need to stand up to news & paparazzi, just a bunch of things related to ‘bright light in my eyes ouch’

I did not hunt down the moment

I am SO SAD scatterghosts deactivated. Wonderful TMG edits.

So this already had the perfect colors and was itself a city scene, it felt very logical to overlay it on the car headlights.

I was mostly thinking about how after a year of avoiding him, this reunion comes upon Grian without warning. 

Also thinking about dreams/waking, potentially suppressing X’s consciousness, and a blurry-eyed attempt to determine What Is Happening.

Bloody hands

\o/ HANDS WITH BLOOD (Do you have any idea how hard it is to get good art with blood/gore that isn’t 1. Guro (very.) 2. Irl photos of dubious provenance 3. Medical photos again of dubious provenance??)

There’s a whole set of hands with blood in that series, actually! I chose these bc I wanted 2 hands (Grian and X), and I wanted X’s to be lax, with Grian’s active.

I thought the way the thumb is digging into the lower arm seemed evocative of the connection/penetration of letting your cells start to breathe for somebody else.

The blood is blood but the way it coats one hand while marring the other also brings up contamination/spreading, like we can see Grian’s cells flowing down?

Do you have a question…? poem excerpt

Again, slightly harder to read than I might normally do!

A question that can’t be answered is about keeping secrets, as well as Grian’s refusal to ask Scar why, to confront him, to have that conversation.

Mercy being difficult to understand is the other side of that coin - if Scar wasn’t being cruel, why did becoming hurt? Why is he willing to risk his life for X, despite knowing the incredible danger? He wants to be a pigeon again.

A piece of burned meat poem excerpt

This is Xisuma’s POV to me, post-fic. Not much of it, but I wanted to explore both the idea of ‘my body is HURT and I am not in control’ and also ‘I am so tired. I have been so tired. At least this isn’t up to me anymore.’

catching signals that sound in the dark webweave

Created as a gift for @droidofmay for her incredible fic!

// Sources under readmore //

What is a webweave? Previous art: Third Life | Void Falling | Attempt 33 | Limited Life | Nightingale | solving counting sheep | Hunger au

Also, you seem unstable… speech bubble / via imperiuswrecked ◆ Naka-Choko [the inherent homoeroticism of wound tending] / @dontbelasagnax ◆ Excerpts from Your Lover (The Galloping Hour: French Poems) / Alejandra Pizarnik via @feral-ballad ◆ Constellation No. 26 / Zhao Zhao via @psikonauti ◆ Excerpt from Hush / C. Dale Young via @grocerystoredean ◆ Excerpt from Refrigerator General (Fjords I) / Zachary Schomburg ◆ Carafe Nº6 / Etienne Meneau ◆ Red wings / Natalia Karna ◆ Would you murder me… texts / sparklebussy (deactivated) ◆ Président de la nuit / Carole Rabe via @huariqueje ◆ Give until I’m… poll / @orewing ◆ Out of touch / Denis Sarazhin ◆ fill me up, fill me full up / @taohun ◆ Excerpt from Heed the Hollow / Malcolm Tariq via @geryone ◆ Excerpt from No I Don’t Want to Connect with You on LinkedIn / Emily Skaja via @serratedpens ◆ Happiness is- / National Institutes of Health ◆ Fire reflected on birds in smoke / Coen Robben via @theanimalblog ◆ Constructual 5 / Juana Gomez ◆ With all the holes… (Survival series) / Jenny Holzer via @valtsv ◆ New York Winter 2014 2015 / Lina Scheynius ◆ I did not hunt down the moment edit [[Need More Bandages / TMG | Night Lights, Berlin / Lesser Ury]] / a-doctor-not-a-fangirl (deactivated) ◆ Lie (Peripety series) / Jen Mazza ◆ Excerpts from From The Book of Time (Devotions) / Mary Oliver via @liriostigre ◆ Excerpts from Having It Out with Melancholy / Jane Kenyon via @cithaerons

[hearts401]

We need to start treating bad writing like bad art and im not kidding

[musical-chick-13]

I hate when something looks like it would be RIGHT up your alley and the cast is pretty stacked, but there's one person in said cast who is just. Genuinely a horrible human being.

[lilac-nites]

.

[seventh-district]

not even gonna tag this properly bc i don't wanna get Involved but i do have some Thoughts i need to get out into the void so here we go

(aaa quick edit: CW for mention/discussion of Boothill leaks)