#don't mind me i'm just having a night

[paranormaljones]

[nekrosmos]

Nikolai and Price going to an evening game of poker with some of Nik's "friends", John sitting with his guard up as he's surrounded by a group of dangerous international criminals, all of them carrying guns, all of them glancing at him with a curious look. Price is uncomfortable but doesn't show it, while Nikolai is awfully relaxed considering the situation.

The evening goes on, drinks, cigars and hearty laughs are shared around the table, the bets reaching numbers Price doesn't even make in half a year. It would be a problem, if he wasn't winning most of the rounds, piles of cash gathering around him as he feels the tension build in the room. One of the younger guys, another russian speaker, starts getting an attitude about it around two hours in, and Nikolai immediately puts him in his place with a single sentence Price doesn't understand, his voice booming, as intimidating as he could be, a heavy silence falling inside the room as the lad with an attitude sits back down, eyes not even daring to look at Nik. The silence is only broken by Nik again, a warm laugh leaving his lips and the other men joining him, their nervousness barely hidden.

It had been so easy for Nik to command the room, and even after the tension had diminished, Price could see how much respect these men had for him, while also clearly being scared shitless of the man. Price had rarely felt more attracted to him as he did at that moment, and the wink and smirk Nikolai gave him when he noticed him looking in his direction absolutely did not help.

John eventually left the table, excusing himself for a moment but squeezing Nik's hand briefly as he got up, moving deeper in the building they were using for their game.

A minute later and it's Nik's turn to excuse himself, quickly finding Price who immediately grabs him by the collar of his open shirt and presses his lips against his, Nik hungrily returning the kiss and pushing John against a nearby wall.

When they return to the table, hair tousled, face flustered, all it takes is one glance from Nikolai to shut the others up. This is his territory, this is where he's comfortable, surrounded by dangerous men who show him respect and never dare to cross him.

It's easy for John to forget how natural this all is for his partner, and if Nikolai brought him here tonight to assert his dominance and show off a little, just so he could impress John, well, that mission sure was a success.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

What can I say? They're my favorite.

[helielune]

and stalling only goes so far when you've got a head start

[lunarharp]

I wish things were easy

[iknowwhereyousnoozeatnight]

couple of mello + near doodles

[cookinguptales]

I was trying to learn more about Japan's parapsychology craze in the 80s and 90s and was having a surprisingly difficult time finding good sources on Google. So I kept trying different search terms and finally this comes up

cia??? freedom of information act???

Anyway!! I clicked on it and the page is "down for maintenance" and I have never been more consumed with curiosity lmao.

I had no idea that Google would search through FOIA documents...

[not-poignant]

If someone stopped reading your story, not because of anything wrong you've done, would you be interested to know why? Or would that just be unpleasant?

That would just be unpleasant, anon.

The reality is a lot of people just stop reading for a lot of reasons, and hearing someone's negative feedback isn't really that useful, because I'm writing the story for the people who really love it, and not for the people who got bored or stopped liking the themes etc. And then of course there are folks who just stop because life intervenes, which is normal.

Generally speaking there's a saying which is: If you wouldn't ask that person for personal advice, why are you listening to their criticism. And I tend to apply that pretty aggressively to strangers on the internet tbh!

Part of it is that I take negative critiques very personally, and can spend a really long time feeling like I should change an entire story for one person who's already stopped reading, or like I should be trying to fight to keep that one person's interest instead of like...focusing on all the readers who are actually just enjoying the writing as it is. And changing my writing for the people who aren't finding it interesting enough to keep reading (and/or who don't have time and/or who find it too upsetting etc.) is not going to help anyone!

So yeah, generally speaking telling a person why you've stopped reading a story is like...not really a thing to do (and that's true for most authors).

About the only time I don't mind it is when someone starts reading again after a period of absence where they've been stressed and I get a comment like 'Ah I haven't been around due to life/stress/illness but I'm so happy to be back and reading' lol, which I don't think is what you're referring to!

[brain-rot-central]

I don't wanna go to work. I just want to write vampire smut, cook good food, and bake bread.

[gemini-queen42]

Batb: Other Than Human - Themes stuff (& why I Called It That)

That's right folks, the self-indulgent "throwing any concept I like at the wall and haphazardly mixing together what sticks" au rewrite Thing has Actual Themes! That kind of happened accidentally but they are so real for that so let's get into it.

The Main Narratives Themes Trio of the story now all also embody expanded themes about being an "Other", when being a person is not enough to be properly considered human- more specifically of a neurodivergent/queer girlhood type flavor.

Summary is that it's called "Other Than Human" because the prominent theming is about being considered something other than human due to not fitting the mold of the 'norm'.

[This is a long one so details & specific character stuff are under the cut<3]

Amalure has the greatest departure from her original counterparts thematic placing, so we'll start with her. Amalure retains Gaston's social standing, reputation, etc. But it's of course not quite the same- because she is a woman, and she is not revered for being the picture of ideal womanhood/femininity. Instead, she excels in masculinity, but remains firm that she is and always will be a woman. So, to justify the desire & awe people have for her, they dehumanize her: She doesn't need to follow the Rules because she is outside of them. Amalure is not a person: she is a symbol, a figure, an object. A legend, a folksong, a modern myth. Her skills are not skills they are blessings, inherent, a mundane magic or supernatural. Despite having grown up in Villeneuve for her entire life, she is considered exotic, and is practically, if not actually, fetishized. And through all of this, the status quo and social order gets to be retained without question, and she gets to exist as the exception that proves the rule, rather than the Undesirable that she'd be marked as otherwise.

Amalure is fine with this, because this dehumanization is her status quo: She doesn't really view herself as a person either, she is defined by her relationship to other people, by who she is to them. Amalure has never been a person to anybody: Growing up she was never just a girl, never just Amalure: She was a girl with a mans brain, an embodiment of her fathers greatest achievements, an embodiment of her mothers worst mistakes, she is her fathers daughter or her mothers daughter, but not her own. (and she never both, it is either or, mother or father, never both, never parents.)

Princess Eve/The Beast is the other end of this, of operating through her dehumanization. Upon being cursed, she adheres to what societies have oft wanted to happen to their Undesirables: Hide away and never be seen by the public again. It is entirely self-inflicted, as most of her suffering truly is. She operates not through others dehumanizing view of her, but her dehumanizing view of herself and its warping of how she believes others view her. Because, well, the servants still view her as a person. I mean, they're still human- under the new object forms. And the separation of humanity that is easy to slip into on matters of royalty is awfully minimal as well; they watched her grow up, and she grew up among them.

The girl's bratty, spoiled, temperamental, and is a ball of horrid consequences of the shallow views and ideals learned from surrounding nobility. But she's also the girl that fell asleep listening to Cogsworth explain the many technicalities to managing servants; because she was stubborn in asserting her authority as the mistress of the castle, and thus she Must have say over its goings ons. But the majordomo's voice can be awfully soothing when he's not high-strung on anxiety, and it's hard to pay attention when you don't understand what's being discussed, so its all going in one ear and out the other. And She's Lumiere's 'Evie', who was so amused when Lumiere would draw on a little mustache when dancing the male roles so the princess could learn some duo dances, or because she didn't look very "waiter-like" (because Eve wasn't entirely sure what a maître d' did, but it seemed to have something to do with waiters), and who got annoyed every time the dance teacher/maître d' would warn her not to hurt her body in her pursuits, because it seemed so silly, why would anyone do that? And she's the girl who dragged Mrs. Potts to have tea with her, because she made the best tea and as princess she would have only the best; and if you're going to have tea you may as well have a tea party, and you can't really have a party of one, but two isn't much of a party either so she's going to drag Babette away from her duties too, since the maid was so elegant and thus would be perfect.

Honestly, the girl probably would've turned out fine if she was raised by just the servants. But they weren't the only forces in her life: she's a princess, so she's got to host and interact with important people and learn how to Be noble which isn't something any of the servants can teach her. And it is under the pressures and eyes of nobility, is in mixing and learning their social rules, that learns the lessons that will lead to her curse: That to be considered human and treated as such, one must look human. And to be such as a woman meant to look beautiful, like the ideal. As a woman, to be worthy is to be beautiful and vice versa. And even if she does not, she must have some way to serve men. Otherwise, she is nothing. Eve met these requirements well, and where she did not yet her authority as princess covered. So when a beggar woman is at her doorstep, the princess turns her away: because she is old, ugly, so long past her 'prime'- there is no worth to her anymore. There is no point caring for her future.

Helene stands as both the middle ground and inverse to the other two. She is an Other by virtue of her mind, she is Objectifiable by virtue of her beauty. She sits on the precipice between Undesirable and Desired, seeming nearly apathetic to where she lands despite popular encouragement to embrace or smother aspects of herself. Helene is quite sure she's a person like anyone else, thank you, and is frankly frustrated and a bit weirded out that others seem to have a hard time getting the memo- she doesn't like or want to assume the worst, though, so maybe she just missed another confusing untold social rule or something. I mean, the local triplets really do seem to be advising in good faith- they really do think of her as one of them to an extent (for reasons Helene is yet to know); they just don't understand her.

When Amalure pursues her, there's an unspoken aspect to the deal of marriage she proposes: Helene will get a secured place on the in of the community, a secure standing the promises people no longer questioning or trying to encourage her to no longer be herself. But Helene just isn't interested in Amalure like that, and she also sees what the real trade-off of that security is; that uncomfortable dehumanization that is exactly what Helene doesn't want to deal with anymore. If Amalure is fine living with it than she is free to do as she pleases, but the huntress doesn't seem to understand what Helene could possibly have a problem with- and it's not like they can discuss it, because it's unspoken, and you're not supposed to speak the unspoken things, because they're unspoken for a reason- even if you don't know what that reason is. Helene knows that rule, at least.

When Helene meets the Beast, she regards her as she does any other. It's plain as day that the Beast has a humanity to her, whether she's really "human" or not- she thinks and she feels, and that's enough for Helene.

Because Helene grew up raised by a single dad who she got most of her brain workings from, and he is a man of compassion and science. Off he'd send his beloved daughter to go and question and figure out the world for herself, to experiment and learn and become whatever she desires. Off to bed he'd send her to tell her fairy tales and have their lessons of love and compassion and humanity understood as she drifted off to sleep. Helene was never Odd with her father, never Other, in fact they were so easily two of a kind. It was so jarring, hearing people imply Tyndare less than sane; his logic paths were so easy to follow- but apparently his voice gruffs enough that others have a hard time understanding what he's saying sometimes, so that's where things seem to get lost in translation she guesses. People became jarring in other ways as she grew up too, because suddenly there seemed to be lots of social things she was supposed to know or be but didn't and wasn't, and it became very apparent very quickly that she was an Other among her village.

Overall: Eve & Helene get to go through these themes through the main plot, and post curse-breaking is when Eve gets to properly deal with the internalized issues and whatnot. Like she's learned beauty doesn't matter when it comes to love, and shouldn't decide whether or not someone should be cared about, and Helene loves her despite her having been beastly and despite her being a failure of a woman- (because she no longer fits the feminine ideal after the curse is broken, and frankly she never will again.) But she's still a Failure Of A Woman and Helene deserves Better Than That! So there's still work to do.

Amalure remains static on this aspect of the narrative until after the battle at the castle, where she does survive! .. barely. and it's later, in an argument with her mother that same night, bleeding out on the kitchen floor, when she asserts that she's her daughter too, not just her fathers. she has always been her daughter, always will be, she is the daughter of both of them, because that's not something that just switches or turns on and off- and it's an entire rant that I will not recite here, but the important part is the assertion that she is, always has been, always will be, the daughter of both her parents at once- that's the first little step for her arc of recognizing her own individual personhood and whatnot.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

since more of like the class swap etc started going up every once in a while there will be a question in my inbox that would take me literally multiple comics' worth of art to answer adequately lol. and I don't wanna do that under an ask I want that to have its own space! so if I don't answer ur question know that it's probably that^ above there and not that I think ur question sucks

[clementimetodie]

.

[sysig]

Coming in to play! (Patreon)

[seventh-district]

7am, eating cold leftover teriyaki stir-fry for breakfast and crying over blorbos

[lusalemaart]

[disposal-blueeee]

guess what ! doodles . again

edgar , nny and devi belong to johnen vasquez (even if i only drew nny and devi at the bottom)

scriabin by zarla-s