#dreaming of her (and some other stuff)

[tsukasalover]

did the blorbo chart with wxs

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[themyscirah]

Complaining abt Suicide Squad yet again but the fact that they have Waller exposing the alien community to space racist attacks and talking abt how she got to her position through deceit and being a terrible person and stuff is just. Ahsfiwueh JUST SAY YOU DONT KNOW WALLER.

Anyways literally the 3rd mission of the Squad ever (and the first framed as smth Waller picked and not orders from above) was the Squad discrediting and stopping a rogue vigilante who was only arresting POC and funneling white people into white supremacy groups (of which he was the most prominent member) in SUICIDE SQUAD #4. and it's explicitly framed as this mission being personal for Waller that she's hiding from the government bc its illegal like. Guys. Please why are we having her incite (space bc comics) racist attacks now

Also the whole "Amanda got her position through deceit and being a terrible person" NO. she KEPT her position through being shitty and playing complicated political games!!! She wasn't always that way like there is a difference and it is IMPORTANT ppl PLEASEEEE. In Secret Origins #14 we learn Amanda's backstory and she used to be a normal, caring person! Like even after she entered into working in government and politics she wasn't automatically morally bankrupt like please people. She was originally given control of the Squad by Reagan (*sigh* 80s comics...) to distract and get rid of her because she was so successful at pushing progressive social policy in Congress. Acting like she's this static pillar of evil is such a waste of her character and so fucking uninteresting and disrespectful to her arc it drives me MAD.

Like I am NOT saying Waller is all sunshine and rainbows, she fucking SUCKS (said w love <3) but like there's a human being there. It's a progression, she has a character arc like please, DC, please!!! They've fucked up Waller so bad and made her so opaque and uninteresting she can't even be the protagonist of her own story for fucks sake!

Like I don't know how many times I have to scream it until DC hears me or remembers but WALLER IS THE MAIN CHARACTER OF SUICIDE SQUAD. ITS HER BOOK. yet right now she's a cutout to be used as the villain wherever the writers please. Even in her book we get none of her perspective really displayed, no exploration of her thoughts with any kind of understanding of the role she traditionally has played and was made to play in the story.

[happyendingsong]

[fellamarsh]

another thing i've been trying to do recently is read more self-published stuff. "but fell," you say, "you're a self-published author. surely you've been reading self-published stuff all along" and then i laugh for so long in response we both become uncomfortable.

see, the fear (which has for a long time been killing my mind) that i'll read other self-published stuff and find out that it's so much better than mine that i might as well stop writing forever kept me from doing that basically ever. i have a hard time not unfavorably comparing my work to others and had convinced myself i was being smart by withholding an avenue of de-motivation (reader: i was not being smart). it also doesn't help that i'm pretty low income and have a hard time spending money on books i haven't already read, and that self-published stuff isn't always available at the library---but really a lot of it was just me being a coward. which i'm working on. i could talk about how this particular cowardice is Very Silly, but i think enough has been said about it on writeblr and in the Writing Space in general that i don't feel the need to (though i will if anyone wants me to).

instead, i wanna talk about the self-published things i have read in the past few months and ask about the self-published things you love!

so: what happened was i got real sick, and while i was real sick i (naturally) read over 200,000 words of ace attorney fan fiction in the span of a few days. eventually i got bored of it (and also maybe annoyed at how people were characterizing some of my guys), but i still wanted to read something gay and romantic and nice, something i knew was gonna end happily, which isn't my typical fare.

now you may be saying (having gotten over all the uncomfortable laughter from earlier) "fell, you write gay romance. what do you mean that's not your typical fare?" listen. until a couple months ago i hadn't read a cut and dry romance novel since before i finished college. for context: i graduated in 2015. i know it doesn't make sense. i'm a guy who doesn't make sense.

but in this case it worked to my advantage. not the not making sense thing, but the not having read Published Romance in 1000 years thing. I didn't know where to start. I was very skeptical of everything the library had Available Now in the Gay Fantasy Romance category. what if it was all bad and also not good?

and then i scrolled past the familiar cover of our very own @ashen-crest's A Rival Most Vial.

now this was comfortable territory! this was a novel by a very nice writeblr person whose posts i enjoy! i already loosely knew the plot, i was familiar with the characters, i knew the names of things like rosemond street and the griffin's claw and that ambrose had blue hair and that at the end of it all there would definitely be Boyfriends. i didn't have to worry that this would be bad! i only had to worry that it would be really good!

but i wasn't worried about that, because i was officially Not Writing at the time, and because why the hell hadn't i read this book yet Ash literally emailed me some very kind words last year when my cat died??

Y'all, I devoured ARMV. If you haven't read it yet---especially if cozy fantasy is more your thing than it is mine---you should check it out Immediately. It was fun! It was heartwarming! It was sweet and earnest and confident! I was delighted to find it was occasionally hot! Ambrose and Eli snuggled up into my sick exhausted heart and found a permanent little place there. (Especially Ambrose. I have such a thing for Stiff Guys who Kind of Suck for Tragic Backstory Reasons and are So So Lonely They Don't Even Realize It. gawd)

(And a very small part of my brain spent the whole time wondering why I had been so afraid to really engage with the work my community is doing. The community that I'm in. The one I'm a part of. Why?! Maybe more on that later.)

But from there the curse was broken! I immediately devoured @stjohnstarling's What Manner of Man in a similar sort of frenzy (and hooooly shit guys am I excited for the expanded, finalized version to come out at the end of next month!) and started digging into @lurinatftbn's The Flower that Bloomed Nowhere (which I can already tell is going to be an All Time Favorite).

And now I want to ask you what your favorite self-published books are so that I can read them, too, but I think I will in another post that doesn't dedicate so much space to talking about my various and sundry Issues and isn't Terminally Long

[art--harridan]

[Image description: A traditional drawing of Nancy Thompson in the film a Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. It's a headshot which is drawn with coloured pencils. She has a large white streak in her long, curly hair. Her expression has a slight grimace to it with her mouth open to show her teeth and her eyebrows beginning to pull together. Her eyes look off into the distance. The glimpse of her shoulders shows she's wearing a red shirt with a v-neck, a necklace peaking out from under it. The colours are bold and warm and the coloured pencils give the piece a grainy texture. There's a pale yellow circle behind her, with the rest of the background being the off-white of the paper.]

Nancy Thompson - A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (Chuck Russell, 1987)

[pigeonstab]

Doing this to you and then running away hehehe >:3

Bonk! Hehehe, that's such a cute gif, we should be cats together, no responsibilities for you. You'd be a ginger car. Cause you're Irish. And I'm stereotyping you.

Also! Idk how I even got this fucked up but I just woke up at one AM with the light still on and one shoe on in my bed.

I've just spent like 5minyes explaining my dream in the tags and I replaced 'where' with 'were' two times so if you're going to read the novel I wrote be wary of that. Loll this post is a mess, goodnight Charlie!! I love you!

[faehrnem]

In a different timeline, where Faehrnem never comes to be as the Bold Tree follows in his older sister's footsteps by setting aside his own wants and dreams to instead begrudgingly take on his role as an avatar.

[definegodliness]

Had a dream last night

Best movie you'll never see

[p1x1x]

me pushing myself further with my art drawing really cool perspectives and whatever with the Duo and then i turn around and make lame cutesy ship art waaahhah 😭😭😭

dont read the tags on this if you havent watched gbc i just ramble spoilers 😭 just uhh screaming yknow. mostly mmnn but i like the other characters i swear its just these guys are making me insane

[maddieandangel]

Had a weird Hollow Knight-related dream a couple days ago, so I decided to draw a major scene I remembered from it dgsgshf

More context will be in the tags, for those interested!

[teenageukulelescreamo]

I feel like I’ve regained access to an OC of mine I expected to be shelved away for a long time, but she has suddenly found herself back with the original story she was going to have and it’s actually… so cool???

[rubenesque-as-fuck]

Anyway I got notified that I'll be getting a nice $$ bonus from work today and I wish that I could celebrate with someone in a way that didn't just feel like obnoxious bragging. Like beyond the financial aspect, it's just nice to be recognized for good work and I actually feel... good?? about this job??

But it feels so silly to say I want to celebrate when I just got back from what felt like my first real vacation in a very long time and am doing cool comic con stuff this weekend and am scheduled for a new tattoo next weekend. I am already doing lots of things to try to make myself feel good! It feels selfish to want more!

But I guess even with all of that, there's just still a hunger for external validation from trusted sources. Will I ever grow out of wanting someone to be proud of me?

[donaviolet]

Friendship is the most special thing in the world because no award could be give me bigger happiness than jumping around in my room and smiling because my pookie asked me if I wanted to match pfps

[rexscanonwife]

Ougghhh good afternoon everypony (emphasis on noon) of all characters I actually had a dream about Miss Pauling last night 🥺👉👈💖💖💖 it was so sweet!!

[raspberryjellybrains]

yknow I've been thinking about what dream looks for in friends and lovers and I've noticed that it's not necessarily people that are mean to him, but people that are direct. dream himself deals in metaphor and manipulation, it's simply what he is, so just about everything within his realm that he's encountering consistently will be such that as well. considering both his own tendencies, the environment it breeds, and his whole Thing about guilt and choice, it makes sense he would choose people who are clear and honest with him. he wants someone who will tell him how it is, but not what to do with that—even when it's not really what he wants, dream knows it's what he can need. I think that's why figures like lucienne, matthew, death, and yes, mervyn can be important! on some level, dream knows he's convoluted and shifty by nature, and he's tried to combat that with concise words and mind-melting beauracracy, but it can't fix everything. he likes people to keep him in check and I think that is the most self-awareness he has ever been capable of. so... clap? no? idk. nod acknowledgingly.

[love-is-a-pearl]

I feel like Dawn would end up starring in PokerStars studios at some point. It just feels like her kind of place.

I feel like that's more of a Serena thing. She was really into Pokevision and Showcases are all about showing yourself and she is an Idol, friends with Lisia now!? She is meant for such extravangances.

And I know this will sound bullshit because no one understands dawn like i do/j but like... Dawn.. doesnt seem to like getting too much attention on herself?

Like, she has an outgoing personality, is a social butterfly and is not afraid of being loud and all that but.. She's very bashful when she is made the center of attention; specially around those she doesn't know.

When she learns the battle in DP029 is gonna be recorded, her first instinct is to get out of the camera's view and get her hair fixed (not to mention any time her hair gets messed up and made fun of and how one time she passed out because of it).

Ash asks her for a dance at DP082 and while one can only guess why she rejected it, I wouldn't be surprised if it was out of shame (specially with how he danced lmao).

When she wins the award for best bonding with Grimer in DP088, her reaction is to blush shyly at the praises (unnusual for her!)

During the johto festival in DP143, Lyra calls Dawn on for a battle and her first reaction is to freak out. Only after some peer pressure (and support), that she goes for it.

Dawn only did the cheerleader thing during rematches and everytime there were very few people around (and the fact she didnt dress up for the Leon battle kinda adds that she only does that with a small number of people as witnesses)

Meanwhile..

Serena seemed very comfortable and not at all nervous about having a camera on her at all times for the pokevision thing in XY021 and having her videos seen by folks worldwide(!)

She did the modeling thing for Valerie in XY073 and while she did look nervous, she seemed to get over it pretty fast the moment her friends showed up (even talking to them from the catwalk lmao).

Dressing up as Ash and taking his place during a battle with a random dude at XY115 with no shame? Other pokegirls could never.

She made a Showcase presentation for the whole town to see at XY138!!

She is an IDOL!! OFFICIALLY!!!

What I'm trying to say is... Dawn would skip sleep to memorize the lines for a movie and then fall asleep in the actual recording and she knows it. And she is not living that kind of shame.