#i find myself thinking in english

[imaharrie]

-

[koheletgirl]

ok so there's this phenomenon i have encountered with some of my mutuals and now im curious

no option for nosy english speakers come back in a week

[slavhew]

And I just have to tell you that I

Love you so much these days,

[uncanny-tranny]

I know this is a very unoriginal observation (much like any other), but I'm finally reading The Great Gatsby, and even I wouldn't describe men the way Nick does.

[deimcs]

not going to lie, I think sooner or later some of you will have to come to terms with the fact that ALWAYS needing to completely relate and/or only seeing YOURSELF in the characters you read about/play as/watch in movies, can not only severely impact your critical thinking as a whole but also have very real consequences irl when you are suddenly introduced to struggles or issues you didn’t and maybe won’t ever face. suddenly your empathy is stunted 'cause you never really tried to put yourself in some else’s shoes, not even fictionally

[lady-lilly-gray]

look at my child my prince my beloved he's baaack

[einaudis]

.

[ignorancelive]

went in to therapy with no hard plan and ended up talking about my weird ass book anxiety #iamnormal

[dizzybizz]

a wuhwuh that took way too long bc i decided to try krita and i was so lost the entire time

[good--merits-accumulated]

OK, SEVERELY rambly post incoming but - Anderperry Stardust (2007)/ The Little White Horse AU, anyone?

Rundown: I think many of us are familiar with Stardust, originally a Neil Gaiman book but also a great film, starring Claire Danes as a falling star and That Guy Who Plays Daredevil as the lad who promises to bring her to the girl he's infatuated with. The Little White Horse is, to the best of my knowledge, more unknown, but equally very good (for sentimental reasons, I think of it much more highly than Stardust). Published in 1946 by Elizabeth Goudge, it tells the story of thirteen-year-old orphan Maria Merryweather, who moves to her cousin Sir Benjamin's Moonacre Manor in the West Country, where she finds a) a thriving cosy community and a long family history, b) the little white horse of the title, c) a longstanding family feud cutting off Moonacre from the sea, d) her imaginary best friend Robin, real and in the flesh, and e) some of the most deliciously-described food that has ever been or will be. It's a great book even past the rose-tinted glasses of my childhood. Go read it. (The one (1) marring is that you can't find a bloody edition that doesn't have a JK Terfling quote pasted onto the cover, because apparently it was one of her favourite books, but fuck OFF, I'm reclaiming it now. Thou shalt not keep the cosy low fantasy from me.)

Anyway even though I mention Stardust this isn't really part of the AU I have in my mind, except for the bit with the Star, because Todd as a main character who thinks he's a very forgettable bland boy-in-the-corner until he finds out he's a star is a great thought to me. Particulars on /how/ he's a star to be fleshed out later! (I only thought of this AU about two hours ago, lol.)

In my mind this is how it goes - nebulously Olden Times setting (TLWH is set in 1842, so perhaps then). Todd is around seventeen/eighteen and Geoff has just graduated from university, and gone off around Europe, accompanied by their parents. Months go by. Something happens - he's never given the liberty of knowing, but Geoff and their parents stay in Europe, and the townhouse in London is sold, and Todd is packed off to stay at a distant relative's - Keating, as it turns out. It's a blessing in disguise, because Todd is finally away from his family for the first time in his life and around people that appreciate him. He begins to bloom under this new care - but there are strange family secrets only now being revealed to him, and dark forces beyond the valley which threaten to disrupt the haven he's found...

The rest is very cosy fantasy, featuring Mr Perry as the local uptight vicar locking horns with Keating at every opportunity, Neil as his withdrawn but friendly son just longing for a rebellion, and more! (Read: Charlie is here and he is Outrageous as usual. Read also: Pitts as a sailor because I think he'd like it.) Right now I'm thinking of adding an equivalent of Monsieur Cocq de Noir for a villain (Mr Perry is NOT the villain), and Cameron can play a part there so I can give him a good redeeming! Here are a couple of extracts from TLWH to show the kind of mood/tone we're working with:

Thematically, I REALLY like the idea of Todd as a star because it allows me to work in a very fun trope, of "not of the rose but near the rose" - when a character perhaps is shy and a little quiet and reclusive, but inspires other people around them to brilliance and greatness. (Honestly I do think this kind of goes in with the film, where it's not just Keating's teaching but Todd's reaction to it and his presence that galvanise Neil to continue.) This ties in really well if Todd's a star and adds to the overall self-confidence journey - plus I was really thinking about the sun/moon motifs! They're very prominent in TLWH (Maria is a "moon" Merryweather and Robin is a very sunny boy), and I really want to implement them here with slight twists. I think of Todd as a sunny moon; yes he's warm and caring and cheerful but once you go a little closer it's more of a luminosity rather than a blaze, there's a coolness and quietness to him I like. You know, a quiet character doesn't always have to be quiet because there's something "wrong" with them, sometimes they're just like that. For Neil it's the opposite, he's a moony sun; under the thumb of his father he's polite and decorous and demure but somewhere under all of that there's a very loud and booming laugh and a healthy sort of ruddiness. I don't know, I just like sun/moon motifs!!!!!!!!!!

(On a more personal note: this AU, which I already love very much despite not having known very long, would be above all a careful love letter to the West Country. It's been lovely living around here almost all my life and by this time in September I'll be hopefully up very far north at uni, so I'm pre-emptively kind of :') about it. Mutuals who are at uni/college how on earth did you cope?)

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

nothing interesting here it's the exact same scene i just like seeing it

[rekikiri]

playing scrabble with Neil and Andrew would be so annoying to the other foxes. Neil would constantly try to play words in other languages and will get defensive when they tell him he can’t, so they have to always have a scrabble dictionary on hand to shove in his face to prove it doesn’t count

And Andrew just has a perfect memory so i think he’d have an easier time coming up with difficult words

[merrilark]

!!!!!!!!!!!

Gonna!!!!! Have my first Japanese class this Thursday!!

[sundial-bee-scribbles]

"my education is my highest priority" everything returns to vocaloid

[yellowocaballero]

I just finished your New Wave fic. I’m convinced everything your write is gold. I loved your TMA fics, with the most heartbreaking demon AU imaginable and the hilarity of Fahrenheit 101. I loved your moon knight fics, starting with Steven talking to animals on the reg at work to the system growing closer with a focus on Jake, i- there’s- it’s sooo much packed into it. When I’m on burnout, of art or writing (maybe life in general at times) I revisit your work and am thrown back into a creative headspace.

You are my favorite writer, you cram so much meaning and thought into your work and it shows. The characters are dumbasses and say the most ridiculous shit and turn around the next chapter and say the most thought provoking thing, and I don’t get whiplash from it because these characters just work! They just do, and I… am very much off track!

Anyways I just got into Batman and reading your fic is fueling that flame! I can’t wait to see what you have in store next, and I shall now stalk your blog for writing tips! I hope you have a nice day broski 💙

Thank you!! This is so sweet thank you so much! This ask is so nice!

Trust me, if there's meaning then it's because I get obsessive over these fics and I massively overthink them. I honestly wish I was better at making simpler, more elegant stories. I feel like nothing I do is truly going to be good until I can find that simplicity.

"Dipshit who says stupid stuff and then turns around and spouts ridiculous philosophy" is just how I talk. But I habitually approach my life from a standpoint of finding humor in everything, if only to soften the blow. I was once told that it's really hard to tell when I'm joking, because everything I say is always half-joking and always half-serious. I feel like that's pretty evident from my narration too...

As for writing advice...um, I was just speaking about this with somebody. When you're plotting a story, the first thing I like to figure out is what I'm trying to say. Everything else should be built around that. The joy of writing is that I think we all have something we want to say, or something we want people to know, or that we have an aspect of ourselves and our lives that we want to express. Most of the time, trying to convey those things verbally just results in a frustrating approximation of your true feelings. I find that when I manage a successful story, the depth and scale of what I'm trying to impart is fully understood and felt. It's rewarding. I think if people aren't understood on some level, by somebody, they kind of die.

Thanks for the sweet ask!!

[hellworldprincess]

Hmmm. okay. well. film over (poppy NO LOOKING!!!!!! SPOILER ALERTA)

drumming my fingers on the desk hmmm so lets think about it. i think everything after 1h22m kind of shot out the legs (lol) of the rest of the film a little bit but not too much i guess

i thought it was corny that the accomplice was her mom but i do like the idea of a protagonist who just exists as something a literal deal with the devil hinges on. i guess. Ummmm yeah i dont see what else they couldve done with her mom. it was that or kill her or just stop mentioning her at some point i guess? i dont know i just didnt like it i thought it was corny..it felt shoved in there but then again like i said i thought the last 20 minutes were very shoved in there also. it felt like it was stapled on to the first 1hr22. the tone felt different i think <- already forgetting <- gormless

im going to just skip over the oblivion 2006 ass devil design and pretend he was only the shadow goat because that was cooler i think if still a little eh-ish

obviously i think its very well shot and also i liked all the religious imagery, fucking obviously. i liked the cross wound on her mothers forehead after she shot her i thought that was fun, and dont think i didnt notice the "x marks the spot" being literal crosses...x marks the spot....another word for an "x" symbol is a cross....and theyre literally tilted crosses lol. i loved that

onto the main event though nicolas did as nicolas does it was a fucking great performance. why cant everyone be freaky like that. as for the buffalo bill-esqueness i'll have to be honest i didnt really click to it at first, i kind of just saw him as just like.....you know the kind of eccentric strange lunatic killer thats seen in horror films these days, but after it being pointed out i can see it i think. mostly in the speech patterns more than anything though and thats more of a direct parallel (specifically in my head) to buffalo bill than transmisogyny itself, but i can definitely see where it comes from - im not writing it off, to be honest i dont even really have to tilt or squint to see where it comes from. i'd be interested in hearing the thought process behind the character and if any caricatures like that (unintentionally, i hope) went into it but im not THAT invested in this film. either way i really enjoyed the character. was pissed we didnt get him for the whole film but thats just because i loved the performance. nicolas cage is fucking scary

anyway ummm what else. oh yeah that fucking Scary demon voice on the phone about ruby was embarrassing. why not just have it be her mom?? Dude wait literally why wouldnt it have been her mom. most of the interactions with her mother in this film have been over the phone...its pretty much always been her mother that wouldve been more. i dont know it wouldve worked...plus she was fucking there. all that being said though the second i saw this shot i knew the family was fucked

i think overall the film kept making me feel like i was watching smile and se7en at the same time in two separate tabs right next to each other like one of those minecraft parkour videos with a family guy clip stitched above it. i loved it until i only liked it after cage's character died and the dumber stuff happened. i'd like to still say i loved it but at this point i can only say i really liked it. unfortunately with films like this, endings do define them. but ummmmmm yea. longlegs 8/10 i had a lot of fun. ending was stupid