#even blood if you so desire

[syncallio]

FYI this is a dip pen, not a fountain pen! This particular nib is a Brause 361 Steno, a popular nib for pointed pen calligraphy. It's inexpensive and fun to play with.

Most fountain pens don't flex. They'd be damaged if you tried. I have a few that do, all of them very old gold-nibbed pens. But as cool as they are, dip nibs have superior flex. They're disposable, so you can put all the engineering into a nice, crisp springy action and not worry about wear and tear.

[starry-bi-sky]

on a completely separate note; shizun luo binghe with a disciple shen yuan who fell into the abyss??? *thinks about LBH canonically stealing SQQ's corpse for 5 years* he'd hallucinate i think. like, like visual and audial hallucinations.

Keeps thinking he's seeing SQQ in the corner of his eyes, or wandering between the trees, amongst a group of disciples. Thinks he hears him calling for him, but its just the wind or another disciple.

Gets Xiu Ya reforged but patently fucking refuses to make a sword mound. Because his disciple Is Not Dead :))) There was No Body. He's Not Dead. And If You keep Insisting That He Is, He's Gonna Skewer You :). He's holding onto Xiu Ya so he can return his most favored disciple's sword when he returns. It's on his hip right next to Zheng Yang where it's supposed to be.

Also this motherfucker?? does not sleep btw. He has the image of SQQ, wide eyed and hysterical and standing at the mouth of the abyss burned into his fucking eyelids. Can't use the dreamscape to escape it either because he keeps trying to save him and either he does and it's an incredibly cruel trick to wake up to, or he doesn't and he gets his heart broken in several different pieces again.

There is no convincing this man that Shen Qingqiu is dead. Absolutely nothing at all. He is buried so deep in denial that moles would be jealous of how deep he is. He keeps making tea for two in the bamboo house only to remember that it's just him. SQQ's fans are hiding everywhere, little reminders of his presence. He goes to wake up SQQ on the mornings he sleeps in-- only to find the room empty.

[ruporas]

all I wanted was to save them... (ID in alt)

[cienie-isengardu]

[synthwayve]

Thinks about Micolash and Laurence’s rivalry that never strays from the confines of academic snark or the occasional jab despite their shared ambition(and possibly also just accompanying a general friendship they could have had since they worked together at some point. Idk I’m a softie. Sue me.) eventually involving into a full on intellectual divorce. Cries. Explodes. 72 casualties.

[anastacialy]

i know the whole vampire can't be turned twice or they'll explode thing in wwdits is a funny bit and sort of the cause of a lot of the drama in season five rn

but like. how are they supposed to have fucked up mutually bitey bloody vampire sex now :c

[number1villainstan]

this pisses me off so bad, i shouldn't be thinking about it for my own mental health, but even with my somewhat limited knowledge of bnha canon the more i think about it the more examples i can find of boku no hero academia's rampant fucking ableism

[tortoisesshells]

if you were in control of a dark shadows adaption (or, hypothetically, could alter the original; whichever you find more interesting to think about!) what does your ideal version of 1795 look like? are there things you would change? things you’d want to keep?

Let me preface this by saying I do genuinely like or appreciate a lot of the 1795 arc! When it's at its best, it's a tragedy born out of hubris and the terrible things we'll do for the people we love (or the terrible things we'll do to hold on to love. or the problem of love without respect). I'm up to episode 741, and the confrontation between Joshua and Barnabas over the latter's coffin is still one of the best scenes in the show, for my money. That said; Broadly speaking, most of my problems with 1795 either have to do with characterization, or with historical context: that DS's unwillingness to delve into historical realities undercuts its ability to talk about monsters, and that it completely mishandles Vicki to the point of functionally ruining the nominal main character (who, to be fair, was already being pushed out).

Historical Context: DS loves the past, conceptually, but it really doesn't deal in historical conditions, and that's on full display in 1795 - witchcraft trials? zippers? claiming a house built in the early 20th century, with the attendant architectural style, was actually built in the years leading up to 1795? okay. I forgive that, because we do live, narratively, in a world with witches and vampires and curses and passenger rail service north of Portland, ME after 1965 - and in a make-believe world where the costumes are as good as a budget of a crisp single and a pb&j can make 'em. I say this mostly lovingly: DS simply is not the kind of show that cares about historical plausibility, let alone accuracy. Plus, Reverend Trask was great, and on the basis of giving Jerry Lacy scenery to chew on, the witchcraft trial plotline is excused.

More seriously and damningly, I do think it's a glaring omission on a show being made and aired in the late 1960s to have three characters said to be from the (fictional) wealthiest family of planters and enslavers on Martinique and have that go unexamined and unpacked, especially when commentary on class in Collinsport has been a constant undercurrent (sometimes more of an under-trickle, or under-vague-breeze) since episode one - and because Joshua Collins is very explicit about how beneficial the connection between the two families will be for the Collinses, who always need cargo for their ships. [Since David Ford's here, you'll forgive the reference to 1776: "Molasses to Rum" playing vaguely in the background] But that's the problem with Post-Barnabas DS. Since there's a Collins running around befanged and literally drinking the blood of others, the show's lost interest in discussing how, exactly, the Collinses became wealthy and powerful, beyond the odd occasional reference to the fishing fleet and cannery or, in 1795, the shipyards. We've got a real vampire, what do we need all that metaphorical monstrosity and class/race/gender analysis for?

As a choice the show's made, I think it fundamentally undercuts one of the show's most reliable and interesting points of commentary: how charming and human some monsters are, or that humanity and monstrosity are not entirely mutually exclusive conditions.

also speaking of monstrosity. the show excuses Barnabas for so much outright evil because he preys on sex workers, primarily, and other assorted poor men and women of Collinsport, who the show ... doesn't really see as people. but that's a separate but not unrelated rant.

Characterization: really, this is about Vicki. So much of what I dislike about 1795 has to do with Vicki's characterization changing for the worse (granted, I think this problem starts much earlier, but see digression a below) once she hits the ground in 1795, AND that the 1795 arc continuously insulates her from the important parts of DS's narrative. If the whole point of Vicki landing in the past was to explain how it all began (whether that's Barnabas's vampirism, or the opening of the great house at Collinwood - Sarah's ghostly goals are unclear here), she's party to neither: Vicki spends very little time in Collinwood, and is kept completely apart from even a hint of knowledge that Barnabas is a vampire. In effect: Vicki, as nominal main character, gets sent into the past, but not as a character - she's just a windowpane, or a magic mirror as far as her importance to the narrative goes. Which is unfortunate for her, because as a character taking up space, she's given screen-time without agency, intelligence, or inner life. The only change that being dragged by her puppet strings through 1795 effects in Vicki Winters is a rope-burn from a failed hanging, an infected gunshot wound, and a I-wish-he-were-more-permanently-dead rebound boyfriend whose response to Vicki panicking about being hanged was to slap her for being hysterical.

Forgive me for being unimpressed.

As far as fixing it goes - there's where I've been striking out. She's fatally passive in 1795 as written. Why doesn't Vicki try to figure out how to get back to her present? (and if she doesn't, perhaps ... gesture at why Vicki might feel like there's not a lot to return to in the present? She nearly jumped from Widows' Hill about 10 episodes before 1795 started.) Why does Vicki persist in making herself suspicious, when she was introduced as a character hampered more by inexperience than true ignorance? In the idea 1795 that lives in my head, why wouldn't Vicki try to figure out who the real witch was, because - given her experiences with the supernatural! - surely a witch might be any help in getting her out of the 18th century and back into the present? End of day, she needs a real plot which doesn't end with her in prison unconnected to the Collinses. Whether that's searching for an escape hatch back to the Swinging Sixties, or Sarah's ghost giving her clear instructions - some kind of a goal! - Vicki either shouldn't exist in 1795 (recycle Moltke as another Collins sibling? that would add a wrinkle to the question of Vicki's antecedents) or she has to be given something to do.

&, finally ...

Digression A: In fairness to the 1795 arc, I think the arc was only following a pattern of characterization and plot involvement that started with Barnabas's arrival: first, that Vicki initially wasn't really involved in the Barnabas plot because she was more involved with the Liz & Jason plot, and, unfortunately for Vicki, everyone still talks about Barnabas, where no one (alas for Patrick and Bennett!) talks up the blackmail thing; second, I think, that the one-two punch of the definitive end of the era of metaphorical monsters & the Burke recast meant that a lot of the dramatic tension that Vicki was carrying either got dismissed or dissipated. We're not playing Jane Eyre any more, we're doing Dracula: Vicki's relationship with Roger and David no longer bears any dramatic weight. We've completely sidelined the question of Vicki's origins, so whether or not Liz is her mother doesn't matter (and the revelation and dismissal of Liz's not-actually-monstrous conduct sort of defangs that relationship, too? oh, Liz isn't actually a murderer? so mother or not, there's no strain on her relationship with the conspicuously virtuous Vicki.). Burke's no longer threatening to burn down Collinsport for revenge, and all of his various relationships with the Collinses or Collinsport denizens have gotten abruptly normalized, so there's no tension to his relationship with Vicki any more: he's rich (don't ask where the money came from), he's in love with her, and now he's chummy with all her friends/stand-in family members. He doesn't even have conversations that are totally just about pens or guns with Roger, for god's sake. The show kicked out all the pillars Victoria Winters as a character had been built on, and it only gets worse after 1795. No wonder Moltke left.

[sotogalmo]

12:22

Nevermore by sasakure...... Such a Luka song but like. Also. Ivan- but I see it as like. How similar they are

[eldritch-edward]

A new chapter of @marcellebelle 's Tin Can Man came out the other day.

I enjoyed it.

Edit: Bonus rendering under the cut.

[thalwhore]

Only three Vandal/Male Fledgling fics on ao3,,,,gonna have to change that.

[canisvesperus]

Ironic of those of you who try to moralize over people like me for liking 🐠 or whatever blorbo, once again oblivious to WHY they are appealing to somebody like me (sounds about ⚪️) when you act x10 worse than the character towards real poc in fandom then deny it to our faces when we confront you on it— but you will never be ready for that conversion will you…

[iowasi]

Someone: wow I sure don’t get how people could like math/science classes for fun. I think they’re insane personally

Me: hey can we maybe not disparage someone else’s interests/passions especially since I’m here and literally have a science degree and my sister is even better at math and science than me

Them: ummmmmmm I was just venting don’t take it so personally

[oflgtfol]

woe. random 30 minute non-evil scourge be upon ye

[dovahkiining]

"yeah, rolan's a paladin, kian's a bard, and rand would probably be a wizard or something" no. no. no. you don't get it. you don't Get it. he's a paladin. a defender of humanity, a fighter against the unholy. he was a PALADIN TIEFLING. he was fighting monsters and evils that were reflected back in his eyes [and it was unintentional.] he was a paladin tiefling and he was a lawyer infected and he picked love time and time again and you don't Get It

[blorbosexterminator]

I don't know why but this has been bouncing round my head for a few hours and I need answers. Does Rafael exist in the Children of the dust universe??? And if so, does he ever meet the step children his father loves more than him? Please and thank you!

Excellent question. Here is a little bit of history. While I was writing Children, and the first season of season 5 was released, I decided to be democratic and ask readers whether they'd prefer Rafael to exist in that universe or not. Not surprisingly, the unanimous vote was Andrés-core (they didn't want him), so I didn't mention or allude to him in the main verse.

But between us, I always was fond more of the idea that he exists in that universe, mainly just because it makes everything funnier.

There is an old snippet I have somewhere in a forgotten document where Rafael does meet the twins and it's killing him because Rafael's entire worldview is that his father doesn't love him not because of any personal reason but because he's just not a father material, so he sees the twins and all of that tumbles down and his misery is very funny to me.

The bottomline answer is he exists and he doesn't depending on what we want!

(Except that if I do write the sequel and the sequel's sequel I'll have to bring Rafael into existence because I wouldn't want to make any major changes to the heist trajectory itself. Tatiana is Gabriel's piano tutor in that verse btw.)